the bigger nation sets at work to maintain its ascendancy.  Because of this moral corruption national subjection should be resisted, as a state fostering vice; and as in the case of vice, when we understand it we have no option but to fight.  With it we can make no terms.  It is the duty of the rightful power to develop the best in its subjects:  it is the practice of the usurping power to develop the basest.  Our history affords many examples.  When our rulers visit Ireland they bestow favours and titles on the supporters of their regime—­but it is always seen that the greatest favours and highest titles are not for the honest adherent of their power—­but for him who has betrayed the national cause that he entered public life to support.  Observe the men who might be respected are passed over for him who ought to be despised.  In the corrupt politician there was surely a better nature.  A free state would have encouraged and developed it.  The usurping state titled him for the use of his baser instincts.  Such allurement must mean demoralisation.  We are none of us angels, and under the best of circumstances find it hard to do worthy things; when all the temptation is to do unworthy things we are demoralised.  Most of us, happily, will not give ourselves over to the evil influence, but we lose faith in the ideal.  We are apathetic.  We have powers and let them lie fallow.  Our minds should be restless for noble and beautiful things; they are hopeless in a land everywhere confined and wasted.  In the destruction of spirit entailed lies the deeper significance of our claim to freedom.

IV

It is a spiritual appeal, then, that primarily moves us.  We are urged to action by a beautiful ideal.  The motive force must be likewise true and beautiful.  It is love of country that inspires us; not hate of the enemy and desire for full satisfaction for the past.  Pause awhile.  We are all irritated now and then by some mawkish interpretation of our motive force that makes it seem a weakly thing, invoked to help us in evading difficulties instead of conquering them.  Love in any genuine form is strong, vital and warm-blooded.  Let it not be confused with any flabby substitute.  Take a parallel case.  Should we, because of the mawkishness of a “Princess Novelette,” deride the beautiful dream that keeps ages wondering and joyous, that is occasionally caught up in the words of genius, as when Shelley sings:  “I arise from dreams of thee”?  When foolish people make a sacred thing seem silly, let us at least be sane.  The man who cries out for the sacred thing but voices a universal need.  To exist, the healthy mind must have beautiful things—­the rapture of a song, the music of running water, the glory of the sunset and its dreams, and the deeper dreams of the dawn.  It is nothing but love of country that rouses us to make our land full-blooded and beautiful where now she is pallid and wasted.  This, too, has its deeper significance.