re not only individuals but whole peoples who say, as William the
Conqueror said to the Pope: "Never have I taken an oath of fealty, nor
shall I ever do so."

X "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE"

It has always been considered sound doctrine among Christians that
they should love one another. Vigorous exponents of the doctrine,
however, have ever been few in numbers. As the world gets more
crowded, and we find it more and more difficult to make room for
ourselves, and to get a living, we find antagonisms and defensive
tactics, occupying so much of our time and energy that loving one
another is almost lost sight of. It has been found necessary even
among those of the same nation to legislate for love. We call such
laws, with dull contempt for irony, social legislation. In Germany,
and now in England, the modern sacrament of loving one another
consists in licking stamps; these stamps are then stuck on cards,
which bind the brethren together in mutual and adhesive helpfulness.

With nations the problem is not so easily and superficially solved;
because no one body of legislators and police has jurisdiction over
all the parties concerned. As a result of this just now in Europe,
wisdom is not the arbiter; on the contrary, prejudices, passions,
indiscretions, and follies on the part of all the antagonists preserve
a certain dangerous equipoise.

After you have seen something and heard a great deal of these
antagonisms between nations; read their newspapers; talked with the
protagonists and with their rulers, and with the responsible servants
of the State; discussed with professors and legislators these
questions; and listened to the warriors on both sides, you are
somewhat bewildered. There are so many reasons why this one should
distrust that one, so many rather unnatural alliances for protection
against one another, so much friendship of the sort expressed by the
phrase, "on aime toujours quelqu'un contre quelqu'un," so much
suspicious watching the movements of one another, that one is reminded
of the jingle of one's youth:

"There's a cat in the garden laying for a rat,
There's a boy with a catapult a-laying for the cat,
The cat's name is Susan, the boy's name is Jim.
And his father round the corner is a-laying for him."

Even to the youngest of us, and to the most inexperienced, this
betokens a strained situation. The first and most natural result is
that each nation's "watchmen who sit above in an high tower,"