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He wrote plays and poems and novels to the tunes set by the masters of his school, but for himself practically he was a wise man, held comfortable offices all his life long, and, in spite of vast literary yearning, sentiment, and misanthropy, was a Philister of the Philisters. The tale which Mr.
Most people who read a little German know that the epithet Philister originated in the Burschen-leben, or Student-life of Germany, and that the antithesis of Bursch and Philister was equivalent to the antithesis of “gown” and “town;” but since the word has passed into ordinary language it has assumed several shades of significance which have not yet been merged into a single, absolute meaning; and one of the questions which an English visitor in Germany will probably take an opportunity of asking is, “What is the strict meaning of the word Philister?” Riehl’s answer is, that the Philister “is one who is indifferent to all social interests, all public life, as distinguished from selfish and private interests; he has no sympathy with political and social events except as they affect his own comfort and prosperity, as they offer him material for amusement or opportunity for gratifying his vanity.
They pleased me better than the enthusiastic but somewhat unrestrained Burschenschaft of Heidelberg. Here, they have abolished duelling; the greatest friendship prevails among the students, and they have not that contempt for every thing philister, or unconnected with their studies, which prevails in other universities.
I have still to describe my home, chamber, garden, people of the house, etc. The next letter fills in this frame-work. HEIDELBERG, May 24, 1826. . . .According to your request, I am going to write you all possible details about my host, the employment of my time, etc., etc. Mr. , my "philister," is a tobacco merchant in easy circumstances, having a pretty house in the faubourg of the city.
It was mainly about "Fuchs" and "Philister," and duels and drinking-bouts at the neighbouring University of Schoppenhausen, from which renowned seat of learning they had just come in the Eilwagen, with Becky, as it appeared, by their side, and in order to be present at the bridal fetes at Pumpernickel.
Faustus seems at first to have settled as a practising physician, and at this period of his life Wagner appears as his famulus; for we never find this Philister among scholars as a companion of the travelling Faustus, although his connection with him was apparently lasting.
Claudius told his old landlord his philister, as he would have called him that he was going away on his customary foot tour for a month or so. He packed a book and a few things in his knapsack and joined Mr. Barker.
Though the dead be unconcerned, the living are neither benefited nor improved: decency is violated, and a kind of instinctive sympathy infringed, which, though it ought not to overpower reason, ought not without it, and to no purpose, to be superseded." Notwithstanding the right feeling shewn in this passage, it is quite sufficient to condemn Capel Lofft as a Philister.
Perhaps we have not the word, because we have so much of the thing. At Soli, I imagine, they did not talk of solecisms; and here, at the very headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism. Efforts have been made to obtain in English some term equivalent to Philister or épicier; Mr.
All that depends upon the intelligence of the scrutineer. Doubtless your Philister would turn over the skull or the bones, or make hay with the dust, just as Peter Bell could see nothing in a primrose but a weed in flower. What message a bone or a weed may have for the man or the race depends wholly upon the recipient.
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