There were intellectual as well as emotional differences between the Celts
and Teutons. A certain hard rationality and grasp of fact mark the
mentality of the latter. On land or sea they view the situation, realize
its opportunities, their own strength, and the opposing odds: with
definite and persistent purpose they move, they fight, they labour. The
quality of purposefulness becomes clearer as they emerge from the forest
obscurity of their origins into the open light of history. To a definite
goal of conquest and settlement Theodoric led the Ostrogoths from Moesia
westward, and fought his way into Italy. With persistent purposefulness
Clovis and his Merovingian successors intrigued and fought. Among
Anglo-Saxon pirates the aim of plunder quickly grew to that of conquest.
And in times which were to follow, there was purpose in every voyage and
battle of the Vikings. The Teutons disclose more strength and persistency
of desire than the Celts. Their feelings were slower, less impulsive; also
less quickly diverted, more unswerving, even fiercer in their strength.
The general characteristic of Teutonic emotion is its close connection
with some motive grounded in rational purpose.
Caesar’s short sketch of the Germans[171] gives the impression of
barbarous peoples, numerous, brave, overweening. They had not reached the
agricultural stage, but were devoted to war and hunting. There were no
Druids among them. Their bodies were inured to hardship. They lived in
robust independence, and were subject to their chiefs only in war. Their
fiercest folk, the Suevi, from boyhood would submit neither to labour nor
discipline, that their strength and spirit might be unchecked. It was
deemed shameful for a youth to have to do with women before his twentieth
year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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