claimed to have first used them in
1774. Indeed, the whole of the complicated self-acting machinery, which
without the intervention of hand labor performed the different processes
necessary to change raw cotton into thread suitable for warp, was
substantially the invention of Arkwright; and while each separate
machine was in itself a remarkable triumph of inventive skill, the
construction of the whole series, and the adaptation of each to its
individual function in the continuous succession of operations, must be
regarded as an almost unique achievement in the history of invention.

INTELLECTUAL REVOLT OF GERMANY

GOETHE'S "WERTHER" REVIVES ROMANTICISM

A.D. 1775

KARL HILLEBRAND

The latter half of the eighteenth century was, throughout Europe, a
period of revolt against the old ideas, the outworn bonds of mediaeval
society. In art and literature the older system, with its elaborately
planned rules and formulas, is technically called "classicism"; and the
outburst against it established "romanticism," the spirit of desire, the
longing for higher things, an impulse which ruled the intellectual world
for generations, and which many critics still believe to be the chief
hope for the future.

Romanticism found expression, more or less impassioned and defiant, in
every land, but its earliest and strongest impulse is generally regarded
as having sprung from Germany. The sceptical, half-cynical rule of
Frederick the Great had left men's minds free, and imagination was
everywhere aroused. The early culmination of its extravagance is found
in the youth of Goethe and Schiller, Germany's two greatest poets; and
Goethe's famous novel, _The Sorrows of Young Werther_, became the
text-book of the rising generation of romanticists. Werther kills
himself for disappointed love, and the book has been seriously accused
of creating an epidemic of suicide in Germany. Hillebrand, writer of the
following analysis of the period and the movement, is among the foremost
of present-day German authorities upon the subject.

Goethe was twenty-six years old when he accepted (1775) the invitation
of Charles Augustus, and transported to Weimar the tone and the
_allures_ of the literary bohemia of Strasburg. There, to the terror of
the good burghers of that small residence, to the still greater terror
of the microscopic courtiers, began that "genial" and wild life which he
and his august companion led during several years. Hunting, ridi