Not that I approve of the experiment in
this particular case. Indeed I think that after the war all brave
men will renounce their country and confess that they are strangers
and pilgrims on the earth. "For they that say such things declare
plainly that they seek a country." But all these convictions are
useless for me to state since I have not had the courage of them.
What a worm one is under the cart-wheels--big, clumsy, careless,
lumbering cart-wheels--of public opinion. I might have been giving
my mind to fight against Sloth and Stupidity: instead, I am giving
my body (by a refinement of cowardice) to fight against the most
enterprising nation in the world.'
The wise arm-chair patriots will shake their heads; but there is more
wisdom of spirit in these words than in all the newspaper leaders
written throughout the war. Sorley was fighting for more than he said;
he was fighting for his Wiltshire Downs as well. But he fought in
complete and utter detachment. He died too soon (in October, 1915), to
suffer the cumulative torment of those who lasted into the long agony of
1917.
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