We are compelled to make another reflection in passing to the rest of the history. Humane, beautiful, and cheering as the religion of the patriarchs appears, yet traits of savageness and cruelty run through it, out of which man may emerge, or into which he may again be sunk.
That hatred should seek to appease itself by the blood, by the death of the conquered enemy, is natural; that men concluded a peace upon the battle-field among the ranks of the slain, may easily be conceived; that they should in like manner think to give validity to a contract by slain animals, follows from the preceding. The notion also that slain creatures could attract, propitiate, and gain over the gods, whom they always looked upon as partisans, either opponents or allies, is likewise not at all surprising. But if we confine our attention to the sacrifices, and consider the way in which they were offered in that primitive time, we find a singular, and,to our notions, altogether repugnant custom, probably derived from the usages of war, viz., that the sacrificed animals of every kind, and whatever number was devoted, had to be hewn in two halves, and laid out on two sides, so that in the space between them were those who wished to make a covenant with the Deity.
Another dreadful feature wonderfully and portentously pervades that fair world, namely, that everything consecrated or vowed must die. This also was probably an usage of war transferred to peace. The inhabitants of a city which forcibly defends itself are threatened with such a vow; it is taken by storm or otherwise. Nothing is left alive;—men never, and often women, children, and even cattle, share a similar fate. Such sacrifices are rashly and superstitiously and with more or less distinctness promised to the gods, and those whom the votary would willingly spare, even his nearest of kin, his own children, may thus bleed, the expiatory victims of such a delusion.
The Old Testament.
In the mild and truly patriarchal character of Abraham, such a savage kind of worship could not arise; but the Godhead,[3]which often, to tempt us, seems to put forth those qualities which man is inclined to assign to it, imposes a monstrous task upon him. He must offer up his son as a pledge of the new covenant, and, if he follows the usage, must not only kill and burn him, but cut him in two, and await between the smoking entrails a new promise from the benignant Deity. Abraham blindly, and without lingering, prepares to execute the command; to Heaven the will is sufficient. Abraham's trials are now at an end, for they could not be carried further. But Sarai dies, and this gives Abraham an opportunity for taking typical possession of the land of Canaan. He requires a grave, and this is the first time he looks out for a possession in this earth. He had before this probably sought out a two-fold cave by the grove of Mamre. This he purchases with the adjacent field, and the legal form which he observes on the occasion, shows how important this possession is to him Indeed it was more so, perhaps, than he himself supposed; for there he, his sons and his grandsons, were to rest, and by this means, the proximate title to the whole land, as wellas the everlasting desire of his posterity to gather themselves there, was most properly grounded.
From this time forth the manifold incidents of the family life become varied. Abraham still keeps strictly apart from the inhabitants, and though Ishmael, the son of an Egyptian woman, has married a daughter of that land, Isaac is obliged to wed a kinswoman of equal birth with himself.
Abraham despatches his servant to Mesopotamia, to the relatives whom he had left behind there. The prudent Eleazer arrives unknown, and, in order to take home the right bride, tries the readiness to serve of the girls at the well. He asks to drink himself, and Rebecca, unasked, waters his camels also. He gives her presents, he demands her in marriage, and his suit is not rejected. He conducts her to the home of his lord, and she is wedded to Isaac. In this case, too, issue has to be long expected. Rebecca is not blessed until after some years of probation, and the same discord which in Abraham's double marriage arose through two mothers, here proceeds from one. Two boys of opposite characters wrestle already in their mother's womb. They come to light, the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. The former becomes the father's, the latter the mother's favourite. The strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on. Esau is quiet and indifferent as to the birthright which fate has given him; Jacob never forgets that his brother forced him back. Watching every opportunity of gaining the desirable privilege, he buys the birthright of his brother, and defrauds him of their father's blessing. Esau is indignant, and vows his brother's death; Jacob flees to seek his fortune in the land of his forefathers.
Now, for the first time, in so noble a family appears a member who has no scruple in attaining by prudence and cunning the advantages which nature and circumstances have denied him. It has often enough been remarked and expressed, that the Sacred Scriptures by no means intend to set up any of the patriarchs and other divinely-favoured men as models of virtue. They, too, are persons of the most different characters, with many defects and failings. But there is one leading trait, in which none of these men after God's own heart can be wanting—that is, an immovable faith that God has special care of them and their families.
The Old Testament.
General, natural religion, properly speaking, requires no faith; for the persuasion that a great producing, regulating, and conducting Being conceals himself, as it were, behind Nature, to make himself comprehensible to us—such a conviction forces itself upon every one. Nay, if we for a moment let drop this thread, which conducts us through life, it may be immediately and everywhere resumed. But it is different with a special religion, which announces to us that this Great Being distinctly and pre-eminently interests himself for one individual, one family, one people, one country. This religion is founded on faith, which must be immovable if it would not be instantly destroyed. Every doubt of such a religion is fatal to it. One may return to conviction, but not to faith. Hence the endless probation, the delay in the fulfilment of so often repeated promises, by which the capacity for faith in those ancestors is set in the clearest light.
It is in this faith also that Jacob begins his expedition, and if by his craft and deceit he has not gained our affections, he wins them by his lasting and inviolable love for Rachel, whom he himself woos on the instant, as Eleazar had courted Rebecca for his father. In him the promise of a countless people was first to be fully unfolded; he was to see many sons around him, but through them and their mothers was to endure manifold sorrows of heart.
Seven years he serves for his beloved, without impatience and without wavering. His father-in-law, crafty like himself, and disposed, like him, to consider legitimate this means to an end, deceives him, and so repays him for what he has done to his brother. Jacob finds in his arms a wife whom he does not love. Laban, indeed, endeavours to appease him, by giving him his beloved also after a short time, and this but on the condition of seven years of further service. Vexation arises out of vexation. The wife he does not love is fruitful, the beloved one bears no children. The latter, like Sarai, desires to become a mother through her handmaiden; the former grudges her even this advantage. She also presents her husband with a maid; but the good patriarch is now the most troubled man in the world—he has four women, children by three, and none from her he loves. Finally she also is favoured, and Joseph tomes into the world, the late fruit of the most passionate attachment. Jacob's fourteen years of service are over, butLaban is unwilling to part with him, his chief and most trusty servant. They enter into a new compact, and portion the flocks between them. Laban retains the white ones as most numerous, Jacob has to put up with the spotted ones, as the mere refuse. But he is able here too to secure his own advantage; and as by a paltry mess (of pottage) he had procured the birthright, and by a disguise his father's blessing, he manages by art and sympathy to appropriate to himself the best and largest part of the herds; and on this side also he becomes the truly worthy progenitor of the people of Israel, and a model for his descendants. Laban and his household remark the result, if not the stratagem. Vexation ensues; Jacob flees with his family and goods, and partly by fortune, partly by cunning, escapes the pursuit of Laban. Rachel is now about to present him another son, but dies in the travail: Benjamin, the child of sorrow, survives her; but the aged father is to experience a still greater sorrow from the apparent loss of his son Joseph.
Perhaps some one may ask why I have so circumstantially narrated histories so universally known and so often repeated and explained. Let the inquirer be satisfied with the answer, that I could in no other way exhibit, how with my distracted life and desultory education, I concentrated my mind and feelings in quiet action on one point; that I was able in no other way to depict the peace that prevailed about me, even when all without was so wild and strange. If an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither, if the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion, threatened to bewilder me, I readily fled to those oriental regions, plunged into the first books of Moses, and there, amid the scattered shepherd-tribes, found myself at once in the greatest solitude and the greatest society.
History of Joseph.
These family scenes, before they were to lose themselves in a history of the Jewish nation, show us now, in conclusion, a form by which the hopes and fancies of the young in particular are agreeably excited: Joseph, the child of the most passionate wedded love. He seems to us tranquil and clear, and predicts to himself the advantages which are to elevate him above his family. Cast into misfortune by his brothers, he remains steadfast and upright in slavery, resists the most dangerous temptations, rescues himself by prophecy, and is elevatedaccording to his deserts to high honours. He shows himself first serviceable and useful to a great kingdom, then to his own kindred. He is like his ancestor Abraham in repose and greatness, his grandfather Isaac in silence and devotedness. The talent for traffic inherited from his father he exercises on a large scale. It is no longer flocks which are gained for himself from a father-in-law, but people, with all their possessions, which he knows how to purchase for a king. Extremely graceful is this natural story, only it appears too short, and one feels called upon to paint it in detail.
Such a filling-up of biblical characters and events given only in outline, was no longer strange to the Germans. The personages of both the Old and New Testaments had received through Klopstock a tender and affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the Boy as well as to many of his contemporaries. Of Bodmer's efforts in this line little or nothing came to him; butDaniel in the Lion's Den, by Moser, made a great impression on the young heart. In that work a right-minded man of business and courtier arrives at high honours through manifold tribulations, and the piety for which they threatened to destroy him became early and late his sword and buckler. It had long seemed to me desirable to work out the history of Joseph, but I could not get on with the form, particularly as I was conversant with no kind of versification which would have been adapted to such a work. But now I found a treatment of it in prose very suitable, and I applied all my strength to its execution. I now endeavoured to discriminate and paint the characters, and by the interpolation of incidents and episodes, to make the old simple history a new and independent work. I did not consider, what, indeed, youth cannot consider, that subject-matter was necessary to such a design, and that this could only arise by the perceptions of experience. Suffice, it to say, that I represented to myself all the incidents down to the minutest details, and narrated them accurately to myself in their succession.
What greatly lightened this labour was a circumstance which threatened to render this work, and my authorship in general, exceedingly voluminous. A young man of various capacities, but who had become imbecile from over exertion and conceit, resided as a ward in my father's house, lived quietly with the family, and if allowed to go on in his usualway, was contented and agreeable. He had with great care written out notes of his academical course, and had acquired a rapid legible hand. He liked to employ himself in writing better than in anything else, and was pleased when something was given him to copy; but still more when he was dictated to, because he then felt carried back to his happy academical years. To my father, who was not expeditious in writing, and whose German letters were small and tremulous, nothing could be more desirable, and he was consequently accustomed, in the conduct of his own and other business, to dictate for some hours a day to this young man. I found it no less convenient, during the intervals, to see all that passed through my head fixed upon paper by the hand of another, and my natural gift of feeling and imitation grew with the facility of catching up and preserving.
As yet I had not undertaken any work so large as that biblical prose-epic. The times were tolerably quiet, and nothing recalled my imagination from Palestine and Egypt. Thus my manuscripts swelled more and more every day, as the poem, which I recited to myself, as it were, in the air, stretched along the paper; and only a few pages from time to time needed to be rewritten.
When the work was done—for to my own astonishment it really came to an end—I reflected that from former year, many poems were extant, which did not even now appear to me utterly despicable, and which, if written together in the same size withJoseph, would make a very neat quarto, to which the title "Miscellaneous Poems" might be given. I was pleased with this, as it gave me an opportunity of quietly imitating well-known and celebrated authors. I had composed a good number of so-called Anacreontic poems, which, on account of the convenience of the metre and the easiness of the subject, flowed forth readily enough. But these I could not well take, as they were not in rhyme, and my desire before all things was to show my father something that would please him. So much the more, therefore, did the spiritual odes seem suitable, which I had very zealously attempted in imitation of theLast Judgmentof Elias Schlegel. One of these, written to celebrate the descent of Christ into hell, received much applause from my parents and friends, and had the good fortune to please myself for some years afterwards.The so-called texts of the Sunday church-music, which were always to be had printed, I studied with diligence. They were, indeed, very weak, and I could well believe that my verses, of which I had composed many in the prescribed manner, were equally worthy of being set to music, and performed for the edification of the congregation. These and many like them I had for more than a year before copied with my own hand, because through this private exercise I was released from the copies of the writing-master. Now, all were corrected and put in order, and no great persuasion was needed to have them neatly copied by the young man who was so fond of writing. I hastened with them to the bookbinder, and when very soon after I handed the nice-looking volume to my father, he encouraged me with peculiar satisfaction to furnish a similar quarto every year; which he did with the greater conviction, as I had produced the whole in my spare moments alone.
Plitt's Sermons.
Another circumstance increased my tendency to these theological, or rather biblical studies. The senior of the ministry,John Philip Fresenius, a mild man, of handsome, agreeable appearance, who was respected by his congregation and the whole city as an exemplary pastor and good preacher, but who, because he stood forth against the Herrnhuters, was not in the best odour with the peculiarly pious; while, on the other hand, he had made himself famous, and almost sacred, with the multitude, by the conversion of a free-thinking General who had been mortally wounded—this man died, and his successor, Plitt, a tall, handsome, dignified man, who brought from hisChair(he had been a Professor in Marburg) the gift of teaching rather than of edifying, immediately announced a sort of religious course, to which his sermons were to be devoted in a certain methodical connexion. I had already, as I was compelled to go to church, remarked the distribution of the subject, and could now and then show myself off by a pretty complete recitation of a sermon. But now as much was said in the congregation, both for and against the new senior, and many placed no great confidence in his announced didactic sermons, I undertook to write them out more carefully, and I succeeded the better from having made smaller attempts in a seat very convenient for hearing, but concealed from sight. I was extremely attentive and on the alert; the moment he saidAmen I hastened from the church and consumed a couple of hours in rapidly dictating what I had fixed in my memory and on paper, so that I could hand in the written sermon before dinner. My father was very proud of this success, and the good friend of the family, who had just come in to dinner, also shared in the joy. Indeed, this friend was very well-disposed to me, because I had so made hisMessiahmy own, that in my repeated visits to him to get impressions of seals for my collection of coats-of-arms, I could recite long passages from it till the tears stood in his eyes.
The next Sunday I prosecuted the work with equal zeal, and as the mechanical part of it mainly interested me, I did not reflect upon what I wrote and preserved. During the first quarter these efforts may have continued pretty much the same; but as I fancied at last, in my self-conceit, that I found no particular enlightenment as to the Bible, nor clearer insight into dogmas, the small vanity which was thus gratified seemed to me too dearly purchased for me to pursue the matter with the same zeal. The sermons, once so many-leaved, grew more and more meagre; and before long I should have relinquished this labour altogether, if my father, who was a fast friend to completeness, had not, by words and promises, induced me to persevere till the last Sunday in Trinity—though, at the conclusion, scarcely more than the text, the statement, and the divisions were scribbled on little pieces of paper.
My father was particularly pertinacious on this point of completeness. What was once undertaken must be finished, even if the inconvenience, tedium, vexation, nay, uselessness of the thing begun were plainly manifested in the meantime. It seemed as if he regarded completeness as the only end, and perseverance as the only virtue. If in our family circle, in the long winter evenings, we had begun to read a book aloud, we were compelled to finish, though we were all in despair about it, and my father himself was the first to yawn. I still remember such a winter when we had thus to work our way through Bower'sHistory of the Popes.It was a terrible time, as little or nothing that occurs in ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people. Still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading remained in my mind that I was able, in after times, to take up many threads of the narrative.
Lessons in Fencing.
Amid all these heterogeneous occupations and labours, which followed each other so rapidly that one could hardly reflect whether they were permissible and useful, my father did not lose sight of the main object. He endeavoured to direct my memory and my talent for apprehending and combining to objects of jurisprudence, and therefore gave me a small book by Hopp, in the shape of a catechism, and worked up according to the form and substance of the Institutions. I soon learned questions and answers by heart, and could represent the catechist as well as the catechumen; and, as in religious instruction at that time, one of the chief exercises was to find passages in the Bible as readily as possible, so here a similar acquaintance with theCorpus Juriswas found necessary, in which, also, I soon became completely versed. My father wished me to go on, and the littleStruvewas taken in hand; but here affairs did not proceed so rapidly. The form of the work was not so favourable for beginners, that they could help themselves on, nor was my father's method of illustration so liberal as greatly to interest me.
Not only by the warlike state in which we lived for some years, but also by civil life itself, and the perusal of history and romances, was it made clear to me that there were many cases in which the laws are silent and give no help to the individual, who must then see how to get out of the difficulty by himself. We had now reached the period when, according to the old routine, we were, besides other things, to learn to fence and ride, that we might guard our skins upon occasion, and have no pedantic appearance on horseback. As to the first, the practice was very agreeable to us; for we had already, long ago, contrived to make broad-swords out of hazel-sticks, with basket-hilts, neatly woven of willow, to protect the hands. Now we might get real steel blades, and the clash we made with them was very merry.
There were two fencing-masters in the city: an old earnest German, who went to work in a severe and solid style, and a Frenchman, who sought to gain his advantage by advancing and retreating, and by light fugitive thrusts, which he always accompanied by cries. Opinions varied as to whose manner was the best. The little company with which I was to take lessons sided with the Frenchman, and we speedily accustomed ourselves to move backwards and forwards, make passesand recover, always breaking out into the usual exclamations. But several of our acquaintance bad gone to the German teacher, and practised precisely the opposite. These distinct modes of treating so important an exercise, the conviction of each that his master was the best, really caused a dissension among the young people, who were of about the same age, and the fencing-schools occasioned serious battles,—for there was almost as much fighting with words as with swords; and to decide the matter in the end, a trial of skill between the two teachers was arranged, the consequences of which I need not circumstantially describe. The German stood in his position like a wall, watched his opportunity, and contrived to disarm his opponent over and over again with his cut and thrust. The latter maintained that this mattered not, and proceeded to exhaust the other's wind by his agility. He fetched the German several lunges, too, which, however, if they had been in earnest, would have sent himself into the next world.
On the whole, nothing was decided or improved, except that some went over to our countryman, of whom I was one. But I had already acquired too much from the first master; and hence a considerable time elapsed before the new one could break me of it, who was altogether less satisfied with us renegades than with his original pupils.
As to riding, it fared still worse with me. It happened that they sent me to the course in the autumn, so that I commenced in the cool and damp season. The pedantic treatment of this noble art was highly repugnant to me. From first to last the whole talk was about sitting the horse, and yet no one could say in what a proper sitting consisted, though all depended on that; for they went to and fro on the horse-without stirrups. Moreover, the instruction seemed contrived only for cheating and degrading the scholars. If one forgot to hook or loosen the curb-chain, or let his switch fall down, or even his hat,—every delay, every misfortune, had to be atoned for by money, and one was even laughed at besides. This put me in the worst of humours, particularly when I found the place of exercise itself quite intolerable. The great nasty space, either wet or dusty, the cold, the mouldy smell, all together was in the highest degree repugnant to me; and since the stable-master always gave the othersthe best and me the worst horses to ride, perhaps because they bribed him by breakfasts and other gifts, or even by their own cleverness; since he kept me waiting, and, as it seemed, slighted me, I spent the most disagreeable hours in an employment that ought to have been the most pleasant in the world. Nay, the impression of that time and of these circumstances has remained with me so vividly, that although I afterwards became a passionate and daring rider, and for days and weeks together scarcely got off my horse, I carefully shunned covered riding-courses, and at least passed only a few moments in them. The case often happens that when the elements of an exclusive art are taught us, this is done in a painful and revolting manner. The conviction that this is both wearisome and injurious, has given rise in later times to the educational maxim, that the young must be taught everything in an easy, cheerful, and agreeable way: from which, however, other evils and disadvantages have proceeded.
With the approach of spring, times became again more quiet with us, and if in earlier days I had endeavoured to obtain a sight of the city, its ecclesiastical, civil, public and private structures, and especially found great delight in the still prevailing antiquities, I afterwards endeavoured, by means of Lersner'sChronicle, and other Frankfortian books and pamphlets belonging to my father, to revive the persons of past times. This seemed to me to be well attained by great attention to the peculiarities of times and manners, and of distinguished individuals.
The Rebel Fettmilch.
Among the ancient remains, that which, from my childhood, had been remarkable to me, was the skull of a state criminal, fastened up on the tower of the bridge, who, out of three or four, as the naked iron spikes showed, had, since 1616, been preserved in spite of the encroachments of time and weather. Whenever one returned from Sachsenhausen to Frankfort, one had this tower before one, and the skull was directly in view. As a boy, I liked to hear related the history of these rebels—Fettmilch and his confederates—how they had become dissatisfied with the government of the city, had risen up against it, plotted a mutiny, plundered the Jews' quarter, and excited a fearful riot, but were at last captured, and condemned to death by a deputy of the emperor. Afterwards I felt anxious to know the most minute circumstance,and to hear what sort of people they were. When from an old contemporary book, ornamented with woodcuts, I learned that while these men had indeed been condemned to death, many councillors had at the same time been deposed, because various kinds of disorder and very much that was unwarrantable was then going on; when I heard the nearer particulars now all took place, I pitied the unfortunate persons who might be regarded as sacrifices made for a future better constitution. For from that time was dated the regulation which allows the noble old house of Limpurg, the Frauenstein-house, sprung from a club, besides lawyers, tradespeople, and artisans, to take a part in a government, which, completed by a system of ballot, complicated in the Venetian fashion, and restricted by the civil colleges, was called to do right, without acquiring any special privilege to do wrong.
Among the things which excited the misgivings of the Boy, and even of the youth, was especially the state of the Jewish quarter of the city (Judenstadt), properly called the Jew-street (Judengasse), as it consisted of little more than a single street, which in early times may have been hemmed in between the walls and trenches of the town, as in a prison (Zwinger.) The closeness, the filth, the crowd, the accent of an unpleasant language, altogether made a most disagreeable impression, even if one only looked in as one passed the gate. It was long before I ventured in alone, and I did not return there readily, when I had once escaped the importunities of so many men unwearied in demanding and offering to traffic. At the same time the old legends of the cruelty of the Jews towards Christian children, which we had seen hideously illustrated inGottfried's Chronicle, hovered gloomily before my young mind. And although they were thought better of in modern times, the large caricature, still to be seen, to their disgrace, on an arched wall under the bridge tower, bore extraordinary witness against them; for it had been made, not through private ill-will, but by public order.
However, they still remained, nevertheless, the chosen people of God, and passed, no matter how it came about, as a memorial of the most ancient times. Besides, they also were men, active and obliging, and even to the tenacity with which they clung to their peculiar customs, one could not refuse one's respect. The girls, moreover, were pretty, and were far fromdispleased when a Christian lad, meeting them on the sabbath in the Fischerfeld, showed himself kindly and attentive. I was consequently extremely curious to become acquainted with their ceremonies. I did not desist until I had frequently visited their school, had assisted at a circumcision and a wedding, and had formed a notion of the Feast of the Tabernacles. Everywhere I was well received, pleasantly entertained, and invited to come again; for they were persons of influence by whom I had been either introduced or recommended.
Public Burning of a Book.
Thus, as a young resident in a large city, I was thrown about from one object to another, and horrible scenes were not wanting in the midst of the municipal quiet and security. Sometimes a more or less remote fire aroused us from our domestic peace, sometimes the discovery of a great crime, with its investigation and punishment, set the whole city in an uproar for many weeks. We were forced to be witnesses of different executions; and it is worth remembering, that I was also once present at the burning of a book. The publication was a French comic romance, which indeed spared the state, but not religion and manners. There was really something dreadful in seeing punishment inflicted on a lifeless thing. The packages burst asunder in the fire, and were raked apart by an oven-fork, to be brought in closer contact with the flames. It was not long before the kindled sheets were wafted about in the air, and the crowd caught at them with eagerness. Nor could we rest until we had hunted up a copy, while not a few managed likewise to procure the forbidden pleasure. Nay, if it had been done to give the author publicity, he could not himself have made a more effectual provision.
But there were also more peaceable inducements which took me about in every part of the city. My father had early accustomed me to manage for him his little affairs of business. He charged me particularly to stir up the labourers whom he set to work, as they commonly kept him waiting longer than was proper; because he wished everything done accurately, and was used in the end to lower the price for a prompt payment. In this way, I gained access to all the workshops; and as it was natural to me to enter into the condition of others, to feel every species of human existence, and sympathize in it with pleasure, these commissions were to me the occasion of many most delightful hours, and Ilearned to know every one's method of proceeding, and what joy and sorrow, what advantages and hardships, were incident to the indispensable conditions of this or that mode of life. I was thus brought nearer to that active class which connects the lower and upper classes. For, if on the one side stand those who are employed in the simple and rude products, and on the other those who desire to enjoy something that has been already worked up; the manufacturer, with his skill and hand, is the mediator through whom the other two receive something from each other; each is enabled to gratify his wishes in his own way. The household economy of many crafts, which took its form and colour from the occupation, was likewise an object of my quiet attention; and thus was developed and strengthened in me the feeling of the equality, if not of all men, yet of all human conditions,—the mere fact of existence seeming to me the main point, and all the rest indifferent and accidental.
As my father did not readily allow himself an expense which would be at once consumed in a momentary enjoyment—as I can scarcely call to mind that we ever took a walk together, and spent anything in a place of amusement,—he was, on the other hand, not niggardly in procuring such things as had a good external appearance in addition to inward value. No one could desire peace more than he, although he had not felt the smallest inconvenience during the last days of the war. With this feeling, he had promised my mother a gold snuffbox, set with diamonds, which she was to receive as soon as peace should be publicly declared. In the expectation of the happy event, they had laboured now for some years on this present. The box, which was tolerably large, had been executed in Hanau, for my father was on good terms with the gold-workers there, as well as with the heads of the silk establishments. Many designs were made for it; the cover was adorned by a basket of flowers, over which hovered a dove with the olive-branch. A vacant space was left for the jewels, which were to be set partly in the dove and partly on the spot where the box is usually opened. The jeweller to whom the execution and the requisite stones were entrusted was named Lautensak, and was a brisk, skilful man, who like many artists, seldom did what was necessary, but usually works of caprice, which gave him pleasure. The jewels werevery soon set, in the shape in which they were to be put upon the box, on some black wax, and looked very well; but they would not come off to be transferred to the gold. In the outset, my father let the matter rest; but as the hope of peace became livelier, and finally when the stipulations—particularly the elevation of the Archduke Joseph to the Roman throne—seemed more precisely known, he grew more and more impatient, and I had to go several times a week, nay, at last, almost daily, to visit the tardy artist. By means of my unremitted teazing and exhortation, the work went on, though slowly enough; for as it was of that kind which can be taken in hand or laid aside at will, there was always something by which it was thrust out of the way, and put aside.
Lautensak's Bouquet.
The chief cause of this conduct, however, was a task which the artist had undertaken on his own account. Everybody knew that the Emperor Francis cherished a strong liking for jewels, and especially for coloured stones. Lautensak had expended a considerable sum, and as it afterwards turned out larger than his means, on such gems, out of which he had begun to shape a nosegay, in which every stone was to be tastefully disposed, according to its shape and colour, and the whole form a work of art worthy to stand in the treasure-vaults of an emperor. He had, in his desultory way, laboured for many years upon it, and now hastened—because after the hoped-for peace the arrival of the Emperor, for the coronation of his son, was expected in Frankfort—to complete it and finally to put it together. My desire to become acquainted with such things he used very dexterously in order to distract me as a bearer of threats, and to lead me away from my intention. He strove to impart a knowledge of these stones to me, and made me attentive to their properties and value, so in that in the end I knew his whole bouquet by heart, and quite as well as he could have demonstrated its virtues to a customer. It is even now before me, and I have since seen more costly, but not more graceful specimens of show and magnificence in this sort. He possessed, moreover, a pretty collection of engravings, and other works of art, with which he liked to amuse himself; and I passed many hours with him, not without profit. Finally, when the Congress of Hubertsburg was finally fixed, he didfor my sake more than was due; and the dove and flowers actually reached my mother's hands on the festival in celebration of the peace.
I then received also many similar commissions to urge on painters with respect to pictures which had been ordered. My father had confirmed himself in the notion—and few men were free from it—that a picture painted on wood was greatly to be preferred to one that was merely put on canvas. It was therefore his great care to possess good oak boards, of every shape, because he well knew that just on this important point the more careless artists trusted to the joiners. The oldest planks were hunted up, the joiners were obliged to go accurately to work with gluing, painting, and arranging, and they were then kept for years in an upper room, where they could be sufficiently dried. A precious board of this kind was intrusted to the painterJunker, who was to represent on it an ornamental flower-pot, with the most important flowers drawn after nature in his artistic and elegant manner. It was just about the spring-time, and I did not fail to take him several times a week the most beautiful flowers that fell in my way, which he immediately put in, and by degrees composed the whole out of these elements with the utmost care and fidelity. On one occasion I had caught a mouse, which I took to him, and which he desired to copy as a very pretty animal; nay, really represented it, as accurately as possible, gnawing an ear of corn at the foot of the flower-pot. Many such inoffensive natural objects, such as butterflies and chafers, were brought in and represented, so that finally, as far as imitation and execution were concerned, a highly valuable picture was put together.
Hence I was not a little astonished when the good man formally declared one day, when the work was just about to be delivered, that the picture no longer pleased him,—since, while it had turned out quite well in its details, it was not well composed as a whole, because it had been produced in this gradual manner; and he had perpetrated a blunder in the outset, in not at least devising a general plan for light and shade, as well as for colour, according to which the single flowers might have been arranged. He examined with me the minutest parts of the picture, which had arisen before my eyes during a half year, and had in many respects pleased me,and managed to convince me perfectly, much to my regret. Even the copy of the mouse he regarded as a mistake; for many persons, he said, have a sort of horror of such animals, and they should not be introduced where the object is to excite pleasure. As it commonly happens with those who are cured of a prejudice, and imagine themselves much more knowing than they were before, I now had a real contempt for this work of art, and agreed perfectly with the artist when he caused to be prepared another tablet of the same size, on which, according to his taste, he painted a better formed vessel and a more artistically arranged nosegay, and also managed to select and distribute the little living accessories in an ornamental and agreeable way. This tablet also he painted with the greatest care, though altogether after the former copied one, or from memory, which, through a very long and assiduous practice, came to his aid. Both paintings were now ready, and we were thoroughly delighted with the last, which was certainly the more artistic and striking of the two. My father was surprised with two pictures instead of one, and to him the choice was left. He approved of our opinion, and of the reasons for it, and especially of our good-will and activity; but, after considering both pictures some days, decided in favour of the first, without saying much about the motives of his choice. The artist, in an ill-humour, took back his second well-meant picture, and could not refrain from the remark that the good oaken tablet on which the first was painted had certainly its effect on my father's decision.
Oil-Cloth Factory.
Now I am again speaking of painting, I am reminded of a large establishment, where I passed much time, because both it and its managers especially attracted me. It was the great oil-cloth factory which the painter NOTHNAGEL had erected; an expert artist, but one who by his mode of thought inclined more to manufacture than to art. In a very large space of courts and gardens, all sorts of oil-cloths were made, from the coarsest that are spread with a trowel, and used for baggage-wagons and similar purposes, and the carpets impressed with figures, to the finer and the finest, on which sometimes Chinese and grotesque, sometimes natural flowers, sometimes figures, sometimes landscapes were represented by the pencils of accomplished workmen. This multiplicity, to which there was no end, amused me vastly. The occupation of so manymen, from the commonest labour to that in which a certain artistic worth could not be denied, was to me extremely attractive. I made the acquaintance of this multitude of younger and older men, working in several rooms one behind the other, and occasionally lent a hand myself. The sale of these commodities was extraordinarily brisk. Whoever at that time was building or furnishing a house, wished to provide for his lifetime, and this oil-cloth carpeting was certainly quite indestructible. Nothnagel had enough to do in managing the whole, and sat in his office surrounded by factors and clerks. The remainder of his time he employed in his collection of works of art, consisting chiefly of engravings, in which, as well as in the pictures he possessed, he traded occasionally. At the same time he had acquired a taste for etching; he etched a variety of plates, and prosecuted this branch of art even into his latest years.
As his dwelling lay near the Eschenheim gate, my way when I had visited him led me out of the city to some pieces of ground which my father owned beyond the gates. One was a large orchard, the soil of which was used as a meadow, and in which my father carefully attended the transplanting of trees, and whatever else pertained to their preservation, though the ground itself was leased. Still more occupation was furnished by a very well-preserved vineyard beyond the Friedberg gate, where between the rows of vines, rows of asparagus were planted and tended with great care. Scarcely a day passed in the fine season in which my father did not go there, and as on these occasions we might generally accompany him, we were provided with joy and delight from the earliest productions of spring to the last of autumn. We also learned to occupy ourselves with gardening matters, which, as they were repeated every year, became in the end perfectly known and familiar to us. But after the manifold fruits of summer and autumn, the vintage at last was the most lively and the most desirable: nay, there is no question that as wine gives a freer character to the very places and districts where it is grown and drunk, so also do these vintage-days, while they close summer and at the same time open the winter, diffuse an incredible cheerfulness. Joy and jubilation pervade a whole district. In the daytime, huzzas and shoutings are heard from every end and corner, and at night rockets andfire-balls, now here, now there, announce that the people, everywhere awake and lively, would willingly make this festival last as long as possible. The subsequent labour at the wine-press, and during the fermentation in the cellar, gave us also a cheerful employment at home, and thus we ordinarily reached winter without being properly aware of it.
These rural possessions delighted us so much the more in the spring of 1763, as the 15th of February in that year was celebrated as a festival day, on account of the conclusion of the Hubertsberg peace, under the happy results of which the greater part of my life was to flow away. But before I go further, I think I am bound to mention some men who exerted an important influence on my youth.
Frankfort Characters - Von Olenschlager.
Von Olenschlager, a member of the Frauenstein family, a Schöff, and son-in-law of the above-mentioned Dr. Orth, a handsome, comfortable, sanguine man. In his official holiday costume he could well have personated the most important French prelate. After his academical course, he had employed himself in political and state affairs, and directed even his travels to that end. He greatly esteemed me, and often conversed with me on matters which chiefly interested him. I was with him when he wrote hisIllustration of the Golden Bull; when he managed to explain to me very clearly the worth and dignity of that document. My imagination was led back by it to those wild and unquiet times, so that I could not forbear representing what he related historically, as if it were present, by pictures of characters and circumstances, and often by mimicry. In this he took great delight, and by his applause excited me to repetition.
I had from childhood the singular habit of always learning by heart the beginnings of books, and the divisions of a work, first of the five books of Moses, and then of theÆneidand Ovid'sMetamorphoses.I now did the same thing with theGolden Bull, and often provoked my patron to a smile, when I quite seriously and unexpectedly exclaimed, "Omne regnum in se divisum desolabitur; nam principes ejus facti sunt socii furum."[4]The knowing man shook his head, smiling, and said doubtingly, "What times those must have been, whenat a grand Diet, the Emperor had such words published in the face of his princes!"
There was a great charm in Von Olenschlager's society. He received little company, but was strongly inclined to intellectual amusement, and induced us young people from time to time to perform a play; for such exercises were deemed particularly useful to the young. We gave theCanuteof Schlegel, in which the part of the king was assigned to me, Elfrida to my sister, and Ulfo to the younger son of the family. We then ventured on theBritannicus,[5]for, besides our dramatic talents, we were to bring the language into practice. I took Nero, my sister, Agrippina, and the younger son, Britannicus. We were more praised than we deserved, and fancied that we had done it even beyond the amount of praise. Thus I stood on the best terms with this family, and have been indebted to them for many pleasures and a speedier development.
Frankfort Characters - Von Reineck.
Von Reineck, of an old patrician family, able, honest, but stubborn, a meagre, swarthy man, whom I never saw smile. The misfortune befell him that his only daughter was carried off by a friend of the family. He pursued his son-in-law with the most vehement prosecution; and because the tribunals, with their formality, were neither speedy nor sharp enough to gratify his desire of vengeance, he fell out with them; and there arose quarrel on quarrel, suit on suit. He retired completely into his own house and its adjacent garden, lived in a spacious but melancholy lower-room, into which for many years no brush of a white washer, and perhaps scarcely the broom of a maid-servant, had found its way. Me he could readily endure, and he had especially commended to me his younger son. He many times asked his oldest friends, who knew how to humour him, his men of business and agents, to dine with him, and on these occasions never omitted inviting me. There was good eating and better drinking at his house. But a large stove, that let out the smoke from many cracks, caused the greatest pain to his guests. One of the most intimate of these once ventured to remark upon this, by asking the host whether he could put up with such an inconvenience all the winter. He answered, like a second Timon or Heautontimoroumenos: "Would to God this was the greatest evil of those which tormentme!" It was long before he allowed himself to be persuaded to see his daughter and grandson. The son-in-law never again dared to come into his presence.
On this excellent but unfortunate man my visits had a very favourable effect; for while he liked to converse with me, and particularly instructed me on world and state affairs, he seemed to feel himself relieved and cheered. The few old friends who still gathered round him, often, therefore, made use of me when they wished to soften his peevish humour, and persuade him to any diversion. He now really rode out with us many times, and again contemplated the country, on which he had not cast an eye for so many years. He called to mind the old landowners, and told stones of their characters and actions, in which he showed himself always severe, but often cheerful and witty. We now tried also to bring him again among other men, which, however, nearly turned out badly.
About the same age, if indeed not older, was oneHerr Von Malapert, a rich man, who possessed a very handsome house by the Horse-market, and derived a good income from salt-pits. He also lived quite secluded: but in summer he was a great deal in his garden, near the Bockenheim gate, where he watched and tended a very fine plot of pinks.
Von Reineck was likewise an amateur of pinks; the season of flowering had come, and suggestions were made as to whether these two could not visit each other. We introduced the matter, and persisted in it, till at last Von Reineck resolved to go out with us one Sunday afternoon. The greeting of the two old gentlemen was very laconic, indeed, almost pantomimic, and they walked up and down by the long pink frames with true diplomatic strides. The display was really extraordinarily beautiful, and the particular forms and colours of the different flowers, the advantages of one over the other, and their rarity, gave at last occasion to a sort of conversation which appeared to get quite friendly; at which we others rejoiced the more because we saw the most precious old Rhine wine in cut decanters, fine fruits, and other good things spread upon a table in a neighbouring bower. But these, alas, we were not to enjoy. For Von Reineck unfortunately saw a very fine pink with its head somewhat hanging down; he therefore took the stalk near the calyx very cautiously between his fore and middle fingers, and lifted the flower so that hecould well inspect it. But even this gentle handling vexed the owner. Von Malapert courteously, indeed, but stiffly enough, and somewhat self-complacently, reminded him of theOculis, non manibus.[6]Von Reineck had already let go the flower, but at once took fire at the words, and said in his usual dry, serious manner, that it was quite consistent with an amateur to touch and examine them in such a manner. Whereupon he repeated the act, and took the flower again between his fingers. The friends of both parties—for Von Malapert also had one present—were now in the greatest perplexity. They set one hare to catch another (that was our proverbial expression, when a conversation was to be interrupted, and turned to another subject), but it would not do; the old gentleman had become quite silent, and we feared every moment that Von Reineck would repeat the act, when it would be all over with us. The two friends kept their principals apart by occupying them, now here, now there, and at last we found it most expedient to make preparation for departure. Thus, alas! we were forced to turn our backs on the inviting side-board, yet unenjoyed.
Frankfort Characters - Hofrath Huisgen.
Hofrath Huisgen, not born in Frankfort, of the reformed[7]religion, and therefore incapable of public office, including the profession of advocate, which, however, because much confidence was placed in him as an excellent jurist, he managed to exercise quietly, both in the Frankfort and the imperial courts, under assumed signatures, was already sixty years old when I took writing lessons with his son, and so came into his house. His figure was tall without being thin, and broad without corpulency. You could not look, for the first time, on his face, which was not only disfigured by smallpox, but deprived of an eye, without apprehension. He always wore on his bald head a perfectly white bell-shaped cap, tied at the top with a ribbon. His morning-gowns, of calamanco or damask, were always very clean. He dwelt in a very cheerful suite, of rooms on the ground-floor by theAllée, and the neatness of everything about him corresponded with this cheerfulness. The perfect arrangement of his papers, books, and maps, produced a favourable impression. His son HeinrichSebastian, afterwards known by various writings on Art, gave little promise in his youth. Good-natured but dull, not rude but blunt, and without any special liking for instruction, he rather sought to avoid the presence of his father, as he could get all he wanted from his mother. I, on the other hand, grew more and more intimate with the old man, the more I knew of him. As he attended only to important cases, he had time enough to occupy and amuse himself in another manner. I had not long frequented his house, and heard his doctrines, than I could well perceive that he stood in opposition to God and the world. One of his favourite books wasAgrippa de Vanitate Scientiarum, which he especially commended to me, and so set my young brains in a considerable whirl for a long time. In the happiness of youth I was inclined to a sort of optimism, and had again pretty well reconciled myself with God or the Gods; for the experience of a series of years had taught me that there was much to counterbalance evil, that one can well recover from misfortune, and that one may be saved from dangers and need not always break one's neck. I looked with tolerance, too, on what men did and pursued, and found many things worthy of praise which my old gentleman could not by any means abide. Indeed, once when he had sketched the world to me, rather from the distorted side, I observed from his appearance that he meant to close the game with an important trump-card. He shut tight his blind left eye, as he was wont to do in such cases, looked sharp out of the other, and said in a nasal voice, "Even in God I discover defects."
My Timonic mentor was also a mathematician, but his practical turn drove him to mechanics, though he did not work himself. A clock, wonderful indeed in those days, which indicated not only the days and hours, but the motions of the sun and moon, he caused to be made according to his own plan. On Sunday, about ten o'clock in the morning, he always wound it up himself, which he could do the more regularly, as he never went to church. I never saw company nor guests at his house; and only twice in ten years do I remember to have seen him dressed and walking out of doors.
My various conversations with these men were not insignificant, and each of them influenced me in his own way. From every one I had as much attention as his own children, if notmore, and each strove to increase his delight in me as in a beloved son, while he aspired to mould me into his moral counterpart. Olenschlager would have made me a courtier, Von Reineck a diplomatic man of business; both, the latter particularly, sought to disgust me with poetry and authorship. Huisgen wished me to be a Timon after his fashion, but, at the same time, an able juris-consult; a necessary profession, as he thought, with which one could in a regular manner defend oneself and friends against the rabble of mankind, succour the oppressed, and above all, pay off a rogue; though the last is neither especially practicable nor advisable.
But if I liked to be at the side of these men to profit by their counsels and directions, younger persons, only a little older than myself, roused me to immediate emulation. I name here before all others, the brothersSchlosserandGriesbach. But, as I came subsequently into a more intimate connexion with these, which lasted for many years uninterruptedly, I will only say for the present, that they were then praised as being distinguished in languages and other studies which opened the academical course, and held up as models, and that everybody cherished the certain expectation that they would once do something uncommon in church and state.
With respect to myself, I also had it in my mind to produce something extraordinary, but in what it was to consist was not clear. But as we are apt to think rather upon the reward which may be received than upon the merit which is to be acquired, so, I do not deny, that if I thought of a desirable piece of good fortune, it appeared to me most fascinating in the shape of that laurel garland which is woven to adorn the poet.