steadily growing and spreading. In France he occupies men's minds as
if he were a contemporary. He is the only foreign poet whom Frenchmen
regard as one of their own, one of their greatest. No other foreign
author is so frequently mentioned in the French literature of our own
day, and none is named with greater admiration, not even Shelley or
Poe. Edmond de Goncourt makes use of the strong expression, that all
modern French writers when compared with Heine remind him of commercial
travellers; and Théophile Gautier said that the Philistines sought to
drag the stones to build a pyramid above Heine's grave.
A question that is constantly cropping up in one civilised society or
another is: What works should be included in a library of the hundred
best books? The answers of course vary very much. But in all Romanic
and Slavonic countries, Heine's name is sure to be one of the first
on the lists. On English lists there are usually ninety English books
and ten foreign, but Heine's name is certain to be among the ten. The
belief that it is possible to find a hundred books which would be
the best reading for every one, a belief which has its origin in the
Protestant notion of there being one such great book, is of course
childish, and the question interesting only in so far as it shows what
an entirely impersonal ideal of culture exists in the mind both of
the questioner and of those who naïvely set themselves to answer his
question. It is instructive, however, _à propos_ of Heine, to notice
the results in certain specific cases. No small astonishment was
expressed in Germany a few years ago, when a great number of English
lists were published, and Heine was found in them all--a distinction
shown to no other German author, for there were lists which contained
no book by Goethe.
This universal fame is not, however, founded on Heine's merits alone,
but also on the fact that much of his writing demands only the very
slightest amount of culture for its comprehension, and of refinement
of mind for its enjoyment; the latter quality being indeed rather a
hindrance to the enjoyment of some of it. Still its main foundation is
the fact that, after all, his talent was, in its way, the most eminent
of that period.
If, then, the value of a literary work of art is evidenced by its power
of resistance to time, and its attraction for foreign readers, and
yet these qualities form no proper criterion of its value, how are we
to gauge it? By the originality and vigour of the spiritual life and
of the emotion of which the work is an expression, together with its
power of impressing these characteristics on the reader. All art is
the expression of some emotion, and has for its object the production
of emotions. The deeper a signet gem is cut, the sharper, the clearer
are the outlines in wax. The deeper the impression in the soul of the
artist, the clearer, the more forcible is its artistic expression. The
emotions of the artist differ from those of other men only in this,
that they leave in his memory that species of impression, which, when
he reproduces it, infects listener or reader.
The questions to which any work provides us with answers are such
as the following: How far-sighted was the author? How deeply did he
penetrate into the life of his time? How characteristically did he feel
joy, or grief, or sadness, or love, or enthusiasm, or cynicism? We
say: So great was the horror, or disgust, inspired in him by stupidity
or wickedness; so sharply or wittily did he revenge himself and us on
contemptible stupidity or worthlessness. From the best we receive an
impression of high-mindedness or greatness, of love of truth or love
of beauty; in the case of inferior men we suffer from deficiency in
understanding, in depth of feeling, in sense of beauty, or in strength
of character.
Now the literary group under consideration includes no creative minds
of the highest, and only one of very high rank, namely Heine. It
bequeathed to posterity little that was tangibly great. It denied, it
emancipated, it cleared up, it let in fresh air. It is strong through
its doubt, its hatred of thraldom, its individualism.
In Germany, especially in North Germany, it has never stood so low in
general estimation as at the present day. Those writers who, about the
year 1830, made war upon all the forms of tyranny which weighed upon
the German-speaking peoples, have in our days been overtaken by an
unpopularity which shows no signs of decrease.
The explanation is simple. The younger generation of the Germany of
to-day, which has the unification of the Empire behind it--that
unification which to the men of 1830 was a fantastic hope--and which
has seen Germany put forth its united strength in prompt, universally
successful action, that generation takes little interest in the old
dreamy speculations as to how the unification was to be brought about,
and is bored by these old writers' everlasting ridicule of German
sleepiness and inactivity, German pedantry and theorising, now that
results have shown how practical and how resolute the flouted Germany
could be when an opportunity was offered her.
More especially since the Franco-German war, the writers who half a
century ago were always praising France at the expense of Germany,
or maintaining that liberty would bring to Germany those blessings
which actually came to her through Bismarck, have been placed under a
sort of ban. They are looked on as bad patriots and foolish prophets.
Only a small minority are able to perceive how powerfully that very
indignation, that scorn for the contemptible existing conditions,
helped to bring on the change and improvement that followed. And still
fewer in number are those who read in the literature of the Thirties
and Forties a living reproach for betrayed or forgotten ideals, and
who, as they turn over the leaves of these old books, ask themselves
sadly what, in the new order of things, has become of the best that
these men fought for.
VII
BÖRNE
Of the authors who in those days stood in the foremost rank, Ludwig
Börne is now almost the most neglected. The subjects on which he wrote
are obsolete, and none but those interested in the personality of the
writer read his short prose pieces in the form of newspaper articles
or letters, for the sake of the style, or of the spirit in which the
subject is treated. It was in the later years of his life that Börne
first really made a name for himself by his _Letters from Paris_;
and the abstract hatred of princes and the republican faith which
find expression in these letters are entirely out of place in the
young Empire of to-day. No personality could be more utterly out of
keeping with the new order of things. Where the idea of the State is
by slow degrees becoming all-powerful: where, from above, despotically
socialistic, it seeks to restrict initiative, transforms as many
citizens as possible into paid officials, and gives the paid official
precedence of the simple citizen, and from below, revolutionarily
socialistic, strives with all its might to restrict individual freedom
of action: there markedly self-reliant characters inevitably disappear,
and the rugged, independent individuality seems something illegal,
something which no one can accept as a model of culture. Börne's was
just such an angular individuality and perfectly independent character.
[Illustration: LUDWIG BÖRNE]
In the German middle-class of to-day, speaking generally, the only task
that seems worthy of a man is to build up, to forward, to strengthen
or remould the already acquired. The iconoclastic tendency of Börne's
mind at once alarms. The fire which warmed his age and generation is
to the new generation that of a Don Quixote who charges with his lance
at fortress and castle walls. And yet Börne, too, had a hand in the
production of the iron architecture of the new Iron Age of Germany. His
fire melted the ore out of which the new pillars of society have been
cast.
Perhaps nothing has injured Börne more in the estimation of the present
generation than his violently prejudiced denunciation of Goethe.
Goethe, as productive and intelligent spirit, is so great, and his
temperament and personality are so unique, that in our own day a man's
judgment of him gives a valuable clue to that man's mind and character.
And although in those days there were quite a number of writers, not
only belonging to the clerical party, but also among the opposition,
who detested Goethe, there can be no doubt that Börne gave clear proof
of narrow-mindedness by the manner in which he wrote of the venerable
old man in Weimar, by the nature of his protests against the general
belief in Goethe's greatness as a man and as a poet.
But in order to understand how it came about and what it signified that
a revolutionary political moralist like Börne entertained a feeling
of positive hatred and of lasting and lively resentment towards the
greatest genius in all German literature, it is necessary that we
should understand how, from his very birth, Börne's fate placed him in
a position of antagonism to the great man whom he was driven to judge
by an alien and therefore a false standard.
Goethe and Börne were natives of the same town, born, one thirty-seven
years after the other, in Frankfort-on-Main. Frankfort was an old
imperial fortified city, with gates and towers which indicated the
boundaries of the town in earlier days, and an outer circle of gates,
towers, walls, bridges, ramparts and moats round the new town. It
was a fortified place enclosing smaller fortifications in the shape
of monastic buildings and castle-like mansions. There was something
unalterable about the town, which was surrounded by a sort of halo of
ancient, venerable independence. It was a patrician republic, in which
a stranger was practically without the pale of the law. Woe to him
if he engaged in a law-suit with a Frankfort citizen in a Frankfort
court of justice, though it might be clear as noon-day that he was in
the right! The ruling families formed an exclusive coterie, and their
social intercourse was marked by much old-fashioned ceremony. No one
dreamed of the possibility of tampering with any of the old political
or social institutions of the city. The authorities had no spirit of
enterprise, the inhabitants no feeling that change of any kind was
possible. Such a thing as political cohesion with the rest of Germany
was unthought of. In the Germany of that day each town, and in the town
each quarter, was a little world by itself.
Goethe was a young patrician. His father was an Imperial Councillor
(_kaiserlicher Rath_). As soon as the young man had acquired a thorough
knowledge and understanding of his native town, it must have seemed to
him that fate could not possibly have any other lot in store for him
but that of a prosperous Frankfort citizen. For the town enthralled
him; its best families took possession of the handsome, gifted youth,
their women made much of him, their tradition bound him. There was
nothing to attract him to the larger towns, Vienna or Berlin, which
were then practically as far from Frankfort as Rome and St. Petersburg
are in our days. Fate appeared to have destined him to become in
due time a lawyer, paterfamilias, public official, house-owner, and
literary notability in his native town.[1]
Goethe's actual evasion of this fate was, as every one knows, mainly
due to the fact which calls down Börne's wrath upon him, that he became
the retainer of a prince, that the Duke of Weimar gave him an important
appointment at his little court.
Börne, too, was born in Frankfort-on-Main, but in the Jews' quarter.
In his day it was a misfortune to be born a Jew in Germany; for there,
as elsewhere, the Jews had none of the rights of citizens. But it was
a special misfortune to be born a Jew in Frankfort-on-Main. In other
large towns, the position which Jews by this time took in society to
a certain extent counterbalanced their political disqualifications.
Both in Vienna and Berlin many Jewish houses were frequented as centres
of liberal-minded culture and brilliant wit. Jewesses of genius like
Rahel, charming Jewesses like Henriette Herz, Baroness Grotthuis,
Baroness Arnstein, the Prince of Reuss's consort, and many others,
were soon to become leaders of society in the capitals of Prussia and
Austria. But in Frankfort, in every walk of life, the barrier between
the religions was an impassable one.
All Jews were compelled to live in the narrow, mean, over-populated
Judengasse, which was their only place of abode for 334 years, from
1462 onwards. The contrast we read of in novels between the outward
meanness and inward splendour of the Ghettos did not exist here; the
interiors of the houses corresponded to their exteriors; in the small,
dark rooms no display of splendour or of taste was possible. A few
years ago we had the best of all opportunities of judging of the kind
of life the inhabitants of the Judengasse must have lived. One side
of the street was pulled down, and a single stunted row of deformed,
hunchbacked, cramped, startled-looking houses, in which great gaps had
already been made by the axe of the leveller, was exposed to the full
light of day, from which their little blinking bull's-eye windows gave
them the appearance of shrinking.
As soon as it began to grow dark, all the inhabitants of the Ghetto
were locked in. When they walked through the streets or round the
ramparts in the day-time, they dared not set foot on the pavement
or foot-paths, but had to keep to the middle of the road. They were
obliged to take off their hats and make a low bow to every passer-by
who called: "Mach mores, Jud'!" In order to prevent their too rapid
increase, only fourteen couples were permitted to marry each year.
Although even at that time a large proportion of the Frankfort Jews,
with Rothschild at their head, were wealthy, a strong society barrier
existed between the religions. They were even separated in the Masonic
Lodges, which are consecrated to "brotherly love" and the worship of
"the highest Being."
It is clear that such a condition of things must have had a strong
influence on a receptive young mind.
On the 6th of May 1786, in house No. 118 of that Judengasse which has
now disappeared, there was born to the "Jew merchant Jakob Baruch" a
third son, the same who in 1818, shortly before his baptism, exchanged
the name Juda Low Baruch, given him at his birth, for that of Ludwig
Börne. The family stood in very high estimation. Börne's grandfather
was a rich and remarkably benevolent man. He built and fitted up a
synagogue for the community at his own expense. He was the business
agent at Neckarsulm of the Teutonic Order, and was thence transferred,
on account of his ability and honesty, to Mergentheim, the headquarters
of the Order, where he took up his residence. An Electorship becoming
vacant, he did such good service, in the course of the election, to
the House of Hapsburg, that Maria Theresa with her own hand signed a
document promising all sorts of privileges to him and his descendants
if they should at any time take up their abode in Austria.
This man's son, Jakob Baruch, inherited, it seems, his father's ability
and sagacity without his orthodox religious faith. He was a clever man
of business, with considerable diplomatic talent, much esteemed at
courts and by high officials for his knowledge of human nature, his
clearsightedness and coolness; a cold, prudent man, to whom life had
taught the lesson that the best thing those in his position could do
was to live quietly and thus avoid exciting hatred. He held enlightened
opinions on religious subjects, and the wearisome Jewish ceremonial,
which, chiefly for his father's sake, he felt obliged to observe with
all his household, was a burden to him personally. It was not till late
in life that he tried to emancipate himself. Being a rich man's son,
he had received a fair education; it is said that he was at the same
school in Bonn as Prince Metternich; but his cautiousness led him to
give strict orders to his own son's one tutor to confine himself to the
old Jewish course of instruction--the Bible, the prayer-book, and the
Talmud.
The boy was quiet and shy. As he was the one of her children his mother
cared least for, and was constantly in disgrace with the tyrannical old
servant, his home-life was one of severe discipline, his father too,
no doubt with the manifestation of independence in thought or action.
One result of this was, that when he first came into contact with the
outer world, his emotions blunted, his intellect doubly keen, he looked
at everything from the purely intellectual point of view. A thing was
stupid or not stupid, and that was all.[2]
The religious observances of his home and of the synagogue aroused in
the boy a feeling of aversion as dead ritual; the religious instruction
he received at home made as little impression on him as his attendance
at the synagogue. Certain prayers, as, for instance, the prayer for the
reinstitution of sacrificial worship, displeased him, in spite of his
boyish orthodoxy. To the horror of those about him, he said: "That is a
stupid prayer."
His learning was mere committing to memory, his teacher not believing
himself what he taught; and it was all quickly forgotten. As a grown
man, he did not know a single word of Hebrew, had no understanding
whatever of Jewish customs, and no affection even for the Old
Testament, of which Heine was such an enthusiastic admirer. The man who
himself reminds us of an Old Testament prophet, has not one allusion
to the prophets in all his writings. From time to time, indeed, with
complete indifference, and merely as a well-known illustration, he
refers to some Bible narratives; but as Steinthal acutely observes,
he quotes even such a passage as Samuel's republican warning against
the establishment of a kingdom, which one would expect to excite his
every sympathy, as if he were quoting one of Æsop's fables.[3]
Schiller's essay, _The Mission of Moses_, was the first hint of a
rational conception of religion that reached the boy. It made a deep
impression on him, and shook his faith. Naïvely simple as the essay
is, with its implicit trust in the historic accuracy of the Bible
narrative, it yet inevitably produced a revolution in the mind of the
youthful reader, who now for the first time saw the most important
events in the life of his people and of their lawgiver divested of
every miraculous element, Providence itself being superseded by
"destiny."
Various anecdotes exist, illustrating the awakening of the spirit of
criticism in the boy, and the play of the different forces which formed
his character. One day, when it was raining heavily and the road was
inch-deep in mud, he was walking with his tutor outside the gates of
the town. "Let us walk on the footpath," said Börne. "Do you not know,"
answered the teacher, "that we are forbidden to do that?" The boy's
reply, "no one sees us," gave the tutor an opportunity for a moral
exhortation, with remarks on the sacredness of law. "That is a stupid
law," said Börne.
The tutor was careful to avoid occasions of exciting bitterness in the
child. But there were so many. No Jew was allowed to be present at
any open-air public amusements, not even at a balloon ascent. On all
festive occasions, as, for instance, when the town was decorated for
the reception of royal guests, the Jews were shut up in the Judengasse;
on the day of the coronation of Leopold II. some of their leading men
ventured out, but were at once arrested and taken to the guard-house.
They were prohibited from entering most of the hotels, and from setting
foot in any public grounds or open spaces. The general rule was: Where
there is green grass, no Jew must be seen. On Sundays the gates of
the Judengasse were locked at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the
sentry allowed no one to pass out except persons taking letters to the
post-house or going for medicine to the apothecary's. Little Börne used
to say: "I only don't go out because the sentry is stronger than I am."
Yet when the boy, who early showed signs of a distinctly benevolent
disposition, was accosted one day by two beggars, the one a Jew, the
other a Christian, it was to the latter he gave all the money he had
in his pocket. "Why do you not give the preference to one of your own
people?" asked the tutor. "Because it is written in the Proverbs of
Solomon that we are to heap coals of fire on our enemies' heads." The
conscientious tutor would not hear of this reason: "it was based on the
false assumption that the Christians are the enemies of the Jews."
It is easy to understand that such impressions, received in childhood,
must have caused Börne's ancestry to weigh more upon his mind than it
would have done under normal conditions. And even if he could have
forgotten it, the frequent humiliations experienced in his youth, and
in later years the perpetual allusions to his nationality made both by
his opponents and his champions, would have constantly reminded him of
it. With reference to these perpetual allusions he writes in _Briefe
aus Paris_ (Feb. 7, 1832): "It is like a miracle! The thing is always
happening, and yet is always new to me. One set of people reproach me
with being a Jew; another set forgive me for it; a third go the length
of praising me for it; but they one and all think of it. It is as if
they had been conjured into this magic Jewish circle; none of them can
get clear of it. And I know quite well what is the evil spell. These
poor Germans! They live in the basement, weighed down by seven stories
of higher ranks, and it eases their perturbed minds to talk of human
beings who live even lower down than they do, right down in the cellar.
The fact that they are not Jews consoles them for not even being
court-councillors (_Hofräthe_)."
It cannot, however, be asserted that Börne was peculiarly sensitive
on the subject of his Jewish extraction. He often declaimed with
the greatest indignation against the oppression of the unfortunate
inhabitants of the Ghettos, but he could not do what many expected
of him, could not advocate the emancipation of the Jews with greater
warmth than other kindred causes. A pursuit of liberty with only that
end in view he looked upon as one-sided and egoistic.