NIHILISM AND PESSIMISM IN GERMANY. 



251 



If modern poets treat of simple happiness, their 

 plot is not laid in modern times ; they must fly 

 to other lands and ages, as Scheffel, Kinkel, and 

 others, have done. We hold that it is a sure sign 

 of inner social dissolution and sickness, and hence 

 also discontent, when the simple lyric poetry, es- 

 pecially the idyllic and pastoral, seeks for subjects 

 far from its home and time. In Germany we see 

 this in the frequency with which Oriental themes 

 are adopted, as by Freiligrath, Bodenstaedt, Ha- 

 merling. In music, even, a truly German thema 

 in composition does not sufficiently stimulate the 

 imagination, cannot call forth enough associa- 

 tions — in short, has lost its power. Hence the 

 frequently-interwoven Slavic themata and melo- 

 dies, which have such power of raising in the 

 German mind plastic ideas and mystic feelings. 

 In these Slav melodies, with their soft and vague, 

 sombre and plaintive, airs, which now and again 

 burst forth in rhapsodical passion, is expressed 

 that beloved Nature in man which the modern 

 German feels is lost to him. One of the charac- 

 teristics of the Slav melodies is their occasional 

 shrill discord (as of destiny), never a true finale, 

 but a breaking-off, or a vague expiating (techni- 

 cally called a " deception finale" — Trugschluss). 

 We rarely find the old propitiating end, that is 

 followed by peaceful quiet in the souls of the 

 hearers. To-day they want narcotics, stimulants. 

 Painful joy, that is their delight. Music to-day 

 must work upon the nerves, for ours is the ner- 

 vous age. Such movements as an allemande or 

 menuetto have disappeared ; they raise a pitying 

 smile upon the hearer's lips : how childlike, how 

 naive, and how happily insipid ! In them is no 

 fire-water, no shrill sound of despair and passion, 

 to excite the ear that has grown so blase. Then 

 there comes a reaction to this excitement and 

 passion ; and the soul, for a moment filled to the 

 brim, must relapse into voidness. The accom- 

 paniment must vibrate, as the pulsing of the 

 heart in the fever of passion. Passion in itself 

 is always sad. Even passionate joy is near akin 

 to pain. The waltz must no more be of the even- 

 ly-pacing, unshaken measure of the Laendler, but 

 must rush on by impulses like those of the divine 

 Chopin. In simply following up the different 

 stages of music, we can see this turning from the 

 happy, western Laendler, where the German in 

 listening takes his glass of wine, after energetic 

 work during the day, to the Slav dances and Mag- 

 yar Csardas, which draw us eastward and smack 

 of opium, and breathe forth frenzy, despair, and 

 fatalism. Had the German the pleasant home- 

 life and the exhilarating influence of woman, it 



would counteract many of the dark influences of 

 disappointment.' We are of opinion that, though 

 many of Schopenhauer's extreme views of woman 

 sprang from his pessimistic premises, yet also his 

 pessimism has, if not been furthered, still been 

 allowed to grow by the degraded view of the 

 "ever-womanly." As the Gymnasialschuler misses 

 the exhilarating out-door sports of the English 

 schoolboy, so does the young man miss the influ- 

 ence of home and society. 



The German's nature is essentially and incon- 

 testably an idealistic one. Idealism is an essen- 

 tial coefficient of his well-being ; rob him of this, 

 and he will always feel its want. Everywhere 

 our German finds himself repulsed in his inner- 

 most longings. We have seen how it is as to 

 family, society, and woman. What aspect does 

 the inner man present on this point ? His ideal- 

 ism is soon cut off by stern reality. The young 

 man who formerly lived from hand to mouth, 

 happy with the honor paid him, now experiences, 

 without such compensation, the mean and de- 

 pressing cares for bread which life from hand to 

 mouth must necessarily bring. The romantic 

 age has passed, when youths walked about with 

 long-flowing locks and threadbare coats, and so 

 entered even the princely drawing-room, respected 

 in spite of their nonconformity, or even perhaps 

 because of it. Formerly a young man's poverty 

 brought him respect, and such a delicious, vain 

 self-contentment. He had no money, nor did he 

 wish for any; it would soil his philosophical or 

 poetical hands. He had enough to eat and drink 

 and live on ; and was he not beloved by the fair- 

 haired, blue-eyed, dreamy Marguerite ! When 

 age drew on he became a " philister," and, either 

 as a small official in some little town, or as a pro- 

 fessor or a librarian, he lived quietly on with his 

 wife and family, and reveled in the luxury of the 

 recollections of his youth ; his drooping spirits 

 were revived, and the material cares cast off, as 

 then by facts, so now by the remembrance of 

 them. 



Such was the elysian life of the German of 

 thirty years ago, and he was happy. In his cries 

 and lamentations against political institutions and 

 social states, one could always trace the inner 

 self-content. He was, perhaps, not satisfied with 

 his surroundings, but he was satisfied with him- 

 self. At every moment the feu sacre burst forth 

 in a flame of youthful poetical eccentricity, He- 

 gelian fanciful speculation, or political martyr- 

 dom; but in himself there dwelt the sweetest 

 harmony. His imprecations were directed against 

 that life, but not against life in general. The 



