Gems (?) of German Thought

Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.

Thor stood at the midnight end of the world, His battle-mace flew from his hand: So far as my clangorous hammer I've hurled Mine are the sea and the land! And onward hurtled the mighty sledge O'er the wide, wide earth, to fall At last on the Southland's furthest edge In token that His was all. Since then 'tis the joyous German right With the hammer lands to win. We mean to inherit world-wide might As the Hammer-God's kith and kin. Felix Dahn (1878).





In accordance with classic precedent, this anthology ought to have consisted of 1,001 Gems of German Thought, I have been content with half that number, not—heaven knows!—for any lack of material, but simply for lack of time and energy to make the ingathering. After all, enough is as good as a feast, and I think that the evidence as to the dominant characteristics of German mentality is tolerably complete as it stands.
Though I hope it is fairly representative, the collection does not pretend to be systematic. I have cast no sweeping drag-net, but have simply dipped almost at random into the wide ocean of German thought. Some of my most precious finds I have come upon by pure chance; and by pure chance, too, I have no doubt missed many others. Some books that I should have liked to examine have not been accessible to me; and there must be many of which I have never heard. On the other hand, the list of books from which my gems have been selected by no means indicates the extent of my reading—or skimming. I have gone through many books and pamphlets which furnished no quotable extracts, but none that diverged in tone from the rest, or marred the majestic unison of German self-laudation and contempt for the rest of the world. I have read of (but not seen) a book by one F.W. Förster which is said to contain a protest against theoretic war-worship, and even a mild defence of England. How very mild it is we may judge from this sentence: England has given us not only men like Lord Grey, scoundrels and hypocrites, who have this war upon their conscience; it has also given us the Salvation Army, etc., etc.