e a genealogy; or go
bankrupt trying to make out a claim to some remote estate. The Prussian has
the inconsistency of the _parvenu_; he will labour to prove that he is
related to some gentleman of the Renaissance, even while he boasts of being
able to "buy him up." If the Italians were really great, why--they were
really Germans; and if they weren't really Germans, well then, they weren't
really great. It is an occupation for an old maid.

Three or four hundred years ago, in the sad silence that had followed the
comparative failure of the noble effort of the Middle Ages, there came upon
all Europe a storm out of the south. Its tumult is of many tongues; one can
hear in it the laughter of Rabelais, or, for that matter, the lyrics of
Shakespeare; but the dark heart of the storm was indeed more austral and
volcanic; a noise of thunderous wings and the name of Michael the
Archangel. And when it had shocked and purified the world and passed, a
Prussian professor found a feather fallen to earth; and proved (in several
volumes) that it could only have come from a Prussian Eagle. He had seen
one--in a cage.

Yours ------,
G.K. CHESTERTON.

* * * * *

My Dear ------

The facts before all Europeans to-day are so fundamental that I still find
it easier to talk about them to you as to an old friend, rather than put it
in the shape of a pamphlet. In my last letter I pointed out two facts
which are pivots. The first is that, to any really cultured person, Prussia
is second-rate. The second is that to almost any Prussian, Prussia is
really first-rate; and is prepared, quite literally, to police the rest of
the world.

For the first matter, the comparative inferiority of German culture cannot
be doubted by people like you. One of the German papers pathetically said
that, though the mangling of Malines and Rheims was very sad, it was a
comfort to think that yet nobler works of art would spring up wherever the
German culture had passed in triumph. From the point of view of humour, it
is really rather sad that they never will. The German Emperor's idea of a
Gothic cathedral is as provocative to the fancy as Mrs. Todgers' idea of a
wooden leg. But I think it perfectly probable that they really intended to
set up such beautiful buildings as they could. Having been blasphemous
enough to ruin such things, they might well be blasphemous enough to
replace them. Even if the Prussian at