In order to put a stop to all the false rumours and wild 
combinations that have been circulated with reference to the 
editorship of our paper, we must state that there has been, and 
will be, no change in the editorial personnel. The circle of our 
collaborators has, however, widened, and we are pleased to inform 
our readers that Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Ferdinand Freiligrath, 
W. Wolff, H. Heise, and thus the most significant literary forces of 
our party, are determined to grant their support to Das Volk and, 
by their contributions, to enable the editorial staff to represent the 
interests of our party in a worthy and comprehensive manner. 

June 11, 1859 paper 

GATHERINGS FROM THE PRESS 

“Our readers are clever people—sometimes, when their criticisms of the 
Hermann reach our ears, one could almost believe that the incalculable majority” 
(the incalculable majority of 600 readers might come to 599)>“of readers are much 
cleverer than we ourselves” (Hermann).4 

Self-knowledge is good in all things, even when, as here, it 
comes rather late. However— 

You greybeards, muster all your forces, 
Let there be more heat in your blood! 
In your last, holiest of causes, 

' For digging trenches you’re still good, 

You must bring up the soil in baskets....> 

(Thusnelda consoles Hermann.) *° 

“Wisconsin, the staunchest Republican state, has sent its clearest and soundest 
speaker, Herr Karl Schurz, to Massachusetts to agitate with bold words.... In an 
excellent and fiery speech he proved...” 

what—is hard to say, unless, as is said later, 

“that he does not consider himself a representative of that great nation of 
thinkers that is called the German nation”.* (Student Schurz as calculable minority 

and autobiographer.*6!) 

You young men, sharpen up your sword-blades, 
Be brave, as brave as Hermann was. 

(Thusnelda.) 

“We have seen a sample of this fireproof muslin and tested it with a candle. If 
it is drawn slowly through the flame, it does not burn at all; if it is held in the 
flame for a longer time, it chars, but the fire does not spread. But an English lady 
who had seen the larger piece at the exposition remarked that the stuff did not 
look as clear and fresh as untreated muslin” (Hermann—editorial note).* 

And you, O women, let the calling 
Be piety for each and all! 

(Thusnelda.) 

It did our cosmopolitan heart good to read that Arminius, 
mindful of that sublime moment in which he _ presented 
Mr. Kossuth with the revolution in the West in exchange for the one 
in the East, takes the 

“17 million Slavs” of Austria under his protection and “therefore has not only 
given space for the correspondent in question directly after this leading article but 
has even invited him to speak in the Hermann as representative of his nationality”. 

As “it must remain an open question for republicans on which side one will 
stand in the Italian war’’,> 

half will declare for Prussia, half for Louis Napoleon, half for 
Italy, half for Little Germany, half for Great Germany, half for 
regency, half for the Imperial parliament, but all for Herr Bender, 
8, Little Newport Street, Leicester Square, to whom “any one who 
has learned to read” (“Presse und Werkstatt”) need only apply to 
be initiated into the secrets of natural science without “laborious 
studies and. lectures’”’.“ 

A Czech says in the last number of the Hermann: 

“We were ... the first champions ... of the social idea.”4 

Werkstatt”, Hermann, No. 21, May 28, 1859.— Ed. 

To this the spiritual gentleman who holds that “Salon” 
remarks: 

“Was it not the Swiss before the Czechs?” 4 

The only social idea that the Swiss have championed is summed 
up in the words: Point d’argent, point de Suisses (Kein Kreuzer, keine 
Schweizer).” The ‘“New-Swiss” Vogt and the “New-Kreuzer” 
Kinkel** know how to evaluate this “social idea” in its world- 
historical significance. 

In the same “Salon” it is said: 

“We find it understandable that English insurance companies are no longer 
willing to accept (!) German goods intended for overseas world markets.”¢ 

Well, how many “world markets” does the “spiritual” gentleman 
know? 

Sample of coherence in the Wochenblatt aus London, alias the 
Hermann: 

“A pair of swallows is nesting on the laurel-covered grave of Humboldt. The 
dreadful region of juvenile crime, whose germs should be rooted out phreno- 

logically and physiatrically at the outset, has been recently illustrated again by a 
nine-year-old boy in Schmiedeberg.”4 

Hermann’s judgment on Metternich—The judgment on Metter- 
nich’s policy is formulated as follows: 

“Where Metternich and his men have committed infamy and crime for almost 
an entire century, for a long time no child of peace can sleep sweetly by the brook, 

as Schiller says.¢ Just let him” (viz., Schiller) “try, e.g., on the Mincio.”f 

To change the Mincio into a “brook” is something that only the 
inventor of “overseas world markets” could succeed in doing. 
Hermann explains in an article on 

“the vacancy at the Savoy Church in London” that “he” (Hermann) “makes 
himself dearer to his countrymen in London and at home every day”.& 

True enough. He gives less each week for 3d. This may be 
connected with the exact enumeration of the vacant “emolu- 

June 18, 1859.— Ed. 

Hermann, No. 24, June 18, 1859.— Ed. 

ments”,” an enumeration through which there shines the desire to 
transfer the “Salon” to the “Savoy Church”. 

* * € 

No. 26 of the Gottfried brings Hermann’ letter of resignation.” It 
runs as follows: 

“To our readers: 

“With the present number my activity as editor of this paper ends. The only 
reason for my withdrawal is the condition of my health, which does not permit me 
to continue, along with my previous profession of teacher, this other and so diversifying 
activity.” (So the profession of teacher is one activity along with this other activity.) 
“Since I accordingly” (according to what?) “am no further responsible for the 
content of the paper” (he will rather not be responsible for its further contents), “I 
have also let the ownership pass into other hands. ‘The enterprise, whose success is 
now” (viz., by. Kinkel’s removal) “assured, will be carried on in the same spirit as 
previously” (cheap prices and real service) “and while I previously hardly found time 
and space even to write for it” (viz., the enterprise), “I will henceforward” (later), 
“free from the burdens of outside work, submit all the more numerous contributions 
as correspondent.” (If Gottfried appears “all the more numerously” as correspon- 
dent, the less “space” he found previously, what will become of the success of the 
enterprise, which now was to be “assured” by his disappearance as editor?) “I take 
leave of readers and co-workers with friendly thanks for their participation and 

support. 
“Gottfried Kinkel” 

The last Gottfried carries an editorial announcement as final 
sample of the “so diversifying activity” to which Hermann bids 
such a friendly farewell: | 

“We” (namely Gottfried) “feel a kind of malicious joy every time one of our 
correspondents once comes a regular cropper; for as a rule someone (!) will be found 
among our readers for whom the blunder is an occasion” (why not rather a shock?) 
“to make a penetrating and instructive communication about the thing” (penetrating 
about the thing) “aimed at” (rather, the thing hit, namely the blunder). “It is to such an 
oversight that we owe in this” (which?) “case as well the valuable correction from 
which every reader” (but certainly no correspondent!) “will soon see that its author, as 
they say on the Rhine, is a man who sticks to his guns.” (Isn’t that so, fair reader?) 
“Unfortunately the urgent political material, especially the wretched high politics of our 
correspondents, only today gave us the possibility of printing this article” (to wit, this 
editorial note).¢ 

cr 

We see that, despite his deeply-felt thanks, Hermann does not 
part from the “correspondents” without bitterness. In his own 

> It was dated London, June 30, 1859, Hermann, No. 26, July 2, 1859.— Ed. 

No. 26, July 2, 1859.— Ed. 

salon the poor man hardly found the space “earlier” to place “this 
article” on “the cropper” and “the man who sticks to his guns”. 

And here we say in respect of the “former” editor of the 
Gottfried: De mortuis nil nisi bene* But to the “later” correspon- 
dent, Hermann: We shall meet again at Philippi.” 

A diplomatic-strategic discovery. 

The Hermann says: 

“Prussia’s armed mediation, it is said, takes the Mincio line as its basis; well, 
after the battle of Solferino this line stands out in clearer relief. Only the shadows 
of the walls of Mantua and Peschiera still darken it. A siege must bring light into 
this darkness.” ¢ 

The skilful columnist? of the Hermann sends his articles, after 
they have been worn out in London, to Leipzig as well, to the 
Gartenlaube. To spice the report of the Humboldt festival 
arranged by the Association of German Men we are informed that 

“a communist association, which now publishes a weekly paper, has made it its 

special task to vilify not only Kinkel’s journal but him personally, in the most 
offensive way, not stopping at the baldest lies, etc.” 

On this we remark only that our journal, as the columnist must 
know from our repeated statements, is not a paper published by 
any kind of association and that the charges we have made against 
Herr Kinkel cannot be branded as lies until they have been 
refuted, and that has not happened yet and will never happen. By 
the way, we are indebted to the honourable reporter for the news 
that Kinkel’s sermon, 

“the finest fragrance of thé festivities”, took as its text, “As thou forgettest Zion, 
so shalt thou be forgotten”,¢ and that he began it “raising his hand to the 
black-red-gold  flag”’. 

The Hermann makes a joke. In a Hermann article on Austria, 
we hear that the Habsburgs have always been stepfathers for their 
hereditary lands but stepmothers for the German Empire. The 
author of the article in question, full of excerpts from Pölitz’s 
Weltgeschichte for German maidens, has adequately demonstrated 
that an old or a young man can be an old woman, but that a 

No. 26, July 2, 1859.— Ed. 

stepfather can be a stepmother is something we had not previously 
believed to be possible. 

The rejuvenated Hermann under the editorship of E. J. Juch & 
Co. merits an exhaustive review. Let us begin at once with the first 
leader* on “Prussia’s position”.? 

In the event that peace is concluded between France and 
Austria | 

“Prussia will remain for some time pretty much the same as it has been. At the 
same time it will gradually come into another position. Still more rapidly” (than 
gradually), “however, it must change its position, provided (!) the war continues; for 
it would then be (!) forced to act and, if it does not seek (!) a secure position for 
itself in good time, lose every solid foundation, in order to go under with the rest of 
the states of the German Confederation.” (Prussia might perhaps not be unwilling 
to lose “the solid foundation in order to go under”.) 

The author now brings Prussia on in various more or less 
enticing poses plastiques.“ Firstly, Prussia could act as a European 
great power, and, indeed, in a double fashion. 

“Prussia could, by behaving as an independent great power, act completely on its 
own” (independently?). “This” (action!) “would be a purely European standpoint, 
whose purpose” (the purpose of a standpoint) ... “would prove to be a question of 
power; for preservation of the equilibrium, which the treaties will subserve, is the 
balancing of the power available to the” (which?) “national interest. In that case Prussia 
could take as its starting point the violation of the 1815 treaties caused by the present 
war, treaties to which it was a contracting party” (a father instead of one of the 
fathers), “while it sought to indemnify itself by material guarantees for the services it 
hereby” (by the violation of the treaties?) “rendered to the monarchical order of 
Europe.” Besides this crafty proceeding “Prussia could also as a European great 
power place itself on purely political ground, by opposing, for reasons of 
self-preservation, the overstrengthening of its French rival” (non bis in idem4; the 
balance of power has come up already). “It could plead on its own behalf that 
because England be (!!) still an open and Russia an already secret Ally of France, the 
enemy of Austria, etc.” 

After Prussia has thus in so many ways proved itself as a 
European great power, 

“it can thereafter take up an exclusively German standpoint. Here too it has a 
choice. That is, it can either take a place as a German great power above the other 

states” (including Turkey) “or, while assuming the humble attitude of an equal 
confederate, put itself below or alongside the small countries” (Swiss cantons?). (It is not 
quite clear why an equal confederate should occupy a lower place.) 

In other words, either Prussian Kaiser rule or continuance of 
the German Confederation. 

The first “would mean taking its place seriously at the head of Germany, like a 
power that knows that necessity makes a law” (for ordinary people necessity knows 
no law, for Gothaists it makes a law, and a very unpretentious one at that), 
“wherefore it” (necessity), “since its existence is at stake” (the existence of necessity 
is at stake), “must depart from inhibiting forms, etc.” 

The reasons that “Prussia could adduce for such a revolutionary 
policy” involve our author in a true embarras de richesses. Among 
other things: 

“The foreign countries hostile to the unity of Germany—Russia and England, 
which with the complicated seesaw system of German counterbalancing hindered 
the power development of the German great powers by continual mutual 
weakening—worked rather for themselves than for Germany in the establishment 
of the Confederation, etc.” (A strange plan of Russia and England, the foreign 
countries, to weaken each other in order to prevent the power development of 
Prussia!) “Finally, it” (Prussia) “shows that it completely understands the essential 
nature of the present war, which, like the Thirty Years’ War, has as its purpose the 
termination of the 1848 revolution.” “For. these reasons” (that is, because the 
Thirty Years’ War had the purpose of terminating the revolution of 1848) “Prussia 
no longer recognises the Federal Diet ... and regards the sovereignty of all the other 
German princes for extinguished, etc.” Finally, however, “the Prussian Govern- 
ment, if this revolutionary policy seemed too precarious to it” (i.e. Prussia), “could 
choose the conservative standpoint. It could choose it ... because the Prussian 
reigning dynasty as an equal” (to what?) “has to respect the maintenance of the 
others” (what others?), ... “because Prussia, while it is not independent, governs its 
conduct by those of neutral England, etc.” 

Up to now it has “wavered”. It let “rival Austria” be defeated. 

“It sought constantly to pull over the small states by means of treaties.” (To put 
one over on them, pull the wool over their eyes, or to win them over?) “It came 
back to Frankfurt” (from Erfurt 466) “with almost the identical proposals which, if they 
came from Hanover or Bavaria, Prussia would not have sanctioned.” 

In the end the author designates this as a “routine procedure”, 
although it shows little routine in the consecutio temporum.* 

Unfortunately, the treaty of Villafranca at one blow brushed 
away all the Prussian positions that Gotha fantasy could arrive at. 
Accordingly, we turn from the “high policy” of Messrs. Juch & 
Comp. to Tyrtaeus, who sings of the battle of Solferino in the 

rejuvenated Hermann. This Tyrtaeus seems to be an easy-going 
fellow. He does not doubt for a moment that the Zouaves, Turcos, 
Croats, Raizen, Czechs et autres? Zéphyres,*”’ who fought at 
Solferino, 

were it not for the two emperors? would have, everywhere in the world that 
chance might have brought them together, eaten and drunk, treated and greeted one 
another as harmless, amiable people”. (They would have eaten and drunk one another! 
What cannibalistic amiability!) 

The metre in which the battle is sung is that of the heroic epic, 
hexameter. Kleist, as we know, enlarged the hexameter with a 
short anacrusis. Our singer outdoes Kleist; a couple of anacrustic 
or complementary syllables more or less make no difference to 
him. On the other hand, these are hexameters that come straight 
from battle, and should be pardoned if here and there a foot is 
lacking or a member dislocated. 

And so, a few samples: 

“So mortally sickened 

By exhaustion, heat, and by thirst with its merciless torture.’ 

“Only at least this recent decade burdened with curses.’ 

“Out in blistéring sinshine, All bloody and thirsty, s6me strick by 
The coup de grace from a bayonet blade of a sudden descending, 
In most cases only, however, by 
Slashes and blows on wide- -Opén wounds, 

TO 4 horriblé death pain waking thém.” 

“Thé hot and naked simmits flowed with steaming réd blood, in 
Which there wallowed mutilated men.’ 

“An. arm missing hére, thére a lég, or 
All thé jaw from a face, or all thé 
Side df 4 héad.” 

“Then it all went 
Sull and sombre. Frém hills and fr3m dales came shiverings, cries and 
Moaning amain, now here, now there, everywhere hour-broad.” 

“On the day of battle 
All hot and burning, they had not a drop of water to ease thém.” 

“Others panted and 
Gurgled and showed thé whites of their glazing éyés 
To the tardy surgeon.” ¢ 

After the battle song, historical criticism. In an article from 
Paris the “thinker” of the rejuvenated Hermann reveals to us 
Louis Bonaparte’s relation to the revolution. 

¢ “Solferino”, Hermann, No. 27, July 9, 1859.— Ed. 

“The revolution is justified as long as it is under the wing of the emperor and is 
permitted by him.... But it retains its original shape and must be crushed to the 
ground as soon as it counters the emperor’s interests or interferes with his plans.” 4 

Here is wisdom: 

I have now seen the ground wherein 
My anchor shall hold fast forever. 

Rushing down from the “wretched regions of high politics”, of 
cannon thunder and historical criticism,, we come upon a modest, 
isolated “Workshop”, the quiet retreat in which our old friend 
Gottfried has settled as new correspondent. He grumbles to us: 

“Up to now, because of all the war and politics, this paper could not find space, 
etc.” 
We know the old complaint. He offers, as an artistic cicerone, to 
take us through the “Exhibition of the Academy on Trafalgar 

Square”. In the familiar “golden” flow of language of the 

“almost heroic man who like the bee sucks drops of honey even from poisonous 
flowers” (see the Gartenlaube), 

he whispers to us that 

“Leslie’s bright little pictures ... are true little pearls of fine art”. 

But what he is concerned with most of all are the Pre- 
Raphaelites,“ and since example is better than precept, he has set out 
some Pre-Raphaelite wordpaintings in his own “Workshop” which 
save us the walk to Trafalgar Square. 

Pre-Raphaelite painting No. 1. 

“From 11 o’clock on and throughout the whole afternoon fashionable crinoline 
reigned in the hall, and the favourite pictures of the public were then continually 
lounged around.” 

Pre-Raphaelite painting No. 2. 

“Everything has value that is done perfectly in its kind. A pair of trousers, e.g.,if it 
is well made and doesn’t pinch.” 

July 9, 1859.— Ed. 

“Presse und Werkstatt”, Hermann, No. 27, July 9, 1859.— Ed. 

Pre-Raphaelite painting No. 3. 

“In the convent cemetery two nuns are occupied in making a grave.... They are 
two robust figures of women, who take turns at the gloomy work of the twilight” 
(the two robust figures take turns while the twilight does the work for them): “One 
standing in the grave as she, with the muscular arms of a washerwoman, throws up 
the heavy, wet, black earth, grown through with tree roots, a quite prosaic, ordinary, 
indifferent person.” 

A person grown through with tree roots may be quite prosaic but is 
extraordinary in any case. Still the sans-géne* with which that same 
person uses the arms of a washerwoman instead of her own for the 
digging does suggest a certain indifference. 

From these samples, however, the “craftsman” will realise what 
Gottfried gives him urgently to “think over”, namely that the 
eunuch school of art 

“would help him more in his business” (utile cum dulci) “than Sunday 
excursions to Epping Forest or the Botanical Gardens at Kew”, more than “all the 
jolly taverns in the suburbs”, more than “evening gatherings” and “threshing out 
the great problem of whether at the next revolution the thousand-year rule of the 
tailor journeymen will dawn under the title of the workers’ dictatorship”. 

We, however, despite all the Pre-Raphaelites, stick to the old 
wise saw: Cacatum non est pictum<