Journey To The End Of The Night - pg. 66

Being a soldier for nothing was a new idea. So new that Goethe, in spite of his being Goethe, when he came to Valmy, got a shock at the sight of it. In the presence of those ragged, impassioned troops, who had come there of their own free will to be ripped to pieces by the King of Prussia in defense of this brand-new fiction of patriotism, Goethe felt that he still had a great deal to learn. 'From that day', he proclaimed magnificently, in his own inimitable style, 'a new epoch commences.' I should damn well think it does! After that, as the idea worked so well, they started to turn out heroes in series, and they cost less and less as the system became more and more perfect. Everyone's done the same. Bismarck, the two Napoleons, Barres, as well as the bold Elsa. Flag worship promptly replaced divine worship, an old cloud already punctured by the Reformation and condensed a long time ago into Episcopal coffers. In the old days the fanatic fashion was 'Jesus for ever!' and 'Burn the heretics!' Still, the heretics after all were rare and of their own choosing. But now, i our time, immense hordes are roused by the cry: ' To the stake with all gutless sissies, fibreless hacks and innocent bookworms. Millions, face right!' Those who do not want to spitcher or assassinate anybody, the stinking pacifists, take, seize and quarter them.