what feelings of this kind we credit to ourselves we should also credit
to the other parties in the game. We do cordially credit them to our
French and Belgian allies, and if we do not credit them quite so
cordially to the Germans, that is _partly_ at least because every lapse
from chivalrous conduct on the part of our opponents is immediately
fastened upon and made the most of by our Press. Chivalry is by no means
dead in the Teutonic breast, though the sentiment has certainly been
obscured by some modern German teachings.

While these present war-producing conditions last, we have to face them
candidly and with as much good sense as we can command (which is for the
most part only little!). We have to face them and make the best of
them--though by no means to encourage them. Perhaps after all even a war
like the present one--monstrous as it is--does not denote so great a
deviation of the old Earth from its appointed orbit as we are at first
inclined to think. Under normal conditions the deaths on our planet (and
many of them exceedingly lingering and painful) continue at the rate of
rather more than one every second--say 90,000 a day. The worst battles
cannot touch such a wholesale slaughter as this. Life at its normal best
is full of agonizings and endless toil and sufferings; what matters,
what _it is really there for_, is that we should learn to conduct it
with Dignity, Courage, Goodwill--to transmute its dross into gold. If
war _has_ to continue yet for a time, there is still plenty of evidence
to show that we can wrest--even from its horrors and insanities--some
things that are "worth while," and among others the priceless jewel of
human love and helpfulness.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Some people take great pleasure in analysing White Books and Grey