Before we go on to concern ourselves with the further career of our Maurice of Saxony, as he liked to style himself in his intimate circle or friends, we would point to two qualities which made their appearance already in the Jahrbücher. The first is his mania for manifestos. No sooner had someone hatched a novel opinion that Ruge believed to have a future than he would issue a manifesto. As no-one reproaches him with ever having given birth to an original thought of his own, such manifestos were always suitable opportunity to claim this novel idea as his own property in a more or less declamatory fashion. This would be followed by the attempt to form a party, a "mass" which would stand behind him and to whom he could act as sergeant-major. We shall see later to what unbelievable heights of perfection Ruge had developed the art of fabricating manifestos, proclamations and pronunciamentos. The second quality is the particular diligence in which Arnold excels. As he does not care to study overmuch, or as he puts it "to transfer ideas from one library into another", he prefers "to gain his knowledge fresh from life". He means by this to note down conscientiously every evening all the witty, novel or bright ideas that he has read, heard or just picked up during the day. As opportunity arises these materials are then made to contribute to Urge's daily stint which he labours at just as conscientiously as at his other bodily needs. It is this that his admirers refer to when they say that he cannot hold his ink. The subject of his daily literary production is a matter of complete indifference; what is vital is that Ruge should be able to immerse every possible topic in that wonderful stylistic sauce that goes with everything just like the English who enjoy their Soyer's relish or Worcester Sauce equally with fish, fowl, cutlets or anything else. This daily stylistic diarrhoea he likes to designate the "all-pervading beautiful form" and he regards it as adequate grounds for passing himself off as an artist.
Contented as Ruge was to be the Swiss guard of German philosophy he still had a secret sorrow gnawing at his innermost vitals. He had not written a single large book and had daily to envy the happy Bruno Bauer who had published 18 fat volumes while still a young man. To reduce the discrepancy Ruge had one and the same essay printed three times in one and the same volume under different titles and then brought out the same volume in a number of different formats. In this way Arnold Ruge's Complete Works came into being and even today he derives much pleasure from counting them every morning volume by volume as they stand there neatly bound in his library, whereupon he exclaims joyfully: "And anyway, Bruno Bauer is a man without principles!"Even though Arnold did not manage to comprehend the Hegelian system of philosophy, he did succeed in representing one Hegelian category in his own person. He was the very incarnation of the "honest consciousness"and was strengthened in this when he made the pleasant discovery in the Phenomenology -- a book that was otherwise closed to him and bound with seven seals -- that the honest consciousness "always has pleasure in itself". Though he wears his integrity on his sleeve the honest consciousness uses it to conceal the petty malice and crotchetiness of the Philistine;he has the right to allow himself every kind of base action because he knows that his baseness springs from honest motives. His very stupidity becomes a virtue because it is an irrefutable proof that he stands up for his principles. Despite every arrière pensée he is firmly convinced of his own integrity and however base or filthy an intended act may be it does not prevent him from appearing sincere and trusting.
Beneath the halo of good intentions all the petty meannesses of the citizen become transformed into as many virtues; sordid self-interest appears as an innocent babe when dressed up to look like a piece of self-sacrifice;cowardice appears disguised as a higher form of courage, baseness becomes magnanimity, and the coarse manners of the peasant become ennobled, and indeed transfigured into the signs of decency and good humour. This is the gutter into which the contradictions of philosophy, democracy and the cliché industry all pour; such a man is moreover richly endowed with all the vices, the mean and petty qualities, with the slyness and the stupidity, the greed and the clumsiness, the servility and the arrogance, the untrustworthiness and the bonhomie of the emancipated serf, the peasant;Philistine and ideologist, atheist and slogan worshipper, absolute ignoramus and absolute philosopher all in one -- that is Arnold Ruge as Hegel foretold him in 1806.
After the Deutsche Jahrbücher were suppressed Ruge transported his family to Paris in a carriage specially designed for the purpose. Here, his unlucky star brought him into contact with Heine who honoured him as the man who "had translated Hegel into Pomeranian".
Heine asked him whether Prutz was not a pseudonym of his which Ruge could deny in good conscience. However, it was not possible to make Heine believe that anyone but Arnold was the author of Prutz's poems. Heine also discovered very soon that even though Ruge had no talent he knew very well how to give the appearance of being a man of character. Thus it came about that Friend Arnold gave Heine the idea for his Atta Troll. If Ruge was not able to immortalise his sojourn in Paris by writing a great work he at least deserves our thanks for the one Heine produced for him. In gratitude the poet wrote for him this well-known epitaph:
Atta Troll, Tendenzbar; sittlich Religios; als Gatte brunstig;Durch Verfuhrtsein von dem Zeitgeist Waldursprduglich Sansculotte;Sehr schlecht tanzend, doch Gesinnung Tragend in der zoutgen Hochbrust;Manchmal auch gestunken habend;Kein Talent, doch ein Charakter!
