y, the Prussian bureaucracy, and the Junker Army,
and the Prussian structure crumbles to pieces.

Nature has been niggardly to Prussia. Everything has had to be made
with the hands of man. Brandenburg, Pomerania, Western and Eastern
Prussia are dreary wastes; Berlin is an oasis of brick and stone
amidst a Sahara of sand. The provinces of old Prussia have few
industrial resources. The very soil had to be made by intensive
agricultural methods. The very population had to be imported. Modern
Prussia is neither the gift of Nature nor the outcome of history. It
is the triumph of human statecraft. It is the achievement of the
"will to power." When that "will to power" relaxes the Prussian State
collapses.

VI.--THE PRUSSIAN STATE IS NOT A GERMAN STATE.

The modern Holy German Empire is born of the unholy nuptials of the
German people with the Prussian State. But the paradox is that the
Prussian State, which claims the right to rule the German States, who
themselves assert their right to rule over Europe, cannot even pretend
to be German. The contrast between the German and the Prussian has
often been pointed out.

The Southern and Western German is still to-day, as he was in the days
of Madame de Stael, artistic and poetic, brilliant and imaginative--a
lover of song and music. The Prussian remains as he has always been,
inartistic, dull, and unromantic. Prussia has not produced one of the
great composers who are the pride of the German race; and Berlin, with
all its wealth and its two million inhabitants, strikes the foreigner
as one of the most commonplace capitals of the civilized world. The
Southern and Western German is gay and genial, courteous and
expansive; the Prussian is sullen, reserved, and aggressive. The
Southern and Western German is sentimental and generous; the Prussian
is sour and dour, and only believes in hard fact. The Southern and
Western German is an idealist; the Prussian is a realist and a
materialist, a stern rationalist, who always keeps his eye on the main
chance. The Southern and Western German is independent almost to the
verge of anarchism; he has a strong individuality; his patriotism is
municipal and parochial; he is attached to his little city, to its
peculiarities and local customs; the Prussian is imitative, docile,
and disciplined; his patriotism is not the sentimental love of the
native city, but the abstract loyalty to the State. The Southern and
Western German is proud of his roma