such a foe. But it wasn't, and any one who knew the English temperament
knew it wasn't. I put aside the fact that for practical everyday uses a
cheerful tune is much better than a solemn tune. "Tipperary" quickens the
step and shortens the march. Luther's hymn, so far from lightening the
journey, would become an intolerable burden. The mind would sink under it.
You would either go mad or plunge into some violent excess to recover your
sanity. It is the craziest of philosophy to think that because you are
engaged in a serious business you have to live in a state of exaltation,
that the bow is never to be unstrung, that the top note is never to be
relaxed. You will not do your business better because you wear a long face
all the time; you will do it worse. If you are talking about your high
ideals all day you are not only a nuisance: you are either dishonest or
unbalanced. We are not creatures with wings. We are creatures who walk. We
have to "foot it" even to Mount Pisgah, and the more cheerful and jolly and
ordinary we are on the way the sooner we shall get over the journey. The
noblest Englishman that ever lived, and the most deeply serious, was as
full of innocent mirth as a child and laid his head down on the block with
a jest. Let us keep our course by the stars, by all means, but the
immediate tasks are much nearer than the stars--

The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered all about our feet--like flowers.

It is just this frightful gravity of the German mind that has made them
mad. They haven't learned to play; they haven't learned to laugh at
themselves. Their sombre religion has passed into a sombre irreligion. They
have grown gross without growing light-hearted. The spiritual battle song
of Luther has become a material battle song, and "the safe stronghold" is
no longer the City of God but the City of Krupp. They have neither the
splendid intellectual sanity of the French, nor the homely humour of the