If we have understood Strauss the Confessor correctly, he must be a
genuine Philistine, with a narrow, parched soul and scholarly and
common-place needs; albeit no one would be more indignant at the title
than David Strauss the Writer. He would be quite happy to be regarded
as mischievous, bold, malicious, daring; but his ideal of bliss would
consist in finding himself compared with either Lessing or
Voltaire--because these men were undoubtedly anything but Philistines.
In striving after this state of bliss, he often seems to waver between
two alternatives--either to mimic the brave and dialectical petulance
of Lessing, or to affect the manner of the faun-like and free-spirited
man of antiquity that Voltaire was. When taking up his pen to write,
he seems to be continually posing for his portrait; and whereas at
times his features are drawn to look like Lessing's, anon they are
made to assume the Voltairean mould. While reading his praise of
Voltaire's manner, we almost seem to see him abjuring the consciences
of his contemporaries for not having learned long ago what the modern
Voltaire had to offer them. "Even his excellences are wonderfully
uniform," he says: "simple naturalness, transparent clearness,
vivacious mobility, seductive charm. Warmth and emphasis are also not
wanting where they are needed, and Voltaire's innermost nature always
revolted against stiltedness and affectation; while, on the other
hand, if at times wantonness or passion descend to an unpleasantly low
level, the fault does not rest so much with the stylist as with the
man." According to this, Strauss seems only too well aware of the
importance of _simplicity in style_; it is ever the sign of genius,
which alone has the privilege to express itself naturally and
guilelessly. When, therefore, an author selects a simple mode of
expression, this is no sign whatever of vulgar ambition; for although
many are aware of what such an author would fain be taken for, they
are yet kind enough to take him precisely for that. The genial writer,
however, not only reveals his true nature in the plain and
unmistakable form of his utterance, but his super-abundant strength
actually dallies with the material he treats, even when it is
dangerous and difficult. Nobody treads stiffly along unknown paths,
especially when these are broken throughout their course by thousands
of crevices and furrows; but the genius speeds nimbly over them, and,
leaping with grace and daring, scorns the wistful and timorous step of
caution.
Even Strauss knows that the problems he prances over are dreadfully
serious, and have ever been regarded as such by the philosophers who
have grappled with them; yet he calls his book _lightly equipped_! But
of this dreadfulness and of the usual dark nature of our meditations
when considering such questions as the worth of existence and the
duties of man, we entirely cease to be conscious when the genial
Master plays his antics before us, "lightly equipped, and
intentionally so." Yes, even more lightly equipped than his Rousseau,
of whom he tells us it was said that he stripped himself below and
adorned himself on top, whereas Goethe did precisely the reverse.
Perfectly guileless geniuses do not, it appears, adorn themselves at
all; possibly the words "lightly equipped" may simply be a euphemism
for "naked." The few who happen to have seen the Goddess of Truth
declare that she is naked, and perhaps, in the minds of those who have
never seen her, but who implicitly believe those few, nakedness or
light equipment is actually a proof, or at least a feature, of truth.
Even this vulgar superstition turns to the advantage of the author's
ambition. Some one sees something naked, and he exclaims: "What if
this were the truth!" Whereupon he grows more solemn than is his wont.
By this means, however, the author scores a tremendous advantage; for
he compels his reader to approach him with greater solemnity than
another and perhaps more heavily equipped writer. This is
unquestionably the best way to become a classical author; hence
Strauss himself is able to tell us: "I even enjoy the unsought honour
of being, in the opinion of many, a classical writer of prose. "He has
therefore achieved his aim. Strauss the Genius goes gadding about the
streets in the garb of lightly equipped goddesses as a classic, while
Strauss the Philistine, to use an original expression of this
genius's, must, at all costs, be "declared to be on the decline," or
"irrevocably dismissed."
But, alas! in spite of all declarations of decline and dismissal, the
Philistine still returns, and all too frequently. Those features,
contorted to resemble Lessing and Voltaire, must relax from time to
time to resume their old and original shape. The mask of genius falls
from them too often, and the Master's expression is never more sour
and his movements never stiffer than when he has just attempted to
take the leap, or to glance with the fiery eye, of a genius. Precisely
owing to the fact that he is too lightly equipped for our zone, he
runs the risk of catching cold more often and more severely than
another. It may seem a terrible hardship to him that every one should
notice this; but if he wishes to be cured, the following diagnosis of
his case ought to be publicly presented to him:--Once upon a time
there lived a Strauss, a brave, severe, and stoutly equipped scholar,
with whom we sympathised as wholly as with all those in Germany who
seek to serve truth with earnestness and energy, and to rule within
the limits of their powers. He, however, who is now publicly famous as
David Strauss, is another person. The theologians may be to blame for
this metamorphosis; but, at any rate, his present toying with the mask
of genius inspires us with as much hatred and scorn as his former
earnestness commanded respect and sympathy. When, for instance, he
tells us, "it would also argue ingratitude towards _my genius_ if I were
not to rejoice that to the faculty of an incisive, analytical
criticism was added the innocent pleasure in artistic production," it
may astonish him to hear that, in spite of this self-praise, there are
still men who maintain exactly the reverse, and who say, not only that
he has never possessed the gift of artistic production, but that the
"innocent" pleasure he mentions is of all things the least innocent,
seeing that it succeeded in gradually undermining and ultimately
destroying a nature as strongly and deeply scholarly and critical as
Strauss's--in fact, the _real Straussian Genius_. In a moment of
unlimited frankness, Strauss himself indeed adds: "Merck was always in
my thoughts, calling out, 'Don't produce such child's play again;
others can do that too!'" That was the voice of the real Straussian
genius, which also asked him what the worth of his newest, innocent,
and lightly equipped modern Philistine's testament was. Others can do
that too! And many could do it better. And even they who could have
done it best, _i.e._ those thinkers who are more widely endowed than
Strauss, could still only have made nonsense of it.
I take it that you are now beginning to understand the value I set on
Strauss the Writer. You are beginning to realise that I regard him as
a mummer who would parade as an artless genius and classical writer.
When Lichtenberg said, "A simple manner of writing is to be
recommended, if only in view of the fact that no honest man trims and
twists his expressions," he was very far from wishing to imply that a
simple style is a proof of literary integrity. I, for my part, only
wish that Strauss the Writer had been more upright, for then he would
have written more becomingly and have been less famous. Or, if he
would be a mummer at all costs, how much more would he not have
pleased me if he had been a better mummer--one more able to ape the
guileless genius and classical author! For it yet remains to be said
that Strauss was not only an inferior actor but a very worthless
stylist as well.