"When I look at these lucubrations, it occurs to me that I used to be a great egotist: I meant to swallow the whole world, instead of giving the world any benefit from my being in it. What is the value of all this selfish refinement of feeling compared to a single sound thought imparted to the mind of another! How glad I am to have all this behind me!"
"How easy it is to appear great, learned, and superior, if you withdraw from intercourse with the people, build a private palace of knowledge and thought, a castle on a hill, far from the denizens of the valley! But the moment you descend to mingle with the inhabitants of the plain, the moment you live among them and for them, you find to your astonishment that often you are ignorant of the simplest things and untouched by the finest thoughts. I have read of princes who never, or scarcely ever, are seen by the people. For them it is easy enough to be hedged with majesty."
"As the breath of the land and sea returns to them after having been congealed into rain-drops in upper air, so the spirit of a people must return from the lofty realms of literature to its source,--the people's heart."
"There can be no doubt that many of the world-renowned Grecian heroes were no more educated in what we now term education than my Hansgeorge, Kilian, Mat, Thaddie, Wendel, and so on, not to speak of Buchmaier, Bat, owing to the publicity of their political and social organization, of their arts, of the forms of worship which emanated from the very core of the people's heart, a world of thoughts, feelings, views, and delicate suggestions hovered in the air. People were not restricted to Biblical stories, narratives of men and women who had lived in other climes and under other traditions, having no immediate correspondence with their own condition. They heard of their own forefathers, who had lived as they lived, who had acted thus and so and thought so and thus: particular sentiments and anecdotes were handed down from generation to generation; all these things concerned them nearly; and at need the descendants emulated the heroism of their ancestors. We give the name of sacred history to the fortunes of a foreign people, and neglect our own as profane. The Greeks had Homer by heart; and this gave them a fund of sayings and images adapted to their condition. We Germans have no one to take his place: even Schiller is not in the reach of every class of the people. Almost all we have is a stock of national wisdom garnered up in the form of proverbs, which has developed itself independently of the Old and New Testament. We have the sentiment of the people incarnate in their songs. This the Greeks had not."
Soon after the reading-room was organized, the teacher established a musical association, which was joined by all the single men and a few of the married ones. This appeased mine host at the Eagle, as they met for practice in his room up-stairs. Though virtually the master-spirit of the whole, our friend devolved the ostensible management upon the old schoolmaster, who was marvellously well fitted for the office. They wisely devoted the most of their attention to popular songs. The villagers were delighted thus to come by their own again in a new dress and without the omission of the text consequent upon mere oral transmission. One by one, some new songs were cautiously introduced, great attention being paid to the time and emphasis.
As the opposition of the College Chap had been the chief obstacle of success of the reading-room, so the arrogance of George threatened to stifle the glee-club in the bud. Considering himself a singer of renown, he took the lead, but disdained any reference to time and measure. The steps taken to conciliate him failed: he left the club, and his secession threatened to dismember it. Its good effects had already been perceived: many vulgar and improper songs had been displaced by better ones; and, though the preference might be owing to their novelty rather than to their superiority, yet the better words and tones, once introduced, could not but exercise their legitimate influence.
George now noised abroad that the teacher meant to make the grown-up folks sing children's songs, and that it was a shame for grown-up people to sing them. He soon drew a party around him, and the number of those who remained faithful dwindled away. Thaddie offered to give George a good whacking; but Buchmaier found a more gentle method of preserving the club. He invited the parson and all the members of the club, except George, to sup with him on New Year's Eve. This infused new life into the dry bones.
The parson had left the teacher entirely undisturbed; for he was not one of those who decry every thing good which they have not originated themselves.
On New Year's Eve there was great rejoicing in Buchmaier's house.
"Mr. Teacher," said Buchmaier, "when you're married you must get up a glee-club for the girls."
"And the young married women may come too," cried Agnes.
"Yes; but you must keep them singing all the time, or they'll talk the devil's ears off."
Many a toast was given. Boys otherwise noted for their bashfulness here made speeches in presence of the parson, the teacher, and the squire. At last Thaddie seized a glass and drank to "the teacher and his lassie," which was drunk with never-ending cheers.
With Hedwig he was on the happiest footing. She willingly followed all his suggestions the moment she was convinced that he no longer desired to remodel her whole being but only to further her native development. At first his experience was singular. Whenever he wished to direct her thoughts into a higher channel, he made a thousand preparations and inductions. He meant thus and so, and she must not misapprehend him. Once Hedwig said, "Look here: when you want me to think something, say it right out, and don't make so many concoctions about it. I'll tell you whether I like it or not."
So he dropped this last remnant of his solitary wanderings, and they understood each other perfectly. Even in school the new impetus to his mind was invaluable. He illustrated abstractions by illustrations drawn from what was familiar to all. He labored earnestly at a history of the village, intending to make it the starting-point for his instruction of the history of the country.
They went to church, preceded by the musicians.
Some wiseacres predicted that the teacher's zeal would not be of long duration. We take the liberty to think otherwise.
Spring came, and the bells repaired to Rome to tell the story of the village: they had fewer sins than usual to report of the past winter.
After Easter came the wedding-day, which had been fixed on the anniversary of the teacher's arrival in the village. On the evening before, Hedwig went to the old teacher and asked him to do his best in the prelude next day. He smiled, and said, "Yes: you shall like it."
Next day they went to church, preceded by the musicians. Hedwig dressed like her playmate Agnes, the teacher decorated with a nosegay, like his playmate Thaddie, Buchmaier, Johnnie, and the Jewish teacher behind them. When all had assembled, the old teacher began the prelude. Every one smiled; for the old joker had interwoven the air of the Lauterbacher very skilfully into his piece. Soon after, the glee-club struck up the chant,--
"Holy is the Lord!"
and the nuptial tie was fastened with joyous earnestness, Blessings attend it!
Footnote 1: Bartholomew's Sebastian's.
Footnote 2: Not a lord of the manor, according to the English acceptation of the term, but a sort of village mayor, elected by the farmers out of their own number. Very little of the feudal tenure remains in the Black Forest, the peasants being almost everywhere lords of the soil.
Footnote 3: A ring of hard wood or stone fixed to the end of the spindle, to weigh it down and improve its turning.
Footnote 4: About half a cent.
Footnote 5: And thereby escape being taken as a recruit.
Footnote 6: Joseph; Joe.
Footnote 7: The name of a tract of ground. All the lands belonging to a village are divided into such tracts, every tract having particular qualifications. These are subdivided, and the subdivisions distributed among the farmers: in this manner every farmer has a portion of every kind of ground belonging to the farm-manor.
Footnote 8: If the American reader is tempted to doubt or to contemn this stretch of economy, he must remember the different standards governing the people of the Old and the New World in this respect.
Footnote 9: Clotho holds the distaff, Lachesis spins the thread, and Atropos severs it.
Footnote 10: Black Forest provincialism:--a scamp, a loafer.
Footnote 11: Suabian.
Footnote 12: Brother.
Footnote 13: Son of God.
Footnote 14: What temptation a counterfeit wild cat holds out to the traveller to sit down upon it, the translator is not in a condition to explain,--probably on instance of the matter-of-fact character of the American mind.
By the Author of "The Last of the Cavaliers."
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ByBjörnstjern Björnson.
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"An artist, not a photographer."--Athenæum.
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451Broome St.,New York.
Translated from the German.
(NEARLY READY.)
Translated by Prof.Schele De Vere.
Translated by Prof.Schele De Vere.
Translated byJ. M. Jeffries.
The publication ofProblematic Charactershas been delayed on account of some difficulties with the translation. A new translation is now in press.
451Broome St., New York.