Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/46
Neither do we believe in these continual quotations from Scripture. We do not believe, either you or I or anybody else here, in the man who holds the Bible in one hand and the Mauser rifle in the other. (Cheers). And another bit of advice I should like to give you is this – if you meet a gentleman, a somewhat aged gentleman, whose name begins with a K, anywhere down Pretoria way, I ask you to make him sing Psalms out of the wrong side of his mouth – (cheers) – and as to his cant, drive it down his throat with a dose of lyddite – (cheers) – and three inches of bayonet to keep it there. (Prolonged cheers.)
This has been the common language of English gentlemen in first-class carriages, in club smoke-rooms, and in all other haunts of free conversation; and English ladies have done their best to assert the doctrine of sex equality in sentiment and language.
The maker of headlines has displayed a masterly knowledge of the temper of the beast he feeds, and 'Cronje withered in a hell of fire' remains in my memory as one of many graphic phrases.
The experience of this war thoroughly explodes the old ideal of John Bull as a blunt, frank man who loves a fair fight with a foeman whose courage and prowess he is ready to admit. The black slime of his malice has been hardly less characteristic of his Jingoism than the animal brutality with which it is associated; it