Of course, the blame attaching to Strauss for being a bad writer is
greatly mitigated by the fact that it is extremely difficult in
Germany to become even a passable or moderately good writer, and that
it is more the exception than not, to be a really good one. In this
respect the natural soil is wanting, as are also artistic values and
the proper method of treating and cultivating oratory. This latter
accomplishment, as the various branches of it, i.e. drawing-room,
ecclesiastical and Parliamentary parlance, show, has not yet reached
the level of a national style; indeed, it has not yet shown even a
tendency to attain to a style at all, and all forms of language in
Germany do not yet seem to have passed a certain experimental stage.
In view of these facts, the writer of to-day, to some extent, lacks an
authoritative standard, and he is in some measure excused if, in the
matter of language, he attempts to go ahead of his own accord. As to
the probable result which the present dilapidated condition of the
German language will bring about, Schopenhauer, perhaps, has spoken
most forcibly. "If the existing state of affairs continues," he says,
"in the year 1900 German classics will cease to be understood, for the
simple reason that no other language will be known, save the trumpery
jargon of the noble present, the chief characteristic of which is
impotence." And, in truth, if one turn to the latest periodicals, one
will find German philologists and grammarians already giving
expression to the view that our classics can no longer serve us as
examples of style, owing to the fact that they constantly use words,
modes of speech, and syntactic arrangements which are fast dropping
out of currency. Hence the need of collecting specimens of the finest
prose that has been produced by our best modern writers, and of
offering them as examples to be followed, after the style of Sander's
pocket dictionary of bad language. In this book, that repulsive
monster of style Gutzkow appears as a classic, and, according to its
injunctions, we seem to be called upon to accustom ourselves to quite
a new and wondrous crowd of classical authors, among which the first,
or one of the first, is David Strauss: he whom we cannot describe more
aptly than we have already--that is to say, as a worthless stylist.
Now, the notion which the Culture-Philistine has of a classic and
standard author speaks eloquently for his pseudo-culture--he who only
shows his strength by opposing a really artistic and severe style, and
who, thanks to the persistence of his opposition, finally arrives at a
certain uniformity of expression, which again almost appears to
possess unity of genuine style. In view, therefore, of the right which
is granted to every one to experiment with the language, how is it
possible at all for individual authors to discover a generally
agreeable tone? What is so generally interesting in them? In the first
place, a negative quality--the total lack of offensiveness: but every
really productive thing is offensive. The greater part of a German's
daily reading matter is undoubtedly sought either in the pages of
newspapers, periodicals, or reviews. The language of these journals
gradually stamps itself on his brain, by means of its steady drip,
drip, drip of similar phrases and similar words. And, since he
generally devotes to reading those hours of the day during which his
exhausted brain is in any case not inclined to offer resistance, his
ear for his native tongue so slowly but surely accustoms itself to
this everyday German that it ultimately cannot endure its absence
without pain. But the manufacturers of these newspapers are, by virtue
of their trade, most thoroughly inured to the effluvia of this
journalistic jargon; they have literally lost all taste, and their
palate is rather gratified than not by the most corrupt and arbitrary
innovations. Hence the tutti unisono with which, despite the general
lethargy and sickliness, every fresh solecism is greeted; it is with
such impudent corruptions of the language that her hirelings are
avenged against her for the incredible boredom she imposes ever more
and more upon them. I remember having read "an appeal to the German
nation," by Berthold Auerbach, in which every sentence was un-German,
distorted and false, and which, as a whole, resembled a soulless
mosaic of words cemented together with international syntax. As to the
disgracefully slipshod German with which Edward Devrient solemnised
the death of Mendelssohn, I do not even wish to do more than refer to
it. A grammatical error--and this is the most extraordinary feature of
the case--does not therefore seem an offence in any sense to our
Philistine, but a most delightful restorative in the barren wilderness
of everyday German. He still, however, considers all really productive
things to be offensive. The wholly bombastic, distorted, and
threadbare syntax of the modern standard author--yea, even his
ludicrous neologisms--are not only tolerated, but placed to his credit
as the spicy element in his works. But woe to the stylist with
character, who seeks as earnestly and perseveringly to avoid the trite
phrases of everyday parlance, as the "yester-night monster blooms of
modern ink-flingers," as Schopenhauer says! When platitudes,
hackneyed, feeble, and vulgar phrases are the rule, and the bad and
the corrupt become refreshing exceptions, then all that is strong,
distinguished, and beautiful perforce acquires an evil odour. From
which it follows that, in Germany, the well-known experience which
befell the normally built traveller in the land of hunchbacks is
constantly being repeated. It will be remembered that he was so
shamefully insulted there, owing to his quaint figure and lack of
dorsal convexity, that a priest at last had to harangue the people on
his behalf as follows: "My brethren, rather pity this poor stranger,
and present thank-offerings unto the gods, that ye are blessed with
such attractive gibbosities."
If any one attempted to compose a positive grammar out of the
international German style of to-day, and wished to trace the
unwritten and unspoken laws followed by every one, he would get the
most extraordinary notions of style and rhetoric. He would meet with
laws which are probably nothing more than reminiscences of bygone
schooldays, vestiges of impositions for Latin prose, and results
perhaps of choice readings from French novelists, over whose
incredible crudeness every decently educated Frenchman would have the
right to laugh. But no conscientious native of Germany seems to have
given a thought to these extraordinary notions under the yoke of which
almost every German lives and writes.
As an example of what I say, we may find an injunction to the effect
that a metaphor or a simile must be introduced from time to time, and
that it must be new; but, since to the mind of the shallow-pated
writer newness and modernity are identical, he proceeds forthwith to
rack his brain for metaphors in the technical vocabularies of the
railway, the telegraph, the steamship, and the Stock Exchange, and is
proudly convinced that such metaphors must be new because they are
modern. In Strauss's confession-book we find liberal tribute paid to
modern metaphor. He treats us to a simile, covering a page and a half,
drawn from modern road-improvement work; a few pages farther back he
likens the world to a machine, with its wheels, stampers, hammers, and
"soothing oil" (p. 432); "A repast that begins with champagne" (p.
384); "Kant is a cold-water cure" (p. 309); "The Swiss constitution is
to that of England as a watermill is to a steam-engine, as a
waltz-tune or a song to a fugue or symphony" (p. 301); "In every
appeal, the sequence of procedure must be observed. Now the mean
tribunal between the individual and humanity is the nation" (p. 165);
"If we would know whether there be still any life in an organism which
appears dead to us, we are wont to test it by a powerful, even painful
stimulus, as for example a stab" (p. 161); "The religious domain in
the human soul resembles the domain of the Red Indian in America" (p.
160); "Virtuosos in piety, in convents"(p. 107); "And place the
sum-total of the foregoing in round numbers under the account" (p.
205); "Darwin's theory resembles a railway track that is just marked
out... where the flags are fluttering joyfully in the breeze." In this
really highly modern way, Strauss has met the Philistine injunction to
the effect that a new simile must be introduced from time to time.
Another rhetorical rule is also very widespread, namely, that didactic
passages should be composed in long periods, and should be drawn out
into lengthy abstractions, while all persuasive passages should
consist of short sentences followed by striking contrasts. On page 154
in Strauss's book we find a standard example of the didactic and
scholarly style--a passage blown out after the genuine Schleiermacher
manner, and made to stumble along at a true tortoise pace: "The reason
why, in the earlier stages of religion, there appear many instead of
this single Whereon, a plurality of gods instead of the one, is
explained in this deduction of religion, from the fact that the
various forces of nature, or relations of life, which inspire man with
the sentiment of unqualified dependence, still act upon him in the
commencement with the full force of their distinctive characteristics;
that he has not as yet become conscious how, in regard to his
unmitigated dependence upon them, there is no distinction between
them, and that therefore the Whereon of this dependence, or the Being
to which it conducts in the last instance, can only be one."
On pages 7 and 8 we find an example of the other kind of style, that
of the short sentences containing that affected liveliness which so
excited certain readers that they cannot mention Strauss any more
without coupling his name with Lessing's. "I am well aware that what I
propose to delineate in the following pages is known to multitudes as
well as to myself, to some even much better. A few have already spoken
out on the subject. Am I therefore to keep silence? I think not. For
do we not all supply each other's deficiencies? If another is better
informed as regards some things, I may perhaps be so as regards
others; while yet others are known and viewed by me in a different
light. Out with it, then! let my colours be displayed that it may be
seen whether they are genuine or not.'"
It is true that Strauss's style generally maintains a happy medium
between this sort of merry quick-march and the other funereal and
indolent pace; but between two vices one does not invariably find a
virtue; more often rather only weakness, helpless paralysis, and
impotence. As a matter of fact, I was very disappointed when I glanced
through Strauss's book in search of fine and witty passages; for, not
having found anything praiseworthy in the Confessor, I had actually
set out with the express purpose of meeting here and there with at
least some opportunities of praising Strauss the Writer. I sought and
sought, but my purpose remained unfulfilled. Meanwhile, however,
another duty seemed to press itself strongly on my mind--that of
enumerating the solecisms, the strained metaphors, the obscure
abbreviations, the instances of bad taste, and the distortions which I
encountered; and these were of such a nature that I dare do no more
than select a few examples of them from among a collection which is
too bulky to be given in full. By means of these examples I may
succeed in showing what it is that inspires, in the hearts of modern
Germans, such faith in this great and seductive stylist Strauss: I
refer to his eccentricities of expression, which, in the barren waste
and dryness of his whole book, jump out at one, not perhaps as
pleasant but as painfully stimulating, surprises. When perusing such
passages, we are at least assured, to use a Straussian metaphor, that
we are not quite dead, but still respond to the test of a stab. For
the rest of the book is entirely lacking in offensiveness --that
quality which alone, as we have seen, is productive, and which our
classical author has himself reckoned among the positive virtues. When
the educated masses meet with exaggerated dulness and dryness, when
they are in the presence of really vapid commonplaces, they now seem
to believe that such things are the signs of health; and in this
respect the words of the author of the dialogus de oratoribus are very
much to the point: "illam ipsam quam jactant sanitatem non firmitate
sed jejunio consequuntur." That is why they so unanimously hate every
firmitas, because it bears testimony to a kind of health quite
different from theirs; hence their one wish to throw suspicion upon
all austerity and terseness, upon all fiery and energetic movement,
and upon every full and delicate play of muscles. They have conspired
to twist nature and the names of things completely round, and for the
future to speak of health only there where we see weakness, and to
speak of illness and excitability where for our part we see genuine
vigour. From which it follows that David Strauss is to them a
classical author.
If only this dulness were of a severely logical order! but simplicity
and austerity in thought are precisely what these weaklings have lost,
and in their hands even our language has become illogically tangled.
As a proof of this, let any one try to translate Strauss's style into
Latin: in the case of Kant, be it remembered, this is possible, while
with Schopenhauer it even becomes an agreeable exercise. The reason
why this test fails with Strauss's German is not owing to the fact
that it is more Teutonic than theirs, but because his is distorted and
illogical, whereas theirs is lofty and simple. Moreover, he who knows
how the ancients exerted themselves in order to learn to write and
speak correctly, and how the moderns omit to do so, must feel, as
Schopenhauer says, a positive relief when he can turn from a German
book like the one under our notice, to dive into those other works,
those ancient works which seem to him still to be written in a new
language. "For in these books," says Schopenhauer, "I find a regular
and fixed language which, throughout, faithfully follows the laws of
grammar and orthography, so that I can give up my thoughts completely
to their matter; whereas in German I am constantly being disturbed by
the author's impudence and his continual attempts to establish his own
orthographical freaks and absurd ideas-- the swaggering foolery of
which disgusts me. It is really a painful sight to see a fine old
language, possessed of classical literature, being botched by asses
and ignoramuses!"
Thus Schopenhauer's holy anger cries out to us, and you cannot say
that you have not been warned. He who turns a deaf ear to such
warnings, and who absolutely refuses to relinquish his faith in
Strauss the classical author, can only be given this last word of
advice--to imitate his hero. In any case, try it at your own risk; but
you will repent it, not only in your style but in your head, that it
may be fulfilled which was spoken by the Indian prophet, saying, "He
who gnaweth a cow's horn gnaweth in vain and shorteneth his life; for
he grindeth away his teeth, yet his belly is empty."