Greenmantle - John Buchan

He gave his hand to Stumm and turned away. The last I saw of him was a
figure moving like a sleep-walker, with no spring in his step, amid his tall suite. I
felt that I was looking on at a far bigger tragedy than any I had seen in action.
Here was one that had loosed Hell, and the furies of Hell had got hold of him.
He was no common man, for in his presence I felt an attraction which was not
merely the mastery of one used to command. That would not have impressed
me, for I had never owned a master. But here was a human being who, unlike
Stumm and his kind, had the power of laying himself alongside other men. That
was the irony of it. Stumm would not have cared a tinker's curse for all the
massacres in history. But this man, the chief of a nation of Stumms, paid the
price in war for the gifts that had made him successful in peace. He had
imagination and nerves, and the one was white hot and the others were
quivering. I would not have been in his shoes for the throne of the Universe ...
All afternoon we sped southward, mostly in a country of hills and wooded
valleys. Stumm, for him, was very pleasant. His imperial master must have been
gracious to him, and he passed a bit of it on to me. But he was anxious to see
that I had got the right impression.
'The All-Highest is merciful, as I told you,' he said.
I agreed with him.
'Mercy is the prerogative of kings,' he said sententiously, 'but for us lesser
folks it is a trimming we can well do without.'
I nodded my approval.
'I am not merciful,' he went on, as if I needed telling that. 'If any man stands
in my way I trample the life out of him. That is the German fashion. That is what
has made us great. We do not make war with lavender gloves and fine phrases,
but with hard steel and hard brains. We Germans will cure the green-sickness of
the world. The nations rise against us. Pouf! They are soft flesh, and flesh cannot
resist iron. The shining ploughshare will cut its way through acres of mud.'
I hastened to add that these were also my opinions.
'What the hell do your opinions matter? You are a thick-headed boor of the