g
to be at one with the widely ramified nation and the still more
widespread spirit of humanity. Aimlessly yielding to your artistic
whims, crotchets, and triflings, you make "interesting works of art"
out of your own immaturity, you are satisfied with an audience composed
of an infinitesimal fraction of our people, a fraction, moreover,
which, things being as they are, consists chiefly of the _parvenus_
residing in Berlin W. This is the public which--more is the
pity--dominates the picture galleries, the concert halls, and the
theatres of Berlin, and from Berlin affects to set the standard of
taste for the empire so far, it must be added, as the empire at large
concerns itself at all with this meticulous literature. Religion is a
private matter, declares Social Democracy. We might plaintively add
that literature is a parlor matter, the special affair of Berlin....
Our literature does not throb with the heart-beats of the national
soul. And he who seriously, patriotically, out of the abundance of his
heart and the richness of his mind, and out of a lively sense of
community with the myriads of German-speaking men and women seeks
entrance into the world of letters, he faces in painful amazement the
dilemma: People or literature? Human being or artist? Personality or
artifice?

These utterances might be taken as a reckless abandonment of artistry
in favor of the national, but commonplace; and in fact, _Heimatkunst_,
when assimilated to folklore, as it was in this gospel, did run the
risk of an uninspired monotony. Such writers as Sohnrey and Frenssen
have not altogether escaped the danger. Only the synthesis of form and
content, only creation conscious of racial peculiarity but obedient to
severe esthetic discipline, can keep in the path of fruitful progress.
The intimate connection of man with his native soil presents a modern
artistic problem which can be solved neither by the experimental
method, according to which naturalism investigated the _milieu_ as a
causal factor, nor by the amateurishly descriptive processes of idyllic
poetasters and local favorites, but must be intuitively grasped by the
penetrating eye of a real seer.

Not merely the subject, but also the seer is native to the spot. The
true poet will always be found to know most intimately the land of his
birth and the men of his race. If he confined himself to these, he
would be a narrow specialist. If, on the other hand, he represents
other characters i