{ LIBRARY^) 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 LITERATURE.
 
 tfje Same 
 
 THE LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 Translated by FANNY ELIZABETH BUR- 
 NETT. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. Cloth. $5.00. 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GOETHE. 
 
 Translated, with the author's approval, by 
 Miss S. H. ADAMS. Crown Svo. Cloth, 
 $2.50.
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. ALBERT DURER. 
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. DANTE ON THE RECENT ITALIAN STRUGGLE. 
 
 BY HERMAN GRIMM. 
 
 ,,3BSr' nidjt ba 2Iuge fonnen&aft 
 ie onne fonnt' el me erbliden ; 
 Sag nidjt in tn be3 otte eigne flraft, 
 2Bie fonnt' un3 otttic^e? entjitcfen." 
 
 GOETHE, Epigrams. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 CUPPLES, UPHAM, & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 10 Corner JBoofcstore, 
 
 283 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1886. 
 
 u
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1885, 
 BY SARAH H. ADAMS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 HENRY H. CLARK & CO., 
 BOSTON.
 
 TO 
 
 JAMES H. BEAL 
 
 THIS AMERICAN EDITION IS INSCRIBED BY THE TRANSLATOR AS 
 
 B Grfbute 
 
 OF RESPECT, GRATITUDE, AND LOVE.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 AN episode of peculiar import belongs to recent 
 German history, revealing the character of a few lit- 
 erary men in a heroic light. 
 
 While offering to the public, in this little book, a 
 brief notice of the " Brothers Grimm," perhaps a few 
 words may be added to give an incident in the career 
 of these men, already endeared to American readers by 
 their unrivalled productions. 
 
 Emerson regretted that one must so often combine 
 the adjectives " weak and literary " ; intellect rises or 
 sinks with character, "goodness itself being an eye." 
 " Where there is depravity there is a slaughter-house 
 style of thinking." It was Byron himself who 
 insulted the glorious genius born within him, and 
 well-nigh destroyed all claim to immortality, by lend- 
 ing expression to misanthropy and weaknesses of all 
 kinds ; putting what was personal and transitory in 
 place of the eternal and universal. No greater con- 
 trast to this can be quoted in the whole history of
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 literature than is presented by the Grimms ; and it is 
 the more pleasant to dwell on it, since in them also 
 we find the truest representatives of Germany, her 
 highest culture, sweet sincerity, and simple soul-full 
 life. 
 
 Jacob and William Grimm were Hessians, and born 
 at Hanau. Their father was a lawyer, and they were 
 educated for jurists. It was while studying Roman 
 law under Savigny, in Paris, 1805, that the brothers 
 (Jacob in his nineteenth year, William in his eigh- 
 teenth) formed the resolution never to separate, and 
 set before themselves the distinct aim of a revival of 
 ancient German literature. In their school-days they 
 had worked at one desk ; later, they had two in one 
 room ; lastly, they wrote in adjacent rooms. In their 
 united publications the Christian names are omitted. 
 Old German Poems, The Songs of the Edda, the Mar- 
 chen and Sagen, are by the " Brothers Grimm." In 
 middle life each labored awhile in his separate prov- 
 ince. William Grimm wrote Heldensage, a work of 
 stupendous learning, embracing the whole range of 
 German hero-lore, out of which the material had come 
 for the innumerable tales, poems, and songs of the 
 Middle Ages. He also, among other things, brought 
 to light and edited a work by Freidank, written in
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 the thirteenth century, on Moderation, or Good Sense. 
 Jacob wrote the German Grammar, a History of the 
 German Language, German Mythology, Eeinhard the 
 Fox, and the German Rechtsalterthilmer. 
 
 But these men were not merely heroes with the 
 pen. In 1833 William IV had given the Hanoverians 
 a constitution which secured to the people many im- 
 portant rights. The brothers Grimm were at this 
 time holding responsible positions in the Gottingen 
 University, and were also in charge of the library 
 there. Upon the death of William IV, Ernst Au- 
 gustus, Duke of Cumberland, succeeded to the throne, 
 and almost immediately thereupon abrogated this con- 
 stitution. Against such a despotic act Dahlmann, 
 Gervinus, and the brothers Grimm protested; they 
 bravely demanded a repeal. It is the rarest tiling for 
 professors to rebel and protest: they submit, and 
 oftener bar than open the gates to freedom. But 
 these were live men, and seven of the Gottingen pro- 
 fessors were instantly deprived of their professorships, 
 and every other public trust that had been committed 
 to them. This occurred in 1837. The excitement was 
 terrific ; the people were too timid to resist the decree 
 of the king, and the Grimms were banished from the 
 country. They retired to their old home in Cassel,
 
 Vlll PEEFACE. 
 
 grieved in spirit, but strong in the conviction of right. 
 We read with the deepest reverence Jacob Grimm's 
 simple statement that their proceeding was so natural 
 as to seem much more insignificant to them at first. 
 
 " Such men will help to save mankind, 
 
 Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
 And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 
 Till crowds at length be sane, and crowns be just." 
 
 Jacob Grimm always hoped for, and in fact proph- 
 esied, the unity of Germany. On the accession of 
 Frederick William IV the brothers were called to the 
 Berlin University in the most flattering and honor- 
 able way, as members of the Prussian Academy of 
 Science, of which Jacob had been for some years a 
 foreign member. 
 
 It has not been my aim, in this brief preface, to 
 give anything approaching a comprehensive idea of 
 the labors of the Grimms. They were simply colossal, 
 and require and deserve much greater space than I 
 have allotted here. I only hoped to bring them per- 
 sonally a little nearer to my readers. In closing a 
 centennial eulogy upon the " Brothers Grimm," last 
 winter in Berlin, Scherer said: 
 
 "Great learning not unfrequently leads to pride,
 
 PEEFACE. IX 
 
 self-satisfaction, jealousy, and dogmatism. It is apt to 
 interfere with intuitive perceptions and sound under- 
 stSnding. It plants subtile fancies and an artificial 
 taste. Whole literary epochs have been poisoned by 
 a pompous display of superiorities and vainglorious 
 pretensions. It has often set up a false standard 
 among men, and ranked a sum of esoteric knowl- 
 edge, under the illusive name of education, higher 
 than a human heart filled with its ancient mysteri- 
 ous power. 
 
 " The brothers Grimm the noble pair ! from all 
 the frivolity of false education and empty parade of 
 wit were wholly free. In the zenith of their life and 
 fame they remained simple, good men. They sympa- 
 thized with children, as well as with the worldly-wise, 
 with statesmen, and poets. Their unostentatious ge- 
 niality radiates a soft splendor adown the coming 
 years, for fate had dowered them with her choicest 
 gift, an immaculate beauty of soul." 
 
 Professor Herman Grimm, son of William Grimm, 
 was born at Cassel, in 1828. In his thirteenth year 
 he came to Berlin, from that time to be surrounded by 
 the noblest men and women of Germany. Madame 
 D'Arblay said of herself, " I never studied ; at my 
 father's fireside I drank in a world of intelligence."
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 But even at this time Berlin must also have afforded 
 peculiar advantages for study of the exact sciences. 
 
 As in his father the artistic element predominated, 
 while his uncle Jacob was rather the jurisprudent, 
 our young professor's eyes instinctively sought the 
 pictures of the old masters, and he early turned his 
 studies chiefly in this direction. He published in 
 1860 63 the Life and Times of Michael Angela, to use 
 the German expression, an " epoch machenden " book. 
 " Twenty -five years ago," said one of the professors to 
 me, " no man dared lift his head in Germany who had 
 not read it." Here was furnished the conception of 
 a genuine biography, the man in his surroundings, 
 and as he looked to his own century. Some years later, 
 and at Emerson's suggestion, Professor Grimm wrote, 
 not precisely a Life of Goethe (although the work re- 
 ceived this title in America), but a series of lectures 
 on the great poet, throwing a vast deal of light on all 
 the controverted points in Goethe's life and writings. 
 
 The essays on Emerson in this little volume which 
 we now present to the public were written twenty-five 
 years apart. Beside their intrinsic merits, they are in- 
 teresting as proofs of a spiritual affinity great enough 
 to enable these men to find each other in spite of the 
 hindrance interposed by difference of language. Em-
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 erson is not appreciated in Germany even to-day, 
 although his writings are slowly making their way ; 
 but Professor Grimm's admiration for him has been, 
 and still is, considered one of the eccentricities of 
 genius. Byron and Shelley were the first in England 
 to speak with authority of Goethe as the great poet 
 of the nineteenth century, although Byron knew little 
 enough of the German language, and could not read 
 the Faust without Shelley's aid. 
 
 In this age of dilutions and repetitions the refresh- 
 ment afforded in turning to the pages of an inde- 
 pendent, original thinker is indescribable. Professor 
 Grimm's views on art are especially instructive and 
 elevating ; they are not taken from a one-sided artistic 
 standpoint, but from a vastly higher and broader one, 
 the human standpoint, the value of art in the de- 
 velopment of mankind. Hence we never meet in his 
 writings with anything to remind us of Euskin's par-, 
 tial, dogmatic assertions, which, with a measure of 
 truth in them, still do such violence to what is ex- 
 cluded from his range of vision. On the other hand, 
 unless Professor Grimm's artistic manner of treating 
 all subjects is understood, he must seem discursive. 
 The unity is far deeper than appears, and is complete. 
 He gives to every sketch its background ; puts in the
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 light and shade, and ends by bringing his figures 
 directly into the foreground, where they remain indeli- 
 bly stamped on our memories; therefore is he the 
 very prince of essayists. 
 
 Van Helmont said : " It is my greatest desire that 
 it may be granted unto atheists to have tasted, at least 
 for one moment, what it is intellectually to under- 
 stand. These men strain nerve and muscle to climb 
 the highest mountains in order to gain broader views, 
 and welcome telescopes which afford a still wider 
 range of vision." Are not minds greater than our own 
 intellectual telescopes, into which it must ever be our 
 privilege and joy to obtain a glimpse, thereby winning 
 for ourselves broader horizons ? I must believe that 
 in my native land there is a class of readers who 
 will welcome these essays, which I have endeavored 
 
 faithfully to translate. 
 
 SARAH H. ADAMS.
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 FIRST ESSAY, PUBLISHED IN 1861. 
 
 A GOOD many years since, at the house of an 
 American friend I happened to take up a volume of 
 Emerson's Essays which was lying upon the table. I 
 looked into it, read a page, and was startled to find 
 that I had understood nothing, though tolerably well 
 acquainted with English. I inquired as to the author. 
 In reply I was told that he was the first writer in 
 America, an eminently gifted man, but somewhat 
 crazed at times, and often unable to explain his own 
 words. Notwithstanding, no one was held in such 
 esteem for his character, and for his prose writings. 
 In short, the opinion fell upon my ears as so strange 
 that I reopened the book. Some sentences, upon a sec- 
 ond reading, shot like a beam of light into my very 
 soul, and I was moved to put the book in my pocket, 
 that I might read it more attentively at home. I find 
 it is a great deal to begin with if a book so far attracts 
 us that we resolve, without urging, to look it through ; 
 since, as a measure of self-preservation, it is necessary 
 to stand on the defensive now-a-days against books 
 
 i
 
 2 EALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 and people, if we would reserve time and inclination 
 for our own thoughts. 
 
 I took Webster's Dictionary and began to read. The 
 construction of the sentences struck me as very ex- 
 traordinary. I soon discovered the secret: they were 
 real thoughts, an individual language, a sincere man, 
 that I had before me; naught superficial second- 
 hand. Enough ! I bought the book ! From that time 
 I have never ceased to read Emerson's works, and 
 whenever I take up a volume anew it seems to me 
 as if I were reading it for the first time. 
 
 It is not easy to say what attracts us to a writer, and 
 it is especially difficult to speak of a contemporary. 
 We say in general, " I find him sympathetic." It is 
 most natural for me to describe my feeling through 
 a comparison with the physical laws of weight and 
 gravity. I assume that there rests upon the soul of 
 every man who has grown to manhood a certain burden, 
 the sum of his experiences, recollections, hopes, 
 fears, and daily environments, and that his happiness 
 is in proportion to his success in escaping from this 
 pressure and living in a sense of freedom. Hence we 
 so often envy children, and even the good cattle. 
 
 The usual means for surmounting this burden of 
 mortality is in regular occupation. Busied with this, 
 we forget ourselves most easily and naturally. Let me 
 say, incidentally, that for this reason I cannot agree 
 with the views of many national economists, who 
 regard the arduous labor of the poor man as a sacrifice
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 3 
 
 he offers to the community, throwing a sort of halo 
 about him, which should excite envy and secret shame 
 in the minds of all people whose hands are not cal- 
 loused by toil. 
 
 Another means of relief is sought in revelries and 
 distracting pleasures. The highest relief, however, is 
 found in the enjoyment of Nature and the Fine Arts. 
 
 To the latter study a man either wholly devotes 
 himself, or allows it to fill the moments when, tried 
 with business, the hunger of the soul must be appeased 
 in another manner. "We select from the wealth before 
 us, each according to his idiosyncrasy; one is ab- 
 sorbed with Goethe, another with Shakespeare and 
 Raphael, Beethoven, Handel, and Plato. Others of 
 less depth grasp the hand of some spirit on a lower 
 plane, or eagerly welcome the latest sensation on the 
 stage, in the book-stores, or in the concert-hall. A 
 contrary fancy leads still others to pursue enthusiasti- 
 cally whatever is rare or unknown in books, engravings, 
 and works of art, and to value these things in propor- 
 tion to the difficulty of obtaining them. But none of 
 these can satisfy a rightly constituted mind. The 
 clear-headed man first contemplates, wholly unbiased, 
 the phenomena around him ; if anything clings to him 
 and will not let him go, he stops! he enjoys! The 
 question whether what has so captivated his senses is 
 really beautiful is secondary ; the first must always be, 
 does it fascinate him, and for how long ? With genuine 
 modesty he then proceeds from enjoyment to knowl-
 
 4 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 edge, but full of caution, remembering the destructive 
 spark which fell from Psyche's too rashly kindled 
 lamp. 
 
 In truth, we rarely know what the specific property 
 is in an intellectual work which has captivated us, or 
 which the word that compels us to listen and to obey. 
 One reads Plato through in translation like an agree- 
 able story-book ; another will hang on every word 
 and particle, and find himself roused, sentence after 
 sentence, to the most searching reflections ; one says, 
 " Goethe's Elective Affinities interested me very much ; " 
 a second, " It has struck me deeply ; " a third, " The 
 book contains fearful secrets." Each has a right to 
 choose what pleases him, and to live in the spirit of it, 
 provided only that it renders him the desired service, 
 which is, to lift him above the miseries of earth, to 
 inspire a fresh, child-like hopefulness, which makes the 
 ideal alone seem the real, and the wearisome cares of 
 daily life a leaden dream which oppresses us. But 
 those artists stand highest who, by their productions, 
 accomplish the still greater miracle of taking up with 
 steady hand this sorry every-day life, to unravel artis- 
 tically the confused web, and bring out its intrinsic 
 beauty. They transport us by no delusive dreams out 
 of the world, but reveal to us the hidden glories sur- 
 rounding every object in God's creation ; they do not 
 delude us out of our griefs, but cause them to disappear 
 like the phantoms of an over-burdened imagination 
 from which we had not power to free ourselves.
 
 EALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 5 
 
 In Eaphael and Goethe we have examples of this 
 elevating influence in its fullest potency. What these 
 artists portray does not overstep by one line the meas- 
 ure of the purely human. They nowhere entice us 
 into marvellous, impossible regions ; they simply open 
 our eyes, and at once we see our ordinary existence for 
 the first time in its true aspect, beautiful and bright. 
 They stand in the closest affinity to nature ; they hold 
 up no magic mirror before us to magnify or belittle ob- 
 jects, and to present them either in a rose-colored light 
 or wrapped in artificial gloom ; they show us things as 
 they are, not as one in surly mood is apt to regard 
 them on a sunless day, but as they would and must 
 appear to candid observers, had not our eyes been 
 injured and abused by a false education until they are 
 no longer capable of discerning without help these 
 primal glories. 
 
 They reconcile us to life. What depressed now fills 
 me with joy, and I no longer wish to escape from it. 
 I take it up, and it changes into beauty under my 
 hands. Whatsoever these men touch is pure gold, is 
 fair, as if the finger of God pointed to it, while a secret 
 voice whispered, " Look only, and recognize it." I find 
 within me the ability to perceive it so long as they 
 show it me. 
 
 Emerson possesses this power in the highest degree. 
 " Look at the stars," begins one of his essays, " if thou 
 wilt be alone ; the beams which flow from this heavenly 
 world separate thee from thy surroundings. One
 
 6 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 
 
 might think the atmosphere was made transparent 
 with this design, to give man in the heavenly bodies 
 the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the 
 streets of cities, how great they are ! If the stars 
 should appear one night in a thousand years, how 
 would men believe and adore, and preserve for many 
 generations the remembrance of the city of God which 
 had been shown ! But every night come out these 
 preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their 
 admonishing smile." 
 
 It is the opening of the essay called Nature ; and 
 as I went on reading sentence after sentence, I felt as 
 if I had met with the simplest, sincerest man, and was 
 listening to him as he talked to me. 
 
 I did not ask myself if he was brilliant and original, 
 if he had any special purpose or hidden design in this 
 essay ? I simply read on, one page after another. It is 
 possible that it was hard and confused, but it did not 
 seem so to me. I followed the thought word for word ; 
 all was known and familiar, as if I had thought or 
 dreamed it a thousand times myself, and yet perfectly 
 new, as if I were learning it for the first time. If I 
 laid the book aside awhile my independent spirit re- 
 volted against this all too potent spell. I suspected 
 myself of being deluded and deceived. I reasoned 
 within me, is he not a man like others, with their 
 faults and questionable virtues, vain, moody, and sus- 
 ceptible to flattery ? Then reading on again, the air of 
 enchantment stole over me, freshening again the old,
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 7 
 
 worn-out machinery of the world, and as if I had 
 never tasted anything so pure. I was told lately by 
 an American, who had heard Emerson lecture, that 
 there was nothing more inspiring than to listen to this 
 man. I believe it. For what is to be compared with 
 the voice of one who is speaking out of his deepest 
 soul what he believes to be true ? 
 
 I know him only through his writings. But when 
 through long years one receives from an author's works 
 ever the same pure, soul-stirring impression, while so 
 many others supposed to be genuine prove hollow and 
 lifeless, and after experience has taught us that the 
 consciousness in our own breasts can be the only safe 
 standard, we rest satisfied that such faith in the power 
 of a man is for us an indisputable possession. Again 
 and again we see true genius misjudged, ostentation, 
 pretension, and emptiness believed in, until we grow 
 insensible to the floating opinion of the day. 
 
 But seeing, on the other hand, how the world is con- 
 stantly longing for a man to whose true and sterling 
 nature it may surrender for guidance, if we are so for- 
 tunate as to meet with a being who corresponds to 
 this need, we must in the joy of our discovery impart 
 this to others and publicly state as a truth what we 
 can not but believe to be true. 
 
 I turned first to my most intimate friends, such as 1 
 knew understood English; it was only necessary for 
 me to lay the book down and say, " Head." The first 
 attempt was perfectly satisfactory, and confirmed me
 
 EALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 in my opinion. I now recommended Emerson's works 
 at large, and began to have a pretty severe experience. 
 
 Emerson writes in English. Many Germans under- 
 stand it so far as to be able to read the current litera- 
 ture, with which Tauchnitz is indefatigable in supplying 
 the continent. Macaulay gives them no difficulty ; even 
 Carlyle is comprehended, as they make their way amid 
 the disorder of his periods. But in Emerson's writings 
 the broad turnpike is suddenly changed into a hazard- 
 ous sandy foot-path. His thoughts and his style are 
 American. He is not writing for Berlin, but for the 
 people of Massachusetts. He uses every word in a 
 sense that suits him at the moment, and whether the 
 rest of mankind apprehend it or not is quite indifferent 
 to him. It was Emerson's experience to be at first 
 proscribed as heretical, insane, blasphemous ; but he 
 went on undisturbed, thinking and writing, and found 
 himself later surrounded by admiring crowds wherever 
 he appeared. How could he then be much affected 
 by what was said of him anywhere, but especially 
 in Europe, where he was understood with difficulty in 
 English, or read cursorily through a German transla- 
 tion? 
 
 A second obstacle : Emerson is a cultivated man, and 
 in speaking to his own people and the English has a 
 cultivated audience in mind ; that is, persons taking 
 practical views of life, and having very clear concep- 
 tions as to the past and future of their native land. 
 To all this the Germans present a wonderful con-
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 9 
 
 trast. We are extremely learned in our own de- 
 partment. We know life very minutely, but each 
 under the narrowing aspect it wears in his particular 
 career. Public spirit is only just awakening here and 
 there, and gaining a slight victory over the special 
 interests of different ranks and professions. Our 
 historical works contain very accurate summaries of 
 certain portions of history, but fail to afford a compre- 
 hensive idea of the general flow of the great stream of 
 events. If, then, our greatest minds are so fettered 
 within limitations, what is to be expected of the com- 
 mon herd? I believe there is nowhere on earth so 
 much partial knowledge coupled with such general 
 ignorance. Each knows what he must know, and 
 knows it as he must know it. Men drive through the 
 sciences as we rush through Europe in an express- 
 train. The desired goal is reached, the journey is 
 behind us, but we have had no active share in it, have 
 heard nothing, seen nothing, only paid for our tickets, 
 and passed the time in dreams. One may travel to-day 
 from St. Petersburg to Madrid without doing more 
 than opening and shutting the purse. There is no 
 wish to see Germany or France, and the purpose of the 
 trip is wholly fulfilled by reaching the Spanish capital 
 And thus it is with our learning ! We have a wealth 
 of knowledge in our heads ; are a solvent people, ready 
 at any instant to honor in sterling coin whatever 
 demands may be made on our funds, no matter how 
 great the run may be ; but the union of scientific ideas
 
 10 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 
 
 with the spirit that harbors them is a cool marriage of 
 convenience, without affinity or offspring. How scru- 
 pulously we avoid discussions in which knowledge is 
 to he brought into practical relations with character ' 
 Man will draw no inferences. Everything which rises 
 above the realm of the positive, and is demonstrated 
 through books, is looked upon with suspicion. Only 
 the obviously incontestible is asserted with boldness, 
 and that opinion passed over in distrustful silence 
 which has no other basis than the deep conviction of 
 him who offers it. Only when it assumes imposing 
 dimensions do we prick up our ears, and, if we can no 
 longer refuse to think of it, commit it to memory. 
 
 Herein lies both the poverty and the wealth of our 
 day. Emerson, who has shown so charmingly how 
 Goethe was commissioned to take up into himself the 
 infinite amount of rambling knowledge in his century, 
 as so much manure to enrich and fertilize the soil 
 of his mind, and thereby develop his personality, 
 Emerson, who had not become acquainted with Goethe 
 through books others had fabricated about him, but 
 from the great German's own writings, speaks of 
 him as being a man such as no other nation had pro- 
 duced, the full bloom, as it were, of German nature, 
 its highest qualities appearing symbolized in one indi- 
 vidual. Hence he distinguishes him as " the writer " 
 par excellence, as Shakespeare is " the poet " par excel- 
 lence, giving to each his due, and pointing to their 
 historic significance to the Germanic race, which they
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 11 
 
 represent in two directions. "What he says of both is 
 deduced from the very essence of their characters, and is 
 at once so terse and so profound that in many places 
 almost every word seems to need a commentary. 
 
 A man must have had intercourse with the great 
 world who is thus able to comprehend great characters. 
 Emerson's friends are the first men in his country, 
 a country which has a magnificent political life, whilst 
 until within a very few years we have had nothing 
 of the sort. Goethe also associated with the leading 
 spirits of his nation, as thoroughly harmonious natures 
 do who rise to a height where a whole people recognize 
 their superiority. For a light-house it requires not 
 only a light to radiate its beams over the wide circle of 
 waters, but a tower from whose summit the light must 
 first be made visible. 1 
 
 A nation has attained its zenith when all its powers, 
 great and small, are stimulated into productive activity. 
 Every man then has too much to do to trouble himself 
 about his neighbors ; entire frankness prevails ; great 
 faults and great virtues show themselves without dis- 
 guise ; no one is tempted to practise the unprofitable 
 art of throwing a mystery over his own or other people's 
 morals. Read Plato's Banquet, which, like a pleasing 
 chapter in a modern novel, exhibits Socrates, Alcibiades, 
 and their friends, in hours of social relaxation. Jupiter 
 and all Olympus might have shared in it, so great and 
 
 1 Mirabeau has somewhere said this.
 
 12 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 godlike does it sound. What scintillations of genius ! 
 and withal what a firm, vigorous basis ! Not the 
 artificial esprit of the brilliant French epoch, nor the 
 masked barbarism of the Augustan age (although both 
 were heroic enough in comparison with many others), 
 but pure taste, refinement, heroism, luxury, spontaneity, 
 courage, manly ideals, with all their faults and weak- 
 nesses, unaffected, free, harmonious natures ! A bril- 
 liancy imparted by the rarest and most perfect culture 
 is over the whole. When Alcibiades, drunk, rises to 
 eulogize Socrates, and further on into the night one 
 after the other topples over, until, beside Socrates, only 
 two or three remain to see the morning dawn on their 
 revels, why are we not shocked? Yet to this day 
 good men and true read and re-read these pages with 
 care, and nobody thinks the worse of Plato for having 
 written them. If a modern philosopher had fallen on 
 such an expedient for putting immortal words into the 
 mouth of drunken rakes, what a cry would be raised 
 from Dan to Beer-sheba ! And truly it would sound 
 badly enough ! Why is it that we scarcely dare to find 
 fault with Aristophanes, whom Goethe indulgently calls 
 "The Spoiled Darling of the Graces"? Because the 
 culture of these Greeks, dead since two thousand years, 
 surrounds their names and works as an imperishable 
 bulwark, warding off the censure which might arise 
 from other modes of thought, other customs, and other 
 nationalities. 
 
 Emerson could have written for his countrv, but in
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 13 
 
 his sense such a romance as Plato wrote for Athens. 
 In his description of how a gentleman enters a party 
 we find the sturdy Germanic counterpart to the Pla- 
 tonic Alcibiades. I can conceive no more perfect ideal 
 of manly character than Emerson has here given. It is 
 a delight to read it, and to many perhaps a satisfaction 
 that this pre-democratic American, who bows before 
 nothing save his own will, and the glory of the Ger- 
 manic race, still discloses to us the conditions under 
 which an aristocracy is possible, necessary, beautiful ; 
 and that he regards the power to enter unembarrassed 
 the most brilliant assemblies as the natural accompani- 
 ment of exalted rank. He is not speaking of what 
 is comme il faut, or fashionable, but of the behavior 
 of a cultivated man in the historic sense ; not of the 
 conventional classes, who set up imaginary barriers 
 between themselves and those they consider their in- 
 feriors, but of such persons as by the natural course of 
 events find their true and rightful place at the head 
 of society. It may be that only birth, money, tact, or 
 courage and buoyancy of soul have raised them, but 
 there they stand, and no one denies that they are the 
 aristocrats of the day, with a legitimate claim to their 
 position. 
 
 He treats of the manners of these men, who where- 
 ever they appear constitute the aristocracy, and in the 
 same sense handles all that comes within the realm of 
 human experience, love, friendship, politics, history, 
 art, poetry, wisdom, spiritual laws, circles, the over-
 
 14 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 soul. "Wherever he turns things fall into order before 
 his eyes, and he speaks simply of what he has seen. 
 
 He views every phenomenon in its connection with 
 the highest idea, and does not regard the poet, the 
 prophet, the world reformer, alone as tools of provi- 
 dence, but finds the coal-heaver, the wood-cutter, the 
 poorest day-laborer, just as valuable and essential in 
 their different places. Greatness and heroism are not 
 inherent to the material, but in the way it is handled, or 
 according to how one fufils the task in life which out 
 of its innumerable vocations he has chosen for his own. 
 His teachings contain the very gospel of contentment, 
 which seems well-nigh lost in our day, although it is 
 extolled as the most precious dowry of all times. To- 
 day, when everything seems in a state of disintegra- 
 tion, and the old accustomed forms in which the dif- 
 ferent careers of men were cast, in order to take fixed 
 and pre-determined shapes, prove unsatisfactory, 
 when the young with timid curiosity, the old with sore 
 misgivings, are seeking everywhere for a nucleus round 
 which the fluent matter may collect, according to the 
 law by which new crystals are formed, Emerson 
 quotes this law. He shows that the old barriers must 
 fall away, because they impede our development, and 
 that in this apparently uncurbed spontaneity and self- 
 will is found the true element in which the character 
 of the Germanic race is to unfold and gain its full 
 power. 
 
 I thought every one must derive this from his book,
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 15 
 
 that his sentences must strike in like a ball from a 
 pistol held close to the mark. 
 
 But I soon observed that insufficient knowledge of 
 the language, and want of freedom in the soul, were 
 not the only impediments ; a third was added. 
 
 A person appears in a very strange light if he is 
 all on fire with a subject which others regard without 
 the slightest emotion. When a great singer transports 
 the whole theatre, any man who claps and shouts is 
 felt to be doing just the right thing, but if he is the 
 only enraptured listener, while all the rest are cold and 
 dumb, his enthusiasm may be ever so well founded, 
 and perhaps shared by all four days later, yet it will 
 make him at the time seem foolish and ridiculous 
 enough. I spoke of Emerson as of a newly discov- 
 ered planet. Men listened, but at the most were only 
 rather curious to become acquainted with his books. 
 It is marvelous how calmly the world looks toward 
 the advent of what is really significant, and lets it 
 draw near, as if conscious that it was not to be turned 
 aside, and that it would be ineffaceable ; not one step 
 is taken to meet it; whilst we rush eagerly after 
 ephemeral wares, to which the fleeting taste of the 
 day alone gives any value, as if presentiment here 
 also whispered, " Enjoy them while fresh ; they will 
 soon cease to please you." " One can foist anything 
 upon the people," says Goethe, " only nothing to which 
 they stand committed." My earnest way of recom- 
 mending Emerson sufficed to excite misgivings. Many
 
 16 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 who later confessed to me that they had scarcely looked 
 into his books coolly criticised him, while some re- 
 fused out and out to have anything to do with his 
 writings. They said I had allowed myself to be over- 
 awed by a mediocre man ; and altogether, why did I 
 talk of Emerson, who might be a clever author enough, 
 but certainly the man was neither called for nor wanted 
 in Germany. 
 
 I did not allow myself to be misled. I asked men 
 to whom I ascribed a calm, unbiased receptivity of 
 mind to turn their attention to Emerson's striking 
 and forcible thoughts, and succeeded in persuading 
 an acquaintance to read his Essays carefully. He 
 wrote me the impression made on him. I had said 
 that I was anxious to translate them. "So far as I 
 personally am concerned," he replied, "I fear it will 
 be to me forever a matter of indifference whether 
 you translate Emerson or not. I feel him to be a poet 
 and a poetical orator, but he has no element akin to 
 my nature: he is an American. German he is not, 
 nor will he ever be, however successful you may be 
 in rendering his words in our language. I promise, 
 at all events, to renew my effort to digest him, but 
 hardly believe it will amount to much." What could 
 I reply to such language ? There was no antagonism 
 in this case, not even the mildest shade of it. Every 
 man has the right to turn aside from what does not 
 please him. I did not feel called upon to convert the 
 world by fire and sword to Emerson. The genuine
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 17 
 
 finds its way ; let a coppered gold-piece and a gilded 
 copper have currency for a while and they will by 
 degrees change their character without anybody's 
 troubling himself to rub or scrub them. And so we 
 thought With Emerson : because a man feels that an 
 author has ministered to a want in his own nature, 
 it does not follow that he must necessarily be so 
 essential to others. Yet I will make one more at- 
 tempt to say why I find so much comfort in his 
 writings. 
 
 Comfort is the word which best expresses my 
 feeling ! For what do we need ? what do we long 
 for ? It is freedom ! Formerly this word had a sus- 
 picious import, before which princes and people alike 
 stood in holy awe ; to-day it is a harmless utterance, 
 betokening the ideal of a well-regulated political con- 
 stitution, toward the realization of which the princes 
 and all the various parties consent to unite. But 
 where is the happy mean betwixt law and self-will ? 
 No one knows ! We are conscious that our best insti- 
 tutions are only provisional, and not in our country 
 alone, but everywhere on this earthly ball. Parties 
 organize ; no party, however, being absolutely right, 
 they are soon merged in one another ; we attempt to 
 say what we think, but feel that it is not the whole 
 truth we either speak or hear from others, and know 
 full well it will be impossible to present publicly this 
 whole truth in its fulness and stand committed to it 
 as its representative. This atmosphere weighs upon
 
 18 EALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 the land, and the highest mountains do not rise 
 above it. 
 
 "VVe aspire after a different condition. Every one 
 longs to have a clearer path before him. We would 
 enter into simpler relations with our fellow-men, 
 and find in their silence more than the eloquence of 
 speech. Uniforms, titles, insignia, have no longer any 
 deep spiritual meaning. Catholicism and Protestant- 
 ism, spite of the acumen with which they have been 
 pitted against each other of late, are in reality no 
 longer in such a state of antagonism that all men, the 
 highest and the lowest, must alike be engrossed with 
 it. Nobles and commoners meet peacefully, as oti- 
 mates, where money and birth counterbalance ; from 
 the discordant elements of the day we do not antici- 
 pate that one party will arise victorious over the rest, 
 but that all parties will blend and harmonize, until 
 finally there shall remain only one Church and one 
 State. But what next? The strife will then be to 
 make this one sovereignty the Germanic, to which the 
 Slavic, Mongolian, Eomanic, and whatever the other 
 races are called, shall submit. 
 
 This union of Church and State is nothing new to 
 our race. It was represented in pope and emperor. 
 It is in our blood, and not to be eradicated. We 
 desire no restitution of the old order of things, no 
 more " Eoman expeditions," for the world has broad- 
 ened, and Italy is not now the hub of the universe. 
 Neither is our work to-day merely the carrying out
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 19 
 
 of elaborate theories. We must be satisfied, for the 
 present, to see the goal clearly before us, and the path 
 will widen as we proceed. Each man is now moving 
 along by himself, but all hold to the one way. This 
 is a peculiarity of our times: great masses, but iso- 
 lated men ; indefatigable piling up of knowledge and 
 worldly possessions, and yet all this knowledge, all 
 these possessions, are less valued than the straight- 
 forward glance of a man who looks candidly at things 
 around him, and calls them by the names which he 
 thinks right. A stone lies in the meadow to-day, 
 lifted only to be thrown aside with vexation ; to- 
 morrow comes the man who, looking at it attentively, 
 says, " It is a mine of wealth." Now everybody repeats 
 this, and digs for the precious mineral We do not 
 value erudition at a penny's worth, but honor the 
 learned man as a " scholar ; " we do not care for poetic 
 art, but distinguish one man as "a poet," another as 
 " physician," or painter, or statesman ; they may have 
 studied where they would have gained their knowl- 
 edge in whatever way they chose, may first have been 
 merchants, farmers, soldiers, or what not if now they 
 only fill their places, and are able to make themselves 
 a power in the land. We feel that we must look at 
 life in this way : whoever is fit for anything is sure 
 to find that which he is especially fitted to do. This 
 is freedom. We are not quite educated up to this, 
 but are working toward it. Emerson is the man who 
 already stands upon this height.
 
 20 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 We have a kind of shudder at the life in America. 
 We see an immense edifice swayed to and fro by every 
 gust of wind ; the radical unrest does not seem con- 
 sistent with any great natural development of charac- 
 ter; the highest honors of the state are open to the 
 lowest citizen : it has no past, with its established cus- 
 toms ; its laws depend on the will of the moment ; there 
 is no permanently aristocratic class by whom good- 
 breeding is fostered and made an essential qualifica- 
 tion for entrance. There are only three acknowledged 
 powers, character, activity, money. It is surprising 
 to see how these three act upon one another, and how 
 justly each of the three is ranked. Character takes 
 the highest place. Of -this we have abundant proof ; 
 a number of energetic people, with the greatest amount 
 of talent, stand everywhere at the head of affairs, and 
 in positions they could never have obtained either by 
 money or coarse strength. Below them comes a class 
 of citizens whose less or greater efficiency determines 
 the height on which they stand. The rest, without 
 special intellectual ability, are estimated according to 
 the money they possess. This organization in its sim- 
 plicity forms an adamantine basis for American life. 
 
 Upon it stands Emerson. He contemplates the 
 world as it lives and moves around him What oc- 
 curred, what was accomplished before his day, makes 
 only one of the steps to the elevation on which he has 
 placed himself. The living have the preference over 
 the dead. The Greeks may have written, carved, phi-
 
 EALPH WALDO EMERSON. 21 
 
 losophized, warred, triumphed, governed ever so nobly, 
 
 they are dead while we live ! Had I never heard 
 of them I should exist nevertheless, and the breath of 
 spring delight me, and love and passion stir my soul. 
 Shall I grow speechless listening to that which was 
 said ere I was born ? What matters it to me whether 
 I am the epigone of a vanished age or the precursor 
 of a coming one ? keystone or foundation, last spark 
 in the dead ashes or first faint glimmer in the rosy 
 dawn of the future ? Is this seed-corn the last product 
 of a fast perishing plant or the germ of a new one just 
 unfolding ? Why burden my soul with knowledge I 
 shall never use, or wear myself out over things whose 
 utility I do not perceive ? Learning is to many but a 
 vain possession ; like the Persian slaves on the sea- 
 strand, they sit lashing the waves with their small 
 rods. It is all useless labor; the sea rolls on unheed- 
 ing. Stone upon stone, we burden ourselves from youth 
 upward with an ever-increasing pile of knowledge, 
 and when the moment comes for action must dislodge 
 and free ourselves from some of it before we can take 
 one step forward. Instead of acquiring a few things 
 in the schools, and these few thoroughly, because to 
 know one thing well is the basis for future knowledge, 
 
 we have innumerable things driven into our heads 
 by main force, in which to parade about for a while, 
 until, God be thanked ! in later years we have managed 
 to forget them all. 
 
 It is an art to rise above what we have been taught.
 
 22 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 
 
 Mechanical knowledge is simply the ladder by which 
 to attain command of ideas which are not acquired, 
 nor can they be imparted in the common mechanical 
 fashion. All great men are seen to possess this free- 
 dom. They derive their standard from their own 
 natures, and their observations on life are so natural 
 and spontaneous that it would seem as if the most 
 illiterate person with a scrap of common sense would 
 have made the same. Instead of towering above us, 
 they seem to place us above them, and unperceived to 
 cloak our ignorance ; we become wiser with them, and 
 know not how the difficult appears easy and the in- 
 volved plain ; but in such a way that it would seem as 
 if it had been always plain, and we had only been led 
 into confusion by others. 
 
 Emerson possesses this noble manner of commu- 
 nicating himself. He inspires me with courage and 
 confidence. He has read and seen, but conceals the 
 labor. I meet in his works plenty of familiar facts, 
 but he does not employ them to figure up anew the 
 old worn-out problems : each stands on a new spot 
 and serves for new combinations. From everything 
 he sees the direct line issuing which connects it with 
 the focus of life. 
 
 "What I had scarcely ventured to think, because it 
 struck me as all too bold, Emerson presents as serenely 
 as if it were an every-day idea, and is so very natural 
 that it would seem as if it could not be otherwise. 
 
 He is a perfect swimmer in the element of modern
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 23 
 
 life. He has no fear of the storms of the future, for 
 he sees beyond, and the rest which will follow them : 
 he hates nothing, contradicts nothing, contests nothing, 
 for his understanding of men and their faults is too 
 great, his love for them too mighty. I cannot follow 
 his steps with other than the inmost reverence, and I 
 observe with admiration how at his touch the chaotic 
 elements of modern life are gently and dispassionately 
 resolved into order and relegated to their different 
 provinces. Had I found a single sentence in his 
 writings which must be excepted from this judgment 
 I should have begun to doubt the whole, and would 
 not have ventured to utter a word ; but long acquaint- 
 ance has made me sure, and I feel in thinking of this 
 man that in olden times there really may have been 
 teachers with whom their scholars indissolubly linked 
 their destiny, because without the inspiration of the 
 chosen master everything seemed unreal and question- 
 able. I will not say that I have surrendered myself 
 with this blind devotion. Emerson is an American, 
 and the nationality of his people has not yet had time 
 to ripen and mellow like our own ; what answers for 
 them cannot so unconditionally be accepted as useful 
 and applicable to us. As a character Emerson appears 
 to me greater than when regarded as an author only. 
 
 It is certainly no misfortune that, as concerns intel- 
 lectual things, while a false reputation is so cheaply 
 won the real should remain difficult of attainment. 
 Here neither gold nor persuasion will avail. Before
 
 24 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 we acknowledge the overwhelming power of an au- 
 thor we resist with might and main and seek every 
 possible loop-hole of escape. We cannot make up our 
 minds to it ; with the dead, yes ; with the living, not 
 at any price. We do not willingly consider ourselves 
 inferior to anybody. If a writer claims nothing more 
 than the current recognition of the moment, this is 
 granted without stint or hesitation, that is to say, 
 he is talked about, praised, admired, and those who 
 are to give the final judgment, from which there will 
 be no appeal, allow the thing to take its course, or 
 even consent lightly thereto, keeping the back-door 
 open all the while through which to retire, and with 
 the feeling that we could probably do without this 
 man, but that we must wait until the noise subsides 
 to see what remains. Should any, however, try to cut 
 off their retreat they are on their mettle instantly 
 and rebel. One does not so easily give up his freedom. 
 In the first case he was the Grand Seigneur, and such 
 praise as he consented to give a gracious benefaction ; 
 in the second one he is a receiver of alms, the man 
 does not need our thanks, our praise is indifferent to 
 him ; we receive and enjoy, and are ashamed that we 
 can give nothing in return. 
 
 Emerson, however, has not yet placed us in this 
 dilemma. He is as good as unknown among us in 
 Germany. The translation of his Essays is a labor 
 which will not soon be accomplished ; nothing ever 
 cost me so much trouble as the attempt I made to
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 25 
 
 translate some things in his works into German. He 
 does not write, he seems to speak ; at first one can 
 detect no plan, no order, and we seek wonderingly for 
 the hidden connection in these sentences, which seem 
 to stand so detached and alien to one another, although 
 in reality forming a closely linked chain. Soon, how- 
 ever, we discover the deep underlying law according 
 to which these thoughts are evolved, and the strict 
 sequence, notwithstanding that at the outset they 
 digress right and left from the straight way until they 
 seem lost to sight in the fields. It is not the law by 
 which a tree is artificially reared on an espalier, when 
 the gardener commands exactly where the branches 
 shall grow and which shall be lopped off, but that 
 of a healthy beech, throwing out its branches in all 
 directions, and apparently in the wildest disorder, but 
 uniting them to form a beautiful canopy over our 
 heads, in which not the tiniest twig is unnecessary 
 or out of place. 
 
 Some time ago I found Emerson's Essays in the 
 hands of a lady whom I had formerly besought in 
 vain to interest herself in them. She had always a 
 thousand excuses for not reading the book, and tried 
 to prove to me that we already possessed it all, and 
 much more, in Goethe, that we really did not need 
 Emerson, even if he were indeed such as I represented 
 him. Besides, she had read some of the things, and 
 found them quite every -day matter, thoughts she 
 had long entertained herself, but never expressed.
 
 26 KALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 As far as Goethe was concerned, she was not entirely 
 in the wrong; this man's genius, which was mighty 
 enough to turn thousands of mills and water-wheels, 
 exists for most people only in the fountains and small 
 cascades in which they occasionally rejoice. 
 
 In short, Emerson remained unread. But now sud- 
 denly she reopened the subject herself. "He was 
 truly, after all," she said, " very remarkable. He some- 
 times made wonderfully simple observations which yet 
 disentangled the most intricate trains of thought. I 
 listened quietly, and acquiesced. Not long after she 
 took me seriously to task, and imparted her admiration 
 for the man in such a forcible manner, that I sat there 
 as if I were the one to be converted. She grew quite 
 impatient when I did not echo her words, and gave me 
 to understand that in the end she comprehended him 
 better, and felt him more deeply, than I did. 
 
 This experience has been repeated. With secret 
 pleasure I have once or twice submitted to be in- 
 structed as to Emerson's value. With astonishment 
 I see how he runs over, sooner or later, all his adver- 
 saries, and listen to the objections made to him. The 
 old experience is here confirmed, that but very few 
 people are really capable of taking a sympathetic as 
 well as analytic view of character. For the most part 
 they fall upon separate trails here and there, or at 
 the best succeed only in connecting two or three ; the 
 majority of readers pick out a few sentences like 
 single fish from a great net where they had been
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 27 
 
 floundering about, and first sort and arrange them in 
 their own way in order to know what they possess. 
 The result is flat contradictions, falsities, half truths, 
 iridescences, affectations, attempts at wit, worn-out 
 truisms, the superfluous magnified into the important, 
 everywhere blame and fault-finding in the richest 
 measure. Through it all, however, they are impressed 
 with the pure genius of the man; with the entire 
 absence of vanity in his appearance ; with the earnest- 
 ness of his convictions, and, greatest of all, with his 
 love for the human race, which renders his words 
 fruitful and ennobling. 
 
 I doubt not that this feeling will spread further 
 and sink more deeply, and that to a thorough appre- 
 ciation of this character will succeed the comprehen- 
 sion and need of his works. 
 
 SECOND ESSAY, 
 
 WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF EMERSON. 
 
 THE Americans have the advantage of us in the use 
 of their daily press. When upon Longfellow's death 
 I read the New York and Boston papers, it struck me 
 how intimate the relation was between those who have 
 something to say and those who are willing to listen. 
 The Tribune, like New York itself, was for some days 
 absorbed with Longfellow. A series of articles poured
 
 28 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 forth about the man whose loss affected every home, 
 and of whom so many had something to relate. A 
 multitude of witnesses freely testified, and the assem- 
 bled public constituted, as it were, a jury to listen to 
 all that could be said concerning Longfellow. Justice 
 was done to every kind of opinion, and from the varied 
 contributions each chose the one most in harmony 
 with his own. The like experience is now repeated 
 with Emerson. Emerson had attended Longfellow's 
 funeral. On the 27th of April the telegraph brought 
 over the tidings of his death ; fourteen days later the 
 newspapers followed, and again on every page his 
 name alone held the first place. 
 
 Between Longfellow and Emerson, however, a great 
 distinction prevailed in all that was said. To Long- 
 fellow was awarded the high position he deserved, and 
 the laurels were not stinted. The criticisms ring out 
 perfectly clear and sure. Longfellow was a poet, and 
 his place in the literary world had often been discussed. 
 There could be no question as to what was his due. 
 With Emerson the tone in which men spoke ranged at 
 once higher and lower. It sounded as if something re- 
 mained unexpressed. The effect of Emerson's writings 
 and his personality struck deeper than Longfellow's, 
 but was not so perceptible in its breadth. Emerson 
 bore no official title to stamp him in the eyes of men. 
 He began as a preacher, resigned the pulpit, and with- 
 drew as a writer into a kind of solitude in which he 
 remained. Now he is called by one an essayist, by
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 29 
 
 another a philosopher, by a third a poet, and by many 
 all these unitedly, while others, still dissatisfied, say 
 " Emerson was a prophet." In this, however, all agree, 
 that Emerson was one of the greatest men America 
 has produced. But this being accepted, it seems un- 
 necessary to try to emphasize it, and it may be com- 
 mitted to future generations to prove in detail the 
 ground for this conviction. One of the discourses on 
 Emerson begins with these words: "Only Shakespeare 
 can be named with Emerson." To whom would it ever 
 occur to say so much of Longfellow? It would be 
 natural to suppose that after such an opening the 
 speaker would proceed to verify the statement, instead 
 of which the discourse flows on in such measured tone 
 that it would seem as if no proof were required, for 
 every one had known it, and needed only to be re- 
 minded of it. In all that I have read of Emerson it 
 is taken for granted that each American knows him, 
 and knows what the country had in him and has lost 
 in him. 
 
 Of the events of Emerson's life there is little to be 
 said. His life was not romantic, no extraordinary 
 light rendered him conspicuous. Even a chronological 
 setting of his works is unnecessary, for they are almost 
 without exception of the same kind, and no one of 
 them had instantaneous success. Nature, although the 
 book (if we can so call the extended essay) produced a 
 great sensation, required twelve years for the sale of five 
 hundred copies. It is considered by many Emerson's
 
 30 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 greatest essay. It certainly shows his peculiar way of 
 grasping his subject in full perfection, and is best cal- 
 culated to introduce us to his views. Emerson starts 
 with a leading idea which agitated America before it 
 stirred us. But with us also to-day the question arises, 
 How is it going to be possible for coming generations 
 to deal with the enormous mass of intellectual produc- 
 tion, heir-loom of centuries, and which increases each 
 day in more gigantic proportions, without injury to 
 their legitimate work ? Our best powers barely suffice 
 to enable us to glance over what has been already 
 accomplished. It would be hailed as a blessing if some 
 one could convince us that the heritage of our ances- 
 tors is to be set aside, that untrammelled we may press 
 on to the goal before us. 
 
 When intellectual resources of their own began to 
 accumulate in America, this question caused more 
 solicitude than with us, from the fact that their backs 
 had not been trained to bend under the burden. Emer- 
 son's essay on Nature sprang from the feelings of a 
 man who had entered deeply enough into European lit- 
 erature to be able to measure what might be lost in the 
 acquisition of these riches. Emerson wished his people 
 should preserve the advantage they had of exercising 
 unfettered criticism on past events, and not allow 
 themselves to be dwarfed under the weight of history 
 and traditions sent over to them from the Old World. 
 "Our age," Nature begins, "is retrospective. It builds 
 the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies,
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 31 
 
 histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations 
 beheld God and nature face to face ; we, through their 
 eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original 
 relation to the universe ? Why should not we have 
 a poetry and a philosophy of insight and not of 
 tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not 
 the history of theirs ? Embosomed for a season in 
 nature, whose floods of life stream around and through 
 us, and invite us by the powers they supply to action 
 proportioned to nature, why should we grope among 
 the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation 
 into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe ? The sun 
 shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in 
 the fields. There are new lands, new men, new 
 thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws 
 and worship." And now Emerson develops what he 
 calls his "theory of nature," or life, or creation, not in 
 the sense of exact science, but bringing all the visible 
 into a simple category, and placing the man of our age 
 in the midst of it as the controlling power. How truly 
 Emerson anticipated what is now the predominant idea 
 in America, or how far his teachings have passed into 
 the flesh and blood of the American, is shown by the 
 nature of scientific activity there at present. We start 
 with the single aim of pursuing science for its own 
 sake, certainly the higher stand-point ; in America it is 
 studied chiefly with a view to what will be most ser- 
 viceable to the learner, in many cases the better way 
 of attaining practical results. First, shall the living 
 have justice done them?
 
 32 RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 
 
 I received to-day the last annual register of Cornell 
 University, which was founded by the private citizen 
 whose name it bears. On the title-page of the register 
 Cornell's portrait is given, with the inscription around 
 it, " I wish to found an institution in which every one 
 can be instructed in every way." Under the general 
 title, "Departments and special courses of study," I 
 find in the book a section which offers a choice of 
 prescribed plans of study adapted to prepare the 
 scholars for their different positions in life. With 
 the exception of theology and jurisprudence, everything 
 requiring scientific training, from agriculture up to 
 science and letters, is included. With profound under- 
 standing of the national character, a number of careers 
 are marked out before the eyes of the student and 
 the steps given by which he may advance. I take 
 this example because it happens to offer itself ; but who- 
 ever has had opportunity to become acquainted with 
 American professors and students will have remarked 
 their simple method of beginning directly with the 
 essentials and the unconstrained freshness and courage 
 with which they explore new paths, always finding the 
 way to their aim. The American endeavors to com- 
 prehend everything, and without the loss of time to 
 adapt all to his own use. Emerson's theory is that of 
 the "sovereignty of the individual." To discover what 
 a young man is good for, and to equip him for the path 
 he is to strike out in life, regardless of any other con- 
 sideration, is the great duty to which he calls atten-
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 33 
 
 tion. Emerson's essays are written with reference to 
 this aim. He makes men self-reliant. He reveals to 
 the eyes of the idealist the magnificent results of 
 practical activity, and unfolds before the realist the 
 grandeur of the ideal world of thought. No man is to 
 allow himself, through prejudice, to make a mistake 
 in choosing the task to which he will devote his life. 
 Emerson's essays are, as it were, printed sermons, all 
 having this same text. The transition from preacher 
 to independent lecturer was not in itself considered an 
 unnatural one in America; they are behind us in the 
 production of thought, but the interchange of ideas is 
 much more eager and rapid. Emerson had a great 
 predecessor, whom I name here because it will help 
 us to understand what limited him in his ministry. 
 Channing, the apostle of Unitarianism, had been at 
 first only a preacher. But Channing knew how to 
 control and awe a vast congregation, while Emerson 
 loved best to speak or lecture to a few chosen disciples. 
 His words did not sound above the discords of a crowd, 
 but exacted reverential silence. There was nothing in 
 his words any more than in his appearance that could 
 kindle any definite thought. He only indicated the 
 direction in which one must move. 
 
 To the charm of his presence many now testify. 
 Carlyle said a supernal vision dawned on him when he 
 first saw Ealph Waldo Emerson. Some one relates 
 that when as a boy in the midst of his companions he 
 once casually bowed to Emerson, who was about to
 
 34 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 pass them in the street, he returned the simple greeting 
 in a way he could never forget. "Say to Emerson that 
 I love and honor him," were Sumner's words on his 
 death-bed. The earliest notice of Emerson that I find 
 is in the letters of Frederika Bremer, who visited him 
 in Concord somewhere about 1830. She grants that he 
 remained to her a problem. At first she regarded his 
 cool, incisive way of criticising everything as arrogant, 
 but says at the same time that his nature made an 
 utterly different impression on her from that of other 
 arrogant natures she had met with. " There dwells in 
 this man a loftier spirit," she concludes. This was 
 before the times, we recall to-day, when Emerson's 
 writings caused the young people sleepless nights. 
 As Emerson himself said of Carlyle, his sentences 
 indeed enchain us ; they do not seem to be written, but 
 graven on links of steel, as if Emerson had had a pre- 
 sentiment they were destined to last for centuries. It 
 is not usual to speak of the immortality of men while 
 they still live; but Whittier years ago expressed his 
 belief in these words: "No verses written in the 
 English language by any of the living poets bear so 
 clearly imprinted upon them the stamp of immortality 
 as Emerson's." The tribute to Emerson by the re- 
 nowned physicist is echoed by hundreds this side of 
 the water as well as in America, whose youthful 
 souls were stimulated to their highest and best efforts 
 by the peculiar inspiration of his words. Nobler hom- 
 age cannot be offered from man to his fellow-man.
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 35 
 
 Therefore was it nowise astounding to read in the 
 papers the simple statement, as if it were a fixed 
 historical fact, that it was Emerson who had shaped 
 the intellectual life of this century in America. 
 
 I became acquainted with Emerson's writings long 
 years since, when I was young, and scarcely knew 
 enough of English to force my way to an understand- 
 ing of them. Never have I studied a language with 
 such zeal as at that time. It often seemed to me 
 impossible to fathom the meaning of his sentences. 
 I do not know what impression these writings would 
 make upon me now, thirty years later, if they were 
 put in my hands for the first time. Time hardens us, 
 and we are less hospitable to new ideas. But I had 
 the feeling then that, as far as my knowledge went, no 
 one had said such things, or said them in such a way, 
 as Emerson. A sunny view of life radiated from him, 
 a simile I have often since heard repeated. He 
 seemed to me to give utterance to the noblest contem- 
 plations on the past and the present. I attempted to 
 study Emerson critically, but did not succeed. There 
 dwelt within him a hidden power, which seemed his 
 alone. A picture of Giotto in Assisi exhibits St. Fran- 
 cis restoring to life a woman who had died un con- 
 fessed, but only long enough for him to receive her 
 confession. The woman lifts herself from the bier 
 while he bends down to her. And in like manner 
 Emerson animates whatever he touches, giving to 
 Nature a voice that she may communicate her secrets,
 
 36 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 and we believe that he knows much more of them 
 than he tells. Emerson has an incomprehensible way 
 of inspiring the reader with the feeling of the matter 
 without giving it a name or describing it, and without 
 the art by which this is accomplished being anywhere 
 perceptible. Allow me another comparison: As the 
 night-wind passing through the woods and over the 
 meadows comes to us laden with the sweet breath of 
 trees and grasses and flowers which we have not seen, 
 Emerson surrounds us with the atmosphere of things 
 as if they were in reality near us. What was then my 
 inmost conviction regarding Emerson's writings I have 
 lived to hear expressed by many, and as if from the 
 outset no one had held a different opinion. Goethe 
 says, " It is impossible to show the day to the day." 
 He means that the secret of the present is never laid 
 bare to the present, namely, the continuity and relation 
 of the ever-varying experiences, through whose mazes 
 the human race like a vast herd is perpetually urged 
 forward by a watchful Providence. We recognize this 
 unseen force, and obey, timidly asking whither and 
 whence? Everywhere is heard the cry: we recognize 
 it, but no one believes in help from any of the voices. 
 Emerson never asserted that he knew more than 
 others, but his writings inspire the feeling that it 
 "must be so, and excite a hope that we may possibly 
 draw from them answers to questions with which we 
 had not consciously dealt. His words seem to me at 
 different times to be capable of different interpre-
 
 EALPH WALDO EMERSON. 37 
 
 tations. Many times have his thoughts presented 
 themselves to my mind like single verses of an infinite 
 poem whose design had still to be fully revealed, even 
 to himself. 
 
 I had not glanced at Emerson's writings for many 
 a year; when the telegram came with the tidings of 
 his death, I took down the two-volumed edition of his 
 works, given me by George Bancroft, opened them, and 
 read. The wealth and harmony of his language over- 
 powered and entranced me anew. But even now I 
 cannot say wherein the secret of his influence lies. 
 It is of a wholly individual nature. What he has 
 written is like life itself, the unbroken thread ever 
 lengthened through the addition of the small events 
 which make up each day's experience. His sentences 
 often flow on monotonously and unaccented. They 
 are series of thoughts. He begins as if continuing a 
 discourse whose opening we had not heard, and ends 
 as if only pausing to take breath before going on. 
 Some one tells of calling on him the day before he 
 was to lecture. He found him surrounded by papers, 
 from which he was selecting and putting together 
 whatever was appropriate to his subject. It does not 
 detract from the value of his writings that their crea- 
 tion was a matter of chance. If, we were to print 
 them all together the introductions excepted we 
 should see them forming a chain in which no links 
 were missing. It would be like a panorama of ideas, 
 for each minute with him seems to have borne its pecu-
 
 38 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 liar fruit. We feel that Emerson never wished to say 
 more than just what at the moment presented itself 
 to his soul. He never set up a system ; never de- 
 fended himself. He speaks as if he had never been 
 assailed ; as if all men were his friends, and held the 
 same opinions as himself. He is never hasty, and 
 always impartial. He labors after no effects in style. 
 He speaks with perfect composure, as if translating 
 from a language understood only by himself. He 
 always addresses the same public, the unknown mul- 
 titude of those who buy and read his works and wish 
 to listen to him, and ever in the same tone of manly 
 affability. 
 
 Nothing, however, is more comprehensible than that 
 a man so conducting himself should be declared a pure 
 idealist, a dilettante who only floats above our earthly 
 tabernacles because he is nowhere really at home. 
 Reproaches of this nature Emerson has not escaped, for 
 toward no one is the world, with justice, so sharp and 
 merciless as to the man who requires of us implicit 
 faith in his highest thoughts. But the superfluity 
 of knowledge of every kind which Emerson utilizes 
 is no longer regarded as the machinery with which 
 a vain speaker seeks to surprise or attract the public. 
 It is now perceived that when Emerson presents an 
 antithesis, the antithesis exists in reality. Nature her- 
 self surprises us with dazzling lights and illumination. 
 
 Emerson's career is now ended. The attempt to 
 classify him will repeatedly be made. At present the
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 39 
 
 American people feel only his loss. Emerson was one 
 of the representatives of the national conscience. The 
 various means of intercourse to-day bring the inhabi- 
 tants of a great country into more sympathetic rela- 
 tions than formerly existed between those environed 
 by the walls of a single city. There was more reserve 
 in the old days, when men persecuted each other more 
 for differences of opinion. Emerson was to many the 
 highest moral tribunal, and his existence a comfort in 
 the land. By his death America is not only impov- 
 erished by the loss of her greatest man, but at the 
 same time regards Emerson as almost the last of a 
 series of men who seem to have died out with him. 
 He and Longfellow were the participators in a great 
 intellectual movement which finds its historic close 
 with them. But Emerson himself prepared the way 
 for the transition to what now takes the place of the 
 animus of those earlier days. He no longer addressed 
 himself by preference to those who read or have read, 
 but to those who only have ears to hear. Bret Harte 
 describes in one of his stories the little house of an 
 emigrant in the far West, where the sole intellectual 
 store consisted of an edition of Shakespeare, and Emer- 
 son's portrait on the wall. We have already found 
 Emerson placed beside Shakespeare, and he indeed 
 resembles him in so far that he can be understood 
 without preparation. In the same sense also it is 
 said that, though he has written comparatively little 
 verse, he was, properly speaking, a poet rather than
 
 40 RALPH -WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 a philosopher. If we admit the comparison with 
 Shakespeare, we may refer to his spontaneity and 
 wealth of thought, as well as his aptitude in the use 
 of similes drawn directly, it would seem, from his own 
 experience, and the absence of prejudice of any and 
 every kind. He is to be compared with Goethe in 
 his endeavor to possess himself of everything in the 
 realm of science, and his inclination in spite of his 
 association with scholars to hold himself aloof from 
 them, although never tempted to put himself in oppo- 
 sition to them. In the aesthetic-political import of 
 his writings he reminds us of Schiller, as well as by 
 the democratic sentiment which shines forth from the 
 works of both. Emerson, Like Schiller, believed in 
 the superiority of the guileless, ideal man over the 
 man of statecraft and intrigue. Schiller inspires us 
 to-day with the prospect of a great future, and with 
 the certainty of the final appearance of a simple 
 heroic people, each of whom, like Wallenstein's Max, 
 will look down with contempt on our present artifice 
 and cunning. The coming of this people Emerson 
 also predicted to his compatriots. In another respect 
 Emerson resembles Schiller. He stood ready to lift 
 his voice whenever, wherever it was needed, and 
 unhesitatingly came to the front in emergencies of 
 all kinds, whilst Goethe only interfered in matters 
 congenial to his nature, and postponed the rest. 
 
 Like St. Augustine, Emerson treats of the most 
 subtile themes without lowering his voice, and in
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 41 
 
 such a free, unconstrained way as to be attractive even 
 to a child. With marvellous penetration he reduces 
 the most involved questions to simple forms. This is 
 especially conspicuous in English Traits, which was 
 written after having twice visited England. The phe- 
 nomena of English life are traced back to the char- 
 acter and constitution of the race, together with the 
 natural qualities of the soil. I have never heard a 
 country and a people more clearly described, and the 
 value of the book is recognized on both sides of 
 the ocean. The low estimate of foreigners among the 
 English is proverbial, but they seem to have made an 
 exception in favor of Emerson. Emerson's love of 
 truth rings out clearly in every opinion he gives. 
 "He was invested with the light of truth," begins a 
 notice of him in Harper's Weekly, and English papers 
 contain similar expressions. Emerson says the Eng- 
 lish is the first nation in the world, but ranks the 
 German intellectually higher. The Englishman, he 
 says, looks at everything singly, and does not know 
 how to comprehend humanity as a whole, according 
 to higher laws. He says, "The German thinks for 
 Europe." But what distinguishes the English, Ameri- 
 cans, and Germans, the three people before whom, 
 in common, stand the great problems of the world, 
 is often the subject of his demonstration. And here 
 we must again mention Carlyle, whom Emerson has 
 been supposed to imitate. Hero-worship was not an 
 original idea either with Carlyle or Emerson. It is
 
 42 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 in the blood of English and Americans as one of 
 their noblest capabilities. It is possible that, through 
 Carlyle, Emerson was inspired to write his book on 
 Representative Men; but it is a wholly different con- 
 ception from Carlyle's Heroes. Carlyle's labored and, 
 to our view, often intentionally peculiar style, can 
 never for a moment be compared with Emerson's. 
 And indeed the comparisons I have instituted be- 
 tween Emerson and others apply only to outward and 
 accidental characteristics. He stands alone, and will 
 have a special place in history. In the introduction 
 to Representative Men Emerson says, in praise of 
 great men, that each is useful to his people, in that 
 his name enriches by a word the vocabulary of his 
 native tongue. In the meaning of this "word," as 
 he uses it, is contained an idea which could not be 
 expressed by any other phraseology. 
 
 Emerson dwelt in Concord in a small one-story 
 house, built, it would seem, chiefly of wood. One 
 night it took fire and burned down. Emerson, sev- 
 enty years of age, suddenly driven out into the cold 
 night air, fell ill for the first time in his life. His 
 friends suggested to him that he should go abroad 
 to reinstate his health, the intention being during 
 his absence to rebuild his house. Emerson went over 
 California to India, returning home by Egypt and 
 Europe. He reached Italy in the spring of 1873, 
 and I saw him in Florence. A tall, slender figure, 
 with the radiant smile which is peculiar to children
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 43 
 
 and men of the highest order. His daughter Ellen 
 was his companion, and devoted to him. The noblest 
 culture raises men above national peculiarities and 
 makes them perfectly unaffected. Emerson had an 
 unpretentious dignity of demeanor, and I felt as if 
 I had always known him. At that time he was still 
 fresh and could work. Soon after an infirmity came 
 upon him. He wholly lost his memory. One of my 
 former hearers wrote me an account of his last visit 
 to him. Emerson sat there, says the letter, like an 
 old eagle in his eyrie. He greeted me in the most 
 kind and friendly manner, but could no longer re- 
 member men or things. "It is natural to believe in 
 great men," begins the introduction to Emerson's Rep- 
 resentative Men. "Nature seems to exist for the ex- 
 cellent. The world is upheld by the veracity of good 
 men ; they make the earth wholesome. They who 
 have lived with them found life glad and nutritious. 
 Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such 
 society; and, actually or ideally, we manage to live 
 with superiors. We call our children and our lands 
 by their names. Their names are wrought into the 
 verbs of language, their works and effigies are in our 
 houses, and every circumstance of the day recalls an 
 anecdote of them. The search after the great is the 
 dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of 
 manhood. We travel into foreign parts to find his 
 works, if possible, to get a glimpse of him." The 
 words to-day sound like his epitaph.
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 WHEN Alaric in his Italian campaign besieged Borne, 
 the inhabitants, reduced through pestilence and famine 
 to the last extremity, despatched messengers to the 
 Gothic camp. Instead, however, of quietly awaiting, 
 as they should, the verdict of their conquerors in 
 whose hands their fate absolutely lay, they broke forth 
 into the most arrogant threats, and returned to the 
 city without having accomplished anything ; even 
 after Rome had actually fallen into the hands of the 
 Goths, the comparatively lenient terms offered them 
 by their victors were at first rejected with contempt. 
 
 Historians call it an inconceivable hallucination; 
 for who could regard such stubbornness as patriotism, 
 when the immeasurable wretchedness of the public 
 condition was so clearly manifest ? The Eomans had 
 seen with their own eyes the mortal terror of the 
 populace at the approach of the enemy, the general 
 fright, the helplessness, the want of leaders ! Why 
 then, in this utter absence of all power, such an ebul- 
 lition of haughty pride ? 
 
 I will neither compare the Germans of to-day with 
 
 44
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 45 
 
 the Goths under Alaric, although there could be no 
 detraction in the comparison with this noble people, 
 nor the French especially the Parisians with the 
 Italians and Romans at that time. But the extraor- 
 dinary view the French took of the last war throws a 
 milder, or at all events an explanatory light on the con- 
 duct of the Romans, who in the midst of ruin rebelled 
 against the consciousness of being ruined, and also helps 
 us to understand the behavior of the French people. 
 We see that adversities of such enormous extent may so 
 unexpectedly overwhelm a people that the panic-struck 
 souls lose the capacity of taking in what is happening 
 before their very eyes. The Roman, without hope for 
 the future, unable to govern or to defend himself, worn 
 out with hunger and in the jaws of destruction, is yet 
 incapable, either of humbly negotiating or of conceiving 
 that Rome, which had stood unconquered more than a 
 thousand years, Golden Imperial Rome! could ever 
 be forced to admit the barbarian as conqueror within 
 her walls, and instead of surrendering he threatens. 
 The words of submission rebel against the lips which 
 would drive them forth. The Romans, deluded by a 
 glorious past like a Fata Morgana rising before him ! 
 And even so in France to-day, though conquered and 
 prostrate, the prisoners from so many battles entertain 
 but one idea, raise but one cry, " Betrayed ! " The 
 Frenchman has a peculiar organization, rendering it 
 impossible for him to imagine himself beaten. Weary, 
 hopeless, and miserable he calls defeats victories, be-
 
 46 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 lieves he can still grasp with convulsive hands Alsace 
 and Lorraine, and threatens to demand the Rhine 
 boundary. 
 
 To be sure nobody could foresee the extent of the 
 terrible struggle into which the French nation was 
 drawn ; for no one dreamed that this organism, almost 
 dissolved as it was by party passion, could yet give 
 birth to such demonic power as Prussia had to ac- 
 knowledge even while crushing it. Yet now that 
 the phenomena stands complete there is nothing in 
 it which the history of the country does not explain. 
 
 Three generations of Frenchmen have everywhere 
 found rehearsed as articles of faith the invincibility of 
 France, foremost among the nations, and the conquest 
 of the Rhine boundary, as a sacred historical legacy. 
 Gloire and Victoire, France and Vaillance, are rhymes 
 for which the Almighty seems to have specially fore- 
 ordained the French language. France conquered by 
 Germany is in the eyes of the French people an illu- 
 sion conjured up by the Evil One. They were spectral 
 hosts that besieged Paris. Only a little patience, and 
 with the returning sun the ancient arms of France 
 will glitter as of yore and mirror themselves victori- 
 ously in the waves of the Rhine ! Gustave Dore, as 
 purely a national genius as ever lived, has glorified 
 this expedition in a symbolic drawing, which illus- 
 trates the French idea of it better than anything 
 which could be said or written. Every Frenchman 
 who looks at it must exclaim, " Yes, so it shall be
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 47 
 
 and so it will be ! " That it will not be so is our 
 hope. 
 
 What the Frenchman requires is elan I forward ! 
 without bag or baggage, no matter whither. All 
 France hurrahed and rushed into the war with Prus- 
 sia: it was a grand expedition. In the same spirit 
 Brennus was hurried on to Rome, Bonaparte to Egypt, 
 Napoleon to Eussia. The Gaul needs about every 
 twenty -five years a huge political exploring expedition, 
 arms in hand, into this or that country which he is 
 pleased for the nonce to declare the " terra incognita." 
 They did not wish to fight with the noble German 
 people ; a promenade to Berlin was what they wanted, 
 on account of Sadowa. They neither knew where 
 Berlin lay, nor what had been contended for at Sa- 
 dowa; an undefined thirst for battle pervaded the 
 nation ; it must find vent against the Prussians. The 
 Emperor himself, certainly the greatest pessimist in all 
 France, would have been glad enough to have avoided 
 the war, but was obliged to yield to the pressure of 
 the people. 
 
 Let us endeavor to gain a view of the phenomenon 
 from a higher stand-point. 
 
 It is marvellous to observe how powerfully the love 
 of renown has stirred in the heart of the French 
 people from the hour they were first conscious of 
 being a nation. Their conquests in arms and their 
 great successes in art and literature have sprung 
 from this source. They seize upon things intellectual
 
 48 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 with the same fire and boldness with which they 
 attack foreign powers. They have unrivalled dex- 
 terity in grasping and expressing ideas. They are 
 ready with their theory on the instant, but will cheer- 
 fully face death itself for it. It is well known what 
 French specialists have done and are doing in all 
 the various departments of science. They are greatest, 
 however, when classifying whole masses of phenomena 
 in conformity with new theories. They aim at an 
 overwhelming general effect which shall silence all 
 opposition. They expect their great men to shoot 
 across the heavens like comets with fiery tails, straight 
 through the constellations of fixed stars. And we 
 must acknowledge, that for two hundred years the 
 French have astonished themselves and all Europe 
 with such men, soldiers, statesmen, savans, and art- 
 ists. Happen what might, a brief interim, and France 
 stood again at the head of nations ; Paris, the brilliant 
 centre of Europe, hers the language in which every- 
 thing could best be said; hers the soil, the air, in 
 which great men sprang up and found the most rapid 
 development ; hers the honor and the glory and the 
 hearth on whose burning coals the opinion of all 
 Europe was formed! 
 
 How could this city, so long the heart and brain of 
 Europe, even if actually in the grasp of the German 
 army, be crushed or humiliated in the eyes of a 
 Frenchman ? This France not rise again with to-mor- 
 row's sun to revenge herself ? Any moment they imag-
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 49 
 
 ined might change the whole face of things ! If the 
 victory announced hy Gambetta yesterday was won, 
 may it not still come before to-day closes ? It needs 
 only the right general, at last, one no traitor hike the 
 rest, or that the gods who perchance have slumbered 
 should awake to see what foul demons have brought 
 upon France, to restore with one brave stroke the old 
 order. Such thoughts were but too natural. 
 
 To us at this time Voltaire is of special significance, 
 because he was the first and mightiest organizer of the 
 dogma of the providentially intended preponderance of 
 France among the nations, which from small beginnings 
 gradually became an element of the French character. 
 France had not always been the first nation. When 
 Louis XIV began to consolidate his government Haps- 
 burg was a giant in political affairs compared with 
 France, while Italy exceeded her quite as much in cul- 
 ture ; the precedence, therefore, was naturally yielded 
 to both these nations, and art and literature openly rec- 
 ognized as an importation. This continued for decades, 
 until the power of the Austrian and English monar- 
 chies declined, and France, by a series of victories, not 
 only enlarged her boundaries formidably, but, remould- 
 ing all the heterogeneous elements thus gained, created 
 a new French nationality with Paris for its centre. It 
 now required only a few decades before the people liv- 
 ing in perpetual contemplation of this prosperous state 
 of things evolved the blessed gospel of the supremacy 
 of France, the prime article to-day in the creed of 
 every individual Frenchman.
 
 50 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 To establish this belief Voltaire contributed more 
 than any one else. He first comprehended the whole 
 wealth of his people, and exhibited it to France her- 
 self as well as to other countries, in its full splendor, 
 as a living reality. To him this France, eclipsing the 
 rest of the world in the unity of her land and people, 
 was the product of the total development of human- 
 ity. The idea was natural, and nowhere met with 
 opposition. Voltaire had simply formulated what all 
 Europe had on the tongue. He was himself, however, 
 the ripest fruit in this paradise of modern culture. 
 All his experiences, even the worst, were typical of his 
 nation. No writer ever arose in any part of the world 
 to whom his people and country served as such an 
 admirable foil as the French to Voltaire. A combi- 
 nation of many fortuitous circumstances is required 
 before out of thousands who seemed called one is per- 
 mitted to find the place where he develops perfectly 
 and exhibits his full strength. Voltaire was singled 
 out for such a role in France. His spirit represents the 
 spirit of millions, and each individual Frenchman may 
 be considered as an atom of his soul. He was greater, 
 stronger, happier than them all, and the century in 
 which he lived and worked bears his name. 
 
 Voltaire's long life embraces the most significant 
 epoch in French history. As a youth he was educated 
 in a lively consciousness of the undisputed supremacy 
 which the powerful Louis XIV won for France ; his 
 death occurred while (although the French Revolution
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 51 
 
 was hastening on) the rosy glimmer in the morning 
 sky still promised a glorious day. Never have literary 
 productions commanded so high a price as during the 
 century in which Voltaire lived ; never was a man 
 more richly endowed for his career, nor one who used 
 his talents less unsparingly. We have in our century 
 had instances of books more popular with the masses ; 
 Sue's Mysteries of Paris, Kenan's Vie de Jesus, or 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin have netted authors and pub- 
 lishers much greater sums than did even Voltaire's 
 works. As regards these books, however, there were 
 certain strata among the people where we may say 
 they as good as never existed, and even of those who 
 read them with avidity, who has really found in them 
 daily food, or lasting solace and enjoyment? But 
 Voltaire's works were classics from the outset. Fred- 
 erick the Great deemed it an understood fact that 
 every man of taste must prefer the Henriade to the 
 Iliad. Men studied Voltaire. His works and his life 
 occupied the thoughts of the best classes of society in 
 his day. Into religion, science, politics, the mind of 
 this man gradually infused itself. Not indeed that he 
 had a clique by whom his influence was made syste- 
 matically effective. 
 
 Voltaire was too great for that ! Men neither loved 
 nor revered him. He was more hated and feared than 
 any one, and through his whole life had only servants 
 and coadjutors, but no friends. Yet no one, let the 
 strength of his individuality be what it might, quite
 
 52 
 
 FEANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 escaped Voltaire's influence, which, like the sirocco 
 whirling desert sands through tent walls of treble 
 thickness, is apparent, even over those who seem most 
 energetically to have resisted it. Lessing, if we look at 
 him dispassionately, has more Voltairean elements than 
 would seem possible with such great personal contrast ; 
 and Diderot, together with many others whose natures 
 were original and vigorous, rested largely upon him, 
 although this may not have been perceived in his gen- 
 eration. One man only stood quite free of him, 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau ; and he, too, was the only one 
 Voltaire never manoeuvred to win, but by ignoring 
 him, and by other covert means (such as nowadays we 
 could scarcely understand), held him at arm's-length. 
 
 For the rest, he was always open in his attacks, and 
 brought into play the entire repertory of weapons in 
 his arsenal, from the powerful big guns, whose every 
 shot told, down to the meanest, most infamous wea- 
 pons, which worked like poison in the blood. Voltaire 
 simply acted out his instincts. 
 
 He was lion or rattlesnake, changing from one to the 
 other without any effort of will. He was the latest 
 edition of the old Homeric Proteus, whom he like- 
 wise resembled, in that, for the most part, he appeared 
 to be placidly sleeping on the sea-shore in the sunshine, 
 only when goaded rousing himself to the fight. But 
 in truth he was always on the lookout, and it was 
 only necessary that the poor mortal who met his 
 gaze should strike him as worth the trouble for him
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 53 
 
 to make his very existence seem a reproach and a 
 shame. One thing he found absolutely insufferable, 
 namely, to be obliged to acknowledge that he was not 
 the sole literary power in the land. 
 
 Voltaire's history is the record of these dissqnances 
 and strifes. In the innermost depth of his nature he 
 can hardly be said to have ever experienced develop- 
 ment. All his phases are only external manifesta- 
 tions of something that was in itself complete from 
 the beginning. He came upon the stage ripe and 
 ready, springing from the brain of his native land, 
 armed with shield and spear, and skilled in their use. 
 With his first note he sent a challenge to right and 
 left, fought battles all round, gave sharp thrusts, and 
 never allowed the world any peace until he drew his 
 last breath. In his whole life he never really learned 
 anything new, although he steadily absorbed into 
 himself the novelties of his day and generation ; the 
 germ of all was in his birth-right. 
 
 To the farthest points the web of his knowledge 
 and personal relations was stretched ; in those meshes 
 friends and enemies, moths and elephants, alike were 
 caught, while the great spider, with the monstrous 
 understanding, sat in the midst, drawing the life-blood 
 of his victims, ever lying in wait, with the same eyes, 
 in the same form, and on the same spot. 
 
 A soil and atmosphere in which such an individual 
 could display himself must indeed have been peculiar. 
 The Paris which was Voltaire's school, in which he
 
 54 FEANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 received his consecration and established his throne, 
 was a unique product of historic evolution. At present 
 there is a list of great cities beside Paris, London, 
 New York, Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, which 
 must be reckoned as about equal in value as vertebral 
 points from which intellectual light radiates ; but the 
 Paris of the last century predominated over Ptome, 
 London, and Vienna (the only three cities which could 
 be named in comparison) as decidedly as the French 
 language did over the English and Italian. 
 
 The Parisians were at that time the favored rep- 
 resentatives of the most cultivated nation. But the 
 efforts they had been making for a whole century to 
 attain this distinguished rank are not to be lightly 
 estimated. We know not the laws that permit a 
 wealth of great men suddenly to appear in the midst 
 of a people ; but in France we see during the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries such an extraordinary 
 number of great men arising on all sides, that the 
 combined lustre of their achievements has sufficient 
 light-giving power to create a brilliant atmosphere over 
 all France ; something such as we observe at night 
 over large cities, and in which even common things 
 assume unwonted splendor. 
 
 Let us first look at their achievements in the literary 
 field. At the time when Voltaire appeared the lan- 
 guage had been elaborated and improved, until it had 
 become an instrument of such fineness that the advent 
 of a man who could exhibit its full power seemed
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 55 
 
 a demand on the creative genuis of the nation. One 
 might say that a man like Voltaire must come. 
 
 A hundred years before Voltaire, Corneille had ap- 
 peared. He is the poet of the Fronde, Louis XIII, 
 Anne of Austria, Richelieu and Mazarin, of the no- 
 bility and the enfranchised citizens, armed against the 
 king. Corneille found, as the happiest mirror for his 
 day, the times of like import in Rome, when the fami- 
 lies of CaBsar and Augustus rose to supremacy and im- 
 perial power over a number of other patrician families, 
 equally powerful and equally entitled. During Cor- 
 neille's most susceptible years France was in the hands 
 of an almost independent body of nobles, with whom 
 individually the king was forced to compromise. 
 What role private family affairs played in all this, and 
 what influence the beauty and intrigues of the women 
 had, the history of that day informs us. Mazarin 
 speaks of their extraordinary interference in state 
 affairs as distinguishing France from Spain and Italy, 
 where certainly les grandes dames also knew how to 
 expedite or to hinder things. When Corneille makes 
 Augustus say Soyons amis, Cinna, we might object 
 to its wholly false effect, as an illustration of Roman 
 history, since Augustus could only have said this to 
 chaff a somewhat insignificant person. The public, 
 however, before whom this was played saw in Augustus 
 an incarnation of the united power of Richelieu and 
 the king, and in Cinna, one of those dukes who, even 
 as convicted traitors, were still powerful enough to 
 count on having things settled in a friendly way.
 
 56 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 Corneille's men are austere in speech, and his women, 
 in whom politics and love seem chemically united, are 
 powerful rather than feminine ; even Chimene, the 
 tenderest of all the poet's creations, never loses sight 
 of her lofty political position. That the following 
 generation, to which Racine belonged, cared no longer 
 
 o o ' O 
 
 for such things is quite conceivable. 
 
 Racine is the court-poet of Louis XIV, whilst dur- 
 ing the youth of the king the vieille cosur of Anne 
 of Austria adheres to the great Corneille like a con- 
 gregation to its old hymn-book. Racine glorifies the 
 new France, which just as ardently clings to him. 
 This new France of which we speak is composed of 
 the nobility, restrained and educated by Louis, and 
 Cinna the promiscuous French public, who make the 
 first attempt to find recognition as an element proper. 
 The old patriotic body of freemen, once able to close 
 the gates of their city against the king, no longer 
 held sway in Paris ; now it was the great sea of the 
 people, upon whom a blow was like a stroke upon 
 water, which nothing separated, ai\d which upheld 
 all that rose to the surface, drop by drop, rising 
 and broadening its flow, until, after a series of gener- 
 ations, the Revolution arose, and in its midst to-day 
 the honor and glory of France seems to have sunk 
 forever. 
 
 Racine needs despots, favorites, amorous young 
 princes, who talk of nothing but their passions, and 
 neither rebel against their country nor exert them-
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 57 
 
 selves to save it ; ministers who have an opinion, but 
 no will of their own, and if they speak of past or future 
 refer only to their own predecessors or successors, and 
 as spectators of the complications arising between such 
 characters, either a court where these things were 
 matters of personal experience, or a nation deeming 
 it the highest enjoyment to be near this court and 
 gaze at it admiringly through the gilded lattices which 
 shut it off from the rest of the world. He is the 
 poet of the commoners, as yet unstable and power- 
 less, truckling to the nobility, both the higher and 
 the lower. 
 
 Moliere is the greatest of the three poets. He 
 created his world and ruled it. Corneille dared not 
 say all he thought, and was, moreover, cramped by 
 pupillage in the learned pedantry of the Academic 
 clique on which he was dependent. Racine, one feels 
 clearly, knew the court to be other than as he paints 
 it ; the single tragedy written out of his soul, Berenice, 
 closes with a sigh ; it might have ended quite differ- 
 ently, and he wrote nothing further of this kind. 
 But Moliere was perfectly untrammeled. His mis- 
 anthropy breaks off with a dissonance, such as we 
 meet with in life itself, which he knew through and 
 through. His language is free, and the noblest mani- 
 festation of the genuine French spirit. 
 
 Corneille, Racine, and Moliere put their own stamp 
 on the language, and gave to their ideas the most plastic 
 and artistic shapes. Clustered about them, and keep-
 
 58 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 ing step with their progress, were a number of writers 
 who handled the language with ease and grace, and 
 in admirable ways followed the bent of their idiosyn- 
 crasies. The language and literary form was wrought 
 to such a pitch of perfection as to render it a difficult 
 task to earn the right to use it for the public benefit 
 or become a recognized author. Every writer was 
 subjected to an uninterrupted series of the most irk- 
 some examinations, at which all Paris voted. Even 
 a critic like Boileau despairs of expressing himself in 
 correct French. The Parisian savants, together with 
 the circle by whose final judgment the author was 
 forced to abide, had become a secret power in which 
 to share was matter of competition and supposed un- 
 common gifts. That a man dared to appear in Paris 
 and claim public attention as a writer in itself, argued 
 distinction of some sort. Writing and printing were 
 not at that time what they are to-day. Far more was 
 written and read to private audiences than appeared 
 in print, or was exposed for sale in the bookstores. 
 
 Indeed, we may say that about the year 1700 all 
 Paris wrote. Lords and valets composed gallant or 
 satirical verses, epistles, memoirs, tragedies, and love- 
 letters. They wrote and helped to circulate what was 
 written, praised, censured, but insatiably asked for 
 more. This excitement lasted up to the Revolution, 
 when its character changed. From Corneille even 
 to our time, a period of two hundred and fifty years, 
 French literature swayed the taste of Europe. The
 
 FKAXCE AND VOLTAIRE. 59 
 
 different phases through which it passed were in con- 
 junction with the revolutions in the general political 
 condition. 
 
 As during these two hundred and fifty years the 
 conduct of public affairs step by step passed out of 
 the hands of the nobles into that of the democratic 
 masses, amongst whom to-day only wealth or tal- 
 ent gives weight and position, the literature also 
 in the gradual transit adapted itself as far as possible 
 to the taste of those exercising the supreme control. 
 
 But this, too, is of the past! The mission of liter- 
 ature seems fulfilled in the sense of these centuries 
 gone by. We start afresh ! With us writing and 
 printing is simply a vehicle of communication, the 
 matter the essential thing. Naive enjoyment in lan- 
 guage as such is lost. To be sure he who revels in 
 the artistic management of language will always win 
 his audience and his fame; but if we regard litera- 
 ture as the servant of the forces governing mankind 
 at the present day, we find the style of the roughest 
 telegraphic despatch as effective over the masses as 
 the most elegant and elaborately constructed senten- 
 ces. This is most striking in France, England, and 
 America. The nations do not seem to want books 
 which can be slowly converted into friends, but spe- 
 cial utterances of beloved or distinguished people, 
 whose opinions can be at once accepted and put in 
 practice. Reading is only a substitute for personal in- 
 tercourse, not for conversation, however, but for the
 
 60 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 business of life. Nobody is surprised to receive as 
 answer to the question, " Have you read this or that 
 book ? " " No, but I know the author ; he is a friend 
 of mine." 
 
 The world-wide intercourse in which we all share 
 makes reading and writing a labor; and only those 
 cannot find enjoyment in it whose efforts are not 
 demanded in any other sphere. At the time when 
 Voltaire appeared, a hopeless stagnation prevailed 
 throughout the political life of Europe. Men had no 
 political ideals. Kobinson Crusoe's rocky isle was 
 the Utopia of national economy, beyond which the 
 imagination of the people did not soar. Sure only of 
 the present, they allowed themselves to relapse into 
 mere enjoyment of it, and believed the deep ruts in 
 which they were shuffling along the necessary requi- 
 sites for a good road. That changes could be brought 
 about by an impulse springing out of the heart of 
 a united people was an idea which never had dawned 
 even upon Montesquieu, when at the conclusion of his 
 Esprit des Lois he constructed his model state. In 
 general society the one thing to be done was to pro- 
 vide as good music as possible, that all might dance. 
 For this the young were educated, and their elders 
 found delight in it. Life seemed long, and its vicissi- 
 tudes comparatively few. To fight against ennui was 
 everybody's chief concern. Louis XIV (in his old 
 age the regent of Louis XV) excelled in this species 
 of warfare. Heaven and hell were set in commotion
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 61 
 
 to defeat this enemy ; of what immense value, then, 
 must a man have been who wherever he appeared 
 dissipated every shade of ennui as if by witchcraft ; 
 who (like the giant's daughter sweeping everything 
 that came under her hand, changed to toys, into her 
 apron) transformed all that his mind touched into the 
 most entertaining playthings for the people, and this 
 year after year, and on through many generations. To 
 this end Voltaire could utilize the merest nothings, as 
 well as the most prodigious questions of science, and 
 the one, it would seem, as easily, as the other. Every- 
 thing served him, and all gained equal weight in his 
 hands. 
 
 Corneille would flatter the as yet torpid spirit of 
 the people, which, unconscious of its power, seemed 
 to have only a dim foreboding of the supremacy it 
 finally assumed in Europe; Racine glorified the pas- 
 sions of the changing court, moving along proudly, 
 treading upon laurels real and imaginary, to which 
 a nation looked up as the Greeks and Romans to 
 the eternally feasting Olympians. Voltaire aimed to 
 astound, to thrill, to teach the great Parisian public, 
 but all only to relieve it from ennui. " Tons les genres 
 sont bons hors I'ennui eux" was his motto. The peo- 
 ple should be forced to laugh or to weep, no matter 
 which, so they realized it was he who had the skill 
 and cunning to do it. Voltaire was the most prodi- 
 gious literary actor that ever found shelter on our 
 planet, herein perhaps wholly unique. An actor not
 
 62 FKANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 in the common sense, but in the highest, such as 
 Garrick was; for Voltaire identifies himself so com- 
 pletely with the r61e he plays as to transform him- 
 self into the character he represents, and the illusion 
 is only destroyed for the spectator when he suddenly 
 appears in a wholly different r61e. To laugh or to 
 weep, to reflect seriously upon life and its duties, or 
 to shrug one's shoulders over it in thoughtless fri- 
 volity, to find delight in the world, or to despise it, 
 to plunge into the profoundest depths of scholarly 
 research, or to thrust sceptically aside all learned 
 contemplations, to each in turn he summons us, and 
 every time with equally convincing arguments ; always, 
 however, only for so and so long, not forever. His cor- 
 respondence affords the best examples of this : there is 
 not a single one of his very eloquent passages in which, 
 sooner or later, the moment does not come when we 
 say to ourselves, " This was written to produce some 
 particular effect upon others, or at the best upon him- 
 self." At the same time we must not leave out of 
 account the enormous expenditure of intellectual mate- 
 rial involved in this play ; nor indeed that it was in 
 the gratification of this impulse that Voltaire saved 
 the innocent from death when all France cried out 
 against them. He was courageous and tough. He 
 possessed immense power to make his thoughts those 
 of the multitude, and if he often enough made use of 
 it to avenge himself on his enemies, it proved no less 
 potent when he espoused the cause of the oppressed.
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 63 
 
 Yet after having provided munificently for a distant 
 granddaughter of Corneille's, when a rough, uncouth fel- 
 low presented himself proving nearer relationship and 
 more intimate claims on the great poet, he speeded the 
 poor creature on his way with only a friendly viaticum. 
 Perhaps could Corneille himself have appeared in his 
 old torn shoes, Voltaire would have given him a new 
 pair, at the same time beseeching him to get out of 
 his way. He did what he could, but still only what 
 he would; people must not make themselves disa- 
 greeable, and if he was to be moved, the looks of the 
 world must be upon him. Voltaire did not like situa- 
 tions in which the arrangements were not advantageous 
 for him ; nor did he often meddle with things that did 
 not picture him in a fovorable light to the eyes of the 
 curious world. 
 
 Voltaire is of moment to us to-day as poet, historian, 
 and to the German nation especially as the friend of 
 Frederick the Great. 
 
 For this reason it is valuable for every one to obtain 
 a knowledge of his works and character. Voltaire 
 sought to fairly exhaust the erudition of his time ; 
 but what he has himself contributed to religious 
 philosophy, to the natural sciences, and to kindred 
 branches of learning, is a matter of interest to those 
 only who make these a specialty. His most legiti- 
 mate renown attaches to his writings on historical 
 subjects. These, unrivaled in form, and whose influ- 
 ence over the mind and destiny of France seem inti-
 
 64 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 mately connected with the final terrific ruin of his 
 country, are to-day still fresh and readable. 
 
 Voltaire came into the world in 1694 ; his youth 
 fell in the dull and stagnant years preceding the 
 death of Louis XIV, when the people, enduring the 
 misery of a despotic and firmly-interwoven Jesuit 
 police system, awaited the departure of the superan- 
 nuated monarch, without however attaching any pro- 
 spective hopes to the hour when it should take place. 
 St. Simon depicts this state of things admirably, bring- 
 ing out the minutiae with the sly, cool spitefulness 
 peculiar to him. At that time, as well as later, public 
 spirit was sustained by the vanity of the people in 
 the triumphant position of France among the nations. 
 Were they not the first, ably conducting their politics 
 in silks and velvets, what more could they wish ? 
 We all know how, upon the death of the king and 
 the accession of the regent, this wearisome stagna- 
 tion came to an end, and what mad doings followed. 
 Nobles and citizens, hitherto residing separately in 
 Versailles and Paris, now rushed together like two 
 chemical elements whose union was complete as soon 
 as they touched, and from that moment formed the 
 "Parisian public governing the world." In the time 
 of Corneille we read more than once in the memoirs of 
 Madame de Motteville, "This year the court is abso- 
 lutely deserted, for everybody has gone to the war." 
 This certainly never happened in the days of Eacine 
 and Moliere; for then Versailles, even in war-time,
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 65 
 
 was not quite empty, only special blood must flow in 
 the veins in order to be received there. But Voltaire 
 needed not to bruise his spirit against any such limita- 
 tions ; he first learned to use his wings when, night 
 after night, in the Palais Royal, play-actresses and duch- 
 esses, with their respective manly attache's, assembled 
 as equals in rank, under the presiding regent. Still, the 
 rest of Paris stood outside listening at the half-closed 
 window-blinds in order to catch and circulate accounts 
 of the scandal and uproar within. The days had come 
 when lackeys and nobles, the two extremes in conviv- 
 ial intercourse, formed the warp and woof of society, 
 Avhose only aim was to get money quickly in order to 
 spend it again as quickly, and to create for themselves 
 leisure only to waste it. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, the external civic regula- 
 tions, dating from past centuries, had been so firm and 
 strong, that in the midst of confusion and bad manage- 
 ment the state held out still a hundred years ; and the 
 intellectual culture of the seventeenth century having 
 had an equally durable basis, there arose in the midst 
 of all this frivolity and superficiality deep thinkers, 
 and of genius, whose authority prevented the general 
 level of public culture from sinking so low as it has 
 to-day under an improved national economy and out- 
 ward circumstances vastly more favorable. The solid 
 beginnings operated yet. This was the rococo period 
 of which the poets sing, and painters compose such 
 charming pictures, where maidens with powdered heads
 
 66 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 peep out of the rose-embowered windows of village 
 inns, just a walk from their fascinating country-houses, 
 and who seem to have moved so airily in their heavy, 
 rustling brocades as hardly to have touched the earth 
 with the heel of their dainty slippers. When every- 
 body paid in nothing less than shining Louis-d'or ; 
 when between marquis and marquises in pleasure pal- 
 aces the incessant whisper of intrigue went on ; when 
 in open calash, with trim little postilions in the 
 saddle, they whisked like the wind over the smooth 
 roads of the glorious old kingdom of good old France, 
 fifty per cent of whose population at that time lived 
 doing nothing, from beggar and monk to duke and 
 archbishop, and were nourished by the other fifty per 
 cent who drudged and tilled the land, grovelling in the 
 dust and living like cattle, although precious little of 
 this work in the mole-heap came to the knowledge of 
 anybody, all this seemed natural in France. 
 
 At seven years of age Voltaire had already written 
 enchanting poetry. At twelve he was presented to 
 the old Ninon de 1'Enclos, who left him two thousand 
 pounds in her will, that he might buy books. Vol- 
 taire was to be a jurist ; but a relation, an abb, who 
 admired his intellect, took good care that the youth 
 should be early enough taken into the best literary 
 society of Paris to enable him to discover for what he 
 really was intended. 
 
 He was not left dependent on such people as a poor 
 author picks up in tavern and alehouse, but introduced
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 67 
 
 at once into the society of rich financiers, abbe's, and 
 chevaliers, etc., whose connections were exclusively 
 with the higher classes, and who dined and supped in 
 palaces. At eighteen years of age Voltaire was thrown 
 for the second time into the Bastile, because he had 
 written verses satirizing the regent and his daughter ; 
 which, moreover, in the most humble letters and by all 
 that was holy, he disowned and denied. Whilst in 
 prison he wrote his first tragedy, the CEdipus ; was 
 released, had his work brought upon the stage, wit- 
 nessed forty-five representations of it, received a gold 
 medal and a pension from the regent, and, after its mer- 
 its and defects had been made the subject of a bitter 
 public discussion, contrived to have it printed with a 
 preface by the most esteemed critic of the day, Mon- 
 sieur de la Motte. He says that if the public, on see- 
 ing the tragedy acted, felt that a successor of Corneille 
 and Kacine had arisen in France, the reading of this 
 work could but deepen and confirm the impression. 
 All had happened before Voltaire was much more than 
 twenty-five years of age. Matured by an experience 
 which would have done honor to an older man, he had 
 selected the most acceptable material and moulded it 
 in the best form for a tragedy (making use of a model 
 forgotten by everybody) and presented it to the public 
 in brilliant and faultless alexandrines. A literary feat 
 from the first to the last letter, without a spark of real 
 feeling, poetry, or mystery ; precision of expression, ar- 
 rangement of scenes, and theatrical effect its sole aim.
 
 68 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 It would, however, scarcely be right to discuss the 
 peculiarities of Voltaire's dramas as illustrated in the 
 (Edipus, which was his first and is to-day his least 
 renowned work. Mahomet, Zaire, and Tancred are the 
 tragedies of which we should speak. In these he in- 
 carnates the sum of his experiences and exhibits his 
 full power. They are still quoted, read, perhaps ad- 
 mired ; and that Goethe valued Tancred and Mahomet 
 highly enough to translate them was indicative of 
 their worth to the Germans. 
 
 Certainly it could never have escaped such a sharp- 
 sighted critic as Voltaire, that one grand leading 
 thought and character strongly marked were essential 
 as the basis for tragedy ; and further/ how could one 
 whose min'd was at home in the literatures of all 
 nations, and familiar with every literary expedient, fail 
 to see before him a wealth of resources by which to 
 lend to his dramas these two requisites. In truth, he 
 went to work with such imposing clearness as to 
 delude even Goethe. All that in cold blood can be 
 made of a work of art Voltaire has accomplished in 
 his tragedies. But let us compare one of his passages 
 in Mahomet with Goethe's translation of it : 
 
 " Tremblant, saisi d'effroi, j'ai plange dans son flanc 
 Ce glaive con sacre qui dut verser son sang. 
 J'ai voulu redoubler ; ce vieillard venerable 
 A jete dans mes bras un cri si lamentable 
 La nature a trace dans ses regards mourants 
 Un si grand caractere, et des traits si touchants !
 
 FRANCE A3S T D VOLTAIRE. 69 
 
 De tendresse et d'effroi mon ame c'est semplie, 
 Et, plus mourant que lui, je deteste ma vie." 
 
 Le Fanatisme, Act IV. Scene 4. 
 
 How does Goethe render these rhetorical flights, so 
 devoid of all graphic power ? 
 
 "Mit Wuth ergriff ich ihn, der Schwache fiel. 
 Ich traf, ich zuckte schon zum zweiten Streich 
 Ein jammerlicher Schrei zerriss mein ohr, 
 Von Staub herauf gebot die edelste 
 Gestalte mir Ehrfurcht seine Ziige schienen 
 Verklart, es schien ein Heil'ger zu verscheiden 
 Die Lampe warf ihr bleiches Licht auf ihn 
 Und diister floss das Blut aus senier Wunde." 
 
 Goethe has lent form and substance to the vague 
 generalities in the Frenchman's production, and, feel- 
 ing that even this was not enough, added the two 
 last lines which give light and shade to the picture. 
 Here we find what Voltaire lacked. His dramatic 
 creations all shared that element of unreality which 
 greatly impaired the effect of his first tragedy, and 
 later, when inspired with the intention of making 
 them the vehicle of great thoughts (these thoughts 
 seemed so alien to the character of the piece that they 
 might as well have been left out) they are dragged 
 in head and shoulders, and their irrelevancy only dis- 
 guised by the fact that in the public desire to meet 
 a leading thought everywhere no discrimination was 
 exercised as to its pertinence. As regards dramatic 
 treatment, we see external accidents of the clap-trap
 
 70 FKANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 kind made to bring about violent catastrophes. Not 
 one original turn surprises us, and leads us to exclaim, 
 " A poet wrote this ! " " Only Voltaire could have con- 
 ceived it ! " Corneille and Eacine are brimming over 
 with lucky hits ; Eacine is o rich in other ways that 
 his small talent for scenic arrangement is scarcely 
 observed, but Voltaire, as dramatist, is not striking and 
 original, never surprises us, and succeeds, at the most, 
 only in worrying us. 
 
 Voltaire's inability to create characters, and to give 
 the phenomena of life true color and form, is so very 
 evident that it must be attributed to the idiosyncrasy 
 of his whole nature. Among all his writings, both in 
 prose and verse, I have never been so fortunate as to 
 discover two sentences which afforded a picture. He 
 does not succeed even in painting one where it would 
 be the easiest thing in the world to do so, as, for 
 instance, when he wishes to describe, in a letter to 
 a painter, the view from Ferney, on Lake Geneva, he 
 takes pains to build up with words something like 
 an actual landscape. Vain endeavor! Out of the 
 complete disorder in which he brings the main fea- 
 tures of the scene before us no one could tell what 
 to look for above, below, in the middle, or to the right 
 and left. This lack of power to excite the imagination 
 by pictures is most curiously conspicuous in his great 
 heroic poem the Henriade. 
 
 Among Voltaire's minor poems is one in which he 
 assigns the position he holds among the epic poets.
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 71 
 
 STANSES SUR LES POETES EPIQUES A MADAME LA 
 MARQUISE DU CHATELET. 
 
 Plein de beautes et de defauts 
 
 Le vieil Homere a mon estime; 
 II est, comme tous ses heros, 
 
 Babillard, outre, mais sublime. 
 
 Virgill orne mieux la raison 
 A plus d'art autant d'harmonie; 
 
 Mais il s'epuise avec Didon 
 Et rate a la fin Lavinia. 
 
 De faux brillants, trop de magie, 
 Mettent le classe un crane plus bas 
 Mais que ne tolere 1'on pas 
 
 Pour Armide et pour Herminee? 
 
 Milton, plus sublime qu'eux tons 
 A des beautes moins agreables; 
 
 II semble chanter pour les fous, 
 Pour les anges, et pour les diables. 
 
 Apres Milton, apres le Tasse, 
 
 Parler de moi, serait trop fort; 
 
 Et j'attendrai que je sois mort, 
 Pour apprendre quelle est ma place. 
 
 Vous, en qui tant d'esprit abonde 
 Tant de grace et tant de douceur, 
 Si ma place est dans votre coeur 
 Elle est la premiere du inonde. 
 
 VOLTAIRE, (Euvres Completes. 
 Paris: Didot, Frkres, 1808, Vol. II. p. 575.
 
 72 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 In the last verse Voltaire gives us to understand that 
 for the present he will be satisfied with a firm place 
 in the heart of the Marquise du Chdtelet ; but he 
 certainly never doubted what the judgment of him by 
 posterity would be. Had not Frederick the Great de- 
 clared that Homer was nothing in comparison with 
 him ! (Which I may be allowed to quote twice, since 
 the king so often repeated it.) If Voltaire in his 
 old age calls La Harpe (the author of a now forgot- 
 ten tragedy) Sophocles, who was crowning the aged 
 ^Eschylus that was himself with flowers, he meant 
 it quite seriously. " I have always believed, I do now 
 believe, and shall continue to believe," he writes 
 Horace Walpole (15th July, 1768), "that Paris in her 
 tragedies and comedies surpasses Athens in every 
 respect. I boldly assert that all the Greek tragedies 
 seem like school-boy compositions compared with the 
 glorious scenes in Corneille, and the consummate 
 tragedies of Kacine." Voltaire felt it to be so entirely 
 beyond question that his time was the golden era in 
 the ages, and he the poet of poets, that he talks of it 
 coolly as of an established fact in regard to which 
 modesty and immodesty did not come in play. 
 
 I have met with only one person out of the many 
 I have asked, who professed to have read the Hen- 
 riade. It is generally supposed to be a long-winded 
 poem, that it is no loss not to be familiar with it, 
 composed of many songs, dedicated to a rehearsal of 
 the deeds of Henry IV. But the Henriade has little
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 73 
 
 enough to do with its hero ! It is (together with many 
 other things which it is also) one of the ablest and 
 sharpest attacks ever directed against the Church of 
 Rome. If Pascal, in his letters A Un Provincial gave 
 expression to the inimical feeling with which the 
 enlightened community of the seventeenth century 
 looked upon the Jesuit rule in France, Voltaire's Hen- 
 riade incarnates the malignant opposition in the 
 breasts of the philosophic portion of the Parisian 
 public, to the absolute tyranny of the Eomish Church. 
 We must therefore speak of Voltaire's position toward 
 the Church before coming to any opinion with regard 
 to the Henriade. 
 
 The old tradition exists that Voltaire was an 
 atheist, a scoffer at every thing holy, an enemy to 
 religion. But he carefully avoided ever coming out 
 directly against the Catholic religion. Voltaire soared 
 much too high above his surroundings not to attain, 
 in his loneliness, to the conception of a personal God, 
 and far too well understood the wants of self-support 
 in the masses not to look upon distinct formulas of 
 belief as necessary to define their relation with God. 
 He never, indeed, helped to shape these formulas for 
 them, and he in the main disagreed with such as the 
 Church offered. At his death he submitted formally 
 to the authority of the Roman Catholicism ; but before 
 he had any thought of dying he once enacted a farce, 
 in which, taking the part of the dying man, he accepted 
 all the consolations of the Church, then, suddenly
 
 74 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 springing from the bed, mocked and jeered at the 
 priests. He once went so far as in all seriousness 
 to join the order of the Capuchins, and mounted the 
 pulpit to deliver a thrilling penitential discourse. Yet 
 he said the most abusive things about the popes, 
 and to a pope dedicated his tragedy of Mahomet, in 
 which, under the guise of Mahometanism, an attack 
 upon the fanaticism of the Church was intended. The 
 same performance is repeated in the Henriade. He 
 has ventured in this poem to expose things against 
 Rome which, had they been couched in less crafty 
 language, would have cost him his life. But withal, 
 he humbly proposed to an old Jesuit, "revered as 
 a father," to expurgate every word in it militating 
 against the Catholic religion, to whose honor and 
 glory, in fact, the poem was written. Lastly, Cardinal 
 Quirint translated the Henriade into Italian. 
 
 France, like all the other Catholic countries at that 
 time, was filled with a clergy representing every grade 
 of culture and every rank in life, and having at their 
 disposition an enormous amount of property in money 
 and lands. Moreau de Janvers reckoned the income 
 of the entire French nobility, for the year 1700, at 
 five hundred and twenty millions, the king (including 
 everything) at nine hundred and fifty-four millions, the 
 clergy at five hundred and twelve millions; and this 
 fourth of the whole revenue was in the hands of only 
 about three hundred and ten thousand individuals. 
 
 This power, however, would have been less danger-
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 75 
 
 ous if, as in the times preceding Voltaire, it had been 
 forced to maintain itself in the face of an inimical 
 worldly element warring against it. But, as we saw 
 at the "beginning of the eighteenth century, nobles 
 and commonors moving on together, we now find the 
 clergy also included in the general union. Fierce an- 
 tagonisms, dating from the time of Louis, when ques- 
 tions of church discipline were handled as matters of 
 life and death, all at once shrank into nothingness, 
 because Paris had lost the power to be interested in 
 anything, whatever it might be, more than three days. 
 For in these very words Voltaire himself branded the 
 indifferentisrn of his age. More and more frivolous 
 became the tone of the great crowd, more and more 
 formidable the power of the priesthood ; and so it came 
 about that, at the same time when one strata of society 
 dared openly proclaim its denial of all religion, for the 
 smallest breach of form (if the interests of the clergy 
 demanded) they could pounce upon whom they would, 
 and were usually sure of their victim. The public 
 looked on without sympathy, and allowed them free 
 swing. It was this tyranny (which, owing to the sup- 
 port of Eome and other Catholic powers, was of bound- 
 less extent) that Voltaire sought to undermine. To 
 hope to make any progress here, however, the first 
 necessity was to create an excitement. Religious 
 ideas, which had long ceased to stir anybody, must 
 again be made to rouse the passions of the educated. I 
 do not think that the systematic conflict Voltaire later
 
 76 FRANCE AND YOLTAIEE. 
 
 waged against the clergy arose in the beginning from 
 the convictions which were the strength and fire of 
 his old age. When he wrote the Henriade he was 
 a young man. There lived and worked in his soul a 
 revolutionary power, fitted to stir the masses, but 
 which the general laxity of the nation denied him 
 opportunity to bring into action. Three powers in 
 France formed the basis on which all else rested, 
 royalty, nobility, and the church. 
 
 To fight against the first two was not to be thought 
 of; therefore, " On without loss of time against the 
 Church ! " We have in the Henriade, as it were, the 
 correspondence between irritated diplomates which pre- 
 cedes a war, whose final aim is determined in part 
 by the course of events. Hence in the poem the 
 strenuous effort to say the most cutting things with- 
 out seeming to have said them, and the striving in 
 the face of deadly insult to assume a most flattering 
 tone of submission. Voltaire, like a hornet, is playing 
 round the fruits and flowers (apparently a most in- 
 nocent creature), until he suddenly swoops upon his 
 victim and seems to have hesitated so long only to find 
 the best place to inflict the wound and insert his 
 poison. Here he is a perfect devil, and the terror his 
 attacks inspired was as great a safeguard as the sub- 
 tlety with which he afterwards defended himself. 
 
 Voltaire's relations to the Catholic Church later be- 
 came so complicated as to demand the exercise of all 
 his talents. Endowed by nature with marvellous gifts
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 77 
 
 for intellectual conflicts, he found incessant practice 
 for them. He was never in his whole life without 
 these strifes. No passion so completely developed all 
 his mental power as hate. As a hater he is unrivalled 
 except perhaps by Aretin, who is certainly the only 
 one to contest the palm with him. Voltaire was 
 untiring where he hated. He hunted people to death ; 
 he lied, he slandered, he hit upon the most original 
 devices for bringing his rival into disgrace. It was as 
 if to add the last sublime touch to his infamy that on 
 his death-bed he uttered the lie that he should leave 
 the world without any feeling of hatred toward his 
 enemies. If Voltaire had met Maupertius (who alien- 
 ated Frederic II from him) in Charon's boat, he would 
 then and there have seized him by the throat and tried 
 to fling him into the Styx. A thirst for revenge, an 
 enemy, was a living need to his soul ; he had a posi- 
 tive talent for provoking insults, as if longing to have 
 an adversary that he might persecute him. 
 
 Regarded from this point of view, Voltaire's char- 
 acter must awaken a contempt not wholly counter- 
 balanced by his noble defence and self-sacrifice in the 
 cause of the innocent ones who were basely accused 
 and deserted by the rest of the world. In the war 
 against the prejudices of the Church and the Law 
 Voltaire won victories in favor of some poor souls 
 who must have been ruthlessly murdered but for him, 
 which have lent to his name imperishable splendor. 
 Nevertheless, whosoever reads the passages in his
 
 78 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 writings, where out of sheer revenge he casts suspicion 
 on the private life of Frederick the Great, must feel an 
 inextinguishable aversion to a man who could descend 
 to such low insults. The only salvation for Voltaire 
 here is in taking into account his nationality, and there- 
 fore only are we able to believe that his life-long war 
 against Rome for freedom of thought, in the beginning 
 grew out of casual, purely accidental, circumstances. 
 
 It was mainly owing to the Henriade that Voltaire 
 in 1746 was created historiographer of France. This 
 title best expresses wherein his forte lay. He was a 
 born historian. A native instinct impelled him, like 
 Machiavelli, to write out with mechanical impartial- 
 ity all he could gather concerning the events which 
 came under his notice. His prose style is simple and 
 without affectation. The masterpieces he produced as 
 historian must and always will be regarded as mas- 
 terpieces. The most excellent among these works is 
 the Siede de Louis XIV. For, considering the value 
 of the Henriade, the tragedies, epistles, poems, ro- 
 mances, and whatever else fills so many pages in his 
 writings, as active, essential portions of universal lit- 
 erature, it seems as if we could dispense with them 
 all ; but the history of the Siede de Louis XIV 
 steadily increases in value ; and whoever reads it must 
 decide that it is one of the books which it is necessary 
 for every one to have read. 
 
 There are three means of instructing mankind as 
 to what has happened, or is happening, plastic art,
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 79 
 
 poetry, and historiography. Plastic art is the purest 
 and simplest. A Greek statue literally tells us noth- 
 ing save how far an epoch was able to sustain the 
 highest conception of human beauty. Of the earliest 
 Egyptian times, all knowledge is wanting of deeds and 
 personalities; we have only names and works of art, 
 but the latter so eloquent, so convincing, that we do 
 not need written documents to persuade us men 
 thought and felt as we to-day. "When we see the 
 living stream so distinctly, why tell us it was a stream 
 with its windings through rocks and shoals which 
 at times impeded and at times accelerated its course ? 
 Poetry is the transition from art to history, and deals 
 also only with the universal, the ever-living, the 
 unchangeable in the midst of changing conditions. 
 To discover and explain these conditions is the task 
 of the historian. It is for him to spread out before us 
 the transitory external circumstances and their influ- 
 ence over the formation of human character, and the 
 aspect of human actions. 
 
 If the incidents before Troy which Homer's Iliad 
 pictures had ever actually taken place, how very differ- 
 ently the historian must have narrated them ! The rel- 
 ative power of Agamemnon and Achilles would have 
 been discussed ; the partisans of the two princes, their 
 secret, selfish motives either for inciting or appeasing 
 the quarrel, would have been exposed, and statistics 
 given respecting the general outward condition of both 
 Trojans and Greeks. We should have been told what
 
 80 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 the Greek trade amounted to at that time on the 
 shores of Asia Minor! what interest Egypt had in 
 this war! and as regards the description, statements 
 made by Trojan prisoners would have thrown flashes 
 of light on the tone of the city, while from gossiping 
 slaves the debates between the Greek chieftains, and 
 the negotiations of Menelaus with his brother, would 
 have been brought to light. The inconsistency of 
 private counsel with public speech, and the influence 
 of personal interests in bringing about great effects, 
 must have been exposed. These things skilfully inter- 
 woven, and each alternately appearing in its proper 
 order, what interest ! what an abundance of so-called 
 material ! 
 
 But supposing all this had been at Homer's service, 
 of what use would it have been to him ; without a 
 glance he must have turned aside from all these pre- 
 cise and interesting details consciously to invent just 
 what the Iliad contains. He could only present sym- 
 bolic deeds, only out of his own imagination create 
 situations in which was contained what blank reality 
 never brought to sight. The Iliad is the product of 
 marvelous poetic calculations. What Voltaire in his 
 Henriade vainly sought to attain, by rehearsing the 
 deeds of Henry IV, Homer achieved. The poetic power 
 in this man is beyond all comprehension. An old man 
 with the fire of youth, a young man with the expe- 
 rience of age ! The situations in which Achilles' char- 
 acter is developed represent him ever in new lights,
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 81 
 
 and ever greater, until at last out of Titanic savagery a 
 child-like reverence and gentleness is attained. Achil- 
 les' behavior to the suppliant Priam is the most touch- 
 ing thing ever put into human language. By degrees 
 Achilles rises above his surroundings, until at last he 
 stands out in solitary grandeur, sole hero of the poem. 
 More than once Homer withdraws him from our sight, 
 but only to make his reappearance the more imposing. 
 What modern poet surpasses Homer in the art of ever 
 fascinating us afresh by change of scenery. Scenes 
 by day alternate with scenes by night, meetings with 
 gods and men, surging billows with woods and moun- 
 tains ! Very natural is the tradition that Homer was 
 a blind, wandering, lonely beggar, for only a human 
 life through long years turned in upon itself could 
 give the power to compose such a poem; only tried 
 experience teach such careful weighing of antithesis, 
 such unerring skill in dropping and resuming the 
 threads, or such inexorable criticism, which does not 
 allow one superfluous thought in so many thousand 
 verses, but steadily moves on to the end. 
 
 Homer succeeded in doing just what Dante did 
 many centuries later : he gave to his people a picture of 
 their own character, and made his poem an ideal bond 
 uniting the different tribes. Could any historian have 
 achieved this ? Neither Herodotus nor Thucydides, 
 neither Livy nor Tacitus nor Machiavelli, were able, 
 like Dante and Homer, to fill the souls of their people 
 with a consciousness of their world-historical position.
 
 82 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 But not every age gives birth to such poets ! Virgil, 
 although he has held the admiration of the world 
 for two thousand years, has never been able to do more 
 than entertain his readers ; and as regards Voltaire's 
 Henriade, although in his own century it was read with 
 avidity, it never more than excited a certain sense of 
 piquant enjoyment. There are unpoetic epochs, suited 
 only to historic representation. Voltaire tried in vain 
 to make himself appear a kind of Prometheus forming 
 men in his own image. The clay took shape under his 
 fingers, but all his blowing could not lend to it one 
 breath of life. As historian, on the other hand, he does 
 what no one could have done better. By his manner 
 of representing events he proves how much originality 
 is required in a historian, even if his mission be some- 
 what less exalted than the poet's. It does not suffice 
 to hunt up the sources, to separate the false from the 
 true, to arrange and classify a mass of material. Gen- 
 uine scientific investigation is prompted by an instinct 
 whose origin defies our penetration. A mysterious 
 connection between the man and his subject appears 
 essential here from the beginning. The true historian 
 suggests the picture of the successful gambler, behind 
 whom stands a demon who directs his eyes and hand 
 to the numbers he must hit. 
 
 Voltaire as historian was a creative genius. With 
 a sagacity nothing escapes he reviews the actions of 
 those long dead who once gloriously directed the des- 
 tinies of their country, conjuring up at the same time
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 83 
 
 these shadowy forms to speak for themselves, with a 
 life-like power, motion, and individuality. The capacity 
 was his to apprehend the past constellations of those 
 who once held the sovereignty in their hands ; to put 
 in as background the turmoil of the people in their 
 every-day life, and to illuminate the whole by letting 
 the great ideas of the time shine forth, beneath whose 
 fertilizing beams important movements were carried 
 through and their aims made clear. It was Voltaire's 
 intention to write a history which should represent his 
 people as the last and greatest among the nations 
 that had played a conspicuous part in the history of 
 the world. To us, indeed, to-day the trivial nature 
 of the French supremacy in the seventeenth century 
 comes out more and more clearly, and we hardly feel it 
 worth while to devote much study to this epoch. We 
 know its main features, and long ago ceased to cherish 
 any extraordinary respect for Richelieu, Mazarin, and 
 the French dukes and marshals. Yet we should like 
 to see the person who, after reading Voltaire's Siecle de 
 Louis XIV, could maintain this indifference. Voltaire 
 succeeded in giving a universal impression of this age 
 which will be imperishable. His finger followed the 
 course of men and events, and perhaps only the lines 
 which he has traced will ever impel coming genera- 
 tions to trouble themselves to obtain a closer view of 
 what occurred in France between 1650 and 1700. 
 
 The idea Siecle de Louis XIV did not originate with 
 Voltaire, rather with the court poets, court savans,
 
 84 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 etc., who already in the lifetime of the king had taken 
 advantage of the flattering term. Voltaire in his book 
 never once degenerates into this tone. He nowhere 
 even makes an attempt to pass over from the r61e of 
 reporter to that of panegyrist. The king is not exhib- 
 ited in any special splendor, nor even in an attractive 
 light. He is merely the axle of the huge mill-wheel by 
 the help of which for fifty years European events were 
 pressed and turned to the glory of France. Everything 
 was carried as grist to this mill, and at last, when for- 
 eign corn began to fail, the mill-stones slowly ground 
 themselves to powder. With stern, uncompromising 
 truthfulness Voltaire sets this before us. 
 
 Frederick II said of Voltaire, that he was not a 
 savan, but a whole academy ; and one might add, not 
 an actor, but the whole theatre, not an individual 
 Frenchman, but the whole nation. He was epic, lyric, 
 and dramatic poet, philosopher, mathematician, scientist ; 
 in each department so rich and so absolutely skilful 
 that it would seem as if it must have been his only 
 one. As historian, he reaped the advantage of this 
 monstrous versatility. He knew precisely what he 
 wanted to do. He writes to D'Argenson (1740, after 
 he had begun the work) : " I will say something which 
 may seem odd to you, namely, that only those who are 
 capable of writing tragedies can lend an interest to 
 our dry and barbarous history. It requires, like the 
 drama, exposition, plot, denoument. And, further, why 
 only and forever a history of the kings that of the
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 85 
 
 nation must be written ; one would suppose there had 
 been nothing in Gaul worth the trouble of committing 
 
 o O 
 
 to history for fourteen hundred years but kings, minis- 
 ters, and generals ; are, then, our customs, our laws, and 
 the genius of our people, to be esteemed as nothing ? " 
 Here we have Voltaire's programme. He is to write the 
 history of the golden era in France. At home, every- 
 where, he understands men and things, with marvellous 
 insight finding his way to the heart of all. As regards 
 style, the unsparing amount of self-criticism to which 
 he has subjected his writings for long years now served 
 him in good stead ; for if the works of strangers rarely 
 impressed him, his own satisfied him least of all. He 
 primed his productions unmercifully, and was untiring 
 in his efforts to improve them. To all this must be 
 added his great political experience. In France, Eng- 
 land, -Germany, and Italy he stood in personal relations 
 with the most eminent men, and knew exactly how his 
 words would strike and influence each and all. Vol- 
 taire's Henriade was the work of a young man who, 
 groping, had found the only way in which to move 
 onward ; his Siecle de Louis XIV is the same work 
 repeated by an experienced man, who knows the mean- 
 ing of every step he takes, and is familiar and satisfied 
 with the path he has struck. 
 
 As regards the simplicity of Voltaire's manner of 
 presenting his subject, so that for the most part he 
 seems to speak only mezza voce, we must take into 
 consideration that it was not necessary for him to per-
 
 86 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 suade his public, Frenchmen and others, that France 
 was the first nation on earth and Louis XIV the great- 
 est king. He is so certain of this, that at the outset 
 he thinks it rather important to reduce this feeling to 
 the proper measure. According to his deepest convic- 
 tions there would still remain more glory over than 
 one could use. His intention was to expose the fail- 
 ings of his country, and under such circumstances he 
 surely might venture to do it. When Cicero, Sallust, 
 and Tacitus exposed the depravity of their fellow-citi- 
 zens, and spoke of the evils which finally led to the 
 decline of Eome, they had no other thought than that 
 Rome herself was to lead Borne back into the paths 
 of virtue. In the same spirit Voltaire speaks of the 
 injury done to France. What would he have said had 
 anybody dared to suggest that at some future day Ger- 
 many might take the lead, politically and intellect- 
 ually, in setting things to rights. Voltaire hoped for 
 a new blossoming-time in France, and from her own 
 fresh shoots. His Siecle de Louis XIV was to be 
 simply a mirror held up before the eyes of his na- 
 tion. Voltaire truly considered the material condition 
 of France in his own time as vastly more satisfactory 
 than during the heroic epoch of the former century. 
 " Void Vdge d'or qui succede a I' age de fer. Cela donne 
 trop envie de vivre !" he writes to M. Dupont. Only in 
 matters of religion were things in a bad way, and need- 
 ing correction. But he no longer makes direct assaults 
 upon the Church, as in the Henriade, rather, taking
 
 FRANCE AXD VOLTAIRE. 87 
 
 higher view, seeks objectively and without an accent 
 of passion to enlighten his readers in regard to the his- 
 toric development of ecclesiastical relations. 
 
 In the Henriade Voltaire rejects Calvinism roughly 
 and curtly. He pictures it as falling away from Henry 
 at the moment of his conversion, like some bodily 
 disease, which until then had obstinately clung to 
 him. In France and the Catholic countries generally, 
 after the Council of Trent, Protestantism had been 
 treated systematically like a kind of pestilential dis- 
 ease, which must sometimes be endured, but never 
 shown ; the consciousness of its existence as a re- 
 ligion was well-nigh lost. Protestantism was negation, 
 and Henry's conversion is not as with an idolater, a 
 Mohametan, or a Jew, a transition from one form 
 of worship to another, but a step from nothing to 
 something. The truth which changes Henry's con- 
 victions is not proved to him by controversy, but by 
 external phenomenon, somewhat as in a romance where 
 a good and beautiful maiden, of noble family, simply 
 by her appearance rescues a dissipated young man 
 from his low life and raises him to herself. 
 
 How differently Voltaire regards the matter later 
 on! The second chapter treats of the state of Ger- 
 many. All the free cities had accepted the Evangel- 
 ical religion " secte, qui a semble plus convenable que la 
 religion Catholique a des peuples jaloux de leur liberte" 
 and in his essay Sur Us Mceurs et V Esprit des Nations 
 he speaks of the rise of Protestantism and its necessity 
 as serenely as any Protestant.
 
 88 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 Voltaire's great idea was tolerance. Frederick II, 
 in his eulogy on Voltaire after his death, points to 
 the service which he rendered mankind in this direc- 
 tion as being his greatest and most lasting one. The 
 idea developed gradually in his mind with all its 
 consequences, until it became a centralized force, 
 giving unity of meaning to all his varied efforts. He 
 made this the watchword of his school and party. 
 Tolerance, although a positive idea, was conceived 
 by Voltaire as intensely active ; he waged open war 
 against intolerance, and rightly found in this the germ 
 of the Revolution. He says that about 1740 the new 
 ideas came to France and began to be adopted by the 
 people. Beyond this beginning, however, Voltaire him- 
 self never went. He never contemplated an overthrow 
 of all existing things, but went on calmly planning 
 reforms, since they seemed somewhat necessary. This 
 may account for his hatred of Rousseau, and his dislike 
 of Montesquieu. Montesquieu went to work like a 
 statesman. Beginning with the Frankish times, he 
 pictures French constitutional life from a juristical 
 point of view, shows the way to proceed, and builds up 
 a state composed of honest people. Rousseau, on the 
 other hand, wished to create a new earth, new people, 
 new ideas, in short, anything that had never been. 
 Voltaire did not care to trouble himself about the future. 
 He knew the limit of his powers, and let a matter 
 alone for which he was not equipped. His aim was to 
 stand in the front, to make his books a power and a joy,
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 89 
 
 to be the herald of a great idea, and for the rest to 
 follow his own bent and say just what he chose. His 
 special delight was in speaking things out as free and 
 boldly as he saw them. He never used flattery except 
 for some distinctly personal end ; if there was no actual 
 need of it, he perfectly revelled in setting forth the 
 naked truth. His Siecle de Louis XIV is written with 
 such impartiality that we are sometimes tempted to 
 suspect that he is jeering at his hero. After attrib- 
 uting the rise of Louis and the height to which he rose 
 to a series of lucky accidents, in which many times 
 the king personally had little share enough, he pic- 
 tures the gradual decline of the monarch, the mon- 
 archy, and the French genius with so much truth and 
 so convincingly, that we need only continue in the given 
 direction to arrive at the point apres nous le deluge. 
 Voltaire foresaw it all clearly, but to build a Noah's 
 ark in preparation never entered his mind ; where all 
 must swim, he would take his chance with the rest. 
 In this sense he was a genuine Revolutionist, and 
 Goethe was right when (Nov., 1799) he said, " Voltaire 
 had dissolved all the good old human bonds." 
 
 But it would be unjust to make him responsible for 
 the Eevolution, although it may have seemed so at 
 that time to Goethe. We know to-day that the old 
 must have gone down and the new arisen if Voltaire 
 had never lived. This "new" of the French Eevolution 
 was the irresistible uprising of the Tiers Etat. But 
 we could more easily to-day imagine the conquest of
 
 90 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 Europe by a horde of gorillas than Voltaire, or even 
 Rousseau, who certainly wanted to revolutionize things, 
 could conceive of the coming into action of that power 
 which made the Eevolution, and whose final mastery 
 in France has been signed and sealed by recent events. 
 
 This element was not to be discerned by any one in 
 Voltaire's age. The French Eevolution of the last 
 hundred years is the rising up of the Celtic mother 
 soil through the Eomanic superstratum, which till then 
 had represented the genuis, power, and wealth of the 
 country. France, that for two thousand years had 
 manured the soil of the Celts with Germanic and 
 Eomanic blood, has to-day again become old Gaul. 
 
 Drained to the last drop, worked out, exhausted, in 
 the best meaning of the word, the French race has 
 once more made place for the old Celtic mob, which, 
 rising like the emancipated leaven of the people, 
 covered with its foam the remnant of Eomanic ex- 
 istence, and dragged it down to itself. We see this 
 done, time after time, as the aggressive power grows 
 stronger and the defence ever weaker, feeling that 
 the moment must come when this resistance will 
 draw its last breath, and the primal Gaul, commanded 
 by the Druids, celebrate his decisive victory. If we 
 would understand these people thoroughly we must 
 consult Caesar or the most recent French histories. 
 
 Gaul, converted to a Eoman province, had in the 
 course of five or six hundred years become decidedly 
 Eoman in its every aspect, with a people speaking the
 
 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 91 
 
 Roman language, and having a Eoman organization. 
 Cultivated forests grew luxuriantly where formerly 
 stood only pines and firs. But this existence drew 
 its vital strength from Rome and languished with the 
 decay of imperialism there. Too powerful, however, 
 was this overgrowth to permit the Celts again to as- 
 sume the role they had lost five hundred years earlier. 
 The Franks came over from Germany, and, uniting 
 with the Romans, in the course of three hundred years 
 formed a new element from which the city and coun- 
 try nobles of the following century sprang. Again it 
 needed half a thousand years in order to consume 
 this. We have lived to see it accomplished, and to-day, 
 when there are no more Franks to be found capable 
 of holding them in lasting subjection, the leaderless 
 Celts attempt once more to be a nation by them- 
 selves. The fancy of the crowd offers to this man or 
 that the supreme power, only after weeks or months 
 to give it to another, with whom the pleasure of rul- 
 ing for a few short days stands higher than any con- 
 siderations of the danger to his country, of which 
 all alike seem unconscious. 
 
 Voltaire would have thought this a frightful dream. 
 He wrought himself into such a fury against the Rom- 
 ish Church, that this conflict at last became the sole 
 interest of his life. Yet a Romanist and a Frenchman, 
 in the Romanic sense, he always remained. Protes- 
 tantism, rational and irnpassionate, therefore, as he 
 acknowledged, suited to Germany, would alone in
 
 92 FRANCE AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 his eyes have been sufficient reason for excluding the 
 Germanic nation forever from occupying the position 
 which France, as successor to Spain, enjoyed as her 
 legitimate world-historic right. In these contradic- 
 tions is to be found the solution of Voltaire's often 
 puzzling and apparently double-faced attitude toward 
 the Romish Church. 
 
 He who had attacked and insulted Eome and her 
 priests yet believed just as firmly as Machiavelli had 
 done earlier in the indispensableness of this author- 
 ity to the management of cosmopolitical affairs. Both 
 argued from the existing state of things. Machiavelli, 
 who saw in the Roman hierarchy the source of all evils, 
 was yet, set him down which way he would, linked in 
 bonds of friendship and interest with representatives 
 of this fraternity ; and it was the same with Voltaire. 
 His attitude toward Rome was like that of a good 
 monarchist to his court, which he abhors, without 
 on that account becoming a republican. The Roman 
 church and the French monarchy, good or bad, were 
 stubborn facts. Apart from the development of this 
 Romanic-French element, for which he thought and 
 wrote, Voltaire's very existence would be inconceiva- 
 ble. To be sure, Celtic features break out even in 
 him, but only as subordinate qualities. He would have 
 shuddered at a vision of the monstrous storm-tide of 
 1790, which brought such immense tracts of the old 
 Gallic soil once more in contact with the sunlight.
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 VOLTAIRE'S Siecle de Louis XIV brings us to Fred- 
 erick the Great. And not because the king appre- 
 ciated it more than any one else in Europe, but because 
 Voltaire was chiefly occupied with this work during 
 his second stay in Berlin and Potsdam. When in 1740 
 the letter was written in which he explains his ideas 
 to D'Argenson, he had already confided the book in 
 manuscript two years before to Frederick. It was not, 
 however, completed until after the Berlin times. In 
 this work, as in all Voltaire's historical and political 
 compositions, we trace the permanent influence Eng- 
 land had over him. A letter to my Lord Hervey, 
 Keeper of the Great Seal of England, in which he 
 discusses how far Louis XIV was worthy to be made 
 the subject of an historical work, is usually given as 
 preface to the book, but it owed its final stamp to 
 the influence of Frederick the Great. Voltaire 'had to 
 learn from personal experience what it is to have a 
 great sovereign directly over one, to live with him in 
 the same house, to eat at his table, to be the sharer 
 of his best but also of his worst hours. 
 
 Voltaire stood in need of a strong position outside 
 his native land. As a young man he had fled to Eng- 
 land, won friends for himself, and for his writings a 
 
 93
 
 94 VOLTAIEE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 constant public. Whoever has been once accepted in 
 England finds the English loyal. His books were 
 printed in the Netherlands, the great central book- 
 market for the period which ushered in the Eevolu- 
 tion, as Venice in the sixteenth century for the period 
 of the Reformation. What Voltaire thought, wrote, 
 and printed, like the works of Montesquieu and others, 
 entered France only as contraband. But even in the 
 Netherlands books did not come out so smoothly as 
 among us nowadays. Very rarely was a book planned, 
 written, printed and offered to the public, all within 
 a settled time. From various causes important books 
 often came out without the foreknowledge of their 
 authors, and with modifications. Being for the most 
 part circulated at first in manuscript they were exposed 
 to mutilations of the text and indiscreet communica- 
 tions to the bookseller. Not infrequently they were 
 obliged to be printed anonymously ; hence many were 
 attributed to authors quite innocent of them. Vol- 
 taire's correspondence is full of matters of this sort. 
 We hear of manuscripts being eloped with out of the 
 hands of booksellers who had come by them unfairly, 
 the whole account sounding not a whit less romantic 
 than the release of fair damsels from the hands of rob- 
 bers. Voltaire writes to Frederick that he has suc- 
 ceeded in abducting one of his manuscripts from the 
 bookseller under the pretext of wishing to correct 
 some errors in it. The man, after much diplomacy, 
 brings it forth, but does not let Voltaire out of his
 
 VOLTAIRE AN T D FREDERICK THE GREAT. 95 
 
 sight, who now sets to work with ink and eraser, not 
 to correct, but to convert the whole into nonsense. 
 
 The reason Voltaire required foreign support was 
 the necessity he felt of holding up before the Paris- 
 ians the Gorgon-head of his unimpeachable reputa- 
 tion, based on the decision of all the rest of Europe ; 
 neither the people nor the court of Versailles must 
 ever dream that it made any difference to him whether 
 he was regarded with friendly or hostile eyes, or even 
 if they chose to ignore him altogether. Yet it was 
 his weakness that he could not live without the gos- 
 sip of the Parisians. Like the breath of life to him 
 was the feeling that France was dying of curiosity to 
 know what would be the next surprise out of his lips ; 
 and we see him forever exerting himself to keep up 
 this excitement. He alone could play tragedy and 
 comedy at the same time, and the world should look 
 on and manifest applause. All his power was directed 
 to securing this. But we must acknowledge that no 
 one was ever sent into the world with such capacity 
 for managing his public. Only considered from this 
 point of view can Voltaire's relations to Frederick II 
 be rightly judged. Frederick and Voltaire were the 
 two great actors upon the stage of public life in their 
 epoch. They were necessary to one another. In the 
 beginning, however, Voltaire was the more dependent 
 of the two, and it was not until much later that the 
 parties stood on equal ground. Frederick was, to a 
 certain extent, wholly sufficient to himself, and often
 
 96 VOLTAIRE AND FEEDEEICK THE GEEAT. 
 
 bade the rest of mankind "adieu;" in this solitary 
 realm he was only the king and the general. Voltaire 
 lacked this power of sustaining himself alone. Here 
 Frederick had the advantage. But Voltaire was un- 
 tiring, inexhaustible, more knowing than any, more 
 capable of expressing himself ; and Frederick, when he 
 descended from his height, since it was not possible 
 always to live in solitude, again and again found only 
 Voltaire. Herein lay Voltaire's ascendency over Fred- 
 erick. The history of their friendship is the alternate 
 struggle of each to maintain his superiority. 
 
 The record of Voltaire's and Frederick's intercourse 
 has been handed down to posterity in three volumes 
 of their printed correspondence. The first is from 
 their earliest acquaintance to Frederick's accession to 
 the throne, or from 1736-1740. The second volume, 
 from 1740 to their rupture in 1753. The third volume 
 contains the intercourse resumed by letter from 1754 
 until the death of Voltaire in 1778. The youth, man- 
 hood, and age of the king correspond to these three 
 segments. In no correspondence does Frederick speak 
 out so openly, and Voltaire summon all his resources 
 to exert influence over another. Their relation is 
 in itself a drama. In the first act, the hope of meet- 
 ing face to face and living together ; in the second, 
 the realization of this hope; in the third, a revulsion, 
 growing out of the natural impossibility that two 
 beings, each of whom needed such a wide sphere of 
 personal freedom, should stand so near together ; in
 
 VOLTAIEE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 97 
 
 the fourth and last, a reconcilement, owing to the 
 fact that they could not live without one another. 
 Their correspondence consists of what stirred the world 
 within the years 1736-78. These three volumes be- 
 long to those books we are glad to take up in a leisure 
 hour. 
 
 The correspondence opens with Frederick's sending 
 a letter to Voltaire from Berlin, 1736 ; a young man 
 of twenty-four years, feeling like a caged eagle, and 
 with a yearning for the intellectual excitement of 
 France, to a man almost double his age, a renowned 
 leader in the intellectual realm, and revelling in the 
 fulness of all which he craves. AVe must not for 
 one instant suppose that Voltaire's recent personal 
 trials had in the least dimmed the lustre of his fame. 
 He lived in retirement in the country, with his friend, 
 the Marquise du Chatelet. His Letters on England 
 had been publicly burned by the hangman's hand in 
 Paris, and he himself only escaped imprisonment by 
 flight. His enemies, taking advantage of his absence, 
 had circulated libellous papers and reports against 
 him; his admission into the Academy, for which he 
 had been proposed, seemed doubtful. All this might 
 trouble him but little ; very welcome, however, at such 
 a moment, was to him the voluntary homage of a 
 king's son. Frederick's letter, breathing the utmost 
 devotion, gave Voltaire to understand what high value 
 the prince attached to a friendly intercourse with the 
 greatest poet of his age. Voltaire's seductive flatteries
 
 98 VOLTAIEE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 denote no less plainly the intention to profit by this 
 godsend. A decided purpose shining forth on both 
 sides rivets the bond from the beginning. Frederick 
 and Voltaire, each in his way, knew men and the 
 world thoroughly. Neither concealed from the other 
 how advantageous the new alliance seemed to him; 
 but one, like the other, soon shows just how far he 
 intends to go. 
 
 Even before Frederick had expressed more than in 
 a general way the wish to see Voltaire in propria 
 persona, we suddenly find (at the end of 1736) in 
 many newspapers the report that Voltaire is visiting 
 the crown-prince, who has also sent him his picture. 
 To both these rumors Frederick was far from indiffer- 
 ent. To invite Voltaire to visit him at Eheinsberg, at 
 a time when, to raise only twelve thousand thalers 
 behind the back of his father, he had to carry on a long 
 and tedious correspondence with Suhm, was not possi- 
 ble; and just as little dared he, in the face of his father, 
 send his picture to a man already reputed an atheist. 
 The manner in which he discusses these two points 
 with Voltaire shows that, with all his enthusiasm, 
 he knew exactly how he stood with him and how 
 he had to treat him. His portrait he roundly refuses 
 to give him, and, with respect to the visit, remarks 
 somewhat sharply, that it would seem as if some mis- 
 chievous imp had whispered these stories into the ears 
 of the Dutch journalists, since they coincided so liter- 
 ally. Meantime the thing appeared to him the more
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 99 
 
 improbable, just because everybody knew of it. He 
 said to himself that Voltaire would not have made use 
 of the newspapers to announce his intended visit to 
 the prince, but would have chosen a more direct and 
 friendly way. Voltaire could not fail to perceive that 
 Frederick understood him and was on his guard, and 
 he soon found out who gave Frederick the key to his 
 character and proceedings : one Theiriot was Frederick's 
 correspondent in Paris. To dislodge this inconvenient 
 spy is henceforth Voltaire's chief endeavor. Soon 
 letters from the Marquise du Ch&telet, who had like- 
 wise entered into friendly relations with the crown- 
 prince, contain bitter complaints that he allows Thei- 
 riot to send him all the stray papers and brochures 
 issued against Voltaire in Paris. Upon this, Frederick 
 declares distinctly that he shall continue to profit by 
 Theiriot. Notwithstanding, we see their mutual rela- 
 tion gradually become what it was intended to be from 
 the outset. Voltaire corrects the crown-prince's lit- 
 erary efforts, and in polished phrases says flattering 
 things to him, in exchange for which he has glorious 
 prospects of what his pupil will do for him when he 
 becomes king. Voltaire's letters, in this honeymoon 
 of their acquaintance, have the single aim of accustom- 
 ing Frederick to the gentle murmur of charming, appre- 
 ciative epistles from the literary potentate of Europe, 
 and to render himself indispensable to him. 
 
 Had fate not imposed upon Frederick the task of 
 being a great king, he would have become a better
 
 100 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 writer than was consistent with the duties attendant 
 on his high vocation. His writings, considered apart 
 from their author, are those of a dilettante. But 
 writings sometimes are not to be considered apart from 
 their author, whilst their mere outward form and style 
 may be disregarded. Frederick's works will always 
 stand as his very own, and the value they receive from 
 this fact outweighs their deficiencies. As a writer, 
 Frederick lacked the primary essentials for an author, 
 a language. Alfieri relates in his memoirs how he was 
 forced one day to acknowledge to himself that the two 
 mother tongues which he inherited the bad French 
 and equally bad Italian spoken in Turin, were neither 
 of them adequate to the expression of ideas. He went 
 to Florence, and there acquired a richer language 
 Frederick was not so well off. His German was uncul- 
 tured and uncertain. He had, indeed, a rough-and- 
 ready speech at his command for every-day matters, 
 but when he wished to use select expressions, as in 
 some letters to his younger brothers, he did so with 
 awkwardness, and like a foreigner. While his French, 
 on the other hand, was the colorless Parisian jargon 
 of the better classes, circulated throughout Europe by 
 wandering nobles, soldiers, actors, dancing-masters, and 
 wig-makers, an idiom which, by study of the gram- 
 mar and the classics, could be distilled to a point of 
 chemical purity. Berlin, through its French colony, 
 still in its first generation, offered better opportunities 
 for the acquirement of good French than any other
 
 VOLTAIRE AXD FREDERICK THE GREAT. 101 
 
 place in Germany. Yet facility in speaking does not 
 compensate for what is an indispensable requisite in 
 writing ; namely, a language either wrought out by the 
 writer himself from its provincial peculiarities to gen- 
 eral clearness and strength, as by Goethe, Lessing, and 
 Schiller; or one which, through constant interchange 
 in the intellectual centre of a nation, has gained such 
 wealth and flexibility as to well dispense with its local 
 characteristics. Frederick was not born in France, 
 therefore the first was out of the question ; the other, 
 as he could not live in Paris, he must obtain artifi- 
 cially. With genuine royal instinct he appealed to 
 the highest source, and herein lies the secret of Vol- 
 taire's indispensableness to Frederick and the guaranty 
 for their lifelong intercourse. Frederick writes to 
 D'Argens, at a moment when he was justified in hat- 
 ing Voltaire, " He deserves to be branded as a galley- 
 slave, but his French, not himself, is of consequence to 
 me." And this same French, one day, led Frederick 
 again to overlook and forget all these "galley-slave" 
 deserts. 
 
 In considering Frederick's writings, however, the 
 French form may be left out of sight. When we 
 reflect how constantly and actively his personal super- 
 vision was demanded in both civic and military affairs, 
 we discover him to have been an eminently gifted 
 genius, not only as a man, but as an author. His 
 writings interested him so deeply that he felt every- 
 thing else to be an interruption. He declared literary
 
 102 VOLTAIRE AXD FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 fame to be the only fame that deserved the name. In 
 critical situations, when his mind craved relief from 
 the unutterably depressing feelings of the moment, his 
 literary occupations alone afforded it. 
 
 It was in September, 1759. The Russians and Aus- 
 trians threatened Berlin, and the deadly struggle which 
 Frederick was carrying on for Prussia and Germany 
 seemed about to concentrate at the capital. Despair- 
 ing as to his future, with little to hope for from his 
 army, the king saw himself in the wretched plight of 
 one limited to the defensive who must await his ene- 
 mies' movements. Long months already had this state 
 of things continued. In August he writes to D'Argens : 
 " Believe me, mere firmness and resolution are not suffi- 
 cient to sustain one in a situation like mine. But I 
 tell you plainly, that if fortune now deserts me I shall 
 not outlive my fall and the despair of my country." 
 Instead of any decisive change, however, day suc- 
 ceeded day with wearisome monotony. It was in this 
 mood that Frederick wrote his Thoughts Concerning 
 the Military Talent of Charles XII. He finds him- 
 self on almost the same spot of earth, opposed to the 
 same enemies, and in the same situation. He weighs 
 what that prince, in thinking over his campaign, may 
 have had to reproach himself with, and what had been 
 his own mistakes. He reviews and criticises Charles's 
 career in its main features. "My intention was," he 
 begins, "to obtain for my own instruction an exact 
 idea of the military character of Charles XII, King of
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 103 
 
 Sweden. I judge him neither from the exaggerated 
 representations of his admirers, nor from the distorted 
 traits his detractors have lent to his picture. I rely 
 on eye-witnesses, and on those facts in which all 
 his biographers agree. We regard with distrust the 
 detailed accounts of historians, enveloped as they are 
 in a mass of lying insipidities and anecdotes ; only the 
 core of great events is authentic and credible." In this 
 spirit Frederick goes on. He grapples to his work, how- 
 ever, not merely because of this similarity in his fate to 
 that of Charles, but because he finds in this literary 
 labor the only means of sustaining himself in his 
 unhappy situation. When in later days Frederick 
 records the history of his times and his wars which 
 thrilled all Europe, he speaks of events which he had 
 conjured up and participated in. His writings are like 
 the hieroglyphics which an advancing glacier, while 
 forcing its way onward, scratches on the mountain 
 walls. Where works of such import are in question, 
 the style or construction of sentences are very second- 
 ary considerations. 
 
 By no such path did fate ever entice Voltaire to 
 WTite. His experiences were in a wholly different 
 realm from those of his royal friend. And this differ- 
 ence was yet another guaranty for the indissolubleness 
 of their friendship. Voltaire knew the entire world of 
 his epoch, but with such a nature as Frederick's he 
 had never met ; and Frederick could say the same of 
 him.
 
 104 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 Voltaire appeared in Berlin (1743) after Frederick 
 had become king. How brilliantly these first years 
 sped away at the court of the young monarch has often 
 been described. As yet there was no Sans-Souci; and 
 the festivities were held at Charlottesburg, where a num- 
 ber of youthful brothers and sisters surrounded the 
 king, breathing freely at last after the long heaviness 
 and constraint. A certain exuberance of life, wit, and 
 caprice reigned, and a crowd of great and little lights 
 moved to and fro while Frederick and Voltaire were 
 the grand central chandeliers outshining them all. 
 
 "VVe need only to remind ourselves in what circles 
 Voltaire had hitherto moved to feel that if he now 
 bewitched the king and his court, he did it consciously, 
 in the way of his trade, and not because he was for the 
 first time d son aise in Berlin, and the intellectual 
 lava-stream burst forth involuntarily. Voltaire was 
 almost fifty years of age, and he had entered upon life 
 very early. It must certainly have pleased and flat- 
 tered him to find that he united in his person the 
 whole scale of attractions, and all the machinery neces- 
 sary for the exercise of his magic power; but never 
 did he for a moment lose the feeling that he was a 
 foreign star upon this stage in the land of the barba- 
 rian, nor ever make the slightest attempt to disabuse 
 himself or his friends of this idea. 
 
 "What mattered this, however, either to himself or 
 Frederick ? Both were actors in a glorious drama and 
 in the eyes of all Europe ; they divided honestly the
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 105 
 
 cost as well as the success of the undertaking. Vol- 
 taire knew perfectly well of what value Frederick was 
 to him. The invitation sent him by the young mon- 
 arch, to whom he had himself drawn the attention of 
 the world as to an infallible Solomon or Alexander, 
 having made to a great extent his Europeon renown ; 
 his reception in Berlin, where, as philosopher, poet, 
 greatest of the great men of his age, he formed the 
 centre of all the court courtesies, gave him a chance 
 to revenge himself, in the way most consonant to his 
 nature, on Versailles and Paris. Now they saw clearly 
 what they had lost, or might lose, in him, and took steps 
 to recover possession. On the other hand, Frederick, 
 through Voltaire, attracted all eyes to his capital. He 
 gave to the scarcely recognized Prussian monarchy 
 to the royuume des grandcs frontieres an intellectual 
 focus whose beams radiated over all Germany. The 
 century in w r hich Voltaire and Frederick lived was not 
 to be baited alone with diplomatic and martial fame. 
 The princes had too much accustomed their subjects to 
 wars and alliances, planned, without their co-operation, 
 in the chambers and ante-chambers of unapproach- 
 able castles, whose results often affected them alone. 
 It was not France which made war at that time, but 
 the Pompadour. The nations did not bear any ill-will 
 to one another. The intellectual portion of the people 
 knew only of artistic and literary interests, and Fred- 
 erick, if he aspired to any real success, must appeal to 
 these sympathies. He makes Voltaire, as it were, his
 
 106 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 prime minister in the realm of intellect and culture, 
 that Prussia may be properly represented in the great 
 republic of the educated ; and Voltaire understands his 
 position. His first work is to finish The Anti-Macliia- 
 velli, and on the printing of this book to do what none 
 beside him could have done, namely, to enhance the 
 sensation it naturally produced in Europe to such a 
 degree as to make it a grand success. Voltaire was 
 able to lay before the king letters containing testimony 
 to his royal literary fame from all countries, but espe- 
 cially from France, where Cardinal Fleury himself wrote 
 to him. The twenty thousand livres, together with the 
 equipage, etc., which Voltaire later received yearly in 
 Berlin, was not money squandered to entice a distin- 
 guished author into the service of a prince, who, in 
 his leisure hours, amuses himself writing books. Fred- 
 erick was much too sharp an economist to make any 
 unnecessary outlay, and understood human nature far 
 too well to seek in this way to reward a truly attached 
 friend, or try to bind him closer to himself. In this, 
 as in all else, Frederick kept the main thing in view. 
 Therefore Voltaire's "dirty money matters," as he calls 
 them, his. intrigues, his calumnies, were not the 
 cause of his rupture with the king. Frederick had 
 lived through too much to regard these as anything 
 more than inconveniences, and disagreeable. He knew 
 Voltaire's groundless fancies well enough, and knew him 
 to be under the tyrannical control of every thought 
 which passion suggested ; while as for the money, Vol-
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FEEDERICK THE GREAT. 107 
 
 taire was obliged to earn a fortune. His talents were 
 not of the kind to admit of his living like St. Francis, 
 happily married, on a modest income. Frederick, who 
 realized the power money gives, saw through this more 
 clearly than anybody else, and the ways in which Vol- 
 taire sought to increase his pile were not the worst, 
 considering the times. In the end the income of one 
 hundred and sixty thousand francs, on which Voltaire 
 lived like a lord at Ferney, gave to his power a solid, 
 indispensable basis, and none of the charges against 
 him of cheating, speculating, and unfair dealings were 
 ever substantiated, though there were always plenty of 
 spies ever upon his track. 
 
 Voltaire and Frederick separated because two men, 
 each of whom was born to rule supreme, must one day 
 feel that they were not intended for personal inter- 
 course. Frederick, a young king just come into power, 
 of daring, imperative nature, issuing day by day irrevo- 
 cable commands to be straightway fulfilled, standing 
 before the mass of Europe to contemplate the overthrow 
 of kingdoms, which he knew must sooner or later suc- 
 cumb to the power of the Prussians and Germans; a 
 man who, as a promising author had been treated for 
 many years by Voltaire himself as a demigod, could not 
 be sure that, on entering into the intimate communion 
 of mind with mind, he should always be able to subor- 
 dinate himself to Voltaire with that delicacy of feeling 
 which the poet in these moments might expect. It is 
 neglects of this sort of which Voltaire afterward com-
 
 108 VOLTAIEE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 plains in the bitterest tone. From the very first day he 
 must have perceived that, even in the open province of 
 philosophy, his confrere wanted, as king, to speak the 
 decisive word. In many such cases Frederick undoubt- 
 edly displayed his royal authority. This was probably 
 observed at the outset ; else why, after his successful 
 debut, did Voltaire's friends so urgently dissuade him 
 from entering permanently into the service of Prussia ? 
 Voltaire asserted later that the blue eyes of the king 
 had captivated him. We will not think too slightingly 
 of this confession : there must have been a fire in the 
 king's glance which kindled and charmed irresistibly ; 
 and charm and incentive were all Voltaire asked for 
 in this world. Frederick, w r hen he called him into his 
 service, had just ended the Silesian war victoriously. 
 It was as if to fulfil Voltaire's prophecy he had in 
 a few years vanquished the oldest power in Europe, 
 against which France had vainly contended for a cen- 
 tury. Voltaire felt he had had an active share in 
 the deeds he had predicted. What hitherto had been 
 flattery on his part was now a legitimate tribute of 
 admiration. Frederick was his pride. With what labor 
 and toil indeed had he equipped this young philoso- 
 pher as his scholar for such triumphs ! And Fred- 
 erick's letters and offers corresponded so wholly to his 
 expectations ! To be sure, they knew each other, and 
 had passed through some experiences already, but re- 
 cent events seemed to have matured and elevated 
 their friendship. Formerly it had been Alcibiades
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 109 
 
 who treated Socrates at his side with a mixture of love 
 and petulance, forgiven in him all the exuberance of 
 youthful vigor and genius ; but now Alexander seemed 
 to have called Aristotle. Voltaire accepted the call. 
 But he as well as Frederick followed more recklessly 
 than ever the bent of his own nature, and the catas- 
 trophe which ensued was inevitable. 
 
 One is inclined to-day to judge Frederick, on the 
 whole, somewhat severely. But we have only to cast 
 our glance round upon contemporary European sover- 
 eigns to feel that Voltaire's names, " Hero, Solomon of 
 the North, Alexander," and others, even if flattery, 
 were not misplaced. Voltaire never maligned nor 
 flattered without some real foundation. Frederick 
 was a prince of heroic courage, of great ideas, and 
 without pettiness, a national product of which old 
 mother Germany may be eternally proud, whatever the 
 future may bring forth. That " something more " than 
 mere " firmness and resolution," as Frederick writes to 
 D'Argens, is necessary, in order to hold his head erect, 
 was recognized by Voltaire in those early days, and 
 the world will feel it so long as his name lives in 
 history. And this power of volition, so prodigious 
 when brought to bear on public affairs, manifested 
 itself in his private conduct as well. No one can rise 
 wholly above his birth and education. His father's 
 odd whim, in retaining Gundlach as learned man and 
 couit fool in one, we see reappears in Frederick, and 
 not merely toward Pollnitz. Frederick could carry
 
 110 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 out a hard joke to the point of cruelty against his 
 nearest and dearest friends. We feel the smart in our 
 own souls, when, in the course of the correspondence 
 with D'Argens, who was so dear to the king, the letter 
 finally comes in which the marquis, then living in 
 the south of France, bitterly complains of one of Fred- 
 erick's literary jokes, made at his expense, not consid- 
 ering how deeply it must wound D'Argens, who, as 
 an old man, had naturally longed to see his birthplace 
 once more. In this same way he wounded many. 
 His early training implanted this germ of hardness in 
 him. He was suspicious ; he was pitiless ; and the 
 experiences of his later life too often only strengthened 
 the impressions of his boyish days. Yet, in the real 
 depth of his nature there was kindness and a guileless 
 disposition to do good and make others happy when he 
 was perfectly sure that he should not be imposed upon. 
 We have unquestionable proofs of this. What repels 
 in Frederick is the perishable alloy of his century. His 
 unbounded sense of duty toward his people has been a 
 permanent benefit to every single individual. 
 
 Voltaire was similiarly organized. He, too, possessed 
 this "something more," which carried him safely 
 through all the vicissitudes of life. He also was hard, 
 inconsiderate of those about him, and disinclined to 
 put any restraint on himself. To be forced to obey 
 was a new experience ; but Frederick commanded, and 
 for a while Voltaire suffered the unheard-of martyrdom 
 of conforming to the will and humors of a master,
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. Ill 
 
 who often enough, in his eyes, was nothing, after all, 
 but a poor scribbler. And others forced their way in 
 between them, spirits of the second rank, who in 
 Berlin were allowed to make themselves conspicuous, 
 whilst in Paris they would have been snubbed. 
 Against these people, at least, Voltaire thought he 
 might set his face. But in vain ! The king would 
 not allow it. These people fought for their very 
 existence. When superior people are alienated from 
 one another, it is always largely owing to the intrigues 
 of low, ordinary natures who stand between them. 
 They make the breach and keep it open. A rabble 
 rout, who disappear like flies when we would strike 
 them from our foreheads. Thus we see the ideal 
 companionship of these two great men suddenly rup- 
 tured, and invisible hands busy in rendering any 
 approach in the future impossible. Frederick, irritated 
 and stung to the quick, did not hesitate to abuse his 
 royal power by setting the police on to harass Voltaire, 
 which insulting treatment, as the king very well knew, 
 could not make Voltaire any the less a sovereign in a 
 higher realm. Voltaire, on the other hand, lowers him- 
 self so far as from Frankfort to address to the Eoman 
 emperor a rousing letter, full of indictments against 
 Frederick, and privately to compose that description of 
 the life at Sans-Souci, which, if it is the truth, tells 
 equally against him who participated in it at the time. 
 To be sure, Voltaire never published this, and may 
 possibly have forgotten that he ever wrote the thing;
 
 112 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 but he should not have allowed it to have been found 
 among his papers. 
 
 This prelude, however, was necessary to convince 
 Frederick and Voltaire that fate had determined them 
 for one another. What they had lost each could soon 
 count on his fingers. For almost twenty years their 
 friendship had been the envy and astonishment of the 
 princes on one side and of the literati on the other. 
 Now all saw what had come of it ! Voltaire before 
 the eyes of the world ignominiously kicked out by 
 his royal friend (the vulgar phrase assumes an almost 
 tragic significance) ; Frederick, after having deluded the 
 world with the glamour of his philosophy and culture, 
 unveils himself as only a somewhat more carefully 
 whitewashed despot of the ordinary stamp. Fallen from 
 their high position, both now appear in their respective 
 places, no better nor \vorse than the rest of mankind. 
 
 They knew well enough that they had injured them- 
 selves ! But for the present it was impossible to do 
 more than keep each other in view. Voltaire, after 
 discovering that France was no longer the right place 
 for him, established himself permanently in Switzer- 
 land, there in villegiatura soon to find all eyes in 
 Europe again riveted upon him. Frederick began the 
 war in which, for seven long years, he fought for his 
 crown. Where was now the man who, during the first 
 war, had been the great interpreter of his actions ? 
 Popular, in the present sense of the word, Frederick 
 never was. His personality and his successes so im-
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 113 
 
 pressed the masses as to surround his figure with 
 heroic splendor. Frederick and his grenadiers became 
 military ideals ; the " Zietheuscher Husaren " were the 
 " Uhlans " of the last century, and Frederick's Ion-mots 
 began to be a staple article in miscellaneous literature. 
 To all this was added, by common consent, the Ger- 
 man language, and a simple geniality peculiar to the 
 German people, but of which Frederick had little 
 enough. The king's real self is not mirrored in 
 Germany's admiration of him. Frederick was lonely. 
 He did not enter, even with his generals, into right 
 hearty natural relations. He always carried his library 
 and literary work about with him. Every leisure mo- 
 ment was devoted to them. Not as Napoleon, sailing 
 to Egypt, read Wertlier, and whose whole expedition 
 was directed either by historic or modern scientific 
 ideas. Frederick, in general, read and wrote only of 
 what bore the least possible reference to his surround- 
 ings. When he could give himself up to refreshing 
 thoughts it was to correspond with people to whom the 
 war in its most important phases had little interest. 
 What did the Catholic Marquis d'Argens care whether 
 the good cause of Germany and Protestantism tri- 
 umphed or not ? And even Frederick's historical works 
 had no public. Of his Charles XII not more than 
 a dozen copies were struck off for distribution among 
 his friends. He lost his old companions without find- 
 ing any to take their place. His mother died. His 
 sister, the Margravine of Baireuth, who was nearest of
 
 114 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 all to his heart, died also. The decline of France and 
 her literature he comprehended, but not the rise of 
 Germany. He missed Voltaire ! And it is to Voltaire 
 that he turns at last, and from whose fresh missives 
 he derives consolation and diversion. There is some- 
 thing touching in this testimony to the poverty of 
 human life. These two men, who thought they were 
 separated forever, now approach one another for the 
 second time, but very quietly and with a certain reti- 
 cence, as if feeling they must not again imperil the 
 precious mutual possession. 
 
 Unfortunately the correspondence is not here wholly 
 preserved. Voltaire had just made some advances, 
 but was shipwrecked because Frederick could not help 
 seeing that he was to be enticed into saying something 
 which should reinstate Voltaire in the eyes of the 
 world, and also which might possibly compromise his 
 old patron. This was in 1754, a year after the rup- 
 ture. Three years later it was the king who took the 
 first steps. Letters were written at that time of which 
 we have no knowledge except from Voltaire's allusions, 
 but it is pretty certain that Frederick first took up the 
 broken threads. Perhaps his nature prompted him to 
 wait until the moment when it had become indiffer- 
 ent to Voltaire whether his relation to the king had 
 a sequence or not. "Whenever prominent men have 
 quarreled, a perfect tabula rasa is essential to a recon- 
 ciliation. Frederick, to use Goethe's expression, had 
 been " threshed by Fate " until he felt able to do with-
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 115 
 
 out all and everything except the one man who, out 
 of millions of half-petrified spectators, saw exactly 
 what the matter was. Voltaire, on the other hand, had 
 tasted so many of life's condiments, that in the end it 
 was all the same to him in whose kitchen they were 
 cooked up, whether of high or low, so they tickled 
 his palate, and the "sauce & la Frederic" continued 
 after all to be the most piquant ; yet even this he 
 had learned to do without. Nothing remained, there- 
 fore, but for Frederick to give Voltaire a hint that he 
 needed him. 
 
 We now see the two men for the first time in the 
 genuine relation of like to like. On the 4th of April, 
 1757, Voltaire informs the Duke de Richelieu (one 
 of those gilded hangers-on in the world's history, who, 
 present everywhere, have nowhere done anything) that 
 "the King of Prussia has written to me." Beuchot, 
 Voltaire's latest editor, adds to this : " The letter was 
 dated January 19, from Dresden." Nevertheless, with 
 the exception of one insignificant sentence, it has 
 remained unknown to the German publishers. This 
 letter is the important one. In the beginning the 
 correspondence is rather meagre. It betrays an 
 endeavor on both sides to yield nothing, to appear 
 independent, if possible indifferent; not until 1759 
 does it flow on in the old way. From this time noth- 
 ing disturbs the mutual understanding. Lines of 
 demarcation, to be sure, are precisely indicated and 
 firmly sustained : Frederick and Voltaire were too old
 
 116 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 not to channel their course very distinctly. The reader 
 must not, therefore, be led astray if occasionally, when 
 Voltaire tries to play the mediator in diplomatic affairs, 
 he is unmercifully snubbed by the king ; it is on the 
 simply human ground that Voltaire and Frederick now 
 meet without misunderstanding. 
 
 The letters in which the king, in the critical mo- 
 ments of the war, gives vent to his despair, contain 
 the deepest and truest revelation of himself that he 
 ever put into words ; and those wherein Voltaire seeks 
 to sustain him will always be quoted so long as his 
 writings have any claim to immortality. If at other 
 times he parades his satisfaction at the king's return 
 to him, and boasts that he has saved Frederick from 
 suicide, this is characteristic of Voltaire, whose letters 
 to Frederick lose nothing in depth and weight thereby. 
 Nor is Voltaire lowered by his persistent attempts to 
 regain his old honors and be triumphantly recalled 
 to Berlin. In these things Frederick remains firm; 
 Voltaire inserts his wedge in vain. In the end this 
 makes him independent and outspoken to the last 
 degree. 
 
 " Blessed be the day of my death," writes Voltaire, 
 April 21st, 1760, "when my sufferings, which you 
 have chiefly conjured up for me, shall have an end. 
 I shall not leave the world without the wish that all 
 the happiness may be vouchsafed you which perhaps, 
 as king, you really are not capable of attaining. 
 Would that philosophy might one day enable you to
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 117 
 
 develop the glorious inner core of your being, which 
 is distorted by passion, by unrestrained imagination, 
 by ill-temper (if only occasionally), and by your 
 peculiar experiences, which irritate with their sting, 
 and infuse poison into your soul, and, finally, by the 
 unfortunate pleasure (quite indispensable to you) 
 which you take in humiliating the human creatures 
 around you, and saying to them sharp, insulting 
 things, both by writing and word of mouth, that 
 seems the more unworthy of your majesty, because 
 intellect and rank have raised you so high above 
 them. You must feel that these are truths I am ut- 
 tering." 
 
 Frederick was very little moved by this letter. 
 Voltaire had begun by putting the king on his mettle 
 as " philosopher." " I will not," was the reply, after 
 first writing of indifferent matters, lay the past upon 
 the rack to extort confessions. Your behavior no 
 philosopher would have endured calmly. All shall be 
 forgiven and forgotten. But remember this ! If you 
 had not had to do with some one who was possessed 
 with a kind of insane passion for your genius, you 
 would not have come off as well as you did. Once 
 for all, let me say to you, never bother me again with 
 your ill-treated niece [Madame Denys, who, in Frank- 
 fort, was arrested with Voltaire] ; she tires me, and 
 has not the merit of her uncle, to compensate through 
 many excellences for her many defects. Moliere's ser- 
 vant-maid will be remembered by thousands ; Voltaire's
 
 118 VOLTAIKE AND FKEDERICK THE GEE AT. 
 
 niece, by no living soul. My verses are of no special 
 interest to me. I have more important affairs in my 
 head, and the muses are pensioned off." 
 
 Frederick then passes on to other things. "In 
 June," he writes, " begins the new campaign. There 
 will be little to laugh, but perhaps much to weep, 
 over," etc. We feel that these things absorb him so 
 completely, that he treats the old personal quarrel 
 with Voltaire as a secondary matter, of which he dis- 
 poses curtly and distinctly, in order to come to the 
 main point. After all, Voltaire was the only man 
 with whom he could discuss the present and the 
 future. For the rest, he might say, or leave unsaid, 
 what he chose. In 1761 D'Argens writes to the king 
 that Voltaire had purchased the freedom of returning 
 to Paris by his dedication of Tancred, wherein he 
 apostrophizes the Pompadour as tutelary genius of the 
 noblest intellectual interests of France, and Frederick 
 replies that this is to him an affair of the utmost 
 indifference. It will not be long ere Voltaire again 
 will venture some species of impertinence to the court 
 of Versailles, and be forced anew to make off with 
 himself. " There is no calculating on this man. The 
 only thing in which he is consistent, is the scraping 
 together of money by the most ignoble means ; and 
 he never can get enough." 
 
 Voltaire's public abasement before the Pompadour 
 was all the more pitiful that he ranked as the most 
 eminent literary man in Europe, and arrogated to him-
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 119 
 
 self the censorship of vice and virtue. Yet, shortly 
 afterwards, in the face of court, justice, clergy, and 
 public opinion, he heroically appears in defence of the 
 family Galas, for whom he alone upon God's wide 
 earth is pleading, and whose innocence he proves as 
 clear as daylight. Voltaire neither flinched nor flagged 
 until their honor had been restored to these people. 
 " Truly, " as Frederick said, " there was no reckoning on 
 this man." He had openly scoffed at the king's liter- 
 ary efforts ; still, Frederick continues to send him what 
 he writes, begging for his opinion. He alone could 
 furnish an ode which gave true expression to Fred- 
 erick's pain and grief at the death of his sister. 
 Frederick, as survivor of the two, honored Voltaire's 
 memory in Berlin by an oration upon his death which 
 will always redound to the credit of both. Voltaire, 
 on his side, sharply took Frederick's part as an author 
 against the French Academy, and, without the king's 
 knowledge, earnestly pleaded for his admittance. The 
 Abbe* d'Olivet, in a new edition of his work upon 
 prosody, had criticised Frederick's WTitings with much 
 severity. Voltaire refuted this attack in a letter 
 which had the authority of a manifesto in Paris, and 
 in which he exhibited the king as worthy of an hon- 
 orable literary position. On the same day, January 5, 
 1767, he writes to Frederick, but makes no mention of 
 this defence. 
 
 The years now draw on when the king and Vol- 
 taire come to stand side by side, as old people who
 
 120 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 have a happy past behind them, for which the present 
 does not oft'er, nor the future promise, any compensa- 
 tion. They contemplate themselves with calm objec- 
 tivity. " Am I not a man with faults like others ? " 
 writes Voltaire, in the year 1776 ; and the king replies, 
 " Had you thus spoken twenty years ago you would be 
 with me now." This was only half his thoughts, but 
 the other half, " And I should not be sitting here so 
 bereft and lonely," rises to every mind. Frederick felt 
 the world was becoming strange to him ; all around 
 had grown old or died ; Voltaire alone remained 
 young as ever. They now try to be of comfort to one 
 another, and the correspondence at last goes on peace- 
 fully, as it had begun. 
 
 Eminent men require their historical background in 
 proportion to their importance. For Frederick, a part 
 of Goethe's shadow suffices to relieve the outlines of 
 his figure. Herder and Lessing demand the eighteenth 
 century ; Goethe's background embraces all the grand 
 moments in German development; for Blucher, only 
 the " Freiheitskriege " is necessary ; for Stein, the social 
 revolutions in two centuries ; for Frederick the Great, 
 like Goethe, the entire history of Germany ; for France 
 for Chateaubriand the years of the French Revo- 
 lution are enough ; for Diderot and Rousseau, their 
 own century ; but in order to estimate Voltaire prop- 
 erly, we must bring before us the whole history of 
 Romanic life, from its beginning to its very close. 
 Conceived only as the product of his century, Voltaire
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 121 
 
 would be a kind of genre figure, alternating betwixt jest 
 and earnest. As fruit of the whole Romanic develop- 
 ment he assumes graver and grander proportions. The 
 accidental is effaced, and the essential comes out in 
 strong traits which disclose the secret of his existence 
 and his influence. 
 
 There is going on to-day before our eyes a world- 
 wide revolution unlike any that has preceded it, so far 
 back as our eyes can reach. The different nations of 
 Europe suddenly desire to exist each for itself. The 
 mutual influence of races upon one another (in theory 
 utterly denied) is in practice to be limited to a mini- 
 mum. And this new view is not the fruit of a theory 
 broached by the learned, but a spontaneous impulse, 
 thrilling the people to their very depths. It does not 
 appear in individuals, but stirs in the masses. 
 
 It would be false to attribute the origin of this 
 struggle for separation and isolation to recent political 
 events. They have been only the awakening sun shin- 
 ing straight into the face of a feeling which had long 
 slumbered, waiting for the light. For example, the 
 aversion of the Germans to everything French after 
 the Napoleonic wars, and the present hatred of the 
 Eomanic nations to everything German, are not to be 
 ascribed to the victories on either side, nor to conscious 
 party effort. The enmity also between the Slavs and 
 Germans is quite independent of any such causes. 
 That a man like Garibaldi, in whose life and conduct 
 every heart-throb of the Romanic race was to be noted,
 
 122 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 could take the field with France against Germany is to 
 be attributed to something deeper than mere infatua- 
 tion for the name of a republic. Unnoticed a fruit 
 had ripened, and recent events were the storm which 
 shook it from the tree. There is a universal law by 
 whose commanding force great masses of people attract 
 or repel one another, and, by moving in concert, or by 
 their separate exertions, help on the general intellect- 
 ual progress. Nations demand alliances or refuse them. 
 They subordinate themselves voluntarily, though know- 
 ing they are strong enough to resist or rebel like mad- 
 men, in spite of the consciousness of a weakness which 
 prophesies destruction. At the time of the so-called 
 inroad of the barbarians, all the Germanic people, 
 sooner or later, adopted Romanic forms. To-day, the 
 most wretched Celt would rather go naked than see 
 himself decked out in German garments. 
 
 What we understand by history is the knowledge of 
 the mutual relations of the different races which have 
 occupied, for the last three or four thousand years, the 
 peninsula called Europe, to the geologist such an 
 insignificant space of time that it scarcely serves as 
 a cipher in his calculations. During this epoch we see 
 distinct nations (which we assume emigrated from the 
 heart of Asia) settled in the same spots, showing the 
 same characteristics, speaking the same languages. As 
 regards the same places, they have only changed as 
 large vessels when at anchor are driven to and fro, 
 though tethered to one spot by wind and tide. As
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 123 
 
 regards characteristics, they have been developed and 
 modified by the culture of different centuries, but 
 remain essentially the same. In the languages, the 
 change has apparently been very striking; but it is 
 a question if the period which comes under our obser- 
 vation is long enough to admit of positive conclusions. 
 These nations, Greek, Eomanic, Celtic, Germanic, and 
 Slavic, have remained the same, not only in them- 
 selves, but in their relation toward each other. They 
 form one vast organism. The Eomans contended with 
 the Greeks for the possession of the coast of the Medi- 
 terranean ; the Germans with the Celts for the Ehine, 
 with the Italians for the Alps, with the Slavs for the 
 lands lying on the Vistula. The boundaries of each 
 vary from time to time, but never overleaped certain 
 limits. The only real change that has taken place in 
 this great body during the three or four thousand years 
 which come within our knowledge, is that the power 
 has been transferred from one race to another, while 
 even this change seems to correspond in its direction 
 with the general movement of the peoples from the 
 southeast to the northwest. It is our hypothesis that 
 the Germans reached their present habitation as part of 
 one of the very earliest immigrations from the east, and 
 it now looks as if they would move still farther west, 
 even to America, there to lay the foundation of new 
 nationalities. Yet it must never be forgotten that this 
 assumption of an Asiatic origin is merely the result of 
 scientific speculation ; for the European races all look
 
 124 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 upon themselves in accordance with their traditions, as 
 aborigines. And a patriotic affection for one's native 
 soil is firmly interwoven with this belief, whilst as 
 regards America, there is no proof, as yet, that what 
 originates there will continue through the centuries to 
 preserve its Germanic nature. 
 
 The transfer of power within the circle of the Eu- 
 ropean nations comes clearly under our observation. 
 All the development of strength seems to have this 
 aim. Twice within four thousand years has this 
 change of leadership shown itself. From the Greek 
 race, whose origin is so remote as to be legendary, 
 who made the connecting link with central Asia, we 
 see the leadership pass over to the Eomanic, and later 
 to the Germanic, race. 
 
 There was a time when the Greek element pervaded 
 all Europe, and there was a time when Europe, part 
 of Asia, and America were inundated by Eomanic 
 streams ; to-day the whole earth seems becoming 
 Germanized. But within each of these three great 
 epochs we notice fluctuations of rulership among the 
 various nations composing the race in power. The 
 various epochs of the Romanic supremacy are well- 
 defined and familiar to us. The first object was to 
 overmaster and absorb the Greek spirit. When this 
 was accomplished, the Germanic, Celtic, and Hiber- 
 nian nations in their turn were also vanquished and 
 incorporated. From Borne the leadership was next 
 transferred to Spain, and from Spain to France. The
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 125 
 
 papacy was the central and one important creation 
 of the Romanic race, its last and greatest achieve- 
 ment establishing the undisputed supremacy of France, 
 to oppose the growing tendency toward a Germanic 
 empire. Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV is not only a 
 description of the period in which a great king raised 
 his nation to the height of prosperity, but it is the 
 genius of the Romanic race taking literary form and 
 flaring up mightily before its final extinction. Like 
 Voltaire, all these great men of the Siecle de Louis 
 XIV lacked the lightness and buoyancy of youth. 
 They seem to have come into the world old in thought, 
 as if the approaching destruction of the Romanic 
 world weighed upon them. They rush violently for- 
 ward and crush their enemies ; but for what ? There 
 is no future before them. They astound all Europe 
 with the fulness of their culture, their wit, their art, 
 their poetry; but this culture is, after all, only a 
 piquantly flavored rehash of the old Romanic spirit. 
 The wit is forced and cold, the art a distortion and 
 regilding of the classic ornaments which the inhab- 
 itants of Italy once ravished from the Greeks, their 
 language the last, blossomless, colorless shoots, spring- 
 ing from the mutilated Romanic roots. 
 
 These are the powers from which and for which 
 Voltaire was begotten. His nature is an expression 
 of the entire Romanic existence, whose brilliant de- 
 cline was through him to be immortalized. In this 
 sense it was Goethe who, with nice historic percep-
 
 126 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 tions, best understood him and knew how to picture 
 him in the place to which he belongs. 
 
 We read in the appendix to Rameau's Nephew : 
 " When a family has sustained itself through genera- 
 tions, we see that nature finally produces an individual 
 who includes in himself the qualities of all his ances- 
 tors, and who unites and brings to complete develop- 
 ment all these varied gifts, of which hitherto we have 
 had only faint indications or isolated examples. Even 
 so it is with natives whose aggregate accomplishments 
 may, if fortune favors, be brought to expression in 
 one individual. Thus was incarnated in Louis XIV 
 the highest ideal of a French king, and in Voltaire 
 the literary genius of the nation." 
 
 Goethe next proceeds to enumerate the qualifica- 
 tions it would be well for a literary man to possess, 
 depth, genius, intuition, elevation, individuality, merit, 
 nobility, spontaneity, etc., ending with style, har- 
 mony, purity, correctness, elegance, and perfection. 
 " Of all these varied forms of intellectual expression," 
 he continues, " only Voltaire's right to the first and 
 the last depth of conception and perfection in exe- 
 cution can be disputed. Whatever else of capacity 
 and skill rouses the enthusiasm of the wide world 
 Voltaire possessed, and thereby won his fame." 
 
 But Goethe, in conceiving Voltaire as the personifi- 
 cation of France, denies to the nation itself depth and 
 perfection ; and it is curious to observe that France 
 here reminds us of the Greek world, which, in its last
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 127 
 
 phases, no longer possessed these two qualities which 
 so preeminently distinguished it in its palmy days. 
 
 Any attempt at a discussion to-day of the final aims 
 of the Germanic race would lead to mere vain imagin- 
 ings. Nothing remains for us in the immediate future 
 but to live and struggle, and, as the early Romans 
 drew their spiritual life from the culture bequeathed 
 to them by the Greeks, so to lay the foundation of our 
 own in that of both Greeks and Eomans. The safest 
 guide to the development of our own spirit can be no 
 other than a knowledge of the past as far back as our 
 sight can reach. Luther's new Germanic creation grew 
 out of a thorough comprehension of Romanic theology, 
 Goethe's poems from an entire absorption of Romanic 
 culture, Frederick the Second's truly Germanic politics 
 from his clearly seeing through the mass of Romanic 
 intrigues which Machiavelli (if only as an objective 
 observer) had put together in his book on " The Prince." 
 Frederick's Anti-Machiavelli formed the starting-point 
 for his later career. Frederick, who was a pupil of 
 Voltaire, who only spoke and wrote French, who mis- 
 judged German literature, and often did not understand 
 German nature, was yet in an eminent sense the first 
 German prince. His declaration that he was only the 
 head-servant in his kingdom contains the radical idea 
 on which modern Germany is based, for everything 
 would go to ruin among us if the feeling were once 
 lost which now leads each man, the highest as well 
 as the lowest, to regard himself as in duty bound
 
 128 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 to the service of his country. In Voltaire's school, 
 however, Frederick gained strength and light, and 
 therefore we have to thank him, so far as his influence 
 here came in. 
 
 This sense of duty is the strength and power of the 
 German nation at the present day. The astonishing 
 absence of it in the Eomanic race is the conspicuous 
 symptom which betrays its retirement as a governing 
 one. In this light, the recent efforts of the Eomish 
 Church appear like the desperate attempt, by means 
 of a formula in which dwells unlimited compulsory- 
 power, to lend to the individual that support which is 
 wanting in his own nature. In any case, these means 
 can only avail among the Romanic nations. 
 
 Voltaire, when he took the field against the Eomish 
 clergy, dreamed of nothing of this kind. Perhaps 
 should such a man appear to-day and be deeply moved 
 by the danger to his race, he might be found on the 
 side of the Church. It was gratuitous spite in the 
 Catholic clergy, during the Eestoration, to order Vol- 
 taire's bones taken out of his grave in the Pantheon, 
 and scattered to the winds, that no trace of the great 
 Frenchman's body should be found to serve as a relic. 
 The Orleans were said to have succeeded in hunting 
 up the bones again, and had them reinterred in the 
 old place. It is questioned however, if they really 
 were the right ones. 
 
 The memory of a great genius, who once moved the 
 world, has nothing to do with the frail, earthly mate-
 
 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 129 
 
 rial in which it was once confined. Personal vices, 
 and even virtues, become matter of indifference. We 
 see the earth inhabited since time began by innumer- 
 able, ever renewed masses of people. These we find 
 inclosed in an organization whose connection has been 
 uninterrupted so far back as our knowledge goes. The 
 aim of this organization is to furnish to each individ- 
 ual, in an ever-increasing measure, and for his own 
 progress toward perfection, a judgment regarding his 
 fellow-men and the earth which we inhabit. In the 
 striving after this aim there is no cessation, only at 
 times a hesitating movement which is generally suc- 
 ceeded by very rapid hurrying forward. When this 
 stagnation occurs we see the masses left to their own 
 guidance, helpless, not knowing how to go on ; but, on 
 the other hand, when the movement is rapid, we see 
 this brought about by the influence of single men, who, 
 through their own power and the confidence reposed in 
 them by the people, gain the leadership. The memory 
 of such men may remain living through thousands of 
 years, and then we call them " immortal." But if their 
 power abides beyond a certain space of time, it appears 
 so immense that it is no longer believed in as an 
 emanation from a single person, and the individual, as 
 time goes on, is gradually resolved into the race from 
 which he sprang. Thus Homer's poems are no longer 
 regarded as the work of one man ; they are the poetry 
 of all Greece ; and the time may come when Goethe's 
 writings will be attributed to no individual phenome-
 
 130 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 
 non, but looked upon as the precipitate of the entire 
 inspiration of the Germanic race at a certain period, 
 and Shakespeare's poems appear as the collective 
 expression of an earlier epoch. And thus Voltaire, 
 also, will perhaps one day be used merely as a word 
 by which to designate the last dying tones in the lit- 
 erature of Romanic genius.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 A PHOTOGRAPH represents, as it were, the expression 
 of the moment, stiffened, as the thing looked at the 
 very instant it was fixed by the light of the sun on the 
 metal-plate, as it never had looked before, and never 
 will look again. For a change in the subject is proved 
 to be constantly going on. The sun moves farther, 
 and the sharpness of its light depends on the ever- 
 varying conditions of the atmosphere. During the 
 few seconds required to photograph a building, it 
 changes in appearance ; and the face of a man, be the 
 sitting ever so short, reflects quite another thought at 
 its close than that which decided the look when the 
 signal was given to uncover the apparatus. Our eyes 
 are not practised enough to discern this in the picture. 
 But no force works independently, or by itself alone. 
 The incessant changes in matter, the never-resting 
 thoughts, intersect each other in all directions. Our 
 senses are not sufficiently acute to follow out these 
 radiations ; the coarsest only reveal themselves, and we 
 say (because we cannot do otherwise) things look just 
 as they always have, until the change is so marked we 
 are able to observe it. 
 
 The thoughts of the individual, and those of man- 
 kind in general, meet and act upon one another accord- 
 
 131
 
 132 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 ing to laws as yet unknown ; these involutions are 
 among the great mysteries. One thought suddenly 
 interrupts another and forces itself into its place. We 
 strive to break the train by substituting a fresh idea. 
 Impossible ! We give it up. Uncalled for it returns ; 
 and it may do the same to-morrow or after long years. 
 A certain thought impels us to an act. Of this we are 
 not conscious at the moment we yield to it, nay, often 
 believe ourselves influenced by a very different thought 
 beneath which the first lies hidden. The will of an- 
 other attracts ours as by magnetic force, and at the 
 moment the change of action occurs we imagine our- 
 selves the guiding power. In a few seconds we often 
 decide for and against a thing, conclude to do it, and 
 after all give it up again ; and it may be a stone we 
 stumble over, or a bird soaring above our heads, or 
 something which mechanically catches our attention, 
 that turns the scale, and, in spite of the vacillation, 
 one thing or the other is done. Like a grain of sand 
 falling into a clock and stopping the wheels at the 
 hour of twelve, it might have happened one, twenty, or 
 sixty minutes later. The grain of sand had nothing 
 to do with the point of time; it was accidental. 
 
 We know little indeed of the ways our own thoughts 
 take ; still less of those of our best friends. What, then, 
 can we know of the thoughts of men whom we never 
 saw, who lived centuries before us ? What of the 
 intellectual current which prevailed when they lived ? 
 For each age has its peculiar atmosphere, through which
 
 FEEDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 133 
 
 it must be viewed if we are to understand it clearly. 
 After the Thirty Years' War Germany was exhausted. 
 Men knew little of the natural sciences compared with 
 the knowledge of to-day, and were living under the 
 influence of customs and habits which now are obso- 
 lete. Who would think of judging what was written, 
 thought, or done at that time as if it were the product 
 of our age ? This change in the current of thought 
 occurred not only in the course of centuries, but some- 
 times in days and months, as with us. The Anglo- 
 Indian war, for instance, affected the entire atmosphere 
 of Europe. We have regarded differently since this 
 war the relations of the Germanic peoples to the 
 Asiatic. In fact it has reawakened our interest in 
 those distant nations and brought them nearer to us. 
 We have also seen that cruelties are possible in our 
 day such as were hardly conceived by the wildest 
 imagination. 
 
 In a like way the Prussian war has changed our 
 mental horizon. So, too, the gigantic extension of 
 steam-power and telegraphs. 
 
 Who would think of judging Csesar's military opera- 
 tions in Germany as if there had been telegraphic 
 despatches in his day ; it would be ridiculous ! But 
 soon, when these inventions have become part and par- 
 cel of ourselves, it will be indeed very hard to imagine 
 any life without them. 
 
 Shakespeare describes Caesar as fighting with can- 
 non ; of course we all know better. But how his battles
 
 134 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 were carried on no one can say; for, were his own 
 accounts of them twice as clear and exact as they are, 
 there would still be so much omitted that was familiar 
 to his contemporaries that we should need the Roman 
 public of his day to interpret Caesar's words precisely 
 in the sense in which he uses them, to enable us to 
 obtain a distinct picture of his manner of action. 
 
 I by no means wish to suggest that we can know 
 nothing because all is not laid open to our observation. 
 I would only express the opinion that he who thinks 
 to enter into the nature of things by anatomizing them, 
 to understand thoughts by disentangling them, and 
 pursuing each singly, to comprehend the fate of men 
 and nations by dividing them into small parts, and 
 these again into smaller and still smaller, proposes to 
 himself an endless piece of work, and one for which 
 his imperfect human faculties are wholly inadequate. 
 Let any one appear with scent fine as that of a dog, 
 eyes sharp as those of a lynx, hearing keener than the 
 Indians in Cooper's romances, who with the tips of 
 his fingers can recognize colors, with money and health 
 enough to roam incessantly about the wide earth, still 
 the brevity of his life, the prejudices of his age 
 arising from ignorance of what is still undiscovered 
 will debar him from that comprehension of the 
 whole to which he hopes to attain by study of the in- 
 finite details. All our knowledge is fragmentary. '\Vhat 
 we admire in great scholars is, not their monstrous 
 store of facts, but the mysterious instinct through
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 135 
 
 which they were led to collect and group them so as 
 to deduce therefrom intellectual perceptions. This is 
 the miracle wrought, when through the contemplation 
 of outward things the human mind becomes one of 
 the creative powers of the universe. A precience of 
 the whole reveals to the true scientist order and con- 
 nection in the heterogeneous mass of detail into which 
 our entire life seems to split when we contemplate it 
 in its meanest aspects. It enables him to grasp this 
 world firmly, which is always threatening to resolve 
 itself into atoms, and to hold it so firmly that not one 
 particle of its infinity is lost. Our curiosity to know 
 the before and after is no mere child's play, without 
 aim or object. If the sentiment of things is in us, we 
 learn to know them accordingly. Everything takes 
 form and becomes real. The whole world, illuminated 
 by the brightest sun that ever shone, would be as 
 good as non-existence without the eye of man ; the 
 whole heaven full of melody, voiceless without the 
 ear of man ; libraries replete with the most interesting 
 facts, dead letters without the mind that gives them 
 meaning. Life becomes real only when mirrored in 
 the soul of man. Of things and phenomena we know 
 little indeed in ourselves, and see them only as some 
 particular man has taught us to see them, and name 
 them as he has named them. He came forth and 
 observed things. He was endowed with a mysterious 
 perception of their nature, we may say with crea- 
 tive love for them, and according as he was writer
 
 136 FKEDEKICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 or artist found words to represent, or power to shape 
 as he saw them, the forms about him. Whilst en- 
 deavoring to penetrate to the core of all phenomena, 
 in order to confirm his intuitions, he brought into life 
 something new, a book, a treatise, or a picture, by 
 whose help we are enabled to see what he alone had 
 seen, and to approach things closely as he alone at 
 first had done. No one sees the most common fact 
 without the spectacles which he who observed it first 
 has placed upon our eyes. It is surprising what curi- 
 ous discoveries we make when applying this maxim 
 to art and science ! We find that one great artist's 
 conception of the human figure had through long 
 years deprived all his successors of the power to see 
 or paint it otherwise, while these in their turn had 
 drawn the public after them. Postures of the body, 
 which for more than a century were thought beautiful 
 and natural, or at any rate possible, are to-day called 
 ugly, unnatural, and impossible; yet men and their 
 anatomical structure have not changed, and artists 
 studied the nude at that time as they do to-day. So 
 little can a man dispose of his own eyes ! The trees 
 were mountains of moving foliage for thousands of 
 years, until Claude Lorraine and his followers painted 
 them. Now we see what is picturesque everywhere 
 in the landscape. Our German language was a 
 clumsy instrument, which none knew how to play 
 upon ; Goethe drew from it divinest melodies, and 
 henceforth the art was inherited as so much given
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 137 
 
 capital. Our minds receive a conscious and an uncon- 
 scious education, but for all, even the most trivial, of 
 our acquirements we are indebted to men whose 
 names perhaps are never heard. What has not been 
 pointed out to us, or we have not discovered by our 
 own power, does not exist for us. An infinity of 
 knowledge in all departments will yet be revealed, 
 and when it is we shall wonder how we could have 
 been so blind. From the whole wide field I select 
 history, which alone is of importance to us here. 
 
 It is conceivable that the human mind released 
 from flesh and sense might float above the earth, reflect- 
 ing like a mirror what is happening below. I do not 
 suggest this as an article of faith ; it is a mere fancy. 
 But let us assume that the immortality of some men 
 take this form ; that, untrammelled by what had for- 
 merly blinded them, they hover over the earth, and see 
 clearly revealed all the vicissitudes of the world and 
 of men, from the very birth of the planet. The past 
 would be to them a web of harmonious beauty. Every 
 single thought, every deed, which we call good or 
 condemn, would constitute an integral part of it. The 
 falling of a leaf and the yawning of the earth to 
 swallow up whole cities would take equal rank among 
 events, because the same Power had ordained and 
 directed all. 
 
 But now, suppose that, dreaming on, we should see 
 this spirit, which had so freely surveyed all things, 
 suddenly forced to unite itself again to a mortal body.
 
 138 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 If the highest talents of every kind were bestowed 
 upon him, would even the faintest recollection of his 
 former state be possible to him ? He would be born 
 in a certain epoch ; he would have father and mother, 
 a country, a profession, a heart that loved and hated, 
 vanities, sorrows, joys, vexations, despair, and rapture. 
 When, even for a moment, could he enjoy that abso- 
 lute clarity of mind which formerly was his element ? 
 He would begin to doubt whether he actually ever had 
 this freedom, and soon the very memory of it would 
 retreat like a dying echo into the hidden depths of his 
 soul. The prejudices of others would be his, however 
 little they might influence him. His family would 
 give him class prejudices, either of wealth or poverty, 
 of nobility or people ; his fatherland would make him 
 partial, his beloved would claim and receive his best 
 feelings. "What would remain for the enjoyment of that 
 boundless, colorless knowledge into which he was 
 formerly resolved ? A longing after it would be the 
 abnegation of all human feelings. But if, notwith- 
 standing, he makes the history of the past his chosen 
 study, must not his work suffer from the hindrances 
 which cloud his soul and prevent a free comprehen- 
 sion ? He writes for the men who surround him, and 
 hopes for their applause, however few it may be whose 
 judgment is to him of any value. He must espouse a 
 party ; his country and his family compel him to do 
 so. Whilst in earlier days he had had the hearts of 
 men before his eyes like a bee-hive, where he saw the
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 139 
 
 thoughts fly in and out and do their work, he must 
 now guess at them as secrets. Scraps of letters, false 
 confessions, partial one-sided accounts of contempora- 
 ries, marred, unfinished, or untrue copies of works by 
 their hand, fragmentary memorials of every kind, out- 
 ward matter, all from which to build up a new man 
 and exhibit him to the world, as if he had looked thus 
 in life. The spirit he infuses into this form cannot be 
 deeper than his own. Qualities the original once pos- 
 sessed, but of which he who recreates the character has 
 no knowledge, or no correct understanding, he cannot 
 bestow on this new figure ; and if he were fortunate 
 enough by any means to learn the innermost thoughts 
 of the original he would lack the capacity to interpret 
 them rightly, and therefore they would not benefit 
 his productions. 
 
 Every historical work is the one-sided view of a lim- 
 ited man. He may be the wisest of his age; never- 
 theless, a time will come when his standpoint also will 
 be out of date and his limitations only too apparent, 
 because others have succeeded him who taught man- 
 kind a higher wisdom and informed them with deeper 
 and broader knowledge. The historian tells the little 
 suggested to him by the memorials of past days (which 
 often enough he does not fully comprehend) as genuinely 
 as his country and personal surroundings permit, and in 
 the way he thinks most intelligible to those who will 
 read his writings. He conceals many things intention- 
 ally, often the most important. An historical work
 
 140 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 which aimed to be something like a photographic repro- 
 duction of the events of which it treats would be a con- 
 tradiction. One cannot copy what he has not bodily 
 before him. Who delineates the past to-day can only 
 represent what takes form in his mind, while exposing 
 it to be worked upon by the memorials that remain. 
 The question is, not whether the picture thus gained 
 is mathematically correct, but whether it has life and 
 soul in it, and will be of any service to mankind. We 
 acclimitize plants and animals from other lands and 
 zones. It is not our object to develop them precisely 
 as they were in their own home. Soil, light, and tem- 
 perature may cause them to grow into something quite 
 different. The only question is, can they exist with us 
 and are they of any use ? The history of Rome which 
 is being written to-day has little to do with old Rome. 
 Every land, ever} 7 age, indeed, every individual scholar, 
 will conceive it differently. Its author reads and stud- 
 ies the vestiges still to be found of the Roman people, 
 and, in conjunction with the ideal which education 
 and country have implanted in his soul, arises a con- 
 ception which he puts into words ; but how is it pos- 
 sible that this should be a true, colorless picture of 
 the condition of things thousands of years ago ? Like 
 poetry, sculpture, and painting, historiography requires 
 an artist. Raphael did not represent what he had 
 before him. Let any one compare his studies and the 
 draperies with the figures themselves for which they 
 served. He only completes with their help a picture
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 141 
 
 which did not at once stand clearly enough before his 
 soul ; he uses, as it were, an alloy, as one adds copper 
 to gold in order to be able to stamp the coin. The 
 historian knows the facts, and in the course of his 
 life has formed certain theories which, in his opinion, 
 would benefit the people. These last are the main 
 thing, and the history which he writes only the illus- 
 tration. Who writes history in any other way heaps 
 up a confused mass of apparently correct facts for 
 whose veracity there is no guaranty. For facts in 
 which a definite idea is not laid down hardly admit 
 of representation ; they are virtually outside of intel- 
 lectual knowledge. 
 
 Man himself is the standard for human actions. To 
 many, history consists simply in the enumeration of 
 their ancestors, whether they were good or bad being 
 matter of indifference. The Egyptians are satisfied 
 with lists of their kings, and with knowing the length 
 of time each reigned ; the Jews, with the simplest gen- 
 ealogy. Every nation writes its own history until it 
 comes into contact with another nation which is its 
 intellectual superior, and whose prejudices rest on a 
 nobler basis than its own. To-day the Germans take 
 foremost rank among the European nations. That a 
 German should write a history of France, Italy, Eus- 
 sia, or Turkey would seem nowise unsuitable or con- 
 tradictory ; but imagine an Italian, Frenchman, or Turk 
 undertaking to write a history of Germany ! If the 
 book, by any chance, imposed on some innocent mind,
 
 142 FREDEEICK THE GREAT AND MACATJLAY. 
 
 because written in a foreign language, it would be only 
 necessary to translate it. A Russian has written a life 
 of Mozart, and, elated by the success of his work, one 
 also of Beethoven. Music certainly would not seem to 
 be confined to one nationality ; but is this Mozart ? is 
 this Beethoven? They are two musicians to whom 
 certain works are ascribed ; but as living individuals 
 they have no sort of connection with these books or 
 with the opinions expressed in them. Is it Goethe of 
 whom Lewes has written two volumes ? I think that 
 we Germans know him better. The Goethe of Mr. 
 Lewes is a brave English gentleman, accidentally born 
 in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1749, whom he invests 
 with Goethe's life experiences (knowledge of which he 
 obtained at second, third, or even fifth hand), and who, 
 moreover, is said to have written Goethe's works. The 
 book evinces great industry, but there is little of the 
 German Goethe in it. The English are Germanic like 
 ourselves, but they are not Germans ; and what Goethe 
 was to us we alone realize. Macaulay writes an essay 
 on Frederick the Great. Is this the king to whom 
 Germany owes her greatness ? One would almost 
 believe it, so graphically is he portrayed ; but look at 
 him more closely ! It is a pinched-up, crabbed lord's 
 face, with snuff on his nose, a man in the very worst 
 society, without concentration or morality, who, for the 
 most trivial reasons, begins a rapacious war against 
 Austria, pursues it aimlessly, and wins at last by sheer 
 accident, what he had in no wise earned. In this
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 143 
 
 light our hero is shown up to us. Our enthusiasm for 
 him is a national error ; not virtues, but the faults of 
 a tyrant, have been made by the Germans the object of 
 idolatry. He was no mighty sovereign who by noble, 
 legitimate effort restored the decaying honor of his 
 country, and thereby of all Germany ; but simply, as 
 Lord Byron said of Blucher, in reference to Napoleon, 
 " a stone over which Austria stumbled and broke her 
 leg." 
 
 Macaulay's essay is the criticism of a book which 
 appeared in London in 1842, Frederick the Great, and 
 his Times. Edited, with an Introduction, by Thomas 
 Campbell, Esq. 2 voh. 8vo. "This work," he begins, 
 " which has the high honor of being introduced to the 
 world by the author of Lochiel and Hohenlinden, is not 
 wholly unworthy of so distinguished a chaperon. It 
 professes, indeed, to be no more than a compilation, 
 but it is an exceedingly amusing compilation, and we 
 shall be glad to have more of it. The narrative comes 
 down at present only to the commencement of the 
 Seven Years' War, and therefore does not comprise 
 the most interesting portion of Frederick's reign." 
 
 Macaulay first gives a brief historical sketch of the 
 kingdom of Prussia. Frederick's grandfather makes 
 himself king, and ridiculous at the same time, in the 
 eyes of all Europe. His son and successor is a brutal 
 tyrant. Frederick II, constantly repressed and kept 
 in subjection during his youth, as soon as he mounts 
 the throne manifests all the evil qualities of his father,
 
 144 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 and becomes even a worse tyrant. He is stingy and 
 vicious. His court, which is a caricature, is peopled 
 with French nonentities or scoundrels. Out of the 
 whole there were but two persons near him fit to be 
 called human, Lord Marishal and his brother, two 
 Englishmen. Frederick is a wretched fabricator of 
 verses written in the worst possible taste. "Without a 
 shadow of justice he begins a war with Austria, recruits 
 his army by the most despicable means, depreciates 
 the currency, pays no one but his soldiers, and con- 
 quers at last, simply because, owing to a variety of 
 accidents, the political conjunction in Europe demanded 
 peace. These are the contents of the essay. To be 
 sure, withal, Frederick is styled the greatest of the 
 kings ever born to a throne ; his practical talent, his 
 perspicacity, and other superior qualities are recog- 
 nized and duly admired ; yet we close the book with 
 the impression that this renowned monarch was, after 
 all, a detestable creature. Nowhere, at the first glance, 
 does Macaulay seem to have misstated the facts, or 
 handled them unfairly ; and yet we might call the 
 whole false and untrue. 
 
 One cannot demand of an Englishman, advertising 
 an English book in an English journal to the English 
 public, that he should flatter Prussian patriotism, or 
 pay any regard to it. Even if he were the most im- 
 partial of men, we could not expect him to make the 
 Prussian point of view his own. The English con- 
 sider other nations as a species of barbarians. They
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 145 
 
 esteem and hate those who withstand them, whilst 
 such as yield to them are despised rather than loved. 
 At the time when Macaulay wrote his essay England 
 was a little less estranged from Austria than it is at 
 present, but Prussia was an object of jealously and 
 dislike; of this we find ample proof. England, owing 
 to her position, would not be inclined to regard with 
 pleasure the increasing prosperity of the North Ger- 
 man States. In the last war the English signalized 
 the German ships to the Danish cruisers. Their 
 policy toward Schleswig-Holstein is well known, and 
 their efforts to prevent the creation of a Prussian 
 navy. 
 
 This enmity, if we may so call it, results from the 
 character of the people and their circumstances. It 
 is no intentional malice, but a natural feeling, which, 
 owing to change of circumstances, is by degrees pass- 
 ing away. The antipathy steadily lessens. North 
 Germany and England are dependant on each other 
 in so many ways that, in spite of jealousies, the Eng- 
 lish and the Germans will draw nearer together, just 
 as America and England, notwithstanding occasional 
 rudenesses and hostilities, must grow more and more 
 friendly. It seems decreed that England, America, 
 and Germany shall rule the earth. If in former 
 times the Eomanic belief in kingship permeated all 
 Europe, today it is the Germanic conception of free- 
 dom which is remoulding the nations. "VYe have at 
 last come to a consciousness of this, and opposition
 
 146 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 has ceased. But Macaulay wrote his essay before 
 1848, at the time when Louis Philippe was king, and 
 the world in general old and worn out. To-day it is 
 young and energetic. Romanic law, religion, and 
 literature no longer permeate the soil from which 
 spring the seeds of life and action. The German 
 nation had never willingly yielded to this influence. 
 The Reformation, however, was the first decided step 
 against it ; the Thirty Years' War brought things back 
 into the old ruts. Frederick the Great's victories were 
 the second step, and this, too, the triumphs of Napo- 
 leon seemed to render of no avail. Then came the 
 " Freiheiteskriege." The scales oscillated, until finally 
 things shaped themselves as if impelled by an inward 
 necessity. The gigantic efforts of Louis Napoleon and 
 the Italian church, opposed as they were to the quiet 
 progress of the Germanic races and their faith, ap- 
 peared to many another reaction. But it was not so 
 in reality. Let Austria, Russia, and Italy be once 
 completely intersected with railways, and the spirit 
 of Germanic independence will find an abiding-place 
 in these countries 
 
 Frederick the Great was French by education, wrote 
 in French, philosophized in French, and discussed the 
 Romish church in the tone of the Yoltairean school. 
 He never banished nor persecuted the Catholics, nev- 
 ertheless his victories over France and Austria must 
 be conceived to-day as triumphs of the North German 
 Protestant spirit over the Romanic south. These two
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 147 
 
 sections of our country are still opposed to each other 
 as Catholic and Protestant. But no one thinks the 
 South German church identical with the Italian. 
 Seen from Eome, all Germany is Protestant. Were 
 the language of Eome German instead of Italian, we 
 should all long ago have understood that the distinc- 
 tion is rather one of nationality than faith. The 
 Eomans demand a formula and a tyrant. They do 
 not ask why you are a heretic, but whether you are 
 one or not. If you are not a heretic, it makes no 
 difference what you do ; if you are a heretic, do what 
 you will there is no help for you. But even the mere 
 question with regard to these things, or the slightest 
 coercion attempted over the inward spiritual life of a 
 man, is thoroughly hateful to a German, whether born 
 and educated north or south of the Main. The ex- 
 ternal tyrannical influence of the Italian church over 
 faith and unbelief had, since the tenth century (when 
 the Spaniards reformed the papacy), developed into an 
 all-pervading police system. Against this Frederick's 
 hate was directed. He abhorred fanaticism. This is 
 one of the reasons why his wars were never unpopular. 
 North Germany should be extended that she might 
 assert herself more effectually against Eomanic South 
 Germany; therefore he took Silesia, where more 
 than half the population was Protestant, and there- 
 fore he kept it. Macaulay styles his invasion "base 
 treachery," and adds, that as it was an assault on the 
 whole community of civilized nations (the strife not
 
 148 FKEDEKICK THE GEEAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 being a mere Austria-Prussian one), deserved to be 
 branded with a condemnation much more severe. If a 
 contract like the Pragmatic Sanction, which had been 
 set up and guaranteed in the face of all Europe, had 
 proved insufficient to protect Maria Theresa, what 
 sacred right or title, as Macaulay asks, could protect 
 any nation from arbitrary attacks ? Frederick's own 
 words are : " Ambition, interest, the desire of making 
 people talk about me, carried the day, and I decided 
 for war." All Prussia's claims to Silesia were art- 
 fully contrived pretensions. And now he goes on to 
 describe the beautiful young empress, pale from her 
 last accouchement, the prince upon her arm, in tears 
 begging protection of her people, whose enthusiasm 
 breaks forth in the cry : " Hex nostra Maria Theresa I " 
 We demand of Macaulay neither Protestant nor 
 Prussian sympathies, but the manner in which he 
 contrasts the lovely, innocent, forlorn woman with the 
 atheistic, vain, unattractive man, shows that he has not 
 only strong sympathies with Austria, but also with 
 Maria Theresa personally ; and here we all agree with 
 him, she was a superior woman, the pride of Ger- 
 many ! But Macaulay goes further yet. Frederick's 
 personality is repulsive to him, and this once recog- 
 nized, his narrative loses the sacredness which his 
 unbiased convictions would have retained had he 
 simply followed his enthusiasm. The prejudice be- 
 trayed deprives his work at once of more than half 
 its value. So accustomed are we to reading the
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 149 
 
 Prussian estimate of Frederick the Great, that it cer- 
 tainly would be useful if an opinion of him in the 
 broader European sense could find its way to the 
 public mind. But if a book appears which makes 
 this pretension, or if we ascribe such to it and the 
 book disappoints us in this respect, we must refuse 
 to accept it, and may not conceal the reasons why. 
 
 Supposing Frederick's claims to Silesia had been 
 far more apparent than they were, and supposing he 
 had been provoked to the invasion so that it was not 
 unexpected, still had he done the same thing to-day 
 he would have been blamed, and justly. Count Got- 
 ter, whom he sent to Vienna with war or peace in 
 his pocket, arrived there two days after the Prus- 
 sians had entered Silesia. Frederick relates this him- 
 self. To the Austrian envoy at Berlin, who apprised 
 his court of the preparations going on, and expressed 
 a suspicion of the king's designs, Maria Theresa .re- 
 plied, " We will not, we cannot believe it." Fred- 
 erick's move was really, therefore, an unwarranted 
 assault. 
 
 If Sardinia to-day, in the faith that she had claims 
 on Lombardy, without first demanding in Vienna to 
 have them peacefully conceded, should invade the 
 empire, this would be an outrage, and, as Macaulay 
 says, not only "gross perfidy toward Austria, but 
 toward the whole community of civilized nations." 
 But the Silesian war was carried on a century ago. 
 Only sixty years earlier Louis XIV had taken posses-
 
 150 FKEDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 sion of Strasburg in the same way. This was gross 
 treachery toward Germany, but did not disturb the 
 peace of Europe, for the French succeeded in the 
 stroke, and the ignominy falls upon Germany of hav- 
 ing allowed it. Louis was at that time the more 
 powerful, and he knew that his coup would not break 
 the treaty of peace just ratified. 
 
 Even so Frederick's invasion in his time was no 
 outrage, it was a challenge ! He attacked the 
 mightiest power, and wanted the war. The King of 
 Prussia was then, in the eyes of the overbearing 
 French nobility, only the Marquis of Brandenburg, 
 a poor parvenue, beneath consideration. Frederick's 
 father before him had sought occasion for war in 
 order to give weight to the Prussian name. The 
 hobby he made of his troops was the most useful one 
 he could have ridden. Frederick now had an army at 
 his disposition. He was young. No great ruler has 
 ever been reproached for his ambition, neither Alex-' 
 ander, nor Csesar, nor Napoleon. He was the weaker. 
 He contended against terrible odds, and had to take 
 every advantage. Austria must not have a day for 
 preparation. Therefore he entered the country at 
 once and filled it with his troops. His manner of 
 prosecuting war had still a smack of the Middle Ages 
 in it, for so had the King of France and the Emperor 
 mutually invaded each other's territories centuries 
 earlier, looking out only for their own advantage, and 
 finding pleasure in war. The conception of truth and
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 151 
 
 honesty which obtained in private intercourse was 
 never carried into political relations. Nor is it even 
 to-day. The nations still fall upon one another like 
 wild animals, and the weaker is swallowed up. So it 
 has been from time immemorial. Frederick felt that 
 neither he nor his country enjoyed the consideration 
 to which they were entitled by their intrinsic strength. 
 He took the bull by the horns, and compelled the 
 nations to realize what he was. To-day this might be 
 considered a foolhardy proceeding, but perfidious, if 
 he could carry it through, never. He was stirred by 
 the power within him, and demanded a sphere of 
 action. He did not, like a wolf, attack an innocent 
 fold, but openly challenged a war with the most 
 powerful antagonist in Europe. Frederick was son 
 of the man George II had styled the " pere coporal," 
 the "roi des grands chemins," " archisablier de 1'Em- 
 pire Eomain," and who was treated with the utmost 
 contempt by all the old courts, which contempt ex- 
 tended to his officers and subjects. Now he, upon 
 assuming the reins of government, demands satisfac- 
 tion. He is resolved to occupy a position that is 
 something more than merely conceded to him with 
 lofty condescension. This is the reason why he 
 begins the war, as he plainly tells us in his His- 
 toire de mon Temps, and Macaulay might at least 
 have cited it without mitigating the severity of his 
 sentence. Never was " ambition, interest, and the 
 desire to be talked about " more justifiable than in
 
 152 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 this instance, and Frederick was the man to fight it 
 through. 
 
 Of all this, however, Macaulay makes no mention. 
 He gives a picture of European politics, and yet of the 
 rank of the different nations intellectually says noth- 
 ing, what is merely casual or accidental forming the 
 whole. If we may not agree with those who see in 
 every battle lost or won an indication of the will of 
 Heaven, the view is forlorn indeed which regards uni- 
 versal history as a mere web of accidents, and assumes 
 the highest aim of a nation to be to make its life as tol- 
 erable as possible. There is an ideal growth of nations, 
 and Frederick the Great has infinitely promoted ours. 
 
 Macaulay's personal dislike of the king is even more 
 plainly betrayed by the way in which he speaks of his 
 youthful days up to his ascension to the throne. Life 
 at Kheinsberg consists in dining and supping well 
 and holding romantic literary tournaments. When the 
 crown-prince becomes king he dismisses his associates, 
 as Henry the Fourth Falstaff and company. Macaulay 
 might have told even worse things than these : how 
 Frederick laid before his father calculations in political 
 economy purporting to be his own, but really drawn 
 up by others; how he secretly borrowed from the 
 Austrian ambassador a sum of money which he 
 needed, and was almost in despair when the king, 
 who had been mortally ill, showed signs of recovery ; 
 but neither these things nor those quoted by Macau- 
 lay touch the main springs of action, from which
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 153 
 
 alone any correct judgment of the crown-prince is to 
 be formed. Although he allows that he was badly 
 treated by his father, he gives it a comical-genre aspect. 
 Yet here lay the real cause of all the inward miseries 
 Frederick experienced. He was born with an inflexi- 
 ble nature, which through mistaken treatment was 
 driven to desperation. If Eheinsberg was to be 
 mentioned at all his marriage should have been dis- 
 cussed, against which he struggled in vain and was 
 forced into at last ; that from the outset he was sur- 
 rounded with spies who pretended friendship for him, 
 and then reported everything to the old king in Ber- 
 lin ; how shamefully they took advantage of the bad 
 relations existing between father and son, and would 
 have been glad to make the breach irreparable. This 
 was the mental experience of those years ; it might 
 and really ought to have been emphasized. No one 
 who looks carefully into this Eheinsberg life will ever 
 derive the impression that eating and drinking was 
 the main thing. 
 
 It was at Eheinsberg that the crown-prince wrote 
 his essay Considerations sur VEtat present du Corps 
 Diplomatique de V Europe and the Ante-Machiavelli, 
 two very important works in which the principles of 
 his later policy are clearly set forth. In the first he 
 pictures the relations of the European powers to one 
 another at that time ; its pregnancy is in the proof 
 that all Austria's efforts had been directed to making 
 the German Imperial dignity which was dependent
 
 154 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 on the pre-choice of the princes a hereditary preroga- 
 tive of the house of Hapsburg. The Anti-Machiavelli, 
 which created a great sensation, contains no learned 
 criticism or refutation of the principles of the Floren- 
 tine diplomat, who never intended to furnish a political 
 standard for all time, but simply to represent his own 
 experience. Frederick's book is rather to be considered 
 as the first opposition made by a German prince to 
 the system of government which prevailed generally 
 at that time. According to Machiavelli, the sovereign, 
 with his glory, his interests, and his wealth, is the 
 centre around which revolves the fate of his subjects. 
 Frederick says that the welfare of the people must form 
 this central point. Here is the Germanic doctrine of 
 the relation of prince to people born anew in Prussia, 
 and in Prussia for the first time put into practice. 
 The thousand villanous wiles and intrigues between 
 sovereign and people which Machiavelli enumerates as 
 known and in frequent use in his day (none of which 
 are his invention, he has simply catalogued them), 
 and which had been in common practice in princely 
 palaces since the sixteenth century, roused the burning 
 indignation of Frederick's soul at their immorality. 
 He attacked Machiavelli for the sake of having a tan- 
 gible antagonist, but in his heart meant the Romanic 
 system of government all around him, and in this sense 
 the book was interpreted. To-day we notice only the 
 points in which he misunderstood Machiavelli, who 
 was neither a great man nor a great politician, and
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 155 
 
 more admired by later generations for his penetration 
 than esteemed by his contemporaries. Macaulay's re- 
 nowned essay on Machiavelli contains erroneous views, 
 arising plainly from the author's want of acquaintance 
 with the sources of Florentine history. 
 
 Macaulay hurries over the account of Frederick's 
 Eheinsberg friends. Perhaps we could not expect him 
 to do otherwise in an essay necessarily limited to 
 essentials, and yet if he could find room for a sentence 
 of ten bines in which to speak of the disappointment 
 of a few, who thought after Frederick's coronation they 
 had reached the promised land, and were disagreeably 
 startled out of their dreams by the harsh words, " Now 
 there is an end to these tomfooleries!" there might 
 also have been room enough to mention some who 
 had a different experience. Macaulay's few, however, 
 belonged too appropriately to the dinners and suppers 
 of Eheinsberg to admit of his spoiling the unity of his 
 picture by naming these men later as sharing Fred- 
 erick's victories and his renown. Frederick, whom he 
 describes as the meanest of the mean, at any rate 
 never let these men famish. Kurd von Schlozer has 
 given us a picture of this Rheinsberg circle in his 
 Chasot. That those who thought best of the crown- 
 prince expected a Telemachus after Fenelon's pattern 
 is a curious assertion of the English author. 
 
 Frederick assumed the government at twenty -eight 
 years of age. He had already announced his political 
 principles. His character was matured, and his friends
 
 156 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 knew him too well to expect anything of the kind 
 " Others," continues Macaulay, " predicted the approach 
 of a Medicean age, an age propitious to learning and 
 art, and not unpropitious to pleasure." If any imag- 
 ined this they were by no means disappointed at first ; 
 for the assertion is false, that as soon as Frederick 
 touched the crown he became a changed man, imbued 
 with the spirit of an unbounded miserliness, which 
 broke out over night like some inherited disease. He 
 is accused of having proved faithless to everything 
 he had said or loved as crown-prince. In truth, his 
 personal experience, especially his wars, did make it 
 somewhat difficult for him to follow in the footsteps of 
 the Medici ; but so long as he lived he was devoted to 
 the arts and sciences, and spent a great deal of money 
 in their service. His tastes did not rise to the purely 
 classic, and to dabble in dilettanti fashion in poetry 
 and science, especially in the department of medicine 
 (although it escaped the sharp scrutiny of our critic), 
 was a weakness, but a weakness of his time. In his 
 printed correspondence we find proof that he was 
 always in earnest about these matters, and eager to 
 know the ablest men in each province. Indeed, in 
 comparison with his zeal for what was positively 
 useful, or for the promotion of art and science, his 
 own verse-making was a mere innocent pastime, 
 the more so, that he never filched a moment from 
 the state affairs for his poetical effusions, nor de- 
 manded the flattery of the public by having them
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 157 
 
 printed. 1 To-day, when all these papers have been 
 dragged to light and published, we are apt to forget 
 this. What the king did send into the world in his 
 lifetime were things of weight and importance. If 
 really ambitious, as Macaulay says, of being handed 
 down to posterity as a great author, he at any rate took 
 pains to deserve it. His writings are elaborate works 
 in the composition of which he had his nation in view 
 that he hoped to benefit ; and if, secondarily, posterity 
 shared his thought, he did not flatter himself with 
 illusions. Those who have no prejudice against his 
 productions, from the style and the French, cannot fail 
 to admire the clear arrangement of material, the sim- 
 plicity of narration, and the unreserved way in which 
 he speaks of his own faults. 
 
 " No one," says Macaulay (I come back to the ex- 
 pectations cherished of the king on his ascension to 
 the throne), " had the least suspicion that a tyrant of 
 extraordinary military and political talent, of industry 
 more extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, 
 and without mercy, had ascended the throne." 
 
 This contains the pith of his criticism. That a man 
 like Macaulay is always fascinating, that his account 
 of the Seven Years' War, and of the Silesian campaigns, 
 attest descriptive power of the very highest kind, I 
 need not tell those who have read the essay. The 
 author's forte lies in just such rapid retrospects of 
 
 1 He only allowed some of his early poems to be printed for a 
 small circle of his intimate friends.
 
 158 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 eventful times. Nothing could be more brilliant than 
 his manner, for instance, of depicting the conquest of 
 India by Lord Clive. Our steps are close beside the 
 hero's, and we experience his victories with him. So, 
 too, with Frederick. We see the wave which raises 
 him, and the succeeding one beneath which he sinks ; 
 and how again with renewed strength and unclouded 
 eye he raises and sustains himself above the stormy 
 waters. Macaulay's manner of writing gives the im- 
 pression that he is wholly infallible. All the more 
 is contradiction demanded when this extraordinary 
 talent is used to exhibit false and damaging views, as 
 if they were results of clear, conscientious observa- 
 tions. 
 
 Let us grant for a moment that the king was with- 
 out fear and without mercy. To demand of a military 
 leader that he should be swayed by sympathy and 
 pity, when a kingdom and his honor were at stake, is 
 to demand too much. But never has Frederick been 
 called cruel or inhuman. He had no Croates or Pan- 
 dours in his army. He was harsh toward his people, 
 his own family, and most of all toward his brothers. 
 The manner in which he treats Prince Henry, an emi- 
 nent diplomat and general, even into old age, is often 
 perfectly insulting. But even here he is always con- 
 sistent and intelligible, never acting from cruel, arbi- 
 trary impulse, like a brute tyrant ; never a hint gives 
 the impression that to punish gives him pleasure, or 
 that he takes satisfaction in cutting men to the heart.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 159 
 
 We, on the contrary, often see clearly that he is un- 
 conscious how hard he is. From his earliest years, 
 trained in a hard school, severity and suspicion became 
 infused into his blood. He was always solitary ; from 
 youth up he never met with a soul he dared to trust, 
 not even his sister whom he loved so dearly. Perhaps 
 he never uttered the inmost feelings of his heart; and 
 he to whom this is denied must be unhappy. The 
 time has not yet come to form a perfectly unbiased 
 judgment of Frederick. He is too near our own day ; 
 many of his written utterances are still unprinted ! 
 But whatever may be said in the future about him, he 
 will never be reputed a tyrant without loyalty, shame, 
 or mercy, as Macaulay has styled him. Neither in 
 public nor private relations was he this ! Never did 
 he bind the fate of a people to his own, and then 
 coldly sacrifice it to circumstances. Never did he 
 appeal to the love of plunder in his troops to stimu- 
 late their bravery, never persecuted the conquered to 
 gratify personal revenge. Necessity forced him to 
 drain Saxony ; but his own country fared no better. 
 It possessed less and yielded less. He destroyed 
 Bruhl's palace in Dresden ; but this was richly de- 
 served punishment for the count's intriguing policy. 
 Ludwig Sforza and Caesar Borgia were men without 
 shame, truth, or mercy ; but even "Wallenstein is not so 
 severely condemned, although he prosecuted war in a 
 most inhuman fashion, and ended as a so-called traitor ; 
 or Louis Quatorze, who let loose a herd of tigers in the
 
 160 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 Palatinate, when " political necessity " led him to dev- 
 astate this innocent land. We judge them with more 
 leniency, because in other directions their characters 
 appear too, grand to allow us to pass such a sweeping 
 sentence on them as a whole. Faithless and merciless 
 we call princes whose deeds show that their life-giving 
 impulses are devoid of all truth and mercy. Whether 
 it be justifiable to wage war when it can be avoided, 
 or to open a war not positively called for in self- 
 defence, may admit of discussion in the abstract ; but 
 this much is certain, that nations have always been 
 proud of their victorious kings, and the question has 
 never been raised on what ground they made war. 
 
 When Frederick took possession of Silesia, Prussia 
 had between two and three millions of inhabitants, 
 and her revenues amounted to seven and a half mil- 
 lions. The army consisted of somewhat over eighty- 
 three thousand men. The country had no debt, and 
 in the treasury was about nine millions of thalers. 
 The territories belonging to the crown were, however, 
 for the most part widely scattered, and even the com- 
 pact centre had no safe boundaries. Of the troops, 
 twenty-six thousand were foreign hirelings. Prussia 
 possessed neither Saxony, Silesia, Pomerania, Poland, 
 nor the Rhine lands. But Austria, when Frederick 
 attacked her, possessed Silesia, the provinces of the 
 Netherlands, and an altogether different influence in 
 the empire from what it has to-day. The electorate 
 of Cologne, Mayence, Treves, and Bavaria, all adding
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 161 
 
 their considerable quotas, stood at Austria's service. 
 At that time the princes trafficked with their regi- 
 ments as oxen-dealers with their herds. 1 
 
 Had Frederick been overwhelmed by this superior 
 force which he had challenged, we might indeed have 
 accused him of wanton rashness. But he won his 
 cause. " Prussia was " these are his words "a kind 
 of hermaphrodite, and more electorate than kingdom. 
 It was a glorious task to decide finally which of the 
 two it should be, and the recognition of this necessity 
 it was which nerved the king's arm for the terrible 
 task he set before him." Like Caesar, Frederick always 
 speaks of himself in the third person. 
 
 He would no longer suffer the tokens of contempt 
 which his father had quietly borne. They had taught 
 him that he must win for himself, and more especially 
 for his nation, the respect due to both ; that moderation 
 is a virtue statesmen must not carry too far, inasmuch 
 as the corruption everywhere does not allow of it ; and 
 lastly, since a change of government had come in, that 
 it was more advisable to manifest his power than 
 meekly to submit. At the close of her wars Prussia 
 was no longer a contemptible interloper among the 
 royal powers, but a dreaded peer, whose will must be 
 consulted before a single shot could be fired in Europe. 
 
 How was it possible to leave this view of things so 
 
 " L'electeur de Cologne entretenait huit a douze milles homines, 
 dont il trafignait comme un bouvier avec ses bestraux." Histoire 
 de mon Temps, I. 28.
 
 162 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 wholly out of sight if any correct judgment of Fred- 
 erick's wars was to be gained? And yet Macaulay 
 ignores it completely. He lays great emphasis on 
 single traits in the king's character, but nowhere 
 shows the focus in which all unite, or the genesis 
 which explains their raison d'etre. He says the pecu- 
 liarities of his father broke out again in him ! Possibly 
 he may be borne out in this statement ; but what does 
 it signify, when speaking of such a grand, unique indi- 
 viduality, to fall back on the one-sided theory of fatal- 
 istic natural inheritance, when the circumstances which 
 really formed and must form it are so clearly discern- 
 ible ? Macaulay has eyes only for what was genre-like 
 and whimsical in the man. His one dirty, shabby old 
 coat, his snuff-box, his crutch-cane, in a word, what 
 rendered him a conspicuous figure in the street and a 
 favorite subject in wax-cabinet exhibitions, is graphi- 
 cally portrayed ; about the man himself our author is 
 silent. I believe, however, this is not owing to malice 
 prepense, as it might appear; for with Macaulay the 
 clothes of men always form an important part of their 
 soul. He is a brilliant advocate for or against a person, 
 and his words have the accent of a special pleader 
 who would move the jury on the instant to say " yes " 
 or "no." His essay on Frederick is directed against 
 the great king. No falser method than that of not 
 doing full justice to him upon whom the judge is to 
 pronounce sentence, and thus making it appear as if 
 something more than a fair judgment was demanded.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 163 
 
 I think if Macaulay had started with the intention of 
 being perfectly just and impartial he would not have 
 reiterated as he does the expression, "to do justice to 
 the king." After hearing him through we are in the 
 frame of mind to let justice have its course, and declare 
 the accused guilty. Among the most contemptible 
 means for compelling such a verdict is the artifice of 
 mentioning at the outset one of the most damaging 
 imputations against the moral life of the king, thus 
 interpreting all his actions a priori as those of a repro- 
 bate crowned by blind fate with success. It cannot 
 be my purpose here to defend Frederick. I am only 
 trying to throw a little light on the tactics of his 
 accuser. 
 
 He handles his subject skilfully indeed, and has the 
 advantage on his side of being a renowned historian. 
 Perhaps among us this gives him even more weight than 
 in his own country. In truth, this is the reason why 
 the essay assumes such importance in our eyes. 
 
 The question whether it is allowable to make use of 
 history for political aims would be answered differently 
 in England than with us. We contemplate the past 
 from a certain philosophic remoteness ; we become par- 
 tisans, but belong to no special party as represented at 
 the present day. The main point is to set forth the 
 truth, not to make proselytes. We leave people free 
 to make their own choice. But in England it has 
 always been the custom to utilize the storehouses of 
 history for political purposes, and Macaulay may have
 
 164 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 done it this time without a thought of harm, even if 
 fully conscious of his intention. 
 
 In this way we explain the frivolity with which he 
 handles the facts. The whole tone of his essay, how- 
 ever, is less strange when we call to mind a wondrous 
 peculiarity of our epoch. All that is mythical in 
 times gone by our age rejects. No one believes any 
 longer in heroes whose characters were unaffected by 
 the little prosaic needs of human life, whose thoughts 
 were a perpetual inspiration, and whose feelings were 
 guided by immortal passions. Such figures are ban- 
 ished from the realm of history, and scarcely tolerated 
 in that of poetry. With the same composure with 
 which we observe the various eras in the formation of 
 our planet we dig out the roots of the oldest nations 
 from the legendary soil in which they flourished, shake 
 off the mould from their fine fibres, and compare the 
 plants with those which are to-day blooming and bear- 
 ing fruit. Mommsen comes and blows aside the old 
 gray mists resting over the swamps on the Tiber banks, 
 and we see the city of Romulus arise as naturally 
 as among us the foundations are laid and the walls 
 raised for soldiers' barracks. The same labor and the 
 same material was expended to build a wall thou- 
 sands of years ago as now, and the ancient elephant 
 hungered, fed, and digested according to the same laws 
 as the elephant of to-day. This point of view is so 
 consonant to modern thought that it has become the 
 ruling one in all the sciences.
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 165 
 
 To politics and history it was first most boldly 
 applied in England. A parliament sits in London, 
 where the doings of kings and emperors are discussed 
 as formerly in the Roman senate. A member of Par- 
 liament deems himself one of the arbitrators of peace 
 and war for the whole world, and the other gentlemen 
 in Europe had better take their resolutions accord- 
 ingly. Hence, also, the method of putting themselves 
 on a very familiar footing with historical personages. 
 Macaulay handles Frederick the Great exactly as if he 
 were his equal, and his school imitates his example. 
 Csesar and Pompey, whose faults and virtues have been 
 hitherto covered with a veil which threw over them 
 a vague poetic light, are now people like ourselves ; 
 they are dragged forth into the full light of day, the 
 dust knocked out of their togas, the rusty old weapons 
 cleaned and furbished up again, while they are told 
 without ceremony to their faces, " Here you were clever, 
 and there you made fools of yourselves." Frederick 
 gets as sound a drubbing as if the things had hap- 
 pened yesterday, and a newspaper correspondent had 
 reported them to a London paper. 
 
 And who will forbid this ? Were they not all mor- 
 tal men like ourselves, who ate, drank, thought, acted, 
 and repented as we do ? Calmly we ask, and appear to 
 forget entirely the monstrous distinction that we live 
 while they are dead. The years between their time 
 and ours are a sea which no ship traverses. The life 
 of a dead man may not be subjected to the same meas-
 
 166 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 ure by which we estimate the deeds of the living. 
 The myth is no artificial rust that is to render the 
 appearance of things more interesting, but the genuine 
 platina which we cannot destroy without destroying 
 the monument itself, whose accessory only it seems to 
 be. Every dead man, even if but just buried, has 
 become already a mythical person ; and every year in 
 its flight adds to the mysterious halo that surrounds 
 him. What the sculptor does at the moment when he 
 chisels the bust of a living man Time slowly and 
 gradually does for the dead. The passage of years 
 renders more and more general the features it trans- 
 mits, and the less individual. They grow more and 
 more beautiful of superior men, whilst those of the 
 insignificant masses soon fade into nothingness. We 
 may say, in truth, that a great man absorbs and unites 
 in himself the best features of a generation that, in 
 itself, is fast vanishing and passing into oblivion. We 
 discover through a telescope that a star is a small 
 glittering point, and that the rays we perceive with 
 our naked eye are only illusory ; but there is no such 
 instrument for the men whom death removes beyond 
 our vision. "De mortuis nil nisi bene," is no mere 
 good-natured adage inspired by vague, universal sym- 
 pathy. Every man, as soon as he is dead, is seen 
 through a tenderer light, and his discordant being 
 assumes harmonious shape. 
 
 What we never forgive the living we forgive the 
 dead. Their faults do not cease to be faults, but
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 167 
 
 the hatred is silenced that once followed them. They 
 have entered a higher sphere, which it would be inhu- 
 man not to respect. 
 
 Yet how natural in struggling with a political party 
 to call the past to our aid, and, identifying it with the 
 present, deal out to our historical antagonist the blows 
 intended for the living! It is a political right arro- 
 gated by the present in regard to the past, but one 
 which will never be acknowledged in Germany. With 
 us science can never be used as means to further party 
 aims. We are the only people who can and do judge 
 events from an ideal standpoint ; we have been made 
 to suffer for this, but can never give it up, for it is in 
 harmony with our nature, and our one stay and sup- 
 port. We should be as weak and powerless without 
 this inward light, as we have often enough been 
 tempted to represent ourselves. In Germany, histori- 
 ography will never be permitted to take a one-sided 
 political standpoint, but must so conceive and describe 
 the deeds of nations as they most clearly reveal the 
 god-like power of humanity. 
 
 In many cases even Macaulay cannot do otherwise. 
 In his essay on Byron he enumerates a great number 
 of single traits, exhibits him in every conceivable 
 position, and remains throughout so cool and unbiased 
 that his calm observation is nowhere resolved into 
 partiality ; but he winds up by saying, " To us he is 
 now only the poet, young, noble, unhappy." Thus he 
 writes directly after Byron's death, claiming for him,
 
 168 FREDERICK THE GREAT AND MACAULAY. 
 
 even then, the purifying, absolving power of history, 
 which he seems to have wholly forgotten in the case 
 of our great king. We have not forgotten it. 
 
 We will not upbraid him, however, for what he has 
 chosen to say about Frederick ; had he been a German 
 he would have written very differently. I believe his 
 opinion stands alone, even in England, and there, too, 
 encounters just contradiction. If he had been a Ger- 
 man, he must have been accused of perfidy, ignorance, 
 and want of patriotism. Macaulay, in this essay, has 
 given expression to a rashly-formed opinion of a for- 
 eign prince, but we should deserve severe censure if 
 we took from such a source our knowledge of the man 
 who has contributed so powerfully to the greatness of 
 Germany.
 
 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 WHEN speaking of distinguished poets or artists, of 
 Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Eaphael, or Eubens, their 
 principal works the works from which they derive 
 their fame rise involuntarily before our view. We 
 say Goethe, and think of Ipliiyenia, Wertlier, Faust ; 
 or Raphael, and mean the Stanzas of the Vatican and 
 the Sistine Madonna. And so, likewise, of great gen- 
 erals and renowned scholars, their names are syno- 
 nyms for glorious battles, or books which in themselves 
 were eras. 
 
 The artist of whom we are now to speak does not 
 seem to have reared any such lofty pedestal to his 
 fame. Albert Diirer ! he is universally known as an 
 eminent painter, as foremost in rank ; but where are 
 his masterpieces ? Where is the one great work with 
 which he came forward to kindle the enthusiasm of 
 the world, as Goethe with Wertlier, Corneille with the 
 Cid, Michael Angelo with the Pietd ? What was the 
 crowning point of his activity, of his life ? 
 
 He lived in Nuremberg. His house there has been 
 carefully restored, and is now visited as a pilgrim 
 shrine. Diirer himself stands before us a magnifi- 
 cent man, tall, with clear eyes, and dark blonde curls 
 falling over his shoulders; but this is almost all we 
 
 169
 
 170 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 know of him. We indeed remember here and there 
 having had occasionally some bit pointed out to us as 
 being Diirer's work ; but no one ever stood lost in rap- 
 ture before a picture of Diirer's, as so many have done 
 before Raphael's Madonnas. Diirer's productions float 
 before us a maze of small things, engravings, wood- 
 cuts, drawings, pretty paintings in miniature on parch- 
 ment, carvings in wood and ivory ; more like treasures 
 and relics than pictures, which by their power or 
 beauty assert a right to a distinguished position. And 
 yet no one questions Diirer's having been a great 
 artist. Are his works, then, lost or destroyed, or have 
 they been carried away into distant lands ? On what 
 does his reputation rest ? Where are the proofs of his 
 greatness ? 
 
 And here, at once, this may be said, Diirer's fame, 
 exalting him so high, and comprehending the whole 
 man, is of recent date ; Diirer's name was always 
 honored, but the tone in which it is uttered to-day is 
 struck for the first time. In treating of him person- 
 ally, therefore, we must include some discussion of 
 the characteristics of our age, which has first brought 
 him forward in this radiant light. 
 
 Our age is one of scientific research. Every man 
 who has been able in any respect to lift himself out 
 of the callous state of brute ignorance strives to share 
 'in the labors of the great fraternity devoted to the 
 scientific investigation of all that exists. A potent 
 charm emanates from such labors, and not from their
 
 ALBERT DURER. 171 
 
 material value, enormous as this has been, but from 
 the fact that they have tended to establish the laws 
 governing the universe. Whoever pursues scientific 
 studies at the present day, with a view to mercantile 
 advantage, and is successful in obtaining results, is 
 respected; but the absolutely noble are the laborers 
 in the cause of truth itself. No more genuine aris- 
 tocracy exists to*-day than the aristocracy of learning, 
 Two facts have grown out of this bias of the present 
 generation toward science, of radical effect, the gigan- 
 tic increase in numbers of men dedicating their lives 
 to scientific research and following upon new views a 
 speedy deduction of the extremest consequences. A 
 freedom devoid of limitations or prejudice has appeared 
 which we regard with some perplexity. The elder 
 among us (using this word in its mildest sense) were 
 brought up in the faith that the original progenitors of 
 mankind had enjoyed immediate intercourse with the 
 Deity ; but now, when the transmitted records of Scrip- 
 ture are no longer the sole authority, when everything 
 that can give answer is questioned (and every tiniest 
 stone and drop of water gives answer to-day), we are 
 led to think that our connection is with the monkeys. 
 A vast multitude of people, and more perhaps than 
 we imagine, calmly acquiesce, with all seriousness, in 
 the notion that we derive our origin from these animals, 
 and this, too, merely because science has to a certain 
 extent plausibly demonstrated the connection between 
 man and monkey. In place of ancestors, mighty,
 
 172 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 heroic ideals, their descendants must strive after in 
 vain, we have now the wretched savage dwellers in the 
 lake cities whose veritable bones we anatomize. No 
 one ventures to doubt these palpable records of the 
 oldest history or to resist the conclusions derived from 
 them. Nor is it better in the province of religion. 
 What could exceed in purity the primal aspect of Chris- 
 tianity and its evidences ? But this beginning is treated 
 of to-day as if it were a question concerning some- 
 thing which lately happened and ought to be discussed 
 without passion. Everything may now come under 
 controversy if it only assumes the form of scientific 
 inquiry. Strangely enough, too, this does not increase 
 our presumption, but tends to humiliate us. We take 
 a lower place. Our earth, with its vicissitudes, is only a 
 brief incident in the creation of the universe. We no 
 longer flatter ourselves the world was made for man. 
 And still further the human race, with its entire his- 
 tory, constitutes but a limited episode even in the expe- 
 rience in our own planet ; the nations are but portions 
 of mankind which we observe and study like individ- 
 uals. We weigh carefully their tendencies, capacities, 
 and achievements, coolly decide on their value or signifi- 
 cance, and construct their history by representing these 
 qualities as the moving principle. With all attainable 
 means we endeavor to trace the earlier as well as later 
 condition of the different nations. When in former 
 days the theme was history, it was a narration of bat- 
 tles and the fate of dynasties ; but now an infinite
 
 ALBERT DURER. 173 
 
 complication of causes and motives, acting one upon 
 another, must be considered. It is a chase after new 
 points of view. Once it was much to have found a 
 practicable way through the woods, but now every 
 leaf on the trees by the wayside must be counted; 
 every stone must be turned over to see if anything 
 lies concealed beneath it ; every change in the weather 
 is observed and registered. Countless years since an 
 arrow-point, wrought by the hand of man, remained 
 sticking in the body of an animal slain in the chase. 
 Strata upon strata, sand and soil have heaped them- 
 selves above it. To-day we dig into this, find the arrow- 
 head, measure the depth, and decide from the work 
 and the strata of earth the nature of a departed race 
 that lived thousands of years ago. Splinters of bone, 
 according to their different forms, become hieroglyph- 
 ics reporting an intelligible story. A dozen words, 
 carved a thousand years since, perhaps, and not under- 
 stood at that time, now show the nature of a language, 
 or contain pregnant disclosures regarding the seat or 
 spread of a people. We look about us on all sides with 
 such unlimited freedom, that nothing any longer seems 
 beyond our grasp. 
 
 It is exactly here, however, while carrying these 
 investigations back to times whose remoteness we 
 formerly dared not measure, that in connection with 
 the positive results a negative side appears. The ear- 
 lier historians, to be sure, worked with scant material 
 enough, seldom knew the facts exactly, and were
 
 174 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 forced to shape their pictures out of the nebulae. Yet, 
 on the other hand, our passions, which, after all, are the 
 exciting elements in all human intercourse, were dis- 
 played in those early days in their unalloyed integrity, 
 and history, which to us to-day seems the result of 
 compelling laws acting one upon another from multi- 
 farious directions, was somewhat more free and com- 
 prehensible. No fact is willingly believed at the 
 present time, if proof cannot be furnished that it 
 occurred just as stated. We wish to feel that we 
 understand an event so clearly that no point in it 
 remains absolutely dark. The most brilliant elucida- 
 tion of the growth and achievements of nations is 
 found in Buckle's History of Civilization, which in its 
 comprehensive introduction grasps the principles under- 
 lying the destinies of these various peoples and nations. 
 So long as Buckle limits himself to a comparison of 
 the qualities of our planet with those of the people 
 inhabiting the various parts of it, he finds startling 
 and magnificent points of view. When, however, he 
 enters the sphere in which for the interpretation of 
 conflicts of spiritual origin not only a perception of 
 the principal influences controlling the masses is de- 
 manded, but also a recognition of the individuality 
 manifest in single leaders, he is powerless. He appre- 
 hends and explains only what relates to the passive in 
 man, and his treatment fails altogether when extended 
 to the active and creative. For here it does not suffice 
 to consider man simply as an object of natural his- 
 tory.
 
 ALBERT PURER. 175 
 
 It is very striking that, whilst in knowledge of the 
 external conditions of life we have enlarged our hori- 
 zon so vastly, we have rather fallen back as concerns 
 the inner life both in keenness of insight and in the 
 expression and delineation of it. At any rate, there 
 has been no progress to speak of. The remotest 
 accounts of spiritual things go back two or three 
 thousand years; men would seem to have remained 
 ever the same. Love, hatred, ambition, and the kin- 
 dred passions, were felt by the old Greeks exactly as 
 we feel them to-day, but were better observed than by 
 us ; they were greater orators, writers, poets, sculptors, 
 architects, yes, greater thinkers than we. The mys- 
 teries of human nature have not been solved through 
 increase of knowledge. Many things in history are 
 cleared up, owing to the immense enlargement of our 
 resources ; but the one problem remains, after all, un- 
 solvable as of yore, the secret of the vital growth 
 of nations. To be sure, we are perfectly aware of this 
 at the present day. We feel that the people have 
 spiritual epochs, and that, even while realizing them 
 to be of the utmost importance, they elude our grasp, 
 notwithstanding a great amount of external and posi- 
 tive fact. Our own experience convinces us that a few 
 men stimulate and direct the animus of their day, and 
 are at once its type and most faithful reflection. We 
 believe these men will give to coming generations their 
 conception of it, and seek for such men in past cen- 
 turies as have rendered this service to their times. It
 
 176 ALBERT DUEER. 
 
 has been, and must remain, one of the chief tasks of 
 a historian to find these men, and to study them in 
 the true light. In order, therefore, to understand an 
 era, we must first see the men who lived in it. This 
 brings us back to Diirer. 
 
 Diirer's fame is of recent date, because it is only in 
 our times that he has been recognized as the standard 
 of the intellectual progress of his age. And so high 
 has this ennobling distinction raised him, that he now 
 ranks as a great painter without having actually fur- 
 nished visible proofs of it. 
 
 In certain periods the men whom I designate as rep- 
 resentative are at once evident. All are perfectly 
 aware that Voltaire was the reflection of the intellect- 
 ual movement in France in the middle of the last cen- 
 tury; Rousseau, of the times preceding the French 
 Revolution, whilst the beginning of the Revolution 
 itself finds expression in Mirabeau. "What Goethe, 
 Plato, Pericles, and Phidias include and signify is 
 familiar to every one. But take Italian history as 
 mirrored in Dante, and, were we obliged to conceive 
 the spiritual life of Italy through him alone, at the 
 turning-point between the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries, the gloom and bitterness of his nature would 
 prevent us from gaming a complete view of his times. 
 We look about for a man who reflects the bright side 
 of life in his day; the painter Giotto stands beside 
 Dante, and affords the counterpart. But few indeed of 
 his works are preserved to-day ; as with Diirer, scarcely
 
 ALBERT DURER. 177 
 
 anything which in itself proclaims the great painter. 
 But his place by the side of Dante confers upon him 
 higher rank, and brings him forward as the indispensa- 
 ble man of historical significance. 
 
 Let us proceed with Italy. In the transition period 
 from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century a man is 
 wanting who includes, and at the same time represents, 
 as much as Dante in former centuries. Michael An- 
 gelo was far too one-sided, and Machiavelli no less so ; 
 we ask for the man who reflects the brilliant side of 
 life, Raphael appears ! These three men, however, 
 embrace nearly the whole. I do not know of one who 
 typifies the warlike element of the times. Certainly, 
 neither Caesar Borgia, nor Julius II, nor Bourbon, nor 
 the Colonnas, nor any other of the renowned soldiers. 
 Too much of the perishable makes a part of their 
 natures, and what is really living in them seems 
 a reflection of Machiavelli, without whom the times 
 would be incomprehensible. Machiavelli, Michael An- 
 gelo, Raphael, include all the rest. Even Savonarola 
 would grow indistinct without them as a background. 
 
 But now we will pass to Germany at the same 
 period. A crowd of characters here seem to present 
 themselves ; yet, drawing nearer to scrutinize > them, 
 three only stand out as representative men, living 
 realities to their own and following ages, Luther, 
 Hutten, .and Albert Diirer. They explain everything. 
 Luther, the power, the will, and the self-consciousness ; 
 Hutten, the unrest, the pertinacity, and also the con-
 
 178 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 fusion ; Diirer, the joy in productive labor, the integ- 
 rity, and contentment, of the German people as they 
 appeared to the world in that day. 
 
 Casting a glance back, there in Italy is Giotto beside 
 Dante, then Raphael and Michael Angelo, and finally 
 in Germany Diirer. To fathom the works of these 
 men, and from them to gain acquaintance with the 
 times which called them forth and constitute a part 
 of them, is the science of art at the present day, long 
 since well understood and applied to classic art whose 
 merits have been proportionally realized. This study 
 has not yet extended to the works of modern art, nor 
 their wealth been fully recognized. 
 
 Albert Diirer stands before me in the perfect har- 
 mony of all the finest human attributes. When we 
 think of Michael Angelo we are attracted to a lonely 
 man, whose life, as a whole, forms a picture of almost 
 painful isolation. If we should compare Diirer and 
 Raphael to countries which limited, and limiting fill 
 out their boundaries, and yet appear only as parts of a 
 whole, sharing with others chains of mountains, rivers, 
 and highways, we must compare Michael Angelo to 
 an entire continent surrounded by water. Defective 
 in many respects, but unique in all, having its own 
 inhabitants, its own vegetation, with vast solitudes 
 and stretches of desert, and its own sky. All outward 
 interests seemed of trifling importance to Michael 
 Angelo, as it were superfluous. He bore no relation 
 to his fellow-men which influenced his life. He was
 
 ALBERT DURER. 179 
 
 what he was from the beginning ; no one guided him 
 in the course he took, nor could he instruct any one 
 how to follow in his footsteps. 
 
 On the whole, he appears poor and sunless. His 
 favorite simile of himself in his poems is of one " born 
 in the dark and wandering in the night." He could 
 only envy others what had been denied to him. 
 Where such a man comes forward with his colossal 
 productions, and nevertheless is misunderstood and 
 falsely judged, one finds every incentive to make the 
 greatest effort to rend the dark veil behind which he 
 seems waiting for the light. All that can be done for 
 him, however, is much like entering a sombre hall in 
 which a mighty statue stands, and, lighting a little can- 
 dle at the foot of it, we see the outline grow some- 
 what clearer. Many things come out faintly illumi- 
 nated, but on the whole only great masses separate 
 the figure from the surrounding darkness. Who ap- 
 proaches sees just enough to surmise that here stands 
 the image of a powerful man, but never perhaps will 
 it be brought forward into the clear light of day. 
 
 Turn now, on the other hand, to Raphael and Albert 
 Diirer ! It is like stepping out of this stillness, dark- 
 ness, and loneliness into the midst of a cheerful mar- 
 ket-place, where the window-panes glisten on every 
 side, fountains gush forth, and people mingle in the 
 whirl of business. Nothing strange or replete with 
 mystery comes here to meet us. We are only con- 
 fused because unable at a glance to take in the whole ;
 
 180 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 one thing after another must be surveyed in turn. 
 The crowd of genial, living faces, like the air of 
 spring, seems infinite and exhaustless. How many 
 dark, attractive eyes glance at us in all directions as 
 we skim over in memory Raphael's works ! How 
 vividly the cheerful stir of German city life, hoth 
 public and private, comes before us when we think of 
 Diirer's ! We see Michael Angelo once in youth and 
 again in old age flying to Venice ; the first time driven 
 away by a frightful dream, the second with thoughts 
 of the ruin of his country in his soul. Eaphael, on 
 the contrary, travels serenely through Umbria and 
 Toskana, and radiant with hope enters Eome. Diirer 
 rides gayly over the Alps to Venice, or, light of heart, 
 with wife and maid, roves about in the Netherlands. 
 To sit next to Michael Angelo at table would be like 
 supping with heroes, where one weighs every word 
 that he hears, and more conscientiously still that he 
 utters. By the side of Diirer and Raphael one could 
 have talked and enjoyed the wine. They are genial 
 beings whom we joyfully rush forward to greet, just 
 for a pressure of the hand, whilst with Michael An- 
 gelo we are contented to watch him at a distance, as 
 we look at some grand statue drawn triumphantly 
 through the streets of a city. 
 
 Diirer and Raphael are Italy and Germany side by 
 side in the same epoch. No description makes the 
 contrast between the two countries so clear as the sight 
 of these men and their productions. Here and there
 
 ALBERT DURER. 181 
 
 a blossom shooting up suddenly, like the aloe, into 
 supreme beauty to astonish and gladden the eyes of 
 men. In Italy the son of a poor painter is trans- 
 planted from a narrow provincial town to Eome, where, 
 in the space of fifteen years, he mounts all the steps 
 leading to wealth and renown : he dies young, having 
 had the prospect before him of becoming cardinal, and 
 leaving palaces, money, and the pope in tears. All the 
 influential men and nobles boasted of their acquaint- 
 ance with him, or of the possession of his works, if 
 they had been so fortunate as to obtain them. Rome 
 seemed empty after Raphael's death. And this side 
 of the Alps, on the other hand, we find Diirer, son of 
 a citizen of Nuremberg, a town in the heart of Ger- 
 many, never touched by that concentrated flame of 
 glory in the midst of which Raphael stood, but irradi- 
 ated with a soft light, which penetrated to the north 
 and to the south as far as Rome, so that Raphael caught 
 its beams, sent gifts and exchanged with him words 
 of friendship. He worked persistently, without ever 
 receiving any large commissions, even from the com- 
 munity he helped to raise to distinction with himself. 
 Let us contemplate this artist and the various spe- 
 cimens of his work. What a bright, happy, self-sus- 
 tained being he was from his earliest youth, even when, 
 as an apprentice to Wohlgemuth, he had much to suffer 
 from " the boys," up to his death, attributed by his 
 friends to the excessive labor urged upon him by the 
 parsimony of his wife. We do not, however, believe
 
 182 ALBEET DtfKER. 
 
 that Diirer ever allowed himself to be henpecked ; for 
 a merry, yes, roguish spirit, breaks forth in all his 
 works. In reading his Venetian letters we cannot but 
 think that a nature armed with such humor must have 
 been more than a match for the bad temper of a 
 woman. His diary in the Netherlands, in which he 
 notes down all his expenses, seems to prove this. He 
 often eats and drinks with boon companions, leaving 
 wife and maid to take care of themselves ; his losses 
 at play are not infrequently quoted, while he buys 
 collections of curiosities and whatever comes under 
 his hand. Diirer must have had somewhat of the 
 gentilezza which distinguished Raphael Nothing put 
 him out, and when he died (as with Eaphael) his 
 friends missed the man more than the artist. Pirk- 
 heimer, in elegiac verses on his death, lays great stress 
 on Diirer's general superiority, on his many-sidedness, 
 as if art had been only one of the many gifts and 
 graces which adorned him. Luther, exclaiming at the 
 horrors committed by the Anabaptists, writes, "God 
 seems to have taken Diirer away to save him the pain 
 of living to witness them." Diirer, dying, left a great 
 void behind. Of how few this can be said those know 
 best who have experienced with surprise how often 
 after the death of the most distinguished man scarcely 
 a token remains to indicate the loss. 
 
 What the word of a representative man, however, is 
 worth to his times we discover from one of Luther's 
 utterances. Much had been collected in those days in
 
 ALBERT DUKER. 183 
 
 praise of Nuremberg, a mass of very creditable mate- 
 rial ; but it was only relative, and did not give the city 
 any special rank. But now we have Luther's words : 
 " Nuremberg is the eyes and ears of Germany," auris 
 et oculus Germaniac, and these conferred on Nurem- 
 berg that patent of nobility which all previous tributes 
 had failed to insure it. And with his city's Diirer's 
 position in Germany was also improved ; and perhaps 
 this explains in part his love for his native town, which 
 did little enough for him externally. 
 
 Nuremberg must have had something of the keen, 
 critical tone which made Florence in its palmy days so 
 feared, and at the same time so productive. Here, as 
 at Florence, too, the burghers' love for their city was 
 proved by their constant desire to adorn and embellish 
 it. They were nowhere so happy as at home. How 
 carefully we find the streets and houses depicted in the 
 works of their native artists ! Diirer's, especially ; and 
 his own house was his favorite. We see in his pre- 
 cious, perhaps most precious, work that he has put St. 
 Jerome and the Lion into his own little low-studded 
 room, which, with a few additions, he has fitted up for 
 the old gentleman's study. With what supreme satis- 
 faction he proceeds to copy this room, so dear to him, 
 even to the knots in the boards, and the rifts in its 
 timbers ! How warm and genially the sun streams in 
 sidewise through the tiny panes of the broad, many- 
 paned window upon the floor, touching lightly as it 
 passes the strong, massive table. How the lion, blink-
 
 184 ALBEKT DUKER. 
 
 ing and drunk with sleep, stretches himself out, while 
 a small terrier crouches at his side, both as if belong- 
 ing naturally to the room. We seem to hear the buz- 
 zing of the flies and the gentle rustle of the leaves 
 
 O O 
 
 turned over by the bearded saint. How tidily is every- 
 thing put in its place, all freshly scoured, wearing 
 a Sunday air ! Methinks, whoever had this etching in 
 his room would find it a fast-nailed bit of sunshine, 
 dispensing its beneficent rays even in the gloomiest 
 hours. 
 
 And this composition is but one verse, as it were, in 
 a long poem. Imagine all Diirer's engravings, draw- 
 ings, etc., laid side by side ; what a diary of his rich 
 life ! His portraits are a compendium of German 
 characters of all sorts, from the emperor, whom he pic- 
 tures in the little room of the castle at Augsburg, to 
 the beggar and peasant in the street. Easy-going, 
 block-headed monks, illustrious warriors, burghers, 
 lansquenets, pedlers, and vagabonds ; and with these, 
 cities, villages, tracts of country. A humor for the 
 fantastic finds expression in many of his compositions, 
 and the belief in witches that held such sway over the 
 minds of men in his day. The inability to conceive of 
 the past otherwise than in the garb of the present, or 
 history except as a romantic blending of truth and 
 fiction, stand forth in his works clearly as leading 
 characteristics of the times. We see how little there 
 was to prevent the people from perceiving an immedi- 
 ate connection between the antique Eoman empire
 
 ALBERT DURER. 185 
 
 and their own. We see what pleasure they took in 
 the present ; how firmly they believed that things had 
 been so from all eternity, and so to all eternity must 
 remain. Every house was built as indestructibly as 
 possible, that it should last as long as church and 
 empire, powers of eternal origin, destined to be eter- 
 nal ! And how comfortable they seem to feel them- 
 selves in this world ! What a respect they have for it ! 
 How absolutely they submit to the powers that be, on 
 earth and in heaven! Diirer's soul apparently finds 
 intense satisfaction in the production of these fresh 
 works of art, arising from the feeling that they also 
 will share to some degree in this immortality. With 
 what care he prepares his colors ! All the materials he 
 uses must be as durable as possible. And this earnest 
 striving to render earthly things imperishable extends, 
 in a kind of practical sense, to their conceptions of 
 a future life. Men of that day exerted their noblest 
 talents in order to leave behind a worthy memory, and 
 secure a reception in heaven ; and the step over the 
 boundary was never out of their minds, devoid, how- 
 ever, of all sentimentality. For the faith of that age 
 pictured the life beyond as a festive state, to be 
 attained with certainty, and bearing a likeness to our 
 own in social forms and ordinances, where each found 
 his place prepared for him. The children had their 
 toys, and their parents renewed the bonds of friendship 
 .with many who had left the world before them. Here, 
 too, was no cause for anxiety, if only upright conduct
 
 186 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 had smoothed the way. Diirer moves about in life as 
 in a garden, where one is secluded, but not imprisoned ; 
 he goes slowly, and his eyes rove far and wide ; what 
 he sees, he sees as pictures, and his hand is untiring in 
 transferring them to paper. 
 
 And how naturally and modestly he fulfils this, 
 his mission ! With every line he draws taking us 
 deeper into the heart of his subject. Never has a 
 plastic artist of equal genius looked at the world so 
 ingenuously, and in a certain sense reproduced it with 
 such truth. 
 
 This last assertion may possibly challenge contra- 
 diction. For, in point of fact, if the master is to be 
 mentioned who, in those days, represented nature 
 with absolute fidelity, only one name can be uttered, 
 Holbein's. Younger than Diirer, but his contem- 
 porary, the climax of his development was in Basle, 
 where he painted a few magnificent compositions, on 
 very large walls, but for the most part portraits and 
 easel-pictures. He afterward went to England, where 
 he died. Holbein is the man who in portraiture has 
 exceeded every one in the reproduction of nature. 
 But one defect is inherent in all his works : his por- 
 traits have a certain emptiness of expression, which 
 with longer acquaintance inspires a mournful feeling. 
 I have not seen all his works, but such as I have seen 
 tend to confirm this observation. We seem to realize 
 the fruitless struggle to lend a soul to these perfect 
 reflections of nature. I have lately become acquainted
 
 ALBERT DURER. 187 
 
 with a portrait by his hand which was new to me. A 
 work brought freshly before us in this way is studied 
 in the most unbiased frame of mind. An unrivalled 
 piece of work ! Color and drawing unite to make it 
 something perfect; the problem of how to bring out 
 the face of a man from a flat surface in color, without 
 letting the smallest particle of its life escape, is solved. 
 Indeed, neither Eaphael nor Leonardo were able to 
 achieve what has here been done. But all these ex- 
 cellences fail to compensate for the want of a joyous 
 soul in the work; and for this reason Holbein can 
 never be to his generation what Diirer is. Holbein's 
 works betray no palpable individuality. We feel no 
 master behind them, to whom we would draw near to 
 ask the solution of the secret involved in the picture. 
 Holbein draws faultlessly; his conceptions are grand 
 and full of taste, but beyond this he has no influence 
 over our minds. Holbein's sketches are the studies of 
 a painter; Diirer's roughest drafts, those of a poet. 
 Diirer's figures become only more living the oftener 
 we study them. Who does not know his portrait of 
 Maid Fiirlegerin, daughter of a Nuremberg patrician, 
 whom he twice painted. Not beautiful, save the mag- 
 nificent hair ! He has intentionally arranged the light 
 to fall in such a singular way upon the features that 
 a multitude of faint shades come out, modelling the 
 head with astonishing vividness. The hair is painted 
 as if he had laid in each particular hair by itself, and 
 the fingers of the hand are indescribably soft and
 
 188 ALBEET DUEEE. 
 
 delicately rounded. Critics may object that the por- 
 trait is too brown in its shades, and altogether more 
 like a caprice than a work of art ; but even so, what a 
 lovely caprice ' Suggested by the fondest, most in- 
 genuous conception of nature. 
 
 This feeling for nature is, however, most strikingly 
 conspicuous in Diirer's portraits of himself. I believe 
 no master has so often and so carefully painted the 
 portrait of his own person, and w r ith such conscien- 
 tiousness made the most trifling details as impor- 
 tant as the essential features. Here, also, the hair 
 is painted with the minutest fidelity, and his predi- 
 lection for modelling hands, which chiefly distinguishes 
 him, is apparent. Moreover, he especially delights to 
 picture himself in rich and gorgeous attire, in fur- 
 bordered mantle and cap of finest needlework, in 
 French and Spanish cloaks, betraying a taste for fine 
 clothes and a consciousness of his stately, aristocratic 
 figure. In Venice he actually took lessons in dancing. 
 
 A portrait of himself opens the series of his works, 
 so far as they are preserved. " I painted this likeness 
 of my own face when I was nine years old," is written 
 on the picture which is in Vienna. Drawn as a child 
 draws, but already showing the attempt to bring the 
 head out in relief by vigorous shading (which Leonardo 
 made the test for the capacity of young people for art). 
 The long hair is here as smooth as a thatched roof, 
 so that possibly the curls of later years were not 
 nature's unassisted work. Such vanity was quite con-
 
 ALBERT DURER. 189 
 
 sonant to the times when everything was overlaid 
 with ornament, and the fancy for decoration extended 
 to one's own person. 
 
 When Diirer drew this he was still at school. He 
 had ten brothers and sisters at that time, and they 
 finally numbered eighteen, his mother having been 
 married young. After the death of his father his 
 mother came to live with him. 
 
 "Now you must know," we read in Durer's journal, 
 "that in the year of 1513, on the Tuesday before Pas- 
 sion week, my poor afflicted mother, whom after my 
 father's death I had taken to live with me, because she 
 was very poor, and who had been under my care nine 
 years, was seized so deathly ill early in the morning, 
 that we broke open the door of her chamber, since we 
 could not get to her otherwise ; we carried her down 
 to a lower room, where both sacraments were adminis- 
 tered, for every one thought she would die ; for she 
 had preserved her health after my father's death, and 
 her custom was to go much to the church, and she 
 had always punished me faithfully when I did not do 
 right, and had the greatest anxiety concerning me and 
 my brother; and when I went out (or came in) her 
 words were always, ' Go, in the name of Christ ! ' and 
 she urged upon us constantly with all diligence holy 
 admonitions, and felt always the greatest care for our 
 souls and I cannot find words to tell all her good 
 deeds, or her Christian charity, or worthily to praise 
 her. This my pious mother had borne eighteen chil-
 
 190 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 dren, had frequently had the pestilence, and many 
 other severe and noticeable diseases ; had suffered from 
 great poverty, scorn, derision, insulting words, frights, 
 and great reverses. Yet was she never revengeful. 
 From that day, namely, the one above mentioned as 
 the one upon which she was taken ill, a year hence in 
 the year of our Lord 1514, on a Tuesday, it being the 
 seventeenth day of May, two hours before midnight, 
 did my pious mother Barbara Diirer depart this life, 
 absolved from pain and guilt by all the Christian sac- 
 raments in the power of the pope. She had before 
 also given me her blessing, and wished me godlike 
 peace, together with much good admonition, that I 
 should keep myself from sin. She also desired to drink 
 St. John's blessing, which she then did ; for she much 
 feared to die, but said that she did not fear to appear 
 before God. And, indeed, her death was hard, and I 
 observed that she saw something cruel, for she asked 
 for the holy water, and yet had not spoken for some 
 time. I also saw soon that death gave her two great 
 blows on the heart, and how she closed her eyes and 
 mouth, and departed with pain. I prayed aloud for 
 her, but was in such grief as I can hardly describe. 
 God be merciful to her ! Her best joy was to speak of 
 God, and she loved to see him in his glory. She was 
 sixty-three years old when she died, and I have given 
 her honest burial according to my property. God the 
 Lord grant me also a blessed end, and may God, with 
 his heavenly host, my father, mother, and friends, come
 
 ALBERT DURER. 191 
 
 to me at last. Almighty God, give us eternal life. 
 Amen. And in death she looked much lovelier than 
 she had done in life." 
 
 I have given Diirer's language in this quotation, 
 with only insignificant changes, to make it a little 
 more familiar to our ears to-day. Every one will see 
 in it with what love he hung upon his mother. His 
 striking portrait of her is to be found to-day in the 
 Berlin collection just published of Diirer's Sketches. 
 
 Let us now turn to his father, whom he twice 
 painted: a shrewd-looking old man with a little skull- 
 cap in his hand; and the portrait of Wohlgemuth, 
 in which with all imaginary care he has reproduced 
 the aged, withered features. "We need not repeat the 
 words in which Diirer, before the death of his mother, 
 describes that of his father, for if anything can tes- 
 tify to his love and fidelity it is these portraits. 
 
 It is no easy thing to paint men as they actually 
 are. In surveying the entire realm of modern art, 
 only about a hundred portraits of the first rank are 
 found. Nothing is more instructive than a compari- 
 son of these works. Nowhere is the artist's own 
 depth of nature shown more conclusively. It is the 
 gauge of his genius, and this all the more veritably 
 because portraits by the distinguished masters are, 
 generally speaking, rather secondary things, over which 
 they unbend to a certain degree. Professional por- 
 trait-painters are not here in question, as their works 
 conform, more or less, to fashion, and do not aim at 
 any special depth of meaning.
 
 192 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 We were just speaking of Holbein. The want of 
 love for his work, which is so striking when con- 
 trasted with its technical perfection, is not peculiar to 
 him alone. Eminent productions in this department 
 by Vandyck suffer from the same dissonance ; so, too, 
 many of Eembrandt's and Euben's ! It is likewise 
 evident in Sebastian del Piombo and Andrea del 
 Sarto, who in all other respects are to be counted 
 among the first. On the other hand, Raphael, Rubens 
 now and then, and Titian, make their portraits look 
 at us with eyes that melt into our very hearts. And 
 so also Diirer's! Like Shakespeare's creations, these 
 portraits represent types, though in reality they give 
 us only individuals. Diirer's Maid Fiirlegerin is a 
 type of modest burgher maidenhood in the sixteenth 
 century ; his Holzschuher, that of an honest and hon- 
 orable German burgher. This portrait, which until 
 lately has remained in possession of the family, gives 
 us as clear an idea of the strong and solid basis on 
 which German city organization rested as could be 
 gleaned from the written archives. They are historical 
 portraits, which exhibit common daily life in Ger- 
 many, as Raphael's pictures Roman life in his day, 
 and Titian's, which glow with the declining rays of 
 Venetian splendor, whilst Rubens, Vandyck, Murillo, 
 and Velasquez give us pictures of the men through 
 whose aid, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 the Hapsburg dynasty became all-powerful in Spain 
 and the Netherlands. Rembrandt, on the other hand,
 
 ALBERT DURER. 193 
 
 is the historian- of the free Netherlands. But if, turn- 
 ing to France, we study all the works of art pro- 
 duced in the Napoleonic era, we do not find one of 
 those French painters able to furnish a real historical 
 portrait. 
 
 And those earlier men were poets in the conception 
 of their likenesses. Diirer's powerful Kaiser Karl 
 whose face he invented as fitting the imperial robes 
 above which it thrones, does it not contain all that 
 history, poetry, and tradition have combined to stamp 
 on our imagination as united in the character of this 
 great emperor ? Is it not a type of the mighty leg- 
 endary hero ? a kind of demigod, fountain-head of 
 all German history, power, and glory ? A St. Goth- 
 ard from whose rocky clefts the Rhine breaks forth ; 
 then the main artery of Germany, as it promises again 
 to become to-day. 
 
 When we examine Diirer's portraits, or in fact his 
 pictures, as works of art purely, it would be infatua- 
 tion not to grant defects in them. His faithfulness 
 often runs into pettiness. He paints the window- 
 frames as mirrored in the sitter's eye. If Rubens with 
 a few bold strokes, or Titian in a riot of color, pro- 
 duced a magnificence, semblance to nature, which, 
 when brought into comparison with it, really shows 
 no points of correspondence, Diirer, at the opposite 
 extreme, painted nature microscopically. It is not 
 the pedantic minuteness of Denner, whose portraits, 
 intended for effect, are feats of dexterity in reproduc-
 
 194 ALBEET DURER. 
 
 ing the mere surface of the countenance ; "but, in 
 Diirer, an excessive conscientiousness that overdoes it. 
 Compared with other great masters, he lacks the com- 
 mand of technical aid, and his figures, therefore, have 
 not perfect flexibility ; they seem to be holding still, 
 sometimes to the verge of nervousness. The reason 
 for this may have been that he was conscious of not 
 always at the first stroke creating what he wished. It 
 is acknowledged that his portrait of Erasmus of Rot- 
 terdam is far inferior to that painted by Holbein. On 
 the other hand, this fresh, free, vigorous handling pro- 
 duced many things which few other painters were 
 capable of beside him. The pen-and-ink drawing of 
 Felix Lautenschlager in the Netherlands, which Diirer 
 " threw off," comes to mind ; an admirable study of the 
 nude, done with the pen on green paper and laid in 
 in white. If inclined to find fault with Diirer for 
 having put in the color at times with the point of a 
 pen, we may now reverse the criticism, for the delicate 
 strokes of the pen are here put in as if with a brush. 
 
 The observation frequently made that Diirer's works 
 are more writings than paintings, may be a second 
 reason why his pictures sometimes lack " technical fin- 
 ish," as the term is generally used at the present day. 
 They hardly seem to have been conceived to the final 
 point, and there is no indication of an aim at pictur- 
 esqueness. What I mean to say is, that he does 
 simply what he intended from the outset, and, this 
 accomplished, lays his brush aside. Moreover, it may
 
 ALBEKT DURER. 195 
 
 be remarked that perfection in technique can only be 
 the fruit of long years of routine, and this kind of 
 practice Diirer never had, because the commissions 
 failed. That this failure was owing to circumstances, 
 and not to any lack of capacity, is fully proved by 
 some of his works, for instance, parts of the picture 
 of the Strahower Madonna, and above all the Apostles 
 in Munich ; in the former we find groups arranged 
 with taste and historic in the best sense ; in the latter, 
 single figures, colossal conceptions wrought out with 
 the power of Raphael or Michael Angelo. These 
 Apostles show Diirer's genius to have been equal to 
 the mightiest achievements. But no one demanded 
 these great works of him. Here we may say, in a tone 
 of regret, that we had at that time no emperor, no 
 nobles, and no commoners, who had any appreciation 
 of such things. As far as Diirer's fame is concerned, 
 however, the proofs he has given suffice. Indeed, the 
 feeling he inspires of what he might have done tempts 
 us to see more almost than his actual works exhibit. 
 The possible often stimulates the imagination more 
 than the actual. Thus Goethe, who enjoyed giving 
 his works every variety of poetical form, has really 
 created in each form only one work ; but that so per- 
 fect in itself that it seems to stand for a number of 
 productions of the same kind. 
 
 Diirer felt himself freest when etching or draw- 
 ing for wood-cuts. In the year 1509 he was to paint 
 for Jacob Heller in Frankfort The Ascension of Mary
 
 196 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 (afterward destroyed by fire). " No one shall ever per- 
 suade me again to undertake a picture with so much 
 work in it," he writes to the person who ordered it. 
 " I should beggar myself. Of ordinary pictures I can 
 finish such a pile in a year that nobody would believe 
 one man could do so much ; but here, with diligent 
 painting, point for point, one does not make any prog- 
 ress ; therefore, I will stick to engraving ; and if I had 
 done so hitherto I should be richer by a thousand 
 guldens." But Diirer certainly did not work any less 
 faithfully on his engravings. What he did in this 
 line was popular, and established his reputation. Here 
 he is free and full of life to the very marrow. His 
 compositions stand quite by themselves, if I may so 
 express it, and do not remind us of the small scale on 
 which they are executed. They have an intrinsic mag- 
 nitude quite their own. Had they been made life-size 
 they would not have been greater than they are, as 
 Eaphael's Tapestries or Michael Angelo's Sistina really 
 are no smaller in the smallest engraving than on the 
 enormous surface the originals occupy. 
 
 In these works Diirer's imagination shows marvel- 
 ous creative power. Whilst nowadays attempts are 
 made to vivify New Testament events by introducing 
 attractive foreign scenery with such artistic ingenuity 
 and correctness that we are conjured into believing 
 the lightly sketched figures in these landscapes to be 
 equally real and unquestionable, Diirer, on the con- 
 trary, draws his figures sharply in the foreground,
 
 ALBEKT DUKEK. 197 
 
 concentrates all the life in them, employing for effect 
 German architecture, dress, and household furniture. 
 His representations from the life of Mary are a series 
 of charming idyls woven out of what he gleaned from 
 the country people about him, or among whom he had 
 grown up. Though he had never had a child, and his 
 wife had little that was ideal in her nature, there is 
 yet in these delineations a nursery poetry which is 
 enchanting. No legend, no poem, of whatever kind, 
 could depict so happily a young wife in the midst of 
 the simple domestic surroundings of that age, as Diirer 
 has done in these pictures of Mary. He introduces the 
 angels like the ministering fairies in German legends, 
 and they seem wholly in place ; while in the acces- 
 sories, where his fantasy achieves the most extraordi- 
 nary combinations of German architecture and Italian 
 Renaissance, we see how naively the most foreign of 
 all foreign structures blend with the existing style; 
 and there is something symbolic in this ; it was the 
 habit of that day in all things. Hans Sachs, who cer- 
 tainly is not to be placed beside Diirer, is yet to be 
 likened to him in this one respect ; if it had come to 
 the point, he would with perfect coolness have intro- 
 duced Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, and others into Ger- 
 man doggerel for the benefit of the Nuremberg public. 
 In Diirer's works so much of the German life of his 
 day is truthfully portrayed that they transport us into 
 its very midst. He has no preferences, but exhibits 
 just what offers, without a thought of displaying his
 
 198 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 special skill in one direction or another. His faces of 
 Mary are every-day physiognomies, and we could pick 
 out a number of them which are in no wise beautiful. 
 It would have seemed an impossibility, in his eyes, to 
 give an artificial elevation to his conception, or, for the 
 sake of effect, to pitch the tone one degree higher or 
 lower than was natural. He sketches whatever pre- 
 sents itself with a certain composure (a peculiarity also 
 of Goethe), and paints it to the best of his ability with- 
 out much ado. There are artists who cannot make 
 a stroke without a dash of pretension in it; while 
 Diirer's works seem as if he had done them incident- 
 ally, and found amusement in doing them. Indeed, 
 this seems a distinctive feature of all the purely artis- 
 tic German work. Goethe's best things, and the poems 
 of Walther von der Vogelweide, of which I am always 
 reminded when I see Diirer's works, inspire the same 
 feeling. All three seem to have wandered through life 
 without any fixed aim, slowly or in ecstatic motion as 
 the spirit compelled. Almost unconsciously they pluck 
 here and there a flower by the wayside, and in the 
 evening lay the nosegay beside them on the table ; not 
 until the criticism of the world tells them so do they 
 suspect that their eyes alone could have found these 
 flowers. 
 
 Hence a reason why Diirer left no main work ! He 
 never seems to have entered into competition with 
 others, nor to have envied any one. When in Antwerp 
 the artists attended him to his house with torches, he
 
 ALBERT DURER. 199 
 
 was flattered, but neither Venetian ducats nor Neth- 
 erlandish guldens, though temptingly offered, could 
 prevent him from returning to his old friends in 
 Nuremberg. Diirer's outward life had few incidents, 
 scarcely any that were at the same time epochs in his 
 artistic development. I have earlier attempted to prove 
 that his Venetian journey in the year 1506 produced a 
 change in his views, and I still abide by these convic- 
 tions. But in surveying his whole career from begin- 
 ning to end, we feel that the man remains the same, 
 and can only explain himself (as Goethe once said of 
 him). Born in 1471, in 1506 he goes to Venice for a 
 year, in 1520 to the Netherlands for the same space of 
 time, and dies in 1528. He was fearfully emaciated, 
 and Pirkheimer asserts had been hardly allowed by his 
 wife to leave the house. At any rate, he was confined 
 to his workroom by an ever-increasing sphere of labor ; 
 for towards the last he applied himself to writing on 
 architectural and anatomical subjects, besides holding 
 a position in the city, in some respects like that of 
 Michael Angelo's in Florence ; he had become a sort 
 of indispensable authority in Nuremberg, and without 
 referring to him few important matters were under- 
 taken. But with regard to all this we have no pre- 
 cise information. At any rate, he was valued as a man 
 of sagacity and tried disinterestedness ; and when the 
 world is once convinced that such men are not seeking 
 their own advantage, they are sufficiently in demand. 
 So much respectful consideration was manifested to-
 
 200 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 ward him by the council, that Diirer, to show his grati- 
 tude, felt it appropriate to make the city a present 
 of a picture. Yet he never fought and suffered as 
 Michael Angelo for Florence ; no retinue of painters 
 crowded him as around Raphael ; and the few poems by 
 his hand are so clumsy and uncouth, that Hans Sach's 
 language in comparison has a Ciceronian flavor. But 
 that Diirer knew how to express the most profound 
 thoughts is proved by the introduction to his work on 
 Proportions, and that his interest in everything going 
 on in the world was most intense the pages of his 
 diary show, where, on Luther's being taken to the 
 Wartburg, he bursts into lamentations over the loss 
 of such a man. As we read his simple words, ending 
 with the prayer that "God will have pity on the con- 
 dition of Germany," we understand the character of 
 the people among whom Luther arose. 
 
 We are accustomed to look upon the "Reforma- 
 tion " as a movement growing chiefly out of literary 
 antagonisms. The political and moral incentives, 
 whose combined working brought about the final 
 great result, have often been analyzed ; but what role 
 art here played will be generally known only when 
 the influence of religious art in Germany, and its 
 peculiar nature up to the time of Diirer, has been 
 thoroughly examined and its historical connection 
 demonstrated. 
 
 Prior to the "Reformation" the ideas of religion 
 and the contents of sacred history were familiarized
 
 ALBEET DURER. 201 
 
 to the people mainly through art. Painted walls took 
 the place of books. There is an old Italian engraving, 
 representing the painter Apelles, on which we find 
 these words: "Apelle poeta tacenta," Apelles who 
 made poems without words. This poetry without 
 words was quite as intelligible at that time as any 
 written poems. Temples in honor of God, or to the 
 renown of the citizens, filled with little masterpieces 
 of sculpture-painting, etc., were the manifestation of 
 ideas in the silent poem, symbols of the devotion, 
 pride, and power which to-day finds expression in 
 well-rounded sentences. The statue of a man, orna- 
 mental, honorary indeed, yet at the present time not 
 adding a straw's breadth to the measure of his great- 
 ness, was at that time a monument which positively 
 created and expressed the veneration of the people. 
 No mere literary phrasing could then have given so 
 clear an idea of the character of a man as Diirer's and 
 Raphael's portraits gave. It would have been sup- 
 posed impossible in Rome, as well as Germany, to 
 make words suffice for what they were able to do with 
 color, just as it would seem impossible to us to-day 
 to exhaust Shakespeare's Juliet, or Goethe's Iphigenia, 
 in works of plastic art. 
 
 Diirer in his pictures of scenes from the New Tes- 
 tament is not to be likened to our present illustrators. 
 His compositions are at once picture and text. These 
 engravings were scattered over Germany in thousands 
 of copies, imitated everywhere, and etched in Italy
 
 202 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 even by Marc Anton, who had devoted himself almost 
 exclusively to Raphael's works. These life-like, speak- 
 ing pictures, with their wealth of meaning, prepared 
 the people in a wonderful way for Luther's translation 
 of the Bible. The German cities had long been over- 
 run with representations of sacred history, many of 
 them, of course, of rare merit. I need only remind 
 you of Adam Krafft's Stations, replete with feeling that 
 thrills the heart. Yet no artist was able to depict the 
 events in the life of Christ as Diirer did, so connect- 
 edly and with a power which rivets them in our mem- 
 ories until, like Shakespeare's and Goethe's thoughts 
 and creations, they become a part of our souls, and 
 there lead an existence of their own. These Bible 
 pictures by Diirer's hand were indelibly stamped on 
 the minds of the people. Wholly free, at last, from 
 any traces of Byzantine mannerism, they touched 
 every chord in the soul, and gave to scripture history 
 a new and more personal application. Into the midst 
 of all this came Luther's Bible, the first book in the 
 German language read at one and the same time all 
 over Germany ; it contained the veritable text to their 
 pictures. For no one at that time questioned that 
 God had dictated the gospels, word for word, to the 
 evangelists whose names they bear. 
 
 But what has made Diirer's influence of special 
 importance is the service he rendered his time, like 
 Giotto at the side of Dante in Italy. We have droll- 
 eries enough to be sure of that day, but no purer
 
 ALBERT DURER. 203 
 
 memorial exists of its higher graces than is to be 
 found in Durer's life and works, taken as a whole. 
 We recognize in him the jubilant feeling, the spring- 
 like freshness, with which the German people from 
 all sides flocked about Luther, and they explain the 
 child-like, playful vein in which Luther himself the 
 earnest man used occasionally to characterize the sit- 
 uation of the moment. 
 
 When Luther describes the bird parliament under 
 his window at the Wartburg, the cackling of the 
 crows, planning a crusade into Turkey, it seems like 
 one of Durer's sketches. When hearing Luther tell 
 how, upon the chase in the woods around the castle, a 
 little hare sought refuge from the eager hounds in his 
 wide sleeve, the scene comes before me as if etched 
 by Diirer. It is a pet notion of Diirer to represent 
 his angel-children playing with pretty little hares, 
 when he paints the Madonna in the midst of her in- 
 nocent court. When Luther speaks of old men and 
 maid-servants, of his wife, the " dominus Ivetha," as he 
 calls her in jest, of the children and their little odd 
 ways, of his professional brethren who lie abed terror- 
 stricken lest they should take the English sweating- 
 sickness, and how he persuades them to get up, I im- 
 agine his language to spring from the same source as 
 Durer's strokes upon paper. One man illustrates the 
 other. Ordinary glimpses into the life of that period 
 show a dull, heavy atmosphere hanging over the pic- 
 ture. The people about Luther appear quarrelsome
 
 ALBEKT DUEER. 
 
 and often vulgar, and in the universal, social, and 
 political strifes, how bald, narrow-minded, and color- 
 less seem the disputes. The general condition is, to a 
 certain extent, dreary and forlorn. But whoever knows 
 Diirer sees the sun still resting upon the picture, 
 and all around the green, laughing fields of Germany. 
 Even poor Emperor Max, in his old age, flitting from 
 one leafless bough to another, like an eagle, holding 
 out in the rain, knowing not where to get his daily 
 food, receives a warm beam from this light and is 
 more comfortable. Krafft, Yischer, Sachs, Pirkheimer, 
 in fact, all the literary men and artists of Nuremberg, 
 gain in freshness and become less professional. Even 
 Holbein, who is so much in himself, cannot dispense 
 with Diirer. Without him he pales, and his connec- 
 tion with the age loosens. 
 
 Holbein has also painted New Testament scenes. 
 His compositions are executed with such skill that 
 one might be tempted to try to discover in them some 
 of the feeling which inspires Diirer's pencil. But 
 such attempts would only lead to disappointment. Hol- 
 bein worked with rare taste and marvellous knowledge 
 of technique, but was personally indifferent to the 
 spiritual significance of these thrilling events; and 
 this dissonance is so striking as to have become his 
 marked characteristic. Holbein has painted nothing 
 that awakens deep enthusiasm. We note immense 
 progress in him, but no development. His Dresden 
 Madonna interprets nothing in his earlier or later pro-
 
 ALBERT DURER. 205 
 
 ductions. It stands by itself, a miracle of art. Diirer 
 could not have done this ; could not have approached 
 it ever so remotely. Diirer never attempted to paint 
 the beautiful simply for its own sake, or to produce a 
 work whose sole aim was to charm the beholder. He 
 was too childlike for this. He was not merely a 
 painter, he was a Nuremberg painter, whilst Holbein 
 had a universal genius, and was a cosmopolite, whose 
 performances like Leonardo da Vinci's resembled 
 rather those of a magician than of an artist human 
 like ourselves. He disappears in England as Leonardo 
 in France, and no record comes to us of their fate. 
 After his stay in London the city rises before us veiled 
 in fog, and just as unfamiliar as if he had never been 
 a visitor within its walls. On the contrary, Diirer's 
 journeys to Venice and the Netherlands are like rifts 
 in clouds which else would wholly conceal the places 
 from our sight. "Warm human feeling is needed to 
 render men and times intelligible. But placing Hol- 
 bein by the side of Diirer, it seems as if they shared 
 each other's genius, and we involuntarily attribute to 
 the former a measure of the wealth of genuine feel- 
 ing which overflows in the latter. 
 
 I return to my opening statement. Diirer's reputa- 
 tion, as understood to-day, is of recent date. What 
 Diirer was to his time and his friends would have 
 been transitory. Many a man, since passed into ob- 
 livion, was just as heartily, perhaps even more heart- 
 ily, mourned and missed than Diirer. The knowledge
 
 206 ALBERT DUKER. 
 
 was reserved for our generation, that Diirer, his works 
 and his times, form as a whole a work of art, com- 
 plete and indivisible ; bearing the unique name of 
 Diirer, but signifying an era. 
 
 The great men of Germany have never been re- 
 nowned for their works alone. Raphael was a painter, 
 Corneille a poet, Shakespeare a poet ; but Goethe and 
 Diirer were men. Who would dream of denying their 
 right to this name to the former, but who would not 
 feel that they must lay the greatest stress on the 'per- 
 fection of humanity shown in the two last. Goethe's 
 and Diirer's greatness did not He essentially in what 
 they produced, but in how they produced it. They be- 
 queathed to posterity but one single perfect work, 
 themselves. 
 
 The works of Eaphael, Michael Angelo, Leonardo, 
 and Titian separate from their authors and stand alone ; 
 those of Corneille, Eacine, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and 
 many others, do likewise. They are ripe, finished, self- 
 sustained creations. The works are more conspicuous 
 than the masters, as peaches beyond the boughs on 
 which they have grown. But the works of the great 
 Germans are below their authors, and make only sub- 
 ordinate elements, integral parts of an indivisible, 
 coherent life, which in itself occupies the highest place. 
 This peculiarity belongs to German character, and we 
 demand of an artist, if he is really to deserve the name 
 in its highest sense, that he shall bring his whole life 
 into harmony with his works.
 
 ALBERT DUEER. 207 
 
 What, then, is Diirer's mission in the world of art 
 to-day ? 
 
 All mature men, filling definite positions in life, feel 
 that on their co-operative power the existence of the 
 nation must rest, and long to be actively and efficiently 
 laboring for the public good. No one can base his life 
 on work which is performed only through the indul- 
 gence or the help of others. Such a condition is 
 insupportable. The consciousness of the value of the 
 work must stimulate the laborer. We desire with 
 increasing years to grow into a position which com- 
 mands universal respect, and constantly to enlarge our 
 horizon. 
 
 But what rank do artists take among these progres- 
 sive forces ? 
 
 I reply, such as the success of their work gives 
 them. The architect is not esteemed mainly for the 
 beauty of his buildings, but for their technical impor- 
 tance and the money he earns by them ; the painter 
 and musician, by the prices they command ; the poet 
 and author, by the success of their productions. We 
 have not only a right to consider this outward success, 
 but it is our duty to impress upon those who would 
 enter upon such a career the inevitable intrusion of 
 these low motives. For such is life, and things cannot 
 be changed. Just here, however, we must make an 
 exception. No one would deny that there is a species 
 of labor, elevated by its aim above the common pur- 
 suits of life, and whose fruits, although, perhaps, pecu-
 
 208 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 niarily yielding less than nothing to their author, are 
 really nobler than many others which receive the rich- 
 est reward. 
 
 For if we ask what the world honors and esteems 
 as the highest manliness, and the sign of the most aris- 
 tocratic nature, it is this: to desire nothing from the 
 world, and even to scorn what it offers. The novelist 
 generally pictures the fate of his hero as perfectly 
 tragic, or, to say the least, never represents him sur- 
 rounded with all the luxuries and blandishments of 
 life. It was Garibaldi's refusal to accept titles, pro- 
 motion, or gifts, which made him appear so great. He 
 lived a poor man on his rocky isle, and could conceive 
 of no pecuniary reward for his rare achievements. 
 
 The number of those, however, who are able to rise 
 to this height of unselfishness is extremely limited, 
 and in any case it is attained only as the result of 
 a life experience ; men do not begin so. A man who 
 in his earlier years does not strive to make himself of 
 account in the world is either an invalid or wanting in 
 capacity. To have something to do that yields honor 
 or profit, or that will enable one, born to the gifts of 
 fortune, to be of eminent service in public life, is a 
 necessity to all healthily organized natures. Goethe, 
 Raphael, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Beethoven, and 
 many others, left behind money, houses, and estates, 
 and made the acquisition of these a point of interest. 
 Diirer also left a house and a considerable property 
 he had fairly earned. All these men attained their
 
 ALBERT DURER. 209 
 
 position by indefatigable labor, and not one of them 
 depended on outward support conferred on them for 
 high esthetic reasons. They did occasionally receive 
 gratuities. Diirer in his latter years obtained a sort 
 of imperial pension, which was, however, irregularly 
 enough dealt out to him. The way in which artists 
 were assisted was by conferring upon them commis- 
 sions worthy of their talent. Many were denied, how- 
 ever, even these, as for instance" Diirer; yet this was 
 more of a loss to the people than to the artist. Diirer, 
 if he had nothing to paint in oils, etched or carved or 
 wrote, and did whatever was desired of him. The 
 beauty in his works he gave gratuitously, threw it into 
 the bargain, we may say ; for certainly he was no bet- 
 ter paid for his works than the other masters. But the 
 peculiar advantage which Diirer, and all artists in his 
 time, had over those of our day (the best as well as 
 the mediocre), was that plastic art, as I have already 
 remarked, was very extensively used as the readiest 
 vehicle for almost all forms of intellectual expression. 
 The artist was as necessary to the people as the pub- 
 lic amanuensis to the Eoman peasant to-day, to whom 
 is simply confided the subject of the letter, which he 
 writes accordingly. 
 
 Diirer, although having the highest ideal conception 
 of his profession, remained to the last an artisan. 
 But whether the work intrusted to him was a large 
 or a small one, whether he was to receive much or 
 little for it, was of far less importance to him than
 
 210 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 that he should be able to make it a work of art. 
 And herein lies the distinction between the artist and 
 the artisan. Diirer puts his whole soul into his work, 
 and the praise he strives to wring from himself of 
 having rendered it in a manner worthy of his own 
 nature and the* subject, is after all his highest reward ; 
 which he takes beforehand, and in place of which no 
 extra compensation could have made amends. The 
 consciousness of being an artisan did not prevent him 
 from associating with the learned men of his time, and 
 attaching some value to his social position. 
 
 What, then, was Dtirer's life ? First apprenticed to 
 his father to be a goldsmith, then with "Wohlgmuth ; 
 after which he wandered about and worked with vari- 
 ous masters in one city and another. But from the 
 outset dependent on his own exertions. At last, es- 
 tablished in Nuremberg, he became the master of a 
 workshop, and by his glorious character acquired his 
 reputation, constantly striving to come up to his own 
 lofty standard, without which he might have been as 
 unsuccessful, and his works as valueless, as the other 
 innumerable productions of the masters around him. 
 
 Diirer was never the man to call himself an artist, 
 or, because he carved and painted, to think he was 
 doing anything remarkable. He was a Nuremberg 
 burgher and master. He painted when pictures were 
 ordered, etched, and sold his engravings singly or in 
 numbers ; but worked on steadily, without much regard 
 either to criticism or renown. Not the encouragement
 
 ALBERT DURER. 211 
 
 Diirer received made him a worker, but his innate 
 talent, which must come out. Like a living spring, 
 which flies upward all the same whether it is to fall 
 again into a marble basin or be turned off into a 
 horse-trough. It will up and aloft, what further as 
 God will. 
 
 The views change which a nation holds of its men. 
 At first Diirer was only the renowned engraver ; to 
 his friends, the truest and most delightful companion. 
 Pirkheimer writes upon his tombstone, "What was 
 mortal of Albrecht Diirer lies beneath this stone." 
 A hundred years later this did not seem enough to 
 Sandrart, and he added an epitaph extolling Diirer as 
 the "prince of artists." Later still he was portrayed 
 with dark, burning eyes, curls, and an imposing beard ; 
 but this, too, had been outlived. His pictures one by 
 one have disappeared from Nuremberg, the greater 
 part of them having been transported to foreign coun- 
 tries, till at last precious little remains there save his 
 engravings. 
 
 Years glided by, when at last the interest taken by 
 Goethe in Diirer awakened a fuller and more general 
 appreciation of him. Goethe was the first to feel the 
 artist in his works, and he proved from them the ador- 
 able nature of the man. At the close of the last 
 century many of Diirer's manuscripts found their way 
 again to the light. In the beginning of the present, 
 when the opposition to the old school in Germany 
 gained the ascendency, disciples of the new theories
 
 212 ALBERT DURER. 
 
 made Diirer their apostle. The excitement about him 
 steadily increased, and at the three hundredth anni- 
 versary of his death the enthusiasm reached its cli- 
 max in Nuremberg and Munich. A statue was erected 
 to him ; henceforth his name should herald the renais- 
 sance of German art. 
 
 This ardor has, to be sure, somewhat abated; but 
 real appreciation of the man gains steadily. And yet, 
 as I have said, Diirer is known to fame, while still 
 unknown to the people at large ; only the few having 
 a comprehensive idea of his life, his works, his in- 
 fluence. Photography has made it possible to obtain 
 the greater part of his productions. Photo-lithographic 
 copies of the Passion, and especially of scenes from the 
 Life of Mary, are now to be bought, and wherever 
 they go kindle appreciation of the truth and intense 
 feeling in Diirer's works. One must see the produc- 
 tions of a man before he can understand him ; there- 
 fore, with all our veneration for the man, the full 
 knowledge of his greatness is yet in the future. But 
 those who love him will ever cherish the idea that in 
 his personality, in his character, is to be found his 
 highest worth. The unpretending nature of his works 
 is a part of their excellence, as his almost uneventful 
 career was one of the essentials in his development. 
 
 Who knows him not is deficient in a knowledge of 
 German history ; but those who do not know him will 
 always hear in the name of Diirer the inspiring tones 
 of Germany, the Fatherland.
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 ON the 16th of December, 1859, at three o'clock in 
 the afternoon, William Grimm died. He was buried 
 on the morning of the 20th, in the Matthaikirchehofe 
 in Berlin. The wind blew icy -chill as the coffin was 
 borne up the hill, on whose gradual slope the new 
 graveyard lies. Beside the open grave stood Jacob 
 Grimm and William's two sons. Tears flowed from 
 every eye when Jacob, uncovering his head, stooped 
 down, and, taking up a handful of earth, threw it in 
 after the lifeless form now to be left alone in the cold 
 depth. 
 
 William Grimm was born at Hanau in 1786. The 
 incidents of his external life are to be read in many 
 places. They were few and simple. His father died 
 early. With his mother and the other children he 
 went to Cassel, where he attended school. Owing to a 
 serious illness in his twelfth year, his health continued 
 through life extremely delicate, and his labors and 
 manner of living were regulated accordingly. His 
 first visit to Berlin was in 1809, when he went thither 
 to stay with his intimate friend, Achin von Arnim. 
 The succeeding years he spent chiefly in Cassel. In 
 1825 he married there, and some years later removed 
 with Jacob to Gottingen, which town he afterwards 
 
 213
 
 214 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 left with his brother to return to Cassel, from thence 
 they were soon called to Berlin, here to spend the re- 
 mainder of their days. The brothers had one house, 
 one library, one purse. 
 
 In recalling William Grimm's career, however, it is 
 not with the changes of the years or places of abode 
 that our minds are occupied. Even his dearest friends, 
 if they would know the exact sequence of these 
 events, must hunt them up in encyclopaedias. Our 
 feeling at the loss of a man whom we have known 
 and loved has little to do with the mere incidents in 
 his career, which latter it is the work of a biographer 
 to set forth. How few of those who most deeply la- 
 mented the loss of Humboldt knew more of him than 
 that he was born in 1769, and, after extensive travels 
 in Asia and America, spent the rest of his life chiefly 
 in Berlin. The conception of a person retained by 
 his contemporaries is no mere schedule, however long, 
 of his achievements or vicissitudes, but a clear com- 
 prehension of their worth, position, and power while 
 living, and of the void left behind at their departure. 
 
 This was the feeling when Bettina or when Hum- 
 boldt died. The extent of what we had lost was meas- 
 ured by the magnitude of what we must henceforth 
 live without. It is not a year since both passed away. 
 As writer and poet, when Bettina died, her labors had 
 long ceased; but as an intellectual power, as having 
 the keenest eyes for whatever was great or fair, and 
 the most eloquent lips to describe it, she might have
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 215 
 
 lived on forever. Humboldt, the man of science, had 
 embodied in the Cosmos the result of his long and 
 gigantic labors, had apparently finished his work on 
 earth ; he was old and wearied, and had now a claim 
 to immortality. We had no right to detain him longer ; 
 yet, as patron of all and every intellectual effort, we 
 cannot but wish that he might have lived for centuries ; 
 there is no one to fill his place. He never repulsed 
 any one, or overlooked genuine merit ; and where he 
 recognized talent, protected it. He often gratified men 
 with flattering speeches, because, in his long experience, 
 he had discovered the stimulating effect of this small 
 coin ; but he was far too sincere to give only this. He 
 used his great influence at court to have superior abil- 
 ity rewarded and given the high position it deserved, 
 lending personal aid and support freely whenever it 
 was necessary. He expressed his opinion with cour- 
 age, and openly. This was the irretrievable loss to us 
 when his eyes closed in death. 
 
 And in William Grimm what we miss and passion- 
 ately deplore is, not the man, who with untiring assi- 
 duity did all that in him lay for the glory of Germany. 
 This he did, and his share was large indeed. He was 
 almost seventy-four years old, and had a right to enter 
 into his rest. From book to book he had pressed 
 steadily forward; not a day of his life had passed 
 unimproved. The Kinder- Marchen (the Danish songs 
 which he translated), the German sagas, editions of old 
 poems, academic treatises, and, finally, his share in the
 
 216 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 great German dictionary, unite to form a crown full 
 and rich enough to cover his temples. It would be 
 unreasonable to desire that he should further toil. 
 And he, too, had reached a kind of terminus. Just as 
 he dropped upon his bed, in his last brief illness, the 
 letter D of the Worteribuch (his last undertaking) was 
 finished, a new edition of the Mdrchen ready, which 
 he examined, and selected the copies to be distrib- 
 uted among his friends ; a new edition of Freidank's 
 Bescheidenheit finished in manuscript, and finally, a 
 lecture he intended to deliver in the Academy of Sci- 
 ence on the 15th of December. 
 
 But who of those who knew him intimately regard 
 even these as more than subsidiary to the nobler mem- 
 ories which cling to his life and person ? We think 
 of his gentleness, his repose, his broad, fair judgments, 
 and the perpetual geniality which, like a fresh, benefi- 
 cent atmosphere, surrounded him. His friends ascribe 
 all this to him from his earliest years. An optimism 
 of the most generous kind was born in him. Even 
 when things were in the wildest confusion, he sought 
 and found the way to a good issue. And in this tone 
 he uttered his last words, while already rapt in dreams. 
 
 He denied what was evil as long as he could ; but 
 once fully recognized, threw no mantle over it, and if 
 it threatened to approach moved out of its sphere. With 
 marvelous patience he adapted himself to the inevitable. 
 The conscientiousness with which he strove to perfect 
 his work he extended to all the relations of life. Per-
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 217 
 
 haps his most charming feature was his capacity of im- 
 parting to all who approached him his own tranquil- 
 lity, and cheerful, grateful recognition of the blessings 
 of life. He gladly went back to places he had once 
 visited, and retraced the old familiar paths. He took 
 a lively interest in recalling past events and interests. 
 With what tenderness he spoke of the departed whom 
 he had once known ! How irrevocably strong in him 
 was the tie of early friendship ! It was cherished with 
 sacred reverence. The nature of his social intercourse 
 can never be described. William Grimm was liebens- 
 wilrdig in the highest sense of the word. As in the 
 Marchen he caught the poetry of the people, rendering 
 their very words with an art which in itself was poetry, 
 and which no one has since attained, although so much 
 attention has been given to this branch of literature; 
 so in his lightest narrations he caught the naive aspect 
 of things, and set them forth in the simplest and most 
 natural manner. He loved to tell stories. He elevated 
 the character of social intercourse by infusing his 
 whole nature and soul into his words. In his strictly 
 scientific works, in his more lightly conceived essays, 
 prefaces and letters, always and everywhere we per- 
 ceive the same delight in the contemplation of things, 
 and the same felicity of expression in communicating 
 this joy to others. And this capacity for happiness 
 increases with his years. Ever more cheerful and 
 more contented as his days roll on. Up to the last 
 moment this serenity continues. How gladly he ren-
 
 218 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 ders a friendly service ! How willingly receives one 
 in return when offered ! He recognizes the smallest 
 token of kindness, accepting it with heartfelt grati- 
 tude. 
 
 What has been here said is merely the image mem- 
 ory presents to those who, overcome by the blow 
 which has fallen upon them so unexpectedly, can 
 speak but of what is nearest to them. We do not 
 eulogize such men, we only name them. Not a sylla- 
 ble of praise was spoken over his coffin ; it stood close 
 beside his writing-desk, the books still open upon it as 
 if he had just been reading them, the inkstand, the 
 pen, the little scraps of paper bearing miscellaneous 
 notes, the pictures on the walls, each one a memento 
 of beloved people or places ; it was impossible to be- 
 lieve that he was nevermore to look at them. But this 
 feeling must pass. The world is poorer by the loss of 
 one man ; others will step forward in his place. His 
 friends will console themselves in the flight of years, 
 speak of him less frequently ; but his image will grow 
 ever more and more distinct, until by degrees what he 
 has done will concentrate itself in his very name. So 
 long as the German language endures, so long will the 
 name of William Grimm be in itself a word signify- 
 ing a noble man, whose life and talents were conse- 
 crated to his people. 
 
 BERLIN, Dec. 21, 1859.
 
 THE BROTHERS GEIMM. 219 
 
 APPENDIX TO 
 
 JACOB GRIMM'S ORATION ON HIS BROTHER. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, JULY 5, 1860. 
 
 ON beginning to speak Jacob Grimm had been, as 
 usual, somewhat hoarse, and the words came with a 
 certain hesitation. Only by degrees did the discourse 
 flow on smoothly. He was the last to speak at the 
 sitting, and it was already late. Many will ever re- 
 member him as he stood holding the written leaves 
 turned toward the window to gain a better light, 
 whilst the fading beams of day fell upon his white 
 hair. 
 
 "William's illness and death had come unexpectedly. 
 On his return from a little journey in the autumn of 
 1859, he had seemed unusually fresh and vigorous. 
 His malady at first appeared quite insignificant. Sud- 
 denly dangerous symptoms set in ; a carbuncle devel- 
 oped on his back, which did not yield to treatment. 
 At last, however, he believed the trouble overcome. 
 "God be praised," said my father, sitting up in his 
 bed ; " I had really thought it would end fatally, and I 
 have still so much to do." That he had had a presenti- 
 ment he should not live through the winter is clear 
 from certain directions found among his papers, which 
 were later carried out for the printing of the new edi- 
 tion of Freidanh
 
 220 THE BKOTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 In one night all was decided; violent fever set in, 
 and on the morning of December 16th he died. He 
 was not wholly conscious at the last. Jacob was sit- 
 ting on a low stool beside his pillow, almost counting 
 every breath he drew. He recognized him, but fan- 
 cied it was his picture, and said, " It looks very like 
 him." He spoke 'much, and, strange to say, just be- 
 fore his death, owing to the sudden working of some 
 secret law, the confuted thoughts arranged themselves 
 clearly and succinctly. In well-formed, calmly-evolved 
 sentences, he talked of himself, of what he had planned, 
 what accomplished ; glided from past to present, and 
 gave his opinion of the political condition ; taking the 
 same serene, hopeful view of things he had always 
 done, and ending so naturally that we had not seen 
 he was struck with death. Such a revelation of 
 thought must have implied full possession of health- 
 ily working powers. 
 
 The papers were filled with the most romantic ac- 
 counts of Jacob's condition after the death of his 
 brother. In despair, he was said to be wandering 
 about in the lonely rooms, seeking for him who was 
 no more. Nothing of the kind was true. He accepted 
 the event very quietly, although he of all had least 
 expected it. Toward the dawn of the last day, as I 
 went to awaken him, I heard his quiet breathing ; he 
 was peacefully asleep. " Ah, my God ! " he said, " I had 
 thought all would now go on well." After my father 
 was dead, he often went into the study where he lay
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 221 
 
 to gaze at him long and earnestly. At the funeral, 
 he walked between my brother and myself up the gen- 
 tle slope of the burial-ground, in the piercing wind, 
 stepping firmly over the crackling snow. It will also 
 never be forgotten by those standing around the grave, 
 how he stooped, and with his delicate fingers picked 
 out a clod of earth which he threw after the coffin. 
 There was no change perceptible in his general de- 
 meanor. He immediately resumed his customary work, 
 and went on with it in the old way. 
 
 This calmness under his heavy trial, and which ren- 
 dered it possible for him to speak of it publicly, surely 
 arose from the feeling that, at most, the separation 
 was only for a very few years. How passionately, in 
 earlier days, the thought of William's dying before 
 him had excited him. I read in a letter to Lachmann, 
 with whom he maintained unbroken correspondence 
 from 1820 to 1840, and to w r hom he opened his heart 
 as to no one else. 
 
 My father was also in correspondence with Lach- 
 mann, and all the letters and answers are before me. 
 
 " How long, dear Lachmann," he writes 21st February, Got- 
 tingen, " I have striven to find a leisure day or quiet hour in 
 which to reply to your consoling letter of December 28th, and 
 to inform you of all that has befallen us. On the day when 
 the in every respect disgusting riot in this place came to an 
 end, William, who had probably taken cold during the previous 
 night watching over the threatened library, went to bed ill. 
 The first few days inspired no alarm. We supposed it a return 
 of the catarrhal fever which from time to time had troubled
 
 222 THE BROTHEES GRIMM. 
 
 him ; but after one fit of coughing came a hemorrhage, a 
 dangerous sign of inflammation of the lungs, and his life was 
 manifestly in danger. Heaven graciously listened to our sup- 
 plications, and improvement soon appeared ; since then he has 
 by degrees, but slowly, recovered, although he has not yet his 
 full vigor. With what anguish of heart I sat during these 
 heavy days at his table, covered with his work ; how everything 
 I looked at pained me, his books, his writings, the" order and 
 neatness everywhere, absorbed as I was with the idea that per- 
 haps all this might end at one fell stroke, and that my own life 
 must be spent in mourning and longing for him. I cannot 
 describe my feelings ; I can only say, that I prayed to God 
 ardently, and thanked hLii fervently for the mercy he has 
 shown us. After such days one breathes freely, as after a ter- 
 rible thunder-storm, and is prepared to endure bravely other 
 trials, which do not take the very heart out of us." 
 
 "What he has here said is repeated in the preface to a 
 new part of the grammar then in progress, which was 
 dedicated to William. In this he says, that he almost 
 believes he wrote all his books specially for him, since 
 nobody else accepted them in such a true spirit. The 
 dedications of their books form a record of their friend- 
 ships. Scarcely one of the intimate friends has been 
 omitted. 
 
 The lives of both up to the time when they left 
 Cassel for Gottingen they have themselves related in 
 autobiographies composed for Justi. 
 
 What I shall here attempt to give is merely a glimpse 
 of their last years, by way -of introduction to Jacob 
 Grimm's discourse upon Old Age, of which he could 
 not have written so eloquently had it not been his own 
 experience.
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 223 
 
 Jacob speaks of those first years in Cassel as being 
 the happiest in his life. The position offered in Gb't- 
 tingen was in every respect an honorable reparation 
 for the injury which made a longer stay in their chosen 
 home impossible ; on the other hand, they missed the 
 leisure for their special work, which they had there 
 enjoyed in the richest measure. Instead of three 
 working hours, and even these devoted for the most 
 part to their own matters, twice that number was 
 demanded in Gottingen. It was hard to accustom 
 themselves to it, and in the letters to Lachmann this 
 is often expressed; hence when upon their banish- 
 ment to Gottingen they returned to the old place, 
 where, wholly undisturbed, they might once more ded- 
 icate their lives to their own work, amid all the sad 
 circumstances by which it was attended, they really at 
 heart felt it to be a blessing. The most painful part of 
 it all was, that from now on between the old Cassel 
 friends who took their side, and those who openly, or 
 covertly, drew back from them, there must be a separa- 
 tion. They lost many friends at this time, but fresh ones 
 came in their place, and from this period date most of 
 the close friendships which were the joy of their latter 
 years ; the intimate union with Dahlmann and Gervinus, 
 with whom they had long been acquainted, was now 
 formed, which remained unbroken to the last. I here 
 introduce part of a letter to Lachmann after the first 
 impression had somewhat subsided, and the brothers 
 (who did not leave Gottingen together) were reunited, 
 and firmly established in Cassel.
 
 224 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 CASSEL, May 12, 1&10. 
 
 The sun which for three weeks has shone unintermittingly, 
 and brought forward the most beautiful spring I think I ever 
 knew in my life, since yesterday is again behind the clouds, and 
 all too quickly cold weather has set in upon us. Yet your let- 
 ter has been like the warmth of the sun to me, and I rejoice 
 that you still love us ; for in my heart is the old friendships 
 and affection. There have been some things which grieved and 
 annoyed me, but they were not great ones ; most painful to me 
 has been the occasional suspicion that you were more and more 
 drawing back from us, and no longer taking the same interest 
 in our life and work. It would be natural, I suppose, that just 
 now we should be very sensitive. Had you come alone and 
 stayed longer with us last autumn, everything would then have 
 been satisfactorily explained. I have indeed never had the 
 slightest cause to reproach you as to your conduct in this mat- 
 ter ; your opinion was always given openly and honestly, and 
 in so many essential points coincided with ours, that it has 
 afforded me much satisfaction ; it was neither to be expected, 
 nor was it necessary, that you should agree to everything at 
 once. But reticence and the refusal to give a distinct opinion, 
 though coupled with a sympathy which I am sure was intended 
 
 to be sincere as was my experience with , wounded me. 
 
 In all he said he seemed to imply that he had been kept in 
 ignorance of the facts necessary, for complete insight into the 
 matter; whilst they lie so openly and fully before the world 
 that I cannot conceive how anybody can withhold his decision 
 in this case, if he has the courage to pronounce judgment on 
 any historical evnt whatsoever. I have never yet repented our 
 step for an instant, and when I think of Gdttingen praise God 
 that he has taken me away from the place which I should now 
 feel to be insufferable. I still stand the trial when I ask my- 
 self what a Greek or Roman would or would not have done in 
 our situation. The act to me, at the time of its occurrence,
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 225 
 
 seemed much more insignificant ; simply natural and right, and 
 I believe nothing avails men and nations but to be just and 
 brave ; this is the basis of all sound policy. Whether any 
 or what kind of fruit shall come of it lies in God's directing 
 hand ; there are trees which spread out their broad arms 
 according to their strength, which bear no fruit, and are only 
 to afford shade and verdure in the land. I cannot, however, 
 restrain the thought (and it makes me so much the more hum- 
 ble) that this may prove a spark without which the fire of 
 resistance would not have been kindled that is now becoming 
 a blessing to our whole country. For the future of the Ger- 
 man nation depends on the public regard for the sentiments of 
 honor and freedom. 
 
 I am not hostile to the world, and cling with ardent love to 
 my country. But, after my Gb'ttingen experience, once more 
 in the peaceful retirement of Cassel I feel that I am so much 
 happier here, that if we Protestants had the institution of mon- 
 astic life, without other monkish worship, I would gladly pass 
 the rest of my short span of life thus apart from the maddening 
 crowd. It is my nature to learn less from intercourse and 
 teaching than from my own efforts. It has also disinclined me 
 to social intercourse, that almost all talks or discussions are 
 brought to bear upon these public affairs of ours, which is most 
 disagreeable and painful. And what should I be in the tur- 
 moil of Berlin ? I could accomplish nothing there, either for 
 myself or others, which could not be done more agreeably 
 almost anywhere else. Heaven grant and help that Prussia 
 may not hinder, but guide and stimulate, the rest of Germany ! 
 
 Some months after these words were written, how- 
 ever, came the call to Berlin, which was accepted. 
 
 Among Jacob's papers I found one directed to Sa- 
 vigny, in which he gives his reasons for refusing the 
 summons to Bonn in the year 1816. The salary in
 
 226 THE BROTHEKS GRIMM. 
 
 Cassel was extremely small, but he writes : " I confess 
 the money consideration influences my decision very 
 little, as my limited wants make this of trifling im- 
 portance, and I am confident that I shall always have 
 enough to live honorably." Nor would they have 
 gone to Berlin in 1840 had their circumstances left 
 them any choice. William had been there in 1809 to 
 visit Achin von Arnim ; the city had pleased him so 
 little, that when not long after Savigny was called 
 from Landshut thither, he sincerely pitied him. Since 
 that time, however, great changes had taken place in 
 Berlin ; but the brothers shrank from the turmoil of 
 the large, distant city, where they feared they should 
 always feel themselves to be strangers. Jena or Leip- 
 zig, or best of all Marburg, would have seemed very 
 much nearer; they would gladly have remained in 
 Hesse, which is, perhaps, the country in all Germany 
 most passionately loved by its inhabitants. Notwith- 
 standing this attachment, which never diminished, after 
 they had made their choice and entered Berlin, the 
 first unfavorable impression was wholly reversed ; they 
 found retirement, comfort, and resources in a far greater 
 degree than they had enjoyed in Cassel. Both the 
 brothers were very happy in Berlin, and my father 
 especially often represented to strangers in the clear- 
 est light the advantages this city afforded. Independ- 
 ent, absolute masters of their time, relieved from every 
 social obligation, they soon created for themselves a true 
 home, and, as compared with former years, the health
 
 THE BKOTHERS GRIMM. 227 
 
 of both had so much improved, there remained little 
 to wish for. 
 
 Over twenty years their labors in Berlin went on 
 continuously. Journeys infringed but little, the long- 
 est interruption for Jacob being a visit to Italy and 
 a stay in Frankfort, when he was elected member of 
 Parliament in 1848. He lectured in the university 
 only a few years, but rarely failed to be present at the 
 sittings of the Academy of Science, and often delivered 
 the treatise. Of these dissertations he enjoyed giving 
 his friends printed copies, and it was his intention to 
 have published a collection of them ; but as he wished 
 to remodel them, this was postponed from time to time, 
 and he was never able to accomplish it. His published 
 works, ranged in serried files, stood all around his 
 work-table so that from his chair he could comfortably 
 reach any one of them. He, and William also, had 
 the Worteribuch printed with very broad margins, and 
 the separate sheets lay in piles beside his writing- 
 desk, these margins quite covered with supplement- 
 ary remarks. After William's death Jacob laid his 
 brother's copy beside his own. All these books, objects 
 of reverence to us for so many years, now stand 
 orphaned, with a dubious fate before them. For to 
 whom will all this labor be of value ? Among Jacob's 
 papers was found one of an early date containing the 
 express command that after his death all his notes 
 should be burned. To be sure, they would be of little 
 use to others, as he alone had the key to them. His 
 books he thought might again be used.
 
 228 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 He loved his books the word is not too strong 
 dearly, and the joint library was under his special pro- 
 tection. He had the different works bound in a vari- 
 ety of ways after his special directions, and indulged 
 his taste in this matter to the point of luxury. The 
 good or better opinion he entertained of a book was 
 indicated by the less or more costly bindings. 
 
 Occasional things intended for presents were bound 
 in purple velvet. The Freidank, printed after the 
 death of my father, received the most costly binding 
 which could be made. It was quite natural that he 
 who for many years had been a librarian should 
 regard his own library as a kind of personality. He 
 often surveyed with satisfaction the rows of books, 
 took down this or that volume, looked into it, closed 
 it, and put it back again in its place. It pleased him 
 to jump up and find the book which others had 
 searched for in vain. 
 
 When upon my father's death his room was added 
 to the library, he arranged the books with his own 
 hands after a new plan. He could lay his hand in the 
 dark upon every book in his library. He did not like 
 to lend them, because he was in the habit of writing 
 in them, and inserting scraps of paper covered with 
 annotations. Many volumes bear on the fly-leaf a 
 double index, one in William's and one by Jacob's 
 hand. In a letter to Lachmann, he speaks jocosely of 
 the future auction of his books, and how the people 
 will wonder that such costly volumes as the magnifi-
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 229 
 
 cent edition of the Nibelungen should be found among 
 them; he also once said to me that the books would 
 be scattered after his death and my father's, and that 
 no one else understood the system according to which 
 the collection had been made ; when on such occasions 
 he was contradicted, he let it pass. Many times we 
 had assured him that the books should not be divided 
 or sold at auction, and still, even in his last hours, 
 while his eyes showed that he understood all that was 
 said, and we were trying to say what would please and 
 quiet him, we repeated the promise that the library 
 should be reverently preserved. Perhaps a place will 
 be found for it in some university, where it will be 
 serviceable and help to perpetuate the remembrance of 
 its founder. 
 
 With my father, the apprehension was natural that 
 old age might deprive him of his freshness and work- 
 ing power. He had not so well resisted the effects of 
 time. Whilst formerly he had enjoyed spending his 
 evenings in society, he now gradually withdrew from 
 it ; he first gave up going out, and afterwards limited 
 the reception of guests at home to a small circle. It 
 was no deprivation, but a change. With Jacob this 
 was not so, however ; from youth up somewhat more 
 reserved, his habits remained unchanged to the end. 
 He worked all day, but was not unwilling to be inter- 
 rupted, and was always ready and happy to receive 
 visitors. The course of political events he followed 
 with interest. When the newspaper came, he usually
 
 230 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 
 
 laid his pen aside to peruse it without delay. His 
 temperament was one of uniform cheerfulness. It was 
 easy to give him pleasure. Both brothers loved to 
 have flowers at the window, and tended them with 
 care. My father was specially fond of the primrose, 
 which blooms continuously and unfolds its leaves in 
 graceful symmetry ; while Jacob had a preference for 
 the yellow wallflower and heliotrope. Upon their 
 writing-tables, which were covered with a variety of 
 keepsakes, they were glad to have a few fresh flowers 
 in a glass. These friendly mementos at last took 
 much room, but they enjoyed seeing them increase, 
 and always found place for the new-comers. Jacob, in 
 his last years, took great delight in small photographic 
 portraits. A considerable number was soon collected, 
 and he lost no opportunity to add to the store. He 
 brought everything that was sent him over to show 
 us, even books in unknown languages, from which he 
 would read a sentence here and there, laughing heart- 
 ily because none of us understood a word. He was 
 fond of reading aloud; not long chapters for their 
 special eloquence or beauty, but terse, pithy sentences 
 which startled us. He spoke French fluently, and 
 when the Japanese embassy, during their visit to Ber- 
 lin, called on him, addressed them in Dutch. Most 
 moving and beautiful were his words when on birth- 
 days and like occasions he gave the toast; it was 
 always something unexpected and weighted with the 
 accent of sincere affection.
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 231 
 
 My father needed repose for his work ; interruption 
 disturbed him; he thought everything had its time, 
 and did not like sudden resolutions. Jacob, who, if he 
 had a journey before him, often resolved upon it only 
 the preceding night, and who wrote all his books at 
 once just as they were to be printed, without a fresh 
 draught or changes, was always willing to be inter- 
 rupted at any time. To pause in his work for the sake 
 of giving a bit of information here, or to gather news 
 there, or glean from strangers accounts of their work, 
 which he would follow up with genuine interest, all 
 this was to him agreeable relaxation. In later years 
 these chance interruptions were not enough ; my mother 
 and sister systematically enticed him away from his 
 writing-table, since if left to himself he worked all day 
 long, and then the infirmities of age showed even in 
 him. Perhaps he might have been preserved to us for 
 many years yet, if he had consented to work less. 
 
 Toward the last, his rest at night was not always 
 unbroken; he would wake up, and could not go to 
 sleep again. 
 
 " How beautiful the long summer days, hailed with joy by 
 birds and men ! They recall the spring-time of life, when the 
 hours drink in light and flow slowly away; it is only what 
 remains over that is swallowed up in the gloom of winter and 
 old age. Now I shall soon be seventy-eight ; and when I lie 
 sleepless in bed the dear, soft light comforts me, and inspires 
 thoughts and recollections. JACOB GRIMM." 
 
 June 3, 1862.
 
 232 THE BROTHEES GRIMM. 
 
 These words were found written on a little card in 
 his pocket-book. From his youth he had a fondness 
 for gazing at the stars. In a letter to Lachmann he 
 complains that he had lost the view from his chamber 
 window of the glorious Pleiades. As an "old man, 
 when he could not sleep, he would sometimes get up 
 and go to the window to look at the heavens. 
 
 We had thought that he might live on thus for 
 many a year. In the spring of 1863, when his brother 
 Ludwig Grimm, painter and professor in the academy 
 at Cassel, died, he said, " Now I am the only one left," 
 but without a thought that his turn was to come so 
 soon. When collecting what had been written on old 
 age, prior to rewriting his own essay on the subject, 
 he received as a present Flouren's book Sur la Lon- 
 gmte, in which the average age of man is computed 
 at one hundred years, he jokingly remarked that he in- 
 tended to live so long. That he would sometimes lie 
 down for a while, or sitting at his table rest his head 
 on his folded arms, indicated to us rather the natural 
 need of repose than any decline of strength ; for when 
 it seemed to him essential, he could work all day with- 
 out interruption. Little did he anticipate himself that 
 he should so soon be interrupted forever ! He had still 
 much work in view. He would go on with the Wor- 
 terbuch, a new preface to the Marchen was to be writ- 
 ten, another volume of the Weisthiimer published, for 
 which a comprehensive and far-reaching introduction 
 was to be prepared. He had also intended writing a
 
 THE BROTHERS GRIMM. 233 
 
 book on German habits and customs, a work on Ossian 
 lay in the future, and probably plenty of other things 
 known only to himself. His last printed essay was a 
 criticism of the work of Jonckbloet, about Reinhard, in 
 the Gottingen Anzeigen ; he would next have written 
 on Goethe's correspondence with Carl August. I found 
 upon his table a freshly folded sheet with the title of 
 the book at the top. For this end, he was anxious to 
 read Goethe's correspondence with Frau von Stein, and 
 begged me, if I meant to buy the book (as had been 
 my intention), to do so at once. The last things he 
 read were some leaves sent to him, of a collection of 
 Greek myths, which he had looked through with great 
 interest, and covered with pencil-marks. It was his 
 habit to read books as soon as received, and he always 
 did so, with pencil in hand. In this way he has left 
 behind innumerable scraps of notes and citations. 
 
 As in my father's case, a little autumn journey just 
 before his final illness had seemed to be of special 
 benefit to him. He caught cold soon after his return, 
 and inflammation of the liver set in, which, however, 
 seemed to subside. His days were good, he was able 
 to read for hours together in bed, but his nights were 
 restless and feverish. The physician advised his get- 
 ting up a little, in the hope of making the nights more 
 comfortable. On Saturday afternoon, when he at- 
 tempted this for the second time, my sister, sitting near 
 the window, felt him falling against her. It was apo- 
 plexy which had struck the right side. He passed into
 
 234 THE BROTHERS GEIMM. 
 
 a state of drowsiness ; he could move his leg at mo- 
 ments when awake, but his arm less easily, and he 
 spoke with difficulty. He often touched his right arm 
 with his left, as if to discover how it was with him. 
 This was through the night. Towards Sunday morning 
 his consciousness apparently grew clearer ; he turned 
 his eyes upon us all, and the friends standing around 
 him ; seemed to understand what we said to him. 
 Once we thought we had lost him, when he suddenly 
 took up a photograph of William, brought it close 
 before his eyes, as he was wont to do, looked at it for 
 some moments, and laid it down upon the coverlet. 
 Sunday, September 20th, at twenty minutes past ten 
 in the evening he drew his last breath. His final 
 resting-place has been prepared beside his brother's, 
 according to his express desire.
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM, according to Lewes, fills a larger 
 space in the literary history of the nineteenth century than 
 any other German woman ; but her works are not greatly read 
 to-day, and even in her lifetime the distinction she won was 
 to be attributed, in part certainly, to her altogether rare 
 and elevated nature. Gifts she had indeed, and was both intel- 
 lectual and accomplished ; but, better still to those who knew 
 her, she was a very sunbeam in the flesh, and gave not only 
 light, but a spark of Promethean fire, to all who approached 
 her. Through a wretched translation of her principal work, 
 she appears to the English reading public only as the most ex- 
 aggerated sentimentalist of a sentimental age, the Dorcasina 
 Sheldon of modern times. That this was neither her character 
 nor style is proved by the abundant testimony of many talented 
 men still living, who speak of a debt of gratitude to her such 
 as they are conscious of to no other. Translator's Note. 
 
 BETTINA was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main April 
 4th, 1785. She married Achin von Arnim 1811 in 
 Berlin. The correspondence of Goethe with a Child 
 appeared in 1835. She died on the 20th of January, 
 1859. 
 
 Her correspondence with Goethe had been preceded 
 by one with her brother Clemens Brentano and with 
 the Stiftsdame Caroline von Gunderb'de. In these 
 three books is contained the narrative of Bettina's 
 childhood and youth ; of these times she gives the 
 
 235
 
 236 BETTINA VON ARXIM. 
 
 most graphic and pleasing description. Her mother 
 was the Maximiliane von La Koche, whom Goethe 
 pictures so charmingly between childhood and maiden- 
 hood, as she first came to greet him in her mother's 
 house, and whom he afterward held so dear when 
 a young wife in Frankfort. Maximiliane's character 
 afforded material which completed his picture of Lotte 
 in the Sorrows of Wertlier, while her husband, Brentano, 
 (Bettina's father) gave the final emphasis to the uncom- 
 fortable Albert of the romance. She was Brentano's 
 second wife, and after her early death his quickly fol- 
 lowed. Many brothers and sisters, all distinguished 
 for beauty and wit, and in the idiosyncrasies of their 
 natures best understood by one another, formed a 
 large and closely linked family which attracted into 
 its circle a host of dearly beloved relations and friends. 
 The old family mansion of the " Golden Head " in the 
 Sandgasse in Frankfort was the central home of this 
 republican community, within which Bettina's nature 
 unfolded itself freely. 
 
 In a kind of idyllic narration of personal events 
 the genius of Bettina and her brother, Clemens Bren- 
 tano, shines forth most brilliantly. An inexhaustible 
 vitality and freshness favored her desire ever to behold 
 the world under new aspects. Bettina was never ill, 
 never ailing, until during the very last years of her 
 life, and not even variable, like most of us, in temper- 
 ament. A victorious soul dwelt in her. She was 
 brimming over with a happy confidence that things
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 237 
 
 were taking the right direction. She demanded large 
 intercourse with people, and an active participation in 
 important affairs. She was a cosmopolite, and from 
 childhood accustomed to change of place. We find 
 her on the Main, the Rhine, in Bavaria, Austria, Thu- 
 ringia, always and everywhere surrounded by friends 
 and relatives. 
 
 The scope which had been allowed her as a maiden 
 Bettina looked upon as proper and essential to her 
 through life. The future must stand before her rich 
 in anticipations if she was to be content. The state 
 of society in her day favored these views. Old forms 
 in Germany were disintegrating. Fresh talent spring- 
 ing up everywhere, and not to be diverted from its 
 proper channel, or monopolized or quenched by party 
 spirit. Each pursued quietly his own path, while a 
 great aim was common to all. Poetry, philology, nat- 
 ural sciences, philosophy, and politics formed pne 
 great sea, over which each took his own course, with 
 the sails of all the others constantly in sight. The 
 young and gifted, heedless of the past, lived in the 
 expectation of tremendous events which the next day 
 was to bring forth. Now, as I read the early letters 
 of my father and uncle, I realize how all interest in 
 the past had disappeared, while prosperity and happi- 
 ness seemed to lie only in the future. Bettina was 
 permitted to enjoy an intimate friendship with the 
 noblest of those who thought and worked in this 
 spirit, and she penetrated even into the processes of
 
 238 BETTINA VON AKNIM. 
 
 their intellectual labors. Both Goethe's and Beetho- 
 ven's letters to her, known to us to-day as gen- 
 uine, prove how much earnestness they found in her. 
 Earnestness was the sign-manual of that day. Bettina 
 possessed the power to absorb the ideas of her epoch, 
 and to develop them in many directions. Her ac- 
 quaintance with Goethe was the goal toward which 
 all her youthful efforts and strivings had tended. 
 
 Bettina came to Berlin at the same time with Sa- 
 vigny, who had been called to the new university. 
 Savigny's wife was Bettina's sister. Thither also re- 
 paired Clemens Brentano. He was seven years older 
 than Bettina, and like herself had been for years an 
 intimate friend of Achin von Arnim. Among Arnim's 
 letters to my father and uncle the most beautiful cer- 
 tainly is that in which his marriage with Bettina is 
 described. When my father spoke of Von Arnim, it 
 was always in a peculiarly reverent tone, as if the 
 stately form of his friend rose upon his inward sight. 
 Goethe and Arnim were his most precious memories. 
 Hallowed seem the great talents of men who have 
 been too early snatched from earth. There was in 
 Arnim's nature the all-conquering, joyous tone, which 
 distinguished Bettina, although it found a different 
 expression. Bettina was a child of the ^outh, with 
 dark hair and dark eyes; she was fearless and direct, 
 and sought to mould circumstances to her will. Arnim 
 was of the North, and more reserved. He was born 
 for a country life. He was the genuine Prussian no-
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 239 
 
 bleman. Wherever he appeared, I have heard it said, 
 men felt that a good spirit had come among them. A 
 certain atmosphere of distinction surrounded him, and 
 a happy, soul-stirring energy, which he communicated 
 to others. He was courteous, elegant, handsome, free, 
 brave, and single-hearted. His style of writing had 
 all these qualities. No greater contrast could be found 
 than between his writings and Clemens Brentano's, as 
 exhibited in their correspondence. Arnim's name is 
 surrounded with a peculiar lustre in our literary his- 
 tory, but his works are not widely known, and the best 
 things in them have not been winnowed out. 
 
 When Bettina came to North Germany the struggle 
 with Napoleon was just beginning, and Berlin was full 
 of excitement. Then came the war, with its triumph- 
 ant issue ; but after this elation passed away Germany 
 relapsed into a state of monotony and dreariness, which 
 increased day by day. Naught remained of the gigantic 
 hopes which for long years previous had stimulated the 
 people, and whose sure fulfilment the war for freedom 
 seemed to prophesy. As early as 1820 Goethe spoke 
 of the "utter worthlessness of the present." 
 
 Bettina now threw herself into her family life. With 
 her children around her she lived for many years in 
 the retirement of their country home. Of these quiet 
 years she tells us little. The most important event 
 which marked them was her acquaintance with Schlei- 
 ermacher, who confirmed her sons, and with whom she 
 exchanged letters full of interesting matter, which are 
 as yet unprinted.
 
 240 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 
 
 Immediately after her marriage Bettina had become 
 estranged from Goethe. She went to Weimar at that 
 time with Arnim, and displeased Goethe by her man- 
 ner toward his wife. I have letters in Arnim's own 
 hand to Eiemar, in which he strove to gain, at least, 
 a meeting with Goethe; but Goethe refused, the old 
 friendship was broken, and Bettina and Arnim mourned 
 the loss bitterly. It was most natural that they should 
 look forward to a reunion. In the beginning of 1820 
 the idea was seized upon in Frankfort of erecting a 
 monument to Goethe in his native city. In Boisserel's 
 letters, as well as in Ranch's Life of Eggers, we read 
 many of the details concerning it. In the last pages 
 of the diary which forms the third part of Corre- 
 spondence with a Child Bettina tells how the sketch 
 for a monument to Goethe arose in her mind, which 
 she afterward took to Weimar; she would show the 
 world how Goethe had appeared to her from the begin- 
 ning. For years she pursued this matter, into which 
 Arnim entered with a like enthusiasm. In 1831 Ar- 
 nim died, and in the following year Goethe. Chan- 
 cellor von Miiller returned to Bettina her letters found 
 among Goethe's posthumous papers. The thought now 
 came over her to erect, in her own way, this monu- 
 ment to Goethe, which they had not been able to 
 execute in marble. Her sketch should find a place on 
 the first leaf of the Correspondence with a Child, and 
 face the title-page bearing the dedication, "Seniem 
 Denkmale," For his Monument. Doubly bereft, Bet-
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 241 
 
 tina found in this work the occupation she needed. 
 Thoughts of the far-off days of 'youth awoke in her 
 soul as she pored over the old letters. What she 
 would have said and written to Goethe, but never did, 
 and at the same time what, according to her own con- 
 ception, Goethe might have said in reply, should now 
 find expression. The fruits should hang riper and 
 sweeter on the boughs than in her early days, and 
 weigh down the branches to meet the hand which was 
 to pluck them. This was the key-note to this unique 
 book of which Mensebach, in closing his review of it, 
 said justly, that " it would with difficulty escape im- 
 mortality." 
 
 In recalling the days of our youth Fancy sits like 
 Penelope at the loom, drawing out of the web the old 
 threads in order to weave them over anew. Even the 
 most exact memory, when gathering up and laying 
 together the things which have constituted its earthly 
 experience, will join the threads so as to produce some- 
 thing like a work of art. Goethe in Dichtung and 
 Wahrheit has acknowledged the necessity and natural- 
 ness of this process. 
 
 Let us now consider what Bettina's personal share 
 in this work really was. She had related to Goethe 
 the stories of her childhood, just as her mother told 
 them, at the same time giving him her rendering, and 
 saying how she had reconstructed the legends to suit 
 her fancy. Goethe received these letters with delight, 
 and as we see the use he made of them, it is quite
 
 242 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 
 
 possible that it was Bettina who first struck the tone 
 in which he later wrote his biography. Certain it is 
 that the desire to make experience conform to what 
 " it might have been " moved Bettina to write this Cor- 
 respondence. She never dreamed of any one's regard- 
 ing this book, in which Goethe is made the inspiration 
 of her young life, as anything but a work of art. She 
 freely confessed what she had added to it, saying that 
 in truth she had never loved Goethe passionately. 
 
 We will now pass on to examine what Goethe's real 
 letters to Bettina contain, which Dr. Von Loeper has 
 published, so far as they could be obtained, together 
 with those to her grandmother, Sophie von La Eoche. 
 "Thy letters," Goethe writes to Bettina, May, 1810, 
 just as he was leaving for Carlsbad, " travel with me 
 and shall keep thy refreshing, lovely image ever before 
 me. I do not say more to thee, for truly one can give 
 thee nothing, because thou either takest or Greatest all 
 within thyself. Farewell, and think of me." The 
 letter was sealed with a little amor, but neither by 
 Bettina nor Goethe was this symbol interpreted seri- 
 ously ; and, precisely as the letter stands, how much 
 of what may be called fatherly love is expressed in 
 Goethe's words, and how much he acknowledges equal- 
 ity also. We have at hand a vast amount of material, 
 and can compare what Goethe said to others in letters ; 
 to whom, after the times of Frau von Stein, has he 
 declared that he could give nothing ? He appreciates 
 Bettina's mental wealth, and allows her to feel the
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 243 
 
 closest affinity with him, nothing more. The passion 
 which fills Bettina's letters did not come into play be- 
 tween the actual Goethe and herself as they met in 
 life, but between the imaginary Goethe and a feigned 
 Bettina, later born. 
 
 We know how Goethe himself, in the writing of 
 Werther, was transported with a passion for Lotte, 
 which he had long ceased to feel, perhaps never 
 had felt so powerfully as he represents. He writes of 
 what might have been. It was almost a year, before, 
 free from the reality, his poetic imagination acquired 
 intensity enough for the romance. Bettina had borne 
 these things in her mind over twenty years ere the 
 fitting opportunity came to give them expression, and 
 she was capable in a far greater measure than Goethe 
 of transforming real experiences into myths. In fact, 
 to such an extent did she possess this gift that often 
 in the very midst of events they assume to her a leg- 
 endary form. Her grandmother, Sophie La Eoche, had 
 given evidence of this talent long before ; but she was 
 of a passive nature, while Bettina was active and ac- 
 cepted life bravely, with the power of a sovereign will 
 to rule its accidents. Granting that the Clemens of 
 Friihlings kranzes, that her Gunderode, her Frau Rath, 
 and her Goethe, are fictitious creations, what vigorous 
 handling, and what light and shade these figures re- 
 ceive in her modelling of them ! Her treatment of 
 her subjects is only a little more daring than Goethe's, 
 for Marianne von Willemer complained to me that an
 
 244 BETTINA VON AKNIM. 
 
 element of passion was subsequently introduced into 
 the poenis addressed to her in the Divan which, in 
 reality had been wholly foreign to their intercourse on 
 both sides. 
 
 Bettina was in her fiftieth year when her book ap- 
 peared. With a large family, of which she was the 
 light arid centre, she had been settled for many years 
 in Berlin, where she was surrounded by a brilliant cir- 
 cle. Her renown came like the reviving spring rain 
 which falls at night, and the enthusiasm awakened 
 spread far and wide in Germany. It was assumed, as 
 a matter of course, that this was only her first work, 
 and expectation was eager as to what would follow. 
 The Gunderode found a public ready for it. This book 
 had just appeared when my father and uncle were 
 called to Berlin in 1841. 
 
 They were both among Bettina's oldest friends. I 
 myself from a child had looked upon Bettina as a near 
 relative of a superior order, as a kind of double of 
 my mother, as my uncle Jacob seemed of my father. 
 Without Bettina's energetic assistance we should prob- 
 ably never have reached Berlin. I considered her 
 house as an annex to our own, and saw her daily from 
 1841 until her death, except when journeys intervened. 
 I can never express how much I owe her, or find it 
 possible to recount the wealth of new and interesting 
 matter I learned and enjoyed in her house. 
 
 The revolution of 1848 put an end to the glorious 
 period when a free exchange of ideas, through personal
 
 BETTIXA VON AENIM. 245 
 
 intercourse, gave the tone to public opinion in Berlin. 
 In truth, a censorship so strict and vigorous was main- 
 tained as to make it difficult to discuss things as 
 exhaustively in the public journals. Bettina never 
 had much to do with newspapers; what she wrote 
 appeared in book-form. She claimed the privilege of 
 saying many things forbidden to others. Bettina and 
 Alexander von Humboldt were the two distinguished 
 individuals whose private views determined the current 
 of public opinion. It was believed that they knew 
 more than others of the brilliant future in preparation, 
 and that paths lay open to them which were closed to 
 common sight. All who wished to attain anything, or 
 who desired free scope, or felt themselves misunder- 
 stood, applied to them. Year after year have I seen 
 missives of this kind flood in upon her. Both Bettina 
 and Von Humboldt had the gift to suddenly kindle 
 a spark in beings by no means extraordinary, which 
 raised them far above their ordinary level. From her 
 youth Bettina looked upon herself as the natural coun- 
 sellor and friend of the unfortunate. Her letters give 
 proof of this. Sad, forlorn people exercised magnetic 
 power over her, and she gave with liberal hand. 
 
 It was not from this proclivity to succor and sustain 
 that the political ideas arose and took form which in 
 later years dominated her. In this respect also she 
 went back to the thoughts of her youth. As a child 
 she was almost contemporary with the French Revolu- 
 tion, which now in Germany (between 1840-50) was
 
 246 BETTINA VON AENIM. 
 
 glorified as having been the creative epoch of modern 
 freedom/ With holy awe these conflicts were once 
 more regarded, and men sighed for a German Mirabeau. 
 What is meant by " politics " to-day interested Bettina 
 very little. The emphasis of her work, in which the 
 title was also the dedication, " This Book belongs to 
 the King," and whose publication created the great- 
 est sensation, did not lie in anything which admitted 
 of being brought into paragraphs. 
 
 In the year 1830, when the cholera first appeared in 
 Berlin, Bettina fearlessly undertook the relief of the 
 sick and the needy. From this hour dates her sym- 
 pathy with the people. Arguing from her personal 
 knowledge of the condition of the laboring classes in 
 Berlin, who had no work and nothing to eat, she came 
 to regard the whole nation as without political will of 
 its own; as diseased and helpless. These were the 
 days when it was all the fashion to speak of Germany 
 as personified in Hamlet. Bettina's suggestions were 
 made from this point of view. To-day this book is 
 simply a testimony to her noble intentions, and shows 
 what radical confusion the want of a healthy public 
 life caused among us. This was the last of her works 
 which created any sensation, and with the year 1848 
 Bettina's career in this direction closed. Her Dis- 
 course with Demons scarcely found a public. Happily 
 for Bettina's last years, this change in public favor 
 came on neither suddenly nor in a way to wound her, 
 nor even to make her conscious that she was no longer 
 indispensable.
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 247 
 
 Many energetic natures find themselves in old age 
 confronted with a new generation and new conditions, 
 which they cannot understand. They isolate them- 
 selves, and turn aside with bitterness to live in recol- 
 lections of the past. Bettina was spared this. Her 
 mind was so rich, her interests so universal, that the 
 domain was still large enough upon which she could 
 draw. To the very last she looked forward to new 
 events and experiences, eagerly and full of hope. She 
 was always writing. Next to editing her own works, 
 those of Arnim claimed her care and attention. 
 
 Whenever her picture rises before me, I see her 
 seated at her desk. Every letter of her hand-writ- 
 ing was legible, fully formed, and energetic. She 
 copied and recopied what did not please her until 
 she attained that grace and ease which lent to all she 
 wrote its peculiar sprightliness and fascination. Her 
 style in hastily written letters is much more ponderous 
 than in her books. She read uninterruptedly the new 
 literature as well as the classics. Goethe, Shakespeare, 
 and the Greek tragedians were her favorite reading. 
 The book whose style she most admired was Hb'lder- 
 lin's Hyperion. She had cherished a predilection for 
 Hb'lderlin from her youth, and when the new edition of 
 his work by Schwab appeared it became a yet stronger 
 feeling. From this moment it was her inseparable 
 companion. One book lay on her table, from which 
 she often read, that I never met elsewhere, Klinger's 
 Observations and Thoughts.
 
 248 BETTINA VON AKNIM. 
 
 In her early days Bettina drew, and cultivated such 
 a keen eye for plastic art that her criticisms were 
 wholly to be relied on. In later- years musical inter- 
 ests became supreme, together with her literary occupa- 
 tion. Among her compositions, which are no longer 
 known, that which moved me most deeply was on 
 the words of Faust, schaudre nicht, a motive in a 
 violin sonata of Beethoven's, played by Joachim. In 
 her estimation Beethoven held the highest place in the 
 musical world. 
 
 It seems strange to me that, out of Bettina's mani- 
 fold experiences, scarcely one presents itself which 
 affords a complete illustration of what it was to live 
 with her. I have found it impossible to give to those 
 who did not know her an idea of her personality. 
 How is one to describe the power in a being which 
 renders every moment spent with them of the richest 
 significance ; the attractive charm which no one can 
 resist ; the gift, above all, of entering into the feelings 
 of the young, of influencing and elevating them ? She 
 brought light to men, and made them trustful and 
 happy. Others who knew her confess themselves as 
 little able as myself to describe wherein lay this power 
 to inspire, and yet, like myself, even to-day are aware of 
 its magic potency. One might speak of the affluence 
 of imagery that streamed from her lips, of her skill in 
 detecting new phases in common things and the like ; 
 but these were only secondary, after all. 
 
 I have found that with natures of the highest order
 
 BETTIXA VON ARXIM. 249 
 
 the actual source of their attractive power lies in their 
 clearer perception of the value of existence, and that, 
 having ever present to their souls the importance of 
 the great thoughts which have been revealed to man- 
 kind, they find refreshment in consecrating themselves 
 to their further interpretation. It is the supreme joy 
 to know ourselves participating, if only in the smallest 
 measure, in these thoughts. Hence in intercourse with 
 such natures we seem to attain to it. 
 
 One recollection occurs to me oftener than any 
 other. In the beginning of the year 1850 Bettin'a 
 with her family had reached Weimar on her return 
 from a long journey. Thither I went to meet them. 
 It was in October. I found her in " The Elephant," 
 on the market-place, the old classic inn, where 
 she had taken possession of the first etage. I remem- 
 ber entering the parlor in the twilight, before the lamps 
 had been brought. A variety of guests were there, 
 to whom I was introduced without seeing them. There 
 was music, and I heard for the first time a violin so- 
 nata of Beethoven's, by Joachim. I sat quietly in my 
 corner. The delight of meeting once more those with 
 whom I felt so closely united, the softly-stealing, en- 
 trancing music, transported me into a new world. 
 Weimer was still the residence of Goethe, and his 
 spirit hovered about us there. 
 
 The next morning at six o'clock Bettina knocked at 
 my door. We went through the park that borders 
 the Ilm. The rustling yellow leaves of the poplars
 
 250 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 
 
 were glistening in the sun's first rays, while all be- 
 neath still lay in damp shade. We took the narrow 
 path which leads to Goethe's garden-house. All was 
 solitary. The small, dark shutters were closed, the 
 garden-gate fast bolted, but near it there was an aper- 
 ture in the hedge, through which we pressed into the 
 garden. The earth was thickly strown with leaves, 
 yellow, red, brown, and all the colors intermingled. 
 It seemed as if no one had been here for ages ; the 
 branches of the trees had grown until they hung low 
 over the path. Behind the house stood a half-broken 
 bench ; here we seated ourselves. Under our feet the 
 ground was paved with the little erect river pebbles, 
 between which moss had sprung up. Bettina said 
 that Goethe once told her he had passed many a night 
 here in the open air, and when he awoke how beauti- 
 ful the stars appeared twinkling through the branches 
 of the trees. We then strolled through the wet, faded 
 grass about the house until the sun began to shine. 
 Roses and vines on trellises ran over the chalk-white 
 walls, and where the wooden frames no longer held 
 them fast the vines drooped in clusters and hung down 
 as if to detach themselves wholly. We discovered 
 close to some withered roses bunches of grapes, with 
 rotten berries among them, as if nobody cared to pick 
 them. Bettina took some of them in her handkerchief. 
 I see the vines still trembling in the morning light, 
 as Bettina grasped them and plucked the fruit. 
 She was at this time not far from seventy years of
 
 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 251 
 
 age, but in the possession of her full vigor and activ- 
 ity. She spoke of Goethe without the slightest tinge 
 of sadness, as is so often the case with old people 
 when reviewing the days that are gone. The present, 
 which was hers, still enchanted her. 
 
 Bettina saw in Weimar Steinhauser's colossal exe- 
 cution of her monument to Goethe, now so unfavor- 
 ably placed, awaiting the time when it will have a 
 better position. With Wichmann's help she had her- 
 self made the plaster model of it, and among the 
 many statues intended to glorify Goethe Bettina's 
 alone seems to me to embody what he was to his age 
 in the second half of his life. The final execution of 
 the work (for which the group of Goethe, with the 
 Genius at his knee grasping the chords of his lyre, 
 was intended to form only the crowning point) en- 
 grossed Bettina's thoughts completely in her last years. 
 Steinhauser came to Berlin and stayed at her house ; 
 where by their united efforts the whole was erected. 
 A plaster model of the statue stood in the great hall 
 of her house, and she constantly found something to 
 improve in it. Ever new plans were formed to obtain 
 the means for it. Bettina listened to nothing with so 
 much pleasure as when I pictured to her our all going 
 to Eome, to watch the execution of the monument in 
 Italian marble. Feeble, and no longer able to walk 
 alone, she was many times led up to the work, and, 
 supporting herself by resting her hands on the staging 
 upon which the model stood, she would move slowly 
 round it, scrutinizing it from all sides.
 
 252 BETTINA VON ARNIM. 
 
 Beside this statue they placed her coffin before it 
 was borne to Wiedersdorf, the country-seat of the Ar- 
 nims. The family had gone on in advance. A heap 
 of laurel-wreaths and long leafy vines lay there, which 
 I nailed about the casket. 
 
 I cannot say that I have been conscious, in thus 
 giving my recollections of Bettina, of intending to 
 write her eulogy. The feeling would have been nat- 
 ural indeed ; but, after the flight of twenty years since 
 her death, my glorification would come somewhat late. 
 All the more, because after a period of misapprehen- 
 sion, something like a true appreciation of her has 
 again been awakened, chiefly through Loeper's short 
 life of her in the German biographies. 
 
 Like all mortals, Bettina had her weaknesses, and 
 there would be no reason why we should be silent in 
 regard to these, if anything decisive in her life had 
 grown out of them. But as they never affected her 
 innermost nature, we can pass them over. All the 
 thoughts of her which arise in me are of a loving, 
 joyous being. I see her ever before me, occupied with 
 serious interests. Never, even for an instant, did I 
 find her exercised about trifles, or for her own selfish 
 advantage. In this she resembled Goethe, in my eyes, 
 whose every act was determined by that same bright, 
 inward illumination, which, streaming from his own 
 soul, irradiated everything around him. 
 
 Only of the few spirits " elect precious " in all ages 
 can this be said.
 
 DANTE, 
 
 AND THE RECENT ITALIAN STRUGGLES. 
 I. 
 
 POLITICAL conditions in past epochs are often so 
 closely analogous to our own, as to tempt a compari- 
 son. History shows a repetition of the stages of devel- 
 opment ; things stride forward, and do not fall back 
 into the old ruts, but wind along in new tracks with 
 a similar movement. 
 
 Thus mankind has experienced more than once the 
 transfer of the government from the hands of narrow- 
 minded aristocracy into the broad grasp of the masses, 
 or the rise of tyrannical authority upon the disunion 
 of parties no longer able to maintain the balance of 
 power among them. And individuals at the coming 
 on of such revolutions sometimes strike into devious 
 paths ; a parallel may not un frequently be drawn in 
 this respect between isolated characters, as between 
 nations separated by hundreds of years. Positions on 
 this chess-board of life surprise us as being almost 
 mathematically analogous, in view of which we forget 
 how differently here and there the game began, and 
 how very different was its issue. It is by comparing 
 such crystallizations of events that results are arrived 
 at, which, assuming the appearance of higher historical 
 laws, not only explain their own time, but throw such 
 
 253
 
 254 DANTE. 
 
 unexpected light on the dim and distant past as to 
 persuade us that we understand it. 
 
 To be sure, history, in dealing with such compari- 
 sons, has usually political ends in view ; yet it is con- 
 ceivable that one may labor to obtain such formulas of 
 universal development merely for the sake of gaining 
 a just and clear apprehension of things. Historiog- 
 raphy is, after all, nothing but a reflection of past 
 events in the mirror of the present, and unconsciously 
 even the most impartial historian makes his own day 
 the background for the figures he wishes to introduce. 
 Why not occasionally bring out all in clearer relief, by 
 making the past, or a definite epoch of the past, the 
 background to which our present political excitement 
 furnishes the front and moving scene. We usually 
 begin as far back as we can go, and come gradually up 
 to our own times. Why not, for once, reverse the pro- 
 cess ? Everything, that in itself has real value of any 
 kind admits of practical and natural treatment. Com- 
 parisons of different epochs, of our day with former 
 days, or former days with our own, of persons, of 
 nations, or of countries with one another, all this can 
 be made instructive and serviceable ; it is the most 
 natural way to discover the progress of humanity, and 
 to convince ourselves of the advantages we enjoy in 
 the present. No better illustration of the marvelous 
 facilities for warfare nowadays than the contemplation 
 of Caesar's campaigns, or those of a hero of the Middle 
 Ages, or even of Frederick the Great, with the suppo-
 
 DANTE. 255 
 
 sition that they had at their command our present 
 highways, railroads, steamboats, and all the improve- 
 ments in guns and cannon. 
 
 But what would be said to an attempt to-day to 
 solve the question whether Frederick the Great would 
 have preferred rifled or smooth-bore cannon ? whether 
 Charlemagne would have acknowledged the kingdom 
 of Belgium, or whether Frederick the Great would 
 have sworn allegiance to the present German constitu- 
 tion ? Wherein lies the absurdity of such questions ? 
 It seems natural, when the Prussian Liberals are point- 
 ing to Frederick's bold policy and tolerance, to retort, 
 " If you had expressed these views to him while living, 
 he would have stopped your mouths." " Quite right," 
 they answer ; " but he would not do so if he were liv- 
 ing now." And so the Liberals continue to quote 
 Frederick as if he were one of them, while the opposite 
 party will have nothing to do with the king, who 
 truly was, in every sense, an absolute monarch, and 
 granted more privileges to his nobles and soldiers than 
 it would be possible for any king nowadays to grant. 
 
 Whence these contradictions ? Under what condi- 
 tions may the political parties of the present appeal to 
 the great men of the past ? 
 
 I have been moved to put this question by a bro- 
 chure just published by professor Carl Witte upon 
 Dante, and the Italian Question (Halle, 1861), wherein 
 Dante's name is connected with the late revolution in 
 Italy, and the writer has undertaken to prove that the
 
 256 DANTE. 
 
 great poet and statesman, so far from being in sympa- 
 thy with it, would have turned aside in disapproval, 
 and regarded it as a ruinous change in the destiny of 
 his country. Instead of hating the Germans he is 
 said to have been filled with love and gratitude toward 
 them, and to have ardently longed for their rulership ; 
 that he opposed the overthrow of existing things, and 
 that united Italy, as proclaimed to-day, was a conception 
 which never could have entered his mind, since he 
 believed the only salvation for Italy was in subordinat- 
 ing its different rulers under the German or Roman 
 German Empire. That it is to be looked upon, not 
 merely as an error, but as a conscious deception, if the 
 Italian Liberals, the founders of the great revolution 
 just accomplished, honor Dante as having been its 
 source and inspiration. 
 
 Our author enumerates the distinguished Liberals 
 who had been devoted students of Dante : Mazzini, 
 who published a posthumous work of Urgo Foscolo's 
 on Dante ; Tommaseo, the ex-dictator of Venice, and 
 one of his most gifted modern interpreters, and others. 
 Here we have, in brief, the contents of this little 
 volume. 
 
 It would naturally seem that whoever tries to draw 
 such conclusions must be inimical to the new form of 
 Italian unity. The very subject involves it. But our 
 author does not at once reveal himself in this light, 
 and on the contrary expressly denies any imputation 
 of the kind by his answer to the question, in how far
 
 DANTE. 257 
 
 Dante may be referred to for decision as to some of 
 the perplexing questions of the day, by those who have 
 given to Italy its present form. He avoids passing 
 sentence of condemnation on the late proceedings or 
 existing government ; objectively, and as a scholar 
 merely would he discuss the position that in all proba- 
 bility Dante would have taken toward the recent move- 
 ment. Yet the way in which he carries out his purpose 
 can hardly be called " objective," hence a contradiction 
 appears at the very outset which deprives his treatise 
 of all clearness as to the main question. 
 
 Italian unity, he asserts, as Dante heralded it, was a 
 wholly different thing from that which has been brought 
 about by the revolution ; or, as he affirms in other 
 places, " is now to be achieved by right and might." 
 These words clearly enough reveal his opinion, how- 
 ever much it may have been his intention to withhold 
 it, and this standpoint is maintained throughout the 
 book. In such a task as he proposed to himself the 
 promise to remain impartial could not be fulfilled. 
 Impartial we can only be when the things we contem- 
 plate are entirely divorced from the passions seething 
 about us. Impartially might Dante's times be con- 
 sidered, if we were convinced that Catholicism, aris- 
 tocracy, imperialism, and citizenship signified entirely 
 different things in the thirteenth century from what 
 we understand by them in the present ; that the fiery 
 feuds between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the cities 
 and the nobles, the emperor and the pope, were burnt-
 
 258 DANTE. 
 
 out volcanoes. But the moment they are looked upon 
 otherwise, and the question is asked whether Dante, 
 author of the work on Monarchy, could have been the 
 friend, or possibly was the spiritual father, of the late 
 triumphant movement, all impartiality is at an end, 
 and it seems to me it would have been far better to 
 confess this plainly than to disclaim what he was 
 unable to conceal. 
 
 For Dante's book on Monarchy not only contains no 
 word which could lead us to regard him as an adher- 
 ent of the present so-called legitimate princes, but 
 really nothing in any way applicable to the present 
 state of things, or from which Dante's attitude -to 
 recent Italian policy could be argued. 
 
 II. 
 
 The times in which Dante lived were those, when, 
 after the fall of the Hohenstaufens, who had been the 
 last to maintain the idea of a world-embracing empire, 
 not an arm could be found wielding the imperial 
 sword and ready for the fight. 
 
 But the idea did not die out; it was too deeply 
 rooted. As in our own day, a genuine Catholic, even if 
 he has never had anything to do with Eome, recognizes 
 only one indivisible church, with its imperishable head, 
 the Pope of Eome, so at that time all mankind, 
 as a state organism, considered the Roman emperor to 
 be its head, whether one existed or not; and even 
 those acknowledged his divine right who would not 
 obey his mandates.
 
 DANTE. 259 
 
 Men still clung too firmly to the spots which gave 
 them birth, and to ideas inherited from their fathers, 
 to part quickly with one so firmly established as that 
 of " the Empire." It continued to exist for centuries, 
 long, long after the actual substance of the Eoman 
 Empire had become either a myth or a faint dying 
 echo of the past. In those days the ordinary man 
 had as little definite notion of the import and tenor 
 of the public life of which he was a part, as infants of 
 the property of their parents. Ancient laws, habits, 
 and customs, dating from immemorial time, which 
 nobody thought of attacking, were encountered every- 
 where. The nations stood in a kind of nebulous light 
 to each other, and this atmosphere of unreality tinted 
 all their views. Like some grand, mysterious power, 
 the emperor moved through the different countries, 
 always in motion, the highest tribunal wherever he 
 appeared, and like a distant sun irradiating the whole, 
 the papacy sat enthroned in Eome, eternal and immu- 
 table. 
 
 The rise of cities, that is to say the gradual devel- 
 opment and concentration of culture within fortified 
 walls, formed the first blessed islands in this sea of 
 political confusion. The dwellers in these cities soon 
 came to feel how strong they were in themselves, 
 and how easily the emperor could be dispensed with. 
 The cities united in friendship or made war upon each 
 other without asking the permission or arbitration of 
 the emperor. And soon the different nationalities
 
 260 DANTE. 
 
 grew more and more conscious of being self-sustained 
 corporations ; conducted their wars independently, 
 scorning resort to any higher authority. Everywhere 
 self-consciousness, and a falling away from the old 
 dogmas. The Crusades, those grand repeated striv- 
 ings for a common external goal, were to harmo- 
 nize once more the inward discords. For a time they 
 had this effect, but finally only served to add to the 
 general disunion. It was from the Crusades that 
 Venice and Genoa, to quote the two most brilliant 
 examples, absorbed into themselves the power of in- 
 dependence. The last of the Hohenstaufens carried on 
 their wars, not to maintain their supremacy over other 
 nations, but as representatives of their dynasty, which, 
 through the possession of Naples, was able to lord it 
 over Italian politics. The cities, the pope, and France 
 disputed this possession. After the fall of the Ho- 
 henstaufens, France entered Naples as victor in their 
 place. Germany resigned the grand role she had 
 played in Europe. With her power her culture also 
 waned, whilst that of the Romanic nations rose in 
 splendor. All the while, however, for the state form 
 men had before them the old image of an indivisible, 
 overruling empire, and for this the parties in Italy 
 fought. 
 
 What men in reality contended for, however, was 
 simple possession. The French party, the National, 
 the Guelphs who adhered to the Pope as being a power 
 superior to the Emperor, believed themselves absolved
 
 DANTE. 261 
 
 from any recognition of rights or privileges which, 
 without the confirmation of the Church, were only 
 imperial feoffs. The German party (the Ghibellines) 
 held fast, or tried to recover, what had slipped from 
 its grasp. It was this which made these conflicts so 
 tedious, and in theory so interminable. It was a strug- 
 gle for existence. Submission meant banishment, and 
 banishment waiting for a chance to return as victor. 
 And as this state of war and tumult lasted through 
 decades, it became the habitual, yes the normal, con- 
 dition of Italy. Everywhere we see two camps, with 
 changing fortunes, as if one half of a ship's crew swam 
 by the side of the vessel, until they found an opportu- 
 nity to jump in and throw the others overboard, who 
 now, in their turn, must swim alongside until fortune 
 favors them. So it was with the cities. It was not 
 simply the nobility as Ghibellines opposing the citizens 
 as Guelphs, but both parties split asunder. And as lack 
 of public funds, of high-roads, the want of one leading 
 authority, all made a well-planned war impossible; 
 isolated local skirmishings took its place, and camp- 
 fires flared up everywhere. This unfortunate condition 
 of things went on in hopeless activity for centuries, 
 mere petty feuds. Great armies, if they did form, as 
 often happened, were only a conglomerate of the 
 smaller detachments, and without inward organiza- 
 tion, they often vanished as suddenly as they had come 
 together. The earth sucked them up, as it were. The 
 emperor to-day at the head of a long troop, to-morrow
 
 262 DANTE. 
 
 had not a single man. Each soldier made war on his 
 own account, led on to battle with his own arm, and at 
 his own cost. Between the firm rank and file of the 
 nations to-day and those of the old Eoman Empire, 
 these centuries are a curious middle point betwixt 
 disintegration and formation. Under just such cir- 
 cumstances, however, do characters assume the most 
 distinct form. 
 
 Florence, Dante's home, was an imperial fief. To- 
 gether with the rest of Tuscany, the city belonged to 
 the notorious inheritance of the Countess Matilda, 
 who bequeathed her land to the Church. The em- 
 perors would never acknowledge the gift; the popes, 
 on the contrary, accepted it, and the contests went on 
 within the city between the nobles which adhered to 
 the Pope and those faithful to the Emperor, both, ac- 
 cording to their own notions, entitled to rule, that 
 is to say, having the right to drive each dther away. 
 To either party the destruction of the opposite meant 
 freedom. It was a war in which souls fought as well 
 as bodies. The Guelphs tried to insist that the Em- 
 peror must obey the Pope, that the Pope was the 
 greater light, without whose blessed help the Emperor 
 had no real authority. The Ghibellines theoretically 
 separated the two powers, and stood up for the inde- 
 pendence of the Imperial policy. The Emperor was 
 to come and sustain them ; this was why they so ar- 
 dently longed for his presence. Dante, in his youth a 
 Guelph, was it would seem more through change of
 
 DANTE. 263 
 
 parties toward one another than any sudden political 
 conversion gradually carried over from a central po- 
 sition among the Guelphs to the other party, until at 
 last he found himself in the very midst of the Ghi- 
 bellines. Passionate by nature, conscious of his own 
 power, and of what service he had already rendered 
 in fighting and by negotiations, he would continue to 
 labor for his party as he had always done ; his book 
 on Monarchy is one of these efforts. With logical 
 scientific acumen he vindicates the justice of his cause ; 
 as the substance of his whole great poem is the con- 
 demnation of his political enemies and the glorification 
 of his friends. The latter was written in exile, the 
 former, it may be, in days when he was more tender- 
 hearted, and before he had reached the decisive turning- 
 point in his fate. 
 
 in. 
 
 Dante's work, entitled De Monarchia, is written in 
 Latin, and is in three books. 
 
 The first book opens with proof of the special ne- 
 cessity of the Imperial government. Dante founds it 
 on Aristotle, Homer, and general philosophic grounds. 
 He conceives mankind as an unseparable whole need- 
 ing a head. This unity of the human race, which he 
 assumes as prevailing over all distinctions of national- 
 ity, is used in his argument as an understood and 
 well-established fact. 
 
 After these philosophic reasons he passes on to the 
 religious. God, he says, being the primal source of all
 
 264 DANTE. 
 
 Good, the Good must as far as possible seek to be like 
 him. God is one, " Hear, Israel, God the Lord is one 
 God." God has created man after his own image, there- 
 fore creation must strive to be like him also in this ; 
 under the sovereignty of a single ruler, the human 
 race is most God-like. Every son must follow in 
 the footsteps of his father, so also mankind, which 
 is the son of heaven. 
 
 Lastly, the utility of Imperialism is made an argu- 
 ment. Whenever a dispute arises, a decision must 
 be possible. Between two princes of equal rank, if a 
 quarrel breaks out, who is to settle it ? There must be 
 a third, standing higher than either, a Monarch, or 
 Emperor, whose word shall be final. 
 
 Bur nothing is so apt to cloud our sense of justice 
 as selfish desire. The Emperor, argues Dante, alone is 
 free from such temptation ; he only has nothing left 
 to desire ; for are not his possessions boundless ? The 
 Emperor only can be perfectly candid and impartial. 
 His sway is one of love and peace. All men stand 
 equally near to his heart : under him only is absolute 
 freedom conceivable. 
 
 For the source of all freedom is in the power to 
 determine one's own purposes. We first covet some- 
 thing, seize it, then judge whether it is good or hurtful ; 
 and after that either drop it, or live and die for it. 
 Only when our satisfaction with a thing springs from 
 the judgment we have formed of it can we be said to 
 be free ; but if, on the contrary, our desire for it has
 
 DANTE. 265 
 
 led to the judgment, all freedom is lost. Hence only 
 the Emperor's judgment is free; he desires nothing 
 because nothing is denied him. 
 
 On these and many other grounds Dante explains 
 why monarchy is the most salutary form of govern- 
 ment. It makes the substance of the first book, whose 
 conclusions and final argument show how very directly 
 the world was based at that time on antique princi- 
 ples. Once, says Dante, monarchy existed in its most 
 perfect form ; it was the time under Augustus, which 
 the Son of God had chosen, or perhaps (because this, 
 too, was in his power) had shaped for his appear- 
 ance. Under this emperor peace reigned throughout 
 the entire globe, and the human race was happy, as 
 Paul himself testifies, calling the time " Blessed." " In 
 truth," exclaims Dante, time and earthly rulership 
 then arrived at its fulfilment, and man possessed all 
 the essential aids to happiness. But what vicissitudes 
 this world has undergone since those days, when the 
 seamless robe of the Saviour was first rent in twain by 
 the hands of carnal passion. O that we might read 
 of this only, and not be forced to witness it with 
 our own eyes ! O hapless mortals ! through what 
 storms, what tribulations, what shipwreck of hopes, 
 have you passed to become this beast with many heads, 
 striving and contending against each other, sick in 
 mind and in soul ! What care you for the spiritual 
 understandings of things with their irrefragable proofs ? 
 what for the knowledge, for the sweetness, of the
 
 266 DANTE. 
 
 Heavenly voice which through the breath of the Holy 
 Spirit the words ring out, " Behold how good and how 
 pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." 
 
 In these words from the translation of the second 
 book, which treats of the legitimate right of the Roman 
 people to the sovereignty, Dante explains the mean- 
 ing of the Law or the Eight. It is the will of God in 
 its earthly manifestation ! What runs counter to this 
 cannot be Right, since only what happens among 
 men by his will is Right. Now God's will is in itself 
 invisible, but it may be recognized in temporal affairs ; 
 hidden and concealed from us is the seal, the impres- 
 sion only is perceptible ; therefore we must seek for the 
 tokens which reveal the imprint of this mystic ring. 
 
 The first proof that the Roman people gained the 
 rulership over the earth by right, that is by the will of 
 God, Dante sees in an inward quality of the nation. 
 Nobilissimo populo convenit omnibus aliis prveferri, 
 "The foremost place belongs to the noblest people." 
 The Romans were the noblest, therefore entitled to the 
 first rank. For, since honor is the reward of virtue 
 and bravery (virtus), and since every preference is an 
 honor, preference is the reward of virtue ; and now 
 begins the praise of the Roman people, its nobility, its 
 antiquity. ^Eneas, the glorious king, was its progenitor, 
 as the godlike poet Virgil has immortally engraven 
 on our memories. Livius also testifies to this. But 
 the nobility that dwelt within this invictissimo et pris- 
 simo patri, yEneas, is proved not only by his own supe-
 
 DANTE. 267 
 
 riority, but also by the advantages transmitted to him 
 from his ancestors and bestowed upon him by his 
 wives. The passages in Virgil are now quoted in 
 which ^Eneas's nobility shines forth. It is curious 
 how Dante, according to the views of his time, sub- 
 stantiates, through the different marriages of his hero, 
 his claims to universal sovereignty. Through Creusa, 
 Priam's daughter, his first wife, he won a claim to 
 Asia; through Dido, his second, to Africa; through 
 Lavinia, his third (who was born in Italy, the 
 noblest country in Europe), the right to Europe. 
 Summa summarum ^Eneas won by his three wives 
 for the Roman people, to whom he bequeathed all 
 that was his, a claim to the sovereignty of the world. 
 Fortuntely Australia and America were unknown at 
 that time ! 
 
 On Virgil's testimony Dante points to the direct 
 leading of God in history. The mission of the Roman 
 people could only be sustained by miracles. But these 
 miracles took place and manifested the will of God; 
 thus establishing the lawful claims of the Romans to 
 supremacy. 
 
 And first the wondrous shield which under King 
 Numa fell down from the clouds; then Rome, saved 
 by the geese of the capitol ; after that the hail, which 
 prevented Hannibal from pursuing the Romans, ripe 
 for destruction; finally, Clcelia's flight. 
 
 Dante closes with finding still another proof in the 
 political conduct of the Romans. " He who has the
 
 268 DANTE. 
 
 public welfare in view " (bonum rei publicce), thus begins 
 the fifth chapter of the second book, " will also have 
 in view the carrying out of the Law. Law defines 
 the personal and outward relations of man to man: 
 where these relations are cared for and prescribed, the 
 human race is benefited ; where they are neglected or 
 violated, the opposite. If, now, the end and aim of 
 society is the general good of all its members, then the 
 aim of the Law must be the common w r eal. He who 
 cares for the good of the state desires the fulfilment of 
 the Law ; and that the Eoman people in subjugating 
 the whole earth had this in view is plain from all 
 their deeds, by which we see that this holy, pious, and 
 glorious people, disregarding all selfish aims, actuated 
 solely by a desire for universal peace and happiness, 
 really created it for the human family, and therefore 
 it may with truth be said that Eoman supremacy 
 sprang from the fountain of piety." It reads like a 
 French manifesto. 
 
 Dante, however, does not make this assertion with- 
 out authority. Cicero's De Officiis is quoted. "So 
 long," he writes, " as the rule of the republic was dis- 
 tinguished by benefits, and not by injuries, the wars, 
 whether for ourselves or our allies, ended in a concili- 
 atory spirit. The Eoman senate was the refuge alike 
 for kings and people. Our generals and magistrates 
 made it their pride, faithfully and conscientiously, to 
 defend the lands and provinces of our allies. Our im- 
 perial government should have been called the 'protec-
 
 DAXTE. 269 
 
 tor of the world ' rather than the ' sovereign ruler of 
 the world.' Cincinnatus, Fabricius, and Cornelius are 
 rtamed as brilliant examples ; Brutus sacrificing his son, 
 Mucius Scsevola, and Cato. Taking it for granted, then, 
 that the Romans on subjugating the earth had the 
 Law at heart, it follows that whoever has the Law at 
 heart also carries out the Law ; therefore, that Borne 
 by Law has gained her dominion, and that this conclu- 
 sion must be looked upon and maintained as arising 
 from the very nature of the case. 
 
 The proof that the Eoman people were predestined 
 by nature to rule continues. " It i^ clear," says Dante, 
 " that in organizing a state, not only the rank of the 
 members is to be taken into consideration, but their 
 fitness for office as well. With similar foresight nature 
 proceeds; she arranges things according to the measure 
 of their special fitness. Hence it follows that this 
 natural arrangement is according to Law, and that 
 what has been determined by nature is lawful, conse- 
 quently after God's will." 
 
 Further proofs of this ! As he would be imperfect 
 in his art who considered only the final form, leaving 
 out of sight the means by which to represent this form, 
 so nature would fall short of full accomplishment if 
 in producing the general form of the godlike she 
 neglected to give us the means by which to attain it. 
 Nature, however, is imperfect in nothing. Accord- 
 ingly she has in view the means to her end, and not 
 the end alone : in short, Italy is the fittest land, the
 
 270 DANTE. 
 
 Eomans the fittest people; their rule, ordained by 
 nature, consequently justified, and in as far as this 
 rule is maintained, the will of God is fulfilled. 
 
 All these, says Dante, are the revealed proofs of 
 God's will. He will now tell us what are God's hid- 
 den decrees, some of which are to be understood at 
 once, whilst others we can only arrive at by faith and 
 a study of the Holy Scriptures. For as no one, even 
 the most excellent, can be redeemed without faith in 
 Christ, so no one is able to discern " the law " without 
 it. Impossibile sine fide placere Deo, is written in He- 
 brews. We read in Leviticus : " What man soever 
 there be of the house of Israel that killeth one ox, or 
 lamb, or goat in the camp, or that killeth it out of the 
 camp, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tab- 
 ernacle of the Lord as an offering unto the Lord, 
 is guilty of blood." By this door of the tabernacle is 
 here meant Christ, as the entrance to the heavenly 
 kingdom; and by the killing of the animals, the deeds 
 of men. This is clear; but the secret decrees of God 
 are only revealed by special grace, either freely vouch- 
 safed or in answer to prayer. By a variety of tests, 
 however, this knowledge may sometimes be arrived at, 
 as by casting lots or by competitive strifes, which are 
 of two kinds, the duel, and that in which -several 
 contend for the same aim. 
 
 The first duel of which we hear was that of Her- 
 cules with Antaeus ; and the first race or match be- 
 tween Atalanta and Hippolytus. By the judgment of
 
 DANTE. 271 
 
 God the victor conquered. The Romans conquered all 
 other nations, therefore God had so ordained it, who 
 allowed the destruction of single small parts that his 
 one great purpose might be fulfilled. Many other 
 nations had set out with the idea as the Romans, but 
 they alone reached the goal. 
 
 Ninus, king of Assyria, was the first to strive for 
 universal rulership. He subdued Asia. Dante states 
 this on the authority of Ovid and Orosius. The sec- 
 ond was Vesoges, king of Egypt ; the third, Cyrus ; the 
 fourth, Xerxes; and the fifth, Alexander. "We here 
 read a new account of Alexander's death ; he demands 
 the submission of the Romans, but before receiving 
 their answer suddenly dies. The mere collision with 
 this chosen people destroys him. Sixthly and lastly 
 come the Romans ; the whole earth obeys them ; their 
 claims are of divine origin. 
 
 In like manner the duel is cited as a vehicle by 
 which the Divine will is made manifest. The duel of 
 ^Eneus and Furnus is the oldest on record, and its 
 issue affected all Europe. Scipio's fight with Hannibal 
 is explained to have been a duel en masse ; by means 
 of which the sway over Africa was gained. But why 
 all these proofs ? It was Christ's will, as St. Luke 
 testifies, to be born under a decree of the Roman 
 emperor. Christ himself recognizes through this the 
 lawfulness of the decree. But since only a lawful 
 ruler can issue a valid decree, Augustus was this law- 
 ful emperor.
 
 272 DANTE. 
 
 And further, Christ died to redeem mankind from 
 the eternal punishment entailed upon us in conse- 
 quence of the first sin. Dying he said to John, " It 
 is finished." This consummation est signifies there is 
 nothing left to do. In that He suffered punishment 
 without guilt was the redemption complete. Had this 
 punishment been decreed by one not authorized to 
 pronounce such sentence, it would have been simply a 
 wrong inflicted upon him, and not the just punish- 
 ment of sin ; and our sins, from which we are redeemed 
 through the punishment of His innocent body, would 
 have had no just atonement, and our salvation could 
 not have been secured. But if our salvation is a 
 truth, and Christ's words, " It is finished," a truth, 
 then must also the judge who condemned him to the 
 cross have been lawfully invested with his office. This 
 judge was Pilate, chosen by Tiberius, and Tiberius 
 governed as legitimate emperor, and according to God's 
 will. 
 
 Nevertheless, both he and the Eoman people were 
 innocent of the death of Christ, for Herod was by no 
 means vice-regent of the Roman emperor or senate, 
 but installed by Tiberius as an independent king, 
 who alone had to bear the responsibility of his deeds. 
 Therefore, continues Dante, those of us who call our- 
 selves " Sons of the Church," should abstain in future 
 from casting unjust reproaches on the authority of 
 the empire, seeing that Christ, the bridegroom of the 
 Church, recognizes it in life and death. He closes
 
 DANTE. 273 
 
 the second book with these words : " I believe to have 
 clearly enough proved that the Romans gained right- 
 fully their sovereignty over the earth." " happy 
 people ! " he exclaims ; " glorious Italy ! would 
 that he had never been born who weakened thy power, 
 or would that, at least, the pious intention which he 
 thought he was fulfilling had not led him into such 
 delusions ! " The third book teaches us what these 
 words mean. 
 
 If Dante, a man holding some of the highest offices 
 in the state, far more learned than most of his con- 
 temporaries, truthful by nature, frank almost to 
 harshness, a declared enemy to all the lying tricks by 
 which the papal party sought to establish its claims, 
 with a clear logical brain, could still forge together 
 such a mass of fantastic proofs, what must have been 
 the confusion in the fanatical minds of the great mass 
 of the people ? Criticism of original sources was an idea 
 which at that time had scarcely entered into anybody's 
 thoughts. What the old authors had written was not 
 questioned. They might be church-fathers, heathen 
 philosophers, or poets, and their works legends, history, 
 poetry, or philosophy ; men accepted them as a great 
 whole, to which they gave an artificial organization 
 and inner connection, thus gaining serviceable material 
 which they made use of with implicit faith. Here we 
 find Old Testament characters in closest family con- 
 nection with those of Greek mythology; Eoman and 
 Greek history interwoven with the romances of the
 
 274 DANTE. 
 
 people and their legends ; the gaps of centuries over- 
 leaped; chronology unknown; yet all this accepted 
 with a wholesale confidence, such as is hardly accorded 
 to the most authentic narrations nowadays. Dante 
 appears utterly to forget that Augustus and Tiberius 
 were not Christians. This fact vanishes before the 
 dazzling truth that they were the rightful emperors 
 over the rightful people. Not a word of the Jews, 
 who surely reckoned themselves of some distinction 
 too. There is only the one chosen people, the Eomans ; 
 only the one country, Italy ; only the one city, Eoine ; 
 all the others subordinate. But we must not forget 
 that men in Dante's times did not see beyond the 
 geographical horizon of the ancient Romans, and that 
 as Italy was the centre of the earth, so the earth was 
 still the stationary centre of the universe around which 
 the rest of the solar system revolved. 
 
 The third and last book of the Monarchy treats of 
 the pope. " One question," it begins, is yet to be han- 
 dled, which to accuse truthfully may cause some to 
 blush, and possibly awaken indignation against me. 
 It conceives the two great lights, the Roman High 
 Priest, " Pontifex Romanus," and the highest temporal 
 ruler, "Princess Romanus," the question whether the 
 power of the Roman emperor be derived immediately 
 from God, or from his vicegerent or messenger, that 
 is, from Peter's successor, who holds in his hand the 
 keys of the heavenly kingdom. 
 
 To decide this, Dante again starts with a principle
 
 DANTE. 275 
 
 from which he evolves his arguments. God cannot 
 wish what is contrary to nature. He then discusses the 
 difficulties which beset the treatment of this question. 
 In general he says, disputes arise from ignorance, but 
 in this case ignorance grows out of the dispute. Men 
 do not see, or will not confess, that they are blind. 
 Three sorts of people are here opposed to the find- 
 ing out of the truth, and present it. First, the pope 
 himself, Christ's vicegerent and Peter's successor (to 
 whom we owe merely what we owe to Peter, not what 
 we owe to Christ), and with him other shepherds of 
 the Christian fold, who are opposed to the truth out 
 of blind zeal, and not, as Dante willingly admits, out of 
 pride and arrogance. Secondly, those in whom the 
 light of reason has been extinguished by persistent 
 cupidity, who call themselves " children of the church," 
 though the Devil himself is their father ; to them the 
 very name of the most Holy Empire is an abomination, 
 and they deny in the most barefaced manner the prin- 
 ciples on which this and the foregoing questions are 
 based. Thirdly, those who are called " Decretalists," 
 who, without any theory or knowledge of philosophy, 
 rely wholly on their certainly venerable Decretals, and 
 because of them insist on ascendency of the Church 
 over the Empire. 
 
 This was the party of the Guelphs, the pope at 
 their head. They refused to hear of Imperialism, or 
 to enter into any discussion regarding it. When they 
 required the sanction of Law they brought forward
 
 276 DANTE. 
 
 the Decretals. These they say are the fundament on 
 which the Church rests. 
 
 Dante disposes of them very briefly. The Decretals, 
 or Traditions, came into life long after the Church was 
 founded ; how, then, can she be said to rest on them ? 
 How can Decretals which derive their authority from 
 the Church invest the Church itself with authority ? 
 He then goes on to deny the symbolic interpretation 
 of the creation of the moon and sun ; both were respec- 
 tively for the benefit of mankind ; yet moon and sun 
 were created on the fourth day, man himself not until 
 the sixth ; would God have sent into the world a mere 
 accessory of man, before creating man himself? Be- 
 sides the two supremacies, the imperial and the papal 
 were only corrective means for human sinfulness, and 
 since on the fourth day man was not yet a sinner 
 because he did not yet exist, how could God apply the 
 remedy before there had been any hurt ? Therefore 
 it is impossible that Moses could have meant to give 
 this meaning to the creation of the moon and sun. 
 
 But, granted that it were so, is the moon because 
 she receives her light from the sun therefore a part of 
 the sun ? It is only a single property of the moon 
 which is derived from the sun ; beside her borrowed 
 light she possesses her own light, as is clearly proved 
 by an eclipse of the sun ; it is an increase of light 
 which she owes to the sun ; as to be sure the Em- 
 peror owes to the benediction of the Pope. 
 
 Dante hereupon refutes other passages from which
 
 DANTE. 277 
 
 the supremacy of the Church over the empire had 
 been deduced. I omit these, to us mere theological 
 subtleties, and come to what he has to say about the 
 donation of Constantine, who, after being cured of lep- 
 rosy by Pope Sylvester, gave to the Church the city 
 of Borne, and more too. The bequest by the Countess 
 Matilda is not mentioned by Dante, and in regard 
 to Constantine's donation, he says that this must be 
 looked upon as an act violating the idea of an all- 
 embracing empire, and for this reason bearing on its 
 very surface the stamp of incredibility. The Emperor 
 had no right to give, nor the Church to accept, worldly 
 possessions. 
 
 Following out this principle, he declares that Charles 
 the Great could never have made a gift of the kind 
 described to him to Pope Hadrian. On the other hand, 
 would anybody deny that Otto deposed Pope Benedict 
 and reinstated Pope Leo ? The empire had existed be- 
 fore the Church, therefore could not have derived its 
 power from the only God himself, or the unanimous 
 will of mankind could have invested the Church with 
 a supremacy of this kind, and we nowhere find the 
 traces of such a transfer. Christ, whose earthly career 
 is symbolized in the life of the Church, said to Peter, 
 "My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom 
 were of this world, then would my servants fight that 
 I should not be delivered to the Jews." Man is formed 
 of body and soul, each having its prescribed end and 
 aim, each exposed to corruption ; for both God has
 
 278 DANTE. 
 
 provided leaders ; the Pope is to lead the soul to eter- 
 nal blessedness, the Emperor, to earthly prosperity ; 
 the former according to the teachings of Scripture, the 
 latter according to the measure of worldly wisdom ; 
 and because to the attainment of both repose and peace 
 are essential, to insure these must be the highest 
 striving of the Pope and the Emperor. Nevertheless, 
 so closes Dante, the separation of the two powers must 
 not be conceived too strictly, since earthly happiness 
 has in a measure been granted only for the sake of 
 the heavenly ; therefore the Emperor must approach the 
 Pope with a reverence such as the eldest son should 
 cherish to\vard his father, that, cheered by the light of 
 paternal favor, his reign may be so much the more 
 glorious ; for he alone has been ordained to govern the 
 earth, and we must revere him as being in all tem- 
 poral and spiritual affairs the supreme disposer. This 
 exhausts, it seems to me, the contents of his work on 
 Monarchy. We do not know when Dante wrote it, 
 whether in the days when he was lingering in Flor- 
 ence awaiting the advent of a German emperor, still 
 far in the distance ; or later, when Henry of Luxem- 
 bourg had appeared, and the Ghibellines demanded of 
 him the fulfilment of their hopes. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In Karl Witte's essay the general complaint against 
 the Italian liberals is summed up under three heads. 
 In the first place, they must not pretend to derive from
 
 DANTE. 279 
 
 Dante their burning love for Italy as a united country ; 
 secondly, their antipathy to foreigners, especially Ger- 
 mans ; thirdly, their opposition to the temporal power 
 of the Pope. These three are represented as the creed 
 of the Italian revolutionary party, who in their en- 
 thusiasm for Dante turn back to him as the earliest 
 authority for these principles. 
 
 Let us begin with the Papal States. 
 
 Dante in the Monarchy declares himself opposed to 
 the Church's having worldly possessions. By the fol- 
 lowing train of arguments our essayist now tries to 
 undermine his authority. "Even assuming that our 
 veneration for the poet of the Divina Commedia was 
 great enough to prevent us from disagreeing in the 
 slightest degree with his manner of thinking, we still 
 could not carry our idolatry so far as to make his 
 words our standard of judgment for the present condi- 
 tion of things, however true and reasonable they were 
 five hundred years ago." 
 
 " We should," he continues, " be guilty of an injus- 
 tice towards Italy, were we to identify the position of 
 arbiter and imperial protector of the whole peninsula, 
 and indeed of Catholic Christendom, which the old 
 emperors enjoyed, with the possession merely of a small 
 Italian territory, which has reduced the power of the 
 Austrian emperor to a level with that of the other 
 Italian princes, and involves him in their quarrels 
 simply as a partisan. 1 All this is correct ; and were 
 
 1 This sketch of Dante in political life was first published by 
 Professor Grimm, in Berlin, in 1861.
 
 280 DANTE. 
 
 the writer to conclude, therefore, that, because the cir- 
 cumstances differed so wholly, it would not answer to 
 quote Dante to-day. No objection could be made 
 when he adds in conclusion : " Still greater, perhaps, 
 would be the wrong done to the temporal power of the 
 Pope, if we were to make the views of the fourteenth 
 century our standard to-day." 
 
 But the remainder of the essay does not coincide 
 with these apparently fair and impartial utterances. 
 If Dante actually stands so entirely out of relation to 
 the politics of to-day, why does the writer try to define 
 what his attitude would have been toward them? 
 What right has he to affirm that Dante would surely 
 have been opposed to the present monarchy ? Accord- 
 ing to his own showing, he has no more right to make 
 this assertion than the Italian Liberals to make theirs ; 
 nay, had he begun with these words, there would 
 have been nothing further to say, for they entirely 
 exhaust the subject as given on the title-page. 
 
 But as it is, he is only disposed to use this kind of 
 logic with regard to the single question of the Papal 
 States, and it is exactly here that I maintain this logic 
 is out of place. In taking the pains to prove Constan- 
 tine's donation illegal, Dante does seem antiquated 
 indeed ! The Church has long since dropped this argu- 
 ment altogether. It is a matter of fact that in the six- 
 teenth century the Papal States were brought together 
 by all sorts of manoeuvres, which even the most en- 
 thusiastic Catholics acknowledge were, in part, con-
 
 DANTE. 281 
 
 temptible enough. But when Dante argues against 
 the political sovereignty of the Church, with reasons 
 deduced from the nature of Roman Catholicism and 
 the simple words of the Gospel, he may yet be quoted, 
 and continue to be, so long as the States of the Church 
 exist. For there are certain general views of human 
 relations which never change. Men will never differ in 
 opinion that children should love their parents ; that 
 men should be true and loyal to one another; that 
 Christian priests should be pious, chaste, peace-loving 
 people, quite above seeking worldly and vulgar advan- 
 tage. Hence, when Karl Witte speaks of misappre- 
 hension and intentional deception on Dante's part, 
 upon this point he has no right to make such an 
 accusation. 
 
 But even less, when he seeks to prove that Dante 
 wished the " subordinate membership " of Italy under 
 the German Empire. 
 
 He grants that Dante seldom mentions the Germans 
 as a race. Instead of " seldom " he should have said 
 "as good as never." Dante only refers to us in the 
 Inferno (17-21) as a people, where he honors us with 
 the soubriquet of lurchi, drunkards and revellers. Here, 
 however, we are alluded to simply in a geographical 
 sense, to indicate a certain locality. Yet, in spite of 
 this, Dante is said to have desired above all things the 
 subordination of Italy to German sovereignty. And 
 why ? Because he thought it right a German emperor 
 should rule the world, consequently, Italy.
 
 282 DANTE. 
 
 " German " or " German-Eoman " the writer calls 
 this emperor. This designation is so current in Ger- 
 many, that we may allow him to translate the Latin 
 Imperator or Imperaior Romanus in this way. But 
 to attempt to build up historic proofs on this superficial 
 use of language, without even an allusion to the dif- 
 ferent meaning of the words, cannot be permitted in 
 science; and least of all when attempting to prove 
 intentional deception. Dante nowhere speaks of a 
 German or German-Eoman Empire, of an Imperial 
 Tedesco, Germanico-Allamannico, or Tedesco-Eomano, 
 etc. ; but wherever in Karl Witte's essay this is im- 
 puted to Dante he uses either the word Imperium or 
 Imperium-Romanum, without the faintest hint of the 
 fact that the person of the emperor must be German ; 
 or, more than all, that the rule of an emperor was 
 synonymous with the political preponderence of the 
 Germans in Italy. If Dante could not conceive the 
 imperial crown on any but a German head, some such 
 distinct declaration was necessary at a time when the 
 French kings and other princes, not German, were 
 on the point of attaining to this dignity. Once he 
 addresses Albrecht, Eudplph of Hapsburg's son, "O 
 Alberto Tedesco," l and reproaches him for not coming 
 to Italy to be crowned as emperor and to establish 
 peace. I should be inclined (although I by no means 
 insist on it) to translate even these words in an unfav- 
 
 1 Purg. vi. 98 : " O Alberto Tedesco, ch' abbandoni. Costei ch' & 
 fatta indomita e selvaggia."
 
 DANTE. 283 
 
 orable sense : " Alberto, you are a true German, an 
 irresolute procrastinator, leaving Italy in her dilemma, 
 and never coming to help us Ghibellines;" still, the 
 Tedesco may here mean that Albert, because he did 
 come to Italy, had remained a German ; he ought to 
 have come to Rome, and been converted into a Eoman. 
 These, however, are conjectures, for nowhere else 
 does Dante allude to the peculiarities of the German 
 character. Nowhere, for instance, does he acknowl- 
 edge, what he must often enough have had occasion to 
 observe, that German soldiers fought better than Ital- 
 ian, nor do the Ghibellines, as a party, manifest any 
 personal favor toward the Germans. In what respect 
 do they ever give us the foremost rank ? Dante's 
 favorite expression for his emperor, this instrument 
 of providence, towering over all nationalities, is Im- 
 peridore, whose office par excellence is called Imperio, 
 without further additions, " Cui ufficio e per excellenza 
 Imperio chiamato senza nulla addizione." I quote these 
 words from his work entitled H Convito, or " The Ban- 
 quet," which, unlike the Monarchy, is no purely literary 
 work, divorced from the politics of the day, but bears 
 directly upon contemporary events, and is couched in 
 maturer language, more concise, more passionate. 
 The Convito, rather than the Monarchy, should be 
 quoted, if Dante's views of the Empire are to be dis- 
 cussed. Here we are made to feel clearly what special 
 emphasis belongs to the word Roman, as an attribute 
 of the Emperor's, and that it would have been impossi-
 
 284 DANTE. 
 
 ble for Dante to have used the terms "German" or 
 " German Roman " indiscriminately as our essayist 
 does. 
 
 Dante troubled himself as little about the nation- 
 ality of his Emperor as our strictest ultramontane 
 Catholics do about the nationality of the Pope, who 
 would never dream of wishing to establish the sov- 
 ereignty of Italy in Germany, because the popes had 
 usually been Italian. The Church is the sole consid- 
 eration ; Rome, as the residence of its supreme head, is 
 outside of any political chart. Rome is the dwelling- 
 place of the highest spiritual power, before which all 
 nations are equal. So the Ghibellines regarded the 
 Emperor. Dante says it expressly. All who belong 
 to the Roman Empire are Romans; but the Italians 
 have the advantage of direct descent from the ancient 
 people who founded the Empire, and made its centre. 
 Italy is the garden of the Empire il gardino dell impe- 
 rio, Rome its capital. Italy to Dante was the old 
 predestined nest in which the fate of the world was 
 incubated ; Germany, the soil which was to furnish the 
 representatives of the highest temporal power. The 
 political institutions of Germany, a knowledge of which 
 would surely have been of the first importance, if Italy 
 was to become a " subordinate member " of the German 
 Empire, w r ere entirely beyond Dante's horizon. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, the Italians, in their zeal for 
 a single free, united kingdom, Italy should not appeal 
 to Dante as one to whom this single, free, and great 
 Italy was in his day an object of enthusiasm.
 
 DANTE. 285 
 
 By means of a brief sketch of Italian history, our 
 author seeks to prove that Dante never advocated this 
 distinction-levelling isolation of Italy, but the already 
 so often mentioned " subordinate membership " of Italy 
 under the German empire. But here it should first 
 have been proved that Dante knew anything about 
 this so-called " subordinate membership ; " and, sec- 
 ondly, that the rule of the whole earth by an emperor, 
 which he desired, was totally unlike the form of govern- 
 ment recently consolidated in Italy Dante's empire, 
 and the centralization of the government under Victor 
 Emanuel, are two such utterly different things that we 
 cannot even speak of contradiction or contrast between 
 them, any more than between an infant borne upon 
 the arm of its parent and the same individual fifty 
 years later on horseback. 
 
 Different times simply produce different conditions. 
 Dante indeed complains that Italy is full of tyrants. 1 
 But it does not follow from this that he would have 
 helped to expel the several dukes and the Bourbons 
 to-day; nor that his enthusiasm for the ancient em- 
 pire would have disinclined him personally to Victor 
 Emanuel. The union which has been achieved in 
 our day would have been something inconceivable to 
 Dante. To bring together under a central govern- 
 ment states so unlike as Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Florence, 
 Kome, and Naples would have seemed as impossible to 
 
 1 Purg. vi. 124: Che le terre d' Italia tutte piene son di tiranni.
 
 286 DANTE. 
 
 him as to us the suggestion of a universal empire, 
 with London, Paris, or New York for its capital. 
 
 v. 
 
 Dante's political wishes were dreams even to his 
 generation ; to us they are historic curiosities ! How 
 very greatly the imperial policy, as he conceived it, 
 differed from that which the Emperor himself thought 
 politic and practical, is shown by the conduct of 
 Henry of Luxembourg, the long looked-for helper 
 of Italy. 
 
 Perceiving clearly enough that the Ghibellines did 
 not care so much to obey him, as through him, and 
 for their own advantage, to subdue the Guelphs, he 
 awarded to both parties the strictest justice. Eegard- 
 less of their hostility toward one another, he sought 
 with the help of both to establish firmly the imperial 
 authority, and soon the accusation arose among the 
 Ghibellines that the Emperor was a Guelph. Dante 
 himself urges him to pursue a different course, but 
 Henry remains true to his own policy, to the success 
 of which an early death put an end. 
 
 He did not restore the Ghibellines to Florence. 
 Dante died in exile. Two popes a Guelph in 
 Avignon, a Ghibelline in Eome stood at a distance, 
 inimical to one another, personifications of the con- 
 test between France and Germany. The French kings 
 attempted to usurp the imperial crown in vain ; when 
 these contests came to an end, however, the Eoman
 
 DANTE. 287 
 
 popes could no longer pretend to the supremacy in 
 Europe, but small princes, with a purely local political 
 power. They yield to the new idea of higher spiritual 
 freedom, gained through a reawakened interest in 
 classical studies, whilst the German emperors in their 
 turn allowed their claims to jurisdiction over the whole 
 earth to lie dormant. The structure which Charles the 
 Fifth two centuries later erected was of a different 
 nature ; with him disappeared the last traces of those 
 gigantic proportions Dante had in view when he com- 
 posed his Monarchy. Yet how firmly the original con- 
 ception of one grand empire still clung to the mind is 
 shown by the various notions, evolved from old impe- 
 rialism, which sprang up in the very times of the 
 Eeformation ; these not only prove how immensely 
 strong that first foundation was, but also how in har- 
 mony with the nature of things had been this ruler 
 of rulers, who issued irrevocable decrees for high and 
 low, and was a match for the Pope. 
 
 Dante's way of treating politics, philosophy, and 
 theology must appear to us childish and old-fashioned. 
 In such a maze of proofs we should not expect to-day 
 to entrap the smallest fly. Neither is it to be assumed 
 that Dante, were he alive to-day, would entertain ideas 
 in the remotest degree like those we find in his writ- 
 ings. If the specific weight of a great spirit is to be 
 ascertained, we must once and for all reject the idea 
 of burdening the scales with the transitory conditions 
 under which he lived.
 
 288 DANTE. 
 
 What was the actual attitude of the man toward 
 the eternal questions which agitate mankind ? Did he 
 love his country ? Did he love freedom ? Did his 
 intuitions guide him to the right, or did he arrive at 
 it only through calculation ? And finally, could any- 
 thing have induced him to act contrary to his con- 
 victions ? We may not even take into account the 
 peculiarities of character, which, although apparently 
 independent of outward circumstances, in truth were 
 to be ascribed wholly to the nature and conditions of 
 the period. For example, Frederick the Great's pre- 
 dilection for French literature, the cruel manner in 
 which Barbarossa conducted his wars, or, if we take 
 Dante, the severity with which he attacked his ene- 
 mies, through exile, loneliness, and poverty increased 
 almost to the point of savagery. One might say that 
 Dante advocated in his lifetime an impractical, ideal, 
 reactionary policy ; and why should he not do the 
 same to-day ? Wholly carried away by one-sided party 
 passion, he was blind to the good in his opponents, and 
 overlooked or palliated the wrong in his friends. Why 
 should he not to-day have argued from the same preju- 
 diced standpoint ? But such hypotheses are false ; they 
 do not go deep enough. If Dante is to be named in 
 connection with the present state of his country, we 
 must ask, How would a man such as he, not the old 
 Dante, embittered by experience, but the man in his 
 prime, untrammelled by any past or future, how 
 would he have decided ? For the freedom and unitv
 
 DANTE. 289 
 
 of Italy, or for submission to those who, as opposed to 
 this unity and freedom, have either fled the country, or 
 are still there, openly or secretly working against it ? 
 We must free him from all earthly alloy, and regard 
 him neither as the man who experienced what he ex- 
 perienced ; nor even in a certain sense as the man who 
 wrote what he wrote. We must try to discern only the 
 spirit in which he wrote and acted if we wish to invoke 
 his assistance in determining the vexed questions of the 
 present day. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dante was Ghibelline, representative and defender 
 of the holy ancient empire. But what vestige remains 
 of this old idea to-day ? Compare the cause of the 
 old Ghibellines with that of the present Legitimists 
 in Italy ; is there a glimmer of this shining ideal 
 left ? Where, now, the frantic spirit of the Ghib- 
 ellines ? where the brilliant past they recalled with 
 pride ? Dante was an impassioned believer in a di- 
 vinely appointed emperor, the most purely ideal of 
 nionarchs, whose rule, whether he looked into the 
 past or the future, seemed eternal ; but what of all this 
 would he find to-day ? What trace of anything ideal 
 has there been in the governments of the kings of 
 Naples or the grand-dukes of Tuscany ? Tuscany has 
 been built upon the ruins of the freedom of the old 
 independent city of Florence, destroyed by lies, treason, 
 and violence. The glory of Tuscany ends with the 
 beginning of hereditary sovereignty in the country.
 
 290 DANTE. 
 
 How the Papal States came together has been already 
 alluded to, and how they were governed is well known. 
 Naples belonged by sheer accident to the Bourbons ; 
 from Spain, as foreigners, they had forced their way 
 to the Neapolitan throne. Lastly, Venice and Milan 
 were deprived of their freedom. Venice was given to 
 Austria, which for centuries had been her natural 
 enemy. Milan, first through Charles V made a Span- 
 ish possession, thus passed over to Austria. 
 
 If in either of these countries prosperity of any 
 kind had attended the government forced by these 
 various rulers upon the people, I would willingly hear 
 it called providential, and look upon such rulership as 
 hallowed by time and success. But where do we find 
 the slightest claim to such high sanction ? And could 
 a man like Dante have been so blind- to the last cen- 
 turies of Italian history, as now, that his people are 
 recovering from their long oppression, to wish a return 
 to weakness, dismemberment, and spiritual bondage ; 
 and to see in it any likeness to the obedience paid in 
 his time to the Roman emperor ? Dante was a patriot. 
 This makes him a hero for all time, without further 
 historic inquiry. An instinct finer than the subtlest 
 scholarly acumen leads the people to discover their 
 representative men and put them in their right places. 
 Arminius, Charles the Great, Barbarossa, Frederick, 
 have become to us symbols of German liberty, wholly 
 apart from the political relations of their day, with 
 which only the few are familiar. To others the mem-
 
 DANTE. 291 
 
 017 of Charles V or Louis XIV may be strengthening. 
 Having verified themselves as men who had absorbed 
 the nature of their people until their deeds appeared 
 as an emanation of the national mind, we must assume 
 that they would stand forth in every age alike in de- 
 fence of freedom and country, and think and act in 
 harmony with all true patriots. 
 
 The present Italian question is not one in which 
 we Germans actively participate. God be praised, the 
 times are outlived when we were ready to help others 
 that we might forget ourselves ! These recent Italian 
 struggles have interested us greatly because of their 
 similarity with our own. When a country is under- 
 going a radical transformation, the dregs often come 
 to the surface, and blind zeal on both sides leads to 
 wrongs and injustice. The Queen of Naples showed 
 herself in Gaeta, a woman of courage and energy. 
 Every one must have sympathized with her, when as 
 a queen without a throne she was forced to leave her 
 country; just as we pity the last king of Grenada, 
 obliged to surrender his kingdom to Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, or even the last king of the Vandals when 
 we see him a prisoner in Byzantium, led along in the 
 triumphal procession. It is always pitiful to behold 
 the downfall of an empire, and an ancient dynasty 
 wandering in exile. But, notwithstanding, the King 
 of Sardinia, Garibaldi, and Cavour were the saviors 
 of their country. What would Italy have been had 
 the Bourbons continued to rule in Naples, or the popes
 
 292 DANTE. 
 
 in the States of the Church? Whoever has known 
 the condition of things in Italy, if only as a traveller, 
 must feel that without a total change the people would 
 have been lost. It is not necessary to hate the benev- 
 olent Grand-duke of Tuscany, nor to feel any the less 
 sympathy with the courageous Queen of Naples; the 
 transformation was one of the inevitable necessities. 
 Even our affinity with Austria cannot blind us to the 
 well-authenticated fact, that it was the Austrian policy 
 which for many years actually suppressed by force all 
 mental development in Italy. 
 
 To realize half the misery contained in this one word 
 " force " we need only glance at some of the recent 
 Italian literature. Take the works of a man like Leo- 
 pardi, who was neither conspirator nor revolutionist. 
 In reading these poems, essays, and letters we feel the 
 anguish to which those are condemned who, in the 
 midst of a people bound down in spiritual slavery, 
 with the love of freedom gnawing at their hearts, 
 strain weary eyes for a glimpse of liberty beyond their 
 prison-walls. For all this Austria was to blame in 
 regard to Italy, as well as Germany ; not the Austrian 
 people, but their rulers. It was they who strove for 
 centuries to weaken and humiliate Prussia and North 
 Germany. Karl Witte says rightly, that the hatred of 
 the Italians for the Germans is a product of modern 
 times. They hate the Germans because the common 
 people confound the words Tedesco and Austriaco. 
 Nobody hates the Prussians, nobody would hate Aus- 
 tria if Austria had not provoked the feeling.
 
 DANTE. 293 
 
 VII. 
 
 What men long for to-day is Liberty. When a 
 great nation has once become conscious that it is 
 a unit, an intrinsic whole, it must be insufferable 
 to find itself sundered by boundaries, different laws, 
 and a splitting up of its military force. These bound- 
 aries, this want of uniformity in the laws, this scatter- 
 ing of power, seem arbitrary, contrary to its nature 
 and hindrances to its natural growth and highest wel- 
 fare. The people chafe under them. There have ever 
 been epochs when by a suddenly aroused and mar- 
 velous spirit of cooperation among the people every 
 member has exerted himself to the utmost to restore 
 natural relations, and when everything sank which 
 did not possess the power, to maintain outright its 
 proper existence. Neither repugnance to regal au- 
 thority, nor hatred of nobility, nor clergy, nor indeed 
 impatience with any kind of authority, agitates man- 
 kind to-day ; but a wholly new feeling has grown up 
 and spread to an extent unparalleled in the history of 
 the world. A stress is now laid on the importance of 
 self-direction, independence of traditionary rules and 
 customs, on release from all that is arbitrary, on free- 
 dom in thought and deed, and justice to every human 
 claim. Men will sacrifice themselves, but it must be 
 voluntarily ; men will subordinate themselves, but only 
 to the worthiest ; they will dwell where they choose, 
 and go and come without being driven. That every 
 human being is to share in the rulership of the world,
 
 294 DANTE. 
 
 according to his possessions, that each is in truth a 
 part of the whole, without whose assistance the public 
 welfare is not to be maintained and the necessary- 
 progress insured. All this is granted to-day without 
 grudging, even by those whose personal interests would 
 at first seem to stand in opposition. The astonishing 
 feature in the present movement is that practical ways 
 for achieving this resolution open on all sides as if by 
 inagic, and while resistance shrinks into nothingness, 
 unity of action promises to bring the unattainable 
 within reach. This convergence toward the truth, from 
 all directions, is the glorious fact in our present experi- 
 ence. The light which has penetrated everywhere has 
 reduced our wishes and expectations to normal dimen- 
 sions converting secret discontent into openly avowed 
 love of country; indifference into active effort for its 
 highest good ; despondency into confidence in a future 
 by whose light the present appears a historic epoch 
 fruitful and elevating beyond all conception. 
 
 Would Dante have held aloof from all this? In 
 dark, perplexing conditions he stood forth boldly, an 
 ardent partisan. His poem is a trumpet-call to ven- 
 geance on his opponents ; with implacable rage he 
 pursues them beyond this life, and pictures them as 
 eternally damned. And yet wherever he rises to the 
 height of the purely human, undisturbed by party 
 passion, he is unconstrained and gentle. Could his 
 imagination have gone so far as to have conceived the 
 possibility of all nations being united in one grand
 
 DANTE. 295 
 
 treaty of peace, all the inhuman means of compulsion, 
 which his narrow-minded century dragged along with 
 it, gone, a favorable development of one's own nature 
 made the aim toward which each individual in the 
 uncounted millions on our planet was striving, must 
 he not have hailed the picture with enthusiasm, and, 
 overwhelmed by its splendor, have joyfully allowed it 
 to replace that of the papacy and " The Empire " ? I 
 have wittingly given the most ideal view of our future, 
 because Dante's conception of the empire was so ex- 
 travagantly ideal. To him Italy was still ever the 
 central point of the flat disk, with countries to right 
 and left only dimly visible, the past a chaos without 
 road or track, the present a general struggle for per- 
 sonal supremacy. Thoughts of a higher freedom almost 
 unconsciously crowd into his verses, and lie so deeply 
 imbedded therein, that their interpretation has been 
 the chosen task of those who bore the proud con- 
 sciousness of being the truest sons of Italy, and by 
 the genius which set him free and raised him above the 
 strifes of the hour he has drawn to himself the pas- 
 sionate love and enthusiasm of all parties. 
 
 In Guelphic Florence itself men very soon felt that 
 Dante's Ghibellinism was something quite different 
 and superior to the selfish, wavering policy of those 
 into whose midst he had been thrown. As Dante 
 conceived Imperialism, it would indeed have been the 
 salvation of his country. The form of government 
 which he imagined was the culmination of Eomanic
 
 296 DANTE. 
 
 ideas, and would even to-day be the highest conception 
 of the Romans, if it had not been for the final break- 
 ing through of Germanic ideas. According to the 
 latter we no longer need any pope or emperor as 
 personal forces. Public opinion, that is, a general judg- 
 ment formed on broad and wide-cast knowledge, is the 
 monarch to-day governing the nations. As, despite 
 the differences of creed, one universal, invisible Chris- 
 tian Church unites the majority of men (a substitute 
 for Pope and Catholicism), so, in political affairs there 
 rules a code of morals, which finds expression in the 
 public opinion of the Germanic nations. No power can 
 successfully oppose it. Inexorably it judges princes 
 and people neither resistance nor deception can re- 
 strain or lead it astray. To Dante's generation the 
 undisputed sway of a mere sentiment was incom- 
 prehensible. Pope and emperor, armed with the spirit- 
 ual and temporal sword, seemed indispensable powers. 
 
 Dante conceived them as purely and spiritually as 
 the idea admits ; to have soared wholly beyond it he 
 must have been more than human. 
 
 If, returning to the life that now is, he saw the 
 peaceful intercourse of nations with one another, 
 the flight of thought over whole communities, and the 
 unanimity of thousands in spiritual concerns, where 
 formerly here and there only an individual troubled 
 himself about them ; if he saw the cities without walls 
 connected by air-line roads, the entire disappearance 
 of that envious hostility with which they once pried
 
 DANTE. 297 
 
 into each other's affairs, the light of science penetrat- 
 ing fields which were unknown wastes to him, the 
 immense influence of individuals whose genius is uni- 
 versally appreciated ; if, above all, he saw his country, 
 hitherto crushed and fettered by selfish tyranny, sud- 
 denly dropping her chains to share in these noblest 
 blessings, would he devote the life-giving power of his 
 spirit to replacing those walls of separation which 
 hemmed the way to her developments ? 
 
 As during his lifetime he tried to embrace all the 
 sciences, and by their aid to corroborate and fortify his 
 opinions, he would also seek the means now afforded 
 for raising himself to the same height. His dim, child- 
 like notions of the past would resolve themselves into 
 luminous thoughts of what had been, and truer an- 
 ticipations of what was to be, while his narrow-minded 
 Florentine patriotism would broaden into a love for 
 united Italy such as fills the breasts of the noblest 
 men of his country to-day.
 
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 The Atlantic Monthly pronounces" Heidi" "a delightful book . . . 
 charmingly told The book is, as it should be, printed in clear type, well 
 leaded, and is bound in excellent taste. Altogether it is one which we sus- 
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