The Human Race. Figuier Louis
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Human Race - Figuier Louis страница 13
Название: The Human Race
Автор: Figuier Louis
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4057664622068
isbn:
“In order thoroughly to enter into the German genius, we must wander among the paths of their old forests, observe and analyze carefully the effects of light and shade, springing up in ubiquitous confusion, intersecting confined and narrow perspectives, lending isolated objects a brightness vividly contrasting with the neighbouring obscurity, changing even the appearance of the face in their alternations, and forming dark backgrounds, illuminated by prismatic tints and glowing sunbeams. Pausing beneath the venerable trees, we must listen to sounds, re-echoed a thousand times, then dying away among the thickets, to give place to the rustling of aspen leaves, to the sighing of the firs, or to the harmonious murmurs of rivulets which force their way amid the flags and water-lilies. We must inhale the air scented with the pungent odour of fallen leaves, or the exhilarating scent of the wild cherry blossom. It is only then that we come to appreciate the love of nature and the druidical tone which pervade German literature; we understand Goethe’s passion for natural history; the poem of Faust becomes full of meaning; a feeling of melancholy creeps over the mind and leads us to the contemplation of things that are soft, sad, mysterious, fantastic, irregular, and original.
11, 12.—SUABIANS (STUTTGARD).
“Being brought thus in contact with nature, the German is natural and primitive; he sympathizes with the world’s infancy. He easily goes back to the past and the consideration of olden times; but it is not in him to anticipate the future, and he regards progress with distaste. If he advances towards equality and unity, it is the ideal of the Latins which impels him. There is in him a resistance which forms part of his patient and cold nature. His movements are sluggish. His language is hardly formed. His literature, overflowing with imagination, is wanting in elegance and purity, it is not ripe enough for prose and unfit to form a book.
“The plastic arts of Germany also possess the simplicity and variety which are produced by imagination; but they are wanting in proportion, in purity of style and elegance; they are capable of arranging neither lines nor colours; their productions often verge on the grotesque, or are marked by heaviness or pedantry, and they clearly are not the work of children of the sun.
“The Germans possess an ear which appreciates sound in a wonderful manner, and reduces with ease to melody the fleeting impressions of the Soul.
“. … He who possesses a strong and enduring constitution brings to his means of action energy of will. His projects are neither frivolously conceived, nor abandoned without good reason, and they are often followed out in spite of a thousand obstacles. This patient and continuous activity on the part of the Germans enables them to succeed in all forms of industry, in spite of their subdivision and other hindrances resulting from their political constitution.
“When men are laborious, patient, and frugal, we may expect to see family life become strongly organized, and exercise a decisive influence upon national customs.
“Love, whose duty it is to bring together the sexes into a united existence, is in Germany, neither very positive, nor very romantic; it is dreamy in its character. It seeks its object in youth and speedily finds it; faithfulness is then observed until the time for marriage arrives.
“Early engagements being admitted by custom, betrothed couples are seen together, arm in arm, among the crowd at public or private festivals, or in lonely woods, or in twilight seclusion. Pleasure and pain they share with one another, happy in the conviction that their hearts beat in unison, and in the repetition, over and over again, of tender assurances. The calmness of their temperament and the certainty of belonging to one another some day, diminish the danger of these long interviews. The young man respects the girl who is to bear his name and rule his home with her virtuous example; she, on her part, shrinks from a seduction which would dishonour her and compromise her future life.
“Such customs cannot but meet with approbation. They assure the future of a woman, and save her from coquetry. They form a man for the performance of his duties as head of a family, make him thoughtful for the future, save him from licentiousness, which wears out the heart as well as the constitution, and lastly, render his love permanent by reducing it to habit.
“When the wedding-day, looked forward to for so many years, arrives, the characters of man and woman have taken their respective stamp. The young people know each other; they have no ground for suspecting deceit, for the singleness of their heart admits of only one affection.
13.—BAVARIANS.
“Everything here contributes to heighten the dignity of woman. From her girlhood, and during the years in which her beauty is blossoming, she feels herself an object of devotion—she is mistress. Whatever she grants, however slight the favour may be, acquires a high value. The offering sanctified by her kiss is far more costly than gold; the riband she has worn becomes equal to a decoration.”
This picture of German customs has special reference to the inhabitants of Central Germany, the Austrians.
14.—BADENERS.
It is in the central portion of Germany that we meet with this patient activity, and the gentle manners described by Dr. Clavel. But these qualities are far from being the attributes of the inhabitants of the North and West. The Germans of the North and West appeared in their true character during the war of 1870, when a series of deplorable fatalities and mournful inconsistencies had delivered up unhappy France to the mercy of the invader. We then learnt how to appreciate this reputation for good-nature, simplicity, and gentleness, which was commonly attached to the inhabitants of the Ultra-Rhenic countries. The good-nature developed itself into an undisguised ferocity, the simplicity into dark duplicity, and the gentleness into haughty and brutal violence. The hated and jealous fury of the Prussians, who rushed upon France with the avowed intention of reducing her to impotence, and erasing her, if possible, from the rôle of nations; their cold-blooded cruelties and shameless rapine, are so impressed upon the minds of all Frenchmen, that we need not recall them. Prussian barbarity attained the level of that practised by the Vandals in the second century.
Our scholars have found some difficulty in explaining the anomaly which existed between the ferocious conduct of the German armies, and the very opposite reputation enjoyed by our neighbours beyond the Rhine. Accustomed to regard the Germans as peaceful and gentle, sentimental and dreamy, we, in France, were painfully surprised to find facts contrast so cruelly with an opinion so generally entertained. An ethnological work, published in 1871 by M. de Quatrefages in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,”[4] has afforded a scientific explanation of this anomaly.
[4] Issue of Feb. 15th.
M. de Quatrefages has shown, by considerations at once linguistic, geological, ethnological, and historical, that the Prussians, properly so called, that is, the inhabitants of Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, and Silesia, have but little in common with the German race—that they are not, in fact, Germans, but result from a mixture of Slavonians and Finns with the primitive inhabitants of those countries. The Finns overran, at a very early period, Pomerania and Eastern-Prussia; later on, the Slavonians conquered the same territory, as well СКАЧАТЬ