He aimed at nothing but
Germany, Germany emphasised, indurated, enlarged; Germany and his class
in Germany; beyond that he had no ideas, he was inaccessible to ideas;
his mind never rose for a recorded instant above a bumpkin's elaborate
cunning. And he was the most influential man in the world, in the whole
world, no man ever left so deep a mark on it, because everywhere there
were gross men to resonate to the heavy notes he emitted. He trampled on
ten thousand lovely things, and a kind of malice in these louts made
it pleasant to them to see him trample. No--he was no child; the dull,
national aggressiveness he stood for, no childishness. Childhood is
promise. He was survival.
'All Europe offered its children to him, it sacrificed education, art,
happiness and all its hopes of future welfare to follow the clatter of
his sabre. The monstrous worship of that old fool's "blood and iron"
passed all round the earth. Until the atomic bombs burnt our way to
freedom again. . . .'
'One thinks of him now as one thinks of the megatherium,' said one of
the young men.
'From first to last mankind made three million big guns and a hundred
thousand complicated great ships for no other purpose but war.'
'Were there no sane men in those days,' asked the young man, 'to stand
against that idolatry?'
'In a state of despair,' said Edith Haydon.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266