VI
ROMANTIC PURPOSELESSNESS

In Lucinde, then, as in a nutshell, are to be found all the theories which, later in the history of Romanticism, are developed and illustrated by examples. In such an essay as that on the Instinct of Change by the Æsthete in Kierkegaard's Enten-Eller ("Either-Or") idleness is systematised. "Never adopt any calling or profession. By so doing a man becomes simply one of the mob, a tiny bolt in the great machinery of the state; he ceases to be master… But though we hold aloof from all regular callings, we ought not to be inactive, but to attach great importance to occupation which is identical with idleness… The whole secret lies in the independence, the absence of restraint. We are apt to believe that there is no art in acting unrestrained by any law; in reality the most careful calculation is required, if we are not to go astray, but to obtain enjoyment from it…"

Idleness, lawlessness, enjoyment! This is the threeleaved clover which grows all over the Romanticist's field. In such a book as Eichendorff's Das Leben eines Taugenichts ("Life of a Ne'er-do-Well") idleness is idealised and exalted in the person of the hero. And purposelessness is another important item, which must on no account be overlooked. It is another designation for the genius of Romanticism. "To have a purpose, to act according to that purpose, artificially to combine purpose with purpose, and thereby create new purposes, is a bad habit, which has become so deeply rooted in the foolish nature of godlike man, that he is obliged, when for once it is his desire to float aimlessly upon the stream of constantly changing images and emotions, to do even this of settled purpose… It is very certain, my friend, that man is by nature a serious animal." (Julius to Lucinde.)

On the subject of this utterance, even that orthodox Christian, Kierkegaard, says: "In order not to misjudge Schlegel, we must bear in mind the perverted ideas which had insinuated themselves into men's minds in regard to many of the relations of life, and which had specially and indefatigably striven to make love as tame, well broken-in, heavy, sluggish, useful, and obedient, as any other domestic animal – in short, as unerotic as possible… There is a very narrow-minded morality, a policy of expediency, a futile teleology, which many men worship as an idol, an idol that claims every infinite aspiration as its legitimate offering. Love is considered nothing in itself; it only acquires importance from the purpose it is made to serve in the paltry play which holds the stage of family life." It is perhaps admissible to conclude that what Kierkegaard says about "the tame, well broken-in, sluggish, and useful domestic animal, love," found its most apt application in Germany, which at that time was undoubtedly the home of the old-fashioned womanliness. The satirical sallies in Tieck's comedies occasionally point in the same direction. In his Däumling ("Hop-o'-my-thumb") a husband complains of his wife's craze for knitting, which gives him no peace; a complaint which, perhaps, can only be understood in Germany, where to this day ladies are to be seen knitting even in places of public entertainment – at the concerts on the Brühlsche Terrasse in Dresden, for example. Herr Semmelziege says: —

 
"Des Hauses Sorge nahm zu sehr den Sinn ihr ein,
Die Sauberkeit, das Porzellan, die Wäsche gar:
Wenn ich ihr wohl von meiner ew'gen Liebe sprach,
Nahm sie der Bürste vielbehaartes Brett zur Hand,
Um meinem Rock die Fäden abzukehren still.
 

* * * * * * * * * *

 
Doch hätt' ich gern geduldet Alles, ausser Eins:
Dass, we sie stand, und we sie ging, auswärts, im Haus,
Auch im Concert, wenn Tongewirr die Schöpfung schuf,
 

* * * * * * * * * *

 
Da zaspelnd, haspelnd, heftig rauschend, nimmer still,
Ellnbogen fliegend, schlagend Seiten und Geripp,
Sie immerdar den Strickstrumpf eifrig handgehabt."¹⁶
 

The most comical part of this satire is the passage which, whether intentionally or unintentionally on the author's part, reads like a parody of the well-known Roman Elegy in which Goethe drums the hexameter measure, "leise mit fingernder Hand," upon his mistress's back: —

 
"Einst als des Thorns heilig Lager uns umfing,
Am Himmel glanzvoll prangte Lunas keuscher Schein,
Der goldnen Aphrodite Gab' erwünschend mir,
Von silberweissen Armen ich umflochten lag.
Schon denkend, welch ein Wunderkind so holder Nacht,
Welch Vaterlandserretter, kraftgepanzert, soll
Dem zarten Leib entspriessen nach der Horen Tanz,
Fühl' ich am Rücken hinter mir gar sanften Schlag:
Da wähn ich, Liebsgekose neckt die Schulter mir,
Und lächle fromm die süsse Braut und sinnig an:
Bald naht mir der Enttäuschung grauser Höllenschmerz
Das Strickzeug tanzt auf meinem Rücken thätig fort;
Ja, stand das Werk just in der Ferse Beugung, wo
Der Kundigste, ob vielem Zählen, selber pfuscht."
 

When the cult of the useful is carried as far as this, we can understand advocacy of purposelessness.

But purposelessness and idleness are inseparable. "Only Italians," we are told, "know how to walk, and only Orientals how to lie; and where has the mind developed with more refinement and sweetness than in India? And in every clime it is idleness which distinguishes the noble from the simple, and which is, therefore, the essence of nobility."

This last assertion is outrageous, but its very audacity is significant. It shows the attitude of Romanticism towards the masses. To have the means to do nothing is, in its estimation, the true patent of nobility. Its heroes are those who cultivate the unremunerative arts, and are supported by others – kings and knights like those in Fouqué's and Ingemann's books, artists and poets like those in Tieck's and Novalis's. It separates itself from humanity, will do nothing for it, but only for the favoured few. The hero and heroine in Lucinde are the gifted artist and the woman of genius; it is not the ordinary union, but the "nature-marriage" or the "art-marriage" (Naturehe, Kunstehe) for which our interest is claimed. Observe how Julius at once asks Lucinde whether her child, if a girl, shall be trained as a portrait or as a landscape painter. Only as a member of the fraternity of artists do her parents take any interest in her. Only authors and artists have part and lot in the poetry of life.

It is not difficult to understand how it was that Lucinde was barren of any social results. But though the book had no practical outcome, though it was too feeble to effect any kind of reform, there was, nevertheless, something practical underlying it.

Let us cast a glance at the principal characters. They stand out in strong relief upon a background of the profoundest scorn for all the prose of real life and all the conventions of society. The book is in no wise ashamed of its erotic theories; in its conscious purity it feels itself elevated above the judgment of the vulgar: "It is not only the kingly eagle which dares to scorn the screaming of the ravens; the swan, too, is proud, and pays as little heed. Its only care is that its white wings shall not lose their brightness; its only desire, to cling, unruffled, to Leda's breast, and breathe forth all that is mortal in it in song."

The image is pretty and daring, but is it true? The story of Leda and the swan has been treated in so many ways.

Julius is a pessimistic (zerrissener) young man, an artist, of course. We are told in the Lehrjahre der Männlichkeit, the chapter containing what Flaubert has called l'éducation sentimentale, that it was strikingly characteristic of him that he could play faro with apparently passionate eagerness, and yet in reality be absent-minded and careless; he would dare everything in the heat of the moment, and as soon as he had lost would turn indifferently away. Such a trait may not excite our admiration, but it at all events produces a pretty distinct impression of a pleasure-loving, blasé young man, who, feeling no powerful impulse towards action, seeks for excitement while leading a life of careless, coldly despairing idleness. The history of his development is indicated, as is often the case with quite young men, simply by a succession of female names.

Of the women in question we have only very slight sketches, like the pencil-drawings in an album. One of these introductory portraits is rather more elaborated than the rest, that of a dame aux camélias sunk in Oriental indolence, who, like the original dame aux camélias, is raised above her position by a true passion, and dies when she is neither understood nor believed. She dies by her own hand, makes a brilliant exit from life, and seems to us, as she is described sitting in her boudoir with her hands in her lap, surrounded by great mirrors and inhaling perfumes, like a living image of the æsthetic stupor of self-contemplation and self-absorption, which was the final development of Romanticism. After passing through numbers of erotic experiences, all equally and exceedingly repulsive, Julius finally makes the acquaintance of his feminine counterpart, Lucinde, whose impression is never effaced. "In her he met a youthful artist" (Of course!), "who, like himself, passionately worshipped beauty and loved nature and solitude. In her landscapes one felt a fresh breath of real air. She painted not to gain a living or to perfect herself in an art" (On no account any purpose or utility!) "but simply for pleasure" (Dilettantism and irony!). "Her productions were slight water-colour sketches. She had lacked the patience and industry required to learn oil-painting." (No industry!) … "Lucinde had a decided leaning towards the romantic" (Of course she had; she is romance incarnate!). "She was one of those who do not live in the ordinary world, but in one created by themselves… With courageous determination she had broken with all conventions, cast off all bonds, and lived in perfect freedom and independence." From the time when Julius meets her, his art too becomes more fervid and inspired. He paints the nude "in a flood of vitalising light;" his figures "were like animated plants in human shapes."

With Julius and Lucinde life flows on smoothly and melodiously, "like a beautiful song," in perpetually aroused and satisfied longing. The action passes, as it were, in a studio where the easel stands close to the alcove. Lucinde becomes a mother, and their union is now the "marriage of nature" (die Naturehe). "What united us before was love and passion. Now nature has united us more closely." The birth of the child gives the parents "civic rights in the state of nature" (probably Rousseau's), the only civic rights they seem to have valued. The Romanticists were as indifferent to social and political rights as Kierkegaard's hero, who was of opinion that we ought to be glad that there are some who care to rule, thereby freeing the rest of us from the task.