Probably, however, they will
gradually lose both the virtues and the defects of their semi-barbarism.
The centuries as they pass will ripen these sons of the north, and they
will enter into the concert of peoples in some other capacity than as a
menace or a dissonance. They have only to transform their hardiness into
strength, their cunning into grace, their Muscovitism into humanity, to
win love instead of inspiring aversion or fear.
July 3, 1856.--The German admires form, but he has no genius for it. He
is the opposite of the Greek; he has critical instinct, aspiration, and
desire, but no serene command of beauty. The south, more artistic, more
self-satisfied, more capable of execution, rests idly in the sense of
its own power to achieve. On one side you have ideas, on the other side,
talent. The realm of Germany is beyond the clouds; that of the southern
peoples is on this earth. The Germanic race thinks and feels; the
southerners feel and express; the Anglo-Saxons will and do. To know, to
feel, to act, there you have the trio of Germany, Italy, England. France
formulates, speaks, decides, and laughs. Thought, talent, will, speech;
or, in other words science, art, action, proselytism. So the parts of
the quartet are assigned.
July 21, 1856.--_Mit sack und pack_ here I am back again in my town
rooms.
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