German darkness was immeasurably livelier than the new German light. The
devils of Germany were much better than the angels. Look at the Teutonic
pictures of "The Three Huntsmen" and observe that while the wicked
huntsman is effective in his own way, the good huntsman is weak in every
way, a sort of sexless woman with a face like a teaspoon. But there is
more in these first forest tales, these homely horrors. In the earlier
stages they have exactly this salt of salvation, that the boy does _not_
shudder. They are made fearful that he may be fearless, not that he may
fear. As long as that limit is kept, the barbaric dreamland is decent;
and though individuals like Coleridge and De Quincey mixed it with worse
things (such as opium), they kept that romantic rudiment upon the whole.
But the one disadvantage of a forest is that one may lose one's way in
it. And the one danger is not that we may meet devils, but that we may
worship them. In other words, the danger is one always associated, by
the instinct of folk-lore, with forests; it is _enchantment_, or the
fixed loss of oneself in some unnatural captivity or spiritual
servitude. And in the evolution of Germanism, from Hoffmann to
Hauptmann, we do see this growing tendency to take horror seriously,
which is diabolism. The German begins to have an eerie abstract sympathy
with the force and fear he describes, as distinct from their objective.
The German is no longer sympathising with the boy against the goblin,
but rather with the goblin against the boy. There goes with it, as
always goes with idolatry, a dehumanised seriousness; the men of the
forest are already building upon a mountain the empty throne of the
Superman. Now it is just at this point that I for one, and most men who
love truth as well as tales, begin to lose interest. I am all for "going
out into the world to seek my fortune," but I do not want to find
it--and find it is only being chained for ever among the frozen figures
of the Sieges Allees. I do not want to be an idolator, still less an
idol. I am all for going to fairyland, but I am also all for coming