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England and the War by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
page 62 of 118 (52%)
for wrong causes, but this time there is no mistake. Our cause is better
than we deserve; we embraced it by an act of faith, and it is only by
continuing in that faith that we shall see it through. The little old
Army, when they went to France in August 1914, did not ask what profits
were likely to come their way. They knew that there were none, but they
were willing to sacrifice themselves to save decency and humanity from
being trampled in the mud. This was the Army that the Germans called a
mercenary Army, and its epitaph has been written by a good poet:

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling,
And took their wages, and are dead.

Their shoulders held the heavens suspended,
They stood, and earth's foundations stay,
What God abandoned these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

We must follow their example, for we shall never get a better. We must
not make too much of calculation, especially when it deals with
incalculable things. Nervous public critics, like Mr. H.G. Wells, are
always calling out for more cleverness in our methods, for new and
effective tricks, so that we may win the War. I would never disparage
cleverness; the more you can get of it, the better; but it is useless
unless it is in the service of something stronger and greater than
itself, and that is character. Cleverness can grasp; it is only
character that can hold. The Duke of Wellington was not a clever man; he
was a man of simple and honourable mind, with an infinite capacity for
patience, persistence, and endurance, so that neither unexpected
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