Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 6. Young Germany

GOETHE
Si l'artiste ne se précipite pas dans son oeuvre, comme Curtius dans le gouffre, comme le soldat dans la redoute, sans réfléchir; et si, dans ce cratère, il ne travaille pas comme le mineur enfoui sous un éboulement; s'il contemple les difficultés au lieu de les vaincre une à une, l'oeuvre reste inachevée, elle périt au fond de l'atelier, ou la production devient impossible, et l'artiste assiste au suicide de son talent —BALZAC.
From the days of the Holy Alliance onward, the spirit of systematic reaction brooded over the German countries—a reaction which dated from the Congress of Vienna, and had its centre in Austria. Its most typical representative, Metternich, a pupil of Talleyrand, a less adroit but far more mischievous man than his master, hoped to extend it to the whole of Europe. Everything that had been shaken, loosened, or overturned by the Revolution or by Napoleon was to be repaired and re-established. In the struggle with the great enemy they had been obliged at last to resort to every possible method, had been forced to appeal to the people instead of simply commanding, to appeal to their sentiment in place of their allegiance, and even to promise a thing as contrary to all cabinet policy, as youthfully revolutionary, as the regeneration of Germany. There had been, it is true, a very noticeable difference between the Austrian and the Prussian watchwords. Justice and Order, Order and Peace, were the cues of the Austrian proclamations; those of the Prussian were The Nation, Freedom and Honour, Germany. Still both of the great German States had made more concessions to the spirit of the times than at all suited the ideas of their leading statesmen. And no sooner was the enemy driven off, the heir of the Revolution crippled, and the war of freedom ended, than it became their object to put an end to the freedom as they had put an end to the war.
The generation that had grown up during the war with France had expected to see a united Germany arise as the result of victory. As far back as 1812, Stein had sketched a plan for the reunion of the scattered parts of the former German Empire, and Arndt and Görres had given expression to the same idea. But the Peace of Paris, in 1814, decreed: The German States shall be independent, and united by a federative league; and herewith all hopes of unification were dashed to the ground. Almost a generation passed before the people were again animated by the thought. In place of the unified State arose the German Confederacy, der deutsche Bund , or, as Jahn called it, Bunt , a many-coloured harlequin's garb for the nation; and the disappointment was a bitter one.