had not been connected with France so long that an affectionate
adherence to the old constitution, manners, language, and costume
did not still exist with old and young. If the conquered party loses
half his existence by compulsion, he looks upon it as disgraceful
voluntarily to part with the other half. He therefore holds fast to all
that can recall to him the good old time, and foster in him the hope
that a better epoch will return. Very many inhabitants of Strasburg
formed little circles, separate, indeed, but nevertheless united in
spirit, which were always increased and recruited by the numerous
subjects of German princes who held considerable lands under French
sovereignty, since fathers and sons, either for the sake of study or
business, resided for a longer or shorter time at Strasburg.
At our table nothing but German was spoken. Salzmann expressed himself
in French with much fluency and elegance; but, with respect to his
endeavours and acts, was a perfect German. Lerse might have been set up
as a pattern of a German youth. Meyer, of Lindau, liked to get on with
good German too well to shine in good French; and if, among the rest,
many were inclined to the Gallic speech and manners, they yet, while
they were with us, allowed the general tone to prevail with them.
[Side-note: Dislike to the French.]
From the language we turned to political affairs. We had not, indeed,
much to say in praise of our own imperial constitution. We granted that
it consisted of mere legal contradictions; but exalted ourselves so
much the more above the present French constitution, which lost itself
in mere lawless abuses, while the government only showed its energy
in the wrong place, and was forced to admit that a complete change in
affairs was already publicly prophesied with black forebodings.
If, on the other hand, we looked towards the north, we were shone upon
by Frederic, the polar-star, who seemed to turn about himself Germany,
Europe, nay, the whole world. His preponderance in everything was most
strongly manifested when the Prussian exercise and even the Prussian
stick was introduced into the French army. As for the rest, we forgave
him his predilection for a foreign language, since we felt satisfaction
that his French poets, philosophers, and _littérateurs_ continued to
annoy him, and often declared that he was to be considered and treated
only as an intruder.
But what, more than all, forcibly alienated us from the French, was the
unpolite opinion, repeatedly maintained, that the Germans in general,
as well as the king, who was striving after French cultivation, were
deficient in taste. With respect to this kind of talk, which followed
every judgment like a burden, we endeavoured to solace ourselves with
contempt; but we could so much the less come to a clear understanding
about it, as we were assured that Menage had already said, that the
French writers possessed everything but taste; and had also learned
from the then living Paris, that all the authors were wanting in taste,
and that Voltaire himself could not escape this severest of reproaches.
Having been before and often directed to nature, we would allow of
nothing but truth and uprightness of feeling, and the quick, blunt
expression of it.
"Friendship, love, and brotherhood,
Are they not self-understood?"
was the watchword and cry of battle, by which the members of our little
academical horde used to know and enliven each other. This maxim lay at
the foundation of all our social banquets, on the occasions of which we
did not fail to pay many an evening visit to Cousin Michel,[3] in his
well-known _Germanhood._
If, in what has hitherto been described, only external contingent
causes and personal peculiarities are found, the French literature had
in itself certain qualities which were rather repulsive than attractive
to an aspiring youth. It was advanced in years and genteel; and by
neither of these qualities can youth, which looks about for enjoyment
of life and for freedom, be delighted.
Since the sixteenth century, the course of French literature had
never been seen to be completely interrupted; nay, the internal and
religious disturbances, as well as the external wars, had accelerated
its progress; but, as we heard generally maintained, it was a hundred
years ago that it had existed in its full bloom. Through favourable
circumstances, they said, an abundant harvest had at once ripened,
and had been happily gathered in, so that the great talents of the
eighteenth century had to be moderately contented with mere gleanings.
In the meanwhile, however, much had become antiquated: first of all
comedy, which had to be freshened up to adapt itself, less perfectly,
indeed, but still with new interest, to actual life and manners. Of the
tragedies, many had vanished from the stage, and Voltaire did not let
slip the important opportunity which offered of editing Corneille's
works, that he might show how defective his predecessor had been, whom,
according to the general voice, he had not equalled.
[Side-note: Voltaire.]
And even this very Voltaire, the wonder of his time, had grown old,
like the literature, which, for nearly a century, he had animated and
governed. By his side still existed and vegetated many _littérateurs_,
in a more or less active and happy old age, who one by one disappeared.
The influence of society upon authors increased more and more; for
the best society, consisting of persons of birth, rank, and property,
chose for one of their chief recreations literature, which thus became
quite social and genteel. Persons of rank and _littérateurs_ mutually
cultivated and necessarily perverted each other; for the genteel has
always something excluding in its nature; and excluding also was the
French criticism, being negative, detracting, and fault-finding. The
higher class made use of such judgments against the authors; the
authors, with somewhat less decorum, proceeded in the same manner
against each other, nay, against their patrons. If the public was not
to be awed, they endeavoured to take it by surprise, or gain it by
humility; and thus--apart from the movements which shook church and
state to their inmost core--there arose such a literary ferment, that
Voltaire himself stood in need of his full activity, and his whole
preponderance, to keep himself above the torrent of general disesteem.
Already he was openly called an old capricious child; his endeavours,
carried on indefatigably, were regarded as the vain efforts of a
decrepid age; certain principles, on which he had stood during his
whole life, and to the spread of which he had devoted his days, were no
more held in esteem and honour; nay, his Deity, by acknowledging whom
he continued to declare himself free from atheism, was not conceded
him; and thus he himself, the grandsire and patriarch, was forced,
like his youngest competitor, to watch the present moment, to catch at
new power--to do his friends too much good, and his enemies too much
harm; and under the appearance of a passionate striving for the love of
truth, to act deceitfully and falsely. Was it worth the trouble to have
led such a great active life, if it was to end in greater dependence
than it had begun? How insupportable such a position was, did not
escape his high mind, his delicate sensibility. He often relieved
himself by leaps and thrusts, gave the reins to his humour, and carried
a few of his sword-cuts too far,--at which friends and enemies, for
the most part, showed themselves indignant; for every one thought he
could play the superior to him, though no one could equal him. A public
which only hears the judgment of old men, becomes over-wise too soon;
and nothing is more unsatisfactory than a mature judgment adopted by an
immature mind.
To us youths, before whom, with our German love of truth and nature,
honesty towards both ourselves and others hovered as the best guide
both in life and learning, the factious dishonesty of Voltaire and the
perversion of so many worthy subjects became more and more annoying,
and we daily strengthened ourselves in our aversion from him. He could
never have done with degrading religion and the sacred books, for
the sake of injuring priestcraft,[4] as they called it, and had thus
produced in me many an unpleasant sensation. But when I now learned
that, to weaken the tradition of a deluge, he had denied all petrified
shells, and only admitted them as _lusus naturæ_, he entirely lost
my confidence; for my own eyes had, on the Baschberg, plainly enough
shown me that I stood on the bottom of an old dried-up sea, among the
_exuviæ_ of its original inhabitants. These mountains had certainly
been once covered with waves, whether before or during the deluge did
not concern me; it was enough that the valley of the Rhine had been a
monstrous lake, a bay extending beyond the reach of the eyesight; out
of this I was not to be talked. I thought much more of advancing in the
knowledge of lands and mountains, let what would be the result.
French literature, then, had grown old and genteel in itself, and
through Voltaire. Let us devote some further consideration to this
remarkable man.
From his youth upwards, Voltaire's wishes and endeavours had been
directed to an active and social life, to politics, to gain on a large
scale, to a connexion with the heads of the earth, and a profitable
use of this connexion, that he himself might be one of the heads of
the earth also. No one has easily made himself so dependent, for the
sake of being independent. He even succeeded in subjugating minds;
the nation became his own. In vain did his opponents unfold their
moderate talents, and their monstrous hate; nothing succeeded in
injuring him. The court he could never reconcile to himself, but by
way of compensation, foreign kings were his tributaries; Katharine
and Frederic the Great, Gustavus of Sweden, Christian of Denmark,
Peniotowsky of Poland, Henry of Prussia, Charles of Brunswick,
acknowledged themselves his vassals; even popes thought they must coax
him by some acts of indulgence. That Joseph the Second had kept aloof
from him did not at all redound to the honour of this prince, for it
would have done no harm to him and his undertakings, if, with such a
fine intellect and with such noble views, he had been somewhat more
practically clever,[5] and a better appreciator of the mind.
What I have here stated in a compressed form, and in some connexion,
sounded at that time as a cry of the moment, as a perpetual discord,
unconnected and uninstructive, in our ears. Nothing was heard but
the praise of those who had gone before. Something good and new was
required: but the newest was never liked. Scarcely had a patriot
exhibited on the long inanimate stage national-French, heart-inspiring
subjects,--scarcely had the _Siege of Calais_ gained enthusiastic
applause, than the piece, together with all its national comrades, was
considered empty, and in every sense objectionable. The delineations of
manners by Destouches, which had so often delighted me when a boy, were
called weak; the name of this honest man had passed away; and how many
authors could I not point out, for the sake of whom I had to endure
the reproach that I judged like a provincial, if I showed any sympathy
for such men and their works, in opposition to any one who was carried
along by the newest literary torrent.
Thus, to our other German comrades we became more and more annoying.
According to our view,--according to the peculiarity of our own nature,
we had to retain the impressions of objects, to consume them but
slowly, and if it was to be so, to let them go as late as possible. We
were convinced that by faithful observation, by continued occupation,
something might be gained from all things, and that by persevering zeal
we must at last arrive at a point where the ground of the judgment
may be expressed at the same time with the judgment itself. Neither
did we fail to perceive that the great and noble French world offered
us many an advantage and much profit; for Rousseau had really touched
our sympathies. But if we considered his life and his fate, he was
nevertheless compelled to find the great reward for all he did in
this--that he could live unacknowledged and forgotten at Paris.
[Side-note: The Encyclopedists.]
If we heard the encyclopedists mentioned, or opened a volume of their
monstrous work, we felt as if we were going between the innumerable
moving spools and looms in a great factory, where, what with the mere
creaking and rattling--what with all the mechanism, embarrassing
both eyes and senses--what with the mere incomprehensibility of an
arrangement, the parts of which work into each other in the most
manifold way--what with the contemplation of all that is necessary to
prepare a piece of cloth, we feel disgusted with the very coat which we
wear upon our backs.
Diderot was sufficiently akin to us, as, indeed, in everything, for
which the French blame him, he is a true German. But even his point
of view was too high, his circle of vision was too extended for
us to range ourselves with him, and place ourselves at his side.
Nevertheless, his children of nature, whom he continued to bring
forward and dignify with great rhetorical art, pleased us very much;
his brave poachers and smugglers enchanted us; and this rabble
afterwards throve but too well upon the German Parnassus. It was
he also, who, like Rousseau, diffused a disgust of social life--a
quiet introduction to those monstrous changes of the world, in which
everything permanent appeared to sink.
However, we ought now to put aside these considerations, and to
remark what influence these two men have had upon art. Even here they
pointed--even from here they urged us towards nature.
The highest problem of any art is to produce by appearance the illusion
of a higher reality. But it is a false endeavour to realize the
appearance until at last only something commonly real remains.
As an ideal locality, the stage, by the application of the laws of
perspective to _coulisses_ ranged one behind the other, had attained
the greatest advantage; and this very gain they now wished wantonly
to abandon, by shutting up the sides of the theatre, and forming real
room-walls. With such an arrangement of the stage, the piece itself,
the actors' mode of playing, in a word, everything was to coincide; and
thus an entirely new theatre was to arise.
The French actors had, in comedy, attained the summit of the true in
art. Their residence at Paris, their observations of the externals of
the court, the connexion of the actors and actresses with the highest
classes, by means of love affairs--all contributed to transplant to
the stage the greatest realness and seemliness of social life; and on
this point the friends of nature found but little to blame. However
they thought they made a great advance, if they chose for their pieces
earnest and tragical subjects, in which the citizen-life should not
be wanting, used prose for the higher mode of expression, and thus
banished unnatural verse, together with unnatural declamation and
gesticulation.
It is extremely remarkable, and has not been generally noticed, that
at this time, even the old, severe, rhythmical, artistical tragedy was
threatened with a revolution, which could only be averted by great
talents and the power of tradition.
In opposition to the actor Le Kain, who played his heroes with especial
theatrical decorum, with deliberation, elevation, and force, and kept
himself aloof from the natural and ordinary, came forward a man named
Aufresne, who declared war against everything unnatural, and in his
tragic acting sought to express the highest truth. This mode might not
have accorded with that of the other Parisian actors. He stood alone,
while they kept together, and adhering to his views obstinately enough,
he chose to leave Paris rather than alter them, and came through
Strasburg. There we saw him play the part of Augustus in _Cinna_,
that of Mithridates, and others of the sort, with the truest and most
natural dignity. He appeared as a tall, handsome man, more slender than
strong, not, properly speaking, with an imposing, but nevertheless with
a noble, pleasing demeanour. His acting was well-considered and quiet,
without being cold, and forcible enough where force was required. He
was a very well-practised actor, and one of the few who know how to
turn the artificial completely into nature, and nature completely
into the artificial. It is really those few whose misunderstood good
qualities always originate the doctrine of false "naturalness."
[Side-note: Rousseau's "Pygmalion."]
And thus will I also make mention of a work, which is indeed small,
but which made an epoch in a remarkable manner,--I mean Rousseau's
_Pygmalion_. A great deal could be said upon it; for this strange
production floats between nature and art, with the full endeavour of
resolving the latter into the former. We see an artist who has produced
what is most perfect, and yet does not find any satisfaction in having,
according to art, represented his idea externally to himself, and given
to it a higher life; no, it must also be drawn down to him into the
earthly life. He will destroy the highest thing that mind and deed have
produced, by the commonest act of sensuality.
All this and much else, right and foolish, true and half-true,
operating upon us as it did, still more perplexed our notions; we were
driven astray through many by-ways and roundabout ways, and thus on
many sides was prepared that German literary revolution, of which we
were witnesses, and to which, consciously or unconsciously, willingly
or unwillingly, we unceasingly contributed.
We had neither impulse nor tendency to be illumined and advanced
in a philosophical manner; on religious subjects we thought we
had sufficiently enlightened ourselves, and therefore the violent
contest of the French philosophers with the priesthood was tolerably
indifferent to us. Prohibited books condemned to the flames, which
then made a great noise, produced no effect upon us. I mention as an
instance, to serve for all, the _Système de la Nature_, which we took
in hand out of curiosity. We did not understand how such a book could
be dangerous. It appeared to us so dark, so Cimmerian, so deathlike,
that we found it a trouble to endure its presence, and shuddered at
it as at a spectre. The author fancies he gives his book a peculiar
recommendation, when he declares in his preface, that as a decrepit old
man, just sinking into the grave, he wishes to announce the truth to
his contemporaries and to posterity.
We laughed him out; for we thought we had observed that by old people
nothing in the world that is loveable and good is in fact appreciated.
"Old churches have dark windows; to know how cherries and berries
taste, we must ask children and sparrows." These were our gibes and
maxims; and thus that book, as the very quintessence of senility,
appeared to us as unsavoury, nay, absurd. "All was to be of necessity,"
so said the book, "and therefore there was no God." But could there not
be a God by necessity too? asked we. We indeed confessed, at the same
time, that we could not withdraw ourselves from the necessities of day
and night, the seasons, the influence of climate, physical and animal
condition; but nevertheless we felt within us something that appeared
like perfect freedom of will, and again something which sought to
counterbalance this freedom.
The hope of becoming more and more rational, of making ourselves more
and more independent of external things, nay, of ourselves, we could
not give up. The word freedom sounds so beautiful, that we cannot do
without it, even though it designates an error.
[Side-note: "Système de la Nature."]
None of us had read the book through; for we found ourselves deceived
in the expectations with which we had opened it. A system of nature
was announced; and therefore we hoped to learn really something of
nature--our idol. Physics and chemistry, descriptions of heaven and
earth, natural history and anatomy, with much else, had now for years,
and up to the last day, constantly directed us to the great adorned
world; and we would willingly have heard both particulars and generals
about suns and stars, planets and moons, mountains, valleys, rivers and
seas, with all that live and move in them. That in the course of this,
much must occur which would appear to the common man as injurious, to
the clergy as dangerous, and to the state as inadmissible, we had no
doubt; and we hoped that the little book had not unworthily stood the
fiery ordeal. But how hollow and empty did we feel in this melancholy,
atheistical half-night, in which earth vanished with all its images,
heaven with all its stars. There was to be a matter in motion from all
eternity, and by this motion, right and left and in every direction,
without anything further, it was to produce the infinite phenomena of
existence. Even all this we should have allowed to pass, if the author,
out of his moved matter, had really built up the world before our eyes.
But he seemed to know as little about nature as we did; for, having set
up some general ideas, he quits them at once, for the sake of changing
that which appears as higher than nature, or as a higher nature within
nature, into material, heavy nature, which is moved, indeed, but
without direction or form--and thus he fancies he has gained a great
deal.
If, after all, this book did us any mischief, it was this,--that we
took a hearty dislike to all philosophy, and especially metaphysics,
and remained in that dislike; while, on the other hand, we threw
ourselves into living knowledge, experience, action, and poetising,
with all the more liveliness and passion.
Thus, on the very borders of France, we had at once got rid and clear
of everything French about us. The French way of life we found too
defined and genteel, their poetry cold, their criticism annihilating,
their philosophy abstruse, and yet insufficient, so that we were on
the point of resigning ourselves to rude nature, at least by way of
experiment, if another influence had not for a long time prepared us
for higher and freer views of the world, and intellectual enjoyments
as true as they were poetical, and swayed us, first moderately and
secretly, but afterwards with more and more openness and force.
I need scarcely say that Shakspeare is intended; and having once said
this, no more need be added. Shakspeare has been acknowledged by the
Germans, more by them than by other nations, perhaps even more than by
his own. We have richly bestowed on him all that justice, fairness, and
forbearance which we refuse to ourselves. Eminent men have occupied
themselves in showing his talents in the most favourable light; and I
have always readily subscribed to what has been said to his honour, in
his favour, or even by way of excuse for him. The influence of this
extraordinary mind upon me has been already shown; an attempt has been
made with respect to his works, which has received approbation; and
therefore this general statement may suffice for the present, until I
am in a position to communicate to such, friends as like to hear me, a
gleaning of reflections on his great deserts, such as I was tempted to
insert in this very place.