We in England, still less in America, have never approached the loathing which is felt for the Boche in France.  Men spit as they utter his name, as though the very word was foul in the mouth.

In the face of all that they have suffered, I do not wonder that the French misunderstand the easy good-humour with which we English go out to die.  In their eyes and with the continual throbbing of their wounds, this war is an occasion for neither good-humour nor sportsmanship, but for the wrath of a Hebrew Jehovah, which only blows can appease or make articulate.  If every weapon were taken from their hands and all their young men were dead, with naked fists those who were left would smite—­smite and smite.  It is fitting that they should feel this way, seeing themselves as they do perpetually frescoed against the sky-line of sacrifice; but I am glad that our English boys can laugh while they die.

In trying to explain the change I found in England after war had commenced, I mentioned Henley and the boat-race crowds.  I don’t think it was a change; it was only a bringing to the surface of something that had been there always.  Some years ago I was at Henley when the Belgians carried off the Leander Cup from the most crack crew that England could bring together.  Evening after evening through the Regatta week the fear had been growing that we should lose, yet none of that fear was reflected in our attitude towards our Belgian guests.  Each evening as they came up the last stretch of river, leading by lengths and knocking another contestant out, the spectators cheered them madly.  Their method of rowing smashed all our traditions; it wasn’t correct form; it wasn’t anything.  It ought to have made one angry.  But these chaps were game; they were winning.  “Let’s play fair,” said the river; so they cheered them.  On the last night when they beat Leander, looking fresh as paint, leading by a length and taking the championship out of England, you would never have guessed by the flicker of an eyelash that it wasn’t the most happy conclusion of a good week’s sport for every oarsman present.

It’s the same spirit essentially that England is showing to-day.  She cheers the winner.  She trusts in her strength for another day.  She insists on playing fair.  She considers it bad manners to lose one’s temper.  She despises to hate back.  She has carried this spirit so far that if you enter the college chapels of Oxford to-day, you will find inscribed on memorial tablets to the fallen not only the names of Britishers, but also the names of German Rhodes Scholars, who died fighting for their country against the men who were once their friends.  Generosity, justice, disdain of animosity-these virtues were learnt on the playing-fields and race-courses.  England knows their value; she treats war as a sport because so she will fight better.  For her that approach to adversity is normal.