But it is the same tune, and God helping us, we will not and we shall not be overwhelmed under the great dome of the world, by Germany with all her faithful pianolas, or by France with her cold sweet flutes, or by Russia with her shrieks and her pauses, pounding her splendid kettledrums in that awful silence!

Our song is ours—­England and America, the ’cello, and the bright violins!

And no one shall sing it for us.

And no one shall keep us from singing it.

The skyscrapers are singing, “I will, I will!” to God, and Manchester and London and Port Sunlight are singing, “I will, I will!” to God.  I have heard even Westminister Abbey and York—­those beautiful old fellows—­altering, “I will, I will!” to God!

And I have seen, as I was going by, Trinity Church at the head of Wall Street repenting her sins and holding noonday prayer meetings for millionaires.

Our genius is a moral genius, the genius of each man for fulfilling himself.  Our religion is the finding of a way to do it beautifully.

Let Russian men be an army if they like—­death and obedience.  Let German men keep on with their faithful, plodding, moral machines if they want to, and let all French men be artists, go tra-la-laing up and down the Time to the beautiful—­furnishing nudes, clothes, and academies to a world.

But we—­England and America—­will stand up on this planet in the way we like to stand on a planet and sing, “I will, I will!” to God.

If we cannot do better, we will sing, “I won’t, I won’t!” to God.  Our wills and our won’ts are our genius among the sons of men.  They are what we are for.  With England and America I will and I won’t are an art form, our means of expressing ourselves, our way of invention and creation, of begetting an age, of begetting a nation upon a world.

We do not know (like great men and children) who we are at first.  We begin saying vaguely—­will—­will!

Then i will!

Then I will!

Then WE WILL!

THE BEGINNING.

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.