Chapter 5

THE COMING OF THE DAY

Section 1

It was quite characteristic of the state of mind of England in the
summer of 1914 that Mr. Britling should be mightily concerned about the
conflict in Ireland, and almost deliberately negligent of the
possibility of a war with Germany.

The armament of Germany, the hostility of Germany, the consistent
assertion of Germany, the world-wide clash of British and German
interests, had been facts in the consciousness of Englishmen for more
than a quarter of a century. A whole generation had been born and
brought up in the threat of this German war. A threat that goes on for
too long ceases to have the effect of a threat, and this overhanging
possibility had become a fixed and scarcely disturbing feature of the
British situation. It kept the navy sedulous and Colonel Rendezvous
uneasy; it stimulated a small and not very influential section of the
press to a series of reminders that bored Mr. Britling acutely, it was
the excuse for an agitation that made national service ridiculous, and
quite subconsciously it affected his attitude to a hundred things. For
example, it was a factor in his very keen indignation at the Tory levity
in Ireland, in his disgust with many things that irritated or estranged
Indian feeling. It bored him; there it was, a danger, and there was no
denying it, and yet he believed firmly that it was a mine that would
never be fired, an avalanche that would never fall. It was a nuisance, a
stupidity, that kept Europe drilling and wasted enormous sums on
unavoidable preparations; it hung up everything like a noisy argument in
a drawing-room, but that human weakness and folly would ever let the
mine actually explode he did not believe. He had been in France in 1911,
he had seen how close things had come then to a conflict, and the fact
that they had not come to a conflict had enormously strengthened his
natural disposition to believe that at bottom Germany was sane and her
militarism a bluff.

But the Irish difficulty was a different thing. There, he felt, was need
for the liveliest exertions. A few obstinate people in influential
positions were manifestly pushing things to an outrageous point....

He wrote through the morning--and as the morning progressed the judicial
calm of his opening intentions warmed to a certain regrettable vigour of
phrasing about our politicians, about our political ladies, and our
hand-to-mouth press....

He came down to lunch in a frayed, exhausted condition, and was much
afflicted by a series of questions from Herr Heinrich. For it was an
incurable characteristic of Herr Heinrich that he asked questions; the
greater part of his conversation took the form of question and answer,
and his thirst for