There seems to be very little in a pair of boots—except, perhaps, a pair of feet—until a great crisis arises; and in a great crisis all things assume new values. When the war broke out, and empires found themselves face to face with destiny, the nations asked themselves anxiously how they were off for boots. When millions of men began to march, boots seemed to be the only thing that mattered. The manhood of the world rose in its wrath, reached for its boots, buckled on its sword, and set out for the front. And at the front, if Mr. Kipling is to be believed, it is all a matter of boots.
Don’t—don’t—don’t—don’t—look at what’s in front of you;
Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again;
Men—men—men—men—men go mad with watching ’em.
An’ there’s no discharge in the war.
257Try—try—try—try—to think o’ something different—
Oh—my—God—keep—me from going lunatic!
Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again
An’ there’s no discharge in the war.
We—can—stick—out—’unger, thirst, an’ weariness,
But—not—not—not—not the chronic sight of ’em—
Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again!
An’ there’s no discharge in the war.
’Tain’t—so—bad—by—day because o’ company,
But—night—brings—long—strings o’ forty thousand million
Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again!
An’ there’s no discharge in the war.

A soldier sees enough pairs of boots in a ten-mile march to last him half a lifetime.

Yet, after all, are not these the most amiable things beneath the stars, the things that we treat with derision and contempt in days of calm, but for which we grope with feverish anxiety when the storm breaks upon us? They go on, year after year, bearing the obloquy of our toothless little jests; they go on, year after year, serving us none the less faithfully because we deem them almost too mundane for mention; and then, when they suddenly turn out to be a matter of life and death to us, they serve us still, with never a word of reproach for our past ingratitude. If the world 258has a spark of chivalry left in it, it will offer a most abject apology to its boots.

It would do a man a world of good, before putting on his boots, to have a good look at them. Let him set them in the middle of the hearthrug, the shining toes turned carefully towards him, and then let him lean forward in his arm-chair, elbows on knees and head on hands, and let him fasten on those boots of his a contrite and respectful gaze. And looking at his boots thus attentively and carefully he will see what he has never seen before. He will see that a pair of boots is one of the master achievements of civilization. A pair of boots is one of the wonders of the world, a most cunning and ingenious contrivance. Dan Crawford, in Thinking Black, tells us that nothing about Livingstone’s equipment impressed the African mind so profoundly as the boots he wore. ‘Even to this remote day,’ Mr. Crawford says, ‘all around Lake Mweru they sing a “Livingstone” song to commemorate that great “path-borer,” the good Doctor being such a federal head of his race that he is known far and near as Ingeresa, or “The Englishman.” And this is his memorial song:
Ingeresa, who slept on the waves,
Welcome him, for he hath no toes!
Welcome him, for he hath no toes!

259That is to say, revelling in paradox as the negro does, he seized on the facetious fact that this wandering Livingstone, albeit he travelled so far, had no toes—that is to say, had boots, if you please!’ Later on, Mr. Crawford remarks again that the barefooted native never ceases to wonder at the white man’s boots. To him they are a marvel and a portent, for, instead of thinking of the boot as merely covering the foot that wears it, his idea is that those few inches of shoe carpet the whole forest with leather. He puts on his boots, and, by doing so, he spreads a gigantic runner of linoleum across the whole continent of Africa. Here is a philosophical way of looking at a pair of boots! It has made my own boots look differently ever since I read it. Why, these boots on the hearthrug, looking so reproachfully up at me, are millions of times bigger than they seem! They look to my poor distorted vision like a few inches of leather; but as a matter of fact they represent hundreds of miles of leathern matting. They make a runner paving the path from my quiet study to the front doors of all my people’s homes; they render comfortable and attractive all the highways and byways along which duty calls me. Looked at through a pair of African eyes, these British boots assume marvellous proportions. They are touched by magic and are wondrously transformed. From being 260contemptible, they now appear positively continental. I am surprised that the subject has never appealed to me before.

Now this African way of looking at a pair of boots promises us a key to a phrase in the New Testament that has always seemed to me like a locked casket. John Bunyan tells us that when the sisters of the Palace Beautiful led Christian to the armoury he saw such a bewildering abundance of boots as surely no other man ever beheld before or since! They were shoes that would never wear out; and there were enough of them, he says, to harness out as many men for the service of their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for multitude. Bunyan’s prodigious stock of shoes is, of course, an allusion to Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesian Christians concerning the armour with which he would have them to be clad. ‘Take unto you the whole armour of God ... and your feet shod with the pre............