But stop,—­let me show what I mean by examples.  I have them here in front of me.  Take, for example, the London Spectator.  Everybody recognised in it a model of literary dignity and decorum.  Even those who read it least, admitted this most willingly; in fact, perhaps all the more so.  In its pages to-day one finds an equal dignity of thought, yet, somehow, the wording seems to have undergone an alteration.  One cannot say just where the change comes in.  It is what the French call a je ne sais quoi, a something insaisissable, a sort of nuance, not amounting of course to a lueur, but still,—­how shall one put it,—­something.

The example that is given below was taken almost word for word (indeed some of the words actually were so) from the very latest copy of The Spectator.

EDITORIAL FROM THE LONDON “SPECTATOR”

Showing the Stimulating Effect of the War on Its Literary Style

“There is no doubt that our boys, and the Americans, are going some on the western front.  We have no hesitation in saying that last week’s scrap was a cinch for the boys.  It is credibly reported by our correspondent at The Hague that the German Emperor, the Crown Prince and a number of other guys were eye witnesses of the fight.  If so, they got the surprise of their young lives.  While we should not wish to show anything less than the chivalrous consideration for a beaten enemy which has been a tradition of our nation, we feel it is but just to say that for once the dirty pups got what was coming to them.  We are glad to learn from official quarters that His Majesty King George has been graciously pleased to telegraph to General Pershing, ’Soak it to ’em—­and then some.’

“Meantime the situation from the point of view both of terrain and of tactics remains altogether in our favour.  The deep salient driven into the German lines near Soissons threatens to break up their communications and force a withdrawal on a wide front.  We cannot make the position clearer to our English readers than by saying that our new lines occupy, as it were, the form of a baseball diamond, with Soissons at second base and with our headquarters at the home plate and our artillery support at third.  Our readers will at once grasp the fact that, with our advance pivoted on the pitcher’s box and with adequate cover at short, the thing is a lead-pipe cinch, —­in fact, we have them lashed to the mast.

“Meantime the mood of the hour should be one, not of undue confidence or boastfulness, but of quiet resolution and deep thankfulness.  As the Archbishop of Canterbury so feelingly put it in his sermon in Westminster Abbey last Sunday, ’Now that we have them by the neck let us go on, in deep and steadfast purpose, till we have twisted the gizzard out of them.’

“The Archbishop’s noble words should, and will, re-echo in every English home.”