And the non-Germanic world--the Latin world, for it _is_ a Latin world in
varying degrees of saturation outside of Germany--rejects the theory and
the practice with loathing--when it sees what it means.

* * * * *

What makes for the happiness of a nation? I asked myself in the mellow
silence of ancient Rome. Is it true that economic conquest makes for
strength, happiness, survival for the nation or for the individual?

This Italy has always been poor, at least within modern memory--a literal,
actual poverty when often there has not been enough to eat in the family
pot to go around. She has had a difficult time in the economic race for
bread and butter for her children. There is neither sufficient land easily
cultivable nor manufacturing resources to make her rich, to support her
growing population according to the modern standards of comfort. The
Germans despise the Italians for their little having.

Yet the Italian peasant--man, woman, or child--is a strong human being,
inured to meager living and hardship, loving the soil from which he digs
his living with an intense, fiery love. And poverty has not killed the
joy of living in the Italian. Far from it! In spite of the exceedingly
laborious lives which the majority lead, the privations in food, clothing,
housing, the narrowness,--in the modern view,--of their lives, no one
could consider the Italian people unhappy. Their characters, like their
hillside farms, are the result of an intensive cultivation--of making
the most out of very little naturally given.

A healthy, high-tempered, vital people these, not to be despised in the
_kaiserliche_ fashion even as soldiers. Surely not as human beings, as a