It is eternally true that we long; and it is no less true that we must build upon something certain. Amidst all the uncertainty, insecurity, and doubt wherewith we are surrounded, there is one thing certain, one thing which cannot be explained away, and that is suffering. And equally certain is the good of the alleviation of suffering and of release from it. It is certain that it is extremely disagreeable to endure pain, to be fettered, or to be imprisoned; and it is equally certain that it is a great relief to be cured, to have one's fetters loosed, one's prison door flung wide open. _Hic Rhodus, hic salta_! Here is a deed to be done, a stroke to be struck for liberty. We may wander about, full of uncertainty and doubt, not knowing what to believe or what to do; but from the moment we come upon a fellow-being with his fingers jammed in some heavy door that has shut upon them, there is no longer any doubt what we have to do. We must try to open the door and release the hand. And, fortunately or unfortunately, it so happens that there are always plenty of human beings whose hands are caught fast, plenty who suffer, plenty who sit in all manner of chains--chains of ignorance, of dependence, of stupidity, of slavery. To free these must be the object of our lives. The Romanticist egotistically pursues his personal happiness, and believes himself to be of infinite importance. The child of the new age will neither scan the heavens in search of his star nor the far horizon in search of the "blue flower." Longing is inactivity. He will act. He will understand what Goethe meant by making Wilhelm Meister end his life as a physician. If it is impossible to found a satisfactory philosophy of life upon longing, it is equally impossible to found upon it a literature which has any connection with life, and which is capable of satisfying in the long run. The task of literature in all ages is to give a condensed representation of the life of a people and an age. Romanticism contemptuously refused this task. Novalis in Germany and Shack Staffeldt in Denmark present the most typical examples of the manner in which it turned its back on outward reality, to create a poetico-philosophic system out of the mind and the poetical longing of the author. It does not represent human life in all its breadth and depth, but the dreams of a few highly intellectual individuals. The cloud-city of Aristophanes, with its air-castles, is the sacred city and goal of its longing. [1] Auerbach: _Deutsche Abende_. [2] "The everlasting kingdom is firmly established; strife ends in love and peace; the long and painful dream is at an end; Sophia is priestess of all hearts henceforward and for ever."