of the various measures taken by Frederick William's ministers, but
for the most part they were unfavourably criticised. Under every other
question smouldered the question of the Prussian Constitution. The
king's attempt to dispose of it by a rebuff had been unsuccessful, and
the means which he and his advisers employed to put down the movement
were extremely infelicitous. In the Silesian Landtag (Parliament) the
chief magistrate and other representatives of the town of Breslau had
proposed an address from the Silesian Estates on the subject of a
general assembly of the Estates of the whole kingdom--a Reichstag. The
king replied by a special announcement of the procedure to be observed
on the occasion of his approaching visit to Silesia, intimating that no
arrangements need be made for his festive reception and entertainment
in Breslau, as he would accept nothing from that town. This in May, in
reference to a journey to be taken in October, and festivities of which
there had as yet been no offer! And the king entered Breslau in state
and was fêted after all, though the festivities were not held specially
on his account, but on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of
the incorporation of Silesia with Prussia. He contented himself with
deploring the absence in the invitation sent him of "expressions which
would have given him heart-felt pleasure," and with declining to stay
longer than a day or two on account of want of time.
Yet the king stood in need of the consent of the Estates of the realm
to the carrying out of a project of the utmost importance for the
whole country. The time of railways had come, and two matters had
to be arranged, a loan of the money needed for the construction of
State railways, and a State guarantee to the constructors of private
lines. According to a law passed by Hardenberg in 1820, the consent
of the Estates of the realm was imperative in both cases. The king
evolved an impossible plan; he proposed to convoke an assembly of six
hundred representatives chosen from the different provincial Landtage,
and to let this assembly play the part of Reichstände (Estates of
the realm). Metternich was obliged to interfere, and prove the utter
impracticability of the scheme.[9]
[9] Sybel: _Die Begründung des deutschen Reiches_, i. 107.
It was at this juncture that a small pamphlet, _Vier Fragen eines
Ostpreussen_ ("Four Questions by an East-Prussian"), made a sensation
throughout the whole of Germany. The little book appeared on the
spiritual horizon like the first distant flash of lightning that
preludes the storm. Purporting to be printed in Mannheim, it was
scattered abroad everywhere in the end of February 1841. Such careful
arrangements had been made that it found its way into the booksellers'
windows of every town in Prussia on the same day--every town except
Berlin, where it appeared a little later, a precaution taken to prevent
confiscation before the general distribution.
The Four Questions which it contained foreboded the downfall of
absolute monarchy. They were: What did the Estates ask? What right had
they to make such a request? What answer did they receive? What remains
for them to do?
The book's answer to the first question was that, as things now stood,
the people had almost no share in their own government, although the
general high level of education made it natural that they should wish
it. And their desire for a representative constitution, for a national
parliament, was made more ardent by the fact that they possessed no
other means, such, for instance, as a free press, of expressing their
opinions, and that they thoroughly distrusted the king's ministers
because of their arbitrariness, servility, and pietistic tendencies.
To the question: What right had the Estates to make such a demand?
the author replied: The right of authority, an authority declared and
recognised on the 22nd of May 1815. To the third question: What answer
did they receive? the reply was: A recognition of their loyalty, a
rejection of their proposal, and comforting promises of some vague
future indemnification. The answer to the fourth question: What remains
for the Estates to do? only occupied a line and a half. It was: To
demand now as a demonstrable right what they had previously solicited
as an act of grace.
The earnest, impressive tone of the pamphlet, its appeal to the
people's sense of justice and self-respect, aroused a keen desire to
know the name of the anonymous author. He himself had sent his book to
the king, with his name written on the title page: Dr. Johann Jacoby,
physician in Königsberg. The king at once ordered criminal proceedings
to be instituted against him. It appeared that he was a man of means,
and a very highly esteemed physician. In 1831, during the first and
most violent epidemic of cholera in Poland, he had gone there to study
the disease. At a later period he had had a protracted quarrel with a
Warsaw doctor, a regular quack, who, when the cholera broke out again
in 1837, advertised his discovery of an infallible remedy for "this
trivial, easily curable disease." Jacoby wrote a short scientific
article in disparagement of this man. The quack wrote an answer full
of insulting imputations, which he published in the Berlin newspapers.
By the help of influential friends he not only managed to secure the
prohibition of the publication of Jacoby's retort, but also to defeat
the latter's successive appeals to the Berlin censor's superior, to the
highest council of censorship, to Rochow, the Secretary of State, and
to the king himself. The publishers in Hamburg, Leipzig, Grimma, Basle,
and Berne, one and all refused to print the documents throwing light on
this affair. Any other man would now have given up the attempt to get
his reply to an attack in a contemptible newspaper article published.
Not so Jacoby. Month followed upon month. The manuscript travelled
thousands of miles, and was published at last in Paris, under the title
of _Contribution to a Future Historical Account of the Censorship of
the Press in Prussia_.
Such was Jacoby's character. Here at last was found what Young Germany
so sorely needed, what even Youngest Germany with its Herwegh had not
produced, that first essential in public life--a man. At last the
Germany of the Forties had found a strong political leader--not a
statesman in the proper sense of the word, for time showed that he was
incapable of accommodating himself to circumstances, that he could not
be satisfied with aiming at the attainable; but a man of inflexible
will, of absolute integrity, who with indomitable courage pressed
onwards to his goal.
The Government organs, the libellous press, began a systematic
attack upon him. There was nothing to lay hold of in his blameless
personality, but he was of Jewish descent. In a little pamphlet
published by the local magnates of a small town in the neighbourhood
of Königsberg under the title of _Stimme treuer Unterthanen seiner
Majestät des Königs von Preussen_ ("Voice of a Few Faithful Subjects
of his Majesty the King of Prussia"), we read: "Not from German, not
from Christian lips did these words proceed.... East-Prussia would be
disgraced if her sons had expressed such sentiments.... The seed of
Jacob did not hearken to the voice of God, did not acknowledge his only
begotten son, but put him to death; therefore they were cast off for
ever, and scattered abroad among the nations of the earth." Presently,
however, in all the booksellers' windows the portrait of Jacoby was to
be seen; his face, with its clear-cut features, was surrounded by four
marks of interrogation; he held his pen like a lance poised for attack.
The significance of the man who thus made his appearance was felt
by the poets, even by those with least strength of character, even
by Dingelstedt, who was then preparing to barter his oppositionist
principles for the title of _Hofrath_ (Privy Councillor). In
Dingelstedt's fine collection of poems, _Nachtwächters Weltgang_, we
find one with the heading: ????, evidently addressed to the King of
Prussia:
"Du weisst, was das bedeuten will? Du wirst sie mir nicht streichen?
Es sind ja nur unschuldige--vier kleine Fragezeichen.
Die wurzeln tief, die ragen hoch; wie die gerühmten Eichen
Des freien deutschen Volkes stehn vier kleine Fragezeichen.
Du wolltest sie zwar nimmer sehn in deinen weiten Reichen,
Doch drängen sie sich immer auf, vier kleine Fragezeichen.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Und einst, wenn du gestorben bist, als Stempel dann und Aichen
Stehn gross an deinem Monument--vier kleine Fragezeichen."[10]
[10] You know the meaning of these marks? You would never dream
of erasing them--four innocent little marks of interrogation? Yet
they strike deep root, they mount towards heaven, like the oak, the
emblem of the great, free German nation. You have done your best to
annihilate them throughout your wide realms, but they persistently
appear again, these four little marks of interrogation.... In years to
come, when you are dead, there will stand as sign and symbol on your
monument--four little marks of interrogation.
Herwegh, too, sang Jacoby's praises, as if he had a prevision that this
was a man who, placed face to face with the King of Prussia, would
play a more manly part than he himself had done. And the prevision was
correct In November 1848, when the king replied to the deputation that
waited on him to demand a change of ministers: "I will not listen to
any communication on this subject," it was Jacoby who stepped forward
and said: "It is the great misfortune of kings, that they will not
listen to the truth." Herwegh's poem, which has a J. as headings,
begins:
"Und wieder ob den Landen
Lag jüngst ein schwerer Bann:
Da ist ein Mann erstanden,
Ein ganzer, deutscher Mann.
Ein deutscher und ein freier,
Wer hätte das gedacht!
Dass selbst die deutsche Leier
Aus ihrem Schlaf erwacht."[11]
[11] Our country in these latter days lay under a heavy ban; but,
behold! there arose to deliver her one who with truth could be called a
man. A German, and a freeman--who could have dreamt it? who could have
looked for this awakening of the German lyre?
The proceedings against Jacoby were carried on with extraordinary
vigour. In less than four weeks he was brought up for examination
twenty times; ninety-six witnesses gave evidence, shop-women, cooks,
and school-children among the number. His real misdemeanour was
merely a transgression of the press-laws, namely circumvention of
censorship. But he was accused of instigation to disaffection--for
which the punishment was two years' imprisonment and disfranchisement;
of _lèse-majesté_--for which the punishment was four years' penal
servitude; and of high treason--punishment, "death, with application of
the most severe and deterrent pains and penalties."
It was in his native town, Königsberg, that Jacoby was brought to
trial; but the court there declared itself incompetent to deal with the
case, seeing that it was one of high treason, and passed it on to the
Kammergericht in Berlin. The Kammergericht, aware that the charge of
high treason was untenable, also declared itself unqualified, and sent
it back. The king was obliged to issue an order in council, requiring
the Königsberg court to proceed with the trial. It was altogether to
Jacoby's advantage to be tried by his fellow-citizens; but he disdained
the idea of an illegal acquittal, and obstinately demanded to be tried
by the Kammergericht in Berlin, since he was accused of high treason.
His wish had to be complied with. He was condemned to two and a half
years' imprisonment with hard labour and disfranchisement. But three
years later the highest court of appeal pronounced a full and free
acquittal.
In the meantime all over Germany money was collected to present him
with a civic wreath; subscriptions poured in; the names of eminent
men headed the lists. Once more the Government was obliged to take
action; the subscription lists were seized, the subscribers summoned,
and a stop put to the whole proceeding. While the police and the
censors were thus struggling to suppress the agitation for a free
constitution, there was issued, on the 11th of August 1842, the most
absurd regulation of which there is any record in the annals of an
autocratically governed country--one of the country's own existing
laws was added to the list of prohibited writings; it was forbidden
to reprint the law of the 22nd of May 1815 (that relating to the
institution of Estates of the Realm), because of its tendency to excite
discontent.
In September 1842, those Prussians who had hoped to see their country
under the new king shake itself free from its humiliating relations
with the Emperor Nicholas, learned that Frederick William IV., in
Platen's day the warm, if platonic, friend of Poland, the hater of
Russian tactics, was preparing for a journey to Warsaw to meet the
Czar. On the return journey the king stopped at Kalisch to inspect the
monument erected there in memory of the meeting between the sovereigns
of Russia and Prussia in 1813. A Russian officer, General Berg (the
future castigator of Poland), translated the inscriptions for him. One
of them was: "May the Almighty give His blessing to the alliance and
friendship between Russia and Prussia, that it may advance the peace
and prosperity of both countries and inspire fear in their common
enemies!" On hearing this inscription read, the king hastened up the
steps of the monument and in the dust upon its side wrote with his
finger the word: Amen![12]
[12] Prutz: _Zehn Jahre_, i. pp. 237, 367, 516, &c.
XXV
THE NEUTRAL LITERATURE
Nevertheless, Frederick William IV. was, and remained, the most
intellectually gifted monarch of his day; his conversation gave
evidence of both intelligence and imagination. It was a principle with
him that all his feelings ought to be kingly; his published letters to
Humboldt, written in amusing court jargon, are bright and clever; his
sayings show quickness of apprehension, easily awakened compassion,
ready wit.[1] Nor can it be said that he was out of touch with
the German intellectual life and literature of the day; he showed
favour to all the "good" writers, and disfavour to the "bad"; but it
was not long before all Oppositionist writers were included in the
latter class.
In the beginning of the reign, Humboldt's was the dominating literary
influence at court. Alexander von Humboldt, now eighty, the most
famous scientist of the day, and a man of world-wide celebrity, kept
the king well posted up in all the latest intellectual and scientific
movements. His brother Wilhelm's liberal political theories had fallen
into complete disrepute; to his own he dared not give expression at
court; holding both superstition and reaction in abhorrence, he was a
silent witness of much that was repugnant to him, though he now and
again spoke his mind.[2] Honoured by the king and his intimates
as the ornament of the court and the pride of his country, he took
advantage of his position to further the cause of science and to say an
occasional helpful word for this or that persecuted author. Published
letters show that, before 1848, the king treated Humboldt with a
sort of playful familiarity, though there was no real, deep sympathy
between the two men. After 1848, when the Kreuzzeitung party became
all-powerful, Humboldt gave expression to his annoyance at having
lost his influence, in such remarks as, "It is no longer possible to
amuse the king;" or, "the king persists in wasting fruitless affection
on persons whom he has taken into favour." Amiability was not his
characteristic at court; he was often sarcastic, and became angry
when Ranke's political opinions found more favour than his. He was
disliked by many, amongst others by the queen, who disapproved of his
attachment to Louis Philippe and his family. He was in the habit of
reading aloud all varieties of literature, but never his own writings;
most frequently he read the _Journal des Débats_, whilst the king sat
planning landscapes and architectural drawings.
Another of those who read aloud to the royal family was Tieck, whom the
king had brought to Berlin from Dresden. Though Tieck was considerably
younger than Humboldt, court life was a burden to him because of his
bodily infirmity. Shakespeare and Kleist were the authors he most
frequently read from. The king ordered Tieck's own old fairy play,
_Puss in Boots_, to be performed in Berlin, it was like the appearance
of some antiquated spectre. At the king's instigation Tieck put the
_Antigone_ of Sophocles on the stage, and Mendelssohn composed music
for it. But Tieck was only one of literature's invalided soldiers. When
the court dined in the garden of Sans Souci, he was afraid of draughts,
even on the warmest days.
Another once famous author of the Romantic period whom the king called
to Berlin was La Motte Fouqué. Though not much over sixty, this writer
had completely outlived his reputation. His romances seemed to the
younger generation to belong to a pre-historic period. People were
tired of tales of chivalry and the service of love (_Minnedienst_) told
in a conventionally childish style; his unhistorical conception of past
times and his sanctimoniousness aroused derision. Had it not been for
the king's support, he would have died in want and oblivion.
In 1841, chiefly on the recommendation of Varnhagen, the king invited
to Berlin a great poet who did not belong to the Romantic school.
This was Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866). Rückert was only fifty-three,
but he did not belong to the period in which he lived; he was the
expression in the literature of the day of that German universality
which is unaffected by circumstances, of the gift of appropriation,
absorption and imitation of the peculiarities of all other races. All
his life long he shook poems out of his sleeve with a truly astonishing
skill. As a young man he was initiated by Joseph von Hammer into the
literatures of Arabia, Persia, and Turkey, and in 1826 he was appointed
lecturer in Oriental languages at the University of Erlangen, but his
duties as lecturer he constantly tried to evade.
There is something about him which reminds us of Goethe in the Divan
period, and something which he owes to the Schlegels and their
indefatigable study and translation. The essay on philology, _Ueber
das Wesen der Philologie_, which he wrote in 1811, shows the influence
of Friedrich Schlegel's work on the wisdom of ancient India; for he
starts from the idea of a "universal poetry," for which he considers
the German language the most sympathetic vehicle. And universal,
cosmopolitan poetry is exactly what this great master of style has
given us. He, as the German patriot, makes his début with _Geharnischte
Sonnette_ ("Armoured Sonnets"), polished and rather mannered verse.
This book is followed by volume after volume of love-poems to various
young women (five to six hundred poems). In the last and largest of
these volumes, _Liebesfrühling_, inscribed to his fiancée, Louise
Witthaus, feeling is predominant; everywhere else he is the didactic
poet employing lyric forms, here he is the singer. But even here, set
forms--as in the _Canzonets of the South_--stand in the way of the
simple, natural outburst of feeling, and already Rückert's inclination
to display his mastery over language shows itself in a hitherto
unexampled free invention of new words and ease in interlacing within
the limits of metre:
"Welche Heldenfreudigkeit der Liebe,
Welche Stärke muthigen Entsagens,
Welche himmlisch erdentschwungene Triebe,
Welche Gottbegeistrung des Ertragens!
Welche Sich-Erhebung, Sich-Erwiedrung,
Sich-Entäussrung, völl'ge Hin-sich-gebung,
Seelenaustausch, Ineinanderlebung!"
There is more of philological and technical than of purely poetical
interest in such verse as this. But Rückert _was_ the philologist
as poet. His predominating gift is the gift of language in its two
developments--the capacity to learn languages and penetrate into
their spirit, and the capacity, due to his profound penetration into
the mysteries of his own language, to reproduce in German the best
poetry written in other languages. He delighted in creating linguistic
difficulties for himself to overcome. At one time we have him writing
in the old German style that corresponded to his Albrecht Dürer curls,
at another as a young officer of the time of Napoleon; now he is a
Bedouin telling us Hariri's tales with marvellous skill, and again a
Persian weaving his rhyme in the form of Ghazels or recreating the epic
of Rustum and Sohrab. He appears before us as a Turk in caftan and
turban, as a Chinaman with slippers and pig-tail; but most frequently
and with most pleasure he sits as a Brahmin on the banks of the sacred
Ganges, proclaiming in sonorous verse the thousand golden rules of
a happy philosophy of life. It is said of Théophile Gautier that he
was, intellectually speaking, equally at home in ancient Egypt, in
the Russia of to-day, in Constantinople, and in Seville. This is only
true to the extent that he was well acquainted with the climatic
characteristics and the monuments of many foreign lands. It may be
said with much profounder truth of Rückert, who comprehended the human
beings through their literatures, understood their language and thought
in their spirit. He never saw the foreign lands with his bodily eyes,
therefore he has neither Gautier's colour, nor his power of graphic
presentation; he views them all calmly, reflectively, with the eye of
the mind, and gives us the mental pictures in an astonishing variety
of metrical forms. Whoever desires to make acquaintance with excellent
specimens of his art should read _Hariri's Makamehs_ (more particularly
the division entitled _Jungfrau und Junge Frau_) or _Weisheit der
Bramanen_.
These works had gained Rückert a wide circle of readers and admirers
in Berlin; but the town, with its restlessness, was antipathetic to
him. He was to lecture on Oriental languages at the university, and his
first lectures were attended by a curious crowd; but this crowd soon
dwindled down to an audience of two or three, and Rückert gave up going
to the university. He sat in his room in the third flat of a house in
the Behrenstrasse and wrote poems in which he expressed his detestation
of Berlin and its agitated, modern life. Even the Berlin of the royal
romanticist was too modern for these celebrities of past days.