"If German morals and religion have little necessary relation—little actual relation—how about love?"
"The German would never have known of love if he had not heard it talked of," replied Anderson with responsive geniality, pleased with Kirtley's amused face. "Generally an excess of a moral religion destroys love, just as the absence of it in the past has been apt to go with an indecent and widespread sensuality. So we have, what is called, the beastliness in the Teuton. For he has to go, as you know, to an extreme in things—logical extreme. This is why he is only partly human, from our standpoint. The human is so constructed that he can't stand excess in any direction very long and remain human. Everything has to be diluted, alloyed, temporized for him or it is not bearable—it will not work successfully.
"We see this in medicine—conspicuously. Medicines pure from the hands of Mother Nature are too strong, too rank in their purity, to be properly effective. They have to be weakened, reduced, compounded with inferior elements, to be of service. So with Truth. People are always begging for Truth, seeking the ultimate Truth, as if that would bring the perfect state of happiness. This is childlike ignorance. Truth in its pure, perfect condition would simply kill them—like unadulterated drugs. They could not stand its blinding light. They could not stand the shock. Like the rest—to change the metaphor—it has to be made up so largely of shoddy to wear well or wear at all.
"Love, the same way. When the world talks of love so much, it means only friendliness—you like me and I like you—you do something kind for me and I will do something kind for you. Love in its alloyed form of friendship is its efficacious shape for universal use. Pure love, which poor humanity is always reaching out its hands for, simply—as George Sand said—simply tears people to pieces without doing them any good. The result is tragedy, despair, wrecked lives, death before one's time. We see that everywhere depicted in fiction, in the drama, at the opera.
"So the German has kept love in a practical state—for him—by associating it so prominently with his procreative capacities. It is a case of Mars and Venus producing fighting men."
"If the German is not governed by love as an ideal," put in Gard, "how is it then that he is so sentimental? People always assure us that Fritz must be really at bottom as affectionate, tender, emotional, as anyone because he is so sentimental."
"Yes, that's the old conundrum that the enthusiasts over everything German confuse one with. The German's fondness—gobbling-down fondness—for food does not prove that he is a gourmet. The Teuton sentimentality is like mush. It's principally for children. As Fritz keeps a good deal of his childishness about him as he grows up, he keeps this taste for mush. It takes the place of sentiment which is of the proper mental pabulum for enlightened adults. You can't write poetry about mush. So the Germans have little poetry worth talking about. Where their emotional side ought to be, they are slightly developed beyond the youthful stage of sentimentalism. Their abortive conception of love, their treatment of their women and children—other things—all account for this naturally enough. One is rather forced, in spite of himself, to take the Germans at either of two extremes in order to understand them candidly—mushiness or iron."