her two young brothers expressed themselves quite as emphatically in
their own manner; the old man at the corner and the grocer-boy from his
cart waved. For a quarter of an hour, while that train wound in through
the London suburbs, every human being that was near dropped his work and
gave it a welcome.

I have seen many great ceremonies in England, and they have left me as
cold as ice. There have been big set pieces even in this war, with brass
bands and lines of policemen and cheering crowds and long accounts of it
afterwards in the newspapers. But I have never seen any demonstration
that could compare with this simple spontaneous welcome by the families
of London. It was quite unrehearsed and quite unreported. No one had
arranged it, and no one was going to write big headlines about it next
day. The people in one garden did not even know what the people in the
next garden were doing--or want to know. The servant at the upper
window did not know that the mistress was at the lower window doing
exactly as she was, and vice versa. For the first time in one's
experience one had experienced a genuine, whole-hearted, common feeling
running through all the English people--every man, woman and child,
without distinction, bound in one common interest which, for the time
being, was moving the whole nation. And I shall never forget it.

It was the most wonderful welcome--I am not exaggerating when I say that
it was one of the most wonderful and most inspiriting sights that I have
ever seen. I do not know whether the rulers of the country are aware of
it. But I do not believe for a moment that this people can go back after
the war to the attitude by which each of those families was to all the
others only so much prospective monetary gain or loss.