Other Considerations
Every nation has peculiarities by which it is distinguished from the others, and it is by these distinguishing traits that nations are also attracted to and repelled from one another. The external expressions of these inner idiosyncrasies appear to the others in most cases strikingly disagreeable, or, if endurable, merely amusing. This is why, too, we always respect a nation less than it deserves. The inner traits, on the other hand, are not known or recognized, by foreigners or even by the nation itself; for the inner nature of a whole nation, as well as the individual man, works all unconsciously. At the end we wonder, we are astounded, at what appears.
These secrets I do not pretend to know, much less to have the cleverness to express them if I did. Only this much will I say,—that, so far as my insight goes, the characteristic intellectual and spiritual activity of the French is now at its height again, and for that reason will exercise soon again a great influence on the civilized world. I would gladly say more, but it leads too far; one has to be so detailed in order to be understood, and to make acceptable what one has to say.
It was not merely permissible but highly admirable that a society of Germans was formed for the special purpose of studying German poetry; since these persons, as cultured men acquainted with the other fields of German literature and politics both generally and in detail, were well qualified to select and judge works of belles-lettres and use them as a basis for intellectual, as well as pleasurable and stimulating, conversation.
Some one may say that the best literature of a nation cannot be discovered or recognized, unless one brings home to one’s mind the whole complex of its circumstances and social conditions. Something of all this can be obtained from the papers, which give us enough detailed information of public affairs. But this is not enough; we must add to it what foreigners in their critical journals and reviews are accustomed to say about themselves and about other nations, particularly the Germans,—their ideas and opinions, their interest in and reception of our productions. If one wishes, for instance, to acquaint oneself with modern French literature, one should study the lectures which have been given for the last two years and are now appearing in print,—lectures such as Guizot’s Cours d’histoire moderne, Villemain’s Cours de littérature française, and Cousin’s Cours de l’histoire de la philosophie. The significance they have both at home and for us comes out thus in the clearest fashion. Still more effective and interesting are perhaps the frequent numbers and volumes of Le Globe, La Revue française, and the daily, Le Temps. None of these can be spared, if we are to keep vividly before our eyes both sides of these great movements in France and all the subsidiary currents that spring from them.
French poetry, like French literature, is not distinct in spirit from the life and passions of the nation as a whole. In recent times it appears naturally always as the “Opposition,” and summons every genius to make the most of his talent in resisting the “powers that be,” which since they are endowed with force do not need to be intellectual or spiritual.
If we follow this verse, which reveals so much, we see deep down into the soul of the nation, and from the way in which they judge us, more or less favorably, we can at the same time learn to judge ourselves. And it can do no harm to have some one make us think about ourselves.
Whoever follows the course proposed above will very quickly become completely informed of all public affairs and semi-public affairs. In our present admirably managed book-trade it is possible to obtain books speedily, instead of waiting, as has often been my experience, until the author takes occasion to send his work as a gift, so that I have often read the book long before I received it from him.
From all this it is evident that it is no light task to keep in touch with all the literature of the present day. Of the English, as well as the Italian, I shall have to speak again more particularly, for there is much more to be said.