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Updated: June 10, 2025
Since he attributed to me no sacro-sanctity, he was not officious or persistent in his attendance while he was on duty; in fact he left me very much to my own devices. To my mother he was polite but cold; he adored Victoria, declaring that she was worthy of being French; his great hatred was for Hammerfeldt, whom he accused of embodying the devil of Teutonism.
A great German war caused him to open his eyes, and he observed that those very Germans whom he considered so thoroughly degenerate and so inferior to the high standard of real Teutonism, of which he had formed an ideal both from self-knowledge and the conscientious study of other great Germans in history; he observed that those very Germans were, in the midst of terrible circumstances, exhibiting two virtues of the highest order simple bravery and prudence; and with his heart bounding with delight he conceived the hope that he might not be the last German, and that some day a greater power would perhaps stand by his works than that devoted yet meagre one consisting of his little band of friends a power able to guard it during that long period preceding its future glory, as the masterpiece of this future.
Professor Harnack and similar people are reproaching us, I understand, for having broken "the bond of Teutonism": a bond which the Prussians have strictly observed both in breach and observance. We note it in their open annexation of lands wholly inhabited by negroes, such as Denmark. We note it equally in their instant and joyful recognition of the flaxen hair and light blue eyes of the Turks.
"Do you know what my whole anxiety is, at this moment?" he asked. "I am afraid of Germany seizing the convenient opportunity, and attacking us in our rear. Your nation does not love ours; let us make no mistake about it. There was a time when Teutonism played a great role in our national life. But all that has changed since the days of Alexander the Third.
There certainly was a treaty binding Britain to Belgium, if it was only a scrap of paper. If there was any treaty binding Britain with Teutonism it is, to say the least of it, a lost scrap of paper almost what one might call a scrap of waste paper. Here again the pedants under consideration exhibit the illogical perversity that makes the brain reel.
He had a gentle or quiet conservative tenacity that so often comes with the inheritance of a moderate income. It at least gave him time to look things deliberately in the face. He had at first discounted heavily his old friend's pyrotechnic, cynical bill of complaints against the Teutons and Teutonism. It was diverting, salient, but therefore discouraging to credence.
And when the Germans get their first genuine glimpse of what modern England is like, they will discover that England has a very broken, belated and inadequate sense of having an obligation to Europe, but no sort of sense whatever of having any obligation to Teutonism. This is the last and strongest of the Prussian qualities we have here considered.
The building of the fleet, the Kiel Canal, and other details of maritime policy naturally made England very suspicious, while the steady drag towards the East rendered wholly unavoidable the conflict between Teutonism and the Slav races. Germany looked, undoubtedly, towards Asia Minor, and for this reason made great advances to and many professions of friendship for the Ottoman Empire.
A vague but genuine soul does possess all peoples who boast of Teutonism; and has possessed ourselves, in so far as we have been touched by that folly. Not a race, but rather a religion, the thing exists; and in 1870 its sun was at noon. We can most briefly describe it under three heads. The victory of the German arms meant before Leipzic, and means now, the overthrow of a certain idea.
But it is still the abstract principle of Prof. Harnack which interests me most, and in following it I have the same complexity of inquiry, but the same simplicity of result. Comparing the professor's concern about "Teutonism" with his unconcern about Belgium, I can only reach the following result: "A man need not keep a promise he has made. But a man must keep a promise he has not made."
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