spirit and temper is the same as of old. It has found a new world in the
air. War in the air, under the conditions of to-day, demands all the old
gallantry and initiative. The airman depends on his own brain and nerve;
he cannot fall back on orders from his superiors. Our airmen of to-day
are the true inheritors of Drake; they have the same inspired
recklessness, the same coolness, and the same chivalry to a vanquished
enemy.

I am a very bad example of the English temper; for the English temper
grumbles at all this, to the great relief of our enemies, who believe
that what a man admits against his own nation must be true. Our
pessimists, by indulging their natural vein, serve us, without reward,
quite as well as Germany is served by her wireless press. They deceive
the enemy.

Modern Germany has organized and regimented her people like an ant-hill
or a beehive. The people themselves, including many who belong to the
upper class, are often simple villagers in temper, full of kindness and
anger, much subject to envy and jealousy, not magnanimous, docile and
obedient to a fault. If they claimed, as individuals, to represent the
highest reach of European civilization, the claim would be merely
absurd. So they shift their ground, and pretend that society is greater
than man, and that by their painstaking organization their society has
been raised to the pinnacle of human greatness. They make this claim so
insistently, and in such obvious good faith, that some few weak tempers
and foolish minds in England have been impressed by it. These
panic-stricken counsellors advise us, without delay, to reform our
institutions and organize them upon the German model. Only thus, they
tell us, can we hold our own against so huge a power. But if we were to
take their advice, we should have nothing of our own left to hold. It is