ss of the
political pessimism and cynicism of Prussia. After his great
adventures in Africa and Asia, the Englishman has re-discovered
Europe; and in the very act of discovering Europe, the Englishman has
at last discovered England. The revelation of the forces still really
to be found in England itself, when all is said that can possibly or
plausibly be said against English commercialism and selfishness, was
the last work of Lord Kitchener. He was the embodiment of an enormous
experience which has passed through Imperialism and reached
patriotism. He had been the supreme figure of that strange and
sprawling England which lies beyond England; which carries the habits
of English clubs and hotels into the solitudes of the Nile or up the
passes of the Himalayas, and is infinitely ignorant of things
infinitely nearer home. For this type of Englishman Cairo was nearer
than Calais. Yet the typical figure which we associated with such
places as Cairo was destined before he died to open again the ancient
gate of Calais and lead in a new and noble fashion the return of
England to Europe. The great change for which his countrymen will
probably remember him longest was what we should call in England the
revolution of the New Armies.

It is almost impossible to express how great a revolution it was so as
to convey its dimensions to the citizens of any other great European
country where military service has long been the rule and not the
exception, where the people itself is only the army in mufti. In its
mere aspect to the eye it was something like an invasion by a strange
race. The English professional soldier of our youth had been
conspicuous not only by his red coat but by his rarity. When rare
things become common they do not become commonplace. The memory of
their singularity is still strong enough to give them rather the
appearance of a prodigy, as anyone can realise by imagining an army of
hunchbacks or a city of one-eyed men. The English soldier had indeed
been respected as a patriotic symbol, but rather as a priest or a
prince can be a symbol, as being the exception and not the rule. A
child was taken to see the soldier outside Buckingham Palace almost as
he was taken to see the King driving out of Buckingham Palace. Hence
the first effect of the enlargement of the armies was something almost
like a fairy-tale--almost as if the streets were crowded with kings,
walking about and wearing crowns of gold. This merely optical