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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



•with a separate family residing on each floor — i3 

 in direct opposition to home-lite. A large house 

 with many families residing in it will always wear 

 the tavern stamp, and can never acquire the char- 

 acter of a homestead — that happy seclusion from 

 the bustle and struggling of the street, from the 

 excitement, egoism, and superficiality, of business 

 life — a homestead where the outer man ceases and 

 the inner man begins, where true idealism need not 

 fear the scoffing of the mass — in short, the anti- 

 dote to all life's bitterness. Whatever the German 

 says and writes, he has not this ; nor has he the 

 "Deutsche Familienleben " of which we read so 

 much. This, too, especially in our days, and most 

 of all with the young generation of Germany, is 

 also a chimera. In the first place, the unity of 

 the family is no more. As a rule, every member 

 of the family goes his own way. The father, be 

 he a merchant or a professional man, has his male 

 society. He spends the greater part of his lei- 

 sure time in the tavern in the society of his friends. 

 The mother has her coffee-parties and her lady vis- 

 itors, -whom she generally receives alone. In many 

 towns ladies go to the theatre only accompanied 

 by their servants. Meanwhile the children must 

 do the best they can, in the continual absence of 

 both father and mother. 



It might be urged that the Frenchman, at 

 least in the large towns, is equally deficient in 

 home-life, in the English sense of the word. Why, 

 then, should the Frenchman be so eminently light- 

 hearted? Now, we do not venture to judge 

 whether the commonly known French life is or is 

 not restricted to gay young men and other bons vi- 

 ■vants of Paris ; even granting that it is spread 

 through all French society, the German character 

 is so entirely different from the French, the bases 

 of their being are so different, that they must call 

 forth widely different effects. The Frenchman 

 jeers at the German's true feelings, at his clair- 

 de-lune sentimentality : Voltaire has in their eyes 

 forever thrown the halo of ridicule over it. Many 

 attribute the Frenchman's lightness of mind to 

 his out-door life, his want of a home. Might it 

 not be more correct to say that his legerie drove 

 him away from home — that his homelessness was 

 the effect, not the cause, of his lightness ? The 

 English character, on the other hand, being funda- 

 mentally like the German, in that true, deep feel- 

 ing is an essential part of it, has, through the in- 

 stitution of home, avoided much of the pessimism 

 which is taking hold of Germany. Moreover, the 

 Englishman differs from the German in that his 

 emotion is more firmly held in check by his intel- 

 lect ; and hence where Fichte strives to satisfy his 



craving for cognition (" Trieb nach Erkenntniss ") 

 Bacon's aim is the regnum hominis, the power of 

 man over Nature. Where the German runs to pes- 

 simism and Schopenhauer, the Englishman runs 

 to so-called skepticism and Hume. 



Now, in Germany, where and how does the 

 " Jungling" of to-day meet the " maid ? " As a 

 rule, only at parties and balls. At these a spirit 

 of the most superficial stiffness and extreme pro- 

 priety prevails, a spirit of paralyzed acquiescence 

 in the doctrine that the most uncomfortable, most 

 pinched manner is bo?i ton, which seems to ignore 

 that the comrne vous Vetcs is the comme il faut. 

 The conversation is insipid to the last degree: in 

 fact, a truly naive and earnest talk would be im- 

 possible. Everything around is artificial and 

 breathes of "Unnatur," and thus the German's 

 deep inborn longing for Nature is starved and un- 

 satisfied : he is disgusted with society as it is. I 

 remember a poem by some l self-declared pessi- 

 mist lyrist of the day, describing a ball and giving 

 in an exceeding bitter and caustic manner the 

 sentiments of a great many German young men. 

 The lady author of " German Home Life " has very 

 well remarked the prudery of the German maiden 

 of to-day : in the presence of young men she casts 

 down her eyes and blushes ; as soon as they are 

 gone she begins a lively titter, and remarks are 

 made that one would not have expected from such 

 a timid and innocent-looking child. Wagner's 

 women are all meant to be models for the German 

 women. He wishes to show them the purity and 

 beauty of true, undisguised feeling. 



We find no more home-gatherings where the 

 German youth meets the neighbor's daughter in 

 childlike intercourse. The naivete has gone. 

 Hence in poetry we find no idyls, no " Hermann 

 and Dorothea," no "Louise" of Voss, no " Ober- 

 hof " of Immermann. As a striking instance, we 

 find that Rueckert, the offspring of a politically 

 very wretched time, and Halm, are comparatively 

 unknown to many well-read Germans. The for- 

 mer's patriotic war-songs are still in the memory 

 of some from their school-reader, but the beauti- 

 ful poems which prove that the Muse can also 

 answer eloquently to happy reciprocated love are 

 almost totally ignored, while, e. g., the melancholy 

 Lenau is much more known. Rueckert was sad, 

 too; but how different his sadness from pessi- 

 mism ! He then sang his children's death-songs, 

 which were to him, as they must be to every 

 stricken parent of to-day, the sweetest consola- 

 tion. Job was miserable, but not a pessimist. 



1 By H. Lorm or A. Aar, in one of last summer's 

 numbers of the Dichterhalle. 



