clock ticked on my
bedroom mantelpiece. I thrust back this vision of blood by old
arguments, old phrases which had become the rag-tags of political
writers.

War with Germany? A war in which half the nations of Europe would
be flung against each other in a deadly struggle--millions against
millions of men belonging to the peoples of the highest civilization?
No, it was inconceivable and impossible. Why should England make
war upon Germany or Germany upon England? We were alike in
blood and character, bound to each other by a thousand ties of
tradition and knowledge and trade and friendship. All the best intellect
of Germany was friendly to us.

7

In Hamburg two years ago I had listened to speeches about all that,
obviously sincere, emotional in their protestations of racial
comradeship. That young poet who had become my friend, who had
taken me home to his house in the country and whose beautiful wife
had plucked roses for me in her garden, and said in her pretty
English, "I send my best love with them to England"--was he a liar
when he spoke fine and stirring words about the German admiration
for English literature and life, and when--it was late in the evening and
we had drunk some wine--he passed his arm through mine and said,
"If ever there were to be a war between our two countries I and all my
friends in Hamburg would weep at the crime and the tragedy."

On that trip to Hamburg we were banqueted like kings, we English
journalists, and the tables were garlanded with flowers in our honour,
and a thousand compliments were paid to us with the friendliest
courtesy. Were they all liars, these smiling Germans who had clinked
glasses with us?

Only a few weeks before this black shadow of war had loomed up
with its deadly menace a great party of German editors had returned
our visit and once again I had listened to speeches about the blood-
brotherhood of the two nations, a little bored by the stale phrases, but
glad to sit between these friendly Germans whom I had met in their
own country. We clinked glasses again, sang "God Save the King"
and the "Wacht am Rhein," compared the character of German and
English literature, of German and English women, clasped hands,
and said, "Auf wiedersehen!" Were we all liars in that room, and did
any of the men there know that when words of friendship were on
their lips there was hatred in their hearts and in each country a
stealthy preparation for great massacres of men?