Stuart Oliver Henry

“ Clad in armor and with a glistening sword in hand, Germania ought to scare men, and they are not taking the warning.
"But, Kirtley, it scares me. I feel—see—something awful coming. In the universal German hate, the national boundary stops any flow outward of sympathy, good faith, equity. All peoples outside are human insects whom it is proper for the Teuton to tread on if he can, crush the life out of, because they are in his pathway to glory." ”

“ It was a nest of blustering, pugnacious hornets which Kirtley poked up on the evening in question, by asking:
"How do you prove that the German Government is the best?"
The Herr, taking his knife from his mouth—the Teuton eats conspicuously with his knife—suddenly showed that he had evidently, in the presence of his American guest, long held himself in on this subject with ill-feelings that clamored to be let loose.
"Prove it? Prove it?" he hoarsely exclaimed. "It needs no proof. Everybody knows it. Could we have the greatest people without the best Government? ”

“ Every little German box of goods has a big gun behind it. Of course we don't need to use the gun—yet—because people are crying for our manufactures all over the world. If we had occupied your big and half-developed country in your place, we would have long ago been the only great State. There would have been no others. We would have annihilated them if they were not willing to become German provinces."
Rudi took a long pull at his cigarette, with his elbows outspread like the haughty wings of the Prussian eagles of war. ”

“ When you have the German statesmen, generals, magnates, press, professors, theologians, everybody, insisting on the incomparable virtues of the Germans and never on their failings—on their rights and privileges and never on their duties to humanity—do you wonder that the plain people, like your Buchers, think it devolves upon them to turn foreign lands into waste by the sword in order [172] to convert them into German countries? It is hard to find in any German publication a frank and commending acknowledgment that a foreigner has really completed anything to his credit. ”

“ Every well-regulated German family should have a spy in it."
"What for?" queried Kirtley in surprise.
"Why, for the Kaiser, of course. Who else? The Teutons call him euphemistically the Government. But without Wilhelm there wouldn't be any German Government."
"Why should he want spies in his own German families?" interrogated Gard innocently.
"Didn't every medieval feudal lord keep close tab on his subjects—the people he owned? The Kaiser wants to know of any signs of disloyalty. If a household harbors any foreigners, as your family is doing, he wants to know what they are up to." ”

“ This conscienceless dullness, or immense hollowness, in the Teuton people always suggests to me an eggshell encased in the pomp of steel. Should they be defeated, I feel that the nation may cave in tremendously, horribly. How can it be otherwise with a race that never sees anything foolish in itself, and exaggerates the core of its costly army and bureaucracy at the expense of the kernel? ”

“ Our Government is always the same unit and to be relied on. If new policies are begun, it is there to carry them through to their logical end, even if it takes a generation or longer. You have always new statesmen with new ideas. We no sooner learn to know of one of your politicians than he is dropped and we must read about another in control. How does that make for any well-considered and thoroughly demonstrated plans? Would it not be the natural result that the German people are completely contented and the American people are always discontented? ”

“ But the revelation about the Buchers! That was the finishing blow. "Dastards!" Gard hurled out the word. It was not only Rudi but his parents who had followed his leadership. The son's surprising concern over the passport, their insistence on seeing about his route and his ticket, Rudi's persistence about suggestions for carrying the document—all was now plain. It must be that war was coming and Rudi knew it.
Dastards! To betray their guest, to cause him to go through this miserable experience, endanger his health when he had lately been in a sick bed! ”

“ Take away its knightliness of bearing, spirit of self-sacrifice, exhibition of pluck though defeat is certain, and what have you left to sport about? It merely becomes a question of brute force—overwhelming force. You have cruelty left as a net result. And that's a large part of German conduct—cruelty to underlings or to those who are feebler or caught at an unfair disadvantage. Having no leaven of sports is one thing that makes the German life seem so heavy, ominous, brutal, to us. ”

“ Yoking up with a Yankee would be a most natural and fitting state in which to negotiate the Atlantic.
As the Bucher wall was too high for her to hang over in her languishing ardors, she hung over her gate to offer a book or a tiger lily to Gard as he passed. Several times when the pachydermatous Tekla banged her way upstairs with an armful of utensils in her work, a bouncing compote or other unabashed delicacy would be tumbling about on a dustpan or a slop basin, bound for the attic room by the linden tree. ”

“ Nearly every human discovery, invention, improvement, was somehow traced to a Teuton origin. Even characteristic German vices were held to be better than many virtues in other lands.
The young person grew up to believe that the Rhine was the finest of rivers, the mountains of the Fatherland were the most celebrated in song and story, its lakes the most picturesque, its soil the best tilled. He was properly stuffed with the indomitable conviction, the aggressive obsession, that the fittest civilization must prevail. ”

“ But the greatest thing, to the old professor's mind, would be to behold the German people themselves, study them, profit by them in their preëminence. What an example, what an inspiration, what a grand symphony of concentrated harmony! Germany was the source of Protestantism and therefore of modern morals—honest, uncompromising morals. German discipline would have a bracing, solidifying effect on a typically casual, slack American youth like Gard, whose latent capabilities were never likely to be fully called upon in the comparatively hit-and-miss organization of Yankee life. ”

“ It does not seem to be for any of the reasons that inspire an American household. And yet it is here, in this house, in every room, behind every chair at table, night and morning. It's bigger than anything we find in our Yankee life because it's beyond and higher than mere individuality. It makes the Buchers satisfied and still is something that has fearfulness lurking about it. ”

“ America is like a big pig pen where everybody is wallowing over everybody for money—just for money."
"And Germany," added her elder son, "is just waiting till the United States gets money enough, then we go in with our navy and our army and take it all."
Gard wanted to see how far they would go, and he had seen. Was this the old barbarian of the north risen to earth again, his rude garments of hide torn off, exposing him in his pristine, fighting nakedness? Where was the German under it all—the German who was taken to be civilized in heart and spirit as other men are? ”

“ As for us Americans the habitual changes of location of the household, the separation of the parents for reasons of business, travel, or inharmonious temperaments, the resultant ever-growing crop of divorces, the frequent living apart of the children, both from fathers and mothers and from the home, the loose family ties and ignoring of kin who are not of the most immediate relationship—how far is all this from the steady, compact, solid, unanxious and unthreatened examples of Villa Elsa and German households in general! ”

“ It was not long before Gard was saying to himself that if [127] Americans could be made to realize the status of womankind in Deutschland, they would not be so lured by the idea of sending their young folk thither for education. There would be a marked decline in their generous enthusiasm for all things German. In what civilized land does woman lead less in lofty, sublimated power or put a fainter stamp on the talents of the race? German art, music, poetry, language, politics, education, all are distinctively masculine. ”

“ The dust and streams of perspiration began to affect everyone, but the music and revolving exertions grew more rapid and vigorous as the hours advanced. Beetles and bugs sailed through the air along with the familiar German odors that greeted Kirtley's nostrils. Everyone became freer. Enjoyment ran higher. Men shed their coats and women made themselves equally comfortable. It was beer, beer, beer.
When Fritzi had seen that her Herr was not to take part, she began to behave toward him with a more bluff unconventionality. She made him acquainted with all her partners and girl friends. ”

“ Tactless, boisterous youngsters blurt out the disagreeable sentiments of a household. The Buchers had acted like children. Laying aside all question of the wonderful German trained mind, knowledge, efficiency, Gard observed so much that was boy-like and girl-like in the adult Teuton life. No country has such a wealth of toys and juvenile story books as Germany. ”

“ They would learn more chivalry toward women and children, the beautiful significance of humanity and of universal brotherhood. They would learn that what they call weakness desirably lends delicacy, tenderness, spiritual and moral loveliness to existence which the coarse bigness and bow-wowness of the German ideal itself will never attain....
When March came, and the birds flew back to find no trees, no grass, no flowers, Gard Kirtley, in his spring-time of life, stepped out from his dugout in Flanders with a gun, and faced the Huns of the northeast. ”

“ Gard concluded that the roughness of the Bucher family life mortified her. It was often well-nigh outlandish. How could she have so ardently studied the beautiful in music and colors without realizing this?
But he had not been long enough in Germany to be advised that knowledge is not [63] expected there to enter into the inner life. What one is has little in common with what one knows or can dexterously do. Study does not pass into character. The German, with all his acquirements, does not look for moral or esthetic effect upon the heart or soul. ”

“ CHAPTER XI German Ways
HAD the Buchers ever known an American before you came?" Anderson interrupted himself.
"No."
"How do you think they like you?"
"I guess if I dropped out of their lives, I would not create much of a splash."
"You'll find they hate you. Hate is the German religion. The Germans can hate people they've never known, never seen. They hate on principle and without principle. Of course it's the proper precursor for their programme of conquering the world. ”

“ Courtship in the form of natural little raptures that disport in and beautify enamored companionship in youth, the pure, unfettered, mystic attraction between the sexes in blossoming time, are practically unknown to the German social life. The full gloss of fancy, the velveting of manners, the felicitous fabrication of innocent emotions into a blessed garment of many colors, find their development outside the domain of Thor. ”

“ If Germany once broke, it would collapse somewhat like an eggshell. It would be a formidable eggshell but with a content surprisingly void.
In a sentence, the mighty German bureaucracy kept the population from thinking. It meant—Obey and make no inquiry! And [208] where in history, Gard asked himself, has a nation of such political and body slaves endured as against nations where the common individual was free to ask questions? Slavery in any important form is acknowledged to be an outworn, decadent economic policy. It cannot compete in the long run. ”

“ One afternoon they were eating some of [284] the big German cherries, and the fragrance of Herr Bucher's rose garden below was engaged in balmy conflict with the odors of cigars.
"Well, what is the solution about the German people?" Gard propounded. "What's to be done with them? Here they are, industrious as bees and as fully armed with stings. Will a war cure anything? Even if defeated, won't they be the same people? Won't they present the same problem? Won't they present the same menace to what we consider as the best and most desirable types of civilization?" ”

“ There would be plenty of talking and smoking and plying of needles as the moonlight or river lights danced forth to guide the active river traffic and also the large inflowings and outflowings of restaurant guests. And all to the bracing music of a capital orchestra reeling off jubilant marches and waltzes.
These were good times when the German was to be observed under the most favorable colors. After Tekla's little tragedy snatched her away from Villa Elsa, as will soon be seen, this dining out became the regular event of the day. ”

“ BALLS and dancing are a notable expression of life and character in Germany. The Teuton has a passion for them. In what country are they so institutional? The German dance music is on the whole by far the best any land has composed. The waltzes are fine productions of the race. They are not enemic, lascivious or empty of meaning. They are noble, wholesome and full-throbbing with the pounding blood of men and women.
German balls are most varied in kind, responding to the complete scale of existence from high to low. ”

“ Every such German knows how to do at least one thing as well as and usually better than anyone else.
"This is one big reason why Germany is pushing ahead of every nation in the industrial world and one reason why I fear her. No matter what she wants to do, she has an abundance of efficient brain and muscle right at hand with which to do it well and at once. In our great United States the lack of this is the bane of American industry and development, and causes such immense and continual loss in time and money because of our having to deal with such a mass of inexperienced young workmen. ”

“ Kirtley, who had stared at his new friend in this solemnity, turned a serious face toward the clawlike branches of his linden in its gauntness of late autumn-tide. This meaning of the animus that was impelling his odd and yet so normal German household, he began to see, was substantiated by a score of acts and attitudes in its daily life. ”