Many races of poets had passed away; their hearts had never been stirred by vivid impressions of a heroes life; they celebrated the victories of Alexander and the death of Cato in countless forms, with chilling phrases and in artificial periods. Now the smallest story told at the house-door by an invalid soldier caused transports, even that the great King of Prussia had been seen by him at the cathedral and had spoken five words to him. The tale of the simple man brought at once, as if by enchantment, before the minds of his hearers the exalted image of the man, the camp, the watch-fire, and the watch. How weak was the impression produced by the artificial praise of long-spun verses against such anecdotes which could be told in a few lines! They excited sympathy and fellow-feeling, even to tears and wringing of hands. In what lay the magic of these slight traits of life? Those few words of the King were so characteristic, one could perceive in them the whole nature of the hero, and the rough true-hearted tone of the narrator gave his account a peculiar colouring which increased the effect. A poetic feeling was undoubtedly produced in the hearer, but different as heaven from earth to the old art. And this poetry was felt by every one in Germany after the Silesian war; it had become as popular as the newspapers and the roll of the soldiers' drum. He who would produce an effect as a German poet, must know how to narrate, like that honest man of the people, in a simple and homely way, as from the heart, and it must be a subject which would make the heart beat quicker. Goethe knew well why he referred the whole of the youthful intellectual life of his time to Frederic II., for even he had in his father's house been influenced by the noble poetry which shone from the life of that great man on his contemporaries. The great King had pronounced "Götz von Berlichingen" a horrible piece, yet he had himself materially contributed to it, by giving the poet courage to weave together the old anecdotes of the troopers into a drama. And when Goethe, in his old age, concluded his last drama, he brought forward again the figure of the old King, and he makes his Faust an indefatigable and exacting master, who carries his canal through the marsh lands of the Vistula. And it was not different with Lessing, to say nothing of the minor poets. In "Minna von Barnhelm," the King sends a decisive letter on the stage; and in "Nathan"—the antagonism betwixt tolerance and fanaticism, betwixt Judaism and priestcraft—is an ennobled reflex of the views of D'Argen's Jewish letters.
It was not only the easily moved spirit of poets that was excited by the idea of the King: even the scientific life of the Germans, their speculative and moral philosophy, were elevated and transformed by it.
For the freedom of conscience which the King placed at the head of his maxims of government, dissolved like a spell the compulsion which the church had hitherto laid on the learned. The strong antipathy which the King had for priestly rule, and every kind of restraint of the mind, worked in many spheres. The most daring teaching, the most determined attacks on existing opinions, were now allowed; the struggle was carried on with equal weapons, and science obtained for the first time a feeling of supremacy over the soul. It was by no accident that Kant rose to eminence in Prussia; for the whole stringent power of his teaching, the high elevation of the feeling of duty, even the quiet resignation with which the individual had to submit himself to the "categorical imperative," is nothing more than the ideal counterpart of the devotion to duty which the King practised himself and demanded of his Prussians. No one has more nobly expressed than the great philosopher himself, how much the State system of Frederic II. had been the basis of his teaching.
Historical science was not the least gainer by him. Great political deeds were so intimately blended with the imaginations and the hearts of Germans, that every individual participated in them; manly doings and sufferings appeared so worthy of reverence, that the feeling for what was significant and characteristic animated in a new way the German historical inquirer, and his precepts for the nation attained a higher meaning.
It was not, indeed, immediately that the Germans gained the sure judgment and political culture which are necessary to every historian who undertakes to represent life of his nation. It was remarkable that the historical mind of Germany deviated so much from that of England and France, but it developed itself in a way that led the greatest intellectual acquisitions.
And these new blossoms of intellectual life in Germany, which were unfolded after the year 1750, bore a thoroughly national character; indeed, their highest gain remains up to the present time almost entirely to the German. It began to be recognised that the life of a people develops itself, like that of an individual, according to certain natural laws; that, through the individual souls of the inventor and thinker, a something national and in common penetrates from generation to generation, each at the same time limiting and invigorating it. Since Winckelman undertook to discern and fix the periods of ancient sculptural art, a similar advance was ventured upon in other domains of knowledge. Semler had already endeavoured to point out the historical development of Christianity in the oldest church. The existence of old Homer was denied, and the origin of the epical poem sought in the peculiarities of a popular life which existed 3000 years ago. The meaning of myths and traditions, striking peculiarities in the inventions and creations of the youthful period of a people, were clearly pointed out; soon Romulus and the Tarquins, and finally the records of the Bible, were subjected to the same reckless inquiries.
But it was peculiar that these deep-thinking investigations were united with so much freedom and power of invention. He who wrote the "Laocoon" and the "Dramaturgie" was himself a poet; and Goethe and Schiller, the same men whose springs of imagination flowed so full and copiously, looked intently into its depth, investigating, like quiet men of learning, the laws of life of their novels, dramas, and ballads.
Meanwhile all the best spirits of the nation were enchanted with their poems; the beautiful was suddenly poured out over the German soil as if by a divinity. With an enthusiasm which often approached to worship, the German gave himself up to the charms of his national poetry. The world of shining imagery acquired in his eyes an importance which sometimes made him unjust to the practical life which surrounded him. He, who so often appeared as the citizen of a nation without a State, found almost everything that was noble and exalted in the golden realm of poetry and art; the realities about him appeared to him common, low, and indifferent.
How through this an aristocracy of men of refinement were trained,—how the great poets themselves were occupied in looking down with proud resignation from their serene heights on the twilight of the German earth,—has often been portrayed. Here we will only relate how the time worked on the common run of men, remodelling their characters and ideas.
It is the year 1790, four years after the death of the great King; the second year in which the eyes of Germany had been fixed with astonishment on the condition of France. A few individuals only interested themselves in the struggle going on in the capital of a foreign country betwixt the nation and the throne. The German citizen had freed himself from the influence of French culture; indeed Frederic II. had taught his country people to pay little attention to the political condition of the neighbouring country. It was known that great reforms were necessary in France, and the literary men were on the side of the French opposition. The Germans were more especially occupied with themselves; a feeling of satisfaction is perceptible in the nation, of which they had been long deprived; they perceive that they are making good progress; a wonderful spirit of reform penetrates through their whole life: trade is flourishing, wealth increases, the new culture exalts and pleases, youths recite with feeling the verses of their favourite poet, and rejoice to see on the stage the representations of great virtues and vices, and listen to the entrancing sounds of German music. It was a new life, but it was the end of the good time. Many years later the Germans looked longingly back for the peaceful years after the Seven Years' War.
If any one at this time entered the streets of a moderate-sized city, through which he had passed in the year 1750, he would be struck by the greater energy of its inhabitants. The old walls and gates are indeed still standing; but it is proposed to free from brick and mortar the entrances which are too narrow for men and waggons, and to substitute light iron trellis-work, and in other places to open new gates in the walls. The rampart round the city moat has been planted with pollards, and in the thick shade of the limes and chestnuts the citizens take their constitutional walks, and the children of the lower orders breathe the fresh summer air. The small gardens on the city walls are embellished; new foreign blossoms shine amongst the old, and cluster round some fragment of a column or a small wooden angel that is painted white; here and there a summer-house rises, either in the form of an antique temple or as a hut of moss-covered bark, as a remembrance of the original state of innocence of the human race, in which the feelings were so incomparably purer and the restraints of dress andconvenanceswere so much less.
But the traffic of the city has extended itself beyond the old walls, where a high road leads to the city, and suburban rows of houses stretch far into the plain. Many new houses, with red-tiled roofs under loaded fruit-trees, delight the eyes. The number of houses in the city has also increased; leaning with broad fronts, gable to gable, there they stand, with large windows and open staircases enclosing wide spaces. The ornaments that adorn the front are still modestly made of plaster of Paris; bright lime-washes of all shades are almost the only characteristics, and give the streets a variegated appearance. They are, for the most part, built by merchants and manufacturers, who are now almost everywhere the wealthy people of the city.
The wounds inflicted by the Seven Years' War on the prosperity of the citizens are healed. Not in vain have the police, for more than fifty years, admonished and commanded; the city arrangements are well regulated; provisions for the care of the poor are organised, funds for their maintenance, doctors, and medicine supplied gratuitously. In the larger cities much is done for the support of the infirm; in Dresden, in 1790, the yearly amount of funds for the poor was 50,000 thalers; in Berlin also, where Frederic William had done much for the poor, the government warmly participated in rendering assistance,—it was reported that more was done there than elsewhere. But the benevolence which the educated classes evinced towards the people was deficient in judgment—alms-giving was the only thing thought of; a few years later it was considered truly patriotic in the finance minister, von Struensee, to remit to the Berlin poor a considerable portion of his salary. At the same time there were loud complaints of the increasing immorality, and of the preponderance of poor. It was remarked, with alarm, that Berlin, under Frederic II., had been the only capital in the world in which more men were born in the year than died, and that now it was beginning to be the reverse. At Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig, beggars were no longer to be seen; indeed there were few in any of the Prussian cities, with exception of Silesia and West Prussia; but in the smaller places in Lower Saxony they still continued to be a plague to travellers. They congregated at the hotels and post-houses, and waylaid strangers on their arrival.
But a greater and more satisfactory improvement was made by the exertions of the government in the increased care of the sick: the devastating pestilence and other diseases were—one has reason to believe—shut out from the frontiers of Germany. From 1709-11 the plague had raged fearfully in Poland, and even in 1770 there had been deaths from it; whole villages had been depopulated by it, but our native land was little injured. There was one disease which still made its ravages among rich and poor alike—the small-pox. It was Europe's great misery—the repulsive visitant of blooming youth, bringing death and disfigurement. It was the turning-point of life, how they passed through this malady. Much heart-rending misery has now ceased; the beauty of our women has become more secure, and the number of diseased and helpless, has considerably diminished since Jenner and his friends established in London, in 1799, the first public vaccinating institution.
Everywhere, about this time, began complaints of the want of economy, and immoderate love of pleasure of the working classes: complaints which certainly were justified in many cases, but which must inevitably be heard where the greater wealth of individuals increases the necessities of the people in the lower classes. One must be cautious before one assumes from this a decrease in the popular strength; the awakening desires of the people is more frequently the first unhealthy sign of progress. On the whole it does not appear to have been so very bad. Smoking was indeed general; it constantly increased, although Frederic II. had raised the price in Prussia by his stamp on each packet. The coloured porcelain-headed pipe began to supplant the meerschaum. In Northern Germany the white beer became the new fashionable drink of the citizens; staid old-fashioned tradesmen shook their heads, and complained that their favourite old brew became worse, and that the consumption of wine among the citizens increased immoderately. In Saxony they began to drink coffee to a great extent, however thin and adulterated it might be, and it was the only warm drink of the poor. The general complaint of travellers, who came from the south of Germany, was that the cooking in Prussia, Saxony, and Thuringia was poor and scanty.
The public amusements, also, were neither numerous or expensive. Foremost was the theatre; it was quite a passion with the citizens. The wandering companies became better and more numerous, the number of theatres greater; the best place was the parterre, in which officers, students, or young officials, who were frequently at variance, gave the tone. The sensation dramas, with dagger, poison, and rattling of chains, enchanted the unpretending; pathetic family dramas, with iniquitous ministers of state, and raving lovers excited feeling in the educated; and the bad taste of the pieces, and the good acting, astonished strangers. The entrance of one of these companies within walls was an event of great importance; and we see, from the accounts of many worthy men, how great was the influence of such representations upon their life. It is difficult for us to comprehend the enthusiasm with which young people of education followed these performances, the intensity of the feelings excited in them. Iffland's pieces, "Verbrechen aus Ehrgeiz" and "Der Spieler," drew forth not only tears and sobs, but also oaths and impassioned vows. Once at Lauchstädt, when the curtain fell at the end of the "Spielers" (Gamblers), one of the wildest students of Halle rushed up to another, also of Halle, but whom he scarcely knew, and begged him, the tears streaming from his eyes, to record his oath that he would never again touch a card. According to the account the excited youth kept his word. Similar scenes were not extraordinary. Poor students saved money for weeks to enable them to go even once from Halle to the theatre in Lauchstädt, and they ran back the same night, so as not to miss their lectures the next morning. But, lively as was the interest of the Germans in the drama, it was not easy for the society of even the larger cities to keep up a stationary theatre. At Berlin the French theatre was changed to a German one, with the proud title of National Theatre; but this, the only one in the capital, was, in 1790, little visited, although Fleck and both the Unzelmanns played there. The Italian Opera was, indeed, better attended, but it was given at the King's expense; every magistrate had his own box; the King still sat, with his court, in the parterre behind the orchestra; and throughout the whole winter there were only six representations—one new and one old, each performed three times. Then, undoubtedly, the public thronged there, to see the splendour of this court festival, and were astounded at the great procession of elephants and lions in "Darius." It is mentioned that at Dresden, also, the children's theatricals in families were far more in request than the great theatre; and in Berlin, which was considered so particularly frivolous and pleasure-seeking, this same winter, at the great masquerade, of which there was so much talk in the country, there was only one person dressed in character; the others were all spiritless dominoes, and the whole was very dull to strangers.[24]All this does not look much like lavish expenditure.
The usual social enjoyment, also, was very moderate in character; it was a visit to a public coffee-garden. Nobles, officers, officials, and merchants, all thronged there for the sake of some unpretending music and coloured lamps. This kind of entertainment had been first introduced at Leipzig and Vienna about 1700; the great delights of this coffee-drinking in the shade were celebrated in prose and verse, and the more frivolous boasted how convenient such assemblages were for carrying on tender liaisons. These coffee-gardens have continued characteristic of German social intercourse for nearly 150 years. Families sat at different tables, but could be seen and observed; the children were constrained to behave themselves properly, and careful housewives carried with them from home coffee and cakes in cornets.
With the well-educated citizen, hospitality had become more liberal, and entertainments more sumptuous; but in their family life they retained much of the strict discipline of their ancestors. The power of the husband and father was predominant; both the master and mistress of the house required prompt obedience; the distinction between those who were to command and to obey was more clearly defined. Only husband and wife had learnt to address each other with the loving "thou"; the children of the gentry, and often also of artisans, spoke to their parents in the third person plural: the servants were addressed by their masters with the "thou," but by strangers in the third person singular. In the same way the "he" was used by the master to his journeymen, by the landed proprietor to the "schulze," and by the gymnastic teacher to a scholar of the upper classes; but in many places the scholar addressed hisHerr Directorwith "your honour."
More frequently than forty years before, did the German now leave his home to travel through some part of his Fatherland. The means of intercourse were intolerable, considering the great extension of commerce and the increased love of travelling. Made roads were few and short; the road from Frankfort to Mayence, with its avenues of trees, pavement, and footpaths, was reputed the bestchausseéin Germany; the great old road from the Rhine to the east was still only a mud road. Still did persons of consequence continue to travel in hired coaches or extra post; for though on the main roads the vehicles of the ordinary post had roofs, they had no springs, and were considered more suitable for luggage than passengers; they had no side doors; it was necessary to enter under the roof, or creep in over the pole. At the back of the carriage the luggage was stowed up to the roof, and fastened with cords; the parcels also lay under the seats; kegs of herrings and smoked salmon incessantly rolled on to the benches of the passengers, who were constantly occupied in pushing them back; as it was impossible for people to stretch out their feet on account of the packages, they were obliged in despair to dangle their legs outside the carriage. Insupportable were the long stoppages at the stations; the carriage was never ready to start under two hours; it took eleven weary days and nights of shaking and bruising to get from Cleves to Berlin. Travelling on the great rivers was better; down the Danube, it is true, there were as yet nothing but the old-fashioned barges, without mast or sails, drawn by horses; but on the Rhine the lover of the picturesque rejoiced in a passage by the regular Rhine boats; their excellent arrangements were extolled, they had mast and sails, and only used horses as an assistance; they also had a level deck, with rails, so that people could promenade on it, and cabins, with windows and some furniture. An ever-changing and agreeable society was to be found collected there, as many besides travellers on business used them; for Germans, after 1750, had made a most remarkable progress; the love of nature had attained a great development. The English landscape gardening took the place of the Italian and French architectural gardens, and the old Robinsonades were followed by descriptions of loving children, or savages in an enchanting and strange landscape. The German, later than the highly-cultivated Englishman, was seized with the love of wandering in distant countries; but it had only lately become an active feeling. It was now the fashion to admire on the mountains the rising sun and the floating mist in the valleys; and the pastoral life with butter and honey, mountain prospects, the perfume of the woods, the flowers of the meadows, and ruins, were extolled, in opposition to the commonplace pleasures of play, operas, comedies, and balls. Already did the language abound in rich expressions, describing the beauties of nature, the mountains, waterfalls, &c.; and already did laborious travellers explore not only the Alps, but the Apennines and Etna; but the Tyrol was hardly known.
It was still easy to discover by his dialect, even in the centre of Germany, to what province the most highly-educated man belonged; for the language of family life, giving expression to the deepest feelings of the heart, was full of provincial peculiarities, and those were called affected and new-fangled who accustomed themselves to pronounce words as they were written. Indeed, in the north, as in the south, it was considered patriotic to preserve the native dialect pure; the young ladies of some of the best families formed an alliance to defend the dialect of their city from the bold inroads of the foreigners, who had come to settle there. It was said, to the credit of Electoral Saxony, that it was the only part where even in the lowest orders intelligible German was spoken. A praise that is undoubtedly justified by the prevalence for three centuries of the Upper Saxon dialect in the written language, which is worthy of our observation, as it gives us an idea how the others must have spoken.
In 1790, one might assume that a city community, which was reputed to have made any progress, was situated in a Protestant district; for it was evident to every traveller that the culture and social condition in Protestant and Roman Catholic countries was very different; but even in the same Protestant district, within the walls of one city, the contrast of culture was very striking. The external difference of classes began to diminish, whilst the inward contrast became almost greater; the nobleman, the well-educated citizen, and the artisan with the peasant, form three distinct circles; each had different springs of action, so that they appear to us as if each belonged to a different century.
The most confident and light-hearted were the nobles; there was also some earnestness of mind in them, not unfrequently accompanied by ample knowledge; but the majority lived a life of easy enjoyment: the women, on the whole, were more excited than the men, by the poetry and great scientific struggle of the time. Already were the dangers which beset an exclusive position very visible, more especially in the proudest circles of the German landed aristocracy; both the higher and lower Imperial nobility were hated and derided. They played the part of little Sovereigns in the most grotesque modes; they loved to surround themselves with a court of gentlemen and ladies, even down to the warder, whose horn often announced across the narrow frontier that his lord was taking his dinner; nor was the court dwarf omitted, who, perhaps in fantastic attire, threw his misshapen head every evening into thesalonof the family, and announced it was time to go to bed. But the family possessions could not be kept together; one field after another fell into the hands of creditors; there was no end to their money embarrassments. Many of the Imperial nobles withdrew into the capitals of the Ecclesiastical States. In the Franconian bishoprics on the Rhine, in Munsterland, an aristocracy established themselves, who, according to the bitter judgment of contemporaries, did not display very valuable qualities. Their families were in hereditary possession of rich cathedral foundations and bishoprics; they were slavish imitators of French taste at table, in their wardrobes, and equipages; but their bad French and stupid ignorance were frequently thrown in their teeth.
The poorer among the landed nobility were in the hands of the Jews, especially in East Germany; still, in 1790, the greater part of the money that circulated through, the country passed through the hands of the nobles. On their properties they ruled as Sovereigns, but the land was generally managed by a steward. There was seldom a good understanding betwixt the lord and the administrator of his property, whose trustworthiness did not then stand in high repute; placed between the proprietor and the villein, the steward endeavoured to gain from both; he took money from the countrymen, and remitted their farm service, and, in the sale of the produce, took as much care of himself as of his master.[25]
The country nobleman was glad to spend the winter months in the capital of his district; in summer the fashionable amusement was to visit the baths. There the family displayed all the splendour in their power. Much regard was paid to horses and fine carriages: the nobleman liked to use his privilege of driving four-in-hand, and there were always running footmen, who went in front of the horses, in theatrical-coloured clothes, with a large whip thrown over their shoulders, and they wore shoes and white stockings. At evening parties, or after the theatre, a long row of splendid carriages—many with outriders—were to be seen in the streets, and respectfully did the man of low degree look upon the splendour of the lords. They showed their rank also in their dress, by rich embroidery, and white plumes round their hats; at the masquerade they had a special preference for the rose-coloured domino, which Frederic II. had declared to be a privilege of the nobility. Many of the richer ones kept chaplains, small concerts were frequent; and at their country seats, early on the Sunday morning, there was a serenade under the windows, as a morning greeting to the lady of the house. Play was a fatal amusement, especially at the baths; there the German landed proprietors met together, and played chiefly with Poles, who were the greatest gamblers in Europe. Thus it often happened to the German gentlemen, that they lost their carriages and horses at play, and had to travel home, involved in debt, in hired carriages. Such mischances were borne with great composure, and speedily forgotten. In point of faith the greater part of the country nobility were orthodox, as were most of the village pastors; but more liberal minds clung to the French philosophy. Still did Paris continue to issue its puppets and pictures of fashions, hats, ribbons, and dresses throughout Germany; but even in the modes a great change was gradually beginning: hoops and hair cushions were no longer worn by ladies ofton, except at court; rouge was strongly objected to, and war was declared against powder; figures became smaller and thinner, and on the head, over small curly locks, the pastoral straw hat was worn; with men, also, embroidered coats, with breeches, silk stockings, buckled shoes, and the small dress-sword, were only worn as festival attire; the German cavalier began to take pleasure in English horses, and the round hat, boots, and spurs were introduced; and they ventured to appear in ladies' rooms with their riding-whips.[26]
An easy life of enjoyment was frequent in the families of the nobility—a cheerful self-indulgence without great refinement, much courtly complaisance and good humour; they had also the art of narrating well, which now appears to recede further eastward, and of interweaving naturally anecdotes with fine phrases in their conversation; and they had a neat way of introducing drolleries. The morals of these circles, so often bitterly reprobated, were, it appears, no worse than they usually are among mere pleasure-seekers. They were not inclined to subtle inquiries, nor were they generally much disquieted with severe qualms of conscience; their feelings of honour were flexible, but certain limits were to be observed. Within these boundaries they were tolerant; in play, wine, and affairs of the heart, gentlemen, and even ladies, could do much without fear of very severe comments, or disturbances of the even tenor of their life. What could not be undone they quietly condoned, and, even when the bounds of morality had been overstepped, quickly recovered their composure. The art of making life agreeable was then more common than now; equally enduring was the power of preserving a vigorous, active, genial spirit, and a freshness of humour up to the latest age, and of carrying on a cheerful and respectable old age, a life rich in pleasure, though not free from conflicts between duty and inclination. There may still be found old pictures of this time, which give us a pleasant view of the naive freshness and easy cheerfulness of the most aged men and women.
Under the nobility were the country people and petty citizens, who, as well as the lower officials, took that conception of life which prevailed in Germany during the beginning of the century. Life was still colourless. We deceive ourselves if we imagine that at the end of this century the philosophic enlightenment had produced much improvement in the dwellings of the poor, especially in the country. In the villages, undoubtedly, there were schools, but the master was frequently only a former servant of the landed proprietor, a poor tailor or weaver, who gave up his work as little as possible, and perhaps left his wife to conduct the school. The police of the low countries was still ineffective, and the vagrants were a heavy burden. There were certainly strict regulations against roving vagabonds: village watchmen and mounted patrols were to stop every beggar, and pass him on to his birth-place; but the village watchman did not watch, the communities shunned the expenses of transport or feared the revenge of the offenders, and the patrols preferred looking after the carriers, who went out of the turnpike roads, because these could pay a fine. Complaints were made of this even in Electoral Saxony.
The countryman still continued true to his church; there was much praying and psalm-singing in the huts of the poor, frequently a good deal of pious enthusiasm; there were still revivalists and prophets among the country people. In the mountain countries, especially where an active industry had established itself, in the poorest huts, among the wood carvers, weavers, and lacemakers of the Erzgebirger and of the Silesian valleys, a pious, godly feeling was alive. A few years later, when the continental embargo annihilated the industry of the poor, amid hunger and deprivations which often brought them to the point of death, they showed that their faith gave them the power of suffering with resignation.
Betwixt the nobility and the mass of the people stood the higher class of citizens: literati, officials, ecclesiastics, great merchants, and tradespeople. They also were divided from the people by a privilege, the importance of which would not be understood in our time,—they were exempt from military service. The severest oppression which fell on the sons of the people, their children were free from. The sons of peasants or artisans who had the capacity for study could do so, but they had first to pass an examination, the so-called "genius test," to exempt them from service in the army. But to the son of a literary man or a merchant it was a disgrace, if, after a learned school education, he sank so low as to fall into the hands of recruiting officers. Even the benevolent Kant refused the request of a scholar for a recommendation, because he had had the meanness to bear his position as a soldier so long and so meekly.[27]
In the literary circle there was still an external difference from the citizen in dress and mode of life: it was the best portion of the nation, in possession of the highest culture of the time. It included poets and thinkers, inventive artists and men of learning, all who won any influence in the domain of intellectual life, as leaders and educators, teachers and critics. Many of the nobility who had entered official life, or had higher intellectual tendencies, had joined them. They were sometimes fellow-workers, frequently companions and kindly promoters of ideal interests.
In every city there were gentry in this literary set. They were scholars of the great philosopher of Königsberg; their souls were filled with the poetic creations of the great poet, with the high results of the knowledge of antiquity. But in their life there was still much sternness and earnestness; the performance of duty was not easy or cheerful. Their conception of existence wavered betwixt ideal requirements and a fastidious, often narrow pedantry, which strikingly distinguished them, not always advantageously, from the nobleman.
It is a peculiarity of modern culture, that the impulse of intellectual power spreads itself in the middle of the nation between the masses and the privileged classes, moulding and invigorating both; the more any circle of earthly interests isolates itself from the educated class of citizens, the further it is removed from all that gives light, warmth, and a secure footing to its life. Whoever in Germany writes a history of literature, art, philosophy, and science, does in fact treat of the family history of the educated citizen class.
If one seeks what especially unites the men of this class and separates them from others, it is not chiefly their practical activity in a fortunate middle position, but their culture in the Latin schools. Therein lies their pre-eminent advantage,—the great secret of their influence. No one should be more willing to acknowledge this than the merchant or manufacturer, who has worked his way up from beneath, and entered into their circle.
He perceives with admiration the sharpness and precision in thought and speech which his sons have attained by occupying themselves with the Latin and Greek grammar, which are seldom acquired in any other occupation. The unartificial logic, which so strikingly appears in the artistic structure of the ancient languages, soon gives acuteness and promotes the understanding of all intellectual culture, and the mass of the foreign materials of language is an excellent strengthener of the memory.
Still more invigorating is the purport conveyed from that distant world that was now disclosed to the learner. Still does a very great portion of our intellectual riches descend from antiquity. He who would rightly understand what works around and in him, and has perhaps long been the common property of all classes of the people, must rise up to the source; and an acquaintance with a great unfettered national life, and a comprehension of some of the laws of life, its beauties and its limitations, give a freedom to the judgment upon the condition of the present which nothing else can supply. He whose soul has been warmed by the Dialogues of Plato, must look down with contempt on the bigotry of the monks; and he who has read with advantage the "Antigone" in the ancient language, will lay aside the "Sonnenjungfrau" with justifiable indifference.
But most important of all was the peculiar method of learning at the Latin schools and universities. It is not by the unthinking reception of the material presented to them, but their minds are awakened by their own investigations and researches. In the higher classes of the gymnasiums, and at the universities, the students became the intimates of earnest scholars. It was just the disputed questions which most stirred them: the inquiries still unanswered, and which most powerfully exercised the mind, were those which they most loved to impart. Thus the youth penetrated as free investigator into the very centre of life, and, however far his later vocation might remove him from these investigations, he had received the highest knowledge, and attained to the greatest results of the time; and for the rest of his life was capable of forming a judgment on the greatest questions of science and faith, by accepting or rejecting all the new materials and points of view which he had gained. That these schools of learning made little preparation for practical life, was no tenable complaint. The merchant who took his sons from the university to the counting-house, soon discovered that they had not learnt much with which younger apprentices were conversant, but that they generally repaired the deficiency with the greatest facility.
About 1790, this method of culture had attained so much value and importance, that these years might be called the industrious sixth-form period of the German people. Eagerly did they learn, and everywhere did active spontaneous labour take the place of the old mechanism. Philanthropically did the learned strive to create educational establishments for every class of the people, and to invent new methods of instruction by which the greatest results could be obtained from those who had least powers of learning. To instruct, to educate, and to raise people from a state of ignorance, was the general desire; not that this was useful to the nation in general, for the lower classes could not enter into the exalted feelings which gave to the literary such enjoyment and elevation of mind.
It is true they themselves felt an inward dissatisfaction. The facts of life which surrounded them were often in cutting contrast to their ideal requirements. When the peasant worked like a beast of burden, and the soldier ran the gauntlet before their windows, nothing seemed to remain to them but to shut themselves up in their studies, and to occupy their eyes and mind with times in which they were not wounded by such barbarities. For it had not yet been tried, what the union of men of similar views in a great association would accomplish, in bringing about changes in the State and every sphere of practical interest.
Thus, with all their philanthropy, there arose a quiet despondency even among the best. They had more soundness and strength of mind than their fathers, the source of their morality was purer, and they were more conscientious. But they were still private men. Interest in their State, in the highest affairs of their nation, had not yet been developed. They had learnt to perform their duties as men in a noble spirit, and they contrasted, sometimes hypercritically, the natural rights of men in a State with the condition under which they lived. They had become honourable and strictly moral men, and endeavoured to cast off everything mean with an anxiety which is really touching; but they were deficient in the power which is developed by the co-operation of men of like views, under the influence of great practical questions. The noblest of them were in danger, when they could not withdraw into themselves, of becoming victims rather than heroes, in the political and social struggle. This quality was very striking in the construction of their poetry. Almost all the characters which the greatest poets produced in their highest works of art were deficient in energy, in resolute courage, and political sagacity; even in the heroes of the drama with whom such characteristics were least compatible, there was a melancholy tendency, as in Galotti, Götz, and Egmont—even in Wallenstein and Faust. The same race of men who investigated with wonderful boldness and freedom the secret laws of their intellectual being, were as helpless and uncertain in the presence of realities, as a youth who first passes from the schoolroom among men.
A sentimentality of character, and the craving for great emotions on insignificant occasions, had not disappeared. But this ruling tendency of the eighteenth century, which has not been entirely cast off even in the present day, was restrained in 1790 by the worthier aims of intellectual life. Even sentimentality had had, since Pietism crept into life, its little history. First, the poor German soul had been strongly affected; it easily became desponding, and found enjoyment in observing the tears it shed. Afterwards the enjoyment of its feelings became more student-like and hearty.
When, in 1750, some jovial companions passed in the extra-post through a village, the inhabitants of which had planted the churchyard with roses, the contrast of these flowers of love and the graves so excited the imagination of these travellers, that they bought a bottle of wine, went to the churchyard, and, revelling in the comparison of roses and graves, drank up their wine.[28]But the student flavour of roughness which was evinced in this enjoyment, passed away when manners became more refined and life more thoughtful. When, in 1770, two brothers were travelling in the Rhine country, through a sunny valley among blooming fruit-trees, one clasped the hand of the other, in order, by the soft pressure of his, to express the pleasure he derived from his company; both looked at each other with tender emotion, blessed tears of quiet feeling rose in the eyes of both, and they embraced each other, or, as would then have been said, they blessed the country with the holy kiss of friendship.[29]When, about the same period, a society expected a dear friend—it must by the way be mentioned that it was a happy husband and father of a family—the feelings on this occasion also were far more manifold, and the self-contemplation with which they were enjoyed, was far greater than with us. The master of the house, with another guest, went to await the approaching carriage at the house door; the friend arrives and steps out of the carriage, deeply moved and somewhat confused. Meanwhile the amiable lady of the house, of whom in former days the new guest had been an admirer, also comes down the stairs. The new-comer has already inquired after her with some agitation, and seems extremely impatient to see her; now he catches sight of her and shrinks back with emotion, then turns aside, and at the same time throws his hat with vehemence behind him to the ground, and staggers towards her. All this has been accompanied with such an extraordinary expression of countenance, that the nerves of the bystanders are shaken. The lady of the house goes towards her friend with outspread arms; but he, instead of accepting her, seizes her hand and bends over it so as to conceal his face; the lady leans over him with a heavenly countenance, and says in a tone such as no Clairon or Dübois could vie with, "Oh, yes; it is you—you are still my dear friend!" The friend, roused by this touching voice, raises himself a little, looks into the weeping eyes of his friend, and then again lets his face sink down on her arm. None of the bystanders can refrain from tears; they flow down the cheeks of even the unconcerned narrator, he sobs, and is quite beside himself.[30]After this gushing feeling has somewhat subsided, they all feel inexpressibly happy, often press each other's hands, and declare these hours of companionship to be the most charming of their life. And those who thus comported themselves were men of well-balanced minds, who looked with contempt on the affectation of the weak, who wept about nothing and made a vocation of their tears and feelings, as did the hair-brained Leuchsenring.
But shortly after this, sentimental nature received a rude shock. Goethe had represented in Werther, the sorrowful fate of a youth who had perished in consequence of these moods; but had himself a far nobler and more sound conception of sentiment than existed in his contemporaries. His narrative was indeed a book for the moulding of finer natures, through which their sentimentality was turned towards the noble and poetic. Immense was the effect; tears flowed in streams; the Werther dress became a favourite costume with sentimental gentlemen, and Lotte the most renowned female character of that year. That same year, 1774, a number of tender souls at Wetzlar, men in high offices and ladies, agreed together to arrange a solemnity at the grave of the poor Jerusalem. They assembled in the evening, read "Werther," and sang the laments and songs on the dead. They wept profusely; at last, at midnight, the procession went to the churchyard. Every one was dressed in black, with a dark veil over the face, and a torch in the hand. Any one who met the procession considered it as a procession of devils. At the churchyard they formed a circle round the grave, and sang, as is reported, the song, "Ausgelitten hast du, ausgerungen;" an orator made a eulogy on the dead, and said that suicide was permitted to love. Finally the grave was strewed with flowers.[31]The repetition of this was prevented by prosaic magistrates.
But the tragical conclusion of Goethe's narrative shocked men of sound understanding. It was no longer a question of jest with flowers and doves: it was convulsive earnest. When the respectable son of an official could arrive at such extravagance as suicide, there was an end of jest. Thus this same work gave rise to a reaction in stronger natures, and violent literary polemics, from which the Germans gradually learnt to regard with irony this phase of sentiment, yet without becoming entirely free from it.
For it was undoubtedly only a variation of the same fundamental tendency, when souls that had become weary of sighs and tears threw themselves into the sublime. Even the monstrous appeared admirable. To speak in hyperbolies—to express with the utmost strength the commonest things, to give the most insignificant action the air of being something extraordinary—became for a long time the fashionable folly of the literary circle. But even this exaggeration disappeared About 1790, the past was looked back upon with smiles, and the spirits of men were contented with the homely, modest style in which Lafontaine and Iffland produced emotion.
The growth of a child's mind at this period shall be here portrayed. It is a narrative of his early youth—not printed—left by a strong-minded man to his family. It contains nothing uncommon; it is only the unpretending account of the development of a boy by teaching and home, such as takes place in a thousand families. But it is just because what is imparted is so commonplace, that it is peculiarly adapted to excite the interest of the reader. It gives an instructive insight into the life of a rising family.
In the first years of the reign of Frederic the Great, a poor teacher at Leipzig was lying on his deathbed; the long vexations and persecutions he had endured from his predecessor, a vehement pastor, had brought him there. His spiritual opponent sought reconciliation with the dying man; he promised the teacher, Haupt, to take care of his uneducated children, and he kept his word. He placed one son in the great commercial house, Frege, which was then at the height of prosperity. The young Haupt won the confidence of his principal; and when he wished to establish himself at Zittau, the house of Frege made the needy youth a loan of 10,000 thalers. The year after, the new merchant wrote to his creditor to say that his business was making rapid progress, but that he should get into great difficulties if he had not the same sum again. His former principal sent him the double. After eight years the Zittau merchant repaid the whole loan, and the day on which he sent the last sum, he drank in his house the first bottle of wine. The son of this man, Ernst Friederich Haupt (he who will give an account of his school hours in his father's house), studied law and became a Syndicus, and afterwards Burgomaster of his native town; he was a man of powerful character and depth of mind, and also a literary man of comprehensive knowledge; some Latin poems printed by him are among the most refined and elegant specimens of this kind of poetry. His life was earnest, and he laboured in a very restricted sphere with a zeal which never seemed sufficient to satisfy himself. But the weight of his energetic character became, at the beginning of the political commotions in 1830, burdensome to the young democrats among the citizens. It was in the city where he dwelt that the agitation was carried on by an unworthy man, who later, by his evil deeds, brought himself to a lamentable end. In the bewilderment of the first movement, the citizens destroyed the faithful attachment which for thirty years had subsisted between them and their superior. The proud and strict man was wounded to his innermost soul by heartlessness and ingratitude; he withdrew from all public occupation, and neither the entreaties nor the genuine repentance evinced by his fellow-citizens shortly after, could make him forget the bitter mortification of those years which had left their mark upon his life. When he walked through the streets, looking quietly before him, a noble melancholy old man with white hair, then—it is related by eye-witnesses—the people on all sides took off their caps with timid reverence; but he stepped on without looking to right or left, without thanks or greeting to the crowd. From that time he lived as a private man, given up to his scientific pursuits. But his son, Moriz Haupt, Professor of the University of Berlin, became one of our greatest philosophers, one of our best men.
Thus begins his account of his first years of school:—
"My earliest recollections begin with the autumn of the year 1776, when I was two years and a half old. We travelled to the family property; I sat on my mother's lap, and the soft bloom on her face gave me great pleasure. I was amused with looking at the trees which appeared to pass the carriage so quickly. Still do the same trees stand on the other side of the bridge; still, when I look at them, does this recollection of the pure world rise before me.
"Already have four-and-forty years passed over the resting-place of your holy dust, dear departed! So early torn away from us! Gentle as thy friendly face, must thy soul have been! I knew thee not; only faint recollections remain to me. I have no picture of thee, not even a sweet token of remembrance. Yet shortly before they sent me, not seventeen years of age, to Leipzig, I stood on the holy spot that contains thy ashes, and sobbing vowed to thee that I would be good!
"Well do I remember the Sunday morning on which my sister Rieckhen was born. Running hurriedly—I had got up sooner than my brother—and, unasked for, had run into my mother's room. I announced it to every one that I found. Some days after, all around me wept 'Mamma is going away!' called out our old nurse, wringing her hands. 'Away! where, then?' I inquired with astonishment 'To heaven!' was the answer, which I did not understand.
"My mother had collected us children once more round her, to kiss and bless us. My half-sister Jettchen, then almost ten years old, and my brother Ernst, who was four, had wept. I—as I have often been told, to my great sorrow—scarcely waited for the kiss, and hid myself playfully behind my sister, 'Fritz! Fritz!' said my mother, smiling, 'you are and will remain a giddy boy; well, run away!'
"What I heard of heaven and the resurrection confused my thoughts; it seemed to me as if my mother would soon awake and be with us again. Some time after, my brother, who was much more sensible than I, said, as we were kneeling on a stool, looking at the floating evening clouds, and talking of our mother: 'No, the resurrection is something quite different!' But soon after her burial—it was Sunday—when I was playing in the evening in front of our back door, and a beggar spoke to me, I exclaimed, 'Mamma is dead!' and ran away from the nurse through both courts, in order to seek my father, whom I found sitting sorrowfully in his room. He took me and my brother by the hand and wept. This appeared strange to me, and I thought, 'So, my father also can weep, who is so old.' For my father, who was then scarcely forty-seven years of age, appeared old to me,—far older, for example, than I now believe myself to look, at almost the same age. But children look upon things differently to others; besides which, my father had dark eyebrows, in which respect I have become partly like him.
"Six months after my mother's death, my father took his sister to live with him, which altered our manner of life in many ways. Our life was no longer so quiet as before. Still sweet to me is the remembrance of the tales with which our aunt—who was always called by us and all the world,Frau Muhme—entertained us in the evening. As soon as it was twilight we dragged her by force into her chair, and we children sat round her and listened. Stories were hundreds of times repeated of our father's home, of Leipzig, and of grandfathers and great-grandfathers; and I longed to see myself at Leipzig, and to see the great fair, which I represented to myself, strangely enough, as an immense staircase hung with paper.
"We enjoyed indescribable pleasure when we watched in the evening, by moonlight, the motion of the clouds. The view from one window was of the hill and woods. In the forms of those clouds we discovered the figures of men or animals. There was a solemnity about them which enhanced the charm, and when, in my sixteenth year, I for the first time read Ossian, and his gloomy world of spirits and misty forms passed before me, then did I return in spirit to that window. Equally so, when I read the poem, 'Jetzt zieh'n die Wolken, Lotte, Lotte!'
"Visitors also, as was formerly the case in almost every nursery, related stories of spirits and ghosts, which we were never tired of hearing. Yet, although many who related them believed in them, at no time did my brother and I give a moment's credence to these tales. Never did we believe in the supernatural; even as boys of fifteen, we struggled against superstition. We have to thank our half-sister Jettchen for this: a maiden of rare gifts of mind. She pointed out to us in simple words the laughable side of these tales. But the awful had not the less great power over us, and we were often in fear when we were obliged to wander in the dark through the long passage to the front drawing-room.
"At the age of three years and a half old, I received my first instruction. My brother could already almost read, and I soon advanced enough to keep pace with him.
"I cannot say that we were fond of M. Kretzschmar, our first teacher, for he was in some degree bizarre, and punched our heads abundantly. It is scarcely credible but I can affirm that at five years old I only read mechanically, thinking all the time of something else; for example, of the flowers in our garden, or our little dog, &c. My own words sounded strange in my ears. Therefore I was often dreaming when I was asked a question; then followed the usual thump; but then I thought of that. Why was it so? It was indisputably for this reason, that our teacher did not know how to attract young minds to the subject. My brother was a very rare exception of quiet earnestness; and yet who knows how often even he may have been equally distracted?
"At five years old we began to learn Latin. Jettchen translated glibly Cornelius and Phædrus, and also the French New Testament. We boys learnt assiduously from Langen's and Raussendorf's grammar, and I had long written what we called 'small exercises,' before I clearly knew what I was about. I remember distinctly that it was as if scales fell from my eyes when, at six years old, I discovered that we were learning the language of the ancient Romans." (Thus was instruction almost universally carried on at that time!)
"Nevertheless, in many points of view, I have reason to thank this teacher. He taught us to read well, and by the frequent recitation of good verses—he did not write bad poetry himself—we imbibed early a taste for melody and harmony. We learnt many, very many songs and fables by heart. Learning by heart!—a now very antique expression; it was then very frequent in the plan of lessons, and it was by this that my memory became so strong. We were exercised in committing to memory whole pages in a quarter of an hour, and later I often learnt off at once eight, ten, or twelve strophes. In short, taken on the whole, according to the standard of that time, the pedagogue, with all his deficiencies, did not do ill by us. The soul, also, was not unattended to. Feddersen's 'Life of Jesus' was our favourite reading. Feder's 'Compendium' was used for our religious instruction, a book which is still highly estimated. Our feeling for the beautiful was also awakened and trained in another way. Weiss's Operettes, set to Hiller's music, then made a great sensation. Kretzschmar played the harpsichord well, and the violin still better. My sister Jettchen played very tolerably at sight. Thus by degrees all Weiss's operas were played and sung, and we young ones joined in the lighter airs by ear. My father listened, and sometimes joined, with pleasure.
"Thus did many autumn and winter evenings pass. Dear scenes of home, what have become of you in most families? You are superseded by trashy reading, casino, and play!
"The poetry we learnt we recited in the evening, before our father andMuhme,—nay, in case of need before the maid. Passages which had been explained to us, we then explained again. All this suggested to me the first idea and wish to consecrate my studies to religion and become a preacher.
"We had many playfellows. It was a common custom for children to visit one another on Sundays. We were allowed to remain to dinner, and accustomed to be well-behaved with grown-up persons. I, as being the least, was usually placed by the side of the father and mother of the family. Everywhere there was hearty friendliness. This custom, also,—at least in this form,—has almost passed away. We might not sometimes, perhaps, be quite agreeable to the elders, but this was rare. My father was much pleased when children, even as many as six or eight, came to us. The old people gladly gave a supper to the merry little folk, and they also played with them. Then on Monday we looked forward with pleasure to the following Sunday. Is it surprising that we still look back with pleasure to those happy days, the remembrance of which is wafted to me like the perfume of living flowers?
"With all my youthful gaiety I was still very earnest-minded. Our mother, who had been dead only three years, was often spoken of; we had learnt a quantity of funeral hymns, and at six years old I certainly thought more frequently of death and immortality than many youths, or even men. What was to become of animals after death, I had not thought of till I was five years old. Then I happened to see a dead dog in the city moat, and asked our teacher about it. 'There is no immortality for dogs,' he answered, which made me indescribably sorrowful. It was a Sunday evening. I told it to my nurse, and wept bitterly.
"At Easter, in 1780, our new teacher came. He had considerable knowledge, and lived very quiet and retired, as he secretly reckoned himself one of the Moravian brothers. We clung to him with deep love, for he devoted himself entirely to us. With no other man did we prefer walking; and all his conversation was instructive, for the most part religious. His endeavours to conceal from us his inclination for that sect which my father hated, gave an air of mystery to his words. We gained much in serious feeling through him. He accustomed us not to speak lightly of God or Jesus; and on his departure, at the end of two years, we were so well grounded in this that months passed without our once falling into this error, and when it did happen we sorrowed secretly with deep repentance; we left our most amusing game and prayed right heartily; we were, indeed, ourselves at last inclined to Pietism, for all worldly pleasures were condemned, or looked upon as injurious dissipations. So-called books of amusement, bordering upon novels, were considered good for nothing; even Gellert's dramas were reckoned among his youthful sins; places of amusement—balls, worldly concerts—were workshops of the devil! Only oratorios were bearable. Comedies were undoubted sins against the Holy Ghost. On my brother, who was naturally inclined for melancholy, these opinions took far deeper hold; he wept often in secret over his sins, as he called them. I envied him for this, considering myself as a reprobate and him as a child of God; but with all my endeavours I could not succeed in being so correct! I continually rejoiced at the sorrowful emotions which often overcame my soft heart.
"Still, still do I consecrate to thee my thanks, thou good and righteous teacher! Thou wast the most faithful shepherd of thy little flock! He lives still, near eighty years of age. For thirty years I have only once seen him, but last year, when my brother died, he wrote me a letter, full of faith and piety. In a dream—he attached much importance to dreams—he had visited our house on the day of the death of my brother, his Ernst. It is touching to read his assurances that his convictions were the same as they had been forty years before.
"There is one blessed hour I bear in memory. He went with us to walk in the city, and the evening star glanced kindly down upon us. 'What are the people above there doing?' said the teacher. This was a new idea to us! We were moved with joyful astonishment when he said to us: 'It is possible, even probable, that God's goodness has assigned other planets as a dwelling-place for living, thinking, and worshipping creatures.' Delighted, elevated, and comforted, we turned back. It was the counterpoise to that sorrow which fell upon me when I heard that there was no future for animals!
"On Christmas Eve, 1780, our dear sister Jettchen died, in her fourteenth year; nine days before we were playing merrily, when she was suddenly seized with a pain in her stomach. The doctor thought lightly of it, and probably mistook the real cause. After seven days she became visibly worse, was weak and pale as death; she left her couch for the last time in order to reach us our writing books. Yet no one seemed to anticipate her death. Alas! it followed that Christmas Eve, early; about four o'clock they awoke us to see her once more. Weeping loudly we rushed up to her. She did not know us. 'Good night! Jettchen!' we exclaimed, and my father prayed, tearfully. Our teacher stood by the death-bed and prayed: 'Now take my heart, and take me as I am to thee, thou dear Jesus!' (From the Kottbus hymn-book.)
"She departed amidst these prayers, and lay there in heavenly serenity. My little sister Rieckchen, three years and a half old, came up and said to the sick-nurse: 'When I die, lay me out in just such a white cloth as my Jettel.' And seventeen years afterwards the same woman did it!
"Before this, in the evening, we had to give our Christmas greetings. My brother and Jettchen exchanged greetings—very beautiful—in writing. 'She who was your chief is absent,' said my father, weeping. On the third day of the feast she was buried. She lay in a white dress with pale pink ribbons, a garland on her brown hair, and a small crucifix in her hand. 'Sleep well!' exclaimed our old nurse, 'till thy Saviour wakes thee!' We could not speak, we only sobbed. Often did my dearly beloved Jettchen appear to me in dreams, always lovely, quiet, and serious. Once she offered me a wreath; this was considered as a sign that I was to die, as I was soon after seriously ill. But since my childhood I have not been so fortunate as to dream once of her. She loved me tenderly! I may say very particularly so!
"Our sorrow was a little alleviated by our thoughts being distracted by a new building of my father's, a new garden-house; he had long wished for an extension and entire transformation of the garden. In less than two years all was finished, and now we passed most of our summer evenings there. The garden had ever been our place for exercise, and now it was enlarged. What pleasure it was to us, on the finishing of the new building, for the first time to eat our supper in the open air! And then we were allowed to remain out till ten o'clock, and go about under the starry heaven; and my father discharged small fireworks for us!
"In May, 1782, our good teacher left us, having received the rectorship at Seidenberg. Our sorrow was great, very great! He blessed us: 'Keep steadfastly to the instructions I have given you! Fear God, and all will go well with you!' These were his parting words. I threw myself on my bed and wept upon my pillow.
"My father was a strict, upright, honourable man. He had raised himself from bitter poverty to wealth, by his own exertions. With unremitting activity he only thought of maintaining and extending his business; of giving employment to many hundred manufacturers, and to securing an independence for us, his children. He worked daily ten and often eleven hours, only his garden drew him sometimes away; otherwise nothing else in the world. He was born to be a merchant, but in the highest sense; small accidental gains he despised, and I believe it would have been impossible for him to have been a retail dealer. He never made use of the frequent opportunities of becoming rich by bankruptcies; he walked steadily in the straight path, and was angry if his servants, in his absence at the fair, overcharged the purchasers. His external life was as simple as his inward principles. His furniture remained almost unchanged: the inherited plate kept its form; he only attached value to fine linen and good Rhine wine. His table was frugal; with the exception of high festival days, he had usually only one dish; of an evening frequently only potatoes or radishes. Wine only on Sundays, except on a summer evening in the garden. About once a year he gave an entertainment, then father Haupt would not do the thing shabbily. Champagne he could not bear; this, therefore, came very seldom. But he delighted in old Rhine and Hungarian wine, and bishop made of Burgundy. On Sunday evenings he walked in the fields, and now and then his life was diversified by a drive. He was, moreover, hospitable; very often foreign commercial friends came, and he frequently took his favourite clerks from the writing-room to dine with him. He was fond of talking politics, and often took correct views of the future. Though he was grave, he could be very cheerful, and often joked with us. He was open-handed to the highest degree; gave much to the poor, and gladly supported industrious people. Sometimes a great disinclination to the literary class came over him; therefore he frequently declaimed against the albums of the scholars; yet he never gave less than one thaler eight n. gr., often double, nay, three and four fold. All boasting was foreign to him, and he hated all ostentation of riches. If he heard that any members of his guild showed such ostentation, he only laughed most satirically; but when the boaster made himself too ridiculous he would say, 'We have not seen the end of it;' or, 'What wonderful things that man has;' or, at all events, at the utmost he said, 'I am not a nobody, either.' He was strictly religious, yet without superstition, against which, as well as against Popery, priestly pride, and hypocrisy, he would loudly declaim. He thought clearly on the most important subjects, as he himself knew, and was indeed almost alarmed, if he took, as he thought, too free views. It was touching to me; when once at Leipzig, during my studies there, he expressed himself freely upon confession, and then, drawing back with great modesty, said, 'Yet I am saying too much, Fritz, for I know that I am no deep thinking man.' He had, as a youth, read part of Wolf's philosophical works; but they were too dry for him. In his judgments of men he struck, as they say, the right nail on the head; yet he was, like all upright minds, often caustic, sharp, and bitter. If he had once said, 'The fellow is good for nothing!' he adhered to it.
"From his over-extensive business, in which he had no intelligent men, but only mere machines to assist him, we saw but little of him. He was obliged to intrust us to the tutor and the woman-kind; the result was that we felt more reverence than confidential tenderness for him. Yet we loved him from the bottom of our hearts, and his principles, his teaching, and his simple life worked upon us beneficially.
"Our aunt had, it is true, her good days, yet she never succeeded in entirely gaining our love. Her quarrels with the maids were more repugnant to us from the contrast of the familiarity with which it alternated; she managed to make use of my father's moments of vexation to gain her objects. But all this did not turn our hearts from her, as she did us no injury, and often even took our part against the ill-treatment of our new tutor. It was only that she was not fitted to captivate childish hearts. From this she took a great aversion to our nurse, to whom we clung with our whole souls, as she had brought up us four motherless orphans without any assistance. Belonging to a better class—her husband had rented a large property at Wernigerode—she had become impoverished by war, plunder, and a succession of misfortunes, her husband had died, and her children had partly gone out into the world and partly been brought up by relations. She had an excellent woman's head, a clear understanding, endless good-humour, cheerfulness, and suitable wit. If it is true that I have sometimes humorous ideas, a certain share in the development of this quality belongs to her. I well remember that I have gone on for a whole half-hour with her making bon-mots and allegories. 'With you I can joke.' With this good opinion I was often rewarded. Besides this she was skilful in a thousand things, and could always give advice. She was not disinclined to the 'Stillen im Lande,' which from her great sufferings the cup of which she had drained to the dregs, could be easily understood. Her heart was pure and pious, and she maintained in us the impression of our former tutor's admonitions, when his successor would almost have exterminated them by his teaching and course of life. Many of her relations, and also her son-in-law had become surgeons, and she had, as a maiden, given medical assistance. Therefore she possessed more than usual knowledge, and astonished a surgeon when she skilfully set my brother's foot, which he had dislocated. She understood osteology perfectly; perhaps indeed she sometimes had too much confidence in herself, but her remedies healed very quickly; and when the surgeon for four months vainly endeavoured to cure my brother's foot, and spoke of the bone being rotten, she shook her head; he was sent away, and in a month the foot was healed.
"The public even believed that she dealt in the black art, but we knew better. 'I have sworn to my lady,' (our mother), 'to give my life for you, if it can be of use to you, and I will keep what I vowed on her deathbed!' Peace be to her ashes! her wish to repose near 'her lady' has been fulfilled. 'Children! when I die, I have only one request,—lay me near your mother; ah! if I am only under the ledge of her tomb, I shall be content.'
"Such was the state of things in our house when the new tutor came—he was in every respect the contrary of his predecessor. The one simple, straightforward, and just, avoiding even the appearance of evil; the other a frivolous, flighty dandy, who—it was then a matter of importance—played with a lorgnette, and wore stiff polished boots even when he preached; in knowledge below his predecessor; in faith not knowing himself what he wished. The former weighed his words, this one often swore, and his pupils soon followed his example. He danced, rode, played at cards, &c. In short, quite a common-place master. Passionate, tyrannical, and severe upon our faults, or rather—for he did not concern himself much with our morals—harsh upon slight mistakes in the school-room. And yet we learned everything well, and knew more than all our playfellows; of that I am very certain.
"He very nearly disgusted me with study, treating me with special harshness, from not understanding my ardent mind; meanwhile from this bitter my nature drew forth honey. I had often suffered injustice, from hence arose the feeling of justice in my soul. 'It is better to suffer wrong than to do it!' often said our nurse to me. And out of this sprang forth my zeal against oppression, violence, and injustice of all kinds. The very depths of my soul were stirred when, being innocent, I was ill-treated; suffering seemed more deeply-wounding when inflicted by unfeeling arrogance. My brother and I respected the guilty, if they repented. Thus it was wholesome to bear undeserved severity! And yet,—so forgiving is the pure soul of childhood—that we only hated the man for the moment. A friendly word, or one of praise from him, and all was forgotten.
"As the Pietism of the other had not quite suited my father, the new tutor, in the beginning, was more thought of by him. But he soon learnt to know his man; and God knows how my father himself could for five long years have borne the misconduct of this man, for he wrote him insolent letters if he ever ventured to blame anything. We never dared complain, for our father did not stand in very confidential relations with us. So we suffered in silence, and often not a little. Often have I, in the truest sense of the words, eaten my bread with bitter tears.
"I must here mention, that my first resolution to become a preacher was extinguished by this man. 'Law, law,' he often exclaimed to me. What that meant was very mysterious to me. At last, however, when I heard that there were law professors, I understood it. It was now settled; but what attracted me in the Professorship was the opportunity of speaking in public. If there was a vocation that suited me it was this.