[457] L. Bernard, Le Odeurs dans le Romans de Zola. Montpellier, 1889.
[458] Le Temps, No du 13 Février, 1892: ‘Current literature ... is, at present, at an inconceivably low ebb in Germany. From one end of the year to the other it is becoming an impossibility to discover a novel, a drama, or a page of criticism worthy of notice. The Deutsche Rundschau itself recently admitted this in despair. It is not only the talent and the style which are deficient—all is poor, weak and flat; one might imagine one’s self in France, in the time of Bouilly.... Even the desire to rise above a certain level of ordinary writing seems wanting. One ends by being thankful to any contemporary German author who is seen to be making ... the simplest effort not to write like a crossing-sweeper.’ Every German who observes all the literary productions of his contemporaries will see that this is the opinion of a spiteful enemy. This opinion, nevertheless, is explained and justified by the fact that at the present day it is only the ‘realists’ who make enough stir to be heard in certain places abroad, and that there the natives are delighted to be able to consider them as representing all the German literature of the day.
[459] Arno Holz—Johannes Schlaf, Die Familie Selicke, 3e Auflage; Berlin, 1892, p. vi.: ‘In fact, nothing so provokes us to smile ... as when they, in their anxiety to find models, label us as plagiarists of the great foreign authors. Let them say it, then.... It will be acknowledged some day that there has never yet been in our literature a movement less influenced from without, more strongly originated from within—in one word, more national—than this movement, even at the further development of which we look to-day, and which has had for its visible point of departure our Papa Hamlet. Die Familie Selicke is the most thoroughly German piece of writing our literature possesses,’ etc. This passage may serve the reader as a model both of the style in which these lads write, and of the tone in which they speak of themselves and their productions.
[460] The complaint of want of money is a constant refrain among the ‘Young Germans.’ Listen to Baron Detlev von Liliencron: ‘You had nothing to eat again to-day; as a set-off, every blackguard has had his fill.’ ‘The terror of infernal damnation is—A garden of roses under the kisses of spring,—When I think of how heart and soul fret,—To be hourly bitten by the need of money.’ And Karl Bleibtreu: ‘Brass reigns, gold reigns,—Genius goes its way a-begging.’ ‘To call a ton of gold one’s own,—Sublime end, unattainable to man!’ etc.
[461] Heinz Tovote, Im Liebesrausch, Berliner Roman, 6e Auflage. Berlin, 1893.
[462] Hermann Bahr, Die gute Schule; Seelenstände. Berlin, 1890.
[463] Einsame Menschen; Drama. 1891, p. 84.
[464] Gerhart Hauptmann, Vor Sonnenaufgang; Soziales Drama, 6e Auflage; Berlin, 1892, p. 14: ‘During the two years of my imprisonment, I wrote my first book on political economy.’ p. 42: ‘The Icarians ... share equally all work and all desert. No one is poor; there are no poor among them.’ p. 47: ‘My fight is a fight for the happiness of all.... Moreover, I must say that the fight in the interest of progress brings me great satisfaction.’ (Let it be understood that not the smallest trace of this famous ‘fight’ is to be seen in the piece!) p. 63: ‘I should like to study the state of things here. I shall study the position of the miners here.... My work must be pre-eminently descriptive,’ etc.
[465] Since this book has been published, Hauptmann has put on the stage two new pieces: The Beaver Pelisse, which was an utter fiasco, and Hannele, a Dream Poem, much discussed on account of its strange mysticism.
[466] Scipio Sighele, La Folla delinquente, Turin, 1892; translated into French, La Foule criminelle, Paris, 1893. Fournial, Essai sur la Psychologie des Foules. Lyon, 1892.