vehemence, the expression of an intolerable ennui.

'There's something damnably wrong with us all -- that's the one thing
certain.'

'Idleness, for one thing,' said Rolfe.

'Yes. And I'm too old to do anything. Why didn't I follow Miles into the
army? I think I was more cut out for that than for anything else. I
often feel I should like to go to South Africa and get up a little war
of my own.'

Rolfe shouted with laughter.

'Not half a bad idea, and the easiest thing in the world, no doubt.'

'Nigger-hunting; a superior big game.'

'There's more than that to do in South Africa,' said Harvey. 'I was
looking at a map in Stanford's window the other day, and it amused me.
Who believes for a moment that England will remain satisfied with bits
here and there? We have to swallow the whole, of course. We shall go on
fighting and annexing, until -- until the decline and fall of the
British Empire. That hasn't begun yet. Some of us are so over-civilised
that it makes a reaction of wholesome barbarism in the rest. We shall
fight like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that
keeps Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse. Happily, no sooner
do they get fat than they kick, and somebody's shin suffers; then they
fight off the excessive flesh. War is England's Banting.'