When Germans are patriotic and religious they
have no reactions against patriotism and religion as have the English and
the French. Nay, the mistake of Germany in the modern disaster largely
arose from the facts that she thought England was simple when England is
very subtle. She thought that because our politics have become largely
financial that they had become wholly financial; that because our
aristocrats had become pretty cynical that they had become entirely
corrupt. They could not seize the subtlety by which a rather used-up
English gentleman might sell a coronet when he would not sell a fortress;
might lower the public standards and yet refuse to lower the flag. In
short, the Germans are quite sure that they understand us entirely, because
they do not understand us at all. Possibly if they began to understand us
they might hate us even more: but I would rather be hated for some small
but real reason than pursued with love on account of all kinds of qualities
which I do not possess and which I do not desire. And when the Germans get
their first genuine glimpse of what modern England is like they will
discover that England has a very broken, belated and inadequate sense of
having an obligation to Europe, but no sort of sense whatever of having any
obligation to Teutonism.
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