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At present one wonders how it is possible that one once sat entranced through performances of "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tannhäuser." "Lohengrin" begins to seem a little brutal, strangely Prussian lieutenant with its militaristic trumpets, its abuse of the brass.
The reason seems to be that countries which are rich tend to become not militaristic and aggressive, but effeminate and pacific. The access of luxury, the refinements of living that the useful and the delightful arts produce, and the influence of women, tend to wean men from the hardships of military life, and to engender a distaste for the confusion, bloodshed, and "horrors" of war.
Colonel Storrs is the very last man to be called militaristic in the narrow sense; he is a particularly liberal and enlightened type of the sort of English gentleman who readily served his country in war, but who is rather particularly fitted to serve her in politics or literature.
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