One of the most famous of the patriotic poets was Ernst Moritz Arndt. With Arndt hatred of everything French became a fixed idea. His Geist der Zeit ("Spirit of the Times"), the first part of which appeared in 1806, had a very powerful influence on the minds of his countrymen. And while he was writing his manly, vigorous songs in praise of freedom, he was also occupied in attacking the French language and French fashions; he even went the length of attempting to introduce a German national dress. At this same moment, Jahn, the famous introducer of gymnastics, the "Turnvater," as he is called, was earnestly engrossed with the idea of making the whole youth of Germany fit for war by means of physical exercises. In 1811, at Hasenhaide, near Berlin, he started his school of gymnastics; but previous to this, following Arndt's example, he had published writings, in which, in affectedly violent language, he tried to inflame the spirit of patriotism. The old German mythology and heroic sagas, Hermann and the Teutoburgerwald, Wodan and the Druids, the sacred oaks, the divine primitive German warrior in his boldness and uncouthness, his unkempt hair flowing over his shoulders and a club grasped in his gigantic fists, were anew elevated to the place of honour. German uncouthness was supposed to testify to German morality.
It was not long till all these patriotic ideas and enterprises were pressed into the service of reaction. The object of worship became, not the freedom that was to be won, but Germany's vanished past. Men began to study the history of their country with an ardour with which it had never been studied before, and a keen eye for all peculiarly German traits. With the brothers Grimm at their head, they turned their attention to the history and grammar of their own language, and in this domain, as in every other, fell foolishly in love with the past and its childish naïveté. Important as the results of these investigations have been to science, it is certain that in Germany they produced some of the worst enemies of liberty, men who sided with the past against the present.
The patriotic and the religious party soon made common cause. French immorality had been confronted with a peculiarly German morality; now French free-thought was confronted with a peculiarly German Christianity. Because the religion of Germany's enemies paid homage to the human mind, with its lucidity and freedom, the religion of Germany was to be ecclesiastical Christianity, with its obscurity and tyranny. Believing that they were becoming more religious, they in reality became less so. For it is an indisputable truth, one that holds good in all ages and all countries, that, true religion being enthusiasm for the living spirit and idea of the times, as yet unrealised by the many, he who is filled with that living spirit will seem irreligious, but really be religious, whilst he who is filled with the spirit or faith of a bygone, a defunct age, will be most irreligious, but seem and be called religious.
The immature intellects of the War of Liberation were caught in the snares of Romanticism. It is significant that men who, like Arndt and Görres, were regarded as the champions of liberty, soon began to express most anti-liberal opinions. Arndt made a bitter attack upon what he called industrialism, i.e., modern industrial conditions, as opposed to the old guild system, and was loud in his condemnation of machinery and steam, which robbed human feet of their right (to walk), the labourer of his work, and mountain and valley of their meaning. He was anxious that any future additions to the ranks of the aristocracy should be prevented by the inscription of all noble names in a final roll, a "golden book;" and he advocated entail and primogeniture as the one sure defence against the general break-up of society by an inundation of the proletariat. Görres, who for a time retained some remembrance of the days when he edited Das rothe Blatt, ultimately became the author of Christian Mysticism, and such a fierce reactionary that he attacked the pietistic policy of Prussia as not sufficiently thorough-going, and brought on himself a reproof from Leo XII.
The Christian-Germanic reaction which was one of the results of the War of Liberation found very characteristic literary expression in a series of tales by a nobleman who had fought in the war as a cavalry officer, Baron de la Motte Fouqué. Fouqué is principally known to the reading world at large by his charming little story, Undine. As a specimen of Romantic "Naturpoesie" at its best, this tale is only inferior to Tieck's Elfenmärchen ("The Elves"). But Undine is the one really living figure which Fouqué has produced. The cause of his success in this case probably lay in the fact that he was depicting a being who was only half human, half an element of nature—a wave, spray, the cool freshness and wild movement of water—a being without a soul. Until Undine has given herself to the Knight, she stands in some magic relationship to the restless, soulless sea; it is she who flings its spray against the window, and makes it rise until the peninsula is changed into an island, and the Knight is a captive in the fisherman's hut. Fouqué, who was a poet without being a psychologist, found a subject exactly suited to his imaginative talent in this being, which corresponded to one of the elements, and hence itself consisted of but one life-element. (It was in Undine's image that Hans Christian Andersen created "The Little Mermaid.") The bridal night brings a soul to Undine, and she is changed into the model German wife, obedient, tender, and sentimental. Her husband's harshness kills her. In her magnanimity she has caused the castle well to be covered with an enormous stone, in order to block up the only way by which her uncle, the water-spirit, Kühleborn, can enter the castle and avenge her. When, despite every warning, the Knight is faithless and marries again, and his arrogant bride has the stone removed from the well, inexorable fate compels Undine to rise out of its depths and bring him death in a kiss. Although the theme is genuinely medieval (borrowed, in fact, from Paracelsus, whose theory of the elemental spirits is founded upon old popular beliefs), and although in the course of its elaboration the author often relapses into sentimental piety, yet, to its decided advantage, a fresh pagan note is predominant in the story. Undine's originality lies in her pagan nature, as it reveals itself before she is baptized; and there is something genuinely Greek in the idea of its not being the skeleton with the scythe which comes for the dying man, but an elemental spirit which brings him death in a loving kiss.
But at the same time that Fouqué was embodying such originality and genius as he possessed in this little tale, he was also, under the influence of the great national movement, projecting the long series of romances of chivalry which began with Der Zauberring ("The Magic Ring"), published in 1815. To the romantic reactionaries The Magic Ring became a sort of gospel. Nobles and squires saw themselves reflected in all these old burnished shields and coats of mail, and rejoiced at the sight. But it was not a faithful historical picture which Fouqué exhibited. His age of chivalry is an imaginary age, in which stately, high-born men, clad in armour of burnished silver or of some dull metal inlaid with gold, and wearing silver helmets, plumed or unplumed, or iron helmets surmounted by golden eagles' wings, the visors sometimes raised, sometimes lowered, ride forth upon fiery chargers of all breeds and all colours, shiver each other's lances, and yet sit as if moulded in the saddle, or else fall to the earth only to rise as quick as lightning and draw a two-edged sword. The knights are proud and brave, the faithful squires give their lives for their masters, the slender demoiselles award the prizes at the tourneys, and love their knights "minniglich." Everything is ordered according to the exact prescriptions of the book of the laws of chivalry.
Everything is conventional—first and foremost, the mawkish, languishing style, supposed to be peculiarly adapted to the glorification of this high-born society. Only examples can give any idea of it. Bertha, sitting by a rivulet, sees her reflection in the water. "Bertha blushed so brightly that it seemed as if a star had been kindled in the water." "They sang a morning song so sweet and pleasurable that it seemed as though the setting sun must rise again, drawn by the yearning harmonies." There is a plentiful use of embellishing adjectives: "The youth's heart burned with charming (anmutig) curiosity." "Two crystal-clear drops fell from the eyes of the old knight." Great importance is attached to the description of splendid clothes and armour and ornaments: "He was beautiful to look upon in his armour of the darkest blue steel, magnificently chased and ornamented with gold; beautiful were his dark brown hair, his trim moustache, and the fresh young mouth smiling below it, disclosing two rows of pearly white teeth." A noble lady, pouring forth the tale of her misfortunes, takes time to interlard it with descriptions like the following: "I paced distractedly up and down my room, would hear nothing of the games in which the other noble maidens invited me to take part in the evening, and impatiently waved my maid away when she brought me a beautiful fishing-rod, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, with a golden line and silver hook." It is strange that the inhabitants of a world where all utensils seem to be made of mother-of-pearl, gold, and silver, should think it necessary specially to mention that the gift offered her was composed of these peerless materials.
The emotions are of the same material, all mother-of-pearl and cloth of gold—not one breath of unrestrained natural feeling, not one action dictated by pure, unreflecting passion. All the emotions and passions are as carefully trained as the knights' chargers. We know beforehand how everything will happen. The knights talk to and treat each other with that distinguished courtesy which is peculiar to the privileged classes. One of them inadvertently lets fall a word (about a lady or a joust) which makes it necessary for another to challenge him to mortal combat. Without showing a trace of petty rancour or ill-feeling, the two combatants arm and leap on their snorting chargers; their attendants form a circle round them, holding torches if it is night, and they thrust and hew at each other with all their might. When the one sinks bleeding to the earth, the other throws himself down beside him and binds his wounds with brotherly tenderness and practised surgical skill; then he gives him his arm, and they march off together, their armour clanking bravely.—It is an attempt to resolve the whole rich life of the human soul into a few conventional elements—honour, loyalty, devout and humble love.
In combination with these fine feelings we have the greatest contempt for all except the privileged classes. The hero, Sir Otto, is at a masquerade at the house of his friend, the young merchant, Tebaldo. A troupe of mummers appear and give a performance. In one of the scenes a warrior in armour comes on the stage, bows to Plutus, the god of wealth, and repeats the following lines:—
"Für Beulen Silber, Gold für Blut
Herr, gieb Dein Gut, so schlag ich gut."[3]