Soul of the Age

by Hermann Hesse

  Zurich, November 1930

  Your kind letter arrived too late, since I asked 0. Loerke the day before yesterday to go ahead and announce my resignation.226

  I have something to add: More than two years ago, I asked the selfsame Loerke (whom I really like, by the way) to suggest a way out of the Academy for me, since I never felt I belonged there. Loerke didn’t bother answering. But now that your words have given me sufficient cause to repeat my request,227 he has replied, although his answer is not yet to my satisfaction. But I hope this entire affair will soon be over. My dear friend, could you bear with me for another two minutes? I have no wish to elaborate on the reasons why I cannot remain in the Academy. What are “reasons” anyhow? Bad air could be enough to drive a person away. For years now, I have been listening in on the chatter of this debating club through the reports. I disliked the majority of the motions, and the few I liked were immediately defeated. I was amused to see Molo228 presiding over this assembly of German writers—i.e., a man who cannot write a decent German sentence. And there were other irritations as well. My life is not easy, and can no longer carry a useless burden, which has begun to torment me. I really have to get out.

  After being elected to the Section, I declined the offer of membership on the grounds that I was Swiss. But they refused to accept my reasoning, and since there was a scandalous fight going on in the Academy at that time over Arno Holz, I wanted to be nice and collegial, and tacitly accepted membership. As I mentioned before, about a year later I asked Loerke to help me leave. He never answered. Since then, I haven’t been on good terms with the society, and then you, my dear friend, gave me a welcome opportunity to resign.

  One more minute, please. I would ask you to reread first the lines you wrote about purely “passive” members and then rethink your most recent argument. You said earlier that those who never speak up and aren’t willing to lift a finger don’t deserve to be members, and you claim in your letter today that my resignation (i.e., that of a silent and indifferent member) would “destroy” the organization. I have little faith in your letter, but have no trouble believing what you said to those of us who are “passive” members. If the Academy, or Section for Literature, wants to justify its existence, it will first have to weed out all the lukewarm members, then focus on the goals it is genuinely committed to, rather than on the usual blather. Those who question the raison d’être of the institution and merely consider themselves reluctant appendages will have to leave. So I’m actually doing the Section a favor, and am glad I shall soon have severed my first affiliation ever with an “official” organization.

  I wish the Section all the very best, and I cannot claim my reasons for resigning are particularly rational. I think the atmosphere is bad, that’s all. But I also have some hunches. In the next war, the members of this Academy will constitute a sizable proportion of the ninety or a hundred prominent figures who, as in 1914, consent to spread state-sponsored lies among the people about the critical issues they have to confront. I’m not laying claim to any particular authority in political and moral matters, except insofar as I go my own way and obey my own laws. That is why I’m withdrawing from the Section, as I have done in the past by dropping several pleasant affiliations. You don’t really believe my resignation will burden the Section with anything more than a slight, temporary inconvenience. People will say: “Oh yes, Hesse, he was always damn sensitive and terribly unsociable,” and then things will revert to normal. I think that’s more or less what will happen.

  I’m really in bad shape, have got a terrible pain in my eyes and awful headaches, which will scarcely enhance this letter. But I’m sure you will be able to figure out my position. I preferred your demand that the Section rid itself of lukewarm members to your subsequent request, which rescinds the former. Schäfer, let’s remain on good terms; this Academy affair isn’t of any great moment. Now that the election has made the members feel more responsible, I hope they do half as much for their colleagues and the books they write, especially the younger ones, as I have been doing for the past twenty-five years.229

  TO WILHELM KUNZE

  December 17, 1930

  Today I received your essay from the Würzburger General-Anzeiger. I am glad to have it, and regret that it has arrived at a time when I shall have to disappoint you.

  I should like to say a few words about the essay, which I really like. I do not consider “idyllic” a valid term. I feel that the religious impulse has had the most decisive impact on my life and work. To my mind, the individual—regardless of whether he is faced with a world war or a flower garden—should view the outer world as a place where the One or the Divine manifests itself and should try to fit into that framework. Of course, in my case this primary religious experience doesn’t assume any of the forms commonly found in the traditional church; I consider it irrelevant whether the circumstances triggering this experience are “idyllic” or not. To my mind the “idyllic” label is an attempt by urban dwellers to reject certain aspects of life that are as strange and unfamiliar to them as they are paramount in the minds of rural folk.

  I intend to take another look at your book at some point in the future. It just so happens that it has helped me to crystallize and articulate my fundamental objection against some of the positions that your generation espouses. I have always taken a dim view of all attempts to emphasize or organize youth. The distinction between young and old only holds true for people who are run-of-the-mill; individuals who are truly differentiated and gifted are sometimes old and sometimes young, just as they are sometimes happy and sometimes sad. Enough. Your book just happens to have aroused in me certain feelings and considerations of a more general nature.

  But I feel that this lack of balance will eventually redress itself. I realize that these excessively general observations have not done justice to you—but what are words anyhow? And doesn’t my generation have as much right as yours to express its views?

  I found regrettable one of your phrases: “They can try pulling that off.” Had I been able to respond to that orally, I would have left you in little doubt as to where I stand.

  TO A YOUNG MAN IN SEARCH OF SOME KIND OF “LEADER”

  Chantarella, Winter 1930

  Your letter has reached me in the mountains. I have been overworked and really need to rest. I can only answer briefly.

  There is no call for despair. If you are a person born to lead your own individual life rather than an ordinary everyday one, then you will eventually discover that difficult route toward your own personality and a life of your own. If you are not called upon to do so, or if you cannot muster sufficient energy, you will have to give up sooner or later and reconcile yourself to the morality, taste, and customs of the majority.

  It’s a question of how much energy one has. Or, as I prefer to see things, it’s a question of faith. For one often finds very strong people who soon fail and very delicate and weak people who, in spite of their weakness and illness, make their way splendidly through life and impress their stamp upon it, even though they may be merely enduring their lot. Whenever Sinclair has sufficient energy (or faith), Demian is enticed by that energy and approaches him.

  It isn’t easy to put into words the faith I have in mind. One might describe it as follows: I believe that, regardless of its seemingly nonsensical qualities, life does have meaning. I accept the fact that this ultimate meaning transcends my rational faculties. I am, however, prepared to be at its service, even if this means having to sacrifice myself. Whenever I am truly and fully alive and awake, I hear an inner voice proclaiming that meaning.

  I want to try to fulfill the things that life demands of me at such moments, even if that runs counter to conventional fashions or laws.

  It’s not possible to impose this belief and compel oneself to accept it. One has to experience it, just as a Christian cannot acquire grace through mere effort, force, or wiles, but has to experience it through faith. Those who are unable to do so seek their faith in the chur
ch, or science, or patriotism or socialism, or anyplace that furnishes ready-made moral codes, programs, and solutions.

  It’s impossible for me to ascertain whether people are cut out for this rather difficult but beautiful path that leads to a life and a meaning of one’s own—even if I were to see them in person. Thousands are called, many go a bit of the way, but few continue beyond the frontiers of youth, and perhaps nobody stays the course until the very end.

  TO THOMAS MANN230

  Chantarella in the Engadine, February 20, 1931

  Many thanks for your greetings and the essay by your brother. Ninon was delighted to hear from your wife. We have often talked fondly about the three of you.231 [ … ]

  I’m increasingly perturbed by the Academy question, because I’m being lumped in with the others who resigned. Your brother’s essay just refers to the “gentlemen” who resigned.232

  That will be quickly forgotten, and those ultranationalists invoking my name nowadays will soon get another chance to view me as an enemy and treat me as such.

  My position on the issue, just between you and me, is more or less as follows:

  I’m suspicious of the present state, not because it is new and republican, but because it isn’t adequately so. I’m very much aware of the fact that the Prussian state and its Ministry of Culture, which serves as the patron of the Academy, are also responsible for the universities and the terrible anti-intellectualism prevalent there, and I regard any attempt to unite “free” minds in an Academy as an attempt to keep tabs on these often inconvenient critics of the regime.

  Moreover, as a Swiss citizen, I cannot play an active role. If I am a member of the Academy, I thereby recognize the Prussian state and its control over cultural life, even though I myself am not a subject of the Reich or Prussia. That was the incongruity I found most disturbing, and the need to remove it was the most important reason for my resignation.

  Well, we shall get to see each other again, and with the passage of time, all these things may seem very different.

  With Thomas Mann in Chantarella, February 1932

  Hesse, 1927

  TO R.B.

  May 4, 1931

  … I could not let your letter go unanswered.

  This is more or less how I see the matter: It’s wrong to say that people couldn’t possibly base their lives on the principles I have advocated. I do not advocate a complete, well-articulated doctrine; I am a person who grows and undergoes transformations. So my books also stand for something other than the pronouncement that “each person is alone.” All of Siddhartha, for instance, is a declaration of love, and one can also find a similar declaration in some of my other books.

  You can hardly expect me to show more faith in life than I actually possess. I have often said quite passionately that the mentality prevalent in our era precludes the possibility of our leading a genuine, truly worthwhile life. I’m utterly convinced of that. Of course, I’m still alive, and haven’t been crushed by this atmosphere of lies, rapaciousness’, fanaticism, and coarseness. I owe this good fortune to two auspicious circumstances: I have inherited a goodly portion of natural vitality, and I am able to be productive as a critic and opponent of this age. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to survive. But even so, life often seems like hell.

  My attitude toward the present is hardly likely to change all that much. I don’t believe in our science or politics, thought, faith, or amusements; I don’t accept a single ideal of this era. But this does not mean that I don’t believe in anything at all. I believe that there are laws binding humanity which have existed for thousands of years, and am convinced that they will outlast the hubbub of our era.

  I cannot possibly show anybody a way to abide by those human ideals that I consider eternal while retaining faith in the ideals, goals, and comforts of our age. Besides, I’m not in the least interested in doing so. Throughout my life I have experimented with many ways of transcending time and living in a timeless world (and have frequently portrayed these attempts, both playfully and seriously).

  I often encounter young readers who, in the case of Steppenwolf let’s say, take everything it says about the craziness of our age very seriously, but fail to notice, and don’t in any case believe in, those issues that I consider to be of immensely greater significance. It’s simply not enough to dismiss out of hand phenomena such as war, technology, rapaciousness, nationalism, etc. One has to replace the false gods of the age with some other faith. I have always done so: Mozart, the Immortals, and the Magic Theater in Steppenwolf, the same values appear under other names in Demian and Siddhartha.

  I am sure it’s possible to base one’s life on the force that Siddhartha calls love and the belief in the Immortals to which Harry subscribes. That faith can make life seem bearable and can also help overcome time.

  I know I’m not really conveying what I want to say. I’m always rather discouraged to discover that readers haven’t noticed certain things that I consider clearly evident in my books.

  Read my letter, and then pick up one of my books again to see whether you cannot discover some articles of faith there that would make life truly possible. If you fail to find anything of that nature, you should discard my books. But if you come up with anything, you might use that as your point of departure.

  Recently, a young woman asked me to explain what was meant by the Magic Theater in Steppenwolf. She had felt very disappointed to see me poking fun both at myself and at everything else, as if I were in some sort of opium-induced daze. I told her she should reread those pages, bearing in mind that the significance and sacred quality of the Magic Theater outstrips that of everything else I have ever formulated, and that it also serves as an image and mask for issues to which I attach the utmost value and importance. She wrote a little later to say she now understood.

  I understand why you ask, Herr B., and it may indeed be true that my books aren’t right for you at the moment. You may have to lay them aside and attempt to overcome the things that attracted you to them. Obviously, I cannot advise you on that. I can only reaffirm what I have experienced and written, including all the contradictions, zigzags, and disorder. I don’t agree that my task is to produce work that could, in some objective sense, be considered the best. I have to create work of my own in the purest, most honest manner possible, even if the result should merely sound like an expression of suffering, a lamentation.

  TO JOSEF ENGLERT

  [ca. May 14, 1931]

  My dear friend Englert,

  It’s Ascension Thursday today, and we’re still in Zurich, where your kind letter reached me. It’s definitely our last day here; Ninon has finally got all the curtains, lamps, carpets, and cooking equipment together, and we’re leaving tomorrow at noon for Ticino. Things will be hectic for a while. We cannot move in before July, and Ninon has to vacate her present apartment beforehand, then comes the move itself, etc. I hope I shall be doing better by then. My eyes have been giving me a terrible time for weeks, and I also have to contend with a painful sinus condition.

  The person who owns the house and had it built has signed a contract giving me the right of occupancy for the duration of my life.

  I’m almost envious of your wonderful journey through Italy by car, even though I’m no longer all that curious and haven’t traveled “for fun” since the war. Just imagine: I haven’t been in Italy since 1914, except for the few occasions when I stepped a few feet across the border near the Ponte Tresa. Up to 1914, I used to visit Italy nearly every year; the last time was in the spring of 1914, at Lake Garda, in Brescia, Bergamo, etc., etc. Then the war broke out, and when it ended, I found out that I not only couldn’t afford to travel but had lost much of my previous curiosity about countries and people, along with my belief in a better future. So I’m not very surprised when you say that a new world war is in the offing. I have thought so since 1919, and have seen many signs confirming this. I have confronted the issue frequently, warning about that very prospect not just in Steppenwolf but also i
n numerous essays, which the editors often considered ridiculously “pessimistic.”

  Yes, there shall be more abominations, but I may never live to see them, which would actually suit me fine. I was very glad to get the two photos of the children. Of course, you know I’m very fond of your children, and these pictures are particularly charming. Regardless of whether the world is about to be destroyed or not, we want to go on enjoying those few great indestructible things in life: Mozart, Goethe, Giotto, also the Savior, St. Francis, etc., etc. They will live as long as there is a human heart who comes alive through them and can dance to their rhythm. If I’m still alive and can hum a bar from Bach or Haydn or Mozart, or recall lines from Hölderlin, then neither Mozart nor Hölderlin has perished yet. It’s great, too, that there are such things as friendship, loyalty, some sunshine occasionally, the Engadine, and flowers. My dear friend, I greet all of you fondly, and Ninon also wishes you all the best.

  TO THOMAS MANN

  Baden, early December 1931

  Your kind letter has reached me in Baden. I’m fatigued from the cure, have an eye condition as well, and can hardly keep up with my mail. So please excuse the brevity of this reply. The actual answer to your question will certainly not take up much space—it is no. But I should like to explain as fully as possible why I cannot accept the Academy’s invitation, even though I’m receiving it from a man whom I love and respect. The more I think about it, the more complicated and metaphysical the matter becomes. Since I nevertheless have to give you some justification for my no, I shall have to resort to the excessively clear-cut and pointed formulations that such complicated matters often assume when it suddenly becomes necessary to articulate them in words.

  Well, then: the ultimate reason why I cannot be part of any official German body is that I deeply mistrust the German Republic. This unprincipled and mindless state grew out of a vacuum, the general state of exhaustion at the end of the war. The few men who spearheaded the “revolution,” which was never anything of the sort, have been murdered with the approval of ninety-nine percent of the population. The courts are unjust, the civil servants indifferent, the people completely infantile. I was enthusiastic about the revolution in 1918, but my hopes for a German Republic that could be taken seriously were dashed long ago. Germany never managed to create a revolution of its own and develop its own political forms. It will be bolshevized, a prospect which isn’t repellent to me but will make it lose its unique national potential. And unfortunately, a bloody wave of white terror will doubtlessly precede that event. I have been thinking along these lines for a long time, and even though I feel a lot of sympathy for the small minority of well-intentioned republicans, I believe they are utterly powerless, with no more future than the appealing ideology of Uhland and his friends in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. Even today, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand Germans still refuse to acknowledge any guilt. They didn’t wage war, never lost it, and didn’t sign the Treaty of Versailles, which they consider a treacherous bolt from the blue.