Their father had belonged to a type that was more prominent
in Germany fifty years ago than now. He was not the
aggressive German, so dear to the English journalist, nor
the domestic German, so dear to the English wit. If one
classed him at all it would be as the countryman of Hegel
and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be dreamy, whose
Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. Not that his
life had been inactive. He had fought like blazes against
Denmark, Austria, France. But he had fought without
visualizing the results of victory. A hint of the truth
broke on him after Sedan, when he saw the dyed moustaches of
Napoleon going grey; another when he entered Paris, and saw
the smashed windows of the Tuileries. Peace came--it was
all very immense, one had turned into an Empire--but he knew
that some quality had vanished for which not all
Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him. Germany a commercial
Power, Germany a naval Power, Germany with colonies here and
a Forward Policy there, and legitimate aspirations in the
other place, might appeal to others, and be fitly served by
them; for his own part, he abstained from the fruits of
victory, and naturalized himself in England. The more
earnest members of his family never forgave him, and knew
that his children, though scarcely English of the dreadful
sort, would never be German to the backbone. He had
obtained work in one of our provincial Universities, and
there married Poor Emily (or Die Englanderin as the case may
be), and as she had money, they proceeded to London, and
came to know a good many people. But his gaze was always
fixed beyond the sea. It was his hope that the clouds of
materialism obscuring the Fatherland would part in time, and