impersonally, to make Beauty and to keep it alive; and for no other end,
how could you consent to take part in this bloody business? That would
be the last betrayal, the most cowardly surrender.

And you were all the more bound to faithfulness if you were one of the
leaders of a forlorn hope, of the forlorn hope of all the world, of all
the ages, the forlorn hope of God himself.

* * * * *

For Michael, even more than Ellis, had given himself up as lost.

And yet somehow they all felt curiously braced by the prospect. When the
young men met in Lawrence Stephen's house they discussed it with a calm,
high heroism. This was the supreme test: To go on, without pay, without
praise, without any sort of recognition. Any fool could fight; but, if
you were an artist, your honour bound you to ignore the material
contest, to refuse, even to your country, the surrender of the highest
that you knew. They believed with the utmost fervour and sincerity that
they defied Germany more effectually, because more spiritually, by going
on and producing fine things with imperturbability than if they went out
against the German Armies with bayonets and machine-guns. Moreover they
were restoring Beauty as fast as Germany destroyed it.

They told each other these things very seriously and earnestly, on
Friday evenings as they lay about more or less at their ease (but rather
less than more) in Stephen's study.

They had asked each other: "Are _you_ going to fight for your country?"

And Ellis had said he was damned if he'd fight for his country; and
Mitchell had said he hadn't got a country, so there was no point in his
fighting, anyhow; and Monier-Owen that if you could show him a country
that cared for the arts before anything he'd fight for it; but that
England was very far from being that country.

And Michael had sat silent, thinking the same thoughts.

And Stephen had sat silent, thinking other thoughts, not listening to
what was said.

And now people were whining about Louvain and Rheims Cathedral. Michael
said to himself that he could stand these massed war emotions if they
were sincere; but people whined about Louvain and Rheims Cathedral who
had never cared a damn about either before the War.

Anthony looked up over the edge of his morning paper, inquired whether
Michael could defend the destruction of Louvain and Rheims Cathedral?

Michael shrugged his shoulders. "Why bother," he said, "abou