immeasurable dreariness. They lay down rules for life, and if they be
asked what makes such a life worth living they are without any hint of
an answer. Their world is a workhouse, tyrannically ordered, and full of
pusillanimous jealousies.

It is not impious to be hopeful. A Germanized world would be a
nightmare. We have never attempted or desired to govern them, and we
must not think that God will so far forget them as to permit them to
attempt to govern us. Now they hate us, but they do not know for how
many years the cheerful brutality of their political talk has shocked
and disgusted us. I remember meeting, in one of the French Mediterranean
dependencies, with a Prussian nobleman, a well-bred and pleasant man,
who was fond of expounding the Prussian creed. He was said to be a
political agent of sorts, but he certainly learned nothing in
conversation. He talked all the time, and propounded the most monstrous
paradoxes with an air of mathematical precision. Now it was the
character of Sir Edward Grey, a cunning Machiavel, whose only aim was to
set Europe by the ears and make neighbours fall out. A friend who was
with me, an American, laughed aloud at this, and protested, without
producing the smallest effect. The stream of talk went on. The error of
the Germans, we were told, was always that they are too humane; their
dislike of cruelty amounts to a weakness in them. They let France escape
with a paltry fine, next time France must be beaten to the dust. Always
with a pleasant outward courtesy, he passed on to England. England was
decadent and powerless, her rule must pass to the Germans. 'But we shall
treat England rather less severely than France,' said this bland apostle
of Prussian culture, 'for we wish to make it possible for ourselves to
remain in friendly relations with other English-speaking peoples.' And
so on--the whole of the Bernhardi doctrine, explained in quiet fashion
by a man whose very debility of mind made his talk the more impressive,