G K Chesterton

The Crimes of England G K Chesterton

Your name in the original German is too much for me; and this is the nearest I propose to get toit: but under the majestic image of pure wind marching in a movement wholly circular I seem to see, as in a vision, something of your mind. But the grand isolation of your thoughts leads you to expressthem in such words as are gratifying to yourself, and have an inconspicuous or even an unfortunateeffect upon others. If anything were really to be made of your moral campaign against the Englishnation, it was clearly necessary that somebody, if it were only an Englishman, should show you howto leave off professing philosophy and begin to practise it. I have therefore sold myself into thePrussian service, and in return for a cast-off suit of the Emperor's clothes (the uniform of anEnglish midshipman), a German hausfrau's recipe for poison gas, two penny cigars, and twenty-fiveIron Crosses, I have consented to instruct you in the rudiments of international controversy. Of thispart of my task I have here little to say that is not covered by a general adjuration to you to observecertain elementary rules. They are, roughly speaking, as follows: