Yes, on the face of it, it seemed a poor lookout for “Tipperary” against such a foe.  But it wasn’t, and any one who knew the English temperament knew it wasn’t.  I put aside the fact that for practical everyday uses a cheerful tune is much better than a solemn tune.  “Tipperary” quickens the step and shortens the march.  Luther’s hymn, so far from lightening the journey, would become an intolerable burden.  The mind would sink under it.  You would either go mad or plunge into some violent excess to recover your sanity.  It is the craziest of philosophy to think that because you are engaged in a serious business you have to live in a state of exaltation, that the bow is never to be unstrung, that the top note is never to be relaxed.  You will not do your business better because you wear a long face all the time; you will do it worse.  If you are talking about your high ideals all day you are not only a nuisance:  you are either dishonest or unbalanced.  We are not creatures with wings.  We are creatures who walk.  We have to “foot it” even to Mount Pisgah, and the more cheerful and jolly and ordinary we are on the way the sooner we shall get over the journey.  The noblest Englishman that ever lived, and the most deeply serious, was as full of innocent mirth as a child and laid his head down on the block with a jest.  Let us keep our course by the stars, by all means, but the immediate tasks are much nearer than the stars—­

    The charities that soothe and heal and bless
    Are scattered all about our feet—­like flowers.

It is just this frightful gravity of the German mind that has made them mad.  They haven’t learned to play; they haven’t learned to laugh at themselves.  Their sombre religion has passed into a sombre irreligion.  They have grown gross without growing light-hearted.  The spiritual battle song of Luther has become a material battle song, and “the safe stronghold” is no longer the City of God but the City of Krupp.  They have neither the splendid intellectual sanity of the French, nor the homely humour of the English.  It is this homely humour that has puzzled Europe.  It has puzzled the French as much as the Germans, for the French genius is declamatory and needs the inspiration of ideas and great passions greatly stated.  It was assumed that, because the British soldier sang “Tipperary,” moved in an atmosphere of homely fun, indulged in no heroics, never talked of “glory,” rarely of patriotism or the Fatherland, and only joked about “the flag,” there was no great passion in him.  Some of our frenzied people at home have the same idea.  They still believe we are a nation of “slackers” because we don’t shriek with them.