Franz Grillparzer

“ There are two actions, corresponding to the waking and sleeping states, the actors in the latter being those of real life fantastically transformed; but there is no magic or anything else super-natural, and the most fascinating quality in the drama is the skill with which the transformation is made in accordance with the irrational logic of dreams. Accompanied by the weird music of Gyrowetz and exquisitely staged, this is the most popular of Grillparzer's plays in Vienna. ”

“ Grillparzer had experienced only a fleeting interest in Marie Piquot; so much the more lasting was the attachment which bound him to her successful rival, Katharina Fröhlich. Katharina, one of four daughters of a Viennese manufacturer who had seen better days, and, like her sisters, endowed with great artistic talent and practical energy, might have proved the salvation of Grillparzer's existence as a man if he had been more capable of manly resolution, and she had been less like him in impetuosity and stubbornness. ”

“ Meanwhile his country was brought to the verge of destruction by madness, incapacity, and infirmity of purpose; and the capital became the scene of anarchy and every crime.
On his return home Hügel with the rank of Major rejoined the army, which, under Prince Windischgrätz, had restored law and order in Vienna: and at the end of the winter, 1849, when the second Piedmontese war began, he was appointed to the head-quarters of the man to whom, when people in general had lost their heads, Grillparzer had addressed his: "In thy Camp is Austria." ”

“ Der Traum, ein Leben, Grillparzer’s technical masterpiece, is in form perhaps even more Spanish; it is also more of what Goethe called a “confession.” The aspirations of Rustan, an ambitious young peasant, are shadowed forth in the hero’s dream, which takes up nearly three acts of the play; ultimately Rustan awakens from his nightmare to realize the truth of Grillparzer’s own pessimistic doctrine that all earthly ambitions and aspirations are vanity; the only true happiness is contentment with one’s lot, “des Innern stiller Frieden und die schuldbefreite Brust.” ”

“ The modern poet makes it easier for his heroes; the tower gets to be a little room in a Viennese suburb and a walk in the twilight through a few quiet streets brings him to his goal without much exertion. (And so you might find other parental traits between the two Austrians.)
There is a melancholy strain in Grillparzer’s personality and work which Schnitzler seems to have inherited. Side by side with the light-mindedness and ease of the Austrian, a certain tired melancholy and resignation seem to dwell. This sounds through many creations of Austrian artists. ”

“ It is, however, as an Austrian that Grillparzer is primarily to be judged. Again and again he insisted upon his national quality as a man and as a poet, upon the Viennese atmosphere of his plays and his poems. He was never happy when away from his native city, and though his pieces are now acceptably performed wherever German is spoken, they are most successful in Vienna, and some of them are to be seen only on the Viennese stage. ”

“ Grillparzer’s brooding, unbalanced temperament, his lack of will-power, his pessimistic renunciation and the bitterness which his self-imposed martyrdom produced in him, made him peculiarly adapted to express the mood of Austria in the epoch of intellectual thraldom that lay between the Napoleonic wars and the Revolution of 1848; his poetry reflects exactly the spirit of his people under the Metternich régime, and there is a deep truth behind the description of Der Traum, ein Leben as the Austrian Faust. ”

“ In spite of admirable dramatic qualities and the most exquisite poetry even in the less dramatic passages, this play on Hero and Leander disappointed both audience and playwright when it was put upon the stage in April, 1831. Other disappointments were rife for Grillparzer at this time. But he put away his desires for the unattainable, and with the publication of Tristia ex Ponto in 1835, took, as it were, formal leave of the past and its sorrow. ”

“ The Weimar period, however, when the poet by means of a great and severe self-discipline trains himself to the point of rigidity in order to become the instrument of his art—that period is, with Tasso, paving the way for the school of Grillparzer, while that infinite deepening of the poetic calling is a preparation for Otto Ludwig, Richard Wagner, and Friedrich Hebbel. ”

“ I shall certainly be on the Rhine towards the end of July, and shall remain in that neighborhood till September. If Fischhof came there I should be delighted to see him and have a talk with him. Till then give him my most affectionate compliments, and tell him to write me a few lines before he starts.
In November I shall start for Berlin, and shall pass the whole of next winter in Russia.
Haslinger's behaviour to me is more than inexcusable. The dear man is doing a stupidity of which he will repent soon. Never mind; I will not forget how devoted he was to me during my first stay in Vienna. ”

“ The latter hovers between that of classic tradition and the licence of Shakespeare, while the subjects are generally taken from foreign history or from Greek mythology; only occasionally, as in Götz von Berlichingen and Wallenstein, from German history. The entire dramatic movement of this period is an endeavour to find a workable compromise between the classic and the Elizabethan drama, an endeavour which attained a fair measure of success a little later in the superb classic tragedies of Grillparzer. ”

“ Although the feast is one earth, it is on an earth which has been transformed into heaven; for the party-wall between God and the world has fallen down: death is no more, and all tears are for ever wiped away. ”

“ But the enervating atmosphere of literary Vienna, which Grillparzer once characterized as a "Capua in the world of spirits," is the natural element of Old Austria, and we suspect that Bartsch, whose rapid productivity defies stern artistic self-discipline, has not altogether escaped its dangers.
The Alemannic races on the Upper German territories reveal a greater toughness of fibre and more power of resistance. ”

“ An Austrian sculptor, born in Vienna. He was a pupil of Bauer and Cesar in the academy, where with his group of “Samson and Delilah” he won the Reichel prize in 1870. In 1878 he was awarded in competition the work of decorating the Grillparzer monument (reliefs of the Hexedra) . He attained repute through his decorative reliefs and his experiments in polychrome sculpture. ”

“ BRUSSELS, March 29th, 1860.
DEAREST FRANZ, Once more I give you a sign of life. That one lives at all is perhaps the most wonderful case in point, and when one arrives at the end of things, one need not care any longer. Death, which at this moment mows down men so recklessly, leaves us standing in a bare field by a mere whim. ”

“ And there is no more charming and majestic sight than the palm of the oasis, this prince among the trees of the plain, with its proudly raised diadem of leaves, its attitude peering forth into the distance and gazing full into the face of the sun, its perennial verdure, and its vital force, which constantly renews itself from the root - a picture of life in the midst of the world of death. ”

“ Little by little the long gray lines of light increase, they stretch themselves along the horizon like fissures into a brighter world. They suddenly enlarge, they gain upon their dark boundaries, now they break through them, as the waters bounding the edge of a lake inundate in irregular pools the arid banks. ”

“ On the one side the large armed forces, with the necessity for securing their upkeep, the aging of the Nazi movement and of its leaders, and on the other side the prospect of a lowering of the standard of living and a drop in the birth rate, leaves us no other choice than to act. If the Fuehrer is still living, then it will be his irrevocable decision to solve the German space problem no later than 1943-45. ”

“ They grind the faces of those who are already bowed down, thrusting them back with such unmerciful severity, that they stand as it were annihilated, and their faces become as white as flour, or as the Germans would say, cheese-white, chalk-white, as pale as death, from oppression and despair. ”

“ The pilgrimage of all peoples to the holy mountain is an Old Testament dress of the hope for the conversion of all peoples to the God of revelation, and the close union of all with the people of this God. ”

“ A day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and cloudy night: like morning dawn spread over the mountains, a people great and strong: there has not been the like from all eternity, nor will there be after it even to the years of generation and generation. ”

“ My dearest, dearest, unique Franz, give me the heart, the spirit, the mind of a woman in which I could wholly sink myself, which could quite comprehend me. How little should I then ask of this world. How indifferent would be to me this empty glitter, which, in my despair, I have latterly again been tempted to gather round me as a diversion of my fancy. If I could live with you in beautiful retirement, or, which would be the same thing, if we could live here wholly for each other instead of frittering our beings away with so many insipid and indifferent people, how happy I should be. ”

“ The balm of flowers fills the air, like the thrilling of an encouraged hope. A stray bird accidentally commences his song earlier than usual, it soothes the heart like a distant consolation, and is accepted as a promise for the future. ”

“ Thou hast hardened thy fragile limbs by the endurance of fatigue, thus robbing them of the subtle power of their weakness! Thou hast covered thy palpitating breast with a heavy cuirass, which has pressed and torn it, dyeing its snow in blood;—that gentle woman's bosom, charming as life, discreet as the grave, which is always adored by man when his heart is permitted to form its sole, its impenetrable buckler! ”

“ Like those susceptible flowers which close their sensitive petals before the first breath of the North wind, they too veil their exacting souls in the shrouds of self concentration, unfolding themselves only under the warming rays of a propitious sun. ”

“ All that the funeral train of an entire nation weeping its own ruin and death can be imagined to feel of desolating woe, of majestic sorrow, wails in the musical ringing of this passing bell, mourns in the tolling of this solemn knell, as it accompanies the mighty escort on its way to the still city of the Dead. ”

“ As if in the pride of defiance, the cavalier accentuates his steps, quits his partner for a moment, as if to contemplate her with renewed delight, rejoins her with passionate eagerness, or whirls himself rapidly round, as though overcome with the sudden joy and yielding to the delicious giddiness of rapture. ”

“ Presently Giraffe again broke out. It was as if he could not restrain himself, and this way of telling his mates what he saw served as an escape valve for his surcharged feelings.
“Now you can see that the French have got busy and are sending every kind of missile right into the midst of the masses of Germans. Every time a shell breaks it leaves a horrible gap, but only for a second, because the living close it up like magic. Oh! what madness for them to charge in such mass formations in these days of machine guns and shrapnel and big shells. ”

“ One must praise oneself, especially when others too often fail in doing so!—
With regard to the Tonkunstler-Versammlung, it seems to me that the choice of Leipzig is most advantageous for the purpose at present, and I would advise you to adhere to this. In the course of the winter we will have an "exchange of thoughts" ("un echange d'idees," as Prince Gortschakoff is ever saying) about the programme and arrangements, and this will assuredly lead to more harmonious results than the Russian notes. ”

“ Let me hail thee, O son of wisdom and lord of creation, whose kingdom encompasses the sky, the earth, and the whole universe, whose Self includes and penetrates all, to whom all power belongs and all glory is due. ”

“ Happiness succeeded to gloomy fears, like the gradual progression of a beautiful day after a night full of obscurity and terror, when so dense and heavy is the vault of darkness which weighs upon us from above, that we are prepared for a sudden and fatal catastrophe, we do not even dare to dream of deliverance, when the despairing eye suddenly catches a bright spot where the mists clear, and the clouds open like flocks of heavy wool yielding, even while the edges thicken under the pressure of the hand which rends them. ”

“ Perhaps she did not fully understand what innumerable links of suffering, of silence, of patience, of gentleness, of indulgence, of courageous perseverance, had been necessary for the formation of the worship for this imperious but resigned ideal, beautiful indeed, but sad to behold, like those plants with the rose-colored corollas, whose stems, intertwining and interlacing in a network of long and numerous branches, give life to ruins; destined ever to embellish decay, growing upon old walls and hiding only tottering stones! ”

“ On the 16th of January, 1929, Adolf Hitler appointed his tested comrade of long standing, Heinrich Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer SS. Heinrich Himmler assumed charge therewith of the entire Schutzstaffel totaling at the time 280 men, with the express and particular commission of the Fuehrer to form of this organization an elite troop of the Party, a troop dependable in every circumstance. With this day the real history of the SS begins as it stands before us today in all its deeper essential features, firmly anchored into the national Socialist movement. ”