Balder Ex-Libris - Chamberlain Houston StewartReview of books rare and missing2024-03-16T01:56:42+00:00urn:md5:aa728a70505b2fae05796923271581c2DotclearChamberlain Houston Stewart - The Wagnerian Dramaurn:md5:afc9d9e76209f9c5994e266b694437df2012-08-17T16:25:00+01:002014-05-05T15:47:55+01:00balderChamberlain Houston StewartGermanyMusic <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Chamberlain_Houston_Stewart_-_The_Wagnerian_Drama_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Chamberlain Houston Stewart</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Wagnerian Drama An attempt to inspire a better appreciation of Wagner as a Dramatic poet.</strong><br />
Year : 1894<br />
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The object of this little work is at the same time definite and circumscribed. Wagner was throughout, from his childhood days in fact, a dramatic poet: to awaken in the reader's mind a real and intelligent recognition of this fact is the object of the following, for this recognition is the first and essentially important step towards the understanding of Wagner as an artist and the true comprehension of his artistic achievements. <strong>...</strong></p>Chamberlain Houston Stewart - The ravings of a renegadeurn:md5:e8d0d4240e79d49828a111481d8cfe412012-08-17T16:21:00+01:002014-05-05T15:47:52+01:00balderChamberlain Houston StewartEnglandFirst World WarFranceGermany <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Chamberlain_Houston_Stewart_-_The_ravings_of_a_renegade_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Chamberlain Houston Stewart</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The ravings of a renegade The War Essays</strong><br />
Year : 1915<br />
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It is with much pleasure that I write a few lines to introduce Dr. Clarke's translation of Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain's " Kriegsaufsatze " (''War Essays"). Dr. Clarke, who has spent many years in Germany, has a very wide knowledge of the language, the people, and the life of that country, and the reader may rest assured that the translation conveys the spirit of the original. Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who was bom in 1855, was intended for the British army—a circumstance which it is now amusing to remember—but being of delicate health and unable to endure the vagaries of the English climate, he went abroad, and has spent most of his days, first in Austria, and since 1900 in Germany. He married the daughter of Richard Wagner, and has written several books on German literature and music. In this country his best known work is " Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts," a translation of which appeared under the title of "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century." When the war broke out, Mr. Chamberlain was invited by his friends to address himself to England and point out the wrong which that country had done in taking up arms against Germany; but, as he tells us, though he desired to do so, his pen absolutely declined to indite a word. He then bethought himself of telling Germany what he thought of England, and, lo ! the sentences rolled over each other in their anxiety to be enrolled in that noble cause. These essays appeared in various periodicals ; two of them, "England" and "Germany," were re-issued and circulated as a pamphlet ; and all of them were collected and published in volume form. The book was accorded a very hearty welcome throughout Germany, and the copy in front of me bears the imprint, " seventh edition." It may, of course, be held by some that no good purpose is served by presenting these essays in an English dress. I venture, however, to contend that the book is of great interest to British readers. I do not propose to discuss the taste of an Englishman who at such a time as this can abuse his country in the vitriolic style employed by Mr, Chamberlain : I merely assert that the " Kriegsaufsatze " are valuable as giving a clear insight into the Pan-German mind, in its most wild moments. Like all renegades, Mr. Chamberlain is plus royaliste que le roi. In his eyes everything in Germany is good, everything in England vile ; virtue is German, culture is German, large-heartedness is German, literature and art are German, decadence and incompetence and vice and stupidity are English. In fact, he echoes the refrain of Herr Lissauer's infamous (but to British folk amusing) " Hymn of Hate": "We have only one enemy - England." " As I believe in God, so do I believe in the holy German language," is the text of one of Mr. Chamberlain's essays. In another article he writes in all seriousness, " My conviction is that in all Germany during the last forty years there has not lived a single German who has wished for war—not one. Who puts forward the contrary view, lies either deliberately or unintentionally." In a third paper he asks, " Why do all nations hate Germany and the Germans ? " Mr. Chamberlain argues that this is due partly to envy, partly to misconception. The correct explanation is, however, to be found in another direction. Germany is hated because it can produce writers who are so fatuous as to put forward such opinions as are contained in this book, for it must be remembered that while the words are Mr. Chamberlain's, the sentiments he voices are those of almost the entire educated and " cultured " classes in the unhappy country which has adopted him. LEWIS MELVILLE. London, November 29th, 1915. <strong>...</strong></p>Chamberlain Houston Stewart - The Foundations of the Nineteenth Centuryurn:md5:50c4cbfa4de61f8a15f10d151bc817462012-08-17T16:12:00+01:002014-05-05T15:47:46+01:00balderChamberlain Houston StewartChristChristianityEuropeGermanyGreeceJewReligionRome <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Chamberlain_Houston_Stewart_-_The_Foundations_of_the_Nineteenth_Century_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Chamberlain Houston Stewart</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century Volume 1 and 2</strong><br />
Year : 1910<br />
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Some ten years ago there appeared in Germany a work of the highest importance which at once arrested the attention of the literary world, and was speedily declared to be one of the masterpieces of the century. The deep learning, the sympathy with knowledge in its most various forms, a style sometimes playful, sometimes ironical, always persuasive, always logical, pages adorned with brilliant passages of the loftiest eloquence — these features were a passport to immediate recognition. Three editions were exhausted in as many years, and now when it has gone through eight editions, and, in spite of the expense of the two bulky volumes, no fewer than sixty thousand copies have been sold in Germany, it is surely time that England should see the book clothed in the native language of its author. Houston Stewart Chamberlain was born at Southsea in 1855, the son of Admiral William Charles Chamberlain. Two of his uncles were generals in the English army, a third was the well-known Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain. His mother was a daughter of Captain Basil Hall, R.N., whose travels were the joy of the boyhood of my generation, while his scientific observations won for him the honour of Fellowship of the Royal Society. Captain Basil Hall's father, Sir James Hall, was himself eminent in science, being the founder of experimental geology. As a man of science therefore (and natural science was his first love), Houston Chamberlain may be regarded as an instance of atavism, or, to use the hideous word coined by Galton, “eugenics.” His education was almost entirely foreign. It began in a Lycée at Versailles. Being destined for the army he was afterwards sent to Cheltenham College: but the benign cruelty of fate intervened; his health broke down, he was removed from school, and all idea of entering the army was given up: and so it came to pass that the time which would have been spent upon mastering the goose-step and the subtleties of drill was devoted under the direction of an eminent German tutor, Herr Otto Kuntze, to sowing the seed of that marvellous harvest of learning and scholarship the full fruit of which, in the book before us, has ripened for the good of the world. After a while he went to Geneva, where under Vogt, Graebe, Müller Argovensis, Thury, Plantamour and other great professors he studied systematic botany, geology, astronomy, and later the anatomy and physiology of the human body. But the strain of work was too great and laid too heavy a tax upon his strength; so, for a time at any rate, natural science had to be abandoned and he migrated to Dresden, a forced change which was another blessing in disguise; for at Dresden he plunged heart and soul into the mysterious depths of the Wagnerian music and philosophy, the metaphysical works of the master probably exercising as strong an influence upon him as the musical dramas. Chamberlain's first published work was in French, Notes sur Lohengrin. This was followed by various essays in German on Wagnerian subjects: but they were not a success, and so, disgusted with the petty jealousies and unrealities of art-criticism, he fell back once more upon natural science and left Dresden for Vienna, where he placed himself under the guidance of Professor Wiesner. Again the miseries of health necessitated a change. Out of the wreck of his botanical studies he saved the materials for his Recherches sur la sève ascendante, a recognised authority among continental botanists, and natural science was laid aside, probably for ever. Happily the spell of the great magician was upon him. In 1892 there appeared Das Drama Richard Wagners, which, frozen almost out of existence at first (five copies were sold in the twelvemonth, of which the author was himself the buyer), has since run into four greedily purchased editions. Then came that fine book, the Life of Wagner, which has been translated into English by Mr. Hight, and Chamberlain's reputation was made, to be enhanced by the colossal success of the Grundlagen des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts which followed in 1899. Naturally enough, criticism was not spared. The book was highly controversial and no doubt lent itself to some misunderstanding: moreover the nationality of the author could hardly fail to be in a sense provocative of some slight jealousy or even hostility. One critic did not hesitate to accuse him of plagiarism — plagiarism, above all, from Richard Wagner, the very man whose disciple and historian he was proud to be, whose daughter he was; years afterwards, to marry. But this attack is one for which Chamberlain might well be thankful, for it gave him the chance, in the preface to the third edition, of showing all his skill in fence, a skill proof even against the coup de Jarnac. His answer to his critics on his theory of Race, and his criticism of Delitzsch in the preface to the fourth edition are fine pieces of polemical writing. What is the Book? How should it be defined? Is it history, a philosophical treatise, a metaphysical inquiry? I confess, I know not: probably it is all three. I am neither an historian, alas! nor a philosopher, nor a metaphysician. To me the book has been a simple delight — the companion of months — fulfilling the highest function of which a teacher is capable, that of awakening thought and driving it into new channels. That is the charm of the book. The charm of the man is his obviously transparent truthfulness. Anything fringing upon fraud is abhorrent to him, something to be scourged with scorpions. As in one passage he himself says, the enviable gift of lying has been denied to him. Take his answer to Professor Delitzsch's famous pamphlet Babel und Bibel, to which I have alluded above. No writer is so dangerous as the really learned scholar who uses his learning, as a special pleader might, in support of that which is not true. Now, Professor Delitzsch is an authority in Assyriology and the knowledge of the cuneiform inscriptions. The object of his brilliant and cleverly named pamphlet was to arouse interest in the researches of the German Orientalischer Verein. in this sense any discovery which can be brought into line with the story of the Old Testament is an engine the price of which is above pearls. Accordingly, Professor Delitzsch, eager to furnish proof of Semitic monotheism, brings out the statement that the Semitic tribes of Canaan which, at the time of Khammurabi, two thousand years before Christ, flooded Assyria, were worshippers of one God, and that the name of that God was Jahve (Jehovah), and in support of that statement he translates the inscriptions on two tablets, or fragments of tablets, in the British Museum. Now it must be obvious to the poorest intelligence that an obscure script like that in the cuneiform character can only be read with any approach to certainty where there is the Opportunity of comparison, that is to say, where the same groups of wedges or arrowheads, as they used to be called, are found repeated in various connections: even so, the patience and skill which have been spent upon deciphering the inscriptions, from the days of Hincks and Rawlinson until now, are something phenomenal. Where a proper name occurs only once, the difficulty is increased a hundredfold. Yet this did not deter Delitzsch from making his astounding monotheistic assertion on the strength of an arbitrary interpretation of a single example of a group of signs, which signs moreover are capable of being read, as is proved by the evidence of the greatest Assyriologists, in six if not eleven different ways. Truly a fine case for doctors to disagree upon! Chamberlain, with that instinctive shying at a fraud which distinguishes him, at once detected the imposition. He is no Assyriologist, but his work brings him into contact with the masters of many crafts, and so with the pertinacity of a sleuthhound he runs the lie to earth. In a spirit of delicate banter, through which the fierce indignation of the truth-lover often pierces, he tears the imposture to tatters; his attack is a fighting masterpiece, to which I allude, if only in the sketchiest way, as giving a good example of Chamberlain's methods. So much for Tablet No. I. The interpretation of the second tablet upon which Professor Delitzsch reads the solemn declaration “Jahve is God” fares no better at our author's hands; for he brings forward two unimpeachable witnesses, Hommel and König, who declare that Delitzsch has misread the signs which really signify “The moon is God.” It is well known — a fact scientifically proved by much documentary evidence — that Khammurabi and his contemporaries were worshippers of the sun, the moon and the stars; the name of his father was Sinmubalit, “the moon gives life,” his son was Shamshuiluna, “the sun is our God.” But no evidence is sufficient to check Professor Delitzsch's enthusiasm over his monotheistic Khammurabi! That much in the deciphering of Assyrian inscriptions is to a great extent problematical is evident. One thing, however, is certain in these readings of Professor Delitzsch: in the face of the authority of other men of learning, his whole fabric, “a very Tower of Babel, but built on paper, crumbles to pieces; and instead of the pompously announced, unsuspected aspect of the growth of monotheism, nothing remains to us but a surely very unexpected insight into the workshop of lax philology and fanciful history-mongering.” It seems to me that Khammurabi has been made a victim in this controversy. Even if he was a worshipper of the sun and the stars and the moon, he was, unless we ignorant folk have been cruelly misled, a very great man: for he appears to have been the first king who recognised the fact that if a people has duties to its sovereign, the sovereign on the other hand has duties to his people — and that, for a monarch who reigned so many centuries before Moses, must be admitted to show a very high sense of kingly responsibility. But Delitzsch, in trying to prove too much, has done him the dis-service of exposing him to what almost amounts to a sneer from the Anti-Semites. I have submitted what I have written above to Dr. Budge of the British Museum, who authorises me to say that he concurs in Chamberlain's views of Professor Delitzsch's translation. <strong>...</strong></p>Chamberlain Houston Stewart - Richard Wagnerurn:md5:23d392491fe166519561d45a9c72301c2012-08-17T16:00:00+01:002014-05-05T15:47:43+01:00balderChamberlain Houston StewartGermanyMusic <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Chamberlain_Houston_Stewart_-_Richard_Wagner_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Chamberlain Houston Stewart</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Richard Wagner</strong><br />
Year : 1900<br />
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In my little treatise " Das Drama Richard Wagner s " I announced my intention of writing a larger work on the Bayreuth Meister. Just at the moment when my preliminary studies had advanced so far that I could think of attempting the execution ofmy plan, the publishers, Messrs Friedrich Bruckmann, proposed that I should write the text for an illustrated Life of Wagner. Honourable as this commission was, it had little attraction for me at first. In Carl Friedrich Glasenapp's Life of Richard Wagner the world possesses a classical biography of the great word-tone-poet ; a voluminous autobiography will moreover some day be published ; several excellent little populai- accounts of his life have been written by various authors. A new biography therefore seemed to me scarcely calculated to meet any real requirement. The publishers however agreed to my proposal to compose, not a biography in the narrower sense of the word, but so to speak a picture; not a chronological enumeration of all the events of his life in proper order, but rather a sketch of the entire thought and work of the great man, and so I felt it my duty to postpone the execution of my first design, and to carry out the present work to the best of my abilities. A work of this kind about Wagner does not exist up to the present time. Shall I return to my former intention at some future date ? By the publication of this work its centre of gravity must of course be seriously displaced. Here I have been led, from first to last, by the wish to view Wagner from within, to represent him and the world as he saw them both. This is the only way of knowing a man. Truth is an inward light; the outer light glances back from the surface and dazzles the spectator; but if he take up his position in the shade, and content himself with fanning this inner light, the whole form will become translucent. The onlyobject of the present work was Wagner's individuality, which therefore had to engage my full, undivided attention ; none the less however is it an interesting exercise to regard Richard Wagner from •without, to trace his position in the history of art and in the development of the human mind, to determine the diagonal resulting from the will and the cognition of a rare genius, on the one hand, and the will and cognition of a hundred thousand less gifted men on the other. Perhaps I shall venture upon it some day. The publishers thoroughly understood and at once accepted my proposal with regard to our undertaking; although the initiative came from them the present form of the book is thus our common work. They also acceded to my wish that all superfluous matter in the way of illustrations, such as portraits of singers, caricatures, etc., should be removed; had they wished to speculate on cheap sensation the material would not have been wanting; but on the other hand they spared no pains or sacrifice to procure everything which was really important, and to carry out the pictorial portion of the work technically in such a way as became the dignity of the subject. The obliging spirit in which they were met at Wahnfried, as well as by the Intendants of various courttheatres, and by the Masters' numerous friends both at home and abroad, is evidenced by the list of illustrations. The fact that the " Wagner Museum " bluntly refused all assistance may be mentioned merely for the benefit of collectors of historical material ; not a single item have we lost in consequence of this refusal, and the more laborious search has brought to light many a precious document which might otherwise have remained unknown to us. In H. Hendrich the publishers secured the assistance of one of the very few painters whose imagination is not misled by the picture on the stage, who are able to grasp the central poetic idea, and to reproduce it freely in accordance with the character of their own art. The connection between the thought of the work and the pictures has been supplied by A. Frenz with deep symbolism in his vignettes. As for the text, my thanks are due more particularly to my dear and much honoured friend Carl Friedrich Glasenapp for his disinterested help. I also desire here to express publicly my thanks to my former master and friend of many years' standing, Gymnasiallehrer Herr Otto Kuntze in Stettin. To him I owe my command of the German language, and therewith my ability to write the book; besides this he has undertaken the troublesome work of correcting the proofs. And so may this attempt to sketch in a comprehensive form a comprehensive picture of the great German go forth, and do its part in contributing to a better understanding of one who was a hero both in mind and heart —Out of" the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh ; may it find its way to many more hearts. Vienna, November 1895. HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. <strong>...</strong></p>Chamberlain Houston Stewart - Immanuel Kanturn:md5:75456e203a395715d4f154f8618ab2e82012-08-17T15:56:00+01:002014-05-05T15:57:00+01:00balderChamberlain Houston StewartGermanyKant <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Chamberlain_Houston_Stewart_-_Immanuel_Kant_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Chamberlain Houston Stewart</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Immanuel Kant Volume 1 and 2</strong><br />
Year : 1905<br />
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If there be one defect more peculiarly English than another it is the tendency to sneer at everything foreign, at everything that is not familiar, every thing outside the daily experience of our narrow life. Talking the other day with a man of acknowledged ability and great public worth, I happened to mention the name of Kant. &quot; Of one thing I can assure you "said my friend," I am too old to have anything to do with German philosophy"; Coming from such a man these words set me wondering. Does there, after all, exist such a thing as German philosophy ? Surely philosophy is the common possession of all mankind, not the monopoly of any one race or language. There can be few men in the world, whatever their nationality may be, who donot sometimes "think about thought"; The famous misunderstood &quot; Cogito ergo sum &quot; of Descartes, con cerning which Chamberlain has much to say, must often come into the least thoughtful minds. Why am I ? What am I ? What are the relations between me and the world ? are questions which are no more than what is contained in the old Greek precept yv&Qi creavrov. The investigation of the laws of human thought, its objects, methods, and results, belong to all humanity, otherwise it is nothing. And in the case of Kant, that great Lord of Thought, how far can he be called German? Have we Britons, too, not some small hereditary share in the legacy which he has left to the world ? True he was the son of a humble saddler of Konigsberg Konigsberg, where he was born and educated, and which he never left during all the long eighty years of his life, not even for a butterfly s summer holiday. But that saddler was a Scot by origin. How he and his had found their way to that far away northern town at a time when travel was so difficult, I know not, but it is a feather in the cap of our country, that perhaps the most wonderful brain that ever thought, the brain whose power was, as Goethe said, so great that even those who had never read Kant were nevertheless unwittingly influenced by his writings, came of our blood. We may be proud that we too have our part, remote though it be, in his glory. It is well that the latest, and by no means the least, tribute to this gigantic intellect should have been paid by an Englishman, albeit he has chosen the German language as the vehicle for his thought. Mr. Chamber lain s countrymen must always regret the circumstances that have caused him to adopt a foreign country and a foreign tongue. In my introduction to another master piece of his, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" I have given the causes of that alienation an alienation not altogether of his own choosing. I need not repeat the story here. <strong>...</strong></p>Chamberlain Houston Stewart - Aryan World-viewurn:md5:5efdca2511ece7882a7652b0284032ff2012-08-17T15:48:00+01:002014-05-05T15:56:56+01:00balderChamberlain Houston StewartEuropeGermanyRacesRacialism <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Chamberlain_Houston_Stewart_-_Aryan_World-view_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Chamberlain Houston Stewart</strong><br />
Title : <strong>Aryan World-view</strong><br />
Year : 1938<br />
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Some studies I have been working on in earlier times have had a lasting influence on the direction of my thoughts. On the following pages I have tried to make my efforts fertile, in the hope to encourage others to take up similar studies and to give them some helpful advice along their journey. The layman is the expert of laymanism, as it were, and so he may succeed in ways that are unpermitted to the professional. As soon as the provisional stimulation and explanation has taken place, the neophyte has to entrust himself to the guidance of competent scholars. At the end of this book a short list of literature will provide the necessary grip for further studying. The title „Aryan World-view“ isn't entirely free of objection. „Indo-Aryan“ would have been more precise, or even „ancient Aryan“, if need be. But the composer fears to discourage just the reader he wishes to interest, by using a learned-sounding word. Let be said right here that in this little book „Aryan“ is not meant in the much debated and anyway difficult to limit sense of a problematic primeval race, but in the sensu proprio, meaning, to characterize the people that descended, several millennia ago, from the Central Asian plateau into the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges and who remained pure by obeying strict caste laws for a long period to keep themselves from mingling with strange races. These people called themselves the Aryan, that is to say the noblemen or the lords. Vienna, January 1905 Houston Stewart Chamberlain. <strong>...</strong></p>