Weimar had its salon, its notables: Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Frau von Stein, Dr. Zimmermann as a valued correspondent; its Grand Duke Karl August and his consort; Herder, who jealous of the renown of Goethe, and piqued at the insufficient consideration he received, soon departed, to return only when the Grand Duchess took him under her wing and thus satisfied his morbid pride; its love affair, for did not the beautiful Frau von Werthern leave her husband, carry out a mock funeral, and, heralded as dead, elope to Africa with Herr von Einsiedel? But Weimar was as far away from what we now agree to look upon as the great events of the day, as were Lords Glengall and Yarmouth at White's, in Saint James's.
It requires imagination to put Goethe and Schiller and Wieland in the bow window at White's, and to place Lords Glengall and Yarmouth in Frau von Stein's drawing-room in Weimar; but the discerning eye which can see this picture, knows at a glance why England misunderstands Germany and Germany misunderstands England. For White's is White's and Weimar is Weimar, and one is British and one is German as much now as then! In the one the winner of the Derby is of more importance than any philosopher; in the other, philosophers, poets, professors, and playwrights are almost as well known, as the pedigrees of the yearlings to be sold at Newmarket, are known at White's. They still have plover's eggs early in the season at White's, and they still recognize the subtle distinction there between "port wine" and "port"; while in Weimar nobody, unless it be the duke, even boils his sauerkraut in white wine!
One could easily write a chapter on Weimar and its self-satisfied social and literary activities. There were three hundred or more capitals of like complexion and isolation: some larger, some smaller, none perhaps with such a splendid literary setting, but all indifferent with the indifference of distant relatives who seldom see one another, when the French Revolution exploded its bomb at the gates of the world's habits of thought.
No intelligent man ever objected to the French Revolution because it stood for human rights, but because it led straight to human wrongs. The dream was angelic, but the nightmare in which it ended was devilish. The French Revolution was the most colossal disappointment that humanity has ever had to bear.