And thereafter with a fine operatic vehemence he broke into a song of glorious hate.
And again he sang (in a queer mocking voice) of the promise. But another harvest was garnered (and eaten) and still her sons returned not.
So (for he had a pretty wit) he sang again a song of glory and feasting, and there was laughter in his voice.
And at the last a song of thanks most indubitably sincere.
And she turned and looked upon the troubadour and found that he was Death--in the high boots of a German Hussar.
And she stopped her ears, not to mute his singing, but to shut out the thunder of the guns that came down all the winds.
A bitter satire on the moral and intellectual claims of Germany. The conquering hero of the twentieth century and the bearer of _Kultur_ is no mere Hun. He is a “throw-back” to an ancestral type far more remote than Attila, who was a comparatively polished person. He is primitive Man, not Rousseau’s imaginary _l’homme naturel_, but the _Urmensch_, a veritable monster, gross, bloated, abominable, compact of evil, and more repulsive than the wild beasts he has tamed to do his hideous will. They are monstrous creatures too, but dull and brutish. They are incapable of moral judgment; they follow their instincts and know no better. But he knows. He is Man, to whom has been given understanding and lordship over all the beasts. He is their master by reason of his superior brain, and that superiority is the measure of his depravity. By choosing these savage creatures to be his companions and to do his pleasure he proclaims himself far lower than they, because he might have chosen otherwise.
We know those favorite satellites of his. One flies overhead--a vulture with gore dripping from beak and claws. Two others walk behind their master in docile servitude and ape his bearing as well as their dull senses and uncouth forms allow. One is a gorilla, with bared fangs and the glare of senseless destructiveness in his eyes; the other is a whiskered wolf, sly, murderous and ruthless. They bear the hero’s train and wear the marks of approbation he has bestowed upon them for the services they have rendered by the exercise of the qualities proper to their kind.
And there is one other. Ever as he goes, there wriggles along by his side a snake--that old serpent, the devil and the father of lies.