BOOKS.

LASSALLE'S MEMOIRS.%

THE interest aroused by the sudden manifestations of an apparently formidable and remarkably organised Socialist movement in Germany, must invite attention to the man who figures as its inspiring genius. German Socialism, as an econo- mical system, is as distinct in form and method from the French schools of Socialism as are the great German schools of meta- physics from those of France ; and though, again, in Germany there have arisen minor distinctions in the teaching of the Socialist school since Lassalle's death, yet beyond dispute the force and character of the movement in its essentials have been impressed thereon by the individual action of Lassalle. The study of Lassalle's mind, of his writings, and of his agitated career is one which, at this moment, therefore, calls for careful attention. But that study is not easy. Though no more than fourteen years have elapsed since Lassalle's death, and though during the last period of his short life he was conspicuously before the public, partly as the object of repeated prosecution, partly as the unflinching organiser of a vast agitation, but above all, as the daring partisan, who revelled in his skill for sending shafts through the ranks of all recognised political parties, and in confounding with the unabashed readiness of his wits the action of judicial pedantry, the trustworthy materials for Lassalle's biography are scarce and difficult to find. Few of his letters have been published. Many of his most interesting pamphlets, productions of the moment by a most prolific pen, have never been collected, and Dr. Brandes has not, even in the Berlin Library, been able to find them. On the other hand, the Socialist devotees of Lassalle have surrounded his memory with a halo which is as unreal as the demoniacal features into which he has been distorted in the polemics of violent opponents. There never has been a figure which has afforded so palpable an example of the process of myth-making as that of Lassalle, both in apotheosis and in detraction. Dr. Brandes' volume is really the first attempt we know of at an impartial and critical examination of Lassalle's character as a man, of the decisive incidents in his career as a writer and a politician, and of the capital points in the economical doctrines propounded by him.

• Ferdinand Lasealle: ein Literarisehes Cherakterbild. Von Georg Brandon. Berlin: Franz Dunker. 1877.

Dr. Brandes was peculiarly fitted for the task he has undertaken. A Dane by nationality, he is outside the vortex of those political passions which have made it apparently impossible for a German to treat of Lassalle with the scientific equanimity otherwise characteristic of German discussion ; while yet his intimate ac- quaintance with modern German thought, as shown by his ad- mirable work on German literature, perfectly qualifies him to discuss a matter of this nature. But Dr. Brandes has taken especial trouble to master his subject. That he has a certain bias in favour of Lassalle—or rather, that he feels a certain sympathy with the genius of the man—is no disqualification, in our opinion, for it has only made him strive to explain without harshness the inner development of Lassalle's nature. Dr. Brandes does not conceal what was objectionable in his later proceedings, or seek to represent as tenable the economical maxims put forth in his last utterances. What he has striven to arrive at is a just appre- ciation of Lassalle as he was in actual life, and to this end he has been at the pains of seeking for information by personal inquiry from those who knew him, the result being a volume of great interest. The reader must not expect a biography, in the strict sense of the term, but he will find an earnest and thoroughly painstaking study of Lassalle, with a sketch of the principal events of his life, coupled with some highly characteristic data, obtained through personal communications, and that could have been gained only by direct application to individuals who had been closely connected with Lassalle during his life-time.

What makes of Lassalle's character so difficult a problem to solve is its perplexing complexity. The learning of an erudite professor, the subtlety of the sophist, and the audacious flashi- ness of an impostor, all are to be found in him. While he composed works which, for classical knowledge, extorted the admiration of Boeckh, while Humboldt called him a "marvel," Lassalle would on occasions recklessly throw out historical para- doxes as flippant as those Lord Beaconsfield has sometimes in- dulged in, only with the difference that he always, when put to it, knew how to sustain them with an array of argument the fallacy of which was as brilliant as it was misleading, through a false application of undeniable and solid facts such as only the most consummate flexibility of mind could have suggested. Probably, in modern times, no one ever more fully reproduced the moral and intellectual qualities that made up the great demagogic figures of Athens,—extraordinary subtlety of mind, wonderful mastery in dialectics, consummate power for striking public im- agination, and at least as ready a disregard of principles, if these stood in the way of securing some desired effect. The disfiguring feature in his appearance was a too conspicuous staginess, which was tainted with vulgarity. The Jewish fond- ness for " loud" display—for glitter and notoriety—was strong in him, but it was there with the strength of a really powerful nature, and not with a merely finikin tawdriness. Lassalle's vanity and self-conceit cannot be contested, but it must also be admitted by a candid observer that the manner in which he contrived to beard, and practically checkmate, his power- ful opponents, by the sheer force of his unflinching elasticity of mind, justified considerable self-assurance. Lassalle was pre-eminently a great master of the theatrical style ; he always understood how to parade in melodramatic drapery whatever transactions he got mixed up with, even when they partook of undeniable scandal. At the same time, there was a great in- congruity between his professed sympathies and his mode of life ; and the latter was marked, in its sumptuousness, by bad taste. This man, who before the public presented himself as the pas- sionate advocate of the crushed Proletariat—the vindicator of human rights against the capitalist blood-suckers—was himself in his domestic arrangements a voluptuary and a sybarite. His apartment, as described by an unexceptionable witness, was of gorgeous luxury, but of that kind of luxury which is splashy and gaudy and overdone, while the epicurean lavishness of his table is plentifully attested. However earnest may have been his feel- ings for the sufferings of the toiling workman, it is certain that Lassalle took care himself never to share privations ; and amongst the ugliest incidents of his career is the legal document by which he carefully secured to himself an ample annuity, in anticipation of services to be rendered by him to Countess Hatzfeldt in her matrimonial quarrels,—services which publicly, with much noise, were paraded as the instinctive assistance given by right-minded sympathy to an unfortunate woman, hunted down by the cruel hand of a powerful aristocrat.

Lassalle was son of a Jew merchant at Breslau, but he early showed insurmountable determination not to follow the family calling. What he was at twenty-one is shown by a remarkable

letter from Heine, introducing him to Varnhagen von Ense, as " a young man of the most extraordinary talents, with the most

solid erudition, the most extensive knowledge, the keenest acute- ness I have ever come across, and who, with the richest powers

of expression, unites an energy of will and a skilfulness in action that quite amaze me." At this time Lassalle was quite unknown, and engaged on his book on Herac,litus. In 1848, being just twenty-three, he appeared in the dock before

the Court at Diisseldorf on a charge of having instigated the abstraction of documents relating to a matrimonial suit between Count and Countess Hatzfeldt. Condemned in the first instance, he was acquitted on appeal ; and then for ten years he devoted himself to be the Countess's champion and advocate, carrying her cause through 36 suits, until at last he forced a compromise upon the husband, who had begun by ordering his servants to throw the Jew stripling into the street. The point of interest is that inasalle had never previously occupied himself with legal studies, and that yet he understood how personally to plead and conduct a most complicated case, with such extraordinary skill and energy as to extort a signal legal triumph. Of course this episode made Lassalle notorious. What his relations with Countess Hatzfeldt were it is not necessary to stop to consider. It is, however, a fact that this lady, notwithstanding his otherwise chequered and, in many respects, dissipated life, continued to be on a footing of the greatest intimacy with Lassalle, and that she has been credited with the determining influence which propelled him into his career as a political agitator—an opinion endorsed by Dr. Brandes.

That career, in its capital incidents, was virtually compressed within two years' time, 1862-4 :-

" One is astounded at the contemplation of what Lassalle compassed in this short period. Between March, 1862, and June, 1864, he composed no less than twenty publications, three or four being in size and contents independent books ; while most of them, notwithstanding brevity and popular form, contain an amount of thought, and are written with a scientific sharpness which many large works cannot boast of. In addition, during this period he made speech after speech, conferred with one work- ing-men's deputation after the other, extricated himself out of a dozen political prosecutions, laid the foundation of the General German Working-Men's Association, carried on a very extensive correspondence, and conducted the administrative concerns of the Association."

In the crisis of the constitutional struggle arising out of the Prussian Government, under Bismarck's direction, proceeding to keep up the army in defiance of Parliament refusing supplies,

Lassalle published a striking pamphlet, with the title What Now?

ridiculing the action of the Constitutional Opposition as effete, and advocating that Parliament should simply proclaim, that in presence of the Government doings it "adjourned its sittings indefinitely until such time as the Government should make amends by declaring that the refused monies would be no longer levied." Much about the same time was issued his System of Acquired Rights, in two volumes, the gospel of German Socialism, together with Marx's book on Capital,—a work whose extraordinary subtlety, force of learned exposition, and seductive power of fallacy cannot for one moment be disputed, though the audacity of its historical paradoxes is sometimes preposterous. Early in 1863, in reply to a working-men's in- quiry in reference to a proposed Congress at Leipzig, which was inspired by leaders of the Fortschrittspartei, Lassalle gave prac- tical shape to the principles of the above-mentioned book, in a pamphlet which, with great keenness, criticised the Schulze- Delitsch movement. He held up to popular animadversion what, with his happy power for coining telling phrases, he termed " the brazen rule of Wage," and on the basis of a principle of State advances in furtherance of working-men's co-operations laid the foundation of an association which ultimately grew into a political body of great importance, though that happened after Lassalle's premature death, in 1864.

The point of this Association, as organised by Insane, was avowedly directed against what he called the bourgeoisie. Dr.

Brandes thinks that at the beginning he was not disposed to assume the presidency, and that his unwillingness yielded to

Countess Hatzfeldt's pressure. What is certain is that, the step once decided on, Lassalle threw himself with volcanic energy into

the task. It is impossible not to be overcome with wonder at the perfectly fabulous expenditure of activity and unfailing resource, the almost superhuman readiness of wit, of herculean power and of mental versatility displayed by Lassalle in the incessant calls on his powers, now to address popular assemblies, and then to fight in law-courts the prosecutions set on foot against him by State authorities. The genius of the Tribune was never more completely represented than by him in this his closing per- formance. In the autumn before his death Lassalle made what

was nothing less than a progress through the centres of the Working-Men's movement :- " But all the ovations of this first review over his troops fade before the triumphs reaped, when, in the spring of 1864, he traversed the Rhine- lands, and for the first and last time celebrated the anniversary of the foundation of the Association. It signified little that the localities hired by the Association were often found closed, the police having by menace forced the owners to break their engagements. Everywhere the same spectacle ; hundreds of working-men received him at the stations, accompanied him in processions, and handed him gifts of honour. In all towns, serenades, triumphal arches, garlands, inscriptions, cheers

without end welcomed him The oration which Lassalle now made, amidst deafening acclamations, in commemoration of the anni- versary, corresponded to the joyous sentiment which surrounded him. 'The working-men, the people, the men of learning, the bishops, the King himself,' exclaimed Luanne, ' have we forced to bear testi- mony to the truth of our principles' Wheresoever I have been, there have I heard from the working-men words which let themselves be compressed into this sentence :—' We must fuse the wills of us all into one hammer, and that hammer we must put in the hand of one man in whose intelligence, character, and thorough will we have the neces- sary confidence, in order that with that hammer he may deal a blow.' "

Lassalle was, as he spoke these boastful words, thirty-seven years old. Two of these had been passed in prison, five criminal pro- secutions were at the time pending :—

"The previous day he had received tidings of his having again been condemned, in contumaciam, to four months' imprisonment, and he was aware of the Rhenish Court consisting almost entirely of members of the Fortschisttspartei, that was hostile to him. Be was, besides, conscious that the condition of the Association was far from being so

brilliant as he deemed it prudent to represent At this very time he complained bitterly in letters how different all would be, ' if the working-men had done their duty.' Under these circumstances, he

closed his last speech with these words Well, I expect to get the bettor of these two condemnations, as I have done of so many others. But however strong one may be, against a particular exasperation one is lost. I care little for this. I have not clutched this banner, as you well may think, without well knowing that individually I may go to pieces. The feelings which overcome mo at the thought of my being individually got rid of I cannot express better than in the words of the Roman poet, Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor. May this mighty and national movement not go to pieces with me, but may the conflagra- tion which I have lit devour more and more, so long as one of you still breathes ! That promise me, and in token thereof, hold up every man his right hand.'" From the arena of this triumph Lassalle went to the Rigi ; there he got involved in a love-affair with a young lady of rank, who, though betrothed to another, wished to marry him. The story is a miserable one. Lassalle would seem to have lost all common• sense, under the paroxysms of a maddening vanity. The end was as utterly beside reason as the rest of his conduct in this business. He forced into a duel the lady's affianced bridegroom, who cer- tainly was not the party to be challenged, and so within two months from the above speech, Lassalle was shot near Geneva. A strange light is thrown on the whole of this unsavoury affair by the fact that Countess Hatzfeldt was at the time with Lassalle, and cogni- sant of the duel. To discuss Lassalle's writings is here not possible. We may on another occasion return to the subject. At present, we can only refer the reader to Dr. Brandes' volume, for a clear, careful, and impartial criticism which we do not know where else to find. Also he has given, what is very valuable, con- siderable extracts from his most telling speeches and his very power- ful pleadings. These are most difficult to meet with, and no- where does Lassalle's genius show more than in these brilliant

performances.