Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1852
Despite his unexpected successes hitherto Arnold had not yet arrived at the goal of his labours. As Germany's representative by the grace of Mazzini, he was under the obligation on the one hand to obtain confirmation of his appointment at least by the German emigration and, on the other hand, to present the Central Committee with people who respected his leadership. He did indeed claim that in Germany there was “a clearly defined part of the people behind him” but this hind portion could scarcely inspire much confidence in Mazzini and Ledru as long as they could see nothing but the Ruge front portion. Suffice it to say that Arnold had to look around among the émigrés for a “clearly defined” tail.
At about this time Gottfried Kinkel came to London and together with him or soon afterwards a number of other exiles partly from France, partly from Switzerland and Belgium: Schurz, Strodtmann, Oppenheim, Schimmelpfennig, Techow, etc. These new arrivals some of whom had already tried their hand at forming provisional governments in Switzerland, infused new life into the London emigration and for Arnold the moment seemed more favourable than ever. At the same time Heinzen again took over the Schnellpost in New York and so Arnold could now make his “frequent appearances” on the other side of the ocean and not just in the local Bremen paper. Should Arnold ever find his Strodtmann the latter would surely declare the monthly numbers of the Schnellpost from the beginning of 1851 on to be a priceless source of information. One has to see this infinitely feeble mixture of gossip, silliness and nastiness, this ant-like self-importance with which Arnold deposits his dung, for otherwise one would not believe it. While Heinzen portrays Arnold as a European Great Power, Arnold treats Heinzen as an American newspaper oracle. He tells him the secrets of European diplomacy and in particular the latest events in the history of world emigration. Arnold sometimes figures as the anonymous correspondent in London and Paris in order to keep the American public informed of some of the great Arnold's fashionable movements.
“Once again Arnold Ruge has the communists by the throat” — “Arnold Ruge yesterday (dated from Paris so that the dating gives the old joker away) made an excursion from Brighton to London.” And again: “Arnold Ruge to Karl Heinzen: Dear Friend and Editor .... Mazzini sends his greetings ... Ledru-Rollin gives his permission to translate his pamphlet on the June 13th” and so on.
A letter from America has this comment to make:
“As I see from Ruge's letters in the Schnellpost Heinzen must be writing Ruge (privately) all sorts of funny stories about the importance of his paper in America, while Ruge seems to act as if he were a major European govemment. Whenever Ruge imparts a momentous piece of information to Heinzen he never omits to add: You can ask other newspapers to reprint this. As if they would hesitate to print news regardless of Ruge’s authorisation. Incidentally, I have never seen these momentous reports actually appear anywhere else despite Ruge's advice and permission.”
Father Ruge employed both this paper and the Bremer TagesChronik to win over new arrivals by flattery: Kinkel is here now, the patriot and poet of genius; Strodtmann, a great writer; Schurz, a young man as amiable as he is bold, and a whole array of distinguished revolutionary warriors.
Meanwhile in contrast to the Mazzini Committee a plebeian European Committee was formed with the support of the “inferior refugees” and the émigré dregs of the various European nations. At the time of the battle of Bronzell this committee had issued a manifesto that included the following outstanding German signatories: Gebert, Majer, Dietz, Schärttner, Schapper, Willich. This document was couched in peculiar French and contained the information that at that moment (10 November 1850) the Holy Alliance of Tyrants had assembled 1,330,000 soldiers backed by another 700,000 armed lackeys in reserve; that “the German papers and the Committee’s own contacts” had revealed the secret intentions of the Warsaw Conferences [52] and that these were to massacre all the republicans of Europe. This was followed by the inevitable call to arms. This “manifeste-Faneron-Caperon-Gouté” as it was described by the Patrie (to whom they sent it) was overwhelmed with ridicule by the reactionary press. The Patrie called it “the manifesto of the dii minorum gentium, written without chic, without style and equipped with only the most banal clichés, ‘serpents’, ‘sicaires’ and ‘égorgements’”.
The Indépendence Belge states that it was written by the most obscure soldiers of democracy, poor devils who had sent it to their correspondent in London even though their paper was conservative. Greatly as they longed to get into print, they would nevertheless not publish the names of the signatories as a punishment. Despite their attempts to beg from the reaction these noble people did not manage to obtain recognition as dangerous conspirators.
The establishment of this rival firm spurred Arnold on to even greater efforts. Together with Strave, Kinkel, R. Schramm and Bucher, etc. he tried to found a Volksfreund, or, if Gustav were to insist, a Deutscher Zuschauer. But the plan fell through. Partly because our “good-humoured” Gottfried demanded payment in cash whereas Arnold shared Hansemann's view that in money matters there is no room for good humour. Arnold's particular aim was to impose a levy on the Reading Circle, a club of German watchmakers, well-paid workers and petty bourgeois, but in this too he was frustrated.
But soon there arose another opportunity for Arnold to make one of his “frequent appearances”. Ledru and his supporters among the French émigrés could not let 24 February (1851) [53] pass without celebrating a “Fraternal Feast” of the nations of Europe. In fact only the French and the Germans attended. Mazzini did not come and excused himself by letter: Gottfried who was present went home fuming because his mute presence failed to produce the magical effect he expected; Arnold lived to see the day when his friend Ledru pretended not to know him and became so confused when he arose to speak that he kept quiet about the French speech he had prepared and which had been approved in high places; he just stammered a few words in German and retreated precipitately, exclaiming: Àla restauration de la révolution! to the accompaniment of a general shaking of heads.
On the same day a rival banquet took place under the auspices of the competing committee referred to above. Annoyed that the Mazzini-Ledru committee had not invited him to join them from the beginning Louis Blanc took himself off to the refugee mob, declaring that “the aristocracy of talent must also be abolished”. The whole lower emigration was thus assembled. The chivalrous Willich presided. The hall was festooned with flags and the walls were emblazoned with the names of the greatest men of the people: Waldeck between Garibaldi and Kossuth, Jacoby between Blanqui and Cabet, Robert Blum between Barbès and Robespierre. That coquettish ape Louis Blanc read out in a whining voice an address from his old yes men [German: Ja Brüder], the future peers of the social republic, the delegates of the Luxemburg of 1848. Willich read out an address from Switzerland the signatures to which had partly been collected under false presences. Later he was indiscreet enough to publish the address, which resulted in the mass expulsion of the signatories. From Germany no message had arrived. Then speeches. Despite the eternal brotherhood boredom could be seen on every face.
The banquet gave rise to a highly edifying scandal which like the heroic deeds of the European central mob-committee, unfolded within the pages of the counter-revolutionary press. It had struck observers as very strange that during the banquet a certain Barthélemy should have given an extremely grandiose eulogy of Blanqui in the presence of Louis Blanc. The puzzle was now elucidated. The Patrie printed a toast that Blanqui had sent from Belle-Île in response to a request from the orator at the banquet. In the toast he aimed some rough blows at the whole provisional government of 1848 and at Louis Blanc in particular. The Patrie expressed astonishment that this toast had been suppressed in the course of the banquet. Louis Blanc at once wrote to The Times declaring that Blanqui was an abominable intriguer and had never sent such a toast to the Banquet committee. The committee consisting of Messrs, Blanc, Willich, Landolphe, Schapper, Barthélemy and Vidil, announced simultaneously in the Patrie that they had never received the toast. The Patrie, however, did not allow the declaration to be printed until they had made inquiries of M. Antoine, Blanqui's brother-in-law, who had given them the text of the toast. Beneath the declaration of the Banquet committee they printed M. Antoine's reply: he had sent the toast to Barthélemy, one of the signatories of the declaration and had received an acknowledgement from him. Whereupon Mr. Barthélemy was forced to admit that it was true that he had lied. He had indeed received the toast but had thought it unsuitable and so had not informed the committee of it. But before this, behind Barthélemy's back his co-signatory, the French ax-captain Vidil had also written to the Patrie saying that his honour as a soldier and his sense of truth compelled him to confess that not only he but also Louis Blanc, Willich and all the other signatories of the first declaration had lied. The committee had consisted of 13 members and not 6. They had all seen Blanqui's toast, they had discussed it and after a long debate agreed to suppress it by a majority of 7 votes to 6. He had been one who had voted in favour of reading it in public.
It is easy to imagine the joy of the Patrie when it received Barthélemy's declaration after Vidil's letter. They printed it with this preface:
“We have often asked ourselves, and it is a difficult question to answer, whether the demagogues are notable more for their stupidity or their boastfulness. A fourth letter from London has increased our perplexity. There they are, we do not know how many poor wretches, who are so tormented by the longing to write and to see their names published in the reactionary press that they are undeterred even by the prospect of infinite humiliation and mortification. What do they care for the laughter and the indignation of the public — the Journal des Débats, the Assemblée rationale and the Patrie will find space for their stylistic exercises; to achieve this no cost to the cause of cosmopolitan democracy can be too high.... In the name of literary commiseration we include the following letter from ‘Citizen’ Barthélemy — it is a novel, and, we hope, the last proof of the authenticity of Blanqui’s famous toast whose existence they first all denied and now fight among themselves for the right to acknowledge.”
“The actual force of events”, to use one of Arnold's all-pervading beautiful forms, now took the following course. On 24 February, Ruge had compromised himself and the German émigrés in the presence of foreigners. Hence the few émigrés who still felt inclined to go along with him felt insecure and without any support. Arnold put the blame on the division in the emigration and pressed harder than ever for unity. Compromised as he was, he still reached eagerly for the chance to compromise himself further.
Hence the Anniversary of the March revolution in Vienna was used to give a German banquet. The chivalrous Willich declined the invitation; as he belonged to “citizen” Louis Blanc he could not collaborate with “citizen” Ruge who belonged to “citizen&lrquo; Ledru. Likewise the ex-deputies Reichenbach, Schramm, Bucher, etc., recoiled from Ruge’s presence. Not counting the silent guests there appeared Mazzini, Ruge, Struve, Tausenau, Haug, Ronge and Kinkel — all of whom spoke.
Ruge filled the role of “the complete fool” as even his friends admitted. The German public was however to experience even greater things. Tausenau’s clowning, Struve’s croaking, Haug’s meanderings, Ronge’s litanies turned the whole audience to stone and the majority drifted away even before that flower of rhetoric, Jeremiah-Kinkel, who had been saved for the dessert, could begin his speech. “In the name of the martyrs” for the martyrs, Gottfried spoke as a martyr and uttered lachrymose words of reconciliation to all ’from the simple defender of the constitution down to the red republican”. At the same time as all these republicans, and even red republicans, like Kinkel, groaned away in this fashion, they also knelt down before the English constitution in humble adoration, a contradiction to which the Morning Chronicle politely drew their attention the following morning.
The same evening Ruge saw the fulfilment of his desires as can be seen from a proclamation whose most brilliant sections we offer here:
To the Germans!
“Brothers and friends in Germany! We, the undersigned, constitute at present and until such time as you decide differently, the committee for German affairs" (irrespective which affairs).
“The Central Committee of the European democratic movement has sent us Arnold Ruge, the Baden revolution has sent Gustav Struve, the Viennese revolution has sent us Ernst Haug, the religious movement has sent us Johannes Ronge and prison has sent us Gottfried Kinkel, we have invited the social-democratic workers to send a representative to our midst.
“German brothers! Events have deprived you of your freedom ... we know that you are incapable of abandoning your freedom for ever and we have omitted nothing" (in the way of committees and manifestoes) "that might accelerate your recovery of it.
“When we ... when we gave our guarantee and our support to the Mazzini loan, when we ... when we invoked the Holy Alliance of peoples against the unholy alliance of their oppressors, we only did, as you know, what you wished with all your hearts to see done.... The tyrants have been arraigned before the universal court of mankind in the great trial of freedom” (and with Arnold as public prosecutor, the “tyrants” can sleep in peace) ... “arson, murder, pillaging, hunger and bankruptcy will soon be widespread throughout Germany.
“You have the example of France before your eyes — Smouldering with fury it is more united than ever in its determination to liberate itself (I ask you, who on earth could have foreseen the 2 December!) — look at Hungary, even the Croats have been converted” (thanks to the Deutscher Zuschauer and Ruge’s wood-shaving coats) — “and believe us, for we know, when we say that Poland is immortal” (Mr. Darasz confided this piece of information to them under solemn oath of secrecy).
“Force against force — that is the justice that is being prepared. And we shall leave nothing undone to bring into being a more effective provisional government” (aha!) “than the Vorparlament [54] and a more potent arm of the people than the National Assembly” (see below what these gentlemen brought into being when they attempted to lead each other by the nose).
“Our draft proposals concerning the finances and the press” (Articles 1 and 2 of the strong provisional government — the Customs Officer, Christian Müller, is to be given the task of implementing this measure) “shall be presented separately. We wish only to say that every purchase for the Italian Loan will be of immediate benefit to our Committee and to our cause and that for the moment you can help in a practical way above all by ensuring a liberal supply of money. We shall then know how to translate this money into public opinion and public violence. (With Arnold as translator) ”... We say to you: Subscribe 10 million Francs and we shall liberate the Continent!
“Germans, remember...” (that you sing baritone and light fires on the mountains) "... Lend us your thoughts" (which we need almost as badly as your money), “your purse” (yes, don't forget that) “and your arm! We expect your zeal to increase with the intensity of your sufferings and that the Committee shall be adequately strengthened for the hour of decision by your present contributions.” (If not, they would have to resort to spirituous liquor which would be against Gustav's principles.)
“All democrats are instructed to publicise our appeal” (the Customs Officer, Christian Müller, will take care of the rest).
“London, 13 March 1851
The Committee for German Affairs
Arnold Ruge, Gustav Struve, Ernst Haug, Johannes Ronge, Gottfried
Kinkel”
Our readers are now acquainted with Gottfried, they are also acquainted with Gustav; Arnold's "frequent appearances" have likewise been repeated often enough. So there remain but two members of the “effective provisional government” whom we have still to introduce.
Johannes Ronge or Johannes Kurzweg as he likes to be known in his intimate circle, is certainly not the author of the Book of Revelations. There is nothing mysterious about him, he is banal, hackneyed, as insipid as water, luke-warm dish-water. As is well known Johannes became famous when he refused to permit the Holy Mantle [55] in Trier to intercede for him — though it is wholly unimportant who intercedes for Johannes. When Johannes first made his appearance the elderly Paulus [56] expressed his regrets that Hegel was dead as he would no longer be able to regard him as shallow were he alive and he added that the late lamented Krug was lucky to be dead as he thereby escaped the danger of acquiring a reputation for profundity. Johannes is one of those phenomena often met with in history who only begin to understand a movement centuries after its rise and fall and who then like children reproduce the content of the movement as if it had just been discovered, regurgitating it in the most feeble, colourless and philistinic manner imaginable. Such craftsmanship does not last very long and soon our Johannes found himself in a daily deteriorating situation in Germany. His watered-down version of the Enlightenment went out of fashion and Johannes made a pilgrimage to England where we see him reappear, without any notable success, as the rival of Padre Gavazzi. [57] The ungainly, sallow, tedious village parson naturally paled by the side of the fiery, histrionic Italian monk and the English bet heavily that this arid Johannes could not be the man who had set the deep-thinking German nation in motion. But he was consoled by Arnold Ruge who found that the German-Catholicism of our Johannes was remarkably similar to his own brand of atheism.
Ludwig von Hauck had been a captain of engineers in the Imperial Austrian army, then co-editor of the Constitution in Vienna, later still leader of a battalion in the Viennese National Guard, where he defended the Burgtor against the Imperial army on October 30 with great courage, abandoning his post only after all was lost. He escaped to Hungary, joined up with Bem's army in Siebenburgen where in consequence of his velour he advanced to the rank of colonel in the general staff. After Görgy surrendered at Vilagos Ludwig Hauck was taken prisoner and died like a hero on one of the many gallows that the Austrians erected in Hungary to avenge their repeated defeats and to express their fury at the protection Russia had extended and which they so bitterly resented. In London Haug was long thought to be the incarcerated Hauck, an officer, who had so distinguished himself in the Hungarian campaign. However, it now seems to be established that he is not the late Hauck. Just as he was unable to prevent Mazzini from improvising him into a general after the fall of Rome, so too he could do nothing to stop Arnold Ruge from transforming him into the representative of the Viennese revolution and a member of the strong provisional government. Later he gave aesthetic lectures about the economic foundations of the cosmogony of universal history from a geological standpoint and with musical accompaniment. Among the émigrés this melancholic man is known as "the poor wretch", or as the French say, "la bonne bête".
Arnold could not believe his good fortune. He had a manifesto, a strong provisional government, a loan of ten million francs and even a homunculus to produce a weekly magazine with the modest title Kosmos, edited by General Haug.
The manifesto came and went unread. The Kosmos died of malnutrition in the third number, the money failed to roll in, the provisional government dissolved into its components once more.
At first, the Kosmos contained advertisements for Kinkel's lectures, for the worthy Willich's appeals for money for the Schleswig-Holstein refugees and for Göhringer's saloon. It contained further a lampoon by Arnold. The old joker invented a certain hospitable friend called Müller in Germany whose guest, Schulze, he pretended to be. Müller expresses astonishment at what he reads in the papers about English hospitality; he fears that all this “sybaritism” may distract Schulze from his “affairs of state” — but he does not grudge him this as when Schulze returns to Germany he will be so overwhelmed by state affairs that he will have to deny himself the pleasures of Müller's hospitality. Finally, Müller exclaims: “Surely it was not the traitor Radowitz, but Mazzini, Ledru-Rollin, Citizen Willich, Kinkel and yourself” (Arnold Ruge) "who were invited to Windsor Castle?"
If after all this the Kosmos folded up after the third issue the failure could not be put down to lack of publicity, for at every possible English meeting the speakers would find it pressed into their hands with the urgent request to recommend it as they would find their own principles specially represented in it.
Scarcely had the subscriptions for the ten-million-Franc loan been opened than the rumour went around that a list of contributors to a fund to dispatch Struve (and Amalia) to America, was circulating in the City.
“When the Committee resolved to publish a German weekly with Haug as editor, Struve protested as he wanted the post of editor for himself and wished the journal to bear the title Deutscher Zuschauer. Having protested he resolved to go to America.”
Thus far the report in the Deutsche Schnellpost of New York. It remains silent about the fact (and Heinzen had his reasons for this) that as Gustav was a collaborator on the Duke of Brunswick’s Deutscher Londoner Zeitung Mazzini had struck his name off the list of the German Committee. Gustav soon acclimatised his Deutscher Zuschauer in New York. But soon after came the news from over the ocean: “Gustav’s Zuschauer is dead.” As he says, this was not for the lack of subscribers, nor because he had no leisure for writing but simply because of a dearth of paying subscribers. However, the democratic revision of Rotteck's Universal History could not be postponed any longer, so great was the need for it, and as he had already begun it 15 years previously he would give the subscribers a corresponding number of issues of the Universal History instead of the Deutscher Zuschauer. He would have to request payment in advance for this to which in the circumstances no one could object. As long as Gustav had remained on this side of the Atlantic Heinzen regarded him along with Ruge as the greatest man in Europe. Scarcely had he reached the other side than a great scandal arose between them.
Gustav writes:
“When on 6 June in Karlsruhe Heinzen saw that cannon was being brought up he left for Strasbourg with female companions.”
Whereupon Heinzen called Gustav “a soothsayer”.
Arnold was busy broadcasting the virtues of the Kosmos in the journal of his faithful disciple Heinzen, when it failed to appear, and at about the time when the strong provisional government was disintegrating Rodomonte-Heinzen was busy proclaiming “military obedience” towards it in his journal. Heinzen is famous for his love of the military in peacetime.
“Shortly after Struve's departure Kinkel too resigned from the Committee which was thereby reduced to impotence.“ (Deutsche Schnellpost, No. 23.)
With this the strong provisional government dwindled still further and only Messrs. Ruge, Ronge, and Haug remained in it. Even Arnold realised that with this Trinity nothing at all could be brought into existence, let alone a cosmos. Nevertheless through all the permutations, variations and combinations it remained the nucleus of all his subsequent attempts to form committees. An indefatigable man, he saw no reason to throw in his hand; after all his aim was merely to do something that would have the appearance of action, the semblance of profound political schemes, something that, above all, would provide matter for self-important consultations, frequent appearances and complacent gossip.
As for Gottfried, his dramatic lectures for respectable city merchants did not allow him to compromise himself. But on the other hand, it was altogether too evident that the purpose of the manifesto of March 13 was none other than to provide support for the place Arnold had usurped in the European Central Committee. Even Gottfried could not fail to realise this: but it was not in his interest to grant Ruge such recognition. So it came to pass that shortly after the manifesto had been published, the Kölnische Zeitung printed a declaration by that dama acerba, Mockel. Her husband, she wrote, had not signed the appeal, he was not interested in public loans and had resigned from the newly-formed committee. Whereupon Arnold gossiped in the New York Schnellpost to the effect that Kinkel had been prevented by illness from signing the manifesto, but he gave his approval, the plan to issue it had been conceived in his room, he had himself taken responsibility for despatching a number of copies to Germany and he only left the committee because it elected General Haug president in preference to himself. Arnold accompanied this declaration with angry attacks on Kinkel's vanity, calling him “absolute martyr” and “the Beckerath of the democrats” and affirming his suspicions of Mrs. Johanna Kinkel who had access to such prohibited journals as the Kölnische Zeitung.
In the meantime, Arnold's seed had not fallen on stony soil. Kinkel's “beautiful soul” resolved to turn the tables on his rivals and to raise the treasure of revolution alone. Johanna's statement dissociating him from this hare-brained scheme had scarcely appeared in the Kölnische Zeitung when Gottfried launched his own appeal in the transatlantic papers with the comment that the money should be sent to the man “who inspires the most confidence”. And who could this man be but Gottfried Kinkel? For the time being he demanded an advance payment of 500 pounds sterling with which to manufacture revolutionary paper money. Ruge, not to be outdone, had the Schnellpost declare that he was the treasurer of the Democratic Central Committee and that Mazzini notes were already available and could be purchased from him. Whoever wished to lose 500 pounds sterling would do better to take the available notes than to speculate in something that did not even exist. And Rodomonte-Heinzen roared that unless Mr. Kinkel abandoned his manoeuvres he would be branded publicly as an “enemy of the revolution”. Gottfried had counter-articles published in the New-Yorker Staatszeitung, the direct rival of the Schnellpost. In this way full-scale hostilities were in progress on the other side of the Atlantic while kisses of Judas were still being exchanged in this side.
By issuing an appeal for a national loan in his own name Gottfried had shocked the democratic rank and file, as he soon realised. To make good his blunder he now declared that “this appeal for money, for a German national loan did not proceed from him. In all likelihood what had happened was that some all too zealous friends in America had made free with his name.”
This declaration provoked the following answer from Dr. Wiss in the Schnellpost:
“It is generally known that the appeal to agitate for a German Loan was sent to me by Gottfried Kinkel with the urgent request to publicise it in all the German newspapers and I am ready and willing to show this letter to anyone who is in doubt on this point. If Kinkel has now really alleged the contrary the only honourable course for him to pursue is to retract his statements publicly and to publish my correspondence with him from which it will become plain to the Party that I was quite independent and certainly that I did not exhibit ‘an excess of zeal’. Should he not have been guilty of these allegations it was Kinkel's duty to denounce the journalist responsible for printing them as an evil slanderer, or if there had been a misunderstanding, as an irresponsible and unscrupulous gossip. For my part I am unable to believe Kinkel capable of such unmitigated perfidy. Dr. C. Wiss.” (Weekly supplement of the Deutsche Schnellpost.)
What was Kinkel to do? Once again he thrust his aspra donzella into the breach, he denounced Mockel as the “irresponsible, unscrupulous gossip”, he claimed that his wife had promoted the loan behind his back. It cannot be denied that this tactic was highly “aesthetic”.
Thus did Gottfried sway like a reed, now advancing, now retreating, now launching a project, now dissociating himself from it, always tacking to adjust to the wind of popularity. While he officially allowed the aesthetic bourgeoisie to fete and feast him in London as the martyr of the Revolution behind the backs of the same people he indulged in forbidden commerce with the mob of the Emigration as represented by Willich. While living in circumstances that could be described as luxurious in comparison with his modest situation in Bonn, he wrote to St. Louis that he was living as befitted the "representative of poverty". In this way he behaved towards the bourgeoisie as etiquette required, while at the same time he deferred humbly to the taste of the proletariat. But as a man whose imagination far outweighed his understanding he could not help falling into the bad manners and the arrogant postures of the parvenu and this alienated many a pompous bonhomme from him. Wholly characteristic of him was the article on the Great Exhibition that he wrote for Kosmos. He admired nothing so much as the giant mirror that was exhibited in the Crystal Palace. The objective world reduces itself to a mirror, the subjective world to a cliché. Under the pretext of seeing only the beautiful side of things he aestheticises everything and this process he designates poetry, self-sacrifice or religion, as the occasion demands. Fundamentally, everything is used to exalt himself. It is inevitable that in practice the ugly side should make its appearance, as imagination turns into lies and enthusiasm into baseness. In any case it was to be expected that Gottfried would soon cast off his lion's skin when he fell into the hands of old, experienced clowns like Gustav and Arnold.