The symbols of public opinion, in times of moderate security,
are subject to check and comparison and argument.
They come and go, coalesce and are forgotten,
never organizing perfectly the emotion of the whole group.

There is, after all, just one human activity left
in which whole populations accomplish the union sacrée.
It occurs in those middle phases of a war when fear, pugnacity,
and hatred have secured complete dominion of the spirit,
either to crush every other instinct or enlist it.