- And who ne’er has known such, fleeing,
- Let him weep his grief away.”[1]
“Joy,” says the enthusiastic young Schiller in this rhapsody, “Joy was bestowed on the worm.” “All beings drink joy at Mother Nature’s breast.” Delightful generosity of the happy man! But what do the crushed worms think about it? “Whoso hath a friend,” — but what of the poor wretches in the slums of great cities, beaten, starved, imprisoned, cheated, and cheating, starved and imprisoned again, all through their lifetimes? How many souls do these poor Ishmaelites call their own? But of whom shall the joyful man think, of whom does he or can he think? Of these? No, it is the tendency of selfish joy to build up its own pretty world of fancy. Everything in that world, from cherub to worm, has joy’s sympathy, but only in so far as it is also joyous. Seid umschlungen Millionen! dieser Kuss der ganzen Welt! But in fact dieser Kuss is intended only for the happy world, which in the illusion, beautiful, but yet cruel, of the innocently joyous man, seems to be the whole world. Much good will such kisses do to the Millionen that groan and writhe! Joy ignores them, cannot believe them real.
Such then are some of the dictates of sympathy,
- ↑
- Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen
- Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
- Wer ein holdes Weib errungen
- Mische seinen Jubel ein!
- Ja, — wer auch nur eine Seele
- Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
- Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle,
- Weinend sich aus diesem Bund.
- Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen
