The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Faust by Goethe, with introduction and continuous explanation. Edited by Karl Julius Schröer. Second, thoroughly revised edition. Heilbronn 1888

With the large volume of Goethe literature today, one runs the risk of misjudging or even overlooking what is truly significant within it. We would like to hope that this is not the case with Schröer's works on Goethe, which are a quite unique phenomenon within this literature. We would like to point out this peculiarity in connection with the recently published second edition of Schröer's Faust commentary. The way in which Schröer approaches Goethe is, to put it briefly, that which is most fertilized by the education Goethe himself has attained. For Schröer, the poet's writings are not simply the object that he approaches with the usual interest of the philologist or literary historian in order to dissect them according to the usual method of research. Above all, Schröer sought to apply his own method to Goethe himself in order to find the key to understanding the poet in the poet himself, according to the principle that if Goethe really represents the pinnacle of German education, then he can only be measured by his own measure. The great spirit becomes most fruitful for us when we first learn from him before approaching him critically.

What makes Goethe seem so great to us is the great style that permeates all his work; this is his world view and the original power that lay within him and which is even greater than all his works. He could never exhaust himself because his being, capable of almost infinite forms, rejuvenated itself after each creation. That is why his works always point us back to his life, to his personality. That is why it is so important for us to know how his creations came about. Schröer's research is based on this. Although he never forgets the philological aspect, he never makes it an end in itself, but always treats it as a means of penetrating deeper into the workings of Goethe's mind. Schröer always uses the factual, the details, to which other Goethe scholars attach such great importance, in the service of the idea. Goethe himself said of his work: "I do not rest until I find a concise point in the phenomena from which much can be derived, or rather, which voluntarily produces much from itself and carries it towards me."

We have to find this concise point again if we want to understand the poet. And Schröer's intention is to lead us to this point. With regard to the first part, the explainer now shows how Goethe is seized by the Faust idea and how it is then transformed in his mind. The Faust saga in its original sixteenth-century form is Protestant-orthodox. Faust is conceived in contrast to Luther. Both men broke with the existing church, stepped out of the historically traditional forms of religion. But in completely opposite ways. Luther did so with the Bible in his hand, pointing to the written word of God. He throws the inkwell at the head of the devil, which in the view of the time was secular scholarship. Faust is different. He not only renounces the church, but also theology itself, "no longer wanted to be called a theologian, became a man of the world, called himself a D. Medicinae, who put the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench". This means nothing other than: Faust has left the paths of thought marked out by higher powers and, as a truly free man, wants to determine his own goal and direction. Therefore, according to the view of the sixteenth century, he falls prey to the infernal powers. Goethe turned him into the Faust of his time, who must not perish because he has become a "man of the world" who is warmly welcomed by the heavenly host, because he "always strives", even if, according to the true Protestant principle, he always relies on his own labor. Goethe turned the Faust idea from a Protestant-orthodox one into a Protestant-free one. This Protestant character of the Faust saga was first pointed out by Schröer, and he has thus brought a great feature into the explanation of Goethe's Faust, he has set himself a significant goal by utilizing all the details to put this basic character of the poem, which has thus been clarified, in the right light. Schröer's second task is to show how the individual images that make up the poem arose in Goethe's mind and how they gradually came together to form a whole in accordance with this guiding basic idea. For although Goethe was always guided by high idealistic motives, one must not imagine that he strove for the embodiment of abstract ideas. Ideas fill him, his nature, his work; but what he offers us in his works are concrete images. He always had to be powerfully seized by some kind of vision, then he sought to give it a poetic form. That is why Faust, for all its depth, is so full of life, so fresh. Everything bears the character of the individual, there is no dry, abstract generality to be found anywhere. In many cases, Schröer has succeeded in proving the origin of such images, indeed often the origin of the moods expressed in Faust. In doing so, he has probably done more for our understanding of Faust than can ever be done by proving when this or that scene was first written down. We will only emphasize a few things. When Goethe has Söller say the words in the sixth act of the third act of "The Accused": "Oh, how I shudder, poor man, I am boiling hot. Doctor Faust was not half too brave. Richard the Third was not half so!" We can conclude from this that he already had the figure of Faust in full tragic seriousness in mind when he wrote these lines, in 1769. Schröer adds the other fact that Goethe, after returning ill from Leipzig to Frankfurt in 1768, studied the views of Theophrastus Paracelsus and was pleased that nature was presented to him here, even if perhaps in a fantastic way in the "Golden Chain of Homer" (the aurea catena Homeri of the alchemists), in a beautiful combination that points us quite clearly to verses 447 ff. of Faust:

How everything weaves itself into the whole,
One works and lives in the other!
How heavenly forces rise up and down
And pass the golden buckets to each other!

In connection with this, we read in a letter to Friederike Oeser dated February 13, 1769: "I have seen you so rarely - as an inquiring magus hears a mandrake whistle." This is the origin of the first Faust monologue. Thus Schröer leads us to a full understanding of Faust by means of the psychological genesis of the individual parts of Faust. In the above we can clearly see how the figure of Faust appears in Goethe's mind as early as 1769 and what significance it has. Another example is the following. In the first act of the second part, where the goings-on at the imperial court are depicted with such superior humor, we are referred to Goethe's reading of Hans Sachs. Sachs' two poems "geschicht kaiser Maximiliani löblicher gedechtnus mit dem alchemisten" and "wunderlich geschicht kaiser Maximiliani löblicher gedechtnus von einem nigromanten", which Goethe read in 1775, made a vivid impression on the poet; here he found a concise point from which much can be derived. We recognize this vivid impression in the description of the goings-on at the imperial court and in the conjuring scene of Helena. The magnificent image at the end of the second part, where the good and evil spirits fight for Faust's soul, was created in a similar way. In a letter from Goethe to the painter Fr. Müller dated June 21, 1781, we see the idea come to life in the poet's imagination as he talks about a picture depicting the battle between the archangel Michael and the devil "over the corpse of Moses". He says: "If one [...] wanted to treat this subject, it could not, it seems to me, be otherwise than that the saint, still full of the graceful vision of the promised land, departs in rapture and angels are busy lifting him away in a blaze of glory. For the words: "The Lord buried him" leave us room for the most beautiful prospects, and here Satan could at most only contrast in a corner of the foreground with his black shoulders and, without laying hands on the Lord's anointed, at most only look around to see whether there might not be something for him to acquire here." Schröer comments: "Moses departs at the sight of the promised land, like Faust in view of the completion of his work. In a blaze of glory from above on the right, the heavenly host comes to carry Faust away, and as the angels lift him up, we see Mephistopheles looking around, literally like Satan in the letter to Müller." It is precisely here that one would most likely believe that Goethe started from an abstract idea, and it is interesting to see how a concrete image underlies this as well.

Goethe's Faust requires commentary. The natural freshness of the first part and the high culture of the second, which make the poetry so appealing to us, also present difficulties of a very special kind for understanding. Only when we recognize the connection between the individual and the whole of Goethe's spirit do we fully penetrate. Schröer seeks to convey this insight. It is particularly necessary for the second part, which has been so often misunderstood and misjudged. We hope that this commentary in particular will do much to ensure that the view that Schröer expresses with the words: "It is by no means a work of diminishing poetic power; it is full of life, admirable in detail and as a whole."

Modern epic in 10 cantos by Robert Hamerling ¹

A. Richter, Hamburg and Leipzig 1888

Hamerling's peculiarity lies in the happy combination of a rich imagination with a profound understanding of things. As a result, he seems to be the most competent poetic portrayer of those historical epochs in which the turning points of human development occurred. His profundity allows him to find the driving forces, the jumping-off points in history everywhere, and his magnificent imagination embodies them in a wealth of figures in which the entire content of their time is reflected and which are nevertheless full of individual life. Hamerling mostly depicts times in which a high level of culture is passed on to a declining generation that is no longer able to cope with the tasks set for it at the educational level reached by its ancestors. In such times, man is unable to grasp the fullness of the spirit he is confronted with, and it therefore becomes a distortion within him: the culture that has reached its zenith turns into its opposite and consumes itself. The poet shows this in "Ahasuerus" for Roman culture, in "Aspasia" for Greek culture; in "King of Sion" and in "Danton and Robespierre" his basic idea is quite the same. His latest epic "Homunculus" is also based on the same idea. It depicts the caricature that our modern culture becomes when we imagine it following the path it has taken to its ultimate consequences. Homunculus is the representative of modern man. Nothing else is so characteristic of him as the complete lack of what is called individuality. That source of ever-fresh life that allows us to constantly draw something new from within ourselves, so that our mind and spirit appear to be endowed with a certain self-grounded depth that never completely gives itself away, is completely lost to modern man. A distinct individuality is not something manageable, for no matter how many expressions of life we have become acquainted with, it is not possible for us to piece together such a picture of it that we could predict the sum of its further activity. Every subsequent action always receives a new impulse from the depths of the being, which shows us new sides of it. This distinguishes individuality from mechanism, which is only the result of the interaction of its constituent parts. If we know these, we also know the limits within which its work is enclosed. The life of modern man is now becoming more and more machine-like. Education, social forms, professional life, everything works to drive out of man what we would like to call individual life, the soul. He becomes more and more a product of the circumstances that affect him. This soulless, unindividual human being, heightened to the point of caricature, is Hamerling's homunculus. Created chemically in a retort, he lacks any possibility of further development beyond the limits that the master of science has determined for him through the substances added to the mixture. This human mechanism runs through all stages of modern life. In it all the perversities of it appear carried to extremes and thus in their inner hollowness. He undertakes everything possible. However, he never strives to create anything truly positive, but only to use the products of nature and the human spirit for his own entirely futile undertakings in order to gain honor, prestige and power. He first tried to do so by founding a large, modern-style newspaper. By taking all the excesses of modern journalism to the extreme, he seems to achieve his purpose best. But his profession was no longer enough for him when he saw a new era of "economic boom" approaching. He becomes a founder and thus a trillionaire. With superior humor, the poet illustrates how the whole world lies in the dust in front of the lowly money and pays homage to it. A great crash throws Munkel down from the heights he has climbed and he is forced to seek a new and adventurous path in life. He succeeds in raising the treasure of the Nibelungs, which is only possible for a fatherless man, and in forming a union with Lurley, the mermaid, who joins the soulless man as a soulless woman, a type of genuine, modern female unnature. They establish a realm of unnature in Eldorado. All concepts of the natural are turned upside down. Everyone will enjoy reading the magnificent description of the life of the party in this state abortion. After this "foundation" also fails, Munkel throws himself into educating those apes, who have remained at the ape stage in the humanization of this race and who, in his opinion, must be much more uncorrupted than their degenerate offspring, to become human beings and to create a new state with them. This empire also suffers from the same flaw as all other undertakings of the homunculus. The ape has become outwardly human, it even lives in the forms of the state, but again the soul is missing. The apes are mechanisms, as is their state. Everything must therefore finally reveal itself in its impossibility. Munkel soon longs for a new satisfaction of his thirst for action. He seeks it by preaching to the Jews about emigrating to Palestine and founding a new Jewish kingdom. He leads the procession and becomes King of the Jews in Jerusalem. But the Jews need Europe, and Europe needs the Jews. And so, after proving themselves completely incapable of leading their own empire, they return to Europe. Homunculus, their king, is crucified first. In this song, Hamerling confronts both the Jews and the anti-Semites with the superior objectivity of a wise man. Of course, it is here that one is most likely to misjudge this objectivity. The greatest short-sightedness, however, is when, as has happened so often, over-sensitive Jews regard an unbiased assessment of the circumstances as a mistake. But one has no right to immediately accuse those who do not expressly emphasize their partisanship for the Jews of taking a stand against them. Homunculus, the shamefully abandoned man, is rescued with the help of Ahazver and reappears in Europe to put the theoretical views of pessimism into practice. A congress is convened with the aim of persuading all beings to put an end to existence in one day by a unanimous decision. Agreement is reached, and the pessimists' highest ideal seems close to realization thanks to Munkel's genius. April 1st is to be the day of the end, everything goes well. Then, at the decisive moment, the kiss of a pair of lovers is heard, and everything is thwarted again. Homunculus finally realizes that there is nothing more to be done with this depraved race, so he builds an airship and sets off into the infinite universe. A bolt of lightning strikes the craft, and so Homunculus, clinging to the remains of it, floats in infinite space with Lurley, whom he has always found again after she has repeatedly passed through him, a play of cosmic forces, sometimes attracted by this world body, sometimes repelled by that. He cannot die, he becomes a play of the elements of which he is composed like a machine. The soulless human being cannot become happy. Our happiness only comes from our own self. Only a deep, substantial inner being can give satisfaction. Anyone who does not have one has not truly come into being in the higher human sense. Where this primal source is missing, life appears to be an odyssey without goal or purpose. What has taken a beginning in that characterized higher sense can calmly depart again when its task has been fulfilled. Homunculus, however, cannot die, for it is never truly born. A mere mechanism knows neither birth nor death. That is why it will float in space forever.

As you can see, Hamerling's profundity has succeeded in a marvelous way in reproaching time for its aberrations. Just as the basic idea is great and significant, so too is the individual part full of life. Here, too, Hamerling has remained the idealistic poet. His task is to draw the consequences of reality, to look beyond the accidental to the profound. Just as the truly great and dignified in the ideal only appears even more heightened, more dignified, so the bad and perverse in the idealistic poet becomes a caricature. Many will take offense at these distorted images; but they should not blame the poet, but the world from which he has drawn. Admittedly, our criticism is the furthest removed from this objective assessment of the work; it has dragged it down into the dispute between the parties and sought to distort the public's image of it in the most unbelievable way. We will talk about this critical attitude towards "Homunculus" in another article.

The behavior of our critics towards the "Homunculus" has once again shown that they are devoid of any desire for objectivity. Whether it finds the core point of a work, whether it puts the matter in the right light, is all the same to it; it is only interested in twisting a series of "witty" phrases to "amuse" its audience. For the most part, the latter does not ask whether the critic has made an accurate judgment or not, whether he is capable of selflessly immersing himself in a work; it only asks about the witty ingenuity that is the enemy of all positive criticism. This criticism never considers that it is completely unfruitful if it does not set itself the serious task of advancing the public's understanding of the times and their phenomena. The critic only wants to use the productive intellectual work of the true writer or artist as a footstool to make his own unfruitful personality widely known. Everywhere it is the lack of seriousness in the conception of their profession that must be held against contemporary criticism. The two Schlegels, for example, who always had great artistic principles and an important world view in the background when they made their judgments, were exemplary critics. Now, however, one leaves oneself entirely to subjective arbitrariness. It is only due to this circumstance that a critic today makes statements that are in blatant contradiction to those he made a few months ago. Where a serious view of art and the world supports individual judgments, such vacillation is inconceivable. For the most part, contemporary critics have not the slightest awareness of their responsibility before the forum of world history. In his song "Literarische Walpurgisnacht" (Literary Walpurgis Night), Hamerling has aptly depicted the unpleasant state of our contemporary literature, always remaining true to the poet's task, of course, whose depiction must remain uninfluenced by the tendencies and slogans of the parties. But what has criticism made of this "homunculus"? It has dragged him down into the dispute between the parties, and indeed into the most repugnant form of it, the racial struggle. It certainly cannot be denied that today Judaism still appears as a cohesive whole and as such has often intervened in the development of our present conditions, and in a way that was nothing less than favorable to Western cultural ideas. Judaism as such, however, has long since died out, has no justification within the modern life of nations, and the fact that it has nevertheless survived is a mistake of world history, the consequences of which could not fail to be felt. We do not mean here the forms of the Jewish religion alone, we mean above all the spirit of Judaism, the Jewish way of thinking. The unprejudiced would have thought that the best judges of the poetic form that Hamerling gave to the fact just mentioned were Jews. Jews, who have settled into the Western cultural process, should be the best to recognize the faults of a moral ideal that has been transplanted from ancient times into modern times and is completely useless here. The Jews themselves must first of all realize that all their special aspirations must be absorbed by the spirit of modern times. Instead, Hamerling's work has simply been presented as if it were the confession of faith of a partisan of anti-Semitism.

The poet has been accused of a point of view that he is unable to adopt due to the intellectual height on which he stands. We now understand quite well that someone whose name appears in the "Homunculus" in an unflattering context cannot come to an objective appreciation of the book. But when a major newspaper like the "Neue Freie Presse" has nothing more to say about the "Homunculus" than the tantrums of a necessarily biased person dressed up in bland jokes, then you really don't know whether to be annoyed by such frivolity or laugh at the impudence. Must there not simply be an intention to smell anti-Semitism in the objective presentation of the spirit of Judaism? There is a very specific formula for the form of anti-Semitism that, if one wants to use the dispensable word, is appropriate to Hamerling: He takes - like any unbiased person free of party fanaticism - the point of view towards Judaism that any Jew independent of the prejudices of his tribe and denomination can share. But no more is required of a mind that is as completely wedded to Western ideals as Hamerling. If the attitude of the "Neue Freie Presse" and similar papers towards the "homunculus" is reprehensible in the highest degree, it is no less unforgivable when anti-Semitic newspapers portray Hamerling as a comrade-in-arms of that party which, apart from its aptitude for rioting and making noise, has nothing characteristic but the complete lack of any thought. The supporters of this party have simply torn passages out of context in their newspapers in order to reinterpret them in their own way, which, as we know, is the main art of journalism. Hamerling has resolutely defended himself against such distortions of his latest work, first in a letter printed in the "Grazer Tagespost" and in the "Deutsche Zeitung", then in a poem in the "Schönen blauen Donau". We have endeavored here to contrast his point of view with the deliberately false interpretations of his contemporaries.

We cannot help but remember the opinion of some other critics, which is based on a complete misunderstanding of the relationship between poet and poetry. One asks: How must a person be at odds with himself and the world who allows himself to be carried away by the creation of such ugly images; how morbid must the mind of someone be who holds up such a mirror image to his time? In contrast, we would like to raise another question: How must a criticism have fallen out with the principles of all aesthetics if it diverts the judgment of a work as such to the poet's subjective feelings? It was a great word that Schiller once uttered to Goethe when the latter complained that he was accused of the immorality of some of his characters: If it can be shown that the immoral actions flow from your way of thinking and not from your characters, then this could be held against you, but not because you have failed before the Christian, but because you have failed before the aesthetic forum. One would think that such principles, which are irrefutable, would have long since become second nature to our critics. But if that were the case, they would have found that the figures of time that Hamerling created could not look any different than they do, because they have nothing to do with his way of thinking about time. But this is one of the main faults of our criticism, that it does not, following the example of science, want to incorporate the principles that once existed as permanent axioms. It is quite in the case of the scholars, who do not know the already existing principles of their science. We do not have a criticism that is completely at the height of its time, because what is currently called that is mostly nothing but critical dilettantism.

• 1. See special notes, $. 593 ff.

A lecture by Prof. Dr. W. Heinzelmann Erfurt 1891, Hugo Neumann

The attempt to measure Goethe according to an underlying standard must always lead to erroneous results. Just as little positive contribution to Goethe's scientific knowledge will be made by those who simply ask themselves: to what extent do Goethe's scientific views agree with those of Darwinism or those of our time in general, just as little can a person come to a correct judgment about the ethical and religious content of Goethe's poems who examines them for their agreement or disagreement with the teachings of Christianity, as the author of this lecture does. Goethe can only be explained from within himself, from the innermost nature of his very being. Every lens through which his achievements are seen changes [their] original form. That is why Heinzelmann's conclusions are one-sided and skewed. And if he recommends the interpretation of "Iphigenia" for school use in his sense, we would like to say, on the other hand, that for this purpose the pure, unbiased consideration of the work of art seems more useful to us, because it alone brings the student to understand Goethe purely from within, without any preconceived opinion.

Mr. Edler Herr zu Putlitz has been appointed director of the Stuttgart Court Theater. When the news of this appointment was published in the newspapers, many a friend of the arts was no doubt surprised, for no one is aware of any qualifications that this gentleman brings to such a position. Indeed, the newly appointed official himself admitted with touching naivety when he took office that he was well aware that he did not have such prerequisites and that he owed his high position solely to the merits of his father. These lines do not in the least intend to belittle the undeniable merits of this father. They cannot and must not be forgotten. But in the face of such facts, the question is forced upon us: have we really come so far down the evil path of reaction that a son is given a high, responsible position simply because his father held a similar position? Where will we end up if we no longer fill important positions with people who are personally suited to them, but instead make the qualifications dependent on birth and descent! It must be particularly painful that this case could occur in the field of art. It shows a lack of understanding of the inner essence and dignity of art. In times when art was a pastime to fill idle hours, when people had no idea of its high value, the opinion that any gentleman could take the helm of an art institution could have been justified. But since the nation has come to realize that art is one of the most powerful levers of all culture, since that time, the influential circles should finally have come to the realization that only those who are deeply involved with the aspirations and activities of art are called to take a leading position in an art institute. How degrading it is for the performing artist to see the dilettante placed above him as judge and director! And truly lamentable is the objection that is often made against considerations of this kind: there are no right men in Germany for such a position. If only the Germans would once get rid of the unfortunate misjudgment of the merits of their contemporaries! As if every person really had to rest in the grave for fifty years before they could be recognized for their achievements. We have no doubt that future literary historians will celebrate Bulthaupt as a great dramatist who was wronged by his contemporaries. But why do people who claim to understand such things not step forward when a position needs to be filled and say with energy: this is the most worthy man for this place? In the long run, even those in positions of authority could not resist the unanimous and powerful declaration of discerning circles, which should become public opinion. But there is never any talk of our knights of the mind energetically standing up for their convictions. They consider “moderate restraint” to be the true characteristic of a true intellectual aristocracy. The fact that we are experiencing an ever more incredible decline in our cultural life, that we lack a true public opinion in matters of art, and that we are being led back into the dark conditions of dead cultural periods: no one is concerned about this. If things continue to develop in the same way, we will eventually end up with a situation where a man is appointed as a professor of political science or philosophy at a university because his father has rendered services to the corresponding disciplines or because he belongs to a socially privileged family, and without any further proof of his personal abilities being required. We will see optimistic people coming and saying: the man will settle into his office, he will learn. We have heard such judgments - from otherwise quite capable men - when Burckhard was appointed to the top position at the Burgtheater in Vienna from a purely bureaucratic position. Such people must allow us to find it natural when someone hires a layman as a doctor. For he will learn the duties of his profession and will settle in. A layman as theater director can certainly not cure a sick person to death. But he can kill good taste. But that is less noticeable. He will still be able to “amuse” people.

The author of the essay “Serious Signs of the Times”
(see “Litterar. Merkur” No. 4) has the following
to say in response:

The comparison with an unread book seems to me to be quite inadmissible: Mr. zu Putlitz is not a closed book, but an unwritten one. What our article was directed against was the fact of the appointment. There was not the slightest reason for it. Why appoint a man to the post of theater director who has not done anything to prove his ability to the public, when there are enough men in Germany who can be relied upon to fill this position? Even if we admit that Mr. zu Putlitz will settle in. The position of theater director is not one that should be filled by a man who has not in some way settled into the arts. In such serious matters, one does not count on possibilities. It may be that he will settle in; but it may also be that he will not. Mr. zu Putlitz is not even mentioned. Once he has been appointed, he must fulfill his task as well as he can. Our article was not directed against him, but against the views of those who appointed him.

The objection that, according to the demands of our article, the director must be a universal genius, equally experienced in drama, music, song, ballet, is not correct. We do not demand that the director be a master of every single art form, but only that he have a lively relationship with art. He does not need to have a relationship with all areas of art, but he must have become familiar with art from some side. Whether musician, dramatist, critic, etc.: that is less important. But something of all of them.

What the author of the reply says about the principle of familiarization could at best still apply to a member of the stage. The individual singer or actor will be able to be used with the right talent, even before he is finished. But the theater should not be a place of education for directors. The top manager must have certain goals and a clear, coherent artistic vision. It is quite possible that Mr. zu Putlitz is very capable and knows a lot. But that can mean nothing compared to the fact that there are men in Germany who have proven through their journalistic achievements that every theater can expect an artistic upswing under their direction. Where that is the case, there is no need to let someone settle in first. It is painful to see so much intellectual power that is not used in public life, while important things are accomplished by people who appear to have little vocation.

Appearances of the modern mind and the nature of man. By Robert Schellwien

Leipzig 1892, C. E. M. Pfeffer

Few publications in contemporary philosophical literature can compare with this book in terms of profundity, sharp conceptualization and scientific thoroughness. We are dealing with a very important publication. The author has what so many lack today: the courage of thought that dares to tackle the central problems of the world, and also the necessary confidence in our human power of thought that is needed to solve the highest tasks. Schellwien is an idealist. He considers the phenomena given by experience to be a content lifted out of the dark sea of the unconscious into the sphere of the conscious by the human "I". The "I" is only a post-creator, but insofar as the force living and working in it is identical with the primordial force of the universe, it is at the same time the creator of the world content given to us. For Schellwien, the real task of philosophy is to understand the latter as a birth from the unconscious, which comes about through the "I". For Schellwien, the laws that constitute the world are only the laws of our own "I", which confront us as an object. The author aptly explains how the mechanical explanation of nature arises from the fact that man perceives the laws of the object, but is not aware that these laws are ultimately those of his own spiritual organism. In this way he arrives at the view that in every appearance of the world he recognizes a twofold aspect: the given, objective side, and the subjective, the concept or idea of the thing. Both together are equally important to him for grasping the full reality. This brings him closer to the view that the writer of these lines himself holds and has repeatedly expressed. Most recently in his writing: "Wahrheit und Wissenschaft" (Weimar, Herm. Weißbach, 1892) p. 34 with the words: "Cognition is thus based on the fact that the content of the world is originally given to us in a form that does not completely reveal it, but which has a second essential side in addition to what it directly presents. This second, originally not given side of the content of the world is revealed through cognition. What appears separate to us in thinking is therefore not empty forms, but a sum of determinations (categories), which, however, are form for the world content. Only the form of the world content gained through cognition, in which both sides of the world content are united, can be called reality." Schellwien also does not believe in the dull Philistine view that the law of the world exists only in space and time, and that the human spirit is thrown into a corner as an empty vessel to stand there until some drop of experiential knowledge happens to fall into it. He does not think of the mind as being so oblivious to the world, but full of content, so that something comes out when it brings the treasures lying in its depths to the surface. The author does not want to deny the importance of experience: but he knows that we can only enlighten ourselves about the actual nature of the world by seeking the solution to the actual riddle in the courageous unrolling of our own "I". Schellwien attributes this development of our spiritual content to this will. We cannot agree with him on this. This will is superfluous. The spiritual content is the power in itself that unfolds from itself. On this point the author has not yet sufficiently freed himself from the Schopenhauerianism from which he evidently started. Only when he completely discards this crutch can he clearly recognize the original light of the absolute spirit based on its own content. He will then realize that the idea does not need the aid of the will in order to be, but that the phenomena of the will themselves lead back to the idea in their depths. On the whole, Schellwien shows himself to be a philosopher who wants to draw the content of his science from the essence of human individuality. However, it is not the ego as an individual, arbitrary entity that is his foundation, but the concrete-personal, which has the advantage over all other world entities that it contains the general, the abstract as something concrete and full of content. In this, he rises above Stirner and Nietzsche, of whom he gives an excellent characterization in the first two chapters of his book.

Whoever ¹ is coming forward at the present time with an examination of Goethe's Faust poem, encounters difficult circumstances. Scholars and writers have looked at this national drama of the Germans from the most diverse points of view imaginable and have created an immense body of literature about it. You only need to know a part of this literature to know that some of the difficulties that are supposed to stand in the way of understanding the poem have been artificially created by aesthetes, philosophers and philologists, that some of the riddles that one believes to find in the work are not really there, but only imagined. One must courageously get rid of a large part of the questions that have been attached to "Faust" if one wants to view and enjoy it in an unbiased way as a work of art. Only those who keep this fact in mind will be able to judge the book to which these lines are dedicated correctly and then read it with true pleasure.

With regard to the ways in which works of poetry are viewed, the historical approach currently has the upper hand. It traces the gradual creation of a work and seeks to show how the parts have been assembled by the artist over time. One need not be an enemy of this approach to realize that it can easily deprive us of the enjoyment and understanding of a work as an artistic whole. This understanding is not achieved by dissecting scholarship, but by the recreative imagination of the connoisseur and viewer, who is able to grasp the artistic unity of a work and to judge and feel the relationship of the parts to this unity. Among our contemporaries, Herman Grimm is exemplary for this approach based on the re-creative imagination; he provided a model of it in his book on Goethe.²

Veit Valentin takes this approach in his book on "Faust". He refers to Goethe himself, who claims to have understood his work in this way. In "Vorspiel auf dem Theater", Goethe allows the various moods that confront a work of art to find expression. The theater director, who pursues practical goals and knows the onlooking crowd, demands effective details from the poet and is then happy to dispense with the unity of the whole. "If you give a play, give it in pieces! ... What good is it if you present a whole? The audience will tear it to pieces." The poet rejects this with indignation: "Is it not unison that comes out of the bosom and swallows the world back into its heart?" "Who calls the individual to general consecration, where it beats in glorious chords? ... The power of man, revealed in the poet!"

Valentin is quite right to claim that at the time Goethe was writing the "Vorspiel auf dem Theater" (1797), he set himself the task of making "the ingeniously thrown scenes of the "Urfausv, which do not yet reveal any plan beyond the deeply moving, immediately gripping poetic effect of the individual fates, into elements of such a plan". "The wavering figures, rising again from the haze and mist of early youthful days, now gain solidity and clarity as members of a far-reaching plan in which they must attain heightened significance." Valentin's book is now intended to provide detailed proof that the poet has succeeded in achieving this goal. The author does not, however, fall into the mistake that many philosophical Faustians make. They have presented the matter as if poetry were merely the embodiment of an abstract concept, an idea of reason. Such explainers do not realize that instead of focusing on the vivid images and characters that are important in art, they direct our attention to dead skeletons of ideas that support the work of art but never exhaust its content. Valentin's method of explanation shows why a particular event, a particular expression of a character is found at a particular point in Faust. He proceeds in the same way as the aesthetician [explains] the strict unity and inner harmony of a Raphael composition. And it must be said that from this point of view, the inner regularity and consistent symmetry of the poetry appears in a completely new light.

In an ingenious way, Valentin shows why the actual dramatic-human development is followed at the beginning and end by a preparatory and concluding action in heaven; then the author explains how, within the drama taking place on earth, the poet first allows Mephistopheles' influence on Faust to grow in a logical development, and then allows Faust's independence to emerge more and more, until finally Mephistopheles only comes into consideration as a servant for Faust's very own plans. It is not possible to go into individual details here, but I would like to point out that some parts of the first part, which have so far seemed like arbitrary insertions, appear from Valentin's point of view as a necessary link in the development of the whole. Of fundamental importance, however, is the conception of the "Classical Walpurgis Night" and the appearance of Helen and the homunculus that confronts us here. Until the events at the imperial court, Faust has only experienced the pleasures that the present can offer. His higher nature is demonstrated by the fact that he is not lost in this life of pleasure. But isn't this present purely coincidental for Faust? Doesn't the question remain open? What would it be like if Faust had lived in a different time? Could he not have found conditions there that would have corresponded to his longing for pleasure? It must be shown that finite life can in no way satisfy Faust's aspirations, because he wants to penetrate the secrets of the infinite. Therefore, he must also be introduced to the conditions of past times. Goethe regarded ancient Greece as a type of the past. The shadows of the Greek world must be reawakened in order to be able to enter into a living relationship with Faust. The classical Walpurgis Night serves this purpose. The elemental forces of nature that create reality must be unleashed in order to revive the vanished figures of the previous world, which live on only in the idea, to a new presence. This is why the material forces of creation appear in the classical Walpurgis Night. In order to bring the archetype of feminine beauty, Helen herself, back to real life, however, not only physical and geological forces are required, but also an organic seed of life that must mingle with the purely material events. This is the homunculus that shatters on the shell throne of Galatea in order to animate the material elements so that they become ripe to lend corporeality to the idea of Helena.

It may be that Valentin has not yet hit the nail on the head with some of his remarks. But his approach seems to me to be one that is capable of correcting the errors it entails at the first attempt over time.

• 1. wants . Goethe's Faust poem in its artistic unity, illustrated by Veit Valentin, Berlin. Verlag von Emil Felber
• 2. NoteText

There is much ¹ today about "new art", about the "spirit of modernism", in view of the next recital by the court actor Mr. Neuffer, who will also be reciting poems by M. E. delle Grazie.. One sometimes has the impression that the whole younger generation is already filled with this spirit. Sometimes, however, there is something that casts serious doubt on the truth of this impression. An epic "Robespierre" by M.E. delle Grazie was published a year ago. More than in any other contemporary work of poetry, one should have seen in this epic the dawn of a new age. But the harsh critics of "modernism" seem to want to pass it by carelessly. They don't do much better than the much-maligned professors of aesthetics and literary history, who rarely have a feeling for the truly great of their own time. One of the most lauded literary judges of the present day, Hermann Bahr, found it not beneath his dignity to begin a short review of "Robespierre" with the words: "Otherwise blameless and nice people, who have nothing at all of the artist, are often suddenly compelled to ape the gestures of the poets." Anyone who speaks like this knows the airs and graces of "modernism", but not its deeper forces. M. E. delle Grazie's poetry is the reflection of the modern world view from a deep, strongly feeling, clear-sighted soul endowed with great artistic creative power. Just as the image of the French Revolution presents itself to a deep and proud nature, so has delle Grazie portrayed it. Just as Agamemnon, Achilles, Ulysses and the other heroes of the Trojan War appear before our imagination in vivid figures when we allow Homer's Iliad to take effect on us, so do Danton, Marat, Robespierre when we read delle Grazie's epic. Only those who are blind to the spirit of our time, or only understand its pose, can fail to recognize the significance of this poetry. There is nothing petty in the painful tones struck here. When delle Grazie describes suffering and pain, she does not do so because she wants to point to the misery of everyday life, but because she sees disharmony in the great development of mankind. Robespierre is the hero in whose soul lives everything that humanity has always called idealism. He ends tragically because the great dream of the ideals of humanity that he dreams must necessarily ally itself with the mean aspirations of lower natures. Rarely has a poet looked so deeply into a human soul as delle Grazie did into Robespierre's. The poet devoted ten years, the best of her life, to her work. During this time, her immersion in the history of the great French liberation movement went hand in hand with the study of modern science. She rose to the heights of human existence, where one sees through the deep irony that lies in every human life; where one can smile even at the nothingness of existence, because one has ceased to have any desire for it. We can trace the path that led her to this height in the poems she published before "Robespierre". Fifteen years ago, she published her first volume of poems, quickly followed by the epic "Hermann", the drama "Saul" and the novella "Die Zigeunerin". The captivating rhetorical verve, the creative power and the depth of thought, which reached their temporary climax in "Robespierre", already enliven these first products. Poems from which we believe we can hear the sound of nature itself are contained in the first volume mentioned above. While the poet was working on "Robespierre", she sent another collection of poems, "Italian Vignettes", and two stories, "The Rebel" and "Bozi", out into the world. The "Italian Vignettes" grew out of the mood that overcame her when she saw, during a trip to Rome, how human greatness can go hand in hand with human nothingness, Caesar power with ethical rot, a sense of mastery with a sense of slavery. With her clairvoyant eye, she saw this in the stony remains of a great age and expressed it in her "vignettes". In "Rebel" she portrays a gypsy from the Hungarian Tisza region who, despite his gypsy life, has risen to the heights of humanity, who sees through life in its depths so that he lives as a wise man among fools and recognizes truth where others only worship hypocritical masks. To shape this character in such a way that he stands before us in convincing truth, as delle Grazie has done, requires a deep insight into the world and a consummate artistic creative power. And in the story "Bozi", she proves that she can strike a note of true humor as well as sublime seriousness. "Bozi" is a buffalo, but not an ordinary herd buffalo, but a master buffalo, a superior buffalo. He does not conform to the rules laid down for buffaloes in the "eternal world order" and thus apes the entire high society of his place of residence.

Much is to be expected from a mind that begins like this. It should be the task of those who speak of "modern education" to follow the work of this genius.

• 1. talk

A tragedy in five acts by Goethe

Introduction

The drama fragment "Das Mädchen von Oberkirch" is printed for the first time in the Weimar Goethe edition. Only the first act, which we present here, has been performed. The second breaks off in the middle of a sentence. The two characters in the first act are joined by the clergyman Manner. We learn that both the Baron and Manner had previously joined the revolutionary movement, but were put off by the horrors of the terrorists. In the course of the conversation, it becomes clear that Manner also loves Marie. The baron explains that he had already wanted to make the girl his "under certain conditions" in the "times of prosperous happiness". Now he is relying primarily on the advantage that a union with one of the noblest daughters of the people would bring him and his family. He believes that this rationale will get through to the countess more easily than if he simply lets his love, the real motive, speak for itself. Manner believes that the mob will by no means be won over by the union, just as little as by the behavior of the prince, who gave himself the name of "Equality". "The terrible Jacobins are not to be deceived, they scent the trail of every legal man and thirst for the blood of everyone." When Manner sees that his rival cannot be swayed by these ideas, he asks him whether he is in agreement with Marie. The Baron has to confess that he had not even thought to make sure of this consent. The fragment breaks off at the moment when the Countess declares herself inclined to discuss with the Baron what would be most useful in the dangerous situation in which the family finds itself.

There is only a very poor outline for the sequel.

A. 1st Baroness (as the Countess is called in the scheme), Baron. 2. baroness, baron. 3. baroness, baron, man. 4. baroness, baron, the sansculottes. B. 1. baroness, Marie. 2nd Baroness, Marie, Manner. 3rd Municipality. C. 1. baroness, baron. 2nd Baroness, Marie. 3rd Marie. 4. Marie, Manner. 5. Marie. D. 1. Marie (with the leaf). 2. the Municipality. 3. the cathedral. 4. crowd, train. 5. address as reason. 6. adoration. 7. offers, consort. 8. turn. 9. capture. 5. Marie, Baron, Manner (consulting to save her), Sansculottes in addition.

Gustav Roethe, the editor of the drama fragment in the Weimar edition, published an essay in the "Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Göttingen" (Philologisch-historische Klasse 1895, Heft 4) in which he published his views on the time of composition and the content of the "Mädchen von Oberkirch" as Goethe had envisioned it. Roethe has undoubtedly correctly determined the time of origin. The play speaks of the unfortunate Prince Philipp Egalit&, who was executed on November 6, 1793, and of the cult of reason, which was celebrated for the first time in Paris on November 10, 1793, and was imitated in Strasbourg that same month. The idea for the drama therefore originated after this time. The other time limit results from the consideration that the "Mädchen von Oberkirch" must have been written before the "Natürliche Tochter". Both poems are reflections of the revolutionary events in Goethe's mind. But the "Natural Daughter" represents a more mature stage. Goethe no longer deals with the manifestations of the revolutionary movement in a region outside the place of origin of the revolution; he seeks out the social currents underlying the great upheaval in Paris itself. Goethe began work on the "Natural Daughter" in December 1799. The plan for the "Girl of Oberkirch" was therefore created between 1794 and 1799. Roethe is certainly right up to this point. Goethe's diaries provide no information about the genesis of the fragment. Roethe goes even further and would like to conclude from studies of Goethe's prose style, from the comparison of the characters in the "Aufgeregten" (1793 or 94) and in the "Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderter" (1794-95) with those in the "Mädchen von Oberkirch", that the fragment is close to the first-mentioned dramas and was written soon after them. He also believes that the conception of the revolution is clearer in "Hermann und Dorothea" than in "Mädchen von Oberkirch". "Hermann and Dorothea" was conceived before September 9, 1796. The drama fragment is therefore thought to have been written in 1795 or 96. However, considerations as to whether a poet uses certain stylistic turns or not, whether a character in a work appears more mature or not, stem from an overly mechanical view of the course of development when we are only talking about a period of 7 years.

For the hypothetical determination of the progression of the plot, Roethe draws on the story of Strasbourg, without arriving at a result in this way. The fact that the plot of Heyse's "Goddess of Reason" is essentially the same as that of Goethe's play also yields nothing. For Heyse replied to a question from Roethe (see the above-mentioned treatise p. 510) that his source studies were "more concerned with the mood of the time than with more precise historical facts" and that his drama was based on free invention. Roethe therefore feels compelled to construct the alleged plot by interpreting the scheme. But such an interpretation always has something dubious about it. There is nothing to suggest that Goethe would not have overturned important points of the thought-scheme when working it out. Anyone who reconstructs it runs the risk of constructing something that would never have come into existence in its supposed form. And if he wanted to say: but for the moment of writing, the construction is correct, then the answer must be: no one can know how many possibilities for shaping one of the points thrown out have more or less clearly crossed the poet's mind. Whoever wants to try to think or write the drama fragment to the end according to the plan may do so. He must only be aware that he is not dealing with Goethe's work, but with his own.

Peter Altenberg

A few weeks ago in Vienna, I came across the then recently published book "Ashantee" by Peter Altenberg. I knew this poet's first work, "Wie ich es sche". When it was published, there was jubilation among the young Viennese literati, as if a new land had been conquered for poetry. As if sounds had risen from the depths of the soul that had never been heard before. I could not quite understand the jubilation. I have often felt this way in recent years when I have heard that a mighty genius has arisen here or there. I often found old familiar tunes where the most unconditional originality was proclaimed. It was no different with Peter Altenberg. I found real poetry in "As I see it". About four-fifths of the book was indigestible for me; but the rest led me into depths of the soul that were not new to me, but into which I followed the artist with yearning love. He spoke of many common things, but he knew how to lend them a rare brilliance; the common becomes noble when it comes from his mouth. I thought I recognized a true poet in Peter Altenberg, but not one of the great ones. Peter Altenberg does not know how to sing about the depths of nature, the abysses, the great sufferings and joys of the human soul. What interests man most, who immerses himself in the eternal harmony of the world, seems to be alien to him. He poetically transfigures the petty, the insignificant that lives on the surface of things. He is unpalatable to philosophical natures. He has nothing to say to them. For them, what he is talking about does not even exist. For them it is the accidental, the worthless, which is none of their business. No light from the "eternal ideas" penetrates Altenberg's eyes. But the non-eternal, the accidental, shines in his hand like the "eternal ideas" in Plato's. You have to be in a good mood to enjoy Altenberg. You have to be in the mood to dally, to revel voluptuously in the pettiest, the most insignificant things. If you don't know what to do with your time, it's best to turn to his books. In such a mood, I also picked up his latest work "Ashantee". And once again found the little poet I had found in "As I see it". I indulged again in the voluptuous sensations that excite the insignificant, the surface of things. But these feelings did not seem to me to be entirely sincere. Altenberg sometimes deludes himself. When a very small thing fails to arouse any emotion in him, he becomes a comedian of the soul. He pretends to have feelings that he doesn't have. Because Altenberg is very flirtatious. And it is not only his coquetry that reminds us of the emotional world of the degenerate female nature. He has a decidedly feminine streak. Yes, I find an even greater flaw in him. He lacks the skeleton of the mind. He looks to me like a child born with crippled bones. He seems to believe that even the slightest thought disgraces the poet. Soon after reading Altenberg's book, I found an interesting essay by Hermann Bahr on poetry in the Viennese weekly Die Zeit. I can't help it, but I find everything Bahr writes interesting. He is not a critic like others. He doesn't go around the creations he talks about. He can crawl inside them with an enviable agility. And when he is inside, he often says things that are as enlightening about the works of art as Kepler's laws about the nature of the planets. I thought to myself that Hermann Bahr would also have something enlightening to say about Peter Altenberg. When I started reading his essay, I was quite ashamed. Bahr would like to be as successful as Peter Altenberg. "To be the darling of connoisseurs and so hated by people of mere intellect. Blessedly he walks along, much loved, and laughs at the stupid crowd of the "clever", who must not understand him, who must hate him; for he is the pure artist, who nowhere touches the region of mere intellect; the latter lacks the organs for him ..." Now I knew where I stood. I don't hate Peter Altenberg. But I did get the feeling that his critic would count me among the stupid crowd of "clever people" who "are not allowed to understand" Altenberg. In his essay, Hermann Bahr now wants to speak to the stupid "clever ones" or the "barbarians, as Barres called them, about Mr. Peter". And what does the critic tell the barbarians? That everyone in their youth raved about Posa and Max and later found in life that in reality, on the street, in the coffee house, there is no Posa and no Max. And that a drama whose characters are portrayed in a true-to-life way does not satisfy us. That we are not satisfied when we meet the laundress and the waiter we know from life on the stage. Reality needs to be idealized if it is to have an artistic effect, Hermann Bahr teaches us. But what do we have to do, he asks, since we don't find ideal figures like Götz or Posa in reality? Hermann Bahr said in a few words what the "stupid clever ones" should do to discover art: "Well, I know a teacher for them. All they have to do is go to our Mr. Peter. He has the good fortune to love people. He looks at every commis with his love, and so he can find Max and Posa in every coffee house. He has the great eye of eternal love. I could have told them that more briefly, I should have just said: he is a poet."

When I read that, I didn't feel quite like a barbarian again. On the contrary. Hermann Bahr has to say the most elementary truths, the most trivial things, in order to lift the "barbarians" up to Mr. Peter. One could speak of the most insignificant poets as Bahr does of Mr. Peter. But at the end of the essay, Bahr's true feelings come to the fore. "But he is not the naïve poet who cannot say mean things because under his gaze they are always immediately transformed into noble things. No, our Peter has often seen the common. Then the poet seems to sleep in him, he listens to people's vain speeches and looks at their earthly afflictions. There are pauses in his love. When it finally awakens, he cries out so blissfully, as if all mesquine things were suddenly transfigured under the ray of his goodness, and in their transfiguration he must always remember with wonder how poor they were just a moment ago. He has the peculiarity of never forgetting to Gretchen that she was a silly little washerwoman before his love awoke. He is a poet who constantly marvels at the fact that he is a poet. This endears him to us like a good child." That is the same opinion I have formed about Mr. Peter. The poet awakens in him when he sees the mesquine things shimmering in a beautiful light that emanates from their surface. But this beauty is accidental. One goes a step further, and the same thing that first shone like a crystal appears in its dull baseness. If Mr. Peter could see the truly eternal in the stupid little washerwoman and if she then appeared to him as Gretchen, he would have to forget the stupid little washerwoman completely. What distinguishes me from Hermann Bahr, then, is only that I cannot overlook the fact that in the "pure artist", Mr. Peter, he has no sense of the eternal in things, of the backbone of life. For once, I cannot give up the belief that one can be completely "clever" and still feel artistically, even create artistically. Why then does the "stupid crowd of clever people" sit devoutly in the theater while Gerhart Hauptmann's "Sunken Bell" is being played?

Franz Wörther

Karl Weiß-Schrattenthal, who succeeded in discovering Johanna Ambrosius three years ago, has just brought another "poet and thinker from the people" into the public eye. This time the discovered person is a Bavarian shoemaker, Franz Wörther. Anyone who had a sincere interest in the poetry of Ambrosius should also feel the same for this shoemaker. I have occasionally formed my opinion about the causes of such an interest. At the time, the poet and literary historian Karl Busse lashed out like a bull at those who had warm words for the East Prussian poet. I believe the reason for his behavior is that Busse was unable to find the right point of view from which the Lober of Ambrosius judged. Busse took a naïve standpoint and allowed the poems as such to have an immediate effect on him. The Lober did not do this. They looked at these creations as one looks at happy memories from childhood alongside the experiences of the day.

Whoever is involved in the spiritual life of the present can only take such an interest in the poetry of the simple woman. No one who naively enjoys Dehmel's or Hartleben's poems can be captivated by Ambrosius with the same immediacy. But just as the serious man likes to remember his childhood, the modern educated or over-educated also enjoys the natural tones of the folk poet. We enjoy the memories of childhood, even if they tell of incomprehensible and stupid things. We do not question their reasonableness. In the same way, we do not ask about the aesthetic form in which we encounter such true natural sensations as those of Ambrosius.

For the same reason, poets such as Rosegger, for example, have a far more significant effect on the educated than on the people. The people live in the feelings that such poets portray to them from morning to night; the educated have outgrown them; but they like to put themselves in their place, because the memory of them is sacred to them.

When the thirteen-year-old Franz Wörther lost his father in 1843, he was alone in the world, without a friend or patron. He could now not think of becoming a master builder, as his father had wanted; with his idealism in mind, he had to learn shoemaking. After his apprenticeship, he traveled through northern and central Germany. He then spent five years as a soldier. After completing his service, he returned to the shoemaking trade. Wörther went through struggles with his soul. Sometimes the thinker and poet wanted to despair when the shoemaker had to provide bread for himself and his seven children. But the "man of the people" accepted his fate with true philosophical composure. He said to himself: "I regard the poetic gift I have been given as a gift from heaven for the happiness I have been robbed of. The dark defiance of former times no longer took hold of me; I dallied, as it were, serenely and calmly through the cliffs of life on the muses' rosebands." In his own way, this nature poet drew strength and courage to live from his own soul. And even if his poetry is often just a stammer, he stammers sounds that come from the chest of a whole man. Wörther does not speak in the perfect forms of the artist; what he speaks is as appealing and captivating as the products of nature. The fact that he seeks forms of art that he has not mastered is disturbing, indeed often tempts him to express a true sentiment untruthfully: but the genuine original source can always be discovered.

But the poems are not the most important part of the little booklet that Schrattenthal has published. The wisdom sayings are of far greater interest. A true nature Nietzsche comes to us in Wörther. It is true that the natural thinker did not go as far as to revaluate the concepts of value he inherited; nor did he harbor any anti-Christian sentiments, but remained "pious" to this day. But he coined the ancestral concepts anew for himself; he gave them an individual form. A man who wrote the following thoughts on "freedom" deserves our greatest attention.

"Freedom is the alarm clock of passion and the moving force of execution, it is the cauldron of all freedom and exuberance. - It is the dream of the imprisoned and the terror of the prison guards. - Freedom is the highest bliss for corner-cutters and drifters and the political glue rod for social robins and bloodthirsty finches." Wörther gives a clear, understandable verdict in a transparent, simple form on the concept of "equality": "Equality is the longing of the ugly and the horror of the beautiful. It is the colorful, iridescent soap bubble of all social democratic phrases and the necessary embellishment of agitation speeches. - Equality is the dissolution of civilization and the return of humanity to its original state of the Stone Age and the pile dwellings with the uniform fashion of Adam and Eve. It is therefore the beginning of the end of all tailoring. - Equality is the tablecloth for the Cinderellas of destiny." A subtle sentiment is reflected in the sentence: "Envy even puts dirt in the hands of the child who secretly wants to throw at his playmate the colorful rag that his parents hang around his shoulders in monkey-like love."

And the saying: "A heart without gratitude is like a faded rose bush that holds only thorns for the wanderer" reveals that a noble disposition can also thrive on the cobbler's chair. The pride of an independent personality built on its own strength and dignity is also characteristic of our shoemaker. He finds that "the cowardly sycophancy of the rich man is called pride of status, his avarice is called economic calculation, while the profligacy of a man's lower mind is called worldly noblesse, and the lack of character of a rich man is called miserable sycophancy diplomatic statesmanship".

Franz Wörther currently lives in his birthplace of Kleinheubach am Main. He provided for his seven sons with his shoemaking skills. He was a valiant craftsman. Schrattenthal has shown that he was even more through the commendable publication of his intellectual products. Those who can only enjoy the book aesthetically will soon put it down; those who have a sense for the contemplation of a self-contained personality, perfect in its own way, will read it through from beginning to end. The coarse naturalness will refresh such a connoisseur, and the clumsiness in the artistic will not bother him much.