IV
We next meet Kinkel again in London, and this time, thanks to his prison fame and the sentimentality of the German philistines, he has become the greatest man in Germany. Mindful of his sublime mission friend Gottfried was able to exploit all the advantages of the moment. His romantic escape gave new impetus to the Kinkel cult in Germany and he adroitly directed this onto a path that was not without beneficial material consequences. At the same time this metropolis provided the much venerated man with a new, complex arena in which to receive even greater acclaim. He did not hesitate: he had to become the lion of the season.[b] With this in mind he refrained for the time being from all political activity and withdrew into the seclusion of his home in order to grow a beard, without which no prophet can succeed. After that he visited Dickens, the English liberal newspapers, the German businessmen in the City and especially the aesthetic Jews in that place. He was all things to all men: to one a poet, to another a patriot in general, professor of fine arts to a third, Christ to the fourth, the great long-suffering Odysseus to the fifth. To everyone, however, he appeared as the gentle, artistic, benevolent and humanitarian Gottfried. He did not rest until Dickens had eulogised him in the Household Words* until the Illustrated Newsb
had published his portrait. He mobilised the few Germans in London who had been involved in the Kinkel mania even at a distance to invite him ostensibly to lecture on modern drama; tickets to these lectures flooded into the homes of the local German businessmen. No running around, no advertisement, no charlatanism, no importunity, no humiliation in front of this audience was beneath him; in return, however, he did not go unrewarded. Gottfried sunned himself complacently in the mirror of his own fame and in the gigantic mirror of the Crystal Palace[165]
of the world. And we may say that he now felt tremendously content.
There was no lack of praise for his lectures (see Kosmos).
Kosmos: "Kinkel's Lectures" "While looking once at Döbler's misty images I was surprised by the whim-sical question of whether it was possible to produce such chaotic creations in 'words', whether it was possible to utter misty images. It is no doubt unpleasant for the critic to have to confess, at the very outset, that in this case his critical autonomy will vibrate against the galvanised nerves of a stimulating reminiscence, as the fading sound of a dying note echoes in the strings. Nevertheless I would prefer to renounce any attempt at a bewigged and boring analysis of pedantic insensitivity than to deny that tone which the charming muse of the German refugee caused to resonate in my receptive imagination. This keynote of Kinkel's paintings, this sounding board of his chords is the sonorous, creative, formative and gradually shaping 'word'—'modern thought'. The human 'judgment' of this thought leads truth out of the chaos of mendacious traditions, and places it, as the inviolable property of mankind, under the protection of spiritually active, logical minorities who will lead mankind from a credulous ignorance to a state of more sceptical science. It is the task of the science of doubt to profane the mysticism of pious deceit, to undermine the absolutism of a stupefied tradition; through scepticism, that ceaselessly labouring guillotine of philosophy, to decapitate accepted authority and to lead the nations out of the misty regions of theocracy by means of revolution into the luscious meadows of democracy" (of nonsense). "The sustained, unflagging search in the annals of mankind, and the understanding of man himself, is the great task of all revolutionaries and this had been understood by that proscribed poet-rebel who on three recent Monday evenings uttered his 'dissolving views'0 before a bourgeois audience in the course of his lectures on the history of the modern theatre."
It is generally claimed that this worker is a very close relation of Kinkel's—namely Mockel—as indeed seems likely from the use of such expressions as "sounding board", "fading sound", "chords" and "galvanised nerves".
However, even this period of hard-earned self-satisfaction was not to last forever. The Last Judgment on the existing world order, the democratic day of judgment, namely the much celebrated May 1852,[167] was drawing ever closer. In order to confront this day all booted and spurred Gottfried Kinkel had to don his political lion's skin once more: he had to make contact with the "emigration".
So we come to the London "emigration", this hotchpotch of former members of the Frankfurt Parliament, the Berlin National Assembly, and Chamber of Deputies, of gentlemen from the Baden campaign, giants from the comedy of the Imperial Constitution,[168] writers without a public, loudmouths from the democratic clubs and congresses, twelfth-rate journalists and so forth.
The great men of the Germany of 1848 had been on the point of coming to a sticky end when the victory of the "tyrants" rescued them, swept them out of the country and made saints and martyrs of them. They were saved by the counter-revolution. The course of continental politics brought most of them to London, which thus became their European centre. It is evident that in this situation something had to happen, something had to be arranged to remind the public daily of the existence of these world liberators. It was necessary at all costs to preclude the impression that universal history might be able to proceed without the intervention of these mighty men. The more this refuse of mankind found itself hindered by its own impotence as much as by the prevailing situation from undertaking any real action, the more zealously did it indulge in spurious activity whose imagined deeds, imagined parties, imagined struggles and imagined interests had been so noisily trumpeted abroad by those involved. The less able these people were to bring about a new revolution in fact, the more they had to anticipate this eventuality in their minds, to share out the plum jobs in advance and enjoy the prospect of future power. The form taken by this self-important activity was that of a mutual insurance club of would-be great men and the reciprocal guarantee of government posts.
Endnotes
[165] [Editorial note 165: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[167] [Editorial note 167: text not recovered from the source scan.]