Serious and deep feeling are characteristic traits of the German, and may indeed distinguish his character, so variously modified as it is, amid all the divisions of the German race, and by its manifold points of contact with its foreign boundary neighbours, and thus becoming tinged with so many colours. He who has the skill to clear the original colour from its foreign mixtures, will continually find it lying as the one ground colour, which always remains the same. To this depth and sincerity of feeling the songs and poetry of the Germans are a necessity. As to the man--when all the chords of his heart are shaken by some mighty sorrow; when they threaten to rend asunder under the excess of agony--as then to him comes a flood of tears as a relief; which, as it were, combines the contending feelings of his internal being, and amalgamates them with the most neutral body--water; so song presents itself as a medium to prevent us from succumbing beneath an overwhelming feeling, which the sufferer would fain clothe in words, but finds all words too poor to represent. Let a language be as rich as it will, it may possibly express all that man thinks, but not all that he feels. Nature has lent the eye to the understanding that it may serve it, and in which it may wonderfully mirror itself. In this microcosm of the eye, her creative power has marvellously repeated, in little, every part of his masterpiece--man; and has so completely furnished it, that it can answer most admirably to its destination--to conduct man to the truth. But nature has bestowed upon her favourite yet another sense, through which the fibres of his brain can instantly be put into vibration. Through this she has rendered his position in society delightful, and endowed him with sensibility to foreign communications.
But shall these be the only advantages which this sense shall procure him? No; through this shall external impressions enter, which, corresponding with the laws of beauty, shall furnish him with a new enjoyment. Through this, feeling can be constantly and directly acted upon--that portion of the human soul where the animal and the divine nature so wonderfully meet. In vain would he attempt to escape from its lordship; its power extends farther than appears at the first sight; and when sufficiently observed, is found to be the ultimate spring of all human operations. Other nations may, if they please, believe that the ear was given them in order to listen to strange language,--the German is not so cruel as to rend Euterpe and Polyhymnia out of the band of the Nine Sisters. Every where in Germany are altars built to these sisters, and the goddesses smile down approval on the people, because they deem themselves worthy to scatter incense before them.
The faith in the mysterious might of music and of song, which so beautifully expressed itself in the Mythology of the Greeks, shone forth also in newer Sagas; and even refined Christendom has not disdained to employ music to work upon the hearts of its votaries. Goethe has done homage to this beautiful faith when, in his Prologue to Faust, he causes Raphael to speak.
The sun, in its old way, goes sounding,
With brother-spheres in rival song,
And its prescribed course thus rounding,
Careers with thunder-speed along.
Thus the Germans rejoice themselves in an affluence of popular songs, although they possess but few national poets. This latter fact easily explains itself, when one reflects how late the German speech arrived at a greater perfection, and that, at the same time that Germany achieved a literary independence and literary greatness, it lost its political freedom, and came out of its captivity a dismembered whole.
Take from Germany its wine, its songs, and we might name yet a third particular of a less middle character,[[30]] and it will become quite another country. The German expresses the most varied feelings in song, though he does not go quite so far as the opera, in which you cannot, without smiling, hear the Czar of Russia conclude a contract with the English and French ambassadors singing, and ratify the Treaty of Peace in the most exquisite melodies. But the Germans acknowledge the truth of what Goethe has said:
What I erred in, what I sought for;