all, like every
political action, it is due to a thousand causes, many of which are
trifling. Among them we may see the legitimate hatred and the eternal
resentment felt towards an hereditary enemy. We may discover an
interested intention to take part, without too much risk, in a
victory already certain and in its previously allotted spoils. We may
see in it anything that we please: the resolves of men contain factors
of all kinds; but we must pity those who are able to consider none but
the meaner sides of the matter, for these are the only sides which
never count and which are always deceptive. To find the real and
lasting truth, we must learn to view the great masses and the great
feelings of mankind from above. It is in them and in their great and
simple movements that the will of the soul and of destiny is asserted,
for these two form the eternal substance of a people. And, in the
present case, the movement of the great masses and the great feelings
of the people took the form of an immense impulse of sympathy and
indignation, which gradually increased, penetrating farther and
farther into the popular strata and gathering volume as it
progressed, until it urged a whole nation to assume the burden of a
war which it knew to be crushing and merciless, a war which each of
those who called for it knew to be a war which he himself must wage,
with his own hands, with his own body, a war which would wrest him
from the pleasant ways of peace, from his labours and his comforts,
which would weigh terribly upon all those whom he loved, which would
expose him for weeks, perhaps for months, to incredible sufferings and
which meant almost certain death to a third or a half of those who
demanded the right to brave it. And all this, I repeat, occurred
without any material necessity, from no other motive than a fine sense
of honour and a magnificent surge of admiration and pity for a small
foreign nation that was being unjustly martyred. We cannot repeat it
too often: here, as in the case of the sacrifice which Belgium and
England offered to the ideal of honour, is a new and unprecedented
fact in history.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Delivered in London, at the Queen's Hall, 7 July, 1915.]

* * * * *

BELGIUM'S FLAG DAY

IX

BELGIUM'S FLAG DAY

1

To-day our flag will quiver in every French hand as a symbol of love
and gratitude. This day should be a day of hope and glory for all