I am mindful that it was in
Germany, when I observe that the Germans have gone through no comic
training to warn them of the sly, wise emanation eyeing them from aloft,
nor much of satirical. Heinrich Heine has not been enough to cause them
to smart and meditate. Nationally, as well as individually, when they are
excited they are in danger of the grotesque, as when, for instance, they
decline to listen to evidence, and raise a national outcry because one of
German blood has been convicted of crime in a foreign country. They are
acute critics, yet they still wield clubs in controversy. Compare them in
this respect with the people schooled in La Bruyere, La Fontaine,
Moliere; with the people who have the figures of a Trissotin and a Vadius
before them for a comic warning of the personal vanities of the caressed
professor. It is more than difference of race. It is the difference of
traditions, temper, and style, which comes of schooling.
The French controversialist is a polished swordsman, to be dreaded in his
graces and courtesies.
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