"Isn’t your vital element patriotism?" asked Evelyn. "I always think a man should love his country like his wife, with knowledge and tenderness and passion and forbearance. In nine cases out of ten, nations fail just as women do, for trivial causes. Both may slur common duties, but the big crisis finds them ready. If her husband’s love is waning a woman will strain every nerve to keep it, just as a nation will appeal to her sons when the enemy has issued his ultimatum." "Very soon the nation’s appeal will be vain," said Meavy. "We forget as no other nation does." "Is that because, as every Englishman is an embryo hero, we count upon him in our hour of need?" Meavy laughed. "Tactfully turned, Mrs. Brand. It sounds very nice, but I’m afraid it’s not really the case. As for patriotism, it’s a lost art. Love is not love at all without an element of passion, and passion is a fire which must have fuel to be kept alive. Most modern men and women are incapable of loving anything with ardour, except themselves. If they swear by a special county it’s merely because they happen to be landowners, not from tradition nor history. Men back the merits of a manufacturing town, because it gives them daily bread. There is a man on the St. Pancras Board of Guardians now who boasts, ’I made my money ’ere, and ’ere I’ll spend it.’ The fact of being British does not stir a man; one doubts if he remembers it unless he is on the Continent." "There are those who say England is doomed," said Beadon. "Since we left Gordon to his fate the old fighting spirit waxes more and more frail. For heaven’s sake don’t quote the South African War as a proof to the contrary. Quite half of that wild enthusiasm was a phase of social hysteria. We are all mad on excitement now; we prostitute our very ardour. If we can’t get recreation by one means we get it by another. Drink, drugs, lovers—all come under the same category. At times these fail to allay us. We see red then, like other nations, but we have no national outlet like Southerners, with their bull-fights and the like. So war—in countries to which we can be transported with all the latest comforts of civilization—breaks the monotony." "Aren’t you too pessimistic?" said Creagh thoughtfully. "Personally I believe in the hour and the man. We are at a critical point just now, I admit, both individually and as a nation, but I believe that a man will come with the need, as he has always come since the world began." "Oh, England’s merely superficially corrupt," said Hare. "If the right surgeon were to operate she would be cured." "And which of us is skilful enough to perform the operation? No one in the present Ministry. We’ve only got two sound men—men whom we trust. Both have had their day."