part at least, to a natural reaction from the strain and horror of War."

"'Reaction'!" snorted the Cynic. "A very comfortable word. But what were
the sufferings from which they are 'reacting'? The loss, you will say,
of the flower of our chivalry in battle? Well, one would think that
might have steadied them. Is this what our manhood died for--to make a
British carnival?"

"I don't pretend to understand that side of it," said the Sage, "but I
know that during the War we respected the silence of their grief; and I
know that nature must choose its own way of recovering from a loss and
reasserting its claim to happiness. Remember, too, that War must always
have its demoralising features, however splendid the cause for which you
are fighting. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' says the
soldier in his brief intervals of release. And some of us at home went
more than half-way to meet him, imitating an attitude excusable in him
but not in us. And that attitude is bound to survive for a little time
the causes that induced it. But you must not forget that many of the
type which you are now attacking did noble work in the War; and they
will do it again."

"That may be," said the Cynic; "but is it necessary to have an orgy of
_Carmagnole_ in between?"

"I think perhaps it is like the case of a crew or a team going out of
training. They permit themselves a certain relaxation before they start
training for the next contest. But I think too that there is something
to be said for your reference to the _Carmagnole_. We are passing
through a phase of Revolution, very natural after a great upheaval. The
sense of freedom--the very thing for which we have been fighting--is apt