It requires imagination to put Goethe and Schiller and Wieland in the bow window at White's, and to place Lords Glengall and Yarmouth in Frau von Stein's drawing-room in Weimar; but the discerning eye which can see this picture, knows at a glance why England misunderstands Germany and Germany misunderstands England. For White's is White's and Weimar is Weimar, and one is British and one is German as much now as then! In the one the winner of the Derby is of more importance than any philosopher; in the other, philosophers, poets, professors, and playwrights are almost as well known, as the pedigrees of the yearlings to be sold at Newmarket, are known at White's. They still have plover's eggs early in the season at White's, and they still recognize the subtle distinction there between "port wine" and "port"; while in Weimar nobody, unless it be the duke, even boils his sauerkraut in white wine! One could easily write a chapter on Weimar and its self-satisfied social and literary activities. There were three hundred or more capitals of like complexion and isolation: some larger, some smaller, none perhaps with such a splendid literary setting, but all indifferent with the indifference of distant relatives who seldom see one another, when the French Revolution exploded its bomb at the gates of the world's habits of thought. No intelligent man ever objected to the French Revolution because it stood for human rights, but because it led straight to human wrongs. The dream was angelic, but the nightmare in which it ended was devilish. The French Revolution was the most colossal disappointment that humanity has ever had to bear. More than the demagogue gives us credit for, are the great majority of us eager to help our neighbors. The trouble is that the demagogue thinks this, the most difficult of all things, an easy task. God and Nature are harsh when they are training men, and we, alas, are soft, hence most of our failures. Correction must be given with a rod, not with a sop. There lies all the trouble. The political and philanthropic wise men were setting out for the manger and the babe, their eyes on the star, laden with gifts, when they were met by a whiff of grape-shot from the guns commanded by a young Corsican genius. The French Revolution found us all sympathetic, but making men of equal height by lopping off their heads; making them free by giving no one a chance to be free; making them fraternal by insisting that all should be addressed by the same title of, "citizen," was soon seen to be the method of a political nursery.