Meanwhile, in the next room, still, in my little dressing-gown I had thrown myself on a camp-bedstead that had been placed there for anyone able to snatch a few minutes’ rest, and had fallen into an uneasy sleep, until a little before four o’clock my mother woke me, everyone thinking that the end must come then.
In these few hours I found that a great change had taken place,—still the same hot flush on the cheeks, but the eyes sunken, and without the slightest look of consciousness, and her breath coming in short quick gasps. I trembled all over. Through the door open into the boudoir beyond, I could see the old clergyman, Pastor Dilthey, who had officiated both at my mother’s confirmation and at her marriage, sitting there in his full canonicals, grave and imposing, waiting to perform the last solemn rites. The room was left in darkness, only the first rays of morning stealing in through the closed shutters flickered strangely here and there, and fell over theold pastor’s silvery hair, making his pale serious face look still more grave and pale. I watched him from the doorway, but felt in too great awe to go up and speak to him, so I stole up quietly to grandmamma’s writing-table, and looked once more at all the little articles standing on it, with which I had sometimes been allowed to play and all of which had the scent of the filagree vinaigrettes she kept among them. The hands of the little clock there already pointed to four,—when she suddenly began to breathe a little more freely, and the danger seemed no longer so imminent. We knelt round her bed, without a sound, except when one or other of her daughters, unable to control her sobs, was immediately called to order by my mother lest the calm of the death-bed should be disturbed.
And so the hours passed. I grew more and more tired. Then, between one and two o’clock that afternoon, a terrific storm broke out. The open windows banged to and fro, the rain splashed and dashed against the window-panes, the thunder rolled, and grandmamma’s breath came in fitful gasps. She could no longer swallow even the few drops of water that were held to her lips. So the storm raged on, and her breathing grew more painful and irregular, and I knelt on like the rest at her bedside, when suddenly I knew no more, all grew dark before my eyes, and I had fallen forward, my dark curls streaming across my mother’s feet, fast asleep. Or was it perhaps in reality faintness that had overcome me, and that then passed into the sound sleep of childhood, worn out as I was with theunwonted hours of watching and fasting I had gone through? It is very possible, for I had eaten nothing for the last four-and-twenty hours, and was exhausted with kneeling and with all the tears I had shed. When I came to myself again, the storm had spent its fury, the flashes of lightning were less frequent, the thunder only went on rumbling in the distance, the rain had stopped, and a ray of sunshine streamed into the room and right across the face of the dying woman, whose breathing was still slower and feebler. At last, as the big belfry clocks in the town began to strike the hour, one after the other, there were still longer pauses between the gasps for breath. I saw then for the first time what it means to smile from sheer despair. Good old Dr. Fritze, who had attended grandmamma all her life, and who literally idolised her, had seated himself on the bed and lifted her in his arms, to try to ease her breathing a little. When the clocks began striking, he smiled, and said aloud,—“one more breath!” and then,—“one more!” And again:—“and just one more!” And after that there was a deathly silence, whilst the old Black Forest clock above her head struck four. Her daughters hid their faces in the pillows to stifle their sobs, and the deep rich voice of the old pastor rang out in words of solemn prayer. Then the head of the family, the Duke of Nassau, rose to his feet, and stretching out his hand across the sleeping form, called on his brother and sisters to unite with him in the vow, that her dear memory should hold them together in all things henceforth, just as if she were still livingin their midst. Their tears fell fast over the still white face, so unmoved in death, as they joined hands with him in answer to his appeal. The one daughter, the Princess of Waldeck, was so beside herself with grief, that it took all my mother’s firmness to enable her to regain her composure, the latter being indeed a tower of strength to them all in that sad hour.
After a little while we were all sent away, in order that the laying out of the corpse might be attended to, before too great rigidity should have set in, and once more I became sadly conscious of the shortcomings of human nature, at least in my own person, as the pangs of hunger began to assert themselves, after this prolonged fast. It was perhaps not very astonishing, considering my youth, that I should have been able to enjoy even at such a moment the repast which was now provided for me, but I felt terribly ashamed of myself, above all that the servants waiting on me should see me eating with such hearty appetite, and I wondered if everyone thought me very hard-hearted! Had I not fallen asleep just at the wrong moment too? I felt thoroughly small, and there was no one to comfort me with the assurance that it was not my heart that was in fault, but only my poor little body demanding its rights!
In the one drawing-room, that which was known as the “sisters’-room,” as it had specially belonged to my aunts, three beds were put up, and here my mother and I were to sleep together with her youngest sister, for the house was so overfull that proper accommodation was wanting, the dining-room, thelargest room of all, being converted into achapelle ardente. Of this last detail I knew nothing. I had been so simply brought up, the ways of a Court were unfamiliar and even quite distasteful to me. Next morning I was up betimes, and without disturbing anyone I crept out into the garden, taking with me the first tablecloth that came to hand, and this I filled with all the roses I could gather, fresh fragrant roses, still wet with dew, to take to grandmamma. Without a word to anyone, I made my way upstairs very softly to her room, and began placing my roses in a big garland round her. I did not feel at all afraid at first, but in course of time the intense stillness began to affect me, so that I was quite glad when Fräulein von Preen, grandmamma’s lady-in-waiting, came into the room with one or two of the maids and helped me to arrange my flowers. The day passed slowly, chiefly taken up with giving orders for mourning, bonnets of the correct shape, with the point coming very low down on the forehead, and long crape veils, falling right over the heavy folds of the black woollen dresses with their long trains. I too was to have a little black woollen dress, and that made me sadder than ever, it seemed to me such a melancholy garb. The following morning I again got up as early as possible, feeling rather impatient to see my aunt go on sleeping so soundly, for she was never an early riser, and had not yet made up for the rest she had lost. But I hardly knew what to do with myself, having been told that I could not go to see grandmamma to-day, and I turned and twisted about restlessly in the room.All at once I caught sight of a sheet of grandmamma’s own special pale green note-paper, with something written on it in her hand-writing, lying on a table. Young as I was, I quite understood that one must not read every paper one sees lying about, my mother never even opened a letter addressed to me, so as to set me the example of the respect due to private correspondence. But this paper lay spread wide open for every one to see, and was evidently not a letter at all, that much was clear to me, notwithstanding my short-sight. It was certainly allowable, I told myself, to look at dear grandmamma’s hand-writing once more. It turned out to be a translation of some English verses,—a poem of Longfellow’s, which is known to everybody, but with which I first made acquaintance then, through the medium of grandmamma’s German version. The first verse of the original runs:
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary,It rains, and the rain is never weary;The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,And at every gust the dead leaves fall,And the day is dark and dreary.
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary,It rains, and the rain is never weary;The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,And at every gust the dead leaves fall,And the day is dark and dreary.
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary,It rains, and the rain is never weary;The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,And at every gust the dead leaves fall,And the day is dark and dreary.
Quick as thought I had made a copy of the verses, and leaving the paper where I found it, I was reading my treasure through once more when my aunt awoke and called her sister, and it was only then that I noticed that my mother must have been up and dressed before me, as she had already left the room. Thrusting my beloved verses back in my pocket, I softly approached my aunt’s bedside, wishing her good morning.—“Good morning!” she replied, continuingwith a sigh:—“to-day is my birthday!”—“Oh!” I said, and could find no more to say. I felt perfectly well how unkind and unfeeling I must appear, I quite understood how tragic it was for her, to celebrate her eighteenth birthday beside her mother’s open coffin, I was simply choking with affection and sympathy—but I could not get out a single word to express what I felt. And what indeed could a small child say to help and console! Myself I had just found great comfort in those beautiful verses, and I longed to show her these, but was not quite sure whether I had done right in copying them, and so my poor aunt and I just went on looking at one another in silence, when fortunately my mother came in, breaking the ice with the warmth of her presence, and, finding exactly the right thing to say, in the fewest words possible, as she folded her sister in her arms. I withdrew, very quietly, leaving them together, and that was perhaps the only sensible thing that I did, or could have done, under the circumstances.
The next few days were the most gloomy and depressing of all, with the lying in state in thechapelle ardente, in which grandmamma seemed to have become something so distant and removed from me, all shrouded in lace, and with tapers burning round her, high up and scarcely to be seen from the steps of the catafalque on which we could only kneel and pray—no longer my own dear grandmamma round whom I might strew roses, but something cold and strange, and far-off, at which crowds came to stare—a mere show! I wanted to think of her stillas I had seen her the evening before her death, glorified, as it were, and already belonging to that other and better world, on the threshold of which she stood; it was on this picture my thoughts loved to dwell, and on the memory of her last kiss, and of the magnificent storm which raged while she was drawing her last breath. Everything that had come afterwards was dull and commonplace in comparison—a pageant, out of which the loftiness and sanctification had departed! Out of this chilling atmosphere I withdrew then more and more into myself, cherishing these sacred recollections, and above all musing over my priceless treasure, the poem I had discovered, and which seemed to me like a message from grandmamma herself; so much must the words have meant to her, I fancied I could hear her voice speaking through them; and so little heed did I in consequence pay to what was going on around me, that of the actual funeral ceremonies, at some portion of which in any case I must have been present, I have no remembrance at all. I must have passed through it all as if in a dream, and there is altogether a blank in my mind concerning it.
Aunt Sophie, the youngest sister of my mother, returned with us to Monrepos, and took up her abode with us for a time. She became betrothed, still in her deep mourning, to the Prince of Sweden, who suddenly made his appearance in our midst, I could not at all make out why. And I was just as much puzzled to know why, one evening when my aunt and Fräulein von Bunsen were playing Haydn’s “Seven Words from the Cross,” as arranged by Neukommfor piano and organ, the prince should so persistently have kept his eyes fixed on my aunt, who was only playing the piano, whilst as everyone knows, the organ, which Fräulein von Bunsen was playing, is the far more important part! He, however, never took his gaze off my aunt, who certainly looked very interesting with her well cut profile thrown up by the long black veil. Later on I understood a little better what it meant, after I had heard him sing “Adelaïde” to my aunt’s accompaniment, with all the power of his fine tenor voice, and with a fervour of expression which I have never heard since.
Life seemed to go on again then just as before, only dear grandmamma’s place was empty. I remember too, being present when the question of her tombstone was being discussed. It had been her especial desire, not to be put inside a vault, but to be buried under the open sky, and it seemed to me that it was a very poor way of carrying out her wish, if after all a great heavy stone monument were to be raised above her, on which no flowers could ever grow, nor the sunshine and the rains of heaven penetrate it. Only of course my opinion was not asked, and I kept it to myself, not at all convinced by the explanation given, that the grave, if left open to the sky, and not covered by any sort of tombstone, would in course of time look very neglected and uncared for. What a much better plan it were, to keep the houses, or at any rate the rooms, which people have lived in, sacred to their memory, by leaving them just as they were when they inhabited them, filled with the spirit of the past! That would be a trueand living monument, and would speak with far greater eloquence than all the epitaphs and inscriptions, so soon effaced and forgotten.
With regard to myself, my mother had certainly accomplished the purpose she had in view, perhaps even more fully than she had intended, my natural tendency to melancholy, which seldom showed itself on the surface, being fostered and encouraged by events of such gravity. The poetic impulse grew stronger, but was kept just as secret as all the rest of my inner life. I was always writing verses, trying my hand even at a novel, and now to all the old ideals stirring confusedly within me, new visions from without came flashing across my brain, suggested by the scenes of death and mourning I had just passed through. I saw again the dimly lighted chamber, the first rays of dawn stealing through upon the silvery hair and motionless form of the old pastor, and playing over all the inanimate objects, that seemed to take no part in what was going on. And yet—had not her own little clock stood still at the hour of four?Thatthen had known and understood! But I told no one my impressions and sensations, my deepest and strongest feelings I had ever been accustomed to keep to myself, it being impossible to me to overcome the reserve that, unfortunately for me, accompanied so highly-strung and impulsive a temperament. The effort to unlock my soul would have cost me too much, and I felt instinctively that to impart its tumult, even had I been able to do so, would have been by no means a welcome proceeding to those around me. It was all toostrong, too wild, too violent. So I shut myself up as before, and went on living in a world of my own, very much more true and real, it seemed to me, than the outer world, in which most of my fellow-creatures were content to live.
Before the year was over, my father’s mother was also dead. But I had never known her,—her mind had been affected for many years, and none of us ever saw her. So that I could not mourn for her, as for the grandmamma I had known and loved, and it was to the latter my thoughts flew back once more, as I knelt beside the coffin of her who had once ruled, as wife and mother, in the home to which she now only returned for her last long slumber. It was for her I wept again, rather than for this unknown grandmother, sorrow for whom was also somewhat crushed by the funeral pomp and ceremony. It left me merely a little sadder and more thoughtful than before, as having had yet another lesson in the vanity of all earthly things.
A morefiery soul than that of Ernst Moritz Arndt can surely never have lived upon this earth. He must have been fully eighty years old at the time when I knew him, but age seemed to count for nothing with him. His eye was as bright, his voice as clear and ringing, his gait as quick and elastic as had he still been in the prime of life, and the most impassioned speech from youthful lips would have seemed tame and cold beside the lava-flood of eloquence that poured forth inexhaustibly from his kindly and expressive, although perfectly toothless mouth. The loss of his teeth was indeed the only real sign of age Arndt bore on his person, and it was apparently a matter of so little moment to him, that I have often wondered since, whether our modern practice of repairing by artificial means the ravages of time, be after all so unquestionable an advantage as some would pretend. The mouth which nature alone has moulded year by year seems to me to retain in any case much more character and expression than that which has been fitted out and shaped anew by the dentist’s skill. However that may be, it is certain that Arndt at all events felt not in the least inconvenienced by the loss, nor did it detract from our pleasure in listening to him.
It was during our stay in Bonn, whither we had migrated in order to be near a celebrated doctor,that we saw the venerable poet so constantly. Two years of my childhood were spent in the charming little University town, in the hope that my younger brother, an invalid from his birth, and my mother, whose health then gave much cause for anxiety, might both of them derive great and lasting benefit from the treatment of the great specialist. And if these hopes were doomed to disappointment,—and it seemed indeed, as an old friend of our family afterwards remarked, as if the very best efforts of medical skill must here for ever prove unavailing,—there were on the other hand certain compensations attendant on our stay, in the shape of the opportunities for intercourse it afforded with so many highly interesting people. And first and foremost among these Arndt must be reckoned, as the most constant and ever welcome guest. His visits were indeed of quite unconventional length, for he would often stay for hours at a time, now reading aloud to my mother one of her favourite Swedish books, now relating to us children some thrilling episode of the War of Liberation, in which he had played so conspicuous a part.
He was of such exuberant vivacity, that he talked till he literally foamed at the mouth, and gesticulated wildly, sometimes enforcing what he said by a little friendly tap on my mother’s shoulder, that made her shrink,—for in her weak condition, the merest touch sufficed to bring on one of her nervous attacks,—sometimes contenting himself with pressing a heavy finger on my forehead, as I sat on his knee, and gazed up in his face. I was all eyes andears, drinking in his words with that undivided attention that only children can give, and myself all on fire with excitement. For he talked and talked, working himself up into as burning a fever as if the French had still been in the land, and Germany smarting under a foreign yoke, and poor Queen Louisa still fretting her heart out for her country’s misfortunes! It was all so real, so present for him! He lived back in those days once more, and fought the old campaigns over again, and was for ever contriving some new plan for his country’s salvation and welfare,—now inventing some marvellous new weapon that should rid her of all her foes,—now devising some infallible means of making her strong and united! For the dream of German Unity never abandoned him, and there was nothing made him so wild with indignation as for anyone to dare to assert that Germany was a mere geographical expression.
Small wonder that we children listened with beating hearts and cheeks aflame to the story of the stirring times, still so near to the elder generation, members of our family too being yet alive, great-aunts and great-uncles among us to that day, who had also lived through them, and the very walls of our castle at Neuwied still bearing the marks of the bullets, fired against it by the soldiers of General Hoche. But better still, Arndt would often recite to us some of his own poems, both from the earlier ones, written during the war, and from those of more recent date, all of them glowing with the same patriotic fervour, and kindling a like enthusiasm in the minds of his youthful hearers.
There were, however, fortunately other influences at work, to combat what might have been a somewhat one-sided teaching, and prevent us from believing that our old friend possessed a monopoly of patriotism. In the first place, there was Monsieur Monnard, the very interesting French professor at the university, whose refinement of speech and quiet manner were in their way quite as effective and convincing as Arndt’s stormy vehemence, and lent a peculiar charm to his conversation. To his daughter too, a most charming creature, I owed a debt of gratitude for one of the chief joys of my childhood, that delightful book “Augustin,” in which she had told the story, as I afterwards heard, of her own child whom she had lost. When I made her acquaintance, I had read her book a hundred times, and almost knew it by heart! And besides these two, whose love of their country was none the less intense, I felt, for being very calmly expressed, there was another frequent guest in whom that sentiment was evidently the ruling passion and guiding principle in life. The last-mentioned, Demetrius Stourdza, was a slight, spare, very dark young man, who had come from a far-off, and to me then quite unknown country, to pursue his studies at the university, whilst his two younger brothers followed the classes at the gymnasium or public school. When he spoke of his home on the distant Moldau, of his oppressed, unhappy country, it was in terms of the same ardent affection, the same irrepressible emotion, as were Arndt’s in telling the story of Germany’s wrongs; only the ills of which the youngstudent had to tell dated much further back and were so deeply rooted as to appear well nigh incurable. Not only had his country groaned for centuries under foreign tyranny, but she was also torn by internal feuds, split into two provinces, Moldavia and Wallachia, constantly warring one with the other, so that there seemed little prospect of national independence being attained. He spoke with great enthusiasm of his mother-tongue, the beautiful Roumanian language, common heritage of the two provinces, and I remember how, at my mother’s request, he one day spoke a few words of Roumanian, to let us hear the soft melodious sounds. Years after, on my first arrival in Roumania, when the train drew up in the station at Bucarest, the first person to step forward from the crowd waiting on the platform to greet me, was Demetrius Stourdza, my old acquaintance in his student days at Bonn, afterwards to be more than once Prime Minister. I certainly, at the time I am speaking of, little foresaw this second meeting, but what did strike me then was the strength and depth of this stranger’s attachment to his country, perhaps all the stronger and deeper for being coupled with such hopelessness. All these things made a profound impression on my childish mind, and gave me much to reflect upon. For even then I was already dreaming,—wild heedless creature as I was generally supposed to be, and as I had come to consider myself. So strong a hold had this belief taken of me, that nothing could well equal my surprise, when some forty years later, meeting one of the companions of these early days, and asking
[Image not available: Royal Palace at Bucarest Photo by Photochrome Co.]Royal Palace at BucarestPhoto by Photochrome Co.
her to tell me how I had appeared to her then, she replied without hesitation,—“Most terribly serious!” For the moment I was perfectly amazed; but, looking back once more on the past, and taking into account the lively recollection I have retained, not merely of scenes and events, but also of persons whom I met, and above all of the conversations that went on around me from my eighth to my tenth year, the conviction is forced upon me, that I must have brought to bear on them very close attention, and an amount of discernment hardly compatible with the character of careless high spirits with which I was usually credited.
To return to Arndt: it was only natural that, whatever might arrest our attention elsewhere, his personality remained the dominating one and was invested for us with a sort of halo. Had he not himself taken part in the deeds he told us of, and known and immortalised the heroes by whom the best of these were accomplished,—in songs we knew by heart and sang almost before we could speak plainly? At that time, I had never heard of the tragedy which darkened his domestic life,—that he had known little happiness in his own family, and had on one occasion treated one of his sons with such harshness, that the young man went out and threw himself into the Rhine, his body being afterwards sought for in vain for three days and nights by the distracted parents. Of all this I knew nothing then,—I saw in him only the patriot, the poet, the magician who could work such marvels with words. It was a revelation to me, this of the wondrous power oflanguage, and of all the lessons I unconsciously learned at that early age it was perhaps the one that I most readily and thoroughly assimilated, being the most congenial to my own nature, and corresponding to its potential needs. It is a pity that children are generally so reserved and reticent, for a child of enquiring mind would learn much more, could it but impart its own thoughts and enquire about the things that puzzle it. But a sensitive child broods in silence over its own imaginings, very often perplexed by some very simple matter which a word might explain. And who indeed could have guessed that these were the first stirrings of the poetic temperament within me, called into life by the personality of the aged poet, towards whom I felt myself irresistibly drawn? Poetry was certainly my native element. I could already recite Schiller’sDiverand theFight with the Dragon, and the other principal ballads; I learnt by heart with the greatest facility, and to hear a short poem read over once was enough, I could repeat it without a mistake. It was so much inflammable material, one might say, collected within my brain, and awaiting but the approach of the lighted match to ignite, and kindle to a blaze.
I wish I could remember some of Arndt’s own words to quote here. But of that verbal brilliancy, that inexhaustible flow of speech, it is necessarily the general impression that remains, rather than the exact form in which it was cast, and I would not dare attempt to render this. Some of his more humorous sayings, however, I have preserved textually, and need therefore not hesitate to give thefollowing specimen:—“When I write to the King,” he one day explained,—“I do not trouble my head with all that rubbish of humbly and dutifully, and most gracious this and most gracious that, but simply say Your Majesty, and then plain you and your, and afterwards perhaps just one more Majesty to wind up with—for all the absurd rigmarole of Court lingo is more than I can stand.”
To the very last Arndt was busy and eager, as I have said, for the cause of German Unity, and we were all heart and soul with him in wishing well to that cause. The year 1848 had not long gone past, with all its unrest, and with the high hopes and dazzling day dreams it had brought, and from one of those dreams we had hardly awakened yet,—that which we dreamt as we saw folk going about wearing their black, red and yellow cockades, as if by so doing they could bring all Germany under one flag and place the Imperial crown on the head of the Prussian king. From the balcony at Heidelberg my little four-year-old brother had helped to give the word of command to the volunteers mustered in the square below, but all that excitement had died out again, and things had drifted back into the old well-worn grooves. The times were not yet ripe, and much water would have to flow down the Rhine to the sea, ere that fair dream should become reality. Clever and interesting as the Prussian king undoubtedly was, it was not in his person that the traditions of the German Empire were to be revived; that was to be the work of another, of whom at that period no one thought,—the exile who was then looking downsadly and wearily from his window upon a London street.
To conclude this brief sketch of Arndt, I can hardly do better than transcribe the verses which about this time he wrote in my mother’s album:
In God’s own image thou wast made;Of Heaven’s pure light an emanation,That down to this dark world has strayed.’Tis this Heaven’s truest revelation.Nor for thyself alone was lentYon ray that lights thy path thus kindly;Each as the other’s guide was meant,Here where all grope and struggle blindly.Still to thy dream of Heaven hold fast!For then, whatever ills assail thee,Though every earthly joy fly past,This one sure hope shall never fail thee!Bonn, 23. of the May-month, 1853.
In God’s own image thou wast made;Of Heaven’s pure light an emanation,That down to this dark world has strayed.’Tis this Heaven’s truest revelation.Nor for thyself alone was lentYon ray that lights thy path thus kindly;Each as the other’s guide was meant,Here where all grope and struggle blindly.Still to thy dream of Heaven hold fast!For then, whatever ills assail thee,Though every earthly joy fly past,This one sure hope shall never fail thee!Bonn, 23. of the May-month, 1853.
In God’s own image thou wast made;Of Heaven’s pure light an emanation,That down to this dark world has strayed.’Tis this Heaven’s truest revelation.
Nor for thyself alone was lentYon ray that lights thy path thus kindly;Each as the other’s guide was meant,Here where all grope and struggle blindly.
Still to thy dream of Heaven hold fast!For then, whatever ills assail thee,Though every earthly joy fly past,This one sure hope shall never fail thee!Bonn, 23. of the May-month, 1853.
Anothermuch valued friend of ours was the great scholar Bernays. He also was a constant visitor whilst we were living in Bonn, often sitting for hours beside my mother’s invalid couch, talking to her. But he never partook of a meal in our house, and my childish mind was much troubled at this. His explanation was, that being a Jew, he must avoid being drawn into anything contrary to the customs and observances of his race. For his conscientious scruples, no less than for his profound learning and the breadth and liberality of his views, my parents entertained the very highest respect and admiration, my mother in particular never wearying of hearing him discourse on one or other of those deeper problems that will forever occupy men’s minds, rejoicing meanwhile to feel her own store of knowledge increase and her intelligence expand in this congenial atmosphere.
Bernays was not merely well-read in the Jewish Scriptures, but seemed to know the New Testament also better than we did ourselves, and his ideas on religious topics were always striking and impressive. I did not then know of his intimate friendship with Ernest Renan, and of the correspondence they kept up. I was indeed at this time considered much too young to be admitted even as a listener to the long and serious conversations—of such absorbinginterest to both my parents—that took place between them and Bernays. The latter, I have since heard, felt it a great hardship that he should be excluded, on account of his nationality, from holding a professorship at the University, and this in spite of his being in his own line probably the finest scholar Bonn has ever produced. As for my own childish impression, I confess that it was chiefly one of awe at the solemn, rather severe-looking personage, whose eyes seemed to wear an expression of such unchanging gravity behind their dark spectacles. He was in point of fact much too short-sighted to see other faces clearly, and thus no ray of recognition ever lit up his own.
It was on account of his short-sightedness, and the nervousness that arose from it, that my mother always insisted on sending a manservant, carrying a lantern, to accompany Bernays home, whenever he had spent the evening with us. For the streets of Bonn were by no means brilliantly illuminated in those days. Whenever full moon was down in the almanack, then very few street lamps were lit. But certainly the moonlit nights were of exceptional loveliness. Our villa, which was called the Vinea Domini, had a beautiful big garden, sloping right down to the banks of the Rhine. Many and many an evening was spent on the terrace in the moonshine, watching the boats glide past, and it was hardly ever before the last steamer came puffing along, that the party broke up. “Here comes the late boat!” was a sort of standing joke, used as a signal for departure by more intimate friends, towardsguests inclined to tarry perhaps all too long. On such occasions, when the conversation threatened to spin itself out into the small hours of the night, and my mother began to look tired out, someone—and more often than not it was Prince Reuss, the future ambassador, then young and full of high spirits—would call out: “Here is the evening boat,” and the assembly would at last disperse. To the minds of all who took part in those pleasant gatherings, the remembrance of the pretty house, with its sweet garden, must have been endeared. But they, alas, no longer exist; have long since disappeared, and the ground has been cut up and built over.
I was too young at that time, as I have said, to be allowed to hear much of the discussions that went on, and I have often thought since that it was a pity that I should have missed the chance of profiting by them. For, child as I was, I was studious and thoughtful beyond my years, and being of a naturally devout temperament, which was fostered by our pious training, I would have given much to hear my parents’ learned friend, whom they held in such unbounded veneration, expound his views on religion. It would have been worth still more, I have often said to myself since, to hear one so remarkable discourse, could they but have been brought together, with those kindred spirits, Renan and Tolstoi! As it was, of the rich spiritual feast set forth in such profusion, it was but a few crumbs that fell to my share. I cannot therefore profess to quote from memory Bernays’s precise words on any occasion,and should be the more diffident of the attempt, since he is no longer in this world, to correct any mistake I might inadvertently make. But very many of his arguments and inferences remained with me, together with a very clear apprehension of their general scope and tendency. Of the dogmatic value attaching to these, it is not for me to decide; but it would have been impossible for me, in chronicling these memories of my childhood, not to give full prominence to the striking personality whose teaching exercised so unbounded an influence over the minds of my parents, whilst in my own its mere echoes may possibly have aroused the first interest in the philosophy of religion, which I have retained throughout my life. For long years his opinion was constantly cited in our family circle;—“Bernays said this,” or, “Bernays would have thought so and so,” were phrases of daily recurrence, and carried with them the authority of an oracle.
It was a favourite assertion of Bernays, that the Jewish is the only religion which has kept itself free from any taint of fetichism; Christianity, like every other religion which is bent on proselytising, having been powerless to avoid contamination from the beliefs and practices of heathen nations, among whom its first converts were made. Is there not perhaps some truth in this contention? Is it not the weak point in the armour of every Faith that lays itself out for propaganda, that it is insensibly betrayed into making concessions, and thereby inevitably in the long run falls away from its lofty ideals! Christianity,we must own with shame, has lowered its standard since the days when its first teachings flowed, pure and untarnished, from the lips of its Divine Founder. And were we, who call ourselves Christians, to measure our thoughts and actions by the pattern set before us in the Sermon on the Mount, must we not blush at our own short-comings?
It was certainly by no means incomprehensible to me, that our friend should have taken it so ill, when his own brother became a Christian. On that point I have always had, I own, very much the feeling of the Roumanians, whose dislike to any change of religion is so thorough and intense, that they use the same expression—“s a’ turcit,”—i.e., “he has become a Turk, a Mahomedan,” indiscriminately to denote any change of faith, whether on the part of one becoming a Christian or a Mussulman. Quite different in this from their Russian brethren of the Orthodox Church, the Roumanians view with absolute disfavour the action of those who join their communion. To them such an act is always simply apostasy, and their language possesses no other term by which to designate it. In this, as I was saying, I am much in sympathy with them. Is it not an admission of weakness, to say the least, deliberately to abandon the Faith of our Fathers and enter another fold? Since all Churches are in a sense human institutions, what advantage have we in leaving the one in which we were born and brought up, only to find that of our choice equally fallible and imperfect! Should we not content ourselves with doing our very best, in all honesty andsincerity of purpose, within the community in which our lot is cast, striving to raise its aims and purify its ordinances, rather than impatiently to fling aside fetters that have perhaps become irksome, only by so doing to burden ourselves with other and perchance heavier chains, and from which we must no longer seek to free ourselves, seeing that they are of our own choosing? Is then the outward form under which we worship God, of so much importance after all? Some form undoubtedly there must be, as long as human beings meet together for prayer and praise, feeling themselves thereby more fitly disposed for their orisons and thanksgiving; but let us not forget that the essence of all service consists in its being performed “in spirit and in truth!” The rest matters little.
In the home that is now mine, Nathan the Wise might be welcomed daily, he would find here members of widely differing confessions dwelling together in harmony in one family. Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, each respects the other’s faith, and never has the slightest discord arisen. As for the children, they have certainly never had occasion to feel, that the creed in which they are being brought up in any way differs from that of their elders. And in our household there is an Israelite to be reckoned among our secretaries, and he it is who is my most faithful auxiliary in all charitable work. So that of religious intolerance or narrow-mindedness it can surely never be question among us, and I have been able to live on here true to the lessons and traditions of my youth. Nor can anyaccusation of having recently either sanctioned or connived at the so-called persecution of the Jews, be equitably brought against the Roumanian government. What really took place was this. In this sparely populated country, in which all industries and manufactures are in the hands of foreigners,—notably of the Jews,—a succession of bad harvests, after causing indescribable suffering in agricultural districts, at length made itself felt in the commercial centres also. There had been no crops, and consequently no food for man or beast, no work done on the land for years, and there was no money forthcoming; as a result trade naturally suffered, and to such an extent that numbers of the traders—not merely Jews, but Catholics and Protestants also—left the land. They were not driven away, except by the same untoward circumstances that pressed so heavily on the whole nation; they emigrated voluntarily from a land which could no longer afford them the means of subsistence. As long as it was merely the peasantry who were starving, all Europe looked on with the greatest indifference, perhaps even in ignorance of what was going on; but directly the consequences of those years of famine began to affect the commercial and industrial classes, then all Europe was in an uproar.
If, however, to this last story of persecution an emphatic denial may be given, it by no means follows that I would condone the cruel treatment to which in bygone centuries Jews have constantly been subjected, at the hands of their Christian brethren. Perhaps those very persecutions have served a littleto make them what they are,—so strong, so united, so self-reliant. Another source of strength has lain in the absence of all missionary zeal that characterises Judaism. Never have its followers either desired or sought to induce other nations to espouse their belief. The hatred therefore with which they often inspire these others has less its origin in religious fanaticism than in instinctive antagonism of race. Religious wars have often been but a name and a pretext under which the stronger, fundamental, racial antagonism has asserted itself, and in this case their bitterness has been intensified by the quiet tenacity, the unfailing resource, the indomitable energy and absolute cohesion of the numerically weaker and disadvantageously situated party. No nation can enjoy seeing the stranger within its gates flourishing to the detriment of the children of the soil, and the jealousy, suspicion and dislike which the prosperity of the former excites, has perhaps not infrequently been in direct ratio to the inability of the latter to turn their own natural advantages to equally good account. Were it not wiser on our part, instead of pursuing senseless animosities, to learn from the people we have too long despised and perhaps unduly mistrusted, the secret of their success, the lesson of courage, endurance, of steadfast faith in God, which has preserved them through all dangers, as living witnesses to His power and goodness?
If to this end we study with renewed attention the history of the Jewish race, we find all the qualities that constitute their strength concentrated and carriedto the highest pitch in the person of one man, the wisest and greatest perhaps of whom any nation can boast, and to whose almost superhuman talents and energies the very survival of his nation must be attributed. The debt owed to Moses by his fellow-countrymen can hardly be over-estimated. Lawgiver and judge, physician and priest, their leader in war and peace, where has there ever been the monarch who could compare with this marvellously gifted individual, founder of a religion, of a Code, of a nation, that has victoriously withstood all perils, and outlived the mighty empires by which it was overthrown and oppressed. Cæsar, Charlemagne and Haroun-al-Rashid, wise and powerful as they may have been, must each yield the palm to Moses, for their work has left no trace, the ideals to which they devoted their lives are but an empty name, whilst the Hebrew, born in servitude, has left his mark on the thought, the action, and the religion of the whole Gentile world, and made of the wretched tribes, whom he led forth out of bondage, a nation increasing daily in number and in strength, wealthy beyond all others, and rapidly spreading over the face of the earth. It would seem indeed as if the evils engendered by too great riches and prosperity were the sole danger seriously threatening the Jewish race. Already in bygone days it was against this rock that they more than once well-nigh suffered shipwreck; and had not the salutary school of adversity called them back from their foolish pride to saner counsels, humanity might have beenthe poorer by the loss of these foremost champions of monotheism.
That loss indeed we could ill afford. We are only too apt to forget, that it is to this despised race that we owe one priceless treasure, the book of books, the Bible, in which scarce out of infancy we were taught to read, and which remains our chief comfort throughout life. In it the highest wisdom stands revealed in so noble a form, truth and poetry are blended together to such perfect harmony, the result is a masterpiece whose like no other literature in the whole world can match. Does not the finest work of all other great poets sink into insignificance beside the sublime utterances of the Hebrew prophets? In long dark dreary sleepless nights, I know not where such solace for weary souls may be found, as in the magnificent imagery, the impassioned language of Isaiah and Jeremiah. All the sorrow and suffering of the human heart since the beginning of Time seem to cry aloud with their voice, and it were vain to seek help in other books of devotion, whilst the words of these grandest spirits are there, to speak for us and bring us more than earthly consolation. Surely none has ever steeped his soul in these writings, and not risen from their perusal strengthened and refreshed. We might do without all other books, provided only this one, the source of life, the Revelation of God to man, were left us. For, together with the sublime poetry of the Psalms and the prophetic books, what wisdom and learning, rules of conduct for all seasons and under all circumstances, are stored up here!The Jew, who follows the letter of the Law, need never be at a loss as to the right course to take; the pathway of duty is clearly marked for him, and under whatever vicissitudes of fortune he will have in his own Scriptures as sure a guide as was the Ark of the Covenant to the footsteps of his fathers. As to the historic books of the Old Testament, their simplicity and directness are a strong testimony in favour of the veracity of the writers; and I was much struck once by the suggestive remark of a Jew of high culture, who in discussion with a Christian, smilingly retorted: “All I can say is, that I wish for you that the history of your nation may one day be written with equal honesty, and that you may then be able to have it read out aloud for general edification in your churches, as we do ours!”
How comes it that by no other people has the attempt been made? Is it that we instinctively feel that in the Hebrew Scriptures the history of mankind has been told once and for all,—that for this, as for all other needs, the Bible may suffice? Otherwise, might not Christ Himself have wended His way to Persia, India or China, to bring to one or other of those nations the Gospel of peace and goodwill, framed in accordance with their own sacred books? The fact is certainly not without significance. For, maintain as we may that the men of greatest genius belong to no special age or country, that Dante, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Michelangelo and Goethe are the common property of mankind, it is all the same of no trivial import, that just this nation, and no other, should have been selected ineach case for the honour of bringing them forth. And where else, save among a people cast down from its former high estate, conquered, humiliated and oppressed, could the apotheosis of Suffering be so fitly preached, the message of Hope be brought to the poor and humble, and the erring be led back to the fold? Alas! that in a proud and vain-glorious spirit, expecting the promised Messiah in all the pomp of earthly power, they should have rejected the New Covenant of Mercy by which the uncompromising severity of the Mosaic dispensation was to be attenuated and made perfect!
I have wandered away somewhat from my theme. Perhaps however more in semblance than in reality, for as I pursue my own personal reflections, insensibly much is incorporated with them, which in the old days in the Vinea Domini was constantly being discussed, and may be said to have vaguely permeated the whole atmosphere. Judaism, as we then learned to know it, was presented less under an aspect of formality and exclusiveness, than as a leaven of righteousness, whereby the whole world should be regenerated. And possibly, could the other nations of the world have been brought to accept the Mosaic Code, much misery might have been spared them. For the great Lawgiver was wise in advance of his age, and many of the preventive measures, for instance, with which we now seek to ward off sickness from our flocks and herds, were foreseen and prescribed by Moses, long before Bacteriological Institutes were dreamt of! What profound knowledge too of human nature, what psychological intuitionswere his, who dared to let four generations of his weakened and demoralised followers perish, and merely serve as stepping-stones to the one destined to enter the Land of Promise and to settle down there in peace and plenty. What indomitable strength of purpose, what iron resolution must the man have possessed, who could wait thus calmly for results! Well might he feel that he had power to bid water flow from the barren rock, nay more, that in his righteous indignation he was justified in breaking the Tables of the Law, which he had just received, since it lay with him to inscribe them again. The light that flashed from his eyes was of more than mortal brilliancy, it was the sacred fire of enthusiasm, the glory that might illumine his face alone, who knew himself to be in direct communication with the Deity. And well and wisely has that kindred soul, Italy’s greatest sculptor, portrayed him thus, with the aureole of genius and titanic strength encircling his brow. Across the centuries these two, mystically allied by their superhuman energies and achievements, have met and understood one another, and the real Moses stands forever revealed to us in the form and features lent him here. It is strength in its highest manifestation which Michelangelo has symbolised, and we feel ourselves in presence of something that transcends our puny human faculties,—that springs from Faith, unswerving and unshaken.
Whence comes it that such faith is no longer ours? The fault is our own. God has never yet forsaken the least of us. And surely if there be aCreator of this marvellous universe, it behooves Him to watch over and uphold His creation. That much is sure. Every day brings with it a further proof of the insufficiency of so-called scientific explanations of the mystery of Being, every hour some highly praised and loudly welcomed discovery sinks into oblivion,—how many new theories of the universe, how many philosophic systems have I seen come and go, how many new prophets and teachers arise and pass away, in the course of the half-century I can look back upon! And if these apodictic truths are become naught, these theories discarded, these preachers turned into ridicule, well may I feel more and more disposed to cling to the simple childlike faith of my early years, and hold fast to this one sure anchor in a shifting world! Let the prophets of old serve as our example and guide. They were neither ignorant nor inexperienced, and their path was often beset by the Powers of Darkness, but their simple unquestioning faith brought them triumphantly through the greatest perils. Can we do better than imitate them? They are our spiritual fore-fathers, for our religion sprang forth out of Judaism,—we would deny it in vain.
Would that we resembled them more! Had we their faith, we should also have the same freedom from superstition that goes hand in hand with it, and which these heroes of the Old Testament have bequeathed to their natural heirs, to the representatives of the Jewish people among us now. It may be that it is a mere question of race, of constitutional temperament, but the fact none the less remains,that the Jew possesses a positive aversion to every form of superstition—that outcome of weakness and helplessness, the last refuge of despairing souls. It is not in his nature to give way to despair; from that the dictates of his strong common-sense would in a measure guard him, but his absolute security comes from his trust in the God of Israel. The love of riches, and of the ease and luxury that riches bring, this, it cannot be too often said, the besetting sin of our age, is the one peril that menaces the Jewish race. Not only for their own sake, but for the services rendered to humanity, must we not pray that the curse be averted, and that they who proudly term themselves God’s chosen people may avoid the gilded snare, and return to the simplicity and moderation of patriarchal times?
Someone—I have forgotten who it was—once called this earthl’Ile du Diable, and there are moments when it might seem almost to merit the name. And yet, quite so bad it surely need not be, if only each and all of us strive, in all single-mindedness and honesty of purpose, to make it something better—not by indulging in foolish vanities and useless luxuries—but, by the exercise of forbearance, gentleness and Christian charity, by the effort to bring light into dark places, and to brighten with some ray of joy the saddest lot. Were we but to act thus, Earth need be no Hell—it lies in our power to make it into a Paradise for ourselves and others. The Temple of Jerusalem will not be raised from its ruins in our days; there is no Zion on earth for the Children of Israel, for the Holy Places once laidwaste may not be restored by human hands until long years of expiation have gone by. That truth, Judah’s best and noblest spirits are the first to acknowledge. Something of the ideas of one of them I have tried to recall in these pages, which I dedicate to his memory. They can give but a vague image of the picture in my mind, and the unavailing regret comes over me once more, that of the wisdom and learning once so near me, I have been able to preserve but so dim a recollection. I could envy the pupils of Bernays, the students who enjoyed the privilege of listening to his exposition of the Greek Testament, on which all the wealth of research, the critical insight of a true scholar were brought to bear. Deeper and further than most of us he surely saw!
Faithfulservants are no less important in a household than the members of the family itself. Are we not every moment beholden to them for our ease and comfort, so much in the routine of our daily lives depending on them, that we can never be grateful enough for the pains they are at to make its machinery run well and smoothly. In our family this was certainly the case, very many of the old servants I remember in my childhood being regarded by us as true and valued friends. Talking of this one day to one of my cousins, he exclaimed, “Ah, indeed! what would ever have become of us poor children, had it not been for the dear good old servants!”
It was still the fashion in those days, to bring children up with great severity, and for poor little princes and princesses in particular a Spartan system of education was enforced. Under these circumstances it was very often thanks to the servants that we escaped the Draconian penalties attached to every trifling misdeed; they were always ready to come to our aid in all our troubles, and by their adroitness and good-nature helped us out of many of our worst scrapes. There were two, in particular, who were our personal attendants, and can never be dissociated from our family history, accompanying us on all our travels, and literally sharing in all our joys and sorrows. The one was my father’s valet,Masset, a dear old fellow, with a round smiling face like a full moon, as good-natured as a big playful dog, always ready with some amusing story or harmless piece of fun, if he saw that one’s spirits were low and that one wanted cheering. Lang, on the contrary, was a most dignified personage, tall, and speaking French beautifully, and with well-cut features and a certain stiffness of manner, which we felt to be rather imposing. But he was no less devoted to us, and I can recall many an instance of his zeal in rendering us service. To give one little example, one day, when in the Isle of Wight, my brother’s kite, which he was flying, got caught in a tree; it was Lang who in a moment had climbed the tree, and set free the kite, almost before the little boy had time to distress himself about it. Lang told me about it afterwards, and of the bad fall he had in coming down from the tree, being really so badly shaken that he could not get up for a few minutes, though luckily no bones were broken. “And what did Wilhelm do?” I asked. “Oh! he ran off with his kite as fast as he could!” was the smiling reply. I very much fear that we were often extremely thoughtless in the way in which we took for granted that we should always find our wishes carried out by either of these two trusty allies, and that we did not always trouble ourselves to thank them afterwards. We have often laughed since to think of the artful devices of good old Masset, on one occasion, when my brother was shut up in his room for three weeks on a diet of dry bread and water, taking care to cut such very thick slices of bread, thatinside each both butter and meat could be concealed; and this he carried with the most innocent face in the world to the poor hungry little prisoner, whose sole diversion, meanwhile, consisted in dragging his table up to the attic window, so that by placing a chair on it he could succeed in climbing out on the roof, to shoot at the sparrows with his little crossbow!
In our house the servants always said “we,” in speaking of the family; they quite felt that they belonged to it, and they were indeed fully justified in feeling thus by their devotion to us all. We might well be fond of them, though we certainly did not go quite so far as my mother, who, as a very small child was so much attached to the funny little wizened old man-servant who was her special attendant, that she was heard to say: “Ce cher Rupp! ce cher Rupp! je voudrais tant l’embrasser! je l’aime beaucoup plus que Papa!” But we liked ours quite as well as all but our very nearest relations, perhaps rather better than some! Masset, as his name shows, was of French extraction, descended from Huguenot refugees. Another servant had one of those names with a Latin termination not infrequently to be found in the Rhineland; he was called Corcilius. Our great-uncle, the traveller, whose delight it was to give nicknames to every one, amused himself with twisting and turning the servants’ names. Thus Lang (Long) became Kurz (Short), Schäfer (Shepherd) was transformed into Haas (Hare), and Corcilius was nicknamed “Garcilaso de la Vega.” Many of these good people had been inour service from father to son for several generations. One of our game-keepers belonged to a family who had been keepers with us for a couple of centuries. Many of our people lived to celebrate the jubilee of their fiftieth year in our service. Alas, not all!
But these two, as I said, Lang and Masset, were our special friends, we always felt so safe and sure with them, as if no danger could harm us. I should never stop, if I began relating everything, the fatherly way in which they took care of us, how often they carried us in their arms, all they did to please us, when we were quite small. For I was only two years old, when, the Rhine being frozen over for the first time for many years, they carried us across, my little brother and myself, in order that we might have a recollection of the unusual occurrence. And I do remember it quite distinctly, and many another little incident of like nature. I cannot think of these without emotion, but there was very much also that had its purely comic side. Whilst we were staying in Baden, later on, installed in the simplest, most modest fashion, with very few servants, some one happened one day to ring at the front door, just at the moment when Masset was summoned to my father. “Let me go,” I said; “I will open the door!” But very firmly though gently, I was pushed on one side. “No, dear child,—that cannot be, that would never do!” I was eighteen at the time, but for both Lang and Masset I always remained a child.
One amusing little scene, though it has not to do with them, but with another old servant, I cannothelp relating here. In my mother’s bedroom hung a lamp with a pink shade, giving a very agreeable light whenever it chose to burn, but more often than not a source of infinite trouble and annoyance. Now-a-days with the comfort and convenience of electricity or even of ordinary petroleum lamps, people can little imagine the nuisance of the old-fashioned oil-lamps. Two or three times in the course of an evening they had to be wound up with a sort of big key—and even then they would not burn! All the same everyone was agreed as to their being a most admirable invention! One evening when my poor little invalid brother was being put to bed, as he happened for once to be free from pain, my mother came away and joined us others at the tea-table. For she felt safe in leaving Otto to the care of his devoted attendant, a very old man, quite a relic of the past, as he had been in my grandmother’s service and had been handed on to us. Suddenly the door opened, and a wrinkled old face, crowned with snow-white hair, peeped in.—“Your Highness, the lamp is going out!” My mother jumped up. To rush into the other room, pull down the lamp, and carry it outside before its feeble light was entirely extinguished and had poisoned the atmosphere with its fumes—all this was the work of an instant. But how we all laughed! till the tears ran down our cheeks. And we were laughing still when my mother came back to the tea-table, quite astonished at our merriment, and asking its cause. To her it had seemed just the most natural thing in the world thatthe old servant should appeal to her, and that she should run to his assistance.
I should like to mention each and every one of those whose faithful service was so invaluable to our family during the years in which we were tried by sickness and suffering; many were admirable in their untiring devotion, but the two I have spoken of above and beyond all the rest. No words could do justice to the tact, the discretion, the unwearied patience, with which their duties were fulfilled. Never did they utter a word of complaint, on any of those long and fatiguing journeys, all the responsibility of whose arrangements fell on them, and which had to be performed under circumstances of exceptional difficulty, with my mother in her crippled condition, having to be carried in and out of train and boat, and my father and brother also helpless invalids. To say nothing of the amount of luggage that was required for the whole party, nurse and lady’s maid, tutor, governess, and lady-in-waiting! And travelling was by no means so simple and easy a matter in those days. But Lang and Masset were equal to the circumstances, and managed it all without a hitch. For our journey from Bonn to Paris a whole railway-carriage had to be reserved, so that my mother, whose convulsive fits at that time followed one another in swift succession, barely giving her time between to recover consciousness, might rest undisturbed in the hammock put up for her. As for the preceding journey, that from Neuwied to Bonn, however difficult it may have been to plan, it was so successfully carried out, that to us childrenit was all unalloyed enjoyment, like a page out of a fairy tale! As my mother could not stand the shaking of the steamer, one of the Rhenish coal-barges had been chartered, thoroughly cleaned and fitted out with mats and awnings, and the deck strewn with fresh flowers everywhere, and in order that the little journey should not take too long, the barge was taken in tow by one of the Rhine-steamers. It was all too delightful, so Wilhelm and I thought, this novel style of travelling, and everything so amusing—the little cabin with its sky-light, and above all the lovely little dancing waves in the wake of the steamer. We were quite lost in the enjoyment of the hour, and had but a faint understanding of the cares weighing on the elders of our party, though those were brought before us again, when we reached the landing-stage, and saw our mother carried unconscious ashore by Lang and Masset. As in spite of all their care and the excellent arrangements made, she had lain in convulsions the whole time, they might well feel somewhat discouraged at this first step in the pilgrimage undertaken in quest of health and solace for our invalids. But such grave thoughts cannot altogether quell the natural high spirits of youth, and I remember the peals of laughter that greeted us from my Uncle Nicholas, my mother’s youngest brother, who was awaiting our arrival in the garden of the villa at Bonn, and who declared that he had known we were coming long before the boats were in sight, our approach having been heralded by the smell of ether and chloroform which surrounded us like an atmosphere as we glided along! That strongsmell of ether and all the other medicaments used—and used in vain—to still those fearful paroxysms of pain, this remains for me so indissolubly associated with certain scenes and memories of my childhood, that as my pen traces these words, the air I breathe is pervaded with them once more!
I suppose it was the spectacle of suffering constantly before my eyes, and of the utter inefficacy of the remedies prescribed, that gave me, already as a child, the conviction of the absolute helplessness of doctors in certain cases. Of course I know the immense strides medical science has made since those days, but after all I wonder if to us it would have brought much help! That which did, however, most undeniably contribute to our comfort, and often helped to procure the sufferers some moments’ ease and rest, that was the quiet unobtrusive service of these two faithful souls. It was only natural that Masset’s devotion to my father should outweigh all else; it literally knew no bounds, and a very few months after his master’s death, his old servant was missing too. He had thrown himself into the Rhine, seeking a grave there between the blocks of ice with which the river was covered. His body was never found. It was only by the print of his footsteps in the snow (recognisable by the turning in of the toes), that some of the keepers traced him down to the riverside, and that we learned his fate. He simply could not live without the beloved master, to whom he belonged, body and soul. But the shock was a terrible one to us all; we mourned him mostsincerely. Lang remained for years after my father’s death in my mother’s service, and was with her when she came to see me in Roumania. To the end he was the same invaluable, trustworthy servant, with such sound judgment that my mother often asked his advice, always receiving excellent counsel from the clear-headed, much experienced old man.
I must not forget our old coachman, Lindner, who at my father’s funeral drove the hearse, that none but himself might have the honour of performing that last service for his master. It was a touching sight, so uncontrollable was the grief of the fine old man, who, till then, had often been the life and soul of every rustic gathering. He it was who was generally the principal solo singer at every village festival. Unless, indeed, it so happened that I was there to take my part! There was always a sort of rivalry between us, as to which had the larger store of songs, Lindner or I! And at last, I believe, I bore away the palm; I knew even more than he did!
I am proud to think how sad all these good people were when I left my old home on my marriage. The day when I had to take my leave of the Ladies’ Nursing Union, I said to Lang as I stepped into the carriage:—“Lang, je dois tenir un discours aujourd’hui.” And struggling with his emotion, he replied: “Il doit être d’autant plus beau, qu’il ne sera jamais oublié!”
I was missed by all the good country-folk. They had always called me “our little princess!” And much nicer, prettier names still! The first time I came back on a visit after my marriage, through thestreets of Neuwied and in the villages round about, they ran shouting:—“Our Lisbeth is coming! Our Lisbeth is here again!”
With every workman and mechanic in the neighbourhood we had a personal acquaintance, it was as if quite peculiar ties of very long standing united them to us, for had not their fathers and grandfathers worked for ours, for centuries past? So that we felt interested in all that concerned them, and ourselves took great pride in the fact, that the town of Neuwied had given birth to the celebrated wood-carver, Rœntgen, specimens of whose beautiful artistic wood-mosaics found their way to all the capitals of Europe, and decorate castles and manor-houses in every land.
But it was the book-binder, Lesser, a Moravian, who was our special favourite, and every week we spent several hours learning his craft of him, till we were ourselves able to do some very pretty work. I have still books in my possession, which I bound myself, fifty years ago, and which are in perfectly good condition now. It would be a good thing if all children were taught something of the sort, to amuse them in their play-hours, instead of letting them run wild. There would be no constraint needed; it would be merely giving a sensible and useful outlet for those energies with which all children are naturally brimming over, and which, misdirected, too often lead them into mischief. We were always encouraged to look on at all events, whenever there were workmen in the house or grounds, and we watched them with the greatest