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uproot it, and start again without it. There comes a time, eventually,
when his maniacal ingenuity is defeated. Then he is cornered. At that
point, he'll roll up his sleeves and do something new. But he will not
meet his issue until he is cornered - until his back is painfully pressed
against a wall, and a fist - but what losses, that trouble, what
expenditure are incurred before things are set right - simply because
he won't face facts in time.
I haven't an atom of sympathy for this disposition of his. It has
led, leads, and will lead, to inuumerable vexations, lettingdowns,
misconceptions, blunders, and tragedies in international affairs.
For not only does his inveterate habit of compromise produce
actions that look like an ugly chain of shameless volte-face, long
enough to encircle the world, but his very speech is infected by it, so
that he can't talk accurately. He has turned his splendid language into
a series of stereotyped formulae. Translate, if you please, into any
straightforward European tongue expressions like: "I am afraid not",
"I would rather not", "I shouldn't say that", or the unsupportable "I
don't mind". All translations would register pure dubiousness. Read
abroad, they result, especially in diplomatic relations, in a new crop
of argumentations, wranglings, disappointed hopes, heart-burnings.
But the Englishman himself is immensely surprised that the foreigner
should not have immediately grasped that he just meant yes and no.
And when he isn't understanding, he's overstanding. My gorge still
rises when I hear someone tell me over the telephone that he is dying
to see me.
On the Continent, political leaders in opposite camps fight with
open weapons; they are stung, assaulted and battered by their
adversaries wherever they meet, in the street, in social assemblies just
as much as in the press and the Parliament. Their political enemies
are also their social enemies. This attitude may seem brutal on the
surface, but it is indispensable if we aim at consistency. In sheer and
stark antagonism there is no undermining factor - no invisible foe to
weaken the blood of resistance; no germ warfare to complicate issues.
In England, hostile political leaders meet in each other's homes; they
are welcomed and fed one by the other, and the socially more
experienced of the two drugs the less-experienced one's wine. No
amount of initial sincerity, wisdom or determination can protect the
mind successfully against the continual flattery, the warm, kindly,
polite, drop-drop-drop-drop of pleasant and hospitable social

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