(And though the world were full of devils, we should succeed in spite of them.) Even a scholar of the distinction of Ulrich v. Wilamowitz-Möllendorf, though he avoids the Geibel tag, ends one of his orations by quoting "Deutschland über Alles." Imagine Sir Walter Raleigh or Prof. Gilbert Murray winding up an address with a selection from "Rule, Britannia"!
One English quotation occurs as often as any, except the ubiquitous "Wesen-genesen." It is "My country, right or wrong," invariably quoted in the form, "Right or wrong, my country." This is supposed to be the shockingly immoral watchword of British patriotism. It matters nothing to the German pamphleteer that the maxim is American, and that it is never quoted in England—nor, I believe, in the country of its origin—except in a spirit of irony.
And in the face of this deadly uniformity of sentiments, phraseology, and quotations, Professor Lasson has the audacity to assure us that "The German is personally independent. He wants to judge for himself. It is not so easy for him as for others blindly to follow this or that catchword!"
We are all, I suppose, unconscious of our own foibles, but I wonder whether we are all so apt as the Germans to deny them (and very likely attribute them to other people) while in the very act of exemplifying them. For example, it is firmly fixed in the German mind that the English consider themselves God's Chosen People, predestined to the empire of the world. I have collected numerous instances of this allegation (Nos. 453-466), but not a single one which is substantiated by a quotation from an English writer. It is, I am convinced, impossible to bring evidence for it, unless some expressions to this effect may be found in the writings of persons who believe that the English are descended from the lost Ten Tribes—persons who are about as representative of the English nation as those who believe that the earth is flat. The English mind, indeed, is but little inclined to this primitive form of theism. The German mind, on the other hand, is curiously addicted to it, and I have brought together a number of instances (Nos. 117-135) in which German writers make the very claim to Divine calling and election which they falsely attribute to the English, and denounce as insanely presumptuous.[3] So, too, with egoism. The Germans do not actually consider themselves free from egoism; on the contrary, they are rather given to boasting of it (Nos. 212, 213, 248, 300); but while it is a virtue in them, it is a very repulsive vice in the English. As for cant, which is, of course, the commonest charge against the English, one can only say that, when the German gives his mind to it, he proves himself an accomplished master of the art (Nos. 47, 55, 79, 89, 94, 104, 237, 423). Here is an example, from a book about Germany by a German-Austrian,[4] which scarcely comes within the scope of my anthology, but it is too characteristic to be lost. "If you want," says the writer, in italics, "thoroughly to understand the German, you must compare the German sportsman with the hunters of other countries. Then a sacred thrill (heiliger Schauer) of deep understanding will come over your heart." For the German sportsman "takes more pleasure in the life that surrounds him and which he protects, than in the shot which only the last hot virile craving (Mannesgier) wrings from him, and which he fires only when he knows that he will kill, painlessly kill. For this is the root principle of German sportsmanship: 'God grant me one day such an end as I strive to bestow upon the game.' ... And if, by mischance, the German sportsman wounds without killing a head of game, he suffers with it, and does not sleep or rest till he has put it out of its misery." If this be not very nauseous cant, where shall we seek for it?
Another curious German characteristic is the idea that, however truculent and menacing a writer's expressions may be, other people do him and his country a wicked injustice if they take him at his word. A good instance of this occurs in "Ein starkes Volk—Ein starkes Heer," by Kurd v. Strantz, published in 1914, shortly before the war. This writer quotes (or rather misquotes) with enthusiasm from Goethe:—
Du musst steigen und gewinnen,
Du musst siegend triumphieren
Oder deinend unterliegen,
Amboss oder Hammer sein.[5]
Next he proceeds to quote from Felix Dahn:—
Seitdem ist's freudig Germanenrecht
Mit dem Hammer Land zu erwerben.
Wir sind von des Hammergottes Geschlecht,
[19] Und wollen sein Weltreich erben.[6]
Then, on the same page, only four lines lower down, he remarks plaintively:—"Foreign, and especially French, diplomacy is now industriously spreading the calumny that the German Government and the German people are given to rattling the sabre, and that we want to use for aggressive ends the increased armament which has been forced upon us." Is it mere hostile prejudice to hold that his own poetical selections give a certain colour to the "calumny"?
Most of the German attacks on England will be found, in the last analysis, to rest on this quaint habit of mind—the habit of assuming that, no matter how hostile and threatening Germany's words and deeds might be, we had no right to do her the injustice of supposing that she meant anything by them. We ought to have known that she was merely "dissembling her love."