The Prussian will allow you to praise him for
any reasons, for any length of time, for any eternity of folly; he is there
to be praised. Probably he is proud of this; probably he thinks he has a
good digestion, because the poison of praise does not make him sick. He
thinks the absence of such doubt, or self-knowledge, makes for composure,
grandeur, a colossal calm, a superior race--in short, the whole claim of
the Teutons to be the highest spiritual product of Nature and Evolution.
But as I have noticed a calm unity even more complete, not only in dogs and
negroes, but in slugs, slow-worms, mangoldwurzels, moss, mud and bits of
stone, I am a sceptic about this test for the marshalling in rank of all
the children of God. Now I point this out to you here for a very practical
reason. The Prussian will never understand revolutions--which are
generally reactions. He regards them, not only with dislike, but with a
mysterious kind of pity. Throughout his confused popular histories, there
runs a strange suggestion that civic populations have failed hitherto, and
failed because they were always fighting. The population of Berlin does not
fight, or can't; and therefore Berlin will succeed where Greece and Rome
have failed.
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