that there is anything in the world more
wonderful! We may have invented a few more instruments, we may have
experimented with a few more combinations of notes, but in the B minor
Mass, or in the music of the Passion, all is said. And all that came
from the woods and the country and the quiet life in little towns, when
the artist did his work because he loved it, and cared not one jot about
what anybody else thought about it. We are a nation of thinkers and
dreamers."

Michael hesitated a moment.

"But you said not long ago that you were also the most practical
nation," he said. "You are a nation of soldiers, also."

"And who would not willingly give himself for such a Fatherland?" said
Falbe. "If need be, we will lay our lives down for that, and die more
willingly than we have lived. God grant that the need comes not. But
should it come we are ready. We are bound to be ready; it would be a
crime not to be ready--a crime against the Fatherland. We love peace,
but the peace-lovers are just those who in war are most terrible. For
who are the backbone of war when war comes? The women of the country,
my friend, not the ministers, not the generals and the admirals. I
don't say they make war, but when war is made they are the spirit of it,
because, more than men, they love their homes. There is not a woman
in Germany who will not send forth brother and husband and father and
child, should the day come. But it will not come from our seeking."

He turned to Michael, his face illuminated by the red glow of the
sinking sun.

"Germany will rise as one man if she's told to," he said, "for that is
what her unity and her discipline mean. She is patient and peaceful, but
she is obedient."

He pointed northwards.

"It is from there, from Prussia, from Berlin," he said, "that the word
will come, if they who rule and govern us, and in whose hands are all
organisation and equipment, tell us that our national existence compels
us to fight. They rule. The Prussians rule; there is no doubt of that.
From Germany have come the arts, the sciences, the philosophies of the
world, and not from there. But they guard our national life. It is they
who watch by the Rhine for us, patient and awake. Should they beckon us
one night, on some peaceful August night like this, when all seems so
tranquil, so secure, we shall go. The silent beckoning finger will be
obeyed from one end of the land to the other, from Poland on the east to
France on the