bypaths to chaos.  And as everything loves its symbol, so the German loves the clouds and all that is obscure, evolving, crepuscular, damp, and shrouded, it seems to him that everything uncertain, undeveloped, self-displacing, and growing is “deep”.  The German himself does not exist, he is becoming, he is “developing himself”.  “Development” is therefore the essentially German discovery and hit in the great domain of philosophical formulas,—­ a ruling idea, which, together with German beer and German music, is labouring to Germanise all Europe.  Foreigners are astonished and attracted by the riddles which the conflicting nature at the basis of the German soul propounds to them (riddles which Hegel systematised and Richard Wagner has in the end set to music).  “Good-natured and spiteful”—­such a juxtaposition, preposterous in the case of every other people, is unfortunately only too often justified in Germany one has only to live for a while among Swabians to know this!  The clumsiness of the German scholar and his social distastefulness agree alarmingly well with his physical rope-dancing and nimble boldness, of which all the Gods have learnt to be afraid.  If any one wishes to see the “German soul” demonstrated ad oculos, let him only look at German taste, at German arts and manners what boorish indifference to “taste”!  How the noblest and the commonest stand there in juxtaposition!  How disorderly and how rich is the whole constitution of this soul!  The German drags at his soul, he drags at everything he experiences.  He digests his events badly; he never gets “done” with them; and German depth is often only a difficult, hesitating “digestion.”  And just as all chronic invalids, all dyspeptics like what is convenient, so the German loves “frankness” and “honesty”; it is so convenient to be frank and honest!—­This confidingness, this complaisance, this showing-the-cards of German honesty, is probably the most dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to nowadays:  it is his proper Mephistophelean art; with this he can “still achieve much”!  The German lets himself go, and thereby gazes with faithful, blue, empty German eyes—­and other countries immediately confound him with his dressing-gown!—­I meant to say that, let “German depth” be what it will—­among ourselves alone we perhaps take the liberty to laugh at it—­we shall do well to continue henceforth to honour its appearance and good name, and not barter away too cheaply our old reputation as a people of depth for Prussian “smartness,” and Berlin wit and sand.  It is wise for a people to pose, and let itself be regarded, as profound, clumsy, good-natured, honest, and foolish:  it might even be—­profound to do so!  Finally, we should do honour to our name—­we are not called the “TIUSCHE Volk” (deceptive people) for nothing. . . .