Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 6. Young Germany

by Georg Brandes

The arch-scoffer Heine, in his poem, Der Ex-lebendige, has the following lines:

"Aranchuez! in deinem Sand'
Wie schnell die schönen Tage schwanden,
Als ich vor König Philip stand
Und seinen uckermarkschen Granden.
Er hat mir Beifall zugenickt,
Als ich gespielt den Marquis Posa,
In Versen hab' ich ihn entzückt
Doch ihm gefiel nicht meine Prosa."[7]

[7] O my Aranchuez! how the days flew that I spent amidst thy sands! those days when I stood in the presence of King Philip and his Uckermark grandees. He nodded approval to me when I played Marquis Posa; my verses charmed him, but my prose he could not stand.

And in Die Audienz he jeers more mercilessly still at the Swabian suckling:

"'Ich will, wie einst mein Heiland that,
Am Anblick der Kinder mich laben.
Lass zu mir kommen die Kindlein, zumal
Das grosse Kind aus Schwaben.'
So sprach der König, der Kämmerer lief
Und kam zurück und brachte
Herein das grosse Schwabenkind
Das seinen Diener machte.
Der König sprach: 'Du bist wohl ein Schwab?
Das ist just keine Schande.'
'Gerathen! erwidert der Schwab, ich bin
Geboren im Schwabenlande.'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'Erbitte dir eine Gnade,' sprach
Der König. Da kniete nieder
Der Schwabe und rief: 'O geben Sie, Sire!
Dem Volke die Freiheit wieder.'
Der König stand erschüttert tief;
Es war eine schöne Scene.
Mit seinem Rockärmel wischte sich
Der Schwab' aus dem Auge die Thräne.
Der König sprach endlich: 'Ein schöner Traum!
Leb' wohl und werde gescheidter!
Und da du ein Somnambülericht bist,
So geb' ich dir zwei Begleiter.
Zwei sichre Gendarm', die sollen dich
Bis an die Grenze führen.
Leb' wohl, ich muss zur Parade geh'n,
Schon hör ich die Trommel rühren.'"[8]

[8] "I will, as my gracious Saviour did,
Find the sight of the children pleasant;
So suffer the children to come, and first
The big one, the Swabian peasant."
Thus spake the monarch; the chamberlain ran,
And return'd, introducing slowly
The stalwart child from Swabia's land,
Who made a reverence lowly.
Thus spake the king: "A Swabian art thou?
There's no disgrace in that, surely?"
"Quite right! I was born in Swabia's land,"
Replied the Swabian demurely.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"One wish I will grant thee," the monarch said—
Then the Swabian in deep supplication
Knelt down and exclaimed: "O sire, I pray grant
Their freedom once more to the nation!"
The monarch in deep amazement stood,
The scene was really enthralling;
With his sleeve the Swabian wiped from his eye
The tear that was well-nigh falling.
At last said the king: "In truth a fine dream!
Farewell, and pray learn discretion;
And as a somnambulist plainly thou art,
Of thy person I'll give the possession
To two trusty gendarmes, whose duty 'twill be
To see thee safe over the border--
Farewell! I must hasten to join the parade,
The drums are beating to order."
(BOWRING.)

It was not only humour that laughed, but envy and vindictiveness as well. Men wreaked vengeance on their own former enthusiasm. The Herwegh catastrophe was, moreover, attended by disastrous practical results. The Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung, the Opposition newspaper most widely read in Prussia, was suppressed the day after it published the letter to the king. The Rheinische Zeitung, the principal Liberal paper published in Prussia, itself very soon received its death-blow. And in Saxony, at the request of Prussia, Arnold Ruge's Deutsche Jahrbücher (first known as the Hallische Jahrbücher), the leading periodical expressing the opinions of the reflective youth of the day, was also suppressed.

One lesson the young generation learned from what had happened. It was no momentous matter that a young poet should have shown himself embarrassed and then unmanly in his relations with a king. But the men of this day had imagined themselves to have taken a great step in advance of the men of the Thirties; they believed that they possessed strength of character, whereas their elders had only been gifted with talent. Now it was borne in upon them, not only that poets are little calculated to make good political leaders, but also that the whole generation must discipline itself severely if it were to stand any firmer in the day of trial than its predecessors had done.

So now thinkers and politicians by profession (in almost too many instances professors) took the lead. And the fact that the generation which now revolutionised the mind of Germany failed so miserably in the close of the struggle of 1848, is to be ascribed, not to want of strength of character, but to that idealism which is bred in the minds of men who have never ruled, to their belief in the irresistible powers of ideas and ideals to realise themselves, and to their contempt for that external brute force, which in theory was of minor importance, but which, vanquished in the first brush, calmly allowed itself to be disdained, and awaited the moment when, with renewed vigour, it returned to the attack.

There was considerable difference of opinion as to the advisability of the various measures taken by Frederick William's ministers, but for the most part they were unfavourably criticised. Under every other question smouldered the question of the Prussian Constitution. The king's attempt to dispose of it by a rebuff had been unsuccessful, and the means which he and his advisers employed to put down the movement were extremely infelicitous. In the Silesian Landtag (Parliament) the chief magistrate and other representatives of the town of Breslau had proposed an address from the Silesian Estates on the subject of a general assembly of the Estates of the whole kingdom—a Reichstag. The king replied by a special announcement of the procedure to be observed on the occasion of his approaching visit to Silesia, intimating that no arrangements need be made for his festive reception and entertainment in Breslau, as he would accept nothing from that town. This in May, in reference to a journey to be taken in October, and festivities of which there had as yet been no offer! And the king entered Breslau in state and was fêted after all, though the festivities were not held specially on his account, but on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Silesia with Prussia. He contented himself with deploring the absence in the invitation sent him of "expressions which would have given him heart-felt pleasure," and with declining to stay longer than a day or two on account of want of time.