see in it the evidence of my alarmist cynicism. As to alarm, I pointed
out that fear is natural to man, and even salutary. It has done as much
as courage for the preservation of races and institutions. But from a
charge of cynicism I have always shrunk instinctively. It is like a
charge of being blind in one eye, a moral disablement, a sort of
disgraceful calamity that must he carried off with a jaunty bearing--a
sort of thing I am not capable of. Rather than be thought a mere jaunty
cripple I allowed myself to be blinded by the gross obviousness of the
usual arguments. It was pointed out to me that these Eastern nations
were not far removed from a savage state. Their economics were yet at
the stage of scratching the earth and feeding the pigs. The
highly-developed material civilisation of Europe could not allow itself
to be disturbed by a war. The industry and the finance could not allow
themselves to be disorganised by the ambitions of an idle class, or even
the aspirations, whatever they might be, of the masses.

Very plausible all this sounded. War does not pay. There had been a
book written on that theme--an attempt to put pacificism on a material
basis. Nothing more solid in the way of argument could have been
advanced on this trading and manufacturing globe. War was "bad
business!" This was final.

But, truth to say, on this July day I reflected but little on the
condition of the civilised world. Whatever sinister passions were
heaving under its splendid and complex surface, I was too agitated by a
simple and innocent desire of my own, to notice the signs or interpret
them correctly. The most innocent of passions will take the edge off
one's judgment. The desire which possessed me was simply the desire to
travel. And that being so it would have taken something very plain in
the way of symptoms to shake my simple trust in the stability of things