people were certainly poor
musicians as a rule, but that, on the other hand, fine musicians were
not usually good people--that goodness was the important thing in this
world and not music. Empty-Head now beat resolutely upon his full Heart,
and Sentiment was trumps. I recall an author of that day who accounted
his inability to write as a peculiar merit in himself, and who, because
of his wooden style, was given a silver cup of honour._

_By the eternal gods! at that time it became necessary to defend the
inalienable rights of the spirit, above all in poetry. Inasmuch as I
have made this defence the chief business of my life, I have kept it
constantly before me in this poem whose tone and theme are both a
protest against the plebiscite of the tribunes of the times. And verily,
even the first fragments of "Atta Troll" which saw the light, aroused
the wrath of my heroic worthies, my dear Romans, who accused me not only
of a literary but also of a social reaction, and even of mocking the
loftiest human ideals. As to the esthetic worth of my poem--of that I
thought but little, as I still do to-day--I wrote it solely for my own
joy and pleasure, in the fanciful dreamy manner of that romantic school
in which I whiled away my happiest years of youth, and then wound up by
thrashing the schoolmaster. Possibly in this regard my poem is to be
condemned. But thou liest, Brutus, thou too, Cassius, and even thou,
Asinius, when ye declare that my mockery is levelled against those
ideals which constitute the noble achievements of man, for which I too
have wrought and suffered so much. No, it is just because the poet
constantly sees these ideas before him in all their clarity and
greatness that he is forced into irresistible laughter when he beholds
how raw, awkward, and clumsy these ideas may appear when interpreted by
a narrow circle of contemporary spirits. Then perforce must he jest
about their thick temporal hides--bear hides. There are mirrors which
are ground in so irregular a way that even an Apollo would behold
himself as a caricature in them, and invite laughter. But we do not
laugh at the god but merely at his distorted image._

_Another word. Need I lay any special emphasis upon the fact that the
parodying of one of Freiligrath's poems, which here and there somewhat
saucily titters from the lines of "Atta Troll," in no wise constitutes a
disparagement of that poet? I value him highly, especially at present,
and account him o