great industry, in many ships, armies and numerous universities that
only teach science. That is material civilization. There is another, a
superior one, that elevates the soul and does not permit human dignity
to suffer without protesting against continual humiliations. A Swiss
living in his wooden chalet and considering himself the equal of the
other men of his country, is more civilized than the Herr Professor who
gives precedence to a lieutenant, or to a Hamburg millionaire who, in
turn, bends his neck like a lackey before those whose names are prefixed
by a von."

Here the Spaniard assented as though he could guess what Tchernoff was
going to say.

"We Russians endure great tyranny. I know something about that. I know
the hunger and cold of Siberia. . . . But opposed to our tyranny
has always existed a revolutionary protest. Part of the nation is
half-barbarian, but the rest has a superior mentality, a lofty moral
spirit which faces danger and sacrifice because of liberty and truth.
. . . And Germany? Who there has ever raised a protest in order to defend
human rights? What revolutions have ever broken out in Prussia, the land
of the great despots?

"Frederick William, the founder of militarism, when he was tired of
beating his wife and spitting in his children's plates, used to sally
forth, thong in hand, in order to cowhide those subjects who did not get
out of his way in time. His son, Frederick the Great, declared that he
died, bored to death with governing a nation of slaves. In two centuries
of Prussian history, one single revolution--the barricades of 1848--a
bad Berlinish copy of the Paris revolution, and without any result.
Bismarck corrected with a heavy hand so as to crush completely the last