XX

Ah, what could I do, imprisoned as I was in the cage of my honorable

position, my definitely-prescribed sphere of action, my distinguished

connections, my luxurious domestic establishment, my reputation and my

money? The better I saw what society lacked for leading man toward the

highest development, the more I felt myself paralyzed when I wished to

contribute something toward his deliverance.

I felt as does the sailor on board a ship in distress who sees the safe

waters and rescue close at hand - he alone, of all the others - but he

has no authority, he knows that they would not believe him, discipline

prevents him from speaking. Then it is harder for him to do his duty

than for the others who plod on blindly, obedient to their superiors,

without seeing deliverance.

I saw how men suffered misery through gigantic misunderstandings, which

like great clouds of mist enveloped and confused the nations. I saw

them blundering with their tongue and their words as children who have

their first paint box and get as much color smeared over their dresses,

hands and faces as on the paper. And on this mess-work they build their

treaties, with this mess-work they enact laws, and thus messing,

blundering and squandering they prepare their food, their clothing and

their habitation.

From words wrongly understood and wrongly employed arose the bloody

frenzy of revolutions, the grim party-rage, the useless slaughtering

and disputing and the fatal dissipation of thinking and working powers.

In their blind faith in reason and the True Word men destroyed their

own and each other's joy and happiness, not realizing that they all

wanted one and the same thing, for which they employed many different

terms.

I saw how they all acted from the mighty impulse of the herd-instinct,

the group-sense, the sacred gift of Christ, warrant of their power and

safety - but at the same time how they all thought they acted from

personal, independent judgment and reasonable conviction, to their own

miserable confusion and wretchedness.

I saw the grouping into rich and poor, because the wholesome craving

for luxury and abundance is corrupted and weakened through neglect of

the tie of love, so that the individual thinks that he alone can be

luxurious and happy in a world of wretches, and thus no one attains

blessedness. And this once more: - because there are no two people who

with the same word know that they mean the same thing.

And I saw the demagogues taking advantage of our good instincts, of the

craving for luxury, of the group-sense, to start up fatal currents

through the influence of hollow catchwords and ridiculous

over-estimation of self. As though the poor who had known nothing but

poverty and envy would be better proof against luxury than the rich; as

though self-insight and self-restriction were possible without culture;

as though the perfect maturity of every individual, which demands the

very highest organization and efficiency, and which in name is called

the Christian ideal, could be attained all at once, without practice,

without development, without patient discipline.

All this I saw, and what could I do? My sphere of activity bound me to

fixed duties and to my superiors. I worked in a definite

group-confederacy, the political world of diplomats, and to go beyond

this meant immediate expulsion and ostracism.

Well, yes, in the clubs and "circles" people speak more freely. There

one sometimes hears the entire diplomatic service ridiculed with

cynical sarcasm by those of inferior rank, and the superiors listen

smilingly, as though regretting that their higher dignity forbade them

this freedom of speech. In these circles many a sharp word would

sometimes escape me too, in regard to the structure of national

prosperity, still everywhere based upon the want of the weaker, and

also regarding the mighty ones on earth with whom I associated, and who

were yet so often embarrassed and foolish when obliged to say something

concerning the highest human gifts - wisdom, art and beauty. And from

some vague confusion of thought, characteristic of the chaos of their

ideas, I was known there as "the red duke," or sometimes too as "the

Christian diplomat."

But nothing could weaken my conviction that the chaos is busy arranging

itself, at first blindly, with a cruel indifference to suffering,

driven by an inscrutable impulse - but by degrees with clearer

consciousness, more insight, more skill, in proportion as higher wisdom

gradually pairs itself with wider active power.

It was plain to me that if there ever was a time in human history in

which men were awaiting a hero, a Messiah, a redeemer, it is ours. No

opinion is more foolish than the one that in our age there would be no

room for a prophet. But he must not be a moralist preaching repentance,

not a speculative builder of systems, not a man of lamentations and

warnings, but a poet in very deed.

Riper than was the French revolution for the advent of an organizing

and suggestively powerful general and ruler like Napoleon, is our time

for the advent of the wise and high-minded administrator, who will make

use of the group-confederacy, the herd-spirit, so much stronger and

more consolidated to-day than ever before.

I also knew what the qualities and talents of this hero should be. The

time of the great generals is past; the brute power of force is no

longer needed for establishing, only for preserving. The commercial

alliance covers the entire world course, and tolerates war only as a

secondary aid. The honor of the soldier becomes that of the police, the

peace preserver.

But the qualities of the general, the ability for organizing, for

ruling and for the bearing of responsibility, these remain equally

necessary.

The Messiah of our time must be the hero-organizer who brings order

into the confused operations and the half-conscious action of our

society. And as in the time of the generals, it was only the

poet-generals, the great dreamers of a world-realm, such as Alexander,

Cæsar and Napoleon, who shone out through all the ages as heroes and

geniuses, so in our time, it will be the poet organizer, the dreamer of

a world fellowship, who will attain still greater heroism, and much

more lasting honor.

The time of eloquence is also past. The elusive phrases of oratorical

logic only blind young nations, and even America is outgrowing the

authority of the orator who is solely an orator.

But the time of the drama and of music is not past, and he who knows

how to handle these mighty suggestive expedients can turn the course of

humanity. The herd will follow him though he lead them into the

wilderness or the desert. Wagner and Ibsen have proved it.

But some day, and probably soon, it will come to pass that the hero of

the new times, the poet organizer, will join hands with the one

suggestively mighty through music and drama, or perchance that these

rare powers shall be united in one man.

And only then shall the herd be led into green pastures and shall be

satisfied and shall see the day of maturity dawning.

I say it, I, old hermit among the philistines, and my peace rests upon

this knowledge. I had not the gift for ruling, for organizing, for

leading. I was not eloquent. I had not the power of music or drama. I

could not attempt to be this hero, this "Sotèr" of mankind, for I knew

what was required of him. But I knew and still know that he shall be

born with the infallible certainty with which statistics foretell the

number of geniuses and defectives, the number of those above and below

the normal. His birth is approaching, and speedily moreover, as surely

as the birth of a majority of sons after a man-slaughtering war. For

the race has need of him, Christ requires him.

And if I myself cannot be he, still I can be his John the Baptist,

testifying of him, happy and enthusiastic in my solitude, in this

desert of caddishness and provincialism.