(3) But were there not more causes than mere want, which sent them
south? Had the peculiar restlessness of the race nothing to do with it?
A restlessness not nomadic, but migratory: arising not from carelessness
of land and home, but from the longing to found a home in a new land,
like the restlessness of us, their children? As soon as we meet them in
historic times, they are always moving, migrating, invading. Were they
not doing the same in pre-historic times, by fits and starts, no doubt
with periods of excitement, periods of collapse and rest? When we
recollect the invasion of the Normans; the wholesale eastward migration
of the Crusaders, men, women, and children; and the later colonization by
Teutonic peoples, of every quarter of the globe, is there anything
wonderful in the belief that similar migratory manias may have seized the
old tribes; that the spirit of Woden, 'the mover,' may have moved them,
and forced them to go ahead, as now? Doubtless the theory is strange.
But the Teutons were and are a strange people; so strange, that they have
conquered--one may almost say that they are--all nations which are alive
upon the globe; and we may therefore expect them to have done strange
things even in their infancy.
The Romans saw them conquer the empire; and said, the good men among
them, that it was on account of their superior virtue. But beside the
virtue which made them succeed, there must have been the adventurousness
which made them attempt. They were a people fond of 'avanturen,' like
their descendants; and they went out to seek them; and found enough and
to spare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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