"Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die, What matter when for Erin dear we fall." The English battalion, spick and span, swung by to horrible discomforts, to wounds and death, as blithely as if they were on a route march at home. They also were singing, and if they were in the same mood as the Irishmen they would be rendering the chorus-- "Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee Who are born of thee? Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set; God, who made thee mighty, Make thee mightier yet." But instead of that the chorus of their song, set to a hymn tune, was this-- "Will you fight for England? Will you face the foe? And every gallant soldier Boldly answered--NO!" It has been said, with general acceptance, that the spirit of a nation can best be studied in its songs. But can it really? How wrong would be the moral drawn from its application in this case! High patriotism is a solemn thing; but the average British soldier's attitude towards it is like that of Dr. Johnson when he took up philosophy--"somehow cheerfulness was always breaking in." The English soldier will not sing songs of a lofty type and deep purpose--songs which express either intimate personal feeling or deeply felt national convictions. These emotions he hides or suppresses, for he cannot give vent to them without feeling shamefaced or fearing that he may be regarded as insincere. Yet he is by no means so inconsequential or cynical as he affects to be. He is animated--none more so--by the spirit of duty and sacrifice. When it comes to fighting he is in earnest, desperately and ferociously in earnest, as the Germans know to their cost. It seems to me that he has been misled by Kipling into supposing that the true pose of the British soldier is to be more concerned with the temporal than with the spiritual, to grumble about the petty inconveniences of his calling, to pretend to an indifference to its romantic side and its ideals, to die without thinking that the spirits of his national heroes are looking down upon him. The Irish have the reputation of having a delight in fighting. It is supposed that "ructions" are the commonplace of their civic life. Undoubtedly they have "a strong weakness"--as they would phrase it themselves--for distributing bloody noses and cracked crowns even among friends. It is true, also, that they find the grandest scope for their natural disposition in warfare. A war correspondent relates that he met a wounded Dublin Fusilier hobbling painfully back to the field dressing-station after a battle, and giving the man his arm to help him on, he was prompted to make the pitying remark: "It's a dreadful war." "'Tis indeed, sir; a dreadful war enough," said the soldier; and then came the characteristic comment: "but, sure, 'tis far better than no war at all."