"Schiller-worship has its justification," retorted Frank. "They erect public monuments to the genial spirit of that man, to remind us of his services to poetry, his aspirations, and his German patriotism."
"It is praiseworthy to erect monuments to the poet. But do not talk of Schiller's patriotism, for he had none. But let that pass; it is not to the point. The question is, whether you consider it praiseworthy to erect monuments to deserving and exalted genius?"
"Without the least hesitation, I say yes. But I see what you are driving at, doctor. I know the remorseless logic of your inferences. But you will not catch me in your vise this time. You wish to infer that the saints far surpassed Schiller in nobility and greatness of soul, and that honoring them, therefore, is more reasonable, and more justifiable, than honoring Schiller. I dispute the greatness of the so-called saints. They were men full of narrowness and rigorism. They despised the world and their friends. They carried this contempt to a wonderful extent—to a renunciation of all the enjoyments of life, to voluntary poverty and unconditional obedience. But all these are fruits that have grown on a stunted, morbid tree, and are in opposition to progress, to industry, and to the enlightened civilization of modern times. The dark ages might well honor such men, but our times cannot. Schiller, on the contrary, that genial man, taught us to love the pleasures of life. By his fine genius and his odes to pleasure, he frightened away all the spectres of these enthusiastic views of life. He preached a sound taste and a free, unconstrained enjoyment of the things of this beautiful earth. And for this reason precisely, because he inaugurated this new doctrine, does he deserve monuments in his honor."
"How does it happen then, my friend," said the doctor, in a cutting tone that was sometimes peculiar to him, "that you do not take advantage of the modern doctrine of unconstrained enjoyment? Why have you preserved fresh your youthful vigor, and not dissipated it at the market of sensual pleasures? Why is your mode of life so often a reproach to your dissolute friends? Why do you avoid the resorts of refined pleasures? Why are the coquettish, vitiated, hollow inclinations of a great part of the female sex so distasteful to you? Answer me!"
"These are peculiarities of my nature; individual opinions that have no claim to any weight."
"Peculiarities of your nature—very right; your noble nature, your pure feelings rebel against these moral acquisitions of progress. I begin with your noble nature. If I did not find this good, true self in you, I would waste no more words. But because you are what you are, I must convince you of the error of your views. Schiller, you say, and, with him, the modern spirit, raised the banner of unrestrained enjoyment, and this enjoyment rests on sensual pleasures, does it not?"
"Well—yes."
"I knew and know many who followed this banner—and you also know many. Of those whom I knew professionally, some ended their days in the hospital, of the most loathsome diseases. Some, unsatiated with the whole round of pleasures, drag on a miserable life, dead to all energy, and spiritless. They drank the full cup of pleasure, and with it unspeakable bitterness and disgust. Some ended in ignominy and shame—bankruptcy, despair, suicide. Such are the consequences of this modern dogma of unrestrained enjoyments."
"All these overstepped the proper bounds of pleasure," said Richard.