During the long and bloody rivalry of these two countries in the past it is a wonder that neither of them ever managed to murder the other. The will was certainly not wanting; there was no pity, but it is not easy to murder a great nation. The modern Carthage was to have been effaced, yet she is not effaced. Even in the present day each is unable to annihilate her neighbour. Try to imagine a French General surrounding London with his troops; the idea is inconceivable, one cannot see how he is to get them there. And now try to imagine an English army, without continental allies, surrounding Paris with a ring of iron as the Germans did; this idea is as inconceivable as the other; one cannot see how the English army is to reach Paris. Could it land? And if it landed, could it get as far as Amiens? [Sidenote: That National Jealousy may be Reasonable.] [Sidenote: Jealousy in International Criticisms.] I cannot conclude this chapter without frankly admitting that national jealousy is reasonable so long as it confines itself to the truth. It is quite reasonable that the French should want to push the English out of Canada and Egypt, and that the English should wish to sink the French fleet. What is unreasonable is for two peoples to depreciate each other in books and newspapers, and blacken each other’s private characters because both are formidable in a military or a naval sense. How is it that we hear so much of French immorality, and nothing, or next to nothing, of Italian? How is it that, in France, we have heard so much of English cruelty and barbarity, whilst the accounts of Turkish cruelty were received with the smile of incredulity or the shrug of indifference? Why this so tender French sympathy for the Irish, exaggerating all their woes? Why this wonderful Protestant sympathy in England for the unauthorised religious orders in France? How does it happen that everything which seems to tell against one of the two countries is received with instant credence in the other? The answer to all these questions may be found in the two words at the head of the present chapter. CHAPTER IV PATRIOTIC DUTY This is a more agreeable chapter to write than the two which have preceded it, for the idea of patriotic duty is always ennobling, even when that difficult kind of duty is irregularly practised and imperfectly understood. [Sidenote: Effect of the Insular Position of England.] If England were a continental Power the sense of patriotic duty would probably be the same with Englishmen that it is with Frenchmen. The insular position of England has given an exceptional character to the national views of duty. [Sidenote: Ideal and Practical Views of Patriotic Duty.]