He was supremely happy—_Wie ein Fisch im Wasser_—in spite of his
slight deformity. He was industrious, had finished another volume of
poems and was making mental notes for a dramatic poem.
He was not fond of the German refugees in Paris. Now and then there came
a refugee of real worth—but most of them were without talent, without
any well defined idea of what they wanted, and only plumed themselves
with the title of revolutionaries. Paris in those days was a hotbed of
revolutionists; Mazzini with his carbonari, plotters from Portugal,
insurgents from Poland, assassins from Spain. Prussian spies were
abundant and very active, and the French government was secretly lending
a helping hand to rid Paris of these stirring elements. Louis Phillipe
had enough to contend with without foreign intriguers.
Albert was living quietly in a district inhabited by the genteel
poor—clerks, journalists, small shop-keepers, artists—and kept aloof
from his compatriots. But the news he was receiving from “home”—for he
never ceased thinking of Germany as his home—was disquieting. The news
came to him from various sources, but chiefly from pilgrims who were
coming to worship at his shrine. Every aspiring poet, every young writer
with an idea in his head, every agitator, came either to pay homage to
his genius or to see the poet in exile in order to give first-hand
information to their friends at home. Albert had the misfortune of
having had woven around him myths and legends that reflected upon his
morality. To the Germans he was a Don Juan. His flippant speech (often
only the flash of the moment), his witty epigrams (at times uttered for
the sheer love of wit), his blasphemy (rarely intended), gave credence
to all the shocking things his enemies told about him. Furthermore, his
imaginary love affairs narrated, and hinted at, in his poems were taken
too literally. His countrymen failed to realize that one actually given
to licentiousness rarely writes about it, never glorifies it in song and
rhapsodies; that one who yields to dissipation rarely indulges in sweet
day dreams about it. The Germans have always been too stolid, too
ponderous, too matter of fact to comprehend the subtlety of fine humor.
While an elephant can easily lift a log with his trunk he is quite
helpless with a feather.