for these two form the eternal substance of a people. And, in the
present case, the movement of the great masses and the great feelings
of the people took the form of an immense impulse of sympathy and
indignation, which gradually increased, penetrating farther and
farther into the popular strata and gathering volume as it
progressed, until it urged a whole nation to assume the burden of a
war which it knew to be crushing and merciless, a war which each of
those who called for it knew to be a war which he himself must wage,
with his own hands, with his own body, a war which would wrest him
from the pleasant ways of peace, from his labours and his comforts,
which would weigh terribly upon all those whom he loved, which would
expose him for weeks, perhaps for months, to incredible sufferings and
which meant almost certain death to a third or a half of those who
demanded the right to brave it. And all this, I repeat, occurred
without any material necessity, from no other motive than a fine sense
of honour and a magnificent surge of admiration and pity for a small
foreign nation that was being unjustly martyred. We cannot repeat it
too often: here, as in the case of the sacrifice which Belgium and
England offered to the ideal of honour, is a new and unprecedented
fact in history.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Delivered in London, at the Queen's Hall, 7 July, 1915.]

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