w actually exists only for those poets who have
not attained any special renown, such as Alfred Mombert, or, perhaps,
we might also include Spitteler. An amalgamation of the different
groups, which in Germany are wont to prove their love for their patron
by combatting his supposed or real opponents rather than by actively
fostering his artistic tendencies, might have produced a strong and
effective reading public. But sooner can a stenographer of the Stolze
school agree with one of the Gabelsberger system than can a votary of
Dehmel dare to recognize the greatness in George, an admirer of
Schnitzler see the importance of Herbert Eulenberg, or a friend of
Gustav Frenssen acknowledge the power of Ricarda Huch. Our public, by
its separatist taste and the unduly emphasized obstinacy of its
antipathies, will continue for a long time still to hinder that unity,
which, rising above even a just recognition of differences, is the
only element which makes a great literature possible. Of course the
critics are to be reckoned among the public, whether we consider
criticism by professional reviewers or the more discriminating
criticism of theatre directors, composers, etc.

In all the foregoing discussion of the prevailingly conservative
forces in the development of literature we have seen that none of
these forces has a completely restraining effect. Language always
undergoes a certain change, even in the most benumbed periods, since
it is obliged to suit itself to the new demands of trade, of society,
even of literature itself. We also saw that form and material were not
an inert mass, but were in continual, though often slow, movement.
Finally, though the public itself always demands essentially the same
thing, it has, nevertheless, new variations which are forced upon it
by its avidity for new subjects; it also demands, when it has enjoyed
a higher artistic education (as in the days of the Classical and
Romantic writers), perfection of technique and increase in
specifically artistic values. Between the abiding and the progressive,
between the conservative and revolutionary tendencies, _the typical
development of the individual himself_ takes its place as a natural
intermediary factor. No literary "generation" is composed of men
actually of the same age. Beside the quite young who are merely
panting to express themselves, stand the mature who exercise an
esthetic discernment, even as regards their own peculiar experience;
finall