[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
realize 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.