This attitude toward the child is observable in the masters of modern French literature. However far they may be removed from any mere domestic regard of the subject, they apprehend the peculiar sacredness attaching to children. Alfred de Musset, for example, though by no means a poet of the family, can never speak of children without emotion. Not to multiply instances, it is enough to take the great poet of the period. Victor Hugo deserves, it has been said, to be called the poet of infancy, not only for the reason that he has written of the young freely, but has in his Les Enfants, Livre des Mères, written for them. It is to be observed that the suggestion comes, with Hugo, chiefly from the children of his family; from his brother Eugène, who died an early death; from his daughter, whom he mourns in tender verse; and from his grandchildren. One feels the sincerity of a great poet when he draws the inspiration for such themes from his own familiar kind.
It may be said in general of the contribution made to this literature by the French that it partakes of those qualities of lightness and grace which mark the greater literature; that the image of childhood is a joyous, innocent one, and satisfies the eye that looks for beauty and delicacy. Sentiment predominates, but it is a sentiment that makes little draught upon thought. There is a disposition now to regard children as dolls and playthings, the amusement of the hour; now to make them the object of an attitudinizing sentiment, which is practically wasted unless there be some one at hand to applaud it.
II
When we pass from France to Germany we are aware that, however we may use the same terms, and recognize the existence of sentiment as a strong element in the literature of both countries, there is a radical difference in tone. It is not merely that French sentiment is graceful and German sentiment clumsy: the grace of the one connects itself with a fine art,—we feel an instinctive good taste in its expression; in the other, the awkwardness, the obtrusiveness, seem to be the issue of an excess of natural and homely feeling. It would be too much to say that French sentiment is insincere and German sentiment unpleasantly sincere; that the one is assumed and the other uncalculating,—we cannot thus dismiss elementary feeling in two great peoples. But an Englishman or American, to whom, in his reserve, the sentiment of either nation is apt to be a little oppressive, is very likely to smile at the French and feel uncomfortable in the presence of the German; to regard the French feeling as a temporary mood, the German as a permanent state.
Be this as it may, it is true that the German feeling with regard to childhood, as it finds expression in life and literature, revolves very closely about the child in its home, not the child as a charming object in nature. Childhood, in German literature, is conceived very generally in its purely domestic relations, and is so positive an element as to have attracted the attention of other nations, and even to have given rise to a petty cult. Coleridge, writing from Germany in 1799, reports to his English readers, as something strange to himself, and of local significance only, the custom of Christmas gifts from parents to children and from children to parents. He is especially struck with the custom of representing these presents as coming from Jesus Christ.
The whole structure of Santa Claus and Kriss Kringle, the Christ Child and Pelznichel, with the attendant ceremonies of the Christmas tree, is built into the child life of Germany and the Low Countries; and it is by the energy of this childish miracle that it has passed over into English, and especially into American life. All this warmth of domestic feeling is by no means a modern discovery. It is a prime characteristic of the Germanic people, and one strong reason for the ascendency of Lutheranism may be found in the singular exposition of the German character which Luther presented. He was not merely a man of the people; through his life and writings and organizing faculty he impressed himself positively on the German national character, not turning it aside, but deepening the channels in which it ran. Certain it is that the luxuriance of his nature was almost riotous on the side of family life. “The leader of the age,” says Canon Mozley, “and the adviser of princes, affecting no station and courting no great men, was externally one of the common crowd, and the plainest of it. In domestic life the same heart and nature appear. There he overflows with affection, warmth, tenderness; with all the amiable banter of the husband, and all the sweet arts and pretty nonsense of a father among his little children. Whether he is joking, lecturing his ‘rib Catharine,’ his ‘gracious dame Catharine,’ or writing a description of fairyland and horses with silver saddles to his ‘voracious, bibacious, loquacious,’ little John; or whether he is in the agony of grief over the death-bed of his favorite daughter, Magdalene, we see the same exuberant, tender character.”[34]
In this sketch of Luther we may read some of the general characteristics of the Germanic life, and we are ready, at the first suggestion, to assent to the proposition that the German people, judged by the apparatus of childhood, books, pictures, toys, and schools, stands before other nations. The material for the portraiture of childhood has been abundant; the social history, the biographies, give constant intimations of the fullness with which family life, inclosing childhood, has been dwelt upon in the mind. The autobiographies of poets and novelists almost invariably give great attention to the period of childhood. A very interesting illustration of this may be found in the life of Richter, who stands at the head of the great Germans in his portrayal of childhood.
“Men who have a firm hold on nothing else,” says Richter in his brief autobiography, “delight in deep, far-reaching recollection of their days of childhood, and in this billowy existence they anchor on that, far more than on the thought of later difficulties. Perhaps for two reasons: that in this retrospection they press nearer to the gate of life guarded by spiritual existences; and secondly, that they hope, in the spiritual power of an earlier consciousness, to make themselves independent of the little, contemptible annoyances that surround humanity.” He then recites an incident from his second year, and continues: “This little morning-star of earliest recollection stands yet tolerably clear in its low horizon, but growing paler as the daylight of life rises higher. And now I remember only this clearly, that in earlier life I remembered everything clearly.”
How clearly will be apparent to the reader who follows Richter through the minute and detailed narrative of his childish life, and in his writings the images of this early life are constantly reappearing under different forms. Something is no doubt due to the early birth in Richter of a self-consciousness, bred in part by the solitude of his life. It may be said with some assurance that the vividness of early recollection has much to do with determining the poet and novelist and essayist in his choice of themes bearing directly upon childhood. The childish experience of Wordsworth, De Quincey, Dickens, Lamartine, and Richter is clearly traceable in the writings of these men. If they look into their own hearts and write, the images which they bring forth are so abundantly of childhood that they cannot avoid making use of them, especially since they retain recollections which demand the interpretation of the maturer mind. That they should so freely draw from this storehouse of childish experience reflects also the temper of the age for which they write. The fullness with which the themes of childhood are treated means not that a few men have suddenly discovered the subject, but that all are sensitive to these same impressions.
It is not, however, the vividness of recollection alone, but the early birth of consciousness, which will determine the treatment of the subject. If one remember the facts of his early years rather than how he thought and felt about those facts, he will be less inclined to dwell upon the facts afterward, or make use of them in his work. They will have little significance to him. A distinction in this view is to be observed between Richter and Goethe. The autobiographies of the two men reveal the different impressions made upon them by their childhood. The facts which Goethe recalls are but little associated with contemporaneous reflection upon the facts, and they serve but a trifling purpose in Goethe’s art. The facts which Richter recalls are imbedded in a distinct conception regarding them, and perform a very positive function in his art.