"Hatred of Popery is the beginning of union, and they both went up the line together."
CHAPTER XIII
THE CURE
"Le Schein et le Wesen sont, pour l'esprit allemand, une seule et même chose."—Jacques Rivière.
"The only decent whisky," said the doctor, "is Irish whisky." Whereupon he helped himself to a generous allowance of Scotch whisky, and as they had just been talking about Ludendorff's coming offensive, he began to discourse upon the Germans.
"One of the most astounding things about German psychology," he said, "is their passion for suggesting the appearance of results which they know they are powerless to attain. A German general who is not in a position to undertake a real offensive deludes himself into believing
that he will strike terror into his opponent by describing an absurd and appalling attack in his reports; and a Solingen cutler, if he cannot manufacture really sharp blades at the required price, will endeavour to invoke a sort of metaphysical blade which can give its owner the illusion of a useful instrument.
"When once this trait of the national character is properly understood, all the German shoddy which is so much talked about seems no longer the swindling practice of dishonest tradesmen, but is simply the material expression of their ingrained Kantianism, and their congenital inability to distinguish Appearance from Reality.
"At the sanatorium at Wiesdorf, where I was working when the war broke out, this method was practised with quite unusual rigour.
"Doctor Professor Baron von Göteburg was a second-rate scientist, and he knew
it. He had made a lifelong study of the expression, clothes and manners which would most successfully impress his clients with the idea that he was the great physician he knew he could never be.