Seite - 566 - in Arthur Schnitzler & Hermann Bahr - Briefwechsel, Aufzeichnungen, Dokumente 1891–1931

566 dezember 1922 Dr. Schnitzler has told me of something you once wrote about Vi- ennaandaboutthe influenceofCelticblooduponitscharacter.But 15 Idonotknowwheretofindthisarticleorbookofyourself.Perhaps you could let me know under what title I should look for it at my book-sellers? And if you know of any other book or article upon Vienna whether from your own pen or not.i I should be grateful to you ifyou couldwritemeof it. 20 MayIthenhopeforawordfromyouastowhetherwearetoexpect something forTheDial? Sincerelyyours, [hs.:] ScofieldThayer 1291.Bahr:ALetterFromGermany,Dezember1922 ALETTERFROMGERMANY Munich. ARTHUR SCHNITZLER’S sixtieth birthday was celebrated in Germantheatresbyperformancesofhisplaysandinthenewspapers 5 by friendly appreciations. Admiration was almost always mingled withasortof sadness–almostas thoughobituarynoticeswerewrit- tenrather thancongratulations.TheNeueRundschau inBerlin, the organofhis loyalpublisher,S.Fischer,andtheModerneWeltofVi- enna issued »Schnitzler numbers.« They opened their pages to his 10 friends and fellow-workers, that on this anniversary they might ex- press theirappreciation.Hardlyasingleoneof the famousGerman nameswas lacking,butamongthesegoodwishes too,amelancholy notewascharacteristic.Everyonewassincereandglad,andyetthere was a funereal air about the entire Schnitzler Festival. All of us 15 hopedthathewouldremainworkinginourmidstformanyyearsto come in the best of health, but we also felt that Schnitzler’s works are the expression of an epoch that is gone, irrevocably gone. For that very reason his works are so significant to us, even more so than when they were written. Then the world whose melancholy 20 reflection they were was still in existence; few of us would have dreamedthatwewouldsurviveit.ButSchnitzlerinsomemysterious wayanticipated theendeventhen.He, thephysicianbyprofession, saw the Hippocratic lines in the soft face of our amiable Austrian heedlessness. The charm of his plays as well as of his stories lies in 25 theirunforcedgaiety.TheAustriansretainedthischaracteristiceven when the other German tribes, one after another were becoming self-complacent in a stiff, really quite un-German dignity. Vienna seemed the last German city which had not forgotten how to smile. And at that time the only complaint Vienna had to make of Schnit-