[Image not available: A Queen at Her Loom]A Queen at Her Loom
interest, perhaps observing and learning more than was thought. And we often talked to them too, so that there was really nothing so very much to wonder at in those “Songs of the Crafts,” which I was one day to write, nor in the intimate knowledge of each special kind of work which they revealed. Quite young we thus learned to use our hands, and they were never idle. I could give first-rate sewing lessons; here in Roumania even I have taught many a young girl to embroider. But it was the smith above all whom we were never tired of watching at his work. Everything pertaining to the forge has a special fascination for children—the bellows, and the tongs, and the sparks that fly, and the blackened faces—it is all too delightful! One should allow children to familiarise themselves with all these things, with the beauty and dignity of human toil in its every aspect, that they may learn to have the right feeling of respect both for the work itself, and for the workers.
Nor can one too early impress on the minds of children the debt of gratitude they owe to all those whose lives are passed in their service. The young can certainly not be expected to realise all the unselfishness—the utter forgetfulness and disregard of self, I should rather say,—which are implied in the term of “good and faithful servant.” But they can be taught to show thoughtfulness and consideration towards all with whom they are brought into daily contact in these relations.
Servants of the type of those whom I have tried to describe here, are perhaps becoming more andmore rare. In any case, where we do come across them, we must look upon them as a gift from heaven, and it is in heaven, too, that they will have their reward. For no earthly master, however thoroughly he may recognise their merit, can ever hope to requite or repay such services as theirs. My little tribute of words is poor indeed to express the magnitude of such a debt. May they have found their reward in a better world, united to the master they served so faithfully on earth!
Thisangel in human form was a grand-niece of the celebrated Swiss philosopher and physiognomist, Johann Caspar Levater. She was one of a family of ten children, the father a member of the little French-speaking Protestant community at Hanau, and the mother an Englishwoman.
When Fräulein Lavater came as governess to my mother the latter was just six years old, and she herself a mere girl of eighteen, with big brown eyes and black hair. She was, however, already remarkably well-read in the literature of several languages, and this she always declared she owed in a great measure to the circumstance that the nonsense called children’s books did not exist in her childhood, she and her brothers and sisters being consequently obliged to have recourse for such amusement as they sought in reading, to the little collection of the best poets and prose-writers, of whose works their mother’s library was composed. It was thus that she had read nearly all Shakespeare’s plays when she was eight years old. In order to indulge their taste for reading, without always having to be guided by the choice of their elders, these young people had, she told us, discovered a most ingenious method of quietly pushing open a panel of the bookcase, making an aperture just wide enough to introduce the smallest arm among them, with which severalcoveted volumes would be fetched down from the shelves, and carried off to some safe hiding-place, to be brought out and devoured at leisure afterwards.
It was not considered necessary in those days to pass a public examination in order to give a proof of one’s knowledge and abilities, and in the person of our “Fräulchen,” as she was affectionately called, we had a striking example of the high degree of intellectual culture that may be attained by careful and intelligent home training and a liberal course of general reading. It was in the latter respect, above all, that the superiority of independent study over the modern cramming system, was in this instance so abundantly proved. A very few minutes’ conversation sufficed to show how much more solid information was possessed by the quiet little bookworm than by many a paragon of the latest methods of instruction, however much the latter might be advertised by the diploma conferred on her by the State. It would almost seem indeed as if no time were left for original thought or true mental culture in the schemes of our newest educational oracles, which apparently aim at reducing all mankind to one dull level of mediocrity, forcing all into the selfsame groove, and trying to make one pattern serve for all of us, utterly regardless both of our aptitudes and our requirements. I fancy that before long there must come a reaction from this unlucky craze, and that women at any rate will once more content themselves with cultivating their mental powers to the utmost, feeling therein a higher satisfactionthan is to be derived from the noisier successes of a public examination.
The home in which Fräulein Lavater had grown up, in happy companionship of her brothers and sisters, under the guidance of their excellent mother, was a comfortable old-fashioned house in Hanau, surrounded by a pretty garden of considerable size. A genial and healthy spirit animated the whole household; the inhabitants of the little town prided themselves on the literary and artistic interests which they considered had been wafted over to them from Frankfort, the Frankfort of Goethe’s days; they read much, and were fond of meeting together for philosophic discussion as well as for amateur acting. Those were still the good old honest simple times in which living was so cheap that an excellent mid-day meal, a slice of a roast joint with vegetables, bread and ale, could be had for three kreuzers, and in which young girls made their own simple white muslin ball-dresses, and embroidered them in coloured wools, wearing the same dress contentedly for a dozen dances; and assuredly they looked just as pretty and attractive in their modest attire as do the young women of the present day in the extravagant toilettes on which such preposterous sums are spent, often bringing ruin on a whole family. That so-called period of stagnation at which it is so easy to sneer, was in reality but the necessary reaction after the too great tension, the strain and stress of the War of Liberation, a rest after the storm, in which the nation might recuperate its energies, exhausted by the long conflict. No one talked then ofnational antipathies or hereditary enmities; and religious strife was also unknown. It was, at all events, a peaceful happy existence which people led in Hanau, as in many another of the smaller German towns, in which little colonies of French Protestants, driven out of their own country by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had settled down. There was something so distinctive about these worthy people, something that seemed to differentiate them from their compatriots of the Catholic Faith, and that has sometimes set me wondering as to what other possible turn affairs might have taken for France and for Europe in consequence, had Henry IV instead of hearing his first Mass thrown the whole weight of his influence into the other side of the scale, and brought his countrymen over to his religion! However that may be, it is certain that the presence of these foreigners gave Hanau something cosmopolitan, that the tone of thought and feeling which prevailed there was exceptionally liberal and enlightened. Anglophobia had not yet been invented in Germany, on the contrary, one admired and imitated everything English, looking up to the English nation as the most highly civilised of all.
Before Fanny Lavater’s first day in Biebrich was over, her little pupil was already sitting on her knee, and telling her:—“Je vous aime déjà beaucoup!” “Vraiment?” said the young governess, somewhat surprised. “Je vous aime déjà beaucoup plus que ma sœur Thérèse!” “Oh!” and this time there was something not merely incredulous, but almost of protest in the tone. “C’est que je n’aime pas beaucoupma sœur Thérèse!” The elder sister had, after the mother’s death, at once assumed the reins of government, and carried it on in so high-handed a manner, that she had by no means increased the affection in which she was held by her younger brothers and sisters.
The very next evening there was a big reception at the Castle, at which Fräulein Lavater, young and timid and unknown to everyone, had to appear. As she shyly entered the room, nobody made way for her, or took any notice of her at all, and my grandfather, observing this, strode through the room to the place where she stood, offered her his arm, and conducted her in this manner through the whole assembly, everyone falling back as they passed along. Needless to say, that her position in society was from that hour assured, and that she never required to assert herself in any way. And this little anecdote shows my grandfather, then a handsome dignified man in the prime of life, in the light in which he must have always appeared to the outside world; towards strangers he was affable, courteous and charming, reserving his ill-temper for his own family, his treatment of his children not allowing them to see in him aught but a pitiless tyrant.
For my mother a happy time now began, in which she and her dear governess lived quite by themselves in the rooms set apart for them in one wing of the castle, where they had their own little establishment—maid, footman and housemaids, all to themselves. Only once or twice a day did the children have to appear before their parents, kiss their handsand be dismissed again at once. Pupil and governess were all in all to one another, and the former had already made up her mind that no circumstances which she could control, should ever separate them. Fräulein Lavater must come and live with her, the little girl explained, when she got married. “But if your husband does not want me?” “Alors, je dirai; mon homme, tu peux rester dans ta chambre, et moi je resterai dans la mienne!” My mother kept her word, insisting, to our unspeakable happiness, on Fräulein Lavater remaining with her for weeks, sometimes months together, throughout her married life, and afterwards, during her widowhood, altogether.
The saddest day in her whole childhood was that in which her dear governess was dismissed. The latter had often defended her little pupil when she saw her unjustly accused, as not infrequently occurred, her otherwise admirable and dearly-loved stepmother having the weakness—it was the only fault that could be laid to her charge—sometimes to try to shield her own children from their father’s severity, at the expense of the others. And Fräulein Lavater’s zealous efforts to exculpate the poor child, on an occasion when she knew her to be the victim of a most cruel injustice, simply led to her own dismissal. It was for both of them a cruel blow, and my mother has often told me how she wandered next day heartbroken through the empty desolate rooms, throwing herself at last on a sofa to cry her eyes out, with no one to care what had become of her.
My mother had hardly been able to speak a word of German at the time when Fräulein Lavater came to her. Nassau belonged to the Confederation of the Rhine and had decidedly French sympathies, so that everything was new to my mother, when she came to Neuwied, marrying into a family that had been mediatised for having drawn the sword for Germany. She was simply shocked at the brutality of one of my great-uncles, who related how he had ridden about on the field of Waterloo, in the hope of finding Napoleon and making an end of him. “That fellow Bonaparte! if I could but have got at him!” Uncle Max would say, clenching his fist; and my mother turned away in horror at such savage sentiments.
There had been, quite unknown to herself, another marriage planned for her, with the heir to the throne of Russia, whose father, the Emperor Nicholas, was a great friend of my grandfather. But the match, on which both fathers were so bent, fell through after my grandfather’s death, the Emperor’s expressed desire merely having the effect of driving his son into opposition to his wishes. But my mother was ignorant of all this; all she knew of or cared for in Russia was the family of the Grand-Duchess Hélène, her own first cousin and sister to her stepmother. To her, the Grand-Duchess, and her daughters, she was deeply attached.
I cannot insist enough on the benefit resulting for us all from the presence of Fräulein Lavater in our midst. She came among us as a true angel of peace, bringing harmony into the strange mass of heterogeneouselements—sometimes most conflicting and discordant—of which our household was composed. Never were we so happy, either as children or a little later on, as when sitting with her, close up beside her chair, listening to all she had to tell us. Her memory was so excellent and had been so assiduously cultivated, that her mind was a perfect treasure-house of all that is best and noblest in the literature of the world. She was never idle; her fingers always occupied with some pretty piece of needlework whilst she talked, and when alone, they worked on indefatigably, her eyes meanwhile fixed on the book that lay open before her. It was owing to this praiseworthy habit, that in the course of completing some beautiful piece of lace or embroidery, that looked as if wrought by fairy fingers, she had at the same time committed whole pages of her favourite authors to memory, and would therefore not only relate to us the substance of her reading, but even recite long passages of poetry or prose by the hour together, in her soft agreeable voice, and with most admirable elocution. Her needlework was truly artistic; much of it would have been worthy to find a place in a museum. Her tapestry-work was as if painted, and an artist friend of ours once said of her groups and landscapes, that whilst the paintings done by some young ladies of his acquaintance looked as if worked in cross-stitch, Fräulein Fanny’s needlework was so fine that it might have been painted! “Look at that grey horse,” he went on, pointing to a little group, “sodelicately is it shaded, that Wouwerman might have acknowledged it as the product of his brush!”
Her own harmonious and well balanced disposition enabled our dear “Fräulchen” to play the part of peace-maker among stormier natures, and her influence was ever used for good. Never in thirty years of the closest intimacy did I hear a single word fall from her lips, by which I could possibly have felt hurt; and I was as ultra-sensitive and liable to take offence, as are most children, who are too harshly brought up. With others I was always looking out for blame,—a scolding seemed the natural thing to expect,—never with her! She could find fault, too, when it was needful, but with so much tact and kindness, and accompanying her criticism with reflections that took away all its bitterness and made it sound almost like indirect praise; and then when I looked up at her, half in alarm, with her soft little hand she would stroke mine and say smiling:—“There was the horrid little serpent concealed beneath the roses, was it not?” She was for ever pouring oil on the troubled waters, making life better and happier for everyone, and most of all for us poor children, who had in many respects a very hard time, in an atmosphere so little conducive to our healthy and happy development. We were accustomed to say among ourselves that we were a three-leaved shamrock of ill-luck, our initials—(of all our names, Otto, Wilhelm, and Elizabeth),—forming together the sound Oweh, or Woe!
Poor little woful shamrock in truth it was! We often stood in need of someone to protect us, ourparents’ ill-health placing us so entirely in the hands of our first governesses and nursery-governesses, who unfortunately happened to be anything but fitted for a position of such trust. We should have suffered still more from their harsh treatment and rough ways, had not Fräulein Lavater constantly stepped in, to interpose calmly and gently on our behalf. My gratitude towards her knew no bounds, and can find but scant expression in the words I write, which seem cold and colourless beside the feelings that dictate them. She alone understood the restless workings of my imagination, its insatiable thirst of beauty, not to be stilled by the daily portion of dull dry fact, which was alone provided by our earliest instruction, she alone cared to satisfy the intense longing for poetry, for literature, for some other knowledge than was contained in the little scholastic manuals of science and history on which our young minds were almost exclusively fed. Thanks to her, when I was eight years old, I was liberated from the very disagreeable young governess who had tyrannised over me since my fourth year, and a friend of her own substituted, an amiable and highly-instructed woman, with whom I at once made great progress, my studies becoming from that moment a real delight to me. Grammar, and French grammar above all, was a real passion with me, and unconsciously I was already then, in my love of languages and of language itself, cultivating and preparing the instrument that was one day to be my own, to be played on as others play on thestrings of a harp or violin. But clever and accomplished as Fräulein Josse was, and much as I enjoyed my lessons with her, the hours spent with Fräulein Lavater were worth even more, for her knowledge had a still wider range, her judgment was more calm and clear, being utterly unbiased by any personal considerations. She possessed a special gift for calming the tumult—a tumult of thought unsuspected by everyone else—which my lively imagination sometimes set up in my brain. As she was the only person who could sympathise with my flights of fancy, perhaps the only one who did not consider absolutely culpable and reprehensible the tendency to indulge in them, it was only natural that she should be the sole confidante of my dreams and aspirations. With her too I could give vent to my natural liveliness, to the perpetual flow of high spirits, so sadly out of place in the atmosphere of the sick-room. My youthful health and strength drew down on me all sorts of uncomplimentary epithets from some of the elder members of the family, to whom, more even than to the invalids, my liveliness must have been a trial; Whirlwind, Flibbertigibbet, Will-o’-the-wisp, these were a few of the names showered on me by Uncle Max, and more or less acquiesced in by the rest. It must have been the sensation of exuberant, irrepressible vitality within me which made me one day exclaim—“Mamma, I feel as if I could carry away a mountain!” Alas! I have sometimes thought since that my heedless words must have been overheard by Fate!
When I came back from St. Petersburg everythingwas changed, my dear father dead, and quite a different way of living to be entered on by my mother and myself, she being restricted henceforth to her dower for her own use, the estates of course passing into my brother’s hands, and simply being administered by her until his coming of age. We could now no longer keep open house as in the old days, in which the carriage had scarcely departed that took away one party of guests, when already and perhaps quite unexpectedly another would appear round the corner bringing a fresh relay. It was a quiet and rather lonely life that began thus suddenly for us three women, but no less full of interest, thanks to the one of us, to our dear Fräulein Lavater! We were hardly an hour of the day apart from one another, she and I; when the weather made it impossible for us to go out, if the wind was raging or the snow falling fast, then we contented ourselves with walking up and down indoors, pacing the rooms sometimes for hours, subjects of conversation never failing, her well-stored mind always ready to provide some fresh topic, and her marvellous swiftness of intuition enabling her to place herself at another’s point of view, and participate in phases of thought and feeling quite new to her. I had but just returned home after a lengthy absence, in which I had travelled much, seen many new countries, and met numbers of celebrated and interesting people. She meanwhile had remained quietly at home, surrounded daily by the same scenes, the same faces. And yet, how infinitely richer and fuller she had contrived to makeher life, that inner life, which is in truth independent of and superior to all influences from without!
I could wish that many another young girl might go through the experience that then was mine, that she might enjoy and profit by days like our winter-days in Monrepos, provided, of course, that she had such a companion as Fräulein Lavater to share in them. And better still were the long winter evenings, when we sat round the lamp, the immense deep stillness of the mighty woods reigning outside and a like feeling of calm, of aloofness from the world dwelling within our souls. Of inestimable value was that time for me, after all the bustle and fatigue of the long journeys, of the rapid succession of events, of all the changing, shifting phantasmagoria of the busy, restless world, stamped in almost bewildering variety on my brain. The impressions had been so vivid, so multitudinous, they bade fair to grow confused or distorted, crowding on and threatening to efface each other. But now, in this quiet uneventful existence, I could look through the rich collection I had brought home with me, could examine each treasure undisturbed, and range them all in order, could bring myself into harmony with all I had so recently acquired. How quickly those evenings passed! Our fingers were busy all the time; my mother spinning, and I already making all sorts of new inventions in tatting,—that pretty work of which I have always been so fond, and which I have gone on elaborating of late years into something resembling old-fashioned ecclesiastical embroideries. We talked at intervals, or else readaloud by turns,—from some author whose high and noble thoughts we might meditate on for long after.
It was the sensation of being enfolded and shut off from the rest of the world by the woods around us, that lent those evenings their peculiar charm. Often during the day I had wandered for hours through my beloved woods, with the sole companionship of the faithful St. Bernard dogs, my trusty guardians. We did not keep to the beaten path, but plunged into the deepest thickets, threading our way through the most tangled growth of brushwood. And on my return, my first care was to note down the songs which the trees had whispered in my ear as I passed beneath them. I was the wild rose, the wood rose, for all my friends. They had christened me thus, because of the roses on my cheeks, which I never lost, although so much of my youth had been spent in the atmosphere of the sick-room. I might indeed pass as a living contradiction to every sort of theory of infection, my magnificent health would have given the lie to all stories of germs and microbes,—I was really never ill in my life, and never had occasion to see a doctor, until the attack of typhoid fever I had while in St. Petersburg. That was perhaps in a great measure the result of the long anxiety, the sadness of years, but it did not come on till afterwards, not in the least as an immediate consequence of the unhealthy atmosphere in which I had grown up.
The drawback to the life we were now leading, lay of course in its natural tendency to encourage mere dreaming, almost at the expense perhaps ofone’s active duties, of all practical work. For me this might have been a special danger, had I not been preserved from it by the good sense, the clearsightedness, the spirit of self-sacrifice of my Mentor. Of herself she never thought at all. Therein lay the secret of her great power, of her unbounded influence. On her deathbed she could say:—“How good it is, when one’s whole life has been filled by one great affection!”
For those who knew her best, her whole existence was summed up in those words. But did they also contain a hidden meaning, the key to a secret none had ever guessed, some page of quite unsuspected romance, an attachment which death or circumstances had cut short? I had sometimes wondered that she alone of all her sisters had remained unmarried, had therefore never known the happiness of having a home, a family of her own; but, like everyone else, I had grown accustomed to the idea that her devotion to my mother was so all-absorbing as to leave no room for any other affection in her heart. Most probably was it so, and that her last words did but refer to the friendship, the affection, to which she had devoted her whole life, identifying herself so entirely with the feelings, the hopes, the interests and aims of the family of which in the truest sense she had become a member, that she found within that circle ample scope for the exercise of all her energy, the satisfaction of all her wishes, nor ever for one moment regretted having formed no other ties. She died in the year 1877, after the Balkan war, that war on which hung thedestinies of Roumania, and out of which the country came forth victorious and independent, and before her death she had come to pay me a visit there, appearing in her old character of an angel of peace and consolation. For it was in the saddest, darkest hour of my whole existence, that in which its whole joy and happiness, granted to me for so short a time, had been torn from me forever, and when my only wish was to be allowed myself to die also. In that moment of utter hopelessness, none knew as did this old friend of mine, in what manner alone to strive to reconcile me with life. Hers were the gentle words, the gentle touch, that can never hurt, that one can bear, even when one’s whole heart seems to be an open wound. “Bun de pus pe rana,”—“good enough to be put on a wound,” is a Roumanian proverb, that always recurs to me, in thinking of Fräulein Lavater, for it exactly describes the feeling one had when with her. Her hands were soft as satin, and in the moral or spiritual sphere, she had just the same exquisite softness of touch. Whilst others, even with the very best intentions, seemed only too often to bear heavily on a spot too sensitive to be breathed upon, every word and action of hers was like balm to the soul. Instead of making the vain attempt to offer consolation for a sorrow beyond redress, she understood at once that in such utter bereavement one can only be reconciled to the world by the effort to live for others. And that lesson she was best fitted to teach, who had for so many years practised it in her own person, putting herself so entirely on one side, and only thinkinghow she could help and comfort those around her. One felt sure of never being misunderstood or misjudged by her, since her readiness of sympathy enabled her at all times to put herself in another’s place, and look at the situation from another point of view. Witty and amusing in conversation, her modesty made her draw back more and more from general society as she grew older, under the plea that old people are always dull, but this did not prevent a proper sense of her own dignity, of that which was due to herself. She once said to me with a smile, in relating an incident from which it appeared that she had scarce been treated with due consideration—“Well, if the place allotted me at table did me no honour, I must suppose that I did honour to the place by accepting it!” Impartial and dispassionate in her judgment of men and events, she was equally unbiased in her literary criticisms, paying absolutely no heed to the voice of public opinion in such matters, but thinking and judging for herself. No one I have known ever possessed in the same degree the gift of rapid and unerring discernment: she would glance through a volume, and in a moment her mind was made up as to its contents; she seemed able to take in, and digest and assimilate them, in less time than it would take most people to read the headings of the chapters. It was a real pleasure to see her, when a big parcel of books arrived from a library; sometimes a peep into the uncut pages of a volume sufficed for it to be put on one side to be returned as not worthy of further attention, whilst over others she hovered,paper-knife in hand, glancing now here, now there, and choosing the best for more serious perusal, like a bee, we used to tell her, that darts from one plant to the other, sipping honey from the choicest blossoms!
Like the bees too, who are not content each to gather honey for itself alone, but bring it all to the common store, the treasures culled by Fräulein Lavater from her reading were not intended solely for her own pleasure and profit, but were ever destined to more unselfish purposes. She could enliven the dullest society, revive the most languishing conversation with some apposite remark, some reference to a topic so well chosen that even the most listless felt their interest aroused. And best of all, her soft low voice was like a charm for mental fatigue or overstrung nerves. It was as if she could wile away headache or worry with her gentle tones, she brought comfort to every sick-bed, and in the long weary day of convalescence, when the work of taking up again the burden of existence is perchance almost too great an effort for the weakened frame, who was there could ever, like Fräulchen, cheer and rouse one from one’s apathy, who else possessed such an inexhaustible fund of delightful stories, or could relate them as she did? How often, in later days, in the long slow recovery from illness, have I not sighed for her presence, feeling that she could beguile my pain and weariness with one of the stories or legends she told so well. She it was who first encouraged in me the taste for literature, the love of poetry, in which others saw only a weaknessand a danger. It was her guiding hand that directed my youthful talent into the right path, treating it as a plant worthy of cultivation, and not as a dangerous or perhaps even poisonous weed, to be rooted up or trodden under foot! For it was to many quite a shocking idea, that a princess should not merely have the misfortune to be born a poet, but that she should actually take no pains to conceal so terrible a fact! That sort of talent really could not be considered suitable to one’s station, and where there was no possibility of extirpating, it must at least be hidden away out of sight! But Fräulein Lavater, in her quiet unobtrusive way, saying no word to hurt prevailing prejudices and thereby expose me to still greater disapprobation, found the means of lending just the aid and sheltering care so requisite to my first timid attempts at giving poetic form to the emotional and intellectual chaos over which I brooded. The sure and refined taste of the elder woman rendered invaluable service to the somewhat headlong and indiscriminating enthusiasm of youth, in pointing out to me, at the same time with the best models for admiration and imitation, errors to be avoided, excesses and weaknesses to be condemned. Then, as later, it was the certainty that one’s efforts and aspirations, one’s failures and mistakes would meet in her, not merely with justice, but with that indulgence which is perhaps the highest form of human justice, this it was which inspired one with confidence in seeking her verdict, and spared one the excessive discouragement some criticisms invariably leave behind.A sense of justice is very strong in most children, and they suffer more acutely than is generally supposed, in the consciousness of being unjustly treated. Misjudged as in my childhood I felt myself to be by the iron disciplinarians whose aim it was to crush out all originality, it was a comfort to know that to one person I never appeared wilful or headstrong, and it was perhaps scarce possible to experience a greater satisfaction than was mine in later years, in hearing Fräulchen’s affectionate tribute to “our sunbeam,” as she was fond of calling me:—“She was always a dear good child, only wishing to make everyone happy!”
To this very day, in those moments of disappointment and lassitude by which all of us are at times beset, I have but to think of Fräulein Lavater, for the old feeling of peace and calm to come over me, and the physical pain is at once stilled, and the cares and troubles that seemed overpowering shrink into insignificance. More than once, in times gone by, when the burden laid upon my shoulders seemed greater than I could bear, her adroit touch adjusted it and turned it into a feather-weight, and recalling this, I rouse myself again to the struggle, to find as before my strength and courage increase, in proportion to the difficulties of the situation. I was in good truth Fräulchen’s pupil, her spiritual child, and it was as much for her as for myself that I was indignant, when of recent years an absurd report came to my knowledge, of a nervous complaint from which I was said to be suffering! As soon might one have creditedher, the best-balanced person inthe world, with an hysterical or nervous attack, since, like herself, I have always had my nerves under perfect control, and sharing in her somewhat contemptuous feeling for neurasthenia, neurosis, or any other such new-fangled disorder, I should consider it something degrading, of which to be ashamed, to be justly ranged among its victims. I have given, I think, sufficient proof to the contrary, and have shown of what well-tempered steel my nerves are made, by continuing my work uninterruptedly during long years of ill-health, and in spite of severe and almost unremitting pain, of which the doctors only much later discovered the cause. Well may I claim to disdain nerves and all who suffer from them, considering that they only too often serve as a mask, behind which selfishness and hypocrisy are hidden. Fräulein Lavater, at any rate, did not plead nerves if ever her equanimity were disturbed; she would own quite candidly:—“I am so irritable to-day!”
In one of the little albums—“Books of Confessions,” as they were called,—that at one time had so much vogue, among a host of silly questions, this one was asked: “Of all human qualities which do you prize most highly?” Without a moment’s hesitation, my father wrote down: “Enlightened goodness of heart!” No better description could be given of our Fräulein. Hers was the kindness, the goodness of heart, that may be truly said to be “illuminated” by the understanding; not that mere unthinking, easy good nature, blind in perception and indiscriminate in action, but the sympathy thatsprings from deepest insight, the indulgence that is born of comprehension—in a word, the charity that “beareth and endureth all things.” In each family circle, ever a little world in itself, with its sometimes incongruous elements and oft divergent and conflicting interests, and wherein the little rift may so soon be widened to an irreparable breach, the trifling dissension develop into implacable enmity, the presence of one person endowed with this rarest of human attributes will ever be the harmonising medium, the spirit of conciliation, the factor indispensable to the cohesion of the group.
Would that there were more like Fräulchen in this weary world! Fate is hard enough towards most of us. No need that we should ever strive to place a stumbling-block in another’s path, or make it darker by one shadow the more. Let us at least cherish the memory of all, whose “irradiating kindliness” for a moment brightened the gloom.
Wherever great intelligence and true culture combine, as in the person of Fanny Lavater, with moral strength and sweetness to the formation of a character, the result is like the harmonious blending of rich hues in some beautiful old cathedral window, through which the daylight streaming, transforms into new and unwonted loveliness even the commonest objects on which it falls!
Itwas at the time when this learned and accomplished friend of the highly gifted King Frederick William IV. was the representative of Prussia at the Court of St. James, that I first visited England in my childhood. We came over twice, on the first occasion to stay in the Isle of Wight, whilst our second visit was divided between Hastings and London. A sincere and lasting friendship then sprang up between my family and that of this remarkable man, continuing to this day among the members of a younger generation.
Bunsen loved to be the Mecænas of men of talent, and many were the interesting people whom we met at his house. The whole family was musical; two of the sons, just then students at the University of Bonn, sang most delightfully; “Kathleen Mavourneen” was first made known to me by the pleasing tenor of the one, and the other gave the famous “Figaro quà, Figaro là,” of the “Barber of Seville,” with great effect in his agreeable baritone. I had the pleasure of hearing the organ in Westminster Abbey played by the eldest daughter, whose professor, the celebrated organist, Neukomm, became from that moment a most welcome guest in our house, sometimes staying with us for weeks at a time. It was from this fine old musician that in my twelfth year I began learning the harmonium, and becamemoreover an enthusiast like himself for the sweet plaintive tones of the Æolian harp. It was his delight to fix one of these simple instruments in the crack of an open door, and seat himself in the full draught, to listen for and note down the weird melodies played by the wind. Often on a lovely summer’s evening,—in the moonlight of Monrepos that has been sung of among us from generation to generation,—we would have the harmonium brought out on the terrace, and letting his fingers stray over the keys, Neukomm would imitate the sighing of the breeze in the strings of the harp, catching up the echo of some murmuring sound, and repeating and improvising on it for hours.
Our stay in the Isle of Wight was delightful, and I look back on the pretty little island as a sort of earthly paradise, fit scene for a happy, idyllic life. Our little villa was smothered in the clustering roses that climbed over it everywhere, and on all sides stretched a lawn of beautiful soft green grass, perfectly kept, but upon which we children could fling ourselves and play to our hearts’ content; such a relief after the perpetual injunctions to refrain from stepping on the grass, to which we were accustomed in Germany. Then we had the good luck too, to be by the sea during a spring-tide, a novel experience, that gave us a most glorious excitement, as we happened to be taking our daily sea-bath, and there was the very greatest difficulty in getting the bathing-machine safely back to the beach again. The ropes with which the poor horse was harnessed gave way, and the man, who was pale with fright, had hardwork to rescue the little house-on-wheels with its occupants, whilst my brother and I were simply delighted to see the waves dash over it, rejoicing at last to encounter something that was like a real adventure!
Our second visit to England was in the year 1851, and we were in London just at the closing of the first great International Exhibition, at which I remember seeing immense crowds of people standing bare-headed and cheering, as “God save the Queen!” was played. That spectacle made more impression on me than anything in the Exhibition itself, unless it was perhaps the splendid trees, one giant oak-tree in particular, which had been built in with the edifice, completely roofed over by the big glass dome. Other contemporary events I did not witness myself, but only heard of them from our friends,—the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, for instance,—which they described to us passing their house, the Embassy in Carlton Terrace, in an endless procession rolling on for hours, like wave on wave in swift succession, to the mournful strains of the Dead March from the Eroica Symphony. As the sounds of one military band died away in the distance, the next one had already come up in step to the melancholy cadence of the selfsame march. Just like the rising and sinking of ocean waves was the impressive yet monotonous grandeur of the nation’s tribute to its great soldier.
The Prussian Embassy was at that time frequented by almost every one of talent or high intellectual culture to be found in London, Bunsen possessingin a remarkable degree the gift of attracting clever people to himself. He was quick too to discern the promise of future eminence in others, and many might relate how in that genial atmosphere their talent was discovered and encouraged and obtained its first recognition. Mendelssohn and Max Müller were amongst those who quite young there found themselves at once prized at their true value. The conversational powers of the master of the house himself, the young people so gifted and versatile, the open hospitality, the excellent music,—all these things were so many magnets, that drew strangers within the charmed sphere. I was of course not capable then of appreciating the depth of Bunsen’s learning or his intellectual worth, but his marvellous command of language and rhetorical facility impressed me greatly. In the fluency of his speech, the ease and elegance with which on all occasions he expressed himself, he resembled his royal friend, Frederick William IV. And his handsome face recalled that of the great Goethe at an advanced age, the likeness being especially striking on his deathbed.
But it was only natural that at that time Bunsen’s children and grandchildren should interest me much more than he did himself. The lame daughter, above all, like my mother at that time, being always wheeled about in her chair and unable to walk a step, and in whose features I also discovered something of a likeness to my mother, that perhaps lay in the kind gentle smile. The sympathy they felt for one another was naturally strengthened by theircommon misfortune, in each case the lameness appearing to be absolutely incurable. During the summer we spent in the Isle of Wight, my mother could still go about on crutches, then after the birth of my younger brother her condition grew far worse, complete atrophy of the one leg having apparently set in, and the pain hardly allowing her any sleep at night. Fräulein von Bunsen’s lameness proceeded from an attack of coxalgia as an infant, and since her sixth year all hope had been abandoned of her ever being able to walk. We children were meantime quite at home in the house of one of her brothers, playing with his children, with whom we continued on affectionate terms our whole life long. It is a satisfaction to be able to look back on fifty years of uninterrupted friendship such as this. Very specially did it exist between myself and Bunsen’s daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, so dear to me, that it was almost as if ties of blood had united us. Only quite recently did I bid a last farewell to this sweet and lovable woman, death having called her away. But she lives on in my remembrance, and I have an agreeable recollection also of her father, the Quaker, Gurney, and of his greeting, warm and courteous in spite of his keeping his hat on his head, as he met us on the threshold of his house with the words—“Be welcome to my home!”
I observed and learned a great deal more than anyone at that time suspected! It was my first stay in a great city, and the first lesson it brought home to me was that of complete acquiescence in my own limitations, or rather in those imposed on me bycircumstances, my very modest supply of pocket-money making quite unattainable all the splendours I saw exhibited in the shop windows. There was one lovely doll-shop, with the most exquisite dolls, as big as real babies, and directly I had a small sum to spend, I made my way thither, quite happy to have a close view of all these treasures, even if I should be unable to purchase any of them. And in truth, it was just the tiniest wax-doll of all that the contents of my small purse could buy—but such a lovely one, in a dear little tiny bed with curtains of rose-coloured silk, through which the rosy light streamed over the delicate little wax face. How I loved that doll! It looked just like a little princess in a fairy tale, or a fairy itself, sleeping there in the beautiful rose-coloured light. None of the bigger, grander dolls could have appealed to my imagination as did this little one. After all it is onthat—on the part played by their own imagination, that chiefly depends the amount of pleasure children get out of their toys, and those that are in proportion to their own diminutive scale and on a level with their simple requirements, appeal to them far more than others, chiefly remarkable for their magnitude and costliness. Lively as I was, I took the very greatest care of all my toys, treating them as if they were animate, sentient objects, so that I was in despair if any of them got broken or hurt. Demonstrations of affection never being encouraged, in fact being rather sternly repressed in our family, all my pent up tenderness poured itself out on my dolls and also on my little horse-hair pillow which I usedto hug and kiss in gratitude every night before going to sleep. It was all the dearer to me, because it was not taken with us on our journeys, and as I was not allowed to sleep on a down pillow, I generally, when we were away from home, had to do without altogether, which was by no means pleasant. Notwithstanding—or perhaps in consequence of this severe training,—having always been accustomed in my youth to sleep on a rather hard thin mattress stretched on a very narrow camp bedstead, I have grown somewhat more luxurious in that respect in my later years, and can hardly now be too softly pillowed in order to rest at ease. It is as if there were a sort of reaction,—a revolt of human nature against unnecessary and useless hardships imposed,—a lassitude of the whole frame to which some slight measure of indulgence must be accorded. Not in the matter of the palate though! Naturally abstemious, the habits of my youth still prevail with me there to such an extent, that to this day I prefer a slice of good wholesome black bread to all the daintiest, most skilfully prepared dishes in the world! We children knew too by experience the relish that the imagination may impart to the simplest fare, unconsciously resembling one of the creations of the great English novelist as we “made believe” to spread a little butter on the bread which the hygienic theories of the age insisted on our eating dry! But everything has its compensation, and who knows if those pleasures of the imagination, which were our chief resource, are not denied to the younger generation, from whom we scarcely seem to exact evenneedful self-restraint and self-denial, much less to call upon them for any exceptional sacrifice of their own comfort. Where every whim is gratified from the outset, there remains neither the necessity nor the inclination to seek refuge from unpleasant realities in a fairer world, to spread one’s wings and take flight for the realms of Fancy. Do the children of the present day even rightly believe in the possibility of thus spreading their wings? Would not some of these little sceptics laugh at the idea? Poor little things! Can it really be that there is no fairyland for them, no enchanted isles in the distant ocean, no kingdoms to conquer, no heroic deeds to be performed, that their souls find complete satisfaction in the prosaic details of everyday life, and never soar beyond the region of dull commonplace fact of their dreary school-hours? They little know of what they are deprived! They could never guess the joy we knew in the possession of this wondrous secret, this magic key, which unlocked the gates of fairyland, of the world of dreams, of noble adventure, wherein we could wander at will. What battles we fought, what gallant deeds we performed, what wrongs we redressed with the aid of those invisible armies, always at hand to come to our assistance and conduct us to victory, when the odds seemed too overpowering! But we had not invariably such exalted ambitions as these, it was not even always the discovery of some lonely desert island on which we were bent, but a much simpler, more modest lot satisfied us, provided it were but sufficiently removed from that which in truth was ours! Thus it was oneof my favourite ideas from the time I was four years old, to be a village schoolmistress, but I could not persuade my brother to promise that he would settle down beside me as the schoolmaster. That would have clashed with his dream of being a soldier, so it was settled that I should be the “daughter of the regiment,” thevivandiére, and accompany it everywhere so that we might not be separated. Ah! what marvellous adventures, what hairbreadth escapes, what glorious triumphs were ours! Sometimes we were sold as slaves, at others we were bold sea-farers and again quiet peasant-folk carrying our spades and milk-cans. It was by this means that we kept up our spirits, and preserved our good humour successfully, in spite of all that was irksome in our actual surroundings. Thanks to my lively imagination, I did not succumb to the persistent onslaught of the educational efforts destined to turn the current of my thoughts into a perfectly alien channel. In vain was I tied down to science and mathematics, logarithms and equations will forever be to me lifeless, meaningless abstractions, and it took me much less time than I had spent in acquiring it, to forget the velocity of a body falling through space! As for doing a simple sum in addition, I might as well never have learned the process at all for the little I know about it now. But the art of inventing a story, of calling up imaginary beings, of following them through the vicissitudes of their career, and weaving all this together to a plot—that was mine then and is still mine, notwithstanding all that was done to crush it out of me. What shouldI have done on the long tedious journeys, had I not been able to amuse myself by the delightful stories I thought out. Sitting cramped in my corner of the travelling-carriage or railway compartment, afraid even to stretch my limbs lest the movement should disturb one or other of the invalids, I owe it to my imagination alone, that child as I was, I did not fall into hopeless melancholy.
It was this same happy faculty of creating for myself an ideal atmosphere, and peopling this new world with my best-beloved heroes, and the no less heroic creations of my own brain,—this it was which lent so great a charm to many of our resorts,—standing us in good stead for instance, in investing with beauty the rather tame, stiff garden of a London square, so unsuited for the abode of mystery or romance. Apart from our intimacy with the Bunsen family, our stay in London possessed indeed few attractions for us. There was no relaxation of the customary strictness with which we were treated, on the contrary, there seemed to be an accumulation of wearisome restrictions and petty annoyances attendant on the stay in strange houses. Even when there was a garden, we might hardly play there, certainly not dig in it, nor run across the lawn, and as for venturing to gather a flower, I was haunted by visions of angry men pursuing us with thick sticks, ever since the day when the landlord had shaken his finger at us, just for touching his orange-trees! It was a little better in Hastings, where we had the beautiful open sea, and the beach on which we could play undisturbed. But our pleasurethere was damped by our perpetual anxiety and sadness on my mother’s behalf, whose illness had already entered then on its most distressing stage. From the window I could see her carried in and out of the sea, sometimes alas! to lie in convulsions on the beach, the servants standing round holding up umbrellas to protect her from the gaze of inquisitive onlookers. I stood sad and helpless at the window, unable to understand the unfeeling curiosity of these strangers. It was not quite so bad on their part though, as the behaviour of two Germans on the steamer that brought us over from Ostend, who kept pushing against my mother’s lame foot as she sat on deck, and even complained at her, for taking up so much room. It hurt her most of all, that it should be her own countrymen who were thus rude and heartless. Let us hope that it was merely sea-sickness which made them so inhuman! And the lady resembled them who, when my mother had dragged herself on her crutches to a railway-carriage and was preparing to enter it, shut the door in her face, saying:—“there is no room here!” What a contrast to the good old bathing-man at Hastings, who used to carry her in and out of the water, and was so sorry to see how she suffered, that he would pat her cheek gently, and talk to her as if he were comforting a small child:—“There, there, poor dear! it will be better soon!”
That journey from Ostend belongs to the most painful experiences of my childhood, it was nothing but discomfort and sadness, and I shall never forget the wailing of my poor little baby brother Otto, sufferingall night long in one of the frightful paroxysms of pain, for which in vain relief was sought. His devoted English nurse, our good Barnes, sat rocking him in her arms the whole time, and every now and then she cast a sympathetic glance my way, but she could do nothing to help or comfort me, she was entirely taken up with her poor little charge. Had there been anyone there who could have told me a story to distract my thoughts, to take me for a moment out of myself, and away from the unhappiness which I was helpless to console! How often may not some pretty well-told tale, some little snatch of song, help a child to forget the misery of its weary limbs and aching head, and soothe it to sleep.
One of my best and happiest experiences belongs however here, and must not be forgotten. It relates to that very Fräulein von Bunsen, the lame daughter, Emilie, “Aunt Mim,” as we afterwards called her, of whom I have already spoken. And the incident was called forth by some childish misdeed of mine, one of those trivial offences many would deem scarce worth noticing, but for which with us a punishment utterly disproportionate to the enormity of the crime was invariably inflicted. I was thus on this occasion condemned to be left behind alone, while the others set off joyously in five or six carriages to spend a day among the hop-pickers,—a treat to which I had been looking forward for weeks past. As they drove off, and I stood watching them sadly from the balcony, seeing their happy faces and listening to their gay laughter,feeling myself to be an outcast from the paradise towards which they were setting forth,—it was then that the lame Fräulein von Bunsen, happening to look up, caught sight of me, and before I could hide myself, had waved her hand to me with a friendly smile that went far to reconcile me with my lot and the world in general. The greeting, the smile, fell on my wounded heart like balm. Up to that moment I had felt somewhat like a condemned criminal, fearing that I must be looked down upon and shunned by every member of that happy party, since it was known to them all that I was deprived by my own fault of the pleasure of joining them. But the kind thought, the kind smile, took away all the bitterness of my reflections, and were treasured piously in my memory. Years after, when I reminded dear Aunt Mim of the occurrence, I was still more pleased to hear from her that my absence had been much regretted, not by her alone, but by all the others, on that day. They were all so sorry for me, she said, and missed the wonderful stories, which I was never tired of telling on all such excursions. I had forgotten all about that, my best stories being always made up for myself alone, as I lay in bed in the morning, awake with the birds and listening to their singing, and feeling the spirit of song just as alive in me, while the rest of the house was still fast asleep. I only remembered her kindness and the comfort it gave me, and until she reminded me of it, had never thought again of that other unlucky day on which the wheel of the little donkey-carriage, with her mother and youngest sister sitting in it,passed over my foot, at which I took care not to cry out or even make a face, and was only betrayed by the torn condition of my shoe, which led to my being scolded and sent home to have my foot bathed, instead of being allowed to continue my walk.
What a pretty picture Fräulein von Bunsen made in those days with her sweet expression, and pink and white complexion, leaning back in her bath-chair in her pink dress and hat with pink roses, pink veil and sunshade, looking a very rosebud herself! She was like my mother in this also, that the same treatment by which the latter was restored to health was very effective in her case too, and after undergoing it she spent many years in our house. Very intelligent, she possessed in a high degree the riper wisdom peculiar to those who have watched from afar the waves of life go surging by, themselves untouched by their tumult. An invalid looks on at the spectacle of human existence with something of the aloofness of a recluse, and is able to preserve the same childlike candour and crystalline purity of soul. No passion had ever stirred the depths of hers. It was like a deep transparent lake, in which earth and sky are reflected, clouds and sunshine, night and storm, and which yet remains unchanged through all. She reached her eightieth year in the same untroubled harmony of thought and feeling, her features very little altered by age, and her voice as sweet and clear as ever. Music was the very centre of her being, round which her whole existence revolved. I played duets with her for hours together, learning to know all the bestworks of the great classic composers so thoroughly and well, it was as if the glorious floods of melody had passed into my veins, to flow there mingled with my blood for evermore. How often did we thus succeed in flinging away all sorrow and care, feeling our troubles ooze out at the finger-tips, and our souls grow lighter as we played! All the days of my youth seem to pass before me, whenever I hear Beethoven’s Symphonies: certain of them,—the second, and that in C minor,—represent for me, as do Schubert’s Quartet and Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, very special phases of my existence, storms that were laid to rest by their potent spell. Our piano was a very old instrument whose keys were yellow with age, but to us it had the fulness of tone of a whole orchestra. And to strengthen the illusion, my father would often join us and hum or whistle some special passage as it is written for the different instruments, to try to give me some faint idea of the orchestral effect. In our enthusiasm we had soon forgotten the limitations of the means at our command, above all we forgot our own imperfections, we felt the whole orchestration, and in the grandeur of the conception the inadequacy of the performance was quite swallowed up. Is that not the best way to enjoy these divine masterpieces, the safest method of interpretation? It would not suffice, I am well aware, for the exigencies of a modern audience, incapable of drawing on the imagination to supply the deficiencies of execution. The hurry and bustle of the century leave no room for the modest efforts of a dilettante, imbued though these maybe with the spirit of truest adoration. Ours was the purest hero-worship, unmixed with aught of personal vanity or ambition. We simply thanked God, in the fulness of our hearts, that He had sent Beethoven to enrich and beautify the world!
At other times Aunt Mim would sit quietly at work in the library, whilst I wandered restlessly to and fro, like a caged lion, as she always said, telling her all that passed through my brain. It was just her unruffled calm that encouraged me to let loose on her the flood-gates of my soul. Surely those human beings come nearest perfection, who have preserved through life their angelic innocence, and it is perhaps to further this that such are often afflicted with some bodily infirmity, whereby the soul has power to raise itself above this earth.
By her perfect submission to the Divine Will, her firm faith which no doubt had ever clouded, no less than by her unswerving fidelity in friendship, and the cheerful, sunny temperament that had in it something of the playfulness and simplicity of a child, Aunt Mim was the pearl of her whole family and became invaluable and indispensable to ours. In those hours of greatest suffering, when words of good cheer could no more avail, then her quiet sympathy would yet often find means of making life a little more endurable to the poor sick child, of distracting my father’s thoughts from present sadness. Only one so utterly detached from all thought of self could have refreshed and lightened that atmosphere of gloom. So heavily did it press at times on my childish mind, and so thoroughly had my motherinculcated the belief in death as the supreme good to be wished and desired by us all, as the sole release from pain and suffering for ourselves and others, that during the weeks in which, after my brother Otto’s birth, she lay between life and death, my governess often heard me praying that God would take her to Himself! It caused some perplexity, I believe, to her who overheard this singular prayer, to hit on the right method of bringing me to desist from it, without disturbing the effect of the maternal teaching, and she wisely contented herself with telling me that although it would doubtless be for Mamma’s happiness to go to heaven, I need not ask for this, as God would take her to Himself in His own good time, and that moreover I should then see her no more. I was very much astonished at this, never having for a moment contemplated the possibility of being deprived of my mother’s presence by death. My idea of heaven was of something so real and near, that whenever I gazed up into the blue sky, I felt sure that were my beloved ones there, I might at any moment see a little window opening to let me through to join them! Well is it with us if we can keep this belief through life, if like children, who have left their heavenly home too recently to accustom themselves to this earth, and could depart again from it without a pang, we can but bear in mind during the whole course of our dreary pilgrimage, that we have here no abiding place, and keep our hopes fixed on the life beyond!
If I appear to dwell overmuch on my inner life in childhood, it is for the sake of other children, manyof whom are perhaps as liable to be misunderstood as I was myself. Who was there, of the grown-up people around me, who could ever guess what was really passing in my mind? Taught that it was my duty to enliven and gladden others, I had schooled my face to an expression of perpetual cheerfulness, and should have considered myself eternally disgraced, had anyone ever surprised me in tears. It is only by the utmost kindness and tenderness, that we can hope to win the confidence of a proud and sensitive child, and break down the wall of reserve behind which it early learns to intrench itself.
Among the many agreeable recollections I retain of the house in Carlton Terrace, that of the entrance and staircase is especially vivid, both being carpeted, as was the passage leading to the rooms above, with soft green felt, while book-shelves lined every available space along the walls. Such a friendly, home-like impression was thus at once created, intensified by the habit of making of the entrance-hall, on which the doors of all the rooms opened, a favourite resort for reading or conversation. That green carpeting, of just the tint of the green baize of a billiard-table, on which one’s eyes rested with so much pleasure, was no less agreeable to the ears, every sound being deadened, and the wheeled chairs of the invalids passing over it quite noiselessly.
Under Bunsen’s auspices, a literary society was founded in Bonn, whose members—generally under pseudonyms—submitted their work for his approval. Among the translators, my mother distinguished herself by a version of the magnificent Paternosterin Dante’sPurgatorio, and another of Longfellow’sSong of the Old Clock, with its mournful refrain—“Forever—never,—never—forever!”
Needless to say, though it is perhaps the proper place to insist upon it here, that I cannot pretend to describe the persons I have known, otherwise than just as they appeared to me at the time itself, these reminiscences being but the faithful transcription of the impressions received at different periods of my life, starting from my earliest childhood. Not for one moment can I profess to have been competent at the early age that then was mine, to form a correct idea of Bunsen’s literary merits. Of his books, the “Signs of the Times” and others, the titles were all that was known to me, but my respect for the career of letters was innate and unbounded, and the fact that he was an author impressed me immensely. Sometimes I have vaguely wondered since, whether with him intellectual brilliancy in the best meaning of the word may not have outweighed depth of thought. But this is a mere conjecture, on which it would be unfair to base a judgment. One talent, that was indisputably his, and which since I have been able rightly to appreciate it I have often envied him, was Bunsen’s marvellous facility for skimming through a book, and acquiring by that rapid survey a sufficient knowledge of its contents, to be able to discuss it afterwards, most minutely in all particulars with the author, as if he had read every word of it!
Another gift, which is sometimes denied to people of commanding intellect, but which invariably rendersits possessor beloved, was also his in a supreme degree: the aptitude for drawing out all that was best and worthiest of notice in others, of making those around him feel, as if it were not merelyhiswit alone, but theirs also that made the conversation brilliant. A rare gift indeed! For all will agree, that pleasant as it is to be in the society of clever people, pleasantest of all is to have to do with those, who make us feel cleverer ourselves while we talk to them!
Ourstay in Bonn was, as I have already pointed out, enriched by the intercourse into which we were thrown with many clever and interesting people, some of whom became true and trusted friends. Thus it happened that in a peculiarly dark and trying hour, we found in Clement Perthes the best and wisest counsellor, an unfailing source of help and comfort. It was to his special care that my father had confided us all, when he set out on that ill-advised journey in pursuit of health, from which he was only to return far more seriously ill than before. The doctors counted on the complete change, on the pleasurable excitement of travel, above all on his withdrawal from depressing surroundings, on his being for a time removed from the sad spectacle of daily suffering in his own household, as the best means of insuring his complete recovery. It was a well-meant, and carefully debated plan; but like many another issue of mere human wisdom, was not justified by events. However, after long deliberation and with many misgivings, my father was prevailed on to agree to the separation from wife and children for a whole year, setting out for America, accompanied by his young brother-in-law, Nicholas of Nassau. Brave as everyone struggled to be at parting, it was a most frightful wrench, and I remember seeing the tearsstream from my mother’s eyes, directly she fancied herself unobserved. From that moment, it was on Perthes that devolved the task of cheering the anxious hearts and raising the sinking spirits of those who had stayed behind. And well and wisely did he set to work. Not merely with his practical good sense and strong understanding, but above all according to the dictates of his good heart and warm human sympathies, did he fulfil the mission confided to him, and his kindness and tact, more even than his cleverness and knowledge, have the first claim on our gratitude.
There was something exhilarating in the good humour that pervaded the whole person of Clement Perthes, a youthful, almost boyish love of mischief and fun, that was not belied by the expression of his eyes, narrow and obliquely set in the head, giving him somewhat of a Japanese cast of countenance. This fantastic appearance was increased by the strange fold or wrinkle beneath the eyes, deepening as he laughed and joked, while another line above the eyebrows seemed to impart a softer, almost feminine touch to the face, that was, however, neutralised by the determined expression of the thin lips. Everything seemed to furnish him with matter for a jest, and he used to call me the “hundred-and-first,” insisting upon it that out of a hundred other little girls of my age, not one could be found who was the least like myself.
His children were our dearest playfellows. There were four sons and only one daughter, all of them good and amiable like their mother and himself,