| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| Introduction | [xi] |
| Master Fox, the Confessor—Hugo von Trimberg (1260-1309) | [1] |
| St. Peter’s Lesson—Hans Sachs (1494-1576) | [4] |
| A Raid on the Parson’s Kitchen—Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1620-1676) | [6] |
| The Revolt in the Theatre—Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) | [12] |
| The Unaccountable Stranger—Ludwig Tieck | [24] |
| Van der Kabel’s Last Will and Testament—Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825) | [28] |
| Division of Labour in Matters Sentimental—Jean Paul Friedrich Richter | [35] |
| A Tender-Hearted Critic—Jean Paul Friedrich Richter | [37] |
| The Accident of the Distinguished Stranger—August von Kotzebue (1761-1819) | [38] |
| How the Vicar came Around—Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848) | [49] |
| The Man who Sold his Shadow—A. von Chamisso (1781-1838) | [62] |
| The Ghost of Dr. Ascher—Heinrich Heine (1799-1856) | [66] |
| Tourists at the Brocken—Heinrich Heine | [70] |
| My Appreciative Friend—Heinrich Heine | [72] |
| “Madam, Do you Know the old Play?”—Heinrich Heine | [73] |
| Verses from Heine | [100] |
| About Money—M. G. Saphir (1795-1858) | [105] |
| A Night in the Bremer Rathskeller—Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827) | [107] |
| The Duel with the Devil—Wilhelm Hauff | [125] |
| Editorial Co-operation—Wilhelm Hauff | [130] |
| Mozart’s Journey to Prague—Edward Mörike (1804-1875) | [133] |
| A Rabid Philosopher (Auch Einer)—Friedrich Theodor v. Vischer (1807-1889) | [146] |
| His Serenity will build a Palace—Fritz Reuter (1810-1874) | [159] |
| His Serenity and the Thunder-storm—Fritz Reuter | [167] |
| The Lieutenant’s Dinner—Fritz Reuter | [177] |
| The Higher Altruism—Fritz Reuter | [181] |
| My Pictures—Fritz Reuter | [182] |
| Liszt expected at an Evening Party—E. Kossak (1814-1880) | [188] |
| A Prince in Disguise—Gottfried Keller (1815-1887) | [196] |
| A Disreputable Saint—Gottfried Keller | [203] |
| Military Inspection—F. W. Hackländer (1816-1877) | [221] |
| The King of Maccaroonia—Professor Volkmann (1830-1891) | [225] |
| The Sad Tale of Seven Kisses—Professor Volkman | [232] |
| A Country Comedy—Heinrich Schaumberger (1843-1874) | [235] |
| How Blindschleicher went Courting—P. K. Rosegger | [249] |
| “Whom First we Love”—H. von Kahlenberg | [255] |
| Wooing the Gallows—W. H. Riehl | [261] |
| Elective Affinities—Franz von Schönthan | [274] |
| Hot Punch—Julius Stinde | [281] |
| Woman—Bogumil Golz (1801-1870) | [284] |
| A Christmas Tale—Eduard Pötzl | [288] |
| The Case of Minckwitz—Paul Lindau | [293] |
| Students’ Songs— | |
| Old Assyrian-Jonah—Joseph Victor Scheffel | [304] |
| Heinz von Stein | [305] |
| Brigand Song | [306] |
| A Farthing and a Sixpence—Count Albert von Schlippenbach | [307] |
| The Teutoburger Battle—J. V. Scheffel | [308] |
| The Last Pair of Breeches—J. V. Scheffel | [311] |
| Enderle von Ketsch—J. V. Scheffel | [313] |
| God and the Lover—Old German | [316] |
| Unintentional Witticisms of the Absent-minded German Professor | [317] |
| The Incarceration of the Herr Professor—Ernst Eckstein | [320] |
| Our War-Correspondent—Julius Stettenheim | [335] |
| Schnorps’ Swallow-Tail—Fritz Brentano | [339] |
| The Man of Order—Johannes Scherr | [352] |
| The Luxury of Going about Incognito—Hans Arnold | [359] |
| The Inner Life of the Second-Class Cab-Driver—Ernst von Wildenbruch | [382] |
| Bon-Mots | [404] |
| The Early Days of a Genius—Wilhelm Raabe | [408] |
| Newspaper Humour | [423] |
| Biographical Index of Writers | [431] |
INTRODUCTION.
In endeavouring to bring together examples of so significant and at the same time elusive a phase of national character—literary as well as psychological—as a nation’s humour, it were of course vain to seek to make each selection typical in itself—typical, that is, in the sense of referring to the broad basis of a nation’s individuality in respect of its humour as distinguished from other nations.
A general idea can only be obtained by scanning a broad field; here, as elsewhere, details have little meaning unless considered in their relation to the broader outlook. A constant interplay of varied influences has to be taken into account. The purely national aspect is obtruded upon by the individuality of each author, which nowhere expresses with such effect as in the literature of humour. The time of writing, considered historically, with its political tendencies, has also to be considered; its church dependence perhaps, and the peculiar trend of its social interests. It is intruded upon also by the time considered in its relation to literature as a whole, to the tendencies of form and style predominant at given periods.
Furthermore, there are strictly local peculiarities, subdividing Germany itself. It is more especially these that the student of literature, unless he be also a student of ethnological influences, is likely to wrongly estimate, while it is of the utmost importance that they be borne in mind to arrive at a just view of qualities that oversway minor differences, which are often the first to catch the eye. The more the Comic Muse is bound within the narrow limits of place, time, and personality, the more is she in her element. She of all muses is a painter of detail, versed in the art of reproducing punctiliously those petty traits which disengage her subject from all broader problems, and make it effective in proportion to its unimportance to the world’s general affairs.
Writers upon the theory of humour are apt to deplore the absence of just such local land-marks in Germany as are strongly characteristic and still recognisable to the foreigner. It would appear to me that they have done so with some injustice. The Volkscharacter of southern and northern Germany, of the lowlands, and the Franco-Bavarian and Suabian districts, even of the various centres of civilisation, the large towns, is abundant in those differentiating qualities which go to make up originality of manner. The modes of thought and feeling characterising the population of different districts bear a stamp so distinct that one is inclined to consider them more strongly marked by provincial locality than by nationality.
In these days dialect proper, having gained the prestige of comparative rarity, like a peasant’s national costume, or a bit of bric-à-brac, has been favoured by the humorist, although its reproduction in our literature has well-nigh insurmountable difficulties to cope with. The Low German, one of the most interesting of German dialects, because, historically, the most intact, and the most incapable of amalgamation with the language that has superseded it, had been left to grow rusty so far as literature was concerned, until Fritz Reuter rescued it from threatening oblivion, and made it the vehicle of a naïve and spontaneous genre of humour, to which it lent itself with singular charm and appropriateness.
The cause of the former neglect of Low German as a means of literary expression was very obvious, and there was no gainsaying the justice of it—viz., that it is used to-day only by the lower classes of Northern Germany, and that among readers there is but a very limited number to whom it is more comprehensible than a foreign language would be. It is this fact also which explains why Fritz Reuter, the most intimate and sympathetic of German humorists, although extensively read, has never attained the widest popularity.
Fundamentally, the German character appears to be averse to humour. Its mirth does not come to it spontaneously, a gift of the gods, arising out of the mere exuberance of being. This nation shares the temperament of all northern races, it moves more to the minor strains of feeling, to the Adagio which Richard Wagner found so aptly expressive of its character. It is quick to respond to things mystic, and yearns over the vague grace of twilight moods. It worships at the shrine of the hapless Prince of Denmark.—I say fundamentally, for, looking at the life of the nation as it appears to-day, in those pleasures of the lower and middle classes which have their scene of action in the out-of-door world, there would appear to be in plenty a spirit of merry-making and pleasure-seeking inherent in the German character. The mere primitive love of a good time, however, is inseparably connected with those classes representing, in a manner, a child-like stage of intellectual development the world over, and is not characteristic in any special sense of the German people.
It is safe to admit that a certain lightness of disposition, which seems indispensable to the humorous attitude, is absent among those race-qualities which go to make up the German nature pure and simple. If the nation has developed within itself those germs which have blossomed into a sense of the humorous; if it has passed through all those early stages of perception and expression which have culminated in a humorous literature of sturdy strength; if it has found at length a humorous literature (with Gottfried Keller for its prophet, and F. T. Vischer for its critic and exponent), it is due probably to a complexity of influences somewhat difficult to determine.