military discipline, might not that be an even better thing? For a time wistfulness, longing, and the feeling of Titanic loneliness and of a world to be evoked and snuffed out like a dream, seemed to fill the cup of intense living, and the greatest and happiest of Germans could cry—
- Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
weiss, was ich leide,
allein und abgetrennt
von aller Freude.
- Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
But presently true intensity of life appeared to lie rather in being a victorious general, or an ironmaster, or a commercial traveller, or a reveller in the Friedrichstrasse, or a spy and conspirator anywhere in the world.
All these turbid and nondescript ambitions are in a sense artificial; the Germans accept them now as a thousand years ago they accepted Christianity, because such things are suddenly thrust upon them. By nature they are simple, honest, kindly, easily pleased. There is no latent irony or disbelief in their souls. The pleasures of sense, plain and copious, they enjoy hugely, long labour does not exasperate them, science fills them with satisfaction, music entrances them. There ought to be no happier or more innocent nation in this world. Unfortunately their very goodness and simplicity render them helpless; they are what they are dragooned to be. There is no social or intellectual disease to which, in spots,
