You remember that splendid passage in the Sixth
Book of the AEneid where the Romans are called to remember that it
is their mission 'to crown Peace with Law, to spare the humbled,
and to subdue and tame the proud.' Might not sucn a noble doctrine
have detached the Germans a little from their blind devotion to
the Hohenzollern-Hollweg conception of the modern pinchbeck German
Empire--a predatory state, greedy to gain new territory but incapable
of ruling it when gained, scornful of the rights of smaller peoples,
oppressing them when subjugated, as she has oppressed Poland and
Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine, a clumsy and exterminating
tyrant in her own colonies, as she has shown herself in East and
West Africa? I tell you that a vital perception of what the Roman
Empire really meant in its palmy days might have been good medicine
for Germany. It might have taught her to make herself fit for
power before seeking to grasp it."
"Granted, granted," broke in Hardman, impatiently poking the fire.
"You can't say anything about Germany too severe to suit me.
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