Against this preposterous Prussian upstart we
have not only to protect our unity; we have even to protect our quarrels.
And the deepest of the reactions or revolts of which I have spoken is the
quarrel which (very tragically as I think) has for some hundred years
cloven the Christian from the Liberal ideal. It would ill become me, in
whose country there is neither such clear doctrine nor such combative
democracy, to suppose it can be easy for any of you to close up such sacred
wounds. There must still be Catholics who feel they can never forgive a
Jacobin. There must still be old Republicans who feel that they could never
endure a priest. And yet there is something, the mere sight of which should
lock them both in an instant alliance. They have only to look northward and
hold the third thing, which thinks itself superior to either: the enormous
turnip-face of _ce type la_, as the French say, who conceives that he can
make them both like himself and yet remain superior to both.
I implore you to keep out of the hands of this Fool the quarrel of the
great saints and of the great blasphemers. He will do to religion what he
will do to art; mix up all the colours on your palette into the colour of
mud: and then say that only the purified eyes of Teutons can see that it is
pure white.
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