By one of those eternal contrasts which redress the balance of things, the romance peoples, who excel in the practical matters of life, care nothing for the philosophy of it; while the Germans, who know very little about the practice of life, are masters of its theory. Every living being seeks instinctively to complete itself; this is the secret law according to which that nation whose sense of life is fullest and keenest, drifts most readily toward a mathematical rigidity of theory. Matter and form are the eternal oppositions, and the mathematical intellects are often attracted by the facts of life, just as the sensuous minds are often drawn toward the study of abstract law. Thus strangely enough, what we think we are is just what we are not: what we desire to be is what suits us least; our theories condemn us, and our practice gives the lie to our theories. And the contradiction is an advantage, for it is the source of conflict, of movement, and therefore a condition of progress. Every life is an inward struggle, every struggle supposes two contrary forces; nothing real is simple, and whatever thinks itself simple is in reality the farthest from simplicity. Therefore it would seem that every state is a moment in a series; every being a compromise between contraries. In concrete dialectic we have the key which opens to us the understanding of beings in the series of beings, of states in the series of moments; and it is in dynamics that we have the explanation of equilibrium. Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium.
These two principles have been often clear to me, but I have never applied them widely or rigorously enough.
July 1, 1856.—A man and still more a woman, always betrays something of his or her nationality. The women of Russia, for instance, like the lakes and rivers of their native country, seem to be subject to sudden and prolonged fits of torpor. In their movement, undulating and caressing like that of water, there is always a threat of unforeseen frost. The high latitude, the difficulty of life, the inflexibility of their autocratic régime, the heavy and mournful sky, the inexorable climate, all these harsh fatalities have left their mark upon the Muscovite race. A certain somber obstinacy, a kind of primitive ferocity, a foundation of savage harshness which, under the influence of circumstances, might become implacable and pitiless; a cold strength, an indomitable power of resolution which would rather wreck the whole world than yield, the indestructible instinct of the barbarian tribe, perceptible in the half-civilized nation, all these traits are visible to an attentive eye, even in the harmless extravagances and caprices of a young woman of this powerful race. Even in their badinage they betray something of that fierce and rigid nationality which burns its own towns and [as Napoleon said] keeps battalions of dead soldiers on their feet.
What terrible rulers the Russians would be if ever they should spread the night of their rule over the countries of the south! They would bring us a polar despotism, tyranny such as the world has never known, silent as darkness, rigid as ice, insensible as bronze, decked with an outer amiability and glittering with the cold brilliancy of snow, a slavery without compensation or relief. 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. I have said good-bye to my friends and my country joys, to verdure, flowers, and happiness. Why did I leave them after all? The reason I gave myself was that I was anxious about my poor uncle, who is ill. But at bottom are there not other reasons? Yes, several. There is the fear of making myself a burden upon the two or three families of friends who show me incessant kindness, for which I can make no return. There are my books, which call me back. There is the wish to keep faith with myself. But all that would be nothing, I think, without another instinct, the instinct of the wandering Jew, which snatches from me the cup I have but just raised to my lips, which forbids me any prolonged enjoyment, and cries “go forward! Let there be no falling asleep, no stopping, no attaching yourself to this or that!” This restless feeling is not the need of change. It is rather the fear of what I love, the mistrust of what charms me, the unrest of happiness. What a bizarre tendency, and what a strange nature! not to be able to enjoy anything simply, naïvely, without scruple, to feel a force upon one impelling one to leave the table, for fear the meal should come to an end. Contradiction and mystery! not to use, for fear of abusing; to think one’s self obliged to go, not because one has had enough, but because one has stayed awhile. I am indeed always the same; the being who wanders when he need not, the voluntary exile, the eternal traveler, the man incapable of repose, who, driven on by an inward voice, builds nowhere, buys and labors nowhere, but passes, looks, camps, and goes. And is there not another reason for all this restlessness, in a certain sense of void? of incessant pursuit of something wanting? of longing for a truer peace and a more entire satisfaction? Neighbors, friends, relations, I love them all; and so long as these affections are active, they leave in me no room for a sense of want. But yet they do not fill my heart; and that is why they have no power to fix it. I am always waiting for the woman and the work which shall be capable of taking entire possession of my soul, and of becoming my end and aim.
I have not given away my heart: hence this restlessness of spirit. I will not let it be taken captive by that which cannot fill and satisfy it; hence this instinct of pitiless detachment from all that charms me without permanently binding me; so that it seems as if my love of movement, which looks so like inconstancy, was at bottom only a perpetual search, a hope, a desire, and a care, the malady of the ideal.
… Life indeed must always be a compromise between common sense and the ideal, the one abating nothing of its demands, the other accommodating itself to what is practicable and real. But marriage by common sense! arrived at by a bargain! Can it be anything but a profanation? On the other, hand, is that not a vicious ideal which hinders life from completing itself, and destroys the family in germ? Is there not too much of pride in my ideal, pride which will not accept the common destiny?…