48. Berlin Miscellany
Berlin, August 19. I am writing to you today to report that there is really nothing to report from here. Heaven knows, it is now the silly season or gherkin time, as they say here. Nothing is happening, absolutely nothing! The Union of the Historical Christ gives no more signs of life than the Union of the Free [167]; although officially it exists, no student really knows where it exists or who belongs to it. It is probably the same as with the famous torchlight procession six months ago for the philosopher in the Leipziger Strasse,[168] in which, too, no student would afterwards admit having taken part, and of which it was already said the day before that they were unfortunately mostly "philistines". The Commissions of the Estates have not yet materialised either, in spite of the Leipziger Zeitung* which, with its passion for unhatched Prussian eggs, conducts interminable debates on whatever is to be placed before the Commissions.[169] But we console ourselves with the wisdom of our King,b and leave the unhatched eggs in peace. He is said to have brought with him a trade treaty and a new cartel convention, and that will certainly not be unhatched eggs! Far from bothering about that, we — I mean we Berliners — envy the Rhinelanders the great enjoyment that will be theirs in a few weeks, when not only our King, but many other persons of high rank, including the worthy King Ludwig of Bavaria, the poet on the throne, author of Walhallagenossen and founder of Valhalla,[170]
will attend the laying of the foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, which is to be completed as an ornament for the German people. The Walhallagenossen caused a lively sensation in local educated circles, and the general, competent judgment pronounces without qualification that King Ludwig has added a new laurel branch to his crown. Terse as Tacitus', strong and elemental-ly forceful, the King's style can be confident of imitation and yet will only rarely be equalled.
Endnotes
[167] See Note 164. p. 353
[168] 168 On March 18, 1842, when Schelling finished his lectures on the "philosophy of revelation", Berlin students organised a torchlight procession in the Leipziger Strasse, where the philosopher lived.
[169] -j-jjg Commissions of the Estates in the Landtags (provincial diets), to which Engels is referring here, were instituted in Prussia in June 1842. Elected by the Landtags from their deputies according to the estates principle, they formed a single advisory body known as the "UnitedCommissions", which the government intended to convene in Berlin on October 18, 1842. With the help of this body, which was a mockery of a representative institution, Frederick William IV hoped to enforce new taxes and obtain a loan.
[170] Valhalla (from the name given in Norse mythology to the abode of the souls of slain warriors) — a huge building near Regensburg erected in 1841 by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. Busts of many famous Germans were collected there. Walhalla's Genossen, geschildert durch König Ludwig den Ersten von Bayern, dem Gründer Walhalla's was published in Munich in 1842; it contained biographies of Germans whose busts were exhibited in Valhalla.