Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/61

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Sport

But your wars have never ended, since history records them, save with the same outbursts of pride and insolence as began them. Was there ever a Te Deum turned into a cry of Mea culpa? Was ever a war entered in a history book save as a glorious adventure, glorious in victory, glorious in disaster? And even if, after a hundred years, a historian here and there dares tarnish the stainless records of your purposes with a single plausible doubt, was there ever an awakening of guilt a thousandth part as strong as the awakening of pride and happiness which accompanies the recalling of the exploits of any war, however remote?

You have just passed through the wildest and most universal of all wars. Search your memories and your press well. Where was the hushed humility, the awe, the shuddering amazement which should have fallen on the world when the Armistice was declared? Did you not straightway send forth emissaries to bargain and barter, to accuse and to denounce? And above all to maintain your

57