r you,
being an Italian, are therefore something more than an Italian; and I being
an Englishman, something more than an Englishman. But this poor fellow
really cannot be anything more than a Prussian. He digs and digs to find
dead Prussians, in the catacombs of Rome or under the ruins of Troy. If he
can find one blue eye lying about somewhere, he is satisfied. He has no
philosophy. He has a hobby, which is collecting Germans. It would probably
be vain for you and me to point out that we could prove anything by the
sort of ingenuity which finds the German "rothe" in Buonarotti. We could
have great fun depriving Germany of all her geniuses in that style. We
could say that Moltke must have been an Italian, from the old Latin root
_mol_--indicating the sweetness of that general's disposition. We might say
Bismarck was a Frenchman, since his name begins with the popular theatrical
cry of "Bis!" We might say Goethe was an Englishman, because his name
begins with the popular sporting cry "Go!" But the ultimate difference
between us and the Prussian professor is simply that we are not mad.

The father of Frederick the Great, the founder of the more modern
Hohenzollerns, was mad. His madness consisted of stealing giants; like an
unscrupulous travelling showman. Any man much over six foot high, whether
he were called the Russian Giant or the Irish Giant or the Chinese Giant or
the Hottentot Giant, was in danger of being kidnapped and imprisoned in a
Prussian uniform. It is the same mean sort of madness that is working in
Prussian professors such as the one I have quoted. They can get no further
than the notion of stealing giants. I will not bore you now with all the
other giants they have tried to steal; it is enough to say that St. Paul,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Shakespeare himself are among the monstrosities
exhibited at Frederick-William fair--on grounds as good as those quoted
above. But I have put this particular case before you, as an artist rather
than an Italian, to show what I mean when I object to a "German future for
Europe." I object to something which believes very much in itself, and in
which I do not in the least believe. I object to something which is
conceited and small-minded; but which also has that kind of pertinacity
which always belongs to lunatics. It wants to be able to congratulate
itself on Michael Angelo; never to congratulate the world. It is the spirit
that can be seen in those who go bald trying to trac