OSMER'S 
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM 
 
 PRFVATE LIBRARY
 
 A 
 SHORT HISTORY 
 
 or 
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. JAMES K. \ HOSMER 
 
 " So viel Einzelnes ist in den Vordergrund gestellt warden, dass der Jclare Ueber- 
 blick iiber das Game fast verloren geht." Rudolph Gottschall. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 AMERICAN SCHOOL BOOK CO.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 
 
 JAMES K. IIOSMER, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at \Vashington, 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 
 
 JAMES K. IIOSMER, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 St. Louis: Press of G. I. Jones and Company.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 If we turn back two hundred years, we find the read- 
 ing men of England, if they have time to go beyond 
 their own authors, giving their attention, among moderns, 
 to the Italians and Spanish. As yet in Europe only Italy 
 and Spain, besides England, had seen the rise of litera- 
 tures of sufficient moment to influence the cultivated 
 world beyond the national limits. Dante, Petrarch, 
 Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso, MachiavelH had lived, and 
 these are still the greatest Italian names. In Spain, 
 Cervantes, Lope do Vega, and Calderon had done their 
 work, work which no succeeding writers of that land 
 have equalled. 
 
 If we go back one hundred years, the literature of 
 France has taken the place in the estimation of the Eng- 
 lish once held by the writers of Spain and Italy ; the 
 brilliant men of tlie age of Louis XIV have laid the 
 world under their spell. In our time, again, the influence 
 of France has been, to a large extent, supplanted. Fol- 
 lowing especially the lead of two of the most gifted 
 Englishmen of the century, Coleridge and Caiiyle, the 
 present generation turns with most reverence to the 
 Germans, often regarding their literature as the most 
 important in the world, after our own, if, indeed, we 
 are to make that exception. It will scarcely be ques- 
 tioned that some knowledge of the history of German 
 literature is, to English-speaking persons, an essential 
 part of thorough culture. 
 
 In the account of the adventures of the god Thor
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 among the giants, as told in the Prose Edda, the story is 
 given of his attempt to lift from the earth the cat of 
 Utgard-Loki, the king of the giants. With all his 
 strength the mortified Thor, lifting the cat's back into 
 an arch, can get only one of her feet from the ground. 
 He is consoled, however, when Utgard-Loki tells him in 
 confidence that the cat was no other than the great Mid- 
 gard serpent, which encircles the whole earth. The writer 
 is reminded of the story as he thinks of a certain ingen- 
 uous, but callow, youth who once undertook to possess 
 himself, of a knowledge of German literature, and who, 
 after valiant wrestling, became the victim of chagrin 
 as deep as that which befel the mighty god of the ham- 
 mer. Certainly the great Midgard serpent, encircling the 
 earth, with its tail in its mouth, is scarcely less appro- 
 priate as a symbol of German literature than as a symbol 
 of eternity. Twelve thousand five hundred and sixteen 
 works are said to have been published in Germany in the 
 one }"ear, 1876. Of the writers esteemed of sufficient sig- 
 nificance to be noted in a thorough history of literature, 
 the number is legion ; in one such history the indices 
 alone, containing little else than names, fill fifty-nine 
 large, closely-printed, double-columned pages. Again, 
 3 T our proper German author has no respect whatever for 
 the e3 - es or the power of attention of his readers ; his 
 conscience assaults him until he gains peace by building 
 his volumes about himself into a towering barricade. 
 Gothe's dramatic pieces alone number more than fifty, 
 and his work in that direction is a trifling part of what 
 he accomplished. Jean Paul wrote between sixty and 
 seventy books, the difficulties of whose style are so great 
 that it has been found necessary to prepare for him a 
 special dictionary. The selected works of Hans Sachs, 
 the Nuremberg mastersinger, amount to more than six 
 thousand, and are fairly corded into the vast folios in
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 which they are preserved. Again, if we look at the size 
 of some of the individual books, one of the works of 
 Lohenstein, a dramatist and tale-writer of the seven- 
 teenth century, contains alone three thousand quarto 
 pages, its synopsis requiring ninety-six. 
 
 Histories of German literature in the German language 
 abound. Several have been translated into English ; in- 
 dependent histories have also been attempted by English 
 authors. Of such accounts some are intended for 
 scholars, great works of reference, others for popular 
 reading. As regards histories of the latter kind, the 
 present writer believes it to have been a prevailing defect 
 that perspective hns not been sufficiently considered, and 
 that the attempt has been made to comprehend too much. 
 The German mind has been accused, perhaps with justice, 
 of wanting the instinct of "selection ; " it has a passion for 
 being exhaustive, and " writes a subject to its dregs," dis- 
 criminating too little between the important and the value- 
 less. By contagion the trouble has communicated itself 
 to English writers who have consiiic ;ed German subjects. 
 In the accounts of German literature may be clearly seen 
 the defects described in the sentence from Eudolph Gott- 
 schall, which stands on the title-page of this book as 
 a motto: "So many particulars have been put into 
 the foreground that a clear, comprehensive view of the 
 entire subject is almost utterly lost." Take, for instance, 
 the excellent work of Gostwick and Harrison. It is cor- 
 rect and thorough ; the style is not without a certain pic- 
 turesque quality. Jt is excellent as a book of reference ; 
 but, as a whole, from its minuteness, quite unreadable. 
 The attention utterly breaks down in the effort to retain 
 the names of unimportant books and individuals ; one 
 wanders bewildered in a maze of detail, and obtains no 
 satisfactory general view. 
 
 In the present sketch of the history of German litera-
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 ture, the writer confines himself to one field, " Die 
 schone Literatur," Belles-Lettres, Polite Literature. 
 Even with this limitation the sea is practically boundless, 
 and he hardly dares to claim that he has picked up even 
 the Newtonian pebbles. During many years he has read 
 industriously of the immense mass, and can, at any rate, 
 assert that in the pages that follow few names are men- 
 tioned in whose case an honest attempt has not been 
 made to reach an estimate at first hand by study of the 
 most characteristic works. The authors mentioned are 
 comparatively few in number. Attention is concentrated 
 upon "epoch-making" men and books, the effort being 
 made to consider these with care. What is of subordi- 
 nate importance has not been neglected ; but the attempt 
 has been made in every case to proportion the amount of 
 light thrown to the significance of the figure which was 
 to receive it. 
 
 While I am indebted to a considerable number of critics 
 and scholars, to whom reference is made in the foot- 
 notes, I must acknowledge especial obligation to the really 
 vast work of Heinricli Kurz, 1 in which a thorough critical 
 history of German literature is combined with a full and 
 judiciously-made anthology. Immense though the domain 
 of German literature is, it may be almost said that Kurz, 
 in his four compact royal octavos of nine hundred pages 
 each, stands forth as its conqueror. To a large extent, 
 at any rate, he is victor ; the pnges ranging before us 
 with such wealth of booty, such hosts of captives in- 
 cluded within the double columns, marshalled front and 
 rear by his own well-ordered history and critique, that one 
 cannot ask a more perfect subjugation. If a reader were 
 compelled to rely solely upon the work of Kurz for his 
 knowledge of the subject (let him first be sure of his 
 
 1 Geschichte der Deutschcn Literatur.
 
 PREFACE. Vli 
 
 eyesight), he need not consider his information shallow. 
 For the purpose of this book Kurz has been invaluable ; 
 beginning, as he does, with the first fruits, and ending 
 with the men who are making themselves known at this 
 very hour. His estimates and discussions, sometimes 
 translated word for word, sometimes abridged and modi- 
 fied, have often been used, as the frequent references 
 indicate. 
 
 The writer's plan has been so far elastic that he has 
 sometimes permitted himself aiuhistorical digression, if 
 in that way he could obtain illustration for some point of 
 the story he has sought to tell. The chapters contain 
 digressions of still another kind. In a tour in German} 7 , 
 in which the pilgrim followed, perhaps, no unusual track, 
 but proceeded with the somewhat unusual purpose of 
 visiting the spots famous through connection with great 
 writers, much was seen possessing interest. In the idea 
 that a grateful relief might be obtained, the accounts of 
 books are interspersed with descriptions of the homes and 
 haunts of the men who wrote them. 
 
 The translations which the book contains, except when 
 it is otherwise specified, are original.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Less than a year has passed since the publication of the 
 "Short History of German Literature," but the pub- 
 lishers feel called upon already to issue a new edition. 
 The author desires to thank the public and the critics for 
 the marks of favor shown to his book. The work has 
 been improved in important ways. The text has been 
 carefully revised, and a full analytical index placed at the 
 end. In an appendix, one or two errors are corrected, 
 and the attempt made to defend some positions of the 
 book which have been made the subject of sharp strict- 
 ures. The author feels grateful for assurances he has 
 received that what he has written has stimulated readers 
 to make a closer acquaintance with German literature, 
 and hopes his chapters will have a still farther usefulness. 
 
 ST. Louis. November 15, 1879.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAKT I. 
 
 FIEST PERIOD OF BLOOM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 
 
 men 
 
 First Appearance of the Germans in History; the Strife 
 
 with Rome; Ulfilas; Karl the Great: as a Warrior, 
 as a Law-giver and Organizer, his Court, his Influ- 
 ence on Literature ; the Work of the Monks ; the 
 Time of the Hohenstauffen 1-22 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 
 
 The Burgnndian Court at Worms ; Wooing of Brunhild ; 
 Marriage of Siegfried and Kriemhild; Death of 
 Siegfried; Etzel's Wooing; Riidiger; Kriemhild's 
 Revenge 23-49 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED (continued). 
 
 High Appreciation in which the Poem is held; its 
 Origin and History; the Poem as a Picture of 
 Primitive German Life and Spirit; Critique of the 
 Principal Characters; Comparison with Homer; 
 Spots made interesting through Connection with 
 the Poem CO-SI
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 G UDRUN. 
 
 The German Odyssey; a Picture of the Life of the early 
 Sea Rovers; the Heroes of Friesland; Horant'a 
 Singing; the Abduction of Hilda; the Betrothal 
 of Gudrun; her Captivity; the Heroes at Sea; 
 the Washing at the Beach; the Rescue; the Ani- 
 mal Epic 82-103 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide; Iladlaub of Zurich; 
 Ulrich von Lichtenstcin; "The Rose-garden at 
 Worms ; " Hartmann von Aue ; Gottfried von Strass- 
 burg; Wolfram von Eschenbach 104-131 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OP PROSE. 
 
 The German Kaisers; Political Circumstances of Ger- 
 many from the End of the Thirteenth Century; 
 Strassburg; the Chroniclers; the Preachers; the 
 Satirists; the Drama 132-154 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 THE MASTEUSINGERS. 
 
 Heinrich Frauenlob; the Artisans; Literary Life of 
 the Cities; Hans Sachs; "The Tailor and the 
 Flag; " " Saint Peter and the Goat; " "The Wit- 
 tenberg Nightingale ;" Nuremberg 155-171 
 
 CHAPTER Yin. 
 LUTHER EN LITERATURE. 
 
 Outline of Luther's Career; his vast Literary Activ- 
 ity; his Influence upon the German Language
 
 CONTENTS. nil 
 
 FAGB 
 
 and Literature; the Translation of the Bible; his 
 Polemical Writings; his Preaching, Letters, 
 Hymns ; Places Associated with Luther .... 172-205 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 THE THIRTY YEARS WAK. 
 
 From Luther to the End of the Sixteenth Century; 
 Friedrich, King of Bohemia; Wallenstein and 
 Gustavus Adolphus; the Portraits in the Castle 
 at Coburg; Liitzen; Exhaustion of Germany; 
 Decay of Literature 206-245 
 
 PART 
 
 SECOND PERIOD OF BLOOM. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 Gdttschorl and Bodmer; Sketch of Lessing's Life; the 
 Fables; the early Dramas; "Laocoon;" "the 
 Hamburg Dramaturgy ;" Writings: Political, Pol- 
 emical, Theological; "Nathan the Wise;" Les- 
 sing's Resemblance to Luther 246-299 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, AND HERDER. 
 
 Klopstock's Youth; Appearance of the "Messias; " his 
 Patriotism; his wide Influence; Career of Wieland; 
 the Favorite of the Elegant World; "Oberon;" 
 "The Abderites;" Contrast with Klopstock; the 
 Career of Herder; Immense .Range of his Studies; 
 his Influence upon Poetry; his "Ideas upon the 
 Philosophy of History; " Greatness as a Preacher; 
 his Church and Statue at Wciuiar 300-329
 
 CHATTER XIL 
 
 GOTHK. 
 
 VAOB 
 
 Boyhood at Frankfort; Description of his early Home, 
 and Places associated with him; Life at Strass- 
 burg; his extraordinary Impressibility; Brilliancy 
 of his Early Fame; Description of Weimar; his 
 Journeys; his Universality; as Man of Affairs; ' 
 Vitality in Age ; as Man of Science ; the Novels . 830-374 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 GOTIIE (continued). 
 
 Go the as a Poet; his Contrast with Schiller; the 
 Lyrics; the Epics; "Hermann and Dorothea;" 
 the Dramas; "Iphigenia;" "Faust; "Greatness 
 of his G emus ; Estimate of his Character . . . 875-414 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 His Life and Character; Hardships of his Boyhood; 
 his early Fame; Contrast with Gothe; Schiller's 
 Prose; as a Historian; as a Speculative Philoso- 
 pher; his Lyrics; "The Song of the Bell;" The 
 Ballads ; the Dramas ; the Constant Growth of his 
 Genius; " The Robbers ;" " Wallenstein ; " "Wil- 
 liam Tell ;" Nobleness of Schiller 415-473 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 
 
 Influence of Speculative Philosophy upon Literature; 
 Kant; Fichte; Schelliug; the Brothers Schlegel; 
 Jean Paul; Tieck; Novalis; Fouqu6; Theodore 
 Korner and Arndt; Rlickert; the Decay of Roman- 
 ticism; Uhland 474-504
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IlEIXRICn IlEIXB. 
 
 FAQB 
 
 The Jews In Germany; Heine's Youth; his Apostacy; 
 Journeys; Life in Paris; The "Mattress-Grave;" 
 his Descriptive Power; his Wit; his Pathos . . 605-545 
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 THE MODERN ERA. 
 
 Influences at Present affecting Literature; the Broth- 
 ers Grimm; Great Names of the Present Time; 
 Anticipations; Means for Culture; Probable Effect 
 upon Literature of present Unity and Political 
 Greatness of Germany .... 16-568 
 
 CHAPTER XVHL 
 GERMAN STYLE. 
 
 Carlyle's Defence of Obscurity; Herbert Spencer's 
 Dictum; Periodicity of German Style; Severity of 
 German Critics; De Quincey's Judgment; Freili- 
 grath's " Germany is Hamlet; " Comparative Esti- 
 mate of German Literature 569-591 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 INDEX
 
 PAET I -THE FIKST PEEIOD OF BLOOM. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 
 
 The German tongue belongs to the great Aryan 
 family of languages. At a time very remote, the 
 parent speech from which it was derived from 
 which too were derived in the East the Sanscrit and 
 the Persian, and in the West the Greek, the Latin, 
 the Celtic, and the Sclavonic was spoken some- 
 where upon the highlands in Central Asia, or per- 
 haps upon a continent, now submerged, lying to the 
 south of Asia, of which the great island- world of 
 Oceanica is a remainder. 1 From indications con- 
 tained in the descendant languages we may know 
 that the primeval tribe was not utterly rude. Per- 
 haps it was due to a certain degree of civilization 
 they reached that they gained the upper-hand in the 
 early world. At any rate, they multiplied, swarmed 
 forth from their homes, sent emigrants to people 
 India, and westward to take possession of Europe. 
 The Hellenic race, developed from these, plays its 
 part in Greece ; as its force expires, the Italic race, 
 in the neighboring peninsula, establishes the glory 
 of Rome. This in turn culminates and decays. 
 Then step upon the scene the Teutons, whose empire 
 was to last far longer, perhaps to be far mightier 
 
 1 Ernst Haeckel : Schopfungsgeschichte.
 
 2 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and more brilliant, than its predecessors ; to what 
 extent grander we cannot say, for the end is not 
 yet. 
 
 The name German, full of picturesque suggestion 
 'as it is, " Shouters in battle," occurs first in Herod- 
 otus, in the fifth century before Christ. They were 
 fully established in Europe when history begins ; yet 
 we cannot assign their immigration to a very ancient 
 date, for at our first knowledge of them the remem- 
 brance of their former home remains vivid in the 
 people, expressed in legends, institutions, and social 
 customs. tin the time of Alexander the Great, Pyth- 
 eas of Massilia, a wandering merchant of that colony 
 of Greece, having reached the Baltic shore, gives 
 some account of the Teutons and Guthons ; he was, 
 however, not believed by the writers of his time. 
 It is probable that the Germanic wave, sweeping into 
 Europe from the East, had poured across Russia and 
 thence into Scandinavia, and was now beginning to 
 work southward. Again there is a period of silence 
 until the second century before Christ, when Papir- 
 ius Carbo, a Roman consul appointed to fight with 
 the Celts in Noricum, comes unexpectedly upon an 
 enemy far more powerful, a vast migrating people, 
 whose men are of huge strength and fierce courage, 
 whose women are scarcely less formidable, whose 
 children are white-haired, like people grown aged, 
 and are bold-eyed and vigorous. Upon their great 
 white shields they slide down the slopes of the Alps 
 to do battle ; they have armor-of brass and helmets 
 fashioned into a resemblance of the heads Of beasts 
 of prey. The women fight by the side of their hus- 
 bands ; then, as priestesses, slay the prisoners, letting
 
 THE 'BEGINNINGS. 8 
 
 the blood run into brazen caldrons that it may afford 
 an omen. Even the Romans are terrified, veterans 
 though they are from the just-ended struggle with 
 Hannibal. Papirius Carbo goes down before them, 
 and Rome expects to see in her streets the blond 
 Northman, as she has just before looked for the dark- 
 skinned Numidian. Caius Marius meets them, 100 
 B. C., in Southern Gaul, and again in Northern Italy, 
 the front rank of their host that they may stand 
 firm bound together, man by man, with a chain, 
 and the fierce women waiting in the rear with up- 
 lifted axes to slay all cowards. But Marius comes off 
 conqueror from the corpse-heaped battle-fields, and 
 Rome has a respite. Within half a century the} r 
 grapple with the legionaries again, who this time 
 have in their van the sternest heart and strongest 
 head of his great race, Julius Coesar ; and henceforth, 
 for five centuries, there is scarcely an intermission in 
 the wrestle. Drusus, Germanicus, Varus, Claudius, 
 Julian, Yalens these are Roman names that sound 
 as we go down the ages, made memorable by strug- 
 gle sometimes successful, sometimes disastrous 
 with the shouters in battle ; Ariovistus, Arminius, 
 Maroboduus, Alaric, Chnodomar, Theodoric these 
 are the confronting Goths. Dealing blows almost 
 as heavy as he receives, at length the Roman is 
 beaten to his knees, the strength of the vanquished, 
 as in the struggles of fable, passing into the body of 
 the victor. As he drops the sceptre it is seized by 
 the Goth, who becomes imbued moreover with his 
 civilization and his faith ; strengthened and enno- 
 bled by the gain, he shapes the modern world.
 
 4 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Tacitus, writing in the first century after Christ, 
 with the desire to bring back his degenerating coun- 
 trymen to nobler standards, portrays for their ad- 
 miration the Germans, as a purer people. His rep- 
 resentation is held to be in all its main traits an 
 accurate one, and is the first extended account. 
 Tacitus speaks of songs sung in honor of the god 
 Tuisco and his son Mannus, of battle-hymns and 
 lays intended for the expression of joy. There was 
 among the Germans no special class of singers like 
 the bards of the Celts, or the scalds of the Scandi- 
 navians ; minstrelsy was a universal gift among the 
 people. They were not utter barbarians ; with sev- 
 eral other arts, they understood the use of runes, a 
 modification of picture-writing. The songs of which 
 the Roman writer speaks have perished, but, as will 
 be seen, not without leaving some trace of them- 
 selves in the poetry of the race. Christianity, upon 
 its introduction, destroyed their religion, in a 
 measure, their nationality. The songs were the 
 clamps which, more strongly than anything else, 
 fastened to them their old heathenism. The mis- 
 sionaries who converted them did what they could to 
 bring these lays into oblivion, encountering them all 
 the more bitterly perhaps because they themselves 
 were to a largo extent of a different, often hostile, 
 stock, Celts, from the island of Britain. 
 
 At Upsala, in Sweden, is preserved a venerable 
 relic, the chief treasure of the library of the univer- 
 sity. It is a book of purple vellum, whose pages, 
 blackened and mildewed though they are, are still 
 sumptuous, and retain, plainly legible, the charac-
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 5 
 
 ters written upon them in silver. The binding of 
 the manuscript is also of silver, but that is of a later 
 date, the work of a Swedish noble who wished to 
 enclose in a fitting manner one of the most pre- 
 cious relics of the world. It is the Codex Argenteus, 
 the silver manuscript, the translation made by the 
 Mceso-Goth, Ulfilas, of the Bible, at the end of 
 the fourth century, the earliest memorial in any 
 Teutonic speech. The Codex Argenteus is believed 
 to be very nearly contemporary with Ulfilas, if not 
 from his own hand. This venerable personage, the 
 first name in Teutonic story which becomes famous 
 for other deeds than those which belong to fierce 
 warfare, was a Goth only by adoption, for he was 
 descended from .a Christian family of Asia Minor, 
 which had been taken captive. He was thoroughly 
 identified, however, with the race of his captors, 
 becoming their bishop at length, and foremost man. 
 He was a zealous follower of Arius, preaching to his 
 people in Greek, Latin, and Gothic. An interesting 
 hint has been preserved that Ulfilas was thoroughly 
 penetrated with the spirit of the faith he professed, 
 m the circumstance that he omitted in his transla- 
 tion the Book of Kings, lest the minds of his flock 
 might be stimulated by its warlike pictures. The 
 translation is not a mere slavish rendering, but a 
 work of intellect, the dialect of the woods asserting 
 itself vigorously according to its genius, not strait- 
 ened to conform to the idioms of more polished 
 tongues. When Ulfilas died, at the age of seventy, 
 the Goths carried his Bible with them to Italy, and 
 thence to Spain. The language in which it is writ-
 
 6 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ten was spoken as late as the ninth century, when 
 it disappeared as a living tongue, and with it its sole 
 memorial. 
 
 Greek church historians mention the translation, 
 and so the world knew that such a work had been 
 performed. At length, after centuries, its tattered 
 fragments were disinterred from the rubbish of an 
 old cloister, and, later, carried to Sweden as a prize 
 of the Thirty Years' War. The Bible translation 
 of Ulfilas is the foundation-stone of German litera- 
 ture. With reverent hands the peace-loving teacher 
 placed it, going then to his grave, in the year 388 ; 
 it lay for ages before the work of construction was 
 continued. 
 
 The centuries 'go. At length we encounter a 
 mighty figure which, whatever be the department 
 of early research engaging attention, demands atten- 
 tive consideration. I stood once on the bridge 
 which connects the city of Frankfort-on-the-Main 
 with its suburb of Sachsenhausen. Below me 
 rushed through the arches the broad river, the 
 rocks of the shallows showing through the pale 
 green .stream. Frank-fart, ford of the Franks. 
 Here it was that, in the dawn of the modern period, 
 i restless race, striving for mastery, poured back 
 and forth through the river barrier. I looked over 
 the parapet, upon the venerable ledges that once felt 
 the Frankish foot-print. The traveller to-day gets 
 over dry-shod, but the builders of the bridge have 
 appropriately set above the central arch a figure 
 that recalls the older memories. A flowing robe 
 wraps the shoulders of the statue ; his mighty face
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 7 
 
 is surmounted by an imperial crown ; his hands bear 
 the insignia of rule. So stands in powerful present- 
 ment Karl the Great, Charlemagne, upon a spot 
 which once knew him. 
 
 The world has produced many an ambitious ruler 
 during the thousand years since his time ; but no 
 one has striven after anything higher than to be set 
 by the side of Karl the Great. 1 Never, perhaps, has 
 a more extraordinary result gone forth from the 
 striving of a mortal. He was brought up as a 
 soldier, and never was soldier greater. In youth he 
 descended into Italy to subdue the Lombards. In 
 Spain, to the west, the Saracens were submitted; 
 the Sclaves and Avars to the east. To the north 
 lived a race never tamed, descendants of the old 
 Cherusci, who, with Hermann, conquered Yarus, 
 taking their name appropriately from the sahs, the 
 short sword they wielded. At length came the great 
 tamer of men to the Saxons, hitherto indomitable. 
 The clash and tramp of the fierce campaigns that 
 followed is still audible in the pages of old chron- 
 iclers. Not until the entire youth of the land was 
 exterminated, and multitudes were exiled, did they 
 submit. The Frankfurt suburb, Sachsenhausen, 
 houses of the Saxons, recalls the fact that there a 
 colony of these tough strivers was established in en- 
 forced exile. They have some interest to us ; out 
 from their number had gone, some centuries before, 
 Hcngist and Horsa ; in England their stormy-spirited 
 cousins in the Heptarchy at this same time resist- 
 
 1 Giesebrecht : Gesehichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit
 
 8 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ing Danish encroachment, judging culprits by jury- 
 trial, and meeting for law-giving in the witenage- 
 mote were at work on the ground-sills of English 
 and American freedom and order. 
 
 But Karl the Great was not a soldier through 
 blood-thirstiness or love of tumult. In those wild 
 days the only path to order led across the battle- 
 field, and toward a nobler order the great Frank was 
 always advancing. At Christmas, in the year 800, 
 in Rome, Karl the Great entered the Church of Saint 
 Peter in the robe of a patrician, the dignity he had 
 received from his father. A golden crown was set 
 upon his head ; the multitude raised the cry, 
 " Salutation and blessing to the great peace-seeking 
 emperor, Carolus Augustus." Pope Leo III. did 
 reverence at his feet. His empire was vast, all 
 France and Germany, most of Italy, a large part of 
 Spain. It was w r on by the sword, but ordered by a 
 power far nobler. His ideal was no other than to 
 establish the kingdom of God upon earth, in which 
 the emperor was to be installed as God's vicar, in 
 order that he might rule all people according to the 
 divine will. He sent out messengers on an apostolic 
 mission to admonish the people to lay virtue to their 
 hearts and remember the judgment-seat of Christ. 
 His glory as a law-giver was greater than that as a 
 soldier. His " capitularies" the collection of his 
 edicts and ordinances were the universal code of 
 the empire, a body of wise provisions, the source of 
 inestimable political benefits to all Teuton races, 
 even as the civil life of Koine rested upon the 
 "Twelve Tables." Every important problem with
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 9 
 
 which politics in succeeding centuries has occupied 
 itself was entertained by him, even that of free 
 schools for the people. 1 The results of the striving 
 of Karl the Great were sometimes harmful. He 
 went from his own land into Italy, seeking to renew 
 the life of the Roman empire, which had died awav. 
 Thus he turned outward the strength of Germany, 
 which was sorely needed at home, the source of 
 great misfortune afterward, whose bad effects are 
 still to be felt. He established firmly the temporal 
 power of the popes, whence came the unhappy strifes 
 in which the emperors of succeeding times lost their 
 dignity, and their people their lives. Great and wise 
 as he was, he had no superhuman immunity from 
 mistakes. 
 
 He was admirable in small things as well as great. 
 He was the best farmer in his empire, saw to every- 
 thing personally, even had the reckoning laid 
 before him of every wolf slain on his estates. He 
 gave security to trade, opening roads along the Rhine 
 connecting the Mediterranean with the North Sea : 
 so from the mouth of the Elbe to the middle of 
 the Danube, with branches to the Black Sea and 
 the Adriatic. With homely friendliness, he cher- 
 ished the middle and lower classes, seeing that the 
 welfare of the land lay in their prosperity. Princes 
 far and near confessed his greatness. Haroun-al- 
 Raschid, the greatest of the caliphs, sent him an ele- 
 phant and merry apes ; the king of the Moors, a lion 
 and Xumidian bears ; the emperor of Byzantium, an 
 
 1 Giesebrecht.
 
 10 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 organ, the first in the land of the Franks. The rich 
 music of fhe miracle aroused astonishment, as it 
 imitated now the rolling of thunder, now the sweet 
 tone of lyre and cymbal. The hospitality of Karl 
 the Great was profuse. So many strangers came 
 to his court, it became at length a serious burden. 
 It was a many-colored company. Near the monk 
 from Italy, who could make Latin verses in the 
 emperor's praise, stood, in the ante-room, the Sara- 
 cen chief from Spain, with robe and turban covered 
 with jewels. There were conquered Saxon chiefs 
 in long linen robes, Lombard counts in short purple 
 mantles set off with peacock feathers, Avars with 
 long plaited hair, gorgeous ambassadors from 
 Byzantium, brown Arabs, and slender Persians. 
 These were the guests, and among them many a 
 wild warrior stretched his giant limbs, spending the 
 interval between battle and battle in boasting of 
 his achievements. " How were you pleased with 
 Bohemia? " 1 it was asked of one. " The people are 
 little worms," was the reply. "Seven or eight I 
 spitted, like larks, and carried them hither and 
 thither on my lance. I do not know what they 
 grumbled meanwhile. It was not worth while for 
 the emperor and me to put on our helmets on their 
 account." 
 
 It is hard to touch upon a character so command- 
 ing as Karl the Great without being led to inappro- 
 priate lengths by the fascination he exerts. We 
 have now no concern with the magnificent figure 
 
 O O 
 
 Gustav Freytag: Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit.
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 11 
 
 except as he affected literature. He scarcely learned 
 to read until he became a king, but he was a learner 
 until his death. That he wrote himself, we can 
 hardly say ; but he stimulated marvellously the intel- 
 lectual life of others. Out of the old German songs 
 which his race taught by the monks was begin- 
 ning to despise, came to the emperor the breath of a 
 noble life. He comprehended them as no one before 
 him had done, and caused a collection to be made 
 of the lays of the ancient heroes. To him is due 
 also the first German grammar. He encouraged the 
 clergy, because he saw in them the bearers of all 
 higher intellectual culture ; they in turn worked for 
 him with enthusiasm, preaching in German instead of 
 Latin, and translating books. He called to his as- 
 sistance the first scholars of Italy and England : not- 
 
 / o 
 
 ably, Peter of Pisa, Paulus Diaconus, Alcuin, and 
 Eginhard. He allowed no original impulse of the 
 Teutonic nature to fail, but disciplined each one, en- 
 nobled it, and so made it capable of maturing more 
 beautiful blossoms and more useful fruit than before. 1 
 He set within the earthy Teuton a Promethean spark, 
 kindling within him the possibilities of a fine spirit- 
 ual and intellectual life, afire that has not been 
 quenched through the ages. No other man in all 
 succeeding time has so influenced German develop- 
 ment. No human being has ever made a deeper 
 impress upon the world. The plain citizen revered 
 him as the fatherly friend of the people and the just 
 judge ; chivalry held him to be the first of knights ; 
 
 1 Giesebrecht.
 
 12 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the Church has made him a saint ; he is as famous in 
 poetry as in history. 
 
 Impressive pictures have came down to us respect- 
 ing his person and bearing. In height he was seven 
 times the length of his own foot, and nobly propor- 
 tioned. His body never hindered his spirit. He 
 fought with wild bulls in the forest of Ardennes, 
 such was his force, and for more than thirty years he 
 had no sickness. His brow was open, his eyes large 
 and quick, his hair thick and fine, and, in age, of 
 venerable whiteness ; his countenance cheerful . His 
 usual garb was a linen robe, woven at home by the 
 women of his family, and over it the flowing Frisian 
 mantle. He avoided pomp, although about him 
 were vassals appointed to be models of splendid 
 knightly discipline. These paladins surrounded him, 
 it is said, as the stars the sun ; he darkened them all. 
 
 There is no character concerning whom the tradi- 
 tions are more picturesque. In the Germanic Mu- 
 seum at Nuremberg I remember a great painting by 
 Kaulbach, illustrating what is perhaps the most strik- 
 ing story of all. When Karl the Great died, at 
 Aachen, in 814, a sepulchre was constructed in which 
 he was placed, sitting upon a throne not in his sim- 
 ple Frisian mantle, but in the royal pomp which in life 
 he had sometimes upon occasion assumed in im- 
 perial robes, with a crown upon his head and a book 
 of the Gospels, bound in gold, upon his knees. A 
 century and a-half later the young emperor, Otto 
 III, after a drinking-bout, broke into the tomb with 
 a party of boon companions. There sat upon the 
 throne the majestic figure, unwasted, save that the
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 18 
 
 beard, grown long, swept his breast. It was as if 
 decay had not dared to approach him ; he was too 
 great to crumble into dust ; the tomb-breakers re- 
 coiled abashed. It is a fine subject for Kaulbach, 
 who renders it with great power, the gloom of the 
 sepulchre, the recoiling revellers, and before them 
 the towering form of the buried emperor, with*his 
 sweeping beard, and the golden book of the Gospels 
 resting upon his knees. 
 
 At Vienna the visitor goes to see the treasure- 
 chamber of the House of Hapsburg. It is an Alad- 
 din's cave, where, from the heaped-up abundance of 
 gold and precious stones, the heads of people are 
 well-nigh turned, and the guards stationed every- 
 where are obliged to watch, not only those who might 
 rob, but those who might become insane. There one 
 may see extraordinary relics by the hundred. The 
 metal circlet yonder, Wallcnstein held when he dealt 
 with incantations in his gloomy seclusion. This cra- 
 dle the great Napoleon rocked, his heart full of the 
 tenderest yearning that ever filled it, for it held for 
 him his only child, the baby king of Rome. There 
 hangs the great Florentine diamond, the fourth in 
 the world, which was worn in battle as a talisman 
 by Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and found upon 
 his body after the battle of Nancy, in 1477 ; and 
 there, more interesting than these, is the great im- 
 perial crown of German}', coming down from an un- 
 known antiquity, passed from brow to brow down 
 the long line of kaisers, with its huge uncut jewels 
 and heavy masses of gold, rudely wrought by some 
 primeval artificer. But more interesting than all,
 
 14 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to me, was a relic side by side with this, the golden 
 book of the Gospels which rested so long upon the 
 knees of Charlemagne in the tomb at Aachen ! 
 
 The great empire of Karl the Great fell, at his 
 death, into confusion, and at first all that had been 
 gained seemed to be lost. Not until one hundred 
 years later do we see signs that once more a spirit of 
 order is beginning to move on the face of the chaos. 
 At the beginning of the tenth century appears 
 Henry the Fowler, a Saxon, and for the next hundred 
 years the rulers of the empire come from the tough 
 race which Karl the Great had found it such a task 
 to subdue. There are great names in the time during 
 which the Saxon dynasty is powerful ; so too among 
 the Franconian princes who succeed them. As re- 
 gards the present subject, however, those ages are 
 nearly dumb ; the history of their literature is almost 
 a blank. When Karl the Great had gone, the monks 
 destroyed the collection he had made of the poetry 
 of the nation. In the cloister of Reichenau, in 
 the }-ear 821, we know that twelve heroic poems 
 were preserved which were part of it, and scholars 
 are not entirely without hope of some day finding 
 them ; but it has not yet come to pass. The sole 
 fragment of heroic song extant from this period is 
 the Hildebrand's Lied, Lay of Hildebrand, con- 
 cerning which the interesting and probable conject- 
 ure has been made that its preservation is due to 
 the leisure probablv the cmmi of two old monks 
 who had once been soldiers. Hundreds of the roujjh 
 
 ^l> 
 
 fighters of those days, when the strength of youth had 
 departed, sought the asylum of the monasteries,
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 15 
 
 the head that had worn the helmet submitting to the 
 tonsure. The songs of their warrior life would re- 
 main in their memories, and in the tedium of the 
 cloister what more natural than that they should 
 sometimes be sung under the breath, full of hea- 
 thenism though they were ! Once, at such a time, 
 while one veteran sang or dictated another wrote 
 down on blank leaves at the beginning and end of a 
 service-book the profane, half-Pagan lines of the 
 Hildebrand's Lied. It was its fate to be handed 
 down, and the parchment is kept at Cassel as one of 
 the principal manuscript treasures of Germany. 1 
 
 To the songs of the heroes succeeds a literature of 
 the Church. Of such culture as existed the monas- 
 teries were the seats, noteworthy among which were 
 Fulda, in Hesse, and Saint Gallen, in Switzerland. 
 From these came many translations and paraphrases 
 which have no interest except of a linguistic kind. 
 A work of a different order is the Holland, meaning 
 the Saviour, a poem of the tenth century, from the 
 lately converted Saxons, which has interesting traits, 
 representing Christ in the character of a great prince 
 of the German people. The Ludwig's Lied cele- 
 brates a victory of Louis the Pious, son of Karl the 
 Great, over the Normans. Now too, at Weissem- 
 bourg, in Alsace, the monk Otfried writes his gospel 
 harmony, a paraphrase of the evangelists, of some 
 interest as being the first example of German rhyme. 
 
 With these few pages the beginnings of our sub- 
 ject are sufficiently considered. To the twelfth 
 
 1 Vilroar: Geschichte der deutschen Literatur.
 
 1 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 century the story of German literature is a meagre 
 one; and who will wonder? The wild Teutons, 
 wandering through unknown ages, in unknown 
 places, encounter at length the outposts of Rome. 
 With eyes unopened to civilization, they strike at 
 the new foe, who at length goes down before their 
 barbarian fury. Little by little Goth and Vandal 
 penetrate to the centre of Roman power ; gradually 
 to their savage souls comes a sense of the grace and 
 majesty they are overwhelming, and at length they 
 stand before the ruins the}'' have made, awe-struck. 1 
 For a next step they reverently appropriate the 
 culture and faith of the empire they have vanquished. 
 Upon the brow of the warrior the brazen helmet 
 takes the place of the head of the wolf or the bear 
 slain in the chase ; life is no longer regulated by 
 the rude forest legislation, but by the Pandects ; 
 in place of the victims offered to Tuisco and Mannus 
 comes the symbolic sacrifice of the mass. But as 
 the Teutons pressed upon Rome, they in turn are 
 pressed upon. To the eastward the Avars must be 
 beaten back ; to the westward the fanatic Saracens, 
 sweeping through Spain toward the heart of Europe. 
 Soon comes war to the death with the encroaching; 
 
 O 
 
 Sclave ; and scarcely is he restrained when the Hun 
 is upon the people with sword and scourge. The 
 storv of those times is one of mi;htv striving for life 
 
 v ~ / ~ 
 
 and place. The rudely wrought gold and uncut 
 jewels of that old imperial crown at Vienna rest 
 upon the head of many a powerful leader. The 
 
 1 Bryce : The Holy Roman Empire.
 
 THE BEGINNINGS. 17 
 
 pages of the chroniclers are dark now with tales of 
 treachery, now bright with heroism ; now lamenta- 
 tion over a province devastated, now rejoicing over 
 success. The Teuton wins the mastery ; rapine and 
 death are no longer constantly near at hand ; tumult 
 and anxiety subside ; there is space at length for the 
 graces and refinements of life. 
 
 It has been said that German poetry has had two 
 periods of bloom : the later, from the middle of the 
 eighteenth century through the first quarter of the 
 nineteenth ; the earlier, from the end of the first 
 quarter of the twelfth century to the middle of the 
 thirteenth. 1 To this earlier period we have now 
 come. We leave behind the Old High German, 
 which has been the vehicle of the earliest literature ; 
 the Middle High German has supplanted it. In 
 place of the few memorials nearly valueless except 
 for historical and linguistic purposes, we come upon 
 a literature abundant in quality, and in every way 
 interesting in its character. From the year 1137 to 
 1254 the emperors of Germany were from the great 
 family of Hohenstaufien, rulers superbly gifted, 
 under whom the land attained such grandeur as it 
 has never since possessed. First of the line stands 
 the mighty Barbarossa, Red-Beard. Unmatched 
 was his power in Germany, Italy, the Holy Land. 
 Great in council he was, great in strife. Before the 
 door of his tent was hung, high upon a lance, his 
 shield, as a sign that he was ready, upon summons, 
 
 1 D. F. Strauss.
 
 18 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to redress all wrongs. 1 His life went out in Syria, 
 and presently, at the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, a figure not less fine inherits the sceptre, 
 his grandson, Friedrich II. With the politics of 
 the period we have no concern. In the world of 
 letters a brilliancy may be discerned commensurate 
 with the power and prestige which the nation had 
 reached. As the Germans emerge from the night of 
 of barbarism, for a time, as we have seen, the monks 
 alone are the writers, at work with scriptural com- 
 ment, with homily, now and then with a chronicle. 
 With the Hohenstauifen, however, the courts of 
 princes become the centres of culture ; from South- 
 ern France the lyres of the troubadours strike the 
 key-note of chivalric song, and in Germany springs 
 up the race of Minnesingers. 
 
 Let us call up a picture of the mediaeval life in 
 order to understand the conditions under which the 
 poetry that has come down to us from this time 
 took its rise. The forest is disappearing, but the 
 edge of the horizon is yet wooded, and many parts 
 of the plain are still heavily shadowed. In low 
 places, between cultivated ground, are frequent 
 ponds and marshes. The number of villages and 
 farms is probably not less than at the present time, 
 although they are not so populous. Between the 
 crop and the wood, upon some mountain spur or 
 the edge of the wilderness, rises the chapel of a saint. 
 In the villages everywhere are towers, whence on 
 feast-days, bells ring from one plain to another 
 
 1 Von Kaumer : Geschichte der Hohenstauifen.
 
 TH& bEGINNIN&S. 1^ 
 
 through the whole land, to whose light peal the 
 mighty humming of a greater bell from some town 
 in the distance gives the foundation-tone. In the 
 river valleys, in the midst of houses and surrounded 
 by strong walls, rise the towers of cathedrals. On 
 the other side, opposite the town, stands, on the 
 hill-summit, a walled tower, with narrow windows, 
 the possession of the lord of the region, and the 
 home of some trooper-vassal, who keeps house up 
 there, not to the joy of the peasant. Cities have 
 just sprung up, as it were, overnight ; in the case 
 of many it cannot be said when they began, nor 
 did their builders know how immeasurable was to 
 be the benefit to their descendants. 1 
 
 In the winter, the sun setting early, the knight 
 and his retainers are driven to shelter from the foray 
 or hunting, which occupy the short day ; the feast 
 is disposed of, then come many hours of unbroken 
 darkness before the day begins again. Consider 
 how dull the winter evenings must have been in a 
 German mediaeval castle ! What substitutes had 
 they for such intellectual excitements as are now 
 supplied by our newspapers, our prolific literature 
 of fiction, our theatres, and highly-developed music? 
 Often the snow chokes the narrow horse-paths 
 through the forest, so that the day as well as the 
 
 o +> 
 
 night must pass in inaction. How spend the weary 
 hours but by hearing the minstrel ! He has been 
 trained to arms, but he devotes himself in the prime 
 of life to the study of versification, wandering on 
 
 1 Freytag: Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit.
 
 20 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 from court to court, and there, in the presence of 
 ladies, singing his songs to tunes of his own com- 
 posing. His fru'e is studious and melancholy ; he 
 accompanies himself with a lute. The logs are 
 heaped high in the fire-place ; the torches flare and 
 smoke about the walls. In the wavering glare the 
 cups of ale and trenchers loaded with flesh stand on 
 the table. The knight and his followers their 
 armor thrown aside, but their leathern garments 
 showing the stain and imprint from the steel that 
 so often covers them alternately revel and listen. 
 Somewhat apart, on a dais perhaps, or in some 
 overlooking balcony, sits the castle's mistress, with 
 her ladies. The labor of the castle household goes 
 forward. The yeoman strings his bow afresh, or 
 replenishes his quivers ; skins are sewed into gar- 
 ments ; jesses are made for the falcons and leashes 
 for the dogs ; the ladies are busy with the embroid- 
 ery of scarfs ; the serving-women go. in and out. 
 Meanwhile the minstrel strikes vigorously his rude 
 instrument, singing song after song, or reciting by 
 the hour his rhythmical story. His voice rings 
 often through a tumult ; he closes his song, to re- 
 sume it the next day if the storm prevents the chase, 
 or when evening again comes round. 
 
 What the knight had in the castle the peasant 
 and burgher in the plain below would imitate in a 
 humbler way. At the other end of the scale, in the 
 courts of princes, there was a scene far more bril- 
 liant, halls with magnificent hangings; guests in 
 garments bought of merchants fresh from Venice, 
 laden with splendid fabrics from the East ; the gleam
 
 TEE BEGINNINGS. 21 
 
 of gold, the flash of jewels. When it happened 
 that the castle lord, or the master of the hut, or the 
 king in the palace, was a man of ready mind and 
 lively fancy, we can understand how he too should 
 have sometimes remembered strains, to repeat them, 
 or indeed himself have invented lays. So did many 
 a plain farmer ; so did TValther von der Vogelweide 
 and Hartmann von Aue ; in a higher rank so did 
 Duke Heinrich of Breslau, the Kaiser Friedrich 
 II., and the princes, his sons, and, in another land, 
 Kichard Cceur de Lion. 
 
 Of the poetry of the Hohenstauffen period a 
 broad division into two classes may be made : first, 
 what was current among the people ; second, what 
 was liked in the courts and castles. To the popular 
 poetry belong certain great epics, founded upon na- 
 tional traditions which for centuries, the monks had 
 tried to crush out, with partial success, and yet 
 which, tough as the bears in the woods from which 
 they came, in many instances lived on tenaciously 
 in the mouths of the folk. In the courts and 
 castles, however, when the crusades had begun to 
 bring the Germans into contact with the outside 
 world, the chivalry of France sweeping along the 
 highways and down the streams, and the Italian 
 cities, with their finer life, becoming known, there 
 was an aping of foreign models ; the old national 
 material seemed far too rough, and the minstrels 
 translated or rewrought the stories of troubadour 
 and trouvere. The line of division between the two 
 classes is not precise. Although it was utterly un- 
 fashionable, a national subject sometimes received a
 
 22 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 hearing in a castle hall ; a story of the troubadours 
 sometimes reached a peasant's hearth. There are 
 poets coining from both directions who approach 
 sometimes stand on the dividing line. 1 Speaking 
 generally, however, the broad division may be made 
 into Court and Popular Poetry ; the former is char- 
 acterized by a preference for foreign subjects and 
 a finer structure ; the latter by a preference for 
 Teutonic traditions, and by a rougher form. The 
 Popular Poetry will be first considered. 
 
 August Koberstein : Geschichte der deutschen National Literatur.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 
 
 Of the bequests made to us of the Popular Poetry 
 of the time of the Hohenstauffen, by far the most 
 important, in fact the most important literary me- 
 morial of any kind, is the epic of between nine and 
 ten thousand lines known as the Nibelungen Lied. 
 The manuscripts which have preserved for us the 
 poem come from about the year 1200. For full a 
 thousand years before that, however, many of the 
 lays from which it was composed had been in exist- 
 ence ; some indeed proceed from a still remoter 
 antiquity, sung by primitive minstrels when the 
 Germans were at their wildest, untouched by Chris- 
 tianity or civilization. These lays had been handed 
 down orally, until at length a poet of genius elabo- 
 rated them and intrusted them to parchment. What 
 may have been that poet's name cannot be said with 
 certainty. Although no doubt a man of courtly 
 culture, he took the songs current on the lips of 
 the people, racy with their life, adapting them with 
 skill, while retaining all their spirit. The work of 
 the unknown genius who wrote the Nibelungen Lied 
 has come, in our time, to be prized immeasurably. 
 It is set side by side with Homer ; it is reverently 
 studied by minds of the highest power ; it has be-
 
 24 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 come a text-book in the schools, as containing fig- 
 ures worthy to become the ideals of youth. 
 
 Who are the Nibelungen, concerning whom the 
 lay is written ? It is a race of supernatural attri- 
 butes who are possessed of a certain wonderful 
 treasure or hoard. Siegfried, the hero of the poem, 
 has wrested from them this treasure, and thereby 
 obtained immeasurable wealth. He has also found 
 a mantle which has power to make its wearer invisi- 
 ble, and a sword, " Balmung," a blade of the trust- 
 iest. "Vain were it to enquire where that Nibe- 
 lungen land especially is ; its very name is Nebel- 
 land, mist-land. The Nibelungen, that muster in 
 thousands and tens of thousands, though they 
 march to the Rhine or Danube, and we see their 
 strong limbs and shining armor, we could almost 
 fancy to be children of the air." l 
 
 We cannot tell where their land is. Siegfried has 
 subdued them and taken their treasure ; henceforth 
 he and his followers are called Nibclungen. In fact, 
 to whomsoever, for the time being, the treasure has 
 been transferred, the name Nibelungen is assigned. 
 After Siegfried's death, when, as Ave shall see, the 
 hoard falls to his slayers, they in turn are spoken of 
 as the Nibelungen, the name passing with the pos- 
 session. Before the opening of the poem, Siegfried, 
 the hero, has made himself famous. He has not 
 only conquered the mysterious Nibelungen, but slain 
 in fight a remarkable dragon ; bathing in his blood, 
 he has made himself invulnerable. 
 
 1 Carlyle : The Nibelungen Lied.
 
 THE NIBELUNQEN LIED. 25 
 
 I will give now, without further preface, the 
 story of the Nibelungen Lied, reserving for another 
 chapter a more particular account of its origin and 
 preservation, and a development of its beauties and 
 lessons. In arranging the story for a brief pre- 
 sentment, I have made much use of the account 
 of the enthusiastic literary historian, Vilmar, the 
 most picturesque and beautiful which I have met, 
 and preserving well, too, the spirit of the orig- 
 inal. The poem has simple and child-like traits j 
 it has, too, aspects of horror; aspects, too, of the 
 highest nobleness. We also are Teutons. Think, 
 as you read, that you are looking into the fore- 
 time of our own race, beholding the lineaments of 
 our fathers long ago. 
 
 In the land of the Burgundians, in the old royal 
 castle at Worms on the Rhine, Kriemhild, the noble 
 daughter of a king, after her father's early death, 
 grew into blooming maidenhood. Dreams full of 
 presage for the future hovered about her in her sleep, 
 in the quiet retirement in which she passed her 
 youth. She dreamed she was cherishing a falcon, 
 when two eagles swooped down and killed it before 
 her eyes. Full of sorrow, she awoke and told her 
 dream to Ute, her mother. " The falcon," said the 
 mother, " is a noble spouse for whom thou art des- 
 tined ; may God preserve him from being early 
 lost." '-Unless I love a hero," said Kriemhild, 
 " I will remain a maid until death." 
 
 Cheerful in his joyous and manly youth, Siegfried, 
 meanwhile, in the Netherlands, son of an old king
 
 26 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and queen, already had grown from a boy into a 
 hero, and wandered through many lands. He heard 
 at length about the beautiful maid at Worms, far up 
 the Rhine. In order to woo her he left home, with 
 his followers. Before the king's palace at Worms 
 the strangers came riding, their horses and trap- 
 pings finer than were ever before seen. Hagen of 
 Tronei, retainer of the king, is sent for who knows 
 all foreign lands to tell who they are. "They 
 must be princes or princes' messengers," he says. 
 " Wherever they come from, they are noble-spirited 
 heroes. It can be only Siegfried who rides there so 
 proudly, he who conquered the race of the Nibe- 
 lungen, and took from them the uncounted treasure 
 of jewels and red gold ; who won in battle the man- 
 tle that makes one invisible ; the same Siegfried who 
 also slew the dragon and bathed himself in his blood, 
 so that his skin became as invulnerable as horn. 
 Such heroes we should receive as friends." Gun- 
 ther, the king, and his brethren, Gernot and Giese- 
 ler, brethren, too, of Kriemhild, receive him 
 hospitably. Joyous tournaments take place. Kriem- 
 hild catches stolen glances from her window, and 
 forgets her work and play. Siegfried remains a 
 year at Worms before he sees the maid he has come 
 to woo. Meantime he marches forth, as a warlike 
 comrade of the heroes of Burgundy, to strife. 
 Messengers hurry back from the army to the Rhine 
 to announce victory. " Now give me good news," 
 says Kriemhild. " I will give you all my gold." 
 " No one," says the herald, " has ridden more nobly 
 into battle than the guest from the Netherlands.
 
 . THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 27 
 
 The captives you will see, his heroic might subdued 
 and sent hither." The king's daughter bade give 
 the messenger ten marks of gold, and rich clothing. 
 Then she stood silent at the narrow window, watch- 
 ing the road on which the victors were to return to 
 the Rhine, until she saw the rejoicing knights and the 
 happy tumult at the castle gates. At length a great 
 tournament is held, on the joyful Easter festival ; 
 from far and near approach the highest and the best. 
 Then, at last, standing at her mother's side, sur- 
 rounded by a hundred chamberlains, who carry 
 swords, and a hundred glittering ladies of noble 
 rank, Kriemhild appears in public, and she goes 
 forth like the dawn from troubled clouds, in the 
 gentle brightness of youth and beauty. " How can 
 I help loving her," says Siegfried. " It is a foolish 
 illusion, but I would rather die than abandon thee." 
 The hero bends courteously before her ; the might 
 of love draws them towards each other, but as yet 
 no word is exchanged. At length, after the mass 
 with which the festival begins, the maid thanks the 
 hero for the brave help rendered to her brothers. 
 " That was done in your service, Kriemhild," is his 
 reply ; but when the sports are done, he prepares to 
 return to his home, heavy-hearted, for he despairs 
 of success. 
 
 There was a queen, Brunhild, beyond the sea, of 
 wonderful beauty, but also of wonderful strength. 
 In contest with men who desired her love she leaped, 
 and threw the lance ; whoever was defeated was be- 
 headed ; only to a victor would she surrender her- 
 self. Already had many a brave man sought her,
 
 2f GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 only never more to return. Then Gunther, king of 
 the Burgundians, resolved to risk his life for her 
 love, and summoned Siegfried to help him. Sieg- 
 fried consents, if Gunther will give him for his wife 
 his sister, Kriemhild. This, Gunther vows to do, 
 :md the ship is prepared for departure, furnished 
 forth with gold-colored shields and rich garments. 
 After a sail of twelve days they reach the Isenstein, 
 where Brunhild rules. Now begin the contests ; but 
 Gunther, unable to maintain himself against the 
 demon power of the maid, is helped by Siegfried, 
 who puts on his obscuring mantle, to fight invisibly. 
 He stands at Gunther' s side, and bids him only 
 make the motions of a fighter. Now Brunhild 
 throws the spear, and the sparks fly, as from flames 
 blown by the wind, from the shield of her oppo- 
 nent, upon which it strikes. Siegfried trembles, 
 but soon stands firm again, and throws Gunther' s 
 spear at the maid with yet wilder strength. She 
 catches it upon her shield, but falls ; then, angry at 
 her defeat, she runs to the stone which has been 
 brought into the ring by twelve heroes. She, how- 
 ever, raises it alone, and with her powerful arm 
 slings it far away, then leaps after it, so that her 
 armor rings aloud. But Siegfried, tall and quick, 
 hurls the stone far beyond the mark of the maid ; 
 then catching the king under his arm, he leaps far- 
 ther than the leap of Brunhild. The queen imme- 
 diately turns to her retinue: "Maids and men, 
 approach ; you are all to be subject to King 
 Gunther." The end is reached. As Brunhild is 
 betrothed with Gunther, so is Kriemhild with Sieg-
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 29 
 
 fried. In sight of the kings, Kriemhild receives the 
 kiss which plights their faith. But tears fell down 
 the cheeks of the proud, beautiful Brunhild. As- 
 tonished and anxious, because his conscience accuses 
 him, Gunthcr asks for the cause of the tears, and 
 Brunhild answers : " For Kriemhild, thy sister, I 
 weep, because she is to be debased by marriage to 
 a vassal." 
 
 Brunhild, although vanquished, again shows her 
 unmanageable warrior spirit. On the evening of the 
 wedding-day she wrestles again with Gunther, who, 
 no longer having Siegfried's help, is shamefully 
 vanquished, and bound with the girdle of his bride. 
 She winds this about his hands and feet, and hangs 
 him by it to a hook fastened in the wall ; he is set 
 free only after much begging. Sad and ashamed, the 
 next day he tells Siegfried, who again assumes his 
 obscuring mantle, wrestles with Brunhild, and a 
 second time subdues her. 
 
 For a time all misfortune slumbers. Siegfried 
 with his young wife goes joyfully home to his par- 
 ents. His father vields to his son crown and kino- 
 
 *s O 
 
 dom. For ten years they enjoy their happiness in 
 entire peace, Siegfried, ruler of the Netherlands, 
 and of the realm of the Xibelungen, with their innu- 
 merable treasures, the most powerful of kings ; 
 Kriemhild the most beautiful and happy of queens. 
 But in Brunhild's heart the anger still burns. 
 " How does Kriemhild dare behave so proudly to- 
 ward us," she cries, " as not to visit us once in all 
 this time. Is not Siegfried your vassal? Yet for 
 ten long years he has rendered us no service."
 
 30 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Gunther yields, and sends messengers to Siegfried. 
 They invite him to a great festival, which at the sol- 
 stice the old German festival time is to be cele- 
 brated at the Burgundian court at Worms. With a 
 retinue of a thousand nobles, Siegfried and Kriem- 
 hild, accompanied by Siegfried's father, in the se- 
 cure cheerfulness of innocence, go to Worms on the 
 Rhine. Rich gifts of red gold and gleaming jewels 
 are borne along, that Siegfried may be generous at 
 the Burgundian court. 
 
 A splendid reception awaits the guests, for thou- 
 sands of knights from all the roads come streaming 
 into the gates of the royal city. In magnificent at- 
 tire the kings ride, with their retinue, through the 
 streets ; the noble ladies and beautiful maidens, hand- 
 somely adorned, sit at the windows. The sound of 
 trumpets and flutes fills the great city by the Rhine 
 until it rings with music ; but notwithstanding all, 
 the air is full of boding. The two queens Kriem- 
 hild and Brunhild sit together as ten years before. 
 " I have a husband," says the happy Kriemhild, 
 "who deserves to possess all these kingdoms." 
 That was the spark which kindled fire. " How is 
 that possible," says Brunhild, gloomily. "These 
 realms belong to Gunther, and will remain subject 
 to him." Kriemhild fails to catch the tone of gath- 
 ering anger, and continues, less guardedly : " Scest 
 thou how lie stands there, how he walks so grandly 
 before the heroes, like the moon before the stars? 
 Therefore it is that my heart so rejoices." Brun- 
 hild replies: "To Gunther belongs precedence 
 among all kings. When thy brother won me as a
 
 THE NIBELUNOEN LIED. 31 
 
 wife, Siegfried himself said he was Gunther's serv- 
 ing-man, and so I have considered him ever since. 
 He is and shall remain subject to us." Then breaks 
 forth Kriemhild's anger: " Siegfried is indeed no- 
 bler than Gunther, my brother ; we will see whether 
 I shall not have precedence over thee when we go 
 into the cathedral to-day." 
 
 Before the minster the quarrel is renewed with 
 greater bitterness. After stinging words, Kriemhild 
 repents, and adds, " Thou art thyself to blame that 
 we have fallen into this strife. It is hateful to me, 
 and for true heart friendship I shall always again be 
 prepared." But the words have been too bitter. 
 Brunhild falls into cruel desire for revenge. Sieg- 
 fried laments the strife. "They have forgotten 
 themselves," he thinks. "Let us be silent about 
 what has happened, and let our wives be as silent as 
 we." But Brunhild, lamenting in weak rage, sits 
 solitary in her room. There Hagen finds her, and 
 learns from her more particularly how she has been 
 injured. The man must die. The three kings, 
 Gunther, Gernot, and Gieseler, are summoned in 
 council. Only the youngest, Gieseler, considers 
 the affair a woman's contest, too trifling to bring 
 death to a hero like Siegfried. The rest agree to 
 spread a false report of war ; the army is to be sum- 
 moned, and since, plainly, Siegfried will not be ab- 
 sent from the march, the hero shall be slain in the 
 campaign. 
 
 Then the cruel Hagen goes to Kriemhild to take 
 farewell, according to custom. She has already 
 half forgotten the quarrel, and not the slightest
 
 32 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 suspicion comes into her mind that she has before 
 her the implacable enemy of her husband, who, in his 
 fealty to his queen, has sworn his death. " Hagen," 
 she says, " thou art my kinsman. To whom can I 
 better trust my husband's life in the war than to 
 thee ? Protect Siegfried ! To be sure he is invul- 
 nerable, but when he bathed himself in the dragon's 
 blood, a broad linden leaf fell between his shoulder- 
 blades, so that this place was not wet by the blood, 
 and remained unprotected." " Sew a sign for me, 
 royal lady," says the traitor, " on this place on his 
 garment, so that I may know exactly how to protect 
 him." Kriemhild sews with her own hand a cross 
 of fine silk on Siegfried's dress, the mark for his 
 bloody death. Next day the march begins, and 
 Hagen, riding close to Siegfried, sees the sign. 
 From a campaign the expedition becomes a great 
 hunt ; Siegfried sees Kriemhild for the last time, 
 while threatening visions trouble her soul, as for- 
 merly, when she dreamed of the falcons and the 
 eagle in her childhood. Now she sees two moun- 
 tains fall upon Siegfried, he vanishing among the 
 ruins. 
 
 The hunt is finished ; the heroes Siegfried first 
 (who has slain the most game) are thirsty and 
 tired with the chase under the heat of the sun. 
 There is no more wine ; the Rhine is distant ; there 
 is no chance for the refreshment they desire. 
 Hagen, however, knows of a spring in the wood 
 near by, the Odenwald, and thither he advises them 
 to go. Already they see the broad linden under 
 whose roots the cool spring bubbles forth. Then
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 33 
 
 Hagen begins: "It has often been said that no 
 one can follow the quick Siegfried ; let us try it 
 now." "Let us run for a wager," replies Sieg- 
 fried, "as far as the spring." When the race 
 begins, like wild panthers spring Gunther and 
 Hagen through the forest, but Siegfried is first at 
 the goal. Quietly now he lays away his arms, 
 waiting until the king comes up, that he may drink 
 first. Gunther comes up and drinks ; after him 
 Siegfried bends down to the spring. Hagen, leap- 
 ing forward, quietly puts the arms out of Siegfried's 
 reach, then takes the spear in his murderous hand ; 
 while the hero is taking his last draught, Hagen 
 throws the javelin through the cross on his back, so 
 that the heart's blood streams over the slayer. In 
 wrath the wounded hero springs to his feet, grasp- 
 ing after sword and bow, but finds no weapon. 
 Then he clutches his shield and rushes upon Hagen. 
 Wrathfully he smites the traitor with his shield, so 
 that the jewels with which it is set are scattered 
 about, and the wood resounds with the fury of the 
 blows. Then his cheek grows pale, and his limbs 
 totter. Kriemhild's husband falls among the flow- 
 ers, and the blood pours from his death-wound. 
 
 With his last breath he turns angrily upon his 
 murderers. 
 
 "You have repaid my fidelity by slaying your 
 kinsman." 
 
 Many a lamentation is heard, among others the 
 voice of Gunther, whose heart fails him, but the 
 grim Hagen pours out scorn upon those bewailing, 
 and upon the man shamefully murdered. " I know
 
 34 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 not why you lament ; now comes to an end that 
 which we have borne with sorrow and care. Well 
 for me that I have slain this one ! " Once more the 
 hero speaks : "I sorrow for nothing so much as for 
 my wife, Kriemhikl. If you mean, noble King 
 Gunther, ever again to be faithful to any one in 
 your life, to you do I commend her. Let it be well 
 for her that she is your sister." Far around the 
 flowers of the forest are reddened with his blood, 
 for the death-struggle has ended. Then the lords, 
 according to old custom, place the hero's corpse on 
 a gold-red shield, and bear it to Worms on the 
 Rhine. Some advise to say that robbers have killed 
 him. But Hagen cries, "What care I though 
 Kriemhild hears that I have killed him? She has 
 injured Brunhild so much, I hold her sorrow to be 
 but a slight thing. She may weep as much as she 
 will." And the terrible Hagen, when by night 
 they reached Worms, had the corpse laid before the 
 house where Kriemhild dwelt, well knowing that 
 she herself would find it there when, according 1<> 
 custom, she went to matins. A chamberlain, going- 
 first in the gray dawn with a light, sees the corpse. 
 ''My lady," he cries, " rennin. A slain knight 
 lies before the gate." Kriemhild's answer is a loud 
 cry of terror. Well she recognizes in the pale torch- 
 light the heroic figure and the noble features stiff- 
 ened in death. Loud lamenting fills, far and wide, 
 the halls and courts. The faithful associate them- 
 selves for revenge ; Kriemhild can scarcely restrain 
 them. " It is not now time for revenge ; hereafter 
 it will come." When the corpse lies upon the bier,
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 35 
 
 the kings, her brothers, come, and her kindred. 
 Hagen,too, stalks forward without shame. Kriem- 
 hild waits at the bier for the judgment. If the 
 murderer steps near the murdered, or touches his 
 body, the wounds will open and blood flow afresh. 
 As Hagen approaches, the wounds flow. " God 
 will revenge the deed!" cries Kriemhild. The 
 corpse is put into its coffin and borne to the 
 grave, Kriemhild following, almost in a death- 
 struggle with unspeakable woe. Once more she 
 desires to see the beautiful head of her husband ; the 
 costly coffin, ornamented with gold and silver, is 
 broken open in the cathedral ; with white hand she 
 raises the hero's head and presses a kiss on the pale 
 lips. Then Siegfried is buried. 
 
 While Siegfried's father and the Nibelungen re- 
 turn to the Netherlands, Kriemhild is fixed to the 
 spot where her love began, where it ended in cruel 
 woe. Her life has fully gone out into the grand 
 hero who was hers. She has henceforth only two 
 feelings, suffering and revenge. She passes thir- 
 teen years at Worms, in deep mourning. To ap- 
 pease their sister, the kings, her brothers, have the 
 immeasurable treasure in jewels and gold which lies 
 in the Nibelungen land the Nibelungen hoard 
 brought thence. Twelve wagons go four days and 
 nights in order to bring it from the hollow mount 
 where it is hidden, to the ship. It arrives, and is 
 given to Kriemhild ; henceforth the Burgundians are 
 called Nibelungen. But again the grim Hagen steps 
 as an enemy in her way, for he fenrs she may, by 
 her generosity from it, win so many to her service
 
 36 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 that it ma}'' do injury to the power of the king him- 
 self. He accordingly sinks the Nibelun<jen hoard in 
 
 ~ / O 
 
 the Rhine, and there it lies, according to the tradi- 
 tion of the people, between Worms and Lorsch, 
 until this day. At length comes the time for re- 
 venge. 
 
 When Kriemhild has mourned for Siegfried thir- 
 teen years, in distant Hungary dies the wife of 
 Etzcl, or Attila, king of the Huns. His vassal, 
 Kiidiger of Bechlarn, persuades him to AVOO a new 
 spouse, Kriemhild. Riidiger is at once sent west- 
 ward with this commission. As he arrives at Worms, 
 Hagen cries out in surprise, "For a long time I 
 have not seen RLidigcr, but from the bearing of 
 this messenger I must think that he is that bold 
 and skilful soldier." Great joy follows over the 
 meeting, for they have known each other at Etzel's 
 court. There is a hospitable reception, and, on the 
 part of Riidiger, stately wooing. Hagen disap- 
 proves the suit. " If Kriemhild becomes queen of 
 the Huns, you will all see she will do us as much 
 harm as she can. It becomes heroes to avoid sor- 
 row. 1 " Lo ! the black wings of foreboding expand 
 themselves before new, terrible suffering, and this 
 dark presage will not cease until it is completed in 
 horror. Kriemhild at first steadfastly refuses. Her 
 brothers, Gieseler and Gernot, say to her, "If any 
 one can turn away thy sorrow, that can Etzel do ; 
 from the Rhone to the Rhine, from the Elbe to the 
 sea, there is no king so powerful as he. Be happy 
 that he has a mind to choose you to be the sharer 
 of his splendid power." Riidiger's requests, how-
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 37 
 
 ever, cannot move her, until he says, "Every one 
 who does you an injury shall atone for it heavily 
 through our hand." Then the sorrowing one rises, 
 suddenly revived by the thought of revenge. What 
 thoughts lurk in her torn heart Riidiger does not 
 know. Kriemhild reaches to him her hand in assent, 
 and soon she goes with Riidiger on the journey to 
 the land of the Huns, her brothers accompanying 
 her as far as the Danube. Then she proceeds to 
 Riidiger' s castle, where she is lovingly received by 
 Gotlinde, the margrave's wife. After short rest, the 
 train, which continually becomes more numerous, 
 goes forward, until at last she is received by Etzel. 
 Twenty-four tributary princes are in his suite, who 
 all do reverence to Kriemhild. And who stands 
 there at the head of a troop of horsemen whose 
 faces look defiantly from their wolf helmets? Of 
 lofty, almost gigantic, stature, he is like a lion in his 
 shoulders and loins, which seem cast out of bronze. 
 Of proud and noble countenance, he is like Sieg- 
 fried, only Siegfried's cheerful youth is changed in 
 this case into the firm, deep earnestness of the 
 ripened man, on whose head the storms of heavy 
 fate have already raged. About his full hair the 
 coronal of a king is wound ; his strong left hand 
 holds the sword-hilt ; the powerful right hand rests 
 on the lion shield. It is the great hero of German 
 tradition, the king of the Ostrogoths, Dietrich of 
 Berne, the mightiest hero of his time, with 
 Hildebrand, his vassal, and the rest of his troop, 
 now a guest at Etzel's court, until he shall return 
 victoriously into the land and dominion of his
 
 38 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 fathers. All these bands, making up together an 
 army which stretches out of sight, march now, sur- 
 rounding the royal pair, down to Vienna, where a 
 marriage festival is celebrated, lasting seventeen 
 days, with lavish splendor and innumerable gifts. 
 But Kriemhild, in the midst of the magnificence, 
 thinks how she once dwelt on the Rhine, by the 
 side of the noble Siegfried ; her eyes become wet 
 with tears, which she is forced to conceal. The 
 foreign land never becomes her home. For seven 
 years she sits with Etzel under the crown of the 
 land of the Huns ; then she bears a son, who is 
 named at baptism Ortlieb. Again six years pass, 
 so that twenty-six years have gone since Siegfried 
 fell at the linden spring in the Odenwald. Then 
 comes the time of revenge. 
 
 " Long years have I been in a foreign land," she 
 says, at length, to Etzcl, "and yet no one of my 
 noble relatives has visited me here. I cannot longer 
 bear the absence of my kindred, for they say already 
 here, since none of my house seek me out, I am 
 fugitive and banished, without kin and home." 
 Etzel, ready to help her, sends messengers to Worms 
 without delay, inviting them to a festival at the 
 next solstice, at his castle in Hungary. When the 
 messengers reach Worms, the kings hesitate long 
 whether to accept the invitation. Hagen earnestly 
 opposes its acceptance: "You will declare war 
 upon yourselves ; you know what we have done to 
 Kriemhild ; that I slew her husband with my own 
 hand ; we shall only lose in Et/el's land honor and 
 life. Kriemhild has only thoughts of revenge."
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 39 
 
 The warning is unheeded. Hagen only succeeds in 
 inducing them to go well guarded ; all vassals are 
 summoned. Joyfully they come, and among them 
 a new hero, who now steps into the foreground, the 
 bold, joyous Volker von Alzei, a gleeman who 
 understands the fiddle and singing, and is, at the 
 same time, of great prowess in Avar. 
 
 Etzel's messengers return and announce the suc- 
 cess of their mission. Kriemhild, in terrible joy 
 that she has at last reached her aim, exclaims, 
 "What I have long desired shall now be com- 
 pleted." Again the dark foreboding of a terrible 
 future arises at the Nibelungen court. The old 
 gray-haired queen-mother, Ute, still lives, and 
 dreams, just as the preparations are made for de- 
 parture, that all the birds lie dead on field and heath. 
 Hagen again hesitates ; he would again have dis- 
 suaded from the journey, but Gernot scorns him : 
 " Hagen is thinking of Siegfried ; therefore he wants 
 to give up the journey to the land of the Huns." 
 
 And here, that you may obtain some impression 
 of the rude and vigorous verse, let me introduce a 
 few lines of the translation of Birch : 1 
 
 Then out #poke the bold Hagen : " No wise is it through fear. 
 
 If you command it, heroes, then up, gird on your gear; 
 
 I ride with you the foremost into King Etzel's land." 
 
 Since then full many a helmet strong was shivered by his hand. 
 
 The boats were floating ready, and many men there were. 
 
 What clothes of price they had they took and stowed them there. 
 
 "Was never rest from tolling until the eventide : 
 
 Then they took the flood right gayly and would longer not abide. 
 
 1 Strophe 1453 et seq.
 
 40 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Brave tents and towers you saw raised on the grass ; 
 The other side the Rhine-stream that camp it pitched was. 
 The king to stay awhile was besought of his fair wife; 
 That night she saw him with her, and never more in her life. 
 
 And when the rapid heroes took horse and prickt away, 
 
 The women, bent in sorrow, you saw behind them stay; 
 
 Of parting all too long their hearts to them did tell, 
 
 When grief so great is coming on the mind forebodes not well. ' 
 
 Then 'gan they shape their journey towards the River Main, 
 All on through East Fnmconia, King Gunther and his train; 
 Hagen, he was their leader; of old he knew the way; 
 Dankwart did keep, as marshal, their ranks all in good array. 
 
 As they from East Franconia the Salfleld rode along, 
 
 You might have seen them prancing, a bright and lordly throng; 
 
 The prince? and their vassals, all heroes of great fame. 
 
 The twelfth morn brave King Gunther unto the Donau came. 
 
 Then rode the grisly Hagcn, the foremost of that host; 
 He was, to the Nibelungen, the guide they loved the most; 
 The hero keen dismounted, set foot on sandy ground, 
 His steed unto a tree he tied, looked wistful then all around. 
 
 Among those bold companions he was of aspect stern, 
 And yet of stalwart presence, as one might well discern 
 From his keen, rapid glances, for the eyes naught rest in him; 
 Methinks this Xibelungen was of temper most fierce and grim. 
 
 Now Hagen is warned by a spirit of the waters : 
 " Hagen, I will warn thee. Go back while there is 
 still time. No one of your great army will return 
 over the Danube." Hagen now -sees that destruc- 
 tion is certain. They reach at last the territories of 
 Riidigcr of Bechlarn, who with princely hospitality 
 receives the whole great army of the Xibelungen 
 kings, three thousand vassals and nine thousand 
 men-at-arms, and entertains them for almost a 
 week at Bechlarn. With the German kiss of valuta-
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 41 
 
 tion Riidiger's wife and daughter receive the guests, 
 the friends of the master of the house, the brethren 
 and kindred of their queen. In child-like innocence 
 Dietlinde, the daughter, goes down the line of 
 heroes to give the welcome ; but when she reaches, 
 Hagen she shudders at the grim features, and onb 
 upon her father's command holds toward him he: 
 cheek. Cheerfulness rules at the table, at which tho 
 matron herself presides. There is merry pleasure 
 at the noon-tide when the daughter, with her maids, 
 again appears and inspires the noble Volker of Alzei 
 to playing and jovial songs. The summit of joy is 
 reached when at last the Nibelungen ask Dietlinde, 
 for the youngest of their kings, Gieselcr, and the 
 betrothal of the beautiful pair takes place amid uni- 
 versal jubilation. 
 
 The hour of departure approaches. As a token 
 of intimate alliance and life-long heroic friendship, 
 Rlidiger gives his sword to Gernot, the faithful 
 weapon which he has wielded in many a battle ; 
 then the hero bands march off to the land of the 
 Huns, toward their inevitable fate. When they 
 have crossed the frontiers and encamped for the 
 first time on stranger soil, Hildebrand, the vassal 
 of Dietrich, first learns of their coming, and hurries 
 to announce the same to his master. Dietrich and 
 his troop mount on horseback and go towards 
 the strangers. Hagen recognizes him from afar. 
 "Rise, noble lords and kings," he cries; "there 
 comes a royal train ; those are the swift heroes of 
 the Goths, with Dietrich at their head." Then the 
 Nibelungen kings rise before the mighty sovereign
 
 42 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and glorious hero, who now dismounts and comes 
 to meet them. "Welcome, Gunther, Gernot, and 
 Gieseler ! Welcome, Hagen and Volker. Do you 
 not* know that Kriemhild laments the hero of the 
 Nibelungen-land?" " She may lament him long," 
 replies Hagen, defiantly. " Many years ago he lay 
 dead. Let her hold fast to the king of the Huns, 
 for Siegfried, the long-buried, will return no more." 
 " How Siegfried received his death-wound we will 
 not ask," earnestly replies the king of the Goths; 
 " we will not inquire further ; enough that so long 
 as Kriemhild lives, severe misfortune threatens. 
 Hagen, pillar of the Nibelungen, guard thyself 
 before that." And Dietrich says yet more plainly 
 that every morning the wife of Etzel utters lamen- 
 tations to Heaven over the dead Siegfried. "It is 
 too late to go back," says Volker, the bold and 
 merry gleeman, "let us ride on to Etzel's court, 
 and see what will befall us amon<>; the Huns." 
 
 o 
 
 The news of the approach of the Burgundian army 
 is brought now to the court of Etzel. Kriemhild 
 and her husband go to the window to see the troop 
 arrive. There, in the distance, appear the well- 
 known Nibelungen escutcheons and eagle-helmets. 
 " He who now will Avin my favor," cries Kriemhild, 
 " let him think of my grief." The Huns press for- 
 ward to see one man in the company, the terrible 
 Hagen, who slew Siegfried. There lie rides upon a 
 powerful steed, the gloomy, formidable hero, tall, 
 firm as iron in breast and shoulders, with gray be- 
 sprent hair, and dark, angry, rapid-glancing eye, 
 overlooking the rest. The main body of the Nibe-
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 43 
 
 lungen is quartered in the city. The noble vassals 
 go with the three kings to the palace of Etzel. In 
 the press in the inner court Hagen finds Volker, 
 and knowing that the end is close at hand, the two 
 boldest heroes of the Nibelungen conclude a league 
 for life and death. Before one of the palace build- 
 ings they sit on a bench of stone, surrounded by 
 Huns, who behold them in respectful silence. Kriem- 
 hild too sees her mortal enemy from the window. 
 She breaks forth into angry weeping, and passion- 
 ately summons her faithful ones to revenge the cruel 
 sorrow which she has suffered from Hagen ; sixty 
 men arm themselves to slay Hagen and Volker, and 
 in the front of the troop descends Kriemhild herself 
 the crown on her head into the court, to get 
 from Hagen' s own mouth the confession of his mur- 
 der. Volker calls Hagen' s attention to the armed 
 troop coming from the stair-case, who replies, 
 flaming out in angry spirit, " Well do I know that 
 all this is for me. But tell me, Volker, will you in 
 the hot battle stand by me in faithful friendship, as 
 I never will abandon thee ? " "So long as I live," 
 is Volker' s answer, *' even though all the hordes of 
 the Huns storm against us, I will not yield from you, 
 O Hagen, one foot." "May the God in Heaven 
 reward you, noble Volker. What more do I need? 
 They may come on with their armed troops." As 
 Kriemhild approaches the pair, Volker rises before 
 her, but Hagen keeps his scat in quiet defiance, that 
 she may not think he fears her. But with this 
 proud scorn of etiquette he combines a second far 
 worse scorn. He lays across his knees, just as
 
 44 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Kriemhild approaches, a gleaming sword, in whose 
 hilt burns a jasper. It is the sword of Siegfried, 
 Balmung, renowned in legend, which Kriemhild 
 immediately recognizes. There is the golden belt, 
 the red embroidered sheath, which she has seen so 
 often at Siegfried's side. Close to his feet steps 
 Kriemhild. "Who sent for you here, Lord Hagen, 
 that you dared to ride hither? You know what you 
 have done for me." "Three kings have been in- 
 vited hither," replies Hagen; "they are my mas- 
 ters ; I am their vassal. Where they are, am I also." 
 "You know," continues Kriemhild, "why I hate 
 you. You slew Siegfried, and for that I must weep 
 until death." "Why talk longer," bursts out 
 Hagen. " Yes, I, Hagen, I slew Siegfried, the 
 hero, because Kriemhild rebuked the beautiful Brun- 
 hild. Let him avenge it who will." 
 
 Thus was war declared to the death, but it was 
 not to break out at once. The crowd of Huns ven- 
 ture not to attack the champions. The two rise 
 quietly, and go, firm of step, to the king's hall, where 
 their lords are, to protect them in life and death. 
 They forswear sleep, and keep watch before the 
 chamber of the kings. There tower in the darkness 
 the giant figures, silent and almost motionless, before 
 the door. In the night a troop of Iluns attempts to 
 surprise the sleepers, but are frightened away by 
 Hagen's fearful voice. 
 
 The remainder of the Xibehmgen Lied is a tale of 
 blood. I must give its outlines for the light it 
 throws on the time and the race. Let it be remem- 
 bered it is a barbarian minstrel singing to barbarian
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 45 
 
 hearers. Hitherto Etzel, mindful of the duty of a 
 host, has sought to protect his guests, and persisted 
 in showing toward them the truest friendship. 
 Hagen slays the son, Ortlieb, and the father is 
 aroused. At a banquet the savage mother holds in 
 her arms the little boy, five years old. The higher 
 vassals of Etzel are present ; so, too, Hagen and 
 Volker, with the noblest of the Nibelungen. Sud- 
 denly a messenger shouts into the hall that the Huns 
 have slain the Nibelungen outside. The princes and 
 vassals start up in wrath, and fall upon the Huns 
 present, in revenge. In the fray Hagen slays the 
 boy Ortlieb in his mother's arms. In the wild bat- 
 tle Kricmhild in anguish cries out to Dietrich to 
 protect her, and the king of the Goths, not prepared 
 for such cruel vengeance, is quickly ready. 
 
 He raises his 'powerful tones to a deep, resound- 
 ing shout, which rings throughout the whole palace 
 like the blast of a trumpet. For a moment the fray 
 is hushed ; Gunther replies they are only concerned 
 with Etzel' s- vassals, who have slain his followers; 
 the others can withdraw. Etzel, with Kriemhild, 
 Rlidiger, Dietrich and his troop, leave the hall. 
 The strife begins anew, and Etzel's followers are 
 slain together. Now steps Ilagcn, arrogant through 
 victory, to the door, and scorns the gray Etzel for 
 withdrawing from the battle. lie mocks Kriemhild, 
 and Volker joins in the grim defiance : " Such poor 
 cowards as the Huns have never been seen." 
 Kriemhild commands that Etzel's shield shall be 
 filled with gold, and given to whomsoever shall slay 
 Ha 2:011 and brin<r his head to her. The Huns, how-
 
 46 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ever, strive in vain. Evening descends on the awful 
 combat, and stillness follows the wild tumult. The 
 tired heroes in the hall lay away their shields and 
 unbind their helms. Only Hagen and Volker re- 
 main armed to defend their lords. In the deep ex- 
 haustion of the hot and murderous combat, and in 
 the certainty of perishing, a short death seems to 
 them preferable to a long struggle. They desire a 
 parley, and ask to go into the free air, so that, as- 
 saulted by all the hostile troops, they may find a 
 speedy death. 
 
 But Kriemhild fears an escape, and denies the 
 request. Then love for his young life speaks out 
 of Gieseler : "Ah, fair sister, how could I have 
 expected to see this great calamity when you in- 
 vited me here from the Rhine? How have I 
 deserved death here in a foreign land? Faithful 
 was I always to thec, and never did thee harm. I 
 hoped to find thee loving to me ; let me die quickly ^ 
 if it must be so." Kriemhild is much moved, and 
 demands to have only Hagen given up. "I will 
 let you live, for you are my brothers ; AVC are 
 children of one mother." " Let us die with Hagen, 
 since die we must," cries Gieseler too. " He is our 
 vassal ; we will be faithful to him unto death." 
 
 The rage of the wretched Kriemhild rises to a 
 terrible height. She causes the hall to be set on 
 fire. Soon the waves of flame rise far into the 
 night ; smoke and heat, and the brands falling from 
 the roof into the hall, torment the confined heroes 
 almost to death. They press close to the walls, and 
 cover themselves with their shields against the heat.
 
 THE NIBELUNOEN LIED. 47 
 
 They quench their thirst in the blood of their slain 
 foes. The night is at length over, and amid the 
 smoking ruins, in the pale day-break, stand the firm 
 combatants, with spirit unbroken. Then at last 
 Etzel turns to the noble Riidiger of Bechlarn ; he 
 unwittingly has brought all this evil upon the land. 
 He advised and arranged the marriage with Kriem- 
 hild ; he guided thither the Nibelungen. After 
 showing them hospitality, the young King Gieseler 
 is to become his son. If he refuses now to perform 
 the service for Etzel, he is wanting in fidelity to his 
 king. If he yields, he commits treason towards 
 those whom he led hither as guests aiid comrades. 
 So comes the bitter struggle of a soul whose only 
 choice is between the kinds of unfaithfulness. We 
 see a strong, trusting heart tremble in despairing 
 anguish . It breaks long before it receives the death- 
 thrust. It is the older faith that to his king 
 which he feels forced to keep. His retainers arm, 
 and he stalks, shield in hand, to the ruins of the 
 hall. Those who have lately been his guests remind 
 him of his honor ; but the more ancient duty must 
 carry it over the newer. The Burgundians know 
 it too, so they forfeit faith toward him lately their 
 host, to keep it toward their vassal. But one last 
 and touching sign of the friendship now dissolved 
 is given. Hagen complains that his shield is broken ; 
 Riidiger reaches to him his own shield, and stands 
 before those whom he must fight, unprotected. 
 "Grim as Hagen was," sings the minstrel, "this 
 act touched his heart. He wept, and the knights 
 wept with him. ' May God 'in Heaven reward you,
 
 48 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 no1>le Riidigcr, your like is not upon the earth.' ' 
 Hagen refuses to fight, and withdraws with his 
 shadow, Volker, and Gieseler. The others remain, 
 and the strife begins ; poor Gernot hurries to help 
 his men ; Riidiger strikes a death-wound upon his 
 head, and the last blow which Gernot aims with 
 the sword given him by Riidiger is Riidiger' s death- 
 blow. The heroes sink together. 
 
 Palaee and towers resound with the mourning 
 over the heroes who have fallen, so that Dietrich of 
 Berne, standing aloof as one that had no part in the 
 quarrel, sends a messenger to learn the cause of the 
 cries. Finding that Riidiger, whom they have 
 loved, is dead, Hildcbrand demands his body for 
 burial. Scorn is the answer of the Nibelungcn ; 
 Dietrich's giant followers hereupon grasp their 
 swords, and anew the combat rages. Volker, the 
 merry gleeman, falls by the mighty hand of Hilde- 
 brand. Gicseler and a Gothic 'prince arc mutually 
 slain ; and Hagen, to revenge Volker' s death, 
 presses upon Ilildebrand with blows so terrible that 
 the rusliino- can be heard far away of the miirhtv 
 
 O */ o *; 
 
 strokes of Balmung, the sword of Siegfried, about 
 the head of the grisly Goth. Hildebrand, however, 
 escapes with a heavy wound ; he returns to Dietrich, 
 but none of his followers. In the royal hall, soli- 
 tary too, among the bodies of friend and foe, stand 
 Gunther and Hagen. Then at length goes forth 
 Dietrich ; Gunther and Hag-en wait gloomily, and 
 when summoned to yield, Hagen refuses to do so 
 until the sword of the Nibelungen is broken. Diet- 
 rich overpowers Hagen, with lion clasp binds him,
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 49 
 
 and leads him to Kricmlrl 1. Gunther is also 
 bound. Dietrich recommends that their lives be 
 spared, and departs in gloom. But Kriemhild must 
 drain to the dregs the cup of revenge. If Hagen 
 will give her back the Nibehmgen treasure, he shall 
 keep his life. But Hagen is still defiant : "So long 
 as one of my lords lives, I will not reveal the 
 treasure." Gunther is promptly slain, and his 
 head brought by the fury to Hagen. "It is now 
 ended," he cries. " Xo\v is dead the noble Nibelun- 
 gen king', as also the young Gieseler and Gernot. 
 No one knows now the place of the treasure but 
 God and I alone. From thce, cruel woman, it 
 shall be forever hidden . ' ' "So, then," cries Kriem- 
 hild, "I have only the sword of my Siegfried." 
 She draws it from its sheath, and Balmung at 
 length avenges the murder in the hand of the furi- 
 ous queen of the Huns. Then springs up the old 
 Hildebrand in wrath, because the peace which his 
 lord asked for Gunther and Hagen was broken. 
 Kriemhild sinks before his blow, with a shriek, and 
 all is done. "With sorrow," so ends the song, 
 "was concluded the high festival of the king; as 
 always joy gives sorrow at the end." The last 
 stanza runs : 
 
 I cannot tell TOU farther about the slaughters red ; 
 The hosts that then were smitten in silence all lay dead. 
 "What afterwards befell, herein ye may not read ; 
 Here has the song an ending; this is the isibelungen Lied, 
 
 4
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED Continued. 
 
 In the preceding chapter the story of the Nibe- 
 lungen Lied was told, after a brief account of what 
 the poem was, and why it is worthy of attention 
 from a generation like ours, removed eight hundred 
 years from the time of its composition. I hope some 
 traits of beauty and grandeur have made themselves 
 plain, rude though it sometimes is. Here, at any 
 rate, are the judgments of certain writers whose 
 opinions deserve to be weighed : " From whatever 
 side we view it," says Kurz, 1 "it is by far the most 
 important work which the Middle Ages have given 
 to us. We may dare, in proud confidence, to set it 
 beside the best which has founded the glory of other 
 races." "It is," says Carlyle, 2 "by far the finest 
 monument of old German art. A noble soul the 
 singer must have been ; he has a clear eye for the 
 beautiful and true ; the whole spirit of chivalry, of 
 love, and of heroic valor must have lived in him and 
 inspired him. Everywhere he shows a noble sensi- 
 bility ; the sad accents of parting friends, the lament- 
 ings of women, the high daring of men, all that 
 
 1 Geschichte der dcutschen Literatur. 
 3 The ISibeluttgeu Lied.
 
 THE XIBELUXGEN LIED. 51 
 
 is worthy and lovely prolongs itself in melodious 
 echoes through his heart. A true old singer, and 
 taught of nature herself." "Whoever," says Lud- 
 wig Baur, 1 "desires with poetical look to transport 
 himself into primeval Germany must not only read, 
 but study, the Iliad of the Germans, The Nibe- 
 lungen Lied. There the original spirit of the people 
 breathes purest ; there it becomes plain how formerly 
 the world and the intricacy of human fate were re- 
 garded." But no tribute is so picturesque as that 
 of Heinrich Heine : "Would you nice little people 
 form an idea of the Nibelungen Lied, and the gigan- 
 tic passions which move in it? Imagine to your- 
 selves a clear summer night, the stars pale as silver, 
 but large as suns, stepping forth in the blue sky, 
 and that all the Gothic cathedrals of Europe had 
 given one another a rendezvous upon a wide mountain 
 plain. There would come striding on the Strassburg 
 minster, the Kolner-Dom, the Campanile of Giotto, 
 the cathedral of Rouen, and these would pay to the 
 beautiful Notre Dame of Paris, very courteously, 
 their obeisance. True, their walk would be a little 
 clumsy ; some among them would be slightly awk- 
 ward, and one might often laugh at their infatuated 
 waggling. But this would have an end when one 
 should see how they would fall into a rage, slay one 
 another, as Notre Dame de Paris raises her strong 
 arms to Heaven, suddenly seizes a sword, and strikes 
 the head from the greatest of all the cathedrals. 
 But, no. So, you get no idea of the figures of the 
 
 Quoted by Schonhuth.
 
 52 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Nibelungen Lied. No tower is so high, and no stone 
 so hard, as the grim Hagen and the revengeful 
 Kriemhild." l 
 
 That tlio testimony is not all of this kind is true ; 
 and as an oll'sct to the opinions just given, here is 
 that of Frederick the Great, which has been framed, 
 and is now kept under glass in the library at Ziirich : 
 "You have much too high an opinion of it. To my 
 notion, it is not worth a charge of powder. I would 
 not tolerate it in my library, but would sweep it 
 out." There is a rare charm in the antique phrase 
 in which the poem is given, as there is in the lan- 
 guage of Chaucer. It is like the broken talk of 
 childhood, and through it the conceptions come to 
 the reader with a sweet and simple artlessness. 
 
 To give more particularly the account of the ori- 
 gin of the Xibelungen Lied, about one hundred 
 and fifty years ago the Swiss Bodmer discovered 
 in the castle of Hohencms, in Switzerland, two 
 bulky manuscripts, agreeing in most respects, and 
 giving the text of something long forgotten. The 
 poem had no title, and for want of a better one, the 
 words were used found at the end of the closing 
 stanza, " This is the Xibelungen Lied." In spite 
 of Frederick the Great's disparaging criticism, it 
 found readers, and more admired than condemned. 
 Straightway came questions : Who wrote it? Is it 
 possible to separate in it the historical and fabu- 
 lous? and many more. It has been made the sub' 
 ject of that microscopic scrutiny which only Ger- 
 
 Quoted iu the Bibliothek der deutschen Klassiker.
 
 THE NIBELUXGEN LIED. 53 
 
 mans seem to have patience and strength to bestow. 
 Of the labors of the too patient scholars, and the 
 fierce controversies in which thev have eno-aijed 
 
 *; C C 
 
 among themselves, I propose to make no note. 
 Karl Lachmann was the acute and persistent critic 
 who led the way, and a small army of disciples 
 came after to elaborate the work of their chief. 
 Holtzmann was the first who dared to question 
 their conclusions ; and he too gained a considerable 
 following. The clash of their fencing resounds still 
 in the philological Jahrbiicher and Zeitschriften. 
 Taking as guides Dr. Hermann Fischer, who in 
 1874 wrote out an account of Xibelungcn studies, 
 and the poet Simrock, let the following be stated 
 as to the poem's origin : 
 
 Every rude race has its singers, who invent lays 
 relating to the experiences of their nation and their 
 mythological beliefs, handing them down to suc- 
 ceeding generations by oral tradition. Of such 
 minstrels, as has already been mentioned, the Ger- 
 mans had an abundance, who sang with vigorous 
 imaginations of the wild deities, of the heroes 
 partly human and partly divine, of the wanderings 
 and fightings of the race as it poured out of Asia 
 into Europe, sweeping restlessly to and fro until it 
 found stabilitv. AVhen at "length dvinsr Rome {rave 
 
 *. / o c 
 
 to the Teutons her sceptre, her civilization, and her 
 faith, what had been oral tradition was intrusted to 
 writing. Xow, however, the monks were at work. 
 It was a hard ta>k to wean the barbarians from the 
 faith and life of their fathers ; the ties by which, 
 more than anvthino- else, thev were bound to this
 
 54 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 old faith and life were these traditions. For sev- 
 eral hundred years, while the Teutonic tribes were 
 gradually passing under the power of the cross, the 
 persistent effort of the Church to throw into oblivion 
 the traditions of the past continued. This effort of 
 the Church has already been noted, and also that 
 Karl the Great loved well the songs of his fathers ; 
 he would fain have preserved them ; but for the most 
 part they perished. Now and then appeared a 
 churchman in whom zeal for the new order had not 
 quite supplanted the old Gothic impulses. Going 
 from Regensburg to Vienna, the traveller takes the 
 steamer, for the trip down the Danube, at Passau. 
 One will be likely to remember the little city, lying 
 quiet just where the blue stream becomes comforta- 
 bly navigable for the craft of to-day, and the black 
 crag rising steeply on the opposing bank, whose 
 weather-beaten brow is surmounted by the bishop's 
 castle. It frowns from the summit there to-day as 
 it has done for a thousand years. Here, just nine 
 hundred years ago, lived Bishop Piligrim, who one 
 day told his secretary, Konrad, to make a book out 
 of lays he had heard the minstrels sing. Konrad 
 faithfully executed the command. Coming from 
 the primeval times, as young minstrels learned 
 them from the lips of gray-beards, to sing them in 
 their turn, each put into his version something of 
 himself and of the time in which he lived, until, in 
 the many elaborations, the lays had become en- 
 riched from the life and spirit of all the generations 
 they had touched. The lays, in part, were more 
 ancient than the first swarming of that primeval
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 55 
 
 Aryan hive. It is believed that Konrad was the 
 first to commit the mass of tradition to writing, 
 probably in Latin, probably in prose ; not a syllable 
 of his work has come down to us. In times that 
 followed, Konrad's book was rewrought by others, 
 again and again, until at length we reach the year 
 1200. Europe was aflame with the spirit of the 
 crusades, and the hosts then, as they swept east- 
 ward in all the splendor of steel armor and knightly 
 pennons, trailed past the city of Passau, as the cur- 
 rent bore them swiftly on. It was sometimes a 
 halting-place, and, for the entertainment of the 
 knights, the minstrels poured in to sing at the ban- 
 quets and in the intervals of the tournaments. 
 Then it was that some bard, whose home perhaps 
 was Kiirenberg, 1 a little farther down the stream, a 
 knight himself, though with a soul that brought 
 him into sympathy with the people, for the last 
 time worked over the ancient lay. It is conject- 
 ured that one of the manuscripts found a hundred 
 and fifty years ago at Hohenems is the veritable 
 work of the Kurenberger, prepared that he might 
 recite it to the crusading guests of the hospitable 
 bishop of Passau. Whoever the poet may have 
 been, he gave to his elaboration some superficial 
 traits of the age of chivalry ; the Nibelungen and 
 their kings are nominally Christian, and there is 
 much talk of tournaments and other mediaeval 
 usages. But the spirit of an era more ancient than 
 the introduction of Christianity is well preserved. 
 
 1 Fischer.
 
 56 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The faith and the chivalry are mere drapery upon 
 figures that belong to the primeval heathendom. 
 All the motives of the characters are Pagan ; 
 Christianity does not affect events or persons. 1 
 The heathenism may be yielding, 'but Christianity 
 nowhere as yet takes hold ; it is almost entirely 
 confined to outer religious observances. A founda- 
 tion principle of the personages is the duty of re- 
 venge ; it comes as a necessary sequel of fidelity, 
 and is no less honored than fidelity. 
 
 At first the Nibelungcn Lied was popular. Be- 
 sides the manuscripts of Hohenems, more than fifty 
 others have been discovered, in a more or less frag- 
 mentary condition, and allusions to the poem in 
 writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
 are not uncommon. Gradually, however, interest in 
 it declined ; in the fifteenth century it had dropped 
 from the knowledge of the world. At length, 
 in the eighteenth, it was again read with admiration, 
 harsh Frederick sneering at the folly that was super- 
 seding the wise foraretfulness of the fathers. In the 
 
 o o 
 
 nineteenth the admiration for it has become per- 
 haps excessive. It should be to the Germans, 2 it 
 is said, all that Homer was to the Greeks ; but 
 Homer, by the Greeks, was reverenced as a Bible. 
 What precisely is the picture of primeval Ger- 
 many which tha Nibelungen Lied gives us? His- 
 torical are the three Burgundian kings, Gunther, 
 Gernot, and Giescler ; historical is Etzel, or Attila, 
 
 Gotho. 
 
 F. H. Schonhuth.
 
 FEE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 57 
 
 and the annihilation, through him, of the Bursrun- 
 
 o o 
 
 dian royal house ; historical is Dietrich, the great 
 Theodoric, the Ostrogoth. It is not, however, in 
 this way that the poem has a value, as a source from 
 which is to be derived knowledge of particular inci- 
 dents and individuals. Events are moved forward 
 or backward in time at the pleasure of the poet ; 
 personages made contemporary who really were 
 separated by main- hundred years ; things purely 
 mythical combined with facts. The Dietrich of the 
 poem is hardly the Theodoric of history ; and Etzcl, 
 certainly the quiet, hospitable prince, advanced in 
 years is far different from the terrible " Scourge of 
 God" of the fifth century, a figure as tremendous 
 in the world's annals as he is in the great picture of 
 Kaulbach at Berlin, the Battle of the Huns," 
 where he towers in the air, scourge in hand, lifted 
 upon a shield borne on the shoulders of his Huns, a 
 sublime embodiment of savage fury. The service 
 which the poem renders history is of a far different 
 kind from this. It lies in the faithful representa- 
 tion of the disposition and character of the race. 1 
 These can be learned not only more picturesquely, 
 but more exactly and surely, than in formal history. 
 Hector and Achilles, Agamemnon and ./Eneas may 
 be mere names, inventions of the poet, not por- 
 traitures of men ; but we are, nevertheless, sure 
 that we have in Homer a revelation of primeval 
 Greece, its faith, life, and spirit ; so, through the 
 Nibelungen Lied, as through a window, we behold 
 
 1 Vilmar.
 
 58 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the Teutons just emerging from the shadows of pre- 
 historic night. Lovingly do the Germans dwell 
 upon the interesting picture. If there is anything 
 in it to excite pride, in that we are entitled to share, 
 brethren as we are of the Teutonic household. 
 
 The features of the ancient external civilization 
 are here made visible. We see the fondness for 
 gold, jewels, and rich apparel, the joy in hunting, 
 the passion for minstrelsy and pageants. We see 
 the superstitions by which the forefathers were mas- 
 tered, superstitions often which hold the race to- 
 day. Kriemhild dreams of her falcon struck dead 
 by the eagle, of Siegfried crushed by mountains ; 
 her mother dreams that the birds are all dead on 
 field and plain. Straightway they are interpreted as 
 forebodings of woe. At the near foot-fall of the 
 murderer the blood flows afresh in the wounds of 
 his victim. We see here too the German respect 
 for woman, a fine confirmation of the report of 
 Tacitus. Siegfried, Riidiger, Gunther, Etzel, are all 
 husbands of one wife, who sits honored in the home, 
 presides at the banquet, and welcomes the guest 
 with a chaste kiss of salutation. In narrating the 
 most valorous deeds of the heroes, the poet, instead 
 of giving their own names, often designates them by 
 their wives, as if to lift them into higher honor. 
 Not Siegfried, but Kriemhild' s husband, it is who 
 thunders victoriously upon a fugitive army ; not 
 Riidiger, but Gotlinde's spouse, goes serenely to- 
 ward his death. In the fore-front of life stands the 
 woman, no less vigorous than tender, a mark for 
 deep respect, as well as affectionate caress. What
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 59 
 
 vitality is theirs ! Ten years after her marriage 
 Kriemhild is widowed, and thirteen years after that 
 her charms gain her a new husband. Six years later 
 Btill she bears to Etzel the child Ortlieb, and when 
 at length she, her brethren, and race have perished, 
 her mother, the old Queen Ute, still hale and strong, 
 in the monastery at Lorsch survives to lament them 
 all. 
 
 The vitality and prominence are, in fact, some- 
 times alarming. Here is an account of a sorrowful 
 experience of King Grimther, on his wedding-night 
 at the hands of his wife, Brunhild, translated, as 
 precisely as I can give it, from the old text of the 
 year 1200 : 
 
 Then when to meet his darling the gallant king did haste, 
 
 She unclasped the band she wore 'round her waist. 
 
 It was a beauteous girdle, and thereto strong and tough ; 
 
 With that unto her spouse, the king, she caused sorrow enough. 
 
 She bound him hand and foot so the knots could not fail ; 
 Unto the wall she took him and hung him on a nail. 
 If he talked while she slept, she made him hold his breath; 
 From her strength I ween that he almost caught his death. 
 
 She did not ask him how he was while she in quiet lay; 
 There he had to hang until the dawn of day 
 Until through the window the morning threw its streak; 
 What strength he had had vanished, and he felt tired and weak. 
 
 "Ah, well a day," he cried ; " if I should lose my life, 
 Only think of the example ! I fear that every wife 
 In all future time, that else might be meek, 
 To rule her patient husband will disastrously seek." l 
 
 Far grander, far more important than the picture 
 
 1 Strophe 687 et seq.
 
 60 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 of outward traits, is the portrayal in the Nibelungen 
 Lied of the old Teutonic soul. What did they love 
 as the bright qualities of manhood? We can know 
 from the conceptions the poets drew to stand for 
 the highest heroes and heroines, and what they set 
 before themselves as ideals we may be sure they 
 made real in some part in their own lives. Rich, 
 beneficent liberality, so long as it has anything to 
 give, is the quality of the lords ; gratitude, which 
 goes out only with life itself, is the quality of the 
 man, his retainer ; for we may see in the poem the 
 close bond between vassal and chief, the institution 
 which had its birth in the German woods, and, be- 
 coming connected with things less noble, grew .up 
 at length into the feudal system. Finer than the 
 generosity finer even than the gratitude is the 
 superb fidelity. For the dear king and suzerain is 
 everything done, faithful fighting, the free out- 
 pouring of blood, and, at last, of life ; and on the 
 other hand, not even in death do kings abandon 
 the faithful servant, but hold fast even to the fearful 
 perishing of themselves and their whole race. "This 
 fidelity is the peculiar life-element of the German 
 people, and the real throbbing heart of our epic." ] 
 Taking now the four leading characters of the 
 poem, Siegfried, Kricmhild, Ilagen, and Riidi- 
 ger, let us sec if a somewhat closer examination 
 will bear out the claims. As to Siegfried, 2 \ve are 
 to notice that contrasting qualities are thoroughly 
 
 1 Yilmar. 
 
 2 Kurz.
 
 THE NIBELUNGEX LIED. Gl 
 
 harmonized in him. Nothing can surpass his ten- 
 derness at times ; at times he is the lion in spirit 
 and courage. The modesty of a maiden is now not 
 more marked than his ; again, upon occasion, he 
 shows a proud self-consciousness, which, however, 
 we do not blame him for entertaining, and the ex- 
 pression of which appears to be only a finer frank- 
 ness. He ventures not to woo the beautiful Kriem- 
 hihl, even when, by the conquest of the Saxons, he 
 seems to have preserved the Burgundians from de- 
 struction ; for when ho sees her "who walks like 
 the morning redness out from troubled clouds, who 
 shines before other women as the still moon moves 
 before the stars," he is struck with fear. "How 
 could I have thought to love thec ! It is a vain 
 illusion ; death would be better." He remains near 
 her for twelve days ; and even though it is plain 
 that his love is returned, he ventures not to hope, 
 and is on the point of departing in sorrow to his 
 own home down the Rhine, when Gernot draws him 
 back. He seems to himself not yet worthy of the 
 peerless princess, and not until he has done for 
 King Gunther still another great service the van- 
 quishing of Brunhild in the contests at Isenstein 
 does he dare ask for Kriemhild's hand. His aifec- 
 tion from now onward becomes different, but not 
 less warm or true. Even in his death-hour it is 
 revealed as the passion of his soul. " Then spoke, 
 in his woe, the hero wounded to death, to Gunther : 
 ' If, O King, you ever mean in this world to be 
 true to any one, I commend to your mercy my dear 
 wife. Let it be fortunate for her that she is your
 
 62 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sister. With the virtue becoming a prince, stand 
 faithfully by her. Never before to woman has 
 such sorrow come.' ' He is full of trusting honor. 
 Not alone toward his wife, but in other relations, 
 does Siegfried show himself noble. Always gentle, 
 generous, just, and forgiving, the hero is almost 
 without spot. Possibly, in lending himself to Gun- 
 ther's plans and employing the stratagems by which 
 Brunhild is overcome, a want of openness may be 
 seen which is inconsistent with the highest concep- 
 tion. It is, however, but a momentary stooping to 
 deceit. He is for the most part thoroughly true to 
 others, and expects to his sorrow that others 
 will be as true to him. 
 
 With Siegfried we part in the middle of the 
 poem, leaving him dead in his adorned coffin in the 
 f" cathedral at Worms. Kriemhild, 1 however, is the 
 
 persistent figure of the lay. A simple maiden, in 
 the shelter of the palace, she tells in the first few 
 stanzas of the poem, to her mother, her dream of 
 the slain falcon. When, at last, a woman stricken 
 in years, she falls at length beneath the sweep of the 
 sword of Hildebrand, it is the culmination and close. 
 She is very picturesque, the fierce heathenism of 
 the elder time breaking out in the characterization in 
 a way that is very striking. At first, a bashful 
 maiden, she cannot think of a husband ; but when 
 Siegfried appears at Worms, and his praise resounds 
 everywhere, a premonition fills her soul of the love 
 that is to come. As soon as she has become his 
 
 Kurz.
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 63 
 
 wife the shyness of the virgin vanishes ; she steps 
 forth among women with a matron's dignity, all 
 whose thoughts and feelings are centred in her 
 husband. He is to her the sum of all excellence, 
 to whom nothing is comparable. At the detraction 
 of Brunhild she falls into an excessive rage, which 
 our sympathy does not follow, and the quarrel 
 results whose sequel is to be so sad for her. It is 
 an excess of wifely love ; and it is an excess too 
 which makes her happiness to conclude with the 
 death of Siegfried ; for during th many years that 
 folloAv, sorrow alone it is which colors her life, bound 
 up as she is in the recollection of her lost love. 
 Thus far in Kriemhild we have a picture of the 
 loveliest maidenhood and womanhood, only defective 
 in that wifely devotion is made to go too far. The 
 portrait is unique in German mediae val literature, 
 yet it could have been drawn by no one but a 
 Teutonic poet, and the hearts of all of Teuton stock 
 go forth towards it. It can stand with the most 
 beautiful pictures of all times and races. 
 
 But what shall be said of the Kriemhild that 
 follows? With maidenhood and wifehood behind 
 her, she broods in widow's weeds over her sorrow. 
 The imperishable affection which inspires her gives 
 birth to a heathenish outcome, which the minstrel, 
 filled with no faith but that of the primeval forests, 
 develops, apparently without a thought of disap- 
 proval, until Kriemhild bla/es luridly forth in the 
 character of a fury. Her soul becomes filled with 
 the desire for revenge. It is Ilagen who has slain 
 Siegfried, and he must expiate the crime. Terrible
 
 64 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 as Kriemhild appears in the closing- scenes, demand- 
 ing new thousands for slaughter, and at length 
 bathing her hands in her brother's blood, she docs 
 not lose our sympathy entirely. Really, the fury of 
 the c:id is not inconsistent with the timid maid who 
 looks from her retired window, in the early scenes, 
 upon Siegfried prancing with his retinue in the 
 plain ; her re vengeful ness is, so to speak, but a 
 phase of her fidelity, a distortion, of her undying 
 love, which by circumstances is led into excesses 
 not planned before. She carries the revenge to a 
 terrible extreme, but the poet has given a most 
 reasonable account of it, developing the dreadful 
 issue, not merely from Kriemhild's character, but 
 also from the connection of events. 1 It is Hagen 
 only whom she seeks to reach ; but the Nibelungcn 
 have gone into the land of the Huns bound together 
 as one man ; if he dies, the kings and nobles of 
 Burgundy must die with him. She can only reach 
 her end, so fixed is the reciprocal fealty between 
 lord and dependent, by the destruction of all. Re- 
 call how it is that Kriemhild, step by step, is pushed 
 into the horrors. She invites the Xibelungen to 
 Etzel's court with deceitful cordiality, to be sure ; 
 but to avenge Siegfried in some way is, in her 
 unregenerate soul, a paramount duty. She con- 
 templates no wholesale murder, but only the pun- 
 ishment of Ilagen. lie, by his insulting bearing, 
 enrages her still more, and at length makes her des- 
 perate. The deaths of Gunthcr and Hagen are, as 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 THE NIBELUNOEN LIED. 65 
 
 it were, forced upon her, through Hagen' s defiant 
 scorn. Terrible is the picture which the poet, with 
 unsparing hand, draws, fit for unconverted barba- 
 rians. Husband gone, child killed, Etzel's knight- 
 hood all lying slain, Kriemhild seems forced by an 
 irresistible power to annihilate him who has robbed 
 her of everything. Great though the gulf is, it 
 has been finely said, 1 which is opened between the 
 tender maid, palpitating with first love, and the 
 murderous fury, yet it is perfectly intelligible. 
 We feel it is the same power of love which at first 
 leads her to the breast of Siegfried, and at last 
 raises her arm for the stroke that kills her brother. 
 Still more picturesque than in Kriemhild is the 
 mingling of dark and light in the grim Hagen. The 
 retainer of Gunther, to whom he is unswervingly 
 faithful in sorrow and joy, performing in his behalf, 
 deeds of the blackest treachery and murder, deeds 
 of the noblest sacrifice and most unshrinking cour- 
 age, he is a truly appalling blending of the angel 
 and the devil. He appears first as the man of wide 
 experience, who, when the Burgundians are trying 
 to make out Siegfried, approaching suddenly with 
 his shining Nibelungen, must be called in to tell 
 who they are. When, at length, Kriemhild and 
 Brunhild have fiercely quarreled, it is Hagen who, in 
 savage fidelity, becomes the instrument of revenge 
 to the wife of his lord. Perhaps a twinge of jeal- 
 ousy comes in to influence him, since Siegfried has 
 so far surpassed him in exploits ; but his motive is, 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 66 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 in,. the main, to do the will of those to whom he is 
 bound. By blackest treachery he wins from Kriem- 
 hild the revelation as to Siegfried's vulnerability 
 between the shoulders, where the linden leaf fell as 
 he was bathing in the dragon's blood. Most foully 
 he uses his knowledge, casting the murderous jave- 
 lin when Siegfried, unsuspecting, stoops to drink at 
 the spring. ^When Siegfried, in his death-agony, by 
 his appeals melts the confederates of Hagen, the 
 dark-faced ruffian, whose eyes are described as al- 
 ways darting rapid glances, stands unmoved, reply- 
 ing with exulting insolence to the upbraidings of his 
 victim. In the same spirit he orders that the corpse 
 shall be borne to be placed at Kriemhild's door, at 
 Worms ; and his self-centred coolness is not affected 
 when, before the whole world, as he steps to the side 
 of the body, the wounds bleed afresh in the mur- 
 derer's presence. This is all the harshest savagery, 
 and so too his subsequent treatment of Kriemhild, 
 whom he always cruelly thwarts, taking from her 
 
 V V 
 
 the Nibelungen treasure to hurl it in the Rhine, 
 and at length opposing her nuptials with Etzel. 
 
 When at last Kriemhild, seeking revenge, invites 
 the Burgundians to Etzel' s court, the wary Hagen 
 penetrates her purpose and holds back. When, 
 however, the journey is resolved upon, he follows 
 resolutely the lead of his masters. The supernat- 
 ural prophetess makes known to him his own fate, 
 and that of the entire host. He cannot change the 
 purpose of his lords ; no more can he abandon 
 them, for is not fidelity entwined with his very 
 life? Grimly he moves through the festivities and 
 
 *j C7
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 67 
 
 pageants which precede the final slaughters. Recoil- 
 ing before his swarthy, tempestuous countenance, 
 the lovely Dietlinde, when, at her father's (Riidi- 
 ger's) bidding, she gives the kiss of welcome to his 
 guests, starts back in alarm. He rides unsmiling 
 amid the welcoming multitudes, and at length, side 
 by side with Volker, sits before Etzel's court, beheld 
 at length by Kriemhild. Touching is the bond of 
 friendship which the doomed servitor enters into 
 with the minstrel Volker ; cruel, and yet most lion- 
 like is his bearing the sublimity of hardihood 
 when, before Kriemhild' s troop, he coolly lays 
 across his knees Balmung, the sword of Siegfried, 
 and glories in his murder. "Who sent for you 
 here, Lord Hagen, that you dared to ride hither? 
 You know what you have done for me." " No one 
 has sent for me," replies Hagen. "Three kings 
 have been invited hither ; they are my masters, 
 I am their vassal. Where they are, am I also." 
 "You know," continues Kriemhild, " why I hate 
 you. You slew Siegfried, and for that I must weep 
 until death." "Why talk longer," bursts out Ha- 
 gen. " Yes, I, Hagen, I slew Siegfried, the hero, 
 because Kriemhild rebuked the beautiful Brunhild. 
 Let him avenge it who will." 
 
 In the fearful scenes that follow, Hagen towers 
 merciless, gigantic as another Thor, yet with a heart 
 full of friendship, and toward Riidiger at length he 
 shows affecting gratitude. The tie that binds him 
 to Gunther, Gernot, and Gieseler is of adamant, 
 which cannot be broken ; and just as true on their 
 side are the kings to their vassal. Truly piteous is
 
 68 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the outcry of the young Gieseler to Kriemhild: 
 "Ah, fair sister, how could I have believed to see 
 this great calamity when you invited me here from 
 the Rhine? How have I deserved death in a for- 
 eign land? Faithful was I always to thee, and never 
 did thee harm. I hoped to find thce loving to me ; 
 lot me die quickly, if it must be so." Kriemhild 
 demands to have only Hagen given up. "I will let 
 you live, for you are my brothers ; we are children 
 of one mother.' " Let us die with Hagen, since 
 die we must," cries Gieseler. "Let us die with 
 Hagen, even were there a thousand of us of one 
 stock," says Gernot. They will be faithful to him 
 until death. Forward they go, smiting and smitten, 
 falling one by one, friend and foe heaped in the car- 
 nage, until at length Hagen, last of the race, in 
 bonds and wounded to death, confronts Kriemhild 
 alone. If Hagen will restore to her the treasure of 
 the Nibelungen, given to her by Siegfried, long ago 
 thrown by him into the Rhine, even now he may 
 live. "Now is dead," cries Hagen, "the noble 
 Burmindian kinir, as also the young Gieseler and 
 
 O O ' */ O 
 
 Gernot. No one knows now the place of the treas- 
 ure but God and I alone. From thce it shall be 
 forever hidden." With these words he bows be- 
 neath the stroke, and the fierce life goes out. The 
 ideal of a savage hero ! A figure fascinating through 
 all its repulsiveness ! Such cruelty, such unscrupu- 
 lousncss, such manful virtue ! 
 
 But to my mind the glory of the Nibelungen Lied 
 is the grand story of the Margrave Riidiger, noblest 
 of the heroes. There is not a point of the charac-
 
 THE XIBELUNGEN LIED. 69 
 
 terization here that does not excite admiration. He 
 appears at first as the messenger sent by Etzel to 
 win the hand of Kriemhild. He departs in state 
 from Bechlarn, his castle, proceeds to Worms, and 
 with all the forms of knightly ceremony demands 
 the princess for his master. "When at length the 
 suit is successful, and Kriemhild leaves the Rhine, 
 on her way to the distant land of the Huns, Riidi- 
 ger receives her on the frontier with the finest hos- 
 pitality. His wife, Gotlinde, shows her all possi- 
 ble respect, and together they speed her on her way. 
 Still finer, however, is the hospitality shown when 
 at length the Nibehmgen, their kings at their head, 
 pass through the land to visit Kriemhild. Rlidiger 
 receives the thousands of them, and the days pass 
 with music and feasting. The incidents are most 
 attractive when Gotlinde and Dictlinde, the wife 
 and daughter of Riidiger, salute with a chaste kiss 
 the princes, and when the beautiful daughter recoils 
 with fear before the sinister look of Hagen. In sign 
 of friendship, Riidiger gives Gernot his sword ; and 
 becomes still further bound to his guests when at 
 length Gieselor and Dietlinde love one another, 
 and arc betrothed. In company with the strangers 
 from the Rhine, at length he goes down the Danube. 
 The meeting with Kriemhild takes place, and pres- 
 ently begin the horrors. Riidiger holds aloof until 
 at length, commanded by his lord, he is forced to 
 stand forth. The struggle in his noble spirit be- 
 tween his duty toward his sovereign and his obliga- 
 tion toward those who have boon his guests and be- 
 come his close friends is most pathetic. It is hard 
 to conceive of a situation more tragically pictu-
 
 70 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 resque ; he is rent asunder, as it were, by two 
 angels. Here at length is the account of his end, in 
 a translation, in which I have striven to give the 
 rugged, irregular movement as well as the simple 
 pathos of the original lines : 
 
 " Ah, woe is me ! that I must live to see this day. 
 All my cherished honor I must put away ; 
 All the truth and faith which God commanded me. 
 O, would to Heaven that I through death this trouble now might 
 flee." 
 
 Then spoke to the king the hero true and bold : 
 " Take back, O Lord Etzel, what I from you hold; 
 My land and my castles, I give them back to thee, 
 And empty-handed now will I go forth into misery. * 
 
 " The Xibelungen strangers, how can I them molest? 
 Within my castle walls I have welcomed each as guest. 
 Together at the board we have broken bread; 
 Gifts I have bestowed, am I now to strike them dead?" 
 
 Kriemhild and Etzcl, however, are inexorable. 
 Riidiger resolves to go forth, sure of finding death. 
 He gives a last charge to his suzerain : 
 
 " To thee must revert my castles and my land; 
 I shall fall to-day by some Nibelungen hand. 
 My wife and my child I now commit to thee, 
 And all my poor retainers, who then must homeless be." 
 
 He arms and goes forth, with five hundred fol- 
 lowers. The Nibelungen think at first he is coming 
 to their assistance ; when he undeceives them, they 
 sorrowfully upbraid him. 
 
 "I would to God," said Riidigcr, "0 heroes, that ye were 
 Back by the Rhine's fair river, and I lav lifeless hero. 
 So might I save mine honor, which now I must resign : 
 Ne'er yet from friends has hero caught such sorrow and shame as 
 mine."
 
 fHE NIBELUNGEN LlEti. 1l 
 
 Sorrowfully and affectionately the Nibelungen 
 deprecate the contest, but Rudiger is unbending. 
 When at length Hagen complains that his shield is 
 broken, the margrave says : 
 
 " Take mine, take mine, O Hagen, and carry it in your hand ; 
 Would that thou mightest bear it home to the Nibelungen land !" 
 When he his shield thus willingly to Hagen offered had, 
 The eyes of many standing by with weeping became red. 
 
 Though grim the ruthless Hagen, his heart though hard and stern, 
 Yet, as he took the shield, his heart with pity and love did burn. 
 " Now God reward you, most noble Kiidiger ! 
 On earth your equal can be found nowhere. 
 Heaven pity us, that now our swords 'gainst friends we take ! " 
 Then spoke the margrave, bent with grief: "For that my heart 
 doth break." 
 
 Hagen refuses to fight, and retires. Rudiger over- 
 comes many Nibelungen ; at length Gernot comes 
 forward, with the sword he had received as a gift 
 from Rudiger, at Bechlarn. 
 
 Sharp cut the swords ; no ward against them could avail. 
 On Gernot's helmet fell the blows of Kiidiger like hail; 
 At last 'twas beaten in, although 'twas hard as stone. 
 For the mortal wound of Gernot the margrave must atone. 
 
 Though struck he was with death, high swung he Riidiger's gift ; 
 He smote the margrave's helmet-bands with strokes heavy and 
 
 swift. 
 
 He smote him unto death through his armor fast ; 
 Both heroes fell, and breathed out their lives at last- 
 
 Hospitable, generous, brave, pitying, faithful unto 
 death, what quality in the heroic catalogue do we 
 here miss ? We can hardly find fault with the eii- 
 
 1 Strophe 2090 tt sej.
 
 72 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 thusiastic declaration of the poet, who, more 
 deeply perhaps than any man of our day, has pen- 
 etrated into the spirit of this old literature, that 
 the death of Riidiger is the most touching episode 
 to be found in heroic poetry. 1 
 
 There are so many points of resemblance be- 
 tween the Nibelungen Lied and the Iliad and Odys- 
 sey of Homer that it is almost impossible to speak 
 of the former without making some comparison be- 
 tween them. As the Homeric poetry is amber, se- 
 creted in the morning of the world from a magnifi- 
 cent stock which long since was hewn down and has 
 perished, precious amber, in which has been em- 
 balmed for us and for immortality the quintessen- 
 tial quality of the vanished Hellenic soul, so is the 
 Nibelungen Lied an exudation from the spirit of the 
 primeval Teutons, wildly fragrant even yet, from 
 their barbarian wanderings in the wintry, unsunned 
 forests of prehistoric time. As to the origin of the 
 poems, the same controversies have prevailed. 
 Shall we say that one bard was the writer in each 
 case ; or is each pieced work, the lays of many poets 
 combined into one whole ; and if this is true, what 
 shall we sav of the piccer? Was his work an inar- 
 tistic setting together of the fragments that came to 
 his hand ; or were they matched and blended with 
 taste, heated and hammered over anew by a great 
 genius, as he shaped them into an exquisite master- 
 piece ? The probable answer to those questions in 
 the case of the Teutonic epic has been given ; a sim- 
 
 1 Karl Sirarock.
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED, 78 
 
 ilar answer best satisfies many modern scholars in 
 the case of Homer. Can the Nibelimgen Lied ever 
 be considered such a treasure as the Iliad and 
 Odyssey? Probably not. The best German au- 
 thorities, with all their enthusiasm, do not venture 
 to claim that. It does not give in its manifoldness 
 the human character, as do the Homeric poems. 
 Siegfried and Hagen can nerer replace Achilles and 
 Hector. 1 In outer completeness it must stand be- 
 hind the Iliad. In the great general plan a compari- 
 son is possible, but in perfection of execution the 
 Greek is superior. 2 In one point, however, and 
 it is an important one, I believe we may claim for 
 the Nibelungen Lied an incontestable superiority to 
 Homer, depth of moral sensibility. It may be de- 
 scribed as, throughout, a portrayal of one form or 
 another of faithfulness to duty. The spring of Ha- 
 gen' s career, from first to last, is fealty to his king 
 and queen, whether he murders and betrays, or pro- 
 tects at the cost of his own life. Fidelity of another 
 kind is, throughout, the motive of Kricmhild, 
 distorted at leno-th into a strange frenzv of devo- 
 
 ~ ~ - 
 
 tion, in which she sacrifices her brothers, her hus- 
 band's entire knighthood, and her own race. It is 
 fidelity again that makes the nobleness of Riidiger : 
 it is the struggle between two forms of it which 
 makes the crisis in his career, tearing his heart 
 asunder, so that with one hand he deals a blow, 
 while with the other he gives a shield by which it 
 
 1 Gervinus. 
 
 2 Simrock.
 
 74 GERMAN 
 
 may be warded off, in a sublimity of distraction. 
 Search Homer as we may, and we can find nothing 
 to match these pictures. The scene is a fine one 
 when the raging Diomede meets with hostile pur- 
 pose the champion Glaucus, and the two, mindful of 
 the ancient guest-right in which their fathers have 
 stood, forbear their fighting, to exchange arms 
 and plight new friendship. 1 Andromache laments, 
 amiably, the long-lost Hector; 2 Penelope can be 
 constant through twenty years, and the pious Tele- 
 machus wanders in search of his long-lost father. 
 These are passages of great tenderness ; but how 
 faint in comparison with the passionate devotedness 
 upon which, as upon a thread red with German 
 heart's blood, the strophes of the Nibelungen Lied 
 throughout are strung. 3 The German epic has, 
 plainly, its inferiorities ; but it has, too, this superi- 
 ority. Great in its day was the Hellenic race, in 
 hand and heart, in thought, in art, and in arms ; 
 until at length it \va.s smitten by the Roman mace, 
 and, becoming defiled with base intermixture, went 
 sadly to ruin. The promise of all this greatness 
 shines in the poems which came from it in its morn- 
 ing. So too in Siegfried and Riidigor yes, in 
 Kriemhild and Hagen we may read a promise of 
 Teutonic mastery. 
 
 Among the most impressive of modern paintings 
 is one by Delaroche, in which two figures, typifying 
 respectively the ancient Hellenic spirit and the spirit 
 
 1 Iliad, vi. 
 1 Iliad, xxii. 
 3 Vilmar.
 
 THE NIfiELVNGEN LIED. 75 
 
 of mediaeval times, when the Teutons were coming to 
 be leaders, are represented as sitting side by side. 
 The type of Greece is a superbly beautiful woman, 
 whose features are of absolutely faultless regularity, 
 whose drapery falls in perfectly classic folds. The 
 face, however, is cold; the calm eyes down-turned, 
 without a trace of inspiration . The companion figure 
 is less beautiful ; the face is of the German type ; the 
 hair streams back disordered ; the folds of the robe 
 are less statuesque ; but the countenance is turned 
 upward, and warm with soul. From the eyes an 
 aspiration leaps forth toward the heavens ; the brow 
 is anxious, as if it felt the weight of obligation which 
 could not be fully discharged ; the lips burst open 
 from within by the struggling forth of some heart- 
 birth of rhapsody. In some such contrast, to my 
 mind, stand Homer and the Xibelungen Lied. 
 
 No American capable of the finer impressions can 
 set" foot, for the first time, on the soil of Europe 
 without a thrill. In our land we have no past be- 
 hind us ; our surroundings are all of the present, 
 and suggest nothing beyond yesterday. In the Old 
 World a solemn perspective of ages lies, as it were, 
 behind all that we see. Each stream, each mount, 
 each weather-scarred town and tower, has a hundred 
 great associations of history that touch a sensitive 
 spirit beyond the power of words to express. If 
 one be at all of a romantic nature, he will be carried 
 backward into those dimmer regions of legend with 
 which this chapter has been occupied, the misty 
 twilight which intervenes between authentic storv
 
 76 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and the utter darkness from which our race proceeds. 
 Once I made the pilgrimage down the Danube from 
 Regensburg to Vienna. Marcus Aurelius and Julian, 
 Karl the Great and Richard Cceur de Lion, Gusta- 
 vus, Wallenstein, Napoleon, so impressive a series 
 of the world's heroes as this have made the blue 
 current upon which you are borne along memorable 
 with their exploits, that, and the towering hills 
 and wide plains between which you pass. Often, 
 however, it was to the shadowy phantoms of the 
 ancient poem that my mind surrendered itself, and 
 these were so overmastering sometimes as to leave 
 scant room for the shapes substantial and authentic, 
 august as these are. So I believe it must be with 
 whoever submits himself to the fascination of the 
 primeval minstrels. 
 
 At Passau the river Inn, still cold from the 
 glaciers of Tyrol, swells the current of the Danube 
 so that it becomes navigable. AVhen you leave the 
 train that has brought you thus far from Regens- 
 burg for the little steamer that is to carry you on- 
 ward to Linz, in the pause before starting, throw 
 your gaze across the river upon the black and tower- 
 ing crag and the fastness on its summit. Here it 
 was that a good bishop, the uncle of Kriemhild, re- 
 ceived her on her way to Etzel. There, too, in 
 some secluded cell, nearly a thousand years ago, 
 wrought patient Konrad, while the monks threat- 
 ened him for dealing with forbidden lore, compil- 
 ing the legends perishing from the people's mouths, 
 that a successor of genius might elaborate them into 
 the masterpiece that has survived. Think, too, of
 
 THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 77 
 
 the crusading hosts, inspired by Peter the Hermit, 
 sweeping with their steel and scarfs and pennons, 
 with steeds of noble mettle, and glittering shrines 
 filled with, relics, pausing for a bivouac in the 
 meadows where stands the town to-day ! Among 
 the tents appears a reverend singer, and chants to 
 the chiefs while they lie for a day, with armor thrown 
 aside, the ringing strophes in which the harsh hero- 
 ism of their ancestors and ours lies embalmed. 
 
 At last it is Vienna itself you will see, the capi- 
 tal, rolling vast out upon its plain, with the pinnacle 
 of Saint Stephen's spire soaring into the air almost 
 live hundred feet. If you ascend it, you will have 
 before you the broad Marchfeld, whereon lie the vil- 
 lages of Aspern and Wagram. There too rode So- 
 bieski and his host, uplifted crescents and horse- 
 tail standards storming against him, when Islam 
 was terrible. And, still earlier, it was there that bold 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg defeated and slew Ottocar, 
 king of Bohemia, and founded a dynasty beside 
 which almost every other reigning house appears 
 ephemeral. Go back of all these ; think of the 
 trooping chivalry of the Huns, the twenty-four trib- 
 utary kings and their sparkling retinues, the lavish 
 splendor and innumerable gifts, when Etzel cele- 
 brated at length the coming of his queen. 
 
 But if the East is interesting, even more so is the 
 West, the old Nibelungen home. Worms, the an- 
 cient city, sits, as of old, in the midst of the broad 
 field, the hills of the Odenwald ranging blue before 
 it. The French of Louis XIV. 's time burnt it to 
 the ground ; the streets seeni scarcely older than
 
 78 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 those of an American city, but there is one antique 
 pile, some parts of which we may easily imagine go 
 back to the reign of Gimther. It is the cathedral, 
 one of the most ancient in Germany, as beautiful as 
 venerable. The rounded arches speak of a time 
 when, as yet, the Gothic was not ; upon the black- 
 ened pinnacles and quaint ornaments of buttress and 
 keystone have gazed in turn the men of nearly 
 thirty generations. As you enter within the sombre 
 shadows, it will be thrilling to you if you can go 
 back in imagination to its earliest time, and make 
 yourself feel that the figures of the old poet had 
 once some real existence here. What massiveness 
 in the columns, and how heavily majestic the rounded 
 arches turn, high overhead, in the dusky gloom, 
 which sunbeam can never reach ! What dim, relig- 
 ious light ! How worn the pavement, from the 
 pressure of knees which have bent here and then 
 mouldered, in a succession whose length we strive 
 in vain to compass ! The minstrel must have known 
 the pile ; try to believe- that Siegfried and Kriem- 
 hild, and the fierce-glancing Hagen knew it too. 
 There, in the space before the portal, Kriemhild and 
 Brunhild strove for precedence, the outburst of 
 haughtiness for which a hero died and a whole race 
 must at length fall. Here knelt Kriemhild, while 
 as yet she was lovable ; and here lay the slain Sieg- 
 fried, in his gem-incrusted coffin, the beauty not yet 
 effaced on brow and form. 
 
 But grandest of all is the Rhine. The German 
 has thrust forward his frontiers and taken the stream 
 into the heart of the Fatherland. It flows, as it
 
 THE NIBELUNUEN LIED. 79 
 
 were, from first to last through his history; for 
 there is not a generation to which its banks have 
 not been memorable. It flows through his poetry 
 from first to last ; the minstrel of the Nibelungen 
 Lied gives the name throughout his strophes in 
 thousandfold affectionate repetition, as a lover 
 murmurs the name of his darling. It reverberates 
 in the songs of every age, and never was the German 
 lyre more enamored of it than to-day. The Rhine, 
 the glorious Rhine ! It would seem, sometimes, as 
 if the German would take it bodily into his arms. 
 I saw once a performance of " Rhein-Gold," the 
 prelude to the great trilogy of Wagner, " The Ring 
 of the Nibelungen." Above me sat, in his orna- 
 mented box, the king of Bavaria, who had given the 
 artist carte-blanche for his representation among the 
 revenues of his kingdom. At first, in some inde- 
 scribable way, as the curtain rose, the Rhine seemed 
 flowing past us on the stage. We looked into its 
 deeps as into the sides of an aquarium. Far upward 
 toward the roof the sunlight seemed to glitter on the 
 wavelets of the surface ; the weeds below swayed to 
 the shouldering current ; the fair spirits, with whom 
 legend peoples its abysses, swam white-armed be- 
 fore us, singing amid their buoyant curvings, 
 now floating to the surface, now sinking slowly 
 to the depths. And what glittered at the bottom? 
 It was a mysterious treasure, like the Nibelungen 
 hoard, won by Siegfried in his youth, brought after- 
 ward to Kriemhild, at Worms, thrown at length into 
 the stream between Worms and Lorsch by Hagen, 
 the knowledge of its hiding-place perishing from the
 
 80 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 earth with him ! They had taken the beloved river 
 bodily, as it were, into their arms, and from prince 
 and people went up a shout of joy. 
 
 A few months upon its banks, and even a stran- 
 ger will catch, by contagion, something of the glow. 
 I have leaped across it high up at the pass of the 
 Spliigen, where it makes its way, a thread-like rill, 
 from its parent glacier. At its mouth I sailed out 
 upon its waters to the da*k North Sea. Midway in 
 its course I have crossed it at Strassburg, where 
 score upon score of armies have passed, some east, 
 some west ; some shouting victors, some groaning 
 vanquished, in the mighty series from the time 
 when the chief of the Marcomanni went over it 
 to meet Julius Caesar, to the passage of the crown 
 prince of Prussia on his way to Weissembourg and 
 Worth. But I love to remember it best as I saw it 
 from a high hill of the Odenwald. The crag on 
 Avhich I stood might have echoed the horn of Sieg- 
 fried, as he joyfully hunted on the morning of his 
 death. The April rain-drops on grass and foliage 
 shone like the jewels that fell from his shield, as in 
 his death-struggle he smote at his murderer. Far 
 below in the plain lay the city of Worms, the cathe- 
 dral looming dark against the sky. The great river 
 trailed some leagues of its length at my feet, and at 
 one loop the setting sun made it glow with a ruddv 
 splendor. It was as if the treasure of the Nibe- 
 lungen were shining up to me from its secret caves. 
 " It shall be forever hidden ! " were the last words 
 of Ilagen, as he fell beneath the sword Balmunsr ; 
 but I can almost fancv it was a gleam from the red
 
 THE NIBEtUXGEN LIED. 81 
 
 gold, and the flash of the mysterious jewels, that 
 was revealed to my gaze that night. The light of 
 sunset faded, and lo ! in the East, through the hori- 
 zon mists, weaponed with splendor, vindicated her 
 dominion in the gathering night, the solemn moon. 
 There, glorious in silver light, whispering among the 
 reeds of its margin, lapping lightly the barks upon 
 its breast, the river passed grandly on into mys- 
 tery, even as on the night when it swept beneath 
 the corpse of murdered Siegfried, borne across to 
 his waiting wife, the oars dipping slow, repentance 
 on the faces of the retinue, the spear of Hagen yet 
 fixed in the heart it had sundered I
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GUDRUN. 
 
 It has been judged fit to give to the epic of Gud- 
 run written about the year 1250 the name of 
 the German Odyssey, as the Nibelungen Lied has 
 been called the German Iliad. The name is a con- 
 venient one. Of the two poems, the Nibelungen 
 Lied is the most warlike and tragic, and, in general, 
 possesses superior interest. Gudrun is somewhat 
 softer in character, though by no means wanting in 
 pictures of strife ; the most prominent figures are 
 those of women ; domestic life is portrayed ; there 
 is much restless wandering to and fro, often recalling 
 the adventures of the prince of Ithaca. As in the 
 case of the Nibelungen Lied, the name of the 
 writer of Gudrun has not come down to us. This 
 much can be said with certainty : that he had for 
 the basis of his work, as did the writer of the com- 
 panion-piece, old legends and lays. The influence 
 of some of the poets of his time can be traced in 
 his verses, but, before all, the Nibelungen Lied was 
 his model, which is believed to have been written 
 about fifty years before. There are several allu- 
 sions in the poem which make it certain that the 
 minstrel was a wandering singer of the people ; 
 from the language, scholars believe him to have
 
 GUDRUN. 83 
 
 come from Southern Germ-iny ; the manuscript 
 which has come down to us was discovered some 
 fifty years since, in Tyrol. The poem, however, has 
 to do entirely with the North, and with the races to 
 which our forefathers belonged, a fact that should 
 make it of especial interest to us. Struggling 
 through refinements borrowed from the, court poets, 
 and ideas and embellishments gained from Chris- 
 tianity and the notions of chivalry, we may see the 
 traits, still vivid, of the life and soul of our heathen 
 ancestors. The horizon which stretches about us is 
 one of the sea, with its storms, ships, sea-kings, 
 and their voyages. The coasts and islands of the 
 German ocean form the scene, and before our eyes 
 is disclosed the bold activity of the sailor races, 
 which, driven by an eternal disquiet, ventured out 
 amid storms, in their weak barks, to gather in other 
 lands such booty as they prized. In the midst of 
 barbaric harshness will be found things beautiful 
 and admirable. 
 
 There sat at Hegelingen a powerful king, Hettel, 1 
 who ruled over Friesland, and who, upon the advice 
 of his friends, determined to woo the beautiful Hilda, 
 daughter of Hagen, the fierce king of Irlancl. The 
 heroes Wate, Frut, and Horant undertake the mes- 
 sage, upon well-prepared ships, going, with many 
 knights and men, to Irlancl, where they give them- 
 selves out for merchants, driven away by Hettel of 
 Hegelingen. They send to King Hagen rich pres- 
 ents, in return for which he promises them peace 
 
 1 Adapted from Yilmar.
 
 84 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and guidance, presenting them at last to the women, 
 who talk with them kindly. The queen and her 
 daughter, Hilda, ask the old warrior Wate what he 
 prefers, to sit by beautiful women or fight in the 
 battle with men. Then spoke the old Wate : " This 
 thing seems better to me. By beautiful women I 
 never yet sat very softly. One thing I could do 
 easier, fight with good warriors, when the time 
 should come, in the fierce charge." At that the 
 lovely maid laughs, and they jest about it long in 
 the hall. Then come battle-plays, in which AVate 
 says he cannot fight, and asks King Hagen to teach 
 him the use of arms. But when the old man gives 
 the king skilful buffets, the king cries, " Never saw 
 I pupil learn so quickly." One evening Horant, 
 vassal of Hcttel, begins to sing so sweetly that all 
 are surprised, and Hilda sends messengers asking 
 him to delight them with his song every evening, 
 which the hero willingly promises. The next day 
 at dawn Horant begins to sing, so that all the birds 
 in the hedges round about are silent before his sweet 
 lay. The sleeping sleep not long. King Hagen 
 himself hears it, sitting by his queen, and from the 
 chamber they go forth upon the roof. Hilda, too, 
 and her maids sit and listen. Yea, even the birds 
 in the court of the king forget their notes ; well 
 hear the heroes also. His voice sounds with such 
 power that the sick, as also the well, lose their 
 sense. The beasts in the forest stop their feeding ; 
 the worms in the wood, the fishes in the waves, all 
 stop their movements. Forgotten within the church 
 is the chant of the priests ; also the bells sound less
 
 GUDRUN. 85 
 
 sweetly than before. What he sang then seemed 
 long to no one ; to all who heard him was sorrow 
 after Horant. 
 
 Then the fair Hilda has him come secretly to her, 
 that he may sing yet more. She offers him the gold 
 ring she wears on her linger, but he will accept from 
 her only a girdle, to carry as a present to his mas- 
 ter ; and now, while she is moved, he discloses to 
 her how King Hettel has sent them to woo her for 
 him. Willingly is Hilda induced to fly secretly with 
 them, and preparations are made. Hagen sees the 
 preparations, and asks why the strangers desire to 
 leave. Wate replies that Hettel has sent for them 
 that he may be reconciled, and they are pressed to 
 see again their dear ones whom they have left be- 
 hind at home. But, before they go, will the king 
 allow the women to behold the great treasures which 
 they have kept stored up in the ships ? This Hagen 
 grants. The next morning the king rides, with many 
 warriors and the women, to the beach ; the women 
 ascend the ships, the queen is separated from the 
 princess, the sails are hoisted, and the guests move 
 off with the maid. So they return with good for- 
 tune to Hettel, who welcomes the fair Hilda, esteem- 
 ing himself happy to have won the maid. But 
 already, on the following evening, appear the pur- 
 suing ships of Hagen. In the battle that follows, 
 however, he is wounded and defeated. The grisly 
 Wate, at Hilda's entreaty, heals the hurts he has 
 himself caused ; easily now does peace come to pass, 
 and Hettel' s marriage with Hilda is celebrated with 
 pomp.
 
 86 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Hettel and Hilda, living together in the fullest 
 happiness, have two children born to them, a son, 
 Ortwin, who is given to the veteran Wate to be 
 educated, and a daughter, Gudrun, who soon grows 
 to such exceeding beauty that her fame spreads 
 through all lands, and many mighty princes woo her 
 without success. She is refused to King Siegfried of 
 Mohrenland, who therefore threatens Hettel' s lands 
 with plunder and fire. She is refused to King Hart- 
 muth of Normandy ; just so woos in vain King Her- 
 wig of Seeland. But Herwig appears with three 
 thousand men before Hettel' s castle, while all are 
 sleeping. A battle follows, and then a truce. Her- 
 wig pleases all by his manly bearing and beauty, and 
 Gudrun, when asked by her father whether she will 
 take the noble hero for her husband, replies : " She 
 desires no better lover." So they are betrothed, 
 but the mother requires that the daughter shall 
 remain a year longer with her. 
 
 Hettel and Herwig must straightway fare forth in 
 their ships together to fight other enemies, and 
 Hartmuth, the Norman, learning that the land is 
 bare of defenders, determines to arm quickly and 
 carry away the maid. His father, Ludwig, joins 
 him. Presently they are at hand, and Hartmuth 
 renews his suit to Gudrun, threatening her with his 
 hatred if she will not follow. The steadfast maid 
 replies that she is the betrothed of Herwig, and de- 
 sires no other lover as long as she lives. Hartmuth 
 and Ludwig hereupon fiercely storm the castle, and 
 Gudrun, with her serving-women, is taken captive. 
 The mother remains behind, loudly lamenting. At
 
 GUDRUN. 87 
 
 her summons Hettel and Herwig return in haste, 
 only to find the land desolate and Gudrun gone. 
 But hope presently revives. Unexpectedly a fleet 
 of pilgrims appears in sight, bound for the Holy 
 Land, their sails marked with the sign of the cross. 
 They are men of peace, and cannot resist when 
 Hettel and Herwig, with their warriors, take pos- 
 session of the crafts, with all their stores. There 
 are seventy of them ; these are filled at once with 
 fighting men, and depart to recover the captive. 
 Meantime the robbers, feeling secure, pause in their 
 voyage upon an island, the Wulpensand, resting 
 from their victory. Soon, in the distance, appear 
 the crowding sails, all marked with the sign of the 
 cross. "A fleet of pilgrims," they say ; "we may 
 let our swords lie in their sheaths." But when the 
 ships come nearer, they behold the helmets of 
 soldiers, and no longer doubt that Hettel and Her- 
 wig approach. They are attacked before they have 
 time fairly to seize their arms. Wate springs first 
 upon the shore, and Herwig, filled with battle- 
 fury, leaps into the waves and stands up to his 
 shoulders in the tide. Many a spear the enemy 
 shoot at him, but he forces his way to the beach, 
 where the battle grows fiercer. Disaster, however, 
 is destined to fall upon the friends of Gudrun. The 
 sea is sounding and the night falling, when her 
 father, Hettel, meets Ludwig, the father of Hart- 
 muth ; they fight, and Hettel is slain. When the 
 grim "\Vate learns of Hettel' s death he begins to 
 rage like a wild boar, and the warriors see fire flash 
 from the helmets he strikes, like the redness of the
 
 88 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sunset ; his followers do the like, but in the dark- 
 ness friend cannot be told from foe, and they are 
 forced to recede. The Normans, in the gloom, 
 abandon the dreary island, and when at day-break 
 Wate springs up to renew the fight, the camp is 
 vacant, and no sail is to be seen upon the sea. The 
 Normans are gone ; Wate and Herwig are too weak 
 to follow. They gloomily bury the dead, lift the 
 wounded into the ships, and determine to found a 
 cloister upon the Wulpensand, where prayers may 
 be offered for the souls of the slain. 
 
 Mournfully sail the heroes home. Ortwin, the 
 brother of Gudrun, who had gone in the pilgrims' 
 ships for his sister's rescue, does not appear before 
 his mother to tell her of his father's death. Wate 
 bears the gloomy news, and when the queen mourns 
 aloud for her slain husband and the destroyed 
 manhood of the land, the ancient champion cries, 
 "Woman, cease lamenting. They will not return ; 
 but when, after many days, the boys of the land have 
 grown to be men, we will avenge upon the Normans 
 our pain and shame. ' ' Wate feels that the disaster is 
 a judgment upon them for their impiety in seizing 
 the ships of the pilgrims. They are straightway 
 returned to their owners, that the battle to come 
 may not fail. It is resolved that the queen shall 
 cause good ships to be built while the children grow 
 to be men. But when the warriors are gone, the 
 queen sends food to the priests on the island, that 
 they may remember her in prayers before God. To 
 that end she causes a minster to be built that is 
 vast, and thereto a cloister and a hospital, so that it
 
 OUDRUN. 89 
 
 is known in many lands. It is called the cloister of 
 the Wulpensand. 
 
 Meanwhile the Normans have reached their coun- 
 try. When Ludwig, the father, beholds his castles, 
 he shows them to the sad captive, Gudrun. "If 
 thon wilt wed Hartmuth," he says, " thou shalt rule 
 over a rich land." But when Gudrun declares, 
 "I would rather die than take him as a lover," 
 Ludwig grows angry, catches the maid by the hair, 
 and throws her into the sea. Hartmuth draws her 
 quickly forth again, and brings her once more into 
 the ship, where she, with her women, weeps over 
 the unworthy treatment, concerning which Hart- 
 muth reproaches his father bitterly. Now comes 
 the old Norman queen, Gerlint, with her daughter, 
 Ortrun, to receive the heroes ; but when she will 
 kiss Gudrun, the maid starts back in anger, for she 
 thinks Gerlint has had the greatest share in her un- 
 happiness ; she it was who urged her son to carry 
 Gudrun off. But toward Ortrun, Hartmuth' s sis- 
 ter, is Gudrun kind, for she is well disposed, and 
 seeks to relieve her sufferings. Gerlint urges a 
 speedy marriage ; since, however, Gudrun persists 
 in her refusal, the queen grows angry, forcing her 
 to undertake the lowest services, and separating 
 her from her women. So is the unhappy one tor- 
 mented three years and a-half, for which Hartmuth, 
 returning from forays, chides his mother in anger. 
 But nothing can induce the princess to receive 
 Hartmuth' s suit, till at last she is forced by the evil 
 Gerlint to wash clothes at the shore. When one of 
 the serving-women, Hildburg, shows compassion
 
 90 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 for her unhappy mistress, she is compelled to help 
 in the labor ; but thereat both rejoice, for in this 
 way they are again united. 
 
 Thirteen years pass, and Queen Hilda has in no 
 way forgotten her daughter. She causes many good 
 ships to be built. These being ready, and the boys 
 of the land having grown to be men, she summons 
 her friends for an expedition against the Normans. 
 When all is ready the fleet sails away, but soon 
 driven back by a contrary wind, it falls into great 
 need. The ships are carried near a loadstone 
 mountain ; though the anchors are good, the ships 
 are almost engulfed in the gloomy sea, and stand 
 with their masts all bent. But a wind carries them 
 once more into the flowing ocean, and at last they 
 reach the Norman coast. The soldiers rest, while 
 Gudrun's brother and lover, Ortwin and Herwig, 
 go into the country to get intelligence. 
 
 Now Gudrun, at the shore with Hildburg, busy 
 at her menial work, sees a sea-bird come swimming 
 toward her ; a messenger of God it is, which an- 
 nounces that Hilda yet lives, and has sent a great 
 army to save them ; that Ortwin and Herwig are 
 already in the neighborhood with the ships, and that 
 messengers will soon appear. The maids think no 
 longer of their labor, but talk of the heroes who 
 are to come to free them, until the day approaches 
 its end. At night they receive harsh words from 
 Gerlint for accomplishing so little, and are com- 
 manded to go to work the next day before dawn, 
 since Palm Sunday is near, and guests are ex- 
 pected. When the maids arise from the hard
 
 &UD&UN. 91 
 
 benches where they sleep, the earth is covered with 
 snow, but the} T must go barefoot to the beach. 
 While they wash the clothes they send many a 
 longing look over the dark sea, and at last behold 
 a bark with two men. As the strangers land, an 
 impulse to flee seizes the maids, but they soon re- 
 turn. "They were both wet," says the song. 
 " They were in poor clothing, and, besides, the 
 March wind blew cold. It was in the time when 
 the winter went toward its end, and the sea every- 
 where floated with ice. Their pain was great, for 
 through their thin garments appeared their lovely 
 bodies. That the messengers did not know them 
 caused them sorrow." The heroes question them, 
 and at length Herwig says to his companion, 
 "Truly, Ortwin, if your sister Gudrun is alive, 
 this must be she, for never yet saw I woman so 
 like her." " She of whom you speak," says Gud- 
 run, untruthfully, " has died through great suffer- 
 ing." But the recognition is not long postponed, 
 the lovers show their betrothal rings, and fall into 
 one another's arms. 
 
 One naturally supposes that Gudrun will be 
 taken without delay to her friends, but the soldierly 
 punctiliousness of her brother Ortwin stands in the 
 way. "I do not think it should be so," he says ; 
 " If I had a hundred sisters, I would let them die 
 before I would act in a cowardly way in a strange 
 land, stealing secretly from my enemy what was 
 taken from me by force." Gudrun must again be 
 the prize of battle. The heroes depart, promising 
 to return with the host, and Gudrun, overjoyed,
 
 92 GERM AX LITERATURE. 
 
 spurns her labor, throwing the costly apparel into 
 the sea. When chided at night by Gerlint, she 
 answers proud and defiant, till the queen, growing 
 angry, causes her to be bound, that she may be 
 beaten with rods. Now Gudrun shows her cun- 
 ning. She promises to listen at last to Hartmuth's 
 suit, at which mother and son become overjoyed, 
 treating her with all honor, and restoring to her 
 the serving-women from whom she has been sepa- 
 rated. To remove from the castle as many soldiers 
 as possible, Gudrun begs that Hartmuth's vassals 
 may be summoned to the wedding, whereupon the 
 men are sent away in troops to carry the message. 
 "Then they slept joyful-hearted ; they knew that 
 many a good knight would come to them who would 
 help them out of their great need." 
 
 Meanwhile Herwig and Ortwin, returning to their 
 friends, tell them of the interview with Gudrun ; 
 and as her kindred begin to weep at the unworthy 
 treatment which the king's daughter has suffered, 
 the grisly "VVate cries out angrily, "You behave 
 like old women ; you know not why. It is not be- 
 coming heroes good, rich in praise. If you wish to 
 help Gudrun, make red the clothing which her white 
 hands have washed. In that Avay can you serve 
 her." Then the host comes forth from its hiding- 
 place, and before dawn stands before the Xorman 
 walls, when Hartmuth, suddenly summoned by the 
 watchman, exclaims, " I recognize the standards of 
 princes from twenty lands. They come to avenge 
 upon us their old shame." At his command the 
 gates are opened, and the two kings, Ludwig and
 
 GVDRUN. 03 
 
 Hartmuth, father and son, proceed forth at the head 
 t)f their warriors. Herwig encounters Ludwig, and 
 with a mio-htv stroke severs his head from his trunk ; 
 
 *_/ *- 
 
 whereat Queen Gerlint, on the battlements above, 
 bewails his fate. A faithless guard falls with naked 
 sword upon Gudrun to slay her, as the cause of 
 their misfortune, but Hartmuth hears her cries. 
 From the field he shouts to the murderer on the 
 wall, and the knave springs back, for he fears the 
 wrath of the king. Meanwhile Wate rages with 
 fury, and even Hartmuth almost loses his life. At 
 Gudrun's feet falls his sister, Ortrun : " Have pity, 
 noble prince's child, upon so many of our people 
 who lie here smitten ! Behold, O maid, my father 
 and my kindred all are dead, or near to death, and 
 now does the bold Hartmuth stand in great danger. 
 Let this speak for me ; when no one pitied thee, of 
 all who are here, I alone was thy friend. Whatever 
 harm was done to thee, that always I sorrowed for." 
 Then Gudrun pities her faithful friend, and cries 
 from the wall until Hartmuth' s life is spared, and 
 he is made prisoner ; but the castle is taken and 
 plundered, Wate raging grimly, with gnashing 
 teeth, piercing eyes, and beard an ell broad. With 
 fearful voice he asks for Gerlint. Gudrun gener- 
 ously seeks to save her foe, but the queen is drawn 
 forth. " Now say, Queen Gerlint," says the hero 
 scornfully, " do you longer afflict the fair wash- 
 women? " With that he smites her with the sword. 
 Henceforth all is glee. The ships depart, full of 
 the rejoicing victors and reclaimed captives, whom 
 the aged Queen Hilda, forewarned by heralds,
 
 94 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 meets at Hegelingen, upon the shore. " Who could 
 buy with gold the bliss when the child and the 
 mother kiss one another?" Grisly, broad-bearded 
 Wate is also kissed, and the remaining heroes. 
 Great preparations are made for the marriage of 
 Gudrun and Herwig. Ortwin, moreover, woos the 
 noble Ortrun, and Hartmuth, liberated and forgiven, 
 the faithful Hildburg, who stood with Gudrun in 
 the ice upon the beach when the deliverers arrived." 
 " When the rich kings came together," so ends the 
 song, " the heroes strove which of the women was 
 most beautiful. The marriage was celebrated with 
 the greatest splendor. The kings returned home, 
 swearing to one another firm fidelity ; and they 
 vowed to one another that they would always honor- 
 ably bear their princely dignity, in a manner worthy 
 of their lofty fathers." 
 
 Gudrun has sometimes been preferred to the 
 Nibchmgen Lied, but not wisely ; it is, however, far 
 superior in interest to the court romances of the 
 same period. Without doubt it has for its basis old 
 legends and popular songs, with which have become 
 intertwined materials from a later age. Although 
 the wild spirit of the bold sea-rovers is drawn in 
 many places with the liveliest truth, something 
 milder is blended with it. Even the grim Wate, in 
 whom, before all, the character of Northern heroism 
 is stamped, who prefers "to hear the noise of battle 
 to sitting by beautiful women," atones in part for 
 his savage fierceness by his devotion to his king. 
 In the character of Gudrun there is much beauty, 
 though she is not faultless. She guards the fidelity
 
 GUDRUN. r: 
 
 she has sworn to her lover unconquerably, submit- 
 ting to the lowest humiliations ; and although the 
 recollection of the hardships she has suffered fills her 
 heart, she is not revengeful, but interposes, vainly 
 indeed, to save Gerlint, her tormentor, from the 
 sword of "VVate. But she does not scruple to be un- 
 truthful in telling Ortwin and Herwig, upon the sea- 
 shore, before they recognize her, that she is dead ; 
 and though we may think stratagem not unjustifiable 
 toward her Norman captors, she undertakes rather 
 too joyfully the deceptions which lead to the cap- 
 ture of the citadel. 
 
 To us, I think, Gudrun, like the Nibelungen 
 Lied, will be principally interesting as a portrayal of 
 our forefathers. In Gudrun the picture is far less 
 plain than in the companion epic, since it is much 
 more overlaid by accretions from the after ages. A 
 fine, picturesque heathenism, however, does look 
 through ; and often in the verse we seem to hear the 
 roar of the broad, tempestuous seas, in battle with 
 which the children of the ancient race still take 
 pleasure. "Both poems," says a high authority, 
 "are to the nation an everlasting glory . Thev 
 
 o o / . 
 
 reach across, as it were, into those old times, with 
 their deeds, customs, and ideas, out of which the 
 voices of discontented Roman enemies extolled the 
 bravery, the trustiness, the chastity of our venerable 
 ancestors. AVhcn we behold these poems, full of 
 healthy strength, of sturdy although rude ideas, of 
 noble morals, we hear quite other testimonies speak 
 for the ancestral excellences of our stock than the 
 dry declarations of the chroniclers ; and, in germ,
 
 96 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 we shall already, among our fathers, find the honor, 
 the considerateness, and all the creditable qualities 
 which distinguish us to-day in the circle of Euro- 
 pean nations." 1 
 
 " To characterize in the shortest way," says an- 
 other critic, " the Nibelungen Lied, let me recall a 
 scene from the Alpine world. Bursting forth from 
 the blue glacier grottos of the Finster Aarhorn, the 
 river Aar flows, at first quietly and gently, past the 
 Grimsel, upon a broad expanse which it murmur- 
 ingly traverses. But the colossal mountains to the 
 right and left press constantly closer upon it. 
 Masses of granite tower before the current ; its 
 course becomes always more tortuous ; ever wilder 
 grows the roar in the narrow channel ; ever quicker 
 hurry on the foaming waves ; ever gloomier threaten 
 the countless crags and precipices ; until at length, 
 in mad career and with fearful thunder-crash, the 
 stream plunges headlong into the gloomy gulf of 
 Handeck." 2 The student of the Nibelungen Lied, 
 who at the same time knows the Alps, will recog- 
 nize the excellence of the scholar's parallel ; and if 
 I were to search for an apt symbol of the Gudrun, 
 it might be found in others of those mountain 
 streams, which, after the torture of cataracts and 
 the smothering of sunless abysses, flow forth at 
 length among the trees and grass of laughing low- 
 
 o o o ~ O 
 
 land plains, at first tumult and despair, then the 
 fairest peace. 
 
 1 Gervinus : Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung. 
 1 Job. Scherr.
 
 GUDRUN. 97 
 
 When the voyager approaches the shore of the 
 Old World, and sees at length the iron-bound Irish 
 coast, ledges of granite, seamed and battered so 
 long by the sledges of the surf, the scream of the 
 sea-bird meanwhile answering the wild wind, he will 
 behold the little vessels of the fishermen, the hulls 
 scarcely visible, the brown sails bellying to the 
 breeze, while the mast leans far to the leeward. 
 In guise very similar did the three heroes of Fries- 
 land, Wate, Frut, and Horaiit, carry off over 
 these seas the fair Hilda, their little barks of osiers 
 covered with hide and bound with thongs, the sails 
 always wet with foam from the near-at-hand waves. 
 So must have looked our pirate progenitors, of 
 whom these figures arc representative. Out from 
 the German ocean the blast blew strong against 
 us, bleak and full of snow, it was the end of win- 
 ter, as we pressed on past Normandy, the old realm 
 ol Hartmuth, into the wider sea. It was a sea full 
 of gales and mist, a tossing, whitening surface, 
 beneath a sky overcast. Of the distant shore the 
 sunken coast-line barely remained visible, now and 
 then a low island, desolate, with its white sand, 
 perhaps the Wulpensand. At night the storm grew 
 wilder, a murky darkness, which a solitary bea- 
 con far down amid the waters did not relieve. At 
 noon we anchored off a wintry shore, a slow, gray 
 river pouring out ice-masses, the beach heaped high 
 with snow. Among these scenes the barefooted 
 Gudrun came to wash the clothes, while she watched 
 for the messengers whom the sea-bird had promised. 
 Spots they are bleak and dangerous to-day ; nurs-
 
 98 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ing in that old time the hardihood that gave the 
 sailor-races their dominion in the world ; not 
 wilder the roar of the blasts than their own battle- 
 cries, not more relentless the dash of their tides 
 than the stroke of their axes, not darker the heavens 
 than the movements of their spirits ; yet with traits 
 in them too of manful virtue. 
 
 Before we leave the consideration of the poetry 
 which the people loved, a class of legends must be 
 noticed, like those of the Nibelungen Lied and 
 Gudrun, for a long period transmitted orally, and 
 at the same time with them committed, at length, 
 to writing. Allusion is made to the Animal Leg- 
 ends, 1 a class peculiarly racy with the life of the 
 Teutons, which have kept pace and place with the 
 stock throughout its whole progress, and are yet in 
 fresh remembrance. The roots of these legends lie 
 in the wild simplicity of the oldest races. Such 
 a people fastens passionately upon the phenom- 
 ena of nature, rejoicing with spring and sum- 
 mer, lamenting with autumn, bowed down in the 
 heavy imprisonment of winter. AVith ready an- 
 thropomorphism it lends to these changes its own 
 human feelings, developing with the personification 
 colossal myths, sometimes pleasant, sometimes fear- 
 ful. Still more intimately does such a race connect 
 itself with the more closely related animal world. 
 One of Hawthorne's most charming characters is 
 the weird creature, Donatello, the faun ; and no 
 picture in which he appears is quite so attractive as 
 
 1 Thiersagcn.
 
 GUDRUN. 99 
 
 that one of the solitary Roman garden, in which 
 Donatello disports himself, communing in strange 
 sympathy with the brute world. He whistles to the 
 birds in their own notes, who flock to him fear- 
 lessly ; with beasts he enters into similar relations 
 of mutual confidence. He is himself harmlessly 
 happy, and makes happy the wild creatures, who, 
 feeling his likeness to themselves, take part in his 
 gambols and respond to his advances. We may 
 hold that man has a nobler origin than development 
 from some brutish type ; yet, as we trace him back- 
 ward into his primeval state, he becomes more and 
 more faun-like, until there comes to pass something 
 of that community of feeling between him and the 
 brute world that Hawthorne pictures. The animal 
 legend can arise only among a primeval people, who 
 are still hunters or herdsmen. These see in the 
 ravenous wolf a powerful companion, strong and 
 skilful almost as themselves ; in the grim bear, a 
 hero ruling wood and heath. As they wander 
 through the dim depths and sunny glades of the 
 undisturbed forest, wolf and bear, and the red- 
 bearded fox lurking at the wood's edge, are 
 hunters like themselves, companions, and receive, 
 besides their own brute names, familiar titles, 
 Isengrim, Brun, Keinhart. Shepherd and hunter 
 felt that it was good to be on friendly terms, in 
 those solitudes, with these forest comrades. Not 
 alone were their teeth and claws formidable. In 
 the lithe form the primitive man believed a demon 
 was lurking; in the wolf-soul, shining forth from 
 the anger-sparkling eyes, there was something un
 
 100 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 canny ; the bear was the embodiment of something 
 dark and mysterious, endowed with magic ; in a 
 certain way the brute was exalted even above man, 
 and not to be restrained by physical power alone. 1 
 The animal legends that came into being were num- 
 berless, and at length combined into a rude epic. 
 It was full of truth, of nature, resting as it did upon 
 the traditions of many centuries, knitted to life by 
 a thousand threads. One may say the w r ork came 
 to pass by itself. Its earliest form who shall de- 
 scribe? After long tradition it was first written 
 down in Latin, in the Netherlands. Sometimes the 
 stories were modified, to convey moral instruction, 
 into fables ; again they became vehicles of satire. 
 The epic came again into Germany in the middle of 
 the thirteenth century, the poet who gave it a new 
 elaboration being Hoinrich of Glichesarc. Down 
 the ages it has descended with popularity undi- 
 minished, the great Gothe being the last to lay 
 hand to the venerable material, in the famous Rey- 
 nard the Fox. 
 
 The work of Heinrich of Glichesilre exists only in 
 fragments. Two or three specimens of the gro- 
 tesque stories w r ill suffice, interesting as they are, 
 through the rime of age Avhich rests upon them. 
 Now the wolf is thirsty. The fox offers to procure 
 him wine, and leads him and his wife to a convent 
 cellar, where, after becoming intoxicated, they are 
 heartily beaten by the monks. Again, plagued by 
 sharp hunger, the wolf finds the fox, who professes 
 
 1 Vilmar.
 
 QVDRUN. 101 
 
 to have become himself a monk, eating roasted eels. 
 Isengrim wishes also to become a monk, for the sake 
 of the good living. "A monk," says Reinhart, 
 "must have a tonsure," and in order to produce 
 one he pours hot water over Isengrim' s head, so 
 that hair and skin are scalded off; but the angry 
 wolf is appeased when the fox calls his attention to 
 the fish. When Isengrim asks for a share, " It is 
 all gone," says the fox, "but I will show you a 
 pond so full of them that nobody cares for them." 
 Reinhart leads him then to a frozen pond, in the ice 
 of which a hole has been cut to draw water. He 
 ties a bucket to the tail of Isengrim, and bids him 
 hold bucket and tail in the hole, while he stirs up 
 the fish. The night is cold, and the tail at length 
 firmly frozen in ; whereupon the fox, with feigned 
 surprise and grief, goes off, promising to find help. 
 A knight appears, who sets his dog upon the wolf, 
 then cuts at him with his sword. The tail is 
 severed, and the wolf, in that way set free, flees. 
 Reinhart meanwhile comes to a well, provided with 
 two buckets ; in the well he sees his own ima<>;e. 
 
 * o 
 
 Thinking it to be his wife, he jumps down for love, 
 and sees then no way of extricating himself, until 
 the wolf approaches. Reinhart calls out to him 
 that he is in Paradise, which induces Isengrim to 
 seat himself in the empty bucket ; this immediately 
 sinks, and the fox is drawn out by Isengrim 's weight. 
 As the trickster hurries off, monks, who come to 
 draw water, beat the wolf half dead. At length the 
 lion the king summons a general court. He is 
 sick ; an ant has crept through his ear into his brain.
 
 102 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 He 'considers his affliction a punishment from God, 
 sent because he has postponed so long the condem- 
 nation of Reinhart for his ill deeds. Brun, the 
 bear, is sent to bring the culprit before the assembly. 
 Arriving at the fox's quarters, he is diverted from 
 his purpose by the promise of honey, and led to a 
 split trunk, where he is told the bees have stored. 
 He puts his head into the crevice ; Reinhart draws 
 out a wedge ; the bear is caught . Peasants ap- 
 proach, and Brun escapes with the loss of his skin 
 and ears. With similar cunning Reinhart manages 
 to reinstate himself in the favor of the king ; and 
 after revenge upon his enemies, devises roguish re- 
 wards for his friends. To the elephant the king 
 gives Bohemia, where, however, he is lamentably 
 beaten. The camel receives an abbey, but when he 
 takes possession the nuns rise against him and drive 
 him into the Rhine. Reinhart at length conquers, 
 supplants his foes, and lives happily in his strong- 
 hold. 
 
 From this brief glance at the Animal Epic, as it 
 was treated by Heinrich of Glichesare, the rude 
 humor that pervades it may be caught, and an ap- 
 preciation of the intimacy with the beast-world 
 which comes to pass in a primitive, faun-like race. 
 In the animal legends are to be recognized many a 
 familiar nursery tradition. When little Red Riding 
 Hood falls into the snare of her pretended grand- 
 mother ; when the fox gets out of the well by en- 
 trapping the wolf; when Silver Hair has her advent- 
 ure with the three bears, when our children, at 
 the dawn of consciousness, seize upon these, they
 
 GUDRUN. 103 
 
 grasp immemorial heirlooms which for ages have 
 fallen to Teuton children, as they come from the 
 cradle to the knee of the story-telling mother.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 
 
 The poetry which has been considered in the three 
 preceding chapters, that based upon the popu- 
 lar legends, and which, though neglected by the 
 courts, was loved among the folk, possesses, as has 
 been said, at the present time, more interest than 
 any other poetry of the age of the Hohenstauffen. 
 A vast body of literature, however, has come down 
 from the period, of a different kind, much of it 
 worthy of study. The term minne has various 
 meanings, the oldest and best being that of kind 
 remembrance of a friend. In the worthiest of the 
 minnesongs, to which we now proceed, the word 
 is used in this sense ; but it acquired at last a 
 licentious signification, to which many of the songs 
 correspond. The Minnesingers proper are those 
 who sing lyrical poems in honor of minne, or love. 
 The name came, however, to have a wide application, 
 embracing many who did not sing of love at all. The 
 poets of the Hohenstauffen period already consid- 
 ered, who wrote the Nibelungen Lied, Gudrun, and 
 the Animal Epic, were, taking the term in its widest 
 sense, Minnesingers, although the designation is 
 more properly borne by the more elegant poets of 
 the courts and castles. Nearly two hundred bards 
 are known to whom the name can be <nven. So
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 105 
 
 far as they were court poets they were imitators of 
 the Troubadours, with whose songs they became 
 acquainted when, in the time of the crusades, the 
 chivalry of France swept eastward through Ger- 
 many toward the Holy Land. Great attention was 
 paid by the Minnesingers to the outward form of 
 their verses, it being considered important that new 
 combinations of rhyme and rhythm should be con- 
 stantly invented. The songs are as various in char- 
 acter as the individual singers. Nithart pleases 
 himself with narrating for his high-born hearers his 
 adventures among the peasants, his tricks upon 
 them, the suffering he himself undergoes in return, 
 as he dances and laughs among the village girls and 
 their lovers. The school-master of Esslingen satir- 
 izes the ambition of an unpopular potentate : " The 
 king can nobody resist. Therefore, take care, O 
 God ! that he does not creep into Thy power ; and 
 be watchful, O Peter! that he does not get the 
 gate of Heaven into his hands." Konrad of "VViirz- 
 burg praises the Virgin Mary in a rhapsody which, 
 though affected and overloaded with ornament, is 
 not without beauty. "As the sun shines through 
 glass without doing it injury, so was the Holy Vir- 
 gin pierced through by God. She is like a crystal 
 or a beryl, which remains cold while the sun kindles 
 a taper through it. She is like the dew, to which 
 in the bright meadow the sunny look of God comes, 
 drying it away. As the unicorn cannot be hunted, 
 but comes of its own accord to a pure maid, and, 
 resting on her lap, goes to sleep, so has Christ 
 come to her. Sun and moon receive their splendor
 
 106 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 from her. Twelve stars are her throne, and the 
 moon her foot-stool. She is exalted like the cypress 
 in Zion and the cedar on Lebanon ; her virtue tow- 
 ers like the palm in Cadiz ; she is a living paradise 
 of the noblest flowers ; her sweet fragrance is pleas- 
 anter than balsam and musk." l Regenbogen, once 
 a smith, one of the later Minnesingers, utters 
 sturdy prophecies which show that the Reformation 
 was already in the air. " The kaiser will cause 
 right to be appreciated, convert the Jews, and 
 scourge the arrogance of the priests. He will de- 
 stroy the cloisters, cause the nuns to marry, and 
 make them useful in the world. Then will come 
 good times." His contemporary, Frauenlob, who is 
 the link between the Minnesingers and the Master- 
 singers, by whom they were succeeded, sings poetry 
 full of the praise of women, and of a mystical piety. 
 In thousandfold repetition the Minnesingers cele- 
 brated love. Sometimes the watchman set to warn 
 the lovers of coming danger utters his -admonition. 
 Sometimes the messenger sings his errand. There 
 is often mention of natural objects, of the beauty 
 of the earth and skies in spring and summer, but in 
 a stiff, conventional way, which makes it doubtful 
 whether there was among them much genuine ap- 
 preciation of the earth's fairness. To sec the lyri- 
 cal Minnesingers at their best, let us study some- 
 what carefully the noblest of the figures which we 
 encounter in the great company, AValther von der 
 Vogelweide. He was probably a Swiss, of a family 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 107 
 
 beneath the class of nobles, a contemporary of the 
 Emperor Frederick II., in the first part of the thir- 
 teenth century. He spent some years in Austria, 
 and being at length neglected by the court, began a 
 life of wandering, during which he went, as he says, 
 from the Elbe to the Rhine and to Hungary, from 
 the Drave to the Po and the Seine. He is said to 
 have taken part in the contest of the minstrels at 
 the Wartburg, in which those vanquished were to be 
 put to death, a festival much celebrated in song, 
 but whose historic truth is doubted. Like his con- 
 temporaries generally, he was carried away by the 
 crusading spirit, urging his emperor to assume the 
 cross, and himself taking part. His character was 
 most manly, and in many things he was far beyond 
 his time. He was especially bold in his denuncia- 
 tions of extravagant papal claims and other abuses 
 of the Church. His influence, within and without 
 Germany, became so great that the emperor, recog- 
 nizing his merits, gave him a property and a title. 
 Tired of wandering, he had begged pathetically for 
 a home. "Pity me," he cries to the emperor, 
 "that when my art is so rich I am allowed to go 
 poor. If I could warm myself on my own hearth, 
 how would I then sing of the birds and the flowers 
 and of love ! And if a beautiful wife offer me sweet 
 affection, I would cause lilios and roses to spring 
 forth from her cheeks. Xow I come late and ride 
 early. Guest, woe to thee, woo ! The host may 
 well sino- of the green turf. He only who has a 
 
 o %, 
 
 hearth of his own can cause his song to sound forth 
 joyfully." His grant was of small value, and he
 
 108 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 always remained poor. Faithful to his lyre, he 
 lived on to old age, declaring that he had for forty 
 years sung songs of affection. He was nobly patri- 
 otic, scourging without fear the faults of his time. 
 Unlike many of his class, he wrote only lays that 
 were high and pure. Here is one of his love-songs, 
 which seems to me full of tenderness and grace : 
 " Thoroughly sweet and full of loveliness are pure 
 women. There was never anything so lovely in air, 
 or on earth, or in all the green meadows. Lilies 
 and roses, when they shine in the May dew through 
 the grass, and the song of little birds, are, compared 
 with this charm, without color and sound. If one 
 sees beautiful women, that can refresh the troubled 
 spirit and extinguish at the same time all lamenting, 
 when their sweet red lips entrancingly laugh in love, 
 and arrows dart from their eyes to the bottom of 
 man's heart. Lady, nobly sweet, highly praised, 
 full of pure goodness, thy modest person inspires 
 the spirit. Thy lips are redder than the rose amid 
 the deAvs. God has exalted and ennobled pure 
 women, so that ono may prize and honor them for- 
 ever more. The treasure of the world, with all 
 rapture, lies in them. For discontent and sadness 
 is nothing so good as to look on a beautiful maid 
 well disposed, when she gives to her lover a pleas- 
 ant, heart-felt smile." 1 This song may be taken to 
 represent the minnesongs when at their best, sen- 
 suous, not sensual ; far enough from descending to 
 licentiousness, showing simple naturalness of feel- 
 
 Pfeifler u. Bartsch : Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters.
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 109 
 
 ing, and a love of nature such as soon after ap- 
 peared in English literature in Chaucer. In the 
 following song Walther, forsaking, as he 'often did, 
 the ordinary themes of the Minnesingers, strikes his 
 lyre with noble manhood. "Who slays the lion? 
 Who slays the giant? That does he who tames 
 himself, and brings his members all saved out of the 
 wild storm into the harbor of true virtue. He who 
 can show an assumed virtue may therewith for a 
 while play the hypocrite. Easily borrowed is the 
 appearance ; quickly it is lost again." l 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide died in Wurzburg, 
 and nothing we know concerning him is quite so 
 picturesque as the story of his grave. An old 
 chronicle says that in his will provision was made 
 for sinking four holes into the stone that should 
 cover him, into which corn every day was to be 
 poured for the feeding of the wild birds. Under 
 bright May sunlight I beheld the gray old town, 
 fortifications of the present century rising side by 
 side with structures that have stood for ages, and 
 beyond the dark current of the Main the threaten- 
 ing Marienberg, as gloomy to-day as when, in the 
 Thirty Years War, it tried to defy the victorious 
 Gustavus. A hundred great associations the city 
 has with men and events, but to the heart of the 
 pilgrim none has such interest as that the ancient 
 city holds the grave of the noblest of the Minne- 
 singers. As the eye falls upon battlement, sharp 
 roof, and soaring tower, on the approach, one won- 
 
 1 Pfeiffer u. Bartsch : Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters.
 
 110 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ders where it was that the children of the choir 
 feasted the birds, gathering thick each day, year in 
 and year out, " on the tree that overshadowed all 
 the place," brushing, as with grateful wings, the 
 minstrel's effigy on the tombstone beneath. 
 
 While among the vast throng of the Minnesingers 
 towers now and then a figure full of genius and 
 manly strength like Walther, others are to be re- 
 marked fantastic and absurd to the last degree. 
 One or two types must be presented. Master John 
 Hadlaub, of Zurich, began his service of his love 
 when he was but a child, he tells us, she also be- 
 ing as young. She was of high station ; he poor, 
 and the son of an humble citizen. In his youth he 
 sought long for an opportunity to confess his love, 
 at length fastening with a fish-hook a letter to his 
 mistress' robe as she went home one morning early 
 from matins. She treated him with great harsh- 
 ness, so that he fell down in his suffering ; but cer- 
 
 O * 
 
 tain lords lifted him up, led him to her seat, and 
 gave him her hand to hold, which strengthened him 
 again. In pity for him, she looked at him pleas- 
 antly, whereupon he pressed her hand so hard that 
 she bit him to free herself. A greater happiness 
 could not have happened to him ; her mouth was 
 sweet beyond words to express ; her bite so deli- 
 cately tender ! It only caused him pain because it 
 lasted so short a time. At a later time she prom- 
 ised to receive him kindly, but at his coming 
 locked herself into a room until ILullaub had left 
 
 
 
 the house. A good knight, however, comforted 
 him with the assurance that she had spoken well of
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. Ill 
 
 him. Once he saw her caress a child, in whose 
 place he longed to stand. When she had departed 
 he took the child, embraced it, then kissed it upon 
 the spot which her lips had touched, in this way 
 experiencing great happiness. The reader will not 
 care to know more of Master Hudlaub's love ex- 
 periences. He is among the last of the Minne- 
 singers, living at a time when the world was losing 
 sympathy for their extravagances. As one follows 
 his detail it is plain that the object of his passion 
 was a good-hearted girl, who honestly pitied him, but 
 was embarrassed and troubled by his absurd woo- 
 ing. Those who pretended to aid him really made 
 him an object of ridicule. With Hadlaub's rhymes 
 before us, we can make out a lively picture from 
 the life that five hundred years ago went forward on 
 the shores of that sapphire lake, the merry, mock- 
 ing company, the well-disposed maiden, teased and 
 mortified beyond measure, and in the midst the 
 love-sick simpleton. 
 
 A generation or two earlier the follies of Had- 
 laub would not have become a laughing-stock. 
 The temper of the time was such that absurdities 
 far more fantastic excited admiration instead of con- 
 tempt, so strange had become the taste of the world 
 of knights and courtiers. Ulrich von Lichtenstein 
 has left, in his book called " Frauendienst," " Ser- 
 vice of Ladies," a detailed account of his life, 
 which is full of curious and amusing pictures. He 
 was born at the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, of a noble family of Austria, in his twelfth 
 year choosing a lady to whose service he might de-
 
 112 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 vote his life. He served her for five years as a 
 page ; she was already married and established. 
 He was trained in arms, and when he reached man- 
 hood received the castle of his ancestors. He 
 sends his lady a song in which he begs her to con- 
 sent that he may devote himself to her service ; she 
 praises the song, but treats scornfully his petition, 
 principally on account of a deformity of the singer's 
 mouth, whereupon the minstrel submits to a sur- 
 gical operation that he may become more accept- 
 able. The lady remains hard-hearted, however, 
 whereupon the steadfast knight continues to send 
 her songs, not discouraged, although they are at 
 once returned. Upon one of the missives thus 
 rejected he observes at length that something is 
 written ; but since he cannot read, arid his clerk is 
 not at hand, he carries the writing upon his heart 
 ten days and nights, ignorant of its purport. At 
 length the clerk returns, with whom Ulrich retires 
 into a secret chamber, there learning that the mes- 
 sage is to the effect that many a man speaks what 
 he does not feel in his heart. 
 
 Ulrich now goes everywhere engaging in tourna- 
 ments, and gaining many a prize. At Brixen his 
 finger is hurt, and soon after he hears that his lady 
 laments his misfortune. She, moreover, sends him 
 an air as yet unknown in Germany, to which she 
 asks him to adapt words. Ulrich straightway com- 
 poses a song to the air, upon the worth of woman, 
 which so pleases the lady that she sends him a pres- 
 ent of a puppy ; she remains, however, cold toward 
 him, complaining that he has done too little for her.
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 113 
 
 "When Ulrich hears this he causes the finger which 
 has been hurt to be cut off, and has a little book 
 prepared, bound in grass-green velvet. " I bade a 
 goldsmith," says the knight, " make two gold bands 
 for me, in which the book was enclosed. The clasp 
 was very pretty and suggestive, being in the form of 
 two clasped hands. Inside the book we put the 
 finger." The singular present is sent to the chosen 
 one, who receives it kindly, but laments the deed of 
 Ulrich, which she declares she would not have be- 
 lieved possible for a reasonable man. She takes care 
 to add that she is sorry for the finger, not because 
 she loves Ulrich, but because he has lost it for her 
 sake ; that she intends to keep the finger carefully in 
 her drawer, and look at it every day ; it will, how- 
 ever, not affect her if he serves her a thousand 
 years. The persistent Ulrich determines, neverthe- 
 less, to undertake a great adventure in her honor. 
 
 In the winter of 1227 he goes to Venice, and 
 there causes a great quantity of costly female ap- 
 pare^ to be made, among which are three mantles of 
 white velvet. He buys, moreover, two heavy locks 
 of hair, entwined with pearls. Twelve squires re- 
 ceive white garments ; snow-white is everything 
 carried by him and his train, helm, shield, and a 
 hundred new spears. His coat of arms is of fine 
 cloth, handsomely plaited ; his horse is caparisoned 
 with velvet. When all is ready he despatches a 
 messenger announcing that Venus, queen and god- 
 dess of love, is coming, and will teach the knights 
 of all the country round the service of ladies ; that 
 she will rise from the sea on the day after Saint 
 e
 
 I 
 
 114 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 George's day, and proceed to Bohemia. Every 
 knight who will come to meet her and break a spear 
 with her shall receive a gold ring for his darling, 
 which will make her more beautiful, and cause her 
 to love him truly. Whoever is conquered by Venus 
 shall spread the fame of Ulrich's mistress to all the 
 quarters of the world ; but whoever shall overcome 
 the goddess shall receive all her horses. On the 
 journey she will allow neither her countenance nor 
 her hands to be seen, and speak with nobody. She 
 will outlaw every knight who hears of her journey 
 and does not present himself. 
 
 On the day appointed, Ulrich made his appear- 
 ance upon the sea-shore, in a little village of the 
 Adriatic, in the midst of a great crowd. First rode 
 his marshal and cook ; then followed his swan-white 
 banner, between two trumpeters ; then servants with 
 pack-horses. At last came Ulrich's shield and hel- 
 met, followed by a drummer, spear-bearers, two 
 maids clothed in white, and two good fiddlers, who, 
 says the book, fiddled a jolly march. At last came 
 Ulrich himself, on horseback, dressed in women's 
 clothes. His mantle was of white velvet ; his hat 
 decorated with white pearls and surmounted by the 
 two heavy locks of hair, which, also decorated with 
 pearls, hung down to his waist. His face was veiled, 
 and his hands covered with gloves of silk. The 
 progress to Bohemia is described in detail. At 
 Glockenitz he met his wife, with whom he remained 
 a day without being recognized by others. He was 
 married, it seems, his wife not being at all the mis- 
 tress in whose honor he was seeking adventures ;
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 115 
 
 his good understanding with her, however, from all 
 that appears, was not at all interrupted. As he 
 proceeded on his journey his train grew larger, 
 until at length he entered Vienna with eighty 
 knights, where great festivities and tournaments 
 took place. After these the train again went for- 
 ward, Ulrich giving away, to knights who responded 
 to his summons, two hundred and seventy-one rings, 
 overthrowing several in combat, and receiving him- 
 self a number of wounds. 
 
 In spite of his devotion the lady was not won, 
 but treated him so capriciously that he wept, and 
 was only saved from suicide by the intervention of 
 a companion. He served, however, devotedly for 
 some years longer, until, as he says, his lady did to 
 him a thing which, if he dared say w r hat it was, 
 would call forth compassion for him from all honest 
 men. Then, at last, he renounced her, presently 
 taking up the service of another lady, in whose 
 honor he undertook new progresses, apparently 
 meantime on good terms with his M T ife, who re- 
 mained with her children in her husband's castle. 1 
 
 Ulrich von Lichtenstein wrote the Frauendienst 
 when he was more than fifty years old, a book quite 
 important to us as a graphic picture of a courtly 
 poet and his work. It was written and received 
 by his generation in all seriousness. Ulrich, as a 
 wealthy and high-born noble, plays a part in history, 
 showing many proofs of abundant bravery. In his 
 old age he was accused of high treason, and de- 
 
 Kurz
 
 116 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 manded the ordeal of battle. His castles, however, 
 were destroyed, and he died probably in poverty. 
 The old manuscript of the Frauendienst gives a pict- 
 ure representing the hero in full armor, on horse- 
 hack, with a drawn sword in his hand. Venus, with 
 an arrow in one hand and a flame in the other, 
 a figure of considerable si/<>, forms the crest of 
 the top-heavy helmet. The knight is galloping 
 through a rolling sea, in which sea-monsters are 
 fighting together, which perhaps is intended to re- 
 call the alleged rising from the Adriatic. 
 
 The extravagance of Ulrich is so very fantastic 
 that some scholars cannot believe he was a fair 
 representative of his class, preferring to consider 
 him as a mediaeval Don Quixote crazed by reading 
 French romances. There is abundant evidence, 
 however, to show that in the courtly circles he was 
 held in his time in honor, and that his example was 
 often followed, a fact which perhaps may be 
 taken as indicating a singular lack of the perception 
 of the ludicrous. The popular instincts of this time 
 were far sounder, a healthy sense of humor being 
 l>y no means wanting, which did much to make the 
 songs and poems intended for the folk still more 
 natural and attractive. Until late in the Middle 
 Ages a favorite figure in the stories of the people, 
 to which we recur for a moment for comparison, is 
 the monk Ilsan, a character in the " Rose-garden at 
 Worms,"- a poem in which many legends are 
 blended, and which received its latest elaboration in 
 the fifteenth century, after furnishing material to 
 several poets of preceding ages. Kriemhild holds
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 117 
 
 court at Worms, where she has a beautiful rose- 
 garden, which Siegfried, with twelve heroes, guards 
 against all strangers. Whoever vanquishes these 
 guardians with an equal number of heroes is enti- 
 tled to become liegeman of Kriemhild's father; 
 besides, each of the victors shall receive as reward 
 a rose-wreath and a kiss from Kriemhild. At the 
 suggestion of his vassal, Hildebrand, Dietrich of 
 Berne sets forth to undertake the contest, and in 
 the story of the expedition the main figure is the 
 monk Ilsan, a personage resembling Friar Tuck of 
 the Robin Hood legends. He is the brother of Hil- 
 debrand, and has been twenty years in the cloister. 
 He has become old and gray, but since a twelfth 
 hero is required, he is to be taken from his retire- 
 ment to fill the place. The adventurers knock 
 hard at the gate of the monastery, and Ilsan 's 
 rough voice is heard from within, threatening that 
 they shall pay dear for it who disturb the peace of 
 the brotherhood. " Sir," says a monk who has 
 looked out, " an old man stands at the gate who has 
 three wolves upon his shield, and a golden snake 
 upon his helmet-cre.st." "By the god of war!" 
 cries Ilsan, "that is my brother Hildebrand." 
 " And with him is a youth upon a swift horse, with a 
 grim lion on his shield." " That is the Lord Diet- 
 rich," cries Ilsan, and the gate of the cloister is 
 opened. " Benedicite, brother," cries Hildebrand, 
 to whom Ilsan replies with an old soldier's oath, ask- 
 ing why he is always on some warlike enterprise. 
 "We are going to Worms," is the reply, " to see the 
 river Rhine, to gain rose-garlands, and a woman's
 
 118 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 kiss." Ilsan no sooner hears that he is bidden to 
 the expedition than his old battle passion is aroused. 
 With a lusty throw, he flings his cowl into the grass, 
 revealing beneath his old fighting garb, which has 
 never been laid aside. As he departs, the remain- 
 ing monks run after him and wish him ill, it has 
 been his habit to hale them about by their ears and 
 beards when they have refused to do his will. Ar- 
 rived at Worms, he gives rein to his spirit of wild 
 mischief. He rolls like a horse in the flowers of 
 the garden, uses his fists against all who come in 
 his way, and when, after the victory, in which he 
 vanquishes the minstrel Volker, he is to receive the 
 kiss of Kriemhild, he rubs her face sore with his 
 rough beard. The rose-wreaths which fall to his 
 share he takes back with him to the cloister, and 
 presses them, scratch as they may, down upon the 
 heads of the monks who insulted him at his depart- 
 ure. He orders them to help him make atonement 
 for his sins, and when they refuse, he ties their 
 beards together, and hangs them, two and two, 
 across a pole. 
 
 There is nothing malicious in Ilsan ; all he does 
 and says is in rough, exuberant sport. Every word 
 and act violates propriety, and nothing could be 
 more shocking, as judged by the finical court stand- 
 ards. The cloisters of the time furnished, no doubt, 
 plenty of originals for such a portrayal. Many a 
 wild spirit, momentarily sick of tumult, must have 
 sought in them an asylum. In the tedium of their 
 life, they sometimes reverted to their old ways, 
 chanted to one another the war-songs, as in the
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 119 
 
 case of the old monks at Fulda, to whom we owe 
 the song of Hildebrand ; and when animal spirits 
 were not quenched by the discipline, no doubt the 
 convent precincts resounded with the horse-play and 
 rough laughter of the camp. 
 
 Before the examination of the literature of the 
 Hohenstauffen period is concluded, an important 
 class of poets remains to be considered, the writ- 
 ers of the Court Epics. As has been noticed, 
 the Popular Epics are derived from legends relating 
 to the ancient deities, and the history of the Teu- 
 tonic race in primeval days. In interest the Popular 
 Epics surpass all that has been transmitted to us 
 from the period we are studying. In treating 
 their subjects, the minstrels show a poetic gift which, 
 however rude it may be, sways the heart mightily. 
 The subjects themselves are of absorbing fascina- 
 tion. The legends they preserve, in which we 
 dimly see the spirit and movement of our fore- 
 fathers in distant days, when as yet no Teuton hand 
 had traced a letter, affect the soul only with a 
 deeper power as the race proceeds onward in its 
 history. 
 
 The Court Epics have an interest inferior to the 
 Popular Epics, according to the general judgment, 
 both on account of the subjects chosen and the 
 manner in which they are treated. Generally, the 
 subjects are foreign ; or, if German material is se- 
 lected, it is such as had first received a foreign 
 treatment. The Trojan War, Alexander and the 
 heroes of classic days, saints and biblical person-
 
 120 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ages, Charlemagne and his Paladins, above all, Ar- 
 thur and the Knights of the Round Table, are 
 themes which gained attention. We cannot judge 
 the court poets severely. What seemed good to 
 their taste has been attractive ever since to poets, 
 even to our own time. Morris and Tennyson, yes, 
 the greatest names of all, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, 
 Shakespeare himself, are elaborators of stories 
 often many times told, and coming from foreign 
 sources, often the same as those treated by the old 
 German singers. As to manner, while the popular 
 poets followed their own simple genius, so filling 
 their verses with an inspiration, rude, but genuine, 
 and of the freshest, the court poets were trans- 
 lators, adapters, imitators, postponing themselves 
 while exalting troubadour and trouvcre models ; 
 over-refined until they became finical, often full of 
 false delicacy. In the list of court-epic poets are 
 found, however, men of genius, and there are critics 
 who place some of them in the highest position. 
 Any consideration of the literature of the period 
 would be quite inadequate which should fail to give 
 them extended mention. 
 
 Three contemporaries are the great names among 
 the writers of the Court Epics, Hartmann von 
 Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Wolfram von 
 Eschenbach. 1 Hartmann, who died in 1220, is 
 reckoned among the older Minnesingers ; he was a 
 soldier of Barbarossa in his expedition to the Holy 
 Land. He was a man of noble birth and active 
 
 1 Kobersteiru
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 12 1 
 
 habits, who regarded his poetic fame with some con- 
 tempt, writing his verses only as a pastime, when, 
 as he says, he had nothing better to do. It has 
 been mentioned that it is impossible to make a 
 sharp distinction between the Court and Popular 
 Poetry, and now, in considering Hartmann, the dif- 
 ficulty of drawing the line appears. His rank and 
 associations brought him into connection with the 
 class of nobles, and for them he wrote ; but his best 
 and most famous piece is thoroughly national in its 
 subject, and treated in a manner most simple and 
 natural. The title of the poem is " Poor Henry." l 
 A rich knight, Hcinrich von Aue, is attacked by 
 leprosy. Despairing of cure, he goes nevertheless 
 to Salerno, the reputation of whose school of medi- 
 cine was unbounded during the Middle Ages, where 
 a wise physician tells him that he can only be 
 healed through the blood of a pure maid who de- 
 votes herself freely to death in his behalf. Robbed 
 of all hope, he returns home, where he gives away 
 his property and withdraws to a little farm ; this a 
 peasant manages, who, through Heinrich's kindness, 
 has won great success. The farmer cherishes him 
 faithfully, aided by his wife, but particularly by his 
 daughter, a tender girl of twelve. She is con- 
 tinually with the knight, relieving his pain through 
 her hearty sympathy and love, so that he can no 
 longer live without her, and in sport calls her his 
 little wife. After three years she learns by chance 
 the means through which alone her lord can be 
 
 1 Der arme Heinrichu
 
 122 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 saved, and immediately concludes to sacrifice her 
 life for him. All the entreaties of her parents are 
 useless. The generous Hcinrich refuses her offer, 
 but is at last won by her entreaties, and the knight 
 and the maid travel together to Salerno. She there 
 repeats before the physician that she voluntarily 
 offers herself to death. The salvation of her own 
 soul, however, is always the uppermost motive. 
 The physician is already preparing the knife for the 
 sacrifice, when Heinrich, overpowered by the dreadful 
 thought, forbids the murder. He returns to Swabia 
 in company with the maid, who at first feels very 
 unhappy at the failure of her intention. But be- 
 cause the knight has humbled himself before God, 
 with whose decree he has until now constantly 
 striven, on account of his misfortunes, he recovers 
 from his sickness, and becomes united with the 
 maid in marriage. 1 
 
 It is in many points a sweet and simple story, the 
 same used by Longfellow in the Golden Legend. 
 It is wrought out by the Minnesinger with great 
 tenderness, touching always the heart of the world, 
 and finding often imitation. If looked at closely, 
 however, the maid's nobleness is far enough from 
 being of the highest. She is not self- forgetful. 
 The judgment of one of the best of critics 2 will 
 not seem too severe. The child goes forward to 
 her death, not so much from compassion as from 
 the idea that the sacrifice will bring to pass the sav- 
 
 1 Pfeiffer u. Bartsch : Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelaltera. 
 1 Gervinus.
 
 TEE MINNESINGERS. 123 
 
 ing of her own soul. When, after being under the 
 knife and then preserved, she despairs of this, 
 when she wishes to be free from the holiest bonds of 
 nature, from father and mother, in order so much 
 the quicker to share the eternal life, our sympathy 
 does not follow her. 
 
 Gottfried von Strassburg, the second of the three, 
 is a writer of great elegance and delicacy, although 
 he was not so far above the influences that sur- 
 rounded him as to be kept always from an absurd 
 over-refinement. He will not speak of sickness or 
 the medicine necessary to relieve it, considering 
 such topics as too full of unpleasant suggestion to 
 be introduced before a courtier circle. The poem 
 through which he has become known, "Tristan 
 and Isolde," in matter and treatment, is based on 
 French originals. The subject, moreover, the 
 illicit love of the hero and heroine, is hardly 
 moral. Tristan is represented as wooing Isolde 
 for his master, a king. The suit is successful ; but 
 while the squire conducts the bride to her destina- 
 tion, through a love potion which they drink to- 
 gether, supposing it to be wine, their hearts become 
 united, and a clandestine relation, following through 
 many years, is the result, described in long detail. 
 The objectionable features of the story are so far 
 modified that they cease, in great part, to be re- 
 pulsive, and although Gottfried is only an imitator, 
 his genius is great enough to secure for him a noble 
 fame - 1 
 
 1 Pfeiffer u. Bartsch : Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelaltera.
 
 124 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Greatest, however, among the writer of the 
 Court Epics is Wolfram von Eschenbach. ie was a 
 man of knightly birth, although poor ; a zealous 
 worker, although he does not scruple to confess 
 that he values his rank more highly than his poetic 
 gift. Three long epics Parzival, Titurcl, and 
 Willehalm have come down from him (Titurel 
 and Willehalm in fragmentary shape), an accom- 
 plishment quite wonderful, since he could neither 
 read nor write, elaborating in rapt mood his long- 
 drawn strophes, then dictating them to a scribe. 
 The Parzival is the masterpiece, and the only work 
 we need to consider. 
 
 In the Parzival, Wolfram combines the legends 
 connected with the Holy Grail with the Breton 
 stories relating to Arthur and the Round Table, 
 material whose charm is imperishable. Deep in the 
 ideas of gray antiquity, 1 in the myths of the Orient, 
 cradle of humanity, is rooted the legend of a place 
 on the earth where, untouched by sin and all dis- 
 tress of life, mortals should reach the fulness of 
 tireless enjoyment, a spot where wishes arc silent 
 because satisfied, where hopes rest because fulfilled, 
 where the thirst for knowledge is stilled, and the 
 peace of the soul in no way suffers disturbance, 
 the legend of "The Earthly Paradise." As this 
 paradise, in the consciousness of later men, retreated 
 more and more, a relic remained behind from it, 
 something conceived of as a costly vessel, from 
 which all the blessings of Heaven might pour them- 
 
 1 Vilmar.
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 125 
 
 selves upon the earth. The legends connected with 
 the vessel the deep spirit of the Middle Ages 
 caught, although springing up on heathen ground ; 
 then developed them' into Christian mythology, 
 in which the idea of salvation through Christ re- 
 ceived a poetic and sj'mbolical form. A costly 
 stone of wonderful splendor so says the Christian 
 myth was wrought into a chalice, and became the 
 possession of Joseph of Arimathea. From this 
 chalice, Christ, on the night of his betrayal, reached 
 his body to his disciples ; into it, moreover, when 
 the soldier, Longinus, had opened with his spear 
 the side of the crucified one, was received that blood 
 which flowed for the salvation of the world. This 
 vessel, with which the saving of the world, through 
 the sacrifice of Christ, was so closely connected, in 
 the mediaeval legend became endowed with super- 
 nal powers. Wherever it was kept and cherished, 
 it was believed to afford the richest abundance of 
 blessings. Whoever looked upon it, even though 
 he should be sick unto death, could not die the 
 same week. Whoever, with pure spirit, continually 
 beheld it did not grow old, and at last passed into 
 the great beyond without the death-struggle. This 
 vessel the symbol of salvation in Christ was 
 called the Holy Grail, to be the guardian and cher- 
 ishcr of which was the highest dignity of humanity. 
 Only the humblest, truest, and chastest were worthy 
 of the honor, for the guardianship implied a spirit- 
 ual chivalry of the noblest kind. There must be 
 lowliness and purity, as well as the strongest and 
 boldest manhood ; there must be fidelity toward
 
 126 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 God and toward women, self-renunciation, tran- 
 quil simplicity, the highest wisdom. 
 
 The first chief of these Knights of the Holy Grail, 
 or "Tempeleisen," as they were called, with a refer- 
 ence to the Templars of the Crusades, was Titurel, 
 a legendary king of Anjou. He was filled with 
 religious chivahy, and had never felt earthly love 
 for woman. To this stainless knight angels came, 
 bringing the Grail, that it might be guarded. It 
 was borne to Salva Terra, in Biscaya, where Titurel 
 built upon Montsalvage, the unapproachable moun- 
 tain, a castle for his knights and a shrine for the 
 relic. Here it hovered unsupported in the air, and 
 ruled the order of the Tempeleisen. At times, in a 
 supernatural way, 'commands appeared as a gleam- 
 ing inscription on the vessel's edge. Every Good 
 Friday a white dove was seen flying thitherward to 
 lay a holy wafer within the Grail, through which 
 its power was renewed. 
 
 The splendor of the temple is painted glowingly 
 by a disciple of AYolfram Albrecht von Scharfen- 
 berg. The surface of the mountain was of onyx, 
 so polished that it shone like the moon. Hereon 
 was drawn by the hand of God the plan of the castle 
 and the temple. The temple was a vast dome, sur- 
 rounded by chapels ; these, in turn, surmounted by 
 towers. There were pillars of bronze, adorned with 
 gold and pearls. There were arches of sapphire, 
 and in the midst an emerald, whereon was enamelled 
 a lamb, with the banner of the cross. The altar, 
 moreover, was sapphire, a type of the annihila- 
 tion of sin, and in its ornaments all precious
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 127 
 
 stones were united. A diamond and a topaz pre- 
 sented the sun and moon, so that by night the in- 
 terior sparkled in wonderful splendor. The win- 
 dows were of beryl and crystal, adorned with paint- 
 ings, to assuage the burning glow ; the floor, of 
 crystal, clear as water. Upon the temple's pinnacle 
 was a mighty carbuncle, which beamed at night a 
 beacon to the Knights of the Grail far into the 
 thick wood of cypresses and cedars, into which no 
 one could come uncalled. When at length the world 
 grew godless, the temple was carried off bodily by 
 angels. 1 
 
 CJ 
 
 This picturesque and splendid legend, which per- 
 haps received first its Christian form in Spain, and 
 was afterwards developed in France and Germany, 
 fascinated thoroughly the spirit of Wolfram . Dream- 
 ing over it in the castle of the Wartburg, where he 
 lived and sang for many years, protected by the 
 landgrave of Thuringia, he blended with it the not 
 less interesting Celtic legend of Arthur. There is 
 no need to detail this. The greatest of the poets of 
 to-day has made familiar as household words the 
 names of Arthur and Guinevere, of Gawain and 
 Galahad ; of Carleon, where gathered the court, 
 and the wood of Broceliande, whither the knights 
 rode in quest of adventure. The same traditions, 
 gathered by Geoffrey of Monmouth, long ago, among 
 the Celtic minstrels, passing the sea to inspire first 
 the old Provencal singers, carried to many lands, 
 and alive in many ages even until now, thrilled the 
 
 1 Bibliothek der deutschen Klassiker,
 
 128 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 spirit of that knight in the solitary Thuringian fast- 
 ness, and there he wrought toward a noble -*nd 
 beautiful result. 
 
 Wolfram's work is variously judged. Though 
 full of grace, it is certainly of wearisome length, . 
 and so entangled with episode and incident that to 
 give the story, even in abstract, is far from easy. 
 Parzival, the hero, spends his youth isolated from 
 the world, of whose ways he learns nothing. A 
 high yearning drives him forth to adventures. The 
 guardianship of the Holy Grail has been destined 
 for him ; he reaches Montsalvage and beholds its 
 splendor, but, in ignorance, misses his destiny. 
 Purified and exercised in long trials, in his manly 
 ripeness he becomes capable of the sublime office, 
 attaining at last the Grail and the highest bliss. 1 I 
 find the Parzival characterized as a psychological 
 
 J. / O 
 
 epic, representing the purifying of a soul through 
 battle with the world and itself. A mystic symbol- 
 ism runs through it, such as belongs to the writers 
 of the "Romantic School,'' a class to be hereafter 
 considered, who flourished in the first years of the 
 nineteenth century, and whom Wolfram surprisingly 
 resembles. Taking the story of Arthur as a type 
 of cheerful worldly life, connecting it with the story 
 of the Grail, a symbol of spiritual life, he illustrates 
 the parallels and contrasts of the t\\'o directions. 
 So he sought to penetrate into the depths of the 
 spiritual world and find mystical relations, losing 
 himself sometimes in a haze of unintelligibility. 
 
 1 "Wackernagel.
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 129 
 
 Yet it is right to say that he surpasses all the poets 
 of his class in fulness and depth of thought ; that 
 he possesses a noble moral earnestness, a fine sensi- 
 bility toward things high and beautiful, the most 
 
 ^ <_? - 
 
 humane impulses. Many a page is radiant with po- 
 etic splendor. The "Romantic School," in modern 
 times, has accorded to him the highest praise, its 
 founder and leader l calling him the greatest of Ger- 
 man poets. 
 
 Arriving at Eisenach from the north, I spent the 
 night at the "Anker," and in the morning of a 
 bright July day went out for my first view of the 
 Wartburg. There it hung, upon the summit of 
 the swelling hill, six hundred feet above the town, 
 the winding path trodden by such multitudes of 
 historic men leading to it through the forest. 
 There, in 1817, met the high-hearted German youth, 
 assembling from the universities to demand of the 
 temporizing princes of the Holy Alliance the fulfil- 
 ment of their pledges, pledges made in the great 
 "Freedom War," to win the help of the people, 
 and which, now that the end was gained, they had 
 no desire to fulfil. Up this path again, three hun- 
 dred years before, hurried the friendly captors of 
 great Martin Luther, with pretended roughness hal- 
 ing their prisoner to the stronghold, there to reveal 
 themselves to him, and bolt out in his behalf a 
 hostile world, which reached for faggots to burn 
 him. And, in a still older time, down the hill 
 walked, on errands of mercy, the beautiful Saint 
 
 1 Friedrich Schlegel. 
 9
 
 130 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Elizabeth of Hungary, loveliest of saints, perhaps 
 all the more attractive for her naive insincerities, in 
 which, according to the story, Heaven was her 
 ally. There are these associations, and others as 
 interesting, none finer, however, than this : That 
 the court here of the Landgrave Hermann, in the 
 Ilohcnstauffen days, more than any spot of that 
 world perhaps, was a centre of light ; the castle 
 hall ringing ever with the sound of minstrelsy, 
 the portcullis ever rising to admit the wandering 
 singer, the hospitable roof sheltering many a busy 
 brain, elaborating lyric and romance. In my pil- 
 grimage 1 climbed the path to the castle, magnificent 
 to-day as ever, for its princely owner has restored 
 it entirely in the ancient taste. I stood in the hall 
 in which the knights banqueted, where so much of 
 the mediaeval poetry had its first rehearsal, after the 
 flagons were filled, the landgrave and his knights 
 sitting attentive. On the wall was painted the 
 strife of the Minnesingers, of which, says the le- 
 gend, the hall was the scene, the song-battle, 
 in which the conquered were to suffer death, 
 the figures of the Hungarian minstrel Klingsor, of 
 Heinrich von Oftcrdingen, and Wolfram von Esch- 
 enbach looking from the fresco into the broad 
 spaces that had really known their figures in life. 
 Where was it among the nooks of the castle that 
 Wolfram dreamed and dictated? No one can tell 
 the precise spot, but I could be sure, as from 
 the castle height my eye went forth over Thu- 
 ringia, the wooded hills heaving high, now and 
 then from the valley a flash of li<rht from a blue
 
 THE MINNESINGERS. 131 
 
 stream, upon isolated peaks here and there a crum- 
 bling tower, that it was this landscape which re- 
 freshed him, and which he wrought into his poem. 
 I climbed down from the castle by a mountain 
 road into the pleasant Anna-thai, crossing the Co- 
 burg highway ; then through the ravine of the 
 dragon, into the woodlands beyond. Turning 
 
 ^ <J 
 
 among the thickets, I got my farewell glimpse of 
 the Wartburg, at a distance of several miles. The 
 foliage was dense, but through a circular break 
 appeared, high in the air, the summit of the rock, 
 and the Wartburg, rising from it, relieved against 
 the heavens. The green in which the view was 
 framed cut off from the vision all connection with 
 the earth ; the distance was great enough to soften 
 all outlines, veiling with summer haze the lofty 
 walls, till they seemed mysterious and almost spir- 
 itual. Buttress, bastion, and high-soaring tower, 
 held for the moment in the blue bosom of the 
 heavens, indistinct through a league of interven- 
 ing vapory atmosphere, seen when the heart was 
 touched by the multitude of memories ! So upon 
 Montsalvage, before the eye of some aspiring 
 knight, might have towered the shrine of the Holy 
 Grail, and the home of that troop of chivalry who 
 were set apart, through pure-minded manhood, to 
 be its guardians I
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 
 
 There is no spot in Germany where a pilgrim feels 
 so strongly ftie might and majesty of the mediaeval 
 emperors as in the cathedral of Speyer. Its cor- 
 ner-stone was laid in 1030, by the Emperor Kon- 
 rad I., and it became in succeeding years the scene 
 of a large part of what was most brilliant and im- 
 portant in the world. Here kings plighted faith to 
 their queens ; here Peter the Hermit preached the 
 Crusade ; here came popes from Rome to give dig- 
 nity to coronations. In its crypts were buried eight 
 emperors. Their graves, to be sure, have been des- 
 ecrated, and the roof above them burned, by the 
 vandal armies of Louis XIV. ; but in our century 
 an art-loving king has restored the ruin to more 
 than its old -splendor. 
 
 One day I passed into the city of Spcyer through 
 a picturesque gateway, high above which rose an 
 ancient watch-tower, then along a modern street, at 
 the end of which was the cathedral front. Through 
 the rounded arch that formed the portal I stepped 
 into the vestibule, and found myself in an august 
 presence-chamber. Before me rose, in imposing 
 presentment, the forms of the emperors who were 
 here laid to rest. They stood in the armor of their
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 133 
 
 time, or girt about by robes of state, majestic 
 figures, with faces of power. From here opened 
 the long perspective of the nave, beautiful indeed ! 
 The columns followed one another in a gigantic line, 
 arching over at the top into mighty circles. Upon 
 the walls were thrown frescoes made splendid with 
 scarlet and gold. The light streamed in abundantly, 
 till I was bewildered with the multiplied scenes and 
 the glory of the color. Passing onward, I stood 
 presently in the main choir, treading upon a pave- 
 ment inlaid with the " Keichs-adler " the imperial 
 eagle. Two statues were on either hand ; the one 
 to the right represented Rudolph of Hapsburg, sit- 
 ting throned and crowned, with the insignia of rule 
 
 o o 
 
 in his hand, his face turned toward the high altar ; 
 the one to the left was Adolph of Nassau a war- 
 rior in complete armor, kneeling with folded palms, 
 the face also turned toward the high altar. It is 
 said that he lost his life in battle because he refused 
 to wear his helmet ; so in the marble figure the 
 head is bared, with countenance full of manly grace. 
 Right and left swept the arms of the transept, be- 
 tween them the gorgeous depth of the chancel, the 
 spaces among the lofty pillars everywhere aflame 
 with the utmost the painter's hand could work, 
 not a panel wtihout its ndoring figure, the wings 
 of angels spread abroad in the vaults of the lofty 
 ceiling. Below, in the crypt, I saw the effigy of 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg, cut six hundred years ago, 
 by an artist who took face and figure from life. 
 
 And now I stood with a congregation of hundreds 
 gathered for the vesper service. Through the flash-
 
 134 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ing arches sounded the music of the organ ; the 
 priest intoned his prayers, and knelt in his rich 
 robes ; from the censers arose the smoke of incense. 
 At one side knelt a company of nuns, their heads 
 bent toward the altar, and their hands folded ; just 
 in front, the figure of Adolph of Nassau, with its 
 folded palms, seemed to be at one with the worship- 
 pers. From the doorway, at length, I cast a part- 
 ing glance backward. The fume of the incense still 
 made dim the vaults of the ceiling ; the IOAV after- 
 noon sun still shone on the halos of the martyrs 
 and the white robes of the virgins ; in the vestibule 
 towered the great figures of the emperors, some 
 mailed and sworded, some crowned and sceptred, 
 the stamp of power on the brow, a fine energy in 
 every limb. So stand the great kaisers of the past 
 in the spot that once knew their forms so well, to 
 which, after their wild battle with the elements of 
 disorder about them, they were borne at last for the 
 final rest. 
 
 In the cathedral at Speyer the student of his- 
 tory asks himself the question whether the men 
 whose figures rise before him, tenfold more im- 
 pressive in the great awakening which his soul has 
 undergone, touched by all the superb surrounding 
 circumstance, whether they really were so great, 
 deserving of such splendid commemoration. Look- 
 ing attentively at the story of their deeds, many of 
 them deserve to be represented to us clothed with 
 majesty, Karl the Great, Henry the Fowler, some 
 of his descendants in the great Saxon line that fol- 
 lowed him, several of the Franconian line, the Hohcn-
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 135 
 
 stauffen, Rudolph of Hapsburg ; among all the rulers 
 whom the earth has seen, there are none more clearly 
 born to command than these. The greatest of them 
 made mistakes ; their rule was often harmful rather 
 than beneficial, but they were men of might. They 
 suffered sometimes from the very excess of energy. 
 Germany, even to our own time, offers an instruc- 
 tive example of the folly of attempting too much. 
 Karl the Great overreached himself in attempting to 
 comprehend within a single empire an extent of 
 country so vast, inhabited by populations so different 
 in speech and character. His successors followed 
 too closely his precedent, and especially brought 
 woe upon their native land, for which they wished 
 and sought the best, by striving for the subjugation 
 of Italy. The manhood and resources of Germany 
 were wasted in struggles with Italian princes or 
 confederated cities. The emperors, to gain support, 
 indispensable in their difficult undertakings, as time 
 went on, increased too much the power of their feu- 
 datories. The land grew weak and waste, because 
 its strength was lavished abroad ; at length those 
 who came to the purple were confronted by vassals 
 nearly or quite as powerful as themselves, toward 
 whom must be used the language of suitor or de- 
 pendent, rather than that of master. The result 
 was, at length, an utter disintegration of the realm. 
 An observer writing in our own time, just before 
 the unifying work of Bismarck had begun to make 
 itself felt, remarks : " The traveller in Central Ger- 
 many is annoyed to find every hour or two, by the 
 change in the soldiers' uniforms and the color of
 
 136 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the stripes on the railway fences, that he has passed 
 out of one and into another of its miniature king- 
 doms. Much more surprised and embarrassed would 
 he have been a century ago, when, instead of the 
 present thirty-seven, there were three hundred petty 
 principalities between the Alps and the Baltic, each 
 with its own laws, its ow r n courts, in which the cere- 
 monious pomp of Versailles was fully reproduced ; 
 its little armies, its separate coinage, its tolls and 
 custom-houses on the frontier, its crowd of meddle- 
 some and pedantic officials, presided over by a prime 
 minister who was generallv the unworthv favorite of 
 
 O ^ +/ 
 
 his prince and the pensioner of some foreign court. 
 This system paralyzed the trade, literature, and po- 
 litical thought of Germany." 1 
 
 The generation now upon the stage will remember 
 that the school-map of Germany studied in their 
 childhood seemed to be afflicted with a disfiguring 
 eruption, to such an extent was it covered with 
 minute, variously-colored spots. This unwholesome- 
 ness was the symptom of one of the worst diseases 
 that can attack the body politic, a trouble for which 
 the English language has no name, but which the 
 Germans call " Particularisms, " " Vielstaaterei," 
 -the disintegration of a people, through weakness 
 in the national spirit, into a multitude of small sec- 
 tions, each sovereign, or nearly so, of the kind de- 
 scribed in the foregoing quotation. No race has 
 suffered so much from " Particularismus" as the 
 Germans. The inroads of the disease were; gradual, 
 
 1 Bryce : The Holy Roman Empire.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE 137 
 
 until at length, at the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, 
 it reached its worst. Several successive maps in the 
 great historical series of Spruner have the appear- 
 ance of pathological charts. The complexion of 
 Karl the Great's vast empire was clear; but soon 
 spots innumerable appear, of all colors and shapes, 
 which, when examined in the fine print which the 
 number and minuteness make necessary, prove to 
 be principalities, bishoprics, countships, abbacies, 
 and what-nots, that have broken out among elector- 
 ates, grand-duchies, circles, what-nots of a larger 
 sort. In each map the unwholesomeness varies, 
 Germany in the time of the strong dynasties the 
 Saxons, the Franconians, the Hohenstauffen being 
 clear, but at last developing a most unsightly tetter. 
 As the days of the Hohenstauft'en draw to a close, 
 in the thirteenth century, a power was developing 
 itself in Germany which, if the emperors had been 
 far-seeing enough to use it, would have secured to 
 them their might, and perhaps averted the dis- 
 integration whose consequences became so sad. It 
 was not at first that the wandering Teutons could 
 bring themselves to forsake their nomad life to be- 
 come dwellers in cities ; but during the tenth cen- 
 tury, what had been originally fortresses or trading 
 and mission stations were enlarging and changing 
 their character. Those who had assembled for 
 temporary protection found it convenient to remain 
 in the shelter ; the people newly Christianized 
 naturally collected about the church ; the merchants, 
 no longer wanderers, became fixed at convenient 
 points. Civilization brought new demands, and in
 
 138 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the spots where population was beginning to centre 
 sprung up the work-shops necessary to satisfy them. 
 The consciousness grew rapidly in the minds of the 
 people that, banded together and fenced in by a 
 substantial wall, they were far safer than in isola- 
 tion ; that there was a richness too in social life, 
 in this way made possible, that the solitary could 
 not enjoy. 
 
 No sooner had the cities begun to gain strength 
 than they showed a spirit of independence which 
 made them hated by the nobles, now sinking toward 
 barbarism. These watched jealously from their rob- 
 ber-castles, which stood on every prominent height, 
 the progress of the sturdy burghers. The emper- 
 ors were often great men, deserving to be remem- 
 bered with reverence, to be commemorated mag- 
 nificently, as in the cathedral at Speyer, but 
 they were not wise enough to see in these cities 
 their proper allies, and by striking hands with them 
 to crush between them the power of the nobles that 
 threatened both. After Rudolph of Ilapsburg, 
 from the end of the thirteenth century, a change 
 for the worse appears in the potentates. Few come 
 to power who are not either weak or bent upon self- 
 ish aggrandizement ; and so the land goes forward 
 into that wretched distraction which, by dissipat- 
 ing, so weakened its strength, the " Vielstaate- 
 rei," which has only just come to an end. 
 
 We must not occupy ourselves with any dis- 
 cussion of the political significance of the cities. 
 They have, however, an important relation to the 
 development of literature, and that we must con-
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 139 
 
 sider. Rudolph of Hapsburg, as he lies m effigy in 
 the crypt of the cathedral of Speyer, has the face 
 and form of a man bora to command, and com- 
 mand he did, but found no leisure, perhaps had no 
 inclination, to follow the precedent of Barbarossa 
 and Friedrich II., in patronizing the singers. The 
 songs in which the degenerating minstrels cursed 
 him are still extant ; one of them is that of the 
 school-master of Esslingen, a line or two of which 
 was given in the preceding chapter. At Rudolph's 
 death the powers of disorder were sadly rife ; and, 
 besides, floods, the Black Death, famine, produced 
 in the w r orld a terrible gloom. The young cities, 
 stoutly walled in, and with burghers as ready 
 and skilful at wielding bow and spear as at the 
 anvil and loom, fenced out, in part, the devour- 
 ing calamity. To them now that the monks and 
 priests were sinking into sloth and ignorance, and 
 the chivalry becoming little better than wolves 
 literature at length turned. The first period of 
 bloom of German poetry comes to an eifd with the 
 thirteenth century. Now at length comes the de- 
 velopment of prose, which always follows that of 
 poetry. It began in the cities ; the first prose was 
 intended for the class of burghers ; with the begin- 
 nings of German prose no place is so closely associ- 
 ated as Strassburg, and in Strassburg the cathedral. 
 Coming from the direction of the Schwarzwald 
 to the ramparts of Kehl, the traveller crosses the 
 Rhine, still flowing cold from its Alpine source, 
 then presently passes through a gate in a bastion of 
 the great fortress. The streets are often narrow,
 
 140 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the houses piled high with steep roofs, showing row 
 on row of quaint dormer windows. The population 
 lives, in good part, under the very ridge-poles ; for 
 the pressure of its armed girdle has forced the city 
 somewhat unnaturally into the air. In the streets 
 it is the German speech that one hears, and the old 
 Alsatian dress that one sees ; while one cannot re- 
 main in the city long without becoming aware of 
 
 / o o 
 
 quaint customs and institutions transmitted from 
 the Alemanni, 1 who in the days of Julian crossed 
 the Rhine and built the city. Through an ave- 
 nue of houses, rather toppling under the weight 
 of upper stories too many and too large, one ap- 
 proaches the cathedral. A telescope almost is 
 necessary to catch fairly the rose on the top of the 
 spire, and a microscope to disentangle the infinite 
 maze of the tracery which is spun before it from 
 pinnacle to pavement. The solidity of wall and 
 buttress is veiled by a drapery of gossamer, in 
 weaving which the chisel assumed the function of 
 the shuttle. 
 
 In the bright light of noon I went into the in- 
 terior. The walls of the cathedral of Speycr fairly 
 Hashed in the cheerful light with their gold and 
 color. The sombre columns of the Strassburg 
 minster, on the other hand, rose upward in a soft- 
 ened light. The windows were full of richly stained 
 glass, placed by the hands of medieval work- 
 men, which dimmed the blaze of the sun, and set 
 before the eye the forms of apostles, martyrs, 
 
 1 Oscar Schwebol : Historisc-ho Bilder aus dem Elsass.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 141 
 
 saints. The great aisles were dusky, and through 
 them sounded the organ, answering the chant of a 
 rich-voiced priest. As in Speyer, the vestments 
 glittered before a decorated altar, and the smoke of 
 the incense ascended among the arches. Climbing 
 
 G O 
 
 up to the great platform, I saw from within, and 
 near at hand, how the stones were placed, what 
 pains the builders had taken. I heard and felt the 
 pulsation of the clock, then the boom and throb of 
 the cathedral bell as it tolled the hour. Far away 
 from the city the eye ranged over the fields of 
 Alsace and the plain of the Rhine, framed in be- 
 tween the Vosges and the^Schwarzwald. Lines of 
 poplars and blossoming fruit-trees marked the high- 
 ways ; embossed upon the plain, lay around the 
 city the long lines of entrenchment, like an intri- 
 cate pattern of chenille embroidery, out from 
 which wandered the stream into meadows overhung 
 by the warm spring vapor. But I love to remem- 
 ber the cathedral best as I saw it from the distant 
 plain in which Turenne was slain, whence, at the 
 distance of a league or two, its towering mass sub- 
 dued the city and the landscape ; and the spire, 
 with the lio-ht showing everywhere through its 
 
 v_. <_^ - t. 
 
 substance, hovered on the horizon like a beautiful 
 ghost. The men that built it have been dead four 
 hundred years, but they survive there by then- 
 genius, which is still concrete, visible, unexorcised. 1 
 No prose has come down to us from any knightly 
 
 1 "Voyez quelle immobilite, quelle dure les mortals peuvent 
 donner a leurs oeuvres, tandis qu 'euxmemes ils passent si rapide- 
 ment et ne se survivent que par le genie ! " Madame de Stael.
 
 142 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 author who lived during the period of bloom in 
 poetry. There is none from any source written in 
 German until we come to the last half of the four- 
 teenth century, when the father of German history 
 appears in Fritsche Closener, a canon of Strassburg 
 cathedral. His work is a chronicle relating mainly 
 to Strassburg, written to be read by the burghers of 
 the city. It is often dry ; sometimes, however, 
 vivid and warm, and always terse and clear. He 
 describes the terrible pestilence of the fourteenth 
 century, the burnings of the Jews in the towns along 
 the Rhine, and, in general, more gloom than joy, 
 reflecting the despondent temper of his time. ' ' Two 
 hundred flagellants," he says, "brethren of the 
 scourge, came in 1349 to Strassburg. They marched 
 into the town two and two abreast, chanting a lam- 
 entation, and carrying banners and lighted candles, 
 while as they came into the town the bells of the 
 cathedral were tolled. When they entered a church, 
 they first all kneeled down and chanted a hymn. 
 Then, extending their arms and making themselves 
 so many likenesses of the cross, they all fell at once, 
 with a loud clapping sound, upon the pavement. 
 Twice a day, early and late, they publicly scourged 
 themselves with knotted cords, and this was their 
 fashion of doing it : The bells of the cathedral were 
 tolled as they marched, two and two abreast, out of 
 the town into the open field. There, having stripped 
 themselves to the waist, they lay down on the grass 
 so as to form a wide circle, and each brother, by 
 his mode of lying down, confessed the chief sin of 
 which he had been guilty. Then they arose, and
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE 143 
 
 while they were singing the brethren went around 
 in a ring, and scourged their naked backs until the 
 blood flowed freely from many of them." 1 Close- 
 ner farther narrates the impression made by the 
 flagellants, stating facts which indicate that society 
 was weighed down by deep depression. 
 
 The work of Closener was continued by Konigs- 
 hoven, also a canon of the cathedral. More inter- 
 esting, however, than the chroniclers are certain 
 noble men whose eloquent words addressed to the 
 people, often, without doubt, from the cathedral 
 pulpit, have in part survived to our day. No in- 
 strument employed by the Church of Rome has 
 stood in worse repute than the order of Saint Dom- 
 inic ; but even when the Dominicans were most 
 active, establishing the Inquisition, and persecuting 
 with most intolerance heretics, some of the noblest 
 men of the time stood within their ranks. In Italy, 
 Savonarola announced political and religious free- 
 dom ; and in Germany the men came from their 
 number who continued the work of Master Eckhardt, 
 the pure and wise spirit who, in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, founded the " Mystics." Eckhardt and his 
 followers took advantage of the unfortunate times 
 to lead, so for as they could, the world back to 
 spiritual things. They held the biblical stories to 
 be symbols within which a finer meaning lurked. 
 They sought union with God, not from an external 
 grace, arbitrarily applied, but from the inner power 
 of man himself. By self-renunciation they sought 
 
 1 Goshvick and Harrison : Outlines of German Literature.
 
 144 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to become at one with the Deity, and in their as- 
 piration were carried away sometimes into extrava- 
 gance. They yearned to sink themselves in the 
 ocean of Divinity, saw things in visions as wonder- 
 ful as John in Patmos, and were sometimes thrown 
 into convulsions. The order which resulted from 
 their teaching was called "The Friends of God;" 
 they sought to lead men to a purer life, without 
 separation from the Church. 
 
 Most interesting among "The Friends of God" 
 was the spiritual hero, Tauler, born at Strassburg, 
 probably in 1290. He wandered from his native 
 city, but returned again, spending there his most 
 fruitful years, and dying in 1361. The order re- 
 garded him as their inspired master. As a preacher 
 he was nobly eloquent : though banned by the 
 Church, and everywhere in danger of his life, he was 
 a light in the world. His followers believed him 
 endowed with miraculous power ; Luther*, two hun- 
 dred years later, studied him ceaselessly ; and even 
 now men of the widest divergence in creed are at- 
 tracted to his words by their beautiful spirit. In 
 his sermons, and also his hymns, which were full of 
 a mystical spirit, Tauler taught that man, resigning 
 his personality, must sink himself in God, to find 
 himself in God again. Yet his manliness kept him 
 from the sentimentalisin which led his followers 
 sometimes into unfortunate extremes. No man of 
 his age did a nobler work ; and it is one of the 
 finest associations of the Strassburg cathedral that it 
 must sometimes have heard his words. But Tauler 
 was not alone. Though the ecclesiastics were, to a
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 145 
 
 large extent, sunk in ignorance and held in coil- 
 tempt, the mendicant orders, full of sympathy for 
 the people, travelled through the land, preaching now 
 in cathedrals, now before chapels in outer pulpits, 
 now on a mountain, now under a green linden in the 
 outskirts of a village. Berthold of Regensburg, the 
 most famous of them, sometimes addressed crowds 
 of many thousands, with a power which his trans- 
 mitted words still preserve. The name of Geiler of 
 Kaisersberg brings us back again to Strassburg. 
 When Tauler had been dead a hundred years, this 
 new preacher appears in the places that had once 
 known the great mystic, to some extent the heir 
 both of his eloquence and worth. He was buried, 
 at length, beneath the pulpit from which he had 
 spoken. 
 
 The class of nobles who, after the decline of the 
 minnesoug, sank below all refined enjoyment now 
 and then furnished a representative who has left 
 some record of himself. Goetz von Berlichingen, 
 close upon the Reformation, in a rude narrative, de- 
 tails artlessly his freebooting adventures as if they 
 were innocent pastime. The name has little inter- 
 est in itself; Gothe. however, making use of the ac- 
 count, constructed, long afterward, his first drama. 
 A worthier type was Ulrich von Hutten, the pre- 
 cursor, and for a time the contemporary, of Luther. 
 Though mainly known for his Latin writings, at 
 length he expressed himself boldly in his mother 
 tongue. His influence was important in the world 
 of action rather than of letters. The Peasants' War 
 might have resulted less disastrously had he lived to
 
 146 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 guide it. It was in its political, more than religious, 
 aspect that he valued the Reformation ; and could 
 his influence have remained, the movement might 
 have become broader and more beneficent. The 
 cause lost, however, not only a strong arm, but an 
 influential pen, when the stout knight too early 
 found his grave in the island of Ufenau, in the lake 
 of Zurich. 
 
 At the other end of the social scale the peasantry 
 in these times first find a voice in the collection of 
 rude jokes attributed to Tyll Eulenspiegel, a char- 
 acter who may have had a real existence. The jests 
 were collected no one can say precisely when or 
 how ; their popularity was immense, and they re- 
 flect perfectly the tastes and manners of the class 
 among which they took their origin. 
 
 From the close of the thirteenth century to the 
 time of Luther, German prose literature is but 
 meagre. As will be presently seen, in poetry also 
 the accomplishment is no more respectable. It 
 must not be supposed that the minds of men had 
 ceased to be active. On a pedestal in a square of 
 the city of Frankfort stand three figures, in mediae- 
 val dress, on the spot where they labored, the men 
 among whom is to be divided the credit of the in- 
 vention, perhaps the most important ever made, 
 Faust, Gutenberg, and Schefl'cr. In Mainz the 
 introduction of printing has a similar commemora- 
 tion ; and Strassburg, again, with as good grounds 
 probably as the rival cities, claims to be the birth- 
 place of the great art, and honors its parentage in 
 superb bronze. In each city the houses are stand-
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 147 
 
 ing which one or all of the men must have entered, 
 which echoed to the rattle of the early printing- 
 presses. "We cannot at all despise an age when the 
 human mind so pressed for utterance that the 
 printing-press was forced into being, and after its 
 coming was kept so busy. In these years the 
 revival of learning beginning in Italy was pass- 
 ing into the north of Europe, and many a patient 
 scholastic was perplexing himself with fine-spun 
 speculations, or disputing in the newly-founded 
 universities upon subtleties ingeniously absurd. 
 Here and there were springing up the universi- 
 ties, as Paris, Heidelberg, Prague, Padua, Sa- 
 lerno. From all countries youths desirous of learn- 
 ing flocked to these ; a common language became a 
 necessity ; hence Latin as the vernacular of the 
 learned world. It was inevitable and sad that in 
 this way the people were shut out from culture. 
 In Germany the scholars and thinkers turned their 
 backs upon the mother tongue, which came to be 
 considered as fit only for vulirar uses. The songs 
 
 / o 
 
 of the Minnesingers, the great chivalric and heroic 
 epics, were forgotten ; the parchments which con- 
 tained them vanished under accumulating dust in 
 the libraries, not to be disentombed until our own 
 day. In the estimation of the scholars, Latin alone 
 was tho language for literature, who reserved Ger- 
 man only for the servant and the beast. Of this 
 mediaeval Latin literature, emanating from German 
 brains, there is enough and to spare. There 
 are many illustrious names ; since, however, they 
 scorned their native speech, he who tells the story
 
 148 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 of German literature can make no account of 
 them. 
 
 The invention of printing has not been an un- 
 mixed benefit to the world ; its effect upon poetry 
 has been to injure it. The det'.th of all true and 
 living poetry, it has been said, 1 must come when it 
 ceases to be recited. Neither Iliad nor Odyssey, 
 neither Nibelungen Lied nor Gudrun, could have 
 come to pass in a time of printers. The perishing 
 of heroic poetry may be said to take place in pro- 
 portion to the spread of the press. A man may be 
 sometimes found who can read silently a score of 
 music, and through power of imagination make so 
 real to himself the tones that he scarcely needs to 
 touch the instrument. Such cases arc, however, 
 rare. Dumb music is an anomaly ; if instrument 
 and voice were silent, the world would know little 
 of melody. It is somewhat similar with poetry. 
 In a silent reading of a poem we make partly real 
 to ourselves, by an effort of the imagination, the 
 harmony which it possesses ; but how much more 
 vivid is the realization if to the rhyme of the poet 
 the beauty of a voice is lent ! In the old day the 
 poem became known only through the chant of the 
 minstrel. AVe receive it now through the eye, the 
 easier, but infinitely poorer, method ; bereft thus of 
 its most important charm, it becomes less dear to 
 the souls of men. 
 
 The only genuine poetry of the times to which 
 we have now come is that of the volks-lied, or ballad, 
 
 1 Vilmar.
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 149 
 
 which sprung up, in the ancient way, among those 
 who could neither read nor write. Of these fine 
 old songs, man} 7 ', through the influence of Herder, 
 Gothe, Biirger, and Uhland, have become known 
 and appreciated. The Boy's Wonder-Horn of 
 Achim von Arnim is a collection of them, in part 
 modernized, but with the primitive aroma not 
 banished. 
 
 The volks-lied, however, comprises but a small 
 part of the verse that was now written. Since the 
 cities had displaced the courts as centres of culture, 
 the poetry, for the most part, was designed to suit 
 the burghers, whose earnest taste sought teaching 
 and admonition, rather than amusement. In par- 
 ticular the satire flourished, since the world was 
 filled with a sense of its unworthiness, a com- 
 punction of conscience due in great part to the 
 calamitous times, which seemed to have been sent 
 for a punishment. As so often in dealing with this 
 period, for the memorable names we go to Strass- 
 burg. Sebastian Brant, town clerk of the city, in 
 the fifteenth century wrote a poem called the " Ship 
 of Fools," in which, a party of fools being repre- 
 sented as setting sail from Strassburg down the 
 Rhine, an opportunity is given for the delineation 
 of various species of folly. To us the poem is most 
 tedious, but its popularity in its time was un- 
 bounded, Geiler of Kaisersberg preaching more 
 than one hundred sermons on texts taken from its 
 lines. Brant was an exemplary teacher and scholar, 
 but his contemporary, Thomas Murner, was a 
 spirit far wilder, and at the same time more inter-
 
 150 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 esting. Born within the shadow of the newly- 
 finished spire, Strassburg nourished him also ; but 
 he became a wandering monk. Traversing Germany 
 as a buffoon-preacher, ragged, rejected from cities 
 that were full of the spirit of the Reformation, of un- 
 flinching courage, or impudence, he lashed at 
 first his fellow-rinonks with vituperation, then flung 
 scorn upon Luther, whom he sharply and insolently 
 scourged as he rose into fame. His best satire 
 the best of the time is called, "Of the Great 
 Lutheran Fool, as Dr. Murner has Exorcised Him." 
 The Heldenbuch of Kaspar von der Roen echoes the 
 songs of a past time, giving them in elaborations 
 of inferior merit. Far better is a new version of 
 Reynard the Fox. 
 
 The beginning of the German drama is shrouded 
 in darkness ; the first name clearly associated with 
 its history is that of Hroswitha, a nun of the 
 abbey of Gandersheim, who, in the tenth cen- 
 tury, adapted Latin plays for performance in the 
 monastery. As the light grows clearer, it is the 
 Church which appears as the especial patron of 
 the drama. The monks partly with the idea of 
 instructing the people, partly to amuse them 
 turned the Bible history, from Genesis to Revela- 
 tion, into miracle-plays, performing them more 
 frequently than not in the cathedrals, upon a tow- 
 ering, three-storied stage, representing Heaven, 
 Earth, and Hell. With the biblical stories were 
 often combined Rabbinical tales, indeed, material 
 from any source. With incongruity which must 
 be regarded as artlessness, and not intentional
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 15 1 
 
 irreverence the sacred and profane are often 
 thrust into the rudest contact. Deity and angels 
 figure side by side with men and brutes, and the 
 devil is the butt of all. Little by little, in the four-, 
 teenth century, a secular drama less profane than 
 the so-called sacred drama takes its rise; Hans 
 Folz, a barber, and Hans Rosenblut, sometimes 
 called the first of the Mastersingers, writing their 
 wild and coarse 1 Shrove Tuesday plays. In con- 
 nection with the secular drama of the period, these 
 remain the best-known names. 
 
 Again, in the universities and schools the students 
 performed sometimes classic works, sometimes plays 
 written by themselves or their teachers. At Worms, 
 I remember, in the Luther memorial, the superb fig- 
 ure of Reuchlin on one of the outer corners. One 
 or two of the statues may be somewhat grander, but 
 no other seemed to me so handsome, as it stood co- 
 lossal on its pillar, the scholar's gown falling from 
 the stately shoulders, and the face so fine there in 
 the bronze , under the abundant hair and cap . Reuch- 
 lin is said to be the proper founder of the Ger- 
 man drama. Before his time there had been, to be 
 sure, miracle-plays, and perhaps things of a differ- 
 ent sort. The German literary historians, however, 
 make it an era when Reuchlin came as professor to 
 Heidelberg, and in 1497 set up a stage, with stu- 
 dents for actors, at the house of Johann, Kammerer 
 von Dalberg. He wrote his plays in Latin. Each 
 act, probably, was prefaced by a synopsis in Ger- 
 
 Fastnacht Spiele.
 
 152 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 man, and soon translations came into vogue, and 
 were performed as well. On that little strip of level 
 which the crags and the Neckar make so narrow, col- 
 lected then, as now, a fair concourse of bounding 
 youth. One can easily fancy how, when the proto- 
 types of the trim Burschen of to-day stepped out in 
 their representation, the applause sounded across to 
 the vineyards about the Heiligenberg and Hirsch- 
 gasse, and how now and then a knight and a dame 
 from the court of the Kurfiirst came down the 
 Schlossberg to see it all. What Rcuchlin began, 
 came by no means to a speedy end. In the Jesuit 
 seminaries in Germany, in Italy too, and elsewhere, 
 as the Reformation came on, I find the boys were 
 acting pla} r s. This feature in the school was held, 
 out as an attraction to win students ; and in Prague 
 the fathers themselves wrote dramas to satirize the 
 Protestants, introducing Luther as the comic figure. 
 But what occurred in the Protestant world was more 
 noteworthy. As the choral singing of the school- 
 boys affected, in an important way, the development 
 of music, so the school-plays had much to do with 
 the development of the drama. Gcrvinus says that 
 for a century or two it was the schools and univer- 
 sities that remained true to a tolerably high standard, 
 while in the world at large all nobler ideals were 
 under eclipse. It was jocund Luther himself who 
 took it under his especial sanction, as he did the 
 fiddle and the dance, in his sweet large-heartedness 
 finding scriptural precedents for it, and encourag- 
 ing the youths who came trooping to Wittenberg to 
 relieve their wrestling with Aristotle and the dreary
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF PROSE. 153 
 
 controversy with an occasional play. Melancthon 
 too gave the practice encouragement, until not only 
 Wittenberg, but the schools of Saxony in general, 
 and Thuringia, whose hills were in sight, surpassed 
 all the countries of Germany in their attention to 
 plays. In Leipsic, Erfurt, and Magdeburg comedies 
 were regularly represented before the school-mas- 
 ters. But it was at the University of Strassburg, 
 even at the time when the unsmiling Calvin was 
 seeking asylum there, that the dramatic life of the 
 German seminaries found a splendid culmination. 
 Yearly in the academic theatre took place a series 
 of representations, by students, of marvellous pomp 
 and elaboration. 
 
 The school and college-plays were of various char- 
 acter. Sometimes they were from Terence, Plautus, 
 or Aristophanes ; sometimes modifications of the 
 ancient mysteries, meant to enforce the evangelical 
 theology ; sometimes comedies full of the contem- 
 porary life. There are several men that have earned 
 mention in the history of German literature by 
 writing plays for students. The representations be- 
 came a principal means for celebrating great occa- 
 sions. If special honor was to be done to a festival, 
 or a princely visit was expected, the market-place, 
 the Rathhaus, or the church was prepared, and it 
 was the professor's or the school-master's duty to 
 direct the boys in their performance of a play. We 
 get glimpses in the chronicles of the circumstances 
 under which the representations took place. The 
 magistrates even the courts lent brilliant dresses. 
 
 o 
 
 One old writer laments that the ignorant people
 
 154 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 have so little sense for arts of this kind. " Often 
 tumult and mocking are heard, for it is the greatest 
 joy to the rabble if the spectators fall down through 
 broken benches." The old three-storied stage of 
 the mysteries was often retained, with Heaven above, 
 Earth in the middle space, and Hell below, where, 
 according to the stage direction of the ' ' Golden 
 Legend," "the devils walked about and made a 
 great noise." Lazarus is described as represented 
 in the sixteenth century, before a hotel, before 
 which sat the rich man carousing, while Abraham, 
 in a parson's coat, looked out of an upper win- 
 dow. This rudeness, however, belongs rather to 
 the " Volks-comodie " than the " Schul-comodie," 
 whose adjuncts were generally far more rational, and 
 sometimes even brilliant, as in the Strassburg rep- 
 resentations. It was only in the seminaries that art 
 was preserved from utter decay. One may trace 
 the Schul-comodie until far doAvn in the eighteenth 
 century, and in the last mention I find of it appears 
 an interesting figure. In 1780, at the military school 
 in Stuttgard, the birthday of the Duke of Wiirtem- 
 berg was celebrated by a performance of Gothe's 
 " Clavigo." The leading part was taken by a youth 
 of twenty-one, with high cheek-bones, a broad, low 
 Greek brow, above straight eye-brows, a prominent 
 nose, and lips nervous with an extraordinary energy. 
 The German narrator suys he played the part 
 " abominably, shrieking, roaring, unmannerly to a 
 laughable degree." It was the young Schiller, wild 
 as a Pythoness upon her tripod, with the "Rob- 
 bers," which became famous in the following year.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TEE MASTERSINGERS. 
 
 Let us turn now to the poetry which, if it is not 
 the best of this period of decline, is at any rate the 
 most characteristic, the work of the Mastersingers. 
 When the race of Minnesingers came to an end, they 
 were not without heirs. Men of knightly station no 
 longer rode from castle to castle prepared to sing, 
 with lute in hand, the praises of ladies. There were, 
 however, wandering minstrels, whose merit had be- 
 come very inferior, and whose repute was of the 
 worst. At tournaments the rough play of arms 
 was sometimes interrupted by songs sung by the 
 heralds or their assistants. 1 At the festivals of the 
 peasants there were poets who, in a similar way, 
 performed a humbler office. 2 At weddings, bap- 
 tisms, and other family festivals in the cities, espe- 
 cially Nuremberg, poets, dressed in white cloaks and 
 decorated with badges of silver, 3 took part in the 
 celebration. At the end of the thirteenth century, 
 among the last of the Minnesingers, lived Heinrich 
 Frauenlob, a poet already mentioned. He has all 
 the faults of a time of decay, an overweening opin- 
 
 1 "Wappendichter. 
 a Pritschenmeister. 
 * Spruchsprecher.
 
 156 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ion of himself, hopelessness with respect to the 
 world, complaint of misappreciation, a fantastic, 
 hair-splitting over-refinement, instead of the simple, 
 unconscious nature of poets like Walther von der 
 Vogel \veide. From some real or fancied praise of 
 \vomen, from which perhaps came his name, he was 
 held by them in high honor. In the old cathedral of 
 Mainz, where his grave is shown, a bas-relief repre- 
 sents the poet's coffin borne on the shoulders of 
 women. Tradition says he was really so buried, and 
 libations of wine so liberally poured out that the 
 church swam with it. Nothing that Frauenlob has 
 left justifies such especial observances in his honor. 
 He it was who, by establishing some sort of a school 
 in which men of the higher class were taught the 
 rules of singing and poetry, is said to stand at the 
 transition point where the class of noble minstrels 
 pass over into the Mastersingcrs, although certain 
 unauthenticatcd statements give an earlier date. 
 
 The disposition to write and sing developed into a 
 strange passion among the handicraftsmen of the 
 towns, spreading from city to city until there was 
 scarcely one not affected by it ; in Southern Ger- 
 many its manifestations were especially numerous 
 and grotesque. Although the poetry of the Minne- 
 singers shades into that of the Mastersingcrs by im- 
 perceptible gradations, some points of contrast may 
 be noticed : the former was cultivated by the nobles, 
 and became a profession ; the latter by burghers and 
 their workmen, and was only a curious form of 
 amusement ; in the minnelicdcr the greatest free- 
 dom prevailed as to subject and form ; the Master-
 
 THE MASTERSINGERS. 157 
 
 singers, however, worked according to very definite 
 laws. In each school these laws were carefully writ- 
 ten down ; although there was rarely formal con- 
 nection between the Mastersingers of different cities, 
 the rules in each case varied but little ; the singers 
 went from city to city, engaging in contests without 
 suffering embarrassment. The collection of laws 
 was called the " Tabulatur." Three " Merker," or 
 umpires, were presidents in each school, who at fes- 
 tivals sat upon a stage, with a Bible close at hand. 
 The churches were the most frequent places of as- 
 sembling ; sometimes the festival took place in the 
 town hall, sometimes in the open air. In Wagner's 
 opera of the " Mastersingers," in which the old life 
 is closely reproduced, the Mastersingers are repre- 
 sented as marching in procession into the church of 
 Saint Katherine, in Nuremberg, where a contest 
 takes place in which the victor is to receive the hand 
 of the beautiful daughter of a goldsmith. Again, a 
 festival takes place in a broad meadow in the out- 
 skirts of the city, the minstrels and the trade-guilds 
 entering to a glorious march. The shoemakers sing 
 a song in honor of Saint Crispin, who stole leather 
 from the rich to make shoes for the poor ; the tailors 
 celebrate a hero of their trade who, during a siege, 
 sewing himself up in goat-skins, performed such 
 antics on the city walls that the frightened enemy 
 withdrew. At length the handsome hero of the 
 piece sings his way to victory, and maid and lover 
 are happily united. 1 
 
 1 The Nation.
 
 158 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The Mastersingcrs cared little or nothing for the 
 inner import of their songs, giving an absurd atten- 
 tion to the outward form. In the schools there 
 were various grades, as in freemasonry. Those 
 who were successful had the privilege of decking 
 themselves magnificently in the paraphernalia of the 
 order. A silver chain, with a badge representing 
 King David, adorned the neck ; wreaths of silk 
 were placed upon the head. In the richer cities 
 the decorations were splendid, and to have gained 
 them was the greatest of honors, not alone to the 
 individual, but to his family and guild ; the officials 
 of the order nodded approval, and the throng of 
 burghers and their wives present gave the heartiest 
 applause. Some of the names of favorite airs that 
 have come down to us are very fantastic : l "The 
 Striped-saffron Flower-tune of Hans Findeisen," 
 " The English Tin-tune of Caspar Enderles," " The 
 Blood-gleaming Wire-tune of Jobst Zolner," "The 
 Many-colored Coat-tune of F. Fromer." The taste 
 is grotesque enough, yet it possessed the world 
 wonderfully. The shoemaker would leave his awl 
 and waxed-end, the tailor hang up his shears, the 
 blacksmith forsake hammer and anvil, all listen- 
 ing to, or taking part in, the curious stupidity- 
 Developing in obscure ways, the mastcrsinging was 
 at the height of its popularity in the century of the 
 Reformation ; from that time it declined, lingering, 
 
 1 Die gestreift-Safran-Blihnleinweis Hans Findeisens, die Eng- 
 lische-Zinnweis Kaspars Eiulcrli-;. die blut-gliinzeude Drathwei^ 
 Jobst Zoluers, die Vielfarb-Rockweis F.
 
 TEE MASTERSINGERS. 159 
 
 however, into our own age. As late as 1770 a fes- 
 tival was held at Nuremberg ; at Ulm, as late as 
 1838, four old masters were still living. These re- 
 signed, in that year, their tabulatur and parapher- 
 nalia to the Licder-Kranz, and announced that the 
 long succession of Mastersingers had come to an 
 end. 
 
 The Mastersingers did much good, though not in 
 ways that they intended. It is to be noticed that 
 precisely those cities in which they most flourished 
 were the cities which most zealously accepted the 
 Reformation. We may be sure it was not a chance 
 coincidence. The mastersmging indicated a certain 
 intellectual activity. The Bible, moreover, was 
 always close by the umpires when they were dis- 
 charging- their office ; every member of a master- 
 
 ~ O ^ 
 
 singing guild must have a reputation for honesty 
 and piety, and to this was due in part the superior 
 morality which distinguished the citizen from the 
 noble. The number of names of individuals is 
 very small which even .the elaborate accounts have 
 thought it worth while to preserve from among the 
 crowd of Mastersingers. Of these I need to con- 
 sider only one, and that one rather for what he 
 did outside of mastersinging than for the work in 
 which he conformed to the Tabulatur. He seems 
 indeed to have felt himself its triviality, and based 
 his title to fame on other foundations. 
 
 Of the cities honorably prominent, in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, as seats of blooming trade, 
 and strong and brilliant life of every kind, no one 
 equals Nuremberg. It stood, full of thrift and cul-
 
 160 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 / 
 
 ture, with an admirable constitution. It produced 
 and retained within its bounds many men of great 
 energy and genius, and knew also how to attract 
 ability from abroad, an art which republics have 
 seldom understood. It was great in commerce and 
 manufactures, in inventions, science, and art. It 
 was the centre and high-school of the mastersong, 
 for more than one hundred years the main cradle 
 of the German drama. It included within its walls 
 such numbers of distinguished men that not only 
 could no German city compare with it, but many 
 countries of large extent were surpassed, and the 
 great Italian cities were only doubtfully superior. 1 
 Hans Sachs was born in 1494, the son of a tailor 
 in Nuremberg. From his seventh to his fifteenth 
 year he was a pupil in a Latin school ; at seventeen, 
 as an apprentice, he began his wandering, visiting 
 with interest the mastersinging festivals wherever 
 they occurred, and writing at Munich his first poems. 
 As life went forward he developed into a thrifty 
 citizen, becoming the father of seven children, all of 
 whom he survived. With all his business activity, 
 he studied diligently, and, with astonishing fecun- 
 dity, wrote six thousand and forty-eight separate 
 pieces, forming thirty-four solid folio volumes of 
 manuscript. 2 His authority in his time was very 
 great, and used without fear or favor in behalf of 
 the Reformation, which was in full progress as he 
 came forward into manhood. He had great knowl- 
 
 1 Gervinus. 
 1 Koberstein.
 
 THE MASTERSIXGERS. 161 
 
 edge of the world, and was familiar, besides, with all 
 the literature of his time, so far as it had been in- 
 trusted to books. He was well read in history and 
 mythology, knew the Teutonic and Celtic legends, 
 and frequently refers to the Italian writers, who, 
 just before, had made their country famous. His 
 poems are upon all possible subjects, and of the 
 most various kinds, the drama, the lyric, the 
 satire, receiving from him especial favor. His best 
 works are those in which he represents the burgher 
 life, in the midst of which he lived. His master- 
 songs are no better than those of his contempora- 
 ries, a worthlessness of which he seems himself 
 to have been conscious, for although they com- 
 prised by far the larger number of the pieces that 
 he wrote, from the collection of his poems which 
 he himself prepared they were excluded. His ear- 
 nest pieces have less interest than those of a whim- 
 sical, comical character. 
 
 Hans Sachs gradually sank in the estimation of 
 the world until he was held in utter contempt. 
 Gothe and Wieland, however, brought him again 
 into favor, and he is now highly esteemed as one of 
 the bravest and worthiest of the figures that stood 
 by the side of Luther. He leads us into the midst 
 of soldiers, peasants, tradesmen, knights, gypsies, 
 priests, and scholars ; he points out their follies ; 
 we hear his voice, meanwhile, admonishing them to 
 temperance and morality. Although reproving, he 
 has a hearty enjoyment of life, takes the world's 
 merry tricks in good part, and when the crowd is at 
 cross-purposes, with cheerfulness and prudence tries
 
 162 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to reconcile them. His pieces are often tediously 
 prolix, and of weak wit, but all the honorable char- 
 acteristics of the German middle class the sturdy 
 mechanic virtues, public spirit, honesty, common 
 sense, doughty moral worth of every kind speak 
 out of every tone and thought. 1 In the pieces now 
 to be quoted there is a touch of irreverence, judg- 
 ing by our standards. To omit it, however, would 
 be dispensing with something most characteristic of 
 the man and the time. It is what we see in the 
 miracle-plays, and is to be considered as the naivete 
 of child-like souls, rather than as intentional disre- 
 spect toward what should be held sacred. 
 
 THE TAILOR AND THE FLAG. 2 
 
 There was once a tailor in Strassburg who was a 
 famous workman. He saw, one night, the devil, 
 holding in his hand a flag thirty yards long, made 
 out of the patches, of all materials and colors, which 
 the tailor had stolen from the cloth of his customers. 
 The frightened man cried out, tore his hair, and 
 turned to the wall ; the devil vanished, and the 
 tailor was restored to himself by being sprinkled 
 with holy water. Soon the sick man could sit up 
 in bed ; he told the attendants the story, and begged 
 them, whenever he cut a garment thereafter, to re- 
 mind him of the devil and the ilag. The tailor 
 recovered ; his attendants reminded him faithfully 
 of the vision, which he bore thankfully for about a 
 
 1 Gcrvinus. 
 
 5 Bibliothek der doutsehen Klassiker.
 
 THE MASTERSINGERS. 163 
 
 month ; but one day he was cutting a garment for :j 
 lady from a rich fabric. The admonition was given, 
 but the tailor replied that he did not remember to 
 have seen that particular color in the devil's flag, 
 and appropriated a piece. At length the tailor died, 
 and came before the door of Heaven. Saint Peter 
 asks who and what he is, and, upon his reply, re- 
 marks that for many years no tailor has come to 
 Heaven, and hesitates about admitting him. The 
 tailor pleads that he is very cold. " Let me come 
 in and warm myself. I'll only sit behind the stove 
 an hour or two, and then go." The pitying saint at 
 length admits him, and the tailor curls down behind 
 the stove. Word comes, meanwhile, that a pious 
 old priest is going to die. At once the Lord, with 
 all the heavenly host, hastily sweeps down to the 
 earth to conduct worthily to Heaven the soul of 
 the good pastor of Vilzhoven. The tailor takes the 
 opportunity to creep out and view the place. When 
 he comes to the throne of the Lord, he audaciously 
 seats himself upon it, and enjoys the fine view, 
 observing what is happening among all nations. At 
 length he sees a poor woman hanging out on a 
 hedge the clothes of herself and children, which 
 she has just washed. As she goes away a rich 
 woman steals a handkerchief from the hedge and 
 goes off with it, at which dishonesty the tailor is so 
 incensed that he takes in both hands the Lord's 
 footstool, throws it at the woman, and cripples her 
 so that she is hump-backed all her life after. Now 
 the host of Heaven is heard returning, whereupon 
 the tailor creeps again behind the stove. As the
 
 164 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Lord resumes His seat He misses His footstool, and 
 enquires of Saint Peter what can have become of it. 
 Peter charges the tailor with the theft, who is forth- 
 with hunted out and placed on trial. The trembling 
 culprit tries to excuse himself by telling the story 
 of the theft of the handkerchief. "O tailor, 
 tailor!" cries the Lord, "if, while you lived, I 
 had thrown my footstool at you every time you 
 stole anything, do you think there would have been 
 a tile left in your house? " 
 
 Hans Sachs, in several pieces, touches upon the 
 vices of the soldiery. The devil, he says, once 
 heard about the landsknechts and sent out Beelze- 
 bub to bring him in a pair, promising to make a 
 prince of him if he succeeded. Beelzebub goes to a 
 tavern, at which a partly of landsknechts are revel- 
 ling, and hides behind a stove, watching his chance. 
 He is so terrified at their conduct and language that 
 lie escapes, much frightened, out of the chimney, 
 and goes home in great haste. To the devil's query 
 if he has brought any soldiers back with him, he 
 answers that, so far from doing so, he has barely 
 been able to return himself; that they are wilder 
 than the demons themselves, " and if they were 
 among us, Hell would soon be too narrow." "If 
 that is true," says the devil, " we will never meddle 
 with them any more." 
 
 Another characteristic piece of Hans Sachs is the 
 story of Saint Peter and the goat. Saint Peter was 
 
 / o 
 
 perplexed with the prevalence of injustice in the 
 world, and thought he could make affairs better if 
 he were permitted to manage them. He frankly
 
 THE MASTERSINGER&. 165 
 
 confesses his idea to the Lord. Meanwhile a peasant 
 girl appears, complaining that she must do a hard 
 day's work, and at the same time keep in order a 
 frolicsome young goat. " Now," said the Lord to 
 Peter, "you must have pity on this girl, and take 
 care of her goat. That will serve as an introduction 
 for yon to the management of the universe." Peter 
 undertakes the goat, and finds quite enough to dp. 
 
 The young goat had a playful mind, 
 And never liked to be confined ; 
 The apostle, at a killing pace, 
 Followed the goat in desperate chase; 
 Over the hills and among the briars 
 The goat runs on, and never tires, 
 While Peter, behind, on the grassy plain, 
 Runs on, panting and sighing in vain. 
 All day, beneath the scorching sun, 
 The good apostle had to run, 
 Till evening came ; the goat was caught, 
 And safely to the Master brought. 
 Then, with a smile, to Peter said 
 The Lord : " Well, friend, how have you spedT 
 If such a task your powers has tried, 
 How could you keep the world so wide?" 
 Then Peter, with his toil distressed, 
 His folly with a sigh confessed. 
 "No, Master, 'tis for me no play 
 To rule one goat for one short day ; 
 It must be infinitely worse 
 To regulate the universe." * 
 
 In a piece written in 1522, called " The Witten- 
 berg Nightingale, which is now heard everywhere," 
 Hans Sachs signifies his adhesion to the cause of 
 the Reformation. A herd, blinded by false light, has 
 
 1 Translation of Gostwick and Harrison.
 
 166 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 wandered from its shepherd into a desert, where it 
 falls among wild beasts. Many sheep are torn by 
 them, especially by the lion, a type of Leo X. ; 
 the flock despairs of life, when suddenly a charm- 
 ing nightingale (Luther) raises her voice, guiding 
 those who follow her to a beautiful flowery meadow, 
 where the sun shines clear and the springs flow. 
 The lion seeks in vain to kill the nightingale ; other 
 beasts raise loud cries to drown her song, but in 
 vain. None of the beasts that tread the pasture 
 suffer themselves to be misled into the desert. A 
 long explanation follows of the doctrines and observ- 
 ances of the Church which were especially opposed 
 by Luther. The whole ends with a summons to 
 forsake the pope and return to Christ, the good 
 shepherd. 
 
 Close upon midnight, on a night at the end of 
 May, the train left me before the Frauenthor of 
 Nuremberg ; and going forward in the light of 
 the full moon, the noise of the locomotive gradu- 
 ally growing fainter, I seemed to leave the nine- 
 teenth century, and go back in time four hundred 
 years. Glorified in the radiance, there rose the 
 picturesque outline of the walls which have come 
 down untouched from the Middle Ages, from the 
 hand of Albrecht Diirer ; now a battlcmented pro- 
 jection, from which one might expect the chal- 
 lenge of a cross-bowman ; now a massive round 
 tower ; now a sharp, gilded pinnacle. Crossing the 
 deep moat, I passed through the heavy archway, and 
 was on the pavement of the quaint street, chan- 
 nelled bv tides of human life for so manv, many
 
 THE MASTERSINGERS. 167 
 
 years. It was long before I could give up the 
 scene. The city was perfectly still, except that in 
 open places, now and then, where there were trees, 
 the deep, sweet, intermittent note of the nightin- 
 gales filled the air with music. The spires of the 
 ancient churches rose high above the cavernous, 
 grotesquely-carved portals ; in the worn and mossy 
 basins of the old fountains the water plashed softly, 
 flowing from curious devices, now from the breasts 
 of women, now from the twisted necks of geese, 
 held under the arms of a comical figure. In the 
 streets were rows of those famous homes of the 
 men long gone, which our elegant cities now please 
 themselves with reproducing , high-pointed gables 
 and buttressed walls, the heavy, twisted brackets 
 holding up the projecting stories, the surfaces 
 broken with massive beams and variegated tiles, 
 and surmounted by water-spouts, now in the form 
 of a cherub's face, now contorted into the shape of 
 a demon or a monster, according to the caprice of 
 the builder. 
 
 I spent the night at the ancient hostlcry of " The 
 Lamb," in a low guest-chamber, lit by diminutive 
 panes, whose wainscoting was ornamented with the 
 portraits of three full-bearded carousers, plumed 
 and in doublets, who slept in the same room when 
 Charles V. was emperor. The streets next da} 7 , 
 under the glare of the sun, and filled with a modern 
 generation, wore hardly so interesting as in solitude, 
 and lit by the glamour of the moon at midnight ; 
 but when I went into the churches of Saint Law- 
 rence and Saint Sebald, the sunbeams falling dustily
 
 168 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 through the colored windows upon the rich carvings 
 of pulpit and pillar, the illusion returned. The fine 
 associations of the churches are a thousand, and 
 none are finer than those with the stout artisans of 
 Nuremberg, who gave the city its ancient fame. 
 These temples they wrought out, these they fre- 
 quented, here they have left their portraits, and 
 here often they lie buried. On the screen of the 
 wonderful shrine in Saint Sebald's stands the stal- 
 wart figure of Peter Vischer, who made it, his black- 
 smith's apron before his rotund stomach, his work- 
 man's cap above his manly, full-bearded face. In 
 the church of Saint Lawrence, Adam KrafFt and his 
 journeymen, crouched down upon the pavement, 
 hold up on broad shoulders their handiwork, the 
 beautiful pyx, whose curling summit, graceful as a 
 lily stem, bends to avoid contact with the arch above. 
 Here they wrought, here they worshipped ; most in- 
 teresting and significant of all, here they came in 
 their guilds, from forge and shoe-shop, from rope- 
 walk and carpenter's bench, and contended labori- 
 ously in song and poem. From those doors went 
 out the Mastersingers, with anxious faces, to contests 
 in neighboring cities, at Bamberg, at Ulm, or at 
 Hof. Here they were received when, with leather 
 apron laid aside, the honest breast heaved proudly 
 beneath a gold or silver chain, the prize gained 
 somewhere by labored rlryming. 
 
 I dreamed awhile in the churches, then going once 
 more into the street, stood presently before the 
 house where lived the greatest of the Mastersingers, 
 Hans Sachs, the cobbler. It is a substantial struct-
 
 THE MASTERSINGERS. 169 
 
 lire with a tablet let into the front inscribed with 
 his name, so near to the market-place that the 
 burghers may have heard him thence, whether he 
 were hammering away at a ditty or a tough strip 
 of sole-leather. The house corroborates the testi- 
 mony of the chronicles that he worked his way to 
 a substantial position. Far beyond the walls of 
 Nuremberg he made himself known, doing his part, 
 meantime, toward keeping his generation well shod. 
 
 As I think of a figure which will best describe Hans 
 Sachs, I am reminded of what I once heard from a 
 farmer of the Connecticut Valley. "The land on 
 which tobacco does best," he said, " is not that 
 which is richest, but a certain rather poor, sandy 
 soil, which has little strength in itself. It has great 
 power, however, of absorbing the fertilizers thrown 
 upon it, which in turn it pours, without retention, 
 into the coarse, leathery leaves, spreading until they 
 cover the meadow." The mind of Hans Sachs was 
 such a soil. Receptive to a wonderful degree, from 
 travel and observation at home, he absorbed the con- 
 temporary world ; he gathered much too from the 
 past. All this he threw into the unrefined, volu- 
 minous product which was harvested at last into the 
 thirty-four great folios. It is not quite sightly, 
 not at all adapted to the sensitive and delicate ; but 
 a whiff of him now even is not unwholesome, or 
 without enjoyment, in an atmosphere charged with 
 moral malaria, and we can understand well that in 
 its day and place it may have had power to brace 
 the soul in important ways. 
 
 Whoever visits the museum at Berlin will linger
 
 170 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 long upon the staircase in the centre, to see the great 
 wall-paintings, in which Kaulbach represents the 
 leading epochs of history. It is the last picture of 
 the scries, which is usually thought the finest, and is 
 most familiar, The Era of the Reformation. In an 
 immense hall are grouped the figures that wrought 
 the modern world, poets and philosophers, artists 
 and reformers, discoverers and scholars. Columbus 
 towers here, his brow heavy with his great thought ; 
 here Kepler and Copernicus demonstrate the theories 
 that have reconstructed for us the heavens. The 
 great Italians whose names are connected with the 
 revival of learning are busy in ways that symbolize 
 their noble activity, while close at hand is the face 
 of Shakespeare, shadowed by mighty imaginations. 
 The imperious Elizabeth stands in a posture of com- 
 mand ; the bold Gustavus makes a soldierly gesture ; 
 Erasmus and "Reuchlin proceed with dignified pace in 
 scholars' gowns, while Alltrecht Diirer spreads upon 
 the wall a magnificent decoration. Prince and states- 
 man, warrior and sage, bard and preacher, the 
 painter has thrown them upon the canvas by the 
 score, all names of note for worthy striving in 
 that so memorable crisis. Directly in front, in a 
 place of prominence, whom do we find but homely 
 Hans Sachs ! He sits crouched upon the pavement, 
 in such homelv attire as he wore in the Nuremberg 
 streets, with a thoughtful head bending forward in 
 deep absorption, as if he had turned aside a moment 
 from his leather to frame a song. An honest heart 
 and plain good sense have lifted the cobbler thus 
 into the company of the great of the era of the Rcf-
 
 THE MASTERSINGERS. 171 
 
 ormation. And who is it, in the centre of the pict- 
 ure, that stands as the focus of the whole? A 
 plainly-robed monk, of vigorous frame and power- 
 ful countenance, bearing the impress of unshrinking 
 boldness. He holds on high, that the whole world 
 may see it, the open Bible. Now across the scene 
 is thrown for us the Titanic shadow of Luther.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 
 
 With regard to many a famous historical character, 
 the judgment of the world in our time has been re- 
 versed. Names that have been revered have come 
 to be treated with contumely ; names that have been 
 contemned have come to be treated with respect. 
 Scholars have satisfied themselves that Tiberius 
 Cfesar and Nero have not received justice. Though 
 we may not entirely trust Mr. Froudc, no candid 
 reader will hereafter feel disposed to set aside Henry 
 VIII. as simply brutal and cruel ; on the other hand, 
 we cannot hold Archbishop Cranmer to have been 
 simply a great benefactor. Hepworth Dixon shows 
 plainly that the character of Bacon has been much 
 maligned. With regard to Luther, there lias been 
 a twofold judgment : the Catholic world holding 
 him to have been Anti-christ, little better than 
 Satan himself: the Protestant world considering him 
 
 O 
 
 the greatest name in the Church since the days of 
 the apostles. Of both judgments there has been 
 to some extent a reversal, lor Catholic writers of 
 our century can be cited who pay to the memory of 
 Luther noble tributes ; l and, on the other hand, no 
 
 1 Friedrich Schlcgel, Dollinger, Von Eichendorff.
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 173 
 
 less a man than Gothe thought that he had been 
 much over-estimated, and had done in the world 
 really more harm than good. Gothe considered Eras- 
 mus to have been a wiser spirit. Erasmus had, 
 when the Reformation began, a large following ; for 
 there were many men within the pale of the ancient 
 Church who were prepared to support his plans. 
 Terrified by Luther's icouoclasm, they went back 
 into positions which they never would have taken 
 but for their fear before the extremist. The igno- 
 rant mass were perplexed with subtleties of philoso- 
 phy and theology which led them into trouble with- 
 out helping them ; old superstitions were exchanged 
 for new ideas which were full of superstitions 
 scarcely less harmful ; the most terrible war of 
 modern times came at length, lasting thirty years ; 
 and even now, at the distance of more than three 
 hundred years, there is the bitterness of death be- 
 tween the two parties, which perhaps, with dif- 
 ferent management, would never have been sun- 
 dered. 1 
 
 It is right, among the jarring opinions, to say this : 
 In eras of change, among reformers two classes of 
 men present themselves. One class dreads a con- 
 vulsion, believes in employing methods which will 
 secure the end gradually ; thinks that a little tem- 
 porizing is better than bloodshed ; that the minds 
 of men should be quietly softened toward the good, 
 and the world not startled bv sudden conversion. 
 
 1 Froude: Short Studies on Great Subjects Luther and Eras- 
 mus. Crabb Robinson's Diary.
 
 174 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The other class will brook no delay ; to temporize 
 belongs to the devil ; for true men there is nothing 
 possible but to seize the absolute good, through 
 whatever suffering and destruction. In the struggle 
 which Americans have so lately lived through, among 
 those anxious to bring to pass a better world tb,ese 
 classes have been very plain. On one side have 
 been a multitude of conscientious persons who saw 
 evil and were stubborn in their resolution to destroy 
 it, but who believed it might be accomplished by 
 means gentler, if slower, than warfare. On the 
 other side were the Garrisons and John Browns, who 
 believed that the Union, as it stood, was a " cov- 
 enant with death and an agreement with hell," not 
 to be tolerated for a moment. If we ascend to the 
 times of the French revolution, something similar 
 may be seen in the parties whose types were, on the 
 one side, the moderate Lafayette, and on the other, 
 Robespierre and Saint Just. In the English revolu- 
 tion, again, we behold conservative patriots, open- 
 eyed before the evils, but who believe they can 
 remedy them without an utter overturn, types of 
 whom are Clarendon and the noble Falkland ; op- 
 posed to whom stands the stubborn figure of Crom- 
 well, who will hear of no compromise. A century 
 earlier, in the convulsion with which we have to do 
 at present, the genial Erasmus is the type of the 
 moderate men who believed in the possibility of a 
 gradual betterment ; Luther, of those who will hear 
 nothing of politic handling, striking at the founda- 
 tions of the old order, reckless of cost to the world. 
 I do not accept the view that Luther must be
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 175 
 
 reckoned among the harmful men of history ; nor 
 the other view, that his work was only beneficent. 
 Whatever our judgment may be as to what he actu- 
 ally accomplished, it seems to me that the man him- 
 self must always tower conspicuous among the 
 heroes of human history, superb in grand purpose 
 and self-neglecting boldness. I shall try to touch 
 all points impartially, and feel that I am in a posi- 
 tion to do so, from the fact that, much as I revere 
 the man, to my mind there is scarcely less super- 
 stition in the system he sought to establish than in 
 the system he sought to overthrow. It is the effect 
 of Luther upon German literature that we have to 
 consider. We cannot, however, separate Luther 
 the writer from Luther the man of action, and I 
 must briefly outline his career and historical position. 
 
 Never had the papal power appeared to its up- 
 holders to be more secure than at the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. Throughout Europe the 
 pontiff beheld at his feet a reverent and submissive 
 company of nations ; or, if there were discontent, 
 the Church seemed able to quell it by the simple 
 lifting of her arm. We who live so long after the 
 period, having access to ample pages of history, 
 can see plainly enough, in the apparent peace and 
 security, signs of an inevitable change. The change 
 had been long preparing ; indeed, from the very 
 origin of the papacy one may trace the existence 
 of Protestant tendencies. The Church had always 
 succeeded in suppressing them, but strength had 
 been spent in the effort, and she had become more
 
 176 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 infirm than she knew. From the day when the 
 papal poAver, protected by the sword of the grate- 
 ful Pepin, had been fairly established in its suprem- 
 acy, down through its whole history, is to be 
 traced a parallel line of protest and dissent. In 
 some countries the spirit of discontent had been 
 more rife than in others. In England and Northern 
 Europe, in Switzerland and parts of Bohemia, it 
 was especially prevalent. Claude of Turin, Peter 
 of Bruis, Arnold of Brescia, the Mystics, of whom 
 Tauler is the representative, the Vaudois peasants, 
 Savonarola, Wicklifte, Huss, the line of bold 
 men is uninterrupted whose voices had so often 
 been smothered in dungeons or silenced by torture 
 and fire. Since the burning of Huss there had 
 been a wide-spread sowing of the seed of martyr- 
 blood, whose fruit was to be the Reformed Church. 
 Denouncing voices grew more numerous. The 
 IOAV murmur, resounding from the ninth century, 
 never dying into silence, now sinking faint for a 
 time, then swelling louder as age followed age, 
 coming now from Albigensian valleys, now from 
 a Piedmont mountain, from the shore of a Swiss 
 lake, or an English cloister, rose at last into a fierce 
 outcry. 
 
 To the city of Wittenberg, in Saxony, in 1517, 
 came the Dominican, Tetzcl, to sell indulgences. 
 What precisely they were, and whether the traffic 
 was or was not justifiable, will not be considered 
 here. The wrath of one man, at any rate, was 
 aroused ; for a paper couched in indignant language 
 was one day found nailed to the door of the church,
 
 LUTHER Itf LITERATURE. Ill 
 
 in which Tetzel and his errand were denounced. 
 
 " Who is he?" said the Dominican. " Who is he?" 
 
 * 
 
 said all Germany presently, for the paper went far 
 and wide. "Brother Martin Luther, Augustinian 
 monk, professor in the university, now a man in his 
 prime." The people of Wittenberg all knew him 
 as the popular city preacher ; the faculty of his uni- 
 versity all knew him as a good-natured, but over- 
 arrogant, spirit who had dared to blaspheme the great 
 gods of the schoolmen, Aristotle and Thomas 
 Aquinas. There Avas little more to say, except that 
 his father was a miner out of the Thuringian woods, 
 and that he himself was born at Eisleben, in Saxony. 
 The friars laughed ; the rich bishops wondered at 
 the monk's impertinence ; Leo X., out of his purple, 
 passed an elegant sarcasm on Brother Martin's fine 
 parts ; Erasmus and the bolder scholars looked with 
 eagerness to see what this unexpected recruit to 
 their ranks would do next ; Friedrich, elector of 
 Saxony, cautiously rejoicing, sought to palliate to 
 the pope the offence of his subject ; but Maximilian, 
 the emperor, wrote a letter of alarm. Leo had 
 thought to dismiss the matter with a joke, but 
 when great princes were so concerned, he saw that 
 more was necessary. Legates were sent to bend 
 him, but Brother Martin remained inflexible, under 
 the protection of the elector. 
 
 At length came a famous disputation at Leipsic 
 between professors from Wittenberg and IngoLstadt. 
 In the splendid ducal hall were assembled many mag- 
 nates of the electorate, both ecclesiastical and lay. 
 Little interest was felt until a thin young man, of
 
 178 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 middle size, ascended the steps of the platform. His 
 self-possession was unruffled ; he carried a bouquet 
 in his hand ; his voice was melodious and clear ; 
 the Bible was at his tongue's end ; his face showed 
 the marks of intense miMit-.il conflicts. At the end 
 of the dispute Luther stood still further committed 
 in opposition to the Church. All Germany was 
 talking about him now ; he stood in the attitude of 
 IIuss and Jerome, and events bade fair to bring 
 about for him a similar fate. But he was not alone. 
 A powerful prince of the empire threw about him 
 the strength of his whole domain ; the scattered 
 forces of rebellion throughout Europe recognized a 
 new leader, and began to concentrate about him. 
 Then Leo hurled his last and most terrible weapon, 
 before which heretofore kings had gone down, 
 broken in power and spirit, excommunication. 
 
 One December day, by the Elstcr gate of Witten- 
 berg, preparations, as men saw, had been made for 
 a bonfire. Faggots lay about in the sno\v, and 
 presently from the city came the sound of tramping 
 feet. The university professors and students 
 appeared through the gate ; a tire was kindled, and 
 Luther, who marched in front, with contemptuous 
 gestures threw into the flames the canon law, some 
 writings of the school-men, and unheard of bold- 
 ness the papal bull of anthema ! Then turning on 
 his heel, fearless and defiant, he reentered the city. 
 The attention of the world now centred upon him 
 more strongly than ever. A rebellious spirit was 
 everywhere abroad, breaking out in the most unex- 
 pected quarters; and the new emperor, Charles V.,
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 179 
 
 felt called upon to give the matter his most serious 
 attention. 
 
 In 1521 a diet of the empire was convened at 
 Worms, and Luther was summoned to be present. 
 An imperial safe-conduct was granted ; but if it 
 should be violated, there were well-remembered prec- 
 edents to which the powers might appeal. His 
 friends besought him to remain in safety under the 
 protection of his powerful supporter. His enemies 
 sought to terrify him from appearing, by threats. 
 But Luther's sagacity enforced his courage. He 
 knew mankind ; he knew the ardent hero-worship 
 that follows a fearless, self-reliant course. " If the 
 devils at Worms are as thick as the tiles on the 
 house-tops," he said, characteristically, " at Worms 
 I will still appear." The people, as he passed on, 
 flocked in awe to see him. He entered Worms in a 
 great procession, shouting, as is said, a defiant 
 hymn. Before the assembly he stood unembar- 
 rassed, one poor monk in his sober robe. The sun 
 pouring through the windows found only one dull 
 spot in the hall, the rough, brown frock of Luther. 
 Elsewhere it shone on the scarlet of cardinals, mul- 
 tiplied itself a hundredfold on princely diadems, on 
 chains and sword-hilts, on the armor of knights, on 
 the emblems of mighty power. "Unless," said 
 he, " my errors can be demonstrated from texts of 
 scripture, I will not and can not recant ; for it is 
 not safe for a man to go against his conscience. 
 Here I stand ; I cannot do otherwise ; God help 
 me ! " He was permitted to retire, henceforth the 
 idol of the nation. The souls of Germans every-
 
 180 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 where were thrilled with a new pride, that they 
 were the countrymen of Luther. It seemed as if, 
 in the old Thuringhm wood, the heart of an oak 
 had bartered its sylvan life for a human spirit ; and 
 then, toughly knit with the fibrous vigor that could 
 defy the mountain whirlwinds, had come to with- 
 stand the potent forces of the hierarchy ! 
 
 With the diet of Worms the crowning point of 
 Luther's career is reached ; he never became more 
 famous ; he never appeared more grandly. We can- 
 not follow him step by step through the fifteen re- 
 maining years of his life. His seclusion in the 
 Wartburg while he begins his translation of the Bi- 
 ble ; his marriage with Katherine von Bora, the 
 recusant nun ; his sojourn in the castle of Coburg 
 during the diet at Augsburg ; his fierce controversies 
 and enormous labors, must go unnoticed. His life 
 was filled with toil to his last hour, perplexed and 
 anxious beyond the lot of mortals. He had hoped 
 that his cause might triumph without civil commo- 
 tion ; but now too plainly over Europe lowered the 
 shadoAV of the dark years of bloodshed that were 
 impending. In his eager pursuit of what he felt to 
 be harmful, he had unleashed all the unsettled, 
 revolutionary elements in society, which pressed 
 along with him in the same chase. But the pack 
 constantly became more tumultuous, until at length 
 the huntsman was in danger of being devoured by 
 his own dogs. Never was scourge more vigorous 
 than that with which Luther laid about him, as he 
 withheld now and then from the hunt to discipline 
 his too wild auxiliaries. Some were indeed wolves,
 
 LVTSER IN LITERATURE. 181 
 
 and deserved the cuts they received from the strong 
 arm ; others, however, were trusty helpers, who did 
 not merit the bitter lashing. But whether it was 
 the wise and tolerant Zwingle, or the extravagant 
 Carlstadt, the oppressed peasant hoping that a 
 better time had come for him, and rising to meet 
 it, or the licentious follower of John of Leyden, 
 Luther smote them all with undiscriminating wrath. 
 He too often forgot his own liberal declarations ; l 
 he never forsook entirely his former faith, departing 
 from the traditions of the Church no farther than 
 he thought they were absolutely contradicted by the 
 scriptures. In particular he refused all fellowship 
 with those who denied the real presence of the Lord 
 in the Eucharist. While he was over-strict in trifles, 
 he was sometimes too tolerant of grave offences, 
 for instance, of the bigamy of his friend the land- 
 grave of Hesse. Nothing can surpass the fury that 
 he sometimes showed in controversy ; in particular 
 he assailed the peasants with expressions that are ter- 
 rible. "I think there are no more devils in hell, but 
 all have gone into the peasants. Whoever is slain 
 on the side of the magistrates is a veritable martyr 
 of God, if he fights with a good conscience. Who- 
 ever perishes on the side of the peasants will burn 
 everlastingly in hell, for he is a limb of the devil. 
 
 1 In a letter of Lessing's, written in his early manhood, he nar- 
 rates an instance of Luther's intolerance, saying: "I hold Luther 
 in such reverence that I like to discover some small faults in him. 
 The traces of humanity which I find in him are to me as precious as 
 the most dazzling of his perfections." This may be compared with 
 the delight Theodore Parker is said to have taken in the swearing of 
 Washington at Monmouth.
 
 182 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 Such times have come that a prince can serve 
 Heaven better with bloodshed than prayer. There- 
 fore, dear lords, let him who can, thrust, strike, and 
 kill. If, meanwhile, you are slain, more blissful 
 death you could never undergo." l There are other 
 expressions even stronger than these. The polemic 
 literature of the world has nothing more forcible 
 perhaps we may say nothing more shocking than 
 some of these expressions ; they read like the im- 
 precations of some old Norse god, lashed into a 
 Berserker rage. 
 
 The name of Luther must be connected with the 
 saddest superstition of his time. He urged witch- 
 burnings, and would no doubt have cheerfully as- 
 sisted at them. 2 He was the child of peasants, and 
 in his conception the devil has a very ancient, hea- 
 thenish stamp. The devil makes the destructive tem- 
 pests ; the angels make the good winds, as in the 
 pagan days the giant eagles were believed to do, with 
 the beat of their wings, sitting upon the border of 
 the world. The devil sits as Nixie under the bridge, 
 drawing girls into the water, whom he marries. He 
 serves as a house-spirit in the cloister ; as a cobold, 
 he blows out the fire ; as a dwarf, he substitutes 
 imps for human children in the cradle, befools sleep- 
 ers so that they climb upon roofs, and haunts cham- 
 bers. It was in this last character especially that he 
 disturbed Luther. He believed that his mother had 
 been injured by a witch, and was angry at the courts 
 
 1 Schrift wider die rauberischen Bauern. 
 * Freytag.
 
 , 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 188 
 
 for not punishing them with sufficient severity. 
 Luther so emphasized his faith in the devil and 
 witches that those who followed him went into great 
 extremes. The superstition was brought into a prom- 
 inence which it had never had before, the persecu- 
 tions resulting which affect us with such horror. 
 
 Yet as to Luther's honest purpose we can never 
 be in doubt. " His heart was faithful and without 
 falsehood. The hardness which he used against the 
 enemies of the faith in his writings came, not from 
 a quarrelsome or evil spirit, but from great earnest- 
 ness and zeal for the truth." l Though his call to 
 the princes in the time of the Peasants' War was so 
 wild and fierce, his policy was no doubt in the right 
 direction. There was, unfortunately, in Germany 
 no better power than that of the princes ; on them 
 alone rested the future of the Fatherland. Neither 
 the peasants, nor the robber nobles, nor the isolated 
 imperial cities, gave any guarantee.' 2 No mortal's 
 path was ever more beset with difficulties ; to say 
 that he made mistakes is only saying that he was 
 human. The movement of which he had been the 
 spring now looked to him to be its guide. From the 
 multitudes in revolt came a thousand appeals. He 
 was arbiter in countless disputes ; his correspondence 
 was enormous ; he wrote numberless tracts ; he 
 translated the Bible ; his labors as a preacher were 
 unparalleled. But he was equal to all. Day after 
 day his busy pen heaped up piles of manuscript, 
 
 1 Melancthon's funeral sarmon. 
 
 2 Freytag.
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 part to go to the farthest corners of Germany, with 
 messages that might shake a throne ; part to give 
 cheer to friends in humble station, or with the pur- 
 pose to make children happy ; part containing the 
 message of God to the old Hebrew, transmuted into 
 the vigorous tongue of the North. Nothing was 
 ever sweeter than the heart of the giant world- 
 shaker. While at the Wartburg he went hunting, 
 but his sympathy was with the hares and birds that 
 were driven into snares by the men and dogs. To 
 save the life of a young hare, he wrapped it in his 
 sleeve ; but the dogs coming, broke the creature's 
 legs even in its protcttion. "So," said Luther, 
 " does Satan gnash his teeth against the souls which 
 I seek to save." * Very tender is the narration of the 
 death of his favorite daughter, Magdalen. When 
 his daughter lay deathly sick, " I love her very 
 dearly," said he, "but dear God, since it is Thy 
 will to take her hence, I am glad to know she will 
 be with Thee." Then said the father, "Little 
 daughter dear, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is 
 weak." Turning away, he said, " Oh, she is so dear 
 to me ! If the flesh is so strong, what will the 
 spirit be!" Then she died, going to sleep in her 
 father's arms. The mother too was in the same 
 room, but farther from the bed, on account of her 
 grief. It was a little after nine, on Wednesday of 
 the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, 1543. When 
 she lay in her coffin, ho said, " Lena, darling, how 
 well is it with thee I Thou wilt arise again and shine 
 
 1 Freytag*
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 185 
 
 as a star, yea, as the sun, but the parting vexes 
 me beyond measure sore. It is strange to know that 
 she is certainly at peace, and that it is well with her, 
 and yet be so sad." At the funeral he said, among 
 other things, " We must take care of the children, 
 especially the poor girls. I have no pity for the 
 boys ; a boy supports himself, into whatever land he 
 comes, if he will only work. But if he is lazy, he 
 remains a good-for-nothing , but the poor girls must 
 have a staff. A boy can get along after being a lit- 
 tle wild, so that afterwards a fine man may come 
 out of him, A maid cannot do that. She will soon 
 come to shame if she forgets herself. ' ' 1 
 
 He labored on, often violent and dogmatic, always 
 honest and dutiful, fierce as a lion in his wrath, yet 
 the tenderest of men, until at Eisleben, whither he 
 had gone to settle disputes between the rulers of his 
 native region, in 1546, worn out with care and 
 anxiety, the great reformer died. 
 
 It was in active life that the powers of Luther 
 found their most appropriate field, extraordinary 
 compound that he was of sense, energy, and bold- 
 ness. His significance, however, was immense in 
 the history of literature. In judging of him as a 
 writer I shall not follow Hallam, who esteems him 
 lightly. 2 Luther was neither a philosopher nor a 
 poet. For metaphysical speculations he had no 
 liking or aptitude, treating the school-men and their 
 
 1 Tischreden. 
 
 a History of the Literature of Europe in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth 
 and Sixteenth Centuries.
 
 186 GERM AX LITERATURE. 
 
 revered authorities with contempt, and in his con- 
 troversies bearing down his opponents with sturdy, 
 honest force, which sometimes became violence and 
 arrogance, but never with superior subtlety. His 
 imagination was not especially vivid. Though his 
 writings abound with illustrations, they are more 
 forcible and homely than beautiful, more apt than 
 tasteful. The qualities most conspicuous in his style 
 are the same that he showed in life, robust strength 
 and practical sense. In many a passage he is too 
 strong. His greatest admirers are forced to admit 
 he could scold like a fish- wife. Generally, his ex- 
 pressions are characterized by an oaken sturdiness ; 
 but in some of his letters, especially those to his 
 wife and children, come out most sweet and genial 
 utterances, hanging about the tough boles and limbs 
 like vines flowering with delicate blossoms of gentle- 
 ness. His writings are often diffuse and obscure, 
 faults due to the haste in which they were prepared ; 
 oftentimes they display strong eloquence. 
 
 In the great library at Berlin, through the glass 
 lid of one of the cases, you see a book of white 
 paper, grown yellow through age, on the pages 
 of which, as it lies open before you, is the work 
 of a pen which plainly moved under the impulse of 
 an energetic spirit. Sometimes the mark is broad, 
 where the fist bore down heavily ; the tops and 
 bottoms of the long letters are not ungraceful in 
 their curves, thrown off, it is plain, in a moment, 
 by a forcible whirl of the fingers ; and so you 
 trace the track of the strong, quick-moving hand 
 down the page, thinking what eyes were bent upon
 
 II? LlTERAVU&fi. 187 
 
 it, what forehead was knotted over it, what soul 
 it was that set the breath panting meanwhile in 
 the concentrated attention of the writer. It is 
 Luther's translation of the Bible, in his own hand. 
 Upon this he expended the full force of his talent. 
 That Luther translated the Bible is a great gain, 
 for this reason, aside from every other: that it 
 was possible for him in this way to unfold the 
 riches of the (jrerman tongue, and form it for all 
 time, 1 Before Luther there were a multitude of 
 dialects, no one of which was dominant, and the 
 confusion was great. Luther restored unity, and it 
 was through his Bible that his speech became the 
 universal speech. Wherever the Reformation went, 
 this also went, becoming the most popular one 
 might say the only people's book. Upon this 
 were founded all writings and addresses to the 
 people, until it everywhere prevailed. " No hut so 
 small, no household so poor, that Luther's Bible 
 did not enter ; it became for the people, not merely 
 a book of devotion, but the staple reading. It 
 contained the whole spiritual world, in which the 
 young grew up, to which the old returned, from 
 whose contents the weary and heavy-laden got re- 
 lief, in the pressure of the day. For the keeping 
 of our national spirit sound, undestroyed by fash- 
 ionable folly or aping of the foreigner, this book 
 was the panacea. Out of the simple households of 
 our country parsons, our citizens, and peasant fami- 
 lies to which Luther's Bible was everything 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 188 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 proceeded, in the eighteenth century, the reformers 
 of our national culture ; and when they began to 
 purify our beautiful language, they referred back to 
 the inexhaustible treasury of this book.'' 1 
 
 N The homely character of Luther's language com- 
 mended it. In every word, term, and sentence peo- 
 ple recognized their own talk, sounding to them 
 familiar, though free from dialect. " I sweat blood 
 and water," he says, "trying to render the prophets 
 into the vulgar tongue. Good God, what a labor to 
 make these Hebrew writers speak German ! They 
 struggle furiously against giving up their beautiful 
 language to our barbarous idiom. 'Tis as though 
 you should force a nightingale to forget her sweet 
 
 */ -_> O O 
 
 melody and sing like the cuckoo." Again, he says, 
 " We must not ask the pedants how one should talk 
 German, as the asses [meaning the Papists] do ; 
 but we must ask the mother in the house, the chil- 
 dren on the streets, the common men in the market ; 
 look at them in the mouth, hear how they talk, 
 and interpret them accordingly ; then they will un- 
 derstand that one is talking German. When Christ 
 says l Ex abundantia cordift, os loquitur,' if I fol- 
 low the asses, I shall translate, " From the super- 
 fluity of the immaterial part procecdeth the utter- 
 ance.' Tell me, is that German? What German 
 understands talk of that sort ? What is ' superfluity 
 of the immaterial part' to a German? That will 
 no German say. But thus speaks the mother in the 
 house, and the common man, ' If the heart 's full, 
 
 1 Ludwig Hausser.
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 189 
 
 the mouth '11 out with it.' That is talking proper 
 German, which I have worked after, not altogether 
 successfully. It has sometimes happened that we 
 have sought after a word a fortnight, or three or four 
 weeks, and then sometimes have not found it. In 
 Job, Melanchthon and I worked so that we some- 
 times scarcely got through three lines in four days ; 
 but now that it is all ready, everybody can read and 
 master it. He slides along as over a smooth board, 
 where we have had to sweat and fret to get the 
 stumbling-blocks out of the way." Luther and 
 Melancthon once strove over a passage in the New 
 Testament. "All I care for," said Melancthon, 
 " is the Greek." "And all I care for," said Lu- 
 ther, " is the German." l He often went to market 
 just to hear how the people talked, what idioms 
 they used in such and such circumstances, and 
 begged his friends to impart to him all the genuine 
 popular phrases they could get hold of, saying, 
 " Palace and court words I cannot use." 
 
 Luther's Bible would be an immortal work for the 
 purity and genuine German stamp of the language 
 alone, but this is scarcely its greatest value. He 
 comprehends with an admirable certainty the vari- 
 ous spirit of different books, rendering in simple 
 narrative style what is historical ; giving in fiery 
 speech, now inspiring, now crushing, the great 
 images of the prophets ; in the Song of Solomon 
 rendering the glow, the rapture, the grief of the 
 
 1 "Es ist mir nur urns Griechische." " Und mir urns Deutsche," 
 
 versetzte Luther.
 
 190 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 lover, in truly Oriental color. In the Psalms his 
 tone is most exalted, in the Gospels it is simplicity, 
 in the Epistles lofty greatness and strength of con- 
 viction. If he had translated only one book with 
 this completeness it would be wonderful ; but the 
 whole Bible, so great a number of the most vari- 
 ous writings, to give these in their individuality, 
 with such unsurpassable mastery, shows the richest 
 talent, or, rather, such a reach of intellectual great- 
 ness as seldom belongs to man. 1 
 
 In the twenty-four volumes of the edition of the 
 last century the most complete of the works 
 of Luther are contained sermons, dissertations, 
 poems, letters. He could strike all chords with equal 
 felicity. Sometimes he is quietly instructive and 
 genial, sometimes an enthusiastic expounder, some- 
 times he exhibits crushing power in sarcasm and 
 mockery. In his polemical writings his strength, as 
 has been considered, often becomes excessive rude- 
 ness ; in particular against Henry VIII., the Ana- 
 baptists, and the unhappy peasants, all bounds of 
 moderation arc exceeded. He was thoroughly bold, 
 and a man of the people, and often threatened the 
 princes. The fulminations are sometimes full of 
 genius, marvels of power, with which scarcely any- 
 thing of the kind can be compared. 
 
 As an orator he was the greatest of his century, 
 gifted by nature with all the necessary qualities of 
 body and intellect. The effect of his addresses was 
 always great, often irresistible. He was clear, 
 
 1 Kun.
 
 * LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 191 
 
 warm, and strong, and often full of fire ; princes 
 and peasants lie affected equally. Here are some 
 examples of his vigorous, homely sense : " God be 
 praised," he says, in his preface to his Household 
 Sermons, 1 "the Bible is open, with rich and useful 
 books of many learned men, wherein a Christian 
 may well rejoice. As the saying is, ' The cow goes 
 in grass up to her belly,' so we now are richly 
 provided with pasture of the Divine Word. God 
 grant that we may feed gratefully, and become fat 
 and strong from it, before a drought comes ! " How 
 could an advocate of compulsory education put his 
 cause better than as follows : "I hold that the gov- 
 ernment ought to compel subjects to send their 
 children to school. If it can compel subjects who 
 are equal to it to carry spear and musket when the 
 wars come, how much more can, and ought, it to 
 compel the children to go to school ; because a 
 worse Avar is to be fought, that with the harmful 
 devil, who goes around sucking at cities and king- 
 doms until he draws out all the good people and 
 leaves a mere worthless shell behind, with which, 
 the yolk being gone, he can fool as much as he 
 chooses." Here is his idea of the proper function 
 of \voman : ""Women are adorned and graced with 
 God's blessing and maternal honor, and we are all 
 conceived, born, nourished, and brought up by 
 them. I myself often feel great pleasure and en- 
 tertainment when I see how women are adapted to 
 the care of children. How skilfully do even little. 
 
 1 Hauspostille.
 
 192 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 girls manage when they carry babies ! How moth- 
 ers sport, with delicate, comforting gestures and 
 movements, when they quiet a weeping child or lay 
 it in the cradle ! Let a man undertake that now 
 and he will be like a camel trying to dance." Never 
 was given better doctrine for preacher or speaker of 
 any kind than the following, from his Table-Talk, a 
 collection of his sayings, made late in life, by men 
 who were with him daily : " Cursed are all preach- 
 ers that aim at high and hard things, neglecting the 
 saving health of the poor, unlearned people, to seek 
 their own honor ! When I speak, I sink myself 
 deep down. I regard neither doctors nor magis- 
 trates, but I have an eye to the multitude of children 
 and servants. A true and godly preacher should 
 talk for the simple sort, like a mother that stills her 
 child, dandling it, giving it milk from her breast, 
 and not needing malmsey or muscadine for it." 
 
 Luther is never so lovable as when he writes for 
 his intimate friends, and his wife and children. 
 Here is the sweet letter to his little son, which, well- 
 known as it is, may well be read again and again for 
 its artless charm : 
 
 "Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little son! 
 I love to sec that you are learning well, and pray dil- 
 igently. Go on in that way, my little boy. When 
 I come home, I will bring you a pretty present. I 
 know a pretty, cheerful garden. Many children go 
 into it ; they have little golden coats on, and pick 
 beautiful apples under the trees, and pears, and cher- 
 ries, and plums; they sin<r, jump, and are happy; 
 they have nice little horses too, with golden bits?
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 198 
 
 and silver saddles. Then I asked the man who owns 
 the garden whose the children were. He said, 
 ' These are the children that love to pray, learn, and 
 are good.' Then I said, 'Dear sir, I have a little 
 son too, called Johnny Luther; he would like to 
 come into the garden too, so that he could see such 
 nice apples and pears, ride on such handsome horses, 
 and play with these children.' ' Then,' said the 
 man, ' if he loves to pray, learns, and is good, he 
 shall come into the garden, Lippus and Jost too ; 
 and if they all come together, they shall have whis- 
 tles, drums, lutes, and all kinds of fiddles ; they shall 
 dance too, and shoot with little cross-bows.' And 
 he showed me a pleasant meadow in the garden there, 
 arranged for dancing ; there hung golden whistles, 
 drums, and handsome silver cross-bows. I said to 
 the man, 'Ah, dear sir, I will go as quick as I can 
 and write all this to my little boy, Johnny, so that 
 he may pray industriously, learn well, and be good, 
 so that he can come into the garden. But he has 
 a nurse, Lehne ; he must bring her with him. Then 
 the man said, ' It shall be so ; go and write him so.' 
 Therefore, dear little son Johnny, learn and pray in 
 confidence, and tell Lippus and Jost to do so too. 
 Then vou shall come to the garden together." 
 
 ' <^ O 
 
 The letter just given was written in 1530, at 
 a most important time ; when Luther carried his 
 life, as it were, in his hand, and was charged with 
 the heaviest responsibilities. He spent then some 
 months in the castle of Coburg, to be near at hand 
 for counsel during negotiations at Augsburg, a city 
 to which his friends dared not allow him to pro-
 
 194 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ceed, on account of the power of his enemies. In 
 the midst of labors and dangers he could be play 
 ful and gentle. The following letter, written to in- 
 timate friends, is from the same place . 
 
 " There is a thicket immediately before our win- 
 dow, like a little forest, where the jays and the 
 crows are holding a diet. There is such a going to 
 and fro, such a crying day and night, without ceas- 
 ing, as if they were all drunk or crazy. Old and 
 young chatter so confusedly I am surprised that 
 voice and breath can endure so lon<j. I should 
 
 O 
 
 much like to know whether there are any such chiv- 
 alry with you ; it seems to me they must have assem- 
 bled here from the whole world round about. I 
 have not yet seen their kaiser, but their great people 
 parade and trail before our eyes, clothed not in a 
 very costly way, but simply, all in color of one 
 kind. They are all alike black, and all alike gray- 
 eyed, but with a charming difference between the 
 young and old. They care not for great palaces 
 and halls ; their hall is arched with the beautiful 
 broad heaven, their floor is paved with fresh green 
 branches, and their walls are as wide as the world. 
 They ask not for horses and accoutrements. They 
 have feathered wheels, so that they can fly from 
 the guns, and escape wrath. There are great, pow- 
 erful lords, but what they conclude I know not 
 as yet. So much 1 learn from an interpreter: they 
 propose a mighty campaign against wheat, barley, 
 oats, and all kinds of corn and grain, and many a 
 knight will be here, and do great deeds. So, here 
 we sit at the diet ; listen and look on with great
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 195 
 
 joy and love, seeing how the princes and lords, 
 with all the high orders of the empire, sing and 
 enjoy themselves so msrrily. * * * We have 
 heard to-day the first nightingale ; they have hesi- 
 tated about trusting April." 
 
 A good-hearted love for God's humble creatures 
 speaks out too in this cheerful, mocking admoni- 
 tion, addressed to an old servant : 
 
 " We thrushes, blackbirds, finches, jays, together 
 with other pious and honorable birds, who this 
 autumn are to travel over Wittenberg, beg to say 
 that we are credibly informed that one Wolfgang 
 Lieberger, your servant, has undertaken a great 
 piece of mischief, having bought dearly some old, 
 spoiled nets, out of great anger and hatred toward 
 us, therewith to set up an aviary, and proposes to 
 prevent, not only our dear friends the finches, but 
 us all, from having the freedom of flying in the air 
 and picking grains on the earth, the freedom given 
 us by God. Since, therefore, we poor free birds 
 are in this way thrown into great anxiety, our 
 humble and friendly request to you is that you will 
 dissuade your servant from the mischief. If he can- 
 not be restrained from alluring us with corn, and 
 getting up in the morning early to go to his snares, 
 then we will avoid Wittenberg in our flight. We 
 will pray to God to stand in his way, and that he 
 may some day see, instead of us, frogs, locusts, and 
 snails; and at night be marched over by mice, 
 fleas, and bed-bugs, so that ho may forget us, and 
 not prevent our free flight. Given in our heavenly 
 beat under the trees."
 
 196 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 And now, at last, we must speak of Luther's 
 hymns. He first made the chorals n essential part 
 of the church service, putting a stamp upon them 
 which they still retain. His songs are in the peo- 
 ple's language, and warm and joyful with faith. It 
 will quickly set the tears flowing in the eyes of a 
 sensitive listener to hear the solemn, powerful 
 sweep of the harmony, as a German congregation 
 will pour them out in mighty, uplifting volume. 
 They spread swiftly everywhere, and were received 
 with enthusiasm, contributing hardly less to the 
 general reception of the Reformation than did the 
 translation of the Bible. His opponents complained 
 that the people sang themselves often into Luther's 
 doctrine, the Jesuit Conzenius saying, " The hymns 
 of Luther have killed more souls than his books 
 and speeches." The number of hymns is really 
 small. Thirty-seven are attributed to him, and of 
 these only five are entirely his own, the rest being 
 translations and elaborations of Latin and German 
 songs. It is hard to feel their beauty and majesty 
 when taken from their proper language. The most 
 famous of Luther's songs is "A Mighty Fortress is 
 our God," the battle-hymn of the Protestants in 
 their day of trial, and which, in the time of its com- 
 position, was believed to have a supernatural power. 
 Says a writer of the year 15o<) : " Even the devils 
 tremble and lly when they hear it, a possessed 
 person has been freed from his torture through 
 hearing it." A verse or two must be given, al- 
 though it is so familiar perhaps as to make quota- 
 tion unnecessary :
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 197 
 
 A mighty fortress is our God, 
 
 A bulwark never failing; 
 Our helper He, amid the flood 
 
 Of mortal ills prevailing. 
 For still our ancient foe 
 Doth seek to work us woe ; 
 His power and craft are great, 
 And armed with cruel hate, 
 
 On earth is not his equal. 
 
 And though this world, with devils filled, 
 
 Shall threaten to undo us, 
 We will not fear, for God hath willed 
 
 His truth to triumph through us. 
 The prince of darkness grim, 
 We tremble not for him ; 
 His rage we can endure, 
 For lo ! his doom is sure ; 
 
 One little word can fell him. 1 
 
 And here, for a close to the extracts, are some 
 stanzas from "A Childrens' Song for Christmas, 
 about the baby Jesus," which I render as literally 
 as possible : 
 
 A babe to-day is born for you, 
 Of Mary, virgin pure and true; 
 A baby lovable and bright, 
 To be your pleasure and delight. 
 
 It is the Lord Christ, God indeed! 
 Who '11 free you from distress and need. 
 He will himself your Saviour be; 
 From power of sin will set you free. 
 
 Therefore the sign aright remark, 
 The swaddling-clothes, the manger dark; 
 The which the pretty babe do fold 
 Who all the world doth keep and hold. 
 
 1 Translation of F. H. Hedge.
 
 198 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Who is the pretty one so mild? 
 
 It is the little Jesus child. 
 
 The sinner thou hast deigned to bless: 
 
 O, welcome, welcome, noble guest! 
 
 Ah, Lord ! Thou source and fount of all. 
 How then hast Thou become so small? 
 That Thou must lie on withered grass, 
 The fodder of the ox and ass. 
 
 Ah, little Jesus! baby sweet! 
 Make for thyself a cradle meet, 
 And t:ike Thy rest within my heart, 
 Which from Thee never more shall part. 
 
 Heinrich Heine was a " spirit that denied," too 
 often a Mephistophelean scoffer, but he forgot his 
 sneer when speaking of Luther. I do not know 
 that Luther's position and influence in literature 
 have been anywhere better estimated, in a few 
 words, than in the following passage r 1 
 
 " He was not only the greatest, but also the most 
 German, man of our history. The same man who 
 could scold like a fish-wife could be soft too as a 
 tender maiden. He was often wild as a tempest 
 which uproots an oak, and then soft as a zephyr 
 which caresses a violet. He possessed something 
 original, incomprehensible, miraculous, as we find 
 it among all providential men. Glory to Luther! 
 Eternal glory to the beloved spirit to whom we 
 owe the saving of our most precious possessions, 
 and on whose benefits we yet live. He gave to 
 the spirit its body, namely, to the thought the 
 word. In his translation of the Bible he created 
 
 1 Ueber Deutschland.
 
 IVTHER IX LITERATURE. 199 
 
 the German language, and the eld book is an 
 eternal source of renewal for our tongue. We owe 
 to the grand Luther the spiritual freedom which the 
 later literature needed for its development. He cre- 
 ated for us the language in which the new literature 
 could express itself. He himself also opens this 
 literature ; it begins with him ; his spiritual songs 
 are the first important memorials of it, and al-ready 
 announce its particular character. Whoever, there- 
 fore, proposes to speak about modern German liter- 
 ature must begin with Luther." 
 
 One day in the old palace at Berlin, passing with 
 a knot of visitors through the suite of magnificent 
 apartments, full of the pomp and circumstance with 
 which the dynasty now perhaps the most power- 
 ful on the face of the earth surrounds itself, we 
 passed under an antique, tarnished chandelier, which 
 harmonized but poorly with the splendor about it. 
 Nevertheless it was in a place of honor, a place 
 none too good, I thought, when presently our guide 
 told us it hung once in the great hall of the city of 
 Worms, and that under it stood Luther when, in the 
 presence of the emperor and princes, he defied the 
 great powers of the earth. I found myself gazing 
 at the dull, quaint relic with an indescribable awe. 
 "What a mighty part," I thought, "this man 
 played on the earth ! After the great biblical fig- 
 ures, there is no man the Protestant world so rever- 
 ences. I have come to feel that much held by him 
 to be most sacred is superstition ; that he too often 
 was harsh and cruel ; yet I find my heart beating 
 with a quicker movement in presence of an object
 
 200 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 upon which his eyes must once have rested. What- 
 ever else may be neglected, I will at any rate 
 make a pilgrimage to the spots memorable through 
 Luther." 
 
 So I followed in his footsteps to cottage, to clois- 
 ter, to lordly castle ; stood in the little room in 
 Eisleben in which he was born, hearing, meanwhile, 
 from a school close by, the voices of children sing- 
 ing the chorals that he wrote ; stood in the room 
 in which he died ; in the venerable pulpit too from 
 which he preached for the last time, the hour- 
 glass, the cushions of leather, the worn staircase, 
 the silent effigies upon the tombs below, all the 
 same as in that old day. Here too it attuned the 
 soul finely for entering such a shrine, that as I stood 
 in the door-way of the old church the sound of an 
 organ swelled from a school near at hand, joined 
 presently by a chorus of boys' voices singing a 
 hymn, sweet and powerful, out into the morning air. 
 On another day I came to Wittenberg, walking past 
 the spot where he burned the pope's bull, in through 
 the Elster gate, into the city. In the old Augustin- 
 ian cloister I looked forth from the ancient convent, 
 from his seat, the sash, with its small panes, for 
 the moment thrown back, down into a sunny 
 court, where Johnny and Lippns and Jost no doubt 
 made merry while Luther, with his Katherine 
 the champion for a moment resting laughed at 
 their pranks and struck up an air for them on his 
 tiddlc. This room must have seen his agony when 
 lie stood bv the death-bed of Magdalene : here he 
 must have been when he interceded for the finches
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 201 
 
 with that ruthless Wolfgang Lieberger, lying in wait 
 with his spoiled nets in the garden close by. I stood 
 under the gray, weather-beaten archway that re- 
 sounded to his hammer as he nailed up the ninety-five 
 theses, and read reverently the epitaph that covers 
 his bones. Entering Eisenach through its lofty 
 gate-tower, I went through streets where he sang, 
 as a choir-boy, in his childhood ; then climbed the 
 rocky cliff to the gate of the Wartburg, that has stood 
 for eight hundred years. How great memories jos- 
 tle one another on that noble height ! The beau- 
 tiful Saint Elizabeth of Hungary ; the tragic strife 
 of the Minnesingers; Wolfram von Eschenbach, in 
 some solitary turret, dreaming over his Parzival ; 
 the crossed swords of Gustavus Adolphus and 
 Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimar ; relics of many an 
 illustrious prince and noble ; but here as everywhere 
 where he trod, all is subordinated to the sturdy son 
 of the Thurhigian miner. You go forward, almost 
 impatiently, untJ you are shown the suit of armor 
 that he wore as a disguise, helm and cuirass made 
 to fit an ample head and breast. There you pause 
 long. You are in the little room where he trans- 
 lated the Psalms, and struggled, as he believed, with 
 the veritable devil. This vertebra of a mammoth 
 \vas, meanwhile, his footstool ; this table hold the 
 page ; as he raised his eyes to the window, those 
 lovely fields and forests, heaving up into magnificent 
 hills, were the landscape upon which his eyes rested. 
 Luther dominates everything at the Wart burg, and 
 so too at Coburg. It is a stronghold scarcely less 
 imposing. Luther was here for four months, writ-
 
 202 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ing in one of its rooms his greatest hymn, "A 
 Mighty Fortress is our God" the figure of that 
 opening line suggested by the stronghold itself. 
 Seen from the low valley of the Werra, the towering 
 central mass, within long lines of gray, beetling wall, 
 is full of impressive suggestion. To modern arms 
 the castle would offer only a feeble resistance, but 
 one can understand that in Luther's day it must have 
 seemed of unassailable might. It has been famous 
 in wars without number, and is steeped in history 
 to the very battlements ; but the potentates all fall 
 into the background ; their splendor, their illustri- 
 ous following, the scenes of romance, the changes in 
 the fate of nations here brought to pass, all forgot- 
 ten, while the pilgrim stands breathless in the room 
 in which once wrought the Saxon peasant. From 
 here he dictated to the princes at Augsburg the con- 
 ditions on which the fate of Europe was to rest;" 
 then leaned from the window to catch the twittering 
 of the early birds of the spring ; then thundered 
 defiance at the devil in the manliest of songs. 
 
 But the crisis in Luther's life was at Worms. 
 Worms lies in the Rhine plain, almost nothing re- 
 maining of its former grandeur except the ancient 
 cathedral and still older synagogue, for Louis XIV. 
 burnt the citv to the ground. But the landscape is 
 as of old. The Rhine winds quietly forward; east- 
 ward rises the dark outline of the Odenwald, as on 
 the day when he rode forth from it, surrounded by 
 hero- worshippers, and singing his defiant hymn. 
 Here Germany has done its utmost for the man who 
 affected her history more deeply than any other
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 203 
 
 mortal, in the superb Luther memorial. In the 
 public park, in the first place, there is a broad 
 substructure of granite, forty feet square. At the 
 four corners, on pedestals of eight feet high, stand 
 statues of bronze, of eight and one-half feet, repre- 
 senting leading supporters of Luther. To the right, 
 in the foreground, is Philip, landgrave of Hesse, 
 leaning on his sword, a determined, manly pres- 
 ence ; to the left is Friedrich, elector of Saxony, 
 also a vigorous figure, holding in his hand a drawn 
 sword. The other corners are occupied by Me- 
 lancthon and Reuchlin, in scholar's caps and robes, 
 the former a slender figure and sharp, meagre face, 
 the latter handsome in countenance and bearing. 
 One side of the square is open. On the three other 
 sides between the statues just described sit 
 symbolical figures representing cities which played 
 an important part in the convulsion of the Reforma- 
 tion. One is Magdeburg, with head and figure 
 bowed, a broken sword in her hand, and a face full 
 of pain. The city was laid waste by the Catholic- 
 leader, Tilly, with terrible devastation. One is 
 Speyer, where a body of reformers presented a note- 
 worthy protest, and hence began to be called Protes- 
 tants. The figure sits with a face full of spirit, and 
 arm raised, in an attitude as if it would push away 
 something thrust upon it. The third figure repre- 
 sents Augsburg, calm and upright, with the palm 
 of peace in her hand, for here it was that accommo- 
 dations were reached between the rival parties. 
 
 Coming now from the outside of the square to 
 the centre, we have the great heart of the thing.
 
 204 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Five statues of bronze are grouped together on a 
 polished base of sienite, a beautiful stone of the 
 hardest composition. One is Huss, wrapped in his 
 gown, holding between his hands a crucifix, on which 
 his eyes are reverently bent, a face spare, calm, 
 and full of devotion. Back of him sits "NVickliffe, in 
 scholar's attire, with a contemplative mien. Next 
 is Peter Waldus, founder of the Waldensians, a 
 picturesque beggar-monk, and in the bronze you 
 can see the ragged edges of his frock, the rough 
 sandals, and the coarse wrappings about his legs. 
 But a figure finer than any yet described is that of 
 Savonarola, the great Italian, martyred in 1498 
 for heroic speech. It is wonderfully living. He 
 sits with arm uplifted ; a cowl wraps the head, 
 from which a striking, earnest face looks out, the 
 nose and lips full of courage. One hand holds the 
 robe at the throat, the other is thrown out in im- 
 passioned gesture. The robe falls lightly over the 
 lower limbs, which are disposed as if the man were 
 just springing to his feet in the ardor of his appeal. 
 It is startling in its life-like presentment. 
 
 Andno\v, from the midst of all, from the princes 
 whose power shielded him, the scholars who held up 
 his hands, and the mighty martyrs who died that the 
 fulness of time might come, and he and his work 
 might live, towers the colossal Luther. The statue 
 is ten feet and one-half high. From the great 
 shoulders a scholar's gown falls to the feet. One 
 foot is advanced ; his clenched right hand is on the 
 cover of a Bible, which he holds folded in his left 
 trm. It is as if a hallowed magnetic current from
 
 LUTHER IN LITERATURE. 205 
 
 a reservoir of supernatural power were charging 
 his whole frame with a more than giant's force. 
 The head is bare, the face upturned, the lips 
 parted. That Titan Luther face ! and beneath are 
 cut the words which he uttered before the diet, 
 some tone of which may have been borne in the air 
 as far as the spot where the memorial now rises : 
 "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; God help 
 me." It is very, very grand, commemorating glori- 
 ously as manly and consecrated a warfare waged 
 against evil as the earth has ever seen ; and the 
 sight of the great figures brings the whole hot 
 battle most powerfully home to whoever stands be- 
 fore it, the princes with their swords, the brows 
 of the scholars grown spare through earnest con- 
 troversy, the brandished hand of Savonarola, elo- 
 quent Avith denunciation, and towering highest the 
 great shoulders of Luther ! We see the parted lips, 
 the lines ploughed by spiritual struggle, the rugged 
 brows, the clenched fist resting on the Bible, the 
 figure braced back for a mighty shock, as if he be- 
 held in the air before him rank on rank of mitred 
 prelates and crowned rulers, and in the background 
 the stake and fagots. 
 
 No worthier pilgrimage can be made to-day than 
 in the footsteps of Luther. Stand in the little house 
 where he was born ; see the humble room in which 
 was the hearth-stone of his home, the pulpits in 
 which he thundered, the palaces in which his sturdy 
 presence, in his coarse scholar's robe, threw into in- 
 significance the splendor of princes ; last of all, stand 
 in the market-place of Worms J
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 
 
 From the death of Luther, in 1546, to the appear- 
 ing of Lessing, two hundred years later, there is 
 little German literature which requires from us 
 more than the briefest notice. It is proper that 
 mention should be made of the causes which pro- 
 duced so long a silence ; for want of a literature to 
 consider, let us for awhile turn to history. In the 
 preceding cli.ipte.', allusio.i \va< made to Gothe's 
 condemnation of Luther. It seems almost impious 
 to call in question t ] u: value of the Reformer's 
 work, almost as if one should speak of the career 
 of the Apostle Paul as a failure ; and we arc not to 
 understand, I take it, that Gothe would deny the 
 power and sincerity of the man. Luther felt that 
 he must break his way, in the words of that line of 
 his mighty hymn, "through this world, with devils 
 filled." Never were the powers infernal more vig- 
 orously fought, and to this day we feel a tremor 
 from the stamp of his foot. With all my heart I 
 acknowledge the grandeur of the figure as he towers 
 in history ; and yet we cannot open the story of the 
 Thirty Years' War without being in a mood to be- 
 lieve that any man whatever his virtues who 
 was influential in bringing upon the world that
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 207 
 
 total eclipse of things bright and good, had a hand 
 in the infliction of a curse for which scarcely any 
 beneficence could atone ; that the view of Gb'the 
 was not entirely without reason. 
 
 Luther's own century was a time of wrangling, 
 rather than actual warfare. Most uncompromising 
 and exhaustless of disputants was Luther himself, 
 whose tongue was indeed a two-edged sword, and 
 whose pen was dipped in gall. But tongue and pen 
 were his only weapons, and his successors, for some 
 generations, fought their battles in halls of debate 
 and upon parchment fields, rather than with pike 
 and musket. Charles V., indeed, and the princes 
 of the Smalcaldic League fell into sterner contro- 
 versy. At Mlihlberg, on the Elbe, toward the 
 middle of the century, John, elector of Saxony 
 and head of the Protestant cause, underwent defeat ; 
 and a little later Charles himself, with the brave 
 and cunning Maurice of. Saxony close upon his 
 tracks, fled from Germany in haste through the 
 passes of Tyrol. But the spirit of this time was a 
 benignant genius in comparison with the fury who 
 flapped woe unutterable from her gloomy wings 
 upon the Germany of the succeeding age. 
 
 In the early years of the seventeenth century 
 Ferdinand II. came to his o\vn, the headship of 
 the hereditary states of Austria and the Holy 
 Roman Empire. He was the mightiest prince upon 
 the face of the earth, able and persistent, a pupil of 
 the Jesuits, and devoted to their policy. The Bo- 
 hemians, who had revolted from him, chose as their 
 king a young potentate of Western Germany,
 
 208 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Friedrich, Elector Palatine. A year or two be- 
 fore, this young man had gone to England, and, 
 amid feasting and the performance of brilliant 
 masques, which the Elizabethan poets furnished, 
 married the lovely sister of the prince who was 
 soon to be Charles I. Heidelberg castle is to-day 
 a place of princely magnificence, devastated though 
 it has been by time and powder-bursts, and nothing 
 about the castle is fairer than the English garden, 
 on its terrace three hundred feet above the Neckar. 
 This was the home to which Friedrich brought his 
 wife ; here he ruled, and the Princess Elizabeth, 
 walking in the garden laid out in her honor, with 
 her husband's statue among the ivy on the wall 
 above, as it stands to-day, could behold as 
 lovelv a domain as Heaven had ever Driven into 
 
 */ o 
 
 the hands of a prince. When at length, how- 
 ever, the Bohemians offered Friedrich their crown 
 and he hesitated, the princess is reported to have 
 said, " Thou hast married the daughter of a king, 
 and fearest to accept a kingly crown ! I would 
 rather eat black bread at thy royal board than 
 feast at thy electoral table." So Friedrich went 
 out into the storms after a crown. Presently he 
 was a fugitive, for Ferdinand swept through Bohe- 
 mia with sword and fire, and the conflagration 
 spread to the world outside. The Protestants were 
 disunited, and often lukewarm. Among their lead- 
 ers were brilliant soldiers, but the emperor was, 
 for ten years, resistless. To the Rhine on the 
 west, and northward, even throughout Denmark, his 
 armies marched, and burned, and slew. Through
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 209 
 
 rough conversion the adherents of the Church were 
 multiplied ; the Protestants opposed in battle order ; 
 the emperor's armies passed ; the Protestants still 
 were ranked in rows, but they were rows of graves. 
 Meantime the keenest eye that ever watched the 
 complications of politics was fixed anxiously on the 
 course of events. Richelieu saw humiliation for 
 France in the aggrandizement of Ferdinand, and 
 found means to curb the conquerer. 
 
 In a room of the fortress of Coburg hang side by 
 side the life-size portraits of two martial figures, in 
 the military dress of two hundred and fifty years 
 ago. One of them is the chief instrument through 
 whom Ferdinand succeeded in making himself om- 
 nipotent in Germany, Wallenstein, duke of Fried- 
 land ; the other is the instrument through whom, 
 together with Richelieu, the emperor's power was 
 broken, Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. 
 The portrait of Gustavus represents a man of tall, 
 lanre frame, with light hair, large, intense blue eyes, 
 a full lower face, with the pointed mustaches and 
 chin-beard of the time, in attire of blue and buff, 
 set off with point-lace ; a man, one would say, of 
 action rather than thought, with a full store of im- 
 petuous will, and sound stomach and muscles for 
 carrying out his purposes. The healthful counte- 
 nance too has suggestions of warm temper, but also 
 of joviality ; and one thinks that the capacious 
 doublet might upon occasion shake mightily with 
 laughter, a figure of bearing most manly, frank, 
 and winning. The figure of Wallenstein is also 
 tall, but meagre, in gloomy attire, with hair dark, 
 
 14
 
 210 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 but showing a reddish tinge, a complexion some- 
 what sallow, forehead high rather than broad, and 
 small, sparkling eyes, a countenance and mien 
 that repel approach, as the open face and bearing 
 of the companion picture court it. Hung about the 
 pictures are arms and armor of the time in which 
 the two leaders played their part, the steel caps and 
 cuirasses, the pikes and muskets, still gleaming be- 
 fore the portraits as they gleamed before the living 
 eyes of these men. 
 
 Xo leader ever fell more gloriously, or left be- 
 hind a purer fame, than Gustavus. He fought for 
 a grand cause, and if there was in his motive a 
 taint of selfishness, history scarcely mentions it. 1 
 He was tolerant, 2 devout, and fearless. Perhaps 
 no man was ever more loved. Wallenstein is a 
 character, in a certain sense, even more fascinat- 
 ing, a saturnine, inscrutable personage, as Gus- 
 tavus was cheerful and frank. Although the leader 
 of the Catholic party, he was religionless, as the 
 
 1 See, however, Gfrorer: Das Leben Gustav Adolfs. 
 
 2 " Gustave Adolphe, e"lev6 dans les sentiments etroits d'une e"glise 
 aussi into!6rante que le Catholicisme, e"tonna et scandalisa ses amis 
 d'Allemagnc, en assistant a la messe. II traita avec vine rare in- 
 dulgence ses plus grands ennemis, les monies, meme les jesuites. 
 Les Protestants ne comprenaient pas le h6ros du nurd; les historiens 
 modernes ne le comprennent pas davantage, quand ils attribuent a 
 des calculs politiques des sentiments qui <$taient 1'instinct du ge"nie. 
 II y a un trait qui le caractfirise admirablement; il se fit aimer des 
 Catboliques comine des Protestants, ct les chroniqueurs contem- 
 porainslui sont tons e'galement favorables, a quelque parti qu'ils ap^ 
 partiennent. La religion do Gustave Adolpho est la religion do 
 1'avenir, de I'humnnitS. II plane au-dessu? des confessions et dc 
 leur haiueuses rivalites." F. Laurent, Les Guerres de la lieligion.
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 211 
 
 king was religious, and given over, as the world has 
 believed, to mysterious superstition, for want of a 
 better faith ; a practitioner of magic and patron 
 of astrology ; a man of such genius that the world 
 gave way before him in a marvellous manner, until 
 he was believed by others and came probably to 
 believe himself' a sort of superhuman being, 
 bearing a charmed life. Although concerned with 
 much ruthlessness, there is some reason to believe 
 that he sought to mitigate it, and at last to bring 
 the warfare to an end. 1 To some extent he may 
 have felt he was absolved from ordinary human 
 obligations, and he seemed often, in a wonderful 
 way, shielded against the operation of natural laws. 
 On his character and the events of his career the 
 lights rest so wierdly that from that time to this he 
 has always attracted romantic spirits. He won 
 little affection from men, but by a strange force, 
 while he repelled, he subordinated men about him by 
 the thousand. Half the world Gustavus drew by 
 love ; the other half Wallenstein held subdued in an 
 inexplicable awe. The two figures contrast most 
 picturesquely in history, as they do in the pictures 
 at Coburg. They confront one another like the two 
 opposite poles of a magnet, about whom while one 
 attracted hearts, and the other beat back all other 
 wills the world stood polarized. Since these are 
 the most interesting characters of the Thirty Years' 
 War, we may look at them still longer. 
 
 Wallenstein was the son of a poor Protestant gen- 
 
 1 Forster.
 
 212 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 tleman, of a family that had emigrated from Germany 
 to Bohemia. He rose from obscurity only by the 
 most gradual steps. He studied at the University of 
 Padua, in Italy, but left it for a soldier's life, serv- 
 ing first against the Turks in some most humble 
 capacity ; for not until he had been in several cam- 
 paigns do we find him in command of a company of 
 infantry. "Wealth came to him by a fortunate mar- 
 riage, and was rapidly swelled by prudent perhaps 
 unscrupulous management. When at length a 
 widower, a second marriage with a lady of rank 
 lifted him still higher in the scale. With each rise 
 very marvellous ability became more and more man- 
 ifest, and at the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War 
 he soon surpassed all by his successes. Tilly, an old 
 Walloon in the service of the Duke of Bavaria, a 
 pupil in war of Alva, and as able and cruel, was for 
 a time his rival, but he was soon distanced. At 
 length even the princes of the empire took alarm, 
 and demanded Wallenstein's deposition. Friedland 
 had marched and fought from Italy to the northern 
 provinces of Denmark, from the Turkish frontier to 
 the border of Holland, everywhere effective. The 
 emperor's power seemed perfectly secure, and he 
 felt that Friedland could be spared. As Wallen- 
 stein laid down his baton of command, one hundred 
 thousand men were without a leader. lie lived, with- 
 drawn, at Prague, in a strange magnificence, which 
 was at the same time full of gloom. Just then it 
 was, in the year 1 <>;>(), that Gustavus Adolphus 
 stepped upon the shore of North Germany, kneeling 
 at once among his followers to pray for the blessing
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 213 
 
 of God upon his undertaking. His coffers were 
 well filled with the gold of France, his ranks with 
 Swedish manhood, and he became dangerous at once. 
 Never was the foot of conqueror more speedy ; never 
 was the acclaim fuller upon the progress of a de- 
 liverer than that which at length went up for him. 
 He smote the outposts, then Tilly, now sole cham- 
 pion, at Leipsic, with utter overthrow. He was at 
 once in the centre of Germany ; then, as if winged, 
 in the South. "With another dart, the Rhine was 
 passed, and the great imperial fortresses toppled and 
 fell like a row of child's blocks. Tilly made one 
 more effort, at the Lech, in Bavaria ; but his army 
 fled, and he was carried dying from the field. 
 Great was the tumult at the court of the emperor. 
 Would injured Wallenstein come forth from the 
 splendor of his palace, or was there no further help ? 
 Humbly they approached him, withdrawn and ec- 
 centric, and forth at once he came. His demand 
 at once acceded to was that he was to be supreme 
 in the host he should raise ; not even the emperor was 
 to set foot within it, or prescribe to him a course. 
 As he stepped forth there was no military power ; 
 before the Swedes the armies had become fugitive. 
 In a day, as it were, he became mighty. As the 
 children of Hamelin followed the pied piper, so the 
 recruiting; drums of the somewhat fantastic hero had 
 
 o 
 
 a spell to summon, hurrying from every corner of 
 Europe, the wild spirits that swarm in times of disor- 
 der. Gustavus turned to crush him ; no less prompt 
 than the Swedo, "Wallenstein mot him face to face. 
 At Nuremberg he held the fuming king in durance,
 
 214 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 starving him slowly, refusing to draw out upon the 
 field. Gustavus desperate hurled his force upon 
 the impregnable lines of Wallenstein ; the latter 
 kept rigidly to the defensive, satisfied thus far to 
 repel, and not destroy. Gustavus withdrew, the un- 
 conquered foe in his rear. Wallenstein marched 
 suddenly northward, leaving his entrenchments ; 
 Gustavus was instantly upon his track, seeking his 
 opportunity. The former reaches Leipsig, the lat- 
 ter Naumburg ; between the two lies the little Saxon 
 village of Liitzen, and here let us take a closer 
 look. 
 
 I reached Leipsic on a day of doubtful weather, 
 and went soon to the old tower of the Pleissenburg, 
 the citadel of the town, and looked out from the 
 summit into the wide plains. The castellan went 
 with me to the top, and between the showers pointed 
 out to me the memorable spots. Right here have 
 taken place an astonishing number of the great bat- 
 tles of the world. The field of Jena, where the 
 French shattered the Prussian power in 1806, is not 
 so far away that the cannon-thunder from there 
 might not have been heard at Leipsic ; and Ross- 
 bach perhaps Frederick's most memorable field 
 where Prussia shattered France in 1757, is hardly 
 out of sight. Ten miles away, again, is the village 
 of Gross Gurschen, where, in the spring of 1813, 
 Napoleon smote the Russians and Prussians, and did 
 something to win back the prestige lost during the 
 Russian campaign. All about the city, and within it, 
 took place, in the fall of 181,3, the mighty "battle 
 of the nations," in which seven hundred thousand
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR. 215 
 
 combatants took part. The environing fields where 
 this was fought lay all in the deepest peace as I 
 looked down upon them ; in the distance the rain- 
 bows among the mist ; near at hand the broad levels, 
 green and dripping with the abundant moisture. 
 The grain stood everywhere, the country stretching, 
 smooth and unbroken almost as natural prairie, to 
 the verge of the horizon. A straight line of pop- 
 lars or fruit-trees here and there marked a high- 
 road ; now and then there was a clump of wood, or 
 the compact roofs and steeple of a village. I could 
 see the monument, surmounted by a cocked hat, 
 where Napoleon stood on the decisive day, while 
 Macdonald, Augereau and Regnier fought in front 
 of him, outnumbered two to one ; and the castellan 
 told how the cannonade (from, some say, two thou- 
 sand pieces) sounded into his childish ears, coming 
 muffled, as he sat shut up with his frightened mother 
 in the city, his chin moving, as he represented the 
 booming, like a man's whose teeth chatter with 
 cold. 
 
 Following the old man's pointing finger again, I 
 saw, just beyond the city's suburbs, the steeple and 
 windmill of Breitenfeld, where, in the Thirty Years' 
 War, the Swede, Torstenson a cripple, who was 
 carried about in a litter, and yet one of the most 
 vigorous of commanders - defeated the army of the 
 Austrian kaiser ; and where a few years before, on 
 the same ground, fierce old Tilly first suffered de- 
 feat, and Gustavus Adolphus fir.-t made his great- 
 ness felt. To this hour, in old New England fami- 
 lies, any piece of especial deviltry is "like old
 
 216 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Tilly ; ' ' and probably the phrase comes clear from 
 the Puritans of 1631, who, like the rest of the Prot- 
 estant world, were made to stand aghast by the 
 sack of Magdeburg. But there is pathos as well as 
 horror in the story of the unrelenting old tiger. 
 He was brave and faithful and honest as he was 
 cruel, and, \\\ spite of all his plundering, died poor. 
 At Dresden you may see his baton, the pearl and 
 gilding as tarnished as its former possessor's fame. 
 A singular figure he must have been ; generally in 
 a Spanish doublet of bright green satin, with slashed 
 sleeves ; on his head a little cocked hat, from which 
 a red ostrich feather hung down his back ; under 
 this a long nose, withered cheeks, and a heavy white 
 mustache, for he was past seventy. But it was 
 more thrilling to me even than Breitenfeld, when, 
 looking westward, I saw dimly through the mist the 
 little steeple of Llitzen, ten miles distant, where 
 Gustavus Adolphus fell. 
 
 Leaving the tower of the Pleissenburg, I took the 
 train to Markranstatt, a village in the suburbs, from 
 which it was my plan to walk the league to Liitzen 
 in the long summer twilight, crossing the battle- 
 field on the way. The high-road runs as it did two 
 hundred years ago, broad, white, and smooth. 
 That evening it had been washed clean by the rain, 
 and cherry-trees, full of ripening fruit, stood in 
 fullest freshness on either hand. On the far-extend- 
 ing fields each side the grain stood high, barley, 
 wheat, rye, and oats rolled out in parallel strips. It 
 was after sunset when the Liitzen " Eilwagcn " went 
 past with its passengers ; the pedestrians disap-
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 217 
 
 peared one after another, and soon I was the solitary 
 footman. The dusk kept deepening as I sauntered 
 forward, my mind filled with thoughts of the strug- 
 gle whose scene I was soon to behold. It was a 
 dark day in November, 1632, when a heavy triple 
 boom of cannon-thunder from Weissenfels, ten miles 
 westward, apprised Wallenstein, lying at Leipsic, 
 that the Austrian general at that outpost had caught 
 sight of the advancing Swedes. Defoe, in the little- 
 known " Memoirs of a Cavalier," has so photographed 
 this stormy time that his story was long believed to 
 come from an eye-witness. His hero then a cap- 
 tive with Wallenstein in Leipsic says : "We that 
 were prisoners fancied the imperial soldiers went 
 unwillingly out, for the very name of the king 
 of Sweden was become terrible to them. Rugged, 
 surly fellows they were," he declared. "Their 
 faces had an air of hardy courage, mangled with 
 wounds and scars ; their armor showed the bruises 
 of musket-bullets and the rust of the winter storms. 
 I observed of them their clothes were always dirty, 
 but their arms were clean and bright ; they were 
 used to camp in the open fields and sleep in the 
 frosts and rain ; their horses were strong and hardy, 
 like themselves, and well taught their exercises." 
 It is not hard to draw a picture of Gustavus' army 
 as it advanced. It was a mixed host of twenty 
 thousand. The best warriors were Swedes, men 
 yellow-haired and florid, marching with the vigor of 
 troops used to success and confident in their leader ; 
 not a straggler, not a plunderer. They wore, some 
 suits of leather, others of cloth. They carried pikes
 
 2 18 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 or flint-lock muskets. One regiment was in buff, 
 and so known as the yellow regiment ; others were 
 in blue ; others in white. There was powerful cav- 
 alry, the riders half-way between the steel-covered 
 knight of former warfare and the modern horseman. 
 The cannon (they were the first "field-batteries") 
 were, singularly enough, composed of cylinders of 
 iron, cast thin for lightness, then wound round 
 tightly with rope, from breech to muzzle, and cov- 
 ered at last with boiled leather. There were Ger- 
 mans as well as Swedes, and among these rode as 
 leader a young man of twenty-eight, who, however, 
 for ten years already had been a warrior of fame, and 
 was destined to be yet more famous. His portrait 
 too hangs by that of his teacher in war and friend 
 Gustavus at Coburg, the features most hand- 
 some, and a profusion of curling brown hair falling 
 upon the shoulders. His rusted sword too, with 
 that of the king, hangs upon a pillar in the Wart- 
 burg, by the side of the pulpit from which Luther 
 used to preach. It was Duke Bernhard, of Saxe- 
 Wcimar. There were also whole troops of English 
 and Scotch, for the fame of the king drew recruits 
 from every Protestant land, who no doubt, some- 
 times among psalms, hummed the quaint recruiting- 
 song, which antiquaries toll us had a great popu- 
 larity at the period, and did much to stimulate en- 
 listment : 
 
 German!, Suedden, Denmark are smoking 
 With a crew of brave lads, others provoking. 
 Up, lads ! up, lads! up and advance. 
 For honor is not gotten by a cringe or a dance.
 
 FEE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 619 
 
 Charge, lads ! fall in around, 
 
 Till Caesar shall give ground! 
 
 Hark! hark! our trumpets sound, Tan! ta-ra-ra! 
 
 Vivat Gustavus Adolphus ! we cry, 
 
 Here we shall either win honor or dy. 
 
 The kino: himself had a wide-brimmed hat, in 
 
 O 
 
 which he sometimes wore a feather of green, and a 
 suit made in great part from buff leather, with boots 
 of wide, slouching tops. His nobles, Horn, Bauier, 
 Torstenson famous then and afterwards, martial 
 in aspect, but not splendid rode beside him. As 
 he swept along the column, the blue-eyed youths 
 from Smaland and Gothland, and the darker Finns, 
 grave and self-willed, at that time his subjects,, 
 looked at him with love and pride, and marched 
 firmly along the muddy road, where they sank some- 
 times to the knee. 
 
 Here is a bit of graphic prose from the hand that 
 gave us "Robinson Crusoe," that will let us into 
 what had just before been the life of this army. 
 Gustavus is about to cross the Lech, where Tilly 
 receives his death-wound : 
 
 " The king resolved to go and view the situation 
 of the enemy. His majesty went out the second of 
 April, with a strong party of horse, which I had the 
 honor to command ; we marched as near as we 
 could to the banks of the river, not to be too much 
 exposed to the enemy's cannon, and having gained 
 a little height, where the whole course of the river 
 might be seen, the king halted and commanded to 
 draw up. The king alighted, and, calling me to 
 him, examined every reach and turning of the river
 
 220 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 by his glass ; but finding the river run a long and 
 almost straight course, he could find no place which 
 he liked; but at last, turning him??lf north, and 
 looking down the stream, he found the river, fetch- 
 ing a long reach, double short upon itself, making 
 a round and very narrow point. ' There's a point 
 will do our business,' says the king, * and if the 
 ground be good, I '11 pass there ; let Tilly do his 
 worst.' 
 
 " He immediately ordered a small party of horse 
 to view the ground, and to bring him word particu- 
 larly how high the bank was on each side and at the 
 point. 'And he shall have fifty dollars,' says the 
 king, ' that will bring me word how deep the water 
 is.' I asked his majesty leave to let me go, 
 which he would by no means allow of; but as the 
 party was drawing out, a sergeant of dragoons 
 told the king, if he pleased to let him go disguised 
 as a boor, he would bring him an account of every- 
 thing he desired. The king liked the notion well 
 enough, and the fellow, being very well acquainted 
 with the country, puts on a ploughman's habit and 
 went away immediately, with a long pole upon his 
 shoulder ; the horse lay all this while in the woods, 
 and the king stood, undiscorned by the enemy, on 
 the little hill aforesaid. The dragoon, with his long 
 pole, comes boldly down to the bank of the river, 
 and calling to the sentinels which Tilly had placed 
 on the other bank, talked with them ; asked them if 
 they could not help him over the river, and pre- 
 tended he wanted to come to them. At last, being 
 come to the point where, as I said, the river makes
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 221 
 
 a short turn, he stands parleying with them a 
 great while, and sometimes pretending to wade 
 over, he puts his long pole into the water ; then, 
 finding it pretty shallow, he pulls off his hose and 
 goes in, still thrusting in his pole before him, till, 
 being gotten up to his middle, he could reach be- 
 yond him, where it was too deep ; and so, shaking 
 his head, comes back again. The soldiers on the 
 other side, laughing at him, asked him if he could 
 swim. He said no. 'Why, you fool, you,' says 
 one of the sentinels, ' the channel of the river is 
 twenty feet deep.' ' How do you know that? ' says 
 the dragoon. ' Why, our engineer,' says he, 'meas- 
 ured it yesterday.' This was what he wanted, but, 
 not yet fully satisfied, 'Ay, but,' says he, 'maybe 
 it may not be very broad, and if one of you would 
 wade in to meet me till I could reach you with my 
 pole, I'd give him half a ducat to pull me over.' 
 The innocent way of his discourse so deluded the 
 soldiers that one of them immediately strips and 
 goes in up to the shoulders, and our dragoon goes 
 in on this side to meet him ; but the stream took 
 the other soldier away, and he, being a good swim- 
 mer, came swimming over to this side. The dra- 
 goon was then in a great deal of pain for fear of 
 being discovered, and was once going to kill the fel- 
 low and make off; but at last, resolved to carry on 
 the humor, and having entertained the fellow with a 
 tale of a tub, about the Swedes stealing his oats, the 
 fellow, being cold, wanted to be gone ; and as he was 
 willing to be rid of him, pretended to be very sorry 
 he could not get over the river, and so makes off.
 
 222 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 " By this, however, he learned both the depth 
 and breadth of the channel, the bottom and nature 
 of both shores, and everything the king wanted to 
 knoAv. We could see him from the hill by our 
 glasses very plain, and could see the soldier naked 
 Avith him. Says the king, ' He will certainly be dis- 
 covered and knocked on the head from the other 
 side ; he is a fool,' says the king, * if he does not 
 kill the fclloAV and run off;' but when the dragoon 
 told his tale, the king was extremely well satisfied 
 Avith him, gave him one hundred dollars, and made 
 him a quartermaster to a troop of cuirassiers." 
 
 This had taken place in April. It was noAv No- 
 vember, and the army, the cool quartermaster no 
 doubt, with his troop of cuirassiers unless the 
 poor fellow was in the number of those who laid 
 doAvn their lives at Nuremberg wa pressing on 
 to meet a foe that had long eluded them. 
 
 By nightfall that fifth of November the SAvedcs 
 were at Liitzen ; and in the fields just beyond, the 
 " rugged, surly fellows " of the host of Wallenstein 
 lay waiting, the skirmishers, who had been watch- 
 ing the Protestant march, retiring upon the main 
 body. Gustavus led his army south of the A'illage 
 in a circuit, until he had gained its eastern end, 
 (IraAvinj? it un at last in two lines a few yards south 
 
 O / 
 
 of the high-road. In the centre stood the foot, 
 upon which perhaps the king especially relied ; to 
 the left were the Germans, under their Duke Bern- 
 hard ; to the right he rode himself, at the head of 
 the Swedish horse. In the rear Avas a reserve, com- 
 manded by a Scotchman ; the artillery were placed
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 223 
 
 along the whole front. On the side of the imperial- 
 ists, but a few rods removed beyond the road, in 
 the darkness, there was sufficient vigilance. Wal- 
 lenstein had made the ditches broader that lined 
 both sides of the road, and filled them with skir- 
 mishers. In the centre of his line, just north of 
 the high-road, a battery of large guns was placed, 
 the infantry close behind in large brigades. Op- 
 posite Duke Bernhard, near a windmill, was a larger 
 battery. At the other end of his line were cavalry, 
 and a quantity of servants and camp-followers, 
 whom Wallenstein compelled to arm and stand in 
 the lines, that the Swedes might be deceived as to 
 his strength. As Gustavus had Horn and Banier, 
 so Wallenstein had as lieutenants, Piccolomini and 
 Pappenheim ; though the latter had been despatched 
 with a portion of the army on an expedition. Gus- 
 tavus' army numbered twenty thousand; that of 
 Wallenstein was at first less, and couriers were des- 
 patched to recall Pappenheim, riding through the 
 night as if for life. " The enemy is marching hith- 
 erward," wrote Wallenstein. " Break up instantly 
 with every man and gun, so as to arrive here early 
 in the morning. P. S. He is already at the pass 
 and hollow road." One may still see this note in 
 the archives at Vienna, stained with the blood of 
 Pappenheim, who had it on him when he received 
 his mortal wound. The poets have filled the 
 shadows of that night before the battle with ro- 
 mance. The silent Wallenstein had consulted the 
 stars before deciding to engage, and been assured 
 by his astrologer that the planets threatened de-
 
 224 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 struction to Gustavus in November. As he slept on 
 the field, in the midst of the desultory firing of the 
 outposts, he was visited by mysterious dreams. 
 
 When the late daAvn came, the two armies lay wet 
 and chilled, shrouded in a mist that was loath to 
 rise ; and it was not until eleven in the forenoon 
 that it was clear enough for the Swedes to see the 
 imperialist position. Then at length the king, a 
 head taller than those of his retinue, mounted his 
 superb white charger, a creature of superior size and 
 beauty, said to have been thrown in his way by 
 his enemies, that he might become a more con- 
 spicuous mark, and rode from troop to troop, clad 
 simply in his suit of buff leather. I saw at Dresden 
 the armor he left behind at Weissenfels, and which, 
 had he worn it, might have saved his life. Plates 
 of steel, brown in hue, the head-piece and corselet 
 made to fit an ample brow and breast ; but these the 
 king, too intrepidly, threw aside. He alighted, 
 knelt before his whole army, who also knelt, and, 
 with uncovered head, prayed. 1 Then, accompanied 
 stormily by the drums and trumpets of all the regi- 
 ments, the thousands sang the great psalm of 
 Luther, "Bin* feste Burg ist unser Gott," the 
 powerful tones of the king ringing highest. Was 
 it ever more memorably sung? Then followed a 
 hymn which the king himself had written, "Fear 
 not, little flock." Here is a verse of it, as given 
 by Gfrorer : 
 
 1 According to Laurent, his exclamation on landing upon the 
 short* of Germany was, ' La priere aide a, combattre ; bien prier, c'est 
 4 moiti6 vaincre."
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 225 
 
 Verzage nicht, du Hauflein klein! 
 Obschon die Feinde "Willens sein 
 
 Dich ganzlich zu zerspalten; 
 Gott wird durch einen Gideon 
 Den er wohl weiss, dir helfen schon, 
 
 Dich und sein Wort erhalten. 1 
 
 Most simple and manly it was in its piety. The 
 south wind then blowing carried the thunder of 
 the soldiers' voices to the hostile lines. The hymn 
 died away ; the voices of the priests too, who had 
 been celebrating mass in the other host, became 
 silent. Then came the shouts of the Swedish cap- 
 tains commanding the assault. The cannon on both 
 sides opened with fury, and over the stubble of the 
 bare field, with pike and musket, the foot sprang 
 forward. To the ditch it was only a few steps, and 
 there the enemy met them with obstinacy. The 
 king sprang from his horse, when the vigor of the 
 attack appeared for a moment to slacken, caught 
 a partisan from the hand of a soldier, and went 
 himself to the front, chiding them as he hurried 
 through their ranks, and bidding them " stand firm 1 
 at least some minutes longer, and have the curiosity 
 to see your master die in the manner he ought, and 
 the manner he chooses." At length the enemy 
 were dislodged ; the host of men, pursuers and pur- 
 
 1 Fear not, O little flock! although 
 Against thoe burst the furious foe, 
 
 Thee quite to sunder aiming; 
 For God shall, through some Gideon 
 "Whom He well knows, with succor run, 
 
 Thee and His word maintaining. 
 Harte : Life of Gustuvus. 
 15
 
 226 HERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sued, streamed across the high-road into the farther 
 field. The dark host of Piecolomini's cuirassiers 
 charged toward them. " Grapple with these black 
 fellows ! " cried the king to the colonel of the Fin- 
 land horse. There was clash and tumult ; in an- 
 other moment the smoking battery at Wallenstein's 
 centre was in Swedish hands, and presently three 
 of the brigades of infantry were in confusion. 
 Wallenstein himself here came riding forward, on 
 the red steed which he mounted as the fight became 
 hot. His usual dress in the field which he prob- 
 ably wore on this day was a coat of elk-skin, a red 
 scarf, a richly-embroidered cloak of scarlet, a gray 
 hat with red feathers, and about his neck the order 
 of the Golden Fleece. Behind him galloped a body 
 of chosen horse, who obeyed him as if he had 
 been a demi-god. 
 
 Wallenstein 's dress was again and again shot 
 through. Step by step the Swedes were forced 
 backward, the cannon recaptured. The battle be- 
 came a wild iiii-Uc, where the intermingled combat- 
 ants fought, for the most part, with pike and 
 musket-butt, until at length the assailants were 
 driven beyond the road once more, and stood at 
 last a broken company, on the ground from which 
 they had advanced. Liitzen, close bv, was now 
 in flames, and Bernhard's (Jermans were sorely har- 
 assed by the lire of the guns from the, windmill. 
 The king, however, charging at the head of the 
 Swedish 1 horse, threw into contusion the imperialist 
 left : then, hearing of Bernhard's danger and the 
 repulse of the centre, he set out on the gallop to
 
 THE THIRTY FEARS' WAR. 227 
 
 stay the reverse. His horse was powerful. He 
 leaped the ditches at the roadside, the regiment of 
 Smalanders galloping after him. His pace, how- 
 ever, was so rapid that he left them behind, and 
 only one or two of his retinue could keep up with 
 him. He was near-sighted, and in his ardor went 
 too near the enemy's line. " That must be one of 
 their leaders," said an imperialist corporal; "fire 
 upon him." There was shooting at close quarters, 
 and a ball pierced the king's arm. Faint with pain, 
 he reeled a little in the saddle. " The king is 
 bleeding ! the king is bleeding ! ' ' cried the ap- 
 proaching dragoons. Leaning upon the duke of 
 Saxe-Lauenburg, Gustavus besought him to get 
 him to one side. They avoided the press by a little 
 detour, which, however, carried them again too near 
 the enemy. There was further firing ; the pallid and 
 tottering king gasped out, " My God ! my God ! " 
 and fell from his horse, pierced through and through. 
 His foot hung in the stirrup, and his horse, like- 
 wise wounded, dragged him farther among the 
 enemy, where he was again shot, exclaiming, as he 
 gave up the ghost, "My God! my God! Alas, 
 my poor queen!" A murderous fight took place 
 over his body as he lay. Now the Croats were 
 in possession, swarthy ruffians, such as one sees 
 still in Austrian uniforms in the towns along the 
 Danube, as he goes toward Vienna. Now the 
 Swedes had the advantage, only to be driven off 
 again, until the heap of bodies grew high above 
 the king, and neither friend nor foe knew longer 
 where he lay. The body had been stripped, how-
 
 228 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ever, and the doublet, pierced with bullet-holes and 
 stained with blood, is still shown at Vienna. A 
 turquoise of extraordinary size, which he wore 
 attached to a chain, perhaps as a talisman, one 
 of the crown jewels of Sweden, has never been re- 
 covered. The white steed, covered with blood, and 
 mad with his wounds, galloping along the line, gave 
 the army the first intimation that misfortune had 
 befallen the king. There was some talk of retreat, 
 but Duke Bernhard, himself wounded in the arm, 
 rode to the front. In the presence of the army 
 for the moment appalled he ran through and 
 through with his sword the commander of the 
 Smalanders, who had guarded the king too neg- 
 ligently. The Swedes, recovering heart in a 
 moment, before the decision of the new leader, 
 stormed madly forward ; the voice of the king's 
 blood seemed to cry to them from the ground ; and 
 German and Scot, Hollander and Englishman, were 
 not far behind. Over the road again they poured 
 in a torrent ; the battery, already taken and re- 
 taken, smutched and heated with incessant dis- 
 charge, was again in their hands. The guns at the 
 windwill were captured ; troop after troop, put 
 utterly to rout, fled toward Leipsic. In vain Pic- 
 colomini exposed himself, until seven horses were 
 killed under him, and lie was wet with his own 
 blood. The spell of Wallenstein himself seemed 
 broken. Wierd as a demon, he moved in the 
 tumult, invulnerable to bullet and pike-thrust, as 
 if he really were a shade, or smeared with the oint- 
 ment of hell, which many believed he had at com-
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 229 
 
 mand. The powder-wagons in the rear roared into 
 the air in a -sudden explosion, raining balls and 
 bursting bombs in every direction. All was on the 
 brink of utter rout, when, with galloping hoofs and 
 corselets reflecting the late afternoon light, the 
 horse of Pappenheim six fierce, fresh regiments 
 rushed upon the field ; their leader rode ahead, 
 a most impetuous chieftain, whose brow it was 
 said, when he was on fire with battle, bore in deep 
 crimson the mark of two sabres crossed. You 
 may see at Dresden the baton which he carried 
 as field-marshal; and now, no doubt, while the 
 fighting sabres were flaming on his forehead, pointed 
 forward to mark the path for his troopers. The 
 Swedes were outnumbered and exhausted by their 
 successes, but a fight of utter recklessness went for- 
 ward. The ghost of the dead king seemed to hover 
 in the battle-smoke. With a sort of demon gran- 
 deur, Wallenstein, in his red attire, towered in the 
 tumult, with an eye that burned upon the fray with 
 as his host had some reason to think a supernatural 
 flame. His retinue were all shot down ; a cannon- 
 ball tore the spur from his heel ; several musket- 
 balls were found to have lodged in the folds of his 
 dress. It was a confusion of blood, shrieks, prayers, 
 curses. " It was wonderful to see how (among the 
 Swedes) the whole yellow regiment, after half an 
 hour, in the same beautiful order in which it had 
 stood living, lay dead by its arms," l and the Goth- 
 land and Smaland blues had fought also to an exter- 
 
 1 Khevenhiiller.
 
 230 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 mination as utter. The Swedes were driven back to 
 their position of the morning. As -the twilight, 
 however, was giving way to darkness, they advanced 
 again, and fought until in the November black- 
 ness friend could no longer be told from foe. 
 Wallenstein, like a baffled goblin, withdrew silently 
 in the gloom, without standards, without artillery, 
 the soldiers almost without arms, bearing with him 
 Pappenhcim, who had saved him, at the last gasp, 
 from a mortal wound. In the darkness the Swed- 
 ish Colonel Oehm hoard a voice commanding him 
 to " follow to Lcipsic." It was a messenger from 
 Wallenstein, who mistook his regiment for Hoff- 
 kirk's imperialists ; and then first the Swedes knew 
 that the foe had yielded. 1 One-fourth of all en- 
 gaged had been slain outright ; and as to wounded, 
 in the host of Wallenstein scarcely a man was un- 
 hurt. The Swedes encamped close upon the field. 
 They hunted with lanterns among the corpses, in the 
 low-hanging gloom, until at length they found the 
 king, face downward, close by a great stone, naked, 
 gashed, trampled. The great stone on the plain of 
 Liitzen, long before the time of the buttle, had had a 
 notoriety, perhaps been an object of some rever- 
 ence. It is a solitary bowlder, brought hither by 
 natural forces, or perhaps by human hands, to lie 
 here alone, whence and for what, no man can say. 
 But since that day, mention of t lie " Schwedenstcin" 
 comes in again and again in historv and poetry, 
 coupled with solemn lamenting, until, through asso- 
 
 1 Harta.
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 231 
 
 elation, the words, to a German ear, have come to 
 have almost the sound of moaning. The king's 
 corpse was carried, by torch-light, accompanied by a 
 little retinue of troopers, in an ammunition-wagon, 
 to a village in the rear of the Swedish line, where it 
 was laid before the altar of the little church. The 
 village school-master tells the story; how a simple 
 service took place, conducted by himself and a 
 trooper yet covered with the dust and sweat of bat- 
 tle ; then how, while the body lay at length on a 
 table in a peasant's house, he made a plain coffin, in 
 which the hero was borne to his weeping queen at 
 Weissenfels. 1 
 
 I went alone over the plain of Liitzon, the twi- 
 light deepening at every step, bearing in my mind 
 the story I have told. The rattle of the wheels 
 from the receding Eilwagen had long been hushed ; 
 there was no footfall on the highway but my own. 
 Between the rows of trees at length I saw dimly the 
 buildings of Liitzen, and knew I had reached the 
 spot. I waited in the road until the night had 
 wholly set in. The moon, behind a thin cloud, gave 
 n ghostly light ; there was now and then a light- 
 ning flash in the horizon, and a sullen roll of thun- 
 der, like the sound of distant cannon. I looked out 
 upon the fields to the north, showing faint and mys- 
 terious, those in which Wallenstein had lain when 
 in the black darkness he dreamed, or awoke to deal 
 with charms and incantations : whence on the mor- 
 row, as the mist cleared, he looked across and be- 
 
 1 Gfrorer.
 
 232 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 held the bareheaded Swedes upon their knees. 
 There it was that he rode, stern and calm, with his 
 invulnerable breast. I was now on the spot where 
 the fight had been fiercest, on the broad level of the 
 hirh-road, alone where those thousands had strug- 
 
 o * o 
 
 gled. I tried to call up a vision of the SAvarming 
 Norsemen, yellow-haired and vigorous, with frames 
 and courage exercised in the woods and fiords that 
 had nursed the sea-kings before them. It must 
 have been just here that the yellow regiment lay 
 dead, all ranked as they stood ; and just here the 
 blues. It was here that the cannon-wheels fur- 
 rowed the sod ; and it was yonder that Pappen- 
 heim burst in with his sweating horses and remorse- 
 less sabres. 
 
 I left the road and went down into the field to the 
 south, in a spot where the grain had been reaped, 
 and stood where the Protestant line stood when 
 their hearts heaved as they prayed with the king, 
 and shook the air with their manly chanting. Here 
 it must have been that he flunaf himself from his 
 
 O 
 
 horse, and went forward, pike in hand, when the 
 foot hesitated ; and now at length I came to the 
 great stone at the foot of which they found the 
 king's body. It rose in the plain, two feet or so 
 above the soil, gray, indistinct under the moon, 
 dumb, but eloquent. I thought of the stain that 
 had lain among the lichens there ; the cold mist 
 charged heavily with the sulphurous reek of the 
 combat ; the S\vedes, weeping and wounded, search- 
 ing wearily among the corpses with their lanterns ; 
 then, at last, throwing their arms, stiff with smiting,
 
 THE THIRTY TEARS' WAR. 233 
 
 about their golden hero, 1 stretched, tall and noble, 
 just in front. 
 
 It was all wild and solemn as a scene in Ossian, 
 the solitude, the low thunder, the dimness of the 
 night, the sad moan of the wind, the lightning like 
 the red blade of a war-god suddenly brandished. 
 The moon, cold and pale, sinking toward the west, 
 fell back in a faint, blue reflection from a little pool 
 among the furrows, as if the great turquoise lay there 
 that is said to have vanished from the earth with the 
 king's life. It was a night for the phantoms to ap- 
 pear and fight the battle over again. It was late 
 when I went on, at last, into the deserted street of 
 the little village. At the inn my mind was too full 
 for quiet sleep ; if my eyes closed, 'twas to dream 
 of smoking torches, in the hands of men covered 
 with dust and blood, and shining on the king's 
 body ; of the clatter of hammers driving coffin-nails ; 
 and of Wallenstein, red and spectral, like the wild 
 huntsman, swallowed up in the gloom and storm of 
 the dismal night. 
 
 If the ghosts of great men revisit the spots mem- 
 orable to them during their earthly strivings, tower- 
 1112: shades they are that encounter one another on 
 
 O 
 
 that Liitzen high-road. Just here it was that Charles 
 XII., that iron-sided Swede, pitched his camp when 
 Northern Europe was his foot-ball. Here again, in 
 1757, marched an army in cocked hats, high black 
 gaiters coming to the knees, and hair gathered in 
 queues. With the vanguard rode a man straight 
 
 1 The Italians called him "Re d'Oro," from the color of his hair.
 
 234 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and stiff, with a steely eye, in which the light glit- 
 tered cold and blue as on a bayonet. Nothing 
 marked him as a leader but the star on his breast. 
 It was Frederick the Great, about to deploy upon the 
 field of Rossbach. Still again, in May, 1813, here 
 was marching a column of Frenchmen, a slender 
 line, stretching several leagues. It was struck sud- 
 denly on the flank by the Russians and Prussians, 
 and nearly cut in two. Thirteen thousand French 
 died to prevent it ; for the long column, leaving the 
 high-road, swept down into the fields toward the 
 danger, and grappled with it long and doubtfully. 
 The Imperial Guard had bivouacked at the great 
 stone of Llitzen ; and it was precisely there that 
 Napoleon, flat on his belly, studying a map, rose to 
 listen to the sudden cannonade to the right ; then, 
 presently after, his genius working at its brightest, 
 galloped off into the fire. If such shades ever walk, 
 they may well walk there. If precedence is given 
 to him that was noblest, they will all yield to the 
 lofty Swede who prayed as he fought. Close by 
 the earth-shaking Corsican will move the wi/ard 
 Bohemian, whose sword was Avielded as well, cut as 
 keenly, swept as far, and might have completed the 
 parallel by becoming also an imperial sceptre, but 
 for the intervention of the assassin. 
 
 In the careers of both Gustavus and Wall en stein, 
 the battle of Liit/en is the crisis. To one it brought 
 death ; to the other the fulness of fame and power. 
 Moreover, in the battle of Liit/en we may see the 
 whole of the Thirty Years' War. In Got he's theory 
 of the metamorphosis of plants, we are taught that
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 235 
 
 every part of the plant is a repetition of one type, 
 and that is the leaf. Bark and bough, stamen, pis- 
 til, petal, are but modified leaves, the plant through- 
 out and during its whole existence being made up 
 of nothing else. By a very dismal morphology, 
 such a leaf is Llitzen ; modify it and repeat it over 
 and over again, and you have the Thirty Years' 
 War. Now it was the horrible sack of a city, now 
 the hurling from windows of obnoxious members in 
 a parliamentary assembly, now some outburst of 
 gloomiest fanaticism, anon an exhibition of noble 
 piety and sacrifice. But Liitzen is the type of it all. 
 The same persistence, the same awful hatred, the 
 waste, the bloodshed, the hymns, the prayers, the 
 blasphemies, raging forward from first to last during 
 those terrible years, until the land was well-nigh 
 consumed. It is worth while, then, to consider the 
 event, as has been done, quite narrowly. Liitzen 
 was scarcely more than a drawn battle ; the general- 
 ship of Wallenstein was perhaps fully equal to that 
 of Gustavus. Throughout the first part of the ac- 
 tion the duke hold the king in check with perhaps 
 scarcely more than half his number. When dark- 
 ness came, 'it can hardly be said that the advan- 
 tage was with the Protestants. Wallenstein indeed 
 withdrew without artillery and standards, but the 
 Swedes were too crippled to stir in pursuit, and 
 the loss of the king was greater than that of a 
 dozen armies. Oxenstiern, however, the great chan- 
 cellor of Sweden, remained for the cabinet ; Bern- 
 hard, Horn, Banier, and Torstenson for the field, 
 pupils of the king, who did honor to their master. 
 The end was not vet.
 
 236 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Wallenstein withdrew from Leipsic, making 
 princely gifts to the captains and corps who had 
 done well in the battle, and sternly punishing such as 
 had been dilatory. During the winter he recruited 
 and reformed his army, and in the spring, when he 
 opened his last campaign, this was his pomp, as de- 
 scribed by an eye-witness: "The train announced 
 the man who, in power and splendor, vied even with 
 the emperor himself. The procession consisted of 
 fourteen carriages, each drawn by six horses ; twenty 
 cavaliers of rank attended on Wallenstein' s own 
 person, and a hundred and twenty liveried servants 
 followed in the suite. All the court attendants were 
 dressed in new scarlet and blue uniforms ; and ten 
 trumpeters, sounding their silver-gilt trumpets,, 
 opened the way. All the baggage-wagons were cov- 
 ered with gilt leather ; the greatest order prevailed 
 in the establishment, and every person, knew exactly 
 what was his place and what were his duties. The 
 duke himself was dressed in a horseman's buff coat ; 
 and the entire scene resembled more a victor's tri- 
 umph than the march of a lately baffled com- 
 mander." 
 
 A mystery hangs over the short remnant of Wal- 
 lenstein's life which has never been penetrated. He 
 was omnipotent in his army, trusted to the full by 
 the emperor ; now that Gustavus was gone, opposed 
 by no leader who could match him. Henceforth, 
 however, his career has no glory ; his force gives 
 way to supineness and vacillation. It was not decay 
 of power; what was it? He was a puzzle even to 
 the ablest and best-informed of his contemporaries. 
 Oxenstiern declared that the motives of Wallenstein
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 237 
 
 were too mysterious for him to penetrate. He 
 spared the Protestant Saxons ; played fast and loose 
 in negotiations with the Swedes ; bore himself 
 haughtily toward the imperial court, until the latter 
 resolved upon his downfall. By secret machinations 
 his host was taken from him ; and at length, while 
 at Eger, a fortress on the frontier between Bavaria 
 and Bohemia, in February, 1634, the end came. 
 Through the agency of Colonel Buttler, an Irish 
 mercenary, his confidants, Illo and Terzky, were 
 slain at a banquet. A few moments later the ruf- 
 fians burst into the solitary room where Wallenstein 
 brooded, as usual, by himself, over his purposes. 
 He deigned to utter no word of expostulation ; stand- 
 ing in cold dignity, with arms extended, he received 
 the halberd-thrust. He passed away, his life all un- 
 explained, as incomprehensible as the sphinx. 
 
 Wallenstein was dead. To excuse the deed, the 
 imperial court declared that he had meditated trea- 
 son ; that his purpose had been to lead his army 
 over to the enemy, and, at the head of both, seize 
 upon the sovereignty. This view is the one which 
 has been generally entertained, many Protestant 
 authorities believing that, in the reconstituted em- 
 pire, he meant to exercise a tolerant rule, giving to 
 all the blessings of peace. Forster, a writer of our 
 own century, who had access to documents hereto- 
 fore kept secret at Vienna, declared that he medi- 
 tated no treason, but was sacrificed by the court 
 simply because he had sickened of war, and baffled 
 the ruthless policy which the court prescribed. 
 Hurter, on the other hand, who writes in the in-
 
 238 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 terest of the Catholics and the court of Austria, has 
 drawn his character in the darkest colors, represent- 
 ing him as the evil demon of Germany. 1 The first 
 modern authority in historical investigation, Von 
 Ranke, who has lately treated the subject, cannot 
 he definite, and is forced to leave many important 
 points undecided. "If one," he declares, "reads 
 Forster and Hurter, he sees that we stand to-day, 
 although somewhat better instructed, just as at first. 
 What one maintains, the other denies." 
 
 One is glad to think there is reason for consider- 
 ing Friedland, at the last, at any rate in some ways 
 noble as well as able. He was nursed in the warfare 
 of his time, the instrument of cruelties which we 
 can hardly endure to hear of. Perhaps he tried to 
 mitigate the horrors of the warfare, dying at length 
 in an effort to establish peace and a tolerance that 
 was far before his time. I find him called the great- 
 est figure of his time, and so set above Gustavus. 
 It was indeed the case that the king was born abso- 
 lute monarch of a race of brave men ; Wallenstein 
 began in the ranks, or scarcely above, the son of 
 a man poor and obscure. Weighted though he was, 
 he confronted the king, at the height of his fame, as 
 powerful as he. Such was his might that men said 
 he had bought it of the devil, and paid for it with 
 his own soul. It is not strange that romantic nat- 
 ures have become absorbed in him, and that painters 
 and poets have considered him an attractive sub- 
 ject. Schiller has founded upon his story a tragedy 
 
 Die Geschichto Wiillensteins.
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 239 
 
 which has been declared the greatest drama since 
 the time of Shakespeare. 1 In a future chapter the 
 trilogy of ' ' Wallenstein ' ' will be considered with 
 some care. 
 
 In the " Neue Pinacothek," at Munich, a picture 
 that attracts the attention of all is the "'Death of 
 Wallenstein." With outstretched arms, as he fell, 
 lies the murdered leader, while over him stands his 
 astrologer and bosom companion, Seni, whose pas- 
 sionless face seems to say that it was fixed by fate, 
 and that he has read it all beforehand in the courses 
 of the stars. Still more powerful is another picture, 
 to be seen elsewhere, in which Friedland is repre- 
 sented as just entering the fortress of Eger on the 
 eve of his assassination. It is by the artist Piloty, 
 who has embodied in a wonderful manner in his 
 work the tragical gloom of his hero's character and 
 career. The circumstances are those of a magnifi- 
 cent military cavalcade, and yet in some indescrib- 
 able way they suggest the terrible. In the fore- 
 ground is a church-yard, past which the procession 
 is moving. From a yawning, half-finished grave the 
 grave-digger seems to beckon to Wallenstein, sitting 
 in his litter, with anxious face resting upon his hand. 
 Through the sky, darkened by clouds, the ravens 
 swoop, filling the air, as it were, with gloomy boding. 
 The troopers who precede the litter in which the 
 duke is borne, their backs only seen, seem indescrib- 
 ably to betoken the averted favor of the world ; 
 while the figure of Buttler, riding behind, though, 
 
 1 De Quincey.
 
 240 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 if looked at, only that of a stern soldier of the pe- 
 riod, is yet so rigid, so ominously dark in its fea- 
 tures, that it irresistibly suggests an avenging fate. 
 The leaders were gone, but the war raged for- 
 ward. What became of the magnificent Germany 
 of the old 'time, which Karl the Great had founded, 
 which the Hohenstauffen had loved and ruled, and 
 which had waxed gloriously forward until it was 
 everywhere dotted with free cities among the well- 
 tilled leagues ? From the rich river valleys up into 
 the hills had swept the vineyards and corn-fields, 
 and past them poured the great convoys of the mer- 
 chants from foreign lands ; in the many-hued society 
 had stood in full ranks the nobles, the sturdy 
 burghers, the millions of the peasantry. Thirty 
 years of devastation and the black forests were 
 growing over it once more, from which a thousand 
 years before it had been redeemed ; no longer the 
 song of the laborers, but the bark of the wolves 
 which had come back to tenant the new-made desert ; 
 in place of towers and homes, ash-heaps that were 
 full of skeletons ! That suit of armor at Dresden, 
 left behind in Weissenfels, ten miles from Liitzen, 
 because the pressure of the cuirass was somewhat 
 heavy on an old wound ! Had Gustavus worn it, in- 
 stead of the doublet of bulF leather, who knows 
 what agony might have been saved the world ? So 
 too, but for the pike-thrust of Buttler's ruffians, 
 might AYallenstein have blocked the path of the 
 heavy-footed horror. 
 
 The literature of the period whose history we
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 541 
 
 have reviewed, from the death of Luther to the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, requires only brief 
 consideration. At the death of the great reformer, 
 there were not wanting in Germany writers of abil- 
 ity. Ingenious minds at this period still threshed 
 the straw of the scholastic philosophy ; but there 
 were gifted men, in their lifetime persecuted as nec- 
 romancers, who were beginning to break a path for 
 modern physical science, the most famous repre- 
 sentative of whom was Paracelsus. There were no 
 poets better than certain honest but dreary Master- 
 singers, excepting that now and then, from some 
 earnest Protestant pastor, came a devout hymn. A 
 historian sometimes appears a little better than a 
 bare annalist. Above all, the minds of men were 
 agitated upon questions of theology, and vast li- 
 braries were written for and against dogmas for 
 which the world has ceased to care. 
 
 The dreamer Bohme must be mentioned, like 
 the Nuremberg Masters! nger,' a cobbler, whose 
 name has come to be reverenced by all mystical think- 
 ers. Little of the literary work of this time was done 
 in German. The centres of culture at first the 
 monasteries, then the courts of princes, then the 
 cities were now the universities, which, with the 
 revival of learning, had been founded in many parts 
 of the land. To a lanre extent we must ascribe it to 
 
 <^ 
 
 pedantry that poor vanity of scholars which leads 
 to a display of attainments that the learned men 
 turn their backs upon their wholesome, honest 
 mother-tongue. To be sure, a certain convenience 
 came from the circumstance that since Latin was 
 
 16
 
 242 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 recognized as the only language fit for scholars, the 
 refined men of different lands could, through this, 
 make themselves intelligible to each other. But it 
 is very plain that those who should have been guides 
 and teachers seemed to take an unworthy pleasure 
 in separating themselves from the world of plain 
 men and women, by writing and talking in a lan- 
 guage unintelligible to them, showing a spirit, in 
 this respect, as far as possible from that of Luther, 
 whom they in most things professed to reverence. 
 The affectation went so far that it was the fashion 
 to be ashamed even of their plain German names, 
 which must be exchanged for,t>r modified into, Greek 
 or Latin designations. Hondt, Turmair, Von Ho- 
 henheim, Schwarzerd, became Canisius, Aventinus, 
 Paracelsus, Melanchthon. They were sometimes 
 men of power, and worked with industry, but their 
 accomplishment was stored up in the dead tongue. 
 For a judgment upon them, oblivion has buried 
 most of them, while the poetic shoemakers and 
 vagabond lampooners, whom they utterly despised, 
 are remembered, and sometimes held in honor. 
 
 At the end of the century appears a man who 
 must be mentioned more at length. To Johann 
 Fischart the high praise is accorded of mirroring in 
 himself the intellectual life of the last half of the 
 sixteenth century, as Luther the first. 1 He pos- 
 sessed extraordinary power, various and thorough 
 knowledge, and an excellent purpose. Whether he 
 was born in Mainz or Strassburg is a matter of uu- 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS 1 WAR. 243 
 
 certainty. He travelled widely, and toward the end 
 of his life lived in Speyer, as an advocate of the im- 
 perial court. Soon after his death he was almost 
 forgotten, although during his lifetime he had at- 
 tained a high celebrity. His great significance has 
 found recognition only in our o\vn day. Ho was not 
 only a well-read man, like Hans Sachs, but a great 
 scholar; his nature was thoroughly noble, freedom 
 being the watchword of his life. He showed great 
 ability in satire. It is plain that he loves his race, 
 though he uncovers unsparingly human weaknesses 
 and defects. His greatness and many-sidedness are 
 most apparent in his prose , though his position as a 
 poet is honorable. 
 
 While the armies were clashing at the beginning 
 of the Thirty Years' War, a certain versifier, Martin 
 Opitz von Boberfeld, appeared, becoming the centre 
 of a group of mediocre poets known as the " First 
 Silesian School." Opitz deserves this praise: that 
 he loved his native tongue, sought to improve it, while 
 making it the vehicle of his own thoughts, and used 
 all his influence which came to be considerable 
 to bring it into honor. 1 Lohenstein and Hoffmans- 
 waldau, a little later, are centres of the " Second Sile- 
 sian School," whose characteristics may be summed 
 up in the one word " worthlessness." It is pleas- 
 ant to turn from this barrenness to a department of 
 poetry in which the sad years during and following 
 the Thirty Years' War show a really rich yield. 
 From the long agony of the German nation were 
 wrung a body of the noblest hymns. It has been 
 well said that the most significant fact of the period 
 
 See Appendix, note A.
 
 244 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 is that its truest literary achievements are in a de- 
 partment in which no other Aryan people has ex- 
 celled, and which is really as alien to the German as 
 to the French and English intellect. 1 The hymns of 
 Paul Flemming, and especially of Paul Gerhardt, 
 surpass even those of their English contemporaries, 
 George Herbert and Vaughan, deserving to be 
 classed with those of Luther, and only inferior to 
 the great Hebrew outbursts. Gerhardt, a Lutheran 
 pastor, long resident in Berlin, losing his place 
 through his opposition to certain plans of the Great 
 Elector, was a model of piety. He wrote one hun- 
 dred and twenty songs, which are outpourings of the 
 truest devoutness, almost without exception fault- 
 less examples of the poetry of religion. 
 
 The prose of the seventeenth century offers still 
 less that is worthy of attention than the poetry. 
 Those who wrote, in large majority, preferred to 
 use Latin, even when their knowledge of that lan- 
 guage was most imperfect ; where German was the 
 medium, it was so interlarded with foreign expres- 
 sions that it became scarcely recognizable as Ger- 
 man, the mongrel result receiving from Leibnitz the 
 name of " Misch-masch." If it were the history of 
 philosophy, instead of belles-lettres, that was our 
 subject,. a large space would be needed for the great 
 name of Leibnitz. Like the scholars of his time in 
 general, however, he turned his back on his native 
 tongue, writing little except in Latin and French. 
 It deserves to be mentioned that lie did so unwill- 
 
 1 Sime's Life of Leasing.
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 245 
 
 ingly, in the idea that circumstances forced him to 
 it. A paper in German, in which he criticised se- 
 verely the " Misch-masch " of his time, and pleaded 
 earnestly for the culture of his native language, is 
 one of the light streaks amid the darkness. Other 
 such streaks are that his disciple Wolf thought it 
 worth while to spread abroad his master's theories 
 in German ; and that a bold professor at Halle 
 (Thomasius) ventured, amid the execrations of the 
 learned world, to lecture to his students in their 
 mother tongue. 
 
 The two hundred years from the death of Luther 
 to the middle of the eighteenth century are a time 
 of night, not absolutely rayless, but full of gloom 
 most oppressive. England saw meanwhile the Eliza- 
 bethan period, France the age of Louis XIV. But 
 the land so long silent and dark was to be glorified 
 in its turn by the sun-burst.
 
 PART II -THE SECOND PERIOD OF BLOOM. 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LESS ING. 
 
 We have considered the dreariness of the Thirty 
 Years' War, and the long period of exhaustion 
 which followed, during which, in literature, so few 
 names appear deserving of mention. We have now 
 reached the eighteenth century. In one state of 
 Germany, at least, a strong man has appeared as 
 ruler whose work has done something toward lifting 
 the Germans from their depression. The great 
 elector, at the end of the seventeenth century, has 
 laid the foundations of the power of Prussia, giving 
 place, at his death, to the first king, who in turn 
 gives way to the memorable Frederick William I. 
 The reader of Carl vie' s Frederick will retain forever 
 the vivid portrait of the coarse, rugged, eccentric 
 sometimes almost insane old monarch, who yet 
 possessed a certain heroism, and set in some ways, 
 for a corrupt time, an example of honesty. When 
 the sceptre falls from his hand it is grasped by the 
 great Frederick, a soul no less marked for com- 
 mand than the mightiest leaders. With him Prussia 
 becomes great ; the rest of Germany, however, con- 
 tinues to languish, a figure with noble traits, like 
 that of Maria Theresa, and Karl August of Weimar, 
 now and then appearing, but the rulers for the
 
 LESSING. 247 
 
 most part the most despicable of their class, devoid 
 of patriotism, rotten with vices, unscrupulous in 
 tyranny, to the extent of selling their subjects for 
 foreign wars like sheep for the shambles. France, 
 towering to the west, subordinates everything. 
 When the glory of Louis XIV. is extinguished, the 
 prestige of the foreigner is undiminished ; for the 
 most part, in the hundred petty courts of Ger- 
 many, we behold a world of apes, whose talk, whose 
 dress, whose manners, whose revolting vices, are 
 patterned after those of the riotous society which 
 was ground to pieces at length for its sins between 
 the jaws of a monster, the French revolution. 1 
 
 Before the middle of the eighteenth century a 
 critic and poet appears in Leipsic Gottsched 
 who, although himself an imitator, and seeing no 
 possibilities for German literature except by fol- 
 lowing in the track of France, was in several ways 
 helpful ; perhaps he was most so as an obstacle to 
 be striven against by the champions who needed 
 some such gymnastic to help them in the acquisition 
 of strength, champions destined to bring in a bet- 
 ter time. In opposition to Gottsched who was 
 of sufficient importance to become the centre of a 
 considerable school stood certain Swiss writers 
 living at Zurich, Bodmer and Breitinger ; also men 
 who came to have many adherents, who liked Eng- 
 lish models, as Gottsched liked the French, and who 
 also brushed the dust off of some of the long-forgot- 
 ten treasures, holding them up to be admired and 
 
 1 Vehse : Geschichte der europaischen Hofe.
 
 248 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 imitated ; in particular they brought to light the 
 Ions-lost Nibelunsjen Lied. We must not forget the 
 
 O o o 
 
 real deserts of these pioneers, discredited and 
 superseded though they were as time went on. 
 Through Gottsched the fantastic unnaturalness of 
 the Second Silesian School was overcome. The 
 effort of these affected writers after pompous and 
 learned periods had produced a style than which 
 nothing could be worse ; in opposition to which the 
 Leipsig critic, though with a theory in some ways 
 quite erroneous, strove for purity, and a dignity that 
 should not be stilted. The great writers of the age 
 of Louis XIV. had but just passed away, and it was 
 natural that Gottsched should have seen in them 
 the best models for the writers of his own race. He 
 found little in English literature worthy of notice, 
 and felt, with Voltaire, that even Shakespeare was 
 a wild barbarian, whose genius could not atone for 
 his rudeness. The Swiss, on the other hand, Bod- 
 merand Brcitinger, liked the English. They estab- 
 lished a periodical after the plan of the " Spec- 
 tator ; " they found fault with French writers as too 
 formal and artificial, and demanded nature. All 
 this Gottsched fought valiantly ; he was really a 
 stalwart character, having in him the stuff of a sol- 
 dier ; indeed, he had to flee from home in his youth 
 to avoid the recruiting officers, who saw in him ma- 
 terial for a grenadier, lie declared that English 
 poets would never receive recognition in Germany, 
 much less be imitated, sounding all the time the 
 praises of the French. Before giving up Gottsched 
 I must quote from the autobiography of Gothe an
 
 LBSSIN& 249 
 
 amusing account of a visit paid by him in his youth 
 to Gottsched, when the prestige of the literary mag- 
 nate was as yet unbroken : * 
 
 "I shall never forget our introduction at Gott- 
 sched' s ; it was characteristic of the man. He lived 
 in a handsome first-floor at the ' Golden Bear.' The 
 old book-seller had given him these apartments 
 for life, in consideration of the benefits arising to 
 his business from the works of his guest, We were 
 announced. The servant told us his master would 
 be with us immediately, and showed us into a spa- 
 cious room. Perhaps we did not comprehend a 
 sign he made us. AVe thought he was directing us 
 into an adjoining chamber, on entering which we be- 
 held a whimsical scene. Gottsched appeared at 
 the same instant, at an opposite door. He was 
 enormously corpulent. He wore a damask dressing- 
 gown lined with red taffeta. His monstrous bald 
 head was bare, contrary to his intention, for his ser- 
 vant rushed in at the same instant, by a side door, 
 with a long wig in his hand, the curls of which de- 
 scended below the shoulders. He presented it to 
 his master w r ith a trembling hand. Gottsched, with 
 the greatest apparent serenity, took the wig with his 
 left hand, with which he dexterously fitted it to his 
 head, while with his right hand he gave the poor 
 fellow a most vigorous box on the ear, which sent 
 him to the door in a pirouette, like a valet in a play, 
 after which the old pedagogue, turning to us with 
 an air of dignity, requested us to be seated, and 
 
 Dichtung und Wahrheit.
 
 250 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 conversed with us very politely for a considerable 
 time." 
 
 The bluff old autocrat played a part somewhat 
 similar to that of his contemporary in England, Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, whom he seems to have resembled 
 in his person and some of his traits. Unlike his 
 English counterpart, however, the German potentate 
 was dethroned and set aside, even in his lifetime, 
 in a way that is pathetic. In the middle of the 
 century, however, his prestige was unbroken, and 
 there was no thought in literature or social life but 
 of servilely following the French precedents. In 
 1750, Voltaire, writing from Potsdam, just after 
 his arrival in Prussia, could say, " I find myself in 
 France here. Our language alone is spoken. Ger- 
 man is only for soldiers and horses ; it is only neces- 
 sary for the journey." A young man just in that 
 year twenty-one years old was already beginning to 
 break a path for something better. 
 
 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born at Kamenz, 
 in Saxony, descended on both sides from lines of 
 Lutheran pastors, men Avho had fought in the 
 stern battle of the faiths during the years of trial, 
 the while wrestling in mind with many a theological 
 subtlety, transmitting at last an extraordinary sharp- 
 ness and stoutness to the boy Gotthold. His father 
 was a man of decided intellectual power. His 
 mother, unlike the mothers of most distinguished 
 men, was a person not at all remarkable in mind 
 or character. At twelve he was sent to a school 
 endowed from the funds of a suppressed monastery,
 
 LESSINO. 251 
 
 where his brightness was so apparent that the mas- 
 ter said he was a horse that must have double 
 fodder. He seized upon everything within his 
 reach, Latin, Greek, several modern languages, 
 and mathematics, in which latter study he was 
 especially proficient. At seventeen he went to the 
 University of Leipsic. His father, the pastor of 
 Kamenz, his mother, who, like the Scotch good- 
 wife, could appreciate no eminence except that her 
 son " should wag his pow in a pu'pit," wished him 
 to study theology, but for this he had slight inclina- 
 tion, giving himself with great zeal to the study of 
 general literature. He early began to struggle out 
 of the limits within which his friends desired to con- 
 fine him. In the society of Leipsic in which, as a 
 brilliant youth, he soon became somewhat known 
 he grew conscious of awkwardness, and, for the 
 sake of bodily training, took lessons in riding, fenc- 
 ing, and dancing. It was a still further departure 
 from what seemed propriety in the family of a 
 Lutheran pastor of those davs when he began to 
 
 J. / CJ 
 
 associate with the members of a theatrical troupe. 
 The drama attracted him in fact bevond everything;. 
 
 */ v c; 
 
 In his boyhood he had read Plautus and Terence 
 with especial delight. He aspired himself to dra- 
 matic authorship, and believing that a successful 
 playwright must know the stage thoroughly, he 
 sought the theatre. The trouble of the parents was 
 further aggravated when they learned, besides, that 
 there was among his associates a certain free-think- 
 ing youth, a few years the senior of Gotthold, who 
 had left Kamenz in bad repute. The son was sum-
 
 252 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 moned home, but made it soon appear that he had 
 not been wasting his time. The pastor was really 
 learned and discriminating, and soon discovered in 
 the boy rich treasures of thorough and manifold 
 knowledge. They had been gained iii somewhat 
 unusual ways, but Gotthold easily got permission to 
 return to Leipsic. Even thus early he was rising 
 into fame, Leipsic, the home of Gottsched, was 
 the seat of much literary activity. The young men 
 of the university were encouraged to write, and 
 Lessing's contributions to journals had attracted 
 attention. We presently find him in Berlin; then, 
 to please his father, in Wittenberg, which had a 
 more orthodox reputation ; but the place was 
 cramped, and his life became intolerable there. 
 Berlin was again sought, where we soon find him 
 joined in close friendship destined to last through 
 life with a company of brilliant young men, several 
 of whom rose Avith him into fame. The most notice- 
 able one among them was a certain young clerk in a 
 silk factory, with whom he often played chess, who 
 afterwards was known as one of the best thinkers 
 and purest characters of his time, Moses Mendels- 
 sohn. 
 
 Lessing's course was somewhat erratic, not 
 through instability of character, but force of cir- 
 cumstances. Now he is for a time at Leipsic, now 
 again in Berlin, now accompanying a young mer- 
 chant on a journey, in the course of which they 
 reach Holland. He is constantly busy ; his powers 
 of acquirement are extraordinary ; his memory is 
 wonderful. He provides for himself the " double
 
 LESSING. 253 
 
 fodder ' ' which his old teacher foresaw was a neces- 
 sity for him, and develops into commensurate intel- 
 lectual stature and strength . Meantime his fame con- 
 stantly grows as the master of remarkable erudition, 
 and a style as remarkable in force and point. His 
 papers are sometimes critical, sometimes fables, 
 poems, dramas. His life no doubt shocked the con- 
 ventionalities of those days, and caused much anxi- 
 ety in the parsonage at home. Some of his lyrics 
 written at this time are lawless to the verge of 
 license. His impulses, however, were noble, and his 
 work for the most part directed to worthy ends. 
 No son was ever more dutiful and generous, pinched 
 though he was himself by great poverty. At length, 
 during the Seven Years' War, he appears at Breslau, 
 in Silesia, secretary of Tauentzien, the general in 
 command, a position of responsibility, and not at 
 all a literary one, in which he remains five years, 
 showing good capacity for aifairs, and creating the 
 impression that he has forsaken the life of a scholar 
 and Avriter. There was indeed little enough encour- 
 agement in that direction. Prussia was a camp 
 merely ; Austria little better ; Silesia and Saxony 
 lying between, war-worn regions, any one of whose 
 plains might see to-morrow the shock of contending 
 armies. It marks grandly the superiority of Les- 
 sing that in the turmoil, although recognizing the 
 powers and respecting the harsh virtue of Frederick, 
 no narrow considerations affect him. His sympa- 
 thies are broad as the world, and he labors to 
 melt into brotherly feeling the national and class 
 prejudices everywhere rife about him. He was far
 
 254 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 enough from having given up his old pursuits. At 
 the beginning of his Breslau life he wrote, " I will 
 for a time spin round myself like an ugly cater- 
 pillar, that I may be able to come to light again as 
 a brilliant butterfly." That he spun to some pur- 
 pose will presently appear. Note must be made 
 here of what is the worst blot upon his fame. At 
 Breslau he developed a passion for gambling, which 
 became so excessive that Mendelssohn almost gave 
 him up for lost ; and even Tauentzien, a frank and 
 manly soldier, expostulated. Without attempting 
 to excuse the fault, it is right to say that in the so- 
 ciety of the last century gaming was regarded with 
 quite different eyes from at present. What Lessing 
 sought was excitement, no sordid end. He might 
 easily have grown rich in his office, but was too 
 honest. 
 
 When the war is done, Lessing promptly resumes 
 his old career, although it offers him little hope of 
 emolument, indeed of a bare livelihood, and 
 presently appear two masterpieces, each in a differ- 
 ent field, which he has silently elaborated during his 
 years at Breslau. The butterfly bursts forth from 
 its cocoon. The one is "Minna von Barnhelm," 
 the first proper German comedy, the other " Lao- 
 koon," the best work of German criticism. By 
 these his position was established as the first writer 
 of Germany. 
 
 In those days there was no reading public, which, 
 by buying an author's books, could make him in- 
 dependent. In Germany, as in England, only such 
 writers could keep their heads above water as could
 
 LESSING. 255 
 
 secure the patronage of the great. The fine inde- 
 pendence of character of Lessing made impossible 
 to him even the slight degree of complaisance which, 
 with his conspicuous merits, would have secured him 
 ease. He rejected the professorship of eloquence at 
 Konigsberg because every year he must write a 
 eulogy upon the king. Thrift would in all prob- 
 ability have followed only a little fawning, all the 
 easier for Lessing, since he really felt the monarch's 
 greatness. But he adhered to his manhood and his 
 poverty. It is a strange inconsistency in Frederick 
 that, keen as he was, thorough German, and regen- 
 erator of Germany too, he remained through life 
 obstinately blind to the worth of the literature of 
 his land, which, phoenix-like, before his very eyes, 
 swept from its ashes with flight so majestic into the 
 empyrean. The hope at Konigsberg failed. The 
 fine prize of the librarianship at Berlin was most 
 unworthily bestowed upon an obscure Frenchman. 
 As the only thing that offered, the illustrious man 
 went to Hamburg, where an association of rich mer- 
 chants proposed to establish a theatre in Avhich the 
 national drama should be fostered, and offered to 
 Lessing the post of critic and director. The result 
 was the "Hamburg Dramaturgy," a critical work 
 of hardly less moment than the " Laokoon." But 
 the enterprise was a failure. Lessing' s fame had 
 grown, but he had barely bread to eat or clothes to 
 wear. He was wanted in Mannheim, in Berlin, in 
 Vienna, but everywhere his noble pride stood in the 
 way. A little courtier-like fawning would have 
 smoothed his path ; but nature had left his knees
 
 256 GERMAN LITERATURE, 
 
 unhinged. He stood neglected in his sturdy man- 
 hood, hungry and threadbare, while sycophants 
 caught the prizes. It is only natural that sometimes 
 when they meddled with him he turned upon them 
 savagely, as upon a certain pert young professor, 
 Klotz, whom he extinguished with a polemic energy 
 which ranks among the most impressive exhibitions 
 of Lessing's power. 
 
 At length the duke of Brunswick offered him the 
 care of his library at Wolfe nbiittel, and was willing 
 to comply with the condition which the threadbare 
 independent demanded, that what he might choose 
 to write should be submitted to no censorship. The 
 library was extensive, but the situation was remote 
 and unhealthy, and the salary very meagre. His fame 
 was still wider through the publication of his second 
 great play, "Emilia Galotti." But Lessing was 
 plunged into dismal surroundings, without culti- 
 vated companionship, poor, sick, the victim rather 
 than the protege, of his master. He was valued only 
 as giving prestige 1 to the little dukedom. The prom- 
 ises made to him, scanty as they were, were never 
 fulfilled ; but the duke's mistresses lived in splendor. 
 His confinement was not unbroken. He went once 
 to Vienna, and it is hard to understand how one 
 could be at the same time so much esteemed and 
 so much neglected. The great and wise of the cap- 
 it:!! did him honor. Special representations of his 
 plays took place in the court theatre, and Maria 
 Theresa received him with all respect, consulting 
 him deferentially upon various points. They felt 
 that Lessing, with as sharp insight as was over
 
 LESSINQ. 257 
 
 granted to mortal, and such bold independence, was 
 dangerous. They admired him, feared him, and let 
 him suffer on. In the train of Prince Leopold of 
 Brunswick he was enabled to visit Italy. The 
 prince was a capable and enthusiastic youth, in 
 whose companionship Lessing must have found much 
 to enjoy. The great writer was received with all 
 honor at Milan, Naples, and Rome. At forty-seven 
 he was married to a woman worthy of him, much 
 beloved, but for whom his poverty forced him to wait 
 years. Even here he was beneath his baleful star. 
 She died early, in child-birth, and a strange bitter- 
 ness in Lessing' s letters tells the agony with which 
 his soul was wrung. From the first, his labors at 
 Wolfenblittel had been incessant. He discovered in 
 the library valuable manuscripts which, had long 
 been lost. By the publication of portions of a work 
 by a radical thinker, Eeimarus the ' k Wolfenblittel 
 Fragments" he called forth the ire of the more 
 rigid Lutherans, with whose champion, the Pastor 
 Gotze of Hamburg, he engaged in a controversy, in 
 which he showed the power of a Demosthenes or a 
 Junius. After the death of his wife he lingered 
 three years, broken in body and soul, but with tri- 
 umphant genius, producing work after work of 
 power as remarkable as had belonged to the earlier 
 works, of tone still loftier. To this time belong 
 the "Education of the Human Race," the " Con- 
 versations for Freemasons," and lastly the sublime 
 play of " Nathan the Wise," which is characterized 
 by a loftiness of sentiment for which the world is 
 not yet ready, and has been called, after Gothe's 
 
 17
 
 258 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 "Faust," the most peculiar and characteristic pro- 
 duction of German genius. On the fifteenth of 
 February, 1781 , at the age of fifty-three, when Gothe 
 was approaching the fulness of his fame, and 
 Schiller had just appeared with " The Bobbers," the 
 dav advancing gloriously of which he had been the 
 
 fc- O O / 
 
 morning-star, Lessing died. 
 
 Lessing was, before everything else, a critic, 
 taking the term in a high sense, which I shall pres- 
 ently explain. He himself confesses that he was 
 not a true poet : " I do not feel in myself a living 
 spring which wells up through its own force, shoot- 
 ing forth in fresh, pure jets ; everything comes from 
 me through pumps and conduits." l "With his crit- 
 ical power, however, he h;rl asrertainod in poetry 
 the essence, and it is a mark of his greatness that 
 he could compel the working of his talents in fields 
 which nature had made alien to him. To a certain 
 degree only could he compel. His dramas have 
 everything but the poetical breath, that indescrib- 
 able peculiarity which streams out in every thought 
 and word of genuine poetry. Lcssing's dramas are 
 less the product of creative fancy than reflecting 
 reason. Still, he was very great. Said Gothe, 
 " Lessing wished to disclaim for himself the title of 
 poet, but his immortal works testify against him- 
 self." 
 
 Of his earlier writings, no high place can be as- 
 signed to his lyrics. Their philosophy was false, 
 
 1 Hamburgische Dramaturgic.
 
 LESSING. 259 
 
 and their tone sometimes hardly unobjectionable. 
 Lessing himself urged in defence that their philos- 
 ophy was not his own, but assumed. His some- 
 what prudish elder sister once threw a parcel of the 
 poems into the flames ; in revenge for which Les- 
 sing, roughly playful, threw a handful of snow into 
 her bosom, to cool her excessive zeal, as he said. 
 They are best to be judged as the product of Les- 
 sing' s time of fermentation, before the noble wine 
 had run fairly clear. While at Wittenberg, Lessing 
 wrote a series of papers called " Vindications," 1 the 
 aim of which is best described in Lessing' s own 
 words : " I can have no more agreeable occupation 
 than to muster the names of famous men, examine 
 their right to immortality, brush away from them 
 undeserved spots, separate from their real greatness 
 the result of their weaknesses, in short, do every- 
 thing in a moral way which the superintendent of a 
 picture-gallery does in a physical way." Lessing 
 performed his work with acuteness, courage, and a 
 fine sense of justice. To several great men of the 
 past upon whom had fallen the shadow of an un- 
 merited obloquy, he assigned due honor. 
 
 He often appeared to advantage in his fables. 
 One of the best of the collection is entitled " Zeus 
 and the Horse." 2 "Father of beasts and men," 
 said the horse, approaching the throne of Zeus, 
 " they say I am one of the most beautiful creatures 
 with which you have adorned the world, and my 
 
 1 Ketttmgen. 
 
 J Taken from Sime's Life of Lessing, vol. I, p. 198.
 
 260 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 self-love makes me believe it. But is there nothing 
 in me that might be improved? " "And what dost 
 thou think might be improved in thee?" said the 
 kind god, smiling. " Perhaps," said the horse, " I 
 might be more swift if my legs were higher and 
 more slender. A long, swan's neck would not de- 
 form me, a broader chest would increase my strength, 
 and I might possess, ready-made, the saddle which 
 the rider places upon me." " Good," replied Zeus. 
 With serious face, he uttered the word of creation, 
 and suddenly there stood before the throne the ugly 
 camel. The horse looked and trembled with amazed 
 horror. " Here," said Zeus, " are higher and more 
 slender legs ; here is a long, swan's neck ; here is a 
 broader chest ; here is the saddle ready-made. Dost 
 thou wish, horse, that I should thus reshape thee?" 
 The horse still trembled. " Go ! " continued Zeus ; 
 "for this time be taught without being punished. 
 But that thou mayest sometimes be reminded of thy 
 presumption, continue to exist, thou new creature 
 [and Zeus cast a preserving glance at the camel] , 
 and may the horse never look at thee without 
 shuddering ! " 
 
 Through his dramas, Lessing first was recognized 
 as the greatest writer of his time, and in this direc- 
 tion "Minna von Barnhelm " first became famous. 
 A critic of our own time, of high repute, speaks 
 of "Minna von Barnhelm" as still the best Ger- 
 man comedy. 1 Lessing gathered the materials for 
 it during his life as government secretary at 
 
 1 Julian Schmidt
 
 LESSING. 261 
 
 Breslau, immediately after which, as has been nar- 
 rated, it was published. It exercised an immense 
 influence immediately upon its appearance, at once 
 in Berlin making German plays fashionable and 
 popular, whereas before only French plays had 
 been considered tolerable. The time is just at the 
 close of the Seven Years' War. Prussia and 
 Saxony, neighbor states, have been hostile to one 
 another.- Tellheim, a major of the Prussian army, 
 has advanced to the magistrates of the Saxon dis- 
 trict from which he is to exact a contribution the 
 sum required, finding that they could not pay 
 from their own means without prostrating the ter- 
 ritory. The magnanimous deed makes such an im- 
 pression on Minna von Barnhelm, a wealthy and 
 high-born Saxon lady, that she seeks his acquaint- 
 ance, desiring to become his wife. Tellheim recog- 
 nizes her worth, and they are betrothed. The war 
 ends, and the honorable Tellheim presently becomes 
 an object of suspicion. He is accused of having been 
 bribed by the Saxon magistrates whom he has 
 obliged, and during the investigation falls into sad 
 
 O ' d> <^ 
 
 circumstances. At this time the piece begins. 
 Tellheim is living at an inn, the host of which 
 wishes to become rid of him as a moneyless encum- 
 brance. In despair, Tellheim is forced to pawn his 
 engagement ring, which is recognized by Minna 
 von Barnhelm, who has just arrived at the inn at 
 this juncture, searching for her lover. The lovers 
 meet, but Tellheim holds it incompatible with his 
 honor to continue his relations with her. He is 
 cast off and suspected, crippled by wounds, a beg-
 
 262 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 gar, and must not think of a union with the rich 
 and honored gentlewoman. Since no representa- 
 tions -avail to change his conclusion, Minna hits 
 upon a stratagem, in which, it must be confessed, 
 there is some sacrifice of truth. She represents to 
 Tellheim that her love for him has caused her to be 
 disinherited. She had known the high-hearted man 
 well. Just as decided as he was to resign her when 
 he thought her rich is he now that she shall trust 
 herself to his protection. As his own misfortune 
 struck him down, made him negligent and dispir- 
 ited, her misfortune restores his manfulness. He 
 looks freely about, and feels strong and willing to 
 undertake everything for her. Meantime the major 
 receives a letter from the king, in which his inno- 
 cence is recognized, and he is summoned to take 
 service again. Now Minna pretends *that she, on 
 her side, must break off the relation, and cites all 
 the reasons which he had before employed, even 
 returning the engagement ring. Tellheim falls 
 into despair again; but meantime appears Minna's 
 uncle. Tellheim, who considers him her persecutor, 
 thinks now only of protecting her ; Minna, however, 
 drops her ru.se, and the uncle, upon his entrance, 
 finds two happy people. 
 
 So meagre a sketch has little value in giving one an 
 impression of a play. It was a vivid artistic pre- 
 sentment of contemporary life, a field now for the 
 first time occupied by the German drama. It is 
 evident that the plot of the play gives opportunities 
 for both pathos and humor ; these are well improved, 
 and certain subordinate characters the villainous
 
 LESSIN&. 263 
 
 host, a ridiculous Frenchman, an honest old ser- 
 geant, and Minna's lively waiting-maid stand in 
 an effective contrast with their principals. Les- 
 sing wrote the piece witkhigh aims. He wished to 
 rebuke the disposition to ape the French ; to rebuke 
 the ruling powers for their indifference to the sol- 
 diers who had won the victories of the " Seven 
 Years' War;" in particular, to extinguish the pro- 
 vincial hate which had taken deep root during the 
 hostilities in Prussia and Saxony. By the union of 
 the Prussian Tellheim and the Saxon Minna he 
 showed that the dislike was unnatural, and due only 
 to sad political conditions, the national character be- 
 ing everywhere the same. The lessons were noble, 
 and most effectively given. 
 
 Still grander was the teaching in Lessing's later 
 dramas. Besides Minna von Barnhelm, there are 
 two which count as masterpieces : "Emilia Galotti" 
 and ' ' Nathan the Wise ; ' ' the others we need not 
 notice. With regard to the "Emilia Galotti," we 
 must pass it with a momentary glance, although it 
 has been said to be still, artistically considered, the 
 best German tragedy. 1 Its plot is somewhat repul- 
 sive, resembling in some of its features the old Ro- 
 man story of Virginia. Its design was to hold up 
 to execration the baseness of the German princes, 
 with which the land was full. The names and scenes 
 were, indeed, Italian ; it was a thin veil, however, 
 which the world at once penetrated ; corruption in 
 high places heard and trembled at the bold, denounc- 
 
 1 Julian Schmidt
 
 264 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ing voice. The glorious "Nathan the Wise " we 
 can best consider in connection with certain other 
 works which are near it in spirit and date of com- 
 position, the closing yeajrs of Lessing's life. At 
 present we must consider him in another field. 
 
 Madame de Stael has remarked * that perhaps it 
 is in Germany alone that literature has derived its 
 origin from criticism ; everywhere else criticism has 
 followed the great productions of art, but in Ger- 
 many it produced them. To a large extent the re- 
 mark is true, and the critic whose words proved to 
 be such Promethean fire was Lessinsr. If we would 
 
 o 
 
 describe Lessing in one word, that word would be 
 "critic;" but we must understand the term in an 
 elevated sense. He was sent into the world to 
 judge, and we see him standing, in his century, part- 
 ing, unerringly, the gold from the dross in various 
 domains, in literature and art, in politics, morals, 
 and religion. No man of Teutonic race has pos- 
 sessed such a touchstone ; it is claimed that no 
 mortal has ever surpassed him. 2 While his search 
 for truth was constant, his battle with hypocrisy and 
 lies was just as eager and constant ; nor did he 
 know the sensation of fear. I find the expression 
 applied to him, that he was logic become flesh. 3 In 
 the language which he employed we may recognize 
 the clearness and charm of his spirit. Every ex- 
 pression is perspicuous, definite, and choice. With 
 many German writers we must first vanquish the 
 
 1 L. Allemagne. 
 
 * Gervinus. 
 Kurz.
 
 LESSING. 265 
 
 presentation, in order to press to the thought which 
 it mistily wraps. In Lessing, finely says a writer, 
 the presentation is so clear, the thought at the first 
 view springs so powerfully forth, it almost appears 
 to have passed immediately out of the spirit of the 
 thinker into ours, without being clothed at first in 
 an exterior garment. His critical work consisted 
 at first of judgments of particular men and books ; 
 afterwards he treated comprehensive subjects in con- 
 nected writings. He was a youth of twenty-two 
 when he began. From the first independent, 
 although inclined to the views of the Swiss school, 
 he did not submit entirely to its authority. From 
 the first there was love of truth, acuteness, refined 
 taste. At length, with the " Laokoon," he enters 
 upon his second and greater period. 
 
 To a shallow student the merits of the ' ' Lao- 
 koon " are not apparent, but it is perhaps right to 
 say that it appears a work of power in proportion to 
 one's intellectual insight. The greatest minds are 
 those which have been most impressed by it. Ma- 
 caulay said of it, that it filled him with wonder and 
 despair, so far did it seem beyond his own power of 
 accomplishment ; and Macaulay put no low estimate 
 upon what he could do. Herder, in an afternoon 
 and the night following, read it through with the 
 greatest eagerness three times ; and although, in an 
 elaborate criticism, he afterwards took exception to 
 many of its positions, he paid a high tribute to its 
 value. The whole literary career of Gothe was af- 
 fected by it, and in his old age the poet glowingly 
 acknowledged his obligation, in a passage to be here- 
 after quoted.
 
 266 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The work treats of the boundary between poetry 
 and the "formative arts," 1 a name by which Les- 
 sing designates painting and sculpture, the arts 
 which make presentations to the eye by means of 
 sensible forms. It was the fruit of long years of 
 labor and investigation, ripening slowly in Lessing's 
 mind while he was government secretary at Breslau. 
 Unfortunately, like several other of Lessing's finest 
 works, it was never completed. It was important 
 to the development of poetry in this way : that it 
 drove completely out of view the notions which un- 
 til then had been in vogue, substituting new ones, 
 whose truth was immediately recognized, and which 
 soon showed themselves fruitful and successful. 
 
 The Swiss Breitinger 2 had claimed that poetry 
 and painting were not separated in their essence ; 
 that, as Simonides, the Greek poet, had already said, 
 poetry was a speaking painting ; painting, a dumb 
 poetry. By this principle the German poetry of that 
 time was completely mastered. Lessing showed, 
 on the other hand, in keen and close development, 
 that poetry and the formative arts are different, 
 as well in respect to the objects they should strive 
 after as in respect to the effects they are adapted to 
 produce. In Lessing's day lived a critic of art of 
 the highest authority, for whom Lessing himself had 
 the profoundest respect, and whom the world still 
 holds in high esteem, Winckelmann. After hard 
 struggles, the force of "YVinckelmaim's genius at 
 length became apparent ; from Germany he had 
 
 1 Bildende Kiinste. 
 3 Kurz.
 
 LESSING. 267 
 
 gone to Rome, to a position in which he had the 
 fairest opportunities for the study of antique art, 
 and was now at the summit of his fame. A remark 
 contained in a treatise by Winckelmann suggested 
 the " Laokoon." The remark was that the univer- 
 sal and salient distinction of Greek masterpieces in 
 painting and sculpture was a certain noble simplicity 
 and quiet greatness, as well in the pose of the fig- 
 ures as also in their expression. By way of exam- 
 ple, he cites the famous group of " Laokoon " and 
 his two sons attacked by serpents. The poet Virgil 
 represents "Laokoon" as crying; the unknown 
 sculptor of the group, on the other hand, in a more 
 dignified way, with lips just parted, and with no 
 distortion of the features, as if uttering a groan ; 
 the poet therefore, claims Winckelmann, stands far 
 behind the sculptor. 
 
 At the outset of his treatise Lessing steps forth in 
 defence of the poet. The highest law of sculpture 
 and painting, he claims, is beauty ; the object of 
 these the formative arts is to satisfy the eye, 
 which nothing but the beautiful can delight. In vain 
 does the formative artist envy the poet the faculty of 
 seizing and characterizing all objects, and of over- 
 stepping the limits of the beautiful. The poet labors, 
 not for the eye, the seeing faculty, but for some- 
 thing broader, the imagination. The sculptor did 
 not represent "Laokoon " as crying, with wide-open 
 mouth, because crying distorts the face in a repul- 
 sive way, and so offends beauty. Virgil, however, 
 needed not to pay this heed, because he, as poet, 
 was not forced to create a form which the eyes
 
 268 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 should perceive, and which must remain fixed in the 
 one situation chosen. The sculptor of the " Lao- 
 koon " no doubt had in mind in his presentation the 
 description of Virgil. "Whence does it come," 
 says Lessing, " that the artist and poet have com- 
 prehended and treated the subject in ways so differ- 
 ent?" The critic goes on to shoAv and here ap- 
 pears his great acuteness that the reason lies in 
 the essential difference between the two arts. For- 
 mative art painting and sculpture represents its 
 object in space ; poetry represents its object in time ; 
 formative art by means of shape and color ; poetry 
 by articulate tones ; bodies, with their visible quali- 
 ties, the particular objects of the first ; actions, of 
 the second. To be sure, formative art can repre- 
 sent actions, but only through hints in shapes ; and 
 just so can poetry represent shapes, but only through 
 hints in actions. In numerous examples Lessing 
 shows how impossible it is for the poet to represent 
 bodily shapes in all their particulars, showing how 
 even great poets have failed. Homer, for whom 
 Lessing had a veneration almost superstitious, never 
 errs by attempting such representations. In the 
 Iliad, events are fully narrated, but no long descrip- 
 tions are given of objects. A ship is simply the 
 " black ship," the ' hollow," or the " well-rowed, 
 black ship." Of the stationary object, Homer says 
 no more ; but when he speaks of an action, or a 
 series of actions, connected with a ship, such as 
 rowing, embarking, or landing, he tells the story 
 fully. Nevertheless, the representation of bodily 
 objects does not lie entirely without the domain of
 
 LESSING. 269 
 
 poetry. How it may be done, we see from watching 
 Homer's method. When the poet would give us a 
 notion of Agamemnon's dress, he makes the king 
 clothe himself, putting on one garment after an- 
 other, and, at last, grasping the sceptre ; so reduc- 
 ing, as it were, the description of the magnificent 
 object the king in his splendor to a description 
 of events. 1 Again, in considering the shield of 
 Achilles, Vulcan is represented as busy with its fab- 
 rication ; one by one before our eyes, as he labors, 
 appear the figures with which the shield is em- 
 bossed. 2 " He wishes to paint the bow of Panda- 
 rus, a bow of horn, of such and such length, well 
 polished, and at both ends tipped with gold. What 
 does he do ? Does he enumerate all these proper- 
 ties, one after the other, thus dryly? By no means ; 
 that would be to sketch such a bow, to write down 
 its qualities, but not to paint it. He begins with 
 the hunt of the wild goat 3 from whose horns the 
 bow was made. Pandarus had waylaid it among 
 the rocks and slain it ; the horns were of extraor- 
 dinary size, therefore he destined them for a bow ; 
 they come to the workshop ; the artist joins them, 
 polishes them, tips them. And so, with the poet, 
 we see gradually advance towards completion that 
 which the painter could not treat except as com- 
 pleted." 4 
 
 Such is the limitation of poetry. It has power in- 
 
 I Iliad, x. 
 
 II Iliad, xviii. 
 
 3 Iliad, iv. 
 
 4 From the Laokoon ; translated in Sime's Life of Lessing.
 
 270 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ferior to the formative arts in respect to the imita- 
 tion of beauty, that which speaks to the eye ; on the 
 other hand, its sphere is much broader than that of 
 the formative arts, the whole immeasurable realm of 
 nature standing open to its imitation. It can repre- 
 sent the hateful, even the terrible and repulsive. 
 All this is beyond formative art, which Lessing 
 urges is bound by its highest law, that of beauty. 
 It can show but one attitude, one expression, and 
 what sculptor or painter would wish to select for 
 that one phase what causes pain and disgust ? The 
 poet, on the other hand, by passages of splendor, 
 can redeem a spot of darkness ; indeed, by contrast 
 with darkness, heighten the splendor. The two arts 
 are sisters, then, but must always be clearly dis- 
 tinguished. Poetry must narrate events ; painting 
 and sculpture represent coexistent objects. 
 
 In point of style, the " Laokoon " is excellent. 
 It is refreshing enough, after a struggle with the 
 lumbering, involved sentences in which so many of 
 the German thinkers have put their ideas, to turn to 
 the brief, clear periods in which Lessing " econo- 
 mizes the attention " * of his readers. An immense 
 range of learning in languages ancient and modern 
 is indicated by the innumerable citations and refer- 
 ences. Lessinij's knowledge of literature was much 
 wider than of art. In the latter direction his op- 
 portunities for accomplishment, up to the time of 
 the composition of the "Laokoon," had been slight ; 
 it follows naturally that the influence of the book 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer.
 
 LESSING. 271 
 
 upon literature has been more marked and valuable 
 than in the other sphere. Is it right to say that 
 beauty should be the sole object of the formative 
 artist ? Lessing himself is forced to admit that even 
 his perfect Greeks sometimes represented the re- 
 pulsive, as when they delineated the countenances 
 of the Furies, but saves himself by saying that 
 such representations are not art, but religion. 
 " Only when an artist is free to follow the impulses 
 of his own mind is he truly an artist." What shall 
 be said of the historical artist who, when putting 
 on the canvas, or in marble, scenes and personages 
 of the past, certainly makes beauty a secondary ob- 
 ject, if he regards it at all? What shall be said of 
 genre pictures, and those which have a humor- 
 ous purpose, in which there is the same postpone- 
 ment of this first essential ? If they are to be ex- 
 cluded from works of art, how we are limiting our 
 understanding of the term ! We should abbreviate 
 the list of the world's masterpieces by taking away 
 some of what have been held the finest examples. 
 Take the " Laokoon " itself, from which Lessing's 
 discussion proceeds, what can be our understanding 
 of beauty when, in the tortured Trojan priest, 
 we call the furrowed brow, the groaning lips, the 
 writhing limbs, beautiful? The critics of Lessing 
 object, and with reason, to his theory in this point. 
 Lessino- is undoubted! v much nearer the truth in 
 
 o / 
 
 his consideration of the function of poetry : that 
 since articulated tones arc its means, and its object 
 must be represented in time, not shapes, but ac- 
 tions that which is successive are its proper
 
 272 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 concern. The development of the thought here is 
 the most interesting and satisfactory part of the 
 4 ' Laokoon . ' ' The keen analysis seems to have pene- 
 trated to one of the great secrets of Homer's power ; 
 examples as instructive too could have been se- 
 lected from Shakespeare. That long descriptions of 
 stationary objects can hardly be otherwise than op- 
 pressive is made clear in the development and the 
 citations. But even here we should deprive our- 
 selves of some of the precious things in poetry if 
 we should cut off all such passages. 
 
 I turned, 
 And ere a star can wink, beheld her there ; 
 
 For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, 
 That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
 
 And blown across the walk. One arm aloft 
 Gowned in pure white, that fitted to the shape 
 
 Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 
 A single stream of all her soft brown hair 
 
 Poured on one side ; the shadow of the flowers 
 Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 
 
 Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist, 
 Ah, happy shade ! and still went wavering down; 
 
 But ere it touched a foot that might have danced 
 The greensward into greener circles, dipt, 
 
 And mixed with shadows of the common ground! 
 But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunned 
 
 Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom, 
 And doubled his own warmth against her lips, 
 
 And on the bounteous wave of such a breast 
 As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 
 
 She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 1 
 
 If Lessing had belonged to our generation, can 
 we imagine him knitting his brow severely, and pro- 
 
 1 Tennyson : The Gardener's Daughter.
 
 LESSING. 273 
 
 nouncing the poet's work here a mere perversion, 
 that he hud stepped beyond his sphere to undertake 
 a task which only the painter or sculptor could dis- 
 charge ? It is hard to believe ; yet with some 
 abatement from the absoluteness of the statement, 
 Lessing's theory will stand. Only the most coif- 
 summate skill can succeed here. It is a usurpation 
 of the functions of the formative artist for the poet 
 to consider the stationary object ; usurpations, how- 
 ever, are sometimes justifiable in art as well as 
 politics, and in the domain of the arts great genius 
 may authorize them. Lessing is right, neverthe- 
 less, in saying that the safer and better way the 
 natural way is to reduce the description of the 
 object to an action ; the theory commends itself 
 when stated, and when illustrated by the splendid 
 Homeric examples, the pomp of Agamemnon, the 
 bow of Pandarus, the shield of Achilles, w T e are 
 convinced at once. 
 
 The " Laokoon " is so fragmentary that many of 
 its thoughts are barely hinted. For instance, ways 
 in which different arts may be united in their opera- 
 tion are considered. The connection of poetry and 
 music is a natural one ; in the ordinary opera, says 
 Lessing, music is principal, poetry is auxiliary; a 
 connection can be conceived most fruitful in noble 
 result in which poetry shall lie the principal, 
 and music the auxiliary. In the few words in which 
 the suggestion is thrown out 1 it is thought that 
 Lessing anticipates one of the most remarkable 
 
 1 Sime. 
 II
 
 274 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 and characteristic aesthetic developments of the 
 present century, the movement associated with 
 the name of Richard Wagner. 
 
 Every thoughtful student of the " Laokoon " will 
 find himself again and again questioning its positions. 
 No writer considers it without making objections ; 
 Lessing himself often seems abundantly conscious 
 that he lays himself open to attack. It is, how- 
 ever, everywhere fertile in suggestions, a wonderful 
 monument of learning, acuteness, and lucid state- 
 ment. Its influence is plain upon all the subsequent 
 literature of Germany, and no writer felt so deeply 
 his obligation to Lessing as the one who towers as 
 the greatest, Gothe. At the time of the publi- 
 cation of the "Laokoon," 17(50, Gothe was a 
 youth of seventeen, a student at Lcipsic. In his 
 old age, recalling the impression made upon him 
 by the book, 1 "One must be a youth," he said, 
 " to realize the effect exercised upon us by Lessing' s 
 " Laokoon," which transported us from the region of 
 miserable observation into the free fields of thought. 
 The so long misunderstood ' ut piclura poesis ' of 
 Simonidcs was at once set aside ; the difference be- 
 tween art and poetry made clear ; the peaks of both 
 appeared separated, however near each other might 
 be their bases. The former had to confine itself 
 within the limits of the beautiful, while to poetry 
 which cannot ignore the meaning of any kind of 
 facts it was given to pass into wider fields. The 
 former labors for external sense, which is satisfied 
 
 "VVahrhcit und Dichtung, page 2, book 7, Sime's translation.
 
 LESSING. 275 
 
 only by means of the beautiful ; the latter for the 
 imagination, which may occupy itself even with the 
 ugly. As by a flash of lightning, all the conse- 
 quences of this splendid thought were revealed to 
 us ; all previous criticism was thrown away, like a 
 worn-out coat." 
 
 In many points in the " Laokoon " the truth was 
 not reached, but every line shows plainly how eager 
 was the impulse which drove the writer toward 
 truth, and there are few books in the world that 
 have stimulated others more powerfully in the 
 effort to gain truth. Such a result is precisely 
 what Lessing would have considered the highest suc- 
 cess. "Not the truth," said he, in what is per- 
 haps the most famous of his sayings, " of which a 
 man believes himself to be possessed, but the sin- 
 cere effort he has made to gain truth, makes the 
 Avorth of a man." l 
 
 Still further limitations of poetry are to be found 
 in other writings of Lessing. In the treatise called 
 "Pope as a Metaphysician," Lessing maintains 
 that philosophical systems are no material for a 
 poet. In fact, that a didactic poem is a mon- 
 strosity. In the treatises upon the " Fables of 
 ^Esop " again the same idea appears, the unsparing 
 critic showing that, as it is not the function of poetry 
 to teach philosophy, so it is no part of its function 
 to teach morals. Let the philosophy and the morals 
 be taught indeed, but by the sage and the saint, 
 while the poet performs, as his sole function, only 
 
 1 Wolfenbiittel Fragments.
 
 276 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 the task of giving to the spirit of man a noble 
 pleasure. This limitation of Lessing was in oppo- 
 sition to the schools both of Leipsic and Zurich, 
 but it became universally recognized, and has left 
 important traces on subsequent literary history. 
 With Lessing' s work as a critic of literature must 
 be put what is known as the " Hamburg Dra- 
 maturgy." From the sketch given of his life it is 
 apparent that, even in his youth, the drama had for 
 him the strongest attraction. He regarded it from 
 the highest point of view, as an instrument of the 
 utmost power in the promotion of human virtue 
 and culture. He could not imagine a good dra- 
 matic author who should not possess nobility of 
 character. At the conclusion of his Breslau life, a 
 company of rich merchants in Hamburg had asso- 
 ciated themselves together to establish a national 
 theatre of a high character. In the city was a 
 superior troop of actors, among whom were some 
 who realized even Lessing' s lofty ideal, both as 
 artists and men. The post of dramatist and ad- 
 viser in the new enterprise was offered to Lessing. 
 He declined to write plays, but consented to take 
 part in the undertaking as critic and counsellor. 
 It was as if, in an American city, a body of well- 
 meaning men of wealth should institute a theatrical 
 enterprise to produce plays of the highest class, in 
 the finest manner, establishing as critic and director 
 James Russell Lowell or George William Curtis. 
 Lessing began his work with enthusiasm. There 
 was then almost no German drama ; Gothe was a 
 boy of seventeen ; Schiller only seven ; Lessing' s
 
 LESSINO. 277 
 
 own " Minna von Barnhelm " had just appeared, - 
 the only German comedy. The greatness of 
 Shakes peare was just becoming known, through the 
 efforts of Lessing himself, to the best among the 
 Germans ; but there were no proper translations, 
 and by the nation at large he was either unknown 
 or regarded as the uncouth savage described by 
 Voltaire. Lessing was to publish a bi-weekly 
 sheet, which was to be a critical register of all the 
 pieces produced, and to accompany every step of 
 poet and actor. The enterprise soon proved unsuc- 
 cessful, and Lessing' s connection with it brought 
 him much unhappiness, but Germany gained some- 
 thing of the greatest value. In his criticisms upon 
 the plays he broke the path for the German drama. 
 Except his own Minna, there was little to be repre- 
 sented but the pieces of French authors. Lessing 
 thought it necessary to destroy the prestige of the 
 
 . */ J. O 
 
 French theatre, because the founding of a German 
 drama was impossible as long as this influence 
 ruled the stage. It was bv no means a negative 
 
 O / O 
 
 strife which he waged. He developed his own 
 views upon the drama, which were mainly founded 
 upon the " Poetics " of Aristotle, and the thorough 
 study "of the Greek masterpieces, as well as upon 
 Shakespeare. He spoke severely of the French, 
 and often went too far, but docs justice to the mas- 
 terpieces. The "Hamburg Dramaturgy" is more 
 fragmentary and imperfect in its arrangement than 
 the " Laokoon." The hopes with which it was un- 
 dertaken ended in disappointment, and Lessing, from 
 the first, had in view detached considerations rather
 
 2f$ GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 than a connected work. But of the service which 
 it has rendered the greatest minds testify. The 
 performance of one play affords him opportunity to 
 dwell upon the terrible and pathetic upon the stage. 
 In connection with another he discusses historical 
 tragedy. In another he lays down the limitations 
 of comedy. In every contribution appears his mar- 
 vellous power. 
 
 There is not space to consider farther Lessing's 
 work as a literary critic. Had it not been performed, 
 the subsequent German development in art and liter- 
 ature could not have taken place ; Go the and Schil- 
 ler would have been impossible. But we have not 
 yet seen Lessing at his greatest. He was a critic 
 in a higher than the ordinary sense a judge, and 
 of the loftiest kind. What he did for art and liter- 
 ature appears almost trifling before what he might 
 have done what he longed to do in departments 
 yet nearer human interests. He accomplished 
 much, but he was bound in on every side, and the 
 mighty striver went to his grave thwarted to the end 
 by his untoward circumstances. As his manhood 
 went forward he appeared by turns in the fields ot 
 politics, philosophy, and religion, bringing every- 
 where his marvellous touchstone. 
 
 Of his ideas of government, let me begin my con- 
 sideration with this declaration of his, which per- 
 haps will seem startling: "According to my way 
 of thinking, the reputation of a zealous patriot is the 
 very last that I would covet ; that is, of patriotism 
 which teaches me to forget that I am a citizen of the 
 world." It is startling; but if we develop the say-
 
 LESSING. 27$ 
 
 ing, it will be found full of grandeur. Germany, in 
 his day, was broken up into divisions, ruled for the 
 most part by despots who despised the people they 
 enslaved, their language, their manners, their lit- 
 erature. Lessing was speaking to the poet Gleim, 
 a man whose fame had been mainly gained by cele- 
 brating the victories of Frederick in the Seven 
 Years' War, and with whom patriotism meant a lim- 
 itation of the sympathies within the boundaries of 
 what was then Prussia. Lessing' s heart demanded 
 something far broader. In the Germany of our 
 time wherein the divisions are abrogated, and a 
 government prevails in some degree respectful to its 
 subjects, wise, and humane he would have found 
 more to love. Yet even this, we may be sure from 
 his declarations, could not have given scope to his 
 soul. He loved to call himself a cosmopolite, citi- 
 zen of the world, and any patriotism which inter- 
 fered with the broadest and noblest humanity, love 
 for the entire race, he felt to be vicious. He hated 
 what he calls "the fatal thing denominated war," 
 and sought to forget the fearful misery he beheld 
 about him, which he was powerless to relieve, by 
 burying himself in his studies. To speak, write, or 
 act in any way for the rights of the people seemed, 
 in Lessing' s day, almost madness. The time was 
 not ripe, or receptive even, for such a reformatory 
 influence as he might under other circumstances 
 have exerted. He was far in advance of his age. 
 
 The grandeur of his thoughts in- this direction is 
 perhaps most apparent in a series of dialogues, 
 whose title hardly gives a clue to the lofty nature of
 
 GERMAN LITERA TURE. 
 
 the Contents, "Conversations for Freemasons." 
 At the end of the last century there was in Europe 
 a great love for secret societies ; there was no out- 
 let for the energies of men in public life, and they 
 were in a manner forced into clandestine action ; 
 Freemasonry, in particular, was popular. In his 
 youth Lessing had satirized it ; in his manhood, 
 however, he became a Freemason. He considered 
 Freemasonry, as it was, to be very trivial, but con- 
 ceived that it admitted of a grand development. In 
 the ' ' Conversations for Freemasons ' ' the high idea 
 is expressed that, if each individual knew how to 
 rule himself, government might be dispensed with. 
 Really, it is an evil, in an imperfect world a neces- 
 sary one ; but in proportion as we approach the 
 ideal state it may be dropped. "Observe," says 
 one of the interlocutors, "the ants and bees, what 
 activity and what order ! Order can exist without 
 government, if each individual can govern himself. 
 The highest point humanity can reach is that of a 
 society of developed men who stand in no need of 
 laws, because they have absolute self-control." 
 Lessing doubts whether this ideal condition can ever 
 become real. Certainly, government is now neces- 
 sary, but the thinker combats those who overrate 
 its importance. In Greece the individual was sacri- 
 ficed to the state ; no welfare of the state, however, 
 can be separate from that of the individuals who 
 compose it. The evils connected with the existence 
 of states are shown. First, the world is divided 
 into nations, and the patriotism fostered which is a 
 mere expansion of selfishness, instead of a spirit of
 
 LESSIN&. 881 
 
 love to all mankind. Second, difference of states 
 has much to do with differences of religion. Third, 
 the existence of states implies also a stratification of 
 society. " How few evils there are in the world," 
 he exclaims, " which have not their ground in this 
 difference of ranks ! " As is said, however, Lessing 
 regarded the existence of states as a necessity, feeling 
 that the amelioration for which he so earnestly hoped 
 could come only gradually. " We must accept the 
 world as it is, and await quietly the rising of the 
 sun, allowing such lights as there are to burn as 
 long as they will and can. To extinguish the lights, 
 and after they are extinguished to perceive that the 
 stumps must be relighted, or other lights brought in, 
 is folly." He expressly disclaimed all effort toward 
 violence or revolution. "What costs blood," he 
 said, "is certainly not worth blood." No single 
 form of political constitution seemed to him abso- 
 lutely the best. In some stages of culture an en- 
 lightened despot is most fit ; in others, a republic ; 
 in others, a constitutional monarchy. But the up- 
 holders of all should be ready to make modifications, 
 bringing the world gradually nearer to the point 
 where every form of government can be dispensed 
 with. In all forms of government arise things 
 highly injurious to human happiness. It is the nec- 
 essary smoke which we must take with the fire. To 
 render the evils as harmless as possible, Lessing 
 dreamed of a brotherhood of exalted minds. The 
 wisest and best men in each state were to labor, not 
 for the impossible absolute abolition, but for the 
 possible alleviation of oppressive and injurious ele-
 
 282 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ments. Men above the prejudices of nationality, 
 and who know where patriotism ceases to be a vir- 
 tue, were to strive to do away with provincial preju- 
 dices ; men not in thraldom to a hereditary relig- 
 ion, who do not believe their own creed to be the 
 only vehicle of truth, were to mitigate the preju- 
 dices of religious intolerance ; men too high to be 
 dazzled by social distinctions were to aim at equal- 
 izing the differences of rank, and making them less 
 oppressive. The energies of such men were not to 
 be dissipated in isolation, but Lessing desired a fra- 
 ternization of wise and good spirits of all nations, 
 for the accomplishment of these beneficent ends. 
 In his thought, Freemasonry might become such a 
 bond. 1 
 
 These are the ideas of an elevated spirit, and we 
 may hope that the world will see, some day, a con- 
 federation of the purest, wisest spirits of all lands, 
 held together according to the scheme of the high- 
 hearted German, to raise the low, mitigate preju- 
 dice, and bind the nations for love and peace. Les- 
 sing's contemporaries sneered at it as the scheme 
 of a visionary, or detected in it the breath of sedi- 
 tion. It is melancholy to read that the promulga- 
 tion of his great thought only brought upon him 
 persecution, and that he was harshly forbidden 
 to complete the work in which the idea was con- 
 tained. 
 
 Lessing' s political philosophy cannot be farther 
 discussed, nor can I do more than glance at his work 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 LBSSIXG. 563 
 
 as a speculative thinker. In this direction, what he 
 has left is more broken and unsatisfactory than in 
 any other. His influence was important in restoring 
 to a place of due honor the name of Spinoza, whom 
 he held in great reverence. The following words, 
 which I find applied to him, are perhaps not exces- 
 sive : "The harbinger of modern philosophy, and 
 in this province an a\vakener and emancipator of 
 the Germans." 
 
 But even yet we have not touched upon Lessing's 
 grandest utterances, those upon spiritual progress 
 and religious tolerance. There are many in the 
 Christian world to-day, as there were in Lessing's 
 time, who will think he w^ent quite too far in his 
 bold thinking. There are others who find in these 
 writings declarations worthy of a prophet. "Whether 
 we like or dislike, the sincerity, the bravery, the be- 
 nevolence which he everywhere showed may cer- 
 tainly be admired by all. Luther believed in the 
 presence of the literal body and blood of Christ 
 in the Lord's Supper. He would have shown no 
 horror at the burning of a witch ; indeed, he found 
 fault with magistrates for persecuting them with too 
 little energy. Yet we can admire him. Let those 
 who reject the opinions of Lessing treat him with 
 similar candor, while regretting his mistakes, do 
 honor to his manhood. In the department of theo- 
 logical controversy there has been seldom a more 
 violent tempest than that excited by the publica- 
 tion of the " Wolfenbiittel Fragments." A manu- 
 script volume, written by a free-thinking scholar, 
 Reimarus, had fallen into Lessing's hands while at
 
 234 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Hamburg. During his life at "VVolfenbiittel he pub- 
 lished extracts from this manuscript, accompanied 
 by annotations. He carefully abstained from de- 
 fending the positions of Reimarus, which were ex- 
 tremely radical. Many of the ideas Lessing ex- 
 pressly states that he does not accept, and in his 
 notes makes an attempt to soften their baldness. 
 He claims that his desire in giving to the world the 
 extracts is to stimulate enquiry, and he contends for 
 absolute freedom of discussion. The excitement 
 which the publication caused in the religious world 
 was immense. That Lessing had dared to make 
 known such infidelity was condemned, and he was 
 accused of drawing upon the stores under his guar- 
 dianship only to disseminate poison. In spite of his 
 disclaimers, it was plain that the bold ideas of 
 Reimarus found some sympathy in the mind of Les- 
 sing, and denunciations became violent. And now 
 began the most memorable controversy in which 
 Lessing was ever engaged. The champion of the 
 orthodox party, in the storm which the " Wolfen- 
 biittel Fragments," had caused, \vas Gotze, a pastor 
 of Hamburg, a man of scholarship and po\ver, with 
 whom Lessing had been well acquainted, but who 
 now showed unreasonable violence. On Lcssing's 
 side the controversy was undertaken when he was 
 utterly crushed by the death of his wife. He 
 sought relief in the strife from the melancholy into 
 which he was plunged. It cannot perhaps be said 
 that his vehemence went too far, but never since the 
 time of Luther had such a fierce polemic energy 
 been displayed ; the papers of Lessing can be
 
 LESSINO. 285 
 
 matched only among the finest masterpieces of de- 
 nunciatory eloquence. 
 
 Lessing's controversy with Gotze forced him 
 into a plainness of speech upon religious subjects 
 from which he would have shrunk in his earlier 
 years. Among his latest writings appeared the 
 " Education of the Human Race," whose tone was 
 of the boldest. Lessing declares in this that the 
 Old Testament contains a revelation from God, but, 
 at the same time, that it is not necessary to think 
 that revelations must set forth absolute truth. We 
 must rather consider them as adapted to the par- 
 ticular stages of progress at which they are given. 
 Through revelation man obtains nothing which he 
 
 o o 
 
 could not gain from his own reason. In giving a 
 revelation to a chosen poople, God did not tell them 
 all. The Old Testament is only suited for rude 
 minds ; a better teacher must come to supplement 
 the instruction ; and so, in the fulness of time, ap- 
 peared Christ. Like other faiths, Christianity, 
 although for a certain stage all-sufficient, is destined 
 to be superseded, though Lessing here counsels the 
 extremest caution. " Refrain, thou who dost stamp 
 and rage at the last page of this elementary book, 
 from letting thy weaker fellow-pupils perceive what 
 thou dost suspect, or hast begun to see. Until they 
 have overtaken thee, these weaker fellow-pupils, 
 turn rather once more to this elementary book, 
 and examine whether that which thou deemest only 
 turns of method, makeshifts of dialectic, is not 
 something better. 1 " Lessing was strongly opposed 
 
 1 Sime's Translation.
 
 286 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to those who, in his time, represented Christianity 
 as the invention of priests, and harmful. Not only 
 Christianity, but all positive religions, he taught, are, 
 or have been, beneficial in their time. " "Why shall 
 we not rather recognize in positive religions the di- 
 rection in which the human understanding has alone 
 been able to develop itself in various places than 
 either smile or scowl at any of them." l 
 
 The reader is so accustomed to the mention of the 
 incompleteness of Lessing's work, it almost goes 
 without saying that the " Education of the Human 
 Race" is but a fragment. Thrown off, as it was, 
 during the decay of his powers, close upon the end 
 of his life, no work of his is perhaps more imper- 
 fect, scarcely more than a jotting down of hints 
 upon the greatest of topics. The number is not 
 small, however, of those who attach a greater value 
 to it than to anything the thinker has left. Though 
 much that it contains will be repugnant to multi- 
 tudes, there are now and then glimpses of great 
 thoughts which must powerfully impress all. For 
 instance, what can be finer than Lessing's law of 
 progress? Men obey the moral law, he says, first, 
 to avoid unpleasant consequences in this world ; 
 second, in the world to come ; and, third, they 
 choose virtue for its own sake. In the first and 
 second instances, selfishness is at the root of action ; 
 in the first instance, at its coarsest. In the third, 
 men arc drawn by pure love, and we reach the time 
 of the " new eternal gospel." 
 
 The masterpiece of Lessing is the peerless play 
 
 1 Sime'3 Translation.
 
 LESSING. ' 287 
 
 of " Nathan the "Wise." It was written late in 
 life, when his philosophy had ripened, and when his 
 spirit, sorely tried in every way, had gained from 
 the sad experience only sweeter humanity. Judged 
 by rules of art, it is easy to find fault with it. 
 The story is involved, the speeches of the charac- 
 ters often too long, the action not always natural ; 
 it is what Lessing himself condemned, a didactic 
 poem. The moral elevation of the piece, how- 
 ever, is so noble, one is impatient at any attempt to 
 measure it by such a trivial standard. Let it violate 
 rules of art as it may, it is thrilled from first to last 
 by a glowing, God-sent fire, such as has appeared 
 rarely in the literature of the world. It teaches love 
 to God and man, tolerance, the beauty of peace. 
 Nathan, a Jew, who has suffered at the hands of the 
 crusaders the extremest affliction, the loss of his 
 wife and seven children, is not embittered by the 
 experience. He adopts a Christian child, Recha, 
 and christens her as his own. She grows to woman- 
 hood, and at length, during Nathan's absence, 
 nearly loses her life in the burning of the house. She 
 is saved from the danger by a young Templar. The 
 consequence of the rescue is mutual love and a be- 
 trothal. Meantime the Sultan Saladin, pressed for 
 money, sends for Nathan. The Mahometan, not 
 less than the Jew, is noble. Nathan tells the sul- 
 tan the famous story of the rings, and the two are 
 drawn together in friendship. At length it appears 
 that the Templar and Recha are really brother and 
 sister, children of a crusader who has been a 
 friend of Nathan. A still stranger revelation comes
 
 288 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to pass. When once the young Templar had fallen 
 into the power of Saladin, the sultan spared his life 
 because he resembled a brother, lost many years 
 before. It comes to light that the father of the 
 Templar and Recha is no other than the lost brother 
 of the sultan, who, forsaking his faith, became a 
 Christian, married a Christian wife, and at length 
 lost his life fighting for the cross. It is perhaps the 
 greatest artistic blemish of the plot that the lovers 
 prove at last to be in this way brother and sister, 
 into which relation they subside with an equanimity 
 quite exasperating to the critics. Rccha clings with 
 true filial love to Nathan ; Saladin extends warm 
 affection to the children of his brother. The three 
 leading figures, therefore'; Nathan, Saladin, and 
 the Templar, stand bound together in a close in- 
 timacy. They are all examples of nobleness, though 
 individualized. In Nathan, severe chastening has 
 brought to pass the finest gentleness and love ; 
 Saladin is the perfect type of chivalry, though im- 
 petuous and over-lavish through the possession of 
 great power ; the Templar is full of the vehemence 
 of youth. So they stand, side by side, impressive 
 patterns of manhood, yet representatives of creeds 
 most deeply hostile. Thus, in concrete presentment, 
 Lessing teaches impressively what he had often 
 elsewhere inculcated in a less vivid way, one of the 
 grandest of lessons, that nobleness is bound to no 
 confession of faith ; that it is false to declare this 
 or that religion the one alone worthy, stigmatizing 
 the confessors of other faiths as accursed of God. 
 In days of yore, says the famous story of the
 
 LESSINQ. 289 
 
 ring, the parable in which the lesson of the play is 
 contained, there lived an Oriental who possessed 
 a priceless ring, which had power to make its owner 
 beloved by God and by mankind. He bequeathed it 
 to his best-loved son, and so arranged that it should 
 go down evermore, falling in each generation to the 
 favorite. At length in the transmission it fell to 
 a father who had three sons, all equally dear to his 
 heart. To each son in turn he promises the ring, 
 as each, for the time being, seems dearest to him. 
 In perplexity, at last he has two other rings made, 
 such counterparts of the true one that when they 
 are placed side by side he himself cannot distin- 
 guish it. To each son then he gives a ring, and 
 dies. Disputes break out among the children, each 
 claiming to be the possessor of the true ring. The 
 wise judge to whom the question is submitted finds 
 it impossible to decide. " Let each one of you," 
 he says, " deem his own true, and make it true by 
 trying who can display most gentleness, forbearance, 
 charity, united to heartfelt resignation to God's 
 will. If, after a thousand thousand years, the 
 virtues of the ring continue to show themselves in 
 your children's children, perhaps one wiser than I 
 will sit on this judgment-seat, who can decide." 
 No ring, Lessing would say, gives one the power to 
 dominate over the rest; so of religions, no one is 
 the exclusive religion of the world. It was his 
 thought, as has been seen, that every historic re- 
 ligion is in some sense divine, a necessary evolu- 
 tion from the conditions under which it originates. 
 Let each, then, allow his neighbors to live in their 
 
 19
 
 290 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 own way, convinced that theirs is as good for them 
 as his for him. What a man believes is a matter of 
 utter indifference if his life is not good. "If it is 
 said," wrote Lessing, after completing it, "that 
 this piece teaches that among all sorts of people 
 there have long been men who have disregarded all 
 revealed religions, and have yet been good men ; 
 if it is added that my intention has evidently been 
 to represent such men in a less repulsive light than 
 that in which the Christian mob has usually looked 
 upon them, I should not have much to urge against 
 that view." 
 
 There are many in the world to-day as there 
 were in Lessing's own time to whom he will 
 seem to have gone far astray. Few indeed are 
 those whom he will carry with him in all his teach- 
 ing. He himself in fact seems often conscious of 
 inconsistency, and prepared to modify his views ; 
 this in all the departments which he touched, 
 literature, art, politics, philosophy, religion. A 
 searcher after truth, not a teacher of truth, is the 
 character he claimed for himself; and in all that he 
 wrote his effort w r as, not to impress upon men cer- 
 tain views, but to incite them to seek for truth 
 themselves. " Not the truth," he says in the pas- 
 sage which has been already partly quoted, " not 
 the truth in whose possession a man is, or believes 
 himself to be, but the earnest efforts which he has 
 made to attain truth, make the worth of the man. 
 For it is not through the possession, but through 
 the search for truth, that his powers are strength- 
 ened, in which alone his ever-growing perfection
 
 LESSIXG. 291 
 
 exists. Possession makes him calm, indolent, 
 proud. If God held all truth in His right hand, 
 and in His left the ever-living desire for truth ; if He 
 said to me, Choose, I should, even though with the 
 condition that I should remain forever in error, 
 humbly incline towards His left, and say, Father, 
 give ; pure truth is for Thee alone." 1 
 
 " His form was compact and vigorous, of more 
 than ordinary size, and had a symmetry developed 
 bv physical exercise of every kind to the freedom 
 of noble, natural deportment. The head was ele- 
 gantly poised upon a powerful neck ; the face was 
 Avell-defined, of a naturally healthy complexion, 
 illumined by the intellectual brilliancy of large, 
 dark-blue eyes, whose glance, not too piercing, 
 was yet resolute and ingenuous. The thick, long 
 hair, of a beautiful light-brown, even in his latest 
 years was sprinkled with only a few silver threads. 
 He was always careful in deportment, nothing in 
 his outward mien betraying the sedentary scholar. 
 His clothing was always neat, his manners noble, 
 his voice rich, vibrating between baritone and 
 tenor." 2 
 
 His life is a profoundly sad one ; a constant 
 struggle with poverty and misappreciation ; a suc- 
 cession of disappointments ; suspected in his fa- 
 ther's house, suspected and persecuted throughout 
 his career, the happiness finally granted him in his 
 union with the woman he loved closing within one 
 
 1 The Wolfenbiittel Fragments, quoted in Zimmern's Life of Lea- 
 sing-
 
 292 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 short year in the bitterest sorrow. The end came in 
 1781, when he was but fifty-two. " On the fifteenth 
 of February he rose in the afternoon, and caused 
 himself to be dressed. It seemed as though he 
 wished, like the Roman emperor, to die standing. 
 Towards evening, when it was announced that 
 friends were in the ante-room, desiring to see him, 
 the door opened and Lessing entered, a most sad 
 and heart-rending object to look upon ! The noble 
 countenance, damp with the dews of death, shone 
 as in a celestial transfiguration. Silent, and with 
 an Unspeakably affectionate look, he pressed the 
 hand of his weeping daughter, and uncovering his 
 head, bowed kindly to the others present. But the 
 feet refused their office ; he is borne to a couch, and 
 immediately afterwards, at nine o'clock in the even- 
 ing, an apoplectic fit terminated his life." 1 
 
 It is easy to make the pilgrimage to the spots 
 made sacred by the memory of Lessing. His life 
 passed, almost without break, in a little group of 
 towns which lie within a short ride of each other. 
 Wittenberg has a greater association than with his 
 name even ; yet he was worthy to walk there, even 
 in the footsteps of Luther, in his vigorous young 
 manhood, when he was enthusiastic to rescue from 
 obloquy the fame of great men of the past, un- 
 worthily condemned." It lends a new interest to 
 Leipsic that he lived there in his unconstrained, 
 Bohemian days. Brunswick, which grudgingly of- 
 
 1 Stahr. 
 
 " Die Rettungon.
 
 L&&&ING. 693 
 
 fered him an asylum, does him honor in a bronze 
 statue which is the finest ornament of the city ; 
 and Wolfenbiittel, which almost smothered him 
 with its dreariness, guards carefully every trace of 
 his sojourn. But it was in Berlin, I remember, that 
 the pathos of his baffled career came home to me 
 most powerfully. The great capital of United Ger- 
 many resembles very little the inconsiderable town 
 of the last century from which it has grown, and 
 which Lessing knew. Here he suffered some of 
 his bitterest disappointments ; here he enjoyed 
 some of his most precious friendships ; here did 
 some of his manliest work. Changed though the 
 city is, its suggestions in some ways are what they 
 were in Lessing' s time, and as one goes through its 
 streets he can make real to himself what must 
 have been the mood of the humane cosmopolite. 
 In his time, the days of Frederick, there was 
 something martial at every turn. It was the city 
 of men whose main business had come to be war- 
 fare, in whose breasts there was no broader feeling 
 than a love for Prussia. It is scarcely different now. 
 It was already evening of one of the long days 
 at the end of May when I saw, for the first time, 
 the great sand plains which one must cross between 
 Dresden and Berlin. Nature has done little to 
 make the region attractive, but the spirit of strife 
 has lent it tragic associations. There is scarcely an 
 acre that has not drunk blood in some historic con- 
 test, or at least been jarred by cannon-thunder 
 from some great battle-field close by. Towards 
 midnight the glare of the lights of the capital
 
 294 HERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 began to whiten the heavens to the northward. 
 Going out early the next morning, I stood presently 
 in a broad avenue. In the centre ran a wide prom- 
 enade, lined by rows of tall, full-foliaged trees ; on 
 each side a crowded road-way, bordered by stately 
 buildings. Close by towered up, till the head of 
 the rider was on a level with the eaves of the 
 houses, a colossal equestrian figure in bronze, in 
 cocked hat, booted and spurred ; the skin tense 
 over the muscles of the bridle-hand, as it reined in 
 the charger ; the wrinkles plain, made by care, in 
 the rider's face ; life-like, as if the bronze warrior 
 might dismount any moment, if he chose. In the 
 distance, down the long perspective of trees, was 
 a lofty gate, supported by Corinthian columns, 
 on the top a figure of Victory in a chariot drawn 
 by horses. Close at hand again, under the porch 
 of a square, strong structure, stood two straight 
 sentinels. A handsome officer came down the 
 pavement, his sword rattling on the stones. In- 
 stantly the two sentinels stepped back in concert, 
 as if the same clock-work regulated their move- 
 ments, brought their shining pieces with perfect 
 precision to the " present," stood for an instant as 
 if hewn from stone, the spiked helmets above the 
 blonde faces inclining backward at exactly the same 
 angle, then precisely together fell into the old posi- 
 tion. The street was " Unter den Linden;" the 
 huge statue was the memorial of Frederick the 
 Great ; the gate down the long vista was the 
 Brandenburger Thor, surmounted by the charioted 
 Victory which Napoleon carried to Paris after Jena,
 
 LESSING. 296 
 
 and which came back after Waterloo. The solid 
 building was the palace of the kaiser, and when the 
 clock-work sentinels went through their salute with 
 such straight precision, the first sight was gained 
 of that famous Prussian discipline against which, 
 before that summer was finished, 1 supple France 
 was to crush its teeth all to fragments, like a viper 
 incautiously biting at a file. 
 
 v O 
 
 The whole aspect of Berlin is military. Near by 
 lies a great tract of country, fenceless and houseless, 
 reserved exclusively for reviews ; in every quarter 
 tower the garrisons for the troops. The statues and 
 public memorials are mostly in honor of great sol- 
 diers and victories. In one place stands old Bliicher, 
 muffled in his cloak, and glaring over his shoulder 
 as if he saw a French column marching round the 
 corner by the opera-house close by. At his right 
 stands Yorck, at his left Gneisenau, and across the 
 street are Scharnhorst and Billow. The great elec- 
 tor towers in another place, on horseback; else- 
 where are the old Dessauer, who helped Marlboro 
 at Malplaquet, and Schwerin in queue and knee- 
 breeches, the black-eagle banner in his hand, as he 
 fell charging a gray-beard of eighty at Kollin ; 
 these and many more. There are tall columns too 
 to commemorate a victory here, or the crushing out 
 of revolutionary spirit somewhere else ; far more 
 rarely a statue to a poet or statesman, or a civilian 
 in any department. On " Unter den Linden" the 
 sentinels are always before the king's palace, the 
 
 1 1870.
 
 296 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 palace of the crown prince, at the arsenal, at the 
 main guard-house, almost all the way from the old 
 castle on the Spree, at one end, to the Brandenburger 
 Thor at the other. Groups of grenadiers are in 
 every street and garden. Each cafe and promenade 
 has its elegant officers. Batteries of artillery roll 
 by at any time, obedient to their bugles ; squadrons 
 of Uhlans ride up to salute the kaiser. Each day 
 at noon swells through the roar of the streets mar- 
 tial music, first a sound of trumpets, then a deafen- 
 ing roll from a score of brazen drums. A heavy 
 detachment of infantry wheels out from some 
 barracks ranks of strong, brown-haired men, 
 stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk, perfectly ap- 
 pointed in every thread and accoutrement, dropping 
 at intervals, section after section, to do the un- 
 broken guard duty at the various posts. Meantime 
 to the main guard-house gather the officers on duty 
 at Berlin, in flashing uniform, the acme of military 
 splendor. 
 
 Such constant suggestions of war are painful, 
 such apparatus for blood-shedding, such application 
 of energy to the work of destruction, such blunting 
 of the finer nature. The city has grown, but the 
 spirit of the place cannot be far different from what 
 it was in the days of Leuthen and Kiinersdorf. The 
 Prussian still prefers war-songs to the holy melodies 
 of love. The shout of Thor, rushing on to crush 
 his enemies with his hammer, charms him more than 
 any gentler faith, with its utterance of peace. There 
 is more pomp and evidence of power ; the narrow 
 patriotism which had no love beyond Prussia has
 
 LESSING. 297 
 
 broadened so that it includes all Germany. But the 
 temper is no milder, nor has the patriotism become 
 the wide-reaching sentiment embracing all mankind. 
 Here, then, walked the man of lofty spirit who 
 hated the "fetal thing called war," and said that 
 " what cost blood was certainly not worth blood." 
 For snch words the ears of those days had no hos- 
 pitality ; he who uttered them had scarcely a place 
 to lay bis head. But the man was too great to be 
 forgotten entirely. The recognition which has been 
 accorded him here among the soldiers is thoroughly 
 characteristic. Frederick sits mounted among the 
 tree-tops of " Unter den Linden," and about the 
 pedestal are crowded the life-size figures of the men 
 of his age whom Prussia holds most worthy of re- 
 membrance. At the four corners ride the duke of 
 Brunswick and cunning Prince Heinrich, old Ziethen 
 the Hussar, and Scydlitz, who threw Soubise into 
 rout at Rossbach. Between are a score or more of 
 soldiers of lesser note, the Scotchman Keith, who 
 fell in the early morning twilight at Hochkirch, and, 
 more interesting than all, Tauentzien, Lessing's 
 friend, only soldiers, spurred and girt with sa- 
 bres, except on the very back of the pedestal, and 
 there just at the tail of the king's horse, in the 
 most undistinguished place, stand Kant, peer of 
 Plato and Bacon, and at his side the noble presence 
 of Lessing. Just standing-room for them among 
 the horses and uniforms, at the tail of Frederick's 
 steed ! The statue of Lessing rises serene, tall, un- 
 bending, with gaze fixed as if upon some far-off 
 pleasant prospect, as if he saw the day when, in
 
 298 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the long education of the human race, his time 
 -should come. The sculptor buildcd perhaps wiser 
 than he knew, the back of the king turned so 
 squarely upon the figure of the great writer, the 
 hoofs of the war-horse within easy striking distance. 
 So was he regarded by the great and powerful of the 
 land of which he was the most illustrious ornament. 
 He was the prophet of change . Like prophets in 
 general, there were feet ready to trample on him, 
 and he was only saved by his extraordinary strength. 
 "The influence of his life," said Gothe, "cannot 
 perish through long ages." In literature, in art, in 
 politics and philosophy, we see in Lessing the dawn 
 of a new day. And in religion? Did he go utterly 
 astray? " Thou, Luther," he once wrote, "great 
 man, ill understood, thou hast freed us from the 
 yoke of tradition ; who will free us from the more 
 intolerable yoke of the letter ? " l In answer to the 
 enquiry, a man of genius exclaims, " I say Lessing 
 continued Luther's work. When Luther had freed 
 us from tradition, the letter ruled as tyrannically as 
 tradition had done. In freeing men from this ty- 
 rannical letter, Lessing has done 1 most. His voice 
 is loudest in the battle. Here lie swings his sword 
 most joyfully, and it lightens and slays." 2 The 
 world may yet set the two mi^htv strivers side bv 
 
 */ / ~ .. ^ 
 
 side. 
 
 Into the gems of the priestly breast-plate, in 
 that ancient Hebrew tale, the breast-plate worn by 
 
 1 Anti-Gotze in Zimmern's Life. 
 
 '' Heinrich Heine : Ueber Deutschland.
 
 LESSING. 299 
 
 Aaron and his sons, it was believed that God Him- 
 self from time to time descended, filling them with 
 supernal splendor, thus making known his purposes 
 and helping Israel to decision. So, in the Bible's 
 words, " They bore judgment on their hearts before 
 the Lord continually." It seems to me that this 
 leader of men was not without some such inspira- 
 tion the Urim and Thummim that he received in 
 his soul more abundant measure of " the light that 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world," 
 and so, in a noble sense, " bore judgment ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 KL OPS TOOK, W IE LAND, AND HERDER. 
 
 Turning from the great figure of Lessing, who 
 stands like Moses among his people, guiding them 
 to things beautiful, but himself dying before the 
 day of glory is reached, we have now to consider 
 three men of importance, Klopstock, Wieland, 
 and Herder, one of whom, Herder, is scarcely 
 less great than he who so nobly " bore judgment," 
 although his greatness was of a different kind. All 
 were young men when Lessing' s influence began to 
 become paramount, coming forward into eminence 
 with him, or while he sat supreme ; when he died, 
 holding for a moment the immortal light, until it 
 was transferred at length to the true, torch-bearers 
 of the gods, the transcendent men from whom the 
 literature of Germany was to receive its noblest 
 illumination. 
 
 As has been seen, the two rival schools of criti- 
 cism, that of Gottsched and his followers, at Leip- 
 sic, on the one hand, that of Bodmer and Breitinger, 
 at Zurich (known as the Swiss), on the other, 
 battled stoutly over many points. As Gottsched 
 liked the French, the Swiss liked the English ; they 
 blamed French writers as being formal and artifi- 
 cial, demanded nature, and loved Shakespeare and
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 301 
 
 Milton, whom they sought to make widely known. 
 Their hearty effort the school of Gottsched as heart- 
 ily opposed, declaring that English poets would 
 never receive recognition, much less be imitated, in 
 Germany. It was therefore a great triumph for 
 the Swiss, when in 1748, three cantos of an epic 
 poem appeared, called the "Messias," whose author 
 had manifestly been influenced by Milton, a poem 
 which brilliantly justified their views, and aroused 
 among Germans immediate enthusiasm. It was the 
 production of a youth scarcely beyond his twen- 
 tieth year, a theological student at Jena, coming 
 thither from Quedlinburg, in Saxony, Friedrich 
 Gottlieb Klopstock. His boyhood had been spent 
 for the most part in the country ; he was a good 
 classical scholar, also of sincere piety ; he plainly 
 also knew the "Paradise Lost," although he fol- 
 lowed his model in no servile spirit. The omens 
 were unpropitious for Gottsched. If the "Messias " 
 conquered its way to recognition, his prestige was 
 lost ; he fought it with critical thunder, and what- 
 ever other batteries he could influence opened with 
 him to destroy the apparition. It was all in vain ; 
 Gottsched' s real services were forgotten ; from the 
 appearance of the "Messias" the prestige of the 
 Leipsic school was broken, and Zurich triumphed. 
 The "Messias" of Klopstock was important in 
 other ways than as deciding the controversy between 
 the cities. Though modelled upon Milton, as Mil- 
 ton is thought by some to have derived some hints 
 from the Anglo-Saxon poet, Ctedmon, it was the 
 first great epic poem since the days of the Hohen-
 
 302 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 stauffen in which the German spirit moved inde- 
 pendently. In all other directions Germans had 
 accomplished something. Lyrics had been written ; 
 there was a dramatic literature of a certain kind ; 
 some philosophy, and overmuch theology ; but the 
 field of the epic had lain fallow. The nation 
 considered that the gap was now nobly filled, and 
 the young Klopstock was set beside the greatest 
 poets. Bodmer at once invited him to Zlirich, 
 where, however, he offended the over-severe mag- 
 nate by a cheerfulness which seems to have been 
 innocent enough, but which was thought inconsist- 
 ent with the character of a religious poet. He was 
 invited to Copenhagen, and a pension given him, 
 that he might complete the " Messias." As is so 
 often the case in the history of authorship, the first 
 accomplishment of Klopstock was the best, or at 
 least the most successful. The instalments of his 
 epic, as they appeared at intervals during the fol- 
 lowing years, met with a reception descending grad- 
 ually from the first enthusiasm toward indifference. 
 He lived to a great age, showing through life a 
 strongly-marked character and sincere piety, never 
 forfeiting the respect of his countrymen, although 
 his fame was soon eclipsed by the greater figures 
 that appeared upon the scene. 
 
 It is for the "Messias" that Klopstock will be 
 mainly remembered, but there was still another 
 department of poetry in which his accomplishment 
 was important. Besides religion, another great idea 
 filled his soul, that of patriotism, and the time in 
 which he appeared was a favorable one for the in-
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 303 
 
 fluence of one so disposed and gifted to be felt to 
 the utmost. In his young manhood the victories 
 of Frederick the Great stirred the hearts of the 
 nation, and prepared them to listen with enthusiasm 
 to the tones of a lyre strung for the Fatherland.* 
 At this time Klopstock sung the victories of Her- 
 mann in the old day, and revived in the hearts of 
 Germans an interest in the faith of their heathen 
 ancestors. From Frederick himself he turned away, 
 believing him to be a despot, directing his glance 
 toward the past, for he felt there was no present 
 Germany. He had a spirit that was full of love 
 for freedom even-where. He was earnest in his 
 sympathy for America in the struggle with George 
 III. ; earnest too in behalf of France at the time 
 of the revolution, until the excesses caused in 
 him, as in so many others who at first hailed the 
 uprising with joy, a terrified reaction. 
 
 Since the " Messias " so surpasses in interest the 
 other works of Klopstock, let us proceed to consider 
 this more carefully, omitting further mention 'of the 
 rest. Klopstock had the intention to represent po- 
 etically the history of Jesus as given in the gospels. 
 The simple choice of such a subject had much to do 
 with the admiration felt for the poet by his contem- 
 poraries. The cultivated world was then, in the 
 main, religious, and rejoiced to have a German vent- 
 ure forth in emulation of the much-praised Briton. 
 
 Looking at the subject technically, 1 it is right to 
 say that the story of Christ is not well adapted for 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 304 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 epic treatment. The facts are so few and simple 
 that the poet is driven to inventions. Since it is 
 necessary to introduce the Deity, the mightiest pict- 
 ures seem trifling ; they must exist within the lim- 
 itations of time and space,, and every limitation 
 contradicts divinity. Just so with the world of spir- 
 its, which must be introduced to mediate between 
 God and man. Though Christianity includes a be- 
 lief in angels, these beings reach no definite individ- 
 uality ; they are abstractions, or figures of allegory. 
 A great epic genius might perhaps be able to con- 
 quer the hindrance, but it was beyond the power of 
 Klopstoek. His angels are mere messengers of the 
 Eternal, without distinction of character; they are 
 never individuals ; indeed, his human figures are not 
 firmly individualized. It is claimed indeed that in 
 this epic all proper epic spirit is wanting. A felici- 
 tous plan, an artistic ordering of events, the graphic 
 representation of personalities, for all these we 
 must search the " Messias " in vain. Judged, how- 
 ever, as a succession of lyrical passages, poetic ex- 
 pressions of lofty emotion, the verdict is different. 
 In this direction Klopstoek is truly great. He first 
 saw that an inspired mood must have an inspired ut- 
 terance. He; considered the speech of the people un- 
 poetic, and claimed that poetry must be distinguished 
 from prose by tinuxualuess. lie might easily have 
 fallen into pomposity, but was kept from this by his 
 good sense and the influence exerted over him by the 
 ancient simple writers, noticeably Luther. Strength 
 and novelty characterize his lines. He reproduced 
 old words, made new words, and in his management
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 305 
 
 of the particles by means of which, in German as 
 in Greek, a shading so delicate can be given to the 
 expression of an idea, he is only surpassed by the 
 greatest writers. His style had great nobleness, 
 power, and point, making his presentations effective 
 and exalting. When he represents the emotions of 
 a Christian believer, the great bliss of the pious, or 
 his absorption into eternal love ; when he lends 
 words to enthusiastic devotion, or represents the 
 soul tortured by doubt, conscience in despair, the 
 heart smitten with anguish, then he is unsurpass- 
 able. He writes almost with the dignity and power 
 of the psalmist, and the reader is carried away as 
 by a sounding storm. The parables are almost the 
 only part of the "Messias" that can be called epic ; 
 in these the first half is particularly rich. He some- 
 times tries to express emotion where none really 
 exists, and there are passages which are character- 
 ized as sentimental, childish, sweetish, trivial ; but 
 we may justly call him a great lyric poet, indeed, 
 Herder pays him the tribute that, in place of the 
 poetry of the intellect and wit which had existed 
 before, he created that of heart and feeling. These 
 words of Vilmar seem to be justly and finely said : 
 "Let us enjoy his greatness, and forget, with the 
 majority of his contemporaries who hung upon him 
 in pious feeling, his detects. Let us rejoice in the 
 gleaming morning-star which arose in him for our 
 literature, and quarrel not with the morning-star 
 that it became no sun. His grave, at Ottersen, 
 under the linden, where he rests at the side of his 
 wife, will remain a revered spot forevermore for
 
 306 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 every German who has the courage to be at the 
 same time a German and a Christian." 
 
 The influence of Klopstock upon his generation 
 was profound, winning over to a respect for Ger- 
 man literature a multitude of the best and most 
 sober- ninded, so preparing the way in this class for 
 a good reception of the mightier spirits who were to 
 follow him. Noticeable among his disciples were 
 the young men of the Hain-Bund, the "Grove 
 Fraternity," certain students of the University of 
 Gottingen, who, meeting in a grove of oaks near 
 that town by moonlight, covered themselves ro- 
 mantically with chaplets, devoting themselves to 
 patriotic poetry, and vowing to celebrate the birth- 
 day of Klopstock as their leader. There are names 
 among the members of the Hain-Bund that, in a 
 work less general than the present, should have at- 
 tentive consideration, particularly the translator 
 Voss, and the ballad-writer Burger, but I must 
 content myself with a mere mention of their names. 
 
 Side by side with Klopstock lived a writer differ- 
 ing much from that earnest Puritan in gifts and char- 
 acter, whom \vc must briefly estimate, Christoph 
 Martin Wieland. He was a few years younger than 
 
 / / O 
 
 Klopstock ; at the beginning, a precocious, impres- 
 sible boy, vacillating between pietism and free- 
 thinking, according to the influences that surrounded 
 him. lie wrote religious and patriotic poems, 
 through which, like his famous leader, he drew the 
 attention of the veteran Bodmer, and in his turn 
 was hospitably invited to Zurich. Bright and re-
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELASD, HERDER. 307 
 
 ceptive, he studied here for two years, becoming 
 accomplished especially iii Greek and English, and 
 drawing to himself the notice of the world by a 
 sharp critique of an amiable writer, conceived in a 
 spirit of pietism, and quite unjust. The paper drew 
 the notice of Lessing, who, while recognizing the 
 ability of the writer, sought, by a stinging reply, to 
 lead him from his errors, and at the same time de- 
 fend a man unjustly judged. The means Was ef- 
 fective. The scales fell from Wieland's eyes, and 
 he came soon after to a recognition of the path for 
 which his powers really fitted him. The patronage 
 of certain dignitaries gave him opportunity to be- 
 come acquainted with the world of fashion and 
 rank. The Duchess Amalie of "Weimar selected 
 him to be the tutor of her sons, and henceforth most 
 of his long life was spent in an illustrious circle, of 
 which presently there will be much to say. At 
 twenty-five he wrote his poem called " Musarion," 
 which established his fame and proved that he had 
 found his work. What Sterne is in English liter- 
 ature is WielaiiAJn_Jjej:imi, except thatwxTThay 
 say perhaps that the German is a somewhat more 
 solid entity. "Wieland had a blooming fancy, lively 
 wit, great sensibility, good taste, and acuteness. 
 He was a story-teller full of ease and delicate grace, 
 borrowing his materials generally from the " Mar- 
 chen Welt," the world of fairy tales ; and it is one 
 of his chief titles to distinction that he first wrought 
 in this vein, the pioneer of a multitude of men of 
 genius who in times after him made themselves 
 famous here, the last and best known in the list,
 
 308 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 perhaps, Hans Christian Andersen. As a poet 
 his verse is most harmonious, with a rhythm full of 
 easy freedom and variety, strongly in contrast with 
 Klopstock's mighty, high-sounding line. His ease 
 and grace were gained only by hard labor. "It 
 ought to be reckoned as a slight desert," he says 
 characteristically, " that I was never tired of licking 
 my bears into shape as they were born, and making 
 them as presentable as I could." He was wanting 
 in power of invention, but had a happy faculty of 
 elaborating what might be furnished to him. His 
 greatest and most complete work is " Oberon," of 
 which GiJthe said: "As long as poetry remains 
 poetry, gold gold, and crystal crystal, it will be 
 loved and admired as a masterpiece of poetic art." 
 The story of Oberon. is taken from an old French 
 romance, " Huon of Bordeaux," and has its scene in 
 the East and fairy-land. The real and fanciful world 
 are well blended together, the one depending 
 upon the other. The adventures of the mortal hero 
 and heroine are skilfully united \viththe story of the 
 quarrel and reconciliation of Oberon and Titania, 
 something in the manner of the "Midsummer- 
 Xight's Dream " of Shakespeare, and all is made 
 clear and symmetrical. In his romances, Wieland 
 in no way reaches the artistic height of his poems. 
 He is prolix, full of long digressions, so that the 
 unity of his works is much injured ; but even when 
 garrulous he is bright and charming. His scenes 
 are almost always in Greece, or the far East, but the 
 personages are Germans or French of Wieland's 
 time. Often the delineations, like Swift's Lillipu-
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND. AND HERDER. 309 
 
 tians and Brobdignagians in Gulliver, are made the 
 vehicles of fine satire. Sometimes his gaiety stoops 
 to licentiousness ; and here too, as in so many 
 other respects, he resembles his English contempo- 
 rary, Sterne. 
 
 Among the romances the Abderites is particularly 
 witty and pleasant, in which he employs an assumed 
 antiquity to veil a satire on the petty incidents and 
 foibles of life in a provincial town. The Abderites 
 are a people ironically styled wise ; they erect a 
 fountain, with costly sculptures, and forget, until all 
 is done, that there is not water enough to moisten 
 the nose of a single dolphin ; they place a beautiful 
 statue of Venus a masterpiece of which they are 
 very proud on a pedestal so high that the statue 
 becomes well-nigh invisible, the idea being that in 
 this way it may be well seen by all travellers ap- 
 proaching the city. But the long account of the 
 great lawsuit in Abdera is the most amusing part of 
 the story. In the city there was only one dentist, 
 who had an extensive practice in the neighborhood, 
 and travelled from place to place. On one occasion 
 he had an ass and its driver to carry his baggage 
 across a wide heath. It was a hot and bright sum- 
 mer's day, and the weary dentist was glad to sit 
 down and rest awhile in the shadow cast from the 
 figure of the ass. Against this appropriation of a 
 shade the driver, who was also the owner of the ass, 
 protested, saying that nothing had been said in the 
 
 bargain about anv such use of the shadow. The 
 
 dentist must therefore either come out of the shade, 
 
 or pay something extra for its use. He refused
 
 310 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 to do so, and a lawsuit was the result ; the best 
 lawyers of Abdera were employed on each side, 
 and the whole population of the town was soon 
 divided into parties styled respectively "Asses" 
 and "Shadows." So bitter was their enmity that 
 an "ass" would not .sit down at the same table 
 with a "shadow." It was a biting and effective 
 satire upon prevailing forms of litigation. 
 
 Wieland, then, following the influence of Klop- 
 stock, and at first taking a direction for which he 
 was not fitted, at length discovered his true path, 
 and had an important influence in rectifying a cer- 
 tain one-sidedness in the views of his former teacher. 
 Klopstock, as we have seen, had breathed into the 
 language strength, majesty, and poetic life, given 
 it a power such as it had not before possessed for 
 the expression of exalted emotions, like patriotism 
 and religion. With the advantage came a certain 
 turgid stiffness a departure from simplicity 
 which was ill adapted especially to the representa- 
 tion of things cheerful and charming, and even to 
 the ordinary relations of life. Wieland showed 
 that German could deal also with the light and 
 sportive, was available for merry jest as well as 
 dignified sobriety ; and while lie did so, touched 
 sometimes upon the frivolous and immoral. 
 
 Klopstock and Lessing had won the religious and 
 intellectual classes ; so Wieland gained unbounded 
 popularity with the world of elegant fashion, whom 
 the greater writers were too grave to reach. Here- 
 tofore the elegant "world had recognized no culture 
 but the French, and not believed in the possibility
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 311 
 
 of a readable German book. To "Wi eland belongs 
 the credit of winning from them some respect for 
 their despised mother-tongue, and he may, there- 
 fore, be mentioned with the grander names who were 
 preparing for the new day, trifling though he may 
 be in comparison. His popularity was immense ; 
 Napoleon gave him the ribbon of the Legion of 
 Honor ; Alexander of Russia made him a noble. 
 He wrought his vein with true German patience, 
 doing some of his best work beyond his seventieth 
 year, showing to the world at last forty-two solid 
 
 / O *- 
 
 volumes of accomplishment. His sunny, amiable 
 nature made him a favorite, and one is drawn 
 toward him more strongly than toward many of his 
 greater contemporaries, when we read that he was 
 singularly free from envy and unmanly sensitive- 
 ness. It should be reckoned among his deserts that 
 he appreciated and translated Shakespeare. 
 
 Following Wieland, after an interval of a decade, 
 contemporary, but making his influence felt a little 
 later, appears a figure greater than either, and only 
 second to the mightiest, that of Johann Gott- 
 fried Herder. At Mohrungen, among the Poles, in 
 East Prussia, he was born, the son of a poor 
 villager who combined the office of teacher of the 
 girls' school with that of bell-ringer and singer in 
 the choir. From the first the boy was pious, and 
 interested in books and music, and when he was 
 sixteen the dean of the parish, seeing his intelli- 
 gence, took him into his household, where he found 
 opportunity to study. From the first he had re-
 
 8 12 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 markable power of impressing himself. The sur- 
 geon of a Russian regiment, temporarily in the vil- 
 lage, offered to take him to Konigsberg to study 
 medicine, and afterwards to St. Petersburg. Her- 
 der had no inclination in this direction, but accepted 
 the offer as likely to lead out into a broader oppor- 
 tunity for culture. We soon find him a student of 
 theology, filling his mind with extraordinary avidity, 
 and becoming a favorite with Kant, then rising into 
 fame. Kant's strictly philosophical lectures appear 
 to have pleased him less than those in astronomy 
 and physics, although the thinker possessed at that 
 time his youthful eloquence, and used a much clearer 
 language than his later scholastic technicalities. 
 Kant encouraged him, and often gave him his own 
 manuscripts to criticise. At Konigsberg lived also 
 a mystical thinker named Hamann, a man of many 
 ideas, but with no faculty of clear expression, from 
 whom Herder caught an enthusiasm for English writ- 
 ers, particularly Shakespeare and Ossian, and gained 
 many notions which affected his subsequent career. 
 At twenty we find him in the city of Riga, making 
 himself even then famous as a teacher and preacher, 
 and publishing writings which go beyond the local 
 circles. Soon after, he sets out upon travels, for 
 those days extensive, seeing, besides Germany, the 
 Netherlands and France, where he spends some 
 months in Paris, getting rid of provincial preju- 
 dices and broadening his culture by visits to thea- 
 tres, libraries, and art collections. The prince of 
 Holstein Oldenburg takes him as a tutor, in which 
 position he has still further opportunities.
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 313 
 
 At length at Strassburg, in 1770, where he goes 
 temporarily for surgical help for a trouble of the 
 eye, he makes an acquaintance, for him the most 
 important of his life, and full of consequence to the 
 world. It was at the Hotel do 1' Esprit. It is well 
 to give a particular picture of so memorable an in- 
 terview, and fortunately we have the means of do- 
 ing so in the account of one of the personages con- 
 cerned. Herder one day stood at the foot of the 
 staircase, about to ascend to his room. He was 
 tall ; his face was round, his forehead large and com- 
 manding ; his nose somewhat short ; although his 
 lips were rather too thick, his mouth was agreeably 
 formed. His eyes, heavily shaded by black eye- 
 brows, were piercing, the effect not destroyed by the 
 inflammation to which one of them was subject. He 
 wore his hair curled and dressed ; his coat was black, 
 and over it was thrown a long silk cloak of the same 
 color. The costume was elegant, and, together with 
 a certain delicacy and decorum in his bearing, 
 seemed to mark him as a clergyman. He was now 
 twentj^-seven years old. As he began the ascent to 
 his room he was accosted by a 3~outh of twenty-one, 
 of the most striking appearance. He was above the 
 middle size, and superbly formed, the ideal of 
 symmetry and strength in every limb. His face was 
 beautiful as that of an antique divinity, the eyes in 
 particular, having pupils uncommonly large, and all 
 alive with an extraordinary ardor. He was dressed 
 in the costume of a student, and accosted Herder 
 with the nonchalance of that class, as if he were an 
 old acquaintance. Herder was pleased with the
 
 314 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 young man's open manner, and responded civilly. 
 Out of the chance meeting a conversation arose, 
 which became animated, and when the two parted 
 the student requested permission to come again, 
 which Herder granted with pleasure. The hand- 
 some student was the young Gothe. 1 
 
 They came together again and again, and Gothe, 
 in his autobiography, gives us the particulars of 
 the intimacy. Herder liked the student, but seems 
 to have had no appreciation then of the extraordi- 
 nary genius he possessed, describing him in a letter 
 as somewhat too light and sparrow-like. Gothe, on 
 his part, was strongly drawn toward Herder. He 
 was at this time all at sea as to his career, a dab- 
 bler in medicine, in art, in literature ; full of animal 
 spirits, giving frequent scandal to his decorous 
 friends by his wild escapades. Herder inspired him 
 through his powerful character and great attain- 
 ments. Gothe told him unreservedly of his pur- 
 suits and aspirations, and although often treated 
 with imperious harshness, a fault which Herder 
 never lost, submitted himself in a wonderful* way 
 to his influence. In the hope of receiving benefit 
 in his infirmity, Herder underwent painful surgical 
 operations, Gothe standing at his side. The experi- 
 ence cemented their friendship, the one admiring 
 the great fortitude with which the suffering was en- 
 countered, the other grateful for the sympathy 
 shown. " Such of my elders," says Gothe, " as I 
 had hitherto associated with had tried to improve 
 
 1 Lewes' Life of Gothe.
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WTELAND, HERDER. 315 
 
 me by too great indulgence. But as to Herder, his 
 approbation was never to be reckoned upon, no 
 matter in what way it might be sought. My strong 
 attachment to and respect for him, the dissatisfac- 
 tion with myself he excited in me, kept me in a state 
 of internal contention which I had never before ex- 
 perienced. * * * I found myself initiated, on 
 a sudden, into all the attempts and views of our lit- 
 erary men, in which he himself appeared to take an 
 active part. * * * From Herder I learned to 
 look upon poetry from a new point of view, with 
 which I was much pleased. That of the Hebrews, 
 the popular songs, the primitive examples of poetry 
 everywhere, all proved, in his opinion, that poetry 
 was not the privilege of a few individuals, polished 
 by careful cultivation, but an inherent faculty in the 
 human mind. I engaged with eagerness in all the 
 studies, and my avidity to learn equalled the gener- 
 ous zeal of my instructor." 1 In short, it maybe 
 said that the acquaintance while for Herder it 
 changed the course of his life, in ways which will be 
 spoken of presently, for Gothe, w T as one of the 
 most important turning-points of his career, deciding 
 him perhaps to adopt literature as his calling, and 
 giving him views which prevailed with him through 
 life. The power of Herder's character, running 
 out sometimes into arrogance, but still very impres- 
 sive, is shown in the way in which he dominated 
 even so remarkable a man as Gothe. " Herder, 
 Herder!" bursts out the superb youth, "if I am 
 
 Dichtung und "Wahrheit.
 
 316 GERMAN LITERATURE, 
 
 destined to be only your satellite, so will I be, and 
 willingly and truly, a friendly moon to your earth. 
 But you must feel that I would rather be a planet, 
 Mercury even, the smallest of the seven, to re- 
 volve with you about the sun, than the first of the 
 five which turn around Saturn." 
 
 It was the influence of Herder which turned Gothe 
 to literature ; Gothe, in turn, shaped the whole life- 
 course of Herder. A few years more follow, of 
 astonishing acquirement and constant writing, dur- 
 ing which Herder rises more and more upon the 
 world. At length, when thirty-two, at Gothe's sug- 
 gestion, he is invited to Weimar, to a high eccle- 
 siastical position, which he accepts, becoming at 
 last the head of the church in the grand duchy. 
 He discharges with zeal the duties of his place, and 
 accomplishes, as will be seen, wonders in work of a 
 more general character. At one time he sees Italy ; 
 for the most part he remains in Weimar, reverenced 
 by great and humble, subduing those who surround 
 him by an extraordinary personal power, affecting 
 all Europe through his pen, leading a life blameless 
 and fruitful for good, until he dies, in 1803, at the 
 age of fifty-six. 
 
 Both in poetry and prose the work and influence 
 of Herder have been of immense importance. Like 
 Lessing, he had really little original poetic talent, 
 but had a power, never equalled before or since, of 
 receiving into his mind all poetic life, and repro- 
 ducing it again with perfect truth. 1 He taught 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 317 
 
 that in poetry it wa.s not enough that the form 
 should be artistic ( preceding critics had been satis- 
 fied to speak merely of rhyme and metre) ; ante- 
 cedent to this must come the poetic comprehension 
 of life and its phenomena, that this was the living 
 spring, the same in all times and lands, and that it 
 is to be found at its purest in the folk-song, the 
 poetry of the people. He taught that poetry was 
 as necessary a human expression as language ; that 
 however manifold the forms might be, the source 
 was always the same. This theory, again and again 
 enunciated, he illustrated by multitudes of exam- 
 ples. He sought a knowledge of the folk-songs of 
 all times and races. He first introduced to Germans 
 the Oriental literatures, making known the Hindoo 
 Sacontala, imitating from the Persian, as well as 
 translating from the Hebrew. He was fully at home 
 with the songs of Greece and Rome, called attention 
 to the value of the old German memorials, and 
 penetrated to the four corners of the earth, while 
 he sought what he loved in all modern literatures. 
 For Bishop Percy's " Reliques " he felt extraordi- 
 nary enthusiasm, and knew as well the ballads of 
 Spain and Russia. 
 
 One is filled with awe at the research of this su- 
 perb enthusiast, so catholic, so tireless, with sense 
 so unerring in the hunt for pearls near and far 
 away ! In his heaping volumes, w^e are now in the 
 Rose-garden of Saadi ; now striving with the Moors 
 in splendid elaborations of the Spanish ballads of 
 the Cid ; now it is Horace and Persius ; now some 
 Brahminic outpouring. On one page flows an idyl
 
 318 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 of Theocritus ; on another aLupland lover sings to 
 his mistress, or we hear the passion of a Persian 
 maid. Now we are swept on by the artless power 
 of a Scotch ballad ; now by the holy pulsing of a 
 psalm. Here it is the wild rhyme of a Norse scald ; 
 here a breath from Sicily, calling up orange groves 
 upon opal seas ; a Chinese ditty, or an Indian war- 
 song. They are reproductions, not translations. 
 Herder himself best describes his method. Speak- 
 ing of his renderings from one poet, where he did 
 as always, he says: "I followed the spirit of his 
 muse, not every one of his words and pictures. In 
 his lyrics I kept the peculiar tone of each in my ear, 
 the import and outline of the same in my eye. I 
 have not lent him beauties, but perhaps done away 
 with blemishes, because I honored his great genius 
 too much to expose him here. Where his poem ap- 
 peared to want something in distinctness, I deepened 
 the outlines with a light hand, as with an old draw- 
 ing. Generally speaking, I was more occupied with 
 the spirit which breathes in his poems than with the 
 clothing, although this charmed me much." 
 
 Thus, with the rarest learning, he collected grains 
 of gold from a thousand books, preserving the 
 peculiarities of the different times and lands, of 
 different characters and conditions, marking the 
 
 o 
 
 finest transitions; the delicate shadings the most 
 subtle coloring stamped in with perfect truth and 
 fidelity. lie had little creative fancy. His own 
 poems, when compared with his renderings, seem 
 far inferior. His gift was that of appropriating the 
 foreign, fathoming and reproducing again the most
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 319 
 
 concealed 'beauties and sense. Of the many vol- 
 umes in which his labors in this direction are con- 
 tained, the work called the " Spirit of Hebrew 
 Poetry" has, perhaps more than any other, gained 
 the admiration of his countrymen and the world. 
 There, in psalm and prophetic rhapsody, the pas- 
 sion is of the sublimest, and. like a marvellous con- 
 duit, the soul of Herder pours it all forth in floods 
 as warm, as abundant, as quickening. 
 
 The prose writings of Herder are as numerous 
 as his poetical labors. He first gained attention by 
 pieces of literary criticism contributed to the pe- 
 riodicals of the time, and while still very young 
 wrote a treatise on the " Origin of Language," 
 which was crowned by the Berlin Academy. The- 
 ology and philosophy received attention from his 
 prolific mind ; he was also the first preacher of his 
 day. 1 Passing over the briefer labors, let us turn at 
 once to his magnum opus, the " Ideas for a Philos- 
 ophy of the History of Humanity," a vast work, 
 superb in every way, of extraordinary erudition and 
 wonderful grasp, a work deserving a place among 
 the mightiest accomplishments of the human mind. 
 We cannot say that Herder created the philosophy 
 of history. Bossuet, in France, had preceded him ; 
 so too the profound Italian, Vico, and later still, 
 Voltaire. Herder proceeded, however, upon an 
 original plan, which he developed with most extra- 
 ordinary elaboration. " When I was quite young," 
 he says in his preface, " when the fields of knowl- 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 320 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 edge yet lay before me in all their morning beauty, 
 from which the mid-day sun of our life draws so 
 much, the thought often occurred to me whether, 
 when all in the world has its philosophy and 
 science, that which touches us most closely, the 
 history of humanity, ought not to have a philoso- 
 phy and science. Everything called this to my 
 mind, metaphysics and ethics, physics and nat- 
 ural history. The God who in nature has arranged 
 everything according to measure, number, and 
 weight ; who has ordered the essence of things 
 accordingly, their forms and associations, their 
 course and maintenance, so that from the great 
 world-building to the dust-grain, from the power 
 that holds sun and earth to the thread of a spider- 
 web, only one wisdom, goodness, and power rules ; 
 He who in the human body, and in the powers of 
 the human soul, has considered everything so won- 
 derfully, so divinely, that if we venture to think 
 after the Omniscient we lose ourselves in an abyss 
 of His thoughts, how, said I to myself, should 
 this God, in determining and creating OUR RACE, 
 have departed from His wisdom and goodness, and 
 have had here no plan? Or did He want to conceal 
 it from us, since He showed us in the lower crea- 
 tion, which little concerns us, so many of the pre- 
 scriptions of His eternal law? " 
 
 Long before his great work appears, then, its 
 ideas were occupying him. Of the twenty-five 
 books projected, twenty only were finished, the 
 remainder existing only in plan ; but as I give you 
 the sketch, you will not wonder they were left in-
 
 KLOPSTOCK, W 'IE LAND, HERDER. 321 
 
 complete. The first five books, which form the first 
 part, contain the foundation of the work, partly in 
 a general sketch of our dwelling-place, the material 
 universe, partly in a review of the organizations 
 which enjoy with us the light of the sun. He re- 
 gards the earth at first as part of the universe with 
 relation to the other worlds ; then in itself according 
 to its constitution. He represents it as a great work- 
 shop for the organization of very different beings, 
 and examines the various kingdoms of nature an- 
 imal, vegetable, and mineral in their relation to 
 man. Pie dwells longest upon the animal kingdom, 
 shows the nature of its creatures," their difference 
 from man ; then passes to the consideration of man 
 himself, his being and task. In part second, from 
 book sixth to book tenth, he shows the organiza- 
 tion of different races, according to their dwelling- 
 places, so different in situation, climate, and soil, 
 drawing the conclusion of the unity of the human 
 race ; that while, to be sure, outward circumstances 
 have the most decisive influence upon bodily and 
 mental constitution, for men an inner power has 
 been created, which everywhere appears the same, 
 and must be regarded as the mother of all develop- 
 ment. The particular form which the life-power 
 has once impressed on the mind and activity of man, 
 under the cooperation of outward circumstances, 
 is transmitted through tradition and habit ; and so, 
 among other things, forms of government and re- 
 ligion are transmitted heritages. This leads him to 
 the investigation of the question where the forming 
 centre and oldest home of man is, and to the setting
 
 322 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 forth of the Asiatic declarations about the creation 
 of the earth, and the oldest written traditions of the 
 origin of the human race. In the third part, from 
 hook eleventh to book fifteenth, the historical de- 
 velopment of particular races is treated. Proceed- 
 ing from China, he gradually considers the most 
 important Asiatic nations, and devotes two books, 
 which are among the best of the work, to the Greeks 
 and the Romans. In the fifteenth book, which was 
 much praised by Gothe, Herder enthusiastically un- 
 folds the course of human development from an- 
 tiquity to modern times. Humanity is the aim of 
 human nature, and to this end God has given into 
 the hands of our race its own fate. All the destruc- 
 tive powers in nature must not only, in course of 
 time, submit to the maintaining powers, but also 
 serve in the development of the whole ; and since 
 reason and propriety, according to the laws of their 
 inner nature, must always win more space among 
 men, they must all the more further a permanent 
 condition of the race, since at the same time a wise 
 goodness rules in the fate of men. In the fourth 
 part the Middle Ages are considered, the origin and 
 course of Christianity are detailed, the influence of 
 the papacy and Mahometanism discussed, their more 
 important phenomena touched upon, as, the course 
 of commerce, chivalry, the crusades, the geograph- 
 ical discoveries. But here stopped the busy hand 
 and brain. 
 
 Upon its first appearance, the marvellous work 
 encountered opposition. The science and philoso- 
 phy even of that time found fault with the discus-
 
 KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 323 
 
 sions of the first part. This book the whole work, 
 indeed contained much which even then had to be 
 rejected as without foundation, far more which our 
 later progress has found untenable. Even what is 
 purely historical is often faultily comprehended. 
 Still, Herder's " Ideas for the Philosophy of His- 
 tory " is a work significant and important, like the 
 " Novum Organum " of Bacon, because it led the 
 way to a profounder comprehension of history ; be- 
 cause it showed that in particular phenomena a gen- 
 eral, uniting thought lives, which expresses itself 
 certainly never completely, often only very poorly, 
 but guides the whole race of man. Most powerful 
 has been the " Philosophy of History " in its influ- 
 ence. Therein lies not merely many a germ which 
 was developed later by others ; few books have so 
 wrought upon the world's general culture as this. 
 It passed over to such an extent into the possession 
 of the cultivated that, as Gothe well says, " Only 
 a few of those who now read it are instructed by 
 it for the first time ; for through the hundredfold 
 borrowings from it they have been fully instructed 
 in other connections." l AVhat is true of Germans 
 is true too of us. The great thoughts of Herder 
 have passed into the consciousness of the race, 
 become the very axioms and first principles upon 
 which we act, believing them to be born with us. 
 The "Philosophy of History" laid the foundation 
 upon which scores of great thinkers since his time 
 have builded. Here Karl Hitter found the germ 
 
 1 Eckermann's Gesprache.
 
 324 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 which he developed into his Physical Geography ; 
 hence Hegel and Humboldt took their starting-point. 
 And not alone in Germany ; Guizot in France, 
 Buckle and Lecky in England, Draper in Amer- 
 ica, all in fact who grapple deeply with the prob- 
 lem of human development, must owe their debt 
 to the mighty Weimar preacher. 
 
 Here are a few sentences which will perhaps help 
 the reader to understand the grasp, the eloquent 
 sweep, the noble humanity, of Herder's prose: 
 
 * * * "Why was it denied thec, thou tran- 
 scendent, magnificent Hannibal, to prevent the ruin of 
 thy fatherland, and after the victory at Canna?, hasten 
 straight to the den of thy wolf-like, hereditary foe ? " 
 * * * " Whithersoever my look turns, it beholds 
 destruction ; for everywhere did these conquerors of 
 the world leave the same traces. Had the Romans 
 been really the emancipators of Greece, under which 
 magnanimous name they had themselves announced 
 at the Isthmian games to this race, which had be- 
 come childish, how differently they would have pro- 
 ceeded ! But when Paulus yEmilius causes seventy 
 cities of Epirus to be plundered, and a hundred and 
 fifty thousand men to be sold as slaves, merely to 
 reward his army ; when Metellus and Silanus de- 
 vastate and rob Macedonia ; Mummius, Corinth ; 
 Sulla, Athens and Delphi, as scarcely any other 
 cities in the world have been maltreated ; when this 
 ruin extends itself to the islands of Greece, and 
 Rhodes, Cyprus, and Crete have no better fate than 
 Greece itself, namely, to become toll-houses for 
 tribute and places for plundering for the triumphs
 
 KLOPKTOrK. WIELAND, HERDER. 325 
 
 of Rome ; when the last king of Macedonia, with 
 his sons, is first led about in triumph, then left 
 to languish in the most wretched of dungeons ; when 
 the last sparks of Grecian freedom in the ^Etolian 
 and Achaian leagues are destroyed, and at length 
 the whole land becomes a battle-field, on which the 
 rapacious, devastating hordes of the triumvirs at 
 last slay one another, O, Greece! what a fate 
 does thy protectress bring upon thee thy instruc- 
 tress, Rome, teacher of the world ! All that is left 
 to us from thee is ruins, which the barbarians car- 
 ried with them as booty of their triumph, that all 
 of noble art which humanity had ever devised might 
 utterly perish ! 
 
 * * * "Of Gaul there is little to say, since we 
 know of its subjugation only from the bulletins of 
 its conqueror. For ten years it cost Caesar incred- 
 ible toil and all the force of his great soul. Although 
 he was more noble-minded than any Roman, he 
 could not change his Roman nature, and won the 
 sad renown k of having fought in fifty pitched bat- 
 tles, besides the civil wars, and of having slain in 
 arms eleven hundred and ninety-two thousand men.' 
 Most of these were Gallic souls. Where are the 
 many spirited and courageous races of this great 
 land? Where was their force and bravery, their 
 numbers and vigor, when, after centuries, wild 
 hordes fell upon them and shared them as slaves? 
 Even the name of this mighty people is extin- 
 guished, its religion, culture, and tongue. Ye 
 souls great and noble, Scipios and Cassar, what 
 thought ye, what felt ye, when, as departed spirits,
 
 326 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 from the starry heavens ye looked upon Rome, 
 the robber cave, and the completion of your own 
 murderous handiwork? How soiled, in your eyes, 
 must your honor seem ; how bloody your laurels ; 
 how brutal and inhuman your butcher skill. Rome 
 is no more. Even while it endured must every 
 noble citizen have confessed that curses and destruc- 
 tion would heap themselves upon his fatherland, 
 with all these monstrous victories of ambifion ! " l 
 
 In addition to his literary greatness, Herder was 
 one of the most impressive speakers of his time. 
 Of oratory, as we understand it, the Germans, in 
 the past and at present, know little. In Herder's 
 time all free speech upon political questions was for- 
 bidden, and at present the strong imperial govern- 
 ment will suffer no sharp popular criticism. Foren- 
 sic attack and defense, which in England and America 
 have been the occasion of such displays of human 
 power, have been out of the question in Germany. 
 The pulpit and chair of the professor have always 
 given to orators in Germany their best opportunity. 
 Herder possessed a rare gift for imparting in con- 
 versation the enthusiasm with which he overflowed. 
 His physique was powerful and commanding ; of 
 his great intellectual and moral strength he was 
 fully conscious ; he possessed a self-assertion which, 
 as we have seen, in a man of ordinary gifts would 
 have been insufferable arrogance, and which, even 
 in his case, was excessive. Even when in company 
 with men of the greatest genius he asserted him- 
 
 1 Book xiv, ch. 3. Ideen zur Gcschichte der Menscheit.
 
 KLOP&TOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. &27 
 
 self disagreeably, as Gothe, Schiller, and "VVie- 
 land complain. " The man," said Wieland, charac- 
 teristically, " is like an electric cloud. From a 
 distance the meteor has a splendid effect ; hut may 
 the devil have such a meteor hanging over his head ! 
 I would like to have a dozen Pyrenees between him 
 and me." 
 
 But if in social life he was an uncomfortable 
 companion, in the pulpit, where, as head of the 
 church of the land, he was entitled to speak with 
 authority, he swayed, like reeds shaken by the 
 wind, the hearts of low and high. In his early 
 life his sermons were written ; later they were ex 
 tempore, and of extraordinary richness. He de- 
 manded that the pulpit orators should abstain from 
 all art, and preach simply in popular language. 
 Says one hearer: " You should have seen how, in 
 a few moments, he chained all outbreaks of distrac- 
 tion and curiosity to stillness. All hearts were 
 opened, every eye hung upon him and enjoyed un- 
 accustomed tears, while sighs of emotion rustled 
 through the moved assembly. Over the gospel of 
 the day he uttered himself with enthusiasm, with 
 the clear, lofty simplicity which needs no word-fig- 
 ures, no arts of the school. So, it seems to me, did 
 the apostles preach." Schiller wrote of his preach- 
 ing, upon an ordinary occasion: "Last Sunday I 
 heard Herder preach for the first time. The noble 
 sermon was extremely plain, natural, adapted for 
 the people. No extravagant gestures, no play with 
 the voice, a simple, earnest expression. One can- 
 not fail to remark that he is conscious of his diir-
 
 328 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 nity. The feeling too that he has universal esteem 
 gives him self-possession and ease. He feels that 
 he is a superior mind surrounded by minds of a 
 lower order. His sermon pleased me better than 
 any I have ever heard in my life." Of his address 
 at the baptism of the hereditary prince of Weimar, 
 Wieland wrote : "I know nothing purer, simpler, 
 more heart-touching, more finely considered or felic- 
 itously said, either in German or any other tongue." 
 And of the same sermon, Gothe said: "Herder 
 preached like a god." 
 
 \Ve have indicated the foible of his character. 
 It was the same possessed by Macaulay, Samuel 
 Johnson ; greater yet, by Milton. From first to 
 last he was full of a noble purity, and untiring in 
 the application of his splendid gifts to the benefit 
 of men. As a writer, his faults are diftuseness and 
 a tendency to rhapsody, which, though natural 
 and not offensive in him, when imitated by his 
 thousand followers, worked injuriously against point 
 and simplicity. 
 
 As I think of an image which shall best typify 
 the great son of tin' poor school-master of Mohruu- 
 gen, I find it in the bee. His life was labor ; from 
 himself he furnished nothing, but going restlessly 
 from land to land, and through the ages of the 
 past, with an unerring instinct he perceived where 
 lav the honey ; gathered it and hived it with in- 
 dustry untiring, that it might bless the world with its 
 sweetness. Moreover, dusty with the pollen caught 
 in his flight through a thousand fields, he swept 
 with fructifying touch over the waiting minds of
 
 KL6PSPOCK, WIELAND, HERDER. 329 
 
 his contemporaries, impregnating them with a life 
 which appeared, and still appears, in forms unnum- 
 bered of beauty and fragrance ! 
 
 Tranquil lies the little city of Weimar in the 
 midst of its quietly sloping hills. On the hills 
 waved the grain harvests of July when I ap- 
 proached it. From the station I went down into 
 the shade of the streets, among the modest, vener- 
 able buildings, that possess more interest than met- 
 ropolitan temples and palaces, because they have 
 been the homes and haunts of genius. Presently 
 I crossed the well-worn pavement about a plain, 
 gray church. These were the walls which once 
 echoed the eloquence of Herder, and as I gazed I 
 thought of the tall, strong figure in the plain black 
 robe, majestic through its associations, once worn 
 by Luther, and established as the garb of the evan- 
 gelical clergy of his country, towering before his 
 congregation, speaking to them with the ardor and 
 authority of a prophet. To help my fancy, close 
 at hand stood Herder's figure in bronze, the noble 
 head illumined, the brow heavy with thought, and 
 beneath, the inscription, carved at the command of 
 his ducal patron, "Light, Love, Life." Mighty 
 he was among the sons of men, and yet there was 
 to come after him a mightier, treading literally 
 within his footsteps, in this very city of Weimar, 
 while he erected a structure compared with which 
 even the fame of Herder is an unpretentious fane !
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 
 
 In the world's literature of the last two hundred 
 years, it is right, I think, to say there is no name 
 so great as Gothe ; in many ways his life is the 
 most interesting of the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries. The family from which he sprung can 
 be traced from the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, at which time his great-grandfather lived 
 as a 'farrier at Mansfeld, in Thuringia. With the 
 generations that follow comes a gradual rise from 
 this humble condition. The son of the farrier 
 becomes a tailor, removes to Frankfbrt-on-the- 
 Main, and, by a fortunate marriage with the 
 landlady of a popular inn, acquires wealth. The 
 ,son of the tailor and the landlady, Johann Cas- 
 par Gothe, is well educated, and becomes accom- 
 plished by travel in Italy. He reaches the dignity 
 of imperial counsellor among the burghers of the 
 free city, and marries, at length, the daughter of 
 the chief magistrate. Here at last we have the 
 parents of the poet. The father is cold and formal, 
 but upright and truth-loving. From him Gothe in- 
 herits a well-built frame, an erect carriage, and 
 measured movement, and for spiritual qualities a 
 certain orderliness and stoicism. The reader of
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 331 
 
 Gothe's life respects the figure of the father as it is 
 painted to us, but is not attracted by it. The figure 
 of the mother, on the othor hand, is very charming. 
 At her marriage she is a lovely girl, simple, hearty, 
 joyous, and affectionate ; she is full of mother-wit, 
 attractive to children, and with many accomplish- 
 ments. She has health like iron. Later in life she 
 becomes large and stately. She has always a circle 
 of young girls about her, enthusiastic for her, and 
 is also a favorite with poets and princes. There are 
 many letters of hers extant, of which it is said, 
 "There is no dead word among them." 1 While 
 the father moves upon the scene, his figure always 
 somewhat stern and cool, disappointed at his son's 
 choice of a career, never cordially recognizing his 
 success, the mother is always a most amiable 
 personality, full of genius, sunshine, and sympathy, 
 even in the deep old age which she at length reaches ; 
 going almost hand in hand with her great son, to 
 whom she gave birth when she was but eighteen, 
 until he at last, himself an old man, bids her a 
 heart-broken farewell. 
 
 August twenty-eighth, 1749, was the date of the 
 girl-mother's memorable travail. The air was full 
 at the time of the free, bold spirit which, develop- 
 ing, was destined, before the end of the century, 
 to produce the French revolution. Frankfort, the 
 centre of wide-extending traffic, was an appropriate 
 birth-place for a cosmopolitan poet. His education, 
 from first to last, was of a kind to lift him above 
 
 1 Hermann Grimm : Vorlesuno;en iiber Gothe.
 
 332 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 all narrow limits. He was taught especially to ad- 
 mire Italy. Going from the station at Frankfort, it 
 is but a short walk to the old house in the Hirsch- 
 graben, the memorial stone in whose front tells the 
 stranger that it is the place of Gothe's birth. 
 Though quite different from the fashion of our time, 
 it has a look most solid and respectable, standing 
 close upon the street, the upper stories projecting 
 over the lower in a manner to suggest a beetling 
 Olympian brow ; the many windows looking upon 
 the passing back and forth of the human tide, as if, 
 like the child it gave to the world, it was, before all 
 that moved about it, wide-awake and impression- 
 able. In Gothe's famous autobiography, written in 
 age, the great man reverts affectionately to his 
 earliest childhood, painting with lingering and vivid 
 touch his child-life here, the dimly recalled pranks 
 of infancy, the first beginnings to which memory 
 goes back, the quarrels with the neighbors' chil- 
 dven, the mother's story-telling, the pageants in the 
 street, the first love. Read once the old poet's 
 bright reminiscences, and you will long to see the 
 house in the Ilirsch-graben, and Frankfort's quaint 
 streets and squares. 
 
 Got he was a precocious boy. Before he was eight 
 years old he wrote German, French, Italian, Latin, 
 and Greek ; many of his boyish exercises are still 
 preserved. Tie earlv became the favorite of emi- 
 nent artists, and tried ardently to become a painter. 
 Perhaps the genius of no human being has come so 
 near being universal, but it had its limitations, and 
 this was one direction where they made themselves
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 333 
 
 felt. As regards music too, though he faithfully 
 tried, his accomplishments were but slender ; nor 
 could he at this time, or later in his career, do much 
 with mathematics, more, no doubt, through defect 
 of inclination than power. In other directions his 
 energy and success were extraordinary. He tells us 
 himself minutely the circumstances that aided his 
 development; his father's training, faithful but un- 
 sympathetic, his mother's cherishing, and a thou- 
 sand other influences. A French army it is dur- 
 ing the Seven Years' War occupies the city, and 
 his father's house becomes the headquarters of offi- 
 cers of rank. These treat the boy kindly, and, dur- 
 ing the time of their stay, surround him with a 
 French atmosphere. He is impressible to an ex- 
 traordinary degree, "like a chameleon, taking a 
 hue from every object under which it lies." 1 He 
 learns not only the language, but acquires a French 
 culture, which, however, is far from absorbing him. 
 He studies English and Hebrew as well, and in spite 
 of all this occupation, by no means neglects his 
 body, which he perfects by abundant exercise. Pre- 
 cocious in everything, at fifteen comes a love affair, 
 the tirst of a long series running through his life 
 almost to his eightieth year. 
 
 At sixteen it is felt that the boy needs the in- 
 fluence of a broader world, and he is therefore 
 sent to Leipsic. It was his father's wish that he 
 should be a lawyer, but he soon turned in disgust 
 from study of that kind, working in directions 
 
 1 Lewes' Life of Gothe.
 
 334 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 which seemed unpromising enough to his father 
 and the professors to whom he had been committed. 
 He became interested in medicine and botany. He 
 read Moliere and Corneille, and gave the rein to 
 his theatrical taste. We find him performing in pri- 
 vate theatricals, appearing as Tellhcim, in " Minna 
 von Barnhelm ; " he even wrote dramas of his own, 
 two of which are included in his works, the first- 
 lings of his genius. At this time he was profoundly 
 moved by the " Laokoon " of Lessing. Ho visited 
 Dresden to see the great pictures of the gallery, 
 pursued faithfully his drawing, and began also to 
 learn engraving. His intercourse with society made 
 him conscious of awkwardness. Moreover, there 
 are indications enough that he saw a wild side of 
 life ; but dissipation could not absorb him. With 
 soul as sensitive as an iodized plate, his life at 
 Leipsic does not pass without the reception of an 
 impress from the figures of the maidens with whom 
 he moves in society. After a two or three years' 
 sojourn he returns to Frankfort, really vastly 
 developed by experience and culture ; though not 
 unnaturally, his father considers that he has begun 
 his career most unpromisingly. The relations of 
 the two become cold and unpleasant, and the son 
 falling sick, his time passes drearily. When he is 
 once more able to work, he turns his attention to 
 alchemy, reading books of old magicians, which in 
 those days, when as yet there was no science of 
 chemistry, still had authority. Still another love 
 affair, ardent and transitory as those that had 
 preceded. At length, in 1770, when twenty years
 
 OOTHE THE MAN. 335 
 
 old, he is sent to make trial of the university at 
 Strassburg, as before at Leipsic. "A more magnifi- 
 cent youth never perhaps entered the Strassburg 
 gates. Long before he was celebrated, he was 
 likened to an Apollo. The features were large 
 and liberally cut, as in the fine, sweeping lines of 
 Greek art. The brow lofty and massive, from be- 
 neath which shone large, lustrous, brown eyes of 
 marvellous beauty, their pupils being of almost un- 
 exampled size. The slightly aquiline nose was large 
 and finely cut ; the mouth full, with a short arched 
 lip, very expressive ; the chin and jaw boldly pro- 
 portioned, and the head resting on a fine, muscular 
 neck. In stature he was rather above the middle 
 size ; although not really tall, he had the aspect of a 
 tall man, and is usually so described, because his 
 presence was so imposing. His frame was strong 
 and muscular, yet sensitive ; he excelled in all active 
 sports." 1 
 
 At Strassburg he was still the chameleon, singu- 
 larly receptive of every impression. Falling into 
 the society of students of medicine, he at once 
 catches their interest ; electricity and optics also at- 
 tract him. His intellectual activity was, as always, 
 extraordinary, and yet he found time for much con- 
 tact with life, where his course was often sufficiently 
 unconventional, though it would be harsh to call it 
 vicious. His force of character is in many ways 
 apparent. To conquer undue sensitiveness, he com- 
 pels himself to endure the dissecting-room ; to sub- 
 
 1 Lewes.
 
 336 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 due a tendency to giddiness, he stands for long in- 
 tervals upon the narrow space at the summit of the 
 Strassburg spire. Marie Antoinette passes through 
 the town, a lovely bride of fifteen, on her way to 
 her career of calamity as queen of France. Strass- 
 burg receives her with much pomp, for there she 
 first sets foot upon the soil she is to rule. But 
 among the rich hangings of her apartment is tapes- 
 try chosen with bad taste, representing classic hero- 
 ines sadly famous through unhappy marriages. The 
 handsome young Gothe, regarding it as ominous, 
 storms against the inappropriateness in a way to at- 
 tract much attention ; as if he foresaw the blood 
 and terror in which the life of the princess was at 
 last to go down. He rode and fenced ; he made 
 himself accomplished in dancing ; and in connection 
 with this had a curious experience with the pretty 
 daughters of the dancing-master, finely told in his 
 old age in the autobiography, for which I long to 
 make room, but must deny myself. 
 
 The principal love idyl, however, of the Strass- 
 burg life is the story of his connection with Fred- 
 erika, among Gothe's innumerable affairs of the 
 heart, perhaps the most charming. Still, from the 
 high platform of the minster, eighteen miles away 
 in the beautiful Alsatian landscape, may be seen the 
 spire of Sesenheim, of which the father of Fred- 
 erika was pastor. She was a girl of sixteen, every 
 way lovely, whom Gothe met during an excursion 
 from the city with a fellow-student. The story is 
 too long to tell. The passion of the young poet was 
 intense, and as warmly returned ; but, as was again
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 337 
 
 and again the case with him, it subsided, enriching 
 his experience, coloring magnificently the work 
 which he afterward gave to the world, though so 
 transitory. Frederika had a dangerous sickness af- 
 ter Gothe's desertion. She was the first girl whose 
 heart he broke, and to have broken the heart of 
 such a girl say even his enthusiastic defenders 
 was an inhumanity, although we can pardon him 
 much. 1 The pastor's daughter lived forward, pa- 
 tient in her maidenhood, sought again and again, 
 but ever after unapproachable. "The soul which 
 has once loved Gothe," she was accustomed to say, 
 " can love no one else." The youth who crossed 
 her path only to bring her torture, bestowed upon 
 her, as we shall hereafter see, such an immortality 
 as has fallen to the lot of few among the daughters 
 of men. 
 
 Of the year or so that Gothe spent at Strassburg, 
 there are three influences under which he came that 
 are reckoned as important. The idyl of which 
 Frederika is heroine is one ; the second is that ex- 
 ercised upon him by the great Herder, the first 
 man whom Gothe had ever met whom he could call 
 master. Herder was a few years Gothe's senior, 
 and came to Strassburg during Gothe's student life, 
 hoping to be cured of a disease of the eyes from 
 which he suffered. In their intercourse Herder 
 showed all his power, but was often characteris- 
 tically overbearing and sarcastic ; Gothe was amiable 
 and tolerant. Herder liked Gothe, though he did 
 
 1 Hermann Grimm. 
 22
 
 338 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 not recognize his genius ; Gothe, on the other hand, 
 was powerfully affected. Up to the interviews with 
 Herder, it had been all uncertain whither the flood 
 would pour itself. Was the sublime energy to be felt 
 in the world of affairs, or books, in art, science, 
 or literature? For all, by turns, the many-sided 
 youth had shown a preference. Henceforth, how- 
 ever, the path was determined. Gothe turned pas- 
 sionately to the study of the Bible, Homer, Os- 
 sian, above all Shakespeare, gathering in this way 
 strength for the sublime leap that was to carry him 
 to the summits. 
 
 The third influence under which Gothe came was 
 that exercised upon him by the beauty of the 
 cathedral. We cannot feel the sway of Herder's 
 spirit, and for two generations the charm of Fred- 
 erika's presence has been hidden in the grave. The 
 fascination of the cathedral, however, is a lasting 
 possession, which only deepens as the years go by. 
 In the same month of April, just one hundred years 
 after Gothe entered the Strassburg gates, the course 
 of my pilgrimage carried me thither. The old city, 
 as has been seen, is perhaps the birthplace of Ger- 
 man prose ; it cradled the art of printing ; the purest 
 and noblest eloquence of the Middle Ages was heard 
 within its squares and churches. In these associa- 
 tions there is plenty to thrill the heart ; but how 
 deep grows the interest of the thoughtful traveller 
 when he stands before the cathedral's amazing front, 
 or is subdued by the glorified light of the interior, 
 when he climbs up through the meshes of the pet- 
 rified net-work to the lofty platform, or from a dis-
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 339 
 
 tance beholds upon the horizon the spectral spire, 
 penetrated everywhere by the light, to think that 
 he is beneath the sway of a power that wrought so 
 upon the culture of Germany's greatest mind ! 
 
 While Gothe had been maturing, in the thought- 
 ful minds of Germany and France revolutionary in- 
 fluences were more and more felt. It was now the 
 period known from the title of a play in those days 
 famous as that of the " Storm and Stress." * A 
 war against the conventional, a liking for outlawry, 
 a passion for the tempestuous, characterized the 
 young writers who were giving tone to the period. 
 Gothe was possessed with it to the full, so wild 
 in his manners that his friends called him the bear 
 and the wolf. He rambled in the open air until he 
 almost lived upon the road. He was perfect in the 
 sword exercise, and at home on the back of a gal- 
 loping horse ; but he found for his stormy moods 
 no such outlet as the exercise of skating. ' ' He was 
 never tired. All day long, and deep into the night, 
 he was to be seen whirling along, and as the full 
 moon rose above the clouds over the wide, noc- 
 turnal fields of ice, and the night wind rushed at 
 his face, and the echo of his movements came with 
 a ghostly sound upon his ear, he seemed to be of 
 Ossian's world." 2 Stand on the bridge of Frank- 
 fort ; there is the statue of Karl the Great, of which 
 I have spoken, the ledges in the stream below 
 thrusting themselves up, as they did a thousand 
 
 Sturm und Drang. 
 Lewes.
 
 340 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 years ago, that they might be stepping-stones for his 
 Franks, fording the broad Main on their way to 
 conquest. You are almost in the shadow of the 
 dark spire beneath which, during the ages, his im- 
 perial successors have assumed the purple. There 
 is another sovereign figure that one may well think 
 of here, the king in the realm of German letters. 
 The February day that I stood on the Frankfort 
 bridge the Main was sheeted with ice, and reverber- 
 ating to the. thrust of the skaters as in the day when 
 the young Gothe found in the sport a vent for his 
 supreme vitality. How fine is this account by his 
 mother: "There skated my son, like an arrow, 
 among the groups. The wind had reddened his 
 cheeks, and blown the powder out of his brown hair. 
 When he saw my cloak of crimson and fur, which 
 had a long train and was closed in front by golden 
 clasps, he came toward our carriage and smiled 
 coaxingly at me. I took it off; he put it on, threw 
 the train over his arm, and away he went over the 
 ice like a son of the gods. I clapped my hands for 
 joy. Never shall I forget him as he darted out from 
 under one arch of the bridge and in again under 
 another, the wind carrying the train behind him as 
 he Hew." 
 
 He stood now on the threshold of his first great 
 success. He had already written though it was 
 not given to the world until later his plav " Got/ 
 von Berlichingen," founding the piece upon the 
 chronicle of the old robber-knight of that name, the 
 representative of a class whose quarrels and lawless 
 spirit threw their time into confusion. There are,
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 341 
 
 however, many picturesque traits in their story, and 
 redeeming things poep through in the characters of 
 some among them. Sir Walter Scott began his ca- 
 reer as a writer by a translation of Gotz, turning 
 then his attention to the medheval romance of his 
 own land, to make immortal similar types. We can 
 understand that in a "storm and stress" period 
 such pieces would be full of attraction ; but the 
 world knew Gothe first in another way than as the 
 author of Gotz. 
 
 In the little town of Wetzlar, where his fate 
 placed him for a brief period, the susceptible genius 
 became attracted toward an amiable girl, Charlotte 
 Buff, who jived in her father's household, taking 
 care of her younger brothers and sisters. To know 
 such a person was, for Gothe, at once to love, and 
 Lotte took her place on the list already becoming 
 long of his flames. She, however, was betrothed 
 to another, a manly fellow, Kestncr, of whose char- 
 acter we have ample means of judging through his 
 letters. Gothe' s relation to the two was a singular 
 one. For Kestner his friendship was warm; for 
 Lotte his love extreme. It was acknowledged and 
 talked about with the utmost freedom among the 
 three, during the months of Gothe' s stay. At the 
 same time there also lived at Wetzlar a young stu- 
 dent whom Gothe had formerly known at Leipsig, 
 who was also suffering through hopeless love for 
 a woman already married. Gothe at length was 
 forced to leave Wetzlar, and shortly after, the young 
 student, in a fit of despair, shot himself. Gothe, 
 who had already shown such strong impressibility,
 
 342 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 was now to show that he possessed as well a power 
 for expression such as no mortal has ever surpassed. 
 He was a self-registering thermometer, and the fifty 
 volumes he left at death are, to a large extent, 
 the minute record of the transitions of the ex- 
 quisitely sensitive globule, his soul, as it sank and 
 rose in the heat and cooling of its passion, along the 
 scale of possible movement. The record of the "VVetz- 
 lar experience is a memorable one, the famous 
 " Sorrows of Werther." Gothe wrote it in a few 
 weeks, combining in a romance his own experience 
 and that of his friend. The story details, with ex- 
 cessive elaboration, the passion of a youth for a 
 woman betrothed to another, who at length shoots 
 himself in despair. It will be referred to again. For 
 the present it is enough to say tha-t, in our age, the 
 experience which led to the book and the pages them- 
 selves can hardly be treated seriously ; for such sen- 
 timental extravagance the world has now nothing 
 but ridicule. Gothe himself, long before the end of 
 his career, regarded it as absurd. A hundred years 
 ago, however, its appearance was one of the great 
 events of the ccntuiy. Nothing ever hit more pre- 
 cisely the taste of an age. It was read by high and 
 low ; it spread to foreign lands, even to the confines 
 of the earth ; it was the favorite of chambermaids ; 
 Napoleon took it with him to Egypt, and read it 
 seven times. At one step the youth of twenty-five 
 had become the favorite writer of Europe. 
 
 Scarcely had the curtain fallen for Gothe on the 
 experience of "Wetzlar when, Lotte being already 
 forgotten, a new intimacy with a woman came to
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 343 
 
 pass, Maximiliane, the wife of an Italian of Frank- 
 fort, and mother, afterwards, of the singular figure 
 who appears with some prominence in connection 
 with Gothe' s later career, Bettine. Although the 
 husband became very jealous, the intimacy seems to 
 have been innocent, and was of a kind usual enough 
 in those days, though now it would be looked on as 
 reprehensible. It was fleeting, like the rest ; and in 
 quick succession just after we find him involved in 
 two other ardent flirtations, the most noticeable 
 one, that with "Lili," Anna Elizabeth Schone- 
 mann, daughter of a Frankfort banker, for whom 
 Gothe told Eckermann, the Bos well who recorded 
 the poet's later conversations, he had felt a truer love 
 than for any one else. Gothe needed only to feel 
 that he had vanquished a heart in order to consider 
 that the end was reached, and must be forsaken. 1 
 Betrothed in April, in May everything was over. 
 Lili's friends opposed, Lili submitting, as Gothe 
 thought, too easily. His passion was cooling, he 
 spoke decidedly, and they separated without too 
 many tears. She was a fresh, lively, open-hearted 
 girl of sixteen, with nothing of Frederika's tender- 
 ness, or the sensitiveness of Lotte. Among the 
 thousand graphic pictures of the autobiography, one 
 of the most vivid is of Gothe standing in the street 
 
 O 
 
 before the banker's house, in the evening. Through 
 the window he sees Lili at the piano, in the midst of 
 a party of friends, whom she entertains with a song 
 written for her by the lover from whom she was just 
 
 1 Hermann Grimm.
 
 344 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 separated, ' ' Why dost them draw me irresistibly ? " l 
 That his just-abandoned bride entertained an in- 
 different company by singing his song vexed him, 
 but held him fast at the same time. Her unbroken 
 self-centredness exercised a mighty charm upon him, 
 and he was obliged to summon the whole force of 
 his character to prevent himself from going in. 
 Gothe is now a mature man. The capricious love- 
 making, of which there has already been so much 
 mention, we can smile at and pardon in a callow 
 youth ; more sobriety, however, seems proper now, 
 and in spite of the apologies of admirers, we cannot 
 help reading impatiently, as one fickle attachment 
 follows another, and feeling that the dignity of a 
 character to which we would fain do reverence is 
 much impaired. They cannot be passed over un- 
 noticed, for his work, as has been said, was to a 
 large extent a record of his emotions, of the changes 
 between coolness and fever-heat, as his mercurial 
 spirit sunk and rose. Of the passions just men- 
 tioned, as of the others, the careful reader of Gothe 
 can find the record that corresponds. Charlotte, 
 without change of name, becomes the heroine of 
 " Werther ;" from the love for Lili comes the charm- 
 ing little poem of " Erwin and Elmire :" Frederika 
 becomes the Gretchen of " Faust." ' 2 But just here 
 begins a friendship which was thoroughly manly, 
 and was to have most important results. At Mainz 
 he meets a youth of noble birth, a few years younger 
 
 1 "Warum ziehst du mich unwiderstehlich?" 
 ' 2 Grimm.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 345 
 
 than himself, who had come to feel for him a warm 
 enthusiasm, Karl August, duke of Weimar, who 
 invites him to live henceforth at the capital of his 
 state. After a tour in Switzerland, Gothe, at the 
 age of twenty-six, accepts the invitation, going to 
 Weimar for a sojourn of nearly sixty years, his 
 whole remaining life, in relations creditable to his 
 patron and himself. 
 
 Among the hundreds of states into which poor 
 Germany was in the last century divided, Weimar 
 occupied an intermediate place, not standing in the 
 rank of the larger ones, like Austria and Prussia, 
 nor yet among the most insignificant in extent and 
 population, but nearer the latter than the former. 
 The city itself contained seven thousand inhabi- 
 tants ; the outlying duchy was scarcely more than 
 a respectable county, but because it became the 
 home of Gothe it was more famous than many 
 greater lands. At Gothe' s coming, the city walls 
 were standing, with battlement, portcullis, and all 
 mediaeval circumstance. The beautiful park which 
 the visitor now finds was not then in existence ; 
 it owes its creation mainly indeed to Gothe, and 
 is the most remarkable feature of Weimar. It be- 
 gins southward from the palace, the land stretch- 
 ing miles away without a barrier, magnificent 
 plain and slope, dotted with trees as fine. Upon 
 one of its paths stands the "garden house," the 
 residence of Gothe for years, and not far off 
 the house of bark, of which he was the archi- 
 tect, in which the unconventional duke spent much 
 of his time, throwing off restraint and appearing
 
 346 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 as the child of nature. Karl August was by no 
 means an ordinary figure. He was brusque and 
 soldierly ; his tastes were homely, sometimes coarse ; 
 he mingled freely with the people, putting on their 
 dress and dancing with the peasant girls at the 
 country festivals. He was a bold rider, sought 
 excitement in wine, and was often wilful. With 
 all his faults, he was in many ways an admirable 
 character. His judgment of men and things was 
 sound and keen ; his aims were really high. Only 
 a remarkable character could have had the ambition 
 he possessed to make his court intellectually illus- 
 trious. He invited thither the most famous minds 
 of Germany, Gothe, Schiller, Herder, Wieland, 
 and others of note. At the university of Jena, 
 only a few miles distant, which was under his 
 patronage, were men hardly less famous, Gries- 
 bach, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, the brothers Sclile- 
 gel, the brothers Humboldt. Many of them he 
 kept at his side in life-long intercourse and attach- 
 ment. The relation between Gothe and Karl 
 August was beautiful and manly. There was never 
 an ignoble suspicion between them, and but one 
 transitory quarrel. The poet stood at the side of 
 the duke as a faithful mentor. 
 
 Still more interesting than the duke was his 
 mother, the Duchess Ainalie, who is described as 
 the soul of the Weimar life. She was a niece of 
 Frederick the Great, and had much of his power. 
 She was left a widow with two sons before she was 
 twenty, and at Gothe' s coming was still young. 
 Her features were full of expression ; in particular,
 
 &OTHE THE MAN. 347 
 
 her eye had the same remarkable brightness to be 
 seen in that of her uncle, whom she more and more 
 resembled as her life advanced. She was well edu- 
 cated, and had agreeable social qualities. What 
 was more remarkable, she had a manly firmness 
 and sense in matters of business and government. 
 As a regent, she managed with real ability the 
 affairs of her state in the difficult time of the Seven 
 Years' War. Like a little shallop caught in the 
 midst of fighting men-of-war, the duchy lay in the 
 very track of the great contending powers. Austria, 
 Prussia, Saxony were right at hand, and Weimar 
 lay precisely in the path of France. She managed 
 all, however, with great spirit and skill. As to 
 Gothe, she saw at once the wisdom of inviting him 
 to Weimar, and it is perhaps right to say it was 
 mainly through her that he remained. 
 
 In estimating the life of Gothe at Weimar, we 
 must bear in mind the manners of the land and 
 time, which permitted much that in better regulated 
 modern society would be regarded as improper, 
 even sinful. He has been reproached with living as 
 a courtier and dependent, and a contrast easily sug- 
 gests itself between him and Lessing, who turned 
 his back upon princes in such proud independence. 
 To me, indeed, Gothe is far enough from seeming 
 possessed of such moral grandeur of character as 
 his great precursor, yet let us try to do him strict 
 justice. To live from the proceeds of authorship 
 was, in those days, impossible ; dependence upon a 
 prince was not deemed unmanly, even by the 
 proudest. The pure Schiller accepted the duke's
 
 348 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 pension, and Lessing himself was at last an attach^ 
 of the court of Brunswick, though he took care to 
 guard well his freedom. In return for his pension, 
 which for long was only about one thousand dollars, 
 Gothe rendered most ample service. He was always 
 the adviser of his prince, and at length the president 
 of his council. He was far enough from being the 
 poet lost in dreams, or the retired author whom no 
 one might disturb. His literary work was really a 
 side occupation. He was busy constantly with mat- 
 ters of law and administration, patient even with 
 the pettiest details. As first official of the duke- 
 dom, which he soon became, the discharge of 
 the responsibilities of his great position seemed to 
 his contemporaries the peculiar aim of his life. His 
 design in going to Weimar was to devote his whole 
 power to the service of the duke and his people ; this 
 he fulfilled, giving only hours of leisure to literary 
 work. 1 To the end of his life he was busy with 
 plans of public benefit, trying in many ways to 
 alleviate the condition of the people. 2 He opened 
 mines ; we read of his instituting a fire department, 
 Mild exposing himself in fighting a conflagration 
 until his eye-brows became singed. He managed 
 the finances, was constantly active for the higher 
 culture of the people, and directed the affairs of 
 war as well as of peace. With his extraordinary 
 vigor, these public employments were far enough 
 from absorbing him. He turned, unwearied, from 
 
 1 Grimm. 
 
 2 Schiifer : Das Leben Gothes.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 349 
 
 them to literary production, and here too he was 
 heartily supported by his noble patron. In his re- 
 lations with the court he was not a sycophant ; he 
 spoke his mind freely, and his intercourse with the 
 duke was interrupted once, at least, by a quarrel. 
 The bond between them was that of hearty friend- 
 ship, in which the frank duke often appears as much 
 the dependant as Gothe himself. 1 
 
 Many pictures of the life at Weimar are given, 
 often picturesque and charming, not always edi- 
 fying. At his coining he fascinated all by his un- 
 constrained ways and splendid talents. In conver- 
 sation he startled with paradoxes ; the next moment 
 was waltzing round the room, with mad antics that 
 made beholders roar with laughter. Wieland 
 who had been sharply satirized by Gothe, and saw 
 himself superseded by him, not only in the world 
 of Weimar, but in Germany at large admired 
 him with a generosity which does the highest credit 
 to his character, and no tribute is more graceful 
 than his. " How I loved the magnificent youth, as 
 I sat beside him at table ! Since that morning my 
 soul is as full of Gothe as a dew-drop of the morn- 
 ing sun." " I catch strange glimpses of him, now 
 darting across the ice ; now, with locks flowing 
 over his shoulders, whirling around in a mad 
 Bacchante waltz ; finally, standing in the market- 
 place with the duke, by the hour together, crack- 
 ing huge sledge-whips for a wager." Here too is a 
 
 1 Godeke. 
 * Lewes.
 
 350 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 story told by Gleim, a poet justly famous if for 
 nothing else for spirited soldiers' songs during 
 the Seven Years' War, and who protected and en- 
 couraged younger poets of his time, showing in his 
 fostering more kindness of heart than discernment : 
 "Soon after Gothe had written < Werther,' I came 
 to Weimar, and wished to know him. I had brought 
 with me the last literary novelty, and read here and 
 there a poem in the company in which I passed the 
 evening. While I was reading, a young man, 
 booted and spurred, in a short green shooting- 
 jacket, thrown open, came in and mingled with the 
 audience. I had scarcely remarked his entrance. 
 He sat down opposite to me and listened attentively. 
 I scarcely know what it was about him that par- 
 ticularly struck me, except a pair of brilliant, dark, 
 Italian eyes. But it was decreed I should know 
 more of him. During a short pause, in which some 
 gentlemen and ladies were discussing the merits of 
 the pieces I had read, the gal hint young sportsman 
 for such I took him to be rose from his chair, 
 and, bowing with a most courteous and ingratiating 
 air to me, ottered to relieve me from time to time 
 in reading, lest I should be tired. I could do no 
 less than accept so polite an offer, and immediately 
 handed him the book. But oh ! Apollo, and all ye 
 Muses, what was I then to hear. At first, indeed, 
 things went on smoothly enough. All at once, 
 however, it was as if some wild and wanton spirit 
 had taken possession of the young reader, and I 
 thought I saw the wild huntsman bodily before me. 
 He read poems that had no existence in the book,
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 351 
 
 broke out into all possible moods and dialects. 
 Hexameters, iambics, doggerel, one after another, 
 or blended in strange confusion, came tumbling out 
 in torrents. Amidst all came magnificent thoughts. 
 He put everybody present out of countenance in 
 one way or another. In a little fable composed ex- 
 tempore, in doggerel verses, he likened me, wittily 
 enough, to a worthy and most enduring turkey-hen 
 who sets on a great heap of eggs, of her own and 
 other people, and hatches them with infinite 
 patience, but to whom it happens sometimes to 
 have a chalk egg put under her instead of a real 
 one. ' That is either Gothe or the devil,' cried I 
 to Wieland, who sat opposite me. ' Both,' he re- 
 plied. ' He has the devil in him to-night, and at 
 such times he is like a wanton colt that flings out 
 before and behind, and you will do well not to go 
 too near him.' ' 
 
 One more anecdote of his wild time. He was fond 
 of bathing, and often bathed at night. One evening, 
 when the moon was calmly shining, a peasant, re- 
 turning home, was crossing a bridge near by ; Gothe 
 espied him, and, moved with the spirit of mischief 
 which so often startled Weimar, uttered wild sepul- 
 chral tones, raised himself half out of water, ducked 
 under, and reappeared, howling, to the horror of the 
 frightened peasant, who, hearing such sounds issue 
 from a figure with long, floating hair, fled as if a le- 
 gion of demons were at hand. 1 To this day there 
 remains an ineradicable belief in the existence of 
 
 1 Lewes.
 
 352 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the water-sprite Avho howls among the waters of 
 the Ilm. 
 
 These stories of the ebullitions of his early man- 
 hood are interesting as evidences of his joyous, 
 abounding vitality. Karl August, who had associ- 
 ated the poet so closely to himself, was only nine- 
 teen years old, full of the exuberance of healthy 
 youth. Gothe had not advanced so far toward ma- 
 turity that he could not enter with the fullest 'zest 
 into the escapades of his patron. The severe Klop- 
 stock, hearing of the wild life which went forward 
 at Weimar, wrote Gothe a censorious letter, the 
 cause of a breach between the two, which was never 
 fully healed. The fault-finding of the old poet seems 
 to have been unreasonable. The gaiety was inno- 
 cent, though perhaps -sometimes over-rough. At any 
 rate, soon came a sober time ; but whether merry or 
 sober, Gothe 's restless mind was always at work, its 
 production reflecting faithfully the mood of the 
 hour. We have to regard him as one who, beyond 
 all the sons of men, experienced delicate emotions, 
 having at the same time the gift of uttering them 
 in poetic outbursts. It would be idle, therefore, to 
 tell the story of his life without recording the stir- 
 rings of his soul, stirrings, as \ve have already seen, 
 not alwavs innocent or dignified, although the out- 
 come to the world was so often a transcendent work 
 of genius. 
 
 Among the fascinating women of the court of 
 Weimar was Charlotte von Stein, wife of the master 
 of the horse, a woman older than Gothe by some 
 vears, but of extraordinary fascinations, and fitted
 
 GO THE THE MAN. 353 
 
 by her genius to sympathize with Gothe in all his 
 strivings. She touched his heart to its depths, this 
 time in no transitory fashion, for his love lasted ten 
 years, the sensitive globule in his breast meantime 
 recording its elevation in outpourings full of all pos- 
 sible ardor. It was another world than ours. The 
 men and women who moved in the society of Wei- 
 mar treated with little respect many social conven- 
 tionalities, and not infrequently infringed upon the 
 moral law. Jean Paul even went so far as to say of 
 Weimar, " Marriages count for nothing ; " and one 
 cannot read far in the recitals without coming upon 
 evidences of a freedom of conduct quite at variance 
 with modern notions of propriety. 1 Gothe' s passion 
 for Charlotte von Stein was the most important of 
 which he was ever the subject, and has been vari- 
 ously judged. His latest German biographer 2 re- 
 marks that Gothe's passions, before his Weimar life, 
 have all something in common. " He meets a sim- 
 ple, lovely girl ; his heart needs a goddess ; the 
 whole fire of his own nature streams toward him 
 from the glances of this girl, whose eyes, were they 
 ever so beautiful, without Gothe himself would 
 never have had this attractive power. Every time 
 there is the same process. After a time of bloom 
 comes a truce, then light ennui, then withering, then 
 all is gone. In Charlotte von Stein, Gothe met, for 
 the first time, a power that had its own fire. His 
 letters to her are amonir the most beautiful and 
 
 1 Rudolph Gottschall : Der Musenhof zu "Weimar. 
 3 H. Grimm. 
 23
 
 354 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 touching memorials in all literature. There is 
 
 O 
 
 abundant material for judging of their relation. 
 It is not possible to characterize it otherwise than as 
 a devoted friendship of the noblest sort. She was 
 somewhat cool in temperament, and, from her youth 
 up, accustomed to guard her conduct carefully. 
 She had indeed never passionately loved her hus- 
 band. He treats her, however, well ; she becomes 
 the mother of several children, and always stands in 
 the best relation with him. Gothe becomes seized 
 by the most passionate reverence for her, which 
 extends itself, in a measure, to the whole family, 
 husband and children. He makes their interests 
 his own, educates one son, and remains through life 
 his venerated friend. This son becomes a sharp- 
 sighted, energetic, not unimportant man. There 
 was never any misunderstanding between Gothe 
 and the husband, who often indeed is the messenger 
 who carries the poet's letters ; yet Von Stein's honor 
 was never doubted. Throughout Gothc's whole 
 life we find an impulse to confess. There is no 
 relation of his whose symbolical presentment may 
 not somewhere be found. There is nothing, how- 
 ever, to indicate that his relation with Charlotte 
 von Stein was other than honorable. Gothe wrote 
 to her an almost countless number of notes ; these 
 reflect the lightest movements of his heart ; now 
 and then occurs a poem ; when he or she is ab- 
 sent from Weimar, the notes become letters or 
 journals. In these letters Gothe's life goes on for 
 ten years like a broad, unbroken melody. Trying 
 to figure to ourselves the young <rirls whom Gothe
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 855 
 
 loved, they stand like finished pictures before our 
 eyes, drawn by his artistic pen. We see Frederika 
 like a water-color, Lotte like a pastel, Lili like a 
 Watteau. Charlotte von Stein is differently ren- 
 dered. In her the intellectual strongly appears. 
 Gothe came to Weimar with an intolerable burden 
 of recollections ; he met a calm, self-contained 
 woman, full of understanding. With her he gained 
 quiet, her voice stilling the waves. ' O, thou wert, 
 in former days, my sister or my wife,' was the 
 first line of a song that she early inspired. She 
 felt, as well as he, what under other circumstances 
 might have been. Their affection became gradu- 
 ally that of brother and sister. All the beautiful 
 points of Thuringia gain a new charm because he 
 writes from them to her. To her he dictates and 
 reads his new poems fragmentary as they ap- 
 pear. Meantime, political life was stormless. In 
 this favoring atmosphere, with her sympathy slowly 
 grew the greatest works of German literature, 
 'Iphigenia,' 'Tasso,' 'Egmont,' and ' Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter.' Here, in a word, is his earlier relation to 
 Charlotte von Stein : A young man steps into a con- 
 nection with a married woman, which one might 
 name a spiritual marriage, and out of which, had the 
 husband not been there, a full marriage would cer- 
 tainly have come to pass." 
 
 It is quite difficult to form a clear idea of the 
 relation between Gothe and Charlotte von Stein. 
 The extract just quoted puts it in a very favorable 
 light ; it has sometimes been represented as highly 
 immoral ; again, the lady has been declared to be a
 
 356 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 finished coquette, who pleased herself by attracting 
 her brilliant admirer, only to repel him. Neither his 
 standing at the court nor hers was affected by the 
 intimacy, which, it is probably right to say, went no 
 farther than the expression, on his part, of his love, 
 and on hers of alternate encouragement and coldness. 
 Though Grimm calls it a " devoted friendship of the 
 noblest sort," to us the connection can hardly ap- 
 pear otherwise than strange and culpable. For ten 
 years, however, it was a most important element of 
 the life of Gothe ; the thrills and throbbings which 
 it caused, gloriously transmuted, are imperishable 
 masterpieces. 
 
 Meantime, the romantic life at Weimar went for- 
 ward. In the morning there were boar-hunts in the 
 forest, in the course of one of which the spear broke 
 in Gothe' s hand, and he nearly fell a victim to the 
 tusks of the beast. The heart of the day was given 
 to public affairs. Nothing of importance happened 
 in Weimar without his knowledge or cooperation. 
 He never neglected an opportunity, gave minute 
 care even to unimportant business, and sought in 
 every way the good of the land. In the afternoon 
 came literary employments ; often, in the evening, 
 amateur theatricals. 1 For these a passion at this 
 time prevailed throughout Europe, and nowhere was 
 the company of actors so brilliant in rank and 
 genius as in Weimar. The duke and duchess, 
 Gothe and his fellow-poets, the lords and ladies of 
 the court, all engaged. Gothe' s person was mag- 
 
 ' Schafer.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 857 
 
 nificent, and his voice corresponded. Jean Paul de- 
 scribes his reading as being " like deep-toned thun- 
 der, blended with whispering rain-drops . ' ' His muse 
 for a time was somewhat silent, and it was feared he 
 was dissipating his powers, but he was silently shap- 
 ing his masterpieces, "Iphigenia" and "Faust," 
 "Egmont," "Tasso," and "Wilhelm Meister," 
 all having touches that belong to this time. We 
 shall do him injustice if we consider him a selfish, 
 epicurean reveller. His official labor was always 
 earnest ; considerable portions of his income went in 
 charity to proteges, whose relations with him were 
 often touching, and to him highly honorable. All 
 who knew him, it is said, loved him, as only amiable 
 natures can be loved, whether his peers or his ser- 
 vants, children, women, scholars, poets, princes. 
 Even Herder, now preacher at Weimar, a man of 
 high dignity and virtue, and not always cordial 
 in his feelings toward Gothe, speaks of him with 
 reverence, and this should go a great way to- 
 ward mitigating any harsh judgment we may, 
 with our different standards, be inclined to form. 
 From the escapades of the "Storm and Stress" 
 he gradually developed into a calmer maturity, 
 in the transition accomplishing some of his grand- 
 est work. 
 
 As he approached middle life, and his character 
 assumed a graver cast, he began to show power in a 
 new direction. To the fame of the greatest of the 
 poets of his day he added distinction in the fields 
 of science. We have seen that as for back as his 
 Strassburg life he had been interested in medicine.
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 i 
 
 The reading of Buffon afterwards impressed him 
 deeply ; he became accomplished in botany, miner- 
 alogy, and anatomy. Coming forth from his ab- 
 sorption in official duties, court recreations, and lit- 
 erary work, he renewed at length his former studies, 
 although his friends condemned them as a diversion 
 of his powers from their proper sphere. 
 
 In what remains to be said of his great life I can 
 employ no detail, interesting though it might be. 
 He visited Italy, his taste gradually turning from 
 the things of his fatherland, until he became filled 
 with ;a love for the ancient world, in his later years 
 appearing rather like a Greek of the classic days than 
 like a Teuton. His admiration for tho ancients be- 
 came so intense that he looked with indifference 
 upon mediaeval art and literature. He once told a 
 young Italian he thought " Dante's Inferno " abomi- 
 nable, the ' ' Purgatorio ' ' dubious, the ' ' Paradiso ' ' 
 tiresome. 1 Many of his friendships were memora- 
 ble, particularly that with Schiller, one of the most 
 remarkable and fruitful relations of the kind the 
 world has ever seen, more marked in its effects 
 upon Schiller, however, than Gothe. At first there 
 was mutual repulsion ; but at length their souls be- 
 came united, so that they lived and worked side by 
 side at Weimar in the utmost harmony. Their re- 
 action upon one another was most beneficial ; the 
 genius of Schiller was, as we shall hereafter see, 
 most powerfully stimulated ; Gothe was brought 
 back from scientific pursuits fields in which, 
 
 1 Matthew Arnold : Quarterly Review.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 359 
 
 though great, he was not supreme to the path of 
 poetry, in which he was sovereign. 
 
 Step by step he proceeded down the years, the 
 glorious perspective of his triumphs lengthening 
 ever behind him, friend after friend dropping from 
 his side, until he stood beyond four-score, with eye 
 undimmed, and natural force scarcely abated, like 
 one among whose splendid gifts was immunity from 
 decay and death. Even to the last he was subject 
 to those strange passionate heats. When Charlotte 
 von Stein was forsaken, an unknown Italian woman 
 became his soul's queen, who in turn gave way to 
 Christiane Vulpius, at length his wife, though not 
 until after a cohabitation of many years. She was 
 a girl of little education and low social position, 
 whose connection with Gothe caused much scandal 
 in Weimar, less, it is necessary to say, because 
 the relation was immoral than because the station 
 and manners of Christiane gave offence to the crit- 
 ics. Ti.e enthusiastic Grimm says the best that can 
 be said : "When he returned to Weimar from Italy, 
 in 1788, he needed a wife. He wanted health, 
 freshness, youth, devotion, united with plain rea- 
 son, from whatever sphere of society it might come. 
 He was not afraid, therefore, when, among low 
 circles, a beautiful girl met him, possessed of all 
 these qualities. The Fran von Stein was perhaps the 
 first cause why Gothc, satiated on the finer sauces 
 of life, his heart meantime hungering, now took a 
 stout loaf of sc/iwarz-brod under his arm, into 
 which one could bite at pleasure, and from whence 
 he hereafter cut his meals. From the first the
 
 360 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 one circumstance reckoned out, that no church cere- 
 mony took place it was looked upon by Gothe as 
 a marriage, and never otherwise. He very soon 
 took Christiane, with her mother and sister, into his 
 house, and lived with them as his legitimate fam- 
 ily. The reproaches that were made referred to the 
 social position of Christiane ; it was said too that her 
 manners were vulgar. How must we stand toward 
 this personality, who for almost thirty vein's was 
 an inseparable appendage of Gothe, and influenced 
 him in important ways? She is said to have been a 
 cook', who later took to drinking, and who, to the 
 last, prepared embarrassments for the poet. But 
 why not, instead of repeating the current "Weimar 
 idea, rather hold to that which Gothe saw in 
 Christiane? She was a girl whom he passionately 
 loved, as he confessed to Herder; one who, in his 
 investigations of the metamorphoses of plants, was 
 his listener and intimate, mother of his son, on 
 whom his whole heart hung. She was the woman 
 who conducted his housekeeping, whom he missed 
 when she was absent, and whose death brought him 
 to despair. Nothing was ever said against her lie- 
 fore she belonged to Gothe. His mother, from the 
 first, called her her dear daughter, and received her 
 well when he brought her to Frankfort. She never 
 showed selfishness, or replied to the unfavorable 
 criticisms of which she was the object. "When, after 
 the battle of Jena, the French plundered Weimar, 
 she had the courage to go through the marauders to 
 the French officers, and procure a safeguard for 
 Gothe. So far as we know of her conduct, she al-
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 361 
 
 ways shows spirit, energy, and sense." With this 
 view may be contrasted that of a recent French 
 critic, Scherer, highly praised by Matthew Arnold, 
 who declares : " Both moralist and man of the world 
 must condemn the connection with Christiane, a 
 degrading relation with a girl of no education, whom 
 he did not marry for eighteen years. It embar- 
 rassed all his friends. She punished him as he 
 deserved by a turn for drink, inherited by their 
 unfortunate son." 1 
 
 It may be believed that Gothe loved Christiane ; 
 but she was not the last. Late in life came the epi- 
 sodes of Minna Herzlieb and Marianne Willemer, 
 and even when he was beyond seventy a certain 
 Fraulein von Lewezow arouses an attachment of the 
 intensest. Ever parallel with the inconstant move- 
 ments of the nimble, mercurial spirit runs the 
 record poem upon poem, all aflame with glorious 
 impress from the burning soul, as the cornelian is 
 tinted from the rosy fires which touched it at its 
 formation. 
 
 On the seventh of November, 1825, the fiftieth 
 anniversary of his arrival in Weimar, the land did 
 him honor in a jubilee. It had become famous in 
 Europe as his home ; in a hundred ways it had cause 
 to be grateful to him as a benefactor. It was with 
 perfect sincerity that the people sang eulogies in his 
 honor, approached him with gifts and garlands, and 
 made the evening memorable with the performance 
 of his peerless " Iphigenia." Still he had not fin- 
 
 Etudes Critiques de Litte"rature. par Edraond Scherer.
 
 362 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ished, but went on seven years longer, fruitful to the 
 last, the concluding lines of "Faust" falling from 
 beneath his hand even as it grew benumbed with 
 slow-coming death. 
 
 Thackeray a boy of nineteen, studying at Wei- 
 mar thus describes him in his ripeness: "The 
 audience took place in a little antechamber of 
 his private apartments, covered all round with 
 antique casts and bas-reliefs. He was habited in a 
 long, gray surtout, Avith a white neck-cloth, and a 
 red ribbon in his button-hole. He kept his hands 
 behind his back, just as in Ranch's statuette ; his 
 complexion was very bright, clear, and rosy ; his 
 eyes extraordinarily dark, piercing, and brilliant. I 
 fancied Gothe must have been more handsome as an 
 old man than even in the days of his youth. His 
 voice was very rich and sweet." At length came 
 the spring of 1832, bringing to him sickness. His 
 thoughts began to wander. " See," he exclaimed, 
 "the lovely woman's head, with black curls, in 
 splendid colors, a dark background!" He talked 
 too of long-dead friends, among them Schiller. 
 The last words audible were "More light." The 
 darkness deepened upon him until it became the 
 shadow of death. 
 
 " On the morning after his death," writes Ecker- 
 mann, " a dee]) longing seized me to see once more 
 his form. His faithful servant Friedrich opened the 
 room for me where he had been laid. Stretched on 
 his back, he rested like one sleeping ; a deep peace 
 and fixedness ruled upon the features of the lofty, 
 noble countenance ; the mighty brow seemed yet to
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 363 
 
 entertain thoughts. I had a desire for a lock of his 
 hair, but reverence prevented me from cutting it. 
 The body lay naked, wrapped in a white cloth, 
 the breast powerful, broad, and arched, the arms 
 and limbs muscular, the feet beautiful and of the 
 purest form, and nowhere on the body a trace of 
 emaciation. A perfect man lay, in great beauty, 
 before me." 
 
 I have briefly sketched Gothe's life ; we have 
 before us, at present, the great task of obtaining a 
 clear idea of him as an author, what it was he ac- 
 complished, and what was the quality of the accom- 
 plishment. Scarcely a field of literature can be 
 mentioned in which he was not active. In prose 
 and poetry alike he was great, but no doubt great- 
 est in the last. His works form almost a litera- 
 ture in themselves, the complete edition being 
 comprised in fifty-four volumes. It will be most 
 convenient to consider first his prose. By that he 
 first became known in Europe ; in that he was 
 not so thoroughly the master. We can ascend 
 from this, showing the transcendent man finally 
 upon the summits, with nothing above him but the 
 stars. 
 
 Gothe's work in science was not performed until 
 he had already achieved the highest literary reputa- 
 tion ; nor is it quite appropriate to consider it in a 
 work which professes to deal only with belles-let- 
 tres. It must, however, be touched upon, and can 
 be most conveniently treated here. It seems hard 
 to do otherwise than assign to Gothe a position
 
 364 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 among the greatest scientific reputations. How in- 
 tense his interest was in this direction a curious 
 anecdote illustrates. In the year 1830, Gothe 
 eighty-one years old, was absorbed in the scientific 
 contest going on in Paris, between Cuvier and Geof- 
 frey Saint Hilaire over the question of the unity of 
 the animal kingdom. At the same time with the 
 news of this academic contest the announcement 
 of the July revolution had reached Weimar. A 
 friend visited the old poet. "Well," cried out 
 Gothe, "what do you think of this great event? 
 The eruption of the volcano has come ; every thing 
 is on fire ; there is no longer a discussion with closed 
 doors." The visitor, thinking he penetrated the 
 poet's meaning, expressed himself about the fearful 
 political event the driving away of the royal fam- 
 ily, and the massacres. It appeared, however, that 
 of that the poet had had no thought, but was en- 
 tirely absorbed by quite different things the con- 
 test so important for science. 1 
 
 In the science of natural history Gothe intro- 
 duced two ideas of infinite fruitfulness. The first was 
 the conception that the differences in the anatomy 
 of different animals are to be looked upon as varia- 
 tions from a common phase or type, induced by 
 differences of habit, locality, or food. It was a 
 generalization which he made from his discov- 
 erv, in the human skeleton, of what is known as 
 the intermaxillary bone. It had been a fact well 
 known to osteologists that in most vertebrates the 
 
 Rudolph GottschalL
 
 G&fHE THE MAN. 365 
 
 upper jaw consists of two bones, the upper jaw- 
 bone and the intermaxillary, or bone between the 
 jaws. Of these bones it was supposed that in the 
 human skull only one existed the upper jawbone. 
 Gothe, subjecting the skull to patient study, dem- 
 onstrated the existence of sutures in the upper 
 jawbone ; reasoning therefrom that there was no 
 departure from the universal type in man, showing 
 that in the foetal skull, in place of sutures, there 
 were distinct separations, and affirming that man 
 had originally possessed an intermaxillary bone, 
 which had coalesced with its neighbor. Never has 
 a more splendid example been given of the value 
 of imagination in scientific investigation than the 
 procedure of Gothe upon this obscure hint. 1 To an 
 ordinary mind, what more trifling than such a fact? 
 But we presently find, in a treatise of Gothe, the 
 magnificent generalization that lies at the bottom of 
 comparative anatonry, namely, that all differences 
 in the structure of animals must be looked upon as 
 variations of a single primitive type, induced by the 
 coalescence, the alteration, the increase, the dimi- 
 nution, or even the complete removal, of single parts 
 of the structure. The thought was enunciated by 
 Gothe with the utmost confidence and precision, 
 and has been nowhere better expressed. The theory 
 stands to-day almost unaltered. " The coordina- 
 tion of the whole," he declares, " makes every 
 creature to be what it is. Thus is every creature 
 but a note of the great harmony, which must be 
 
 1 Helmholtz : Gothe's wissenschaftliche Erforschungen.
 
 366 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 studied in the whole, or else is nothing but a dead 
 letter." 1 
 
 The second leading conception which science owes 
 to Gothe is that an analogy exists between the dif- 
 erent parts of the same organic being, similar to 
 that which exists between corresponding parts in dif- 
 ferent species. This is most striking in the vegeta- 
 ble kingdom. One day, while Gothe was looking 
 at a fan-palm at Padua, in Italy, he was struck by 
 the variety of changes of form shown in the leaves, 
 from the simple ones near the root to the very 
 complicated ones higher on the stem. Following 
 out his thought, he discovered the transformation 
 of the leaves into sepals, petals, stamens, nectaries, 
 ovaries, and thus was led to the doctrine of the 
 metamorphosis of plants, that all parts of a 
 plant, namely, are variations of one type, that of 
 the leaf, a view completely adopted into science, 
 and enjoying the universal assent of botanists. But 
 Gothe saw that morphology, the science of the 
 forms of which things are made, had an applica- 
 tion to the world of animals as well as vegetables. 
 In some animal forms the composition of an individ- 
 ual out of several similar parts is very striking. In 
 the articulata, the caterpillar consists of a number 
 of perfectly similar segments. When the worm be- 
 comes the butterfly it furnishes the clear exemplifi- 
 cation of the view which Gothe had adopted in 
 the metamorphoses of plants, the development, 
 namely, of apparently very dissimilar forms from 
 
 Quoted by Helmholtz.
 
 QOTHE THE MAN. 367 
 
 parts originally alike. He showed that the same 
 unity prevails in the higher kingdom of the verte- 
 brates. Walking one day near the Jewish cemetery, 
 at Venice, he picked up a broken sheep's skull, and 
 the idea occurred to him that the skull in verte- 
 brates consists of a series of very much altered ver- 
 tebrae, an idea which, when followed out, led to 
 the theory that every single bone of the skeleton 
 is either part of a vertebra, or the appendage to a 
 vertebra. 1 
 
 Only the scientific student can fully appreciate 
 what is wrapped up in conceptions which may be so 
 briefly stated, but all versed in natural history will 
 understand the immense importance of the detection 
 of such types. We may read in Gothe the clearest 
 announcement of certain general laws of organiza- 
 tion which lie at the foundation of the development 
 theory , a theory which, whether adopted or not in 
 its absolute form, must modify largely, henceforth, 
 all scientific thinking, and is one of the remarkable 
 discoveries of our time. "The labors of botanists 
 and zoologists," says Helmholtz, "did little more 
 than collect materials, until they learned to dispose 
 of them in such a series that the laws of dependence 
 and a generalized type could be elicited. Here the 
 great mind of our poet found a field suited to it. 
 His contemporaries all wandered without compass. 
 He was enabled to introduce into science ideas of 
 infinite fruitfulness." Before dismissing Gothe's 
 work in descriptive or organic science, it may be 
 
 Helmholtz.
 
 368 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 mentioned that Agassiz is said to have attrib- 
 uted to him an anticipation of his famous glacial 
 theory. 1 
 
 In experimental science the place of Gothe is less 
 honorable than in the department just considered. 
 His theory of colors, in which he attempted to over- 
 throw the authority of Newton, has not been sus- 
 tained. It may be passed by without description. 
 Although erroneous, Gothe clung to it with singular 
 persistency, showing in his defence of it a bad 
 temper, which was strange enough in one who ordi- 
 narily treated opposition with serene calmness. 
 Though so valueless, he showed a peculiar attach- 
 ment to it, which, however, is perhaps not without 
 parallel in the lives of great men. "As to what I 
 have done as a poet," said Gothe to Eckcrmann, 
 "I take no pride in it whatever; excellent poets 
 have lived at the same time with myself, more ex- 
 cellent poets have lived before me, and will come 
 after me. But that in my century I am the only 
 person who knows the truth in the difficult science 
 of colors, of that I say I am not a little proud." 
 
 Turning now to the class of works the considera- 
 tion of which more properly belongs here, in the 
 case of many of them the briefest mention must suf- 
 fice. The number and variety of them is very great, 
 and all are dwarfed in importance before the poems 
 to which must be given our main attention. In the 
 record of his three Swiss journeys and his Italian 
 journey we find considerations of nature, art, and 
 
 1 Hermann Grimm.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 369 
 
 man worthy of so great a spirit . Of his historical and 
 biographical activity nothing is so interesting as the 
 "Poetry and Truth," his autobiography during 
 his forming years, ending with his entrance upon 
 the Weimar life. It was written in age, and in tell- 
 ing the stories of his childhood the old man is often 
 garrulous ; but it is the most graphic and pictur- 
 esque detail possible of a splendid development. 
 
 The consideration of Gothe's romances will afford 
 a convenient transition from the prose to the poetry. 
 The circumstances have already been detailed under 
 which Gothe wrote liis first romance, the " Sorrows 
 of Werther." He was little beyond twenty years 
 old, much under the influence of the " storm and 
 stress ' ' which belonged to his time of life and the 
 fermenting age in which he lived. Deeply in love 
 with Lotte, a girl betrothed to his friend Kestner, 
 Gothe sees them given to each other and leaves 
 Wetzlar, suffering from his passion. At the same 
 time, in Wetzlar, a youth known to Gothe, wild 
 through love to a woman already married, commits 
 suicide. In the " Sorrows of Werther" the stories 
 are combined, the course of the hero is the ex- 
 perience of Gothe, the hero's fate at last that of 
 the suicide. The circumstances are singular, almost 
 repulsive. Throwing ourselves back, as well as we 
 can, into the very different spirit of that time, in 
 order to judge the work with candor, we must ac- 
 cord to it an excellent plan and a felicitous execu- 
 tion. 1 First, the character of Werther is explained ; 
 
 1 Kurz. 
 24
 
 370 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 we learn him with all his peculiarities, his love of 
 nature, of poetry, of solitude, his disposition to 
 gloom and enthusiasm. In his heart there is a void 
 of which he* himself knows not how to give account, 
 but he is filled with dissatisfaction. While in this 
 mood, he makes the acquaintance of Charlotte, in 
 the midst of her younger brothers and sisters, en- 
 gaged in the way which in later times has been so 
 much laughed at, of spreading for the children 
 bread and butter. 1 He feels that she alone can fill 
 the void, that through her alone can his life attain 
 aim and significance. The deep entrancement of 
 upspringing love is developed in a fair picture with 
 great psychological power ; how it creeps into the 
 heart of youth, growing daily until it becomes a 
 wasting passion. Werther tries, not to fight it, but 
 
 1 Thackeray's amusing lines will be remembered: 
 
 "Werther had a love for Charlotte 
 Such as words could never utter; 
 
 Would you know how first he met her? 
 She was cutting bread and butter. 
 
 Charlotte was another's lady, 
 And a moral man was Werther; 
 
 And for all the wealth of Indies 
 Would do nothing for to hurt her. 
 
 So he sighed and pined and ogled, 
 And his passion boiled and bubbled, 
 
 Till he blew his silly brains out, 
 And no more by it was troubled. 
 
 Charlotte having seen his body 
 Borne before her on a shutter, 
 
 Like a well-conducted person 
 
 Went on cutting bread and butter.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 371 
 
 to take away its nourishment, by leaving Charlotte. 
 His spirit is so charmed that it is wounded by every- 
 thing which touches it ungently ; and when, in the 
 new relations he has sought, his feeling of honor is 
 rudely injured, he has no longer strength to bear the 
 insult. He feels that the hopelessness of his pas- 
 sion has robbed him of all manly power ; he there- 
 fore determines upon suicide, as one who has noth- 
 ing more to expect of life. There is enough in the 
 book which will seem to any modern reader absurd, 
 but the story is wonderfully well told. The life- 
 warm style presents the passion which seizes upon 
 the heart of youth, in all times, with overpowering 
 truth. Every expression is from the deep of a soul 
 thrilled with love. All is perfectly clear ; nothing 
 lost, as is so often the case with German writers, in 
 the mist of indefinite sentiment which seeks an ex- 
 pression in unintelligibility. Remembering how 
 greatly superior in the matter of style French 
 writers in general are to German, we may under- 
 stand the compliment paid to the " Sorrows of Wer- 
 ther " by a clever translator : l " The language of 
 Gothe in ' Werther ' is as clear as Voltaire's. It 
 can almost be translated word for word into correct 
 French." 
 
 The first romance of Gothe was also his best. 
 The famous " Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" 
 has indeed been very variously judged, and it is 
 curious to set side by side the enthusiasm for it felt 
 by Carlyle and Schiller, and the low estimate of the 
 
 1 Leroux.
 
 372 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 French writer, Scherer, and of Niebuhr, who calls 
 it "a menagerie of tame animals." It advanced 
 slowly to completion, with many interruptions, and 
 in this way was injured. Like everything of Gothe's, 
 it is a reflection of experience to a large extent. A 
 careful seeker can find the originals of the charac- 
 ters in the writer's associates ; and the wild Bohe- 
 mian player-life that is given in such detail re- 
 produces to a large extent Gothe's early days in 
 Weimar. 1 It is greatly wanting in unity ; there is 
 little pretence of a coherent plan running through it 
 from first to last ; it is rather a series of detached 
 scenes and episodes. Gothe once said, indeed, 
 " A central plan is sought for it ; I find that hard ; 
 I should think a rich manifold life which passes be-' 
 fore our eyes would be something in itself, even 
 without a declared aim." 2 What the poet wished 
 to do, according to his own declaration, was to ex- 
 press his ideas upon matters of art and life, and, in 
 connection, to show how a capable but weak man, 
 through art and contact with life, can be edu- 
 cated to independence. But how imperfectly is 
 this end carried out ! The hero, at the end, is just 
 as unstable, more so, than at first ; only a play- 
 thing in the hands of others. In fact, if Gothe 
 had any plan, he often changed it in the course of 
 his elaboration, and to some extent seems, in this 
 work, to have abandoned his peculiar skill in com- 
 position. The long episodes, though 
 
 1 Grimm. 
 3 Eckermann.
 
 GOTHE THE MAN. 373 
 
 V 
 
 often in themselves, are not connected by any 
 visible threads with the whole, as regards events 
 or characters. But Gothe is still Gothe. "With all 
 its faults, " "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" is 
 full of genius. In spite of the incoherence, the de- 
 velopment of characters is often masterly. The old 
 harper, " Philine," above all " Mignon," are power- 
 fully stamped individualities. Scattered here and 
 there are fine bits of literary criticism, best among 
 them the famous critique of ' ' Hamlet. ' ' Deep views 
 are expressed with regard to matters of art, politics, 
 civil society. The philosophical importance of the 
 book is high, but I find no fault with the judgment 
 which pronounces it a complete failure as a poetic 
 picture .* The ' ' Wanderjahre , " " Years of "Wan- 
 dering," written after the " Apprenticeship," is 
 even less satisfactory than its predecessor. It is 
 utterly without coherence, but has excellencies of the 
 same kind, a collection of heterogeneous scraps of 
 wit, wisdom, and poetry, often brilliant and precious, 
 particularly those relating to political philosophy, 
 but as unconnected as kaleidoscopic fragments. 
 
 The "Elective Affinities," though from an 
 artistic standpoint superior to "Wilhelm Meister," 
 is quite inferior to ""Werther," and in its subject, 
 if not quite immoral, at any rate somewhat repul- 
 sive. It was written under the influence of Gothe' s 
 passion for Frau von Stein, his relation with her re- 
 ceiving here an "artistic glorification, " a although 
 
 Kurz. 
 
 H. Grimm.
 
 374 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 it was another charmer, Minna Herzlieb, who sat 
 for the heroine, " Ottilie." A modern reader will 
 be most interested in its beautiful descriptions of 
 nature, which justify the claim that has been made 
 for Gdthe, that he is the greatest of literary land- 
 scape painters. The " Fairy Stories" (Mahrchen) 
 possess no merits which are not seen to better 
 advantage in the more extended works. The most 
 famous is that of " The Serpent," which has been 
 much praised for its deep sense. It must be said, 
 however, that what sense it contains has never been 
 satisfactorily reached, because every interpreter 
 gives it a different explanation. It has served a 
 bad purpose, with much else that Gothe has writ- 
 ten, in leading to waste of time and brains in 
 symbolical criticism, a point which will be touched 
 upon again.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GOTHE, THE POET. 
 
 Gothe as a poet ! I do not know how to introduce 
 my consideration better than by a sketch of a famous 
 treatise of Schiller, entitled " Upon Naive and Sen- 
 timental Poetry," 1 in which he desired, as it were, 
 to take account of the peculiarity of his own poetic 
 talent in contrast with that of Gothe, and, side by 
 side with the recognition which he paid the latter, 
 to justify also his own way of writing. The poet, 
 he says, can proceed in a twofold way ; he can, in 
 his soul, embrace the world outside of himself im- 
 mediately, quite unconscious of any idea within him- 
 self; or, on the other hand, he can take some idea 
 within his soul as a starting-point, and seek to blend 
 this, by a second step, with the world of outside 
 phenomena. The first way is that of the ancients, 
 of whom we may consider Homer the typical poet ; 
 wherefore Schiller calls that way of writing poetry 
 the antique. He calls it naive, or artless, because 
 the poet, living in and with nature, creates his work, 
 as it were, unconsciously. Still another name for 
 this class of poets, and the most convenient, per- 
 haps, is objective; absorbed in the object contem- 
 
 1 Ueber Naive und Sentimentale Dichtung.
 
 376 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 plated, the subject the contemplator forgets it^ 
 self and sinks out of sight. The second way is 
 called sentimental, because the poet proceeds not 
 immediately from the contemplation of nature, but 
 from himself, as a starting-point, taking some senti- 
 ment or idea of his spirit. In a world which has to 
 some extent forgotten nature and become artifi- 
 cial, the modern world, Schiller believed that 
 poets of the second kind would be most likely to 
 abound. He therefore calls this kind of poetry 
 modern. Still another name for the second kind 
 the most convenient again is subjective; because 
 the idea gained from the soul, or subject contem- 
 plating, is first in the poet's elaboration. Though 
 poets of the first kind the naive or objective 
 appear principally in antiquity, they can still appear 
 in modern times. We may take Shakespeare to be 
 such a poet. He " holds the mirror up to nature." 
 The nature the object we perceive with perfect 
 distinctness; but of the subject the thing per- 
 ceiving we know nothing. Who knows what were 
 Shakespeare's ideas ? He produces for us the world, 
 in abundant, wonderful presentation; he himself is 
 a sphinx of whom no man can do more than guess. 
 "Who can figure," says Carl vie, "what the man 
 Shakespeare was, by the first, by the twentieth pe- 
 rusal of his works? He is a voice coming to us from 
 the land of melody ; his old brick dwelling-place, 
 in the mere earthly burgh of Stratford-upon-Avon, 
 offers us a most inexplicable enigma. And what is 
 Homer in the Liad? He is the witness; he has 
 seen, and he reveals it ; we hear and believe, but do
 
 GOTHE THE P&ET. $77 
 
 not behold him. Now compare with these two 
 poets any other two, not of equal genius, for there 
 are none such, but of equal sincerity, who wrote 
 as earnestly as they. Take, for instance, Jean Paul 
 and Byron. The good Bichter begins to show him- 
 self in his broad, massive, kindly, quaint signifi- 
 cance, before we have read many pages of even his 
 slightest work ; and to the last he paints himself 
 much better than his subject. Byron may also be 
 said to have painted nothing but himself, be his sub- 
 ject what it might." * * * " As a test for the 
 culture of the poet, in his poetical capacity, for his 
 pretensions to mastery and completeness in his art, 
 we cannot but reckon this (the power of objective 
 presentment, while the subject is out of sight) 
 among the surest. Tried by this, there is no writer 
 of our time who approaches within many degrees of 
 G6the." J 
 
 I have found a consideration of Gothe's poetic 
 character which seems to me still more delicate and 
 keen than that of Carlyle. The critic insists, like 
 Carlyle, upon the objective quality of the genius of 
 Gothe, but finds it subjective also. "In all his 
 poems there is a vague, indefinite self, reflecting a 
 definite and clearly-outlined influence which im- 
 presses that self. His own mind is the sheet of 
 water which reflects the image, and you see only 
 that it stretches vaguely away beyond and beneath 
 
 O / fJ *-' 
 
 the image it is reflecting ; but what catches the eye 
 is the clear outline of the reflected object in the 
 
 1 Essay on Gothe. .
 
 378 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 water. His imagination was passive and not active ; 
 it reflected back with faithful minuteness the influ- 
 ence which produced the results. The best part of 
 his poems is that in which external objects and 
 social impulses are rendered again, but you always 
 find the vague mental reflecting surface by which 
 they are thus given back ; you always have both 
 the deep, dim, Gotheish mirror, and the finely out- 
 lined object which skims over it. The two never 
 coalesce, as in Shakespeare." 1 If we accept the 
 emendation of Carlyle's view, proposed in the pas- 
 sage just quoted, we shall still regard Gothe as in 
 the main an objective poet, though less definitely 
 so than the great bards with whom he is associated. 
 Of the second kind of poets, the subjective, 
 of whom Carlyle takes Jean Paul and Byron as 
 types, I believe we may hold Schiller himself to 
 be a still nobler representative. It will be seen 
 when he is treated more particularly, how, instead 
 of beginning with the external, he proceeds from 
 certain ideas in his soul ; we see how these ideas fill 
 his soul ; how he pours them into his poems, his 
 main design being to obtain expression for them, 
 while the picturing of the object is a secondary 
 matter. Schiller addresses Gothe in a noble stanza : 
 
 Both of us seek the truth ; thou outward in life, but I inward ; 
 I in the heart; and so each shall the truth certainly find. 
 If the eye has health, in the outer 'twill meet the Creator. 
 If the heart is sound, it will meet the Creator within. 
 
 Gothe, as has been considered in the sketch of 
 
 1 Richard Holt Hutton : Essav on Gothe.
 
 G&THE THE POET. 379 
 
 his life, was the most impressible of men. Through 
 eye and ear, and every sense, he took in the uni- 
 verse with a zest and thoroughness almost preter- 
 human, making it his possession and becoming pos- 
 sessed by it, as the chameleon takes the hue of the 
 object upon which it lies. His objectivity was the 
 foundation of his poetic nature ; the manifold phe- 
 nomena of life he absorbed into himself, and 
 formed them again artistically. "It was not my 
 way as poet," he said, " to strive after the embodi- 
 ment of something abstract. I received in my soul 
 impressions of a sensible, living, lovely kind, and I 
 had nothing more to do than make them plain to 
 others. If I had any idea to present, I did it in a 
 little poem." * " Whatever pleased, pained, 
 
 or otherwise affected me, I changed into a picture, 
 a poem, and so finished with it, partly to justify 
 my ideas of outward things, partly to quiet myself 
 within. All things, therefore, which I have written 
 are fragments of a great confession." 
 
 From what has been said, it would seem to follow 
 that Gothe would be especially great in emotional 
 or lyric poetry. Here it is, indeed, if we except 
 one drama, that he stands highest. "I have 
 never affected anything," he said. "What I did 
 not live , what did not burn within me and make me 
 create, I have not practised and expressed. I have 
 only written love poems when I loved." And so 
 of other passions ; they were only and always ex- 
 pressed as felt ; therefore, in the great body of 
 lyrics which Gothe has left, the variety is endless ; 
 each poem is peculiar and independent. There is
 
 3SO GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the highest completeness, the fullest naturalness. 
 Whatever the sentiment may be in his songs, it ap- 
 pears with such certainty and truth we are hardly 
 conscious of the dress of words ; there is such 
 mastery and wealth in the use of rhyme and rhythm 
 that his songs have an imperishable charm. 1 
 
 In sketching Gothe's life, his strange suscepti- 
 bility as regards women was noticed. With most 
 men such susceptibility loses its power when youth 
 has been fairly passed ; but in the transcendent Ger- 
 man it was as apparent when he Avas an octogenarian 
 as when he was but twenty, and there Avas scarcely 
 an intervening period when he was not the subject 
 of a passion more or less intense. It was part of 
 his strange impressibility. Plain men and women 
 will call it an absurd weakness ; but just as from 
 some unsoundness in the mollusk the pearl is said to 
 be secreted, so the poet's foible has resulted for us 
 in something precious. How manifold and rich his 
 love poems are is made plain by the writer Avhose 
 AA r ork in this chapter, as in general, has been with 
 me the vade-mecum.- In them are expressed all 
 gradations of passion, from the cheerful and sport- 
 ive beginnings to love most devouring, and the 
 shadings intermediate between the extremes are all 
 commemorated. Among the most remarkable of 
 the lyrics are those known as the "Hymns," the 
 " Elegies," and a collection made late in life called 
 the " West-ostliche Divan." In the "Hymns" 
 
 1 Kurz. 
 Kurz.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 381 
 
 the tone is Greek; in the "Elegies," Roman; in 
 the latter collection the influence of Oriental stud- 
 ies at that time undertaken is powerfully reflected. 
 In those compositions Gothe follows in the path of 
 Herder. How successful Herder was in reproducing 
 the spirit of various a;es and lands, while refrain- 
 ing from imitation, has been considered. It marks 
 well the greatness of Gothe that here, where Her- 
 der was at his best, the unique man so far surpassed 
 him. In the poems of the " West-ostliche Divan " 
 the inspiration comes from a certain charmer, 
 Marianne Willemer, who is celebrated under the 
 name of " Suleika." We might say that Gothe has 
 evoked bv mao;ic to new life the Oriental element 
 
 .' *^j 
 
 slumbering in the Teuton from primeval times. 
 The poems do not make a foreign impression upon 
 us, though written in the Oriental spirit. In his 
 " Elegies," which flowed from no other source than 
 his passion for his "loaf of schwarz-brod," Chris- 
 tiane Yulpius, Gothe reaches the highest artistic 
 completeness. Each one of them is a masterpiece 
 which cannot be surpassed ; in which plan and ex- 
 ecution, thought and language, presentation and 
 rhythm, the whole and every particular, are alike 
 admirable ; in which the antique form blends felic- 
 itously with the modern life, the circumstances of 
 the present receiving, as it were, a higher consecra- 
 tion, touched as they are by the breath of an- 
 tiquity, while the essential peculiarity of the mod- 
 ern world is in no way disturbed. 1 When Gothe 
 
 > Kurz.
 
 382 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 first met' Christiane in Weimar, a girl in her finest 
 bloom, his soul was full of Roman pictures. It is 
 conjectured that she may have seemed to him to 
 possess Roman characteristics, her portraits justi- 
 fying such a supposition. " He surrounds her with 
 all that adorned his life in Rome, in his recollection ; 
 makes her pour wine in a vineyard, he being the 
 guest dearest to her ; veils her figure with an Italian 
 vapor, as he details their love experiences. Nothing 
 written in modern times is so antique as the ' Ele- 
 gies.' One would think Catullus, Tibullus, or Pro- 
 pertius by metempsychosis had reached Weimar, 
 tuned his lyre anew, become intoxicated in the 
 pleasure of these later days, carried the old ac- 
 customed wine to his lips, brought up again from 
 the grave the primeval enjoyment of existence ! " 1 
 
 In the " Hymns," again, Go the rests upon a Greek 
 antiquity; but here too with the same independence. 
 The plain, earnest attitude ; the simple yet exalted 
 tone, in many rising into the impetuosity of the dithy- 
 ramb ; the vehement rhapsodies which have their 
 name from a title of Bacchus ; the antique measures 
 which move on with perfect harmony, so that the 
 rhyme is in no way missed, all these characteristics 
 remind us of the productions of the Greek lyric 
 poets. And yet every thing is quite different. A 
 thoroughly modern comprehension of the universe, 
 and the whole fulness of Christian culture meet us. 3 
 
 It is right, perhaps, to say that the expression "di- 
 
 1 Grimm. 
 ' Kurx.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 383 
 
 dactic poetry" teaching poetry is a contradic- 
 tion in terms. The best critics Coleridge, for in- 
 stance, in England ; Lessing and Schiller, in Ger- 
 many hold that the proper function of poetry is to 
 please, and it is contrasted with science, whose func- 
 tion is to teach. There are a few poems of Gothe 
 .which trench upon the didactic. His scientific trea- 
 tises upon the metamorphosis of plants and animals 
 he put into rhythmical form ; but as didactic poetry is 
 a perversion, so here his genius was not at his best. 
 As a satirist, he composed a vast number of epi- 
 grams, graphic, delicate, mocking, for the most 
 part couplets or quatrains, much inferior in interest 
 to his great works, but enough of themselves to 
 found a fine poetic fame. In this department of 
 poetry his most noteworthy accomplishment was 
 that brought to pass in connection with Schiller, the 
 great collection of epigrams known as the " Xenien." 
 At the end of the eighteenth century the literary pub- 
 lic of Germany seemed likely to go astray after false 
 leaders. A certain incorrectness of taste was be- 
 coming more and more apparent. Great poets were 
 neglected, while mediocre productions were received 
 with surprising favor. The name "Xenien" and 
 the plan were taken from the Latin satirist, Martial. 
 The undertaking was successful. The two poets 
 combined their wit and knowledge ; the poetasters 
 and false guides smarted under the lash, and at last 
 were largely driven from the field, leaving the scene 
 for those more worthy. 
 
 In epic poetry by which the Germans under- 
 stand, not simply the exalted verse in which move he-
 
 384 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 roes and demigods, but narrative poetry, the ballad, 
 and even the idyl or pastoral Gothe shows scarcely 
 less variety and power than in the lyric. He is rarely 
 below his standard ; all his attempts are models of 
 their class. His ballads are among the best of the 
 world. Following here again the example of Her- 
 der, in throwing himself into the spirit of past ages 
 and distant regions, he creates pictures in the taste 
 of the greatest poets of antiquity and foreign lands, 
 as they -only could have produced them had they 
 lived in Gothe' s time and belonged to his race. At 
 one time we are with Shakespeare, at another with 
 the mastersinger Hans Sachs, at still other times 
 with Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Homer. In the 
 "Achilleis" he even attempted a continuation of 
 the Iliad ; the one canto which he completed 
 remains a magnificent torso. The old mediaeval 
 poem " Reynard the Fox " he followed narrowly in 
 his rendering, yet so transformed it as to give it 
 the sense of an original work. He made it more 
 artistic, more universal ; after a long oblivion, reha- 
 bilitated, it became again a possession of the people. 
 In the lovely idyl of "Hermann and Dorothea," 
 however, we find Gothe's epical masterpiece. The 
 scene is the broad plain of the Rhine ; the time his 
 own ; the hero a young villager, in whose simple 
 manhood we behold nothing of heroic stature ; the 
 heroine a buxom Teutonic maid, meeting with 
 homely virtue and courage calamities in which war 
 has involved her. For the rest, we have an inn- 
 keeper and his wife, an apothecary, a village magis- 
 trate, a parson, figures and circumstances homely
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 385 
 
 to the last. But the poem has all the sweetness of 
 the landscape through which it moves ; the charac- 
 ter-drawing is as fine as if sovereigns and demi-gods 
 were under delineation. The humble obstacles in 
 the way of Hermann's wooing, the self-assertion of 
 the host, the foibles of the pill-vender, the simple 
 wisdom of the parson, the confusion and sorrow of 
 the exiles driven forth by war, all are given with 
 the patient detail of a Dutch painting, wearing the 
 sweetest idyllic charm. And now let us see how the 
 same versatile hand could outline the countenances 
 of the Furies, sketch the unimpassioued features 
 of the Parcai, render even the sublime converse of 
 the archangels, as they gather at the throne of God. 
 Already, in the labors of which an account has 
 been given, it ini<rht seem as if work enough were 
 
 o c <~^ 
 
 comprised to fill a long, laborious life, yet nothing 
 has been said about Gdthe's work*in a department 
 where, if not at his greatest, he was at any rate a 
 master of the highest rank, and is best known, the 
 drama. If fragments as well as completed plays are 
 counted, Got he is the author of more than fifty 
 dramatic pieces. He began to write plays at nine- 
 teen, at first in the French taste- ; but even before 
 the appearance of the ''Sorrows of "Werther " he 
 had composed " Gotz von Berlichingen," although 
 it was not at once published, a work which, in one 
 respect, he never surpassed. It was for those days a 
 drama of a rare kind, being in subject, treatment, and 
 language purely national. Gotz, a robber-knight, 
 an attractive representative of a class with which we 
 have so many associations of barbarism, struggles
 
 386 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 manfully in a bad cause, to maintain the rude order 
 of things when, in the sixteenth century, the knell 
 of feudalism had been rung, and it was time for a 
 new world. Of poetry and plot we need say noth- 
 ing, for the ripened man here far surpassed the 
 achievement of the boy, 1 but as a piece of noble 
 German it was never exceeded. Much as Lessing 
 had done for a good prose, still what he had written 
 was for scholars, not the people. Gothe was the 
 first author of modern times to write really as the 
 people talked ; since Luther the language had not 
 appeared in this living fulness and genuine German 
 form. There were in it no foreign or learned terms, 
 no twisted or pompous sentences ; all was smooth 
 and simple, yet various ; it was first demonstrated 
 in " Gotz " that German was capable of presenting 
 the richest inward and outward life. 
 
 We can only mention " Clavigo," only mention 
 the grander " Tasso." The visitor to Brussels, who 
 at the same time knows Gothe, will go first of all 
 to the great square before the Hotel de Ville, in 
 which, upon the spot on which he was beheaded, 
 surrounded by the old Spanish buildings which wit- 
 nessed his execution, the statue of the heroic Egmont 
 rises, in ruff and cloak, girt with his sword as a 
 knight. On the spot one can easily dream himself 
 away into the past, until Alva's cruel troopers stand 
 drawn up before the ancient buildings, and the cries 
 of the despairing Clarchen resound outside in the 
 
 1 A late English critic. Mr. Button, calls "Gotz," far the most 
 noble and powerful of Gothe's dramas, declaring that here he loses 
 himself most in his characters.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 387 
 
 narrow streets, as she tries to rally the citizens to 
 the rescue of her doomed lover. But we cannot 
 dwell upon Egmont. There is space to consider 
 only that Parthenon of dramas, so purely exquisite 
 in its Grecian finish, the " Iphigenia ; " and the one 
 which has made the most profound impression upon 
 the world, the marvellous "Faust." 
 
 " Iphigenia" was elaborated several times. It was 
 first written in prose and performed in Weimar, 
 Gothe himself, then a superb man, at the height of 
 physical strength and beauty, with a voice, as Jean 
 Paul said, " now like deep-toned thunder, now like 
 whispering rain-drops," rendering the principal 
 male character, the fury-scourged Orestes. The 
 next year it was recast in a metrical form, and 
 several years after, during his stay in Italy, the 
 poet used the intervals of his visit to give the 
 drama its final shape. It met with a cold reception 
 even from persons of refinement ; Gothe relied 
 proudh', however, upon his own judgment and 
 taste. With the great world it has never become 
 popular ; the discerning, however, have fully ac- 
 cepted it, and it has contributed not a little to exalt 
 in modern times the sense of the beautiful. 
 
 In "Iphigenia," Gothe at that time full of 
 admiration for the Greeks, full of admiration for 
 Charlotte von Stein, whose traits are fixed for im- 
 mortality in the heroine took the legend which 
 Euripides had already made the subject of a famous 
 play. 
 
 Tantalus, king of Phrygia, having been admit- 
 ted to the feasts of the gods, violates their con-
 
 388 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 fidence by reciting what he hears ; he is consigned 
 to tortures in Tartarus, and a curse is laid upon 
 his line, which sins and suffers generation after 
 generation. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, de- 
 scendant of Tantalus, when about to offer as a 
 sacrifice at Aulis his daughter Iphigeiiia, in obedi- 
 ence to the command of Diana, at the outset of the 
 Trojan war, is thwarted by the relenting goddess, 
 who substitutes a hart for the maid, removing her 
 in a cloud to Tauris, where, though protected by 
 Thoas, the Scythian king of the land, she tarries 
 unwillingly, presiding over the fane of the deity. 
 It has been customary in Tauris to sacrifice to 
 Diana all strangers cast upon their shores, but 
 Thoas, won to mildness through the love he has 
 
 7 O 
 
 come to feel for Iphigeiiia, remits the harsh custom, 
 wooing the maid to become his wife. Meantime, 
 the siege of Troy having been accomplished, 
 Agamemnon returns to Mycenoe, and is presently 
 murdered by his unfaithful spouse, Clytemnestra, 
 the curse of the gods upon the race of Tantalus 
 continuing in force. To avenge his father, Orestes, 
 the son, slays his mother, and is straightway driven 
 forth, tortured by furies. Accompanied by a faith- 
 ful friend, Pylades, the} r visit an oracle of Apollo, 
 and learn that Orestes shall be free from pursuit 
 and restored to his country if he brings back from 
 Tauris the M.sVrr who is kept there unwillingly. 
 
 Orestes, ignorant of Iphigeiiia' s fate, interprets 
 the oracle as referring to the sister of Apollo, 
 Diana, whose image is retained in the Taurian fane, 
 and undertakes with Pylades an expedition for its
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 389 
 
 recovery. At this point the drama of Gothe opens. 
 Thoas, offended at the persistent refusal of his suit 
 by Iphigenia, becomes stern, and commands her, as 
 priestess of the fane, to sacrifice upon the altar of 
 the goddess all strangers, according to the ancient 
 custom. Orestes and Pylades, apprehended upon 
 the shore, are delivered over to her for that pur- 
 pose. Without disclosing her own secret, Iphige- 
 nia gains from them news of Greece, of the re- 
 turn and murder of her father, Agamemnon, of the 
 punishment of Clytemnestra, learning, at length, 
 that it is her brother Orestes whom she is doomed 
 to slay. Induced by Pylades, she consents to de- 
 ceive Thoas, and allow them to escape. She 
 reveals herself at length as the lon^-lost daughter 
 
 <_; j <^ 
 
 of Agamemnon, and passages of great tenderness 
 take place between her and Orestes, who, while 
 protected by the sacred grove of Diana, is free from 
 the torture of the Furies. The friends urge Iphi- 
 genia to flee with them ; they find their companions 
 in the ship, who, sheltered by a bay, have escaped 
 the notice of the Taurians. The plan is to rob the 
 shrine of Diana's image ; then, carrying it back to 
 Apollo at Delphi, to dissolve the curse, and return 
 with Iphigenia to Myecnrc. But the priestess, re- 
 penting of her deceit of Thoas, who has ever shown 
 himself kind, delays. The Taurians approach ; the 
 ship is discovered. Thoas, in wrath, interrogates 
 the maid. Iphigenia rehearses the story of Orestes 
 and herself, beseeching permission to depart with 
 her brother in peace. The noble-minded Scythian 
 relents. The descendants of Tantalus sail away
 
 390 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 with their followers ; the linage of Diana is left be- 
 
 o 
 
 hind ; but now it is discovered that the sister men- 
 tioned in the oracle, who tarries unwillingly on the 
 Taurian shore, can be interpreted to mean Iphigenia. 
 The curse of the gods is at length dissolved, and 
 they return in joy to Mycense. 
 
 It is a work of art in the highest sense, beauti- 
 ful in the particulars, beautiful in the proportion in 
 which these are joined. "With Greek naturalness 
 the simplest means are employed to bring to pass 
 the fine results. There were many difficulties in 
 the subject. It is remote from modern sympathies ; 
 it has often been considered ; Gothe had as a rival 
 Euripides, whose "Iphigenia," with many short- 
 comings, is still a masterpiece ; but Gothe was vic- 
 torious. As regards the form, he has penetrated 
 so deeply into the essence of Greek art that he 
 made it his complete possession, and with free in- 
 dependence Avas able to invent and write poetry in 
 its spirit ; so that, in conformity with Greek taste, 
 he could lay out a plan, present characters, develop 
 the action. Yet he was not an imitator; he cre- 
 ated, as it were, a new dramatic art, retaining from 
 the Greek only its eternal part, every thing being 
 cut away belonging to the peculiarities of the people 
 and the age ; this he replaced in a way suitable to 
 his own race and time. " Iphigenia," though Greek 
 and antique, is at the same time German and 
 modern. Though faithfully rendering the subject 
 in its essentials, he departed in respect to traits 
 which Avcro of significance only to the Greeks. 
 Among the characters, Iphigenia is a beautiful
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 391 
 
 centre ; on one side the Greeks, Orestes and Py- 
 lades ; on the other the Scythians, Thoas and Arkas, 
 in admirable proportion. Pure humanity finds in 
 her a very beautiful expression, but she is not super- 
 human in her freedom from weakness. She is for 
 a time won over by Pylades, who advises her to 
 deceive Thoas, but soon she rises in her moral 
 greatness ; she determines to be true to her king, 
 her benefactor ; and just this truth which, accord- 
 ing to all human foresight, would have led to their 
 destruction and hers brings about a peaceful, happy 
 solution. Though it was received coldly, Gothe 
 was not misled as to the value of his work ; he 
 felt that with this he had reached the summit of 
 lofty art. "What wonder if the poet must stand 
 there in loneliness ! Finely says the scholar 1 whose 
 criticism of the " Iphigenia " I have, in the foregoing 
 consideration, closely followed: "It is a drama 
 of to-day, and yet the poetic breath of antiquity 
 sweeps through it, as if one of the greatest of the 
 Grecian poets had survived to our times, continu- 
 ously developing, and the entire beauty of Greek 
 art, in its imperishable magic, had blended with the 
 gain of thousands of years of advancing culture to 
 a harmonious and living whole." 
 
 Here is the song of the Fates, recalled by Iphi- 
 genia, as she broods over the misfortune of which, 
 as one of the accursed race of Tantalus, she must 
 be the subject. He who remembers the solemn 
 music of the rhythm with which, in the original,
 
 392 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the unimpassioned Fates give themselves voice, will 
 feel that any translation is a feeble reproduction : 
 
 "Within my ears there sounds the ancient song, 
 I had forgotten it and willingly, 
 The Parcoi's song, which they with horror sang 
 "When Tantalus fell from his golden chair; 
 They suffered with their noble friend, and cruel 
 Their breasts became, and fearful was their song. 
 "When I was young I heard it from my nurse, 
 I and my brethren, and I marked it well : 
 
 " The gods, O ye mortals, 
 I charge ye to fear ! 
 They hold the dominion 
 In hands everlasting; 
 Their mighty sway wielding 
 As pleases themselves. 
 
 "Let him fear them twice o'er 
 "Whom they have exalted. 
 On cliffs of the cloud-land 
 The seats arc made ready 
 Around golden tables. 
 
 "If strife comes to pass then, 
 The guests are, hurled headlong, 
 Contemned and dishonored, 
 To night-haunted caverns, 
 There vainly awaiting, 
 In deepest gloom fettered, 
 For ne'er coining justice. 
 
 "But they, ah! they tarry 
 In strongholds eternal, 
 Around their gold tables! 
 From mountain to mountain 
 They stride in their vastness. 
 From chasms infernal 
 Steam up to them sighings 
 From Titans there stilled, 
 Like srents sacrificial, 
 A wavering vapor.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 893 
 
 " The gods turn their glances, 
 Their eyes giving blessing. 
 From whole generations ; 
 Refuse, in the grandchild, 
 The features to witness 
 Of fathers once cherished, 
 The traits that still speak." 
 
 So chanted the Parcse ; 
 The banished one listens, 
 In gloom-oppressed caverns, 
 The song comprehending ; 
 He thinks of his children 
 And shake th his head. 1 
 
 " Iphigenia " stands thoroughly finished, in all the 
 perfection of an antique fane, in marble purity, 
 in delicate proportion and grace. It remains for us 
 to take up that vaster work of Gothe, which even 
 transcends the earth, gathering into its compass the 
 hosts of Heaven and shapes from Hell the work 
 left chaotic, apparently because the poet, having at- 
 tempted ta embrace in it the universe, found a mor- 
 tal grasp too feeble ; now lurid with sulphurous 
 flames and resounding with the cries of tortured 
 spirits; upon earth, passing from the carousings of 
 vulgar revellers to the sanctity of the chamber of the 
 sweetest and purest of virgins, from the blasphe- 
 mies of despairing doubt to cathedral organ-music ; 
 again leading off into the blue spaces of the infinite, 
 where tower the archangels, the sublime "Faust." 
 Again we mast go to Strassburg ; the towering houses 
 rising info the air from the fortifications, with the 
 cathedral in its heart, the " frozen music" which 
 
 1 Iph., act iv, scene o.
 
 3$4 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sounds not, and yet utters forever, with such rap- 
 ture, while the centuries pass, the aspiration of 
 its old-time builders. What associations the vener- 
 able city has we have seen. Is it right to say that 
 it is chiefly interesting because here, in the brain of 
 the young Gothe, the solemn "Faust" was con- 
 ceived? The Germans of to-day can say, "It is 
 the greatest work of the greatest poet of all races 
 and times." 1 Its latest French critic 2 can declare 
 the first part " a treasure of poetry, pathos, and 
 highest wisdom, coming from a spirit inexhaust- 
 ible, and keen as steel ; containing, from first to 
 last, not a false tone or weak line, perhaps the 
 most wonderful work of poetry of our century." 
 To this view subscribes one of the greatest of Eng- 
 lish critics, 3 "leaving out the perhaps." To such 
 a height is it exalted by the suffrages of all civilized 
 races ! 
 
 In Strassburg it was conceived ; for here it was 
 that the old mediaeval puppet-play, from which the 
 poet received the hint, asserted its power over 
 him, until, as he says, " It hummed and sounded in 
 my soul constantly. I had, moreover, busied my- 
 self with all knowledge, and had early enough be- 
 come convinced of its vanit}'. I had tried, too, all 
 kinds of life, and always came back more unsatisfied 
 and tormented." And again, when eighty-two, 
 five days before his death, he declared that when 
 he was first touched by the idea "the whole thing 
 
 1 Grimm. 
 s Scherer. 
 1 Matthew Arnold.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 395 
 
 rose before his fancy." 4 The first and second parts 
 of "Faust" differ so much that one would hardly 
 ascribe them to the same poet. The first part, 
 with the exception of a few passages, is perfectly 
 clear, representing the deepest results of human 
 thinking and the most secret movements of the soul. 
 In the second part every thing is mystically treated, 
 and we move in the dark region of allegory. The 
 first part is the masterpiece ; the second far below 
 it, yet containing passages of the highest beauty. 
 The first part, it is said, was complete in its main 
 scenes when Gothe was twenty-five years old, though 
 it was not published in its present form until his old 
 age. The medieval play Gothe used as Shakespeare 
 used his originals, developing it with the utmost 
 independence, with divine hand transmuting the 
 mere dust of the earth into something breathing and 
 soul- warmed. 
 
 Faust, a man greatly cultivated, full of thirst 
 after knowledge locked from the ken of mortals, 
 is about to perish in the striving. Because no sat- 
 isfaction is reached he becomes the prey of doubt, 
 which is personified in Mephistopheles, the " spirit 
 who denies." To him he delivers himself, agreeing 
 to resign to him his soul if any moment can bring 
 to him such satisfaction that he shall wish to say, 
 " Stay, thou art so fair." He becomes a sensualist, 
 and though he turns sickened from the coarse rev- 
 elling in Auerbach's cellar, he betrays the simple- 
 hearted maid whom he wins to love him. We cannot 
 
 1 Letter to "W. von Humboldt.
 
 396 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 call him precisely vicious, but he loses the inner 
 power which might have kept him upright in the cir- 
 cumstances which form around him. He becomes the 
 slayer of Margaret's brother, Valentine ; he must 
 fly, thus leaving Gretchen to her fate. It is due to 
 him that she who already has destroyed her mother, 
 and cannot meet her impending shame, kills also 
 her child in mad despair, and must suffer death on 
 the scaffold. 
 
 There is no need to tell the story more at length, 
 the possession, as it is, of every memory. Even 
 Shakespeare's flawless mirror never caught the 
 world with accuracy more absolute. The accuracy 
 i^ not disturbed by the weird appearing, from time 
 to time, of shapes supernatural ; symbols, as these 
 are, of the doubt, of the passion, ennobling or 
 degrading, which benumb or frenzv the human 
 heart, and which, thus typified, become more real. 
 When one has read "Faust," three figures Faust, 
 Mephistopheles, and Gretchen remain henceforth 
 unfading in the mind ; all else is but background 
 and accessory. The spirit has never felt deeply 
 which can contemplate unmoved the figure of Faust 
 as he is first presented. The scholar honored for 
 his learning, the man beloved for his beneficence, so 
 rich in gift and grace, and yet so disheartened be- 
 fore the unattainable that he puts to his lips poison ! 
 Touching are the voices of the cherubs, types of his 
 childhood recollections, that recall him to his better 
 self. For a moment the cloud on his spirit clears 
 away; gathering again, after the transitory gleam, 
 in shadow more intense. At first it was deep de-
 
 OOTHE THE POET. 897 
 
 pression, in which death seemed a relief; now it be- 
 comes despair, a universal doubt, a recklessness that 
 is ready to purchase one blissful instant at the price 
 of eternal torment, yea, to desolate the world, if 
 only one satisfying moment can be enjoyed. As 
 Faust surrenders himself to the fiend, it is only pity 
 that we feel. Every soul that knoAvs its own deeps 
 understands the tragical sacrifice, and is thrilled 
 with sympathy. Then the upspringing within him 
 of the sovereign among passions ! It rages like the 
 fiercest of fevers ; mad with its incitements, he 
 wraps himself and the girl he has come to love in 
 the blackest destruction. At the end he staggers 
 under a weight of remorse how appalling ! storming 
 upon the tempter with what rage of denunciation ! 
 We do not execrate him ; we pity him. The strong, 
 thoughtful, passionate man, who has passed onward 
 through the inevitable mortal course of sin, suffer- 
 ing, doubt, repentance, beholds in the career of 
 Faust a typical rendering of the tragedy of his own 
 life, of power and truth almost superhuman. 
 
 Turning to Mephistopheles, there is no doubt that 
 Gothe, in the case of this wonderful conception, as 
 always, drew to some extent from the life. It 
 comes upon us as something most grotesque, when 
 the critic to whom in this chapter we refer so often l 
 gives it as his opinion that at first the original for 
 this prince among devils was no other than Gothe' s 
 venerated friend, that tower of virtue, Herder. 
 He was the first, says the writer, who subordinated 
 
 1 Grimm
 
 398 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Gothe. What makes Mephistopheles so great is 
 that he knows every thing, not only the evil but 
 the good ; that he unfolds to Faust the abysses of 
 being, extends before him all intellectual and earthly 
 joys. All that Herder did for Gothe. Mephis- 
 topheles, indeed, makes the revelation only as in 
 mockery, to show that great and small, good and 
 evil, are identical, and the whole monstrous sum a 
 cipher. Herder did not go so far, of course. Other 
 traits were taken from Merck, a man of keen intel- 
 lect, who became afterwards Gothe's friend, and af- 
 fected his development powerfully. Merck was a 
 critic of the sharpest, but his criticism destroyed, 
 nowhere constructed ; he had no creative power, but 
 was simply " a spirit that denied." He too was a 
 man of most respectable position and character, 
 paymaster in the principality of Hesse Darmstadt. 1 
 It is laughable to think of the chagrin these two 
 
 o o 
 
 men would feel the pious and spotless head of the 
 Weimar church, and the public official of unblem- 
 ished reputation if they could rise from their 
 graves and learn that they were believed to be the 
 originals after whom their brilliant friend had drawn 
 the very prince of devils. 
 
 It is plausible that Gothe may have obtained a 
 few hints from Herder and Merck, but the essential, 
 dark lineaments of Mephistopheles, and the lurid 
 atmosphere of Hell through which they are made 
 to appear, had a different origin. It is the imme- 
 morial nightmare that haunts forever the human 
 
 1 Giidekc.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 399 
 
 spirit, caught at last in the brain of the most subtle 
 and refined of the sons of men. Some such con- 
 ception as that of Satan has been the most usual 
 solution of the problem of evil. Before him who 
 undertakes the study of the world's religious faiths 
 pass a hundred uncouth phantoms from savage su- 
 perstitions, together with the Ahriman, Typhon, 
 Loki, Eblis, of more elevated beliefs. In the Chris- 
 tian world the conception of the devil appears in in- 
 numerable shapes, in poems, in the creeds of dif- 
 ferent sects, in the thoughts of various ages and 
 races, in the speculations of philosophers. Every 
 mind, indeed, gives him a peculiar coloring, accord- 
 ing to its bent and degree of development. To the 
 ignorant peasant, or the wild proselyte from barbar- 
 ism, he is a figure of the rudest. The Celt, bap- 
 tized, but followed and haunted by shades from his 
 forsaken creed, blends Druidic superstitions with 
 the black spirit of his new faith. The converted 
 Polynesian establishes some bloody phantom from 
 his hideous traditions among his new ideas. In our 
 own stock, an Oriental idea becomes amalgamated 
 with the malignant sprites and giants of the Teu- 
 tonic mythology. He flits from century to cen- 
 tury, now haunting the cell of the scared monk; 
 now fighting with the bold reformer ; now swooping 
 upon the city in the thunder-storm, to be opposed 
 by the peal of the cathedral bells ; now beheld from 
 afar, in fancy, by the shivering peasant, hovering 
 luridly amid witch-fires upon the Brocken peak. At 
 length he is taken up by maste"r minds. Milton 
 celebrates his baleful glory at the head of innumer-
 
 400 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 able shadowy minions. Then darkest, subtlest, 
 most terrible portrayal of all stands forth the 
 mocking spectre of Gothe ! 
 
 The scenes in which Gretchen appears, from first 
 to last, are among the most beautiful in poetry. 
 The impression that she makes at once is of the 
 most simple, artless sweetness. The genius of 
 Gothe is never so manifest, perhaps, as in the por- 
 trayal of w.omen. Gretchen was his first and last 
 type, sketched at Strassburg in his impulsive youth, 
 still occupying him when his hand grew palsied. 
 From first to last she was unchanged. Without 
 doubt Gretchen may be referred to Frederika. 1 
 Gothe was ill at ease on account of his treatment of 
 her. Not the slightest indication has come down 
 to show that the connection between Gothe and the 
 beautiful Alsatian maid trenched upon the coarse or 
 immoral. It cannot be supposed for a moment. 
 He simply broke her heart by arousing in her the 
 feeling that their relation was to be eternal, then 
 one day saying, "Enough, farewell; free yourself 
 as you can." His cruelty to Frederika he pre- 
 sents symbolically in the experience of Gretchen. 
 Pure as a babe, innocently fresh and joyous, she is 
 overshadowed in her quiet pathway by the gloomy 
 pinions of her fate. No altar-fire kindled by the 
 hands of vestals is purer than the love which is 
 lighted within her soul ; not guilty, but utterly over- 
 powered, she is broken and falls. Where shall we 
 parallel that climax of pathos as scene after scene 
 
 1 Grimm.
 
 GO THE THE POET. 401 
 
 unfolds itself I Her pretty archness at the first in- 
 terview before the church, the childlike pleasure 
 over the casket, the instinctive shrinking of her 
 spirit, heavenly pure, from Mephistopheles, the 
 plucking of the petals from the flower, her utter 
 self-renunciation in the extremity of her love, the 
 involuntary slaying of her mother, the whisperings 
 of the evil spirit in her ear, interrupted by the 
 chanting of the " Dies Irse," as she tries to pray 
 in the cathedral, then at last the agony in the dun- 
 geon ! One may read that scene scores of times, 
 yet, if his heart is tender, never dare to approach it 
 without a special fortifying of the eyelids. If a 
 more moving portrayal of utter woe has ever been 
 drawn, I know not where to find it. Poor, crazed 
 Gretchen, tortured by conscience, yet innocent as 
 at first, " whose only sin has been a good illusion," 
 in her frenzy beholding the flames of Hell roaring 
 at the threshold, the phantom of her dead mother 
 accusing her, the circumstances of the drowning of 
 her babe rehearsing themselves in her thought, the 
 execution that awaits her looming up in her fancy 
 with all its gloomy belongings the faces of the 
 waiting crowd, the staff breaking as the signal, the 
 gleam of the steel, it is indeed a heart-break made 
 audible ! The relief, at length, from the solemn 
 voices that sound from the air \vliile no presence 
 is visible, "She is judged she is saved;" then 
 the imrfression of utter, ineffaceable love given in 
 one masterly touch ! The sufferer is taken up 
 among the angels, Faust claimed by Mephistoph- 
 eles, the scene all vacant. Then the sounding 
 
 M
 
 402 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 in of Margaret's despairing voice as she cries after 
 her lover, even from the bliss into which she has 
 ascended! No gesture, no presence, only a de- 
 spairing cry, the agonized utterance of a name. It 
 is the pinnacle of Gothe's achievement; here he 
 touched the stars, not before, and not after. 
 
 When, in his eighty-second year, Gothc put the 
 last touches to Faust, he felt himself its imperfec- 
 tion. " I have laid out too much work," he said; 
 " strength at last fails." The second part is much 
 inferior to the first, though one might hesitate to 
 subscribe to the judgment that "the first part is the 
 only one that counts." l As he grew old, although 
 still of wonderful vitality, a certain decadence of his 
 power became manifest in this way : he was be- 
 trayed into writing in riddles, enveloping his meaning 
 in symbols and obscurities. Certain critics had in- 
 sisted in interpreting symbolically what had been ex- 
 pressed with perfect plainness. He humored this 
 disposition, and at last employed a symbolical form 
 in good earnest. In particular did he do this in the 
 second part of " Faust " and the " Mahrchcn," and 
 much time and acutencss has been spent in trying to 
 ascertain the meaning that lies beneath the dark 
 language. Carlyle, indeed, when a young man, at- 
 tempted to justify this way of writing, and proceed- 
 ing upon his theory, turned presently to the compo- 
 sition of " Sartor Resartus," obscuring his 4 meaning 
 in a glare of fiery vapor, and so lending it impress- 
 iveness. Let the practice have such justification as 
 
 Matthew Arnold.
 
 GO THE THE POET. 403 
 
 it can, yet it is right to say we have reached a time 
 when the authority of the 'pragmatic Scotch genius 
 is no longer to be held absolute in literature any 
 more than in matters of politics and social science. 
 He, more than a half a century since, drew back 
 the curtain which veiled from English eyes the 
 great literature of Germany. The debt we owe him 
 is immense, but many of his critical judgments we 
 cannot to-day do otherwise than question. The pas- 
 sage quoted may contain a grain of truth, but this, 
 too, is well said: "The poet who makes symbol- 
 ism the substance and the purpose of his work has 
 mistaken his vocation. The whole Greek drama has 
 been interpreted into symbols by modern scholars. 
 The Iliad has been so interpreted; Shakespeare's 
 plays have been interpreted into modern plati- 
 tudes." "Indeed, symbolism being in 
 its very nature arbitrary, the indication of a mean- 
 ing not directly expressed, but arbitrarily thrust un- 
 der the expression, there is no limit to the power of 
 interpretation. It is quite certain that poets had 
 not the meanings which their commentators find." 1 
 Over the second part of "Faust" the darkness is 
 so deep that commentators never agree as to the 
 truth concealed; so too of the story of "The 
 Snake," and the second part of " "Wilhelm Meister." 
 "They are dead of a hypertrophy of reflection, a 
 mere mass of symbols, hieroglyphics, sometimes even 
 mystifications. What decadence, good heavens ! 
 and what a melancholy thing is old age ! ' ' So ex- 
 
 1 Lewes.
 
 404 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 claims Scherer, with the passion of his race for 
 clearness. We may think he is somewhat excessive, 
 but the clear-headed reader must be content if he 
 finds now and then a beautiful fragment in the 
 midst of confusion, without attempting to unravel 
 plan or plot. For a spectacle of perfectly idle bick- 
 ering and waste of ingenuity the comments of cer- 
 tain Hegelian critics may be referred to, who have 
 occupied themselves with Gothe's darker writings. 1 
 
 Against the opinion of Carlyle may be set that 'of 
 another critic, of weight hardly less: ''All that 
 Scherer says about the ruinousness to a poet of sym- 
 bols, hieroglyphics, mystifications, is just. When 
 Carlyle praises 'Helena' for being not a type of 
 one thing, but a vague, fluctuating, fitful adumbra- 
 tion of many, he praises it for what is, in truth, its 
 fatal defect. The ' Mahrchcn,' again, on which he 
 heaps such praise, culling it 'one of the notablest 
 performances produced for the last thousand years, 
 a performance in such a style of grandeur and 
 celestial brilliancy and life as the western imagina- 
 tion has not elsewhere reached,' the ' Malirchcn,' 
 woven throughout of symbol, hieroglyphic, mystifi- 
 cation, is therefore a piece of solemn inanity, on 
 which a man of Gothe's powers could never have 
 wasted his time, but for his lot having been cast in 
 a nation which has never lived." 2 
 
 Got he, then, as a poet could sometimes waste 
 himself writing in riddles ; as a prose writer he 
 
 1 Specimens of their wrangling are given in the notes to Bayard 
 Taylor's " Faust." 
 1 Matthew Arnold.
 
 TtiE POET. 405 
 
 could be prolix and tedious. What is it but to say, 
 however, that, like Homer, he sometimes nodded ! 
 Making every necessary deduction, what miracles of 
 achievement ! It seems rm'ht to declare that no man 
 
 O 
 
 more magnificently gifted has ever been born into 
 the world. Here is a passage from Heine, its elo- 
 quence touched with a trace of heathen bitterness : 
 * ' The correspondence between personality and 
 genius which one likes to see in extraordinary 
 men existed wonderfully in Gothe. His presence 
 was as remarkable as his utterance, harmonious, 
 cheerful, nobly symmetrical, and one could study 
 Greek art in him as in an antique. This body, full 
 of dignity, never crooked itself in worm-like Chris- 
 tian humiliation ; the features of his face were not 
 distorted by Christian self-crushing ; those eyes of 
 his were not timid with any Christian sense of sin, 
 not devotional, or heaven-gazing, or tremulous. No, 
 his eyes were quiet as those of a god. It is the 
 mark of the gods that their gaze is firm, their eyes 
 not darting this way and that in uncertainty. The 
 eye of Gothe was as divine in his old age as in his 
 youth. Time could cover his head with snow, but 
 not bend it. He always bore it proud and high ; 
 and when he spoke his form always dilated ; and 
 when he stretched forth his hand, it was as if he 
 could mark out with his finger the paths wherein 
 the stars of heaven should wander. About his 
 mouth a frigid stamp of egotism might have been 
 noticed, but this trait belongs to the immortal gods, 
 and most to the father of the gods, the great 
 Jupiter, with whom I like to compare Gothe.
 
 406 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Verily, when I visited him in Weimar, and stood op- 
 posite to him, I looked involuntarily to one side to 
 see whether I should not behold the eagle with the 
 thunderbolts in his beak. I came near addressing 
 him in Greek, but when I saw he understood Ger- 
 man, I told him in German that the plums on the 
 road between Jena and Weimar tatted very good. 
 In so many long winter nights I had considered 
 what sublime and profound things I would say to 
 Gothe, if I ever saw him ; and when I did see him, 
 at last, I told him the plums of Saxony tasted very 
 good ! And Gothe smiled, smiled with the same 
 lips with which he had once kissed the lovely Leda, 
 Europa, Danae, and so many other princesses, and 
 and indeed common nymphs ! " * 
 
 A famous contemporary physiologist 2 declared 
 that " never did he meet with a man in whom bodily 
 and mental organization were so perfect as in Gothe. 
 Not only was the prodigious strength of vitality re- 
 markable in him, but equally so the perfect balance 
 of functions. No function was predominant ; all 
 worked together for the continuance of a marvellous 
 balance." His power was wonderfully preserved 
 from decay. The "octogenarian Jupiter" had in 
 his massive and erect frame abundant life. He was 
 still able to love and to attract love. Herder called 
 his mind a universal mind. Amonsc the sons of 
 
 O 
 
 men there is no other such example of versatility 
 combined with the highest excellence. Scherer, 
 
 1 Ueber Deutschland. 
 * Hufeland.
 
 GOTHE THE POET. 407 
 
 whose admiration, as we have seen, is discriminating, 
 declares that although he has not Shakespeare's 
 power, his genius was more vast, more universal 
 than Shakespeare's. As a man of action his career 
 was a creditable one. As has been said, the world 
 of Weimar kneAv him mainly as the minister of the 
 sovereign, untiring in attention to even the smallest 
 details. He directed with wisdom and benevolence, 
 for a long series of years, the affairs of the little 
 state, seeking in all directions the good of the land. 
 " No case was ever known where, after his advice 
 had been followed, things took a bad issue." l 
 
 In the domain of intellect, think of the compass 
 of his labors ! He had, to be sure, his limitations. 
 In art he could be neither great painter nor 
 musician, though he faithfully tried. Pure mathe- 
 matics was a field he left untouched ; and in 
 metaphysics, except that, like Lessing, he held 
 Spinoza in the utmost honor, he showed indiffer- 
 ence. In natural science, however, he stands with 
 the highest. We cannot, indeed, ascribe to him 
 the exclusive glory of the discoveries that have been 
 mentioned. Columbus did not first find America ; 
 Bacon did not first teach the inductive philosophy ; 
 Luther did not begin the Reformation ; we may 
 find in preceding writings anticipations of the 
 ' ' Laokoon ' ' of Lessing. So with the name of Gothe 
 must the candid biographer mention others. But 
 he belongs with the eminent founders of philosophic 
 botany and comparative anatomy, in many a preg- 
 
 * Grimm.
 
 408 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 nant sentence foreshadowing the great theories 
 whose elaboration is the glory of the scientists of 
 to-day. He was far before his time, and is placed 
 by the latest writers l in a position coordinate with 
 Darwin in England, and Lamarck in France, among 
 the supreme leaders. 
 
 Turning to Gothe's literary activity, we may say 
 it was fairly appalling. What he accomplished is 
 in itself a literature of almost universal range. 
 History, biography, criticism, letters, narrative, ro- 
 mance, drama, lyric, epic, idyl, epigram, in prose 
 and poetry there is scarcely a department unrepre- 
 sented. Even his admirers confess, "he has writ- 
 ten with a feebleness which it is to be hoped no 
 German will emulate ao-ain :" 2 but a<rain it is said, 
 
 O * O ' 
 
 with probable truth, that every piece bears some- 
 where the stamp of his genius, and some are per- 
 fection. Such capacity for impression, such power 
 of expression! " Poetry," he said, "is the urn 
 wherein are contained for me the ashes of past 
 sufferings." He might have said, as well, the wine 
 of past joys ; the universal human experience he 
 caught unto himself, to store it in imperishable 
 works. 
 
 Of Gothe's character what shall be said? A 
 most difficult question to answer, steering his way, 
 us one must, between extremes of eulogy on one 
 hand and detraction on the other ; looking carefully 
 to ascertain what are the requirements of eternal 
 
 1 Ernst Eseckel: " Schopfungsgeschichte." HelaalioltB. 
 1 Lewea.
 
 THE POET. 
 
 
 
 moral laws, and what merely the unstable prescrip- 
 tions of human society, one thing yesterday, 
 something far different to-day. He has been called 
 a completely unmoral genius who showed an impar- 
 tial sympathy for good and evil alike, 1 whose writ- 
 ings invariably repel, at first, English readers with 
 English ideas of life and duty. He has often been 
 described as a heathen ; took pleasure indeed in 
 assuming that name, enthralled as he was by his 
 admiration for the ancients. We are not to under- 
 stand, however, that he was an atheist. The doc- 
 trines of a personal God and the immortality of 
 the soul he held unswervingly, and often declared 
 them. As regards his course in life, there is 
 abundant evidence that his heart was tender ; he 
 had a helpful spirit, and his great activity was fol- 
 lowed by abundant beneficent result. The concep- 
 tion of living for others, however, probably never 
 occurred to him. He was kindly, but not self- 
 devoting, and seldom interfered with his calm proc- 
 ess of self-culture, for another. 2 
 
 It must be admitted that what we call morality 
 is to some extent a matter of convention, the con- 
 duct which it prescribes in one age or land dif- 
 
 1 Shall we say that this is a characteristic of all great poets? "A 
 true poet goes through the world like a child, who knows of no se- 
 crets, and even repeats the horrible with his innocent lips, without 
 a feeling of what it means. With hands how pure does Shake- 
 speare unfold the most terrible crimes before us! Gothe's poems 
 contain the most sublime that has been said in the German tongue: 
 but with antique cynic plainness he exposes, too, the opposite. 
 Whatever stir* within him must be expressed." Grimm. 
 
 * Hutton.
 
 410 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 fering in others. To the Hindoo there can be no 
 greater ethical shortcoming than the eating of in- 
 terdicted flesh ; to the Puritan theft is hardly a 
 more definite dereliction than " Sabbath-break- 
 ing;" to the Pharisee the omission of the tithe of 
 mint, anise, or cummin is more culpable than a 
 breach of trust. But no one who respects human 
 happiness and social order can believe that Gothe 
 was simply unconventional. A few such torches of 
 passion as he, flaming up so readily and kindling 
 such conflagration in others, and the world would 
 be consumed. His passion uttered itself in sighs 
 of exquisite harmony, whose music will never lose 
 its charm ; but think of the hearts that broke for 
 him and gave no sound ! He was a transcendent 
 creature in body, mind, and soul ; quite transcend- 
 ental too in much of his course. With our ideas, 
 in many of his relations we cannot think him inno- 
 cent ; and leaving out the question of moral guilt, 
 such capricious heats and coolings cannot be recon- 
 ciled with the noblest manly dignity, however leni- 
 ently Ave may judge them in a youth 
 
 A grave charge, from which Gothe cannot be 
 easily cleared, is that he was disposed to play the 
 sycophant before men of rank and power. In the 
 battle of Jena the cause of his patron, Karl August, 
 was overthrown, Weimar cruelly plundered by the 
 French, and Gothe himself exposed to insult ; his 
 life indeed was in danger, but he was saved by the 
 courage and energy of Christiane. Summoned 
 shortly after to attend upon Napoleon at Erfurt, he 
 promptly proceeded thither, receiving with pleasure
 
 GdTHE THE POET. 411 
 
 the conqueror's attentions. At other times his re- 
 spect for the mighty of the earth was carried to 
 great excess. When visited by the king of Bavaria, 
 a man of character far from admirable, and whom 
 Heinrich Heine lashed as with a whip of scorpions 
 in one of the bitterest of satires, Gothe felt his 
 head go j*ound with giddiness. "It is no light 
 matter," he said, " to work out the powerful im- 
 pression produced by the king's presence, to assim- 
 ilate it internally. It is difficult to keep one's 
 balance and not lose one's head." Of a letter from 
 the same personage he said : "I thank Heaven for 
 it, as for a quite special favor." * These incidents 
 cannot be considered exceptional ; in many ways 
 Gothe is simple and manly, but there is sometimes 
 a singular apparent snobbishness. Matthew Ar- 
 nold's defence of the poet is very amusing, but per- 
 haps the best that can be made. "It is not snob- 
 bishness," he says, " but his German ' corporalism.' 
 A disciplinable and much-disciplined people, with 
 little humor, and without experience of a great 
 national life, regards its official authorities in this 
 devout and awe-struck way. To a German it seems 
 profane and licentious to smile at his Dogberry. He 
 takes him seriously and solemnly at his own valu- 
 ation." 
 
 Can we say that Gothe was inspired with any 
 great moral idea? In Luther's case the thought 
 was to break the force of what he felt to be super- 
 stition, and he would have gone to the stake rather 
 
 1 Eckermanu.
 
 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 than yield one hair's breadth. With Leasing it 
 was the ardent pursuit of truth, and his life was one 
 long martyrdom in its behalf. With Schiller it was 
 passionate love for freedom, felt from first to last. 
 Got he cared little for the French revolution, which 
 all lovers of liberty believed at first was so full of 
 promise for man. Strange as it seems to us, he 
 sometimes uttered himself as if he believed in 
 the fragmentary Germany of his time as the best 
 thing possible. "What has made this country 
 great," he said, "but the culture which is spread 
 through it in such a marvellous manner, and per- 
 vades equally all parts of the realm? And this 
 culture, does it not emanate from -the numerous 
 courts which grant it support and patron age? Sup- 
 pose we had had in Germany for centuries but 
 two capitals, Vienna and Berlin, or but one? I 
 should like to know how it would have fared with 
 German civilization, or even with that general well- 
 being which goes hand in hand with civilization?" 
 And yet what did he do to sustain this order in 
 which he seems to have believed, when it was threat- 
 ened? During the campaign of \ r almy he was pres- 
 ent with the army at the request of his sovereign, 
 but he employed his time in far-away studies, 
 without enthusiasm for the cause at stake. Shortly 
 after Jena he received complacently the homage of 
 Napoleon, and while the cannon of Leipsic were 
 thundering, wrote an epilogue for an actress. No 
 great moral ideas inspired him here, or at other 
 times, or in other directions. Can we say it was 
 part of his transcendency ? He moved among mor-
 
 GO THE THE POET. 413 
 
 tals like one of the gods of the classic paganism he 
 admired so much, noting the world's phenomena 
 with a glance as keen as the very eagle of Jove. 
 Like Jove himself, he found from time to time his 
 los and Semeles, in whose arms he pleased him- 
 self with the thrills of an Olympian passion, and 
 who often were so sadly consumed as he magnifi- 
 cently revealed himself. Of each throb that he 
 felt it pleased him to make a record, as of all his 
 sharp eyes beheld. But with it all there was a sort 
 of supernal indifference to the world's ongoings, as 
 if they were the concerns of a race with which he 
 had little part ; he might feel vivid curiosity, but 
 need take no deep interest. 
 
 Can we feel such love and enthusiasm for him as 
 for moral heroes like Luther, Lessing, and Schiller? 
 I think not. He was a creature somewhat too 
 supernal. Can we say that the fact that he was 
 merely a wonderful witness, an eye to see, a tongue 
 to report, not a soul thrilled with great ideas, and 
 teaching them to the world, exalts him as a poet 
 and artist? Yes. Such witnesses, at any rate, 
 have been the singers whom the world places high- 
 est. Always hidden and unknown is the spirit of 
 Shakespeare behind the magnificent tapestry which 
 he holds extended, whereon are' imprinted the per- 
 fect counterparts of men and women, as various, as 
 individual, as many-colored. So too with Homer 
 it is marvellous witnessing; so too with Gothe. 
 He has been called an objective poet. The world 
 impressed itself upon him with extraordinary power ; 
 these impressions he rendered again with power as
 
 414 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 great. In particular is "Faust" a Shakespearian 
 picture ; the manly, the coarse, the satanic, the inef- 
 fably pure, set side by side, the soul of the poet 
 meantime withdrawn behind the veil. If art is the 
 reproduction of nature, Gothe was the peerless 
 artist. The type to whom we HOAV proceed was 
 rather teacher and preacher. He was subjective, 
 starting from ideas within himself, for which he was 
 thrilled with the noblest enthusiasm, the represent- 
 ation of the universe remaining secondary. Let us 
 place Schiller now side by side with Gothe in the 
 contrast in which they themselves felt that they 
 stood. In this way we can learn to know them 
 both.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 The effects of the Thirty Years' War have not yet 
 disappeared from Germany. One hundred years 
 ago, during the boyhood of Friedrich Schiller, they 
 were much more plain. The land had not recov- 
 ered from the depopulation which it had undergone ; 
 tne destroyed cities had not been rebuilt ; through- 
 out the body politic a numbness, as it were, pre- 
 vailed from the blows of the terrible scourge with 
 which it had been beaten. 
 
 Schiller was born in 1759, at the village of Mar- 
 bach in Wirtemberg, and the circumstances of his 
 father's family and his own early life are all typical, 
 reflecting the sadness of the time, which was to give 
 
 o * o 
 
 way at length to something better. Poor Wirtem- 
 berg, depleted in every way by the Thirty Years' 
 War, until no trace was left of the magnificent 
 Swabia of the former time, which the Hohenstauffen 
 had loved and ruled, had been given over to princes 
 of ruthless selfishness. The father of Schiller was, 
 the dependent, almost the serf, of the reigning duke. 
 He had been an officer of low grade, serving in the 
 Netherlands and during the Seven Years' War. 
 Schiller's mother was the daughter of a baker and 
 innkeeper, and met her fate while Schiller's father
 
 416 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 was stationed as a recruiting officer in her native 
 village. The couple draw from us most cordial re- 
 spect, as they proceed onward through the hard- 
 ships of a lowly station. Besides Friedrich, their 
 family consisted of three daughters ; the parents 
 lived on into old age, and were permitted at last to 
 breathe the fragrance of the wreaths heaped by en- 
 thusiastic Europe about the feet of their gifted 
 son. The father is prudent and devout, yet marked 
 with a certain sternness, the echo in the home of 
 the harshness in the world without. When the wars 
 were done he was established as a forester at the 
 duke's country-seat, gaining reputation gradually 
 for skill in wood-craft ; and it is a pleasant thing to 
 read how, in his old age, the famous son takes his 
 father's notes on tree-culture, finds a publisher for 
 them, and introduces the veteran to the world 
 under the prestige of his own name. The mother 
 is in character all that is lovely, and full of poetic 
 sensibility. As the boy Schiller comes forward, he 
 is destined to be a minister, but when fourteen the 
 duke offers him a place in a school which he has es- 
 tablished to train youths for the public service. It 
 shows the subjection of the people that the parents 
 do not dare to refuse the offer, although they would 
 have gladly done so, and the prospect was utterly 
 repulsive to the boy himself. It seems to have been 
 an irksome restraint into which he was put, through 
 which five or six years later his impetuous spirit was 
 forced to burst a way to emancipation. 
 
 The destination marked out for him now was that 
 of army surgeon, and here is his portrait as a friend
 
 SCHILLER. 417 
 
 of his drew it when at length he was qualified : 
 " Crushed into the stiff, tasteless old Prussian uni- 
 form ; on each of his temples three stiff rolls, as if 
 done with gypsum ; the tiny, cocked hat scarcely 
 covering his crown ; so much thicker the long pig- 
 tail, with the slender neck crammed into a very nar- 
 row horse-hair stock ; the feet put under the white 
 spatterdashes, smirched by traces of shoe-blacking, 
 giving to the legs a bigger diameter than the thighs, 
 squeezed into their tight-fitting breeches, could 
 boast of. Hardly or not at all able to bend his 
 knees, the whole man moved like a stork." 1 Not 
 more irksome upon the spirited boy of twent} 7 -one 
 was this absurd dress than the training which he 
 had received was upon his soul. What wonder, 
 then, that when that soul now uttered itself, it 
 should have been such an outbreak of flame as when 
 a conflagration makes a way for itself to the air ! 
 Such an outburst is " The Robbers." It was full of 
 wild extravagance, but at the same time of splendor 
 and truth. It was received in Germany enthusias- 
 tically, and the high-cravated youth who moved like 
 a stork was at once a famous man. He fled from 
 Stuttgart, liable to arrest, for he had been, as it 
 were, sold into the service of the duke. At Mann- 
 heim, at a distance of 120 miles, he became poet of 
 the theatre, but his position was not yet secure. 
 While here he wrote two other plays, " Fiesco," 
 and " Kabale und Licbe." The .young man of 
 twenty-three worked, let us hope, dressed now in 
 
 1 Scharffenstein. 
 
 27
 
 418 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 somewhat looser fashion, but in a dreary room in 
 an outlying village, the November rain beating in 
 through the paper that did duty for glass in the 
 window, pinched with poverty, and in dread of being 
 borne back to bondage . The new plaj^s deepened 
 the impression which "-The Robbers " had produced. 
 Fame, which had come with such promptness, was 
 now followed by fortune, which had been tardier. 
 The enlightened duke of Saxe Weimar, Karl Au- 
 gust, honored him with a title ; still other poten- 
 tates with a pension. Danger of pursuit ceased. 
 He moved with freedom from Mannheim to Leipsig, 
 from Leipsig to Dresden, thence to Jena, thence to 
 Weimar, where at length the end was to come. The 
 stream that had at first been turbid and destructive, 
 as it tore in " The Robbers," through the barriers, 
 rapidly ran itself clear, flowing at length pure, 
 deep, and quiet, but with no less force and majesty 
 than at first. Schiller gives himself for a time to 
 other studies. He writes his historical works, and 
 touches metaphysics in a reading of Kant. He is 
 now known and honored by the noblest of the land. 
 He comes to Jena as professor of history, and very 
 notably lives henceforth in close intimacy with 
 Gothe, a friendship most honorable to both, rich in 
 its effects upon the genius of both, going forward 
 Avithout break, without jealousy on either side, until 
 severed by death. 
 
 Schiller's life was one of tireless industry. While 
 at work upon dramas and prose writings he found 
 time for his superb lyrics. At length, after ten 
 years' interruption, he returns again to the kind of
 
 SCHILLER. 419 
 
 composition for which he feels he is best fitted, 
 the drama. Now it is that, at forty years of age, 
 when his power is at the highest, all his natural 
 force unabated, but calmed and trained by experi- 
 ence of life and study, he opens his second dramatic 
 period with ' ' Wallcnstein . ' ' Sickness has overtaken 
 him ; he has burned his candle at both ends, study- 
 ing through the night, and busy through the day with 
 some form of labor. He has married Charlotte von 
 Lengenfeld, and has a happy home. Without re- 
 spite come "Marie Stuart," the "Maid of Orleans," 
 the "Bride of Messina," and, at length, his most 
 popular work, " Wilhelm Tell." Perhaps we may 
 say that never has there been in an author's life a 
 more symmetrical climax. From "The liobbers," 
 his first piece, to "Wilhelm Tell," his last, it is 
 an almost constantly ascending stair, each footing 
 in a region more bright and pure than that below, 
 without a downward turn. Happy the poet who can 
 forever soar as he sings, nor feel that the pinion 
 cripples or the sunward-gazing eye grows dim ! 
 
 He was but forty-five, but the end had come. 
 "May, 1805," says the journal of an eye-witness, 
 " Schiller, on awakening from sleep, asked to see 
 his youngest child. The baby, Emilie, was brought. 
 He turned his head around, took the little hand in 
 his, and, with an inexpressible look of love and sor- 
 row, gazed into the little face, then burst into bitter 
 weeping, hid his face in the pillows, and made a sign 
 to take the child away. Toward evening, he asked 
 to see the sun once more. The curtain was opened ; 
 with bright eyes and face he gazed into the beautiful
 
 420 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sunset." * * * " His wife was kneeling at his 
 bedside ; he still pressed her offered hand. There 
 now darted, as it were, an electrical spasm over all his 
 countenance ; the head sank back, the profoundest 
 repose transfigured his face. His sleep deepened 
 and deepened till it changed into the sleep from 
 which there is no awakening." 1 They buried him 
 at night, between twelve and one. The heavens were 
 overhung with clouds, but as the coffin was placed 
 beside the grave the veil was rent asunder, and the 
 moon threw her first rays upon the bier. They 
 placed him in the grave, the moon retired, and a 
 fierce tempest resounded through the night. 
 
 In modern times, it seems to me that Schiller can 
 best stand as the representative German poet. No 
 other is more thoroughly noble ; no other, I think, 
 so characteristically German. The figure of Les- 
 sing is unmistakably an heroic one, but one regards 
 it with a somewhat frigid admiration. He is more- 
 over to be looked upon rather as the Moses that led 
 his nation to the promised land, than as partaking 
 himself of the splendor of the best time. Gothe 
 we must always consider as the supreme figure of 
 the great period, as he is the supreme intellectual 
 figure of the world in these latter days ; but I be- 
 lieve we may say that the very limitations of Schil- 
 ler, as compared with Gothe, make it more appro- 
 priate to select him as a typical poet of his race. 
 In so far as Gothe was greater, he lifted himself 
 
 1 Prom Carlyle's Life of Schiller.
 
 SCHILLER. 421 
 
 into the region of the universal, standing for the 
 world, and not a race of men. Schiller, less cosmic, 
 is always the German, and mirrors the German soul. 
 Where Schiller was strongest, as a dramatist, he was, 
 if we except " Faust," Gothe's peer. Carlyle, the 
 Diogenes of criticism, jeering and flouting the world 
 from the rugged tub of his uncouth phrase, so 
 honest and so crabbed, even Carlyle would hardly 
 dare now to write what he wrote in his youth, fifty 
 years ago : " ' Faust ' is but a careless effusion com- 
 pared with ' Wallenstein.' ' But the author of 
 " Faust," Gothe himself, could say to Eckcrmann, 
 of this same "Wallenstein : " " It is so great that 
 there is nothing like it in existence." For nobility 
 of soul Schiller is supreme, and his nobleness is of 
 a German type. Gothe, for the questionable pas- 
 sages of his life, has found warm defenders who un- 
 dertake to make all square with the highest stand- 
 ards ; few have ever presumed to speak of Schiller 
 as needing defenders ; to prove his virtue would be 
 like proving sunshine to be light. I know not what 
 real blemish can be found in it ; for no one would 
 think of blaming the trace of undue vehemence to 
 be found in his youth, and reflected in " The Rob- 
 bers," any more than the snap of the elastic cord 
 which has been stretched almost to the breaking- 
 point. 1 Thorough integrity, candor, and fidelity 
 seem to have been his from first to last, and these 
 warmed by a glow which is peculiarly Teutonic. 
 When ho helps his old father out with his book, 
 or sends his homely mother and sisters unswerv- 
 ingly the birthday-present, with affectionate greet- 
 
 1 See Appendix, note B.
 
 422 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ings, in the midst of his greatness, or bursts into 
 manly tears on his death-bed at the sight of his 
 baby's face, here, and always elsewhere, we see 
 a beautiful sensibility characteristically German, 
 and the very rose in the garden of German 
 virtue. 
 
 In his intellectual traits Schiller is even more 
 thoroughly German than in his character: "A 
 Frenchman, an Englishman, and a -German," says a 
 writer, "were commissioned once to give the world 
 the benefit of their views on that interesting animal, 
 the camel. Away went the Frenchman to the Jar- 
 din des Plantes, spent an hour there in rapid inves- 
 tigation, returned, and wrote a paper in which there 
 was no phrase the Academy could blame, but also 
 no phrase which added to the general knowledge. 
 He was perfectly satisfied however, and said, " Le 
 voila, le chameau!' The Englishman packed up- 
 his tea-caddy and magazine of comforts, pitched his 
 tent in the East, remained there two years studying 
 the camel in its habits, and returned with a thick 
 volume of facts, arranged without order, expounded 
 without philosophy, but serving as valuable materials 
 for all who came after him. The German, despising 
 the frivolity of the Frenchman, and the unphilo- 
 sophic matter-of-factness of the Englishman, retired 
 to his study, there to evolve the idea of a camel 
 from out of the depths of his moral consciousness." 
 
 The story represents amusingly the tendency of 
 the Germans to idealism. Schiller certainly would 
 have evolved the camel from the depths of his con- 
 sciousness ; cei'tainly he was, intellectually, a good
 
 SCHILLER. 423 
 
 representative of his race, more so, I think, than 
 Gothe, who was more Greek than German, or per- 
 haps too universal to be assigned to any one type. 
 The artist is he who seeks to reproduce nature ; he 
 is excellent in proportion to the perfection of the 
 image which he makes. Of the artist in these mod- 
 ern days the objective Gothe is the best type ; the 
 subjective Schiller aspired after perfect artistic form 
 in a less degree than his great friend. Poetry was 
 his life task ; not because, like Gothe, he sought to 
 reach in it an artistic result, but because he wanted 
 to use it as a medium through which he might ex- 
 press his great ideas of human dignity and freedom. 
 Art with him was a secondary matter, which he often 
 sacrificed to what he felt to be greater. As Gothe 
 was the artist, Schiller was a teacher and preacher. 
 In Schiller the idealistic tendency was very marked, 
 and at first he was not a close observer of life and 
 nature. Gothe, by .drawing landscapes in his youth, 
 by his investigations in natural history, also by his 
 excellent social advantages, enjoyed from an early 
 period, had learned life and nature thoroughly. 
 Schiller passed his youth in confinement, shut out 
 from nature and men, of whom he could only learn 
 from books, or as he evolved them from his own 
 consciousness. Even in his later works, as Wilhelm 
 von Ilumboldt says, he does not so much draw 
 nature as produce it from his own soul. As an 
 artist, however, he constantly improved : he him- 
 self, in his later life, called the figures 1 which he 
 
 1 Ungeheuer.
 
 424 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sketched in his first dramas monstrosities. His in- 
 tercourse with Gothe, and study of Gothe and Ho- 
 mer, corrected his too great subjectivity, while 
 at the same time his interest in his great inspiring 
 ideas human dignity and freedom never dimin- 
 ished. His fancy was so creative, his judgment 
 won such certainty, that at last he could create the 
 most vivid pictures of outward nature, even from 
 the contemplation of phenomena subordinate and 
 trifling, get a perfect sight of the sublimest. In the 
 fine ballad of " The Diver " the detailed description 
 of the ocean whirlpool is most impressive ; Schiller 
 is said to have derived it from observation of a mill- 
 flume. Though he grew as an artist constantly 
 greater, he never reached the mark of Gothe. The 
 latter was like the sculptor who forms his statues 
 carefully from living models, moulding, however, 
 the particulars derived from them to the highest ex- 
 pression of bodily and spiritual beauty. Schiller, on 
 the other hand, always proceeding from general 
 ideas, striving to reach for them a corresponding 
 form, was like a sculptor possessed by a thought in 
 embodying which he neglects the study of actual liv- 
 ing forms. As such a sculptor would produce often 
 caricatures, just so the subjective poet. As has just 
 been said, Schiller called the figures of his ear- 
 liest dramas monstrosities ; he did raise himself 
 from the deformity more and more to truth and 
 beauty, and did it by pushing back his subjectivity, 
 or at least affording to the objective view its inalien- 
 able rights. AVhilo Gothe, however, became blended, 
 as it were, with the world outside of himself, the
 
 SCHILLER. 425 
 
 spirit of Schiller always asserted itself. ' ' Even in 
 the best of his characters," says a critic, " we rarely 
 see individual beings with sharp, clear-cut features ; 
 he expresses himself and his world of ideas ; he him- 
 self continually shines through in his creations. As 
 it is purely impossible to meet the man Gothe in 
 his poems, Schiller, on the other hand, meets us 
 in his personality out of every line he has written, 
 clear and life-warm. Hence it follows that he comes 
 so near to us." * I think this finely said. The per- 
 sonality of Schiller was very noble, and it is an 
 inspiring thing to meet it so constantly as we read 
 him ; but the fact that we do so meet it speaks his 
 condemnation as an artist. Shakespeare never shines 
 through in his characters. They pass before in a 
 multitude, the prince, the beggar the maid, the 
 harlot the saint, the villain the simpleton, the 
 sage the veteran, the babe, all in the thousand- 
 fold sharp contrast of life. Which is the master 
 himself the noble Brutus, who has met no man in 
 life "but he was true to me," or the embittered 
 Tim on, who finds all men false ; the trusty Kent, 
 faithful through the deepest poverty and suffering, 
 or lago, the incarnate lie? Who can say? The 
 master is unseen, holding before his unrevealed soul 
 his infinitely-pictured veil. So the soul of Homer is 
 all unrevealed. He is to us, as Carl vie says, but a 
 voice, the witness. " It is impossible," says the 
 critic, " to read the man Gothc in his poems. He 
 does not approach us in his personality." In this
 
 426 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 way Gothe approaches the highest greatness ; he 
 would be to us sphinx-like, like Shakespeare. 1 
 
 Taking up, now, the particular departments of 
 literary work in which Schiller employed himself, 
 we shall find a variety almost as great as that of 
 Gothe. That he might have become a skilful writer 
 of romances is indicated by the incomplete story of the 
 "Ghost-seer." He accomplished more in history, 
 but his labors in this field, though important, were 
 transitory. He was full of the aspiration to set free 
 and help upward humanity, and the historical sub- 
 jects he chose always had to do with the struggle of 
 humanity toward something higher. The first work 
 he ever projected, before the composition of " The 
 Robbers," was a history of the most remarkable re- 
 bellions and conspiracies of the middle and modern 
 ages. The works which he did complete were the 
 story of the " Revolt of the Netherlands," and the 
 "Thirty Years' War." The books show no deep 
 investigation, and have therefore sometimes been 
 lightly prized. His discrimination was, however, 
 excellent ; what materials he had he used to good 
 purpose. He wrote with enthusiasm, showed con- 
 stant improvement, and might no doubt have be- 
 come very great. One of the best of German his- 
 torians has paid him this tribute: " Schiller made 
 use of history to ennoble low views of life, to awaken 
 a spirit of sacrifice for the sake of the greatest ben- 
 efits of life, freedom and religion, to oppose a 
 
 1 Kurz. For a criticism of this position, see Hutton's Essay on 
 G5the.
 
 SCHILLER. 427 
 
 poetic way of consideration to the stiff and dry 
 methods which had prevailed. What was valuable 
 in this department was accessible only to the learned. 
 History, the picture of life, was abandoned to 
 those who quarrelled about dates and names, to 
 pedants who smothered it in prolixity, or lawyers who 
 abused it in inferences. It was therefore a benefit 
 that a great poetic mind should interweave genuine 
 poetry into the story of German life, which had been 
 made in the highest degree prosaic." l 
 
 Schiller had gifts which might have made him a 
 speculative philosopher instead of a poet. The 
 philosophical and poetical tendencies were at first 
 about equally developed in him, and he was em- 
 barrassed between them. He says himself in a 
 letter to Gothe : " The poet in my youth overcame 
 me when I ought to have philosophized, and the 
 philosophical spirit when I wanted to write poetry. 
 Still it often happens to me that the imagination 
 disturbs my abstractions, and the cold understand- 
 ing my poetry." He was strongly drawn to Kant, 
 at that time just rising into fame, whose principles 
 he applied to particular questions in a series of ex- 
 cellent treatises. He was also an admirable critic, 
 often not sparing himself. " The fine arts have no 
 other end than to delight," was one of his dicta, 
 a judgment in which he combated the view that one 
 of the fine arts, poetry, should teach and ex- 
 hort, and so pronounced his own condemnation; for 
 his own poetry was always full of lessons and ex- 
 
 1 Schlosser.
 
 428 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 hortations. He concluded his critical writings with 
 the treatise, the most valuable of the series, to which 
 allusion was made in the preceding chapter, " Upon 
 Naive and Sentimental Poetry." His letters are 
 said by Gothe to belong to his best work ; he was 
 magnificent in conversation, and, had circumstances 
 afforded him the opportunity, might have become a 
 splendid popular orator. 
 
 We have now to consider Schiller in his proper 
 field, as a poet. In his lyrics the man himself 
 constantly shines through ; they are not such tran- 
 scripts of impressions, from which personality has 
 been removed, as we find in Gothc. His first lyrics 
 are blamed as without poetic worth, having, to be 
 sure, enough of passion and fancy, but extravagant 
 and untruthful. Schiller himself afterward con- 
 demned them. They have now only a historical in- 
 terest. But here, as everywhere, he constantly 
 grew. If we wish to see him at his best in this de- 
 partment, we must study him in a series of pieces 
 written in his full maturity, to which Germans give 
 the name cultur-historisch, an adjective difficult to 
 translate. The pieces referred to are partly emo- 
 tional, therefore lyric; partly descriptive, therefore 
 in the German sense epic ; partly designed to 
 convey instruction and exhortation, therefore di- 
 dactic. The pieces deserve some study, because 
 they are thoroughly characteristic of Schiller ; let us 
 take, then, the two most prominent among them, 
 " The AVtilk " and the famous " Song of the Bell." 
 In the first, the poet walking forth beholds a varied 
 landscape. He looks down now upon a lovely
 
 SCHILLER, 429 
 
 plain, now upon a city with all its life, now upon 
 peasant homes, now upon the bustle of a harbor. 
 The descriptions are felicitous everywhere, and 
 everywhere blended with them are theorizings, spec- 
 ulative and historical, regarding the progress of man 
 from barbarism to civilization, then the decadence 
 again to a state of savagery. The descriptions of 
 the landscape interchange with the considerations of 
 the development of humanity, and we have at the 
 end a series of beautiful pictures intertwined with 
 the story of progress from wild beginnings to re- 
 finement, then again the decadence to a state of 
 nature . 
 
 It is a noble poem, but more charming is the 
 peerless " Song of the Bell." This touches the heart 
 far more nearly than " The Walk," for in the latter 
 it is the course of man collectively that is traced, 
 and the consideration becomes abstract ; whereas in 
 the " Son"; of the Boll " it is the <roino; forward of 
 
 o o o 
 
 the individual, through social and civil relations, 
 through changes of joy and sorrow, from the cradle 
 to the grave. Parallel with the unfolding of the 
 picture proceeds the casting of the bell, and the an- 
 nouncement of the functions it is to fulfil when it 
 swings at length in its tower. What graphic power 
 in the presentment, now of sweet innocence, now of 
 noble virtue, now of bliss, now of pain ! The 
 youth's upspringing love, the housewife's decorous 
 thrift, the wholesome prosperity of the man; then 
 the shadows and lurid glares that are thrown across 
 the picture, the mother's coffin in the home, the 
 conflagration, the dreadful civil uproar ! A current of
 
 430 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 rhythm, ever varying, ever melodious, sweetly chim- 
 ing, bears it all past us, now in a quick ripple, 
 now in sober calm, now in convulsive, tossing sunres ; 
 
 O O ' 
 
 and ever and anon is heard the voice of the master 
 calling, and the tones of the bell, now joyous, now 
 mournful, now full of boding terror. It seems 
 almost irreverent to touch "The Walk," much 
 more the " Song of the Bell," with criticism. Yet 
 if we are to judge them by rigid art rules, they are 
 defective. It was Schiller's own dictum that the 
 function of the fine arts, and therefore of poetry, 
 is to give pleasure. If it is made a channel for in- 
 struction, it is a perversion, and the perfect effect 
 is in so far hindered. The didactic purpose of these 
 poems is unmistakable. For pure art the subject- 
 ive is too prominent in them ; the poet plainly pro- 
 ceeds from the idea within himself; by that he is 
 mastered and inspired, and he cares little more for 
 the world outside than to obtain from it the help 
 necessary to its effective expression. They are not 
 a reproduction of life so much as a statement of the 
 poet's ideas about life. It is very noble, but it is not 
 Gothe's way, not Homer's, not Shakespeare's; so 
 Schiller falls, as an artist, here short of the highest. 
 He is however so noble as thinker, as instructor, 
 as preacher, that one feels disposed to say, Perish 
 the art, and let us have in preference the wise and 
 kindling utterances of the teacher ! 
 
 Schiller had plans for great epics, which remained 
 unfulfilled. Descriptive pieces of a shorter kind, 
 romances and ballads, he produced abundantly, and 
 they are among the treasures of German literature.
 
 SCHILLER. 431 
 
 We must pass them here Avithout mention, reserving 
 space to consider the dramas, where Schiller was 
 greatest. As has been noticed, of his dramatic ac- 
 tivity there were two periods, separated by an in- 
 terval of more than ten years. The dramas of his 
 youth ' ' The Robbers , " " Fiesco , " ' * Kabale und 
 Liebe " do not proceed from an effort, in the 
 spirit of an artist, to represent practically the world 
 and life, but from his irresistible impulse to give 
 form and expression to the ideas which stormed upon 
 him ; to express his views upon political, civil, and 
 moral circumstances ; to protest against the crushing 
 out of right and freedom. These dramas are brilliant 
 through fulness, novelty, and nobleness of tone. 
 The language, although violent and turgid, overfull 
 of images, and often coarse, is yet of absorbing 
 power and of truly tempestuous eloquence. The 
 thing wanting to them is the essential thing in a 
 drama, that the action and characters should con- 
 form to life. In these dramas Schiller ventured 
 with great boldness to uncover the pitiableness of 
 the social and political Germany of his time, follow- 
 ing the precedent already set by Lessini? in " Emilia 
 Galotti," only with more audacity. In his later 
 life, as has been said, Schiller himself called the fig- 
 ures of the dramas monsters and caricatures. 1 Tak- 
 ing "The Robbers" as a type of them, we can 
 easily understand what he means. All the charac- 
 ters want truth ; they are not taken from life, but only 
 creatures of fancy. The action too of the play is 
 
 1 Kura.
 
 432 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 not true to lite ; still the wild action corresponds to 
 the personages, and these are consistently carried 
 out ; there are no inner contradictions, though they 
 may contradict reality. The idea which lay at the 
 bottom of ' ' The Robbers ' ' had gone forth from his 
 deepest soul ; it was his own self, and he gave his 
 whole power to its presentment. The action, the 
 characters, were to him the means which he sought 
 to employ for a moral end. He had passed the fair- 
 est time of his youth in what was almost slavery, 
 which not only claimed the conduct of his studies 
 and of his behavior, but sought to fasten the rough- 
 est chains upon his soul. Against this slavery " The 
 Robbers" was directed. It was an intense ex- 
 pression of his excited feeling, his injured manly 
 dignity ; in his vehemence he forgot truth in char- 
 acters and in actions. The German people in that 
 day lay precisely in Schiller's circumstances. As 
 he was bound within the strait-jacket of an oppres- 
 sive school discipline, the people were bound within 
 the yet more oppressive restrictions of the existing 
 civil order, robbed of their outer as well as inner 
 freedom. What thousands had already felt was ex- 
 pressed in " The Robbers " with great-hearted bold- 
 ness. He dared to indicate that only a <;eneral in- 
 
 / O 
 
 surrection can lead, under such circumstances, to 
 the better. Karl Moor became a robber because 
 only in this way could he fight the destructive social 
 order and heal the wounds which it had made. But 
 the higher moral feeling which was born and had 
 grown with Schiller caused him also to recognize the 
 
 *-' O 
 
 eternal doctrine that the good cannot be reached
 
 SCHILLER. 433 
 
 in the way of crime. Karl ^.ioor had not merely 
 fallen into strife with the social order, but also with 
 morality, and therefore must perish. His revolt 
 against social order does not seem blameAvorthy ; 
 he only considers himself liable to punishment be- 
 cause he has wanted to attack the course of Provi- 
 dence. In " The Robbers " the incurable defects of 
 the social circumstances of Schiller's time are rep- 
 resent c i .1 in the most glowing colors. The idea run- 
 ning through it, most vividly presented, can be 
 thus expressed : "The social conditions are rotten 
 to the core ; they need a complete reformation, 
 through which it will become possible to the individ- 
 ual to make available the talent God has given 
 him, without in that way falling into discord with 
 the social order." l 
 
 " Kabale und Liebe " is a piece which perhaps 
 especially among the works of Schiller should ap- 
 peal to Americans, as it is, I believe, the only one 
 in which he in any way touches upon the events of 
 our history. I have found nothing inSchiller more 
 moving than the account of the departure of the 
 Hessians for their service under George III., 
 nearly the whole of the healthy young manhood of 
 the land, torn from bride and wife with club and 
 sabre-thrust, taxed as cattle, and sent unconsulted 
 to the confines of the earth. The dialogue is be- 
 tween a good-hearted mistress of the duke and an 
 old chamberlain, who brings her from the potentate 
 a present of jewels. 
 
 1 Kurz. 
 28
 
 484 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 " TJie Lady (opens the casket and starts back ter- 
 rified). Man I what does thy duke pay for these 
 stones ? 
 
 " Chamberlain (with gloomy face). They cost 
 him not a farthing. 
 
 "Lady. "What ! art thou mad? 'Nothing?' and 
 you look at me as if you would pierce me through. 
 Do these stones, so immeasurably precious, cost 
 nothing? 
 
 " Chamcvrlain. Yesterday seven thousand chil- 
 dren of the land were sent to America ; they pay for 
 everything. 
 
 ''Lady. Man, what is the matter with thee? I 
 believe you are weeping. 
 
 " Chamberlain (wipes his eyes, with a terrible 
 voice, all his limbs trembling). Jewels like those 
 there I too have two sons among them. 
 
 "Lady. But no one compelled? 
 
 "Chamberlain (laughs fearfully). O God ! No 
 only volunteers ! Some forward fellows stepped 
 out before the line and asked the colonel at what 
 price a yoke the prince was selling men. But our 
 most gracious master had all the regiments march 
 out on the Parade place, and the impertinent fel- 
 lows shot down. We heard the muskets ring, saw 
 their brains spatter the pavement, and the whole 
 army cried, " Hurrah for America ! " 
 
 "Lady. God! God! and I heard nothing no- 
 ticed nothing ! 
 
 "Chamberlain. Yes, gracious lady! How did 
 you happen to be riding with our gracious master 
 on the Bareiihatz just as they struck up the signal
 
 SCHILLER. 435 
 
 for marching ? You ought not to have lost the 
 brilliant spectacle when the rolling drums announced 
 to us that it was time, and here wailing orphans fol- 
 lowed a living father, and there a mad mother ran 
 to spit her sucking child on the bayonets ; and how 
 they hewed bride and bridegroom apart with sabre- 
 cuts, while we graybeards stood there in despair, 
 and at last threw our crutches after the fellows ! O, 
 and in the midst of all the thundering drums that 
 God might not hear us pray 
 
 "Lady. Away with these stones, they lighten 
 the flames of hell into my heart. Calm thyself, 
 poor old man. They will return they will see 
 their fatherland again. 
 
 "Chamberlain. Heaven knows ! At the city gate 
 they turned and cried, ' God be with you, wives 
 and children ! Long live our good father, the 
 prince! At the judgment-day we shall be there ! ' " l 
 
 In "Don Carlos," the last drama of Schiller's 
 first period, we may see a change preparing. It is 
 indeed, like the dramas which precede it, a pure 
 subjective picture, very definitely the expression of 
 his own nature. What the different characters say is 
 nothing else than what the poet thinks and feels. 
 The effort however after a more artistic method 
 may be already seen ; the language, though often 
 turgid and passionate, is yet more noble and natural 
 than in the earlier pieces. As has been mentioned 
 in the sketch of his life, after the composition of 
 " Don Carlos," Schiller wrote no play for ten years. 
 
 1 Kabale und Liebe, act ii., scene 2.
 
 436 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Meantime, through historical and philosophical stud- 
 ies, he won a deeper insight into art, a better 
 knowledge of men and life. He largely conquered 
 his tendency toward the abstract. His acquaintance 
 with Gothe was affecting him deeply. Turned by 
 his influence, at length, to his proper field, he writes 
 dramas henceforth, which, with one exception, are 
 borrowed from history, and he prepares himself for 
 them by thorough studies. Although he constantly 
 approaches more nearly to an objective presentment, 
 his characters always becoming more definite and 
 individual, he did not give up his lofty ideas ; they 
 became more pure, calm, and rich through his 
 study and experience. He learned, at length, how 
 to penetrate and enliven his plays with them with- 
 out destroying objective truth ; so that with a high 
 artistic worth the plays offer depth of thought, 
 and, what is still higher, moral nobility, a sublim- 
 ity of tone such as we meet in scarcely any other 
 German poet. Thus he became in a marked way 
 the educator of the German people, upon whose 
 moral and political development he had the most de- 
 cided and enduring influence. 1 
 
 Schiller opened his second dramatic period with 
 the magnificent trilogy of " Wallcnstein," his most 
 elaborate production, upon which he worked for 
 seven years. Artistically, it is imperfect, and he 
 afterwards surpassed it. It is variously judged, but 
 to my mind no pl:iys of Schiller are so impressive. 
 Taking for his hero the most powerful and pictur- 
 
 1 Kurz.
 
 SCHILLER. 437 
 
 esque figure of the Thirty Years' War, that time of 
 terror is reproduced most vividly. The central per- 
 sonage subdues the soul of the reader with a spell 
 such as the historic character exerted upon the men 
 of his generation. The dark figures who form the 
 group in whose centre he stands fascinate while 
 they terrify ; and among them are characters pure 
 and lovely even among the creations of Schiller, 
 the fairest ideals of his noble soul. 
 
 Let us study the series of plays, " Wallenstein's 
 Camp," the " Piccolomini," " Wallenstein's Death," 
 more closely. It is in fact one long dramatic piece, 
 broken into three for convenience of representation. 
 
 The circumstances of the hero's career will be re- 
 called from a previous chapter. Wallenstein pushes 
 a way for himself from obscurity to the pinnacle of 
 power. Of unmatched military skill and ability in 
 influencing men, he subdues Europe for his master, 
 Ferdinand II. In his might he becomes dangerous ; 
 he is accused of treason at last, and murdered, with 
 the connivance of the court. 
 
 The time of the drama is close upon the end of 
 Wallenstein's career. The gigantic figure who is 
 the centre of the whole is not at once presented to 
 us. First, in the " Camp," we have the soldiers in 
 the ranks. Troops in uniforms of all colors are 
 swarming ; Croats and Uhlans are cooking at fires ; 
 others throw dice on drum-heads. There are peas- 
 ants who have been stripped of every thing, and have 
 come to the soldiers to beg or steal, as it may hap- 
 pen. Women of the camp sell food and drink, and 
 carry on rough flirtations with the men. Now it is
 
 438 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 a wild carouse whose uproar is uppermost, then a 
 quarrel, then a rude harangue. Representatives of 
 the historic corps that make up the army one after 
 another become spokesmen, the dragoons of But- 
 tler, the jaegers of Hoik, the light cavalry of Iso- 
 lani, the cuirassiers of Pappenheim. Some are 
 from Southern Belgium, Walloons ; some Italians, 
 Irish, Scotch, Swiss, North Germans, Bohemians ; 
 some from the extreme frontier toward the Turks. 
 It appears from their conversation that they have 
 changed from party to party, crossed and recrossed 
 the continent in their campaigns, plundered and 
 struggled in the wildest of forays and inarches. What 
 is it that binds the utterly heterogeneous mass to- 
 gether, who seem to have no link of sympathy, no 
 common faith, tongue, or race? It is made to ap- 
 pear that it is the mysterious spell of Wallenstein 
 alone, and we come to feel in many ways the strange 
 supremacy he exercises. They are the offscourings 
 of the earth, but most picturesque in their rascality, 
 and the awe with which their leader has inspired 
 them, as their lawless talk records it, has in it some- 
 thing of the sublime. " Not he it is," says the pro- 
 logue to the first representation of the " Camp " at 
 Weimar, " who will appear to-night upon the scene ; 
 but in the audacious squadrons whom his will might- 
 ily sways, whom his spirit ensouls, you shall en- 
 counter his shadow, until the muse d.ires to place 
 the man himself before you in his living form." It 
 is a towering, extraordinary personality, which, un- 
 seen, already oppresses us as a thing of grandeur. 
 " I have seen them perform ' Wallenstein's Camp,' '
 
 SCHILLER. 439 
 
 says Madame de Stael. " It seemed as if we were 
 in the midst of an army. The impression it pro- 
 duces is so warlike that when it was performed on 
 the stage in Berlin before the soldiers, who were 
 about to depart for the army, shouts of enthusiasm 
 were heard on every side." J 
 
 When we pass from the ranks to the circle of the 
 officers, with whom we find ourselves in the " Pic- 
 colomini," though the station is higher, the tone is 
 as reckless as in the intercourse of the jaegers and 
 musketeers. The chiefs are assembling with their 
 troops and squadrons at Pilsen, in Bohemia, all 
 names luridly famous, for the most part brave in the 
 battle-field, and merciless in the foray and sack of 
 cities. Only two are of a different type, Octavio 
 and Max Piccolomini, father and son, to both of 
 whom TVallenstein is represented as strongly bound, 
 and who are trusted in the highest degree. Max, 
 although but a youth, is a famous soldier ; and 
 when for the last time the bloody sabres had burned 
 forth in the battle ardor on the brow of Pappen- 
 heim and he sank at Liitzen, the cuirassiers chose 
 Max at once to be their colonel in his place. Alone 
 among the leaders he is not an historic figure ; he is 
 Schiller's own creation, into which he poured his 
 conception of nobleness. He is the darling of the 
 troopers, and also of his peers in rank, who speak 
 enthusiastically of his deeds of prowess. Octavio 
 is represented as astute and politic, secretly schem- 
 ing to overthrow the designs of Walleustein, not 
 
 1 "L'Allemagne."
 
 440 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 from hatred for him, but because he is loyal to the 
 emperor. To avoid treason to the kaiser he com- 
 mits treason toward his friend, and is the instru- 
 ment through whom the duke's schemes are thwarted. 
 Uncurbed as the leaders are, the power of Fried- 
 land is supreme over all except Octavio, and when 
 an imperial councillor from the court at Vienna ap- 
 pears among them, he scarcely escapes violent treat- 
 ment. Octavio Piccolomini alone shows him re- 
 spect. Max meets him with coldness and reproaches, 
 and in one passionate outburst hints escape which 
 prove to his father that he loves Thekla, the daugh- 
 ter of Wallenstein. 
 
 And now at length, after the shadow which has 
 been impending more and more heavily, the sub- 
 stance itself appears. The immediate prelude to 
 the entrance of Wallenstein emphasizes that vision- 
 ary side of his character which Schiller makes so 
 prominent, and which has much to do with the fasci- 
 nation felt by the beholder. Scni, the astrologer, 
 prepares the presence-chamber, muttering spells 
 and ordering the furniture as the stars decree. 
 The baton of command is brought in by a page, and 
 the great doors at the rear are swung back. Lud- 
 wig Tieck has given an account of the impression 
 made by an actor of genius who appeared in the 
 part of Wallenstein at the first representation : " As 
 he entered, it seemed to the spectators as if an in- 
 visible protecting power went with him ; in every 
 word the deep, proud man implied a superhuman 
 mastery belonging to him alone. Ho spoke ear- 
 nestly and truly only to himself; to all others he
 
 SCRTLLER. 44 1 
 
 condescended. One felt that he lived in a sublime 
 illusion, and as often as he raised his voice in order 
 to speak about the stars and their influence, a mys- 
 terious awe seized upon the auditors." 1 
 
 It has been acutely said that in Wallenstein we 
 see both Hamlet and Macbeth. 2 He is like Hamlet 
 in his protracted hesitation before decision. Schiller 
 represents him as still undetermined before a crime, 
 the thought of committing which he has long enter- 
 tained. At his entrance his soul is still halting. 
 Shall he remain true to his allegiance to the em- 
 peror, or plunge into the treason which he has been 
 meditating ? His wife tells him of slights put upon 
 her at Vienna ; his sister urges him to revolt. While 
 seated among his generals, the imperial councillor, 
 in a speech full of dignity, rehearses the leader's past 
 services, the wonderful array of battles, marches, con- 
 quests ; then calls him to account for his present 
 negligence. Wallenstein rises angrih 7 ; his subordi- 
 nates are full of sullen mutiny, but the leader is 
 Hamlet still. There are certain conspirators whose 
 interest it is to push Wallenstein over the brink 
 from which he has so long recoiled. Octavio they 
 distrust ; but when a suspicion of him is suggested 
 to Wallenstein, the leader thrusts it aside with dis- 
 dain. 
 
 Teachest thou 
 
 Me to know my followers ? Sixteen times 
 I've marched in service with that old campaigner! 
 Besides, I've cast his horoscope, and know 
 We both are born beneath like constellations. 8 
 
 1 Quoted by Scherr. Das Leben Schillers. 
 
 2 D. F. Strauss. 
 
 * Piccolomini, act ii, scene 2.
 
 442 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The conspirators undertake to procure from the 
 leaders a promise of unconditional submission to 
 Wallenstein, accomplishing this end by means of a 
 trick, while they are plunged in the revelry of a 
 banquet. Max alone foils them, but they hope to 
 secure him through his love for Thekla. And what 
 is the portraiture of Thekla? The purest loveliness 
 and heroism ! From her earliest childhood she has 
 been educated in a cloister, separated from her 
 father, of whom she only knows as the rumor of 
 his exploits has sounded into the quiet of her retire- 
 ment. Just arrived at womanhood, she is sent for 
 by him, and to Max is entrusted the charge, at 
 the head of the Pappenheimers, of conducting 
 her through the troubled country to her father's 
 camp. She loves the paladin whom she thus en- 
 counters, and who also offers his love to her. At 
 length, attired in the splendor befitting a princess, 
 she appears before her father, who receives her 
 with warm admiration. His love for her is great, 
 but he means to make her the instrument of his 
 ambition. 
 
 Lo ! against fate I murmured 
 That it denied a son to me, who might be 
 Heir of my name and fortune in the future, 
 In a proud line of princes might send forward 
 This life of mine, so soon to be extinguished. 
 To fate I did injustice. Here on this 
 Young head, so sweet with maiden bloom, I'll lay 
 My wreath of glory won in fields of warfare. 
 Not as for lost I'll count it, if some time 
 I twine it round her brow so beautiful, 
 Transformed into a regal decoration. 1 
 
 1 Piccolomini, act ii, scene 3.
 
 SCHILLER. 448 
 
 The conspirators plot to chain Max, through her, 
 to her father's side. She sees that she is being 
 used in some way for a purpose, precisely what she 
 cannot divine. The scenes between the lovers are 
 . full of beauty, but she warns the unsuspecting Max 
 to be on his guard. When alone, in sorrowful fore- 
 boding that nothing but misfortune lies before them, 
 she sings the heart-breaking song which stands 
 in German poetry with the cries of Margaret in 
 " Faust," the masterpieces of pathos. 
 
 Not until Max hears it from his father has the 
 thought occurred to him that Wallenstein could 
 commit treason. He pronounces it utterly incredi- 
 ble. Octavio presses upon him with proofs, telling 
 him at last that he had it from the duke's own lips 
 that he meant to join the Swedes. Even now Max 
 lefuses to believe, and nothing marks his spotless 
 nobleness more plainly than his outspoken aversion 
 to his father's conduct, who maintains toward Fried- 
 land the mask of friendship while secretly hostile. 
 Octavio claims that, for reasons of policy, the delu- 
 sion must be maintained. Max will listen to no 
 explanation, but bursts forth : 
 
 Oh, this state policy! How do I curse it! 
 You will, through your state policy, yet drive him 
 Into some step. Ah, yes ; it may be 
 Because you wish the noble leader guilty, 
 Guilty ye'll make him. 1 
 
 He hurries forth, determined to learn the truth 
 from Friedland himself. 
 
 1 Piccolomini, act v, scene 3.
 
 444 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 For a long time it is the Hamlet phase of Wal- 
 lenstein that we see. He stands on the brink of 
 the crime, but it is too great for him, as the duty 
 laid upon Hamlet was too great. He still palters in 
 suspense, observing the courses of the stars ; and 
 even when word conies that" his trusted messenger, 
 with papers proving his intercourse with the enemy, 
 has been taken prisoner and is in the emperor's 
 hands, he cannot persuade himself that it is too late 
 to withdraw if he chooses. Already in the camp a 
 Swedish colonel has appeared, commissioned to 
 conclude with him the treason. With soldierly 
 definiteness the Swede gives the conditions of the 
 bargain, and at the sharp statement Wallcnstein 
 recoils. The conspirators surround him in anguish. 
 Now it is that his sister, the countess, with taunts 
 and arguments that recall Lady Macbeth, finally 
 stings the vacillator into determination. He signs 
 the compact with the Swede, and is henceforth 
 prompt and bold. 
 
 Wallenstcm entrusts to Octavio the charge of 
 bringing to the camp from a distance the Spanish 
 regiments, and when, immediately after, Max comes 
 to him as he has threatened, in order to learn the 
 truth, Friedland confirms all that Octavio has re- 
 ported. The conspirators are aghast that Octavio 
 has been sent away. "Wallenstein tells them mys- 
 teriously why it is that he puts such trust in him. 
 
 In human life come sometimes moments when 
 Man to the world-soul nearer is than common, 
 And questions freely with his destiny; 
 And such an hour it was, when in the night
 
 SCHILLER. 445 
 
 That passed before the bloody fight at Liitzen, 
 
 Thoughtful, against a tree I leaning stood, 
 
 And looked forth o'er the plain. The soldiers' fires 
 
 Burned luridly within the wrapping mist. 
 
 The dull, far crash of arms, the sentry's cry 
 
 Monotonous, alone the stillness broke. 
 
 I yearned to know who was the trustiest 
 
 Of all the souls whom the great camp encompassed. 
 
 " Give me a sign, O fate," I prayed. " It shall be 
 
 He who next morning comes to meet me first, 
 
 Bringing along some token of aifection." 
 
 Straightway I fell asleep, as thus I pondered, 
 
 And, in the spirit, into battle rushed. 
 
 Great was the press ; a bullet killed my horse ; 
 
 I sank, and over me indifferently 
 
 Passed horse and rider in the fearful charge. 
 
 Panting I lay, like unto some one dying, 
 
 Crushed into dust beneath the trampling hoofs. 
 
 Then seized me suddenly a helpful arm. 
 
 It was Octavio's. I sudden woke ; 
 
 Lo, day had dawned ; Octavio stood before me. 
 
 "My brother," said he, (> do not ride to-day 
 
 The dapple, as you're wont, but rather mount 
 
 This surer steed which I have chosen for thee: 
 
 Do it in love to me ; a dream has warned me." 
 
 It was that horse's swiftness that did snatch me 
 
 From the dragoons of Bannier, hard at hand. 
 
 My cousin rode the dapple on that day, 
 
 And horse and rider saw I never more. 1 
 
 " That was a chance," says Illo, one of the con- 
 spirators. Tieck, describing the performance of the 
 great actor,, from whose account I have already 
 quoted, says of the rendering of this passage : 
 " During the recitation, his powerful eye lost itself, 
 as if it were pleased with wandering in the shadows 
 of the invisible world. A weird smile triumphed 
 
 1 Wallenstein's Death, act ii, scene 3.
 
 446 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 at the infallibility of the dreams and forebodings. 
 The words flowed mechanically almost, as if it were 
 superfluous to say that the rider of the dapple must 
 be lost ; and hardly had Illo said the words, * That 
 was a chance,' than with the passage, 
 
 There is no chance ; 
 And what to us seems blindest destiny, 
 Precisely that springs from the deepest sources, 
 
 the whole giant greatness of the star superstition 
 rises. As if from immediate inspiration, he said, 
 
 'Tis signed and sealed that he is my good angel, 
 
 and concluded then, as if injured and disturbed, 
 
 And now no word more." 
 
 Octavio, though in power far below Wallenstein, 
 is much superior to his fellow-generals. Before he 
 departs on the mission which Friedland, in his blind 
 trust, has given him, he wins his comrades artfully 
 to his side, one after another. They easily are led 
 to disregard their compact of unconditional submis- 
 sion ; to them oaths and signatures are of little 
 moment at best, and this was unfairly extorted. 
 Most important of all, with bold adroitness he 
 gains the Irish mercenary, the ruthless Buttler, con- 
 triving to excite his rage by revealing to him an 
 injury committed upon him by the duke. Buttler 
 enters with a devilish zeal into Octavio' s plot, en- 
 treating to be left with his dragoons near Wallen- 
 stein, darkly saying : 
 
 By the living God, 
 Ye give him over to his evil angel !
 
 SCHILLER. 447 
 
 Max too, in spite of Octavio's threats and com- 
 mands, remains behind with the Pappenheimers. 
 
 While the ground is thus undermined beneath his 
 feet, Wallenstein remains serenely ignorant. The 
 leaders who have been so loud-voiced in their de- 
 votion, in fear before the danger of the treason or 
 won by bribes, fall away from him. One by one, in 
 the night and in silence, with treachery as dark as 
 that of him whom they betray, a coil within the 
 coil, they depart with their troops, the ranks not 
 knowing the why and wherefore of the breathless tu- 
 mult until they are far away. There are left behind 
 the distracted Max, and the grim mercenary grown 
 gray amid scenes of terror, to whom Wallenstein is 
 delivered over as to an evil angel. The stars have 
 as yet uttered no hint of danger, and the leader 
 stands unsuspicious while the thunders are about 
 to break upon him. Never has his pride towered 
 so high. He learns now for the first time of the 
 love of Thekla and Max. His cheek reddens with 
 a haughty flush : 
 
 I love him, hold him worthy, but I pray, 
 What has that with my daughter's hand to do? 
 He is a subject, and my son-in-law 
 I will upon the thrones of Europe seek. 
 Crowned I will see her, or I will not live. 
 
 Even at this very moment come messengers with 
 evil tidings. 
 
 " Was it your command that the Croats should 
 go forth? All the villages around are empty." 
 
 ' ' Did you despatch Deodat ? . He has gone with- 
 out sign; so Gotz, Maradas, Kolatto."
 
 448 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Close upon the heels of one messenger follows 
 another, bolt upon bolt, until Wallenstein sinks as 
 if stunned, his face in his hands. 1 Of the part 
 Octavio has played, even he can no longer doubt ; 
 pathetically he apostrophizes his false friend, and 
 recovering himself, towers more grandly in the mis- 
 fortune. He steps forth in armor, sword in hand, a 
 war-god in might and majesty, in the guise in which 
 he has swept so often to victory, with all the power, 
 though without the frenzy, of the desperate Macbeth. 
 
 In the night only Friedland's star can beam. 
 
 * * * Doubt disappears ; 
 I fight now for my head and for my life. 
 
 A scene of extraordinary tenderness and most 
 picturesque power follows. Ten cuirassiers, a depu- 
 tation from the Pappenheimers, the " Old Guard" 
 of this Napoleon of a former time, inarch in with 
 steady discipline, led by a corporal It is Max's 
 regiment, the flower of the army. Imagine them, 
 gray, stalwart, scarred, in corslets dinted with the 
 blows of Liitzen, stepping with one foot-beat, drawn 
 up at length in rigid line. The lofty leader receives 
 them with deep respect, addressing them one by one 
 by name. 
 
 " I know thee well. Thou art out of Briiggen, 
 in Flanders. Thy name is Merci, Henri Merci. 
 Thou wert cut olf on the march, surrounded by the 
 Hessians, and didst tight thy way with a hundred and 
 fifty through their thousand. ' ' Turning to a second, 
 
 1 Wallenstein's Death, act iii, scene 4.
 
 SCHILLER. 449 
 
 "Thou wert among the volunteers that seized the 
 Swedish battery at Altenburg." To a third, " And 
 thou it was who broughtest in the Swedish Colonel 
 Diibald, in the camp at Niirnberg." 
 
 Each has done some heroic deed, and the only 
 promotion desired or received is the privilege of 
 serving in this corps. They have come to learn 
 from the duke's own lips what he intends. They 
 discredit the reports as to his treason, and will 
 stand by him unless he tells them himself he is a 
 traitor. Wallenstein talks with them as friend to 
 friend, though sundered so widely in rank, yet dear 
 brothers in arms, loving and beloved, comrades since 
 youth through dangers and hardships untold, in- 
 separably bound to one another until now. He 
 gives utterance to the nobler purpose that is blended 
 with his ambition, to restore to the empire peace 
 after the weary years of war ; and as he unfolds his 
 design, so grandly beneficent, when we think of the 
 character of the court from which he has torn him- 
 self, we feel like saying: "Better faithlessness 
 with such aims than fidelity to the bigot and ty- 
 rant.' ' The simple hearts of the soldiers are touched. 
 He has not yet distinctly said that he means to ac- 
 complish this by being false to his oath. A tremor 
 of indecision passes along the rigid line ; the knees 
 seem about to bend, that falling before him they 
 may promise him new fidelity, and the bearded lips 
 quiver toward a shout of enthusiasm. But Buttler 
 breaks in impetuously : " General, your body-guard 
 are tearing the imperial eagles from their banners." 
 It is a definite act of treason. Abruptly the corporal 
 
 29
 
 450 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 gives the command, " March." They are again men 
 of iron. "Halt, children, halt ! " cries Wallenstein, 
 despairingly . Onward they go , in utter disobedience . 
 They are out of the presence, with their comrades, 
 and instantly the whole corps is drawn out before the 
 palace with hostile purpose. They demand their 
 colonel, Max, who they declare is there a prisoner. 
 Max is indeed there, the prisoner of love, stand- 
 ing at Thckla's side. Wallenstein threatens and ap- 
 peals ; Max wrestles with his agony ; while, with 
 an increasing uproar of shouts and cannon-shot, 
 the Pappenheimers press on from without. Shall 
 the youth follow his duty, or stay with his traitor 
 leader and the maid to whom his soul is given ? He 
 appeals to Thekla, unmanned as he is, to decide for 
 him. The passage that follows is the most exalted 
 in the drama. Thekla, although in the decision her 
 heart breaks, bids him not hesitate : 
 
 Follow thy first impulse. 
 True to thyself, so art thou true to me ; 
 Fate separates us, yet our hearts are one. 
 A bloody gap must part eternally 
 Thee from the ill-starred house of Wallenstein. 
 Forth, forth ; O, hasten quickly forth, to sever 
 Thy cause from ours, for our cause is accursed. 
 My father's guilt hurls me too to destruction. 1 
 
 Just here is heard from without a loud, wild, 
 long-resounding cry, " Vivat Ferdinandus ! " Cui- 
 rassiers, with drawn sxvords, throng into the hall, 
 collecting fast in the background, while spirited 
 passages from the Pappenheimers' march seem to 
 
 1 Wallenstein's Death, act iii, scene 21.
 
 SCHILLER. 451 
 
 call their chief. For the last time Max^seeks to 
 approach Thekla ; but Wallenstein, determined, in 
 his vesture of. steel, stands between. Max cries: 
 
 Blow, blow, ye trumpets, all so wild and shrill ! 
 
 "Would that ye were the trumpets of the Swedes 
 
 That I might go from hence straight to the field, 
 
 At once recehe into my tortured breast 
 
 These nuked swords that flash around me here. 
 
 What would j'ou? have you come to force me hence? 
 
 Drive me not onward into black despair. 
 
 Think what you do. Comrades, it is not well 
 
 To choose a desperate man to lead you on. 
 
 What, will you tear me forth? Ah, well! Ah, well! 
 
 To Furies dark I dedicate your souls ; 
 
 It is your own destruction you have chosen. 
 
 Who goes with me, let him go forth to die. 1 
 
 The hall has become completely filled with armed 
 men ; the trumpets are blowing with shorter pauses ; 
 everywhere is the gleam of rapidly-brandished steel ?' 
 A quick movement among the cuirassiers, they are 
 forth, bearing Max in their midst. 
 
 And what is the end ? From Pilsen the scene is 
 transferred to the fortress of Eger, whither the trai- 
 tor Wallenstein has hurried to meet the Swedes. 
 On their way they hear heavy firing, for which they 
 cannot account. Suddenly news comes by a Swedish 
 courier which thrills them all. This is his message : 
 
 We stood, by no means thinking of attack, 
 At Xeustadt, covered by but weak entrenchments, 
 When near the evening heavy clouds of dust 
 Came rolling from the wood. Our vanguard flying 
 Rushed into camp and cried the foe were close 
 We had but time to throw ourselves like lightning 
 
 1 Wallenstein's Death, act iii, scene 23,
 
 452 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Into the saddle, when in full career 
 The Pappenheirners through our rampart broke. 
 In utter rashness had their courage led them 
 Far on before the rest. The Pappenheimers 
 Alone had followed bold their leader bold. 
 Recovering, in flank and front we pressed them 
 Most hotly with the horse straight to the ditch ; 
 There stood the foot, hastily ranked, but stretching 
 A hedge of pikes to meet them as they came. 
 Forward they could not ; they could not retreat, 
 Wedged in a crowd within the fearful strait. 
 Then cried the Rhein-graf to their leader fierce 
 Good terms proposing, if they would surrender. 
 But Colonel Piccolomini (his helmet plume 
 And flowing hair, disordered in the foray, 
 Had made him known) gave signal for the trench. 
 And spurred his noble horse across the first. 
 His regiment leaped after, but 'twas done ! 
 Pierced by a pike, his charger madly reared, 
 Threw to the ground his rider, and away 
 Over his body plunged the maddened troop, 
 Not heeding any longer bit or bridle. 
 Then raging desperation seized the men; 
 When they beheld their leader fall and perish, 
 They thought no longer of their own salvation. 
 They fought like raging tigers, and our force 
 No quarter showed, enraged by the resistance. 
 The dreadful battle's end came not until 
 Their last man fell. 
 
 To-day we buried him. 
 
 Twelve youths of noblest birth the body carried; 
 The whole command accompanied the bier; 
 A laurel decked the coffin, and the Rhein-graf 
 Himself placed there his own victorious sword. 
 Tears were not wanting for his fate unhappy. 
 Many of ours have known his spirit's greatness, 
 And felt his gentleness when taken captive. 
 His fate touched all of us; the Rhein-graf longed 
 To spare his life, but he himself refused it. 
 'Tis said he wished to die. 1 
 
 1 Wallenstein's Death, act iv, scene 10.
 
 SCHILLER. 453 
 
 
 
 This is the message. Thekla totters under the 
 stroke ; for the moment her mind becomes disor- 
 dered. She hears her lover's voice calling to her 
 from afar ; around her troop the multitudinous 
 ghosts of those who died with him, reproaching her 
 for being less faithful than they. She goes forth in 
 the night to the grave where the Swedes have buried 
 him, and we see her no more. 
 
 We are now at the close. As night comes, the 
 conspirators, secure of making junction with the 
 Swedes close at hand, engage in loud revel. Sus- 
 picion is everywhere lulled ; AVallenstein, in a re- 
 mote wing of the fortress, prepares for rest ; but we 
 know what it means when the gloomy Buttler says to 
 a subordinate : 
 
 Find me twelve strong dragoons ; arm them with pikes, 
 For there must be no firing. 
 
 In the shadows the soul of Wallenstein is cast down. 
 He utters a manly outburst of grief over the youth 
 he has loved : 
 
 See him again ! Oh, never, never again ! 
 
 He is the fortunate ; his life is ended. 
 
 For him there is no longer any future, 
 
 And fate for him no farther treachery spins. 
 
 His life lies foldless, shining pure behind him. 
 
 No darkness spots it. No unhappy hour 
 
 Knocks for him now, some fell misfortune bringing. 
 
 Far has he gone from wish and fear; belongs 
 
 No more to the deceitful, fickle planets. 
 
 Oh. it is well with him ; but who shall say 
 
 What the next hour, so darkly veiled, brings us? 1 
 
 He lies down perturbed. The relentless Buttler has 
 
 Wallenstein's Death, act v, scene 3.
 
 454 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 planned all well. The conspirators are slain at the 
 feast, and now the evil angel hovers above the 
 greater victim. A chamberlain interposes, and is 
 run through the bodv by a dragoon. There is a 
 
 o / / o 
 
 rush over the form into a gallery ; two doors are 
 heard to crash, one after another, as they are burst 
 in, voices deadened by the distance, a clash of arms, 
 then all at once a profound silence. The deed is 
 done. 
 
 The trilogy of " "Wallenstein " is a magnificent 
 picture of the seventeenth century, faithful to the 
 minutest details. In preparing for the representa- 
 tion Schiller did not disdain to take anxious care 
 even for the costuming ; and even Gothe, who 
 during the seven long years of its composition had 
 been taken again and again into counsel, and beheld 
 the result of his friend's intense labor with enthusi- 
 asm, concerned himself to have strictly correct the 
 fashion of the doublets, the length of the partisans, 
 the workmanship of the swords, as he had before 
 concerned himself with the conception of the char- 
 acters. In a letter which Schiller writes to his 
 friend Korner, he says : " My deepest heart is not 
 fairly interested in the work. I am somewhat cold 
 with all my enthusiasm. Two figures exccpted, 
 Max and Thekla, whom I love, I treat all the rest, 
 especially the main character, merely with the love 
 of the artist." The remark, if we develop what lies 
 within it, is very significant. For the most part, 
 the characters of" Wallenstein" are men of violence, 
 thrown to the surface in a period of convulsion, 
 tragically picturesque, but shapes of terror. In Wai-
 
 CHILLER, 455 
 
 lenstein something higher indeed is presented, but 
 in him the ruling quality is boundless ambition. He 
 is originally noble, and his finer nature long holds 
 him back from the abyss of crime. Even when his 
 treason is committed, we feel that it is immensely 
 palliated by the beneficence which he means to work, 
 as he describes it in his speech to the wavering Pap- 
 penheimers. Still it is the securing of good by the 
 commission of evil ; to the bonds of an evil passion 
 he is distinctly a captive, and he sacrifices to his sin- 
 ful selfishness the happiness of those he loves best, 
 his daughter Thekla and Max. It is all magnificent 
 and impressive, this mighty star-questioning Titan, 
 about whose feet bend submissively so many thousand 
 darkened souls, but we can understand Schiller 
 when he says his heart is not interested in him. 
 Toward Max and Thekla, however, his heart goes 
 forth. These portraitures, as a great writer has 
 said, "are two forms of celestial beauty, who dif- 
 fuse an ethereal radiance over all this tragedy ; they 
 call forth the finer feelings, where other feelings had 
 been aroused ; they superadd to the stirring pomp of 
 scenes which had already kindled our imaginations 
 the enthusiasm of bright, unworn humanity, the 
 bloom of young desire, the purple light of love. 
 There are few scenes in poetry more sublimely pa- 
 thetic than their parting. We behold the sinking, 
 but still fiery, glory of Wallenstein, opposed to the 
 impetuous despair of Max, torn asunder by the 
 claims of duty and love; the calm, but broken- 
 hearted, Thekla. There is a physical pomp cor- 
 responding to the moral grandeur of the action ;
 
 456 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the successive revolt and departure of the troops is 
 heard without the walls of the palace ; the trumpets 
 of the Pappenheimers reecho the wild feelings of 
 their leader. Max is forced away by his soldiers, 
 and next day come tidings of his fate, which no 
 heart is hard enough to bear unmoved." l 
 
 Precisely where Wallenstein is wanting, on the 
 moral side, are Max and The Ida- strong. Max is 
 aghast at the very mention by his father of Wallen- 
 stein' s meditated treason, and heart-broken at its 
 confirmation. The incomparable Thekla, at the 
 moment of crisis, flings to the winds his happiness 
 and her own, while she bids him be faithful, and 
 abandon her father and herself. There is in them 
 fidelity to the highest duty. 
 
 "A poem," says Taine, "is like a shell. Behind 
 the shell there was an animal ; behind the poem 
 too was a man. We know the creature from the 
 convolutions which were moulded upon him ; we 
 know the soul by that which grew upon it and from 
 it." 2 The " Wallenstein " grew upon and from the 
 spirit of Schiller ; we see the soul through the 
 work, the creature through the convolutions of 
 the shell. But is it always so? Do the greatest 
 poetic artists thus reveal themselves ? Shakespeare 
 does not ; Homer does not ; Gothe, at his best, docs 
 not. The remark has been quoted that Schiller 
 always shines through in his plays. To apply to 
 Schiller the figure of Taine is only expressing the 
 
 1 Carlyle : Life of Schiller. 
 
 2 Histoire de la Literature Anglaiae.
 
 SCHILLER. 457 
 
 same idea by a different trope. " Wallenstein " was 
 moulded upon the soul of Schiller, a soul very 
 lovable, but the fact that it is so visible detracts 
 from the artistic result. It is plainly a subjective 
 composition, the poet bodying forth the ideals of 
 his own spirit, not painting the world of men and 
 women. Though truer to nature than the characters 
 of "The Robbers," the figures in "Wallenstein" 
 are far enough from being Shakespearian tran- 
 scripts. Max and Thekla in particular are supernal 
 beings, of a purity more than mortal, not flesh 
 and blood types. 
 
 Some dramas of Schiller may have particular ad- 
 vantages over " Wilhelm Tell." For my own part 
 I am more impressed by " Wallenstein." "Marie 
 Stuart," the "Maid of Orleans," the "Bride of 
 Messina" have each their admirers. Certainly, 
 however, "Wilhelm Tell" is the best known and 
 most popular, and perhaps it is right to say it is ar- 
 tistically the most perfect. In this Schiller reached 
 more nearly than elsewhere that after which he had 
 striven since he turned himself again to the drama, 
 namely a good objective presentment, in which he 
 succeeded without denying his own great nature or 
 pushing it into the background. Not by a particle 
 is his ardor diminished for the great ideas which in- 
 spired him when he wrote "The Robbers." His 
 sense of human dignity is as noble, his love for free- 
 dom as absorbing ; these have grown with his growth 
 and strengthened with his strength ; but now he ex- 
 presses them, not in an unreal world, through the
 
 458 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 medium of moral characterizations, but through 
 creations conformed closely to life, whose individu- 
 ality is that of veritable men. 
 
 Descending from the Saint Gothard Pass, like so 
 many another traveller I left Andermatt in a mist, 
 and when I came at last to the Devil's Bridge a 
 tempest was howling through the ravine. The rain 
 swept downward ; the roaring Reuss threw its spray 
 upward, as if the demons were fighting in the black 
 pass between the awful precipices, with floods for 
 weapons. I pressed on past the towering Bristen- 
 stock ; drank at the cold torrent that runs from 
 the Maderaner-Thal past Amsteg, and soon was in 
 the open valley below. At nightfall I came, foot- 
 sore, upon the rough pavement of Altorf, and was 
 soon at rest in the inn. My mind was full of 
 thoughts of Tell ; I -obstinately rejected the mythical 
 explanation of the story ; I insisted upon believing 
 it in all its length and breadth. I beheld with 
 thorough credulity the spot pointed out to me as the 
 one on which his little son stood with the apple on 
 his head, and the spot a long bow-shot away 
 where the archer was posted, the extra arrow in his 
 girdle for the heart of Gesslcr, if his aim toward the 
 boy should miss. I thought with a thrill, as I went 
 to bed, that I lay precisely in the path of that mem- 
 orable arrow. The next day a short walk brought 
 me, through the calm morning, to the Lake of the 
 Four Forest Cantons. How crystal clear was the 
 flood ! How gloriously rose the Alps from the 
 quiet mirror to their snows in the far-off heavens ! 
 It is wondrously fair, but as I moved on over the
 
 SCHILLER. 459 
 
 lake, even the sense of natural beauty became dull 
 before the overmastering legendary and historic in- 
 terest. These were the spots celebrated in the tales 
 heard in earliest childhood, which had become almost 
 part of the soul. The little chapel at the base of 
 the cliffs on the right marked the spot where Tell, 
 his fetters unbound in Gesslcr's boat during the 
 storm, leaped ashore, and escaped through the 
 mountain passes. The patch of meadow to the left 
 was the field of the Riitli, where the freemen gath- 
 ered by night and swore to be one. The mountains 
 in front hung over the gloomy pass Klissnacht, 
 where at length the tyrant fell, Tell's arrow in his 
 guilty heart. Rarely, rarely beautiful is the Lake of 
 the Four Forest Cantons in its summer aspect. Think 
 what feet have trodden those mountains, what voices 
 of manhood have shouted in those glens, what 
 glances darted from eyes aglow with the fires of 
 freedom have shone in the dark pine forests, and the 
 interest of the beholder is doubled ! And who is 
 the poet who, gathering from many sources the frag- 
 mentary, inspiring legends, has combined all into 
 one whole, uttering them with manful sympathy, so 
 that for the soul the presentment has the utmost 
 kindling charm? Schiller it is, audit is his swan- 
 song. Even while before him moved in imagina- 
 tion the majestic panorama of mount and wood 
 and lake, the outbursts of freemen ringing in his 
 fancy, the rattle of knightly armor, the wild peal 
 of the Alpine horn, while he dwelt upon these and 
 gave them all glowing embodiment, precipitate fate 
 was already busy at the silver chord. Scarcely was
 
 460 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the strain finished when he passed from the sons of 
 men. I do not need to tell the story of the play. 
 It is the story of Tell ; the portrayal of the effort of 
 a most heroic soul, and the setting is hardly less 
 fine than the jewel it encloses, the painting of a 
 magnificent nature, and in the midst of it a race 
 ground down by oppressors, and starting nobly for- 
 ward in the vindication of its freedom. Will it be 
 believed that Schiller never set foot upon the soil of 
 Switzerland? He had no personal knowledge what- 
 ever of the life he presented, of the nature of the 
 land, of the character of the people. Struggling 
 from first to last to keep the wolf from his door, in 
 narrow surroundings, he never saw an Alp, perhaps 
 hardly ever knew a Swiss. It cannot quite be said 
 that he evolved the land from the depths of his own 
 consciousness ; but as from the study of a mill- 
 flume, as already noticed, he made real to himself 
 an ocean whirlpool, with like power of imagination, 
 from the hints of travellers and historians, he created 
 in his soul a land and a race with such vivid truth 
 that one can believe himself charmed back into the 
 age and country. 
 
 Yet in artistic respects Schiller never reached 
 Gothe's wonderful height, fast though he grew 
 toward it. What he said himself once of Go the 
 and himself, when he had not yet created his master- 
 pieces, was always true: "With Gothe I do not 
 measure myself, when he has a mind to apply his 
 whole power. He has more genius than I, and at 
 the same time far more wealth of knowledge ; a 
 surer sensitive facultv, and besides all this an artis-
 
 SCHILLER. 461 
 
 tic taste, purified and refined with artistic accom- 
 plishments of every kind." 1 Gothe knew actual 
 nature and actual men better than Schiller, compre- 
 hending them more objectively, and in their many- 
 sidedness ; he presses into the most concealed depths 
 of their souls, and can represent their innermost 
 peculiarity. Schiller knows better what men should 
 be, and feels more powerfully the aspirations which 
 lead us from the actual to the ideal. Hence he 
 knows how to strike chords which resound every- 
 where, to call man's attention to his higher nature. 
 Love for freedom, enthusiasm for popular welfare, 
 hatred against tyranny, these ideas prevail within 
 him from first to last ; for these ideas he makes it 
 his mission to kindle the world, rather than to paint 
 the world. And the world was indeed kindled. 
 Less an artist than a teacher and preacher, he is in 
 his works constantly didactic, constantly exhorting. 
 This characteristic, the presence of which in his 
 plays is so often brought against him as a reproach, 
 gained him a popularity which without it he could 
 not have had ; in this way he worked immediately 
 and surely upon the spirits of his hearers. 
 
 In closing now my account of the writings of 
 Schiller, let me describe an interesting theory con- 
 cerning the true function of Taste, to be found in his 
 "^Esthetic Prose," 2 which seems to me the most valu- 
 able discussion contained in his philosophical writings. 
 
 In days long ago, when the pedagogue whose lucu- 
 
 1 Kurz. 
 
 J Briefe liber die ^Esthetische Erziehung des Menschen, translated 
 by Rev. John Weiss, to whom 1 acknowledge obligation.
 
 462 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 bration the kind reader at present honors was at the 
 other end of the ferule, there was a certain patient, 
 painstaking soul to whom it belonged to bring our 
 declamation into shape, and I well remember a sen- 
 tence by means of which he sought to train us in 
 emphasis and enunciation. "To do what is right " 
 he would say, " argues superior Taste as well as mor- 
 als." " To do what is rigid," we boys would say, 
 "argues superior Taste as well as morals." "A 
 stronger emphasis on right," the teacher would say ; 
 " emphasize Taste. Now, once more after me." So 
 once more it would be, " To do what is right argues 
 superior Taste as well as morals." Scores of times 
 we rang the changes upon it, our boyish noddles as 
 unconscious of any meaning in what became familiar 
 to the tongue as if it were so much Cherokee, until 
 at length we passed from beneath the frown of the 
 teacher, and proceeded diligently to forget his pre- 
 cepts. Something, however, remained buried in the 
 brain, and years after, when a rough shake or two 
 from the world had sobered the writer out of his 
 youth, a little of the old teacher's instruction came 
 to the surface, and the man saw a meaning in what 
 to the child was a blank. 
 
 " To do what is right argues superior Taste as well 
 as morals." It is a good sentence for elocutionary 
 practice, and a far better sentence for something else, 
 for there is a line thought contained in it which will 
 bear development. 
 
 Let us suppose spring to be at hand. The farmer 
 is glad that, looking up into the tree-tops, he can see 
 the vibrating head of the woodpecker beating his
 
 SCHILLER. 463 
 
 reveille over nature about to awake, and the throb- 
 bing throat of the harbinger robin. As the season 
 advances, the influences become so benignant and 
 potent that even the sad and the anxious cannot 
 resist them. No heart so wrapped in gloom that it 
 cannot feel some gladness in the sunshine of mid- 
 May. No spirit so soured that it will not be turned 
 to a more amiable mood in going through a meadow 
 peopled with the busy bobolinks. "VVe go out into 
 the woods and sit upon the grass among the old 
 stones and trunks, the forest veterans that are dec- 
 orated all over with gray and yellow medals of lichen. 
 We count the five white petals of the strawberry 
 blossom. We study the stamens, shaped like little 
 spades, and dusted with yellow, for something has 
 used them for shovelling gold. We take dripping 
 cresses from the brook-bed, and delight in the spring 
 savor. We pore over the petals of apple-blooms, 
 white and rosy-veined. We watch the clumps of 
 dogwood lifting their snow-drifts into the air. There 
 is no grief so deep that is not made to forget itself 
 in some degree by these influences, no mind so ab- 
 sorbed that it is not called away from its brooding 
 by these thousand delightful voices. The human 
 heart grows soft with happiness, as the meadows 
 grow soft with grass ! 
 
 The quality in all these scenes and sounds of 
 spring which has power to give us so much delight 
 is, of course, beauty ; and the faculty within us by 
 means of which nature has made us capable of 
 taking enjoyment in beauty is Taste. To be sure, it 
 is the case that creatures that have none of this per-
 
 464 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ception for beauty, or Taste, yet enjoy the spring. 
 We miy be sure that the brute creation enjoys it, 
 though it must be in a dull and incomplete way, 
 merely as the season that brings warmth and more 
 abundant provender. The lowest order of human 
 beings finds enjoyment in it for a similar reason. It 
 brings a more genial sky ; it cheers with the promise 
 of fruits and harvests to come. Its scents and sa- 
 vors and tones give a degree of sensual pleasure. 
 Yet the spring can hardly be said to bring real de- 
 light except to those who can reach this glorious 
 quality of beauty with which it is so pervaded ; in 
 other words, those who have high Taste, and the 
 more developed and refined this faculty is in any one, 
 the deeper the ecstacy which thrills him before the 
 beauty. 
 
 Thinking of this beauty, which can cause us such 
 delight, it is natural to ask whether beauty may not 
 have some further use besides this of ministering to 
 our mere pleasure. Mere delight, no matter how 
 refined it may be, AVC believe is not an object after 
 which \ve ought to strive ; or at least we believe 
 that there is something grander which we can ob- 
 tain, and that grander thing should occupy our at- 
 tention for the most part. That grander thing is 
 moral nobleness. The best thing in a human being 
 we believe to be the instinct by which he gets hold 
 of right, the faculty -by means of which he has 
 the power of distinguishing between good and bad, 
 and is made to see that the good is to be preferred. 
 It is mainly through the action of this instinct that 
 a man must be bent to choose the right in prefer-
 
 SCHILLER. 465 
 
 to the wrong. No duty, therefore, presses us 
 so urgently as the duty to make strong and acute 
 this instinct, the germ of which at least we all have, 
 and whose function is so important. But is there 
 not some other faculty belonging to us, less im- 
 portant indeed than this instinct, and yet .vhich, 
 like this, has the effect to lead us to the right in 
 preference to the wrong? If there is such a fac- 
 ulty, certainly it is worth while to cultivate it. This 
 grand instinct the thing that makes us noble, and 
 which must guide us if life is to amount to any thing 
 good needs auxiliaries. If we have a faculty which 
 can help it, by all means let us know what it is, that 
 it may be strengthened and put to the best use. 
 
 This beauty, this quality with which the outward 
 world is so charged, this same beauty belongs also 
 to nobleness. This Taste, this faculty in ourselves 
 through which we get hold of beauty, when strongly 
 developed, influences us powerfully to choose noble- 
 ness. " To do what is right argues superior Taste 
 as well as morals." There is a beauty in doing 
 right, and as Taste is the faculty to which beauty 
 corresponds, the possession of Taste must lead us to 
 a preference of right over wrong. 
 
 I do not think that any writer has recognized 
 this more clearly or stated it more distinctly than 
 Schiller. Here are passages from his "^Esthetic 
 Prose:" "Taste, a pure and lively feeling for 
 beauty, has the most salutary influence upon the 
 moral life. In spirits that possess aesthetic refine- 
 ment there is another court which not seldom com- 
 pensates for virtue where that is deficient, and 
 
 80
 
 466 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 assists it where it exists. This court is Taste. 
 Taste demands moderation and decency, makes a 
 well-recognized demand of every civilized man that 
 
 O v 
 
 he should listen to the voice of reason, even in the 
 storm of emotion, and set bounds to the rude out- 
 breaks of nature. All those material inclinations 
 and rude desires which so often oppose themselves 
 rudely and stormfully to the practice of goodness 
 have been outlawed from the mind by Taste, and in 
 their stead nobler and milder inclinations engrafted, 
 which relate to order, harmony, and perfection ; and 
 although these are no virtues, yet they share one ob- 
 ject with virtue. If now desire speaks, it must en- 
 dure a severe scrutiny from the sense of beauty ; and 
 if now the reason speaks and enjoins actions of order, 
 harmony, and perfection, it finds not only no oppo- 
 sition from Taste, but rather the liveliest concur- 
 rence. Taste gives the mind a tendency appropri- 
 ate for virtue, as it removes all those inclinations 
 which hinder the latter, and excites those which are 
 favorable. Taste serves as a surrogate for true 
 
 O 
 
 virtue. Although a higher rank in the order of 
 spirits would undoubtedly invest him who needed 
 not the allurements of beauty to act in every crisis 
 conformably to the reason, still the well-known lim- 
 its of humanity compel the most rigid moralist to 
 remit, in the application of his system, somewhat 
 of its severity, and make more secure the welfare 
 of the human race by the additional strong anchor 
 of Taste." 
 
 The poet is a human being who has high Taste. 
 By means of this he selects beautiful things in the
 
 SCHILLER. 467 
 
 world and in his reveries, ani expresses them in be- 
 coming language. Now, whenever a true poet 
 touches upon human affairs, what are the things that 
 human beings do which he chooses for his themes? 
 Brave and chaste and grateful actions for his he- 
 roes ; tender, true, and compassionate actions for his 
 heroines. There is a beauty in nobleness, and the 
 poet whose work it is to recognize beauty and express 
 it chooses forms of nobleness. They please his own 
 high Taste. He knows they will please the Taste 
 of those for whem he writes, all the more in propor- 
 tion to the refinement and development of the Taste. 
 Hence there has been given to the world the gentle 
 fortitude of Evangeline, the devoted innocence of 
 Enid, the truth of Cordelia. In these heroines of poe- 
 try there is some form of nobleness. There is 
 beauty in nobleness, and therefore the Taste of the 
 poet selects them. It is not because the moral 
 sense at the same time approves. That is but a pro- 
 saic faculty, by which the poet, soaring in his thor- 
 ough fealty to beauty, would not deign to confess 
 himself bound, and }*et through his Taste he is 
 brought to choose for his charmful picture the very 
 thing which the moral nature at the same time would 
 select. The artist is a poet whose material is not 
 language, but stone or color. His calling too is 
 founded upon the sense of beauty in man. To that 
 he also makes appeal. By virtue of his Taste 
 he possesses the power of selecting beauty, and 
 mark how, in his choice, if his work have to do 
 with human things, whenever he desires to give 
 profound delight, he makes some representation of
 
 468 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 nobleness. He takes consecrated courage and repre- 
 sents it in some martyr ; or aspiration, and puts it 
 into the countenance of the Madonna ; or contrition, 
 and paints the tears of a Magdalene ; or heavenly 
 purity, and delineates some adoring angel ! It is 
 not because the moral nature approves these things. 
 That is not the artistic faculty, and the painter or 
 sculptor Avill not confess that he is bound by it. It 
 is because these things delight the highest Taste. 
 Searching for the most exquisite beauty, there is 
 none found so fine and enthralling as the beauty of 
 nobleness, and thus he is led into choice of the 
 right almost as directly as the purest saint, owning 
 only the sway of the high instinct for good. 
 
 It is right, then, to claim that the quality of 
 beauty in the world has power to do something 
 more for man than cause him mere delight. Beauty 
 belongs to nobleness, and, acting upon the faculty 
 of Taste, has power to allure us to good. But we 
 must not press this claim too far ; it must not be 
 forgotten that Taste is to be held as a more auxiliary 
 power. Says Schiller again : " One suspects, with 
 justice, a morality which is founded only upon the 
 feeling of beauty, and has no other guarantee than 
 Taste. Taste can favor moral conduct, but its 
 influence can never create that which is moral." 
 The moral sense is our noblest faculty, and through 
 that it must be mainly that we must be led to 
 choose the right and avoid the wrong. If the moral 
 sense is feeble, it is only a very little way that the 
 Taste within a man will go toward making good the 
 lack, no matter how refined and well-developed it
 
 SCHILLER, 469 
 
 may be. It is not by any means the case that the 
 most tasteful people are always the best. Among 
 such people indeed the coarse vices have little or 
 no popularity, but there are refined forms of evil 
 forms less shocking, yet none the less devilish to 
 which they may be deeply committed. A Taste for 
 the beautiful, although it must certainly lead its 
 possessor to admire nobleness with all its beauty, 
 wherever he may see it, is yet seldom a power 
 strong enough of itself to bring its possessor to the 
 practice of nobleness in his own conduct. It is by 
 no means the case that the poetic or artistic nature 
 is always coupled with a noble life. Minds that con- 
 ceive imaginings most lovely in their purity some- 
 times belong to persons whose hands are unclean 
 with guilt. Mere Taste, however high and pure, 
 can do little unless it be reinforced by an active 
 spiritual principle. Upon that the main reliance 
 must ever be placed for bringing man into his true 
 path, and keeping him there. It is only as a help 
 to the moral sense that we can maintain that the 
 Taste for the beautiful has value in bringing men to 
 nobleness. But putting it here in its proper place, 
 who will say that it has no use? God implanted 
 it in man that it might be to him a source of de- 
 light. That in part ; and, besides that, we may 
 believe that by Providential appointment it has a 
 still grander utility. Beauty is poured liberally 
 forth within the universe, but its choicest form is 
 bestowed upon nobleness. Standing at the side of 
 the grandest thing in a man's heart is placed this 
 high Taste, that taking hold of the serenest and
 
 470 GERMAN LITERATURE 
 
 sublimest beauty it may help in raising us up to- 
 ward good. 
 
 In educating a human being, the important, fun- 
 damental things are held to be, enough knowledge 
 and enough training of the mind to enable him to 
 make his way in the world, and such a development 
 of the spiritual nature as will keep him free from sin. 
 Besides these, there are what are held to be the re- 
 finements of education, whose design is to make 
 delicate and develop the Taste for the beautiful. 
 No doubt there is a fault of estimating these at too 
 high a rate and giving them undue attention, but 
 there is another fault to the full as prevalent, the 
 fault of holding them too low. The faculty of 
 Taste having the value that has been claimed for 
 it, not only as giving delight, but as influencing us 
 to choose the pure, because it is beautiful, in prefer- 
 ence to the impure, it follows that all things that 
 can make strong and delicate this high Taste deserve 
 even a religious attention. Let Music and Art and 
 Poetry bring their choicest things to the mind of 
 the growing man. The quality which comes from a 
 solitary bird-note, or chanting choir and organ- 
 thunder, which comes through the gates of the eyes 
 to his soul from a leafy and blossoming landscape, 
 or which enters the mind from the lesson or the 
 metaphor of some true poet, that same quality per- 
 tains likewise to truth and justice and gentleness. 
 Foster the love for it as it manifests itself in music 
 and nature and poems, and love grows for it in its 
 every form ; until all that moral grandeur with which 
 God would have his human child crowii the immor-
 
 SCHILLER, 471 
 
 tal soul wins our homage, not alone because it is 
 the right, but because it is the beautiful. 
 
 Thus let us conclude our development of the 
 thought of Schiller. Let the love for beauty grow 
 under every stimulus which it is in our power to 
 apply. It is the glory of the world, it is the crown 
 of the angels, it is the radiance of Paradise. The 
 instinct in us which makes us thrill at any spectacle 
 of beauty, this same instinct, refined, fastening 
 itself upon the "Beauty of Holiness," lifts us 
 towards Heaven ! 
 
 I call to mind the shadowed, quiet streets of 
 "Weimar. In one of them stands the modest house 
 where Schiller lived and wrought when he was at his 
 best, a centre building running up into a sharp 
 gable, with lower wings on each side. There, as he 
 dreamed beneath that humble roof, passed before his 
 spirit the brooding, stupendous Wallenstein ; and 
 Max and Thekla, now aglow with the purest love, 
 now crazed by the darkest despair. Again it was a 
 vision of chivalric pomp which he saw, and in the 
 midst of them a purity and faith superhuman, the 
 voices of celestial visitors, then the roar of flames 
 about the form of the fairest of martyrs, which he 
 bodied forth in the " Maid of Orleans." With his 
 spiritual sense he heard Mary of Scotland plead with 
 her rival for her liberty ; then, while the splendor of 
 a queen glowed about her, heard the dull stroke of 
 the headsman's axe. Anon sounded through his 
 soul the sweet choruses of the " Bride of Messina," 
 and even while he sat oppressed by the overshadow-
 
 472 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ing death, he built, in imagination, the towering 
 Alpine landscape, crag, lake, waterfall, unperish- 
 ing snow crowning solemn pine-forests, and among 
 them a manful race, shouting songs of freedom. 
 Only a little way off is the house of Gothe, larger, 
 but still plain, fronting the quiet square. We can 
 think of that so memorable friendship as they walked 
 side by side, the one full of power and beauty, 
 with eye and brow so radiant with genius, in form a 
 Greek god ; the other already marked with dis- 
 ease, the chest hollow, the cheek hectic, but with 
 countenance stamped not less than the other with 
 the divine gift. Or if we have difficulty in making 
 them real to us, there, on the spot that knew them, 
 they stand in imperishable bronze, the same garb, 
 the characteristic attitude, the eyes uplifted as if 
 they saw in the clouds spiritual worlds aglow with 
 beauty. 
 
 From the memorial, where they stand together 
 upon one pedestal, let 143 go to their sepulchre. It 
 is the crypt of the mausoleum of the grand dukes. 
 As you descend into the proud tomb, at the foot of 
 the staircase lie side by side, in coffins of oak, the 
 poets who in life were friends. It is the proudest 
 distinction of the ducal house of Weimar that it 
 protected them in life ; now in death, not divided 
 from one another, their ashes rest in the same tomb 
 with those of their patrons. On the lids of both 
 coffins, the day of my visit, were wreaths of fresh 
 flowers ; on that of Gothe the wreaths were few, on 
 that of Schiller the flowers were piled high. It was 
 sixty-five years since that midnight of tempest when
 
 SCHILLER. 473 
 
 Schiller -was laid to rest ; the coffin-lid had bloomed 
 perpetually, and now the fragrance and verdure are 
 forever renewed. "What is the mysterious spring- 
 tide which, even there, in the abyss of the sepulchre, 
 perennially calls such beauty and freshness into be- 
 ing? It is the love of the German heart: it clings 
 to him because it feels its kinship with him ; it recog- 
 nizes him as preeminently its type and spokesman, 
 representing its ideals, its loves, its longings. If 
 Gothe was the greater artist, he had not the popular 
 heart. About the memory of Schiller has the love 
 of the Germans folded itself as about no other. He 
 lived in desperate times, when his land was in de- 
 spair. His aspirations after freedom received a check 
 in the French Revolution, whose beginnings he had 
 hailed with enthusiastic hope. Shrinking in terror 
 from its excesses, he grew cautious, but did not lose 
 his republican spirit. In a certain way he has been 
 not only the teacher of his race, but its savior. Said 
 the speaker at the centenary of Schiller's birthday, 
 in 1859 : " He was a seer, a prophet. A century 
 has passed since his birth, and we revere him as one 
 of the first among the spiritual heroes of humanity. 
 A hundred years may roll away, another and yet 
 another, still from century to century his name shall 
 be celebrated, and at last there shall come a festival 
 when men will say, ' See ! there was a truth in hin 
 ideal anticipations of freedom and civilization.' " l 
 
 1 Friedrich Vischer, quoted by Gostwick and Harrison.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOLS 
 
 Now that we have passed Gothe and Schiller, it be- 
 comes somewhat difficult to decide what line to fol- 
 low in the history that remains. When the two 
 great poets appear upon the scene, the glorious 
 period of German literature, which in them reached 
 its greatest brilliancy, was in its morning. Schiller 
 died in 1805, Gothe in 1832. Before the first of 
 these dates was reached the German nation had ex- 
 hibited an immense expansion and increase of in- 
 tensity in its intellectual life, which is yet to be per- 
 ceived. Departments of intellectual activity in 
 which the Germans had hitherto done little or no 
 more than other races became filled with workers 
 of genius, through whom the glory of their land 
 reached the highest pitch ; so that other civilized na- 
 tions have been forced to acknowledge them in this 
 age, in many ways, the leaders of the world. With 
 Kant begins the series of philosophers, peers in pro- 
 found power of the greatest names of the earth. To 
 this period belong the tireless scholars who have 
 plunged to such depths of erudition, the range of 
 whose vision is so immense, yet who sweep the field 
 with glance so minute. To this period belongs the 
 army of scientific investigators, the Humboldts 
 
 1 See Appendix, note C.
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 475 
 
 wandering the world over, making known the phe- 
 nomena of earth, sea, sky, in remote corners, in cav- 
 erns, upon mountain-peaks ; the bright minds who 
 in garden and laboratory, in mine and observatory, 
 with microscope, telescope, spectroscope, with com- 
 pass and line, have weighed, fathomed, measured the 
 universe of matter. With all this intellectual life 
 literature is concerned. If the term is understood 
 comprehensively, the record of all this scholarship, 
 of this accomplishment, physical and metaphysical, 
 must find a place. It must be remembered however 
 that it is simply at what the Germans call "Die 
 Schone Literatur" (belles-lettres, polite literature) 
 that we have time to glance. Vague enough are the 
 boundaries of the field, shading off everywhere by 
 imperceptible degrees into the other fields that have 
 been indicated. Preserving the limits as well as we 
 can, we must push forward. 
 
 The important writers, the consideration of whom 
 is now finished, Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, 
 Herder, Gothe, Schiller, have been called the six 
 heroes of modern German poetry. 1 Each became 
 the centre of a group of followers and imitators ; 
 each of these groups is numerous, and contains 
 names with which the thorough student must make 
 himself familiar. It would be a departure from the 
 plan of this book, however, to consider them all 
 here. We are restricted to the study of the polite 
 literature, and even in that department we must 
 limit ourselves. Like Switzerland in some past 
 
 1 Vilmar.
 
 476 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 geologic age, the field of German letters underwent, 
 at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the 
 nineteenth centuries, a great upheaval. The whole 
 area was lifted, and here and there shot forth peaks 
 toward the sky. Like the dome of Mont Blanc, 
 Gothe rises over all, but there are other heights 
 of scarcely inferior altitude. As each main Alpine 
 summit has its subsidiary system of elevations, rang- 
 ing from snow-capped mountains to hillocks that 
 just swell above the plain, so each great author 
 stands as the centre of a group of literary person- 
 ages, sometimes of great, sometimes of small sig- 
 nificance. To try to enumerate these even would 
 soon produce bewilderment. The effort of this 
 book is to give the main configuration of the literary 
 landscape; to show it in proper perspective, the 
 great peaks illuminated, the less important sum- 
 mits in a shadow that deepens as they grow lower. 
 As in the Alpine world from Mont Blanc and 
 Monte Rosa run off the highest among the subordi- 
 nate ridges, so from Gdthe and Schiller proceeds a 
 development more noteworthy than from the other 
 minds that have been mentioned. This is called 
 "Romanticism," and is so important that it must 
 receive attention from us. 
 
 The magnificent activity of Gothe and Schiller 
 at Weimar aroused enthusiasm in the breasts of 
 many young men of genius. Jena, which was close 
 at hand, where Schiller had been a professor, and 
 with whose management Gothe was much con- 
 cerned, became the centre of extraordinary literary 
 life. This was called forth by the example of the
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 477 
 
 two poets, the young writers who now came for- 
 ward treating them with great reverence. They were 
 the spiritual children of the illustrious men, but 
 soon departed from the precedents that had been 
 set. For Gothc's classic preferences they substi- 
 tuted something different, and did not hesitate to crit- 
 icise Schiller. But another influence must be men- 
 tioned which was important in evoking Romanticism. 
 Though the vast subject of German speculative phi- 
 losophy is be} T ond my scheme, it becomes necessary 
 to make some mention of it, on account of certain 
 important influences which it has exercised upon 
 polite literature. Let us go back for a moment to 
 Locke, whose teaching, so for as it can be given in 
 a word, was that the mind has no ideas except those 
 which it gains, through sensation and reflection, 
 from the world outside of it. Only through the 
 senses do we know of this outside world ; what we 
 thus learn we may modify by thinking upon it ; 
 there is no other source of knowledge. In opposi- 
 tion to this philosophy, which had great acceptance 
 on the Continent as well as in England, Immanuel 
 Kant, the son of a poor saddler, a professor at 
 Konigsberg, half a century later proclaimed his 
 system. Without denying that some ideas were ob- 
 tained from the outside world, through sensation 
 and subsequent reflection upon it, he asserted that 
 there were other ideas, with the existence of which 
 experience had nothing to do, which belonged to 
 the soul itself, or were intuitively perceived by it. 
 Even while he, the overturner of preceding systems, 
 was living, new systems were founded upon his
 
 478 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 creation. Johann Gottlieb Fichte worked all his 
 life to make his generation better ; striving like a 
 hero even while the French drums sounded into his 
 lecture-room ; firing his students with eloquent words 
 to take up arms for the fatherland, finally entering 
 the ranks himself. Yet, as a philosopher, he taught 
 that sensation as a source of knowledge must be 
 
 O 
 
 thrown away entirely, declaring tint we cannot be 
 certain there is any outside world. In Fichte' s 
 idea the " ego," the " I " by which he understands 
 the thinking soul, is the only thing of whose existence 
 we can be sure. All existence outside the thinking 
 soul, the "non-ego," that which is not I, is 
 phantasmal ; it has no existence except in the thing 
 perceiving. In other words, his philosophy is purely 
 idealistic. So, with some modification, taught Bishop 
 Berkeley ; so substantially believes the cultivated 
 Brahmin in the East, who regards the world outside 
 of himself as maya, illusion, no more real than 
 the figures and landscape of a dream. Following on 
 in the series, after Fichte comes Schelling, who taught 
 that the "non-ego," the outside world, was in no 
 way identical with the percipient, the "ego," but 
 existed alongside of it ; that the opposition in which 
 they stood to each other was united and reconciled 
 in the higher absolute, in God. It is but the 
 merest adumbration of colossal intellectual struc- 
 tures ; it is all for which there is space, and all, I be- 
 lieve, that my scheme will demand. Kant at 
 Konigsberg, Fichte at Jena and Berlin, Schelling, 
 \vlio through fifty years was a famous teacher, first 
 at Jena, then at several other universities, all had
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 479 
 
 multitudes of enthusiastic disciples, influencing 
 largely the thought of their time ; these, as well 
 as Hegel, Herbart, and Schopenhauer. The writers 
 known as the ' ' Romantic School ' ' were followers 
 of Fichte, and afterward of Schelling. 
 
 Recalling to your minds the division made of 
 poetry, in a previous chapter, into objective and sub- 
 jective, it will be remembered that Schiller may be 
 taken as a type of the subjective class ; his tendency 
 was to proceed from the idea within himself to the 
 outward world, to hold the idea as most important ; 
 and far from contenting himself, as objective poets 
 do, with the faithful representation of the world and 
 life, to use the world and life only as a source of 
 illustration, a means for making plain the idea. 
 Schiller read Kant with delight ; and it is plain to 
 see that the influence of Kant, claiming as he did 
 rights for the spirit which philosophers before him 
 had denied, was to fortify Schiller in his tendency. 
 As we have seen, the characters in many of Schiller's 
 plays were, as he called them himself, monstros- 
 ities ; at any rate untrue to nature, as his scenes 
 and situations were untrue to life, though in his later 
 time he contrived to unite with his subjective method 
 a more artistic representation of the world. As 
 Fichte went a step beyond Kant, claiming for the 
 spirit the " ego," the I, everything, and anni- 
 hilating the outside world, the "non-ego," so the 
 " Romantic " writers who followed him went a step 
 beyond Schiller, carrying the subjective tendency to 
 excess, while the objective presentment was treated 
 with the greatest carelessness. If Schiller created
 
 480 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 monstrosities, the Romantic writers sank into utter 
 distortion and formlessness, often using mere in- 
 comprehensible mist-pictures. There are writers 
 among them who show how the subjective tendency, 
 uncontrolled, leads to the destruction of all art. 
 Accepting a philosophy which taught that the out- 
 side world was phantasm, a mere imagination of the 
 spirit, why should they respect it so far as to study 
 it, or attempt to represent it with truth ? Entirely 
 in the sense of Fichte's system, they declared 
 the ideal to be the-uppermost principle in poetry, 
 and demanded for it unconditional freedom. The 
 form, as the mere outflow of the idea, was not to be 
 determined in itself because dependent on the idea. 
 As in philosophy the speculative reason, so in poetry 
 is the fancy the principle alone creative, and the 
 poet must therefore abandon himself to the sug- 
 gestions of the fancy. 
 
 The Romantic writers found in Schellinor the 
 
 O 
 
 sentence, " Every phenomenon in nature is the in- 
 corporation of an idea." It came to be considered 
 among them a main task of the poet to recognize in 
 the phenomena of nature the ideas at the bottom 
 of them. Poetry therefore became allegorical, since 
 it was to represent material phenomena as the sym- 
 bols of ideas. In their attempts at interpretation, 
 they became lost in the deepest abysses of a dim 
 mysticism. 
 
 There are still other characteristics of Romanti- 
 cism which I must try to make plain. The social 
 and political condition of Germany at the end of 
 the eighteenth century was very discouraging.
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 481 
 
 
 
 Hope in the nation was welluigh crushed out. As 
 a consequence of the despair which prevailed, people 
 became frivolous ; men said, We will laugh through 
 life as we can ; it is at best full of mortification and 
 outrage for us." Hence a class of writers became 
 popular of whom the poet Kotzebue is a type, 
 whose standards were very low, humoring, as they 
 did, the disposition to indolence and frivolity. The 
 guilt belonged to the leaders of the people rather 
 than to the people. At the beginning of the period 
 Gothe had given up his early, popular way of writ- 
 ing, and was devoted to abstruse art and science ; 
 Schiller was in the ten years between his first and 
 second periods, buried in metaphysics, not yet re- 
 turned to his true path. The learned, for the most 
 part, were busy building systems of speculation, 
 while the fatherland daily suffered more and more. 
 The people seeing no means or prospect of im- 
 provement, in their discouragement were disposed 
 to make of literature a mere pastime, until in most 
 minds the better taste seemed quite dead. They 
 grasped greedily at the amusement offered them, by 
 which they could forget present sorrows and be- 
 come indifferent to country, freedom, and glory. 
 
 The founders of Romanticism were of a nobler 
 strain than to take part with the frivolous writers. 
 The ideal philosophy had somewhat estranged them 
 from the firm ground of reality. Dissatisfied with 
 the present, they naturally looked to the past for 
 satisfaction, and became seized with an indiscrimi- 
 nate delight in mediaeval times. In those times 
 they saw only what was beautiful and good. A 
 
 31
 
 482 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 
 
 German emperor chosen by German princes was 
 the centre of the political world. Germany was 
 at the head of Christendom 5 a numerous nobility, 
 free, independent, full of knightly prowess, re- 
 spectful to woman, helpful to the oppressed, was 
 the core of the German race, and spread its fame to 
 the remotest lands. Religious feeling seemed to be 
 the foundation of all life, filling men with wonder- 
 ful devotion and humility. The world was united 
 in one Church. The Romantic writers, inspired by 
 Schelling, as we have seen, with a love for symbol- 
 ism, gradually embraced the idea that that form of 
 religion is truest which is richest in symbolical pre- 
 sentment, therefore the Catholic faith. It was 
 venerable because it had conquered the barbaric 
 rudeness of the old German stock. It had been 
 the source of a new civilization and art, and was 
 wonderful with temples and pictures. They saw 
 only one side. They came to regard the Reformation 
 as the beginning and source of misery for the empire. 
 So it was that the Romanticists became reactionary ; 
 they battled with the present and its requirements, 
 opposed faith to free investigation, Catholicism to 
 Protestantism, the rule of the nobility to government 
 by the people, mediaeval art to modern. 
 
 With all their errors, the Romanticists accom- 
 plished much good. At the time of the rise of the 
 school, the " Xenien " of Gotho and Schiller ap- 
 peared. With the eilbrts of these poets to break the 
 influence of the frivolous writers the Romanticists 
 cooperated. The world found something attractive 
 in their mystic manner ; the reference to mediaeval
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 483 
 
 glories to the people was very kindling; in the 
 youth sprang up a longing for a new birth of the 
 fatherland, the enthusiasm over the brilliant past 
 awaking the desire to produce a similar future. 
 Then came admonitions to strive after it. The upris- 
 ing against the yoke of Napoleon, in 1813, was 
 largely due to poets of the Romantic school. The 
 mystical ground was forsaken for reality in the 
 battle-songs of Korner and Arndt ; it was not until 
 the last years of Gothe's life that the tendency 
 finally died away. 
 
 This sketch of Romanticism 1 must seem somewhat 
 undefined, but I cannot do better with it. Here once 
 more are the main points. The intense idealism of 
 Fichte, influencing powerfully young men of genius, 
 at the end of the eighteenth century produced a 
 school of writers whose characteristic was excessive 
 subjectivity. Accepting moreover the doctrine of 
 Schelling, that the outer world is only the reflec- 
 tion in symbols of the world of spirit, something 
 in itself unreal, they depreciated it, and fell from dis- 
 tinctness of presentment into cloudy mysticism. 
 Shocked moreover with the present, they turned to 
 the past ; shocked with French freethinking, they 
 turned to the Catholic Church, which moreover com- 
 mended itself as a faith in which truth was revealed 
 by symbols. Romanticism had of course no ex- 
 clusive possession of the field. Although it may be 
 said to have started from Schiller, Schiller, had no 
 part with most of it, and his best works were writ- 
 
 1 Based upon Kara.
 
 484 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ten while it was gaining power. Gothe, although 
 so reverenced by Romanticists, always held aloof. 
 Metaphysics was distasteful to him ; he rejected the 
 mysticism and enthusiasm for the Middle Ages, 
 which contradicted his classic preferences the pref- 
 erences -which became so marked in him after the 
 period of his youth was past ; he moreover lived to 
 see the tendency expend its force. Aside from these 
 greatest men, the swarm of writers, Kotzebue 
 and his troop, who have been designated as frivo- 
 lous, appealed to the people and enjoyed immense 
 popularity. As one of several currents then Ko- 
 manticism strove, attaining at length great impor- 
 tance. It had its influence upon English thought, 
 Coleridge beyond all the rhapsodizing sage, in 
 dreamy essay and rapt monologue, turning from the 
 extreme of freethinking, not quite to Catholicism, 
 but to high Anglicanism being its representative. 
 Very noteworthy too in America has been its fruit, 
 nothing else than the Transcendental movement, 
 with The Dial for its organ, Emerson for its poet, 
 Margaret Fuller for its critic, Alcott for its prophet, 
 and O. B. Frothingham for its historian. In the 
 career of some of its professors, Orestes A. Brown- 
 son for example, we may see the reactionary ten- 
 dency fully carried out. Unmistakably the seed 
 was blown hithcrward from the vigorous plant that 
 sprung in Germany from the soil of Idealism ; al- 
 though the influences of the new hemisphere modified 
 the development of the germ, the substantial identity 
 of the plant with its German progenitor is very plain. 
 Turning now to some study of the men of the
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 485 
 
 Romantic school, we find as their precursor the im- 
 portant figure of Jean Paul Eichter. He was four 
 years younger than Schiller, and struggled up 
 through the deepest poverty, until he at length ob- 
 tained recognition as one of the most gifted men of 
 his time. After an enormous accomplishment, he 
 is said to have written more than sixty volumes, 
 he died at Baireuth in 1825. The names even of his 
 books cannot be mentioned except in a ponderous 
 list. The romance "Hesperus" established his 
 fame; in " Levana " he considered education; in 
 the " Campaner Thai," immortality. Then there 
 are "Titan," "Selections from the Papers of the 
 Devil;" "Biographical Recreations Beneath the 
 Skull of a Giantess," "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn 
 Pieces," and so on, titles sometimes poetical, 
 sometimes most grotesque, sometimes most baldly 
 commonplace, the list giving some hint of the 
 character of the contents and the author. He is the 
 strangest possible compound of humor, pathetic 
 tenderness, fine imagination. I do not find him 
 anywhere more vividly characterized than in this 
 passage from Longfellow: "When you read his 
 works it is as if you were climbing a high mountain, 
 in merry company, to see the sunrise. At times you 
 are enveloped in mist, the morning Avind sweeps 
 by you with a shout, you hear the far-off mutter- 
 ing thunder. Wide beneath you spreads the land- 
 scape, field, meadows, town, and winding river." 
 * * * "You revel like the lark in the sunshine 
 and bright blue heaven, and all is a delicious dream 
 of soul and sense, when suddenly a friend at your
 
 486 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 elbow laughs aloud, and offers you a piece of Bologna 
 sausage." * * * " At times glad, beautiful im- 
 ages, airy forms, move by you, graceful, harmonious ; 
 at times the glaring, wild-looking fancies, chained to- 
 gether by hyphens, brackets, and dashes, brave and 
 base, high and low, all in their motley dresses, go 
 sweeping down the dusty page like the galley-slaves 
 that sweep the streets of Eome, where you may 
 chance to see the nobleman and the peasant man- 
 acled together." * * * "And the figures and or- 
 naments of his style, wild, fantastic, and at times 
 startling, like those in Gothic cathedrals, are not 
 merely what they seem, but massive coignes and 
 buttresses which support the fabric. Remove them 
 and the roof and walls fall in. And through these 
 gargoyles these wild faces, the images of beasts 
 and men carved upon spouts and gutters flow out, 
 like gathered rain, the bright, abundant thoughts 
 that have fallen from heaven." 1 Here is Heinrich 
 Heine's characterization : ' ' Jean Paul's periods con- 
 sist of little rooms, which are often so narrow that 
 if one idea meets another there they bump their 
 heads together ; above on the ceiling are hooks on 
 which Jean Paul hangs all kinds of thoughts, and 
 in the walls are secret drawers in which he conceals 
 feelings. No German author is so rich as he in 
 thoughts and feeling's, but he never lets them grow 
 ripe, and with the wealth of his mind and soul he 
 furnishes us more astonishment than refreshment. 
 Thoughts and feelings which would grow to great 
 
 1 Hyperion.
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 487 
 
 trees if he allowed them to take root properly, and 
 expand themselves with all their branches, blossoms, 
 and leaves, these he picks off when they are nothing 
 but little shrubs, often mere buds, and whole intel- 
 lectual forests are in this way set before us on a 
 common plate as vegetables. This is strange food, 
 which one can hardly enjoy ; for not every stomach 
 can bear, in such a mass, young oaks, cedars, palms, 
 and bananas. Jean Paul is a great poet and phi- 
 losopher, but it is impossible to be more inartistic 
 than he in creating and thinking. In his romances 
 he has brought into the world genuine poetic figures, 
 but they all drag about a foolishly long umbilical 
 cord, entangling and strangling themselves with it. 
 He often disguised himself as a clumsy, beggarly 
 fellow ; then suddenly, like the princes incognito 
 whom we see upon the stage, he throws off the 
 rough overcoat, and we see then the gleaming 
 star." 1 To put the matter in less glowing terms, 
 he had poetic genius of the first order, but no power 
 of combining particulars to a harmonious whole. 
 At the slightest hint his fancy is led to new series of 
 thoughts. Like a cheerful, lively child sent out on 
 an errand, he was diverted by all he found in his 
 way, by meadow and wood ; now chasing a butterfly, 
 now picking berries, now listening to the birds, for- 
 getting his special work. He mistook his genius in 
 attempting connected works ; in the idyl he would 
 have been a master. He had the deepest sympathy 
 with the poor, and it is unfortunate that one Avho so 
 
 1 Die Romantische Schule.
 
 488 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 labored to comfort the wretched did not write so 
 that they could understand him ; even for Germans, 
 there is a special dictionary for Jean Paul. Yet he 
 abounds in richness of wit, splendor of expression, 
 graphic power, beauty of rhythmic movement. As 
 grotesque and as noble he was as a man. " I see 
 him," says one who remembered him at Baireuth, 
 " with his majestic, mountainous forehead, his mild 
 blue eyes, and finely-cut nose and mouth ; his mas- 
 sive frame clad loosely and carelessly in an old green 
 frock, from the pockets of which the corners of 
 books project, perhaps the end of a loaf of bread 
 and the nose of a bottle ; a straw hat lined with 
 green lying near him, a huge walking-stick in his 
 hand, and at his feet a white poodle. You would 
 sooner have taken him for a master-carpenter than 
 for a poet." l In many ways we have his counter- 
 part in English literature in Carlyle, who is without 
 doubt his spiritual child. We may call him the pre- 
 cursor of Romanticism, but must not identify him 
 with it. " He was," says Brandos, " the antipodes 
 of classic culture, though it cannot be said he had 
 the mediaeval preferences. He was as a poet exces- 
 sively subjective, for he it is who speaks out of all 
 his personages, whatever they may be called. He 
 treated moreover the external form with measureless 
 indifference, putting to shame the artistic sense in 
 every page with the strangest incoherencies. In 
 some ways however he turned against the Romantic 
 tendencies as hollow and demoralizing fantasy. He 
 
 1 Hyperion.
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 489 
 
 stood for the Reformation with stout Protestantism ; 
 he was convinced too of the worth of the ideas which 
 lay at the bottom of the French Revolution, to have 
 produced and established which he felt to be the 
 glory of the eighteenth century." l 
 
 Coming now to writers who are really representa- 
 tive of Romanticism, we encounter first a name to 
 English ears even more familiar than that of Jean 
 Paul, that of Schlegel. Four men made the 
 name illustrious in literature in the last and the 
 beginning of the present century. It is with the sec- 
 ond generation that we have to do, the brothers Au- 
 gust Wilhclm and Friedrich Schlegel. August Wil- 
 helm, the elder, is best known to English readers, 
 a man of vast accomplishments who early made 
 himself famous through writings and lectures upon 
 subjects of art and literature. As a poet he resem- 
 bled Herder, understanding, like the great preacher 
 of Weimar, how to appropriate the foreign and re- 
 produce it in his own tongue. Shakespeare, Cal- 
 deron, Ketrarch, Dante speak through him as no 
 doubt they would have spoken had they talked Ger- 
 man. His original pieces have the merit only of a 
 certain exterior grace. As a critic he resembles 
 Lessing, though he must be put far below the mighty 
 achiever of the ' ' Laokoon . " " He had appropriated 
 Lessing' s great battle-sword, but his arm was much 
 too weak to strike the blows of the champion." 
 
 1 Hauptstromungen der Literatur des 19ten Jahrhunderts. 
 1 Heine.
 
 490 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 His main work however, the well-known lectures 
 upon Dramatic Literature, has great excellencies. 
 
 Without stopping to trace out his affiliations with 
 Romanticism, let us pass to the far more noteworthy 
 younger brother, Friedrich Schlegel, the abler man, 
 and the more important in the present connection, 
 because from him largely proceeded the ideas on 
 which Romanticism rested ; he moreover carried 
 them out fully, showing in his career every phase 
 of the development, and is to be regarded as the 
 best type of the school. While a youth at Got- 
 tingen and Leipsic, Friedrich Schlegel showed great 
 force of intellect. At this time he came under the 
 influence first of Fichte, then of Schelling. He mar- 
 ried a daughter of Mendelssohn ; at length at Koln 
 he became a Catholic. He went to Vienna, and was 
 received with distinction, being selected to accom- 
 pany the Archduke Charles in the campaigns of 
 Aspern and Wagram, during which he issued procla- 
 mations which had a powerful popular effect. His 
 learning was immense, extending even to Sanscrit, 
 which he first introduced to German scholars. He 
 lectured on philosophy, history, and literature ; was 
 famed as a poet and a brilliant talker. He died 
 in 1829. 
 
 I have called him the best type of Romanticism, 
 exhibiting as he does in his career every phase which 
 has been described as characteristic of the develop- 
 ment. Coming in his youth under the influence of 
 Fichte' s idealism, he shows in his writings mystical 
 obscurity. Following Schelling in considering na- 
 ture only a symbol of the spiritual, he loses all
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 491 
 
 clear sight of history and the relations of life. Sad- 
 dened by the hard circumstances of Germany, he 
 obtained comfort by turning to the past, and in his 
 contemplation became dazzled with the glory of the 
 Middle Ages, forgetting their shame. In particular 
 he was attracted to the ecclesiastical life, beholding 
 in the Romish Church the acme of artistic and hu- 
 mane culture, the fosterer of art and. poetry, the 
 mother of civilization. Blind to its shortcomings, 
 he became its votary, and longed to see it at the 
 centre of modern life, as it had been in mediaeval 
 days. Of his sincerity there can be no more question 
 than of his genius. As he was eloquent and learned, 
 he was a great poet ; would indeed deserve here 
 to stand among the immortals, were it not that all 
 flows onward in such dreamy, sounding indefiniteness, 
 with only now and then an intelligible tone. "The 
 arabesque," said he, "the musical swaying of the 
 line, the contours not more definite than the clouds of 
 evening, this is the oldest and most original form 
 of poetry." l No better name can be given to his own 
 poems ; they are arabesques, not transcripts of any 
 thino- existing, but lines and contours swaying with 
 
 O O ' / <_- 
 
 exquisite indefinite grace according to the fancy. In 
 his learning, in his dreamy philosophy, in his power 
 of eloquent utterance soaring into brilliant rhapsody, 
 in his mystic, strangely beautiful poetry we shall find 
 his counterpart, I think, in the English Coleridge, 
 who indeed at the same time with him had stooped 
 and drunk from the spring of the same enchanters. 
 
 1 Quoted by Brandes.
 
 492 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 When one passing from Eisenach beholds the 
 Wartburg crowning its wooded summit, there is 
 nothing better to have in mind than Friedrich 
 Schlegel's enthusiastic rhapsody written here in 
 1802, in which, forgetting for the moment his mys- 
 ticism, he glorified the old time. 
 
 " On the mountain's height there dwelt the heroes 
 of old, the knights of the beautiful land. Weaponed 
 with iron, from the fastness of stone they looked 
 boldly down into the valley. The woods all green 
 around, clothed in sun and mist, exhaled from a thou- 
 sand pores refreshment, and murmured deep songs 
 when swept by the tempest, as out of the dark mys- 
 tery of the lofty North. Full of thought and blessed, 
 in the summer, stood the hero at the window. Lift- 
 ing his helmet's visor, he traced in the dizzy path- 
 ways of the clouds the forms of giants mysterious. 
 Smiling in joy, how broad and slow Avinds the stream, 
 now black, now silver, through the plain growing 
 green ! There are the pleasant villages at the side, 
 the beautiful cities, with slender towers vocal with 
 bell-tones. Slowly proceeds along the highway in 
 the valley the wealth of the East in full triumph, 
 chariots and men, glowing stones and blooming 
 fruits, India's golden blessing. 
 
 " When the spring blooms he sweeps through the 
 forest, now in the company of his retinue, now bur- 
 ied in his own thoughts, where no tread resounds, 
 where the wild beast no longer flees, looking at him 
 with intelligent eves. Jovfullv returns he again to 
 
 O ^ */ *,' O 
 
 his cliff in the evening. Full of charm approaches 
 the lofty lady of his heart. They look into one
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 493 
 
 another's holy eyes-; joyfully does virtue embrace the 
 hero, and in the midst of joys she girds him with a 
 mighty sword to extinguish all vices. But when the 
 brown earth is frozen, and the rivers gleam like iron, 
 and the wcods shine white, then by the cheerful 
 hearth they listen to old stories, how the dwarfs 
 live in the caverns. In spirit they behold the 
 abysses aglow with lights, full of treasures and 
 gnomes. 
 
 " So lived the heroes of old, the knights of the 
 beautiful land. And when at last they departed, 
 Michael took them in his mighty arms and bore them 
 to Heaven ! In their gleaming armor they stood be- 
 fore heavenly heroes. Full of devotion kneeled the 
 knight, bowing his head as he beheld the celestial 
 purple of love, the blood of eternal hope, until, 
 blessing, the hand of the Saviour touched him. Then 
 felt he the clasp of venerable Charlemagne, and 
 Roland and Reinhold gave him welcome and com- 
 fort." 
 
 Of greater fame in Germany than Friedrich Schle- 
 gel was Ludwig Tieck, who becoming known at Jena 
 to the Schlegels as a gifted young man, came under 
 the same influences that affected them. He was for 
 a time greatly overestimated. His life extended to 
 1853, and he too exhibited that appalling German 
 fecundity which forgets that the existence of the 
 longest-lived reader is but a span, and his power of 
 comprehension and his eyesight limited. His schol- 
 arship was broad; he made Shakespeare, the old 
 German poems, the literature of the south of Eu-
 
 494 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 rope better known. In particular, he translated 
 well " Don Quixote." " If it was the intention of 
 Cervantes in "Don Quixote" to gibbet the fools 
 who wanted to restore the mediaeval chivalry, and so 
 recall to life a defunct past, it is an amusing irony of 
 fate that it is Romanticism which has given us the 
 best translation of a book in which their own ab- 
 surdities are most effectively raked." l He was able 
 as a critic, and dealt indcfatigably with fairy tales. 
 As a poet, he cultivated especially the lyric. 
 Among his many gifts was a marvellous histrionic 
 faculty, which might have made him a great actor. 
 He used it, however, solely for the amusement of 
 his friends ; sometimes giving tragedy, sometimes 
 comedy, with superb effect. An amusing story is 
 told of his carrying through, ulone, a piece contain- 
 ing five or six strongly-contrasted characters, one of 
 whom was an orang-outang, represented as a senti- 
 mental admirer of Kotzebue. Although he was a 
 
 ^_> 
 
 bright light of the Romanticists, he did not always 
 remain one, forsaking at length their peculiarities 
 and writing his later pieces in the purer taste of 
 Gothe. Seeking for the characteristics which make 
 it appropriate to class him with the Romanticists, we 
 find that he had excessive subjectivity, striving to 
 impress his own sense, whims, dreamings, upon the 
 objects of nature. "Many a thing," he says, 
 "should occur to a man in a natural object, in a 
 lake or a leaf, which certainly does not lie in the 
 thing for another organized being, but merely in the 
 
 1 Heine.
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 495 
 
 soul of the beholder." Instead of showing respect, 
 so to speak, for the rights of the object, the inter- 
 pretation of it becomes upon this theory a merely 
 arbitrary matter. For Tieck, what lay in nature was 
 what lay in his own soul r the whims which often 
 were more attractive the more eccentric ; he de- 
 scended into his own consciousness to get the image 
 of his camel. In a great part of his lyrics he rep- 
 resents the things of nature as personified, making 
 them then speak out the sense of which in his idea 
 they were symbols, following the thought of Schel- 
 ling. They are often lovely, but utterly arbitrary. 
 They give not nature, but attractions, secret yearn- 
 ings, and vaporous whims ; and corresponding to 
 the inner uncertainty was the form vague. Speak- 
 ing of Tieck' s lyrics in his Romantic period, says 
 Brandos : ' ' They resemble those of Gothe as the 
 clouds in the horizon resemble firm snow mountains. 
 The hearer stands opposite them like Polonius in 
 "Hamlet," only more honestly doubtful than he, 
 and cannot tell whether it is most like a camel, a 
 weasel, or a whale." 1 
 
 But the most gifted and interesting of the Roman- 
 ticists is yet to be described. Riding from Leipsic 
 westward toward Thuringia, the traveller will catch 
 sight of the town of Weissenfels, beyond the river 
 Saale, a strong castle in the centre. Here Gustavus 
 Adolphus left his armor when marching out to the 
 plain of Liitzen, not many miles away, and here they 
 
 1 Hauptstromungen.
 
 496 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 brought his body afterward for the embalming. 
 But an even more tender association with the town 
 is that here, in the position of a government official , 
 as strange a place for him as the Salem custom-house 
 for Hawthorne, Fricdrich Georg von Harden- 
 berg, or, as he is known in literature, Novalis, with 
 a hectic flush on his beautiful: face, dreamed and 
 } r carned away the brief years of his manhood. He 
 died at twenty-nine. He had grown up a delicate 
 child, coming in youth under the spell of Fichte, 
 and becoming acquainted with the Schlegels. In 
 him we find the strongest idealism, before which the 
 outer world becomes the merest shadowy veil ; a 
 tendency to symbolism so strong that not only do 
 natural objects stand for ideas, but even the simplest 
 and commonest relations of life commerce, min- 
 ing, agriculture he surrounds with a solemn mystic 
 light, seeking to impart to them a supersensual 
 significance. He was penetrated with enthusiasm 
 for the mediaeval life, and abjured Protestantism for 
 the older faith. His spiritual songs are full of that 
 sweet mysticism to be found in Tauler, from which 
 came, in part, the Reformation, rarely beautiful 
 in their vapory unfolding with iridescent fancies, 
 and suggesting in their forms the robes and wings 
 of angels. But in his incomplete romance, " Hein- 
 rich von Ofterdingen," we find his most character- 
 istic work. Heinrich is a mediaeval hero, a minne- 
 singer, but with every step the presentation falls 
 more and more away into the incomprehensible. 
 Novalis concerns himself with the most supernal 
 matters, which from their nature cannot be em-
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 497 
 
 bodied objectively. The figures, which at first have 
 some distinctness, vanish moro and more until all 
 becomes dream-like and allegorical. There are pas- 
 sages worthy of the greatest poet ; these are oases in 
 a rainbow-hued waste, areas of definiteness in an im- 
 penetrable mist that covers every thing. 1 The Ger- 
 mans find some resemblance between Novalis and 
 Shelley, and a parallel perhaps can be drawn ; the 
 same superb poetic gift, in both vagueness of pre- 
 sentment, the spirit in its proud self-assertion dis- 
 daining all bonds of form, for both the early grave. 
 But on the other hand the fervor of Catholic piety 
 in Novalis, that sings happiness in Jesus and rhapso- 
 dizes over the communion, contrasts strongly with 
 Shelley's defiant unbelief. I give a passage from 
 Heine's consideration: 
 
 ' ' The muse of Novalis was a pale and slender 
 maid, with earnest blue eyes, golden, hyacinthine 
 locks, smiling lips, and a little red mole on the left 
 side of her chin. In other words, I always conceive 
 the muse of Novalis as the maid who first made 
 Novalis known to me. She dressed always in blue, 
 and was called Sophia. She lived a few stations 
 from Gottingen, with her sister, the postmistress. 
 She was tender as a sensitive-plant, and her words 
 were as fragrant and purely sounding, and if they 
 were put together they became verses. One of these 
 poems, which she repeated to me when I took leave 
 of her, is especially dear to me. In a garden, in 
 autumn, in which there has been an illumination, a 
 
 Kurz. 
 83
 
 498 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 conversation is heard between the last taper, the 
 last rose, and a wild swan. The morning mists 
 break in ; the taper is extinguished, the rose withers, 
 the swan unfolds his wings and flies southward. 
 Once in a dead swan's breast we found an arrow, 
 which Professor Blumenbach recognized as African. 
 Poor bird ! with the arrow in the breast it had re- 
 turned to its mother to die. When late in autumn 
 I returned from the south, my way led me near Got- 
 tingen. When I asked the postilion Piope about 
 the sister of the postmistress, he replied : ' Miss 
 Sophia will die soon, and she is an angel already.' 
 Miss Sophia was standing at a window, reading. 
 'When I went up to her, I found again in her hands 
 the Ofterdingcn ' of Novalis. She had read con- 
 stantly in this book, had read consumption out of it, 
 and looked like a gleaming shadow. But she now 
 possessed a spiritual beauty, the sight of which 
 moved me most painfully. I took her two pale, 
 thin hands-, looked deep into her blue eyes, and asked 
 at last for her health. ' I am well,' she said, ' and 
 shall soon lie better.' She pointed out of the win- 
 dow to the new church-yard, a little hill close by the 
 house. On the bleak hill stood a single, small, dry 
 poplar, on which a few leaves yet hung, which swayed 
 in the autumn wind, not like a living tree, but like a 
 tree's ghost. Under this tree now lies Miss Sophia. 
 The souvenir she bequeathed me, the ' Heinrich Von 
 Oftcrdingen ' of Novalis, lies before me now on my 
 desk, and I am using it in writing this chapter." l 
 
 1 Die Komantische Schule.
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 499 
 
 I cannot even mention the names that are enu- 
 merated as belonging to this most loosely defined 
 school. As with it cloudy incoherency became a 
 principle, it seems to defy all classification and sys- 
 tematic treatment. Friedrich Schlegel, we have 
 seen, comes nearer than any other one to showing 
 in himself all the marks which are taken to charac- 
 terize Romanticism. By far the greater part of the 
 writers exhibit the characteristics imperfectly, and 
 their connection with the development is often of the 
 slightest. In fact, the classification is of the loosest, 
 most unsatisfactory kind, only tolerable because 
 nothing better is possible ; it does suffice to furnish 
 a thread which is of some help to a student in mak- 
 ing his way among a multitude of names. Wack- 
 enroder, author of " Heart Gushings of an Art- 
 Loving Cloister Brother," is a Romanticist mainly 
 by virtue of the enthusiasm with which he adopted 
 the faith of the Romish Church. " The notes of 
 the full Latin chant which, rising and falling, made 
 their way through the swelling tones of the instru- 
 mental music, like ships which sail through the 
 waves of the sea, raised my spirit constantly higher ; 
 and when the music in this way had penetrated my 
 entire being, and run through all my veins, then I 
 raised my eyes and looked about me. The whole 
 temple became living before my gaze, so intoxicated 
 had I grown through the harmony. At the moment 
 when it ceased, a priest stepped before the high 
 altar, raised the Host with an inspired gesture, and 
 showed it to the people. Then all the people sank 
 upon their knees, and trumpets and powerful tones
 
 500 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 of I know not what kind stormed and thundered a 
 sublime devotion through all my limbs. Then it 
 clearly seemed to me as if all those kneeling prayed 
 to the Father in Heaven for the salvation of my soul, 
 drawing me over to the faith with irresistible power." 
 Fouque, the famous author of " Undine," is a 
 Romanticist through the enthusiasm he felt for 
 mediaeval subjects ; in stilt others the bond of con- 
 nection is some tinge of mysticism. Wide apart as 
 the poles from their dreamy brethren are Ernst 
 Moritz Arndt and Theodore Korner. When Ger- 
 many was on fire with aspirations for freedom, 
 in 1813, these were the singers who wrote the 
 lays the armies sang when marching into battle, 
 that were sung in the homes to bring new armies 
 forth. Most energetic, not a breath of vapory 
 vagueness, not a whisper of allusion to any far- 
 away time, they speak right to the German's 
 heart with patriotism the deepest, with ardor that 
 becomes sometimes ferocity. Such is the tone of 
 Arndt's fierce thanksgiving to the God that made 
 iron grow, so that there might be weapons ; and of 
 Korner' s invocation to the sword, his bride, a 
 song which rang through his soul as he swept, in 
 the saddle, on in a charge with Liitzow's wild hunt, 
 dashed down upon paper in the bivouac, while bugles 
 were calling, the youthful hand that wrote it pres- 
 ently mouldering in a soldier's grave. The love of 
 the fatherland thus expressed was really connected 
 with the dwelling upon the glories of the ancient 
 empire. First came the ardent remembrance of the 
 splendor of the time of the Hohenstauflen ; then the
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. 501 
 
 desire to have it renewed ; then the belief that it 
 would be renewed ; then, last in the development, 
 the hot urging of the military spirit against the op- 
 pressor that stood in the way of the renewal. 
 
 Here is one of the " Sonnets in Armor " 1 of the 
 poet Ruckert, a collection of pieces which have the 
 patriotic fire of Arndt and Korner : 
 
 What forge ye, smiths? " 'Tis fetters we are making." 
 
 Alas! 'tis fetters ye yourselves are wearing. 
 
 Farmers, why plough? "Fruits must the field be bearing." 
 
 Yes, for the foe the crop, yourselves in fetters quaking. 
 
 Hunter, what game? "The fatted deer I'm taking." 
 
 Death-aiming eyes on thee thyself are glaring. 
 
 Fisher, what dost thou? "Timid fish I'm snaring." 
 
 The hands of death to grasp thee now are aching. 
 
 Ye rock your children, loving, sleepless mothers, 
 
 That they may grow, and, while the land doth languish, 
 
 March with the foe, with wounds their country smiting ! 
 
 What writest thou, O, bard? "Mine and my brother's 
 
 Shame in hot, fiery words, my nation's anguish, 
 
 Which dares not for its freedom to be fighting! " 
 
 Ruckert was one of the best Orientalists of his 
 time, writing often under the inspiration caught from 
 Eastern literatures. For his "Sonnets in Armor" 
 mainly, however, he is to be classed among the Ro- 
 manticists. Then Achim von Arnim and Clemens 
 Brentano ; Werner, child of an insane mother, 
 who believed herself, before his birth, the Virgin 
 Mary pregnant with another Saviour, a wild dram- 
 atist, later a Catholic preacher at Vienna, awing the 
 world with a half-mad eloquence ; Hoffmann, the 
 writer of weird romances, whose counterpart is 
 
 1 Geharnischte Sonetten.
 
 502 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Poe, all these, and many another in this time and 
 race full of seething intellectual life, poets, tale- 
 writers, dreamers, scholars, we can link in one way 
 or another to the Romantic school. There is only 
 space for an account of the poet in whom Romanti- 
 cism is considered to have come to its end, Lud- 
 wig Uhland. 
 
 Uhland, born in 1789, has died almost in our own 
 day. In his youth he felt strongly the influence of 
 Romanticism, then in its fullest tide, and went from 
 Swabia, his native land, to Paris, to study mediaeval 
 manuscripts. In 1813 he sang the uprising of the 
 German people. When the downfall of the French 
 power occurred, he became diverted from his proper 
 path and took part in politics, withstanding with 
 noble courage the petty despotism which in Southern 
 Germany, when the foreign domination was broken, 
 sought to reestablish itself. Starting with the Ro- 
 manticists, he early showed a different tendency. 
 He gave the school a new character, powerful with 
 life ; we may say he destroyed it, because he con- 
 quered its most essential characteristic, the dreamy, 
 yearning, ideal indistinctness. Though a passionate 
 admirer of the old literature, he felt no enthusiasm 
 for the old empire? ; the intense subjectivity of Ro- 
 manticism he forsook, and gave to t ] v outer world 
 due respect. Once more appeared in German litera- 
 ture the simplicity, truth, and unaffected grace of the 
 volks-lied. His subjects are for the most part sim- 
 ple, and near to our sympathies ; his lyrics some- 
 times pensive, but generally cheerful, abounding in 
 love of nature, and sometimes humorous. His pop-
 
 THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL, 503 
 
 ularity was unbounded. As his followers became 
 numerous they constituted what is called the Swa- 
 bian school, several of them becoming poets of 
 eminence. Perhaps his genius was at its best when 
 he considered some mediaeval subject, catching the 
 spirit of the old minstrels, whose songs he so much 
 loved. Of that kind is his famous drama, "Ernst 
 von Schwaben," and many a sounding ballad which 
 has the ring of the vigorous poets of the early time. 
 I translate here the song which Heine calls the 
 most beautiful of Uhland's songs, one which in his 
 boyhood Heine declaimed, sitting among the ruins 
 of the old castle at Diisseldorf, until he heard his 
 voice reechoed by the water-spirits from the Rhine : 
 
 The handsome shepherd slowly strayed, 
 
 The king's high palace-hall in view; 
 Forth from the turret looked the maid, 
 
 And full of yearning grew. 
 
 To him with sweetest voice she cried r 
 "O would I might come down to thee! 
 
 How white the lambs there at thy side! 
 How red the flowrets free ! " 
 
 The youth her greeting straight returns : 
 "O would thou couldst come down to me / 
 
 Thy cheek with rosy beauty burns, 
 And white the arms I see." 
 
 And when he now, with heart aglow, 
 
 His flock each morning thither drove, 
 He gazed, till in her turret, lo, 
 
 Appeared his beauteous love! 
 
 Then he in friendly voice would say : 
 
 " Welcome, dear daughter of the king! " 
 
 "I thank theo, shepherd mine '. " straightway 
 Her voice would downward ring.
 
 504 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The winter fled ; then came spring-tide ; 
 
 The flowrets bloomed the meadows o'er. 
 Straight to the spot the shepherd hied; 
 
 The maid appeared no more. 
 
 He called with voice all full of woe ; 
 
 " Welcome, dear daughter of the king! " 
 "Adieu, adieu, my shepherd! " lo, 
 
 A ghost's voice down did ring ! 
 
 That Uhland, who in his younger manhood wrote 
 with such enthusiasm and success, allowed the lyre 
 to become silent in his hands, as his life went for- 
 ward, is due no doubt to the circumstances among 
 which he was thrown. In public life he stood forth 
 bravely and at great sacrifice in defence of popular 
 rights, civil equality, and intellectual freedom, the 
 great Protestant ideas. Naturally his interest in a 
 past whose institutions were Catholic and feudal was 
 lessened. As Heine puts it: "Precisely because 
 his intentions wore so honest as regards the modern 
 time, he could no longer sing the songs of the old 
 time with his former enthusiasm. Since his Pega- 
 sus was a knightly charger only, which liked to trot 
 back into the past, but immediately stood still when 
 urged forward into modern life, the honest Uhland 
 smilingly dismounted, had the obstinate beast quietly 
 unsaddled and led into the stable. There he stands 
 to the present day, and like his colleague, the horse 
 of Bayard, has only one fault, he is dead." 
 
 1 Die Eomantische Schule.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 
 
 In one of the old towns on the Rhine, I went to see 
 a synagogue which tradition says was built before 
 the Christian era. In Roman legions served certain 
 Jews, who, stationed here on the frontier of Gaul, 
 which had just been subdued, founded a temple of 
 their faith. I felt that the low, blackened walls of 
 time-defying masonry had, at any rate, an immense 
 antiquity. The blocks of stone were beaten by the 
 weather ; the thresholds nearly worn through by the 
 passing of feet ; a deep hollow lay in a stone at the 
 portal, where the multitude of generations had 
 touched it with the finger in sacred observance. 
 Within the low interior my Jewish guide told me a 
 sorrowful legend, which was no doubt in part true, 
 relating to a lamp burning with a double flame be- 
 fore the shrine. Once, in the old cruel days, that 
 hatred might be excited against the Jews of the city, 
 a dead child was secretly thrown by the Christians 
 into the cellar of one of their faith. Straightway 
 an accusation was brought by the contrivers of the 
 trick ; the child was found, and the innocent He- 
 brews accused of the murder. The authorities of 
 the city threatened at once to throw the chief men 
 of the congregation into a caldron of boiling oil if
 
 506 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the murderers were not produced. Time passed ; 
 the rabbi and elders were bound, and heard already, 
 close at hand, the simmering of the preparing tor- 
 ture. Then appeared two strangers, who gave them- 
 selves into the hands of the magistrates, voluntarily 
 accusing themselves of the crime. Into the cal- 
 drons they were at once thrown, from which, as they 
 died, ascended two milk-white doves. Innocent, 
 with a pious lie upon their lips, they sacrificed them- 
 selves to save others. To commemorate their deed, 
 the lamp with the double flame had been kept for- 
 ever burning within the low arch. 
 
 I walked one day through the Juden-gasse at 
 
 */ O O 
 
 Frankfort. The modern world is ashamed of the 
 cruelty and prejudice of the past, and would like to 
 hide from sight the things that bear witness to it. 
 The low, strong wall however was still standing, 
 within whose narrow confines the Jews were crowded, 
 never safe from violence, or even death, if they 
 were found outside at times not permitted. Many 
 of the ancient houses still remained, the fronts dis- 
 colored, channelled, towering up in mutilation and 
 decay that were pathetic, as if they had partaken in 
 the long suffering of their inmates, and were stained 
 and furrowed by tears. From one of the battered 
 houses came the family of Rothschild, to stand as the 
 right-hand men of kings, and hold nations in their 
 hands, exchanging the squalor of the Juden-gasse 
 for palaces ; but the old mother of the family would 
 never leave the straitened home. She came to be- 
 lieve that the fortunes of her sons depended upon 
 her remaining within the wall. She would go for a
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 507 
 
 day's visit to her sons in their splendid abodes, but 
 at nightfall always returned, and in the Juden- 
 gasse, at last, she died. The Jews of to-day seem 
 to take pleasure in contrasting their present con- 
 dition with their past misery. They have chosen 
 to erect their stately synagogue among the old roofs, 
 upon the foundations even of the wall with which 
 the past tried to fence them off from all Christian 
 contact. 
 
 In a certain sense, the most rationalistic thinker 
 will admit that the Jews are " the chosen people 
 of the Lord." For intense passionate force there 
 is no people among the races of the earth so re- 
 markable. In whatever direction the Jew sends 
 his feeling, is it not right to say that he surpasses 
 in earnestness all other men ? If the passion be 
 mean or wicked, to what depths will he not descend? 
 Fagin and Shylock are our types of the extremity 
 of unscrupulous malice. But if his hate is bitter, 
 a force just as great, on the other hand, appears 
 in his love. Be it child or parent, be it mistress, 
 friend, or wealth, the Jew's love is the most intense 
 of loves. If the yearning takes an upward direction, 
 it becomes the purest and most earnest of religions, 
 voicing itself in psalm and prophecy, becoming con- 
 crete at length in the Christ, the outshining of God 
 Himself. The spiritual energy of the Jew mani- 
 fests itself very strikingly in the tenacity with which 
 he clings to his nationality. Eighteen hundred years 
 have passed since the race, in its old home, was con- 
 quered and driven forth to the four winds. Since 
 then what have they not suffered? Take the his-
 
 508 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 tory of any of the civilized nations, and no page 
 will be found quite so tragic as the story of its 
 treatment of the Jews. Robbery and exile, torture 
 and death, not a woe that man can inflict upon his 
 fellow-man has been spared them, and the agents 
 of the cruelty have often felt that in exercising it 
 they were only performing service to God. Men 
 chivalrous and saintly have persecuted the Jews al- 
 most in proportion to their chivalry and sanctity. 
 Richard Coeur do Lion taxes and massacres them 
 without mercy ; in the mediaeval cities the hands 
 that were shaping the great cathedrals heap up fag- 
 gots by wholesale for the Jew-burnings ; Ferdinand 
 and Isabella drive them forth by thousands ; Luther 
 turns from them with abhorrence. In the oppres- 
 sion to which the race has been subjected, nearly all 
 forms of activity have been forbidden to it except 
 money-getting,- a narrow, sordid channel, but 
 through that Jewish energy has rushed until, de- 
 spised though the people were, they have had the 
 world almost at their mercy. But beaten though 
 their hands have been, their grip has hardly relaxed 
 a particle upon the traditions and customs they 
 value. Even in outward traits there has been little 
 change. Abraham and Mordecai confront us to- 
 day in the streets with the very features of their 
 progenitors of the same names, as they stand fixed 
 on the monuments of Nineveh. Whatever soften- 
 ing they may undergo through the influence of 
 modern ideas, Jerusalem, to multitudes of them, is 
 still their holy city ; the babe must undergo cir- 
 cumcision : for themselves and the stranger within
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 509 
 
 their gates the unleavened bread must be prepared 
 at the feast of the passover. Tenacity how mar- 
 vellous ! The world, with blow after blow of out- 
 rage and contumely, has not been able to hunt the 
 life out of its grizzly Judean prey. 
 
 It is only yesterday, as it were, that a beginning 
 was made of lifting the weight off the shoulders of 
 the Jews. When Lessing selected a Jew to be the 
 hero of his grandest play, the innovation was so un- 
 heard of as to mark his intrepidity more strongly 
 perhaps than any act he ever performed. Even late 
 in the eighteenth century Jews were massacred in 
 Europe. Up to the time of the Napoleonic wars, in 
 most countries they were a race of pariahs. They 
 had scarcely any rights in the courts ; on church 
 holidays it was part of the regular celebration to 
 hunt them through the streets and sack their houses ; 
 in some cities only twenty-five Jews were allowed 
 to marry during a year, that the accursed race miffht 
 
 / O v O 
 
 not increase too fast. So late as 1830, the Jews in 
 Hamburg were hunted with the old bitterness ; even 
 Solomon Heine, the richest banker in Germany, 
 the man upon whose shoulders the prosperity of the 
 city to a large extent rested, who had given whole 
 fortunes in the most catholic spirit for innumer- 
 able charities and public ends, with difficulty saved 
 himself from outrage. 
 
 A story how long and how tragic ! The Jew has 
 paid back hate for hate, and scorn for scorn. I well 
 remember going into the shop of a Jew in an ancient 
 city, and, during our bargain, crossing his purpose 
 in a way that aroused his anger. The flash in his 
 dark eye was of the hereditary wrath bequeathed to
 
 510 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 him from many generations of persecuted fathers, 
 called forth by the son of the Christian, who stood 
 before him ; in the hiss with which his words came 
 forth I heard the serpent that had been gathering 
 its poison for almost two thousand years ! 
 
 Has the spirit of this race, so intense, so per- 
 sistent, so trampled by persecution, ever found an 
 adequate voice? Yes, a voice which is pervaded 
 with all the melancholy that such long-continued 
 suffering would cause, in which we seem to hear 
 sometimes the saddest wailing ; then again a ter- 
 rible wit, sometimes indeed lightly playful, but 
 more often resembling the laughter of a man mad 
 through despair ; in which too there is at times a 
 gall and bitterness, as of the waters of Marah, 
 poured out too indiscriminately upon the innocent 
 as well as upon those worthy of scorn, the voice 
 of Heinrich Heine. 
 
 He was born of Jewish parents, at Diisseldorf. 
 " How old are you ?" says a personage to him in 
 one of his works. " Signora, I was born on the 
 morning of New Year's day, 1800." " I have 
 always told you," said the marchese, " that he was 
 one of the first men of the century." The Heine 
 family came from Biickeburg, a little principality 
 between Hanover and Hamburg, whose insignifi- 
 cance Heine merrily hits off as follows : 
 
 O Danton, thou must for thine error atone ; 
 
 Thou art not one of the true souls; 
 For a man can carry his fatherland 
 
 Alonjj with him on his shoe-soles. 1 
 
 1 It was a saying of Danton that " a man cannot carry his country 
 on the soles of his feet."
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 511 
 
 Of Biickeburg's principality 
 
 Full half on my boots I carried. 
 Such muddy roads I've never beheld 
 Since here in the world I 've tarried. 1 
 
 His father seems to have been a sordid, trading 
 Jew ; his mother however was of quick, impas- 
 sioned, energetic nature, with much taste in litera- 
 ture, art, and music. To her the son often makes 
 allusion, and his attachment to her, " the old lady of 
 the Damm-thor," the name of the Hamburg gate 
 near which she lived, is a redeeming trait in a 
 character in which there is more to blame than ad- 
 mire. During his boyhood in Diisscldorf he was a 
 perfect type of the gamin, full of wit and mischief 
 as an imp, a bright-eyed, crisp-locked, elf-like 
 little Je\v, of unconquerable vivacity, whose Puck- 
 like pranks kept the neighborhood alive, sometimes 
 with amusement, sometimes with vexation. His 
 poems preserve many childish reminiscences, but 
 not in a more interesting way than his prose, in 
 which he was not less a master. Of such recollec- 
 tions, which it is interesting to compare with the 
 " Dichtungund Wahrheit" of Gothe, none are more 
 interesting than those connected with the occupation 
 of his native town by the French, portraying historic 
 figures and the minute incidents of an interesting 
 time with unexampled vividness. Whatever may be 
 said of the effect of the Napoleonic occupation of 
 Germany upon the Germans themselves, for the 
 oppressed Jews it was a glorious deliverance from 
 
 Deutschland, ein "\Viniermarchen.
 
 512 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 the thraldom of ages. Heine's descriptions naturally 
 are full of enthusiasm for those blessing-bringing 
 conquerors. Perhaps at the present time it is 
 healthful to read them, when the Germans seek to 
 justify the hard measure they have meted out to 
 their western neighbors by painting, with the 
 strongest colors the calamities which, in the past, 
 their land has suffered at French hands. For the 
 Jews, Napoleon, at his coming, lifted a terrible 
 yoke, which at his downfall in 1815 was again 
 fastened to their necks, not to be removed until the 
 uprising of 1848. 
 
 When Heine was nineteen he was sent by his 
 father to Frankfort to learn business. Waterloo 
 had come four years before, and in the restored 
 order the Jews were thrust back into the old condi- 
 tion. As one passes through the Juden-gasse, it is 
 perhaps the most interesting reminiscence that can 
 be recalled that there, in the noisome lanes, moved 
 the figure of the young poet, hearing with his fel- 
 lows, at the stroke of the hour, the bolting of the 
 harsh gates. 
 
 Soon after we find him in Hamburg, where his 
 uncle, Solomon Heine, was the money-king of the 
 great commercial city. In the history of Hamburg 
 the name of Solomon Heine is one of the most im- 
 portant. Its prosperity is largely due to his enter- 
 prise, and at the same time, like many another of 
 his race, he was distinguished for his benefactions, 
 in which he showed the broadest charity. He seems 
 to have been a man honorable and well-meaning in 
 all his relations. He had children of his own, many
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 513 
 
 nephews und nieces, and more distant relatives, and 
 appears to have tried, with much painstaking, to do 
 his full duty to his family, as well as the world at 
 large. His treatment of his nephew Heinrich has 
 been called harsh, but it is easy to see there is a side 
 to the story which partial biographers do not pre- 
 sent. The old banker had no taste for' literature, 
 and when Heinrich appeared in his counting-room, 
 behaving with more than the characteristic eccentric- 
 ity of genius, he seemed to his uncle as unpromising 
 amon<y his numerous brood of fledglings as the 
 
 o O O 
 
 ugly duck of the famous story of Andersen. During 
 his entire life Heinrich received from the bounty of 
 his uncle, and was remembered in his will. The 
 gifts, to be sure, were moderate in amount, but per- 
 haps that fact should be taken as a proof of Solomon 
 Heine's wisdom. His nephew became indeed the first 
 poet of his time, "the greatest name in German 
 literature since the death of Gothe." ! During the 
 greater part of his life however he w r as under ban 
 in his native land, forced to live in a foreign city, 
 his writings circulating surreptitiously, or, if per- 
 mitted, subjected first to a rigorous censorship. As 
 will be seen, the ruling powers did no strange thing 
 in treating him with severity ; they only acted in 
 self-protection. A portion of his work indeed, aside 
 from its political bearing, was actually immoral ; nor 
 was his life ever of a kind to satisfy those who held 
 at all to propriety. Heinrich' s relatives, who had 
 expectations as regarded Solomon's wealth, treated 
 
 1 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 23
 
 514 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 him with much disfavor, leaving no stone unturned 
 to set his uncle against him. They seem to have 
 acted from the meanest motives ; while hypocriti- 
 cally pretending disapproval, hoping to swell their 
 own portions by diminishing what might be given to 
 another. The uncle's position was one of great dif- 
 ficulty ; a man without capacity or accomplishments 
 to judge himself of his nephew's genius, disapprov- 
 ing moreover, to a large extent, of his writings and 
 conduct, apparently anxious to do his duty, per- 
 haps it may be said he did all that could be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Convinced at last that a business career was out 
 of the question for the nephew, the uncle offered to 
 pay his expenses during a university course. We 
 find Heine therefore, at twenty, going first to Bonn, 
 then to Gottingen, with the idea of preparing himself 
 to become an advocate. Even before this time he 
 had been the victim of an unfortunate love affair, 
 the lady being his cousin, who seems to have treated 
 him heartlessly. Heine revenged himself by paint- 
 ing her portrait, under different names, in poems, 
 showing first, in connection with this experience, 
 that faculty for bitter speech for which he was to 
 become so famous. It is pleasant to contrast with 
 these the spirit of sonnets addressed about the same 
 time to his mother. " Love," he says in one of 
 them, "I sought in every street; for love I 
 stretched out my hands and begged at every door." 
 He describes further his effort to find love, declar- 
 ing that lie returned home, sad and weary, to find 
 at last in the eyes of his mother the sweet love
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 515 
 
 that was denied him everywhere else. At Bonn and 
 Gottingen Heine became associated with men after- 
 wards distinguished, with many of whom, later in 
 life, he came to stand in relations sometimes of 
 friendship but more often of hostility. The study 
 of law was repulsive to him ; he pursued however 
 literature and history diligently, occasionally com- 
 posing poems. Some breach of rules at Gottingen 
 brought about his rustication, and he went to Ber- 
 lin, coming here under the influence of Hegel, then 
 the ruling spirit in philosophy, by whom he was 
 transitorily affected. "To speak fairly," he says, 
 "I seldom understood him; and only at last by 
 subsequent reflection did I arrive at an understand- 
 ing of his words. I believe he did not desire to be 
 understood, and hence his involved fashion of expo- 
 sition ; hence too perhaps his preference for persons 
 who he knew could not understand him." 1 
 
 But perhaps the circumstance of his Berlin life 
 most important in its effect upon Heine was the inti- 
 macy to which he was admitted by Varnhagen von 
 Ense and his wife, Rahel, people of elegant culture 
 and brilliant gifts, whose salon fills almost the place 
 in the literary history of Germany that is filled by 
 the Hotel Rambouillet in that of France. The 
 friendship of Heine for Varnhagen was one of his 
 most permanent affections. Heine was contribut- 
 ing now to literary periodicals, and attracting much 
 notice. It is creditable to him that at this time 
 he admired Lessing ardently. "I am awe-struck," 
 
 Quoted in Stigand's Life of Heine.
 
 516 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 he cried once, in Unter den Linden, " when I think 
 that Lessing may have stood here." He saw much 
 of the life of the city, which he described in a 
 graphic, racy way, beginning to lay the foundation 
 of his fame as a writer of brilliant prose, a fame 
 which was to equal that which he gained as a poet. 
 
 Heine received his degree of Doctor in 1825, 
 shortly before which time he published in book 
 form a collection of his poems, which in this way 
 were widely circulated. Though the power of the 
 singer is not yet at the full, the collection contained 
 exquisite pieces. The influence of Romanticism is 
 plainly to be seen. The poems are in great part 
 pervaded by the melancholy coming from unre- 
 quited love, a mood into which the poet seems to 
 have been brought through his unhappy passion for 
 his cousin. His conception of love is far enough 
 from being the highest, and sometimes a bold, cyn- 
 ical defiance of propriety appears, which grew upon 
 him as he went forward. 
 
 Though Heine was winning fame, he did not yet 
 give himself to literature. Ho hoped for a govern- 
 ment position or a university professorship, for 
 either of which the abjuration of the faith of his 
 ancestors was necessary. This was resolved upon, 
 and he was baptized into the Lutheran Church. 
 The change was made purely from motives of expe- 
 diency, his convictions having nothing to do with 
 it. He. had no faith in the doctrines of the church 
 into which he was received. With the narrow 
 spirit of Judaism which ho loft lie had never had 
 sympathy, though in his attachment to his race he
 
 HE IN RICH HEINE. 517 
 
 was a genuine Jew, and had associated intimately 
 with certain free minds among them who wished to 
 take advantage of the gradually relaxing bonds to 
 help their fellows to breadth and intelligence. The 
 apostacy was far from praiseworthy, though Heine 
 should not be blamed too sharply. Such abjura- 
 tions were common, and regarded by many Jews as 
 venial. In a measure they were forced into the 
 false profession, since only so did a career become 
 possible. For years after, Heine's mind was ill 
 at ease on this account, as appears from many pas- 
 sages of his letters. "I will be a Japanese," he 
 writes ; " they hate nothing so much as the cross. 
 I will be a Japanese." The advantage he sought 
 he did not gain ; his position became more uncom- 
 fortable than before. The stricter Jews looked 
 upon him as a renegade ; the contempt felt toward 
 him by narrow Christians was not affected by his 
 change. As if to show he was still a Jew at heart, 
 he undertook at this time a novel, the " Rabbi of 
 Bacharach,"- a picture left incomplete, but full of 
 moving traits of the sorrow of the past. 
 
 How 7 moving too is the following: "When I 
 saw ' The Merchant of Venice ' given at Drury 
 Lane, there stood behind me a beautiful, pale Eng- 
 lish lad}', who at the end of the fourth act wept 
 earnestly, and cried out several times, ' The poor 
 man is wronged ! ' It was a face of the noblest 
 Grecian cast, and the eyes were large and black. I 
 have never been able to forget them, those great 
 black eyes which wept for Shylock. Truly, with the 
 exception of Portia, Shylock is the most respectable
 
 518 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 personage in the whole play. He loves money, to 
 be sure, but there are things which he loves far more, 
 among others, his daughter, 'Jessica, my child.' 
 Although he, in his deep passion, curses her, and 
 would like to see her lying dead at his feet, with the 
 jewels in her ears, with the ducats in her coffin, yet 
 he loves her more than all the ducats and jewels. 
 The domestic affections appear in him most touch- 
 ingly. Far more than all historic personalities does 
 one remember, in Venice, Shakespeare's Shylock. 
 If you go over the Eialto, your eye seeks him every- 
 where, and you think he must be concealed there 
 behind some pillar or other, with his Jewish gaber- 
 dine, with his mistrustful, calculating face, and you 
 think you hear even his grating voice, ' Three thou- 
 sand ducats; well.' I at least, wandering dreamer 
 as I am, looked everywhere on the Rialto to see 
 whether I could find Shylock. Seeing him nowhere, 
 I determined to seek him in the synagogue. The 
 Jews were just celebrating here their holy day of 
 reconciliation, and stood wrapped in their white 
 robes, with uncanny bowings of their heads, appear- 
 ing almost like an assembly of ghosts. But, although 
 I looked everywhere, I could not behold the coun- 
 tenance of Shylock. And yet it seemed to me as 
 if he stood concealed there, behind one of those 
 white robes, praying more fervently than the rest of 
 his fellow-believers, with tempestuous wildness even, 
 at the throne of Jehovah. I saw him not ! But to- 
 ward evening, when, according to the belief of the 
 Jews, the gates of Heaven are shut, and no prayer 
 finds admission, I heard a voice in which the tears
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 519 
 
 were trickling as they were never wept with eyes. 
 It was a sobbing which might move a stone to pity ! 
 They were tones of pain, such as could come only 
 from a breast which held, shut up within itself, all 
 the martyrdom which a tortured race has endured 
 for eighteen hundred years. It was the panting of 
 a soul which sinks down, tired to death, before the 
 gates of Heaven. And this voice seemed well 
 known to me. I felt as if I had heard it once, 
 when it lamented in such despair, ' Jessica, my 
 child.'" 1 
 
 In this peried of his life Heine strikes into that 
 mocking vein of writing which he preserved so con- 
 stantly afterwards that his biographer declares there 
 is no piece of his prose, excepting his will, which 
 does not somewhere show it. He never suffered so 
 intensely that he could not employ this inimitable 
 raillery ; no themes were so grave as to make it 
 seem to him inappropriate. Leaving Gottingen for 
 a journey in the Harz, he laughs mercilessly at his old 
 associates: "I have especial fault to find that the 
 conception has not been sufficiently refuted that the 
 ladies of Gottingen have large feet. Yes, I have bus- 
 ied myself from year's end to year's end with the ear- 
 nest confutation of this opinion ; and I have to this 
 end attended lectures on comparative anatomy, made 
 extracts from the rarest works in the library, 
 studied for hours at a time the feet of the ladies 
 who pass over the Weendcr Strasse ; and in th? pro- 
 found treatise which shall contain the results of 
 
 Shakespeare's Madchen und Frauen Jessica and Portia.
 
 520 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 these studies I speak (1) of feet generally; (2) of 
 the feet of the ancients ; ( 3 ) of the feet of elephants ; 
 (4) of the feet of the ladies of Gottingen; (5) I 
 collect together all the remarks I have heard about 
 these feet in Ullrich's garden; (6) I regard these 
 feet in relation to their proper bodies ; ( 7 ) if I can 
 get paper of sufficient size, I will add thereto some 
 copper-plate engravings, with portraits, life-size, of 
 the ladies' feet of Gottingen." Again: "In front 
 of the Weender gate two little school-boys met me, 
 one of whom said to the other, ' I will not walk with 
 Theodore any more ; he is a low fellow, for yester- 
 day he did not know the genitive of mensa.'' ' A 
 hit at the pedantry of the town. 1 There is much 
 however that is severer in his sarcasm. For Got- 
 tingen he seemed to have an especial hatred, and we 
 cannot wonder that his old teachers and the people 
 of the town felt incensed. 
 
 We cannot go with him step by step. He has 
 arrived at fame. A multitude of readers follow his 
 pen with delight. His songs are everywhere sung ; 
 his witty and graphic prose commends itself no less. 
 His nonchalant irreverence, which not infrequently 
 runs into insolence and blasphemj r ; his disregard of 
 proprieties ; his outspoken scorn of the powers that 
 rule, bring down upon him, not unnaturally, fierce 
 persecution. He travels in various directions, his 
 sparkling record keeping pace with his steps. For 
 a time he is in England, a country which he hated. 
 
 " I know a good Hamburg Christian who could 
 
 Die Harz-reiae.
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 521 
 
 never be satisfied that our Lord and Saviour was by 
 birth a Jew. A deep wrath seized him every time 
 it came to him that the being who, as a model of 
 perfection, deserves the highest admiration, belonged 
 nevertheless to the company of those long-nosed 
 gentry whom he sees, as old-clothes men, peddling 
 about the streets, whom he so thoroughly despises, 
 and who are the more unpleasant to him since they, 
 like him, deal in groceries and dye-stuffs, and so in- 
 jure his private interests. 
 
 "As this excellent son of Hammonia feels about 
 Jesus Christ, I feel about William Shakespeare. My 
 spirit faints when I consider that he was an Eng- 
 lishman, and belongs to the most repulsive people 
 whom God in his wrath has created. What a dis- 
 gusting people ! What an unrefreshing country ! 
 How stiff, how cockneyish, how selfish, how narrow, 
 how English ! A land which the ocean would have 
 gulped down long ago, if it had not been afraid that 
 it would make him sick at the stomach. A gray, 
 yawning monster of a nation, whose breath is noth- 
 ing but choke-damp and mortal tediousness, and 
 which will certainly hang itself in the end with a 
 colossal ship's hawser." 1 
 
 Again, he is in Bavaria/ in Munich, which 
 Luclwiir I. is trving to make the centre of art and 
 
 / O 
 
 cultivation for Germany. " That the town should be 
 called a ' New Athens ' is somewhat ridiculous. This 
 I felt most deeply in my conversation with the Berlin 
 Philistine who, although he had been talking with 
 
 1 Preface to Shakespeare's Madchen und Frauen.
 
 o-22 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 me some time, was impolite enough to miss all Attic 
 salt in this New Athens. ' That,' cried he, ' is only 
 to be found in Berlin. There only are wit and irony. 
 Here there is good white beer, but truly no irony.' 
 ' We have no irony,' cried Nannerl, the tall wait- 
 ress, who came skipping by at this time ; ' but you 
 can have every other kind of beer.' I began to in- 
 struct her in 'the following manner: 'Nannerl, 
 irony is not beer, but an invention of the Berliners, 
 the most knowing people on the face of the earth, 
 who are vexed that they have come too late into the 
 world to invent gunpowder, and who therefore 
 sought to establish an invention which should be 
 equally important, and even be useful for those who 
 have not invented gunpowder.' 'Allow me,' said 
 the Berliner, ' to interrupt you. What white, shaggy 
 dog is that, without a tail? ' ' My dear sir, that is 
 the dog of the new Alcibiades.' 'But,' said the 
 Berliner, ' where is the new Alcibiades himself? ' 
 ' To confess honestly,' I answered, ' the place is not 
 yet filled up ; we have however got the dog. Only 
 the lowest grades are occupied ; we have no lack of 
 owls, sycophants, and Phrynes.' " l 
 
 He goes to Italy through Tyrol. " The Tyrolese 
 are handsome, cheerful, honorable, brave, and un- 
 fathomably stupid. They arc a healthy race, perhaps 
 because they are too stupid to be able to be sick. 
 Of politics the Tyrolese know nothing but that they 
 have a kaiser, who wears a white coat and red 
 breeches. So much their old uncle told them, who 
 
 1 Reise von Mliachen nach Genua.
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 523 
 
 heard it himself, in Innsbrtick, from the black Sep- 
 perl, who has been in Vienna. When now the 
 patriots clambered up to them, and expounded to 
 them fluently that they had now got a prince who 
 wore a blue coat and white breeches (Napoleon), 
 then they seized their rifles, kissed wife and child, 
 descended from the mountains, and got themselves 
 shot for the white coat and dear old red breeches." l 
 Heine at length reaches Paris, an exile from Ger- 
 many, where the governments had become so in- 
 censed against him as to make him an outlaw. 
 Henceforth the city is his home. He is constantly 
 busy with writing, does much as a critic of art and 
 literature, much in the field of politics. His poems 
 are numberless ; sometimes simple and sweet 
 throughout as an outgush from the heart of the 
 most innocent of children ; sometimes with an un- 
 canny or diabolic suggestion thrown in at the end, 
 as the red mouse at length runs out of the mouth 
 of the beauty with whom Faust dances in the Wal- 
 purgis-nacht ; sometimes again full of a very vit- 
 riol of acrid denunciation. He wrote much upon 
 German topics for French readers, and, in spite of 
 his outlawry, keeps himself before the German world 
 by contributions to journals of position. He be- 
 comes interested in the religious and social doctrines 
 of Saint Simon. His life is far from commendable, 
 but he becomes at length the subject of a sincere 
 attachment. His loved one is a grisette, a woman 
 quite without education, or the power of appreci- 
 
 1 Eeise von Miinchen nach Genua.
 
 524 GERMAN LITERATURE, 
 
 ating her lover's gifts. "People say," she said, 
 " that Heine is a very clever man, and writes very 
 fine books ; but I know nothing about it, and must 
 content myself with trusting to their word." She 
 was however a woman of excellent heart, a faithful 
 lover, helper, and companion of the man who chose 
 her. For years their connection had not the sanc- 
 tion of marriage. When however he was about to 
 risk his life in a duel, they were formally united to 
 one another in the Church of Saint Sulpice, Heine 
 wishing to do all he could to make her position com- 
 fortable if he should be slain. During the years 
 that followed their love deepened, and perhaps it 
 may be said that in Heine's entire career there is 
 nothing so creditable as his unwavering affection and 
 care for his " Xonotte." 
 
 Theopliile Gautier thus describes him : "A hand- 
 some man of thirty-five or thirty-six years of age, 
 with the appearance of robust health. To look at 
 his lofty white forehead, pure as a marble tablet, 
 and overhung by abundant masses of blond hair, 
 one would have said he was a German Apollo. His 
 blue eyes sparkled with light and inspiration ; his 
 round, full checks were of an elegant mould. Ver- 
 meil roses bloomed there in classic style ; a slight 
 Hebraic curve baulked the intention of his nose to be 
 Greek, without disfiguring its purity of line ; his har- 
 monious lips went together like tAvo fine rhymes, 
 to use one of his own phrases, and had in repose 
 a charming expression. But when he spoke, from 
 their crimson bow there sprung and whizzed pointed 
 and barbed arrows and sarcastic darts which never
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 525 
 
 missed their aim ; for never was a man more relent- 
 less against stupidity ; to the divine smile of Apollo 
 succeeded the sneer of the satyr." l 
 
 The story of the last years of Heinrich Heine is 
 one of unparalleled sadness. He was attacked with 
 a terrible disease the softening of the spinal mar- 
 row ; it stretched him upon his bed, where he 
 lingered eight years, enduring great agony. His 
 body was, to a large extent, at length paralyzed. 
 The sight of one eye was gone ; he could see from 
 the other only by lifting with his fingers the paralyzed 
 lid. He wore out the weary years on his "mat- 
 tress-grave," as he called it, nursed by his devoted 
 wife. Propped up on pillows, he sometimes caught 
 distant views of the street, where he envied the 
 very dogs their liberty. The terrible chastening 
 brought no softening to his spirit. It is a dark life 
 almost everywhere ; but as he lay stretched upon 
 his " mattress-grave," there was a bitterness in his 
 mocking, an audacity in his blasphemies, which the 
 wildest declarations of his preceding years had not 
 possessed. Yet through all he loved his wife, he 
 loved the old lady of the Damm-thor, from whom 
 he took the greatest pains to conceal his condition, 
 lest she might be distressed. No moanings from an 
 ^Eolian harp were ever sweeter than the utterances 
 which occasionally came as the tempestuous agony 
 swept down upon him. We see too a better side 
 in his will : " I die in the belief of one only God, 
 the eternal creator of the world, whose pity I im- 
 
 1 Stigand.
 
 526 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 plore for my immortal soul. I lament that I have 
 sometimes spoken of sacred things without due rev- 
 erence, but I was carried away more by the spirit of 
 my time than by my own inclinations. If I have 
 unwittingly violated good manners and morality, I 
 pray both God and man for pardon." At length 
 came February 16, 1856. A friend, bending over 
 1 him, asked him if he were on good terms with God. 
 " Set your mind at rest," said Heine. " Dieu me 
 pardonnera ; c'est son metier.' 1 So, with a devil- 
 may-care mock upon his lips, the child of the Jew, 
 in whom the spirit of the race, cruelly hounded 
 through so many slow-moving centuries, at length 
 found utterance for its sorrow, its yearnings, its 
 agony, its implacable spite, went forth to his ac- 
 count. 
 
 That Heine was the most unaccountable of men 
 will hardly need further illustration. In one breath 
 he writes the "Pilgrimage to Kevlaar," a poem 
 which one would say must have come from the heart 
 of an artless, ignorant peasant, full of unquestion- 
 ing Catholic piety ; in another it is the grotesque 
 satire " Atta Troll," in the course of which the 
 conception entertained by pious hearts of Heaven 
 and its denizens is burlesqued with unshrinking 
 Mephistophelean daring. Hero is his own descrip- 
 tion of a character full of contradictions, which 
 might answer for himself: " There are hearts 
 wherein jest and earnest, evil and good, glow and 
 coldness, are so strangely united that it becomes 
 difficult to judge them. Such a heart swam in Ma-
 
 HE1NRICH HEINE. 527 
 
 tilda's breast. Many times it was like a freezing 
 ice-island, from which bloomed forth palm forests ; 
 many times again it was a glowing volcano, which 
 is suddenly covered over by an avalanche of snow." 1 
 The difficulties of rendering in Heine's case are 
 
 <J 
 
 perhaps quite insurmountable. Nothing was ever so 
 airy and volatile as his wit, nothing ever so deli- 
 cate as his sentiment. In the process of translation 
 the aroma half exhales ; what, as Heine has distilled 
 it, is most searchingly pungent, is insipid in a 
 foreign phrase ; what causes tears, as it flows on in 
 the German rhythm in pathetic, childlike artless- 
 ness, in English words sinks to commonplace. Let 
 us however attempt it. There has not lived in our 
 time such a master of brilliant, graphic description. 
 Here is a passage from his child-life at Diisscldorf, 
 which I quote from the " Book Le Grand." The 
 book is named from an old drummer, who fills the 
 boy with Napoleonic inspirations : 
 
 " The drumming went on in the street ; I went out 
 before the door and beheld the French troops, who 
 were marching in, the rejoicing people of glory, 
 who went through the world singing and making 
 merry ; the faces of the grenadiers, so earnestly cheer- 
 ful ; the bear-skin caps, the tricolored cockades, the 
 gleaming bayonets, the infantry full of jollity and 
 point d'hoitneur, and the almighty, great, silver- 
 embroidered drum-major, who could throw his stick 
 with the gilded knob up to the first story, and his 
 eyes even to the second, where the pretty girls were 
 
 1 Die Bader von Lukka.
 
 528 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 sitting at the windows." * * * " The neighbor's 
 boy, Fitter, and long Kurz almost broke their necks 
 at this time, and it would have been well ; for one ran 
 away afterwards from his parents, enlisted, deserted, 
 and was shot dead in Mainz ; the other made after- 
 wards geographical explorations in strange pockets, 
 became therefore a working member of a public 
 spinning institution, burst the iron bonds which 
 bound him to this and his fatherland, got happily 
 across the water, and died in London of too tight a 
 cravat, which contracted of itself when a royal offi- 
 cial took the board away from under his feet." 
 
 Five years after Heine saw Napoleon himself. "It 
 was in the alley of the palace-garden at Diisseldorf. 
 When I pressed through the gaping crowd I thought 
 on his deeds and battles. The emperor, with his 
 suite, was riding through the alley ; the protecting 
 trees inclined themselves forward as he went past ; 
 the sunbeams trembled timidlv curious through the 
 
 v O 
 
 green foliage, and in the blue sky above was swim- 
 ming visibly a golden star. The emperor wore his 
 unpretending green uniform, and the little, world- 
 historic hat. He rode a white pony ; negligent, 
 almost hanging, he sat, one hand holding high the 
 reins, the other patting good-naturedly the pony's 
 neck. His face had that color which we see in mar- 
 ble heads of Greek and Roman sculpture ; its fea- 
 tures were nobly impressed, like those of antique*, 
 and on this countenance it stood written, ' Thou 
 shalt have no other gods before inc.' A smile 
 which warmed and quieted every heart hovered 
 about the lips ; and yet we knew that those lips
 
 HEINRICK HEINE. 529 
 
 needed only to whistle, and Prussia would no longer 
 exist ; those lips needed only to whistle, and all the 
 clergy would be rung out ; those lips needed only to 
 whistle, and the whole Holy Roman Empire would 
 dance ; and those lips smiled, and the eye too smiled. 
 It was an eye clear as the heavens ; it could read in the 
 heart of man ; it saw with sudden quickness all the 
 things of this world, while the rest of us only look at 
 one another, and over colored shadows. The brow 
 was not so clear ; the ghosts of future battles haunted 
 it ; sometimes it moved convulsively, and those were 
 the creating thoughts. the great seven-mile-boots 
 thoughts, with which the emperor's spirit, invisi- 
 ble, strode over the world. The emperor rode qui- 
 etly through the alley ; behind him, proud on snort- 
 ing horses, and loaded with gold and ornaments, rode 
 his suite ; the drums rolled, the trumpets sounded, 
 and the people cried with a thousand voices, ' Long 
 live the emperor ! ' : 
 
 Once afterwards Heine saw Napoleon, in 1812, 
 previous to the Russian campaign. "Never will 
 this image disappear out of my memory. I see him 
 even still, aloft upon his steed, with his eternal eyes 
 in his marble, impero.tor face, looking down quiet as 
 fate upon the guards defiling by. He sent them to 
 Russia, and the old grenadiers looked up to him 
 with such awful devotion, so consciously earnest, so 
 death-proud, Te, Ccesar, morituri salutant." 
 
 I cannot help quoting still more. 
 
 " I speak of the palace garden at Diisseldorf, 
 whore I often lay upon the grass, listening rever- 
 ently when Monsieur Le Grand told me of the war-
 
 530 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 like deeds of the great emperor, and meantime, 
 struck up the marches which were drummed during 
 the exploits, so that I saw and heard every thing 
 most vividly. I saw the inarch over the Simplon, 
 the emperor before, and behind the brave grenadiers 
 climbing, while frightened birds shriek and the 
 glaciers thunder in the distance. I saw the emperor, 
 flag in hand, on the bridge of Lodi ; I saw the em- 
 peror in his gray cloak at Marengo ; I saw him on 
 horseback in the battle of the Pyramids, nothing 
 but powder, smoke, and Mamelukes ; I saw him in 
 the battle of Austerlitz, phew! how the balls 
 whistled over the smooth, icy road ! I saw, I heard 
 the battles of Jena, Eylau, A\ r agram. I could hardly 
 bear it ! M. Le Grand drummed so that my own 
 ear-drum was almost burst." 
 
 For the last time the boy hears the old drummer. 
 " I heard behind me confused human voices, which 
 lamented the fate of the poor French, who, taken 
 prisoners in the Russian campaign and dragged to 
 Siberia, had been held there many long years, al- 
 though peace had been declared, and not until now 
 were returning home. When I looked up I beheld 
 really these orphan children of glory. Through the 
 holes of their ragged uniforms looked naked misery ; 
 in their weather-beaten faces lay deep lamenting 
 eyes, and although mutilated, wearied, and for the 
 most part limping, they still maintained a kind of mil- 
 itary stop, and, strangely enough ! a drummer with 
 his drum tottered on before. The poor French drum- 
 mer seemed to have risen half-mouldered out of his 
 grave ; it was only a little shadow in a dirty, rag-
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 531 
 
 ged, gray capote ; a corpse-like, yellowish face, with 
 a gray mustache, which drooped in a melancholy 
 way over the pallid lips. The eyes were like 
 burned-out tinder in which only a few sparks yet 
 glimmer, and yet by one of these sparks I recog- 
 nized Monsieur Le Grand. He recognized me too, 
 and dreAV me down upon the grass, and there we 
 sat as in old times, when he taught me French and 
 modern history on his drum. It was the same old, 
 familiar drum, and I wondered how he had kept it 
 from Russian rapacity. He drummed now as he 
 used to, only without speaking meantime. But if 
 his lips were pinched together in an uncanny way, 
 his eyes spoke all the more, gleaming victoriously as 
 he drummed the old marches. The poplars near us 
 trembled as he thundered once more the red march 
 of the guillotine. The old freedom-struggles, the 
 battles, the deeds of the emperor, he drummed as 
 before, and it seemed as if the drum itself were a 
 living being, which exulted at being able to speak 
 out its inner joy. I heard once more the thunder 
 of cannon, the whistling of balls, the tumult of 
 battle. I saw once more the guards, brave unto 
 death ; the fluttering colors, the emperor on his 
 steed. But gradually a gloomy tone crept into that 
 joyous rolling ; out of the drum resounded tones 
 in which the wildest exultation and the most terrible 
 lamenting were strangely commingled. It seemed 
 a march of victory, and at the same time a march 
 of death. The eyes of Le Grand opened themselves 
 like those of a ghost, and I saw therein nothing but 
 a broad white field of ice covered with corpses. It
 
 532 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 was the battle of the Moskwa. I should never have 
 thought that the old, hard drum could give forth 
 such sounds of pain as M. Le Grand managed to 
 evoke. They were drummed tears, which sounded 
 lower and lower ; deep sighs broke from Le Grand's 
 breast like a sad echo. He became gloomier and 
 more spectral, his dry hands trembled with frost ; he 
 sat as in a dream, only beating the air with his drum- 
 sticks, and listened as it were for distant voices ; at 
 last he looked at me with a look entreating, and 
 deep, deep as an abyss ; then his head sank in death 
 upon his drum." 
 
 The description of the cholera in 1832 is very vivid. 
 "We are put into the sack one after the other," 
 said my servant to me every morning, sighing when 
 he informed me of the number of the dead, or the 
 departure of an acquaintance. The expression, ' to 
 put into the sack,' was no figure of speech ; there 
 was soon a want of coffins, and the greater part of 
 the dead were buried in sacks. When, last week, I 
 went by a public building, and in the roomy hall saw 
 the merry people, the hopping, cheerful little 
 Frenchmen, the pretty, prattling Frenchwomen, 
 who were making their purchases there with a laugh 
 and a joke, I remembered that here, during the chol- 
 era time, piled high upon one another, stood many 
 hundred white sacks which contained nothing but 
 corpses, and that one heard here very few voices, but 
 all the more ominous, namely, how the corpse- 
 watchers, with an evil indifference, counted out the 
 sacks to the grave-diggers ; and these again, while 
 they loaded them on their carts, repeated the number
 
 HE IN RICH HEINE. 533 
 
 grumblingly, or rudely complained aloud, because 
 they had received one sack too little ; whereat not 
 seldom a strange quarrel arose. I remember that 
 two little boys with troubled faces stood beside me, 
 and one asked me if I could tell him in which sack 
 his father was." 1 
 
 The Germans have been accused of wanting 
 greatly in wit and humor, 2 but certain it is that this 
 German Jew, more than any man probably of the 
 present century in the civilized world, possessed 
 these gifts. We must regard him as a genius coor- 
 dinate with Aristophanes, Cervantes, and Mon- 
 taigne. His conversation was full of it, even when 
 he lay in the greatest misery on his "mattress- 
 grave." He was asked if he had read one of the 
 shorter pieces of a certain dull writer. " No," said 
 he ; "I never read any but the great works of our 
 friend. I like best his three, four, or five-volume 
 books. Water on a large scale a lake, a sea, an 
 ocean is a fine thing, but I can't endure water in 
 a spoon." 
 
 Once, at a time of great distress, the physician 
 who was examining his chest asked, "Pouvez vous 
 siffler?" "Helas, non," was the reply, "pas meme 
 les pieces de M. Scribe." 
 
 In many of his poems he rattles on in the merri- 
 est, most nonchalant carelessness, shooting out, now 
 and then, the sharpest darts of spite. Poor Ger- 
 many was forever his butt, as in the following : 
 
 1 Die Cholera zeit in Paris, 1832. 
 
 1 J. R. Lowell, Essay on Lessing. Matthew Arnold.
 
 634 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 From Cologne, at quarter to eight in the mom, 
 
 My journey's course I followed; 
 Toward three of the clock to Hagen we came, 
 
 And there our dinner we swallowed. 
 
 The table was spread, and here I found 
 
 The real old German cooking. 
 I greet thee, dear old " sauer-kraut," 
 
 "With thy delicate perfume smoking! 
 
 Mother's stuffed chestnuts in cahhage green! 
 
 They set my heart in a flutter; 
 Codfish of my country, I greet ye fine, 
 
 As ye cunningly swim in your butter. 
 
 How the sausages revelled in sputtering fat! 
 
 And fieldfares, small angels pious, 
 All roasted and swaddled in apple-sauce, 
 
 Twittered out to me, " Try us 1 " 
 
 "Welcome, countryman," twittered they, 
 
 " To us at length reverting ; 
 How long, alas ! in foreign parts, 
 With poultry strange you've been flirting! " 
 
 A goose, a quiet and genial soul, 
 
 Was on the table extended ; 
 Perhaps she loved me once, in the days 
 
 Before our youth was ended. 
 
 She threw at me such a meaning look ! 
 
 So trustful, tender, and pensive ; 
 Her soul was beautiful, but her meat 
 
 Was tough, I'm apprehensive. 
 
 On a pewter plate a pig's head they brought; 
 
 And you know, in the German nation, 
 It's the snouts of the pigs they always select 
 
 For a laurel decoration. 1 
 
 What power of scornful utterance Heine pos- 
 
 1 Deutschland, eiu Wintermarchen.
 
 BEItf&ICH HEINE. 535 
 
 sessed, the potentates of Germany who persecuted 
 him felt to the uttermost, none more than Fried- 
 rich Wilhelm IY. of Prussia and Ludwio- T. of 
 
 o 
 
 Bavaria. Both were monarchs possessed of intel- 
 lectual gifts, and with many good purposes. Each 
 however was, in his own way, narrow, weak, and 
 self-indulgent. Never had archer such a keen eye 
 for the joints in the armor of his foes as Heine. 
 Here are some stanzas from * ' The New Alex- 
 ander," directed against the king of Prussia. 
 
 There is a king in Thule who drinks 
 
 Champagne, of that he's a great lover; 
 
 And always when his champagne he drinks, 
 His eyes go running over. 
 
 His knights in a circle about him stick, 
 
 The "school historical" truly; 
 When his tongue becomes with drinking thick, 
 
 Then hiccoughs the king of Thule : 
 
 " "When Alexander, in the old day, 
 
 With his little bands unshrinking, 
 Had brought the whole world under his sway, 
 The hero took to drinking. 
 
 The war had given him such a thirst 
 
 The beating so many nations 
 He soaked himself till he nearly burst; 
 
 He couldn't stand such potations. 
 
 Now I, you see, am of mightier stuff; 
 
 More prudent in planning and thinking; 
 For I begin where the hero left off, 
 
 I put at the outset the drinking. 
 
 The hero's course, if I play the sot, 
 
 In the end I'll accomplish better; 
 For I, as I stagger from pot to pot, 
 
 Shall the whole creation fetter.
 
 536 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Champagne invites me " the better land," 
 Where flourish the pleasant juices 
 
 That fill me with inspiration grand; 
 The sorrows of life it reduces. 
 
 Here shall be proven my courage dread, 
 Here shall begin the battle ; 
 
 Let such blood as a bottle holds be shed, 
 And volleys of stopples rattle ! 
 
 I reconcile two divine extremes : 
 
 My trust is in the Lord Jesus 
 But, as comforter, your monarch esteems 
 
 Bacchus, let Bacchus ease us ! " 
 
 The touch of blasphemy in the last stanza is thor- 
 oughly Heinesque. I have ventured to give it, even 
 at the risk of shocking the sensitive reader. No 
 portrayal of Heine would be truthful which should 
 omit that trait. The " Song of Praise in Honor of 
 King Ludwig," however, few translators would care 
 to present to English readers. I give a few stanzas, 
 allowing the passage at the close to remain in the 
 original. Its audacity and acrid malice can scarcely 
 
 *> 4, 
 
 be paralleled. Stupidly brutal was the heel that 
 sought to crush him ; but the snake, writhing and 
 rearing its crest, strikes with fangs so full of devilish 
 venom that we are full of pity for the oppressor. 
 
 In the " Walhalla," the magnificent temple near 
 Regcnsburg, built by Ludwig to contain memorials 
 of the great men of Germany, Luther was neg- 
 lected : 
 
 The simpleton Luther there to see, 
 
 In vain the visitor wishes; 
 As in natural-history cabinets we 
 
 Oft find no whale 'mong the
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 537 
 
 King Ludwig is a great writer of lays ; 
 
 "When he sings, the mighty Apollo 
 Falls down on his knees, and begs and prays, 
 
 " stop ; I shall soon be a fool, O ! " 
 
 At length the king is represented as praying in 
 the royal chapel before the image of the Virgin, 
 who bears the Christ-child in her arms ; he begs for 
 some sign of her favor : 
 
 Straightway stirs the mother of God, 
 
 Her lips with a message are moving, 
 She shakes her head with impatient nod, 
 
 And speaks to her infant loving. 
 
 "Es ist ein Gliick dass ich auf dem Arm 
 Dich trage, und nicht mehr im Bauche; 
 
 Ein Gliick dass ich vor dem Versehn t 
 
 Mich nicht mehr zu fiirchten brauche. 
 
 "H'atte ich in meiner Schwangerschaft 
 
 Erblickt den hasslichen Thoren, 
 Ich hatte gewiss einen Wechselbalg, 
 
 Statt eines Gottes geboren." 
 
 The brilliant wit and poet must be judged with 
 severity, however beneficial the scourging may 
 sometimes have been which he administered. No 
 further illustration is necessary that his wit was 
 often distorted to cynicism, his frivolity to insolence 
 and vulgarity. It is hard to believe that he was 
 earnest about anything, art, patriotism, religion, 
 or freedom. In multitudes of passages, both prose 
 and poetry, he suddenly interrupts the expression 
 of intense emotion by a grotesque suggestion which 
 makes the emotion or its object ridiculous. In the 
 ' Sea Vision," for instance, he represents himself
 
 53g GERMAN LITE&ATU&E. 
 
 as leaning over the side of the ship, dreaming that 
 he sees in the clear depths the vision of a city, 
 which he describes minutely, with melancholy and 
 passionate touches : 
 
 But just at that time 
 
 Did the ship captain 
 
 Pull me hard by the leg, 
 
 Back over the vessel's side, 
 
 Saying, with horrid laugh, 
 
 " Doctor, has the devil got you?" l 
 
 For Napoleon one would imagine that he felt the 
 most genuine and earnest enthusiasm of his life. 
 The " Book Le Grand" contains a passage full of 
 power, in which he denounces England for her 
 treatment of the emperor at St. Helena ; yet as if 
 an actor, after giving the curse of Lear, should sud- 
 denly thrust his tongue into his cheek and draw his 
 face into a grimace, Heine ends his denunciation 
 with a laughable turn : 
 
 " Strange ! a terrible fate has already overtaken 
 the three principal opponents of the emperor : 
 Londonderry has cut his throat ; Louis XVIII. has 
 rotted on his throne ; and Professor Saalfield is still 
 professor at Gottingen ! " 
 
 Among English writers, Heine has points of re- 
 semblance with Sterne, still more with Byron; 
 but, to my mind, his closest English analogue in 
 genius and character is Dean Swift. In Swift's 
 career it is perhaps the plcasantest incident that he 
 could attract the love of Stella and Vanessa, and 
 
 1 Siiid Sie des Teufels?
 
 EEINRICH HEINE. 689 
 
 feel for them a friendship which perhaps amounted 
 to love. In Heine's honorable affection for two 
 women his wife, " Nonotte," and the " old lady 
 of the Damm-thor" we see him at his best. 
 Both Heine and Swift were place-hunters, who 
 sought for advancement in questionable ways, only 
 to be disappointed ; for both there was disease at the 
 end that was worse than death. Such gall and 
 wormwood as they could pour upon their adver- 
 saries, what sinners elsewhere have tasted ! With 
 what whips of scorpions they smote folly and vice ; 
 but who will dare to say it was through any love of 
 virtue ? Both libelled useful and honorable men with 
 coarse lampoons ; in both there was too frequent 
 sinking into indecency. 
 
 But there was a field in which the bitter dean had 
 no part with the sufferer of the " mattress-grave." 
 Heine was not altogether a scoffer ; his power of 
 touching the tenderest sensibilities is simply wonder- 
 ful. In his plaintive songs the influence of Roman- 
 ticism can be clearly seen, and also of the popular 
 ballad, whose character he caught most felicitously. 
 He assumed a certain negligence which gave his 
 poems an air of pure naturalness and immediateness, 
 whereas they were the products of consummate art. 1 
 But no poet has ever been able to convey more thor- 
 oughly the impression of perfect artlessness. The 
 "Princess Use," for instance, one would say could 
 have been written by no other than the most inno- 
 cent of children : 
 
 1 Kura.
 
 540 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 I am the Princess Ilse ; 
 
 To my castle come with me, 
 To the Ilsenstein, my dwelling, 
 
 And we will happy be. 
 
 Thy forehead will I moisten, 
 
 From my clear flowing rill ; 
 Thy griefs thou shalt leave behind thee, 
 
 Thou soul with sorrow so ill ! 
 
 Upon my bosom snowy, 
 
 "Within my white arms' fold, 
 There shalt thou lie and dream a dream 
 
 Of the fairy lore of old. 
 
 I'll kiss thee, and softly cherish, 
 
 As once I cherished and kissed 
 The dear, dear Kaiser Heinrich, 
 
 So long ago at rest. 
 
 The dead are dead forever, 
 
 The living alone live still ; 
 And I am blooming and beautiful, 
 
 My heart doth laugh and thrill. 
 
 O come down into my castle, 
 
 My castle crystal bright ! 
 There dance the knights and maidens, 
 
 There revels each servant-wight. 
 
 There rustle the garments silken, 
 
 There rattles the spur below ; 
 The dwarfs drum and trumpet and fiddly 
 
 And the bugle merrily blow. 
 
 5fet my arm shall softly enclose thee, 
 
 As it Kaiser Heinrich enclosed ; 
 When the trumpets' music thundered, 
 
 His ears with my hands I closed. 
 
 It is very pleasant too to read these lines to his 
 wife, written on his death-bed :
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 541 
 
 I was, O lamb, as shepherd placed, 
 
 To guard thee in this earthly waste. 
 
 To thee I did refreshment bring ; 
 
 To thee brought water from the spring. 
 
 When cold the winter storm alarmed, 
 
 I have thee in my bosom warmed. 
 
 I held thee, folded, close embracing, 
 
 When torrent rains were rudely chasing, 
 
 And woodland brook and hungry wolf 
 
 Howled, rivals, in the darksome gulf. 
 
 Thou didst not fear, thou hast not quivered 
 
 Even when the bolt of thunder shiverered 
 
 The tallest pine. Upon my breast, 
 
 In peace and calm thou layst at rest. 
 
 My arm grows weak. Lo, creeping there, 
 
 Comes pallid death ! My shepherd care, 
 
 My herdsman's office, now I leave. 
 
 Back to thy hands, O God, I give 
 
 My staff ; and now I pray thee guard 
 
 This lamb of mine, when 'neath the sward 
 
 I lie ; and suffer not, I pray, 
 
 That thorns should pierce her on the way. 
 
 From nettles harsh protect her fleece ; 
 
 From soiling marshes give release ; 
 
 And everywhere her feet before 
 
 With sweet grass spread the meadows o'er; 
 
 And let her sleep from care as blest 
 
 As once she slept upon my breast. 
 
 Once, at a critical time in our country's history, it 
 happened to me to visit a negro school. We went 
 from room to room among the dusky faces, until 
 at last one said, " Let us have them sing." Pres- 
 ently the voices rose and fell in a marvellous song. 
 Out of the windows the heavens hung sombre about 
 us ; the dark faces were before us ; the children of 
 the race whose presence among us has brought to 
 them, in each generation, tragedy so pathetic, the
 
 542 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 race that has brought to us, so innocently, such 
 subject for controversy, such occasion for bloodshed, 
 and on account of which we still sometimes seem to 
 hear such fateful tlmnder-mutterings of approaching 
 disaster. The news of the morning had predisposed 
 us to gloom ; the associations now conspired to 
 deepen it ; the strange melody which came pouring 
 forth seemed somehow singularly in keeping. There 
 was in my spirit no defined feeling, but a vague 
 unrest, at once a foreboding of calamity and 
 yearning after peace. It was precisely the senti- 
 ment of the song. The singers seemed to feel it ; 
 we who listened felt it, and there were eyes whose 
 lids trembled with the coming tears. It was the 
 " Lorelei " of Heine : 
 
 I cannot tell what it meaneth, 
 That I am so sad to-day. 
 
 The words, so simple, so infantile almost in sense, 
 and yet with which is marvellously bound such ten- 
 der feeling ! As one repeats the linos they are 
 almost nothing; yet caught within them, like some 
 sad, sweet-throated nightingale within a net, there 
 pants such a pathos ! What could have been further 
 away? What cared we then for the Rhine, and the 
 sorceress who sings upon its banks, and the boat- 
 man engulphed in tho whirlpool? What knew or 
 cared the singers? But something indescribable 
 came pulsing forth to us from out the words, and 
 I felt that somehow it was the appropriate utter- 
 ance for the mood in which wo found ourselves ; the 
 thing to hear from the dark-faced youths before us,
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 543 
 
 an undefined sorrow, a foreshadowing of danger all 
 unknown and vague ! Mighty the poet, I thought, 
 whose verse can come home with such power in 
 lands and among races so far away ! 
 
 The child of the Jew he was, of the race among 
 the races of the earth possessed of the most intense 
 passionate force, and in him his people found a 
 voice. Now it is a sound of wailing, melancholy and 
 sweet as that heard by the rivers of Babylon when 
 the harps were hung upon the willows, " a voice in 
 which the tears are trickling as they are never wept 
 with eyes, a sobbing which might move a stone to 
 pity, tones of pain such as could come only from 
 a breast which held shut up within itself all the mar- 
 tyrdom which a tortured race has endured for eigh- 
 teen hundred years ;" now it is a tone pure and lofty 
 as the peal of the silver trumpets before the Holy of 
 Holies in the temple service, when the gems in the 
 high priest's breastplate flashed with the descending 
 Deity; now a call to strive for freedom, bold and 
 clear as the summons of the Maccabees. But think 
 of the cup that has been pressed to the Jew's lips ! 
 The bitterness has passed into his soul, and utters 
 itself in scorn and poisoned mocking. He cares not 
 what sanctities he insults, nor whether the scoff 
 touches the innocent as well as the guilty. Perse- 
 cution has brought to pass desperation, which utters 
 itself at length in infernal laughter. 
 
 A touching story is told of Heine's last walk in 
 the Boulevards, from which he went home to the 
 death in life he was doomed to undergo for many 
 years. It was in May, 1848, a day of revolution.
 
 544 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 " Masses of people rolled along the streets of Paris, 
 driven about by their tribunes as by storms. The 
 poet, half blind, half lame, dragged himself on his 
 stick, tried to extricate himself from the deafening 
 uproar, and fled into the Louvre, close by. He 
 stepped into the rooms of the palace, in that 
 troubled time nearly empty, and found himself 
 on the ground floor, in the room in which the 
 ancient gods and goddesses stand. Suddenly he 
 stood before the ideal of beauty, the smiling, en- 
 trancing goddess, the miracle of an unknown master, 
 the Venus of Milo. Overcome, agitated, stricken 
 through, almost terrified at her aspect, the sick man 
 staggered back till he sank on a seat, and tears hot 
 and bitter streamed down his cheeks. The beautiful 
 lips of the goddess, which appear to breathe, s'miled 
 with her wonted smile at the unhappy victim." 1 
 Heine says himself, in a letter to the father of Las- 
 selle : " Only with pain could I drag myself to the 
 Louvre, and I was nearly exhausted when I entered 
 the lofty hall where the blessed goddess of beauty, 
 our dear Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At 
 her feet I lay a long time, and I wept so passionately 
 that a stone must have had compassion on me. 
 Therefore the goddess looked down pityingly upon 
 me, yet at the same time inconsolably, as though 
 she would say, ' See you not that I have no arms, 
 and that therefore I can give you no help? ' 
 
 Of the spots associated with Heine there is none 
 so interesting as that room in the Louvre. I stood 
 
 1 Adolph Meissner, quoted by Stigand-
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 545 
 
 there on a day when disturbance again raged on the 
 streets of Paris. It was the end of August, 1870. 
 In Alsace and Lorraine the armies of France had 
 just been crushed ; in the next week was to come 
 Sedan. The streets were full of the tumult of war, 
 the foot-beat of passing regiments, the clatter of 
 drill, the "Marseillaise." On the Seine, just be- 
 fore, a band of ouvriers threatened to throw us into 
 the river as Prussian spies. In the confusion the 
 shrine of the serene goddess was left vacant, as at 
 that former time. I found it a hushed asylum, the 
 fairest of statues rising from its pedestal, wearing 
 upon its lips its eternal smile. The rounded out- 
 lines swelled into their curves of perfect beauty ; 
 within the eyes lay the divine calm ; on the neck, a 
 symmetry more than mortal ; all this, and at the 
 same time the mutilation, the broken folds of the 
 drapery, the dints made in the marble by barbarian 
 blows, the absent arms. When one stands before 
 the Venus of Milo, it is not unworthy of even so 
 high a moment to call up the image of that suffering 
 man of great genius, shamed from his sneer and 
 restored to his best self in the supernal presence. 
 May we not see in the statue a type of Heine's 
 genius, so shorn of strength, so stained and bro- 
 ken, yet, in the ruin, of beauty and power so un- 
 paralleled?
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 
 
 The story of German literature has been brought 
 down to our own day. The position in which the 
 German nation stands before the world was never 
 prouder than now ; their intellectual activity was 
 never greater, their accomplishment never more 
 impressive. As regards polite literature however it 
 is not such a period as that which closed with the 
 death of Gothe ; the modern era is one of decay in 
 poetic force. 1 The causes of decay are not far to 
 seek. 
 
 The new circumstances of the nation call genius 
 into other fields. The change of political condition, 
 the cementing together of the fragments of German 
 nationality into a mighty empire, gives new outlets 
 for ability. In public life, at length, there are some 
 opportunities for tlie citizen, though, as yet, not 
 such opportunities as lie open to the freeborn 
 Englishman and American. Again, in manufac- 
 tures and commerce the possibilities have extended 
 in ti marvellous Avay. Until our own time, German 
 industry has been in every Avay fettered. Unwise 
 trade regulations strangled export and import ; 
 
 1 Vilmar.
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 547 
 
 commerce languished in the interior of the land, 
 and abroad the wings of enterprise were crippled. 
 The restrictions now are for the most part re- 
 moved. What merchant more daring in his ven- 
 tures than the German? What competition more 
 dreaded in the markets of the world than that of 
 the German artisan? Who more bold than the 
 German explorer? There are no finer ships upon 
 the seas than those the German builds and mans. 
 In some East Indian marts he threatens to crowd 
 out Englishman and Hollander. He plants his 
 naval stations in the heart of Oceanica, elbows 
 sharply vegetating Spaniards and Portuguese in Rio 
 and Peru ; climbs, in Schlagintweit, the Himalayas ; 
 in Barth, tracks the African desert; and presses 
 along with Englishman, American, and Russian in 
 search for the North Pole. Only yesterday the 
 possibilities were opened, but through them power 
 is already marvellously attracted that heretofore 
 has been spent at the desk and in the library. 
 
 Positive science, in the third place, has come in 
 our time to absorb in an extraordinary degree 
 enthusiasm and energy. The conquest of force 
 and matter never before went forward so triumph- 
 antly. When achievement is so dazzling, what 
 wonder that ambitious youths enlist for such cam- 
 paigns, and crowd laboratory, assay-room, and the 
 cabinet of the naturalist ! The idealism which was 
 so captivating seventy years ago is forsaken, and the 
 few representatives of a spiritual philosophy must 
 fight hard to maintain their ground against Biichner, 
 Karl Vogt, and the other advocates of materialism.
 
 548 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 One of the most noted of modern literary critics 
 utters himself as follows : "It would be an immense 
 mistake to imagine that a trace remains of the ele- 
 ments that went to form the picture some writers 
 have given to the world of us. The idealism, the 
 dreaminess, the moonshine, have had their day. 
 We have become strict realists. The questions 
 that occupy us in the morning, which perplex us at 
 nightfall, are business questions. All in art and 
 literature that savored of idealism, dreaminess, and 
 moonshine has gone. We have become accustomed 
 to deal better than we used to with realities, and to 
 describe things as they are. I had a conversation 
 the other day with one of our best painters, in 
 which he told me in the most animated manner that 
 he had found a splendid subject for a picture ; that 
 he had now spent twelve months in preparatory stud- 
 ies ; and that he should give the next few years of 
 his life exclusively to the work. Although myself 
 a tolerably thorough-going realist, I at once sup- 
 posed he had chosen some famous event in the 
 world's history. What was my astonishment when 
 he told me that the subject was an iron-foundry ! " l 
 In our field, then, the famous men have vanished, 
 and none of equal significance have arisen to take 
 their places. The great Schiller hardly belongs to 
 the present century. Almost half a century has 
 passed since the death of the greater Gothe. Roman- 
 ticism too has passed almost utterly away, present 
 only in our heavens as a bank of vapor hangs on the 
 
 1 Julian Schmidt, in London Athenaeum, May 18, 1872.
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 549 
 
 far horizon, from which the earth is sweeping, 
 shapeless, indefinite, full of lovely tints, but no 
 longer right at hand to dazzle and obscure. The 
 few great men in whom the brilliant past prolonged 
 itself into the present are one by one dropping away. 
 The grave has just closed over the poets Freiligrath 
 and Simrock, and the story-teller, Hans Christian 
 Andersen. On the scene we now behold figures not 
 great, though often respectable, poets like Jor- 
 dan, dramatists like Gustav Freytag, story-tellers 
 like Auerbach, Spielhagen, the prolific Miihlbach, 
 and Paul Heyse. The force that in another time 
 might have written a great lyric, guides an iron 
 steamship or founds a trading-house in Hong Kong 
 or Valparaiso. To discover the sources of the Nile, 
 or a practicable path through the Arctic Ocean seems 
 a grander thing than to write ' ' Iphigenia ' ' or 
 " Wallenstein ; " or if men of power remain at home 
 among books, they are more likely to undertake 
 a sober history than an epic, a treatise upon evolu- 
 tion or the action of molecules than a romantic 
 tale. 
 
 Still, that writer would do injustice to many per- 
 sons of high talent and noble industry who should 
 represent the German literature of our time as at all 
 insignificant. I was so fortunate as to make my pil- 
 grimage when America had as a representative at 
 Berlin a scholar who, aside from diplomatic ability, 
 won respect in that country of scholars by the best 
 literary gifts and acquirements, the historian Ban- 
 croft. Mr. Bancroft was always ready to befriend the 
 student, however humble, and introduced through
 
 550 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 him, I was fortunate enough to enjoy interviews 
 with some remarkable men. 
 
 Before sketching certain eminent living characters, 
 however, let me speak of two men of genius whose 
 long careers were full of honorable, useful industry, 
 and who link, in a way convenient for our purpose, 
 the present with the past. 
 
 I take down a book from its shelf and find in the 
 beginning this affectionate note, by way of preface : 
 
 " Dear Wilhelm : When thou last winter wert so 
 sick, I was forced to think that thy faithful eyes 
 would perhaps never again fall upon this book. I 
 sat at thy table, in thy chair, and beheld with inde- 
 scribable grief with what unerring taste and judg- 
 ment thou hadst read and arranged the first volumes 
 of my work. It seemed to me that I had written it 
 only for thee, and that if thou wert taken from me 
 I could not possibly finish it. God's grace has pre- 
 vailed, and left thee with us ; therefore the book be- 
 longs of right to thee." * * * " At least, when 
 thou readest me, who knowest my whole capacity, 
 what strength it has, and where it fails, I am bet- 
 ter pleased than when a hundred others read me, 
 who perhaps now and then do not understand me, 
 or to whom my labor is perhaps an indifferent mat- 
 ter. But thou hast the most unwavering sympathy, 
 not only with the subject, but with me. In broth- 
 erly love mayest thou be satisfied with every thing ! " 
 
 The note is the preface to the third volume of a 
 great " Gorman Grammar," a work which lies at 
 the foundation of the science of historic grammar, 
 a sweet expression of brotherly love lying in the
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 551 
 
 midst of the dry linguistic detail, like a fragrant 
 flower that has fallen in and been pressed within 
 the ponderous covers. It lets us at once into 
 the lives of two of the most beautiful characters 
 of literary history, Jakob and \Vilhelm Grimm. 
 They were brothers not far apart in the cradle, 
 not far apart in death ; lying now side by side 
 in graves precisely similar, as I saw them in a quiet 
 church-yard, a lovely rose-bush scattering petals 
 impartially on the turf above both, and solid twin 
 stones at their heads, meant to endure, appa- 
 rently, as long as their fame. For the most part 
 their labor was performed in common, Jakob, the 
 abler, leading the way, but Wilhelm, as the note 
 indicates, always at hand to help with admirable 
 judgment and fidelity. 
 
 The work of the brothers Grimm must be re- 
 garded as perhaps the most marvellous work of the 
 marvellous German erudition. Aside from the 
 "German Grammar," they are the projectors of 
 the great dictionary, which they also partially exe- 
 cuted, in which not only the present meaning, but 
 the thorough history of the words of the German 
 language is to be given, following the changing 
 forms and shadings in signification through all the 
 centuries. 
 
 Best of all, perhaps, they made the folk-lore of 
 the Teutonic race a subject of scientific study, 
 showing that in many cases the nursery-tale which 
 delights the little child to-day, traced back through 
 a thousand phases, has come down from primeval 
 times. In every old land there blooms in the pop-
 
 352 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 ular heart the Marchen. They are a wild growth, 
 full often of beauty and perfume. Within the 
 present century this artless Flora has found a Lin- 
 naeus to subject it to scientific study, in Jakob 
 Grimm. As the botanist studies stamen, petal, and 
 pistil, so the brothers Grimm for Wilhelm was 
 here, as always, the helper study and compare 
 the giant and the dwarf, the enchanted castle and 
 magic wand, the wicked step-mother, the heroic 
 younger son, the robber-cave, each circumstance 
 and feature, every whiff of aroma and line of tint- 
 ing in the Marchen, all with scientific purpose. 
 As a first result the Grimms dared to propound the 
 striking theory that the genuine Marchen were noth- 
 ing more nor less than the remains of the great 
 legends of the old religious faiths, softened down, 
 but still living in the souls of the people. " How 
 much yet," exclaimed Niebuhr, "of the old Ro- 
 man mythology may live in the Marchen, if only 
 some dweller among the homes of the peasants of 
 the Appenines could investigate!" In like man- 
 ner the Grimms and their followers would have us 
 believe that the phantoms of the mighty Norse gods 
 still haunt the hearth among the races of the Teu- 
 tonic stock. It has even been said that we must 
 give up William Tell, perhaps William Wallace, as 
 flesh and blood heroes ; and that Robin Hood is a 
 purely mythical being, no other than the God Odin, 
 who, although the faith of which he was the central 
 figure has been so long displaced, yet refuses to be 
 exorcised from the popular mind. 
 
 Balder, the bountiful, is dead, is dead,
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 553 
 
 sings the Swedish poet Tegner, after the old saga ; 
 and in like manner with Balder, we have believed 
 that Odin, and Thor, and Freya had also passed 
 away. These students would have us believe that 
 they are not dead ; or, if so, that their ghosts re- 
 fuse to be laid. The grim circumstance that 
 attended them in their old preeminence has been 
 laid aside ; but often, in gentle, indeed in blithe and 
 merry guise, they continue to appear to the chil- 
 dren of the great races whose forefathers worshipped 
 them. It is hard to have our dearest heroes fade 
 away into mist; but perhaps, after all, we have a 
 more than adequate recompense in the wonderful 
 grandeur of the thought that these rough hands of 
 the old gods refuse to become decrepit through time, 
 or to be beaten off by culture ; that they reach 
 round the new altars that have crowded out their 
 own simple fanes, and across the widest oceans, to 
 the homes of the farthest wanderers, clasping still 
 the hearts of the children whose wild sires ren- 
 dered them solemn worship. 
 
 The brothers Grimm laid under obligation per- 
 haps a wider public than authors have ever before 
 addressed, the babe almost in his cradle, the 
 youth struggling with the rudiments of scholarship, 
 the gravest scholar and thinker. There is not now 
 
 o *, 
 
 living a better representative of the writers, so 
 many of whom have been considered as we have 
 traced the course of German literature, enthu- 
 siasts in poetry, history, and criticism, and remark- 
 able in all, the class the illustrious types of which
 
 554 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 are the greatest men, Lessing, Gothe, Schiller, and 
 Heine, than Hermann Grimm, the son of Wilhelm. 
 At twenty-five he attracted to himself notice by his 
 drama of "Demetrius," a work soon followed by a 
 series of well- written romances. Later came the 
 "Life of Michael Angelo," a book almost as fa- 
 mous in England and America as Germany ; various 
 critical papers upon subjects of art and literature, 
 noteworthy among which is one upon the Venus of 
 Milo ; and lastly, a series of lectures upon Gothe, 
 given in the University of Berlin, a portrayal whose 
 constant tone of eulogy is somewhat fatiguing, but 
 a most vivid, and, on the whole, trustworthy picture 
 of Germany's greatest mind. I found him in his 
 study, which was filled with books and objects of 
 art, a vigorous man in his best years, with the face 
 and courteous polish of a man of the highest refine- 
 ment. He was interested in America, and knew 
 well American books, having in particular an ad- 
 miration for Emerson, several of whose essays he 
 had translated, doing much also in other ways to 
 make him known in Germany. 
 
 As I sat with Hermann Grimm his brother en- 
 tered the room. It was thrilling to be with the 
 
 O 
 
 brothers Grimm of to-day, so nearly connected 
 with the brothers Grimm of great fame. I saw 
 the relics consecrated by the use of the father and 
 the greater uncle, the thumbed volumes worn and 
 dog-eared in the course of their investigations, 
 written thick in the margin with notes in their own 
 writing. 
 
 But especially fine was it to see a photograph of
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 555 
 
 the two old men, who labored so long together and 
 whose fame is so inseparably linked, sitting in 
 brotherly nearness, with faces full of intellectual 
 strength, and yet with the sweetness and innocence of 
 children. " They were lovely and pleasant in their 
 lives, and in their deaths were they not divided." 
 
 On another day I rung at a door whose modest 
 plate bore the name Leopold von Ranke. He is 
 called the type and leader of the modern school of 
 German historians, somewhat too reactionary in 
 his views to please the friends of freedom, but pos- 
 sessing a skill of presentment which, among the 
 writers of the present day, is quite unmatched. He 
 has hitherto been best known to English readers for 
 his history of the Popes in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, a work long ago translated and 
 most widely circulated. As historiographer of the 
 kingdom of Prussia he has written many volumes 
 relating to that country ; he has written others con- 
 cerning Southern Germany and the south of Europe. 
 Latterly he has appeared in the field of English 
 history, treating an important field with all possible 
 thoroughness and judgment. I was promptly ad- 
 mitted to an unpretending parlor, lined with well- 
 filled bookcases. Presently Von Ranke came for- 
 ward from an adjoining room, wrapped in a long 
 dressing-gown, a man of seventy-five, a short, bent 
 figure, with high shoulders, but with a fresh-hued. 
 bright face and cheerful eye. He addressed me at 
 once in English, complimenting Mr. Bancroft, and 
 plied me straightway with sharp questions about 
 America. His mind was nimble and keen, evi-
 
 556 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 dently quite unbroken. He is still living and labo- 
 rious, having accomplished since I saw him some of 
 his best work. 
 
 If Yon Ranke has a rival as the leader of modern 
 German historians, it is Theodor Mommsen, histo- 
 rian of Rome, in that direction, certainly, the first 
 living man. The translation of his great history 
 every intelligent reader of English has seen, a 
 mighty construction of learning and acuteness. 
 The famous Dane, Niebuhr, led the way in exercis- 
 ing sharp discrimination in the field of ancient his- 
 tory, separating the fabulous and mythical from the 
 trufc. Mommsen is his worthy disciple, presenting 
 however the results he reaches with far more skill 
 and grace than his master. Mommsen began life as 
 a jurist, and his training and knowledge in that 
 direction lend to his history certain important excel- 
 lences ; perhaps too it is due to this that he is too 
 much inclined to play the advocate in the treatment 
 of the heroes of his tale. He has also gathered, 
 with remarkable sagacity, and for the first time 
 used, important scraps of history derived from 
 monumental inscriptions. Mommsen too I found 
 in his study. He came forward from his books and 
 manuscripts to greet the stranger, a thin figure, 
 hardly past fifty, and yet bent as with the weight of 
 great erudition ; a pale cheek, a dark eye, not 
 quenched at all by study, a profusion of dark hair, 
 which was turning gray, over an intellectual head. 
 His voice seemed thin and weak, though under ex- 
 citement, I was told, it became strong enough. 
 His whole appearance spoke of constant toil and se-
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 557 
 
 elusion, and one could see what it costs to become 
 great in his direction. lie received me somewhat 
 stiffly, but politely. He too paid Bancroft a high 
 compliment, saying that it was not often that men 
 so worthy and scholarly were found in diplomatic 
 positions. As a historian he considered him most 
 fortunate in his subject, having a field for the most 
 part unoccupied. He spoke cordially of America, 
 and when I hinted at some of our shortcomings, 
 said, hopefully, that the future belonged to us, and 
 all would come right in time. In the midst of our 
 talk, three pretty children, the oldest perhaps six, 
 came laughing and dancing into the room to bid 
 their father good-night. He kissed them with pride 
 and pleasure, the light in his fine eyes becoming play- 
 ful. While the sunbeam was shining I left the 
 student's dusty den, with its disordered piles of 
 books, its heaps of manuscript, its casts and plates 
 of Roman antiques. 
 
 There is a class of men which in our time has 
 become wonderfully extended and influential, to dis- 
 cuss which does not properly belong to my topic. 
 This class however has absorbed much power which 
 in another age than ours would have undoubtedly 
 gone to literature, and has still a close relation with 
 it, I mean the votaries of physical science. I may, 
 at any rate, describe some of their representatives. 
 " You must see Bunsen and KirchofF," said a friend 
 to me, soon after my arrival at Heidelberg. I had 
 long known the names as the most famous ones con- 
 nected with what is perhaps the most famous scien-
 
 558 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 tific discovery of our time, spectral analysis, by 
 means of which matter can be dissected as never 
 before, yielding new elements, what have until now 
 been considered as ultimates, showing that they ad- 
 mit of still further subdivision. More wonderful 
 still, spectral analysis is the process by means of 
 which the observer becomes even sublimely armed, 
 penetrating space even to the sun, to the distant 
 fixed stars, wresting from them the secret of their 
 substance. 
 
 In Bunsen's lecture-room, accordingly, one morn- 
 ing I found myself among a crowd of young chem- 
 ists, waiting with their note-books on the amphithe- 
 atre o seats. A long table at the farther end of the 
 room was covered with the apparatus for a chemical 
 lecture, here and there among the retorts and beak- 
 ers the quivering, almost colorless, flames of the 
 Btmsen burners, ready to do service for their inven- 
 tor. A spectroscope lay at one side, its handsome 
 prisms just visible; for aught I know there were 
 still more discoveries of the great teacher, which 
 another would have recognized. Punctually at the 
 hour Bunsen entered, a tall, commanding figure, a 
 man of nearly sixty, simply dressed, his head sur- 
 mounted by a skull-cap. There was no sound in the 
 room but the lecturer's quiet voice, and now and 
 then a scratch of the pen, as the large company of 
 reverent young men bent to their notes. They were 
 indeed reverent. Bunsen has never been married ; 
 he sleeps and lives among his crucibles, his sci- 
 ence his wife, his pupils his children ; and I heard 
 strange stories, which in another time would have
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 559 
 
 gone far to carry him to the stake as a wizard, that 
 the flesh of his hands had become as asbestos from 
 the handling of flames and acids 
 
 I found Kirchoff a much }^ounger man, and still 
 younger in appearance than reality. As he stepped 
 out prompt to the minute before the waiting? 
 crowded benches of his lecture-room, and with no 
 preface but a quick, formal bow, plunged into the 
 midst of the abstrusities of physics, he seemed 
 scarcely older than the students he addressed. 
 Slight and pale, with a modesty that flushed his 
 cheek suddenly sometimes, he went on with an even, 
 unhesitating utterance, now and then turning to the 
 black-board to draw, with rapid hand, a diagram, 
 or a series of algebraic symbols. He had lived long 
 enough to make himself, in his direction, one of the 
 most famous men of the world, and the great uni- 
 versities were contending for the honor of counting 
 him in their faculties. 
 
 Walking one day through a quiet street, I came 
 upon a man who was going slowly and thoughtfully 
 in the opposite direction, toward a university build- 
 ing. His appearance was striking. He was finely 
 formed, and had a military carriage ; his well-shaped 
 head sat upon a muscular neck, and his eye glanced 
 dark and piercing, as he looked at me in passing. 
 He seemed the ideal of bodily and intellectual vigor, 
 and I followed him with my eyes till he disappeared 
 within the building before us. It was Helmholtz, 
 who, Tyndall says, was described to him as the 
 brightest mind of Germany, certainly an intellect 
 of the first order, an investigator most persistent
 
 560 GERM AX LITERATURE. 
 
 and successful in the obscurest departments cf 
 physics and physiology. It is an era in one's life to 
 see such a man in his lecture-hall, standing with 
 something of military precision before his silent 
 class, quiet and fluent in his unrivalled mastery of 
 his topics. 
 
 With these personal sketches the story of Ger- 
 man literature is concluded. Let us allow our- 
 selves a brief glance toward the future. Is German 
 literature to preserve its eminence ? If it depends 
 upon thorough mental training, what more can be 
 done ? There is scarcely to be found in all Germany 
 a human being, not imbecile or a very young child, 
 who cannot read and write. An inexorable law 
 forces every child into school until he gains a train- 
 ing tolerably complete ; and to those who seek an 
 elaborate education, such advantages are open as are 
 afforded nowhere else in the world. I went one 
 day into a " Volk-schule " school for the children 
 of the people, a roomy, well-arranged structure, 
 standing back from the street in a quiet court by 
 itself, with rooms all well filled. It was a school for 
 boys, sons of operatives in factories, which abounded 
 in the neighborhood ; from ten to fourteen they 
 were, prompt and promising, well alive in all their 
 work. Looking out through a window into a court 
 attached to the school-building, I saw the martial 
 feature which pervades all Prussian life. The teacher 
 of g} r mnastics was leading a great troop of boys 
 through a series of half-military evolutions, fitted to 
 train them to take kindly by and by to the stern
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 561 
 
 drilling which lay before them all when they had 
 fairly got their growth. 
 
 The most interesting of the German schools are 
 the "Gymnasieu," the nurseries of the best intellect 
 of the country. I attended an exercise in Latin of 
 the " Prinia," or highest class. Fifty youths of 
 eighteen sat on plain benches, in a room bare of every 
 thing but the indispensable furniture. They rose as 
 the teacher entered, then sitting, sang a choral in 
 concert, with powerful voices. The drill that fol- 
 lowed was admirable ; so too in an adjoining room, 
 where the boys were reading Homer ; and in another, 
 where an enthusiastic teacher lectured upon a subject 
 "of natural history. Each master was competent, and 
 teaching in the direction in which he was strongest, 
 the youths eager, respectful, and finely trained. 
 Only here again was the martial feature, in a con- 
 nection which seemed at first irreverent ; after all 
 it was thoroughly Prussian, and deserved to be 
 looked upon as a comical incongruity rather than 
 gravely blamed. A row of cheap pictures hung side 
 by side upon the wall. First, Luther, the rougher 
 characteristics of the well-known portrait somewhat 
 exaggerated. The shoulders were even larger than 
 common. The bony buttresses over the eyes too, 
 as they rose above the strong lower face, were em- 
 phasized, looking truly as if, if tongue and pen 
 failed to make a way, the shoulders could push one, 
 and if worse came to worst, the head would butt one. 
 Next to Luther was a head of Christ; then, in the 
 same line, with nothing in the position or quality of 
 the pictures to indicate that the subjects were any
 
 562 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 less esteemed, a row of royal personages, whose 
 military trappings were made particularly plain. It 
 was all characteristic enough. The Reformer's figure 
 stood for the stalwart Protestantism of the German 
 character, still living and militant in a way hard for 
 us to imagine ; the portraits of the royal soldiers, for 
 its combative loyalty, ready to meet any thing for 
 the Fatherland ; the head of Christ, for the zealous 
 faith which, however it may have cooled away 
 among some classes of the people, is still intense in 
 others. 
 
 Crowning the schools in the educational system 
 come the famous universities. In the best of these 
 there is no branch of human knowledge without its 
 teacher. One can study Egyptian hieroglyphics 
 or the Assyrian arrow-head inscriptions. A new 
 pimple can hardly break out on the blotched face of 
 the moon without a lecture from a professor next 
 day to explain the theory of its development. The 
 poor earthquakes are hardly left to shake in peace 
 an out-of-the-way strip of South American coast or 
 Calabrian plain but a German professor will violate 
 their privacy, undertake to see whence they come 
 and whither they go, and even try to predict when 
 they will go to shaking again. The discipline is of 
 the easiest sort. The student selects his lectures, 
 then goes day by day to the plain lecture-rooms, 
 taking notes diligently at benches which preceding 
 generations have whittled well, where he too will 
 carve his own name, and perhaps the name of the 
 dear girl he adores ; for Yankee boys have no mo- 
 nopoly of the jack-knife. If at the end, however,
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 563 
 
 he presents himself for examination, his stock of 
 knowledge is sifted well ; and if he departs with a 
 degree, has a fair title to be considered a learned 
 man. It is very fine, the preliminary training being 
 what it is. It would be useless, or worse than use- 
 less, without the indispensable pedestal upon which 
 the statue stands. Into the university too Mars 
 thrusts himself, showing his presence most plainly 
 perhaps in the duelling habits of the students. 
 
 To crown all, schools and universities are supple- 
 mented in many places by crowded libraries, and by 
 an instrumentality of which as yet, in America, we 
 have almost nothing, but which is most effective to- 
 ward a noble culture, the historical museum. For 
 a specimen, that at Berlin is a vast collection where 
 one may study the rise and progress of civilization 
 in every race of past ages that has had a history, and 
 the present condition of perhaps every people, civ- 
 ilized or wild, under the sun. In one great hall you 
 are among the satin garments and lacquered furni- 
 ture of China ; in another it is the seal-skin work 
 of the Esquimaux, stitched with sinew. Now you 
 sit in a Tartar tent ; now among- the war-clubs, the 
 conch-shell trumpets, the drums covered with human 
 skin of the Polynesians. Here it is the feathery 
 finery of the Caribs ; here the idols and trinkets of 
 the negroes of Soudan. There too, in still other 
 halls, is the history of our own race: the maces 
 with which the primeval Teutons fought, the tores 
 of twisted gold they wore about their necks, the 
 sacrificial knives that slew the victims upon the altar 
 of Odin. So too what our fathers afterwards
 
 564 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 carved and spun, moulded, cast, and portrayed, until 
 the task of life was taken up Iry us. Again the vis- 
 itor stands within the lac-simile of a temple on the 
 banks of the Nile. On the walls and lotus-shaped 
 columns are processions of dark figures, at the 
 loom, at the work of irrigation, marching as sol- 
 diers, or as mourners at a funeral, exact copies of 
 original delineations. Real, however, are sphinx 
 and obelisk, the coffins of kings, mummies of priest 
 and princess, the fabrics they wove, the scrolls they 
 engrossed, the tombs in which they were buried. 
 In another section you are in Assyria, with the ala- 
 baster lions and plumed genii of the men of Nineveh 
 and Babylon. Upon the walls is thrown all the 
 splendor of the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar ; the 
 captives building temples, the chivalry sacking cities, 
 the princes upon their thrones. Here too is 
 Etruria, revealed in her sculptures and painted 
 vases ; and here too the whole story of Greece. 
 Passing through those wonderful halls, you review a 
 thousand years and more, almost from the epoch of 
 Cadmus, through the vicissitudes of empire and 
 servitude, until Constantinople is sacked by the 
 Turks. The rude Pelasgic altar, the sculptured god 
 of Praxiteles, then down through the ages of decay 
 to the ugly painting of the Byzantine monk in the 
 Dark Ages. So too the whole story of Rome : the 
 long heave of the wave, until it be-.-nmcs crested 
 with the might and beauty of the Augustan age ; 
 the sad subsidence thence to Goth and Hun. 
 There is architecture which the Tarquins saw ; 
 statues of the great consuls of the republic ; the
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 565 
 
 luxury of the later empire. You see it not only in 
 models, but in actual relics. One's blood thrills 
 when he stands before a statue of Julius Csesar, 
 whose sculptor, it is reasonable to believe, wrought 
 from the life. It is broken and discolored as it 
 came from the Italian ruin where it had lain since 
 the barbarian raids. But the grace has not left the 
 toga, folded across the breast, nor is the fine Roman 
 majesty gone from the head and face, a head small, 
 but high, with a full and ample brow, a nose with 
 the true eagle curve, and thin, firm lips, formed to 
 command ; a statue most subduing in its simple 
 dignity, and pathetic in its partial ruin. 
 
 Verily if the appliances of the broadest and 
 deepest possible culture are the conditions of a 
 great literature, what land so full of promise? But 
 let us not hastily decide. At the beginning of the 
 chapter, causes were mentioned which interfere at 
 present with the upspringing of a great literature ; 
 the same causes are likely to act more strongly in 
 the future. Standing on the university steps at Ber- 
 lin, looking across the broad " Unter den Linden," 
 it was once, and perhaps is still, an every-day sight 
 to behold, towering at one of the lower windows of 
 the palace opposite, an erect, martial figure of im- 
 posing height, the red facings of a handsome uni- 
 form buttoned across a massive chest, a face ex- 
 pressive of benevolence and force, set off by a 
 heavy, gray mustache, and hair whitened by nearly 
 eighty winters. The crowd passing on the side- 
 walk bows respectfully, the figure at the window m-
 
 566 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 dining in response in stately courtesy. So stands 
 the old Kaiser Wilhelm, such a potentate as Ger- 
 many has not seen for six hundred years, himself 
 the living type of one of the most important changes 
 of modern history, the unification of Germany. 
 It is a proud and perilous preeminence, and just as 
 magnificent is the eminence before the world of the 
 land which he rules. And what shall be said of 
 this as bearing upon the question in hand? This 
 melting away of barriers accompanied as it is 
 by a higher degree of freedom for the German 
 citizen, by a national life in every way more digni- 
 fied and stimulating brings an alleviation of bur- 
 dens and a general bettering of circumstances. 
 Fields open for the German in every direction, so 
 that he may vie on equal terms with the master- 
 races of the world, in spinning and casting, in buy- 
 ing and selling, in ploughing the sea and struggling 
 for a foothold in far regions. It will not stimulate, 
 but abate, the literary energy whose pressure has 
 been so marvellous. 
 
 Said a shrewd German once, a citizen of our own 
 country, at a convention of American teachers, 
 when a disparaging comparison was made between 
 American and German universities : " German uni- 
 versities have become great because the land has 
 been oppressed. The trammelled people, for whom 
 the outlets of trade, politics, manufacture, have 
 been in past times so nearly blocked, were forced to 
 spend energy in somewhat far-away 'scholarship. 
 Hence, largely, the remarkable achievement." I 
 believe the remark is wise, and admits of more
 
 THE MODERN ERA. 567 
 
 extended application. Not alone the erudition, but 
 the splendid literary and philosophical development, 
 would have failed, had there been elsewhere a 
 sphere for power. Take Fichte ; it is reasonable to 
 say that he would not have been satisfied to spend 
 his life in ideal dreamings, he who, when opportu- 
 nity offered, could talk with such direct practical 
 eloquence to the German nation, if in his day 
 there had been a chance for a man of the people 
 among German statesmen. Take Schiller, less a 
 poet than a magnificent preacher and teacher ; if he 
 could have uttered himself unconstrainedly as an 
 orator, he would have written fewer books. Or 
 the grand Lessing, so full of ideas about toler- 
 ance, the alleviating of human misery, the breaking 
 of chains in State and Church ; if he could have 
 spoken his divine passion directly, how he might 
 have led the people ! In his bondage he could only 
 utter furtive criticism and indirect scorn of existing 
 things, in "Minna von Barnhclm," "Emilia Ga- 
 lotti," and the "Nathan," masterpieces forever pre- 
 cious ; but untrammelled, we can imagine that his 
 masterpieces would have been of a different sort. In 
 the days of tyranny, poetry, scholarship, philoso- 
 phy were almost the German's only outlet. At 
 the present time they are some among a multitude 
 of outlets through which power can pour itself. 
 "What keeps America from greatness in these quiet 
 fields? The diversion of power into politics and 
 business. Hence the world calls to us in vain for 
 a great poem, in vain for a work of the highest 
 erudition : and those who strive to rear universities
 
 568 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 among the great factories and marts are crippled 
 and thwarted at every turn. The German, to be 
 sure, as yet is far enough from having such free- 
 dom ; he has habits, traditions, institutions, reach- 
 ing down- from the former time, to hamper and 
 thwart ; but somewhat as we are are the Germans, 
 and the likeness in circumstances will grow greater.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 
 
 At the present day no foreign literature is affect- 
 ing us so powerfully as that of Germany. It is 
 worthy to exercise such an influence. There is no 
 department in human effort in which the Germans 
 are not abreast with the foremost, and in some di- 
 rections they are leaders, of the world. As 
 scholars, in several of the fine arts, above all as 
 philosophical thinkers, their authority is surpass- 
 ing. But great as have been the benefits coming 
 to us through their influence, these have not been 
 unalloyed. 
 
 " Persius," says old Cowley, " who, you use to 
 say, you do not know whether he be a good poet or 
 not, because you do not understand him, and whom 
 therefore I say I know not to be a good poet." l 
 Shall we accept as truth to-day this doctrine, which 
 conies to us from the seventeenth century? Are 
 writers of poetry, as well as prose, to be set down 
 as not good if Ave cannot understand them ? Yes : 
 the first excellence of expression is for a writer or 
 speaker to make his meaning clear. 
 
 It is impossible however to deny that a certain 
 
 Essay on Procrastination.
 
 570 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 effectiveness may come from obscurity. The bug- 
 bear which in the daytime when clearly seen, we 
 treat with indifference, becomes, when partly hid- 
 den by the night, a thing of terror. Beauty, which 
 makes little impression when fully revealed, becomes 
 entrancing if partially veiled. Give the imagination 
 its opportunity, and it will conceive as existing be- 
 hind the curtain a hideousness of danger, or a per- 
 fection of charm, far beyond what is really there. 
 In the same way, taking every thing unknown for 
 something magnificent, according to Tacitus in the 
 "Agricola," we often credit with undue power and 
 value unintelligible words. 
 
 It is not often however that a writer dares to step 
 forth openly in defence of obscurity. One such de- 
 fence I know, and only one ; very naturally, it is by 
 Carlyle. "It has in many cases its own appropri- 
 ateness. Certainly, in all matters of business or 
 science, in all expositions of fact or argument, clear- 
 ness and ready comprehensibility are a great, often 
 an indispensable, object. Science and poetry, hav- 
 ing separate purposes, may have each its several 
 law. One degree of light the artist may find will 
 become one delineation, quite a different degree of 
 light another. The face of Agamemnon was not 
 painted, but hidden, in the old picture ; the veiled 
 figure at Sais was the most impressive in the temple. 
 This style of composition has often a singular charm. 
 The reader is kept on the alert, ever conscious of 
 his own active cooperation. Light breaks on him, 
 and clearer vision by degrees, till at last the whole 
 lovely shape comes forth, definite, it may be, and
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 571 
 
 bright with heavenly radiance, or fading on this 
 side and that into vague, expressive mystery. We 
 love it the more for the labor it has given us ; we 
 almost feel as if we ourselves had assisted at its 
 creation." 1 
 
 After enunciating his theory in the words just 
 quoted, Carlyle proceeded to put it into practice ; 
 for he wrote, soon after, "Sartor Resartus," in 
 which his meaning appears through a vapor burning 
 with blinding simile, thick with indefinite statement 
 and uncouth verbiage, as, according to one astro- 
 nomical theory, we dimly see the substantial body 
 of the sun through its ever-tossing, wide-extending 
 atmosphere of fire. Never has the effectiveness of 
 obscurity been better illustrated. The common- 
 places of morality, indistinctly seen, set off gro- 
 tesquely or beautifully within the glowing, pictur- 
 esque envelope, gained an impressiveness which for 
 the world they could not have had in an unclouded 
 presentment. 
 
 Carlyle' s doctrine is nevertheless false, and the 
 example bad. It is certainly right to say that 
 whoever has thoughts to express should express 
 them with clearness. No authority has declared this 
 so absolutely and satisfactorily as Herbert Spen- 
 cer, in his essay on the "Philosophy of Style." 
 "Always," he says, "economize the attention of 
 your recipient, your hearer or reader, whether you 
 are prose writer or poet." From the obligation of 
 a clear presentation no one who has ideas to ex- 
 
 Essay on the Helena of Gothe.
 
 572 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 press is exempt. Unqualified as this doctrine is, we 
 may take it as the onlj one to be accepted by honest 
 men. 
 
 That men may be so easily imposed upon by what 
 they understand indistinctly is a weakness of human 
 nature-. Said the Latin, poet Lucretius: "Foolish 
 men admire, and love the more, all things which 
 they see hiding away behind obscurities of style . 
 They consider true what touches the ears in a finely*- 
 sounding manner and is pleasantly set off." l 
 
 The folly of which Lucretius speaks is a species 
 from which none of us are free. Often do men, 
 especially if the education has not been thorough v 
 treat lightly the intelligible man, considering him to 
 be shallow. Blinded however by obscurities, we 
 credit them with a weight of hidden meaning they 
 do not at all possess. Vanity enforces credulity 
 Unwilling to confess ourselves mystified, and imag- 
 ining that our neighbor sees clearly, we insincerely 
 pretend to have light, and hastily embrace the 
 shadow for substance. 
 
 To take advantage of this weakness of human 
 
 c 
 
 nature is to treat men unfairly. The concealing 
 the face of Agamemnon, and the veiling the statue 
 at Sais, in order to enhance the effect, to recur to 
 Carlyle's illustration, was trickery, in place in a 
 theatrical presentation ; for the stage, among human 
 
 1 Omnis, enim stolidi magis admirantur, amant quo 
 Tnversis quae sub verbis latitantia cernunt. 
 Veraque oonstituunt quae belle tangere possunt 
 Auris, et lepidc quae suut fucata soriore,, 
 
 Do Rerum Natura. 1. 641, etxx
 
 GERMAN STYLE, 573 
 
 institutions, is privileged to deceive ; but deserving 
 to be rejected in all serious and honest life. He 
 who is careless about a clear presentation in ex- 
 pressing his thoughts has not done his duty. The 
 writer who is deliberately and artfully obscure, for 
 the purpose of taking advantage of the weakness 
 of human nature, makes use of a trick ; his end 
 may be good, but he has employed trickery never- 
 theless. The seeking thus to heighten the effect of 
 a thought by investing it in gloom is charlatan- 
 ism, a thing in the end only harmful, though tern 
 porarily it may seem to serve a good purpose. 
 
 If the attempt is made to trace to their sources 
 the kinds of obscurity which embarrass us most at 
 the present day, we must undoubtedly go to the 
 Germans. It was through them Carlyle went 
 astray. Let no one refuse admiration to their in- 
 tellectual achievement. Among the grandest of the 
 literatures of the world, perhaps the grandest, is 
 that of Germany ; but party of it are as densely 
 wrapped in mist as a Scotch November morning. 
 
 In general we may say that the German style is 
 less effective as an instrument of clear expression 
 than the English, and far less effective than the 
 French. The German style is very " periodic," 
 that is, reserves the meaning in its clauses and sen- 
 tences until the end is reached. In subordinate 
 clauses the verb is not given until the end ; in prin- 
 cipal clauses, if the verb have a separable prefix, as 
 is very frequently the case, the prefix, an essential 
 part of the word, must generally be thrown to the
 
 574 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 end, while the verb remains near the beginning. In 
 a large proportion of German sentences the mean- 
 ing remains in suspension through clause after clause, 
 until the attention breaks down in the effort to carry 
 the load. Let me illustrate. I take up the Ger- 
 man book which lies nearest at hand, and opening 
 at random, hit upon a sentence which I translate 
 as literally as I can, preserving the order of the 
 words. 
 
 "After that already in these years of the six- 
 teenth century, poetry gradually begins to die away, 
 especially the clear popular voices of the same, one 
 after the other, to become silent commence, and out 
 of the free, fresh, natural folk-song even a strained, 
 forced -gayety- representing, and already -with -all - 
 kinds-of learned-frippery-bordered 'social song' (as 
 Hoffmann von Fallersleben this later folk-song not 
 unrightly named has) come to pass had, became, 
 at the end of the sixteenth century, the victory which 
 erudition (classical philology, learned theology, 
 learned jurisprudence), over every thing which yet 
 German named be might, gained had, in its full com- 
 pleteness, and in all its disastrous consequences on 
 all departments of German life, and most strikingly 
 apon the department of German poetry, manifest." 1 
 
 1 " Nachdem schon in diesen Jahren des 16. Jahrhunderts die Poesie 
 allgemach anfangt zu erloschen, zumal die lauten volksmassigen 
 Stimmen derselben eine nach der andern zu verstummen beginne'n, 
 und aus dem freien, frischen, naturlichen Volk?licde sogar ein ge- 
 niachtes, erzwungene Lustigkeit dnrstellendes und sehon mit allerlei 
 gelehrtem Krauselwerk verbramtes Gesellschaftslied (wie Hoffmann 
 von Fallersleben dieses spatere Volkslied nicht unrichtig benannt
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 575 
 
 This passage is not exceptionally difficult. Its au- 
 thor, while perhaps not famous as a stylist, has at 
 the same time a most respectable position among 
 modern German writers. It may be considered 
 fairly representative, as a specimen of German prose. 
 Let us test it by the canon of Herbert Spencer. Is 
 the thought expressed in such a way that the " at- 
 tention of the recipient is economized?" It is out 
 of the question for the most careful reader the 
 man of quickest apprehension and greatest power of 
 concentration to possess himself thoroughly of the 
 contents of the passage without several careful read- 
 ings. The sentence is periodic, gives no meaning 
 until we reach its last word ; all must be in doubt in 
 the mind of the reader until " manifest " is reached. 
 The protasis, with its long subordinate clauses, end- 
 ing with " come to pass had," is very complicated ; 
 its unity is broken by the parenthesis ; the verbs and 
 adjectives are preceded by what modifies them, so 
 that we have suspensions of meaning within suspen- 
 sions. The apodosis, introduced by " became," is 
 not less involved. One relative clause depends upon 
 another relative clause ; only study enables us to 
 say to what we must refer the adverbial and adjec- 
 tive elements ; most puzzling of all is the principal 
 
 hat) geworden war, trat am Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts der Sieg. den 
 die Gelehrsamkeit die klassische Philologie, die gelehrte Theolo- 
 gie, die gelehrte Jurisprudenz uber alles, was noeh deutsch ge- 
 nannt werden mochte. davon getragen hatte, in seiner ginzen Voll- 
 standigkeit, u:id in alien seinen unheilvollen Folgen auf alien Ge- 
 bieten des deutschen Lebens. und am auffallendsten auf dem Gebiete 
 derdeutschenPoesiean den Tag." Vilmar, Geschiehte der deutschen 
 Literatur, edition of 1868, p. 322. Marburg and Leipsig.
 
 576 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 verb. In the German it is " trat an den Tag." 
 I have translated it "became manifest;" the 
 one word " appeared " would not be an unfair ren- 
 dering ; the parts of the verb are separated by a 
 gap of six lines, and some ingenuity is required to 
 see that they actually belong together. Very care- 
 ful thought, then, must be given to the disentangling 
 of the words ; since it has been impossible in the 
 reading to "economize the attention," the content* 
 of the passage at last are caught and held with a grasp 
 which the previous effort has jaded. 
 
 It may be said, "This is unfair. The construc- 
 tion which seems difficult to the English-speaking 
 man would bo easy to a German. If a passage of 
 English prose were rendered into German, with a cor- 
 responding preservation of the idiom of the original, 
 would not the German find that forced and exhaust-- 
 ing which to the English-speaking mania simple?" 
 Of course,- the German finds less difficulty with his 
 writers than we do ; but the human mind is not one 
 thing in England and America and another thing in 
 the heart of Europe. It cannot be otherwise than 
 that the immense periods, the long " suspensions " 
 which come from other causes, the many involu- 
 tions, should exhaust attention, even in the case 
 of minds which handle them most readily. Herbert 
 Spencer, in condemning such a way of writing, bases 
 his criticism, not upon what is expedient for those 
 who use his own language, but upon a universal 
 principle. 1 What Do Quincey so finely says in the 
 
 1 Essay on Style.
 
 GERMAN STFLE. 577 
 
 following passage is applicable, not simply to us, 
 but always and everywhere : * ' Those who are 
 not accustomed to watch the effects of composition 
 upon the feelings, or have had little experience in 
 voluminous reading, pursued for weeks, would 
 scarcely imagine how much of downright physical 
 exhaustion is produced by what is technically called 
 the periodic style of writing ; it is not the length," 
 * * * " the paralytic flux of words ; it is not even 
 the cumbrous involution of parts within parts, sepa- 
 rately considered, that bears so heavily upon the 
 attention. It ia the suspense, the holding on of 
 the mind until the apodosis, or coining round of the 
 sentence, commences, this it is which wears out 
 the faculty of attention. A sentence, for example, 
 begins with a series of ifs; perhaps a dozen lines are 
 occupied with expanding the conditions under which 
 something is affirmed or denied. Here you cannot 
 dismiss and have done with the ideas as you go 
 along ; all is hypothetic ; all is suspended in the air. 
 The conditions are not fully understood until you 
 are acquainted with the dependency ; you must give 
 a separate attention to each clause of this complex 
 hypothesis, and yet having done that by a painful 
 effort, you have done nothing at all ; for you must ex- 
 ercise a reacting attention through the corresponding 
 latter section in order to follow out its relations to all 
 parts of the hypothesis which sustains it." * * * 
 " A monster period is a vast arch which, not receiving 
 its key-stone, not being locked into self-support- 
 ing cohesion until you nearly reach its close- , im- 
 poses of necessity uprm the unhappy reader all the 
 
 37
 
 578 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 onus of its ponderous weight, through the main 
 process of its construction." 1 
 
 The kind of obscurity which has just been con- 
 sidered lies in the genius of the language ; the 
 individual writer falls into it unwittingly It has 
 sometimes been the case however that writers have 
 shown wilful carelessness, or indeed sought to be in- 
 distinct for a purpose. If we are to trust their own 
 critics, in no other nation so much as among the 
 Germans have scholarly men been so afflicted with 
 that vanity of the learned which leads to making a 
 display of acquirement for the sake of admiration, 
 investing what is simple in needless complications, 
 or sometimes imposing upon the world with a great 
 show when there is nothing at all behind, in a 
 word, pedantry. The history of the German uni- 
 versities is in some ways a discreditable one. Go- 
 ing back to the sixteenth century, the wholesome, 
 honest Luther sweat, as he says, blood and water to 
 make himself intelligible to the simplest of the peo- 
 ple, his effort being rewarded by such an acceptance 
 on the part of the people as perhaps no other man 
 has ever gained. Scarcely was ho gone when his 
 successors, the leaders of the world of thought, 
 particularly in the universities, forgot his example, 
 wrapped their utterances in an unknown tongue, 
 and, avoiding living questions, went to threshing the 
 straw of useless dogmas and scholastic points. It 
 is a species of folly that was repeated again and 
 again, and has not jet disappeared. 
 
 1 Essay on Style.
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 579 
 
 A foreigner would hardly dare to use language as 
 severe as that employed by Germans themselves. 
 Says Max Miiller : " The pedantic display of learn- 
 ing, the disregard of the real wants of the people, 
 the contempt of all knowledge which does not wear 
 the academic garb, show the same foible, the sume 
 conceit, the same spirit of caste, among those who 
 from the sixteenth century to the present day have 
 occupied the most prominent rank in the society of 
 Germany. Professorial knight-errantry still waits 
 for its Cervantes. Nowhere have so many wind- 
 mills been fought, and so many real enemies left 
 unhurt, as in Germany. The learned men have for 
 gotten that they and their learning, their univer- 
 sities and their libraries, were for tha benefit of the 
 people. It was considered more respectable to teach 
 in Latin. Luther was sneered at because of his 
 little German tracts, which any village clerk might 
 have written. All this might look very learned 
 and professorial and imposing, but it separated the 
 scholars from the people at large, and blighted the 
 prospects of Germany. When to speak Latin and 
 amass a vague and vast information was more cred- 
 itable than to digest and use it, Luther's work was 
 undone." l 
 
 A study of the history of German scholarship will 
 show that Max Miiller' s severity towards his coun- 
 trymen is just. When the fashion for using Latin 
 had gone by, many great German writers, even when 
 employing their own tongue have been scarcely 
 
 1 Sketch of German Literature.
 
 580 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 more intelligible. There has often been blamewor- 
 thy carelessness, or indeed deliberate choosing of 
 the obscure rather than the plain, as if with the 
 purpose of mystifying. The writer desires to 
 speak of German philosophy Avith great respect, 
 but in the present connection it is to be mentioned 
 as exercising a certain bad influence. It has affected 
 style most unfortunately. So high an authority as 
 Gothe declares: 1 "On the whole, philosophic 
 speculation has been a hindrance to the Germans, 
 often bringing into their style an element of the 
 senseless and incomprehensible. The more they 
 have given themselves to certain philosophical 
 schools the worse they write." 
 
 "Very destructive," says Kurz, "upon the de- 
 velopment of prose was the influence of the phi- 
 losophers." The philosophical jargon, which was 
 destined to deform the German tongue so sadly, 
 appeared with Kant. It is a subject for lamenta- 
 tion that Kant did not make the effort to give his 
 ideas a clear form. The philosopher himself con- 
 fesses, in a letter to Mendelssohn : " The product 
 of twelve years of reflection I set down in four or 
 five months, in greatest haste, with much attention 
 to the contents to be sure, but with little care about 
 making it easy of comprehension to the reader." 
 Zelter, a friend of Gothe, in a letter to the poet, 
 gives rather an amusing illustration of the difficul- 
 ties of the style of Kant, even to a cultivated Ger- 
 man. The philosopher was once visited by an old 
 
 1 Eckermann.
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 581 
 
 school-fellow, whom he had not seen for forty 
 years. The host asked his guest whether he ever 
 read his writings. " O, yes," replied the friend, 
 " and I would do it oftener if I had lingers enough." 
 "How am I to understand that?" asked Kant. 
 "Ah, dear friend, your way of writing is so rich in 
 parentheses, and brackets, and things that have to 
 be taken into account beforehand ! I set my first 
 finger on one word, my second on another, and so 
 on with the third and fourth, and before I turn 
 over the page all my fingers are on it." 
 
 Kurz accuses the successors of Kant, as well as 
 the master himself, and among these the worst sin- 
 ner is Hegel. " Through him a multitude of new 
 words came into the language, an addition in no 
 way justified, because there were good German ex- 
 pressions which would have answered, and which, 
 even if justified, were objectionable as faultily 
 formed. He was inexhaustibly prolific in giving 
 birth to word-monsters, in which all the laws of 
 language were set aside. In his complete unintelli- 
 gibility it is often quite impossible to say what ideas 
 he connected with the expressions. 1 What in the 
 great man was bad," goes on the vigorous casti- 
 gator, "became developed in the followers into re- 
 pulsive affectation. They labored after the strang- 
 est forms of expression, to give their writings the 
 appearance of philosophical depth, the result being 
 an uncouth, artificial speech, a kind of hiero- 
 glyphics." 
 
 1 Compare Heine's opinion, given Chapter xvi.
 
 o32 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The thinkers so criticised are undoubtedly peers 
 of Plato and Bacon, of the greatest minds of the 
 world. Their systems are colossal intellectual 
 structures, not subjects for popular study, but well 
 worthy the attention of a select few in each gener- 
 ation, fitted to cope with them through special apti- 
 tude and acquirement. It is impossible nevertheless 
 to resist the conviction that German thoroughness 
 here, grand as it is s is sometimes excessive, a waste 
 of power upon minutiae of scholarship and specula- 
 tion that can be of no profit to the world. As 
 Hegel himself said : " Thoughts may be character- 
 ized by an inane depth, as well as by inane expan- 
 sion." l In this chapter however it is not the value 
 of the speculations that is discussed, but the style 
 in which they are presented, and the effect of the 
 bad example set by the philosophers upon those 
 coming under their influence. One would say that 
 the positive thinkers, with Herbert Spencer for their 
 Corypheus, writing always so as to economize the 
 attention of the recipient, in a style beneath which 
 lie the thoughts perfectly clear, like objects beneath 
 plate-glass without flaw, would have an immense ad- 
 vantage over their cloudy opponents. But when is 
 man happier than when he is fog-blinded ? 
 
 But unintelligibility may come from other causes 
 than obscure statement. There are \vriters so prolix 
 that the reader's mind becomes thoroughly wearied 
 with the amount to be gone over, and at length loses 
 its power of comprehending the diluted thought. 
 
 Quoted by Gostwick and Harrison.
 
 STYLti. 583 
 
 Hay, it is said, contains, in proportion to its bulk, 
 but a small amount of nutriment. Graminivorous 
 animals however are forced to eat it, because a 
 certain mechanical distention of their stomachs is 
 necessary before they can have the power to digest. 
 Food in a compact form would make a donkey dys- 
 peptic. Just so that style is faulty, it has been said, 
 which presents ideas in a form too condensed. A 
 certain distention of the mind seems to be necessary 
 to the reception of thought. Many a truth which, 
 stated in an epigram, would be indigestible, if 
 trussed out into an essay can -be swallowed and 
 assimilated at once. Some such theory as the fore- 
 going appears to have obtained a wide currency 
 among German writers. The lavishness of your 
 proper German authors is something appalling, exer- 
 cised with no thought that the power of attention 
 and the eyesight of the world are limited. Such 
 stacks of hay as they have pitched into the manger 
 of the poor, patient world ! Take some of the most 
 famous of them. The works of Wieland are com- 
 prised within forty-two volumes ; those of Tieck are 
 not less ; Jean Paul llichter wrote sixty-five, many of 
 them of no mean size ; while the old mastersinger 
 Hans Sachs wrote six thousand separate pieces. No 
 one will deny that there is in all these truth and 
 beauty of the finest ; nor will he, if candid, deny 
 that there is in them abundant hay, hay of the 
 stupidest, of which even the noble Bottom, yawning 
 under Titania's endearments, might well have de- 
 sired a "bottle." There is much room for dis- 
 cretion, on the part of authors, in the use of the
 
 584 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 pitchfork ; and when readers express indiscriminate 
 admiration for multivolummous writers, it may be 
 possible to detect a bray. 
 
 It lias been said that the Germans have not the in- 
 stinct of selection, " an instinct which seems almost 
 confined to the French and English mind. It is the 
 polar opposite of what is now sometimes called, by 
 a false application of a mathematical term, exhaust* 
 ireness, formerly much practised by the Germans, 
 and consisting, to use the happy phrase of Gold- 
 smith, in a certain manner of ' writing the subject to 
 the dregs ; ' saying all that can bo said on a given 
 subject, without considering how far it is to the pur- 
 pose ; and valuing facts because they are true, rather 
 than because they are significant." * 
 
 The greatest German writers Luther, Lessing, 
 Gothe for the most part, Schiller except in his 
 metaphysical pieces, Heine are clear as running 
 brooks, as compared with many of their fellows, 
 and, though prolific, never without substance. The 
 writers of our own time are rising above the mistake. 
 Taking German literature in the mass, however, it 
 is riii'lit to say that as regards stvle there is a nesr- 
 
 ~ . . ^ o 
 
 ligcncc or wilful violation of its rules which puts it 
 below the English, and far below the French, a 
 superiority which the best Germans are willing to 
 concede. 
 
 " The English," says Gothe, " all write, as a rule, 
 well," * * * "as practical men, with eye di- 
 
 ' K. .1. Payne's Introduction to Burke, quoted in A. S. Hill's Khet' 
 
 one.
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 585 
 
 rected to the real." * * * " The French do not 
 deny their general character in their style. They 
 are of a social nature, and so never forget the pub- 
 lic they address ; they try to be clear to convince the 
 reader, and charming to please him. [As com- 
 pared with them] one may reproach us with form- 
 lessness." 1 
 
 If the Germans, while teaching us to think deeply, 
 at the same time teach us to express ourselves ob- 
 scurely, it will be hard to say the loss has not been 
 greater than the gain. Says Gothe, who is so fre- 
 quently quoted because he is the highest authority, 
 alluding to a prominent German writer of his time : 
 "Speaking honestly, I am sorry that a man un- 
 doubtedly of great natural gifts has been so affected 
 by the philosophy of Hegel that a natural, uncon- 
 strained way of looking and thinking has been 
 driven out in his case, and an artificial and clumsy 
 style, not only of thinking, but expression, been 
 formed. In his book we come upon places where 
 the mind halts entirely, and we no longer kno\v 
 whai/we are reading." 
 
 When the Germans themselves speak with such 
 severity of their writers, I may venture perhaps 
 to quote an English judgment. De Quincey, after 
 paying a high tribute to the French, \vhose excel- 
 lence of style he, like Gothe, considers due to the 
 fact that they are of a social nature, a nation of 
 talkers, then speaks of English writers as being, 
 
 1 Eckerniaiin. 
 1 Eckermann.
 
 586 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 in comparison, far inferior. He pays his respects 
 to the Germans at length, in these terms : 
 
 "The character of German prose is an object of 
 legitimate astonishment. Whatever is bad in our 
 own ideal of prose style, whatever is repulsive in our 
 own practice, we see there carried to the most out- 
 rageous excess." " On throwing open the 
 book [Kant's " Kritik der practischen Vermmft "] 
 we see a sentence exactly covering one whole octavo 
 page of thirty-one lines, each line averaging from 
 forty-five to forty-eight letters." * * * "It is 
 the prevailing character of his style." * * * 
 "A sentence is viewed by him, and by most of his 
 countrymen, as a rude mould or elastic form, admit- 
 ting of expansion to any possible extent. It is laid 
 down as a rude outline, and then, by superstructure 
 and epi-superstructurc, it is gradually reared to a 
 giddy altitude which no one can follow. Yielding to 
 his natural impulse of subjoining all additions, or 
 exceptions, or modifications, not in the shape of 
 separate consecutive sentences, but as intercalations 
 and stuifings of one original sentence, Kant might 
 naturally have written a book from beginning to end 
 in one vast hyperbolical sentence " l 
 
 The besetting defect cf German writers has been 
 sufficiently considered. It is an obscurity, proceed- 
 ing sometimes from a certain unconscious slowness 
 and circuitousncss, sometimes from a wilful imita- 
 tion of the conduct of the cuttle-fish; sometimes 
 from want of the sense of proportion, which leads 
 
 1 Essay oa Style.
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 587 
 
 to undue dwelling upon the trivial until the subject 
 " is written to its dregs." Now, what can be said 
 as to the cause of the fault? Matthew Arnold, 
 speaking sharply of the "verbose, ponderous, round- 
 about, inane, in German literature," attributes it to 
 "the want of the pressure of a great national life, 
 with its practical discipline, its ever-active tradi- 
 tions." l We can go deeper for the cause. It would 
 be truer to say that the want of a great national 
 life has itself been another effect of that cause, a 
 cause which lies in the very nature of the German 
 himself. Unfavorable criticism is an ungracious 
 task. Where the Germans seem to hit the truth 
 themselves, let them speak. Here is a noble poem 
 of Freiligrath's, whose beauty is not greater than 
 its truth : 
 
 DEUTSCHLA:NX> IST HAMLET. 
 
 Germany's Hamlet! Without sound, 
 
 Each night where stand the portals barred 
 The buried freedom walks its round, 
 
 And beckons to the men on guard. 
 There stands it tall, in steel arrayed, 
 
 And to the prince, delaying sadly, 
 It says : " Avenge ! on him draw blade 
 
 "Who filled mine ear with poison deadly." 
 
 He listens tremblingly, until 
 
 His soul has seized the dreadful fact. 
 "Aye, thou poor ghost, avenge I will! " 
 
 But will he in the crisis act? 
 He finds no means his breast to steel; 
 
 He palters on with doubt and vision. 
 Before the deed, his soul doth feel 
 
 No earnest, spirited decision. 
 
 1 1 Quarterly Review.
 
 588 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 Too much the man doth sit and creep; 
 
 Studied too much in bed he hath. 
 And now, because his blood's asleep, 
 
 He's grown too fat and scant of breath. 
 Such poring over books was wrong ; 
 
 His best work is, precisely, thinking; 
 He stuck in Wittenberg too long 
 
 In lecture-halls, or halls for drinking. 
 
 And so determination fails. 
 
 "The time will bring some plan ;" he feigns 
 Insanity ; in verses rails, 
 
 Soliloquizing o'er his pains. 
 While still unfixed, contrives dumb-show ; 
 
 And if he nerves himself to fight one, 
 Then must Polonius Kotzebue l 
 
 Receive the stab, and not the right one. 
 
 He loiters woful, broodingly ; 
 
 Excuses makes, doth go and come; 
 He lets them send him over sea; 
 
 At length comes moralizing home; 
 Shoots oft* an arsenal of wit; 
 
 Talks about "kings of shreds and patches;" 
 As for a deed, why, God forbid! 
 
 No such resolve his spirit catches. 
 
 The foil, at lengt \ he seizes fast; 
 
 Now to fulfil his oath he tries. 
 But ah, too late! the act's the last; 
 
 Himself outstretched on earth he lies. 
 Thereby the slain o;n's, whom his hate 
 
 With sudden, shameful death disgraces, 
 He lifeless lies, and fickle fate 
 
 The Dane with Fortinbras replaces. 
 
 1 A felicitous touch. Kotzebue, "the frivolous writer," after a 
 residence in Russia, returned to Germany, where he lived, it was 
 believed, as a spy in the interest of Russia. A young student, on 
 fire with patriotic feeling, at length assassinated him, a thrust as 
 wild and useless as Hamlet's stab through the arras.
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 589 
 
 Thank God! not yet so far; 'tis well! 
 
 Four of the drama's acts are past. 
 Hero, take care the parallel 
 
 Appear not in the fifth and last ! 
 Early and late we hope. O rise, 
 
 With manful blows the danger meeting! 
 Help with decision brave and wise, 
 
 To gain its right, the ghost entreating. 
 
 This moment seize, the earliest chance! 
 
 Yet there is time, the sword wield free! 
 Before with rapier brought from France 
 
 Some fell Laertes poisons thee ! 
 Ere clattering comes a Northern host, 
 
 Thine heritage so precious keeping. 
 Beware ! for not from Norway's coast, 
 
 This time, I fear, the troop is sweeping. 
 
 Only decide, free stands the path. 
 
 Forth to the lists with manful fire; 
 Hold in thy heart thy plighted faith, 
 
 Avenging thy perturbed sire ! 
 Why dost thou brood unceasingly! 
 
 And yet I ought to blame thee never; 
 I am, myself, a piece of'thee, 
 
 Dreamer and palterer forever ! 
 
 Freiligrath, in his poem, has in mind the political, 
 not the literary, history of his country ; but the 
 characteristics he so finely sketches will explain the 
 shortcomings in both fields. " Germany is Ham- 
 let," the explanation is sufficient. Our time 
 however has seen a change. The poet wrote before 
 the events of 1870. As if the nation had heeded 
 his summons, it has taken care that, after four acts, 
 
 the parallel 
 Appear not in the fifth and last
 
 590 GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 The nation is not, indeed, free in the American 
 sense, but the despotism that oppressed it for ages 
 is utterly swept away ; if a master still rules, he is, 
 at any rate, one beloved by his subjects, ruling with 
 their consent. In politics, it is Hamlet no longer; 
 perhaps it will be so in literature;. 
 
 There is nothing more to be said in abatement of 
 the glory of German writers. That the literature 
 they have given the world deserves the highest esti- 
 mation needs in this book no further setting forth ; 
 the story has been told in the pages that precede. 
 To attempt to estimate the comparative excellence 
 of German literature, to say whether it is greater 
 or less than what the ancients, what England, Italy, 
 or France, have achieved, is a task from which we 
 may well shrink. Whether the literature of Ger- 
 many or England is the grander structure was dis- 
 puted in the time of Klopstock, a hundred years 
 ago, drawing from him an ode in which the English 
 and German muses the former flushed with many 
 triumphs, the latter just aroused from long sleep 
 are represented side by side. But the singer of the 
 " Messias," while he represents the contest, does 
 not venture to indicate the victor, a reticence 
 which Madame de Stiiel, who quotes the ode, and 
 whom we may suppose to be an impartial judge, 
 highly approves. 1 
 
 Klopstock, however, shows a touch of patriotic 
 arrogance in hinting, in his day, at a rivalry upon 
 
 1 L'Allemagne.
 
 GERMAN STYLE. 591 
 
 equal terms between the muses of England and Ger- 
 many. The former had seen its most glorious time ; 
 the latter was just beginning to vindicate itself after 
 a lethargy of centuries. For our time such a com- 
 parison would show no overweening confidence. If 
 the single name of Shakespeare be excepted, whose 
 supremacy the Germans are as willing to accord as 
 we are to claim it, there is no English name which 
 cannot be matched from the great literature which 
 has been the subject of our study.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A (p. 243). 
 
 Opitz should receive more extended mention than the 
 few lines devoted to him on page 243. He was a shrewd, 
 timeserving courtier. Although a Protestant, he became 
 a servant and confidential friend of Catholic princes who 
 persecuted without mercy his fellow-believers. Scarcely 
 a breath of genuine poetic spirit appears in his verses. 
 For more than a hundred years, however, he enjoyed an 
 immense prestige ; he was called the father of German 
 poetry, and it has only in our time become possible to 
 give right proportions to the fame of the " Silesian Swan." 
 His celebrated critical treatise, "Von der Deutschen 
 Poeterei," contains the principles upon which he wrote, 
 and which he sought, so successfully, to bring into vogue. 
 The work occupies itself with external matters, for it was 
 not until Lessing's day that a critic was found who could 
 treat of poetry in its essence. It is no slight desert, 
 however, to have given German poetry a nobler and 
 more artistic form. Through him the speech of Luther 
 became the language of the poets, who forsook also 
 foreign idioms and dialectic peculiarities. Opitz restored 
 dignity to poetic expression. Through his influence, the 
 laws of prosody which prevail even at the present day 
 were recognized and established. It can moreover be 
 said for Opitz, that, at a time when the literature of 
 Germany was at its lowest, he won for poetry written in 
 his native tongue a respectful hearing among the learned 
 
 (693)
 
 594 APPENDIX. 
 
 and powerful, an achievement which he accomplished 
 by a wise choice of subjects, and a treatment which 
 gained respect. 
 
 NOTE B (p. 421). 
 
 Schiller cannot be considered quite spotless. lie is 
 often contrasted in moral respects with Gothe, greatly to 
 the disadvantage of the latter. His relations with one 
 woman, at least, must be set down as blameworthy. 
 Charlotte von Kalb was a beautiful and gifted woman, the 
 wife of a nobleman, whom she did not love, whom she 
 had been forced to marry, and who had sought her solely 
 for her estate. Schiller, who was slightly her senior, 
 became acquainted with her in Mannheim, when he was 
 twenty-five. They felt at once for one another an earnest 
 admiration, which soon became love. Schiller's passion 
 wrought itself, soon after, into the tragedy of " Don 
 Carlos." When he left Mannheim, at the end of a j-ear's 
 intimacy, he parted from the Fran von Kalb with a kiss, 
 and assurances of undying devotion ; and soon after 
 appear the " Free-thinking of Passion," 1 and " Resigna- 
 tion," poems inspired by his hopeless affection, contain- 
 ing a protest against the Christian code of morals. It 
 would be unjust to suppose that any criminal relation 
 existed between Schiller and Charlotte von Kalb. The 
 connection may be compared, in some ways, with that 
 between Gothe and Charlotte von Stein. The lovers came 
 together at a later period, iu Weimar, and the intimacy 
 was renewed. When Schiller, at length, married Char- 
 lotte von Lengenfeld, an estrangement came to pass, 
 followed, however, by a reconciliation and continued 
 friendship. 
 
 We find Schiller, then, as well as his great con> 
 
 "Freigeisterei der Leidenschaft"
 
 APPENDIX. 595 
 
 peer, involved in a passion, far transcending platonic 
 bounds, for a woman married to another. Admitting 
 
 ' O 
 
 that he was culpable, it must be said, in fairness, that 
 there was in the guilty relation every palliating circum- 
 stance. Charlotte von Kalb, bound hand and foot, had 
 been delivered to an unloved husband, who sought her 
 merely for mercenary motives. The German society of 
 the last century saw in the connection nothing unusual, 
 perhaps nothing deserving of criticism. The social 
 standing of neither one of them appears to have been 
 affected in the least. The Duchess Amalie of Weimar 
 invited them together to her aesthetic teas. There was 
 not a hint of exclusion from any circle. If Gothe, how- 
 ever, is to be judged harshly for his intimacy with the 
 Frau von Stein, Schiller should suffer also. 
 
 NOTE C (p. 474). 
 
 The most elaborate criticism which the " Short History 
 of German Literature" has received is that of the Rev. 
 Dr. F. H. Hedge, Professor of German Literature in 
 Harvard University, published in The Unitarian Review 
 for March, 1879. The author of the "Short History" 
 regards Dr. Hedge as the first authority in America on 
 many points in German scholarship. That Dr. Hedge 
 has thought fit to speak publicly of the " Short History " 
 as in many ways worthy of high praise, the author hon- 
 estly counts as among the greatest distinctions that have 
 ever come to him. 
 
 Dr. Hedge, together with his praise, points out very 
 frankly the defects of the book. The author feels that 
 upon several points, where his critic takes him sharply to 
 task, a good defence is possible, and proposes now to 
 make some examination of the doctor's strictures. 
 
 As to what constitutes adequacy in such a book, Dr. 
 Hedge should be an excellent judge. For more than fifty
 
 596 APPENDIX. 
 
 years he has been famous as a German scholar, his pow- 
 erful intellect grasping whatever was valuable in all direc- 
 tions, however difficult the form in which it was presented ; 
 for two generations an interpreter of one of the great- 
 est of literatures to hundreds of students. The judg- 
 ments of such a man deserve to be carefully pondered. 
 That Opitz ought to be called the most prominent poet 
 of the century in which flourished Gerhardt, the writer 
 of beautiful hymns; that he, of all German poets, best 
 deserves the title of "epoch-making," and did for German 
 verse what Luther did for German prose, is indeed a 
 revelation. To the century in which Opitz lived, indeed, 
 he was the " most prominent" poet of his time. Before 
 the vision of our day, there are several names of his age 
 more illustrious. The writer is convinced, however, that 
 he has not done justice to the position of Opitz, and has 
 sought to correct his mistake in a note which will be 
 found in this appendix. 
 
 Concerning omissions which the critic notes as unfor- 
 tunate, it escaped his eye that Hamann is mentioned in 
 connection with Herder; Voss and Burger in connection 
 with Klopstock. That Jean Paul receives no long treat- 
 ment, excites an energetic protest. The author of the 
 "Short History" tried to make it appear that he was not 
 insensible to the noble genius and worth of Richter. 
 Perhaps a teacher of rhetoric becomes unduly impatient 
 of authors who often use words to conceal, rather than 
 reveal, their thoughts. If he had written on the strength 
 of the interpretation which others have given of Jean 
 Paul, he would, indeed, have assigned to the "Only" 
 the solitude of a separate chapter. The author wished to 
 judge for himself, and his want of success in compre- 
 hending large portions of Richter, put it out of his power 
 to give such attention as has been bestowed on the great- 
 est names. As regards Heine, it must be remarked
 
 APPENDIX. 597 
 
 that the doctor's estimate is quite unaccountable, far 
 lower than that of critics of the first reputation, Mathew 
 Arnold for instance, who declares him to he the greatest 
 name in German literature since the death of Gothe. If 
 the "Short History" has erred in giving to Heine the 
 prominence of a special chapter, the author begs leave to 
 submit that he has the countenance of those who are to 
 be held as masters. 
 
 The third count in Dr. Hedge's indictment, that of 
 inaccuracy and insufficient scholarship in the treatment of 
 some departments, is a grave one. The author of the 
 " Short History " feels that he is set in a very unfavorable 
 lio'ht before the wide circle whom Dr. Hedge will influ- 
 
 O ~ 
 
 ence by his great name and earnest declarations, and 
 cannot suffer the charge to pass without trying to justify 
 himself. The account of the "Romantic School" the 
 critic finds especially unsatisfactory. A German author, 
 speaking of a poem (by one of that school), compares it to 
 a cloud, opposite to which stands the reader, like Polonius 
 in Hamlet, "only more honestly doubtful than he, and 
 cannot tell whether it is most like a camel, a weasel, or a 
 whale." In general, the tendency known as Romanticism 
 is as hard to grasp as is the poem alluded to. Dr. Hedge 
 suggests what, to us, is an entirely new conception, de- 
 scribing in such terms what looms in German writers as a 
 whale, or at least a camel, that scarcely so much as a 
 weasel is left. The assertion that Jean Paul was a pre- 
 cursor of the Romantic School, which Dr. Hedge treats 
 most contemptuously, was made upon the authority of 
 Brandes, the brilliant author of " Hauptstromungen der 
 Literatur des 19en Jahrhunderts." "Jean Paul is in 
 many respects the precursor (Vorlaufer) of Romanti- 
 cism. He is a Romanticist before all, through the meas- 
 ureless caprice with which he goes to work as an artist. 
 He is moreover a Romanticist through his unbounded
 
 598 APPENDIX. 
 
 arbitrariness, for one hears him, and again him, out of 
 all his personages, whatever the}' are called ; moreover, 
 through his humor, which dominates every thing and 
 heeds no fixed form ; fiimlly, through his position at the 
 antipodes of classic culture." 1 At the same time, im- 
 portant points of difference between Richter and the 
 Romanticists are specified. To us, th : s claim for Jean 
 Paul has seemed reasonable ; if it deserves such slight- 
 ing mention, Dr. Hedge should know who is responsible 
 for it. 
 
 Dr. Hedge believes that no connection exists between 
 Romanticism and the philosophy of Fichte and Schelling. 
 An opposite position, at any rate, is abundantly upheld. 
 Brandes, 2 Rudolph Gottschall, 3 Heine, 4 Vilmar, 5 Kurz, 6 
 and August Kobcrstein 7 (whose work, in Dr. Hedge's 
 opinion, is the most important history of German litera- 
 ture) all declare, with more or less distinctness, the 
 close connection of Romanticism with the ideas of the 
 philosophers mentioned. We believe that this list of 
 authorities might be largely increased. Dr. Hedge, how- 
 ever, with what an unfriendly critic would call arrogance, 
 declares, "I deliberately pit my judgment against that of 
 Prof. Hosmer's German authorities," and gives a most 
 singular account of the tendency. Scott, certainly, 
 whom the doctor selects as best exemplifying Roman- 
 ticism in English literature, would be, in the idea of the 
 German authors who treat the topic, a most imperfect 
 type. Chapter and verse can be cited in many most 
 
 Hauptstromungen, II., p. 65. 
 
 Hauptstromungen. 
 
 Die deutsche National-literatur des 19en Jahrhunderts. 
 
 Die romantische Schule. 
 
 Geschichte der deutschen Literatur. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Gnschichte der deutschen National-literatur.
 
 APPENDIX. 699 
 
 reputable books to support a position quite different from 
 that of Dr. Hedge, that Romanticism, namely, was a 
 development in literature, proceeding in part from Gothe 
 and Schiller, in part from the great "heroes of the Kan- 
 tian line," modified in ways which cannot be specified 
 here, until at length, near the time of Gothe' s death, its 
 force was expended. 
 
 Dr. Hedge "finds it difficult to keep cool" at the 
 "wild and amazing proposition " that Transcendentalism 
 in America is in any way the fruit of, or connected with, 
 Romanticism. His opinion here is entitled to the greatest 
 respect, connected, as he was, with the Transcendentalista 
 at the outset, a prominent figure in the movement. If 
 the "Short History" is in error, at lenst it did not 
 deserve to be so rudely rebuked. The humble effort of 
 the book is to epitomize for plain readers the conclusions 
 of the important men. Dr. Hedge, in his denial, is at 
 direct issue with famous authorities. With Romanticism 
 as Dr. Hedge describes it, Transcendentalism may have 
 no more connection than with the "Wars of the Roses;" 
 but we submit, in all respect, that the doctor's Romt'.n- 
 ticism is sui generis. With Romanticism as others have 
 described it, the affinity between it and Transcendentalism 
 is very plain. Or have we utterly failed to grasp that 
 other nebulous entity, Transcendentalism? We have 
 supposed that we might trust Mr. O. B. Frothingliam 
 for a true account. If so, Transcendentalism came to 
 New England from German}', in part, directly ; in part 
 through the medium of Coleridge, who reproduced Schell- 
 ing so nearly that he is believed to have plagiarized 
 from him ; and of Carlyle, whom we have ventured to 
 call a spiritual child of Jean Paul. It took its origin in 
 Kant, flowing downward to Fichte, Jacobi, and Schelling. 
 "But," says Mr. Frothingliam, "it was through the lit- 
 erature of Germany that the Transcendental philosophy
 
 600 APPENDIX. 
 
 chiefly communicated itself. Gothe, Richter, and Novalis 
 were more persuasive teachers than Jacobi, Fichte, and 
 Schelling." l We insist, with all respect for Dr. Hedge, 
 that names of the utmost weight can be cited for the 
 position that Romanticism, too, found in Gothe one of its 
 starting-points, in Richter its precursor, in Novalis its 
 consummate flowering; and that it is neither "wild nor 
 amazing" to say that in the idealism of Emerson, in the 
 reactionaiy career of Brovvnson, in vapory rhapsody and 
 Orphic utterance, we have echoes and analogues of what 
 was just dying away in the heart of the old world. We 
 are willing to defer in this matter to Dr. Hedge, but 
 consider the sharpness of his correction quite uncalled 
 for. 
 
 Dr. Hedge's condemnation, however, falls most severely 
 upon certain statements respecting the Catholicism of 
 Novalis. "The author says of Novalis, that he abjured 
 Protestantism for the older faith. Who told Mr. Hosmer 
 that? Such is not the fact. Such apostacy was, for 
 Novalis, a moral impossibility. He was Moravian to 
 the very root of his being. If our author had studied 
 Kurz, on whom he professedly bases his account of the 
 Romantic School, with closer attention, he would have 
 learned from that authority also, that, Novalis did not 
 abjure Protestantism. (Vol. III. p. 163)." 
 
 We beg the student of German to open Kurz, and con- 
 vince himself that in what we now translate, from the 
 page to which the critic himself refers us, we do not at 
 all distort the writer's meaning: "The tendency toward 
 Catholicism could not develop itself in Novalis in the 
 same degree as with his friends ; and although we find 
 here and there indications of it, they are of a more ex- 
 ternal kind. Even the fragment written in 1799, ' Die 
 
 1 Transcendentalism in New England, p. 61.
 
 APPENDIX. 601 
 
 Christenheit in Europa,' l although it begins from an 
 exclusively Catholic standpoint, shows in its development 
 that he comprehended Catholicism in quite a different 
 way from the other Romanticists, whose views, however, 
 incontestably, had an essential influence upon this treatise. 
 Generally speaking, Catholicism, for his soul so inclined 
 to introversion, was much too material for him to remain 
 permanently attracted by it ; and we can understand how 
 it was that toward the end of his life he inclined more 
 to the views of the Moravians than the Papacy." So far 
 from learning from this passage that Novalis did not 
 abjure Protestantism, we find here a distinct admission 
 that at one time in his career he was the author of writ- 
 ings that expressed Catholic views. The facts in the case 
 are these : The family from which he sprang was Mora- 
 vian ; at the end of his life he appears to have returned 
 to the faith of his childhood ; but there was a period in 
 his career, and an important one, in which he shared fully 
 the reactionary spirit of many of the Romanticists, ap- 
 proving transubstantiation, glorifying the Romish hier- 
 archy and order of Jesuits, denouncing the Reformation, 
 urging the hurtfulness of knowledge, in a manner which 
 could not have been surpassed by the most thorough- 
 going Ultramontane. Whether any formal renunciation 
 of Protestantism ever took place, we do not know. If 
 the term "abjured" must be understood to imply so 
 much, another one should have been used ; but that 
 Novalis turned his back on Protestantism, and was 
 thoroughly in sympathy, in his vigorous years, with 
 Roman Catholicism, cannot be questioned. We propose 
 to substantiate this statement from his own lips. The 
 sentences which follow are from the treatise, "Die 
 
 1 Kurz gives the title wrong; it should be, "Christenheit oder 
 Europa."
 
 602 APPENDIX. 
 
 Christenheit oder Europa," to wbich Kurz makes allu- 
 sion : 
 
 "Those were beautiful, brilliant days when Europe 
 was a Christian land, when one Christianity occupied 
 the continent. Rightfully did the wise head of the church 
 oppose the insolent education of men at the expense of 
 their holy sense, and untimely, dangerous discoveries in 
 the realm of knowledge. He forbade, therefore, auda- 
 cious thinkers to maintain publicly that the earth is an 
 unimportant planet; for he knew well that men at the 
 same time that they lose respect for their dwelling-place 
 and their earthly habitation, would lose it also for their 
 heavenly home, would prefer limited knowledge to 
 infinite faith. This great interior schism (Protestantism) 
 which destroying wars accompanied was a remarkable 
 sign of the hurtful ness of culture. The insurgents sepa- 
 rated the inseparable, divided the indivisible church, and 
 tore themselves wickedly out of the universal Christian 
 union through which, and in which alone, genuine and 
 enduring regeneration was possible. Luther treated 
 Christianity in general arbitrarily, mistook its spirit, in- 
 troduced another letter and another religion, the sacred, 
 universal sufficiency of the Bible, namely. With the 
 Reformation, Christianity went to destruction (mit der 
 Reformation war's urn die Christenheit gethan). Fortu- 
 nately for the old constitution, a newly arisen order, the 
 Jesuits, now appeared, upon which the dying spirit of the 
 hierarchy seemed to have poured out its last gifts. In 
 Germany one can already point out with full certainty the 
 traces of anew world, a great time of reconciliation, 
 a new golden age, a Saviour dwelling among men, under 
 countless forms visible to the believers, eaten as bread 
 and wine (als Brod und Wein verzehrt), embraced as the 
 beloved, breathed as air, and heard as word and song. 
 The old Catholic belief was Christianity applied, become
 
 APPENDIX. 603 
 
 living. Its presence everywhere in life, its love for art, 
 its deep humanity, the indissolubility of its marriages, its 
 humane sympathy, its joy in poverty, obedience and 
 fidelity, make it unmistakably a genuine religion. It is 
 made pure by the stream of time ; it will eternally make 
 happy this earth. Shall not Protestantism finally cease, 
 and give place to a new, more durable church?" 
 
 The author of the "Short History " believes that proof 
 enough has been brought forward to substantiate the 
 statement that Novalis was at one time, to all intents and 
 purposes, a Catholic. The citations produce no effect, 
 however, upon the mind of Dr. Hedge. In a rejoinder 
 to the communication in which they were submitted, he 
 reaffirms his previous declaration that Novalis was never 
 any thing but a Protestant. In the passage cited from 
 Kurz, he sees no admission that Novalis was at one time 
 a Catholic in his sympathies. "It proves, if it proves 
 any thing, the very opposite." The treatise, " Christen- 
 heit oder Europa," he refuses to admit as evidence; we 
 beg the reader to notice upon what grounds: because, 
 ** when read for their judgment as to fitness for publica- 
 tion, to a committee of his friends, F. Schlegel, the 
 Catholic, being one of them, it was unanimously rejected, 
 on the ground that its historic view was too weak and 
 inadequate, the inferences arbitrary, and the whole essay 
 feeble; its defects evident to ever}' one acquainted with 
 the subject." It may be weak, but can Dr. Hedge deny 
 that Novalis wrote the paper? Did the "committee of 
 friends " who rejected it deny that Novalis wrote it? No 
 one has denied that it came from his hand, nor can it be 
 denied that the mind from which it proceeded was thor- 
 oughly Romish in its sympathies. Schlegel, at least, of 
 the " committee of friends," repented of his decision, 
 and afterwards published it. " What settles the ques- 
 tion," says Dr. Hedge, " with an unappealable verdict 
 from the highest authority, is the declaration of Tieck,
 
 604 APPENDIX. 
 
 Novalis's most intimate friend and his biographer: 'I 
 may confidently affirm that to my friend Hardenberg 
 (Novalis) this transition to another Christian communion 
 from the Lutheran, in which he was born, was utterly 
 impossible.'" Shall we believe Tieck, or Novalis him- 
 self? Dr. Hedge prefers to do the former ; the author of 
 the "Short History" prefers to do the latter; all the 
 more since in taking that course he has the countenance 
 of the highest German authorities that can be named. 
 Brandes, Rudolph Gottschall, Hettner, 1 K. R. Hagen- 
 bach, 2 and August Koberstein, all quote the " Christen- 
 heit oder Europa" of Novalis, most of them at great 
 length, as a work which they are compelled to recognize, 
 and as unmistakably Catholic in its positions. Koberstein 
 (whose work, let it be remembered, according to Dr. 
 Hedge, is the most important of the German literary 
 histories) is especially full and emphatic in his treatment 
 of the matter, asserting not only the Catholicism of 
 Novalis, but taking him as the especial type and spokes- 
 man, in this respect, of the reactionary Romanticists. 
 "Novalis," he says, "in his whole religious way of 
 thinking, and according to his historical views (however 
 near the former might approach Pantheism),' inclined 
 toward Catholicism in its mediaeval hierarchical form and 
 historical significance. From this fragment (Christenheit 
 oder Europa) it can best be seen what ideas relating to 
 religion, and its connection with all the higher directions 
 of life, were talked about at that time (1799) in the circle 
 of Romanticists at Jena, what hopes they connected with 
 a re-birth of true Catholicism," etc. 3 For a fast authority, 
 Dr. Hedge himself admits that, if Falk is to be believed, 
 
 1 "Die romantische Schule." 
 
 1 "Kirchcngeschichte d<?s 18en and 19en Jahrhunderts aus dem 
 Standpunkte des evangelischen Protestantismus betrachtet." 
 
 8 Die deutsche National-literntur, TV. pp. 794-79'J. The edition 
 used is that published in Leipsic in 1873, edited by Karl Bartsch.
 
 APPENDIX. 605 
 
 it was declared by Gothe that Novalis had obliged his age 
 by becoming a Catholic. The author of the " Short 
 History" rests his case here, although he believes he 
 might make it even stronger. There are few copies of 
 the works of Novalis in America, but any reader of 
 German may find in Kurz's History of German Litera- 
 ture, a book which may easily be consulted, among 
 the selections from the writings of Novalis, poems full of 
 Catholic spirit. A hymn is quoted, which could have 
 been written only by one who accepted the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation. In the "Crusader's Song," "the 
 Holy Virgin hovers, borne by angels, above the wild 
 battle, where each one whom the sword has smitten 
 awakes in her mother-arms; " and each stanza has such 
 a tone as might have proceeded from the soul of some 
 mediaeval monk. Enough, however, has been said ; and 
 now we respectfully submit that the assertion of the 
 Catholicism of Novalis did not deserve the curt contra- 
 diction which Dr. Hedge has seen fit to administer. We 
 believe that the candid student of German literature, 
 making himself familiar with the evidence upon this 
 point, will be amazed to find a scholar of Dr. Hedge's 
 reputation and position occupying such ground. 
 
 The author of the "Short History of German Litera- 
 ture" has felt forced to say a deprecatory word. He 
 does not presume for a moment to measure his acquire- 
 ments in this wide field with those of his venerable critic, 
 in comparison with whom he acknowledges himself a mere 
 tyro. At the same time, he demands just treatment ; he 
 begs that errors into which he has fallen through following 
 respectable authorities may have patient and courteous 
 correction, and he cannot let unfounded accusations of 
 inaccuracy pass without refutation.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aar, the river, Joh. Schorr's illustration of the "Nlbelungen 
 
 Lied," 96. 
 
 "Abderites," romance of Wieland, 309. 
 "Achillies," work of Gothe, 384. 
 Achilles, shield of, in Homer's description, 269. 
 Achim von Arnim, author of "Boy's Wonder-Horn," 149; one 
 
 of the Romantic School, 501. 
 Adolph of Nassau, statue at Speyer, 133. 
 "JEsthetic Prose" of Schiller, 461. 
 Agamemnon, see plot of "Iphigenia," Homer describes dress 
 
 of, 269. 
 
 Ahriman, and Mephistopheles, 399. 
 Albrecht von Scharfenberg, 126. 
 Alcuin, 11. 
 Amalie, Duchess of Weimar, connection with Wleland> 807; 
 
 with Gothe, 346. 
 
 Andersen, Hans Christian, 308, 549. 
 Animal legends, 98; epic, 100. 
 Aristophanes, Heine's likeness to, 533. 
 ArkaSj character in "Iphigenia," 391. 
 Arndt, Ernst Moritz, 483, 500. 
 Arnold of Brescia, 176. 
 Arnold, Mathew, on Gothe, 404, 411 ; explains faults of German 
 
 style, 587. 
 
 Arthur, legends of, 124. 
 Aryans, their tongues and migrations, 1. 
 "Atta Troll," satire of Heine, 526. 
 Auerbach, Berthold, 549. 
 Aventinus, 242. 
 
 "Balmung," the sword of Siegfried, 24. 
 
 Bancroft, Hon. George, American Minister at Berlin, 549. 
 
 Banier, 219. 
 
 (607)
 
 608 INDEX. 
 
 Barbarossa, Hohenstauffen emperor, 17. 
 
 Earth, African traveller, 547. 
 
 Bauer, Ludwig, on "Nibelungen Lied," 61. 
 
 Berkeley, his Idealism, 478. 
 
 Berlin, Lessing at, description of, 293 ; Museum, 568. 
 
 Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, 218. 
 
 Berthold of Regensburg, 145. 
 
 Bettine, friend of Gothe, 343. 
 
 Bible, respected by Mastersingers, 159; Luther's manuscript of, 
 
 186 ; translation and circulation of, 187 ; influence of, upon 
 
 Gothe, 338. 
 Bodmer, discovers "Nibelungen Lied," 52; head of Swiss school 
 
 of critics, 247 ; opponent of Gottsched, 300. 
 Bohme, mystical writer, 241. 
 "Book Le Grand," work of Heine, 527. 
 "Boy's Wonder-Horn" of Achim von Arnim, 149. 
 Breitinger, critic of Swiss school, 247; on poetry and painting, 
 
 2G6 ; associate of Bodmer, 300. 
 "Bride of Messina," play of Schiller, 419, 457 
 Brunhild. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 Biichner, 547. 
 
 Bunsen, discovers spectral analysis, 557. 
 Burger, 149, 306. 
 
 Buttler, character in Schiller's " Wallenstein," 449. 
 Byron, Heine's resemblance to, 638. 
 
 Canisius, 242. 
 
 Carlyle, on "Nibelungen Lied," 50; on Gothe, 871, 402; defence 
 
 of obscurity, 570. 
 Catholic, writers approve Luther, 172; church, power of before 
 
 Reformation, 175. 
 
 Cervantes, Heine's resemblance to, 533. 
 Charlotte Buff, friend of Gothe, 341. 
 "Christmas Song for Children," Luther's, 197. 
 Cimbri, defeat Papirius Carbo, 2 ; defeated by Marius, 3. 
 Cities, rise of, 137; independent spirit of, relation to literature, 
 
 138. 
 
 Clarchen, heroine of "Egmont," 386. 
 Claude of Turin, 176. 
 
 "Clavigo," play of Gothe, Schiller acts hero, 154, 386. 
 Clemens Breutano, 501. 
 Coburg, Luther's sojourn at, 180, 201 ; portraits at, 209.
 
 INDEX. 609 
 
 "Codex Argentens," manuscript of Ulfllas, 4. 
 Coleridge, rejects didactic poetry, 383 ; influenced by Romantic- 
 ism, 484. 
 
 "Conversations for Freemasons," work of Lessing, 257, 280. 
 Courts, corruption of, 247. 
 Court epics, foreign subjects of, 119. 
 Court poets, distinguished from popular poets, 21. 
 Cowley, on obscurity, 569. 
 * 
 
 Dante, Gothe's low opinion of, 358. 
 Darwin, Gothe in science coordinate with, 408. 
 Defoe, his "Memoirs of a Cavalier" quoted, 217. 
 Delaroche, picture of, described, 75. 
 "Demetrius," play of Hermann Grimm, 554. 
 De Quincey, on "Style," 577, 586. 
 Development theory, Gothe's relation to, 367. 
 "Devil and the Landsknechts," work of Hans Sachs, 164. 
 Dietlinde. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 Dietrich of Berne. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 Dominican Monks, 143. 
 " Don Carlos," play of Schiller, 435. 
 " Don Quixote," translated by Tieck, 494. 
 Diisseldorf, Heine at, 527. 
 
 "Earthly Paradise," 124. 
 
 Eblis. and Mephistopheles, 899. 
 
 Eckermann, account of Gothe's body, 862. 
 
 Eckhardt, founder of Mystics, 143. 
 
 Education in Germany, 5GO. 
 
 "Education of the Human Race," work of Lessing, 257, 285. 
 
 "Egmont," play of Gothe, 386. 
 
 Eisenach, 129,201. 
 
 Eisleben, birthplace of Luther, 200. 
 
 "Elective Affinities," romance of Gothe, 373. 
 
 Elizabeth of Hungary, 130. 
 
 Emerson, translated into German by Hermann Grimm, 554. 
 
 "Emilia Galotti," play of Lessing, 256, 263; compared with 
 
 "The Robbers," 431. 
 
 Emperors, the statues at Speyer, 132; their characters, 134. 
 England, Heine's opinion of, 521. 
 "Ernest von Schwaben," play of Uhland, 503. 
 "Erwin and Elinire," work of Gothe, 344. 
 
 39
 
 610 INDEX. 
 
 Esslingen, school-master of, 105. 
 
 Etzel. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Euripides, his " Iphigenia " compared with that of Gothe, 390. 
 
 Fates, song of, in "Iphigenia," 392. 
 
 Faust, inventor of printing, 14G. 
 
 "Faust," play of Gothe, 393; high estimation, 394; character 
 and plot, 395 ; second part, 402. 
 
 Ferdinand II., emperor, 207. 
 
 Fichte, at Jena, 346 ; his idealism, 478 ; relation to the Romantic 
 School, 483. 
 
 "Fiesco," play of Schiller, 431. 
 
 Fischart, born at Mainz or Strassburg, 242 ; as satirist and poet, 
 243. 
 
 Fischer, H., criticism of "Nibelungen Lied," 63. 
 
 Flagellants, 142. 
 
 Flemming, Paul, 244. 
 
 Fouqud, 500. 
 
 France, influence of, in mediaeval times, 21 ; in eighteenth cen- 
 tury, 247. 
 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, G ; birthplace of Gothe, 332 ; Juclen-gasse 
 of, 506. 
 
 "Frauendienst," of Ulrich von Lichtenstcin, 111. 
 
 Frauenlob, Ileinrich, 100, 155. 
 
 Frederick the Great, on "Nibelungen Lied," 52, 246; his memo- 
 rial, 297. 
 
 Frcclerika Brion, loved by Gothe, 30G. 
 
 Freiligrath, 549, 587. 
 
 Frcytag, Gustav, Ins "Pictures from the German Tast" quoted, 
 10, 19, 182; as dramatist, 549. 
 
 Friedrich II., emperor, 18; Friedrich, elector palatine, 208; 
 Friedrich Wilhelm I., 246. 
 
 Fritsche Closener, 142. 
 
 Frivolous writers, 481. 
 
 "Frut." See " Gndmn. y> 
 
 Fulda, early literary activity at, 15. 
 
 Gautier, Thcophile, describes Heine, 6?i. 
 
 Geiler von Kuisersberg, 145. 
 
 Geoffrey of Moumouth, 127. 
 
 Gerhardt, 244. 
 
 Gerliut. See " Gudrun"
 
 INDEX. 611 
 
 German, meaning of word, establishment of race in Europe, 2. 
 
 "Germany is Hamlet," poem of Freiligrath, 587. 
 
 Gernot. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Gervinus, on "Nibelungen Lied" and "Gudrun," 95. 
 
 "Ghost-seer," romance of Schiller, 426. 
 
 Gieseler. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Gleim, 279; story concerning Gothe, 350. 
 
 Gods, their myths and legends preserved in M'drchen, 553. 
 
 Gothe, admires volks-lied, 149; prefers Erasmus to Luther, 173; 
 on "Laokoon," 205; his ancestry, father, 330; his mother, 
 birth, 331 ; Frankfort, house of his childhood, precocity, 332 ; 
 his impressibility, first love affair, at Leipsic, 333 ; estrange- 
 ment from his father, gay life, 334 ; Strassburg, his personal 
 appearance at twenty, force of character and intellect, 335 ; 
 Marie Antoinette, Frederika, 336 ; her after-life, Herder's in- 
 fluence, 337 ; influence of Bible, Homer, Ossian, Shakespeare, 
 of cathedral, 338; " Storm and Stress," his love of skating, 
 339; his mother's description, " Gotz von Berlichingen," 
 340; at Wetzlar, Charlotte Buff and Kestner, 341 ; " Sorrows 
 of Werther," 342 ; Maximiliane, Bettine, Lili, 343 ; "Erwin 
 and Elmire," origin of Gretchen, 344; Karl August, Wei- 
 mar, 345; Jena, celebrities, Amalie, 346; early Weimar life, 
 347; his importance in public life, 348; Wieland's admira- 
 tion, 34'J; Gleim's first interview, 350; anecdote of his wild 
 days, 351 ; Klopstock's condemnation, Charlotte von Stein, 
 352; Jean Paul on Weimar marriages, II. Grimm's defence, 
 353; "Iphigenia," "Tasso," "Kgmont," "Wilhelm iMcis- 
 tcr," 355; programme of Weimar day, 356; Jean Paul on 
 Gothc's voice, fame in science, 357; Italy, change of taste, 
 low opinion of Dante, his friendship with Schiller, 358; his 
 vitality in age, love affairs, Christiane Vnlpius, II. Grimm's 
 defence, 359 ; E. Scherer's condemnation, Minna Iler/lieb, 
 Marianne Willemer, Frivulein von Lewezow, jubilee in 1825, 
 3G1 ; Thackeray's interview, death, Eckermann's account of 
 the body, 3G2; his universality, labors in science, 363; 
 Cuvier A. "id o*.. Hilaire, his work in natural history, dis- 
 covery of intermaxillary bore, 3G4 ; metamorphosis of 
 plants, doctrine of morphology, 3G6 ; his relation to devel- 
 opment theory, 3G7 ; his theory of colors, Swiss journeys, 
 Italian journeys, 3GS ; "Poetry and Truth," "Werther," 
 369; Thackeray's ballad, 370; " Willielin M.cister's Appren-
 
 612 INDEX. 
 
 ticeshfp," Carlyle's opinion, 371; Scherer's, Niebuhr's, 372; 
 Philine, Mignon, the old harper, criticism of "Hamlet," 
 "Years of Wandering," "Elective Affinities," Charlotte 
 von Stein, 373; Minna Herzlieb, Ottilie, "Fairy Stories," 
 "The Snake," 374; "Upon Naive and Sentimental Poetry," 
 Schiller's treatise, 375; Shakespeare a "naive" poet, so 
 Homer, Carlyle's judgment, 376; Jean Paul, Byron, types 
 of "sentimental" poets, Hutton's opinion, 377; Gothe 
 both "naive" and "sentimental," Schiller "sentimental," 
 378 ; Gothe's greatness as a lyric poet, 379 ; his susceptibility 
 as regards women, "Hymns," "Elegies," " West-ostliche 
 Divan," 380; Marianne Willemer, Suleika, Christiane, 381; 
 Coleridge, Lessing, and Schiller reject didactic poetry, 
 satires, "Xenien," 383; his epics, ballads, "Achillies," 
 "Keynard the Fox," "Hermann and Dorothea," 384; as a 
 dramatist, "Gotz," 385; "Clavigo," "Tasso," Egmont, 
 Clarchen, 386; "Iphigenia," Charlotte von Stein's rela- 
 tion to the play, 377 ; plot, 389 ; compared with Euripides, 
 criticism, 390; song of the Fates, 392; "Faust," con- 
 ceived at Strassburg, 393 ; high estimation, the puppet-play, 
 394; sketch of play, Valentine, Gretchen, 395; Mephis- 
 topheles, Herder as prototype, 397 ; Merck, 398 ; the devil 
 and his analogues, 399; Gretchen, Frederika as prototype, 
 400; account of character, 401; second part of "Faust," 
 obscurity, 402 ; magnificent gifts, Heine's tribute, his beauty 
 and impressiveness, 405; prodigious vitality and balance, 
 strength in age, 401! ; compared with Shakespeare, as man 
 of action, his limitations, dislike of metaphysics, not musi- 
 cian or mathematician, admires Spinoza, his position in 
 science, 407; coordinate with Darwin and Lamarck, wide 
 range in literature, his character, 408; his unmoral genius, 
 409; want of dignity of character, 410; his "corporalism," 
 411; lack of patriotism, transcendency, 412; "Faust," 414; 
 II. Grimm's lectures, 554; his condemnation of influence of 
 speculative philosophy, 580, 584. 
 
 ^ottingen, feet of ladies of, Heine's description, 619. 
 
 Gotz von BeiTichingen, 145. 
 
 "Gotz von Berlichingen," play of Gothe, 385. 
 
 Gotze, his controversy with Lessing, 257, 284. 
 
 "Golden Legend" of Longfellow, 122. 
 
 Goths conquer Koine, 3.
 
 INDEX. 613 
 
 Gottfried von Strassburg, 123. 
 
 Gottsclit-d, 247, 300. 
 
 Grail, story of, 124; temple of, 126. 
 
 Great Elector, 240. 
 
 Gretchen in " Faust," her prototype, 344 ; character developed, 
 400. 
 
 Gricsbach, 346. 
 
 Grimm, Hermann, on Gothe and Fran von Stein, 353; on Gothe 
 and Christiane Vulpius, 359; as poet and critic, 554. 
 
 Grimm, Jacob, letter to Wilhelm Grimm, 550; German gram- 
 mar, 550; dictionary, 551; study of folk-lore, 552. 
 
 Grimm, Wilhelm, 551. 
 
 "Guclnin," date of poem, 82; Ilcttel of Friesland, Wate, Frnt, 
 Horant, 83; Wate's indifference to women, Horant's sing- 
 ing, 84; abduction of Hilda, marriage with Ilettel, 85; birtb 
 of Ortwin and Gudrun, beauty of Gudrun, Herwig's wooing, 
 Hartmuth's suit, Gudrun a captive, 80; the Wulpensand, 
 87; Hilda's mourning, 88; Ludwig's cruelty, Gerlint and 
 Ortwin, the washing at the beach, Hildburg, 81); the coming 
 of Ortwin and Herwig, 91 ; Gudrun's ruse, the Avomen sur- 
 prised, 92; the battle for Gudrun, death of Gerlint, joy of 
 victors, Gudrun's marriage with Herwig, 93; critique, 94. 
 
 Gnnther. See " Nibelunyen Lied." 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, his portrait at Coburg, 209 ; character, 210 ; 
 career, 213 ; prayer at Liitzen, 224 ; death, 227. 
 
 Gutenberg, inventor of printing, 146. 
 
 Hadlaub of Zurich, his sufferings and absurdities, 110. 
 Haiisser, Ludwig, on Luther's Bible, 187. 
 Hagen. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 Hain-Bund, followers of Klopstock, 306. 
 Hamann, 312. 
 
 " Hamburg Dramaturgy " of Lessing, 276. 
 "Hamlet," critique of, in "Wilhelm Meister," 373. 
 HansFolz, 151. 
 
 Hans Sachs, number of works, 160; moral worth and knowl- 
 edge, 162. 
 
 Hardenberg, von. See Novalis. 
 Hartmann von Aue, his "Poor Henry," 120. 
 Hartmuth. See " Gudrun" 
 "Harz Journey," work of Heine, 519.
 
 614 INDEX. 
 
 "Ileart-gtishings of an Art-loving Cloister Brother," Wacken- 
 roder, 499. 
 
 Hegel, 340, 479, 515, 581, 585. 
 
 LLehie, Ileinrich, on "Nibelungcn Lied," 51; on Lnther, 198; on 
 Leasing, 298; onGothc, 405; on Jean Paul, 48G ; on Novalis, 
 497 ; on Uhland, 504 ; Solomon Heine, Jews in Hamburg, 
 509; Heine the mouth-piece of his race, birth, 510; his 
 mother, Jews freed by Napoleon, 511; at Frankfort, his 
 uncle, 512; persecution, 513; at Bonn, Gottingen, Berlin, 
 514 ; his opinion of Hegel, Varnhagen von Ense, Rahel, 
 515; first poems, abjures Judaism, 51G; "Rabbi of Bach- 
 arach," his portrait of Shylock, 5T7; "Shakespeare's Maids* 
 and Women," 518; "Harz Journey," feet of Gottingen 
 ladies, 519; his opinion of England, of Munich under Lud- 
 \vig I., 521; of Tyrol, 522; at Paris, St. Simon, 523; his 
 wife "Nonotte," Gautier's account, 524; the mattress-grave, 
 his will, 525; death, " Pilgrimage to Kevlaar," "Atta Troll," 
 520; extracts from "Book Le Grand," entrance of French 
 into Diisseldorf, 527; Napoleon, 528; return from Russian 
 campaign, 530; description of cholera, 532; likeness to 
 Aristophanes, Cervantes, Montaigne, 533; hit at Germany, 
 534 ; "The New Alexander," 535; " Song of Praise in Honor 
 of King Luclwig," 530; "The Sea Vision," 537; compared 
 with Sterne, Byron, Swift, 538; "Nonotte" and "Old 
 Lady of the Damm-Thor," 539; "Princess Use," 540; lines 
 to his wife, 541; "Lorelei," 542; last walk on the Boule- 
 vards, 543 ; Venus of Milo, 545. 
 
 Heinrich, Duke of Breslau, 21. 
 
 Heinrich von Glichesare, 100. 
 
 Heinrich von Oiterdingen, 130. 
 
 "Heinrich von Ofterdiugen," romance of Novalis, 4DP. 
 
 "Heldenbuch," 150. 
 
 "Holland," 15. 
 
 Helmholtz, 559. 
 
 Henry the Fowler, 14. 
 
 Herbart, 479. 
 
 Herder, cultivates volks-lied, 149; effect of Lesslng's "Lao- 
 koon," 205; birth, 311; influence of Kant, Hamann, Shake- 
 speare, Ossian, travels, 312; at Strassburg, first meeting 
 with Gothe, 313; his arrogance, 315; life at Weimar, his 
 death, character, 316; study of "Sacontala," Percy's "Eel-
 
 INDEX. 615 
 
 iqucs," SaadJ, the Cicl, Horace, Pcrsius, 317; Theocritus, 
 Immense range of reading, 318; "Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," 
 "Origin of Language," "Ideas for a Philosophy of the 
 History of Humanity," 319; sketch of the "Ideas," 320; 
 extract from, 324 ; as preacher and talker, 32G ; his faults, 
 his church and statue at Weimar, 329; his influence on 
 Gothe, 327 ; a prototype of Mephistopheles, 397. 
 
 Hermann of Thuringia, 130. 
 
 " Hermann and Dorothea," epic of Gothe, 884. 
 
 Ilcnvig. See "Gudrun." 
 
 Ilettcl. See "GuJrun." 
 
 Hcyse, Paul, 549. 
 
 Hilda. See "Gitdnm." 
 
 Ilildebrand. See " Xibelungen Lied." 
 
 " Ilildebrand's Lied," story of preservation, 11. 
 
 Hoffmann, 501. 
 
 Iloffmnnnswaldau, 243. 
 
 Ilohcnheim, von, 242. 
 
 Hohenstauffen, emperors, 17. 
 
 Holtzmann, critic of "Nibelungen Lied," 53. 
 
 Homer compared with "Nibelungen Lied," 72; considered by 
 Lcssing, 2G8; his iufluence on Gothe, 338; an objective 
 poet, 37G. 
 
 Hondt, 242. 
 
 Horn, 219. 
 
 Horant. See "Gnclrun, 1 * 
 
 Hroswitha, her plays, 150. 
 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, 324, 346, 474. 
 
 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, on Scliiller, 423. 
 
 Huss, John, 17G, 204. 
 
 Button, Richard Holt, on Gothe, 377. 
 
 "Hymns" of Gothe, 382. 
 
 Idealism, German tendency to, 422; of Fichte, 478; of the 
 
 Romantic School, 479. 
 "Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humanity," work of 
 
 Herder, 321. 
 
 Illo, character in "Wallenstein," 445. 
 
 Ilsan, the monk, character in " Rose-garden at Worms," 116. 
 "Iphigenia," performed at Gothe's jubilee, 3d; plot, 387; 
 
 criticism, 390. 
 
 Isensteiu. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 " Italian Journey " of Gothe, 3G8.
 
 618 INDEX. 
 
 Italy, Influence of, In mediaeval times, 21. 
 
 Jena, the university at, 346 ; home of romantic writers, 478. 
 
 Jesuit seminaries, plays in, 152. 
 
 Jews, persecution of, 505 ; spiritual energy of the race, 607. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. S., 250. 
 
 Jordan, W'lh^m, 549. 
 
 Julius Caesar overcomes the Teutons, 8. 
 
 11 Kabale und Liebe," play of Schiller, 417, 431 ; extract from, 
 433. 
 
 Kant, 418, 477, 479, 580. 
 
 Karl August, 345. 
 
 Karl the Great, statue at Frankfort, 6; as a soldier, his Saxon 
 campaigns, 7; his coronation as emperor, extent of his 
 domain, his ideal state, as a law-giver, capitularies, 8 ; his 
 mistakes, life in time of peace, greatness of his fame, 9; 
 his hospitality, picture of his court, 10; his influence on 
 literature, collection of ancient songs, first German gram- 
 mar, Peter of Pisa, Paulus Diaconus, Alcuin, Eginhard, his 
 influence on succeeding ages, 11; his person and dress, 
 legend of his tomb, 12; fall of his empire, U; his mis- 
 takes, 135. 
 
 Karl Moor, character in "The Robbers," 432. 
 
 Karlstadt, 181. 
 
 Rasper von der Roen, 150. 
 
 Kestner, 341. 
 
 Kirchoff, 559. 
 
 Klingsor, 130. 
 
 Klopstock, birth at Quedlinburg, likeness to Milton, 301 ; Invited 
 to Zurich, to Copenhagen, 302 ; patriotism and love of free- 
 dom, the "Messias," 303; wanting in epic spirit, lyrical 
 greatness, 304; Vilmar's tribute, 305; his wide influence, 
 806; condemns Gothe, 352; his ode on the English and 
 German muses, 590. 
 
 Klotz, 256. 
 
 Konigshoven, 143. 
 
 Korner, friend of Schiller, 454. 
 
 Korner, Theodor, poet, his heroic death, 500. 
 
 Konrad of Wiirzburg, praise of the Virgin, 105. 
 
 Kotzebue, 481, 484. 
 
 Krafft, Adam, 168. 
 
 Kriemhild. See " Nibelungen Lied."
 
 INDEX, 617 
 
 Kiirenberger, the, perhaps author of "Nibelungen Lied," 55. 
 
 Lachmann, critic of "Nibelungen Lied," 53. 
 
 Lamarck, Gothe coordinate with, in science, 408. 
 
 "Laokoon," work of Lessing, 2C5. 
 
 Latin, vernacular of learned, 147. 
 
 Leibnitz, 244. 
 
 Lessing, birth, parents, at school, 250; precocity, at Leipslc, 
 251 ; at Berlin, Wittenberg, Moses Mendelssohn, 252 ; at 
 Breslau, Tauentzien, 253; gambling, beginning of fame, 
 254 ; independence of character, rejects Konigsberg profes- 
 sorship, the Berlin library, Hamburg, 255 ; controversy with 
 Gotze, Wolfenblittel, honored by Maria Theresa, 256 ; Italy, 
 honors, marriage, death of his wife, 257 ; death, literary 
 character, critic and not poet, 258; his lyrics, 258; "Vindi- 
 cations," "Fables," "Zeus and the Horse," 259; "Minna 
 von Barnhelm," story of, 201; critique, 2G2; aim of 
 "Minna," "Emilia Galotti," 2G3; Madame de Stael on criti-/ 
 cism in Germany, 204; "Laokoon," Macaulay's opinion, 
 Herder's, Gothe's, 2G5; analysis of, boundary of poetry and 
 "formative art," Breitinger's view, Simonicles, Winckel- 
 mann, 2G6; Virgil's Laokoon, Lessing defends the poet, 
 2G7; Homer's descriptions of stationary objects, 268; 
 Agamemnon's dress, shield of Achilles, bow of Pandarus, 
 269; broad sphere of poetry, style of "Laokoon," 270; is 
 beauty sole object of "formative art"? Lessing nearer 
 truth in considering poetry than art, 271 ; Tennyson's 
 "Gardener's Daughter," 272; anticipates Wagner, 273; 
 great influence of "Laokoon," Gothe's tribute, 274; "Pope 
 as a Metaphysician," poetry shall not teach, 275; "Ham- 
 burg Dramaturgy," 276; combats French prestige, 277; his 
 ideas of government, 278; depreciation of patriotism, 
 hatred of war, 279; "Conversations for Freemasons," 
 government a necessary evil, 280 ; brotherhood of exalted 
 minds, 281 ; Freemasonry, 282 ; admiration for Spinoza, 
 spiritual progress, religious tolerance, " Wolfenbiittel Frag- 
 ments," 283; Reimarus, controversy with Gotze, 284; "Edu- 
 cation of the Human Race," 285; law of progress, 286; 
 "Nathan the Wise," artistically imperfect plot, 287; lessons 
 of tolerance, story of rings, 289 ; personal appearance, 291 ; 
 his haunts, 292; Berlin, 293; his statue, as compeer of 
 Luther, 293.
 
 618 INDEX. 
 
 Lewczow, Friiuleln von, loved by Gothe, 3G1. 
 
 "Lili," loved by Gothe, 343. 
 
 Locke, 477. 
 
 Lohenstein, 243. 
 
 Loki, and Mephistophclcs, 399. 
 
 "Lorelei," poem of Iluiue, 642. 
 
 Lucretius, quoted, 572. 
 
 "Ludwig'sLied," 15. 
 
 Ltuhvig. See l 'Gudrun." 
 
 Lut/en, battle of, 222. 
 
 Luther, approves plays, 152; praised by Catholic writers, 172; 
 Gothe prefers Erasmus to, 173; Catholic Church before the 
 Reformation, 175; the ninety-five theses, 177; burns bull of 
 Leo X., 178; diet at Worms, 179; sojourn at the Wartbnrg, 
 marriage, sojourn at Coburg, disorder of the world, 180; 
 controversy with Zwingle, with Karlstadt, belief in the 
 Real Presence, fury against the peasants, 181; belief in 
 witchcraft, in devil, 182; promotes witch persecutions, 
 his violence extenuated, 183; his tenderness to animals, 
 his love for his daughter, words at her death-bed, 184; 
 his own death, intellectual limitations, 185; his manu- 
 script of the Bible, 180; translation of, immense circu- 
 lation, 187; his homely speech, 188; literary value of his 
 translation, 189; variety and number of his works, his 
 polemic power, as an orator, 190; rejoices that the Bible 
 is open, his views on compulsory education, on the 
 function of woman, 191 ; his advice to preachers, letters, 
 193; the bird's complaint of Wolfgang Lieberger, 195; his 
 hymns, 196; "A Mighty Fortress, is our God," "Children's 
 Song for Christmas," 197; Heine's tribute, 198; pilgrim- 
 age to his haunts, Eisleben, Wittenberg, 200; Wartburg, 
 Eisenach, Coburg, 201 ; Worms, 202 ; Luther memorial, 203 ; 
 his statue, 204 ; as compeer of Lessing, 298. 
 
 Macaulay, on "Laokoon," 2G5. 
 
 Marchen, their scientific study, 552. 
 
 "Maid of Orleans," play of Schiller, 419, 457. 
 
 Mannus, songs in honor of, 4. 
 
 Marie Antoinette, and Gothe, 336. 
 
 "Marie Stuart," play of Schiller, 419, 457. 
 
 Maria Theresa, honors Lessing, 256. 
 
 Marianne Willemer, loved by Gothe, 361, 381.
 
 IXDEX. 619 
 
 Mastcrslnjrers, origin of, 155; contrasted with the minnesingers, 
 156; Wagner's opera, 157; contests of, airs of, 158. 
 
 Mattress-grave of Heine, 525. 
 
 Max Piccolomini, character in Schiller's " Wallenstein," 439. 
 
 Maximiliane, friend of Go'the, 343. 
 
 Mediaeval landscape, 18; life in castle and cottage, 19. 
 
 Melancthon, encourages plays, 153; extract from his sermon at 
 Luther's funeral, 183; his statue at Worms, 203. 
 
 Mendelssohn, Moses, 252, 254. 
 
 Mendicant orders, their preaching, 145. 
 
 Mephistopheles, character in "Faust," 397. 
 
 Merck, his relation to Mephistopheles, 393. 
 
 "Merker," of the mastersingers, 157. 
 
 "Messias," poem of Klopstock, 302. 
 
 "Metamorphosis of Plants," work of Go'the, 3C6. 
 
 Michael Angelo, life of, by II. Grimm, 554. 
 
 "A Mighty Fortress is our God," hymn of Luther, 197. 
 
 Mignon, character in "Wilhelm Meister," 373. 
 
 Milton, and Klopstock, 301 ; his Satan, and Mephistopheles, 
 39!). 
 
 Minna Herzlieb, favorite of Go'the, 3d ; original of Ottilie, 374. 
 
 "Minna von Barnhelm," play of Lessing, 2GO. 
 
 "Minne," meaning of the term, 104. 
 
 Minnesingers, 18; large number of, 104; imitate troubadours, 
 105; strife of, at the Wartburg, 130; contrasted with mas- 
 tersingers, 156. 
 
 Minstrelsy, of primeval Germans, 4 ; in court, castle, and cot- 
 tage, 20. 
 
 Miracle plays, 150. 
 
 Missionaries, seek to destroy primitive literature, 4. 
 
 Mommsen, Theodor, 556. 
 
 Monkish writers, 15. 
 
 Montaigne, and Heine, 533. 
 
 Montsalvage, legend of the Holy Grail, 126. 
 
 Morphology, Gothe's doctrine of, 366. 
 
 Miihlbach, 549. 
 
 Miiller, Max, on "professorial knight-errantry," 679. 
 
 Munich, under Ludwig I., 521. 
 
 Murner, satirist, 149. 
 
 " Musarion," work of Wieland, 307. 
 
 Mystics, 143.
 
 <520 INDEX. 
 
 "Naive and Sentimental Poetry," Schiller's treatise on, 375, 
 428. 
 
 Napoleon, Ileine's description of, 528. 
 
 "Nathan the Wise," play of Lessing, 257, '2cT. 
 
 "New Alexander," 535. 
 
 "Nibelungen Lied," date and history, 23; estimate placed upon 
 it, the sword "Balmung," 24; Krienu-ild's youth, Ute, 
 Siegfried's wooing, 25; Hagen's recognition, Gunthcr, Ger- 
 not, and Gieseler, 2G; Brunhild, 27; Gunther's wooing, voy- 
 age to Isenstein, combat of Gunther and Brunhild, Siegfried 
 aids Gunther to conquer, 28; Siegfried's betrothal, Brun- 
 hild's resentment, 29: festival at Worms, quarrel of the 
 queens, 30; conspiracy against Siegfried, 31; Hagen's' 
 treachery, the spring in the Odcmvald, 32; murder of Sieg- 
 fried, 33; Hagen's insolence, 34; Kricmhild's mourning, the 
 "Nibelungen hoard," 35; Et/.el's wooing, Rudiger's mis- 
 sion, 3G; Kriemhild goes to the land of the Huns, Dietrich 
 of Berne, Hildebrand, 37; wedding of Kriemhild and Etzel, 
 Ortlieb, project for revenge, the invitation to the Nibelungen, 
 Hagen's opposition, 38; Volkcr von Alzei, forebodings, jour- 
 ney to the Huns, 39; Rudiger's hospitality, 40; Dictlinde, 
 Gieseler's betrothal, gift of the sword, 41 ; arrival of the 
 Nibelungen, 42; Volker and Ilagen plight faith, Hagen defies 
 Kriemhild, 43; the heroes watch, 44; beginning of massa- 
 cres, death of Ortlieb, 45; Gieseler's appeal, 4G; nobleness of 
 Rudiger, 47 ; Ilildebrand's mission, Dietrich enters the strife, 
 48; death of Gunther, Hagen, and Kriemhild, 49; estimates, 
 Kurz, Carlyle, 50; Ludwig Bauer, Heine, 51; Frederick the 
 Great, Bodmer's discovery of the manuscript, 52 ; work of 
 Lachmann and Holtzmann, Sim rock, Dr. Hermann Fischer, 
 53; Passau, Piligrim, Konrad, 54; crusaders listen to the 
 Kiirenberger, Hohenems, 55 ; early popularity of the poem, 
 falls into oblivion, high estimation at present, 56; as a 
 historical picture, as reflecting the disposition and character 
 of the Teutons, 57; superstitions of, respect for women, 
 68 ; power of the women, 59 ; portrayal of liberality, gra- 
 titude, fidelity, 60; character of Siegfried, 61; character 
 of Kriemhild, 62; character of Hagen, 65; character of 
 Riidiger, 69; the "Nibelungen Lied" and Homer, 72; 
 Danube at Passau, Vieima, the Marchfeld, Worms, 77} 
 the Rhine, 79.
 
 INDEX. 621 
 
 Niebuhr, opinion of "Wilhelm Meister," 372, 552, 556. 
 
 Nithart, 105. 
 
 "Nonotte," wife of Heine, 524. 
 
 Novalis (von Hardenberg), poems of, "Heinrich von Ofter- 
 
 dingen," 496; like Shelley, Heine's account, 497, 600. 
 Nuremberg, description of, 166. 
 Nursery tales, derived from the animal legends, 102 ; from the 
 
 ancient myths of the gods, 553. 
 
 " Oberon," work of Wieland, 308. 
 
 Obscurity, Carlyle's defence of, 570. 
 
 Octavio, character in "Wallenstein," 439. 
 
 Odenwald. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 "Of the Great Lutheran Fool, as Dr. Murner has Exorcised 
 
 Him," 150. 
 
 Old Harper, character in "Wilhelm Meister," 373. 
 "Old Lady of the Damm-Thor," mother of Heine, 539. 
 Opitz, 243, 593. 
 
 Orestes, character in "Iphigenia," 387. 
 "Origin of Language," work of Herder, 319. 
 Ortlieb. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 Ortrun. See " Gudrun." 
 Ortwin. See " Gudmn." 
 
 Ossian, influence on Herder, 312 ; on Gothe, 338. 
 Otfried of Weissembourg, 15. 
 
 Pandarus, bow of, 260. 
 
 Papirius Carbo, defeated by the Cimbri, 2. 
 
 Pappenhcim, 223. 
 
 Pappenheimers, in "Wallenstein," 448. 
 
 Paracelsus, 241. 
 
 Particularismus, 136. 
 
 "Parzival," poem of Wolfram von Eschcnbach, 124; sketch OJ^ 
 
 128; admired by the Romantic School, lik. 
 Passau. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 Peasant War, 145. 
 
 Pedantry, besetting sin of literary Germans, 78 
 Periodicity, of style, 573. 
 Persius, Cowley on obscurity of, 569. 
 Peter of Bruis, 176. 
 
 Philine, character in "Wilhelm Meister," 378 
 Physical science, beginnings of, 241.
 
 622 INDEX. 
 
 Piccolomlnl, 223. 
 
 "Piccolomini," second part of "TVallenstein," 439. 
 
 "Pilgrimage to Kevlaar," poem of Heine, 526. 
 
 Piligrim. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Poetry, two periods of bloom, 17; of the people, of courts, 21; 
 
 injured by invention of printing, 148 ; Schiller's distinction 
 
 into "naive" and "sentimental," 375. 
 "Poetry and Truth," autobiography of Gothe, 369. 
 Polite literature, decline of, in the modern period, 546. 
 Political oppression, as related to literary brilliancy, 566. 
 "Poor Henry," poem of Hartmann von Aue, 121. 
 "Pope as a Metaphysician," treatise of Lessing, 275. 
 Positive science, influence of, 547. 
 "Princess Use," poem of Heine, 540. 
 Printing, invention of, 146; injurious to poetry, 148. 
 Pritschenmeister, 155. 
 Pylades, character in "Iphigenia," 388. 
 Pytheas of Massilia, 2. 
 
 Quedlinburg, early home of Klopstock, 301. 
 
 "Rabbi of Bacharach," novel of Heine, 517. 
 
 Rahel, wife of Varnhagen von Ense, 515. 
 
 Ranke, von, 555. 
 
 "Reformation, Era of," picture of Kaulbach, 170. 
 
 Regcnbogen, 106. 
 
 Reichcnau, poems preserved at, 12. 
 
 Reimarus, 284. 
 
 Reuchlin, 151, 203. 
 
 " Revolt of the Netherlands," history of Schiller, 426. 
 
 " Reynard the Fox," early form, 100 ; mediaeval form, 150 ; Gothe's 
 elaboration, 384. 
 
 Rhine. See "Nibclungcn Lied." 
 
 Richard Cocur cle Lion, as a minstrel, 21. 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul, on Weimar marriages, 353; on Gothe's 
 voice, 357; a "sentimental" poet, 377; characterized by 
 Longfellow, 485; by Heine, 486; his formlessness, sympathy 
 with the poor ; 487; personal appearance, 488; precursor oi 
 Romanticism, 488, 583, 597. 
 
 Ring, story of, in "Nathan the Wise," 280. 
 
 Ritter, Karl, his debt to Herder, 323. 
 
 "Bobbers, The," play of Schiller, 417, 431; criticism of, 432.
 
 INDEX. 623 
 
 Romanticism, sprung from Gothe and Schiller, 476; reactionary 
 
 tendency of, 481, 598. 
 
 "Rose-garden of Worms," old popular poem, 116. 
 Rosenblut, 151. 
 
 Rothschilds, story of mother of, 506. 
 Riickert, 501. 
 
 Rudiger. See " Nibelungen Lied." 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg, 133. 
 
 Salva Terra, in legend of the Holy Grail, 126. 
 
 Satan, analogues of, 399. 
 
 Satires, mediaeval, 149 ; of Gothe and Schiller, 383. 
 
 Savonarola, 143, 207. 
 
 Scheffer, inventor of printing, 146. 
 
 Schelliug, 346, 478, 480, 483. 
 
 Scherer, critic of Gothe, 3G1, 394, 404. 
 
 Schiller, plays " Clavigo," 154; Gothe's friendship with, 358 ; a 
 "sentimental" poet, 378; rejects didactic poetry, 383; his 
 birth, misery of Wirtemberg, his parents, 415; at the duke's 
 school, 41G; his appearance in youth, publication of "The 
 Robbers" brings sudden fame, other plays, 417; persecu- 
 tion, reads Kant, 418; "Wallenstein," his marriage to Char- 
 lotte von Lcngenfeld, plays of his later period, his death, 
 419; the representative German poet, 420; his nobleness of 
 soul of a thoroughly German type, 421 ; his intellect Ger- 
 man, story of the camel as illustrating German idealism, 
 422 ; Gothe the artist, Schiller the teacher and preacher, 
 423; his growth as an artist, 424; he always "shines 
 through" in his characters, contrast here with Shakespeare 
 and Homer, 425; his romances, the "Ghost-Seer," his his- 
 tories, "Revolt of the Netherlands," " Thirty Years War," 
 Schlosser's praise, 42G; as speculative philosopher, liking 
 for Kant, as critic, 427; "Upon Naive and Sentimental 
 Poetry," his letters, his conversation, as a poet, his lyrics, 
 "The Walk," "The Song of the Bell," 428; criticism of, 
 430; his epics, first dramatic period, "The Robbers," 
 "Fiesco," " Kabale und Liebe," compared with Lessing, 
 431; critique, Karl Moor, 432; extract from "Kabale und 
 Liebc," "Don Carlos" marks a transition, 435; "Wal- 
 lenstein," 430; the "Camp," 437; " Piccolomini," charac- 
 ters of Octavio and Max, 43'J ; Thekla, entrance of Wal- 
 leustein, Tieck's account of the performance, 440; com-
 
 624 INDEX. 
 
 pared with Hamlet and Macbeth, 441; love of Max and 
 Thekla, 442; Wallenstein's reason for trust in Octavio in 
 extract, Illo, 445; Buttler, 446; evil tidings, 447; the Pappen- 
 heimers, 448; defection, 449; parting of Max and Thekla, 
 450 ; death of Max, 451 ; death of Wallenstein, Schiller's let- 
 ter to the elder Korner, 454 ; criticism of the trilogy of "Wal- 
 lenstein," 455; its artistic imperfection and moral grandeur, 
 "Wilhelm Tell," "Marie Stuart," "Maid of Orleans," 
 "Bride of Messina," 457; scenes described in "Wilhelm 
 Tell," 459; Schiller's growth as an artist, "Esthetic 
 Prose," 461; true function of taste, 462; to perceive 
 beauty, 463 ; a higher purpose than to cause mere delight, 
 464; the beautiful and the good coincident, 465; the taste 
 an auxiliary of the moral sense, 466 ; the artist, 467 ; modi- 
 fication of the theory, 468 ; taste alone not able to guide, 
 469 ; haunts of Schiller, Weimar, 471 ; statue of Gothe and 
 Schiller, the tomb, 472 ; love of the Germans for Schiller, 473 ; 
 Frau von Kalb, 594. 
 
 Schlagintweit, 547. 
 
 Schlegel, A. W., 489; "Lectures on Dramatic Poetry," 490. 
 
 Schlegel, Friedrich, 346; best type of the Romanticists, 490; his 
 rhapsody over the Wartburg, 492. 
 
 Schlosser, praises Schiller, 426. 
 
 Schmidt, Julian, on taste of the present time, 548. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 479. 
 
 Schwarzerd, 242. 
 
 " Sea Vision," poem of Heine, 537. 
 
 Sebastian Brant, 149. 
 
 Shakespeare, his influence upon Gothe, 338; a "n'dive" poet, 
 376 ; compared with Gothe, 407 ; with Schiller, 425. 
 
 " Shakespeare's Miidchen und Frauen," work of Heine, 518. 
 
 "Shepherd Boy," poem of Uhlancl, 503. 
 
 "Ship of Fools," satire of Sebastian Brant, 149. 
 
 Shrove-Tucsday plays, 151. 
 
 Shylock, Heine's conception of, 517. 
 
 Siegfried. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Silesian Schools, First and Second, 243. 
 
 Simonides, his "Ut pictura poesis," 266. 
 
 Simrock, as critic and translator of "Nibelungen Lied," 53, 
 549. 
 
 "Snake," story of Gothe, 374, 403. 
 
 "Song of the Bell," poem of Schiller, 430.
 
 INDEX. 625 
 
 "Song of Praise in Honor of King Ludvvig," poem of Heine, 
 
 536. 
 
 Songs in honor of old gods, 4. 
 
 "Sonnets in Armor," by Riickert, 501. 
 
 Spectral analysis, 558. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on style, 571. 
 
 Speyer, cathedral of, 132. 
 
 Spielhagen, 549. 
 
 Spinoza, admired by Lessing, 283; by Gothe, 407. 
 
 "Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," work of Herder, 319. 
 
 Spruchsprecher, 155. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, on criticism in Germany, 264. 
 
 Stein, Charlotte von, loved by Gothe, 352; her relation to "Elec- 
 tive Affinities," 373; the prototype of Iphigenia, 387. 
 
 Sterne, and Wieland, 309 ; and Heine, 537. 
 
 St. Gallen, seat of early culture, 15. 
 
 "Storm and Stress," 339. 
 
 "St. Peter and the Goat," poem of Hans Sachs, 1G4. 
 
 Strassburg, the cathedral, 139; influence on Gothe, 338; 
 "Faust" conceived there, 393. 
 
 St. Simon, 523. 
 
 Suleika, character in " West-ostliche Divan" of Gothe, 381. 
 
 Swabian school, 503. 
 
 Swift and Heine, 538. 
 
 "Swiss Journeys," work of Gothe, 363. 
 
 " Tabulatur," of the mastersingers, 157. 
 
 Tacitus, praise of Germans, 4; "Agricola" quoted, 57<\ 
 
 "Tailor and the Flag," work of Hans Sachs, 162. 
 
 Tantalus, in "Iphigenia," 387. 
 
 "Tasso," play of Gothe, 355, 357, 386. 
 
 Taste, function of, as considered by Schiller, 462. 
 
 Tauentzien, friend of Lessing, 253. 
 
 Tellheim, character in "Minna von Barnhclm," 262. 
 
 Tempeleisen, 126. 
 
 Tennyson, " Gardener's Daughter," 272. 
 
 Tetzel, 176. 
 
 Thackeray, interview with Gothe, 362; ballad on " Werther," 
 
 370. 
 
 Thekla, character in " Wallenstein," 442. 
 "Theory of Color," work of Gothe, 368. 
 
 40
 
 626 INDEX. 
 
 Thirty Years War, 206 ; Schiller's history of, 426. 
 
 Thoas, character in "Iphigenia," 388. 
 
 Thomasius, 245. 
 
 Tieck, account of " Wallenstein," 440; Romantic writer, 493, 
 
 583. 
 
 Tilly, 216. 
 
 " Titurel," poem of Wolfram von Eschenbach, 124. 
 Torstenson, 219. 
 
 Transcendentalism, relation to Romanticism, 484, 599. 
 "Tristan and Isolde," poem of Gottfried von Strassburg, 123. 
 Troubadours, influence upon the minnesingers, 18. 
 Tuisco, songs in honor of, 4. 
 Turmair, 242. 
 Tyll Eulenspiegel, 146. 
 Typhon and Mephistopheles, 399. 
 Tyrol, Heine on, 522. 
 
 Uhland, translates popular songs, 149; ends the Romantic 
 
 school, 502. 
 
 Ulfilas, his translation of the Bible, 5. 
 Ulrich von Hutten, 145. 
 Ulrich von Lichteustein, 111. 
 "Undine," romance of Fouque, 500. 
 Universities, rise of, 147; plays in, 152; their history not always 
 
 creditable, 578. 
 
 Upsala, possesses the Codex Argenteus, 4. 
 Ute. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Valentine, character in "Faust," 396. 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense, 515. 
 
 Venus of Milo, influence on Heine, 545; Hermann Grimm on, 
 554. 
 
 Vilmar, sentence from, as illustrating German style, 574. 
 
 "Vindications," work of Lessing, 259. 
 
 Vogt, Karl, 547. 
 
 Volker von Alzei. See "Nibelungen Lied." 
 
 Volks-comodie, 154. 
 
 Volks-lied, 148. 
 
 Voltaire, his contempt for German language, 250; as philosophi- 
 cal historian, 319. 
 
 Voss, translator of Homer, 306.
 
 INDEX. 627 
 
 Vulpius, Christiane, wife of Gothe, 359; inspires "Koman Ele- 
 gies," 382. 
 
 Wackenroder, 499. 
 
 Wagner anticipated by Lessing, 273. 
 
 "Walk, The," poem by Schiller, 428. 
 
 Wallenstein, portrait at Coburg, 209 ; character, 210 ; life, 212 ; 
 
 at Liitzen, 226 ; mystery of his career, 236. 
 "Wallenstein," play of Schiller, 419; story of the trilogy, 436; 
 
 the "Camp," 437; the "Piccolomini," 439; " Wallenstein's 
 
 Death," 444; criticism, 454. 
 Walther von der Vogehveide, greatest of minnesingers, 107; 
 
 "Praise of Pure Women," 108; of Virtue, death, the birds 
 
 at his grave, 109. 
 Wandering of the races, 16. 
 Wappendichter, 155. 
 Wartburg, home. of minnesingers, 129; Luther's sojourn, 180, 
 
 201 ; F. SchlegePs rhapsody, 492. 
 "Wartburg Contest," 107. 
 Wate. See "Gudrun." 
 Weimar, home of Wieland, 307 ; of Herder, 329 ; of Gothe, 345 
 
 of Schiller, 471. 
 Werner, 501. 
 "Werther," 342, 369. 
 
 "West-ostliche Divan," poem of Gothe, 380. 
 Wickliffe, 204. 
 Wieland, at Zurich, 306 ; Lessing's criticism, Amalie of Weimar, 
 
 " Musarion," resembles Sterne, 307; " Oberon," romances, 
 
 308; the "Abderites," 309; translates Shakespeare, 311; 
 
 admires Gothe, 349; number of works, 583. 
 Wilhelm, kaiser, 565. 
 
 "Wilhelm Meister," work of Gothe, 355, 357; the "Apprentice- 
 ship," 371, 403; the "Wander-years," 373. 
 "Wilhelm Tell," work of Schiller, 419, 457, 460. 
 " Willehalm," poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach, 124. 
 Winckelmann, 266. 
 
 Wittenberg, home of Luther, 200 ; of Lessing, 252. 
 "Wittenberg Nightingale," of Hans Sachs, 165. 
 Wolf, 245. 
 
 Wolfenbiittel, Lessing at, 256. 
 " Wolieubiittel Fragments," edited by Lessing, 257, 283.
 
 628 INDEX. 
 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach, his life, author of " Parzival," 
 "Titurel," and " Willehalm," 124; account of "Parzival," 
 128; admired by the Romantic school, 129; his sojourn at 
 the Wartburg, 130. 
 
 Worms, in the "Nibelungen Lied," 77; the diet at, 179; Luther 
 memorial, 202. 
 
 Wurzburg, home of Walther von der Vogelweide, 10S). 
 
 Wulpensand. See "Gudrun." 
 
 "Xenien," work of Gothe and Schiller, 383, 482. 
 
 Zelter, correspondent of Gothe, 580. 
 
 "Zeus and the Horse," fable of Lessing, 259. 
 
 Zwingle, Luther's controversy with, 181.