The city of Frankfort, the birthplace of Goethe, sends her greeting to the
city of Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. The old free
town of Frankfort, which, since the days of Frederick Barbarossa, has seen
the Emperors of Germany crowned within her walls, might well at all times
speak in the name of Germany. But to-day she sends her greeting, not as
the proud mother of German Emperors, but as the prouder mother of the
greatest among the poets of Germany; and it is from the very house in
which Goethe lived, and which has since become the seat of “the Free
German Institute for Science and Art,” that this message of the German
admirers and lovers of Shakespeare has been sent, which I am asked to
present to you, the Mayor and Council of Stratford-on-Avon.
When honor was to be done to the memory of Shakespeare, Germany could not
be absent, for next to Goethe and Schiller there is no poet so truly loved
by us, so thoroughly our own, as your Shakespeare. He is no stranger with
us, no mere classic, like Homer, or Virgil, or Dante, or Corneille, whom
we admire as we admire a marble statue. He has become one of ourselves,
holding his own place in the history of our literature, applauded in our
theatres, read in our cottages, studied, known, loved, “as far as sounds
the German tongue.” There is many a student in Germany who has learned
English solely in order to read Shakespeare in the original, and yet we
possess a translation of Shakespeare with which few translations of any
work can vie in any language. What we in Germany owe to Shakespeare must
be read in the history of our literature. Goethe was proud to call himself
a pupil of Shakespeare. I shall at this moment allude to one debt of
gratitude only which Germany owes to the poet of Stratford-on-Avon. I do
not speak of the poet only, and of his art, so perfect because so artless;
I think of the man with his large, warm heart, with his sympathy for all
that is genuine, unselfish, beautiful, and good; with his contempt for all
that is petty, mean, vulgar, and false. It is from his plays that our
young men in Germany form their first ideas of England and the English
nation, and in admiring and loving him we have learned to admire and to
love you who may proudly call him your own. And it is right that this
should be so. As the height of the Alps is measured by Mont Blanc, let the
greatness of England be measured by the greatness of Shakespeare. Great
nations make great poets, great poets make great nations. Happy the nation
that possesses a poet like Shakespeare. Happy the youth of England whose
first ideas of this world in which they are to live are taken from his
pages. The silent influence of Shakespeare’s poetry on millions of young
hearts in England, in Germany, in all the world, shows the almost
superhuman power of human genius. If we look at that small house, in a
small street of a small town of a small island, and then think of the
world-embracing, world-quickening, world-ennobling spirit that burst forth
from that small garret, we have learned a lesson and carried off a
blessing for which no pilgrimage would have been too long. Though the
great festivals which in former days brought together people from all
parts of Europe to worship at the shrine of Canterbury exist no more, let
us hope, for the sake of England, more even than for the sake of
Shakespeare, that this will not be the last Shakespeare festival in the
annals of Stratford-on-Avon. In this cold and critical age of ours the
power of worshipping, the art of admiring, the passion of loving what is
great and good are fast dying out. May England never be ashamed to show to
the world that she can love, that she can admire, that she can worship the
greatest of her poets! May Shakespeare live on in the love of each
generation that grows up in England! May the youth of England long
continue to be nursed, to be fed, to be reproved and judged by his spirit!
With that nation—that truly English, because truly Shakespearian
nation—the German nation will always be united by the strongest
sympathies; for, superadded to their common blood, their common religion,
their common battles and victories, they will always have in Shakespeare a
common teacher, a common benefactor, and a common friend.
_April, 1864._