

NOTES 66 1 



side. The former evidently knows all the gambits and has 

 calculated beforehand the effect of every move upon the next 

 dozen moves ; while the latter is anxiously and excitedly con- 

 cerned in taking the first pawn of her adversary which she 

 thinks has incautiously exposed itself to capture. Fortu- 

 nately war is a longer game than chess — long enough, in fact, 

 often to enable non-expert players to become expert before 

 it is finished ; and even the Old Lady who appears to be con- 

 ducting the strategy on the one side of the war may learn 

 something about the game before it is finished. Up to the 

 present the partial success of the Professional Player appears 

 inexplicable to the ignorant onlookers, but it has been really 

 due to the simple commonsense understanding of the fact that 

 difficult undertakings are not successfully carried out unless 

 they are preceded by a long period of careful forethought and 

 organisation. On the other hand, the ignorant attribute the 

 failures of the non-expert player merely to her misfortunes. 

 The world, however, is beginning to see through this plea, and 

 to ask whether the Amiable Party ever really knew anything 

 of the game before she started to play the Professional. She 

 has hitherto lived all her life in the rosy light of comfort (and 

 port wine) ; has believed in liberty, virtue, and kindness ; 

 has disbelieved in such wicked things as calculation and 

 science ; thinks that all forethought is a kind of evil plotting ; 

 and is much dismayed when she suddenly loses a bishop or a 

 castle. Now war is a very difficult science. There is, in fact, 

 an old military saying that an army of asses led by a lion will 

 defeat an army of lions led by an ass. To which side of the 

 war each of these metaphors will apply we cannot, or are 

 unwilling, to say. Fortunately, the parable breaks down at 

 this point. The Wicked Professional has made some monstrous 

 blunders in spite of his expertness, and the Old Lady has many 

 strong sons who will see her " through the game." 



Experts and Official Experts 



Those who have the misfortune to spend their lives in toil- 

 ing for humanity in subterranean burrowings into nature are 

 often surprised and perhaps pained to see suddenly in some 

 newspaper that Government has appointed as its expert Mr. 

 So-and-So, " a distinguished authority " upon the very subject 



43 



