descend to the slums? Yet only among humble beings were hidden stores of beauty and unrevealed treasures of poetry still awaiting the sympathetic glance of the lyrist.

In two poems of 1842 Herwegh undertook to portray the fate of two human creatures for whom, when alive, no poet chanted psalms and for whom, when dead, no priest read masses. One of these, entitled "Der arme Jakob," was an elegy on the death of a beggar, a plea for pity in behalf of a superfluous member of society. Poverty made an outcast of this man. What could a fatherland mean to him? The penny thrown at his feet from glittering carriages was all the bounty he ever obtained from his country. The people who preached to him of the joys of heaven were the very ones who preferred the joys of earth. He was left to console himself with a promissory note payable on some star after death. "Sleep well in your sarcophagus in which they have buried you without a shroud. Even the prince will have no clean shirt on Judgment Day."

With

The dead beggar had his counterpart in the living heroine of Herwegh's second social poem "Die kranke Liese." bitter irony the poet depicted the wife of a poor weaver walking on Christmas eve through the streets of Paris on her way to a hospital. At home neither bed nor cradle was prepared to receive the fruit of her womb. The rich carousers were celebrating the birth of Christ, the God of the poor, but no tear of pity trickled down their harsh cheeks or into their wine-filled goblets. The suffering mother dragged herself with her last strength to the monument erected in honor of the heroes of the Revolution of 1830 and there gave birth to a child.

It seemed to Herwegh that the social indictment embodied in this poem was bound to make a stir among the literary public, even though this public was gradually growing indifferent to his political verse. He sent a copy of the poem to his fiancée and she voiced her approval of it in enthusiastic language. In a letter of February 8, 1843, she wrote: "You will see that 'Die kranke Liese' and 'Der arme Jakob' will find their way to the huts of the poor and if these people are won over, then we may expect the best results. Only from the masses is an Easter to be expected; that it will come and that we shall help to celebrate it, is now perfectly clear to me."

Herwegh's social poems were written soon after his unfortunate audience with the Prussian king. The poet, who in 1842 had reached the height of his fame and who during his journey through Germany in that year had been fêted by liberals everywhere, was invited during his stay at Berlin to a private audience with Frederick William IV, a distinction which was not accorded to any other poet of the opposition. A comparison of this meeting with a similar one depicted by Schiller immediately suggested itself to Germans. In the tragedy Don Carlos Schiller had described a stirring audience between King Philip II of Spain and the eloquent idealist Marquis Posa, in which the latter had made a memorable plea for political freedom and universal tolerance. It was expected of Herwegh that in his conversation with the Prussian monarch he assume the rôle of a nineteenth century Marquis Posa. Little is known of the meeting, which took place at the royal palace on November 19th. The king is said to have complimented Herwegh on his lyrics and to have mentioned that he thought highly of an opponent who based his opposition on principles. The embarrassed poet was dismissed before he could say anything of importance or present any controversial matter. The ridiculous outcome of this audience and the censorship of a magazine in which Herwegh had intended to voice his political sentiments induced him to write a letter to the king outlining his views in an extremely bold manner. As a result he was immediately expelled from Prussia and the newspaper that had made his letter public was suppressed.

This disastrous experience convinced Herwegh of the absurdity of expecting vital reforms from above. No ruler would give up his inherited powers. Political and social changes, if they were to come at all, would have to come from the rabble itself. Among the German workers in Switzerland plans for a revolutionary movement were being forged. The tailor Wilhelm Weitling was actively organizing secret societies aiming at the overthrow of the social order. Herwegh, who believed, as the opening of one of his poems proclaimed, that "only out of huts could salvation come for the world," naturally took a keen interest in the radical agitation of the German émigrés. One of his epigrams written at this time was an answer to those who mocked the communists because of their small number:

"Spottet des Völkleins nicht! es hat ja den römischen Adler Eine geringere Zahl solcher Apostel gestürzt."

Although there is no indication that Herwegh ever became a member of any of Weitling's groups, nevertheless his sympathy with the communist leaders laid him open to suspicion. In 1843 an official investigation into the activities of the secret organizations in Switzerland linked his name with that of the communists of Geneva. He thereupon found it necessary to issue a public declaration of his exact attitude towards the new social doctrines. He conceded that he regarded socialism as a more rational solution of society's ills than conservatism, liberalism, or radicalism; for he believed that the regeneration of the masses would have to come from their own midst and by their own efforts. He considered it no disgrace to associate with the uncorrupted plebeians and was not too proud to learn from them. Nevertheless, he did not wish to be regarded as an adherent of communism, since he was opposed to all conspiracies and did not feel that the sacred cause of the people should be compromised by untimely revolts.

In the same year 1843, Herwegh, who had moved to Paris, successfully resisted the suggestion of his radical friends Arnold Ruge and Karl Marx that their three families found a communistic household or "phalanstère" in accordance with the system of Fourier. The experiment entered into by Marx and Ruge after Herwegh's refusal ended in disaster before a fortnight had elapsed.

Five years later, when the Revolution of 1848 broke out, Herwegh thought that the destined hour of political and social emancipation had struck. He left Paris with several hundred exiles under the impression that as soon as he crossed the Rhine thousands would flock to his standard. But when he entered into Baden, the earlier popular enthusiasm for the uprising was on the wane. The indifference of those whom he came to liberate was a severe blow to his ideals. The ridiculous outcome of his gloriously planned expedition embittered his sensitive heart. The naïve singer of freedom became a caustic critic who looked askance at every development in German politics and industry

during the next quarter of a century until his death in 1875.

Only for a brief time in 1864 under the stimulating friendship of Ferdinand Lassalle did faith once more flare up within his cankered soul, but with the sudden death of his friend it quickly died down. It was in April of this year that he wrote his best social lyric, the well-known "Lied für den Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiterverein." Set to music by Hans von Bülow this poem was sung at labor meetings until the close of the century, and though its popularity has waned considerably during the last generation, it is still to be found in anthologies.

As a social lyrist Herwegh may be placed side by side with Karl Beck. Both poets were born in the same year. Both gained the favor of the public early in their twenties and lost it before they had passed their thirties. In both lyrists the enormous embitterment and the poetic sterility of their later years stood in marked contrast to the overstrained idealism and the rich eloquence of their youth. In them a generation that was steeped in Weltschmerz became articulate. They first gave emotional expression to the horror that gripped many who saw the irrationality of the new economic and social order with its tremendous technical improvements and its increasing mass misery. They were among the first poets to depict the human wrecks left in the wake of industrial progress. They were the forerunners of a host of lesser writers who in the forties brought the cause of the proletariat to the attention of the literary public. They may well be called the lyric pioneers of modern realism.

COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

GOTTFRIED KELLER AND CONRAD FERDINAND

HE

MEYER

A COMPARISON

BY FREDERICK L. PFEIFFER

JE who would compare Gottfried Keller and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer is likely to meet with the reproach of scientific superficiality, no matter how often these two names have been mentioned in one and the same breath, and no matter how striking their likeness in certain respects and their difference in others appear at first blush.1 To me, however, these two poets seem, like Goethe and Schiller, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Tennyson and Browning, to form a pair ideally suited for critical juxtaposition in that their obvious points of comparison are nothing but the expression and symbol of fundamental similarities and contrasts touching upon the hidden aspects of the human mind.

Representatives of the same generation, these two distinguished narrators of Central Europe were born in the same town of the same country and, being members of the same religious denomination, were baptized in the same church. Soon, they both lost their father and were subjected to the petticoat-rule of mother and sister. Unable to decide how to make a living,

1 Editions: Gottfried Keller, Gesammelte Werke, 10 vols. (Stuttgart, 1889-90); Nachgelassene Schriften und Dichtungen (1893); E. Ermatinger, Der Grüne Heinrich, Studienausgabe der ersten Fassung, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1914); Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Sämtliche Schriften, 9 vols. (Leipzig, 1908); Gedichte (1882); H. Moser, Wandlungen der Gedichte Meyers (Leipzig, 1900); A. Frey, C. F. Meyers unvollendete Prosadichtungen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1916).

Biographies: E. Ermatinger, G. Kellers Leben (Stuttgart, 1920); A. Frey, C. F. Meyer (Stuttgart, 1925).

Studies: A. Köster, G. Keller (Leipzig, 1923); H. W. Maync, C. F. Meyer u. s. Werk (Frauenfeld, 1925).

For a selective critical bibliography see: C. v. Klenze, From Goethe to Hauptmann (New York, 1926), pp. 294–299.

2 For a general characterization of the Swiss see Ricarda Huch, G. Keller, “Die Dichtung," IX (Berlin, no date), pp. 7 ff.

Cf. A. Steiger, G. Kellers Mutter (Zürich, no date); H. Bleuler-Waser, Die Dichterschwestern Regula Keller u. Betsy Meyer (Zürich, 1919); essays on Betsy Meyer by Adolf and Lina Frey in A. Frey, C. F. Meyer, pp. 367-385.