There is a sort of poetry about this--a new sort of poetry about a new
sort of war. And it might possibly be proved that such poetry could
only come from a people so bred to arms that they do not shrink, even in
imagination, from the uses to which arms must be put--a people in love
with war, having a mystical feeling for its instruments, such as their
remote ancestors had for their battle-axes and double-edged swords.

I shall not attempt to do this--heaven preserve Americans from being
judged by their musical comedies !--and doubtless the children even of
our most devoted advocates of universal peace have played with lead
cannon and toy soldiers. I merely speak of it, this curious mixture of
refinement and brutality, as something which, it struck me, we
Americans--who always do everything exactly right--would not have
thought of doing in just that way.

Many of the ways of this people are not our ways. You have heard, let
us say, of the German parade step, sometimes laughed at as the "goose
step" in England and at home. I was lunching the other day with an
American military observer, and he spoke of the parade step and the
effect it had on him.

"Did you ever see it?" he demanded. "Have you any idea of the moral
effect of that step? You see those men marching by, every muscle in
their bodies taut and tingling as steel wire, every eye on the Emperor,
and when they bring those feet down--bing! bang!--the physical fitness
it stands for, the unity, determination--why, it's the whole German
idea--nothing can stop 'em!"

"Did you ever see one of these soldiers salute?" Yes, I had seen