Baron Detlev Liliencron
Captain retired
Well, between the date of that letter and our meeting in Hamburg three
years had passed, during which the most gracious Baroness had chosen
“Away with weapons” as a watchword, which probably went against the
grain of the most obedient and conservative Captain retired. None the
less we got along together all right.
From Hamburg we went home by way of Berlin again, but stopped there only
from one train to another. During this delay we conferred once more with
Dr. M. Hirsch, who promised that he would do his best to establish a
Berlin Peace Union.
I have not yet told of one encounter which took place in those Berlin
days. Because it was the one that made the deepest and most lasting
impression on me, because it remained interwoven with my further thought
and activity, I have reserved speaking of it to the end.
On the forenoon of the eighteenth of March—it was the day after my
reading—we made the acquaintance of a man with whom we had already had
intellectual relations for a long time,—Moritz von Egidy. I would remind
the reader of his letter of November, 1891, which I quoted among the
other documents addressed to me on the occasion of the Congress at Rome.
Now I was to see face to face the man who had offered to join with me in
“putting his hand to the latch of the gate that admits us to the age of
completion.”
One forenoon during our stay in Berlin—I had just written to Egidy to
ask when we might see him—his card was handed to us. He came in, and—but
of this man, this creature of light who was snatched away all too soon
from the world of his day, I will not speak incidentally, but devote a
special chapter to him.
XXXV
MORITZ VON EGIDY
His confession of faith · Further development · Candidacy for the
Reichstag · From his address to the electors · On the fear of
revolution · Idealists in act · My first meeting with Egidy · Visit at
his home · Consistency of preaching and practice · A letter from Egidy
Von Halbheit halte den Pfad rein,
Der ganze Mann setzt ganze Tat ein,
Und wahre Ehre muss ohne Naht sein.
Emst Ziel
Keep thy path from halfness free;
Whoso is whole, whole deeds plies he;
Genuine honor must seamless be.
When the report went through the papers that a lieutenant colonel of the
Prussian army had written a pamphlet entitled “Serious Thoughts,” in
which he renounced the teachings of the Church, and that as a result of
this he had been obliged to send in his resignation, it was regarded as
a spicy bit of news. People sent for the pamphlet expecting to find in
it the views of an enemy of religion; and behold, they were the
thoughts, the serious and quickened thoughts, of one of the most
religious and Christian men that could be found; but one who, like
unnumbered multitudes of his contemporaries, did not regard the dogmas
and formulas of official orthodoxy as true and binding—who, however, in
contradistinction to the contemporaries that pass over this discord,
considered it incompatible with his human dignity and his religious
nature to pretend to a belief which he did not cherish.
His demand was that the Church should cease to impose articles of faith
that are in contradiction with the conscience of the time, and that
instead of the narrow sects a broad, great, united Christianity should
embrace all those who feel the need of a consecrated life, and who carry
in their hearts faith in God, and the Christian ideal.
Honest, solid, frank, glowing with inward warmth, was every word of the
booklet; and even one who occupied a quite different standpoint—that is
to say, one who had not reached the author’s degree of doubt or who had
got far beyond it—could not but feel the one desire to shake that man’s
hand.
That it is not compatible with the position of an active officer to
utter thoughts that are not merely “serious” but revolutionary, since
they assail an established institution sanctioned by the State, was
doubtless clear to the penalized lieutenant-colonel himself; and he
accepted his discharge without resentment, as a matter of course. And
where he had posted himself he kept his stand, with head erect.
To be of use to the men of his time, to make a way out of untenable
contradictions for them, to free the sacredness of genuine inward
religion from external fetters of falsehood, was what had constrained
him to write. And he felt himself doubly bound to continue the work that
he had begun after a multitude had flocked to him waiting for his
further leading.
The sentence above, “Where he had posted himself he kept his stand,” is
in reality inaccurate, for Egidy went on from this place step by step in
the same direction—that is, along the upward path of knowledge—with the
same resolute gait, and where he stood a few years later he had
immeasurably widened his field of view, and consequently his field of
influence also. Although he remained true to himself, or rather by
remaining true to himself, he had become almost another man since his
first appearance with his “Serious Thoughts”; he had gone on thinking
with the same seriousness, gone on willing with increasing power, and
the domain which he surveyed at the end of his career, the ideal toward
which he was then striving, went as far beyond his first announcement as
that went beyond the narrow dogmatic track which he had originally
renounced. And yet he did not for a moment need to disavow the basis of
his endeavor; the watchword that he followed was from first to last
“Religion no longer beside our life, our life itself religion!” Only his
religion was then no longer “Mere Christianity,” but the push toward
goodness, inner consecration; the striving for knowledge, for
development. “Love is power” was another of Egidy’s maxims. He had begun
with the demand for a change in the religious sphere, because there
first he felt the discrepancy between old canons and new needs of the
spirit; but gradually his demands had extended to the bettering of
all—especially social and political—conditions.
He had put himself at the service of his convictions with a strength of
character that was matched only by his strength for work. He went on
lecture tours, published a weekly entitled _Die Versöhnung_
(“Reconciliation”), gave an answer to every one who in person or by
letter came to meet him either as a seeker for advice or as an opponent;
he took a stand publicly with regard to all problems and events of the
day, and when election time came he announced himself a candidate for
the Reichstag.
But the election went against him. One who subscribes to no party
programme does not get the voters, for they too have been drilled into
partisan politics.
Here are a few passages which I have extracted from his appeal to the
electors, premising only that this man was never an opportunist, that he
forever scorned to say A and insinuate B, or to show gray in order to
attain white. Certainly this method is unpolitical according to
prevalent customs, and apparently Egidy’s attempt to enter political
life was wrecked on that reef. The worship of party and special
interests in which our life is swamped comports but ill with a series of
declarations in which the first sentence ran, “I belong to no party and
to no group of interests,” and where a little further on it says:
The question does not concern the advantage of a group or class, or
the principles of a party; the question is to serve the
community—without any limitation of the concept. He who cannot take
into his heart and brain the concept community (_Gemeinsamkeif_) in
all its completeness and elevation, is no such representative of the
people as the times require.
The goal which Egidy saw before him was,
for every individual an intellectual independence limited by nothing,
and an existence secured against all material oppression, for these
are the conditions of inner freedom. There is no such thing as a
welfare outside of freedom, at least for any one who feels himself a
man. Until all are free, none is free. The ruling portion of the
people is just as little free as the ruled. The continual fear of
losing the rule paralyzes the sense of welfare—makes unfree.
We need conditions which shall make it possible for every one of the
people to lead a life worthy of humanity. We are a people no longer
under guardians, and we shall get ourselves these conditions. The way
to this end: a peaceable transformation of our circumstances, from the
present as starting-point, with the unselfish coöperation of all. No
_tabula rasa_, not a “future society” to begin day after to-morrow;
but a resolution of the people, clearly expressed in some form or
other, that from now on other fundamental conceptions sway our
institutions and consequently our existence. The change of conditions
takes place in proportion to the progressive development in ourselves.
We all, without exception, are in a process of development. The
transition to a new view of the world, which has long been on the way,
is to take place during the next few years in the soul of the people.
Whoever hampers this development commits a crime against the
ordinances of God. Only when rationality and natural sensibility rule
the thought of the majority, can we dare think of actual upbuilding.
All enterprises undertaken in the meantime are only barracks which
will be crushed by the spirit of the new time as it will soon appear
with elemental power.
Again, as to his attitude toward the military bills that were pending at
the time of his candidacy, Egidy expresses himself in such fashion as no
legislator in our country has yet ventured on. He binds himself neither
to Yes nor to No. He reserves the right to examine each situation as it
comes:
Should the duty of the representative of the people be understood as
many would have it, he would not need to enter the hall, but might
send in on paper the written Yes or No with which his electors have
stamped him for each individual question. Just because I believe so
fearlessly in the victory of good in the world as a whole, just
because I believe rock-firmly in peace, I must also conscientiously
hear the others. If the representative comes to-day to a decision that
binds him, then he relinquishes the right to approach the champions of
the measure with questions, desires, proposals, and discussions. What
more intelligence does any one need who is tagged beforehand?
On the other hand, a candidate for election must carry with him
serious reflections regarding this as well as every question. My
reflections are as follows: I am persuaded that we are not on the
immediate verge of a war; nor is a war between civilized nations any
longer thinkable. We are on the verge of peace. A war of battles is a
phenomenon which the consciousness of civilized nations has got
beyond. “Peace” does not mean “no more struggle”; “peace” means only
“no more war.” That we ourselves do not desire war and have no use for
it, we affirm on every occasion; our neighbors assert the same. Either
we have confidence in these assertions, and then nothing hinders us
from accordingly realizing peace,—to-day we are only living in an
armistice,—or we do not have confidence in these assertions, and then
we must forthwith get a certainty of how we stand with our neighbors.
The present status is unworthy of a dignified nation. “The quietest
man cannot live in peace if it does not suit his malignant
neighbor”—but the proof that the neighbor is malignant is lacking; the
proof that it does not suit the neighbor is lacking; and, above all,
the proof is lacking that from the moment when we should pave the way
for peace it would not suit the neighbor; quite apart from the fact
that we have no right to designate ourselves as quietest men. As yet
nothing has been done to convince our neighbors by our actions that we
love peace. Only after attempts directed toward this end have shown a
negative result will it be permissible to say that our neighbor is
thinking of war. But in that case the sooner we strike the better. So
I shall first ask for the proof of the factors of danger which the
champions of these measures may allege, and shall, as occasion may
demand, suggest and support measures which shall practically
demonstrate to our neighbors that love for peace which we have always
professed. _Si vis pacem, para pacem._ One party must begin; he is
free to begin who is most sensibly conscious of his strength; he is
bound to begin who can say with the best conscience: “Not from fear of
war do I put aside my weapons, but from love for peace.” The manliness
of the nation should assuredly not be lost; but for its exercise the
handiwork of war is no longer necessary, nor for its preservation the
battlefield.
It was a time when in the German Empire the combating of the so-called
revolutionary parties was part of the order of the day. Egidy took a
stand with regard to this question also, and gave his discussion of it a
particularly interesting turn; for his conception of “religion, order,
propriety,”—three ideas which he assuredly held in the highest
esteem,—differed fundamentally from the popular conception which demands
a clinging fast to all the established. He who fights under the banner
of Evolution does not want to “revolutionize” the established, but to
“transform” it. I let Egidy speak for himself:
I do not see any revolution (_Umsturz_, “upset”) threatening, anyhow:
at least I do not feel threatened so long as I still have the
confidence, which hitherto remains unshaken, that we shall wake to
reason at the right time. To begin with, there is no need of thinking
of such a thing as an upset, but only of the breakdown, the collapse,
of an antiquated view of the world. Things can come to an upset, i.e.
a topsy-turvy state, a reign of terror, only if the representatives of
the hitherto-existing order, in melancholy blindness or from outright
selfish motives, contumaciously oppose the collapse of antiquated
notions, set themselves against the breakdown of untenable social
formations. That they can prevent the collapse is of course a thing
not to be thought of, no more than any one may imagine that he
occasioned this breakdown.
Egidy’s style acquires a distinct individuality from its conciseness and
perspicuity of expression, which are the consequences of the absolute
honesty and straightforwardness of his thought. Never, for the sake of a
fine-sounding phrase or a rhetorical effect, will a superfluous word or
a periphrasis be found in it; but the heartfelt quality of the thought
does now and then create for itself new words and new compoundings which
unintentionally become stylistic beauties:
The community is a living organism, in which injuries can be cured
only from within outward, only by a new, pure, warm heart-blood. No
sentimentality, no full-toned din of words. The will to resolve. The
doing, also, by each in his own way. We want to be practical
idealists, idealists in realization, idealists in act.[37]
We were entertaining callers when Lieutenant Colonel von Egidy was
announced: our ambassador Count Szechenyi, and Ossip Schubin the famous
Austrian novelist, who had moved from Bohemia to Berlin awhile
previously with her sister the painter. A pretty, vivacious, elegant
lady. A new novel of hers had just been published, adding yet more to
her already well-established reputation as a notable delineator of
Austrian high life. When Egidy came in Count Szechenyi took his
departure, but Ossip Schubin remained awhile longer. Joyously we went
forward to greet our caller and shake hands with him. After a long
correspondence a first meeting is the meeting after an absence.
Egidy, although rather short in stature, had a very martial appearance;
his bearing, his voice, his accent, were altogether those of a Prussian
officer of hussars. But the rigorous face with its thick mustache was
lighted up by a pair of smiling, gleaming blue eyes.
The presence of the strange lady kept the conversation in conventional
channels at first; there was no talk about the things that were close to
our hearts. The lieutenant colonel and the authoress had ten minutes of
very lively converse. Then Ossip Schubin took leave of us. Later it came
out that neither of them had ever heard of the other. Evidently Egidy
was not interested in fiction and Ossip Schubin cared still less for
political addresses.
Then, as soon as we were alone, we broached the subject of the efforts
in which we were respectively engaged. I had not then heard any of
Egidy’s public speeches, but even in his conversation words flowed
warmly and eloquently from his lips. He was so completely penetrated
with his ideas, his plans, his hopes, that he uttered what he was full
of. Such an utterance were his speeches also, as I afterward discovered;
only in them he spoke with an exceptionally loud, clear, and deliberate
utterance, and was often carried to heights of eloquence by his inward
fire. In the drawing-room, of course, he spoke gently and more simply,
but still with ever logical fullness of thought, always consistent with
himself. We now let him know our ideas and aims also. The peace cause
Egidy had not yet included in his programme, although theoretically he
agreed with us.
The next day we visited him in his home. A beautiful, harmonious family
circle. A congenial wife—born Princess of something, I have forgotten
the name—and ten children. To be sure, not all ten were at home. The
oldest son was serving in the navy; one daughter was studying in Sweden;
but at any rate there was a fine bunch of Egidy children present, and
all seemed to worship their father. One of the daughters acted as his
secretary. Charming hours those were which we spent in the plainly
furnished home in eager speech and reply, in which the wife and the
older children took part, about the loftiest aims of human struggle and
labor,—reconciliation, peace, consecration of life. “We are pulling on
different ropes,” said Egidy to us, “but it is the same bell.”
Later, when on the occasion of his candidacy I wrote to him how
desirable it was that such servants of the community, such thinkers who
stood above narrow party interests, should be members of the popular
assembly, and how different everything would then at once be, he wrote
back to me:
Everything will not be different at once, but gradually—of course; but
the tempo decides. “Gradually” everybody says; the point is whether it
is slow step by numbers—One—back again—One—back again—Twooooo (you
surely know something of the drillground?) or, of course, rather
livelier, try even a bit of quick step for aught I care—no need that
it be a double quick with _tambours battants_. And it is coming. It
has to come. What phases we may still have to pass through I would not
say, in view of the latest phenomena in our public life. As yet I
still do not believe in a bloody settlement. The incoming of the new
view of the world will come about, not without tears and outcries, but
still as a natural process, as a birth.
You speak of my working power. Well, yes, I have working power and
creative impulse, and how I yearn to be able to bring both
“immediately” into service. Inwardly I am so well prepared and
equipped that at a second’s notice I could take up my duties. I am
sure of myself. If one chooses to speak at all of a value which I may
be supposed to represent (as your words do in such a wonderfully
pretty way), this value can only be seen in the future. Many have
already spoken and written, but if they were put before the “doing”
they gave out; they made miserable compromises with shallow
unchangeableness and other wretched notions. Honesty, concord, the
bringing into concord of preaching and practice, is what the business
means for me. And in this matter I will not yield a hair’s breadth
from my apprehension of the truth.
On our return from Hamburg, where we had gone after my Berlin address,
we stopped in Berlin (as has already been mentioned) for only an hour at
the railway station. Thereupon Egidy wrote me the following letter,
which also I will put on record here because it shows so very clearly
how Egidy conceived of his busy work and of a possible coöperation with
me: