BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

6-7, 9.
spoken at times: but if treated like a human being, most affectionate, susceptible, even
sentimental and superstitious; fond of gambling, brute excitement, childish amusements
in the intervals of enormous exertion; quarrelsome among themselves, as boys are, and
with a spirit of wild independence which seems to be strength; but which, till it be
disciplined into loyal obedience and self-sacrifice, is mere weakness; and beneath all a
deep practical shrewdness, an indomitable perseverance, when once roused by need. 47
Citing Tacitus, Kingsley deemed stereotypical chaste self-restraint the source of Teutonic virility
and moral strength that defeated the supposedly corrupt and degenerate Romans. 48 As a warning
to his contemporaries he cast England in the role of decadent Rome, quoting an absurdly
ethnocentric analogy on the subject of moral decay: “No tongue may tell the orgies enacted, with
the aid of French cooks, Italian singers, and foreign artistes of all sorts.” 49 That Kingsley really
intended a special distinction for Anglo-Saxons becomes clear in his saga of the struggle between
the Germanic “Forest Children” and the Roman “Trolls,” where he took pains to separate “false,
vain, capricious” Franks (French), “lazy” Goths (Italians), and “cruel” but proud Visigoths
(Spanish) from the allegedly cruel but “most pure” Saxons. Imagining a sequel to the
Niebelungenlied in the Teutonic quarrel over the spoils of Rome, Kingsley considered the
English ancestors fortunate to have left the continent of Europe, and to have preserved “unstained
the old Teutonic faith and virtue” by avoiding such a demoralizing conflict. 50 Thus, even at its
47 Charles Kingsley, The Roman and the Teuton (Cambridge; London: Macmillan, 1864),
48 Ibid., 50-51.
49 Quoted from John George Sheppard, The Fall of Rome and the Rise of New
Nationalities (London: Routledge; New York: Warne & Routledge, 1861), in Kingsley, The
Roman and the Teuton, 25.
50 Kingsley, The Roman and the Teuton, 8-9, 17. Saxons were cruel only because they
were indifferent to passion and sensuality.
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