out morbidly from
the eye-gate of the soul. Thus R----, whose fine work on Central Asia
was published gratis by some learned society in England before the war,
says, "I will renounce my German nationality and become English as soon
as your Home Office will let me. Germany is going to be no place for
men of brains." Thus the famous theologian Harnack, having completed
his latest work, speaks of circulating it only in manuscript as he is
in no position to have it printed. Thus Z----, the chemist and
metallurgist, has taken his laboratory and his assistants to
Switzerland to escape the spiritual paralysis which has overtaken his
native land.

Doubtless this black will-to-the-nothing is reflected in many lives in
Germany, and in many spheres of activity. Nietzsche anticipated it,
though of course, he did not ask for Germany the psychology of one who
has been beaten, the evil resentful frame of mind. This latter is
strongly exemplified on the serious stage, not serenely and
universally, but tinged and circumstanced by Germany's downfall--the
what-does-it-matter-that-Sophocles-was-great-if-Germany-is-no-more
point of view.

"Richard III" at the State Opera House was a strange performance. It
was about the time of the Shakespeare Day celebration which Germany
keeps once a year. All the newspapers devoted articles to Shakespeare,
and one felt truly that a great master of words and of men was more
honoured in ex-enemy Germany than in the land of his birth. And that
should have been good for Germany; Shakespeare is universal, and it
takes the universal to cleanse the national. As a German philosopher
has said, it needs an ocean to receive such a muddy stream as man.

"Richard III," however, showed what the war-spirit can make of
Shakespeare. It was interpreted in the pedantic historical vein, and
was given as a bloody, brutal mediaeval piece without a thought or a
smile or a tear. Richard was shown as a "Hun" of the worst kind. His
murderous career was facilitated by his characterless victims. Anne
was a "characteristic English hypocrite," pretending to mourn her
husband, and yet quite ready to marry Gloucester as "the average
Englishwoman would do if the proposal were made." Clarence had no
poetry in his soul, and was not even allowed to touch you by his dream
in the Tower. Richard said his conscience-stricken, soul-torturing
speech--"Richard loves Richard, that is I am I." in a matter-of-fact
way. It is a g