their leaven
of high breeding and courtesy does not lighten the bourgeois loaf! In
America and in England we are all threading our way in and out among
all classes. We are much more democratic. Men of every class are in
contact with men of every other, we play together and work together,
and consequently the level of manners and habits is higher. This state
of things is less marked in south Germany than in Prussia, but is more
or less true everywhere.

But how can this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where
every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an
exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebrae, and then
bends to kiss the lady's hand; and where every civilian of any
standing does the same? I am not writing of the nobility and of the
corps of officers in this connection. No doubt there are black sheep
among them, though I have not met them. Of the many scores of them
whom I have met, whom I have ridden with, dined with, romped with,
drunk with, travelled with, I have only to say that they are as
courteous, as unwilling to offend or to take advantage, as are brave
men in other countries I know. I am writing of the average man and
woman, of those who make up the bulk of every population, of those
upon whom it depends whether a national life is healthy or otherwise.

The very stiffness of these mannerisms, the clacking of heels, the
ducking of heads, the kissing of hands, the countless grave
formalities among the men themselves, are all indicative of social
weakness. They are afraid to walk without the crutches of certain
formulae, of certain hard-and-fast rules, of certain laws that they
worship and fall down before. Slavery is still upon them. Escaped from
a bodily master they fly to the refuge of a moral and spiritual one.
These formalities are prescribed forms which they wear as they wear
uniforms; they are not the result of innate consideration.

Uniform-wearing is a passion among the Germans, and may be included as
still another indication of the universal desire to take refuge behind
forms, and laws, and fixed customs, the universal desire to shrink
from depending upon their own judgment and initiative. They will not
even bow or kiss a lady's hand, without a prescription from a social
physician whom they trust.

The German officials are always officials, always addressed and
addressing others punctiliously by their titles. They do not throw off
officialdom outside the