le eastward migration
of the Crusaders, men, women, and children; and the later colonization by
Teutonic peoples, of every quarter of the globe, is there anything
wonderful in the belief that similar migratory manias may have seized the
old tribes; that the spirit of Woden, 'the mover,' may have moved them,
and forced them to go ahead, as now? Doubtless the theory is strange.
But the Teutons were and are a strange people; so strange, that they have
conquered--one may almost say that they are--all nations which are alive
upon the globe; and we may therefore expect them to have done strange
things even in their infancy.

The Romans saw them conquer the empire; and said, the good men among
them, that it was on account of their superior virtue. But beside the
virtue which made them succeed, there must have been the adventurousness
which made them attempt. They were a people fond of 'avanturen,' like
their descendants; and they went out to seek them; and found enough and
to spare.

(4) But more, had they never heard of Rome? Surely they had, and at a
very early period of the empire. We are apt to forget, that for every
discovery of the Germans by the Romans, there was a similar discovery of
the Romans by the Germans, and one which would tell powerfully on their
childish imagination. Did not one single Kemper or Teuton return from
Marius' slaughter, to spread among the tribes (niddering though he may
have been called for coming back alive) the fair land which they had
found, fit for the gods of Valhalla; the land of sunshine, fruits and
wine, wherein his brothers' and sisters' bones were bleaching unavenged?
Did no gay Gaul of the Legion of the Lark, boast in a frontier wine-house
to a German trapper, who came in to sell his peltry, how he himself was a
gentleman now, and a civilized man, and a Roman; and how he had followed
Julius Caesar, the king of men, over the Rubicon, and on to a city of the
like of which man never dreamed, wherein was room for all the gods of
heaven? Did no captive tribune of Varus' legions, led with horrid shouts
round Thor's altar in the Teutoburger Wald, ere his corpse was hung among
the horses and goats on the primaeval oaks, turn to bay like a Roman, and
tell his wild captors of the Eternal City, and of the might of that Caesar
who would avenge every hair upon his head with a German life; and receive
for answer a shout of laughter, and the cry--'You have come to us: and
some day we will g