In the bloom of life he was completely wrapped up in ambitious feelings; he had wrested from fate all the high and splendid garlands of life,—he, the prince of poets and philosophers, the historian and the General. No triumph that he had ever gained contented him; all earthly fame had become to him accidental, uncertain, and valueless; an iron feeling of duty, incessantly working, was all that remained to him. Amid the dangerous alternation of warm enthusiasm and cool acuteness, his soul had reached its maturity. He had, in his own mind, surrounded with a poetical halo, certain individuals; and he despised the multitude about him. But in the struggles of life his egotism disappeared; he lost almost all that was personally dear to him, and he ended by caring little for individuals, whilst the need of living for the whole became ever stronger in him. With the most refined self-seeking, he had desired the highest for himself; and at last, regardless of himself, he gave himself up for the public weal and the lowest. He had entered life as an idealist, and his ideal had not been destroyed by the most fearful experiences, but rather ennobled, exalted, and purified; he had sacrificed many men to his State, but no man so much as himself.
Great and uncommon did this appear to his contemporaries; greater still to us, who can perceive, even in the present time, the traces of his activity in the character of our people, our political life, our arts, and literature.
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE SCHOOLING OF THE GERMAN CITIZEN.
(1790.)
Many races of poets had passed away; their hearts had never been stirred by vivid impressions of a heroes life; they celebrated the victories of Alexander and the death of Cato in countless forms, with chilling phrases and in artificial periods. Now the smallest story told at the house-door by an invalid soldier caused transports, even that the great King of Prussia had been seen by him at the cathedral and had spoken five words to him. The tale of the simple man brought at once, as if by enchantment, before the minds of his hearers the exalted image of the man, the camp, the watch-fire, and the watch. How weak was the impression produced by the artificial praise of long-spun verses against such anecdotes which could be told in a few lines! They excited sympathy and fellow-feeling, even to tears and wringing of hands. In what lay the magic of these slight traits of life? Those few words of the King were so characteristic, one could perceive in them the whole nature of the hero, and the rough true-hearted tone of the narrator gave his account a peculiar colouring which increased the effect. A poetic feeling was undoubtedly produced in the hearer, but different as heaven from earth to the old art. And this poetry was felt by every one in Germany after the Silesian war; it had become as popular as the newspapers and the roll of the soldiers' drum. He who would produce an effect as a German poet, must know how to narrate, like that honest man of the people, in a simple and homely way, as from the heart, and it must be a subject which would make the heart beat quicker. Goethe knew well why he referred the whole of the youthful intellectual life of his time to Frederic II., for even he had in his father's house been influenced by the noble poetry which shone from the life of that great man on his contemporaries. The great King had pronounced "Götz von Berlichingen" a horrible piece, yet he had himself materially contributed to it, by giving the poet courage to weave together the old anecdotes of the troopers into a drama. And when Goethe, in his old age, concluded his last drama, he brought forward again the figure of the old King, and he makes his Faust an indefatigable and exacting master, who carries his canal through the marsh lands of the Vistula. And it was not different with Lessing, to say nothing of the minor poets. In "Minna von Barnhelm," the King sends a decisive letter on the stage; and in "Nathan"—the antagonism betwixt tolerance and fanaticism, betwixt Judaism and priestcraft—is an ennobled reflex of the views of D'Argen's Jewish letters.
It was not only the easily moved spirit of poets that was excited by the idea of the King: even the scientific life of the Germans, their speculative and moral philosophy, were elevated and transformed by it.
For the freedom of conscience which the King placed at the head of his maxims of government, dissolved like a spell the compulsion which the church had hitherto laid on the learned. The strong antipathy which the King had for priestly rule, and every kind of restraint of the mind, worked in many spheres. The most daring teaching, the most determined attacks on existing opinions, were now allowed; the struggle was carried on with equal weapons, and science obtained for the first time a feeling of supremacy over the soul. It was by no accident that Kant rose to eminence in Prussia; for the whole stringent power of his teaching, the high elevation of the feeling of duty, even the quiet resignation with which the individual had to submit himself to the "categorical imperative," is nothing more than the ideal counterpart of the devotion to duty which the King practised himself and demanded of his Prussians. No one has more nobly expressed than the great philosopher himself, how much the State system of Frederic II. had been the basis of his teaching.
Historical science was not the least gainer by him. Great political deeds were so intimately blended with the imaginations and the hearts of Germans, that every individual participated in them; manly doings and sufferings appeared so worthy of reverence, that the feeling for what was significant and characteristic animated in a new way the German historical inquirer, and his precepts for the nation attained a higher meaning.
It was not, indeed, immediately that the Germans gained the sure judgment and political culture which are necessary to every historian who undertakes to represent life of his nation. It was remarkable that the historical mind of Germany deviated so much from that of England and France, but it developed itself in a way that led the greatest intellectual acquisitions.