to the spirit of Christ."

He believed that I intended to insult him, and in a little while he rang
the bell for my dismissal.

Even Edward Bernstein, the great leader of the Social Democrats,
could give me no consoling words for my paper.

"The spirit of nationality," he said--and I have a note of his words--"is
stronger than abstract ideals. Let England make no mistake. If war
were declared to-morrow the Social Democrats would march as one
man in defence of the Fatherland. . . . And you must admit that
England, or rather the English Foreign Office, has put rather a severe
strain upon our pride and patience!"

My mission was a failure. I came back without any expressions of
good will from public men and with an uneasy sense of dangerous
fires smouldering beneath the political life of Germany--fires of hate
not easily quenched by friendly or sentimental articles in the English
Liberal Press. And yet among the ordinary people in railway trains
and restaurants, beer-halls and hotels, I had found no hostility to me
as an Englishman. Rather they had gone out of their way to be
friendly. Some of the university students of Leipzig had taken me to a
public dance, expressed their admiration for English sports, and
asked my opinion about the merits of various English boxers of whom
I had to confess great ignorance. They were good friendly fellows and
I liked them. In various towns of Germany I found myself admiring the
cheerful, bustling gemutlichkeit of the people, the splendid
organization of their civic life, their industry and national spirit.
Walking among them sometimes, I used to ponder over the
possibility of that unvermeidliche krieg--that "unavoidable war"
which was being discussed in all the newspapers. Did these
people want war with England or with anyone? The laughter of the
clerks and shop-girls swarming down the Friedrichstrasse, the
peaceful enjoyment of the middle-class crowds of husbands and
wives, lovers and sweethearts, steaming in the heat of brilliantly lighted
beer-halls seemed to make my question preposterous. The spirit of
the German people was essentially peaceful and democratic. Surely
the weight of all this middle-class common sense would save them
from any criminal adventures proposed by a military caste rattling its
sabre on state occasions? So I came back with a conflict of ideas....

9

A little bald-headed man came into London about two years ago, and
his arrival was noted in a n