19 October, A Chesterton Calendar
OCTOBER 19th
It was absurd to say that Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields. But
it might have been fairly said that Waterloo was won on the village
green, where clumsy boys played a very clumsy cricket. In a word, it
was the average of the nation that was strong, and athletic glories do
not indicate much about the average of a nation. Waterloo was not won
by good cricket-players. But Waterloo was won by bad cricket-players,
by a mass of men who had some minimum of athletic instincts and habits.
It is a good sign in a nation, when such things are done badly. It
shows that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a
nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only
a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is
merely looking on.
'All Things Considered.'
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