Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 408, January 1849
Doubtless it is because we do feel contradicting knowledge, in this consciousness of all nature in its own life and power. Nor can we divest ourselves of a kind of natural poetry – a feeling that the rocks, the wild trees, and the somewhere though unseen "genius loci" all look at us, and we fancy ourselves but under sufferance, and know not how long our presence may be endured. It is surprising how a sense of such presences possesses us when alone. I could often have fancied voices, and mocking ones too, in the waters, and threats that thundered in the ear, and went off as if to fetch and bring whole cataracts down upon me. In such places I do not like to be caught by the dusk of the evening, being quite alone.
The fact is, nature, to a real lover and sketcher, is at all times powerful. Scenes affect him as they affect no other. I have often surprised people by the assertion that I could not live in the midst of fine scenery; it is too powerful, it unnerves one with an unrelaxing watchfulness. The presence of the mountain will not be shaken off. It becomes a nightmare upon the spirits, holds communion with the wild winds and storms, and has fearful dealings I would not dream of in the dark, howling, dismal nights. Nor, when the sombre light of a melancholy day just obscures the clouds that have been gathering round it, would I in imagination draw the curtain to behold the unearthly drama.
There is something terrific in the sound of unseen rushing water. When all else is still in the dark night, and you are uncertain of the path, and feel the danger that a false footing may plunge you into an abyss of waters, that seem to cry out and roar for a victim, have you not felt both fear and shame? Recently I experienced this in Lynmouth, having in the darkness lost my way. To the poet and the painter, here is a source of the sublime. Plunge your pencil boldly into this eclipse, and work into it a few dim lights formless and undefined – the obscure will be of a grand mystery. The night-darkness that settles over fine mountainous scenery does not remove the sense of its presence; as its lakes blacken, they become fabulous, of unknown depths, below which may be infernal "bolge." But I am wandering into strange regions now, and far from Lynmouth, whose scenes, after all, are not of a very severe beauty, unless we will to make it so. It will then answer the demand imagination makes upon it. Many are the scenes of a purely quiescent kind, still and calm, and of gentle repose, where the shallow river shows its amber bed, wherein the gleams rest upon the well-defined ledges beneath, whose gray shadows melt into golden tints; and beyond, in the deeper pools, the green of the trees is reflected greener still, across which here and there is a gray streak, showing the river's silent onward movement; and further on, some dark stones send their brown and purple hues, mirrored and softened down into the green, just dotted here and there with white. Then the trees shoot out lovingly from the bank overhead, and reach and communicate pleasantly with those on the opposite side; and here a bough sends down and just forbears to touch the stream, Narcissus-like, loving its own image. The gray stones in the foreground, half beneath the water, are of a delicate hue, blue intermingling with pale greenish and lakey tints; for there is nothing violent in all this scene of peaceful repose. Very many spots of this kind are there that court the sketcher. Let him wind his way over masses of stone, and roots of trees, beyond these – the scene how changed! The masses of stone are huge, blocking up, in various positions, the free passage of the river, which chafes and foams between them, throwing off its whiteness into the brown and green water depths. One broad shadow is over the dark stones; and beyond that rise the tops of other masses, gray illuminated; and beyond them, a gleam or two of falling water. Wilder are the trees that shoot out, from rocky fragments near, and lock their branches with those on the other side; while in the hollow space beneath their arching boles, distant and fantastic stems cross the stream. Opposite are huge masses, ledges with precipitous and brown-mossed sides; above which the high rocky bank sends forth large trees, their roots twisting about the rocks and coming out again through the fissures, and met by green weed leafage. The trees are darker than the dun-red ground, but edged with greenish light; and above them the yellow sunlight gleams through, and the dotted blue of sky is just seen; and, as avoiding the light, a huge branch, or limb rather, shoots down, edged with the light on its upper surface, and dark underneath, and throws a scanty defined leafage across over the depth of the river. But this precipitous bank again terminates towards the ledges in fine masses, rocks that project and recede, partially luminous with reflected light, and then falling back into extreme brown and purple darkness, down into which the ivy falls clustering and perpendicular, with innumerable briar-like shoots and tendrils. Here are severer studies. They are to be found by crossing the Lyn by the wooden bridge, not far from Lynmouth, and following the path through the wood some way, and seeking the bed of the river by a scarcely-discernible sheep-path, till it be lost at the edge of a downward way, not very difficult of descent. Within a very small space, there are fine and very different subjects. One of scarcely less grandeur than the last described, if it had not more beauty blended with it; but it must be seen in the sun's eye – the best time will be about 3 o'clock. Reach a large stone that juts out from the river's side, climb it, and look down the stream. You must sketch rapidly, for the charm will not last – it is most lovely in colour, and the forms are very beautiful. The opposite side of the river may be termed a mountain side, broken into hollows, in which rock and vegetation deepen into shade. The top is covered with trees, very graceful, the sun edges their tops, and rays flow through them, touching with a white and silver light the ivied rock, which is here perpendicular. Beyond this mountain-side, which juts out, is another clothed cliff, terminating at the base in bold and bare rock; beyond this, and high above, shooting into the sky, are piled rocks of a wild and broken character, gray, but dark against the distant mountain range, of an ultramarine haze, over warm and slightly marked downward passages; above is the illumined and illuminating sky. On the side of the river from which this lovely view is seen, are large masses, backed by trees, which shoot across, but high overhead, so that in the sketch the leafage would drop as it were from the sky into the middle of the picture. The river itself is quite accordant in colour, and in the forms and light and shade of the stones, that, though so large, are dwarfed by the large precipitous rocks perpendicular above them. The course of the stream is away from the eye of the spectator – is in parts darkly transparent and deep – here and there showing the white foam, and in other parts its amber and reddish bed.
A little further back from this point of view is another of the same scene; I am doubtful which would make the best picture. On the very same stone from which I sketched the scene described, turning with my back to the opposite side of the river, I was much struck with the fine forms and solemn light and shade of a rock, that was cavernously hollow at its base, and very near the stream. Above it, and declining into the middle of the picture, the sunlit boles of coppice-trees, rising among the light-green leafage, made the only positive sunlight of the picture: whatever else of light there was, was shade luminous. This rock was united with another across the picture, that thus made a centre and opening for the coppice, dotted with the blue sky; but all that side of the picture was in very dark shadow, being rock perpendicular, through the depth of which light and boldly formed trees rose to the top of the picture, and threw down leafage into the deep shade. The colouring of the cavernous hollow was remarkable: it was dark, yet blending gray, and pink, and green. The scene was of an ideal character; and I doubt if the sketch, though taken with as much truth as I could reach, would be thought to be from nature. The same rocky mass, taken in another direction, supplies a very different but perhaps equally good subject for the pencil. I say these sketches are of an ideal kind. It may be asked – Are they not true? – are they not in nature? They are; but still for a better use than the pleasure of the imitation a mere sketch offers. These are the kinds of scenes for the painter's invention, into which he is to throw his mind, and to dip his pencil freely into the gloom of his palette, and concentrate depths, and even change the forms, and even to omit much of the decorative detail, and make severity severer. He would give the little trees a wilder life, a more visible power, as if for lack of inhabitant they only were sentient of the scene. If a figure be introduced, they would be kept down, but shoot their branches towards him, for there would be an agreement, a sentient sympathy. But what figure? It is not peaceful enough for a hermit; too solemn for the bandit, such as Salvator would love to introduce; an early saint, perhaps a St Jerome – no unapt place for him and his lion: and somehow it must be contrived to have the water perhaps entering even into the retreat, and reflecting the aged, the hoary bearded saint. Is not then the subject ideal, and the sketch only suggestive? And here let me remark, with regard to that favourite word "finish," – an elaborate finish of all the detail, either of objects or colouring, would ruin the sketch; it would lose its suggestive character, which is its value. I have here described, I know how inadequately, several very striking scenes; yet are they scarcely a stone's throw apart. I mention them exclusively on that account, for, where there is so much, it must be the more worth the while of the sketcher to take some pains to find out the spot.
What do we mean by the "ideal" of landscape? The "naturalists" ask the question in a tone of somewhat more than doubt. The sketcher is apt to be caught in the snare of nature's many beauties, and, growing enamoured of them in detail, to lose the higher sense in his practical imitation. This is a danger he must avoid, by study, by reflection, by poetry. If the "ideal" be in himself, he will find it in nature. If he sees in mountains, woods, and fields but materials for the use of man, and what the toil of man has made them, he may be a good workman in his imitation, but he will be a poor designer. The "ideal" grows out of a reverence, which he can scarcely feel. If the earth be nothing to him but for the plough, and the rivers for the mill, and its only people are the present people – doomed to toil, bearing about them parochial cares, and tasteless necessity, ignorant and regardless of the history of the earth they tread – he may boast of his love of nature; but his love is, in fact, the love of his technical skill, of his imitation. He thinks more of the how to represent, than what the scene may represent. The ideal ranges beyond the present aspect, and he who has a belief in it will reverence this ancient earth, the cradle wherein he and all living things took form from their creation. He will see visions of the past, and dream dreams of its future aspects and destiny; and will learn, in his meditations, to recall the people of old, and imprint its soil with imaginary footsteps. The painter is no true artist if he feel not the greatness of nature's immortality – at least, that as it rose from the creation so will it be, throwing forth its bounty, and beaming with the same vigorous beauty, till it shall pass away as a scroll. The painter-poet must be of a loving superstition, must acknowledge powers above his own – beings greater between him and the heavens. They may be invisible as angels, yet leave some understanding of their presence. They will voice the woods and the winds, and tell everywhere that all of nature is life. Are there not noble elements here for the landscape painter, and can neither history nor fable supply him with better figures than toil-worn labourers, drovers taking their cattle or sheep to the butchers, and paupers walking the poorhouse? I like not the "naturalist's" poverty of thought. If the art be not twin sister with poetry, her charm is only for the eye. Nothing great ever came from such hands.
"And deeper faith – intenser fire —
Fed sculptor's chisel – poet's pen;
What nobler theme might art require
Than gods on earth, and godlike men?
Yea, gods then watched with loving care
(Or such, at least, the fond belief)
E'en lifeless things of earth and air —
The cloud, the stream, the stem, the leaf:
Iris, a goddess! tinged the flower
With more than merely rainbow hues;
Great Jove himself sent down the shower,
Or freshen'd earth with healing dews!"
Kenyon's Poems.
How do such thoughts enhance all nature's beauties! The sketcher's real work is to see, to feel them all, and to fit them to the mind's poetic thoughts.
I seem to be forgetting that the reader and myself are all this while at the water's edge, and under deep-brow'd rocks; that sunshine has left us, and it is time to climb to the path that leads toward Lynmouth. For such an hour we are on the wrong side of the stream. Now the woods are mapped, and edged only by the sun hastening downward. Yet after awhile we shall not regret that we are in this path. Escaping the closer and shaded wood, we shall reach a more open space, and see the flood of evening's sunlight pouring in. Here it is; my sketch was poor indeed, for there was neither time nor means to do anything like justice to the scene. Here is a narrow, winding rocky path, a little above the river, from whose superimpending bank, trees that now look large shoot across the landscape, and a bold stem or two rises up boldly to meet them; the river stretches to some distance, wooded on this side to the edge, and wooded hills in front, and in perspective. The distant hills are most lovely in colour, pearly and warm gray; the river, the blazing sky reflected, yet showing how rich the tone, by a few yellowish-gray lighter streaks that mark its movement. The fragments of rock in the river are of a pinkish-gray, and, though not dark, yet strongly marked against the golden stream, – the whole scene great in its simplicity of effect and design. In broad day the scene would be passed unnoticed; it would want that simplicity which is its charm, and be a scene of detail; but now the lines are the simplest, and, happily, where the river really turns, its view is lost in the reflection of the shaded wood. And here, in this smallest portion of the picture, the hills on each side seem to meet and fold, giving the variety in the smallest space, upon which I have made remarks in this paper. This beautiful picture of nature I visited several evenings, and it little varied. But the charm lasts not long – the sun sets, or is behind the wooded hill, before its actual setting, yet leaves its tinge of lake blushing above the gold in the sky – the life of the scene has faded, and it is still and solemn. I cannot better describe the impression it left, than by a quotation from an old play, in which the lover sees his mistress, who had swooned, or was in a deathlike sleep: —
"Antonio
At the first sight I did believe her dead —
Yet in that state so awful she appeared,
That I approached her with as much respect
As if the soul had animated still
That body which, though dead, scarce mortal seemed.
But as the sun from our horizon gone,
His beams do leave a tincture on the skies,
Which shows it was not long since he withdrew;
So in her lovely face there still appeared
Some scattered streaks of those vermilion beams
Which used t'irradiate that bright firmament.
Thus did I find that distressed miracle,
Able to wound a heart, as if alive —
Incapable to cure it, as if dead."
Thus is there sympathy between our hearts and nature – a sympathy, the secret of taste, which, above all, the sketcher should cultivate as the source of his pleasure, and (may it not be added?) of his improvement.
I will not proceed further with description of scenes; Lynmouth will be long remembered. I scarcely know a better spot for the study of close scenery. On reviewing my former impressions with the present, I should not say that Lynmouth has lost, but I have certainly gained some knowledge, and, I think, improved my sympathies with nature; and if I have not enjoyed so enthusiastically as I did sixteen years ago, I have enlarged my sight and extended my power. I am practically a better sketcher. The hand and the eye, work together; the improvement of one advances the other.
I know no better method of sketching than the mixture of transparent and semi-opaque colouring. It best represents the variety and the power of nature; and as it more nearly resembles in its working the practice of oil-painting, so is it the more likely to improve the painter. I have remarked that, even in depth of colour, the semi-opaque is very much more powerful than the transparent, however rich; for the one has, besides its more varied colour, the solidity of nature; whereas the most transparent has ever an unsubstantial look – you see through to the paper or the canvass. Semi-opaque, (or degrees of opacity, till it borders on the transparent,) as it hides the material, and throws into every part the charm of atmosphere, so it will ever bestow upon the sketch the gift of truth.
I did not begin this paper on Lynmouth Revisited with any intention of entering upon the technicalities of art; so I will refrain from any further remarks tending that way, which leads to far too wide a field for present discussion.
WHAT HAS REVOLUTIONISING GERMANY ATTAINED?
It is now rather more than a year since we asked, "What would revolutionising Germany be at?" A full year has passed over the dreamy, theorising, restless, and excited head of Germany, then confused and staggering, like "a giant drunken with new wine," but loudly vaunting that its strong dose of revolution had strengthened and not fuddled it, and that it was about to work out of its troubled brains a wondrous system of German Unity, which was to bring it infinite and permanent happiness; and now we would once more ask, What is the result of the attempted application of German revolutionising theory to practice? In fact, what has revolutionising Germany attained? Our first question we asked without being able to resolve an answer. The problem was stated: an attempt was made to arrive at something like a solution out of the distracting hurly-burly of supposed purposes and so-called intentions; but, after every effort to make out our "sum" in any reasonable manner, we were obliged to give it up, as a task impossible to any political mathematician, not of German mould; to declare any definite solution for the present hopeless, – and to end our amount of calculation by arriving only in a cercle vicieux at the statement of the problem with which we started, and asking, as despairingly as a tired schoolboy with a seemingly impracticable equation before him, "What, indeed, would revolutionising Germany be at?" Are we any further advanced now? We will not attempt the difficult sum again, or we might find ourselves obliged to avow ourselves as much deficient in the study of German political mathematics as before. But we may at least try to undertake a mere sum of addition, endeavour to cast up the amount of figures the Germans themselves have laid before us, and make out, as well as we can, what, after a year's hard – and how hard! – work, revolutionising Germany has attained. The species of sum-total, as far as the addition can yet go, to which we may arrive, may be still a very confused and unsatisfactory one; but in asking, "What has revolutionising Germany attained?" we will not take it entirely to our own charge, if the answer attempted to be made is thus confused and unsatisfactory. German political sums are all too puzzling for English heads.
Last year Germany was, as yet, very young in its revolutionary career. It galloped over the country like an unbroken colt, or rather like a mad bull, "running a-muck" it scarcely knew, and seemingly little cared, at what, provided that it trampled beneath its hoofs all that stood, and, with proper culture, might have flourished and borne fruit. It tried to imitate the frantic caperings of its fellow-revolutioniser in the next paddock, just over the Rhine; but it imitated this model in so clumsy a fashion, that it might have been very aptly compared to the ass in the fable, had not the demonstrations it sought to make been destructive kicks, and not mistaken caresses; and the model it sought to copy resembled the bloodhound rather than the lap-dog. It kicked out to the right and to the left, and, with its kicks, inflicted several stunning blows, from which the other states, upon whose heads the kicks fell, found some difficulty in recovering. Even the maddest of the drivers who spurred it on, however, found it necessary to present some goal, at which it was eventually to arrive in its mad career – that goal was called "German Unity" in one great powerful united Germany. Where this visionary goal existed, or how it was to be attained – by what path, or in what direction, none seemed to know; but the cry was, "On, on, on!" That it should miss this goal, thus visionary and indistinct, and plunge on past it, through the darkness of anarchy, to another winning-post, just as indistinct and visionary, called "a universal republic," was a matter of little consideration, or was even one of hope, to those of its principal drivers who whipped, and spurred, and hooted it, with deafening and distracting cries, like the Roman drivers of the unridden horses in the Corso races. A breaker-in was attempted, however, to be placed, and not, at first, precisely by those who most wished to check it, upon the back of the tearing beast, in order to moderate its paces, and canter it as gently as might be, onwards to the denied goal – which still, however, lay only in a most misty distance, to which none seemed to know the road. In this rider, called a central Frankfort parliament, men began to place their hopes, they trusted confidently that it might ride the animal to its destination, although they knew not where that lay. The revolution, then, was decked out with colours of red, and black, and gold – the colours of an old German empire, and of a new derived German unity – and the rider mounted into the saddle. How the rider endeavoured to show the animal's paces – how he strove to guide him forwards – how sometimes he seemed, indeed, to be proceeding along a path, uncertain, it is true, but apparently leading somewhere– how often he stumbled – how often, in his inexperience, he slipped in his saddle – how, at last, he slipped and fell from it altogether, in vain endeavouring, maimed, mutilated, bruised, and half stunned, to spring into the saddle again, are matters of newspaper history that need no detail here. It suffices to say, that the rider was unhorsed – that the animal gave a last desperate plunge, kicking and wounding the only one of the states around that strove to the last to caress and soothe it with gentle treatment – that it now stands perspiring, shaking, quivering in every limb – snorting in vain struggle, and champing the bit of the bridle which Prussian military force has thrown upon it. To what, then, has Germany attained in its revolutionising career? It has, at all events, not reached that imaginary goal to which men strove to ride it without direction-post. The goal is as far off as ever, perhaps farther off than before, as may be shown. It remains just as vague, and visionary, and misty. Not one step seems to have been taken towards it. Has no farther step whatever been taken, then, after all this mad rushing hither and thither? And if any, how, and whither? We shall endeavour to see, as far as we are able. Our readers must, then, judge whether it be forwards or backwards, or whether, in fact, it be any step at all.
The Frankfort parliament has fallen from its seat. Last year, when we gave a sketch of its sittings in that Lutheran church of St Paul in Frankfort – now bearing a stamp which its sober-minded architect probably never dreamt of, as a historical building – it was young, still in hopes; and amidst its inexperience, its vapouring declamation upon impracticable theories, its noise and confusion, its clamorous radicalism, and its internal treachery, that sought every pretext for exciting to anarchy and insurrection, it put forward men of note and ability – who, however lacking in practical experience, gave evidence of noble hearts, if not sound heads, and good intentions, if not governmental power. It contained, amidst much bad, many elements of good; and, if it has no other advantageous result, it has proved a school of experience, tact, and reason – as far at least as Germans, in the present condition of their political education, have been able to profit by its lessons and its teaching. De mortuis nil nisi bonum as far as possible! It is defunct. What its own inability, want of judgment, internal disorganisation, and "vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps its sell," commenced, was completed by the refusal of the principal northern German states to acknowledge its ill-digested constitution. It sickened upon over-feeding of conceit, excess of supposed authority, and a naturally weak constitution, combined with organic defects, weakened still more by a perpetual and distracting fever; it was killed outright by what the liberals, as well as the democrats, of Germany choose to call the ill faith and treachery of Prussia in declining to accept its offers, and ultimately refusing to listen to its dictates. Its dying convulsions were frightful. It fled to Stutgardt, in the hopes that change of air might save it in its last extremity: and there it breathed its last. Its very home is a wreck; its furniture has been sold to pay the expenses of its burial; its lucubrations, and its mighty acts, in which it once fondly hoped to have swayed all Germany, if not the world, have been dispersed, in their recorded form, among cheesemongers and greengrocers as waste-paper, at so much the pound. Its house – the silent, sad, and denuded church of St Paul – looks now like its only mausoleum; and on its walls remains alive the allegorical picture of that great German empire, which it deemed it had but to will to found – the grim, dark, shaded face of which grows grimmer and darker still, day by day; whilst the sun that rises behind it, without illuminating its form, daily receives its thicker and thicker cloud of dust to obscure its painted rays. Of a sooth, the allegory is complete. It is dead, and resolved to ashes. Its better and brighter elements have given up their last breath, as, in their meeting at Gotha, they made a last effort to discuss the acceptance of the constitution which Prussia offered in lieu of their own, and strove, although only still wearing a most ghostly semblance of life, to propose to themselves the best ultimate means of securing that desideratum, which they still seem to consider as the panacea for all evils – the great and powerful "United Germany" of their theoretical dreams. This last breath was not without its noble aspirations. Its less pure, more self-seeking, and darker elements have striven, by wild and no longer (even in appearance) legal means, to galvanise themselves into a false existence; their last struggles were such hideous and distracted contortions as are usually produced by such galvanic applications; and now the German papers daily record the arrest of various members of the so-called "Rump Parliament," (so nicknamed by the application or rather misapplication of an English historical term,) which received its final extinguishing blow at Stutgardt, mixed up, in these days of imprisonment, as the consequence of mistaken liberty, along with insurgents and rebels engaged in the late disastrous scenes acted in the duchy of Baden. Such was to be their fate. But, be it for good or for evil, the Frankfort parliament has died, as was prophesied, and not without convulsions: its purposes have proved null; its hopes have been dispersed to the winds; its very traces have been swept away; its memory is all but a bitter mockery. Thus far, then, we may indeed shake our heads despairingly as we ask – "What has revolutionising Germany as yet attained?"
What has it attained? Let as go on. In the first place, what remains of the gigantic cloud, which men attempted to catch, embody, and model into a palpable form, although with hands inexperienced, and with as little of the creative and vivifying health really within its power, as Frankenstein, when he sought to remould the crumbling elements he possessed into a human form, and produced a monster. What remains of the great united German empire of men's dreams? Nothing but a phantom of a central power, grasping the powerless sceptre of a ghostly empire; surrounded by ministers whose dictates men despise and disregard, in veritable exercise of their functions, as ghostly as itself. The position of the Imperial administration has become a byword and a scoff; and it is lamentable to see a prince, whose good intentions never have been doubted, and whose popular sympathies have been so often shown, standing thus, in a situation which borders upon the ridiculous – an almost disregarded and now useless puppet – a quasi emperor without even the shadow of an empire; and yet condemned to play at empire-administrating – as children play at kings and queens – none heeding their innocent and bootless game. How far the edicts of the defunct Frankfort parliament, and the decrees of the government of the Imperial Vicarage – paralysed in all real strength, if not utterly defunct now – are held as a public mockery, is very pithily evidenced to the least open eyes of any traveller to the baths of Germany, at most of which the gambling tables – supposed to be suppressed, and declared to be illegal by the shade of the "central power," – openly pursue their manœuvres, and earn their gains as of yore; or, at most, fix upon the doors of their hells a ticket, written "salons reservés," to give them the faint appearance of private establishments, and thus adopt a very flimsy pretext, and effect a most barefaced evasion of a hitherto useless law. Croupiers and gamblers sit squatting, most disrespectfully, at almost every bathing-place, upon the Imperial edict – as the toads and frogs squatted upon King Log – treating him as a jest, and covering him with their filthy slime. By what authority – of the same Imperial Vicar also – the whole country around Frankfort is overrun with Prussian soldiers, it would be difficult to show. That the so-called free city itself should be occupied by a joint garrison of Prussian and Austrian troops for its protection, may be looked upon as a legal measure, adopted and authorised by a new parliament, and a central power, such as it is, as by the old Diet. But when we see in every village round about – in every house, in almost every hovel – those hosts of Prussian spiked helmets gleaming in the sun – those Prussian bayonets planted before every door – those Prussian uniforms, studding, with variegated colour, every green rural scene; when we never cease to hear upon the breeze – wherever we may wander in the country – the clang of Prussian military bands, and the tramp of Prussian infantry; when we find the faces of Prussian military at every window, and observe Prussian soldiers mixing in every action of the common everyday life of the country; and then turn to ask how it comes that Prussian soldiers swarm throughout a part of the land in no way belonging to Prussia, we are able to receive no more reasonable answer than that "they are there because they are there" – an explanation which has a more significant meaning in it than the apparently senseless words seem to express. "They are there because they are there" – that is to say, without any recognised authority from any central German power. "They are there because they are there," – because Prussia has sent them. Where, then, is the central power? – what is its force? what its authority? what its sense? If, then, all that still remains, in living form, of that great united Germany of men's dreams, is but the "shadow of a shade," in power – a power disregarded – even more, despised and ridiculed – what has revolutionising Germany attained in its chase after the phantom of its hopes?