“But I say!” he said feebly.  “It’s the sort of thing that might come out of a lunatic asylum....”

One incredible craving was manifest in every one of them.  The German caricaturist seemed unable to represent his enemies except in extremely tight trousers or in none; he was equally unable to represent them without thrusting a sword or bayonet, spluttering blood, into the more indelicate parts of their persons.  This was the leit-motif of the war as the German humorists presented it.  “But,” said Mr. Britling, “these things can’t represent anything like the general state of mind in Germany.”

“They do,” said his friend.

“But it’s blind fury—­at the dirt-throwing stage.”

“The whole of Germany is in that blind fury,” said his friend.  “While we are going about astonished and rather incredulous about this war, and still rather inclined to laugh, that’s the state of mind of Germany....  There’s a sort of deliberation in it.  They think it gives them strength.  They want to foam at the mouth.  They do their utmost to foam more.  They write themselves up.  Have you heard of the ’Hymn of Hate’?”

Mr. Britling had not.

“There was a translation of it in last week’s Spectator....  This is the sort of thing we are trying to fight in good temper and without extravagance.  Listen, Britling!

“You will we hate with a lasting hate; We will never forgo our hate—­ Hate by water and hate by land, Hate of the head and hate of the hand, Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown, Hate of seventy millions, choking down; We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe, and one alone—­ ENGLAND!”

He read on to the end.

“Well,” he said when he had finished reading, “what do you think of it?”

“I want to feel his bumps,” said Mr. Britling after a pause.  “It’s incomprehensible.”

“They’re singing that up and down Germany.  Lissauer, I hear, has been decorated....”

“It’s—­stark malignity,” said Mr. Britling.  “What have we done?”

“It’s colossal.  What is to happen to the world if these people prevail?”

“I can’t believe it—­even with this evidence before me....  No!  I want to feel their bumps....”

Section 3

“You see,” said Mr. Britling, trying to get it into focus, “I have known quite decent Germans.  There must be some sort of misunderstanding....  I wonder what makes them hate us.  There seems to me no reason in it.”

“I think it is just thoroughness,” said his friend.  “They are at war.  To be at war is to hate.”

“That isn’t at all my idea.”

“We’re not a thorough people.  When we think of anything, we also think of its opposite.  When we adopt an opinion we also take in a provisional idea that it is probably nearly as wrong as it is right.  We are—­atmospheric.  They are concrete....  All this filthy, vile, unjust and cruel stuff is honest genuine war.  We pretend war does not hurt.  They know better....  The Germans are a simple honest people.  It is their virtue.  Possibly it is their only virtue....”