And yet they will not admit our superiority!" For the first time, Argensola's eyes and general expression approved the words of Hartrott.

What he had just said was only too true--the world was a victim of "the German superstition." An intellectual cowardice, the fear of Force had made it admire en masse and indiscriminately, everything of Teutonic origin, just because of the intensity of its glitter--gold mixed with talcum.

The so-called Latins, dazed with admiration, were, with unreasonable pessimism, becoming doubtful of their ability, and thus were the first to decree their own death.

And the conceited Germans merely had to repeat the words of these pessimists in order to strengthen their belief in their own superiority.
With that Southern temperament, which leaps rapidly from one extreme to another, many Latins had proclaimed that in the world of the future, there would be no place for the Latin peoples, now in their death-agony--adding that Germany alone preserved the latent forces of civilization.

The French who declaimed among themselves, with the greatest exaggeration, unconscious that folks were listening the other side of the door, had proclaimed repeatedly for many years past, that France was degenerating rapidly and would soon vanish from the earth.
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