They are not very sure that there are any Germans; they have already forgotten the convincing proofs of the fact that were presented to them nine years ago.

A German was something disagreeable, which they determined to keep out of their conception of things.

I therefore think that we are wrong to govern ourselves upon the hypothesis of the _revanche_; the French nature is too shallow for that large and powerful plant to bloom in it.
The English-speaking specimens, too, I have not been willing to neglect the opportunity to examine; and among these I have paid special attention to the American varieties, of which I find here several singular examples.

The two most remarkable are a young man who presents all the characteristics of a period of national decadence; reminding me strongly of some diminutive Hellenised Roman of the third century.

He is an illustration of the period of culture in which the faculty of appreciation has obtained such a preponderance over that of production that the latter sinks into a kind of rank sterility, and the mental condition becomes analogous to that of a malarious bog.