danger in the balance, and thus show which of the two seems the more threatening to us.
Of the actual events of the present war between Germany and Russia I will say nothing. All the information we have comes from Russian or German sources, equally unreliable. To judge by them it would appear that the same ferocity exists in both camps. The Germans in Kalish were worthy companions of the Cossacks in Grodtken and Zorothowo.—It is of the German spirit and of the Russian spirit that I wish to speak here, for this is the important thing and of this we have more definite knowledge.
You, my German friends—for those of you who were my friends in the past remain my friends in spite of fanatical demands from both sides that we should break off all relations—know how much I love the Germany of the past, and all that I owe to it. Not less than you, yourselves, I am the son of Beethoven, of Leibnitz, and of Goethe. But what do I owe to the Germany of to-day, or what does Europe owe to it? What art have you produced since the monumental work of Wagner, which marks the end of an epoch and belongs to the past? What new and original thought can you boast
