Mr. Britling dwelt upon this idea of the specialised character of the British army and navy and government.  It seemed to him to be the clue to everything that was jarring in the London spectacle.  The army had been a thing aloof, for a special end.  It had developed all the characteristics of a caste.  It had very high standards along the lines of its specialisation, but it was inadaptable and conservative.  Its exclusiveness was not so much a deliberate culture as a consequence of its detached function.  It touched the ordinary social body chiefly through three other specialised bodies, the court, the church, and the stage.  Apart from that it saw the great unofficial civilian world as something vague, something unsympathetic, something possibly antagonistic, which it comforted itself by snubbing when it dared and tricking when it could, something that projected members of Parliament towards it and was stingy about money.  Directly one grasped how apart the army lived from the ordinary life of the community, from industrialism or from economic necessities, directly one understood that the great mass of Englishmen were simply “outsiders” to the War Office mind, just as they were “outsiders” to the political clique, one began to realise the complete unfitness of either government or War Office for the conduct of so great a national effort as was now needed.  These people “up there” did not know anything of the broad mass of English life at all, they did not know how or where things were made; when they wanted things they just went to a shop somewhere and got them.  This was the necessary psychology of a small army under a clique government.  Nothing else was to be expected.  But now—­somehow—­the nation had to take hold of the government that it had neglected so long....

“You see,” said Mr. Britling, repeating a phrase that was becoming more and more essential to his thoughts, “this is our war....

“Of course,” said Mr. Britling, “these things are not going to be done without a conflict.  We aren’t going to take hold of our country which we have neglected so long without a lot of internal friction.  But in England we can make these readjustments without revolution.  It is our strength....

“At present England is confused—­but it’s a healthy confusion.  It’s astir.  We have more things to defeat than just Germany....

“These hosts of recruits—­weary, uncared for, besieging the recruiting stations.  It’s symbolical....  Our tremendous reserves of will and manhood.  Our almost incredible insufficiency of direction....

“Those people up there have no idea of the Will that surges up in England.  They are timid little manoeuvring people, afraid of property, afraid of newspapers, afraid of trade-unions.  They aren’t leading us against the Germans; they are just being shoved against the Germans by necessity....”