is not responsible for my views or Wagner's, and
that it is as an artist and a man of letters, and not as a propagandist,
that he is conveying to the German speaking peoples political criticisms
which occasionally reflect on contemporary authorities with a European
reputation for sensitiveness. And as the very sympathy which makes his
translations so excellent may be regarded with suspicion, let me hasten
to declare I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my nature most
strongly. Not that I like the average German: nobody does, even in his
own country. But then the average man is not popular anywhere; and as
no German considers himself an average one, each reader will, as an
exceptional man, sympathize with my dislike of the common herd. And if
I cannot love the typical modern German, I can at least pity and
understand him. His worst fault is that he cannot see that it is
possible to have too much of a good thing. Being convinced that duty,
industry, education, loyalty, patriotism and respectability are
good things (and I am magnanimous enough to admit that they are not
altogether bad things when taken in strict moderation at the right
time and in the right place), he indulges in them on all occasions
shamelessly and excessively. He commits hideous crimes when crime is
presented to him as part of his duty; his craze for work is more ruinous
than the craze for drink; when he can afford secondary education for his
sons you find three out of every five of them with their minds lamed
for life by examinations which only a thoroughly wooden head could go
through with impunity; and if a king is patriotic and respectable (few
kings are) he puts up statues to him and exalts him above Charlemagne
and Henry the Fowler. And when he meets a man of genius, he
instinctively insults him, starves him, and, if possible, imprisons and
kills him.

Now I do not pretend to be perfect myself. Heaven knows I have to
struggle hard enough every day with what the Germans call my
higher impulses. I know too well the temptation to be moral, to be
self-sacrificing, to be loyal and patriotic, to be respectable and
well-spoken of. But I wrestle with it and--as far as human fraility will
allow--conquer it, whereas the German abandons himself to it without
scruple or reflection, and is actually proud of his pious intemperance
and self-indulgence. Nothing will cure him of this mania. It may end
in starvation, crushing taxation, suppression of all fre