If his first attempts at argument and dogma
win him praise and esteem, if he proves himself a better fighter than an
older boy next door, who has often bullied him, and if at the same time
he comes into money, he is on the road to ruin. His very simplicity is a
snare to him. 'What a fool I was', he thinks, 'to let myself be put
upon; I now see that I am a great philosopher and a splendid soldier,
born to subdue others rather than to agree with them, and entitled to a
chief share in all the luxuries of the world. It is for me to say what
is good and true, and if any of these people contradict me I shall knock
them down.' He suits his behaviour to his new conception of himself, and
is soon hated by all the neighbours. Then he turns bitter. These people,
he thinks, are all in a plot against him. They must be blind to goodness
and beauty, or why do they dislike him! His rage reaches the point of
madness; he stabs and poisons the villagers, and burns down their
houses. We are still waiting to see what will become of him.
This outbreak has been long preparing. Seventy years before the War the
German poet Freiligrath wrote a poem to prove that Germany is Hamlet,
urged by the spirit of her fathers to claim her inheritance, vacillating
and lost in thought, but destined, before the Fifth Act ends, to strew
the stage with the corpses of her enemies.
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