began as a literary influence, in the lurid tales of Hoffmann, the tale of “Sintram,” and so on; the revisualising of the dark background of forest behind our European cities.  That old German darkness was immeasurably livelier than the new German light.  The devils of Germany were much better than the angels.  Look at the Teutonic pictures of “The Three Huntsmen” and observe that while the wicked huntsman is effective in his own way, the good huntsman is weak in every way, a sort of sexless woman with a face like a teaspoon.  But there is more in these first forest tales, these homely horrors.  In the earlier stages they have exactly this salt of salvation, that the boy does not shudder.  They are made fearful that he may be fearless, not that he may fear.  As long as that limit is kept, the barbaric dreamland is decent; and though individuals like Coleridge and De Quincey mixed it with worse things (such as opium), they kept that romantic rudiment upon the whole.  But the one disadvantage of a forest is that one may lose one’s way in it.  And the one danger is not that we may meet devils, but that we may worship them.  In other words, the danger is one always associated, by the instinct of folk-lore, with forests; it is enchantment, or the fixed loss of oneself in some unnatural captivity or spiritual servitude.  And in the evolution of Germanism, from Hoffmann to Hauptmann, we do see this growing tendency to take horror seriously, which is diabolism.  The German begins to have an eerie abstract sympathy with the force and fear he describes, as distinct from their objective.  The German is no longer sympathising with the boy against the goblin, but rather with the goblin against the boy.  There goes with it, as always goes with idolatry, a dehumanised seriousness; the men of the forest are already building upon a mountain the empty throne of the Superman.  Now it is just at this point that I for one, and most men who love truth as well as tales, begin to lose interest.  I am all for “going out into the world to seek my fortune,” but I do not want to find it—­and find it is only being chained for ever among the frozen figures of the Sieges Allees.  I do not want to be an idolator, still less an idol.  I am all for going to fairyland, but I am also all for coming back.  That is, I will admire, but I will not be magnetised, either by mysticism or militarism.  I am all for German fantasy, but I will resist German earnestness till I die.  I am all for Grimm’s Fairy Tales; but if there is such a thing as Grimm’s Law, I would break it, if I knew what it was.  I like the Prussian’s legs (in their beautiful boots) to fall down the chimney and walk about my room.  But when he procures a head and begins to talk, I feel a little bored.  The Germans cannot really be deep because they will not consent to be superficial.  They are bewitched by art, and stare at it, and cannot see round it.  They will not believe that art is a light and slight thing—­a