Is it not like some
battlefield, where hands and arms and all members lie scattered
about, whilst the life-blood runs away into the sand? Let every man
mind his own, you say, and I say the same. Only let him mind it with
all his heart, and not with this cold study, literally,
hypocritically to appear that which he passes for, but in good
earnest, and in all love, let him be that which he is; then there is
a soul in his deed. And is he driven into a circumstance where the
spirit must not live, let him thrust it from him with scorn, and
learn to dig and plough. There is nothing holy which is not
desecrated, which is not degraded to a mean end among this people.
It is heartrending to see your poet, your artist, and all who still
revere genius, who love and foster the Beautiful. The Good! They
live in the world as strangers in their own house; they are like the
patient Ulysses whilst he sat in the guise of a beggar at his own
door, whilst shameless rioters shouted in the hall and ask, who
brought the raggamuffin here? Full of love, talent and hope, spring
up the darlings of the muse among the Germans; come seven years
later, and they flit about like ghosts, cold and silent; they are
like a soil which an enemy has sown with poison, that it will not
bear a blade of grass.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268