The Project Gutenberg EBook of Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with
Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected, by Anna Jameson
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected
Vol. I (of 3)
Author: Anna Jameson
Release Date: July 23, 2011 [EBook #36818]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISITS AND SKETCHES, VOL I ***
Produced by Julia Miller, David Garcia and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
VISITS AND SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD.
VOL. I.
[Illustration: SIGFRIED KRIMHILDE
_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._
_Group from the Fresco in the King of Bavaria's Palace at Munich.
Painted by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld._
_Published by Saunders & Otley 1834._]
VISITS AND SKETCHES AT HOME AND ABROAD
WITH TALES AND MISCELLANIES NOW FIRST COLLECTED.
BY MRS. JAMESON,
AUTHOR OF THE "CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN," "LIVES OF CELEBRATED FEMALE
SOVEREIGNS," &c.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.
1835.
LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
PAGE
Preface vii
SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER,
PART I. IN THREE DIALOGUES.
I. A Scene in a Steam Boat 4
A Singular Character 20
Gallery at Ghent 25
The Prince of Orange's Pictures 27
A Female Gambler 38
Cologne--the Medusa 44
Professor Walraf 51
Schlegel and Madame de Staël 55
Story of Archbishop Gerard 64
Heidelberg--Elizabeth Stuart 68
An English Fanner's idea of the Picturesque 85
II. Frankfort 88
The Theatre, Madame Haitzinger 92
The Versorgung Haus 98
The Städel Museum 103
Dannecker, Memoir of his Life and Works 106
German Sculpture--Rauch, Tieck, Schwanthaler 147
III. Goethe and his daughter-in-law 160
The German Women 167
German Authoresses 177
German Domestic Life and Manners 187
German Coquetterie and German Romance 199
The Story of a Devoted Sister 205
SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER,
PART II.
_Memoranda at Munich, Nuremberg, and Dresden._
I. MUNICH 241
The Theatre--representation of "Egmont" 245
Leo von Klenze 250
The Glyptothek--its general arrangement--Egina
Marbles--Account of the Frescos of Cornelius--Canova's
Paris and Thorwaldson's Adonis 252-273
The Opera at Munich, the Kapel Meister Stuntz 274
The Poems of the King of Bavaria 279
A public day at the New Palace 281
Thoughts on Female Singers--Their condition and destiny 284
The Munich Gallery--Thoughts on Pictures--their moral
influence 287
Rubens and the Flemish Masters 295
The Gallery of Schleissheim 304
The Boisserée Gallery--The old German School of Painting--Its
Effects on the Modern German School of Art 304
Representation of the Braut von Messina 310
The Hofgarten at Munich 313
The King's passion for Building 316
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.
It seems a foolish thing to send into the world a book requiring
a preface of apologies; and yet more absurd, to presume that any
deprecation on the part of the author could possibly win indulgence
for what should be in itself worthless.
For this reason, and with a very deep feeling of the kindness I have
already experienced from the public, I should now abandon these little
volumes to their destiny without one word of preface or remark, but
that a certain portion of their contents seems to require a little
explanation.
It was the wish and request of my friends, many months ago, that I
should collect various literary trifles which were scattered about in
print or in manuscript, and allow them to be published together. My
departure for the continent set aside this intention for the time. I had
other and particular objects in view, which still keep full possession
of my mind, and which have been suspended not without reluctance, in
order to prepare these volumes for the press;--neither had I, while
travelling in Germany, the slightest idea of writing any thing of that
country: so far from it, that except during the last few weeks at
Munich, I kept no regular notes: but finding on my return to England,
that many particulars which had strongly excited my interest, with
regard to the relative state of art and social existence in the two
countries, appeared new to those with whom I conversed,--after some
hesitation, I was induced to throw into form the few memoranda I had
made on the spot. They are now given to the public in the first and
second volumes of this little collection, with a very sincere feeling
of their many imperfections, and much anxiety with regard to the
reception they are likely to meet with; yet in the earnest hope that
what has been written in perfect simplicity of heart, may be perused
both by my English and German friends, particularly the artists, with
indulgence; that those who read and doubt may be awakened to inquiry,
and those who read and believe may be led to reflection; and that those
who differ from, and those who agree with the writer, may both find some
interest and amusement in the literal truth of the facts and impressions
she has ventured to record.
It was difficult to give sketches of art, literature, and character,
without making now and then some _personal_ allusions; but though I
have often sketched from the life, I have adhered throughout to this
principle--never to give publicity to any name not already before the
public, and in a manner public property.
Two of the tales of the third volume, "The False One," and "The Indian
Mother," were written at different times, to prove that I could write
in a style which should not be recognised as mine even by my most
intimate friends, and the _ruse_ so far succeeded, that both, as I am
informed, have been attributed to other writers.
A. J.
May 1834.
SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER.
PART I.
IN THREE DIALOGUES.
[Illustration]
I.
MEDON--ALDA.
MEDON.
And so we are to have no "_Sentimental Travels in Germany_" on
hot-pressed paper, illustrated with views taken on the spot?
ALDA.
No.
MEDON.
You have unloaded Time of his wallet only to deal out his "scraps of
things past," his shreds of remembrance, in beggarly, indolent fashion,
over your own fire-side? You are afraid of being termed an egotist; you,
who within these ten minutes have assured me that not any opinion of any
human being should prevent you from doing, saying, writing--any thing--
ALDA.
Finish the sentence--any thing, _for truth's sake_. But how is the cause
of truth to be advanced by the insolent publication of a mass of crude
thoughts and hasty observations picked up here and there, "as pigeons
pick up peas," and which now lie safe within the clasps of those little
green books? You need not look at them; they do not contain another
Diary of an Ennuyée, thank Heaven! nor do I feel much inclined to play
the _Ennuyeuse_ in public.
MEDON.
"Take any form but _that_, and my firm nerves shall never tremble;"
but with eyes to see, a heart to feel, a mind to observe, and a pen
to record those observations, I do not perceive why you should not
contribute one drop to that great ocean of thought which is weltering
round the world!
ALDA.
If I could.
MEDON.
There are people, who when they travel open their eyes and their ears,
(aye, and their mouths to some purpose,) and shut up their hearts and
souls. I have heard such persons make it their boast, that they have
returned to old England with all their old prejudices thick upon
them; they have come back, to use their own phrase, "with no foreign
ideas--just the same as they went:" they are much to be congratulated!
I hope you are not one of these?
ALDA.
I hope not; it is this cold impervious pride which is the perdition
of us English, and of England. I remember that in one of my several
excursions on the Rhine, we had, on board the steamboat, an English
family of high rank. There was the lordly papa, plain and shy, who never
spoke to any one except his own family, and then only in the lowest
whisper. There was the lady mamma, so truly lady-like, with fine-cut
patrician features, and in her countenance a kind of passive _hauteur_,
softened by an appearance of suffering, and ill-health. There were two
daughters, proud, pale, fine-looking girls, dressed _à ravir_, with
that indescribable air of high pretension, so elegantly impassive--so
self-possessed--which some people call _l'air distingué_, but which,
as extremes meet, I would rather call the refinement of vulgarity--the
polish we see bestowed on debased material--the plating over the
steel--the stucco over the brick-work!
MEDON.
Good; you _can_ be severe then!
ALDA.
I spoke generally: bear witness to the general truth of the picture,
for it will fit others as well as the personages I have brought before
you, who are, indeed, but specimens of a species. This group, then, had
designedly or instinctively entrenched themselves in a corner to the
right of the steersman, within a fortification of tables and benches, so
arranged as to forbid all approach within two or three yards; the young
ladies had each their sketch-book, and wielded pencil and Indian rubber,
I know not with what effect,--but I know that I never saw either
countenance once relax or brighten, in the midst of the divine scenery
through which we glided. Two female attendants, seated on the outer
fortifications, formed a kind of piquet guard; and two footmen at the
other end kept watch over the well-appointed carriages, and came and
went as their attendance was required. No one else ventured to approach
this aristocratic Olympus; the celestials within its precincts, though
not exactly seated "on golden stools at golden tables," like the
divinities in the song of the Parcæ,[1] showed as supreme, as godlike
an indifference to the throng of mortals in the nether sphere: no word
was exchanged during the whole day with any of the fifty or sixty human
beings who were round them; nay, when the rain drove us down to the
pavilion, even there, amid twelve or fourteen others, they contrived to
keep themselves aloof from contact and conversation. In this fashion
they probably pursued their tour, exchanging the interior of their
travelling carriage for the interior of an hotel; and every where
associating only with those of their own caste. What do they see of all
that is to be seen? What can they know of what is to be known? What do
they endure of what is to be endured? I can speak from experience--I
have travelled in that same style. As they went, so they return;
happily, or rather pitifully, unconscious of the narrow circle in which
move their factitious enjoyments, their confined experience, their
half-awakened sympathies! And I should tell you, that in the same
steam-boat were two German girls, under the care of an elderly relative,
I think an aunt, and a brother, who was a celebrated _jurisconsulte_
and judge: their rank was equal to that of my countrywomen; their blood,
perhaps, more purely noble, that is, older by some centuries; and
their family more illustrious, by God knows how many quarterings;
moreover, their father was a minister of state. Both these girls were
beautiful;--fair, and fair-haired, with complexions on which "the rose
stood ready with a blush;" and one, the youngest sister, was exquisitely
lovely--in truth, she might have sat for one of Guido's angels.
They walked up and down the deck, neither seeking nor avoiding the
proximity of others. They accepted the telescopes which the gentlemen,
particularly some young Englishmen, pressed on them when any distant or
remarkable object came in view, and repaid the courtesy with a bright
kindly smile; they were natural and easy, and did not deem it necessary
to mount guard over their own dignity. Do you think I did not observe
and feel the contrast?
MEDON.
If nations begin at last to understand each other's true
interests--morally and politically, it will be through the agency of
gifted men; but if ever they learn to love and sympathize with each
other, it will be through the medium of you women. You smile, and
shake your head; but in spite of a late example, which might seem to
controvert this idea, I still think so;--our prejudices are stronger
and bitterer than yours, because they are those which perverted reason
builds up on a foundation of pride; but yours, which are generally
those of fancy and association, soon melt away before your own kindly
affections. More mobile, more impressible, more easily yielding to
external circumstances, more easily lending yourselves to different
manners and habits, more quick to perceive, more gentle to judge;--yes,
it is to you we must look, to break down the outworks of prejudice--you,
the advanced guard of humanity and civilization!
"The gentle race and dear,
By whom alone the world is glorified!"
Every feeling, well educated, generous, and truly refined woman, who
travels, is as a dove sent out on a mission of peace; and should bring
back at least an olive-leaf in her hand, if she bring nothing else.
It is her part to soften the intercourse between rougher and stronger
natures; to aid in the interfusion of the gentler sympathies; to speed
the interchange of art and literature from pole to pole: not to pervert
wit, and talent, and eloquence, and abuse the privileges of her sex, to
sow the seeds of hatred where she might plant those of love--to embitter
national discord and aversion, and disseminate individual prejudice and
error.
ALDA.
Thank you! I need not say how entirely I agree with you.
MEDON.
Then tell me, what have _you_ brought home? if but an olive-leaf, let us
have it; come, unpack your budget. Have you collected store of anecdotes,
private, literary, scandalous, abundantly interspersed with proper names
of grand-dukes and little dukes, counts, barons, ministers, poets,
authors, actors, and opera dancers?
ALDA.
Me?
MEDON.
Cry you mercy!--I did but jest, so do not look so indignant! But have
you then traced the cause and consequences of that undercurrent of
opinion which is slowly but surely sapping the foundations of empires?
Have you heard the low booming of that mighty ocean which approaches,
wave after wave, to break up the dikes and boundaries of ancient power?
ALDA.
I? no; how should I--skimming over the surface of society with perpetual
sunshine and favouring airs--how should I sound the gulfs and shoals
which lie below?
MEDON.
Have you, then, analysed that odd combination of poetry, metaphysics,
and politics, which, like the three primeval colours, tinge in various
tints and shades, simple and complex, all literature, morals, art, and
even conversation, through Germany?
ALDA.
No, indeed!
MEDON.
Have you decided between the different systems of Jacobi and Schelling?
ALDA.
You know I am a poor philosopher; but when Schelling was introduced
to me at Munich, I remember I looked up at him with inexpressible
admiration, as one whose giant arm had cut through an isthmus, and
whose giant mind had new modelled the opinions of minds as gigantic
as his own.
MEDON.
Then you are of this new school, which reveals the union of faith and
philosophy?
ALDA.
If I am, it is by instinct.
MEDON.
Well, to descend to your own peculiar sphere, have you satisfied
yourself as to the moral and social position of the women in Germany?
ALDA.
No, indeed!--at least, not yet.
MEDON.
Have you examined and noted down the routine of the _domestic_ education
of their children? (we know something of the public and national
systems.) Can you give some accurate notion of the ideas which generally
prevail on this subject?
ALDA.
O no! you have mentioned things which would require a life to study.
Merely to have thought upon them, to have glanced at them, gives me no
right to discuss them, unless I could bring my observations to some
tangible form, and derive from them some useful result.
MEDON.
Yet in this last journey you had an object--a purpose?
ALDA.
I had--a purpose which has long been revolving in my mind--an object
never lost sight of;--but give me time!--time!
MEDON.
I see;--but are you prepared for consequences? Can you task your
sensitive mind to stand reproach and ridicule? Remember your own story
of Runckten the traveller, who, when about to commence his expedition
into the desarts of Africa, prepared himself, by learning beforehand
to digest poisons; to swallow without disgust reptiles, spiders,
vermin----
ALDA.
"Thou hast the most unsavoury similes!"
MEDON.
Take a proverb then--"Bisogna coprirsi bene il viso innanzi di
struzzicare il vespaio."
ALDA.
I will _not_ hide my face; nor can I answer you in this jesting vein,
for to me it is a serious thought. There is in the kindly feeling, the
spontaneous sympathy of the public towards me, something which fills me
with gratitude and respect, and tells me to respect myself; which I
would not exchange for the greater _éclat_ which hangs round greater
names;--which I will not forfeit by writing one line from an unworthy
motive; nor flatter, nor invite, by withholding one thought, opinion,
or sentiment, which I believe to be true, and to which I can put the
seal of my heart's conviction.
MEDON.
Good! I love a little enthusiasm now and then; so like Britomart in the
enchanter's palace, the motto is,
"Be bold, be bold, and every where be bold!"
ALDA.
I should rather say, be gentle, be gentle, every where be gentle; and
then we cannot _be too bold_.[2]
MEDON.
Well, then, I return once more to the charge. Have you been rambling
about the world for these six months--yet learned nothing?
ALDA.
On the contrary.
MEDON.
Then what, in Heaven's name, _have_ you learned?
ALDA.
Not much; but I have learned to sweep my mind of some ill-conditioned
cobwebs. I have learned to consider my own acquired knowledge but as a
torch flung into an abyss, making the darkness visible, and showing me
the extent of my own ignorance.
MEDON.
Then give us--give _me_, at least--the benefit of your ignorance; only
let it be all your own. I honour a profession of ignorance--if only for
its rarity--in these all-knowing times. Let me tell you, the ignorance
of a candid and not uncultivated mind is better than the second-hand
wisdom of those who take all things for granted; who are the echoes of
others' opinions, the utterers of others' words; who _think_ they know,
and who _think_ they think: I am sick of them all. Come, refresh me with
a little ignorance--and be serious.
ALDA.
You make me smile; after all, 'tis only going over old ground, and I
know not what pleasure, what interest it can impart, beyond half an
hour's amusement.
MEDON.
Sceptic! is that nothing? In this harsh, cold, working-day world, is
half an hour's amusement nothing? Old ground!--as if you did not know
the pleasure of going over old ground with a new companion to refresh
half-faded recollections--to compare impressions--to correct old ideas
and acquire new ones? O I can suck knowledge out of ignorance, as a
weazel sucks eggs!--Begin.
ALDA.
Where shall I begin?
MEDON.
Where, but at the beginning? and then diverge as you will. Your first
journey was one of mere amusement?
ALDA.
Merely, and it answered its purpose; we travelled _à la milor
Anglais_--a _partie carrée_--a barouche hung on the most approved
principle--double-cushioned--luxurious--rising and sinking on its
springs like a swan on the wave--the pockets stuffed with new
publications--maps and guides _ad infinitum_; English servants for
comfort, foreign servants for use; a chess-board, backgammon tables--in
short, surrounded with all that could render us entirely independent of
the amusements we had come to seek, and of the people among whom we had
come to visit.
MEDON.
Admirable--and English!
ALDA.
Yes, and pleasant. I thought, not without gratitude, of the contrast
between present feelings and those of a former journey. To abandon
oneself to the quickening influence of new objects without care or
thought of to-morrow, with a mind awake in all its strength; with
restored health and cheerfulness; with sensibility tamed, not dead;
possessing one's soul in quiet; not seeking, nor yet shrinking from
excitement; not self-engrossed, nor yet pining for sympathy; was not
this much? Not so interesting, perhaps, as playing the _Ennuyée_;
but, oh! you know not how sad it is to look upon the lovely through
tearful eyes, and walk among the loving and the kind, wrapped as in
a death-shroud; to carry into the midst of the most glorious scenes
of nature, and the divinest creations of art, perceptions dimmed and
troubled with sickness and anguish: to move in the morning with aching
and reluctance--to faint in the evening with weariness and pain; to feel
all change, all motion, a torment to the dying heart; all rest, all
delay, a burthen to the impatient spirit; to shiver in the presence of
joy, like a ghost in the sunshine, yet have no sympathy to spare for
suffering. How could I remember that all this _had been_, and not bless
the miracle-worker--Time? And _apropos_ to the miracles of time--I had
on this first journey, one source of amusement, which I am sorry I
cannot share with you at full length; it was the near contemplation
of a very singular character, of which I can only afford you a sketch.
Our CHEF _de voyage_, for so we chose to entitle him who was the planner
and director of our excursion, was one of the most accomplished and most
eccentric of human beings: even courtesy might have termed him old, at
seventy; but old age and he were many miles asunder, and it seemed as
though he had made some compact with Time, like that of Faust with the
devil, and was not to surrender to his inevitable adversary till the
very last moment. Years could not quench his vivacity, nor "stale his
infinite variety." He had been one of the prince's wild companions in
the days of Sheridan and Fox, and could play alternately blackguard and
gentleman, and both in perfection; but the high-born gentleman ever
prevailed. He had been heir to an enormous income, most of which had
slipped through his fingers _unknownst_, as the Irish say, and had stood
in the way of a coronet, which, somehow or other, had slipped over his
head to light on that of his eldest son. He had lived a life which would
have ruined twenty iron constitutions, and had suffered what might well
have broken twenty hearts of common stuff; but his self-complacency
was invulnerable, his animal spirits inexhaustible, his activity
indefatigable. The eccentricities of this singular man have been matter
of celebrity; but against each of these stories it would be easy to
place some act of benevolence, some trait of lofty gentlemanly feeling,
which would at least neutralize their effect. He often told me that he
had early in life selected three models, after which to form his own
conduct and character; namely, De Grammont, Hotspur, and Lord Herbert of
Cherbury; and he certainly _did_ unite, in a greater degree than he knew
himself, the characteristics of all three. Such was our CHEF, and thus
led, thus appointed, away we posted on, from land to land, from city
to city--
MEDON.
Stay--stay. This is galloping on at the rate of Lenora, and her phantom
lover--
"Tramp, tramp across the land we go,
Splash, splash across the sea!"
Take me with you, and a little more leisurely.
ALDA.
I think Bruges was the first place which interested me, perhaps from
its historical associations. Bruges, where monarchs kissed the hand
to merchants, now emptied of its former splendour, reminded me of the
improvident steward in scripture, that could not dig, and to beg was
ashamed. It had an air of grave idleness and threadbare dignity; and its
listless, thinly-scattered inhabitants looked as if they had gone astray
among the wide streets and huge tenantless edifices. There is one thing
here which you must see--the tomb of Charles the Bold, and his daughter,
Mary of Burgundy. The tomb is of the most exquisite workmanship,
composed of polished brass and enamelled escutcheons; and there the
fiery father and the gentle daughter lie, side by side, in sculptured
bronze, equally still, cold, and silent. I remember that I stood long
gazing on the inscription, which made me smile, and made me think. There
was no mention of defeat and massacre, disgraceful flight, or obscure
death. "But," says the epitaph, after enumerating his titles, his
exploits, and his virtues, "fortune, who had hitherto been his good lady,
ungently turned her back upon him on such a day of such a year, and
_oppressed_ him"--an amusing instance of mingled courtesy and _naïveté_.
Ghent was our next resting place. The aspect of Ghent, so familiarized
to us of late by our travelled artists, made a strong impression upon
me, and I used to walk about for hours together, looking at the strange
picturesque old buildings coëval with the Spanish dominion, with their
ornamented fronts and peaked roofs. There is much trade here, many
flourishing manufactories, and the canals and quays often exhibited a
lively scene of bustle, of which the form, at least, was new to us. The
first exposition, or exhibition, of the newly-founded Royal Academy
of the Netherlands was at this season open. You will allow it was a
fair opportunity of judging of the present state of painting, in the
self-same land, where she had once found, if not a temple, at least
a home.
MEDON.
And learned to be homely--but the result?
ALDA.
I can scarce express the surprise I felt at the time, though it has
since diminished on reflection. All the attempts at historical painting
were bad, without exception. There was the usual assortment of Virgins,
St. Cecilias, Cupids and Psyches, Zephyrs and Floras;--but such
incomparable atrocities! There were some cabinet pictures in the same
style in which their Flemish ancestors excelled--such as small interior
conversation pieces, battle pieces, and flowers and fruit; some of these
were really excellent, but the proportion of bad to good was certainly
fifty to one.
MEDON.
Something like our own Royal Academy.
ALDA.
No; because with much which was quite as bad, quite as insipid, as
coarse in taste, as stupidly presumptuous in attempt, and ridiculous
in failure, as ever shocked me on the walls of Somerset House, there
was nothing to be compared to the best pictures I have seen there. As I
looked and listened to the remarks of the crowd around me, I perceived
that the taste for art is even as low in the Netherlands as it is here
and elsewhere.
MEDON.
And, surely, not from the want of models, nor from the want of facility
in the means of studying them. You visited, of course, Schamp's
collection?
ALDA.
Surely; there were miracles of art crowded together like goods in a
counting-house, with wondrous economy of space, and more lamentable
economy of light. Some were nailed against doors, inside and out, or
suspended from screens and window-shutters. Here I saw Rubens' picture
of Father Rutseli, the confessor of Albert and Isabella: one of those
heads more suited to the crown than to the cowl--grand, sagacious,
intellectual, with such a world of meaning in the eye, that one almost
shrunk away from the expression. Here, too, I found that remarkable
picture of Charles the First, painted by Lely during the king's
imprisonment at Windsor--the only one for which he sat between his
dethronement and his death: he is still melancholy and gentlemanlike,
but not quite so dignified as on the canvass of Vandyke. This is the
very picture that Horace Walpole mentions as lost or abstracted from the
collection at Windsor. How it came into Schamp's collection, I could
not learn. A very small head of an Italian girl by Correggio, or in his
manner, hung close beside a Dutch girl by Mieris: equally exquisite as
paintings, they gave me an opportunity of contrasting two styles, both
founded in nature--but the nature, how different! the one all life,
the other life and soul. Schamp's collection is liberally open to the
public, as well as many others; if artists fail, it is not for want
of models.
MEDON.
Perhaps for want of patronage? Yet I hear that the late king of the
Netherlands sent several young artists to Italy at his own expense,
and that the Prince of Orange was liberal and even munificent in his
purchases--particularly of the old masters.
ALDA.
When I went to see the collection of the Prince of Orange at Brussels,
I stepped from the room in which hung the glorious Vandykes, perhaps
unequalled in the world, into the adjoining apartment, in which were two
unfinished portraits disposed upon easels. They represented members of
the prince's family; and were painted by a native artist of fashionable
fame, and royally patronised. These were pointed out to my admiration as
universally approved. What shall I say of them? Believe me, that they
were contemptible beyond all terms of contempt! Can you tell me why the
Prince of Orange should have sufficient taste to select and appropriate
the finest specimens of art, and yet purchase and patronize the vilest
daubs ever perpetrated by imbecility and presumption?
MEDON.
I know not, unless it be that in the former case he made use of others'
eyes and judgment, and in the latter, of his own.
ALDA.
I might have anticipated the answer; but be that as it may, of all the
galleries I saw in the Netherlands, the small but invaluable collection
he had formed in his palace pleased me most. I remember a portrait of
Sir Thomas More, by Holbein. A female head, by Leonardo da Vinci, said
to be one of the mistresses of Francis I., but this is doubtful; that
most magnificent group, Christ delivering the keys to St. Peter, by
Rubens, once in England; about eight or ten Vandykes, masterpieces--for
instance, Philip IV. and his minister Olivarez, and a Chevalier le Roy
and his wife: all that you can imagine of chivalrous dignity, and
lady-like grace. But there was one picture, a family group, by Gonsalez,
which struck me more than all the rest put together. I had never seen
any production of this painter, whose works are scarcely known out of
Spain; and I looked upon this with equal astonishment and admiration.
There was also a small, but most curious collection of pictures, of
the ancient Flemish and German schools, which it is now the fashion
to admire, and, what is worse, to imitate. The word _fashion_ does
not express the national enthusiasm on this subject which prevails in
Germany. I can understand that these pictures are often most interesting
as historic documents, and often admirable for their literal transcripts
of nature and expression, but they can only possess comparative
excellence and relative value; and where the feeling of ideal beauty and
classic grace has been highly cultivated, the eye shrinks involuntarily
from these hard, grotesque, and glaring productions of an age when
genius was blindly groping amid the darkness of ignorance. To confess
the truth, I was sometimes annoyed, and sometimes amused, by the cant I
heard in Germany about those schools of painting which preceded Albert
Durer. Perhaps I should not say _cant_--it is a vile expression; and in
German affectation there is something so very peculiar--so poetical,
so--so _natural_, if I might say so, that I would give it another name
if I could find one. In this worship of their old painters, I really
could sympathize sometimes, even when it most provoked me. Retzsch, whom
I had the delight of knowing at Dresden, showed me a sketch, in which he
had ridiculed this mania with the most exquisite humour: it represented
the torso of an antique Apollo (emblematical of ideal grace), mutilated
and half buried in the earth, and subject to every species of profanation;
it serves as a stool for a German student, who, with his shirt-collar
turned down, and his hair dishevelled, and his cap stuck on one side,
_à la_ Rafaelle, is intently copying a stiff, hard, sour-looking old
Madonna, while Ignorance looks on, gaping with admiration. No one knows
better than Retzsch the value of these ancient masters--no one has a
more genuine feeling for all that is admirable in them; but no one feels
more sensibly the gross perversion and exaggeration of the worship paid
to them. I wish he would publish this good-humoured little bit of satire,
which is too just and too graceful to be called a caricature.
I must tell you, however, that there were two most curious old pictures
in the Orange Gallery, which arrested my attention, and of which I have
retained a very distinct and vivid recollection; and that is more than I
can say of many better pictures. They tell, in a striking manner, a very
interesting story: the circumstances are said to have occurred about
the year 985, but I cannot say that they rest on any very credible
authority.
Of these two pictures, each exhibits two scenes. A certain nobleman, a
favourite of the Emperor Otho, is condemned to death by his master on
the false testimony of the Empress (a sort of Potiphar's wife), who has
accused him of having tempted her to break her marriage vow. In the
back-ground we see the unfortunate man led to judgment; he is in his
shirt, bare-footed and bare-headed. His wife walks at his side, to whom
he appears to be speaking earnestly, and endeavouring to persuade her
of his innocence. A friar precedes them, and a crowd of people follow
after. On the walls of the city stand the Emperor and his wicked
Empress, looking down on the melancholy procession. In the foreground,
we have the dead body of the victim, stretched upon the earth, and the
executioner is in the act of delivering the head to his wife, who looks
grim with despair. The severed head and flowing blood are painted with
such a horrid and literal fidelity to nature, that it has been found
advisable to cover this portion of the picture.
In the foreground of the second picture, the Emperor Otho is represented
on his throne surrounded by his counsellors and courtiers. Before him
kneels the widow of the Count: she has the ghastly head of her husband
in her lap, and in her left-hand she holds firmly and unhurt the
red-hot iron, the fiery ordeal by which she proves to the satisfaction
of all present the innocence of her murdered lord. The Emperor looks
thunderstruck; the Empress stands convicted, and is condemned to death;
and in the back-ground, we have the catastrophe. She is bound to a
stake, the fire is kindled, and she suffers the terrible penalty of
her crime. These pictures, in subject and execution, might be termed
tragico-comico-historical; but in spite of the harshness of the drawing,
and the thousand defects of style and taste, they fix the attention by
the vigour of the colouring and the expression of the heads, many of
which are evidently from the life. The story is told in a very complete
though very inartificial manner. The painter, Derick Steuerbout, was one
of the very earliest of the Flemish masters, and lived about 1468, many
years before Albert Durer and Holbein. I have heard that they were
painted for the city of Lorraine, and until the invasion of the French,
they remained undisturbed, and almost unnoticed, in the Hotel-de-Ville.
MEDON.
Does this collection of the Prince of Orange still exist at Brussels?
ALDA.
I am told that it does--that the whole palace, the furniture, the
pictures, remain precisely as the prince and his family left them: that
even down to the princess's work-box, and the portraits of her children
which hang in her boudoir, nothing has been touched. This does not speak
well for king Leopold's gallantry; and, in his place, I think I would
have sent the private property of my rival after him.
MEDON.
So would not I, for this is not the age of chivalry, but of common
sense. As to the pictures, the Belgians might plead that they were
purchased with the public money, therefore justly public property. No,
no; he should not have a picture of them--"If a Vandyke would save his
soul, he should not; I'd keep them, by this hand!" that is, as long as
I had a plausible excuse for keeping them; but the princess should have
had her work-box and her children by the first courier. What more at
Brussels?
ALDA.
I can recollect no more. The weather was sultry: we dressed, and dined,
and ate ices, and drove up and down the Allée Verte, and saw I believe
all that is to be seen--churches, palaces, hospitals, and so forth. We
went from thence to Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa. As it was the height of the
season, and both places were crowded with gay invalids, perhaps I ought
to have been very much amused, but I confess I was _ennuyée_ to death.
MEDON.
This I can hardly conceive; for though there might have been little to
amuse one of your turn of mind, there should have been much to observe.
ALDA.
There might have been matter for observation, or ridicule, or reflexion,
at the moment, but nothing that I remember with pleasure. Spa I disliked
particularly. I believe I am not in my nature cold or stern; but there
was something in the shallow, tawdry, vicious gaiety of this place,
which disgusted me. In all watering-places extremes meet; sickness and
suffering, youth and dissipation, beggary and riches, collect together;
but Spa being a very small town, a mere village, the approximation is
brought immediately under the eye at every hour, every moment; and the
beauty of the scenery around only rendered it more disagreeable: to me,
even the hill of Annette and Lubin was polluted. Our Chef de voyage, who
had visited Spa fifty years before, when on his _grand tour_, walked
about with great complacency, recalling his youthful pleasures, and
the days when he used to gallant his beautiful cousin, the Duchess of
Rutland, of divine memory. While the rest of the party were amused, I
fell into my old, habit of thinking and observing, and my contemplations
were not agreeable. But instead of dealing in these general remarks,
I will sketch you one or two pictures which have dwelt upon my memory.
We had a well-dressed laquais-de-place, whose honesty and good-humour
rendered him an especial favourite. His wife being ill, I went to see
her; to my great surprise he conducted me to a little mud hovel, worse
than the worst Irish cabin I ever heard described, where his wife lay
stretched upon some straw, covered with a rug, and a little neglected
ragged child was crawling about the floor, and about her bed. It seems
then, that, this poor man, who every day waited at our luxurious table,
dressed in smiles, and must habitually have witnessed the wasteful
expenditure of the rich, returned every night to his miserable home,
if home it could be called, to feel the stings of want with double
bitterness. He told me that he and his wife lived the greater part of
the year upon water-gruel, and that the row of wretched cabins, of which
his own formed one, was inhabited by those who, like himself, were
dependent upon the rich, extravagant, and dissipated strangers for the
little pittance which was to support them for a twelvemonth. Was not
this a fearful contrast? I should tell you that the benevolence of our
Chef rendered this poor couple independent of change or chance for the
next year. My other picture is in a different style. You know that
at Spa the theatre immediately joins the ball-room. As soon as the
performances are over, the parterre is laid down with boards, and in a
few minutes metamorphosed into a gambling saloon. One night curiosity
led me to be a spectator at one of the _rouge et noir_ tables. While I
was there, a Flemish lady of rank, the Baroness B----, came in, hanging
on the arm of a gentleman; she was not young, but still handsome. I had
often met her in our walks, and had been struck by her fine eyes, and
the amiable expression of her countenance. After one or two turns up
and down the room, laughing and talking, she carelessly, and as if from
a sudden thought, seated herself at the table. By degrees she became
interested in the game, her stakes became deeper, her countenance became
agitated, and her brow clouded. I left her playing. The next evening
when I entered, I found her already seated at the table, as indeed I had
anticipated. I watched her for some time with a painful interest. It was
evident that she was not an habitual gambler, like several others at the
same table, whose hard impassive features never varied with the variations
of the game. There was one little old withered skeleton of a woman, like
a death's head in artificial flowers, who stretched out her harpy claws
upon the rouleaus of gold and silver, without moving a muscle or a
wrinkle of her face,--with hardly an additional twinkle in her dull grey
eye. Not so my poor baroness, who became every moment more agitated and
more eager: her eyes sparkled with an unnatural keenness, her teeth
became set, and her lips drawn away from them, wore, instead of the
sweet smile which had at first attracted my attention, a grin of
desperation. Gradually, as I looked at her, her countenance assumed so
hideous, and, I may add, so vile an expression, that I could no longer
endure the spectacle. I hastened from the room--more moved, more shocked
than I can express; and often, since that time, her face has risen upon
my day and night dreams like a horrid supernatural mask. Her husband,
for this wretched woman was a wife and a mother, came to meet her a few
days afterwards, and accompany her home; but I heard that in the interval
she had attempted self-destruction, and failed.
MEDON.
The case is but too common; and even you, who are always seeking reasons
and excuses for the delinquencies of your sex, would hardly find them
here.
ALDA.
And unless I could know what were the previous habits and education
of the victim, through what influences, blest or unblest, her mind
had been trained, her moral existence built up--should I condemn? Who
had taught this woman self-knowledge?--who had instructed her in the
elements of her own being, and guarded her against her own excitable
temperament?--what friendly voice had warned her ignorance?--what secret
burden of misery--what joyless emptiness of heart--what fever of the
nerves--what weariness of spirit--what "thankless husband or faithless
lover" had driven her to the edge of the precipice? In this particular
case I know that the husband bore the character of being both negligent
and dissipated; and where was _he_,--what were his haunts and his
amusements, while his wife staked with her gold, her honour, her reason,
and her life? Tell me all this before we dare to pass judgment. O it is
easy to compute what is done! and yet, who but the Being above us all,
can know what is resisted?
MEDON.
You would plead then for a _female_ gambler?
ALDA.
Why do you lay such an emphasis upon _female_ gambler? In what respect
is a female gambler worse than one of your sex? The case is more
pitiable;--more rare--therefore, perhaps, more shocking; but why more
hateful?
MEDON.
You pose me.
ALDA.
Then I will leave you to think;--or shall I go on? for at this rate we
shall never arrive at the end of our journey. I was at Aix-la-Chapelle,
was I not? Well, I spare you the relics of Charlemagne, and if you have
any dear or splendid associations with that great name, spare your
imagination the shock it may receive in the cathedral at Aix, and leave
"Yarrow unvisited."[3] Luckily the theatre at Aix is beautiful, and
there was a fine opera, and a very perfect orchestra; the singers
tolerable. It was here I first heard the Don Juan and the Freyschutz
performed in the German fashion, and with German words. The Freyschutz
gave me unmixed pleasure. In the Don Juan I missed the recitative,
and the soft Italian flow of syllables, from which the music had been
divorced; so that the ear, long habituated to that marriage of sweet
sounds, was disappointed; but to listen without pleasure and excitement
was impossible. I remember that on looking round, after Donna Anna's
song, I was surprised to see our Chef de voyage bathed in tears; but,
no whit disconcerted, he merely wiped them away, saying, with a smile,
"It is the very prettiest, softest thing to cry to one's self!"
Afterwards, when we were in the carriage, he expressed his surprise that
any man should be ashamed of tears. "For my own part," he added, "when
I wish to enjoy the very high sublime of luxury, I dine alone, order a
mutton cutlet, _cuite à point_, with a bottle of Burgundy on one side,
and Ovid's epistle of Penelope to Ulysses on the other; and so I read,
and eat, and cry to myself. And then he repeated with enthusiasm--
"Hanc tua Penelope lento tibi mittit Ulysse:
Nil mihi rescribas attamen ipse veni;"
his eyes glistening as he recited the lines; he made me feel their
beauty without understanding a word of their sense. "Strangest, and
happiest of men!" I thought as I looked at him, "that after living
seventy years in this world, can still have tears to spare for the
sorrows of Penelope!" Well, our next resting place was Cologne.
MEDON.
You pause?--you have nothing to say of Cologne? No English traveller,
except your professed tourists and guide-book makers, ever has; of the
crowds who pass through the place, on their way up or down the Rhine,
how few spend more than a night or a day there! their walk is between
the Rheinberg and the cathedral; they look, perhaps, with a sneering
curiosity at the shrine of the Three Kings; cut the usual jests on the
Leda and the Cupid and Psyche;[4] glance at the St. Peter of Rubens;
lounge on the bridge of boats; stock themselves with eau-de-Cologne, and
then away! And yet this strange old city, which a bigoted priesthood,
a jealous magistracy, and a variety of historical causes, have so
long kept isolated in the midst of Europe, with its Roman origin, its
classical associations, the wild gothic superstitions of which it has
been the theatre; its legion of martyrs, its three kings and eleven
thousand virgins, and the peculiar manners and physiognomy of the people,
strangely take the fancy. What has become of its three hundred and fifty
churches, and its thirty thousand beggars?--Thirty thousand beggars!
Was there ever such a splendid establishment of licensed laziness,
and consecrated rags and wallets! What a magnificent idea does it give
one of the inexhaustible charity, and the incalculable riches of the
inhabitants! but the French came with their besom of purification
and destruction; and lo! the churches were turned into arsenals, the
convents into barracks; and from its old-accustomed haunts, "the genius
of beggary was with sighing sent." I really believe, that were I again
to visit Cologne, I would not be content with a mere superficial glance,
as heretofore.
ALDA.
And you would do well. To confess the truth, our first impressions of
the place were exceedingly disagreeable; it appeared a huge, rambling,
gloomy old city, whose endless narrow dirty streets, and dull
dingy-looking edifices, were any thing but inviting. Nor on a second
and a third visit were we tempted to prolong our stay. Yet Cologne has
since become most interesting to me from a friendship I formed with
a Colonese, a descendant of one of the oldest families of the place.
How she loved her old city!--how she worshipped every relic with the
most poetical, if not the most pious veneration!--how she looked
down upon Berlin with scorn, as an upstart city, "_une ville ma chére,
qui n'a ni histoire, ni antiquité_." The cathedral she used to call
"_mon Berceau_," and the three kings "_mes trois pères_." Her profound
knowledge of general history, her minute acquaintance with the local
antiquities, the peculiar customs, the wild legends, the solemn
superstitions of her birth-place, added to the most lively imagination
and admirable descriptive powers, were to me an inexhaustible source
of delight and information. It appears that the people of Cologne have
a distinct character, but little modified by intercourse with the
surrounding country, and preserved by continual intermarriages among
themselves. They have a dialect, and songs, and ballads, and music,
peculiar to their city; and are remarkable for an original vein of
racy humour, a revengeful spirit, an exceeding superstition, a blind
attachment to their native customs, a very decided contempt for
other people, and a surpassing hatred of all innovations. They never
admitted the jurisdiction of the electors of Cologne, and, although
the most bigoted people in the world, were generally at war with
their archbishops. Even Napoleon could not make them comformable.
The city is now attached to Prussia, but still retains most of its
ancient privileges, and all its ancient spirit of insubordination and
independence. When, in 1828, the king of Prussia wished to force upon
them an unpopular magistrate, the whole city rose, and obliged the
obnoxious president to resign; the government, armed with all its legal
and military terrors, could do nothing against the determined spirit
of this half-civilized, fearless, reckless, yet merry, good-humoured
populace. A history of this grotesque revolution, which had the same
duration as the celebrated _trois jours de Paris_, and exhibited in
its progress and issue some of the most striking, most characteristic,
most farcical scenes you can imagine, were worthy of a Colonese Walter
Scott. How I wish I could give you some of my friend's rich graphic
sketches and humorous pictures of popular manner! but I feel that their
peculiar spirit would evaporate in my hands. The event is celebrated in
their local history as "_la Revolution du Carnaval_:" and this reminds
me of another peculiarity of Cologne. The carnival is still celebrated
there with a degree of splendour and fantastic humour, exceeding even
the festivities of Rome and Naples in the present day; but as the season
of the carnival is not the season for flight with our English birds of
passage, few have ever witnessed these extraordinary Saturnalia. Such is
the general ignorance or indifference relative to Cologne, that I met
the other day with a very accomplished man, and a lover of art, who had
frequently visited the place, and yet he had never seen the Medusa.
MEDON.
Nor I, by this good light!--I never even heard of it!
ALDA.
And how shall I attempt to describe it? Unless I had the "large
utterance of the early gods," or could pour forth a string of Greek or
German compounds, I know not in what words I could do justice to the
effect it produced upon me. This wondrous mask measures about two feet
and a half in height;[5] the colossal features, and I may add, the
colossal expression, grand without exaggeration--so awfully vast, and
yet so gloriously beautiful; the full rich lips curled with disdain--the
mighty wings overshadowing the knit and tortured brow--the madness in
the large dilated eyes--the wreathing and recoiling snakes, came upon me
like something supernatural, and impressed me at once with astonishment,
horror, and admiration. I was quite unprepared for what I beheld. As I
stood before it my mind seemed to elevate and enlarge itself to admit
this new vision of grandeur. Nothing but the two Fates in the Elgin
marbles, and the Torso of the Vatican, ever affected me with the same
inexpressible sense of the sublime: and this is not a fragment of some
grand mystery, of which the remainder has been "to night and chaos
hurled;" it is entire, in admirable preservation, and the workmanship as
perfect as the conception is magnificent. I know not if it would have
affected another in the same manner. For me, the ghastly allegory of the
Medusa has a peculiar fascination. I confess that I have never wholly
understood it, nor have any of the usual explanations satisfied me;
it appears to me, that the Greeks, in thus blending the extremes of
loveliness and terror, had a meaning, a purpose, more than is dreamt
of by our philosophy.
MEDON.
But, how came this wonderful relic to Cologne, of all places in the
world?
ALDA.
It stopped there on its road to England.
MEDON.
By what perverse destiny?--was it avarice on our part, or force or fraud
on that of others?
ALDA.
It was, as Desdemona says, "our wretched fortune:" but the story, with
all its circumstances, does so much honour to human nature, that it
has half reconciled me to our loss. You must have heard of Professor
Wallraf of Cologne, one of the canons of the cathedral, who, with his
professorship and his canonship together, may have possessed from
five to seven hundred francs a year. He was one of those wonderful
and universal scholars, of whom we read in former times--men who
concentrated all their powers and passions, and intellectual faculties,
in the acquirement and advancement of knowledge, without any selfish aim
or object, and from the mere abstract love of science. Early in life
this man formed the resolution to remove from his native city the reproach
of self-satisfied ignorance and monastic prejudices, which had hitherto
characterized it; and in the course of a long existence of labour and
privation, as professor and teacher, he contrived to collect together
books, manuscripts, pictures, gems, works of art, and objects of natural
history, to an immense amount. In the year 1818, on recovering from
a dangerous illness, he presented his whole collection to his native
city; and the magistracy, in return, bestowed on him a pension of three
thousand francs for the remainder of his life. He was then more than
seventy. About the same time a dealer in antiquities arrived from Rome,
bringing with him this divine Medusa, with various other busts and
fragments: he was on his way to England, where he hoped to dispose of
them. He asked for his whole collection twelve thousand francs, and
refused to sell any part of it separately. The city refused to make the
purchase, thinking it too dear, and Wallraf, in despair at the idea
of this glorious relic being consigned to other lands, mortgaged his
yearly pension in order to raise the money, purchased the Medusa,
presented it to the city, and then cheerfully resumed his accustomed
life of self-denial and frugality. His only dread was lest he should die
before the period was expired. He lived, however, to pay off his debt,
and in three months afterwards he died.[6] Was not this admirable? The
first time I saw the Medusa I did not know this anecdote; the second
time, as I looked at it, I thought of Wallraf, and felt how much a moral
interest can add to the charm of what is in itself most perfect.
MEDON.
I will certainly make a pilgrimage to this Medusa. She must be worth
all the eleven thousand virgins together. What next?
ALDA.
Instead of embarking in the steam-boat, we posted along the left
bank of the Rhine, spending a few days at Bonn, at Godesberg, and at
Ehrenbreitstein; but I should tell you, as you allow me to diverge, that
on my second journey, I owed much to a residence of some weeks at Bonn.
There I became acquainted with the celebrated Schlegel, or I should
rather say, M. le Chevalier de Schlegel, for I believe his titles and
his "starry honours" are not indifferent to him; and in truth he wears
them very gracefully. I was rather surprised to find in this sublime
and eloquent critic, this awful scholar, whose comprehensive mind has
grasped the whole universe of art, a most agreeable, lively, social
being. Of the judgments passed on him in his own country, I know little,
and understand less; I am not deep in German literary polemics. To me
he was the author of the lectures on "Dramatic Literature," and the
translator of Shakspeare, and, moreover, all that was amiable and
polite: and was not this enough?
MEDON.
Enough for you, certainly; but, I believe that at this time Schlegel
would rather found his fame on being one of the greatest oriental
critics of the age, than on being the interpreter of the beauties of
Calderon and Shakspeare.
ALDA.
I believe so; but for my own part, I would rather hear him talk of
Romeo and Juliet, and of Madame de Staël, than of the Ramayana, the
Bhagvat-Gita, or even the "eastern Con-fut-zee." This, of course, is
only a proof of my own ignorance. Conversation may be compared to a lyre
with seven chords--philosophy, art, poetry, politics, love, scandal,
and the weather. There are some professors, who, like Paganini, "can
discourse most eloquent music" upon one string only; and some who can
grasp the whole instrument, and with a master's hand sound it from the
top to the bottom of its compass. Now, Schlegel is one of the latter:
he can thunder in the bass or caper in the treble; he can be a whole
concert in himself. No man can trifle like him, nor, like him, blend in
a few hours' converse, the critic, philologist, poet, philosopher, and
man of the world--no man narrates more gracefully, nor more happily
illustrates a casual thought. He told me many interesting things. "Do
you know," said he one morning, as I was looking at a beautiful edition
of Corinne, bound in red morocco, the gift of Madame de Staël; "do you
know that I figure in that book?" I asked eagerly in what character?
He bid me guess. I guessed playfully, the Comte d'Erfeuil. "No! no!"
said he, laughing, "I am immortalized in the Prince Castel-Forte, the
faithful, humble, unaspiring, friend of Corinne."
MEDON.
To any man but Schlegel, such an immortality were worth a life. Nay,
there is no man, though his fame extended to the ends of the earth, whom
the pen of Madame de Staël could not honour.
ALDA.
He seemed to think so, and I liked him for the self-complacency with
which he twined her little myrtle leaf with his own palmy honours. Nor
did he once refer to what I believe every body knows, her obligations to
him in her De l'Allemagne.
MEDON.
Apropos--do tell me what is the general opinion of that book among the
Germans themselves.
ALDA.
I think they do not judge it fairly. Some speak of it as eloquent, but
superficial:[7] others denounce it altogether as a work full of mistakes
and flippant, presumptuous criticism: others again affect to speak of
it, and even of Madame de Staël herself, as things of another era, quite
gone by and forgotten; this appeared to me too ridiculous. They forget,
or do not know, what _we_ know, that her De l'Allemagne was the first
book which awakened in France and England a lively and general interest
in German art and literature. It is now five-and-twenty years since it
was published. The march of opinion, and criticism, and knowledge of
every kind, has been so rapid, that much has become old which then was
new; but this does not detract from its merit. Once or twice I tried to
convince my German friends that they were exceedingly ungrateful in
abusing Madame de Staël, but it was all in vain; so I sat swelling with
indignation to hear my idol traduced, and called--O profanation!--
"_cette Staël_."
MEDON.
But do you think the Germans could at all appreciate or understand such
a phenomenon as Madame de Staël must have appeared in those days? She
whisked through their skies like a meteor, before they could bring the
telescope of their wits to a right focus for observation. How she must
have made them open their eyes!--and you see in the correspondence
between Goethe and Schiller what _they_ thought of her.
ALDA.
Yes, I know that with her lively egotism and Parisian volubility,
she stunned Schiller and teased Goethe: but while our estimate of
_manner_ may be allowed to be relative and comparative, our estimate
of _character_ should be positive and abstract. Madame de Staël was
in manner the Frenchwoman, accustomed to be the cynosure of a salon,
but she was not ridiculous or egoiste in character. She was, to use
Schlegel's expression, "femme grande et magnanime jusque dans les replis
de son âme." The best proof is the very spirit in which she viewed
Germany, in spite of all her natural and national prejudices. To apply
your own expression, she went forth, in the spirit of peace, and brought
back, not only an olive leaf, but a whole tree, and it has flourished.
She had a universal mind. I believe she never thought, and still less
_made_, any one ridiculous in her life.[8]
At Bonn much of my time was spent in intimate and almost hourly
intercourse with two friends, one of whom I have already mentioned to
you--a rare creature!--the other, who was herself the daughter of a
distinguished authoress,[9] was one of the most generally accomplished
women I ever met with. Opposed to each other in the constitution of
their minds--in all their views of literature and art, and all their
experience of life--in their tastes, and habits, and feelings--yet
mutually appreciating each other: both were distinguished by talents of
the highest order and by great originality of character, and both were
German, and very essentially _German_: English society and English
education would never have produced two such women. Their conversation
prepared me to form correct ideas of what I was to see and hear, and
guarded me against the mistakes and hasty conclusions of vivacious
travellers. At Bonn I also saw, for the first time, a specimen of the
fresco painting, lately revived in Germany with such brilliant success.
By command of the Prussian Board of Education the hall of the university
of Bonn is to be painted in fresco, and the work has been entrusted
to C. Hermann, Götzenberger, and Förster--all, I believe, pupils of
Cornelius. The three sides of the hall are to represent the three
faculties--Theology, Jurisprudence, and Philosophy; the first of these
is finished, and here is an engraving of it. You see Theology is throned
in the centre. The four evangelists, with St. Peter and St. Paul, stand
on the steps of the throne; around her are the fathers and doctors of
the church, and (which is the chief novelty of the composition) grouped
together with a very liberal disregard to all religious differences;
for there you see pope Gregory, and Ignatius Loyola, and St. Bernard,
and Abelard, and Dante; and here we have Luther, and Melanchthon,
and Calvin, and Wickliff, and Huss. On the opposite side of the hall,
Philosophy, under which head are comprised all science, poetry, and art,
is represented surrounded by the great poets, philosophers, and artists,
from Homer, Aristotle, and Phideas, down to Shakspeare, Raffaelle,
Goethe, and Kant. Jurisprudence, which is not begun, is to occupy the
third side. The cartoons pleased me better than the paintings, for the
drawing and grouping are really fine; but the execution struck me as
somewhat hard and mannered. I shall have much to say hereafter of the
fresco painting in Germany; for the present, proceed we on our journey.
Tell me, had you a full moon while you were on the Rhine?
MEDON.
Truly, I forget.
ALDA.
Then you had _not_; for it would so have blended with your recollections,
that as a circumstance it could not have been forgotten; and take
my advice, when next you are off on your annual flight, consult the
calendar, and propitiate the fairest of all the fair Existences of
heaven to give you the light of her countenance. If you never took a
solitary ramble, or, what is better, a _tête-à-tête_ drive through the
villages and vineyards between Bonn and Plittersdorf, when the moon
hung over the Drachenfels, when the undulating outlines of the Seven
Mountains seemed to dissolve into the skies, and the Rhine was spread
out at their feet like a lake--so ample, and so still;--if you have
never seen the stars shine through the ruined arch of the Rolandseck,
and the height of Godesberg, with its single giant tower, stand out of
the plain,--black, and frowning against the silvery distance, then you
have not beheld one of the loveliest landscapes ever presented to a
thoughtful worshipper of nature. There is a story, too, connected with
the ruins of Godesberg:--one of those fine tragedies of real life, which
distance all fiction. It is not so popular as the celebrated legend
of the brave Roland, and his cloistered love; but it is at least
as authentic. You know that, according to tradition, the castle of
Godesberg was founded by Julian the Apostate; another, and a more
interesting apostate, was the cause of its destruction.
Gerard[10] de Truchses, Count Waldbourg, who was archbishop and elector
of Cologne in 1583, scandalized his see, and all the Roman Catholic
powers, by turning Protestant. According to himself, his conversion was
owing to "the goodness of God, who had revealed to him the darkness and
the errors of popery;" but according to his enemies, it was owing to his
love for the beautiful Agnes de Mansfeld, canoness of Gersheim; she was
a daughter of one of the greatest Protestant houses in Germany; and her
two brothers, bigoted Calvinists, and jealous of the honour of their
family, conceived themselves insulted by the public homage which a
Catholic priest, bound by his vows, dared to pay to their sister. They
were yet more incensed on discovering that the love was mutual, and
loudly threatened vengeance to both. Gerard renounced the Catholic
faith, and the lovers were united. He was excommunicated and degraded,
of course; but he insisted on his right to retain his secular dominions
and privileges, and refused to resign the electorate, which the emperor,
meantime, had awarded to Ernest of Bavaria, bishop of Liege. The contest
became desperate. The whole of that beautiful and fertile plain, from
the walls of Cologne to the Godesberg, grew "familiar with bloodshed as
the morn with dew;" and Gerard displayed qualities which showed him more
fitted to win and wear a bride, than to do honour to any priestly vows
of sanctity and temperance. Attacked on all sides,--by his subjects, who
had learned to detest him as an apostate, by the infuriated clergy, and
by the Duke of Bavaria, who had brought an army to enforce his brother's
claims,--he carried on the struggle for five years, and at last, reduced
to extremity, threw himself, with a few faithful friends, into the
castle of Godesberg. After a brave defence, the castle was stormed and
taken by the Bavarians, who left it nearly in the state we now see it--a
heap of ruins.
Gerard escaped with his wife, and fled to Holland, where Maurice, Prince
of Orange, granted him an asylum. Thence he sent his beautiful and
devoted wife to the court of Queen Elizabeth, to claim a former promise
of protection, and supplicate her aid, as the great support of the
Protestant cause, for the recovery of his rights. He could not have
chosen a more luckless ambassadress; for Agnes, though her beauty was
somewhat impaired by the persecutions and anxieties which had followed
her ill-fated union, was yet most lovely and stately, in all the pride
of womanhood; and her misfortunes and her charms, as well as the
peculiar circumstances of her marriage, excited the enthusiasm of all
the English chivalry. Unhappily the Earl of Essex was among the first to
espouse her cause with all the generous warmth of his character, and his
visits to her were so frequent, and his admiration so indiscreet, that
Elizabeth's jealousy was excited even to fury. Agnes was first driven
from the court, and then ordered to quit the kingdom. She took refuge in
the Netherlands, where she died soon afterwards; and Gerard, who never
recovered his dominions, retired to Strasbourg, where he died. So ends
this sad eventful history, which, methinks, would make a very pretty
romance. The tower of Godesberg, lasting as their love and ruined as
their fortunes, still remains one of the most striking monuments in that
land, where almost every hill is crowned with its castle, and every
castle has its tale of terror, or of love.[11]
Another beautiful picture, which, merely as a picture, has dwelt on my
remembrance, was the city of Coblentz and the fort of Ehrenbreitstein,
as viewed from the bridge of boats under a cloudless moon. The city,
with its fantastic steeples and masses of building, relieved against
the clear deep blue of the summer sky--the lights which sparkled in the
windows reflected in the broad river, and the various forms and tall
masts of the craft anchored above and opposite--the huge hill, with its
tiara of fortifications, which, in the sunshine and in the broad day,
had disappointed me by its formality, now seen under the soft moonlight,
as its long lines of architecture and abrupt angles were projected in
brightness or receded in shadow, had altogether a most sublime effect.
But _apropos_ to moonlights and pictures--of all the enchanted and
enchanting scenes ever lighted by the full round moon, give me
Heidelberg! Not the Colosseum of Rome--neither in itself, nor yet in
Lord Byron's description, and I have both by heart--can be more grand;
and in moral interest, in poetical associations, in varying and wondrous
beauty, the castle of Heidelberg has the advantage. In the course of
many visits, Heidelberg became to me familiar as the face of a friend,
and its remembrance still "haunts me as a passion." I have known it
under every changeful aspect which the seasons, and the hours, and the
changeful moods of my own mind, could lend it. I have seen it when the
sun, rising over the Geisberg, first kindled the vapours as they floated
away from the old towers, and when the ivy and the wreathed verdure on
the walls sparkled with dewy light: and I have seen it when its huge
black masses stood against the flaming sunset; and its enormous shadow,
flung down the chasm beneath, made it night there, while daylight
lingered around and above. I have seen it when mantled in all the bloom
and foliage of summer, and when the dead leaves were heaped on the paths,
and choked the entrance to many a favourite nook. I have seen it when
crowds of gay visitors flitted along its ruined terraces,[12] and music
sounded near; and with friends, whose presence endeared every pleasure;
and I have walked alone round its desolate precincts, with no companions
but my own sad and troubled thoughts. I have seen it when clothed in
calm and glorious moonlight. I have seen it when the winds rushed
shrieking through its sculptured halls, and when grey clouds came
rolling down the mountains, folding it in their ample skirts from the
view of the city below. And what have I seen to liken to it by night or
by day, in storm or in calm, in summer or in winter! Then its historical
and poetical associations--
MEDON.
There now!--will you not leave the picture, perfect as it is, and not
for ever seek in every object something more than is there?
ALDA.
I do not seek it--I find it. You will say--I have _heard_ you say--that
Heidelberg wants no beauty unborrowed of the eye; but if history had not
clothed it in recollections, fancy must have invested it in its own
dreams. It is true, that it is a mere modern edifice compared with all
the classic, and most of the gothic ruins; yet over Heidelberg there
hangs a terror and a mystery peculiar to itself: for the mind which
acquiesces in decay, recoils from destruction. Here ruin and desolation
make mocks with luxurious art and gay magnificence. Here it is not the
equal, gradual power of time, adorning and endearing what yet it spares
not, which has wrought this devastation, but savage war and elemental
rage. Twice blasted by the thunderbolt, three times consumed by fire,
ten times ravaged, plundered, desecrated by foes, and at last dismantled
and abandoned by its own princes, it is still strong to endure and
mighty to resist all that time, and war, and the elements may do against
it--and, mutilated rather than decayed, may still defy centuries. The
very anomalies of architecture and fantastic incongruities of this
fortress-palace, are to me a fascination. Here are startling and
terrific contrasts. That huge round tower--the tower of Frederic the
Victorious--now "deep trenched with thunder fires," looks as if built
by the Titans or the Huns; and those delicate sculptures in the palace
of Otho-Henry, as if the genius of Raffaelle or Correggio had breathed
on the stone. What flowing grace of outline! what luxuriant life! what
endless variety and invention in those half-defaced fragments! These are
the work of Italian artists, whose very names have perished;--all traces
of their existence and of their destinies so utterly lost, that one
might almost believe, with the peasantry, that these exquisite remains
are not the work of mortal hands, but of fairies and spirits of air,
evoked to do the will of an enchanter. The old palatines, the lords of
Heidelberg, were a magnificent and magnanimous race. Louis III.,
Frederic the Victorious, Frederic II., Otho-Henry, were all men who had
stepped in advance of their age. They could think as well as fight, in
days when fighting, not thinking, was the established fashion among
potentates and people. A liberal and enlightened spirit, and a love of
all the arts that humanise mankind, seem to have been hereditary in
this princely family. Frederic I. lay under the suspicion of heresy
and sorcery, in consequence of his tolerant opinions, and his love of
mathematics and astronomy. His personal prowess, and the circumstance
of his never having been vanquished in battle, gave rise to the report,
that he was assisted by evil demons; and for years, both before and
after his accession, he was under the ban of the secret tribunal.
Heidelberg was the scene of some of the mysterious attacks on his life,
but they were constantly frustrated by the fidelity of his friends, and
the watchful love of his wife.
It was at Heidelberg this prince celebrated a festival, renowned
in German history, and, for the age in which it occurred, most
extraordinary. He invited to a banquet all the factious barons whom he
had vanquished at Seckingen, and who had previously ravaged and laid
waste great part of the palatinate. Among them were the Bishop of Metz
and the Margrave of Baden. The repast was plentiful and luxurious, but
there was no bread. The warrior guests looked round with surprise
and inquiry. "Do you ask for bread?" said Frederic, sternly; "you,
who have wasted the fruits of the earth, and destroyed those whose
industry cultivates it? There is no bread. Eat and be satisfied; and
learn henceforth mercy to those who put the bread into your mouths."
A singular lesson from the lips of an iron-clad warrior of the middle
ages.
It was Frederic II. and his nephew Otho-Henry, who enriched the library,
then the first in Europe next to the Vatican, with treasures of
learning, and who invited painters and sculptors from Italy to adorn
their noble palace with the treasures of art. In less than one hundred
years those beautiful creations were defaced or utterly destroyed, and
all the memorials and records of their authors are supposed to have
perished at the time when the ruthless Tilly stormed the castle, and the
archives and part of the library of precious MSS. were taken to litter
his dragoons' horses, during a transient scarcity of straw.[13]--You
groan!
MEDON.
The anecdote is not new to me; but I was thinking, at the moment, of a
pretty phrase in the letters of the Prince de Ligne, "la guerre--c'est
un malheur--mais c'est le plus beau des malheurs."
ALDA.
O if there be any thing more terrific, more disgusting, than war and
its consequences, it is that perversion of all human intellect--that
depravation of all human feeling--that contempt or misconception of every
Christian precept, which has permitted the great, and the good, and the
tenderhearted, to admire war as a splendid game--a part of the poetry
of life--and to defend it as a glorious evil, which the very nature and
passions of man have ever rendered, and will ever render, necessary and
inevitable. Perhaps the idea of human suffering--though when we think
of it in detail it makes the blood curdle--is not so bad as the general
loss to humanity, the interruption to the progress of thought in the
destruction of the works of wisdom or genius. Listen to this magnificent
sentence out of the volume now lying open before me--"Who kills a man,
kills a reasonable creature--God's image; but he who destroys a good
book, kills reason itself. Many a man lives a burthen to the earth, but
a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true, no age can
restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss: and revolutions
of ages do not oft recover the loss of rejected truth, for the want of
which whole nations fare the worse; therefore we should be wary how we
spill the seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books."
MEDON.
"Methinks we do know the fine Roman hand." Milton, is it not?
ALDA.
Yes; and after this, think of Milton's Areopagitica, or his Paradise
Lost, under the hoofs of Tilly's dragoon horses, or feeding the fishes
in the Baltic! It might have happened had he written in Germany instead
of England.
MEDON.
Do you forget that the cause of the thirty years war was a woman?
ALDA.
A woman and religion; the two best or worst things in the world,
according as they are understood and felt, used and abused. You allude
to Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was to Heidelberg what Helen was to Troy?
One of the most interesting monuments of Heidelberg, at least to an
English traveller, is the elegant triumphal arch raised by the palatine
Frederic V. in honour of his bride--this very Elizabeth Stuart. I well
remember with what self-complacency and enthusiasm our Chef walked about
in a heavy rain, examining, dwelling upon every trace of this celebrated
and unhappy woman. She had been educated at his country-seat, and one
of the avenues of his magnificent park yet bears her name. On her
fell a double portion of the miseries of her fated family. She had the
beauty and the wit, the gay spirits, the elegant tastes, the kindly
disposition, of her grandmother, Mary of Scotland. Her very virtues as
a wife and a woman, not less than her pride and feminine prejudices,
ruined herself, her husband, and her people. When Frederick hesitated to
accept the crown of Bohemia, his high-hearted wife exclaimed--"Let me
rather eat dry bread at a king's table than feast at the board of an
elector;" and it seemed as if some avenging demon hovered in the air,
to take her literally at her word, for she and her family lived to
eat dry bread--aye, and to beg it before they ate it; but she _would_
be a queen. Blest as she was in love, in all good gifts of nature and
fortune, in all means of happiness, a kingly crown was wanting to
complete her felicity, and it was cemented to her brow with the blood of
two millions of men. And who was to blame? Was not her mode of thinking
the fashion of her time, the effect of her education? Who had
"Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty?"
For how many ages will you men exclaim against the mischiefs and
miseries, caused by the influence of women; thus allowing the influence,
yet taking no thought how to make that influence a means of good,
instead of an instrument of evil!
Elizabeth had brought with her from England some luxurious tastes, as
yet unknown in the palatinate; she had been familiarized with the dramas
of Shakspeare and Fletcher, and she had figured in the masques of Ben
Jonson. To gratify her, Frederic added to the castle of Heidelberg the
theatre and banqueting-room, and all that beautiful group of buildings
at the western angle, the ruins of which are still called the _English
palace_. She had inherited from her grandmother, or had early imbibed
from education, a love of nature and of amusements in the open air,
and a passion for gardening; and it was to please her, and under her
auspices, that Frederic planned those magnificent gardens, which were
intended to unite within their bounds, all that nature could contribute
or art devise; had they been completed, they would have rendered
Heidelberg a pleasure-palace, fit for fairy-land. Nor were those designs
unworthy of a prosperous and pacific sovereign, whose treasury was
full, whose sway was just and mild, whose people had long enjoyed in
tranquillity the fruits of their own industry. When I had the pleasure
of spending a few days with the Schlossers, at their beautiful seat
on the Necker, (Stift Neuburg,) I went over the ground with Madame de
Schlosser, who had seen and studied the original plans. Her description
of the magnitude and the sumptuous taste of these unfinished designs,
while we stood together amid a wilderness of ruins, was a commentary on
the vicissitudes of this world, worth fifty moral treatises, and as many
sermons.
"For in the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betray'd,
Make sadder transits o'er Truth's mystic glass,
Than noblest objects utterly decay'd."
Close to the ruins of poor Elizabeth's palace, there where the effigies
of her handsome husband, and his bearded ancestor Louis V. look down
from the ivy-mantled wall, you remember the beautiful terrace towards
the west? It is still,--after four centuries of changes, of disasters,
of desolation,--the garden of Clara. When Frederic the Victorious
assumed the sovereignty, in a moment of danger and faction, he took,
at the same time, a solemn vow never to marry, that the rights of his
infant nephew, the son of the late palatine, should not be prejudiced,
nor the peace of the country endangered by a disputed succession. He
kept his oath religiously, but at that very time he loved Clara Dettin
de Wertheim, a young girl of plebeian origin, and a native of Augsburg,
whose musical talents and melody of voice had raised her to a high
situation in the court of the late princess palatine. Frederick, with
the consent of his nephew, was united to Clara by a left-hand marriage,
an expedient still in use in Germany, and, I believe, peculiar to its
constitution; such a marriage is valid before God and man, yet the wife
has no acknowledged rights, and the offspring no supposed existence.
Clara is celebrated by the poets and chroniclers of her time, and
appears to have been a very extraordinary being in her way. In that age
of ignorance, she had devoted herself to study--she could sympathize in
her husband's pursuits, and share the toils of government--she collected
round her the wisest and most learned men of the time--she continued to
cultivate the beautiful voice which had won the heart of Frederic, and
her song and her lute were always ready to soothe his cares. Tradition
points out the spot where it is said she loved to meditate, and, looking
down upon the little hamlet, on the declivity of the hill, to recall
her own humble origin; that little hamlet, embowered in foliage, and
the remembrance of Clara, have survived the glories of Heidelberg. Her
descendants became princes of the empire, and still exist in the family
of Lowenstein.
Then, for those who love the marvellous, there is the wild legend of
the witch Jetta, who still flits among the ruins, and bathes her golden
tresses in the Wolfsbrunnen; but why should I tell you of these
tales--you, whose head is a sort of black-letter library?
MEDON.
True; but it is pleasant to have one's old recollections taken down
from their shelves and dusted, and placed in a new light; only do not
require, even if I again visit Heidelberg, that I should see it as you
have beheld it, with your quick spirit of association, and clothed in
the hues of your own individual mind. While you speak, it is not so much
the places and objects you describe, as their reflection in your own
fancy, which I see before me; and every different mind will reflect them
under a different aspect. Then, where is truth? you say. If we want
information as to mere facts--the situation of a town, the measurement
of a church, the date of a ruin, the catalogue of a gallery--we can go
to our dictionaries and our _guides des voyageurs_. But if, besides form
and outline, we must have colouring too, we should remember that every
individual mind will paint the scene with its own proper hues; and if
we judge of the mind and the objects it represents relatively to each
other, we may come at the truth, not otherwise. I would ask nothing of
a traveller, but accuracy and sincerity in the expression of his
opinions and feelings. I have then a page out of the great book of human
nature--the portrait of a particular mind; when that is fairly before me
I have a standard by which to judge: I can draw my own inferences. Will
you not allow that it is possible to visit Heidelberg, and to derive
the most intense pleasure from its picturesque beauty, without dreaming
over witches and warriors, palatines and princes? Can we not admire and
appreciate the sculpture in the palace of Otho-Henry, without losing
ourselves in vague, wondering reveries over the destinies of the
sculptors?
ALDA.
Yes; but it is amusing, and not less instructive, to observe the
manner in which the individual character and pursuits shall modify the
impressions of external things; only we should be prepared for this, as
the pilot makes allowance for the variation of the needle, and directs
his course accordingly. It is a mistake to suppose that those who cannot
see the imaginative aspect of things, see, therefore, the only true
aspect; they only see one aspect of the truth. _Vous étes orfêvre,
Monsieur Josse_, is as applicable to travellers as to every other
species of egotist.
Once, in an excursion to the north, I fell into conversation with a
Sussex farmer, one of that race of sturdy, rich, and independent
English yeomen, of which I am afraid few specimens remain: he was quite
a character in his way. I must sketch him for you; but only Miss Mitford
could do him justice. His coat was of the finest broad-cloth; his
shirt-frill, in which was stuck a huge agate pin, and his neckcloth, were
both white as the snow; his good beaver shone in all its pristine gloss,
and an enormous bunch of gold seals adorned his watch-chain; his voice
was loud and dictatorial, and his language surprisingly good and flowing,
though tinctured with a little coarseness and a few provincialisms. He
had made up his mind about the Reform Bill--the Catholic Question--the
Corn Laws--and about things in general, and things in particular; he
had doubts about nothing: it was evident that he was accustomed to lay
down the law in his own village--that he was the tyrant of his own
fire-side--that his wife was "his horse, his ox, his ass, his any thing,"
while his sons went to college, and his daughters played on the piano.
London was to him merely a vast congregation of pestilential vapours--a
receptacle of thieves, cut-throats and profligates--a place in which no
sensible man, who had a care for his life, his health, or his pockets,
would willingly set his foot; he thanked God that he never spent but two
nights in the metropolis, and at intervals of twenty-seven years: the
first night he had passed in the streets, in dread of fire and vermin;
and on the last occasion, he had not ventured beyond Smithfield. What he
did not know, was to him not worth knowing; and the word _French_, which
comprised all that was foreign, he used as a term, expressing the most
unbounded abhorrence, pity, and contempt. I should add, that though
rustic, and arrogant, and prejudiced, he was not vulgar. We were at
an inn, on the borders of Leicestershire, through which we had both
recently travelled; my farmer was enthusiastic in his admiration of
the country. "A fine country, madam--a beautiful country--a splendid
country!"
"Do you call it a fine country?" said I, absently, my head full of the
Alps and Appenines, the Pyrenean, and the river Po.
"To be sure I do; and where would you see a finer?"
"I did not see any thing very picturesque," said I.
"_Picturesque!_" he repeated with some contempt; "I don't know what
_you_ call picturesque; but _I_ say, give me a soil, that when you turn
it up you have something for your pains; the fine soil makes the fine
country, madam!"
SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE AND CHARACTER.
II.
MEDON.
I observed the other evening, that in making a sort of imaginative bound
from Coblentz to Heidelberg, you either skipped over Frankfort, or left
it on one side.
ALDA.
Did I?--if I had done _either_, in my heart or my memory, I had been
most ungrateful; but I thought you knew Frankfort well.
MEDON.
I was there for two days, on my way to Switzerland, and it rained the
whole time from morning till night. I have a vision in my mind of
dirty streets, chilly houses, dull shops, dingy-looking Jews, dripping
umbrellas, luxurious hotels, and exorbitant charges,--and this is all
I can recollect of Frankfort.
ALDA.
Indeed!--I pity you. To me it was associated only with pleasant
feelings, and, in truth, it is a pleasant place. Life, there, appears in
a very attractive costume: not in a half-holiday, half-beggarly garb, as
at Rome and Naples; nor in a thin undress of superficial decency as at
Berlin; nor in a court domino, hiding, we know not what--as at Vienna
and Munich; nor half motley, half military, as at Paris; nor in rags
and embroidery, as in London; but at Frankfort all the outside at least
is fair, substantial, and consistent. The shops vie in splendour with
those of London and Paris; the principal streets are clean, the houses
spacious and airy, and there is a general appearance of cheerfulness and
tranquillity, mingled with the luxury of wealth and the bustle of
business, which, after the misery, and murmuring, and bitterness of
faction, we had left in London, was really a relief to the spirits.
It is true, that during my last two visits, this apparent tranquillity
concealed a good deal of political ferment. The prisons were filled
with those unfortunate wretches who had endeavoured to excite a popular
tumult against the Prussian and Austrian governments. The trials were
going forward every day, but not a syllable of the result transpired
beyond the walls of the Römer Saal. Although the most reasonable and
liberal of the citizens agreed in condemning the rashness and folly of
these young men, the tide of feeling was evidently in their favour: for
instance, it was not the _fashion_ to invite the Prussian officers, and
I well remember that when Goethe's Egmont was announced at the theatre,
it was forbidden by the magistracy, from a fear that certain scenes and
passages in that play might call forth some open and decided expression
of the public feeling; in fact, only a few evenings before, some
passages in the Massaniello had been applied and applauded by the
audience, in a manner so _ill-bred_, that the wife of one of the
ministers of the Holy Alliance, rose and left her box, followed by some
other old women,--male and female. The theatre is rather commodious than
splendid; the established company, both for the opera and the regular
drama, excellent, and often varied by temporary visits of great actors
and singers from the other theatres of Germany. On my first visit to
Frankfort, which was during the fair of 1829, Paganini, then in the
zenith of his glory, was giving a series of concerts; but do not ask
me any thing about him, for it is a worn-out subject, and you know I am
not one of the enthusiastic, or even the orthodox, with regard to his
merits.
MEDON.
You do not mean--you will not tell me--that with all your love of music,
you were insensible to the miraculous powers of that man?
ALDA.
I suppose they were miraculous, as I heard every one say so round me;
but I listened to him as to any other musician, for the sake of the
pleasure to be derived from music, not for the sake of wondering at
difficulties overcome, and impossibilities made possible--they might
have remained impossibilities for me. But insensible I was _not_ to
the wondrous charm of his tone and expression. I was thrilled, melted,
excited, at the moment, but it left no relish on the palate, if I may
use the expression. To throw me into such _convulsions_ of enthusiasm,
as I saw this man excite here and on the continent, I must have the
orchestra with all its various mingling world of sound, or the _divine_
human voice breathing music and passion together; but this is a matter
of feeling, habit, education, like all other tastes in art.
I think it was during our third visit to Frankfort that Madame
Haitzinger-Neumann was playing the _gast-rolles_, for so they courteously
denominate the parts filled by occasional visitors, to whom, as guests,
the precedence is always given. Madame Haitzinger is the wife of
Haitzinger, the tenor singer, who was in London, and sung in the Fidelio,
with Madame Devrient-Schroeder. She is one of the most celebrated
actresses in Germany for light comedy, if any comedy in Germany can be
called light, in comparison with the same style of acting in France or
England. Her figure is rather large--
MEDON.
Like most of the German actresses--for I never yet saw one who had
attained to celebrity, who was not much too _embonpoint_ for our ideas
of a youthful or sentimental heroine--
ALDA.
Not Devrient-Schroeder?
MEDON.
Devrient is all impassioned grace; but I think that in time even _she_
will be in danger of becoming a little--how shall I express it with
sufficient delicacy?--a _little_ too substantial.
ALDA.
No, not if a soul of music and fire, informing a feverish, excitable
temperament, which is to the mantling spirit within, what the
high-pitched instrument is to the breeze which sweeps over its
chords,--not if these can avert the catastrophe; but what if you had
seen Mademoiselle Lindner, with a figure like Mrs. Liston's--all but
spherical--enacting Fenella and Clärchen?
MEDON.
I should have said, that only a German imagination could stand it! It
is one of Madame de Staël's clever aphorisms, that on the stage, "Il
faut menager les caprices des yeux avec le plus grand scrupule, car ils
peuvent detruire, sans appel tout effet sérieux;" but the Germans do not
appear to be subject to these _caprices des yeux_; and have not these
fastidious scruples about corporeal grace; for them sentiment, however
clumsy, is still sentiment. Perhaps they are in the right.
ALDA.
And Mademoiselle Lindner _has_ sentiment; she must have been a fine
actress, and is evidently a favourite with the audience. But to return
to Madame Haitzinger;--she is handsome, with a fair complexion, and no
very striking expression; but there is a heart and soul, and mellowness
in her acting, which is delicious. I could not give you an idea of her
manner by a comparison with any of our English actresses, for she is
essentially German; she never aimed at making points; she was never
broadly arch or comic, but the general effect was as rich as it was true
to nature. I saw her in some of her favourite parts: in the comedy of
"Stille Wasser sind tief;" (our Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, admirably
adapted to the German stage by Schroeder;) in the "Mirandolina,"
(the famous Locandiera of Goldoni,) and in the pretty lively vaudeville
composed for her by Holtei, "Die Wiener in Berlin," in which the popular
waltzes and airs, sung in the genuine national spirit, and enjoyed by
the audience with a true national zest, delighted us _foreigners_.
Herr Becker is an excellent actor in tragedy and high comedy. Of their
singers I could not say so much--there were none I should account
first-rate, except Dobler, whom you may remember in England.
One of the most delightful peculiarities of Frankfort, one that most
struck my fancy, is the public garden, planted on the site of the
ramparts; a girdle of verdure and shade--of trees and flowers circling
the whole city; accessible to all and on every side,--the promenade of
the rich, the solace of the poor. Fifty men are employed to keep it in
order, and it is forbidden to steal the flowers, or to kill the singing
birds which haunt the shrubberies.
MEDON.
And does this prohibition avail much in a population of sixty thousand
persons?
ALDA.
It does generally. A short time before we arrived some mischievous
wretch had shot a nightingale, and was caught in the fact. His
punishment was characteristic; his hands were tied behind him, and
a label setting forth his crime was fixed on his breast: in this guise,
with a police officer on each side, he was marched all round the
gardens, and made the circuit of the city, pursued by the hisses of
the populace and the abhorrent looks of the upper classes; he was not
otherwise punished, but he never again made his appearance within the
walls of the city. This was the only instance which I could learn of
the infraction of a law which might seem at least nugatory.
Of the spacious, magnificent, well-arranged cemetery, its admirable
apparatus for restoring suspended animation, and all its beautiful
accompaniments and memorials of the dead, there was a long account
published in London, at the time that a cemetery was planned for this
great overgrown city; and in truth I know not where we could find a
better model than the one at Frankfort; it appeared to me perfection.
The institutions at Frankfort, both for charity and education, are
numerous as becomes a rich and free city; and those I had an opportunity
of examining appeared to me admirably managed. Besides the orphan schools,
and the Burger schule, and the school for female education, established
and maintained by the wives of the citizens, there are several infant
schools, where children of a year old and upwards are nursed, and fed,
and kept out of mischief and harm, while their parents are at work.
These are also maintained by subscription among the ladies, who take
upon them in turns the task of daily superintendence; and I shall not
easily forget the gentle-looking, elegant, well-dressed girl, who,
defended from the encroachments of dirty little paws by a large apron,
sat in the midst of a swarm of thirty or forty babies, (the eldest not
four years old,) the very personification of feminine charity! But
the hospital for the infirm poor--Das Versorgung Haus--pleased me
particularly; 'tis true, that the cost was not a third--what do I say?
not a sixth of the expense of some of our institutions for the same
purpose. There was no luxury of architecture, nor huge gates shutting
in wretchedness, and shutting out hope; nor grated windows; nor were the
arrangements on so large a scale as in that splendid edifice, the Hopital
des Vieillards, at Brussels;--a house for the poor need not be either a
prison or a palace. But here, I recollect, the door opened with a latch;
we entered unannounced, as unexpected. Here there was perfect neatness,
abundance of space, of air, of light, of water, and also of occupation.
I found that, besides the inmates of the place, many poor old creatures,
who could not have the facilities or materials for work in their own
dwellings, or whose relatives were busied in the daytime, might find
here employment of any kind suited to their strength or capacity,--for
which, observe, they were paid; thus leaving them to the last possible
moment the feeling of independence and usefulness. I observed that many
of those who seemed in the last stage of decrepitude had hung round
their beds sundry little prints and pictures, and slips of paper, on
which were written legibly, texts from scripture, moral sentences, and
scraps of poetry. The ward of the superannuated and the sick was at a
distance from the working and eating rooms; and all breathed around
that peace and quiet which should accompany old age, instead of that
"life-consuming din" I _have_ heard in such places. On the pillow of
one bed, there was laid by some chance a bouquet of flowers.
In this ward there was an old man nearly blind and lethargic; another
old man was reading to him. I remarked a poor bed-ridden woman, utterly
helpless, but not old, and with good and even refined features; and
another poor woman, seated by her, was employed in keeping the flies
from settling on her face. To one old woman, whose countenance struck
me, I said a few words in English--I could speak no German, unluckily.
She took my hand, kissed it, and turning away, burst into tears. No one
asked for any thing even by a look, nor apparently wanted any thing; and
I felt that from the unaffected good-nature of the lady who accompanied
us, we had not so much the appearance of coming to look at the poor
inmates as of paying them a kind visit;--and this was as it should
be. The mild, open countenances of the two persons who managed the
establishment, pleased me particularly; and the manner of the matron
superintendent, as she led us over the rooms, was so simple and kind,
that I was quite at ease: I experienced none of that awkward shyness
and reluctance I have felt when ostentatiously led over such places in
England--feeling ashamed to stare upon the misery I could not cure. In
such cases I have probably attributed to the sufferers a delicacy or a
sensibility, long blunted, if ever possessed; but I was in pain for them
and for myself.
One thing more: there was a neat chapel; and we were shown with some
pride the only piece of splendour in the establishment. The communion
plate of massy silver was the gift of two brothers, who had married
on the same day two sisters; and these two sisters had died nearly at
the same time--I believe it was actually on the same day. The widowed
husbands presented this plate in memory of their loss and the virtues
of their wives; and I am sorry I did not copy the simple and affecting
inscription in which this is attested. There was also a silver vase,
which had been presented as an offering by a poor miller whom an
unexpected legacy had raised to independence.
I might give you similar sketches of other institutions, here and
elsewhere, but I did not bestow sufficient attention on the practical
details, and the comparative merits of the different methods adopted,
to render my observations useful. Though deeply interested, as any
feeling, thinking being must be on such subjects, I have not studied
them sufficiently. There are others, however, who are doing this better
than I could:--blessings be on them, and eternal praise!--My general
impression was, pleasure from the benevolence and simplicity of heart
with which these institutions were conducted and superintended, and
wonder, not to be expressed, at their extreme cheapness.
The day preceding my visit to the Versorgung Haus, I had been in a fever
of indignation at the fate of poor R----, one of the conspirators, who
had become insane from the severity of his confinement. I had descanted
with great complacency on our open tribunals and our trials by jury, and
yet I could not help thinking to myself, "Well, if _we_ have not their
state-prisons, neither have _they_ our poor-houses!"
MEDON.
It is plain that the rich, charitable, worldly prosperous, self-seeking,
Frankfort, would be your chosen residence after all!
ALDA.
No--as a fixed residence I should not prefer Frankfort. There is a
little too much of the pride of purse--too much of the aristocracy of
wealth--too much dressing and dinnering--and society is too much broken
up into sets and circles to please me: besides, it must be confessed,
that the arts do not flourish in this free imperial city.
The Städel Museum was opened just before our last visit to Frankfort.
A rich banker of that name bequeathed, in 1816, his collection of
prints and pictures, and nearly a million and a half of florins, for
the commencement and maintenance of this institution, and they have
certainly begun on a splendid scale. The edifice in which the collection
is arranged is spacious, fitted up with great cost, and generally with
great taste, except the ceilings, which, being the glory and admiration
of the good people of Frankfort, I must endeavour to describe to you
particularly. The elaborate beauty of the arabesque ornaments, their
endless variety, and the vivid colouring and gilding, reminded me of some
of the illuminated manuscripts; but I was rather amused than pleased,
and rather surprised to see art and ornament so misplaced--invention,
labour, money, time, lavished to so little purpose. No effect was
aimed at--none produced. The strained and wearied eye wandered amid
a profusion of unmeaning forms, and of gorgeous colours, which never
harmonized into a whole: and after I had half broken my neck by looking
up at them through an opera glass, in order to perceive the elegant
interlacing of the minute patterns and exquisite finish of the
workmanship, I turned away laughing and provoked, and wondering at such
a strange perversion, or rather sacrifice, of taste.
MEDON.
But the collection itself?--
ALDA.
It is not very interesting. It contains some curious old German
pictures; Städel having been, like others, smitten with the mania of
buying Van Eyks and Hemlings and Schoréels. Here, however, these old
masters, as part of a school, or history of art, are well placed.
There are a few fine Flemish paintings--and, in particular, a wondrous
portrait by Flinck, which you must see. It is a lady in black, on the
left side of the door--of--I forget which room--but you cannot miss
it: those soft eyes will look out at you, till you will feel inclined
to ask her name, and wonder the lips do not unclose to answer you. Of
first-rate pictures there are none--I mean none of the historical and
Italian schools: the collection of casts from the antique is splendid
and well-selected.
MEDON.
But Bethmann, the banker, had already set an example of munificent
patronage of art: when he shamed kings, for instance, by purchasing
Dannecker's Ariadne--one of the chief lions of Frankfort, if fame
says true.
ALDA.
How! have you not seen it?
MEDON.
No--unhappily. The weather, as I have told you, was dreadful. I was
discouraged--I procrastinated. That flippant observation I had read in
some English traveller, that "Dannecker's Ariadne looked as if it had
been cut out of old Stilton cheese," was floating in my mind. In short,
I was careless, as we often are, when the means of gratifying curiosity
appear secure, and within our reach. I repent me now. I wish I had
settled to my own satisfaction, and with mine own eyes, the disputed
merits of this famous statue; but I will trust to you. It ought to be
something admirable. I do not know much of Dannecker, or his works, but
by all accounts he has not to complain of the want of patronage. To him
cannot be applied the pathetic common-place, so familiar in the mouths
of our young artists, about "chill penury," the struggle to live, the
cares that "freeze the genial current of the soul," the efforts of
unassisted genius, and so forth. Want never came to him since he devoted
himself to art. He appears to have had leisure and freedom to give full
scope to his powers, and to work out his own creations.
ALDA.
Had he? Had he indeed? His own story would be different, I fancy.
Dannecker, like every patronized artist I ever met with, would execrate
patronage if he dared. Good old man! The thought of what he might have
done, and could have done, breaks out sometimes in the midst of all
his self-complacent _naïve_ exultation over what he _has_ done. I will
endeavour to give you a correct idea of the Ariadne, and then I will
tell you something of Dannecker himself. His history is a good
commentary upon royal patronage.
I had heard so much of this statue, that my curiosity was strongly
excited. A part of its fame may be owing to its situation, and the
number of travellers who go to visit Bethmann's Museum, as a matter of
course. I used to observe that all travellers, who were on the road to
Italy, praised it, and all who were on their way home criticised it.
As I ascended the steps of the pavilion in which it is placed, the
enthusiasm of expectation faded away from my mind: I said to myself,
"I shall be disappointed!"--Yet I was not disappointed.
The Ariadne occupied the centre of a cabinet, hung with a dark grey
colour, and illuminated by a high lateral window, so that the light and
shade, and the relief of the figure, were perfectly well managed and
effective. Dannecker has not represented Ariadne in her more poetical
and picturesque character, as, when betrayed and forsaken by Theseus,
she stood alone on the wild shore of Naxos, "her hair blown by the
winds, and all about her expressing desolation." It is Ariadne, immortal
and triumphant, as the bride of Bacchus. The figure is larger than life.
She is seated, or rather reclined, on the back of a panther. The right
arm is carelessly extended: the left arm rests on the head of the
animal, and the hand supports the drapery, which appears to have just
dropped from her limbs. The head is turned a little upwards, as if she
already anticipated her starry home; and her tresses are braided with
the vine leaves. The grace and ease of the attitude, so firm, and yet
so light; the flowing beauty of the form, and the position of the head,
enchanted me. Perhaps the features are not sufficiently _Greek_: for,
though I am not one of those who think all beauty comprised in the
antique models, and that nothing can be orthodox but the straight nose
and short upper lip, still to Ariadne the pure _classical_ ideal of
beauty, both in form and face, are properly in character. A cast from
that divine head, the Greek Ariadne, is placed in the same cabinet, and
I confess to you, that the contrast being immediately brought before the
eye, Dannecker's Ariadne seemed to want refinement, in comparison. It is
true, that the moment chosen by the German sculptor required an expression
altogether different. In the Greek bust, though already circled by the
viny crown, and though all heaven seems to repose on the noble arch of
that expanded brow, yet the head is declined, and a tender melancholy
lingers round the all-perfect mouth, as if the remembrance of a mortal
love--a mortal sorrow--yet shaded her celestial bridal hours, and made
pale her immortality. But, Dannecker's Ariadne is the flushed queen
of the Bacchante, and, in the clash of the cymbals and the mantling
cup, she has already forgotten Theseus. There is a look of life, an
individual truth in the beauty of the form, which distinguishes it from
the long-limbed vapid pieces of elegance called nymphs and Venuses, which
"Stretch their white arms, and bend their marble necks,"
in the galleries of our modern sculptors. One objection struck me,
but not till after a second or third view of the statue. The panther
seemed to me rather too bulky and ferocious. It is true, it is not a
natural, but a mythological panther, such as we see in the antique
basso-relievos, and the arabesques of Herculaneum: yet, methinks if
he appeared a little more conscious of his lovely burthen, more tamed
by the influence of beauty, it would have been better. However, the
sculptor may have had a design, a feeling, in this very point, which has
escaped me: I regret now that I did not ask him. One thing is certain,
that the extreme massiveness of the panther's limbs serves to give a
firmness to the support of the figure, and sets off to advantage its
lightness and delicacy. It is equally certain that if the head of the
animal had been ever so slightly turned, the pose of the right arm, and
with it the whole attitude, must have been altered.
The window of the cabinet is so contrived, that by drawing up a blind
of stained glass, a soft crimson tint is shed over the figure, as if
the marble blushed. This did not please me: partly from a dislike to all
trickery in art; partly because, to my taste, the pale colourless purity
of the marble is one of the beauties of a fine statue.
It is true that Dannecker has been unfortunate in his material. The
block from which he cut his figure is imperfect and streaky; but how it
could possibly have suggested the idea of _Stilton cheese_ I am at a loss
to conceive. It is not worse than Canova's Venus, in the Pitti palace,
who has a terrible black streak across her bosom. M. Passavant,[14] who
was standing by when I paid my last visit to the Ariadne, assured me,
that when the statue was placed on its pedestal, about sixteen years
ago, these black specks were scarcely visible, and that they seemed to
multiply and grow darker with time. This is a lamentable, and, to me, an
unaccountable fact.
MEDON.
And, I am afraid, past cure: but now tell me something of the sculptor
himself. After looking on a grand work of art, we naturally turn to look
into the mind which conceived and created it.
ALDA.
Dannecker, like all the great modern sculptors, sprung from the people.
Thorwaldson, Flaxman, Chantrey, Canova, Schadow, Ranch--I believe we may
go farther back, to Cellini, Bandinelli, Bernini, Pigalle--all I can at
this moment recollect, were of plebeian origin. When I was at Dresden,
I was told of a young count, of noble family, who had adopted sculpture
as a profession. This, I think, is a solitary instance of any person of
noble birth devoting himself to this noblest of the arts.
MEDON.
Do you forget Mrs. Darner and Lady Dacre?
ALDA.
No; but I do not think that either the exquisite modelling of Lady
Dacre, or the meritorious _attempts_ of Mrs. Damer, come under the head
of sculpture in its grand sense. By-the-bye, when Horace Walpole said
that Mrs. Damer was the first female sculptor who had attained any
celebrity, he forgot the Greek girl, Lala,[15] and the Properzia Rossi
of modern times.
Dannecker was born at Stuttgardt in 1758. On him descended no hereditary
mantle of genius; it was the immediate gift of Heaven, and apparently
heaven-directed. His father was a groom in the duke's stable, and
appears to have been merely an ill-tempered, thick-headed boor. How
young Dannecker picked up the rudiments of reading and writing, he does
not himself remember; nor by what circumstances the bent of his fancy
and genius was directed to the fine arts. Like other great men, who have
been led to trace the progress of their own minds, he attributed to his
mother the first promptings to the fair and good, the first softening
and elevating influences which his mind acknowledged. He had neither
paper nor pencils; but next door to his father there lived a
stone-cutter, whose blocks of marble and free-stone were every day
scrawled over with rude imitations of natural objects in chalk or
charcoal--the first essays of the infant Dannecker. When he was beaten
by his father for this proof of idleness, his mother interfered to
protect or to encourage him. As soon as he was old enough, he assisted
his father in the stable; and while running about the precincts of the
palace, ragged and bare-foot, he appears to have attracted, by his
vivacity and alertness, the occasional notice of the duke himself.
Duke Charles, the grandfather of the present king of Wurtemburg, had
founded a military school, called the Karl Schüle, (Charles' School,)
annexed to the Hunting Palace of the Solitude. At this academy, music and
drawing were taught as well as military tactics. One day, when Dannecker
was about thirteen, his father returned home in a very ill-humour, and
informed his family that the duke intended to admit the children of his
domestics into his new military school. The boy, with joyful eagerness,
declared his intention of going immediately to present himself as a
candidate. The father, with a stare of astonishment, desired him to
remain at home, and mind his business; on his persisting, he resorted to
blows, and ended by locking him up. The boy escaped by jumping out of
the window; and, collecting several of his comrades, he made them a long
harangue in praise of the duke's beneficence, then placing himself at
their head, marched them up to the palace, where the whole court was
assembled for the Easter festivities. On being asked their business,
Dannecker replied as spokesman--"Tell his highness the duke we want to
go to the Karl-schüle." One of the attendants, amused, perhaps, with
this juvenile ardour, went and informed the duke, who had just risen
from table. He came out himself and mustered the little troop before
him. He first darted a rapid scrutinizing glance along the line, then
selecting one from the number, placed him on his right-hand; then
another, and another, till only young Dannecker and two others remained
on his left. Dannecker has since acknowledged that he suffered for a few
moments such exquisite pain and shame at the idea of being rejected,
that his first impulse was to run away and hide himself; and that his
surprise and joy, when he found that he and his two companions were the
accepted candidates, had nearly overpowered him. The duke ordered them
to go the next morning to the Solitude, and then dismissed them. When
Dannecker returned home, his father, enraged at losing the services
of his son, turned him out of the house, and forbade him ever more to
enter it; but his mother (mother like) packed up his little bundle of
necessaries, accompanied him for some distance on his road, and parted
from him with blessings, and tears, and words of encouragement and love.
At the Karl-schüle Dannecker made but little progress in his studies.
Nothing could be worse managed than this royal establishment. The inferior
teachers were accustomed to employ the poorer boys in the most servile
offices, and in this, so called, academy, he was actually obliged to
learn by stealth: but here he formed a friendship with Schiller, who,
like himself, was an ardent genius pining and writhing under a chilling
system; and the two boys, thrown upon one another for consolation,
became friends for life. Dannecker must have been about fifteen when
the Karl-schüle was removed from the Solitude to Stuttgard. He was then
placed under the tuition of Grubel, a professor of sculpture, and in the
following year he produced his first original composition. It was a Milo
of Crotona modelled in clay, and was judged worthy of the first prize.
Dannecker was at this time so unfriended and little known, that the
duke, who appears to have forgotten him, learnt with astonishment that
this nameless boy, the son of his groom, had carried off the highest
honours of the school from all his competitors. For a few years he
was employed in the duke's service in carving cornices, Cupids, and
caryatides, to ornament the new palaces at Stuttgard and Hohenheim:
this task-work, over which he often sighed, may possibly have assisted
in giving him that certainty and mechanical dexterity in the use of his
tools for which he is remarkable. About ten years were thus passed; he
then obtained permission to travel for his improvement with an allowance
of three hundred florins a-year from the duke. With these slender means
Dannecker set off for Paris on foot. There, for the first time, he had
opportunities of studying the living model. His enthusiasm for his art
enabled him to endure extraordinary privations of every kind; for out
of his little pension of £23 a-year he had not only to feed and clothe
himself, but to purchase all the materials for his art, and the means
of instruction; and this in an expensive capital, surrounded with
temptations which an artist and an enthusiastic young man finds it
difficult to withstand. He told me himself that day after day he has
studied in the Louvre dinnerless, and dressed in a garb which scarce
retained even the appearance of decency. He left Paris, after a two
years' residence, as simple in mind and heart as when he entered it, and
considerably improved in his knowledge of anatomy and in the technical
part of his profession. The treasures of the Louvre, though far inferior
to what they now are, had let in a flood of ideas upon his mind, among
which (as he described his own feelings) he groped as one bewildered and
intoxicated, amazed rather than enlightened.
MEDON.
But Dannecker must have been poor in spirit as in pocket--simple,
indeed, if he did not profit by the opportunities which Paris afforded
of studying human nature, noting the passions and their physiognomy, and
gaining other experiences most useful to an artist.
ALDA.
There I differ from you. Would you send a young artist--more particularly
a young sculptor--to study the human nature of London or Paris?--to
seek the ideal among shop-girls and opera-dancers? Or the sublime and
beautiful among the frivolous and degraded of one sex, the money-making
or the brutalized of the other? Is it from the man who has steeped his
youthful prime in vulgar dissipation, by way of "seeing life," as it is
called, who has courted patronage at the convivial board, that you shall
require that union of lofty enthusiasm and patient industry, which are
necessary, first to conceive the grand and the poetical, then consume
long years in shaping out his creation in the everlasting marble?
MEDON.
But how is the sculptor himself to live during those long years? It must
needs be a hard struggle. I have heard young artists say, that they have
been forced on a dissipated life merely as a means of "getting on in the
world," as the phrase is.
ALDA.
So have I. It is so base a plea, that when I hear it, I generally regard
it as the excuse for dispositions already perverted. The men who talk
thus are doomed: they will either creep through life in mediocrity and
dependence to their grave; or, at the best, if they have parts, as well
as cunning and assurance, they may make themselves the fashion, and make
their fortune; they may be clever portrait-painters and bust-makers, but
when they attempt to soar into the historical and ideal department of
their art, they move the laughter of gods and men; to them the higher,
holier fountains of inspiration are thenceforth sealed.
MEDON.
But think of the temptations of society!
ALDA.
I think of those who have overcome them. "Great men have been among us,"
though they be rare. Have we not had a Flaxman? But the artist must
choose where he will worship. He cannot serve God and Mammon. That man
of genius who thinks he can tamper with his glorious gifts, and for a
season indulge in social excesses, stoop from his high calling to the
dregs of earth, abandon himself to the stream of common life, and trust
to his native powers to bring him up again;--O believe it, he plays a
desperate game!--one that in nearly ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
is fatal.
MEDON.
I begin to see your drift; but you would find it difficult to prove that
the men who executed those works, on which we now look with wonder and
despair, lived like anchorites, or were unexceptionable moral characters.
ALDA.
Will you not allow that they worked in a different spirit? Or do you
suppose that it was by the possession of some sleight-of-hand that these
things were performed?--That it was by some knack of chiselling, some
secret of colouring now lost, that a Phidias or a Correggio still remain
unapproached, and, as people will tell you, unapproachable?
MEDON.
They had a different nature to work from.
ALDA.
A different modification of nature, but not a different nature. Nature
and truth are one, and immutable, and inseparable as beauty and love.
I do maintain that, in these latter times, we have artists, who in
genius, in the power of looking at nature, and in manual skill, are
not beneath the great ancients, but their works are found wanting in
comparison; they have fallen short of the models their early ambition
set before them; and why?--because, having genius, they want the moral
grandeur that should accompany it, and have neglected the training of
their own minds from necessity, or from dissipation or from pride, so
that having imagination and skill, they have yet wanted the materials
out of which to work. Recollect that the great artists of old were
not mere painters or mere sculptors, who were nothing except with the
pencil or the chisel in their hand. They were philosophers, scholars,
poets, musicians, noble beings, whose eyes were not ever on themselves,
but who looked above, before, and after. Our modern artists turn
coxcombs, and then fancy themselves like Rafaelle; or they are greedy
of present praise, or greedy of gain; or they will not pay the price
for immortality; or they have sold their glorious birthright of fame
for a mess of pottage.
Poor Dannecker found his mess of pottage bitter now and then, as you
shall hear. He set off for Italy, in 1783, with his pension raised to
four hundred florins a year, that is, about thirty pounds: he reached
Rome, on foot, and he told me that, for some months after his arrival,
he suffered from a terrible depression of spirits, and a painful sense
of loneliness: like Thorwaldson, when he too visited that city some
years afterwards, a friendless youth, he was often home-sick and
heart-sick. At this time he used to wander about among the ruins and
relics of almighty Rome, lost in the sense of their grandeur, depressed
by his own vague aspirations--ignorant, and without courage to apply
himself. Luckily for him, Herder and Goethe were then residing at Rome;
he became known to them, and their conversation directed him to higher
sources of inspiration in his art than he had yet contemplated--to the
very well-heads and mother-streams of poetry. They showed him the
distinction between the _spirit_ and the _form_ of ancient art. Dannecker
felt, and afterwards applied some of the grand revelations of these men,
who were at once profound critics and inspired poets. He might have
grasped at more, but that his early nurture was here against him, and
his subsequent destinies as a court sculptor seldom left him sufficient
freedom of thought or action to follow out his own conceptions. While at
Rome he also became acquainted with Canova, who, although only one year
older than himself, had already achieved great things. He was now at
work on the monument of the Pope Ganganelli. The courteous, kind-hearted
Italian would sometimes visit the poor German in his studio, and cheer
him by his remarks and encouragement.
Dannecker remained five years at Rome; he was then ordered to return to
Stuttgard. As he had already greatly distinguished himself, the Duke
of Wurtemburg received him with much kindness, and promised him his
protection. Now, the protection and the patronage which a sovereign
accords to an artist generally amounts to this: he begins by carving or
painting the portrait of his patron, and of some of the various members
of his patron's family. If these are approved of, he is allowed to stick
a ribbon in his button-hole, and is appointed professor of fine arts,
with a certain stipend, and thenceforth his time, his labour, and his
genius belong as entirely to his master as those of a hired servant; his
path is marked out for him. It was thus with Dannecker; he received a
pension of eight hundred florins a year and his professorship, and upon
the strength of this he married Henrietta Rapp. From this period his
life has passed in a course of tranquil and uninterrupted occupation,
yet, though constantly employed, his works are not numerous; almost
every moment being taken up with the duties of his professorship, in
trying to teach what no man of genius can teach, and in making drawings
and designs after the fancies of the Grand Duke. He was required to
compose a basso-relievo for the duke's private cabinet. The subject which
he chose was as appropriate as it was beautifully treated--Alexander
pressing his seal upon the lips of Parmenio. He modelled this in
bas-relief, and the best judges pronounced it exquisite; but it did
not please the duke, and instead of receiving an order to finish it in
marble, he was obliged to throw it aside, and to execute some design
dictated by his master. The original model remained for many years
in his studio; but a short time before my last visit to him he had
presented it as a birth-day gift to a friend. The first great work which
gave him celebrity as a sculptor, was the mausoleum of Count Zeppelin,
the duke's favourite, in which the figure of Friendship has much
simplicity and grace: this is now at Louisberg. While he was modelling
this beautiful figure, the first idea of the Ariadne was suggested to
his fancy, but some years elapsed before it came into form. At this time
he was much employed in executing busts, for which his fine eye for
living nature and manly simplicity of taste peculiarly fitted him. In
this particular department of his art he has neither equal nor rival,
except our Chantrey. The best I have seen are those of Schiller, Gluck,
and Lavater. Never are the fine arts, never are great artists, better
employed than when they serve to illustrate and to immortalize each
other! About the year 1808, Dannecker was considered, beyond dispute,
the first sculptor in Germany; for as yet Rauch, Tieck, and Schwanthaler
had not worked their way up to their present high celebrity. He
received, in 1811, an intimation, that if he would enter the service of
the king of Bavaria, he should be placed at the head of the school of
sculpture at Munich, with a salary three times the amount of that which
he at present enjoyed.--
MEDON.
Which Dannecker declined?
ALDA.
He did.
MEDON.
I could have sworn to it--_extempore_! What is more touching in the
history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they
have shown to their early patrons! Not to go back to the days of Horace
and Mecænas, nor even to those of Ariosto and Tasso and the family of
Este, or Cellini and the Duke of Florence, or Lucas Kranach, and the
Elector John Frederic--[16] do you remember Mozart's exclamation, when
he was offered the most magnificent remuneration if he would quit the
service of Joseph II. for that of the Elector of Saxony--"Shall I leave
my good Emperor?" In the same manner Metastasio rejected every
inducement to quit the service of Maria Theresa,----
ALDA.
Add Goethe and the Duke of Weimar, and a hundred other instances. The
difficulty would be to find _one_, in which the patronage of the great
has not been repaid ten thousand fold in gratitude and fame. Dannecker's
love for his native city, and his native princes, prevailed over his
self-interest; his decision was honourable to his heart; but it is
not less certain that at Munich he would have found more enlightened
patronage, and a wider scope for his talents. Frederic, the late king of
Wurtemburg, who had married our princess royal, was a man of a coarse
mind and profligate habits. Napoleon had gratified his vulgar ambition
by making him a king, and thereupon he stuck a huge, tawdry gilt
crown on the top of his palace, the impudent sign of his subservient
_majesty_. I never looked at it without thinking of an overgrown child
and its new toy; he also, to commemorate the acquisition of his kingly
titles, instituted the order of the Wurtemburg crown, and Dannecker
was gratified by this new order of merit, and a bit of ribbon in his
button-hole.
But in the mean time the model of the Ariadne remained in his studio,
and it was not till the year 1809 that he could afford to purchase a
block of marble, and begin the statue on speculation. It occupied him
for seven years, but in the interval he completed other beautiful works.
The king ordered him to execute a Cupid in marble, for which he gave
him the design. It was a design which displeased the pure mind and high
taste of Dannecker; he would not so desecrate his divine art: "c'etait
travailler pour le diable!" said he to me, in telling the story. He
therefore only half fulfilled his commission; and changing the purpose
and sentiment of the figure, he represented the Greek Cupid at the
moment that he is waked by the drop of burning oil from Psyche's lamp.
An English general, I believe Sir John Murray, saw this charming statue,
in 1814, and immediately commanded a work from the sculptor's hands: he
wished, but did not absolutely require, a duplicate of the statue he so
admired. Dannecker, instead of repeating himself, produced his Psyche,
whom he has represented--not as the Greek allegorical Psyche, the
bride of Cupid, "with lucent fans, fluttering"--but as the abstract
personification of the human soul; or, to use Dannecker's own words,
"Ein rein, sittlich, sinniges Wesen,"--a pure, moral, intellectual
being. As he had an idea that Love had become moral and sentimental
after he had been waked by the drop of burning oil, so I could not
help asking him whether this was Psyche, grown reasonable after she
had beheld the wings of Love? He has not in this beautiful statue quite
accomplished his own idea. It has much girlish grace and simplicity, but
it wants elevation; it is not sufficiently ideal, and will not stand a
comparison either with the Psyche of Westmacott, or that of Canova. The
Ariadne was finished in 1816, but the sculptor was disappointed in his
hope that this, his masterpiece, would adorn his native city. The king
showed no desire to possess it, and it was purchased by M. Bethmann,
of Frankfort, for a sum equal to about one thousand pounds. Soon after
the Ariadne was finished, Dannecker conceived, in a moment of pious
enthusiasm, his famous statue of the Redeemer, which has caused a great
deal of discussion in Germany. This was standing in his work-room when
we paid our first visit to him. He told me what I had often heard, that
the figure had visited him in a dream three several times; and the
good old man firmly believed that he had been divinely inspired, and
predestined to the work. While the visionary image was fresh in his
imagination, he first executed a small clay model, and placed it
before a child of five or six years old;--there were none of the usual
emblematical accompaniments--no cross--no crown of thorns to assist the
fancy--nothing but the simple figure roughly modelled; yet the child
immediately exclaimed, "The Redeemer!" and Dannecker was confirmed in
his design. Gradually the completion of this statue became the one
engrossing idea of his enthusiastic mind: for eight years it was his
dream by night, his thought by day; all things else, all the affairs and
duties of life, merged into this. He told me that he frequently felt as
if pursued, excited by some strong, irresistible power, which would even
visit him in sleep, and impel him to rise from his bed and work. He
explained to me some of the difficulties he encountered, and which he
was persuaded that he had perfectly overcome only through divine aid,
and the constant study of the Scriptures. They were not few nor trifling.
Physical power, majesty, and beauty, formed no part of the character of
the Saviour of the world: the glory that was around him was not of this
earth, nor visible to the eye; "there was nothing in him that he should
be desired;" therefore to throw into the impersonation of exceeding
humility and benignity a superhuman grace, and from material elements
work out a manifestation of abstract moral grandeur--this was surely
not only a new and difficult, but a bold and sublime enterprize.
You remember Michael Angelo's statue of Christ in the church of Santa
Maria sopra Minerva at Rome?
MEDON.
Perfectly; and I never looked at it without thinking of Neptune and
his trident.
ALDA.
The same thought occurred to me, and must inevitably have occurred to
others. Dannecker is not certainly so great a man as Michael Angelo,
but here he has surpassed him. Instead of emulating the antique models,
he has worked in the antique spirit--the spirit of faith and enthusiasm.
He has taken a new form in which to clothe a grand poetical conception.
Whether the being he has represented be a fit subject for the plastic
art, has been disputed; but it appears to me that Dannecker has more
nearly approached the christian ideal than any of his predecessors;
there is nothing to be compared to it, except Titian's Christo della
Moneta, and that is a head merely. The sentiment chosen by the sculptor
is expressed in the inscription on the pedestal: "Through me, to the
Father." The proportions of the figure are exceedingly slender and
delicate; the attitude a little drooping; one hand is pressed on the
bosom, the other extended; the lips are unclosed as in the act to speak.
In the head and facial line, by carefully throwing out every indication
of the animal propensities, and giving added importance and development
to all that indicates the moral and intellectual faculties, he has
succeeded in embodying a species of ideal, of which there is no other
example in art. I have heard, (not from Dannecker himself,) that when
the head of the Jupiter Tonans was placed beside the Christ, the merely
physical grandeur of the former, compared with the purely intellectual
expression of the latter, reminded every one present of a lion's head
erect and humanized.
MEDON.
But what were your own impressions? After all this eulogium, which
I believe to be just, tell me frankly, were you satisfied yourself?
ALDA.
No--not quite. The expression of the mouth in the last finished statue
(he has repeated the subject three times) is not so fine as in the
model, and the simplicity of the whole bordered on meagreness. This,
I think, is a general fault in all Dannecker's works. He has of course
avoided nudity, but the flowing robe, which completely envelopes the
figure, is so managed as to disclose the exact form of the limbs. One
little circumstance will give you an idea of the attention and accuracy
with which he seized and embodied every touch of individual character
conveyed in Holy Writ. In the original model he had made the beard
rather full and thick, and a little curled, expressing the prime of
manhood; but recollecting that in the gospel the Saviour is represented
as sinking under the weight of the cross, which the first man they met
accidentally was able to carry, he immediately altered his first
conception, and gave to the beard that soft, flowing, downy texture
which is supposed to indicate a feeble and delicate temperament.
I shall not easily forget the countenance of the good and gifted old
man, as, leaning on the pedestal, with his cap in his hand, and his long
grey hair waving round his face, he looked up at his work with a mixture
of reverence and exultation, saying, in his imperfect and scarce
intelligible French, "Oui, quand on a fait comme cela, on reste sur la
terre!" meaning, I suppose, that this statue had ensured his immortality
on earth. He added, "They ask me often where are the models after which
I worked? and I answer, _here_, and _here_;" laying his hand first on
his head, then on his heart.
I remember that when we first entered his room he was at work on one of
the figures for the tomb of the late Queen Catherine of Wurtemburg. You
perhaps recollect her in England when only Duchess of Oldenburg?
MEDON.
Yes; I remember, as a youngster, joining the mob who shouted before the
windows of the Pulteney-hotel, and hailed her and her brother Alexander
as if they had been a newly descended Jupiter and Juno! O verily, times
are changed!
ALDA.
But in that woman there were the elements of a fine nature. She had
the talents, the strength of mind, and far-reaching ambition of her
grandmother, Catherine of Russia, but was not so perverted. During her
short reign as Queen of Wurtemburg, the influence of her active mind was
felt through the whole government. She founded, among other institutions,
a school for the daughters of the nobility connected with the court,--in
plain English, a charity-school for the nobility of Wurtemburg, who are
among the most indigent and most ignorant of Germany. There are a few,
very few, brilliant exceptions. One lady of rank said to me, "As to an
English governess, _that_ is an advantage I can never hope to have for
my daughters. The princesses have an English governess, but _we_ cannot
dream of such a thing." The late queen really deserved the regrets of
her people. The king, whose sluggish mind she ruled or stimulated, is
now devoted to his stables and hunting. He has married another wife, but
he has erected to the honour of Catherine a splendid mausoleum, on the
peak of a high hill, which can be seen from almost every part of the
city; and on the summer evenings when the red sun-set falls upon its
white columns it is a beautiful object. The figure on which Dannecker
was occupied, represented Prayer, or what he called, "La triomphe de
la Prière;" it recalled to my mind Flaxman's lovely statue of the same
subject,--the "Our Father which art in Heaven," but suffered by the
involuntary comparison. On the rough base of the statue he had tried to
spell the name of Chantrey, but not very successfully. I took up a bit
of chalk and wrote underneath, in distinct characters, FRANCIS CHANTREY.
"I grow old," said he, looking from his work to the bust of the late
queen which stood opposite. "I have carved the effigies of three
generations of poets, and as many of princes. Twenty years ago I was
at work on the tomb of the Duke of Oldenburg, and now I am at work upon
_her's_ who gave me that order. All die away: soon I shall be left
alone. Of my early friends none remain but Goethe. I shall die before
him, and perhaps he will write my epitaph." He spoke with a smile, not
foreseeing that he would be the survivor.
Three years afterwards[17] I again paid Dannecker a visit, but a change
had come over him: his feeble, trembling hand could no longer grasp the
mallet, or guide the chisel; his eyes were dim; his fine benevolent
countenance wore a childish, vacant smile, now and then crossed by a
gleam of awakened memory or thought--and yet he seemed so perfectly
happy! He walked backwards and forwards, from his Christ to his bust
of Schiller, with an unwearied self-complacency, in which there was
something mournful, and yet delightful. While I sat looking at the
magnificent head of Schiller, the original of the multifarious casts
and copies which are dispersed through all Germany, he sat down beside
me, and taking my hands between his own, which trembled with age and
nervous emotion, he began to speak of his friend. "Nous etions amis dès
l'enfance; aussi j'y ai travaillé avec amour, avec douleur--on ne peut
pas plus faire." He then went on--"When Schiller came to Louisberg, he
sent to tell me that he was very ill--that he should not live very long,
and that he wished me to execute his bust. It was the first wish of my
own heart. I went immediately. When I entered the house, I found a lady
sitting on the _canapé_--it was Schiller's wife, and I did not know her;
but she knew me. She said, 'Ah! you are Dannecker!--Schiller expects
you;'--then she ran into the next room, where Schiller was lying down
on a couch, and in a moment after he came in, exclaiming as he entered,
'Where is he? where is Dannecker?' That was the moment--the expression
I caught--you see it here--the head raised, the countenance full of
inspiration, and affection, and bright hope! I told him that to keep up
this expression he must have some of his best friends to converse with
him while I took the model, for I could not talk and work too. O if
I could but remember what glorious things then fell from those lips!
Sometimes I stopped in my work--I could not go on--I could only listen."
And here the old man wept; then suddenly changing his mood, he said--"But
I must cut off that long hair; he never wore it so; it is not in the
fashion, you know!" I begged him for heaven's sake not to touch it; he
then, with a sad smile, turned up the sleeve of his coat and showed me
his wrist, swelled with the continual use of his implements--"You see
I _cannot_!" And I could not help wishing at the moment, that while his
mind was thus enfeebled, no transient return of physical strength might
enable him to put his wild threat in execution. What a noble bequest to
posterity is the effigy of a great man, when executed in such a spirit
as this of Schiller! I assure you I could not look at it, without
feeling my heart "overflow in silent worship" of moral and intellectual
power, till the deification of great men in the old times appeared to me
rather religion than idolatry. I have been affected in the same manner
by the busts of Goethe, Scott, Homer, Milton, Howard, Newton;--never by
the painted portraits of the same men, however perfect in resemblance
and admirable in execution.
MEDON.
Painting gives us the material, sculpture the abstract, ethical aspect
of the man. In the bust, whatever is common-place, familiar, and actual,
is thrown out or kept down: in a picture it is not only retained, but,
in most cases, it is necessarily obtrusive. Goethe, in a blue coat and
metal buttons, and a white neckcloth, would not recall the author of the
"Iphigenia;" still less does that wrinkled, decrepit-looking face, in
the gallery at Hardwicke, portray Boyle, the philosopher.
ALDA.
Dannecker told me that he first modelled the head of Schiller the exact
size of life, and conscientiously rendered each, even the slightest,
individual trait; yet this head appeared to every one smaller than
nature, and to himself almost _mesquin_.[18] He was in despair. He
repeated the bust in a colossal size; and the development of the
intellectual organization, on a larger scale, immediately gave what was
wanting:--it appeared to the eye or to the mind's eye as only the size
of life. He showed me a beautiful basso-relievo of the Muse of Tragedy,
listening with an inspired look to the revelations of the Muse of
History. This admirable little group struck me the more, because long
ago I had clothed nearly the same idea in imperfect words.
I took leave of Dannecker with emotion: I shall never see him again!
But he is one of those who cannot die; to use his own expression--"Quand
on a fait _comme cela_, on reste sur la terre." When Canova, then a
melancholy invalid, paid him a visit, he was so struck by the child-like
simplicity, the pure unworldly nature, the genuine goodness, and lively
happy temperament of the German sculptor, that he gave him the surname
of _il Beato_; and if the epithet _blessed_ can, with propriety, be
bestowed on any mortal, it is on him whose long life has been one of
labour and of love; who has left behind him lasting memorials of his
genius; who has never profaned the talents which God has given him
to any unworthy purpose:--but in the midst of all the beautiful and
exciting influences of poetry and art, has kept from youth to age a soul
serene, a conscience and a life pure in the sight of God and man. Such
was our own Flaxman--such is Dannecker!
MEDON.
Who are now the principal sculptors in Germany?
ALDA.
Rauch, of Berlin; Christian Frederic Tieck, the brother of the
celebrated poet and critic, Ludwig Tieck; and Schwanthaler, of Munich.
Rauch is the court sculptor of Berlin. He has, like Dannecker,[19] his
professorship, his order of merit,[20] and, I believe, one or two places
under the government, besides constant employment in his art. He works
_by the piece_, as the labourers say. But though he too has yoked his
genius to the car of power and patronage, he has done great things. The
statue of the late queen of Prussia is reckoned his _chef-d'oeuvre_,
and is not, perhaps, exceeded in modern sculpture. It was conceived and
worked out in all the inspiration of love and grief; as Dannecker would
say, "Mit Lieb und Schmerzen." He had been attached to the queen's
personal service, and shared, in an intense degree, the enthusiastic,
devoted affection with which all her subjects regarded that beautiful
and amiable woman. This statue he executed at Carrara; and a living
eagle, which had been taken captive among the Appenines, was the
original of that magnificent eagle he has placed at her feet:--nothing,
you see, like going at once to nature! In the course of twenty-five
years Rauch has executed sixty-nine busts, of which twenty are colossal.
Among his numerous other works, designed or executed within the same
time, there is the colossal statue of Blucher, now at Breslau; this is
in bronze, upon a granite pedestal. There is another statue of Blucher
at Berlin, of which the pedestal, rich with bas-reliefs, is also in
bronze. Rauch has been employed for the last twenty years in modelling
field-marshals and generals, and has devoted his best powers to vanquish
the difficulties presented by monotonous faces, drilled figures,
military uniforms, and regimental boots and buttons; and all that man
_can_ do, I am told he has done. I have seen some of his busts, which
are quite admirable. At Peterstein, near Munich, I saw his statue of a
little girl, about ten years old, which, in its simplicity, truth, and
elegance, reminded me of Chantrey's Lady Louisa Russell, though in
conception and _manner_ as distinct as possible. The full length of
Goethe, in his dressing-gown, of which there is such an infinitude of
casts and copies throughout Germany, is also by Rauch.
Christian Tieck is the old and intimate friend of Rauch. They live,
or did live, under the same roof, and it is not known that a moment
of jealousy or rivalship ever disturbed the union between these two
celebrated and gifted men, who, starting nearly at the same time,[21]
have run their brilliant career together in the self-same path, and,
whatever judgment the world or posterity may form of their comparative
merits, seem determined to enter the temple of immortality hand in hand.
Tieck's works are dispersed from one end of Germany to the other. His
statue of Neckar; his busts of Madame de Staël, of her second husband
Rocca, of the Duke and Duchess de Broglie, and of A. W. Schlegel,
I have seen; and all, particularly the busts of Rocca and Schlegel are
exceedingly fine. At Munich, at Dresden, and at Weimar, I saw many of
his works; and at Manheim the bust of Madame de Heygendorf,[22] full of
beauty, and life, and expression. At Berlin, Tieck has been employed
for many years in designing and executing the sculptured ornaments of
the new theatre. There is a colossal Apollo; a Pegasus, striking the
fountain of Helicon from the rock, colossal Muses, and a variety of
other heathen perpetrations--all (as I am assured) exceedingly fine
in their way. I believe his seated statue of Iffland (the Garrick of
Germany) is considered one of his _chef-d'oeuvres_. He also, like
Rauch, has been much employed in modelling generals and trophies, in
memory of the late war.
Schwanthaler, the son of a statuary of Munich, is still a young man; his
works first began to create a sensation in Germany in the year 1823.
In spirit and fire, and creative talent, in a fine classic feeling for
his art, he appeared to me to be treading in the steps of Flaxman, and
like _him_, he is a profound and accomplished scholar, who has sought
inspiration at the very fountain of Greek poetry. His basso-relievo of
the battle of the ships in the Iliad, his games of Greece, his designs
from the Theogony of Hesiod, and a variety of other works which I have
seen, appeared to me full of imagination, and in a pure and vigorous
style of art. Of him, and some other sculptors, you will find more
particulars in the note-book I kept at Munich; we will look over it
together one of these days.
MEDON.
Thank you; but I must needs ask you a question. In the works you have
enumerated, nothing has struck me as new, or in a new spirit, except
perhaps the Christ of Dannecker, and the statue of the queen of Prussia.
Now, why should not sculpture have its Gothic (or romantic) school, as
well as its antique, or classical school?
ALDA.
And has it not?
MEDON.
If you allude to the sculpture of the middle ages, _that_ has not become
a school of art, like their architecture and their painting: yet can it
be true that there is something in our modern institutions, our northern
descent, our christian faith, inimical to the spirit of sculpture?--and,
while poetry in every other form is regenerate around us, that in
sculpture alone we are doomed to imitate, never to create?--doomed to
the servile reproduction of the same ideas? that this alone, of all
the fine arts, is to belong to some peculiar mode of existence, some
peculiar mode of thinking, feeling, and believing? "Qui me delivrera des
Grecs et des Remains?"--who will deliver me from gods and goddesses, and
from all these
"Repetitions, wearisome of sense,
Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place?"
ALDA.
You are little better than a heretic in these matters. But I will admit
thus much--that the classical and mythological sculpture of our modern
artists, is to the ancient marbles, what Racine's tragedies are to those
of Sophocles; that we are so far condemned to the "repetition wearisome
of _forms_," from which the ancient spirit has evaporated; but that is
not the fault of the subjects, but of the manner of treating them, for
never can the beautiful mythology of ancient Greece, which has woven
itself into our earliest dreams of poetry, become a "creed out-worn."
Its forms, and its symbols, and its imagery, have mingled with every
branch of art, and become a universal language. It is the deification of
the material world; and therefore, that art, which in its perfection may
be called the apotheosis of form, finds there its proper region and
element.
MEDON.
You do not suppose that, with all my Gothic tastes, I am such a Goth
as not to feel the truth of what you say? But I am an enemy to the
exclusive in every thing; and--pardon me--your worship of the Elgin
marbles and the Niobe, is, I think, a little too exclusive. All I ask
is, that modern sculpture should be allowed, like painting and poetry,
to have its romantic, as well as its classical school.
ALDA.
It has been otherwise decided.
MEDON.
But it has not been otherwise proved. There has been much theoretical
eloquence and criticism expended on the subject, but I deny that the
experiment has been fairly and practically brought before us. I know
very well you are ready with a thousand instances of attempt and
failure, but may we not seek the cause in the mistaken application of
certain classical, or, I should say, pedantic ideas on the subject? If
I ask for Milton's Satan, standing like a tower in his spiritual might,
his thunder-scarred brow wreathed with the diadem of hell, why am I to
be presented with an Athlete, or an Achilles? Why would Canova give us
for the head of Dante's Beatrice that of a muse, or an Aspasia? and for
Petrarch's Laura, a mere _tête de nymphe_? I contend that to apply the
forms suggested by the modern poetry demands a different spirit from
that of classic art. How to apply or modify the example bequeathed to us
by the great masters of old, Flaxman has shown us in his Dante. And why
should we not have in sculpture a Lear as well as a Laocoon? a Constance
as well as a Niobe? a Gismunda as well as a Cleopatra?----
ALDA.
Or a Tam o'Shanter as well as a laughing Faun?
MEDON.
When I am serious and poetical, which is not often, I will not allow you
to be perverse and ironical!
ALDA.
See, here is a passage which I have just found among Mrs. Austin's
beautiful specimens of translation: "The critic of art ought to keep in
view, not only the capabilities, but the proper objects of art. Not all
that art can accomplish ought she to attempt. It is from this cause
alone, and because we have lost sight of these principles, that art
among us has become more extensive and difficult, and less effective and
perfect."[23]
MEDON.
Very well,--and very true:--but who shall bring a rule and compass to
measure the capabilities of art, and define its proper objects? May
there not exist in the depths or heights of philosophy and art, truths
yet to be revealed, as there are stars in heaven, whose light has
not yet reached the naked eye? and why should not criticism have its
telescope for truth, as well as its microscope for error? Art may be
finite; but who shall fix its limits, and say, "thus far shalt thou go?"
There are those who regard the distant as the unattainable, the unknown
as the unexisting, the actual as the necessary;--are you one of such,
O you of little faith! For my own part, I look forward to a new era in
sculpture. I believe that the purely natural and the purely ideal are
_one_, and susceptible of forms and modifications as yet untried. For
Nature, the infinite, sits within her tabernacle, not made by human
hands, and Genius and Love are the cherubim, to whom it is permitted
to look into her unveiled eyes, and reflect their light; Art is the
priestess of her divine mysteries, and Criticism, the door-keeper of
her temple, should be Janus-headed, looking forward as well as backward.
Reason estimates what has been done; Imagination alone divines what
_may_ be done. But I am losing myself in these reveries. To attempt
something new,--perfectly new in style and conception--and spend, like
Dannecker, eight years in working out that conception--and then perhaps
eight years more waiting for a purchaser, and this in a country where
one must eat and pay taxes--truly, it is not easy.
SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER.
III.
MEDON.
You have been frowning and musing in your chair for the last half-hour,
with your fore-finger between the leaves of your book--where were your
thoughts?
ALDA.
They were far--very far! I am afraid that I appear very stupid?
MEDON.
O not at all! you know there are stars which appear dim and fixed to
the eye, while they are taking flights and making revolutions, which
imagination cannot follow nor science compute.
ALDA.
Upon my word, you are very sublimely ironical--my thoughts were not
quite so far.
MEDON.
May one beg, or borrow them?--What is your book?
ALDA.
Mrs. Austin's "Characteristics of Goethe." I came upon a passage which
sent back my thoughts to Weimar. I was again in his house; the faces,
the voices of his grandchildren were around me; the room in which he
studied, the bed in which he slept, the old chair in which he died,--and,
above all, _her_ in whose arms he died--from whose lips I heard the
detail of his last moments--
* * * * *
MEDON.
What! all this emotion for Goethe?
ALDA.
For Goethe!--I should as soon think of weeping because the sun set
yesterday, which now is pouring its light around me! Our tears are for
those who suffer, for those who die, for those who are absent, for
those who are cold or lost--not for those who cannot die, who cannot
suffer,--who must be, to the end of time, a presence and an existence
among us! No.
But I was reading here, among the Characteristics of Goethe, who
certainly "knew all qualities, with a learned spirit in human dealings,"
that he was not only the quick discerner and most cordial hater of all
affectation;--but even the unconscious affectation--the _nature de
convention_,--the taught, the artificial, the acquired in manner or
character, though it were meritorious in itself, he always detected,
and it appeared to impress him disagreeably. Stay, I will read you the
passage--here it is.
"Even virtue, laboriously and painfully acquired, was distasteful to
him. I might almost affirm, that a faulty but vigorous character, if
it had any real native qualities as its basis, was regarded by him
with more indulgence and respect than one which, at no moment of its
existence, is genuine; which is incessantly under the most unamiable
constraint, and consequently imposes a painful constraint on others.
'Oh,' said he, sighing, on such occasions, 'if they had but the heart to
commit some absurdity, that would be something, and they would at least
be restored to their own natural soil, free from all hypocrisy and
acting: wherever that is the case, one may entertain the cheering hope
that something will spring from the germ of good which nature implants
in every individual. But on the ground they are now upon, nothing can
grow.' 'Pretty dolls,' was his common expression when speaking of them.
Another phrase was, 'That's a piece of nature,' (literally, _das ist
eine Natur_, that is a nature,) which from Goethe's lips was considerable
praise."[24]
This last phrase threw me back upon my remembrances. I thought of the
daughter-in-law of the poet,--the trusted friend, the constant companion,
the devoted and careful nurse of his last years. It accounted for the
unrivalled influence which apparently she possessed--I will not say
_over_ his mind--but _in_ his mind, in his affections; for in her he
found truly _eine Natur_--a piece of nature, which could bear even _his_
microscopic examination. All other beings who approached Goethe either
were, or had been, or might be, more or less modified by the action of
that universal and master spirit. Consciously, or unconsciously, in love
or in fear, they bowed down before him, and gave up their individuality,
or forgot it, in his presence; they took the bent he chose to impress,
or the colour he chose to throw upon them. Their minds, in presence of
his, were as opake bodies in the sun, absorbing in different degrees,
reflecting in various hues, his vital beams; but HER'S was, in comparison,
like a transparent medium, through which the rays of that luminary
passed,--pervading and enlightening, but leaving no other trace.
Conceive a woman, a young, accomplished, enthusiastic woman, who had
qualities to attach, talents to amuse, and capacity to appreciate, GOETHE;
who, for fourteen or fifteen years, could exist in daily, hourly
communication with that gigantic spirit, yet retain, from first to
last, the most perfect simplicity of character, and this less from the
strength than from the purity and delicacy of the original texture.
Those oft-abused words, _naïve_, _naïveté_, were more applicable to her
in their fullest sense than to any other woman I ever met with. Her
conversation was the most untiring I ever enjoyed, because the stores
which fed that flowing eloquence were all native and unborrowed: you
were not borne along by it as by a torrent--_bongré_, _malgré_,--nor
dazzled as by an artificial _jet d'eau_ set to play for your amusement.
There was the obvious wish to please--a little natural _coquetterie_--
vivacity without effort, sentiment without affectation, exceeding
mobility, which yet never looked like caprice; and the most consummate
refinement of thought, and feeling, and expression. From that really
elegant and highly-toned mind, nothing flippant nor harsh could ever
proceed; slander died away in her presence; what was evil she would
not hear of; what was malicious she would not understand; what was
ridiculous she would not see. Sometimes there was a wild, artless
fervour in her impulses and feelings, which might have become a
feather-cinctured Indian on her savannah; then, the next moment, her
bearing reminded you of the court-bred lady of the bed-chamber. Quick
in perception, yet femininely confiding, uniting a sort of restless
vivacity with an indolent gracefulness, she appeared to me by far
the most poetical and genuine being of my own sex I ever knew in
highly-cultivated life: one to whom no wrong could teach mistrust; no
injury, bitterness; one to whom the common-place realities, the vulgar
necessary cares of existence, were but too indifferent;--who was, in
reality, all that other women try to appear, and betrayed, with a
careless independence, what they most wish to conceal. I draw from the
life,--now, what would you say to such a woman if you met with her in
the world?
MEDON.
I should say--she had no business there.
ALDA.
How?
MEDON.
I repeat that the woman you have just portrayed is hardly fit for
the world.
ALDA.
Say rather, the world is not fitted for her. As the Sabbath was made for
man, not man for the Sabbath, so the world was made for man, not man for
the world--still less woman.
MEDON.
Do you know what you mean?
ALDA.
I think I do, though I am afraid I can but ill-explain myself. By the
world, I mean that system of social life in all its complicate bearings
by which we are surrounded; which was, I suppose, devised at first with
a reference to the wants, the happiness, and the benefit of men, but
for which no _man_ was specifically created; his being has a high and
individual purpose beyond the world. Now, it seems to me one reason of
the low average of what we call _character_, that we judge a human soul,
not as it is abstractedly, but simply in relation to others, and to
the circumstances around it. If it be in harmony with the world, and
worldly, we praise it--it is a very respectable soul; if so constituted,
that it is in discord with a world, (which, observe, all our philosophers,
our pastors, and our masters, unite to assure us, is a sad wicked place,
and must be reformed or renounced forthwith,) then--I pray your attention
to this point--_then_ the fault, the bitter penalty, lies not upon this
said wicked world,--O no!--but on that unlucky "piece of nature," which
in its power, its goodness, its purity, its truth, its faith, and its
tenderness, stands aloof from it. Is it not so?
MEDON.
Do you apply this personally?
ALDA.
No, generally; but I return to her who suggested the thought, and whom
I ought not, perhaps, to have made the subject of such a conversation as
this: it is against all my principles, contrary to my custom; and, in
truth, I speak of one in whom there is so much to love, that we cannot
praise without being accused of partiality; and so much to admire, that
we could not censure without being suspected of envy. I might as well
be silent therefore. Yet shall such a woman bear such a name, and hold
such a position as the mother of Goethe's posterity;[25]--shall she be
rendered by both a mark for observation, from one end of Europe to the
other;--shall she be "condemned to celebrity," and shall it be allowed
to ignorance, or ill-nature, or vanity, to prate of her;--and shall it
be forbidden to friendship even to speak?--that were hardly just. Of
those effusions of her creative and poetical talents, which charm her
friends, I say nothing, because in all probability neither you nor the
public will ever benefit by them. I met with several other women in
Germany who possessed striking poetical genius, and whose compositions
were equally destined to remain unknown, except to the circle of their
immediate friends and relatives.
MEDON.
Mr. Hayward, in his notes to his translation of Faust, remarks on the
strong prejudice against female authorship, which still exists in
Germany; but he has hopes that it will not endure, and that something
may be done "to unlock the stores of fancy and feeling which the
Ottilies and the Adèles have hived up." Tell me--did you find this
prejudice entertained by the women themselves, or existing chiefly on
the part of the men?
ALDA.
It was expressed most strongly by the women, but it must have originated
with the men. All your prejudices you instil into us; and then we are
not satisfied with adopting them, we exaggerate them--we mix them up with
our fancies and affections, and transmit them to your children. You are
"the mirrors in which we dress ourselves."
MEDON.
For which you dress yourselves!
ALDA.
Psha!--I mean that your minds and opinions are the mirrors in which we
form our own. You legislate for us, mould us, form us as you will. If
you prefer slaves and playthings to companions and helpmates, is that
our fault? In Germany I met with some men who, perhaps out of compliment,
descanted with enthusiasm on female talent, and in behalf of female
authorship; but the women almost uniformly spoke of the latter with
dread, as something formidable, or with contempt, as of something
beneath them: what is an unworthy prejudice in your sex, becomes, when
transplanted into ours, a _feeling_;--a mistaken, but a genuine, and
even a generous feeling. Many women, who have sufficient sense and
simplicity of mind to rise above the mere _prejudice_, would not contend
with the _feeling_: they would not scruple to encounter the public
judgment in a cause approved by their own hearts, but they have not
courage to brave or to oppose the opinions of friends and kindred--
MEDON.
Or risk the loss of a lover. You remember the axiom of that clever
Frenchman,[26] who certainly spoke the existing opinions of his country
only a few years ago, when he said--"Imprimer, pour une femme de moins
de cinquante ans c'est mettre son bonheur à la plus terrible des
lotteries; si elle a un amant elle commencera par le perdre."
ALDA.
I really believe that in Germany the latter catastrophe would be in most
cases inevitable; and where is the woman who knowingly would risk it?
MEDON.
All, however, have not lovers to lose, or husbands to displease,
or friends to affront; and if the women, in compliance with our
self-revolving egotism, affect to prostrate themselves, and undervalue
one another--do the men allow it to this extent? Do not the Germans most
justly boast, that in their land arose the first feeling of veneration
for women, the result of the Christian dispensation, grafted on the
old German manners? Do they not point to their literature and their
institutions, as more favourable to your sex than any other? Does not
even Madame de Staël exalt the fine earnestness of the German feeling
towards you, infinitely above the system of French gallantry?--that
flimsy veil of conventional good-breeding, under which we seek to
disguise the demoralization of one sex, and the virtual slavery of the
other? Have I not heard you say, that it is the present fashion among
the poets, artists, and writers of Germany, to defer in all things to
the middle ages? Are not the maxims and sentiments of chivalry ready on
their lips, the forms and symbols of the old chivalrous times to be
traced in every department of literature and art among them?
ALDA.
All this is true; and I will believe that all this is something more
than mere theory, when I see the Germans less slovenly in their
interior, and less egotistical in their domestic relations. The theme is
unwelcome, unpleasant, ungraceful,--in fact, I can scarcely persuade
myself to say one word against those high-minded, benevolent, admirable,
and "most-thinking people;" so I will not dwell upon it: but I must
confess that the personal negligence of the men, and the forbearance of
the women on this point, astonished me. I longed to remind these
worshippers of the age of chivalry of that advice of St. Louis to his
son--"Il faut être toujours propre et bien proprement habillé, afin
d'être _mieux aimé de sa femme_;" the really good-natured and well-bred
Germans will, I am sure, forgive this passing remark, and allow its
truth: they _did_ at once agree with me, that the tavern-life of the men,
more particularly the clever professional men in the south of Germany,
(another remnant, I presume, either of the age of chivalry, or the
Bürschen-sitten--I know not which,) was calculated to retard the social
improvement and refinement of both sexes. And, apropos to chivalry,
the fact is, that the institutions of a generous but barbarous period,
invented to shield our helplessness, when women were exposed to every
hardship, every outrage, have been much abused, and must be considerably
modified to suit a very different state of society. That affectation of
poetical homage, which your strength paid to our weakness, when the laws
were not sufficient to defend us, we would now gladly exchange for more
real honour, more real protection, more equal rights. I speak thus,
knowing that, however open to perversion these expressions may be, _you_
will not misapprehend me; you know that I am no vulgar, vehement arguer
about the "rights of women;" and, from my habitual tone of feeling and
thought, the last to covet any of your masculine privileges.
MEDON.
I do perfectly understand you; but, pray what are our strictly masculine
privileges, that you should covet them? Fighting! getting drunk! and
keeping a mistress!--I beg your pardon if I shock your delicacy; but
certainly, upon the score of masculine privileges, the less that is said
the better: there are nations in which it is a masculine privilege to
sit and smoke, while women draw the plough. It was some time ago,--and
now, in some countries, it is still a masculine privilege to cultivate
the mind at all; and in Germany, apparently, it is still a masculine
privilege to publish a book without losing _caste_ in society; whereas
here, in England, we have fallen into the opposite extreme; female
authorship is in danger of becoming a fashion,--which Heaven avert! I
should be sorry to see you women taking the pen you have hitherto so
honoured, in the same spirit in which you used to make filigree, cobble
shoes, and paint velvet.
ALDA.
It is too true that mere vanity and fashion have lately made some women
authoresses;--more write for money, and by this employment of their
talents earn their own independence, add to the comforts of a parent,
or supply the extravagance of a husband. Some, who are unhappy in their
domestic relations, yet endowed with all that feminine craving after
sympathy, which was intended to be the charm of our sex, the blessing of
yours, and somehow or other has been turned to the bane of both, look
abroad for what they find not at home; fling into the wide world the
irrepressible activity of an overflowing mind and heart, which can
find no other unforbidden issue,--and to such "fame is love disguised."
Some write from the mere energy of intellect and will; some few from
the pure wish to do good, and to add to the stock of happiness and
the progress of thought; and many from all these motives combined in
different degrees.
MEDON.
And have none of these motives produced authoresses in Germany?
ALDA.
Yes; but fashion and vanity, and the love of excitement, have not
as yet tempted the German women to print their effusions; their most
distinguished authoresses have become so, either from real enthusiasm or
from necessity; and in the lighter departments of literature they boast
at present some brilliant names. I will run over a few.
There is Helmina von Chezy--but before I speak of _her_, I should tell
you of her famous grandmother, Anna Louisa Karshin, though _she_
belonged to the last century. The Karshin was the daughter of a poor
innkeeper and brewer, in a little village of Silesia. She spent her
early years in herding cows. She learned to read by stealth, by stealth
she became a poetess; was first married to a boorish sulky weaver,
secondly to a drunken tailor, and suffered for years every extremity of
poverty and misery; at one time she travelled about the neighbouring
country, the first example of an itinerant poetess, declaiming her own
verses, and always ready with an ode or a sonnet to celebrate a wedding,
or hail a birthday. In this strange profession she excited much
astonishment--went through some singular, but not disreputable
adventures--and earned considerable sums of money, which her husband
spent in drink and profligacy. Gifted with as much energy as genius,
she struggled through all, and gradually became known to several of the
critics and poets of the last century, particularly Count Stolberg and
Gleim, and obtained the title of the German Sappho. She found means to
reach Berlin, where she worked her way up to distinction, and supported
herself, two children, and an orphan brother, by her talents. She was
recommended to Frederick the Great as worthy of a pension, and--would
you believe it?--that _munificent_ patron of his country's genius, sent
her a gratuity of two dollars, in a piece of paper. This extraordinary
and spirited woman, who had probably subsisted for half her life on
charity, instantly returned them to the niggardly despot, after writing
in the envelope four lines impromptu, which are yet repeated in Germany.
I am not quite sure that I remember them accurately, and it is no matter,
for they have not much either of poetry or point.
"Zwey Thaler sind zu wenig;
Zwey Thaler macht kein Glück;
Zwey Thaler gebt kein König;
Fritz, hier send ich sie zurück."
She died in 1791, and a selection of her poems was published in the
following year.
The granddaughter of the Karshin, the more celebrated Helmina von Chezy,
is likewise a poetess; her principal work is a tale of chivalry, in
verse, _Die drei Weissen Rosen_, (The three White Roses) which was
published in 18--, and she wrote the opera of Euryanthe, for Weber to
set to music. Her songs and lighter poems are, I am told, exceedingly
beautiful.
Caroline Pichler, of Vienna, I need only mention. I believe her
historical romances have been translated into half-a-dozen languages.
The Siege of Vienna is reckoned her best.
Madame Schoppenhauer, the daughter of a senator of Dantzic, is
celebrated for her novels, travels, and works on art. She resided for
many years at Weimar, where she drew round her a brilliant literary
circle, which the talents of her daughter farther adorned. Since
Goethe's death she has fixed her residence at Bonn, where it is probable
the remainder of her life will be spent. One of the best of her novels,
"Die Tante," has been translated by Madame de Montolieu, under the title
of "La Tante et la Nièce." Another very pretty little book of hers,
"Ausflucht an dem Rhein," I should like to see translated. Beside being
an excellent writer on art, Madame Schoppenhauer is herself no mean
artist. Moreover, she is a kind-hearted, excellent old lady, with a few
old lady-like prejudices about England and the English, which I forgave
her,--the more easily as I had to thank her in my own person for many
and kind attentions.
Madame von Helvig, of Weimar, (born Amalia von Imhoff,) was the friend
of Schiller, under whose auspices her first poems were published. Her
rare knowledge of languages, her learning and critical taste in works of
arts, have distinguished her almost as much as her genius for poetry.
The second wife of the Baron de la Motte-Fouquet, was a very accomplished
woman, and the author of several poems and romances.
Frederica Brun, (born Münter,) the daughter of a learned ecclesiastic
of Gotha, is celebrated for her prose writings, and particularly her
travels in Italy, where she resided at different periods. Madame Brun
was a friend of Madame de Staël, who mentions her in her de l'Allemagne,
and describes the extraordinary talents for classical pantomime
possessed by her daughter Ida Brun.
Louisa Brachmann is, I believe, more renowned for her melancholy death
than her poetical talents; both together have procured her the name of
the "German Sappho." The wretched woman threw herself into the river
at Halle, and perished, as it was said, for the sake of some faithless
Phaon. This was in 1822, when she must have been between forty and
fifty; and pray observe, I do not notice this fact of her age in
ridicule. A woman's heart may overflow _inwardly_ for long, long years,
till at last the accumulated sorrow bursts the bounds of reason, and
then all at once we see the result of causes to which none gave heed,
and of secret agonies to which none gave comfort--in folly, madness,
destruction. Whatever might have been the cause,--thus she died. Her
works in prose and verse may be found in every bookseller's shop in
Germany. There is also a life of this unhappy and gifted woman by
professor Schutz.
Fanny Tarnow is one of the most remarkable and most fertile of all the
modern German authoresses. Her genius was developed by misfortune and
suffering: while yet an infant, she fell from a window two stories
high, and was taken up, to the amazement of the assistants, without
any apparent injury, except a few bruises; but all the vital functions
suffered, and during ten or twelve years she was extended on a couch,
neither joining in any of the amusements of childhood, nor subjected
to the usual routine of female education. She educated herself. She
read incessantly, and, as it was her only pleasure, books of every
description, good and bad, were furnished her without restraint. She
was about eleven years old when she made her first _known_ poetical
attempt, inspired by her own feelings and situation. It was a dialogue
between herself and the angel of death. In her seventeenth year she
was sufficiently recovered to take charge of her father's family, after
he had lost, by some sudden misfortune, his whole property. He held
subsequently, a small office under government, the duties of which were
principally performed by his admirable daughter. Her first writings were
anonymous, and for a long time her name was unknown. Her most celebrated
novel, the "Thekla," was published in 1815; and from this time she has
enjoyed a high and public reputation. Fanny Tarnow resides, or did
reside, in Dresden.
I have yet another name here, and not the least interesting, that of
Johanna von Weissenthurn, one of the most popular dramatic writers in
Germany. She was educated for the stage, even from infancy, her parents
and relations being, I believe, strolling players. She lived, for many
years, a various life of toil, and adventure, and excitement; such,
perhaps, as Goethe describes in the Wilhelm Meister; a life which does
sometimes blunt the nicer feelings, but is sure to develop talent
where it exists. Johanna at length rose through all the grades of her
profession, and became the first actress at the principal theatre at
Vienna. She played in the "Phoedra," before Napoleon, when he occupied
the Austrian capital in 1806, and the conqueror sent to her, after the
performance, a complimentary message, and a gratuity of three thousand
francs; but her lasting reputation is founded on her dramatic works,
which are played in every theatre in Germany. The plots, which, I
am told, are remarkable for fancy and invention, have been borrowed,
without acknowledgment, both by French and English playwrights. I
was quite charmed with one of her pieces which I saw at Munich, (Die
Erben--the Heirs,) and with another which was represented at Frankfort.
Johanna von Weissenthurn has also written poems and tales.
I have come to the end of my memoranda on this subject, and regret it
much. I might easily give you more names, and quote second-hand the
opinions I heard of the merits and characteristics of these authoresses;
but I speak of nothing but what I _know_, and not being able to form
any judgment myself, I will give none. Only it appears to me that the
Germans themselves assign to no female writer the same rank which here
we proudly give to Joanna Baillie and Mrs. Hemans. I could hear of none
who had ever exercised any thing like the moral influence possessed by
Maria Edgeworth and Harriet Martineau, in their respective departments;
nor could learn that any German woman had yet given _public_ proof that
the most feminine qualities were reconcilable with the highest scientific
attainments--like Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Somerville.
MEDON.
You said the other night, that you had not formed any opinion as to the
moral and social position of the women in Germany; but you must have
brought away some general impressions of manner and character;--frankly,
were they favourable or unfavourable?
ALDA.
Frankly, they were most favourable. Remember that I am not prepared with
any general sweeping conclusions: I cannot assure you from my own
knowledge, that among my own sex the proportion of virtue and happiness
is greater in Germany than in England. On the contrary--
----In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand,
The downward slope to death.
In every land I thought that, more or less,
The stronger, sterner nature overbore
The softer, uncontroll'd by gentleness,
And selfish evermore![27]
--Why do you smile?
MEDON.
You amuse me with the perseverance with which you ring the changes on
your favourite text, in prose and in verse; and yet, to adopt Voltaire's
witty metaphor, _we_ are the hammers and _you_ the anvils all the world
over. But is that all? You need not have gone to Germany to verify that!
ALDA.
No, sir; it is not _all_. In the first place, you know I have a
sufficient contempt for our English intolerance, with regard to
manners--
MEDON.
Why, yes; with reason. The influence of mere _manner_ among our
fashionable people, and the stress laid upon it as a distinction, have
become so vulgarized and abused, that I should be relieved even by a
reaction which should throw us out of the insipidity of conventional
manner into primeval rudeness.
ALDA.
No, no, no!--no extremes: but though so sensible to the ridicule of
referring the social habits, opinions, customs, of other nations, to the
arbitrary standard of our own, still I could not help falling into
comparisons; certain distinctions between the German and the English
women struck me involuntarily. In the highest circles a stranger finds
society much alike every where. A court-ball--the _soirée_ of an
ambassadress--a minister's dinner--present nearly the same physiognomy.
It is in the second class of society, which is also every where, and in
every sense, the best, that we behold the stamp of national character.
I was not condemned to see my German friends always _en grande
toilette_; I had better opportunities of judging and appreciating their
domestic habits and manners, than most travellers enjoy.
I thought the German women, of a certain rank, more _natural_ than
we are. The moral education of an English girl is, for the most part,
_negative_; the whole system of duty is thus presented to the mind.
It is not "this you must do;" but always "you must not do this--you
must not say that--you must not think so;" and if by some hardy,
expanding nature, the question be ventured, "Why?"--the mamma or the
governess are ready with the answer--"It is not the custom--it is not
lady-like--it is ridiculous!" But is it wrong?--why is it wrong?--and
then comes answer, pat--"My dear, you must not argue--young ladies
never argue." "But, mamma, I was thinking----" "My dear, you must not
think--go write your Italian exercise," and so on! The idea that certain
passions, powers, tempers, feelings, interwoven with our being by our
almighty and all-wise Creator, are to be put down by the fiat of a
governess, or the edict of fashion, is monstrous. Those who educate
us imagine that they have done every thing, if they have silenced
controversy, if they have suppressed all external demonstration of an
excess of temper or feeling; not knowing, or not reflecting, that unless
our nature be self-governed and self-directed by an appeal to those
higher faculties, which link us immediately with what is divine, their
labour is lost.
Now, in Germany the women are less educated to suit some particular
fashion; the cultivation of the intellect, and the forming of the
manners, do not so generally supersede the training of the moral
sentiments--the affections--the impulses; the latter are not so
habitually crushed or disguised; consequently the women appeared to me
more natural, and to have more individual character.
MEDON.
But the English women pique themselves on being natural, at least they
have the word continually in their mouths. Do you know that I once
overheard a well-meaning mother instructing her daughter how to be
natural? You laugh, but I assure you it is a simple fact. Now, I really
do not object to natural insipidity, but I do object to conventional
insipidity: I object to a rule of elegance which makes the negative the
test of the natural. It seems hard that those who have hearts and souls
must needs put them into a strait-waistcoat, in order to oblige those
who choose to have none; and be guilty of the grossest affectation, to
escape the imputation of being affected!
ALDA.
I think there is less of this among the Germans; more of the individual
character is brought into the daily intercourse of society--more of the
poetry of existence is brought to bear on the common realities of life.
I saw a freshness of feeling--a genuine (not a taught) simplicity, which
charmed me. Sometimes I have seen affectation, but it amused me; it
consisted in the exaggeration of what is in itself good, not in the
mean renunciation of our individuality--the immolation of our soul's
truth to a mere fashion of behaviour. As Rochefoucauld called hypocrisy,
(that last extreme of wickedness,) "_the homage which vice pays to
virtue_;" so the _nature de convention_, that last and worst excess of
affectation, is the homage which the artificial pays to the natural.
The German women are much more engrossed by the cares of housekeeping
than women of a similar rank of life in England. They carry this too far
in many instances, as we do the opposite extreme. In England, with our
false, conventional refinement, we attach an idea of vulgarity to certain
cares and duties, in which there is nothing vulgar. To see the young and
beautiful daughter of a lady of rank running about, busied in household
matters, with the keys of the wine-cellar and the store-room suspended
to her sash, would certainly surprise a young Englishwoman, who,
meantime, is netting a purse, painting a rose, or warbling some "Dolce
mio Bene," or "Soavi Palpiti," with the air of a nun at penance. The
description of Werther's Charlotte, cutting bread and butter, has
been an eternal subject of laughter among the English, among whom fine
sentiment must be garnished out with something finer than itself; and no
princess can be suffered to go mad, or even be in love, except in white
satin. To any one who has lived in Germany, the union of sentiment
and bread and butter, or of poetry with household cares, excites no
laughter. The wife of a state minister once excused herself from going
with me to a picture gallery, because on that day she was obliged to
reckon up the household linen; she was one of the most charming, truly
elegant, and accomplished women I ever met with. At another time, I
remember that a very accomplished woman, who had herself figured in a
court, could not do something or other--I forget what--because it was
the "grösse Wäsche," (the great wash,) an event by the way which I
often found very mal-a-propos, and which never failed to turn a German
household upside down. You must remember that I am not speaking of
tradesmen and mechanics, but of people of my own, or even a superior
rank of life. It is true that I met with cases in which the women had,
without necessity, sunk into mere domestic drudges--women whose souls
were in their kitchen and their household stuff--whose talk was of
dishes and of condiments; but then the same species of women in England
would have been, instead of busy with the idea of being useful,
frivolous and silly, without any idea at all.
MEDON.
And whether a woman put her soul into an apple tart, or a new bonnet,
signifies little, if there be no capacity there for any thing better.
I hate mere fine ladies; but equally avoid those who seem born to
"suckle fools and chronicle small beer." The accomplishments which
embellish social life--the cultivation which raises you to a companionship
with men--I cannot spare these to make mere nurses and housewifes, as I
conceive the generality of the German women aim to be, and which I have
been told the opinions of the men approve.
ALDA.
As to what we term accomplishments, there was certainly much less
exhibition and parade of them in society; they formed less an established
and necessary part of education than with us; but, of really accomplished,
well-informed women, believe me I found no deficiency--far otherwise:
if the inclination or the talent existed, means and opportunity were
not wanting for mental culture of a very high species. I met with fewer
women who drew badly, sang tolerably, or rather intolerably, scratched
the harp, and quoted Metastasio; but I met with quite as many women who,
without pretension, were finished musicians, painted like artists,
possessed an extensive acquaintance with their own literature, and an
uncommon knowledge of languages; and were, besides, very good housewives
after the German fashion. More or less acquaintance with the French
language was a matter of course, but English was preferred: every where
I met with women who had cultivated with success, not our language
merely, but our literature. Shakspeare, whether studied in English, or
in some of their excellent translations, I found a species of household
god, whose very name was breathed with reverence, as if it were that of
a supernatural being. Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott, and Campbell,
are familiar names. Wordsworth and Shelley are beginning to be known,
but they are pronounced more difficult of comprehension than Shakspeare
himself; yet I met with a German lady who could repeat Coleridge's
"Ancient Mariner" by heart. Of our great modern poets, Crabbe appeared
the least understood and appreciated in Germany, for the obvious reason,
that his subjects and portraits are almost exclusively national. There
are, however, several German editions of his works. The men read him as
a study. The only German lady I met with who had read his works through,
pronounced them "not poetry." Bulwer is exceedingly popular among the
women; so is Moore. Some of those who most admired the latter, gave as
one reason that "his English style was so easy."
MEDON.
Of all our poets, Moore should seem the least allied to a German taste.
Shall I confess to you? He reminds me perpetually of Prince Potemkin's
larder, in which you could always have _petits-patés_ and champagne,
_ad libitum_, but never a morsel of bread or a drop of water!
ALDA.
The simile is e'en too wickedly just; but I except his Irish ballads:
by the way, I was pleased to find some of our beautiful Irish melodies
almost naturalized in Germany, and sung either with Moore's words, or
German versions of them. I remember that at Stift-Neuberg I heard the
air of Ally Croker sung to an excellent translation of Moore's words,[28]
and with as much of the national spirit and feeling as if we had been on
the banks of the Shannon instead of the banks of the Neckar. The singer,
an amateur, and a most extraordinary musical genius, who had joined our
circle from Heidelberg, did not understand, or at least did not speak,
English; yet there was no Irish, or Scotch, or English air which he had
not at the ends of his fingers; and when he struck up, "Of noble race
was Shenkin," it was as if all the souls of all the Welsh harpers since
High-born Hoel had inspired him. This gifted person was, however, of your
sex, and our discourse, at present, is of mine.
I heard an English lady, who had resided for some time in Germany,
remark, that the "German mothers _spoiled_ their children terribly;" in
other words, the children lived more habitually with the mothers, were
under little restraint, and behaved in the drawing-room much as if they
were in the nursery, and were treated, as they grew up, on more equal
terms.
That high exterior polish, those brilliant conversational talents, which
I have seen in many English and French women, must be rare among the
Germans: they are too simple, and too much in earnest. The trifling
of a polished French woman is often most graceful; the trifling of an
Englishwoman gracious and graceful; but the trifling of a German woman
is, in comparison, heavy work; to use a common expression, it is not
_in them_. I met with _one_ satirical woman. You know I once ventured
to assert that no woman is _naturally_ satirical, and to touch upon the
causes which foster this artificial vice--and here was a case in point.
It was that of a mind which had originally been a piece of nature's
noblest handiwork, first bruised, then gradually festered by the action
of all evil influences.
MEDON.
And, "lilies that fester are far worse than weeds," so singeth the poet;
but do you make the cause also the excuse? How many minds have endured
the most withering influences of misery and mischief, if not untouched,
at least uninjured--unembittered!
ALDA.
I grant you: but before we assume the power of judging, of computing the
degree of virtue in the latter case, of vice in the former, we should
look to the original conformation of the human being--the material
exposed to these influences. Fire hardens the clay and dissolves the
metal. This plate of tempered steel, on which I am going to etch, shall
corrode, effervesce, be absolutely decomposed by the action of a few
drops of nitrous acid, which has no effect whatever on this lump of wax.
Now, carry this analogy into the consideration of the human character--it
will spare us a long argument.
As to the chapter of coquettes--
MEDON.
Ah! _glissez, mortel, n'appuyez pas!_
ALDA.
And why not?--Don't you know that I meditate, with the assistance of
certain _professorins_, a complete Natural History of Coquettes, (in
quarto,) which shall rival the famous Dutch treatise on Butterflies,
in heaven knows how many folio volumes? In the first part of this
stupendous work we intend to treat systematically of every known
species, from the _coquetterie instinctive_, which may be termed the
wild genus, indigenous in all females, up to the _coquetterie calculée
et philosophique_, the most refined specimen reared in the hot-bed of
artificial life. In the second part, we shall treat the whole history of
_Coquetterie_, from that first pretty experiment of dear Mamma Eve, when
she turned away from Adam,
"----As conscious of her worth,
That would be woo'd and not unsought be won,"
down to--to--how shall I avoid being personal?--down to the Lady Adeline
Amundevilles of our own day. With some women _coquetterie_ is an instinct;
with others, an amusement; with others, a pursuit; with others, a science.
With the German women it is a passion: they play the coquette as they do
every thing else, with sentiment, with good faith, with enthusiasm.
MEDON.
Why then it is no longer _coquetterie_--it is love!
ALDA.
I beg your pardon; it is something very different. True, perhaps, "that
thin partitions do the bounds divide;" but, to a nice observer, the
division is not the less complete. In short, you can imagine nothing
more distinct than an English coquette and a German coquette; in the
first case, one is reminded of Dryden's fanciful simile--
"So cold herself, while she such warmth express'd,
'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream!"
But, in the latter case, it is Diana bending the bow, and brandishing
the darts of Cupid; and with an unsuspicious _gaucherie_, which now and
then turns the point against her own bosom.
I observed, and I verified my own observations, by the information of
some intelligent medical men, that there is less ill-health among the
superior rank of women, in Germany, than with us; all that class of
diseases, which we call nervous, which in England have increased,
and are increasing in such a fearful ratio, are far less prevalent;
doubtless, because the habits of social life are more natural. The use
of noxious stimulants among the better class of women is almost unknown,
and rare among the very lowest classes--would to heaven we could say
the same! No where, not even at Munich, one of the most profligate of
the German capitals, was I ever shocked by the exhibition of female
suffering and depravity in another form, as in the theatres and the
streets of London.
I have been asked twenty times since my return to England, whether the
German women are not very _exaltée_--very romantic? I could only answer,
that they appeared to me less calculating, less the slaves of artificial
manners and modes of thinking; more imaginative, more governed by
natural feeling, more enthusiastic in love and religion, than with us.
If this is what my English friends term _exaltée_, I certainly cannot
think the German women would have reason to be offended by the
application of the word to them, however satirically meant. Perhaps it
may be from necessity, that they are generally more simple in their
tastes, and more frugal in their expenses; they had certainly a most
formidable idea of the extravagance of fashionable English women, and
of our luxurious habits. I believe that they are sometimes difficult of
access, and apparently inhospitable, because they suspect us of scoffing
at their simplicity, at the homeliness of their accommodations, and
their housewively occupations. For my own part I slipped so quietly
and naturally into all their social and domestic habits, and cared so
little about the differences and distinctions, which some of the English
thought it fine to be always remarking and lamenting, that my German
friends used to express their surprise, by saying--"Savez vous, ma
chère, que vous ne me faites pas de tout l'effet d'une Anglaise!"--an
odd species of compliment, but certainly meant as such. It is true
that I was sometimes a little tired of the everlasting knitting and
cross-stitch; and it is true I may at times have felt the want of
certain external luxuries, with which we are habitually pampered in this
prodigal land, till they become necessaries; but I would be well content
to exchange them all a thousand times over, for the cheap mental and
social pleasures--the easy intercourse of German life.
MEDON.
Apropos to German romance. I met with a striking instance of it even in
my short and rapid journey across part of the country. A lady of birth
and rank, who had been _dame d'honneur_ in the court of a sovereign
princess, (a princess by the way of very equivocal reputation,) on
the death of a lover, to whom she had been betrothed, devoted herself
thenceforth to the service of the sick in the hospitals; she could not
enter a religious order, being a Protestant, but she fulfilled all the
offices of a vowed Sister of Charity. When she applied to the physician
for leave to attend the hospital at ----, he used every endeavour to
dissuade her from her undertaking--all in vain! Then he tried to disgust
her by imposing, in the first instance, duties the most fearful and
revolting to a delicate woman; she stood this test, and persisted. It is
now five years since I saw her; perhaps she may by this time be tired of
her charitable, or rather her romantic, self-devotion.
ALDA.
No, _that_ she is not. I know to whom you allude. She follows steadily
and quietly the same pious vocation in which she has persevered for
fifteen years, and in which she seems resolved to die.
Now, in return for your story, though I knew it all before, I will tell
you another; but lest you should suspect me of absolute invention and
romancing, I must tell you how I came by it.
I was travelling from Weimar to Frankfort, and had stopped at a little
town, one or two stages beyond Fulda; I was standing at the window of
the inn, which was opposite to the post-house, and looking at a crowd
of travellers who had just been disgorged from a huge Eil-wagen or
post-coach, which was standing there. Among them was one female, who,
before I was aware, fixed my attention. Although closely enveloped in a
winter dress from head to foot, her height, and the easy decision with
which she moved, showed that her figure was fine and well-proportioned;
and as the wind blew aside her black veil, I had a glimpse of features
which still farther excited my curiosity. I had time to consider her,
as she alighted and walked over to the inn alone. She entered at once
the room--it was a sort of public saloon--in which I was; summoned the
waiter, whom she addressed in a good-humoured, but rather familiar
style, and ordered breakfast; not a cup of chocolate or _caffee au
lait_, as became a heroine, for you see I was resolved that she should
be one, but a very substantial German breakfast--soup, a cutlet, and a
pint (eine halbe flasche) of good wine: it was then about ten o'clock.
While this was preparing, she threw off her travelling accoutrements;
first a dark cloak, richly lined with fur; one or two shawls; a sort
of pelisse, or rather surtout, reaching to the knees, with long loose
sleeves, such as you may see in the prints of Tartar or Muscovite
costumes; this was made of beautiful Indian shawl, lined with blue
silk, and trimmed with sables: under these splendid and multifarious
coverings she wore a dress of deep mourning. Her figure, when displayed,
excited my admiration: it was one of the most perfect I ever beheld.
Her feet, hands, and head, were small in proportion to her figure; her
face was not so striking--it was pretty, rather than handsome; her small
mouth closed firmly, so as to give a marked and singular expression
of resolution and decision, to a physiognomy otherwise frank and
good-humoured. Her eyes, also small, were of a dark hazel, bright,
and with long blonde eyelashes. Her abundant fair hair was plaited in
several bands, and fastened on the top of her head, in the fashion
of the German peasant girls. Her voice would have been deemed rather
high-pitched, for "ears polite," but it was not deficient in melody; and
though her expression was grave, and even sad, upon our first encounter,
I soon found that mirth, and not sadness, was the natural character of
her mind, as of her countenance. When any thing ridiculous occurred,
she burst at once into a laugh--such a merry, musical peal, that it was
impossible not to sympathize in it. Her whole appearance and manner gave
me the idea of a farmer's buxom daughter: nothing could be more distinct
from our notions of the lady-like, yet nothing could be more free from
impropriety, more expressive of native innocence and modesty; but the
splendour of her dress did not exactly suit with her deportment--it
puzzled me. I observed, when she drew off her glove, that she wore a
number of silver rings of a peculiar fashion, and among them a fine
diamond. She walked up and down while her breakfast was preparing,
seemingly lost in painful meditations; but when it appeared, she sat
down and did justice to it, as one who had been many hours without food.
While she was thus engaged, the conducteur of the Eil-wagen and one
of the passengers came in, and spoke to her with interest and respect.
Soon afterwards came the mistress of the inn, (who had never deigned to
notice me, for it is not the fashion in Germany;) she came with an offer
of particular services, and from the conversation I gathered, to my
astonishment, that this young creature--she seemed not more than two or
three and twenty--was on her way home, alone and unprotected, from--can
you imagine?--even from the wilds of Siberia! But then what had brought
her there? I listened, in hopes of discovering, but they all spoke so
fast that I could make out nothing more. Afterwards, I had occasion to
go over to a little shop to make some purchase. On my return, I found
her crying bitterly, and my maid, also in tears, was comforting her with
great volubility. Now, though my _having_ in German, like Orlando's
beard, was not considerable, and my heroine spoke still less French, I
could not help assisting in the task of consolation--never, certainly,
were my curiosity and interest more strongly excited! Subsequently we
met at Frankfort, where she was lodged in the same hotel, and I was
enabled to offer her a seat in my vehicle to Mayence. Thus, I had
opportunities of hearing her whole history related at different times,
and in parts and parcels; and I will now endeavour to give it to you
in a connected form. I may possibly make some mistake with regard
to the order of events, but I promise you faithfully, that where my
recollection of names, or dates, or circumstances, may fail me, I will
not, like Mademoiselle de Montpensier, make use of my imagination
to supply the defects of my memory. You shall have, if not the whole
truth, at least as much of it as I can remember, and with no fictitious
interpolations and improvements. Of the animation of voice and manner,
the vivid eloquence, the graphic spirit, the quick transitions of
feeling, and the grace and vivacity of gesture and action with which
the relation was made to me by this fine untutored child of nature,
I can give you no idea--it was altogether a study of character, I shall
never forget.
My heroine--truly and in every sense does she deserve the name--was the
daughter of a rich brewer and wine merchant of Deuxponts.[29] She was
one of five children, two much older and two much younger than herself.
Her eldest brother was called Henri: he had early displayed such
uncommon talents, and such a decided inclination for study, that his
father was determined to give him all the advantages of a learned
education, and sent him to the university of Erlangen, in Bavaria,
whence he returned to his family, with the highest testimonies of his
talents and good conduct. His father now destined him for the clerical
profession, with which his own wishes accorded. His sister fondly
dwelt upon his praises, and described him, perhaps with all a sister's
partiality, as being not only the pride of his family, but of all his
fellow-citizens, "tall, and handsome, and good," of a most benevolent
enthusiastic temper, and devoted to his studies. When he had been at
home for some time, he attracted the notice of one of the princes in the
north of Germany, with whom he travelled, I believe, in the capacity
of secretary. The name of the prince, and the particulars of this
part of his life, have escaped me; but it appeared that, through the
recommendation of this powerful patron, he became professor of theology
in a university of Courland, I think at Riga, or somewhere near it, for
the name of this city was continually recurring in her narrative. Henri
was at this time about eight-and-twenty.
While here, it was his fate to fall passionately in love with the
daughter of a rich Jew merchant. His religious zeal mingled with his
love; he was as anxious to convert his mistress as to possess her--and,
in fact, the first was a necessary preliminary to the second; the
consequences were all in the usual style of such matters. The relations
discovered the correspondence, and the young Jewess was forbidden to see
or to speak to her lover. They met in secret. What arguments he might
use to convert this modern Jessica, I know not, but they prevailed. She
declared herself convinced, and consented to fly with him beyond the
frontiers, into Silesia, to be baptized, and to become his wife.
Apparently their plans were not well-arranged, or were betrayed; for
they were pursued by her relations and the police, and overtaken before
they reached the frontiers. The young man was accused of carrying off
his Jewish love by force, and this, I believe, at Riga, where the Jews
are protected, is a capital crime. The affair was brought before the
tribunal, and the accused defended himself by declaring that the girl
had fled with him by her own free will; that she was a Christian, and
his betrothed bride, as they had exchanged rings, or had gone through
some similar ceremony. The father Jew denied this on the part of his
daughter, and Henri desired to be confronted with the lady who was thus
said to have turned his accuser. Her family made many difficulties, but
by the order of the judge she was obliged to appear. She was brought
into the court of justice pale, trembling, and supported by her father
and others of her kindred. The judge demanded whether it was by her own
will that she had fled with Henri Ambos? She answered in a faint voice,
"_No_." Had then violence been used to carry her off? "_Yes._" Was she
a Christian? "_No._" Did she regard Henri as her affianced husband?
"_No._"
On hearing these replies, so different from the truth,--from all he
could have anticipated, the unfortunate young man appeared for a few
minutes stupified; then, as if seized with a sudden frenzy, he made a
desperate effort to rush upon the young Jewess. On being prevented, he
drew a knife from his pocket, which he attempted to plunge into his own
bosom, but it was wrested from him; in the scuffle he was wounded in
the hands and face, and the young lady swooned away. The sight of his
mistress insensible, and his own blood flowing, restored the lover to
his senses. He became sullenly calm, offered not another word in his own
defence, refused to answer any questions, and was immediately conveyed
to prison.
These particulars came to the knowledge of his family after the lapse of
many months, but of his subsequent fate they could learn nothing. Neither
his sentence nor his punishment could be ascertained; and although
one of his relations went to Riga, for the purpose of obtaining some
information--some redress--he returned without having effected either
of the purposes of his journey. Whether Henri had died of his wounds,
or languished in a perpetual dungeon, remained a mystery.
Six years thus passed away. His father died: his mother, who persisted
in hoping, while all others despaired, lingered on in heart-wearing
suspense. At length, in the beginning of last year, (1833,) a travelling
merchant passed through the city of Deuxponts, and inquired for the
family of Ambos. He informed them that in the preceding year he had
seen and spoken to a man in rags, with a long beard, who was working in
fetters with other criminals, near the fortress of Barinska, in Siberia;
who described himself as Henri Ambos, a pastor of the Lutheran church,
unjustly condemned, and besought him with tears, and the most urgent
supplications, to convey some tidings of him to his unhappy parents, and
beseech them to use every means to obtain his liberation.
You must imagine--for I cannot describe as she described--the feelings
which this intelligence excited. A family counsel was held, and it
was determined at once that application should be made to the police
authorities at St. Petersburgh, to ascertain beyond a doubt the fate
of poor Henri--that a petition in his favour must be presented to the
Emperor of Russia; but who was to present it? The second brother offered
himself, but he had a wife and two children; the wife protested that she
should die if her husband left her, and would not hear of his going;
besides, he was the only remaining hope of his mother's family. The
sister then said that she would undertake the journey, and argued that
as a woman she had more chance of success in such an affair than her
brother. The mother acquiesced. There was, in truth, no alternative; and
being amply furnished with the means, this generous, affectionate, and
strong-minded girl, set off alone, on her long and perilous journey.
"When my mother gave me her blessing," said she, "I made a vow to God
and my own heart, that I would not return alive without the pardon of
my brother. I feared nothing; I had nothing to live for. I had health
and strength, and I had not a doubt of my own success, because I was
_resolved_ to succeed; but ah! _liebe madame!_ what a fate was mine! and
how am I returning to my mother!--my poor old mother!" Here she burst
into tears, and threw herself back in the carriage; after a few minutes
she resumed her narrative.
She reached the city of Riga without mischance. There she collected the
necessary documents relative to her brother's character and conduct,
with all the circumstances of his trial, and had them properly attested.
Furnished with these papers, she proceeded to St. Petersburgh, where she
arrived safely in the beginning of June, 1833. She had been furnished with
several letters of recommendation, and particularly with one to a German
ecclesiastic, of whom she spoke with the most grateful enthusiasm, by the
title of M. le Pasteur. She met with the utmost difficulty in obtaining
from the police the official return of her brother's condemnation, place
of exile, punishment, &c.; but at length, by almost incredible boldness,
perseverance, and address, she was in possession of these, and with the
assistance of her good friend the pastor, she drew up a petition to the
emperor. With this she waited on the minister of the interior, to whom,
with great difficulty, and after many applications, she obtained access.
He treated her with great harshness, and absolutely refused to deliver
the petition. She threw herself on her knees, and added tears to
entreaties; but he was inexorable, and added brutally--"Your brother
was a _mauvais sujet_; he _ought_ not to be pardoned, and if I were the
emperor I would not pardon him." She rose from her knees, and stretching
her arms towards heaven, exclaimed with fervour--"I call God to witness
that my brother was innocent! and I thank God that you are not the
emperor, for I can still hope!" The minister, in a rage, said--"Do you
dare to speak thus to me! Do you know who I am?" "Yes," she replied;
"you are his excellency the minister C----; but what of that? you are
a cruel man! but I put my trust in God and the emperor; and then," said
she, "I left him, without even a curtsey, though he followed me to the
door, speaking very loud and very angrily."
Her suit being rejected by all the ministers, (for even those who
were most gentle, and who allowed the hardship of the case, still
refused to interfere, or deliver her petition,) she resolved to do,
what she had been dissuaded from attempting in the first instance--to
appeal to the emperor in person: but it was in vain she lavished
hundreds of dollars in bribes to the inferior officers; in vain she
beset the imperial suite, at reviews, at the theatre, on the way to
the church: invariably beaten back by the guards, or the attendants,
she could not penetrate to the emperor's presence. After spending six
weeks in daily ineffectual attempts of this kind, hoping every morning,
and almost despairing every evening--threatened by the police, and
spurned by the officials--Providence raised her up a friend in one of
her own sex. Among some ladies of rank, who became interested in her
story, and invited her to their houses, was a Countess Elise, something
or other, whose name I am sorry I did not write down. One day, on seeing
her young _protegée_ overwhelmed with grief, and almost in despair, she
said, with emotion, "I cannot dare to present your petition myself, I
might be sent off to Siberia, or at least banished the court; but all I
can do I will. I will lend you my equipage and servants. I will dress
you in one of my robes; you shall drive to the palace the next levee
day, and obtain an audience under my name; when once in the presence of
the emperor you must manage for yourself. If I risk thus much, will you
venture the rest?" "And what," said I, "was your answer?" "Oh!" she
replied, "I could not answer; but I threw myself at her feet, and kissed
the hem of her gown!" I asked her whether she had not feared to risk the
safety of her generous friend? She replied, "That thought did strike
me--but what would you have?--I cast it from me. I was _resolved_ to
have my brother's pardon--I would have sacrificed my own life to obtain
it--and, God forgive me, I thought little of what it might cost another."
This plan was soon arranged, and at the time appointed my resolute
heroine drove up to the palace in a splendid equipage, preceded by a
running footman, with three laced laquais in full dress, mounted
behind. She was announced as the Countess Elise ----, who supplicated
a particular audience of his majesty. The doors flew open, and in a few
minutes she was in the presence of the emperor, who advanced one or
two steps to meet her, with an air of gallantry, but suddenly started
back----
Here I could not help asking her, whether in that moment she did not
feel her heart sink?
"No," said she firmly; "on the contrary, I felt my heart beat quicker
and higher!--I sprang forward and knelt at his feet, exclaiming, with
clasped hands--'Pardon, imperial majesty!--Pardon!'" "Who are you?" said
the emperor, astonished; "and what can I do for you?" He spoke gently,
more gently than any of his ministers, and overcome, even by my own
hopes, I burst into a flood of tears, and said--"May it please your
imperial majesty, I am not Countess Elise ----, I am only the sister of
the unfortunate Henri Ambos, who has been condemned on false accusation.
O pardon!--pardon! Here are the papers--the proofs. O imperial
majesty!--pardon my poor brother!" I held out the petition and the
papers, and at the same time, prostrate on my knees, I seized the skirt
of his embroidered coat, and pressed it to my lips. The emperor said,
"Rise--rise!" but I would not rise; I still held out my papers, resolved
not to rise till he had taken them. At last the emperor, who seemed much
moved, extended one hand towards me, and took the papers with the other,
saying--"Rise, mademoiselle--I command you to rise." I ventured to kiss
his hand, and said, with tears, "I pray of your majesty to read that
paper." He said, "I will read it." I then rose from the ground, and stood
watching him while he unfolded the petition and read it. His countenance
changed, and he exclaimed once or twice, "Is it possible?--This is
dreadful!" When he had finished, he folded the paper, and without
any observation, said at once--"Mademoiselle Ambos, your brother is
pardoned." The words rung in my ears, and I again flung myself at his
feet, saying--and yet I scarce know what I said--"Your imperial majesty
is a god upon earth; do you indeed pardon my brother? Your ministers
would never suffer me to approach you; and even yet I fear----!" He
said, "Fear nothing: you have my promise." He then raised me from the
ground, and conducted me himself to the door. I tried to thank and bless
him, but could not; he held out his hand for me to kiss, and then bowed
his head as I left the room. "Ach ja! the emperor is a good man,--ein
schöner, feiner, Mann! but he does not know how cruel his ministers are,
and all the evil they do, and all the justice they refuse, in his name!"
I have given you this scene as nearly as possible in her own words.
She not only related it, but almost acted it over again; she imitated
alternately, her own and the emperor's voice and manner; and such was
the vivacity of her description that I seemed to hear and behold both,
and was more profoundly moved than by any scenic representation I can
remember.
On her return she received the congratulations of her benefactress, the
Countess Elise, and of her good friend the pastor, but both advised her
to keep her audience and the emperor's promise a profound secret. She
was the more inclined to this; because, after the first burst of joyous
emotion, her spirits sank. Recollecting the pains that had been taken to
shut her from the emperor's presence, she feared some unforeseen obstacle,
or even some knavery on the part of the officers of government. She
described her sufferings during the next few days, as fearful; her
agitation, her previous fatigues, and the terrible suspense, apparently
threw her into a fever, or acted on her excited nerves so as to produce
a species of delirium, though, of course, she would not admit this.
After assuring me very gravely that she did not believe in ghosts, she
told me that one night, after her interview with the emperor, she was
reading in bed, being unable to sleep; and on raising her eyes from her
book she saw the figure of her brother, standing at the other end of the
room; she exclaimed, "My God, Henri! is that you!" but without making
any reply, the form approached nearer and nearer to the bed, keeping
its melancholy eyes fixed on her's, till it came quite close to the bed
side, and laid a cold heavy hand upon her.
MEDON.
The night-mare, evidently.
ALDA.
Without doubt; but her own impression was as of a reality. The figure,
after looking at her sadly for some minutes, during which she had no
power either to move or speak, turned away; she then made a desperate
effort to call out to the daughter of her hostess, who slept in the next
room--"Luise! Luise!" Luise ran in to her. "Do you not see my brother
standing there?" she exclaimed with horror, and pointing to the other
end of the room, whither the image, conjured up by her excited fancy and
fevered nerves, appeared to have receded. The frightened, staring Luise,
answered, "Yes." "You see," said she, appealing to me--"that though I
might be cheated by my own senses, I could not doubt those of another. I
thought to myself, _then_, my poor Henri is dead, and God has permitted
him to visit me. This idea pursued me all that night, and the next day;
but on the following day, which was Monday, just five days after I had
seen the Emperor, a _laquais_, in the imperial livery, came to my lodging,
and put into my hands a packet, with the "Emperor's _compliments_ to
Mademoiselle Ambos." It was the pardon for my brother, with the Emperor's
seal and signature: then I forgot every thing but joy!"
Those mean, official animals, who had before spurned her, now pressed
upon her with offers of service, and even the Minister C---- offered to
expedite the pardon himself to Siberia, _in order to save her trouble_;
but she would not suffer the precious paper out of her hands: she
determined to carry it herself--to be herself the bearer of glad
tidings:--she had resolved that none but herself should take off those
fetters, the very description of which had entered her soul; so, having
made her arrangements as quickly as possible, she set off for Moscow,
where she arrived in three days. According to her description, the
town in Siberia, to the governor of which she carried an official
recommendation, was nine thousand versts beyond Moscow; and the fortress
to which the wretched malefactors were exiled was at a great distance
beyond that. I could not well make out the situation of either, and,
unluckily, I had no map with me but a road map of Germany, and it was
evident that my heroine was no geographer. She told me that, after
leaving Moscow, she travelled post seven days and seven nights, only
sleeping in the carriage. She then reposed for two days, and then posted
on for another seven days and nights.
MEDON.
Alone?
ALDA.
Alone! and wholly unprotected, except by her own innocence and energy,
and a few lines of recommendation, which had been given to her at St.
Petersburgh. The roads were every where excellent, the post-houses at
regular distances, the travelling rapid; but often, for hundreds of miles,
there were no accommodations of any kind--scarce a human habitation.
She even suffered from hunger, not being prepared to travel for so many
hours together without meeting with any food she could touch without
disgust. She described, with great truth and eloquence, her own
sensations as she was whirled rapidly over those wide, silent, solitary,
and apparently endless plains. "Sometimes," said she, "my head seemed
to turn--I could not believe that it was a waking reality--I could not
believe that it was myself. Alone, in a strange land,--so many hundred
leagues from my own home, and driven along as if through the air, with a
rapidity so different from any thing I had been used to, that it almost
took away my breath."
"Did you ever feel fear?" I asked.
"Ach ja! when I waked sometimes in the carriage, in the middle of the
night, wondering at myself, and unable immediately to collect my thoughts.
Never at any other time."
I asked her if she had ever met with insult? She said she had twice met
with "wicked men;" but she had felt no alarm--she knew how to protect
herself; and as she said this, her countenance assumed an expression
which showed that it was not a mere boast. Altogether, she described her
journey as being _grausam_, (horrible,) in the highest degree, and,
indeed, even the recollection of it made her shudder; but at the time
there was the anticipation of an unspeakable happiness, which made all
fatigues light, and all dangers indifferent.
At length, in the beginning of August, she arrived at the end of her
journey, and was courteously received by the commandant of the fortress.
She presented the pardon with a hand which trembled with impatience and
joy, too great to be restrained, almost to be borne. The officer looked
very grave, and took, she thought, a long time to read the paper, which
consisted only of six or eight lines. At last he stammered out, "I am
sorry--but the Henri Ambos mentioned in this paper--_is dead_!" Poor
girl! she fell to the earth.
When she reached this part of her story she burst into a fresh flood
of tears, wrung her hands, and for some time could utter nothing but
passionate exclamations of grief. "Ach! lieber Gott! was für ein
schreckliches Schicksal war das meine!" "What a horrible fate was mine!
I had come thus far to find--not my brother--_nur ein Grab_!" (only a
grave!) she repeated several times, with an accent of despair. The
unfortunate man had died a year before. The fetters in which he worked
had caused an ulcer in his leg, which he neglected, and, after some
weeks of horrid suffering, death released him. The task-work, for nearly
five years, of this accomplished, and even learned man, in the prime of
his life and mental powers, had been to break stones upon the road,
chained hand and foot, and confounded with the lowest malefactors.
In giving you thus conscientiously, the mere outline of this story,
I have spared you all comments. I see, by those indignant strides
majestical, that you are making comments to yourself; but sit down and
be quiet, if you can: I have not much more to tell!
She found, on inquiry, that some papers and letters, which her unhappy
brother had drawn up by stealth, in the hope of being able at some time
to convey them to his friends, were in the possession of one of the
officers, who readily gave them up to her; and with these she returned,
half broken-hearted, to St. Petersburgh. If her former journey, when
hope cheered her on the way, had been so fearful, what must have been
her return? I was not surprised to hear that, on her arrival, she was
seized with a dangerous illness, and was for many weeks confined to her
bed.
Her story excited much commiseration; and a very general interest and
curiosity was excited about herself. She told me that a great many
persons of rank invited her to their houses, and made her rich presents,
among which were the splendid shawls and the ring, which had caught my
attention, and excited my surprise, in the first instance. The Emperor
expressed a wish to see her, and very graciously spoke a few words of
condolence. "But they could not bring my brother back to life!" said
she, expressively. He even presented her to the Empress. "And what,"
I asked, "did the Empress say to you?" "_Nothing_; but she looked
_so_,"--drawing herself up.
On receiving her brother's pardon from the Emperor, she had written
home to her family; but she confessed that since that time she had not
written--she had not courage to inflict a blow which might possibly
affect her mother's life; and yet the idea of being obliged to _tell_
what she dared not write, seemed to strike her with terror.
But the strangest event of this strange story remains to be told; and
I will try to give it in her own simple words.
She left Petersburgh in October, and proceeded to Riga, where those
who had known her brother received her with interest and kindness, and
sympathized in her affliction. "But," said she, "there was one thing
I had resolved to do, which yet remained undone. I was resolved to
see the woman who had been the original cause of all my poor brother's
misfortunes. I thought if once I could say to her, 'Your falsehood has
done this!' I should be satisfied; but my brother's friends dissuaded
me from this idea. They said it was better not; that it could do my
poor Henri no good; that it was wrong; that it was unchristian; and
I submitted. I left Riga with a voiturier. I had reached Pojer, on
the Prussian frontiers, and there I stopped at the Douane, to have my
packages searched. The chief officer looked at the address on my trunk,
and exclaimed, with surprise, 'Mademoiselle Ambos! Are you any relation
of the Professor Henri Ambos?'--'I am his sister.' 'Good God! I was the
intimate friend of your brother! What has become of him?' I then told
him all I have now told you, liebe madame!--and when I came to an end,
this good man burst into tears, and for some time we wept together. The
kutscher, (driver,) who was standing by, heard all this conversation,
and when I turned round, he was crying too. My brother's friend pressed
on me offers of service and hospitality, but I could not delay; for,
besides that my impatience to reach home increased every hour, I had
not much money in my purse. Of three thousand dollars, which I had
taken with me to St. Petersburgh, very little remained, so I bade him
farewell, and I proceeded. At the next town, where my kutscher stopped
to feed his horses, he came to the door of my calèche, and said, 'You
have just missed seeing the Jew lady, whom your brother was in love
with; that calèche which passed us by just now, and changed horses here,
contained Mademoiselle S----, her sister, and her sister's husband!'
Good God! imagine my surprise! I could not believe my fortune: it seemed
that Providence had delivered her into my hands, and I was resolved
that she should not escape me. I knew they would be delayed at the
Custom-house. I ordered the man to turn, and drive back as fast as
possible, promising him a reward of a dollar if he overtook them.
On reaching the Custom-house, I saw a calèche standing at a little
distance. I felt myself tremble, and my heart beat so--but not with
fear. I went up to the calèche--two ladies were sitting in it. I
addressed the one who was the most beautiful, and said, 'Are you
Mademoiselle Emilie S----?' I suppose I must have looked very strange,
and wild, and resolute, for she replied, with a frightened manner--'I
am; who are you, and what do you want with me?' I said, 'I am the sister
of Henri Ambos, whom you murdered!' She shrieked out; the men came
running from the house; but I held fast the carriage-door, and said,
'I am not come to hurt you, but you are the murderess of my brother,
Henri Ambos. He loved you, and your falsehood has killed him. May God
punish you for it! May his ghost pursue you to the end of your life!' I
remember no more. I was like one mad. I have just a recollection of her
ghastly, terrified look, and her eyes wide open, staring at me. I fell
into fits; and they carried me into the house of my brother's friend,
and laid me on a bed. When I recovered my senses, the calèche and
all were gone. When I reached Berlin, all this appeared to me so
miraculous--so like a dream--I could not trust to my own recollection,
and I wrote to the officer of Customs, to beg he would attest that it
was really true, and what I had said when I was out of my senses, and
what _she_ had said; and at Leipsic I received his letter, which I will
show you." And at Mayence she showed me this letter, and a number of
other documents; her brother's pardon, with the Emperor's signature;
a letter of the Countess Elise ----; a most touching letter from her
unfortunate brother; (over this she wept much;) and a variety of other
papers, all proving the truth of her story, even to the minutest
particulars. The next morning we were to part. I was going down the
Rhine, and she was to proceed to Deuxponts, which she expected to reach
in two days. As she had travelled from Berlin almost without rest,
except the night we had spent at Frankfort, she appeared to me ready to
sink with fatigue; but she would not bid me farewell that night, although
I told her I should be obliged to set off at six the next morning; but
kissing my hand, with many expressions of gratitude, she said she would
be awake and visit me in my room to bid me a last adieu. As there was
only a very narrow passage between the two rooms, she left her door a
little open that she might hear me rise. However, on the following
morning she did not appear. When dressed, I went on tiptoe into her
room, and found her lying in a deep calm sleep, her arm over her head.
I looked at her for some minutes, and thought I had never seen a finer
creature. I then turned, with a whispered blessing and adieu, and went
on my way.
This is all I can tell you. If at the time I had not been travelling
_against_ time, and with a mind most fully and painfully occupied,
I believe I should have been tempted to accompany my heroine to
Deuxponts--at least I should have retained her narrative more accurately.
Not having made any memoranda till many days afterwards, all the names
have escaped my recollection; but if you have any doubts of the general
truth of this story, I will at least give you the means of verifying it.
Here is her name, in her own handwriting, on one of the leaves of my
pocket-book--you can read the German character;
=Bety Ambos von Zweibruken.=
SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER.
PART II.
MEMORANDA AT MUNICH, NUREMBURG, AND DRESDEN.
I.
MEMORANDA AT MUNICH.
SEPT. 28th.--A week at Munich! and nothing done! nothing seen! My first
_excursions_ I made to-day--from my bed to the sofa--from the sofa to
the window. Every one told me to be prepared against the caprices of the
climate, but I did not imagine that it would take a week or a fortnight
to be _acclimatée_.
What could induce the princes of Bavaria to plant their capital in the
midst of these wide, marshy, bleak, barren plains, and upon this rough
unmanageable torrent,--"the Isar rolling rapidly,"--when they might have
seated themselves by the majestic Danube? The Tyrolean Alps stretching
south and west, either form a barrier against the most genial airs of
heaven, or if a stray zephyr find his way from Italy, his poor little
wings are frozen to his back among the mountain snows, and he drops
shivering among us, wrapt in a misty cloud. I never saw such fogs:
they are as dense and as white as a fleece, and look, and feel too,
like rarefied snow;--but as no one else complains, I think it must be
indisposition which makes me so peevish and so chilly. Sitting at the
window being my best amusement, I do not like to find the only objects
which are to give me a foretaste of the splendour of Munich, quite
veiled from sight, and shrouded in mist, even for a few morning hours.
I am lodged in the Max-Joseph's-Platz, opposite to the theatre: a
situation at once airy, quiet, and cheerful.
The theatre is in itself a beautiful object; the portico, of the
Corinthian order, is supported by eight pillars; the ascent is by a
noble flight of steps, with four gigantic bronze candelabras at the
corners; and nothing, at least to my unlearned eyes, could be more
elegant--more purely classical and Greek, than the whole, were it not
for the hideous roof _upon the roof_,--one pediment, as it were, riding
on the back of the other. Some internal arrangement of the theatre may
render this deformity necessary, but it _is_ a deformity, and one that
annoys me whenever I look at it.
On the right, I have the new palace, which forms one side of the square:
a long range of plain, almost rustic, architecture; altogether a striking,
but rather a pleasing contrast, to the luxuriant grace of the theatre.
Just now, when I looked out, what a beautiful scene! The full moon,
rising over the theatre, lights up half the white columns, and half are
lost in shade. The performances are just over; (half-past nine!) crowds
of people emerging from the portico into the brilliant moonshine, (many
of them military, in glittering accoutrements,) descend the steps, and
spread themselves through the square, single, or in various groups;
carriages are drawing up and drawing off,--and all this gay confusion is
without the least noise or tumult. Except the occasional low roll of the
carriage-wheels over the well-gravelled road, I hear no sound, though
within a few yards of the spot. It looks like some lovely optical or
scenic illusion; a moving picture, magnified.
_Oct. 4th._--To my great consternation--summoned in form before the
police, and condemned to pay a fine of ten florins for having omitted to
fill up specifically a certain paper which had been placed in my hands
on my arrival. In the first place, I did not understand it; secondly,
I never thought about it; and thirdly, I had been too ill to attend to
it. I made a show of resistance, but it was all in vain, of course;--my
permission to reside here is limited to six weeks, but may be renewed.
Last night I was induced, but only upon great persuasion, to venture
over to the theatre. I had been tantalised _so_ long by looking at the
exterior! Then it was a pleasant evening--broad daylight; and the whole
theatre being heated by stoves to an even regulated warmth according to
the season, I was assured that once within the doors there would be no
danger of fresh indisposition from draughts or cold.
Entering the box, my first glance was of course at the stage. The
drop-scene, or curtain, a well painted copy of Guido's Aurora, pleased
me infinitely more than the beautiful drop-curtain at Manheim: _that_
was very elegant, but this is more than elegant. It harmonized with the
place, and in my own mind it touched certain chords of association,
which had long been silent. It was as if the orchestre had suddenly
welcomed me with some delicious, often-heard, and well-remembered piece
of music: the effect upon the senses was similar--nor can I describe
it;--but, surprised and charmed, I kept my eyes fixed for some minutes
upon the picture: the light being thrown full upon it, while the rest
of the theatre was comparatively in deep shade, like all the foreign
theatres, rendered it more effective. The rest of the decorations
corresponded in splendour; the two colossal muses, as Caryatides
supporting the king's state box, the noble columns of white and gold,
and the Caryatides on each side of the proscenium, were all in fine
taste. The size and proportions of the interior seemed most happily
calculated for seeing and hearing. On the whole, I never beheld a
theatre which so entirely _satisfied_ me--no one more easily pleased,
and no one less easily satisfied!
When I looked down on the _parterre_, I beheld a motley assemblage in
various costumes: there were a great number of the military; there were
the well-dressed daughters of people of some condition, in the French
fashion of two or three years back; there were girls in the Tyrolean
costume, with their scarlet boddices and silver chains; and the women of
Munich, with their odd little two-horned caps of rich gold or silver
brocade,--forming altogether a singular spectacle. As for the scenery,
it was very well, but would bear no comparison to Stanfield's glorious
illusions.
The inducement held out to me to-night was to see Ferdinand Eslair play
the Duke of Alva in "Egmont." Eslair, formerly one of the first actors
at Manheim, when Manheim boasted the first theatre in Germany, is
esteemed the finest tragedian here, and the Duke of Alva is one of his
best characters. It appeared to me a superb piece of acting; so quietly
stern, so fearfully hard and composed: it was a fine conception cast in
bronze:--in this consisted its beauty and truth as a whole. Some of his
_silent_ passages, and his by-play, were admirable. He gave us, in the
scene with Egmont, an exact living transcript of Titian's famous picture
of the Duke of Alva; the dress, the attitude, the position of the
helmet and the glove on the table beside him, every thing was so well
calculated, at once so unobtrusive and so unexpected, that it was like
a recognition. Egmont was well played by Racke, but did not strike me
so much. Mademoiselle Schöller, who plays the young heroines here, is a
pupil of Madame Schröder, (the German Siddons,) and promises well; but
she wants development; she wants the power, the passion, the tenderness,
the energy of Clärchen. Clärchen is a plebeian girl, but an impassioned
and devoted woman--she is a sort of Flemish Juliet. There is the same
truth of nature and passion, the same impress of intense and luxuriant
life--but then it is a different life--it is a Rubens compared to a
Titian--and such Clärchen ought to be. Now to give all the internal
power and poetry, yet preserve all the external simplicity and homeliness
of the character,--to give all the _abandon_, yet preserve all the
delicacy,--to give the delicacy, yet keep clear of all super-refinement,
and in the concentrated despair of her last scene (where she poisons
herself) to be calm without being cold, and profoundly tragic without
the usual tragedy airs, must be difficult--exceedingly difficult; in
short, to play Clärchen, as I conceive the character ought to be played,
would require a young actress, uniting sufficient genius to conceive
it aright, with sufficient delicacy and judgment not to colour it too
highly: there was no danger of the latter mistake with Mademoiselle
Schöller, in whose hands Clärchen became a mere pretty affectionate
girl. In that lovely scene with Egmont in the third act, which might
be contrasted with Juliet's balcony scene, as a test of the powers of a
young actress, Mademoiselle Schöller was timid even to feebleness; the
change of manner, when Clärchen substitutes the tender familiarity of
the second person singular (Du) for the tone of respect in which she
before addressed her lover, should have been felt and marked, so as to
have been _felt_ and _remarked_: but this was not the case. In short,
I was disappointed by this scene.
The Flemish costumes were correct and beautiful. The Prince of Orange,
in particular, looked as if he had just walked out of one of Vandyke's
pictures.
After seeing this fine tragedy--surely enough for one evening's
amusement--I was at home and in bed by half-past ten. They manage these
things better here than in England.
_Friday._--Dinner at the French ambassador's _five_ o'clock. I mark
this, because extraordinarily late at Munich. The plebeian dinner hour
is twelve, or earlier; the general hour, one; the genteel hour, two;
the fashionable hour, _three_; but five is super-elegant--in the very
extreme of finery--like a nine o'clock dinner in London. There were
present some French and Austrians of high rank, who had all visited
England; and the conversation turning on our English aristocratic
society--the only society they knew any thing about--I had another proof
of the ridicule with which foreigners treat our assumption of superior
morality and domestic happiness. But the person who fixed my attention
was Leo von Klenze, the celebrated architect, and deservedly a favourite
of the king, who has, I believe, bestowed on him the superfluous honours
of nobility. With the others, I had no sympathies--with him a thousand,
though he knew it not. I looked at him with curiosity--with interest.
I liked his plain, but marked and clever countenance, and his easy
manners. I felt an unconscious desire to be agreeable, and longed to
make him talk; but I knew that this was not the place or the moment for
us to see each other to the greatest advantage. We had, however, some
little conversation--a kind of beginning. He told me at dinner that the
Glypthothek, (the gallery of sculpture here,) was planned and built by
the present king, when only prince royal, and the expenses liquidated
from his private purse, out of his yearly savings. He spoke with modesty
of himself--with gratitude and admiration of the king, of whose talent,
vivacity, impatience, and enthusiasm for art and artists I had already
heard some characteristic anecdotes.
After coffee, part of the company dispersed to the opera, or elsewhere;
others remained to lounge and converse. After the opera, we re-assembled
with additions, and then tea, and cards, and talk, till past eleven.
Madame de Vaudreuil receives almost every evening, and this seems to be
the general routine.
_Oct. 6._--They are now celebrating here the _Volksfest_, (literally the
"_people's feast_,") or annual fair of Munich, and this has been a grand
day of festivity. There have been races, a military review, &c.; but,
except the race-horses in their embroidered trappings, which were led
past my window, and a long cavalcade of royal carriages and crowds of
people, in gay and grotesque costumes, hurrying by, I have seen nothing,
being obliged to keep my room; so I listened to the firing of the cannon,
and the shouts of the populace, and thought.
* * * * *
_Oct. 8._--First visit to the Glypthothek--just returned--my imagination,
still filled with "the blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,"--excited
as I never thought it could be again excited after seeing the Vatican;
but this is the Vatican in miniature. Can it be possible that this
glorious edifice was planned by a young prince, and erected out of his
yearly savings? I am wonder-struck! I was not prepared for any thing so
spacious, so magnificent, so perfect in taste and arrangement.
I do not yet know the exact measurement of the building; but it contains
twelve galleries, the smallest about fifty, and the largest about one
hundred and thirty feet in length. It consists of a square, built round
an open central court, and the approach is by a noble portico of eight
Ionic columns, raised on a flight of steps. As it stands in an open
space, a little out of the town, with trees planted on either side, the
effect is very imposing and beautiful. There are no exterior windows,
they all open into the central court.
From the portico we enter a hall, paved with marble. Over the principal
door is the name of the king, and the date of the erection. Two side
doors lead to the galleries. Over the door on the left there is an
inscription to the honour of Leo von Klenze, the architect of the
building. Over the door on the right, is the name of Peter Cornelius,
the painter, by whom the frescos were designed and chiefly executed.
Thus the king, with a noble magnanimity, uniting truth and justice,
has associated in his glory those to whom he chiefly owes it--and this
charmed me. It is in much finer feeling, much higher taste, than those
eternal (no, not _eternal_!) great N's of that imperial egotist, Napoleon,
whose vulgar appetite for vulgar fame would allow no participation.
I walked slowly through the galleries so excited by the feeling of
admiration, that I could make no minute or particular observations. The
floors are all paved with marbles of various colours--the walls, to a
certain height, are stuccoed in imitation of grey or dark green marble,
so as to throw out the sculpture, and give it the full effect. The
utmost luxury of ornament has been lavished on the walls and ceilings,
some in painting, some in relief; but in each, the subjects and
ornaments are appropriate to the situation, and as each gallery has
been originally adapted to its destination, every where the effect to be
produced has been judiciously studied. The light is not too great, nor
too generally diffused--it is poured in from high semicircular windows
on one side only, so as to throw the sculpture into beautiful relief.
Two lofty and spacious halls are richly painted in fresco, with subjects
from the Greek mythology, and the whole building would contain, I
suppose, six times, or ten times, the number of works of art now there;
at the same time all are so arranged that there appears no obvious
deficiency. The collection was begun only in 1808, and since that time
the king has contrived to make some invaluable acquisitions. I found
here many of the most far-famed relics of ancient art, many that I had
already seen in Italy; for instance, the Egina marbles, the Barberini
Faun, the Barberini Muse, or Apollo, the Leucothoë, the Medusa Rondanini
above all, the Ilioneus; but I cannot now dwell on these. I must go
again and again before I can methodise my impressions and recollections.
_Oct. 11._--Yesterday and to-day, at the Glypthothek, where the cushioned
seats, though rather more classical than comfortable, enabled me to
lounge away the time, unwearied in body as in mind.
The arrangement of the galleries is such as to form not only a splendid
exhibition and school of art, but a regular progressive history of the
rise and decline of sculpture. Thus we step from the vestibule into
the Egyptian gallery, of which the principal treasure is the colossal
Antinous of Rossoantico, with the attributes of Osiris.
I admired in this room the exquisite beauty and propriety of the
basso-relievo over the door, designed and modelled by Schwanthaler. It
is of course intended to be symbolical of the birth of art among the
Egyptians. Isis discovers the body of her lost husband Osiris, concealed
in a sarcophagus: she strikes it with the mystic wand, and he stands
revealed, and restored to her. The imitation of the Egyptian style
is perfect.
From the Egyptian, we step into the Etruscan gallery, of which the
ceiling is painted in the most vivid and beautiful colours. The third
room contains the famous Egina marbles, which I had seen at Rome when
Thorwaldson was engaged in restoring them. To appreciate the classical
beauty and propriety of the arrangement of these singular relics, we
must call to mind their history, their subject, and their original
destination. Thus Æacus, the first king of the Island of Ægina, was
the son of Jupiter, or rather Zeus, (for the Greek designations are
infinitely more elegant and expressive than the Roman.) The temple
was dedicated to Zeus, and the groups which adorned the pediments
represented the history of the two branches of the Æacidæ, descended
from Telamon and Peleus, sons of Æacus. On two long tables or stands
of marble, supported by griffins, imitated from those which originally
ornamented the temple, are ranged the two groups of figures: neither
group is quite entire. Of that which represents the fight of Telamon
and Hercules with Laomedon, King of Troy, there are only five figures
remaining; and of the other group, the conflict for the body of
Patroclus, there are ten figures. Along the walls, on tables of marble,
are ranged a variety of fragments from the same temple, which must have
been splendidly rich in sculpture, within and without. On the ceiling of
this room, the four Æacidæ, Æacus, Peleus, Achilles, and Neoptolemus,
are represented in relief, by Schwanthaler. There is also a small model
of the western front of the temple restored, and painted as it is proved
to have been originally; (for instance, the field of the Tympanum was of
a sky blue.) This model is fixed in the wall opposite to the window. It
is extremely curious and interesting, but I thought not well placed as
an ornament.[30]
I remember asking W----, who has been in every part of the world, what
was the most beautiful scene he had ever beheld, taking natural beauty
and poetical associations together? He replied, after a little thought,
"A sunset from the temple of Ægina;"--and I can conceive this. Lord
Byron introduces it into his Grecian Sunset--but as an object--
"On old Ægina's steep and Idra's Isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile."
From the Ægina gallery we enter the Hall of Apollo. The ceiling of this
room, splendidly decorated in white and gold, represents the emblems
of the four principal cities of Greece, viz. the Athenian owl, the
winged-horse of Corinth, the Chimera of Sicyon, and the wolf of Argos.
The chief glory of this apartment is that celebrated colossal statue,
once known as the Barberini muse, now considered by antiquarians as an
Apollo, and supposed to be the work of Ageladas, the master of Phidias.
It is certainly older than the sculptures of the Parthenon. In its
severe massy grandeur, there is something of the heaviness and formality
of the most ancient Greek school, and in point of style it forms a link
between the Ægina marbles and the Elgin marbles. It should seem that the
eyes of this statue were once represented by gems--the orifices remain,
surrounded by a ring of bronze.
In the same room are those two sublime busts which almost take away
one's breath--the colossal head of Pallas, resembling that of the
Minerva of Velletri, now in the Vatican; and the Achilles.
The next room is the Hall of Bacchus. The ceiling is richly ornamented
with all the festive emblems of the god, in white and gold relief. In
the centre we have that wondrous statue, the gigantic Sleeping Satyr,
called by some the Barberini Faun. Antiquaries and connoisseurs refer
this work either to Scopas or Praxiteles, and, from the situation in
which it was discovered, suppose it to have once ornamented the tomb
of Adrian. I cannot tell how this may be, but here we behold with
astonishment the grotesque, the elegant, and the sublime mingled
together, and each in perfection: _how_, I know not; but I feel it
is so. I once saw a drawing of this statue, which gave me the idea of
something coarse and heavy; whereas, in the original, the delicate beauty
of the workmanship, and the inimitable sleepy abandonment of the attitude,
soften the effect of the colossal forms. I would place this statue
immediately after the Elgin marbles; it is, with all its excellence,
a degree lower in style.
In this gallery I found the famous head of the laughing faun, called
from the greenish stain on the cheek, the fauno colla macchia, and
also a sarcophagus, representing in the most exquisite sculpture, the
marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne. The blending of the idea of death with
the fullness of life, and even with the most luxuriant and festive
associations of life, is common among the Greeks, and, from one or two
known instances, appears to have been carried to an extreme which makes
one shrink; still, any thing rather than our detestable death's head and
cross bones! In nature, and in poetry, death is beautiful. It is the
diseases and vices of artificial life which have rendered it lamentable,
terrible, disgusting.
Fixed in the wall, opposite to the window, there is a bas relief of
amazing beauty--the marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite. It is a piece
of lyric poetry.
The Hall of Niobe contains few objects; but among them some of the most
perfect specimens of Grecian art; and first, the ILIONEUS.
It was because the Grecian sculptors were themselves poets and creators,
that "marble grew divine" beneath their hands, and became so instinct
with the indestructible spirit of life, that their half-defaced ruins
retain their immortality: else how should we stand shivering with
awe before those tremendous fragments--the sister Fates in the Elgin
marbles! Or, how should I, who am incapable of estimating the technical
perfection of art, stand entranced--as to-day I stood--before the
Ilioneus? It was not merely admiration; it was the overpowering
sentiment of harmonious and pathetic beauty running along every
nerve--such a feeling as music has sometimes awakened. I suppose the
Ilioneus stands alone, like the Torso of the Vatican--the _ne plus
ultra_ of grace, as the latter is of grandeur.
The first time I ever saw a cast of this divine statue was in the
vestibule of Goethe's house, at Weimar. It immediately fixed my
attention. Afterwards I saw another in Dannecker's studio, and from him
I learned its history. It was discovered about ten years ago at Prague,
in the possession of a stone-mason, and is supposed to have formed part
of the collection of ancient works of art which the Emperor Rodolph
collected in Italy about 1600.[31] A certain Dr. Barth purchased it
for a trifle, and brought it to Vienna, where Dannecker happened to
be at that time, and was called upon with others to pronounce on its
merits and value. It was at once attributed to the hand, either of
Praxiteles or Scopas, and on farther and minute examination, the style,
the proportions, and the evident purport of the figure, have decided
that it belongs to the group of Niobe and her children. It has attained
the appellation of Ilioneus, which Ovid gives to the youngest of her
sons. It represents a youth kneeling. The head and arms are wanting;
but the supplicatory expression of the attitude, the turn of the body,
so deprecating, so imploring; the bloom of adolescence, which seems
absolutely shed over the cold marble, the unequalled delicacy and
elegance of the whole, touched me unspeakably.
The King of Bavaria is said to have paid for this exquisite relic 15,000
florins--a large sum for a little potentate; but for the object itself,
its value is not to be computed by money. Its weight in gold were poor
in comparison.
In the same room is the Medusa Rondanini, the common model of almost all
the Medusa heads, but certainly not equal to the sublime colossal mask
at Cologne. There is also an antique duplicate of the Mercury of the
Belvidere; another of the Venus of Cnidos; another (most beautiful)
of one of the sons of Niobe, recumbent, lifeless; and some other
master-pieces.
These six rooms occupy one side of the building, and contain altogether
one hundred and forty-seven specimens of ancient art.
I do not quite understand Flaxman's division of ancient art into three
periods--the heroic age, the philosophic age, and the age of perfection.
Perhaps if he had lived to correct his essays, he would have made
this more clear. According to his distinction, would not the group of
the Niobe belong to the age of perfection?--and the Parthenon to the
philosophic age? which, allowing his definition of the two styles, I
cannot grant. I suppose these six galleries include a period of about
seven hundred years; (putting the dateless antiquity of some of the
Egyptian relics out of the question.) We begin with the heavy motionless
forms, "looking tranquillity," which yet have often a certain dignity;
then the stiff hard elaborate figures of the earliest Greek school, with
their curled heads and perpendicular draperies, in some of which dawns
the first feeling of vigour and grace, as in the Ægina marbles; the
next is the union of grandeur and elegance; and the next is the utmost
poetical refinement. I recollect that somewhere in Boswell's life of
Johnson, a conversation is recorded as taking place at the table of Sir
Joshua Reynolds; in the course of which Sir Joshua remarked, that it
was impossible to conceive what the ancient writers meant, when they
represented sculpture as having passed its zenith when the Apollo and
the Laocoon were produced. None of the great scholars or artists then
present could explain the mystery--now no longer a mystery. When Sir
Joshua made this remark, the Elgin marbles were unknown in England.
Between this range of galleries, and a corresponding range on the
opposite side, are two immense halls, called the Fest-Saale, or banqueting
halls, and as yet containing no sculpture. Here the painter Cornelius
has found "ample space and verge enough" for his grand conceptions, and
the subjects are appropriate to the general destination of the whole
building. The frescos in the first hall, (Götter-Saal, or hall of the
gods,) present a magnificent view of the whole Greek mythology.
Whatever may be thought of the conception and execution of certain
parts, on minute examination the grand, yet simple arrangement of the
whole design addresses itself to the understanding, while the splendour
of colour, and variety of the grouping, seize on the imagination:
certainly, when we look round, the first feeling is not critical. But
this beautiful, progressive, and pictorial development of the old
mythology, as it must have been the result of profound learning and
study, ought to be considered methodically to understand all its merit;
for instance, in the centre of the roof we have the primeval god, Eros,
in four compartments; first, with the dolphin, representing water;
secondly, with the eagle, representing light or fire; thirdly, with the
peacock, representing air; and lastly, with Cerberus, representing
earth. Disposed around these primeval elements, we have the seasons of
the year, and the day. The spring, as Psyche, is followed by the history
of Aurora, (the morning,) in four compartments. The summer, as Ceres,
is followed by the noon, i. e. the history of Helios or Apollo, in four
compartments. The autumn, as Bacchus; and then evening, expressed in the
history of Diana. Winter, as Saturn, and the history of night, and the
divinities which preside over it. These twenty-four compartments, of
various forms and sizes, compose the ceiling, intermingled with ornaments
of rich and rare device, and appropriate arabesques, combining, with
much fancy and invention, all the classical emblems and allegories, such
as satyrs, fauns, syrens, dryads, Graces, Furies, &c. &c.
But the grand summary is reserved for the walls. On one side is
represented the kingdom of Olympus, with Jove in his state, the assemblage
of the gods, and the apotheosis of Psyche. The opposite side represents
the domain of Pluto, with the infernal gods, and the story of Orpheus.
The third side, over against the window, is the triumph of Neptune and
Amphitrite, surrounded by the sea-gods.
The figures in these three frescos are colossal, about eight feet in
height. The colouring of the flesh is a little too red and dingy, and
in some of the attitudes I thought that the energy was strained into
contortion; but through the whole there is a grand poetic feeling. All
the designs are by Peter Cornelius, executed by himself, with the aid of
professor Zimmerman, Schlotthauer, Heinrich Hess, and a number of pupils
and assistants.
There are also along the frieze some beautiful bas-reliefs; and over the
two doors are two alto-relievos by Schwanthaler, the one representing
Cupid and Psyche in each others arms, the symbol of immortal love: the
other, the re-union of Ceres and Proserpine, emblematical of eternal
life after death. This is all I can remember, except that the painting
of this hall occupied six years, and was finished in 1826.
_Oct. 11._--A small vestibule divides the two great halls. This is
painted with the history of Prometheus and Pandora; but, owing to the
unavoidable disposition of the light, much of the beauty is lost.
From this vestibule we enter the second great banqueting hall, or the
Hall of the Trojans, painted like the former in fresco, and on the
same enormous scale, but with a different distribution of the parts.
It represents chiefly the history of those demigods and heroes who
contended in the Trojan war. Thus, in the centre of the ceiling we have
first the original cause of the war, the marriage of Peleus and Thetis,
and the appearance of the goddess of Discord, with her fatal apple.
Around this are the twelve gods who were present at the feast, modelled
in relief by Schwanthaler. Then follow twelve compartments, containing
the most striking scenes of the Iliad, divided and adorned by the most
rich and fanciful arabesques, combining the exploits or histories of
the Grecian heroes, which are not included in the Iliad. The figures in
these compartments are the size of life. On the walls we have the three
principal incidents of the Trojan war; first, the wrath of Achilles;
secondly, opposite to the window, the fight for the body of Patrocles,
and Achilles shouting to the warriors. There is wonderful energy and
movement in this picture. The third is the destruction of Troy. The
figure of Hecuba sitting in motionless horror and despair, with her
dishevelled grey hair, her daughters clinging to her;--the beautiful
attitudes of Polyxena and Cassandra; the silent remorse of Helen; the
wild fury of the conquerors, and the vigour and splendour of the whole
painting, render this composition exceedingly striking:--I did not
quite like the figure of Priam. All these designs are by Cornelius, and
executed partly by him, and partly under his direction by Zimmermann,
Schlotthauer, and their pupils. The arabesques are by Eugene Neureuther:
and there are two admirable and spirited bas-reliefs by Schwanthaler--one
representing the battle of the ships, and the other the combat of Achilles
with the river gods.
The paintings in this hall were finished in 1830.
We then enter the range of galleries, devoted to the later Greek, and
the Roman sculpture. The first, corresponding in size and situation with
the Hall of Niobe, contains nothing peculiarly interesting, except the
famous figure of the young warrior anointing himself after the bath, and
called the Alexander.
The next gallery is the Roman Hall, about one hundred and thirty feet
in length, and forms a glorious _coup d'oeil_. The utmost luxury of
architectural decoration has been lavished on the ceilings; and the
effect of the marble pavement, with the disposition of the busts,
candelabræ, altars, as seen in perspective, is truly and tastefully
magnificent. I particularly admired the ceiling, which is divided into
three domes, adorned with bas-reliefs, taken from the Roman history and
manners: these were designed by Schwanthaler. I cannot remember any
thing remarkable in this gallery; or rather, there were too many things
deserving of notice, for me to note all. The standing Agrippina has,
however, dwelt on my mind; and an exceeding fine bust of Octavius Cæsar,
crowned with the oak leaves.
A small room contains the sculpture in coloured marble, porphyry, and
bronze; and the last is the hall of modern sculpture. In the centre of
the ceiling is a phoenix, rising from its ashes, and around it the heads
of four distinguished sculptors--Nicolo da Pisa, the restorer of the art
in the fourteenth century; Michael Angelo, Canova, and Thorwaldson.
Two of the most celebrated productions of modern sculpture are
here:--the Paris of Canova, and the Adonis of Thorwaldson. As they are
placed near to each other, and the aim is alike in both to exhibit the
utmost perfection of youthful and effeminate beauty, the merits of the
two artists were fairly brought into comparison. Thorwaldson's statue
reminded me of the Antinous; Canova's recalled the young Apollo. I
hardly know which to prefer as a conception; but the material and
workmanship of the Paris pleased me most. The marble of Thorwaldson's
statue, though faultless in purity of tint, has a coarse _gritty_ grain,
and glitters disagreeably in certain lights, as if it were spar or
lump-sugar; whereas the smooth close compact grain of Canova's marble,
which is something of a creamy white, seemed to me infinitely preferable
to the eye. This, however, is hyper-criticism: in both, the feeling is
classically and beautifully true. The soft melancholy of the countenance
and attitude of Adonis, as if anticipative of his early death, and the
languid self-sufficiency of Paris, appeared to me equally admirable.
There is also in this room a duplicate by Canova of his Venus, in the
Pitti palace; a girl tying her sandal, by Rodolph Schadow--a pendant,
I presume, to his charming Filatrice, now at Chatsworth; and some fine
busts. I looked round in vain for a single specimen of English art.
I thought it just possible that some work of Flaxman, or Chantrey, or
Gibson, might have found its way hither--but no!--
_Oct. 12._--Last night to the opera with a pleasant party; but, tired
and over-excited with my morning at the Glyptothek, I wanted soothing,
and was not in a humour for the noisy florid music of Wilhelm Tell.
It is an opera which, as it becomes familiar, tires, and does not
attach--just like some clever people I have met with. Pellegrini (not
the Pelligrini we had in England, but a fixture here, and their best
male singer--a fine _basso cantante_) acted Tell. I say _acted_, because
he did not merely sing his part--he acted it, and well; so well, that
once I felt my eyes moisten. Madame Spitzeder sang in Matilda von
Hapsburg tolerably. Their first tenor, Bayer, I do not like; his
intonation is defective. The decorations and dresses are beautiful. As
for the dancing, it is not fair to say any thing about it. Unfortunately
the first bars of the Tyrolienne brought Taglioni before my mind's eye,
and who or what could stand the comparison? How she leapt like a stag!
bounded like a young faun! floated like the swan-down on the air! Yet
even Taglioni, though she makes the nearest approach to it, does not
complete my idea of a poetical dancer; but as she improved upon Herbelet,
we may find another to improve upon _her_. One more such _artist_--I use
the word in the general and German sense, not in the French meaning--one
more such artist, who should bring modesty, and sense, and feeling, into
this lovely and most desecrated art, might do something to retrieve
it--might introduce the necessity for dancers having heads as well as
heels, and in time revolutionize the whole _corps de ballet_.
_Wednesday._--This morning, M. Herman Stuntz, the King's chapel-master,
called on me. I had heard of him as a fine composer, and also much of
his opera, produced for the Scala at Milan, the Costantino il Grande.
I was pleased to find him not a musician only, like most musicians, but
intelligent and enthusiastic on other subjects, and with that childlike
simplicity of mind and manner, so often combined with talent. We touched
upon every thing from the high sublime to the deep absurd--ran round the
whole circle of art in a sort of touch-and-go style, and his _naïveté_
and originality pleased me more and more. He said some true and
delightful things about music; but would insist that of all languages
the English is the most difficult to ally to musical sounds--infinitely
worse than German. He complained of the shut mouth, the _claquement
des dents_, and the predominance of aspirates in our pronunciation.
I objected to the guttural sounds, and the open mouths, and the _yaw
yaw_ of the Germans. Then followed an animated discussion on vocal sounds
and musical expression, and we parted, I believe, mutually pleased.
The father of Stuntz is a Swiss--a man of letters, an enthusiast, a
philosopher, an artist; in short, a most extraordinary and eccentric
character. He entirely educated his two children, of whom the son,
Herman Stuntz, takes a high rank as a composer; and the daughter is a
distinguished female artist, but, being nobly married, she now only
paints pictures to give them away, and those who possess them are, with
reason, extremely proud of the possession.
In the evening, Madame Meric, _prima-donna aus London_, as the
play-bills set forth, made her first appearance in the Gazza Ladra. She
is engaged here for a limited time, and takes the _gast-rolles_--that
is, she plays the first parts as a matter of course--in short, she is a
STAR. The regular prima-donna is Madame Scheckner-Wagen. Meric has talent,
voice, style, and unwearied industry; but she has not _genius_, neither
is her organ first-rate. Comparisons in some cases are unjust as well as
odious. Yet was it my fault that I remembered in the same part the syren
Sontag, and the enchantress Malibran? Meric, besides being a fine singer,
is an amiable woman;--married to an extravagant, dissipated husband, and
working to provide for her child--a common fate among the women of her
profession.
* * * * *
----Sat up late reading, for the third or fourth time, a chance volume
of Madame Roland's works. What a complete French woman! but then, what
a mind! how large in capacity! how stored with knowledge! how strong
in conscious truth! how finely toned! how soft, and yet how firm! What
wonderful industry united to the quickest talent! Some things written
at eighteen and twenty have most surprised me; some passages in the
"Vie privée," and the "Appel," have most charmed me. She is not very
eloquent, and I should think had not a playful or poetic fancy. There
is an almost total want of imagery in her style; but great power,
unaffected elegance, with a sort of negligence at times, which adds to
its beauty. Then, to remember that all I have just read was written in
a prison, in daily, hourly expectation of death! but _that_ excites more
interest than surprise, for a situation of strong excitement of mind
and passion, with external repose and solitude, must be favourable to
this development of the faculties, where there is character as well as
talent. Some of her disclosures are a little too _naïve_. I am amused
by the quantity of feminine vanity which is mixed up with all this
loftiness of spirit, this real independence of soul. Madame de Staël had
not _more_ vanity, whatever they may say; but it was less balanced by
self-esteem--it required more sympathy. Then we have those two admirable
women * * and * *. What exquisite feminine vanity is there! Yet, happily,
in both instances how far removed from all ill-nature and presumption,
and how unconsciously betrayed! I should think Joanna Baillie, among our
great women, must be most exempt from this failing, perhaps, because, of
all the five, she has the most profound sense of religion. Lavater said,
that "the characteristic of _every_ woman's physiognomy was vanity."
A phrenologist would say that it was the characteristic of every woman's
head. How far, then, may a woman be vain with a good grace and betray
it without ridicule? By vanity, I mean _now_, a great wish to please,
mingled with a consciousness of the powers of pleasing, and not what
Madame Roland describes,--"cette ambition constante, ce soin perpetuel
d'occuper de soi, et de paraitre autre ou meilleur que l'on n'est en
effet," for this is diseased vanity.
* * * * *
Dr. Martius[32] lent me two pretty little volumes of "Poems, by Louis
I. king of Bavaria," the present king--the first royal author we have
had, I believe, since Frederic of Prussia--the best since James I. of
Scotland. These poems are chiefly lyrical, consisting of odes, sonnets,
epigrams. Some are addressed to the queen, others to his children, others
to different ladies of the court, whom he is said to have particularly
admired, and a great number were composed during his tour in Italy in
1817. Of the merit of these poems I cannot judge; and when I appealed to
two different critics, both accomplished men, one assured me they were
admirable; the other shrugged up his shoulders--"Que voulez vous? c'est
un Roi!" The earnest feeling and taste in some of these little poems
pleased me exceedingly--of that alone I could judge: for instance, there
is an address to the German artists, which contains the following
beautiful lines: he is speaking of art--
"In der Stille muss es sich gestalten,
Wenn es kräftig wirkend soll ersteh'n;
Aus dem Herzen nur kann sich entfalten,
Das was wahrhaft wird zum Herzen geh'n.
Ja! ihr nehmet es aus reinen Tiefen,
Fromm und einfach, wie die Vorweit war,
Weckend die Gefühle, welche schliefen,
Ehrend zeugt's von Euch und immerdar.
Sklavisch an das Alte euch zu halten,
Eures Strebens Zweck ist dieses nicht
Seyd gefasst von himmlischen Gewalten,
Dringet rastlos zu dem hehren Licht!"
Which may be thus literally rendered--
"To rise into vigorous, active influence, it (art) must spring
up and develop itself in secrecy and in silence; out of the
heart alone can that unfold itself which shall truly go to the
heart again.
"Yes! pious and simple as the old world was, ye draw it (art)
from the same pure depths, awakening the feelings which slumber!
and it shall bear honourable witness of ye--and for ever!
"Slavishly to cling to antiquity, this is not the end of your
labours! Be ye, therefore, upheld by heavenly power; press on,
and rest not, to the high and holy light!"
Methinks this magnificent prince deserves, even more than his ancestor,
Maximilian I., to be styled the Lorenzo de' Medici of Bavaria. The power
to patronize, the sentiment to feel, the genius to celebrate art, are
rarely united, even in individuals. He must be a noble being--a genius
_born in the purple_, on whose laurels there rests not a bloodstain,
perhaps not even a tear!
This is a holiday. I was sitting at my window, translating some of these
poems, when I saw a crowd round the doors of the new palace; for it is
a day of public admission. Curiosity tempted me to join this crowd;--no
sooner thought than done. I had M. de Klenze's general order for
admittance in my pocket-book, but wished to see how this was managed,
and mingled with the crowd, which was waiting to be admitted _en masse_.
I was at once recognized as a stranger, and every one with simple
civility made way for me. Groups of about twenty or thirty people were
admitted at a time, at intervals of a quarter of an hour, and each group
placed under the guidance of one of the workmen as cicerone. He led
them through the unfinished apartments, explaining to his open-mouthed
auditors the destination of each room, the subjects of the pictures on
the walls and ceilings, &c. &c. There were peasants from the south,
in their singular dresses, mechanics and girls of Munich, soldiers,
travelling students. I was much amused. While the cicerone held
forth, some merely wondered with foolish faces, some admired, some
looked intelligent, and asked various questions, which were readily
answered--all seemed pleased. Every thing was done in order: two
groups were never in the same apartment; but as one went out, another
entered. Thus many hundreds of these poor people were gratified in the
course of the day. It seemed to me a wise as well as benevolent policy
in the king thus to appeal to the sympathy, and gratify the pride, of
his subjects of all classes, by allowing them--inviting them, to take an
interest in his magnificent undertakings, to consider them _national_
as well as royal. I am informed that these works are carried on without
any demands on the Staatskasse, (the public treasury,) and without
any additional taxes: so far from it, that the Bavarian House of
Representatives curtailed the supplies by 300,000 florins only last
year, and refused the king an addition to the civil list, which he had
requested for the travelling expenses of two of his sons. The king is
said to be economical in the _extreme_ in his domestic expenses, and not
very generous in money to those around him--unlike his open-hearted,
open-handed father, Max-Joseph; in short, there are grumblers here as
elsewhere, but strangers and posterity will not sympathize with them.
This is the fourth time I have seen this splendid and truly royal
palace, but will make no memoranda till I have gone over the whole with
Leo von Klenze. He has promised to be my cicerone himself, and I feel
the full value of the compliment. Count V---- told me last night, that
he (De Klenze) has made for this building alone upwards of seven hundred
drawings and designs with his own hand.
_Oct. 13._--Called on my English friends, the C * * s, and found them
pleasantly settled in a beautiful furnished lodging near the Hofgarten,
for which they pay twenty-four florins (or about two pounds) a month.
We had some conversation about music, (they are all musicians,) and the
opera, and Malibran, whom they have lately seen in Italy; and Pasta,
whom they had visited at Como; and they confirmed what Mr. J. M. Stuntz
and M. K. had all told me of her benevolence and excellent character.
I could not find that any new genius had arisen in Italy to share the
glory of our three queens of the lyrical drama,--Pasta, Malibran, and
Schröder Devrient. Other singers have more or less talent and feeling,
more or less compass of voice, facility, or agility; but these three
women possess _genius_, and stamp on every thing they do their own
individual character. Of the three, Pasta is the grandest and most
finished artist; Malibran the most versatile in power and passion; while
Schröder Devrient has that energy of heart and soul--that capacity for
exciting, and being excited, which gives her such unbounded command
over the feelings and senses of her audience.[33] So far we were agreed;
but as the conversation went on, I was doomed to listen to a torrent
of commonplace and sarcastic criticism on the private habits of these
and other women of the same profession: one was accused of vulgarity,
another of bad temper, and another of violence and caprice: one was
suspected of a _penchant_ for porter, another had been heard to swear,
or--something very like it. Even pretty lady-like Sontag was reproached
with some trifling breach of mere conventional manner,--she had used her
fingers where she should have taken a spoon, or some such nonsense.
My God! to think of the situation of these women! and then to look
upon _those_ women, who, fenced in from infancy by all the restraints,
the refinements, the comforts, the precepts of good society,--the one
arranging a new cap, the other embroidering a purse, the third reading
a novel, all satisfied with petty occupations and amusements, "far, far
removed from want and grief and fear,"--now sitting in judgment, and
passing sentence of excommunication on others of their sex, who have
been steeped in excitement from childhood, their nerves for ever in a
state of tension between severest application and maddening flattery;
cast on the world without chart or compass--with energies misdirected,
passions uncontrolled, and all the inflammable and imaginative part of
their being cultivated into excess as a part of their profession--of
their material! O when will there be charity in the world? When will
human beings, women especially, show mercy and justice to each other,
and not judge of results, without a reference to causes? and when will
reflection upon these causes lead to their removal? They are evils which
press upon few, but are reflected on many, inasmuch as they degrade art
and the pursuit of art;--but all can sneer, and few can think.
* * * * *
I begin at length to feel my way among the pictures here. Hitherto
I have been bewildered. I have lounged away morning after morning
at the gallery of the Hofgarten, at Schleissheim, and at the Duc
de Leuchtenberg's; and returned home with dazzled eyes and a mind
overflowing, like one "oppressed with wealth, and with abundance
sad," unable to recall or to methodize my own impressions.
Professor Zimmermann tells me that the king of Bavaria possesses
upwards of three thousand pictures: of these about seventeen hundred
are at Schleissheim; nine hundred in the Munich gallery; and the rest
distributed through various palaces. The national gallery, or Pinakothek,
which is now building under the direction of Leo von Klenze, is destined
to contain a selection from these multifarious treasures, of which the
present arrangement is only temporary.
The king of Bavaria unites in his own person the three branches of
the House of Wittelsbach: the palatines of the Rhine, the dukes of
Deuxponts, and the electors of Bavaria, all sovereign houses, and
descended from Otto von Wittelsbach, who received the investiture of the
dukedom of Bavaria in 1180. Thus it is that the celebrated gallery once
at Dusseldorf, formed under the auspices of the elector John William;
the various collections at Manheim, Deuxponts, and Heidelberg, are now
concentrated at Munich, where, from the days of Duke Albert V. (1550)
up to the present time, works of art have been gradually accumulated
by successive princes.
Somebody calls the gallery at Munich, the court of Rubens; and Sir
Joshua Reynolds says that no one should judge of Rubens who had not
studied him at Antwerp and Dusseldorf. I begin to feel the truth of
this. My devoted worship of the Italian school of art rendered me
long--I will not say _blind_ to the merits of the Flemish painters--for
that were to be "sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing!" but, in
truth, without that full feeling of their power which I have since
acquired.
Certainly we have in these days mean ideas about painting--mean and
false ideas! It has become a mere object of luxury and connoisseurship,
or _virtù_: unless it be addressed to our personal vanity, or to the
puerile taste for ornament, show, furniture,--it is nothing. The noble
art which was once recognized as the priestess of nature, as a great
moral power capable of acting on the senses and the imagination of
assembled human beings--as such applied by the lawgivers of Greece, and
by the clergy of the Roman Catholic church,--how is it now vulgarized
in its objects! how narrowed in its application! And if it be said,
that in the present state of society, in these calculating, money-making,
political, intellectual times, we are acted upon by far different
influences, rendering us infinitely less sensible to the power of
painting, then I think it is _not true_, and that the cultivated
susceptibility to other moral or poetical excitements--as politics or
literature--does not render us less sensible to the moral influence
of painting; on the contrary: but she has fallen from her high estate,
and there are none to raise her. The public--the national spirit, is
wanting; individual patronage is confined, is misdirected, is arbitrary,
demanding of the artist any thing rather than the highest and purest
intellectual application of his art, and affording nor space nor
opportunity for him to address himself to the grand universal passions,
principles, and interests of human nature! Suppose a Michael Angelo
to be born to us in England: we should not, perhaps, set him to make
a statue of snow, but where or how would his gigantic genius, which
revelled in the great deeps of passion and imagination, find scope for
action? He would struggle and gasp like a stranded Leviathan!
But this is digressing: the question is, may not the moral effect of
painting be still counted on, if the painter be himself imbued with the
right spirit?[34]
There is, in the academy at Antwerp, a picture by Rubens, which represents
St. Theresa kneeling before Christ, and interceding for the souls in
purgatory. The treatment of the subject is exceedingly simple; the
upper part of the picture is occupied by the Redeemer, with his usual
attributes, and the saint, habited as a nun. In the lower part of the
picture, instead of a confused mob of tormented souls, and flames, and
devils with pitchforks, the painter has represented a few heads as if
rising from below. I remember those of Adam, Eve, and Mary Magdalene. I
remember--and never shall forget--the expression of each! The extremity
of misery in the countenance of Adam; the averted, disconsolate, repentant
wretchedness of Eve, who hides her face in her hair; the mixture of agony,
supplication, hope, in the face of the Magdalene, while a cherub of pity
extends his hand to her, as if to aid her to rise, and at the same
time turns an imploring look towards the Saviour. As I gazed upon this
picture, a feeling sank deep into my heart, which did not pass away with
the tears it made to flow, but has ever since remained there, and has
become an abiding principle of action. This is only one instance out of
many, of the _moral_ effect which has been produced by painting.
To me it is amusing, and it cannot but be interesting and instructive to
the philosopher and artist, to observe how various people, uninitiated
into any of the technicalities of art, unable to appreciate the amount
of difficulties overcome, are affected by pictures and sculpture. But
in forming our judgment, our taste in art, it is unsafe to listen to
opinions springing from this vague kind of enthusiasm; for in painting,
as in music--"just as the soul is pitched, the _eye_ is pleased."
I amuse myself in the gallery here with watching the countenances of
those who look at the pictures. I see that the uneducated eye is caught
by subjects in which the individual mind sympathizes, and the educated
taste seeks abstract excellence. Which has the most enjoyment? The last,
I think. Sensibility, imagination, and quick perception of form and
colour, are not alone necessary to feel a work of art; there must be the
power of association; the mind trained to habitual sympathy with the
beautiful and the good; the knowledge of the meaning, and the
comprehension of the object of the artist.
In the gallery here there are eighty-eight pictures of Rubens--some
among the very finest he ever painted; for instance, that splendid
picture, Castor and Pollux carrying off the daughters of Leucippus, so
full of rich life and movement; the destruction of Sennacherib's host;
Rubens and his wife, full lengths, seated in a garden; that wonderful
picture of the defeat of the Amazons; the meeting of Jacob and Laban;
the picture of the Earl of Arundel and his wife, with other figures,
full lengths;[35] and a series of the designs for the large paintings
of the history of Marie de' Medici, now in the Louvre. His group of boys
with fruits and flowers, exhibits the richest, loveliest combination
of colours ever presented to the eye; and on that wonderful picture of
the fallen (or rather _falling_) angels, he has lavished such endless
variety of form, attitude, and expression, that it would take a day to
study it. It is not a large picture: the eye, or rather the imagination,
easily takes in the general effect of tumult, horror, destruction, but
the understanding dwells on the detail with still increasing astonishment
and admiration. These are a few that struck me, but it is quite in vain
to attempt to particularize.
One may begin by disliking Rubens in general, (I think I did,) but one
must end by standing before him in ecstacy and wonder. It is true, that
always luxuriant, he is often gross and sensual--he can sometimes be
brutally so. His bacchanalian scenes are not like those of Poussin,
classical, godlike debauchery, but the abandoned drunken revelry of
animals--the very sublime of brute licentiousness; and painted with a
breadth of style, a magnificent luxuriance of colour, which renders them
more revolting. The _physique_ predominates in all his pictures, and not
only to grossness, even to ferocity. His picture here of the slaughter
of the Innocents, makes me sick--it has absolutely polluted my
imagination. Surely this is not the vocation of high art.--And as for
his martyrdoms--they are worse than Spagnoletto's.
For all this, he is the TITAN of painting: his creations are "of the earth
and earthy," but he has called down fire and light from heaven, wherewith
to animate and to illumine them.
Rubens is just such a painter as Dryden is a poet, and _vice versâ_:
his women are just like Dryden's women, gross, exaggerated, unrefined
animals: his men, like Dryden's men, grand, thinking, acting animals.
Like Dryden, he could clothe his genius in thunder, dip his pencil in
the lightning and the sunbeams of heaven, and rush fearlessly upon a
subject which others had trembled to approach. In both we see a singular
and extraordinary combination of the plainest, coarsest realities of
life, with the loftiest imagery, the most luxurious tints of poetry.
Both had the same passion for allegory, and managed it with equal
success. "The thoughts that breathe and words that burn" of Dryden, may
be compared to the living, moving forms, the glowing, melting, dazzling
hues of Rubens, under whose pencil
"Desires and adorations,
Winged persuasions and wild destinies,
Splendours, and glooms, and glimmering incarnations
Of hopes, and fears, and twilight fantasies,--"
took form and being--became palpable existences: and yet with all this
inventive power, this love of allegorical fiction, it is _life_, the
spirit of animal life, diffused through and over their works; it is the
blending of the plain reasoning with splendid creative powers;--of
wonderful fertility of conception with more wonderful facility of
execution; it is the combination of truth, and grandeur, and masculine
vigour, with a general coarseness of taste, which may be said to
characterise both these great men. Neither are, or can be, favourites
of the women, for the same reasons.
There must have been something analogous in the genius of Rubens and
Titian. The distinction was of climate and country. They appear to
have looked at nature under the same aspect, but it was a different
nature,--the difference between Flanders and Venice. They were both
painters of flesh and blood: by nature, poets; by conformation,
colourists; by temperament and education, magnificent spirits, scholars,
and gentlemen, lovers of pleasure and of fame. The superior sentiment
and grace, the refinement and elevation of Titian he owed to the poetical
and chivalrous spirit of his age and country. The delicacy of taste
which reigned in the Italian literature of that period influenced the
arts of design. As to the colouring--we see in the pictures of Rubens
the broad daylight effects of a northern climate, and in those of
Titian, the burning fervid sun of a southern clime, necessarily modified
by shade, before the objects could be seen: hence the difference between
the _glow_ of Rubens, and the _glow_ of Titian: the first "i' the colours
of the rainbow lived," and the other bathed himself in the evening sky;
the one dazzles, the other warms. I can bring before my fancy at this
moment, the Helen Forman of Rubens, and Titian's "La Manto;" the "man
with a hawk" of Rubens, and Titian's "Falconer;" can any thing in heaven
or earth be more opposed? Yet in all alike, is it not the intense feeling
of life and individual nature which charms, which fixes us? I know not
which I admire most; but I adore Titian--his men are all made for power,
and his women for love.
And Rembrandt--king of shadows!
----Earth-born
And sky-engendered--son of mysteries!
was not he a poet? He reminds me often of the Prince Sorcerer, nurtured
"in the cave of Domdaniel, under the roots of the sea."[36] Such an
enchanted "den of darkness" was his mill and its skylight to him;
and there, magician-like, he brooded over half-seen forms, and his
imagination framed strange spells out of elemental light and shade.
Thence he brought his unearthly shadows; his dreamy splendours; his
supernatural gleams; his gems flashing and sparkling with internal
light; his lustrous glooms; his wreaths of flaming and embossed gold;
his wicked wizard-like heads--turbaned, wrinkled, seared, dusky; pale
with forbidden studies--solemn with thoughtful pain--keen with the
hunger of avarice--and furrowed with an eternity of years! I have seen
pictures of his in which the shadowy background is absolutely peopled
with life. At first all seems palpable darkness, apparent vacancy; but
figure after figure emerges--another and another; they glide into view,
they take shape and colour, as if they grew out of the canvass even
while we gaze; we rub our eyes, and wonder whether it be the painter's
work or our own fancy!
Of all the great painters Rembrandt is perhaps least understood; the
admiration bestowed on him, the enormous prices given for his pictures,
is in general a fashion--a mere matter of convention--like the price of
a diamond. To feel Rembrandt truly, it is not enough to be an artist or
an amateur picture-fancier--one should be something of a poet too.
There are nineteen of his pictures here; of these "Jesus teaching the
doctors in the temple," though a small picture, impressed me with
awe,--the portraits of the painter Flinck and his wife, with wonder.
All are ill-hung, with their backs against the light--for them the worst
possible situation.
Van Dyck is here in all his glory: there are thirty-nine of his pictures.
The celebrated full-length, "the burgomaster's wife in black," so often
engraved, does not equal, in its inexpressible, unobtrusive elegance,
the "Lady Wharton," at Devonshire House.[37] Then we have Wallenstein
with his ample kingly brow; fierce Tilly; the head of Snyders; the lovely
head of the painter's wife, Maria Ruthven,--sweet-looking, delicate,
golden-haired, and holding the theorbo, (she excelled in music, I
believe,) and virgins, holy families, and other scriptural subjects.
His famous picture of Susanna does not strike me much.
The four apostles of Albert Durer--wonderful! In expression, in calm
religious majesty, in suavity of pencilling, and the grand, pure style
of the heads and drapery, quite like Raffaelle. I compared, yesterday,
the three portraits--that of Raffaelle, by himself; (the famous head
once in the Altaviti palace, and engraved by Morghen;) Albert Durer, by
himself; and Giorgione, by himself. Raffaelle is the least handsome, and
rather disappointed me; the eyes, in particular, rather project, and
have an expression which is not pleasing; the mouth and the brow are
full of power and passion. Albert Durer is beautiful, like the old
heads of our Saviour; and the predominant expression is calm, dignified,
intellectual, with a tinge of melancholy. This picture was painted
at the age of twenty-eight: he was then suffering from that bitter
domestic curse, a shrewish, avaricious wife, who finally broke his heart.
Giorgione is not handsome, but it is a sublime head, with such a large
intellectual development, such a profound expression of sentiment!
Giorgione died of a faithless mistress, as Albert Durer died of a
scolding wife.[38]
By Paris Bordone, of Trevigi, there is a head of a Venetian lady, in
a dress of crimson velvet, with dark splendid eyes which tell a whole
history. By Murillo, there are eight pictures--not one in his most
elevated style, but all perfect miracles of painting and of nature.
There are thirty-three pictures of Vander Werff, a number sufficient to
make one's blood run cold. One, a Magdalene, is of the size of life; the
only large picture by this elegant, elaborate, soulless painter I ever
saw: he is to me detestable.
By Joseph Vernet there are two delicious landscapes, a morning and an
evening. I cannot farther particularize; but there are specimens of
almost every known painter; those, however, of Titian, Correggio, Julio
Romano, and Nicolo Poussin, are very few and not of a very high class,
while those of the early German painters, and the Dutch, and the Flemish
schools, are first-rate.
There is one English picture--Wilkie's "Opening of the Will:" it is very
much admired here, and looked upon as a sort of curiosity. I wish the
artists of the two countries were better known to each other: both would
benefit by such an intercourse.
At the palace of Schleissheim[39] there are nearly two thousand pictures:
of these some hundreds are positively _bad_; some hundreds are curious
and valuable, as illustrating the history and progress of art; some few
are really and intrinsically admirable.
But the grand attraction here is the far-famed Boisserée Gallery, which
is arranged at Schleissheim, until the Pinakothek is ready for its
reception. This is the collection about which so many volumes have been
written, and which has excited such a general enthusiasm throughout
Germany. This enthusiasm, as a fashion, a mania, is beginning to subside,
but the impress it has left upon art, and the tone it has given to the
pursuit, the feeling of art, will not so soon pass away. The gallery
derives its name from two brothers, Sulpitz and Melchior Boisserée,[40]
who, with a friend (Bertram) were employed for many years in collecting
from various convents, and old churches, and obscure collections of
family relics, the productions of the early painters of Germany, from
William of Cologne, called by the Germans "Meister Wilhelm," down to
Albert Durer and Holbein.
The productions of the Greek or Byzantine painters found their way
into Germany, as into Italy, in the thirteenth century, and Wilhelm of
Cologne appeared to have been the Cimabue of the north--the founder of
that school of painting called the _Byzantine-Niederrheinische_, or
Flemish school, and the precursor of Rubens, as Cimabue was the
precursor of Michael Angelo.
Out of this stiff, and rude, and barbarous style of art, arose and
spread the Alt-Deutsche, or Gothic school of painting, which produced
successively, Van Eyck, (1370,) Hemling, Wohlgemuth,[41] Martin Schoen,
Mabuse, Johan Schoreel, Lucas Kranach, Kulmbach, Albert Altorffer, Hans
Asper, Johan von Mechlem, Behem, Albert Durer, and the two Holbeins. I
mention here only those artists whose pictures fixed my attention; there
are many others, and many pictures by unknown authors. Albert Durer was
born exactly one hundred years after Van Eyck.
The Boisserée gallery contains about three hundred and fifty pictures;
but I did not count them; and no official catalogue has yet been
published. The subjects are generally sacred; the figures are heads of
saints, and scenes from Scripture. A few are portraits; and there are
a few, but very few, subjects from profane history. The painters whose
works I at once distinguished from all others, were Van Eyck, Johan
Schoreel, Hemling, and Lucas Kranach. I can truly say that the two
pictures of Van Eyck, representing St. Luke painting the portrait of
the Virgin, and the offering of the three kings; and that of Johan
Schoreel, representing the death of the Virgin Mary, perfectly amazed
me. I remember also several wondrous heads by Lucas Kranach; one by
Behem, called, I know not why, "Helena:" and a picture of Christ and the
little children, differing from all the rest in style, with something of
the Italian grace of drawing, and suavity of colour. The artist, Sedlar,
had studied in Lombardy, probably under Correggio; (one of the children
certainly might call Correggio father.) The date on this extraordinary
production is 1530. Of the painter I know nothing. The general and
striking faults, or rather deficiencies of the old German school of
art, are easily enumerated. The most flagrant violations of taste and
costume,[42] bad drawing of the figure and extremities, faulty perspective;
stiff, hard meagre composition, negligence or ignorance of all effect of
chiaro-scuro. But what, then, is the secret of the interest which these
old painters inspire, of the enthusiasm they excite, even in these
cultivated days? It arises from a perception of the _mind_ they brought
to bear upon their subjects, the simplicity and integrity of feeling
with which they worked, and the elaborate marvellous beauty of the
execution of parts. I could give no idea in words of the intense nature
and expression in some of the heads, of the grand feeling united to the
most finished delicacy in the conception and painting of _countenance_,
of the dazzling splendour of colouring in the draperies, and the richness
of fancy in the ornaments and accessories.
But I _do_ fear that the just admiration excited by this kind of
excellence, and a great deal of national enthusiasm, has misled the
modern German artists to a false, at least an exaggerated estimate, and
an injudicious imitation, of their favourite models. It has produced or
encouraged that general hardness of manner, that tendency to violent
colour, and high glazy finish, which interfere too often with the
beauty, and feeling, and effect of their compositions, at least in the
eyes of those who are accustomed to the free broad style of English
art.[43]
_Thursday Evening._--At the theatre. Schiller's "Braut von Messina."
This was the first time I had ever seen the tragic choruses brought on
the stage, in the genuine style of the Greek drama; and the deep sonorous
voice and measured recitation (I could almost say _recitative_) of
Eslair, who was at the head of the chorus of Don Manuel--the emphatic
lines being repeated or echoed by his followers--as well as the peculiar
style of the whole representation, impressed me with a kind of solemn
terror. It was wholly different from any thing I had ever witnessed,
and was rather like a poem declaimed on the stage, than what we are
accustomed to call a play. I was fortunate in seeing Madame Schröder
in Donna Isabella, for she does not often perform, and it is one of
the finest parts of this grand actress. Don Manuel and Don Cæsar were
played by Forst and Schunke--both were young, very well looking, and
good actors. Beatrice was played by Madll. Shöller. The costumes were
beautiful, and all the arrangements of the stage contrived with the most
poetical effect. One scene in the first act, where Donna Isabella stands
between her two sons, a hand on the shoulder of each, beseeching them to
be reconciled; while they remain silent, turning from each other with
folded arms, and dark averted faces;--the chorusses drawn up on each
side, all dressed alike, all precisely in the same attitude, leaning on
their shields, with lowering looks fixed on the group in the centre, was
admirably managed; and, from the effect that it produced, made me feel
that uniformity may be one element of the sublime. Afterwards, a very
lively soirée.
* * * * *
_Friday._--The Hofgarten at Munich is a square, planted with trees, and
gravelled, and serving as a public promenade. On one side is the royal
palace; opposite to it, the picture gallery; on the east, the king's
riding house, and on the west, a long arcade, open towards the garden
which connects the palace and the picture gallery; under this arcade are
shops, cafés, restaurateurs, &c. as in the _Palais Royal_ at Paris.
But what distinguishes this arcade from all others, is the peculiar style
of decoration. It is painted in fresco by the young artists who studied
under Cornelius. There is, first, a series of sixteen compartments, about
eleven feet in length, containing subjects from the history of Bavaria.
They are all by various artists, and of course of different degrees of
merit, generally better in the composition than the painting, but some
have great vigour and animation in both respects.
For instance, Otho von Wittelsbach receiving from the emperor, Frederic
Barbarossa, the investiture of the dukedom of Bavaria in 1180, painted
by Zimmermann.
The marriage of Otho the Illustrious, to Agnes, Countess Palatine of the
Rhine, in 1225, painted by my friend, Wilhelm Röckel, of Schleissheim,
to whom I am indebted for many polite attentions.
The engagement between Louis the Severe, of Bavaria, and the fierce
fiery Ottocar, king of Bohemia, upon the bridge at Mühldorf, in 1258,
painted by Stürmer of Berlin. This is very animated and terrific. I
think the artist had Rubens' defeat of the Amazons full in his mind.
The victory of the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, over Frederic of Austria,
his competitor for the empire in 1322, painted by Hermann of Dresden.
The storming of Godesberg, when the unfortunate Archbishop Gerard, and
Agnes of Mansfield had taken refuge there in 1583,[44] painted by Gassen
of Coblentz.
Maximilian I. in 1623, invested with the forfeit electorate of the
Palatine Frederic V.[45] painted by Eberle of Dusseldorf.
Maximilian Joseph I. father of the present king, bestowing on his people
a new constitution and representative government in 1818, painted by
Monten of Dusseldorf.
These have dwelt on my memory. Over all the pictures, the name of the
subject and the date are inscribed in large gold letters, so that those
who walk may read. The costumes and manners of each epoch have been
attended to with the most scrupulous accuracy; and I see every day
groups of soldiers, and of the common people, with their children,
standing before these paintings, spelling the titles, and discussing
the various subjects represented. The further end of the arcade is
painted with a series of Italian scenes, selected by the king after
his return from Italy, and executed by Rottmann of Heidelberg, a young
landscape-painter of great merit, as De Klenze assures me, and he is
a judge of _genius_. Under each picture is a distich, composed by the
king himself. These are in distemper, I believe: freely, but rather
hastily executed, and cold and ineffective in colour, perhaps the fault
of the vehicle. The ceilings and pillars are also gaily painted with
arabesques, and other ornaments; and at the upper end there is a grand
seated figure, looking magnificent and contemplative, and calling
herself BAVARIA. This is well painted by Kaulbach.
I walk through these arcades once or twice every day, as I have several
friends lodged over them; and can seldom arrive at the end without
pausing two or three times.
I learn that the king's passion for building, and the forced
encouragement given to the enlargement and decoration of his capital,
has been carried to an excess, and, like all extremes, has proved
mischievous, at least for the time. He has rendered it too much a
fashion among his subjects, who are suffering from rash speculations
of this kind. Many beautiful edifices in the Ludwig's Strasse, and the
neighbourhood of the Maximilian's Platz, and the Karoline's Platz,
remain untenanted. A suite of beautiful unfurnished apartments, and even
a pretty house in the finest part of Munich may be had for a trifle.
Some of these new houses are enormous. Madame M. told me that she has
her whole establishment on one floor, but then she has twenty-three
rooms.
Though the country round Munich is flat and ugly, a few hours' journey
brings us into the very midst of the Tyrolian Alps. In June or July all
the people fly to the mountains, and baths, and lakes in South Bavaria,
and rusticate among the most glorious scenery in the world. "Come to
us," said my friend, Luise K----; "come to us in the summer months,
_and we will play at Arcadia_."
And truly, when I listened to her description of her mountain life, and
all its tranquil, primitive pleasures, and all the beauty and grandeur
which lie beyond that giant-barrier which lifts itself against the
evening sky, and when I looked into those clear affectionate eyes--"dieser
Blick voll Treu und Gute," and beheld the expression of a settled
happiness, the light of a heart at peace with itself and all the world,
reflected on the countenances of her children--a recollection of the
unquiet destiny which drives me in an opposite direction came over me--
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, which mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
[Illustration]
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON:
IBOTSON & PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
ADDENDA
_To Page 179, Vol._ i.
Therese Huber, who died in 1829, was a woman every way remarkable, in
her domestic history, in her position, her writings, and her character.
She was employed by Cotta to edit his famous "Morgenblatt," in her time
the most esteemed and the most influential of the literary periodicals
of Germany, and which she conducted for many years with extraordinary
energy and success; she wrote also several romances, published under her
husband's name, and long attributed to him even by her most intimate
friends. Therese Huber is distinguished by a profound knowledge of her
own sex, and by her just and admirable views of our destination and
situation in society. Some of her private letters have been published,
since her death, with those of Caroline Woltmann, in the "Deutsche
Briefe," and they place in yet stronger light the fine original powers
of this gifted woman.
VOL. I.
Page 2, line 16, _for_ great, _read_ green.
43 -- 14, _for_ altamen, _read_ attamen.
46 -- 5, omit _patrician_.
47 -- 2, _for_ 'vengeful, _read_ revengeful.
95 -- 2, _for_ Haitsinger, _read_ Haitzinger.
95 -- 12, _for_ tiefe, _read_ tief.
95 -- 21, _for_ Becher, _read_ Becker.
147 -- 2, in the note, _for_ Hienrich, _read_ Heinrich.
147 -- 3, in the note, _for_ Wladimer, _read_ Wladimir.
181 -- 1, _for_ first, _read_ second.
184 -- 17, _for_ Erden, _read_ Erben.
193 -- 5, _for_ wsäche, _read_ wäsche.
197 -- 14, _after_ since, _insert_ "High-born Hoel."
211 -- 9, _for_ Elangau, _read_ Erlangen.
230 -- 10, _for_ liebe, _read_ lieber.
230 -- 11, _for_ schrecklich Schichsal, _read_ schreckliches
Schicksal.
230 -- 13, _for_ grab, _read_ Grab.
252 -- 19, _for_ twelve, _read_ eight.
270 -- 16, _for_ Neurather, _read_ Neureuther.
291 -- 1, in the note, _for_ par, _read_ pas; and _for_ pas
_read_ par.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In Goethe's Iphigenia.]
[Footnote 2: Over another iron door was writt,
_Be not too bold._
FAIRY QUEEN, Book iii. Canto XI.]
[Footnote 3: See Wordsworth's Poems.]
[Footnote 4: Two celebrated antique gems which adorn the relics of the
Three Kings.]
[Footnote 5: It is nearly twice the size of the famous and well known
Medusa Rondinelli, now in the Glyptothek at Munich.]
[Footnote 6: Professor Wallraff died on the 18th of March, 1824.]
[Footnote 7: Amongst others, Jean Paul, in the "Heidelberger Jahrbücher
der Literatur," 1815.]
[Footnote 8: Since the above passage was written, Mrs. Austin has
favoured me with the following note: "Goëthe admired, but did not like,
still less esteem, Madame de Staël. He begins a sentence about her
thus--'As she had no idea what duty meant,' &c.
"However, after relating a scene which took place at Weimar, he adds,
'Whatever we may say or think of her, her visit was certainly followed
by very important results. Her work upon Germany, which owed its rise
to social conversations, is to be regarded as a mighty engine which at
once made a wide breach in that Chinese wall of antiquated prejudices,
which divided us from France; so that the people across the Rhine,
and afterwards those across the channel, at length came to a nearer
knowledge of us; whence we may look to obtain a living influence over
the distant west. Let us, therefore, bless that conflict of national
peculiarities which annoyed us at the time, and seemed by no means
profitable.'"--_Tag- und Jahres Hefte_, vol. 31, last edit.
To that WOMAN who had sufficient strength of mind to break through a
"Chinese wall of antiquated prejudices," surely something may be
forgiven.]
[Footnote 9: Johanna Schopenhauer, well known in Germany for her
romances and her works on art. Her little book, "Johan van Eyk und seine
Nachfolger," has become the manual of those who study the old German
schools of painting.]
[Footnote 10: Or Gebhard, for so the name is spelt in the German
histories.]
[Footnote 11: For the story of Archbishop Gebhard and Agnes de Mansfeld,
see Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War, and Coxe's History of
the House of Austria.]
[Footnote 12: The gardens and plantations round the castle are a
favourite promenade of the citizens of Heidelberg, and there are in
summer bands of music, &c.]
[Footnote 13: When Gustavus Adolphus took Mayence, during the same
war, he presented the whole of the valuable library to his chancellor,
Oxenstiern; the chancellor sent it to Sweden, intending to bestow it on
one of the colleges; but the vessel in which it was embarked foundered
in the Baltic sea, and the whole went to the bottom.]
[Footnote 14: M. Passavant is a landscape-painter of Frankfort, an
intelligent, accomplished man, and one of the few German artists who
had a tolerably correct idea of the state of art in England. He is the
author of "Kunstreise durch England und Belgium."]
[Footnote 15: She was cotemporary with Cleopatra, (B. C. 33,) and was
particularly celebrated for her busts in ivory. The Romans raised a
statue to her honour, which was in the Guistiniani collection.--V. PLINY.]
[Footnote 16: Lucas Kranach (1472) was one of the most celebrated of the
old German painters; from a principle of gratitude and attachment, he
shared the imprisonment of the elector John Frederic, during five years.]
[Footnote 17: In September, 1833.]
[Footnote 18: His own expression.]
[Footnote 19: Dannecker has been ennobled; his proper titles run
thus--Johan Heinrich von Dannecker, Hofrath, (court counsellor,) knight
of the orders of the Wurtemburg crown, and of Wladimir, and professor
of sculpture at Stuttgardt.]
[Footnote 20: Rauch is knight of the Red Eagle, and member of the
senate.]
[Footnote 21: Christian Rauch was born in 1777, and Christian Frederic
Tieck in 1776.]
[Footnote 22: Formerly Madame Jageman, the principal actress of the
theatre at Weimar. Her talents were developed under the auspices of
Goethe and Schiller. She was the original Thekla of the Wallenstein, and
the original Princess Leonora of the Tasso. In these two characters she
has never yet been equalled. The quietness, amounting to passiveness, in
the _external_ delineation of the Princess in Tasso, affords so little
_material_ for the stage, that Madame Wolff, then the first actress,
preferred the character of Leonora Sanvitale, and Madame Jageman was
supposed to derogate in accepting that of the Princess. Such is the
consummate, but evanescent delicacy of the conception, that Goethe never
expected to see it developed on the stage; and at the rehearsal he threw
himself back in his chair, and shut his eyes, that the image which lived
in his imagination might not be profaned by any tasteless exaggeration
of action or expression. He soon opened them, however, and before the
rehearsal was finished, started off the chair, and nearly embraced the
actress. She looked and felt the part as only a woman of exceeding
taste and delicacy would have done; the very tone of her mind, and the
character of her beauty, fitted her to represent the fair, gentle,
fragile, but dignified Leonora.]
[Footnote 23: Lessing.]
[Footnote 24: Characteristics of Goethe, vol. i. p. 29.]
[Footnote 25: I believe it was in allusion to this distinction, and her
own noble birth, that her father-in-law used to call her playfully,
"_die kleine Ahnfrau_," (the little ancestress.)]
[Footnote 26: M. Besle, otherwise the Comte de Stendhal, and, I believe,
he has half a dozen other _aliases_.]
[Footnote 27: Alfred Tennyson.]
[Footnote 28: "Thro' Erin's isle, to sport awhile," &c.]
[Footnote 29: In the German maps, Zweibrücken; the capital of those
provinces of the kingdom of Bavaria, which lie on the left bank of
the Rhine.]
[Footnote 30: The entire grouping of these figures is from the design
of Mr. Robert Cockerell, one of the original discoverers, who in
ascertaining their relative position has been guided in some measure
by the situation in which their fragments were found strewed in front
of the temple, and overwhelmed with masses of the frieze and pediment;
but has been much more indebted to his own artist-like feeling, and
architectural skill. He is of opinion that the western pediment
contained several other figures besides the ten which have been
restored.]
[Footnote 31: The character of the Emperor Rodolph would be one of the
most interesting speculations in philosophical history. He was evidently
a fine artist, degraded into a bad sovereign--a man whose constructive
and imaginative genius was misplaced upon a throne. The melancholy, and
incipient madness which hovered over him, was possibly the result of the
natural faculties suppressed or perverted.]
[Footnote 32: The celebrated traveller, natural philosopher, and botanist.
He has the direction of most of the scientific institutions at
Munich.]
[Footnote 33: I remember Madame Devrient, in describing the effect which
music had upon herself, pressing her hand upon her bosom, and saying,
with simple but profound feeling, "_Ah! cela use la vie!_"]
[Footnote 34: "A l'exposition de Paris (1822) on a vu un millier de
tableaux représentant des sujets de l'Ecritoire Sainte, peints par des
peintres qui n'y croient pas du tout: admirés et jugés par des gens qui
n'y croient pas beaucoup, et enfin payés par des gens qui, apparemment,
n'y croient pas, non plus.
"L'on cherche après cela le pourquoi de la décadence de l'art!"]
[Footnote 35: Of this celebrated picture, Sir Joshua Reynolds says,
that it is miscalled, and certainly does _not_ contain the portraits
of the Earl and Countess of Arundel. Perhaps he is mistaken. It appears
that the Earl of Arundel, of James the First's time, (the collector of
the Arundelian marbles,) with his Countess, sat to Rubens in 1620, and
that "Robin the Dwarf" was introduced into this picture, which was not
painted in England, but at Brussels. Rubens was at this time at the
height of his reputation, and when requested to paint the portrait of
the Countess of Arundel, he replied, "Although I have refused to execute
the portraits of many princes and noblemen, especially of his lordship's
rank yet from the Earl I am bound to receive the honour he does me
in commanding my services, regarding him as I do, in the light of
an evangelist to the world of art, and the great supporter of our
profession."--(See Tierney's History and Antiquities of the Castle and
Town of Arundel.)]
[Footnote 36: In Southey's Thalaba.]
[Footnote 37: Now removed with the other Vandykes to Chatsworth.]
[Footnote 38: See a curious letter of Pirkheimer on the death of Albert
Durer, quoted in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 21. "In Albert I have
truly lost one of the best friends I had in the whole world, and nothing
grieves me deeper than that he should have died so painful a death,
which, under God's providence, I can ascribe to nobody but his huswife,
who gnawed into his very heart, and so tormented him that he departed
hence the sooner; for he was dried up to a faggot, and might nowhere
seek him a jovial humour or go to his friends." (After much more,
reflecting on this intolerable woman, he concludes with edifying
_naïveté_;) "She and her sister are not queans; they are, I doubt not,
in the number of honest, devout, and altogether God-fearing women, but
a man might better have a quean who was otherwise kindly, than such a
gnawing, suspicious, quarrelsome, _good_ woman, with whom he can have
no peace or quiet neither by day nor by night."]
[Footnote 39: Schleissheim is a country palace of the king of Bavaria,
about six miles from Munich; it has originally been a beautiful
building, but is not now inhabited, and looks forlorn and dilapidated.
The pictures are distributed, without any attempt at arrangement,
through forty-five rooms.]
[Footnote 40: Natives, I believe, of Cologne.]
[Footnote 41: Albert Durer was the scholar of Wohlgemuth.]
[Footnote 42: I particularly recollect a picture, containing many
hundred figures, all painted with the elaborate finish of a miniature,
and representing the victory of Alexander over Darius. All the Persians
are dressed like Turks, while Alexander and his host are armed to the
teeth, in the full costume of chivalry, with heraldic banners, displaying
the different devices of the old Germanic nobles, the cross, the black
eagle, &c. &c.]
[Footnote 43: The observations of Mr. Phillips, (Lectures on the History
and Principles of Painting,) on Giotto, and the earliest Italian school,
apply in a great measure to the early German painters, and I cannot
refuse myself the pleasure of quoting them.--"As it appears to me, that
painting at the present time, is swerving among us from the true point
of interest, tending to ornament, to the loss of truth and sentiment, I
think I cannot do better than endeavour to restrain the encroachment of
so insidious a foe, to prevent, if possible, our advance in so erroneous
and fatal a course, by showing how strong is the influence of art
where truth and simplicity prevail; and that, where no ornament is
to be found--nay, where imperfections are numerous; where drawing is
frequently defective, perspective violated, colouring employed without
science, and chiaro-scuro rarely, if ever thought of. The natural
question then is, what can excite so much interest in pictures, where
so much is wanting to render them perfect? I answer, that which leads
to the forgetfulness of the want of those interesting and desirable
qualities in the pictures of Giotto, is the excitation caused by their
fulness of feeling--well-directed, ardent, concentrated feeling! by
which his mind was engaged in comprehending the points most worthy of
display in the subject he undertook to represent, and led to the
clearness and intelligence with which he has selected them; add to this
the simplicity and ability with which he has displayed that feeling."
* * * "This is the first true step in the natural system of the art, or
of the application of it, and this was Giotto's more especially. The rest
is useful, as it assists the influence of this, the _indispensable_.
This, to continue the figure, taken from the stage, (in a previous part
of the Lecture,) is as Garrick acting Macbeth or Lear in a tie-wig and
a general's uniform of his day; the passion and the character reaching
men's hearts, notwithstanding the absurd costume. If the art be found
thus strong to attract the mind, to excite feeling and thought, and to
engage the heart, by the mere force of unadorned truth in the important
points, and without the aid of the valuable auxiliaries I have above
alluded to, is it not manifest that in its basis it is correct? and that
the utmost force of historical painting is to be sought by continual
emendation of this system, maintaining the spirit of its simplicity,
supplying its wants, calling in the aid of those auxiliaries within
reasonable bounds, not permitting them to usurp the throne of taste and
attraction, but rather requiring them to assist in humbler guise to
maintain and strengthen the legitimate authority of feeling.
After reading these beautiful passages, written by a man who unites
the acute discriminative judgment of a practical artist with the finest
feeling of the ultimate object and aim of high poetical art, I felt
almost tempted to expunge my own superficial and imperfect notes, (above
written,) and should have done so, but for the hope that my deficiencies
will induce some one more competent in taste and knowledge to take up
the subject of the early German painters. It is certain that the modern
historical painters of Germany are working on the principle here
laid down by Mr. Phillips, particularly Overbeck and Wach, which they
have derived from a study of their national school of art; but other
enthusiasts should remember that the redeeming excellence of this school
was feeling, and that feeling can never be a matter of mere imitation.
I cannot understand why the omissions of ignorance should be confounded
with the achievements of native genius, by those for whom "knowledge
has unlocked her ample stores," and to whom the recovery of those
"rich spoils of time," the antique marbles, must have revealed the wide
difference between "the simplicity of elegance" and "the simplicity of
indigence."]
[Footnote 44: See p. 56.]
[Footnote 45: See p. 66.]
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Note: Errata as given in the original have been applied to
the text. Other than the most exceedingly obvious typographical errors,
all inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, diacriticals, archaic usage, etc.
have been preserved as printed in the original. The equals signs used
to bracket the signature at the end of part I indicate characters in a
Fraktur typeface.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad
with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected, by Anna Jameson
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISITS AND SKETCHES, VOL I ***
***** This file should be named 36818-8.txt or 36818-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/1/36818/
Produced by Julia Miller, David Garcia and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
[email protected]. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
https://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
