Addresses in America by John Galsworthy — Read

It is of the main new factors which have come into the life of the civilised world that I would speak.

The division deep and subtle between those who have fought and those who have not――concerns us in Europe far more than you in America; for in proportion to your population the number of your soldiers who actually fought has been small, compared with the number in any belligerent European country. And I think that so far as you are concerned the division will soon disappear, for the iron had not time to enter into the souls of your soldiers. For us in Europe, however, this factor is very tremendous, and will take a long time to wear away. In my country the, as it were, professional English dislike to the expression of feeling, which strikes every American so forcibly, covers very deep hearts and highly sensitive nerves. The average Briton is now not at all stolid underneath; I think he has changed a great deal in this last century, owing to the town life which seven-tenths of our population lead. Perhaps only of the Briton may one still invent the picture which appeared in _Punch_ in the autumn of 1914――of the steward on a battleship asking the naval lieutenant: "Will you take your bath before or after the engagement, sir? " and only among Britons overhear one stoker say to another in the heat of a sea-fight: "Well, wot I say is――'E ought to 'ave married 'er. " For all that, the Briton feels deeply; and on those who have fought the experiences of the battlefield have had an effect which almost amounts to metamorphosis. There are now two breeds of British people――such as have been long in the danger zones, and such as have not; shading, of course, into each other through the many who have just smelled powder and peril, and the very few whose imaginations are vibrant enough to have lived the two lives, while only living one.