by H.J. Whitling [Henry John Whitling].
Originally published in Bentley's Miscellany (Richard Bentley) vol.27 #160 (Apr 1850).
What it is to be a German?—The art of Thinking fully exemplified.—The sad effects of eating an Apple!
Reader, I am a German! Lest, however, you should not happen to know what it is to be a German, and I, in consequence, become misunderstood, the term must be explained. To be a German, then, is, first and foremost, to be a smoker—in other words a thinker—necessarily therefore a philosopher—which, being again interpreted, only means much more of a dreamer than a doer. Mind! I do not consider this last-named characteristic, taken per se, as by any means either uncommon, or peculiar to the Germans; on the contrary, I believe that most people in the world are far more given to dreaming than doing—to thought rather than to action. This, however, like everything else, has its good side. Indolence—call it, if you will, inactivity—is the grand Pacific Ocean of life, into whose stagnant abyss the good and the bad oftentimes alike fall and have their end. It is a sort of moral Dead Sea, wherein, if the most salutary things produce no benefit, the most pernicious, on the other hand, produce no evil. The fact is, there are thousands, nay, perhaps millions, who want energy, for one who wants motive; and dreamy sloth, take my word for it, has prevented the active operation of as many vices in some minds, as of virtues in others. In this respect the Germans are the first people in the world—at least so they say—and I'm sure they think so. But the distinction can only be arrived at by the gentle gradations I have already pointed out; the whole, however, being based upon smoke—for I am fully persuaded that the marked inferiority of the rest of the world arises solely from their inability to smoke as the Germans do. Since the days of Hume and Porson in England, and a few other equally glorious exceptions elsewhere, it has ever been considered indisputable that smoking induces thought, and thought philosophy, and philosophy that dreamy state of mind or intellect which elevates its possessor far above the Clouds of Aristophanes, or the seventh heaven of Mahomet, or even the dwelling-place of Him who is exalted far above either.
Not that merely blowing clouds of smoke will ever make a nation great. It is only to be regarded as an important element in their greatness! The Turk, to whose prophet I have just now so respectfully alluded, he also smokes. But how unlike the German! It is of no pure inhaling. He, like his celestial brother of the moon, puts opium into his pipe and smokes that, and then fancies he is thinking. But they are self-deceivers both. Their dreams are mere torporitic illusions, and, until very lately, as testified by one or two recent treaties, of no use whatever to themselves, or to anybody else.
The Indian, it is true, enjoyed the weed long before the German; but though he notoriously grew the best tobacco, he never seems to have had anything else worth thinking about, till he began to negociate with the pale-faced stranger, who so abominably hocussed him with brandy, that since that time he has never been able to think about anything at all, except perhaps "the bones of his fathers," for which uncivilized remains the more enlightened portion of the world naturally entertain not the slightest regard.
Then the Dutch! I had almost forgotten them. They smoke also. But, ye gods! does it inspire them with "thought expansive" like the Germans? No. Here the natural and reasonably to be expected transition is at once broken; the sequence signally and entirely fails. In vain do we seek in their heads the anticipated influence.
To be, however, a smoker, thinker, philosopher, dreamer, at one and the same time—this, this it is to be a German! And, doubtless, this powerful combination it is that so wonderfully distinguishes the German above all other nations of the world. For my own part, however, I sometimes fear that I am not a true German, for I find myself failing in many of those outward and visible signs by which he may generally be distinguished. For instance, I cannot hate and despise the Jew— an acknowledged Christian duty of every German. I cannot eat peas with a knife, or pick my teeth with a fork; neither can I handle either of those useful instruments as the bandit handles his dagger, or Le petit tambour his drumstick! Then for the moral qualifications. I cannot philosophise, though I have often tried; and as to dreaming, I dream but very, very little, and then, mostly, after an over-late or over-loaded supper of sauer kraut and sausages! I have, however, studied, a little, the art of smoking—everything is studied in Germany. I am rather given to observation; and, at times, I verily believe I have caught myself thinking in a way not altogether discreditable to my country. Therefore, there is, perhaps, a rational ground of hope that, in my case, philosophising a dreaming will, in due time, be respectively attained.
Meanwhile, it is something to be able to think. This you must allow. And yet I declare—although as one of "a nation of thinkers" I must, of course, value the inborn prerogative—I often ask myself whether thought is for mankind, a benefit or misfortune? All continental governments—and they certainly ought to know best—unite in affirming the latter; and, considering the consequences its exercise has brought upon themselves, they are no doubt right in doing all they can to prevent the use of anything so dangerous.
The question may indeed be asked as regards mankind in general—what good comes of all their thinking? They break their own heads with problems, and occasion the breaking of other people's heads with brickbats, but still the world goes on its own way. In my opinion, therefore, he who does not think at all, or, thinking, thinks about nothing, has much the best of it. He is contented with himself and the world, and the world is contented with him. He is not disturbed by the past, the present he does not understand, and for the future! what is it to him? But look for a moment on the man who can perform no act himself, or witness the performance of any act by others,—who can touch nothing, taste nothing, handle nothing; or see anything touched, tasted, or handled, without trying its merits and character at the bar of that secret police agent, reflection—such a one not only plagues himself perpetually, but often embitters the life of his neighbours. He who is addicted to this kind or habit is liable to have his mind sent wandering and his thoughts troubled even by the most trivial circumstance. For instance, he is perhaps eating a biscuit or a halfpenny roll, and straightway he begins to think of corn tillage, the plough, the flail, and the windmill. The windmill naturally brings to mind Don Quixote and Cervantes, from which the transition flows easily on to Spanish literature and the Spanish Inquisition. This is the melancholy result of mere ordinary thinking when uncontrolled. Some extraordinary thinkers, however, there are, whose vagaries in this way often bring them unawares upon subjects of still sadder contemplation.
One of these perhaps bursts a button-hole, or tears the skirt of his coat, and he instantly begins to think upon all things tearable, tearing, and torn ; on German dynasties and German long suffering, which are now not only among the most tearable things, but actually beginning to tear, and then on poor torn Germany, whose lamentable rents a parcel of diplomatic tailors are now vainly endeavouring to patch together again. For myself, however, good reader, I am only as yet a very poor and imperfect smoker, and, as a natural consequence, a very poor and imperfect thinker.
Three days ago I received a present of some apples from a Jew in Fürth. On opening the basket to emancipate the well-secured prisoners, I was naturally led to think of Jewish emancipation, and of the consummate impudence of the Bavarian Upper Chamber in its barefaced appeal to England, forsooth, as an example for withholding it! This aptitude for misstatement, where prejudice is concerned, speedily brought to my recollection the too hastily made assertion of one portion of the English press, that "the only talent the Jew possesses is that of getting money." I was sorry to read this, and especially in a newspaper for whose opinions on other matters I confess entertaining the highest regard. I do not deny that ever since the memorable period when they borrowed those jewels and ear-rings of the Egyptians,—a sort of state loan, which, like many other state loans, Austrian, Spanish, Greek, and Mexican, was never returned,—the Jews have been very cunning dealers in gold and silver. But then they have other talents beside, talents that no napkin I ever yet saw would be large enough to conceal.
It is not necessary, thought I, while unpacking the rosy-cheeked Borstolörfer, to search the records of bygone days for testimony in favour of these our elder brethren (the Jews, I mean, not the apples), for though now in error and unbelief, they are our brethren still. The facts are before us, written out in characters brilliant and ineffaceable.
Who composed "Il Barbiere?"
Rossini— A Jew!
Who is there that admires not the heart-stirring music of the "Hugonots" and the "Prophet?" The composer is
Meyerbeer— A Jew!
Who has not been spell-bound by the sorcery of "Die Jüdin?" By
Halevy— A Jew!
Who that, at Munich, has stood before the weeping Königspaare, whose harps hang silently on the willows by the waters of Babylon, but has confessed the hand of a master in that all but matchless picture? The artist is
Bendemann— A Jew!
Who has not heard of the able and free-spoken apostle of liberty?
Boerne— A Jew!
Who has not been enchanted with the beautiful fictions of lyric poetry, and charmed with the graceful melodies, so to speak, of one of Israel's sweetest singers?
Heine— A Jew!
Who bas not listened in breathless ecstasy to the melting music of the "Midsummer-Night's Dream?" Who has not wept with "Elijah," prayed with "Paul," and triumphed with "Stephen?" Do you ask who created those wondrous harmonies?
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy! who, alas! that I must so write it, was— A Jew!
These, however, are not the only reflections to which the basket of apples gave rise. The same day, after dinner, while eating one of them, I could not help thinking of the important part an apple has played in the world's history. I first thought of the German imperial apple (Reich's äpfel), whose golden exterior was only filled with bitter ashes, the fruit of deadened hopes from the Lake Asphaltes. Then came thoughts of that of Paris, an apple of discord which caused the loss of a queen, the fall of Troy, Homer's "Iliad," and consequently the plague and punishment of many a school-boy. I thought, too, of the apples of the Hesperides and the apples of Paradise, and then began to consider in what condition the world would probably have found itself if Eve (instead of the tree of knowledge) had eaten the fruit of the tree of life. Mankind would have wanted no apothecary, no medical man, no surgeon, no churchyard, and no life assurance companies; Morrison's pills, the water-cure, homeopathy, and allopathy, would have been alike unheard of; and the violent strife whether it be better to put one's fellow-creatures under the sward with too much or too little medicine, would have been unknown. There would have been no "Plutarch's Lives", nor any necrologists; no mourning relatives, no laughing heirs, no necessity for the daily cares and anxieties to sustain life. Even the German schoolmasters could have lived, and the Silesian weavers and the wretched Irish would not have starved. The breed of fine long-tailed black Flemish horses would probably have become extinct in England, for there would have been no funerals, no fashion in burials, no waste of means in parading the dead, no hearse, no solemn-faced rascal of an undertaker, and no still more rascally undertaker's bill; and, moreover, the venomous tongues of envy and slander would nowhere have had an opportunity of saying aught in detraction of the handful of dust that lies mouldering at their feet; we should have had no dishonest guardians, no heirs-apparent, no crown princes, no "Letters from the Dead;" there would have been no Desdemona slain through jealousy, no Romeo poisoned through love, and no mawkish bread-and-butter-cutting lady-lover, shooting himself, like Werther, from a puling sickening mixture of passion and foolery (the only exception I should be disposed to regret). Indeed, although the world might still have been a stage, we should at all events have had no tragedy, which would, however, have been a great impediment as well to poetical justice as to the poets themselves, who, long before the end of a five act piece, are not unfrequently much puzzled to know how comfortably to dispose of their creations. All would have been comedy, and we should have had no coward on the face of the earth, seeing that the display of courage would not have endangered life; we should have had no military, and, as Cobden would say, consequently no wars, and consequently no war-offices, and consequently no such thing as military honour, and consequently no duels; and it is a question whether Berthold Schwartz would ever have discovered gunpowder; we should all have been undying ones; Cato's soliloquy would not have been written, and "To be or not to be" a question that would never have been spoken.
Thus would it have gone in the world if the first of all women had not yielded to temptation, and put forth her hand to that very pleasant-looking, but very equivocal fruit of the tree called knowledge. But she took it, and did eat, and now death in a thousand forms assails us. We die of ennui and impatience of having teo much to do, and of doing nothing. We die in infancy, youth, manhood, and in old age. We die of cold and of heat—of anger, passion, and disappointed love: of hunger and thirst; of taking too much, and of taking too little; of a redundancy of bile, as well as of a deficiency of money. In a word, we are now poor dying mortals, swept away, some of us, by every passing breeze, and men and their doings are alike transitory. Yet is this thought not altogether without its consolation. If all things be mortal, then it necessarily follows that the Schleswig-Holstein question cannot endure for ever; neither the blockade of the Piræus; nor Russian intrigue in Greece and India; nor the betrayal and enslavement of Hungary; nor the crusade against freedom in the Caucasus; nor the present maps of Poland; nor the present condition of Ireland; nor the great plague-spot of the American Republic; nor the kingly compact against the liberty and unity of Germany. Then amongst mankind: the great corn-law agitator (to the protectionists' unspeakable comfort) is not immortal in the flesh any more than the Austrian midnight, or mitternacht (I never can spell that name) in the spirit! Nor Bombastes, the mighty king of the North, nor the weak representative of the imperial long-headed-dynasty of the South. Windischgracz and the star-bedizened hangman, Haynau, and other cold-blooded slaves of cruel despots. The floggers of women, and the wholesale and treacherous assassins of noble-minded men, will not cumber the ground for ever! Only their names and deeds will stand out-written—immortalized in that dread history for whose bloodstained pages they themselves have supplied the materials.
But hold, my fancy! whither wilt thou run? Said I not rightly that thinking will oftentimes embitter the hours of life? Ay, even to the shaming of one's "humanity." To be sure the fruitful text was, in this case, one full of fatality, and that which first introduced sin and sorrow into the world, could hardly be expected to afford any very pleasant matter of after contemplation. 'Tis enough! and the sad hue thus cast upon the hour, disinclines me to any further effort in this branch of intellectual industry. Gather from it what comfort ye may—for it has its good side—but let it serve as a warning to show to what sad lengths any man may be carried, who gives thought the rein, even while eating an apple!