“It is merely a lust of the blood 
and a permission of the will.” * 

Cologne, November 29. In its occasional polemic against the 
Rheinische Zeitung, the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung employs tactics 
which are as characteristic as they are laudable and which, if 
consistently pursued, cannot fail to impress the superficial section 
of the public. To every rebuff merited by its attacks on the 
principles and trend of the Rheinische Zeitung, to every essential 
subject of dispute, to every principled attack on the part of the 
Rheinische Zeitung, the response of the Augsburg newspaper has 
been to wrap itself in the ambiguous cloak of silence, so that it 
always remains impossible to decide whether this silence owes its 
inconspicuous existence to a consciousness of weakness which 
makes it unable to reply, or to a consciousness of superiority which 
makes it unwilling to reply. We have no special reproaches to make 
to the Augsburg newspaper on this account, since it merely treats 
us as it treats Germany, for which it believes it can most beneficially 
show its sympathy by a thoughtful silence, only rarely interrupted 
by travel notes, health bulletins and paraphrased nuptial poems. 
It may well be that the Augsburg newspaper is right to regard 
its silence as a contribution to the public welfare. 

Besides tactics of silence, however, the lady of Augsburg em- 
ploys another method of controversy, which by its verbose, com- 
placent and arrogant loquacity is, as it were, the active com- 
plement to the previous passive and melancholy quietude. The 
lady of Augsburg is silent when it is a question of a fight over 
principles, over the essence of a matter, but she lies in wait, 
observes from afar, and seizes the opportunity when her opponent 

neglects her dress, makes a faux pas? in the dance, or drops her 
handkerchief —and then she “minces virtue and does shake the 
head”.” She blares into the air her long-suppressed, well-meant 
anger with imperturbable aplomb, with all the indignation of 
prudery in dress, and calls out to Germany: “There you see, that 
is the character, that is the frame of mind, that is the consistency 
of the Rheinische Zeitung!” 

“There’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding 
stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah; pah! Give me an ounce of civet; good 
apothecary!” © 

By means of such noisy impromptus, the lady of Augsburg is 
able not only to remind the forgetful public of her vanished 
virtue, her honourable character and mature age, not only to 
adorn her sunken temples with outdated and faded recollections, 
but even to gain surreptitiously some other practical successes 
besides these petty, harmless successes of coquetry. She confronts 
the Rheinische Zeitung as a sturdy fighter, quasi re bene gesta,* 
blustering, upbraiding, provoking, and her petulant provocations 
make the world forget her senile silence and quite recent retreat. 
In addition, the appearance is created and diligently cultivated, 
that the fight between the Augsburg A. Z. and the Rheinische 
Zeitung turns on this kind of paltriness, scandalmongering and 
sartorial solecisms. The host of unintelligent and irresponsible 
people who fail to understand the essential fight in which we 
speak and the lady of Augsburg is silent, but who, on the other 
hand, recognise their own beautiful soul in the captious faultfind- 
ing and petty criticisms of the Augsburg A. Z., applaud and pay 
homage to the honourable lady who castigates her unruly oppo- 
nent with such skill and moderation, more to educate than to hurt 
her. In No. 329 of the Augsburg A. Z. there is another sample of 
this over-subtle, repellent, small-town polemic. 

A correspondent reports from the Main that the Augsburg Allg. 
Ztg. praised Julius Mosen’s political novel The Congress of Verona 
because it was put out by Cotta’s publishing house. We confess 
that, owing to its worthlessness, we only occasionally glance at the 
literary criticism section of the Augsburg A. Z., and are not 
acquainted with its criticism of Mosen. In this matter we put our 
trust a discrétion in the conscience of the correspondent. Assuming 

the fact to be correct, the report is not in itself improbable for, 
according to recent explanations which have been met with a 
refutation based on trickery and not solid reasons, the indepen- 
dence of the critical conscience of the Augsburg A. Z. in respect 
of the place of printing in Stuttgart is at least open to doubt. 
Hence all that remains is that we did not know where the political 
novel was printed, and enfin, not to know that is not a mortal 
political sin. 

Later, apprised of the misstatement about the place of printing, 
the editorial board stated in a note: 

“We have just learnt that The Congress of Verona, by the poet Julius Mosen, was 
not pubtished by Cotta and we tnerefore request our readers to make this 
correction to the report from the Main in No. 317 of this year.” 

Since the chief reproach levelled by the Main correspondent 
against the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung was based soiely on the 
premise that The Congress of Verona nad been published by Cotta, 
since we have explained that this was not the case, and since every 
argument is invalidated if its premise is aboushed, we were entitled 
at any rate to make the extravagant demand on our readers’ 
intelligence that they should correct the report from the Main in 
the light of this statement, and we could believe that we had 
atoned for our injustice to the Augsburg A. Z. But look at the 
Augsburg’s logic! The Augsburg’s logic interprets out correction as 
follows: 

“If Mosen’s Congress of Verona had been published by Cotta, it would have to be 
regarded by all friends of right and freedom as a nasty and unsaleable book; since, 
however, we have subsequently learnt that it was publisned in Berlin, we request 
our respected readers to welcome it, in the poet’s own words, as one of the spirits 
of eternal youth, which stride on along their radiant path and mercilessly trample 
on the old gang.” we 

“That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a 
clothier’s yard.—I’ the clout, ’ the clout, hewgh!”? 

“That,” exclaims the lady of Augsburg triumphantly, “that is what the 
Rheinische Zeitung calis its frame of mind, its consistency!” 

Has the Rheinische Zeitung ever declared the consistencies of the 
Augsburg’s logic to be its consistency or the frame of mind on 
which this logic is based to be its frame of mind? The lady of 
Augsburg was entitled only to conclude: “That is the way in which 
consistency and frame of mind are misunderstood in Augsburg!”’ 
Or does the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung seriously believe that by 
means of Mosen’s toast we would have liked to provide a 

corrective commentary to assess The Congress of Verona? We 
discussed the Schiller festival at rather great length in a feature 
article. We pointed to Schiller “as the prophet of the new 
movement of minds” (No. 326,? correspondence from Leipzig) 
and noted the resulting significance of the Schiller festival. Why 
had we to repudiate Mosen’s toast, which emphasised this signifi- 
cance? Could it be because it contains a sally against the Augsburg 
Allgemeine Zeitung, which the latter had already deserved because 
of its condemnation of Herwegh? All that, however, had nothing 
to do with the report from the Main, for then we should have had 
to write, as the lady of Augsburg imputes to us, ‘““The reader must 
judge the report from the Main in No. 317 in the light of Mosen’s 
poem in No. 320.” The Augsburg’s logic deliberately invents 
this nonsense in order to be able to throw it at us. The verdict of 
the Rheinische Zeitung in the feature article of No. 317 on Mosen’s 
“Bernhard von Weimar” proves, although it needs no proof, that in 
regard to Mosen it has not departed by a hair’s breadth from its 
customary factual criticism. 

For the rest, we admit to the lady of Augsburg that even the 
Rheinische Zeitung is scarcely able to ward off the literary condot- 
tiert, that importunate and disgusting rabble which has sprung up 
all over Germany in the newspaper era of which the Augsburg 
A. Z. is the embodiment. 

Finally, the Augsburg newspaper reminds us of the ballista 
which 

“throws out big words and phrases that leave reality untouched”. 

The Augsburg A. Z., of course, touches on every possible rea- 
lity, Mexican reality, Brazilian reality, but not German reality, 
not even Bavarian reality, and if for once it does touch on 
something of the kind, it invariably takes appearance for reality 
and the reality for appearance. When it is a matter of spiritual and 
true reality, the Rheinische Zeitung could exclaim to the lady of 
Augsburg in the words of Lear: “Do thy worst, blind Cupid.... 
Read thou this challenge”, and the lady of Augsburg would reply 
with Gloucester: “Were all thy letters suns, I could not see.”>