AN HONEST IDEAL


Among my numerous friends in Vienna, there is one who is an author, and
who has always amused me by his childish idealism.

Not by his idealism from an abstract point of view, for in spite of my
Pessimism I am an absurd Idealist, and because I am perfectly well aware
of this, I as a rule never laugh at people's Idealism, but his sort of
Idealism was really too funny.

He was a serious man of great capabilities who only just fell short of
being learned, with a clear, critical intellect; a man without any
illusions about Society, the State, Literature, or anything else, and
especially not about women; but yet he was the craziest Optimist as soon
as he got upon the subject of actresses, theatrical princesses and
heroines; he was one of those men, who, like Hackländer, cannot discover
the Ideal of Virtue anywhere, except in a ballet girl.

My friend was always in love with some actress or other; of course only
Platonically, and from preference with some girl of rising talent, whose
literary knight he constituted himself, until the time came when her
admirers laid something much more substantial than laurel wreaths at her
feet; then he withdrew and sought for fresh talent which would allow
itself to be patronized by him.