It adds to the grace of distance something that makes it not only a grace but a gift.
Such are the visions of remote places that appear in the low gateways of a Gothic town; as if each gateway led into a separate world; and almost as if each dome of sky were a different chamber.
But he who walks round the walls of this city in this spirit will come suddenly upon an exception which will surprise him like an earthquake.
It looks indeed rather like something done by an earthquake; an earthquake with a half-witted sense of humour.

Immediately at the side of one of these humble and human gateways there is a great gap in the wall, with a wide road running through it.

There is something of unreason in the sight which affects the eye as well as the reason.
It recalls some crazy tale about the great works of the Wise Men of Gotham.

It suggests the old joke about the man who made a small hole for the kitten as well as a large hole for the cat.
Everybody has read about it by this time; but the immediate impression of it is not merely an effect of reading or even of reasoning.
It looks lop-sided; like something done by a one-eyed giant.
But it was done by the last prince of the great Prussian imperial system, in what was probably the proudest moment in all his life of pride.
What is true has a way of sounding trite; and what is trite has a way of sounding false.

We shall now probably weary the world with calling the Germans barbaric, just as we very recently wearied the world with calling them cultured and progressive and scientific.
But the thing is true though we say it a thousand times.