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Title: The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine
Author: Heinrich Heine
Editor: Havelock Ellis
Release Date: September 19, 2011 [EBook #37478]
Language: English
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The Camelot Series.
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS.
HEINE'S PROSE WRITINGS.
THE PROSE WRITINGS OF
HEINRICH HEINE:
EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION,
BY HAVELOCK
ELLIS.
WALTER SCOTT
LONDON: 24 WARWICK LANE
PATERNOSTER ROW
1887
CONTENTS.
PAGE
REISEBILDER 1
LONDON 47
WELLINGTON 52
THE LIBERATION 57
JAN STEEN 65
THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL 68
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 142
FLORENTINE NIGHTS 179
DON QUIXOTE 243
GODS IN EXILE 268
CONFESSIONS 290
HEINE.
I.
Heine gathers up and focuses for us in one vivid point all those
influences of his own time which are the forces of to-day. He appears
before us, to put it in his own way, as a youthful and militant Knight
of the Holy Ghost, tilting against the spectres of the past and
liberating the imprisoned energies of the human spirit. His interest
from this point of view lies, largely, apart from his interest as a
supreme lyric poet, the brother of Catullus and Villon and Burns; we
here approach him on his prosaic--his relatively prosaic--side.
One hemisphere of Heine's brain was Greek, the other Hebrew. He was born
when the genius of Goethe was at its height; his mother had absorbed the
frank earthliness, the sane and massive Paganism, of the Roman elegies,
and Heine's ideals in all things, whether he would or not, were always
Hellenic--using that word in the large sense in which Heine himself used
it--even while he was the first in rank and the last in time of the
Romantic poets of Germany. He sought, even consciously, to mould the
modern emotional spirit into classic forms. He wrought his art simply
and lucidly, the aspirations that pervade it are everywhere sensuous,
and yet it recalls oftener the turbulent temper of Catullus than any
serener ancient spirit.
For Heine arose early in active rebellion against a merely passive
classicism; just as fiercer and more ardent cries, as from the Orient,
pierce through the songs of Catullus. The mischievous Hermes was
irritated by the calm and quiet activities of the aged Zeus of Weimar.
And then the earnest Hebrew nature within him, liberated by Hegel's
favourite thought of the divinity of man, came into play with its large
revolutionary thirsts. Thus it was that he appeared before the world as
the most brilliant leader of a movement of national or even world-wide
emancipation. The greater part of his prose works, from the youthful
_Reisebilder_ onwards, and a considerable portion of his poetic work,
record the energy with which he played this part.
But whether the Greek or the Hebrew element happened to be most active
in Heine, the ideal that he set up for life generally was the equal
activity of both sides--in other words, the harmony of flesh and spirit.
It is this thought which dominates _The History of Religion and
Philosophy in Germany_, his finest achievement in this kind. That book
was written at the moment when Heine touched the highest point of his
enthusiasm for freedom and his faith in the possibility of human
progress. It is a sort of programme for the immediate future of the
human spirit, in the form of a brief and bold outline of the spiritual
history of Germany and Germany's great emancipators, Luther, Lessing,
Kant, and the rest. It sets forth in a fresh and fascinating shape that
Everlasting Gospel which, from the time of Joachim of Flora downwards,
has always gleamed in dreams before the minds of men as the successor of
Christianity. Heine's vision of a democracy of cakes and ale, founded on
the heights of religious, philosophical, and political freedom, still
spurs and thrills us--even now-a-days, when we have wearied of stately
bills of fare for a sulky humanity that will not feed at our bidding,
no, not on cakes and ale. Heine is wise enough to see, however
imperfectly, that it is unreasonable to expect the speedy erection of
any New Jerusalem; for, as he expresses it in his own way, the holy
vampires of the middle ages have sucked away so much of our life-blood
that the world has become a hospital. A sudden revolution of
fever-stricken or hysterical invalids can effect little of permanent
value; only a long and invigorating course of the tonics of life can
make free from danger the open-air of nature. "Our first duty," he
asserted in this book, "is to become healthy."
Heine confesses that he too was among the sick and decrepit souls. In
reality he was at no period so full of life and health, so harmoniously
inspired and upborne by a great enthusiasm. He laughs a little at
Goethe; he fails to see that the Phidian Zeus, at whose confined
position he jests, was the greatest liberator of them all; but for the
most part his mocking sarcasm is here silent. It was not until ten years
later, when the subtle seeds of disease had begun to appear, and when,
too, he had perhaps gained a clearer insight into the possibilities of
life, that Heine realised that the practical reforming movements of his
time were not those for which his early enthusiasm had been aroused. And
then he wrote _Atta Troll_.
With the slow steps of that consuming disease, and after the revolution
of 1848, Heine ceased to recognise as of old any common root for his
various activities, or to insist on the fundamental importance of
religion. Everything in the world became the sport of his intelligence.
The brain still functioned brilliantly in the atrophied body; the
lightning-like wit still struck unerringly; it spared not even himself.
The _Confessions_ are full of irony, covering all things with laughter
that is half reverence, or with reverence that is more than half
laughter--and woe to the reader who is not at every moment alert! In the
romantic, satirical poem of _Atta Troll_, written at the commencement of
this last period, this, his final altitude, is most completely revealed.
It needs a little study to-day, even for a German, but it is well worth
that study.
_Atta Troll_, the history of a dancing bear who escapes from servitude,
is a protest against the radical party, with their narrow conceptions of
progress, their tame ideal of _bourgeois_ equality, their little
watchwords, their solemnity, their indignation at the human creatures
who smile "even in their enthusiasm." All these serious concerns of the
tribunes of the people are bathed in soft laughter as we listen to the
delicious childlike monotonous melody in which the old bear, surrounded
by his family, mumbles or mutters of the future. _Atta Troll_ is not,
as many have thought, a sneer at the most sacred ideals of men. It is,
rather, the assertion of those ideals against the individuals who would
narrow them down to their own petty scope. There are certain mirrors,
Heine said, so constructed that they would present even Apollo as a
caricature. But we laugh at the caricature, not at the god. It is well
to show, even at the cost of some misunderstanding, that above and
beyond the little ideals of our political progress, there is built a yet
larger ideal city, of which also the human spirit claims citizenship.
The defence of the inalienable rights of the spirit, Heine declares, had
been the chief business of his life.
In the history of Germany it was her two great intellectual liberators,
Luther and Lessing, to whom Heine looked up with the most unqualified
love and reverence. By his later vindication of the rights of the
spirit, not less than by his earlier fight for religious and political
progress, he may be said to have earned for himself a place below,
indeed, but not so very far below, those hearty and sound-cored
iconoclasts.
II.
To reach the root of the man's nature we must glance at the chief facts
of his life. He was born at Düsseldorf on the Rhine, then occupied by
the French, probably on the 13th of December 1799.[1] He came, by both
parents, of that Jewish race which is, as he said once, the dough
whereof gods are kneaded. The family of his mother, Betty van Geldern,
had come from Holland a century earlier; Betty herself received an
excellent education; she shared the studies of her brother, who became
a physician of repute; she spoke and read English and French; her
favourite books were Rousseau's _Emile_ and Goethe's elegies. Some
letters written during her twenty-fourth year reveal a frank, brave and
sweet nature; she was a bright, attractive little person, and had many
wooers. In the summer of 1796 Samson Heine, bearing a letter of
introduction, entered the house of the Van Gelderns. He was the son of a
Jewish merchant settled in Hanover, and he had just made a campaign in
Flanders and Brabant, in the capacity of commissary with the rank of
officer, under Prince Ernest of Cumberland. He was a large and handsome
man, with soft blond hair and beautiful hands; there was something about
him, said his son, a little characterless and feminine. After a brief
courtship he married Betty and settled at Düsseldorf as an agent for
English velveteens. Harry (so he was named after an Englishman) was the
first child. While from his rather weak and romantic father came
whatever was loose and unbalanced in Heine's temperature, it was his
mother, with her strong and healthy nature, well developed both
intellectually and emotionally, who, as he himself said, played the
chief part in the history of his evolution.
Harry was a quick child; his senses were keen, though he was not
physically strong; he loved reading, and his favourite books were _Don
Quixote_ and _Gulliver's Travels_. He used to make rhymes with his only
and much-loved sister Lotte, and at the age of ten he wrote a ghost-poem
which his teachers considered a masterpiece. At the Lyceum he worked
well, at night as well as by day. Only once, at the public ceremony at
the end of a school year, he came to grief; he was reciting a poem, when
his eyes fell on a beautiful, fair-haired girl in the audience; he
hesitated, stammered, was silent, fell down fainting. So early he
revealed the extreme cerebral irritability of a nature absorbed in
dreams and taken captive by visions. It was not long after this, at the
age of seventeen, when his rich uncle at Hamburg was trying in vain to
set him forward on a commercial career, that Heine met the woman who
aroused his first and last profound passion, always unsatisfied except
in so far as it found exquisite embodiment in his poems. He never
mentioned her name; it was not till after his death that the form
standing behind this Maria, Zuleima, Evelina of so many sweet, strange,
or melancholy songs was known to be that of his cousin, Amalie Heine.
With his uncle's help he studied law at Bonn, Göttingen and Berlin. At
Berlin he fell under the dominant influence of Hegel, the vanquisher of
the romantic school of which Schelling was the philosophic
representative. Heine afterwards referred to this period as that in
which he "herded swine with the Hegelians;" it is certain that Hegel
exerted great and permanent influence over him. At Berlin, in 1821,
appeared his first volume of poems, and then he began to take his true
place.
At this period Heine is described as a good-natured and gentle youth,
but reserved, not caring to show his emotions. He was of middle height
and slender, with rather long light brown hair (in childhood it was red,
and he was called "Rother Harry") framing the pale and beardless oval
face, the bright blue short-sighted eyes, the Greek nose, the high
cheek-bones, the large mouth, the full--half cynical, half
sensual--lips. He was not a typical German; like Goethe, he never
smoked; he disliked beer, and until he went to Paris he had never tasted
_sauerkraut_.
For some years he continued, chiefly at Göttingen, to study law. But he
had no liking and no capacity for jurisprudence, and his spasmodic fits
of application at such moments as he realised that it was not good for
him to depend on the generosity of his rich and kind-hearted uncle
Solomon, failed to carry him far. A new idea, a sunny day, the opening
of some flower-like _lied_, a pretty girl--and the Pandects were
forgotten.
Shortly after he had at last received his doctor's diploma he went
through the ceremony of baptism in hope of obtaining an appointment from
the Prussian Government. It was a step which he immediately regretted,
and which, far from placing him in a better position, excited the enmity
both of Christians and Jews, although the Heine family had no very
strong views on the matter; Heine's mother, it should be said, was a
Deist, his father indifferent, but the Jewish rites were strictly kept
up. He still talked of becoming an advocate, until, in 1826, the
publication of the first volume of the _Reisebilder_ gave him a
reputation throughout Germany by its audacity, its charming and
picturesque manner, its peculiarly original personality. The second
volume, bolder and better than the first, was received with delight very
much mixed with horror, and it was prohibited by Austria, Prussia, and
many minor states. At this period Heine visited England;[2] he was then
disgusted with Germany and full of enthusiasm for the "land of freedom,"
an enthusiasm which naturally met with many rude shocks, and from that
time dates the bitterness with which he usually speaks of England. He
found London--although, owing to a clever abuse of uncle Solomon's
generosity, exceedingly well supplied with money--"frightfully damp and
uncomfortable;" only the political life of England attracted him, and
there were no bounds to his admiration of Canning. He then visited
Italy, to spend there the happiest days of his life; and having at
length realised that his efforts to obtain any government appointment in
Germany would be fruitless, he emigrated to Paris. There, save for brief
periods, he remained until his death.
This entry into the city which he had called the New Jerusalem was an
important epoch in Heine's life. He was thirty-one years of age, still
youthful, and eager to receive new impressions; he was apparently in
robust health, notwithstanding constant headaches; Gautier describes him
as in appearance a sort of German Apollo. He was still developing, as he
continued to develop, even up to the end; the ethereal loveliness of the
early poems vanished, it is true, but only to give place to a closer
grasp of reality, a larger laughter, a keener cry of pain. He was now
heartily welcomed by the extraordinarily brilliant group then living and
working in Paris, including Victor Hugo, George Sand, Balzac, Michelet,
Alfred de Musset, Gautier, Chopin, Louis Blanc, Dumas, Sainte-Beuve,
Quinet, Berlioz, and many others, and he entered with eager delight
into their manifold activities. For a time also he attached himself
rather closely to the school of Saint-Simon, then headed by Enfantin; he
was especially attracted by their religion of humanity, which seemed the
realisation of his own dreams. Heine's book on _Religion and Philosophy
in Germany_ was written at Enfantin's suggestion, and the first edition
dedicated to him; Enfantin's name was, he said, a sort of Shibboleth,
indicating the most advanced party in the "liberation war of humanity."
In 1855 he withdrew the dedication; it had become an anachronism;
Enfantin was no longer ransacking the world in search of _la femme
libre_; the martyrs of yesterday no longer bore a cross--unless it were,
he added characteristically, the cross of the Legion of Honour.
A few years after his arrival in Paris Heine entered on a relationship
which occupied a large place in his life. Mathilde Mirat, a lively
grisette of sixteen, was the illegitimate daughter of a man of wealth
and position in the provinces, and she had come up from Normandy to
serve in her aunt's shoe-shop. Heine often passed this shop, and an
acquaintance, at first carried on silently through the shop window,
gradually ripened into a more intimate relationship. Mathilde could
neither read nor write; it was decided that she should go to school for
a time; after that they established a little common household, one of
those _ménages parisiens_, recognised as almost legitimate, for which
Heine had always had a warm admiration, because, as he said, he meant by
"marriage" something quite other than the legal coupling effected by
parsons and bankers. As in the case of Goethe, it was not until some
years later that he went through the religious ceremony, as a
preliminary to a duel in which he had become involved by his remarks on
Börne's friend, Madame Strauss; he wished to give Mathilde an assured
position in case of his death. After the ceremony at St. Sulpice he
invited to dinner all those of his friends who had contracted similar
relations, in order that they might be influenced by his example. That
they were so influenced is not recorded.
It is not difficult to understand the strong and permanent attraction
that drew the poet, who had so many intellectual and aristocratic women
among his friends, to this pretty, laughter-loving grisette. It lay in
her bright and wild humour, her childlike impulsiveness, not least in
her charming ignorance. It was delightful to Heine that Mathilde had
never read a line of his books, did not even know what a poet was, and
loved him only for himself. He found in her a continual source of
refreshment.
He had need of every source of refreshment. In the years that followed
his formal marriage in 1841, the dark shadows, within and without, began
to close round him. Although he was then producing his most mature work,
chiefly in poetry--_Atta Troll_, _Romancero_, _Deutschland_--his income
from literary sources remained small. Mathilde was not a good
housekeeper; and even with the aid of a considerable allowance from his
uncle Solomon, Heine was frequently in pecuniary difficulties, and was
consequently induced to accept a small pension from the French
government, which has sometimes been a matter of concern to those who
care for his fame. As years passed, the enmities that he suffered from
or cherished increased rather than diminished, and his bitterness found
expression in his work. Even Mathilde was not an unalloyed source of
joy; the charming child was becoming a middle-aged woman, and was still
like a child. She could not enter into Heine's interests; she delighted
in theatres and circuses, to which he could not always accompany her;
and he experienced the pangs of an unreasonable jealousy more keenly
than he cared to admit. Then uncle Solomon died, and his son refused,
until considerable pressure was brought to bear on him, to continue the
allowance which his father had intended Heine to receive. This was a
severe blow, and the excitement it produced developed the latent seeds
of his disease. It came on with alarming symptoms of paralysis, which
even in a few months gave him, he says, the appearance of a dying man.
During the next two years, although his brain remained clear, the long
pathological tragedy was unfolded.
He went out for the last time in May 1848. Half blind and half lame, he
slowly made his way out of the streets, filled with the noise of
revolution, into the silent Louvre, to the shrine dedicated to "the
goddess of beauty, our dear lady of Milo." There he sat long at her
feet; he was bidding farewell to his old gods; he had become reconciled
to the religion of sorrow; tears streamed from his eyes, and she looked
down at him, compassionate but helpless: "Dost thou not see, then, that
I have no arms, and cannot help thee?"
_On eût dit un Apollon germanique_--so Gautier said of the Heine of
1835; twenty years later an English visitor wrote of him--"He lay on a
pile of mattresses, his body wasted so that it seemed no bigger than a
child under the sheet which covered him--his eyes closed, and the face
altogether like the most painful and wasted 'Ecce Homo' ever painted by
some old German painter."
His sufferings were only relieved by ever larger doses of morphia; but
although still more troubles came to him, and the failure of a bank
robbed him of his small savings, his spirit remained unconquered. "He is
a wonderful man," said one of his doctors; "he has only two
anxieties--to conceal his condition from his mother, and to assure his
wife's future." His literary work, though it decreased in amount, never
declined in power; only, in the words of his friend Berlioz, it seemed
as though the poet was standing at the window of his tomb, looking
around on the world in which he had no longer a part.
He saw a few friends, of whom Ferdinand Lassalle, with his exuberant
power and enthusiasm, was the most interesting to him, as the
representative of a new age and a new social faith; and the most loved,
that girl-friend who sat for hours or days at a time by the
"mattress-grave" in the Rue d' Amsterdam, reading to him or writing his
letters or correcting proofs. To the last the loud, bright voice of
Mathilde, when he chanced to hear it, scolding the servants or in other
active exercise, often made him stop speaking, while a smile of delight
passed over his face. He died on the 16th of February 1856. He was
buried, silently, in Montmartre, according to his wish; for, as he said,
it is quiet there.
III.
Throughout and above all Heine was a poet. From first to last he was led
by three angels who danced for ever in his brain, and guided him, singly
or together, always. They were the same as in _Atta Troll_ he saw in the
moonlight from the casement of Uraka's hut--the Greek Diana, grown
wanton, but with the noble marble limbs of old; Abunde, the blond and
gay fairy of France; Herodias, the dark Jewess, like a palm of the
oasis, and with all the fragrance of the East between her breasts: "O,
you dead Jewess, I love you most, more than the Greek goddess, more than
that fairy of the North."[3]
Those genii of three ideal lands danced for ever in his brain, and that
is but another way of indicating the opposition that lay at the root of
his nature. From one point of view, it may well be, he continued the
work of Luther and Lessing, though he was less great-hearted, less sound
at core, though he had not that element of sane Philistinism which marks
the Shakespeares and Goethes of the world. But he was, more than
anything else, a poet, an artist, a dreamer, a perpetual child. The
practical reformers among whom at one time he placed himself, the men of
one idea, were naturally irritated and suspicious; there was a flavour
of aristocracy in such idealism. In the poem called "Disputation" a
Capuchin and a Rabbi argued before the King and Queen at Toledo
concerning the respective merits of the Christian and Jewish religions.
Both spoke at great length and with great fervour, and in the end the
King appealed to the beautiful Queen by his side. She replied that she
could not tell which of them was right, but that she did not like the
smell of either; and Heine was generally of the Queen's mind. He sighed
for the restoration of Barbarossa, the long-delayed German Empire, and
his latest biographer asserts that he would have greeted the discovery
of Barbarossa under the disguise of the King of Prussia, with
Bismarckian insignia of blood and iron, as the realisation of all his
dreams. It is doubtful, however, whether the meeting would be very
cordial on either side. It would probably be the painful duty of the
Emperor, as of the Emperor of the vision in _Deutschland_, to tell
Heine, in very practical language, that he was wanting in respect,
wanting in all sense of etiquette; and Heine would certainly reply to
the Emperor, as under the same circumstances he replied to the visionary
Barbarossa, that that venerable gentleman had better go home again, that
during his long absence Emperors had become unnecessary, and that, after
all, sceptres and crowns made admirable playthings for monkeys.
"We are founding a democracy of gods," he wrote in 1834, "all equally
holy, blessed and glorious. You desire simple clothing, ascetic morals,
and unseasoned enjoyments; we, on the contrary, desire nectar and
ambrosia, purple mantles, costly perfumes, pleasure and splendour,
dances of laughing nymphs, music and plays.--Do not be angry, you
virtuous republicans; we answer all your reproaches in the words of one
of Shakespeare's fools: 'Dost thou think that because thou art virtuous
there shall be no more cakes and ale?'" What could an austere
republican, a Puritanic Liberal, who scorned the vision of roses and
myrtles and sugar-plums all round, say to this? Börne answered, "I can
be indulgent to the games of children, indulgent to the passions of a
youth, but when on the bloody day of battle a boy who is chasing
butterflies gets between my legs; when at the day of our greatest need,
and we are calling aloud on God, the young coxcomb beside us in the
church sees only the pretty girls, and winks and flirts--then, in spite
of all our philosophy and humanity, we may well grow angry.... Heine,
with his sybaritic nature, is so effeminate that the fall of a roseleaf
disturbs his sleep; how, then, should he rest comfortably on the knotty
bed of freedom? Where is there any beauty without a fault? Where is
there any good thing without its ridiculous side? Nature is seldom a
poet and never rhymes; let him whom her rhymeless prose cannot please
turn to poetry!" Börne was right; Heine was not the man to plan a
successful revolution, or defend a barricade, or edit a popular
democratic newspaper, or represent adequately a radical
constituency--all this was true. Let us be thankful that it was true;
Börnes are ever with us, and we are grateful: there is but one Heine.
The same complexity of nature that made Heine an artist made him a
humorist. But it was a more complicated complexity now, a cosmic game
between the real world and the ideal world; he could go no further. The
young Catullus of 1825, with his fiery passions crushed in the
wine-press of life and yielding such divine ambrosia, soon lost his
faith in passion. The militant soldier in the liberation-war of humanity
of 1835 soon ceased to flourish his sword. It was only with the full
development of his humour, when his spinal cord began to fail and he had
taken up his position as a spectator of life, that Heine attained the
only sort of unity possible to him--the unity that comes of a recognised
and accepted lack of unity. In the lambent flames of this unequalled
humour he bathed all the things he counted dearest; to its service he
brought the secret of his poet's nature, the secret of speaking with a
voice that every heart leaps up to answer. It is scarcely the humour of
Aristophanes, though it is a greater force, even in moulding our
political and social ideals, than Börne knew; it is oftener a modern
development of the humour of the mad king and the fool in _Lear_--that
humour which is the last concentrated word of the human organism under
the lash of Fate.
And if it is still asked why Heine is so modern, it can only be said
that these discords out of which his humour exhaled are those which we
have nearly all of us known, and that he speaks with a voice that seems
to arise from the depth of our own souls. He represents our period of
transition; he gazed, from what appeared the vulgar Pisgah of his day,
behind on an Eden that was for ever closed, before on a promised land he
should never enter. While with clear sight he announced things to come,
the music of the past floated up to him; he brooded wistfully over the
vision of the old Olympian gods, dying, amid faint music of cymbals and
flutes, forsaken, in the mediæval wilderness; he heard strange sounds of
psaltries and harps, the psalms of Israel, the voice of Princess
Sabbath, sounding across the remote waters of Babylon.--In a few years
this significance of Heine will be lost; that it is not yet lost the
eagerness with which his books are read and translated sufficiently
testifies.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
HEINE'S PROSE WORKS.
REISEBILDER.
IDEAS, OR THE BOOK LE GRAND.
[The _Ideas_, of which the chief portion is here presented, was
published in 1826 in the second volume of the _Reisebilder_, or
_Travel-Pictures_. The German title has been retained, as Heine
himself retained it in the French translation. The translation here
given is founded on Mr. Leland's; it has been carefully revised.]
CHAPTER I.
She was lovable, and he loved her. But he was not lovable, and she
did not love him.--_Old Play._
Madame, do you know the old play? It is quite an extraordinary play,
only a little too melancholy. I once played the leading part in it
myself, so that all the ladies wept; only one did not weep, not even a
single tear, and that was the point of the play, the whole catastrophe.
Oh, that single tear! it still torments my thoughts. When Satan wishes
to ruin my soul, he hums in my ear a ballad of that unwept tear, a
deadly song with a more deadly tune. Ah! such a tune is only heard in
Hell!
You can readily form an idea, Madame, of what life is like in Heaven,
the more readily as you are married. There people amuse themselves
altogether superbly, every sort of entertainment is provided, and one
lives in mere desire and delight. One eats from morning to night, and
the cookery is as good as Jagor's; roast geese fly round with
gravy-boats in their bills, and feel flattered if any one eats them;
tarts gleaming with butter grow wild like sunflowers; everywhere there
are brooks of _bouillon_ and champagne, everywhere trees on which
napkins flutter, and you eat and wipe your lips and eat again without
injury to your stomach; you sing psalms, or flirt and joke with the
dear, delicate little angels, or take a walk on the green
Hallelujah-Meadow, and your white flowing garments fit very comfortably,
and nothing disturbs the feeling of blessedness, no pain, no
vexation--even when one accidentally treads on another's corns and
exclaims, "_Excusez!_" he smiles as if enraptured, and assures, "Thy
foot, brother, did not hurt in the least, quite _au contraire_, a deeper
thrill of heavenly rapture shoots through my heart!"
But of Hell, Madame, you have no idea. Of all the devils you know,
perhaps, only the little Amor, the pretty _Croupier_ of Hell, Beelzebub,
and you know him only from _Don Juan_, and doubtless think that for such
a betrayer of innocence Hell can never be made hot enough, though our
praiseworthy theatre directors spend upon him as much flame, fiery rain,
powder, and colophonium as any Christian could desire in Hell.
But things in Hell look much worse than our theatre directors know, or
they would not bring out so many bad plays. For in Hell it is infernally
hot, and when I was there, in the dog-days, it was past endurance.
Madame, you can have no idea of Hell! We have very few official returns
from that place. Still, it is rank calumny to say that down there all
the poor souls are compelled to read, the whole day long, all the dull
sermons that are printed on earth. Bad as Hell is, it has not come to
that; Satan will never invent such refinements of torture. On the other
hand, Dante's description is too mild on the whole, too poetic. Hell
appeared to me like a great kitchen, with an endlessly long stove, on
which stood three rows of iron pots, and in these sat the damned, and
were cooked. In one row were placed Christian sinners, and, incredible
as it may seem, their number was anything but small, and the devils
poked the fire up under them with especial good-will. In the next row
were Jews, who continually screamed and cried, and were occasionally
mocked by the fiends, which sometimes seemed very amusing, as, for
instance, when a fat, wheezy old pawnbroker complained of the heat, and
a little devil poured several buckets of cold water on his head, that he
might realise what a refreshing benefit baptism was. In the third row
sat the heathen, who, like the Jews, could take no part in salvation,
and must burn forever. I heard one of these, as a burly devil put fresh
coals under his kettle, cry out from his pot, "Spare me! I was Socrates,
the wisest of mortals. I taught Truth and Justice, and sacrificed my
life for Virtue." But the stupid, burly devil went on with his work, and
grumbled, "Oh, shut up, there! All heathens must burn, and we can't make
an exception for the sake of a single man." I assure you, Madame, the
heat was terrible, with such a screaming, sighing, groaning, quacking,
grunting, squealing--and through all these terrible sounds rang
distinctly the deadly tune of the song of the unwept tear.
CHAPTER II.
"She was lovable, and he loved her. But he was not lovable, and she
did not love him."--_Old Play._
Madame! that old play is a tragedy, though the hero in it is neither
killed nor commits suicide. The eyes of the heroine are beautiful--very
beautiful--Madame, do you smell the perfume of violets?--very beautiful,
and yet so piercing that they struck like poignards of glass through my
heart and probably came out through my back--and yet I was not killed by
those treacherous, murderous eyes. The voice of the heroine was also
sweet--Madame, did you hear a nightingale just then?--a soft, silken
voice, a sweet web of the sunniest tones, and my soul was entangled in
it, and choked and tormented itself. I myself--it is the Count of Ganges
who now speaks, and the story goes on in Venice--I myself soon had
enough of these tortures, and had thoughts of putting an end to the play
in the first act, and of shooting myself through the head, fool's-cap
and all. I went to a fancy shop in the Via Burstah, where I saw a pair
of beautiful pistols in a case--I remember them perfectly well--near
them stood many pleasant playthings of mother-of-pearl and gold, steel
hearts on gilt chains, porcelain cups with delicate devices, and
snuff-boxes with pretty pictures, such as the divine history of
Susannah, the Swan Song of Leda, the Rape of the Sabines, Lucretia, a
fat, virtuous creature, with naked bosom, in which she was lazily
sticking a dagger; the late Bethmann, _la belle Ferronière_--all
enrapturing faces--but I bought the pistols without much ado, and then I
bought balls, then powder, and then I went to the restaurant of Signor
Somebody, and ordered oysters and a glass of Hock.
I could eat nothing, and still less could I drink. The warm tears fell
in the glass, and in that glass I saw my dear home, the holy, blue
Ganges, the ever-gleaming Himalaya, the giant banyan woods, amid whose
broad arcades calmly wandered wise elephants and white-robed pilgrims,
strange dream-like flowers gazed on me with meaning glance, wondrous
golden birds sang wildly, flashing sun-rays and the sweet, silly
chatter of monkeys pleasantly mocked me, from far pagodas sounded the
pious prayers of priests, and amid all rang the melting, wailing voice
of the Sultana of Delhi--she ran impetuously around in her carpeted
chamber, she tore her silver veil, with her peacock fan she struck the
black slave to the ground, she wept, she raged, she cried. I could not,
however, hear what she said; the restaurant of Signor Somebody is three
thousand miles distant from the Harem of Delhi, besides the fair Sultana
had been dead three thousand years--and I quickly drank up the wine, the
clear, joy-giving wine, and yet my soul grew darker and sadder--I was
condemned to death.
As I left the restaurant I heard the "bell of poor sinners" ring, a
crowd of people swept by me; but I placed myself at the corner of the
Strada San Giovanni, and recited the following monologue:--
"In ancient tales they tell of golden castles,
Where harps are sounding, lovely ladies dance,
And gay attendants gleam, and jessamine,
Myrtle, and roses spread their soft perfume--
And yet a single word of sad enchantment
Sweeps all the glory of the scene to naught,
And there remain but ruins old and grey,
And screaming birds of night and foul morass.
Even so have I, with but a single word,
Enchanted Nature's blooming loveliness.
There lies she now, lifeless and cold and pale,
Just like a monarch's corse laid out in state,
The royal deathly cheeks fresh stained with rouge,
And in his hand the kingly sceptre laid,
Yet still his lips are yellow and most changed,
For they forgot to dye them, as they should,
And mice are jumping o'er the monarch's nose,
And mock the golden sceptre in his grasp."
It is everywhere agreed, Madame, that one should deliver a soliloquy
before shooting himself. Most men, on such occasions, use Hamlet's "To
be, or not to be." It is an excellent passage, and I would gladly have
quoted it--but charity begins at home, and when a man has written
tragedies himself, in which such farewell-to-life speeches occur, as,
for instance, in my immortal _Almansor_, it is very natural that one
should prefer his own words even to Shakespeare's. At any rate, the
delivery of such speeches is a very useful custom; one gains at least a
little time. And so it came to pass that I remained a rather long time
standing at the corner of the Strada San Giovanni--and as I stood there
like a condemned criminal awaiting death, I raised my eyes, and suddenly
beheld _her_.
She wore her blue silk dress and rose-red hat, and her eyes looked at me
so mildly, so death-conqueringly, so life-givingly--Madame, you well
know, out of Roman history, that when the vestals in ancient Rome met on
their way a malefactor led to death, they had the right to pardon him,
and the poor rogue lived. With a single glance she saved me from death,
and I stood before her revived, and dazzled by the sunbeams of her
beauty, and she passed on--and left me alive.
CHAPTER III.
And she left me alive, and I live, which is the main point.
Others may, if they choose, enjoy the good fortune of having their
lady-love adorn their graves with garlands and water them with the tears
of fidelity. Oh, women! hate me, laugh at me, jilt me--but let me live!
Life is all too laughably sweet, and the world too delightfully
bewildered; it is the dream of an intoxicated god, who has taken French
leave of the carousing multitude of immortals, and has laid himself down
to sleep in a solitary star, and knows not himself that he creates all
that he dreams--and the dream images form themselves in such a mad
variegated fashion, and often so harmoniously reasonable--the Iliad,
Plato, the battle of Marathon, Moses, Medician Venus, Strasburg
Cathedral, the French Revolution, Hegel, the steamboat, etc., etc., are
single good thoughts in this divine dream--but it will not last long,
and the god awakes and rubs his sleepy eyes, and smiles--and our world
has run to nothing--yes, has never been.
No matter! I live. If I am but a shadowy image in a dream, still this is
better than the cold, black, void annihilation of Death. Life is the
greatest good and death the worst evil. Berlin lieutenants of the guard
may sneer and call it cowardice, because the Prince of Homburg shudders
when he beholds his open grave. Henry Kleist[4] had, however, as much
courage as his high-breasted, tightly-laced colleagues, and has, alas!
proved it. But all strong men love life. Goethe's Egmont does not part
willingly from "the cheerful wont of being and working." Immermann's
Edwin clings to life "like a little child to its mother's breast," and
though he finds it hard to live by stranger mercy, he still begs for
mercy: "For life and breath is still the highest."
When Odysseus in the under-world sees Achilles as the leader of dead
heroes, and extols his renown among the living, and his glory even among
the dead, Achilles answers:--
"No more discourse of death, consolingly, noble Odysseus!
Rather would I in the field as daily labourer be toiling,
Slave to the meanest of men, a pauper and lacking possessions,
Than mid the infinite host of long-vanished mortals be ruler."
Yes, when Major Duvent challenged the great Israel Lyon to fight with
pistols and said to him, "If you do not meet me, Mr. Lyon, you are a
dog;" the latter replied, "I would rather be a live dog than a dead
lion!" and he was right. I have fought often enough, Madame, to dare to
say this--God be praised! I live! Red life pulses in my veins, earth
yields beneath my feet, in the glow of love I embrace trees and statues,
and they live in my embrace. Every woman is to me the gift of a world. I
revel in the melody of her countenance, and with a single glance of my
eye I can enjoy more than others with their every limb through all their
lives. Every instant is to me an eternity. I do not measure time with
the ell of Brabant or of Hamburg, and I need no priest to promise me a
second life, for I can live enough in this life, when I live backwards
in the life of those who have gone before me, and win myself an eternity
in the realm of the past.
And I live! The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, and
when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I hear a
thousand nightingales. Spring has sent them to awaken Earth from her
morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy; her flowers are hymns,
which she sings in inspiration to the sun--the sun moves far too slowly;
I would fain lash on his steeds that they might advance more rapidly.
But when he sinks hissing in the sea, and the night rises with her great
passionate eyes, oh! then true pleasure first thrills through me, the
evening breezes lie like flattering maidens on my wild heart, and the
stars wink to me, and I rise and sweep over the little earth and the
little thoughts of men.
CHAPTER IV.
But a day will come when the fire in my veins will be quenched, when
winter will dwell in my heart, when his snow flakes will whiten my
locks, and his mists will dim my eyes. Then my friends will lie in their
lonely graves, and I alone shall remain like a solitary stalk forgotten
by the reaper. A new race will have sprung up with new desires and new
ideas; full of wonder I shall hear new names and listen to new songs,
for the old names will be forgotten, and I myself forgotten, perhaps
still honoured by a few, scorned by many and loved by none! And then the
rosy-cheeked boys will spring around me and place the old harp in my
trembling hand, and say, laughing, "You have been long silent, you
greybeard; sing us again songs of your youthful dreams!"
Then I will grasp the harp, and my old joys and sorrows will awake,
tears will again spring from my dead eyes; there will be Spring again in
my breast, sweet tones of sorrow will tremble on the harpstrings, I
shall see again the blue stream and the marble palaces and the lovely
faces of women and girls--and I will sing a song of the flowers of
Brenta.
It will be my last song; the stars will gaze on me as in the nights of
my youth, the loving moonlight will once more kiss my cheeks, the spirit
chorus of nightingales long dead will sound from afar, my sleep-drunken
eyes will close, my soul will echo with the notes of my harp; I shall
smell the flowers of Brenta.
A tree will shadow my grave. I would gladly have it a palm, but that
tree will not grow in the North. It will be a linden, and on summer
evenings lovers will sit there and caress; the green-finch, who rocks
himself on the branches, will be listening silently, and my linden will
rustle tenderly over the heads of the happy ones, who will be so happy
that they will have no time to read what is written on the white
tombstone. But when later the lover has lost his love, then he will come
again to the well-known linden, and sigh, and weep, and gaze long and
oft upon the stone, and read the inscription--"He loved the flowers of
Brenta."
CHAPTER V.
Madame! I have deceived you. I am not the Count of the Ganges. Never in
my life have I seen the holy stream, nor the lotus flowers which are
mirrored in its sacred waves. Never did I lie dreaming under Indian
palms, nor in prayer before the Diamond Deity Juggernaut, who with his
diamonds might have easily aided me out of my difficulties. I have no
more been in Calcutta than the turkey, of which I ate yesterday at
dinner, had ever been in the realms of the Grand Turk. Yet my ancestors
came from Hindostan, and therefore I feel so much at my ease in the
great forest of song of Valmiki. The heroic sorrows of the divine Ramo
move my heart like familiar griefs; from the flower lays of Kalidasa the
sweetest memories bloom; and when a few years ago a gentle lady in
Berlin showed me the beautiful pictures which her father, who had been
Governor in India, had brought from thence, the delicately-painted,
holy, calm faces seemed as familiar to me as though I were gazing at my
own family gallery.
Franz Bopp--Madame, you have of course read his _Nalus_ and his System
of Sanscrit Conjugations--gave me much information relative to my
ancestry, and I now know with certainty that I am descended from
Brahma's head, and not from his corns. I have also good reason to
believe that the entire _Mahabarata_, with its two hundred thousand
verses, is merely an allegorical love-letter which my first fore-father
wrote to my first fore-mother. Oh! they loved dearly, their souls
kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.
An enchanted nightingale sits on a red coral bough in the silent sea,
and sings a song of the love of my ancestors; the pearls gaze eagerly
from their shells, the wonderful water-flowers tremble with sorrow, the
cunning sea-snails, bearing on their backs many-coloured porcelain
towers, come creeping onwards, the ocean-roses blush with shame, the
yellow, sharp-pointed starfish, and the thousand-hued glassy jelly-fish
quiver and stretch, and all swarm and listen.
Unfortunately, Madame, this nightingale song is far too long to be set
down here; it is as long as the world itself, even its dedication to
Anangas, the God of Love, is as long as all Scott's novels, and there is
a passage referring to it in Aristophanes, which in German[5] reads
thus:--
"Tiotio, tiotio, tiotinx,
Totototo totototo tototinx."
(Voss's _Translation._)
No, I was not born in India. I first beheld the light of the world on
the shores of that beautiful stream, in whose green hills folly grows
and is plucked in Autumn, laid away in cellars, poured into barrels, and
exported to foreign lands. In fact, only yesterday I heard some one
speaking a piece of folly which, in the year 1811, was imprisoned in a
bunch of grapes, which I myself then saw growing on the Johannisburg.
But much folly is also consumed at home, and men are the same there as
everywhere: they are born, eat, drink, sleep, laugh, cry, slander each
other, are greatly troubled about the propagation of their race, try to
seem what they are not and to do what they cannot, never shave until
they have a beard, and often have beards before they get discretion, and
when they at last have discretion, they drink it away in white and red
folly.
_Mon dieu!_ if I had faith, so that I could remove mountains--the
Johannisburg would be just the mountain which I would carry with me
everywhere. But as my faith is not strong enough, imagination must aid
me, and she quickly sets me by the beautiful Rhine.
Oh, that is a fair land, full of loveliness and sunshine. In the blue
stream are mirrored the mountain shores, with their ruined towers, and
woods, and ancient towns. There, before the house-door, sit the good
townspeople, of a summer evening, and drink out of great cans, and
gossip confidentially about how the wine--the Lord be praised!--thrives,
and how justice should be free from all secrecy, and how Marie
Antoinette's being guillotined is none of our business, and how dear the
tobacco tax makes tobacco, and how all mankind are equal, and what a
glorious fellow Goerres is.
I have never troubled myself about such conversation, and sat rather
with the maidens in the arched window, and laughed at their laughter,
and let them throw flowers in my face, and pretended to be ill-natured
until they told me their secrets, or some other important stories. Fair
Gertrude was half wild with delight when I sat by her. She was a girl
like a flaming rose, and once, as she fell on my neck, I thought that
she would burn away into perfume in my arms. Fair Katharine flamed into
sweet music when she talked with me, and her eyes were of a pure,
internal blue, which I have never seen in men or animals, and very
seldom in flowers--one gazed so gladly into them, and could then think
such sweet things. But the beautiful Hedwig loved me, for when I came to
her she bowed her head till her black curls fell down over her blushing
face, and her bright eyes shone like stars from the dark heaven. Her
bashful lips spoke not a word, and I too could say nothing to her. I
coughed and she trembled. She often begged me, through her sisters, not
to climb the rocks so rashly, or to bathe in the Rhine when I was hot
with running or drinking wine. Once I overheard her pious prayer before
the Virgin Mary, which she had adorned with gold leaf and illuminated
with a lamp, and which stood in a corner at the entrance. I plainly
heard her pray to the Mother of God to keep him from climbing, drinking,
and bathing. I should certainly have been desperately in love with her
if she had been indifferent to me, and I was indifferent to her because
I knew that she loved me.--Madame, to win my love, I must be treated _en
canaille_.
Johanna was the cousin of the three sisters, and I was glad to be with
her. She knew the most beautiful old legends, and when she pointed with
her white hand through the window out to the mountains where all had
happened which she narrated, I became enchanted; the old knights rose
visibly from the ruined castles and hewed away at each other's iron
clothes, the Lorely sat again on the mountain summit, singing a-down her
sweet, seductive song, and the Rhine rippled so reasonably soothing--and
yet so mockingly horrible--and the fair Johanna looked at me so
strangely, with such enigmatic tenderness, that she seemed herself one
with the legend that she told. She was a slender, pale girl, sickly and
musing, her eyes were clear as truth itself, her lips piously arched,
in her face lay a great story--was it a love legend? I know not, and I
never had the courage to ask. When I looked at her long, I grew calm and
cheerful--it seemed to me as though it was Sunday in my heart and the
angels held service there.
In such happy hours I told her tales of my childhood, and she listened
earnestly, and, strangely, when I could not think of the names she
remembered them. When I then asked her with wonder how she knew the
names, she would answer with a smile that she had learned it of the
birds that had built a nest on the sill of her window--and she tried to
make me believe that these were the same birds which I once bought with
my pocket-money from a hard-hearted peasant boy, and then let fly away.
But I believed that she knew everything because she was so pale, and
really soon died. She knew, too, when she would die, and wished that I
would leave Andernach the day before. When I bade her farewell she gave
me both her hands--they were white, sweet hands, and pure as the
Host--and she said, You are very good, and when you are not, think of
the little dead Veronica.
Did the chattering birds also tell her this name? Often in hours of
remembrance I had wearied my brain in trying to think of that dear name,
but could not.
And now that I have it again, my earliest infancy shall bloom into
memory again--and I am again a child, and play with other children in
the Castle Court at Düsseldorf on the Rhine.
CHAPTER VI.
Yes, Madame, there was I born, and I am particular in calling
attention to the fact, lest after my death seven cities--those
of Schilda, Krähwinkel, Polkwitz, Bockum, Dülken, Göttingen, and
Schöppenstadt[6]--should contend for the honour of being my birthplace.
Düsseldorf is a town on the Rhine; sixteen thousand people live there,
and many hundred thousands besides are buried there. And among them are
many of whom my mother says it were better if they were still alive--for
example, my grand-father and my uncle, the old Herr von Geldern, and the
young Herr von Geldern, who were both such celebrated doctors, and saved
the lives of so many men, and yet must both die themselves. And pious
Ursula, who carried me as a child in her arms, also lies buried there,
and a rose-bush grows over her grave--she loved rose-perfume so much in
her life, and her heart was all rose-perfume and goodness. And the
shrewd old Canonicus also lies there buried. Lord, how miserable he
looked when I last saw him! He consisted of nothing but soul and
plasters, and yet he studied night and day as though he feared lest the
worms might find a few ideas missing in his head. Little William also
lies there--and that is my fault. We were schoolmates in the Franciscan
cloister, and were one day playing on that side of the building where
the Düssel flows between stone walls, and I said, "William, do get the
kitten out, which has just fallen in!" and he cheerfully climbed out on
the board which stretched over the brook, and pulled the cat out of the
water, but fell in himself, and when they took him out he was cold and
dead. The kitten lived to a good old age.
The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when in
foreign lands, and happen at the same time to have been born there,
strange feelings come over the soul. I was born there, and feel as if I
must go directly home. And when I say _home_, I mean the Volkerstrasse
and the house where I was born. This house will be some day very
remarkable, and I have sent word to the old lady who owns it, that she
must not for her life sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly
get as much as the present which the green-veiled distinguished English
ladies will give the servant when she shows them the room where I was
born, and the hen-house wherein my father generally imprisoned me for
stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my mother taught me to
write with chalk. Ah me! should I ever become a famous author, it has
cost my poor mother trouble enough.
But my fame still slumbers in the marble quarries of Carrara; the waste
paper laurel with which they have bedecked my brow has not yet spread
its perfume through the wide world, and when the green-veiled
distinguished English ladies visit Düsseldorf, they leave the celebrated
house unvisited, and go direct to the Market Place, and there gaze on
the colossal black equestrian statue which stands in its midst. This
represents the Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm. He wears black armour and a
long, hanging wig. When a boy, I was told that the artist who made this
statue observed with terror while it was being cast that he had not
metal enough, and then all the citizens of the town came running with
all their silver spoons, and threw them in to fill the mould; and I
often stood for hours before the statue puzzling my head as to how many
spoons were sticking in it, and how many apple-tarts all that silver
would buy. Apple-tarts were then my passion--now it is love, truth,
freedom, and crab-soup--and not far from the statue of the Prince
Elector, at the theatre corner, generally stood a curiously constructed
sabre-legged rascal with a white apron, and a basket girt around him
full of smoking apple-tarts, which he knew how to praise with an
irresistible treble voice. "Apple tarts! quite fresh! so delicious!"
Truly, whenever in my later years the Evil One sought to win me, he
always cried in just such an enticing treble, and I should certainly
have never remained twelve hours by the Signora Giulietta, if she had
not thrilled me with her sweet, fragrant, apple-tart-tones. And, in
fact, the apple-tarts would never have so enticed me, if the crooked
Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with his white
apron--and it is aprons, you know, which--but I wander from the subject.
I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has so many silver spoons
in its body and no soup, and which represents the Prince Elector, Jan
Wilhelm.
He must have been a brave gentleman, very fond of art, and skilful
himself. He founded the picture gallery in Düsseldorf, and in the
observatory there they show a very artistic piece of woodwork, which he,
himself, had carved in his leisure hours, of which latter he had every
day four-and-twenty.
In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which they now
are; the crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at night they drew their
night-caps over it and slept peacefully, and their people slumbered
peacefully at their feet, and when they awoke in the morning they said,
"Good morning, father!" and he replied, "Good morning, dear children!"
But there came a sudden change over all this. One morning when we awoke
in Düsseldorf and would say, "Good morning, father!" the father had
travelled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but dumb sorrow.
Everywhere there was a funeral-like expression, and people slipped
silently to the market and read the long paper on the door of the Town
Hall. It was bad weather, yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in his
nankeen jacket, which he generally wore only at home, and his blue
woollen stockings hung down so that his little bare legs peeped out in a
troubled way, and his thin lips quivered as he murmured the placard. An
old invalid soldier from the Palatine read it rather louder, and at some
words a clear tear ran down his white honourable old moustache. I stood
near him, crying too, and asked why we were crying? And he replied "The
Prince Elector has abdicated." And then he read further, and at the
words, "for the long manifested fidelity of my subjects," "and hereby
release you from allegiance," he wept still more. It is a strange sight
to see, when an old man, in faded uniform, and scarred veteran's face,
suddenly bursts into tears. While we read, the Princely Electoral coat
of arms was being taken down from the Town Hall, and everything began to
appear as anxiously dreary as though we were waiting for an eclipse of
the sun. The town councillors went about at an abdicating, wearisome
gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though he had no more
commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent, although the crazy
Aloysius stood upon one leg and chattered the names of French generals
with foolish grimaces, while the tipsy, crooked Gumpertz rolled around
in the gutter, singing _ça ira! ça ira!_
But I went home crying and lamenting, "The Prince Elector has
abdicated." My mother might do what she would, I knew what I knew, and
went crying to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world had come to
an end--the fair flower gardens and green meadows of the world were
taken up and rolled away like carpets from the floor, the beadle
climbed up on a high ladder and took down the sun, and the tailor Kilian
stood by and said to himself, "I must go home and dress myself neatly,
for I am dead and am to be buried this afternoon." And it grew darker
and darker--a few stars glimmered on high, and even these fell down like
yellow leaves in autumn, men gradually vanished, and I, poor child,
wandered in anguish around, until before the willow fence of a deserted
farm-house I saw a man digging up the earth with a spade, and near him
an ugly, spiteful-looking woman, who held something in her apron like a
human head, but it was the moon, and she laid it carefully in the open
grave--and behind me stood the Palatine soldier sobbing, and spelling,
"The Prince Elector has abdicated."
When I awoke the sun shone as usual through the window, there was a
sound of drums in the street, and as I entered our sitting-room and
wished my father--who sat in his white dressing-gown--good morning, I
heard the little light-footed barber, as he made up his hair, narrate
very minutely that homage would that morning be offered at the Town Hall
to the Arch Duke Joachim. I heard, too, that the new ruler was of
excellent family, that he had married the sister of the Emperor
Napoleon, and was really a very respectable man, that he wore his
beautiful black hair in curls, that he would shortly enter the town, and
would certainly please all the ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming in the
streets continued, and I stood before the house-door and looked at the
French troops marching, those joyous and famous people who swept over
the world, singing and playing, the merry, serious faces of the
grenadiers, the bearskin shakoes, the tri-coloured cockades, the
glittering bayonets, the _voltigeurs_ full of vivacity and _point
d'honneur_, and the giant-like silver-laced Tambour Major, who cast his
_bâton_ with the gilded head as high as the first storey, and his eyes
to the second, where pretty girls gazed from the windows. I was so glad
that soldiers were to be quartered in our house--my mother was not
glad--and I hastened to the market-place. There everything looked
changed; it was as though the world had been new whitewashed. A new coat
of arms was placed on the Town Hall, its iron balconies were hung with
embroidered velvet drapery, French grenadiers stood as sentinels, the
old town councillors had put on new faces and Sunday coats, and looked
at each other French fashion, and said, _"Bon jour!"_ ladies peeped from
every window, inquisitive citizens and soldiers filled the square, and
I, with other boys, climbed on the shining Prince Elector's great bronze
horse, and looked down on the motley crowd.
Neighbour Peter and Long Conrad nearly broke their necks on this
occasion, and that would have been well, for the one afterwards ran away
from his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot
in Mayence, while the other, having made geographical researches in
strange pockets, became a working member of a public tread-mill
institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound him to his
fatherland, he passed safely beyond sea, and eventually died in London,
in consequence of wearing a much too long cravat, one end of which
happened to be firmly attached to something, just as a royal official
removed a plank from beneath his feet.
Long Conrad told us there was no school to-day on account of the homage.
We had to wait a long time till this was over. At last the balcony of
the Council House was filled with gay gentlemen, flags and trumpets, and
our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which
stretched out like India rubber, or like a night-cap into which one has
thrown a stone--only that it was not the stone of wisdom--and I could
distinctly understand many of his phrases, for instance, that "we are
now to be made happy"--and at the last words the trumpets and drums
sounded, and the flags waved, and the people cried Hurrah!--and as I
myself cried Hurrah! I held fast to the old Prince Elector. And that was
necessary, for I began to grow giddy; it seemed to me that the people
were standing on their heads while the world whizzed around, and the
Prince Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, "Hold fast to
me!"--and not till the cannon re-echoed along the wall did I become
sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.
As I went home I saw crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg, while he
chattered the names of French generals, and crooked Gumpertz was rolling
in the gutter drunk, and growling _ça ira, ça ira_--and I said to my
mother that we were all to be made happy, and so there was no school
to-day.
CHAPTER VII.
The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as
before, and things were got by heart as before--the Roman kings,
chronology--the _nomina_ in _im_, the _verba irregularia_--Greek,
Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic--Lord! my head is still
giddy with it!--all must be learnt by heart. And much of it was
eventually to my advantage. For had I not learnt the Roman kings by
heart, it would subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference
to me whether Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really
existed. And had I not learnt chronology, how could I ever, in later
years, have found out anyone in Berlin, where one house is as like
another as drops of water, or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible
to find a friend unless you have the number of his house in your head.
Therefore I associated with every friend some historical event which had
happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the
one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always
occurred to me whenever I met an acquaintance. For instance, when I met
my tailor I at once thought of the Battle of Marathon; if I saw the
well-dressed banker, Christian Gumpel, I remembered the destruction of
Jerusalem; if a Portuguese friend, deeply in debt, of the flight of
Mahomet; if the University Judge, a man whose probity is well known, of
the death of Haman; and if Wadzeck, I was at once reminded of
Cleopatra.--Ach, _lieber Himmel_! the poor creature is dead now, our
tears are dry, and we may say of her, with Hamlet, "Take her for all in
all, she was a hag--we oft shall look upon her like again!" As I said,
chronology is necessary. I know men who have nothing in their heads but
a few years, yet who know exactly where to look for the right houses,
and are, moreover, regular professors. But oh, the trouble I had at
school with dates!--and it went even worse with arithmetic. I understood
_subtraction_ best, and for this I had a very practical rule--"Four from
three won't go, I must borrow one"--but I advise everyone, in such a
case, to borrow a few extra shillings, for one never knows.
But as for the Latin, Madame, you can really have no idea how muddled it
is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they
had been obliged first to learn Latin. Those happy people knew in their
cradles the nouns with an accusative in _im_. I, on the contrary, had to
learn them by heart, in the sweat of my brow, but still it is well that
I knew them. For if, for example, when I publicly disputed in Latin, in
the College Hall of Göttingen, on the 20th of July 1825--Madame, it was
well worth while to hear it--if, I say, I had said _sinapem_ instead of
_sinapim_, the blunder would have been evident to the Freshmen, and an
endless shame for me. _Vis_, _buris_, _sitis_, _tussis_, _cucumis_,
_amussis_, _cannabis_, _sinapis_--these words, which have attracted so
much attention in the world, effected this, because they belonged to a
determined class, and yet were exceptions; on that account I value them
highly, and the fact that I have them ready at my finger's ends when I
perhaps need them in a hurry affords me in many dark hours of life much
internal tranquillity and consolation. But, Madame, the _verba
irregularia_--they are distinguished from the _verbis regularibus_ by
the fact that in learning them one gets more whippings--are terribly
difficult. In the damp arches of the Franciscan cloister near our
school-room there hung a large crucified Christ of grey wood, a dismal
image, that even yet at times marches through my dreams and gazes
sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding eyes--before this image I often
stood and prayed, "Oh thou poor and equally tormented God, if it be
possible for thee, see that I get by heart the irregular verbs!"
I will say nothing of Greek; I should irritate myself too much. The
monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they
asserted that Greek was an invention of the Devil. Lord knows what I
suffered through it. It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a
great predilection for the Jews, although they to this very hour have
crucified my good name; but I never could get so far in Hebrew as my
watch, which had an intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers, and in
consequence acquired many Jewish habits--for instance, it would not go
on Saturday--and learned the holy language, and was subsequently
occupied with its grammar, for often when sleepless in the night I have
to my amazement heard it industriously repeating: _katal_, _katalta_,
_katalki_--_kittel_, _kittalta_, _kittalti_--_pokat_,
_pokadeti_--_pikat_--_pik_--_pik_.
Meanwhile I learned much more German, and that is not such child's play.
For we poor Germans, who have already been sufficiently plagued with
soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand
other exactions, must needs, over and above all this, torment each other
with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector
Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, whose protégé I was from
childhood. Something of the matter I also learned from Professor
Schramm, a man who had written a book on Eternal Peace, and in whose
class my school-fellows fought with especial vigour.
And while thus dashing on in a breath, and thinking of everything, I
have unexpectedly found myself back among old school stories, and I
avail myself of this opportunity to show you, Madame, that it was not my
fault if I learned so little geography, that later in life I could not
make my way in the world. For in those days the French had deranged all
boundaries, every day countries were recoloured; those which were once
blue suddenly became green, many even blood-red; the old established
rules were so confused and confounded that no Devil would recognise
them. The products of the country also changed, chickory and beets now
grew where only hares and hunters running after them were once to be
seen; even the characters of different races changed--the Germans became
pliant, the French paid compliments no longer, the English ceased making
ducks and drakes of their money, and the Venetians were not subtle
enough; there was promotion among princes, old kings obtained new
uniforms, new kingdoms were cooked up and sold like hot cakes, many
potentates, on the other hand, were chased from house and home, and had
to find some new way of earning their bread, while others went at once
at a trade, and manufactured, for instance, sealing-wax, or--Madame,
this sentence must be brought to an end, or I shall be out of breath--in
short, it is impossible in such times to advance far in geography.
I succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer changes,
and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, zebras,
rhinoceroses, etc. And having many such pictures in my memory, it often
happens that at first sight many mortals appear to me like old
acquaintances.
I did well in mythology; I took real delight in the mob of gods and
goddesses who ruled the world in joyous nakedness. I do not believe that
there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew the chief articles of his
catechism--that is, the loves of Venus--better than I. To tell the
truth, it seems to me that if we must learn all the heathen gods by
heart, we might as well have kept them from the first, and we have not
perhaps made so much out of our New Roman Trinity or even our Jewish
monotheism. Perhaps that mythology was not in reality so immoral as we
imagine, and it was, for example, a very decent thought of Homer's to
give the much-loved Venus a husband.
But I succeeded best of all in the French class of the Abbé d'Aulnoi, a
French _emigré_ who had written a number of grammars, and wore a red
wig, and jumped about very nervously when he recited his _Art poétique_,
and his _Histoire Allemande_. He was the only one in the whole
gymnasium who taught German history. Still French has its difficulties,
and to learn it there must be much quartering of troops, much drumming
in, much _apprendre par coeur_, and above all, no one should be a
_bête allemande_. Thus many bitter words came in. I remember still, as
though it happened yesterday, the scrapes I got into through _la
réligion_. Six times came the question:--"Henry, what is the French for
'the faith?'" And six times, ever more tearfully, I replied, "It is
called _le crédit_." And at the seventh question, with a deep cherry-red
face, my furious examiner cried, "It is called _la réligion_"--and there
was a rain of blows, and all my school-fellows laughed. Madame!--since
that day I can never hear the word _réligion_ but my back turns pale
with terror, and my cheeks red with shame. And to speak truly, _le
crédit_ has during my life stood me in better stead than _la réligion_.
It occurs to me at this moment that I still owe the landlord of the
Lion, in Bologna, five thalers. And I pledge you my word of honour that
I would owe him five thalers more if I could only be certain that I
should never again hear that unlucky word, _la réligion_.
_Parbleu_, Madame! I have succeeded well in French! I understand not
only _patois_, but even aristocratic nurse-maid French. Not long ago,
when in noble society, I understood full one-half of the conversation of
two German countesses, each of whom could count at least sixty-four
years, and as many ancestors. Yes, in the _Café Royal_, at Berlin, I
once heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talking French, and understood
every word, though there was no understanding in it. We must know the
spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. _Parbleu!_
how much do I not owe to the French Drummer who was so long quartered in
our house, who looked like a Devil, and yet had the heart of an angel,
and who drummed so excellently.
He was a little, nervous figure, with a terrible black moustache,
beneath which the red lips turned suddenly outwards, while his fiery
eyes glanced around.
I, a youngster, stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to rub his
military buttons like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his vest--for Monsieur
Le Grand liked to look well--and I followed him to the watch, to the
roll-call, to the parade--in those times there was nothing but the gleam
of weapons and merriment--_les jours de fête sont passés_! Monsieur Le
Grand knew only a little broken German, only the chief expressions--"Bread,"
"Kiss," "Honour"--but he could make himself very intelligible with his
drum. For instance, if I did not know what the word _liberté_ meant, he
drummed the _Marseillaise_--and I understood him. If I did not
understand the word _egalité_, he drummed the march, "_Ca ira_, ... _les
aristocrats à la lanterne!_" and I understood him. If I did not know
what _bêtise_ meant, he drummed the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as
Goethe also declares, have drummed in Champagne--and I understood him.
He once wanted to explain to me the word _l'Allemagne_, and he drummed
the all too simple primeval melody, which on market days is played to
dancing dogs--namely, _dum--dum--dum_.[7] I was vexed, but I understood
him.
In the same way he taught me modern history. I did not understand the
words, it is true, but as he constantly drummed while speaking, I knew
what he meant. At bottom this is the best method. The history of the
storming of the Bastille, of the Tuilleries, and the like, we understand
first when we know how the drumming was done. In our school compendiums
of history we merely read: "Their excellencies, the Baron and Count,
with the most noble spouses of the aforesaid, were beheaded. Their
highnesses the Dukes, and Princes, with the most noble spouses of the
aforesaid, were beheaded. His Majesty the King, with his most sublime
spouse, the Queen, was beheaded." But when you hear the red guillotine
march drummed, you understand it correctly, for the first time, and you
know the how and the why. Madame, that is indeed a wonderful march! It
thrilled through marrow and bone when I first heard it, and I was glad
that I forgot it. One forgets so much as one grows older, and a young
man has now-a-days so much other knowledge to keep in his head--whist,
Boston, genealogical tables, parliamentary data, dramaturgy, the
liturgy, carving--and yet, notwithstanding all jogging up of my brain, I
could not for a long time recall that tremendous tune! But, only think,
Madame! not long ago I sat at table with a whole menagerie of Counts,
Princes, Princesses, Chamberlains, Court-marshallesses, Seneschals,
Upper Court Mistresses, Court-keepers-of-the-royal-plate, Court-hunters'
wives, and whatever else these aristocratic domestics are termed, and
their under-domestics ran about behind their chairs and shoved full
plates before their mouths--but I, who was passed by and neglected, sat
without the least occupation for my jaws, and I kneaded little
bread-balls, and drummed for _ennui_ with my fingers--and, to my
astonishment, I suddenly drummed the red, long-forgotten guillotine
march!
"And what happened?" Madame, the good people were not disturbed in their
eating, nor did they know that other people, when they have nothing to
eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer marches, which
people thought long forgotten.
Is drumming, now, an inborn talent, or was it early developed in
me?--enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often
manifests itself involuntarily. I once sat at Berlin in the lecture-room
of the Privy Councillor Schmaltz, a man who had saved the state by his
book on the "Red and Black Coat Danger."--You remember, perhaps, Madame,
out of Pausanias, that by the braying of an ass an equally dangerous
plot was once discovered, and you also know from Livy, or from Becker's
_History of the World_, that geese once saved the capitol, and you must
certainly know from Sallust that a loquacious _putain_, the Lady Livia,
brought the terrible conspiracy of Cataline to light. But to return to
the mutton aforesaid. I listened to international law in the
lecture-room of the Herr Privy Councillor Schmaltz, and it was a sleepy
summer afternoon, and I sat on the bench and heard less and less--my
head had gone to sleep--when all at once I was wakened by the noise of
my own feet, which had stayed awake, and had probably observed that the
exact opposite of international law and constitutional tendencies was
being preached, and my feet which, with the little eyes of their corns,
had seen more of how things go in the world than the Privy Councillor
with his Juno-eyes--these poor dumb feet, incapable of expressing their
immeasurable meaning by words, strove to make themselves intelligible by
drumming, and they drummed so loudly, that I thereby nearly came to
grief.
Cursed, unreflecting feet! They once played me a similar trick, when I
on a time in Göttengen sponged without subscribing on the lectures of
Professor Saalfeld, and as, with his angular activity, he jumped about
here and there in his pulpit, and heated himself in order to curse the
Emperor Napoleon in regular set style,--no, my poor feet, I cannot
blame you for drumming then; indeed, I would not have blamed you if in
your dumb naïveté you had expressed yourselves by still more energetic
movements. How could I, the scholar of Le Grand, hear the Emperor
cursed? The Emperor! the Emperor! the great Emperor!
When I think of the great Emperor, my thoughts again grow summer-green
and golden; a long avenue of lindens rises blooming around, on the leafy
twigs sit singing nightingales, the water-fall rustles, flowers are
growing from full round beds, dreamily nodding their fair heads--I was
once wondrously intimate with them; the rouged tulips, proud as beggars,
condescendingly greeted me, the nervous sick lilies nodded with
melancholy tenderness, the drunken red roses laughed at me from afar,
the night-violets sighed--with the myrtles and laurels I was not then
acquainted, for they did not entice with a shining bloom, but the
mignonette, with whom I now stand so badly, was very intimate. I am
speaking of the court garden of Düsseldorf, where I often lay upon the
bank, and piously listened while Monsieur Le Grand told of the warlike
feats of the great Emperor, beating meanwhile the marches which were
drummed during the deeds, so that I saw and heard all to the life. I saw
the passage over the Simplon--the Emperor in advance and his brave
grenadiers climbing on behind him, while the scream of frightened birds
of prey sounded around, and avalanches thundered in the distance--I saw
the Emperor with flag in hand on the bridge of Lodi--I saw the Emperor
in his grey cloak at Marengo--I saw the Emperor mounted in the battle of
the Pyramids--naught around save powder-smoke and Mamelukes--I saw the
Emperor in the battle of Austerlitz--ha! how the bullets whistled over
the smooth, icy road!--I saw, I heard the battle of Jena--_dum, dum,
dum_.--I saw, I heard the battles of Eylau, of Wagram---- ah, I could
hardly bear it! Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that the drums of my ears
nearly burst.
CHAPTER VIII.
But what were my feelings when I saw with my own highly-graced eyes
himself? Hosannah! the Emperor!
It was in that very avenue of the Court Garden at Düsseldorf. As I
pressed through the gaping crowd, thinking of the doughty deeds and
battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, my heart beat the
"general march"--yet at the same time I thought of the police
regulation, that no one should dare ride through the avenue under
penalty of a fine of five thalers. And the Emperor with his retinue rode
directly down the avenue. The trembling trees bowed towards him as he
advanced, the sunbeams quivered, frightened, yet curious, through the
green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there swam visibly a golden
star. The Emperor wore his invisible-green uniform and the little
world-renowned hat. He rode a white steed, which stepped with such calm
pride, so confidently, so nobly--had I then been Crown Prince of Prussia
I would have envied that steed. Carelessly, almost lazily, sat the
Emperor, holding his rein with one hand, and with the other
good-naturedly patting the horse's neck. It was a sunny, marble hand, a
mighty hand--one of those two hands which bound fast the many-headed
monster of anarchy, and ordered the war of races--and it good-naturedly
patted the horse's neck. Even the face had that hue which we find in the
marble of Greek and Roman busts; the traits were as nobly cut as in the
antique, and on that face was written, "Thou shalt have no Gods before
me." A smile, which warmed and soothed every heart, flitted over the
lips--and yet all knew that those lips needed but to whistle--_et la
Prusse n'existait plus_--those lips needed but to whistle--and the
entire clergy would have stopped their ringing and singing--those lips
needed but to whistle--and the entire holy Roman empire would have
danced. And those lips smiled and the eye smiled too. It was an eye
clear as Heaven; it could read the hearts of men, it saw at a glance all
the things of this world, while we others see them only one by one and
by their coloured shadows. The brow was not so clear, the phantoms of
future battles were nestling there; there was a quiver which swept over
that brow, and those were the creative thoughts, the great
seven-mile-boot thoughts, wherewith the spirit of the Emperor strode
invisibly over the world--and I believe that every one of those thoughts
would have given to a German author full material wherewith to write,
all the days of his life.
The Emperor rode quietly straight through the avenue. No policeman
opposed him; proudly, on snorting horses and laden with gold and jewels,
rode his retinue; the drums were beating, the trumpets were sounding;
close to me the wild Aloysius was muttering his general's name; not far
away the drunken Gumpertz was grumbling, and the people shouted with a
thousand voices, "Long live the Emperor!"
CHAPTER IX.
The Emperor is dead. On a waste island in the Atlantic ocean is his
lonely grave, and he for whom the world was too narrow lies quietly
under a little hillock, where five weeping willows hang their green
heads, and a little brook, murmuring sorrowfully, ripples by. There is
no inscription on his tomb; but Clio, with a just pen, has written
thereon, invisible words, which will resound, like spirit-tones, through
thousands of years.
Britannia! the sea is thine. But the sea has not water enough to wash
away the shame with which the death of that Mighty One has covered thee.
Not thy windy Sir Hudson--no, thou thyself wert the Sicilian bravo with
whom perjured kings bargained, that they might revenge on the man of the
people that which the people had once inflicted on one of
themselves.--And he was thy guest, and had seated himself by thy hearth.
Until far ages the boys of France will sing and tell of the terrible
hospitality of the _Bellerophon_, and when those songs of mockery and
tears resound across the Channel, the cheeks of every honourable Briton
will blush. Some day, however, this song will ring thither, and
Britannia will be no more; the people of pride will be humbled to the
earth, Westminster's monuments will be broken, and the royal dust which
they enclosed forgotten.--And St. Helena is the Holy Grave, whither the
races of the East and of the West will make their pilgrimage in ships
with flags of many a colour, and their hearts will grow strong with
great memories of the deeds of the worldly Saviour, who suffered and
died under Hudson Lowe, as it is written in the evangelists, Las Cases,
O'Meara, and Autommarchi.
Strange! A terrible destiny has already overtaken the three greatest
enemies of the Emperor. Londonderry has cut his throat, Louis XVIII. has
rotted away on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld is still Professor in
Göttingen.
CHAPTER X.
On a clear, frosty autumn morning, a young man of student-like
appearance slowly loitered through the avenue of the Düsseldorf Court
Garden, often, with childlike pleasure, kicking aside the leaves which
covered the ground, and often sorrowfully gazing towards the bare trees,
on which a few golden-hued leaves still hung. As he thus gazed up, he
thought on the words of Glaucus--
"Like the leaves in the forests, so are the races of mortals;
Leaves are blown down to the earth by the wind, while others are shooting
Again in the green budding wood, when fresh up-liveth the spring-tide;
So are the races of man--this grows and the other departeth."
In earlier days the youth had gazed with far different eyes on the same
trees. He was then a boy, and sought birds' nests or summer insects,
which delighted him as they merrily hummed around, and were glad in the
beautiful world, and contented with a sap-green leaf and a drop of
water, with a warm sunbeam and the sweet perfumes of the grass. In those
times the boy's heart was as gay as the fluttering insects. But now his
heart had grown older, its little sunbeams were quenched, all its
flowers had faded, even its beautiful dream of love had grown dim; in
that poor heart was nothing but pride and care, and, saddest of all, it
was my heart.
I had returned that day to my old father-town, but I would not remain
there over night, and I longed for Godesberg, that I might sit at the
feet of my girl-friend and tell of the little Veronica. I had visited
the dear graves. Of all my living friends I had found but an uncle and
an aunt. Even when I met once known forms in the street they knew me no
more, and the town itself gazed on me with strange glances. Many houses
were coloured anew, strange faces gazed on me through the window-panes,
worn-out old sparrows hopped on the old chimneys, everything looked dead
and yet fresh, like a salad growing in a graveyard; where French was
once spoken I now heard Prussian; even a little Prussian court had taken
up its retired dwelling there, and the people bore court titles. My
mother's old hair dresser had now become the Court Hair dresser, and
there were Court-Tailors, Court-Shoemakers, Court-Bed-Bug-Destroyers,
Court-Grog-Shops--the whole town seemed to be a Court-Asylum for
Court-lunatics. Only the old Prince Elector knew me, he still stood in
the same old place; but he seemed to have grown thinner. For just
because he stood in the Market Place, he had had a full view of all the
miseries of the time, and people seldom grow fat on such sights. I was
in a dream, and thought of the legend of the enchanted city, and
hastened out of the gate, lest I should awake too soon. I missed many a
tree in the Court Garden, and many had grown crooked with age, and the
four great poplars, which once seemed to me like green giants, had
become smaller. Pretty girls were walking here and there, dressed as
gaily as wandering tulips. And I had known these tulips when they were
but little buds; for ah! they were the neighbours' children with whom I
had once played "Princes in the Tower." But the fair maidens, whom I had
once known as blooming roses, were now faded roses, and in many a high
brow whose pride had once thrilled my heart, Saturn had cut deep
wrinkles with his scythe. And now for the first time, and alas! too
late, I understood what those glances meant, which they had once cast on
the adolescent boy; for I had meanwhile in other lands fathomed the
meaning of similar glances in other lovely eyes. I was deeply moved by
the humble bow of a man whom I had once known as wealthy and
respectable, and who had since become a beggar. Everywhere in the world
we see that men when they once begin to fall, do so according to
Newton's law, ever faster and faster as they descend to misery. One,
however, who did not seem to be in the least changed was the little
baron, who tripped merrily as of old through the Court Garden, holding
with one hand his left coat-skirt on high, and with the other swinging
hither and thither his light cane;--he still had the same genial face as
of old, its rosy bloom now somewhat concentrated towards the nose, but
he had the same comical hat and the same old queue behind, only that the
hairs which peeped from it were now white instead of black. But merry as
the old baron seemed, it was still evident that he had suffered much
sorrow--his face would fain conceal it, but the white hairs of his queue
betrayed him behind his back. Yet the queue itself seemed striving to
lie, so merrily did it shake.
I was not weary, but a fancy seized me to sit once more on the wooden
bench, on which I had once carved the name of my love. I could hardly
discover it there, so many new names were cut around. Ah! once I slept
upon this bench, and dreamed of happiness and love. "Dreams are foam."
And the old games of childhood came again to my memory, and with them
old and beautiful stories; but a new treacherous game, and a new
terrible tale ever resounded through them, and it was the story of two
poor souls who were untrue to each other, and went so far in their
untruth, that they were at last untrue to the dear God himself. It is a
sad story, and when one has nothing better to do, one can weep over it.
Oh, Lord! once the world was so beautiful, and the birds sang thy
eternal praise, and little Veronica looked at me with silent eyes, and
we sat by the marble statue before the castle court; on one side lies
an old ruined castle, wherein ghosts wander, and at night a headless
lady in long, trailing black-silken garments sweeps around, and on the
other side is a high, white dwelling, in whose upper rooms gay pictures
gleamed beautifully in their golden frames, while below stood thousands
of mighty books, which Veronica and I beheld with longing when the good
Ursula lifted us up to the window. In later years, when I had become a
great boy, I climbed every day to the very top of the library ladder,
and brought down the topmost books, and read in them so long, that
finally I feared nothing--least of all ladies without heads--and became
so wise that I forgot all the old games and stories and pictures and
little Veronica, even her name.
But while I sat upon the old bench in the Court Garden, and dreamed my
way back into the past, there was a sound behind me of the confused
voices of men lamenting the ill-fortune of the poor French soldiers,
who, having been taken prisoners in the Russian war and sent to Siberia,
had there been kept prisoners for many a long year, though peace had
been re-established, and who now were returning home. As I looked up, I
beheld in reality these orphan children of Fame. Through their tattered
uniforms peeped naked misery, deep sorrowing eyes were couched in their
desolate faces, and though mangled, weary, and mostly lame, something of
the military manner was still visible in their mien. Singularly enough,
they were preceded by a drummer who tottered along with a drum, and I
shuddered as I recalled the old legend of soldiers, who had fallen in
battle, and who by night rising again from their graves on the
battle-field, and with the drummer at their head, marched back to their
native city. And of them the old ballad sings thus--
"He beat on the drum with might and main,
To their old night-quarters they go again;
Through the lighted street they come;
Trallerie--trallerei--trallera,
They march before Sweetheart's home.
And their bones lie there at break of day,
As white as tombstones in cold array,
And the drummer he goes before;
Trallerie--trallerei--trallera,
And we see them come no more."
Truly the poor French drummer seemed to have risen but half repaired
from the grave. He was but a little shadow in a dirty patched grey
capote, a dead yellow countenance, with a great moustache which hung
down sorrowfully over his faded lips, his eyes were like burnt-out
tinder, in which but a few sparks still gleamed, and yet by one of those
sparks I recognised Monsieur Le Grand.
He too recognised me and drew me to the turf, and we sat down together
as of old, when he taught me French and Modern History on the drum. He
had still the well-known old drum, and I could not sufficiently wonder
how he had preserved it from Russian plunderers. And he drummed again as
of old, but without speaking a word. But though his lips were firmly
pressed together, his eyes spoke all the more, flashing fiercely and
victoriously as he drummed the old marches. The poplars near us
trembled, as he again thundered forth the red guillotine march. And he
drummed as before the old war of freedom, the old battles, the deeds of
the Emperor, and it seemed as though the drum itself were a living
creature which rejoiced to speak out its inner soul. I heard once more
the thunder of cannon, the whistling of balls, the riot of battle; I saw
once more the death rage of the Guards,--the waving flags, again, the
Emperor on his steed--but little by little there fell a sad tone in amid
the most stirring confusion, sounds rang from the drum, in which the
wildest hurrahs and the most fearful grief were mysteriously mingled; it
seemed a march of victory and a march of death. Le Grand's eyes opened
spirit-like and wide, and I saw in them nothing but a broad white field
of ice covered with corpses--it was the battle of Moscow.
I had never thought that the hard old drum could give forth such wailing
sounds as Monsieur Le Grand had drawn from it. They were tears which he
drummed, and they sounded ever softer and softer, and, like a troubled
echo, deep sighs broke from Le Grand's breast. And he became ever more
languid and ghost-like, his dry hands trembled, as if from frost, he sat
as in a dream, and stirred with his drum-stick nothing but the air, and
seemed listening to voices far away, and at last he gazed on me with a
deep, entreating glance--I understood him--and then his head sank down
on the drum.
In this life Monsieur Le Grand never drummed more. And his drum never
gave forth another sound; it was not destined to serve the enemies of
liberty for their servile roll calls. I had well understood Le Grand's
last entreating glance, and at once drew the sword from my cane, and
pierced the drum.
CHAPTER XI.
_Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas, Madame!_
But life is in reality so terribly serious, that it would be
insupportable without such union of the pathetic and the comic; as our
poets well know. The most harrowing forms of human madness Aristophanes
exhibits only in the laughing mirror of wit; Goethe only presumes to set
forth the fearful pain of thought comprehending its own nothingness in
the doggerel of a puppet show; and Shakespeare puts the most deadly
lamentation over the misery of the world into the mouth of a fool, who
rattles his cap and bells in agony.
They have all learned from the great First Poet, who, in his World
Tragedy in thousands of acts, knows how to carry humour to the highest
point, as we see every day. After the departure of the heroes, the
clowns and _graciosos_ enter with their baubles and wooden swords, and
after the bloody scenes of the Revolution there came waddling on the
stage the fat Bourbons, with their stale jokes and tender "legitimate"
_bon mots_, and the old noblesse with their starved laughter hopped
merrily before them, while behind all swept the pious Capuchins with
candles, cross, and banners of the Church. Yes, even in the highest
pathos of the World Tragedy, bits of fun slip in. The desperate
republican, who, like Brutus, plunged a knife to his heart, perhaps
smelt it first to see whether some one had not split a herring with
it--and on this great stage of the world all passes exactly the same as
on our beggarly boards. On it, too, there are tipsy heroes, kings who
forget their part, scenes which obstinately stay up in the air,
prompters' voices sounding above everything, danseuses who create
astonishing effects with the poetry of their legs, and costumes which
are the main thing. And high in Heaven, in the first row of the boxes,
sit the dear little angels, and keep their _lorgnettes_ on us comedians
here down below, and the blessed Lord himself sits seriously in his
great box, and, perhaps, finds it dull, or calculates that this theatre
cannot be kept up much longer because this one gets too high a salary,
and that one too little, and that they all play much too badly.
_Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas, Madame!_ As I ended the last
chapter, narrating to you how Monsieur Le Grand died, and how I
conscientiously executed the _testamentum militaire_ which lay in his
last glance, some one knocked at my door, and there entered a poor old
lady, who asked if I were not a Doctor. And as I assented, she kindly
asked me to go home with her and cut her husband's corns.
LAST WORDS (REISEBILDER).
Written 29th November 1830.
It was a depressed, an arrested time in Germany when I wrote the second
volume of the _Reisebilder_, and had it printed as I wrote. But before
it appeared something was whispered about it; it was said that my book
would awaken and encourage the cowed spirit of freedom, and that
measures were being taken to suppress it. When such rumours were afloat,
it was advisable to advance the book as quickly as possible, and drive
it through the press. As it was necessary, too, that it should contain a
certain number of leaves, to escape the requisitions of the estimable
censorship, I followed the example of Benvenuto Cellini, who, in
founding his Perseas, was short of bronze, and to fill up the mould
threw into the molten metal all the tin plates he could lay his hands
on. It was certainly easy to distinguish between the tin--especially the
tin termination of the book--and the better bronze; anyone, however, who
understands the craft will not betray the workman.
But as everything in this world is liable to turn up again, so it came
to pass that, in this very volume, I found myself again in the same
scrape, and I have been obliged to again throw some tin into the
mould--let me hope that this renewed melting of baser metal will simply
be attributed to the pressure of the times.
Alas! the whole book sprang from the pressure of the times, as well as
the earlier writings of similar tendency. The more intimate friends of
the writer, who are acquainted with his private circumstances, know well
how little his own vanity forced him to the tribune, and how great were
the sacrifices which he was obliged to make for every independent word
which he has spoken since then and--if God will!--which he still means
to speak. Now-a-days, a word is a deed whose consequences cannot be
measured, and no one knows whether he may not in the end appear as
witness to his words in blood.
For many years I have waited in vain for the words of those bold
orators, who once in the meetings of the German Burschenschaft so often
claimed a hearing, who so often overwhelmed me with their rhetorical
talent, and spoke a language spoken so oft before; they were then so
forward in noise--they are now so backward in silence. How they then
reviled the French and the foreign Babel, and the un-German frivolous
betrayers of the Fatherland, who praised French-dom. That praise
verified itself in the great week!
Ah, the great week of Paris! The spirit of freedom, which was wafted
thence over Germany, has certainly upset the night-lamps here and there,
so that the red curtains of several thrones took fire, and golden crowns
grew hot under blazing night-caps; but the old catch-polls, in whom the
royal police trusted, are already bringing out the fire-buckets, and now
scent around all the more suspiciously, and forge all the more firmly
their secret chains, and I mark well that a still thicker prison vault
is being invisibly arched over the German people.
Poor imprisoned people! be not cast down in your need. Oh, that I could
speak catapults! Oh, that I could shoot falarica from my heart!
The distinguished ice-rind of reserve melts from my heart, a strange
sorrow steals over me--is it love, and love for the German people? Or is
it sickness?--my soul quivers and my eyes burn, and that is an
unfortunate occurrence for a writer, who should command his material,
and remain charmingly objective, as the art school requires, and as
Goethe has done--he has grown to be eighty years old in so doing, and a
minister, and portly--poor German people! that is thy greatest man!
I still have a few octavo pages to fill, and I will therefore tell a
story--it has been floating in my head since yesterday--a story from the
life of Charles the Fifth.[8] But it is now a long time since I heard
it, and I no longer remember its details exactly. Such things are easily
forgotten, if one does not receive a regular salary for reading them
every half-year from his lecture books. But what does it matter if
places and dates are forgotten, so long as one holds their significance,
their moral meaning, in his memory. It is this which stirs my soul and
moves me even to tears. I fear I am getting ill.
The poor emperor was taken prisoner by his enemies, and lay in stern
imprisonment. I believe it was in Tyrol. There he sat in solitary
sorrow, forsaken by all his knights and courtiers, and no one came to
his help. I know not if he had even in those days that cheese-yellow
complexion with which Holbein painted him. But the misanthropic
under-lip certainly protruded, even more then than in his portraits. He
must have despised the people who fawned around him in the sunshine of
prosperity, and who left him alone in his bitter need. Suddenly the
prison door opened, and there entered a man wrapped in a cloak, and as
he cast it aside, the emperor recognised his trusty Kunz von der Rosen,
the court-fool. One brought him consolation and counsel--and it was the
court-fool.
O, German Fatherland! dear German people! I am thy Kunz von der Rosen.
The man whose real office was pastime, and who should only make thee
merry in happy days, forces his way into thy prison, in time of need;
here, beneath my mantle, I bring thee thy strong sceptre and the
beautiful crown--dost thou not remember me, my emperor? If I cannot free
thee, I will at least console thee, and thou shalt have some one by thee
who will talk with thee about thy most pressing oppressions, and will
speak courage to thee, and who loves thee, and whose best jokes and best
blood are ever at thy service. For thou, my people, art the true
emperor, the true lord of the land--thy will is sovereign and more
legitimate than that purple _Tel est notre plaisir_, which grounds
itself upon divine right, without any better guarantee than the quackery
of shaven jugglers--thy will, my people, is the only righteous source of
all power. Even though thou liest down there in fetters, thy good right
will arise in the end, the day of freedom draws near, a new time
begins--my emperor, the night is over, and the dawn shines outside.
"Kunz von der Rosen, my Fool, thou errest. Thou hast perhaps mistaken a
bright axe for the sun, and the dawn is nothing but blood."
"No, my Emperor, it is the sun, though it rises in the west--for six
thousand years men have always seen it rise in the east--it is high time
that it for once made a change in its course."
"Kunz von der Rosen, my Fool, thou hast lost the bells from thy red cap,
and it now has such a strange look, that red cap!"
"Ah, my Emperor, I have shaken my head in such mad earnest over your
distress that the fool's bell fell from my cap; but it is none the worse
for that!"
"Kunz von der Rosen, my Fool, what is that breaking and cracking outside
there?"
"Hush! it is the saw and the carpenter's axe; the doors of your prison
will soon be broken in, and you will be free, my Emperor!"
"Am I then really Emperor? Alas! it is only the Fool who tells me so!"
"Oh, do not sigh, my dear lord, it is the air of the dungeon which so
dispirits you; when you have once regained your power, you will feel the
bold imperial blood in your veins, and you will be proud as an emperor,
and arrogant, and gracious, and unjust, and smiling, and ungrateful as
princes are."
"Kunz von der Rosen, my Fool, when I am free again, what wilt thou be
doing?"
"I will sew new bells on my cap."
"And how shall I reward thy fidelity?"
"Ah! dear master--do not let me be put to death!"
ENGLISH FRAGMENTS.
[The _English Fragments_, from which three chapters have been
selected for this volume, were published in 1828 in a German
magazine of which Heine was one of the editors. They were collected
and published with important additions (including the following
chapters) in 1831. Mr. Leland's translation, revised throughout,
has been here used.]
LONDON.
I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the
astonished spirit; I have seen it, and am more astonished then ever--and
still there remains fixed in my memory that stone forest of houses, and
amid them the rushing stream of faces, of living human faces, with all
their motley passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger,
and of hate--I am speaking of London.
Send a philosopher to London, but no poet! Send a philosopher there, and
stand him at a corner of Cheapside, he will learn more there than from
all the books of the last Leipzig fair; and as the human waves roar
around him, so will a sea of new thoughts rise before him, and the
Eternal Spirit which moves upon the face of the waters will breathe upon
him; the most hidden secrets of social harmony will be suddenly revealed
to him, he will hear the pulse of the world beat audibly, and see it
visibly--for, if London is the right hand of the world--its active,
mighty right hand--then we may regard that that which leads from the
Exchange to Downing Street is the world's radial artery.
But send no poet to London! This downright earnestness of all things,
this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this moroseness
even in pleasure, this exaggerated London, smothers the imagination and
rends the heart. And should you ever send a German poet thither--a
dreamer, who stands staring at every single phenomenon, even a ragged
beggar-woman, or a shining jeweller's shop--why, then he will find
things going badly with him, and he will be hustled about on every side,
or even be knocked over with a mild "_God damn!_" _God damn!_--the
damned pushing! I soon saw that these people have much to do. They live
on a large scale, and though food and clothes are dearer with them than
with us, they must still be better fed and clothed than we are--as
gentility requires. Moreover, they have enormous debts, yet occasionally
in a vain-glorious mood they make ducks and drakes of their guineas, pay
other nations to fight for their pleasure, give their respective kings a
handsome _douceur_ into the bargain--and, therefore, John Bull must work
day and night to get the money for such expenses; by day and by night he
must tax his brain to discover new machines, and he sits and reckons in
the sweat of his brow, and runs and rushes without looking about much
from the Docks to the Exchange, and from the Exchange to the Strand,
and, therefore, it is quite pardonable if, when a poor German poet,
gazing into a print-shop window, stands in his way at the corner of
Cheapside, he should knock him aside with a rather rough "God damn!"
But the picture at which I was gazing as I stood at the corner of
Cheapside, was that of the passage of the French across the Beresina.
And when, jolted out of my gazing, I looked again on the raging street,
where a parti-coloured coil of men, women, and children, horses,
stage-coaches, and with them a funeral, whirled groaning and creaking
along, it seemed to me as though all London were such a Beresina Bridge,
where every one presses on in mad haste to save his scrap of life, where
the daring rider stamps down the poor pedestrian, where every one who
falls is lost forever; where the best friends rush, without feeling,
over each other's corpses, and where thousands, weak and bleeding, grasp
in vain at the planks of the bridge, and slide down into the ice-pit of
death.
How much more pleasant and homelike it is in our dear Germany! How
dreamily comfortable, how Sabbatically quiet all things glide along
here! Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses shine in the
quiet sunshine, swallows flit over the flag-stones, fat
court-councilloresses smile from the windows, while along the echoing
streets there is room enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, and
for men to stand at ease and chat about the theatre, and bow low--oh,
how low!--when some small aristocratic scamp or vice-scamp, with
coloured ribbons on his shabby coat, or some powdered and gilded
court-marshal struts by, graciously returning salutations!
I had made up my mind not to be astonished at that immensity of London
of which I had heard so much. But it happened to me as to the poor
school-boy, who had made up his mind not to feel the whipping he was to
receive. The facts of the case were, that he expected to get the usual
blows with the usual stick in the usual way on the back, whereas he
received a most unusually severe thrashing on an unusual place with a
slender switch. I anticipated great palaces, and saw nothing but mere
small houses. But their very uniformity and their limitless extent are
wonderfully impressive.
These houses of brick, owing to the damp atmosphere and coal smoke,
become uniform in colour, that is to say, of a brown olive green; they
are all of the same style of building, generally two or three windows
wide, three storeys high, and adorned above with small red tiles, which
remind one of newly-extracted bleeding teeth; so that the broad and
accurately-squared streets seem to be bordered by endlessly long
barracks. This has its reason in the fact that every English family,
though it consist of only two persons, must still have a house to itself
for its own castle, and rich speculators, to meet the demand, build
wholesale entire streets of these dwellings, which they retail singly.
In the principal streets of the city, where the business of London is
most at home, where old-fashioned buildings are mingled with the new,
and where the fronts of the houses are covered with names and signs,
yards in length, generally gilt, and in relief, this characteristic
uniformity is less striking--the less so, indeed, because the eye of the
stranger is incessantly caught by the new and brilliant articles exposed
for sale in the windows. And these articles do not merely produce an
effect because the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which he
manufactures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp and
every boot, every tea kettle and every woman's dress, shines out so
invitingly and so "finished;" there is a peculiar charm in the art of
arrangement, in the contrast of colours, and in the variety of the
English shops; even the most commonplace necessaries of life appear in a
startling magic light through this artistic power of setting forth
everything to advantage. Ordinary articles of food attract us by the new
light in which they are placed, even uncooked fish lie so delightfully
dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales attracts us; raw meat
lies, as if painted, on neat and many-coloured porcelain plates,
garlanded about with parsley--yes, everything seems painted, reminding
us of the brilliant, yet modest pictures of Franz Mieris. Only the
people are not so cheerful as in the Dutch paintings; they sell the most
delightful playthings with the most serious faces, and the cut and
colour of their clothes is as uniform as that of their houses.
At the opposite side of the town, which they call the West End, where
the more aristocratic and less-occupied world lives, this uniformity is
still more dominant; yet here there are very long and very broad
streets, where all the houses are large as palaces, though outwardly
anything but distinguished, unless we except the fact that in these, as
in all the better class of houses in London, the windows of the first
storey are adorned with iron-barred balconies, and also on the ground
floor there is a black railing protecting the entrance to certain cellar
apartments buried in the earth. In this part of the city there are also
great squares, where rows of houses, like those already described, form
a quadrangle, in whose centre there is a garden enclosed by a black iron
railing, and containing some statue or other. In all of these squares
and streets the eye is never shocked by the dilapidated huts of misery.
Everywhere we are stared down on by wealth and respectability, while
crammed away in retired lanes and dark, damp alleys poverty dwells with
her rags and her tears.
The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, and does
not chance right into the regular quarters of the people, sees little or
nothing of the misery there. Only here and there, at the mouth of some
dark alley, stands a ragged woman with a suckling babe at her wasted
breast, and begs with her eyes. Perhaps if those eyes are still
beautiful, one glances into them and shrinks back at the world of
wretchedness within them. The common beggars are old people, generally
blacks, who stand at the corners of the streets cleaning pathways--a
very necessary thing in muddy London--and ask for "coppers" in reward.
It is in the dusky twilight that Poverty with her mates, Vice and Crime,
glide forth from their lairs. They shun daylight the more anxiously, the
more cruelly their wretchedness contrasts with the pride of wealth which
glitters everywhere; only Hunger sometimes drives them at noonday from
their dens, and then they stand with silent, speaking eyes, staring
beseechingly at the rich merchant who hurries along, busy and jingling
gold, or at the lazy lord who, like a surfeited god, rides by on his
high horse, casting now and then an aristocratically indifferent glance
at the mob below, as though they were swarming ants, or, at all events,
a mass of baser beings, whose joys and sorrows have nothing in common
with his feelings. Yes, over the vulgar multitude which sticks fast to
the soil, soar, like beings of a higher nature, England's nobility, who
regard their little island as only a temporary resting-place, Italy as
their summer garden, Paris as their social saloon, and the whole world
as their inheritance. They sweep along, knowing nothing of sorrow or
suffering, and their gold is a talisman which conjures into fulfilment
their wildest wish.
Poor Poverty! how agonising must thy hunger be where others swell in
scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a
crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou
moistenest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art
thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to Vice and Crime. Outlawed
criminals often bear more humanity in their hearts than those cold,
blameless citizens of virtue, in whose white hearts the power of evil is
quenched; but also the power of good. I have seen women on whose cheeks
red vice was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. I have
seen women--I would I saw them again!----
WELLINGTON.
This man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune wherever the
greatest men in the world were unfortunate, and that angers us, and
makes him hateful. We see in him only the victory of stupidity over
genius--Arthur Wellington triumphant where Napoleon Bonaparte was
overwhelmed! Never was a man more ironically gifted by Fortune, and it
seems as though she would exhibit his empty littleness by raising him
high on the shield of victory. Fortune is a woman, and perhaps, in
womanly wise, she cherishes a secret grudge against the man who
overthrew her former darling, though the very overthrow came from her
own will. Now she lets him conquer again on the Catholic Emancipation
question--yes, in the very fight in which George Canning was
overwhelmed. It is possible that he might have been loved had the
wretched Londonderry been his predecessor in the ministry; but he is the
successor of the noble Canning, of the much-wept, adored, great
Canning--and he conquers where Canning was overwhelmed. Without so
unlucky a luck, Wellington would perhaps pass for a great man; people
would not hate him, would not measure him too accurately, at least not
with the heroic measure with which a Napoleon and a Canning is
measured, and consequently it would never have been discovered how small
a man he is.
He is a small man, and less than small. The French could say nothing
more sarcastic of Polignac than that he was a Wellington without
celebrity. In fact, what remains when we strip from a Wellington the
field-marshal's uniform of celebrity?
I have here given the best apology for Lord Wellington--in the English
sense of the word. My readers will be astonished, however, when I
honourably confess that I once clapped on all sail in praise of this
hero. It is a good story, and I will tell it here.
My barber in London was a radical named Mr. White, a poor little man in
a shabby black dress, worn until it almost shone white; he was so lean
that even his full face looked like a profile, and the sighs in his
bosom were visible before they rose. These sighs were caused by the
misfortunes of Old England, and by the impossibility of paying the
National Debt.
"Ah!" I often heard him sigh, "why need the English people trouble
themselves as to who reigns in France, and what the French are doing at
home? But the nobility, sir, and the Church were afraid of the
principles of liberty of the French Revolution, and, to keep down these
principles, John Bull must give his gold and his blood, and make debts
into the bargain. We've got all we wanted out of the war--the revolution
has been put down, the French eagles of liberty have had their wings
cut, and the Church may be quite sure that none of them will come flying
over the Channel; and now the nobility and the Church ought to pay for
the debts which were made for their own good, and not for any good of
the poor people. Ah!--the poor people!"
Whenever Mr. White came to the "poor people," he always sighed more
deeply than ever, and the refrain then was, that bread and beer were so
dear that the poor people must starve to feed fat lords, stag-hounds,
and priests, and that there was only one remedy. At these words he was
wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it murderously up and down the
strop, he muttered grimly to himself, "Lords, priests, hounds."
But his radical rage boiled most fiercely against the Duke of
Wellington; he spat gall and poison whenever he alluded to him, and as
he lathered me, he himself foamed with rage. Once I was fairly
frightened, when he, while barbering just at my neck, burst out against
Wellington, murmuring all the while, "If I only had him so under my
razor, I'd save him the trouble of cutting his own throat, as his
brother in office and fellow-countryman, Londonderry, did, who killed
himself that way at North Cray, in Kent--God damn him!"
I felt already that the man's hand trembled, and fearing lest he might
imagine in his excitement that I really was the Duke of Wellington, I
endeavoured to allay his violence, and in an underhanded manner, to
soothe him, I called up his national pride, I represented to him that
the Duke of Wellington had advanced the glory of the English, that he
had always been an innocent tool in the hands of others, that he was
fond of beefsteak, and that he--but the Lord only knows what fine things
I said of Wellington as that razor tickled my throat.
What vexes me most is the reflection that Arthur Wellington will be as
immortal as Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that in like manner the name
of Pontius Pilate is as little likely to be forgotten as that of Christ.
Wellington and Napoleon! It is a wonderful phenomenon that the human
mind can at the same time think of both these names. There can be no
greater contrast than these two, even in their external appearance.
Wellington, the dull ghost, with an ashy grey soul in a buckram body, a
wooden smile on his freezing face--and by the side one thinks of the
figure of Napoleon, every inch a god!
That figure never disappears from my memory. I still see him, high on
his horse, with eternal eyes in his marble, imperial face, gazing down
calm as destiny on the Guards defiling past--he was then sending them to
Russia, and the old grenadiers glanced up at him, so terribly devoted,
so consciously serious, so proud in death--
"Te, Cæsar, morituri salutant!"
There often steals over me a secret doubt whether I ever really saw him,
if we were really his contemporaries, and then it seems to me as if his
portrait, torn from the little frame of the present, vanished away more
proudly and imperiously in the twilight of the past. His name even now
sounds to us like a word of the early world, as antique and heroic as
those of Alexander and Cæsar. It has become a rallying word among races,
and when the East and the West meet, they fraternise through that single
name.
How significant and magical that name can sound I once felt in the
deepest manner in the harbour of London, at the India Docks, as I stood
on board an East Indiaman just arrived from Bengal. It was a giant-like
ship, fully manned with Hindoos. The grotesque forms and groups, the
singularly variegated dresses, the enigmatical expressions, the strange
gestures, the wild and foreign ring of their language, their shouts of
joy and their laughter, and the seriousness ever rising and falling on
certain soft, yellow faces, their eyes like black flowers which looked
at me as with melancholy woe--all this awoke in me a feeling like that
of enchantment; I was suddenly as if transported into Scheherezade's
story, and I thought that broad-leaved palms, and long-necked camels,
and gold-covered elephants, and other fable-like trees and animals, must
forthwith appear. The supercargo who was on the vessel, and who
understood as little of the language as I myself, could not, in his
genuine English narrowness, narrate to me enough of what a ridiculous
race they were, nearly all Mahometans collected from every land of Asia,
from the limits of China to the Arabian sea, even jet black,
woolly-haired Africans.
To one whose whole soul was weary of the spiritless West, and who was as
sick of Europe as I then was, this fragment of the East which moved
cheerfully and changingly before my eyes was a refreshing solace, my
heart enjoyed at least a few drops of that draught which I had so often
longed for in gloomy Hanoverian or Prussian winter nights, and it is
very possible that the foreigners saw how agreeable the sight of them
was to me, and how gladly I would have spoken a kind word to them. It
was also plain from the depths of their eyes that I pleased them well,
and they would also have willingly said something pleasant to me, and it
was a vexation that neither understood the other's language. At length a
means occurred to me of expressing to them with a single word my
friendly feelings, and stretching forth my hands reverently, as if in
loving greeting, I cried the name, "Mahomed!" Joy suddenly flashed over
the dark faces of the foreigners; they folded their arms reverently in
turn, and greeted me back with the exclamation, "Bonaparte!"
THE LIBERATION.
Should the time for leisurely research ever return to me, I will prove
in the most tiresomely fundamental manner that it was not India, but
Egypt which originated that system of castes which has for two thousand
years disguised itself in the garb of every country, and has deceived
every age in its own language, which is now perhaps dead, yet which,
counterfeiting the appearance of life, wanders about among us evil-eyed
and mischief-making, poisoning our blooming life with its corpse
vapour--yes, like a vampire of the Middle Ages, sucking the blood and
the light from the heart of nations. From the mud of the Nile sprang not
merely crocodiles which well could weep, but also priests who understand
it far better, and that privileged hereditary race of warriors, who in
their lust of murder and ravenous appetites far surpass any crocodiles.
Two deeply-thinking men of the German nation discovered the soundest
counter-charm to the worst of all Egyptian plagues, and by the black
art--by gunpowder and the art of printing--they broke the force of that
spiritual and worldly hierarchy which had formed itself from the union
of the priesthood and the warrior caste--that is to say, from the
so-called Catholic Church, and from the feudal nobility, which enslaved
all Europe, body and spirit. The printing-press burst asunder the
dogma-structure in which the archpriest of Rome had imprisoned souls,
and Northern Europe again breathed free, delivered from the nightmare of
that clergy which had indeed abandoned the form of Egyptian inheritance
of rank, but which remained all the truer to the Egyptian priestly
spirit, since it presented itself, with greater sternness and asperity,
as a corporation of old bachelors, continued not by natural
propagation, but unnaturally by a Mameluke system of recruiting. In like
manner we see how the warlike caste has lost its power since the old
routine of the business is worth nothing in the modern methods of war.
For the strongest castles are now thrown down by the trumpet-tones of
the cannon as of old the walls of Jericho; the iron harness of the
knight is no better protection against the leaden rain than the linen
blouse of the peasant; powder makes men equal; a citizen's musket goes
off just as well as a nobleman's--the people rise.
The earlier efforts of which we read in the history of the Lombard and
Tuscan republics, of the Spanish communes, and of the free cities in
Germany and other countries, do not deserve the honour of being classed
as movements on the part of the people; they were not efforts to attain
liberty, but merely liberties; not battles for right, but for municipal
rights; corporations fought for privileges, and all remained fixed in
the bonds of gilds and trades unions.
Not until the days of the Reformation did the battle assume general and
spiritual proportions, and then liberty was demanded, not as an
imported, but as an aboriginal right; not as inherited, but as inborn.
Principles were brought forward instead of old parchments; and the
peasants in Germany, and the Puritans in England, fell back on the
gospel whose texts then were of as high authority as the reason, even
higher, since they were regarded as the revealed reason of God. There it
stood legibly written that men are of equal birth, that the pride which
exalts itself will be damned, that wealth is a sin, and that the poor
are summoned to enjoyment in the beautiful garden of God, the common
Father.
With the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, the peasants
swept over South Germany, and announced to the insolent burghers of
high-towered Nuremberg, that in future no house should be left standing
which was not a peasant's house. So truly and so deeply had they
comprehended equality. Even at the present day in Franconia and in
Suabia we see traces of this doctrine of equality, and a shuddering
reverence of the Holy Spirit creeps over the wanderer when he sees in
the moonshine the dark ruins of the days of the Peasant's War. It is
well for him, who, in sober, waking mood, sees naught besides; but if
one is a "Sunday child"--and every one familiar with history is that--he
will also see the high hunt in which the German nobility, the rudest and
sternest in the world, pursued their victims. He will see how unarmed
men were slaughtered by thousands: racked, speared, and martyred; and
from the waving corn-fields one will see the bloody peasant-heads
nodding mysteriously, and above one hears a terrible lark whistling,
piping revenge, like the Piper of Helfenstein.
The brothers in England and Scotland were rather more fortunate; their
defeat was not so disgraceful and so unproductive, and even now we see
there the results of their rule. But they did not obtain a firm
foundation for their principles, the dainty cavaliers ruled again just
as before, and amused themselves with merry tales of the stiff old
Roundheads, which a friendly bard had written so prettily to entertain
their leisure hours. No social overthrow took place in Great Britain,
the framework of civil and political institutions remained undisturbed,
the tyranny of castes and of corporations has remained there till the
present day, and though drunken with the light and warmth of modern
civilisation, England is still congealed in a mediæval condition, or
rather in the condition of a fashionable Middle Age. The concessions
which have there been made to liberal ideas, have been with difficulty
wrested from this mediæval rigidity, and all modern improvements have
there proceeded, not from a principle, but from actual necessity, and
they all bear the curse of that halfness system which inevitably makes
necessary new exertion and new conflicts to the death, with all their
attendant dangers. The religious reformation in England is consequently
but half completed, and one finds himself much worse off between the
four bare prison walls of the Episcopal Anglican Church than in the
large, beautifully-painted, and softly-cushioned spiritual dungeon of
Catholicism. Nor has the political reformation succeeded much better;
popular representation is in England as faulty as possible, and if ranks
are no longer distinguished by their coats, they are at least divided by
differences in legal standing, patronage, rights of court presentation,
prerogatives, customary privileges, and similar misfortunes; and if the
rights of person and property depend no longer upon aristocratic
caprice, but upon laws, still these laws are nothing but another sort of
teeth with which the aristocratic brood seizes its prey, and another
sort of daggers wherewith it assassinates people. For in reality, no
tyrant upon the Continent squeezes, by his own arbitrary will, so many
taxes out of his subjects as the English people are obliged to pay by
law; and no tyrant was ever so cruel as England's Criminal Law, which
daily commits murder for the amount of one shilling, and that with the
coldest formality. Although many improvements have recently been made in
this melancholy state of affairs in England; although limits have been
placed to temporal and clerical avarice, and though the great falsehood
of a popular representation is, to a certain degree, occasionally
modified by transferring the perverted electoral voice of a rotten
borough to a great manufacturing town; and although the harshest
intolerance is here and there softened by giving certain rights to other
sects, still it is all a miserable patching up which cannot last long,
and the stupidest tailor in England can foresee that, sooner or later,
the old garment of state will be rent asunder into wretched rags.
"No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment; else the new
piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made
worse. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine
doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be
marred; but new wine must be put into new bottles."
The deepest truth blooms only out of the deepest love, and hence comes
the harmony of the views of the elder Preacher in the Mount, who spoke
against the aristocracy of Jerusalem; and those later preachers of the
mountain, who, from the summit of the Convention in Paris, preached a
tri-coloured gospel, according to which, not merely the form of the
State, but all social life should be, not patched, but formed anew,
newly founded; yes, born again.
I speak of the French Revolution, that epoch of the world in which the
doctrines of freedom and of equality rose so triumphantly from those
universal sources of knowledge which we call reason, and which must, as
an unceasing revelation which repeats itself in every human head, and
founds a distinct branch of knowledge, be far preferable to that
transmitted revelation which makes itself known only in a few elect, and
which, by the multitude, can only be _believed_. The privileged
aristocracy, the caste-system with their peculiar rights, were never
able to combat this last-mentioned sort of revelation (which is itself
of an aristocratic nature) so safely and surely as reason, which is
democratic by nature, now does. The history of the Revolution is the
military history of this strife, in which we have all taken a greater or
lesser part; it is the death-struggle with Egyptianism.
Though the swords of the enemies grow duller day by day, and though we
have already conquered the best positions, still we cannot raise the
song of victory until the work is perfected. We can only during the
night, when there are armistices, go forth with the lantern on the field
of death to bury the dead. Little avails the short burial service!
Calumny, the vile insolent spectre, sits upon the noblest graves.
Oh, that the battle were only with those hereditary foes of truth who so
treacherously poison the good name of their enemies, and who even
humiliated that first Preacher of the Mount, the purest hero of freedom;
for as they could no longer deny that he was the greatest of men, they
made of him the least of gods. He who fights with priests may make up
his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled by the most
infamous lies and the most cutting slanders. But as those flags which
are most rent by shot, or blackened by powder-smoke, are more highly
honoured than the whitest and soundest recruiting banners, and as they
are at last laid up as national relics in cathedrals, so at some future
day the names of our heroes, the more they are torn and blackened, will
be all the more enthusiastically honoured in the holy St. Geneviève of
Freedom.
The Revolution itself has been slandered, like its heroes, and
represented as a terror to princes, and as a popular scare-crow, in
libels of every description. All the so-called "horrors of the
Revolution" have been learned by heart by children in the schools, and
at one time nothing was seen in the public fairs but harshly-coloured
pictures of the guillotine. It cannot be denied that this machine,
which was invented by a French physician, a great world orthopædist,
Monsieur Guillotin, and with which stupid heads are easily separated
from evil hearts, this wholesome machine has indeed been applied rather
frequently, but still only in incurable diseases, in such cases, for
example, as treachery, falsehood, and weakness, and the patients were
not long tortured, not racked and broken on the wheel as thousands upon
thousands of _roturiers_ and _vilains_, citizens and peasants were
tortured, racked, and broken on the wheel in the good old time. It is,
of course, terrible that the French, with this machine, once even
amputated the head of their State, and no one knows whether they ought
to be accused, on that account, of parricide or of suicide; but on more
thorough reflection, we find that Louis of France was less a sacrifice
to passion than to circumstances, and that those men who forced the
people on to such a sacrifice, and who have themselves, in every age,
poured forth princely blood far more abundantly, should not appear
solely as accusers. Only two kings, both of them rather kings of the
nobility than of the people, were sacrificed by the people, and that not
in a time of peace, or to subserve petty interests, but in the extremest
needs of war, when they saw themselves betrayed, and when they least
spared their own blood. But certainly more than a thousand princes were
treacherously slain, on account of avarice or frivolous interests, by
the dagger, by the sword, and by the poison of nobility and priests. It
really seems as though these castes regarded regicide as one of their
privileges, and therefore bewail the more selfishly the death of Louis
the XVI. and of Charles I. Oh! that kings at last would perceive that
they could live more safely as kings of the people, and protected by the
law, than under the guard of their noble body-murderers.
But not only have the heroes of our revolution and the revolution itself
been slandered, but even our entire age has been parodied with
unheard-of wickedness; and if one hears or reads our vile traducers and
scorners, then he will learn that the people are the _canaille_--the
vile mob--that freedom is insolence, and with heaven-bent eyes and pious
sighs, our enemies complain and bewail that we were frivolous and had,
alas! no religion. Hypocritical, sneaking souls, who creep about bent
down beneath the burden of their secret vices, dare to vilify an age
which is, perhaps, holier than any of its predecessors or successors, an
age that sacrifices itself for the sins of the past and for the
happiness of the future, a Messiah among centuries, which could hardly
endure its bloody crown of thorns and heavy cross, did it not now and
then trill a merry vaudeville, and crack a joke at the modern Pharisees
and Sadducees. Its colossal pains would be intolerable without such
jesting and persiflage! Seriousness shows itself more majestically when
laughter leads the way. And the age in this shows itself exactly like
its children among the French, who have written very terribly wanton
books, and yet have been very strong and serious when strength and
seriousness were necessary, as, for instance, Laclos, and even Louvet de
Couvray, who both fought for freedom with the self-sacrifice and
boldness of martyrs, and yet who wrote in a very frivolous and indecent
way, and, alas! had no religion!
As if freedom were not as good a religion as any other! And since it is
ours, we may, meeting with the same measure, declare its contemners to
be themselves frivolous and irreligious.
Yes, I repeat the words with which I began these pages: freedom is a new
religion, the religion of our age. If Christ is not the God of this
religion, he is still one of its high-priests, and his name shines
consolingly in the hearts of its children. But the French are the chosen
people of the new religion, the first gospels and dogmas were penned in
their language. Paris is the New Jerusalem, and the Rhine is the Jordan
which separates the land of Freedom from the land of the Philistines.
JAN STEEN.
[This fragment--newly translated--is taken from the _Memoiren des
Herrn von Schnabelwopski_, which was written in 1831, and published
in 1834, in the first volume of the _Salon_. The _Memoirs of
Schnabelwopski_ consist simply of the hero's light sketches of
Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Leyden, and his experiences in those towns;
they have generally excited the anger of Heine's German critics and
biographers, who appear to detect a tone of irreverent levity about
them, which they attribute to Parisian influences. Wagner obtained
the story of his _Flying Dutchman_ from a chapter of
_Schnabelwopski's Memoirs_.]
In the house I lodged at in Leyden there once lived Jan Steen, the great
Jan Steen, whom I hold to be as great as Raphael. Even as a sacred
painter Jan was as great, and that will be clearly seen when the
religion of sorrow has passed away, and the religion of joy has torn off
the thick veil that covers the rose-bushes of the earth, and the
nightingales dare at last to sing joyously out their long-concealed
raptures.
But no nightingale will ever sing so joyously as Jan Steen painted. No
one has understood so profoundly as he that there shall be an eternal
festival on the earth; he comprehended that our life is only the
pictured kiss of God, and he felt that the Holy Ghost is revealed most
gloriously in light and in laughter.
His eye laughed into the light, and the light mirrored itself in his
laughing eye. And Jan remained always a dear, good child. The stern old
Pastor of Leyden sat near him by the hearth, and delivered a lengthy
discourse concerning his jovial life, his laughing, unchristian conduct,
his love of drinking, his disorderly domestic affairs, his obdurate
gaiety; and Jan listened quietly for two long hours, and betrayed not
the slightest impatience at the lengthy sermon; only once he broke in
with the words--"Yes, Domine, that light is far better; yes, Domine, I
beg of you to draw your stool a little nearer to the fire, so that the
flame may cast its red gleam over your whole face, and leave the rest of
the figure in shade----"
The Domine stood up wrathful and departed. But Jan seized his palate and
painted the stern old man, just as in that sermon on vice he had
unconsciously furnished a model. The picture is excellent, and hung in
my bed-room at Leyden.
Now that I have seen so many of Jan Steen's pictures in Holland, I seem
to know the whole life of the man. I know all his relations, his wife,
his children, his mother, all his cousins, his enemies, his various
connections--yes, I know them all by sight. These faces greet us out of
all his pictures, and a collection of them would be a biography of the
painter. He has often with a single stroke revealed the deepest secrets
of his soul. As I think, his wife reproached him far too often about
drinking too much. For in the picture which represents the bean-feast,
where Jan and his family are sitting at table, we see his wife with a
large jug of wine in her hand, and eyes beaming like a Bacchante's. I am
convinced, however, that the good lady never indulged in too much wine;
only the rogue wanted us to believe that it was his wife, and not he,
who was too fond of drinking. That is why he laughs so joyously out of
the picture. He is happy; he sits in the midst of his family; his little
son is bean-king, and, with his tinsel crown, stands upon a stool; his
old mother, with the happiest smirk of satisfaction in the wrinkles of
her countenance, carries the youngest grandchild upon her arm; the
musicians play their maddest dance melodies; and the frugal, sulky
housewife is painted in, an object of suspicion to all posterity, as
though she were inebriated.
How often, during my stay at Leyden, did I think myself back for whole
hours into the household scenes in which the excellent Jan must have
lived and suffered. Many a time I thought I saw him bodily, sitting at
his easel, now and then grasping the great jug, "reflecting and
therewith drinking, and then again drinking without reflecting." It was
no gloomy Catholic spectre that I saw, but a modern bright spirit of
joy, who after death still visited his old work-room to paint merry
pictures and to drink. Only such ghosts will our children sometimes see,
in the light of day, while the sun shines through the windows, and from
the spire no black, hollow bells, but red, exulting trumpet tones,
announce the pleasant hour of noon.
THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL.
[_The Romantic School_, one of Heine's chief works, of which the
most interesting portions are here given, was published in 1833. It
was first written in French, as a counterblast to Madame de Staël's
_De l'Allemagne_, forming a series of articles in the _Europe
Littéraire_. Notwithstanding many errors of detail, and some
occasional injustice, it remains by far the best account of the
most important aspect of German literature. Indirectly Heine wished
to lay down the programme of the future, for he regarded himself as
the last of the Romantic poets, and the inaugurator of a new
school. The following translation is Mr. Fleishman's; it has been
carefully revised.]
Madame de Staël's work, _De l'Allemagne_, is the only comprehensive
account of the intellectual life of Germany which has been accessible to
the French; and yet since her book appeared a considerable period has
elapsed, and an entirely new school of literature has arisen in Germany.
Is it only a transitional literature? Has it already reached its zenith?
Has it already begun to decline? Opinions are divided concerning it. The
majority believe that with the death of Goethe a new literary era begins
in Germany; that with him the old Germany also descended to its grave;
that the aristocratic period of literature was ended, and the democratic
just beginning; or, as a French journal recently phrased it, "The
intellectual dominion of the individual has ceased,--the intellectual
rule of the many has commenced."
So far as I am concerned, I do not venture to pass so decided an opinion
as to the future evolutions of German intellect. I had already
prophesied many years in advance the end of the Goethean art-period, by
which name I was the first to designate that era. I could safely venture
the prophecy, for I knew very well the ways and the means of those
malcontents who sought to overthrow the Goethean art-empire, and it is
even claimed that I took part in those seditious outbreaks against
Goethe. Now that Goethe is dead, the thought of it fills me with an
overpowering sorrow.
While I announce this book as a sequel to Madame de Staël's _De
l'Allemagne_, and extol her work very highly as being replete with
information, I must yet recommend a certain caution in the acceptance of
the views enunciated in that book, which I am compelled to characterise
as a coterie-book. Madame de Staël, of glorious memory, here opened, in
the form of a book, a salon in which she received German authors and
gave them an opportunity to make themselves known to the civilised world
of France. But above the din of the most diverse voices, confusedly
discoursing therein, the most audible is the delicate treble of Herr A.
W. Schlegel. Where the large-hearted woman is wholly herself,--where she
is uninfluenced by others, and expresses the thoughts of her own radiant
soul, displaying all her intellectual fireworks and brilliant
follies,--there the book is good, even excellent. But as soon as she
yields to foreign influences, as soon as she begins to glorify a school
whose spirit is wholly unfamiliar and incomprehensible to her, as soon
as through the commendation of this school she furthers certain
Ultramontane tendencies which are in direct opposition to her own
Protestant clearness, just so soon her book becomes wretched and
unenjoyable. To this unconscious partisanship she adds the evident
purpose, through praise of the intellectual activity, the idealism, of
Germany, to rebuke the realism then existing among the French, and the
materialistic splendours of the Empire. Her book _De l'Allemagne_
resembles in this respect the _Germania_ of Tacitus, who perhaps
likewise designed his eulogy of the Germans as an indirect satire
against his countrymen. In referring to the school which Madame de Staël
glorified, and whose tendencies she furthered, I mean the Romantic
School. That this was in Germany something quite different from that
which was designated by the same name in France, that its tendencies
were totally diverse from those of the French Romanticists, will be made
clear in the following pages.
But what was the Romantic School in Germany?
It was nothing else than the reawakening of the poetry of the middle
ages as it manifested itself in the poems, paintings, and sculptures, in
the art and life of those times. This poetry, however, had been
developed out of Christianity; it was a passion-flower which had
blossomed from the blood of Christ. I know not if the melancholy flower
which in Germany we call the passion-flower is known by the same name in
France, and if the popular tradition has ascribed to it the same
mystical origin. It is that motley-hued, melancholic flower in whose
calyx one may behold a counterfeit presentment of the tools used at the
crucifixion of Christ--namely, hammer, pincers, and nails. This flower
is by no means unsightly, but only spectral: its aspect fills our souls
with a dread pleasure, like those convulsive, sweet emotions that arise
from grief. In this respect the passion-flower would be the fittest
symbol of Christianity itself, whose most awe-inspiring charm consists
in the voluptuousness of pain.
Although in France Christianity and Roman Catholicism are synonymous
terms, yet I desire to emphasise the fact, that I here refer to the
latter only. I refer to that religion whose earliest dogmas contained a
condemnation of all flesh, and not only admitted the supremacy of the
spirit over the flesh, but sought to mortify the latter in order thereby
to glorify the former. I refer to that religion through whose unnatural
mission vice and hypocrisy came into the world, for through the odium
which it cast on the flesh the most innocent gratification of the senses
were accounted sins; and, as it was impossible to be entirely spiritual,
the growth of hypocrisy was inevitable. I refer to that religion which,
by teaching the renunciation of all earthly pleasures, and by
inculcating abject humility and angelic patience, became the most
efficacious support of despotism. Men now recognise the nature of that
religion, and will no longer be put off with promises of a Heaven
hereafter; they know that the material world has also its good, and is
not wholly given over to Satan, and now they vindicate the pleasures of
the world, this beautiful garden of the gods, our inalienable heritage.
Just because we now comprehend so fully all the consequences of that
absolute spirituality, we are warranted in believing that the
Christian-Catholic theories of the universe are at an end; for every
epoch is a sphinx which plunges into the abyss as soon as its problem is
solved.
We by no means deny the benefits which the Christian-Catholic theories
effected in Europe. They were needed as a wholesome reaction against
the terrible colossal materialism which was developed in the Roman
Empire, and threatened the annihilation of all the intellectual grandeur
of mankind. Just as the licentious memoirs of the last century form the
_pièces justificatives_ of the French Revolution; just as the reign of
terror seems a necessary medicine when one is familiar with the
confessions of the French nobility since the regency; so the
wholesomeness of ascetic spirituality becomes manifest when we read
Petronius or Apuleius, books which may be considered as _pièces
justificatives_ of Christianity. The flesh had become so insolent in
this Roman world that Christian discipline was needed to chasten it.
After the banquet of a Trimalkion, a hunger-cure, such as Christianity,
was required.
Or did, perhaps, the hoary sensualists seek by scourgings to stimulate
the cloyed flesh to renewed capacity for enjoyment? Did aging Rome
submit to monkish flagellations in order to discover exquisite pleasure
in torture itself, voluptuous bliss in pain?
Unfortunate excess! it robbed the Roman body-politic of its last
energies. Rome was not destroyed by the division into two empires. On
the Bosphorus as on the Tiber, Rome was eaten up by the same Judaic
spiritualism, and in both Roman history became the record of a slow
dying-away, a death agony that lasted for centuries. Did perhaps
murdered Judea, by bequeathing its spiritualism to the Romans, seek to
avenge itself on the victorious foe, as did the dying centaur, who so
cunningly wheedled the son of Jupiter into wearing the deadly vestment
poisoned with his own blood? In truth, Rome, the Hercules among nations,
was so effectually consumed by the Judaic poison that helm and armour
fell from its decaying limbs, and its imperious battle tones
degenerated into the prayers of snivelling priests and the trilling of
eunuchs.
But that which enfeebles the aged strengthens the young. That
spiritualism had a wholesome effect on the over-robust races of the
north; the ruddy barbarians became spiritualised through Christianity;
European civilisation began. This is a praiseworthy and sacred phase of
Christianity. The Catholic Church earned in this regard the highest
title to our respect and admiration. Through grand, genial institutions
it controlled the bestiality of the barbarian hordes of the North, and
tamed their brutal materialism.
The works of art in the middle ages give evidence of this mastery of
matter by the spirit; and that is often their whole purpose. The epic
poems of that time may be easily classified according to the degree in
which they show that mastery. Of lyric and dramatic poems nothing is
here to be said; for the latter do not exist, and the former are
comparatively as much alike in all ages as are the songs of the
nightingales in each succeeding spring.
Although the epic poetry of the middle ages was divided into sacred and
secular, yet both classes were purely Christian in their nature; for if
the sacred poetry related exclusively to the Jewish people and its
history, which alone was considered sacred; if its themes were the
heroes of the Old and the New Testaments, and their legends--in brief,
the Church--still all the Christian views and aims of that period were
mirrored in the secular poetry. The flower of the German sacred poetry
of the middle ages is, perhaps, _Barlaam and Josaphat_, a poem in which
the dogma of self-denial, of continence, of renunciation, of the scorn
of all worldly pleasures, is most consistently expressed. Next in order
of merit I would rank _Lobgesang auf den Heiligen Anno_, but the latter
poem already evinces a marked tendency towards secular themes. It
differs in general from the former somewhat as a Byzantine image of a
saint differs from an old German representation. Just as in these
Byzantine pictures, so also do we find in _Barlaam and Josaphat_ the
greatest simplicity; there is no perspective, and the long, lean,
statue-like forms, and the grave, ideal countenances, stand severely
outlined, as though in bold relief against a background of pale gold. In
the _Lobgesang auf den Heiligen Anno_, as in the old German pictures,
the accessories seem almost more prominent than the subject; and,
notwithstanding the bold outlines, every detail is most minutely
executed, and one knows not which to admire most, the giant-like
conception or the dwarf-like patience of execution. Ottfried's
_Evangeliengedicht_, which is generally praised as the masterpiece of
this sacred poetry, is far inferior to both of these poems.
In the secular poetry we find, as intimated above, first, the cycle of
legends called the _Nibelungenlied_, and the _Book of Heroes_. In these
poems all the ante-Christian modes of thought and feelings are dominant;
brute force is not yet moderated into chivalry; the sturdy warriors of
the North stand like statues of stone, and the soft light and moral
atmosphere of Christianity have not yet penetrated their iron armour.
But dawn is gradually breaking over the old German forests, the ancient
Druid oaks are being felled, and in the open arena Christianity and
Paganism are battling: all this is portrayed in the cycle of traditions
of Charlemagne; even the Crusades with their religious tendencies are
mirrored therein. But now from this Christianised, spiritualised brute
force is developed the peculiar feature of the middle ages, chivalry,
which finally becomes exalted into a religious knighthood. The earlier
knighthood is most felicitously portrayed in the legends of King Arthur,
which are full of the most charming gallantry, the most finished
courtesy, and the most daring bravery. From the midst of the pleasing,
though bizarre, arabesques, and the fantastic, flowery mazes of these
tales, we are greeted by the gentle Gawain, the worthy Lancelot of the
Lake, by the valiant, gallant, and honest, but somewhat tedious,
Wigalois. By the side of this cycle of legends we find the kindred and
connected legends of the Holy Grail, in which the religious knighthood
is glorified, and in which are to be found the three grandest poems of
the middle ages, _Titurel_, _Parcival_, and _Lohengrin_. In these poems
we stand face to face, as it were, with the muse of romantic poetry; we
look deep into her large, sad eyes, and ere we are aware she has
ensnared us in her network of scholasticism, and drawn us down into the
weird depths of mediæval mysticism. But further on in this period we
find poems which do not unconditionally bow down to Christian
spirituality; poems in which it is even attacked, and in which the poet,
breaking loose from the fetters of an abstract Christian morality,
complacently plunges into the delightful realm of glorious sensuousness.
Nor is it an inferior poet who has left us _Tristan and Isolde_, the
masterpiece of this class. Verily, I must confess that Gottfried von
Strasburg, the author of this, the most exquisite poem of the middle
ages, is perhaps also the loftiest poet of that period. He surpasses
even the grandeur of Wolfram von Eschilbach, whose _Parcival_, and
fragments of _Titurel_, are so much admired. At present, it is perhaps
permissible to praise Meister Gottfried without stint, but in his own
time his book and similar poems, to which even _Lancelot_ belonged, were
considered Godless and dangerous. Francesca da Polenta and her handsome
friend paid dearly for reading together such a book;--the greater
danger, it is true, lay in the fact that they suddenly stopped reading.
All the poetry of the middle ages has a certain definite character,
through which it differs from the poetry of the Greeks and Romans. In
reference to this difference the former is called Romantic, the latter
Classic. These names, however, are misleading, and have hitherto caused
the most vexatious confusion, which is even increased when we call the
antique poetry plastic as well as classic. In this, particularly, lay
the germ of misunderstandings; for artists ought always to treat their
subject-matter plastically. Whether it be Christian or pagan, the
subject ought to be portrayed in clear contours. In short, plastic
configuration should be the main requisite in the modern romantic as
well as in antique art. And, in fact, are not the figures in Dante's
_Divine Comedy_ or in the paintings of Raphael just as plastic as those
in Virgil or on the walls of Herculaneum?
The difference consists in this,--that the plastic figures in antique
art are identical with the thing represented, with the idea which the
artist seeks to communicate. Thus, for example, the wanderings of the
Odyssey mean nothing else than the wanderings of the man who was a son
of Laertes and the husband of Penelope, and was called Ulysses. Thus,
again, the Bacchus which is to be seen in the Louvre is nothing more
than the charming son of Semele, with a daring melancholy look in his
eyes, and an inspired voluptuousness on the soft arched lips. It is
otherwise in romantic art: here the wanderings of a knight have an
esoteric signification; they typify, perhaps, the mazes of life in
general. The dragon that is vanquished is sin; the almond-tree, that
from afar so encouragingly wafts its fragrance to the hero, is the
Trinity, the God-Father, God-Son, and God-Holy-Ghost, who together
constitute one, just as shell, fibre, and kernel together constitute the
almond. When Homer describes the armour of a hero, it is naught else
than a good armour, which is worth so many oxen; but when a monk of the
middle ages describes in his poem the garments of the Mother of God, you
may depend upon it, that by each fold of those garments he typifies some
special virtue, and that a peculiar meaning lies hidden in the sacred
robes of the immaculate Virgin Mary; as her Son is the kernel of the
almond, she is quite appropriately described in the poem as an
almond-blossom. Such is the character of that poesy of the middle ages
which we designate _romantic_.
Classic art had to portray only the finite, and its forms could be
identical with the artist's idea. Romantic art had to represent, or
rather to typify, the infinite and the spiritual, and therefore was
compelled to have recourse to a system of traditional, or rather
parabolic, symbols, just as Christ himself had endeavoured to explain
and make clear his spiritual meaning through beautiful parables. Hence
the mystic, enigmatical, miraculous, and transcendental character of the
art-productions of the middle ages. Fancy strives frantically to portray
through concrete images that which is purely spiritual, and in the vain
endeavour invents the most colossal absurdities; it piles Ossa on
Pelion, Parcival on Titurel, to reach heaven.
Similar monstrous abortions of imagination have been produced by the
Scandinavians, the Hindoos, and the other races which likewise strive
through poetry to represent the infinite; among them also do we find
poems which may be regarded as romantic.
Concerning the music of the middle ages little can be said. All records
are wanting. It was not until late in the sixteenth century that the
masterpieces of Catholic Church music came into existence, and, of their
kind, they cannot be too highly prized, for they are the purest
expression of Christian spirituality. The recitative arts, being
spiritual in their nature, quite appropriately flourished in
Christendom. But this religion was less propitious for the plastic arts,
for as the latter were to represent the victory of spirit over matter,
and were nevertheless compelled to use matter as a means to carry out
this representation, they had to accomplish an unnatural task. Hence
sculpture and painting abounded with such revolting subjects as
martyrdoms, crucifixions, dying saints, and physical sufferings in
general. The treatment of such subjects must have been torture for the
artists themselves; and when I look at those distorted images, with
pious heads awry, long, thin arms, meagre legs, and graceless drapery,
which are intended to represent Christian abstinence and ethereality, I
am filled with an unspeakable compassion for the artists of that period.
It is true the painters were somewhat more favoured, for colour, the
material of their representation, in its intangibility, in its varied
lights and shades, was not so completely at variance with spirituality
as the material of the sculptors; But even they, the painters, were
compelled to disfigure the patient canvas with the most revolting
representations of physical suffering. In truth, when we view certain
picture galleries, and behold nothing but scenes of blood, scourgings,
and executions, we are fain to believe that the old masters painted
these pictures for the gallery of an executioner.
But human genius can transfigure deformity itself, and many painters
succeeded in accomplishing the unnatural task beautifully and sublimely.
The Italians, in particular, glorified beauty,--it is true, somewhat at
the expense of spirituality,--and raised themselves aloft to an
ideality which reached its perfection in the many representations of the
Madonna. Where it concerned the Madonna, the Catholic clergy always made
some concessions to sensuality. This image of an immaculate beauty,
transfigured by motherly love and sorrow, was privileged to receive the
homage of poet and painter, and to be decked with all the charms that
could allure the senses. For this image was a magnet, which was to draw
the great masses into the pale of Christianity. Madonna Maria was the
pretty _dame du comptoir_ of the Catholic Church, whose customers,
especially the barbarians of the North, she attracted and held fast by
her celestial smiles.
During the middle ages architecture was of the same character as the
other arts; for, indeed, at that period all manifestations of life
harmonised most wonderfully. In architecture, as in poetry, this
parabolising tendency was evident. Now, when we enter an old cathedral,
we have scarcely a hint of the esoteric meaning of its stony symbolism.
Only the general impression forces itself on our mind. We feel the
exaltation of the spirit and the abasement of the flesh. The interior of
the cathedral is a hollow cross, and we walk here amid the instruments
of martyrdom itself. The variegated windows cast on us their red and
green lights, like drops of blood and ichor; requiems for the dead
resound through the aisles; under our feet are gravestones and decay; in
harmony with the colossal pillars, the soul soars aloft, painfully
tearing itself away from the body, which sinks to the ground like a
cast-off garment. When one views from without these Gothic cathedrals,
these immense structures, that are built so airily, so delicately, so
daintily, as transparent as if carved, like Brabant laces made of
marble, then only does one realise the might of that art which could
achieve a mastery over stone, so that even this stubborn substance
should appear spectrally etherealised, and be an exponent of Christian
spiritualism.
But the arts are only the mirror of life; and when Catholicism
disappeared from daily life, so also it faded and vanished out of the
arts. At the time of the Reformation Catholic poetry was gradually dying
out in Europe, and in its place we behold the long-buried Grecian style
of poetry again reviving. It was, in sooth, only an artificial spring,
the work of the gardener and not of the sun; the trees and flowers were
stuck in narrow pots, and a glass sky protected them from the wind and
cold weather.
In the world's history every event is not the direct consequence of
another, but all events mutually act and react on one another. It was
not alone through the Greek scholars who, after the conquest of
Constantinople, immigrated over to us, that the love for Grecian art,
and the striving to imitate it, became universal among us; but in art as
in life, there was stirring a contemporary Protestantism. Leo X., the
magnificent Medici, was just as zealous a Protestant as Luther; and as
in Wittenburg protest was offered in Latin prose, so in Rome the protest
was made in stone, colours, and _ottava rime_. For do not the vigorous
marble statues of Michael Angelo, Giulio Romano's laughing nymph-faces,
and the life-intoxicated merriment in the verses of Master Ludovico,[9]
offer a protesting contrast to the old, gloomy, withered Catholicism?
The painters of Italy combated priestdom more effectively, perhaps, than
did the Saxon theologians. The glowing flesh in the paintings of
Titian,--all that is simple Protestantism. The limbs of his Venus are
much more fundamental theses than those which the German monk nailed to
the church door of Wittenburg. Mankind felt itself suddenly liberated,
as it were, from the thraldom of a thousand years; the artists, in
particular, breathed freely again when the Alp-like burden of
Christianity was rolled from off their breasts; they plunged
enthusiastically into the sea of Grecian mirthfulness, from whose foam
the goddess of beauty again rose to meet them; again did the painters
depict the ambrosial joys of Olympus; again did the sculptors, with the
olden love, chisel the heroes of antiquity from out the marble blocks;
again did the poets sing of the house of Atreus and of Laios; a new era
of classic poetry arose.
In France, under Louis XIV., this neo-classic poetry exhibited a
polished perfection, and, to a certain extent, even originality. Through
the political influence of the _grand monarque_ this new classic poetry
spread over the rest of Europe. In Italy, where it was already at home,
it received a French colouring; the Anjous brought with them to Spain
the heroes of French tragedy; it accompanied Madame Henriette to
England; and, as a matter of course, we Germans modelled our clumsy
temple of art after the bepowdered Olympus of Versailles. The most
famous high priest of this temple was Gottsched, that old periwigged
pate, whom our dear Goethe has so felicitously described in his memoirs.
Lessing was the literary Arminius who emancipated our theatre from that
foreign rule. He showed us the vapidness, the ridiculousness, the
tastelessness, of those apings of the French stage, which itself was but
an imitation of the Greek. But not only by his criticism, but also
through his own works of art, did he become the founder of modern
German original literature. All the paths of the intellect, all the
phases of life, did this man pursue with disinterested enthusiasm. Art,
theology, antiquarianism, poetry, dramatic criticism, history,--he
studied these all with the same zeal and with the same aim. In all his
works breathes the same grand social idea, the same progressive
humanity, the same religion of reason, whose John he was, and whose
Messiah we still await. This religion he preached always, but alas!
often quite alone and in the desert. Moreover, he lacked the skill to
transmute stones into bread. The greater portion of his life was spent
in poverty and misery--a curse which rests on almost all the great minds
of Germany, and which probably will only be overcome by the political
emancipation. Lessing was more deeply interested in political questions
than was imagined,--a characteristic which we entirely miss in his
contemporaries. Only now do we comprehend what he had in view by his
description of the petty despotisms in _Emilia Galotti_. At that time he
was considered merely a champion of intellectual liberty and an opponent
of clerical intolerance; his theological writings were better
understood. The fragments "Concerning the Education of the Human race,"
which have been translated into French by Eugene Rodrigue, will perhaps
suffice to give the French an idea of the wide scope of Lessing's
genius. His two critical works which have had the most influence on art
are his _Hamburger Dramaturgie_ and his _Laocoön, or Concerning the
Limits of Painting and Poetry_. His best dramatic works are _Emilia
Galotti_, _Minna von Barnhelm_, and _Nathan the Wise_.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born January 22nd, 1729, at Kamenz, in
Upper Lusatia, and died February 15th, 1781, at Brunswick. He was a
whole man, who; while with his polemics waging destructive battle
against the old, at the same time created something newer and better.
"He resembled," says a German author, "those pious Jews, who, at the
second building of the temple, were often disturbed by the attacks of
their enemies, and with one hand would fight against the foe, while with
the other hand they continued to work at the house of God." This is not
the place to discuss Lessing more fully, but I cannot refrain from
saying that, in the whole range of literary history, he is the author
whom I most love.
I desire here to call attention to another author, who worked in the
same spirit and with the same aim, and who may be regarded as Lessing's
most legitimate successor. It is true, a criticism of this author would
be out of place here, for he occupies a peculiarly isolated place in the
history of literature, and his relation to his epoch and contemporaries
cannot even now be definitely pronounced. I refer to Johann Gottfried
Herder, born in 1744, at Morungen, in East Prussia; died in 1803, at
Weimar, in Saxony.
The history of literature is a great morgue, wherein each seeks the dead
who are near or dear to him. And when, among the corpses of so many
petty men, I behold the noble features of a Lessing or a Herder, my
heart throbs with emotion. How could I pass you without pressing a hasty
kiss on your pale lips?
But if Lessing effectually put an end to the servile apings of
Franco-Grecian art, yet, by directing attention to the true art-works of
Grecian antiquity, to a certain extent he gave an impetus to a new and
equally silly species of imitation. Through his warfare against
religious superstition he even advanced a certain narrow-minded _jejune_
enlightenment, which at that time vaunted itself in Berlin; the sainted
Nicolai was its principal mouthpiece, and the German Encyclopædia its
arsenal. The most wretched mediocrity began again to raise its head,
more disgustingly than ever. Imbecility, vapidity, and the commonplace
distended themselves like the frog in the fable.
It is an error to believe that Goethe, who at that time had already
appeared upon the scene, had met with general recognition. His _Goetz
von Berlichingen_ and his _Werther_ were received with enthusiasm, but
the works of the most ordinary bungler not less so, and Goethe occupied
but a small niche in the temple of literature. It is true, as said
before, that the public welcomed Goetz and Werther with delight, but
more on account of the subject matter than their artistic merits, which
few were able to appreciate. Of these masterpieces, _Goetz von
Berlichingen_ was a dramatised romance of chivalry, which was the
popular style at that time. In _Werther_ the public saw only an
embellished account of an episode in real life--namely, the story of
young Jerusalem, a youth who shot himself from disappointed love,
thereby creating quite a commotion in that dead-calm period. Tears were
shed over his pathetic letters, and it was shrewdly observed that the
manner in which Werther had been ostracised from the society of the
nobility must have increased his weariness of life. The discussion
concerning suicide brought the book still more into notice; a few fools
hit upon the idea of shooting themselves in imitation of Werther, and
thus the book made a marked sensation. But the romances of August
Lafontaine were in equal demand, and as the latter was a voluminous
writer, it followed that he was more famous than Wolfgang Goethe.
Wieland was the great poet of that period, and his only rival was Herr
Ramler of Berlin. Wieland was worshipped idolatrously, more than Goethe
ever was. Iffland, with his lachrymose domestic dramas, and Kotzebue's
farces, with their stale witticisms, ruled the stage.
It was against this literature that, in the closing years of the last
century, there arose in Germany a new school, which we have designated
the Romantic School. At the head of this school stand the brothers
August William and Frederic Schlegel. Jena, where these two brothers,
together with many kindred spirits, were wont to come and go, was the
central point from which the new æsthetic dogma radiated. I advisedly
say dogma, for this school began with a criticism of the art productions
of the past, and with recipes for the art works of the future. In both
of these fields the Schlegelian school has rendered good service to
æsthetic criticism. In criticising the art works of the past, either
their defects and imperfections were set forth, or their merits and
beauties illustrated. In their polemics, in their exposure of artistic
shortcomings and imperfections, the Schlegels were entirely imitators of
Lessing; they seized upon his great battle-sword, but the arm of August
William Schlegel was far too feeble, and the sight of his brother
Frederic too much obscured by mystic clouds; the former could not strike
so strong, nor the latter so sure and telling a blow as Lessing. In
reproductive criticism, however, where the beauties of a work of art
were to be brought out clearly; where a delicate perception of
individualities was required; and where these were to be made
intelligible, the Schlegels are far superior to Lessing. But what shall
I say concerning their recipes for producing masterpieces? Here the
Schlegels reveal the same impotency that we seem to discover in Lessing.
The latter also, strong as he is in negation, is equally weak in
affirmation; seldom can he lay down any fundamental principle, and even
more rarely, a correct one. He lacks the firm foundation of a
philosophy, or a synthetic system. In this respect the Schlegels are
still more woefully lacking. Many fables are rife concerning the
influence of Fichtean idealism and Schelling's philosophy of nature upon
the romantic school, and it is even asserted that the latter is entirely
the result of the former. I can, however, at the most discover the
traces of only a few stray thoughts of Fichte and Schelling, but by no
means the impress of a system of philosophy. It is true that Schelling,
who at that time was delivering lectures at Jena, had personally a great
influence upon the romantic school. Schelling is also somewhat of a
poet, a fact not generally known in France, and it is said that he is
still in doubt whether he shall not publish his entire philosophical
works in poetical, yes, even in metrical form. This doubt is
characteristic of the man.
But if the Schlegels could give no definite, reliable theory for the
masterpieces which they bespoke of the poets of their school, they
atoned for these shortcomings by commending as models the best works of
art of the past, and by making them accessible to their disciples. These
were chiefly the Christian-Catholic productions of the middle ages. The
translation of Shakespeare, who stands at the frontier of this art and
with Protestant clearness smiles over into our modern era, was solely
intended for polemical purposes, the present discussion of which space
forbids. It was undertaken by A. W. Schlegel at a time when the
enthusiasm for the middle ages had not yet reached its most extravagant
height. Later, when this did occur, Calderon was translated and ranked
far above Shakespeare. For the works of Calderon bear most distinctly
the impress of the poetry of the middle ages--particularly of the two
principal epochs of knight-errantry and monasticism. The pious comedies
of the Castilian priest-poet, whose poetical flowers had been
besprinkled with holy water and canonical perfumes, with all their pious
_grandezza_, with all their sacerdotal splendour, with all their
sanctimonious balderdash, were now set up as models, and Germany swarmed
with fantastically-pious, insanely-profound poems, over which it was the
fashion to work one's self into a mystic ecstasy of admiration, as in
_The Devotion to the Cross_, or to fight in honour of the Madonna, as in
_The Constant Prince_. Zacharias Werner carried the nonsense as far as
it might be safely done without being imprisoned by the authorities in a
lunatic asylum.
Our poetry, said the Schlegels, is superannuated; our muse is an old and
wrinkled hag; our Cupid is no fair youth, but a shrunken, grey-haired
dwarf. Our emotions are withered; our imagination is dried up: we must
re-invigorate ourselves. We must seek again the choked-up springs of the
naïve, simple poetry of the middle ages, where bubbles the elixir of
youth. When the parched, thirsty multitude heard this, they did not long
delay. They were eager to be again young and blooming, and, hastening to
those miraculous waters, quaffed and gulped with intemperate greediness.
But the same fate befell them as happened to the aged waiting-maid who
noticed that her mistress possessed a magic elixir which restored youth.
During her lady's absence she took from the toilet drawer the small
flagon which contained the elixir, but, instead of drinking only a few
drops, she took a long deep draught, so that through the power of the
rejuvenating beverage she became not only young again, but even a puny,
puling babe. In sooth, so was it with our excellent Ludwig Tieck, one of
the best poets of this school; he drank so deeply of the mediæval folk
tales and ballads that he became almost as a child again, and dropped
into that childlike lisping which it cost Madame de Staël so much
painstaking to admire. She confesses that she found it rather strange to
have one of the characters in a drama make his _début_ with a monologue,
which begins with the words:--"I am the brave Bonifacius, and I come to
tell you," etc.
By his romance, _Sternbald's Wanderungen_, and through his publication
of the _Herzensergies sungen eines Kunstliebenden Klosterbruders_,
written by a certain Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck sought to set up the
naïve, crude beginnings of art as models. The piety and childishness of
these works, which are revealed in their technical awkwardness, were
recommended for imitation. Raphael was to be ignored entirely; his
teacher, Perugino, fared almost as badly, although rated somewhat
higher, for it was claimed that he showed some traces of those beauties
which were to be found in their full bloom in the immortal masterpieces
of Fra Giovanno Angelico da Fiesole, and were so devoutly admired. If
the reader wishes to form an idea of the taste of the art-enthusiasts of
that period, let him go to the Louvre, where the best pictures of those
masters, who were then worshipped without bounds, are still on
exhibition; and if the reader wishes to form an idea of the great mass
of poets who at that time, in all possible varieties of verse, imitated
the poetry of the middle ages, let him visit the lunatic asylum at
Charenton.
I believe, however, that those pictures in the first salon of the Louvre
are still too graceful to give the observer a correct idea of the art
ideals of that period. The pictures of the old Italian school must be
imagined translated into the old German, for the works of the old German
painters were considered more artless and childlike, and therefore more
worthy of imitation than the old Italian. It was claimed that we
Germans, with our _Gemüth_, a word for which the French language has no
equivalent, have been able to form a more profound conception of
Christianity than other nations, and Frederic Schlegel, and his friend,
Joseph Görres, rummaged among the ancient Rhine cities for the remains
of old German pictures and statuary, which were superstitiously
worshipped as holy relics.
I have just likened the German Parnassus of that period to Charenton.
Even that, however, is too mild a comparison. A French madness falls far
short of a German lunacy in violence, for in the latter, as Polonius
would say, there is method. With a pedantry without its equal, with an
intense conscientiousness, with a profundity of which a superficial
French fool can form no conception, this German folly was pursued.
The political condition of Germany was particularly favourable to those
Christian old German tendencies. "Need teaches prayer," says the
proverb; and truly never was the need greater in Germany. Hence the
masses were more than ever inclined to prayer, to religion, to
Christianity. No people is more loyally attached to its rulers than are
the Germans. And more even than the sorrowful condition to which the
country was reduced through war and foreign rule did the mournful
spectacle of their vanquished princes, creeping at the feet of Napoleon,
afflict and grieve the Germans. The whole nation resembled those
faithful old servants in once great but now reduced families, who feel
more keenly than even their masters all the humiliations to which the
latter are exposed, and who in secret weep most bitterly when the family
silver is to be sold, and who clandestinely contribute their pitiful
savings, so that patrician wax candles and not plebeian tallow dips
shall grace the family table--just as we see it so touchingly depicted
in the old plays. The universal sadness found consolation in religion,
and there ensued a pious resignation to the will of God, from whom alone
help could come. And, in fact, against Napoleon none could help but God
Himself. No reliance could be placed on the earthly legions; hence all
eyes were religiously turned to Heaven.
We would have submitted to Napoleon quietly enough, but our princes,
while they hoped for deliverance through Heaven, were at the same time
not unfriendly to the thought, that the united strength of their
subjects might be very useful in effecting their purpose. Hence they
sought to awaken in the German people a sense of homogeneity, and even
the most exalted personages now spoke of a German nationality, of a
common German fatherland, of a union of the Christian-Germanic races, of
the unity of Germany. We were commanded to be patriotic, and straightway
we became patriots,--for we always obey when our princes command.
But it must not be supposed that the word "patriotism" means the same in
Germany as in France. The patriotism of the French consists in this: the
heart warms; through this warmth it expands; it enlarges so as to
encompass, with its all-embracing love, not only the nearest and
dearest, but all France, all civilisation. The patriotism of the
Germans, on the contrary, consists in narrowing and contracting the
heart, just as leather contracts in the cold; in hating foreigners; in
ceasing to be European and cosmopolitan, and in adopting a narrow-minded
and exclusive Germanism. We beheld this ideal empire of churlishness
organised into a system by Herr Jahn; with it began the crusade of the
vulgar, the coarse, the great unwashed--against the grandest and holiest
idea ever brought forth in Germany, the idea of humanitarianism; the
idea of the universal brotherhood of mankind, of cosmopolitanism--an
idea to which our great minds, Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Jean
Paul, and all people of culture in Germany, have ever paid homage.
With the events that speedily followed you are only too familiar. After
God, the snow, and the Cossacks had destroyed the best portion of
Napoleon's forces, we Germans received the command from those highest in
authority to free ourselves from the foreign yoke, and we straightway
flamed with manly wrath at the bondage too long endured; and we let
ourselves be excited to enthusiasm by the fine melodies, but bad verses,
of Köerner's ballads, and we fought until we won our freedom--for we
always do what our princes command.
At a period when the crusade against Napoleon was forming, a school
which was inimical to everything French, and which exalted everything in
art and life that was Teutonic, could not help achieving great
popularity. The Romantic School at that time went hand in hand with the
machinations of the government and the secret societies, and A. W.
Schlegel conspired against Racine with the same aim that Minister Stein
plotted against Napoleon. This school of literature floated with the
stream of the times; that is to say, with the stream that flowed
backwards to its source. When finally German patriotism and nationality
were victorious, the popular Teutonic-Christian-romantic school, "the
new-German-religious-patriotic art-school," triumphed also. Napoleon,
the great classic, who was as classic as Alexander or Cæsar, was
overthrown, and August William and Frederic Schlegel, the petty
romanticists, who were as romantic as Tom Thumb and Puss in Boots,
strutted about as victors.
But the reaction which always follows excess was in this case not long
in coming. As the spiritualism of Christianity was a reaction against
the brutal rule of imperial Roman materialism; as the revival of the
love for Grecian art and science was a reaction against the
extravagances of Christian spiritualism; as the romanticism of the
middle ages may also be considered as a reaction against the vapid
apings of antique classic art; so also do we now behold a reaction
against the re-introduction of that catholic, feudal mode of thought, of
that knight-errantry and priestdom, which were being inculcated through
literature and the pictorial arts, under bewildering circumstances. For
when the artists of the middle ages were recommended as models, and were
so highly praised and admired, the only explanation of their superiority
that could be given was that these men believed in that which they
depicted, and that, therefore, with their artless conceptions they could
accomplish more than the later sceptical artists, notwithstanding that
the latter excelled in technical skill. In short, it was claimed that
faith worked wonders, and, in truth, how else could the transcendent
merits of a Fra Angelico da Fiesole or the poems of Brother Ottfried be
explained? Hence the artists who were honest in their devotion to art,
and who sought to imitate the pious distortions of those miraculous
pictures, the sacred uncouthness of those marvel-abounding poems, and
the inexplicable mysticisms of those olden works--these artists
determined to wander to the same hippocrene whence the old masters had
derived their supernatural inspiration. They made a pilgrimage to Rome,
where the vicegerent of Christ was to re-invigorate consumptive German
art with asses' milk. In brief, they betook themselves to the lap of the
Roman-Catholic-Apostolic Church, where alone, according to their
doctrine, salvation was to be secured. Many of the adherents of the
romantic school--for instance, Joseph Görres and Clemens Brentano--were
Catholics by birth, and required no formal ceremony to mark their
re-adhesion to the Catholic faith; they merely renounced their former
free-thinking views. Others, however, such as Frederic Schlegel, Ludwig
Tieck, Novalis, Werner, Schütz, Carové, Adam Müller, etc., were born and
bred Protestants, and their conversion to Catholicism required a public
ceremony. The above list of names includes only authors; the number of
painters, who in swarms simultaneously abjured Protestantism and reason,
was much larger.
When it was seen how these young people made obeisance, as it were, to
the Roman Catholic Church, and pressed their way into ancient prisons of
the mind, from which their fathers had so valiantly liberated
themselves, much misgiving was felt in Germany. But when it was
discovered that this propaganda was the work of priests and aristocrats,
who had conspired against the religious and political liberties of
Europe; when it was seen that it was Jesuitism itself which was seeking,
with the dulcet tones of Romanticism, to lure the youth of Germany to
their ruin, after the manner of the mythical rat-catcher of Hamelin;
when all this became known, there was great excitement and indignation
in Germany among the friends of Protestantism and intellectual freedom.
I have mentioned intellectual freedom and Protestantism together;
although, in Germany, I profess the Protestant religion, yet I trust no
one will accuse me of a prejudice in its favour. It is entirely without
partiality that I have named Protestantism and free-thought together,
for in Germany they really stand on a friendly footing towards one
another. At all events they are akin, and that as mother and daughter.
Even if the Protestant Church may be charged with a certain odious
narrow-mindedness, yet to its immortal honour be it said, that by
allowing the right of free investigation in the Christian religion, and
by liberating the minds of men from the yoke of authority, it made it
possible for free-thought to strike root in Germany, and for science to
develop an independent existence. Although German philosophy now proudly
takes its stand by the side of the Protestant Church; yes, even assumes
an air of superiority; yet it is only the daughter of the latter, and as
such owes her filial respect and consideration; and when threatened by
Jesuitism, the common foe of them both, the bonds of kindred demanded
that they should combine for mutual defence. All the friends of
intellectual freedom and the Protestant Church, sceptics as well as
orthodox, simultaneously arose against the restoration of Catholicism,
and, as a matter of course, the Liberals, who were not specially
concerned either for the welfare of the Protestant Church or of
philosophy, but for the interests of civil liberty, also joined the
ranks of this opposition. In Germany, however, the Liberals had always,
up to the present time, been students both of philosophy and theology,
and the idea of liberty for which they fought was always the same,
whether the subject under discussion was exclusively political,
philosophical, or theological. This is most clearly manifest in the life
of the man, who, at the very outset of the romantic school in Germany,
undermined its foundation, and contributed the most to its overthrow. I
refer to Johann Heinrich Voss.
This writer is altogether unknown in France, and yet there are few to
whom the German people are more indebted for their intellectual
development. After Lessing, he is probably the greatest citizen in
German literature. He certainly was a great man, and deserves more than
a mere passing mention.
The biography of this man is that of nearly all German authors of the
old school. He was the son of poor parents, and was born at Mecklenberg
in 1751. He studied theology, but did not pursue it as a career. When,
however, he became acquainted with poetry and Greek, he devoted himself
zealously to both. In order not to starve he took to teaching, and
became schoolmaster at Otterndorf, in Hadeln. He translated the
ancients, and lived to the age of seventy-five, poor, frugal, and
industrious. He enjoyed an excellent reputation among the poets of the
old school, but the poets of the new romantic school were continually
plucking at his laurels, and they scoffed not a little at the honest,
old-fashioned Voss, who, however, went on in his straight-forward way,
picturing the life on the lower Elbe, sometimes even writing in the
Platt-Deutsch dialect. He selected no mediæval knights or madonnas as
the heroes and heroines of his works, but chose for his theme the life
of a simple Protestant parson and his virtuous family. Voss was so
thoroughly wholesome, so bourgeois, so natural; while they, the new
troubadours, were so morbid and somnambulistic, so high-flown and
aristocratic, and altogether so unnatural. To Frederic Schlegel, the
intoxicated poet of the dissolute, romantic Lucinde, the staid and sober
Voss, with his "chaste Louise" and his "aged and venerable parson of
Grunau," must have been very obnoxious. August Wilhelm Schlegel, who
never was so sincere as his brother in his glorification of profligacy
and of Catholicism, harmonised much better with old Voss, and between
the two there existed only the rivalry of translators, a rivalry which
has been very beneficial for German literature. Even before the rise of
the new school, Voss had translated Homer; now, with an unprecedented
industry, he translated the other heathen poets of antiquity, while
August Wilhelm Schlegel translated the Christian poets of the
romantic-Catholic period. Secret polemical motives inspired them both.
Voss aimed to advance classic poetry and modes of thought through his
translations, while A. W. Schlegel sought, through good translations, to
make the Christian-romantic poets accessible to the public for imitation
and culture. In sooth, this antagonism manifested itself even in the
forms of speech used by the two translators. While Schlegel became ever
more fastidious and finical in his style, Voss grew more brusque and
rugged. The language in the latter's later translations is as rough as a
file, and at times almost unpronounceable. If one is liable to slip on
the smooth, highly-polished, mahogany-like surface of Schlegel's poems,
there is equal danger of stumbling over Voss's versified blocks of
granite. In a spirit of rivalry, Voss finally attempted a translation of
Shakespeare, a work which Schlegel had accomplished so successfully in
his earlier years. In this undertaking Voss fared very badly, and his
publisher still worse; the translation was a total failure. If
Schlegel's translation, perhaps, reads too smoothly; if his verses
sometimes give the impression of whipped cream, and leave the reader in
doubt whether it is to be eaten or be drunk;--Voss's, on the other hand,
is as hard as stone, and reading his verses aloud makes one fear a
dislocation of the jaw-bone. But that which especially distinguished
Voss was the energy with which he battled against all difficulties; he
not only wrestled with the German language, but also with that
aristocratic Jesuitic monster, which at that period raised its unsightly
head from amidst the dark forest depths of German literature: and Voss
dealt the monster a telling blow.
Herr Wolfgang Menzel, a German author, who is known as one of the
bitterest opponents of Voss, dubs him "a Saxon boor." Notwithstanding
the unfriendly sense in which this epithet is applied, it is
nevertheless very fitting. In truth, Voss is "a Saxon boor," just as
Luther was one: he lacks all that is chivalrous, courteous, and
gracious; he was every inch one of that rude, rough, sturdy race, to
whom Christianity could be preached only by fire and sword, and who only
submitted to that religion after losing three battles, but who in their
customs and ways still retain much of the old Norse pagan doggedness,
and in their material and intellectual combats show themselves as
valiant and as stubborn as their ancient gods. When I contemplate Johann
Heinrich Voss in his polemics and in his whole manner, I seem to see
before me the ancient one-eyed Odin himself, who has left Asgard and has
become a school-teacher in the province of Hadeln, and there teaches
Latin declination and the Christian catechism to the little
flaxen-haired Holsteiners; in his leisure hours he translates the Greek
poets into German, and borrows from Thor his great hammer to beat the
verses into shape; but after a while, becoming tired of the tedious
work, he takes the hammer and cracks poor Fritz Stolberg on the head.
That was a famous affair. Frederick, Count of Stolberg, was a poet of
the old school, and was remarkably popular in Germany, not, perhaps, so
much on account of his poetic talents as for his title of count, which
at that time counted for more in German literature than it does now.
Fritz Stolberg, however, was a liberal man and had a noble heart, and
he was a friend of those less patrician youths, who in Göttingen were
seeking to found a poetic school. I recommend French literary men to
read the preface to the poems of Hölty, in which Johann Heinrich Voss
describes the idyllic life of the band of poets of which he and Fritz
Stolberg were members. Time passed, and these two only were left of all
that galaxy of youthful poets. When Fritz Stolberg, with great _éclat_,
joined the Catholic Church, abjuring reason and the love of freedom,
becoming a promoter of intellectual darkness, and by his aristocratic
example drawing many weaklings after him--then Johann Heinrich Voss, the
venerable man of three-score and ten, publicly entered the lists against
the friend of his youth, and wrote the little book, _Wie Ward Fritz
Stolberg ein Unfreier?_ In it he analysed Stolberg's whole life, and
showed how the aristocratic tendency in the nature of his old comrade
had always existed, and that after the events of the French Revolution
that tendency had steadily become more pronounced; that Stolberg had
secretly joined an association of the nobility, which had for its
purpose to counteract the French ideas of liberty; that these nobles
entered into a league with the Jesuits; that they sought, through the
re-establishment of Catholicism, to advance also the interests of the
nobility: he exposed in general the ways and means by which the
reactionists were seeking to bring about the restoration of the
Christian-Catholic-feudal middle ages, and the destruction of Protestant
intellectual freedom and the political rights of the commonalty. Once,
ere the era of revolutions, good fellowship existed between German
democracy and German aristocracy; the former hoped for nothing, the
latter feared nothing; but now as grey-beards, they faced each other,
and fought a duel for life or death.
That portion of the German public which did not comprehend the
significance and terrible necessity of this struggle blamed poor Voss
for the ruthless revelation of confidential relations and private
affairs, which, however, taken as a whole, conclusively proved the
correctness of his charges. Then certain so-called æsthetic souls, far
too exalted and refined for such petty gossip, raised an outcry, and
accused poor Voss of being a scandal-monger. Other good citizens, who
feared that the curtain might be drawn from them, and their own
miserable shortcomings be exposed, waxed indignant over the violation of
the established rules of literary polemics, which strictly forbid all
personalities and disclosures of private affairs. It so happened that
Fritz Stolberg died soon after, and his death was attributed to grief;
and when, immediately after his death, his _Liebesbüchlein_ was
published, in which he assumes the true Jesuitic tone, and speaks of his
poor deluded friend in terms of pious Christian forgiveness--then the
tears of German compassion fell thick and fast, and the German
Michel[10] assumed his most lugubrious expression, and all this flood of
sentimentality was turned into wrath against poor Voss; and most of the
abuse heaped upon him came from the very ones for whose intellectual and
material welfare he had battled.
When one gets soundly thrashed in Germany one can always count on the
pity and tears of the multitude. In this respect the Germans resemble
those old crones who never miss an opportunity of witnessing an
execution, and who eagerly press to the front of the curious spectators,
setting up a bitter lamentation at sight of the poor wretch, and even
taking his part. The snivelling old women who attend literary
executions, and put on such grief-stricken airs, would nevertheless be
very much disappointed if the poor sinner was suddenly to receive a
pardon, and they be sent trudging homeward without beholding the
anticipated flogging. Their worst fury would then be directed against
the one who had balked their expectation.
Meanwhile Voss's polemical writings exerted a powerful influence upon
the masses, and turned the current of public opinion against that
predilection for mediævalism which had been all the fashion. His
writings aroused Germany; many declared for Voss personally; a greater
portion supported his cause alone. The controversy waxed fiercer and
fiercer; attacks and rejoinders followed in quick succession, and the
last days of the old man were embittered by these quarrels. He had to
deal with the most dangerous opponents, the priesthood, who attacked him
under the most-varied guises. Not only the Crypto-Catholic, but also the
Pietists, the Quietists, the Lutheran Mystics; in brief, all the
supernaturalistic sects of the Protestant church, no matter how
decidedly they differed from one another in their creeds, yet they all
agreed in their great hatred of Johann Heinrich Voss, the rationalist.
This name is in Germany applied to those who hold that the claims of
reason should not be put aside in matters of religion, in opposition to
the supernaturalists, who to a greater or less degree discard reason in
religion. The latter, in their furious hate of the poor rationalists,
resemble the inmates of a lunatic asylum, who, although they will not
believe in each other's hallucinations, yet in a measure tolerate one
another. But with all the fiercer hate do they turn against the man whom
they consider their common enemy, who is no other than the physician who
seeks to restore their reason.
While the romantic school was severely damaged in public opinion by the
discovery of its Catholic tendencies, about the same time it received an
utterly crushing blow in its own temple, and that, too, from one of
those gods whom itself had enshrined there. For it was Wolfgang Goethe
who descended from his pedestal to pronounce the doom of the Schlegels,
the same high-priests who had offered him so much incense. That voice
annihilated the whole pack of hobgoblins; the spectres of the middle
ages fled; the owls crept again into their obscure castle-ruins, and the
ravens fluttered back to their old church-steeples. Frederic Schlegel
went to Vienna, where he attended mass daily and ate broiled fowl; A. W.
Schlegel withdrew into the pagoda of Brahma.
Frankly confessed, Goethe at that time played a very ambiguous rôle, and
cannot be unconditionally praised. It is true, the Schlegels never were
sincere with him; perhaps they built him an altar, and offered him
incense, and taught the multitude to kneel before him, only because, in
their warfare against the old school, they needed a living poet to set
up as a model, and found none more suited for their purpose than Goethe;
and, perhaps, also, because they expected some literary favours from
him. Moreover, he was at such an easy distance from them. The road from
Jena to Weimar leads through an avenue of fine plum trees, and the
luscious fruit is very acceptable to the wayfarer when parched with the
summer heat. The Schlegels often travelled this road, and in Weimar they
had many an interview with Herr Geheimrath von Goethe, who was always a
finished diplomat. He listened quietly to what the Schlegels had to say,
smiled approvingly, occasionally dined them, showed them various
favours, etc. They also approached Schiller, but the latter was an
honest, straight-forward man, and would have nothing to do with them.
The correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, which was published
three years ago, throws considerable light on the relations between
these two poets and the Schlegels. Goethe, haughtily and contemptuously,
mocks at them; Schiller is angry at their impertinent scandal-mongering,
and at their passion for notoriety, and he calls them "puppies."
But although Goethe assumed such haughty airs towards them, it is
nevertheless true that he was indebted to the Schlegels for the greater
portion of his fame, for it was they who introduced and promoted the
study of his writings. The contemptuous and insulting manner with which
he eventually cast them off has a very strong flavour of ingratitude.
Perhaps Goethe, with his clear insight, was vexed that the Schlegels
should seek to use him as an instrument to accomplish their projects.
Perhaps those projects threatened to compromise him as the minister of a
Protestant state. Perhaps it was the ancient pagan godlike wrath that
awoke in him at sight of the mouldy Catholic follies. For as Voss
resembled the stalwart one-eyed Odin, so did Goethe, in form and figure,
resemble great Jupiter. The former was compelled to pound long and
vigorously with his Thor's hammer; the latter needed but angrily to
shake his majestic head, with its ambrosial locks, and the Schlegels
trembled and crept out of sight. A public statement of Goethe's
opposition to the romantic school appeared in his journal, _Kunst und
Alterthum_, and bore the title, _Concerning the
Christian-Patriotic-New-German School of Art_. With this article Goethe
made his eighteenth brumaire in German literature, for by chasing the
Schlegels so summarily out of the temple, and attaching to himself so
many of their young and zealous disciples, and being hailed with
acclamations by the public, to whom the Schlegelian directory had long
been obnoxious, he established his autocratic sovereignty in German
literature. From that hour nothing more was heard of the Schlegels. Only
now and then their names were mentioned, just as one sometimes casually
speaks of Barras or of Gohier. Neither romantic nor classic poetry was
henceforth spoken of; everywhere it was nothing but Goethe. It is true
that several other poets arose in the meantime, who, in power and
imagination, were but little inferior to Goethe. But out of courtesy
they acknowledged him as their chief; they paid homage to him, they
kissed his hand, they knelt before him. These grandees of Parnassus
differed from the common multitude in being permitted to wear their
laurel-wreaths in Goethe's presence. Sometimes they even attacked him;
but they were always vexed when one of the lesser ones ventured to
assail him. No matter how angry aristocrats are with their sovereign,
they are always displeased when plebeians also dare to revolt. And, in
truth, the aristocrats of intellect had, during the last twenty years,
very good reasons to be irritated against Goethe. As I myself
unreservedly remarked at the time, not without bitterness, "Goethe
resembled Louis XI. of France, who abased the powerful nobility and
exalted the _tiers état_."
That was despicable. Goethe feared every writer of independence and
originality, but glorified and praised all the petty authorlings. He
carried this so far, that to be praised by Goethe came at last to be
considered a brevet of mediocrity.
Later I shall speak of the new poets who grew up during the Goethean
imperialism. They constitute a forest of young trees, whose true
magnitude has become perceptible only since the fall of that century-old
oak by whose branches they had been so completely overtopped and
overshadowed. As already stated, there was not lacking a bitter and
zealous opposition against Goethe, that giant oak. Men of the most
diverse opinions were banded together in this opposition. The orthodox
were vexed that in the trunk of this great tree there was no niche
provided for the statuettes of the saints, but that, on the contrary,
even the nude dryads of heathendom were permitted to carry on their
witchery beneath it. The pietists would gladly have imitated Saint
Boniface, and with consecrated axe have felled this magic oak. The
liberals, on the other hand, were indignant that they could not use it
as a liberty tree and as a barricade. But, in truth, the tree was too
lofty to have a red cap placed on its top, or a carmagnole danced
beneath it. But the public at large honoured it just because it was so
stately and independent; because it filled the whole world with its
delicious fragrance; because its branches towered majestically to the
heavens, so that the stars seemed to be merely the golden fruit of the
great and wonderful tree.
It is true, the opposition against Goethe began with the appearance of
the so-called pseudo _Wanderjahre_, which was published by Gottfried
Basse of Quedlinburg, under the title of _Wilhelm Meister's
Wanderjahre_, in 1821; that is, soon after the downfall of the
Schlegels. Goethe had announced a sequel to his Wilhelm _Meister's
Lehrjahre_, under this title, and very strangely it appeared
simultaneously with its literary double, in which not only was Goethe's
style imitated, but the hero of Goethe's original novel was represented
as the leading personage. This parody evinced much talent, and still
greater tact, for as the author managed to maintain his anonymity for a
considerable period, baffling all endeavours to discover his
personality, public interest was artificially stimulated. Finally it
transpired that the author was a hitherto unknown village parson, by the
name of Pustkuchen, which translated into French would be _omelette
soufflée_, a name which aptly describes the very essence of his book. It
was nothing else than the old, stale, sour dough of the pietists,
æsthetically kneaded over. In this book it was cast up to Goethe, as a
reproach, that his poems had no moral aim; that he could create no lofty
characters, but only low, vulgar creatures; that Schiller, on the
contrary, had produced the most ideal and exalted conceptions, and that
therefore the latter was a greater poet.
That Schiller was a greater poet than Goethe was the special point which
Pustkuchen's book sought to establish, and for which it was written. It
became the fashion to institute comparisons between the writings of the
two poets, and the public divided into partisan camps. The admirers of
Schiller enthusiastically praised the purity and nobility of a Max
Piccolomini, of a Thekla, of Posa, and other of Schiller's dramatic
heroes; on the other hand, they stigmatised Goethe's Philine, Käthchen,
Clärchen, and the like pretty creatures, as immoral jades. Goethe's
adherents would smilingly admit that neither Goethe's heroes nor his
heroines could be called moral, but they claimed that the promotion of
morality in nowise came within the province of art. In art, asserted
they, as in the universe itself, there is no ulterior purpose; it is
only man who introduces the conceptions of end and means. Art, like the
universe, said they, exists for itself alone. Although the opinions of
mankind concerning the universe are continually changing, the universe
itself remains ever the same; so also must art remain uninfluenced by
the temporary views of mankind. Art must be kept especially independent
of systems of morality, for these change on earth as often as a new
religion arises, and supersedes an older faith. In fact, as after the
lapse of a number of centuries a new religion always makes its
appearance, influences the customs, and thus makes itself felt as a new
system of morality, so in every period the art works of the past would
be branded as heretical and immoral, were they to be judged by the
temporary standard of morality. We have, in truth, lived to see good
Christians, who condemn the flesh as of Satan, experience a feeling of
anger at sight of the Greek mythological statues. Chaste monks have put
an apron on the antique Venus; the ridiculous custom of bestowing a fig
leaf on nude figures has continued even up to the present. A pious
Quaker went so far as to sacrifice his whole fortune in buying up and
burning Giulo Romano's most beautiful mythological paintings; truly he
deserves for his pains to reach heaven, and there to be flogged daily. A
religion which should recognise God in matter only, and should regard
the flesh only as divine, would, when it had impressed itself upon the
customs of men, give rise to a system of morality, according to which
those works of art which glorify the flesh would be alone deemed worthy
of praise; and on the contrary, those Christian art works which depict
the nothingness of the flesh would be considered as immoral. The works
of art which are accepted as moral in one land would be considered
immoral in another country, where a different religion had generated
different customs. Thus, our pictorial arts awaken the disgust of a
strict Mahometan, while much that in the harems of the Orient is
regarded as quite innocent would be an abomination in the eyes of
Christians. In India the occupation of a Bayadere is not regarded as
dishonourable; hence, the drama of "Vasantasena," the heroine of which
is a courtesan, is there not at all considered immoral. If, however,
the Théâtre Français ventured to produce this play, the whole pit would
raise the cry of "immorality"--the same pit that witnesses with delight
plays whose plots are amorous intrigues, and whose heroines are young
widows who remarry at the end of the play, instead of having themselves
burned to death on their deceased husband's funeral pyre, as required by
Hindoo morality.
Starting with this idea, the Goetheans viewed art as a separate,
independent world, which they would rank so high, that all the changing
and changeable doings of mankind, their religions and systems of
morality, should surge far below it. I cannot unconditionally endorse
this view; but the Goetheans were led so far astray by it as to proclaim
art in and of itself as the highest good. Thus they were induced to hold
themselves aloof from the claims of the world of reality, which, after
all, is entitled to precedence.
Schiller united himself to the world of reality much more decidedly than
did Goethe; and he deserves praise for this. The living spirit of the
times thrilled through Frederic Schiller; it wrestled with him; it
vanquished him; he followed it to battle; he bore its banner, and, lo!
it was the same banner under which the conflict was being
enthusiastically waged across the Rhine, and for which we are always
ready to shed our heart's best blood. Schiller wrote for the grand ideas
of the Revolution; he razed the bastilles of the intellect; he helped to
erect the temple of freedom, that colossal temple which shelters all
nations like a single congregation of brothers: in brief, he was a
cosmopolitan. He began his career with that hate of the past which we
behold in _The Robbers_. In this work he resembles a diminutive Titan
who has run away from school, got tipsy with schnapps, and throws
stones at Jupiter's windows. He ended with that love for the future
which already in his _Don Carlos_ blossoms forth like a field of
flowers. Schiller is himself that Marquis Posa who is simultaneously
prophet and soldier, and battles for that which he foretells. Under that
Spanish cloak throbs the noblest heart that ever loved and suffered in
Germany.
The poet is, on a small scale, but the imitator of the Creator, and also
resembles God in creating his characters after his own image. If,
therefore, Carl Moor and the Marquis Posa are wholly Schiller himself,
so in like manner does Goethe resemble his Werther, his Wilhelm Meister,
and his Faust, in whom the different phases of his intellect can be
studied. While Schiller devotes himself to the history of the race, and
becomes an enthusiast for the social progress of mankind, Goethe, on the
other hand, applies himself to the study of the individual, to nature
and to art. The physical sciences must of necessity have finally become
a leading branch of study with Goethe, the pantheist, and in his poems,
as well as in his scientific works, he gave us the result of his
researches. His indifferentism was to a certain extent the result of his
pantheistic views. Alas! we must confess that pantheism has often led
men into indifferentism. They reasoned thus: if everything is God; if
everything is divine, then it is indifferent whether man occupies
himself with clouds or ancient gems; with folk-songs or the anatomy of
apes; with real human beings or play-actors. But that is just the
mistake. Everything is not God, but God is everything. He does not
manifest himself equally in all things, but He shows himself in
different degrees according to the various matters. Everything bears
within itself an impulse to strive after a higher degree of divinity,
and that is the great law of progress throughout all nature. The
recognition of this law, which has been most profoundly revealed by the
disciples of St. Simon, now makes pantheism a cosmic, universal theory,
which not only does not lead to indifferentism, but, on the contrary,
induces the most self-sacrificing endeavours. No, God does not manifest
himself in all things equally, as Wolfgang Goethe believed, who through
such a belief became an indifferentist, and, instead of devoting himself
to the highest interests of humanity, occupied himself with art,
anatomy, theories of colour, botanical studies, and observations of the
clouds. No, God is manifest in some things to a greater degree than in
others. He lives in motion, in action, in time. His holy breath is
wafted through the pages of history, which is God's true book of record.
Frederic Schiller felt this, and became an historian, a "prophet of the
past," and wrote the _Revolt of the Netherlands_, the _Thirty Years'
War_, the _Maid of Orleans_, and _William Tell_.
It is true Goethe also depicted a few of the great struggles of freedom,
but he portrayed them as an artist. Christian zeal was odious to him,
and he angrily turned from it; and the enthusiasm for philosophy, which
is characteristic of our epoch, he either could not understand or
purposely avoided understanding, for fear of ruffling his customary
tranquillity of mind; so he treated all enthusiasm objectively and
historically; as a datum, as a subject to be written about. In his hands
the living spirit became dead matter, and he invested it with a lovely
and pleasing form. He became thus the greatest artist of our literature,
and all that he wrote was a finished work of art.
The example of the master misled the disciples, and there arose in
Germany that literary epoch which I once designated as the "art
period," and which, as I then showed, had a most disastrous influence on
the political development of the German people. At the same time, I by
no means deny the intrinsic worth of the Goethean masterpieces. They
adorn our beloved fatherland just as beautiful statues embellish a
garden; but they are only statues after all. One may fall in love with
them, but they are barren. Goethe's poems do not, like Schiller's, beget
deeds. Deeds are the offspring of words; but Goethe's pretty words are
childless. That is the curse of all that which has originated in mere
art. The statue which Pygmalion wrought was a beautiful woman, and even
the sculptor himself fell in love with her. His kisses warmed her into
life, but, so far as we know, she never bore children. I believe a
similar idea has been suggested by Charles Nodier, and this thought came
into my mind while wandering through the Louvre, as my glance alighted
on the statues of the ancient gods. There they stood, with their white,
expressionless eyes, a mysterious melancholy in their stony smiles.
Perhaps they are haunted by sad memories of Egypt, that land of the dead
from which they came; or perhaps it is a mournful longing for the life
from which other divinities have expelled them, or a grieving over their
immortality of death. They seem to be awaiting the word that shall
liberate them from their cold, motionless rigidity and bring them back
to life. How strange that these antique statues should remind me of the
Goethean creations, which are likewise so perfect, so beautiful, so
motionless, and which also seem oppressed with a dumb grieving that
their rigidity and coldness separate them from our present warm,
restless life--that they cannot speak and rejoice with us, and that they
are not human beings, but unhappy mixtures of divinity and stone.
These few hints will explain the publicly-expressed opposition of the
various parties in Germany to Goethe. The orthodox were highly incensed
against the great heathen, as Goethe was generally called in Germany;
they feared his influence upon the people, whom he indoctrinated with
his manner of viewing the world through merry verses, even through the
simplest and most unpretentious ballads. They saw in him the most
dangerous foe of the Cross, which, as he expressed himself, was as
odious to him as vermin, garlic, and tobacco; at least, that is about
the purport of the Xenie which Goethe dared to publish in Germany, the
very country where vermin, garlic, tobacco, and the Cross form a holy
alliance, and are supreme over all. But it was not this that displeased
us, the party of action. As previously stated, we found fault with
Goethe for the barrenness of his writings; for the engrossing devotion
to art, which through him was diffused over Germany; for his influence
in creating among the German youth an apathy which was a hindrance to
the political regeneration of our fatherland. Hence the indifferentist
and pantheist was assailed from the most diverse sides. To use an
illustration from French parliamentary life, the extreme right and the
extreme left formed an alliance against him. While the cassocked priests
brandished the crucifix over him, furious _sans-culottes_ simultaneously
assaulted him with the pike.
Wolfgang Menzel, who had carried on the war against Goethe with a
display of talent worthy of a better cause, evinced in his polemics that
he was not merely a one-sided spiritualistic Christian, or a
discontented patriot; he rather based a portion of his attacks on the
latest remark of Frederic Schlegel, who, after his fall, from the
recesses of his Catholic cathedral, gave utterance to his woe
concerning Goethe; Goethe, "whose poetry lacked a central point." Menzel
went still further, and showed that Goethe was not a man of genius, but
only of talent; Schiller, however, was a genius, etc. This was some time
before the July Revolution; Menzel was at that time a great admirer of
the middle ages, of mediæval art as well as of institutions; he was
incessantly attacking Johann Heinrich Voss, and praising Joseph Görres
with an enthusiasm hitherto unheard of. These facts prove that Menzel
was sincere in his hatred of Goethe, and that he did not write against
him merely to make himself conspicuous, as many thought. Although I,
myself, was at that time an opponent of Goethe, yet I was displeased at
the harshness with which Menzel criticised him, and I complained of this
want of respect. I said, Goethe is nevertheless the king of our
literature, and in applying the knife of criticism to such a one, it
always behoves us to show a proper courtesy, just as the executioner who
was to behead Charles I., before performing the duties of his office,
knelt before the king and begged his royal forgiveness.
Among the opponents of Goethe was the famous Hofrath Müllner, and his
only remaining friend, Professor Schütz. There were several others of
less celebrity--Herr Spann, for instance, who had been imprisoned for a
long time on account of political offences--belonged to the public
adversaries of Goethe. In confidence, dear reader, it was a very motley
crowd. The ostensible reasons I have sufficiently indicated, but it is
more difficult to guess what special motive influenced each individual
to give publicity to his anti-Goethean sentiments. I know the secret
motives of only one of these persons, and as that one is myself, I will
frankly confess that I was envious of Goethe. To my credit I must say
that I assailed in Goethe only the man, never the poet. Unlike those
critics who, with their finely-polished glasses, claim to have also
detected spots upon the moon, I could never discern blemishes in
Goethe's works. What these sharp-sighted people consider spots are
blooming forests, silvery streams, lofty mountains, and smiling valleys.
Nothing is more foolish than to depreciate Goethe in order thereby to
exalt Schiller, whom it was always customary to praise in order to
disparage Goethe. Do such critics really not know that those
highly-extolled, highly-idealised figures, those sacred pictures of
virtue and morality which Schiller produced, were much easier to
construct than those frail, worldly beings of whom Goethe gives us a
glimpse in his works? Do they not know that mediocre painters generally
select sacred subjects, which they daub in life-size on the canvas? But
it requires a great master to paint with lifelike fidelity and technical
perfection a Spanish beggar-boy scratching himself, or a Netherlandish
peasant having a tooth extracted, or some hideous old woman such as we
see in Dutch cabinet pictures. In art it is much easier to picture large
tragic subjects than those which are small and droll. The Egyptian
sorcerers could imitate Moses in many of his tragic feats: they could
make serpents, and blood, and frogs; but when Moses created vermin,
which would seemingly be less difficult to copy, then they confessed
their impotence, and said, "It is the finger of God." Rail as you will
at the coarseness of certain portions of Faust, at the scenes on the
Brocken and in Auerbach's cellar, inveigh against the licentiousness in
_Wilhelm Meister_, it is nevertheless more than you can do; it is the
finger of Goethe! But I hear you say, with disgust, "We do not wish to
create such things. We are no sorcerers; we are good Christians." I know
quite well that you are no sorcerers.
Goethe's greatest merit consists in the perfection of all his works.
Here are no portions that are strong while others are weak; here no one
part is painted in detail while another is merely sketched; here is no
confusion, nor any of the customary padding, nor any undue partiality
for certain special characters. Goethe treats every person that appears
in his romances and dramas as if he or she were the leading character.
So it is with Homer, so with Shakespeare. In the works of all great
poets there are, in fact, no minor characters at all; every character in
its place is the chief personage. Such poets are absolute monarchs, and
resemble the Emperor Paul of Russia, who, when the French ambassador
remarked that a man of importance in his empire was interested in a
certain matter, sharply interrupted the speaker with the memorable
words--"In my empire there is no man of importance except he to whom I
may happen to be speaking; and he is of importance only so long as I
address him." An absolute poet, who also holds power by the grace of
God, in like manner views that person in his intellectual realm as the
most important who at that particular moment is speaking through his
pen. From this art-despotism arises that wonderful perfection of the
most trivial and unimportant figures which we find in the works of
Homer, Shakespeare, and Goethe.
If I have spoken rather harshly of Goethe's adversaries, I should have
cause to criticise his defenders still more severely, for most of the
latter, in their zeal, have been guilty of even greater follies. At the
head of those who have made themselves ridiculous in this respect is one
by the name of Eckermann, a writer not generally lacking in talent. In
the campaign against Pustkuchen, Carl Immermann, who is now our greatest
dramatic poet, won his spurs as a critic by publishing an excellent
_brochure_. Berlin chiefly distinguished itself on this occasion.
Goethe's leading champion, at all times, was Varnhagen von Ense, a man
whose heart is filled with thoughts grand as the universe, and who
expresses them in words as precious and as dainty as cut jewels. He is
the noble-minded man in whose judgment Goethe ever placed the most
reliance. Perhaps it may be well to mention here that Wilhem von
Humboldt once wrote an excellent book concerning Goethe. During the last
ten years every Leipsic Fair has brought to light a large number of
works on Goethe. Herr Schubart's studies of Goethe are among the marvels
of fine criticism. Herr Häring, whose _nom de plume_ is Willibald
Alexis, has written for various periodicals clever and valuable articles
on Goethe. Herr Zimmermann, professor at Hamburg, has, in his oral
lectures, given some most excellent criticisms of Goethe; in his
writings on dramaturgy we find similar thoughts, more briefly expressed,
perhaps, but more profound. At various German universities there were
courses of lectures on Goethe, and of all his works the public chiefly
devoted itself to the study of _Faust_. It was the theme of endless
dissertations and commentaries, and became the secular Bible of the
Germans.
I would be no true German if I wrote of _Faust_ without giving
expression to some explanatory thoughts concerning it, for from the
greatest thinker down to the most insignificant penny-a-liner, from
philosophers down to professors of philosophy, every one tries his wit
on this book. It is, in fact, as wide in its compass as the Bible; like
the latter, it embraces heaven and earth, mankind and its exegesis. The
subject matter of _Faust_ is the chief reason of its popularity, and its
selection from among the many folk-legends is a proof of Goethe's
profound judgment and genius, which ever seized on that which was
nearest and best. I may assume that the story of _Faust_ is familiar to
my readers, for the book has recently become celebrated in France also;
but I know not if the original legend itself is known here. I know not
if at your annual rustic fairs there is hawked for sale a little book of
grey, fleecy paper, badly printed, with rude woodcuts, containing a
circumstantial account of how the arch-sorcerer, Johannes Faustus, a
learned scholar who had studied all the sciences, finally threw away his
books and made a compact with the devil, by which he was enabled to
enjoy all the material pleasures of the earth, but in return for which
his soul was to be given up to the powers of hell. During the middle
ages the populace attributed all extraordinary intellectual powers to a
compact with the devil, and Albertus Magnus, Raimond Lullus,
Theophrastus Paracelsus, Agrippa von Nettesheim, and Roger Bacon in
England, were held to be magicians, sorcerers, and conjurers. But the
ballads and romances tell much stranger stories concerning Doctor
Faustus, who is reputed to have demanded from the devil not only a
knowledge of the profoundest secrets of nature, but also the most
realistic physical pleasures. This is the self-same Faust who invented
printing,[11] and who lived at a time when people began to inveigh
against the strictness of church authority, and to make independent
researches. With Faust the mediæval epoch of faith ends, and the modern
era of critical, scientific investigation begins. It is, in fact, of the
greatest significance that Faust should have lived, according to popular
tradition, at the very beginning of the Reformation, and that he himself
should have invented printing, the art which gave science the victory
over faith; an art, however, which has also robbed us of the catholic
peace of mind, and plunged us into doubts and revolutions, and had
finally delivered us into the power of Satan. But no! knowledge,
science, the comprehension of nature through reason, eventually gives us
the enjoyments of which faith, that is, Catholic Christianity, has so
long defrauded us; we now recognise the truth that mankind is destined
to an earthly, as well as to a heavenly equality. The political
brotherhood which philosophy inculcates is more beneficial to us than
the purely spiritual brotherhood, for which we are indebted to
Christianity. The thought becomes transformed into words, the words
become deeds, and we may yet be happy during our life on this earth. If
in addition to this, we also attain after death that heavenly felicity
which Christianity promises so assuredly, so much the better.
The German people had, for a long time, felt a profound presentiment of
this, for the Germans themselves are that learned Doctor Faust; they
themselves are that spiritualist, who, having at last comprehended the
inadequateness of the spiritual life alone, reinstates the flesh in its
rights. But still biassed by the symbolism of Catholic poetry, in which
God is pictured as the representative of the spirit, and the devil as
that of the flesh, the rehabilitation of the flesh was characterised as
an apostasy from God, and a compact with the devil.
But some time must yet elapse ere the deeply-significant prophecy of
that poem will be fulfilled as regards the German people, and the spirit
itself, comprehending the usurpation of spiritualism, become the
champion of the rights of the flesh. That will be the Revolution, the
great daughter of the Reformation.
Less known in France than _Faust_ is Goethe's _West-Ostlichen Divan_, a
later work with which Madame de Staël was unacquainted, and which
demands especial notice. It reveals the peculiar thoughts and feelings
of the Orient in graceful ballads and pithy proverbs, which exhale an
atmosphere of fragrance and passion, like a harem of love-sick
odalisques, with the dark eyes of gazelles, and amorous white arms. The
reader is filled with a mixed sensation of shuddering and desire, like
lucky Caspar Debureau, when he stood at the top of a ladder in
Constantinople, and beheld _de haut en bas_ what the Commander of the
Faithful is wont to see only _de bas en haut_. At times a feeling steals
o'er the reader as if he lay comfortably stretched upon a Persian
carpet, smoking a long Turkish pipe, filled with the yellow tobacco of
Turkestan, while a negress slave gently waves over him a variegated fan
of peacock feathers, and a handsome boy serves a cup of Mocha
coffee--the sweetest and most blissful sense of life and its pleasures
has Goethe expressed in these verses--in verses so dainty, so
felicitous, so airy, so ethereal, that one is lost in astonishment that
such things are possible in the German language. In addition to all
this, the book contains the most beautiful prose descriptions and
explanations of the customs and manners of the Orient, the patriarchal
life of the Arabs; and withal Goethe is as easy, merry, and harmless as
a child, and yet as full of wisdom as a greybeard. Goethe's prose in
this work is as translucent as the green sea, when, on a bright, calm
summer afternoon, we can look far down into the depths below, and catch
glimpses of ancient drowned cities, and all their fabulous splendours.
Then, at times, that prose is as magical and as mysterious as the
firmament, when the darkness of twilight has lifted, and the grand
Goethean thoughts appear, pure and golden, like the stars. The charm of
this book is indescribable; it is a salaam sent by the Occident to the
Orient, and many a quaint and curious flower is gathered there;
passionate red roses, snowdrops white as a maiden's bosom, comical
dandelions, purple digitalis like long human fingers, contorted
crocuses, and peeping slyly forth, in the midst, modest German violets.
The meaning of this salaam is that the Occident, grown weary of its
frigid, meagre spiritualism, seeks again to refresh itself amid the
wholesome physical pleasures of the Orient. After Goethe had expressed
in _Faust_ his aversion to abstract spiritualism, and his desire for
realistic enjoyments, in writing the _West-Ostlichen Divan_ he threw
himself with his whole soul, as it were, into the arms of sensualism.
Hence it is of the utmost significance that this work appeared soon
after _Faust_. It was the last phase of Goethe's genius, and his example
was of the greatest influence upon literature. The Orient was now the
theme of our lyric poets. It may be worthy of mention, that while Goethe
so rapturously celebrated Persia and Arabia in his verses, he expressed
the most decided aversion to India. The bizarre and confused
characteristics of that country were repugnant to him, and perhaps this
dislike originated in the suspicion that some Catholic stratagem was at
the bottom of the Sanscrit studies of the Schlegels and their friends.
These men regarded Hindostan as the cradle of Catholicism; they claimed
to have discovered there the model of the Catholic hierarchy, the
doctrine of the trinity, of the incarnation, of penance, of atonement,
of the maceration of the flesh, and all their other favourite crotchets.
Goethe's antipathy towards India nettled these people not a little, and
A. W. Schlegel, with transparent malice, called him "a heathen converted
to Mahometanism."
Amongst the most noteworthy writings on Goethe which have appeared this
year is a posthumous work by Johannes Falk, entitled _Goethe aus
Persönlichen Umgange Dargestellt_. With the exception of a detailed
treatise on _Faust_, which, of course, must not be omitted, the author
of this book has given us most excellent sketches of Goethe; he has
depicted him in all the walks of life, naturally, impartially, with all
his virtues and all his failings. In this book we behold Goethe in his
relations to his mother, whose temperament was so wonderfully reflected
in that of her son; we see him as the naturalist, watching a caterpillar
developing into a butterfly; we see the great Herder expostulating with
him against the indifferentism with which he let the development of
humanity itself pass before him, unregarded; we behold him at the court
of the Grand Duke of Weimar, seated among the blonde court dames, making
merry improvisations, like Apollo guarding the flocks of King Admetus;
again we see him, with the haughtiness of a Dalai-Lama, refusing to
recognise Kotzebue; then we see the latter giving a public celebration
in honour of Schiller, in order thereby to depreciate Goethe; we see him
in all things, wise, handsome, amiable, a blessed and inspiring figure,
like the eternal gods.
In fact, that harmony of personal appearance with genius, which we
demand in eminent men, existed in its fullest degree in Goethe. His
outward appearance was as impressive as the thoughts that live in his
writings. His figure was symmetrical and majestic, and in that noble
form Grecian art might be studied as in an ancient statue. That stately
form was never bent in Christian humility; the features of that noble
countenance were never distorted with Christian self-reproach; those
eyes were never downcast with Christian remorse, nor turned devoutly
and tremulously towards heaven. No, his eyes had a godlike
steadfastness, for it is in general the distinctive mark of a god, that
his look is unmoved. Hence when Agni, Varuna, Yama, and Indra assume the
form of Nala at Damayanti's wedding, the latter recognises her lover by
the twitching of his eyes, for, as I have said, the eyes of a god are
always steadfast and unmoved.
Napoleon's eyes possessed this peculiarity, and hence I am convinced
that he also was a god. Goethe's eyes, even at an advanced age, remained
just as godlike as in his youth, and although time could whiten, it
could not bow that noble head. He always bore himself proudly and
majestically, and when he spoke he seemed to grow statelier still, and
when he stretched out his hand it seemed as though he could prescribe to
the stars the paths they should traverse. It is said that a cold,
egotistic twitching might be observed around the corners of his mouth.
But this trait is also peculiar to the eternal gods, and especially to
the father of gods, great Jupiter, to whom I have already likened
Goethe. When I visited him at Weimar I involuntarily glanced around to
see if I might not behold at his side the eagle with the thunderbolt in
its beak. I was about to address him in Greek, but, as I noticed that he
understood German, I told him in the latter language that the plums
along the roadside from Jena to Weimar were excellent. Many a long
winter's night I had pondered on the exalted and profound remarks I
should make to Goethe if I should ever see him. And now that I did at
last see him face to face, I told him that the plums of Saxony were
delicious. And Goethe smiled. He smiled with the same lips with which he
had once kissed the beautiful Leda, Europa, Danaë, Semele, and many
another princess or ordinary nymph.
_Les Dieux s'en vont._ Goethe is dead. He died on March 22nd, last year,
that memorable year in which the world lost its greatest celebrities. It
is as if death had become suddenly aristocratic, and sought to designate
particularly the great ones of this earth by sending them
contemporaneously to the grave. Perhaps death wished to found a _pairie_
in the shadowy realms of Hades, in which case its _fournée_ were well
chosen. Or, perhaps, on the contrary, death sought during the past year
to favour democracy by destroying these great celebrities, and their
authority over the minds of men, and thus to bring about an intellectual
equality. Was it out of respect or from irreverence that death spared
the crowned heads during the past year? In a fit of abstraction death
did raise his scythe over the King of Spain, but he recollected himself
in time, and spared his life. During the past twelve months not a single
king has died. _Les Dieux s'en vont_--but the kings are still with us.
* * * * *
Schelling's influence on the romantic school was chiefly of a personal
nature, but in addition to this, by the philosophy of nature which came
into vogue through him, the poets have elevated themselves to much more
profound conceptions of nature. One portion let themselves be absorbed
with all their human emotions into nature; others remembered a few magic
formulas, with which to conjure out of nature something that possessed
human form and speech. The former were the genuine mystics, and
resembled in many respects the devotees of India, who dissolve in
nature, and at last begin to feel as if they and nature were one. The
latter were rather sorcerers, who by their own will summoned forth even
hostile spirits; they resembled those Arabian magicians, who, at their
caprice, could endow stones with life, and turn living beings into
stone. Novalis belonged to the first class, Hoffman to the latter.
Novalis saw marvels in everything, and charming marvels they were. He
listened to the language of the plants, he knew the secret of every
young rose, finally he identified himself with all nature, and when
autumn came and the leaves began to fall, then he died. Hoffman, on the
contrary, saw spectres in everything; they nodded to him from every
Chinese tea-pot, and from under each Berlin periwig. He was a sorcerer
who transformed human beings into beasts, and beasts into human beings,
even into royal Prussian court-counsellors. He would raise the dead from
their graves, but life itself turned away from him, as from some gloomy
spectre. He realised this; he felt that he himself had become a ghost.
All nature was to him an imperfect mirror, in which he saw, distorted in
a thousand ways, the cast of his own dead face; and his works are naught
else than a horrible shriek of terror in twenty volumes.
Hoffman does not belong to the romantic school. He did not come into
contact with the Schlegels, and was in no way affected by their
tendencies. I only mention him in contrast to Novalis, who was
peculiarly a poet of that school. Novalis is less known here than
Hoffman, who has been introduced to the French public by Loeve-Veimars
in a very attractive form, and thus has acquired a great reputation in
France. In Germany, Hoffman is by no means _en vogue_, but he was so
formerly. In their time his works were much read, but only by persons
whose nerves were either too strong or too weak to be affected by less
violent accords. The minds that were really intellectual, and the
natures that were truly poetical, would have nothing to do with him.
Such as these much preferred Novalis. But frankly confessed, Hoffman was
a much greater poet than Novalis, for the latter with his idealistic
pictures ever floats in the blue skies; while Hoffman, notwithstanding
all his grotesque bogies, still clings fast to earthly realities. Just
as the giant Anteus remained strong and invincible so long as his feet
rested on mother earth, and lost his strength the moment Hercules held
him aloft; so also the poet is strong and mighty as long as he does not
forsake the _terra firma_ of reality, but becomes powerless as soon as
he attempts to float enraptured in the blue ether.
The great resemblance between these two poets lies in the fact that
their poetry was really a disease. It has been said that it does not
come within the province of the critic, but of the physician, to pass
judgment on their writings. The rosy glow in Novalis's poems is not the
hue of health, but the hectic flush of consumption; and the brilliant
light in Hoffman's fantastic conceptions is not the flame of genius, but
of fever.
But have we a right thus to criticise--we, who are ourselves not blest
with robust health? and especially now, when all literature appears like
one vast hospital? or is poetry, perhaps, a disease of humanity, as the
pearl is the morbid matter of the diseased oyster?
Novalis was born May 2nd, 1772. His real name was Hardenberg. He loved a
young lady who was afflicted with consumption, and died of that dread
disease. This sad experience left its impress upon all his writings. His
life was but a dreamy, lingering death, and he also died of consumption
in 1801, before he had completed his twenty-ninth year, or his romance.
This romance, in its present shape, is only the fragment of a great
allegorical poem, which, like the divine comedy of Dante, was to embrace
all earthly and celestial matters. Heinrich von Ofterdingen, the
celebrated poet, is the hero of this romance. We see him as a youth in
Eisenach, the pretty little village which lies at the foot of the
ancient Wartburg, which has been the scene of some of the greatest, as
well as some of the most stupid, deeds; for here Luther translated his
Bible, and here, also, a few silly Teuto-maniacs burned Kamptz's
_Gendarmerie-Codex_. At this burg was held the famous tournament of
minstrelsy, at which, among other poets, Heinrich von Ofterdingen met
Klingsohr of Hungary in the perilous duel of poetry, an account of which
has been handed down to us in the Manessa collection. The head of the
vanquished was to be forfeited to the executioner, and the Landgraf of
Thuringia was the judge. Wartburg, the scene of his later glory, towers
ominously over the hero's cradle, and we behold him, in the beginning of
Novalis's romance, under the paternal roof at Eisenach. "The parents are
abed and asleep, the old clock on the wall keeps up its monotonous
ticking, the wind howls and the windows rattle; ever and anon the room
is lit up by fitful glimpses of the moon.
"The youth lay tossing restlessly on his couch, thinking of the stranger
and his narratives. 'It is not the treasures that have awakened within
me such an unspeakable longing,' said he to himself; 'far from me is all
avarice; but I yearn to behold the blue flower. It is always in my
thoughts, and of nought else can I think or muse. I never felt so
strangely before. It is as if until now I had been dreaming, or as if in
my sleep I had passed into another world; for in the world in which I
formerly dwelt, who would there have concerned themselves about flowers?
And so strange a passion for a flower, I never heard of there.'"
These are the opening words of _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_, and the whole
romance is full of the fragrance and the radiance of the blue flower. It
is remarkable and significant that the most fabulous personages in this
book seem as well known to us, as though in earlier times we had lived
in friendly, confidential intercourse with them. Old memories awaken,
Sophia's features are so familiar, and memory brings back long avenues
of beech trees, the scene of so many promenades and tender caresses. But
all this lies dimly back of us, like some half-forgotten dream.
The muse of Novalis was a fair and slender maiden, with earnest blue
eyes, golden hyacinthine tresses, smiling lips, and a small mole on the
left side of the chin, for I imagine his muse to be the self-same maid
through whom I first became acquainted with his works, as I saw the red
morocco-bound, gilt-edged volume, containing _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_,
in her dainty fingers. She always dressed in blue, and her name was
Sophia. She lived a few stations from Göttingen with her sister, the
postmistress--a merry, buxom, ruddy-cheeked dame, whose full bust,
surmounted with stiff white lace, resembled a fortress. This fortress,
however, was impregnable; the good dame was a very Gibraltar of virtue.
She was an industrious, practical housewife, and yet her only pleasure
consisted in reading Hoffman's romances. Hoffman was just the writer who
could agitate her coarse-grained nature and awaken pleasant emotions.
But her pale, delicate sister was disagreeably affected at the mere
sight of one of Hoffman's books, and if she accidentally laid hands on
one, she shrank from the touch. She was as delicate as a sensitive
plant, and her words were so fragrant and melodious, that, taken
together, they were poetry. I have written down some of her sayings, and
they are poems wholly after the manner of Novalis, only more tuneful
and ethereal. One of them, which she recited to me as I bade her
farewell ere setting out on my travels to Italy, is an especial
favourite of mine. The time is autumn; the scene, a garden wherein there
had been an illumination, and we hear the conversation between the last
glimmering taper, the last rose, and a wild swan. The morning mists
approach, the solitary light flickers and dies out, the rose leaves
fall, and the swan unfolds its white wings and flies away to the south.
For Hanover abounds with wild swans that seek the warm south in autumn,
and return again in summer. They probably spend the winter in Africa,
for in the breast of a dead swan an arrow was once found, which
Professor Blumenbach recognised as of African origin. The poor bird,
with the arrow in its breast, had returned to its northern nest to die.
But many a swan, when pierced by such an arrow, may not have the
strength for such a journey, and is left helpless in the burning
deserts, or with wearied pinions is perched on some Egyptian pyramid,
gazing with longing eyes towards the north, towards the cool summer home
in Hanover.
Late in the autumn of 1828, as I returned from the south, also with a
burning arrow in my heart, my route led through the vicinity of
Göttingen, and I stopped over at the dwelling-place of my old friend,
the postmistress, in order to change horses. A long time had elapsed
since I last saw her, and a woeful change had taken place in the good
dame. Her buxom form still resembled a fortress,--but a ruined and
dismantled fortress. The bastions were razed, no sentinels were on
guard, and her heart, the citadel, was broken. The postillion, Pieper,
informed me that she had even lost her relish for Hoffman's novels, but,
as a substitute, she indulged all the more freely in brandy at bedtime.
The latter is a much simpler plan, for the brandy is always at hand,
whereas the novels must be procured at the Deurlich circulating library
at Göttingen, at some hours' distance. Postillion Pieper was quite
diminutive, and looked as sour as if the contraction in his size was the
result of drinking vinegar. When I asked the fellow concerning the
postmistress's sister, he answered, "She will soon die; she is already
an angel," How good a being must she have been to draw from such a
churlish person the remark, "She is an angel." While saying this, he was
driving off the fluttering, cackling poultry, by kicking at them with
his high top-boots. The house, once so white and cheerful, had changed
for the worse, like its mistress; its colour was now a sickly yellow,
and the walls were wrinkled with fissures. In the court-yard lay broken
vehicles, and a postillion's scarlet mantle, soaking wet, was hanging on
a post to dry. Mademoiselle Sophia stood by the window, reading, and
when I approached her, I found it was a gilt-edged volume, bound in red
morocco; it was Novalis's _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_. She had read and
re-read this book, until its pages had inoculated her with consumption,
and now she looked like a luminous shadow. But her beauty was now so
ethereal, that the sight of it touched me most painfully. I took both of
her pale, thin hands in mine, and looked steadily into her blue eyes,
and then I asked, "Mademoiselle Sophia, how are you?" "I am well," she
answered, "and I shall soon be still better!" Then she pointed out of
the window to a little hillock, in the new churchyard, not far from the
house. On this barren mound stood a small, thin, solitary poplar, almost
leafless, and it swayed to and fro in the autumn winds, not like a
living plant, but like the ghost of a tree.
Mademoiselle Sophia now lies under that poplar, and the gilt-edged, red
morocco volume, Novalis's _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_, which she left me
as a souvenir, lies on the desk before me as I write. I have used it in
the composition of this chapter.
* * * * *
Jean Paul Richter anticipated the Young Germany school in its most
marked tendency. The latter, however, occupied with practical questions,
avoided the abstract intricacies, the abrupt mannerisms, and the
unenjoyable style of Jean Paul Richter. No Frenchman with a clear,
well-regulated mind can form a conception of that peculiar style. Jean
Paul's style is a structure consisting entirely of very small
compartments, which are sometimes so narrow that when one thought
encounters another, their heads collide and bruise each other. From the
ceiling are suspended hooks, on which Jean Paul hangs all sorts of
ideas, and the walls are full of secret drawers, in which he conceals
emotions. No German author is so rich as Jean Paul in ideas and in
emotions; but he never permits them to ripen; and, notwithstanding his
wealth of mind and heart, he excites more astonishment than pleasure.
Thoughts and sentiments which would grow into colossal trees, if
permitted to strike root properly and develop all their branches,
blossoms, and leaves--these he uproots while they are still
insignificant shrubs, mere sprouts even; and whole intellectual forests
are thus served up to us as an ordinary dish. Now, although curious,
this is decidedly unpalatable fare, for not every stomach can digest
such a mess of young oaks, cedars, palms, and banana trees. Jean Paul is
a great poet and philosopher; but no one can be more inartistic than he
in his modes of thought and work, In his romances he has brought to
light some truly poetical creations, but all his offspring carry with
them a long umbilical cord in which they become entangled and choke.
Instead of thought he gives us his thinking itself. We see the material
activity of his brain; he gives us, as it were, more brain than thought,
and meanwhile the flashes of his wit skip about, like the fleas of his
heated imagination. He is the merriest, and, at the same time, the most
sentimental of authors. In fact, sentimentality always finally overcomes
him, and his laughter abruptly turns into tears. He sometimes disguises
himself as a gross, beggarly fellow; but then, like stage princes, he
suddenly unbuttons the coarse overcoat and reveals the glittering
insignia of his rank.
In this respect Jean Paul resembles Laurence Sterne, with whom he has
been often compared. The author of _Tristram Shandy_, when apparently
sunk in the most vulgar trivialities, possesses the art of rising by
sudden transitions to the sublime, reminding us that he is of princely
rank and the countryman of Shakespeare. Jean Paul, like Laurence Sterne,
reveals in his writings his own personality, and lays bare his own human
frailties; but yet with a certain awkward bashfulness, especially in
sexual matters. Laurence Sterne parades before the public entirely
unrobed, quite naked; but Jean Paul has only holes in his trousers. A
few critics erroneously believe that Jean Paul possessed more true
feeling than Sterne, because the latter, whenever the subject under
treatment reaches a tragic elevation, suddenly assumes a merry, jesting
tone. Jean Paul, on the contrary, if the subject verges in the least
towards the serious, gradually becomes lachrymose, and composedly lets
his tears trickle. Sterne probably felt more deeply than Jean Paul, for
he is a greater poet. Laurence Sterne, like Shakespeare, was fostered
by the muses on Parnassus. After the manner of women, they early spoiled
him with their caresses. He was the special pet of the pale Goddess of
Tragedy. Once, in a paroxysm of fierce tenderness, she kissed him so
passionately, with such fervour, with so ardent a pressure of her lips,
that his young heart began to bleed, and at once understood all earthly
sorrows, and was filled with a boundless compassion. Poor young
poet-heart! But the younger sister, the rosy Goddess of Mirth, sprang
quickly to his side, took the suffering lad into her arms, and sought to
cheer him with song and merriment. She gave him as playthings the mask
of comedy and the jingling bells, and pressed a soothing kiss upon his
lips; and with that kiss she imbued him with all her levity, all her
frolicsome mirth, all her sportive wit.
And since then Sterne's heart and Sterne's lips have drifted into a
strange contradiction. Sometimes, when his soul is most deeply agitated
with tragic emotion, and he seeks to give utterance to the profound
sorrows of his bleeding heart, then, to his own astonishment, the
merriest, most mirth-provoking words will flutter from his lips.
* * * * *
The Baron de la Motte-Fouqué was formerly a major in the Prussian
military service, and is one of the most conspicuous of those
poet-heroes, or hero-poets, whose lyre and sword won renown during the
so-called war of liberation.
His laurels are of the genuine kind. He is a true poet, and the
inspiration of poetry is on his brow. Few authors receive such universal
homage as did our good Fouqué. Now his readers consist only of the
patrons of the circulating libraries. But that public is still large
enough, and Fouqué may boast that he was the only one of the romantic
school who was also received with favour by the lower classes. At the
time when at the aesthetic tea-gatherings in Berlin it was the fashion
to sneer at the fallen knight, in a little Hartz village I became
acquainted with a lovely maiden, who spoke of Fouqué with a charming
enthusiasm, and blushingly confessed that she would gladly give a year
of her life if she might but once kiss the author of "Undine"--and this
maiden had the prettiest lips that I have ever seen.
"Undine" is indeed a charming poem. This poem is itself a kiss! The
genius of poetry kissed the sleeping spring, and as it opened its
laughing eyes all the roses exhaled their sweetest perfumes, and all the
nightingales sang; and the fragrance of the roses and the songs of the
nightingales, all this did our good Fouqué clothe in words, and called
it "Undine."
I know not if this novel has been translated into French. It is the
story of a lovely water-fairy who has no soul, and who only acquires one
by falling in love with an earthly knight. But, alas! with this soul she
also learns human sorrows. Her knightly spouse becomes faithless, and
she kisses him dead. For in this book death also is only a kiss.
This "Undine" may be regarded as the muse of Fouqué's poetry. Although
she is indescribably beautiful, although she suffers as we do, and
earthly sorrows weigh full heavily upon her, she is yet no real human
being. But our age turns away from all fairy-pictures, no matter how
beautiful. It demands the figures of actual life; and least of all will
it tolerate water-fays who fall in love with noble knights. This
reactionary tendency, this continual praise of the nobility, this
incessant glorification of the feudal system, this everlasting
knight-errantry balderdash, became at length distasteful to the
educated portion of the German middle classes, and they turned their
backs on the minstrel who sang so out of time. In fact, this everlasting
sing-song of armours, battle-steeds, high-born maidens, honest
guild-masters, dwarfs, squires, castles, chapels, minnesingers, faith,
and whatever else that rubbish of the middle ages may be called, wearied
us; and as the ingenuous hidalgo Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué became
more and more immersed in his books of chivalry, and, wrapped up in the
reveries of the past, he ceased to understand the present, and then even
his best friends were compelled to turn away from him with dubious
head-shakings.
His later writings are unenjoyable. The faults of his earlier works are
repeated, only more glaringly. His knights are combinations of iron and
sentimentality; they have neither flesh nor common-sense. His heroines
are mere semblances of women; they are dolls, whose golden tresses
daintily curl over features that are as pretty and as expressionless as
flowers. Like the works of Walter Scott, so also do Fouqué's romances of
chivalry remind us of the fantastic tapestries known as gobelins, whose
rich texture and brilliant colours are more pleasing to our eyes than
edifying to our souls. We behold knightly pageantry, shepherds engaged
in festive sports, hand to hand combats, and ancient customs, charmingly
intermingled. It is all very pretty and picturesque, but shallow,
brilliant superficiality. Among the imitators of Fouqué, as among the
imitators of Walter Scott, this mannerism of portraying--not the inner
nature of men and things, but merely the outward garb and
appearance--was carried to still greater extremes. This shallow art and
frivolous style is still in vogue in Germany, as well as in England and
France. Even if the portrayal no longer attempts to glorify the age of
chivalry, but is directed to our modern affairs, it is still the same
mannerism, which grasps not the essential points of phenomena, but
merely the superficial and the accidental. In lieu of a knowledge of
mankind, our recent novelists evince a profound acquaintance with
clothes; they perhaps justify themselves by the old saying: "The tailor
makes the man." How different from the older, especially the English,
novelists! Richardson gives us the anatomy of the emotions. Goldsmith
treats of the affections of his heroes pragmatically. The author of
_Tristram Shandy_ reveals to us the profoundest depths of the human
soul; he opens, as it were, a crevice of the soul; permits us to take
one glance into its abysses, into its paradise and into its filthiest
recesses; then quickly lets the curtain fall over it. We have had a
front view of that marvellous theatre, the soul; the arrangements of
lights and the perspective have not failed in their effects, and while
we imagined that we were gazing upon the infinite, our own hearts have
been exalted with a sense of infinity and poetry. Fielding at once takes
us behind the scenes, and there shows us all the emotions covered with
deceitful rouge; the gross motives that underlie the most generous
deeds; the colophony that is afterwards to blaze aloft into enthusiasm;
the bass drum, while on it repose the drumsticks, which are destined to
sound the furious thunder of passion. In short, he shows us the whole
interior machinery by which theatrical effects are produced; he exposes
the colossal deceit by which men assume an appearance far different from
the reality, and through which the truth and gladness of life are lost.
But what need to cite the English as an example, since our own Goethe
has given us in his _Wilhelm Meister_ the best model of a novel?
Fouqué's romances are a legion in number; he is one of the most prolific
of authors. _The Magic Ring_ and _Thiodolph the Icelander_ merit a
specially favourable mention. His metrical dramas, which were not
intended for the stage, contain great beauties. _Sigurd the
Serpent-slayer_ is a bold work, in which the ancient Scandinavian
mythology is mirrored with all its gigantesque and magical
characteristics. Sigurd, the chief personage of the drama, is a colossal
creation. He is as strong as the rocky crags of Norway, and as fierce as
the sea that beats around their base. He has as much courage as a
hundred lions, and as much sense as two asses.
Herr Ludwig Uhland is the true lyric poet. He was born in Tübingen in
1787, and is now an advocate at Stuttgard. This author has written a
volume of poems, two tragedies, and two treatises on Walther von der
Vogelweide, and on the French troubadours. The latter are two small
historical researches, and give evidence of a diligent study of the
middle ages. The tragedies are entitled _Louis the Bavarian_, and _Duke
Ernest of Suabia_. I have not read the former, nor is it considered the
better of the two. The latter, however, contains many beauties, and
pleases by its noble and exalted sentiments. It is fragrant with the
sweet breath of poetry, such as we fail to find in the pieces that reap
so much applause on the stage at the present day. German fidelity is the
theme of the drama, and we see it here strong as an oak, defying all
storms. German love blossoms, scarcely visible, in the far distance, but
its violet-perfume appeals the more touchingly to our hearts. This
drama, or rather this poem, contains passages which are among the most
precious pearls of our literature; notwithstanding which, the
theatre-going public received, or rather rejected, the piece with
indifference. I will not censure the good people of the pit too
severely for that. These people have certain needs, which they demand
that the poet shall gratify. The poet's productions must not merely
express the sympathies of his own heart, but must accord with the
desires of the audience. The latter resembles the hungry Bedouin in the
desert, who thinks he has found a sack of peas, and opens it eagerly,
but, alas! they are only pearls.
* * * * *
...Twenty years ago I was a lad, and what overflowing enthusiasm would I
then have lavished upon Uhland! At that time I could better appreciate
his merits than now; we were then more akin in modes of thought and
feeling. But so much has happened since then! What then seemed to me so
grand: all that chivalry and Catholicism; those cavaliers that hack and
hew at each other in knightly tournaments; those gentle squires and
virtuous dames of high degree; the Norseland heroes and minnesingers;
the monks and nuns; ancestral tombs thrilling with prophetic powers;
colourless passion, dignified by the high-sounding title of
renunciation, and set to the accompaniment of tolling bells; a ceaseless
whining of the Miserere; how distasteful all that has become to me since
then! But once, it was, oh! so different. How often have I sat on the
ruins of the old castle at Düsseldorf on the Rhine, declaiming the
loveliest of all Uhland's poems:--
A wandering shepherd, young and fair,
Beneath the royal castle strayed;
And when the princess saw him there,
Love's longing thrilled the maid.
And then with accents sweet, she said,
"Oh! would that I might come to thee!
How white the lambkins there; how red
The flowerets on the lea."
The youth made answer from below,
"If thou would'st but come down to me!
How rosy red thy cheeks do glow,
How white those arms I see."
And every morn, with silent pain,
He drove his flock the castle by,
And gazed aloft, until again
His love appeared on high.
"Oh, welcome! welcome! princess sweet!"
His joyous tones rang bright and clear.
Then softly she in turn did greet,
"Kind thanks, my shepherd dear."
Cold winter fled, spring came again,
The flowerets blossomed far and near.
The shepherd sought his love;--in vain!
No more did she appear.
"Oh, welcome! welcome! princess fair!"
His words were mournful now, and drear.
A spirit voice rang through the air,
"Farewell, my shepherd dear."
And as I sat on the ruins of the old castle and recited this poem, at
times I heard the water-fays of the Rhine mockingly, and with comic
pathos, take up my refrain, and from amidst the sighing and the moaning
of the river that ran below I could hear in faint tones----
"A spirit voice ring through the air,
'Farewell, my shepherd dear.'"
But I would not let myself be disturbed by the bantering of the
mermaids, even when at some of the most beautiful passages in Uhland's
poems they tittered ironically. At that time I modestly ascribed the
tittering to myself, particularly when the twilight was sinking into
darkness, and I raised my voice somewhat to overcome the mysterious
feeling of awe with which the old castle ruins inspired me, for there
was a legend that the ruins were haunted by a headless woman. At times I
seemed to hear the rustling of her silken gown, and my heart beat
quickly;--that was the time, and that the place, to be an enthusiast
over the poems of Ludwig Uhland.
I hold the same volume again in my hands, but twenty years have flown
since then, and I have seen much and learned much. I no longer believe
in headless human beings, and the old ghost story has no longer power to
move me. The house wherein I sit and read is situated on the Boulevard
Montmartre; the fiercest turmoil of the day breaks in tumultuous billows
around this spot, and loud and shrill are heard the voices of the modern
epoch. First, a burst of laughter; then a heavy rumbling; next, drums
beating quick time; and then, like a flash, the national guards dash by
in quick march; and every one speaks French. And is this the place to
read Uhland's poems? Thrice have I again declaimed the concluding lines
of the same poem, but I do not feel the keen, unspeakable pain that once
thrilled me when the little princess died, and the handsome shepherd lad
so pathetically calls to her, "Oh, welcome! welcome! princess fair!"
"A spirit voice rang through the air,
'Farewell, my shepherd dear.'"
Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm for this class of poems also partly arises
from my experience that the most painful love is not that which fails to
win possession of the object of its affections, or loses her through
death. In truth, it is more painful to fold the loved one in our arms,
and yet have her worry us with her contrariness, and her silly caprices,
until night and day are rendered unendurable, and we are finally forced
to close our heart against her who is most precious, and send the dear
plague of a woman off in a post chaise--
"Farewell, oh! princess fair!"
Verily, more grievous than the loss through death is the loss through
life; for instance, when the loved one in the spirit of mischievous
coquetry turns away from us; when she insists upon going to a masked
ball, to which no respectable person dare escort her; and when there,
with jaunty dress and roguish curls, takes the arm of the first scamp
that comes along, and leaves you all alone.
"Farewell, my shepherd dear!"
Perhaps Herr Uhland himself fared no better than ourselves. Perhaps his
temperament has changed since then. With a few exceptions, he has
produced no new poems in twenty years. I cannot believe that this
beautiful poet soul was so stingily endowed by Nature, and had but one
spring-time. No, I explain Uhland's silence as the result of the
contradiction between the tendencies of his muse and his political
position. The elegiac poet, in whose ballads and romances the praises of
the Catholic-feudal past were sung so beautifully; the Ossian of the
middle ages has since then become a member of the assembly of notables
in Wurtemburg, a zealous champion of popular rights, and a bold advocate
of the equality of all citizens, and of freedom of opinion. Herr Uhland
has proved the absolute sincerity of his democratic and Protestant
convictions by the great personal sacrifices that he has made in their
behalf. In his earlier days he fairly earned the poet's laurels, and now
he has also won the bays of civic virtue. But just because he was so
honest in his sympathy for the modern epoch, he could no longer sing the
olden songs of the olden time with the former fervour. His Pegasus was a
knightly steed that gladly trotted back to the past, but obstinately
refused to budge when urged forward into modern life; and so our worthy
Uhland smilingly dismounted, quietly unsaddled the unruly steed, and led
it back to the stable. There it remains to this very day; like its
colleague, the famous war-horse Bayard, it possesses all possible
virtues, and only one fault; it is dead.
It will not have escaped keener eyes than mine, that the stately
war-horse, decked with its brilliant coat of arms and proudly-waving
plumes, was never rightly suited to its _bourgeois_ rider, who, instead
of boots with golden spurs, wore shoes with silk stockings; and who,
instead of helm, wore the hat of a Tübingen professor. Some claim to
have discovered that Herr Ludwig Uhland never was wholly in sympathy
with his theme; that in his writings, the naïve, rude, powerful tones of
the middle ages are not reproduced with idealised fidelity, but rather
they are dissolved into a sickly, sentimental melancholy. It is claimed
that Uhland has taken up into his temperament the strong, coarse strains
of the heroic legends and folk-songs, and boiled them down, as it were,
to make them palatable to our modern public. And in truth, when we
closely observe the women in Uhland's poems, we find that they are only
beautiful shadows, embodied moonshine; milk flows in their veins, and
sweet tears in their eyes; that is, tears which lack salt. If we compare
Uhland's knights with the knights in the old ballads, it seems to us as
if the former were composed of suits of leaden armour, which were
entirely filled with flowers, instead of flesh and bones. Hence Uhland's
knights are more pleasing to delicate nostrils than the old stalwarts,
who wore heavy iron trousers, and were huge eaters, and still greater
drinkers.
But that is no reason for finding fault with Herr Uhland; he did not
seek to give an exact copy of the German past; perhaps he only wished to
please us with a fanciful reflection, and so he mirrored a flattering
picture by the crepuscular lights of his genius. This perhaps lends an
especial charm to his poems, and wins for them the admiration and
affection of many gentle and worthy persons. The pictures of the past
cast some of their magic glamour over us, even in the feeblest
conjuration. Even the men who have warmly espoused the cause of
modernism always retain a secret sympathy for the heritages of the olden
time. Those ghostly voices of the past, no matter how faint their
re-echo, marvellously stir our souls. Hence it is to be readily
understood that the ballads and romances of our worthy Uhland not only
received the most cordial applause from the patriots of 1813, from pious
youths and sentimental maidens, but also from more powerful and more
modern minds.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GERMANY.
[A considerable portion of this, which is one of Heine's most
important works, marked by luminous exposition and bold and
brilliant ideas, is here presented. It was published in French,
under the title _De l'Allemagne depuis Luther_, in the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_ for 1834, and shortly afterwards it appeared in
German, terribly mutilated by the censor, like nearly everything
that Heine wrote. It was written at the suggestion of Prosper
Enfantin, and dedicated to him, as at that time, in Heine's
opinion, the foremost champion of human progress. The translation
here given is Mr. Fleishman's; it has been revised and brought
closer to the original.]
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION (1852).
...The book which lies before you is a fragment, and shall remain a
fragment. To be candid, I would prefer to leave the book wholly
unprinted; for since its first publication my views concerning many
subjects, particularly those which relate to religious questions, have
undergone a marked change, and much that I then asserted is now in
opposition to my better convictions. But the arrow belongs not to the
archer when once it has left the bow, and the word no longer belongs to
the speaker when once it has passed his lips, especially when it has
been multiplied by the press.... At that time I was yet well and hearty;
I was in the zenith of my prime, and as arrogant as Nebuchadnezzar
before his downfall.
Alas! a few years later, a physical and spiritual change occurred. How
often since then have I mused over the history of that Babylonian king
who thought himself a god, but who was miserably hurled from the summit
of his self-conceit, and compelled to crawl on the earth like a beast,
and to eat grass (probably it was only salad). This legend is contained
in the grand and magnificent book of Daniel; and I recommend all godless
self-worshippers to lay it devoutly to heart. There are, in fact, in the
Bible many other beautiful and wonderful narrations, well deserving
their consideration; for instance, the story of the forbidden fruit in
Paradise, and the serpent which already six thousand years before
Hegel's birth promulgated the whole Hegelian philosophy. This footless
blue-stocking demonstrates very sagaciously how the absolute consists in
the identity of being and knowing; how man becomes God through
knowledge, or, what amounts to the same thing, how God arrives at the
consciousness of himself through man. To be sure, this formula is not so
clear as in the original words: "If ye eat of the tree of knowledge, ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Dame Eve understood of the
whole demonstration only this--that the fruit was forbidden; and because
it was forbidden she ate of it. But no sooner had she eaten of the
tempting apple than she lost her innocence, her naïve guilelessness, and
discovered that she was far too scantily dressed for a person of her
quality, the mother of so many future kings and emperors, and she asked
for a dress--truly, only a dress of fig-leaves, because at that time
there were as yet no Lyons silk fabrics in existence, and because there
were in Paradise no dressmakers or milliners--oh, Paradise! Strange,
that as soon as a woman arrives at self-consciousness her first thought
is of a new dress!
...Officious, pious Christian souls seem very anxious to know how my
conversion was brought about, and seem desirous that I should impose
upon them an account of some wonderful miracle. With true Christian
importunity they inquire if I did not, like Saul, behold a light when on
the way to Damascus; or if, like Balaam, the son of Beor, I was not
riding a restive ass, which suddenly opened its mouth and discoursed
like a human being. No, ye credulous souls, I never journeyed to
Damascus. Even the name would be unknown to me if I had not read the
"Song of Songs," wherein King Solomon compares the nose of his beloved
to a tower looking towards Damascus. Nor have I ever seen an ass--that
is, no four-footed one--that spoke like a human being; whereas I have
met human beings in plenty that every time they opened their mouths
spoke like asses. In fact, it was neither a vision, nor a seraphic
ecstasy, nor a voice from heaven, nor a remarkable dream, nor any
miraculous apparition, that brought me to the path of salvation. I owe
my enlightenment simply to the reading of a book! one book! yes, it is a
plain old book, as modest as nature, and as simple; a book that appears
as work-day-like and as unpretentious as the sun that warms, as the
bread that nourishes us; a book that looks on us as kindly and benignly
as an old grandmother, who, with her dear tremulous lips, and spectacles
on nose, reads in it daily: this book is briefly called _the_ book--the
Bible. With good reason it is also called the Holy Scriptures: he that
has lost his God can find Him again in this book, and towards him who
has never known Him it wafts the breath of the divine word. The Jews,
who are connoisseurs of precious things, well knew what they were about
when, at the burning of the second temple, they left in the lurch the
gold and silver sacrificial vessels, the candlesticks and lamps, and
even the richly-jewelled breast-plate of the high-priest, to rescue only
the Bible....
* * * * *
...Distinguished German philosophers who may accidentally cast a glance
over these pages will superciliously shrug their shoulders at the
meagreness and incompleteness of all that which I here offer. But they
will be kind enough to bear in mind that the little which I say is
expressed clearly and intelligibly, whereas their own works, although
very profound, unfathomably profound--very deep, stupendously deep--are
in the same degree unintelligible. Of what benefit to the people is the
grain locked away in the granaries to which they have no key? The masses
are famishing for knowledge, and will thank me for the portion of
intellectual bread, small though it be, which I honestly share with
them. I believe it is not lack of ability that holds back the majority
of German scholars from discussing religion and philosophy in proper
language. I believe it is a fear of the results of their own studies,
which they dare not communicate to the masses. I do not share this fear,
for I am not a learned scholar; I, myself, am of the people. I am not
one of the seven hundred wise men of Germany. I stand with the great
masses at the portals of their wisdom. And if a truth slips through, and
if this truth falls in my way, then I write it with pretty letters on
paper, and give it to the compositor, who sets it in leaden type and
gives it to the printer; the latter prints it, and then it belongs to
the whole world.
The religion of Germany is Christianity. Therefore I shall have to
relate what Christianity is, how it became Roman Catholicism, how out
of this sprang Protestantism, and out of the latter German philosophy.
Inasmuch as I am about to speak of religion, I beg beforehand of all
pious souls not to be uneasy. Fear naught, ye pious ones! No profane
witticisms shall offend your ears. It is true that these are yet
necessary in Germany, where, at this juncture, it is important to
neutralise ecclesiastical power. For there we are now in the same
situation that you in France were before the Revolution, when
Christianity was yet in the closest union with the old _régime_. The
latter could not be overthrown so long as the former maintained its sway
over the masses. Voltaire's keen ridicule was needed ere Samson could
let his axe descend. But neither the ridicule nor the axe proved
anything; they only effected something. Voltaire could only wound the
body of Christianity. All his jests gathered from the annals of the
Church, all his witticisms against the doctrines and public worship of
the Church, against the Bible, this holiest book of humanity, against
the Virgin Mary, that loveliest flower of poesy, the whole encylclopædia
of philosophical shafts which he launched against the clergy and
priesthood, wounded only the outward, mortal body of Christianity, not
its inner being, not its profound spirit, nor its eternal soul.
For Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal,
like every idea. But what is this idea?
Just because this idea has not yet been clearly comprehended, and
because the essential has been mistaken for the fundamental, there is as
yet no history of the Church. Two antagonistic factions write the
history of the Church, and contradict each other incessantly. But the
one as little as the other will ever distinctly state what that idea
really is which is the underlying principle of Christianity, of its
symbolism, of its dogma, of its public worship, and which strives to
reveal itself throughout its whole history, and has manifested itself in
the actual life of Christian nations.
...How this idea was historically evolved, and disclosed itself in the
world of phenomena, may be discovered as early as the first centuries
after the birth of Christ, if we study impartially the history of the
Manicheans and the Gnostics. Although the first were branded as
heretics, and the latter defamed, and both anathematised by the Church,
yet their influence on the doctrines of the Church was lasting. Out of
their symbolism Catholic art was developed, and their modes of thought
penetrated the whole life of Christendom. The First Cause of the
Manicheans does not differ much from that of the Gnostics. The doctrine
of the two principles, the good and the evil, constantly opposing each
other, is common to both. The Manicheans derived this doctrine from the
ancient Persian religion, in which Ormuz, the light, is at enmity with
Ahriman, the darkness. The others, the real Gnostics, believed in the
pre-existence of the good principle, and accounted for the rise of the
evil through emanation, through the generation of Æons, which, the
farther they are removed from their origin, the more vicious and evil do
they become.
...This Gnostic theory of the universe originated in ancient India, and
brought with it the doctrine of the incarnation of God, of the
mortification of the flesh, of spiritual introspection and
self-absorption. It gave birth to the ascetic, contemplative, monkish
life, which is the most logical outgrowth of the Christian principle.
This principle has become entangled among the dogmas of the Church, and
has been able to express itself but very obscurely in the public
worship. But everywhere we find the doctrine of the two principles
prominent; the wicked Satan is always contrasted with the good Christ.
Christ represents the spiritual world, Satan the material; to the former
belong our souls, to the latter our bodies. Accordingly, the whole
visible world, which constitutes nature, is originally evil, and Satan,
the prince of darkness, through it seeks to lure us to ruin. Therefore
it behoves us to renounce all the sensuous joys of life, to torture the
body, which is Satan's portion, in order that the soul may the more
majestically soar aloft to the bright heavens, to the radiant kingdom of
Christ.
This theory of the universe, which is the true fundamental idea of
Christianity, spread itself with incredible rapidity, like a contagious
disease, over the whole Roman empire. These sufferings, at times strung
to fever-pitch, then again relaxing into exhaustion, lasted all through
the middle ages; and we moderns still feel in our limbs those
convulsions and that debility. And if among us, here and there, there be
one who is already convalescent, he cannot flee from the universal
hospital, and feels himself unhappy as the only healthy person among
invalids.
When once mankind shall have recovered its perfect life, when peace
shall be again restored between body and soul, and they shall again
interpenetrate each other with their original harmony, then it will be
scarcely possible to comprehend the factitious feud which Christianity
has instigated between them. Happier and more perfect generations, begot
in free and voluntary embraces, blossoming forth in a religion of joy,
will then smile sadly at their poor ancestors, who held themselves
gloomily aloof from all the pleasures of this beautiful world, and
through the deadening of all warm and cheerful sensuousness almost
paled into cold spectres. Yes, I say it confidently, our descendants
will be more beautiful, more happy, than we; for I have faith in
progress; mankind is destined to be happy, and I have a more favourable
opinion of the Divinity than those pious souls who imagine that He
created mankind only to suffer. Already here on earth, through the
blessings of free political and industrial institutions, would I seek to
found that millennium which, according to the belief of the pious, is
not to be until the day of judgment. The one is perhaps as visionary a
hope as the other, and possibly there will be no resurrection of
humanity, either in the politico-moral or in the apostolic-Catholic
sense. Perhaps mankind _is_ doomed to eternal misery; the masses _are_
perhaps condemned to be for ever trodden under foot by despots, to be
plundered by their accomplices, and to be jeered at by their lackeys.
Alas! in that case we must seek to maintain Christianity, even if we
recognise it to be an error. Barefoot, and clad in monkish cowls, we
must traverse Europe, preaching the vanity of all earthly good, and
inculcating resignation. We must hold up the consoling crucifix before
scourged and derided humanity, and promise, after death, all the seven
heavens above.
...The final fate of Christianity is dependent upon our need of it. This
religion has for eighteen centuries been a blessing to suffering
humanity; it was providential, divine, holy. All that it has benefited
civilisation, by taming the strong and strengthening the weak, by
uniting the nations through like emotions and a like language, by all
that its panegyrists extol--all these are insignificant in comparison
with that great consolation which in itself is bestowed upon mankind.
Eternal praise is due to that symbol of a suffering God, the Saviour
with the crown of thorns, the Christ crucified, whose blood was a
soothing balsam dripping into humanity's wounds. The poet, in
particular, will reverently recognise the solemn grandeur of that
symbol. The whole system of allegory, as expressed in the life and art
of the middle ages, will in all times excite the admiration of poets.
What colossal consistency in _the_ Christian art!--that is, in
architecture! How harmoniously those Gothic cathedrals are adapted to
the religious services of the Church, and how the fundamental idea of
the Church itself is revealed in them! Everything towers upward;
everything transubstantiates itself; the stone blossoms into branches
and foliage and becomes a tree; the fruits of the vine and of the
wheat-stalk become blood and flesh; man becomes God, and God becomes a
pure, abstract spirit. The Christian life during the middle ages is for
the poet a rich, inexhaustible store-house of precious materials. Only
through Christianity could, in this world, such varied phases
arise--contrasts so striking, sorrows so diverse, beauties so strange,
that one is inclined to believe that they never did exist in reality,
and that all was but a colossal fever-dream, a delirious fantasy of an
insane God. Nature herself appeared in those times fantastically
disguised; but notwithstanding that man, occupied with abstract
metaphysical speculations, turned peevishly away from her, yet at times
she awoke him with a voice so solemnly sweet, so deliciously terrible,
so enchanting, that he involuntarily listened and smiled, then shrank
back with terror, and sickened even unto death. The story of the
nightingale of Basle here comes to my mind, and, as it is probably
unknown to you, I will relate it.
In May 1433, at the time of the Ecumenical Council, a party of
ecclesiastics, prelates, learned scholars, and monks of every shades
took a walk in a grove near Basle, wrangling over theological
disputations, drawing hair-splitting distinctions, or arguing concerning
annates, expectatives, and reservations, debating whether Thomas of
Aquinas was a greater philosopher than Bonaventura, and what not! But
suddenly, in the midst of their abstract and dogmatical discussions,
they paused, transfixed, before a blooming linden-tree, on which sat a
nightingale, trilling and trolling the sweetest and tenderest strains.
The learned men were ravished with delight. The glowing melodies of
spring penetrated to their scholastic, musty, bookworm hearts, their
souls awoke from the mouldy, wintry sleep, they looked at one another in
astonished ecstasy. But finally one of them made the sagacious remark
that such things could not come of good, that the nightingale might be a
devil, and that this devil might be seeking through its sweet music to
decoy them from their pious conversations and to lure them to
voluptuousness and similar pleasant sins; and then he began to exorcise,
probably with the usual formula--"Adjuro te per cum, qui venturus est,
judicare vivos et mortuos," etc. It is said that at this conjuration the
bird replied, "Yes, I am an evil spirit!" and flew away, laughing. But
those who heard its song sickened that very night, and soon after died.
This legend needs no commentary. It bears distinctly the horrible
impress of a time when all that was sweet and lovely was denounced as
diabolical. Even the nightingale was slandered, and it was customary to
make the sign of the cross when she sang. The true Christian, like an
abstract spectre, walked timorously, with closed senses, amidst the
loveliness of nature.
...As regards the good principle, the same conception prevailed over all
the Christian countries of Europe. The Roman Catholic Church took care
of that, and whoever deviated from the prescribed faith was a heretic.
But in relation to the evil principle and the empire of Satan, different
views were held in different countries, and the Germanic North had quite
different conceptions from the Latin South. This was caused by the fact
that the Christian priesthood did not reject the previously existing
national gods as baseless fantasies of the brain, but conceded to them
an actual existence; asserting, however, that all these gods were
nothing but male and female devils, who, through the victory of Christ,
had lost their power over mankind, and now sought through wiles and
stratagems to lure them to sin. All Olympus was now transformed into an
airy hell; and if a poet of the middle ages sang of Grecian mythology
ever so beautifully, the pious Christian would persist in seeing therein
only devils and hobgoblins. The gloomy fanaticism of the monks alighted
with special severity on poor Venus: she was considered a daughter of
Beelzebub, and the good knight Tannhäuser tells her to her face--
"O Venus, lovely wife of mine,
You are but a she-devil!"
Tannhäuser had been enticed by her into that wondrous mountain-cavern
called the Venusburg, where, according to tradition, dwelt the beautiful
goddess with her nymphs and her paramours, beguiling the hours with the
most wanton carousings and dancing. Even poor Diana was not spared, and,
notwithstanding her previous reputation for chastity, similar scandals
were fastened on her good name. It is said that she, together with her
nymphs, indulged in nightly rides through the forest; hence the legend
of a strange midnight chase, by wild and furious hunters. This legend
reveals clearly the then pervading Gnostic theory of the degeneration
of the former divinities. In this transformation of the ancient national
religion the underlying principle of Christianity is most fully
manifested. The national religion of Europe in the North, even more than
in the South, was pantheism. All the mysteries and symbols of that
religion were founded on and had reference to a worship of nature; each
of the elements was regarded as the embodiment of some mysterious being,
and as such was revered and worshipped; in every tree dwelt a divinity,
and all nature swarmed with gods and goddesses. Christianity exactly
reversed this, and in place of gods it substituted devils and demons.
The cheerful figures of Grecian mythology, beautified as they were by
art, had taken root in the South along with Roman civilisation, and were
not so easily to be displaced by the hideous, weird, and satanic
divinities of the German North. The latter seemed to have been fashioned
without any particular artistic design, and even before the advent of
Christianity they were as sombre and as gloomy as the North itself.
Hence there could not arise in France so frightful a devil-dom as among
us in Germany, and even the witchcraft and sorcery of the former assumed
a cheerful guise. How lovely, fair, and picturesque are the popular
superstitions of France as compared with the bloody, hazy, and misshapen
monsters which loom gloomily and savagely from out the mists of German
legendary lore!
Those German poets of the middle ages who chose such themes as had
originated, or been first treated, in Brittany and Normandy, thereby
invested their poems with somewhat of the cheerfulness of the French
temperament. But the old Northern sombreness, of whose gloom we can now
scarcely form any idea, exercised full sway over such of our literature
as was distinctly national, and over such popular traditions as have
been orally transmitted. The superstitions of the two countries offer as
striking a contrast as that which exists between a Frenchman and a
German. The supernatural beings that figure in old French _fabliaux_ and
legends are bright and cheerful creations, and remarkable for a
cleanliness which is noticeably lacking in our filthy rabble of German
hobgoblins. French fairies and sprites are as distinguishable from
German spectres as a spruce and daintily-gloved dandy, jauntily
promenading the Boulevard Coblence, is different from a burly German
porter, carrying a heavy load upon his shoulders. A French nixen, such
as a Melusina, is to a German elf as a princess to a washerwoman. The
fay Morgana would stand aghast at sight of a German witch, her body
naked and besmeared with ointment, riding on a broom-stick to the
Brocken. The Brocken is no merry Avalon, but a rendezvous for all that
is weird and hideous. On the very summit of the mountain sits Satan, in
the shape of a black goat. The infamous sisterhood form a circle around
him and dance, and sing, "Donderemus! Donderemus!" Mingled in the
infernal din are heard the bleating of the goat and the shouting of the
demoniac crew. If, during the dance, a witch happens to drop a shoe, it
is an evil omen, and portends that she will be burned at the stake ere
the year ends. But all the terror which such a portent inspires is
forgotten amid the wild and maddening Berlioz-like music of the witches'
sabbath--and when in the morning the poor witch awakens from her
delirium, she finds herself lying, stark naked and tired, by the
glimmering embers of her hearth.
The most complete account of witches we find in the learned Dr. Nicolai
Remigius's _Demonology_. This sagacious man had the best opportunity to
learn the tricks of witches, as he officiated at their trials, and
during his time, in Lotharingia alone, eight hundred women were burned
at the stake, after trial and conviction. The trial was generally as
follows:--Their hands and feet were tied together, and then they were
thrown into the water. If they went under and were drowned, it was a
proof that they were innocent, but if they floated on the surface, they
were recognised as guilty and burned. Such was the logic of those
times.... When the learned Dr. Remigius had completed his great work on
witchcraft, he deemed himself so great a master of his subject as to be
able to work magic, and, conscientious man that he was, did not fail to
accuse himself before the courts; in consequence of which accusation he
was burned as a sorcerer.
...I must confess that Luther did not understand the real nature of
Satan. Whatever evil may be said of the devil, it cannot be denied that
he is a spiritualist. Still less did Luther understand the real nature
of Catholicism. He did not comprehend that the fundamental idea of
Christianity, the deadening of the senses, was too antagonistic to human
nature to be ever entirely practicable in life; he did not comprehend
that Catholicism was a concordat between God and the devil--that is to
say, between the spirit and the senses, in which the absolute reign of
the spirit was promulgated in theory, but in which the senses were
nevertheless practically reinstated in the enjoyment of their rights.
Hence a wise system of concessions allowed by the Church to the senses,
always, however, under formalities which cast a slur on every act of the
senses, and maintained the sham usurpation of the spirit. You might
yield to the tender impulses of your heart and embrace a pretty girl,
but you must confess that it was a flagrant sin, and for this sin you
must make atonement. That this atonement might be made with money was
as beneficial to humanity as useful to the Church. The Church imposed
fines, so to say, for every indulgence of the flesh; hence there arose
taxes on all sorts of sins, and there were pious colporteurs who, in the
name of the Roman Catholic Church, hawked for sale through the land
absolutions for every taxed sin. Such a one was that Tetzel against whom
Luther first entered the field.
...Leo X., the keen Florentine, the pupil of Politian, the friend of
Raphael, the Greek philosopher with the triple crown, bestowed by the
Conclave, probably because he suffered from a disease, nowise due to
Christian abstinence, which was then very dangerous, Leo of Medici, how
he must have smiled at the poor, chaste, simple-minded monk who imagined
that the evangelic gospels were the chart of Christianity, and that this
chart must be a truth! Perhaps he never comprehended what Luther was
aiming at, for at that time he was busily occupied with the building of
St. Peter's Cathedral, the cost of which was defrayed by the money
derived from these sales of absolutions, so that sin actually furnished
the means wherewith to build this church, which became thereby, as it
were, a monument to the lusts of the flesh, like that pyramid which an
Egyptian girl built with the money she had earned by prostitution. Of
this house of God it perhaps might be said more truly than of Cologne
Cathedral, that it was built by the devil. This triumph of spiritualism,
compelling sensualism itself to build its most beautiful temple--this
reaping from the multitude, by concessions made to the flesh, the means
wherewith to beautify spiritualism, was not understood in the German
North. For there, more easily than under the burning skies of Italy, was
it possible to practice a Christianity that should make the fewest
concessions to the senses. We Northerners are cold-blooded, and needed
not so many price-lists of absolution for sins of the flesh as the
fatherly Leo sent us. The climate makes the exercise of Christian
virtues easier for us; and when, on the 31st of October 1517, Luther
nailed to the door of St Augustine's Church his thesis against
indulgences, the city moat of Wittenberg was, perhaps, already frozen
over with ice thick enough for skating, which is a chilly pleasure, and
therefore no sin.
...In Germany the battle against Catholicism was nothing else than a war
begun by spiritualism when it perceived that it only reigned nominally
and _de jure_; whereas sensualism, through conventional subterfuges,
exercised the real sovereignty and ruled _de facto_. When this was
perceived, the hawkers of indulgences were chased off, the pretty
concubines of the priests were exchanged for plain but honest wedded
wives, the charming Madonna pictures were demolished, and there reigned
in certain localities a puritanism inimical to every gratification of
the senses. In France, on the contrary, during the seventeenth and the
eighteenth centuries, the war was begun by sensualism against
Catholicism, when it saw that while it, sensualism, reigned _de facto_,
yet every exercise of its sovereignty was restrained in the most
aggravating manner by spiritualism, and stigmatised as illegitimate.
While in Germany the battle was fought with chaste earnestness, in
France it was waged with licentious witticisms, and while there
theological disputations were in vogue, here many satires were the
fashion.
...Truly, Jansenism had much more cause than Jesuitism to feel aggrieved
at the delineation of Tartuffe, and Molière would be as obnoxious to the
Methodists of to-day as to the Catholic devotees of his own time. It is
just because of this that Molière is so great, for, like Aristophanes
and Cervantes, he levelled his _persiflage_ not only at temporary
follies, but also against that which is ever ridiculous--the inherent
frailties of mankind. Voltaire, who always attacked only the temporary
and the unessential, is in this respect inferior to Molière.
...Then why my aversion to spiritualism? Is it something so evil? By no
means. Attar of roses is a precious article, and a small vial of it is
refreshing, when one is doomed to pass one's days in the closely-locked
apartments of the harem. But yet we would not have all the roses of life
crushed and bruised in order to gain a few drops of the attar of roses,
be they ever so consoling. We are like the nightingales, that delight in
the rose itself, and derive as delicious a pleasure from the sight of
the blushing, blooming flower as from its invisible fragrance.
...But there was one man at the Diet of Worms who, I am convinced,
thought not of himself, but only of the sacred interests which he was
there to champion. That man was Martin Luther, the poor monk whom
Providence had selected to shatter the world-controlling power of the
Roman Catholic Church, against which the mightiest emperors and most
intrepid scholars had striven in vain. But Providence knows well on
whose shoulders to impose its tasks; here not only intellectual but also
physical strength was required. It needed a body steeled from youth
through chastity and monkish discipline to bear the labour and vexations
of such an office.
...Luther was not only the greatest, but also the most thoroughly German
hero of our history. In his character are combined, on the grandest
scale, all the virtues and all the faults of the Germans, so that, in
his own person, he was the representative of that wonderful Germany.
For he possessed qualities which we seldom find united, and which we
usually even consider to be irreconcilably antagonistic. He was
simultaneously a dreamy mystic and a practical man of action. His
thoughts possessed not only wings, but also hands; he could speak and
could act. He was not only the tongue, but also the sword of his time.
He was both a cold, scholastic word-caviller, and an enthusiastic,
God-inspired prophet. When, during the day, he had wearily toiled over
his dogmatic distinctions and definitions, then in the evening he took
his lute, looked up to the stars, and melted into melody and devotion.
The same man who could scold like a fish-wife could be as gentle as a
tender maiden. At times he was as fierce as the storm that uproots oaks;
and then again he was mild as the zephyr caressing the violets. He was
filled with a reverential awe of God. He was full of the spirit of
self-sacrifice for the honour of the Holy Ghost; he could sink his whole
personality in the most abstract spirituality, and yet he could well
appreciate the good things of this earth, and from his mouth blossomed
forth the famous saying--
"Who loves not wine, women, and song,
Will be a fool all his life long."
He was a complete man--I would say an absolute man, in whom spirit and
matter were not antagonistic. To call him a spiritualist would,
therefore, be as erroneous as to call him a sensualist. How shall I
describe him? He had in him something aboriginal, incomprehensible,
miraculous.
...All praise to Luther! Eternal honour to the blessed man to whom we
owe the salvation of our most precious possessions, and whose
benefactions we still enjoy. It ill becomes us to complain of the
narrowness of his views. The dwarf, standing on the shoulders of the
giant, particularly if he puts on spectacles, can, it is true, see
farther than the giant himself; but for noble thoughts and exalted
sentiments a giant heart is necessary. It were still more unseemly of us
to pass a harsh judgment on his faults, for those very faults have
benefited us more than the virtues of thousands of other men. The
refinement of Erasmus, the mildness of Melanchthon, could never have
brought us so far as the godlike brutality of Brother Martin.
...From the day on which Luther denied the authority of the Pope, and
publicly declared in the Diet "that his teachings must be controverted
through the words of the Bible itself, or with sensible reasons," there
begins a new era in Germany. The fetters with which Saint Boniface had
chained the German Church to Rome are broken. This Church, which has
hitherto formed an integral part of the great hierarchy, now splits into
religious democracies. The character of the religion itself is
essentially changed: the Hindoo-Gnostic element disappears from it, and
the Judaic-theistic element again becomes prominent. We behold the rise
of evangelical Christianity. By recognising and legitimising the most
importunate claims of the senses, religion becomes once more a reality.
The priest becomes man, takes to himself a wife, and begets children, as
God desires.
...If in Germany we lost through Protestantism, along with the ancient
miracles, much other poetry, we gained manifold compensations. Men
became nobler and more virtuous. Protestantism was very successful in
effecting that purity of morals and that strictness in the fulfilment of
duty which is generally called morality. In certain communities, indeed,
Protestantism assumed a tendency which in the end became quite identical
with morality, and the gospels remained as a beautiful parable only.
Particularly in the lives of the ecclesiastics is a pleasing change now
noticeable. With celibacy disappeared also monkish obscenities and
vices. Among the Protestant clergy are frequently to be found the
noblest and most virtuous of men, such as would have won respect from
even the ancient Stoics. One must have wandered on foot, as a poor
student, through Northern Germany, in order to learn how much
virtue--and in order to give virtue a complimentary adjective, how much
evangelical virtue--is to be found in an unpretentious-looking
parsonage. How often of a winter's evening have I found there a
hospitable welcome,--I, a stranger, who brought with me no other
recommendation save that I was hungry and tired! When I had partaken of
a hearty meal, and, after a good night's rest, was ready in the morning
to continue my journey, then came the old pastor, in his dressing-gown,
and gave me a blessing on the way,--and it never brought me misfortune;
and his good-hearted, gossipy wife placed several slices of
bread-and-butter in my pocket, which I found not less refreshing; and
silent in the distance stood the pastor's pretty daughters, with
blushing cheeks and violet eyes, whose modest fire in the mere
recollection warmed my heart for many a whole winter's day.
...How strange! We Germans are the strongest and wisest of nations; our
royal races furnish princes for all the thrones of Europe; our
Rothschilds rule all the exchanges of the world; our learned men are
pre-eminent in all the sciences; we invented gunpowder and
printing;--and yet if one of us fires a pistol he must pay a fine of
three thalers; and if we wish to insert in a newspaper, "My dear wife
has given birth to a little daughter, beautiful as Liberty," then the
censor grasps his red pencil and strikes out the word "Liberty."
...I have said that we gained freedom of thought through Luther. But he
gave us not only freedom of movement, but also the means of movement;
to the spirit he gave a body; to the thought he gave words. He created
the German language.
This he did by his translation of the Bible.
In fact, the divine author of that book seems to have known, as well as
we others, that the choice of a translator is by no means a matter of
indifference; and so He himself selected His translator, and bestowed on
him the wonderful gift to translate from a language which was dead and
already buried, into another language that as yet did not exist.
...The knowledge of the Hebrew language had entirely disappeared from
the Christian world. Only the Jews, who kept themselves hidden here and
there in stray corners of the world, yet preserved the traditions of
this language. Like a ghost keeping watch over a treasure which had been
confided to it during life, so in its dark and gloomy ghettos sat this
murdered nation, this spectre-people, guarding the Hebrew Bible.
...Luther's Bible is an enduring spring of rejuvenation for our
language. All the expressions and phrases contained therein are German,
and are still in use by writers. As this book is in the hands of even
the poorest people, they require no special learned education in order
to be able to express themselves in literary forms. When our political
revolution breaks out, this circumstance will have remarkable results.
Liberty will everywhere be gifted with the power of speech, and her
speech will be biblical.
...More noteworthy and of more importance than his prose writings are
Luther's poems, the songs which in battle and in trouble blossomed forth
from his heart. Sometimes they resemble a floweret that grows on a rocky
crag, then again a ray of moonlight trembling over a restless sea.
Luther loved music, and even wrote a treatise on the art; hence his
songs are particularly melodious. In this respect he merits the name,
Swan of Eisleben. But he is nothing less than a wild swan in those songs
wherein he stimulates the courage of his followers and inflames himself
to the fiercest rage of battle. A true battle-song was that martial
strain with which he and his companions marched into Worms. The old
cathedral trembled at those unwonted tones, and the ravens, in their
dark nests in the steeple, startled with affright. That song, the
Marseillaise of the Reformation, preserves to this day its inspiriting
power.
...The expressions "classic" and "romantic" refer only to the spirit and
the manner of the treatment. The treatment is classic when the form of
that which is portrayed is quite identical with the idea of the
portrayer, as is the case with the art-works of the Greeks, in which,
owing to this identity, the greatest harmony is found to exist between
the idea and its form. The treatment is romantic when the form does not
reveal the idea through this identity, but lets this idea be surmised
parabolically. (I use the word "parabolically" here in preference to
"symbolically.") The Greek mythology had an array of god-figures, each
of which, in addition to the identity of form and idea, was also
susceptible of a symbolic meaning. But in this Greek religion only the
figures of the gods were clearly defined; all else, their lives and
deeds, was left to the arbitrary treatment of the poet's fancy. In the
Christian religion, on the contrary, there are no such clearly-defined
figures, but stated facts--certain definite holy events and deeds, into
which the poetical faculty of man could place a parabolic signification.
It is said that Homer invented the Greek gods and goddesses. That is not
true. They existed previously in clearly-defined outlines; but he
invented their histories. The artists of the middle ages, on the other
hand, never ventured the least addition to the historical part of their
religion. The fall of man, the incarnation, the baptism, the
crucifixion, and the like, were matters of fact, which were not to be
intermeddled with, and which it was not permissible to remould in the
least, but to which poetry might attach a symbolic meaning. All the arts
during the middle ages were treated in this parabolic spirit, and this
treatment is romantic. Hence we find in the poetry of the middle ages a
mystic universality; the forms are all so shadowy, what they do is so
vaguely indicated, all therein is as if seen through a hazy twilight
intermittently illumined by the moon. The idea is merely hinted at in
the form, as in a riddle; and we dimly see a vague, indefinite figure,
which is the peculiarity of spiritual literature. There is not, as among
the Greeks, a harmony, clear as the sun, between form and meaning, but
occasionally the meaning overtops the given form, and the latter strives
desperately to reach the former, and then we behold bizarre, fantastic
sublimity; then, again, the form has overgrown itself, and is out of all
proportion to the meaning. A silly, pitiful thought trails itself along
in some colossal form, and we witness a grotesque farce: misshapenness
is nearly always the result.
The universal characteristic of that literature was that in all its
productions it manifested the same firm, unshaken faith which in that
period reigned over worldly as well as spiritual matters. All the
opinions of that time were based on authorities. The poet journeyed
along the abysses of doubt as free from apprehension as a mule, and
there prevailed in the literature of that period a dauntless composure
and blissful self-confidence such as became impossible in after-times,
when the influence of the Papacy, the chief of those authorities, was
shattered, and with it all the others were overthrown. Hence the poems
of the middle ages have all the same characteristics, as if composed not
by single individuals, but by the whole people _en masse_: they are
objective, epic, naïve.
In the literature that blossomed into life with Luther we find quite
opposite tendencies.
Its material, its subject, is the conflict between the interests and
views of the Reformation and the old order of things. To the new spirit
of the times, that hodge-podge religion which arose from the two
elements already referred to--Germanic nationality and the
Hindoo-Gnostic Christendom--was altogether repugnant. The latter was
considered heathen idol-worship, which was to be replaced by the true
religion of the Judaic-theistic Gospel. A new order of things is
established; the spirit makes discoveries which demand the well-being of
matter. Through industrial progress and the dissemination of
philosophical theories, spiritualism becomes discredited in popular
opinion. The _tiers-état_ begins to rise; the Revolution already rumbles
in the hearts and brains of men, and what the era feels, thinks, needs,
and wills is openly spoken; and that is the stuff of which modern
literature is made. At the same time the treatment is no longer
romantic, but classic.
...The universal characteristic of modern literature consists in this,
that now individuality and scepticism predominate. Authorities are
overthrown; reason is now man's sole lamp, and conscience his only staff
in the dark mazes of life. Man now stands alone, face to face with his
Creator, and chants his songs to Him. Hence this literary epoch opens
with hymns. And even later, when it becomes secular, the most intimate
self-consciousness, the feeling of personality, rules throughout. Poetry
is no longer objective, epic, and naïve, but subjective, lyric, and
reflective.
...The God of the pantheists differs from the God of the theists in so
far that the former is in the world itself, while the latter is external
to, or, in other words, is over the world. The God of the theists rules
the world from above as a quite distinct establishment. Only in regard
to the manner of that rule do the theists differ among themselves. The
Hebrews picture God as a thunder-hurling tyrant; the Christians regard
him as a loving father; the disciples of Rousseau and the whole Genevese
school portray him as a skilful artist, who has made the whole world
somewhat in the same manner as their papas manufacture watches; and as
art-connoisseurs, they admire the work and praise the Maker above.
...From the moment that religion seeks assistance from philosophy her
downfall is unavoidable. She strives to defend herself, and always talks
herself deeper into ruin. Religion, like all other absolutisms, may not
justify herself. Prometheus is bound to the rock by a silent power.
Æschylus represents the personification of brute force as not speaking a
single word. It must be dumb.
...Moses Mendelssohn was the reformer of the German Israelites, his
companions in faith. He overthrew the prestige of Talmudism, and founded
a pure Mosaism. This man, whom his contemporaries called the German
Socrates, and whose nobleness of soul and intellectual powers they so
admired, was the son of a poor sexton of the synagogue at Dessau.
Besides this curse of birth, Providence made him a hunchback, in order
to teach the rabble in a very striking manner that men are to be judged
not by outward appearance but by inner worth. As Luther overthrew the
Papacy, so Mendelssohn overthrew the Talmud; and that, too, by a similar
process. He discarded tradition, declared the Bible to be the
well-spring of religion, and translated the most important parts of it.
By so doing he destroyed Jewish Catholicism, for such is the Talmud. It
is a Gothic dome which, although overladen with fanciful, childish
ornamentation, yet amazes us by the immensity of its heaven-aspiring
proportions.
...No German can pronounce the name of Lessing without a responsive echo
in his breast. Since Luther, Germany has produced no greater and better
man than Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. These two are our pride and joy. In
the troubles of the present we look back at their consoling figures, and
they answer with a look full of bright promise. The third man will come
who will perfect what Luther began and what Lessing carried on--the
third Liberator.
Like Luther, Lessing's achievements consisted not only in effecting
something definite, but in agitating the German people to its depths,
and in awakening through his criticism and polemics a wholesome
intellectual activity. He was the vivifying critic of his time, and his
whole life was a polemic. His critical insight made itself felt
throughout the widest range of thought and feeling--in religion, in
science, and in art. His polemics vanquished every opponent, and grew
stronger with every victory. Lessing, as he himself confessed, needed
conflict for the full development of his powers. He resembled that
fabulous Norman who inherited the skill, knowledge, and strength of
those whom he slew in single combat, and in this manner became finally
endowed with all possible excellencies and perfections. It is easily
conceivable that such a contentious champion should stir up not a little
commotion in Germany,--in that quiet Germany which was then even more
sabbatically quiet than now. The majority were stupefied at his literary
audacity. But this was of the greatest assistance to him, for _oser_!
is the secret of success in literature, as it is in revolutions,--and in
love. All trembled before the sword of Lessing. No head was safe from
him. Yes, many heads he struck off from mere wantonness, and was
moreover so spiteful as to lift them up from the ground and show to the
public that they were hollow inside. Those whom his sword could not
reach he slew with the arrows of his wit. His friends admired the pretty
feathers of those arrows; his enemies felt their barbs in their hearts.
Lessing's wit does not resemble that _enjouement_, that _gaîté_, those
lively _saillies_, which are so well known here in France. His wit was
no petty French greyhound, chasing its own shadow: it was rather a great
German tom-cat, who plays with the mouse before he throttles it.
Yes, polemics were our Lessing's delight, and so he never reflected long
whether an opponent was worthy of him,--thus through his controversies
he has saved many a name from well-merited oblivion. Around many a
pitiful authorling he has spun a web of the wittiest sarcasm, the most
charming humour; and thus they are preserved for all time in Lessing's
works, like insects caught in a piece of amber. In slaying his enemies
he made them immortal. Who of us would have ever heard of that Klotz on
whom Lessing wasted so much wit and scorn? The huge rocks which he
hurled at, and with which he crushed, that poor antiquarian, are now the
latter's indestructible monument.
It is noteworthy that this wittiest man of all Germany was also the most
honourable. There is nothing equal to his love of truth. Lessing made
not the least concession to falsehood, even if thereby, after the manner
of the worldly-wise, he could advance the victory of truth itself. He
could do everything for truth, except lie for it. Whoever thinks, he
once said, to bring Truth to man, masked and rouged, may well be her
pander, but he has never been her lover.
...It is heart-rending to read in his biography how fate denied this man
every joy, and how it did not even vouchsafe to him to rest with his
family from his daily struggles. Once only fortune seemed to smile on
him; she gave him a loved wife, a child--but this happiness was like the
rays of the sun gilding the wings of a swift-flying bird: it vanished as
quickly. His wife died in consequence of her confinement, the child soon
after birth. Concerning the latter, he wrote to a friend the
horribly-witty words, "My joy was brief. And I lost him so unwillingly,
that son! For he was so wise, so wise! Do not think that the few hours
of my fatherhood have already made a doting parent of me. I know what I
say. Was it not wisdom that he had to be reluctantly dragged into the
world with iron tongs, and that he so soon discovered his folly? Was it
not wisdom that he seized the first opportunity to leave it? For once I
have sought to be happy like other men; but I have made a miserable
failure of it."
...Lessing was the prophet who from the New Testament pointed towards
the Third Testament. I have called him the successor of Luther; and it
is in this character that I have to speak of him here. Of his influence
on German art I shall speak hereafter. On this he effected a wholesome
reform, not only through his criticism, but also through his example;
and this latter phase of his activity is generally made the most
prominent, and is the most discussed. But, viewed from our present
standpoint, his philosophical and theological battles are to us more
important than all his dramas, or his dramaturgy. His dramas, however,
like all his writings, have a social import, and _Nathan the Wise_ is in
reality not only a good play, but also a philosophical, theological
treatise in support of the doctrine of a pure theism. For Lessing, art
was a tribune, and when he was thrust from the pulpit or the professor's
chair he sprang on to the stage, speaking out more boldly, and gaining a
more numerous audience.
I say that Lessing continued the work of Luther. After Luther had freed
us from the yoke of tradition and had exalted the Bible as the only
well-spring of Christianity, there ensued a rigid word-service, and the
letter of the Bible ruled just as tyrannically as once did tradition.
Lessing contributed the most to the emancipation from the tyranny of the
letter.
Lessing died in Brunswick, in the year 1781, misunderstood, hated, and
denounced. In the same year there was published at Königsberg the
_Critique of Pure Reason_, by Immanuel Kant. With this book there begins
in Germany an intellectual revolution, which offers the most wonderful
analogies to the material revolution in France, and which to the
profound thinker must appear equally important. It develops the same
phases, and between the two there exists a very remarkable parallelism.
On both sides of the Rhine we behold the same rupture with the past: it
is loudly proclaimed that all reverence for tradition is at an end. As
in France no privilege, so in Germany no thought is tolerated without
proving its right to exist: nothing is taken for granted. And as in
France fell the monarchy, the keystone of the old social system, so in
Germany fell theism, the keystone of the intellectual _ancien régime_.
* * * * *
It is horrible when the bodies which we have created ask of us a soul.
But it is still more horrible, more terrible, more uncanny, to create a
soul, which craves a body and pursues us with that demand. The idea
which we have thought is such a soul, and it allows us no peace until we
have given it a body, until we have brought it into actual being. The
thought seems to become deed; the word, flesh. And, strange! man, like
the God of the Bible, needs but to speak his thought, and the world
shapes itself accordingly: light dawns, or darkness descends; the waters
separate themselves from the dry land, and even wild beasts appear. The
universe is but the signature of the word.
Mark this, ye haughty men of action. Ye are naught but the unconscious
servants of the men of thought, who, oftentimes in the humblest
obscurity, have marked out your tasks for you with the utmost
exactitude. Maximilian Robespierre was only the hand of Jean Jacques
Rousseau--the bloody hand that from the womb of time drew forth the body
whose soul Rousseau had created. Did the restless anxiety that
embittered the life of Jean Jacques arise from a foreboding that his
thoughts would require such a midwife to bring them into the world?
Old Fontenelle was perhaps in the right when he declared, "If I carried
all the ideas of this world in my closed hand, I should take good heed
not to open it." For my part, I think differently. If I held all the
ideas of the world in my hand, I might perhaps implore you to hew off my
hand at once, but in no case would I long keep it closed. I am not
adapted to be a jailor of thoughts. By Heaven! I would set them free.
Even if they assumed the most threatening shapes and swept through all
lands like a band of mad Bacchantes; even if with their thyrsus staffs
they should strike down our most innocent flowers; even if they should
break into our hospitals and chase the sick old world from its bed! It
would certainly grieve me sadly, and I myself should come to harm. For,
alas! I too belong to that sick old world; and the poet says rightly
that scoffing at our own crutches does not enable us to walk any the
better. I am the most sick among you all, and the most to be pitied, for
I know what health is. But you know it not, you enviable ones. You can
die without noticing it yourselves. Yes, many of you have already been
dead for these many years, and you think that now only does the true
life begin. When I contradict such madness, then they become enraged
against me, and rail at me, and, horrible! the corpses spring on me and
reproach me; and more even than their revilings does their mouldy odour
oppress me. Avaunt, ye spectres! I am speaking of one whose very name
possesses an exorcising power: I speak of Immanuel Kant.
It is said that the spirits of darkness tremble with affright when they
behold the sword of an executioner. How, then, must they stand aghast
when confronted with Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_! This book is the
sword with which, in Germany, theism was decapitated.
To be candid, you French are tame and moderate compared with us Germans.
At the most, you have slain a king; and he had already lost his head
before he was beheaded. And withal you must drum so much, and shout, and
stamp, so that the whole world was shaken by the tumult. It is really
awarding Maximilian Robespierre too much honour to compare him with
Immanuel Kant. Maximilian Robespierre, the great citizen of the Rue
Saint Honoré, did truly have an attack of destructive fury when the
monarchy was concerned, and he writhed terribly enough in his regicidal
epilepsy; but as soon as the Supreme Being was mentioned, he wiped the
white foam from his mouth and the blood from his hands, put on his blue
Sunday coat with the bright buttons, and attached a bouquet of flowers
to his broad coat-lapel.
The life-history of Immanuel Kant is difficult to write, for he had
neither a life nor a history. He lived a mechanical, orderly, almost
abstract, bachelor life, in a quiet little side-street of Königsberg, an
old city near the north-east boundary of Germany. I believe that the
great clock of the cathedral did not perform its daily work more
dispassionately, more regularly, than its countryman, Immanuel Kant.
Rising, coffee-drinking, writing, collegiate lectures, dining,
walking--each had its set time. And when Immanuel Kant, in his grey
coat, cane in hand, appeared at the door of his house, and strolled
towards the small linden avenue, which is still called "the
philosopher's walk," the neighbours knew it was exactly half-past four.
Eight times he promenaded up and down, during all seasons; and when the
weather was gloomy, or the grey clouds threatened rain, his old servant
Lampe was seen plodding anxiously after, with a large umbrella under his
arm, like a symbol of Providence.
What a strange contrast between the outer life of the man and his
destructive, world-convulsing thoughts! Had the citizens of Königsberg
surmised the whole significance of these thoughts, they would have felt
a more profound awe in the presence of this man than in that of an
executioner, who merely slays human beings. But the good people saw in
him nothing but a professor of philosophy; and when at the fixed hour he
sauntered by, they nodded a friendly greeting, and regulated their
watches.
But if Immanuel Kant, that arch-destroyer in the realms of thought, far
surpassed Maximilian Robespierre in terrorism, yet he had certain points
of resemblance to the latter that invite a comparison of the two men. In
both we find the same inflexible, rigid, prosaic integrity. Then we
find in both the same instinct of distrust,--only that the one exercises
it against ideas, and names it a critique, while the other applies it to
men, and calls it republican virtue. In both, however, the narrow-minded
shopkeeper type is markedly manifest. Nature had intended them to weigh
out sugar and coffee, but fate willed it otherwise, and into the scales
of one it laid a king, into those of the other, a God. And they both
weighed correctly.
...Pantheism had already in Fichte's time interpenetrated German art;
even the Catholic Romanticists unconsciously followed this current, and
Goethe expressed it most unmistakably. This he already does in
_Werther_. In _Faust_ he seeks to establish an affinity between man and
nature by a bold, direct, mystic method, and conjures the secret forces
of nature through the magic formula of the powers of hell. But this
Goethean pantheism is most clearly and most charmingly disclosed in his
short ballads. The early philosophy of Spinoza has shed its mathematical
shell, and now flutters about us as Goethean poetry. Hence the wrath of
our pietists, and of orthodoxy in general, against the Goethean ballads.
With their pious bear-paws they clumsily strike at this butterfly, which
is so daintily ethereal, so light of wing, that it always flits out of
reach. These Goethean ballads have a tantalising charm that is
indescribable. The harmonious verses captivate the heart like the
tenderness of a loving maiden; the words embrace you while the thought
kisses you.
...This giant was minister in a lilliputian German state, in which he
could never move at ease. It was said of Phidias's Jupiter seated in
Olympus, that were he ever to stand erect the sudden uprising would rend
asunder the vaulted roof. This was exactly Goethe's situation at
Weimar; had he suddenly lifted himself up from his peaceful, sitting
posture, he would have shattered the gabled canopy of state, or, more
probably, he would have bruised his own head. But the German Jupiter
remained quietly seated, and composedly accepted homage and incense.
...When it was seen that such saddening follies were budding out of
philosophy and ripening into a baleful maturity--when it was observed
that the German youth were generally absorbed in metaphysical
abstractions, thereby neglecting the most important questions of the
time and unfitting themselves for practical life,--it was quite natural
that patriots and lovers of liberty should be led to conceive a
justifiable dislike to philosophy; and a few went so far as to condemn
it utterly and entirely, as idle, useless, chimerical theorising.
We shall not be so foolish as to attempt seriously to refute these
malcontents. German philosophy is a matter of great weight and
importance, and concerns the whole human race. Only our most remote
descendants will be able to decide whether we deserve blame or praise
for completing first our philosophy and afterwards our revolution. To me
it seems that a methodical people, such as we Germans are, must
necessarily have commenced with the Reformation, could only after that
proceed to occupy ourselves with philosophy, and not until the
completion of the latter could we pass on to the political revolution.
This order I find quite sensible. The heads which philosophy has used
for thinking, the revolution can afterwards, for its purposes, cut off.
But philosophy would never have been able to use the heads which had
been decapitated by the revolution, if the latter had preceded.
...Christianity--and this is its fairest service--has to a certain
degree moderated that brutal lust of battle, such as we find it among
the ancient Germanic races, who fought, not to destroy, not yet to
conquer, but merely from a fierce, demoniac love of battle itself; but
it could not altogether eradicate it. And when once that restraining
talisman, the cross, is broken, then the smouldering ferocity of those
ancient warriors will again blaze up; then will again be heard the
deadly clang of that frantic Berserkir wrath, of which the Norse poets
say and sing so much. The talisman is rotten with decay, and the day
will surely come when it will crumble and fall. Then the ancient stone
gods will arise from out the ashes of dismantled ruins, and rub the dust
of a thousand years from their eyes; and finally Thor, with his colossal
hammer, will leap up, and with it shatter into fragments the Gothic
Cathedrals.
And when ye hear the rumbling and the crumbling, take heed, ye
neighbours of France, and meddle not with what we do in Germany. It
might bring harm on you. Take heed not to kindle the fire; take heed not
to quench it. Ye might easily burn your fingers in the flame. Smile not
at my advice as the counsel of a visionary warning you against Kantians,
Fichteans, and natural philosophers. Scoff not at the dreamer who
expects in the material world a revolution similar to that which has
already taken place in the domains of thought. The thought goes before
the deed, as the lightning precedes the thunder. German thunder is
certainly German, and is rather awkward, and it comes rolling along
tardily; but come it surely will, and when ye once hear a crash the like
of which in the world's history was never heard before, then know that
the German thunderbolt has reached its mark. At this crash the eagles
will fall dead in mid air, and the lions in Afric's most distant deserts
will cower and sneak into their royal dens. A drama will be enacted in
Germany in comparison with which the French Revolution will appear a
harmless idyl. To be sure, matters are at present rather quiet, and if
occasionally this one or the other rants and gesticulates somewhat
violently, do not believe that these are the real actors. These are only
little puppies, that run around in the empty arena, barking and snarling
at one another, until the hour shall arrive when appear the gladiators,
who are to battle unto death.
And that hour _will_ come. As on the raised benches of an amphitheatre
the nations will group themselves around Germany to behold the great
tournament. I advise you, ye French, keep very quiet then: on your souls
take heed that ye applaud not. We might easily misunderstand you, and in
our blunt manner roughly quiet and rebuke you, for if in our former
servile condition we could sometimes overcome you, much more easily can
we do so in the wantonness and delirious intoxication of freedom. Ye
yourselves know what one can do in such a condition--and ye are no
longer in that condition. Beware! I mean well with you, therefore I tell
you the bitter truth. You have more to fear from emancipated Germany
than from the whole Holy Alliance, with all its Croats and Cossacks.
For, in the first place, you are not loved in Germany,--which is almost
incomprehensible, for you are so very amiable, and during your sojourn
in Germany took much pains to please at least the better and lovelier
half of the Germans. But even if that half should love you, it is just
the half that does not bear arms, and whose friendship would therefore
avail you but little.
What they really have against you, I could never make out. Once in a
beer-cellar at Göttingen, a young Teuton said that revenge must be had
on the French for Conrad von Stauffen, whom they beheaded at Naples.
You have surely long since forgotten that. But we forget nothing. You
see that if we should once be inclined to quarrel with you, good reasons
will not be wanting. At all events, I advise you to be on your guard.
Let what will happen in Germany, whether the Crown Prince of Prussia or
Dr. Wirth hold sway, be always armed, remain quietly at your post,
musket in hand. I mean well with you; and I almost stood aghast when I
learned lately that your ministry propose to disarm France.
As, notwithstanding your present Romanticism, you are inborn classics,
you know Olympus. Among the naked gods and goddesses who there make
themselves merry with nectar and ambrosia, you behold one goddess who,
although surrounded with mirth and sport, yet wears always a coat of
mail, and keeps helm on head and spear in hand.
It is the goddess of wisdom.
FLORENTINE NIGHTS.
[Heine wrote the fragment entitled _Florentine Nights_ in 1835, and
published it two years later in the third volume of the _Salon_. It is a
series of brilliant pictures united by a very slight thread of
connection. There is unquestionably an additional element of
autobiographical interest; Maximilian's visits to Potsdam and London
correspond to Heine's, and throughout this various record of impressions
we frequently hear Heine's own voice. The translation here given has not
been previously published.]
FIRST NIGHT.
In the ante-room Maximilian found the doctor just as he was drawing on
his black gloves. "I am greatly pressed for time," the latter hurriedly
said to him. "Signora Maria has not slept during the whole night; she
has only just now fallen into a light slumber. I need not caution you
not to wake her by any noise; and when she wakes on no account must she
be allowed to talk. She must lie still, and not disturb herself; mental
excitement will not be salutary. Tell her all kinds of odd stories, so
that she must listen quietly."
"Be assured, doctor," replied Maximilian, with a melancholy smile. "I
have educated myself for a long time in chattering, and will not let her
talk. I will narrate abundance of fantastic nonsense, as much as you
require. But how long can she live?"
"I am greatly pressed for time," answered the doctor, and slipped away.
Black Deborah, quick of hearing as she was, had already recognised the
stranger's footstep, and softly opened the door. At a sign from him she
left as softly, and Maximilian found himself alone with his friend. A
single lamp dimly lighted the chamber. This cast now and then half
timid, half inquisitive gleams upon the countenance of the sick lady,
clothed entirely in white muslin, who lay stretched on a green sofa in
calm sleep.
Silent, and with folded arms, Maximilian stood a little while before the
sleeping figure, and gazed on the beautiful limbs which the light
garments revealed rather than covered; and every time that the lamp
threw a ray of light over the pale countenance, his heart quivered. "For
God's sake!" he said softly, "what is that? What memories are awaking in
me? Yes, now I know. This white form on the green ground, yes, now...."
At this moment the invalid awoke, and gazing out, as it were, from the
depths of a dream, the tender dark-blue eyes rested upon him, asking,
entreating.... "What were you thinking of, just now, Maximilian?" she
said, in that awful, gentle voice so often found in consumptives, and
wherein we seem to recognise the lisping of children, the twittering of
birds, and the gurgle of the dying. "What were you thinking of, just
then, Maximilian?" she repeated again, and started up so hastily that
the long curls, like roused snakes, fell in ringlets around her head.
"For God's sake!" exclaimed Maximilian, as he gently pressed her back on
to the sofa, "lie still, do not talk; I will tell you all I think, I
feel, yes, what I myself do not know!
"In fact," he pursued, "I scarcely know what I was thinking and feeling
just now. Dim visions of childhood were passing through my mind. I was
thinking of my mother's castle, of the deserted garden there, of the
beautiful marble statue that lay in the grass.... I said, 'my mother's
_castle_,' but pray do not imagine anything grand and magnificent. To
this name I have indeed accustomed myself; my father always laid a
special emphasis on the words, 'the castle,' and accompanied them always
with a singular smile. The meaning of that smile I understood later,
when, a boy of some twelve years, I travelled with my mother to the
castle. It was my first journey. We spent the whole day in passing
through a thick forest; I shall never forget its gloomy horror; and only
towards evening did we stop before a long cross-bar which separated us
from a large meadow. Here we waited nearly half-an-hour before the boy
came out of the wretched hut near by, removed the barrier, and admitted
us. I say 'the boy,' because old Martha always called her forty years'
old nephew 'the lad.' To receive his gracious mistress worthily, he had
assumed the livery of his late uncle; and it was in consequence of its
requiring a little previous dusting that he had kept us waiting so long.
Had he had time, he would have also put on stockings; the long red legs,
however, did not form a very marked contrast with the glaring scarlet
coat. Whether there were any trousers underneath I am unable to say. Our
servant, John, who had likewise often heard of 'the castle,' put on a
very amazed grimace as the boy led us to the little ruined building in
which his master had lived. He was, however, altogether at a loss when
my mother ordered him to bring in the beds. How could he guess that at
the 'castle' no beds were to be found, and my mother's order that he
should bring bedding for us he had either not heard or considered as
superfluous trouble.
"The little house, only one storey high, which in its best days
contained, at the most, five habitable rooms, was a lamentable picture
of transitoriness. Broken furniture, torn carpets, not one window-frame
left entire, the floor pulled up here and there, everywhere the hated
traces of the wantonest military possession. 'The soldiers quartered
with us have always amused themselves,' said the boy, with a silly
smile. My mother signed that we should all leave her alone, and while
the boy and John were busying themselves, I went out to see the garden.
This also offered the most disconsolate picture of ruin. The great trees
were partly destroyed, partly broken down, and parasites were scornfully
spreading over the fallen trunks. Here and there by the grown-up
box-bushes the old paths might be recognised. Here and there also stood
statues, for the most part wanting heads, or at all events noses. I
remember a Diana whose lower half the dark ivy grew round in a most
amusing way, as I also remember a Goddess of Plenty, out of whose
cornucopia mere ill-odorous weeds were blooming. Only one statue had
been spared from the malice of men and of time; it had, indeed, been
thrown from off its pedestal into the high grass; but there it lay, free
from mutilation, the marble goddess with pure lovely features and the
noble deep-cleft bosom, which seemed, as it glowed out of the grass,
like a Greek revelation. I almost started when I saw it; this form
inspired me with a singular feeling, and bashfulness kept me from
lingering long near so sweet a sight.
"When I returned to my mother, she was standing at the window, lost in
thought, her head resting on her right arm, and the tears were flowing
over her cheeks. I had never seen her weep so before. She embraced me
with passionate tenderness, and asked my forgiveness, because, owing to
John's negligence, I should have no regular bed. 'Old Martha,' she said,
'is very ill, dear child, and cannot give up her bed to you; but John
will arrange the cushions out of the coach, so that you will be able to
sleep upon them, and he can also give you his cloak for a covering. I
shall sleep on the straw; this was my dear father's bed-room; it was
much better here once. Leave me alone!' And the tears came still more
impetuously.
"Whether it was owing to my unaccustomed place of rest or to my
disturbed heart, I could not sleep. The moonlight streamed in through
the broken window-panes, and seemed to allure me out into the bright
summer night. I might lie on the right or the left side, close my eyes
or impatiently open them again--I could still think of nothing but the
lovely marble statue I had seen lying in the grass. I could not
understand the shyness which had come over me at the sight of it; I was
vexed at this childish feeling, and 'To-morrow,' I said softly to
myself, 'to-morrow I will kiss you, you lovely marble face, kiss you
just on that pretty corner of your mouth where the lips melt into such a
sweet dimple!' An impatience I had never before felt was stirring
through all my limbs; I could no longer rule the strange impulse, and I
sprang up at last with audacious vivacity, exclaiming, 'And why should I
not kiss you to-night, you dear image?' Quietly, so that mother might
not hear my steps, I left the house; with the less difficulty, since the
entrance was furnished with an escutcheon indeed, but no longer with a
door, and hastily worked my way through the abundant growth of the
neglected garden. There was no sound; everything was resting silent and
solemn in the still moonlight. The shadows of the trees seemed to be
nailed on the earth. In the green grass lay the beautiful goddess,
likewise motionless, yet no stony death, but only a quiet sleep, seemed
to hold her lovely limbs fettered; and as I came near, I almost feared
lest the least noise should awake her out of her slumber. I held my
breath, as I leant over to gaze on the beautiful features; a shuddering
pain thrust me back, but a boyish wantonness drew me again towards her;
my heart was beating wildly, and at last I kissed the lovely goddess
with such passion and tenderness and despair as I have never in this
life kissed with again. And I have never been able to forget the fearful
and sweet sensation which flowed through my soul as the blissful cool of
those marble lips touched my mouth.... And so you see, Maria, that as I
was just now standing before you, and saw you lying in your white muslin
garments on the green sofa, your appearance suggested to me the white
marble form in the green grass. Had you slept any longer my lips would
not have been able to resist----"
"Max! Max!" she cried from the depth of her soul. "Horrible! You know
that a kiss from your mouth----"
"Oh, be silent only; I know you think that something horrible. Do not
look at me so imploringly. I do not misunderstand your feelings,
although their causes are hidden from me. I have never dared to press my
mouth on your lips."
But Maria would not let him finish speaking; she seized his hand,
covered it with passionate kisses, and then said, smiling--"Please tell
me more of your love affairs. How long did you adore the marble beauty
that you kissed in your mother's castle garden?"
"We went away the next day," Maximilian answered, "and I have never seen
the lovely statue again. It occupied my heart, however, for nearly three
years. A wonderful passion for marble statues has since then developed
in my soul, and this very day I have felt its transporting power. I was
coming out of the Laurentian, the library of the Medici, and I wandered,
I know not how, into the chapel where that most magnificent of Italian
families built for itself a resting-place of jewels, and is quietly
sleeping. For a whole hour I was absorbed in gazing on the marble figure
of a woman, whose powerful body witnesses to the cunning strength of
Michael Angelo, while yet the whole form is pervaded by an ethereal
sweetness which we are not accustomed to seek in that master. The whole
dream-world, with its silent blisses, lives in that marble; a tender
repose dwells in the lovely limbs, a soothing moonlight seems to course
through the veins. It is the Night of Michael Angelo Buonarotti. O, how
willingly would I sleep the eternal sleep in the arms of that Night!
"Painted women forms," Maximilian pursued, after a pause, "have never so
powerfully interested me as statues. Only once was I in love with a
painting. It was a wondrously lovely Madonna that I learnt to know at a
church in Cologne. I was at that time a very zealous church-goer, and my
heart was absorbed in the mysticism of the Catholic religion. I would
then have willingly fought like a Spanish knight, at the peril of my
life, for the immaculate conception of Mary, the Queen of Angels, the
fairest lady of Heaven and earth! I was interested in all the members of
the holy family at that time, and I took my hat off in an especially
friendly manner whenever I passed near a picture of the holy Joseph.
This disposition did not last long, however, and I deserted the Mother
of God almost without any explanations, having become acquainted, in a
gallery of antiquities, with a Grecian nymph, who for a long time held
me enchained in marble fetters."
"And you only loved sculptured or painted women?" said Maria, smiling.
"No, I have also loved dead women," answered Maximilian, over whose face
an expression of seriousness had spread. He failed to perceive Maria
start and shrink at these words, and quietly proceeded--
"Yes, it is very strange that I once fell in love with a girl after she
had been seven years dead. When I became acquainted with little Very I
liked her extremely. For three days I occupied myself with this young
person, and experienced the greatest pleasure in all that she said and
did, and in every expression of her charming wayward being, without
being betrayed withal into any over-tender emotion. And so I was not too
deeply grieved when a few months later I heard that a fever that had
seized her suddenly resulted in death. I forgot her entirely, and I am
convinced that from one year's end to another's I had not one thought of
her. Seven years passed away, and I found myself at Potsdam, to enjoy
the beautiful summer in undisturbed solitude. My society was confined to
the statues in the garden of Sansouci. It happened there one day that I
recollected certain features, and a singular, lovely way of speaking and
moving, without being able to remember to whom they belonged. Nothing is
more annoying than such a drifting into old memories, and I was
therefore joyfully surprised when, after some days, I recollected little
Very, and discovered that it was her dear, forgotten form that had
hovered before me so restlessly. Yes, I rejoiced at this discovery like
one who unexpectedly meets his most intimate friend; the pale hues
gradually grew bright, and at last her sweet little person seemed to
stand bodily before me, smiling, pouting, witty, and prettier than ever.
From that time forth the sweet vision never left me, it filled my whole
soul; wherever I went or stood, that went and stood at my side, spoke
with me, laughed with me, always gentle, and yet never over-tender. I
was, however, more and more fascinated with this vision, which daily
gained more and more reality for me. It is easy to raise ghosts, but it
is difficult to send them back again to their dark night; they look at
us then so imploringly, our own hearts lend them such powerful
intercession. I could not tear myself free, and fell in love with little
Very after she had been seven years dead. I lived thus at Potsdam for
six months, quite buried in this love. I guarded myself more carefully
than ever from any contact with the outer world, and if anyone in the
street came at all near me, I experienced the most miserable oppression.
I cherished a deep horror of every occurrence, such as, perhaps, the
night-wandering spirits of the dead experience; for these, it is said,
are terrified when they meet a living man, as much as a living man is
terrified when he meets a spectre. By chance a traveller came at that
time to Potsdam whom I could not escape--namely, my brother. His
appearance and his accounts of the latest news woke me as from a deep
dream, and I suddenly felt, with a shudder, in what a frightful solitude
I had been so long living. In this condition I had not once noted the
change of the seasons, and I now gazed with wonder on the trees, long
since leafless, decked in their autumn mellowness. I immediately left
Potsdam and little Very, and in another town, where important business
was awaiting me, and by means of difficult circumstances and relations,
I was soon again plunged into crude reality.
"The living women," Maximilian pursued, while a sorrowful smile played
on his upper lip, "the living women with whom I then came into
unavoidable contact, how they tormented me, tenderly tormented me with
their pouting, jealousy, and constant sighs. At how many balls must I
trot round with them, in how much gossip must I mix myself! What
restless vanity, what delight in lying, what kissing treachery, what
envenomed flowers! These women spoilt all pleasure and love for me, and
I was for some time a misogynist, who damned the whole sex. It went with
me almost as with the French officer, who, in the Prussian campaign,
only saved himself with the greatest difficulty from the ice-pits at
Beresina, and since that retains such an antipathy to everything frozen,
that now he thrusts away with disgust the sweetest and most delicious of
Tortoni's ices. Yes, the remembrance of the Beresina of love that I
passed through then spoilt for me, for a time, even the most charming
ladies, women like angels, girls like Vanilla sherbert."
"Pray, do not abuse women," exclaimed Maria. "That is a worn-out
commonplace among men. In the end, to be happy, you need women after
all."
"Oh," sighed Maximilian, "that is true, certainly. But women,
unfortunately, have only one way of making us happy, while they have
thirty thousand ways of making us unhappy."
"Dear friend," replied Maria, suppressing a little smile, "I am speaking
of the concord of two souls in unison. Have you never experienced this
joy? But I see an unaccustomed blush spreading over your cheeks. Tell
me, Max."
"It is true, Maria, I feel as confused almost as a boy at confessing to
you the happy love with which I was once infinitely blessed. That memory
is not yet lost to me, and to its cool shades my soul often flies, when
the burning dust and day's heat of life grow almost unbearable. Yet I am
not able to give you a just idea of her. She was such an ethereal
creature that she only seemed revealed to me in dreams. I think that
you, Maria, have no vulgar prejudice against dreams; those nightly
visions have, in truth, as much reality as the coarser shapes of day,
which we can touch with our hands, and by which we are not seldom
besmutched. Yes, it was in a dream that I knew that sweet being who has
made me most happy on earth. I can say little of her outward appearance.
I am not able to describe the form of her features with precision. It
was a face that I had never seen before, and that I have never in my
life seen since. So much I remember; it was not white and rosy, but all
of one colour--a soft, reddened, pale-yellow, transparent as crystal.
The charm of this face was not in firm regularity of beauty, nor in
interesting vivacity; its characteristic was, rather, a charming,
enrapturing, almost terrible veracity. It was a face full of conscious
fire and gracious goodness; it was more a soul than a face, and on that
account I have never been able to make her outward form quite present to
myself. The eyes were soft as flowers, the lips rather pale, but
charmingly arched. She wore a silk dressing-gown of a corn-flour blue
colour, and in that consisted her entire clothing; neck and feet were
naked, and through the thin delicate garment now and then peeped
stealthily the slender tenderness of the limbs. Nor can I make plain the
words we said to one another; I only know that we betrothed each other,
and that we chatted with one another, gay and familiar and open-hearted,
like bridegroom and bride, almost like brother and sister. Often we left
off talking, and gazed into each other's eyes; we spent whole eternities
so. What waked me I cannot say, but I revelled for a long time in the
after-feeling of these love-blisses. I was long, as it were, intoxicated
with ineffable delight, the pining depth of my heart was filled with
bliss, a hitherto unknown joy seemed poured over all my emotions, and I
remained glad and joyful, though I never saw the beloved form in my
dreams again. But had I not enjoyed whole eternities in her gaze? and
she knew me too well not to be aware that I do not like repetitions."
"Truly," exclaimed Maria, "you are an _homme à bonne fortune_. But, tell
me, was Mademoiselle Laurence a marble statue or a painting--was she
dead or a dream?"
"Perhaps she was all these together," answered Maximilian, very
earnestly.
"I can imagine, dear friend, that this sweetheart was of very doubtful
character. And when will you tell me the history?"
"To-morrow. It is too long, and I am tired to-night. I have just come
from the opera, and have too much music in my ears."
"You often go to the opera now, and I think, Max, you go there more to
see than to hear."
"You are not mistaken, Maria; I go to the opera, indeed, to look at the
faces of the beautiful Italian women. In truth, they are beautiful
enough outside the theatre, and a connoisseur in faces could easily
trace in the ideality of their features the influence which the arts
have had on the physique of the Italian people. Nature has taken back
from the artists the capital she once lent, and see how delightfully the
interest has increased! Nature, who once furnished the artists with
their model, now on her side copies the masterpieces which have thus
arisen. The sense of the beautiful has permeated the whole people, and
as once the flesh on the spirit, so now the spirit works on the flesh.
The devotion paid before those fair Madonnas and lovely altar-pieces,
which impress themselves on the mind of the bridegroom, while the bride
bears a handsome saint in her ardent heart, is not fruitless. From this
affinity a race has arisen still fairer than the gracious earth on which
it flourishes, and the sunny sky that is as bright around it as a golden
frame. The men do not interest me much when they are not painted or
sculptured, and I resign to you, Maria, all possible enthusiasm in
regard to those handsome, supple Italians, who have such wild-black
beards, such bold noble noses, and such soft subtle eyes. They say the
Lombards are the most handsome men. I have never made any investigations
on the subject, but I have earnestly considered the Lombardy women, and
they, I have noted well, are indeed as beautiful as report announces.
Even in the middle ages they must have been tolerably beautiful. It is
said of Francis I. that the fame of the beauty of the Milanese women was
a secret motive which impelled him to the Italian campaign; the
chivalrous king was certainly curious whether the kinsfolk of his
spiritual muses were really as beautiful as fame reported. Poor rogue!
he had to atone dearly for this curiosity at Pavia!
"But how beautiful they are, these Italian women, when music illuminates
their countenances! I say 'illuminates,' because the effect of the
music, which I marked in the opera, on the faces of the beautiful women
altogether resembled those light-and-shade effects which surprise us so
when we look at statues by torch-light at night-time. These marble forms
reveal to us then, with terrifying truth, their indwelling spirit and
their horrible dumb secrets. In the same way the whole life of the fair
Italian women becomes known to us when we see them in the opera; the
changing melodies wake in their souls a succession of emotions,
memories, wishes, scandals, which visibly speak in the movements of
their features, in their blushes, in their pallors, and even in their
eyes. He who knows how to read them may then see in their faces many
very sweet and interesting things--histories as remarkable as
Boccaccio's tales, emotions as tender as Petrarch's sonnets, caprices as
full of adventure as Ariosto's _ottaverime_, sometimes, too, fearful
treachery and sublime wickedness as poetic as Dante's _Inferno_. It is
worth while to gaze at the boxes. If the men would only express their
enthusiasm meanwhile with less frightful sounds! This mad noise in an
Italian theatre often annoys me. But music is the soul of these men,
their life, their national business. In other countries, certainly,
there are musicians who equal the greatest Italian masters, but there is
no other musical nation. Here, in Italy, music is not represented by
individuals; it manifests itself in the whole population; music has
become a nation. With us in the north it is quite different; there music
only becomes a man, and is called Mozart or Meyerbeer; and when,
moreover, they would accurately investigate what is the best that this
northern music offers us, they find it in Italian sunshine and
orange-perfume; and much rather than to our Germany those belong to fair
Italy, the home of music. Yes, Italy will always be the home of music,
even though her great _maestri_ descend early into the grave or become
dumb--even though Bellini dies and Rossini keeps silence."
"Indeed," remarked Maria, "Rossini has preserved a very long silence. If
I do not mistake, he has been silent for ten years."
"Perhaps that is a joke on his part," answered Maximilian. "He wishes to
show that the title, "Swan of Pesaro," which has been conferred upon
him, is quite unsuitable. Swans sing at the end of their lives, but
Rossini has left off singing in the middle of his life. And I believe
that he has done well in that, and shown, even by that, that he is a
genius. The artist who has only talent retains to the end of his life
the impulse to exercise that talent; ambition stimulates him; he feels
that he is constantly perfecting himself, and he is compelled to strive
after the highest. But genius has already accomplished the highest; it
is content; it contemns the world and small ambition, and goes home to
Stratford-on-Avon, like William Shakespeare, or walks about the
Boulevard des Italiens at Paris, and laughs and jokes, like Giacomo
Rossini. If genius has a not altogether badly constituted body, it lives
on in this way for a good while after it has given forth its
masterpieces, or, as people express it, after it has fulfilled its
mission. It is owing to a prepossession that people say that genius must
die early; I think that from the thirtieth to the thirty-fourth year has
been indicated as the most dangerous period for genius. How often have I
bantered poor Bellini on this subject, and playfully prophesied that,
being a genius, and having reached that dangerous age, he must soon die.
Singular! in spite of the playful tone, he tormented himself about this
prophecy; he called me his _jettatore_, his evil eye, and always made
the _jettatore_ sign. He so wished to live, he had an almost passionate
hatred of death: he would hear nothing of dying; he was frightened of it
as a child who is afraid to sleep in the dark.... He was a good, dear
child, often rather naughty, but then one only needed to threaten him
with an early death, and he would immediately draw in, and entreat, and
make with his two raised fingers the _jettatore_ sign. Poor Bellini!"
"So you knew him personally? Was he handsome?"
"He was not ugly. You see, we cannot answer affirmatively when anyone
asks us such a question about our own sex. He had a tall, slender
figure, which moved in an elegant, I might say a coquettish, manner;
always _a quatre épingles_; a long, regular face, with a pale rosiness;
very fair, almost golden, hair, put into small curls; very high noble
brows, a straight nose, pale blue eyes, a beautifully-chiselled mouth, a
round chin. His features had something vague and characterless;
something like milk, and in this milk-face often mingled, half sweet,
half bitter, an expression of sorrow. This expression of sorrow
compensated for the want of soul in Bellini's face, but it was a sorrow
without depth; it glistened in the eyes without poetry, it played
passionless about his lips. The young _Maestro_ seemed anxious to make
this flat, languid sorrow conspicuous in his whole person. His hair was
curled in such a fanciful, melancholy way, his clothes sat so languidly
about his frail body, he carried his little Spanish cane in so idyllic a
way, that he always reminded me of the affected young shepherds with
their be-ribboned sticks, and bright-coloured jackets, and pantaloons
that we see in our pastorals. And his gait was so young-lady-like, so
elegiac, so ethereal. The whole man looked like a sigh _en escarpins_.
He had received much applause among women, but I doubt if he anywhere
awakened a strong passion. In himself his appearance had something
comically unenjoyable, the reason of which lay in his way of speaking
French. Although Bellini had lived many years in France, he spoke the
language so badly, that even in England it could scarcely be spoken
worse. I ought not to call it 'bad;' bad is here much too good. One must
call it awful, a violation, something enough to overturn the world. Yes,
when one was in society with him, and he mangled the poor French words
like an executioner, and displayed, unmoved, his colossal _coq-à-l'âne_,
one thought sometimes that the world must fall in with a crash of
thunder. The stillness of the grave reigned on the whole room; a death
agony was painted on all faces in chalk or in vermilion; the ladies were
uncertain whether to faint or to escape; the gentlemen gazed in alarm at
their trousers, to convince themselves that they actually had them on;
and what was most horrible, this fright raised at the same time a
convulsive desire to laugh, which could hardly be suppressed. So that
when one was in Bellini's society, his presence inspired a certain
anxiety, which by a horrible charm was at once repellant and attractive.
Often his involuntary _calembours_ were merely amusing, and in their
droll insipidity reminded one of the castle of his fellow-countryman,
the Prince of Pallagonia, which Goethe in his _Italian Journey_ has
described as a museum of uncouth distortions and absurd deformities. As
Bellini on such occasions always imagined he had said something quite
harmless and earnest, his face and his words formed the maddest
contrast. That which displeased me in his face came at such moments
specially prominent. What I disliked could not be exactly described as
something lacking, and may not have been displeasing to women at all.
Bellini's face, like his whole appearance, had that physical freshness,
that bloom of flesh, that rosiness which makes a disagreeable impression
on me--on me, because I like much more what is death-like and marble.
Later on, when I had known him a long time, I felt some liking for
Bellini. This arose after I had observed that his character was
thoroughly noble and good. His soul was certainly pure and unspotted by
any hateful contagion. And he was not wanting in that good-natured,
childlike quality which we never miss in men of genius, even if they do
not wear it as an outward show.
"Yes, I remember," Maximilian pursued, sinking down on the chair, on the
back of which he had been hitherto leaning--"I remember one moment when
Bellini appeared in so amiable a light, that I gazed on him with
pleasure, and resolved to become more intimately acquainted with him.
But, unhappily, it was the last time I should see him in this life. It
was one evening after we had been dining together at the house of a
great lady who had the smallest foot in Paris. We were very merry, and
the sweetest melodies rang out from the piano. I see him still, the
good-natured Bellini, as, at last, exhausted with the mad Bellinism that
he chattered, he sank into a seat.... It was a very low one, so that
Bellini found himself sitting at the foot, as it were, of a beautiful
lady, stretched on a sofa opposite, who gazed down on him with a sweet,
malicious delight, as he worked off some French expressions to entertain
her, and was compelled, as usual, to communicate what he had said in his
Sicilian jargon to show that it was no _sottise_, but, on the contrary,
the most delicate flattery. I think the fair lady paid little attention
to Bellini's conversation. She had taken from his hand the little
Spanish cane with which he often used to assist his weak rhetoric, and
was making use of it for a calm destruction of the elegant curl-edifice
on the young _Maestro's_ brows. But this wanton occupation was well
repaid by the smile which gave her face an expression which I have seen
on no other living human countenance. That face will never leave my
memory! It was one of those faces which belong more to the kingdom of
poetry than to the crude reality of life, contours which remind one of
Da Vinci--that noble oval, with the naïve cheek-dimples and the
sentimental pointed chin of the Lombard school. The colouring was more
soft and Roman, with the dull gleam of pearls, a distinguished pallor,
_morbidezza_. In short, it was one of those faces which can only be
found in early Italian portraits, which, perhaps, represent those great
ladies with whom the Italian artists of the sixteenth century were in
love when they created their masterpieces, of whom the poets of those
days thought when they sang themselves immortal, and which kindled
German and French heroes with desire when they girded on their swords
and started across the Alps in search of great deeds. Yes, it was such a
face, and on it played a smile of sweetest, malicious delight and most
delicate wantonness, as she, the fair lady, with the point of the little
Spanish cane destroyed the blonde curls on the good-natured Bellini's
brows. At that moment Bellini seemed to me as if touched by an enchanted
wand, as if transformed, and he was at once akin to my heart. His face
shone with the reflection of that smile; it was, perhaps, the most
joyful moment of his life. I shall never forget it. Fourteen days
afterwards I read in the papers that Italy had lost one of her most
famous sons!
"Strange! At the same time Paganini's death was announced. About his
death I had no doubt, for the old, ash-coloured Paganini always looked
like a dying man; but the death of the young, rosy Bellini seemed to me
incredible. And yet the news of the death of the first was only a
newspaper error; Paganini is safe and sound at Genoa, and Bellini lies
in his grave at Paris!"
"Do you like Paganini?" asked Maria. "He is the ornament of his
country," answered Maximilian, "and deserves the most distinguished
mention in speaking of the musical notabilities of Italy."
"I have never seen him," Maria remarked, "but according to report his
outward appearance does not altogether satisfy the sense of beauty. I
have seen portraits of him."
"Which are all different," broke in Maximilian; "they either make him
uglier or handsomer than he is; they do not give his actual appearance.
I believe that only one man has succeeded in putting Paganini's true
physiognomy on to paper--a deaf painter, Lyser by name, who, in a frenzy
full of genius, has, with a few strokes of chalk, so well hit Paganini's
head that one is at the same time amused and terrified at the truth of
the drawing. 'The devil guided my hand,' the deaf painter said to me,
chuckling mysteriously, and nodding his head with good-natured irony in
the way he generally accompanied his genial witticisms. This painter
was, however, a wonderful old fellow; in spite of his deafness he was
enthusiastically fond of music, and he knew how, when near enough to the
orchestra, to read the music on the musicians' faces, and to judge the
more or less skilful execution by the movements of their fingers;
indeed, he wrote critiques on the opera for an excellent journal at
Hamburg. And is that peculiarly wonderful? In the visible symbols of the
performance the deaf painter could see the sounds. There are men to whom
the sounds themselves are invisible symbols in which they hear colours
and forms."
"You are one of those men!" exclaimed Maria.
"I am sorry that I no longer possess Lyser's little drawing; it would
perhaps have given you an idea of Paganini's outward appearance. Only
with black and glaring strokes could those mysterious features be
seized, features, which seemed to belong more to the sulphurous kingdom
of shades than to the sunny world of life. 'Indeed, the devil guided my
hand,' the deaf painter assured me, as we stood before the Alster
pavilion at Hamburg on the day when Paganini gave his first concert
there. 'Yes, my friend,' he pursued, 'it is true, as everyone believes,
that he has sold himself to the devil, body and soul, in order to become
the best violinist, to fiddle millions of money, and principally to
escape the damnable galley where he had already languished many years.
For, you see, my friend, when he was chapel-master at Lucca he fell in
love with a princess of the theatre, was jealous of some little
_abbate_, was perhaps deceived by the faithless _Amata_, stabbed her in
approved Italian fashion, came in the galley to Genoa, and, as I said,
sold himself to the devil to escape from it, become the best
violin-player, and impose upon us this evening a contribution of two
thalers each. But, you see, all good spirits praise God; there in the
avenue he comes himself, with his suspicious Famulus!'
"It was indeed Paganini himself, whom I then saw for the first time. He
wore a dark grey overcoat, which reached to his feet, and made his
figure seem very tall. His long black hair fell in neglected curls on
his shoulders, and formed a dark frame round the pale, cadaverous face,
on which sorrow, genius, and hell had engraved their indestructible
lines. Near him danced along a little pleasing figure, elegantly
prosaic--with rosy, wrinkled face, bright grey little coat with steel
buttons, distributing greetings on all sides in an insupportably
friendly way, leering up, nevertheless, with apprehensive air at the
gloomy figure who walked earnest and thoughtful at his side. It reminded
one of Retzsch's representation of Faust and Wagner walking before the
gates of Leipsic. The deaf painter made comments to me in his mad way,
and bade me observe especially the broad, measured walk of Paganini.
'Does it not seem,' said he, 'as if he had the iron cross-pole still
between his legs? He has accustomed himself to that walk for ever. See,
too, in what a contemptuous, ironical way he sometimes looks at his
guide when the latter wearies him with his prosaic questions. But he
cannot separate himself from him; a bloody contract binds him to that
companion, who is no other than Satan. The ignorant multitude, indeed,
believe that this guide is the writer of comedies and anecdotes, Harris
from Hanover, whom Paganini has taken with him to manage the financial
business of his concerts. But they do not know that the devil has only
borrowed Herr George Harris's form, and that meanwhile the poor soul of
this poor man is shut up with other rubbish in a trunk at Hanover, until
the devil returns its flesh-envelope, while he perhaps will guide his
master through the world in a worthier form--namely, as a black poodle.'
"But if Paganini seemed mysterious and strange enough when I saw him
walking in bright mid-day under the green trees of the Hamburg
Jungfernstieg, how his awful bizarre appearance startled me at the
concert in the evening! The Hamburg Opera House was the scene of this
concert, and the art-loving public had flocked thither so early, and in
such numbers, that I only just succeeded in obtaining a little place in
the orchestra. Although it was post-day, I saw in the first row of boxes
the whole educated commercial world, a whole Olympus of bankers and
other millionaires, the gods of coffee and sugar by the side of their
fat goddesses, Junos of Wandrahm and Aphrodites of Dreckwall. A
religious silence reigned through the assembly. Every eye was directed
towards the stage. Every ear was making ready to listen. My neighbour,
an old furrier, took the dirty cotton out of his ears in order to drink
in better the costly sounds for which he had paid two thalers. At last a
dark figure, which seemed to have arisen from the under-world, appeared
upon the stage. It was Paganini in his black costume--the black
dress-coat and the black waistcoat of a horrible cut, such as is perhaps
prescribed by infernal etiquette at the court of Proserpina; the black
trousers anxiously hanging around the thin legs. The long arms appeared
to grow still longer, as, holding the violin in one hand and the bow in
the other, he almost touched the ground with them while displaying to
the public his unprecedented obeisances. In the angular curves of his
body there was a horrible woodenness, and also something absurdly
animal-like, that during these bows one could not help feeling a strange
desire to laugh; but his face, that appeared still more cadaverously
pale in the glare of the orchestra lights, had about it something so
imploring, so simply humble, that a sorrowful compassion repressed one's
desire to laugh. Had he learnt these complimentary bows from an
automaton or a dog? Is that the entreating gaze of one sick unto death,
or is there lurking behind it the mockery of a crafty miser? Is that a
man brought into the arena at the moment of death, like a dying
gladiator, to delight the public with his convulsions? Or is it one
risen from the dead, a vampire with a violin, who, if not the blood out
of our hearts, at any rate sucks the gold out of our pockets?
"Such questions crossed our minds while Paganini was performing his
strange bows, but all those thoughts were at once still when the
wonderful master placed his violin under his chin and began to play. As
for me, you already know my musical second-sight, my gift of seeing at
each tone a figure equivalent to the sound, and so Paganini with each
stroke of his bow brought visible forms and situations before my eyes;
he told me in melodious hieroglyphics all kinds of brilliant tales; he,
as it were, made a magic-lantern play its coloured antics before me, he
himself being chief actor. At the first stroke of his bow the stage
scenery around him had changed; he suddenly stood with his music-desk in
a cheerful room, decorated in a gay, irregular way after the Pompadour
style; everywhere little mirrors, gilded Cupids, Chinese porcelain, a
delightful chaos of ribbons, garlands of flowers, white gloves, torn
lace, false pearls, diadems of gold leaf and spangles--such tinsel as
one finds in the room of a prima-donna. Paganini's outward appearance
had also changed, and certainly most advantageously; he wore short
breeches of lily-coloured satin, a white waistcoat embroidered with
silver, and a coat of bright blue velvet with gold buttons; the hair in
little carefully curled locks bordered his face, which was young and
rosy, and gleamed with sweet tenderness as he ogled the pretty little
lady who stood near him at the music-desk, while he played the violin.
"Yes, I saw at his side a pretty young creature, in antique costume, the
white satin swelled out below the waist, making the figure still more
charmingly slender; the high raised hair was powdered and curled, and
the pretty round face shone out all the more openly with it glancing
eyes, its little rouged cheeks, its little beauty-patches, and the sweet
impertinent little nose. In her hand was a roll of white paper, and by
the movements of her lips as well as by the coquettish waving to and fro
of her little upper lip she seemed to be singing; but none of her trills
were audible to me, and only from the violin with which the young
Paganini led the lovely child could I discover what she sang, and what
he himself during her song felt in his soul. O, what melodies were
those! Like the nightingale's notes, when the fragrance of the rose
intoxicates her yearning young heart with desire, they floated in the
evening twilight. O, what melting, languid delight was that! The sounds
kissed each other, then fled away pouting, and then, laughing, clasped
each other and became one, and died away in intoxicated harmony. Yes,
the sounds carried on their merry game like butterflies, when one, in
playful provocation, will escape from another, hide behind a flower, be
overtaken at last, and then, wantonly joying with the other, fly away
into the golden sunlight. But a spider, a spider can prepare a sudden
tragical fate for such enamoured butterflies. Did the young heart
anticipate this? A melancholy sighing tone, a foreboding of some slowly
approaching misfortune, glided softly through the enrapturing melodies
that were streaming from Paganini's violin. His eyes became moist.
Adoringly he knelt down before his _Amata_. But, alas! as he bowed down
to kiss her feet, he saw under the bed a little _abbate_! I do not know
what he had against the poor man, but the Genoese became pale as death,
he seized the little fellow with furious hands, gave him sundry boxes on
the ear, as well as a considerable number of kicks, flung him outside,
drew a stiletto from its sheath, and buried it in the young beauty's
breast.
"At this moment, however, a shout of 'Bravo! Bravo!' broke out from all
sides. Hamburg's enthusiastic sons and daughters were paying the tribute
of their uproarious applause to the great artist, who had just ended the
first part of his concert, and was now bowing with even more angles and
contortions than before. And on his face the abject humility seemed to
me to have become more intense. From his eyes stared a sorrowful anxiety
like that of a poor malefactor. 'Divine!' cried my neighbour, the
furrier, as he scratched his ears; 'that piece alone was worth two
thalers.'
"When Paganini began to play again a gloom came before my eyes. The
sounds were not transformed into bright forms and colours; the master's
form was clothed in gloomy shades, out of the darkness of which his
music moaned in the most piercing tones of lamentation. Only at times,
when a little lamp that hung above cast its sorrowful light over him,
could I catch a glimpse of his pale countenance, on which the youth was
not yet extinguished. His costume was singular, in two colours, yellow
and red. Heavy chains weighed upon his feet. Behind him moved a face
whose physiognomy indicated a lusty goat-nature. And I saw at times long
hairy hands seize assistingly the strings of the violin on which
Paganini was playing. They often guided the hand which held the bow, and
then a bleating laugh of applause accompanied the melody, which gushed
from the violin ever more full of sorrow and anguish. They were melodies
which were like the song of the fallen angels who had loved the
daughters of earth, and, being exiled from the kingdom of the blessed,
sank into the under-world with faces red with shame. They were melodies
in whose bottomless shallowness glimmered neither consolation nor hope.
When the saints in heaven hear such melodies, the praise of God dies
upon their paled lips, and they cover their heads weeping. At times when
the _obligato_ goat's laugh bleated in among the melodious pangs, I
caught a glimpse in the background of a crowd of small women-figures who
nodded their odious heads with wicked wantonness. Then a rush of
agonising sounds came from the violin, and a fearful groan and a sob,
such as was never heard upon earth before, nor will be perhaps heard
upon earth again; unless in the valley of Jehoshaphat, when the colossal
trumpets of doom shall ring out, and the naked corpses shall crawl forth
from the grave to abide their fate. But the agonised violinist suddenly
made one stroke of the bow, such a mad despairing stroke, that his
chains fell rattling from him, and his mysterious assistant and the
other foul mocking forms vanished.
"At this moment my neighbour, the furrier, said, 'A pity, a pity; a
string has snapped--that comes from the constant _pizzicato_.'
"Had a string of the violin really snapped? I do not know. I only
observed the alteration in the sounds, and Paganini and his surroundings
seemed to me again suddenly changed. I could scarcely recognise him in
the monk's brown dress, which concealed rather than clothed him. With
savage countenance half hid by the cowl, waist girt with a cord, and
bare feet, Paganini stood, a solitary defiant figure, on a rocky
prominence by the sea, and played his violin. But the sea became red and
redder, and the sky grew paler, till at last the surging water looked
like bright scarlet blood, and the sky above became of a ghastly,
corpse-like pallor, and the stars came out large and threatening; and
those stars were black, black as glooming coal. But the tones of the
violin grew ever more stormy and defiant, and the eyes of the terrible
player sparkled with such a scornful lust of destruction, and his thin
lips moved with such a horrible haste, that it seemed as if he murmured
some old accursed charms to conjure the storm and loose the evil spirits
that lie imprisoned in the abysses of the sea. Often, when he stretched
his long thin arm from the broad monk's sleeve, and swept the air with
his bow, he seemed like some sorcerer who commands the elements with his
magic wand; and then there was a wild wailing from the depth of the sea,
and the horrible waves of blood sprang up so fiercely that they almost
besprinkled the pale sky and the black stars with their red foam. There
was a wailing and a shrieking and a crashing, as if the world was
falling into fragments, and ever more stubbornly the monk played his
violin. He seemed as if by the power of violent will he wished to break
the seven seals wherewith Solomon sealed the iron vessels in which he
had shut up the vanquished demons. The wise king sank those vessels in
the sea, and I seemed to hear the voices of the imprisoned spirits while
Paganini's violin growled its most wrathful bass. But at last I thought
I heard the jubilee of deliverance, and out of the red billows of blood
emerged the heads of the fettered demons: monsters of legendary horror,
crocodiles with bats' wings, snakes with stags' horns, monkeys with
shells on their heads, seals with long patriarchal beards, women's faces
with breasts in place of cheeks, green camels' heads, hermaphrodites of
incomprehensible combination--all staring with cold, crafty eyes, and
with long fin-like claws grasping at the fiddling monk. From the latter,
however, in the furious zeal of his conjuration, the cowl fell back, and
the curly hair, fluttering in the wind, fell round his head in ringlets,
like black snakes.
"So maddening was this vision that, to keep my senses, I closed my ears
and shut my eyes. When I again looked up the spectre had vanished, and I
saw the poor Genoese in his ordinary form, making his ordinary bows,
while the public applauded in the most rapturous manner.
"'That is the famous performance upon G,' remarked my neighbour; 'I
myself play the violin, and I know what it is to master that
instrument.' Fortunately, the pause was not considerable, or else the
musical furrier would certainly have engaged me in a long conversation
upon art. Paganini again quietly set his violin to his chin, and with
the first stroke of his bow the wonderful transformation of melodies
again also began. They no longer fashioned themselves so brightly and
corporeally. The melody gently developed itself, majestically billowing
and swelling like an organ chorale in a cathedral, and everything
around, stretching larger and higher, had extended into a colossal space
which, not the bodily eye, but only the eye of the spirit could seize.
In the midst of this space hovered a shining sphere, upon which,
gigantic and sublimely haughty, stood a man who played the violin. Was
that sphere the sun? I do not know. But in the man's features I
recognised Paganini, only ideally lovely, divinely glorious, with a
reconciling smile. His body was in the bloom of powerful manhood, a
bright blue garment enclosed his noble limbs, his shoulders were covered
by gleaming locks of black hair; and as he stood there, sure and secure,
a sublime divinity, and played the violin, it seemed as if the whole
creation obeyed his melodies. He was the man-planet about which the
universe moved with measured solemnity and ringing out beatific rhythms.
Those great lights, which so quietly gleaming swept around, were they
the stars of heaven, and that melodious harmony which arose from their
movements, was it the song of the spheres, of which poets and seers have
reported so many ravishing things? At times, when I endeavoured to gaze
out into the misty distance, I thought I saw pure white garments
floating around, in which colossal pilgrims passed muffled along with
white staves in their hands, and, singular to relate, the golden knob of
each staff was even one of those great lights which I had taken for
stars. These pilgrims moved in large orbit around the great performer,
the golden knobs of their staves shone even brighter at the tones of the
violin, and the chorale which resounded from their lips, and which I had
taken for the song of the spheres, was only the dying echo of those
violin tones. A holy, ineffable ardour dwelt in those sounds, which
often trembled, scarce audibly, in mysterious whisper on the water, then
swelled out again with a shuddering sweetness, like a bugle's notes
heard by moonlight, and then finally poured forth in unrestrained
jubilee, as if a thousand bards had struck their harps and raised their
voices in a song of victory. These were sounds which the ear never
hears, which only the heart can dream when it rests at night on a
beloved breast. Perhaps also the heart can grasp them in the bright
light of day, when it loses itself with joy in the curves of beauty in a
Grecian work of art...."
"Or when one has drunk one too many bottles of champagne!" broke in
suddenly a laughing voice, which woke our story-teller as from a dream.
Turning round, he saw the doctor, who, under the guidance of black
Deborah, had gently entered the room to inform himself of the effect of
his medicine on the patient.
"That sleep does not please me," he said, pointing to the sofa.
Maximilian, who, absorbed in the fancies of his own discourse, had not
observed that Maria had long since fallen asleep, bit his lip with
vexation.
"That sleep," the doctor pursued, "gives to her countenance already the
appearance of death. Does it not look like those white masks, those
plaster casts, in which we seek to preserve the features of the dead?"
"I should like," Maximilian whispered in his ear, "to have such a cast
of our friend's face. Even as a corpse she would be very lovely."
"I do not advise you to do so," answered the doctor. "Such masks spoil
the recollection of those we love. We think that in the plaster we have
procured something of their life, but it is only death that we have
caught. Beautiful regular features get something horribly rigid,
mocking, fatal, with which they terrify rather than delight us; but the
casts of those faces whose charm was of a more spiritual kind, whose
features were less regular than interesting, are absolute caricature;
for as soon as the graces of life are extinguished, the real
declinations from the line of ideal beauty are no longer compensated by
the spiritual charm. A certain enigmatic expression is common to all
these casts, which, after long contemplation, send an intolerable chill
through our souls; they look as if on the point of going a long
journey."
"Whither?" asked Maximilian, as the doctor took his arm and led him from
the room.
SECOND NIGHT.
"And why will you torment me with this horrible medicine, since I must
die so soon?"
It was Maria who, as Maximilian entered, spoke these words. The doctor
was standing before her with a medicine bottle in one hand and in the
other a little glass in which a brownish liquor frothed nauseously. "My
dear fellow," he exclaimed, turning to the new-comer, "you have just
come at the right time; try and persuade Signora to swallow these few
drops; I am in a hurry."
"I entreat you, Maria!" whispered Maximilian, in that tender voice which
one did not often observe in him, and which seemed to come from so
wounded a heart that the patient, singularly touched, took the glass in
her hand. Before she put it to her mouth, she said, smiling, "Will you
reward me with the story of Laurence?"
"All that you wish shall be done," nodded Maximilian.
The pale lady then drank the contents of the glass, half smiling, half
shuddering.
"I am in a hurry," said the doctor, drawing on his black gloves. "Lie
down quietly, Signora, and move as little as possible."
Led by black Deborah, who lighted him, he left the room. When the two
friends were left alone, they looked at each other for a long time in
silence. In the souls of both thoughts were clamorous which each strove
to hide from the other. The woman, however, suddenly seized the man's
hand and covered it with glowing kisses.
"For God's sake," said Maximilian, "do not agitate yourself so, and lie
back quietly on the sofa."
As Maria fulfilled this wish, he covered her feet carefully with a
shawl, which he previously touched with his lips. She probably noticed
him, for her eyes winked with contentment, like a happy child's.
"Was Mademoiselle Laurence very beautiful?"
"If you will not interrupt me, dear friend, and promise to listen quite
silently, I will tell you circumstantially all that you wish to know."
Smiling in response to Maria's affirmative glance, Maximilian seated
himself on the chair which was beside the sofa, and began his story:--
It is now eight years since I travelled to London to become acquainted
with the language and the people. Confound the people and their language
too! There they take a dozen monosyllables in their mouths, chew them,
gnash them, spit them out again, and they call that speaking!
Fortunately, they are by nature tolerably taciturn, and though they
always gape at us with open mouths, they spare us long conversations.
But woe unto us if we fall into the hands of a son of Albion who has
made the great tour and learnt French on the Continent. He will use the
opportunity to exercise the achieved language, and overwhelm us with
questions on all possible subjects. And scarcely is one question
answered before he comes out with another about one's age or home or
length of one's stay, and with these incessant inquiries he thinks he is
entertaining us in the most delightful manner. One of my friends at
Paris was perhaps right when he maintained that the English learn their
French conversation at the _Bureaux des Passeports_. Their talk is most
useful at table, when they carve their colossal roast beef and inquire
which cut you like, overdone or underdone, the inside or the brown
outside, fat or lean. This roast beef and this roast mutton are the only
good things they have. Heaven preserve every Christian man from their
sauces, which consist of one part of flour and two of butter, or when
the composition aims at a change, of one part of butter and two of
flour. Heaven preserve anyone also from their vegetables, which they
bring on the table cooked in water, just as God created them. Still more
horrible than the cookery of the English are their toasts and _obligato_
speeches, when the table-cloth is taken away and the ladies retire, and
instead of them just so many bottles of port wine are brought up; for
they think that that is the best way to replace the absence of the fair
sex. I say the 'fair' sex, for the English women deserve that name. They
are fair, slender creatures. Only the excessive space between the nose
and the mouth, which is found in them as frequently as in the men, has
often spoiled for me in England the most beautiful faces. This
declination from the type of beauty acts upon me still more fatally when
I see the English here in Italy, where their sparingly chiselled noses,
and the broad space of flesh that stretches from there to the mouth,
forms so much the more uncouth contrast with the faces of the Italians,
whose features have a more antique regularity, and whose noses, either
curved in the Roman way or inclined in the Grecian, degenerate into too
great a length. Very correct is the observation of a German traveller
that the English, when among the Italians, all look like statues with
the points of their noses broken off.
Yes, when one meets the English in a foreign land, the contrast brings
out their deficiencies distinctly. They are the gods of _ennui_, who
travel through all lands at post haste in shining, lacquered coaches,
and leave everywhere a grey, dark cloud of mournfulness behind them.
Their curiosity without interest, their dressed-up awkwardness, their
insolent timidity, their angular egotism, and their empty joy at all
melancholy objects, aid in this impression. In the last three weeks an
Englishman has been visible every day on the Piazza del Gran Duca,
gazing for an hour at a time at a quack sitting on a horse who draws
people's teeth. Perhaps this performance compensates the noble son of
Albion for the loss of the executions of his own dear native land. For
after boxing and cock-fights, there is no more delightful sight for a
Briton than the agony of some poor devil who has stolen a sheep, or
imitated somebody's handwriting, and is exhibited for an hour in front
of the Old Bailey before he is thrown into eternity. It is no
exaggeration to say that forgery and the theft of a sheep in that
detestable and barbarous land are punished in the same way as the most
awful crimes, as parricide and incest.[12] I, myself, led by a sad
chance, saw a man hanged for stealing a sheep, and after that I lost all
pleasure in roast mutton; the fat reminded me of the poor culprit's
white cap. Near him an Irishman was hanged for forging the signature of
a rich banker; I still see poor Paddy's death agony; he could not
understand at the assizes why he should be so hardly punished for
imitating a signature when he would allow any human being to imitate his
own! And these people talk constantly of Christianity, and never miss
church on Sunday, and flood the whole world with Bibles.
"I confess to you, Maria, that if I relished nothing in England, men or
cookery, the reason lay partly in myself. I brought over a good store of
ill-humour with me, and I was seeking amusement among a people who can
only kill their _ennui_ in the whirlpool of political and mercantile
activity. The perfection of machinery, which is applied to everything
here, and has superseded so many human functions, has for me something
dismal; this artificial life of wheels, bars, cylinders, and a thousand
little hooks, pins, and teeth which move almost passionately, fills me
with horror. I am annoyed no less by the definiteness, the precision,
the strictness, in the life of the English; for just as the machines in
England seem to have the perfection of men, so the men seem like
machines. Yes, wood, iron, and brass seem to have usurped the human mind
there, and to have gone almost mad from fulness of mind, while the
mindless man, like a hollow ghost, exercises his ordinary duties in a
machine-like fashion; at the appointed moment eats beef-steaks, makes
parliamentary speeches, trims his nails, mounts the stage-coach, or
hangs himself.
"You can well imagine how my dissatisfaction increased in this country.
Nothing, however, equalled the gloomy mood which once came over me as I
stood on Waterloo Bridge towards evening and gazed on the water. It
seemed to me as if my soul was mirrored there, and was gazing up out of
the water at me with all its scars. The most sorrowful stories came to
my recollection. I thought of the rose which was always watered with
vinegar, and so lost its sweet fragrance and faded early. I thought of
the strayed butterfly which a naturalist, who ascended Mount Blanc, saw
fluttering amid the ice. I thought of the tame monkey who was so
familiar with men, played with them, eat with them, but once at table
recognised in the roast meat on the dish her own little monkey baby,
quickly seized it, and hastened to the woods, never more to be seen
among her human friends. Ah, I felt so sorrowful that the hot tears
started from my eyes. My tears fell down into the Thames, and floated on
to the great sea which has swallowed so many tears without noticing
them.
"At this moment it happened that a singular music awoke me from my
gloomy dreams, and looking round, I saw on the bank a crowd of people,
who seemed to have formed a circle round some amusing display. I drew
nearer, and saw a family of performers, consisting of the following four
persons:--
"Firstly, a short, thick-set woman, dressed entirely in black, who had a
very little head and a very large, protuberant belly. Upon this belly
was hung an immense drum, upon which she drummed away most unmercifully.
"Secondly, a dwarf, who wore an embroidered coat like an old French
marquis. He had a large powdered head, but for the rest, had very thin
contemptible limbs, and danced to and fro striking the triangle.
"Thirdly, a young girl of about fifteen years, who wore a short
close-fitting jacket of blue-striped silk, and broad pantaloons also
with blue stripes. She was an ærially-made figure. The face was of
Grecian loveliness. A straight nose, sweet lips turned outwards, a
dreamy, tender, rounded chin, the colour a sunny yellow, the hair of a
gleaming black, wound round the brows. So she stood, slender and
serious; yes, ill-humoured, and gazed upon the fourth person of the
company, who was just then engaged in his performance.
"This fourth person was a learned dog, a very hopeful poodle, and to the
great delight of the English public, he had just put together from some
wooden letters before him, the name of the Duke of Wellington, and
joined to it a very flattering word--namely, "Hero." Since the dog, as
one might conclude from his witty expression, was no English beast, but
had, like the other three persons, come from France, the sons of Albion
rejoiced that their great general had at least obtained from the French
dog that recognition which the other French creatures had so
disgracefully denied.
"In fact, this company consisted of French people, and the dwarf, who
now announced himself as Monsieur Turlutu, began to bluster in French,
and with such vehement gestures, that the poor English opened their
mouths and noses still wider than usual. Often, after a long phrase, he
crowed like a cock, and these cock-a-doodle-doos, as also the names of
many emperors, kings, and princes which he mixed up with his discourse,
were probably the only sounds the poor spectators understood. Those
emperors, kings, and princes he extolled as his patrons and friends.
When only a boy of eight years, so he assured us, he had had an
interview with his most sacred majesty Louis XVI., who also, later on,
always asked his advice on weighty matters. He escaped the storms of the
Revolution, like many others, by flight, and he only returned under the
empire to his beloved country to take part in the glory of the great
nation. Napoleon, he said, never loved him, whereas His Holiness Pope
Pius VII. almost idolised him. The Emperor Alexander gave him bon-bons,
and the Princess Wilhelm von Kyritz always placed him on her lap. His
Highness Duke Charles of Brunswick often allowed him to ride on his
dogs, and his majesty King Ludwig of Bavaria read to him his sublime
poems. The Princes of Reuss-Schleiz-Kreuz and of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen
loved him as a brother, and always smoked the same pipe with him. Yes,
from childhood up, he said, he had lived among sovereigns; the present
monarchs, had, as it were, grown up with him; he looked upon them as
equals, and he felt deep sorrow every time that one of them passed from
the scene of life. After these solemn words he crowed like a cock.
"Monsieur Turlutu was, in fact, one of the most curious dwarfs I ever
saw; his wrinkled old face formed such a droll contrast with his scanty,
childish, little body, and his whole person again contrasted as
comically with his performances. He threw himself into the most
sprightly postures, and with thrusts of an inhumanly long rapier he
transfixed the air, affirming all the while, on his honour, that no one
could parry this _quarte_ or that _tierce_; that, on the contrary, his
own defence could be broken through by no mortal man, and he challenged
anyone to engage with him in the noble art. After the dwarf had carried
this performance on for some time, and found no one who would resolve on
open conflict with him, he bowed with old French grace, gave thanks for
the applause which was bestowed upon him, and took the liberty of
announcing to the very honourable public the most extraordinary
performance ever displayed upon English ground. 'You see this person,'
he exclaimed, after drawing on dirty kid gloves, and leading the young
girl of the company with respectful gallantry into the middle of the
circle--'this is Mademoiselle Laurence, the only daughter of the
honourable Christian lady whom you see there with the drum, and who
still wears mourning for the loss of her dearly-beloved husband, the
greatest ventriloquist in Europe! Mademoiselle Laurence will now dance!
Now, admire the dancing of Mademoiselle Laurence.' After these words, he
again crowed like a cock.
"The young girl appeared to care not the least either for these words or
the gaze of the spectators; ill-humouredly absorbed in herself, she
waited till the dwarf had spread a large carpet at her feet, and under
the guidance of the great drum had again begun to play his triangle. It
was strange music, a mixture of awkward humming and a delightful
tinkling, and I caught a pathetic, foolish, melancholy, bold, bizarre
melody of, nevertheless, the most singular simplicity. But I soon forgot
the music when the young girl began to dance.
"Dance and dancer powerfully seized my attention. It was not the
classical dance which we still see in our great ballets, where, just as
in classical tragedy, only sprawling unities and artificialities reign;
it was not those danced Alexandrines, those declamatory springs, those
antithetic capers, that noble emotion which pirouets round on one foot,
so that one sees nothing except heaven and petticoats, ideality and
lies! There is, indeed, nothing so odious to me as the ballet at the
Paris Grand Opera, where the traditions of that classical dance are
retained in their purest forms, while in the rest of the arts, in
poetry, in music, and in painting, the French have overturned the
classical system. It will be, however, difficult for them to bring about
a similar revolution in the art of dancing; they will need, as in their
political revolution, to have recourse to terrorism, and guillotine the
legs of the obdurate dancers. Mademoiselle Laurence was no great dancer;
the joints of her feet were not very supple, her legs were not exercised
in all possible dislocations, she understood nothing of the art of
dancing as Madame Vestris teaches it, but she danced as nature commands
to dance: her whole being was in harmony with her _pas_; not only her
feet but her whole body danced; her face danced--she was often pale,
almost deathly pale, her eyes opened to an almost ghostly size, desire
and pain quivered on her lips, and her black hair, which enclosed her
brows in smooth oval, moved like a pair of fluttering wings. It was,
indeed, no classical dance, but also no romantic dance, in the sense of
a young Frenchman of the Eugène Renduel school. This dance had nothing
mediæval, nor Venetian, nor hump-backed, nor Macabrian about it; there
was neither moonshine nor incest in it. It was a dance which did not
seek to answer by outward movements, but the outward movements seemed
words of a strange speech which strove to express strange things. But
what did this dance express? I could not understand, however
passionately this speech uttered itself. I only guessed sometimes that
it spoke of something intensely sorrowful. I, who so easily seized the
meaning of all appearances, was nevertheless unable to solve this danced
riddle; and that I groped in vain for the sense of it was partly the
fault of the music, which certainly pointed intentionally to false
roads, cunningly sought to lead me astray, and always disturbed me.
Monsieur Turlutu's triangle often tittered maliciously. Madame, however,
beat upon her drum so wrathfully, that her face glowed forth from the
black cloud of cap like a blood-red northern light.
"Long after the troop had passed away, I remained standing at the same
spot, considering what that dance might signify. Was it a national dance
of the south of France or of Spain? In such a dance might appear the
impetuosity with which the dancer swung her little body to and fro, and
the wildness with which she often threw her head backward in the bold
way of those Bacchantes whom we gaze at with amazement on ancient vases.
There was an intoxicated absence of will about her dance, something
gloomy and inevitable; it was like the dance of fate. Or was it a
fragment of some venerable forgotten pantomime? Or was she dancing her
personal history? Often the girl bent down to the earth with a listening
ear, as though she heard a voice which spoke up to her. She trembled
then like an aspen leaf, bent suddenly to another side, went through her
maddest, most unrestrained leaps, then again bent her ear to the earth,
listened more anxiously than before, nodded her head, became red and
pale by turns, shuddered, stood for a while stiffly upright as if
benumbed, and made finally a movement as one who washes his hands. Was
it blood that so long and with such care, such horrible care, she was
washing from her hands? She threw therewith a sideward glance so
imploring, so full of entreaty, so soul-dissolving--and that glance fell
by chance upon me.
"All the following night I was thinking of that glance, of that dance,
of that strange accompaniment; and as, on the following day, I sauntered
as usual through the streets of London, I longed to meet the pretty
dancer again, and I constantly pricked my ears in case I might somewhere
hear the music of the drum and the triangle. I had at last found
something in London which interested me, and I no longer wandered
aimless through its yawning streets.
"I had just come out of the Tower, after carefully examining the axe
which cut off Anne Bullen's head, as well as the English crown-diamonds
and the lions, when in front of the Tower I caught a glimpse, amid a
crowd, of Madame with the great drum, and heard Monsieur Turlutu crowing
like a cock. The learned dog again scraped together the heroism of the
Duke of Wellington, the dwarf again showed his not-to-be-parried
_tierces_ and _quartes_, and Mademoiselle Laurence again began her
wondrous dance. There were again the same enigmatic movements, the same
speech which I could not understand, the same impetuous throwing back of
the beautiful head, the same leaning down to the earth, the anguish
which sought to soothe itself by ever madder leaps, and again the
listening ear bent to the earth, the trembling, the pallor, the benumbed
stiffness; then also the fearful mysterious washing of the hands, and at
last the imploring side-glance, which rested upon me this time still
longer than before.
"Yes, women, and young girls as well as women, immediately observe when
they have excited the attention of a man. Although Mademoiselle
Laurence, when she was not dancing, gazed immovable and ill-humouredly
before her, and while she was dancing often cast only one glance on the
public, it was now no mere chance that this glance fell upon me; and the
oftener I saw her dance, the more significantly it gleamed, but also the
more incomprehensibly. I was fascinated by this glance, and for three
weeks, from morning till evening, I wandered about the streets of
London, always remaining wherever Mademoiselle Laurence danced. In spite
of the greatest confusion of sounds, I could catch the tones of the drum
and the triangle at the farthest distance; and Monsieur Turlutu, as soon
as he saw me hastening near, raised his most friendly crow. Although I
never spoke a word to him or to Mademoiselle Laurence, or to madame, or
to the learned dog, I seemed at last as if I belonged to the company.
When Monsieur Turlutu made a collection, he always behaved with the most
delicate tact as he drew near me, and looked in the opposite direction
when I put a small coin in his little three-cornered hat. His demeanour
was indeed most distinguished; he reminded one of the good manners of
the past; one could tell that the little man had grown up with
monarchs, and all the stranger was it when at times, altogether
forgetting his dignity, he crowed like a cock.
"I cannot describe to you how vexed I became, when, after seeking for
three days in vain for the little company through all the streets of
London, I was forced to conclude that they had left the town. _Ennui_
again took me in its leaden arms, and again closed my heart. At last I
could endure it no longer; I said farewell to the four estates of the
realm--_i.e._, the mob, the blackguards, the gentlemen, and the
fashionables--and travelled back again to civilised _terra firma_, where
I knelt in adoration before the white apron of the first cook I met.
Here once more I could sit down to dinner like a reasonable being, and
refresh my soul by gazing at good-natured, unselfish faces. But I could
not forget Mademoiselle Laurence; she danced in my memory for a long
time; at solitary hours I often reflected over the lovely child's
enigmatic pantomime, especially over the listening ear bent to the
earth. It was a long time, too, before the romantic melodies of the
triangle and drum died away in my memory."
"And is that the whole story?" cried out Maria, all at once, starting up
eagerly.
Maximilian pressed her softly down, placed his finger significantly to
his lips, and whispered, "Still! still! do not talk! Lie down, good and
quiet, and I will tell you the rest of the story. Only on no account
interrupt me."
Leaning slowly back in his chair, Maximilian pursued the story:--
"Five years afterwards I came for the first time to Paris, and at a very
noteworthy period. The French had just performed their July revolution,
and the whole world was applauding. This piece was not so horrible as
the earlier tragedies of the Republic and the Empire. Only some
thousand corpses remained upon the stage. The political Romanticists
were not very contented, and announced a new piece in which more blood
should flow, and the executioner have more to do.
"Paris delighted me by the cheerfulness which prevails there, and which
exercises its influence over the most sombre minds. Singular! Paris is
the stage on which the greatest tragedies of the world's history are
performed--tragedies at the recollection of which hearts tremble and
eyes become moist in the most distant lands; but to the spectator of
these tragedies it happens as it happened to me once at the Porte
Saint-Martin Theatre, when I went to see the _Tour de Nesle_ performed.
I found myself sitting behind a lady who wore a hat of rose-red gauze,
and this hat was so broad that it obstructed the whole of my view of the
stage, and I saw all the tragedy only through the red gauze of this hat,
and all the horror of the _Tour de Nesle_ appeared in the most cheerful
rose-light. Yes, there is such a rose-light in Paris, which makes all
tragedies cheerful to the near spectator, so that his enjoyment of life
is not spoilt there. In the same way all the terrible things that one
may bring in his own heart to Paris there lose their tormenting horror.
Sorrows are singularly soothed. In this air of Paris all wounds are
healed quicker than anywhere else; there is in this air something as
generous, as kind, as amiable as in the people themselves.
"What most pleased me in the people of Paris was their polite bearing
and distinguished air. Sweet pine-apple perfume of politeness! how
beneficently thou refreshedst my sick soul, which had swallowed down in
Germany so much tobacco smoke, sauerkraut odour, and coarseness! The
simple words of apology of a Frenchman, who, on the day of my arrival,
only gently pushed against me, rang in my ears like the melodies of
Rossini. I was almost terrified at such sweet politeness, I, who was
accustomed to German clownish digs in the ribs without apology. During
the first week of my stay in Paris I several times deliberately sought
to be jostled, simply to delight myself with this music of apology. But
the French people has for me a certain touch of nobility, not only on
account of its politeness, but also on account of its language. For, as
you know, with us in the north the French language is one of the
attributes of high birth; from childhood I had associated the idea of
speaking French with nobility. And a Parisian market-woman spoke better
French than a German canoness with sixty-four ancestors.
"On account of this language, which lends a distinguished bearing to it,
the French people has in my eyes something delightfully fabulous. This
originated in another reminiscence of my childhood. The first book in
which I learnt French was the _Fables_ of La Fontaine; its naïve,
sensible manner of speech impressed itself on my recollection
ineffaceably, and as I now came to Paris and heard French spoken
everywhere, I was constantly reminded of La Fontaine's _Fables_, I
constantly imagined I was hearing the well-known animal voices; now the
lion spoke, then the wolf, then the lamb, or the stork, or the dove, not
seldom, I thought, I caught the voice of the fox, and often the words
awoke in my memory--'Eh! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau! Que vous êtes
joli! que vous me semblez beau!'
"Such reminiscences, however, awoke in my soul still oftener when at
Paris I ascended to that higher region which is called 'the world.' This
was even that world which gave up to the happy La Fontaine the types of
his animal characters. The winter season began soon after my arrival at
Paris, and I took part in the _salon_ life in which that world more or
less joyfully moves. What struck me as most interesting in this world
was not so much the equality of good manners which reigned there as the
variety of its ingredients. Often when I gazed round at the people
gathered peacefully together in a large drawing-room I thought I was in
one of those curiosity shops where relics of all ages lie beside each
other, a Greek Apollo, a Chinese pagoda, a Mexican Vizlipuzli by a
Gothic Ecce-Homo, Egyptian idols with little dogs' heads, holy
caricatures made of wood, of ivory, of metal, and so on. There I saw old
mousquetaires who had danced with Marie Antoinette, republicans who were
deified in the National Assembly, Montagnards without spot and without
mercy, former men of the Directory who were throned in the Luxembourg,
great dignitaries of the Empire, before whom all Europe had trembled,
ruling Jesuits of the Restoration--in short, mere faded, mutilated
deities of olden times, in whom nobody believed any longer. The names
seem to recoil from each other, but the men one may see standing
peaceful and friendly together like the antiquities in the shops of the
Quai Voltaire. In German countries, where the passions are not so easily
disciplined, for such a heterogeneous mass of persons to live together
in society would be quite impossible. And with us in the cold north the
vivacity of speech is not so strong as in warmer France, where the
greatest enemies, if they meet one another in a _salon_, cannot long
observe a gloomy silence. In France, also, the desire to please is so
great that people zealously strive to please not only their friends, but
also their enemies. There is constant drapery and affectation, and the
women here have the delightful trouble of excelling the men in coquetry;
but they succeed, nevertheless.
"I do not mean anything wicked by this observation, certainly not as
regards the French ladies, and least of all as regards the Parisian
ladies. I am their greatest adorer, and I adore them on account of their
failings still more than on account of their virtues. I know nothing
more excellent than the legend that the Parisian women come into the
world with all possible failings, but that a kind fairy has mercy upon
them and lends to each fault a spell by which it works as a charm. That
kind fairy is Grace! Are the Parisian women beautiful? Who can say? Who
can see through all the intrigues of the toilet? Who can decipher
whether what the tulle betrays is genuine, or what the swelling silk
displays, false? And when the eye succeeds in piercing the shell, and we
are at the point of finding the kernel, we discover that it is enclosed
in a new shell, and after this again in another, and with this ceaseless
change of fashions they mock masculine acuteness. Are their faces
beautiful? Even this is difficult to find out. For all their features
are in constant movement; every Parisian woman has a thousand faces,
each more laughing, _spirituel_, gracious than the other, and puts to
confusion those who seek to choose the loveliest face among them, or at
all events, who wishes to guess which is the true face. Are their eyes
large? What do I know! We cease investigating the calibre of the canon
when the ball carries off our heads. And when their eyes do not hit,
they at least blind us with the flash, and we are glad enough to get out
of range. Is the space between nose and mouth broad or narrow? It is
often broad when they wrinkle up their noses; it is often narrow when
they give their upper lips an insolent little pout. Have they large or
small mouths? Who can say where the mouth leaves off and where the smile
begins? In order to give a just opinion, both the observer and the
object of observation must be in a state of rest. But who can be quiet
near a Parisian, and what Parisian woman is ever quiet? There are people
who think that they can observe a butterfly quite accurately when they
have stuck it on to paper with a pin. That is as foolish as it is cruel.
The motionless transfixed butterfly is a butterfly no longer. One must
observe the butterfly in his antics round the flowers, and one must
observe the Parisian woman, not at home, when she is made fast by a pin
through her breast, but in the _salon_, at soirées, and balls, when she
flutters about with her wings of gauze and silk beneath the gleaming
chandeliers. Then is revealed in her an impetuous passion for life, a
longing after a sweet stupor, a thirsting for intoxication, by which
means she becomes almost horribly beautiful, and wins a charm which at
the same time delights and terrifies our souls.
"This thirst to enjoy life, as if death was about to snatch them from
the bubbling spring of enjoyment, or as if that spring was about to
cease flowing, this haste, this fury, this madness of the Parisian
women, especially as it shows itself at balls, reminds me always of the
legend of the dead dancing-girls which we call Willis. These are young
brides who died before the wedding-day, and the unsatisfied desire of
dancing is preserved so powerfully in their hearts that they come every
night out of their graves, assemble in bands on the high roads, and give
themselves up at midnight to the wildest dances. Dressed in their
wedding clothes, with garlands on their heads, and glittering rings on
their pale hands, laughing horribly, irresistibly lovely, the Willis
dance in the moonshine, and they dance ever more madly the more they
feel that the hour of dancing, which has been granted them, is coming to
an end, and that they must again descend to their cold graves.
"At a soirée once in the Chaussée d'Antin this idea moved my soul
profoundly. It was a brilliant soirée, and none of the customary
ingredients of social pleasure were wanting: enough light to illuminate
us, enough mirrors to see ourselves in, enough people to heat us with
the squeeze, enough _eau sucrée_ to cool us. They began with music.
Franz Liszt allowed himself to be drawn to the piano, pushed his hair
over his genial brows, and waged one of his most brilliant battles. The
keys seemed to bleed. If I am not mistaken, he played a passage from the
_Palingenesis_ of Ballanche, whose ideas he was translating into music,
which was very useful for those who cannot read the works of that famous
writer in the original. Afterwards he played Berlioz's _La Marche au
Supplice_, that excellent piece which the young musician, if I am not
mistaken, composed on the morning of his wedding-day. Throughout the
room paled faces, heaving bosoms, highly-drawn breath during the pauses,
were succeeded at last by stormy applause. The women are always as it
were intoxicated when Liszt plays anything for them. The Willis of the
_salon_ now gave themselves up to dancing with frantic delight, and I
had difficulty in getting out of this confusion and saving myself in the
adjoining room. Here card-playing was going on, and several ladies were
resting in large chairs, looking on at the players, or at all events
pretending to interest themselves in the play. As I passed one of these
ladies, and my arm touched her dress, I felt from hand to shoulder a
slight quiver as from a very weak electric shock. A similar shock, but
of the greatest force, went through my whole heart when I saw the lady's
countenance. Was it she, or was it not? It was the same face, with the
form and sunny colour of an antique, only it was no longer so marble
pure and marble smooth as formerly. The acute observer might perceive
on brow and cheeks several little flaws, perhaps small-pox marks, which
here exactly resembled those delicate weather-flecks which may be seen
on the faces of statues that have been standing some time in the rain.
It was the same black hair which covered the brows in smooth oval like a
raven's wings. As, however, her eyes met mine, and with that well-known
side-glance, whose swift lightning had always shot so enigmatically
through my soul, I doubted no longer--it was Mademoiselle Laurence.
"Stretched in a distinguished way on her chair, with a bouquet in one
hand and the other placed on the arm of the chair, Mademoiselle Laurence
sat not far from one of the tables, and seemed to devote her whole
attention to the cards. Her dress of white satin was elegant and
distinguished, but still quite simple. Except bracelets and breast-pins
of pearl, she wore no jewels. An abundance of lace covered the youthful
bosom, covered it almost puritanically up to the neck, and in this
simplicity and modesty of clothing she formed a lovely and touching
contrast with some elderly ladies, gaily adorned and glistening with
diamonds, who sat near her, and displayed to view the ruins of former
magnificence, the place where once Troy stood, in a state of melancholy
nakedness. She had the same wondrous loveliness, the same enrapturing
look of ill-humour, and I was irresistibly drawn towards her, till at
last I stood behind her chair, burning with desire to speak to her, and
yet held back by a trembling delicacy.
"I must have been standing silently behind her for some time, when she
suddenly drew a flower from her bouquet and, without looking round, held
it to me over her shoulder. The perfume of that flower was strong, and
it exercised a peculiar enchantment over me. I felt myself freed from
all social formality, and I seemed in a dream, where one does and says
all kinds of things at which oneself wonders, and when one's words have
an altogether childish, familiar, and simple character. Quiet,
indifferent, negligent, as one does with old friends, I leant over the
arm of the chair, and whispered in the youthful lady's ear,
'Mademoiselle Laurence, where is, then, the mother with the drum?'
'She is dead,' answered she, in just the same tone--as quiet,
indifferent, negligent.
"After a short pause, I again leant over the arm of the chair, and
whispered in the youthful lady's ear, 'Mademoiselle Laurence, where is
the learned dog?'
"'He has run away into the wide world,' she answered, in the same quiet,
indifferent, negligent tone.
"And again, after a short pause, I leant over the arm of the chair, and
whispered in the youthful lady's ear, 'Mademoiselle Laurence, where,
then, is Monsieur Turlutu, the dwarf?'
"'He is among the giants in the Boulevard du Temple,' she answered. She
had hardly spoken these words, and in just the same quiet, indifferent,
negligent tone, when a serious old man, with a tall military figure,
came towards her and announced that her carriage was ready. Slowly
rising from her seat, she leant upon his arm, and without casting one
glance back to me, left the company.
"When I inquired of the lady of the house, who had been standing all the
evening at the entrance of the principal saloon, presenting her smiles
to those who came or went, the name of the young lady who had just gone
out with the old man, she laughed gaily in my face, and exclaimed--'Mon
Dieu! who can know everybody! I know her as little.'--She stopped, for
she was about to say as little as myself, whom she had that evening
seen for the first time. 'Perhaps,' I remarked, 'your husband can give
me some information; where shall I find him?'
"'At the hunt at Saint Germain,' answered the lady, with a yet louder
laugh; 'he went early yesterday morning, and will return to-morrow
evening. But wait. I know somebody who has been talking a good deal with
the lady you inquire after; I do not know his name, but you can easily
find him out by inquiring after the young man whom M. Casimir Perrier
kicked, I don't know where.'
"Although it is rather difficult to recognise anyone by the fact of his
having received a kick from a minister, I soon discovered my man, and I
desired from him a more intimate knowledge of the singular creature who
had so interested me, and whom I could describe to him clearly enough.
'Yes,' said the young man, 'I know her very well; I have spoken to her
at several soirées'--and he repeated to me a mass of meaningless things
with which he had entertained her. What especially surprised him was her
earnest look whenever he said anything complimentary to her. He also
wondered not a little that she always declined his invitation to a
_contre danse_, assuring him that she was unable to dance. Of name and
condition he knew nothing. And nobody, as much as I inquired, could give
me any more distinct information on the subject. In vain I ran through
all possible soirées; nowhere could I find Mademoiselle Laurence."
"And that is the whole story?" exclaimed Maria, as she slowly turned
round and yawned sleepily--"that is the whole memorable story? And you
have never again seen either Mademoiselle Laurence, or the mother with
the drum, or the dwarf Turlutu, or the learned dog?"
"Remain lying still," replied Maximilian. "I have seen them all again,
even the learned dog. The poor rascal was certainly in a very sad state
of necessity when I came across him at Paris. It was in the Quartier
Latin. I had just passed the Sorbonne, when out of its gates rushed a
dog, and behind him with sticks a dozen students, who were soon joined
by two dozen old women, who all cried in chorus, 'The dog is mad!' The
animal looked almost human in his death agony, tears flowed from his
eyes, and as he ran panting by and lifted his moist glance towards me, I
recognised my old friend the learned dog, the Duke of Wellington's
panegyrist, who had once filled the people of England with wonderment.
Was he really mad? Had he been driven mad by mere learning while
pursuing his studies in the Quartier Latin? Or had he in the Sorbonne,
by his growling and scratching, marked his disapprobation of the
puffed-up charlatanry of some professor, who sought to free himself from
his unfavourable hearer by proclaiming him to be mad? And, alas! the
youths are not long investigating whether it is the wounded conceit of
learning or envy that first called out, 'The dog is mad!' and they
strike with their thoughtless sticks, and the old women are ready with
their howling, and cry down the voice of innocence and reason. My poor
friend must yield; before my eyes he was miserably struck to death,
insulted, and at last thrown on a dunghill! Poor martyr of learning!
"Not much more pleasant was the condition of the dwarf, Monsieur
Turlutu, when I found him on the Boulevard du Temple. Mademoiselle
Laurence had certainly told me that he had gone there, but whether I had
not thought of actually seeing him there, or that the crowd had hindered
me, it was some time before I noted the place where the giants were to
be seen. When I entered I found two tall fellows who lay idly on
benches, and quickly sprang up and placed themselves in giant posture
before me. They were, in truth, not as large as they boasted on the
placards hanging outside. These two long fellows, who were dressed in
pink _tricots_, had very black, perhaps false, whiskers, and brandished
hollow wooden clubs over their heads. When I asked after the dwarf, whom
the placards also announced, they replied that for four weeks he had not
been exhibited on account of his increasing illness--that I could see
him, however, on paying double the price of admission. How willingly one
pays double admission-fee to see a friend again! And, alas, this was a
friend who lay on his death-bed. This death-bed was properly a cradle,
and the poor dwarf lay inside with his yellow shrivelled old face. A
little girl of some fourteen years sat beside him, and rocked the cradle
with her foot, and sang in a laughing, roguish tone--
"'Sleep, little Turlutu, sleep!'
"When the little fellow saw me, he opened his glassy pale eyes as wide
as possible, and a melancholy smile played on his white lips; he seemed
to recognise me again, stretched his shrunken little hand towards me,
and gently rattled--'Old friend!'
"It was, in fact, a sad condition in which I found the man who, in his
eighth year, had had a long conversation with Louis XVI., whom the Czar
Alexander had fed with bon-bons, whom the Princess von Kyritz had taken
on her lap, who had ridden on the Duke of Brunswick's dogs, whom the
King of Bavaria had read his poems to, who had smoked out of the same
pipe with German princes, whom the Pope had idolised, and Napoleon never
loved! This last circumstance troubled him on his death-bed, or, as I
said, in his death-cradle, and he wept over the tragic fate of the great
Emperor, who had never loved him, but who died in such a sorrowful way
at Saint Helena--'just as I am dying,' he added, 'solitary,
misunderstood, forsaken by all kings and princes, a caricature of former
magnificence!'
"Although I could not rightly understand how a dwarf who died among
giants could compare himself with a giant who died among dwarfs, I was
nevertheless moved by poor Turlutu's words and by his forsaken condition
at the last moment. I could not help expressing my astonishment that
Mademoiselle Laurence, who was now so grand, gave herself no trouble
about him. I had scarcely uttered this name than the dwarf in the cradle
was seized by the most fearful spasms, and he whispered with his white
lips--'Ungrateful child! that I brought up, that I would elevate to be
my wife, that I taught to move and behave among the great of this world,
how to smile, how to bow at court, how to act--you have used my
instructions well, and you are now a great lady, and you have a coach
and footmen, and plenty of money, and plenty of pride, and no heart. You
leave me here to die--to die alone and in misery, as Napoleon died at
Saint Helena! O Napoleon! you never loved me.' What he added I could not
catch. He raised his head, made some movements with his hand, as if
fighting against somebody, perhaps against death. But that is an
opponent whose scythe neither a Napoleon nor a Turlutu can withstand. No
skill in fencing avails here. Faint, as if overcome, the dwarf let his
head sink down again, looked at me a long time with an indescribable,
ghostly stare, suddenly crowed like a cock, and expired.
"His death troubled me the more since he had been unable to give me any
more exact information about Mademoiselle Laurence. Where should I now
find her again? I was not in love with her, nor did I feel my former
inclination towards her; yet a mysterious desire spurred me to seek her
everywhere. When I entered a drawing-room and examined the company, and
could not find the well-known face, I soon lost all repose and was
driven away. Reflecting over this feeling, I stood one day at a remote
entrance to the Great Opera, waiting for a carriage, and waiting with
considerable annoyance, for it was raining very fast. But no carriage
came, or, rather, only carriages which belonged to other people, who
placed themselves comfortably inside, and the place around me became
gradually solitary. "Then you must come with me," said at last a lady,
who, concealed in her black mantilla, had stood for a little time near
me, and was now on the point of getting into a carriage. The voice sent
a quiver through my heart, the well-known side-glance again exercised
its charm, and I was again as in a dream on finding myself beside
Mademoiselle Laurence in a cosy warm carriage. We did not speak, indeed
we could not have understood each other, as the carriage rattled noisily
through the streets of Paris for a long time, till it stopped at last
before a great gateway.
"Servants in gorgeous livery lighted us up the steps and through a
succession of rooms. A lady's-maid met us with sleepy face, and
stammering many excuses, said that there was only a fire in the red
room. Motioning to the woman to go away, Laurence said, with a laugh,
'Chance is leading you a long way to-night; there is only a fire in my
bed-room.'
"In this bed-room, in which we soon found ourselves alone, blazed a
large open fire, which was the pleasanter since the room was of immense
size and height. This large sleeping-room, which rather deserved the
name of a sleeping-hall, had a similarly desolate appearance. Furniture
and decoration, all bore the impress of a time whose brilliance seems to
us now so bedimmed, its sublimity so _jejune_, that its remains raise a
certain dislike within us, if not indeed a smile. I speak of the time of
the Empire, of the time of the golden eagle, of high-flying plumes, of
Greek coiffures, of glory, of great drum-majors, of military masses, of
official immortality (conferred by the _Moniteur_), of continental
coffee prepared from chickory, of bad sugar manufactured from beet root,
and of princes and dukes made from nothing at all. But it had its charm,
though, that time of pathetic materialism. Talma declaimed, Gros
painted, Bigottini danced, Grassini sang, Maury preached, Rovigo had the
police, the Emperor read Ossian, Pauline Borghese let herself be moulded
as Venus, and quite naked too,[13] for the room was well warmed, like
the bed-room in which I found myself with Mademoiselle Laurence.
"We sat by the fire chatting familiarly, and she told me with a sigh
that she was married to a Buonopartist hero, who enlivened her every
evening before going to bed with a description of one of his battles; a
few days ago, before going away, he had fought for her the battle of
Jena; he was very ill, and with difficulty survived the Prussian
campaign. When I asked her how long her father had been dead, she
laughed, and confessed that she had never known a father, and that her
so-called mother had never been married.
"'Not married!' I exclaimed; 'I saw her myself in London in the deepest
mourning on account of her husband's death!'
"'Oh,' replied Laurence, 'for twelve years she had always dressed
herself in black, to excite people's compassion as an unhappy widow, as
well as to allure any donkey desirous of marrying, for she hoped to
reach the haven of marriage quicker under black flags. But only death
had pity on her, and she died of a hæmorrhage. I never loved her, for
she always, gave me plenty of beating and little to eat. I should have
died of starvation if Monsieur Turlutu had not often given me a little
piece of bread on the sly; but the dwarf wished to marry me on that
account, and when his hopes were frustrated he made common cause with my
mother--I say 'mother' from custom--and both agreed to torment me. They
always said that I was a superfluous creature, and that the learned dog
was worth a thousand times more than I with my bad dancing. And then
they praised the dog at my expense, extolled him to the skies, caressed
him, fed him with cakes, and threw me the crumbs. The dog, they said,
was their best support; he delighted the public, who were not in the
least interested in me; the dog must support me by his work. I ate the
bread of the dog. The cursed dog!'
"'Oh, do not curse him any more,' I broke in upon her passion; 'he is
dead now; I saw him die.'
"'Is the beast dead?' exclaimed Laurence, springing up with a red glow
of joy over her face.
"'And the dwarf is also dead,' I added.
"'Monsieur Turlutu?' cried Laurence, also with joy. But this joy
gradually died from her face, and in a milder, almost melancholy tone,
she added, 'Poor Turlutu!'
"When I told her, without any concealment, that the dwarf had complained
of her very bitterly on his death-bed, she became passionately
disturbed, and assured me, with many protestations, that she had had the
foresight to care for him as well as possible, that she had offered him
a pension if he would go and live quietly somewhere in the country. 'But
ambitious as he was,' Laurence pursued, "he wished to stay in Paris, and
even to live at my house; he could then, he thought, through my
interposition, renew his connections in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and
again take his former brilliant position in society. When I flatly
refused him this, he told me that I was a cursed ghost, a vampyre, a
death-child."
"Laurence suddenly stopped, shuddered violently, and said at last, with
a deep sigh, 'Ah, I wish they had left me in the grave with my mother!'
As I pressed her to explain these mysterious words, a stream of tears
flowed from her eyes, and, trembling and sobbing, she confessed to me
that the black woman with the drum, who gave herself out as her mother,
had once herself told her that the rumour which went about concerning
her birth was no mere story. 'For in the town where we lived,' pursued
Laurence, 'they always called me the death-child! The old woman
maintained that I was the daughter of a Count who lived there, and who
constantly ill-treated his wife, and when she died buried her very
magnificently; she was, however, near her confinement, and only
apparently dead, and when some churchyard thieves opened the grave to
strip the richly-adorned corpse, they found the countess alive and in
child-birth; and as she expired immediately after delivery, the thieves
placed her again quietly in her grave, took away the child, and gave it
to the receiver of the stolen goods, the great ventriloquist's
sweetheart, to be brought up. This poor child, who had been buried
before it was born, was everywhere called the death-child. Ah! you
cannot understand how much sorrow I felt even as a little girl when
anyone called me by that name. While the great ventriloquist was alive,
whenever he was discontented with me, he always called out, 'Cursed
death-child, I wish you had never been taken out of the grave!' He was a
skilful ventriloquist, and could so modulate his voice that it seemed to
come up out of the earth, and he told me that that was the voice of my
dead mother telling me her fate. He might well know that horrible fate,
for he had been a valet of the Count's. He took a cruel pleasure in the
horrible fright which I, poor little girl, received from the words which
seemed to ascend from the earth. These words, which seemed to ascend
from the earth, mingled together fearful tales--tales which I never
understood in their connection, and which later on I gradually forgot;
but when I danced they would again come into my mind with living power.
Yes, when I danced a singular remembrance seized me; I forgot myself,
and I seemed to be quite another person, and as if all the sorrows and
secrets of this person were poisoning me, and as soon as I left off
dancing it was all extinguished in my memory.'
"While Laurence said this, slowly and as if questioning, she stood
before me at the fireplace, where the fire was burning pleasanter than
ever; and I sat in the easy-chair, which was apparently the seat of her
husband, where he told her his battles before going to bed of an
evening. Laurence looked at me with her large eyes as if she was asking
my advice; she moved her head to and fro in such a melancholy,
reflective way; she filled me with such a sweet compassion; she was so
slender, so young, so lovely, this lily that had sprung out of the
grave, this daughter of death, this ghost with the face of an angel and
the body of a bayadere! I do not know how it came to pass; perhaps it
was the influence of the easy-chair on which I was sitting, but it
suddenly came into my mind that I was the old general who had described
the battle of Jena yesterday from this place, and as if I must go on
with my narrative, and I said, 'After the battle of Jena all the
Prussian fortresses yielded themselves up within a few weeks, almost
without drawing a sword. First Magdeburg yielded; it was the strongest
fortress, and had three hundred cannon. Was not that disgraceful?'
"But Mademoiselle Laurence allowed me to say no more; the troubled mood
had vanished from her face; she laughed like a child, and cried, 'Yes,
that was disgraceful, more than disgraceful! If I was a fortress and had
three hundred guns, I would never yield myself!'
"But as Mademoiselle Laurence was not a fortress, and had not three
hundred guns----"
At these words Maximilian suddenly stopped in his story, and, after a
short pause, asked gently, "Are you asleep, Maria?"
"I'm asleep," answered Maria.
"So much the better," said Maximilian, with a smile; "then I need not be
afraid of wearying you if I describe the furniture of the room in which
I found myself, as novelists are accustomed to do rather at length
now-a-days."
"Say what you like, dear friend; I'm asleep."
"It was," continued Maximilian, "a very magnificent bed. The feet, as in
all the beds of the Empire, consisted of caryatides and sphinxes; it
gleamed with richly-gilt eagles, billing like turtle doves, perhaps an
emblem of love under the Empire. The curtains of the bed were of red
silk, and as the flames from the fireplace shone brightly through them,
I found myself with Laurence in a fiery red illumination, and I seemed
to be the god Pluto with the flames of hell blazing round him as he
held the sleeping Proserpine in his arms. She was asleep, and in this
condition I gazed on her sweet face, and sought in her features a clue
to that sympathy which my soul felt for her. What was the meaning of
this woman? What sense lurked under the symbolism of that beautiful
form? I held the charming enigma in my arms now as my own property, and
yet I could not find the solution of it.
"But is it not folly to wish to sound the inner meaning of any
phenomenon outside us, when we cannot even solve the enigma of our own
souls? We hardly know even whether outside phenomena really exist! We
are often unable to distinguish reality from mere dream-faces. Was it a
shape of my fancy, or was it horrible reality that I heard and saw on
that night? I know not. I only remember that as the wildest thoughts
were flowing through my heart, a singular sound came to my ear. It was a
crazy melody, peculiarly soft. It seemed known to me, and at last I
distinguished the tones of a triangle and a drum. This music, whirring
and humming, seemed to come from afar, and yet as I looked up I saw near
me in the middle of the room a well-known performance. It was Monsieur
Turlutu the dwarf who played the triangle, and Madame beating the great
drum, while the learned dog was scratching about on the floor, as if
searching for his wooden letters. The dog appeared to move with
difficulty, and his skin was spotted with blood. Madame still wore her
black mourning, but her belly was no longer so spaciously protuberant,
but repulsively pendant. Her face, too, was no longer red, but pale. The
dwarf, who still wore the embroidered coat of an old French marquis and
a powdered toupet, appeared to have grown somewhat, perhaps because he
was so horribly lean. He again exhibited his skill in fencing, and
seemed to be again spinning off his old vaunts; but he spoke so softly
that I was unable to understand a word, and only by the movements of his
lips could I sometimes observe that he was again crowing like a cock.
"While this ludicrous, horrible caricature moved like a magic lantern
with confused haste before my eyes, I felt Mademoiselle Laurence
breathing more and more uneasily. A cold paroxysm froze her whole body,
and her sweet limbs writhed as if with unbearable agony. At last,
however, supple as an eel, she glided from my arms, stood suddenly in
the middle of the room, and began to dance, while the mother with the
drum and the dwarf with the triangle continued their deadened soft
music. She danced just as formerly on Waterloo Bridge and in the squares
of London. There were the same mysterious pantomimes, the same outbreaks
of passionate leaping, the same Bacchante-like throwing of the head
backwards, often also the same leaning towards the earth, as if she
wished to hear somebody speaking beneath, then also the trembling, the
pallor, the benumbed stiffness, and again the listening with ear bent to
the earth. Again also she rubbed her hands as if washing herself. At
last she appeared again to cast her intense, sorrowful, imploring glance
upon me, but now only in the features of her death-pale countenance
could I recognise that glance--not in her eyes, for they were shut. In
ever softer sounds the music died away; the mother with the drum and the
dwarf, gradually growing pale and breaking like mist, vanished at last
altogether; but Mademoiselle Laurence still stood and danced with closed
eyes. This dance with closed eyes in the silent nocturnal chamber gave
this sweet being so ghostly an appearance that a disagreeable feeling
seized me; I shuddered, and was heartily glad when she finished her
dance, and as easily as she had slipped away again glided into my arms.
"In truth, this scene was not pleasant to me. But we accustom ourselves
to everything. And it is even possible that what was mysterious in this
woman lent her a more peculiar charm, that an awful tenderness mingled
with my emotions. In any case, after some weeks I ceased to wonder in
the least when the low sounds of the drum and triangle were heard at
night, and my dear Laurence suddenly started up and danced a solo with
closed eyes. Her husband, the old Buonapartist, commanded in the
neighbourhood of Paris, and his duties allowed him to pass the day only
in the city. Of course he became my most intimate friend, and he wept
when later on he bade me farewell. He travelled with his wife to Sicily,
and I have seen neither of them again since."
When Maximilian had finished this narrative, he hastily seized his hat
and slipped out of the room.
DON QUIXOTE.
[The following admirable account of _Don Quixote_--here given
chiefly in Mr. Fleishman's translation--was written in 1837, as the
introduction to an _edition de luxe_ of Cervantes's masterpiece.]
The first book that I read after I arrived at boyhood's years of
discretion, and had tolerably mastered my letters, was _The Life and
Deeds of the Sagacious Knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha_, written by
Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra. Well do I remember the time, when, early
in the morning, I stole away from home and hastened to the court-garden,
that I might read Don Quixote without being disturbed. It was a
beautiful day in May, the blooming Spring lay basking in the silent
morning light, listening to the compliments of that sweet flatterer, the
nightingale, who sang so softly and caressingly, with such a melting
fervour, that even the shyest of buds burst into blossom, and the lusty
grasses and the fragrant sunshine kissed more rapturously, and the trees
and flowers trembled from very ecstasy. But I seated myself on an old
moss-covered stone bench in the so-called Avenue of Sighs, not far from
the water-fall, and feasted my little heart with the thrilling
adventures of the valiant knight. In my childish simplicity I took
everything in sober earnest; no matter how ridiculous the mishaps which
fate visited upon the poor hero, I thought it must be just so, and
imagined that to be laughed at was as much a part of heroism as to be
wounded; and the former vexed me just as sorely as the latter grieved my
heart. I was a child, and knew nothing of the irony God has interwoven
into the world, and which the great poet has imitated in his miniature
world;--and I wept most bitterly, when for all his chivalry and
generosity the noble knight gained only ingratitude and cudgels. As I
was unpracticed in reading, I spoke every word aloud, and so the birds
and the trees, the brooks and the flowers, could hear all I read, and as
these innocent beings know as little as children of the irony of the
world, they too took it all for sober earnest, and wept with me over the
sorrows of the unfortunate knight; an old worn-out oak sobbed even; and
the water-fall shook more vehemently his white beard, and seemed to
scold at the wickedness of the world. We felt that the heroism of the
knight was none the less worthy of admiration because the lion turned
tail without fighting, and that if his body was weak and withered, his
armour rusty, his steed a miserable jade, his deeds were all the more
worthy of praise. We despised the vulgar rabble who beat the poor hero
so barbarously, and still more the rabble of higher rank, who were
decked in silk attire, gay courtly phrases, and grand titles, and jeered
at the man who was so far their superior in powers of mind and nobility
of soul. Dulcinea's knight rose ever higher in my esteem, and my love
for him grew stronger and stronger the longer I read in that wonderful
book, which I continued to do daily in that same garden, so that when
autumn came I had reached the end of the story,--and I shall never
forget the day when I read the sorrowful combat, in which the knight
came to so ignominious an end.
It was a gloomy day; dismal clouds swept over a leaden sky, the yellow
leaves fell sorrowfully from the trees, heavy tear-drops hung on the
last flowers that drooped down in a sad faded way their dying little
heads, the nightingales had long since died away, from every side the
image of transitoriness stared at me--and my heart was ready to break as
I read how the noble knight lay on the ground, stunned and bruised, and
through his closed visor said, in tones faint and feeble, as if he was
speaking from the grave, "Dulcinea is the fairest lady in the world, and
I the unhappiest knight on earth, but it is not meet that my weakness
should disown this truth--strike with your lance, Sir Knight."
Ah me! that brilliant knight of the silver moon, who vanquished the
bravest and noblest man in the world, was a disguised barber!
That was long ago. Many new springs have bloomed forth since then, yet
their mightiest charm has always been wanting, for, alas! I no longer
believe the sweet deceits of the nightingale, Spring's flatterer; I know
how soon his magnificence fades, and when I look at the youngest
rosebuds I see them in spirit bloom to a sorrowful red, grow pale, and
be scattered by the winds. Everywhere I see a disguised Winter.
In my breast, however, still blooms that flaming love, which soared so
ardently above the earth, to revel adventurously in the broad yawning
spaces of heaven, and which, pushed back by the cold stars, and sinking
home again to the little earth, was forced to confess, with sighing and
triumph, that there is in all creation nothing fairer or better than the
heart of man. This love is the inspiration that fills me, always divine,
whether it does foolish or wise deeds.--And so the tears the little boy
shed over the sorrows of the silly knight were in no wise spent in vain,
any more than the later tears of the youth, as on many a night he wept
in the study over the deaths of the holy heroes of freedom--over King
Agis of Sparta, over Caius and Tiberius Gracchus of Rome, over Jesus of
Jerusalem, and over Robespierre and Saint Just of Paris. Now that I have
put on the _toga virilis_, and myself desire to be a man, the tears have
come to an end, and it is necessary to act like a man, imitating my
great predecessors; in the future, if God will, to be wept also by boys
and youths. Yes, upon these one can still reckon in our cold age; for
they can still be kindled by the breezes that blow to them from old
books, and so they can comprehend the flaming hearts of the present.
Youth is unselfish in its thoughts and feelings, and on that account it
feels truth most deeply, and is not sparing, where a bold sympathy is
wanted, with confession or deed. Older people are selfish and
narrow-minded; they think more of the interest of their capital than of
the interest of mankind; they let their little boat float quietly down
the gutter of life, and trouble themselves little about the sailor who
battles with the waves on the open sea; or they creep with clinging
tenacity up to the heights of mayoralty or the presidency of their club,
and shrug their shoulders over the heroic figures which the storm throws
down from the columns of fame; and then they tell, perhaps, how they
themselves also in their youth ran their heads against the wall, but
that later on they reconciled themselves to the wall, for the wall was
the absolute, existing by and for itself, which, because it was, was
also reasonable, on which account he is unreasonable who will not endure
a high, reasonable, inevitable, eternally-ordained absolutism. Ah, these
objectionable people, who wish to philosophise us into a gentle slavery,
are yet more worthy of esteem than those depraved ones who do not even
admit reasonable grounds for the defence of despotism, but being
learned in history fight for it as a right of custom, to which men in
the course of time have gradually accustomed themselves, and which has
so become incontestably valid and lawful.
Ah, well! I will not, like Ham, lift up the garment of my fatherland's
shame; but it is terrible how slavery has been made with us a matter for
prating about, and how German philosophers and historians have tormented
their brains to defend despotism, however silly or awkward, as
reasonable and lawful. Silence is the honour of slaves, says Tacitus;
these philosophers and historians maintain the contrary, and exhibit the
badge of slavery in their button-holes.
Perhaps, after all, you are right, and I am only a Don Quixote, and the
reading of all sorts of wonderful books has turned my head, as it was
with the Knight of La Mancha, and Jean Jacques Rousseau was my Amadis of
Gaul, Mirabeau my Roland or Agramanto; and I have studied too much the
heroic deeds of the French Paladins and the round table of the National
Convention. Indeed, my madness and the fixed ideas that I created out of
books are of a quite opposite kind to the madness and the fixed ideas of
him of La Mancha. He wished to establish again the expiring days of
chivalry; I, on the contrary, wish to annihilate all that is yet
remaining from that time, and so we work with altogether different
views. My colleague saw windmills as giants; I, on the contrary, can see
in our present giants only vaunting windmills. He took leather
wine-skins for mighty enchanters, but I can see in the enchanters of
to-day only leather wine-skins. He held beggarly pot-houses for castles,
donkey-drivers for cavaliers, stable wenches for court ladies; I, on the
contrary, hold our castles for beggarly pot-houses, our cavaliers for
mere donkey-drivers, our court ladies for ordinary stable wenches. As he
took a puppet-show for a state ceremony, so I hold our state ceremonies
as sorry puppet-shows, yet as bravely as the brave Knight of La Mancha I
strike out at the clumsy machinery. Alas! such heroic deeds often turn
out as badly for me as for him, and like him I must suffer much for the
honour of my lady. If I denied her from mere fear or base love of gain,
I might live comfortably in this reasonably-constructed world, and I
should lead a fair Maritorna to the altar, and let myself be blessed by
fat enchanters, and banquet with noble donkey-drivers, and engender
harmless romances as well as other little slaves! Instead of that,
wearing the three colours of my lady, I must strike through unspeakable
opposition, and fight battles, everyone of which costs me my heart's
blood. Day and night I am in straits, for those enemies are so artful
that many I struck to death still give themselves the appearance of
being alive, changing themselves into all forms, and spoiling day and
night for me. How many sorrows have I suffered by such fatal spectres!
Where anything lovely bloomed for me then they crept in, those cunning
ghosts, and broke even the most innocent buds. Everywhere, and when I
should least suspect it, I discovered on the ground the traces of their
silvery slime, and if I took no care, I might have a dangerous fall even
in the house of my love. You may smile and hold such anxieties for idle
fancies like those of Don Quixote. But fancied pains hurt all the same;
and if one fancies that he has drunk hemlock he may get into a
consumption, and he certainly will not get fat. And the report that I
have got fat is a calumny; at least I have not yet received any fat
sinecure, even if I possess the requisite talents. I fancy that
everything has been done to keep me lean; when I was hungry they fed me
with snakes, when I was thirsty they gave me wormwood to drink; they
poured hell into my heart, so that I wept poison and sighed fire; they
crouched near me even in my dreams; and I see horrible spectres, noble
lackey faces with gnashing teeth and threatening noses, and deadly eyes
glaring from cowls, and white ruffled hands with gleaming knives.
And even the old woman who lives near me in the next room considers me
to be mad, and says that I talk the maddest nonsense in my sleep; and
the other night she plainly heard me calling out--"Dulcinea is the
fairest woman in the world, and I the unhappiest knight on earth; but it
is not meet that my weakness should disown this truth. Strike with your
lance, Sir Knight!"
* * * * *
It is now eight years since I wrote the foregoing lines[14] for the
Fourth Part of the _Reisebilder_, in which I described the impression
which the reading of _Don Quixote_ had made on my mind many years ago.
Good Heavens! how swiftly time flies! It seems to me as if it were but
yesterday that, in the Avenue of Sighs, in the court-garden at
Düsseldorf, I finished reading the book, and my heart is still moved
with admiration for the deeds and sufferings of the noble knight. Has my
heart remained constant in this ever since, or has it, after passing
through a wonderful cycle, returned to the emotions of childhood? The
latter may well be the case, for I remember that during each lustrum of
my life _Don Quixote_ has made a different impression upon me. When I
was blossoming into adolescence, and with inexperienced hands sought to
pluck the roses of life, climbed the loftiest peaks in order to be
nearer to the sun, and at night dreamed of naught else but eagles and
chaste maidens, then Don Quixote was to me a very unsatisfactory book,
and if it chanced to fall in my way I involuntarily shoved it aside. At
a later period, when I had ripened into manhood, I became to a certain
degree reconciled to Dulcinea's luckless champion, and I began to laugh
at him. The fellow is a fool, said I. And yet, strange to say, the
shadowy forms of the lean knight and his fat squire have ever followed
me in all the journeyings of my life, particularly when I came to any
critical turning-point. Thus I recollect that while making the journey
to France, one morning in the post-chaise I awakened from a
half-feverish slumber, and saw in the early morning mist two well-known
figures riding by my side. The one on my right was Don Quixote de la
Mancha, mounted on his lean, abstract Rosinante, the other on my left
was Sancho Panza, on his substantial, positive grey donkey. We had just
reached the French frontier. The noble Manchean bowed his head
reverently before the tri-coloured flag, which fluttered towards us from
the high post that marks the boundary line. Our good Sancho saluted with
a somewhat less cordial nod the first French _gendarmes_ whom we saw
approaching near by. At last my two friends pushed on ahead, and I lost
sight of them, only now and then I caught the sound of Rosinante's
spirited neighing, and the donkey's responsive bray.
At that time I was of the opinion that the ridiculousness of Don
Quixotism consisted in the fact that the noble knight endeavoured to
recall a long-perished past back to life, and his poor limbs and back
came into painful contact with the harsh realities of the present.
Alas! I have since learned that it is an equally ungrateful folly to
endeavour to bring the future prematurely into the present, and that for
such an assault upon the weighty interests of the day, one possesses but
a very sorry steed, a brittle armour, and an equally frail body! And the
wise man dubiously shakes his sage head at the one, as well as at the
other, of these Quixotisms. But Dulcinea del Toboso is still the most
beautiful woman in the world; although I lie stretched upon the earth,
helpless and miserable, I will never take back that assertion, I cannot
do otherwise--on with your lances, ye Knights of the Silver Moon, ye
disguised barbers!
What leading idea guided Cervantes when he wrote his great book? Was his
purpose merely the destruction of the romances of knight-errantry, the
reading of which at that time was so much the rage in Spain that both
clerical and secular ordinances against them were powerless? Or did he
seek to hold up to ridicule all manifestations of human enthusiasm in
general, military heroism in particular? Ostensibly he aimed only to
satirise the romances above referred to, and through the exposition of
their absurdities deliver them over to universal derision, and thus put
an end to them. In this he succeeded most brilliantly; for that which
neither the exhortations from the pulpit, nor the threats of the
authorities could effect, that a poor writer accomplished with his pen.
He destroyed the romances of chivalry so effectually that soon after the
appearance of _Don Quixote_ the taste for that class of literature
wholly died out in Spain, and no more of that order were printed. But
the pen of a man of genius is always greater than he himself; it extends
far beyond his temporary purpose, and without being himself clearly
conscious of it, Cervantes wrote the greatest satire against human
enthusiasm. He had not the least presentiment of this, for he himself
was a hero, who had spent the greater portion of his life in chivalrous
conflicts, and who in his old age was wont to rejoice that he had
participated in the battle of Lepanto, although he paid for this glory
with the loss of his left hand.
The biographers can tell us but little concerning the person or private
life of the poet who wrote _Don Quixote_. We do not lose much by the
omission of such details, which are generally picked up from the female
gossips of the neighbourhood. They see only the outer shell; but we see
the man, his true, sincere, unslandered self.
He was a handsome, powerful man, Don Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra. He
had a high forehead, and a large heart. His eyes possessed a wonderful
magic; just as there are people who can look into the earth, and see the
hidden treasures and the dead that lie buried there, so the eye of the
great poet could penetrate the breasts of men, and see distinctly all
that was concealed there. To the good his look was as a ray of sunlight
gladdening and illuminating the heart; to the bad his glance was a
sword, sharply piercing their souls. His searching eyes penetrated to
the very soul of a person, and questioned it, and if it refused to
answer, he put it to the torture, and the soul lay stretched bleeding on
the rack, while perhaps the body assumed an air of condescending
superiority. Is it to be wondered at that many formed a dislike for him,
and gave him but scant assistance in his journey through life? He never
achieved rank or position, and from all his toilsome pilgrimages he
brought back no pearls, but only empty shells. It is said that he could
not appreciate the value of money, but I assure you he fully appreciated
its worth when he had no more. But he never prized it as highly as he
did his honour. He had debts, and in one of his writings, in which
Apollo is supposed to grant to the poets a charter of privileges, the
first paragraph declares: When a poet says he has no money, his simple
assurance shall suffice, and no oath shall be required of him. He loved
music, flowers, and women, but in his love for the latter he sometimes
fared very badly, particularly in his younger days. Did the
consciousness of future greatness console him, when pert young roses
stung him with their thorns?--Once on a bright summer afternoon, while
yet a young gallant, he walked along the banks of the Tagus in company
with a pretty girl of sweet sixteen, who continually mocked at his
tender speeches. The sun had not yet set, it still glowed with all its
golden splendour, but high up in the heavens was the moon, pale and
insignificant, like a little white cloud. "See'st thou," said the young
poet to his sweetheart, "see'st thou yonder small pale disk? The river
by our side in which it mirrors itself seems to receive its pitiful
reflex on its proud bosom merely out of compassion, and the curling
billows at times cast it disdainfully aside towards the shore. But wait
until day fades into twilight; as soon as darkness descends, yonder pale
orb will grow brighter and brighter, and will flood the whole stream
with its silvery light, and the haughty billows that before were so
scornful will then tremble with ecstasy at sight of the lovely moon, and
roll rapturously towards it."
The history of poets must be sought for in their works, for there are to
be found their most confidential confessions. In all his writings, in
his dramas even more than in _Don Quixote_, we see, as I have before
mentioned, that Cervantes had long been a soldier. In fact, the Roman
proverb, "Living means fighting," finds a double application in his
case. He took part as a common soldier in most of those fierce games of
war which King Philip II. carried on in all countries for the honour of
God and his own pleasure. The circumstance that Cervantes devoted his
whole youth to the service of the greatest champion of Catholicism, and
that he fought to advance Catholic interests, warrants the assumption
that he had those interests at heart, and hence refutes the
widely-spread opinion that only the fear of the Inquisition withheld him
from discussing in _Don Quixote_ the great Protestant questions of the
time. No, Cervantes was a faithful son of the Roman church, and he not
only bled physically in knightly combats for her blessed banner, but his
whole soul suffered a most painful martyrdom during his many years of
captivity among the Unbelievers.
We are indebted to accident for most of the details of Cervantes's
doings while in Algiers, and here we recognise in the great poet an
equally great hero. The history of his captivity gives a most emphatic
contradiction to the melodious lie of that polished man of the world,
who made Augustus and the German pedants believe that he was a poet, and
that poets are cowards. No, the true poet is also a true hero, and in
his breast dwells that God-like patience, which, as the Spaniards say,
is a second fount of courage. There is no more elevating spectacle than
that of the noble Castilian who serves the Dey of Algiers as a slave,
constantly meditating an escape, with unflagging energy preparing his
bold plans, composedly facing all dangers, and when the enterprise
miscarries, is ready to submit to torture and death rather than betray
his accomplices. The blood-thirsty master of his body becomes disarmed
by such grand magnanimity and virtue. The tiger spares the fettered
lion, and trembles before the terrible "One-Arm," whom with but a single
word he could dispatch to his death. Cervantes is known in all Algiers
as "One-Arm," and the Dey confesses that only when he knows that the
one-armed Spaniard is in safe-keeping can he sleep soundly at night,
assured of the safety of his city, his army, and his slaves.
I have referred to the fact that Cervantes was always a common soldier,
but even in so subordinate a position he succeeded in distinguishing
himself to such a degree as to attract the notice of the great general,
Don John of Austria, and on his return from Italy to Spain he was
furnished with the most complimentary letters of recommendation to the
king, in which his advancement was most emphatically urged. When the
Algerine corsairs, who captured him on the Mediterranean Sea, beheld
these letters, they took him to be a person of the highest rank and
importance, and hence demanded so large a ransom that notwithstanding
all their efforts and sacrifices his family were not able to purchase
his freedom, and the unfortunate poet's captivity was thereby prolonged
and embittered. Thus the recognition of his merits became an additional
source of misfortune, and thus to the very end of his days was he mocked
by that cruel dame, the Goddess Fortuna, who never forgives genius for
having achieved fame and honour without her assistance.
But are the misfortunes of a man of genius always the work of blind
chance, or do they necessarily follow from his inner nature and
environment? Does his soul enter into strife with the world of reality,
or do the coarse realities begin the unequal conflict with his noble
soul?
Society is a republic. When an individual strives to rise, the
collective masses press him back through ridicule and abuse. No one
shall be wiser or better than the rest. But against him, who by the
invincible power of genius towers above the vulgar masses, society
launches its ostracism, and persecutes him so mercilessly with scoffing
and slander, that he is finally compelled to withdraw into the solitude
of his own thoughts.
Verily, society is republican in its very essence. Every sovereignty,
intellectual as well as material, is hated by it. The latter oftener
gives aid to the former than is generally imagined. We ourselves came to
this conclusion soon after the revolution of July, when the spirit of
republicanism manifested itself in all social relations. Our republicans
hated the laurels of a great poet even as they hated the purple of a
great king. They sought to level the intellectual inequalities of
mankind, and in as much as they regarded all ideas that had been
produced on the soil of the state as general property, nothing remained
to be done but to decree an equality of style also. In sooth, a good
style was decried as something aristocratic, and we heard manifold
assertions: "A true democrat must write in the style of the
people--sincere, natural, crude." Most of the Party of Action succeeded
easily in doing this, but not every one possesses the gift of writing
badly, especially if one has previously formed the habit of writing
well, and then it was at once said, "That is an aristocrat, a lover of
style, a friend of art, an enemy of the people." They were surely honest
in their views, like Saint Hieronymus, who considered his good style a
sin, and gave himself sound scourgings for it.
Just as little as we find anti-Catholic, so also do we fail to discover
anti-absolutist strains in _Don Quixote_. The critics who think that
they scent such sentiments therein are clearly in error. Cervantes was
the son of a school which went so far as to poetically idealise the idea
of unquestioning obedience to the sovereign. And that sovereign was the
King of Spain at a time when its majesty dazzled the whole world. The
common soldier felt himself a ray in that halo of glory, and willingly
sacrificed his individual freedom to gratify the national pride of the
Castilian.
The political grandeur of Spain at that time contributed not a little to
exalt and enlarge the hearts of her poets. In the mind of a Spanish
poet, as in the realm of Charles V., the sun never set. The fierce wars
against the Moors were ended, and as after a storm the flowers are most
fragrant, so poesy ever blooms most grandly after a civil war. We
witness the same phenomenon in England at the time of Elizabeth, and at
the same time as in Spain there arose a galaxy of poets, which invites
the most remarkable parallelisms. There we see Shakespeare, here
Cervantes, as the flower of the school.
Like the Spanish poets under the three Philips, so also the English
poets under Elizabeth present a certain family likeness, and neither
Shakespeare nor Cervantes have claim to originality in our sense of the
word. They by no means differ from their contemporaries through peculiar
modes of thought or feeling, or by an especial manner of portrayal, but
only through greater depth, fervour, tenderness, and power. Their
creations are more infused and penetrated with the divine spark of
poetry.
But both poets were not only the flowers of their time, but they were
also the germs of the future. As Shakespeare, by the influence of his
works, particularly on Germany and the France of to-day, is to be
regarded as the creator of the later dramatic art, so must we honour in
Cervantes the author of the modern novel. I shall allow myself a few
passing observations on the subject.
The older novels, the so-called romances of chivalry sprang from the
poetry of the middle ages. They were at first prose versions of those
epic poems whose heroes are derived from the mythical traditions of
Charlemagne and the Holy Grail. The subject was always knightly
adventures. It was the romance of the nobility, and the personages that
figured therein were either fabulous, fantastic beings, or knights with
golden spurs; nowhere an allusion to the people. These romances of
knighthood, which degenerated into the most ridiculous absurdities,
Cervantes overthrew by his _Don Quixote_. But while by his satire he
destroyed the earlier romances, he also furnished a model for a new
school of fiction, which we call the Modern Novel. Such is always the
wont of great poets; while they tear down the old, they at the same time
build up the new; they never destroy without replacing. Cervantes
created the modern novel by introducing into his romances of knighthood
a faithful description of the lower classes, by intermingling with it
phases of folk-life. This partiality for describing the doings of the
common rabble, of the vilest tatterdemalions, is not only found in
Cervantes, but in all his literary contemporaries, and among the Spanish
painters as well as among the poets of that period. A Murillo, who stole
heaven's loveliest tints with which to paint his beautiful Madonnas,
painted with the same love the filthiest creatures of this earth. It was
perhaps the enthusiasm for art itself that made these noble Spaniards
find equal pleasure in the faithful portrayal of a beggar lad scratching
his head as in the representation of the Blessed Virgin. Or, perhaps, it
was the charm of contrast that led noblemen of the highest rank, a
dapper courtier like Quevedo, or a powerful minister like Mendoza, to
fill their romances with ragged beggars and vagabonds. They perhaps
sought to relieve the monotony of their lofty rank by putting
themselves in imagination into a quite different sphere of life, just as
we find a similar tendency among some of our German authors, whose
novels contain naught else but descriptions of the nobility, and who
always make their heroes counts and barons. We do not find in Cervantes
this one-sided tendency to portray the vulgar only; he intermingles the
ideal and the common; one serves as light or as shade to the other, and
the aristocratic element is as prominent in it as the popular. But this
noble, chivalrous, aristocratic element disappears entirely from the
novels of the English, who were the first to imitate Cervantes, and to
this day always keep him in view as a model. These English novelists
since Richardson's reign are prosaic natures; to the prudish spirit of
their time even pithy descriptions of the life of the common people are
repugnant, and we see on yonder side of the channel those _bourgeois_
novels arise, wherein the petty, humdrum life of the middle classes is
depicted. The public were surfeited with this deplorable class of
literature until recently, when appeared the great Scot, who effected a
revolution, or rather a restoration, in novel-writing. As Cervantes
introduced the democratic element into romance, at a time when one-sided
knight-errantry ruled supreme, so Walter Scott restored the aristocratic
element to romance when it had wholly disappeared, and only a prosaic
bourgeoisie was to be found there. By an opposite course Walter Scott
again restored to romance that beautiful symmetry which we admire in
Cervantes's _Don Quixote_.
I believe that the merits of England's second great poet have never in
this respect been recognised. His Tory proclivities, his partiality for
the past, were wholesome for literature, and for those masterpieces of
his genius that everywhere found favour and imitators, and which drove
into the darkest corners of the circulating libraries those ashen-grey,
ghostly remains of the _bourgeoisie_ romances. It is an error not to
recognise Walter Scott as the founder of the so-called Historical
Romance, and to endeavour to trace the latter to German initiative. This
error arises from the failure to perceive that the characteristic
feature of the Historical Romance consists just in the harmony between
the aristocratic and democratic elements, and that Walter Scott, through
the re-introduction of the aristocratic element, most beautifully
restored that harmony which had been overthrown during the absolutism of
the democratic element, whereas our German romanticists eliminated the
democratic element entirely from their novels, and returned again to the
ruts of those crazy romances of knight-errantry that flourished before
Cervantes. Our De la Motte-Fouqué is only a straggler from the ranks of
those poets who gave to the world _Amadis de Gaul_, and similar
extravagant absurdities. I admire not only the talent, but also the
courage of the noble Baron who, two centuries after the appearance of
_Don Quixote_, has written his romances of chivalry. It was a peculiar
period in Germany when the latter appeared and found favour with the
public. What was the significance in literature of that partiality for
knight-errantry, and for those pictures of the old feudal times? I
believe that the German people desired to bid an eternal farewell to the
middle ages, but moved with emotion as we Germans are so apt to be, we
took our leave with a kiss. For the last time we pressed our lips to the
old tombstone. True, some of us behaved in a very silly manner on that
occasion. Ludwig Tieck, the smallest boy in school, dug the dead
ancestors out of their grave, rocked the coffin as if it were a cradle,
and in childish, lisping accents sang, "Sleep, little grandsire,
sleep."
I have called Walter Scott England's second great poet, and his novels
masterpieces; but it is to his genius only that I would give the highest
praise. His novels I can by no means place on an equality with the great
romance of Cervantes. The latter surpasses him in epic spirit. Cervantes
was, as I have already stated, a Catholic poet, and it is perhaps to
this circumstance that he is indebted for that grand epic composure of
soul, which, like a crystalline firmament, overarches those picturesque
and poetical creations; nowhere is there a rift of scepticism. Added to
this is the calm dignity which is the national characteristic of the
Spaniard. But Walter Scott belongs to a church which subjects even
divine matters to a sharp examination; as an advocate and as a Scotchman
he is accustomed to action and to debate, and we find the dramatic
element most prominent in his novels, as well as in his life and his
temperament. Hence his works can never be regarded as the pure model of
that style of fiction which we denominate the Romance. To the Spaniards
is due the honour of having produced the best novel, as England is
entitled to the credit of having achieved the highest rank in the drama.
And the Germans, what palm remains for them? Well, then, we are the best
lyric poets on earth. No people possesses such beautiful songs as the
Germans. At present the nations are too much occupied with political
affairs, but when these are once laid aside, then let us Germans,
English, Spaniards, French, Italians, all go out into the green forests
and chant our lays, and the nightingale shall be umpire. I am convinced
that in this tournament of minstrelsy the songs of Wolfgang Goethe will
win the prize.
Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe form the triumvirate of poets, who,
in the three great divisions of poetry, epic, dramatic, and lyric, have
achieved the greatest success. The writer of these pages is perhaps
peculiarly fitted to sound the praises of our great countryman as the
most perfect of lyric poets. Goethe stands midway between the two
classes of song-writers, between those two schools, of which one, alas!
is known by my own name, the other as the Suabian school. Both have
their merits; they have indirectly promoted the welfare of German
poetry. The first effected a wholesome reaction against the one-sided
idealism of German poetry, it led the intellect back to stern realities,
and uprooted that sentimental Petrarchism that has always seemed to us
as a Quixotism in verse. The Suabian school also contributed indirectly
to the weal of German poetry. If in Northern Germany strong and healthy
poetical productions came to light, thanks are perhaps due to the
Suabian school, which attracted to itself all the sickly chlorotic,
mawkishly-pious, clumsy votaries of the German muse. Stuttgart was the
fontanel, as it were, for the German muse.
While I ascribe the highest achievements in drama, in romance, and in
lyric poetry to this great triumvirate, far be it from me to depreciate
the poetical merits of other great poets. Nothing is more foolish than
the query, "Which poet is greater than the other?" Flame is flame, and
its weight cannot be determined in pounds and ounces. Only a narrow
shopkeeper mind will attempt to weigh genius in its miserable cheese
scales. Not only the ancients, but some of the moderns, have written
works in which the fire of poetry burns with a splendour equal to that
of the masterpieces of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Goethe. Nevertheless,
these names hold together as if through some secret bond. A kindred
spirit shines forth from their creations, an immortal tenderness
exhales from them like the breath of God, the modesty of nature blooms
in them. Goethe not only constantly reminds one of Shakespeare, but also
of Cervantes, and he resembles the latter even in the details of style,
and in that charming prose diction which is tinged with a vein of the
sweetest and most harmless irony. Cervantes and Goethe resemble each
other even in their faults, in diffusiveness of style, in those long
sentences that we occasionally find in their writings, and which may be
compared to a procession of royal equipages. Not infrequently but a
single thought sits in one of those long, wide-spreading sentences that
rolls majestically along like a great, gilded court-chariot, drawn by
six plumed steeds. But that single idea is always something exalted,
perhaps even royal.
My remarks concerning the genius of Cervantes and the influence of his
book have been necessarily scant. Concerning the true value of his
romance from an artistic standpoint, I must express myself still more
briefly, as otherwise questions might arise which would lead to wide
digressions into the sphere of æsthetics. I may only call attention in a
general way to the form of the romance, and to the two figures that
constitute its central point. The form is that of a description of
travels which has ever been the most natural for this class of writings.
I am reminded of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, the first romance of
antiquity. Later poets sought to relieve the monotony of this form
through what we to-day call _fabliaux_. But on account of poverty of
invention the majority of romance writers have borrowed each other's
fables; at least, part have always used the same tales, making but
slight variations. Hence, through the resulting sameness of characters,
situations, and complications, the public became at last somewhat
wearied of romance-reading. To escape from the tediousness of hackneyed
tales and fables, they sought refuge in the ancient, original form of
narratives of travels. But this form will again be wholly supplanted
just as soon as some creative genius shall arise with a new and original
style of romance. In literature, as well as in politics, all things are
subject to the law of action and reaction.
As regards the two figures that are called Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
that so constantly burlesque, and yet so wonderfully complement each
other, so that together they form the one true hero of the
romance,--these two figures give evidence equally of the poet's artistic
taste and of his intellectual profundity. If other authors, in whose
romances the hero journeys solitary and alone through the world, are
compelled to have recourse to monologues, letters, or diaries in order
to communicate the thoughts and emotions of their heroes, Cervantes can
always let a natural dialogue arise; and, inasmuch as the one figure
always parodies the other, the author's purpose is the more clearly
shown. Manifold have been the imitations of this double figure which
lends to the romance of Cervantes such an artistic naturalness, and out
of which, as from a single seed, has grown the whole novel, with all its
wild foliage, its fragrant blossoms, its glowing fruits, its apes and
marvellous birds that cluster amid its branches, resembling one of those
giant trees of India.
But it would be unjust to charge all this to a servile imitation; on the
surface, as it were, lay the introduction of two such figures as Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza, of which the one, the poetical nature, seeks
adventures, and the other, half out of affection, half out of selfish
motives, follows through sunshine and rain, as we often meet them in
real life. In order to recognise this couple anywhere, under the most
varied disguises, in art as well as in life, one must keep in view only
the essential, the spiritual characteristics, not the incidental or
external. I could offer innumerable instances of this. Do we not find
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza clearly repeated in Don Juan and Leporello,
and to a certain degree also in the persons of Lord Byron and his
servant Fletcher? Do we not recognise these two types and their changed
relations in the figures of the Knight von Waldsee and his Caspar
Larifari, as also in the form of many an author and his publisher? The
latter clearly discerns his author's follies, but in order to reap
pecuniary profit out of them, faithfully accompanies him in all his
ideal vagaries. And Master Publisher Sancho, even if at times he gains
only buffets in the transaction, yet always remains fat, while the noble
knight grows daily more and more emaciated. But not only among men, but
also among women, have I often met the counterparts of Don Quixote and
his henchman. I particularly remember a beautiful English lady, an
impulsive, enthusiastic blonde, who, accompanied by her friend, had run
away from a London boarding-school, to roam the wide world over in
search of a noble, true-hearted lover, such as she had dreamed of on
soft moonlight nights. Her friend, a short, plump brunette, also hoped
through this opportunity to gain, if not so rare and high an ideal, at
least a husband of good appearance. Still do I see her, with her slender
figure, and blue, love-longing eyes, standing on the beach at Brighton,
casting wistful glances over the billowy sea towards the French coast;
meanwhile her companion cracked hazel-nuts, munched the sweet kernels
with relish, and threw the shells into the water.
And yet neither in the masterpieces of other artists, nor in nature
herself, do we find these two types in their varying relations so
minutely elaborated as in Cervantes. Every trait in the character and
appearance of the one answers to a contrasting, and yet kindred, trait
in the other. Here every detail has a burlesque signification; yes, even
between Rosinante and Sancho's grey donkey there exists the same ironic
parallelism as between the squire and the knight, and the two beasts are
made to convey symbolically the same idea. As in their modes of thought,
so also in their speech, do master and servant reveal a most marvellous
contrast, and I cannot here omit to refer to the difficulties with which
the translator has had to contend in order to reproduce in German the
homely, gnarled dialect of our good Sancho. Through his blunt,
frequently vulgar speeches, and his fondness for proverbialising, our
good Sancho reminds us of King Solomon's fool, and of Marculfe, who,
also, in opposition to a somewhat pathetic idealism, expresses in short
and pithy sayings the practical wisdom of the common people. Don
Quixote, on the contrary, speaks the language of culture, of the higher
classes, and in the solemn gravity of his well-rounded periods, he
fairly represents the high-born Hidalgo. At times his sentences are spun
out too broadly, and the knight's language resembles a haughty court
dame, attired in a much bepuffed silken robe, with a long rustling
train. But the graces, disguised as pages, laughingly carry the tips of
this train, and the long sentences end with the most charming turns.
The character of Don Quixote's language and that of Sancho Panza may be
briefly summarised in the words: the former, when he speaks, seems
always mounted on his high horse; the latter, as if seated on his humble
donkey.
It is remarkable that a book which is so rich as _Don_ Quixote in
picturesque matter has as yet found no painter who has taken from it
subjects for a series of independent art works. Is the spirit of the
book so volatile and fanciful that the variegated colours elude the
artist's skill? I do not think so, for _Don Quixote_, light and fanciful
as it is, is still based on rude, earthly realities, as must necessarily
be the case to make it a book of the people. Is it, perhaps, because
behind the figures brought before us by the poet, deeper ideas lie
hidden, which the artist cannot produce again, so that he can give only
the outward features, salient though they be, but fails to grasp and
reproduce the deeper meaning?
GODS IN EXILE.
[_Gods in Exile_, in which Heine has gathered up some of the
mediæval legends concerning the later history of the Greek and
Roman gods, was written in the early spring of 1853 (a few pages,
however, had been written so long before as 1836), and published in
the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for that year. The translation, by Mr.
Fleishman, here used, has been carefully revised, and in part
rewritten.
It will be observed that the years between 1837 and 1853 are
unrepresented in this volume. During that period--with the
exception of the fragment of _The Rabbi of Bacharach_ (which was,
however, written earlier) and his book on Börne, both published in
1840--Heine produced very little prose.]
...I am speaking here of that metamorphosis into demons which the Greek
and Roman gods underwent when Christianity achieved supreme control of
the world. The superstition of the people ascribed to those gods a real
but cursed existence, coinciding entirely in this respect with the
teaching of the Church. The latter by no means declared the ancient gods
to be myths, inventions of falsehood and error, as did the philosophers,
but held them to be evil spirits, who, through the victory of Christ,
had been hurled from the summit of their power, and now dragged along
their miserable existences in the obscurity of dismantled temples or in
enchanted groves, and by their diabolic arts, through lust and beauty,
particularly through dancing and singing, lured to apostasy unsteadfast
Christians who had lost their way in the forest.... I will remind the
reader that the perplexities into which the poor old gods fell at the
time of the final triumph of Christendom--that is, in the third
century--offer striking analogies to former sorrowful events in their
god-lives; for they found themselves plunged into the same sad
predicament in which they had once before been placed in that most
ancient time, in that revolutionary epoch when the Titans broke loose
from their confinement in Orcus and, piling Pelion on Ossa, scaled high
Olympus. At that time the poor gods were compelled to flee ignominiously
and conceal themselves under various disguises on earth. Most of them
repaired to Egypt, where, as is well known, for greater safety, they
assumed the forms of animals. And in a like manner, when the true Lord
of the universe planted the banner of the cross on the heavenly heights,
and those iconoclastic zealots, the black band of monks, hunted down the
gods with fire and malediction and razed their temples, then these
unfortunate heathen divinities were again compelled to take to flight,
seeking safety under the most varied disguises and in the most retired
hiding-places. Many of these poor refugees, deprived of shelter and
ambrosia, were now forced to work at some plebeian trade in order to
earn a livelihood. Under these circumstances several, whose shrines had
been confiscated, became wood-choppers and day-labourers in Germany, and
were compelled to drink beer instead of nectar. It appears that Apollo
was reduced to this dire plight, and stooped so low as to accept service
with cattle-breeders, and as once before he had tended the cows of
Admetus, so now he lived as a shepherd in Lower Austria. Here, however,
he aroused suspicion through the marvellous sweetness of his singing
and, being recognised by a learned monk as one of the ancient
magic-working heathen gods, he was delivered over to the ecclesiastical
courts. On the rack he confessed that he was the god Apollo. Before his
execution he begged that he might be permitted for the last time to play
the zither and sing to its accompaniment. But he played so touchingly
and sang so enchantingly, and was so handsome in face and form, that all
the women wept; and many of them indeed afterwards sickened. After some
lapse of time, it was decided to remove his body from the grave under
the impression that he was a vampire, and impale it upon a stake, this
being an approved domestic remedy certain to effect the cure of the sick
women; but the grave was found empty.
I have but little to communicate concerning the fate of Mars, the
ancient god of war. I am not disinclined to believe that during the
feudal ages he availed himself of the then prevailing doctrine that
might makes right. Lank Schimmelpennig, nephew of the executioner of
Münster, once met Mars at Bologna, and conversed with him. Shortly
before he had served as a peasant under Froudsberg, and was present at
the storming of Rome. Bitter thoughts must have filled his breast when
he saw his ancient, favourite city, and the temples wherein he and his
brother gods had been so revered, now ignominiously laid waste.
Better than either Mars or Apollo fared the god Bacchus at the great
stampede, and the legends relate the following:--In Tyrol there are very
large lakes, surrounded by magnificent trees that are mirrored in the
blue waters. Trees and water murmur so that one experiences strange
feelings of awe when one wanders there alone. On the bank of such a lake
stood the hut of a young fisherman, who lived by fishing, and who also
acted as ferryman to any travellers who wished to cross the lake. He
had a large boat, that was fastened to the trunk of an old tree not far
from his dwelling. Here he lived quite alone. Once, about the time of
the autumnal equinox, towards midnight, he heard a knocking at his
window, and on opening the door he saw three monks, with their heads
deeply muffled in their cowls, who seemed to be in great haste. One of
them hurriedly asked him for the boat, promising to return it within a
few hours. The monks were three, and the fisherman could not hesitate;
so he unfastened the boat, and when they had embarked and departed, he
went back to his hut and lay down. He was young, and soon fell asleep;
but in a few hours he was awakened by the returning monks. When he went
out to them, one of them pressed a silver coin into his hand, and then
all three hastened away. The fisherman went to look at his boat, which
he found made fast. Then he shivered, but not from the night-air. A
peculiarly chilling sensation had passed through his limbs, and his
heart seemed almost frozen, when the monk who paid the fare touched his
hand; the monk's fingers were cold as ice. For some days the fisherman
could not forget this circumstance; but youth will soon shake off
mysterious influences, and the fisherman thought no more of the
occurrence until the following year, when, again just at the time of the
autumnal equinoxes, towards midnight, there was a knocking at the window
of the hut, and again the three cowled monks appeared, and again
demanded the boat. The fisherman delivered up the boat with less anxiety
this time, but when after a few hours they returned, and one of the
monks again hastily pressed a coin into his hand, he again shuddered at
the touch of the icy cold fingers. This happened every year at the same
time and in the same manner. At last, as the seventh year drew near, an
irresistible desire seized on the fisherman to learn, at all costs, the
secret that was hidden under these three cowls. He piled a mass of nets
into the boat, so as to form a hiding-place into which he could slip
while the monks were preparing to embark. The sombre expected travellers
came at the accustomed time, and the fisherman succeeded in hiding
himself under the nets unobserved. To his astonishment, the voyage
lasted but a short time, whereas it usually took him over an hour to
reach the opposite shore; and greater yet was his surprise when here, in
a locality with which he had been quite familiar, he beheld a wide
forest-glade which he had never before seen, and which was covered with
flowers that, to him, were of quite strange kind. Innumerable lamps hung
from the trees, and vases filled with blazing rosin stood on high
pedestals; the moon, too, was so bright that the fisherman could see all
that took place, as distinctly as if it had been mid-day. There were
many hundreds of young men and young women, most of them beautiful as
pictures, although their faces were all as white as marble, and this
circumstance, together with their garments, which consisted of white,
very white, tunics with purple borders, girt up, gave them the
appearance of moving statues. The women wore on their heads wreaths of
vine leaves, either natural or wrought of gold and silver, and their
hair was partly plaited over the brow into the shape of a crown, and
partly fell in wild locks on their necks. The young men also wore
wreaths of vine leaves. Both men and women swinging in their hands
golden staffs covered with vine leaves, hastened joyously to greet the
new-comers. One of the latter threw aside his cowl, revealing an
impertinent fellow of middle age, with a repulsive, libidinous face, and
pointed goat-ears, and scandalously extravagant sexuality. The second
monk also threw aside his cowl, and there came to view a big-bellied
fellow, not less naked, whose bald pate the mischievous women crowned
with a wreath of roses. The faces of the two monks, like those of the
rest of the assemblage, were white as snow. White as snow also was the
face of the third monk, who laughingly brushed the cowl from his head.
As he unbound the girdle of his robe, and with a gesture of disgust
flung off from him the pious and dirty garment, together with crucifix
and rosary, lo! there stood, robed in a tunic brilliant as a diamond, a
marvellously beautiful youth with a form of noble symmetry, save that
there was something feminine in the rounded hips and the slender waist.
His delicately-curved lips, also, and soft, mobile features gave him a
somewhat feminine appearance; but his face expressed also a certain
daring, almost reckless heroism. The women caressed him with wild
enthusiasm, placed an ivy-wreath upon his head, and threw a magnificent
leopard-skin over his shoulders. At this moment came swiftly dashing
along, drawn by two lions, a golden two-wheeled triumphal chariot.
Majestically, yet with a merry glance, the youth leaped on the chariot,
guiding the wild steeds with purple reins. At the right of the chariot
strode one of his uncassocked companions, whose lewd gestures and
unseemly form delighted the beholders, while his comrade, with the bald
pate and fat paunch, whom the merry women had placed on an ass, rode at
the left of the chariot, carrying in his hand a golden drinking-cup,
which was constantly refilled with wine. On moved the chariot, and
behind it whirled the romping, dancing, vine-crowned men and women. At
the head of the triumphal procession marched the orchestra; the pretty,
chubby-cheeked youth, playing the double flute; then the nymph with the
high-girt tunic, striking the jingling tambourine with her knuckles;
then the equally gracious beauty, with the triangle; then the
goat-footed trumpeters, with handsome but lascivious faces, who blew
their fanfares on curious sea-shells and fantastically-shaped horns;
then the lute-players.
But, dear reader, I forgot that you are a most cultured and
well-informed reader, and have long since observed that I have been
describing a Bacchanalia and a feast of Dionysius. You have often seen
on ancient bas-reliefs, or in the engravings of archæological works,
pictures of the triumphal processions held in honour of the god Bacchus;
and surely, with your cultivated and classic tastes, you would not be
frightened even if at dead of night, in the depths of a lonely forest,
the lonely spectres of such a Bacchanalian procession, together with the
customary tipsy personnel, should appear bodily before your eyes. At the
most you would only give way to a slight voluptuous shudder, an æsthetic
awe, at sight of this pale assemblage of graceful phantoms, who have
risen from their monumental sarcophagi, or from their hiding-places amid
the ruins of ancient temples, to perform once more their ancient,
joyous, divine service; once more, with sport and merry-making, to
celebrate the triumphal march of the divine liberator, the Saviour of
the senses; to dance once more the merry dance of paganism, the
_can-can_ of the antique world--to dance it without any hypocritical
disguise, without fear of the interference of the police of a
spiritualistic morality, with the wild abandonment of the old days,
shouting, exulting, rapturous. Evoe Bacche!
But alas, dear reader, the poor fisherman was not, like yourself, versed
in mythology; he had never made archæological studies; and terror and
fear seized upon him when he beheld the Triumphator and his two
wonderful acolytes emerge from their monks' garb. He shuddered at the
immodest gestures and leaps of the Bacchantes, Fauns, and Satyrs, who,
with their goats' feet and horns, seemed to him peculiarly diabolical,
and he regarded the whole assemblage as a congress of spectres and
demons, who were seeking by their mysterious rites to bring ruin on all
Christians. His hair stood on end at sight of the reckless impossible
posture of a Mænad, who, with flowing hair and head thrown back, only
balanced herself by the weight of her thyrsus. His own brain seemed to
reel as he saw the Corybantes in mad frenzy wounding their own bodies
with short swords, seeking voluptuousness in pain itself. The soft and
tender, yet so terrible, tones of the music seemed to penetrate to his
very soul, like a burning, consuming, excruciating flame. But when he
saw that defamed Egyptian symbol, of exaggerated size and crowned with
flowers, borne upon a tall pole by an unashamed woman, then sight and
hearing forsook the poor fisherman--and he darted back to the boat, and
crept under the nets, with chattering teeth and trembling limbs, as
though Satan already held him fast by the foot. Soon after, the three
monks also returned to the boat and shoved off. When they had
disembarked at the original starting-place, the fisherman managed to
escape unobserved from his hiding-place, so that they supposed he had
merely been behind the willows awaiting their return. One of the monks,
as usual, with icy-cold fingers pressed the fare into the fisherman's
hand, then all three hurried away.
For the salvation of his own soul, which he believed to be endangered,
and also to guard other good Christians from ruin, the fisherman held it
his duty to communicate a full account of the mysterious occurrence to
the Church authorities; and as the superior of a neighbouring
Franciscan monastery was in great repute as a learned exorcist, the
fisherman determined to go to him without delay. The rising sun found
him on his way to the monastery, where, with modest demeanour, he soon
stood before his excellency the superior, who received him seated in an
easy-chair in the library, and with hood drawn closely over his face,
listened meditatively while the fisherman told his tale of horror. When
the recital was finished, the superior raised his head, and as the hood
fell back, the fisherman saw, to his dismay, that his excellency was one
of the three monks who annually sailed over the lake--the very one,
indeed, whom he had the previous night seen as a heathen demon riding in
the golden chariot drawn by lions. It was the same marble-white face,
the same regular, beautiful features, the same mouth with its
delicately-curved lips. And these lips now wore a kindly smile, and from
that mouth now issued the gracious and melodious words, "Beloved son in
Christ, we willingly believe that you have spent the night in company of
the god Bacchus. Your fantastic ghost-story gives ample proof of that.
Not that we would say aught unpleasant of this god: at times he is
undoubtedly a care-dispeller, and gladdens the heart of man. But he is
very dangerous for those who cannot bear much; and to this class you
seem to belong. We advise you to partake in future very sparingly of the
golden juice of the grape, and not again to trouble the spiritual
authorities with the fantasies of a drunken brain. Concerning this last
vision of yours, you had better keep a very quiet tongue in your head;
otherwise the secular arm of our beadle shall measure out to you
twenty-five lashes. And now, beloved son in Christ, go to the monastery
kitchen, where brother butler and brother cook will set before you a
slight repast."
With this, the reverend father bestowed the customary benediction on the
fisherman, and when the latter, bewildered, took himself off to the
kitchen and suddenly came face to face with brother cook and brother
butler, he almost fell to the earth in affright, for they were the same
monks who had accompanied the superior on his midnight excursions across
the lake. He recognised one by his fat paunch and bald head, and the
other by his lascivious grin and goat-ears. But he held his tongue, and
only in later years did he relate his strange story.
Several old chronicles which contain similar legends locate the scene
near the city of Speyer, on the Rhine.
Along the coast of East Friesland an analogous tradition is found, in
which the ancient conception of the transportation of the dead to the
realm of Hades, which underlies all those legends, is most distinctly
seen. It is true that none of them contain any mention of Charon, the
steersman of the boat: this old fellow seems to have entirely
disappeared from folk-lore, and is to be met with only in puppet-shows.
But a far more notable mythological personage is to be recognised in the
so-called forwarding agent, or dispatcher, who makes arrangements for
the transportation of the dead, and pays the customary passage-money
into the hands of the boatman; the latter is generally a common
fisherman, who officiates as Charon. Notwithstanding his quaint
disguise, the true name of this dispatcher may readily be guessed, and I
shall therefore relate the legend as faithfully as possible.
The shores of East Friesland that border on the North Sea abound with
bays, which are used as harbours, and are called fiords. On the farthest
projecting promontory of land generally stands the solitary hut of some
fisherman, who here lives, peaceful and contented, with his family.
Here nature wears a sad and melancholy aspect. Not even the chirping of
a bird is to be heard, only now and then the shrill screech of a
sea-gull flying up from its nest among the sand-hills, that announces
the coming storm. The monotonous plashings of the restless sea harmonise
with the sombre, shifting shadows of the passing clouds. Even the human
inhabitants do not sing here, and on these melancholy coasts the strain
of a _volkslied_ is never heard. The people who live here are an
earnest, honest, matter-of-fact race, proud of their bold spirit and of
the liberties which they have inherited from their ancestors. Such a
people are not imaginative, and are little given to metaphysical
speculations. Fishing is their principal support, added to which is an
occasional pittance of passage-money for transporting some traveller to
one of the adjacent islands.
It is said that at a certain period of the year, just at mid-day, when
the fisherman and his family are seated at table eating their noonday
meal, a traveller enters and asks the master of the house to vouchsafe
him an audience for a few minutes to speak with him on a matter of
business. The fisherman, after vainly inviting the stranger to partake
of the meal, grants his request, and they both step aside to a little
table. I shall not describe the personal appearance of the stranger in
detail, after the tedious manner of novel-writers: a brief enumeration
of the salient points will suffice. He is a little man, advanced in
years, but well preserved. He is, so to say, a youthful greybeard:
plump, but not corpulent; cheeks ruddy as an apple; small eyes, which
blink merrily and continually, and on his powdered little head is set a
three-cornered little hat. Under his flaming yellow cloak, with its many
collars, he wears the old-fashioned dress of a well-to-do Dutch
merchant, such as we see depicted in old portraits--namely, a short silk
coat of a parrot-green colour, a vest embroidered with flowers, short
black trousers, striped stockings, and shoes ornamented with buckles.
The latter are so brightly polished that it is hard to understand how
the wearer could trudge a-foot through the slimy mud of the coast and
yet keep them so clean. His voice is a thin, asthmatic treble, sometimes
inclining to be rather lachrymose; but the address and bearing of the
little man are as grave and measured as beseem a Dutch merchant. This
gravity, however, appears to be more assumed than natural, and is in
marked contrast with the searching, roving, swift-darting glances of the
eye, and with the ill-repressed fidgettiness of the legs and arms. That
the stranger is a Dutch merchant is evidenced not only by his apparel,
but also by the mercantile exactitude and caution with which he
endeavours to effect as favourable a bargain as possible for his
employers. He is, as he says, a forwarding agent, and has received from
some of his mercantile friends a commission to transport a certain
number of souls, as many as can find room in an ordinary boat, from the
coast of East Friesland to the White Island. In fulfilment of this
commission, he adds, he wishes to know if the fisherman will this night
convey in his boat the aforesaid cargo to the aforesaid island; in which
case he is authorised to pay the passage-money in advance, confidently
hoping that, in Christian fairness, the fisherman will make his price
very moderate. The Dutch merchant (which term is, in fact, a pleonasm,
since every Dutchman is a merchant) makes this proposition with the
utmost nonchalance, as if it referred to a cargo of cheeses, and not to
the souls of the dead. The fisherman is startled at the word "souls,"
and a cold chill creeps down his back, for he immediately comprehends
that the souls of the dead are here meant, and that the stranger is none
other than the phantom Dutchman, who has already intrusted several of
his fellow-fishermen with the transportation of the souls of the dead,
and paid them well for it, too.
These East Frieslanders are, as I have already remarked, a brave,
healthy, practical people; in them is lacking that morbid imagination
which makes us so impressible to the ghostly and supernatural. Our
fisherman's weird dismay lasts but a moment; suppressing the uncanny
sensation that is stealing over him, he soon regains his composure, and,
intent on securing as high a sum as possible, he assumes an air of
supreme indifference. But after a little chaffering the two come to an
understanding, and shake hands to seal the bargain. The Dutchman draws
forth a dirty leather pouch, filled entirely with little silver pennies
of the smallest denomination ever coined in Holland, and in these tiny
coins counts out the whole amount of the fare. With instructions to the
fisherman to be ready with his boat at the appointed place about the
midnight hour when the moon becomes visible, the Dutchman takes leave of
the whole family, and, declining their repeated invitations to dine, the
grave little figure, dignified as ever, trips lightly away.
At the time agreed upon the fisherman appears at the appointed place. At
first the boat is rocked lightly to and fro by the waves; but by the
time the full moon has risen above the horizon the fisherman notices
that his bark is less easily swayed, and so it gradually sinks deeper
and deeper in the stream, until finally the water comes within a
hand's-breadth of the boat's bow. This circumstance apprises him that
his passengers, the souls, are now aboard, and he pushes off from shore
with his cargo. Although he strains his eyes to the utmost, he can
distinguish nothing but a few vapoury streaks that seem to be swayed
hither and thither, and to intermingle with one another, but assume no
definite forms. Listen intently as he may, he hears nothing but an
indescribably-faint chirping and rustling. Only now and then a sea-gull
with a shrill scream flies swiftly over his head; or near him a fish
leaps up from out the stream, and for a moment stares at him with a
vacuous look. The night-winds sigh, and the sea-breezes grow more
chilly. Everywhere only water, moonlight, and silence! and silent as all
around him is the fisherman, who finally reaches the White Island and
moors his boat. He sees no one on the strand, but he hears a shrill,
asthmatic, wheezy, lachrymose voice, which he recognises as that of the
Dutchman. The latter seems to be reading off a list of proper names,
with a peculiar, monotonous intonation, as if rehearsing a roll-call.
Among the names are some which are known to the fisherman as belonging
to persons who have died that year. During the reading of the list, the
boat is evidently being gradually lightened of its load, and as soon as
the last name is called it rises suddenly and floats free, although but
a moment before it was deeply imbedded in the sand of the sea-shore. To
the fisherman this is a token that his cargo has been properly
delivered, and he calmly rows back to his wife and child, to his beloved
home on the fiord.
...Notwithstanding this clever disguise, I have ventured to guess who
the important mythological personage is that figures in this tradition.
It is none other than the god Mercury, Hermes Psychopompos, the whilom
conductor of the dead to Hades. Verily, under that shabby yellow cloak
and prosaic tradesman's figure is concealed the youthful and most
accomplished god of heathendom, the cunning son of Maia. On his little
three-cornered hat not the slightest tuft of a feather is to be seen
which might remind the beholder of the winged cap, and the clumsy shoes
with steel buckles fail to give the least hint of the winged sandals.
This grave and heavy Dutch lead is quite different from the mobile
quicksilver, from which the god derived his very name. But the contrast
is so exceedingly striking as to betray the god's design, which is the
more effectually to disguise himself. Perhaps this mask was not chosen
out of mere caprice. Mercury was, as you know, the patron god of thieves
and merchants, and, in all probability, in choosing a disguise that
should conceal him, and a trade by which to earn his livelihood, he took
into consideration his talents and his antecedents.
...And thus it came to pass that the shrewdest and most cunning of the
gods became a merchant, and, to adapt himself most thoroughly to his
rôle, became the _ne plus ultra_ of merchants--a Dutch merchant. His
long practice in the olden time as Psychopompos, as conveyor of the dead
to Hades, marks him out as particularly fitted to conduct the
transportation of the souls of the dead to the White Island, in the
manner just described.
The White Island is occasionally also called Brea, or Britannia. Does
this perhaps refer to White Albion, to the chalky cliffs of the English
coast? It would be a very humorous idea if England was designated as the
land of the dead, as the Plutonian realm, as hell. In such a form, in
truth, England has appeared to many a stranger.
In my essay on the Faust legend I discussed at full length the popular
superstition concerning Pluto and his dominion. I showed how the old
realm of shadows became hell, and how its old gloomy ruler became more
and more diabolical. Neither Pluto, god of the nether regions, nor his
brother, Neptune, god of the sea, emigrated like the other gods. Even
after the final triumph of Christendom they remained in their domains,
their respective elements. No matter what silly fables concerning him
were invented here above on earth, old Pluto sat by his Proserpine, warm
and cosey down below.
Neptune suffered less from calumny than his brother Pluto, and neither
church-bell chimes nor organ-strains could offend his ears in the depths
of old ocean, where he sat peacefully by the side of his white-bosomed
wife, Dame Amphitrite, surrounded by his court of dripping nereids and
tritons. Only now and then, when a young sailor crossed the equator, he
would dart up from the briny deep, in his hand brandishing the trident,
his head crowned with sea-weed, and his flowing, silvery beard reaching
down to the navel. Then he would confer on the neophyte the terrible
sea-water baptism, accompanying it with a long unctuous harangue,
interspersed with coarse sailor jests, to the great delight of the jolly
tars. The harangue was frequently interrupted by the spitting of amber
quids of chewed tobacco, which Neptune so freely scattered around him. A
friend, who gave me a detailed description of the manner in which such a
sea-miracle is performed, assured me that the very sailors that laughed
most heartily at the droll antics of Neptune never for a moment doubted
the existence of such a god, and sometimes when in great danger they
even prayed to him.
Neptune, as we have seen, remained monarch of the watery realm; and
Pluto, notwithstanding his metamorphosis into Satan, still continued to
be prince of the lower regions. They fared better than did their brother
Jupiter, who, after the overthrow of their father, Saturn, became ruler
of heaven, and as sovereign of the universe resided at Olympus, where,
surrounded by his merry troop of gods, goddesses, and nymphs-of-honour,
he carried on his ambrosial rule of joy. But when the great catastrophe
occurred,--when the rule of the cross, that symbol of suffering, was
proclaimed,--then the great Kronides fled, and disappeared amid the
tumults and confusion of the transmigration of races. All traces of him
were lost, and I have in vain consulted old chronicles and old women:
none could give me the least information concerning his fate. With the
same purpose in view, I have ransacked many libraries, where I was shown
the magnificent codices ornamented with gold and precious stones, true
odalisques in the harem of science. To the learned eunuchs who, with
such affability, unlocked for me those brilliant treasures, I here
return the customary thanks. It appears as if no popular tradition of a
medieval Jupiter exists; and all that I could gather concerning him
consists of a story told me by my friend, Niels Andersen.
...The events that I am about to relate, said Niels Andersen, occurred
on an island, the exact situation of which I cannot tell. Since its
discovery no one has been able again to reach it, being prevented by the
immense icebergs that tower like a high wall around the island, and
seldom, probably, permit a near approach. Only the crew of a Russian
whaling-vessel, which a storm had driven so far to the north, ever trod
its soil; and since then over a hundred years have elapsed. When the
sailors had, by means of a small boat, effected a landing, they found
the island to be wild and desolate. Sadly waved the blades of tall sedgy
grass over the quicksands; here and there grew a few stunted fir-trees,
or barren shrubs. They saw a multitude of rabbits springing around, on
which account they named it the Island of Rabbits. Only one miserable
hut gave evidence that a human being dwelt there. As the sailors entered
the hut they saw an old, very old man, wretchedly clad in a garment of
rabbit skins rudely stitched together. He was seated in a stone chair in
front of the hearth, trying to warm his emaciated hands and trembling
knees by the flaring brushwood fire. At his right side stood an immense
bird, evidently an eagle, but which had been roughly treated by time,
and shorn of all its plumage save the long bristly quills of its wings,
that gave it a highly grotesque, and, at the same time, hideous
appearance. At the old man's left, squatted on the earth, was an
extraordinarily large hairless goat, which seemed to be very old;
although full milky udders, with fresh, rosy nipples, hung at its belly.
Among the sailors were several Greeks, one of whom, not thinking that
his words would be understood by the aged inhabitant of the hut,
remarked in the Greek language to a comrade, "This old fellow is either
a spectre or an evil demon." But at these words the old man suddenly
arose from his seat, and to their great surprise the sailors beheld a
stately figure, which, in spite of its advanced age, raised itself erect
with commanding, yes, with king-like dignity, his head almost touching
the rafters. The features, too, although rugged and weather-beaten,
showed traces of original beauty, they were so noble and
well-proportioned. A few silvery locks fell over his brow, which was
furrowed by pride and age. His eyes had a dim and fixed look, but
occasionally they would still gleam piercingly; and from his mouth were
heard in the melodious and sonorous words of the ancient Greek language,
"You are mistaken, young man; I am neither a spectre nor an evil demon;
I am an unhappy old man, who once knew better days. But who are ye?"
The sailors explained the accident which had befallen them, and then
inquired concerning the island. The information, however, was very
meagre. The old man told them that since time immemorial he had
inhabited this island, whose bulwark of ice served him as a secure
asylum against his inexorable foes. He subsisted principally by catching
rabbits, and every year, when the floating icebergs had settled, a few
bands of savages crossed over on sleds, and to them he sold
rabbit-skins, receiving in exchange various articles of indispensable
necessity. The whales, which sometimes came swimming close to the
island, were his favourite company. But it gave him pleasure to hear
again his native tongue, for he too was a Greek. He entreated his
countrymen to give him an account of the present condition of Greece.
That the cross had been torn down from the battlements of Grecian cities
apparently caused the old man a malicious satisfaction; but it did not
altogether please him when he heard that the crescent had been planted
there instead. It was strange that none of the sailors knew the names of
the cities concerning which the old man inquired, and which, as he
assured them, had flourished in his time. In like manner the names of
the present cities and villages in Greece, which were mentioned by the
sailors, were unknown to him; at this the old man would shake his head
sadly, and the sailors looked at one another perplexed. They noticed
that he knew exactly all the localities and geographical peculiarities
of Greece; and he described so accurately and vividly the bays, the
peninsulas, the mountain-ridges, even the knolls and most trifling rocky
elevations, that his ignorance of these localities was all the more
surprising. With especial interest, with a certain anxiety even, he
questioned them concerning an ancient temple, which in his time, he
assured them, had been the most beautiful in all Greece; but none of his
hearers knew the name, which he pronounced with a loving tenderness.
But finally, when the old man had again described the site of the
temple, with the utmost particularity, a young sailor recognised the
place by the description.
The village wherein he was born, said the young man, was situated hard
by, and when a boy he had often tended his father's swine at the very
place where there had been found ruins of an ancient structure,
indicating a magnificent grandeur in the past. Now, only a few large
marble pillars remained standing; some were plain, unadorned columns,
others were surmounted by the square stones of a gable. From the cracks
of the masonry the blooming honeysuckle-vines and red bell-flowers
trailed downwards. Other pillars--among the number some of rose-coloured
marble--lay shattered on the ground, and the costly marble head-pieces,
ornamented with beautiful sculpture, representing foliage and flowers,
were overgrown by rank creepers and grasses. Half buried in the earth
lay huge marble blocks, some of which were squares, such as were used
for the walls; others were three-cornered slabs for roof-pieces. Over
them waved a large, wild fig-tree, which had grown up out of the ruins.
Under the shadow of that tree, continued the young man, he had passed
whole hours in examining the strange figures carved on the large marble
blocks; they seemed to be pictorial representations of all sorts of
sports and combats, and were very pleasing to look at, but, alas! much
injured by exposure, and overgrown with moss and ivy. His father, whom
he had questioned in regard to the mysterious signification of these
pillars and sculptures, told him that these were the ruins of an ancient
pagan temple, and had once been the abode of a wicked heathen god, who
had here wantoned in lewd debauchery, incest, and unnatural vices.
Notwithstanding this, the unenlightened heathen were accustomed to
slaughter in his honour a hundred oxen at a time, and the hollowed
marble block into which was gathered the blood of the sacrifices was yet
in existence. It was, in fact, the very trough which they were in the
habit of using as a receptacle for refuse wherewith to feed the swine.
So spoke the young sailor. But the old man heaved a sigh that betrayed
the most terrible anguish. Tottering, he sank into his stone chair,
covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child. The great, gaunt
bird, with a shrill screech, flapped its immense wings, and menaced the
strangers with claws and beak. The old goat licked its master's hands,
and bleated mournfully as in consolation.
At this strange sight, an uncanny terror seized upon the sailors: they
hurriedly left the hut, and were glad when they could no longer hear the
sobbing of the old man, the screaming of the bird, and the bleating of
the goat. When they were safely on board the boat, they narrated their
adventure. Among the crew was a learned Russian, professor of philosophy
at the university of Kazan; and he declared the matter to be highly
important. With his forefinger held knowingly to the side of his nose,
he assured the sailors that the old man of the island was undoubtedly
the ancient god Jupiter, son of Saturn and Rhea. The bird at his side
was clearly the eagle that once carried in its claws the terrible
thunderbolts. And the old goat was, in all probability, none other than
Althea, Jupiter's old nurse, who had suckled him in Crete, and now in
exile again nourished him with her milk.
This is the story as told to me by Niels Andersen; and I must confess
that it filled my soul with a profound melancholy. Decay is secretly
undermining all that is great in the universe, and the gods themselves
must finally succumb to the same miserable destiny. The iron law of fate
so wills it, and even the greatest of the immortals must submissively
bow his head. He of whom Homer sang, and whom Phidias sculptured in gold
and ivory, he at whose glance earth trembled, he, the lover of Leda,
Alcmena, Semele, Danaë, Callisto, Io, Leto, Europa, etc.--even he is
compelled to hide himself behind the icebergs of the North Pole, and in
order to prolong his wretched existence must deal in rabbit-skins, like
a shabby Savoyard!
I do not doubt that there are people who will derive a malicious
pleasure from such a spectacle. They are, perhaps, the descendants of
those unfortunate oxen who, in hecatombs, were slaughtered on the altars
of Jupiter. Rejoice! avenged is the blood of your ancestors, those poor
martyrs of superstition. But we, who have no hereditary grudge rankling
in us, we are touched at the sight of fallen greatness, and withhold not
our holiest compassion.
CONFESSIONS.
[Heine wrote these _Confessions_, which form one of his most
characteristic works, in the winter of 1853-4. They were originally
intended to form part of the book on Germany. The translation here
given is Mr. Fleishman's, revised by collation with the original.]
A witty Frenchman--a few years ago these words would have been a
pleonasm--once dubbed me an unfrocked Romanticist. I have a weakness for
all that is witty; and spiteful as was this appelation, it nevertheless
delighted me highly. Notwithstanding the war of extermination that I had
waged against Romanticism, I always remained a Romanticist at heart, and
that in a higher degree than I myself realised. After I had delivered
the most deadly blows against the taste for Romantic poetry in Germany,
there stole over me an inexpressible yearning for the blue flower in the
fairy-land of Romanticism, and I grasped the magic lyre and sang a song
wherein I gave full sway to all the sweet extravagances, to all the
intoxication of moonlight, to all the blooming, nightingale-like fancies
once so fondly loved. I know it was "the last free-forest song of
Romanticism,"[15] and I am its last poet. With me the old German lyric
school ends; while with me, at the same time, the modern lyric school of
Germany begins. Writers on German literature will assign to me this
double rôle. It would be unseemly for me to speak at length on this
subject, but I may with justice claim a liberal space in the history of
German Romanticism. For this reason I ought to have included in my
account of the Romantic school a review of my own writings. By my
omission to do this, a gap has been left which I cannot easily fill. To
write a criticism of one's self is an embarrassing, even an impossible
task. I should be a conceited coxcomb to obtrude the good I might be
able to say of myself, and I should be a great fool to proclaim to the
whole world the defects of which I might also be conscious. And even
with the most honest desire to be sincere, one cannot tell the truth
about oneself. No one has as yet succeeded in doing it, neither Saint
Augustine, the pious bishop of Hippo, nor the Genevese Jean Jacques
Rousseau--least of all the latter, who proclaimed himself the man of
truth and nature, but was really much more untruthful and unnatural than
his contemporaries.
...Rousseau, who in his own person also slandered human nature, was yet
true to it in respect to our primitive weakness, which consists in
always wishing to appear in the eyes of the world as something different
from what we really are. His self-portraiture is a lie, admirably
executed, but still only a brilliant lie.
I recently read an anecdote concerning the King of Ashantee, which
illustrates in a very amusing manner this weakness of human nature. When
Major Bowditch was despatched by the English Governor of the Cape of
Good Hope as resident ambassador to the court of that powerful African
monarch, he sought to ingratiate himself with the courtiers, especially
with the court-ladies, by taking their portraits. The king, who was
astonished at the accuracy of the likenesses, requested that he also
might be painted, and had already had several sittings, when the artist
noticed in the features of the king, who had often sprung up to observe
the progress of the picture, the peculiar restlessness and embarrassment
of one who has a request on the tip of his tongue and yet hesitates to
express it. The painter pressed his majesty to tell his wish, until at
last the poor African king inquired, in a low voice, if he could not be
painted white.
And so it is. The swarthy negro king wishes to be painted white. But do
not laugh at the poor African: every human being is such another negro
king, and all of us would like to appear before the public in a
different colour from that which fate has given us. Fully realising
this, I took heed not to draw my own portrait in my review of the
Romantic school. But in the following pages I shall have ample occasion
to speak of myself, and this will to a certain extent fill up the gap
caused by the lacking portrait; for I have here undertaken to describe,
for the reader's benefit and enlightenment, the philosophical and
religious changes which have taken place in the author's mind since my
book on Germany was written.
Fear not that I shall paint myself too white and my fellow-beings too
black. I shall always give my own colours with exact fidelity, so that
it may be known how far my judgment is to be trusted when I draw the
portraits of others.
...Madame de Staël's hate of the Emperor is the soul of her book, _De
l'Allemagne_, and, although his name is nowhere mentioned, one can see
at every line how the writer squints at the Tuilleries. I doubt not that
the book annoyed the Emperor more than the most direct attack; for
nothing so much irritates a man as a woman's petty needle-pricks. We
are prepared for great sabre-strokes, and instead we are tickled at the
most sensitive spots.
Oh, the women! we must forgive them much, for they love much--and many.
Their hate is, in fact, only love turned the wrong way. At times they
try to injure us, but only because they hope thereby to please some
other man. When they write, they have one eye on the paper and the other
on a man. This rule applies to all authoresses, with the exception of
Countess Hahn-Hahn, who only has one eye. We male authors have also our
prejudices. We write for or against something, for or against an idea,
for or against a party; but women always write for or against one
particular man, or, to express it more correctly, on account of one
particular man. We men will sometimes lie outright; women, like all
passive creatures, seldom invent, but can so distort a fact that they
can thereby injure us more surely than by a downright lie. I verily
believe my friend Balzac was right when he once said to me, in a
sorrowful tone, "_La femme est un être dangereux_."
Yes, women are dangerous; but I must admit that beautiful women are not
so dangerous as those whose attractions are intellectual rather than
physical; for the former are accustomed to have men pay court to them,
while the latter meet the vanity of men half-way, and through the bait
of flattery acquire a more powerful influence than the beautiful women.
I by no means intend to insinuate that Madame de Staël was ugly; but
beauty is something quite different. She had single points which were
pleasing; but the effect as a whole was anything but pleasing. To
nervous persons, like the sainted Schiller, her custom of continually
twirling between her fingers some fragment of paper or similar small
article was particularly annoying. This habit made poor Schiller dizzy,
and in desperation he grasped her pretty hand to hold it quiet. This
innocent action led Madame de Staël to believe that the tender-hearted
poet was overpowered by the magic of her personal charms. I am told that
she really had very pretty hands and beautiful arms, which she always
displayed. Surely the Venus of Milo could not show such beautiful arms!
Her teeth surpassed in whiteness those of the finest steed of Araby. She
had very large, beautiful eyes, a dozen amorets would have found room on
her lips, and her smile is said to have been very sweet: therefore she
could not have been ugly,--no woman is ugly. But I venture to say that
had fair Helen of Sparta looked so, the Trojan War would not have
occurred, and the strongholds of Priam would not have been burned, and
Homer would never have sung the wrath of Pelidean Achilles.
...In my Memoirs I relate with more detail than is admissible here how,
after the French Revolution of July 1830, I emigrated to Paris, where I
have ever since lived quiet and contented. What I did and suffered
during the Restoration will be told when the disinterestedness of such a
publication is no longer liable to doubt or suspicion. I worked much and
suffered much; and about the time that the sun of the July revolution
arose in France, I had gradually become very weary, and needed
recreation. Moreover, the air of my native land was daily becoming more
unwholesome for me, and I was compelled to contemplate seriously a
change of climate. I had visions: in the clouds I saw all sorts of
horrible, grotesque faces, that annoyed me with their grimaces. It
sometimes seemed to me as if the sun were a Prussian cockade. At night I
dreamed of a hideous black vulture that preyed on my liver; and became
very melancholy. In addition to all this, I had become acquainted with
an old magistrate from Berlin who had spent many years in the fortress
of Spandau, and who described to me how unpleasant it was in winter to
wear iron manacles. I thought it very un-Christian not to warm the irons
a little, for if our chains were only warmed somewhat, they would not
seem so very unpleasant, and cold natures could even endure them very
well. The chains ought also to be perfumed with the essence of roses and
laurels, as is the custom in France. I asked my magistrate if oysters
were often served at Spandau. He answered, no; Spandau was too far
distant from the sea. Meat, also, he said, was seldom to be had, and the
only fowls were the flies which fell into one's soup. About the same
time I became acquainted with a commercial traveller of a French wine
establishment, who was never tired of praising the merry life of
Paris,--how the air was full of music, how from morning until night one
heard the singing of the "Marseillaise" and "En avant, marchons!" and
"Lafayette aux cheveux blancs." He told me that at every street-corner
was the inscription, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." He likewise
recommended the champagne of his firm, and gave me a large number of
business cards. He also promised to furnish me with letters of
introduction to the best Parisian restaurants, in case I should visit
Paris. As I really did need recreation, and as Spandau was at too great
a distance from the sea to procure oysters, and as the fowl-soup of
Spandau was not to my taste, and as, moreover, the Prussian chains were
very cold in winter and could not be conducive to my health, I
determined to go to Paris, the fatherland of champagne and the
"Marseillaise," there to drink the former, and to hear the latter sung,
together with "En avant, marchons!" and "Lafayette aux cheveux blancs."
I crossed the Rhine on May 1st, 1831. I did not see the old river-god,
father Rhine, so I contented myself with dropping my visiting card into
the water. I am told that he was sitting down below, conning his French
grammar; for during the Prussian rule his French had grown rusty from
long disuse, and now he wished to practice it anew, in order to be
prepared for contingencies. I thought I could hear him, conjugating,
"J'aime, tu aimes, il aime; nous aimons"--but what does he love? Surely
not the Prussians!
I awoke at St. Denis from a sweet morning sleep, and heard for the first
time the shout of the driver, "Paris! Paris!" Here we already inhaled
the atmosphere of the capital, now visible on the horizon. A rascally
lackey tried to persuade me to visit the royal sepulchre at St. Denis;
but I had not come to France to see dead kings.... In twenty minutes I
was in Paris, entering through the triumphal arch of the Boulevard St.
Denis, which was originally erected in honour of Louis XIV., but now
served to grace my entry into Paris. I was surprised at meeting such
multitudes of well-dressed people, tastefully arrayed like the pictures
of a fashion-journal. I was also impressed by the fact that they all
spoke French, which, in Germany, is the distinguishing mark of the
higher classes; the whole nation are as noble as the nobility with us.
The men were all so polite, and the pretty women all smiled so
graciously. If some one accidentally jostled me without immediately
asking pardon, I could safely wager that it was a fellow-countryman. And
if a pretty woman looked a little sour, she had either eaten sauerkraut
or could read Klopstock in the original. I found everything quite
charming. The skies were so blue, the air so balmy, and here and there
the rays of the sun of July were still glimmering. The cheeks of the
beauteous Lutetea were still flushed from the burning kisses of that
sun, and the bridal flowers on her bosom were not yet wilted. But at the
street-corners the words, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," had already
been erased. Honeymoons fly so quickly!
I immediately visited the restaurants to which I had been recommended.
The landlords assured me that they would have made me welcome even
without letters of introduction, for I had an honest and distinguished
appearance, which in itself was a sufficient recommendation. Never did a
German landlord so address me, even if he thought it. Such a churlish
fellow feels himself in duty bound to suppress all pleasant speeches,
and his German bluntness demands that he shall tell only the most
disagreeable things to our faces. In the manner, and even in the
language, of the French, there is so much delicious flattery, which
costs so little, and is yet so gratifying. My poor sensitive soul, which
had shrunk with shyness from the rudeness of the fatherland, again
expanded under the genial influence of French urbanity. God has given us
tongues that we may say something pleasant to our fellow-men.
My French had grown rusty since the battle of Waterloo, but after
half-an-hour's conversation with a pretty flower-girl in the Passage de
l'Opéra it soon flowed fluently again. I managed to stammer forth
gallant phrases in broken French, and explained to the little charmer
the Linnæan system, in which flowers are classified according to their
stamens. The little one practised a different system, and divided
flowers into those which smelled pleasantly and those which smelled
unpleasantly. I believe that she applied a similar classification to
men. She was surprised that, notwithstanding my youth, I was so learned,
and spread the fame of my erudition through the whole Passage de
l'Opéra. I inhaled with rapturous delight the delicious aroma of
flattery, and amused myself charmingly. I walked on flowers, and many a
roasted pigeon came flying into my gaping mouth.
...Among the notabilities whom I met soon after my arrival in Paris was
Victor Bohain; and I love to recall to memory the jovial, intellectual
form of him who did so much to dispel the clouds from the brow of the
German dreamer, and to initiate his sorrow-laden heart into the gaieties
of French life. He had at that time already founded the _Europe
Littéraire_, and, as editor, solicited me to write for his journal
several articles on Germany, after the _genre_ of Madame de Staël. I
promised to furnish the articles, particularly mentioning, however, that
I should write them in a style quite different from that of Madame de
Staël. "That is a matter of indifference to me," was the laughing
answer; "like Voltaire, I tolerate every _genre_, excepting only the
_genre ennuyeux_." And in order that I, poor German, should not fall
into the _genre ennuyeux_, friend Bohain often invited me to dine with
him, and stimulated my brain with champagne. No one knew better than he
how to arrange a dinner at which one should not only enjoy the best
_cuisine_, but be most pleasantly entertained. No one could do the
honours of host as well as he; and he was certainly justified in
charging the stockholders of the _Europe Littéraire_ with one hundred
thousand francs as the expense of these banquets. Even his wooden leg
contributed to the humour of the man, and when he hobbled around the
table, serving out champagne to his guests, he resembled Vulcan
performing the duties of Hebe's office amidst the uproarious mirth of
the assembled gods. Where is Victor Bohain now? I have heard nothing of
him for a long period. The last I saw of him was about ten years ago, at
an inn at Granville. He had just come over from England, where he had
been studying the colossal English national debt, in this occupation
smothering the recollection of his own little personal debts, to this
little town on the coast of Normandy, and here I found him seated at a
table with a bottle of champagne and an open-mouthed, stupid-looking
citizen, to whom he was earnestly explaining a business project by
which, as Bohain eloquently demonstrated, a million could be realised.
Bohain always had a great fondness for speculation, and in all his
projects there was always a million in progress--never less than a
million. His friends nicknamed him, on this account, Messer Millione.
...The founding of the _Europe Littéraire_ was an excellent idea. Its
success seemed assured, and I have never been able to understand why it
failed. Only one evening before the day on which the suspension
occurred, Victor Bohain gave a brilliant ball in the editorial _salons_
of the journal, at which he danced with his three hundred stockholders,
just like Leonidas with his three hundred Spartans the day before the
battle of Thermopylæ. Every time that I behold in the gallery of the
Louvre the painting by David which portrays that scene of antique
heroism, I am reminded of the last ball of Victor Bohain. Just like the
death-defying king in David's picture, so stood Victor Bohain on his
solitary leg; it was the same classic pose. Stranger, when thou
strollest in Paris through the Chaussée d'Antin towards the Boulevards,
and findest thyself in the low-lying, filthy street that was once called
the Rue Basse du Rempart, know that thou standest at the Thermopylæ of
the _Europe Littéraire_, where Victor Bohain with his three hundred
stockholders so heroically fell.
...In my articles on German philosophy I blabbed without reserve the
secrets of the schools, which, draped in scholastic formulas, were
previously known only to the initiated. My revelations excited the
greatest surprise in France, and I remember that leading French thinkers
naively confessed to me that they had always believed German philosophy
to be a peculiar mystic fog, behind which divinity lay hidden as in a
cloud, and that German philosophers were ecstatic seers, filled with
piety and the fear of God. It is not my fault that German philosophy is
just the reverse of that which until now we have called piety and fear
of God, and that our latest philosophers have proclaimed absolute
atheism to be the last word of German philosophy. Relentlessly and with
bacchantic recklessness they tore aside the blue curtain from the German
heavens, and cried, "Behold! all the gods have flown, and there above
sits only an old spinster with leaden hands and sorrowful
heart--Necessity."
Alas! what then sounded so strange is now being preached from all the
house-tops in Germany, and the fanatic zeal of many of these
propagandists is terrible! We have now bigoted monks of atheism,
grand-inquisitors of infidelity, who would have bound Voltaire to the
stake because he was at heart an obstinate deist. So long as such
doctrines remained the secret possession of an intellectual aristocracy,
and were discussed in a select coterie-dialect which was
incomprehensible to the lackeys in attendance, while we at our
philosophical _petit-soupers_ were blaspheming, so long did I continue
to be one of the thoughtless free-thinkers, of whom the majority
resembled those grand-seigneurs who, shortly before the Revolution,
sought by means of the new revolutionary ideas to dispel the tedium of
their indolent court-life. But as soon as I saw that the rabble began to
discuss the same themes at their unclean symposiums, where instead of
wax-candles and chandeliers gleamed tallow-dips and oil-lamps; when I
perceived that greasy cobblers and tailors presumed in their blunt
mechanics' speech to deny the existence of God; when atheism began to
stink of cheese, brandy, and tobacco--then my eyes were suddenly opened,
and that which I had not comprehended through reason, I now learned
through my olfactory organs and through my loathing and disgust. Heaven
be praised! my atheism was at an end.
To be candid, it was perhaps not alone disgust that made the principles
of the godless obnoxious to me, and induced me to abandon their ranks. I
was oppressed by a certain worldly apprehension which I could not
overcome, for I saw that atheism had entered into a more or less secret
compact with the most terribly naked, quite fig-leafless, communistic
communism. My dread of the latter has nothing in common with that of the
parvenu, who trembles for his wealth, or with that of well-to-do
tradesmen, who fear an interruption of their profitable business. No;
that which disquiets me is the secret dread of the artist and scholar,
who sees our whole modern civilisation, the laboriously-achieved product
of so many centuries of effort, and the fruit of the noblest works of
our ancestors, jeopardised by the triumph of communism. Swept along by
the resistless current of generous emotions, we may perhaps sacrifice
the cause of art and science, even all our own individual interests, for
the general welfare of the suffering and oppressed people. But we can no
longer disguise from ourselves what we have to expect when the great,
rude masses, which by some are called the people, by others the rabble,
and whose legitimate sovereignty was proclaimed long ago, shall obtain
actual dominion. The poet, in particular, experiences a mysterious
dread in contemplating the advent to power of this uncouth sovereign. We
will gladly sacrifice ourselves for the people, for self-sacrifice
constitutes one of our most exquisite enjoyments--the emancipation of
the people has been the great task of our lives; we have toiled for it,
and in its cause endured indescribable misery, at home as in exile--but
the poet's refined and sensitive nature revolts at every near personal
contact with the people, and still more repugnant is the mere thought of
its caresses, from which may Heaven preserve us! A great democrat once
remarked that if a king had taken him by the hand, he would immediately
have thrust it into the fire to purify it. In the same manner I would
say, if the sovereign people vouchsafed to press my hand, I would hasten
to wash it. The poor people is not beautiful, but very ugly; only that
ugliness simply comes from dirt, and will disappear as soon as we open
public baths, in which His Majesty may gratuitously bathe himself.
...It required no great foresight to foretell these terrible events so
long before their occurrence. I could easily prophesy what songs would
one day be whistled and chirped in Germany, for I saw the birds hatching
that in after-days gave tone to the new school of song. I saw Hegel,
with his almost comically serious face, like a setting hen, brooding
over the fatal eggs; and I heard his cackling; to tell the truth, I
seldom understood him, and only through later reflection did I arrive at
an understanding of his works. I believe he did not wish to be
understood.
...One beautiful starlight night, Hegel stood with me at an open window.
I, being a young man of twenty-two, and having just eaten well and drunk
coffee, naturally spoke with enthusiasm of the stars, and called them
abodes of the blest. But the master muttered to himself, "The stars!
Hm! hm! the stars are only a brilliant eruption on the firmament."
"What!" cried I; "then there is no blissful spot above, where virtue is
rewarded after death?" But he, glaring at me with his dim eyes,
remarked, sneering, "So you want a _pourboire_ because you have
supported your sick mother and not poisoned your brother?" At these
words he looked anxiously around, but was reassured when he saw that it
was only Henry Beer.
...I was never an abstract thinker, and I accepted the synthesis of the
Hegelian philosophy without examination, because its deductions
flattered my vanity. I was young and arrogant, and it gratified my
self-conceit when I was informed by Hegel that not, as my grandmother
had supposed, He who dwelt in the heavens, but I myself, here on earth,
was God. This silly pride had, however, by no means an evil influence on
me. On the contrary, it awoke in me the heroic spirit, and at that
period I practiced a generosity and self-sacrifice which completely cast
into the shade the most virtuous and distinguished deeds of the good
_bourgeoisie_ of virtue, who did good merely from a sense of duty and in
obedience to the laws of morality. I was myself the living moral law,
and the fountain-head of all right and all authority. I myself was
morality personified; I was incapable of sin, I was incarnated
purity.... I was all love, and incapable of hate. I no longer revenged
myself on my enemies; for, rightly considered, I had no enemies; at
least, I recognised none as such. For me there now existed only
unbelievers who questioned my divinity. Every indignity that they
offered me was a sacrilege, and their contumely was blasphemy. Such
godlessness, of course, I could not always let pass unpunished; but in
those cases it was not human revenge, but divine judgment upon sinners.
Absorbed in this exalted practice of justice, I would repress with more
or less difficulty all ordinary pity. As I had no enemies, so also there
existed for me no friends, but only worshippers, who believed in my
greatness, and adored me, and praised my works, those written in verse
as well as those in prose. Towards this congregation of truly devout and
pious ones I was particularly gracious, especially towards the
young-lady devotees.
But the expense of playing the rôle of a God, for whom it were unseemly
to go in tatters, and who is sparing neither of body nor of purse, is
immense. To play such a rôle respectably, two things are above all
requisite--much money and robust health. Alas! it happened that one day
[in February 1848] both these essentials failed me, and my divinity was
at an end. Luckily, the highly-respected public was at that time
occupied with events so dramatic, so grand, so fabulous and
unprecedented, that the change in the affairs of so unimportant a
personage as myself attracted but little attention. Unprecedented and
fabulous were indeed the events of those crazy February days, when the
wisdom of the wisest was brought to naught, and the chosen ones of
imbecility were raised aloft in triumph. The last became the first, and
the lowliest became the highest. Matter, like thought, was turned upside
down, and the world was topsy-turvy. If in those mad days I had been
sane, those events would surely have cost me my wits; but, lunatic as I
then was, the contrary necessarily came to pass, and, strange to say,
just in the days of universal madness I regained my reason! Like many
other divinities of that revolutionary period, I was compelled to
abdicate ignominiously, and to return to the lowly life of humanity. I
came back into the humble fold of God's creatures. I again bowed in
homage to the almighty power of a Supreme Being, who directs the
destinies of this world, and who for the future shall also regulate my
earthly affairs. The latter, during the time I had been my own
Providence, had drifted into sad confusion, and I was glad to turn them
over to a celestial superintendent, who with his omniscience really
manages them much better. The belief in God has since then been to me
not only a source of happiness, but it has also relieved me from all
those annoying business cares which are so distasteful to me. This
belief has also enabled me to practice great economies; for I need no
longer provide either for myself or for others, and since I have joined
the ranks of the pious I contribute almost nothing to the support of the
poor. I am too modest to meddle, as formerly, with the business of
Divine Providence. I am no longer careful for the general good; I no
longer ape the Deity; and with pious humility I have notified my former
dependants that I am only a miserable human being, a wretched creature
that has naught more to do with governing the universe, and that in
future, when in need and affliction, they must apply to the Supreme
Ruler, who dwells in heaven, and whose budget is as inexhaustible as His
goodness--whereas I, a poor ex-god, was often compelled, even in the
days of my godhead, to seek the assistance of the devil. It was
certainly very humiliating for a god to have to apply to the devil for
aid, and I am heartily thankful to be relieved from my usurped glory. No
philosopher shall ever again persuade me that I am a god. I am only a
poor human creature, that is not over well; that is, indeed, very ill.
In this pitiable condition it is a true comfort to me that there is some
one in the heavens above to whom I can incessantly wail out the litany
of my sufferings, especially after midnight, when Mathilde has sought
the repose that she oft sadly needs. Thank God! in such hours I am not
alone, and I can pray and weep without restraint; I can pour out my
whole heart before the Almighty, and confide to Him some things which
one is wont to conceal even from one's own wife.
After the above confession, the kindly-disposed reader will easily
understand why I no longer found pleasure in my work on the Hegelian
philosophy. I saw clearly that its publication would benefit neither the
public nor the author. I comprehended that there is more nourishment for
famishing humanity in the most watery and insipid broth of Christian
charity than in the dry and musty spider-web of the Hegelian philosophy.
I will confess all. Of a sudden I was seized with a mortal terror of the
eternal flames. I know it is a mere superstition; but I was frightened.
And so, on a quiet winter's night, when a glowing fire was burning on my
hearth, I availed myself of the good opportunity, and cast the
manuscript of my work on the Hegelian philosophy into the flames. The
burning leaves flew up the chimney with a strange and hissing sound.
Thank God! I was rid of it! Alas! would that I could destroy in the same
manner all that I have ever published concerning German philosophy! But
that is impossible, and since I cannot prevent their republication, as I
lately learned to my great regret, no other course remains but to
confess publicly that my exposition of German philosophy contains the
most erroneous and pernicious doctrines.
...It is strange! during my whole life I have been strolling through the
various festive halls of philosophy, I have participated in all the
orgies of the intellect, I have coquetted with every possible system,
without being satisfied, like Messalina after a riotous night; and now,
after all this, I suddenly find myself on the same platform whereon
stands Uncle Tom. That platform is the Bible, and I kneel by the side of
my dusky brother in faith with the same devotion.
What humiliation! With all my learning, I have got no farther than the
poor ignorant negro who can hardly spell! It is even true that poor
Uncle Tom appears to see in the holy book more profound things than I,
who am not yet quite clear, especially in regard to the second part.
...But, on the other hand, I think I may flatter myself that I can
better comprehend, in the first part of the holy book, the character of
Moses. His grand figure has impressed me not a little. What a colossal
form! I cannot imagine that Og, King of Bashan, could have looked more
giant-like. How insignificant does Sinai appear when Moses stands
thereon! That mountain is merely a pedestal for the feet of the man
whose head towers in the heavens and there holds converse with God. May
God forgive the sacrilegious thought! but sometimes it appears to me as
if this Mosaic God were only the reflected radiance of Moses himself,
whom he so strongly represents in wrath and in love. It were a sin, it
were anthropomorphism, to assume such an identity of God and his
prophet; but the resemblance is most striking.
I had not previously much admired the character of Moses, probably
because the Hellenic spirit was predominant in me, and I could not
pardon the lawgiver of the Jews for his hate of the plastic arts. I
failed to perceive that Moses, notwithstanding his enmity to art, was
nevertheless himself a great artist, and possessed the true artistic
spirit. Only, this artistic spirit with him, as with his Egyptian
countrymen, was applied to the colossal and the imperishable. But not,
like the Egyptians, did he construct his works of art from bricks and
granite, but he built human pyramids and carved human obelisks. He took
a poor shepherd tribe and from it created a nation which should defy
centuries; a great, an immortal, a consecrated race, a God-serving
people, who to all other nations should be as a model and prototype: he
created Israel.
I have never spoken with proper reverence either of the artist or of his
work, the Jews; and for the same reason--namely, my Hellenic
temperament, which was opposed to Jewish asceticism. My prejudice in
favour of Hellas has declined since then. I see now that the Greeks were
only beautiful youths, but that the Jews were always men, strong,
unyielding men, not only in the past, but to this very day, in spite of
eighteen centuries of persecution and suffering. Since that time I have
learned to appreciate them better, and, were not all pride of ancestry a
silly inconsistency in a champion of the revolution and its democratic
principles, the writer of these pages would be proud that his ancestors
belonged to the noble house of Israel, that he is a descendant of those
martyrs who gave the world a God and a morality, and who have fought and
suffered on all the battle-fields of thought.
The histories of the middle ages, and even those of modern times, have
seldom enrolled on their records the names of such knights of the Holy
Spirit, for they generally fought with closed visors. The deeds of the
Jews are just as little known to the world as is their real character.
Some think they know the Jews because they can recognise their beards,
which is all they have ever revealed of themselves. Now, as during the
middle ages, they remain a wandering mystery, a mystery that may perhaps
be solved on the day which the prophet foretells, when there shall be
but one shepherd and one flock, and the righteous who have suffered for
the good of humanity shall then receive a glorious reward.
You see that I, who in the past was wont to quote Homer, now quote the
Bible, like Uncle Tom. In truth, I owe it much. It again awoke in me the
religious feeling; and this new birth of religious emotion suffices for
the poet, for he can dispense far more easily than other mortals with
positive religious dogmas.
...The silliest and most contradictory reports are in circulation
concerning me. Very pious but not very wise men of Protestant Germany
have urgently inquired if, now that I am ill and in a religious frame of
mind, I cling with more devotion than heretofore to the Lutheran
evangelic faith, which, until now, I have only professed after a
luke-warm, official fashion. No, dear friends, in that respect no change
has taken place in me, and if I continue to adhere to the evangelic
faith at all, it is because now, as in the past, that faith does not at
all inconvenience me. I will frankly avow that when I resided in Berlin,
like several of my friends, I would have preferred to separate myself
from the bonds of all denominations, had not the rulers there refused a
residence in Prussia, and especially in Berlin, to any who did not
profess one of the positive religions recognised by the State. As Henry
IV. once laughingly said, "Paris vaut bien une messe," so could I say,
with equal justice, "Berlin is well worth a sermon." Both before and
after, I could easily tolerate the very enlightened Christianity which
at that time was preached in some of the churches of Berlin. It was a
Christianity filtered from all superstition, even from the doctrine of
the divinity of Christ, like mock-turtle soup without turtle. At that
time I myself was still a god, and no one of the positive religions had
more value for me than another. I could wear any of their uniforms out
of courtesy, after the manner of the Russian Emperor, who, when he
vouchsafes the King of Prussia the honour to attend a review at Potsdam,
appears uniformed as a Prussian officer of the guard.
Now that my physical sufferings, and the reawakening of my religious
nature, have effected in me many changes, does the uniform of
Lutheranism in some measure express my true sentiments? How far has the
formal profession become a reality? I do not propose to give direct
answers to these questions, but I shall avail myself of the opportunity
to explain the services which, according to my present views,
Protestantism has rendered to civilisation. From this may be inferred
how much more I am now in sympathy with this creed.
At an earlier period, when philosophy possessed for me a paramount
interest, I prized Protestantism only for its services in winning
freedom of thought, which, after all, is the foundation on which in
later times Leibnitz, Kant, and Hegel could build. Luther, the strong
man with the axe, must, in the very nature of things, have preceded
these warriors, to open a path for them. For this service I have
honoured the Reformation as being the beginning of German philosophy,
which justified my polemical defence of Protestantism. Now, in my later
and more mature days, when the religious feeling again surges up in me,
and the shipwrecked metaphysician clings fast to the Bible,--now I
chiefly honour Protestantism for its services in the discovery and
propagation of the Bible. I say "discovery," for the Jews, who had
preserved the Bible from the great conflagration of the sacred temple,
and all through the middle ages carried it about with them like a
portable fatherland, kept their treasure carefully concealed in their
ghettos. Here came by stealth German scholars, the predecessors and
originators of the Reformation, to study the Hebrew language and thus
acquire the key to the casket wherein the precious treasure was
enclosed. Such a scholar was the worthy Reuchlinus; and his enemies, the
Hochstraaten, in Cologne, who are represented as the party of darkness
and ignorance, were by no means such simpletons. On the contrary, they
were far-sighted Inquisitors, who foresaw clearly the disasters which a
familiar acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures would bring on the
Church. Hence the persecuting zeal with which they sought to destroy the
Hebrew writings, at the same time inciting the rabble to exterminate the
Jews, the interpreters of these writings. Now that the motives of their
actions are known, we see that, properly considered, each was in the
right. This reactionary party believed that the spiritual salvation of
the world was endangered, and that all means, falsehood as well as
murder, were justifiable, especially against the Jews. The lower
classes, pinched by poverty, and heirs of the primeval curse, were
embittered against the Jews because of the wealth they had amassed; and
what to-day is called the hate of the proletariate against the rich, was
then called hate against the Jews. In fact, as the latter were excluded
from all ownership of land and from every trade, and relegated to
dealing in money and merchandise, they were condemned by law to be rich,
hated, and murdered. Such murders, it is true, were in these days
committed under the mantle of religion, and the cry was, "We must kill
those who once killed our God." How strange! The very people who had
given the world a God, and whose whole life was inspired by the worship
of God, were stigmatised as deicides! The bloody parody of such madness
was witnessed at the outbreak of the revolution in San Domingo, where a
negro mob devastated the plantations with murder and fire, led by a
negro fanatic who carried an immense crucifix, amid bloodthirsty cries
of "The whites killed Christ; let us slay all whites!"
Yes, to the Jews the world is indebted for its God and His word. They
rescued the Bible from the bankruptcy of the Roman empire, and preserved
the precious volume intact during all the wild tumults of the migration
of races, until Protestantism came to seek it and translated it into the
language of the land and spread it broadcast over the whole world. This
extensive circulation of the Bible has produced the most beneficent
fruits, and continues to do so to this very day. The propaganda of the
Bible Society have fulfilled a providential mission, which will bring
forth quite different results from those anticipated by the pious
gentlemen of the British Christian Missionary Society. They expect to
elevate a petty, narrow dogma to supremacy, and to monopolise heaven as
they do the sea, making it a British Church domain--and see, without
knowing it, they are demanding the overthrow of all Protestant sects;
for, as they all draw their life from the Bible, when the knowledge of
the Bible becomes universal, all sectarian distinctions will be
obliterated.
While by tricks of trade, smuggling, and commerce the British gain
footholds in many lands, with them they bring the Bible, that grand
democracy wherein each man shall not only be king in his own house, but
also bishop. They are demanding, they are founding, the great kingdom of
the spirit, the kingdom of the religious emotions, and the love of
humanity, of purity, of true morality, which cannot be taught by
dogmatic formulas, but by parable and example, such as are contained in
that beautiful, sacred, educational book for young and old--the Bible.
To the observant thinker it is a wonderful spectacle to view the
countries where the Bible, since the Reformation, has been exerting its
elevating influence on the inhabitants, and has impressed on them the
customs, modes of thought, and temperaments which formerly prevailed in
Palestine, as portrayed both in the Old and in the New Testament. In the
Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sections of Europe and America, especially
among the Germanic races, and also to a certain extent in Celtic
countries, the customs of Palestine have been reproduced in so marked a
degree that we seem to be in the midst of the ancient Judean life. Take,
for example, the Scotch Protestants: are not they Hebrews, whose names
even are biblical, whose very cant smacks of the Phariseeism of ancient
Jerusalem, and whose religion is naught else than a pork-eating Judaism?
It is the same in Denmark and in certain provinces of North Germany, not
to mention the majority of the new sects of the United States, among
whom the life depicted in the Old Testament is pedantically aped. In the
latter, that life appears as if daguerreotyped: the outlines are
studiously correct, but all is depicted in sad, sombre colours; the
golden tints and harmonising colours of the promised land are lacking.
But the caricature will disappear sooner or later. The zeal, the
imperishable and the true--that is to say, the morality--of ancient
Judaism will in those countries bloom forth just as acceptably to God as
in the old time it blossomed on the banks of Jordan and on the heights
of Lebanon. One needs neither palm-trees nor camels to be good; and
goodness is better than beauty.
The readiness with which these races have adopted the Judaic life,
customs, and modes of thought is, perhaps, not entirely attributable to
their susceptibility of culture. The cause of this phenomenon is,
perhaps, to be sought in the character of the Jewish people, which
always had a marked elective affinity with the character of the
Germanic, and also to a certain extent with that of the Celtic races.
Judea has always seemed to me like a fragment of the Occident misplaced
in the Orient. In fact, with its spiritual faith, its severe, chaste,
even ascetic customs,--in short, with its abstract inner life,--this
land and its people always offered the most marked contrasts to the
population of neighbouring countries, who, with their luxuriantly varied
and fervent nature of worship, passed their existence in a Bacchantic
dance of the senses.
At a time when, in the temples of Babylon, Nineveh, Sidon, and Tyre,
bloody and unchaste rites were celebrated, the description of which,
even now, makes our hair stand on end, Israel sat under its fig-trees,
piously chanting the praises of the invisible God, and exercised virtue
and righteousness. When we think of these surroundings we cannot
sufficiently admire the early greatness of Israel. Of Israel's love of
liberty, at a time when not only in its immediate vicinity, but also
among all the nations of antiquity, even among the philosophical Greeks,
the practice of slavery was justified and in full sway,--of this I will
not speak, for fear of compromising the Bible in the eyes of the powers
that be. No Socialist was more of a terrorist than our Lord and Saviour.
Even Moses was such a Socialist; although, like a practical man, he
attempted only to reform existing usages concerning property. Instead of
striving to effect the impossible, and rashly decreeing the abolition of
private property, he only sought for its moralisation by bringing the
rights of property into harmony with the laws of morality and reason.
This he accomplished by instituting the jubilee, at which period every
alienated heritage, which among an agricultural people always consisted
of land, would revert to the original owner, no matter in what manner it
had been alienated. This institution offers the most marked contrast to
the Roman statute of limitations, by which, after the expiration of a
certain period, the actual holder of an estate could no longer be
compelled to restore the estate to the true owner, unless the latter
should be able to show that within the prescribed time he had, with all
the prescribed formalities, demanded restitution. This last condition
opened wide the door for chicanery, particularly in a state where
despotism and jurisprudence were at their zenith, and where the unjust
possessor had at command all means of intimidation, especially against
the poor who might be unable to defray the expense of litigation. The
Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and that which he conquered with the
strong arm he knew how to defend by the tricks of law. Only a nation of
robbers and casuists could have invented the law of prescription, the
statute of limitations, and consecrated it in that detestable book which
may be called the bible of the Devil--I mean the codex of Roman civil
law, which, unfortunately, still holds sway.
I have spoken of the affinity which exists between the Jews and the
Germans, whom I once designated as the two pre-eminently moral nations.
While on this subject, I desire to direct attention to the ethical
disapprobation with which the ancient German law stigmatises the statute
of limitations: this I consider a noteworthy fact. To this very day the
Saxon peasant uses the beautiful and touching aphorism, "A hundred years
of wrong do not make a single year of right."
The Mosaic law, through the institution of the jubilee year, protests
still more decidedly. Moses did not seek to abolish the right of
property; on the contrary, it was his wish that everyone should possess
property, so that no one might be tempted by poverty to become a
bondsman and thus acquire slavish propensities. Liberty was always the
great emancipator's leading thought, and it breathes and glows in all
his statutes concerning pauperism. Slavery itself he bitterly, almost
fiercely, hated; but even this barbarous institution he could not
entirely destroy. It was rooted so deeply in the customs of that ancient
time that he was compelled to confine his efforts to ameliorating by law
the condition of the slaves, rendering self-purchase by the bondsman
less difficult, and shortening the period of bondage.
But if a slave thus eventually freed by process of law declined to
depart from the house of bondage, then, according to the command of
Moses, the incorrigibly servile, worthless scamp was to be nailed by the
ear to the gate of his master's house, and after being thus publicly
exposed in this disgraceful manner, he was condemned to life-long
slavery. Oh, Moses! our teacher, Rabbi Moses! exalted foe of all
slavishness! give me hammer and nails that I may nail to the gate of
Brandenburg our complacent, long-eared slaves in liveries of
black-red-and-gold.
I leave the ocean of universal religious, moral, and historical
reflections, and modestly guide my bark of thought back again into the
quiet inland waters of autobiography, in which the author's features are
so faithfully reflected.
In the preceding pages I have mentioned how Protestant voices from home,
in very indiscreet questions, have taken for granted that with the
reawakening in me of the religious feeling my sympathy for the Church
had also grown stronger. I know not how clearly I have shown that I am
not particularly enthusiastic for any dogma or for any creed; and in
this respect I have remained the same that I always was. I repeat this
statement in order to remove an error in regard to my present views,
into which several of my friends who are zealous Catholics have fallen.
How strange! at the same time that in Germany Protestantism bestowed on
me the undeserved honour of crediting me with a conversion to the
evangelic faith, another report was circulating that I had gone over to
Catholicism. Some good souls went so far as to assert that this latter
conversion had occurred many years ago, and they supported this
statement by definitely naming time and place. They even mentioned the
exact date; they designated by name the church in which I had abjured
the heresy of Protestantism, and adopted the only true and saving faith,
that of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. The only detail that was
lacking was how many peals of the bell had been sounded at this
ceremony.
From the newspapers and letters that reach me I learn how widely this
report has won credence; and I fall into a painful embarrassment when I
think of the sincere, loving joy which is so touchingly expressed in
some of these epistles. Travellers tell me that the salvation of my soul
has even furnished a theme for pulpit eloquence. Young Catholic priests
seek permission to dedicate to me the first fruits of their pen. I am
regarded as a shining light--that is to be--of the Church. This pious
folly is so well meant and sincere that I cannot laugh at it. Whatever
may be said of the zealots of Catholicism, one thing is certain: they
are no egotists; they take a warm interest in their fellow-men--alas!
often a little too warm an interest. I cannot ascribe that false report
to malice, but only to mistake. The innocent facts were in this case
surely distorted by accident only. The statement of time and place is
quite correct. I was really in the designated church on the designated
day, and I did there undergo a religious ceremony; but this ceremony was
no hateful abjuration, but a very innocent conjugation. In short, after
being married according to the civil law, I also invoked the sanction of
the Church, because my wife, who is a strict Catholic, would not have
considered herself properly married in the eyes of God without such a
ceremony; and for no consideration would I shake this dear being's
belief in the religion which she has inherited.
It is well, moreover, that women should have a positive religion.
Whether there is more fidelity among wives of the evangelic faith, I
shall not attempt to discuss. But the Catholicism of the wife certainly
saves the husband from many annoyances. When Catholic women have
committed a fault, they do not secretly brood over it, but confess to
the priest, and as soon as they have received absolution they are again
as merry and light-hearted as before. This is much pleasanter than
spoiling the husband's good spirits or his soup by downcast looks or
grieving over a sin for which they hold themselves in duty bound to
atone during their whole lives by shrewish prudery and quarrelsome
excess of virtue. The confessional is likewise useful in another
respect. The sinner does not keep her terrible secret preying on her
mind; and since women are sure, sooner or later, to babble all they
know, it is better that they should confide certain matters to their
confessor than that they should, in some moment of overpowering
tenderness, talkativeness, or remorse, blurt out to the poor husband the
fatal confession.
Scepticism is certainly dangerous in the married state, and, although I
myself was a free-thinker, I permitted no word derogatory to religion to
be spoken in my house. In the midst of Paris I lived like a steady,
commonplace townsman; and therefore when I married I desired to be
wedded under the sanction of the Church, although in this country the
civil marriage is fully recognised by society. My free-thinking friends
were vexed at me for this, and overwhelmed me with reproaches, claiming
that I had made too great concessions to the clergy. Their chagrin at my
weakness would have been still greater had they known the other
concessions that I had made to the hated priesthood. As I was a
Protestant wedding a Catholic, in order to have the ceremony performed
by a Catholic priest it was necessary to obtain a special dispensation
from the archbishop, who in these cases exacts from the husband a
written pledge that the offspring of the marriage shall be educated in
the religion of the mother. But, between ourselves, I could sign this
pledge with the lighter conscience since I knew the rearing of children
is not my specialty, and as I laid down my pen the words of the
beautiful Ninon de L'Enclos came into my mind--"O, le beau billet qu' a
Lechastre!"
...I will crown my confessions by admitting that, if at that time it had
been necessary in order to obtain the dispensation of the archbishop, I
would have bound over not only the children but myself. But the ogre of
Rome, who, like the monster in the fairy tales, stipulates that he shall
have for his services the future births, was content with the poor
children who were never born. And so I remained a Protestant, as
before--a protesting Protestant; and I protest against reports which,
without being intended to be defamatory, may yet be magnified so as to
injure my good name.
...There is not a particle of unkindly feeling in my breast against the
poor ogre of Rome. I have long since abandoned all feuds with
Catholicism, and the sword which I once drew in the service of an idea,
and not from private grudge, has long rested in its scabbard. In that
contest I resembled a soldier of fortune, who fights bravely, but after
the battle bears no malice either against the defeated cause or against
its champions.
Fanatical enmity towards the Catholic Church cannot be charged against
me, for there was always lacking in me the self-conceit which is
necessary to sustain such an animosity. I know too well my own
intellectual calibre not to be aware that with my most furious
onslaughts I could inflict but little injury on a colossus such as the
Church of St. Peter. I could only be a humble worker at the slow removal
of its foundation stones, a task which may yet require centuries. I was
too familiar with history not to recognise the gigantic nature of that
granite structure. Call it, if you will, the bastile of intellect;
assert, if you choose, that it is now defended only by invalids; but it
is therefore not the less true that the bastile is not to be easily
captured, and many a young recruit will break his head against its
walls.
As a thinker and as a metaphysician, I was always forced to pay the
homage of my admiration to the logical consistency of the doctrines of
the Roman Catholic Church, and I may also take credit to myself that I
have never by witticism or ridicule attacked its dogmas or its public
worship. Too much and too little honour has been vouchsafed me in
calling me an intellectual kinsman of Voltaire. I was always a poet; and
hence the poesy which blossoms and glows in the symbolism of Catholic
dogma and culture must have revealed itself more profoundly to me than
to ordinary observers, and in my youthful days I was often touched by
the infinite sweetness, the mysterious, blissful ecstasy and
awe-inspiring grandeur of that poetry. There was a time when I went into
raptures over the blessed Queen of Heaven, and in dainty verse told the
story of her grace and goodness. My first collection of poems shows
traces of this beautiful Madonna period, which in later editions I
weeded out with laughable anxiety.
The time for vanity has passed, and everyone is at liberty to smile at
this confession.
It will be unnecessary for me to say that, as no blind hate against the
Catholic Church exists in me, so also no petty spite against its priests
rankles in my heart. Whoever knows my satirical vein will surely bear
witness that I was always lenient and forbearing in speaking of the
human weaknesses of the clergy, although by their attacks they often
provoked in me a spirit of retaliation. But even at the height of my
wrath I was always respectful to the true priesthood; for, looking back
into the past, I remembered benefits which they had once rendered me;
for it is Catholic priests whom I must thank for my first instruction;
it was they who guided the first steps of my intellect.
Pedagogy was the specialty of the Jesuits, and although they sought to
pursue it in the interest of their order, yet sometimes the passion for
pedagogy itself, the only human passion that was left in them, gained
the mastery; they forgot their aim, the repression of reason and the
exaltation of faith, and, instead of reducing men to a state of
childhood, as was their purpose, out of the children they involuntarily
made men by their instruction. The greatest men of the Revolution were
educated in Jesuit schools. Without the training there acquired, that
great intellectual agitation would perhaps not have broken out till a
century later.
Poor Jesuit fathers! You have been the bugbear and the scapegoat of the
liberals. The danger that was in you was understood, but not your
merits. I could never join in the denunciations of my comrades, who at
the mere mention of Loyola's name would always become furious, like
bulls when a red cloth is held before them. It is certainly noteworthy,
and may perhaps at the assizes in the valley of Jehoshaphat be set down
as an extenuating circumstance, that even as a lad I was permitted to
attend lectures on philosophy. This unusual favour was exceptional in my
case, because the rector Schallmeyer was a particular friend of our
family. This venerable man often consulted with my mother in regard to
my education and future career, and once advised her, as she afterwards
related to me, to devote me to the service of the Catholic Church, and
send me to Rome to study theology. He assured her that through his
influential friends in Rome he could advance me to an important position
in the Church. But at that time my mother dreamed of the highest worldly
honours for me. Moreover, she was a disciple of Rousseau, and a strict
deist. Besides, she did not like the thought of her son being robed in
one of those long black cassocks, such as are worn by Catholic priests,
and in which they look so plump and awkward. She knew not how
differently, how gracefully, a Roman _abbate_ wears such a cassock, and
how jauntily he flings over his shoulders the black silk mantle, which
in Rome, the ever-beautiful, is the uniform of gallantry and wit.
Oh, what a happy mortal is such a Roman _abbate_! He serves not only the
Church of Christ, but also Apollo and the Muses, whose favourite he is.
The Graces hold his inkstand for him when he indites the sonnets which,
with such delicate cadences, he reads in the Accademia degli Arcadi. He
is a connoisseur of art, and needs only to taste the lips of a young
songstress in order to be able to foretell whether she will some day be
a celeberrima cantatrice, a diva, a world-renowned prima-donna. He
understands antiquities, and will write a treatise in the choicest
Ciceronian Latin concerning some newly-unearthed torso of a Grecian
Bacchante, reverentially dedicating it to the supreme head of
Christendom, to the Pontifex Maximus, for so he addresses him. And what
a judge of painting is the Signor _Abbate_, who visits the painters in
their ateliers and directs their attention to the fine points of their
female models! The writer of these pages had in him just the material
for such an _abbate_, and was just suited for strolling in delightful
_dolce far niente_ through the libraries, art galleries, churches, and
ruins of the Eternal City, studying among pleasures, and seeking
pleasure while studying. I would have read mass before the most select
audiences, and during Holy Week I would have mounted the pulpit as a
preacher of strict morality,--of course even then never degenerating
into ascetic rudeness. The Roman ladies, in particular, would have been
greatly edified, and through their favour and my own merit I would,
perhaps, have risen eventually to high rank in the hierarchy of the
Church. I would, perhaps, have become a monsignore, a violet-stocking;
perhaps even a cardinal's red hat might have fallen on my head. The
proverb says--
"There is no priestling, how small soe'er he be,
That does not wish himself a Pope to be."
And so it might have come to pass that I should attain the most exalted
position of all, for, although I am not naturally ambitious, I would yet
not have refused the nomination for Pope, had the choice of the conclave
fallen on me. It is, at all events, a very respectable office, and has a
good income attached to it; and I do not doubt that I could have
discharged the duties of my position with the requisite address. I would
have seated myself composedly on the throne of St. Peter, presenting my
toe for the kisses of all good Christians, the priests as well as the
laity. With a becoming dignity I would have let myself be carried in
triumph through the pillared halls of the great basilica, and only when
it tottered very threateningly would I have clung to the arms of the
golden throne, which is borne on the shoulders of six stalwart camerieri
in crimson uniform. By their side walk bald-headed monks of the Capuchin
order, carrying burning torches. Then follow lackeys in gala dress,
bearing aloft immense fans of peacocks' feathers, with which they gently
fan the Prince of the Church. It is all just like Horace Vernet's
beautiful painting of such a procession. With a like imperturbable
sacerdotal gravity--for I can be very serious if it be absolutely
necessary--from the lofty Lateran I would have pronounced the annual
benediction over all Christendom. Here, standing on the balcony, _in
pontificalibus_ and with the triple crown upon my head, surrounded by my
scarlet-hatted cardinals and mitred bishops, priests in suits of gold
brocade and monks of every hue, I would have presented my holiness to
the view of the swarming multitudes below, who, kneeling and with bowed
heads, extended farther than the eye could reach; and I could composedly
have stretched out my hands and blessed the city and the world.
But, as thou well knowest, gentle reader, I have not become a Pope, nor
a cardinal, nor even a papal nuncio. In the spiritual as well as in the
worldly hierarchy I have attained neither office nor rank; I have
accomplished nothing in this beautiful world; nothing has become of
me--nothing but a poet.
But no, I will not feign a hypocritical humility, I will not depreciate
that name. It is much to be a poet, especially to be a great lyric poet,
in Germany, among a people who in two things--in philosophy and in
poetry--have surpassed all other nations. I will not with a sham
modesty--the invention of worthless vagabonds--depreciate my fame as a
poet. None of my countrymen have won the laurel at so early an age; and
if my colleague, Wolfgang Goethe, complacently writes that "the Chinese
with trembling hand paints Werther and Lotte on porcelain," I can, if
boasting is to be in order, match his Chinese fame with one still more
legendary, for I have recently learned that my poems have been
translated into the Japanese language.
...But at this moment I am as indifferent to my Japanese fame as to my
renown in Finland. Alas! fame, once sweet as sugared pine-apple and
flattery, has for a long time been nauseous to me; it tastes as bitter
to me now as wormwood. With Romeo, I can say, "I am the fool of
fortune." The bowl stands filled before me, but I lack a spoon. What
does it avail me that at banquets my health is pledged in the choicest
wines, and drunk from golden goblets, when I, myself, severed from all
that makes life pleasant, may only wet my lips with an insipid potion?
What does it avail me that enthusiastic youths and maidens crown my
marble bust with laurel-wreaths, if meanwhile the shrivelled fingers of
an aged nurse press a blister of Spanish flies behind the ears of my
actual body. What does it avail me that all the roses of Shiraz so
tenderly glow and bloom for me? Alas! Shiraz is two thousand miles away
from the Rue d'Amsterdam, where, in the dreary solitude of my sick-room,
I have nothing to smell, unless it be the perfume of warmed napkins.
Alas! the irony of God weighs heavily upon me! the great Author of the
universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, wished to show the petty, earthly,
so-called German Aristophanes that his mightiest sarcasms are but feeble
banter compared with His, and how immeasurably he excels me in humour
and in colossal wit.
Yes, the mockery which the Master has poured out over me is terrible,
and horribly cruel is His sport. Humbly do I acknowledge His
superiority, and I prostrate myself in the dust before Him. But,
although I lack such supreme creative powers, yet in my spirit also the
eternal reason flames brightly, and I may summon even the wit of God
before its forum, and subject it to a respectful criticism. And here I
venture to offer most submissively the suggestion that the sport which
the Master has inflicted on the poor pupil is rather too long drawn out:
it has already lasted over six years, and after a time becomes
monotonous. Moreover, if I may take the liberty to say it, in my humble
opinion the jest is not new, and the great Aristophanes of Heaven has
already used it on a former occasion, and has, therefore, been guilty of
plagiarism on His own exalted self. In order to prove this assertion, I
will quote a passage from the Chronicle of Lüneberg. This chronicle is
very interesting for those who seek information concerning the manners
and customs of Germany during the middle ages. As in a fashion-journal,
it describes the wearing-apparel of both sexes which was in vogue at
each particular period. It also imparts information concerning the
popular ballads of the day, and quotes the opening lines of several of
them. Among others, it records that during the year 1480 there were
whistled and sung throughout all Germany certain songs, which for
sweetness and tenderness surpassed any previously known in German lands.
Young and old, and the women in particular, were quite bewitched by
these ballads, which might be heard the livelong day. But these songs,
so the chronicle goes on to say, were composed by a young priest who was
afflicted with leprosy, and lived a forlorn, solitary life, secluded
from all the world. You are surely aware, dear reader, what a horrible
disease leprosy was during the middle ages, and how the wretched beings
afflicted with this incurable malady were driven out from all society
and from the abodes of men, and were forbidden to approach any human
being. Living corpses, they wandered to and fro, muffled from head to
foot, a hood drawn over the face, and carrying in the hand a bell, the
Lazarus-bell, as it was called, through which they were to give timely
warning of their approach, so that every one could get out of the way in
time. The poor priest whose fame as a lyric poet the chronicle praised
so highly was such a leper; and while all Germany, shouting and
jubilant, sang and whistled his songs, he, a wretched outcast, in the
desolation of his misery sat sorrowful and alone.
Oh, that fame was the old, familiar scorn, the cruel jest of God, the
same as in my case, although there it appears in the romantic garb of
the middle ages. The _blasé_ king of Judea said rightly, There is no new
thing under the sun. Perhaps that sun itself, which now beams so
imposingly, is only an old warmed-up jest.
Sometimes among the gloomy phantasms that visit me at night I seem to
see before me the poor priest of the Lüneberg Chronicle, my brother in
Apollo, and his sorrowful eyes stare strangely out of his hood; but
almost at the same moment it vanishes, and, faintly dying away, like the
echo of a dream, I hear the jarring tones of the Lazarus-bell.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] There are three German biographies of Heine, those of Strodtmann,
Karpeles, and Proelss; a new edition of his works in six volumes, with a
biography and notes by Dr. Elster, has lately been announced. Mr.
Matthew Arnold, by his well-known essay and poem, has done much to
stimulate English interest in Heine. A careful critical estimate by Mr.
Charles Grant (_Contemporary_, Sept. 1880) may be mentioned with praise.
[2] He lodged at 32, Craven Street, Strand.
[3] "C'est le Bible, plus que tout autre livre," a distinguished French
critic wrote lately, "qui a façonné le génie poétique de Heine, en lui
donnant sa forme et sa couleur. Ses véritables maîtres, ses vrais
inspirateurs sont les glorieux inconnus qui ont écrit l'Ecclesiaste et
les Proverbes, le Cantique des cantiques, le livre de Job et ce chez
d'oeuvre d'ironie discrète intitulé: le livre du prophète Jonas. Celui
qui s'appelait un rossignol Allemand niché dans la perruque de Voltaire
fut à la fois le moins évangélique des hommes et le plus vraiment
biblique des poètes modernes."
[4] He committed suicide.--ED.
[5] Or in English.
[6] Heine at this period was never tired of laughing at Göttingen, and
here couples it with six particularly insignificant towns.--ED.
[7] _Dumm_ in German means stupid.
[8] In the French edition Heine rightly substituted "The Emperor
Maximilian."
[9] _i.e._ Ariosto.--ED.
[10] Michel corresponds to John Bull.--ED.
[11] This is a common error. Faust the printer is quite a distinct
person.--ED.
[12] It must be remembered that Heine visited England in 1827.
[13] This is said to have been the response of Princess Borghese to a
friend who asked her how she had felt when sitting as a model to
Canova.--ED.
[14] Heine only quotes the first part of the passage from the
_Reisebilder_, which has here been given in full.--ED.
[15] Heine here alludes to _Atta Troll_.--ED.
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