Читать книгу The Germans: Double History Of A Nation - Emil Grimm Ludwig - Страница 12

THE ROMANS no more than the Franks or the Italians—indeed, not a single neighbor of the Germans—could ever trust the Germans to remain peaceable. No matter how happy their condition, their restless passion would urge them on to ever more extreme demands. The warlike Germans could no more bear an idyllic state of affairs than could Faust and his thousands of German fellow spirits the calm heights of the mind. To enjoy achievement and the fleeting moment was denied them. What was it these irresistible conquerors lacked?

They lacked spirit, humaneness, vision. The Carthaginians and even the Romans came to colonize with fire and sword and so did the French when they forced the three ideals of the great Revolution upon the world. But with all of them ideals played a part—a theogony or religion, philosophy or natural science, a verse, a song on the lips of the conqueror. In their footsteps followed men who guarded the treasures of the spirit. But the Teutons were barbarians not because they were unable to read, but because they lacked the wisdom of the heart, the instinct of the mind, the knowledge of nature, wisdom and humility—the heritage of the Mediterranean, the source and substance of mankind.

The inner lack of security that dwelt in the Teutonic soul even while the Teutonic body surged forward victoriously—indeed, particularly then—was not assuaged by the conquest of Europe. It grew, betraying itself in a willingness of the Teutons to accept readily whatever was offered them by the Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, whose conquerors but not superiors they were. The occasional efforts by these nomads, shunted from their wild forests to the luxuriant gardens of Sicily or the Provence, to emulate the heritage and lessons of generations were touching in their simple-mindedness. Never have they been more profoundly grasped than in Schubert’s “Wanderer,” who moans:—

I wander still, in pain and tears,

And ever ask with sighing. Where?

A spirit voice doth answer near:

There where thou art not, all joy is there.

Only one of the wandering tribes built up anything within the Roman Empire: the Franks, who conquered Gaul and founded France. Clovis, their chieftain, a typically Teutonic barbarian, brave, naïve and cunning, seems to have been the first constructive force among the Germans, around 500 A.D. By assimilating Teutons and Romans he laid the basis for the later Carolingian Empire. On a Christmas Day he, together with three thousand heathen Franks, was baptized with immense pomp and circumstance. What could have taken a stronger hold on the imagination of these savage people, bound neither by State nor by law, than the complete contrast of this faith? What—a God who did not wreak vengeance, who did not send his thunderbolts in retribution? A God who blessed and forgave? Here were priests who lifted up instead of abasing, a court of judgment that went to the heart! The whole structure of the ancient Teutons was shaken to the core when they were suddenly confronted with an invisible hand that banished all force. This period of transition lasted five centuries—indeed, the last mass baptism among the Frisians took place seven hundred years after the first.