[Illustration: THE SEA MINE]
“Seduction”
The cartoon in which the Prussian is depicted as saying to his bound
and gagged victim, “Ain’t I a lovable fellow?” is one of the most
pointed and vital of all pictorial, or indeed other, criticisms on
the war. It is very important to note that German savagery has not
interfered at all with German sentimentalism. The blood of the victim
and the tears of the victor flow together in an unpleasing stream.
The effect on a normal mind of reading some of the things the Germans
say, side by side with some of the things they do, is an impression
that can quite truly be conveyed only in the violent paradox of the
actual picture. It is exactly like being tortured by a man with an
ugly face, which we slowly realise to be contorted in an attempt at an
affectionate expression. In those soliloquies of self-praise which have
constituted almost the whole of Prussia’s defence in the international
controversy, the brigand of the Belgian annexation has incessantly
said that his apparent hardness is the necessary accompaniment of his
inherent strength. Nietzsche said: “I give you a new commandment: Be
hard.” And the Prussian says: “I am hard,” in a prompt and respectful
manner. But, as a matter of fact, he is not hard; he is only heavy. He
is not indifferent to all feelings; he is only indifferent to everybody
else’s feelings. At the thought of his own virtues he is always ready
to burst into tears. His smiles, however, are even more frequent and
more fatuous than his tears; and they are all leers like that which
Mr. Raemaekers has drawn on the face of the expansive Prussian officer
in the arm-chair. Compared with such an exhibition, there is something
relatively virile about the tiger cruelty which has occasionally
defaced the record of the Spaniard or the Arab. But to be conquered by
such Germans as these would be like being eaten by slugs.