England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Drama; Upper class -- England -- Drama; World War, 1914-1918 -- Drama
and men of science, were the accredited custodians of culture. It was
crudely natural, and perhaps necessary for recruiting purposes, that
German militarism and German dynastic ambition should be painted by
journalists and recruiters in black and red as European dangers (as in
fact they are), leaving it to be inferred that our own militarism and
our own political constitution are millennially democratic (which they
certainly are not); but when it came to frantic denunciations of
German chemistry, German biology, German poetry, German music, German
literature, German philosophy, and even German engineering, as malignant
abominations standing towards British and French chemistry and so forth
in the relation of heaven to hell, it was clear that the utterers of
such barbarous ravings had never really understood or cared for the
arts and sciences they professed and were profaning, and were only the
appallingly degenerate descendants of the men of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries who, recognizing no national frontiers in the great
realm of the human mind, kept the European comity of that realm loftily
and even ostentatiously above the rancors of the battle-field. Tearing
the Garter from the Kaiser's leg, striking the German dukes from the
roll of our peerage, changing the King's illustrious and historically
appropriate surname (for the war was the old war of Guelph against
Ghibelline, with the Kaiser as Arch-Ghibelline) to that of a
traditionless locality. One felt that the figure of St. George and the
Dragon on our coinage should be replaced by that of the soldier driving
his spear through Archimedes. But by that time there was no coinage:
only paper money in which ten shillings called itself a pound as
confidently as the people who were disgracing their country called
themselves patriots.
The Sufferings of the Sane
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account