It is sometimes an unpleasant necessity to insult a man, in order to
make him understand that he is being insulted. Indeed, most strenuous
and successful appeals to an oppressed populace have involved something
of this paradox. We talk of the demagogue flattering the mob; but the
most successful demagogue generally abuses it. The men of the crowd rise
in revolt, not when they are addressed as "Citizens!" but when they are
addressed as "Slaves!"
If this be true even of men daily disturbed by material discomfort and
discontent, it is much truer of those cases, not uncommon in history, in
which the slave has been soothed with all the external pomp and luxury
of a lord. So prophets have denounced the wanton in a palace or the
puppet on a throne; and so the Dutch caricaturist denounces the gilded
captivity of the Austrian Monarchy, of which the golden trappings are
golden chains.
But for such a purpose a caricaturist is better than a prophet, and
comic pictures better than poetical phrases. It is very vital and
wholesome, even for his own sake, to insult the Austrian. He ought to be
insulted because he is so much more respectable than the Prussian, who
ought not to be insulted, but only kicked. If Austria feels no shame in
letting the Holy Roman Empire become the petty province of an Unholy
Barbarian Empire, if such high historic symbols no longer affect her, we
can only tell her, in as ugly a picture as possible, that she is a
lackey carrying luggage.