The Englishman leans back on his oars; the German leans forward.
The Englishman's phrase is "Stick it," which means to hold what you
have; the German's phrase is "Onward." It was national youth against
national middle-age. A vessel with pressure of increase from within
was about to expand or burst. A vessel which is large and
comfortable for its contents was resisting pressure from without. The
French were saying, What if we should lose? And the Germans were
saying, What if we should not win all that we are entitled to? Germany
had been thinking of a mightier to-morrow and England of a to-
morrow as good as to-day. Germany looked forward to a fortune to
be won at thirty; England considered the safeguarding of her fortune
at fifty.

It is not professions that count so much as the thing that works out
from the nature of a situation and the contemporaneous bent of a
people. The Englishman thought of his defence as keeping what he
already had; the German was defending what he considered that he
was entitled to. If he could make more of Calais than the French, then
Calais ought to be his. A nation, with the "closed in" culture of the
French on one side and the enormous, unwieldy mass of Russia on
the other, convinced of its superiority and its ability to beat either foe,
thought that it was the friend of peace because it had withheld the
blow. When the striking time came, it struck hard and forced the
battle on enemy soil, which proved, to its logic, that it was only
receiving payment of a debt owed it by destiny.

Bred to win, confident that the German system was the right system
of life, it could imagine the German Michael as the missionary of the
system, converting the Philistine with machine-guns. Confidence, the