conscientiously spit upon what they would call the time-dishonored notion that, in certain circumstances, it is sweet and beautiful to die for one's country. In order to become men, in the higher sense of the word, our disillusioned youth imagine they must slay the thing they loved—they must cease to be Americans.
It was about the year 1917 that I began to meditate rather frequently upon the relation between civilization and the existence of separate nationalities, national traditions, national sentiments, and the national literatures through which the life of vanished generations survives as a living power among the powers of the present day. That sense for Humanity above all nations, which was quickened by certain appeals of the war, it seemed to me that every intelligent man must applaud, and must desire to strengthen. Sentiments which interfered with the growth of this sense, I thought, should be suppressed, and sacrifices which must be made for the extension of it should be courageously offered. An inflamed and egotistical nationalism appeared to me, as to so many others, the prime cause of the world's catastrophe.
And yet if even for a moment it occurred to me that true citizenship in "the country of all intelligent beings" might necessitate the sacrifice of one's essential Americanism and the use of the knife at
