"It was a hard thing to land that day at Sedd-el-bahr, but it was done. No, we've fallen a prey to the glamour of Teutonism, and of being expedient and Hunnish. By the time the war is over I don't doubt we shall be a very pretty imitation of the real article that we're setting out to destroy. But, thank Heaven, we shall always be able to point to Mons and to Antwerp and to Gallipoli: though we are fast forgetting to be gentlemen, we've already forgotten more than the Germans ever dreamed of in that direction. Mind you, I'm not attempting to say that we haven't got to hit below the belt: we have, because we are fighting with foul fighters; but that is what I conceive to be the historical tragedy of this war--the debasement of our ideals in order that we may compete with the Germans, and with the old men in morocco-chairs at home, and with the guttural press. I remember how the waning moon of dawn came up out of Asia while we were still waiting for news of the Suvla landing. There was a tattoo of musketry over the sea, a lisp of wind in the sandy grass; and in a moment of apprehensive chill I divined that with a failure at Suvla this waning moon was the last moon that would rise upon the old way of thinking, the rare old way of acting, the old, old merry England built in a thousand years." "But a greater England may arise from that failure." "Yes, but it won't be our England. The grave of our England was dug by the Victorians; this generation has planted the flowers upon it; the monument will be raised by the new generation. Oh yes, I know, it's an egotistical regret, a superficial and sentimental regret, if you will, but you must allow some of us to cherish it; otherwise we could not go on. And in the end I believe history will indorse the school of thought I follow. In the end I'm convinced that it will blame the men who failed to see that England was great by the measure of her greatness, and that the real way to win this war was by what were sneeringly called side-shows. All our history has been the alternate failure and triumph of our side-shows; we made ourselves what we are by side-shows." Hazlewood swept from the table the pile of crumbs he had been building while he was talking, and smiled at Sylvia. "It's your turn now," he said. "You've deprived me of any capacity for generalization. I think perhaps you may have got things out of focus. I know it's a platitude, but isn't one always inevitably out of focus nowadays? When I was still at a distance from the war the whole perspective was blurred to my vision by the intrusion of individual humiliations and sufferings. Now I'm nearer to it I feel that my vision is equally faulty from an indifference to them," Sylvia said, earnestly. Then she told Hazlewood the story of Queenie and the passport, and asked for his opinion.