They have failed in popular persuasion.
They have had a very good opportunity. The British Empire does contain many
people who have been badly treated in various ways: the Irish, the Boers;
nay, the Americans themselves, whose national existence began with being
badly treated. With these the Prussians have done comparatively little; and
with Europeans of your sort nothing. They have never once really
sympathised with the feeling of a Switzer for Switzerland; the feeling of a
Norwegian for Norway; the feeling of a Tuscan for Tuscany. Even when
nations are neutral, Prussia can hardly bear them to be patriotic. Even
when they are courting every one else they can praise no one but
themselves. They fail in diplomacy, they fail in debate, they fail even in
demagogy. They have stupid plots, stupid explanations, and even stupid
apologies. But there is one thing they really do not fail in. They do not
fail in finding people stupid enough to carry them out.
Now, it is this question I would ask you to consider; you, as a good middle
type of the Latins, a Liberal but a Catholic, an artist but a soldier. The
danger to the whole civilisation of which Rome was the fountain lies in
this.
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