Rebecca West Quote

For one cannot serve the national spirit merely by getting a lump in the throat whenever one catches sight of the Union Jack, or by seeing red when a newspaper reports that some foreign power has acted aggressively towards England. These reactions bear the same relation to true love of country that a chance encounter between a man and a woman who meet in the street bears to a happy marriage.

"The Necessity and Grandeur of the International Ideal" (1935), reprinted in Rebecca West, Woman As Artist And Thinker. Lincoln, Nebraska, iUniverse, 2005.