through
time, is what chiefly distinguishes us, I will not say from savages, but
from brutes and reptiles. This was noted by the shrewdness of the Old
Testament when it summed up the dark, irresponsible enormity of
Leviathan in the words, "Will he make a pact with thee?" The promise,
like the wind, is unknown in nature and is the first mark of man.
Referring only to human civilization, it may be said with seriousness
that in the beginning was the Word. The vow is to the man what the song
is to the bird or the bark to the dog; his voice, whereby he is known.
Just as a man who cannot keep an appointment is not fit to fight a duel,
so the man who cannot keep an appointment with himself is not sane
enough even for suicide. It is not easy to mention anything on which the
enormous apparatus of human life can be said to depend. But if it
depends on anything it is on this frail cord, flung from the forgotten
hills of yesterday to the invisible mountains of tomorrow. On that
solitary string hangs everything from Armageddon to an almanac, from a
successful revolution to a return ticket. On that solitary string the
barbarian is hacking heavily with a sabre which is fortunately blunt.

*Prussia's Great Discovery.*

Any one can see this well enough merely by reading the last negotiations
between London and Berlin. The Prussians had made a new discovery in
international politics--that it may often be convenient to make a
promise, and yet curiously inconvenient to keep it. They were charmed,
in their simple way, with this scientific discovery and desired to
communicate it to the world. They therefore promised England a promise
on condition that she broke a promise, and on the implied condition that
the new promise might be broken as easily as the old one. To the
profound astonishment of Prussia, this reasonable offer was refused. I
believe that the astonishment of Prussia was quite sincere. That is what
I mean when I say that the barbarian is trying to cut away that cord of
honesty and clear record on which hangs all that men have made.

The friends of the German cause have complained that Asiatics and
Africans upon the very verge of savagery have been brought against them
from India and Algiers. And in ordinary circumstances I should
sympathize with such a complaint made by a European people. But the
circumstances are not ordinary. Here again the quite unique barbarism of
Prussia goes deeper than what we call barbarities. About