man States have even, as I must most gratefully acknowledge, done me
good service in this respect. The warrants of arrest which at every
German station past the frontier await the return of this poet, are
thoroughly renovated every year during the holy Christmastide, when the
little candles glow merrily on the Christmas trees. It is this
insecurity of the roads which has almost destroyed my pleasure in
travelling through the German meads. I am therefore celebrating my
Christmas in an alien land, and it will be as an exile in a foreign
country that I shall end my days._

_But those valiant champions of Light and Truth who accuse me of
fickleness and servility, are able to go about quite securely in the
Fatherland--as well-stalled servants of the State, as dignitaries of a
Guild, or as regular guests of a club where of evenings they may regale
themselves with the vinous juices of Father Rhine and with
"sea-surrounded Schleswig-Holstein" oysters._

_It was my express intention to indicate in the foregoing at what period
"Atta Troll" was written. At that time the so-called art of political
poetry was in full flower. The opposition, as Ruge says, sold its
leather and became poetry. The Muses were given strict orders that they
were thenceforth no longer to gad about in a wanton, easy-going fashion,
but would be compelled to enter into national service, possibly as_
vivandieres _of liberty or as washerwomen of Christian-Germanic
nationalism. Especially were the bowers of the German bards afflicted by
that vague and sterile pathos, that useless fever of enthusiasm which,
with absolute disregard for death, plunges itself into an ocean of
generalities. This always reminds me of the American sailor who was so
madly enthusiastic over General Jackson that he sprang from the
mast-head into the sea, crying out: "I die for General Jackson!" Yes,
even though we Germans as yet possessed no fleet, still we had plenty of
sailors who were willing to die for General Jackson, in prose or verse.
In those days talent was a rather questionable gift, for it brought one
under suspicion of being a loose character. After thousands of years of
grubbing deliberation, Impotence, sick and limping Impotence, at last
discovered its greatest weapon against the over-encouragement of
genius--it discovered, in fact, the antithesis between Talent and
Character. It was almost personally flattering to the great masses when
they heard it said that good, average