Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/46

 MONARCHICAL ATAVISM

One day in Berlin, speaking of General Grant, Mark said, "I did not admire him so much for winning the war as for ending the war. Peace—happiness—brotherhood—that is what we want in this world."

"Here comes the Kaiser," he continued, "and sends me tickets for his September review. Of course I will go. But I don't care for military spectacles, or for militarism. Tolstoy was right in calling army life 'a school for murder.' In Germany to-day there are ten million men drilled to look upon the Kaiser as a god. And if the Kaiser says 'kill'—they kill. And if he says 'die for me'—they go out and get themselves shot. The blame and shame rest with the big and little war lords. As to the German people, mere subjects, they have eighteen or twenty centuries of monarchical atavism in their blood." 42