We had indeed reached one of the lowest and flattest levels of all our undulating history; and it must be admitted that the contemptuous calculation with which Germany counted on our submission and abstention was not altogether unfounded, though it was, thank God, unfulfilled.

The full fruition of our alliances against freedom had come.

The meek acceptance of Kultur in our books and schools had stiffened what was once a free country with a German formalism and a German fear.

By a queer irony, even the same popular writer who had already warned us against the Prussians, had sought to preach among the populace a very Prussian fatalism, pivoted upon the importance of the charlatan Haeckel.

The wrestle of the two great parties had long slackened into an embrace.