pictures of CrabeL 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/heinrichheinespi01hein 
 
HEINRICH HEINE'S 
 
 PICTURES OF TRAVEL. 
 
 
 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MEISTER KARU'8 SKBTOH-BOOK;," AND " BDX8HINE U THODOHT." 
 
 FOURTH REVISED EDITION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 IF R, E ID B I C JS. LEYPOLDT, 
 LONDON TRÜBNER & CO. 
 1863. 
 
 ^ranslatcb from % German, 
 
 BY 
 
Entered accf Hing to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 
 by John "Weik, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
 Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Kim ft BAIRU. PRINTERS, SAJIOOM STREET, PHH.UDM.PHU 
 
1 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Translator's Preface 3 
 
 THE HOMEWARD Journey, (1823-24) 9 
 
 THE HARTZ Journey, (1824) 49 
 
 THE NORTH SEA, Part I. (1825) 
 
 Twilight 105 
 
 Sunset 106 
 
 Night on the Sea Shore 107 
 
 Poseidon 109 
 
 Homage Ill 
 
 Explanation 112 
 
 Night in the Cabin 113 
 
 Storm 115 
 
 Calm at Sea 116 
 
 A Sea Phantom 117 
 
 Purification 119 
 
 Peace . 119 
 
 THE NORTH SEA, Part IL (1826) 
 
 Sea Greeting 123 
 
 Storm 124 
 
 The Shipwrecked 125 
 
 Sunset 126 
 
 The Song of the Oceanides 128 
 
 The Gods of Greece 130 
 
 Questioning 133 
 
 The Phoenix 134 
 
 Echo 134 
 
 Sea Sickness 135 
 
 In Port 136 
 
 Epilogue 138 
 
 iii 
 
iv 
 
 PARE. 
 
 THE NORTH SEA, Part III. (1826.) 
 
 Written on the Island Norderney 141 
 
 ».The Poetic Man of Letters 164 
 
 The Dramatist 104 
 
 Oriental Poets 165 
 
 Bell-Tones 165 
 
 Orbis Pictns 165 
 
 IDEAS. Book Le Grand 167 
 
 A NEW SPRING 219 
 
 ITALY, (1828.) 
 
 Journey from Munich to Genoa 238 
 
 The Baths of Lucca 302 
 
 The City of Lucca 366 
 
 Postscript 409 
 
 ENGLISH FRAGMENTS, (1828) 411 
 
 Dialogue on the Thames 412 
 
 London 416 
 
 The English 420 
 
 Scott's Life of Napoleon Buonaparte 424 
 
 Old Bailey 430 
 
 The New Ministry 433 
 
 The Debt 435 
 
 The Opposition Party 444 
 
 The Emancipation 453 
 
 Wellington 458 
 
 The Liberation 462 
 
 Conclusion 468 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 No living German writer has exerted an influence com- 
 parable to that of Heine, and it is not less true, that since 
 Goethe, no author has penetrated so generally through every 
 class of society. Universality of popularity is the surest test 
 of the existence of genius, just as a faithful reflex of the spirit 
 of the age, in which it was conceived is the surest test of the 
 genuineness of a work of art. That which grows from and is 
 extolled by a class, may owe its birth to prejudice, and its 
 subsequent life to the spirit of rivalry to which it ministers, 
 and we consequently find at times, writers endowed with the 
 faintest talent, achieving a world-wide reputation, — not by the 
 force of innate genius, — but by dexterously turning to account 
 the enthusiasm of a faction. But where, as in Heine's case, 
 we find friend and enemy alike interested, and the adherents of 
 all parties unanimous as to his abilities, regretting only the 
 direction which they have taken ; then we become at once 
 convinced that we have before us, that rarest and most brilliant 
 phenomenon — a true genius — and one who, as such, impera- 
 tively demands the attention of all who lay claim to informa- 
 tion and intelligence. 
 
 Whether Heine's genius and influence has been invariably 
 and immediately exerted for good or for evil, is, and ever should 
 be, for the impartial student of literature and of history, a 
 matter of supreme indifference. The greatest and most import- 
 ant developments are those whose real aims and value are first 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 translator's preface. 
 
 appreciated by posterity. If progress be the peculiar law of 
 humanity, it is not less certain, that agitation is the main 
 spring of progress, and that as a general rule, all agitations, 
 however disagreeable they may have appeared to cotempora- 
 ries, have advanced the world. Those who extol the advan- 
 tages of civilization, and yet decry Alexander and Caesar, the 
 Crusades, the French Revolution and Napoleon, resemble the 
 lady who loved veal but would fain have the butcher punished 
 for cruelty. In an extended common sense view, those who 
 thus lose all thought of the effect in the cause, are no better 
 than thoughtless thieves, who would fain defraud the Spirit of 
 Progress of the high yet legal price which he sets upon his 
 wares. Such goods as happiness, and improved social culture, 
 can only be bought for blood and suffering. Such is the law, 
 but we must, in justice to the merchant, admit, that as his 
 business has improved and his run of custom increased, he has 
 shown a commendable alacrity in lowering his prices. 
 
 Heine most emphatically belongs to that class of writers, 
 who are a scandal to the weaker brethren, a terror to the 
 strong, and a puzzle to the conservatively wise of their own 
 day and generation, but who are received by the intelligent 
 cotemporary with a smile, and by the after comer with thanks. 
 He belongs to that great band, whose laughter has been in its 
 inner-soul more moving than the most fervid flow of serious 
 eloquence — to the band which numbered Lucian and Rabelais, 
 and Swift, among its members, — men who lashed into motion 
 the sleepy world of the day, with all its " baroque-ish" virtues 
 and vices. Woe to those who are standing near when a 
 humorist of this stamp is turned^ loose on the world. He 
 knows nothing of your old laws, — like an Azrael-Napoleon, 
 he advances conscienceless, feeling nothing but an overpowering 
 impulse, as of some higher power which bids him strike and 
 spare not. 
 
 Heine has endeared himself to the German people by his 
 universality of talent, his sincerity, and by his weaknesses. 
 
translator's preface. 
 
 5 
 
 His very affectations render him more natural, for there is no 
 effort whatever to conceal them, and that which is truly natural, 
 will always be attractive, if from no other cause than because it 
 is so readily intelligible. He possesses in an eminent degree, 
 the graceful art of communicating to the most uneducated 
 mind, (of a sympathetic cast,) refined secrets of art and criti- 
 cism ; and this he does, not like a pedantic professor, 
 ex-cathedra, as if every word were an apocalypse of novelty, 
 but rather like a friend, who with a delicate regard for the 
 feelings of his auditor, speaks as though he supposed him 
 already familiar with the subject in question. Pedantry and 
 ignorant self-sufficiency appear equally and instinctively to 
 provoke his attacks, and there is scarcely a modern form of 
 these reactionary negative vices which he has not severely 
 lashed. 
 
 Perhaps the most characteristic position which Heine holds, 
 is, that of interpreter or medium between the learned and the 
 people. He has popularized philosophy, and preached to the 
 multitude those secrets which were once the exclusive property 
 of the learned. His writings have been a "flux" between the 
 smothered fire of universities and the heavy ore of the 
 public mmd. Whether the process will evolve pure and 
 precious metal, or noxious vapors, — in simple terms, 
 whether the knowlege thus popularized, and whether the ulti- 
 mate tendency of this " witty, wise, and wicked" writer has 
 been for the direct benefit of the people, is not a question open 
 to discussion. All that we know is, that he is here — that he 
 cannot be thrust aside — and that he exerts an incredible and 
 daily increasing influence. But to judge from every analogy 
 and precedent, we must conclude that the agitation which he 
 has caused, though eminently disagreeable to many, even 
 friends, who are brought within its immediate action, will be 
 eminently beneficial in the end. 
 
 It were worse than folly to attempt to palliate Heine's 
 defects. That they exist engrained, entwined, and integrate 
 
 1* 
 
i 6 translator's preface. 
 
 I 
 
 with his "better qualities, admits no doubt or denial. Bat they 
 have been in every age so strikingly characteristic of every 
 writer of his class, that we are forced to believe them insepara- 
 ble. They are the shades which render the lights of the picture 
 apparent, and without which the latter would in all proba- 
 bility never have excited attention. It is a striking character- 
 istic of true humor, that it is " all-embracing," including the 
 good and the bad, the lofty and the low. There is no 
 characteristic appreciable by the human mind, which does not 
 come within the range of humor, for wherever creation is 
 manifested, there will be contradiction and opposites, striving 
 into a law of harmony. Humor appreciates the contradiction 
 — the lie disguised as truth, or the truth born of a lie — and 
 proclaims it aloud, for it is a strange quality of humor, that it 
 must out, be the subject what it may. Unfortunately, no sub- 
 ject presents so many and such absurdly vulnerable points as 
 the proprieties and improprieties of daily life and society. 
 Poor well meaning civilization, with her allies, morality and 
 tradition, maintain a ceaseless warfare with nature, vulgarity, 
 and a host of "outside barbarian" foes, while Humor, who 
 always had in his nature more of the devil than the angel, 
 stands by, laughing, as either party gets a fall. 
 
 To understand the vagaries of Heine's nature, we must 
 regard him as influenced by humor in the fullest sense of the 
 word. For as humor exists in the appreciation and reproduc- 
 tion of the contrasts, of contrarieties and of appearances, it 
 would not be humor, did its existence consist merely of 
 merriment. The bitterest and saddest tears are as often 
 drawn forth by humor as by mere pathos — nay, it may be 
 doubted if grief and suffering be ever so terrible as when sup- 
 ported by some strange coincidence or paradox. Conse- 
 quently, we find in his works some of the most sorrowful 
 plaints ever uttered by suffering poet, but contrasted with the 
 most uproarious hilarity. Nay, he often contrives to delicately 
 weave the opposing sentiments into one. " Other bards," says 
 
translator's preface. 
 
 7 
 
 a late review of Heine, in The Athenaeum, "have passed from 
 grave to gay within the compass of one work ; but the art of 
 constantly showing two natures, within the small limit of 
 perhaps three ballad verses, was reserved for Herr Heine. 
 No one like him understands how to build up a little edifice 
 of the tenderest and most refined sentiment, for the mere 
 pleasure of knocking it down with a last line. No one like 
 him approaches his reader with doleful countenance, — pours 
 into the ear a tale of secret sorrow, — and when the sympathies 
 are enlisted, surprises his confidant with a horse-laugh. It 
 seems as though nature had endowed him with a most delicate 
 sensibility and a keen perception of the ridiculous, that his 
 own feelings may afford him a perpetual subject for banter." 
 
 A writer of Heine's character can be judged only by the 
 broadest and most comprehensive rules of criticism, if indeed, 
 in many instances he be open to criticism at all. A reviewer 
 is said to have remarked of Carlyle, that one might as well 
 attempt to criticise a porcupine, and this may be said with 
 much greater truth of Heine. What can be done with a 
 writer who parades every virtue mingled with every defect, 
 including occasional flashes of studied stupidity and deliberate 
 weakness, and impresses on your mind a conviction that all is 
 right, and that all will be perceived to form a harmonious 
 whole, if you yourself are only intelligent enough to master 
 the mysterious law of harmony which governs these incon- 
 gruous elements. Heine, in fact, can only be fully compre- 
 hended, as a whole, and the more we read him, the better we 
 appreciate him. This is a characteristic of all truly great J 
 writers who do not reproduce themselves. 
 
 There are undoubtedly in Heine, many passages which the 
 majority of readers might wish omitted, but which the trans- 
 lator feels bound, by a sense of literary fidelity to retain. The 
 duty of a translator, like that of the historian, is not to select, 
 but to preserve for those cotemporaries -or after-comers, who 
 may possibly make good use of material which he would cast | 
 
I 
 
 ! 8 
 
 translator's preface. 
 
 away. It is therefore intended, that the following translation 
 shall be strictly true to the original. 
 
 The translator sincerely trusts that the following version of 
 the Pictures op Travel — the first ever presented to tho 
 American and English public, may be found comparatively 
 free from defects, but above all, that it may be accepted in the 
 spirit in which it is given, as an attempt to set forth the most 
 influential living classic writer of Germany, and not as an 
 endorsement of anything which that writer asserts or denies. 
 
 Philadelphia, May 16, 1866* 
 
HOMEWARD JOURNEY. 
 
 
 Trivial half-way joys we hate, 
 Hate all childish fancies. 
 If no crime weigh down the soul, 
 Why should we endure control 
 
 And groan in death-like trances? 
 The puling wight looks down and sighs, 
 But the brave man lifts his eyes 
 
 Up to Heaven's bright glances. 
 
 Through a life too dark and dreary 
 Once gleamed an image bright ; 
 
 That lovely form hath vanished, 
 And I am lost in night. 
 
 When children stray in darkness, 
 And fears around them throng, 
 
 To drive away their terror, 
 They sing some merry song. 
 
 Thus like a child I'm singing 
 
 As Life's dark shades draw near ; 
 
 And though my lay lack music, 
 It drives away my fear. 
 
 (1823 — 1824.) 
 
 IMMERMANN. 
 
 1. 
 
— 10 — 
 
 2. 
 
 I know not what sorrow is o'er me, 
 
 What spell is upon my heart ; 
 But a tale of old times is before me — 
 
 A legend that will not depart. 
 
 Night falls as 1 linger, dreaming. 
 
 And calmly flows the Rhine ; 
 The peaks of the hills are gleaming 
 
 In the golden sunset shine. 
 
 A wondrous lovely maiden 
 
 Sits high in glory there ; 
 Her robe with gems is laden, 
 
 And she combeth her golden hair. 
 
 And she spreads out the golden treasure, 
 
 Still singing in harmony ; 
 And the song hath a mystical measure, 
 
 And a wonderful melody. 
 
 The boatman, when once she hath bound him 
 
 Is lost in a wild sad love : 
 He sees not the black rocks around him, 
 
 He sees but the beauty above. 
 
 Till he drowns amid mad waves ringing, 
 
 And sinks with the fading sun ; 
 And that, with her magical singing, 
 
 The witch of the Lnrley hath done. 
 
 3. 
 
 My heart, my heart is weary, 
 Yet merrily beams the May ; 
 
 And I lean against the linden, 
 High up on the terrace gray. 
 
 The town-moat far below me 
 Runs silent and sad, and blue ; 
 
 A boy in a boat floats o'er it, 
 Still fishing and whistling too. 
 
— 11 - 
 
 And a beautiful varied picture, 
 
 Spreads out beyond the flood, 
 Fair houses, and gardens, and people, 
 
 And cattle, and meadow, and wood. 
 
 Young maidens are bleaching the linen, 
 They laugh as they go and come ; 
 
 And the mill-wheel is dripping with diamonds, 
 I list to its far away hum. 
 
 And high on yon old gray castle 
 
 A sentry-box peeps o'er ; 
 While a young red-coated soldier 
 
 Is pacing beside the door. 
 
 He handles his shining musket, 
 Which gleams in the sunlight red, 
 
 He halts, he presents, and shoulders : — 
 I wish that he'd shoot me dead 1 
 
 4. 
 
 I wander in the woods and weep, 
 The thrush sits on the spray, 
 
 She springs and sings right daintily : 
 " Oh why so sad to-day ?" 
 
 " Thy sister birds, the swallows, sweet, 
 
 Can tell thee why, full well, 
 For they have built their cunning nests, 
 
 Where she I love doth dwell." 
 
 The night is wet and stormy, 
 
 The Heaven black above, 
 Through the wood 'neath rustling branches, 
 
 All silently I rove. 
 
 From the lonely hunter's cottage, 
 
 A light beams cheerily, 
 But it will not tempt me thither 
 
 Where all is sad to see. 
 
— 12 — 
 
 The blind old grandmother's sitting 
 Alone in the leathern chair ; 
 
 Uncanny and stern as an image, 
 And speaketh to no one there. 
 
 The red-headed son of the hunter 
 Walks cursing up and down ; 
 
 And casts in a corner his rifle, 
 "With a bitter laugh and a frown. 
 
 A maiden is spinning and weeping, 
 And moistens the flax with tears ; 
 
 While at her small feet, whimpering, 
 Lies a hound with drooping ears. 
 
 6. 
 
 As I once upon a journey 
 
 Met my loved one's family, 
 Little sister, father, mother, 
 
 All so kindly greeted me. 
 
 Asking if my health was better? 
 
 Hoping that it would not fail ; 
 For I seemed, — although unchanged, 
 
 Just a little thin and pale. 
 
 I inquired of aunts and cousins, 
 
 All within the social mark ; 
 And about their little grayhound 
 
 AVith his soft and tiny bark. 
 
 Of the loved one, — long since wedded. 
 
 Then I asked, — though somewhat late 
 And the father, smiling, whispered 
 
 Of her " interesting state." 
 
 And I gave congratulation 
 
 On the delicate event ; 
 And to her, — and all relations, 
 
 " Best remembrances" were sent. 
 
— 13 — 
 
 But a little sister murmured, 
 That the dog, which once was mine, 
 
 Had gone mad in early summer, 
 " So we drowned him in the Rhine." 
 
 That young girl is like her sister, 
 Scarce you'd know their tones apart ; 
 
 And she has the same soft glances 
 Which so nearly broke my heart. 
 
 7. 
 
 We sat by the fisher's cottage, 
 And looked at the stormy tide ; 
 
 The evening mist came rising, 
 And floating far and wide. 
 
 One by one in the light-house 
 The lamps shone out on high ; 
 
 And far on the dim horizon 
 A ship went sailing by.'- 
 
 We spoke of storm and shipwreck, 
 Of sailors, and how they live ; 
 
 Of journies 'twixt sky and water 
 And the sorrows and joys they give. 
 
 We spoke of distant countries, 
 
 In regions strange and fair ; 
 And of the wondrous beings 
 
 And curious customs there. 
 
 Of perfume and lights on the Gauges, 
 Where trees like giants tower ; 
 
 And beautiful silent beings 
 Still worship the lotus flower. 
 
 Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland, 
 
 Broad-headed, wide-mouthed and small ; 
 
 Who crouch round their oil-fires, cooking, 
 And chatter and scream and bawl. 
 2 
 
— 14 — 
 
 And the maidens earnestly listened, 
 Till at last we spoke no more ; 
 
 The ship like a shadow had vanished, 
 And darkness fell deep on the shore. 
 
 8. 
 
 Thou gentle ferry-maiden, 
 
 Come — draw thy boat to land ; 
 
 And sit thee down beside me, 
 We'll talk with hand in hand. 
 
 Lay thy head against my bosom, 
 And have no fear of me ; 
 
 Dost thou not venture boldly 
 Each day on the roaring sea ? 
 
 My heart is like the ocean, 
 
 It hath storm, and ebb, and flow ; 
 And many a pearl is hidden 
 
 In its silent depths below. 
 
 9. 
 
 The moon is high in heaven, 
 
 And shimmers o'er the sea ; 
 And my heart throbs like my dear one's, 
 
 As she silently sits by me. 
 
 With my arm around the darling, 
 I rest upon the strand ; 
 u And fearest thou the evening breezes — 
 Why trembles thy snow-white hand F 
 
 Those are no evening breezes, 
 But the mermaids singing low ; 
 
 The mermaids, once my sisters, 
 Who were drowned long, long ago." 
 
— 15 — 
 
 10. 
 
 The quiet moon, amid the clouds, 
 
 Like a giant orange glows, 
 While far beneath, the old gray sea, 
 
 All striped with silver, flows. 
 
 Alone I wander on the strand, 
 
 Where the wild surf roars and raves ; 
 
 But hear full many a gentle word, 
 Soft spoken 'mid the waves. 
 
 But oh, the night is far too long, 
 And my heart bounds in my breast ; 
 
 Fair water-fairies come to me, 
 And sing my soul to rest. 
 
 Oh, take my head upon your lap, 
 Take body and soul, I pray ; 
 
 But sing me dead — caress me dead — 
 And kiss my life away. 
 
 11. 
 
 Wrapped up in gray cloud-garments, 
 The great Gods sleep together ; 
 
 I hear their thunder-snoring, 
 
 And to-night we've dreadful weather. 
 
 Dreadful weather ! what a tempest 
 Around the weak ship raves ! 
 
 Ah, who will check the storm-wind, 
 Or curb the lordless waves ? 
 
 Can't be helped though, if all nature 
 
 A mad holiday is keeping ; 
 So I'll wrap me up and slumber, 
 
 As the gods above are sleeping. 
 
— 16 — 
 
 12. 
 
 The wild wind puts his trousers on — 
 
 His foam-white pantaloons ; 
 He lashes the waves, and every one 
 
 Roars out in furious tunes. 
 
 From yon wild height, with furious might. 
 
 The rain comes roaring free. 
 It seems as if the old black Night 
 
 Would drown the old dark Sea. 
 
 The snow-white sea-gull, round our mast, 
 Sweeps like a winged wraith ; 
 
 And every scream to me doth seem 
 A prophecy of death. 
 
 13. 
 
 The wind pipes up for dancing, 
 The waves in white are clad ; 
 
 Hurrah ! — how the ship is leaping ! 
 And the night is merry and mad. 
 
 And living hills of water 
 
 Sweep up as the storm-wind calls ; 
 Here a black gulph is gaping, 
 
 And there a white tower falls. 
 
 And sounds as of sickness and swearing 
 From the depths of the cabin come ; 
 
 I keep a firm hold on the bulwarks, 
 And wish that I now were at home. 
 
 14. 
 
 The night comes stealing o'er me, 
 And clouds are on the sea ; 
 
 While the wavelets rustle before me 
 With a mystical melody. 
 
 A water-maid rose singing 
 
 Before me, fair and pale ; 
 And snow-white breasts were springing 
 
 Like fountains, 'neath her veil. 
 
— 17 — 
 
 She kissed me and she pressed me, 
 Till I wished her arms away : 
 " Why hast thou so caressed me, 
 Thou lovely Water Fay ?" 
 
 " Oh thou need'st not alarm thee, 
 
 That thus thy form I hold ; 
 For I only seek to warm me, 
 And the night is black and cold." 
 
 " The wind to the waves is calling, 
 The moonlight is fading away ; 
 And tears down thy cheek are falling, 
 Thou beautiful Water Fay!" 
 
 " The wind to the waves is calling, 
 
 And the moonlight grows dim on the rocks 
 But no tears from mine eyes are falling, 
 'Tis the water which drips from my locks." 
 
 u The ocean is heaving and sobbing, 
 The sea-mews scream in the spray; 
 And thy heart is wildly throbbing, 
 Thou beautiful Water Fay!" 
 
 u My heart is wildly swelling, 
 And it beats in burning truth ; 
 For I love thee, past all telling — 
 Thou beautiful mortal youth." 
 
 15. 
 
 " When early in the morning 
 I pass thy window, sweet ; 
 Oh what a thrill of joy is mine, 
 When both our glances meet !" 
 
 "With those dark flashing eye-balls 
 Which all things round thee scan ; 
 Who art thou, and what s^ek'st thou ? 
 Thou strange and sickly man f 
 2* 
 
— 18 — 
 
 "I am a German poet, 
 
 Well known in the German land ; 
 Where the first names are written, 
 Mine own with right may stand. 
 
 u And what I seek, thou fairest, 
 Is that for which many pine. 
 And where men speak of sorrows, 
 Thou'lt hear them speak of mine." 
 
 16. 
 
 The ocean shimmered far around, 
 
 As the last sun-rays shone; 
 We sat beside the fisher's hut, 
 
 Silent and all alone. 
 
 The mist swam up, — the water heaved : 
 The sea-mew round us screamed ; 
 
 And from thy dark eyes full of love, 
 The scalding tear-drops streamed. 
 
 I saw them fall upon thy hand, 
 
 Upon my knee I sank ; 
 And from that white and yielding hand, 
 
 The glittering tears I drank. 
 
 And since that hour I waste away, 
 'Mid passion's hopes and fears ; 
 
 Oh, weeping girl ! — oh, weary heart ! — 
 Thou'rt poisoned with her tears ! 
 
 17. 
 
 High up on yonder mountain, 
 There stands a lordly hall, 
 
 Where dwell three gentle maidens, 
 And I was loved by all. 
 
 On Saturday Hetty loved me, 
 The Sabbath was Julia's day, 
 
 And on Monday, Kunigunda, 
 Half kissed my breath away. 
 
— 19 — 
 
 On Tuesday, in their castle, 
 
 My ladies gave a ball ; 
 And thither, with coaches and horses, 
 
 Went my neighbours, their wives and all. 
 
 But I had no invitation, 
 
 Although I dwelt so near ; 
 And the gossiping misses and matrons, 
 
 All thought it uncommonly queer ! 
 
 18. 
 
 Far on the dim horizon, 
 As in a land of dreams ; 
 
 Rises a white tower'd city, 
 Fading 'mid sun-set gleams. 
 
 The evening breeze is wreathing 
 The water where I float ; 
 
 And in solemn measure, the sailor 
 Keeps time as he rows my boat. 
 
 Once more the sun-light flashes, 
 In wondrous glory round, 
 
 And lights up the foaming water, 
 Where she I loved was drowned. 
 
 19. 
 
 Once more in solemn ditty 
 
 I greet thee, as I melt 
 In tears, thou wondrous city, 
 
 Where once my true love dwelt. 
 
 Say on, ye gates and tower, 
 
 Doth she I loved remain ? 
 I gave her to your power — 
 
 Give me my love again 1 
 
 Blame not the trusty tower 1 
 
 No word his walls could say, 
 As a pair, with their trunks and baggage. 
 
 So silently travelled away. 
 
— 20 — 
 
 But the wicket-gate was faithless, 
 Through which she escaped so still : 
 
 Oh, a wicket is always ready 
 To ope when a wicked one will.* 
 
 20. 
 
 Again I see the well-known street, 
 
 The same old path I tread; 
 1 've left the house where once she dwelt — 
 
 Now all seems sad and dead. 
 
 The streets press round like night-mare scenes, 
 
 The road is rough to day. 
 The houses hang above my head, — 
 
 Oh, let me haste away ! 
 
 21. 
 
 I wandered through the silent hall, 
 "Where once she loved and wept ; 
 
 And where I saw the false tears fall, 
 A winding serpent crept. 
 
 22. 
 
 Calm is the night, and the city is sleeping, — 
 Once in this house dwelt a lady fair ; 
 Long, long ago, she left it, weeping, 
 But still the old house is standing there. 
 
 Yonder a man at the heavens is staring, 
 "Wringing his hands as in sorrowful case : 
 He turns to the moonlight, his countenance baring — 
 Oh, heaven ! he shows me my own sad face ! 
 
 Shadowy form, with my own agreeing ; 
 Why mockest thou thus, in the moonlight cold, 
 The sorrows which here once vexed my being, 
 Many a night in the days of old ? 
 
 * Die Thore jedoch, die Hessen 
 
 Mein Liebchen entwischen gar still; 
 Ein Thor ist immer willig, 
 Wenn eine Thorinn tviU. 
 
— 21 — 
 
 23. 
 
 How can'st thou sleep so calmly, 
 
 While I alive remain ? 
 Old griefs may yet be wakened, 
 
 A nd then I'll break my chain. 
 
 Know'st thou the wild old ballad, 
 How a dead, forgotten slave 
 
 Came to his silent lady, 
 And bore her to the grave ? 
 
 Believe me, gentle maiden, 
 
 Thou all-too-lovely star, 
 I live, and still am stronger 
 
 Than all the dead men are. 
 
 24. 
 
 The maiden sleeps in her chamber, 
 The moonlight steals quivering in ; 
 
 Without, there's a ringing and singing, 
 As of waltzing about to begin. 
 
 " I will see who it is 'neath my window, 
 That gives me this strange serenade V* 
 She saw a pale skeleton figure, 
 
 Who fiddled, and sang as he played : 
 
 " A waltz thou once didst promise, 
 And hast broken thy word, my fair. 
 To night there's a ball in the church-yard, 
 So come— I will dance with thee there !" 
 
 A spell came over the maiden, 
 She could neither speak nor stay ; 
 
 So she followed the Form, — which singing, 
 And fiddling, went dancing away. 
 
 Fiddling, and dancing, and hopping, 
 And rattling his arms and spine ; 
 
 The white skull grinning and nodding 
 Away in the dim moon-shine. 
 
— 22 — 
 
 25. 
 
 I stood in shadowy dreams, 
 
 I gazed upon her form ; 
 And in that face, so dearly loved, 
 
 Strange life began to warm. 
 
 And on her soft and child-like mouth 
 There played a heavenly smile : 
 
 Though in her dark and lustrous eyes, 
 A tear-drop shone the while. 
 
 And my own tears were flowing too, 
 
 In silent agony ; 
 For oh ! I cannot deem it true, 
 
 That thou art lost to me. 
 
 26. 
 
 I, a most wretched Atlas, who a world 
 Of bitterest griefs and agonies maintain, 
 Must bear the all-unbearable, until 
 The heart's foundation fails. 
 
 Wild daring heart ! — it was thine own mad choice , 
 Thou would'st be happy, — infinitely blessed 
 Or wretched beyond measure. Dariüg hearty 
 Now thou art lost indeed ! 
 
 27. 
 
 Ages may come and vanish, 
 
 Races may pass away ; 
 But the love which I have cherished 
 
 Within, can ne'er decay. 
 
 Once more I fain would see thee 
 And kneel where e'er thou art ; 
 
 And dying, whisper — " Madam, 
 Be pleased to accept my heart!" 
 
— 23 — 
 
 28- 
 
 I dreamed : — the moon shone grimly down, 
 The stars seemed sad and gray ; 
 
 And I was in my true love's town, 
 Full many a league away. 
 
 I stood before the house and wept, 
 , I kissed the shadowy stone 
 Where oft her little foot had stepped, 
 "Where oft her robes had flown. 
 
 The cold step chilled my lip and arm, 
 
 I lay in shivering swoon ; 
 While from above a phantom form 
 
 Looked out upon the moon. 
 
 29. 
 
 What means this solitary tear 
 Which dims mine eye to-day ? 
 
 It is the last of all the hoard, 
 Where once so many lay. 
 
 It had full many a sister then 
 Which rolled in glittering light ; 
 
 But now, with all my smiles and griefs, 
 They're lost in wind and night. 
 
 And, like the mists, have also fled 
 
 The light blue sparkling stars 
 Which flashed their rays of joy or woe, 
 
 Down through life's prison-bars. 
 
 Oh love — wild love, — where art thou now? 
 
 Fled like an idle breath : 
 Thou silent solitary tear 
 
 Go fade in misty death ! 
 
30. 
 
 The pale half-moon is floating 
 
 Like a boat 'mid cloudy waves, 
 Lone lies the pastor's cottage 
 
 Amid the silent graves. 
 
 The mother reads in the Bible, 
 The son seems weary and weak ; 
 
 The eldest daughter is drowsy, 
 
 While the youngest begins to speak. 
 
 " Ah me ! — how every minute 
 
 Rolls by so drearily ; 
 Only when some one is buried, 
 
 Have we any thing here to see !" 
 
 The mother murmured while reading, 
 
 "Thou'rt wrong— they've brought but four 
 
 Since thy poor father was buried 
 Out there by the church-yard door." 
 
 The eldest daughter says, gaping, 
 " No more will I hunger by you ; 
 
 I'll go to the Baron, to-morrow, 
 He's wealthy, and fond of me too." 
 
 The son bursts out into laughter, 
 "Three hunters carouse in the Sun; 
 
 They all can make gold, and gladly 
 Will show me how it is done." 
 
 The mother holds the Bible 
 
 To his pale face in grief ; 
 " And wilt thou — wicked fellow — 
 
 Become a highway thief ?" 
 
 A rapping is heard on the window, 
 There trembles a warning hand ; 
 
 Without, in his black, church garments, 
 They see their dead father stand. 
 
— 25 — 
 
 31. 
 
 To-night wc have dreadful weather, 
 It rains and snows and storms ; 
 
 I sit at my window, gazing 
 Out on benighted forms. 
 
 There glimmers a lonely candle, 
 Which wearily wanders on ; 
 
 An old dame with a lantern, 
 Comes hobbling slowly anon. 
 
 —It seems that for eggs and butter, 
 And sugar, she forth has come, 
 
 To make a cake for her daughter 
 Her grown up darling at home. 
 
 Who, at the bright lamp blinking, 
 In an arm-chair lazily lies ; 
 
 And golden locks are waving 
 Above her beautiful eyes. 
 
 32. 
 
 They say that my heart is breaking 
 With love and sorrow too ; 
 
 And at last I shall believe it 
 As other people do. 
 
 Thou, girl, with eyes dark beaming, 
 I have ever told thee this, 
 
 That my heart with love is breaking, 
 That thou wert all my bliss. 
 
 But only in my chamber 
 Dared I thus boldly speak ; 
 
 Alas ? — when thou wert present, 
 My words were sad and weak. 
 
 For there were evil angels 
 
 Who quickly hushed my tongue ; 
 And oh ! — such evil angels 
 
 Kill many a heart when young. 
 
 3 
 
— 26 — 
 
 33. 
 
 Thy soft and snow-white fingers ! 
 Could I kiss them once again, 
 And press them on my beating heart, 
 And melt in silent tears ! 
 
 Thy melting, violet eyes 
 Beam round me night and day ; 
 And I vex my soul with wondering 
 What the soft, blue riddles mean I 
 
 34. 
 
 m And hath she never noticed 
 That thou with love did'st burn ; 
 
 And saw'st thou in her glances 
 No sign of love's return ? 
 
 And could'st thou then read nothing 
 In all her words and airs : 
 
 Thou, who hast such experience, 
 Dear friend, in these affairs ? 
 
 35. 
 
 They tenderly loved, and yet neither 
 Would venture the other to move ; 
 
 They met as if hate were between them, 
 And yet were half dying with love. 
 
 They parted, and then saw each other 
 At times, in their visions alone ; 
 
 They had long left this sad life together, 
 Yet scarcely to either 'twas known. 
 
 36. 
 
 When first my afflictions you heard me rehearse, 
 
 You gaped and you stared : — God be praised 'twas no worse I 
 
 But when I repeated them smoothly in rhyme, 
 
 You thought it was "wonderful," "glorious," " sublime 1" 
 
— 27 — 
 
 37. 
 
 I called the Devil and lie came, 
 
 In blank amaze his form I scanned, 
 He is not ugly, is not lame, 
 
 But a refined, accomplished man. 
 One in the very prime of life, 
 At home in every cabinet strife, 
 Who, as diplomatist, can tell 
 Church and State news, extremely well. 
 He is somewhat pale, and no wonder either, 
 Since he studies Sanscrit and Hegel together. 
 His favorite poet is still Fouque, 
 
 Of criticism he makes no mention ; 
 
 Since all such matters^unworthy attention^ 
 He leaves to his grandmother, Hecate. 
 He praised my legal efforts, and said 
 That he also when younger some law had read, 
 Remarking that friendship like mine would be 
 An acquisition, and bowed to me : — 
 Then asked if we had not met before 
 
 At the Spanish minister's soiree? 
 And as I scanned his face once more, 
 
 I found I had known him for many a day ! 
 
 38. 
 
 Mortal ! — sneer not at the Devil, 
 Soon thy little life is o'er ; 
 
 And eternal grim damnation 
 Is no idle tale of yore. 
 
 Mortal ! — pay the debts thou owcst, 
 Long 'twill be ere life is o'er ; 
 
 Many a time thou yet must borrow, 
 As thou oft hast done before. 
 
 39. 
 
 The three wise monarchs of the East, 
 
 Asked in each city near : 
 " Which is the way to Bethlehem, 
 
 Tell us ye children dear ?" 
 
— 28 — 
 
 But neither old nor young could tell, 
 The three wise kings went on; 
 
 Still following a golden star 
 Which gleamed in glory dow T n. 
 
 Until it paused o'er Joseph's house, 
 
 Before the shrine they bowed ; 
 The oxen lowed, the infant cried, 
 ■The three kings sang aloud. 
 
 40. 
 
 My child, we once were children, 
 Two children gay and small ; 
 
 We crept into the hen-house 
 
 And hid ourselves, heads and all. 
 
 We clucked just like the poultry, 
 
 And when folks came by, you know — 
 Kickery-kee ! — they started, 
 
 And thought 'twas a real crow. 
 The chests which lay in our court-yard, 
 
 We papered so smooth and nice ; 
 We thought they were splendid houses, 
 
 And lived in them, snug as mice. 
 
 When the old cat of our neighbour 
 Dropped in for a social call ; 
 
 We made her bows and courtesies, 
 And compliments and all. 
 
 We asked of her health, and kindly 
 Inquired how all had sped : — 
 
 Since then, to many a tabby, 
 The self-same things we've said. 
 
 And oft, like good old people, 
 We talked with sober tongue ; 
 
 Declaring that all was better 
 
 In the days when we were young. 
 
 How piety, faith and true-love 
 
 Had vanished quite away ; 
 And how dear we found the coffee, 
 
 How scarce the money to-day. 
 
— 29 - 
 
 So all goes rolling onward. 
 The merry days of youth, — 
 
 M oney, the world and its seasons ; 
 And honesty, love and truth. 
 
 41. 
 
 My heart is sad, and with misgiving 
 
 I ponder o'er the ancient day, 
 When this poor world was fit to live in, 
 
 And calmly sped the time away. 
 
 Now all seems changed which once was cherished, 
 The w r orld is filled with care and dread ; 
 
 As if the Lord in Heaven had perished, 
 And down below the Devil were dead. 
 
 But care of all hath so bereft us, 
 
 So little pleasure Life doth give; 
 That were not some faint Love still left us 
 
 No more I'd wish on Earth to live. 
 
 42. 
 
 As the summer moon shines rising 
 Through the dark and cloud-like trees 
 
 So my soul mid shadowy memories 
 Still a gleaming picture sees. 
 
 All upon the deck were seated, 
 Proudly sailing on the Rhine ; 
 
 And the shores in summer verdure 
 Gleamed in sunset's crimson shine. 
 
 And I rested, gently musing, 
 
 At a lovely lady's feet ; 
 And her dear pale face was gleaming 
 
 In the sun-rays soft and fleet. 
 
 Lutes were ringing, boys were singing, 
 Wondrous rapture o'er me stole ; 
 
 Bluer, bluer grew the Heavens, 
 Fuller, higher, swelled mv soul. 
 3* 
 
Like a legend, wood and river, 
 Hill and tower before me flies ; 
 
 And I see the whole, reflected, 
 In the lady's lovely eyes. 
 
 43. 
 
 In dreams I saw the loved one, 
 A sorrowing, wearied form ; 
 
 Her beauty blanched and withered 
 By many a dreary storm. 
 
 A little babe she carried, 
 
 Another child she led, 
 And poverty and trouble 
 
 In glance and garb I read. 
 
 She trembled through the market, 
 And face to face we met ; 
 
 And I calmly said, while sadly 
 Her eyes on mine were set. 
 
 " Come to my house, I pray thee, 
 For thou art pale and thin ; 
 A.nd for thee, by my labour, 
 Thy meat and drink I'll win. 
 
 " And to thy little children 
 I'll be a father mild : 
 But most of all thy parent, 
 Thou poor unhappy child." 
 
 Nor will I ever tell thee 
 That once I held thee dear ; 
 
 And if thou diest, then I 
 Will weep upon thy bier. 
 
 44. 
 
 Dear friend — why wilt thou ever 
 
 Through the same old measures move ; 
 
 Wilt thou brooding, sit forever 
 On the same old eggs of love ? 
 
— SI — 
 
 'Tis an endless incubation, 
 
 From their shells the chickens look ; 
 And the chirping generation 
 
 Straight is cooped within a book. 
 
 But do not be impatient, 
 
 If the same old chords still ring ; 
 And ye find the same old sorrows, 
 
 In the newest songs I sing. 
 Wait — ye shall yet hear fading, 
 
 This echo of my pain ; 
 When a fresh spring of poems 
 
 Blooms from my heart again. 
 
 And now it is time that with reason, 
 
 Myself from all folly I free ; 
 I have played for too lengthened a season, 
 
 The part of an actor with thee. 
 
 Our scenery all was new-fangled, 
 In the style of the highest romance ; 
 
 My armour was splendidly spangled, 
 I thought but of lady and lance. 
 
 And now with this frippery before me, 
 I sigh that such parts I could fill ; 
 
 And a sorrowful feeling comes o'er me, 
 As though I played comedy still. 
 
 Ah, Heaven ! unconscious and jesting, 
 
 I spoke what in secret I felt ; 
 And while Death in my own heart was resting 
 
 As the dying athleta I knelt. 
 
 47. 
 
 The great King Wiswa-mitra 
 
 Is lost in trouble now ; 
 For he through strife and penance 
 
 Will win Waschischta's cow. 
 
— 32 — 
 
 Oh great King, Wiswa-mitra! 
 
 Oh what an ass art thou ! 
 To bear such strife and penance 
 
 All for a single cow. 
 
 48. 
 
 Heart my heart, — Oh be not shaken, 
 And still calmly bear thy pain ! 
 For the Spring will bring again, 
 
 What a dreary winter's taken. 
 
 And how much is still remaining, 
 
 And how bright the world still beanii ; 
 And my heart, — what pleasant seems, 
 
 Thou may'st love with none complaining. 
 
 49. 
 
 Thou'rt like a lovely floweret, 
 
 So void of guile or art. 
 I gaze upon thy beauty, 
 
 And grief steals o'er my heart 
 
 I fain would lay, devoutly, 
 My hands upon thy brow ; 
 
 And pray that God will keep thee 
 As good and fair as now. 
 
 50. 
 
 Child ! — it were thine utter ruin, 
 And I strive, right earnestly, 
 
 That thy gentle heart may never 
 Glow with aught like love for me. 
 
 But the thought that 'twere so easy, 
 Still amid my dreams will move; 
 
 And I still am ever thinking 
 That 'twere sweet to win thy love. 
 
— 83 — 
 
 51. 
 
 When on my bed I'm lying, 
 In night and pillows warm, 
 
 There ever floats before me 
 A sweet and gentle form, 
 
 But soon as silent slumber 
 Has closed my weary eyes, 
 
 Before me, in a vision, 
 I see the image rise. 
 
 Yet with the dream of morning 
 It doth not pass away, 
 
 For I bear it in my bosom 
 Around, the live-long day. 
 
 52. 
 
 Maiden with a mouth of roses, 
 With those eyes serene and bright ! 
 
 Thou, my little darling maiden ! 
 Dearest to my heart and sight ! 
 
 Long the winter nights are growing — 
 Would I might forget their gloom: 
 
 By thee sitting — with thee chatting, 
 In thy little friendly room. 
 
 Often to my lips, in rapture, 
 I would press thy snowy hand; 
 
 Often with my eyes bedewing 
 Silently that darling hand. 
 
 53. 
 
 Though without, the snow-drifts tower, 
 Though hail falls, and tempests shower 
 Rattling on the window-pane : 
 Still their gloom is all in vain — 
 For her form doth ever bring 
 To my heart the joys of spring 
 
54. 
 
 Some to the Madonna run, 
 Others pray to Paul or Peter ; 
 I will only pray to thee, love, 
 
 But to thee, thou fairest sun ! 
 
 Grant me kisses ! — I am won ! — 
 Oh, be merciful and gracious ! 
 Fairest sun among the maidens ! 
 
 Fairest maiden 'neath the sun I 
 
 55. 
 
 And do not my pale cheeks betray 
 To thee my heart's distress ? 
 
 And wilt thou that so proud a mouth 
 The beggar's prayer confess? 
 
 Ah me! this mouth is far too proud; 
 
 It can but kiss and jest. 
 I may have spoken mocking words 
 
 With anguish in my breast. 
 
 56. 
 
 Dearest friend — thou art in love ; 
 
 Now thou feel'st the arrows smart ; 
 Darkness gathers round thy head, 
 
 Light is dawning in thy heart. 
 
 Dearest friend — thou art in love ! 
 
 And that love must be confest ; 
 For I see thy glowing heart 
 
 Plainly scorching through thy veeti / 
 
 57. 
 
 I fain would linger near thee, 
 But when I sought to woo, 
 
 Thou hadst no time to hear me, 
 Thou hadst too much to do." 
 
— 85 — 
 
 I told tliee, shortly after, 
 That all thine own I 'd be ; 
 
 And with a peal of laughter, 
 Thou mad'st a courtesy. 
 
 At last thou didst confuse me 
 More utterly than this ; 
 
 For thou didst e'en refuse me 
 A trifling parting kiss ! 
 
 Fear not that I shall languish, 
 Or shoot myself — oh, no ! 
 
 I've gone through all this anguish, 
 My dear, long, long ago. 
 
 58. 
 
 Bright sapphires are thy beaming eyes, 
 Dear eyes, so soft and sweet ; 
 
 Ah me ! thrice happy is the man 
 "Whom they with true love greet. 
 
 Thy heart's a diamond, bright and clear. 
 Whence rays of splendor flow ; 
 
 Ah me ! thrice happy is the man 
 For whom with love they glow. 
 
 Thy lips are rubies melting red, 
 
 No brighter need we seek, 
 Ah me ! thrice happy is the man, 
 
 To whom with love they speak. 
 
 Oh, could I meet that happy man, 
 
 But once, I'd ask no more ; 
 For all alone in the gay green wood, 
 
 His joys would soon be o'er. 
 
 59. 
 
 With love-vows I long have bound me, 
 Firmly bound me to thy heart ; 
 
 Now with my own meshes round me, 
 J esting turns to pain and smart. 
 
— 36 — 
 
 But if thou, — with right before thee, — 
 Now should'st turn away thy head ; 
 
 Then the devil would soon come o'er me, 
 And by Jove, I'd shoot me dead ! 
 
 60. 
 
 This world and this life are too scattered we know, 
 
 And so to a German professor I'll go. 
 
 He can well put all the fragments together, 
 
 Into a system, convenient and terse ; 
 While with his night-cap, and dressing-robe tatters, 
 
 He'll stop up the chinks of the wide Universe. 
 
 6ft. 
 
 To-night they give a party, 
 
 The house gleams bright above ; 
 
 And across the lighted window 
 I see thy shadow move. 
 
 Thou see'st me not in darkness, 
 
 I stand alone, apart ; 
 Still less can'st cast thy glances 
 
 Into my gloomy heart. 
 
 This gloomy heart still loves thee, 
 It loves : — though long forgot. 
 
 Breaking, convulsed and bleeding ; 
 Alas ! — thou see'st it not ! 
 
 • 62. 
 
 1 would I could blend my sorrows 
 
 Into a single word ; 
 It should fly on the wilful breezes, 
 
 As wildly as a bird. 
 
 " They should carry to thee, my loved one, 
 That saddest, strangest word ; 
 At every hour it would meet thee 
 In every place be heard. 
 
— 37 — 
 
 And as soon as those eyes in slumber, 
 Had dimmed their starry gleam ; 
 
 That word of my sorrow should follow, 
 Down to thy deepest dream. 
 
 Thou hast diamonds and dresses and jewels, 
 
 And all that a mortal could crave ; 
 Thou hast eyes that are fairer than any, 
 
 My dearest ! — what more would'st thou have ? 
 
 To those eyes which are brighter than jewels, 
 I have written — both lively and grave : — 
 
 An army of poems immortal, 
 
 My dearest ! — what more would'st thou have ? 
 
 Ah ! — those eyes which are brighter than diamonds, 
 Have brought me well nigh to the grave ; 
 
 I am tortured, tormented, and ruined, 
 
 My dearest ! — what more would'st thou have ? 
 
 64. 
 
 He who for the first time loves, 
 Though unloved is still a God ; 
 But the man who loves again, 
 And in vain, must be a fool. 
 
 Such a fool am I, who love 
 Once again, without return ; 
 Sun and moon and stars all smile, 
 And I smile with them — and die ! 
 
 65. 
 
 No, the tameness and the sameness 
 Of thy soul, would not agree 
 
 With my own soul's ruder braveness, 
 "Which o'er rocks went leaping free. 
 
 Thy love-paths were graded turnpikes, 
 Now with husband, every day, 
 
 Arm in arm I see thee walking 
 Bravely, — in the family way ! 
 
— 38 — 
 
 66. 
 
 They gave me advice and counsel in store, 
 Praised me and honoured me, more and more ; 
 Said that I only should "wait awhile." 
 Offered their patronage too, with a smile. 
 
 But with all their honour and approbation, 
 I should, long ago, have died of starvation , 
 Had there not come an excellent man, 
 Who bravely to help me along began. 
 
 Good fellow ! — he got me the food I ate, 
 His kindness and care I shall never forget ; 
 Yet I cannot embrace him — though other folks can, 
 For I myself am this excellent man I 
 
 67. 
 
 I can never speak too highly 
 Of my amiable young friend ; 
 
 Oft he treated me to oysters, 
 Wine, and cordials without end. 
 
 Neatly fit his coat and trousers, 
 His cravats are such as "tell;" 
 
 And he sees me every morning 
 To inquire if I am well. 
 
 Of my great renown he speaketh, 
 Of my wit or of my grace ; 
 
 And to aid me or to serve me, 
 Warmly seeks for time and place. 
 
 Every evening, to the ladies, 
 In the tones of one inspired, 
 
 He declaims my " heavenly poems 
 Which the world has so admired." 
 
 Oh, but is it not refreshing 
 
 Still to find such youths " about," 
 And in times like these, when truly, 
 
 All the best seem dying out ? 
 
— 39 — 
 
 68. 
 
 I dreamed that I was Lord of all, 
 High up in Heaven sitting ; 
 
 With cherubim who praised my song. 
 Around in glory flitting. 
 
 And cakes I ate, and sugar-plums, 
 Worth many a shining dollar, 
 
 And claret-punch I also drank, 
 With never a bill to follow. 
 
 And yet ennui vexed me sore, 
 I longed for earthly revels, 
 
 And were I not the Lord himself, 
 1 sure had been the Devil's. 
 
 " Come, trot, tall Angel Gabriel, 
 To thee broad wings are given ; 
 Go find my dearest friend Eugene, 
 And bring him up to Heaven 1 
 
 " Ask not for him in lecture-rooms 
 But where Tokay inspires ; 
 Seek him not in the Hedwig's Church, 
 Seek him at Ma'msell Meyer's !" 
 
 Abroad he spreads his mighty wings, 
 To earth his course descends ; 
 
 He catches up the astonished youth, 
 Right from among his friends. 
 
 " Yes, youth, I now am Lord of all, 
 The earth is my possession ; 
 I always told thee I was bound 
 To rise in my profession. 
 
 " And miracles I too can work, 
 To set thee wild with pleasure ; 
 And now I'll make the town Ix-Ix* 
 Rejoice beyond all measure : 
 
 * Or X, x. In one edition Heine calls this town Berlin. — Note by Translator. 
 
— 40 - 
 
 " For every stone which paves the street 
 Shall now be split in "two ; 
 And in the midst shall sparkle bright 
 An oyster fresh as dew. 
 
 " A gentle shower of lemon-juice 
 Shall give the oysters savour ; 
 The gutters of the streets must run 
 With hock of extra flavour." 
 
 How the Ix-Ixers go to work ! 
 
 What cries of joy they utter 1 
 The council and the aldermen 
 
 Are swilling up the gutter. 
 
 And how the poets all rejoice, 
 To see things done so neatly ; 
 
 The ensigns and lieutenants too, 
 
 Have cleaned the streets completely. 
 
 The wisest are the officers, 
 
 For, speculation scorning ; 
 They sagely say, " such miracles 
 
 Don't happen every morning." 
 
 69. 
 
 From loveliest lips have I alas been driven, 
 From fairest arms enforc6d to withdraw ; 
 
 Long had I gladly rested in this heaven, 
 
 But with his carriage came my brother-in-law. 
 
 And such is life, my child ; — an endless plaining, 
 A ceaseless parting, and a long adieu ; 
 
 Could not thy heart charm mine into remaining, 
 Could not thine eyes win me and hold me too ? 
 
 70. 
 
 We rode in the dark post-carriage, 
 W e travelled all night alone ; 
 
 We slept and we jested together, 
 We laughed until morning shone. 
 
— 41 — 
 
 But as daylight came dawning o'er us, 
 My dear, how we started to find 
 
 Between us a traveller named Cupid, 
 Who had ventured on "going it blind."* 
 
 71. 
 
 Lord knows where the wild young huzzy 
 Whom I seek, has settled down ; 
 
 Swearing at the rain and weather, 
 I have scoured through all the town. 
 
 I have run from inn to tavern — 
 
 Ne'er a bit of news I gain ; 
 And of every saucy waiter 
 
 I've inquired — and all in vain. 
 
 There she is ! — at yonder window — 
 Smiling, beckoning to me. Well ! 
 
 How was I to know you quartered, 
 Miss, in such a grand hotel? 
 
 72. 
 
 Like dusky dreams, the houses 
 
 Stand in a lengthened row ; 
 And wrapped in my Spanish mantle, 
 
 Through the shadow I silently go. 
 
 The tower of the old cathedral 
 
 Announces that midnight has come ; 
 
 And now, with her charms and her kisses, 
 My dearest is waiting at home. 
 
 * Doch als es Morgens tagte, 
 Mein Kind, wie staunten wirJ 
 Denn zwischen uns sass Amor 
 Der blinde Passagier. 
 
 I have heard " a hlind passenger" described as the one who sits at the end of the 
 Eilwagen (or Diligence), where there is no window. But in popular parlance, " the blind 
 passenger" is one who, to translate a bit of German slang by its American equivalent, 
 may be termed a " self-elected dead-head," or an individual who slips in and out of an 
 entertainment, coach, steamboat, or the like, without paying for his admission. 
 
 Literally this verse reads : — " But when day dawned, my child, how we were astonished, 
 for between us sat Amor, the blind passenger.— [Note by Translator.] 
 
 4* 
 
— 42 — 
 
 The moon is my boon compauion, 
 
 She cheerily lights my way, 
 Till 1 come to the house of my true-love, 
 
 And then to the moon I say : 
 
 Many thanks for thy light, old comrade ; 
 
 Receive my parting bow ; 
 For the rest of the night I'll excuse thee- 
 
 Go shine upon other folks now. 
 
 And if thou shouldst " light" on a lover, 
 
 Who drearily sorrows alone, 
 Console him as thou hast consoled me, 
 
 In the wearisome times long gone. 
 
 73. 
 
 What lies are hid in kisses, 
 What delight in mere parade ! 
 
 To betray may have its blisses, 
 But more blest is the betrayed. 
 
 Say what thou wilt, my fairest, 
 Still I know what thou 'It receive; 
 
 I'll believe just what thou swearest, 
 And will swear what thou 'It believe. 
 
 74. 
 
 Upon thy snowy bosom 
 
 I laid my weary head ; 
 And secretly I listened 
 
 To what thy heart-throbs said. 
 
 The blue hussars come riding 
 With trumpets, to the gate ; 
 
 And to-morrow she who loves me 
 Will seek another mate. 
 
 But though thou leav'st to-morrow 
 To-day thou still must rest ; 
 
 And in thy lovely arms, love, 
 Will I be doubly blest. 
 
— 43 — 
 
 75. 
 
 The blue hussars, with trumpets, 
 
 Go riding on their way ; 
 Again I come to thee, love, 
 
 And bring a rose-bouquet. 
 
 That was a crazy business, 
 
 Trouble in every part ; 
 And many a dashing blade was drawn 
 
 And quartered in thy heart. 
 
 76. 
 
 Long ago, when very young, 
 Much I suffered, much I sung 
 
 Of true love's burning mood. 
 But now I find that wood is dear, 
 The fire burns lower every year, 
 
 Ma foil — and that is good. 
 
 Think of that, young beauty, now ; 
 Drive those sorrows from thy brow, 
 
 With tears and love's alarms. 
 While life remains, since life is brief, 
 Forget thine old love, and its grief, 
 
 Ma foil — in my fond arms. 
 
 77. 
 
 How the eunuchs were complaining 
 At the roughness of my song : 
 
 Complaining and explaining 
 
 That my voice was much too strong. 
 
 Then delicately thrilling 
 
 They all began to sing ; 
 Like crystal was their trilling, 
 
 So pure it seemed to ring. 
 
 They sang of passion sweeping 
 In hot floods from the heart : 
 
 The ladies all were weeping, 
 In a rapturous sense of Art ! 
 
— 44 — 
 
 78. 
 
 'Twas just in the midst of July that I left you, 
 And now in mid-winter I meet you once more ; 
 Then, as we parted, with heat ye were glowing, 
 Now ye are cool, and the fever is o'er. 
 
 Once more 1 leave : — should T come again hither, 
 Then you will be neither burning nor cold ; 
 Over your graves, — well-a-day! — I'll be treading, 
 And oh, but my own heart is weary and old ! 
 
 79. 
 
 And dost thou really hate me, 
 Art thou really changed so sadly ? 
 
 I'll complain to every-body 
 
 That thou 'st treated me so badly, 
 
 Oh red lips, — so ungrateful, 
 How could ye speak unkindly, 
 
 Of him who kissed so fondly, 
 Of him who loved so blindly? 
 
 80. 
 
 And those are still the heavenly eyes, 
 Which mine would gently greet ; 
 
 And those are still the coral lips, 
 Which once made life so sweet. 
 
 'Tis the same voice of melody, 
 
 I once so gladly heard ; 
 I, only, am no more the same, 
 
 But changed in thought and word. 
 
 Now by those white and rounded arms, 
 
 I'm passionately pressed ; 
 And lie upon her heart and feel, 
 
 Gloomy and ill at rest. 
 
— 45 — 
 
 81. 
 
 Hound the walls of Salamanca 
 Softly blows the perfumed air ; 
 
 Oft I wander with my Donna 
 Of a summer's evening there. 
 
 Hound the light waist of my lady 
 
 My embracing arm I rest ; 
 And I feel, with happy fingers, 
 
 The proud heaving of her breast. 
 
 Yet a murmur, as of anguish, 
 
 Through the linden blossoms streams; 
 And the gloomy mill-stream 'ncath them 
 
 Murmurs long and evil dreams. 
 
 Ah, Senora ! — dark forebodings 
 Of "expulsion" round me stalk; 
 
 Then about fair Salamanca 
 
 We no more can take our walk. 
 
 82. 
 
 Scarce had we met, when, in glance and in tone, 
 I saw that your favourable notice I'd got ; 
 And if we had only been standing alone, 
 I really believe we'd have kissed on the spot. 
 
 To-morrow I leave, while the world is asleep. 
 Away as of old, on my journey I go ; 
 And then my blonde girl from the window will peep, 
 And glances of love at the window I'll throw. 
 
 83. 
 
 The sunlight is stealing o'er mountain and river, 
 The cries of the flocks are heard over the plain ; 
 My love and my lamb and my darling forever, 
 How glad I would be, could I see thee again. 
 
 Upwards I look, and with glances full loving, 
 " Darling, adieu ! I must wander from thee." 
 Vainly I wait, for no curtain is moving, 
 She lies and she sleeps and she's dreaming of me. 
 
— 46 — 
 
 84. 
 
 In the market-place of Halle 
 
 There stand two mighty lions ; 
 Oh thou lion-pride of Halle : 
 
 How greatly art thou tamed! 
 
 In the market-place of Halle 
 
 There stands a mighty giant ; 
 He hath a sword yet never stirs, — 
 
 He's petrified with fear. 
 
 In the market-place of Halle 
 
 There stands a mighty church ; 
 "Where the Burschenschaft and the Landsmannschaft 
 
 Have plenty of room to pray. 
 
 85. 
 
 Summer eve with day is striving, 
 Softly gaining wood and meadow ; 
 Mid blue heavens the golden moonlight 
 
 Gleams, in perfumed air reviving. 
 
 Crickets round the brook are cheeping, 
 Something stirs amid the water ; 
 And the wanderer hears a plashing, 
 
 And a breath amid the sleeping : 
 
 There alone, beside the river, 
 See ! — a fair Undine is bathing. 
 Arms and bosom, white and lovely, 
 
 In the shimmering moon-rays quiver. 
 
 86. 
 
 On strange roads, night broods, distressing 
 Sickly heart and wearied limbs : 
 
 Ah ! how like a silent blessing, 
 The soft moonlight o'er me swims. 
 
 * Student Associations, the Burschenschaft being general and political in its objects, 
 while the Landsmannschaf tcr are local. —Note by Translator. 
 
— 47 — 
 
 Gentle moon . — thy calm rays banish 
 Far away my night-born fears, 
 
 At thy glance all sorrows vanish, 
 And my eyes run o'er with tears. 
 
 87. 
 
 Death is a cool and pleasant night, 
 
 Life is a sultry day. 
 
 'Tis growing dark — I'm weary ; 
 For day has tired me with his light. 
 
 Over my bed a fair tree gleams, 
 There sings a nightingale ; 
 She sings of xiaught save love ; 
 
 I hear it even in dreams. 
 
 88. 
 
 Say — where is thine own sweet love, 
 Whom thou hast so sweetly sung; 
 
 When the flames of magic power 
 
 Strangely through thy wild heart sprung? 
 
 Ah ! those flames no longer burn, 
 And my heart is slow to move ; 
 
 And this book's the burial urn, 
 With the ashes of my love. 
 
THE HARTZ JOURNEY. 
 
 
 " Nothing is permanent but change, nothing constant hut death. Every pulsation of 
 the heart inflicts a wound, and life would be an endless bleeding, were it not for Poetry. 
 She secures to us what Nature would deny, — a golden age without rust, a spring which 
 naver fades, cloudless prosperity and eternal youth." 
 
 Black dress coats and silken stockings 
 Snowy ruffles frilled with art, 
 
 Gentle speeches and embraces — 
 Oh, if they but held a heart ! 
 
 Held a heart within their bosom, 
 Warmed by love which truly glows ; 
 
 Ah, — I'm wearied with their chanting 
 Of imagined lover's woes ! 
 
 1 will climb upon the mountains 
 Where the quiet cabin stands, 
 
 Where the wind blows freely o'er us, 
 Where the heart at ease expands. 
 
 I will climb upon the mountains, 
 
 Where the dark green fir trees grow ; 
 
 Brooks are rustling — birds are singing, 
 And the wild clouds headlong go. 
 
 ( 1824.) 
 
 BÖRNE 
 
 5 
 
 (49) 
 
— 50 — 
 
 Then farewell, ye polished ladies, 
 Polished men and polished hall I 
 
 I will climb upon the mountain, 
 Smiling down upon you all. 
 
 The town of Göttin gen, celebrated for its sausages and University, 
 belongs to the King of Hanover, and contains nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine dwellings, divers churches, a lying-in-asylum, an observa- 
 tory, a prison, a library, and a " council-cellar," where the beer is 
 excellent. The stream which flows by the town is termed the Leine, 
 and is used in summer for bathing, its waters being very cold, and in 
 more than one place so broad, that Luder was obliged to take quite 
 a run ere he could leap across. The town itself is beautiful, and 
 pleases most when looked at — backwards. It must be very ancient 
 for I well remember that five years ago, when I was there matricu- 
 lated, (and shortly after " summoned,") it had already the same grey, 
 old-fashioned, wise look, and was fully furnished with beggars, beadles, 
 dissertations, tea-parties with a little dancing, washer-women, com- 
 pendiums, roasted pigeons, Guelphic orders, professors, ordinary and 
 extraordinary, pipe-heads, court-counsellors, and law-counsellors. 
 Many even assert that at the time of the great migration of races, 
 every German tribe left a badly corrected proof of its existence in the 
 town, in the person of one of its members, and that from these 
 descended all the Vandals, Frisians, Suabians, Teutons, Saxons, 
 Thuringians and others, who at the present day abound in Göttingen, 
 where, separately distinguished by the color of their caps and pipe- 
 tassels, they may be seen straying singly or in hordes along the 
 Weender-street. They still fight their battles on the bloody arena 
 of the Rasenmill, Ritschenlcrug and Bovden, still preserve the mode 
 of life peculiar to their savage ancestors, and are still governed partly 
 by their Duces, whom they call " chief-cocks," and partly by their 
 primevally ancient law-book, known as the " Comment," which fully 
 deserves a place among the legibus barbarorum. 
 
 The inhabitants of Göttingen, are generally and socially divided 
 into Students, Professors, Philistines and Cattle, the points of differ- 
 ence between these castes being by no means strictly defined. The 
 cattle class is the most important. I might be accused of prolixity 
 should I here enumerate the names of all the students and of all the 
 regular and irregular professors ; besides, I do not just at present 
 distinctly remember the appellations of all the former gentlemen, 
 while among the professors, are many, who as yet have no name at 
 
— 51 — 
 
 all. The number of the Göttingen Philistines must be as numerous 
 as the sands (or more correctly speaking, as the mud) of the sea ; 
 indeed, when I beheld them of a morning, with their dirty faces and 
 clean bills, -planted before the gate of the collegiate court of justice, 
 I wondered greatly that such an innumerable pack of rascals should 
 ever have been created. 
 
 More accurate information of the town of Güttingen may be very 
 conveniently obtained from its "Topography," by K. F. H. Marx. 
 Though entertaining the most sacred regard for its author, who was 
 my physician, and manifested for me much esteem, still I cannot pass 
 by his work with altogether unconditional praise, inasmuch as he has 
 not with sufficient zeal combatted the erroneous opinions that the ladies 
 of Güttingen have not enormous feet. On this point I speak autho- 
 ritatively, having for many years been earnestly occupied with a refu- 
 tation of this opinion. To confirm my views I have not only studied 
 comparative anatomy and made copious extracts from the rarest 
 works in the library, but have also watched for hours, in the TVeender 
 street, the feet of the ladies as they walked by. In the fundamentally 
 erudite treatise, which forms the result of these studies, I speak 
 Firstly, Of feet in general; Secondly, of the feet of antiquity; 
 Thirdly, of elephants' feet ; Fourthly, of the feet of the Göttingen 
 ladies ; Fifthly, I collect all that was ever said in Ulrich's Garden 
 on the subject of female feet. Sixthly, I regard feet in their con- 
 nection with each other, availing myself of the opportunity to extend 
 my observation to ankles, calves, knees, &c, and finally and Seventhly, 
 if I can manage to hunt up sheets of paper of sufficient size I will 
 present my readers with some copperplate fac-similes of the feet of the 
 fair dames of Göttingen. 
 
 It was as yet very early in the morning when I left Göttingen, and 
 the learned * * * beyond doubt still lay in bed, dreaming that 
 he wandered in a fair garden, amid the beds of which grew innu- 
 merable white papers written over with citations. On these the 
 sun shone cheerily, and he plucked them and planted them in new 
 beds while the sweetest songs of the nightingales rejoiced his old 
 heart. 
 
 Before the Weender Gate, I met two native and diminutive school 
 boys, one of whom was saying to the other, " I don't intend to keep 
 company any more with Theodore, he is a low little blackguard, for 
 yesterday he didn't even know the genitive of Mensa." Insignificant 
 as these words may appear, I still regard them as entitled to record — 
 nay, I would even write them as town-motto on the gate of Güttingen, 
 
— 52 — 
 
 for the young bir^s pipe as the old ones sing, and the expression accu- 
 rately indicates the narrow-minded academic pride so characteristic 
 of the " highly learned" Georgia Augusta. 
 
 Fresh morning air blew over the road, the birds sang cheerily, and 
 little by little, with the breeze and the birds, my mind also became 
 fresh and cheerful. Such a refreshment was needed for one who had 
 long been imprisoned in a stall of legal lore. Koman casuists had 
 covered my soul with grey cobwebs, my heart was cemented firmly 
 between the iron paragraphs of selfish systems of jurisprudence, there 
 was an endless ringing in my ears of such sounds as " Tribonian, J us- 
 tinian, Hermogenian, and Blockheadian," and a sentimental brace of 
 lovers seated under a tree, appeared to me like an edition of the 
 Corpus Juris with closed clasps. The road began to wear a more 
 lively appearance. Milk-maids occasionally passed, as did also donkey 
 drivers, with their grey pupils. Beyond Weende, I met the " Shep- 
 herd," and " Doris." This is not the idyllic pair sung by Gessner, but 
 the well-matched University beadles, whose duty it is to keep watch 
 and ward, so that no students fight duels in Bovden, and above all 
 that no new ideas (such as are generally obliged to maintain a decen- 
 nial quarantine before Göttingen,) are smuggled in by speculative 
 private teachers. Shepherd greeted me very collegially and conge- 
 nially, for he too is an author, who has frequently mentioned my 
 name in his semi-annual writings. In addition to this, I may men- 
 tion that when, as was frequently the case, he came to summon me 
 before the University court and found me " not at home ;" he was 
 always kind enough to write the citation with chalk upon my chamber 
 door. Occasionally a one-horse vehicle rolled along, well packed with 
 students, who travelled away for the vacation — or for ever. In such 
 a university town, there is an endless coming and going. Every 
 three years beholds a new student-generation, forming an incessant 
 human tide, where one vacation-wave washes along its predecessor, 
 and only the old professors remain upright in the general flood, 
 immovable as the Pyramids of Egypt. Unlike their oriental cotem- 
 poraries, no tradition declares that in them treasures of wisdom are 
 buried. 
 
 From amid the " myrtle leaves," by Kauschenwasser, I saw two 
 hopeful youths appear. A female, who there carried on her business, 
 accompanied them as far as the highway, clapped with a practised 
 hand the meagre legs of the horses, laughed aloud, as one of the cav- 
 aliers, inspired with a very peculiar spirit of gallantry, gave her a 
 '•cut behind" with his whip, and travelled off for Bovden. The 
 
— 53 — 
 
 youths, however, rattled along towards Körten, trilling in a highly 
 intelligent manner, and singing the Rossinian lay of "Drink beer, 
 pretty, pretty 'Liza !" These sounds I continued to hear when far in 
 the distance, and after I had long lost sight of the amiable vocalists, 
 as their horses, which appeared to be gifted with characters of extreme 
 German deliberation, were spurred and lashed in a most excruciating 
 style. In no place is the skinning alive of horses carried to such an 
 extent as in Göttingen ; and often, when I beheld some lame and 
 sweating hack, who, to earn the scraps of fodder which maintained 
 his wretched life, was obliged to endure the torment of some roaring 
 blade, or draw a whole wagon load of students — I reflected : "Unfor- 
 tunate beast, — most certainly thy first ancestors, in some horse para- 
 dise, did eat of forbidden oats." 
 
 In the tavern at Nörten I again met my two vocalists. One 
 devoured a herring-salad, and the other amused himself with the 
 leathern complexioned waiting-maid, Fusia Canina, also known as 
 Stepping-Bird.* He passed from compliments to caresses, until 
 they became finally " hand in glove" together. To lighten my knap- 
 sack, I extracted from it a pair of blue pantaloons, which were some- 
 what remarkable in a historical point of view, and presented them to 
 the little waiter, whom we called Humming Bird. The old landlady, 
 Bussenia, brought me bread and butter, and greatly lamented that I 
 so seldom visited her, for she loved me dearly. 
 
 Beyond Nörten the sun flashed high in heaven. He evidently 
 wished to treat me honorably, and warmed my heart until all the 
 unripe thoughts which it contained came to full growth. The admi- 
 rable Sun Tavern, in Nörten, should not be passed over in silence, for 
 it was there that I breakfasted. All the dishes were excellent, and 
 suited me far better than the wearisome, academical courses of salt- 
 less, leathery dried fish and cabbage rechavffee, which characterized 
 both our physical and mental pabulum at Göttingen. After I had 
 somewhat appeased my appetite, I remarked in the same room of the 
 tavern, a gentleman and two ladies, who appeared about to depart on 
 their jourhey. The cavalier was clad entirely in green, even to his 
 eyes, over which a pair of green spectacles cast in turn a verdigrease 
 glow upon his copper-red nose. The gentleman's general appear- 
 ance was that which we may presume King Nebuchadnezzar to 
 have presented, after having passed a few years out at grass. 
 
 * Trittvogel, or " Step-bird," signifies, in German student slang, one who demands money; 
 ft Manicheart.or creditor. &c> [ÄTote bu Translator.'] 
 
 5* 
 
— 54 — 
 
 The Green One requested me to recommend him to a hotel in Göttin- 
 gen, and I advised him when there to inquire of the first convenient 
 student for the Hotel de Brübach. One lady was evidently his wife : 
 an altogether extensively constructed dame, gifted with a mile-square 
 countenance, with dimples in her cheeks which looked like hide-and- 
 go-seek holes for well grown cupids. A copious double chin appeared 
 below, like an imperfect continuation of the face, while her high-piled 
 bosom, which was defended by stiff points of lace, and a many-cor- 
 nered collar, as if by turrets and bastions, reminded one of a fortress. 
 iStill it is by no means certain that this fortress would have resisted 
 an ass laden with gold, any more than did thai of which Philip of 
 Macedon spoke. The other lady, her sister, seemed her extreme 
 anti-type. If the one were descended from Pharaoh's fat kine, the 
 other was as certainly derived from the lean. Her face was but a 
 mouth between two ears ; her breast was as inconsolably comfortless 
 and dreary as the Lüneburger heath ; while her altogether dried-up 
 figure reminded one of a charity-table for poor students of theology. 
 Both ladies asked me, in a breath, if respectable people lodged in the 
 Hotel de Brübach? I assented to this question with certainty, and a 
 clear conscience, and as the charming trio drove away, I waved my 
 hand to them many times from the window. The landlord of the 
 Sun laughed, however, in his sleeve, being probably aware that the 
 Hotel de Brübach was a name bestowed by the students of Göttin- 
 gen upon their University prison. 
 
 Beyond Kordheim mountain ridges begin to appear, and the travel- 
 ler occasionally meets with a picturesque eminence. The wayfarers 
 whom I encountered were principally pedlars, travelling to the 
 Brunswick fair, and among them were swarms of women, every one 
 of whom bore on her back an incredibly large pack, covered with 
 linen. In these packs were cages, containing every variety of sing- 
 ing birds, which continually chirped and sung, while their bearers 
 merrily hopped along and sang together. A queer fancy came into 
 my head, that I beheld one bird carrying others to market. 
 
 The night was dark as pitch as I entered Osterode. I had no 
 appetite for supper, and at once went to bed. I was as tired as a 
 dog and slept like a god. In my dreams I returned to Göttingen, 
 even to its very library. I stood in a corner of the Hall of Juris- 
 prudence, turning over old dissertations, lost myself in reading, and 
 when I finally looked up, remarked to my astonishment that it was 
 night, and that the Hall was illuminated by innumerable over-hang- 
 ing crystal chandeliers. The bell of the neighbouring church struck 
 
— 55 — 
 
 twelve, the hall doors slowly opened, and there entered a superb 
 colossal female form, reverentially accompanied by the members and 
 hangers on of the legal faculty. The giantess though advanced in 
 years retained in her countenance traces of extreme beauty, and her 
 every glance indicated the sublime Titaness, the mighty Themis. 
 The sword and balance were carelessly grasped in her right hand, 
 while with the left she held a roll of parchment. Two young Dodores 
 Juris bore the train of her faded grey robe; by her right side the 
 lean Court Counsellor Rusticus, the Lycurgus of Hanover, fluttered 
 here and there like a zephyr, declaiming extracts from his last legal 
 essay, while by her left, her cavaliere servante, the privy legal coun- 
 sellor Cajacius, hobbled gaily and gallantly along, constantly crack- 
 ing legal jokes, laughing himself so heartily at his own wit, that 
 even the serious goddess often smiled and bent over him, exclaiming 
 as she tapped him on the shoulder with the great parchment roll, 
 " Thou little scamp who cuttest down the tree from the top !" All 
 of the gentlemen who formed her escort now drew nigh in turn, each 
 having something to remark or jest over, either a freshly worked up 
 system, or a miserable little hypothesis, or some similar abortion of 
 their own brains. Through the open door of the hall now entered 
 many strange gentlemen, who announced themselves as the remain- 
 ing magnates of the illustrious order ; mostly angular suspicious 
 looking fellows, who with extreme complacency blazed away with 
 their definitions and hair-splittings, disputing over every scrap of a 
 title to the title of a pandect. And other forms continually flocked 
 in, the forms of those who were learned in law in the olden time, — 
 men in antiquated costume, with long counsellor's wigs and forgotten 
 faces, who expressed themselves greatly astonished that they, the 
 widely famed of the previous century, should not meet with especial 
 consideration ; and these, after their manner, joined in the general 
 chattering and screaming, which like ocean breakers became louder 
 and madder around the mighty Goddess, until she, bursting from 
 impatience suddenly cried, in a tone of the most agonized Titanic 
 pain, " Silence ! Silence ? I hear the voice of the loved Prometheus, — 
 mocking cunning and brute force are chaining the innocent One 
 to the rock of martyrdom, and all your prattling and quarrelling will 
 not allay his wounds or break his fetters !" So cried the Goddess, 
 and rivulets of tears sprang from her eyes, the entire assembly 
 howled as if in the agonies of death, the ceiling of the hall burst 
 asunder, the books tumbled madly from their shelves, and in vain 
 the portrait of old Munchausen called out "order" from his frame, 
 
— 56 — 
 
 for all crashed and raged more wildly around. I sought refuge from 
 this Bedlam broke loose, in the Hall of History, near that gracious 
 spot where the holy images of the Apollo Belvedere and the Yenus 
 de Medici stand near together, and I knelt at the feet of the Goddess 
 of Beauty, in her glance I forgot all the wearisome barren labour 
 which I had passed, my eyes drank in with intoxication the symmetry 
 and immortal loveliness of her infinitely blessed form ; Hellenic calm 
 swept through my soul, while above my head, Phoebus Apollo poured 
 forth like heavenly blessings, the sweetest tones of his lyre. 
 
 Awaking, I continued to hear a pleasant musical ringing. The 
 flocks were on their way to pasture, and their bells were tinkling. 
 The blessed golden sunlight shone through the window, illuminating 
 the pictures on the walls of my room. They were sketches from the 
 war of Independence, and among them were placed representations 
 of the execution of Louis XVI. on the guillotine, and other decapi- 
 tations which no one could behold without thanking God that he lay 
 quietly in bed, drinking excellent coffee,. and with his head com- 
 fortably adjusted upon neck and shoulders. 
 
 After I had drunk my coffee, dressed myself, read the inscriptions 
 upon the window-panes and set everything straight in the inn, 1 
 left Osterode. 
 
 This town contains a certain quantity of houses and a given 
 number of inhabitants, among whom are divers and sundry souls, 
 as may be ascertained in detail from " Gottschalk's Pocket Book 
 for Hartz-travellers." Ere I struck into the highway I ascended 
 the ruins of the very ancient Osteroder Burg. They consisted of 
 merely the half of a great, thick-walled tower, which appeared to be 
 fairly honeycombed by time. The road to Clausthal, led me again 
 up-hill, and from one of the first eminences I looked back into the 
 dale where Osterode, with its red roofs peeps out from among the 
 green fir woods, like a moss-rose from amid its leaves. The pleasant 
 sunlight inspired gentle, child-like feelings. From this spot the 
 imposing rear of the remaining portion of the tower may be seen 
 to advantage. 
 
 After proceeding a little distance, I overtook and went along with 
 a travelling journeyman, who came from Brunswick, and related to 
 me, that it was generally believed in that city, that their young Duke 
 had been taken prisoner by the Turks during his tour in the Holy 
 Land, and could only be ransomed by an enormous sum. The exten- 
 sive travels of the Duke probably originated this tale. The people 
 at large, still preserve that traditional fable-loving train of ideas, 
 
— 57 — 
 
 which is so pleasantly shown in their " Duke Ernst.*' The narrator 
 of this news, was a tailor, a neat little youth, but so thin, that the 
 stars might have shone through him as through Ossian's ghosts. 
 Altogether, he formed a vulgar mixture of affectation, whim and 
 melancholy. This was peculiarly expressed in the droll and affecting 
 manner in which he sang that extraordinary popular ballad, " A 
 beetle sat upon the hedge, summ, summ /" That is a pleasant pecu- 
 liarity of us Germans. No one is so crazy but that he may find a 
 crazier comrade, who will understand him. Only a German can 
 appreciate that song, and in the same breath laugh and cry himself 
 to death over it. On this occasion, I also remarked the depth to 
 which the words of Goethe have penetrated into the national life. 
 My lean comrade trilled occasionally as he went along. " J oyful and 
 sorrowful, thoughts are free !" Such a corruption of a text is usual 
 among the multitude. He also sang a song in which " Lottie by the 
 grave of Werther" wept. The tailor ran over with sentimentalism in 
 the words, " Sadly by the rose-beds now I weep, where the late moon 
 found us oft alone ! Moaning where the silver fountains sleep, which 
 rippled once delight in every tone." But he soon became capricious 
 and petulant, remarking, that " We have a Prussian in the tavern at 
 Cassel, who makes exactly such songs, himself. He can't sew a 
 single decent stitch ; when he has a penny in his pocket he always 
 has twopence worth of thirst with it, and when he has a drop in his 
 eye, he takes heaven to be a blue jacket, weeps like a roof-spout, 
 and sings a song with double poetry." I desired an explanation of 
 this last expression, but my tailoring friend, hopped about on his 
 walking-cane legs and cried incessantly, " Double poetry is double 
 poetry, and nothing else." Finally, I ascertained that he meant 
 doubly rhymed poems, or stanzas. Meanwhile, owing to his extra 
 exertion, and an adverse wind, the Knight of the Needle became 
 sadly weary. It is true that he still made a great pretence of 
 advancing, and blustered, " Now I will take the road between my 
 legs." But he, immediately after, explained that his feet were blis- 
 tered, and that the world was by far too extensive, and finally sinking 
 down at the foot of a tree, he moved his delicate little head like the 
 tail of a troubled lamb, and woefully smiling, murmured, " Here am 
 I, poor vagabond, already again weary !" 
 
 The hills here became steeper, the fir-woods waved below like a 
 green sea, and white clouds above, sailed along over the blue sky. 
 The wildness of the region was, however, tamed by its uniformity 
 and the simplicity of its elements. Nature, like a true poet, abhors 
 
— 58 — 
 
 abrupt transitions. Clouds — however fantastically formed they may 
 at times appear — still have a white, or at least, a subdued hue, har- 
 moniously corresponding with the blue heaven and the green earth ; 
 so that all the colours of a landscape blend into each other like soft 
 music, and every glance at such a natural picture, tranquillizes and 
 re-assures the soul. The late Hoffman would have painted the 
 clouds spotted and checquered. And like a great poet, Nature knows 
 how to produce the greatest effects with the most limited means. 
 There she has only a sun, trees and flowers, water and love. Of 
 course, if the latter be lacking in the heart of the observer, the whole 
 will, in all probability, present but a poor appearance, the sun will 
 be so and so many miles in diameter, the trees are for fire-wood, the 
 flowers are classified according to their stamens, and the water is 
 wet. 
 
 A little boy who was gathering brushwood in the forest for his 
 sick uncle, pointed out to me the village of Lerrbach, whose little 
 huts with grey roofs scatter along for two miles through the valley. 
 14 There," said he, " live idiots with goitres, and white negroes." By 
 white negroes the people mean albinos. The little fellow lived on 
 terms of peculiar understanding with the trees, addressing them like 
 old acquaintances, while they in turn seemed by their waving and 
 rustling to return his salutations. He chirped like a thistle-finch, 
 many birds around answered his call, and ere I was aware, he had 
 disappeared with his little bare feet and his bundle of brush, amid 
 the thickets. " Children," thought I, " are youuger than we, they 
 can perhaps remember when they were once trees or birds, and are, 
 consequently still able to understand them. We of larger growth, 
 arc alas, too old for that, and carry about in our heads too much legal 
 lore, and too many sorrows and bad verses." But the time when it 
 was otherwise, recurred vividly to me as I entered Clausthal. In 
 this pretty little mountain town, which the traveller does not behold 
 until he stands directly before it, I arrived just as the clock was 
 striking twelve and the children came tumbling merrily out of school. 
 The little rogues — nearly all red-cheeked, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, 
 sprang and shouted, and awoke in me, melancholy and cheerful 
 memories, how I once myself, as a little boy, sat all the forenoon 
 long in a gloomy catholic cloister school in Düsseldorf, without so much 
 as daring to stand up, enduring meanwhile such a terrible amount of 
 Latin, whipping and geography, and how I too, hurrahed and rejoiced 
 beyond all measure, when the old Franciscan clock at last struck 
 twelve. The children saw by my knapsack that I was a stranger. 
 
r 
 
 — 59 — 
 
 and greeted me in the most hospitable manner. One of the boya 
 told me that they had just had a lesson in religion, and showed me 
 the Eoyal Hanoverian Catechism, from which they were questioned 
 on Christianity. This little book was very badly printed, so that I 
 greatly feared that the doctrines of faith made thereby but an 
 unpleasant blotting-paper sort of impression upon the children's 
 minds. I was also shocked at observing that the multiplication table 
 contrasted with the Holy Trinity on the last page of the catechism, 
 as it at once occurred to me that by this means the minds of the 
 ehildren might, even in their earliest years, be led to the most sinful 
 skepticism. "We Prussians are more intelligent, and in our zeal for 
 converting those heathens who are familiar with arithmetic, take 
 good care not to print the multiplication table behind the catechism. 
 
 I dined in the " Crown," at Clausthal. My repast consisted of 
 spring-green, parsley-soup, violet-blue cabbage, a pile of roast veal, 
 which resembled Chimborazo in miniature, and a sort of smoked her- 
 rings, called Buckings, from their inventor, "William Bucking, who 
 died in 1447, and who on account of the invention was so greatly 
 honored by Charles Y. that the great monarch in 1556 made a 
 journey from Middleburg to Bievlied in Zealand, for the express pur- 
 pose of visiting the grave of the great fish-drier. How exquisitely 
 such dishes taste when we are familiar with their historical associa- 
 tions. Unfortunately, my after-dinner coffee was spoiled by a youth, 
 who in conversing with me ran on in such an outrageous strain of 
 noise and vanity that the milk was soured. He was a young counter- 
 jumper, wearing twenty-five variegated waistcoats, and as many gold 
 seals, rings, breastpins, &c. He seemed like a monkey who having 
 put on a red coat had resolved within himself that clothes make the 
 man. This gentleman had got by heart a vast amount of charades 
 and anecdotes, which he continually repeated in the most inappro- 
 priate places. He asked for the news in Göttingen, and I informed 
 him that a decree had been recently published there by the Academical 
 Senate, forbidding any one, under penalty of three dollars, to dock 
 puppies' tails, — because during the dog-days, mad dogs invariably ran 
 with their tails between their legs, thus giving a warning indication 
 of the existence of hydrophobia, which could not be perceived were 
 the caudal appendage absent. After dinner I went forth to visit the 
 mines, the mint, and the silver refineries. 
 
 In the silver refinery as has frequently been my luck in life, I could 
 get no glimpse of the precious metal. In the mint I succeeded better, 
 and saw how money was made. Beyond this I have never been able 
 
— 60 — 
 
 to advance. On such occasions, mine has invariably been the spec- 
 tator's part, aDd I verily believe, that if it should rain dollars from 
 Heaven, the coins would only knock holes in my head, while the 
 children of Israel would merrily gather up the silver manna. With 
 feelings in which comic reverence was blended with emotion, I beheld 
 the new-born shining dollars, took one as it came fresh from the stamp, 
 in my hand, and said to it : " Young Dollar ! what a destiny awaits 
 thee ! what a cause wilt thou be of good and of evil ! How thou wilt 
 protect vice and patch up virtue, how thou wilt be beloved and 
 accursed ! how thou wilt aid in debauchery, pandering, lying, and 
 murdering ! how thou wilt restlessly roll along through clean and dirty 
 hands for centuries, until finally laden with trespasses, and weary 
 with sin, thou wilt be gathered again unto thine own, in the bosom 
 of an Abraham, who will meft thee down and purify thee, and form 
 thee into a new and better being !" 
 
 I will narrate in detail my visit to " Dorothea" and " Caroline," the 
 two principal Clausthaler mines, having found them very interesting. 
 
 Half a German mile from the town, are situated two large, dingy 
 buildings. Here the traveller is transferred to the care of the miners. 
 These men wear dark, and generally steel-blue colored, jackets, of 
 ample girth descending to the hips, with pantaloons of a similar hue, 
 a leather apron bound on behind, and a rimless green felt hat, which 
 resembles a decapitated nine-pin. In such a garb, with the exception 
 of the "back-leather" the visitor is also clad, and a miner, his "leader," 
 after lighting his mine-lamp, conducts him to a gloomy entrance, resem- 
 bling a chimney hole, descends as far -as the breast, gives him a few 
 directions relative to grasping the ladder, and carelessly requests him 
 to follow. The affair is entirely devoid of danger, though it at first 
 appears quite otherwise to those unacquainted with the mysteries of 
 mining. Even the putting on of the dark convict-dress awakens very 
 peculiar sensations. Then one must clamber down on all fours, the 
 dark hole is so very dark, and Lord only knows how long the ladder 
 may be ! But we soon remark that this is not the only ladder in the 
 black eternity around, for there are many of from fifteen to twenty 
 rounds apiece, each standing upon a board capable of supporting a 
 man, and from which a new hole leads in turn to a new ladder. I 
 first entered the Caroline, the dirtiest and most disagreeable of that 
 name with whom I ever had the pleasure of becoming acquainted. 
 The rounds of the ladders were covered with wet mud. And from 
 one ladder we descended to another with the guide ever in advance, 
 continually assuring us that there is no danger so long as we hold 
 
— 61 — 
 
 firmly to the rounds and do not look at our feet, and that we must 
 not for our lives tread on the side plank, where the buzzing barrel- 
 rope runs, and where two weeks ago a careless man was knocked 
 down, unfortunately breaking his neck by the fall. Far below is a 
 confused rustling and humming, and we continually bump against 
 beams and ropes which are in motion, winding up and raising barrels 
 of broken ore or of water. Occasionally we pass galleries hewn in 
 the rock, called " stulms," where the ore may be seen growing, and 
 where some solitary miner sits the livelong day, wearily hammering 
 pieces from the walls. I did not descend to those deepest depths, 
 where it is reported that the people on the other side of the world, in 
 America, may be heard crying, " Hurrah for Lafayette !" Where I 
 went, seemed to me, however, deep enough in all conscience ; amid 
 an endless roaring and rattling, the mysterious sounds of machinery, 
 the rush of subterranean streams, the sickening clouds of ore dust 
 continually rising, water dripping on all sides, and the miner's lamp 
 gradually growing dimmer and dimmer. The effect was really benumb- 
 ing, I breathed with difficulty, and held with trouble to the slippery 
 rounds. It was not fright which overpowered me, but oddly enough, 
 down there in the depths, I remembered that a year before, about 
 the same time, I had been in a storm on the North Sea, and I now 
 felt that it would be an agreeable change could I feel the rocking 
 of the ship, hear the wind with its thunder-trumpet tones, while amid 
 its lulls sounded the hearty cry of the sailors, and all above was freshly 
 swept by God's own free air. Yes, Air ! — Panting for air, I rapidly 
 climbed several dozens of ladders, and my guide led me through a 
 narrow and very long gallery towards the Dorothea mine. Here it 
 is airier and fresher, and the ladders are cleaner, though at the same 
 time longer than in the Caroline. I felt revived and more cheer- 
 ful, particularly as I observed indications of human beings. Far 
 below I saw wandering, wavering lights, miners with their lamps came 
 one by one upwards, with the greeting, " Good luck to you !" and 
 receiving the same salutation from us, went onwards and upwards. 
 Something like a friendly and quiet, yet at the same time terrific and 
 enigmatical, recollection flitted across my mind as I met the deep 
 glances and earnest, pale faces of these men, mysteriously illuminated 
 by their lanterns, and thought how they had worked all day in lonely 
 and secret places in the mines, and how they now longed for the 
 blessed light of day, and for the glances of wives and children. 
 
 My guide himself was a throroughly honest, honorable, blundering 
 German being. With inward joy he pointed out to me the "stulm'' 
 
 6 
 
— 62 — 
 
 where the Duke of Cambridge, when he visited the mines, dined with 
 all his train, and where the long wooden table yet stands, with the 
 accompanying great chair, made of ore, in which the Duke sat. " This 
 is to remain as an eternal memorial," said the good miner, and he 
 related with enthusiasm how many festivities had then taken place, 
 how the entire stulm had been adorned with lamps, flowers, and deco- 
 rations of leaves ; how a miner boy had played on the cithern and 
 sung ; how the dear, delighted fat Duke had drained many healths, 
 and what a number of miners (himself especially) would cheerfully die 
 for the dear, fat Duke, and for the whole house of Hanover. I am 
 moved to my very heart when I see loyalty thus manifested in all its 
 natural simplicity. It is such a beautiful sentiment ! And such a 
 purely German sentiment! Other people may be more intelligent and 
 wittier, and more agreeable, but none are so faithful as the real Ger- 
 man race. Did I not know that fidelity is as old as the world, I 
 would believe that a German had invented it. German fidelity is no 
 modern "yours very truly," or, " I remain your humble servant." In 
 your courts, ye German princes, ye should cause to be sung, and sung 
 again, the old ballad of The trusty Eckhart and the base Burgund, 
 who slew Eckhart's seven children, and still found him faithful. Ye 
 have the truest people in the world, and ye err when ye deem that the 
 old, intelligent, trusty hound has suddenly gone mad, and snaps at 
 your sacred calves ! 
 
 And like German fidelity, the little mine-lamp has guided us 
 quietly and securely, without much flickering or flaring, through the 
 labyrinth of shafts and stulms. We jump from the gloomy moun- 
 tain-night — sunlight flashes around : — " Luck to you !" 
 
 Most of the miners dwell in Clausthal, and in the adjoining smali 
 town of Zellerfeld. I visited several of these brave fellows, observed 
 their little household arrangements, heard many of their songs, which 
 they skilfully accompany with their favorite instrument, the cithern, 
 and listened to old mining legends, and to their prayers, which they 
 are accustomed to daily offer in company ere they descend the gloomy 
 shaft. And many a good prayer did I offer up with them. One old 
 climber even thought that I ought to remain among them, and be- 
 come a man of the mines, and as I, after all, departed, he gave me a 
 message to his brother, who dwelt near Goslar, and many kisses for 
 his darling niece. 
 
 Immovably tranfiuil as the life of these men may appear, it is, 
 notwithstanding, a real and vivid life. That ancient, trembling crone 
 who sits before the great clothes-press and behind a stove, may have 
 
— 63 — 
 
 been there for a quarter of a century, and all her thinking and 
 feeling, is, beyond a doubt, intimately blended with every corner 
 of the stove and the carvings of the press. And clothes-press and 
 stove live, — for a human being hath breathed into them a portion of 
 its soul. 
 
 Only a life of this deep-looking into phenomena and its " imme- 
 diateness," could originate the German popular tale whose peculiarity 
 consists in this, — that in it, not only animals and plants, but also 
 objects apparently inanimate, speak and act. To thinking, harmless 
 beings who dwelt in the quiet home-ness of their lowly mountain 
 cabins or forest huts, the inner life of these objects was gradually 
 revealed, they acquired a necessary and consequential character, 
 a sweet blending of fantasy and pure human reflection. This is the 
 reason why, in such fables, we find the extreme of singularity allied 
 to a spirit of perfect self-intelligence, as when the pin and the needle 
 wander forth from the tailor's home and are bewildered in the dark ; 
 when the straw and the coal seek to cross the brook and are de- 
 stroyed ■* when the dust-pan and broom quarrel and fight on the 
 stairs ; when the interrogated mirror of " Snow-drop" shows the 
 image of the fairest lady, and when even drops of blood begin to 
 utter dark words of the deepest compassion. And this is the reason 
 why our life in childhood is so infinitely significant, for then all things 
 are of the same importance, nothing escapes our attention, there is 
 equality in every impression ; while, wiien more advanced in years, 
 we must act with design, busy ourselves more exclusively with 
 particulars, carefully exchange the pure gold of observation for the 
 paper currency of book-definitions, and win in the breadth of life what 
 we have lost in depth. Now, we are grown-up, respectable people, 
 we» often inhabit new dwellings, the house-maid daily cleans them, 
 and changes at her will the position of the furniture which interests 
 us but little, as it is either new, or may belong to-day to Jack, 
 to-morrow to Isaac. Even our very clothes are strange to us, we 
 hardly know how many buttons there are on the coat we wear, — for 
 we change our garments as often as possible, and none of them 
 remain deeply identified with our external or inner history. We 
 
 * This story of the straw, the coal arid the hean, is curiously Latinized in the Nugce 
 Venales. 
 
 "Pruna, Faha, et Stramen rivum transire lahorant, seque idio in ripis Stramen utriin- 
 que locat. Sic quasi per pontem Faha transit, Pruna sed urit Stramen, et in medias 
 prsecipitatur aquas, Hoc cernens nimio risu faha rumpitur imo parte sui, hancque 
 quasi tacta pudore tegit. — [Note by Translator.} 
 
_ 64 — 
 
 scarce dare to think how that brown vest once looked, which attracted 
 so much laughter, and yet on the broad stripes of which, the dear 
 hand of the loved one so gently rested ! 
 
 The old dame who sat before the clothes-press and behind the 
 stove, wore a flowered dress of some old-fashioned material, which 
 had been the bridal-robe of her long buried mother. Her great 
 grandson, a flashing-eyed blonde boy, clad in a miner's dress, knelt 
 at her feet, and counted the flowers on her dress. It may be that 
 she has narrated to him many a story connected with that dress ; 
 serious or pretty stories, which the boy will not readily forget, which 
 will often recur to him, when he, a grown up man, works alone in the 
 midnight galleries of the Caroline, and which he in turn will narrate 
 when the dear grandmother has long been dead ; and he himself, a 
 silver-haired, tranquil old man, sits amid the circle of his grand- 
 children before the great clothes-press and behind the oven. 
 
 I lodged that night in "The Crown," where I had the pleasure of 
 
 meeting and paying my respects to the old Court Counsellor B , 
 
 of Göttingen. Having inscribed my name in the book of arrivals, I 
 found therein the honoured autograph of Adalbert von Chamisso, 
 the biographer of the immortal Sclilemihl. The landlord remarked 
 of Chamisso, that the gentleman had arrived during one terrible 
 storm, and departed in another. 
 
 Finding the next morning that I must lighten my knapsack, I 
 threw overboard the pair of boots, and arose and went forth unto 
 Goslar. There I arrived without knowing how. This much alone 
 do I remember, that I sauntered up and down hill, gazing upon 
 many a lovely meadow vale. Silver waters rippled and rustled, 
 sweet wood-birds sang, the bells of the flocks tinkled, the many 
 shaded green trees were gilded by the sun, and over all the blue "silk 
 canopy of Heaven was so transparent that I could look through the 
 depths even to the Holy of Holies, where angels sat at the feet of God, 
 studying sublime thorough-bass in the features of the eternal coun- 
 tenance. But I was all the time lost in a dream of the previous 
 night, and which I could not banish. It was an echo of the old 
 legend, how a knight descended into a deep fountain, beneath which 
 the fairest princess of the world lay buried in a death-like magic 
 slumber. I myself was the knight, and the dark mine of Clausthal 
 was the fountain. Suddenly, innumerable lights gleamed around 
 me,, wakeful dwarfs leapt from every cranny in the rocks, grimacing 
 angrily, cutting at me with their short swords, blowing terribly on 
 horns, which ever summoned more and more of their comrades, and 
 
— 65 — 
 
 frantically nodding their great heads. But as I hewed them down 
 with my sword, and the blood flowed, I for the first time remarked 
 that they were not really dwarfs, but the red-blooming long bearded 
 thistle tops, which I had the day before hewed down on the highway 
 with my stick. At last they all vanished and I came to a splendid 
 lighted hall, in the midst of which stood my heart's loved one, veiled 
 in white and immovable as a statue. I kissed her mouth, and then 
 — oh Heavens ! — I felt the blessed breath of her soul and the sweet 
 tremor of her lovely lips. It seemed that I heard the divine com- 
 mand " Let there be light !" and a dazzling flash of eternal light shot 
 down, but at the same instant it was again night, and all ran chaoti- 
 cally together into a wild desolate sea ! A wild desolate sea ! over 
 whose foaming waves the ghosts of the departed madly chased each 
 other, the white shrouds floating on the wind, while behind all, 
 goading them on with cracking whip, ran a many coloured harlequin, 
 — and I was the harlequin. Suddenly from the black waves the sea- 
 monsters raised their misshapen heads, and yawned towards me, 
 with extended jaws, and I awoke in terror. 
 
 Alas ! how the finest dreams may be spoiled ! The knight, in fact 
 when he has found the lady, ought to cut a piece from her priceless 
 veil, and after she has recovered from her magic sleep and sits again 
 in glory in her hall, he should approach her and say, " My fairest 
 princess, dost thou not know me?" Then she will answer, "My 
 bravest knight, I know thee not!" And then he shows her the piece 
 cut from her veil, exactly fitting the deficiency, and she knows that 
 he is her deliverer, and both tenderly embrace, and the trumpets 
 sound, and the marriage is celebrated ! 
 
 It is really a very peculiar misfortune that my love-dreams so seldom 
 have so fine a conclusion. 
 
 The name of Goslar rings so pleasantly, and there are so many 
 very ancient and imperial associations connected therewith, that 1 
 had hoped to find an imposing and stately town. But it is always 
 the same old story when we examine celebrities too closely! I 
 found a nest of houses, drilled in every direction with narrow 
 streets of labyrinthine crookedness, and amid which a miserable 
 stream, probably the Goslar, winds its flat and melancholy way. The 
 pavement of the town is as ragged as Berlin hexameters. Only the 
 antiquities which are imbedded in the frame, or mounting, of the 
 city; that is to say, its remnants of walls, towers and battlements, 
 give the place a piquant look. One of these towers, known as the 
 Zwinger, or donjon-keep, has walls of such extraordinary thickness, 
 
 6* 
 
— 66 — 
 
 that entire rooms are excavated therein. The open place before the 
 town, where the world-renowned shooting matches are held, is a beau- 
 tiful large plain surrounded by high mountains. The market is small, 
 and in its midst is a spring-fountain, the water from which pours into 
 a great metallic basin. AVhen an alarm of fire is raised, they strike 
 strongly on this cup-formed basin, which gives out a very loud vibra- 
 tion. Nothing is known of the origin of this work. Some say that 
 the devil placed it once during the night on the spot where it stands. 
 In those days people were as yet fools, nor was the devil any wiser, 
 and they mutually exchanged gifts. 
 
 The town hall of Goslar is a white-washed police-station. The 
 Guildhall, hard by, has a somewhat better appearance. In this 
 building, equidistant from roof and ceiling, stand the statues of the 
 German emperors. Partly gilded, and altogether of a smoke-black 
 hue, they look with their sceptres and globes of empire, like roasted 
 college beadles. One of the emperors holds a sword, instead of a 
 sceptre. I cannot imagine the reason of this variation from the estab- 
 lished order, though it has doubtless some occult signification, as 
 Germans have the remarkable peculiarity of meaning something in 
 whatever they do. 
 
 In Gottschalk's " Handbook," I had read much of the very ancient 
 Dom, or Cathedral, and of the far-famed imperial throne at Goslar. 
 But when I wished to see these curiosities, I was informed that the 
 church had been torn down, and that the throne had been carried to 
 Berlin. We live in deeply significant times, when millennial churches 
 are shattered to fragments, and imperial thrones are tumbled into the 
 lumber room. 
 
 A few memorials of the late cathedral of happy memory, are still 
 preserved in the church of St. Stephen. These consist of stained 
 glass pictures of great beauty, a few indifferent paintings, including a 
 Lucas Oranach, a wooden Christ crucified, and a heathen altar of 
 some unknown metal. This latter resembles a long square box, and 
 is supported by four caryatides, which in a bowed position hold their 
 hands over their heads, and make the most hideous grimaces. But 
 far more hideous is the adjacent wooden crucifix of which I have just 
 spoken. This head of Christ, with its real hair and thorns and 
 blood-stained countenance, represents, in the most masterly manner, 
 the death of a man, — but not of a divinely born Saviour. Nothing 
 but physical suffering is portrayed in this image, — not the sublime 
 poetry of pain. Such a work would be more appropriately placed in 
 a hall of anatomy than in a house of the Lord. 
 
— 67 — 
 
 I lodged in a tavern, near the market, where I should have enjoyed 
 my dinner much better, if the landlord with his long, superfluous face, 
 and his still longer questions, had not planted himself opposite to me. 
 Fortunately I was soon relieved by the arrival of another stranger, 
 who was obliged to run in turn the gauntlet of qids t quid? ubif 
 quibus avxiliis ? cur? quomodo ? quaudo? This stranger was an old, 
 weary, worn-out man, who, as it appeared from his conversation, had 
 been all over the world, had resided very long in Batavia, had made 
 much money, and lost it all, and who now after thirty years' absence 
 was returning to Quedlinburg, his native city, — " for," said he, " our 
 family has there its hereditary tomb." The landlord here made the 
 highly intelligent remark, that it was all the same thing to the 
 soul, where the body was buried. " Have you scriptural authority 
 for that ?" retorted the stranger, while mysterious and crafty wrinkles 
 circled around his pinched lips and faded eyes. " But," he added, as 
 if nervously desirous of conciliating, — " I mean no harm against graves 
 in foreign lands, — oh, no ! — the Turks bury their dead more beauti- 
 fully than we ours ; their church-yards are perfect gardens, and there 
 they sit by their white turbaned grave-stones under cypress trees, 
 and stroke their grave beards, and calmly smoke their Turkish tobacco 
 from their long Turkish pipes ; and then among the Chinese, it is a 
 real pleasure to see how genteelly they walk around, and pray, and 
 drink tea among the graves of their ancestors, and how beautifully 
 they bedeck the beloved tombs with all sorts of gilt lacquered work, 
 porcelain images, bits of colored silk, fresh flowers and variegated lan- 
 terns — all very fine indeed — how far is it yet to Quedlinberg ?" 
 
 The church-yard at Goslar did not appeal very strongly to my 
 feelings. But a certain very pretty blonde-ringletted head which 
 peeped smilingly from a parterre window did. After dinner I again 
 took an observation of this fascinating window, but instead of a 
 maiden, I beheld a vase containing white bell-flowers. I clambered 
 up, stole the flowers, put them neatly in my cap, and descended, 
 unheeding the gaping mouths, petrified noses, and goggle eyes with 
 which the street population, and especially the old women, regarded 
 this qualified theft. As I, an hour later, passed by the same house, 
 the beauty stood by the window, and as she saw the flowers in my 
 cap, she blushed like a ruby, and started back. This time I had seen 
 the beautiful face to better advantage ; it was a sweet transparent 
 incarnation of summer evening air, moonshine, nightingale notes and 
 rose-perfume. Later — in the twilight hour, she was standing at the 
 door. I came — I drew near— she slowly retreated into the dark 
 
— 68 — 
 
 entry — I followed, and seizing her hand, said, "I am a lover of 
 beautiful flowers and of kisses, and when they are not given to me, I 
 steal them." Here I quickly snatched a kiss, and as she was about 
 to fly, I whispered apologetically, " To-morrow I leave this town and 
 never return again." Then I perceived a faint pressure of the lovely 
 lips and of the little hand, and I — went smiling away. Yes, I must 
 smile when I reflect that this was precisely the magic formula by 
 which our red and blue-coated cavaliers more frequently win female 
 hearts, than by their mustachioed attractiveness. " To-morrow I leave, 
 and never return again !" 
 
 My chamber commanded a fine view towards Eammelsberg. It 
 was a lovely evening. Night was out hunting on her black steed, and 
 the long cloud mane fluttered on the wind. I stood at my window 
 watching the moon. Is there really a " man in the moon ?" The 
 Slavonians assert that there is such a being named Clotar, and he 
 causes the moon to grow by watering it. When I was little they 
 told me that the moon was a fruit, and that when it was ripe, it was 
 picked and laid away, amid a vast collection of old full moons, in 
 a great bureau, which stood at the end of the world, where it is 
 nailed up with boards. As I grew older, I remarked that the world 
 was not by any means so limited as I had supposed it to be, and that 
 human intelligence had broken up the wooden bureau, and with a 
 terrible " Hand of Glory" had opened all the seven heavens. Immor- 
 tality — dazzling idea ! who first imagined thee ! Was it some jolly 
 burgher of Nureinburg, who with night-cap on his head, and white 
 clay pipe in moujih, sat on some pleasant summer evening before his 
 door, and reflected in all his comfort, that it would be right pleasant, 
 if, with unextinguishable pipe, and endless breath, he could thus 
 vegetate onwards for a blessed eternity ? Or was it a lover, who in 
 the arms of his loved one, thought the immortality-thought, and that 
 because he could think and feel naught beside ! — Love ! Immortality ! 
 it speedily became so hot in my breast, that I thought the geogra- 
 phers had misplaced the equator, and that it now ran directly through 
 my heart. And from my heart poured out the feeling of love ; — it 
 poured forth with wild longing into the broad night. The flowers in 
 the garden beneath my window breathed a stronger perfume. Per- 
 fumos are the feelings of flowers, and as the human heart feels most 
 powerful emotions in the night, when it believes itself to be alone 
 and unperceived, so also do the flowers, soft-minded, yet ashamed, 
 appear to await for concealing darkness, that they may give themselves 
 wholly up to their feelings, and breathe them out in sweet odours. 
 
— 69 — 
 
 Pour forth, ye perfumes of my heart, and seek beyond yon blue 
 mountain for the loved one of my dreams ! Now she lies in slumber, 
 at her feet kneel angels, and if she smiles in sleep it is a prayer which 
 angels repeat ; in her breast is heaven with all its raptures, and as 
 she breathes, my heart, though afar, throbs responsively. Behind 
 the silken lids of her eyes, the sun has gone down, and when they 
 are raised, the sun rises, and birds sing, and the bells of the flock 
 tinkle, and I strap on my knapsack and depart. 
 
 During the night which I passed at Goslar, a remarkably curious 
 occurrence befel me. Even now, I cannot think of it without terror. 
 I am not by nature cowardly, but I fear gliosis almost as much as 
 the " Austrian Observer." What is fear ? Does it come from the 
 understanding or from the natural disposition ? This was a point 
 which I frequently disputed with Doctor Saul Ascher, when we 
 accidently met in the Cafi Koyal, in Berlin, where I for a long time 
 dined. The doctor invariably maintained, that we feared any- 
 thing, because we recognized it as fearful, owing to certain 
 determinate conclusions of the reason. Only the reason was an 
 active power, — not the disposition. While I ate and drank to my 
 heart's content, the doctor demonstrated to me the advantages of 
 reason. Towards the end of Ms dissertation, he was accustomed to 
 look at his watch and remark conclusively, " Reason is the highest 
 principle !"■ — Reason ! Never do I hear this word without recalling 
 Doctor Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his tight fitting transcen- 
 dental-gray long coat, and his immovably icy face, which resembled 
 a confused amalgam of geometrical problems. This man, deep in the 
 fifties, was a personified straight line. In his striving for the posi- 
 tive, the poor man had philosophised everything beautiful, out of 
 existence, and with it, everything like sunshine, religion and flowers, 
 so that there remained nothing for him, but a cold positive grave. 
 The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity were the two especial objects 
 of his malice, and he had even published a pamphlet against the 
 latter, in which he had demonstrated its unreasonableness and 
 untenableness. In addition to this, he had, however, written a great 
 number of books, in all of which, Reason shone forth in all its pecu- 
 liar excellence, and as the poor doctor meant what he said in all 
 seriousness, they were, so far, deserving of respect. But tue 
 great joke consisted precisely in this, that the doctor invariably cut 
 such a seriously-absurd figure in not comprehending that which 
 every child comprehends, simply because it is a child. I visited the 
 doctor several times in his own house, where I found him in company 
 
— 70 — 
 
 with very pretty girls, for Eeason, it seems, however abstract, does 
 not prohibit the enjoyment of the things of this world. Once, how- 
 ever, when I called, his servant told me that the " Herr Doctor" had 
 just died. I experienced as much emotion on this occasion, as if I 
 had been told that the " Herr Doctor" had just stepped out. 
 
 To return to Goslar. " The highest principle is Reason," said I, 
 consolingly to myself as I slid into bed. But it availed me nothing. 
 I had just been reading in Varnhagen von Ense's " German Narra- 
 tions," which I had brought with me from Clausthal, that terrible 
 tale of a sou, who when about to murder his father, was warned in 
 the night by the ghost of his mother. The wonderful truthfulness 
 wkh which this story is depicted, caused while reading it, a shudder 
 of horror in all my veins. Ghost stories invariably thrill us with 
 additional horror when read during a journey and by night in a town, 
 in a house, and in a chamber where we have never before been. We 
 involuntarily reflect, " How many horrors may have been perpetrated 
 ou this very spot where I now lie ?" Meanwhile, the moon shone 
 into my room in a doubtful, suspicious manner ; all kinds of uncalled 
 for shapes quivered on the walls, and as I laid me down and glanced 
 fearfully around, I beheld — 
 
 There is nothing so " uncanny" as when a man sees his own face by 
 moonlight in a mirror. At the same instant there struck a deep- 
 booming, yawning bell, and that so slowly and wearily that I firmly 
 believed that it had been full twelve hours striking, and that it was 
 now time to begin over again. Between the last and next to the last 
 tones, there struck in very abruptly, as if irritated and scolding, 
 another bell, who was apparently out of patience with the slowness 
 of her friend. As the two iron tongues were silenced, and the still- 
 ness of death sank over the whole house, I suddenly seemed to hear, 
 in the corridor before my chamber, something halting and waddling 
 along, like the unsteady steps of a man. At last the door slowly 
 opened, and there entered deliberately the late departed Doctor Saul 
 Ascher. A cold fever drizzled through marrow and vein — I trem- 
 bled like an ivy leaf, and scarcely dared I gaze upon the ghost. He 
 appeared as usual, with the same transcendental grey long coat, the 
 same abstract legs, and the same mathematical face ; only this latter 
 was a little yellower than usual, and the mouth, which formerly de- 
 scribed two angles of 22| degrees, was pinched together, and the 
 circles around the eyes had a somewhat greater radius. Tottering, 
 and supporting himself as usual upon his Malacca cane, he approached 
 me, and said, in his usual drawling dialect, but in a friendly manner : 
 
— 71 — 
 
 " Do not be afraid, nor believe that I am a ghost. It is a deception 
 of your imagination, if you believe that you see me as a ghost. 
 What is a ghost ? Define one. Deduce for me the conditions of the 
 possibility of a ghost. In what reasonable connection does such an 
 apparition coincide with reason itself? Reason, I say, reason!" Here 
 the ghost proceeded to analyze reason, cited from Kant's Critic of Pure 
 Reason, part 2, 1st section, chap. 3, the distinction between phe- 
 nomena and nouomena, then proceeded to construct a hypothetical 
 system of ghosts, piled one syllogism on another, and concluded with 
 the logical proof that there are absolutely no ghosts. Meanwhile the 
 cold sweat beaded over me, my teeth clattered like castanets, and 
 from very agony of soul I nodded an unconditional assent to every 
 assertion which the phantom Doctor alleged against the absurdity of 
 being afraid of ghosts, and which he demonstrated with such zeal, 
 that finally, in a moment of abstraction, instead of his gold watch, 
 he drew a handful of grave worms from his vest pocket, and remark- 
 ing his error, replaced them with a ridiculous but terrified haste. 
 " The reason is the highest — " Here the clock struck one, and the 
 ghost vanished. 
 
 I wandered forth from Goslar the next morning, half at random, 
 and half intending to visit the brother of the Clausthaler miner. I 
 climbed hill and mount, saw how the sun strove to drive afar the 
 mists, and wandered merrily through the trembling woods, while 
 around my dreaming head rang the bell flowers of Goslar. The 
 mountains stood in their white night-robes, the fir trees were shaking 
 sleep out of their branching limbs, the fresh morning wind curled 
 their down-drooping green locks, the birds were at morning prayers, 
 the meadow-vale flashed like a golden surface sprinked with diamonds, 
 and the shepherd passed over it with his bleating flock. I had gone 
 astray. Men are ever striking out short cuts and bye-paths, hoping 
 to abridge their journey. It is in life as in the Hartz. However, 
 there are good souls everywhere to bring us again to the right way. 
 This they do right willingly, appearing to take a particular satisfac- 
 tion, to judge from their self-gratified air, and benevolent tones, 
 in pointing out to us the great wanderings which we have made 
 from the right road, the abysses and morasses into which we might 
 have sunk, and, finally, what a piece of good luck it was for us to 
 encounter, betimes, people who knew the road as well as themselves. 
 Such a guide-post I found not far from the Hartzburg, in the person 
 of a well-fed citizen of Goslar — a man of shining, double-chinned, 
 slow-cunning countenance, who looked as if he had discovered the 
 
— 72 — 
 
 murrain. We went along for some distance together, and he narrated 
 many ghost stories, which would have all been well enough if they 
 had not all concluded with an explanation that there was no real 
 ghost in the case, but that the spectre in white was a poacher, that 
 the wailing sound was caused by the new-born farrow of a wild sow, 
 and that the rapping and scraping on the roof was caused by cats. 
 " Only when a man is sick," observed my guide, " does he ever believe 
 that he sees ghosts ;" and to this he added the remark, that as for his 
 own humble self, he was but seldom sick, — only at times a little wrong 
 about the head, and that he invariably relieved this by dieting. He 
 then called my attention to the appropriateness and use of all things 
 in nature. Trees are green, because green is good for the eyes. I 
 assented to this, adding that the Lord had made cattle because beef- 
 soup strengthened man, that jackasses were created for the purpose 
 of serving as comparisons, and that man existed that he might eat 
 beef-soup, and realize that he was no jackass. My companion was 
 delighted to meet with one of sympathetic views, his face glowed with 
 a greater joy, and on parting from me he appeared to be sensibly 
 moved. 
 
 As long as he was with me Nature seemed benumbed, but when 
 he departed the trees began again to speak, the sun-rays flashed, the 
 meadow-flowers danced once more, and the blue heavens embraced the 
 green earth. Yes — I know better. God hath created man that he 
 may admire the beauty and the glory of the world. Every author, 
 be he ever so great, desires that his work may be praised. And in 
 the Bible, that great memoir of God, it is distinctly written that he 
 hath made man for his own honour and praise. 
 
 After long wandering, here and there, I came to the dwelling of 
 the brother of my Clausthaler friend. Here I staid all night, and 
 experienced the following beautiful poem : 
 
 l. 
 
 On yon rock the hut is standing, 
 
 Of the ancient mountaineer. 
 There the dark green fir trees rustle, 
 
 And the moon is shining clear. 
 
 In the hut there stands an arm-chair 
 
 Which quaint carvings beautify ; 
 He who sits therein is happy, 
 
 And that happy man am I. 
 
— 73 — 
 
 On the footstool sits a maiden, 
 On my lap her arms repose : — 
 
 With her eyes like blue stars beaming, 
 And her mouth a new-born rose. 
 
 And the dear blue stars shine on me, 
 Full as heaven is their gaze ; 
 
 And her little lily finger 
 Archly on the rose she lays. 
 
 11 Nay — thy mother cannot see us, 
 For she spins the whole day long ; 
 
 And thy father plays the cithern 
 As he sings a good old song." 
 
 And the maiden softly whispers, 
 So that none around may hear : 
 
 Many a solemn little secret 
 Hath she murmured in my ear. 
 
 Since I lost my aunt who loved me, 
 
 Now we never more repair 
 To the shooting-ground at Goslar, 
 
 And it is so pleasant there I 
 
 And up here it is so lonely 
 
 On the rocks where cold winds blow; 
 And in winter, we are ever 
 
 Deeply buried in the snow. 
 
 And I'm such a timid creature, 
 And I'm frightened like a child ; 
 
 At the evil mountain spirits, 
 Who by night are raging wild. 
 
 At the thought the maid was silent, 
 As if terror thrilled her breast ; 
 
 And the small hands, white and dimpled 
 To her sweet blue eyes she pressed. 
 
 Loud, without, the fir trees rustle, 
 Loud the spinning-wheel still rings : 
 
 And the cithern sounds above them, 
 While the father softly sings. 
 
— 74 — 
 
 " Dearest child : — no evil spirits 
 Should have power to cause thee dread ; 
 
 For good angels still are watching 
 Night and day around thy head." 
 
 2- 
 
 Fir-Tree with his dark green fingers 
 Taps upon the window low ; 
 
 And the moon, a yellow listener, 
 Casts within her sweetest glow. 
 
 Father, mother, both are sleeping, 
 Near at hand their rest they take ; 
 
 But we two, in pleasant gossip, 
 Keep each other long awake. 
 
 " That thou prayest much too often, 
 Seems unlikely T declare ; 
 
 On thy lips there's a contraction 
 "Which was never born of prayer. 
 
 Ah, that heartless, cold expression ! 
 
 Terrifies me as I gaze ; 
 Though a solemn sorrow darkens 
 
 In thine eyes, their gentle rajs. 
 
 And I doubt if thou believest 
 What is held for truth by most ; 
 
 Hast thou faith in God the Father 
 In the Son and Holy Ghost ? 
 
 • Ah, my darling ; when, an infant 
 By my mother's knee I stood, 
 I believed in God the Father, 
 He who ruleth great and good. 
 
 He who made the world so lovely, 
 Gave man beauty, gave him force ; 
 
 And to sun and moon and planets, 
 Pre-appointed each their course. 
 
— 75 — 
 
 As I older grew, my darling, 
 
 And my way in wisdom won ; 
 I, in reason comprehended, 
 
 And believe now in the Son. 
 
 In the well-loved Son, who loving, 
 Oped the gates of Love so wide ; 
 
 And for thanks, — as is the custom,— 
 By the world was crucified. 
 
 Now, at man's estate arriving, 
 
 Full experience I boast ; 
 And with heart expanded, truly 
 
 I believe in the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Who hath worked the greatest wonders, 
 Greater still he'll work again ; 
 
 He hath broken tyrant's strong holds 
 And he breaks the vassal's chain. 
 
 Ancient deadly wounds he healeth, 
 He renews man's ancient right ; 
 
 All to him, born free and equal, 
 Are as nobles in his sight. 
 
 Clouds of evil flee before him, 
 And those cobwebs of the brain, 
 
 Which forbade us love and pleasure, 
 Scowling grimly on our pain. 
 
 And a thousand knights well weaponed 
 Hath he chosen, and required 
 
 To fulfil his holy bidding, 
 
 All with noblest zeal inspired. 
 
 Lo ! their precious swords are gleaming, 
 And their banners wave in fight ! 
 
 What ! thou fain would'st see, my darling, 
 Such a proud and noble knight ? 
 
 Well, then gaze upon me, dearest, 
 
 I am of that lordly host. 
 Kiss me ! I am an elected 
 
 True knight of the Holy Ghost ! 
 
— 76 — 
 
 3. 
 
 Silently the moon goes hiding 
 
 Down behind the dark green trees ; 
 
 And the lamp which lights our chamber 
 Flickers in the evening breeze. 
 
 But the star-blue eyes are beaming 
 Softly o'er the dimpled cheeks, 
 
 And the purple rose is gleaming, 
 While the gentle maiden speaks. 
 
 Little people — fairy goblins — 
 Steal away our meat and bread ; 
 
 In the chest it lies at evening, 
 In the morning it has fled. 
 
 From our milk, the little people 
 Steal the cream and all the best ; 
 
 Then they leave the dish uncovered, 
 And our cat drinks up the rest. 
 
 And the cat's a witch, I'm certain, 
 For by night when storms arise ; 
 
 Oft she glides to yonder " Ghost-Hock," 
 Where the fallen tower lies. 
 
 There was once a splendid castle, 
 Home of joy and weapon's bright ; 
 
 Where there swept in stately torch dance, 
 Lady, page, and armed knight. 
 
 But a sorceress charmed the castle, 
 With its lords and ladies fair ; 
 
 Now it is a lonely ruin, 
 
 And the owls are nestling there. 
 
 But my aunt hath often told me, 
 Could I speak the proper word, 
 
 In the proper place up yonder, 
 When the proper hour occurred. 
 
— 77 — 
 
 Then the walls would change by magic 
 
 To a castle gleaming bright ; 
 And I'd see in stately dances, 
 
 Dame and page and gallant knight. 
 
 He who speaks the word of power 
 
 Wins the castle for his own ; 
 And the knights with drum and trumpet, 
 
 Loud will hail him lord alone. 
 
 Thus, sweet legendary pictures 
 From the little rose-mouth bloom ; 
 
 And the gentle eyes are shedding 
 Star-blue lustre through the gloom. 
 
 Round my hand the little maiden 
 Winds her gold locks as she will, 
 
 Gives a name to every finger, 
 Kisses, — smiles, and then is still. 
 
 All things in the silent chamber 
 
 Seem at once familiar grown, 
 As if e'en the chairs and clothes-press, 
 
 Well, of old, to me were known. 
 
 Now the clock talks kindly, gravely, 
 And the cithern, as t'would seem, 
 
 Of itself is faintly chiming, 
 And I sit as in a dream. 
 
 Now the proper hour is o'er us, 
 
 Here's the place where't should be heard ; 
 Child — how thou would'st be astonished, 
 
 Should I speak the magic word ! 
 
 If I spoke that word, then fading 
 Night would thrill in fearful strife ; 
 
 Trees and streams would roar together 
 As the castle woke to life. 
 
 Ringing lutes and goblin ditties 
 
 From the clefted rock would sound ; 
 
 Like a mad and merry spring-tide 
 Flowers grow forest-high around. 
 
 7* 
 
— 78 — 
 
 Flowers — startling, wondrous flowers, 
 Leaves of vast and fabled form, 
 
 Strangely perfumed, — wildly quivering, 
 As if thrilled with passion's storm. 
 
 Eoses, wild as crimson flashes, 
 
 O'er the busy tumult rise ; 
 Giant lilies, white as crystal, 
 
 Shoot like columns to the skies. 
 
 Great as suns the stars above us 
 Gaze adown with burning glow ; 
 
 In the lilies^ giant calyx 
 
 All their floods of flashes flow. 
 
 We ourselves, my little maiden, 
 Would be changed more than all ; 
 
 Torchlight gleams, o'er gold and satin 
 Bound us merrily would fall. 
 
 Thou thyself would'st be the princess, 
 And this hut thy castle high ; 
 
 Ladies, lords, and graceful pages, 
 Would be dancing, singing by. 
 
 I, however, I have conquered 
 
 Thee, and all things, with the word : — 
 Serfs and castle : — lo ! with trumpet 
 
 Loud they hail me as their lord ! 
 
 The sun rose. Clouds flitted away like phantoms at the third 
 crow of the cock. Again I wandered up hill and down dale, while 
 over head swept the fair sun, ever lighting up new scenes of beauty. 
 The Spirit of the Mountain evidently favoured me, well knowing that 
 a " poetical character" has it in his power to say many a fine thing 
 of him, and on this morning he let me see his Hartz, as it is not, 
 most assuredly, seen by every one. But the Hartz also saw me as I 
 am seen by few, and there were as costly pearls on my eye-lashes, as 
 on the grass of the valley. The morning-dew of love wetted my 
 cheeks, the rustling pines understood me, their parting twigs waved 
 up and down, as if, like mute mortals, they would express their joy 
 with gestures of their hands, and from afar, I heard beautiful and 
 
 
 
— 79 — 
 
 mysterious chimes, like the bell-tones of some long lost forest church. 
 People say that these sounds are caused by the cattle-bells, which in 
 the Hartz, ring with remarkable clearness and purity. 
 
 It was noon, according to the position of the sun, as I chanced 
 upon such a flock ; and its herd, a friendly, light-haired young fellow, 
 told me that the great hill at whose base I stood, was the old world- 
 renowned Brocken. For many leagues around, there is no house, and 
 I was glad enough, when the young man invited me to share his meal. 
 "We sat down to a dejeuner dinatoire, consisting of bread and cheese. 
 The sheep snatched up our crumbs, while pretty shining heifers jumped 
 around, ringing their bells roguishly, and laughing at us with great 
 merry eyes. We made a royal meal ; my host appearing to me alto- 
 gether a king, and as he is the only monarch who has ever given me 
 bread, I will sing him right royally. 
 
 The shepherd is a monarch, 
 
 A hillock is his throne, 
 The sun above him shining, 
 
 Is his heavy golden crown. 
 
 Sheep at his feet are lying, 
 
 Soft flatterers, crossed with red, 
 The calves are " cavalieros," 
 
 Who strut with haughty head. 
 
 Court-players are the he-goats, 
 
 And the wild-bird and the cow, 
 With their piping and their herd-bell, 
 
 Are the king's musicians now. 
 
 They ring and sing so sweetly, 
 
 And so sweetly chime around, 
 The water-fall and fir-trees, 
 
 While the monarch slumbers sound. 
 
 And as he sleeps, his sheep-dog, 
 
 As minister must reign ; 
 His snarling and his barking, 
 
 Re-echo o'er the plain. 
 
 Dozing, the monarch murmurs 
 
 " Such work was never seen 
 As reigning — I were happier 
 
 At home beside my Queen! 
 
— 80 — 
 
 " My royal head when weary, 
 
 In my Queen's arms softly lies, 
 And my endless broad dominion, 
 In her deep and gentle eyes." 
 
 We took leave of each other in a friendly manner, and with a light 
 heart I began to ascend the mountain. I was soon welcomed by a grove 
 of stately firs, for whom I, in every respect, entertain the most reveren- 
 tial regard. For these trees, of which T speak, have not found growing 
 to be such an easy business, and during the days of their youth it 
 fared hard with them. The mountain is here sprinkled with a great 
 number of blocks of granite, and most of the trees are obliged either 
 to twine their roots over the stones, or split them in two, that they 
 may thus with trouble get at a little earth to nourish them. Here 
 and there stones lie, on each other, forming as it were a gate, and 
 over all grow the trees, their naked roots twining down over the wild 
 portals, and first reaching the ground at its base, so that they appear 
 to be growing in the air. And yet they have forced their way up to 
 that startling height, and grown into one with the rocks, they stand 
 more securely than their easy comrades, who are rooted in the tame 
 forest soil of the level country. So it is in life with those great men 
 who have strengthened and established themselves by resolutely sub- 
 duing the obstacles which oppressed their youth. Squirrels climbed 
 amid the fir-twigs, while beneath, yellow-brown deer were quietly 
 grazing. I cannot comprehend, when I see such a noble animal, how 
 educated and refined people can take pleasure in its chase or death. 
 Such a creature was once more merciful than man, and suckled the 
 longing "Schmerzenreich" of the Holy Genofeva.* 
 
 Most beautiful were the golden sun-rays shooting through the 
 dark green of the firs. The roots of the trees formed a natural stair- 
 way, and everywhere my feet encountered swelling beds of moss, for 
 the stones are here covered foot-deep, as if with light-green velvet 
 cushions. Everywhere a pleasant freshness and the dreamy murmur 
 of streams. Here and there we see water rippling silver-clear amid 
 the rocks, washing the bare roots and fibres of trees. Bend down to 
 the current and listen, and you may hear at the same time the mys- 
 terious history of the growth of the plants, aud the quiet pulsations 
 
 According to the Legend of Genofeva, (chap, v.) when the fair saint and her little son, 
 Schmkrzenreich, (abounding in sorrows,) were starving in the wilderness, they were 
 suckled by a doe.— \Notc by Translator.} 
 
— 81 — 
 
 of the heart of the mountain. In many places, the water jets strongly 
 up, amid rocks and roots, forming little cascades. It is pleasant to 
 sit in such places. All murmurs and rustles so sweetly and strangely, 
 the birds carol broken strains of love-longing, the trees whisper like 
 a thousand girls, odd flowers peep up like a thousand maidens' eyes, 
 stretching out to us their curious, broad, droll-pointed leaves, the sun- 
 rays flash here and there in sport, the soft-souled herds are telling their 
 green legends, all seems enchanted, and becomes more secret and 
 confidential, an old, old dream is realized, the loved one appears, — 
 alas that all so quickly vanishes ! 
 
 The higher we ascend, so much the shorter and more dwarf-like do 
 the fir-trees become, shrinking up as it were within themselves, until 
 finally only whortle-berries, bilberries, and mountain herbs remain. 
 It is also sensibly colder. Here, for the first time, the granite 
 boulders, which are frequently of enormous size, become fully visible. 
 These may well have been the play-balls which evil spirits cast at each 
 other on the Walpurgis night, when the witches came riding hither 
 on brooms and pitch-forks, when the mad unhallowed revelry begins, 
 as our believing nurses have told us, and as we may see it represented 
 in the beautiful Faust-pictures of Master Retsch. Yes, a young poet 
 who in journeying from Berlin to Güttingen, on the first evening in 
 May, passed the Brocken, remarked how certain belles-lettered ladies 
 held their aesthetic tea-circle in a rocky corner, how they comfortably 
 read the Evening Journal, how they praised as an universal genius, 
 their pet billy-goat, who bleating, hopped around their table, and how 
 they passed a final judgment on all the manifestations of German 
 literature. But when they at last fell upon " Ratcliff," and " Alman- 
 sor," utterly denying to the author, aught like piety or Christianity, 
 the hair of the youth rose on end, terror seized him — I spurred my 
 steed and rode onwards ! 
 
 In fact, when we ascend the upper half of the Brocken, no one 
 can well help thinking of the attractive legends of the Blocksberg, 
 and especially of the great mystical German national tragedy of Doc- 
 tor Faust. It ever seemed to me that I could hear the cloven foot 
 scrambling along behind, and that some one inhaled an atmosphere 
 of humor. And I verily believe that " Mephisto" himself must 
 breathe with difficulty when he climbs his favorite mountain, for it is 
 a road which is to the last degree exhausting, and 1 was glad enough 
 when I at last beheld the long desired Brocken-house. 
 
 This house— as every one knows, from numerous pictures — consists 
 of a single story, and was erected in the year 1800 by Count Stoll- 
 
 9 
 
_ 
 
 — 82 — 
 
 berg "Wernigerode, for whose profit it is managed as a tavern. On 
 account of the wind and cold in winter, its walls are incredibly thick, 
 The roof is low. From its midst rises a tower-like observatory, and 
 near the house lie two little out-buildings, one of which, in earlier 
 times, served as shelter to the Brocken visitors. 
 
 On entering the Brocken-house, I experienced a somewhat unusual 
 and legend-like sensation. After a long solitary journey, amid rocks 
 and pines, the traveller suddenly finds himself in a house amid the 
 clouds. Far below lie cities, hills and forests, while above he en- 
 counters a curiously blended circle of strangers, by whom he is 
 received as is usual in such assemblies, almost like an expected 
 companion — half inquisitively and half indifferently. I found the 
 house full of guests, and, as becomes a wise man, I first reflected 
 on the night, and the discomfort of sleeping on straw. My part 
 was at once determined on. With the voice of one dying I 
 called for tea, and the Brocken landlord was reasonable enough 
 to perceive that the sick gentleman must be provided with a decent 
 bed. This he gave me, in a narrow room, where a young merchant 
 — a long emetic in a brown overcoat — had already established 
 himself. 
 
 In the public room I found a full tide of bustle and animation. 
 There were students from different Universities. Some of the newly 
 arrived were taking refreshments. Others, preparing for departure, 
 buckled on their knapsacks, wrote their names in the album, and 
 received bouquets from the housemaid. There was jesting, singing, 
 springing, trilling, some questioning, some answering, fine weather, 
 foot path, prosit! — luck be with you! Adieu! Some of those leav- 
 ing were also partly drunk, and these derived a two-fold pleasure from 
 the beautiful scenery, for a tipsy man sees double. 
 
 After recruiting myself, I ascended the observatory, and there 
 found a little gentleman, with two ladies, one of whom was young 
 and the other elderly. The young lady was very beautiful. A 
 superb figure, flowing locks, surmounted by a helm-like black satin 
 chapeau, amid whose white plumes the wind played ; fine limbs, so 
 closely enwrapped by a black silk mantle that their exquisite form 
 was made manifest, and great free eyes, calmly looking down into the 
 great free world. 
 
 When as yet a boy I thought of naught save tales of magic and 
 wonder, and every fair lady who had ostrich feathers on her head I 
 tegarded as an Elfin Queen. If I observed that the train of her 
 
— 83 — 
 
 dress was wet, I believed at once that she must be a water fairy."* 
 Now, I know better, having learned from Natural History that those 
 symbolical feathers are found on the most stupid of birds, and that 
 the skirt of a lady's dress, may be wetted in a Very natural way. 
 But if I had, with those boyish eyes, seen the aforesaid young lady, 
 in the aforesaid position on the Brocken, I would most assuredly 
 have thought " That is the fairy of the mountain and she has just 
 uttered the charm which has caused all down there to appear so 
 wonderful." Yes, at the first glance from the Brocken, everything 
 appears in a high degree marvellous, — new impressions throng in on 
 every side, and these, varied and often contradictory, unite in our 
 soul to an overpowering and confusing sensation. If we suceeed in 
 grasping the idea of this sensation, we shall comprehend the character 
 of the mountain. This character is entirely German as regards not 
 only its advantages, but also its defects. The Brocken is a German. 
 With German thoroughness he points out to us, — sharply and accu- 
 rately defined as in a panorama, — the hundreds of cities, towns and 
 villages which are principally situated to the north, and all the 
 mountains, forests, rivers and plains which lie infinitely far around. 
 But for this very cause everything appears like an accurately designed 
 and perfectly coloured map, and nowhere is the eye gratified by really 
 beautiful landscapes, — just as we German compilers, owing to the 
 honourable exactness with which we attempt to give all and every- 
 thing, never appear to think of giving integral parts in a beautiful 
 manner. The mountain in consequence has a certain calm-German, 
 intelligent, tolerant character, simply because he can see things so 
 distant, yet so distinctly. And when such a mountain opens his 
 giant eyes, it may be that he sees somewhat more than we dwarfs, 
 who with our weak eyes climb over him. Many, indeed, assert that 
 the Blocksberg is very Philistine-like, and Claudius once sang "The 
 Blocksberg is the lengthy Sir Philistine." But that was an error. 
 On account of his bald head, which he occasionally covers with a 
 cloud cap, the Blocksberg has indeed something of a Philistine-like 
 aspect, f but this with him, as with many other great Germans, is the 
 
 * It is an accepted tradition in Fairy mythology that Undines, Water Nixies and other 
 aqueous spirits, however they may disguise themselves, can always be detected by the 
 fact that a portion of their dress invariably appears to be wet. — [Note by Translator.] 
 
 f Phüistrose. — " I J hilistine-like," i. e. Old fogyisb, vulgar, non-student like, citizen-isb, 
 snobbish, bourgeois, slow. The term is generally applied by wild students to those " out- 
 siders" who lead a settled down life in the world. " A Philistine," says Arndt, is a lazy, 
 
— 84 — 
 
 result of pure irony. For it is notorious that be lias Iiis wild-student 
 and fantastic times, as for instance, on the first night of May. Then 
 he casts his cloud-cap uproariously and merrily on high, and 
 becomes like the rest of us, real German romantic mad. 
 
 I soon sought to entrap the beauty into a conversation, for we 
 only begin to fully enjoy the beauties of nature when we talk about 
 them on the spot. She was not spirituelle, but attentively intelligent. 
 Both were perfect models of gentility. I do not mean that common- 
 place, stiff, negative respectability, which knows exactly what must not 
 be done or said, but that rarer, independent, positive gentility, which 
 inspires an accurate knowledge of what we may venture on, and which 
 amid all our ease and abandon inspires the utmost social confidence 
 I developed to my own amazement much geographical knowledge, 
 detailed to the curious beauty the names of all the towns which 
 lay before us, and sought them out for her on the map, which with 
 all the solemnity of a teacher I had spread out on the stone table 
 which stands in the centre of the tower. I could not find many of 
 the towns, possibly because I sought them more with my fingers than 
 with my eyes, which latter were scanning the face of the fair lady, and 
 discovering in it fairer regious than those of " Schierke" and " Elend."* 
 This countenance was one of those which never excite, and seldom 
 enrapture, but which always please. I love such faces, for they smile 
 my evilly agitated heart to rest. 
 
 I could not divine the relation in which the little gentleman stood 
 to the ladies whom he accompanied. He was a spare and remarkable 
 figure. A head sprinkled with gray hair, which fell over his low 
 forehead down to his dragon-fly eyes, and a round, broad nose which 
 projected boldly forwards, while his mouth and chin seemed 
 retreating in terror back to his ears. His face looked as if formed 
 of the soft yellowish clay with which sculptors mould their first 
 models, and when the thin lips pinched together, thousands of semi- 
 circular and faint wrinkles appeared on his cheeks. The little man 
 never spoke a word, only at times when the elder lady whispered 
 
 mm h-speaking. more-asking, nothing-daring man; such acme who makes the small great 
 und the great small, because in the great he feels his littleness and insignificance. Great 
 passions, great enjoyments. gTeat dangers, great virtues, — all these the Philistine styles 
 nonsense and frenzy." — [Note by Translator.] 
 
 * Schierle (Scfiurke), " rascal.'" and Elend or "misery," are the names of two places 
 near the Brocken. 
 
— 85 — 
 
 something friendly in his ear, he smiled like a lap dog which has 
 taken cold. 
 
 The elder lady was the mother of the younger, and she too was 
 gifted with an air of extreme respectability and refinement. Her 
 eyes betrayed a sickly, dreamy depth of thought, and about her mouth 
 there was an expression of confirmed piety, yet withal, it seemed to 
 me that she had once been very beautiful, and often smiled, and 
 taken and given many a kiss. Her countenance resembled a codex 
 palimpseshts, in which, from beneath the recent black monkish 
 writing of some text of a Church Father, there peeped out the half 
 obliterated verse of an old Greek love-poet. Both ladies had been 
 that year with their companion, in Italy, and told me many things of 
 the beauties of Eome, Florence, and Yenice. The mother had much 
 to say of the pictures of Raphael in St. Peter's ; the daughter spoke 
 more of the opera in La Fenice. 
 
 While we conversed, the sun sank lower and lower, the air grew 
 colder, twilight stole over us, and the tower platform was filled with 
 students, travelling mechanics, and a few honest citizens with their 
 spouses and daughters, all of whom were desirous of witnessing the 
 sun-set. That is truly a sublime spectacle which elevates the soul 
 to prayer. For a full quarter of an hour all stood in solemn silence, 
 gazing on the beautiful fire-ball as it sank in the west ; faces were 
 rosy in the evening red ; hands were involuntarily folded ; it seemed 
 as if we, a silent congregation, stood in the nave of a giant church, 
 that the priest raised the body of the Lord, and that Palestrina s 
 everlasting choral song poured forth from the organ. 
 
 As I stood thus lost in piety, I heard some one near me exclaim, 
 " Ah! how beautiful Nature is, as a general thing!" These words 
 came from the full heart of my room-mate, the young shopman. 
 This brought me back to my week day state of mind, and I found 
 myself in tune to say a few neat things to the ladies, about the sun- 
 set, and to accompany them, as calmly as if nothing had happened, 
 to their room. They permitted me to converse an hour longer with 
 them. Our conversation, like the earth's course, was about the sun. 
 The mother declared-, that the sun as it sunk in the snowy clouds, seemed 
 like a red glowing rose, which the gallant heaven had thrown upon 
 the white and spreading bridal-veil of Iiis loved earth. The daughter 
 smiled, and thought that a frequent observation of stich phenomena 
 weakened their impression. The mother corrected this error by a 
 quotation from Goethe's Letters of Travel, and asked me if had I read 
 " Werther." T believe that we also spoke of Angora cats, Etruscan 
 I 8 
 
 I * 
 
■« 86 — 
 
 vases, Turkish shawls, maccaroni anil Lord Byron, from whose 
 poems, the elder lady, while daintily lisping and sighing, recited 
 several sun-set quotations. To the younger lady, who did not under- 
 stand Euglish, and who wished to become familiar with those poems, 
 I recommended the translation of my fair and gifted countrywoman, 
 the Baroness Elise von Hohenhausen. On this occasion, as is my 
 custom when talking with young ladies, I did not neglect to speak 
 of Byron's impiety, heartlessness, cheerlessness, and heaven knows 
 what beside. 
 
 After this business I took a walk on the Brocken, for there it is 
 never quite dark. The mist was not heavy, and I could see the out- 
 lines of the two hills known as the Witch's Altar and the Devil's 
 Pulpit. I fired my pistol, but there was no echo. But suddenly I 
 heard familiar voices, and found myself embraced and kissed. The 
 new comers were fellow-students, from my own part of Germany, and 
 had left Göttingen four days later than I. Great was their astonish- 
 ment at finding me alone on the Blocksberg. Then came a flood 
 tide of narrative, of astonishment, and of appointment making — of 
 laughing and of recollection — and in the spirit we found ourselves 
 again in our learned Siberia, where refinement is carried to such an 
 extent that bears are " bound by many ties" in the taverns, and sables 
 wish the hunter good evening.* 
 
 In the great room we had supper. There was a long table, with 
 two rows of hungry students. At first we had only the usual subject 
 of University conversation — duels, duels, and once again duels. The 
 company consisted principally of Halle students, and Halle formed 
 in consequence the nucleus of their discourse. The window panes of 
 Court-Counsellor Schutz were exegetically lighted up. Then it was 
 mentioned that the King of Cyprus's last levee had been very bril- 
 liant, that the monarch had appointed a natural son, that he had 
 married — over the left — a princess of the house of Lishtenstein, that 
 
 * Acoordiug to that dignified and erudite work, the Burschikoses Wörterbuch, or Student- 
 Slang Dictionary, " to bind a bear," signifies to contract a debt. The term is most fre- 
 quently applied to tavern scores. In "the Landlord's Twelve Commandments," a sheet 
 frequently pasted up in German beer-houses, I have observed — " Thou shalt not bind any 
 bears in this my house."' The definition of a sable (Zobel), asgiveu in the Dictionary above 
 cited, are : 1, a finely furred animal; 2, a young lady anxious to please; 3. a " broom,'' 
 (i.e. housemaid, or female in general); 4. a lady of pleasure; 5, a wench; 6, a nymph 
 of the pave; 7, a "buckle," Ac, &c. The sable hunt is synonymous with the Besenjagd 
 or " broom chase." I have however heard it asserted in Heidelberg, that the term sablt 
 •was strictly applicable only to ladies' maids. 
 
— 87 — 
 
 the State-mistress had been forced to resign, and that the entire min- 
 istry, greatly moved, had wept according to rule. I need hardly 
 explain that this all referred to certain beer-dignitaries in Halle. 
 Then the two Chinese, who two years before had been exhibited in 
 Berlin, and who were now appointed professors of Chinese aesthetics 
 in Halle, were discussed. Some one supposed a case in which a live 
 German might be exhibited for money in China. Placards would be 
 pasted up, in which the Mandarins Tsching-Tscliang-Txcliung and 
 Hi-Ha-Ho certified that the man was a genuine Teuton, including a, 
 list of his accomplishments, which consisted principally of philoso- 
 phizing, smoking, and endless patience. As a finale, visitors might 
 be prohibited from bringing any dogs with them at twelve o'clock 
 (the hour for feeding the captive), as these animals would be sure to 
 snap from the poor German all his tit-bits. 
 
 A young Burschenschafter, who had recently passed his period of 
 purification in Berlin, spoke much, but very partially of this city. 
 He had been constant in his attendance on Wisotzki and the Theatre 
 but judged falsely of both. " For youth is ever ready with a word 
 &c." He spoke of wardrobe expenditures, theatrical scandal, and 
 similar matters. The youth knew not that in Berlin where outside 
 show exerts the greatest influence, (as is abundantly evidenced by the 
 commonness of the phrase " so people do,") this apparent life must- 
 first of all, flourish on the stage, and consequently that the especial 
 care of the Direction must be for " the colour of the beard with which 
 a part is played," and for the truthfulness of the dresses, which are 
 designed by sworn historians, and sewed by scientifically instructed 
 tailors. And this is indispensable. For if Maria Stuart, wore an 
 apron belonging to the time of Queen Anne, the Banker, Christian 
 Gum pel would, with justice complain that the anachronism destroyed 
 the illusion, and if Lord Burleigh in a moment of forgetfulness 
 should don the hose of Henry the Fourth, then Madam, the war- 
 counsellor von Steinzopf's wife, nee Lilienthau, would not get the 
 error out of her head for the whole evening. And this delusive care 
 on the part of the general direction extends itself not only to aprons 
 and pantaloons, but also to the within enclosed persons. So in future, 
 Othello will be played by a real Moor, for whom professor Lichten- 
 stein has already written to Africa, the misanthropy and remorse of 
 Eulalia are to be sustained by a lady who has really wandered from 
 the paths of virtue, Peter will be played by a real blockhead, and the 
 Stranger by a genuine mysterious wittol — for which last three cha- 
 racters it will not be necessary to send to Africa. But little as this 
 
— 88 — 
 
 young man had comprehended the relations of the Berlin drama, still 
 less was he aware that the Spontini Jannissary opera with its kettle- 
 drums, elephants, trumpets, and gongs is a heroic means of inspiring 
 with valour our sleeping race, — a means once shrewdly recommended 
 by Plato and Cicero. Least of all did the youth comprehend the diplo- 
 matic inner-meaning of the ballet. It was with great trouble that I 
 fi nally made him understand that there was really more political science 
 in Hogcet's feet than in Buckholtz's head, that all his tours de danse 
 signified diplomatic negotiations, and that his every movement hinted 
 at state matters, as for instance, when he bent forward anxiously, 
 widely grasping out with his hands, he meant our Cabinet, that a 
 hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting the spot, alluded to 
 the alliance of Deputies, that he was thinking of the lesser princes 
 when he tripped around with his legs tied, that he described the Euro- 
 pean balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a 
 drunken man, that he hinted at a Congress when he twisted his bended 
 arms together like a skein, and finally that he sets forth our altogether 
 too great friend in the East, when very gradually unfolding himself, 
 he rises on high, stands for a long time in this elevated position, and 
 then all at once breaks out into the most terrifying leaps. The 
 scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he now saw how it 
 was that dancers are better paid than great poets, why the ballet 
 forms in diplomatic circles an inexhaustible subject of conversation, 
 and why a beautiful danseuse is so frequently privately supported by 
 a minister, who beyond doubt labors night and day that she may 
 obtain a correct idea of his ' little system.' By Apis ! how great is 
 the number of the exoteric, and how small the array of the esoteric 
 frequenters of the theatre ! There sit the stupid audience, gaping 
 and admiring leaps and attitudes, studying anatomy in the positions 
 of Lemiere and applauding the entre-chats of Röhnisch, prattling of 
 "grace," "harmony," and "limbs," — no one remarking, meanwhile, 
 that he has before him in choregraphic ciphers, the destiny of the 
 German Father-land. 
 
 While such observations flitted hither and thither, we did not lose 
 sight of the practical, and the great dishes which were honourably 
 piled up with meat, potatoes, et cetera, were industriously disposed 
 of. The food, however, was of an indifferent quality. This I care- 
 lessly mentioned to my next neighbour at table, who, however, with 
 an accent in which I recognized the Swiss, very impolitely replied, that 
 Germans knew as little of true content, as of true liberty. I shrugged 
 my shoulders, remarking, that all the world over, the humblest vassals 
 
— 89 — 
 
 of princes, as well as pastry cooks and confectioners, were Swiss, and 
 known as a class by that name. I also took the liberty of stating, 
 that the Swiss heroes of liberty of the present day, reminded me of 
 those tame hares, which we see on market days in public places, 
 where they fire off pistols to the great amazement of peasants and 
 children — yet remain hares as before. 
 
 The Son of the Alps had really meant nothing wicked, " he was," 
 as Cervantes says, " a plump man, and consequently a good man." 
 But my neighbour on the other side, a Greifswalder, was deeply 
 touched by the assertion of the Swiss. Energetically did he assert 
 that German ability and simplicity were not as yet extinguished, 
 struck in a threatening manner on his breast, and gulped down a 
 tremendous flagon of white-beer. The Swiss said, " Nu ! Nu !" But 
 the more appeasingly and apologetically he said this, so much the 
 faster did the Greifswalder get on with his riot. He was a man of 
 those days, when hair-cutters came near dying of starvation. He 
 wore long locks, a knightly cap, a black old German coat, a dirty 
 shirt, which, at the same time, did duty as a waistcoat, and beneath 
 it a medallion, with a tassel of the hair of Blücher's grey horse. His 
 appearance was that of a full grown fool. I am always ready for 
 something lively at supper, and consequently, held with him a 
 patriotic strife. He was of the opinion that Germany should be 
 divided into thirty-three districts. I asserted on the contrary, that 
 there should be forty-eight, because it would then be possible to write 
 a more systematic guide-book for Germany, and because it is essential 
 that life should be blended with science. My Griefswald friend was 
 also a German bard, and, as he informed me in confidence, was occu- 
 pied with a national heroic poem, in honour of Herrman and the 
 Herrman battle. Many an advantageous hint did I give him on this 
 subject. I suggested to him that the morasses and crooked paths 
 of the Teutobergian forest, might be very onomatopoically indicated 
 by means of watery and ragged verse, and that it would be merely a 
 patriotic liberty, should the Romans in his poem, chatter the wildest 
 nonsense. I hope that this bit of art will succeed in his works, as in 
 those of other Berlin poets, even to the minutest particular. 
 
 The company around the table gradually became better acquainted, 
 and much noisier. Wine banished beer, punch bowls steamed, and 
 drinking, smolliren* and singing, were the order of the night. The 
 
 * Contracted from the Latin sibi molire amicum. Schmolliren, signifies to gain a friend, 
 to drink brotherhood with him, to give and take the " brother-kiss," and finally, to Duzen, 
 
 8* 
 
— 90 — 
 
 old " Landsfatlier" and the beautiful songs of W. Müller, Ruckert, 
 Uhland and others, rang around, with the exquisite airs of Meth- 
 f essel. Best of all, sounded our own Arndt's German words, 
 " The Lord who bade iron grow, wished for no slaves." And out of 
 doors it roared as if the old mountain sang with us, and a few reeling 
 friends even asserted, that he merrily shook his bald head, which 
 caused the great unsteadiness of our floor. The bottles became 
 emptier and the heads of the company fuller. One bellowed like an 
 ox, a second piped, a third declaimed from " The Crime," a fourth 
 spoke Latin,* a fifth preached temperance, and a sixth, assuming the 
 chair learnedly, lectured as follows : " Gentlemen ! The world is a 
 round cylinder, upon which human beings as individual pins, are 
 scattered apparently at random. But the cylinder revolves, the pins 
 knock together and give out tones, some very frequently, and others 
 but seldom ; all of which causes a remarkably complicated sound, 
 which is generally known as Universal History. We will, in conse- 
 quence, speak first of music, then of the world, and finally of history ; 
 which latter, we divide into positive and Spanish flies — " And so, 
 sense and nonsense, went rattling on. 
 
 A jolly Mechlenburger, who held his nose to his punch-glass, and 
 smiling with happiness snuffed up the perfume, remarked that it 
 caused in him a sensation as if he were standing again before the 
 refreshment table in the Schwerin Theatre ! Another held his wine 
 glass like a lorgnette before his eye, and appeared to be carefully 
 .studying the company, while the red wine trickled down over his cheek 
 into his projecting mouth. The Greifswalder, suddenly inspired, cast 
 himself upon my breast, and shouted wildly, " Oh, that thou couldst 
 understand me, for I am a lover, a happy lover; for I am loved again, 
 and G — d d — n me, she's an educated girl, for she has a full bosom, 
 wears a white gown, and plays the piano !" But the Swiss wept, and 
 tenderly kissed my hand, and ever whimpered, " Oh, Molly dear ! oh, 
 Molly dear !" 
 
 or call the friend Du or thou, equivalent to the French tutoyer. The act of schmdttiren is 
 termed Schmollis, from the Latin, sis mihi mollis amicus. "Be my good friend !" The 
 schmollis in Universities, is accompanied by a variety of ceremonies more or less imposing. 
 The Crown-Schmollis, sung at a Cammers or general meeting, involves a vast amount of 
 singing, &c. To refuse a schmollis is equivalent to a challenge. It is generally asserted, 
 that to break the schmoVis, or to call the friend in a moment of forgetfulness, " you," 
 instead of ,! thou," calls for the forfeit of a bottle of wine, but I have never observed that 
 this rule was enforced against any, save foxes or freshmen, and the like. — [Note by Trans- 
 lator.] 
 
 * Was tipsy. Wein spricht Latein — u Wine speaks Latin," says an old proverb, fully 
 illustrated by Rabelais. — [Note by Translator.'] 
 
— 91 — 
 
 During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and 
 glasses to fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful, and pale 
 as statues, one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo. The faint rosy 
 hue which the wine spread over their cheeks was scarcely visible. 
 They gazed on each other with infinite affection, as if the one could 
 read in the eyes of the other, and in those eyes there was a light as 
 though drops of light had fallen therein from the cup of burning love, 
 which an angel on high bears from one star to the other. They con- 
 versed softly with earnest, trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, 
 through all of which ran a tone of strange sorrow. " Lora is also 
 dead !" said one, and sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle 
 who had loved a student, and who when the latter left Halle, spoke 
 no more to any one, ate but little, wept day and night, gazing ever 
 on the canary-bird which her lover had given her." The bird died, 
 and Lora did not long survive it," was the conclusion, and both the 
 youths sighed as though their hearts would break. Finally, the 
 other said, "My soul is sorrowful — come forth with me into the 
 dark night ! Let me inhale the breath of the clouds and the moon- 
 rays. Partake of my sorrows ! I love thee, thy words are musical, 
 like the rustling of reeds and the flow of rivulets, they reecho in my 
 breast, but my soul is sorrowful !" 
 
 Both of the young men arose. One threw his arm around the 
 neck of the other, and thus left the noisy room. I followed, and saw 
 them enter a dark chamber, where the one by mistake, instead of the 
 window, threw open the door of a large wardrobe, and that both, 
 standing before it with outstretched arms, expressing poetic rapture, 
 spoke alternately. "Ye breezes of darkening night," cried the first, 
 "how ye cool and revive my cheeks ! How sweetly ye play amid my 
 fluttering locks ! I stand on the cloudy peak of the mountain, far 
 below me lie the sleeping cities of men, and blue waters gleam. List ! 
 far below in the valley rustle the fir-trees ! Far above yonder hills 
 sweep in misty forms the spirits of my fathers. Oh that I could 
 hunt with ye, on your cloud-steeds, through the stormy night, over 
 the rolling sea, upwards to the stars ! Alas ! I am laden with griel 
 and my soul is sad !" Meanwhile, the other had also stretched out 
 his arms towards the wardrobe, while tears fell from his eyes as he 
 cried, to a broad pair of yellow pantaloons which he mistook for the 
 moon. " Fair art thou, Daughter of Heaven ! Lovely and blessed 
 is the calm of thy countenance. The stars follow thy blue path in 
 the east ! At thy glance> the clouds rejoice, and their dark brows 
 gleam with light. Who is like unto thee in Heaven, thou the Night- 
 
— 92 — 
 
 born? The stars are ashamed before thee, and turn away their 
 green-sparkling eyes. Whither — ah, whither — when morning pales 
 thy face dost thou flee from thy path ? Hast thou, like me, thy hall ? 
 Dwellest thou amid shadows of humility ? Have thy sisters fallen 
 from Heaven ? Are they who joyfully rolled with thee through the 
 night now no more ? Yea, they fell adown oh, lovely light, and thou 
 lüdest thyself to bewail them! Yet the night must at some time 
 come when thou too must pass away, and leave thy blue path above 
 in Heaven. Then the stars, who were once lovely in thy presence, 
 will raise their green heads and rejoice. Now, thou art clothed in 
 thy starry splendor, and gazest adown from the gate of Heaven. 
 Tear aside the clouds, oh ye winds, that the night-born may shine 
 forth and the bushy hills gleam, and that the foaming waves of the 
 sea may roll in light !" 
 
 A well known and not remarkably thin friend, who had drunk more 
 than he had eaten, though he had already at supper devoured a piece 
 of beef which would have dined six lieutenants of the guard and one 
 innocent child, here came rushing into the room in a very jovial man- 
 ner, that is to say, a la swine, shoved the two elegiac friends one over 
 the other into the wardrobe, stormed through the house-door, and 
 began to roar around outside, as if raising the devil in earnest. The 
 noise in the hall grew wilder and louder — the two moaning and weep- 
 ing friends lay, as they thought, crushed at the foot of the mountain; 
 from their throats ran noble red wine, and the one said to the other, 
 " Farewell ! I feel that I bleed. Why dost thou waken me, oh breath 
 of Spring ? Thou caressest me, and say'st, 'I bedew thee with drops 
 from heaven. But the time of my withering is at hand — at hand the 
 storm which will break away my leaves. To-morrow the Wanderer 
 will come — he who saw me in my beauty — his eyes will glance, as of 
 yore, around the field — in vain — " But over all roared the well 
 known basso voice without, blasphemously complaining, amid oaths 
 and whoops, that not a single lantern had been lighted along the 
 entire Weender street, and that one could not even see whose window 
 panes he had smashed. 
 
 I can bear a tolerable quantity — modesty forbids me to say how 
 many bottles — and I consequently retired to my chamber in tolerably 
 good condition. The young merchant already lay in bed, enveloped 
 in his chalk-white night-cap, and yellow Welsh flannel." He was not 
 asleep, and sought to enter into conversation with me. He was a 
 Frankfort-on-Mainer r and consequently spoke at once of the Jews, 
 
— 93 — 
 
 declared that they had lost all feeling for the beautiful and noble, and 
 that they sold English goods twenty-five per cent, under manufac- 
 turers' prices. A fancy to humbug him came over me, and I told 
 him that I was a somnambulist, and must beforehand beg his pardon 
 should I unwittingly disturb his slumbers. This intelligence, as he 
 confessed the following day, prevented him from sleeping a wink 
 through the whole night, especially since the idea had entered his 
 head that I, while in a somnambulistic crisis, might shoot him with 
 the pistol which lay near my bed. But in truth I fared no better 
 myself, for I slept very little. Dreary and terrifying fancies swept 
 through my brain. A piano-forte extract from Dante's Hell. Finally 
 I dreamed that I saw a law opera, called the Falcidia,* with libretto 
 on the right of inheritance by Gans, and music by-SpoNTiNi. A crazy 
 dream ! I saw the Roman Forum splendidly illuminated. In it, 
 Servius Asinius Göschenus sitting as prcetor on his chair, and throw- 
 ing wide his toga in stately folds, burst out into raging recitative ; 
 Marcus Tullius Elversus, manifesting as prima donna legataria all 
 the exquisite feminineness of his nature, sang the love-melting bra- 
 vura of Quicimque civis Romanus ; Referees, rouged red as sealing- 
 wax, bellowed in chorus as minors ; private tutors, dressed as genii, 
 in flesh-colored stockinets, danced an anti-Justinian ballet, crowning 
 with flowers the " Twelve Tables," while, amid thunder and lightning, 
 rose from the ground the abused ghost of Roman Legislation, accom- 
 panied by trumpets, gongs, fiery rain, cum omni causa. 
 
 From this confusion I was rescued by the landlord of the Brocken, 
 when he awoke me to see the sunrise. Above, on the tower, I found 
 several already waiting, who rubbed their freezing hands ; others, 
 with sleep still in their eyes, stumbled around, until finally the whole 
 silent congregation of the previous evening was re-assembled, and 
 we saw how, above the horizon, there rose a little carmine-red ball, 
 spreading a dim, wintry illumination. Far around, amid the mists, 
 rose the mountains, as if swimming in a white rolling sea, only their 
 summits being visible, so that we could.imagine ourselves standing on 
 a little hill in the midst of an inundated plain, in which here and 
 there rose dry clods of earth. To retain that which I saw and felt, I 
 sketched the following poem : 
 
 * The " Falcidian law" was so called from its proposer, Falcidius. According to it, the 
 testator was obliged to leave at least the fourth part of his fortune to the person whom 
 he named his heir. Vide Pandects of Justinian. 
 
— 94 — 
 
 In the east 'tis ever brighter, 
 
 Though the sun gleams cloudily; 
 Far and wide the mountain summits 
 
 Swim above the misty sea. 
 
 Had I seven-mile boots for travel, 
 
 Like the fleeting winds I'd rove, 
 Over valley, rock and river, 
 
 To the home of her I love. 
 
 From the bed where now she's sleeping 
 
 Soft, the curtain I would slip ; 
 Softly kiss her child-like forehead, 
 
 Soft the ruby of her lip. 
 
 And yet softer would I whisper 
 In the little snow-white ear : 
 " Think in dreams that I still love thee, 
 Think in dreams I'm ever dear." 
 
 Meanwhile my desire for breakfast greatly increased, and after paying 
 a few attentions to my ladies, I hastened down to drink coffee in the 
 warm public-room. It was full time, for all within me was as sober 
 and as sombre as in the St. Stephen's church of Goslar. But with 
 the Arabian beverage, the warm Orient thrilled through my limbs. 
 Eastern roses breathed forth their perfumes, the students were 
 changed to camels,* the Brocken-house-maids with their Congreve- 
 rocket-glances became liouris, the Philistine-roses, minarets, &c. &c. 
 
 But the book which lay near me, though full of nonsense, was not 
 the Koran. It was the so-called Brocken-boolc, in which all tra- 
 vellers who ascend the mountain write their names, — many inscrib- 
 ing their thoughts or in default thereof, their "feelings." Many 
 even express themselves in verse. In this book, one may observe 
 the horrors which result when the great Philistine Pegasus at conve-. 
 nient opportunities such as* this on the Brocken, becomes poetic. 
 
 * A " camel" in German student dialect, signifies according to the erudite Dr. Vollmajjn 
 (Burschik, Worterb, p. 100.) 1st. A student not in any regular club. 2d. A savage. 3d 
 A finch. 4th. A badger. 5th. A stag. 6th. A hare. 7th. * * * * 8th. An " outsider." 
 9th. A Jew. 10th. A nigger. 11th. A Bedouin. 12th. One who neither drinks, smokes, 
 fights duels, cares for girls, nor renoums it. To renown it, (rennomiren) is equivalent to 
 the American phrase " spreads himself." The sum total of Dr. Vollmann's definitions 
 amount according to German student ideas,, to what an Englishman would call a muff," 
 or a "slow coach."— [Note by Translator.'] 
 
— 95 — 
 
 The palace of the Prince of Paphlagonia never contained such absurdi- 
 ties and insipidities as are to be found in this book. Those who 
 shine in it, with especial splendor, are Messieurs the excise-collectors, 
 with their mouldy " high-inspirations ;" counter-jumpers, with their 
 pathetic outgushings of the souls ; old German dilletanti with their 
 Turner-union-phrases,* and Berlin schoolmasters with their unsuc- 
 cessful efforts at enthusiasm. Mr. Snobbs will also for once show 
 himself as author. In one page, the majestic splendor of the 
 sun is described,. — in another, complaints occur of bad weather, of 
 disappointed hopes, and of the clouds which obstruct the view. 
 " Went up wet without, and came down ' wet within/ "f is a standing 
 joke, repeated in the book hundreds of times. 
 
 The whole volume smells of beer, tobacco, and cheese ; — we might 
 fancy it one of Clauren's romances. 
 
 While I drank the coffee aforesaid, and turned over the Brocken- 
 book, the Swiss entered, his cheeks deeply glowing, and described with 
 enthusiasm the sublime view, which he had just enjoyed in the tower 
 above, as the pure calm light of the Sun, that symbol of Truth, fought 
 with the night-mists, and that it appeared like a battle of spirits, in 
 which raging giants brandished their long swords, where harnessed 
 knights on leaping steeds chased each other, and war-chariots, flut- 
 tering banners^ and extravagant monster forms sank in the wildest 
 confusion, till all finally entwined in the maddest contortions, melted 
 into dimness and vanished, leaving no trace. This demagogical 
 natural phenomenon, I had neglected, and, should the curious affair be 
 ever made the subject of investigation, I am ready to declare on oath, 
 that all I know of the matter is the flavour of the good brown coffee I 
 was then tasting. 
 
 Alas ! this was the guilty cause of my neglecting my fair lady, and 
 now, with mother and friend, she stood before the door, about to step 
 into her carriage. I had scarcely time to hurry to her, and assure 
 her that it was cold. She seemed piqued at my not coming sooner, 
 but I soon drove the clouds from her faif brow, by presenting to her 
 a beautiful flower, which I had plucked the day before, at the risk of 
 breaking my neck, from a steep precipice. The mother inquired the 
 name of the flower, as if it seemed to her not altogether correct that 
 
 *The Turner-unions are associations organized for the purpose of Gymnastic exercise. 
 They may also be regarded as revolutionary political clubs. 
 
 f Benebelt heraufgekommen und benebelt hinunter gegangen. " Came up in a cloud and 
 "went down cloucly. The word "cloudy" occurs as an English synonyme for intoxication, 
 in a list of such terms which I have seen in print. — [Note by Translator.] 
 
— 96 — 
 
 her daughter should place a strange, unknown flower before her 
 bosom — for this was in fact the enviable position which the flower 
 attained, and of which it could never have dreamed the day before, 
 when on its lonely height. The silent friend here opened his mouth, 
 and after counting the stamina of the flower, dryly remarked that it 
 belonged to the eighth class. 
 
 It vexes me every time, when I remember that even the dear 
 flowers which God hath made, have been, like us, divided into castes, 
 and like us, are distinguished by those external names which indicate 
 descent and family. If there must be such divisions, it were better 
 to adopt those suggested by Theophrastus, who wished that flowers 
 might be divided according to souls — that is, their perfumes. As for 
 myself, I have my own system of Natural Science, according to 
 which, all things are divided into those which may — or may not be — 
 eaten ! 
 
 The secret and mysterious nature of flowers, was, however, any- 
 thing but a secret to the elder lady, and she involuntarily remarked, 
 that she felt happy in her very soul, when she saw flowers growing iu 
 the garden or in a room, while a faint, dreamy sense of pain, invaria- 
 bly affected her on beholding a beautiful flower with broken stalk — 
 that it was really a dead body, and that the delicate pale head of such 
 a flower-corpse hung down like that of a dead infant. The lady here 
 became alarmed at the sorrowful impression which her remark 
 caused, and I flew to the rescue with a few Yoltairean verses. How 
 quickly two or three French words bring us back into the conven- 
 tional concert-pitch of conversation. We laughed, hands were 
 kissed, gracious smiles beamed, the horses neighed, and the wagon 
 jolted heavily and slowly adown the hill. 
 
 And now the students prepared to depart. Knapsacks were 
 buckled, the bills, which were moderate beyond all expectation, were 
 settled, the too susceptible house-maids, upon whose pretty coun- 
 tenances the traces of successful amours were plainly visible, brought, 
 as is their custom, their Brocken-bouquets, and helped some to adjust 
 their caps ; for all of which they were duly rewarded with either 
 coppers or kisses. Thus we all went " down hill," albeit one party, 
 among whom were the Swiss and Griefswalder, took the road towards 
 Schierke, and the other of about twenty men, among whom were my 
 " land's people" and I ; led by a guide, went through the so-called 
 " Snow Iloles," down to Ilsenburg. 
 
 Such a head-over-heels, break-neck piece of business ! Halle 
 students travel quicker than the Austrian militia. Ere I knew 
 
— 97 — 
 
 where I was, the bald summit of the mountain with groups of stones 
 strewed over it, was behind us, and we went through the fir-wood 
 which I had seen the day before. The sun poured down a cheerful 
 light on the merry Burschen as they merrily pressed onward through 
 the wood, disappearing here, coming to light again there, running in 
 marshy places, across on shaking trunks of trees, climbing over 
 shelving steeps by grasping the projecting tree-roots, while they 
 trilled all the time in the merriest manner. 
 
 The lower we descended, the more delightfully did subterranean 
 waters ripple around us ; only here and there they peeped out amid 
 rocks and bushes, appearing to be reconnoitring if they might yet 
 come to light, until at last one little spring jumped forth boldly. 
 Then followed the usual show — the bravest one makes a beginning, and 
 then the great multitude of hesitaters, suddenly inspired with courage, 
 rush forth to join the first. A multitude of springs now leaped in 
 haste from their ambush, united with the leader, and finally formed 
 quite an important brook, which with its innumerable water-falls and 
 beautiful windings ripples adown the, valley. This is now the Use — 
 the sweet, pleasant Use. She flows through the blest Ilse-vale, on 
 whose sides the mountains gradually rise higher and higher, being 
 clad even to their base with beech-trees, oaks, and the usual shrubs, 
 the firs and other needle-covered evergeens having disappeared. 
 For that variety of trees prevails upon the " Lower Harz," as the 
 east side of the Brocken is called in contradistinction to the west 
 side or Upper Harz, being really much higher and better adapted to 
 the growth of evergreens. 
 
 No pen can describe the merriment, simplicity and gentleness with 
 which the Use leaps or glides amid the wildly piled rocks which rise 
 in her path, so that the water strangely whizzes or foams in one 
 place amid rifted rocks, and in another wells through a thousand 
 crannies, as if from a giant watering-pot, and then in collected 
 stream trips away over the pebbles like a merry maiden. Yes, — the 
 old legend is true, the Use is a princess, who laughing in beauty, 
 runs adown the mountain. How her white foam-garment gleams in 
 the sun-shine ! How her silvered scarf flutters in the breeze ! How 
 her diamonds flash ! The high beech-tree gazes down on her like a 
 grave father secretly smiling at the capricious self-will of a darling 
 child, the white birch-trees nod their heads around like delighted 
 aunts, the proud oak looks on like a not over-pleased uncle, as 
 though he must pay for all the fine weather ; the birds in the air 
 sing their share in their joy^ the flowers on the bank whisper, " Oh, 
 
98 
 
 take us with thee ! take us with thee ! dear sister I" but the wild 
 maiden may not be withheld, and she leaps onward, and suddenly 
 seizes the dreaming poet, and there streams over me a flower-rain ot 
 ringing gleams and flashing tones, and all my senses are lost in 
 beauty and splendour, as I hear only the voice sweet pealing as a 
 tiute. 
 
 I am the Princess Use, 
 
 And dwell in Ilsenstein ; 
 Come with me to my castle, 
 
 Thou shalt be blest — and mine ! 
 
 With ever-flowing fountains 
 
 111 cool thy weary brow ; 
 Thou 'It lose amid their rippling, 
 
 The cares which grieve thee now. 
 
 In my white arms reposing 
 
 And on my snow-white breast 
 Thou'lt dream of old, old legends 
 
 And sink in joy to rest. 
 
 I'll kiss thee and caress thee, 
 
 As in the ancient day 
 I kissed the Emperor Henry, 
 
 Who long has passed away. 
 
 The dead are dead and silent, 
 
 Only the living love ; 
 And I am fair and blooming, 
 
 — Dost feel my wild heart move ? 
 
 And as my heart is beating, 
 
 My crystal castle rings ; 
 Where many a knight and lady 
 
 In merry measure springs. 
 
 Silk trains are softly rustling, 
 
 Spurs ring from night to morn ; 
 And dwarfs are gaily drumming, 
 
 And blow the golden horn. 
 
 As round the Emperor Henry, 
 
 My arms round thee shall fall ; 
 I held his ears — he heard not 
 
 The trumpet's warning call. 
 
— 99 - 
 
 We feel infinite happiness when the outer world blends with the 
 world of our own soul, and green trees, thoughts, the songs of birds, 
 gentle melancholy, the blue of heaven, memory, and the perfume of 
 flowers, run together in sweet arabesques. Women best understand 
 this feeling, and this may be the cause that such a sweet, incredulous 
 smile plays around their lips when we, with school-pride, boast of our 
 logical deeds ; — how we have classified everything so nicely into sub- 
 jective and objective, — how our heads are provided, apothecary-like, 
 with a thousand drawers, one of which contains reason, another 
 understanding, a third wretched wit, and the fifth nothing at all — 
 that is to say, the Idea. 
 
 As if wandering in dreams, I scarcely observed that we had left 
 the depths of the Ilsethal and were now again climbing up hill. This 
 was steep and difficult work, and many of us lost our breath. But 
 like our late lamented cousin, who now lies buried at Mölln, we con- 
 stantly kept in mind the ease with which we should descend, and were 
 much the better off in consequence. Finally we reached the Ilsenstein. 
 
 This is an enormous granite rock, which rises high and boldly from 
 a glen. On three sides it is surrounded by woody hills, but from the 
 fourth — the north — there is an open view, and we gaze upon the 
 i Ilsenburg and the Use lying far below, and our glances wander beyond 
 into the lower land. On the tower-like summit of the rock stands a 
 great iron cross, and in case of need there is also here a resting-place 
 for four human feet. 
 
 As nature, through picturesque position and form, has adorned the 
 Ilsenstein with strange and beautiful charms, so has also Legend 
 poured over it her rosy light. According to Gottschalk, " the peo- 
 ple say that there once stood here an enchanted castle, in which dwel t 
 the fair princess Ilse, who yet bathes every morning in the Ilse. H 1 
 who is so fortunate as to hit upon the exact time and place, will be 
 led by her into the rock, where her castle lies, and receive a royal 
 reward." Others narrate a pleasant legend of the loves of the Ladv 
 Ilse and of the Knight of Westenbukg, which has been romantically 
 sung by one of our most noted poets, in the "Evening Journal." 
 Others again say that it was the old Saxon Emperor Henry, who 
 passed in pleasure his imperial hours with the water-nymph, Ilse, in 
 her enchanted castle. A later author, one Niemann, Esq., who has 
 written a Hartz Guide, in which the heights of the hills, variations 
 of the compass, town finances, and similar matters are described 
 with praise-worthy accuracy, asserts, however, that " what is narrated 
 of the Princess Ilse belongs entirely to the realm of fable." So all ! 
 
 A 
 
— 100 — 
 
 men, to whom a beautiful princess has never appeared, assert ; but 
 we who have been especially favored by fair ladies, know better. 
 And this the Emperor Henry knew too ! It was not without cause 
 that the old Saxon emperors held so firmly to their native Hartz. 
 Let any one only turn over the leaves of the fair Lunenburg Chron- 
 icle, where the good old gentlemen are represented in wondrously 
 true-hearted wood-cuts as well weaponed, high on their mailed war 
 steeds ; the holy imperial crown on their blessed heads, sceptre and 
 sword in firm hands ; and then in their dear bearded faces he can 
 plainly read how they often longed for the sweet hearts of their Hartz 
 princesses, and for the familiar rustling of the Hartz forests, when 
 they lingered in distant lands. Yes, — even when in the orange and 
 poison-gifted Italy, whither they, with their followers, were often 
 enticed by the desire of becoming Roman Emperors — a genuine Ger- 
 man lust for title, which finally destroyed emperor and realm. 
 
 I, however, advise every one who may hereafter stand on the sum- 
 | mit of the Ilsenburg, to think neither of emperor and crown, nor of 
 the fair Use, but simply of his own feet. For as I stood there, lost 
 in thought, I suddenly heard the subterranean music of the enchanted 
 castle, and saw the mountains around begin to stand on their heads, 
 while the red tiled roofs of Ilsenburg were dancing, and green trees 
 flew through the air, until all was green and blue before my eyes, and 
 I, overcome by giddiness, would assuredly have fallen into the abyss, 
 had I not, in the dire need of my soul, clung fast to the iron cross. 
 No one who reflects on the critically ticklish situation in which I was 
 then placed, can possibly find fault with me for having done this. 
 
 The Hartz Journey is, and remains, a fragment, and the variegated 
 threads which were so neatly wound through it, with the intention to 
 bind it into a harmonious whole, have been suddenly snapped asunder 
 I as if by the shears of the implacable Destinies. It may be that I will 
 I one day weave them into new songs, and that that which is now 
 j stingily withheld, will then be spoken in full. But when or what 
 we have spoken will all come to one and the same thing at last, 
 provided that we do but speak. The single works may ever remain 
 fragments, if they only form a whole by their union. 
 
 By such a connection the defective may here and there be supplied, 
 j the rough be polished down, and that which is altogether too harsh be 
 modified and softened. This is perhaps especially applicable to the first 
 pages of the Hart z journey, and they would in all probability have caused 
 
— 101 — 
 
 a far less unfavourable impression could the reader in some other place 
 have learned that the ill-humor which I entertain for Güttingen in 
 general, although greater than I have here expressed it, is still far 
 from being equal to the respect which I entertain for certain individuals 
 there. And why should I conceal the fact that I here allude par- 
 ticularly to that estimable man, who in earlier years received me so 
 kindly, inspiring me even then with a deep love for the study of His- 
 tory ; who strengthened my zeal for it later in life and thus led my 
 soul to calmer paths ; who indicated to my peculiar disposition its 
 peculiar paths, and, who finally gave me those historical consolations, 
 without which I should never have been able to support the painful 
 events of the present day. I speak of George Saetorius, the great 
 investigator of history and of humanity, whose eye is a bright star 
 in our dark times, and whose hospitable heart is ever open to all the 
 griefs and joys of others — for the needs of the beggar or the king, 
 and for the last sighs of nations perishing with their gods. 
 
 I cannot here refrain from remarking that the Upper Hartz — that 
 portion of which I described as far as the beginning of the Ilsethal, 
 did not by any means, make, so favourable an impression on me as the 
 romantic and picturesque Lower Hartz, and in its wild, dark fir-tree 
 beauty contrasts strangely with the other, just as the three valleys 
 formed by the Use, the Bode and the Selke, beautifully contrast 
 with each other, when we are able to individualize the character of 
 each. They are three beautiful women of whom it is impossible to 
 determine which is the fairest. 
 
 I have already spoken and sung of the fair, sweet Use, and how 
 sweetly and kindly she received me. The darker beauty — the Bode — 
 was not so gracious in her reception, and as I first beheld her in the 
 smithy-dark, Turnip-land, she appeared to me to be altogether ill-na- 
 tured and hid herself beneath a silver-grey rain-veil : but with impa- 
 tient love she suddenly threw it off; as I ascended the summit of the 
 Rosstrappe, her countenance gleamed upon me with the sunniest 
 splendour, from every feature beamed the tenderness of a giantess, 
 and from the agitated, rocky bosom, there was a sound as of sighs of 
 deep longing and melting tones of woe. Less tender, but far merrier, 
 did I find the pretty Selke, an amiable lady whose noble simplicity 
 and calm repose held at a distance all sentimental familiarity ; but 
 who by a half-concealed smile betrayed her mocking mood. It was 
 perhaps to this secret, merry spirit that I might have attributed the 
 many "little miseries" which beset me in the Selkethal- — as for instance, 
 when I sought to spring over the rivulet, I plunged in exactly up to 
 
— 102 — 
 
 my middle ; how whet) 1 continued my wet campaign with slippers, 
 one of them was soon " not at hand," or rather " not at foot," for I 
 lost it : — how a puff of wind bore away my cap, — how thorns scratched 
 me, &c, &c. Yet do I forgive the fair lady all this, for she is fair. 
 And even now she stands before the gates of Imagination, in all her 
 silent loveliness and seems to say. "Though I laugh I mean no 
 harm, and I pray you, sing of me I" The magnificent Bode also sweeps 
 into my memory and her dark eye says, "Thou art like me in pride 
 I and in pain, and I will that thou lovest me. Also the fair Use comes 
 merrily springing, delicate and fascinating in mien, form, and motion, 
 in all things like the dear being who blesses my dreams, and like her 
 she gazes on me with unconquerable indifference, and is withal so 
 deeply, so eternally, so manifestly true. Well, I am Paris, and I 
 award the apple to the fair Use. 
 
 It is the first of May, and spring is pouring like a sea of life over 
 the earth, a foam of white blossoms covers the trees, the glass in the 
 town windows flashes merrily, swallows are again building on the 
 roofs, people saunter along the street, wondering that the air affects 
 them so much, and that they feel so cheerful ; the oddly dressed Yier- 
 lander girls are selling bouquets of violets, foundling children, with 
 their blue jackets and dear little illegitimate faces, run along the 
 Jun of entstieg, as happily as if they had all found their fathers ; the 
 beggar on the bridge looks as jolly as though he had won the first 
 lottery-prize, and even on the grimy and as yet un-hung pedlar, who 
 scours about with his rascally " manufactory goods" countenance, the 
 sun shines with his best-natured rays, — I will take a walk beyond the 
 town-gate. 
 
 It is the first of May, and I think of thee, thou fair Ilse — or shall 
 I call thee by the name which I better love, of Agxes ? — I think of 
 thee and would fain see once more how thou leapest in light adown 
 thy hill. But best of all were it, could I stand in the valley below, 
 and hold thee in my arms. It is a lovely day 1 Green — the colour of 
 hope — is everywhere around me. Everywhere, flowers — those dear 
 wonders — are blooming, and my heart will bloom again also. This 
 heart is also a flower of strange and wondrous sort. It is no modest 
 violet, no smiling rose, no pure lily, or similar flower, which with good 
 gentle loveliness makes glad a maiden's soul, and may be fitly 
 placed before her pretty breast, and which withers to-day, and 
 to-morrow blooms again. No, this heart rather resembles that 
 strange, heavy flower, from the woods of Brazil, which, according to 
 the legend, blooms but once in a century. I remember well that I 
 
— 103 — 
 
 once, when a boy, saw such a flower. During the night we heard an 
 explosion, as of a pistol, and the next morning a neighbor's children 
 told me that it was their " aloe," which had bloomed with the shot. 
 They led me to their garden, where I saw to my astonishment that 
 the low, hard plant, with ridiculously broad, sharp-pointed leaves, 
 which were capable of inflicting wounds, had shot high in the air and 
 bore aloft beautiful flowers, like a golden crown. "We children could 
 not see so high, and the old grinning Christian, who liked us all so 
 well, built a wooden stair around the flower, upon which we scram- 
 bled like cats, and gazed curiously into the open calyx, from which 
 yellow threads, like rays of light, and strange foreign odors, pressed 
 forth in unheard-of splendor. 
 
 Yes, Agnes, this flower blooms not often, not without effort ; and 
 according to my recollection it has as yet opened but once, and that 
 must have been long ago — certainly at least a century since. And I 
 believe that, gloriously as it then unfolded its blossoms, it must now 
 miserably pine for want of sunshine and warmth, if it is not indeed 
 shattered by some mighty wintry storm. But now it moves, and 
 swells, and bursts in my bosom — dost thou hear the explosion? 
 Maiden, be not terrified ! I have not shot myself, but my love has 
 burst its bud and shoots upwards in gleaming songs, in eternal dithy- 
 rambs, in the most joyful fullness of poesy! 
 
 But if this high love has grown too high, then, young lady, take it 
 comfortably, climb the wooden steps, and look from them down into 
 my blooming heart. 
 
 It is as yet early ; the sun has hardly left half his road behind 
 him, and my heart already breathes forth so powerfully its perfumed 
 vapor that it bewilders my brain, and I no longer know where irony 
 ceases and heaven begins, or that I people the air with my sighs, and 
 that I myself would fain dissolve into sweet atoms in the uncreated 
 Divinity ; — how will it be when night comes on, and the stars shine 
 out in heaven, "the unlucky stars, who could tell thee " 
 
 It is the first of May, the lowest errand boy has to-day a right to 
 be sentimental, and would you deny the privilege to a poet? 
 
THE NORTH SEA. 
 
 (1825 — 1826.) 
 
 Motto : Xenophon's Anabasis, IV. 7. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 (1825.) 
 
 f; 
 
 TWILIGHT* 
 
 On the white strand of Ocean, 
 
 Sat I, sore troubled with thought, and alone. 
 
 The sun sank lower and lower, and cast 
 
 Red glowing shadows on the water, 
 
 And the snow-white, rolling billows 
 
 By the flood impelled, 
 
 Foamed up while roaring nearer and nearer, 
 
 A wondrous tumult, a whistling and whispering, 
 
 A laughing and murmuring, sighing and washing, 
 
 And mid them a lullaby known to me only — 
 
 It seemed that I thought upon legends forgotten, 
 
 World-old and beautiful stories, 
 
 "Which I once, when little, 
 
 From the neighbor's children had heard, 
 
 When we, of summer evenings, 
 
 Sat on the steps before the house-door, 
 
 • The Translator does not venture to hope that he has succeeded in giving, in all 
 respects, a perfect version of the extraordinary series of poems which form the first part 
 of The North Sea. Those familiar with the original will possibly be lenient. 
 
 (105) 
 
— 106 — 
 
 Bending us down to the quiet narrative, 
 With little, listening hearts, 
 And curious cunning glances ; — 
 "While near, the elder maidens, 
 Close by sweet smelling pots of roses, 
 At the windows were calmly leaning, 
 Eosy-hued faces, 
 Smiling and lit by the moon. 
 
 2> 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 The sun in crimsoned glory falls 
 
 Down to the ever quivering, 
 
 Grey and silvery world sea ; 
 
 Airy figures, warm in rosy-light, 
 
 Quiver behind, while eastward rising, 
 
 From autumn-like darkening veils of vapour, 
 
 With sorrowful, death-pale features, 
 
 Breaks the silent moon, 
 
 Like sparks of light behind her, 
 
 Cloud-distant, glimmer the planets. 
 
 Once there shone in Heaven, 
 
 Bound in marriage, 
 
 Luna the goddess, and Sol, the god, 
 
 And the bright thronging stars in light swam round them, 
 
 Their little and innocent children. 
 
 But evil tongues came whisp'ring quarrels. 
 
 And they parted in anger, 
 
 The mighty, light-giving spouses. 
 
 Now, but by day, in loneliest light 
 
 The sun-god walks yonder on high, 
 
 All for his lordliness 
 
 Ever prayed to and sung by many 
 
 By haughty, heartless, prosperous mortals, 
 
 But still by night 
 
 In heaven, wanders Luna, 
 
— 107 — 
 
 The wretched mother 
 
 With all her orphaned starry children, 
 
 And she shines in silent sorrow, 
 
 And soft-loving maidens and gentle poets, 
 
 Offer their songs and their sorrows. 
 
 The tender Lnna ! woman at heart, 
 
 Ever she loveth her beautiful lord 
 
 And at evening, trembling and pale, 
 
 Out she peeps from light cloud curtains, 
 
 And looks to the lost one in sorrow, 
 
 Fain would she cry in her anguish : " Come 1 
 
 Come, the children are longing for thee — " 
 
 In vain, — the haughty-souled god of fire, 
 
 Flashes forth at the sight of pale Luna 
 
 In doubly deep purple, 
 
 For rage and pain, 
 
 And yielding he hastens him down 
 
 To his ocean-chilled and lonely bed. 
 
 * * * * 
 Spirits whispering evil 
 
 By their power brought pain and destruction 
 
 Even to great gods eternal. 
 
 And the poor deities, high in the heavens, 
 
 Travel in sorrow — 
 
 Endless, disconsolate journeys, 
 
 And they are immortal, 
 
 Still bearing with them, 
 
 Their bright-gleaming sorrow. 
 
 But I, the mortal, 
 
 Planted so lowly, with death to bless me, 
 I sorrow no longer. 
 
 3. 
 
 NIGHT ON THE SEA-SHOEE . 
 
 Starless and cold is the Night, 
 
 The wild sea foams ; 
 And over the sea, flat on his face, 
 
— 108 — 
 
 Lies the monstrous terrible North-wind, 
 Sighing and sinking his voice as in secret, 
 Like an old grumbler, for once in good humor, 
 
 Unto the ocean he talks, 
 And he tells her wonderful stories, — 
 
 Giant legends, murderous-humored, 
 
 Yery old sagas of Norway, 
 And midst them, far sounding, he howls while laughing 
 
 Sorcery-songs from the Edda, 
 Grey old Runic sayings, 
 
 So darkly-stirring and magic-inspiring, 
 That the snow-white sea-children 
 High are springing and shouting, 
 
 Drunk with wanton joy. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the level, white sea-beach, 
 Over the sand ever-washed by the flood, 
 Wanders a stranger with wild-storming spirit, 
 And fiercer far than wind and billow ; 
 Go where he may, 
 
 Sparks are flashing and sea-shells are cracking, 
 
 And he wraps him well in his iron-grey mantle, 
 
 And quickly treads through the dark-waving Night 
 
 Safely led by a distant taper 
 
 Which guiding and gladdening glimmers 
 
 From the fisherman's lonely hovel. 
 
 Father and brother are on the sea, 
 And all alone and sad, there sits 
 In the hovel the fisher's daughter, 
 The wondrous -lovely fisher's daughter, 
 She sits by the hearth, 
 Listening to the boiling kettle's 
 Sweet prophetic, domestic humming ; 
 Scattering light-crackling wood on the fire, 
 And blows on it, 
 
 Till the flashing, ruddy flame rays 
 
 Shine again in magic lustre 
 
 On her beautiful features, 
 
 On her tender, snow-white shoulder, 
 
 Which moving, comes peeping 
 
 Over heavy, dark grey linen, 
 
— 109 — 
 
 And on the little industrious hand, 
 
 Which more firmly binds her under garment 
 
 Round her well-formed figure. 
 
 But lo ! at once the door springs wide, 
 
 And there enters in haste the benighted stranger ; 
 
 Love assuring rest his glances 
 
 On the foam-white slender maiden, 
 
 Who trembling near him stands, 
 
 Like a storm terrified lily ; 
 
 And he casts on the floor his mantle, 
 
 And laughs and speaks : 
 
 "Seestthou, my child, I keep my word. 
 For I seek thee, and with me comes 
 The olden time, when the bright gods of Heaven 
 Came once more to the daughters of mortals, 
 And the daughters of mortals embraced them, 
 And from them gave birth to 
 Sceptre-carrying races of monarchs, 
 And heroes astounding the world. 
 Yet stare not, my child, any longer 
 At my divinity, 
 
 And I entreat thee, make some tea with rum, 
 
 For without, it is cold, 
 
 And by such a night air 
 
 We too oft freeze, yes we, the undying, 
 
 And easily catch the divinest catarrhs 
 
 And coughs, which may last us for ever." 
 
 4. 
 
 POSEIDON. 
 
 The sun's bright rays were playing, 
 
 Over the far, away-rolling sea; 
 
 Far in the harbor glittered the ship, 
 
 Which to my home ere long should bear me ; 
 
 But we wanted favourable breezes, 
 
 And I still sat calm on the snow-white sea beach, 
 
 Alone on the strand, 
 
 • 10 
 
— 110 — 
 
 And I read the song of Odysseus, 
 
 The ancient, ever new-born song, 
 
 And from its ocean-rippled pages, 
 
 Friendly there arose to me 
 
 The breath of immortals, 
 
 And the light-giving human spring tide, 
 
 And the soft blooming heaven of Hellas. 
 
 My noble heart accompanied truly, 
 
 The son of Laertes in wand'ring and sorrow, 
 
 Set itself with him, troubled in spirit, 
 
 By bright gleaming fire-sides, 
 
 By fair queens, winning, purple spinning, 
 
 And help'd him to lie and escape, glad singing 
 
 From giant-caverns and nymphs seducing, 
 
 Followed behind in fear-boding night, 
 
 And in storm and shipwreck, 
 
 And thus suffered with him unspeakable sorrow. 
 
 Sighing I spoke : " thou evil Poseidon, 
 
 Thy wrath is fearful, 
 
 And I myself dread 
 
 For my own voyage homeward." 
 
 The words were scarce spoken, 
 "When up foamed the sea, 
 Aüd from the sparkling waters rose 
 The mighty bulrush crowned sea-god, 
 And scornful he cried : 
 
 " Be not afraid, small poet ! 
 
 I will not in leastwise endanger 
 
 Thy wretched vessel, 
 
 Nor put thy precious being in terror, 
 
 With all too significant shaking. 
 
 For thou, small poet, hast troubled me not, 
 
 Thou hast no turret — though trifling — destroyed 
 
 In the great sacred palace of Priam, 
 
 Nor one little eye-lash hast thou e'er singed, 
 
 In the eye of my son Polyphemus ; 
 
 Thee with her counsels did never protect 
 
— Ill — 
 
 The goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene 
 And so spake Poseidon, 
 And sank him again in the sea ; 
 And over the vulgar sailor's joke 
 There laughed under the water 
 Amphitrite, the fat old fish-wife, 
 And the stupid daughters of Nereus. 
 
 5* 
 
 HOMAGE. 
 
 Ye poems ! ye mine own valiant poems ! 
 
 Up, u^> and weapon ye ! 
 
 Let the loud trump be ringing, 
 
 And lift upon my shield 
 
 The fair young maiden, 
 
 Who, now my heart in full, 
 
 Shall govern as a sov'reign queen. 
 
 All hail to thee, thou fair young queen ! 
 
 From the sun above me 
 I tear the flashing, ruddy gold, 
 And weave therefrom a diadem 
 For thy all holy head. 
 
 From the fluttering, blue-silken heaven's curtain, 
 
 Wherein night's bright diamonds glitter, 
 
 I cut a costly piece, 
 
 To hang as coronation-mantle, 
 
 Upon thy white, imperial shoulders. 
 
 I give to thee, dearest, a city 
 
 Of stiffly adorned sonnets, 
 
 Proud triple verses and courteous stanzas ; 
 
 My wit thy courier shall be, 
 
 And for court-fool my fantasy, 
 
 As herald, the soft smiling tears in my escutcheon, 
 
 And with them, my humor. 
 
 But I, myself, oh gentle queen, 
 
 I bow before thee, lowly, 
 
 And kneeling on scarlet velvet cushions, 
 
 I here offer to thee 
 
— 112 — 
 
 The fragments of reason, 
 
 Which from sheer pity once were left to me 
 
 By her who ruled before thee in the realm. 
 
 6. 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 Adown and dimly came the evening, 
 
 Wilder tumbled the waves, 
 
 And I sat on the strand, regarding 
 
 The snow-white billows dancing, 
 
 And then my breast swelled up like the sea, 
 
 And longing, there seized me a deep home-sickness, 
 
 For thee, thou lovely form, 
 
 Who everywhere art near 
 
 And everywhere dost call, 
 
 Everywhere, everywhere, 
 
 In the rustling of breezes, the roaring of Ocean, 
 And in the sighing of this, my sad heart. 
 
 With a light reed I wrote in the sand : 
 
 "Agnes, I love but thee!" 
 
 But wicked waves came washing fast 
 
 Over the tender confession, 
 
 And bore it away. 
 
 Thou too fragile reed, thou false shifting sand, 
 Ye swift flowing waters, I trust ye no more! 
 The heaven grows darker, my heart grows wilder, 
 And, with strong right hand, from Norway's forests 
 I'll tear the highest fir-tree, 
 And dip it adown 
 
 Into iEtna's hot glowing gulf, and with such a 
 Fiery, flaming, giant graver, 
 I'll inscribe on heaven's jet-black cover: 
 " Agnes, I love but thee." 
 
 And every night I'll witness, blazing 
 Above me, the endless flaming verse, 
 And even the latest races born from me 
 Will read, exulting, the heavenly motto : 
 
 "Agnes, I love but thee!" 
 
— 113 — 
 
 7. 
 
 NIGHT IN THE CABIN. 
 
 The sea hath many pearl-drops. 
 The heaven hath many planets, 
 But this fond heart, my heart, 
 My heart hath tender true-love. 
 
 Great is the sea and the heaven, 
 Yet greater is my heart ; 
 And fairer than pearl drops or planets 
 Flashes the love in my bosom. 
 
 Thou little gentle maiden, 
 
 Come to my beating heart; 
 
 My heart, and the sea, and the heaven, 
 
 Are lost in loving frenzy. 
 
 * * * 
 
 On the dark blue heaven curtain, 
 Where the lovely stars are gleaming, 
 Fain would I my lips be pressing, 
 Press them wildly, storm-like weeping. 
 
 And those planets are her bright eyes 
 But a thousand times repeated ; 
 And they shine and greet me kindly, 
 From the dark blue heaven's curtain. 
 
 To the dark blue heavenly curtain 
 To the eyes I love so dearly, 
 High my hands I raise devoutly, 
 And I pray, and I entreat her : 
 
 Lovely eyes, ye lights of mercy, 
 Oh, I pray ye, bless my spirit, 
 Let me perish, and exalt me 
 Up to ye, and to your heaven. 
 
 * * * 
 From the heavenly eyes above me, 
 Snow-light sparks are trembling, falling 
 Through the night, and all my spirit, 
 Wide in love, flows forth and wider. 
 
 10* 
 
— 114 — 
 
 Oh, ye heavenly eyes above me ! 
 Weep your tears upon my spirit, 
 That those living tears of starlight 
 O'er my soul may gently ripple. 
 
 * * * 
 Cradled calm by waves of ocean, 
 And by wondrous dreaming, musing 
 Still I lie within the cabin, 
 
 In my gloomy corner hammock. 
 
 Through the open dead-light gazing, 
 Yonder to the gleaming star-light, 
 To the dearest, sweetest glances 
 Of my sweetest, much-loved maiden. 
 
 Yes, those sweetest, best loved glances, 
 Calm above my head are shining, 
 They are ringing, they are peeping, 
 From the dark blue vault of heaven. 
 
 To the dark blue vault of heaven 
 Many an hour I gaze in rapture, 
 Till a snow-white cloudy curtain 
 Hides from me the best-loved glances. 
 
 On the planking of the vessel, 
 
 Where my light dreaming head lies, 
 
 Leap up the waters — the wild, dark waters — 
 
 They ripple and murmur 
 
 Eight straight in my ear : 
 
 "Thou crazy companion! 
 
 Thy arm is short, and the heaven is far, 
 
 And the stars up yonder are nailed down firmly; 
 
 In vain is thy longing, in vain is thy sighing, 
 
 The best thou canst do is to go to sleep. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 And I was dreaming of a heath so dreary, 
 Forever mantled with the sad, white snow, 
 And 'neath the sad white snow I lay deep buried, 
 And slept the lonely ice-cold sleep of death. 
 
 And yet on high from the dark heaven were gazing 
 Adown upon my grave the starlight glances, 
 Those sad sweet glances ! and they gleamed victorious, 
 So calmly cheerful and yet full of true love. 
 
— 115 — 
 
 8. 
 
 STORM. 
 
 Loud rages the storm, 
 
 And he whips the waves, 
 
 And the waters, rage-foaming and leaping, 
 
 Tower on high, and with life there come rolling 
 
 The snow white water-mountains, 
 
 And the vessel ascends them, 
 
 Earnest striving, 
 
 Then quickly it darts adown, 
 
 In jet-black, wide opening, wat'ry abysses. — 
 
 Oh, Sea ! 
 
 Mother of Beauty, born of the foam-billow ! 
 
 Great Mother of all Love ! be propitious ! 
 
 There flutters, corpse foreboding, 
 
 Around us the spectre-like sea gull, 
 
 And whets his sharp bill on the top-mast, 
 
 And yearns with hunger-lust, for the life-blood 
 
 Of him who sounded the praise of thy daughter, 
 
 And whom thy grandson, the little rogue, 
 
 Chose for a plaything, 
 
 In vain my entreaties and tears ! 
 
 My plainings are lost in the terrible storm, 
 
 Mid war-cries of north- winds ; 
 
 There's a roaring and whistling, a crackling and howling, 
 
 Like a mad-house of noises ! 
 
 And amid them I hear distinctly, 
 
 Sweet enticing harp tones, 
 
 Melody mad with desire, 
 
 Spirit melting and spirit rending, 
 
 Well I remember the voices. 
 
 Far on the rocky coast of Scotland, 
 Where the old grey castle towers 
 Over the wild- breaking sea, 
 In a lofty arched window, 
 There stands a lovely sickly dame, 
 Clear as crystal, and marble pale, 
 
— 116 — 
 
 And she plays the harp and sings ; 
 Through her locks the wind is waving, 
 And bears her gloomy song, 
 Over the broad, white storm rolling sea. 
 
 9. 
 
 CALM AT SEA. 
 
 Ocean silence ! rays are falling, 
 From the sun upon the water, 
 Like a train of quivering jewels 
 Sweeps the ship's green wake behind us. 
 
 Near the rudder lies our boatswain, 
 On his face, and deeply snoring ; 
 By the mast, his canvass sewing, 
 Sits a little tarry sailor. 
 
 But o'er all his dirty features 
 Glows a blush, and fear is twitching 
 Round his full sized mouth, and sadly 
 Gaze his large and glittering eye-balls. 
 
 For the captain stands before him, 
 Fumes and swears and curses " Rascal ! 
 Rascal ! — there's another herring 
 Which you've stolen from the barrel !" 
 
 Ocean silence ! From the water 
 Up a little fish comes shooting, 
 Warms its head in pleasant sunlight, 
 With its small tail merry paddling. 
 
 But the sea-gull, sailing o'er us, 
 Darts him headlong on the swimmer, 
 And, with claws around his booty, 
 Flies and fades far, far above me. 
 
— 117 — 
 
 10. 
 
 A SEA PHANTOM. 
 
 But I still leaned on the edge of the vessel, 
 
 Gazing with sad-dreaming glances, 
 
 Down at the crystal-mirror water, 
 
 Looking yet deeper and deeper — 
 
 'Till in the sea's abysses, 
 
 At first, like quivering vapours, 
 
 Then slowly, — slowly, — deeper in colour, 
 
 Domes of churches and towers seemed rising, 
 
 And then, as clear as day a city grand, 
 
 Quaint, old-fashioned, — Netherlandish. 
 
 And living with men. 
 
 Men of high standing, wrapped in black mantles, 
 
 With snowy- white neck-ruffs and chains of honour 
 
 And good long rapiers, and good long faces, 
 
 Treading in state o'er the crowded market, 
 
 To the high steps of the town hall, 
 
 Where stone-carved statues of Kaisars 
 
 Kept watch with their swords and sceptres. 
 
 Nor distant, near houses in long array, 
 
 With windows clear as mirrors, 
 
 Stand lindens, cut in pyramidal figures, 
 
 And maidens in silk-rustling garments wander. 
 
 A golden zone round the slender waist, 
 
 With flower-like faces modestly curtained 
 
 In jet-black velvet coverings, 
 
 From which a ringlet-fulness comes pressing. 
 
 Quaint cavalieros in old Spanish dress, 
 
 Sweep proudly along and salute them. 
 
 Elderly ladies 
 
 In dark-brown, old fashioned garments, 
 
 With prayer-book and rosary held in their hands, 
 
 Hasten, tripping along, 
 
 To the great Cathedral, 
 
 Attracted by bells loud ringing, 
 
 And full-sounding organ-tones. 
 
 E'en I am seized at that far sound, 
 With strange, mysterious trembling, 
 
— 118 — 
 
 Infinite longing, wondrous sorrow, 
 
 Steals through my heart, 
 
 My heart as yet scarce healed ; 
 
 It seems as though its wounds, forgotten, 
 
 By loving lips again were kissed, 
 
 And once again were bleeding, 
 
 Drops of burning crimson, 
 
 AVhich long and slowly trickle down 
 
 Upon an ancient house below there 
 
 In the deep, deep sea town, 
 
 On an ancient, high-roofed, curious house, 
 
 "Where lone and melancholy, 
 
 Below by the window a maiden sits, 
 
 Her head on her arm reclined — 
 
 Like a poor and uncared-for child, 
 
 And I know thee, thou poor and long-sorrowing child ! 
 
 Thou didst hide thus, my dear, 
 
 So deep, so deep from me, 
 
 In infant-like humor, 
 
 And now canst not arise, 
 
 And sittest strange amid stranger people, 
 
 For full five hundred years, 
 
 And I meanwhile, my spirit all grief, 
 
 Over the whole broad world have sought thee. 
 
 And ever have sought thee, 
 
 Thou dearly beloved, 
 
 Thou the long-lost one, 
 
 Thou finally found one — 
 
 At last I have found thee, and now am gazing 
 
 Upon thy sweet face, 
 
 With earnest, faithful glances, 
 
 Still sweetly smiling — 
 
 And never will I again on earth leave thee, 
 
 I am 'coming adown to thee, 
 
 And with longing, wide-reaching embraces, 
 
 Love, I leap down to thy heart ! 
 
 But just at the right instant 
 
 The captain caught and held me safe, 
 
 And drew me from danger, 
 
 And cried, half-angry laughing 
 
 " Doctor — is Satan in you ?" 
 
— 119 — 
 
 IL 
 
 PURIFICATION. 
 
 Stay thou in gloomy ocean caverns, 
 
 Maddest of dreams, 
 
 Thou who once so many a night, 
 
 Hast vexed with treacherous joy my spirit ; 
 
 And now, as ocean sprite, 
 
 Even by sun-bright day dost annoy me — 
 
 Rest where thou art, to eternity, 
 
 And I will cast thee as offering down, 
 
 All my long-worn sins and my sorrows, 
 
 And the cap and bells of my folly, 
 
 Which so long round my head have rung, 
 
 And the ice-cold slippery serpent-skin 
 
 Of hypocrisy, 
 
 Which so long round my soul has been twining, 
 The sad, sick spirit, 
 
 The God disbelieving, and angel denying, 
 Miserable spirit — 
 
 Hitto ho ! hallo ho! There comes the wind ! 
 Up with the sails ! they flutter and belly ; 
 Over the silent, treacherous surface 
 Hastens the ship, 
 
 And loud laughs the spirit set free. 
 
 12. 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 High in heaven the sun was standing, 
 By cold-white vapors be-dimmed, 
 The sea was still, 
 
 And musing, I lay by the helm of the vessel, 
 
 Dreamily musing, — and half in waking, 
 
 And half in slumber, I saw in vision, 
 
 The Saviour of Earth. 
 
 In flowing snow-white garments 
 
 He wandered giant-high 
 
 Over land and sea ; 
 
 He lifted his head unto Heaven, 
 
— 120 — 
 
 His hands were stretched forth in blessing 
 
 Over land and sea; 
 
 And as a heart in his breast 
 
 He bore the sun orb, 
 
 The ruddy, radiant sun-orb, 
 
 And the ruddy, radiant, burning heart 
 
 Poured forth its beams of mercy 
 
 And its gracious and love-bless'd light, 
 
 Enlight'ning and warming, 
 
 Over land and sea. 
 
 Sweetest bell-tones drew us gaily, 
 
 Here and there, like swans soft leading 
 
 By bands of roses the smooth-gliding ship. 
 
 And swam with it sporting to a verdant country, 
 
 Where mortals dwelt, in a high towering 
 
 And stately town. 
 
 Oh, peaceful wonder ! How quiet the city 
 
 Where the sounds of this world were silent, 
 
 Of prattling and sultry employment, 
 
 And o'er the clean and echoing highways 
 
 Mortals were walking, in pure white garments, 
 
 Bearing palm branches, 
 
 And whenever two met together, 
 
 They saw each other with ready feeling, 
 
 And thrilling with true love and sweet self-denial, 
 
 Each pressed a kiss on the forehead, 
 
 And then gazed above 
 
 To the bright sun-heart of the Saviour, 
 
 Which, gladly atoning his crimson blood, 
 
 Flashed down upon them, 
 
 And, trebly blessed, thus they spoke : 
 
 "Blessed be Jesus Ohrist I" 
 
 If thou hadst but imagined this vision, 
 What wouldst thou have given, 
 My excellent friend? 
 
 Thou who in head and limbs art so weak, 
 But in faith still so mighty, 
 And in single simplicity honourest the Trinity, 
 And the lap-dog, and cross, and fingers 
 
— 121 — 
 
 Of thy proud patronness daily kissest, 
 And by piety hast worked thyself up 
 To " Hof rath," and then to "Justizrath" 
 And now art councillor under government, 
 In the pious town, 
 
 Where sand and true faith are at home, 
 And the patient Spree, with its holy water, 
 Purifies souls and weakens their tea — 
 If thou hadst but imagined this vision, 
 My excellent friend ! 
 
 Thou'dst take it to some noble quarter for sale. 
 Thy pale, white, quivering features 
 Would all be melting in pious humility, 
 And His Gracious Highness, 
 Enchanted and enraptured, 
 Praying would sink, like thee, on his knee, 
 And his eyes, so sweetly beaming, 
 Would promise thee an augmented pension 
 Of a hundred current Prussian dollars, 
 And thou wouldst stammer, thy hands enfolding ; 
 "Blessed be Jesus Christi" 
 
PAKT SECOND. 
 
 (1826.) 
 1- 
 
 SEA GREETING. 
 
 Thalatta! Thalatta 1 
 
 Be thou greeted! thou infinite sea! 
 
 Be thou greeted ten thousand times, 
 
 With heart wild exulting, 
 
 As once thou wert greeted 
 
 By ten thousand Grecian spirits, 
 
 Striving with misery, longing for home again, 
 
 Great, world-famous Grecian true-hearts. 
 
 The wild waves were rolling, 
 
 Were rolling and roaring, 
 
 The sunlight poured headlong upon them 
 
 His flickering rosy radiance, 
 
 The frightened fluttering trains of sea-gulls 
 
 Went flutt'ring up, sharp screaming, 
 
 Loud stamped their horses, loud rung their armour, 
 
 And far it re-echoed, like victor's shout : 
 
 Thalatta ! Thalatta I 
 
 Greeting to thee, thou infinite sea, 
 
 Like the tongue of my country ripples thy water 
 
 Like dreams of my childhood seem the glimmer, 
 
 On thy wild -wavering watery realm, 
 
 And ancient memories again seemed telling, 
 
 Of all my pleasant and wonderful play things, 
 
 Of all the bright coloured Christmas presents, 
 
 Of all the branches of crimson coral, 
 
 Small gold fish, pearls and beautiful sea shells, 
 
 Which thou in secret ever keep'st 
 
 Beneath in thy sky clear crystal home. 
 
 (123) 
 
— 124 — 
 
 Oh ! how have I yearned in desolate exile ! 
 
 Like to a withered flowret 
 
 In a botanist's tin herbarium, 
 
 Lay the sad heart in my breast ; 
 
 Or as if I had sat through the weary winter, 
 
 Sick in a hospital dark and gloomy, 
 
 And now I had suddenly left it, 
 
 And all bewild'ring there beams before me 
 
 Spring, —green as emerald, waked by the sun rays, 
 
 And white tree-blossoms are rustling around me, 
 
 And the young flow'rets gaze in my face, 
 
 With eyes perfuming and coloured, 
 
 And it perfumes and hums, and it breathes and smiles, 
 
 And in the deep blue heaven sweet birds are singing — ■ 
 
 Thalatta ! Thalatta 1 
 
 Thou brave, retreating heart ! 
 How oft, how bitter oft 
 
 The barbarous dames of the North have pressed thee round ! 
 
 From blue eyes, great and conquering, 
 
 They shot their burning arrows ; 
 
 With artful polished phrases, 
 
 Often they threatened to cleave my bosom, 
 
 With arrow-head letters full oft they smote 
 
 My poor brain bewildered and lost — 
 
 All vainly held I my shield against them, 
 
 Their arrows hissed, and their blows rang round me, 
 
 And by the cold North's barbarous ladies 
 
 Then was I driv'n, e'en to the sea, 
 
 And free breathing I hail thee, oh Sea ! 
 
 Thou dearest, rescuing Sea, 
 
 Thalatta! Thalatta! 
 
 2. 
 
 STORM. 
 
 Dakk broods a storm on the ocean, 
 And through the deep, black wall of clouds, 
 Gleams the zig-zag lightning flash, 
 Quickly darting and quick departing. 
 
— 125 — 
 
 Like a joke from the head of Kronion, 
 Over the dreary, wild waving water, 
 Thunder afar is rolling, 
 
 And the snow-white steeds of the waves are springing, 
 
 Which Boreas himself begot 
 
 On the beautiful mares of Erichthon 
 
 And ocean birds in their fright are fluttering, 
 
 Like shadowy ghosts o'er the Styx, 
 
 Which Charon sent back from his shadowy boat. 
 
 Little ship, — wretched yet merry, 
 
 Which yonder art dancing a terrible dance ! 
 
 iEolus sends thee, the fastest companions, 
 
 Wildly they're playing the merriest dances ; 
 
 The first pipes soft — the next blows loud, 
 
 The third growls out a heavy basso — 
 
 And the tottering sailor stands by the helm, 
 
 And looks incessantly on the compass, 
 
 The quivering soul of the ship, 
 
 Lifting his hands in prayer to Heaven — 
 
 save me, Castor, giant-like hero, 
 
 And thou who fight'st with fist, Polydeuces ! 
 
 3. 
 
 THE SHIPWBECKED. 
 
 Lost hope and lost love ! All is in ruins ! 
 
 And I myself, like a dead body, 
 
 Which the sea has thrown back in anger, 
 
 Lie on the sea beach ; 
 
 On the waste, barren sea beach, 
 
 Before me rolleth a waste of water, 
 
 Behind me lies starvation and sorrow, 
 
 And above me go rolling the storm-clouds, 
 
 The formless, dark grey daughters of air, 
 
 Which from the sea, in cloudy buckets, 
 
 Scoop up the water, 
 
 Ever wearied lifting and lifting, 
 
 And then pour it again in the sea, 
 
 A mournful, wearisome business, 
 
 And useless too as this life of mine. 
 
 11* 
 
— 126 — 
 
 The waves are murm'ring, the sea-gulls screaming, 
 Old recollections seem floating around. 
 Long vanished visions, long faded pictures 
 Torturing, yet sweet, seem living once more J 
 
 There lives a maid in Norland, 
 
 A lovely maid, right queenly fair ; 
 
 Her slender cypress-like figure 
 
 Is clasped by a passionate snowy- white robe ; 
 
 The dusky ringlet-fulness, 
 
 Like a too happy night, comes pouring 
 
 From the lofty braided-hair crowned forehead, 
 
 Twining all dreamily sweet 
 
 Round the lovely snow-pale features, 
 
 And from the lovely, snow-pale features, 
 
 Great and wondrous, gleams a dark eye, 
 
 Like a sun of jet black fire. 
 
 Oh thou bright, black sun eye, how oft, 
 
 Enraptured oft, I drank from thee 
 
 Wild glances of inspiration, 
 
 And stood all quivering, drunk with their fire — 
 
 And then swept a smile all mild and dove-like, 
 
 Round the lips high mantling, proud and lovely; 
 
 And the lips high mantling, proud and lovely, 
 
 Breathed forth words as sweet as moonlight, 
 
 Soft as the perfume of roses — 
 
 Then my soul rose up in rapture 
 
 And flew, like an eagle, high up to heaven ! 
 
 Hush ! ye billows and sea-mews ! 
 
 All is long over, hope and fortune, 
 
 Fortune and true love ! I lie on the sea beach, 
 
 A weary and wreck-ruined man, 
 
 Still pressing my face, hot glowing, 
 
 In the cold, wet sand. 
 
 4 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 The beautiful sun, 
 
 Has calmly sunk down to his rest in the sea ; 
 The wild rolling waters already are tinged 
 
— 127 — 
 
 With night's dark shade, 
 
 Though still the evening crimson 
 
 Strews them with light, as yet bright golden, 
 
 And the stern roaring might of the flood, 
 
 Crowds to the sea-beach the snowy billows, 
 
 All merrily quickly leaping, 
 
 Like white woolly flocks of lambkins, 
 
 Which youthful shepherds at evening, singing, 
 
 Drive to their homes. 
 
 " How fair is the sun !" 
 Thus spoke, his silence breaking, my friend, 
 Who with me on the sea-beach loitering 
 And jesting half, and half in sorrow, 
 Assured me that the bright sun was 
 A lovely dame, whom the old ocean god 
 For " convenience" once had married. 
 And in the day-time she wanders gaily 
 Through the high heaven, purple arrayed, 
 And all in diamonds gleaming, 
 And all beloved and all amazing 
 To every worldly being : 
 And every worldly being rejoicing, 
 With warmth and splendor from her glances ; 
 Alas ! at evening, sad and unwilling, 
 Back must she bend her slow steps 
 To the dripping home, to the barren embrace 
 Of grisly old age. 
 
 " Believe me," — added to this my friend, 
 And smiling and sighing, and smiling again — 
 " They're leading below there the lovingest life ! 
 For either they're sleeping or they are scolding, 
 Till high uproars above here the sea, 
 And the fisher in watery roar can hear 
 How the Old One his wife abuses. — 
 " Bright round measure of all things I 
 Wooing with radiance ! 
 All the long day shinest thou for other loves, 
 By night, to me, thou art freezing and weary." 
 At such a stern curtain lecture, 
 
— 128 — 
 
 Of course the Sun-bride falls to weeping, 
 Falls to weeping and wails her sorrow, 
 And cries so wretchedly, that the Sea God 
 Quickly, all desperate leaps from his bed, 
 And straight to the ocean surface conies rising, 
 To get to fresh air — and his senses," 
 
 "Sol beheld him, but yesterday night, 
 Eising breast high up from the Ocean, 
 He wore a long jacket of yellow flannel, 
 And a new night-cap, white as a lily 
 And a wrinkled faded old face." 
 
 5. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE OCEANIDES. 
 
 Colder the twilight falls on the Ocean, 
 
 And lonely, with his own lonelier spirit, 
 
 Yon sits a man on the barren strand, 
 
 And casts death-chilling glances on high, 
 
 To the wide-spread, death-chilling vault of heaven, 
 
 And looks on the broad, wide wavering sea ; 
 
 And over the broad, white-wavering sea, 
 
 Like air-borne sailors, his sighs go sweeping, 
 
 Returning once more sad-joyful, 
 
 But to discover, firm fastened, the heart, 
 
 Wherein they fain would anchor — 
 
 And he groans so loud, that the snow-white sea-mews 
 
 Frightened up from their nests in the sand heaps, 
 
 Around in white clouds flutter, 
 
 And he speaks unto them the while, and laughing : 
 
 "Ye black legged sea-fowl, 
 
 With your white pinions o'er the sea fluttering, 
 
 With crooked dark bills drinking the sea-water, 
 
 And rank,^oily seal-blubber devouring, 
 
 Your wild life is bitter, e'en as your food is ! 
 
 While I here, the fortunate, taste only sweet things ! 
 
 I've tasted the sweetest breath of roses, 
 
— 129 — 
 
 Those nourished with moonshine nightingale brides, 
 
 I eat the most delicate sugar meringues, 
 
 And the sweetest of all I've tasted : 
 
 Sweetest true love, and sweetest returned love. 
 
 She loves me ! she loves me ! the lovely maiden ! 
 
 She now stands at home — perhaps at the window, 
 
 And looks through the twilight, afar on the highway, 
 
 And looks and longs but for me— that's certain, 
 
 All vainly she gazes around, still sighing, 
 
 Then sighing, she walks adown in the garden, 
 
 Wandering in moonlight and perfume, 
 
 And speaks to the sweet flowers — oft telling to them 
 
 How I, the beloved one, deserve her love, 
 
 And am so agreeable — that's certain ! 
 
 In bed reposing, in slumber, in dreams, 
 
 There flits round her, happy, my well-loved form, 
 
 E'en in the morning at breakfast ; 
 
 On the glittering bread and butter, 
 
 She sees my dear features sweet smiling, 
 
 And she eats it up out of love — that's certain !" 
 
 Thus he's boasting and boasting, 
 
 And 'mid it all, loud scream the sea-gulls, 
 
 Like old and ironical tittering ; 
 
 The evening vapours are climbing up ; 
 
 From clouds of violet — strange and dream-like, 
 
 Out there peeps the grass-yellow moon 
 
 High are roaring the ocean billows, 
 
 And deep from the high up-roaring sea, 
 
 All sadly as whispering breezes, 
 
 Sounds the lay of the Oceanides, 
 
 The beautiful, kind-hearted water-fairies, 
 
 And clearest among them, the sweet notes are ringing 
 
 Of the silver-footed bride of Peleus, 
 
 And they sigh and are singing : 
 
 " Oh fool, thou fool ! thou weak boasting fool ! 
 
 Thou tortured with sorrows ! 
 
 Vanished and lost are the hopes thou hast cherished, 
 The light sporting babes of thy heart's love ; 
 And ah ! thy heart, thy Niobe heart 
 
— 130 — 
 
 By grief turned to stone ! 
 
 And in thy wild brain 'tis night, 
 
 And through it is darting the lightning of madness, 
 
 And thou boastest from anguish 1 
 
 Oh fool ! thou fool, thou weak boasting fool ! 
 
 Stiff-necked art thou, like thy first parent, 
 
 The noblest of Titans, who from the immortals 
 
 Stole heavenly fire and on Man bestowed it, 
 
 And eagle-tortured, to rocks firm fettered, 
 
 Defied Olympus, enduring and groaning, 
 
 Until we heard it deep down in the sea, 
 
 And gathered around him with songs consoling. 
 
 Oh fool, thou fool! thou weak boasting fooll 
 
 Thou who art weaker by far than he, 
 
 Had'st thou thy reason thou'dst honour th' immortals, 
 
 And bear with more patience the burden of suffering, 
 
 And bear it in patience, in silence, in sorrow 
 
 Till even Atlas his patience had lost, 
 
 And the heavy world from his shoulders was thrown 
 
 Into endless night. 
 
 So rang the deep song of the Oceanides, 
 
 The lovely compassionate water-spirits, 
 
 Until the wild waters had drowned their music — 
 
 Behind the dark clouds down sank the moon, 
 
 Tired night was yawning, 
 
 And I sat yet awhile in darkness sad weeping. 
 
 6. 
 
 THE GODS OF GREECE. 
 
 Thou full blooming Moon ! In thy soft light, 
 Like wavering gold, bright shines the sea ; 
 Like morn's first radiance, yet dimly enchanted, 
 It lies o'er the broad, wide, strand's horizon ; 
 And in the pure blue heaven all starless 
 The snowy clouds are sweeping, 
 Like giant towering shapes of immortals 
 Of white gleaming marble. 
 
— 131 — 
 
 Nay, but I err ; no clouds are those yonder ! 
 Those are in person the great gods of Hellas, 
 Who once so joyously governed the world, 
 But now long banished, long perished, 
 As monstrous terrible spectres are sweeping 
 O'er the face of the midnight heaven. 
 
 Gazing and strangely bewildered I see 
 The airy Pantheon, 
 The awfully silent, fearful far sweeping 
 Giant-like spectres. 
 
 He there is Kronion, the King of Heaven, 
 
 Snow-white are the locks of his head, 
 
 The far-famed locks which send throbs through Olympus, 
 
 He holds in his hand the extinguished bolt, 
 
 Sorrow and suffering sit stern on his brow, 
 
 Yet still it hath ever its ancient pride. 
 
 Once there were lordlier ages, oh Zeus, 
 
 When thou did'st revel divinely, 
 
 Mid fair youths and maidens and hecatombs rich ! 
 
 But e'en the immortals may not reign forever, 
 
 The younger still banish the elder, 
 
 As thou, thyself, didst banish thy father, 
 
 And drove from their kingdom thy Titan uncles, 
 
 Jupiter Parricida ! 
 
 Thee too I know well, proudest sorceress I 
 
 Spite of all thy fearful jealousy, 
 
 Though from thee another thy sceptre hath taken 
 
 And thou art no more the Queen of Heaven, 
 
 And thy wondrous eyes seem frozen, 
 
 And even thy lily-white arms are powerless, 
 
 And never more falls thy vengeance 
 
 On the god-impregnated maiden, 
 
 And the wonder working son of Jove, 
 
 Well too I know thee, Pallas Athene ! 
 
 With shield and wisdom still then could'st not 
 
 Avert the downfall of immortals ! 
 
 Thee, too, I know now, yes thee, Aphrodite 1 
 
 Once the Golden One — now the Silver One ! 
 
 E'en yet the charm of thy girdle adorns thee ; 
 
 But I shudder at heart before thy beauty, 
 
— 132 — 
 
 And could I enjoy thy burning embraces 
 Like the ancient heroes, I'd perish with fear ; 
 As the goddess of corpses thou seem'st to me, 
 Venus Libitina ! 
 
 No more in fond love looks upon thee, 
 
 There, the terrible Ares. 
 
 Sadly now gazeth Fhcebus Apollo, 
 
 The youthful. His lyre sounds no more, 
 
 "Which once rang with joy at the feasts of the gods. 
 
 And sadder still looks Hephaistos, 
 
 And, truly the limping one ! nevermore 
 
 Will he fill the office of Hebe, 
 
 And busily pour out, in the Assembly, 
 
 The sweet tasting nectar. — And long hath been silent 
 
 The ne'er to be silenced laugh of immortals. 
 
 Gods of old time, I never have loved ye ! 
 
 For the Greeks did never chime with my spirit, 
 
 And e'en the Komans I hate at heart, 
 
 But holy compassion and shudd'ring pity 
 
 Streams through my soul, 
 
 As I now gaze upon ye, yonder 
 
 Gods long neglected, 
 
 Death-like, night-wandering shadows ; 
 
 Weak as clouds which the wind hath scattered — 
 
 And when I remember how weak aud windy 
 
 The Gods now are who o'er you triumphed, 
 
 The new and the sorrowful gods who now rule, 
 
 The joy-destroyers in lamb-robes of meekness — 
 
 Then there comes o'er me gloomiest rage, 
 
 Fain would I shatter the modern temples, 
 
 And battle for ye, ye ancient immortals, 
 
 For ye and your good old ambrosial right. 
 
 And before your lofty altars, 
 
 Once more erected, with incense sweet smoking, 
 
 Would, I once more, kneeling, adoring, 
 
 And praying, uplift my arms to you. 
 
 For constantly, ye old immortals, 
 Was it your custom, in mortal battles, 
 Ever to lend your aid to the conqueror, 
 Therefore is man now far nobler than ye, 
 
— 133 — 
 
 And in the contest I now take part 
 
 "With the cause of the conquered immortals. 
 * ■* * 
 
 'Twas thus I spoke, and blushes were visible 
 
 Over the cold white serial figures, 
 
 Gazing upon me like dying ones, 
 
 With pain transfigured, and quickly vanished. 
 
 The moon concealed her features 
 
 Behind a cloud, which darkly went sweeping : 
 
 Loudly the wild sea rose foaming, 
 
 And the beautiful calm beaming stars, victorious 
 
 Shone out o'er Heaven. 
 
 7. 
 
 QUESTIONING. 
 
 By the sea, by the dreary, darkening sea 
 Stands a youthful man, 
 
 His heart all sorrowing, his head all doubting, 
 And with gloomiest accent he questions the billows : 
 
 " Oh solve me Life's riddle I pray ye, 
 
 The torturing ancient enigma, 
 
 O'er which full many a brain hath long puzzled, 
 
 Old heads in hieroglyph marked mitres, 
 
 Heads in turbans and caps mediaeval, 
 
 Wig-covered pates and a thousand others, 
 
 Sweating, wearying heads of mortals — 
 
 Tell me what signifies Man ? 
 
 Whence came he hither ? Where goes he hence? 
 
 Who dwells there on high in the radiant planets ?" 
 
 The billows are murmuring Jheir murmur unceasing. 
 Wild blows the wind — the dark clouds are fleeting, 
 The stars are still gleaming, so calmly and cold," 
 And a fool awaits an answer. 
 
 12 
 
— 134 — 
 
 8. 
 
 THE PHCENIX. 
 
 A bird from the far west his way came winging ; 
 
 He eastward flies 
 
 To the beautiful land of gardens, 
 
 Where softest perfumes are breathing and growing, 
 
 And palm trees rustle and brooks are rippling— 
 
 And flying, sings the bird so wondrous : 
 
 " She loves him — she loves him ! 
 She bears his form in her little bosom, 
 And wears it sweetly and secretly hidden, • 
 Yet she knows it not yet ! 
 Only in dreams he comes to her, 
 And she prays and weeps, his hand oft kissing, 
 His name often calling, 
 And calling she wakens, and lies in terror, 
 And presses in wonder those eyes, soft gleaming — 
 She loves him ! she loves him ! 
 
 9. 
 
 ECHO. 
 
 I leaned on the mast ; on the lofty ship's deck 
 
 Standing, I heard the sweet song of a bird. 
 
 Like steeds of dark green, with their manes of bright silver, 
 
 Sprang up the white and wild curling billows. 
 
 Like trains of wild swans, went sailing past us, 
 
 With shimmering canvass, the Helgolanders, 
 
 The daring nomacles of the North Sea. 
 
 Over my head, in the infinite blue, 
 
 Went sailing a snowy white cloud. 
 
 Bright flamed the eternal sun-orb, 
 
 The rose of heaven, the fire blossoming, 
 
 Who, joyful, mirrored his rays in ocean 
 
 Till heaven and sea, and my heart besides 
 
 Rang back with the echo : 
 
 She loves him ! she loves him ! 
 
— 135 — 
 
 10. 
 
 SEA SICKNESS. 
 
 The dark grey vapors of evening 
 Are sinking deeper adown on the sea, 
 Which rises darkling to their embrace, 
 And 'twixt them on drives the ship. 
 
 Sea-sick, I sit as before by the main-mast, 
 
 Making reflections of personal nature, 
 
 World ancient, gray colored examinings, 
 
 Which Father Lot first made of old, 
 
 When he too much enjoyed life's good things, 
 
 And afterwards found that he felt unwell. 
 
 Meanwhile I think, too, on other old legends : 
 
 How cross and scrip-bearing pilgrims, long perished, 
 
 In stormiest voyage, the comforting image 
 
 Of the blessed Virgin, confiding, kissed ; 
 
 How knights, when sea-sick, in dole and sorrow, 
 
 The little glove of some fair lady 
 
 Pressed to their lips, and soon were calm ; — 
 
 But here I'm sitting and munching in sorrow 
 
 A wretched herring, the salted refreshment 
 
 Of drunken-sickness and heavy sorrow ! 
 
 While I'm groaning, lo ! our ship 
 
 Fights the wild and terrible flood ; 
 
 As a capering war-horse now she bounds, 
 
 Leaping on high, till the rudder cracks, 
 
 Now darting head-forward adown again. 
 
 To the sad, howling, wat'ry gulf ; 
 
 Then, as if all careless — weak with love — 
 
 It seems as though 'twould slumber 
 
 On the gloomy breast of the giantess Ocean, 
 
 Who onward comes foaming — 
 
 When sudden, a mighty sea water-fall, 
 
 In snowy foam-curls together rolls, 
 
 Wetting all, and me, with foam. 
 
 This tottering, and trembling, and shaking, 
 
 Is not to be borne with ! 
 
 But vainly sweep my glances and seek 
 
— 136 — 
 
 The German coast line. Alas ! but water, 
 And once again water — wild, waving water ! 
 
 As the winter wanderer, at evening, oft longs 
 For one good warm and comforting cup of tea, 
 Even so now longs my heart for thee, 
 My German Fatherland ! 
 
 May, for all time, thy lovely valleys be covered 
 
 AVith madness, hussars, and wretched verses, 
 
 And little tracts, luke-warm and watery; 
 
 May, from this time forth, all thy zebras 
 
 Be nourished with roses instead of thistles ; 
 
 And may for ever, too, thy noble monkeys 
 
 In a garb of leisure go grandly strutting, 
 
 And think themselves better than all the other 
 
 Low-plodding, stupid, mechanical cattle. 
 
 May, for all time, too, thy snail-like assemblies 
 
 Still deem themselves immortal 
 
 Because they so slowly go creeping ; 
 
 And may they daily go on deciding 
 
 If the maggots of cheeses belong to the cheese ; 
 
 And long be lost in deliberation, 
 
 How breeds of Egyptian sheep may be bettered, 
 
 That their wool may be somewhat improved, 
 
 And the shepherd may shear them like any other, 
 
 Sans difference — 
 
 Ever, too, may injustice and folly 
 
 Be all thy mantle, Germany ! 
 
 And yet I am longing for thee: 
 
 For e'en at the worst thou art solid land. 
 
 iL 
 
 IN POET 
 
 Happy the man who is safe in his haven, 
 And has left far behind the sea and its sorrows, 
 And now so warm and calmly sits 
 In the cosy Town Cellar of Bremen. 
 
 Oh, how the world, so home-like and sweetly, 
 In the wine-cup is mirrored again, 
 
— 137 — 
 
 And how the wavering microcosmas 
 Sunnily flows through the thirstiest heart ! 
 All things I behold in the glass — 
 Ancient and modern histories by myriads, 
 Grecian and Ottoman, Hegel and Gans, 
 Forests of citron and watches patrolling, 
 Berlin, and Schilda, and Tunis, and Hamburg, 
 But above all the form of the loved one, 
 An angel's head on a Rhine-wine-gold ground. 
 
 Oh, how fair ! how fair art thou, beloved ! 
 
 Thou art as fair as roses ! 
 
 Not like the roses of Shiraz, 
 
 The brides of the nightingale sung by old Hafiz 1 
 
 Not like the rose of Sharon, 
 
 Holily blushing and hallowed by prophets ; 
 
 Thou art like the rose in the cellar of Bremen ! * 
 
 That is the Rose of Roses, 
 
 The older she grows, the sweeter she bloometh, 
 
 And her heavenly perfume hath made me happy, 
 
 It hath inspired me — hath made me tipsy, 
 
 And were I not held by the shoulder fast, 
 
 By the Town Cellar Master of Bremen, 
 
 I had gone rolling over ! 
 
 The noble soul ! we sat there together, 
 
 And drank too, like brothers, 
 
 Discoursing of lofty, mysterious matters, 
 
 Sighing and sinking in solemn embraces, 
 
 He made me a convert to Love's holy doctrine ; 
 
 I drank to the health of my bitterest enemy, 
 
 And I forgave the worst of all poets, 
 
 As I myself some day shall be forgiven; 
 
 Till piously weeping, before me 
 
 Silently opened the gates of redemption, 
 
 *In the Rathskeller— Council Cellar or Town Hall Cellar— of Bremen, there is kept a 
 celebrated tun called The Rose containing wine three hundred years old. Around it 
 are the Twelve Apostles, or hogsheads filled with wine of a lesser age. When a bottle 
 is drawn from the Rose it is supplied from one of the Apostles, and by this arrange- 
 ment the contents of the Rose are thus kept up to tbe requisite standard of antiquity. 
 Those who are familiar with the writings of Hauff will remember the exquisite and 
 genial sketch entitled. " A Fantasy in the Rathskeller of Bremen." — Note oy Translator. 
 
 12* 
 
— 138 — 
 
 Where the twelve Apostles, the holy barrels, 
 Preach in silence and yet so distinctly 
 Unto all nations. 
 Those are the sort 
 
 Invisible outwards in sound oaken garments, 
 Yet they within are lovely and radiant, 
 For all the proudest Levites of the Temple, 
 And the lifeguardsmen and courtiers of Herod, 
 Glittering in gold and arrayed in rich purple 
 Still I have ever maintained 
 That not amid common, vulgar people, 
 No — but in the elite of society, 
 Constantly lived the monarch of Heaven. 
 
 Hallelujah ! How sweetly wave round me 
 
 The palm trees of Bath-El ! 
 
 How sweet breathe the myrrh shrubs of Hebron ! 
 
 How J ordan ripples and tumbles with gladness, 
 
 And my own immortal spirit tumbleth, 
 
 And I tumble with it, and tumbling 
 
 I'm helped up the stairway into broad daylight, 
 
 By the brave Council Cellar Master of Bremen ! 
 
 Thou brave Council Cellar Master of Bremen ! 
 Seest thou upon the roofs of the houses sitting 
 Lovely, tipsy angels sweetly singing ; 
 The radiant sun, too, yonder in Heaven 
 Is only a crimson, wine-colored proboscis, 
 Which the World-Soul protrudeth. 
 And round the red nose of the World-Soul 
 Circles the whole of the tipsified world. 
 
 12. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 As in the meadow the wheat is growing, 
 So, sprouting and waving in mortal souls, 
 Thoughts are growing. 
 Aye — but the soft inspirations of poets 
 Are like the blue and crimson flowrets, 
 Blossoming amid them. 
 
— 139 — 
 
 Blue and crimson blossoms ! 
 
 The ill natured reaper rejects ye as useless, 
 
 Block-headed simpletons scorn ye while threshing, 
 
 Even the penniless wanderer, 
 
 Who, by your sight is made glad and inspired, 
 
 Shaketh his head, 
 
 And calls ye weeds, though lovely. 
 
 Only the fair peasant maiden, 
 
 The one who twineth garlands, 
 
 Doth honor you and plucks you, 
 
 And decks with you her lovely tresses, 
 
 And when thus adorned, to the dance hastens, 
 
 Where the pipe and the viol are merrily pealing ; 
 
 Or to the tranquil beech tree, 
 
 Where the voice of the loved one more pleasantly sounds, 
 Than the pipe or the viol. 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 (1826.) 
 
 WKITTEN ON THE ISLAND NOKDERNEY. 
 
 The natives are generally poor as crows, and live by their 
 
 fishery, which begins in the stormy month of October. Many of 
 these islanders also serve as sailors in foreign merchant vessels, and 
 remain for years absent from home, without being heard from by their 
 friends. Not unfrequently they perish at sea. I have met upon the 
 island poor women, all the male members of whose families had thus 
 been lost — a thing which is likely enough to occur, as the father gen- 
 erally accompanies his sons on a voyage. 
 
 Maritime life has for these men an indescribable attraction, and yet 
 I believe that they are happiest when at home. Though they may 
 have arrived in their ships at those southern lands, where the sun 
 shines brighter, and the moon glows with more romance, still all the 
 flowers there do not calm their hearts, and in the perfumed home of 
 Spring they still long for their sand island, for their little huts, and 
 for the blazing hearth, where their loved ones, well protected in wool- 
 len jackets, crouch, drinking a tea which differs from sea-water only 
 in name, and gabble a jargon of which the real marvel is that they 
 can understand it themselves. 
 
 That which connects these men so firmly and contentedly, is not so 
 much the inner mystical sentiment of love, as that of custom — that 
 mutual " through-and-above-living" according to nature, or that of social 
 directness. They enjoy an equal elevation of soul, or, to speak more 
 correctly, an equal depression, from which result the same needs and 
 the same desires, the same experiences and the same reflections. 
 Consequently, they more readily understand each other, and sit 
 socially together by the fire in their little huts, crowd up together 
 when it is cold, see the thoughts in each other's eyes before a word is 
 spoken, all the conventional signs of daily life are readily intelligible, 
 and by a single sound, or a single gesture, they excite in each other 
 that laughter, those tears, or that pious feeling, which we could 
 
 (141) 
 
not awaken in our like without long preliminary explanations, 
 
 expectorations and declamations. For at bottom we live spir- 
 itually alone, and owing to peculiar methods of education, and peculiar 
 reading, we have each formed a different individual character. Each 
 of us, spiritually masked, thinks, feels and acts differently from his 
 fellow, and misunderstandings are so frequent, that even in roomy 
 houses, life in common costs, an effort, and we are everywhere limited, 
 everywhere strange, and everywhere, so to speak, in a strange land. 
 
 Entire races have not unfrequently lived for ages, as equal in every 
 particular, in thought and feeling, as these islanders. The Romish 
 Church in the Middle Ages seemed to have desired to bring about a 
 similar condition in the corporate members of all Europe, and conse- 
 quently took under its protection every attribute of life, every power 
 and developement — in short, the entire physical and moral man. It 
 cannot be denied that much tranquil happiness was thereby effected, 
 that life bloomed more warmly and inly, and that Art, calmly devel- 
 oping itself, unfolded that splendor at which we are even yet amazed, 
 and which, with all our dashing science, we cannot imitate. But the 
 soul hath its eternal rights, it will not be darkened by statutes, nor 
 lullabied by the music of bells — it broke from its prison, shattering 
 the iron leading-strings by which Mother Church trained it along — 
 it rushed in a delirium of joyous liberty over the whole earth, climbed 
 the highest mountain peaks, sang and shouted for wantonness, re- 
 called ancient doubts, pored over the wonders of day, and counted 
 the stars by night. We know not as yet the number of the stars, 
 we have not yet solved the enigmas of the marvels of the day, the 
 ancient doubts have grown mighty in our souls — are we happier than 
 we were before ? We know that this question, as far as the multi- 
 tude are concerned, cannot be lightly assented to ; but we know, also, 
 that the happiness which we owe to a lie is no true happiness, and 
 that we, in the few and far-between moments of a god-like condition, 
 experience a higher dignity of soul and more happiness than in the 
 long, onward, vegetating life of the gloomy faith of a coal-burner. 
 
 In every respect that church government was a tyranny of the 
 worst sort. Who can be bail for those good intentions, as I have 
 described them ? Who can prove, indeed, that evil intentions were 
 not mingled with them ? Rome would always rule, and when her 
 legions fell, she sent dogmas into the provinces. Like a giant spider 
 she sat in the centre of the Latin world, and spun over it her endless 
 web. Generations of people lived beneath it a peaceful life, for they 
 believed that to be a heaven near them, which was only a Roman 
 
— 143 — 
 
 web. Only the higher striving spirits, who saw through its meshes, 
 felt themselves bound down and wretched, and when they strove to 
 break away, the crafty spider easily caught them, and sucked the 
 bold blood from their hearts ; — and was not the dreamy happiness of 
 the purblind multitude purchased too dearly by such blood ?^ The 
 days of spiritual serfdom are over ; weak with age, the old cross 
 spider sits between the broken pillars o # f her Colisseum, ever spin- 
 ning the same old web — but it is weak and brittle, and catches only 
 butterflies and bats, and no longer the wild eagles of the North. 
 
 It is right laughable to think that just as I was in the mood to 
 expand with such good will over the intentions of the Eoman Church, 
 the accustomed Protestant feeling which ever ascribes to her, the 
 worst, suddenly seized upon me, and it is this very difference of 
 opinion in myself, which again supplies me with an illustration of the 
 incongruities of the manner of thinking prevalent in these days. 
 What we yesterday admired, we hate to-day, and to-morrow, perhaps, 
 we ridicule it with perfect indifference. 
 
 Considered from a certain point, all is equally great or small, and 
 I thus recurred to the great European revolutions of ages, while I 
 looked at the little life of our poor islanders. Even tliey, stand on 
 the margin of such a new age, and their old unity of soul, and sim- 
 plicity will be disturbed by the success of the fashionable watering- 
 place recently established here, inasmuch as they every day pick up 
 from the guests some new bits of knowledge, which they must find 
 difficult to reconcile with their ancient mode of life. If they stand of 
 an evening before the lighted windows of the conversation-hall, and 
 behold within, the conduct of the gentlemen and ladies, the meaning 
 glances, the longing grimaces, the voluptuous dances, the full con- 
 tented feasting, the avaricious gambling, et cetera, it is morally certain 
 that evil results must ensue, which can never be counterbalanced by the 
 money which they derive from this bathing establishment. This money 
 will never suffice for the consuming new wants which they conceive, and 
 from this must result disturbances in life, evil enticements, and greater 
 sorrows. When but a boy, I always experienced a burning desire when 
 beautiful freshly baked tarts, which I could not obtain, were carried past 
 me, reeking in delicious fragrance and exposed to view. Later in 
 life I was goaded by the same feeling, when I beheld fashionably un- 
 dressed, beautiful ladies walk by me, and I often reflect that the poor 
 islanders, who have hitherto lived in such a state of blessed innocence, 
 have here unusual opportunities for similar sensations, and that it 
 would be well if the proprietors of the beautiful tarts, and the ladies 
 
— 144 — 
 
 in question, would cover them up a little more carefully. These 
 numerous and exposed delicacies, on which the natives can only feed 
 with their eyes, must terribly whet their appetites, and if the poor 
 female-islanders, when enceinte, conceive all sorts of sweet-baked 
 fancies, and even go so far as to bring forth children which strongly 
 resemble the aristocratic guests, the matter is easily enough under- 
 stood. I do not wish to be here understood as hinting at any immo- 
 dest or immoral connexions. The virtue of the islanderesses is 
 amply protected by their ugliness, and still more so by an abominably 
 fishy odour which, to me at least, is insupportable. Should, in fact, 
 children with fashionable-boarder faces be here born into the world, 
 I should much prefer to recognize in it a psycological phenomenon, 
 and explain it by those material-mystical laws, which Goethe has so 
 beautifully developed in his Elective Affinities. 
 
 The number of enigmatical appearances in nature, which can be 
 explained by those laws, is truly astonishing. When I, last year, 
 owing to a storm at sea, was cast away on another East Frisian 
 island, I there saw hanging, in a boatman's hut, an indifferent engrav- 
 ing, bearing the title, la tentation du viellard, and representing an old 
 man disturbed in his study by the appearance of a woman, who, 
 naked to the hips, rose from a cloud ; and singular to relate, the 
 boatman's daughter had exactly the same wanton pug-dog face 
 as the woman in the picture ! — To cite another example : in the 
 house of a money-changer, whose wife attended to the business, 
 and carefully examined coins from morning till night, I found that 
 the children had in their countenances a startling likeness to all 
 the greatest monarchs of Europe, and when they were all assem- 
 bled, fighting and quarreling, I could almost fancy that I beheld a 
 congress of sovereigns ! 
 
 On this account, the impression on coins is for politicians a matter 
 of no small importance. For as people so often love money from 
 their very hearts, and doubtlessly gaze lovingly on it, their children 
 often receive the likeness of their prince impressed thereon, and thus 
 the poor prince is suspected of being in sober sadness, the father of his 
 subjects. The Bourbons had good reasons for melting down the Napo- 
 leons oVor — not wishing to behold any longer so many Napoleon heads 
 among their subjects. Prussia has carried it further than any other 
 in her specie politics, for they there understand by a judicious inter- 
 mixture of copper to so make their new small change, and changes, 
 that a blush very soon appears on the cheeks of the monarch. In 
 consequence, the children in Prussia have a far healthier appearance 
 
— 145 — 
 
 than of old, and it is a real pleasure to gaze upon their blooming little 
 silver groschen faces. 
 
 I have, while pointing out the destruction of morals with which 
 the islanders are threatened, made no mention of their spiritual 
 defence, the Church. How this really appears, is beyond my powers 
 of description, not having been in it. The Lord knows I am a good 
 Christian, and even often get so far as to intend to make a call at 
 his house, but by some mishap I am invariably hindered in my good 
 intentions. Generally this is done by some long winded gentleman 
 who holds me by the button in the street, and even if I get to the 
 gate of the temple, some jesting, irreverent thought comes over me 
 and then I regard it as sinful to enter. Last Sunday something of 
 the sort happened, when just before the door of the Church there 
 came into my head an extract from Goethe's Faust, where the hero 
 passing with Mephistopheles by a cross, asks the latter, 
 
 "Mephisto, art in haste? 
 Why cast'st thou at the cross adown thy glances?" 
 
 To which Mephistopheles replies, 
 
 u I know right well it shows a wretched taste, 
 But crosses never ranked among my fancies." 
 
 These verses, as I remember, are not printed in any edition of 
 Faust, and only the late Hofrath Moritz, who had read them in 
 Goethe's manuscript, gave them to the world in his "Philip Eeiser," 
 a long out-of-print romance, which contains the history of the author, 
 or rather the history of several hundred dollars which his pocket did 
 not contain, and owing to which his entire life became an array of 
 self-denials and economies, while his desires were anything but pre- 
 suming — namely, to go to Weimar and become a servant in the 
 house of the author of "Werther. His only desire in life was to 
 live in the vicinity of the man, who of all mankind, had made the 
 deepest impression on his soul. 
 
 Wonderful ! even then, Goethe had awoke such inspiration, and 
 yet it seems that " our third after-growing race," is first in condition 
 to appreciate his true greatness. 
 
 But this race has also brought forth men, into whose hearts only 
 foul water trickles, and who would fain dam up in others the springs 
 of fresh healthy life-blood ; men whose powers of enjoyment are 
 extinguished, who slander life, and who would render all the beauty 
 and glory of this world disgusting to others, representing it as a bait 
 which the Evil One has placed here simply to tempt us, just as a 
 cunning house-wife leaves during her absence the sugar bowl exposed, 
 
 13 
 
- 146 — 
 
 with every lump duly counted, that she may test the honesty of the 
 maid. These men have assembled a virtuous mob around them, 
 preaching to their adherents a crusade against the Great Heathen 
 und against his naked images of the gods, which they would gladly 
 replace with their disguised dumb devils. 
 
 Masks and disguises are their highest aim, the naked and divine 
 is fatal to them, and a Satyr has always good reasons for donning 
 pantaloons and persuading Apollo to do the same. People then 
 call him a moral man, and know not that in the CLAUREN-smiles of a 
 disguised Satyr there is more which is really repulsive than in the 
 entire nudity of a Wolfgang-Apollo, and that in those very times 
 when men wore puff-breeches, which required in make sixty yards of 
 cloth, morals were no better than at present. 
 
 But will not the ladies be offended at my saying breeches instead 
 of pantaloons ? — Oh the refined feelings of ladies ! In the end only 
 eunuchs will dare to write for them, and their spiritual servants in 
 the West, must be as harmless as their body servants in the East. 
 
 Here a fragment from Berthold's diary comes into my head. 
 
 " If we only reflect on it, we are all naked under our clothes," 
 
 said Doctor M . to a lady who w T as offended by a rather cynical 
 
 remark to which he had given utterance. 
 
 The Hanoverian nobility is altogether discontented with Goethe, 
 asserting that he disseminates irreligion, and that this may easily 
 bring forth false political views, — in fine, that the people must by 
 means of the old faith be led back to their ancient modesty and 
 moderation. I have also recently heard much discussion of the 
 question whether Goethe were greater than Schiller. But lately 
 I stood behind the chair of a lady, from whose very back at least 
 sixty-four descents w r ere evident, and heard on the Goethe and 
 Schiller theme a w r arm discourse between her and two Hanoverian 
 nobles, whose origin was depicted on the Zodiac of Dendera. One 
 of them, a long lean youth, full of quicksilver, and who looked like 
 a barometer, praised the virtue and purity of Schiller, while the 
 other, also a long up-sprouted young man, lisped verses from the 
 " Dignity of Woman," smiling meanwhile as sweetly as a donkey 
 who has stuck his head into a pitcher of molasses, and delightedly 
 licks his lips. Both of the youths confirmed their assertions with 
 the refrain, "But he is still greater. He is really greater in fact. 
 He is the greater, I assure you upon my honor he is greater." The 
 lady was so amiable as to bring me too into this aesthetic conversa- 
 tion and inquire : "Doctor, what do you think of Goethe?" I, how- 
 
— 147 — 
 
 ever, crossed ray arms on my breast, bowed my head as a believer 
 and said : La illah ill allah wamohammed rasul allah ! 
 
 The lady had, without knowing it, put the shrewdest of questions. 
 It is not possible to directly inquire of a man — " What thinkest thou 
 of Heaven and Earth ? what are thy views of Man and Human Life ? 
 art thou a reasonable being or a poor dumb devil ?" Yet all these 
 delicate queries lie in the by no means insidious question : " What 
 do you think of Goethe ?" For while Goethe's works lie before our 
 eyes, we can easily compare the judgment which another pronounces 
 with our own, and thus obtain an accurate standard whereby to 
 measure all his thoughts and feelings. Thus has he unconsciously 
 passed his own sentence. But, as Goethe himself, like a common 
 world thus lies open to the observation of all, and gives us opportu- 
 nities to learn mankind ; so can we in turn best learn to know him 
 by his own judgment of objects which are exposed to all, and on 
 which the greatest minds have expressed opinions. In this respect 
 I would prefer to point to Goethe's Italian Journey, as we are all 
 familiar with the country in question, either from personal experience 
 or from what we have learned from others. Thus we can remark 
 how every writer views it with subjective eyes, the one with displeased 
 looks which beheld only the worst, another with the inspired eyes of 
 Corinna, seeing everywhere the glorious, while Goethe with his clear 
 Greek glances sees all things, the dark and the light, colours nothing 
 with his individual feelings, and pictures the land and its people in 
 the true outlines and true colours in which God clothed it. 
 
 This is a merit of Goethe's which will not be appreciated until 
 later times, for we, as we are nearly all invalids, remain too firm in 
 our sickly ragged romantic feelings which we have brought together 
 from all lands and ages, to be able to see plainly how sound, how 
 uniform, and how plastic Goethe displays himself in his works. He 
 himself as little remarks it, — in his naive unconsciousness of his own 
 ability, he wonders when " a reflection on present things" or " objec- 
 tive thought" is ascribed to him, and while in his autobiography he 
 seeks to supply us with a critical aid to comprehend his works, he 
 still gives us no measure of judgment, but only new facts w^reby to 
 judge him. Which is all natural enough, for no bird can fly over 
 itself. 
 
 Later times will also in addition to this ability of plastic percep- 
 tion, feeling and thinking, discover much in Goethe of which we have 
 as yet no shadow of an idea. The works of the soul are immutably 
 firm, but criticism is somewhat volatile ; she is born of the views of 
 
— 148 — 
 
 the age, is significant only for it, and if she herself is not of a sect 
 which involves artistic value, as for example that of Schlegel, she passes 
 with her time, to the grave. Every age when it gets new ideas, gets 
 with them new eyes, and sees much that is new in the old efforts of 
 mind which have preceded it. A Schubarth now sees in the Iliad, 
 something else and something more than all the Alexandrians ; and 
 critics will yet come, who will see more than a Schübarth in Goethe. 
 
 And so I finally prattled with myself, to Goethe ! But such 
 digressions are natural enough, when, as on this island, the roar of the 
 ocean thrills our ears and tunes the soul according to its will. 
 
 There is a strong north-east wind blowing, and the witches have 
 once again mischief in their heads. There are many strange legends 
 current here of witches, who know how to conjure storms,— for on 
 this, as on all northern islands, there is much superstition. The sea- 
 folks declare that certain islands are secretly governed by peculiar 
 witches, and that when mishaps occur to vessels passing them, it is to 
 be attributed entirely to the evil will of these mysterious guardians. 
 "While I, last year, was some time at sea, the steersman of our ship 
 told me, one day, that witches were remarkably powerful on the Isle 
 of Wight, and sought to delay every ship which sailed past during 
 the day, that it might then by night be dashed to_pieces on the 
 rocks, or driven ashore. At such times the witches are heard whiz- 
 zing so sharply through the air, and howling so loudly around the ship, 
 that the Klabotermann can with difficulty withstand them. "When I 
 asked who the Klabotermann was, the sailor answered very earnestly, 
 that he was the good invisible guardian angel of the ship, who takes 
 care lest ill luck befall honest and orderly skippers, who look after 
 everything themselves, and provide a place for everything. The 
 brave steersman assured me, in a more confidential tone, that I could 
 easily hear this spirit in the hold of the vessel, where he willingly 
 busied himself with stowing away the cargo more securely, and that 
 this was the cause of the creaking of the barrels and the boxes when 
 the sea rolled high, as well as of the groaning of the planks and beams. 
 It was also true, that the Klabotermann often hammered without, on 
 the ship^ and this was a warning to the carpenter to repair some 
 unsound spot which had been neglected. But his favorite fancy is to 
 sit on the top-sail, as a sign that a good wind blows or will blow ere 
 long. In answer to my question if he were ever seen, he replied, 
 " No — that he was never seen, and that no man wished to see him, 
 for he only showed himself when there was no hope of being saved." 
 The steersman could not vouch from his own experience, but he had 
 
— 149 — 
 
 heard others say, that the Klabolermann was often heard giving 
 orders from the topsail to his subordinate spirits ; and that when the 
 storm became too powerful for him, and utter destruction was 
 unavoidable, he invariably took a place at the helm — showing him- 
 self for the first time — and then breaking it, vanished. Those who 
 beheld him at this terrible moment were always engulphed the 
 moment after. 
 
 The captain who had listened with me to this narration, smiled more 
 graciously than I could have anticipated from his rough countenance, 
 hardened by wind and weather, and afterwards told me that fifty or 
 a hundred years ago, the faith in the Klabotermann was so strongly 
 impressed on the sailor's minds, that at meals they always reserved 
 for him the best morsels, and Jhat on some vessels this custom was 
 still observed. 
 
 I often walk alone on the beach, thinking over these marvellous 
 sea legends. The most attractive of them all is that of the Flying 
 Dutchman, who is seen in a storm with all sail set, and who occa- 
 sionally sends out a boat to ships, giving them letters to carry home, 
 but which no one can deliver, as they are all addressed to persons 
 long since dead. And I often recall the sweet old story of the fisher 
 boy, who one night listened securely on the beach to the music of the 
 Water-Nixies, and afterwards wandered through the world, casting 
 all into enchanted raptures who listened to the melody of the sea- 
 nymph waltz. This legend was once told me by a dear friend, as we 
 were at a concert in Berlin. I once heard just such an air played by 
 the wondrous boy, Felix Mendelsohn Bartholdi. 
 
 There is an altogether peculiar charm in excursions around the 
 island. But the weather must be fair, the clouds must assume strange 
 forms, we must lie on our backs, gazing into heaven — and at the same 
 time have a piece of heaven in our hearts. Then the waves wili 
 murmur all manner of strange things, all manner of words in which 
 sweet memories flutter, all manner of names which, like sweet associ- 
 ations, re-echo in the soul — " Evelina S" Then ships come sailing 
 by, and we greet them as if we could see them again every clay. But 
 at night there is something uncanny and mysterious in thus meeting 
 strange ships at sea ; and we imagine that our best friends, whom we 
 have not seen for years, sail silently by, and that we arc losing them 
 for ever. 
 
 I love the sea, as my own soul. 
 
 I often feel as if the sea were really my own soul itself, and as 
 there are in it hidden plants, which only rise at the instant in 
 13* 
 
— 150 — 
 
 which they bloom above the water, and sink again at the instant in 
 which they fade ; so from time to time there rise wondrous flower 
 forms from the depths of my soul, and breathe forth perfume, and 
 gleam, and vanish — " Evelina !" 
 
 They say that on a spot not far from this island, where there is 
 now nothing but water, there once stood the fairest villages and 
 towns, which were all suddenly overwhelmed by the sea, and that in 
 clear weather, sailors yet see in the ocean, far below, the gleam- 
 ing pinnacles of church spires, and that many have often heard, early 
 on quiet Sabbath mornings, the chime of their bells. The story is 
 true, for the sea is my own soul. 
 
 "There a wondrous world to ocean given, 
 Ever hides from daylight's searching gleam ; 
 But it shines at night like rays from heaven, 
 In the magic mirror of my dream." 
 
 Awakening then I hear the echoing tones of bells and the song of 
 holy voices — " Evelina 1" 
 
 If we go walking on the strand, the ships sailing by present a 
 beautiful sight. When in full sail they lodk like great swans. But 
 this is particularly beautiful when the sun sets behind some passing 
 ship, and this seems to be rayed round as with a giant glory. 
 
 Hunting, on this beach, is also said to present many very great 
 attractions. As far as I am concerned, I am not particularly quali- 
 fied to appreciate its charms. A love for the sublime, the beautiful 
 and the good is often inspired in men by education, but a love for 
 hunting lies in the blood. When ancestors in ages beyond recollec- 
 tion killed stags, the descendant still finds pleasure in this legitimate 
 occupation. But my ancestors did not belong to the hunters so much 
 as to the hunted, and the idea of attacking the descendants of those 
 who were our comrades in misery goes against my grain. Yes, I 
 know right well, from experience, and from moral conviction, that it 
 would be much easier for me to let fly at a hunter who wishes that 
 those times were again here when human beings were a higher class 
 of game. God be praised ! those days are over ! If such hunters 
 now wish to chase a man, they must pay him for it, as was the case 
 with a runner whom I saw two years ago in Böttingen. The poor 
 being had already run himself weary in the heat of a sultry Sunday, 
 when some Hanoverian youths, who there studied humaniora, offered 
 him a few dollars if he would run the whole course over again. The 
 
— 151 - 
 
 man did it. He was deathly pale, and wore a red jacket, and close 
 behind him, in the whirling dust, galloped the well-fed noble youths, 
 on high horses, whose hoofs occasionally struck the goaded, gasping 
 oeing, — and he was a man ! 
 
 For the sake of the experiment, for I must accustom my blood to 
 a better state, I went hunting yesterday. I shot at a few sea-gulls 
 which flew too confidently around, and could not of course know that 
 I was a bad shot. I did not wish to shoot them, but only to warn 
 them from going another time so near persons with loaded guns ; but 
 my gun shot " wrong," and I had the bad luck to kill a young gull. 
 It was well that it was not an old one, for what would then have be- 
 come of the poor little gulls which as yet unfledged lie in their sand- 
 nests on the great downs, and which, without their mother, must 
 starve to death. Before I went out I had a presentiment that some- 
 thing unfortunate would happen, for a hare run across my path. 
 
 But I am in an altogether strange mood when I wander alone by 
 twilight on the strand — behind me the flat downs, before me the 
 waving, immeasurable ocean, and above me, heaven, like a giant 
 crystal dome — for I then appear to myself so ant-like small, and yet 
 my soul expands so world-wide. The lofty simplicity of nature, as she 
 here surrounds me, at the same time subdues and elevates my heart, and 
 indeed, in a higher degree than in any other scene, however exalting. 
 Never did any dome as yet appear great enough to me; my soul, 
 with its Titan prayer, ever strove higher than the Gothic pillars, and 
 would ever fain pierce the vaulted roof. On the peaks of the Ross- 
 trappe, at first sight, the colossal rocks, in their bold groupings, had 
 a tolerably imposing effect on me ; but this impression did not long 
 endure, my soul was only startled, not subdued, and those monstrous 
 masses of stone became, little by little, smaller in my eyes, and finally 
 they merely appeared like the little ruins of a giant palace, in which, 
 perhaps, my soul would have found itself comfortably at home. 
 
 Ridiculous as it may sound, I cannot conceal it, but the dispropor- 
 tion between soul and body torments me not a little, and here on the 
 sea, in the sublimest natural scenery, it becomes very significant, and 
 the metempsychosis is often the subject of my reflection. Who 
 knows the divine irony which is accustomed to bring forth all manner 
 of contradictions between soul and body? Who knows in what 
 tailor's body the soul of Plato now dwells, and in what schoolmas- 
 ter the soul of CiESAR maybe found? Who knows if the soul of 
 Gregory VII. may not sit in the body of the Great Turk, and feel 
 itself, amid the caressing hands of a thousand women, more comfort- 
 
— 152 — 
 
 able than of old in its purple ccelibate's cowl ? On the other hand, 
 how many true Moslem souls, of the days of Ali, may, perhaps, be 
 now found among our anti-Hellenic statesmen ! The souls of the 
 two thieves who were crucified by the Saviour's side, now hide, per- 
 haps, in fat Consistorial bodies, and glow with zeal for orthodox doc- 
 trine, The soul of Ghengis-khan lives, it may be, in some literary 
 reviewer, who daily, without knowing it, sabres down the souls of his 
 truest Baschkirs and Calmucks, in a critical journal ! Who knows ! 
 who knows ! The soul of Pythagoras hath travelled, mayhap, into 
 some poor candidate for a University degree, and who is plucked at 
 examination, because he cannot explain the Pythagorean doctrines ; 
 while in his examiners dwell the souls of those oxen which Pytha- 
 goras once offered to the immortal gods for joy at discovering the 
 doctrines in question. The Hindoos are not so stupid as our mis- 
 sionaries think. They honour animals for the human souls which 
 they suppose dwell in them, and if they found hospitals for invalid 
 monkies, after the manner of our academies, nothing is more likely 
 than that in those monkies dwell the souls of great scholars, since it 
 is evident enough that among us, in many great scholars are only 
 apish souls ! 
 
 But who can look with the omniscience of the past, from above, 
 on the deeds of mortals. When I, by night, wander by the sea, listen- 
 ing to the song of the waves, and every manner of presentiment and 
 of memory awakes in me, then it seems as though I had once heard the 
 like from above, and had fallen, through tottering terror, to earth ; it 
 seems too as though my eyes had been so telescopically keen that I 
 could see the stars wandering as large as life in Heaven, and had been 
 dazzled by all their whirling splendor ; — then as if from the depth of 
 a millennium, there come all sorts of strange thoughts into my soul, 
 thoughts of wisdom old as the world, but so obscure that I cannot 
 surmise what they mean ; only this much I know that all our cunning, 
 knowledge, effort, and production, must to some higher spirit seem as 
 little and valueless as those spiders seemed to me which I have so 
 often seen in the library of Göttingen. There they sat, so busily 
 weaving, on the folios of the World's History, looking so philosophically 
 confident on the scene around them, and they had so exactly the pedant ic 
 obscurity of Göttingen, and seemed so proud of their mathematical 
 knowledge — of their contributions to Art — of their solitary reflec- 
 tions — and yet they knew nothing of all the wonders which were in 
 the book on which they were born, on which they had passed their 
 lives, nnd on which they must die, if not disturbed by the prying Doctor 
 
— 153 — 
 
 L — . And who is the prying Doctor L — ? His soul once dwelt in 
 just such a spider and now he guards the folios on which he once sat, 
 — and if he reads them he never learns their true contents. 
 
 What may have happened on the ground where I now walk ? A 
 Conrector who was bathing here, asserted that it was in this place, that 
 the religious rites of Hertha, or more correctly speaking, of Forsete 
 were once celebrated — those rites of which Tacitus speaks so 
 mysteriously. Let us only trust that the reporter from whom 
 Tacitus picked up the intelligence, did not err and mistake a 
 bathing wagon for the sacred vehicle of the goddess. 
 
 In the year 1819, I attended in Bonn, in one and the same season, 
 four courses of lectures on German antiquities, from the remotest 
 times. The first of these was the history of the German tongue by 
 Schlegel who for three months developed the most old fashioned 
 hypotheses on the origin of the Teutonic race ; 2d. the Germania of 
 Tacitus by Arxdt, who sought in the old German forests for those 
 virtues which he misses in the saloons of the present day ; 3d. Ger- 
 man National Law, by Hüllmanx, whose historical views are the 
 least vague of those current, and 4th. Primitive German History, by 
 Eadloff, who at the end of the half year had got no further than 
 the time of Sesostris. In those days the legend of the ancient Hertha 
 may have interested me more than at present. I did not at all admit 
 that she dwelt in Rügen, and preferred to believe that it was on an 
 East Frisian island. A young savant always likes to have his own 
 private Irypothesis. But at any rate I never supposed that I should 
 some day wander on the shore of the North Sea, without thinking 
 of the old Goddess with patriotic enthusiasm. Such is in fact, not 
 altogether the case, for I am here thinking of goddesses, only younger 
 and more beautiful ones. Particularly when I wander on the strand, 
 near those terrible spots where the most beautiful ladies have recently 
 been swimming like nymphs. For neither ladies nor gentlemen 
 bathe here under cover, but walk about in the open sea. On this 
 account the bathing places of the two sexes are far apart, and yet 
 not altogether too far, and he who carries a good spy-glass, can every 
 where in this world see many marvels. There is a legend of the 
 island that a modern Actoeon in this manner once beheld a bathing 
 Diana, and wonderful to relate, it was not he, but the husband of 
 the beauty who got the horns ! 
 
 The bathing-carriages, those hackney-coaches of the North Sea, 
 are here simply shoved to the edge of the water. They are gene- 
 rally angular wooden structures, covered with coarse stiff linen- 
 
— 154 — 
 
 Now, during winter, they are ranged along the conversation hall, 
 and without doubt, maintain among themselves as wooden and stiff 
 linen-like conversations as the aristocratic world which not long since 
 filled their place. 
 
 But when I say the aristocratic world, I do not mean the good citi- 
 zens of East Friesland, a race, flat and tame as their own sand-hills, 
 who can neither pipe nor sing, and yet possess a talent worth any 
 trilling and nonsense — a talent which ennobles man, and lifts him above 
 those windy souls of service, who believe themselves alone to be noble. 
 I mean the talent for freedom. If the heart beats for liberty, that 
 beating is better than any strokes conferring knighthood, as the " free 
 Frisians" well know, and they well deserve this, their national epithet. 
 With the exception of the ancient days of chieftainship, an aristocracy 
 never predominated in East Friesland ; very few noble families have 
 ever dwelt there, and the influence of the Hanoverian nobility by 
 force and military power as it now spreads over the land, troubles 
 many a free Frisian heart. Everywhere a love for their earlier 
 Prussian government is manifested. 
 
 Yet I cannot unconditionally agree with the universal German 
 complaint of the pride of birth of the Hanoverian nobility. The Ha- 
 noverian corps of officers give least occasion for complaints of this 
 nature. It is true that, as in Madagascar, only the nobility have the 
 right to become butchers, so in days of old, only the nobility in Hanover 
 were permitted to become soldiers. But since, in recent times, so 
 ttiany citizens have distinguished themselves in German regiments, 
 and risen to be officers, this evil customary privilege has fallen into 
 disuse. Yes, the entire body of the German legions has contributed 
 much to soften all prejudices, for these men have travelled afar, and 
 out in the world men see many tilings, especially in England ; and 
 they have learned much, and it is a real pleasure to hear them talk 
 of Portugal, Spain, Sicily, the Ionian Isles, Ireland, and other dis- 
 tant lands where they have fought, and " seen full many towns, and 
 learned full many manners," so that we can imagine that we are lis- 
 tening to an Odessy, which alas will never find its Homer ! Among 
 these officers many independent English customs have also found 
 their way, which contrast more strikingly with the old Hanoverian 
 manners, than we in the rest of Germany would imagine ; as we are 
 in the habit of supposing that England has exercised great influ- 
 ence over Hanover. Through all the land of Hanover, nothing is to 
 be seen but genealogical trees, to which horses are bound, so that 
 for mere trees, the land itself is obscured, and with all its horses, it 
 
155 — 
 
 never advances. No — through this Hanoverian forest of nobility, 
 there never penetrated a sun-ray of British freedom, and no tone of 
 British freedom was ever perceptible amid the neighing noise of 
 Hanoverian steeds. 
 
 The general complaint of Hanoverian pride of birth is best 
 founded as regards the hopeful youth of certain families, who either 
 rule or believe that they really rule the realm. But these noble 
 youths will soon lay aside this haughtiness, or, more correctly speak- 
 ing, this naughtiness, when they too have seen a little more of the 
 world, or have had the advantage of a better education. It is true 
 that they are sent to Göttingen, but they hang together, talking 
 about their horses, dogs, and ancestry : learning but little of modern 
 history, and if they happen once in a while by chance to hear of "it, 
 their minds are notwithstanding, stupified by the sight of the 
 count's table," which, a true indication of Göttingen, is intended only 
 for students of noble birth. Of a truth, if the young Hanoverian 
 nobility were better taught, many complaints would be obviated. 
 But the young become like the old. The same delusion, as though 
 they were the flowers of the earth, and we others but its grass ; the 
 same folly, seeking to cover their own worthlessness with their ances- 
 tors' merits ; the same ignorance of what there may be problematic 
 in these merits, as there are few indeed among them who reflect that 
 princes seldom reward their most faithful and virtuous subjects, but 
 very often their panders, flatterers and similar favorite rascals with 
 ennobling grace. Few indeed among these nobles could say with 
 any certainty what their ancestors have done, and they can only show 
 their name in Ruxner's Book of Tournaments, — yes, and if they 
 could prove that an ancestor was at the taking of Jerusalem, then 
 ought they, before availing themselves of the honor, to prove that their 
 ancestor fought as a knight should, that his mail suit was not lined 
 with fear, and that beneath his red cross beat an honest heart. Were 
 there no Iliad, but simply a list of names of those heroes who fought 
 before Troy ; and if those family names were yet among us, how 
 wo 'ild the descendants of Thersites be puffed up with pride ! As 
 for f ite purity of the blood, I will say nothing ; philosophers and 
 famü - footmen have doubtless some peculiar thoughts on this sub- 
 ject. 
 
 My fault-finding, as already hinted, is based upon the lame educa- 
 tion of the Hanoverian nobility, and their early impressed delusion 
 as to th^ importance of certain idle forms. Oh ! how often have 1 
 laughed when I remarked the importance attached to these forms ; 
 
— 156 — 
 
 as if it were even a difficult matter to learn this representing, this 
 presenting, thi3 smiling without saying anything, this saying some- 
 thing without thinking, and all these noble arts which the good plain 
 citizen stare3 at, as on wonders from beyond sea. and which after all, 
 every French dancing-master has better and more naturally, than the 
 German nobleman, to whom they have with weary pains been made 
 familiar, in the cub-licking Lutetia, and who, after their importation, 
 teaches them with German thoroughness, and German labor, to his 
 descendants. This reminds me of the fable of the dancing bear, who, 
 having escaped from his master, rejoined his fellow bears in the 
 wood, and boasted to them of the difficulty of learning to dance, and 
 how he himself excelled in the art, and in fact, the poor brutes who 
 beheld his performances, could not withhold their admiration. That 
 nation, as "Werther calls them, formed the aristocratic world, which 
 here at this watering-place, shone on water and land, and they were 
 altogether excellent, excellent folks, and played their parts well. 
 
 Persons of royal blood were also here, and I must admit that they 
 were more modest in their address than the lesser nobility. Whether 
 this modesty was in the hearts of these elevated persons, or whether 
 they were impelled to it by their position, T will here leave undecided. 
 I assert this, however, only of the German mediatised princes. These 
 persons have of late suffered great injustice, inasmuch as they have 
 been robbed of a sovereignty, to which they had as good right as the 
 greater princes, unless, indeed, any one will assume that that which 
 cannot maintain itself by its own power, has no right to exist. But 
 for the greatly divided Germany, it was a benefit, that this array of 
 sixteen-mo despots were obliged to resign their power. It is terrible 
 when we reflect on the number which we poor Germans are obliged 
 to feed for although these mediatised princes no longer wield the 
 sceptre, they still wield knives, forks, and spoons, and do not eat 
 hay, and if they did, hay would still be expensive enough. I imagine 
 that we shall eventually be freed by America from this burden of 
 princes. For sooner or later the presidents of those free states will 
 be metamorphosed into sovereigns, and if they need legitimate prin- 
 cesses for wives, thoy will be glad if we give them our blood-royal 
 dames, and if they take six, we will throw in the seventh gratis; and 
 by and by, our princes may be busied with their daughters in turn ; 
 for which reason the mediatised princes have acted very shrewdly in 
 retaining at least their right of birth, and value their family trees as 
 much as the Arabs value the pedigrees of their horses, and indeed, 
 with th<; same object, as they well know that Germany has been in 
 
— 157 — 
 
 all ages, the great princely stud from which all the reigning neigh- 
 boring families have been supplied with mares and stallions. 
 
 In every watering place it is an old established customary privilege, 
 that the departed guests should be sharply criticised by those who 
 remain, and as I am here the last in the house, I may presume to 
 exercise that right to its fullest extent. 
 
 And it is now so lonely in the island, that I seem to myself like 
 Napoleon on St, Helena, Only that I have here found something 
 entertaining, which he wanted. For it is with the great Emperor 
 himself with whom I am now busied. A young Englishman recently 
 presented me with Maitland's book, published not long since, in 
 which the mariner sets forth the way and manner in which Napoleon 
 gave himself up to him, and deceived himself on the Bellerophon, till 
 he, by command of the British ministry was brought on board the 
 Northumberland. From this book it appears clear as day, that the 
 Emperor, in a spirit of romantic confidence in British magnanimity, 
 and to finally give peace to the world, went to the English more as a 
 guest than as a prisoner. It was an error which no other man would 
 have fallen into, and least of all, a Wellington. But history will 
 declare that this error was so beautiful, so elevated, so sublime, that 
 it required more true greatness of soul than we, the rest of the world, 
 can elevate ourselves to in our greatest deeds. 
 
 The cause which has induced Captain Maitland to publish this 
 book, appears to be no other than the moral need of purification, 
 which every honorable man experiences who has been entangled by 
 bad fortune in a piece of business of a doubtful complexion. The 
 book itself is an invaulable contribution to the history of the imprison- 
 ment of Napoleon, as it forms the last portion of his life, singularly 
 solves all the enigmas of the earlier parts, and amazes, reconciles, and 
 purifies the mind, as the last act of a genuine tragedy should. The cha- 
 racteristic differences of the four principal writers who have informed 
 us as to his captivity, and particularly as to his manner and method 
 of regarding things, is not distinctly seen, save by their comparison. 
 
 Maitland, the stern, cold, English sailor, describes events without 
 prejudice, and as accurately as though they were maritime occurrences 
 to be entered in a log-book. Las Oasas, like an enthusiastic cham- 
 berlain, lies, as he writes, in every line, at the feet of his Emperor ; 
 not like a Russian slave, but like a free Frenchman, who involuntarily 
 bows the knee to unheard of heroic greatness and to the dignity of 
 renown. O'Meara, the physician, though born in Ireland, is still 
 altogether a Britain, and as such w 7 as once an enemy of the Emperor. 
 
 U 
 
— 158 — 
 
 But now, recognising the majestic rights of adversity, he writes 
 boldly, without ornament, and conscientiously: — almost in a lapidary 
 style, while we recognise not so much a style as a stiletto in the 
 pointed, striking manner of writing of the Italian Autommarchi, who 
 is altogether mentally intoxicated with the vindictiveness and poetry 
 of his land. 
 
 Both races, French and English, gave from either side a man of 
 ordinary powers of mind, uninfluenced by the powers that be, and 
 this jury has judged the Emperor, and sentenced him to live eternally 
 — an object of wonder and of commiseration. 
 
 There are many great men who have already walked in this world. 
 Here and there we see the gleaming marks of their footsteps, and in 
 holy hours they sweep like cloudy forms before our souls ; but an 
 equally great man sees his predecessors far more significantly. From 
 a single spark of the traces of their earthly glory, he recognises their 
 most secret act, from a single word left behind, he penetrates every 
 fold of their hearts, and thus in a mystical brotherhood live the great 
 men of all times. Across long centuries they bow to each other, and 
 gaze on each other with significant glances, and their eyes meet over 
 the graves of buried races whom they have thrust aside between, and 
 they understand and love each other. But we little ones, who may 
 not have such intimate intercourse with the great ones of the past, 
 of whom we but seldom see the traces and cloudy forms, it is of the 
 highest importance to learn so much of these great men, that it will 
 be easy for us to take them distinct, as in life, into our own souls, and 
 thereby enlarge our minds. Such a man is Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 AVe know more of his life and deeds than of the other great ones of 
 this world, and day by day we learn still more and more. We see 
 the buried form divine, slowly dug forth, and with every spade full of 
 earth which is removed, increases our joyous wonder at the symmetry 
 and splendor of the noble figure which is revealed, and the spiritual 
 lightnings with which foes would shatter the great statue, serve but 
 to light it up more gloriously. Such is the case with the assertions 
 of M'me de Stael, who, with all her bitterness, says nothing more 
 than that the Emperor was not a man like other men, and that his 
 soul could be measured with no measure known to us. 
 
 It is to such a spirit that Kant alludes, when he says, that we can 
 think to ourselves an understanding, which, because it is not dis- 
 cursive like our own, but intuitive, goes from the synthetic universal, 
 of the observation of the whole, as such, to the particular — that is to 
 say, from the whole to a part. Yes — Napoleon's spirit saw through 
 
— 159 — 
 
 that which we learn by weary analytical reflection, and long deduc- 
 tion of consequences, and comprehended it in one and the same 
 moment. Thence came his talent to understand his age, to cajole 
 its spirit into never abusing him, and being ever profitable to 
 him. 
 
 But as this spirit of the age is not only revolutionary, but is formed 
 by the antagonism of both sides, the revolutionary and the counter- 
 revolutionary, so did Napoleon act not according to either alone, but 
 according to the spirit of both principles, both efforts, which found in 
 him their union, and he accordingly always acted naturally, simply 
 and greatly ; never convulsively and harshly — ever composed and 
 calm. Therefore he never intrigued in details, and his striking effects 
 were ever brought about by his ability to comprehend and to bend 
 the masses to his will. Little analytical souls incline to entangled, 
 wearisome intrigues, while, on the contrary, synthetic intuitive spirits 
 understand in a wondrously genial manner, so to avail themselves of 
 the means which are afforded them by the present, as quickly to turn 
 them to their own advantage. The former often founder, because no 
 mortal wisdom can foresee all the events of life, and life's relations 
 are never long permanent ; the latter, on the contrary, the intuitive 
 men, succeed most easily in their designs, as they only require an 
 accurate computation of that which is at hand, and act so quickly, 
 that their calculations are not miscarried by any ordinary agitation, 
 or by any sudden unforeseen changes. 
 
 It is a fortunate coincidence that Napoleon lived just in an age 
 which had a remarkable inclination for history, for research, and for 
 publication. Owing to this cause, thanks to the memoirs of cotem- 
 poraries, but few particulars of Napoleon's life have been withheld 
 from us, and the number of histories which represent him as more or 
 less allied to the rest of the world, increase every day. On this 
 account the announcement of such a work by Scott awakens the 
 most anxious anticipation. 
 
 All those who honor the genius of Scott must tremble for him, for 
 such a book may easily prove to be the Moscow of a reputation which 
 he has won with weary labor by an array of historical romances, 
 which, more by their subject than by their poetic power, have moved 
 every heart in Europe. This theme is, however, not merely an elegiac 
 lament over Scotland's legendary glory, which has been little by little 
 banished by foreign manners, rule, and modes of thought, but the 
 greatest suffering for the loss of those national peculiarities which 
 perish in the universality of modern civilization — a grief which now 
 
— 160 — 
 
 causes the hearts of every nation to throb. For national memories 
 lie deeper in man's heart than we generally imagine. Let any one 
 attempt to bury the ancient forms, and over night the old love blooms 
 anew with its flowers. This is not a mere figure of speech, but a 
 fact, for when Bullock, a few years ago, dug up in Mexico an old 
 heathen stone image, he found, next morning, that during the night 
 it had been crowned with flowers ; although Spain had destroyed the 
 old Mexican faith with fire and sword, and though the souls of the 
 natives had been for three centuries digged about and ploughed, and 
 sowed with Christianity, And such flowers as these bloom in Walter 
 Scott's poems. These poems themselves awaken the old feeling, and 
 as once in Grenada men and women ran with the wail of desperation 
 from their houses, when the song of the departure of the Moorish 
 king rang in the streets, so that it was prohibited, on pain of death, 
 to sing it, so hath the tone which rings through Scott's romance 
 thrilled with pain a whole world. This tone re-echoes in the hearts 
 of our nobles, who see their castles and armorial bearings in ruins ; 
 it rings again in the hearts of our burghers, who have been crowded 
 from the comfortable narrow way of their ancestors by wide-spread- 
 ing, uncongenial modern fashion ; in Catholic cathedrals, whence 
 faith has fled ; in Rabbinic synagogues, from which even the faith- 
 ful flee. It sounds over the whole world, even into the Banian groves 
 of Hindostan, where the sighing Brahmin sees before him the destruc- 
 tion of his gods, the demolition of their primeval cosmogony, and the 
 entire victory of the Briton. 
 
 But his tone — the mightiest which the Scottish bard can strike 
 upon his giant harp — accords not with the imperial song of Napo- 
 leon, the new man— the man of modern times — the man in whom 
 this new age mirrors itself so gloriously, that we thereby are well 
 nigh dazzled, and never think meanwhile of the vanished Fast, nor 
 of its faded splendor. It may well be p re-supposed that Scott, 
 according to his predilections, will seize upon the stable element 
 already hinted at, the counter-revolutionary side of the character of 
 Napoleon, while, on the contrary, other writers will recognize in him 
 the revolutionary principle. It is from this last side that Byron 
 would have described him — Byron, A\*ho forms in every respect an 
 antithesis to Scott, and who, instead of lamenting like him the de- 
 struction of old forms, even feels himself vexed and bounded by those 
 which remain, and would fain annihilate them with revolutionary 
 laughter and with gnashing of teeth. In this rage he destroys the 
 holiest flowers of life with his melodious poison, and like a mad harle- 
 
— 161 — 
 
 quin, strikes a dagger into his own heart, to mockingly sprinkle with 
 the jetting black blood the ladies and gentlemen around. 
 
 I truly realize at this instant that I am no worshipper, or at least 
 no bigotted admirer of Byron. My blood is not so splentically 
 black, my bitterness comes only from the gall-apples of my ink, 
 and if there be poison in me it is only an anti-poison, for those 
 snakes which lurk so threateningly amid the shelter of old cathedrals 
 and castles. Of all great writers Byron is just the one whose 
 writings excite in me the least passion, while Scott, on the contrary, 
 in his every book, gladdens, tranquillizes, and strengthens my heart. 
 Even his imitators please me, as in such instances as "Willibald 
 Alexis, Broxikowski, and Cooper, the first of whom, in the ironic 
 " Walladmoor," approaches nearest his pattern, and has shown in a 
 later work such a wealth of form and of spirit, that he is fully capable 
 of setting before our souls with a poetic originality well worthy of 
 Scott, a series of historical novels. 
 
 But no true genius follows paths indicated to him, these lie 
 beyond all critical computation, so that it may be allowed to pass as 
 a harmless play of thought, if I may express my anticipatory judg- 
 ment over Walter Scott's History of Napoleon. Anticipatory 
 judgment* is here the most comprehensive expression. Only one 
 thing can be said with certainty, which is that the book will be read 
 from its uprising even unto the down-setting thereof, and we Ger- 
 mans will translate it. 
 
 We have also translated Segur Is it not a pretty epic poem ? 
 We Germans also write epic poems, but their heroes only exist in 
 our own heads. The heroes of the French epos, on the contrary, are 
 real heroes, who have performed more doughty deeds and suffered 
 far greater woes than we in our garret rooms ever dreamed of. And 
 yet we have much imagination, and the French but little. Perhaps 
 on this account the Lord helped them out in another manner, for 
 they only need truly relate what has happened to them during the 
 last thirty years to have such a literature of experience as no nation 
 and no age ever yet brought forth. Those memoirs of statesmen, 
 soldiers, and noble ladies which appear daily in France, form a cycle 
 of legends in which posterity will find material enough for thought 
 and song — a cycle in whose centre the life of the great Emperor rises 
 like a giant tree. Segur's History of the Eussian Campaign is a 
 song, a French song of the people, which belongs to this legend cycle 
 and which in its tone and matter, is, and will remain, like the epic 
 
 " VorurtheiV' — prcejudicium — prejudice — fore-judgment. — Note by Translator. 
 14* 
 
— 162 — 
 
 poetry of all ages. A heroic poem which from the magic words 
 
 " freedom and equality" has shot up from the soil of France, and as 
 in a triumphal procession, intoxicated with glory and led by the 
 Goddess Fame herself, has swept over, terrified and glorified the 
 world. And now at last it dances clattering sword-dances on the 
 ice fields of the North, until they break in, and the children of fire 
 and of freedom perish by cold and by the Slaves. 
 
 Such a description of the destruction of a heroic world is the key 
 note and material of the epic poems of all races. On the rocks of 
 Ellora and other Indian grotto-temples, there remain such epic catas- 
 trophes, engraved in giant hieroglyphics, the key to which must be 
 sought in the Mahabarata. The North too in words not less rock- 
 like, has narrated this twilight of the gods in its Edda, the Nibelungen 
 sings the same tragic destruction, and has in its conclusion a striking 
 similarity with Segur's description of the burning of Moscow. The 
 Roland's Song of the battle of Roncesvalles, which though its words 
 have perished still exists as a legend, and which has recently been 
 raised again to life by Immermaxn, one of the greatest poets of the 
 Father Land, is also the same old song of woe. Even the song of Troy 
 gives most gloriously the old theme, and yet it is not grander or more 
 agonizing than that French song of the people in which Segur has 
 sung the downfall of his hero world. Yes, this is a true epos, the 
 heroic youth of France is the beautiful hero who early perishes as we 
 have already seen in the deaths of Balder, Siegfried, Roland, and 
 Achilles, who also perished by ill-fortune and treachery ; and those 
 heroes whom we once admired in the Iliad we find again in the song of 
 Segur. We see them counselling, quarrelling, and fighting, as once 
 of old before the Skaisch gate. If the court of the King of Naples 
 is somewhat too variedly modern, still his courage in battle and his 
 pride are greater than those of Pelides ; -a Hector in mildness, and 
 bravery is before us in " Prince Eugene, the knight so noble." Ney 
 battles like an Ajax, Berthier is a Nestor without wisdom ; Davoust, 
 Daru, Caulincourt, and others, possess the souls of Menelaus, of 
 Odysseus, of Diomed — only the Emperor alone has not his like — in his 
 head is the Olympus of the poem, and if I compare him in his heroic 
 apparition to Agamemnon, I do it because a tragic end awaited him 
 with his lordly comrades in arms, and because his Orestes yet lives. 
 
 There is a tone in Segur's epos like that in Scott's poems which 
 moves our hearts. But this tone does not revive our love for the 
 long-vanished legions of olden time. It is a tone wfrich brings to us 
 the present, and a tone which inspires us with its spirit. 
 
— 163 — 
 
 But we Germans are genuine Peter Schlemihls ! In later times 
 we have seen much and suffered much — for example, having soldiers 
 quartered on us, and pride from our nobility ; and we have given away 
 our best blood, for example, to England, which has still a considerable 
 annual sum to pay for shot-off arms and legs, to their former owners, 
 and we have done so many great things on a small scale, that if they 
 were reckoned up together, they would result in the grandest deeds 
 imaginable, for instance, in the Tyrol, and we have lost much, for 
 instance, our " greater shadow," the title of the holy darling Eoman 
 empire — and still, with all our losses, sacrifices, self-denials, misfor- 
 fortunes and great deeds, our literature has not gained one such 
 monument of renown, as rise daily among our neighbors, like immor- 
 tal trophies. Our Leipzig Fairs have profitted but little by the 
 battle of Leipzig. A native of Gotha, intends, as I hear, to sing 
 them successively in epic form, but as he has not as yet determined 
 whether he belongs to the one hundred thousand souls of Hildburg- 
 hausen, or to the one hundred and fifty thousand of Meiningen, or to 
 the one hundred and sixty thousand of Altenburg, he cannot as yet 
 begin his epos, and must accordingly begin with, " Sing, immortal souls, 
 Hildburghausian souls, Meiningian or even Altenburgian souls, sing, 
 all the same, sing the deliverance of the sinful Germans !" This soul- 
 murderer, and his fearful ruggedness, allows no proud thought, and 
 still less, a proud word to manifest itself, our brighest deeds become 
 ridiculous by a stupid result ; and while we gloomily wrap ourselves 
 in the purple mantle of German heroic blood, there comes a political 
 waggish knave and puts his cap and bells on our head. 
 
 Nay, we must even compare the literati on the other side of the 
 Rhine, and of the canal, with our bagatelle-literature, to comprehend 
 the emptiness and insignificance of our bagatelle-life. And as 1 
 intend to subsequently extend my observations over this theme of 
 German literature-miserere, I here offer a merrier compensation by 
 the intercalation of the following Xenia, which have flown from the 
 pen of Imkebmanb, my lofty colleague. Those of congenial disposi- 
 tions will, without doubt, thank me for communicating these verses, 
 and with a few exceptions, which I have indicated with stars, I will- 
 ingly admit that they exnress my own views. 
 
— 164 — 
 
 THE POETIC MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 Cease thy laughing, cease thy weeping, let the truth be plainly said, 
 When Hans Sachs first saw the daylight, Weckherlin just then 
 was dead. 
 
 " All mankind at length must perish," quoth the dwarf with won- 
 drous spirit, 
 
 Ancient youth, — the news you tell us hath not novelty for merit. 
 
 In forgotten old black letter, still his author-boots he's steeping, 
 And he eats poetic onions to inspire a livelier weeping. 
 
 *Spare old Luther, Frank, I pray you, in the comments which you 
 utter, 
 
 He's a fish which pleases better, plain, than with thy melted butter. 
 
 THE DRAMATIST. 
 1. 
 
 *" To revenge me on the public, tragedies I'll write no longer?" 
 Only keep thy word, and then we'll let thee curse us more and 
 stronger. 
 
 2. 
 
 In a cavalry-lieutenant, stinging spur-like verse we pardon ; 
 For he orders phrase and feelings, like recruits whom drills must 
 harden. 
 
 3. 
 
 Were Melpomene a maiden, tender, loving as a child, 
 
 I would bid her marry this one — he's so trim, so neat and mild. 
 
 4. 
 
 For the sins on Earth committed, goes the soul of Kotzebue. 
 In the body of this monster, stockingless, without a shoe. 
 
 Thus to honor comes the doctrine which the earliest ages give, 
 That the souls of the departed, afterwards in beasts must live. 
 
— 165 — 
 
 ORIENTAL POETS. 
 
 At old Saadi's imitators tout le monde just now are wondering : — 
 Seems to me the same old story, if we East or West go blundering. 
 
 Once there sang in summer moonlight, philomel seu nightingale, 
 Now the bulbul pipes unto us, still it seems the same old tale. 
 
 Of the rat-catcher of Hameln, ancient poet, — you remind me ; 
 Whistling eastwards, while the little singers follow close behind thee. 
 
 India's holy cows they honor for a reason past all doubt, 
 For ere long in every cow-stall they will find Olympus out. 
 
 Too much fruit they ate in Shiraz, where they held their thievish revels, 
 In " Gazelles" they cast it up now — wretched Oriental devils. 
 
 BELL-TONES. 
 
 See the plump old pastor yonder at his door, with pride elate, 
 Loudly singing, that the people may adore him dressed in state. 
 
 And they flock to gaze upon him, both the blind men and the lame, 
 Cramped and pectoral sufferers — with them many a hysteric dame. 
 
 Simple cerate healeth nothing, neither doth it hurt a wound, 
 Therefore friends, in every book-shop simple cerate may be found. 
 
 If the matter thus progresses, till they every priest adore 
 
 To old Mother Church's bosom I'll go creeping back once more. 
 
 There a single Pope they honor and adore a prcesens numen, 
 Here each one ordained as lumen, elevates himself to numen. 
 
 *ORBIS PICTUS. 
 
 If the mob who spoil the world, had but one neck and here would 
 show it ! 
 
 Oh, ye Gods, a single neck of wretched actors, priests and poets ! 
 
 In the church to look at farces oft I linger of a morning, 
 
 In the theatre sit at evening, from the sermon taking warning. 
 
 E'en the Lord to me oft loses much in influence and vigor, 
 
 For so many thousand people carve him in their own base figure. 
 
 Public — when I please ye, then I think myself a wretched weaver, 
 But when I can really vex you, then it strengthens up my liver. 
 
— 166 — 
 
 "How lie masters all the language!" — yes and makes us die of 
 laughter, 
 
 How he jumps and makes his captive crazily come jumping after ! 
 
 Much can I endure that's vexing — one thing makes me sick and 
 
 haggard, 
 
 When I see a nervous weakling try to play the genial blackguard 
 
 *Once I own that thou didst please me, fair Lucinda's favors winning, 
 Out upon thy brazen courtship ! now with Mary thoud'st be sinning ! 
 
 First in England, then mid Spaniards — then where Brahma's dark- 
 ness scatters, 
 
 Everywhere the same old story — German coat and shoes in tatters. 
 
 When the ladies write, for ever in their private pains they're dealing, 
 Fausses couches and damaged virtue — oh, such open hearts revealing ! 
 
 Let the ladies write — they please me — in one thing they beat U3 
 hollow, 
 
 When a dame takes " pen in hand," we're sure no bad results can 
 follow. 
 
 Literature will soon resemble parties at a tea or christening, 
 Naught but lady-gossips prating, while the little boys are listening. 
 
 Where I a Ghengis-Khan, oh, China, long in dust had'st thou been 
 
 From thy cursed tea came parties — and of them I'm slowly dying. 
 
 All now settles down in silence, o'er the Mightiest peace is flowing, 
 Calmly in his ledger entering what the early age is owing. 
 
 Yonder town is full of statues, pictures, verses, music's din : 
 
 At the door stands Merry Andrew with his trump and cries come in. 
 
 Why, these verses ring most vilely, without measure, feet or form 1 
 But should literary Pandours wear a royal uniform ? 
 
 Say how can you use such phrases — such expression without blushing, 
 We must learn to use our elbows, when through market crowds we're 
 pushing. 
 
 But of old thou oft hast written rhymes both truly good and great ! 
 He who mingles with the vulgar must expect a vulgar fate. 
 
IDEAS. 
 
 BOOK LE GRAND. 
 
 ( 1826.) 
 
 The mighty race of Oerindur, 
 The pillar of our throne, 
 Though Nature perish, will endure, 
 For ever and alone. — Müllner. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 She was •worthy of love, and he loved her. He. however, was not loveahle, and she did 
 not love him.— Old Play. 
 
 Madame, are you familiar with that old play ? It is an altogether 
 extraordinary performance — only a little too melancholy. I once 
 played the leading part in it myself, so that all the ladies wept save 
 one, who did not shed so much as a single tear, and in that, consisted 
 the whole point of the play — the real catastrophe. 
 
 Oh, that single tear ! it still torments me in my reveries. When 
 the Devil desires to ruin my soul, he hums in my ear a ballad of that 
 tear, which ne'er was wept, a deadly song with a more deadly tunc — 
 ah ! such a tune is only heard in hell ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 You can readily form an idea Madame of what life is like, in 
 Heaven — the more readily, as you are married. There people amuse 
 themselves altogether superbly, every sort of entertainment is pro- 
 vided, and one lives in nothing but desire and its gratification, or as 
 the saying is, "like the Lord in France." There they live from 
 morning to night, and the cookery is as good as Jagor's, roast geese 
 fly around with gravy-boats in their bills, and feel flattered if any 
 one condescends to eat them ; tarts gleaming with butter grow wild 
 like sun-flowers, everywhere there are rivulets of bouillon and cham- 
 pagne, everywhere trees on which clean napkins flutter wild in the 
 wind, and you eat and wipe your lips and eat again without injury to 
 the health. There too, you sing psalms, or flirt and joke with the 
 
— 168 — 
 
 dear delicate little angels, or take a walk on the green Hallelujah- 
 Meadow, and your white flowing garments fit so comfortably, and 
 nothing disturbs your feeling of perfect happiness — no pain, no vexa- 
 tion. Nay — when one accidentally treads on another's corns and 
 exclaim, "excusez!" the one trodden on smiles as if glorified, and 
 insists " Thy foot, brother, did not hurt in the least, quite au con- 
 traire— it only causes a deeper thrill of Heavenly rapture to shoot 
 through my heart !" 
 
 But of Hell, Madame, you have not the faintest idea. Of all the 
 devils iu existence, you have probably made the acquaintance only of 
 Amor, the nice little Croupier of Hell, who is the smallest Beelze- 
 " bub" of them all. And you know him only from Don Juan, and 
 doubtless think that for such a betrayer of female innocence Hell can 
 never be made hot enough, though our praiseworthy theatre directors 
 shower down upon him as much flame, fiery rain, squibs and colo- 
 phonium as any Christian could desire to have emptied into Hell 
 itself. 
 
 However, things in Hell look much worse than our theatre directors 
 imagine ; — if they did know what is going on there, they would 
 never permit such stuff to be played as they do. For in Hell it is 
 infernally hot, and when I was there, in the dog-days, it was past 
 endurance. Madame — you can have no idea of Hell ! We have very 
 few official returns from that place. Still it is rank calumny to say 
 that down there all the poor souls are compelled to read all day long 
 all the dull sermons which were ever printed on earth. Bad as Hell 
 is, it has not quite come to that, — Satan will never invent such refine- 
 ments of torture. On the other hand, Dante's description is too 
 mild — I may say, on the whole, too poetic. Hell appeared to me 
 like a great town-kitchen, with an endlessly long stove, on which were 
 placed three rows of iron pots, and in these sat the damned, and were 
 cooked. In one row were placed Christian sinners, and, incredible 
 as it may seem, their number was anything but small, and the devils 
 poked the fire up under them with especial good will. In the next 
 row were Jews, who continually screamed and cried, and were occa- 
 sionally mocked by the fiends, which sometimes seemed odd enough — 
 as for instance, whes a fat, wheezy old pawnbroker complained of 
 the heat, and a little devil poured several buckets of cold water on 
 his head, that he might realize what a refreshing benefit baptism was. 
 In the third row sat the heathen, who, like the Jews, could take no 
 part in salvation, and must burn forever. I heard one of the latter, 
 as a square-built, burly devil put fresh coals under his kettle, cry out 
 
— 169 — 
 
 from his pot — " Spare me ! I was once Socrates, the wisest of mor- 
 tals — I taught Truth and Justice, and sacrificed my life for Virtue." 
 But the clumsy, stupid devil went on with his work, and grumbled — 
 " Oh, shut up, there ! All heathens must burn, and we can't make 
 an exception for the sake of a single man." I assure you, Madame, 
 the heat was terrible, with such a screaming, sighing, groaning, croak- 
 ing, crying, quacking, cracking, growling, grunting, yelling, squeal- 
 ing, wailing, trilling — and through all this terrible turmoil there rang 
 distinctly the fatal melody of the Song of the Unwept Tear. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " She was worthy of his love, and he loved her. He, however, was not loveable, and 
 she did not love him." 
 
 Madame ! that old play is a tragedy, though the hero in it is 
 neither killed nor commits suicide. The eyes of the heroine are 
 beautiful — very beautiful : — Madame, do you scent the perfume of 
 violets ? — very beautiful, and yet so piercing that they struck like 
 poignards of glass through my heart and probably came out through 
 my back — and yet I was not killed by those treacherous, murderous 
 eyes. The voice of the heroine was also sweet — Madame, was it a 
 nightingale you heard sing just as I spoke ? — a soft, silken voice, a 
 sweet web of the sunniest tones, and my soul was entangled in it and 
 choked and tormented itself. I myself— it is the Count of Ganges 
 who now speaks, and as the story goes on, in Venice — I myself soon 
 had enough of those tortures, and had thoughts of putting an end to 
 the play in the first act, and of shooting myself through the head, 
 foolscap and all. Therefore I went to a fancy store in the Via 
 Burstah, where I saw a pair of beautiful pistols in a case — I 
 remember them perfectly well — near them stood many ornamental 
 articles of mother-of-pearl and gold, steel hearts on gilt chains, por- 
 celain cups with delicate devices, and snuff-boxes with pretty pictures, 
 such as the divine history of Susannah, the Swan Song of Leda, the 
 Rape of the Sabines, Lucretia, a fat, virtuous creature, with naked 
 bosom, in which she was lazily sticking a dagger; the late Bethmann, 
 la belle Ferroniere — all enrapturing faces— but I bought the pistols 
 without much ado, and then I bought balls, then powder, and then 1 
 went to the restaurant of Signor Somebody, and ordered oysters and 
 a glass of Hock. 
 
 15 
 
— 170 — 
 
 I could eat nothing, and still less could I drink. The warm tears 
 fell in the glass, and in that glass I saw my dear home, the blue, holy 
 Ganges, the ever gleaming Himalaya, the giant banyan woods, amid 
 whose broad arcades calmly wandered wise elephants and white- 
 robed pilgrims, strange dream-like flowers gazed on me with meaning 
 glance, wondrous golden birds sang softly, flashing sun-rays and the 
 droll, silly chatter of monkies pleasantly mocked me, from far pagodas 
 sounded the pious prayers of priests, and amid them rang the melt- 
 ing, wailing voice of the Sultaness of Delhi — she ran wildly around 
 in her earpetted chamber, she tore her silver veil, she struck with her 
 peacock fan the black slave to the ground, she wept, she raged, she 
 cried. — I could not hear what she said, the restaurant of Signor 
 Somebody is three thousand miles distant from the Harem of Delhi, 
 besides the fair Sultaness had been dead three thousand years — 
 and I quickly drank up the wine, the clear, joy-giving wine, and yet 
 
 my soul grew darker and sadder — I was condemned to death. 
 ******* 
 
 As I left the restaurant, I heard the "bell of poor sinners" ring, a 
 crowd of people swept by me ; but I placed myself at the corner of 
 the Sh-ada San Giovanni, and recited the followiug monologue: 
 
 Tn ancient tales they tell of golden castles, 
 Where harps are sounding, lovely ladies dance, 
 And trim attendants serve, and jessamine, 
 Myrtle and roses spread their soft perfume — 
 And yet a single word of sad enchantment, 
 Sweeps all the glory of the scene to naught, 
 And there remains but ruins old and gray, 
 And screaming birds of night and foul morass, — 
 E'en so have I with a short single word, 
 Enchanted Nature's blooming loveliness. 
 There lies she now, lifeless and cold and pale, 
 E'en like a monarch's corse laid out in state, 
 The royal deathly cheeks fresh stained with rouge, 
 And in his hand the kingly sceptre laid, 
 Yet still his lips are yellow and most changed, 
 For they forget to dye them, as they should, 
 And mice are jumping o'er the monarch's nose, 
 And mock the golden sceptre in his grasp. 
 
 It is an universal regulation, Madame, that every one should 
 deliver a soliloquy before shooting himself. Most men, on such occa* 
 
— 171 — 
 
 sions, use Hamlet's " To be, or not to be." It is an excellent pas- 
 sage, and I would gladly have quoted it- — but charity begins at 
 home, and when a man has written tragedies himself, in which such 
 farewell-to-life speeches occur, as for instance, in my immortal 
 " Almansor," it is very natural that one should prefer his own words 
 even to Shakspeare's. At any rate the delivery of such speeches 
 is an excellent custom ; for thereby one gains at least a little time. 
 And as it came to pass that I remained a long time standing on the 
 the corner of the Strada San Giovanni — and as I stood there like a 
 condemned criminal awaiting death, I raised my eyes, and suddenly 
 beheld her. 
 
 She wore her blue silk dress and rose-red bonnet, and her eyes 
 beamed on me so mild, so death-conqueringly, so life-givingly. — 
 Madame, you well know, that when the vestals in ancient Rome, met 
 on their way a malefactor condemned to death, they had the right to 
 pardon him, and the poor rogue lived. — With a single glance she 
 saved my life, and I stood before her revived, and dazzled by the 
 sunny gleaming of her beauty, and she passed on — and left me alive. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 And she saved my life, and I live, and that is the main point. 
 
 Others may, if they choose, enjoy the good fortune of having their 
 lady-love adorn their graves with garlands and water them with the 
 
 tears of true love, Oh, women ! hate me, laugh at me, mitten 
 
 me ! — but let me live ! Life is all too wondrous sweet, and the world 
 is so beautifully bewildered; it is the dream of an intoxicated 
 divinity who has taken French leave of the tippling multitude of im- 
 mortals, and has laid down to sleep in a solitary star, and knows not 
 himself that he also creates all that which he dreams — and the dream 
 images form themselves often so fantastically wildly, and often so 
 harmoniously and reasonably. The Iliad, Plato, the battle of Mara- 
 thon, Moses, the Medician Yenus, the Cathedral of Strasburg, the 
 French Revolution, Hegel and steamboats, &c, &c, are other good 
 thoughts in this divine dream — but it will not last long, and the 
 
 immortal one awakes and rubs his sleepy eyes, and smiles and 
 
 our world has run to nothing — yes, has never been. 
 
 No matter ! I live. If I am but the shadowy image in a dream, 
 still this is better than the cold black void annihilation of Death. 
 
— 172 — 
 
 Life is the greatest of blessings and death the worst of evils. Berlin 
 lieutenants of the guard may sneer and call it cowardice, because the 
 Prince of Homburg shudders when he beholds his open grave. 
 Henry Kleist had, however, as much courage as his high breasted, 
 tightly laced colleagues, and has, alas ! proved it. But all great, 
 powerful souls love life. Goethe's Egmont does not cheerfully take 
 leave " of the eheerful wontedness of being and action." Immerman's 
 Edwin clings to life " like a child upon the mother's breast." And 
 though he finds it hard to live by stranger mercy, he still begs for 
 mercy : " For life and breath is still the best of boons." 
 
 "When Odysseus in the lower world regards Achilles as the leader 
 of dead heroes, and extols his renown among the living, and his glory 
 even among the dead, the latter replies : 
 
 No more discourse of death, consolingly, noble Odysseus! 
 Rather would I in the field as daily laborer be toiling, 
 Slave to the meanest of men, a pauper and lacking possessions, 
 Than mid the infinite host of long vanished mortals be ruler. 
 
 Yes, when Major Duvent challenged the great Israel Lyon to 
 fight with pistols and said to him : " If you do not meet me, Mr. 
 Lyon, you are a dog;" the latter replied ' I would rather be a live 
 dog than a dead lion !" — and was right. I have fought often enough 
 Madame to dare to say this — God be praised ! I live ! Red life boils 
 in my veins, earth yields beneath my feet, in the glow of love I 
 embrace trees and statues, and they live in my embrace. Every 
 woman is to me the gift of a world. I revel in the melody of her 
 countenance, and with a single glance of my eye I can enjoy more 
 than others with their every limb through all their lives. Every 
 instant is to me an eternity, I do not measure time with the ell of 
 Brabant or of Hamburg, and I need no priest to promise me a second 
 life, for I can live enough in this life, when I live backwards in the 
 life of those who have gone before me, and win myself an eternity in 
 the realm of the past. 
 
 And I live ! The great pulsation of nature beats too in my breast, 
 and when I carol aloud, I am answered by a thousand-fold echo. I 
 hear a thousand nightingales. Spring hath sent them to awaken 
 Earth from her morning slumber, and Earth trembles with ecstasy, 
 her flowers are hymns, which she sings in inspiration to the sun — the 
 sun moves far too slowly, I would fain lash on his steeds that they 
 might advance more rapidly. — But when he sinks hissing in the sea, 
 and the night rises with her great eyes, oh! then true pleasure first 
 
— 173 — 
 
 thrills through me like a new life, the evening breezes lie like flattering 
 maidens on my wild heart, and the stars wink to me, and I rise and 
 sweep over the little earth and the little thoughts of mankind.* 
 
 CHAPTEE IY. 
 
 But a day must come when the fire of youth will be quenched in 
 my veins, when winter will dwell in my heart, when his snow flakes 
 will whiten my locks, and his mists will dim my eyes. Then my 
 friends will lie in their lonely grave, and I alone will remain like a 
 solitary stalk forgotten by the reaper. A new race will have sprung 
 up with new desires and new ideas, full of wonder I hear new names 
 and listen to new songs, for the old names are forgotten and I myself 
 am forgotten, perhaps honored by but few, scorned by many and loved 
 by none ! And then the rosy cheeked boys will spring around me 
 aud place the old harp in my trembling hand, and say, laughing, 
 "Thou indolent grey-headed old man, sing us again songs of the 
 dreams of thy youth." 
 
 * The reader has already been forewarned in the preface that Heine's writings abound 
 in the harshest, at times most repulsive, expressions of his views. In these chapters 
 we see him under two influences — that of Hegelian atheism and Hellenic sensuousness, 
 or of a purely material Greek nature-worship. In one of his latest poems, a translation 
 from which appeared in the London Athenaeum, March 31, 1856, we find evidences of a 
 fearful though occasional reaction from this early intoxication : 
 " How wearily time crawls along, — 
 
 That hideous snail that hastens not, — 
 While I, without the power to move, 
 Am ever fixed to one dull spot. 
 
 " Upon my dreary chamber wall 
 
 No gleam of sunshine can I trace 
 I know that only for the grave, 
 Shall I exchange this hopeless place. 
 
 u Perhaps already I am dead, 
 
 And these perhaps are phantoms vain ; — 
 These motley phantasies that pass 
 
 At night through my disordered brain. 
 
 "Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, 
 Old faüed gods, this brain is full ; 
 Who, for their most unholy rites, 
 Have chosen a dead poet's skull. 
 " And charming frightful orgies hold. — 
 The mad-cap phantoms ! — all the night, 
 That in the morning this dead hand 
 About their revelries may write." 
 
 [Note by Translator.] 
 
 15* 
 
— 174 — 
 
 Then I will grasp the harp and my old joys and sorrows will awake, 
 tears will again gleam on my pale cheeks. Spring will bloom once 
 more in my breast, sweet tones of woe will tremble on the harp-strings. 
 I will see once more the blue flood and the marble palaces and the 
 lovely faces of ladies and young girls — and 1 will sing a song of the 
 flowers of Brenta. 
 
 It will be my last song, the stars will gaze on me as in the nights of 
 my youth, the loving moonlight will once more kiss my cheeks, the 
 spirit chorus of nightingales long dead will sound from afar, my eyes 
 intoxicated with sleep will softly close, my soul will re-echo with the 
 notes of my harp — perfume breathes from the flowers of the Brenta. 
 
 A tree will shadow my grave. I would gladly have it a palm, but 
 that tree will not grow in the North. It will be a linden, and of a 
 summer evening lovers will sit there caressing ; the green finches 
 will be listening silently, and my linden will rustle protectingly over 
 the heads of the happy ones who will be so happy that they will have 
 no time to read what is written on the white tomb-stone. But when 
 at a later day, the lover has lost his love, then he will come again to 
 the well-known linden, and sigh, and weep, and gaze long and oft upon 
 the stone until he reads the inscription : " He loved the flowers of the 
 Brenta." 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Madame ! I have been telling yon lies. I am not the Count of the 
 Ganges. Never in my life did I see the holy stream, nor the lotus 
 flowers, which are mirrored in its sacred waves. Never did I lie 
 dreaming under Indian palms, nor in prayer before the Diamond Deity 
 J uggernaut, who with his diamonds might have easily aided me out 
 of my difficulties. I have no more been in Calcutta than the turkey, 
 of which I ate yesterday at dinner, had ever been in the realms 
 of the Grand Turk. Yet my ancestors came from Hindostan, and 
 therefore I feel so much at my ease in the great forest of song 
 of Yalmiki. The heroic sorrows of the divine Ramo, move my heart 
 like familiar griefs, from the flower lays of Kalidasa the sweetest 
 memories bloom, and when a few years ago, a gentle lady in Berlin 
 showed me the beautiful pictures, which her father, who had been 
 Governor-General in India, had brought from thence, the delicately 
 painted, holy, calm faces, seemed as familiar to me as though I were 
 gazing at my own family gallery. 
 
— 175 — 
 
 Franz Bopp— Madame you have of course read his Nalus and his 
 System of Conjugations — gave me much information relative to my 
 ancestry, and I now know with certainty that I am descended from 
 Brahma's head, and not from his corns. I have also good reason to 
 believe that the entire Mahabarata with its two hundred thousand 
 verses is merely an allegorical love-letter, which my first fore-father 
 wrote to my first fore-mother. Oh ! they loved dearly, their souls 
 kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss. 
 
 An enchanted nightingale sits on a red coral bough in the silent 
 sea, and sings a song of the love of my ancestors, earnestly gaze the 
 pearls from their shelly cells, the wondrous water-flowers tremble 
 with sad longing, the cunning-quaint sea-snails bearing on their backs 
 many-coloured porcelain towers come creeping onwards, the ocean- 
 roses blush with shame, the yellow, sharp-pointed starfish, and the 
 thousand hued glassy jelly-fish quiver and stretch, and all swarm and 
 crowd and listen. 
 
 Unfortunately, Madame, this nightingale song is far too long to 
 admit of translation here ; it is as long as the world itself — even its 
 mere dedication to Anangas, the God of Love, is as long as all Sir 
 Walter Scott's novels together, and there is a passage referring to it 
 in Aristophanes, which in German* reads thus : 
 
 " Tiotio, tiotio, tiotiDX, 
 Totototo, totototo, tototinx." 
 
 [Voss's Translation.] 
 
 No, I was not born in India. I first beheld the light of the world 
 on the shores of that beautiful stream, in whose green hills folly 
 grows and is plucked in Autumn, laid away in cellars, poured into 
 barrels, and exported to foreign lands. 
 
 In fact, only yesterday I heard some one speaking a piece of 
 
 folly which, in the year 1818, was imprisoned in a bunch of grapes, 
 which I myself then saw growing on the Johannisburg. — But much 
 folly is also consumed at home, and men are the same there as every- 
 where : they are born, eat, drink, sleep, laugh, cry, slander each 
 other, are in great trouble and care about the continuation of their 
 race, try to seem what they are not and to do what they cannot, never 
 shave until they have a beard, and often have beards before they 
 get discretion, and when they at last have discretion, they drink it 
 away in white and red folly. 
 
 * Or in English. 
 
— 176 — 
 
 Mon dien t if I had faith, so that I could remove mountains — the 
 J ohannisburg would be just the mountain which I would transport 
 about everywhere. But not having the requisite amount of faith, 
 fantasy must aid me — and she at once bears me to the beautiful 
 Ehine. 
 
 Oh, there is a fair land, full of loveliness and sunshine. In its blue 
 streams are mirrored the mountain shores, with their ruined towers, 
 and woods, and ancient towns. There, before the house-door, sit the 
 good people, of a summer evening, and drink out of great cans, and 
 gossip confidingly, — how the wine — the Lord be praised ! — thrives, 
 and how justice should be free from all secrecy, and Marie Antoi- 
 nette's being guillotined is none of our business, and how dear the 
 tobacco tax makes the tobacco, and how all mankind are equal, and 
 what a glorious fellow Gozrres is. 
 
 I have never troubled myself much with such conversation, and 
 greatly preferred sitting by the maidens in the arched window, and 
 laughed at their laughing, and let them strike me in the face with 
 flowers, and feigned ill-nature until they told me their secrets, or some 
 other story of equal importance. Fair Gertrude was half wild with 
 delight when I sat by her. She was a girl like a flamiDg rose, and 
 once as she fell on my neck, I thought that she would burn away in 
 perfumes in my arms. Fair Katharine melted in musical sweetness 
 when she talked with me, and her eyes were of that pure, perfect 
 internal bluo, which I have never seen in animated beings, and very 
 seldom in flowers — one gazed so gladly into them, and could then 
 ever imagine the sweetest things. But the beautiful Hedwiga loved 
 me, for when I came to her she bowed her head till the black locks 
 fell down over the blushing countenance, and the gleaming eyes shone 
 forth like stars from a dark heaven. Her diffident lips spoke not a 
 word, and even I could say nothing to her. I coughed and she 
 trembled. She often begged me, through her sisters, not to climb 
 the rocks so eagerly, or to bathe in the Rhine when I had exercised 
 or drunk wine until I was heated. Once I overheard her pious prayer 
 to the image of the Virgin Mary, which she had adorned with leaf 
 gold and illuminated with a gloAving lamp, and which stood in a cor- 
 ner of the sitting-room. She prayed to the Mother of God to keep 
 me from climbing, drinking and bathing ! I should certainly have 
 been desperately in love with her had she manifested the least indif- 
 ference, and I was indifferent because I knew that she loved me. 
 Madame, if any one would win my love, they must treat mc en 
 canaille. 
 
— 177 — 
 
 Johanna was the cousin of the three sisters, and I was right glad 
 .to be with her, She knew the most beautiful old legends, and when 
 she pointed with the whitest hand in the world through the window 
 out to the mountains where all had happened which she narrated, 
 I became fairly enchanted. The old knights rose visibly from the 
 ruined castles and hewed away at each other's iron clothes, the Lorely 
 sat again on the mountain summit, singing a-down her sweet seductive 
 song, and the Ehine rippled so intelligibly, so calmingly — and yet at 
 the same time so mockingly and strangely — and the fair Johanna 
 gazed at me so bewilderingly, so mysteriously, so enigmatically con- 
 fiding, as though she herself were one with the legend which she 
 narrated. She was a slender, pale beauty, sickly and musing, her 
 eyes were clear as truth itself, her lips piously arched, in her features 
 lay a great untold story — perhaps a love legend ? I know not what 
 it was, nor had I ever courage to ask. When I gazed long upon 
 her I became calm and cheerful — it seemed to me as though there 
 were a tranquil Sunday in my heart, and that the angels were holding 
 church service there. 
 
 In such happy hours I told her tales of my childhood, and she 
 listened earnestly to me, and singular ! when I could not think of 
 this or that name, she remembered it. When I then asked her with 
 wonder where she had learned the name, she would answer with a 
 smile that she had learned it of a little bird which had built its nest 
 on the sill of her window — and she tried to make me believe that 
 it was the same bird which I once bought with my pocket money 
 from a hard-hearted peasant boy, and then let fly away. But I 
 believed that she knew everything because she was so pale, and 
 really soon died. She also knew when she must die, and wished 
 that I would leave Andernach the day before. When I bade her 
 farewell she gave me both her hands — they were white, sweet hands, 
 and- pure as the Host — and she said : thou art very good, and when 
 thou art bad, then think of the little dead Veronica. 
 
 Did the chattering birds also tell her tin's name ? Often in hours 
 when desirous of recalling the past, I had wearied my brain in trying 
 to think of that dear name, and could not. 
 
 And now that I have it again, my earliest infancy shall bloom 
 again in recollections — and I am again a child, and play with other 
 children in the Castle Court at Düsseldorf, on the Rhine. 
 
— 178 — 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Yes, Madame, there was I born, and I am particular in calling 
 attention to this fact, lest after my death seven cities — those of 
 Schiida, Krähwinkel, Polwitz, Bockum, Dülken, Göttingen, and 
 Schöppenstadt* — should contend for the honour of having witnessed 
 my birth. Düsseldorf is a town on the Rhine, where about sixteen 
 thousand mortals live, and where many hundred thousands are buried. 
 And among them are many of whom my mother says it were better if 
 they were still alive — for example, my grandfather and my uncle, the 
 old Herr von Gelden, and the young Herr von Gelden, who were 
 both such celebrated doctors, and saved the lives of so many men, and 
 yet at last must both die themselves. And good pious Ursula, who 
 bore me, when a child, in her arms, also lies buried there, and a rose- 
 bush grows over her grave — she loved rose-perfume so much in her 
 life, and her heart was all rose-perfume and goodness. And the 
 shrewd old Canonicus also lies there buried. Lord, how miserable he 
 looked when I last saw him ! He consisted of nothing but soul and 
 plasters, and yet he studied night and day as though he feared lest 
 the worms might find a few ideas missing in his head. Little 
 William also lies there — and that is my fault. "We were schoolmates 
 in the Franciscan cloister, and were one day playing on that side of 
 the building where the Düssel flows between stone walls, and I said, 
 " William — do get the kitten out, which has just fallen in !" and he 
 cheerfully climbed out on the board which stretched over the brook, 
 and pulled the cat out of the water, but fell in himslf, and when they 
 took him out he was dripping and dead. The kitten lived to a good 
 old age. 
 
 The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when 
 in foreign lands and happen at the same time to have been born there, 
 strange feelings come over the soul. I was born there, and feel as 
 if I must go directly home. And when I say home I mean the 
 Volkerstrasse and the house where I was born. This house will be 
 some day very remarkable, and I have sent word to the old lady who 
 owns it, that she must not for her life sell it. For the whole house 
 she would now hardly get as much as the present which the green 
 
 * All insignificant towns — with the exception of Göttingen, which is here supposed to 
 be equally insignificant.— Note by the Translator. 
 
— 179 — 
 
 veiled English ladies wall give the servant girl when she shows them 
 the room where I was born and the hen-house wherein my father 
 generally imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door 
 on which my mother taught me to write with chalk — oh Lord! 
 Madame — should I ever become a famous author, it has cost my 
 poor mother trouble enough. 
 
 But my renown as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of 
 Carrara ; the waste paper laurel with which they have bedecked 
 my brow, has not spread its perfume through the wide world, and 
 the green veiled English ladies, when they visit Düsseldorf, leave 
 the celebrated house un visited, and go directly to the Market 
 Place and there gaze on the colossal black equestrian statue which 
 stands in its midst. This represents the Prince Elector, Jan Wil- 
 helm. He wears black armour and a long, hanging wig. When a 
 boy, I was told that the artist who made this statue observed with 
 terror while it was being cast that he had not metal enough to fill 
 the mould, and then all the citizens of the town came running with 
 all their silver spoons, and threw them in to make up the deficiency 
 — and I often stood for hours before the statue wondering how many 
 spoons were concealed in it, and how many apple-tarts the silver 
 would buy. Apple tarts were then my passion — now it is love, 
 truth, liberty and crab soup — and not far from the statue of the 
 Prince Elector, at the Theatre corner, generally stood a curiously 
 constructed sabre-legged rascal with a white apron, and a basket girt 
 around him full of smoking apple tarts, which he well knew how to 
 praise with an irresistible voice. " Here you are ! hot apple tarts ! 
 just from the oven — see how they smoke — quite delicious !" Truly, 
 whenever in my later years the Evil One sought to win me, he always 
 cried in just such an enticing soprano voice, and I should certainly 
 have never remained twelve hours by the Signora Guilietta, if she 
 had not thrilled me with her sweet perfumed apple-tart-tones. And 
 in fact the apple tarts would never have so sorely tempted me, if 
 the crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with 
 his white aprons — and it is aprons, you know, which — but I wander 
 from the subject. I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has 
 so many silver spoons in it, and no soup, and which represents the 
 Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm. 
 
 He was a brave gentleman 'tis reported, and was himself a man of 
 genius. He founded the picture gallery in Düsseldorf, and in the 
 observatory there, they show a very curiously executed piece of 
 wooden work, consisting of one box within another, which he, himself, 
 
— 180 — 
 
 had carved in his leisure hours, of which latter, he had every day four 
 and twenty. 
 
 In those days princes were not the persecuted wretches which they 
 now are. Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at night they 
 drew their caps over it and slept in peace, and their people slumbered 
 calmly at their feet, and when they awoke in the morning they said 
 " Good morning, father I" — and he replied " Good morning, dear 
 children !" 
 
 But there came a sudden change over all this, for one morning when 
 we awoke, and would say " Good morning, father !" the father had 
 travelled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but dumb 
 sorrow. Everywhere there was a funeral-like expression, and people 
 slipped silently through tho market and read the long paper placed 
 on the door of the townhouse. It was dark and lowering, yet the 
 lean tailor Kilian stood in the nankeen jacket, which he generally 
 wore only at home, and in his blue woollen stockings so that his little 
 bare legs peeped out as if in sorrow, and his thin lips quivered as he 
 read, murmuringly, the handbill. An old invalid soldier from the 
 Palatine, read it in a somewhat louder tone, and little by little a 
 transparent tear ran down his white, honorable old mustache. I 
 stood near him and asked why we wept? And he replied " The Prince 
 Elector has abdicated." And then he read further, and at the words 
 " for the long manifested fidelity of my subjects," " and hereby release 
 you from allegiance," he wept still more. It is a strange sight to see, 
 when so old a man, in faded uniform, with a scarred veteran's face, sud- 
 denly bursts into tears. While we read, the Princely Electoral coat 
 of arms was being taken down from the Town Hall, and everything 
 began to appear as miserably dreary as though we were waiting for 
 an eclipse of the sun. The gentlemen town councillors went about 
 at an abdicating wearisome gait, even the omnipotent beadle looked 
 as though he had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indif- 
 ferent, although the crazy Aloyisics, stood upon one leg and chat- 
 tered the names of French generals, while the tipsy, crooked 
 Gümpertz rolled around in the gutter, singing ca ira! ca ira! 
 
 But I went home, weeping and lamenting because " the Prince 
 Elector had abducted!" My mother had trouble enough to explain 
 the word but I would hear nothing. I knew what I knew, and went 
 weeping to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world had come to 
 an end — that all the fair flower gardens and green meadows of the 
 world were taken up and rolled up, and put away like carpets and 
 baize from the floor, that a beadle climbed up on a high ladder and 
 
— 181 — 
 
 took down the sun, and that the tailor Kilian stood by and said to 
 himself " I must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and 
 am to be buried this afternoon." And it grew darker and darker — a 
 few stars glimmered sparely on high, and these at length fell down 
 like yellow leaves in Autumn, one by one all men vanished, and I a 
 poor child, wandered in anguish around, until before the willow fence 
 of a deserted farm-house, I saw a man digging up the earth with a 
 spade, and near him an ugly, spiteful looking woman, who held some- 
 thing in her apron like a human head — but it was the moon, and she 
 laid it carefully in the open grave — and behind me stood the Palatine 
 iuvalid, sighing and spelling "The Prince Elector has abducted." 
 
 When I awoke, the sun shone as usual through the window, there 
 was a sound of drums in the street, and as I entered the sitting 
 room and wished my father — who was sitting in his white dressing 
 gown — a good morning, I heard the little light-footed barber, as he 
 made up his hair, narrate very minutely that homage would that 
 morning be offered at the Town Hall to the Arch Duke Joachim. I 
 heard, too, that the new ruler was of excellent family, that he had 
 married the sister of the Emperor Napoleon, and was really a very 
 respectable man — that he wore his beautiful black hair in 11 owing 
 locks, that he would shortly enter the town, and in fine that he must 
 please all the ladies. Meanwhile, the drumming in the streets con- 
 tinued, and I stood before the house-door and looked at the Frf.uch 
 troops marching in that joyful race of fame, who, singing and playing, 
 swept over the world, the merry, serious faces of the grenadiers, the 
 bear-skin shakoes, the tri-coloured cockades, the glittering bayonets, 
 the roltigeurs full of vivacity and point d'honneur, and the omnipotent 
 giant-like silver laced Tambour Major, who cast his baton with a 
 gilded head as high as the second story, and his eyes to the third, 
 where pretty girls gazed from the windows. I was so glad that sol- 
 diers were to be quartered in our house — in which my mother differed 
 from me — and I hastened to the market-place. There everything 
 looked changed — somewhat as though the world had* been new white- 
 washed. A new coat of arms was placed on the Town Hall, its iron 
 balconies were hung with embroidered velvet drapery. French grena- 
 diers stood as sentinels, the old gentlemen town councillors had put 
 on new faces, and donned their Sunday coats and looked at each 
 other Frenchily, and said "Bon jour T ladies looked from every 
 window, curious citizens and armed soldiers filled the square, and I, 
 with other boys, climbed on the great bronze horse of the Prince 
 Elector, and thence gazed down on the motley crowd. 
 
 16 
 
— 182 — 
 
 Our neighbor's Peter, and tall Jack Short nearly broke their 
 necks in accomplishing this feat, and it would have been better if 
 they had been killed outright, for the one afterwards ran away from 
 his parents, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot in 
 Mayence, while the other, having made geographical researches in 
 strange pockets, was on this account elected member of a public 
 tread-mill institute. But having broken the iron bands which bound 
 him to his fatherland, he passed safely beyond sea, and eventually 
 died in London, in consequence of wearing a much too long cravat, 
 one end of which happened to be firmly attached to something, just 
 as a royal official removed a plank from beneath his feet. 
 
 Tall Jack told us that there was no school to-day on account of 
 the homage. We had to wait a long time ere this was over. 
 Finally the balcony of the Council House was filled with gaily dressed 
 gentlemen, with flags and trumpets, and our burgomaster, in his cele- 
 brated red coat, delivered an oration, which stretched out like India 
 rubber or like a night-cap into which one has thrown a stone — only 
 that it was not the stone of wisdom — and I could distinctly under- 
 stand many of his phrases, for instance that "we are now to be made 
 happy" — and at the last words the trumpets sounded out and the 
 people cried hurrah ! — and as I myself cried hurrah, I held fast to 
 the old Prince Elector. And it was really necessary that I should, 
 for I began to grow giddy. It seemed to me as if the people were 
 standing on their heads because the world whizzed around, while the 
 old Prince Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, " Hold 
 fast to me !" — and not till the cannon re-echoed along the wall did I 
 become sobered, and climbed slowly down from the great bronze 
 horse. 
 
 As I went home I saw the crazy Aloyisius again dancing on one 
 leg, while he chattered the names of French generals, and I also be- 
 held crooked Gumpertz rolling in the gutter and growling ca ira, ca, 
 ira, and I said to my mother that we were all to be made happy, and 
 that on that account we had that day no school. 
 
— 183 — 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school 
 as before, and things were got by heart as before — the Roman Em- 
 perors, chronology — the nomina in im, the verba irregularia — Greek, 
 Hebrew, geography, German, mental arithmetic — Lord ! my head is 
 still giddy with it ! — all must be thoroughly learned. And much of 
 it was eventually to my advantage. For had I not learned the 
 Roman Emperors by heart, it would subsequently have been a mat- 
 ter of perfect indifference to me whether Niebuhr had or had not 
 proved that they never really existed. And had I not learned the 
 numbers of the different years, how could I ever, in later years, have 
 found out any one in Berlin, where one house is as like another as 
 drops of water, or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a 
 friend unless you have the number of his house in your head. There- 
 fore I associated with every friend some historical event, which had 
 happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that 
 the one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always 
 occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For 
 instance, when I met my tailor I at once thought of the Battle of 
 Marathon; if I saw the banker Christian Gumpel, I remembered 
 the destruction of Jerusalem ; if a Portugese friend, deeply in debt, 
 of the flight of Mahomet ; if the University Judge, a man whose 
 probity is well known, of the death of Haman ; and if Wadzeck, I 
 was at once reminded of Cleopatra. — Ah, heaven ! the poor creature 
 is dead now, our tears are dry, and we may say of her, with Hamlet, 
 "Take her for all in all, she was an old woman — we oft shall look 
 upon her like again !" But as I said, chronology is necessary. I 
 know men who have nothing in their heads but a few years, yet who 
 know exactly where to look for the right houses, and are, moreover, 
 regular professors. But oh, the trouble I had at school with my 
 learning to count ! — and it went even worse with the ready reckoning. 
 I understood best of all, subtraction, and for this I had a very practi- 
 cal rule — " Four can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow 
 one" — but I advise all, in such a case, to borrow a few extra dollars, 
 for no one can tell what may happen. 
 
 But oh ! the Latin ! — Madame, you can really have no idea of what 
 a mess it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer 
 the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs! 
 
— 184 — 
 
 they already knew in their cradles the nouns ending in im. I on the 
 contrary had to learn it by heart, in the sweat of my brow, but still 
 it is well that I knew it. For if I, for example, when I publicly dis- 
 puted in Latin, in the College Hall of Göttingen on the 20th of July, 
 1825 — Madame, it was well worth while to hear it — if I, I say, had 
 said, sinapem instead of sinapim, the blunder would have been evi- 
 dent to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. Vis, burte, sitis, 
 tussis, cucumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis. — These words which have 
 attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, inasmuch as 
 they belonged to a determined class, and yet were withal an excep- 
 tion. And the fact that I have them ready at my finger's ends when 
 I perhaps need them in a hurry, often affords me in life's darkened 
 hours, much internal tranquillity and spiritual consolation. But, 
 Madame, the verba irregularis! — they are distinguished from the verbis 
 regularibus by the fact that the boys in learning them get more 
 whippings — are terribly difficult. In the arched way of the Francis- 
 can cloister near our school-room, there hung a large Christ-crucified of 
 grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times rises in my dreams and 
 gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding eyes — before this image 
 I often stood and prayed. " Oh thou poor and also tormented God, 
 I pray thee, if it be possible, that I may get by heart the irregular 
 verbs !" 
 
 I will say nothing of Greek — otherwise I should vex myself too 
 much. The monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the 
 wrong when they asserted that Greek was' an invention of the Devil. 
 Lord knows what I suffered through it. It went better with Hebrew, 
 for I always had a great predilection for the Jews, although they to 
 this very hour have crucified my good name. In fact I never could 
 get so far in Hebrew as my watch did, which had a much more inti- 
 mate intercourse with pawnbrokers than I, and in consequence 
 acquired many Jewish habits — for instance, it would not go on Satur- 
 day — and it learned the holy language, and was subsequently occu- 
 pied with its grammar, for often when sleepless in the night I have 
 to my amazement heard it industriously repeating : Jcatal, katalta, 
 katalki — kit/el, kitfalta, kiftalti — pakat, pokadeti — pikai — pik — pik. 
 
 Meanwhile I learned more of German than of any other tongue, 
 though German itself is not such child's play, after all. For we poor 
 Germans, who have already been sufficiently vexed with having 
 soldiers quartered on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand 
 other exactions, must needs over and above all this, bag Mr. Adelung, 
 and torment each other with accusatives and datives. I learned much 
 
— 185 — 
 
 German from the old Rector Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, 
 whose protege I was from childhood. Something of the matter I 
 also learned from Professor Schramm, a man who had written a book 
 on eternal peace, and in whose class my school fellows quarrelled and 
 fought with unusual vigor. 
 
 And while thus dashing on in a breath, and thinking of everything 
 I have unexpectedly found myself back among old school stories,, and 
 I avail myself of this opportunity to mention, Madame, that it was 
 not my fault, if I learned so little of geography, that later in life T 
 could not make my way in the world. For in those days the French 
 made an intricate mixture of all limits and boundaries, every day 
 lands were re-coloured on the world's map ; those which were once 
 blue suddenly became green, many indeed were even dyed blood- 
 red, the old established rules were so confused and confounded that 
 the Devil himself would never have remembered them. The products 
 of the country were also changed, chickory and beets now grew where 
 only hares and hunters running after them were once to be seen ; 
 even the character of different races changed, the Germans became 
 pliant, the French paid compliments no longer, the English ceased 
 making ducks and drakes of their money, and the Venetians were not 
 subtle enough ; there was promotion among princes, old kings obtained 
 new uniforms, new kingdoms were cooked up and sold like hot cakes, 
 many potentates were chased on the other hand from house and home, 
 and had to find some new way of earning their bread, while others 
 went at once at a trade, and manufactured for instance, sealing-wax, 
 or — Madame, this paragraph must be brought to an end, or I shall 
 be out of breath — in fine, in such times it is impossible to advance 
 far in geography. 
 
 1 succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer 
 changes and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, - 
 zebras, rhinoceroses, &c, &c. And having many such pictures in 
 my memory, it often happens that at first sight many mortals appear 
 to me like old acquaintances. 
 
 I also did well in mythology, and took a real delight in the mob 
 of gods and goddesses who ran so jolly naked about the world. I 
 do not believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew 
 the principal points of his catechism — that is, the loves of Yenus — 
 better than I. To tell the plain truth, it seems to me that if we 
 must learn all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept 
 them from the first, and we have not perhaps made so much out of 
 our New-Roman Trinity or our Jewish unity. Perhaps the old 
 
 16* 
 
— 186 - 
 
 mythology was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, 
 for example, a very decent idea of Homer to give to the much loved 
 Venus a husband. 
 
 But I succeeded best in the French class of the Abbe d'Aulnot, 
 a French emigre* who had written a number of grammars, and wore a 
 red wig, and jumped about very nervously when he recited his Art 
 jwetique, and his German history. He was the only one in the whole 
 gymnasium who taught German history. Still French has its diffi- 
 culties, and to learn it there must be much quartering of troops, 
 much drumming in, much apprendre par coeur, and above all, no one 
 should be a Bete allemande. From all this resulted many a cross 
 word, and I can remember as though it happened but yesterday, that 
 I got into many a scrape through la religion. I was once asked at 
 least six times in succession : " Henri, what is the French for ' the 
 faith V " And six times, ever more weepingly, I replied. " It is 
 called le credit.,' And after the seventh question, with his cheeks of 
 a deep red-cherry-rage colour, my furious examinator cried " It is 
 called la r&igicm" — and there was a rain of blows and a thunder of 
 laughter from all my schoolmates. Madame ! — since that day I never 
 hear the word religion, without having my back turn pale with terror, 
 and my cheeks turn red with shame. And to tell the honest truth, 
 le credit has during my life stood me in better stead than la religion. 
 It occurs to me just at this instant that I still owe the landlord of the 
 Lion, in Bologna, five dollars. And I pledge you my sacred word 
 of honour that I would willingly owe him five dollars more, if I could 
 only be certain that I should never again hear that unlucky word, 
 la religion, as long as I live. 
 
 Parbleu, Madame ! I have succeeded tolerably well in French. 
 For I understand not only patois, but even aristocratic governess 
 • French. Not long ago, when in noble society, I understood full 
 one-half of the conversation of two German countesses, one of ' 
 whom could count at least sixty-four years, and as many descents. 
 Yes — in the Caj'6 Royal, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel 
 Martens talking French, and could understand every word he spoke, 
 though there was no understanding in any thing he said. "We must 
 know the spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. 
 Parbleu 1 how much do I not owe to the French Drummer who was 
 so long quartered in our house, who looked like the Devil, and yet 
 had the good heart of an angel, and who above all this drummed so 
 divinely. 
 
 He was a little, nervous figure, with a terrible black mustache, 
 
— 187 — 
 
 beneath which, red lips came bounding suddenly outwards, while his 
 wild eyes shot fiery glances all around. 
 
 I, a young shaver, stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to clean 
 his military buttons till they shone like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his 
 vest — for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well — and I followed 
 him to the watch, to the roll-call, to the parade — in those times 
 there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment — les 
 jours de f6te sont passtes ! Monsieur Le Grand knew but a little 
 broken German, only the three principal words in every tongue — 
 "Bread," "Kiss," "Honour" — but he could make himself very in- 
 telligible with his drum. For instance, if I knew not what the word 
 liben meant, he drummed the Mirscillaise — and I understood him. 
 If I did not understand the word egalit6, he drummed the march 
 
 Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira^ 
 
 Les aristocrats a la Lanterne ! 
 
 and I understood him. If I did not know what hülse meant, he 
 drummed the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also 
 declares, have drummed in Champagne — and I understood him. He 
 once wanted to explain to me the word V Allemagne (or Germany) 
 and he drummed the all too simple melody, which on market days is 
 played to dancing dogs — namely, dum — dum — dumb t I was vexed 
 ■ — but I understood him, for all that ! 
 
 In like manner he taught me modern history. I did not under- 
 stand, it is true, the words which he spoke, but as he constantly 
 drummed while speaking, I understood him. This is, fundamentally, 
 the best method. The history of the storming of the Bastile, of the 
 Tuilleries and the like, cannot be correctly understood until we know 
 how the drumming was done on such occasions. In our school com- 
 pendiums of history we merely read : " Their excellencies, the Baron 
 and Count, with the most noble spouses of the aforesaid were 
 beheaded." Their highnesses the Dukes and Priuces with the most 
 noble spouses of the aforesaid were behead." " His Majesty the King 
 with his most sublime spouse, the Queen, was beheaded." But when 
 you hear the red march of the guillotine drummed, you understand it 
 correctly, for the first time, and with it, the how and the why. Madame 
 ■ — that is really a wonderful march ! It thrilled through marrow and 
 bone when I first heard it, and I was glad that I forgot it. People 
 are apt to forget one thing and another as they grow older, and a 
 young man has now-a-days so much and such a variety of knowledge 
 to keep in his head — whist, Boston, genealogical registers, parlia- 
 mentary conclusions, dramaturgy, the liturgy, carving — and yet, I 
 
— 188 — 
 
 assure yon, that despite all my jogging up of my brain, I could not for a 
 long time recall that tremendous tune ! And only to think, Madame ! 
 — not long ago, I sat one day at table with a whole menagerie of 
 Counts, Princes, Princesses, Chamberlains, Court-Marshal Lesses, 
 Seneschals, Upper Court Mistresses, Court-keepers-ot'-the-royal-plate, 
 Court-hunters' wives, and whatever else these aristocratic domestics 
 are termed, and their under-domestics ran about behind their chairs, 
 and shoved full plates before their mouths — but I, who was passed 
 by and neglected, sat at leisure without the least occupation for my 
 jaws, and kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed with my fingers — 
 and to my astonishment, I found myself suddenly drumming the red, 
 long-forgotten guillotine march! 
 
 " And what happened ?" — Madame, the good people were not in 
 the least disturbed, nor did they know that other people when they 
 can get nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very 
 queer marches, which people have long forgotten. 
 
 Is drumming now, an inborn talent, or was it early developed in 
 me ? — enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often 
 involuntarily manifests itself. I once sat at Berlin in the lecture-room 
 of the Privy Counsellor Schmaltz, a man who had saved the state by 
 his book on the "Ked and Black Coat Danger." — You remember, 
 perhaps, Madame, that in Pausanias we are told that by the braying 
 of an ass an equally dangerous plot was once discovered, and you also 
 know from Livy, or from Becker's History of the World, that geese 
 once saved the capital, and you must certainly know from Sallust 
 that by the chattering of a loquacious putain, the Lady Livia, that 
 the terrible conspiracy of Cataline came to light. But to return 
 to the mutton aforesaid. I listened to popular law and right, in the 
 lecture-room of the Herr Privy Councillor Schmaltz, and it was a 
 lazy sleepy summer afternoon, and I sat on the bench and little by 
 little I listened less and less — my head had gone to sleep — when 
 all at once I was wakened by the roll of my own feet, which had 
 not gone to sleep, and had probably observed that any thing but 
 popular rights and constitutional tendencies was being preached, and 
 my feet which, with the little eyes of their corns, had seen more of 
 how things go in the world than the Privy Councillor with his Juno- 
 eyes — these poor dumb feet, incapable of expressing their immea- 
 surable meaning by words, strove to make themselves intelligible 
 by drumming, and they drummed so loudly, that I thereby came 
 near getting into a terrible scrape. 
 
 Cursed, unreflecting feet ! They once acted as though they were 
 
— 189 — 
 
 corned indeed, when I on a time in Göttingen sponged without sub- 
 scribing on the lectures of Professor Saalfeld, and as this learned 
 gentleman, with his angular activity, jumped about here and there in 
 his pulpit, and heated himself in order to curse the Emperor Napoleon 
 in regular set style, right and left — no, my poor feet, I cannot blame 
 you for drumming then — indeed, I would not have blamed you if in 
 your dumb naivete" you had expressed yourselves by still more ener- 
 getic movements. How could I, the scholar of Le Grand, hear the 
 Emperor cursed ? The Emperor ! the Emperor ! the great Emperor ! 
 
 When I think of the great Emperor, all in my memory again 
 becomes summer-green and golden. A long avenue of lindens rises 
 blooming around, on the leafy twigs sit singing nightingales, the 
 water-fall rustles, flowers are growing from full round beds, dreamily 
 nodding their fair heads — I stood amidst them once in wondrous 
 intimacy, the rouged tulips, proud as beggars, condescendingly greeted 
 me, the nervous sick lilies nodded with woeful tenderness, the tipsy 
 red roses nodded at me at first sight from a distance, the night-violets 
 sighed — with the myrtle and laurel I was not then acquainted, for 
 they did not entice with a shining bloom, but the reseda, with whom 
 I am now on such bad terms, was my very particular friend. — I am 
 speaking of the court garden of Düsseldorf, where I often lay upon 
 the bank, and piously listened there when Monsieur Le Grand told 
 of the warlike feats of the great Emperor, beating meanwhile the 
 marches which were drummed during the deeds, so that I saw and 
 heard all to the life. I saw the passage over the Simplon — the Em- 
 peror in advance and his brave grenadiers climbling on behind him, 
 while the scream of frightened birds of prey sounded around, and 
 avalanches thundered in the distance— I saw the Emperor with flag 
 in hand on the bridge of Lodi — I saw the Emperor in his gray cloak 
 at Marengo — I saw the Emperor mounted in the battle of the Pyra- 
 mids — naught around save powder, smoke and Mamelukes — I saw 
 the Emperor in the battle of Austerlitz — ha ! how the bullets whistled 
 over the smooth, icy road !- — I saw, I heard the battle of Jena — 
 
 dum, dum, dum. — I saw, I heard the battles of Eylau, of Wagram . 
 
 no, I could hardly stand it ! Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that 
 1 nearly burst my own sheepskin. 
 
— 190 — 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 But what were my feelings when I first saw with highly blest and 
 with my own eyes him, Hosannah ! the Emperor 1 
 
 It was exactly in the avenue of the Court G-arden at Düsseldorf. 
 As I pressed through the gaping crowd, thinking of the doughty deeds 
 and battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, my 
 heart beat the " general march" — yet at the same time I thought of 
 the police regulation, that no one should dare under penalty of five 
 dollars fine, ride through the avenue. And the Emperor with his cortege 
 rode directly down the avenue. The trembling trees bowed towards 
 him as he advanced, the sun-rays quivered, frightened, yet curiously 
 through the green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there swam 
 visibly a golden star. The Emperor wore his invisible-green uniform 
 and the little world-renowned hat. He rode a white palfrey which 
 stepped with such calm pride, so confidently, so nobly — had I then 
 been Crown Prince of Prussia I would have envied that horse. The 
 Emperor sat carelessly, almost lazily, holding with one hand his 
 rein, and with the other good naturedly patting the neck of the 
 horse. — It was a sunny marble hand, a mighty hand — one of the pair 
 which bound fast the many-headed monster of anarchy, and reduced 
 to order the war of races — and it good naturedly patted the neck of 
 the horse. Even the face had that hue which we find in the marble 
 Greek and Roman busts, the traits were as nobly proportioned as in 
 the antiques, and on that countenance was plainly written, "Thou 
 shalt have no Gods before me 1" A smile, which warmed and tran- 
 quillized every heart, flitted over the lips — and yet all knew that those 
 lips needed but to whistle — et la Prusse n'existait plus — those lips 
 needed but to whistle — and the entire clergy would have stopped 
 their ringing and singing — those lips needed but to whistle — and the 
 entire holy Roman realm would have danced. It was an eye, clear as 
 Heaven, it could read the hearts of men, it saw at a glance all things 
 at once, and as they were in this world, while we ordinary mortals 
 see them only one by one and by their shaded hues. The brow was 
 not so clear, the phantoms of future battles were nestling there, and 
 there was a quiver which swept over the brow, and those were the 
 creative thoughts, the great seven-mile-boots thoughts, wherewith 
 the spirit of the Emperor strode invisibly over the world — and I 
 believe that every one of those thoughts would have given to a 
 German author full material wherewith to write, all the days of his 
 
— 191 — 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Emperor is dead. On a waste island in the Indian Sea lies 
 his lonely grave, and he for whom the world was too narrow, lies 
 silently under a little hillock, where five weeping willows hang their 
 green heads, and a gentle little brook, murmuring sorrowfully, ripples 
 by. There is no inscription on his tomb ; but Clio, with unerring- 
 pen, has written thereon invisible words, which will resound, like 
 spirit-tones, through thousands of years. 
 
 Britannia ! the sea is thine. But the sea hath not water enough to 
 wash away the shame with which the death of that Mighty One hath 
 covered thee. Not thy windy Sir Hudson — no, thou thyself wert 
 the Sicilian bravo with whom perjured kings bargained, that they 
 might revenge on the man of the people that which the people had 
 once inflicted on one of themselves. — And he was thy guest, and had 
 seated himself by thy hearth. 
 
 Until the latest times the boys of France Will sing and tell of the 
 terrible hospitality of the Bellerophon, and when those songs of 
 mockery and tears resound across the strait, there will be a blush on 
 the cheeks of every honorable Briton. But a day will come when 
 this song will ring thither, and there will be no Britannia in exis- 
 tence — when the people of Pride will be humbled to the earth, when 
 Westminster's monuments will be broken, and when the royal dust 
 which they enclosed will be forgotten. — And St. Helena is the Holy 
 Grave, whither the races of the East and of the "West will make their 
 pilgrimage in ships, with pennons of many a hue, and their hearts 
 will grow strong*with great memories of the deeds of the worldly 
 Saviour, who suffered and died under Sir Hudson Lowe, as it is writ- 
 ten in the evangelists, Las Casas, O'Meara and Autommarchi. 
 
 Strange! A terrible destiny has already overtaken the three 
 greatest enemies of the Emperor. Londonderry has cut his throat, 
 Louis XVIII has rotted away on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld 
 is still, as before, Professor in Göttingen. 
 
— 192 — 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It was a clear, frosty morning in autumn as a young man, whose 
 appearance denoted the student, slowly loitered through the avenue 
 of the Düsseldorf Court-Garden, often, as in child-like mood, push- 
 ing aside with wayward feet the leaves which covered the ground, and 
 often sorrowfully gazing towards the bare trees, on which a few gol- 
 den-hued leaves still fluttered in the breeze. As he thus gazed up, 
 he thought on the words of Glaucus : 
 
 Like the leaves in the forests, e'en so are the races of mortals ; 
 Leaves are blown down to the earth by the wind, while others are 
 driven 
 
 Away by the green budding wood, when fresh up-liveth the spring- 
 tide ; 
 
 So the races of man — this grows and the other departeth. 
 
 In earlier days the youth had gazed with far different eyes on the 
 same trees. When he was a boy he had there sought bird's nests or 
 summer chafers, which delighted his very soul, as they merrily 
 hummed around, and were glad in the beautiful world, and were con- 
 tented with a sap-green leaf and a drop of water, with a warm sun- 
 ray and with the perfume of the herbage. In those times the boy's 
 heart was as gay as the fluttering insects. But now his heart had 
 grown older, its little sun-rays were quenched, its flowers had faded, 
 even its beautiful dream of love had grown dim ; in that poor heart 
 was naught save wanton will and care, and to say the worst — it was 
 my heart. 
 
 I had returned that day to my old father-town, but I would not 
 remain there over night, and I longed for Godesberg, that I might 
 sit at the feet of my lady friend and tell of the little Veronica. I had 
 visited the dear graves. Of all my living friends, I had found but an 
 uncle and an aunt. Even when I met once known forms in the street, 
 they knew me no more, and the town itself gazed on me with strange 
 glances. Many houses were coloured anew, strange faces gazed on 
 me through the window-panes, worn out old sparrows hopped on the 
 old chimneys, everything looked dead and yet fresh, like a salad grow- 
 ing in a grave-yard ; where French was once spoken I now heard the 
 Prussian dialect ; even a little Prussian court had taken up its retired 
 dwelling there, and the poople bore court titles. The hair-dresser of 
 
— 103 — 
 
 my mother had now become the Court Hair-Dresser, and there were 
 Court-Tailors, Court-Shoemakers, Court-Bed-Bug-Destroyers, Court- 
 Groggeries — the whole town seemed to be s Court-Hospital for 
 courtly spiritual invalids. Only the old Prince Elector knew me, 
 he still stood in the same old place ; but he seemed to have grown 
 thinner. For just because he stood in the Market Place, he had had 
 a full view of all the miseries of the time, and people seldom grow fat 
 on such sights. I was as if in a dream, and thought of the legend of 
 the enchanted city, and hastened out of the gate, lest I should awake 
 too soon. I missed many a tree in the court-garden, and many had 
 grown crooked with age, and the four great poplars which once seemed 
 to me like green giants, had become smaller. Pretty girls were 
 walking here and there, dressed as gaily as wandering tulips. And I 
 had known these tulips when they were but little bulbs ; for ah ! they 
 were the neighbors' children with whom I had once played " Princess 
 in the Tower." But the fair maidens, whom I had once known as 
 blooming roses were now faded roses, and in many a high brow whose 
 pride had once thrilled my heart, Saturn had cut deep wrinkles with 
 his scythe. And now for the first time, and alas ! too late, I under- 
 stood what those glances meant, which they had once cast on the 
 adolescent boy ; for I had meanwhile in other lands fathomed the 
 meaning of similar glances in other lovely eyes. I was deeply moved 
 by the humble bow of a man, whom I had once known as wealthy and 
 respectable, and who had since become a beggar. Everywhere in 
 the world, we see that men when they once begin to fall, do so accord- 
 ing to Newton's theory, ever faster and faster in ratio as they descend 
 to misery. One, however, who did not seem to be in the least changed 
 was the little baron, who tripped merrily as of old through the Court 
 Garden, holding with one hand his left coat-skirt on highland with 
 the other swinging hither and thither his light cane ; — he still had 
 the same genial face as of old, its rosy bloom now somewhat concen- 
 trated towards the nose, but he had the same nine-pin hat as of old, 
 and the same old queue behind, only that the hairs which peeped from it 
 were now white instead of black. But merry as the old baron seemed, 
 it was still evident that he had suffered much sorrow, — his face would 
 fain conceal it, but the white hairs of his queue betrayed him behind 
 his back. Yet the queue itself seemed striving to lie, so merrily did 
 it shake. 
 
 I was not weary, but a fancy seized me to sit once more on the 
 wooden bench, on which I had once carved the name of my love. 1 
 
 n 
 
— 191 — 
 
 could hardly discover it among the many new names, which had since 
 been cut around. Ah ! once I slept upon this bench, and dreamed 
 of happiness and love. " Dreams are foams and gleams." And the 
 old plays of childhood came again to my soul, and with them old and 
 beautiful stories ! but a new treacherous game, and a new terrible 
 tale ever resounded through all, and it was the story of two poor souls 
 who were false to each other, and went so far in their untruth, that 
 they were at last unfaithful to the good God himself. It is a bad, 
 sad story, and when one has nothing better on hand to do, he can well 
 weep over it. Oh, Lord ! once the world was so beautiful, and the 
 birds sang thy eternal praise, and little Veronica looked at me with 
 silent eyes, and we sat by the marble statue before the castle court ; 
 — on one side lies an old ruined castle, wherein ghosts wander, and 
 at night a headless dame in long, trailing black-silken garments sweeps 
 around :^-on the other side is a high, white dwelling in whose upper 
 rooms gay pictures gleamed beautifully in their golden frames, while 
 below stood thousands of great books which Veronica and I beheld 
 with longing, when the good Ursula lifted us up to the window. — In 
 later years when I had become a great boy, I climbed every day to 
 the very top of the library ladder, and brought down the topmost 
 books, and read in them so long, that finally I feared nothing — least 
 of all ladies without heads — and became so wise that I forgot all the 
 old games and stories and pictures and little Veronica — whose very 
 name I also forgot. 
 
 But while I, sitting upon the bench in the Court-garden, dreamed 
 my way back into the past, there was a sound behind me of the con- 
 fused voices of men lamenting the ill fortune of the poor French soldiers, 
 who having been taken prisoners in the Russian war and sent to 
 Siberia, had there been kept prisoners for many a long year, though 
 peace had been re-established, and who now were returning home. 
 As I looked up, I beheld in reality several of these orphan children 
 of Fame. Through their tattered uniforms peeped naked misery, 
 deep sorrowing eyes were couched in their desolate faces, and though 
 mangled, weary, and mostly lame, something of the military manner 
 was still visible in their mien. Singularly enough, they were preceded 
 by a drummer who tottered along with a drum, and I shuddered as I 
 recalled the old legend of soldiers, who had fallen in battle, and who 
 by night rising again from their graves on the battle-field, and with 
 the drummer at their head, marched back to their native city. And 
 of them the old ballad sings thus : 
 
— 195 — 
 
 " He beat on the drum with might and main, 
 To their old night-quarters they go again ; 
 Through the lighted street they come ; 
 Trallerie — trallerei — trallera, 
 They march before Sweetheart's home. 
 
 Thus the dead return ere break of day, 
 Like tombstones white in their cold array, 
 
 And the drummer he goes before ; 
 
 Trallerie — trallerei — trallera, 
 And we see them come no more." 
 
 Truly the poor French drummer seemed to have risen but half 
 repaired from the grave. He was but a little shadow in a dirty 
 patched gray capote, a dead yellow countenance, with a great mus- 
 tache which hung down sorrowfully over his faded lips, his eyes were 
 like burnt out tinder, in which but a few sparks still gleamed, and 
 yet by one of those sparks I recognized Monsieur Le Grand. 
 
 He too recognized me and drew me to the turf, and we sat down 
 together as of old, when he taught me on the drum French and Modern 
 History. He had still the well known old drum, and I could not suffi- 
 ciently wonder how he has preserved it from Russian plunderers. And 
 he drummed again as of old, but without speaking a word. But though 
 his lips were firmly pressed together, his eyes spoke all the more, flash- 
 ing fiercely and victoriously, as he drummed the old marches. The 
 poplars near us trembled, as he again thundered forth the red march 
 of the guillotine. And he drummed as before, the old battles, the 
 deeds of the Emperor, and it seemed as though the drum itself were 
 a living creature which rejoiced to speak out its inner soul. I heard 
 once more the cannon thunder, the whistling of balls, the riot of 
 battle, the death rage of the Guards — I saw once more the waving 
 flags, again, the Emperor on his steed — but little by little there fell a 
 sad tone in amid the most stirring confusion, sounds rang from the 
 drum, in which the wildest hurrahs and the most fearful grief were 
 mysteriously mingled; it seemed a march of victory and a march of 
 death. Le Grand's eyes opened spirit-like and wide, and I saw in 
 them nothing but a broad white field of ice covered with corpses — it 
 was the battle of Moscow. 
 
 I had never imagined that the hard old drum could give forth such 
 wailing sounds as Monsieur Le Grand had drawn from it. They 
 were tears which he drummed, and they sounded ever softer and 
 
— 196 — 
 
 softer, and like a troubled echo, deep sighs broke from Le Grand's 
 breast. And they became ever more languid and ghost-like, his dry 
 hands trembled, as if from frost, he sat as in a dream, and stirred with 
 his drum-stick nothing but the air, and seemed listening to voices far 
 away, and at last he gazed on me with a deep — oh, so deep and 
 entreating a glance — I understood him — and then his head sunk 
 down on the drum. 
 
 In this life Monsieur Le Grand never drummed more. And his 
 drum never gave forth another sound, for it was not destined to 
 serve the enemies of liberty for their servile roll calls. I had well 
 understood the last entreating glance of Le Grand, and I at once 
 drew the rapier from my cane, and with it pierced the drum. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Du sublime au ridicule il tüy a qu'un pas, Madame ! 
 
 But life is in reality so terribly serious, that it would be insupport- 
 able were it not for these unions of the pathetic and the comic, as o*:» 
 poets well know. Aristophanes only exhibits the most harrow- 
 ing forms of human madness in the laughing mirror of wit, Goethe 
 only presumes to set forth the fearful pain of thought comprehending 
 its own nothingness in the doggrel of a puppet show, and Shaks- 
 feare puts the most agonizing lamentations on the misery of the 
 world in the mouth of a fool, who meanwhile rattles his cap and bells 
 in all the nervous suffering of pain. 
 
 They have all learned from the great First Poet, who, in his World 
 Tragedy in thousands of acts, knows how to carry liumor to the high- 
 est point, as we see every day. After the departure of the heroes, 
 the clowns and graciosos enter with their baubles and lashes, and after 
 the bloody scenes of the Revolution, there came waddling on the stage 
 the fat Bourbons, with their stale jokes and tender 'legitimate' bon 
 mots, and the old noblesse with their starved laughter hopped merrily 
 before them, while behind all, swept the pious Capuchins with can- 
 dles, cross and banners of the Church. Yes — even in the highest 
 pathos of the "World Tragedy, bits of fun slip in. It may be that 
 the desperate republican, who, like a Brutus, plunged a knife to his 
 heart, first smelt it to sec whether some one had not split a herring 
 with it — and on this great stage of the world all passes exactly the 
 
— i97 — 
 
 same as on our beggarly boards. On it, too, there are tipsy heroes, 
 kings who forget their parts, scenes which obstinately stay up in the 
 air, prompter's voices sounding above everything, danseuses who 
 create astonishing effects with their legs, and above all eosiumes 
 which are and ever will be the main thing. And high in Heaven, in 
 the first row of the boxes sit the lovely angels, and keep their lory 
 nettes on us poor sinners commedianizing here down below, and the 
 blessed Lord himself sits seriously in his splendid seat, and, perhaps, 
 finds it dull, or calculates that this theatre cannot be kept up much 
 longer because this one gets too high a salary, and that one too 
 little, and that they altogether play far too indifferently. 
 
 Du sublime au ridicule il n't/ a qu'un pas, Madame ! As I ended 
 the last chapter, narrating to you how Monsiur Le Grand died, and 
 how I conscientiously executed the iestamentum militare which lay in 
 his last glance, some one knocked at my room door, and there entered 
 an old woman, w T ho asked, pleasantly, if I were not a Doctor ? And 
 as I assented, she asked me in a friendly, patronizing tone to go with 
 her to her house that I might there cut the corns of her husband. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The German censors of the press — 
 
 blockheads 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Madame ! under Leda's productive hemispheres lay in embryo the 
 whole Trojan world, and you could never understand the far-famed 
 tears of Priam, if I did not first tell you of the ancient eggs of the 
 Swan. And I pray you, do not complain of my digressions. In 
 every foregoing and foregone chapter, there is not a line which does 
 not belong to the business in hand.- — I write in bonds ; I avoid all 
 
 IT* 
 
— 198 — 
 
 superfluity ; I ever and often neglect the necessary — for instance, I 
 have not regularly cited — I do not mean spirits, but on the contrary, 
 beings which are often quite spiritless, that is to say, authors — and 
 yet the citation of old and new books is the chief pleasure of a young 
 author, and a few fundamentally erudite quotations often adorn the 
 entire man. Never believe, Madame, that I am wanting in knowledge 
 of titles of books. Moreover, I have caught the knack of those great 
 souls who know how to pick corianders out of biscuit, and citations 
 from college lecture books ; and I can also tell whence Bartle brought 
 the new wine. Nay — in case of need, I can negotiate a loan of quo- 
 tations from my learned friends. My friend G , in Berlin is, so 
 
 to speak a little Rothschild in quotations, and will gladly lend me a 
 few millions, and if he does not happen to have them about him, I 
 can easily find some cosmopolite spiritual bankers who have. But 
 what need of loans have I, who am a man who stands well with the 
 world, and have my annual income of 10,000 quotations to spend at 
 will ? I have even discovered the art of passing off forged quota- 
 tions for genuine. If any wealthy literary man would like to buy 
 this secret, I will cheerfully sell it for nineteen thousand current 
 dollars — or will trade with him. Another of my discoveries I will 
 impart gratis for the benefit of literature. 
 
 I hold it to be an advisable thing when quoting from an obscure 
 author to invariably give the number of his house. 
 
 These " good men and bad musicians," as the orchestra is termed 
 in Ponce de Leon — these unknown authors almost invariably still 
 possess a copy of their long out-of-print works, and to hunt up this 
 latter it is necessary to know the number of their houses. If I 
 wanted, for example, to find " Spitta's Song Book for Travelling 
 Journeymen Mechanics," — my dear Madame where would you look 
 for the book ? But if quoted : 
 
 " Vide — Song Book for Travelling Journeyman apprentices, by P. 
 SriTTA ; Lüneburg, Lüner Street, No. 2, right hand, around the 
 corner." 
 
 And so you could, if it were worth your while, Madame, hunt up 
 the book. But it is not worth the while. 
 
 Moreover, Madame, you can have no idea of the facility with which 
 I quote. Everywhere do I discover opportunities to parade my pro- 
 found pedantry. If I chance to mention eating, I at once remark in 
 a note that the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews also ate — I quote all 
 the costly dishes which were prepared by Lucullus's cook — woe me, 
 that I was born fifteen hundred years too late ! — I also remark, that 
 
— 199 — 
 
 these meals were called this, that, or the other by the Romans, and 
 that the Spartans ate black broth. After all, it is well that I did 
 not live in those days, for I can imagine nothing more terrible than if 
 I, poor devil, had been a Spartan. Soup is my favourite dish. 
 Madame, I have thought of going next year to London, but if it is 
 really true, that no soup is to be had there, a deep longing will soon 
 drive me back to the soup-flesh-pots of the Fatherland. I could also 
 dilate by the hour on the cookery of the ancient Hebrews, and also 
 descend into the kitchen of the J ews of the present day. I may cite 
 apropos of this the entire Sfeinweg. I might also allege the refined 
 manner in which many Berlin Savans have expressed themselves 
 relative to Jewish eating, which would lead me to the other excel- 
 lencies and pre-eminencies of the chosen people, to which we are 
 indebted, as for instance, their invention of bills of exchange and 
 Christianity — but hold ! it will hardly do for me to praise the latter too 
 highly — not having as yet made much use of it — and I believe, that 
 the Jews themselves have not profited so much by it as by their 
 bills of exchange. While on the Jews I could appropriately quote 
 Tacitus — he says that they honoured asses in their temples — and 
 what a field of rich erudition and quotation opens on us here ! How 
 many a note-worthy thing can be adduced on ancient asses as 
 opposed to the modern. How intelligent were the former, and, ah ! 
 how stupid are the latter. How reasonably — for instance — spoke 
 the ass of B. Balaam. 
 
 Vide Pentat. Lib. — — — — 
 
 Madame, I have not the work just at hand, and will here leave a 
 hiatus to be filled at a convenient opportunity. On the other hand, 
 to confirm my assertion of the dulness, tameness, and stupidity of 
 modern asses, I may allege 
 
 Vide. — — — — — — — 
 
 — — no, I will leave these quotations also unquoted, other- 
 wise I myself will be cited, namely, injariarum or for scan. mag. 
 The modern asses are great asses. The antique asses, who had 
 reached such a pitch of refinement 
 
 Vide Gesneri de antiqiia lionestate asinorum. 
 
 (In comment. Gotting T. II". p. 32.) 
 
 — would turn in their graves could they hear how people talk about 
 their descendants. Once "Ass" was an honourable title, signifying 
 as much as " Court-Councillor" " Baron," " Doctor of Philosophy," 
 
- 200 — 
 
 — Jacob compared his sou Issachar to one, Homer his hero Ajax, 
 and now we compare Mr. von ******* to the same ! 
 
 Madame, while speaking of such asses I could siuk deep into literary 
 history, and mention all the great men who ever were in love, for 
 example Abelardus, Picus Mirandola, Borbonius, Curtesius, 
 Angelus Politianus, Raymondus Lullius and Henricus Heineus. 
 While on Love I could mention all the great men who never smoked 
 tobacco, as for instance Cicero, Justinian, Goethe, Hugo, I myself, 
 — — by chance it happens that we are all five a sort of half and 
 half lawyers — Mabillion could not for an instant endure the 
 piping of another, for in his Itinere Germanico, he complains as 
 regarded the German taverns, " quod molestus ipsi fuent tabaci grave 
 olentis foetor." On the other hand very great men have manifested 
 an extraordinary partiality for tobacco. Raphael Thorus wrote a 
 hymn in its praise — — Madame, you may not perhaps be aware 
 that Isaac Elzevir published it in 1628, at Leyden, in quarto — and 
 Ludovicus Kinschot wrote an oration in verses on the same subject. 
 GrjEvius has even composed a sonnet on the soothing herb, and the 
 great Boxhornius also loved tobacco. Bayle in his Diet Hist, et 
 Criiiq. remarks of him that in smoking he wore a hat with a broad 
 brim, in the fore part of which he had a hole, through which the pipe 
 was stuck that it might not hinder his studies. Apropos of Box- 
 hornius, I might cite all the great literati who were threatened with 
 bucks' horns, and who ran away in terror. But I will only mention 
 Joh. Georg Martius: de fiuja lileratorum, et cetera, etc. &c. If we 
 go through history, Madame, we find that all great men have been 
 obliged to run away once in their lives : Lot, Tarquin, Moses, Jupi- 
 ter, Madame de Stael, Nebuchadnezzar, Benjowsky, Mahomet, the 
 whole Prussian Army, Gregory VII., Rabbi Jizchak Abarbanel, 
 
 Rousseau to which I could add very many other names, as for 
 
 instance those whose names stand on the Black Board of the 
 Exchange.* 
 
 So, Madame, you see that I am not wanting in well grounded erudi- 
 tion and profundity. Only in Systematology am I a little behindhand. 
 As a genuine German, I ought to have begun this book with a full expla- 
 nation of its title, as is usual in the holy Roman Empire, by custom 
 
 *In some German cities the names of absconding bankrupts are permanently placarded 
 on the Exchange In America, such names are published in a much more original 
 manner, viz. by changing them into verbs synonymous of " grabbing and bolting," e. g. 
 Tu Swartwout, to Schuylerize. 
 
— 201 — 
 
 and by prescription. Phidias, it is true, made no preface to his 
 Jupiter, as little to the Medicean Yenus — I have regarded her from 
 every point of view, without finding the slightest introduction — but 
 the old Greeks were Greeks, and when a man is a decent, honest, 
 honourable German, he cannot lay aside his German nature, and I 
 must accordingly ' hold forth' in regular order, on the title of my book. 
 
 Madame, I shall consequently proceed to speak 
 
 I. Of Ideas. 
 
 A. Of Ideas in general, 
 a. Of reasonable Ideas. 
 
 B. Of unreasonable Ideas. 
 ;,. Of ordinary Ideas. 
 
 j8. Of Ideas covered with green leather. 
 These are again divided into — — — as will appear in due 
 time and place. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 Madame, have you on the whole, an idea of an idea ? 'What is an 
 idea ? " There are some good ideas in the build of this coat," said 
 my tailor to me as he with earnest attention gazed on the overcoat, 
 which dates in its origin from my Berlin dandy days, and from which 
 a respectable, quiet dressing-gown is now to be manufactured. My 
 
 washerwoman complains that the Reverend Mr. S has been 
 
 putting " ideas" into the head of her daughter, which have made her 
 foolish and unreasonable. The coachman, Pattensen, grumbles out 
 on every occasion, " That's an idea ! that's an idea !" Yesterday 
 evening he was regularly vexed when I inquired what sort of a 
 thing he imagined an idea to be ? And vexedly did he growl, " Nil, 
 
 Nu, — an idea is an idea! — an idea is any d d nonsense that a 
 
 man gets into his head." It is in this significaion that the word is 
 used as the title of a book, by the Court-Counsellor Heeren in 
 Göttingen. 
 
 The coachman, Pattensen, is a man who can find his way through 
 night and mist over the broad Llineburger Heath ; — the Court Coun- 
 sellor, Heeren, is one who, with equally cunning instinct, can discover 
 the ancient caravan road to the East, and plods on thither as safely 
 and as patiently as any camel of antiquity. We can trust such peo- 
 ple, and follow them without doubt, and therefore I have entitled this 
 book, " Ideas." 
 
— 202 — 
 
 But the title of the book signifies, on that account, as little as the 
 title of its author. It was chosen by him under any inspiration save 
 that of pride, and should be interpreted to signify anything but 
 vanity. Accept, Madame, my most sorrowful assurance that I am 
 not vain. This remark — as you yourself were about to remark — is 
 necessary. My friends, as well as divers more or less contemptible 
 contemporaries, have fully taken care of that in advance of you. You 
 know, Madame, that old women are accustomed to take children 
 down a little when any one praised their beauty, lest praise might 
 hurt the little darlings. You remember, too, Madame, that in Eome, 
 when any one who had gained a military triumph and rode like a god, 
 crowned with glory and arrayed in purple, on his golden chariot with 
 white horses, from the Campus Martins, amid a festal train of lictors, 
 musicians, dancers, priests, slaves, elephants, trophy-bearers, consuls, 
 senators, soldiers : then behind him the vulgar mob sang all manner 
 of mocking songs. — And you know, Madame, that in our beloved 
 Germany there are many old women and a very great vulgar mob. 
 
 As I intimated, Madame, the ideas here alluded to are as remote 
 from those of Plato as Athens from Güttingen, and you should no 
 more form undue expectations as to the book than as to its author. 
 In fact, how the latter could ever have excited anything of the sort 
 is as incomprehensible to me as to my friends. The Countess Julia 
 explains the matter by assuring us, that when he says anything really 
 witty and original, he only does it to humbug the world, and that he 
 is in fact as stupid as any other mortal. That is false — I do not 
 humbug at all — I sing just as my bill grows. I write in all innocence 
 and simplicity whatever comes into my head, and it is not my fault 
 if that happens to be something dashed with genius. At any rate, 1 
 have better luck in writing than in the Altona Lottery — I wish that 
 it was the other way — and there come from my pen many heart- 
 stunners — many choirs of thought — all of which is done by the Lord ; 
 for He who has denied to the most devoted psfjlm-makers and moral 
 poets all beautiful thoughts and all literary reputation, lest they 
 should be praised too much by their earthly fellow-creatures, and 
 thereby forget heaven, where the angels have already engaged board 
 for them in advance ; — He, I say, provides us other profane, sinful, 
 heretical authors, for whom heaven is as good as nailed up, all the 
 more with admirable ideas and earthly fame, and this indeed from 
 divine grace and mercy, so that the poor souls, since they are really 
 here, be not altogether wanting, and that they may at least enjoy upon 
 earth some of that joy which is denied to them in heaven. 
 
— 203 — 
 
 Vide Goethe and the tract-writers. 
 
 You consequently see, Madame, that you can, without distrust, 
 read my writings, as they set forth the grace and mercy of God. I 
 write in blind reliance on his omnipotence. I am in this respect a 
 true Christian author, and, to speak like Gubitz, even in this present 
 paragraph do not know exactly how I am going to bring it to an 
 end, and to effect it I trust entirely to the aid of the Lord. And 
 how could I write without this pious reliance? — for lo! even now 
 there stands before me the devil from Langhoff's printing office, 
 waiting for copy, and the new-born word wanders warm and wet to 
 the press, and what I at this instant think and feel, may to-morrow 
 be waste paper. 
 
 It is all very fine, Madame, to remind me of the Horatian nonum 
 prematur in annum. This rule, like many others, may be very pretty 
 in theory, but is worth little in practice. When Horace gave to 
 the author that celebrated precept, to let his works lie nine years in 
 the desk, he should also have given with it a receipt for living nine 
 years without food. While Horace was inventing this advice, he 
 sat, in all probability, at the table of Maecenas eating roast turkey 
 with truffles, pheasant-puddings with venison sauce, ribs of larks 
 with mangled turnips, peacock's tongues, Indian bird's-nests, and 
 the Lord knows what all, and everything gratis at that. But we, the 
 unlucky ones, born too late, live in another sort of times. Our Mae- 
 cenases have an altogether different set of principles ; they believe 
 that authors, like medlars, are best after they have lain some time on 
 straw, they believe that literary hounds are spoiled for hunting similes 
 and thoughts if they are fed too high, and when they do take it into 
 their heads to give to some one a feed it is generally the worst dog 
 who gets the biggest piece, — some fawning spaniel who licks the hand, 
 or diminutive " King Charles" who knows how to cuddle up into a 
 lady's perfumed lap, or some patient puppy of a poodle, who has 
 learned some bread-earning science, and who can fetch and carry, 
 dance and drum. While I write this my little pug-dog behind me 
 begins to bark. Be still there, Ami! I did not mean you, for you 
 love me, and accompany your master about, in need and danger, and 
 you would die on my grave, as true-heartedly as many other German 
 dogs, who, turned away, lie before the gates of Germany, and hunger 
 and whine — excuse me, Madame, for digressing, merely to vindicate the 
 honor of my dog : — I now return to the Horatian rule and its inap- 
 plicability in the Nineteenth Century, when poets are compelled tu 
 make cream-pot love to the Muses — ma foi, Madame, I could never 
 
— 2G4 — 
 
 observe that rule for four and twenty hours, let alone nine years, mjf 
 belly has no appreciation of the beauties of immortality. I have 
 thought the matter over and concluded that it is better to be only 
 half immortal and altogether fat, and if Voltaire was willing to give 
 three hundred years of his eternal fame for one good digestion, so 
 would I give twice as much for the dinner itself. And oh, what 
 lovely beautiful eating there is in this world ! The philosopher Pan- 
 gloss is right, it is the best world ! But one must have money in this 
 best of worlds. Money in the pocket, not manuscripts in the desk. 
 Mr. Marr, mine host of " the King of England," is himself an author 
 and also knows the Horatian rule, but I do not believe that if I 
 wished to put it into practice he would feed me for nine years. 
 
 And why in fact should I practise it ? I have so much which 
 is good to write of, that I have no occasion to fritter away time 
 over " tight papers." So long as my heart is full of love, and, the 
 heads of my fellow mortals full of folly, I shall never be hot pressed 
 for writing material. And my heart will ever love so long as there 
 are women, should it cool over one, it will immediately fire up over 
 another, and as the King never dies in France, so the Queen never 
 dies in my heart, where the word is, la reine est morte, vive la reine ! 
 And in like manner the folly of my fellow mortals will live for ever. 
 For there is but one wisdom, and it hath its fixed limits, but there 
 are a thousand illimitable follies. The learned casuist and carer for 
 souls, Schupp, even saith that in the world are more fools than human 
 beings. 
 
 Vide Schupp's Instructive Writings, p. 1121, 
 
 If we remember that the great Schuppius lived in Hamburg, we 
 may find that his statistical return was not exaggerated. I am now 
 in the same place, and may say that I really become cheerful when I 
 reflect that all these fools whom I see here, can be used in my writings, 
 they are cash down, ready money. I feel like a diamond in cotton. 
 The Lord hath blessed me, the fool-crop has turned out uncommonly 
 well this year, and like a good landlord I consume only a few at a 
 time, and lay up the best for the future. People see me out walking, 
 and wonder that I am jolly and cheerful. Like a rich, plump merchant 
 who rubbing his hands with genial joy wanders here and there amid 
 chests, bales, boxes, and casks, even so do I wander around among 
 my people. Ye are all mine own I Ye are all equally dear to me, 
 and I love ye, as ye yourselves love yonr own gold, and that is more 
 than a little. Oh ! how I laughed from my heart when I lately 
 heard that one of my people had asserted with concern that he knew 
 
— 205 — 
 
 not how I could live — or what means I had — and yet he himself is such 
 a first-rate fool that I could live from him alone as on a capital. Many 
 a fool is, however, to me not only ready money, but I have already de- 
 termined in my own mind what is to be done with the cash which I 
 intend to write out of him. Thus, for instance, from a certain, well-lined, 
 plump millionaire, I shall write me a certain, well-lined, plump arm-chair, 
 of that sort which the French call chaise percee. From his fat million- 
 airess I will buy me a horse. When I see the plump old gentleman — 
 a camel will get into heaven before that man would ever go through the 
 eye of a needle — when I see him waddling along on the Promenade, 
 a wondrous feeling steals over me, I salute him involuntarily, though 
 I have no acquaintance with him, and he greets me again so invitingly, 
 that I would fain avail myself of his goodness on the spot, and am 
 only prevented by the sight of the many gaily dressed people passing 
 by. His lady wife is not so bad looking — she has, it is true, only 
 one eye, but that is all the greener on that account, her nose is like 
 the tower which looketh forth towards Damascus, her bosom is broad 
 as the billowy sea, and all sorts of ribbons flutter above it like the 
 flags of the ships which have long since sailed over this ocean bosom — 
 it makes one sea-sick just to glance at it — her neck is quite fair and 
 as plumply rounded as — the simile will be found a little further 
 along — and on the violet blue curtain which covers this compa- 
 rison, thousands on thousands of silk worms have spun away their 
 lives. You see, Madame, what a horse I must have in my mind ! 
 When I meet this lady, my heart rises within me, I feel at once as 
 if I were ready to ride — I flourish my switch, I snap my fingers, I 
 cluck my tongue — I make all sorts of equestrian movements with 
 my legs — hap! — hey — gee up — g'lang! — and the dear lady smiles 
 on me so intelligently, so full of soul, so appreciatingly as if she 
 read my every thought, — she neighs with her nostrils, she coquettes 
 with the crupper — she curvets, and then suddenly goes off in a dog- 
 trot. And I stand there, with folded arms, looking pleasedly on her 
 as she goes, and reflect whether I shall ride my steed with a curbed- 
 bit or a snaffle- bridle, and whether I shall give her an English or a 
 Polish saddle — et cetera. People who see me standing thus cannot 
 conceive what there can be in the lady which so attracts me. Med- 
 dling, scandal-bearing tongues have already tried to make her husband 
 uneasy, and insinuated that I looked on his wife with the eye of a 
 roue. But my honest, soft leather chaise percSe has answered that 
 he regards me as an innocent, even somewhat bashful youth, who 
 looks carefully, like one desirous of nearer acquaintance, but who is 
 
 18 
 
— 206 — 
 
 restrained by blushing baslifulness. My noble steed thinks on the 
 contrary, that I have a free, independent, chivalric air, and that my 
 salutatory politeness only expresses a wish to be invited for once to 
 dinner with her. 
 
 You see, Madame, that I can thus#use everybody, and that the 
 city directory is really the inventory of my property. And I can 
 consequently never become bankrupt, for my creditors themselves 
 are my profits, or will be changed to such. Moreover, as I before 
 
 said, I live economically, — d d economically ! For instance, 
 
 while I write this, I sit in a dark, noisy room, on the " Dusty street 
 but I cheerfully endure it, for I could, if I only chose, sit in the most 
 beautiful garden, as well as my friends and my loves ; for I only need 
 at once realize my schnapps-clients. These, Madame, consist of decayed 
 hair-dressers, broken-down panders, bankrupt keepers of eating-houses, 
 who themselves can get nothing to eat — finished blackguards, who 
 know where to seek me, and who, for the wherewithal to buy a drink 
 (money down), furnish me with all the chronique scandaleuse of their 
 quarter of the town. Madame, you wonder that I do not, once for 
 all, kick such a pack out of doors ? — why, Madame, what can you be 
 thinking of? — these people are my flowers. Some day I will write 
 them all down in a beautiful book, with the proceeds from which I 
 will buy me a garden, and their red, yellow, blue and variegated 
 countenances now appear to me like the flowers of that fair garden. 
 What do I care, if strange noses assert that these flowers smell of 
 auniseed brandy, tobacco, cheese and blasphemy ! My own nose, the 
 chimney of my head, wherein the chimney-sweep of my imagination 
 climbs up and down, asserts the contrary, and smells in the fellows 
 nothing but the perfume of roses, violets, pinks and tuberoses — oh ! 
 how gloriously will I some morning sit in my garden, listening to the 
 song of the birds, and warm my limbs in the blessed sunshine, and 
 inhale the fresh breath of the leaves, and, as I glance at the flowers, 
 think of my old blackguards ! 
 
 At present I sit near the dark " Dusty street," in my darker room, 
 and please myself by hanging up in it the greatest "obscurity" of the 
 country — 11 Mais est ce que vous verrez plus clair alors?" Appa- 
 rently, Madame, such is the case — but do not misunderstand me — 
 I do not mean that I hang up the man himself, but the crystal lamp 
 which I intend to buy with the money I mean to write out of him. 
 Meanwhile, I believe that it would be clearer through all creation, 
 if we could hang up the " obscurities," not in imagination, but iD 
 reality. But if they cannot be hung they must be branded — I again 
 
— 207 — 
 
 speak figuratively, referring to branding en effigie. It is true that 
 Herr Yon White — lie is white and innocent as a lily — tried to white- 
 wash over my assertion, in Berlin, that he had really been branded. 
 On account of this, the fool had himself inspected by the authorities, 
 and obtained from them a certificate that his back bore no marks, 
 and he was pleased to regard this negative certificate of arms as 
 a diploma, which would open to him the doors of the best society, 
 and was astonished when they kicked him out — and now he screams 
 death and murder at me, poor devil ! and swears to shoot me 
 wherever he finds me. And what do you suppose, Madame, that I 
 intend doing ? Madame, from this fool — that is, from the money 
 which I intend to write out of him — I will buy me a good barrel of 
 Rudesheimer Rhine wine. I mention this, that you may not think it 
 is a malicious joy which lights up my face whenever I meet the Herr 
 Von White in the street. In fact, I only see in him my blessed 
 Rudesheimer, — the instant I set eyes on him I become cheerful and 
 genial hearted, and begin to trill, in spite of myself, " Upon the 
 Rhine, 'tis there our grapes are growing," " This picture is enchant- 
 ing fair," " Oh, White Lady." Then my Rudesheimer looks horribly 
 sour — enough to make one believe that he was compounded of noth- 
 ing but poison and gall — but I assure you, Madame, it is a genuine 
 vintage, and though the inspector's mark be not branded on it, the 
 connoisseur still knows how to appreciate it. I will merrily tap this 
 cask, and should it chance to ferment and threaten to fly out danger- 
 ously, I will have it bound down with a few iron hoops, by the pro- 
 per authorities. 
 
 You see, therefore, Madame, that you need not trouble yourself 
 on my account. I can look at ease on all in this world. The Lord 
 has blessed me in earthly goods, and if he has not exactly stored the 
 wine away for me, in my cellar, he at least allows me to work in his 
 vineyard. I only need gather my grapes, press them, barrel them, 
 and there I have my clear heavenly gift, and if fools do not fly 
 exactly roasted into my mouth, but run at me rather raw, and 
 not even " half baked," still I know how to roast them, baste them, 
 and "give them pepper," until they are tender and savoury. Oh, 
 Madame, but you will enjoy it when I some day give a grand fete ! 
 Madame, you shall then praise my kitchen. You shall confess that 
 I can entertain my satraps as pompously as once did the great 
 Ahasuerus, when he was king from India even unto the Blacks, over 
 one hundred and seven and twenty provinces. I will slaughter whole 
 hecatombs of fools. That great Piiilosoiixaps, who came, as Jupi- 
 
— 203 — 
 
 ter, in the form of an ox,* lusted for favor in the eyes of Europa, will 
 supply the roast beef ; a tragical tragedian, who, on the stage, when 
 it represented a tragical Persian kingdom, exhibited to us a tragical 
 Alexander, will supply my table with a splendid pig's head, grinning, 
 as usual, sourly sweet, with a slice of lemon in his mouth, and 
 shrewdly decked, by the artistic cook, with laurel leaves ; while that 
 singer of coral lips, swan necks, bounding, snowy little hills, little 
 things, little legs, little kisses, and little assessors, namely, H. Clau- 
 ren, or, as the pious Berharder girls cry after him on the Fredrick's 
 street, " Father Clauren ! our Clauren !" will supply me with all 
 the dishes which he knows how to describe so juicily in his annual 
 little pocket bawdy houses, with all the imagination of a lusciously 
 longing kitchen maid. And he shall give us, over and above, an 
 altogether extra little dish, with a little plate of celery, " for which 
 the little heart bounds with love !" A shrewd dried-up maid of 
 honor, whose head is the only part of her which is now of any use, 
 will give us a similar dish, namely, asparagus, and there will be no 
 want of Göttingen sausages, Hamburg smoked beef, Pomeranian 
 geese-breasts, ox-tongues, calves' brains, " cheek," " gudgeons," 
 " cakes," M small potatoes." and therewith all sorts of jellies, Berlin 
 pan-cakes, Vienna tarts, comfits — 
 
 Madame, I have already, in imagination, over-eaten myself ! The 
 Devil take such gormandizing ! I cannot bear much — the pig's 
 head acts on me as on the rest of the German public — I must eat a 
 Willibald Alexis salad on it — that purges and purifies. 0, the 
 wretched pig's head ! with the still wretcheder sauce, which has 
 neither a Grecian nor a Persian flavor, but which tastes like tea and 
 soft soap! — Bring me my plump millionaire! 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Madame, I observe a faint cloud of discontent on your lovely brow, 
 and you seem to ask if it is not wrong that I should thus dress fools, 
 stick them on the spit, carbonado them, lard them, and even butcher 
 many which must lie untouched save by the fowls of the air, while 
 widows and orphans cry for want ? 
 
 * An "ox,'' when used as an abusive epithet, signifies-, in German, much the same as 
 au asa. 
 
— 209 — 
 
 Madame, cest la guerre! But now I will solve you the whole riddle. 
 I myself am by no means one of the wise ones, but I have joined their 
 party, and now for five thousand five hundred and eighty-eight years we 
 have been carrying on war with the fools. The fools believe that they 
 have been wronged by us, inasmuch as they believe that there was once 
 in the world but a certain determined quantity of reason, which was 
 thievishly appropriated — the Lord only knows how — by the wise men, 
 and it is a sin which cries to heaven, to see how much sense one man 
 often gets, while all his neighbors, and, indeed, the whole country for 
 miles around, is fairly befogged with stupidity. This is the veritable 
 secret cause of war, and it is most truly a war of defence. The intelli- 
 gent show themselves, as usual, the calmest, most moderate and most 
 intelligent — they sit firmly fortified behind their ancient Aristotelian 
 works, have much ordnance, and also amunition, in store — for they 
 themselves were the inventors of powder — and now and then 
 they shoot a well-aimed bomb among their foes. But, unfortunately, 
 the latter are by far the most numerous, and their outcries are terri- 
 ble, and day by day they do the most cruel dee ds of torture — for, in 
 fact, every folly is a torture to the wise. Their military stratagems 
 are often very cunning indeed. Some of the chiefs of the great 
 Fool Army, take good care not to admit the secret origin of the 
 war. They have heard that a well known deceitful man, who 
 advanced so far in the art of falsehood, that he ended by writing false 
 memoirs — I mean Fouche — once asserted that Us paroles sont faites 
 pour nous cacher nos ycnse'es ; and therefore they talk a great deal in 
 order to conceal their want of thought, and make long speeches, and 
 write big books — and if any one is listening, they praise that only 
 spring of true happiness, namely, wisdom ; and if any one is looking 
 on at them, they work away at mathematics, logic, statistics, mechani- 
 cal improvements, and so forth — and as a monkey is more ridiculous 
 the more he resembles man, so are these fools more laughable the 
 more reasonably they behave. Other chiefs of the great army are 
 more open-hearted, and confess that their own share of wisdom is 
 not remarkably great, and that perhaps they never had any, but they 
 cannot refrain from asserting that wisdom is a very sour, bitter 
 affair, and, in reality, of but little value. This may perhaps be true, 
 but, unfortunately, they have not wisdom enough to prove it. They 
 therefore jump at every means of vindication, discover new powers in 
 themselves, explain that these are quite as effectual as rea- 
 son, and, in some cases, much more so — for instance, the feeling, 
 faith, inspiration — and with this surrogate of wisdom, this poll- 
 
 18* 
 
— 210 — 
 
 parrot reason, they console themselves. I, poor devil, am especially 
 hated by them, as they assert that I originally belonged to their 
 party, that I am a run-away, a fugitive, a bolter — a deserter, who has 
 broken the holiest ties ; — yes, that I am a spy. who secretly reveals 
 their plans, in order to subsequently give point to the laughter of 
 the enemy, and that I myself am so stupid as not to see that the 
 wise at the same time laugh at me, and never regard me as an equal. 
 And there the fools speak sensibly enough. 
 
 It is true that my party do not regard me as one of themselves, 
 and often laugh at me in their sleeves. I know that right well, though 
 I pretend not to observe it. But my heart bleeds within me, and 
 when I am alone, then my tears flow. I know right well that my 
 position is a false one, that all I do is folly to the wise and a torment 
 to the fools. They hate me, and I feel the truth of the saying, 
 " Stone is heavy and sand is a burden, but the wrath of a fool is 
 heavier than both." And they do not hate me without reason. 
 It is perfectly true, I have torn asunder the holiest bands, when I 
 might have lived and died among the fools, in the way of the law and 
 of God. And oh! I should have lived so comfortably had I 
 remained among them ! Even now, if I would repent, they would 
 still receive me with open arms. They would invite me every day to 
 dinner, and in the evening ask me to their tea parties and clubs, and 
 I could play whist with them, smoke, talk politics, and if I yawned 
 from time to time, they would whisper behind my back, " "What 
 beautiful feelings I" " a soul inspired with such faith !" — permit 
 me, Madame, that I hereby offer up a tear of emotion — ah ! and 
 I could drink punch with them, too, until the proper inspiration 
 came, and then they would bring me in a hackney coach to my house, 
 anxiously concerned lest I might catch cold, and one would quickly 
 bring me my slippers, another my silk dressing gown, a third my 
 white night-cap, and finally they would make me a " professor extra- 
 ordinary," a president of a society for converting the heathen, or 
 head calculator or director of Roman excavations ; — and then I 
 would be just the man for all this, inasmuch as I can very accurately 
 distinguish the Latin declensions from the conjugations, and am not 
 so apt as other people to mistake a postillion's boot for an Etruscan 
 vase. My peculiar nature, my faith, my inspiration, could, besides this, 
 effect much good during the prayer-meeting — viz., for myself — and 
 then my remarkable poetic genius would stand me in good stead on 
 the birth-days and at the weddings of the great, nor would it be a 
 bad thought if I, in a great national epic, should sing of all those 
 
— 211 — 
 
 heroes, of whom we know, with certainty, that from their mouldering 
 bodies crept worms, who now give themselves out for their 
 descendants. 
 
 Many men who are not born fools, and who were once gifted with 
 reason, have on this account gone over to the fools and lead among 
 them a real pays cht Cocdyne* life, and those follies which at first so 
 pained them have now become second nature — yes, they are in fact 
 no longer to be regarded as hypocrites, but as true converts. One 
 of these, in whose head utter and outer darkness does not as yet 
 entirely prevail, really loves me, and lately, when I was alone with 
 him, he closed the door, and said, with an earnest voice, " Oh, Fool!" 
 you who play the wise man and have not after all as much sense as 
 a recruit in his mother's belly ! know you not that the great in 
 the land only elevate those who abase themselves, and esteem their 
 own blood less worthy than that of the great ? And now you would 
 ruin all among the pious ! Is it then such a difficult thing to roll up 
 vour eyes in a holy rapture, to hide your arms crossed in faith in 
 your coat sleeve, to let your head hang down like a lanm of God's, 
 and to murmur Bible sayings got by heart ! Believe me, no Gracious 
 Highness will reward you for your godlessness, the men of Love will 
 hate, abuse, and persecute you, and you will never make your way 
 either in this world, or in the next !" 
 
 Ah, me ! it is all true enough ! But I have unfortunately con- 
 tracted this unlucky passion for Keason ! I love her though she loves 
 me not again. I give her all, she gives me naught again. I cannot 
 tear myself from her. And as oLce the Jewish king Solomon in his 
 canticles sang the Christian Church and that too under the form of 
 a black, love-insatiate maiden, so that his Jews might not suspect 
 what he was driving at, so have I in countless lays, sung just the 
 contrary, that is to say, reason, and that under the form of a white 
 cold beauty, who attracts and repels me, who now smiles at me, then 
 scorns me, and finally turns her back on me. This secret of my 
 unfortunate love, gives you, Madame, some insight into my folly. You 
 
 * Schlaraffenland — or in French, 'pays du Cocagne. ;" in English, "the Jack Pudding 
 Paradise ;'' where the pigs run about ready roasted, with puddings in their bellies, crying, 
 "Come eat me!" as an old authority hath it. It was in this land that "little King 
 Boggen once built a fine hall. Pie crust and pastry crust — tbat was €he wall." (Vide 
 Mother Goose's Melodies.) In maritime circles Schlaraffenland is known as " Fiddlers 
 Green." Rabelais gives us an idea of it in his Theleme, and Mahomet in his Koran, 
 while a fine poem on the same subject occurs in mo^t collections of Trouveur lais. — Note 
 by Translator. 
 
— 212 — 
 
 doubtless, perceive that it is of an extraordinary description, and 
 that it rises, magnificently rises over the ordinary follies of mankind. 
 Bead my RadclifFe, my Almanzor, my lyrical Intermezzo — reason ! 
 reason ! nothing but reason ! — and you will be terrified at the immen- 
 sity of my folly. In the words of Agur, I can say, " I am the most 
 foolish of all mankind, and the wisdom of man is not in me." 
 
 High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar 
 the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the clouds, high over the clouds 
 gleam the stars, — Madame, is not that too high ? eh bien — high over 
 the stars sweep the angels, high over the angels rises — no, Madame, 
 my folly can bring it no higher than this. It soars high enough ! It 
 grows giddy before its own sublimity. It makes of me a giant in seven 
 mile boots. At noon I feel as though I could devour all the elephants 
 of Hindostan, and then pick my teeth with the spire of Strasburg 
 cathedral ; in the evening I become so sentimental that I would fain 
 drink up the Milky Way without reflecting how indigestible I should 
 find the little fixed stars, and by night there is the Devil himself 
 broke loose in my head and no mistake. For then there assemble in 
 my brain the Assyrians, Egyptians, Medes, Persians, Hebrews, 
 Philistines, Frankforters, Babylonians, Carthagenians, Berliners, 
 Romans, Spartans, Flat-heads, and Chuckleheads — Madame, it would 
 be too wearisome should I continue to enumerate all these people. 
 Do you only read Herodotus, Livy, the Magazine of Haude and 
 Spenee, Cürtius, Cornelius Nepos, the " Companion," — Meanwhile, 
 I will eat my breakfast, this morning I do not get along very well 
 with my writing, the blessed Lord leaves me in the lurch — Madame, 
 I even fear — yes, yes, you remarked it before I did myself — yes — 
 I see. This morning I have not had any of the real regular sort of 
 divine aid. Madame, I will begin a new chapter, and tell you how 
 after the death of Le Graxd I came to Godesberg. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 When I^arrived at Godesburg I sate myself once more at the feet 
 of my fair friend — and near me lay her brown hound — and we both 
 looked up into her lovely eyes. 
 
 Ah, Lord ! in those eyes lay all the splendor of earth, and an entire 
 heaven besides. I could have died with rapture as I gazed into them, 
 
— 213 — 
 
 « 
 
 and had I died at that instant my soul would have flown directly into 
 tliose eyes. Oh ! they are indescribable. I must borrow some poet, 
 who went mad for love, from a lunatic asylum, that he may from the 
 uttermost abyss of his madness fish up some simile wherewith to com- 
 pare those eyes. — (Between you and I, reader, it seems to me that I 
 must be mad enough myself, to want any help in such a business.) 
 " God damn it!" said an English gentleman, "when she looks at a 
 man quietly from head to foot, she melts his coat buttons and heart, 
 all into a lump !" " F — e /" said a Frenchman. " Her eyes are of 
 the largest calibre, and when she shoots one of her forty-two pound 
 glances — crack ! — there you are in love !" There was a red-headed 
 lawyer from Mayence, who said that her eyes resembled two cups of 
 coffee — without cream. He wished to say something sweet, and 
 thought that he had done it — because he always sugared his coffee to 
 death. Wretched, wretched comparisons ! I and the brown hound 
 lay quietly at the feet of the fair lady, and gazed and listened. She 
 sat near an old iron-gray soldier, a knightly looking man with cross- 
 barred scars on his terrible brow. They both spoke of the Seven 
 Mountains painted by the evening red, and the blue Rhine which 
 flooded its way along in sublime tranquillity. What did we care for the 
 Seven Mountains and the blue Rhine, and the snowy sail-boats which 
 swam thereon, and the music which rang from one particular boat, or 
 the jackass of a student who, seated in it, sang so meltingly and beau- 
 tifully. I and the brown hound both gazed into the eyes of our fair 
 friend, and looked at the face which came forth rosy pale from amid 
 its black braids and locks, like the moon from dark clouds. The 
 features were of the noblest Grecian type, the lips boldly arched, over 
 which played melancholy, rapture, and child-like fantasy : and when 
 she spoke, the words were breathed forth almost sighingly, and then 
 again shot out impatiently and rapidly — and when she spoke, and her 
 speech fell softly as snow, yet like a warm genial flower shower from 
 her lovely mouth — oh, then the crimson of evening fell gently over 
 my soul, and through it flitted with ringing melody the memories of 
 childhood, but, above all, like a fairy bell there pealed within, the 
 voice of the little Veronica — and I grasped the fair hand of my lady 
 friend, and pressed it to my eyes, till the ringing in my soul had passed 
 away — and then I leaped up and laughed, and the hound bayed, and 
 the brow of the old general wrinkled up sternly, and I sat down again 
 and clasped and kissed the beautiful hand, and told and spoke of little 
 Veronica. 
 
— 214 — 
 
 . CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 Madame — you wish me to describe the appearance of the little 
 Veronica? But I will not. You, Madame, cannot be compelled to 
 read more than you please, and I on the other hand have the right to 
 write exactly what I choose. But I will now tell what the lovely hand 
 was like, which I kissed in the previous chapter. 
 
 First of all I must confess — that I was not worthy to kiss that 
 hand. It was a lovely hand — so tender, so transparent, so perfumed, 
 brilliant, sweet, soft, beautiful — by my faith, I must send to the 
 apothecary for twelve shillings' worth of adjectives. 
 
 On the middle finger there sat a ring with a pearl — I never saw a 
 pearl which played a more sorrowful part — on the marriage finger she 
 
 wore a ring with a blue antique I have studied archaeology in it 
 
 for hours — on the forefinger she wore a diamond — it was a talisman, 
 as long as I looked at it I was happy, for wherever it was, there too 
 was the finger with its four friends — and she often struck me on the 
 mouth with all five of them. Since I was thus manipulated I believe 
 fast and firm in animal magnetism. But she did not strike hard, and 
 when she struck I always deserved it by some godless speech, and as 
 soon as she had struck me, she at once repented it, and took a cake, 
 broke it in two, and gave me one half and the brown hound the other 
 half, and smiled, and said, " Neither of you have any religion, and you 
 will never be happy, and so you must be fed with cakes in this world, 
 for there will be no table spread for you in Heaven." And she was 
 more than half right, for in those days I was very irreligious, and read 
 Thomas Paine, the Systeme de la Nature, the " Westphalian Adver- 
 tiser/' and Schleiermacher, letting my beard and my reason grow 
 together, and had thoughts of enrolling myself among the Rationalists. 
 But when that soft hand swept over my brow, my " reason" stood 
 still, and sweet dreams came into my soul, and I again dreamed that 
 1 hoard gentle songs of the Virgin Mother, and I thought on the little 
 Vkronica. 
 
 Madame, you can hardly imagine how beautiful little Veronica 
 looked as she lay in her little coffin. The burning candles as they 
 stood around cast a glow on the white-smiling little face, and on the 
 red silk roses and rustling gold spangles with which the head and the 
 little shroud were decked — good old Ursct,a had led me at eveuing 
 into the silent chamber, and as I looked at the little corpse laid amid 
 
— 215 — 
 
 lights and flowers on the table, I at first believed that it was a pretty 
 saint's image of wax. But I soon recognized the dear face, and 
 asked, smilingly, why little Veronica laid so still ? And Ursula 
 said, " Because she is dead, dear !" 
 
 And as she said, " Because she is dead" — But 1 will go no further 
 to-day with this story, it would be too long, besides I should first 
 speak of the lame magpie which hopped about the castle court-yard, 
 and was three hundred years old, and then I could become regularly 
 melancholy. A fancy all at once seizes on me to tell another story, 
 ! which is a merry one, and just suits this place, for it is really the 
 history itself which T propose to narrate in this book. 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 Night and storm raged in the bosom of the knight. The poniard 
 blows of slander had struck to his heart, and as he advanced sternly 
 along over the bridge of San Marco, the feeling stole over him as 
 though that heart must burst and flow away in blood. His limbs 
 trembled with weariness — the noble quarry had been fiercely hunted 
 during the live-long summer day — the drops fell from his brow, and 
 as he entered the gondola, he sighed heavily. He sat unthinkingly 
 in the black cabin of the gondola — unthinkingly the soft waves shook 
 him and bore him along the well-known way to the Brenta — and as 
 he stepped out before the well-known palace, he heard that the 
 " Signora Laura was in the Garden." 
 
 She stood leaning on the statue of the Lacicoon, near the red-rose 
 tree, at the end of the terrace, near the weeping willows, which hung 
 down mournfully over the water. There she stood, smiling, a pale 
 image of love, amid the perfume of roses. At the sight he suddenly 
 IWaked as from some terrible dream, and was at once changed to 
 mildness and longing. " Signora Laura," said he, " I am wretched 
 and tormented with hatred and oppression and falsehood" — and here 
 he suddenly paused and stammered ; — " but I love you" — and then a 
 tear of joy darted into his eye, and with palpitating heart he cried: — 
 * be my own love and love me !" * * * 
 
 There lies a veil of dark mystery over that hour, no mortal has ever 
 known what Signora Laura replied, and when they ask her guardian 
 angel in Heaven what took place, he hides his face, and sighs, and is 
 silent. 
 
— 216 — 
 
 Solitary and alone stood the knight by the statue of the Laöcoön 
 — his own face was not less convulsed and deathly pale, unconsciously 
 he tore away the roses from the rose-tree — yes, he plucked even 
 the young buds. Since that hour the rose tree never bore another 
 fioweret — far in the dim distance sang an insane nightingale — the 
 willows whispered in agony, mournfully murmured the cool waves of 
 the Brenta, night rose on high with her moon and stars — and one star, 
 the loveliest of all, fell adown from Heaven ! 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Vous pleurcz Madame? 
 
 Oh, may the eyes which shed such lovely tears long light up the 
 world with their rays, and may a warm and loving hand close them 
 in the hour of death ? A soft pillow, Madame, is also a very conve- 
 nient thing when dying, and I trust that you will not be without it ; 
 and when the fair, weary head sinks down, and the black locks fall in 
 waves over the fast fading face ; oh, then, may God repay those tears 
 which have fallen for me — for I myself am the knight for whom you 
 wept — yes, I am the erring errant Knight of Love, the Knight of the 
 Fallen Star ! 
 
 Vous pleurez, Madame! 
 
 Oh, I understand those tears ! Why need I longer play a feigned 
 part ? You, Madame, you yourself are that fair lady, who wept so 
 softly in Godesberg, when I told the sad story of my life. Like drops 
 of pearly dew over roses, the beautiful tears ran over the beautiful 
 face — the hound was silent, the vesper chimes pealed far away iu 
 Königs-winter, the Ehine murmured more gently, night covered the 
 earth with her black mantle, and I sat at your feet, Madame, and 
 looked on high into the starry heaven. At first I took your eyes 
 also for two stars. But how could any one mistake such eyes for 
 stars ? Those cold lights of heaven cannot weep over the misery of 
 a man who is so wretched, that he cannot weep. 
 
 And I had a particular reason for not mistaking those lovely eyes — 
 for in them dwells the soul of little Veronica. 
 
 I have reckoned it up, Madame, you were born on the very day on 
 which Veronica died. Johanna, in Andernach, told methat I would 
 find little Veronica again in Godesburg — and I found her and knew 
 her at once. That was a sad chance, Madame, that you should die, 
 
— 217 — 
 
 just as the beautiful game was about to begin. Since pious Ursula 
 said to me, " It is death, dear," I have gone about solitary and serious 
 in great picture galleries, but the pictures could not please me as 
 they once did — they seemed to have suddenly faded — there was but a 
 single work which retained its colour and brilliancy — you know, 
 Madame, to which piece I refer : 
 It is the Sultan and Sultaness of Delhi. 
 
 " Do you remember, Madame, how we stood long hours before it, 
 and how significantly good Ursula smiled, when people remarked 
 that the faces in that picture so much resembled our own ? Madame, 
 I find that your likeness is admirably taken in that picture, and it 
 passes comprehension how the artist could have so accurately repre- 
 sented you, even to the very garments which you then wore. They 
 say that he was mad and must have dreamed your form. Or was 
 there perhaps a soul in the great holy monkey who waited on you, in 
 those days, like a page ? — in that case he must certainly remember 
 the silver-grey veil, on which he once spilled red wine, and spoiled 
 it. I was glad when you lost him, he did not dress you remarkably 
 well, and at any rate, the European dress is much more dressy 
 than the Indian — not but that beautiful women are lovely in any 
 dress. Do you remember, Madame, that a gallant Brahmin — he 
 looked for all the world like Ganesa, the god with an elephant's trunk, 
 who rides on a mouse — once paid you the compliment that the divine 
 Maneka, as she came down from Indra's golden hill to the royal 
 penitent Wiswamitra, was not certainly fairer than you, Madame? 
 
 What — forgotten it already ! — Why it cannot be more than three 
 thousand years since he said that, and beautiful w T omen are not wont 
 to so quickly forget delicate flattery. 
 
 However, for men, the Indian dress is far more becoming than the 
 European. 0! my rosy-red lotus-flowered pantaloons of Delhi ! had 
 I worn ye when I stood before the Signora Laura and begged for 
 love — the previous chapter would have rung to a different tune ! Alas ! 
 alas ! I wore straw-coloured pantaloons, which some sober Chinese 
 had woven in Nankin — my ruin was w r oven with them ■ — the 
 threads of my destiny — and I was made miserable. 
 
 Often there sits in a quiet old German coffee-house, a youth, silently 
 sipping his cup of Mocha ; and, meanwhile, there blooms and grows 
 in far distant China, his ruin, and there it is spun and woven, and 
 despite the high wall of China, it know r s how to find its way to the 
 youth who deems it but a pair of Nankin trousers, and all unheeding, 
 in the gay buoyancy of youth, he pulls them on, and is lost for ever 1 
 
 19 
 
— 218 — 
 
 And, Madame, in the little breast of a mortal, so much misery can 
 
 hide itself, and keep itself so well hid there, that the poor man him- 
 self for days together does not feel it, and is as jolly as a piper, and 
 
 merrily dances and whistles, and trolls — lalarallala, lalarallala. 
 
 la la la. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " She wa9 amiable and he loved her, but he was not worthy of love, and she did not 
 love him."— Old Play. 
 
 And for this nonsensical affair you were about to shoot yourself? 
 
 Madame, when a gentleman desires to shoot himself, he generally has 
 ample reason for it — you may be certain of that. But whether he 
 himself knows what these reasons are is another question. We mask 
 even our miseries, and while we die of bosom wounds, we complain 
 )f the tooth-ache. 
 
 Madame, you have, I know, a remedy for the tooth-ache? 
 
 Alas I I had the tooth-ache in my heart. That is a wearying pain, 
 and requires plugging — with lead, and with the tooth powder invented 
 by Berthold Schwartz.* 
 
 Misery gnawed at my heart like a worm, and gnawed — the poor 
 devil of a Chinese was not to blame, I brought the misery with me 
 into the world. It lay with me in the cradle, and when my mother 
 rocked me, she rocked it with me, and when she sang me to sleep, it 
 slept with me, and it awoke when I opened my eyes. When I grew 
 up, it grew with me, until it was altogether too great and burst 
 
 Now we will speak of other things — of virgins' wreaths, masked 
 
 balls, of joy and bridal pleasure lalarallala, lalarallala, lalaral 
 
 la la la.f 
 
 *Or Roger Bacon. 
 
 f To the Bridesmaid's Chorus in Der Freyschutz. 
 
 (1826.) 
 
A NEW SPRING. 
 
 Motto:— k pine tree stands alone 
 In the north — — 
 
 He is dreaming of a palm 
 Which afar — — 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 Oft in galleries of Art 
 
 On a pictured knight we glance, 
 Who to battle will depart, 
 
 Armed well with shield and lance. 
 
 But young Cupids mocking round him, 
 Bear his lance and sword away, 
 
 And with rosy wreaths they've bound him, 
 Though he strives as best he may. 
 
 Thus to pleasant fetters yielding, 
 
 Still I turn the idle rhyme, 
 While the brave their arms are wielding 
 
 In the mighty strife of Time. 
 
 L 
 
 When 'neath snow-white branches sitting, 
 Far thou nearest the wild-wind chiding, 
 
 Seest the silent clouds above thee, 
 In their wintry garments hiding; 
 
 See'st that all seems cold and death-like, 
 Wood and plain lie shorn before thee, 
 
 E'en thy heart is still and frozen, 
 Winter round and winter o'er thee. 
 T219) 
 
— 220 — 
 
 All at once adown come falling 
 
 Pure white flakes, and then thou gricvest, 
 That the weary, dreary winter 
 
 Should return, as thou believest. 
 
 But those are not snow-flakes falling, 
 Soon thou mark'st with pleasant wonder 
 
 That they all are perfumed blossoms, 
 From the tree thou sittest under, 
 
 What a thrilling sweet amazement ! 
 
 Winter turns to May and pleasure; 
 ßnow is changed to lovely spring flowers, 
 
 And thou find'st a new heart's treasure. 
 
 2. 
 
 In the wood all softly greeneth, 
 As if maiden-like 'twould woo thee; 
 
 And the sun from Heaven smileth : 
 " Fair young spring, a welcome to thee ?" 
 
 Nightingale ! I hear thy singing, 
 As thou flutest, sweetly moving, 
 
 Sighing long-drawn notes of rapture, 
 And thy song is all of loving. 
 
 3. 
 
 The lovely eyes of the young spring night, 
 
 So softly down are gazing — 
 Oh, the Love which bore thee down with might, 
 
 Ere long will thy soul be raising. 
 
 All on yon linden sits and sings, 
 
 The nightingale soft trilling ; 
 And as her music in me rings, 
 
 My soul with love is thrilling. 
 
— 221 — 
 
 4. 
 
 I love a fair flower, but I know not its name ; 
 
 Oh, sorrow and smart 1 
 I look in each flower-cup — my luck is the same : 
 
 For I seek for a heart. 
 
 The flowers breathe their perfumes — in evening's red shii»e 
 
 The nightingale trills. 
 I seek for a heart which is gentle as mine, 
 
 Which as tenderly thrills. 
 
 The nightingale sings, and I know what she says 
 
 In her beautiful song : 
 "We both are love weary and lorn in our lays, 
 
 And oh ! sorrow is long. 
 
 Sweet May lies fresh before us, 
 To life the young flowers leap, 
 
 And through the Heaven's blue o'er us 
 The rosy cloudlets sweep. 
 
 The nightingale is singing, 
 
 Adown from leafy screen, 
 And young white lambs are springing 
 
 In clover fresh and green. 
 
 I cannot be singing and springing, 
 
 I lie on the grassy plot, 
 I hear a far distant ringing, 
 
 I dream and I know not what. 
 
 6. 
 
 Softly ring and through me spring, 
 The sweetest tones to-day ; 
 
 Gently ring, small song of spring, 
 Ring out and far away. 
 
 19* 
 
— 222 — 
 
 Ring and roam unto the home, 
 Where violets you see, 
 
 And when unto a rose you come, 
 Oh, greet that rose for me. 
 
 m 
 i * 
 
 The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose, 
 
 And flirted around all day ; 
 While round him in turn with her golden caress, 
 
 Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray. 
 
 But who was the lover the rose smiled on, 
 Dwelt he near the sweet lady or far ? 
 
 And was it the clear-singing nightingale, 
 Or the bright distant Evening Star. 
 
 I know not with whom the rose was in love, 
 
 But I know that I loved them all. 
 The butterfly, rose, aüd the sun's bright ray, 
 
 The star and the bird's sweet call. 
 
 8. 
 
 Yes — all the trees are musical 
 Soft notes the nests inspire ; 
 
 Who in the green wood orchestra 
 Leads off the tuneful choir ? 
 
 Is it yon grey old lapwing, 
 Who nods so seriously ; 
 
 Or the pedant who cries "cuckoo" 
 In time, unweariedly ? 
 
 Is it the stork who sternly 
 As though he lead the band, 
 
 Claps with his legs, while music 
 Pipes sweet on either hand ? 
 
— 223 — 
 
 No — in my heart is seated 
 
 The one who rules those tones, 
 
 As my heart throbs he times them, 
 And Love's the name he owns. 
 
 9. 
 
 'In the beginning sweetly sang 
 
 The nightingale in love's firsi hours, 
 
 And as she sang, grew every where 
 Blue violets, grass, and apple-flowers. 
 
 'She bit into her breast — out run 
 
 The crimson blood, and from its shower 
 The first red-rose its life begun, 
 To which she sings of love's deep power. 
 
 'And all the birds which round us trill, 
 Are saved by that sweet blood they say ; 
 
 And if the rose song rang no more, 
 Then all were lost and passed away.' 
 
 Thus to his little nestlings spoke 
 The sparrow in the old oak tree ; 
 
 Dame sparrow oft his lecture broke, 
 Throned in her brooding dignity. 
 
 She leads a kind, domestic life, 
 And nurses well with temper good; 
 
 To pass his time, the father gives 
 Eeligious lessons to his brood. 
 
 10. 
 
 The warm, bewildering spring night-air 
 Wakes flowrets on the plain ; 
 
 And oh, my heart, beware, beware, 
 Or thou wilt love again. 
 
— 224 — 
 
 But say — what flower on hill, or dale, 
 Will snare this willing heart ? 
 
 I'm cautioned by the nightingale 
 Against the lily's art. 
 
 it. 
 
 Trouble and torment — I hear the bells ring ? 
 
 And oh ! to my sorrow, I've lost my poor hea.d ! 
 Two beautiful eyes, and the fresh growing spring, 
 
 Have plotted to capture me, living or dead. 
 
 The beautiful spring, and two lovely young eyes, 
 Once more this poor heart in their meshes have 
 
 The rose and the nightingale — yonder she flies, 
 Are deeply involved in this terrible plot. 
 
 12. 
 
 An me, for tears I'm burning, 
 Soft, sorrowing tears of love, 
 
 Yet, I fear this wild, sad yearning, 
 But too well my heart will move. 
 
 Ah ! Love's delicious sorrow, 
 And Love's too bitter joy 
 
 With its heavenly pains, ere morrow 
 Will my half-won peace destroy. 
 
 13. 
 
 The spring's blue eyes are open, 
 Up from the grass they look ; 
 
 I mean the lovely violets, 
 Which for a wreath I took. 
 
 I plucked the flowers while thinking, 
 And my thoughts in one sad tale, 
 
 To the breezes were repeated, 
 By the listening nightingale, 
 
— 225 — 
 
 Yes — every thought she warbled, 
 As from my soul it rose, 
 
 And now my tender secret, 
 The whole green forest knows. 
 
 14. 
 
 When thou didst pass beside me, 
 Thy soft touch thrilled me through, 
 
 Then my heart leaped up and wildly 
 On thy lovely traces flew. 
 
 Then thou didst gaze upon me, 
 With thy great eyes looking back, 
 
 And my heart was so much frightened, 
 It scarce could keep the track. 
 
 15. 
 
 The graceful water-lily 
 
 Looks dreamily up from the lake, 
 And the moon looketh lovingly on her, 
 
 For light love keeps fond hearts awake. 
 
 Then she bows her small head to the water, 
 Ashamed those bright glances to meet, 
 
 And sees the poor, pale lily lovers 
 All lying in love at her feet. 
 
 16. 
 
 If thou perchance good eye-sight hast, 
 When with my works thou'rt playing, 
 
 Thou'lt see a beauty, up and down 
 Among the ballads straying. 
 
 And if perchance good ears are thine 
 Oh, then thou may'st rejoice, 
 
 And thy heart may be bewildered, 
 With her laughing, sighing voice. 
 
— 226 — 
 
 And well I ween with glance and word 
 Full sore she'll puzzle thee, 
 
 And thou'lt go dreaming round in love 
 As once it chanced to me. 
 
 17. 
 
 What drives thee around in the warm spring night, 
 Thou hast driven the flowers half crazy with fright ; 
 
 The violets no longer are sleeping, 
 The rose in her night-dress is blushing so red, 
 The lilies — poor things — sit so pale in their bed 
 
 They are crying and trembling and weeping. 
 
 Ah, dearest moon ! how gentle and good 
 
 Are all these fair flowers — in truth I've been rude ; 
 
 I've been making sad work with my walking : 
 But how could I know they were lurking around, 
 When bewildered with love 1 strayed over the ground, 
 
 And to the bright planets was talking. 
 
 18. 
 
 When thy blue eyes turn on me, 
 And gaze so soft and meek, 
 
 Such dreamy moods steal o'er me, 
 That I no word can speak. 
 
 I dream of those blue glances, 
 When we are far apart, 
 
 And a sea of soft blue memories 
 Comes pouring o'er my heart. 
 
 19. 
 
 Once again my heart is living, 
 And old sorrows pass away ; 
 
 Once again the tenderest feelings 
 Seem reviving with the May. 
 
— 227 — 
 
 • Evening late and morning early 
 
 Through the well-known paths I rove, 
 Peeping under every bonnet, 
 Looking for the face I love. 
 
 Once again I'm by the river, 
 On the bridge as in a trance ; 
 
 What if she came sailing by me, 
 What if I should meet her glance ! 
 
 Now once more 'mid falling water, 
 Gentle wailings seem to play, 
 
 And my heart in beauty catches 
 All the snow-white waters say. 
 
 And once more I dreaming wander 
 
 Through the green wood dark and cool, 
 
 While the birds among the bushes 
 Mock me — poor enamoured fool. 
 
 20. 
 
 The rose breathes perfumes — but if she has feeling 
 Of what she breathes, or if the nightingale 
 
 Feels in herself what through our souls is stealing 
 When her soft notes are quivering through the vale— 
 
 I do not know — yet oft we're discontented 
 With Truth itself! and nightingale and rose, 
 
 Although their feelings be but lies invented, 
 Still have their use as many a story shows. 
 
 21. 
 
 Because I love thee 'tis my duty 
 To shun thy face — nay anger not ; 
 
 Would it agree — that dream of beauty 
 With my pale face so soon forgot ? 
 
— 228 — 
 
 But ere I leave thee, let me tell thee, 
 'Twas all through love this hue I got, 
 
 And soon its pallor must repel thee, 
 And so I'll leave — nay, anger not ! 
 
 22. 
 
 Amid the flowers I wander, 
 And blossoms as they blow ; 
 
 I wander as if dreaming, 
 Uncertain where I go. 
 
 Oh, hold me fast, thou dearest — 
 I'm drunk with love, d'ye see. 
 
 Or at your feet I'll fall, love, 
 And yonder is company. 
 
 23. 
 
 As the moon's reflection trembles 
 In the wild and wavering deep*, 
 
 "While the moon herself in silence, 
 O'er the arch of heaven sweeps. 
 
 Even so I see thee — loved one, 
 Calm and silent, and there moves 
 
 But thine image in my bosom, 
 For my heart is thrilled and loves. 
 
 24. 
 
 When both our hearts together, 
 The holy alliance made ; 
 
 They understood each other, 
 And mine on thine was laid. 
 
 But oh — the poor yonng rose-bud, 
 Which lay just underneath, 
 
 The minor, weaker ally, 
 
 Was almost crushed to death. 
 
— 229 — 
 
 25. 
 
 Tell me who first invented the clocks 
 Classing the hours and the minutes in flocks ? 
 That was some shivering, sorrowful man — 
 Deep into midnight his reveries ran, 
 While he counted the nibbling of mice 'round the hall, 
 And the notes of the death-watch which ticked in the wall. 
 
 Tell me who first invented a kiss ? 
 Oh, that was some smiling young mouth, full of bliss, 
 It kissed without thinking and still kissed away> 
 'Twas all in the beautiful fresh month of May, 
 Up from the earth the young blossoms sprung, 
 The sunbeams were shining the merry birds sung. 
 
 26. 
 
 How the sweet pinks breathe their perfumes, 
 How the stars, a wondrous throng, 
 
 Like gold bees o'er the blue heaven, 
 Brightly shining, pass along. 
 
 From the darkness of the chestnuts 
 Gleams the farm-house white and fair ; 
 
 I can hear its glass-doors rustle, 
 And sweet voices whispering there. 
 
 Gentle trembling — sweet emotion, 
 
 Frightened white arms round me cling, 
 
 And the sweet young roses listen, 
 While the nightingales soft sing. 
 
 27. 
 
 Have I not dreamed this self-same dream 
 
 Ere now in happier hours ? 
 Those trees the very same do seem, 
 
 Love-glances, kisses, flowers. 
 20 
 
— 230 — 
 
 Was it not here that calm and cold, 
 The moon looked down in state ? 
 
 Did not these marble gods then hold 
 Their watch beside the gate ? 
 
 Alas ! I know how sadly change 
 These all-too-lovely dreams ; 
 
 And as with snowy mantle strange 
 All, chill enveloped seems. 
 
 So we ourselves grow calm and cold, 
 
 Break off and live apart ; 
 Yes, we — who loved so well of old 
 
 And kissed with heart to heart. 
 
 28. 
 
 Kisses which we steal in darkness 
 And in darkness give again ; 
 
 Oh, such kisses — how they rapture 
 A poor soul in living pain. 
 
 Half foreboding, half remembering 
 Thoughts through all the spirit roam ; 
 
 Many a dream of days long vanished, 
 Many a dream of days to come. 
 
 But to thus be ever thinking, 
 Is unthinking, when we kiss ; 
 
 Bather weep, thou gentle darling, 
 For our tears we never miss. 
 
 29. 
 
 There was an old, old monarch, 
 His head was gray, and sad his life ; 
 
 Alas, the poor old monarch, 
 He married a fair young wife. 
 
— 231 — 
 
 There was a handsome stripling, 
 
 Blonde were his locks, and light his mien ; 
 He bore the train — the silken train, 
 
 All of the fair young queen. 
 
 Know'st thou the old, old ballad, 
 
 It ringeth like a passing bell ; 
 The queen and page must die — alas ! 
 
 They loved — and all too well. 
 
 30. 
 
 Again in my memory are blooming, 
 
 Fair pictures long faded away ; 
 Oh, where in thy voice is the mystery, 
 
 Which moves me so deeply to-day. 
 
 Oh, say not, I pray, that thou lov'st me, 
 The fairest that Nature can frame ; 
 
 The spring time — and with it the spring-love, 
 Must end in warm passion and shame. 
 
 Oh, say not, I pray, that thou lovest me, 
 
 And kiss and be silent, I pray, 
 And smile when I show thee to-morrow 
 
 The roses all faded away. 
 
 31. 
 
 Linden blossoms drunk with moonlight, 
 
 Melt away in soft perfume ; 
 And the nightingales with carols 
 
 Thrill the air amid the bloom. 
 
 Oh, but is't not sweet, my loved one, 
 Thus 'neath linden boughs to sit, 
 
 While the golden flashing moon-rays, 
 Through the perfumed foliage flit. 
 
— 232 — 
 
 Every linden leaf above us, 
 Like a heart is shaped we see, 
 
 Therefore, dearest, lovers ever 
 Sit beneath the linden tree. 
 
 Bnt thou smilest as if wandering 
 In some distant, longing dream ; 
 
 Tell me dearest — with what visions 
 Doth thy busy fancy teem ? 
 
 Gladly will I tell thee, dear one, 
 What I fancied — I would fain 
 
 Feel the North wind blowing o'er us 
 And the white snow fall again — 
 
 And that we in furs warm folded 
 In a sleigh sat side by side, 
 
 Bells wild ringing — whips loud crackin 
 As o'er flood and fields we glide. 
 
 32. 
 
 In the moonshine — through the forest, 
 Once I saw the fairies bounding, 
 
 Heard their elfin bell3 soft ringing, 
 Heard their little trumpets sounding. 
 
 Every snow-white steed was bearing 
 Golden stag-horns, and they darted 
 
 Head-long on, like frighted wild fowl. 
 From their far companions parted. 
 
 But the Elf Queen smiled upon me, 
 Sweetly as she passed before me ; 
 
 Was't the omen of a new love, 
 
 Or a sign that death hangs o'er me ? 
 
— 233 — 
 
 33. 
 
 I'll send thee violets to-morrow, 
 
 Fresh dripping from the dewy showers ; 
 
 At eve again I'll bring thee roses, 
 
 Which I have plucked in twilight hours. 
 
 And know'st thou what the lovely blossom 
 To thee — sub rosa — fain would say ? 
 
 They mean that thou through night shouldst love 
 Yet still be true to me by day. 
 
 34. 
 
 Thy letter, fickle rover, 
 
 Will cause no tearful song ; 
 
 Thou sayest that all is over, 
 And the letter is over long. 
 
 Twelve pages filled completely, 
 A perfect book, my friend ; 
 
 Oh, girls don't write so neatly 
 When they the mitten send. 
 
 35. 
 
 Do not fear lest I, unconscious, 
 Tell my love to those around — 
 
 Though my songs with many a figure 
 Of thy beauty still abound. 
 
 In a wondrous flowering forest 
 Lies well hidden, cowering low, 
 
 All the deeply burning mystery, 
 All its secret, silent glow. 
 
 If suspicious flames should quiver 
 Mid the roses — let them be ; 
 
 No one now believes in flames, love, 
 But they call them — poetry. 
 20* 
 
— 234 — 
 
 36. 
 
 As by daylight, so at midnight, 
 
 Spring thoughts in my soul are teeming, 
 
 Like a verdant echo, ever 
 
 In me ringing, in me beaming. 
 
 Then in dreams as in a legend, 
 
 Songs of birds are round me trilling, 
 
 Yet far sweeter, wild iu passion, 
 Violet breath the air is filling. 
 
 Every rose seems ruddier blushing 
 'Neath a glory, child-like golden, 
 
 As in glowing Gothic pictures, 
 Worn by angels fair and olden. 
 
 And I seem as if transformed 
 
 To a nightingale, soft singing, 
 While unto a rose — my loved one — 
 
 Dream-like, strange, my notes are ringing. 
 
 Till the sun's bright glances wake me, 
 
 Or the merry jargoning 
 Of those other pleasant warblers 
 
 Who before my window sing. 
 
 37. 
 
 With their small gold feet the planets 
 Step on tip-toe soft and light, 
 
 Lest they wake the earth below them 
 Sleeping on the breast of night. 
 
 Listening stand the silent forests, 
 Every leaf a soft green ear, 
 
 While the mountain as if dreaming, 
 Holds its arms to cloudlets near. 
 
 But what calls me ? In my bosom 
 Rings a soft and flute-like wail, 
 
 Was't the accents of the loved one, 
 Was it but the nightingale. 
 
— 235 — 
 
 38. 
 
 Ah, spring is sad, and there is sadness 
 In all its dreams, the flower-decked vale 
 
 Seems sorrowful. I hear no gladness 
 E'en from the singing nightingale. 
 
 Smile not so brightly then my dearest, 
 Ah, do not smile so sweet to-day, 
 
 Oh rather weep — but if thou fearest 
 I'm cold — I'll kiss those tears away. 
 
 39. 
 
 And from the heart I loved so dearly, 
 
 By cruel fate I'm torn away 
 From that dear heart I loved so dearly, 
 
 Ah knewest thou how fain I'd stay. 
 
 The coach rolls on — the bridges thunder. 
 
 Beneath I see the dark flood swell, 
 I'm parted from that loveliest wonder 
 
 That heart of hearts I love so well. 
 
 40. 
 
 Our sweetest hopes rise blooming. 
 
 And then again are gone, 
 They bloom and fade alternate, 
 
 And so it goes rolling on. 
 
 I know it, and it troubles 
 My life, my love, my rest, 
 
 My heart is wise and witty, 
 
 And it bleeds within my breast. 
 
— 236 — 
 
 Like an old man stern in feature, 
 Heaven above me seems to glare, 
 
 His burning eyes surrounded 
 With grisly cloudy hair. 
 
 And when on earth he's gazing, 
 Flower and leaf must wilt away, 
 
 Love and song must wither with them 
 In man's heart — ah, well-a-day I 
 
 42. 
 
 With bitter soul my poor sad heart still galling, 
 I go aweary through this world so cold, 
 Lo, autumn endeth and the mists enfold 
 
 The long dead landscape as with heavy walling. 
 
 Loud pipe the winds, as if in frenzy calling 
 To the red leaves which here and there are rolled, 
 The lorn wood sighs, fogs clothe the barren wold, 
 
 And worst of all, I b'lieve the rain is falling. 
 
 Late autumnal cloud-cold fancies, 
 Spread like gauze o'er dale and hill, 
 
 And no more the green leaf dances 
 On the branches — ghost-like still. 
 
 And amid the grove there's only 
 
 One sad tree, as yet in leaf, 
 Damp with sorrow's tears and lonely, 
 
 How his green head throbs with grief. 
 
 Ah, my heart is all in keeping 
 
 With yon scene — the one tree there — 
 Summer-green, yet sadly weeping, 
 
 Is thine image lady-fair. 
 
— 237 — 
 
 44. 
 
 Gray and week-day looking Heaven ! 
 
 E'en the city looks dejected ; 
 Grum as if no plans had thriven, 
 
 In the Elbe it stands reflected. 
 
 Snubbed noses — snubbing, sneezing, 
 Are ye cut as once — and cutting ? 
 
 Are the saints still mild appearing, 
 Or puffed up and proudly strutting? 
 
 Lovely South, how bright and towering, 
 Seem thy heavens and gods together, 
 
 Now I see this vile offscouring 
 Of base mortals and their weather. 
 
ITALY 
 
 (1828.) 
 
 « Hafiz and Ulrich Hütten, too, 
 
 Must don their arms, and get to blowfl, 
 Against the cowls, both brown and blue, 
 — My fate like other Christians' goes." 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 ft 
 
 JOUKNEY FROM MUNICH TO GENOA. 
 
 " A noble soul never comes into your reckoning; and it is that which to-day has foun- 
 dered your wisdom. (He opens his desk, and takes out two pistols, of which he loads one 
 and lays the other on the table.)" 
 
 Robert's " Power of Circumstances." 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 I am the politest man in the world. I enjoy myself in tho reflec- 
 tion that I have never been rude in this life, where there are so 
 many intolerable scamps, who take you by the button, and drawl out 
 their grievances, or even declaim their poems — yes, with true Chris- 
 tian patience have I ever listened to their misereres, without betray- 
 ing, by a glance, the intensity of ennui, and of boredom, into which 
 my soul was plunged. Like unto a penitential martyr of a Brahmin, 
 who offers up his body to devouring vermin, so that the creatures 
 (also created by God) may satiate their appetites, so have I, for a 
 whole day, taken my stand, and calmly listened as I grinned and bore 
 the chattering of the rabble, and my internal sighs were only 
 heard by Him who rewards virtue. 
 
 But the wisdom of daily life enjoins politeness, and forbids a vexed 
 silence or a vexatious reply, even when some chuckle-headed " Com- 
 
 (238) 
 
— 239 — 
 
 mercial Councillor," or barren-brained cheesemonger, makes a set at 
 ns, beginning a conversation common to all Europe with the words, 
 " Fine weather to-day." No one knows but that we may meet that 
 same Philistine again, when he may wreak bitter vengeance on us for 
 not politely replying, " It is very fine weather." Nay, it may even 
 happen, dear reader, that thou mayest, some fine day, come to sit by 
 the Philistine aforesaid, in the inn at Cassel, and at the table d'hote — 
 even by his left side, when he is exactly the very man who has the 
 dish with a jolly brown carp in it, which he is merrily dividing among 
 the many ; — if he now chance to have some ancient grudge against 
 thee, he pushes away the dish to the right, so that thou gettest not 
 the smallest bit of tail — and therewith canst not carp at all. For, 
 alas ! thou art just the thirteenth at table, which is always an 
 unlucky thing when thou sittest at the left hand of the carver, and 
 the dish goes around to the right. And to get no carp is a great 
 evil ; perhaps, next to the loss of the national cockade, the greatest 
 of all. The Philistine, who has prepared this evil, now mocks thee 
 with a heavy grin, offering thee the laurel leaves which lie in the 
 brown sauce — alas ! what avail laurels, if you have no carp with 
 them ! — and the Philistine twinkles his eyes, and snickers, and whis- 
 pers, " Fine weather to-day !" 
 
 Ah ! dear soul, it may even happen to thee that thou wilt, at last, 
 come to lie in some churchyard next to that same Philistine, and 
 when, on the Day of Judgment, thou nearest the trumpet sound, 
 and sayest to thy neighbor, " Good friend, be so kind as to reach me 
 your hand, if you please, and help me to stand up — my left leg is 
 asleep with this damned long lying still !" — then thou wilt suddenly 
 remember the well known Philistine laugh, and wilt hear tho mock- 
 ing tones of " Fine weather to-day I" 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 " Foine wey-ther to-day — " 
 
 Oh, reader, if you could only have heard the tone — the incompara- 
 ble trouble-base — in which these words were uttered, and could have 
 seen the speaker himself — the arch - prosa^r. widow's-saving-bank 
 countenance, the stupid -cute eyelets, the cocked-up, cunning, investi- 
 gating nose — you would have at once said, " This flower grew on no 
 common sand, and these tones are in the dialect of Charlottenburg, 
 
— 240 — 
 
 where the tongue of Berlin is spoken even better than in Berlin 
 itself. 
 
 I am the politest man in the world. I love to eat brown carps, 
 and I believe in the resurrection. Therefore I replied, " In fact, tbe 
 weather is very fine." 
 
 When the Son of the Spree heard that, he grappled boldly on me, 
 and I could not escape from his endless questions, to which he him- 
 self answered; nor, above all, from his comparisons between Berlin 
 and Munich, which latter city he would not admit had a single good 
 hair growing on it. 
 
 I, however, took the modern Athens under my protection, bem^ 
 always accustomed to praise the place where I am. Friend reader, 
 if I did this at the expense of Berlin, you will forgive me, when 1 
 quietly confess that it was done out of pure policy, for I am fully 
 aware that if I should ever begin to praise my good Berliners, my 
 renown would be forever at an end among them. For they would 
 begin at once to shrug their shoulders, and whisper to one another, 
 " The man must be uncommonly green — he even praises us /" No 
 town in the world has so little local patriotism as Berlin. A thou- 
 sand miserable poets have, it is true, long since celebrated Berlin, 
 both in prose and in rhyme, yet no cock in Berlin crowed their praise 
 and no hen was cooked for them, and " under the Lindens" they were 
 esteemed miserable poets as before. On the other hand, as little 
 notice is taken when some bastard rhymer lets fly in parabasa* 
 directly at Berlin. But let any one dare to write anything against 
 Polknitz, Insbruck, Schiida, Posen, Krähwinkel, or other capital 
 cities ! How the patriotism of the said places would bristle up ! 
 The reason of which is : Berlin is no real town, but simply a place 
 where many men, and among them men of intelligence assemble, who 
 are utterly indifferent as to the place ; and these persons form the 
 intelligent world of Berlin. The stranger who passes through sees 
 but the far-stretching, uniform-looking houses, the long, broad streets, 
 built by the line and level, and, very generally, by the will of some 
 particular person, but which afford no clue to the manner of think- 
 ing of the multitude. Only Sunday children! can ever guess at the 
 private state of mind of the dwellers therein, when they behold the 
 
 * Parabenen — irapäßaais- In the ancient comedy, a passage addressed directly to the 
 audience. Schola. Aristoph., Nub. 514.— [Note by Translator] 
 
 f Sunday Children. — Those who are born on Sunday are supposed, in Germany, to he 
 better able to see ghosts, and to ho ve a greater insight into spiritual mysteries than other 
 poople. 
 
— 241 - 
 
 long rows of houses, which, like the men themselves, seem striving 
 to get as far apart as possible, as if they were staring at each other 
 with mutual vindictiveness. Only once — one moonlight night — as I 
 returned home late from Luther and Wegener, I observed that the 
 harsh, hard mood had melted into mild sorrow, and that, in reconcilia- 
 tion, they would fain leap into each other's arms ; so that I, pout 
 mortal, who was walking through the middle of the street, feared to 
 be squeezed to death. Many would have found this fear laughable, 
 and I myself laughed at it when I, the next morning, wandered 
 soberly through the same scene, and found the houses yawning as pro- 
 saically at each other as before. It is true that it requires several 
 bottles of poetry, if a man wishes to see anything more in Berlin 
 than dead houses and Berliners. Here it is hard to see ghosts. The 
 town contains so few antiquities, and is so new ; and yet all this 
 f new" is already so old, so withered and dead. For, as I said, it has 
 grown, in a great degree, not from the intellect of the people, but 
 from that of individuals. Frederick the Great is of course the most 
 eminent among these. What he discovered was the firm foundation, 
 and had nothing been built in Berlin since his death, we should have 
 had a historic monument of the soul of that prosaic, wondrous hero, 
 who, with down-right German bravery, set forth in himself the refined 
 insipidity and flourishing freedom of intelligence, the shallowness and 
 the excellence of his age. Potsdam, for instance, seems to be such 
 a monument ; amid its deserted streets we wander among the writ- 
 ings of the philosopher of Sans Souci — it belongs to his oeuvres 
 posthumes, and though it is now but petrified waste paper, and looks 
 ridiculous enough, we still regard it with earnest interest, and sup- 
 press an occasional smile, when it rises, as if we feared a sudden 
 blow across our backs from the Malacca cane of " old Fritz." But 
 such feelings never assail us in Berlin ; we there feel that old Fritz 
 and his Malacca cane have lost their power, or else there would not 
 peep so many a sickly, stupid countenance from the old enlightened 
 windows of the healthy town of reason, nor would so many stupid, 
 superstitious houses have settled down among the old skeptical, 
 philosophical dwellings. I would not be misunderstood, and expressly 
 remark that I am not here in any wise snapping at the new Werder 
 church — that gothic temple in revived proportions — which has been 
 put, out of pure irony, between modern buildings, in order to alle- 
 gorically indicate how childish and stupid it would appear if any one 
 were desirous of reviving the long obsolete institutions of the Mid- 
 dle Ages among the new formations of a modern day. 
 
 21 
 
— 242 — 
 
 The above remarks are applicable only to the exterior of Berlin, 
 and if any one wishes to compare Munich, in this relation, to Berlin, 
 he may safely assert that it forms its very opposite. For Munich is 
 a town built by the people in person, and by one generation after 
 another, whose peculiar spirit is still visible in their architectural 
 works ; so that we behold there, as in the witch scene in Macbeth, a 
 chronological array of ghosts, from the dark red spectre of the Mid- 
 dle Ages, who, in full armor, steps forth from some ecclesiastical 
 Gothic door-way, down to the accomplished and light-footed sprite 
 of our own age, who holds out to us a mirror, in which every one com- 
 placenty beholds himself reflected. In all these scenes there is some- 
 thing which reconciles our feelings ; that which is barbaric does not 
 disturb us, and the old-fashioned does not seem repugnant, when we 
 are brought to regard it as a beginning to that which comes after, 
 and as a necessary transition state. We are cast into an earnest, 
 but not unpleasant, state of mind, when we gaze upon that barbaric 
 cathedral,* which rises, like a colossal boot-jack, over the entire city, 
 and hides in its bosom the shadows and ghosts of the Middle Ages. 
 With as little impatience — yes, with quizzical ease — we regard the 
 brick-in-their-hat-looking castles of a later period — those plump Ger- 
 man imitations of polished French unnaturalness, the stately dwel- 
 lings of tastelessness, madly ornamental and flourishing from with- 
 out, and still more filagreeishly decorated within with screamingly 
 variegated allegories, gilt arabesques, stuccoes, and those paintings 
 wherein the late nobility, of happy memory, are represented — the 
 cavaliers with red, tipsy-sober faces, over which the long wigs fall 
 down like powdered lion's manes — the ladies with stiff toupees, steel 
 corsets, which pressed their hearts together, and immense travelling 
 jackets, which gave them an all the more prosaic continuation. As 
 remarked, this view does not untune us ; it contributes all the more 
 to make us rightly appreciate the present, and, when we behold the 
 new works near the old, we feel as if a heavy wig had been lifted 
 from our heads, and steel links unbound from about our hearts. I 
 here speak only of the genial temples of art, and noble palaces, which 
 in bold splendor have bloomed forth from the spirit of the great 
 master, Klenze. 
 
 *This vast structure, "the Church of Our Lady," is built entirely of large brick, and 
 was erected in 1488. It is remarkable for its two dome-capped towers, 333 feet in height, 
 Within this church is the vast bronze tomb of the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian. — [Note 
 
 by Translator.] 
 
— 243 — 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 But after all, between you and I, reader, when it comes to calling 
 the whole town "a new Athens," the designation is a little absurd, 
 and it costs me not a little trouble to represent it in this light. This 
 went home to my very heart in the dialogue with the Berlin Philis- 
 ter, who, though he had conversed for some time with me, was unpo- 
 lite enough to find an utter want of the first grain of Attic salt in 
 the new Athens. 
 
 " That," he cried, tolerably loudly, " is only to be found in Berlin. 
 There, and there only, is wit and irony. Here they have good white 
 beer — but no irony." 
 
 " No — we haven't got irony," cried Nannerl, the pretty, well 
 formed waiting-maid, who at this instant sprang past us — "but you 
 can have any other sort of beer." 
 
 It grieved me to the heart that Nannerl should take irony to be 
 any sort of beer, were it even the best brew of Stettin, and to pre- 
 vent her from falling in future into such errors, I began to teach her 
 after the following wise : — " Pretty Nannerl, irony is not beer, but 
 an invention of the Berlin people — the wisest folks in the world — 
 who were awfully vexed because they came too late into the world to 
 invent gunpowder, and therefore undertook to find out something 
 which should answer as well. Once upon a time, my dear, when a 
 man had said or done something stupid, how could the matter be 
 helped ? That which was done could not be undone, and people 
 said that the man was an ass. That was disagreeable. In Berlin, 
 where the people are shrewdest, and where the most stupid things 
 happen, the people soon found out the inconvenience. The govern- 
 ment took hold of the matter vigorously — only the greater blunders 
 were allowed to be printed, the lesser were simply suffered in conver- 
 sation — only professors and high officials could say stupid things in 
 public, lesser people could only make asses of themselves in private — 
 but all of these regulations were of no avail — suppressed stupidities 
 availed themselves of extraordinary opportunities to come to light — 
 those below were protected by those above, and the emergency was 
 terrible, until some one discovered a reactionary means, whereby 
 every piece of stupidity could change its nature, and even be meta- 
 morphosed into wisdom. The process is altogether simple and easy, 
 and consists simply in a man's declaring that the stupid word or 
 
— 2U — 
 
 deed, of which lie has been guilty, was meant ironically. So, my dear 
 girl, all things get along in this world — stupidity becomes irony, 
 toadyism, which has missed its aim, becomes satire, natural coarse- 
 ness is changed to artistic raillery, real madness is humor, ignorance 
 real wit, and thou thyself art finally the Aspasia of the modern 
 Athens." 
 
 I would have said more, but pretty Nannerl, whom I had up to 
 this point held fast by the apron string, broke away loose by main 
 force, as the entire band of assembled guests began to roar for " a 
 beer — a beer I" in stormy chorus. But the Berliner himself looked 
 like irony incarnate as he remarked the enthusiasm with which the 
 foaming glasses were welcomed, and after pointing to a group of 
 beer-drinkers who toasted their hop-nectar, and disputed as to its 
 excellence, he said, smiling, " Those are your Athenians !" 
 
 The remarks which he availed himself of this opportunity to 
 shove in, fairly vexed me, as I must confess that at heart I cherish 
 not a little love for our modern Athens, and I accordingly improved 
 the occasion to intimate to my headstrong fault-finder that the idea 
 had only recently occurred to us, that we were as yet raw hands at 
 modern Athens-making, and that our great minds as well as the 
 better educated public, are not yet so far advanced that it will bear 
 looking at too closely. All as yet is in the beginning and far from 
 completion. Only the lower lines of business have as yet been taken 
 up, " and it can scarcely have escaped your observation that we have 
 plenty of owls, sycophants and Phrynes." Only the higher charac- 
 ters are wanting, and therefore many a man must assume different 
 parts ; for instance, our poet who sings the delicate Greek boy-love, 
 has also taken on him Aristophanic coarseness ; but he is capable of 
 anything, and possesses everything which a great poet should, ex 
 cept a few trifles, such as wit or imagination, and if he had much 
 money he would be a rich man. But what we lack in quantity is 
 assuredly made up to us in quality. We have but one great sculptor, 
 — but he is a " Lion." "We have but one great orator, but I believe 
 from my soul that Demosthenes could not thunder so loudly over 
 a malt tax in Attica. And if we have never poisoned a Socrates'. 
 it was not because we lack poison. And if we have as yet no actual 
 Demos, no entire populace of demagogues, at least we could supply 
 a show sample of the article in a demagogue by profession, who in 
 himself outweighs a whole pile of twaddlers, muzzlers, poltroons and 
 similar blackguards— and here he is in person !" 
 
 I cannot resist the temptation to describe the figure which here 
 
— 245 - 
 
 presented itself. I leave the question open to discussion, whethei 
 this figure could with justice assert that its head had any thing human 
 in it, and whether it could on that account legally claim to be con- 
 sidered as human. I should myself have taken this head for that of 
 an ape, only out of courtesy, I will let it pass for a man's. Its cover 
 was a cloth cap, shaped like Mambrino's helmet, below which hung 
 down, long, stiff, black hair, which was parted in front a Venfant. 
 On that side of this head, which gave itself out for a face, the Goddess 
 of Vulgarity had set her seal, and that with so much force that the 
 nose had been mashed flat; the depressed eyes seemed to be seeking 
 this nose in vain, and to feel grieved because they could not find it ; 
 an unpleasantly smelling smile played around the mouth, which was 
 altogether enchanting, and by its extraordinary likeness might have 
 inspired our Greek bastard poet to the most delicate " Gazelles." 
 The clothes were firstly an Old German coat somewhat modified, it 
 is true, by the most pressing requisitions of modern European civili- 
 zation, but still in its cut recalling that worn by Arminius, in the 
 Teutobergiau forests, the primitive form of which has been as mys- 
 teriously and traditionally preserved by a patriotic tailor's union, a? 
 was once Gothic architecture by a mystical Freemason's guild. A 
 white-washed collar w'hich deeply and significantly contrasted with 
 the bare old German^heck, covered the collar of this famous coat — 
 from the long sleeves, hung long dirty hands, and between these ap- 
 peared a long, slow body, beneath which waddled two short, lively 
 legs — the entire form was a drunken-sick-dizzy parody of the Apollo 
 Belvidere. 
 
 '* And that is the Demagogue of the Modern Athens I" cried the 
 Berliner, with a mocking laugh. "Good Lard ! can that be a coun- 
 tryman of mine ! I can hardly believe mee own eyes !— that is the 
 one who — no, that is the fact !" 
 
 "Yea, ye deluded Berliners," I exclaimed — not without excite- 
 ment — " ye recognize not your own geniuses, and stone your prophets. 
 But we can make use of all !" 
 
 " And what will you do with this unlucky insect ?" 
 
 " He can be used for any thing where jumping, creeping, senti- 
 ment, gormandizing, piety, much old German, a little Latin, and no 
 Greek at all is needed. He can really jump very well over a cane ; 
 makes tables of all sorts of all possible leaps, and lists of all possible 
 ways of reading old German poetry. Withal he represents a Father- 
 land's love without being in the least dangerous. For every one 
 knows that he left the old German demagogues, among whom he 
 
 21* 
 
 , , \ 
 
— 246 — 
 
 accidentally once found himself very suddenly, when he found 
 that there was danger afoot, which by no means agreed with the 
 Christian-liKC feelings of his soft heart. But since the danger has 
 passed away, the martyrs suffered for their opinions, and even our 
 most desperate barbers have doffed their old German coats; the 
 blooming season of our prudent rescuer of the Fatherland has really 
 begun. He alone has still retained the demagogue costume and the 
 phrases belonging to it, he still exalts Armtnius the Cheruscan, and 
 Thusnelda, as though they were blood relations, he still preserves 
 his German patriotic hatred for the Latin Babeldom, against the 
 invention of soap, against Thiersch's heathen Greek Grammar, against 
 Quintilius Varus, against gloves, and against all men who have 
 decent noses ; — and so he stands there, the wandering monument of 
 a passed away time, and like the last of the Mohicans, so too does 
 he remain the last of the Demagogues — of all that mighty horde. 
 You therefore see how we in our Modern Athens, where demagogues 
 are entirely wanting, can use this man, We have in him a very good 
 demagogue, who is so tame as to lick any boot, and eat from the 
 hand hazlenuts, chestnuts, cheese, sausages — in short, will eat any 
 thing given to him, and as he is the only one of his sort, we have the 
 further advantage that when he has kicked the bucket, we can stuff 
 him and keep him — hide and hair- — for posterity, as a specimen of the 
 Last Demagogue. But, I pray you, say nothing of all this to Pro- 
 fessor Lichtensteix, in Berlin, or he will reclaim him for the Zoolo- 
 gical Museum, which might occasion a war between Prussia and 
 Bavaria, as nothing would ever induce us to give him up. Already 
 the English are on the qui vice, and bid two thousand seven hundred 
 and seventy guineas for him ; already the Austrians have offered a 
 giraffe for him ; but our ministry has expressly declared that the Last 
 of the Demagogues shall not be sold at any price — he will one day be 
 the pride of our cabinet of natural history, and the ornament of our 
 town." 
 
 The Berliner appeared to listen somewhat distractedly — more at- 
 tractive objects had drawn his attention, and he finally interrupted 
 me with the words, " Excuse me, if you please, if I interrupt you, 
 but will you be so kind as to tell me what sort of a dog that is which 
 runs there ?" 
 
 " That is another puppy." 
 
 " Ah, you don't understand me. I refer to the great white shaggy 
 dog without a tail." 
 
 " My dear sir that is the dog of the modern Alcibiades." 
 
— 247 — 
 
 " But," exclaimed the Berliner, '' where is then the modern Alci- 
 biades himself?" 
 
 "To tell the plain truth," I replied, "the office is not as yet occu- 
 pied, and we have so far, only his dog." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The place where this conversation occurred, is called Bogen 
 hausen, or Neuburghausen, or Yilla Hompesch, or the Montgelas 
 Garden, or the Little Castle — but there is no need of mentioning its 
 name, for if any one undertakes to ride out of Munich, the coachman 
 understands us by a certain thirsty twinkle of the eyes — by well- 
 known noddings of the head, anticipatory of enjoyment, and by 
 grimaces of the same family. The Arab has a thousand expressions 
 for a sword, the Frenchman for love, the Englishman for hanging, 
 the German for drinking, and the modern Athenian for the place 
 where he drinks. The beer is in the place aforesaid, really very good, 
 even in tbe Prytanosum, vulgo " Bokskeller," it is no better, and it 
 tastes admirably, especially on that stair terrace, where we have the 
 Tyrolese Alps before our eyes. I often sat there during the past 
 winter, gazing on the snow-covered mountains, which gleaming in the 
 sun rays seemed like molten silver. 
 
 In those days it was also winter in my soul. Thoughts and feelings 
 seemed as it were, snowed in, and my soul was dried up and dead. To 
 this was added political vexations, grief for a dearly loved lost child, 
 and an old source of grief with a bad cold. Moreover, I drank much 
 beer, having been assured that it made light blood. But the best 
 Attic Breihahn* profited not by me, who had previously in England 
 accustomed myself to porter. 
 
 At last came the day when all changed. The sun burst forth from 
 the heaven and suckled the earth, that ancient child, with her gleam- 
 ing milk, the hills trembled with joy, and their snow-tears ran down 
 mighty in their power. The ice on the lakes cracked and broke, the 
 
 * Breihahn, literally "brew-cock." A few centuries ago the term Breihahn was applied 
 only to a sort of Hanoverian beer. But it is now of more general application. In the 
 treatise De Jure Potandi, which forms a part of the Facetiae Facetiarum, edition 1645, p. 
 61, 1 find the following list of the then fashionable beers. ■ Meo palatui magis ad blan~ 
 düur cerevisia Rostochiensis, Dantziger Dubbelt Bier, Preussingk, Braunschweigische 
 Mumme, Knisenack, Hannoversch Breyhan, Englischs Bier, Zerbster, Targer, {quam Kuo 
 kuck) Bueffel, Rastrum, Klatsche. 
 
— 248 — 
 
 earth opened her blue eyes, the clear flowers arid the ringing woods 
 
 ran forth from her bosom, the green palaces of the nightingales and 
 all nature laughed, and this laughter was spring. In my soul there 
 began also a new spring, new flowers sprouted from my heart, feelings 
 of freedom like roses shot up, and therewith secret longings, like 
 young violets amid which were many useless nettles, Hope again 
 drew her cheerful green covering over the graves of my desires, even 
 the melodies of poetry rame again to me like birds of passage who 
 have gone with winter to the warm south, and who now again seek 
 their abandoned nests in the north, and the neglected northern heart 
 rang and bloomed as of old — only I knew not how all this happened. 
 Was it a brown or a blonde sun which awoke spring once more in 
 my heart, and kissed awake all the sleeping flowers in my bosom, 
 and laughed up the nightingales ? "Was it elective nature herself 
 which sought its echo in my breast, and gladly mirrored herself therein 
 with her fresh spriug gleam? I know not, but I believe that the 
 terrace at Bogenhausen, in view of the Tyrolese Alps, gave my heart 
 a new enchantment. When I sat there deeply buried in thought, it 
 often seemed to me as though I saw the countenance of a wondrous 
 lovely youth, peeping over the mountains, and I longed for wings that 
 I might hasten to his home-land Italy. Often did I feel myself sur- 
 rounded by the perfumes of orange and lemon groves, which blew 
 from the hills, enticing and calling me to Italy. Once even in the 
 golden twilight I saw the young Spring God large as life standing on 
 the summit of an Alp. Flowers and laurels surrounded his joyful 
 head, and with smiling eyes and merry mouth, he cried : " I love thee 
 — seek me in Italy !" 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 , My glance may have quivered somewhat longingly, as I, in doubt 
 over the unattainable dialogue of the Philistines, gazed at the lovely 
 Tyrolese Alps, and sighed deeply. My Berlin Philister, however, 
 saw in this glance and sigh, fresh subject for conversation, and sighed 
 with me. " Ah, yes — I too would now be so glad .to be in Constan- 
 tinople ! Have you visited St. Petersburg ?" I admitted that I had 
 not, and begged him to narrate something of it. But it was not he 
 himself, but his brother-in-law, the Court Chamber Counsellor, who 
 had been tnere, and it was an altogether particular sort of a town. 
 
— 249 — 
 
 " Have you seen Copenhagen though ?" Having replied in the nega- 
 tive, I also requested some sketch of the latter place, when he laughed 
 very- significantly, nodding his head here and there right pleasantly, 
 assuring me upon his honor that I could form no sort of idea of the 
 town if I had not been there. " That," I replied, " cannot just at 
 present be the case. I am now thinking over another journey, which 
 first came into my head this spring — I intend travelling in Italy." 
 
 As the man heard these words, he suddenly leaped from his chair, 
 pirouetted three times on one foot, and trilled: Tirili! Tirili! 
 Virilit 
 
 That was the last spur. " To-morrow I start !" was my determi- 
 nation on the spot. I will delay no longer. I will at once see that 
 land, the mere mention of which so inspires the dryest and most 
 common-place of mortals, that he at once, in ecstacy, trills like a 
 quail. While I at home packed my trunk, that Tirili rang con- 
 stantly in my ears, and my brother, Maximilian Heine, who the next 
 day accompanied me as far as the Tyrol, could not comprehend why 
 it was that, on the whole way, I did not speak a single sensible word, 
 and constantly tiril-eed. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Tirili ! Tirili ! I live ! I feel the sweet pain of existence ! 1 
 feel all the joys aud sorrows of life ! I suffer for the salvation of the 
 whole human race ! I atone for their sins — but I also enjoy them. 
 
 And I also feel, not only with humanity, but with the world of 
 plants. Their thousand green tongues narrate the sweetest, gentlest 
 tales to me — they know that I have not selfish human pride, and that 
 I converse as willingly with the lowliest meadow floweret as with the 
 loftiest pines. Ah ! I know how it is with those pines ! They shoot 
 heaven-high from the depth of the valley, and well nigh range over 
 the boldest mountain rocks. But how long does their glory last ? At 
 the utmost a few miserable centuries, when, weary with age, they 
 break down and rot on the ground. Then, by night, the treacherous 
 cat comes stealing quickly, and mocks them : " Ha, ye strong pines — 
 ye who hoped to vie with the rocks — now ye lie broken, adown there, 
 and the rocks stand unshaken as before." 
 
 The eagle, who sits on his favorite lonely rocks, and listens to this 
 scorn, must feel pity in his soul — for he then thinks on his own des- 
 
— 250 — 
 
 tiny. For even he knows not how deeply he may some day be 
 bedded. But the stars twinkle so soothingly, the forest streams rip- 
 ple so consolingly, and his own soul leaps so proudly over all petty 
 thoughts, that he soon forgets them. When the sun comes forth, he- 
 feels as before as he flies upwards to it, and when near it, sings his 
 joy and his pain. His fellow creatures, especially men, believe that 
 the eagle cannot sing, and know not that he only lifts his voice in 
 music when far from the realm which they inhabit, and that in his 
 pride he will only be heard by the sun. And he is right, for it might 
 occur to some of the feathered mob down below there to criticise his 
 song. I myself have heard such critics ; — the hen stands on one leg 
 and clucks that the singer has no "soul ;" the turkey gobbles that he 
 needs " earnest feeling ;" the dove coos that he cannot feel true love ; 
 the goose quacks that he is "ignorant of science ;" the capon chuckles 
 out that he is "immoral;" the martin twitters that he is irreligious; 
 the sparrow pipes that "he is not sufficiently prolific ;" hoopoos* 
 popinjays and screech-owls, all cackling, and gabbling, and yelling; — 
 only the nightingale joins not in the noise of these critics. Caring 
 naught for her cotemporaries, the red rose is her only thought, and 
 her only song ; deep lost in desire, she flutters around that red rose, 
 and wild with inspiration she leaps among the loved thorns, and sings 
 and bleeds. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 There is an eagle in the German Fatherland, whose sun-song 
 rings so powerfully that it may also be heard here below, and even 
 the nightingales cease to sing, in spite of all their melodious pains. 
 Thou art that eagle, Karl Immermann, and I often think of thee in 
 that land of which thou hast sung so sweetly. How could I travel 
 through the Tyrol without thinking of the " Tragedy?" 
 
 Now, of course, I have seen things in another light ; but I won- 
 der that the poet, who created from the fulness of his soul, should 
 have approached so near the reality, which he had never seen. I was 
 most pleased with the reflection that " The Tragedy in Tyrol" was 
 prohibited. I thought of the words which my friend Moser wrote 
 
 * Wiedehoepchen. Perhaps this word might he also rendered " pooh-pooh." — [Note by 
 Translator.} 
 
— 251 — 
 
 me, when lie said that the second volume of the " Pictures of Travel" 
 were forbidden : " It was needless for government to put the book 
 under the ban — people would have read it without that." 
 
 In Innsbruck, in the Golden Eagle, where Andreas Hofer had 
 lodged, and where every corner is still filled with his portraits and 
 mementoes, I asked the landlord, Herr Niederkirchner, if he knew 
 anything of the " Sandwirth." Then the old gentleman boiled over 
 with eloquence, and confidentially informed me, with divers winks, 
 that the whole story had at last come out in a book, which was, how- 
 ever, altogether prohibited ; and having led me to a dark chamber, 
 where he carefully preserved his relics of the Tyrolese war, unrolled 
 from a dirty blue paper a well-thumbed, green looking book, which I 
 found, to my astonishment, was Immermann's " Tragedy in the Tyrol." 
 I told the landlord, not without pride, that the man who had written 
 it was my friend. Herr Niederkirchner would fain know as much 
 as possible of him. I said that he was one who had seen service, a 
 man of good stature, very honorable, and very gifted in writing, so 
 that he seldom found his like. But Herr Niederkirchner would not 
 believe that he was a Prussian, and exclaimed, with a compassionate 
 smile, " Oh, get out !"* He insisted on believing that Immermann 
 was a Tyroler, and that he had fought in the war — " How else 
 could he have known all about it ?" 
 
 Strange fancies these of the multitude ! They seek their histo- 
 ries from the poet and not from the historian. They ask not for 
 bare facts, but those facts again dissolved in the original poetry from 
 which they sprung. This the poets well know, and it is not without 
 a certain mischievous pleasure that they mould at will popular memo- 
 ries, perhaps in mockery of pride-baked historians and parchment- 
 minded keepers of state-documents. Greatly was I delighted when, 
 amid the stalls of the last fair, I saw the history of Belisarius hang- 
 ing up in the form of coarsely colored engravings, and those not 
 according to PROCOPius,but exactly as described in Schenk's tragedy. 
 " So history is falsified !" exclaimed a pedantic friend who accom- 
 panied me, " it knows nothing of a slandered wife, an imprisoned son, 
 a loving daughter, and the like modern fictions of the heart \" But 
 is this really an error ? Must suit be at once brought against the 
 forger ? No, I deny the accusation ! For they give the sense in all 
 
 * Warum nicht gar ? One should have lived in Bavaria, or the Tyrol, to appreciate the 
 fall force of this non-assenting sentence. Literally it means, " Why not entirely bo ?" 
 
— 252 — 
 
 its truthfulness, though it be clothed in inverted form and circum- 
 stance. There are races whose whole history has only been handed 
 down in this poetic wise, such as the Hindoos. For such lays as the 
 Maha-Barata give the sense and spirit of Indian history far more 
 accurately than any writer of compendiums, could with all his chro- 
 nology. From the same point of view, I would assert that Walter 
 Scott's romances give, occasionally, the spirit of English history far 
 more truthfully than Hume has done ; at least, Sartorius was very 
 much in the right when he, in his supplement to Spittler, places 
 those romances among English historical works. 
 
 It is with poets as with dreamers, who in sleep disguise those 
 internal feelings, which their souls experience from real external 
 causes, since they at once assign on the spot by dreaming, to the 
 the latter, altogether different causes from the real, which, however, 
 in one respect, amount to the same thing, in that they bring forth the 
 same feelings. So, in Immermanx's "Tragedy," many dramatic attri- 
 butes are rather arbitrarily added, but the hero himself, the central 
 point of feeling, is accurately dreamed, and if this dream-form seems 
 visionary, it is still truthful. Baron Hormatr, who is the most 
 competent judge of this matter, turned my attention to this circum- 
 stance, when I on a recent occasion had the pleasure of conversing 
 with him. Immermann has very accurately set forth the mystical 
 individual life, the superstitious piety, and the epic character of the 
 man. He symbolised to the life that true-hearted dove, who with a 
 glittering sword in the bill swept so heroically like martial love true 
 over the hills of Tyrol, until the bullets of Mantua penetrated her 
 heart. 
 
 But what is most honorable to the poet, is the equally accurate 
 description of the opponent whom he has not described as a raging 
 Gessler, merely to exalt his adversary. If the one be a dove with the 
 sword, the latter is not less an eagle with the olive branch. 
 
 CHAPTER Till. 
 
 In the public room of the inn of Herr Niederkirchner, at Inns- 
 bruck, hang side by side in peaceful unison, the portraits of Andreas 
 Hofer, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Louis of Bavaria. 
 
 Innsbruck itself is an uninhabitable, stupid town. It may, perhaps, 
 appear more intelligent and agreeable in winter, when the high 
 
— 253 — 
 
 mountains with which it is surrounded are covered with snow, and 
 the avalanches thunder and ice cracks and glitters all around. 
 
 I found the summits of those mountains covered with clouds as with 
 grey turbans. There we see the Martinswand, the theatre of the 
 pleasantest imperial legends, since it is especially in the Tyrol that 
 the memories of the knightly Max, flourish and ring. 
 
 In the Hof kirche — royal church — stand the celebrated full-length 
 statues of the princes and the princesses of the House of Austria, 
 with their ancestors ; among whom are many, who doubtless wonder 
 even at the present day how they came by the honor. They stand 
 in mighty life-size, cast in iron, around the tomb of Maximilian. But 
 as the church is small and roof low, they put one in mind of 
 figures of black wax in a booth in a fair. On the pedestal of most, 
 we can also read the names of those whom they represent. As I 
 looked at these statues, an English party entered ; the leader being a 
 lean man with a gaping countenance, his thumbs hooked into the 
 armholes of his white vest, and holding between his teeth a leathern 
 Guide des Voyageurs. Behind him came his tall companion for life, 
 a lady no longer young, and who had apparently both lived and loved 
 herself out, but still quite good-looking. Behind them came a red 
 porter-face in powder white trimmings, treading stiffly along in a ditto 
 coat — his wooden hands fully freighted with my lady's gloves, Alpine 
 flowers, and a poodle. 
 
 The trinity walked straight as a plumb line to the upper end of the 
 church, where the son of Albion explained the statue to his wife, and 
 that from his guide book, in which he read at full length the descrip- 
 tions. The first statue is that of King Clodevig of France, the next 
 that of King Arthur of England, the third Eudolph of Hapsburg, and 
 so forth. But as the poor Englishman began by mistake the row 
 from above instead of from below, as his guide-book directed, he fell 
 into the most exquisite blunders, which were still more comic when 
 he came to some lady's statue, which he mistook for that of a man, 
 and vice versa, so that he could not comprehend why Eudolph of 
 
 * In the original, Heine uses the word Kleeblatt, or clover leaf, which (like trifdlium, in 
 mediaeval Latin) signifies in German, a company of three. It was doubtless an association 
 with the Trinity which caused the clover leaf company of three to he regarded as pecu- 
 liarly correct. Compagnie de trois, Compagnie dc Roys, says an old French proverb. In 
 the drinking language of the Knights of the Middle Ages a clover leaf meant the drain- 
 ing of three large goblets of wine, each one at a draught. In modern German student 
 phrase it is applied to a qua r, turn of drit-king utousils for three persons, or a Saufffe- 
 sellsschafi or club ofthat member.— [Note bv Translator.] 
 
 22 
 
— 254 — 
 
 Hapsburg wore petticoats, or why Queen Maria had donned 
 steel breeches, and had a much too long beard. I, who was willing 
 to help him out with my learning, casually remarked that that was 
 probably the fashion in those days, and it might have also been a 
 peculiar freak of those dignitaries, so that people dared not for their 
 lives cast them otherwise. So if it came into the head of the then 
 emperor to have himself " run" in petticoats or swaddling bands, who 
 dared object to his fancy ? 
 
 The poodle barked critically, the lackey stared, the gentleman 
 rubbed his face with his handkerchief, and my lady said : "Afine 
 exhibition, veryßne, indeed!" 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Brixen was the second great town of the Tyrol which I entered. 
 It lies in a valley, and as I arrived there it was covered over with 
 mist and the shadows of evening. Twilight, silence, melancholy 
 ding-donging of bells, sheep trotting to their sheds, human beings to 
 churches, everywhere an oppressive smell of ugly saint's images and 
 dry hay. 
 
 " The Jesuits are in Brixen." So I had read not long before in 
 Hesperus. I looked everywhere around the streets to find them, but 
 saw nobody who looked like a Jesuit, unless it were a fat man in a 
 clerical three-cornered hat and a priestly-cut black coat, rather old 
 and worn out, which contrasted strangely with his shining new black 
 breeches. 
 
 " That can be no Jesuit," said I, finally to myself— for I have 
 always pictured Jesuits to myself as rather lean. But are there 
 really any Jesuits ? It often seems to me that their existence is only a 
 chimera, as though it were only a fear of them which still goes ghost- 
 ing* about in our heads, long after the peril is over ; and all the zeal 
 still manifested against Jesuits puts me in mind of people, who long 
 after it has ceased to rain, go walking about with opened and lifted 
 umbrellas. Yes — I often think that the Devil, Nobility, and Jesuits 
 exist only as long as we believe in them. We know it in truth of 
 the Devil, for only the believers have ever seen him. Also as regards 
 
 * SpuTcen— to appear as a ghost — to ghost it. In plain Pennsylvania English, we Bay 
 to spook 
 
— 255 — 
 
 the nobility, we shall soon experience that the bonne soci^has ceased 
 to exist so soon as the good citizen takes it into his head not to regard 
 them any longer as the bonne society. But the Jesuits ! At least they 
 no longer wear the old breeches. The old Jesuits lie in their graves 
 with their old breeches, their longings, their world plans, their ranks, 
 distinctions, reservations, and poisons, and what we now see slipping 
 through the world in new shining breeches, is not as much their spirit 
 as their spectre, an awkward, silly, weak-minded spectre, which daily 
 seems striving by word and deed to convince us how little there is 
 terrible in it ; and indeed it reminds us of a similar ghost in the Thu- 
 ringian forest, which freed those who were terrified at it from all 
 terror, by taking its skull from its shoulders and showing all the 
 world that it was hollow and empty. 
 
 I cannot refrain from mentioning by the way, that I accidentally 
 learned more of the man in the shining new breeches, and ascertained 
 that he was no Jesuit, but only one of the common sort of the Lord's 
 cattle. For I met him in the public room of my inn, where he was 
 taking supper in company with a long, lean man, entitled " Ex- 
 cellency," who resembled the old bachelorly country squire, de- 
 scribed by Shakspeare, as closely as if Nature had plagiarised him 
 from the great author. Both enjoyed their meals, while they perse- 
 cuted the girl who waited on them with caresses, which seemed to 
 disgust to the last degree the charming, beautiful creature, until she 
 finally broke from them by main force, when the one clapped her 
 smartly behind, while the other sought to embrace her in front. Then 
 they began with the lewdest jests, which the maiden, as they well 
 knew, could not help hearing, as she was obliged to remain in the 
 room and wait on the company, and spread my table. But when, 
 finally, their language became literally intolerable, she at once left 
 every thing standing and disappeared through the door. When she 
 returned, which was not for some minutes, it was with a little child 
 on her arm, which she continued to hold during the time that she 
 remained in the room, though it greatly impeded her movements. 
 But the two companions — the clerical as well as the noble gentleman — 
 did not venture any more to insult the girl, who now without mani- 
 festing any ill-feeling, but still with singular seriousness waited on them 
 until the end. Their language took another direction — both con- 
 versed on the usual subjects of conspiracies against the throne and 
 the altar, they agreed on the necessity of strong measures, and often 
 clasped in turn the hand of holy alliance. 
 
— 256 — 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The works of Joseph von Hormayr are indispensable to him who 
 would study the history of the Tyrol, while for its more recent 
 records, he himself is the best, and in many respects the only source. 
 He is for the Tyrol what John yon Müller is for Switzerland ; a 
 comparison which frequently suggests itself. They are like next 
 neighbors — both were inspired in early youth for the Alps of their 
 birth — both are industrious, searching minds, of historical feeling and 
 training. John yon Müller, of an epic turn, cradling his soul in 
 histories of the past. Joseph yon Hormayr, quick and earnest in 
 his feelings, is, on the other hand, impelled more energetically into 
 the future, unselfishly venturing his life for that wlvch was dear to 
 him. 
 
 Bartholdy's "War of the Tyrolese Peasantry in the year 1809" 
 is an intelligent and well written work, and if it has its defects, it is 
 because its writer, as is natural for a noble soul, was prejudiced in 
 favor of the weaker party, and because he still had gunpowder smoke 
 in his eyes when he wrote. 
 
 Many remarkable events of that time have never been written down, 
 and exist as yet only in the memory of the people, who do not wil- 
 lingly speak of them, as they awaken hopes which were deceived. 
 The poor Tyrolese were obliged to go through many harsh expe- 
 riences, and if you ask them now if they obtained, as a reward for 
 their fidelity, all which was promised them, they good-naturedly shrug 
 their shoulders, and answer, naively, that perhaps things were not 
 meant quite so much in earnest as they thought — that the Emperor 
 has a great deal to think of — and that much passes unnoticed through 
 his head. 
 
 Console yourselves, poor rogues ! Ye are not the only ones to 
 whom something was promised. It often happens, on board great 
 slave-ships, in terrible storms, and amid dangers, that they break the 
 chains of the blacks, and promise them their freedom if they save the 
 vessel. The silly negroes rejoice at the light of day, they hurry to 
 the pumps, they stamp in their strength, aid where they can, leap, 
 haul, coil the cables, and work until the peril is past. Then, of 
 course, as any one might suppose, they are put again into the hold, 
 chained nicely down, and left in their darkness to make demagogical 
 reflections on the promises of slave-dealers, whose only care is, the 
 danger being over, to swindle some more souls into their power. 
 
 21* 
 
— 257 — 
 
 navis referent in mare te novi. 
 
 Flucht s? 
 
 When my old teacher used to explain this ode of Horace, in which 
 the senate is compared to a ship, he was in the habit of making all 
 sorts of political reflections, which he abruptly suspended after the 
 battle of Leipzig had been fought, and the whole class was suddenly 
 broken up. 
 
 My old teacher knew it all beforehand. When we first heard of 
 the battle, he shook his grey head. Now I know what that shaking 
 meant. Soon we had more accurate intelligence, and in secret peo- 
 ple showed one another pictures, in which we saw, in varied and 
 instructive form, how the higher leaders of the armies knelt on the 
 field of battle and thanked God. 
 
 " Yes — they might thank God," said my teacher, and smiled as he 
 was accustomed to do when he commented on Sallust. "The Em- 
 peror Napoleon has rapped them so often on the liead, that they 
 must eventually learn something." 
 
 Then came the Allies, and the miserable poems of the Liberation, 
 Hermann and Thusnelda, Hurrah and the Female Union, and the 
 Fatherland's Acorns, and the everlasting boasting of the battle of 
 Leipzig, and once again the battle of Leipzig, and no end thereof. 
 
 " It is with these people," remarked my teacher, " as with the 
 Thebans, when they finally, at Leuctra, overcame the mighty Spar- 
 tans, and continually boasted of it, so that Antisthenes compared 
 them to boys who can, having once beaten their master, never cease 
 their rejoicings. My dear youths — it would have been better for us 
 had we ourselves got the whipping." 
 
 Soon after the old man died. Prussian grass now grows over his 
 grave, and there also are pastured the horses of our renewed nobility. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Tyrolese are handsome, cheerful, honorable, brave, and of 
 inscrutable narrowness of mind. They are a healthy race, perhaps 
 because they are too stupid to be sick. I would also call them a 
 noble race, because they evince much discrimination in their food, 
 and keep their houses very clean, only they entirely lack the feeling 
 of personal dignity. The Tyrolese has a sort of laughing, humorous 
 eervilism, which wears an almost ironical air, but which is intended 
 to be thoroughly honorable. The girls in the Tyrol greet you so 
 
 22* 
 
— 258 — 
 
 amiably, and the men press your hand so severely, and behave them- 
 selves with such ornamental earnestness, that you can almost believe 
 that they treat you like a near relation, or at least like one of them- 
 selves — but you are wide of the mark ; they never forget that they 
 are but common people, and that you are a gentleman, who likes to 
 see common people speak to him without shyness. And in this their 
 instincts are true to nature, for the stiffest aristocrats are pleased 
 when they can find an opportunity of laying* aside their dignity, for 
 it is by the descent that they realize how high they are placed. At 
 home the Tyrolese exercise this servility gratis — when abroad, they 
 use it to enrich themselves. They set a price on their personality 
 and nationality. These dealers in variegated table-covers — these 
 jolly Tyrolese fellows [Tyroler Bua) — whom we see travelling about 
 in their national costume, willingly let you crack a joke on them — ■ 
 but you must buy something of them. The Rainer family, who 
 were in England, understood the business, and had good advisers 
 into the bargain, who well understood the spirit of the English 
 nobility. This was the cause of their gracious reception in that 
 foyer of European aristocracy, the West End of London. When I 
 stood, last summer, in the brilliant concert-halls of the London 
 fashionable world, and saw those Tyrolese singers, in their national cos- 
 tume, mount the stage, and listened to those lays which are jodeled 
 with such good and naive expression, and which ring so pleasantly in 
 our northern German heart— it all ate with bitter discontent into my 
 soul, the gratified laughter of aristocratic lips stung me like ser- 
 pents — it seemed as though I saw the purity of the German tongue 
 profaned, and the sweetest mysteries of German spirit life degraded 
 before a foreign mob. I could not applaud this shameless trafficking 
 in the most reserved feelings, and a Swiss, who, inspired with the 
 same feelings, left with me the hall, very truly remarked : " We*Swiss 
 trade for money the best things we have — our cheese and our best 
 blood — but we cannot hear the Alpine horn blown in foreign lands — 
 much less play on it ourselves, for money." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Tyrol is very beautiful, but the most beautiful landscapes cannot 
 enchant us when darkened by gloomy weather, and similar causes 
 of mental excitement. This is always the case with me, and when 
 
— 259 — 
 
 there is bad weather without, I invariably find bad weather within. 
 I only occasionally dared put my head out of the wagon, and then I 
 beheld mountains high as the Heaven, which looked earnestly down 
 on me, and nodded to me with their monstrous heads and cloud-beards, 
 a pleasant journey. Here and there I beheld a far-blue hill, which 
 seemed travelling along on foot, and to peep inquisitively over the head 
 of other hills, as if to look at me. Every where crashed the forest 
 streams, which leaped as if mad from the mountains, and met in the 
 whirlpools of the valleys. The inhabitants lay snug in their neat, 
 clean little cottages, which for the greater part lie scattered on the 
 steepest cliffs, and on the very edge of precipices, and these neat, 
 clean little cottages are generally ornamented with long balcony- 
 like galleries, which in turn are bedecked with linen, images of saints, 
 flower-pots, and pretty girls. These cottages are also prettily painted, 
 mostly with white and green, as if they too had a fancy to wear the 
 national costume of green suspenders over a white shirt. "When I 
 beheld these houses far away amid the lonely rain, my heart would 
 fain climb up to them, and to their inhabitants, who beyond doubt 
 sat dry aud jolly enough, within. " In these," thought I, " they must 
 live pleasantly and domestically enough, and beyond doubt the old 
 grandmother tells the most confidential tales." While the coach 
 went on without mercy, I often looked back to see the little blue 
 pillars of smoke climbing from the chimnies, and then it rained harder 
 than ever, both without and within, until the tear-drops ran out of 
 my eyes. 
 
 But my heart often rose and climbed in spite of the weather to the 
 men who dwell high up on the mountains, and perhaps hardly came 
 down once in a life time, and learn but little of what is passing here 
 below. Yet they are not on that account less good or happy. They 
 know nothing of politics, save that they have an emperor who wears a 
 white coat and red breeches, as they have learned from an old uncle 
 who had learned it himself in Innsbruck, from Black Joe, who had 
 been in Vienna. And when the patriots climbed up to them, and told 
 them with oratory that they now had a prince who wore a blue coat 
 and white breeches, they grasped their rifles, and kissed wife and 
 child, and went down the mountain and offered up their Uvea in 
 defence of the white coat and the dear old red breeches. 
 
 After all it amounts to about one and the same thing, for what we die, 
 if we only die for something we love, and a warm true-hearted 
 death like this is better than a cold false life. The very songs of such 
 a death warm our hearts, with their sweet rhymes and bright words 
 
— 260 — 
 
 when damp clouds and pressing sorrows would fain render it dark 
 
 and gloomy. 
 
 Many such songs rang in my heart as I crossed the Tyrolese moun- 
 tains. The confiding fir-trees rustled many forgotten love-words, back 
 into my memory. Particularly when the great blue mountain lakes 
 gazed on me, with such endless longing did I recall "the two king's- 
 children" who loved so dearly and died together. It is an old, old 
 story, which nobody believes now, and of which I myself only reinem 
 ber a few rhymes. " 
 
 " They both were monarch's children, 
 And loved right well, I ween, 
 But never could come together, 
 For water was rolling between. 
 
 " Dear heart canst thou swim hither, 
 Dear heart so swim to me, 
 I'll light thee from my window, 
 It shall thy beacon be !" 
 
 These words began to ring in my heart, as 1, on an opposite lake, 
 oeheld on one side a little boy, and on the other a little girl, both 
 prettily dressed in their variegated national costume with little 
 ribboned green taper hats on their heads, wafting greetings to one 
 another — 
 
 " But never could come together, 
 For water was rolling between." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 In Southern Tyrol, the weather cleared up, the sun of Italy made 
 itself felt, even at a distance, the hills became warmer and brighter, 
 I saw vines rising on them, and I could lean oftener out of the car- 
 riage windows. But when I thus leaned out there leaned with me 
 my heart, and with my heart all its love, sorrow, and folly. And it 
 often happened that the poor heart was torn by the thorns when it 
 leaned toward the rose-bushes by the way-side — and the roses of 
 Tyrol are not ugly. "When I rode through Steiuach and saw the 
 market-place where Immermann represents the " Sand-landlord,'"' 
 
i 
 
 — 261 — 
 
 Hofer, as coming boldly forth with his companions, I found that the 
 spot was too small for an insurgent meeting, but large enough to fall 
 in love in. There are only a few white houses there, and from a small 
 window there peeped out a little Sand Landlady, aiming and shooting 
 from great eyes — if the coach had not travelled by so quickly, and 
 had she had time to load again, I should have been shot dead for 
 certain. I called out, " Go ahead, coachman — there is no joking 
 with such a ' fair Elsie' — such eyes would set fire to the house over 
 one's head !" As an experienced traveller, I must confess that the 
 landlady iu Sterzing is really an old woman — but she has two young 
 daughters whose eyes warm the heart of the traveller as he steps out 
 of the coach, in a most beneficial manner. But I cannot forget thee, 
 thou fairest of all, thou lovely spinner on the marches of Italy ! Oh, 
 hadst thou given to me as Ariadne gave to Theseus the thread of 
 thy spinning to lead me through the labyrinth of life, I had long 
 since conquered the Minotaur, and I would love thee, and kiss thee, 
 and never leave thee ! 
 
 " It is a good sign when women laugh," says a Chinese author, and 
 a German writer was of precisely the same opinion, when in Southern 
 Tyrol, just where Italy begins, he passed a mountain, at whose base 
 on a low foundation, he passed one of those neat little houses which 
 look so lovely with their snug gallery and naive paintings. On one 
 side stood a great wooden crucifix, supporting a young vine, so that 
 it looked horribly cheerful, like life twining around death, to see the 
 soft green branches hanging around the bloody body and crucified 
 limbs. On the other side of the cottage was a round dove-cote whose 
 feathered population flew here and there, while one very gentle white 
 dove sat on the pretty gabled roof, which, like a pious niche over a 
 saint, rose over the head of the lovely spinner. She, the fair one, sat 
 on the little gallery and span — not according to the German method, 
 but in that world-old manner, by which a distaff is held under the arm, 
 and the thread descends with the loose spindle. So of old span 
 kings' daughters in Greece — so at the present day spin the fates and 
 all Italian women. She span and laughed, the dove sat still over 
 her head, while far over house and all rose the mountains, their snowy 
 summits glittering in the sun, so that they seemed like giants with 
 polished helmets on their heads. 
 
 She span and smiled ; and I believe that she spun my heart fast, 
 as the coach went along somewhat more slowly, on account of the 
 broad stream of the Eisach. The dear features remained all day ic 
 my memory — every where I beheld nothing save a lovely face, which 
 
— 262 — 
 
 seemed as though a Grecian sculptor had carved it from the perfume 
 of a white rose, in such breath-like delicacy, such beatific nobility, 
 that I could believe he had dreamed it of a spring night. But those 
 eyes ! — ah, no Greek could ever have imagined or comprehended them. 
 But I saw and comprehended those romantic stars which so magic- 
 ally illumined the glory of the antique. All day long I saw them, 
 and all night long I dreamed of them. There she sat again smiling, 
 the doves fluttering around like angels of love, even the white dove 
 over her head, mystically flapped its wings ; behind her rose mightier 
 than ever the helmet warriors, before her roared along more stormily 
 the brook, the vine-branches climbed in wilder haste the crucified 
 w r ooden image, which quivered with pain, and the suffering eyes opened, 
 and the wounds bled, and — she, however, sat still and span, and on 
 the thread of her distaff, like a dancing spindle, hung my own heart. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 While the sun gleamed ever lordlier and lovelier from heaven, cloth- 
 ing mountain and castle with golden veils, it still became hotter and 
 livelier in my heart, once more my whole bosom was full of flowers, 
 which shot forth sprouting mightily over my head, and through the 
 flowers from my heart smiled heavenly fair the face of the lovely spinner. 
 Imprisoned in such dreams — myself a dream — I came to Italy, and 
 as I during the journey had entirely forgotten that I was travelling, 
 I was well nigh terrified when all at once all the great Italian eyes 
 opened on me, and the variegated, tangled life of Italy came leaping 
 towards me ; real, warm, and humming ! 
 
 All of this happened to me, however, in the city of Trent, one fine 
 Sunday afternoon, at the hour when the heat goes to sleep, and the 
 Italians wake up and go walking about the streets. This town lies, 
 old and broken amid, a broad circle of blooming green hills, which 
 like eternal young gods look down on the ancient broken works of 
 man. Broken and brittle too, near the latter lies the high castle 
 which once ruled the town, a daring building of a daring time, with 
 spires, pinnacles, battlements, and a broad round tower inhabited by 
 owls and Austrian invalids. Even the town itself is wildy built, and 
 at the first glance it produces a wonderful effect, with its awfully old 
 houses, with their faded frescoes and cracked saints' images — with 
 their towers, porticoes, barred windows, and those projecting roofs 
 
- 263 - 
 
 which rest like balconies on old grey pillars which seem themselves 
 to require support. Such a sight would have been all too sorrowful 
 had not nature refreshed the dead stones with new life, had not sweet 
 vine leaves lovingly and tenderly embraced the broken old pillars, as 
 youth embraces age, and still sweeter maidens' faces had not peeped 
 from the melancholy old arched windows, and smiled on the German 
 stranger, who like a sleep-wandering dreamer walked strangely here 
 and there among the blooming ruins. 
 
 I was really as in a dream, and one of those dreams, too, wherein 
 we strive to recal something we have dreamed long ago. I looked 
 in turn at the houses and at the people, and I was inclined to think 
 that I had been acquainted with those houses in their better days, 
 when they wore bran new paintings, when the gilt ornaments on their 
 window friezes were not as yet so black, and when the marble Madonna 
 bearing the child on her arm, still had her beautiful head, which those 
 iconoclasts, age, and wind had broken away, in such a vulgar, Jaco- 
 binical manner. The faces of the elderly dames seemed familiar to me as 
 though they had been cut from the old Italian pictures I had seen in 
 the Düsseldorf Gallery when a buy. In like manner the old men 
 seemed well known and long forgotten, and gazed at me as though 
 from the depth of a thousand years. Even the brisk young girls had 
 something of that which had been dead a thousand years in their faces, 
 and yet of revived bloom, so that almost a terror stole over me, a 
 sweet, gentle terror such as I once felt when in the lonely midnight 
 my lips pressed those of Maria, a wondrous lovely lady, whose only 
 fault was that she was dead. But then again I laughed as the idea 
 came into my head that the whole town was nothing but a pretty 
 novel, which I had once read — yes — which I myself had written, and 
 that I now was enchanted by my own work, and was terrified by 
 sprites of my own raising. " Perhaps, too," thought I, " all is but a 
 dream," and I would gladly have given a dollar for a few boxes on the 
 ear, just to learn whether I was asleep or awake. 
 
 They were at hand, and I might have got them at a cheaper rate, 
 as I stumbled over an old fruit-woman. She contented herself with 
 throwing a real box (of figs) at my ears, and I thus came suddenly to 
 the conviction that I was, in the most actual of realities, in the middle 
 of the market-place of Trent, near the great fountain, from whose 
 copper Tritons and dolphins the silver clear waters welled out pleas- 
 ant and reviving. To the left stood an old palace, whose walls were 
 painted with many coloured allegorical figures, and on whose terrace 
 several gray Austrian soldiers were being drilled into heroism; to 
 
— 264 — 
 
 the right stood a gothic Lombard, capricious looking house, from 
 which a sweet, fluttering maiden's voice came trilling so dashingly 
 and merrily, that the widowed old walls trembled either with pleasure 
 or from decay, while above there looked from the arch window a black 
 labyrinthine-curled, comedian-looking wig, under which projected a 
 sharply cut thin face, which was rouged, but only on the left cheek, 
 and which consequently looked like a pancake baked only on one side 
 But before me, in the midst, stood the ancient cathedral, not great, 
 not gloomy, but like a cheerful old man, confiding and inviting by 
 his age. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 As I drew aside the green-silk curtain which covered the entrance 
 to the cathedral, and entered the house of the Lord, I was agreeably 
 refreshed in body and soul, by the pleasant perfume which greeted 
 me, by the tranquillizing magic light which flowed through the mam 
 colored windows on the praying assembly within. They were mosi 
 women, kneeling in long rows on the low prayer-benches, they prayed 
 only with a light movement of their lips, fanning themselves constantly 
 meanwhile with great green fans, so that nothing could be heard save 
 an incessant, mysterious whispering, and nothing seen but moving 
 fans and waving veils. The creaking tread of my boots disturbed 
 many a fine prayer, and great catholic eyes stared at me half inquisi- 
 tively, half willingly, as if they would fain advise me to kneel and 
 enjoy with them a siesta of the soul. 
 
 Truly such a cathedral, with its subdued light, and its coolness is 
 an agreeable resting-place, when we have out of doors flaring sun- 
 shiue and oppressive heat, we have no idea of this in our Protestant 
 North Germany, where the churches are not built so comfortably, 
 and where the light conies shooting so saucily through the uncolored. 
 common-sense window panes, which do not protect even the cold, 
 harsh sermon from the heat. People may say what they will, Catholi- 
 cism is a good religion — for summer. There is such good lyii 
 round on the benches of this old cathedral, we enjoy on them such 
 a cool piety, such a holy dolce far niente, one can pray, and dream, 
 and sin together in thought, the Madonnas wink so forgivingly 
 from their niches, woman-like, they forgive us even when we have 
 entangled their lovely features in the sinful current of our wantoL 
 
— 265 — 
 
 imaginations, while, as a superfluity there stands in every corner a 
 brown, pierced chair of conscience, where we can ease ourselves of 
 our sins. 
 
 In such a chair sat a young monk of earnest mien; but the face of 
 the lady who confessed to him her sins was concealed from me, partly 
 by her white veil and partly by the side of the confessional, yet there 
 came to view a hand, which at once held me fast. I could not help 
 looking at it ; its blue veins, and the aristocratic gleam of its white 
 fingers were so strangely familiar to me, and all the power of dreams 
 in my soul was stirred into life to shape a face to match this hand. It 
 was a lovely hand, not that of a young girl who, hajf lamb and half 
 rose, has only thoughtless, vegetable-animal hands — this hand on the 
 contrary had something spiritual in it, something exciting past associa- 
 tions like the hands of handsome human beings who are highly refined 
 and accomplished, or who have greatly suffered ; and there was some- 
 thing so touchingly innocent in this hand, that it seemed as if it had no 
 occasion to confess with the rest of the lady, and would not even hear 
 what its fair proprietress said, and therefore waited without, till she 
 was ready. But this lasted a long time, the lady must have had a 
 terrible amount of sin to narrate. I could not wait any longer, my 
 soul pressed an invisible parting-kiss on the fair hand which closed 
 convulsively at the same instant, and that in the same peculiar 
 manner in which the hand of the dead Maria was accustomed to 
 close when I touched it. " In God's name," thought I, "what is the 
 dead Maria doing in Trent ?"— and I hastened from the Cathedral. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 When I again crossed the market-place, the fruit-weman of whom 
 1 have spoken, greeted me right amiably and confidently, as though 
 we were old friends. "It is all one," thought I, "how we make 
 an acquaintance, provided that it be but made." A box on the ear— 
 or a box hurled at it — is not in faith a first class introduction ;— but 
 then the fruit-woman and I looked at one another in as # friendly a 
 wise as though we had just mutually handed over tip-top letters, 
 J introducing, &c," from our best friends. And the fruit-woman was 
 by no means bad to look at. IS he was, it is true, already in that age 
 when time stamps a fatal certificate on our brow of the active service 
 we have done in youth ; but ihis had made her all the more cor- 
 
 23 
 
— 266 — 
 
 pulent, and what she had lost in youth she had won in weight. "More- 
 over her face still bore the traces of great beauty, and there was 
 plainly written on it, as on old-fashioned vases, " To be loved and as 
 loving, live, is the best joy that earth can give." But what gave her 
 her most exquisite charm, was the style in which her hair was dressed 
 — the carefully curled wig-like locks, thickly stiffened with pomatum 
 and idyllically entwined with white bell-flowers. I gazed on tins 
 woman with the same rapt attention with which an antiquary would 
 pore over a newly disinterred torso — yes, I could detect far more on this 
 living human ruin — I could see on her, traces of all the civilization of 
 Italy — the Etruscan, the Roman, the Gothic, the Lombard, down to our 
 own powdered modern age, and right interesting to me was the civilized 
 manner of this old woman, in contrast to her business and to her 
 passionate habits. Nor was I less interested by her stock in trade — 
 the fresh almonds which I saw for the first time in their green original 
 packages, and the fresh sweet-smelling figs, which lay piled up in 
 heaps as common as pears with us. I was also delighted with the 
 great baskets full of fresh oranges and lemons, and — delightful sight ! — 
 in one of the latter lay a child, beautiful as a picture, holding a little 
 bell in his hand, and as the great bell of the cathedral began to sound, 
 between every stroke, the boy rang his little bell, and smiled so for- 
 getful of all worldly things up into the blue heaven, that the drollest 
 child's fancies came into my own head, and like a child I placed my- 
 self before the basket and began to eat and gossip with the fruit- 
 woman. 
 
 From my broken Italian she at first took me for an Englishman, 
 but I confessed that I was only a German. She at once instituted 
 a series of geographical, economic, horticultural, and meteorological 
 questions as to Germany, greatly marvelling when I confessed to her 
 that no lemons grew in our country — that we were obliged to squeeze 
 very tightly the few which " went in" among us from Italy, and that 
 in our despair we were obliged to make up our want of juice with " a 
 little more rum." "Ah, my dear woman," said I, "in our land it is 
 very frosty and foggy — our summer is only a green-washed winter, 
 even the sun there is obliged to wear a flannel jacket to keep 
 from catching cold, and what with this flannel sunshine our fruits get 
 along very poorly — in fact — between you and I and the bed post — 
 the only ripe fruits we have are baked apples. As for figs, they come 
 to us like oranges and lemons from distant lands, and by the time 
 they arrive no one would give a fig for them ; only the worst of them 
 ever reach us fresh, and these are so very bad that any one who is 
 
— 267 — 
 
 induced to take them for nothing always brings an action for damages 
 against the giver. As for almonds* we have only the inflamed and 
 swollen sort. In short we are wanting in all the nobler fruits, and 
 have nothing but gooseberries, pears, hazel-nuts, and similar canaille. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I was really delighted to have made a good acquaintance so soon 
 after arriving in Italy, and had not deeper feelings drawn me to -the 
 South, I should have remained in Trent by the good fruit-woman, by 
 the good figs and almonds, by the little bell-ringer, and to tell the truth, 
 by the beautiful girls, who streamed by in hordes. I do not know if 
 other travellers would here admit the use of the word " beautiful," 
 but the Trent females pleased me most unexceptionably. They were 
 just the sort which I love ; — and I love those pale elegiac faces 
 from which great black eyes gaze forth in love-sickness ; I love the 
 dark hue of those proud necks which Phoebus too has loved and 
 kissed brown ; I love those over-ripe necks with purple dots in them, 
 which seem as if wanton birds had been picking at them ; but 
 above all I love that genial warm-blooded gait, that silent music of 
 the whole body, those limbs which undulate in the sweetest measures, 
 voluptuous, pliant, divinely lewd, dying in breathless idleness — and 
 then once more etherially sublime and ever highly poetical. I love 
 such women as I love Poetry itself, and these melodiously moving 
 forms, this human orchestra as it rustled musically past me found 
 echo in my heart, and awoke in it its sympathetic tones. 
 
 It was now no longer the magic power of a first surprise, the 
 legend-like mystery of some wild and wondrous apparition — it had 
 become that tranquil spirit which studied those female forms as they 
 passed along, just as a true critic reads a poem. And by observing 
 in this wise, we discover much — much that is sad and strange, the 
 wealth of the past, the poverty of the present, and the great pride 
 which still remains. Gladly would the daughters of Trent bedeck 
 themselves in silk and in satin as in the days of the Council, when their 
 city bloomed in velvets and satin — but the Council did nothing for 
 them ; the velvet is shabby, the satin in rags, and nothing remains 
 
 *The word almond is applied in German as in English, not only to the fruit of that 
 name, but to the tonsils. 
 
— 268 — 
 
 to the poor children save an empty tawdry show, which they carefully 
 preserve during the week, and with which they attire themselves 
 only on Sunday. But many have not even these remains of bygone, 
 luxury, and must get along as they best can with the plain and 
 cheaper manufactures of the present day. Therefore there is many a 
 touching contrast between body and garment, the exquisitely carved 
 mouth seems formed to command, and is itself scornfully over- 
 shadowed by a wretched hat with crumpled paper flowers, the 
 proudest breasts heave and palpitate in a frizzle of coarse woolen 
 imitation lace, and the most spiritual hips are embraced by the 
 stupidest cotton. Sorrow, thy name is cotton — and brown-^trirod 
 , cotton at that ! For, alas, nothing produced in me such sorrowful 
 feelings as the sight of a fair Trent girl, who in form and complexion 
 resembled a marble goddess, and who wore on this antique noble 
 form a garment of brown-striped cotton, so that it seemed as though 
 the petrified Niobe had suddenly become merry, and had disguised 
 herself in our modern small-souled garb, and now swept in beggarly 
 pride and superbly helpless through the streets of Trent. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 When I returned to the Locanda delV Grande Europa, where I had 
 ordered a good pranzo, I was really so dispirited that I could not 
 eat, and that is saying a great deal for me. I sat down before the 
 door of the neighboring Bottega, refreshed myself with sherbet, and 
 spoke thus — 
 
 " Whimsical, blue-devilled heart ! now thou art in Italy — why art 
 thou not tiri-liring ? Have perhaps the little serpents which twined 
 so closely within, come with thee to Italy, and do they now rejoice, 
 and does their common rejoicing awaken in thy bosom that picturesque 
 sorrow which so strangely stings, and dances, and pipes, as in the olden 
 time? And why should not the old sorrows also rejoice in their 
 turn ? Here in Italy all is so beautiful, in these ruined marble 
 palaces, sighs re-echo far more romantically than in our neatly tiled 
 little houses ; we can weep far more voluptuously beneath those 
 laurels than under our ill-natured angular fir-trees, and is it not far 
 sweeter to yearn and long away our souls deep into the ideal cloudy 
 forms of the heavenly blue of Italy, than into the ashy grey of a 
 German week-day heaven, where even the clouds only cut honest, 
 
— 269 — 
 
 common, citizen grimaces, and stupidly gape down. Eemain in my 
 breast ye sorrows ! Ye will not find after all a better lodging place. 
 Ye are dear, and worth keeping, and nobody knows how to take 
 better care of you than I, and I confess that ye are a great pleasure. 
 And after all, what is pleasure ? At best an intensely exquisite, 
 convulsive pain ! 
 
 I believe that the music which without exciting my attention rang 
 before the Bottega and attracted a crowd of listeners, had melo- 
 dramatically accompanied this monologue* It was a singular trio, 
 consisting of two men, and a young harp-girl. One of the men, clad 
 as if for winter in a white overcoat, was a powerful figure, with a 
 full red, bandit face, which blazed out from among the black hair of 
 his head and beard, like a threatening comet. He held between his 
 legs a monstrous bass-viol, on which he sawed away as furiously as 
 though he had, in the Abruzzi, conquered some poor traveller, and 
 was desperately cutting his throat. The other was a tall, meagre 
 old man, whose lean limbs tottered in a worn-out black dress, and 
 whose snow-white hair contrasted sorrowfully with his buffo song 
 and his crazy caperings. It is sad enough when an old man must, 
 from poverty, lay aside the dignity of age and give himself up to 
 pranks and tricks ; but how much sadder is it when he must do this 
 before his own child ! — and that girl was the daughter of the old 
 buffo, and she accompanied on the harp his low jests, or laying it 
 aside, sang with him a comic duett in which he played the enamoured 
 old man, and she the mocking young amante. Moreover, the girl 
 appeared to have hardly entered her teens — yes, it seemed as though 
 they had rudely made a woman of her ere she had come to maiden- 
 hood — and not a virtuous woman at that. Hence came that green- 
 sickly withering, and that shrinking displeasure of the fair face, 
 whose proudly thrown traits seemed to scorn all pity ; hence that 
 secret vexedness of the eyes which gleamed defiantly under their 
 black triumphal arches ; hence the deep tone of sorrow which con- 
 trasted so unnaturally with the fair and laughing lips which it 
 escaped ; hence the sickliness of the all too delicate limbs, which a 
 short and painfully violet blue silk fluttered around, so far as possible. 
 Many colored and violently contrasted satin ribbons waved like flags 
 around her old straw hat, and her breast was symbolically ornamented 
 by a just opening rose-bud, which seemed rather to have been pulled 
 open than to have naturally unfolded itself from among its fresh 
 verdant moss. Meanwhile there was perceptible in the poor girl — 
 in this spring over which death had already breathed — an indes- 
 
 23* 
 
— 270 — 
 
 cribable charm, a grace which expressed itself in every glance and 
 motion and tone, and which did not disappear even when with her 
 body thrown forwards, she ' danced with mocking lasciviousness 
 towards the old man, who, quite as immodestly, tottered towards 
 her in the same attitude. The more shamelessly she acted, the 
 deeper was the pity she awoke in my bosom, and when her song 
 welled forth sweet and wondrous from her breast, as if imploring 
 forgiveness — oh, then the little serpents leaped up in ecstasy within 
 me, and bit into their own flesh for joy. Even the rose seemed to 
 gaze imploringly on me — yes, once I saw it even tremble and grow 
 pale, but at that instant the trills of the girl's voice rose so much 
 more merrily on high, the old man bleated, goat-like, so much more 
 passionately, and the red comet-face martyred his bass-viol so much 
 more savagely, that there came forth the most terrifically funny tones, 
 and the audience rejoiced more madly than ever. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 It was a real Italian composition, from some favorite comic opera, 
 of that strange sort which gives the fullest scope to Humor, and in 
 which the latter can abandon himself to all his mad joy, his crazy 
 feelings, his laughing sorrow, and his life-longing death inspiration. 
 It was altogether in the manner of Rossini, as displayed in the 
 Barber of Seville. The scorncrs of the Italian sehool, who would fain 
 destroy the character of this sort of music, will not escape their well- 
 deserved punishment in hell, and are perhaps damned in advance to 
 hear through all eternity nothing but the fugues of Sebastian Bach. 
 It grieves me to think that so many of my friends will not escape 
 this punishment, and that among them is Rellstab, who will be 
 damned with the rest, unless before his death he is converted to the 
 true faith of Rossini. Rossini ! divino Maestro ! Helios of Italy, 
 who spreadest forth thy rays over the world, pardon my poor coun- 
 trymen who slander thee on writing and on printing paper ! I how- 
 ever rejoice in thy golden tones, in thy melodious rays, in thy gleam- 
 ing butterfly dreams which so merrily played around me and kissed 
 my heart as with the lips of the graces. Divino Maestro — forgive 
 my poor countrymen who do not see into thy depth, because thou 
 coverest it with roses, and to whom thou dost not seem sufficiently 
 profound, because thou soarest so lightly as on divine wings ! It 
 is true, that to love the Italian music of the present day, and to 
 
— 271 — 
 
 arrive through love at its comprehension, one should have the people 
 themselves before his eyes — their heaven, their character, their 
 glances, their joys, their sorrows; in short, their entire history from 
 Romulus, who founded the holy Roman realm, until that later time 
 when it perished under Romulus Augustulus II. Even the use of 
 speech is forbidden to poor enslaved Italy, and she can only express 
 by music the feelings of her heart. All her resentment against 
 foreign dominion, her inspiration of liberty, her rage at the conscious- 
 ness of weakness, her sorrow at the memories of past greatness, 
 her faint hopes, her watching and waiting in silence, her yearning for 
 aid : — all is masked in those melodies which glide from an intense 
 intoxication of animal life into elegiac weakness, and in those panto- 
 mimes which dart from flattering caresses into threatening rage. 
 
 This is the esoteric sense of the comic opera. The exoteric sen- 
 tinel, in whose presence they are sung and acted, does not surmise 
 the inner meaning of those jovial love-stories, love-longings and love- 
 mockeries, beneath which the Italian hides his deadliest thoughts of 
 freedom, as Harmodius and Aristogeiton hid their daggers in 
 wreaths of laurel. " It is all nonsensical stuff," says the exoteric 
 sentinel, and it is well that he sees it not. For if he did, then the 
 impresario with his prima donna and primo reorno, would soon be 
 compelled to walk those planks which now set forth a festival, a 
 commission of inquiry would soon be instituted, all treasonable trills 
 and revolutionary roulades would be protocolled ; they would arrest 
 innumerable Harlequins who are involved in extensive ramifications 
 of horrible plots, even Tartaglia, Brighella, and the suspicious old 
 Pantaloon would be locked up, the papers of the Doitore of Bologna 
 would be put under seal, and under all these family troubles Colum- 
 bine would weep her eyes red. But I myself think that there is 
 little danger of this coming to pass, for the Italian demagogues are 
 far shrewder than our poor Germans, who with a similar intention 
 have also disguised themselves like black fools with black foolscaps, 
 but who appeared so disagreeably melancholy, and seemed so dan- 
 gerous by their deep earnest clown-leaping, which they call " turning," 
 and made up such serious faces, that they finally attracted the atten- 
 tion of government and got themselves into prison. 
 
I' 
 
 — 272 — 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The little harp-girl must have remarked that I, while she sang and 
 played, often looked at the rose on her bosom, and when I laid on 
 the plate, when it went round, a piece of money which was not alto- 
 gether too small, she slily laughed and mysteriously asked in a 
 whisper, " if I would like to have her rose?" 
 
 Now I am the politest man in the world, and would not for all the 
 world slander a rose, even though it be a rose which has already 
 wasted some of its perfume! "And if," thought I, "it no longer 
 smells perfectly fresh, and no longer breathes the odor of sanctity 
 and virtue, like the Rose of Sharon, what is that to me who have 
 such a devil of a cold in my head ? And it is only mankind who are 
 so particular in these little matters. The butterfly asks not of the 
 rose, " Hath another already kissed thee ?" Nor does the rose 
 inquire, " Hast thou ere this fluttered around another?" And it 
 happened about this time that night came stealing on, " and by night," 
 thought I, " all flowers are black — the sinfullest rose quite as much so 
 as the most virtuous parsley." Well, and good — without hesitation 
 I said to the little harp-girl : " Si, Signora, * * * " 
 
 Gentle reader — form no evil fancies. It had grown dark and the 
 stars shone clear and holily into my heart, while in the heart itself 
 trembled the memory of the dead Maria. I recalled that night 
 when I stood before the bed whereon lay the beautiful pale corpse 
 with soft, silent lips. I thought again on the strange glance which 
 the old dame, who was to watch the body, cast on me, when for some 
 hours I was to relieve her of the task. I thought again of the night- 
 violet* which stood in a glass on the table, and which smelt so strangely. 
 A nd a suspicion shuddered through my veins, as to whether it were 
 really a draught of air which extinguished the lamp? Or was there 
 really no third person in the chamber ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 I went early to bed, and quickly fell to sleep, losing myself in the 
 wildest dreams. I dreamed myself a few hours back, I came again 
 into Trent, I was again in amazement as before, and all the more so,- 
 
 * Nfflchviole — Night-smelling rocket. 
 
 22 
 
 J 
 
— 273 — 
 
 because I saw nothing but flowers instead of human beings walking 
 in the streets. 
 
 There were wandering glowing pinks, who voluptuously fanned 
 themselves, coquettish balsamines, hyacinths, with pretty empty bell 
 heads, and behind them a party of mustachioed narcissuses and disor- 
 derly larkspurs. At one corner two loose-strifes* were quarrelling 
 and scolding. From the windows of a sickly-looking old house, peered 
 a spotted stock-gilliflower, decked off in ridiculous wise, while from 
 within pealed a delicately perfumed violet voice. On the balcony of 
 the great palazzo in the market-place, all the nobility were assembled, 
 all the high noblesse, viz. : the lilies, who toil not neither do they spin, 
 although Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them. 
 I even thought that I saw the plump fruit- wife, though when I looked 
 more closely, it was indeed the fruit-wife no longer, but a wintry 
 sass-afras, who at once burst out on me with — ■" What d'ye want, 
 you green-top ? You pickled cowcumber ! You're a blossom now, 
 arn't ye ! Wait till I water you !" In terror I ran into the cathe- 
 dral, and almost ran over an old lame mother-wort, whose prayer 
 book was carried for her by a little coxcomb. But in the cathedral 
 all was right pleasant — there in long rows were the tulips, piously 
 nodding their heads. In the confessional sat a dark monk's hood, 
 and before him kneeled a flower, whose face was not visible. But it 
 breathed forth a perfume so strangely familiar, that I shuddered as I 
 thought of the night-violet, which stood in the chamber where the 
 dead Maria lay. 
 
 As I again left the cathedral, I met a funeral procession of nothing 
 but roses with black " weeds," and white handkerchiefs, and, ah !• — 
 on the bier lay the early plucked rose with which I had become 
 acquainted on the bosom of the little harp-maiden. She now looked 
 far gentler, but all snow-white — a white-rose corpse. They set down 
 the coffin in a little chapel ; where there was nothing but weeping 
 and sighing, and finally an old hell'e'bore, got up and delivered a long 
 funeral sermon, in which he said much of the virtues of the departed, 
 of this earthly vale of tears which availeth naught, of a better being, 
 of Love, Hope, and Faith, all in a nasal singing tone, a well watered 
 oration, and so long and long winded, that I at last awoke. 
 
 * Loose strife — hjsimacMa stricla. In the original Heine, makes these quarrelling 
 flowers to be Masliebchen — which means maple-daisy, or marsh-marigold. 
 
— 274 — 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 My vettnrino had harnessed his horses in advance of Phoebus, and 
 we reached Ala before dinner time. Here the vettarine are accustomed 
 to stop a few hours and change horses. 
 
 Ala is a real Italian nest of a place. It is picturesquely situated 
 on the slope of a mountain, a river ripples past it, and pleasant green 
 vines flourish here and there, amid the stuck-together beggar palaces, 
 which hang one over the other. On a corner of the warped market- 
 house, no bigger than a hen-coop, is inscribed in great imposing 
 letters : Piazza di San Marco. On the stone fragment of a massive 
 coat of arms of an ancient, noble family, sat a little boy, manifesting 
 in his need, any thing but respect for the relic. The clear sunlight 
 shone on his naive nudity, and he held in his hand a picture of a saint, 
 which he devoutly kissed. A little girl — beautiful as a statue, stood 
 by in rapt attention, blowing at times an accompaniment on a penny 
 trumpet. 
 
 The tavern where I dined was thoroughly Italian. Above on the 
 first story was a full gallery looking towards the court-yard, in which 
 lay broken wagons and yearning piles of manure, and wherein were 
 turkeys with ridiculous red wattles, and beggarly proud peacocks, 
 besides half a dozen ragged sun-burnt children, who were aiding in 
 the mutual improvement of their capillary attractions after the Bell 
 and Lancasterian methods. By means of this balcony, I passed by 
 the broken iron balustrade into a broad, echoing chamber. The 
 floor was of marble, in the midst stood a great bed on which fleas 
 were consummating their nuptials, while on every side was all the 
 magnificence of dirt. The host leaped here and there to fulfil my 
 commands. He wore a violently green frock coat, and a manifoldly 
 moving countenance in which was a humpbacked nose, on the centre 
 of which sat a red wart, which reminded me of a red-coated monkey 
 on a camel's back. He sprang hither and thither, and it seemed to 
 me as though the red monkey were leaping about in like manner. He 
 was an hour in bringing any thing, and when I rated him soundly for 
 it, he assured me on his word that I spoke Italian admirably. 
 
 I was obliged to content myself for a long time with the agreeable 
 perfume of roast meat, which was wafted towards me from the doorless 
 kitchen just opposite, in which the mother and daughter sat side by 
 side, singing and plucking chickens. The first was remarkably cor- 
 pulent, with breasts which sprang boldly outward and yet were still 
 
— 275 — 
 
 diminutive as compared to the colossal antitype, so that the one 
 reminded me of the " Institutes" of the Roman Law, while the other 
 seemed their enlargement in the Pandects. The daughter, a by no 
 means very large, but still stoutly built person, was also inclined to 
 corpulency, but her rosy fatness was by no means to be compared to the 
 ancient tallow of the mother. Her features were not soft, not enchant- 
 ing with the charms of youth, but still beautifully cut, noble and 
 antique ; the eyes and hair of brilliant black. The mother on the 
 contrary had flat, stumpy features, a rosy-red nose, blue eyes which 
 looked like violets boiled in milk and lily-white powdered hair. Now 
 and then il Signor padre came leaping in and asked for this or that 
 dish or implement, when he was advised in calm recitative to look for 
 it himself. Then he smacked with his tongue, hunted in the drawer, 
 tasted from the boiling pot, burned his mouth, and hopped again out, 
 and with him his camel nose and the red monkey on it. And behind 
 him rang forth merry trills, like pleasant mockery and family joking. 
 
 But a thunder stroke suddenly interrupted this agreeable and 
 almost idyllic family scene, as a square built fellow with a lowering 
 murderous face leaped in, and screamed something that I did not 
 understand. As both the women made emphatic gestures of denial, 
 he became insane with rage, spitting fire and flame like an ill-natured 
 young Vesuvius. The landlady seemed to be in trouble, and whis- 
 pered assuaging words, which had however a contrary effect, so that 
 the raging wretch seized an iron shovel, smashed divers unfortunate 
 plates and bottles, and would have struck down the unfortunate 
 woman, had not the daughter grasped a long kitchen knife and 
 threatened to run him through, unless he at once vanished. 
 
 It was a beautiful sight — that of the girl standing there sallow and 
 pale, and petrified with rage, like a marble statue, her very lips pale, 
 the eyes deep and death-like, a blue swollen vein crossing her brow, 
 the black locks twining around it like snakes, a bloody knife in her 
 hand, — I trembled with delight, for I fancied that I saw before me 
 the image of Medea, as I have often dreamed her in my youthful 
 nights when I have fallen to sleep on the dear bosom of Melpomene, 
 the darkly beautiful goddess. 
 
 While all this was going on, the Signor padre never once ran off 
 his track, but with habitual busy calmness picked up the shards 
 from the soil, collected the plates which yet remained alive, and 
 brought me first, soup with Parmesan cheese, roast meat, hard and 
 solid as German honesty, crabs red as love, spinach green as hope, 
 with eggs ; and for dessert, onions which brought tears of emotion to 
 
— 276 — 
 
 my eyes. "It's nothing — it's only Pietro's way," said he, as I glanced 
 in wonder towards the kitchen, and in fact after the great cause of 
 all the difficulty had made himself scarce, it seemed as if nothing had 
 happened ; mother and daughter singing calmly as before, as they 
 sat and plucked chickens. 
 
 The bill convinced me that the Signor padre also understood the 
 sublime art of "plucking," and when I in addition to his demand 
 also gave him a buono mano, he bowed in such estatic delight that the 
 red monkey nearly fell from its seat. Then I nodded in a friendly 
 manner into the kitchen, received as friendly a salute in return, 
 quickly jumped into the coach, drove rapidly along the plains of 
 Lombardy, find arrived about evening in the ancient, world-renowned 
 town Verona. 
 
 s 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The varied power of new appearances moved me only dimly and 
 forebodingly in Trent, like the tremor of a legend ; but, in Verona, 
 I was seized by a mighty feverish dream full of hot colors, accurately 
 designed forms, ghostly trumpet clang, and the far away roar of 
 weapons. Many a dark old palace stared on me as though it would 
 confide to me some ancient secret, and withheld it only on account 
 of the officious crowd of every-day mortals, begging me to come 
 again by night. Yet, despite the tumult of the throng and the wild 
 sun which cast over me its red light, here and there some dark old 
 tower whispered to me some deeply significant word; here and there 
 I overheard the murmurings of broken columns, and as I passed 
 along a small flight of steps which led to the Piazza de Siynori, 
 the stones narrated to me a fearfully bloody story, and I read on the 
 corner the words — Scala mazzanti. 
 
 Verona, the ancient world-renowned city, situated on both sides 
 of the Adige, has been in all ages the first halting place for the 
 great German emigrations of tribes who left their cold Northern 
 forests and crossed the Alps, to rejoice in the golden sunshine of 
 pleasant Italy. Some went further on — others were well enough 
 pleased with the place itself, and made themselves at home and com- 
 fortable in it, and put on their silk dressing--gowns and promenaded 
 cheerfully among flowers and cypresses, until new comers, who still 
 bad on their iron garments, arrived from the North and crowded 
 
— 277 — 
 
 them away — an oft-repeated tale, and one called by historians the 
 emigration of races. If we wander through the district of Verona, 
 we find startling traces of those days, as well as relics of an earlier 
 and of a later age. The amphitheatre and the triumphal arch 
 reminds us of the Roman age, the fabulous relics of so many Roman- 
 esque ante-gothic buildings, recall Theodoric, that Dietrich of Bern, 
 of whom Germans yet sing and tell ; mad fragmonts bring up Alboin 
 and his raging Longobardi ; legendary monuments speak of Carolus 
 Magnus, whose paladins are chiselled on the gate of the Cathedral 
 with the same frank roughness which characterized them in life ; it 
 all seems as though the town were a great tavern, and as peopl •> in 
 inns are accustomed to write their names on walls and windows, so 
 have the races who have travelled through Verona left in it traces 
 of their presence ; frequently, it is true, not in the most legible hand, 
 since many a German tribe had not then learned to write, and was 
 obliged to smash something by way of leaving its mark, which was 
 also very w r ell in its way, as these ruins which they made speak more 
 intelligibly than the most elaborate writing. And the barbarians 
 who now dwell in the old hostelrie will not fail to leave similar tokens 
 of their presence, having neither poets or sculptors to hand down 
 their memory to posterity. 
 
 I remained but one day in Verona, constantly marvelling at novel- 
 ties, gazing at one time on the ancient buildings, at another on the 
 human beings who thronged past in mysterious haste, and finally at 
 the divinely blue heaven which limited the whole strange scene like a 
 costly frame, and seemed to make of it a painting. But it is right queer 
 when a man sticks himself into a picture which he has just been 
 looking at, and is occasionally laughed at by his fellow figures, and 
 by the female ones at that, as happened to me very pleasantly in 
 the Piazza delle Erbe. This place is the vegetable market, and there 
 I found abundance of delightful forms, women and girls, longing, great- 
 eyed faces, bodies in which one could dwell very comfortably, excit- 
 ingly brunette-colored, naively dirty beauties, much better adapted to 
 night than to day. The white or black veils which the city women 
 wear, were so cunningly entwined around their breasts that they 
 displayed more of the beautiful forms than they concealed. The 
 girls wore their hair in chignons, pierced with one or more golden 
 arrows or silver rods terminated by an acorn. The peasant women 
 generally wore small straw hats shaped like plates, with coquettish 
 flowers on one side of the head. The dress of the men differed less 
 
 24 
 
— 278 — 
 
 from that of our own, and only the immense black beard which 
 came like bushes over their cravats was to me a little startling. 
 
 If we study these people more attentively, the men as well as the 
 women, we find in their features as well as in their whole being the 
 traces of a civilization which differs from our own in this, that it is 
 evidently derived from the Koman times, and has only modified itself 
 according to the character of the casual rulers of the land. Civiliza- 
 tion has with them no new and startling features as among us, where the 
 oaken trunk was first sawn, as it were, but yesterday, and where every 
 thing smells of varnish. It seems as though this race in the Piazza 
 '(idle Erbe, has during the course of time only changed clothes and 
 language, while the spirit of their customs has undergone but little 
 modification. The buildings which surround the place do not appear 
 to have adapted themselves so well to the change of circumstances, 
 but they do not look on us the less pleasantly, and their glance 
 strangely moves the soul. There stand the high old palaces in 
 Venetian-Lombard style, with countless balconies and smiling fres- 
 coes ; in the midst rises a single monumental column, a fountain and 
 the stone image of a saint ; here we see a whimsical white and red 
 striped Podest^, who rises behind a vast pillar gate — there we behold 
 an old four-corner church tower, on which the hand of the clock is 
 broken, and its figures half obliterated, so that even time seems des- 
 troying itself — and over all rests that romantic enchantment which 
 breathes so pleasantly over us from the fantastic poems of Ludovico 
 Ariosto, or of Ludovico Tieck. 
 
 Near this place is a house, which, on account of a hat which is 
 chiselled in stone over the inner door, is supposed to be the palace of 
 the Capulets. It is now a dirty inn for wagoners and coachmen, and 
 has for a sign, a red-painted leaden hat, full of holes. Not far off, in 
 a church, they show the chapel in which, according to the legend, the 
 unfortunate lovers were married. A poet gladly visits such places, 
 even when he himself laughs at the easy superstition of his heart. 
 I found in this chapel a solitary woman — a care-worn, faded being — 
 who, after long kneeling and praying, arose, sighing, gazed strangely 
 on me with a sickly, silent; glance, and finally tottered weakly away 
 
 The tombs of the Scalioeri are also near the Piazza delle Erbe. 
 They are as wonderfully splendid, and it is a pity that they should 
 stand in a narrow corner, where they must crowd together to take 
 up as little room as possible, and where there remains but little space 
 for the visitor to behold them aright. It seems as though we saw 
 in this an historical comparison. The race of the Scaligeri fills 
 
— 279 — 
 
 but a small corner in Italian history, but that corner is crowded with 
 deeds of daring, splendid plans, and all the magnificence of pride. 
 And we find them on their monuments as in history — proud iron 
 knights, on iron steeds, and among them, surpassing in splendor, Can 
 Grande, the uncle, and Mastino, the nephew. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 Much has been said of the amphitheatre of Verona ; it is large 
 enough to give space to many remarks, and there is no remark which 
 may not find a space in it. It is built altogether in that earnest, 
 practical style, whose beauty consists of perfect solidity, and which 
 like all public buildings of the Romans, breathes out a spirit which 
 is nothing else save the spirit of Rome itself. And Rome ? Who is 
 so soundly ignorant, that his heart does not beat at the mention of 
 this name, and whose soul is not at least thrilled by a traditional 
 terror ? For myself I confess that my feelings are rather those of 
 fear than pleasure, when I reflect that I shall soon tread on the lair 
 of old Rome itself. " Old Rome is long dead," said I, soothingly to 
 myself, " and thou wilt have the pleasure of regarding her fair corpse, 
 without danger. But then the Falstaffian thought came into my 
 head : " What if she were not as yet really dead, and has only feigned 
 to be so, and should suddenly arise — the thought is terrible." 
 
 When I visited the amphitheatre, comedy was being played in it ; 
 a little wooden stage was erected in its midst, on which all sorts of 
 Italian harlequinry was being acted, and the spectators sat partly on 
 little chairs and partly on the high stone benches of the ancient 
 amphitheatre. There I too sat and saw Brighella's and Tartaglia's 
 mock fighting, on the same spot where the Romans once sat and 
 gazed on their battles of gladiators and wild beasts. The heaven 
 above me with its crystal-blue shell was still the same as of old. 
 Little by little it grew dark, the stars shimmered out, TrufFaldino* 
 laughed, Smeraldina wailed, and finally Pantaloon came and joined 
 their hands. The multitude clapped their approbation, and went their 
 way rejoicing. The whole play had not cost one drop of blood. But 
 it was only a play. But the plays of the Romans were no plays, 
 
 ♦Those familiar with the "Fantasies of Cali.ot," will have an accurate idea of the cha- 
 racters and appearance of these popular buffo-individuals. — [Note by Translator.] 
 
— 280 — 
 
 these men could never have satiated their souls with mockeries, they 
 lacked that child-like cheerfulness of soul ; and according to their 
 stern natures, they manifested in their sports the harshest, bloodiest 
 earnestness. They were not great men, but by their position they 
 were greater than all the other children of earth — for they stood on 
 Rome. When they descended from the Seven Hills, they were again 
 small. Hence the littleness which we discover in their private life ; 
 in Herculaneum and Pompeii, those palimpsests of nature, where the 
 original old stone text is again brought to life, showing the traveller 
 Roman life in little houses, with diminutive rooms, which contrast so 
 singularly with those colossal buildings, which set forth their public 
 life, and those theatres, aqueducts, fountains, highways, and bridges, 
 Avhose ruins still awake our wonder. And this is just it — the Greeks 
 were great in the idea of Art, the Hebrews in the idea of a holiest 
 God, and the Romans in the idea of their eternal Rome, wherever it 
 was by them fought, written, or built. The greater Rome became 
 the more she extended this idea, the individual was lost in it, the 
 great who rose above it were still borne along by it, and it makes the 
 littleness of the little still more apparent. On this account the Romans 
 were at the same time the greatest heroes and the greatest satirists — 
 heroes while they acted and thought of Rome, satirists if they thought 
 of Rome and judged of the deeds of their cotemporaries. Measured 
 by such an enormous standard as the greatness of Rome, the greatest 
 personality must have appeared dwarflike and even have attracted 
 mockery. Tacitus is the grimmest of masters in this satire, because 
 he, more than any other, felt in his soul the grandeur of Rome and 
 the littleness of men. He is gloriously in his element whenever he 
 can tell us what slanderous tongues prattled in the forum over some 
 deed of imperial infamy ; and fiercely delighted when he has an oppor- 
 tunity of detailing some senatorial scandal or some abject flattery 
 which missed its mark. 
 
 I remained walking for a long time on the upper benches of the 
 amphitheatre, dreaming my way back into the dim past. As all 
 buildings reveal most clearly in twilight their inner spirit, so did these 
 walls whisper to me in their fragmentary lapidary style, the most 
 mysterious things — for they spoke of the men of old Rome, and it 
 seemed to me that I beheld their spirits wandering far below me like 
 white shadows in the darkened circus. I seemed to see the Greeks 
 with their inspired martyr eyes ! " Tiberius Sempronius !" cried I, 
 aloud — " I will vote with thee for the Agrarian law !" And I saw 
 Caesar too, wandering arm-in-arm with Marcus Brutus." " Are ye 
 
— 281 — 
 
 again reconciled ?" I cried " We both believed that we were in the 
 right," laughed Cesar up to me. " I knew not that a Roman still 
 existed, and therefore thought myself justified in putting Rome in 
 my pocket — and because my son Marcus was just this Roman, he 
 thought himself justified in making way with me." Behind the two 
 glided Tiberius Nero with cloud-like limbs and undetermined mien. 
 And there were women too, in the spectral throng ; among them 
 Agrippina, with beautiful imperial features, like those of an antique 
 statue, and on which the traces of pain seemed petrified. " Whom 
 seekest thou, daughter of Germanicus !" Scarcely had I heard her 
 wail, ere there rolled over all the heavy tones of a vesper-bell, and 
 the horrible drumming of the evening roll call. The proud Roman 
 spirits passed away, aud I found myself once more in the Austrian 
 Christian present age. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 As soon as it is dark the beau monde of Verona promenades on 
 the place La Bra, or sits there on little chairs before the cafes, sip- 
 ping sherbet, and evening air and music. It is right pleasant sitting 
 there — the dreaming heart cradles itself in soft tones, and rings back 
 in echo to them. Often, as if reeling with sleep, it trembles when the 
 trumpets re-echo and join in with full orchestra. Then the soul is 
 again revived as with fresh sunshine, great flowering feelings and 
 memories with vast black eyes come blooming up, and over them 
 sweep thoughts like trains of clouds, proud, and slowly and eternally. 
 
 I wandered until midnight through the streets of Verona. Little 
 by little they were deserted and re-echoed strangely. In the half 
 moon light, the buildings and their armaments glimmered strangely, 
 and many a marble face looked pale and painfully upon me. I walked 
 quickly past the tombs of the Scaligeri, for it seemed to me as 
 though Can Grande, courteous as ever towards poets — would descend 
 from his horse, and accompany me as guide. " Still where thou art," 
 I cried, " I need thee not. My heart is the best guide and tells all 
 that passes in the houses, and excepting names and dates, tells them 
 truly enough." 
 
 As I came to the Roman triumphal gate, there swept through it a 
 black monk, and far in the distance sounded a rumbling German 
 
 24* 
 
— 282 — 
 
 " Werdet?' (Who goes there ?") " Good friend," answered a langhing 
 soprano. 
 
 But what woman's voice was that which thrilled so strangely sweet 
 through ray soul, as I ascended the Scala Mazzantif It was a song 
 which echoed as if from a dying nightingale — death-delicately — and 
 which seemed to cry to the very stone walls for aid. On this spot, 
 Antonio Della Scala murdered his brother Bartolomeo, as the latter 
 went to meet his lady-love. And my heart told me that she sat in 
 her chamber awaiting her beloved, and sang to drown forboding fears. 
 But soon the song and air seemed to me so strangely familiar — I had 
 before heard those silken, fearful, bleeding tones ; they twined around 
 me soft, tearful memories, and — oh thou stupid heart, said I to myself, 
 hast thou then forgotten the song of the sick Moorish king sung to 
 thee so often by the dead Maria? And the voice itself — knowest 
 thou no longer the voice of the dead Maria 2 
 
 The long drawn notes followed me through every street, into the 
 hotel Due Torre — into my bed-room — into my dream. And there I 
 saw once more my sweet, dead life, lying beautiful and motionless, 
 the old washerwoman stole away, with a meaning side-glance, the 
 night-violet breathed out its perfume, I again kissed the lovely lips, 
 and the dear corpse slowly arose to offer again a kiss. 
 
 If I only knew what it was that blew out the light ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " Knowest thou the land where the bright lemon blows ?" 
 
 Knöwest thou the song? All Italy is sketched in it, but in the 
 sighing tones of longing and desire. Goethe in his Italian Journey has 
 sung it more in detail, and whenever he paints, he always has the 
 original before his eyes, and we can rely on the truthfulness, both of 
 outline and of coloring. And I find it appropriate to speak here, 
 once for all, of Goethe's Italian J ourney, and I do this the more 
 willingly, since he made the same tour from Verona through the 
 Tyrol. I have already spoken of that work before I was personally 
 familiar with its subject, and I now find my presentiment as to its 
 merits fully established. Everywhere in it we find a practical com- 
 prehension and the calm repose of nature. Goethe holds the mirror 
 up to— or to speak more accurately — is himself the mirror of nature. 
 Nature wished to know how she looked, and therefore created Goethe. 
 
— 283 — 
 
 He even reflects the thoughts and intentions of nature, and we should 
 not judge harshly of some enthusiastic " Goethian" especially in the 
 dog-days, if he is at times so astonished at the identity of the object 
 mirrored with its original, that he ascribes to the mirror a power of 
 creating similar objects. A certain Mr. Eckermaxx once wrote a 
 book on Goethe, in which he solemnly assures us that if the Lord 
 on creating the world had said to Goethe, " dear Goethe, I am now, 
 the Lord be praised, at an end. I have created everything except 
 the birds and the trees, and you would oblige me by getting up these 
 trifles for me" — then Goethe would have finished them all in the 
 spirit of the original design, — the birds with feathers, and the trees 
 of a green color. 
 
 There is some truth in all this, and I even believe that in some 
 particulars Goethe could have given the Lord a few valuable hints 
 as to the improvement of certain articles, and would, for instance, 
 have created Herr Eckermaxx much more correctly by covering 
 him with green feathers.* It is at least a pity that a tuft of green 
 feathers does not grow out of Eckermaxx's head, and Goethe did in 
 fact strive to remedy the defect as far as possible, by writing to Jena 
 for a doctor's hat, and by placing it with his own hands on his 
 admirer's poll. 
 
 Next to Goethe's Italian Journey, I would commend Lady 
 Morgan's " Italy."' and the " Corinna" of Madame de Stael. What 
 these ladies lack in talent they make up in the manliness of thought, 
 which is wanting in the great poet. For Lady Morgax has spoken 
 like a man— she spoke scorpions to the hearts of brazen hirelings, and 
 sweet were the notes of this fluttering nightingale of freedom. Of 
 like nature — as many well kuow — was Madame de Stael, an amiable 
 vivmdiere in the liberal army, who ran courageously through the 
 ranks of the combatants with her bits of enthusiasm, strengthening 
 the weary, and fighting with them too—better than the best. 
 
 As for descriptions of Italian towns. William Müller gave us a 
 review of them some time since in "Hermes." Among the older 
 German writers in this line, the most distinguished in genius or origi- 
 nality are Moritz, Archexholtz, Bartels, the brave Seume, Arxdt, 
 Meyer, Bexkowitz, and Behfus. I know but little of the more 
 recent tourists, and I have derived from them but little pleasure or 
 profit. Among these I may mention the " Bome, the Bomans, and 
 the Boman Women" of the too early deceased W. Müller — ah! he 
 
 A la poll-parrot. 
 
 21* 
 
— 284 — 
 
 was a German poet ! — then the journey of Kephalides — which is a 
 little dry; Lesmann's "Cisalpine Leaves" — which is a little too 
 watery, and finally , the " Tours in Italy, since 1822, of Frederick 
 Thiersch, Ludwig Schorn, Edward Gerhardt, and Leo von 
 Klenze." Only the first part of this work has as yet appeared, and 
 it consists principally of contributions from my dear and noble-hearted 
 friend, Thiersch, whose humane glance is evident in every line.* 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Know'st thou the land where the bright lemon blows ? 
 'Mid dark green leaves the golden orange glows, 
 A gentle breeze sweeps o'er its happy lands. 
 Calm lies the myrtles— high the laurel stands. 
 Knowest thou it well ? 
 
 Oh there, oh there, with thee, 
 How glad were I, loved one, to wander free. 
 
 Only don't go in the beginning of August, when you are liable to 
 be roasted by the sun during the day, and to be devoured by fleas at 
 night. And I moreover counsel thee, thou best of readers, not to 
 travel from Verona to Milan in the post coach. 
 
 I rode in company with six bandits, in an unwieldly, bumping 
 carozza, which on account of the all-prevailing dust was so carefully 
 shut up, that I could see but little of the beauty of the scenery. Only 
 twice ere we gained Brescia, did my neighbor lift the side leather 
 curtain in order to spit. The first time he did this, I saw nothing but 
 some perspiring fir-trees, whichin their green, winter over-coats seemed 
 to suffer greatly from the sultry summer heat ; — the second time I 
 saw a fragment of a wondrous clear blue lake, wherein the sun and a 
 lean grenadier mirrored themselves. The latter of the pair — an 
 Austrian Narcissus — gazed admiringly and joyfully at the accuracy 
 with which his reflections imitated all his movements, when he pre- 
 sented, shouldered, or aimed with his gun. 
 
 I have but little to tell of Brescia, as I occupied myself during the 
 time of my " residence" there in eating a good luncheon. No one can 
 
 • Frederick Thiersch, well known from his contributions to the knowledge of the 
 Greek language and art, and to aesthetics. The translator, who was while in Germany 
 a pupil of Thiersch", trusts that he will not be accused of undue intrusion in warmly 
 assenting to Heine's commendation of one, whom he, (the translator.) has also learned 
 to esteem and admire. 
 
— 285 — 
 
 Marne a poor traveller for satisfying bodily hunger in preference to 
 the spiritual. Still I was conscientious enough, ere I re-entered the 
 coach to inquire a few particulars relative to the town from a waiter, 
 and learned of him that Brescia contained among other things, forty 
 thousand inhabitants, one town hall, twenty-one coffee houses, twenty 
 catholic churches, a madhouse, a synagogue, a menagerie, a house 
 of correction, a hospital, an equally good theatre, and a gallows for 
 those thieves who steal less than one hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 I arrived about midnight in Milan, and went to Herr Reichmann's 
 — a German whose hotel is fitted up entirely in the German manner. 
 It was the best inn in all Italy, said certain friends whom I there 
 met, and who had mournful tales to relate relative to Italian swindling 
 and taking in. Especially did Sir William curse as he assured 
 me that if Europe is the head of the world, Italy is its bump 
 of theft. The poor baronet had been obliged to pay in the Locanda 
 Croce bianco at Padua not less than twelve francs for a poor break- 
 fast, and at Yicenza some wretch of a waiter had demanded a gratuity 
 for picking up for him a glove, just dropped from his coach. His 
 cousin Tom said that all Italians are rogues, except that they do not 
 steal. Had he been more attractive, he might have said the same 
 of their women. The third in the party was a Mr. Liver whom I 
 had left as a young calf in Brighton, and whom I now found a bceuf 
 a la mode in Milan. He was dressed entirely as a dandy, and I have 
 never met a mortal who better knew how to bring out the corners, 
 with his figure. When he stuck his thumbs into his vest armlets he made 
 nothing but angles — his very mouth folded up square as a brick. 
 Withal he had a square head, small behind, pointed above, with a low 
 forehead, and a very long chin. Among the English acquaintances 
 whom I met in Milan was Liver's corpulent aunt, who seemed like 
 an avalanche of fat, which had rolled down from the Alps in company 
 with two snow-white, snow-cold winter geese, Miss Polly and Miss 
 Molly. 
 
 Do not accuse me, dear reader, of Anglomania, should I very fre- 
 quently speak of English people in this book. They are too numerous 
 in Italy not to be mentioned; they sweep over the land in swarms, 
 they lodge in every inn, crowd every where to see every thing, and 
 it is impossible to imagine an Italian orange blossom without think- 
 ing of some pretty English girl smelling at it, or a picture gallery 
 without a mob of Englishmen, who, guide-book in hand, go rushing 
 around to make certain that every thing is there which is described 
 in their guide-books. When we see this blonde, red-cheeked race 
 
— 286 — 
 
 1 
 
 with their shining coaches, many-colored lackeys, neighing blood- 
 horses, green veiled chamber-maids, and other costly apparatus, 
 inquisitive and ornamented, sweeping over the Alps, and through 
 Italy, we can imagine that we see an elegant invasion. And in fact, 
 the son of Albion, albeit he wears clean linen and pays cash down for 
 every thing, is a civilized barbarian as compared with the Italian, 
 who indicates a civilization now passing into barbarism. The former 
 shows a suppressed rudeness, the latter a neglected refinement. And 
 even the pale Italian faces, with the suffering white of their eyes, 
 and their sickly delicate lips — how silently aristocratic do they seem 
 as compared to stiff British faces with their vulgar ruddy health. 
 The whole Italian race is internally sick, and sick people are invariably 
 more refined than the robust, for only the sick man is really a man, 
 his limbs have a history of suffering, they are spiritualized. I believe 
 that by suffering, animals could be made human ; I have seen a 
 dying hound who in his last agonies gazed on me with the glance of 
 a man. 
 
 The suffering expression of the Italians is most visible when we 
 speak to them of the misfortunes of their country, and in Milan there 
 is plenty of opportunity for that. That is the sharpest wound in the 
 breast of an Italian, and it quivers and twitches when touched ever 
 so lightly. They have on such occasions a peculiar shrug of the 
 shoulders which inspires in me a strange pity. One of my Britons 
 regarded the Italians as being politically indifferent, because they 
 seemed to listen with equanimity, when we strangers chatted on the 
 catholic emancipation and the Turkish war ; and he was unjust enough 
 to say as much, mockingly, to a pale Italian with a jet black beard. 
 We had the previous evening seen the debut of a new opera in La 
 Scala, and witnessed the tremendous enthusiasm which a first success 
 excites. "You Italians," said the Englishman, "appear to be dead 
 to every thing save music, which is the only thing that seems to excite 
 you." " You do us injustice," said the pale one, shrugging his shoulders, 
 " Ah !" sighed he — " Italy sits elegiacally dreaming on her ruins, and 
 when she is at times suddenly awakened by the melody of a song and 
 springs wildly up, this sudden inspiration is not due to the song itself, 
 but rather to the ancient memories and feelings which the song has 
 awakened — which Italy has ever borne in her heart, and which now 
 mightily gush forth — and this is the meaning of the wild tumult which 
 you have heard in La Scala." 
 
 Perhaps this confession also explains the enthusiasm which Ros- 
 sini's or Meyerbeer's operas have every where produced on the other 
 
 23*' 
 
— 287 — 
 
 side of the Alps. If I ever in my life saw human madness it was at 
 a representation of the Crociafo in Egitto, when the music frequently 
 underwent a sudden transition from soft wailing tones to wild active 
 pain. Such madness is termed by Italians : furore. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Although I have here, dear reader — the Brera and Ambrosiana 
 being in my way — a glorious opportunity to serve up views on art, 
 I will still suffer this cup to pass away from you, contenting myself 
 with the remark that I have observed the pointed chin, which gives 
 such a sentimental impression to so many pictures of the Lombard 
 school, on many a pretty Lombardess in the streets of Milan. It 
 has always been marvellously comforting and edifying to me when an 
 opportunity presented itself to compare the works of a school with the 
 originals which served as its models ; for thus I more accurately 
 appreciated its character. Thus in the great fair of Rotterdam, the 
 divine geniality of Jan Steen was suddenly revealed to me ; and thus 
 at a later date I learned on Lung VArno the truth of form and the 
 effective spirit of the Florentines, while in San Marco I caught the 
 truth of colour and the dreamy superficialty of the Venetians. Go to 
 Rome, my dear soul — go to Rome — and there perhaps you may rise 
 to a perception of the ideal and to the appreciation of Raphael. 
 
 However there is one marvel at Milan — and by long odds the 
 greatest — which I cannot leave unnoted — that is the Cathedral. 
 
 From a distance it looks as though cut from white note paper, and 
 when near it the observer is startled to find that this lace-like scissor- 
 ing is all of undeniable white marble. The countless images of saints, 
 which cover the entire building, which peep forth under little Gothic 
 baldachins, and which rise from every point, form a petrified multitude 
 which well nigh bewilders our senses. Yet if we study the entire 
 work a while longer, we find that it is right pretty, colossally neat, a 
 play thing for giant children. But it appears best in the midnight 
 moonshine, for then all the white stone-men come thronging solemnly i 
 adown from their height, and sweep together over the place and 
 whisper an old legend in our ear — a strange, secret tale of Galeazzo 
 Visconti, who begun the Cathedral, and of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 who at a later day continued it. 
 
 " D'ye see" — said to me a singular looking saint who had evidently 
 
— 288 — 
 
 been but recently manufactured from bran new marble, "d'ye see, my 
 old friends here cannot understand why the Emperor Napoleon 
 worked away so industriously at the Cathedral. But I flatter myself 
 that I have seen into the matter. He knew perfectly well that this 
 great stone house was at any rate a very useful building, and that it 
 might be used when Christianity shall have gone out of date." 
 
 " When Christianity shall be out of date !" — I was fairly frightened 
 to hear that there were saints who talked this way in Italy, and that 
 in a place where Austrian sentinels with bear-skin caps and knapsacks 
 were marching up and down. Any how the old stone chap was 
 right, for the interior of the Cathedral is pleasant and cool in summer 
 and cheerful and agreeable, and will be worth something, do what 
 they will with it. . 
 
 The completion of this Cathedral was one of Napoleon's favorite 
 ideas, and he was not wide of the mark when his power came to an 
 end. The Austrians are now carrying it on. They are also working 
 at the celebrated triumphal arch which is to conclude the Simplon 
 road, though of course Napoleon's statue will not be placed on the 
 summit of the arch, as was originally determined. At all events, 
 the great Emperor has left behind him a monument which is better 
 and more durable than marble, and which no Austrian can hide from 
 observation. Long after the rest of us ordinary mortals have been 
 mowed down by the scythe of Time, and have been blown away like 
 chaff" of the field, that statue monument will remain unscathed ; new 
 races will rise from the earth, will gaze bewildered on the image and 
 pass away again to earth ; — and Time, incapable of injuring the form, 
 will seek to involve it in legendary myths, and its tremendous history 
 will finally be a myth. 
 
 Perhaps after thousands of years some wonderfully shrewd school- 
 master in a fearfully profound dissertation will prove beyond cavil, 
 that Napoleon Bonaparte was identical with that other Titan who 
 stole fire from the gods, and who for this trespass was chained to a 
 solitary rock in the midst of the sea, as a prey to a vulture, which 
 day by day gnawed away at his heart. 
 
— 281) — 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 My excellent friend and reader, I sincerely hope that you will 
 not mistake me for an unconditional Bonapartist ; my adoration is 
 entirely for the genius and not for the deeds of the man. I love him 
 beyond all limit up to the eighteenth Brtimaire — when he betrayed 
 freedom. And this he did, not from necessity, but from a secret 
 predilection for aristocracy. Napoleon Bonaparte was an aristo- 
 crat, a noble enemy of middle class equality, and it was an enormous 
 mistake and misunderstanding when the European aristocracy, repre- 
 sented by England, made such deadly war on him ; for although he 
 intended to introduce a few changes into the personnel of this 
 aristocracy, he still wished to uphold the majority of them and their 
 actual principle ; he would have regenerated this aristocracy which 
 now, after its last and certainly final victory, lies exhausted by age, 
 loss of blood and weariness. 
 
 Dear reader ! let us here, once and for all, understand one another. 
 I never praise the dead, but the human soul whose garment the deed 
 is, and history is nothing but the soul's old wardrobe. But love 
 sometime loves old hats and coats, and even so do I love the cloak 
 of Marengo. 
 
 " We are on the battle field of Marengo !" How my heart laughed 
 as the postillion said this. I was in company with a very gentle- 
 manly Lieflander, who rather played the Russian the evening before 
 we had left Milan, and the next morning we saw the sun rise over 
 the famed field of battle. 
 
 It was here that General Bonaparte drank so mighty a draught 
 from the goblet of renown, that in his intoxication he became Consul, 
 Emperor, World-conqueror, and first grew sober at St. Helena. And 
 it fared no better with us who also got tipsy with him, dreamed the 
 same wild dreams, awoke in the same manner, and now in all the 
 misery of soberness are making all sorts of reasonable reflections. 
 And it often seems to us as if warlike reputation were an old- 
 fashioned, out-of-date sort of pleasure, for under Napoleon, a battle 
 attained its acme of significance, and he was perhaps the last of the 
 conquerors. 
 
 It really seems as though more spiritual than material interests 
 were now being fought out, and as though universal history were no 
 longer a robber-legend, but a ghost story. The grand lever which 
 
 25 
 
— 290 — 
 
 ambitious and avaricious princes were once wont to employ so indus- 
 triously — that is to say, nationality, with all its vanity and hatred, 
 is now musty and used up ; day by day the ridiculous prejudices of 
 races are disappearing; all harsh peculiarities are disappearing in 
 the universality of European civilization, there are no longer nations 
 but parties, and it is wonderful to behold how these, despite the most 
 varied colours, recognize each other, and make themselves mutually 
 intelligible, notwithstanding the difference of language. As there is 
 a material policy of States, so there is also a spiritual party-policy; 
 and as the States' policy would quickly bring to a general, zealous 
 European war, the smallest strife which should spring up between 
 the smallest powers, where interest is the governing principle, so on 
 the other hand, the smallest strife could not take place, in which, 
 owing to the party-policy already alluded to, the general spiritual 
 tendencies and meanings would not be at once understood, and by 
 which the most distant and heterogeneous parties would find them- 
 selves compelled to take side jjro or contra. 
 
 On account of this party-policy, which I call a spiritual-policy, 
 because its interests are more spiritual and its ultimas rationes not 
 metallic, they now form, as if by the medium of the States' policy, 
 two great masses opposed to each other, fighting with glance and 
 word. The watchwords and representatives of these two great 
 parties change day by day — there is no lack of confusion— the 
 greatest misunderstandings often arise, and these are often rather 
 increased than explained by the authors, who form the diplomatists 
 of the spiritual party; but though heads may err, hearts still feel 
 what they need, and time presses on with her great question. 
 
 But what is the great question of the age ? 
 
 It is that of emancipation. Not simply the emancipation of the 
 Irish, Greeks, Frankfort Jews, West Indian negroes, and other 
 oppressed races, but the emancipation of the whole world, and 
 especially that of Europe, which has attained its majority and now 
 tears itself loose from the iron leading-strings of a privileged aris- 
 tocracy. A few philosophical renegades from freedom may forge, 
 if they will, for us the most elaborate chains of conclusions, to prove 
 that millions of men are born to be beasts of burden for a few thou- 
 sand nobles, but they will never convince us until they make it clear, 
 to borrow the expression of Voltaire, that the former are born with 
 saddles on their backs, and the latter with spurs on their heels. 
 
 Every age has its problem, whose solution advances the world. 
 The earlier inequality established by the feudal system in Europe, 
 
— 291 — 
 
 T»a<? perhaps necessary, or a necessary condition of the advance of 
 humanity; but now it impedes the latter, and represses the pulsa- 
 tions of the civilized heart. The French, who are pre-eminently 
 the race of social intercourse, have necessarily suffered most from 
 this inequality which grates so harshly against the principles of 
 sociability, they have sought to force equality by gently nipping off 
 those heads which persisted in rising above the rest, and their revo- 
 lution was the signal for a war of independence for the whole world. 
 
 Honour to the French ! — they have taken good care of the two 
 greatest needs of human society — of good eating and citizenly 
 equality; they have made the greatest advances in cookery and in 
 freedom, and if it ever comes to pass that we all hold together one 
 grand dinner of jolly good-fellowship — and on this earth there is 
 nothing better than an assembly of peers at a well-spread table — 
 we will give the Frenchmen the first toast. It will be some time I 
 know before this grand feast comes off, and before emancipation is 
 finished up, — but it is bound to come, this blessed time, when we, all 
 reconciled and on a par, will sit together around the same table. 
 Then in union we will fight against other evils of the world, perhaps 
 at last against death itself — death, whose stern system of equality is 
 not, to say the worst, so oppressive as the smiling theory of in- 
 equality held by aristocracy. 
 
 Laugh not, thou later reader. Every age believes that its battle 
 is the most important — this is the true creed of the time in which it 
 lives and dies, and we, too, will live and die in this religion of free- 
 dom, which perhaps better deserves the name of religion than the 
 hollow, long dead soul-spectre which we have qualified by that name. 
 Our holy battle seems to us to be by far the mightiest ever yet fought 
 on earth, though a historical presentiment tells us that our descend- 
 ants will look down on this strife with perhaps the same indifference 
 with which we regard the combats of the first men who fought against 
 quite as terrible monsters, dragons and robber giants. 
 
— 292 — 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 On the battle-field of Marengo, reflections come flying around in 
 such flocks that one can almost believe that they are the same which 
 many travellers have suddenly abandoned there in a hurry, and which 
 now go sweeping about. I love battle-fields ; for, terrible as war is, 
 it still sets forth the spiritual greatness of man, who has gone so fai 
 as to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy — Death. And just so with 
 this battle plain, where Freedom danced on blood-roses her wanton 
 bridal measures. For, in those days, France was a bridegroom who 
 had invited all the world to a wedding, and then, as the song says, 
 
 Hurrah! upon the bridal eve, 
 
 In merry joke, for pots, they broke 
 
 Aristocratic heads. 
 
 But, alas ! every inch which humanity advances costs streams of 
 blood ; and is not that paying rather dear ? Is not the life of the 
 individual worth as much as that of the entire race ? For every 
 single man is a world which is born and which dies with him ; beneath 
 every grave-stone lies a world's history. " Be silent," Death would 
 say, "as to those who lie here," — but we still live, and will fig-ht on in 
 the holy battle for the freedom of humanity. 
 
 "Who now thinks of Marengo?" said my travelling companion, 
 the Liefland Russian, as we rode over the fallow field. " At present 
 all eyes are turned towards the Balkan, where my countryman, Die- 
 bitsch, is fitting the turbans to the Turk's head — and you'll see that 
 we'll take Constantinople this very year. Are you for Russia?" 
 
 This was a question which I had rather have answered anywhere 
 but on the field of Marengo. I saw, in the morning mists, the man 
 in the little cocked hat and the gray cloak of battle — he darted on- 
 wards, swift as a spirit, and far in the distance rang a terribly sweet 
 " Allons enfans de la patrie" Yet, notwithstanding all this, I 
 answered, " Yes, I am sound as to Russia." 
 
 And in fact, in the wonderful change of watchwords and of repre- 
 sentatives in the great battle, it has come to such a pitch that the 
 most enthusiastic friend of revolution can only see the safety of the 
 world in the victory of Russia, and must regard the Czar Nicholas 
 as the gonfalonicre of freedom. Singular mutation ! Two years ago 
 we cast the robe of this noble office upon an English minister. The 
 howl of high Tory hatred against George Canning led our choice ; in 
 
— 293 — 
 
 the noble, humiliating sufferings which he endured, we saw guaran- 
 tees of his fidelity, and as he died the death of a martyr, we put on 
 mourning, and the eighth of August became a sacred day in the cal- 
 endar of freedom. But we took the flags from Downing street and 
 planted them anew in St. Petersburg, and chose for our standard- 
 bearer the Emperor Nicholas, the Knight of Europe, who protected 
 Greek widows and orphans against Asiatic barbarians, and who in 
 that brave battle won his spurs. Again the enemies of freedom had 
 betrayed themselves, and we again availed ourselves of the shrewd- 
 ness of their hatred to learn what was for our own benefit. Again 
 the wonted vision came to view, that we owed our representatives 
 more to the elective majority of our enemies than to our own choice ; 
 and as we gazed on the marvellously assorted multitude who sent 
 forth their best wishes to Heaven for the safety of Turkey, and for 
 the destruction of Russia, we quickly found out who was our friend — 
 or, rather, who was the terror of our foe. How the blessed Lord in 
 Heaven must have laughed, when he listened to the cotemporary 
 prayers of Wellington, the Grand Mufti, the Pope, Rothschild I., 
 Metternich, and an endless mess of little nobles, stock-jobbers, priests 
 and Turks, and all for one and the same thing — the safety of the 
 Crescent ! 
 
 What the alarmists have fabled over the danger to which we are ex- 
 posed by the overgrowth of Russia, is rank nonsense. We Germans, 
 at least, have nothing to risk — a greater or less degree of servitude 
 need not concern us, when the greatest of blessings, the being set 
 free from the relics of feudalism and of priesthood is at stake. They 
 threaten us with the dominion of the knout, but I for one will gladly 
 take a little thrashing if I can only know for a certainty that our 
 enemies will get their share of it. But I will bet that they will go 
 as of old, fawning and wheedling up to the new powers that be, 
 graciously smiling and proffering the most shameless services, and 
 if it happens that they once for all must be knouted, they will con- 
 dition for the privilege of a knout of honour — just as a nobleman in 
 Siam, wiien punished, is stuck into a silken bag and is beaten with 
 perfumed rods, while the criminal citizen is put into a common linen 
 sack, and has his blows laid on with a stick utterly devoid of a sweet 
 smelling savour. Well, we will grant them this privilege (since it is 
 the only one) if they are only well whipped, and especially the Eng- 
 lish nobility. People may recall, if they please, and as much as they 
 please, that it was this very nobility which forced from despotism 
 the Magna Charta, and that England, despite all her maintenance 
 
 25* 
 
— 291 — 
 
 of social inequality, has ever secured the personal liberty of the sub- 
 ject, and that that country was a place of refuge for free souls when 
 despotism subdued the eutire continent; those are tempi passafi! 
 England, with her aristocracy, is graduall ysinking; independent 
 spirits have now a better place of refuge, and if all Europe become 
 a single prison, there would still be another hole for escape, I mean 
 America, and God be praised ! that hole is larger than all the prison 
 itself. 
 
 But these are all ridiculous whimsies, for if any . one compares 
 England and Russia, with a view to freedom, no doubt remains as 
 to which is the right side to choose. Freedom has sprung in Eng- 
 land from historical events — from privileges ; in Russia, from prin- 
 ciples. The results of those events — like the events themselves — 
 bear the stamp of the middle ages; all England is congealed in 
 mediaeval, never to be rejuvenated institutions, behind which her 
 aristocracy is entrenched, awaiting the death-struggle. But those 
 principles from which Russian freedom sprung — or to speak more 
 correctly, from which Russian freedom is daily developing itself, are 
 the liberal ideas of our most recent times ; the Russian government 
 is penetrated through and through with these ideas; its unlimited 
 absolutism is rather a dictatorship, by which those ideas will be 
 brought directly to life. This government is not rooted in feudalism 
 and priestcraft ; it fights directly against the power of the nobles 
 and of the church, for even Catharine limited the power of the 
 church, and the Russian nobility exists by church service. Russia 
 is a democratic state, I would gladly say, «a Christian state, if I 
 might be permitted to use this so often misused word in its sweetest 
 and most cosmopolite sense, for the Russians, by the very extent of 
 their realm, are freed from the narrow-mindedness of a heathenish 
 national vanity ; they are citizens of the world, lacking only five- 
 sixths, since Russia embraces one-half dozenth of the inhabited 
 globe. 
 
 And faith! when a German-Russian, like my travelling companion, 
 plays the brag-patriot, and talks about "our Russia" vnd "our 
 Diebitsch," it seems to me as though I heard a herring calling the 
 ocean his country and the whale his compatriot. 
 
— 295 — 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 "I am sound as to Russia;" — I said on the battle plain of Ma- 
 rengo, and quitted for a few minutes the coach, to offer up my 
 morning devotions. 
 
 The sun came forth gloriously, genially, confidently from beneath 
 a triumphal arch of colossal masses of clouds. But my soul was 
 like the poor moon, which stood paling away in heaven. She had 
 wandered on in her lonely course in the desolate night, where happy 
 fortune slept, and only spectres, owls and felons carried on their 
 dark vocations ; and now, when the young day arose amid rays of 
 rejoicing and fluttering flags of early morning flame, she must pass 
 silently away — a single glance at the great world of light and she is 
 lost in eternal mist. 
 
 " It will be a fine day," cried my travelling companion, from the 
 coach. " Yes — it will be a fine day," slowly re-echoed my praying 
 heart, as it trembled with grief and joy. Yes, it will be a beautiful 
 day, the sun of freedom will warm the world with a more thrilling 
 joy than that which comes from cold aristocratic stars ; — there will 
 spring up a new race, begotten in the embraces of free choice, and 
 not in the bed of compulsion and under the control of clerical tax- 
 gatherers ; and with free-birth there will arise in mankind free 
 thoughts and free feelings of which we — poor born serfs — have no 
 conception. Oh ! as little will they imagine how terrible was the 
 night in which we lived and how cruel was our strife with terrible 
 phantoms, gloomy owls, and hypocritical sinners ! Ah, we poor war- 
 riors ! who must waste our life in such battles, and are exhausted 
 and pale when the day of victory dawns ! The glow of sunrise 
 will no more gild our cheeks and no longer warm our hearts- — we 
 must die like the fading moon. All too short is the measure of man's 
 allotted path, at whose end lies the pitiless grave. 
 
 I really do not know whether I deserve that a laurel wreath be 
 laid on my coffin. Poetry, dearly as I have loved it, has always been 
 to me only a holy plaything or a consecrated means whereby to at- 
 tain a heavenly end. I have never attached much value to a poetic 
 reputation, and I care little whether my songs are praised or found 
 fault with. But ye may lay a sword on my coffin ; for I was a brave 
 soldier in the War of Freedom for Mankind. 
 
— 296 — 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 During the noonday heat we sought shelter in a Franciscan mo- 
 nastery, situated on a lofty elevation, and which with its dark cy. 
 presses and white monks, peeped out like a holy shooting-box, looking 
 down into the pleasant green vallies of the Apennines. Often in 
 regarding these old churches, I know not which most to admire, the 
 beauty of their vicinity, their great size, or the equally great and 
 rock-like firm souls of their builders. They well knew that only 
 their far-off descendants could complete the work ; and yet they 
 quietly laid the foundation stone, and calmly placed one stone upon 
 another until death called them from the work, and other architects 
 continued that work, and in turn were laid in the grave — all in un- 
 shaken belief in the eternity of the Catholic Church, and all equally 
 assured of the same faith in the generations to come, who would 
 build on where they had ceased to labour. 
 
 It was the faith of the age, and the old architects lived and sank 
 to sleep in this faith. Now, they lie before the doors of their antique 
 churches, and it is to be hoped that their slumbers may be sound, 
 and that they may not be awakened by the laughter of the later age. 
 And it would be a sad thing for them — particularly for those who 
 are buried near old unfinished cathedrals — should they suddenly re- 
 vive some night, and gaze by the cold sad moonlight on their un- 
 finished day's work, and find that the time for finishing them had 
 passed away, and that their whole life had been spent in vain. 
 
 Such is the voice of our own age, which has other problems and 
 another faith. 
 
 I once, in Cologne, heard a little boy ask his mother why they did 
 not finish the hall-built cathedral. He was a pretty child, and I 
 kissed his bright intelligent eyes ; and, as his mother could give no 
 answer to the question, I told him that now-a-days people had alto- 
 gether different things to do. 
 
 On the summit of the Apennines, not far from Genoa, we behold 
 the sea ; between the green mountain peaks we catch glimpses of its 
 blue waters, and ships which come forth here and there seem to sail 
 strangely over the mountains. If we see this view during twilight, 
 when the last rays of the sun begin playing a wondrous game with 
 the earliest shades of evening, and when all hues and shapes twine 
 dreamily together, — then a feeling as of old legends, steals over the 
 
— 297 — 
 
 mind, the coach rolls along, the sweetest dreamiest shadows of the 
 soul are revived, they tenderly greet, until at last in a vision we seem 
 to be in Genoa. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 This city is old without antiquity, narrow without home-like snug- 
 ness, and ugly beyond description. It is built on a rock, at the foot 
 of amphitheatre-like hills, which hold in their embrace the loveliest 
 bosom of the sea. The Genoese have consequently from nature one 
 of the best and securest of harbours. And, as the whole town 
 stands on a single rock, the houses must, for the sake of room, be 
 built very high, while the streets are very narrow, so that the latter 
 are very dark and close, only two of them admitting carriages. But 
 the houses are chiefly used by their inhabitants, who are principally 
 merchants, as storehouses, and as sleeping places by night. During 
 the whole trafficking day, they run about town or sit before their 
 house-doors — I should say, within their house-doors — otherwise oppo- 
 site neighbours would knock their knees together. 
 
 Seen from the sea-side, especially towards evening, the whole town 
 gains in appearance. It lies there on the shore like the bleached 
 skeleton of some castaway monstrous beast, dark ants which call 
 themselves Genoese creep over it, blue waves dash it with foam, 
 humming a lullaby, and the moon, the pale eye of night, looks down 
 on it with sorrow. 
 
 In the garden of the Palazzo Doria the old sea-hero stands like a 
 Neptune in a water-basin. But the statue is forlorn and mutilated, 
 the fountain is dry, and sea-mews nestle amid the dark cypresses. 
 Like a boy always thinking of play, I was at once reminded by the 
 name of Doria, of that of Frederic Schiller, the noblest, if not the 
 greatest, of our German poets. 
 
 Though mostly in decay, the palaces of the once powerful lords of 
 Genoa, the nobili, are still very beautiful, displaying an excess of 
 magnificence. They are nearly all situated on the two great streets 
 known as the Strada nuova and Balbi. Of these palaces, the Du- 
 razzo is the most remarkable. Here are many good pictures, among 
 them Paul Veronese's Mary Magdalene washing the feet of 
 Christ. The Mary is so beautiful that were she alive she would be 
 in danger of a second seduction. I stood a long time before her — 
 
— 298 — 
 
 but ah ! sho did not look up. Christ stands there like a pious 
 Hamlet — " Go to a nunnery !" Here I also found excellent Dutch 
 paintings, and splendid works by Rubens — the latter inspired to the 
 fullest extent by the colossal geniality of the Netherlandish Titan, 
 whose spirit-wings were so powerful that he would have soared to 
 the sun, though a hundred tons of Dutch cheese had been tied to his 
 legs. I cannot pass the smallest painting by this master without 
 paying my tribute of admiration ; and all the more because it is now 
 the fashion to glance at him with a shrug of the shoulder, on account 
 of his lack of ideality. The historical school of Munich spreads 
 itself with peculiar magnificence in this sort of criticism. With 
 what high-flown depreciation do the long-haired disciples of Corne- 
 lius wander through the Rubens' Hall ! But perhaps their error 
 is more intelligible when we reflect on the great contrast which 
 Peter Cornelius himself forms to Peter Paul Rubens. No greater 
 opposites can be imagined — and yet, with all this, a notion occasion- 
 ally comes into my head that there are points of affinity between 
 them, which I rather surmise than understand. Perhaps there aro 
 peculiarities of their northern country hidden in them, which pro- 
 claim themselves to a third fellow-countryman — that is, to myself — 
 like soft secret whispers. But this secret affinity does not consist of 
 the Netherlandish joyousncss and sprightliness of colour which laughs 
 from all the pictures of Rubens, so that we might almost believe 
 that he had painted them in a glorious Rhine wine carouse, while 
 dancing fair-music rang and piped around. Truly the pictures of 
 Kornelius seem, on the contrary, to have been painted on Good 
 Friday, while the doleful songs of the processions swept through the 
 street, and re-echoed in the atelier and in the heart of the painter. 
 In productiveness, in boldness of conception, in genial originality, 
 both are alike, both are born painters, and belong to the cycle of 
 great masters who for the most part flourished in the time of 
 Raphael — an age which was still capable of exercising a direct influ- 
 ence on Rubens, but which is so utterly removed from our own that 
 we are almost terrified by the appearance of Cornelius, for he seems 
 to us like the ghost of one of those great artists of Raphael's time 
 who has risen from the grave to paint more pictures — a dead creator, 
 self-conjured by the indwelling word of life which was buried with 
 him. If we study his pictures, they gaze on us as with eyes of the 
 fifteenth century ; their garments are ghost-like as though they rustled 
 past in midnight ; the bodies are strong with magic power, drawn 
 with dream-like accuracy, powerfully true, only they want blood, 
 
— 299 — 
 
 throbbing life and colour. Yes, Cornelius is a creator, but if we 
 look at his creations it seems to us as though they could not live 
 long — as though they were all painted a few hours before death — as 
 though they all were prophetic signs of approaching dissolution. 
 Despite their hearty geniality, the paintings of Rubens awaken in us 
 a similar feeling — they also seem to bear within them the germ of 
 death, and a feeling comes over us that notwithstanding their super- 
 abundance of life and their fulness of red blood, they must suddenly 
 be struck down. This is perhaps the secret of that affinity which we 
 so strangely feel when comparing these masters. The excess of 
 pleasure in certain pictures by Rubens, and the infinite sorrow in 
 others by Cornelius, awake in us perhaps the same emotions. But 
 whence comes this sorrow in a Dutchman ? It is perhaps the terri- 
 ble consciousness that he belongs to an age long passed away, and 
 that his life is a mystical reappearance — for oh ! he is not merely the 
 only great artist who now paints, but, it may be, the only great one 
 who ever will paint. Before him, to the time of the Caracci, is a 
 long darkness, and after him the shadows again close together ; his 
 hand is a bright, solitary spirit-hand in the night of Art, and the 
 pictures which it paints bear the unearthly confidence of such an 
 earnest, rugged seclusion. I have never looked at this hand of the 
 Last of the Painters, without a secret shudder when I gazed on the 
 man himself, the little sharp man with glowing eyes ; and yet that 
 hand has awakened in me feelings of the warmest piety when I have 
 remembered that it once rested lovingly on my little fingers, and 
 aided me to design outlines of faces, when I, a little boy, was learn- 
 ing to draw in the academy in Düsseldorf. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 I cannot leave unmentioned the collection of portraits of beautiful 
 Genoese women, exhibited in the Palace Durazzo. Nothing in the 
 world inspires the soul with such melancholy as the sight of portraits 
 of fair ladies who have been dead for centuries. Sadness steals over 
 the soul when we reflect that, of all the originals of those pictures, 
 of all the beauties who were so lovely, so coquettish, so witty, so 
 roguish, and so dreamy — of all those May heads with April moods — 
 of that spring-tide of ladies — nothing now remains but these many- 
 coloured shadows, which some artist, who like them has long been 
 
— 300 — 
 
 dead, has painted on a perishable canvas, which, like the originals, 
 must pass away, in time, to decay and dust. And so all life passes 
 away — the beautiful as well as the hideous — without leaving a trace. 
 Death, the dry pedant, spares the rose as little as the thistle ; he for- 
 gets not a lonely straw in the most remote wilderness ; he thoroughly 
 and incessantly destroys ; everywhere we behold him treading into 
 dust plants and animals, mankind and their works, and even those 
 Egyptian pyramids, which seem to defy his annihilating rage, are only 
 trophies of his power, monuments of all long passed away, primeval 
 royal graves. 
 
 But sadder far than this idea of an endless dying, and of a desolate 
 yawning annihilation, is the thought that we do not even perish as 
 originals, but as copies of long-vanished mortals who were spiritually 
 and bodily like us, and that, after us, men will again be born, who 
 will in turn see, and feel, and think like us, and be again in turn 
 annihilated by Death : — a comfortless, endless game of reproduction, 
 wherein the prolific earth must constantly be bringing forth more 
 than Death can destroy, so that she, in her need, must give more heed 
 to the maintenance of the species than to the originality of the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Strangely was I thrilled by the mystical terror of this thought, 
 when I, in the Durazzo palace, gazed upon the portraits of the lovely 
 Genoese ladies, and, among them, on a picture which awoke in my 
 soul a sweet storm, which even yet, when I recall it, causes my eye- 
 lashes to tremble. — It was the picture of the dead Maria. 
 
 The guardian of the gallery believed, indeed, that the picture was 
 that of a Duchess of Genoa, and in the cicerone tone began to tell 
 that " it was painted by Giorgio Barbarelli de Castelfranco nel 
 Trevigiano, commonly known as Giorgione. He was one of the 
 greatest painters of the Venetian school — was born in the year 1477, 
 and died in the year 1511." 
 
 " That will do, Signor Custode. The likeness is caught exactly, 
 although it was painted a few centuries too early. Drawing accurate, 
 style of colour excellent- — why, the folds of drapery on the breast are 
 admirable. Be so kind as to take the picture down from the wall — 
 I will only blow away the dust from the lips and brush away the spi- 
 der which lurks in a corner of the frame.- — Maria was always so 
 much afraid of spiders." 
 
 " Excellenza appears to be a connoisseur." 
 
 " If so, I did not know it, Signor Custode. I have the talent of 
 being singularly moved when I behold certain pictures, and then my 
 
— 301 — 
 
 eyes water. But what do I see ! Whose portrait is that of the man 
 in the black cloak hanging yonder?" 
 " Also by Giorgione, — a master-piece." 
 
 M Signor, I beg you be so kind as to take this picture, too, from the 
 wall and hold it near the mirror, that I may see if I resemble it !" 
 
 " Your Excellency is not so pale. The picture is a master-piece 
 by Giorgione, the rival of Titian. He was born in 1477, and died in 
 the year L511." 
 
 Dear reader, I much prefer Giorgione to Titian, and am especially 
 obliged to him for painting Maria for me. And it must also be evi- 
 dent to you that Giorgione painted that other portrait for me, and 
 not for some old Genoese. And it is very like — death-silent like ; 
 it even has the sorrow in the glance — a sorrow which belongs rather 
 to an imagined pain than to one which has been experienced — and 
 one which is very hard to paint. The whole picture seems to have 
 been sighed upon canvas. Even the man in the black mantle is well 
 painted, and the maliciously sentimental lips are like life — speakingly 
 so, as though they were just about to tell a story — the story of the 
 knight who fain would kiss his ladye-love to life, and as the light was 
 blown out 
 
— 302 — 
 % 
 
 THE BATHS OF LUCCA. 
 
 u I am as woman is to man" 
 
 Count August von Platen Hallermundk. 
 
 " Would the Count like a dance, 
 Let him but say so, 
 I'll play him a tune." 
 
 Figaro. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "When I sought Matilda in her chamber, she had just fastened 
 the last button of her green riding-habit, and was putting on a 
 chapeau with a white plume. She hastily cast it down, as soon as 
 she saw me, and ran to me with all her waving, golden locks. 
 " Doctor, heaven and earth !" she cried, and according to her old 
 custom she caught me by the ears and kissed me with the drollest 
 heartiness. 
 
 " How are you, maddest of mortal men ! How glad I am to see 
 you again ! For never in this world shall I find a crazier soul. 
 There are fools and blockheads in plenty, and people often do them 
 the honour to consider them crazy, but real insanity is as scarce as 
 real wisdom — perhaps it is "nothing but wisdom which is vexed to 
 think that it knows everything — all the infamy of this would — and 
 has consequently come to the wise conclusion to go mad. The Ori- 
 entals are a shrewder race, they honour a maniac as a prophet, but 
 we look upon prophets as maniacs." 
 
 " But, my Lady, why have you not written to me ?" 
 
 " Surely, Doctor, I wrote you a long letter, and directed it to 
 'New Bedlam.' But as you, contrary to all expectation, were not 
 there, they sent it to St. Luke, and as you were not there either, it 
 went to another establishment of the same sort, and so it went the 
 rounds of all the lunatic asylums in England, Scotland and Ireland, 
 until they returned it to me with the remark, that the gentleman to 
 whom the letter was addressed was not as yet caught. And how 
 under the sun have you contrived to keep at liberty Y ' 
 
— 303 — 
 
 "Ah, I did it cunningly, my Lady. Wherever I went I contrived 
 to slip away from the madhouses, and I think that I shall succeed in 
 Italy too." 
 
 " Oh, friend, here you are safe enough, for in the first place there 
 ia no madhouse in the neighbourhood, and, secondly, we are here in 
 the majority." 
 
 " We? My Lady! You count yourself then as one of us? Per- 
 mit me to imprint the kiss of brotherhood upon your brow." 
 
 "Ah! I mean we watering-place guests, among whom I am really 
 the most rational. And so you can easily imagine who the maddest 
 must be, I mean Julia Maxfield, who always maintains that green 
 eyes signify the spring of the soul ; and besides we have two young 
 beauties" — 
 
 " English beauties, of course, my Lady" — 
 
 " Doctor — what does this mocking tone mean ? The yellow, greasy 
 maccaroni faces in Italy must suit your taste, if you have no fancy 
 now for British" — 
 
 " Plum-puddings with raisin-eyes, roast-beef bosoms festooned with 
 white strips of horseradish, proud pies" — 
 
 " There was a time, Doctor, when you were enchanted if a lovely 
 English woman" — 
 
 " Yes, but that was once ! I always have a proper reverence for 
 your fellow-country-women — they are bright as suns — but suns of 
 ice : they are white as marble, but are also marble cold — on their 
 bosoms are frozen the poor" — 
 
 " Oho ! — I know one who did not freeze there, but who jumped 
 fresh and alive over the sea, and he was a great German imper- 
 tinent"— 
 
 " At least he got such a cold on that British frosty heart that he 
 still has a cold in his head in consequence." 
 
 My Lady seemed vexed at this answer, she grasped the riding-whip 
 which lay between the leaves of a novel as a book-marker, switched 
 it around the ears of her great white hound, who slowly growled, 
 hastily clapped her hat jauntily on her locks, looked once or twice 
 with approbation at herself in the mirror, and said proudly, " I am 
 still beautiful !" But then, all at once, as if penetrated by a gloomy 
 thrill of pain, she remained silent, musing, slowly drew the long 
 white riding-glove from her hand, held the hand out to me, and read- 
 ing my thoughts like lightning, said : " This hand is not as beautiful 
 as it was in Ramsgatc — ha ? Since that time Matilda has suffered 
 — much !" 
 
— 304 — 
 
 Dear reader, we can seldom see a flaw in a bell — we must hear its 
 ring to know if it exists. Could you have heard the ring of the 
 voice wherewith those words were spoken, you would have felt at 
 once that my Lady's heart was a bell of the best metal, but that a 
 secret flaw strangely mingled a discord with its sweetest tones, and 
 gave it an air of strange sadness. Yet I love such bells, they ever 
 find a true echo in my own breast, and I again kissed my Lady's 
 hand, almost as earnestly as of old, though it was no longer in its 
 first bloom, and the veins which rose from it, almost all too blue, 
 seemed to repeat, " since that time Matilda has suffered — much." 
 
 Her eyes gazed on me like sorrowful solitary stars in the autumnal 
 heaven, and she said, softly and sadly, from her inmost soul : " You 
 seem to love me less, now, Doctor ! For that was a tear of pity 
 which you just wept on my hand. It seemed like an alms." 
 
 " Who taught you to interpret so unkindly the silent language of 
 my tears ? I'll bet that your white hound there who fawns on you, 
 understands me better. He looks first at me and then at you, and 
 seems to be wondering that human beings, those proud lords of cre- 
 ation, are internally so wretched. Ah! my Lady, only a sympa- 
 thetic sorrow draws forth such tears — in reality we each weep for 
 ourselves." 
 
 " Enough, enough, Doctor. It is good at any rate that we are co- 
 temporaries, and that we meet again with our foolish tears in the 
 same corner of the earth. Oh our bad luck ! if you had only lived 
 two centuries earlier, when I was getting on so well with my friend, 
 Michael de Cervantes Saavedra, or rather if you had only been 
 born a hundred years later, as another intimate friend of mine, whose 
 name I don't just now happen to know, because his first birthday 
 won't be celebrated until the year 1900. — But tell me how you've 
 been getting on since we parted." 
 
 " At the old business, my Lady — rolling the great stone. When 
 I had shoved it to the top of the hill then it rolled all at once down 
 again, and I had to go at it once more ; and this up and down hill 
 work lasted until at last I lie crouched beneath it, and Master 
 Steinmetz has carved on it with great letters : ' Here rests in the 
 Lord' " — 
 
 " By my soul, Doctor, I'll bring you to life again. Don't you dare 
 to be melancholy ! Laugh, or" — 
 
 " No — don't tickle me. I'd rather laugh of myself!" 
 
 " That's right. Now you please me, just as you did in Ramsgate, 
 where we first became so intimate" — 
 
— 305 — 
 
 " And finally a little more than intimate. Yes — I will be merry. 
 
 It is fortunate that we have met, and the great German will 
 
 again find his greatest pleasure in risking his life near you." 
 
 My Lady's eyes laughed like sunshine after a soft rain, and her 
 merry mood again flashed out as John entered, and with the stiffest 
 flunkey pathos announced his Excellency, the Marquis Christophero 
 di Gumpelino. 
 
 " He's welcome ! And now, Doctor, you will become acquainted 
 with a peer of the realm of fools. Don't be shocked at his personal 
 appearance, particularly at his nose. The man has excellent quali- 
 ties ; for instance, a great deal of money, common sense, and the de- 
 sire to embody in himself all the follies of the age ; moreover, he is 
 in love with my green-eyed friend, Julia Maxfield, and calls her his 
 Julia and himself her Romeo, and declaims and sighs ; and Lord 
 Maxfield, the brother-in-law to whom the faithful Julia has been 
 entrusted by her husband, is an Argus" — 
 
 I was just about to remark that Argus had charge of a cow. when 
 the door opened, and, to my utmost amazement, in waddled my old 
 friend, the Banker Christian Gumpel, with his opulent smile and 
 blessed belly. After his broad shining lips had sufficiently scoured 
 my Lady's hand, and delivered themselves of the usual questions as 
 
 to health, &c, he recognised me and the friends sank into each 
 
 other's arms. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Matilda's warning not to be struck by Gumpelino's nose, had 
 some foundation in fact, for he came within an ace of knocking out 
 one of my eyes with it. I will say nothing against this nose ; on the 
 contrary, it was one of the noblest form, and seemed of itself to give 
 my friend full right to claim, at least, the title of a Marquis. For 
 it was evident from the nose that Gumpel was of high nobility, and 
 that he descended from that very ancient world-family into which the 
 blessed Lord himself once married without fear of a mesalliance. 
 Since those days, it is true that the family has come down a little, 
 and, in fact, since the reign of Charlemagne they have been obliged 
 to pick up a living by selling old pantaloons and lottery tickets, but 
 without diminishing in the least their pride of ancestry, or losing the 
 hope that some day they will all come again into their long lost pro- 
 
 2G* 
 
— 306 — 
 
 perty, or at least obtain emigration-damages, with interest, when 
 their old legitimate sovereign keeps the promises made when restored 
 to office — promises by which he has been leading them about by the 
 nose for two thousand years. Perhaps this leading them about by 
 the nose is the cause why the latter has been pulled out to such a 
 length ! Or it may be that these long noses are a sort of uniform 
 whereby J ehovah recognises his old body guards even when they have 
 deserted. Such a deserter was the Marquis Gumpelixo, but he always 
 wore his uniform, and a brilliant one it was, sprinkled with crosses 
 and stars of rubies, a red eagle order in miniature and other deco- 
 rations. 
 
 "Look !" said my Lady, " that is my favourite nose, and I know of 
 no more beautiful flower in all the world." 
 
 " This flower," grinned Gumpelixo, " cannot be placed on your 
 fair bosom, unless I lay my blooming face there also, and such an 
 addition might trouble you in this warm weather. But, I bring 
 you an equally precious flower, which is here very rare." 
 
 Saying this the Marquis opened a tissue paper horn, which he had 
 brought with him, and with great care slowly extracted from it a 
 magnificent tulip. 
 
 Scarcely had my Lady seen the flower, ere she screamed with all 
 her might. " Murder ! murder ! w T ould you murder me ? Away with 
 the horrible vision !" With this she acted as if about to be mur- 
 dered, held her hands before her eyes, ran madly about the room, 
 invoked maledictions on Gumpelixo's nose and tulip, rang the bell, 
 stamped on the ground, struck the hound with her riding switch till 
 he bayed aloud, and as Johx entered, she cried aloud, like K ean, in 
 Bjchakd III. — 
 
 " A horse! a horse! 
 My kingdom for ii horse !" 
 
 and stormed like a whirlwind from the room. 
 
 A. queer woman !" said Gumpelixo, motionless with astonishment 
 and still holding the tulip in his hand, so that he looked like one of 
 those lotus-bearing, fat idols carved on antique Indian temples. But 
 I understood the Lady and her idiosyncracy far better than he, and 
 opening the window, I cried : " My Lady, how you act ! Is this sense 
 — propriety — especially is it love ?" 
 Up laughed the wild answer : 
 
 " When I am o' horseback, I will swear 
 I lore thee in finitely." 
 
— 307 — 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 'A curious woman !" repeated Gumpelino, as we went our way to 
 visit his two lady friends, Signora Letitia and Signora Francesca, 
 whose acquaintance he promised me. As the dwelling of these 
 ladies was situated on a somewhat distant eminence, I appreciated 
 all the more this kindness of my corpulent friend, who found hill- 
 climbing somewhat difficult, and who stopped on every little mound 
 to recover his breath, and sigh, " Jesu !" 
 
 The dwellings at the baths of Lucca are situated either below in a 
 village surrounded by high hills, or are placed on one of these hills 
 itself, not far from the principal spring, where a picturesque group 
 of houses peeps down into the charming dale. But many are scat- 
 tered here and there on the sides of the hill, and are attainable only 
 by a wearisome climb through vines, myrtle bushes, honeysuckles, 
 laurels, oleanders, geraniums and a wilderness of similar high-born 
 plants. I have never seen a lovelier valley, particularly when one 
 looks from the terrace of the upper bath, where the solemn green 
 cypresses, stand down into the village. We there see a bridge bend- 
 ing over a stream called the Lima, and which cuts the village in two. 
 At its either end there are waterfalls leaping over rocky fragments 
 with a roar, as though they would fain utter the pleasantest things 
 but could not express themselves distinctly on account of the roar- 
 ing echo. 
 
 The great charm of the valley is owing to the circumstance that 
 it is neither too great nor too small — that the soul of the beholder 
 is not forcibly elevated, but rather calmly and' gradually inspired 
 with the glorious view ; that the summits of* the mountains them- 
 selves, true to their Appennine nature, are not magnificently mis- 
 shapen in extravagant Gothic form, like rocky caricatures, just as 
 the men in German lando on them are human caricatures ; but so 
 that their nobly rounded, cheerful green forms seem of themselves 
 inspired with the civilization of art, and accord melodiously with the 
 blue heaven. 
 
 " Jesu I" sighed Gumpelino, as we, weary with climbing, and a 
 little too well warmed with the morning sun, attained the above 
 mentioned cypresses, and gazing down into the village, saw our 
 English lady friend sweeping proudly along on her steed over the 
 bridge, like the queen in a fairy legend, and then vanish, swift as a 
 
— 303 — 
 
 dream. " Jesu ! what a curious woman ! In all my born days 
 I never did see such a woman. Only in plays — don't you think the 
 actress Holzbeciier could play her part well ? There's something 
 of the water-witch about her — hey ?" 
 
 " You're right, Gumpelixo. When I went with her from London 
 to Rotterdam, the captaiu compared her to a rose sprinkled with 
 pepper. Out of gratitude for this spicy comparison, she emptied a 
 whole box of pepper in his hair as he lay asleep in the cabin. Nobody 
 could come near the man without sneezing." 
 
 14 A curious woman !" quoth Gumpelino once again. " Delicate 
 as white silk but every bit as strong — and she rides horseback as 
 well as L I only hope she wont ride herself out of health. There 
 — did you see that long lean Englishman on his lean horse, racing 
 after her like a galloping consumption ? Those English people ride 
 too outrageously — why. they'd spend all the money in the world on 
 horses. Lady Maxfield's white horse cost three hundred golden 
 live louis d'ors — ah ! — and louis d'ors are at such a premium now, and 
 keep rising every day !" 
 
 "Yes — the louis d'ors will end by rising so high, that a poor 
 scholar like myself will never be able to reach them." 
 
 " You can't have an idea, Doctor, of how much money I have to 
 spend, and yet I keep only one attend aut, and only when I am in 
 Rome hire a chaplain for my private chapel. Look — there cornea 
 my Hyacinth !" 
 
 The little figure who at this instant appeared, approaching us 
 from behind the turn of a hill, reminded me more of a " burning 
 bush'' than a hyacinth. It appeared like a waddling great scarlet 
 coat, overloaded with gold embroidery, which flashed in the sunrays, 
 aud above this red splendor sweated a little face well known to me of 
 old. aud which gaily nodded to me. And in fact when I saw the 
 sallow cautious face and the busy winking eyes, I recognized a coun- 
 tenance which I should sooner have expected to see on Mount Sinai 
 than on the Appenines — and that was the face of Herr Hirsch, 
 citizen of Hamburg, a man who was not only a very honorable lottery 
 agent, but one who was also learned in hard and soft corns and in 
 jewels, inasmuch as he not only knew the difference between them, 
 but had skill in curing the former, and in putting a good round price 
 on the latter. 
 
 " I do hope," he said, as he approached, " that you haven't forgot 
 me. though my name ain't Hirsch now. I'm called Hyactkth, and 
 
 I'm servant of Herr Gi mpel." 
 
— 309 — 
 
 " Hyacinth !" cried his master, in raging amazement at this indis- 
 cretion of his servant. 
 
 " Oh be easy, Herr Gumpel, or Herr Gumpetjno, or Herr Marquis, 
 or your Excellence ; we needn't put ourselves out of the way with 
 this here gentleman. He knows me ; he's bought lots of lottery 
 tickets of me ; by the way, I b'lieve he still owes me seven marks 
 and nine schilling on the last drawing. I am really glad, Doctor, to 
 meet you again. You're here, I s'pose on pleasure-business. What 
 else, of course, can a man be doing here when it's so hot, a-climbing up 
 and down hill ? I'm as used up every night as if I'd gone twenty times 
 from the Altona Gate to the Stone Gate without earning a copper." 
 
 " Jesu " — cried the Marquis — " hold your tongue ! I'll get an- 
 other servant — I will." 
 
 " Why hold my tongue ?" replied Hirsch Hyacinthus ; " I do so 
 love to get a chance to talk good German with one whom I've known 
 in Hamburg, and when I think of Hamburg" — 
 
 Here at the memory of. his bit of a step-fatherland, his eyes 
 gleamed with tears, and he said, sighing as he spoke : " What is Man ? 
 He goes walking with pleasure out of the Hamburg Gate, and on 
 the Hamburg Hill, and there he sees the sights, the lions, the birds, 
 the poll-parrots,* the monkeys, the great folks, and he takes a turn 
 on the flying-horses, or gets electrified, and then thinks how jolly 
 he'd be if he was only in a place a thousand miles off, in Italy, where 
 the oranges and lemons are a-growing ! What is Man ? When he's 
 before the Altona Gate he wants to be in Italy, and when he's in 
 Italy, he wants to be back again before the Altona Gate. Oh ! I 
 wish I was a standing there now, looking at the Michael's steeple, 
 and the big clock on it with the great gold figures — great gold figures 
 — how often I've looked at 'em, when they were a- shining so jolly 
 in the afternoon sun, till I felt like kissing 'em. Now I'm in Italy, 
 where the lemons and oranges grow, and when I see 'em growing, it 
 puts me in mind of the Steinweg in Hamburg, where there's lots of 
 'em lying in great heaping piles in the wheelbarrows, and where a 
 man can eat and eat 'em to his heart's content, without all this trou- 
 ble of going up hill and down, and getting so warm. As the Lord 
 may have mercy on me, Herr Marquis, if it wasn't for the honor of 
 the situation, and the genteel edecation I'm getting, cuss me if I'd 
 a-come here But I will say this for you, Marquis, that in your 
 service there's both honor and genteel bringing up to be had, and no 
 mistake." 
 
 * Fsvpagoyira — the polly-theisis* G<>yim in Hebrew means Geutiles. 
 
— 310 — 
 
 " Hyacinth !" said Gumpelino, who had been somewhat mollified 
 
 by this flattery, " Hyacinth, go to" — 
 " Yes, I know" — 
 
 " I say you don't know, Hyacinth." 
 
 "And / say, Herr Gumpel, I do know. No use a-telling me. 
 Your Excellency was a-going to say that I must go to Lady Max 
 field. Sho ! I know all your thoughts before you've thought them, 
 and some maybe that you never will think in all your born days. 
 Such a servant as I am isn't to be found easy, and I only do it for 
 the honor and the genteel edecation, and it's a fact, I do get both by 
 you." With these words, he wiped his face with a very clean white 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Hyacinth," said the Marquis, " go to Lady Julia Maxfield — to 
 my Julia — and give her this tulip ; take good care of it, for it cost 
 five paoli, and say to her" — ♦ 
 
 " Yes, I know" — 
 
 " You know nothing. Tell her that : the tulip is among the 
 flowers" — 
 
 " Yes, I know ; you want to say something to her with this here 
 flower. I've made up such mottoes many a time for my lottery 
 tickets." 
 
 " I don't want any of your lottery ticket notions. Go to Lady 
 Maxfield, and say to her — 
 
 " The tulip is among the flowers 
 
 Like among cheeses good Strachino, 
 But more than cheese and more than flowers, 
 Thou'rt honored hy thy Gumpelino." 
 
 " Now, as I hope to be saved, that's first rate ;" cried Hyacinth. 
 " Oh ! you needn't be a-nodding to me, Herr Marquis ; what you 
 know, I know, and what I know, you know. And you, Doctor, good 
 bye! Never mind that little trifle you didn't settle with me." With 
 these words he descended the mountain, and as he went I could hear 
 him murmur, " Gumpelino, Strachino — Strachino, Gumpelino." 
 
 " He's an honest fellow," said the Marquis, " or I should have sent 
 him off long ago, on account of his want of etiquette. However 
 before you it isn't of much consequence — you understand me. How 
 do you like his livery? There's thirty dollars' worth of gold in his 
 livery, more than there is on Rothschild's servants. It is my 
 greatest delight to see how the man perfects himself. Now and then 
 I give him lessons in refinement and accomplishment myself. I often 
 say to him, " What is money ? Money is round and rolls away, but 
 
— 311 — 
 
 culture remains." Yes, Doctor, if I — which the Lord forbid — should 
 ever lose my money, I still have the comfort of knowing that I'm a 
 great connoisseur in art — a connoisseur in painting, music and poetry. 
 Yes, sir. Bind my eyes tight, and lead me all around in the gallery 
 of Florence, and before every picture I'll tell you the name of the 
 painter who painted it, or at least the school to which he belongs. 
 Jfttsic — Stop up my ears, and I can hear every false note. Poetry — 
 I know every actress in Germany, and have got the poets all by 
 heart. Yes, sir, and Nature, too. I'm great on nature. I travelled 
 once two hundred miles in Scotland— two hundred miles, just to see 
 one single hill ! Italy surpasses everything. How do you like this 
 landscape here? What a creation! Just look at the trees, the 
 hills, the heaven, and the water, down yonder there — don't it all look 
 as if it were painted ? Did you ever see anything of the kind finer, 
 even in the theatre ? Why a man gets to be as you might say, a 
 poet ; verses come into your head, and you don't know where they 
 come from : 
 
 "Silent, as the veil of twilight falls 
 Rests the plain, the greenwood silent lies ; 
 Save where near me, 'mid these mouldering walls 
 The cricket's chirp in melancholy cries." 
 
 These sublime verses were declaimed by the Marquis with thrilling 
 pathos, while he gazed as if transfigured, down into the smiling val- 
 ley which glowed with all the brightness of morning. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 As I once one fine spring day, walked "under the lindens" in 
 Berlin, there strolled before me two females, who were for a long 
 time silent, until one of them languishly exclaimed, "Ah, them green 
 treeses !" To which the other, a young thing, answered, " Mother, 
 what do you keer for them green treeses ?" 
 
 I must observe, that the persons of whom I speak, though not 
 clad in satin, still by no means belonged to the vulgar — who, by the 
 way, are not to be found at all in Berlin, save in the highest circles. 
 But as for that naive question, I can never forget it. Wherever I 
 meet with affected admiration of nature, and similar verdant lies, it 
 rises laughing in my soul. And during the declamation of the Mar- 
 
— 312 — 
 
 quis, it rang out loud within me — and he, reading mockery on my 
 lips, exclaimed as if vexed, " Don't disturb me now — you haven't any 
 soul for pure simple nature — you are a morbid soul, so to speak — a 
 Byron." 
 
 Dear reader — do you perhaps belong to that flock of pious fowl 
 who, for the last ten years, have been joining in that song of " By- 
 ronic morbidness," with all manner of whistling and screaky piping, 
 and which had its echo in the skull of poor Gumpel? Ah dear 
 reader, if you would complain of morbidness and want of harmony 
 and division, then as well complain that the world itself is divided. 
 For as the heart of the poet is the central point of the world, it 
 must, in times like these be miserably divided and torn. He who 
 boasts that his heart has remained whole, confesses that he has only 
 a prosaic out-of-the-way corner-heart. But the great world-wound 
 passed through my own heart, and on that account I know that the 
 great Gods have highly blessed me above many others, and held me 
 to be worthy of a poet-martyrdom. 
 
 Once the world was whole and sound — in its early ages and in its 
 middle ages, despite many wild battles, it had still an unity, and 
 there were great whole poets. We may honour these poets and 
 delight ourselves with them, but every imitation of their wholeness 
 is a lie, — a lie which every sound eye penetrates, and which cannot 
 escape scorn. Lately, with much trouble, I obtained in Berlin the 
 writings of one of these "perfect poets" who so bewailed my Byronic 
 discordancy; and by the affected verdancy, the delicate appreciation 
 of nature, which breathed like fresh hay from his poems, my own 
 poor heart, which has been so long discordant, well nigh burst with 
 laughter, and unthinkingly I cried : " My dear Herr Intendant Coun- 
 cillor William Neumann — what do you care for them green treeses ? 
 
 "You are a morbid, discordant soul — a Byron," — quoth the Mar- 
 quis, still gazing, as if enraptured down into the valley — clucking at 
 times his tongue against his gums in sighing admiration, and say- 
 ing — " Lord ! Lord ! — every thing just as if it were painted !" 
 
 Poor Byron — such a calm enjoyment was denied to thee. Was 
 thy heart so ruined that thou could'st only see, yes, and even des- 
 cribe nature — but wert incapable of being blessed by her? Or 
 was Bysshe Shelley in the right when he said that thou had'st, 
 Actoeon-like, surprised Nature in her chaste nakedness, and wert on 
 that account torn by her hounds? 
 
 Enough of all thi.«— we are coming to pleasanter subjects, namely, 
 to the dwelling of Signoras Letitia and Francesca — which itself 
 
— 313 - 
 
 seemed to be en neglig'ee, and had in front two great round windows 
 around winch grape-vines curled, so that they looked like a prolu- 
 sion of beautiful green ringlets falling about its eyes. And at a dis- 
 tance we heard ringing from within, warbling trills, guitar-tones, 
 and merry laughter. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Signora Letitia, a young rose of fifty summers, lay in bed, tril- 
 ling and prattling with her two gallants, one of whom sat upon a 
 low cricket, while the other leaning back in a great arm-chair played 
 the guitar. From an adjoining room rang scraps of a sweet song, or 
 of a far sweeter wondrously-toned laughter. With a certain cheap 
 and easy irony, which he occasionally assumed, the marquis pre- 
 sented me to the lady and to the two gentlemen, remarking, that I 
 was the same John Henry Heine so celebrated in German legal 
 literature. Unfortunately one of the gentlemen was a Professor in 
 the University of Bologna, and a jurist at that, though his fat, 
 round belly seemed rather to indicate that his forte was spherical 
 trigonometry. Feeling as if I were rather in a scrape, I replied, that 
 I did not write under my own name, but under that of Jarke— a 
 statement made from pure modesty, as the name which came into 
 my head was that of one of the most miserable insects among our 
 legal writers. The Bolognese regretted from his soul that he never 
 had heard this distinguished name— which will probably be your own 
 case also, reader— but still entertained no doubt that its splendour 
 would ere long irradiate the entire earth. With this he leaned back 
 in the chair, touched a few chords on the guitar, and sang from 
 - Axur:" 
 
 "Oh powerful Brama! 
 Ah let the weak stammer 
 Of innocence please thee, 
 Its stammer and clamor!" 
 
 While a delicious mocking nightingale-echo warbled in the adjoining 
 chamber the same air. Meanwhile Signora Letitia trilled in the 
 most delicate soprano : 
 
 "For thee alone these cheeks are glowing 
 For thee alone these pulses beat, 
 "With Love's sweet impulse overflowing, 
 This heart now throbs unci nil for thee." 
 
 27 
 
— 3U — 
 
 And with the commonest prose voice she added, " Bartolo, bring m« 
 
 the spittoou I" 
 
 Then, from his lowly seat arose Bartolo, with his dry wooden legs, 
 and presented, with all due honor, a spittoon of blue porcelain. 
 
 This second gallant, as Gumpelino said to me aside in German, was 
 a far-famed poet, whose songs, though written twenty years ago, still 
 ring through Italy, and intoxicate with their wild glow of love both 
 old and young ; while he himself is but a poor elderly man, with 
 dimmed eyes in a pale face, scanty white hair on his trembling head, 
 and cold poverty in his care-worn heart. Such a poor old poet, with 
 his bald dryness, resembles a vine which we see standing leafless in 
 winter on the bleak hill-side, trembling in the wind and covered with 
 snow, while the sweet juice which once ran from it, warms, in far dis- 
 tant lands, the heart of many a boou-compauion, and inspires songs in 
 its praise. "Who knows but that when that wine-press of thought, the 
 printing-press, has squeezed mt dry, and the ancient tapped spirit is only 
 to be found in the bookseller's vaults of Hoffmann and Campe, I, too, 
 may 6it, as thin and care-worn as old Bartolo, on a cricket near the 
 bed of some old inamorata, and hand her, when called on — a spit- 
 toon. 
 
 Signora Letitia made excuses for lying a-bed, and indeed on her 
 stomach at that, as an affliction resulting from a too free indulgence 
 in figs prevented her from lying on her back, as a respectable lady 
 should. She lay, in fact, in pretty much the attitude of a Sphynx. 
 her high friseed head supported on both arms, while between them 
 her breasts billowed and moved like a red sea. 
 
 "You are a German?" she inquired. 
 
 " I am too honorable to deny it, Signora," replied my Little- 
 ness. 
 
 " Ah, the Germans are honorable enough !" she sighed, " but what 
 does it avail that the Germans who rob us are honorable ! — they are 
 ruining Italy. My best friends are imprisoned in Milan ; and only 
 slavery " 
 
 " No, no !" cried the Marquis, " do not complain of the Germans ; 
 we are conquered conquerors, vanquished victors, so soon as we come 
 to Italy. To see you, Signora, and to fall at your feet, are one and 
 the same." And with this he spread his great yellow silk pocket- 
 handkerchief on the floor, and kneeling on it, exclaimed, "Here I 
 kneel and honor you in the name of all Germany." 
 
 " Christophoro di Gumpelino !" sighed the Signora, deeply moved, 
 " arise and embrace me !" 
 
815 — 
 
 But lest the beloved shepherd might disturb her curling locks and 
 the rouge of her cheeks, she did uot kiss him on the glowing lips, but 
 on his noble brow, so that his face reached lower down, and its rud- 
 der, the nose, steered about in the red sea below. 
 
 " Signor Baf.tolo," I cried, " permit me also to officiate with the 
 spittoon I" 
 
 Sorrowfully smiled Signor Baktolo, but never a word spake he, 
 though said to be, next to Mezzofanti, the best teacher of languages 
 in Bologna. We never converse willingly when talking is our pro- 
 fession. He served the Signora as a silent knight — only, from time 
 to time, he was called on to recite the poem which he, twenty-five 
 years before, had thrown on the stage when she first in Bologna made 
 her debut in Ariadne. It may be that, in those days, he himself was 
 in full leaf and glowing enough — perhaps as much so as the holy 
 Dionysios himself — while beyond doubt his Letitia- Ariadne leapt 
 wildly, like a Bacchante, into his passionate arms — Evoe Bacche ! 
 lu those days he wrote many poems, still living in Italian literature, 
 while the poet himself, and the beloved one, have long been mere 
 wuste paper. 
 
 For five and twenty years his devotion has endured, and I think 
 that even until he dies he will sit on the cricket and recite his poem, 
 or serve his lady as commanded. The professor of law has been 
 entwined as long as the other in the love-chains of the Signora ; he 
 courts her still w 7 ith as much ardor as at the beginning of the cen- 
 tury, and must still pitilessly shorten his legal lectures when she 
 requires his escort to any place, and he is still burdened with all the 
 servitude of a genuine patito. 
 
 The constancy of these two adorers of a long ruined beauty may 
 be perhaps mere habit, perhaps a regard for an earlier feeling, and 
 perhaps the feeling Itself, which is now entirely independent of the 
 present condition of its former object, and which now regards it with 
 the eyes of memory. Thus in Catholic cities we often see, at some 
 street corner, old people kneeling before an image of the Madonna, 
 which is so faded that but few traces of it are visible — yes, it may be 
 that it is entirely obliterated, nothing remaining but the niche wherein 
 it was painted, and the lamp hanging over it ; but the old people who 
 so piously kneel there have done so since youth — habit sends them 
 thither daily at the same hour — they have not noted the gradual dis- 
 appearance of the picture, and at last they become so dim of sight 
 with age that it makes no difference whether the object of adoration 
 is visible or not. Those who believe without seeing are, at any rate, 
 
— 81G — 
 
 happier than the sharp sighted, who at once perceive every little 
 irregularity in the face of their Madonna. There is nothing so terri- 
 ble as such observations ! Once, I admit, I believed that infidelity 
 in woman was the most dreadful of all possible things, and to give 
 them the most dreadful name, once and for all, I called them serpents. 
 But now, alas ! the most terrible thing to me is that they are not 
 altogether serpents, for then they would come out every year with a 
 fresh skin, revived and rejuvenated ! 
 
 Whether either of the ancient Celadons felt a thrill of envy that 
 the Marquis — or, rather, his nose — swam in a sea of delight in the 
 manner above described, is more than I know. Bartolo sat calmly 
 on his low seat, his stick legs crossed, and played with the Signora's 
 lap-dog, one of those pretty creatures peculiar to Bologna, and known 
 among us by the familiar term of " Bolognas." The professor was 
 not in the least put out in his song, which was occasionally inter- 
 rupted by tittering sweet tones in the next room, which drowned it in 
 a merry parody, and which he himself at times discontinued in order 
 to illuminate me with legal questions. When we did agree in our 
 opinions, he swept a few impatient chords and jingled quotations in 
 proof. I, however, supported my views on those of my teacher's, the 
 illustrious Hugo, who is greatly celebrated in Bologna under the 
 name of Ugoxe, and also of Ugolixo. 
 
 " A great man !" cried the professor, and sang : 
 
 " The gentle summon? of his voice 
 
 Still sounds so deeply in thy breast, 
 Its very pain makes thee rejoice, 
 And rapture briDgs thee heavenly rest." 
 
 Thibaut, whom the Italians call Tibaldo, is also much honored in 
 Italy, though his writings are not so much known there as his prin- 
 cipal opinions and their objections. I found that only the names of 
 Gans and Savigny were familiar to the professor, who was under the 
 impression that the latter was a learned lady. 
 
 " Ah, indeed !" he remarked, as I corrected this very pardonable 
 error ; " really no lady ! I have been erroneously informed. Why, 
 I was even told that once, at a ball, Signor Gans invited this 
 lady to dance, but met with a refusal* — and that from this originated 
 a literary enmity." 
 
 "You have really been misinformed. Signor Gans does not 
 dance, and for the philanthropic reason, that he might cause an 
 
 * Refils. 
 
— 317 — 
 
 earthquake should he do so. The invitation to dance, of which you 
 speak, is probably an allegory misunderstood. The historical and 
 philosophical schools are regarded as dancers, and thus we may 
 readily imagine a quadrille between Ugoxe, Tibaldo, Gans and Sa- 
 vigxy. And in this sense Signor Ugone, though he be the diable 
 boiteux of Jurisprudence, still dances as daintily as Lemiere, while 
 Signor Gans has recently made some jumps which entitle him to be 
 regarded as the Hoguet of the philosophical school." 
 
 "Signor Gans, then" — amended the Professor — "dances only 
 allegorically, so to say, metaphorically." — Then suddenly, without 
 saying more, he again swept the strings of his guitar, and amid the 
 maddest playing sang : 
 
 It is true, his well-loved name 
 
 Is the joy of every bosom, 
 
 Though the ocean waves be storming, 
 
 And the clouds o'er Heaven be swarming, 
 
 Still we hear Tarar loud calling, 
 
 As though heaven and earth were bowing 
 
 To the mighty hero's name. 
 
 As for Herr Gceschen, the Professor did not so much as know 
 that he existed. But this was, however, natural enough, for the 
 name of the great Göschen has not yet got so far as Bologna, but 
 only to Poggio, which is four German miles distant, and where it 
 will for amusement remain awhile. Göttingen itself is by no means 
 so well known in Bologna as it ought to be, merely on the common 
 principles of gratitude, since it calls itself the German Bologna. I 
 will not inquire whether this name be appropriate or not — suffice it 
 to say, that the two Universities are really distinguishable by the 
 simple fact, that in Bologna they have the smallest dogs and the 
 greatest scholars, while in Göttingen, on the contrary, are the 
 smallest scholars and the greatest dogs. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 As the Marquis Christophoro di Gumpeltno drew his nose from 
 the red sea, wherein it had been wallowing like a very Pharaoh, 
 his countenance gleamed with selfish delight. Deeply moved, he 
 promised the Signora that so soon as she should again be in a con- 
 dition to sit down, he would bring her in his coach to Bologna. 
 
31S — 
 
 It was at once arranged that the Professor should ride on before, 
 but that Bartolo should sit within on the box, and hold the 
 Signora's lap-dog, and that they all would go in a fortnight to 
 Florence, where Signora Francesca, who intended travelling during 
 the same time with my Lady to Pisa, would finally meet us. "While 
 the Marquis counted up the cost of all this on his fingers, be 
 hummed di ianti palpiti, Signora sang the clearest toned trills, 
 and the Professor stormed away on his guitar, caroling such burn- 
 ing werds, that the sweat ran down from his brow and mingled with 
 the tears from his eyes, formed a perfect torrent. While all this 
 ringing and singing went merrily on, the door of the adjoining cham- 
 ber was suddenly opened and in sprang a being — 
 
 I adjure you, ye Muses of the Old and New World, and ye also, 
 oh undiscovered Muses who are as yet to be honoured by later races 
 — sprites of whom I have dreamed in the gay green-wood and by the 
 sounding sea — that ye give me colours wherewith to paint that being 
 which next to virtue is the most glorious of this world. Virtue: — 
 of course — is the first among glories, and the Creator adorned her 
 with so many charms, that it would really seem that he could produce 
 naught beside to be compared to her. Yet in a happy hour he once 
 again concentrated all his energies and made Signora Francesca, the 
 fair danseuse, that great master-piece, who was born after the crea- 
 tion of Virtue, and in whom he did not in a single particular repeat 
 himself as earthly artists are wont to do. — No, Signora Francesca is 
 perfectly original — she hath not the least resemblance to Virtue, 
 and there are critics and connoisseurs who even prefer her to the 
 latter, to whom they award only the precedence due to superior 
 antiquity. But is that much of a defect when a danseuse is only 
 some six thousand years too young? 
 
 Ah, methinks I see her again as she sprung from the opened door 
 to the midst of the room, and after an incredible pirouette, cast her- 
 self at full length on the sofa, hiding both eyes with her hands, and 
 crying, " Ah, I am so tired with sleeping!" The Marquis now ap- 
 proached and entered into a long address, in which his ironical, 
 broadly respectful manner, enigmatically contrasted with his sudden 
 pauses, when moved by common sense business recollections, and his 
 fluency when sentimentally inspired. Still this style was not un- 
 natural; it was probably formed in him by his inability, through 
 want of courage, to set forth successfully that supreme influence to 
 which he believed himself to be entitled by his money and intelli- 
 gence — and he therefore sought, coward-like, to conceal it in language 
 
— 319 — 
 
 of exaggerated humility. His broad laughter on such occasions was 
 disagreeably delightful, as it inspired a doubt whether it was a matter 
 of duty to reward him with kindness— or a kicking. In this wise he 
 delivered his morning service to Signora Francesca, who, half asleep, 
 hardly listened to him. Finally he begged permission to kiss at 
 least her left foot, and as he, preparing for the job, spread his yellow 
 handkerchief again on the floor, she held it indifferently out to him. 
 It was enveloped in an exquisitely neat red slipper, in contrast to 
 that on the right, which was blue — a droll coquetry by which the 
 dainty littleness of both became more apparent. As the Marquis 
 with deep reverence kissed the small foot, he arose with a sighing, 
 "Oh, Jesu!" and begged permission to present me, which was 
 also accorded in a gaping, sleepy manner, when my introducer 
 delivered another oration, filled with praises of my excellence, not 
 omitting the declaration, on his word of honour, that I had sung 
 with great ability of unhappy love. 
 
 I also begged of the lady to be allowed to kiss her left foot, and 
 at the instant in which I enjoyed my share of this honour, she 
 awoke, as if from a dim dream, bent smilingly down to me, gazed on 
 me with great wondering eyes, leaped joyfully up to the centre of the 
 room, and pirouetted times without number on one foot. I felt 
 strangely that my heart in my bosom spun around also, until it was 
 well nigh dizzy. Then the Professor merrily played on his guitar 
 and sang, 
 
 An Opera Signora 
 
 Once loved and married me, 
 A step I soon regretted, 
 
 And wished that I were free. 
 
 I sold her soon to pirates, 
 
 They carried her afar, 
 E're she could look around her; 
 
 Hey ! bravo ! Biscroma. 
 
 Once more Signora Francesca measured me from head to foot with 
 a sharp glance, and then, as if fully contented, thanked the Marquis, 
 somewhat as if I were a present which he had been kind enough to 
 make her. She found little to object to in me, save that my hair was 
 of too light a brown ; she could have wished that it were darker, like 
 that of the Abbate Cecco — and my eyes were also too small, and 
 rather green than blue. In revenge, dear reader, I in turn should 
 also describe Signora Feancesca as depreciatingly ; but I have 
 really no shadow of a defect to point out in her lovely form, whose 
 perfection was that of the Graces, and yet which was almost frivolous 
 
— 320 — 
 
 in its lightness. The countenance was entirely divine, such as we see 
 in Grecian statues ; the brow and nose forming an almost accurate 
 straight line, while the lower line of the nose formed a sweet right 
 angle which was wondrously short. As close, too, was the distance 
 from the nose to the mouth, whose lips at either end seemed scarcely 
 long enough, and which were extended by a soft dreamy smile, while 
 beneath them arched a dear round chin, and the neck ! — ah, my 
 pious reader, I am getting along too far and too fast — and, more- 
 over, I have no right in this inaugural description, to speak of the 
 two silent flowers which gleamed forth like white poetry when the 
 Hignora loosened the silver neck-button of her black silk dress. 
 Dear reader ! let us rather climb up again to a portrayal of the face, 
 of which I have yet to remark that it was clear and gold-yellow, like 
 amber — that the black hair which framed its temples in a bright 
 oval, gave it a childlike turn, and that it was lighted up by two black 
 abrupt eyes, as if with a magic light. 
 
 You see, dear reader, that I would willingly give you an accurate 
 local description of my good fortune, and as other travellers are ac- 
 customed to give maps of the remarkable regions into which they 
 have penetrated, so would I gladly serve up Francesca on a plate 
 — of copper. But ah ! what avails the dead copy of mere outline in 
 forms w T hose divinest charm consists of living movement. Even the 
 best painter cannot bring this before our eyes, for painting is but a 
 flat lie. Of the two, a sculptor would be more successful, for, by a 
 changing illumination, we can to a certain degree realize motion in 
 forms, and the torches which light them from without, appear to 
 inspire a real life within. Yes, there is a statue, dear reader, which 
 may give you some faint idea of Francesca's loveliness, and that is 
 the Venus of the great Caxova winch stands in the last hall of the 
 Palazzo Pitti at Florence. I often think of this statue : at times 
 in dreams it slumbers in my arms, until little by little it awakens to 
 warm life, and whispers with the accents of Francesca ! But it 
 was the tone of this voice which gave to every word the gentlest and 
 most infinite significance, and should I attempt to give her phrases, 
 it would be only a dry herbarium of flowers, whose real charm 
 was in their perfume. She often leaped up, dancing as she spoke, 
 and it is possible that dancing was her most natural language. 
 And my heart danced ever with her, executing the most difficult pas 
 and exhibiting a capacity for Terpsichorean accomplishments which 
 I had never suspected. 
 
 In this language Fbancesca narrated the history of the Abbate 
 
— 321 — 
 
 Cecco, a young blade who had loved her while she was still plaiting 
 straw hats in the valley of the Arno — assuring me that I was so fortu- 
 nate as to resemble him. During this description she indulged in the 
 most delicate pantomime, pressing one over the other the points of her 
 fingers on her heart, then seemed with cup-like hand to be scooping 
 out the tenderest emotions, cast herself finally with upheaving breasts 
 on the sofa, hid her face in the cushions, raised her feet high in the air 
 and played with them as if they were puppets in a show. The blue 
 foot represented the Abbate Cecco and the red his poor Francesca; 
 and while she parodied her own story, she made the two loving feet 
 part from each other, and it was touchingly ludicrous to see them 
 kiss with their tips, saying the tenderest things — and the wild girl 
 wept withal delightful tittering tears, which however came at times 
 unconsciously from the soul with more depth than the part required. 
 In her pride of pain she delivered for Cecco a long speech, in which 
 he praised with pedantic metaphors the beauty of poor Francesca ; 
 and the manner in which she replied in person, copying her own 
 earlier sentimentalism, had in it something puppet-like and mourn- 
 ful, which strangely moved my heart. " Adieu, Cecco !" "Adien, 
 Francesca !" was the endless refrain — and I was finally rejoiced 
 when a pitiless destiny parted them far asunder — for a sweet fore- 
 boding whispered in my soul that it would be an unfortunate thing 
 for me should the two lovers remain continually united ! 
 
 The Professor applauded with droll, shrill guitar tones, Signora 
 trilled, the lap-dog barked, the Marquis and I clapped our hands as 
 if mad, and Signora Francesca arose and gracefully courtesied her 
 thanks. " It is really a pretty comedy,'' said she, " but it is now a 
 long time since it was first brought out, and I am now so old — guess 
 how old ?" 
 
 But without waiting for my answer, she sprang up and cried : 
 "Eighteen years!" — and spun round eighteen times on one foot. 
 " And, Doctor, how old are you ?" 
 
 " I, Signora, was born on the new year's night of the year eighteen 
 hundred." 
 
 " I always said," quoth the Marquis, "that he was one of the first 
 men of our century." 
 
 "And how old should you suppose I am?" suddenly cried Signora 
 Letitia. And without thinking of her mother Eve dress, which had 
 been hitherto concealed by the bed-clothes, she leaped up so wildly, 
 and manifested such agility, that not only the Red Sea, but also all 
 Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia were fully visible. 
 
— 322 — 
 
 Terrified at this awful spectacle, I sprang back in horror, but con- 
 trived to stammer out a few phrases as to the difficulty of answering 
 such a question, " having as yet only half seen Signora," but as she 
 pressed me all the more zealously for an answer, I confessed that in 
 truth I had not as yet learned the proportion of the years in Italy 
 to those of Germany. 
 
 " Is the difference great I" inquired Signora Letitia. 
 
 " Of course," replied I, " for since heat expands all bodies, it fol- 
 lows that the years in your warm Italy must be longer than those of 
 our cold Germany." 
 
 The Marquis extricated me better from this embarrassment by 
 gallantly asserting, that her beauty had now first began to manifest 
 itself in all its luxuriant maturity. "And, Signora," he added, "as 
 the pomegranate, the older it is, the yellower it becomes, so will your 
 beauty too become riper with age." 
 
 The lady seemed to be gratified with this comparison, and con- 
 fessed that she really did feel much riper now than of old, when she 
 was but a thin, little thing, and had made her debut in Bologna — 
 and that in fact, she could not comprehend how it was that with 
 such a figure she could ever have made such a furore. And then 
 she narrated all the particulars of this first appearance as Ariadne — 
 a subject to which, as I subsequently ascertained, she frequently 
 recurred, on which occasions Signor Bartolo was obliged to recite 
 the poem which he had thrown upon the stage. It was a good 
 poem, full of touching melancholy at the infidelity of Theseus, and 
 of wild inspiration for Bacchus, and the glowing apotheosis of Ari- 
 adne. "Bella cosa!" cried Signora Letitia at every verse; and I 
 also praised the metaphors, the construction of the verse, and the 
 entire treatment of the myth. 
 
 "Yes, it is very beautiful," said the Professor, "and has beyond 
 doubt a foundation in historical fact, for several writers distinctly 
 state that Oneus, a priest of Bacchus married the mourning Ariadne 
 when he found her abandoned on Naxos ; and, as often happens in 
 the legend, the priest of the God has been taken for the God 
 himself." 
 
 I could by no means agree with him in this opinion, since in my- 
 thology I rather incline to historical interpretation, and consequently 
 asserted, " I can see nothing in the whole fable that Ariadne, after 
 being left by Theseus in the island of Naxos, submitted her person 
 to the embraces of Bacchus, but an allegorical statement that she 
 took to drinking — an hypothesis maintained by many learned men in 
 
— 323 — 
 
 my father-land. " You, Signor Marquis, are probably aware, that 
 in accordance with this hypothesis, the late Banker Bethmann has 
 so contrived to illuminate his Ariadne, that she appears to have a 
 red nose."* 
 
 u Yes, yes, Bethmanx, in Frankfort, was a great man L" cried the 
 Marquis. But, at the same instant, some deep reflection seemed to 
 flit across his brain, and with a sigh he said, " Lord ! Lord ! — I have 
 forgotten to write to Rothschild in Frankfort !" And, with a serious 
 business face, from which all parodising mockery seemed to have 
 vanished, he departed somewhat abruptly, promising to return 
 towards evening. 
 
 When he had left, and I was about — as is usual in this world — to 
 pass my comments on the man to whose kindness I was indebted for 
 the most agreeable of introductions, I found, to my astonishment, 
 that the whole party could not praise him sufficiently, and that, above 
 all, his enthusiasm for the beautiful, his noble and refined deport- 
 ment, and his utter want of selfishness, inspired in them the most 
 exaggerated expressions of admiration. Even Signora Francesca 
 joined in this hymn of praise, but naively confessed that his nose 
 was rather alarming, and that its enormous size reminded her of the 
 tower of Pisa. 
 
 When taking leave, I begged as a favour to be allowed to kiss her 
 left foot once more, when she with smiling seriousness drew off not 
 only the red shoe but her stocking also : and, as I knelt, held up to 
 me the white, fresh, blooming, lily foot, which I pressed to my lips, 
 more believingly, perhaps, than I would have done that of the Pope. 
 Of course, I then performed the duties of ladies' maid, aiding her to 
 draw on the stocking and shoe. , 
 
 " I am contented with you," said Signora Francesca, after the 
 pedal toilette was over, and in accomplishing my share of which I 
 had been by no means in a hurry, though all my ten fingers had been 
 very busily engaged — " I am contented ; and you shall often have an 
 opportunity of pulling on my stockings. To-day you have kissed my 
 
 * " Danjteker's statue of Ariadne, in the garden of Mr. Bethmann, near the Friedburg 
 Gate, is the pride and boast of Frankfort, and deserves to be ranked among the most 
 distinguished productions of modern art." By drawing a crimson curtain over the 
 window which illuminates the room in which the statue is placed, a rosy hue is commu- 
 nicated not only to the nose of the lady, but to her entire person. I have heard it 
 disputed whether the color thus given most resembles that of healthy flesh or of a 
 nettle-rash — a point settled by ascertaining that those who differed in opinion had seen 
 the statue at different periods of time, When the curtain is new, Ariadne certainly 
 appears rather ultra-incarnadine, but as it fades 6he gradually lapses into a paler, 
 healthier hue. — [Note by Translator.] 
 
— 324 — 
 
 left foot, to-morrow the right shall be at your disposal. The next 
 day you may kiss my left hand, and the day after the right. If yew 
 do yonr duty well, by and by you will get to my mouth. &c. &c. <fcc. 
 You see that I'm inclined to help you along, and as you are still 
 quite young, you may yet get along very well in the world." 
 
 I did, indeed, advance far into the world of which she spoke ! Be 
 my witnesses, ye Tuscan nights, thou clear blue heaven with great 
 silver stars, ye wild laurels and secret myrtles, and ye, too, nymphs 
 of the Apennines, who swept around us in a bridal dance, and 
 dreamed yourselves once more in those better days of the immortals, 
 when there were no Gothic lies, which permit only blind, groping 
 pleasures in secret, and hasten to stick before every free feeling their 
 hypocritical fig-leaf. 
 
 There was, however, in this case, no occasion for any particular 
 fig-leaves, since a whole fig-tree, with broad spreading branches, 
 rustled over the heads of the happy pair ! 
 
 CHAPTER Til. 
 
 Every one knows what whippings are, but no one has as yet made 
 out what love is. Some natural philosophers have asserted that it 
 i3 a sort of electricity, which is not impossible, for in certain raptu- 
 rous periods of love, we feel as though an electric flash from the eyes 
 of the loved one had penetrated our heart. Ah ! such lightnings are 
 the most äestruetive of all ; and I will honour above Franklin, the 
 man who will invent a conductor which will protect us against them. 
 If there were only little conductors running to the heart, to which 
 lightning-rods were attached, which could divert the dreadful fire to 
 some other quarter ! But I fear that it is not so easy a matter to 
 rob Cupid of his arrows, as Jupiter of his lightning and tyrants of 
 their sceptres. Besides, every love does not work in the lightning 
 -tyle : many a time it is hidden like a snake amid roses, and looks 
 for the first crevice in the heart wherein to nestle — often it is only a 
 word, a glance, the light narration of some illicit deed, which falls 
 like a seed into the heart, lies there through the long winter time 
 until Spring comes, when the little grain shoots up into a flaming 
 Mower, whose perfume benumbs the brain. The same sun which 
 hatches forth crocodile's eggs in Egypt, may at the same time fully 
 ripen the love-seed in a young heart in Potsdam — for in Potsdam, 
 
— 325 — 
 
 as in Egypt, there are tears. Has no one penetrated their being ? 
 has no one solved the riddle? Perhaps such a solution would cause 
 greater pain than the riddle itself, and the heart would be by it 
 stricken with horror, and petrified as at the sight of the Medusa. 
 Serpents twine around the awful word which reveals this mystery. 
 Oh ! I will never know that word of solution, for the burning misery 
 in my own heart is dearer to me than cold, marble-like death. Oh ! 
 utter it not, ye forms of the dead, which, painless as stone, but as 
 feelingless, wander through the rose gardens of this world, and smile 
 with pale lips on the foolish soul who praises the perfume of the 
 roses, and bewails their thorns. 
 
 But if I, dear reader, cannot tell thee what love really is, I can 
 at least describe with the utmost accuracy 4 how a man behaves, 
 and how he feels, when he is enamoured among the Apennines. For 
 he then behaves like a fool ; he dances on rocks and hills, believing 
 that the whole world dances with him. He feels as if the earth had 
 just been finished on that very day, and that he was the first man 
 made. "Ah! how beautiful everything is!" I carolled, as I left 
 Francesoa's dwelling. " How fair and precious is this new world !" 
 I felt as though I must give to all plants and animals a new name, 
 and I called every one according to its inner nature and my own 
 feelings, which blended so marvellously with all things without. My 
 breast was a well-spring of revelation, and I understood all forms 
 and figures, the perfume of plants, the song of birds, the piping of 
 the wind, and the rustling of waterfalls. Often, too, I seemed to 
 hear the divine voice, "Adam, where art thou ?" " Here am I, Fran- 
 cesca !" I replied. "I pray to thee, for well I know that thou hast 
 created sun, moon, and stars, and the earth with all its creatures !" 
 Then there was soft laughter among the myrtles, and I secretly 
 sighed within myself, " Oh, delicious folly, do not forsake me !" 
 
 But it was when twilight stole over me that the delirious happi- 
 ness of love first truly began. The trees, danced on the rocks, 
 while their heavy heads were ruddily flushed over by the setting 
 sun as though intoxicated from their own embracing vines. Be- 
 low them the brook darted more hurriedly along and murmured 
 anxiously as though fearing to undermine and overthrow the en- 
 raptured quivering trees. And over all flashed the summer eye 
 light rising as deliciously as light kisses. "Yes," I cried, "the 
 laughing Heaven kisses laughing Earth — oh Francesca! lovely 
 Heaven, let me be thy Earth ? I am all so earthly, and sigh for 
 thee my Heaven !" So I cried, holding my hands in wild prayer up 
 
 28 
 
— 326 — 
 
 to Heaven, and ran and struck my head against many a tree, which 
 instead of scolding- I embraced, and my whole soul cried out witb 
 joy in all the intoxication of love, — when I suddenly beheld a gleam- 
 ing, scarlet form, which at once tore me violently from my dreams 
 and brought me back to a sense of the coldest reality. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 On a mossy bank, beneath a wide branching laurel, sat Hyacin- 
 thos, the Marquis's servant, and near him his dog Apollo. The 
 latter, however, might rather be said to be standing, as he had both 
 fore-paws on the scarlet knee of the little man, and inquisitively 
 beheld how the latter, holding a tablet in his hand, wrote from time to 
 time therein. At times, whilst thus employed, Hyacinthos smiled 
 sorrowfully, then shook his head, and then handkerchiefed his face 
 with an air of satisfaction. 
 
 ** What the devil !" I cried, " Hirsch Hyacinth ! are you compos- 
 ing poetry? Well the symptoms are favourable. Apollo is by your 
 side and the laurel hangs over your head." 
 
 But I did the poor sinner injustice. He amiably answered, 
 "Poems! no; I'm a lover of poems, but don't write 'em. What 
 should I write? I hadn't any thing to do just then, and so just for 
 fun I was writing off a list of the names of those gentlemen who've 
 played in my lottery — some of them are a little in debt to me yet — 
 oli don't suppose, Doctor, I meant to hint any thing! — plenty of time 
 for that. I know that you're good. If you'd only taken ticket 
 Dumber 1H65 last time instead of 1364, you'd have been worth a 
 hundred thousand marks banco now, and needn't have been running 
 around here, and might be sitting cosy and easy in Hamburg, telling 
 folks, as you laid off on the sofa, how things looked in Italy. As true 
 as the Lord may help me, I wouldn't have come here if it hadn't 
 been for Herr Gumpel! Oh what heat and danger and getting tired 
 I have to stand, and wherever there's any thing out of the way or 
 crazy, there's Herr Gumpel — and I must take my share in it. I'd 
 have gone away long, long ago if I thought he could do without me. 
 For if I didn't who could certify for him at home how much honour 
 and cultivation he'd enjoyed when travelling? And to tell the truth, 
 Doctor, I begin to set great store myself on cultivation and mannen; 
 In Hamburg, the Lord be praised ! I don't need it, but a man never 
 
— 327 — 
 
 knows what he may want when he goes any where else. And folks 
 are right, for a little accomplishment ornaments the whole man. 
 And how much honour you get by it too ! For instance, how Lady 
 Maxfield received me this morning, and how handsome she 'came 
 down.' Just on a level with me. And she gave me the francesconi 
 to drink her health, though the flower only cost five paoli. Besides 
 — oh isn't it a pleasure to hold the little, white naked foot of a pretty 
 lady in your hand ?" 
 
 I was startled by this last remark, and at once thought, " Is he 
 making fun of met" But how could the vagabond know of the good 
 fortune which I had encountered at the same hour, when he was on 
 the other side of the hill ? Was there perhaps a similar scene, and 
 was there perhaps displayed in it, the irony of the great world-stage- 
 poet, who has acted at the same instant a thousand similar scenes, 
 each parodying the other for the amusement of the heavenly host ? 
 But my suspicions were unfounded, for after many and oft-repeated 
 questions, ending with my solemn promise not to tell the Marquis, 
 the poor fellow admitted that when he gave the flower to Lady 
 Maxfield she was still abed — and that just at the instant in which 
 he was about to deliver it — and with it a fine speech — one of her 
 pretty naked feet was thrust out from beneath the counterpane. 
 Observing a corn on it he at once begged permission to extract the 
 annoyance — which was readily granted, and for which, with the tulip 
 he was rewarded with a francesconi. 
 
 " Yet I only did it for the honour of the thing," added Hyacinth, 
 "and that's just what I said to Baron Rothschild when I had the 
 honour to cut his corns. It took place in his cabinet; he sat there 
 on his green arm-chair like a king, with his courtiers standing 
 around, and he all the while was a-sending expresses to all the 
 kings. And while I was cutting his corns I thought in my heart, 
 ' Now you've got in your hands the foot of the man who holds all 
 the world in his hands, and you too are a man that's somebody, for 
 if you cut too deep he'll be angry, and if you don't cut enough he'll 
 be all the madder at the kings,' — it was the happiest moment of my 
 life !" 
 
 " I can readily imagine your feelings, Herr Hyacinth. But whom 
 among the Rothschild dynasty did you thus amputate ? Was it 
 the high-hearted Briton, the man in Lombard street, who has set up 
 a pawn-broker's shop for emperors and kings?" 
 
 " Of course, Doctor, I mean the great Rothschild, the great 
 Nathan Rothschild, to whom the Emperor of Brazil pawned his dia- 
 
— 328 — 
 
 monrl crown. But I had the honour too, to make the acquaintance 
 of Baron Solomon Rothschild in Frankfort, and though I wasn't 
 on exactly the same footing with him as the other, he still knew 
 how to esteem me. When the Marquis said to him, that I had once 
 been a lottery agent, the Baron answered very wittily, 'I'm head- 
 agent of the Rothschild lottery myself, and a colleague of mine 
 mustn't eat among servants — he must sit along-side of me at the 
 table.' And as true as God be good to me, Doctor, I sat by Solo- 
 mon' Rothschild, and he treated me just like one of his equals — 
 quite famillionaire. I was with him too at the Children's Ball, 
 which was in the newspapers. I shall never see such a grand show 
 again in all my born days. I was once in Hamburg at a ball which 
 cost fifteen hundred marks and eight schillings — but that was nothing 
 but a hen-dirt compared to a dung-hill. What lots of gold and 
 silver and diamonds, I saw there ! Such stars and orders ! The 
 falcon-order, the golden-fleece, a lion-order, the eagle-order — yes, 
 even a child — a right down small child, wore the whole order of 
 the elephant. The children were masked, very pretty and played 
 at pawns, and were dressed up like kings, with crowns on their 
 heads, but one of the biggest was dressed precisely like old 
 Nathan Rothschild. He acted his part very well, kept both 
 his hands in his breeches-pockets, shook his money, shook his 
 head as if in trouble when any of the little kings wanted to borrow 
 any thing, and only showed favour to the little one with the white 
 coat and red panls. This fellow he patted on the cheeks and praised 
 him: — 'You're my boy, my pet, my pride — but let your cousin Mi- 
 chael keep out of my way — I'll not lend the goose a penny — he 
 spends more men in a year than he has to eat; he'll make some 
 trouble yet in the world and spoil my business.' As true as the 
 Lord may help me, the little fellow played his part very well, par- 
 ticularly when he helped a child to walk along who was dressed in 
 white satin with real silver lilies, and now and then said to him: 
 'Now, now — only take good care of yourself — get your living 
 honestly, and look out that you're not driven away again, or I'll lose 
 my money.' I tell you what, Doctor, it was a real pleasure to hear 
 how the little chap and the other children — right nice children tlimj 
 were — played their parts very well till cakes were brought to them, 
 and they begun to fight for the best pieces, and grabbed the crowns 
 off one another's heads, and screamed and cried, and some of 'em, 
 even " 
 
— 329 — 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 There is nothing so stupid on the face of the earth, as to read a 
 book of Travels in Italy — unless it be to write one — and the only- 
 way in which its author can make it in any degree tolerable is to 
 say as little in it as possible of Italy. But though I have availed 
 myself of this rule, I still cannot venture to promise the reader any 
 thing strikingly captivating in the coming chapter. And if you 
 who read become tired of the stupid stuff in it, just think of what a 
 dreary time I must have had writing it ! I would recommend you, 
 on the whole, to once in a while skip half a dozen leaves — for in 
 that way you will arrive much sooner at the end. Lord ! how I wish 
 that I could follow the same plan. And do not believe that I am 
 jesting, for if I were to speak out in saddest earnestness the real 
 opinion of my very heart, I would advise you to at once close these 
 pages, and read no more therein. By and by I will improve ; and 
 when we, in a book as yet unwritten, meet Matilda and Francesca 
 together, the dear creatures shall delight you far more than any- 
 thing in the present chapter or even in the next. 
 
 The Lord be praised, I hear without, before my window, a hand- 
 organ, with merry tunes. My befogged head needed such a clearing 
 up, particularly as I must now describe my visit to his Excellency 
 the Marquis Christophero di Gümpelino. I will narrate this deeply 
 moving history, with the utmost accuracy, the most literal truth, and 
 in all its filthy purity. 
 
 It was late as I reached the home of the Marquis. As I entered 
 the room, Hyacinth stood alone, cleaning the golden spurs of his 
 master, who, as I perceived, through the half-opened door of his 
 chamber, was on his knees before a Madonna and a great crucifix. 
 
 For you must know, dear reader, that this noble man is now a 
 good Catholic ; that he observes with the utmost strictness all the 
 ceremonies of that Church which alone confers happiness ; and that 
 when he is in Rome he keeps his own chaplain, on the same principle 
 which induces him to keep in England the fastest horse, and in Paris 
 the prettiest dancing girl. 
 
 " Herr G-umpel is just now doing his prayers," whispered Hya- 
 cinth, with a significant smile, and pointing to the cabinet of his 
 master, added in a softer tone, " He lies that way every evening two 
 hours on his knees before the Prima Donna with the Jesus-child. It 
 is a splendid affair, and cost him six hundred francesconis." 
 
 28* 
 
OOA 
 
 "And yon. Mr. Hyacinth, why don't yon kneel behind him ? Or 
 perhaps you are not inclined to the Catholic religion ?" 
 
 " I'm inclined, and again I a'nt inclined," replied he, reflectively 
 shaking his head. "It's a good religion for a genteel Baron, who 
 can go abont all day at his leisure, or for one who understands the 
 fine arts — but it's no religion for a Hamburgher, for a man who has 
 his business to mind, and no religion at all, any way you take it, foi 
 a lottery collector. I must write down fair and square every number 
 that's drawn, and if I happen to think of — bum ! bum ! bum ! — the 
 Catholic bells, or if my eyes swim like Catholic incense, and I make 
 a mistake, and set down the wrong number, the worst sort of trouble 
 may come out of it. Many a time have I said to Herr Gumpel, 
 ' Your Excellency is a rich man. and can be as Catholic as you 
 please, and may smoke up your wits with incense as much as yoa 
 like, and may be as stupid as a Catholic bell, and still have victuals 
 to eat ; but I'm a .business man. and must keep my seven senses 
 about me, to earn something.' Herr Gumpel thinks, of course, that 
 it's necessary for my accomplishment, and that if I don't become 
 Catholic that I can't understand the pictures which accomplish 
 people — the Veryoreeno, the Correctshow, Caratshow, and Cra- 
 vatshow — but I've always held that all the Cokrectsiiows and Cra- 
 vatshowh wouldn't help much if nobody bought tickets of me, and 
 tlwfl I should make a mighty poor show! And I must own, Doc- 
 tor, that, the Catholic religion don't amuse me ; and, as a reasonable 
 man, you must allow that when it comes to that, I'm right. I don't 
 see any fun in it — its something such a religion as if the Lord (the 
 Lord forbid it !j had just died, and everything smelt of burial incense, 
 and with it all, they roll out such a melancholy funeral music as to 
 give one the blues — and the long and short of it is, that it's no reli- 
 gion for a II am burgher." 
 
 "Well, then, Mr. Hyacinth, how do you like the Protestant 
 religion ?" 
 
 " That is -altogether, on t'other hand, too common sense like, and 
 if the Protestant churches hadn't an organ, it wouldn't be a religion 
 at all. Between you and I, the religion does no harm, and is as pure 
 as a glass of water — but it don't help any. I've tried it, sir — and 
 the trial cost me four marks fourteen schilling." 
 
 " How so, my good Mr. Hyacinth ?" 
 
 • Well — do you see, Doctor, that I once came to the conclusion 
 that it was a very enlightened religion, without any visionary notions 
 or miracles — though by the way, I still think; that a church must 
 
— 331 — 
 
 have a few visionary notions, and a trifle in the way of mirnrlrs. to 
 be one of the proper sort. ' But who'd ever work any miracle there ?' 
 thought I, one day in Hamburgh, as I peeped into a Protestant church, 
 one of the regular bald sort, with nothing but brown benches and 
 white walls, and on the walls nothing but a blackboard, with half a 
 dozen white numbers on it. 'But,' thinks I, 'may be you don't do 
 justice to this religion — who knows but what these numbers can work 
 a miracle as well as the image of the Virgin Mary, or a bone of her 
 husband, saint Joseph?' and, to settle the matter, I went straight 
 to Altona, and set these very numbers in the Altona lottery. The 
 deuce I set with eight schilling, the terne with six, the quaterne with 
 four, and the quinterne with two schilling. But I tell you, upon my 
 honour, that not a single one of the Protestant numbers came out a 
 prize. I very soon made up my mind what to think of the Protes- 
 tant business. A great religion, that, which can't so much as bring 
 out the deuce! — and a nice goose I'd be to stake my salvation on a 
 religion by which I've already lost four marks and fourteen schil- 
 ling." 
 
 "I dare say that the old Jewish religion suits you much better, 
 my friend." 
 
 " Doctor — the mischief take the old Jewish religion ! I don't wish 
 it to my worst enemy. It brings nothing but abuse and disgrace. I 
 tell you it ain't a religion, but a misfortune. I keep out of the way 
 of everything that puts me in mind of it, and because Hirsch is a 
 Hebrew word, and means hyacinth, I've let the old Hirsch run,* and 
 now subscribe myself, 'Hyacinth, Collector, Operator, and Apprai- 
 ser.' And then I have this advantage, that I've , got an H on my 
 seal ring, and my new name begins with an H, so that there's no 
 need of having a new one cut. I tell you what — it amounts to a good 
 deal in the long run, if you reckon up what a good name is worth to 
 a man — name's everything. When I write, ' Hyacinth, Collector, 
 Operator, and Appraiser,' it has another sort of a sound from plain 
 Hirsch. Nobody can treat me like a common blackguard then." 
 
 " My good Hyacinth, who would ever treat you in such a manner ? 
 You appear to have done so much towards accomplishing yourself, 
 that it is easy to recognise a refined character in you before you open 
 your mouth." 
 
 u You're right, Doctor — I have gone ahead like a giantess in im- 
 proving myself. I really don't know who I ought to keep company 
 
 * Hirsch is also a German word, and signifies a stag or deer. 
 
— 332 — 
 
 with when I get back to Hamburgh — but I know what I'll do in the 
 religion line. J ust for the present I can get along with the new- 
 Israelite temple, I mean the pure Mosaic-Lord's service, with ortho- 
 graphic German hymns and moving sermons, and a few visionary 
 notions, which are things no religion can do without. As true as the 
 Lord may help me, I don't want any better religion, and it is worth 
 keeping up. I mean to do my part for it, any how, and every Satur- 
 day, when it isn't a day for drawing in the lottery, I'm going there. 
 There are men, and more's the pity, who give this new faith a bad 
 name, and say that it gives occasion for a schism — but I give you 
 my word, it's a good sound religion — perhaps a little too good for 
 common folks, for whom the old Jewish religion is good enough. A 
 common man must have something stupid to make him happy, and 
 he does feel happier in something of the sort. A regular old Jew, 
 with a long beard and a ragged coat, and lousy at that, and who can't 
 speak a word correct, perhaps feels better than I do, with all my 
 accomplishment. There lives in Hamburgh, in the Baecker Breiten- 
 gang, a man named Moses Lump,* — the folks call him Lumpy, for 
 short,— and he runs around the whole week in wind and rain, with 
 his pack on his back, to earn a few marks. Well, when Friday even- 
 ing comes round, he goes home, and finds the seven-branched lamp 
 all lighted, a clean white cloth on the table, and he puts off his pack 
 and all his sorrows, and sits down at the table with his crooked wife 
 and crookeder daughter, and eats with them fish which have been 
 cooked in nice white garlic sauce, and sings the finest songs of King 
 David, and rejoices with all his heart at the Exodus of the children 
 of Israel from Egypt. He feels glad, too, that all the bad people 
 who did anything bad to them died at last ; that King Pharaoh, 
 Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, Antioohus, Titus, and such like, are all 
 dead, but that Lumpy is still alive, and eats fish with his wife and 
 child. And, I tell you what, Doctor, the fish are delicate, and the 
 man is happy ; he hasn't any cause to torment himself with any 
 ' accomplishment ;' he sits just as contented in his religion and 
 in his green night-gown, as Diogenes in his cask, and he looks with 
 joy at the lights burning, which he hasn't even the trouble of clean- 
 ing. And I tell you that if the lights should happen to burn dim, 
 and the Jewess, who ought to snuff them, isn't at hand, and if Koths- 
 OHIL.D the Great should happen to come in with all the brokers, dis- 
 counters, forwarders, and head-clerks, with whom he overcomes the 
 
 * Lump means in German not only a tatter or rag, but also a ragamuffin or black- 
 guard. 
 
— 333 — 
 
 world, and if he should say, " Moses Lump, ask what thou wilt, it 
 shall be given thee," — Doctor, I believe that Moses would say, quiet 
 and easy, " Pick the lamp, then !" and Rothschild the Great would 
 answer, in wonder, "If I wasn't Rothschild, I'd like to be such a 
 Lump as this !" 
 
 As Hyacinth, according to custom, thus developed his doctrines 
 with epic copiousness, the Marquis rose from his cushions and came 
 towards us, still mumbling a paternoster through his nose. Hya- 
 cinth then drew the green curtain over the image of the Madonna 
 which hung over the bed, extinguished the two candles, took down 
 the bronze crucifix, and, approaching us, began to clean it with the 
 same rag and with the same care with which he had just cleaned his 
 master's spurs. But the Marquis was melting with heat and with 
 soft sentiment ; instead of a coat he wore a full blue-silk domino, 
 with silver fringe, and his nose shone sorrowfully, like an enamored 
 louis d'or. " Oh Jesus !" he sighed, as he sank among the cushions 
 of the sofa — " don't you think, Doctor, that I have a very dreamy, 
 visionary, poetical look, this evening ? I am very much moved — my 
 soul is melting ; I perceive from afar, a higher world. 
 
 1 My eye beholds the Heaven open, 
 My heart leaps up in wondrous bliss.' " 
 
 "Herr G-umpel, you must take something," interrupted Hyacinth. 
 " The blood in your inside has got to going again. I know what is 
 the matter with you." 
 
 " You don't know," sighed his master. 
 
 " I tell you I do" replied the man, nodding with his good-natured, 
 going-to-work, little face. " I know you, in and out — I know. You 
 are just my opposite ; when you're hungry I'm thirsty, and when I'm 
 thirsty you're hungry. You are too corpulent, and I'm too lean. 
 You have lots of imagination, and I've got all the more business 
 capacity. I'm a practicus, and you're a diarrheticus* — in short, you 
 are altogether my antipodex. 
 
 "Ah, Julia!" sighed Gumpelino, "would that I were the yellow 
 glove upon thy hand, and kissed thy cheek ! Doctor, did you ever 
 see the actress Crelinger in Romeo and Juliet?" 
 
 "Of course, and my whole soul is still enraptured with the 
 memory." 
 
 *. Hyacinth, in this sentence, is supposed to be attempting to " air'' the Latin which 
 he has picked up under his master. For diarrheticus read Uieoreticus, and for antipodex, 
 antipodes. An instance of the erudite character of the Germans may be found in the fact 
 that even among very vulgar people the Latin word podex is frequently used for its 
 German equivalent. — [Note by Translator.] 
 
— 334 — 
 
 * "Well, then," cried the Marquis, with enthusiasm, and fire flashed 
 from his eyes, illuminating his nose — "then you appreciate my feel- 
 ings — then you know what I mean when I say Hove! I will show 
 myself to you, and expose everything. Hyacinth, just step out of 
 the room!" 
 
 " I needn't go out," said his man, as if vexed ; " You needn't 
 stand on any ceremony with me, for I know what love is, too, and 
 how it" — 
 
 ** You don't know !" cried the Marquis. 
 
 " I'll prove that I know, Herr Marquis, by just speaking the name 
 of Julia Maxfield. Oh be easy! You're loved, too, but it's of 
 no use. The brother-in-law of your lady never lets her go out of 
 sight and watches her night and day like a diamond." 
 
 " Ah ! wretched that I am," moaned Gumpelino — " I love and am 
 loved again ; we secretly press each other's hands — we tread on each 
 other's feet under the table — glance meaningly at each other — and 
 
 yet can't find an opportunity to Ah ! how often I stand in the 
 
 moonlight on the balcony, and imagine that I am Julia and that 
 my Romeo or my Gumpelino has promised me a rendezvous — and 
 then I declaim exactly like the Crelinger : 
 
 'Come night, come Gumpelino— day iu night ! 
 For thou wilt lie upon the wiDgs of night, 
 Whiter than new snow on a raven's back — 
 Come, gentle nhht; come, loving, black-brow'd night, 
 Give me my Romeo — or Gumpelino!' 
 
 — But ah ! Lord Maxfield watches us all the time, and we're both 
 dying with intense desire. I shall never survive the day when either 
 sets the blossom of youthful purity at stake, winning to lose. 
 Ah ! I'd rather enjoy one such night with Julia than win the 
 great prize in the Hamburgh lottery !" 
 
 ** What a crazy notion !" cried Hyacinth ; " the great prize ! — one 
 hundred thousand marks V* 
 
 " Yes — rather than the great prize," continued Gumpelino, "could 
 I have one such night — and she has promised me often that 1 should 
 have such a night when the first opportunity occurs, and I've often 
 thought that early in the morning she would declaim to me — just 
 like Crelinger — 
 
 u ' Wilt thou begone ? it is not yet near day 1 
 It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
 That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; 
 Nightly she «ings on yon pomegranate tree: 
 Believe mo, love, it was the nightingale.' " 
 
— 335 — 
 
 • " The great prize for only one night !" repeated Hyacinth several 
 times as if he could never assent to such an assertion ; " I have a 
 very high opinion, Herr Marquis, of your accomplishments, but I 
 never did think you'd have brought your visionary fancies up to 
 such a pitch. That any man could ever prefer love to the great 
 prize ! Keally, Herr Marquis — since I've waited on you I've got 
 used to a great deal of accomplishment — but as far as I know, 1 
 wouldn't give an eighth of the great prize for all the love afloat. The 
 Lord keep me from it ! Why, if I reckon off five hundred marks 
 premium, there'd still remain twelve thousand marks. Love! Why 
 if I reckon up all together that I've ever paid out for love in all my 
 life it only comes to twelve marks and thirteen schilling. Love ! 
 Why I've had lots of love, free, gratis, for nothing ; only once in a 
 while, to please my woman, I've cut her corns for her. I never had 
 a real sentimental passionate love-scrape but once in my life, and 
 that was for fat Sally of Dreckwall. She used to buy lottery tickets 
 of me, and whenever I called on her to square accounts, she used to 
 give me piece of cake — very good cake, indeed — and sometimes 
 she'd fix up a nice little fancy dish for me, with a drop of liquor to 
 it — and when I once told her that I was troubled with the blues, 
 she gave me a receipe for the powder which her own husband used. 
 I use the powder to this very day — it always works on me — and that 
 was the only consequence which our love ever had. I thought, Hen- 
 Marquis, that may be you needed one of those powders. When I 
 came to Italy they were the first thing I thought of, so I went to 
 the apothecary and had 'em made up, and I always carry 'em about 
 with me Just wait a minute and I'll hunt for 'era, and if I hunt 
 for 'em I'll find 'em, and if I find 'em your Excellency's got to take 
 'em." 
 
 It would require too much time to repeat all the comments with 
 which Hyacinth accompanied his researches, as he drew in succes- 
 sion each of the following articles from his pocket. These were. — I. 
 half a wax candle ; II., a silver case, in which he kept his instruments 
 for cutting corns ; III., a lemon ; IV., a pistol, which, though un- 
 loaded, was carefully wrapped in paper lest the sight of it might 
 awaken apprehension ; V., a scheme of the last drawing of the 
 Hamburgh lottery ; VI., a black leather bound little book, containing 
 the Psalms of David and the debts not as yet collected ; VII., a dry 
 willow withe, twined in a true-love-knot; VIII., a little packet 
 covered with faded rose-coloured silk, and containing the receipt in 
 full for a lottery prize which had once won fifty thousand marks ; 
 
— 336 — 
 
 IX., a flat piece of bread resembling ship's biscuit with a hole in the 
 middle; and X., the above mentioned powder, which the little man 
 took out, not without a certain emotion and a sorrowful shaking of 
 the head. 
 
 "When I think," he sighed, "that ten years ago, fat Sally gave 
 me this receipt and that I'm in Italy now and have the same receipt 
 in my hands, and see the same words on it : ' sal mirable Glauber i 
 — that means in German, ' extra fine Glauber salt of the best qual- 
 ity' — ah, I feel as if I had already taken the salt and could feel it 
 a-working inside. What is man ! I'm in Italy a-thinking of fat 
 Sally of Dreckwall ! Who'd a thought it ? — I can think I see her 
 now — in the country, in her garden, where the moon shines, and 
 where there must be for certain a nightingale singing — or may be a 
 lark—" 
 
 " It is the nightingale and not the lark !" sighed Gumpelino in 
 parenthesis. 
 
 ' Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree, 
 Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.' " 
 
 " It's all one to me," continued Hyacinth ; " it may be a canary 
 for all I care — only wild birds in the garden don't cost so much. 
 The main thing is the hot-house and the carpet in the pavilion and 
 the statuaries all round it — and among 'em there's a naked General 
 somebody (one of the gods) — and the Venus Urinia — both cost 
 three hundred marks. And in the middle of the garden Sally's got 
 a fontenelle,* and may be she's a-standing there, having make 
 believe pleasures in her fancy, and thinking — of — me !" 
 
 After this sigh followed a rapt silence, which the Marquis finally 
 broke with a languishing tone and question — " Tell me, Hyacinth — 
 on your honour — do you really believe that your medicine will have 
 its effect ?" 
 
 "Yes, upon honour, it will ! Why shouldn't it work? It works 
 on me. And ain't I a living man, just the same as you ? Glauber 
 salts make all men alike, and when Rothschild takes Glauber salts 
 they operate on him just as they would on the smallest broker. 
 And I'll just tell you now how it's all done. I shake the powder 
 into a glass, pour some water on it, and as soon as you've swallowed 
 it you twist up your face and say — ' Prr — phew ! — pooh !' Then you 
 feel it a sort of quarrelling about inside of you, and you don't know 
 what to make of yourself, and you lie down on the bed, and then I 
 promise you 'pon honour that by and by vou'll get up, then you'll 
 
 * Probably a fountain. 
 
— 337 — 
 
 lay down again and get up again, and so on and so forth, and the 
 next morning you feel as light as an angel with white wings, and 
 you'll dance about because you feel so well — only you'll look a little 
 pale, but I know you like to look pale, because its languishing-like 
 — and that's interesting." 
 
 While thus chattering, Hyacinth had prepared the powder, but 
 the Marquis he would have taken this pains for nothiug had not the 
 passage suddenly flashed into his mind, where Julia takes the draught 
 which has such a dire effect on her destiny. " What do you think, 
 Doctor," — he cried — " of the actress Mueller in Vienna ? I have seen 
 her as Julia, and Lord ! Lord ! — how she did play ! I'm the greatest 
 enthusiast for Crelinger, living — but Mueller, when she drank off 
 the goblet, completely tore me down ! — See I" — this w T as his excla- 
 mation as he took with a comic gesture the glass, into which Hya- 
 cinth had poured the powder — " See ! this was the way in which she 
 took the cup, and shuddered so that you could feel every thrill 
 which she felt as she said : — 
 
 " 1 There is a faint cold fear which thrills my veins, 
 And almost freezes up the heat of life.' 
 
 " And so she stood — -just as I stand — and held the goblet to her 
 lips, saying: — 
 
 "'Stay, Talbot, stay!— 
 Romeo, I come ! this do I drink to thee.' " 
 
 And with these words he swallowed the medicine. 
 
 " Much good may it do you, Herr Gumpel !" said Hyacinth, in a 
 joyful tone ; for the Marquis had, in his inspiration, drained the 
 entire dose, and sunk weary with declamation on the sofa. 
 
 He did not remain long in this position, for almost immediately 
 there was a knock at the door, and there entered Lady Maxfield's 
 little jockey, who gave to the Marquis with a laugh and a bow, a note, 
 and at once retired. Hastily did Gumpelino break the seal, and 
 while he read, his eyes and nose gleamed with delight — but suddenly 
 a spectral paleness covered his face, emotion was apparent in every 
 muscle, and he sprang about with gestures of despair, laughing 
 grimly, and rushed about the chamber, exclaiming — 
 
 "What is it? — what is it?" cried Hyacinth, with a trembling 
 voice, as he distractedly cleaned away at the crucifix, which he had 
 again taken up — "Are we going to make our attack to-night?" 
 
 "What is the matter, Herr Marquis?" I inquired, equally 
 astonished. 
 
 29 
 
QOQ 
 
 OOO — 
 
 " Bead ! read I" — cried Gumpelino, as he threw towards us the 
 note, and again rushed madly about the room, his blue domino 
 streaming behind him like a storm-cloud. 
 
 In the note we read the following words : — 
 
 " Sweetest Gumpelino : 
 
 " By break of day I must away to England. My brother-in-law 
 has travelled on before, and awaits me in Florence. I am at present 
 free, but alas ! only for this one night ! Let us, however, avail our- 
 selves of it; let us drain the nectar goblet which love holds forth, 
 even to the last drop. I await, I tremble. 
 
 "JULIA MAXFIELP." 
 
 " Woe me ! fool of Fortune V bewailed Gumpelino— Love holds 
 out to me his nectar-cup, and I — alas ! the Jack-fool of Fortune, 
 have already drained a goblet of Glauber-salts.! Who can get the 
 accursed stuff out of me now? — Help ! help !" 
 
 " No earthly living man can help you now!" sighed Hyacinth. 
 
 " I pity you from my very heart," said I, condolingly. " To drain 
 a tumbler of Glauber-salts, instead of a goblet of nectar, is bitter ! 
 Instead of the throne of Love, the chair of night awaits you !" 
 
 " Oh, Jesus ! oh, Jesus !" cried the Marquis ; " I feel it thrill 
 through my every vein — oh true apothecary, thy drugs are quick ! — 
 but it shall not hinder me, I will hasten to her ; I will sink at her 
 feet and bleed I" 
 
 "There's no blood in the business at all," replied Hyacinth. 
 " Don't go off into rhapsodies. Don't be passionate !" 
 
 " No, no ! I will hasten to her, into her arms — oh, night ! oh, 
 night I" 
 
 " I tell you," continued Hyacinth, with philosophical indifference, 
 " that you will find no repose in her arms. You will have to get up 
 twenty times during the night. Don't be so passionate. The more 
 you run around the room and excite yourself, so much quicker the 
 salts work. Your mind plays into the hands of nature. You must 
 endure like a man what your fate has determined. Maybe it's good 
 that it's come so, and perhaps it came so because it's good. Man 
 is an earthly being, and doesn't understand the ways of Divinity. 
 Folks often think they're going straight ahead to their happiness, 
 and bad luck stands in the way with a stick; and when a plain vulgar 
 stick strikes a noble back, they feel it, Herr Marquis !" 
 
 " Woe me ! a fool of Fortune !" raved Gumpelino. But his ser- 
 vant calmly continued. 
 
— 339 — 
 
 "A man often expects a cupfull of nectar, and instead of it gets 
 horse-whip soup, — if the nectar is sweet, then the horse-whipping is 
 all the bitterer ; and it is really lucky that the man who thrashes 
 another must tire out sooner or later, or the fellow he whips could 
 never stand it. But it is a great deal worse when bad luck hides 
 in a man's way to Love, so that his life's in danger. Maybe, Herr 
 Marquis, it is really all right that things have gone as they have, 
 or perhaps — who knows — you might have been met ou the way by 
 a little Italian with a dirk six yards long, who would have run slap 
 at you, and have stuck you (not to put too fine a point upon it) — 
 through your calves. For a man can't holler for the watch here as 
 in Hamburgh, and there are no policemen among the Appenines. 
 Or maybe," continued the pitiless consoler, without paying the 
 slightest attention to the growing rage of his master — ''maybe 
 when you were sitting snug and warm in Lady Maxfield's arms, the 
 brother-in-law would have come rushing back and clapped a pistol to 
 your breast, and made you sign a bill of a hundred thousand marks. 
 I don't want to make mischief or tell lies — but I say suppose now — 
 only suppose that you were a good-looking man, and Lady Maxfield 
 was in despair for fear she should lose her beau, and was jealous — 
 like all women — for fear some other woman might get you after she 
 was gone, what would she do ? Why she'd just take an orange and 
 put a little white powder on it, and say, ' Here, dear — just suck this 
 and cool yourself off a little — you've got warm a running so fast,' — 
 and the next day you'd be cooled down and no mistake. There was 
 a man named Piper, who had a passional attraction for a female 
 individual who was called Trumpet Angel Jenny, and she lived in 
 the ' Coffee-factory,' and her husband by the Duck Pond " — 
 
 "I wish, Hirsch," screamed the Marquis, in a rage, "I wish that 
 your Piper of the Duck-Pond, and his Trumpet-Angel of the Coffee- 
 Mill, and you and your Sally, all had my Glauber's salt rammed 
 down your throats !" 
 
 "What would you have, Herr Gumpel?" exclaimed Hyacinth, not 
 without heat. " Was it my fault that Lady Maxfield's a-going 
 away to-morrow, and invited you to come for to-night? Could I 
 know that beforehand ? Am I Aristotle ? Have I got a situation 
 in a prophecy office ? I only said that the powder would work, and 
 it will work, just as sure as I'm a-going to Heaven, and if you go 
 running about the room in such a disparaging and passional way, it'll 
 work all the sooner" — 
 
 "Well, then, I'll sit down calmly on the sofa!" groaned Gumpe- 
 
— 340 — 
 
 lino ; and, stamping on the ground, he rolled in a rage on the sofa, 
 restrained his mood by a mighty effort, arid both servant and master 
 gazed long and silently at each other, until the latter said, with a 
 deep sigh and in a whimpering tone — 
 
 " But, Hirsch, what will the lady say if I don't come ? She waits 
 for me, yes, lingers and trembles and burns with love" — 
 
 " She has a beautiful foot," said Hyacinth to himself, and sorrow- 
 fully shook his little head. But there were mighty throbs of emotion 
 at work in his heart, and a shrewd idea was working itself out under 
 his scarlet coat. 
 
 " Herr G-umpel," said the words, as they came forth, " send 
 
 ME !" 
 
 And as he spoke, a deep blush stole over the- sallow business 
 countenance. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 When Candide came to El Dorado, he saw several boys in the 
 street who were playing with nuggets of gold, instead of stones. 
 This extravagance made him think that they must be royal children, 
 and he was not a little astonished to learn that, in El Dorado, nug- 
 gets of gold were as valueless as flint-pebbles with us ; so that the 
 very school-boys played with them. Something very similar hap- 
 pened to one of my friends, who, when he first came to Germany and 
 read German books was greatly amazed at the wealth of thought 
 which he found in them — but soon observed that thoughts are as 
 common in Germany as gold ingots in El Dorado, and that many 
 a writer who seems to be an intellectual prince, is, after all, a mere 
 school-boy. 
 
 This reflection often occurs to me, when I am about to write down 
 the most admirable reflections on Art and Life. Then I laugh, and 
 keep my thoughts in my pen, or scribble in their stead a picture or a 
 carpet-pattern on the paper, persuading myself that such carpets are 
 more useful in Germany — that intellectual El Dorado — than the gol- 
 denest thoughts. 
 
 Dear reader, I shall bring on the carpet now spreading out before 
 thee, the familiar figures of Gumpelino and his Hirsch-Hyacinth ; 
 and if the former be painted with less accurate traits, I trust that 
 you will be sharp-witted enough to appreciate a negative character, 
 
— 341 — 
 
 even if positive points be wanting in it. For he might bring a suit 
 for libel against me, or sdmething even more significant. Besides, he 
 is the natural ally of my enemies — he upholds them with subsidies, 
 he is an aristocrat, an ultra-papist ; in fact, he only wants one thing 
 as yet to be as bad as possible, and that one thing he must soon 
 learn, having the book which teaches it already in his hands — as you 
 will perceive from my picture carpet. 
 
 It was again evening ; on the table stood two candelabras with 
 lighted wax candles, and their gleam flashed on the golden frames 
 of the pictures of saints hanging on the wall, and which, in the flick- 
 ering light and wavering shadow, seemed inspired with life. With- 
 out, before the window, the dark cypress trees stood strangely 
 motionless in the silver moonlight, while far in the distance resounded 
 a sad hymn to the Virgin, rising and swelling in broken tones — 
 apparently the voice of a sick child. The air within was close and 
 warm, and the Marquis Christophoro di Gumpelino sat or rather 
 reclined in aristocratic indolence on the cushions of the sofa, his 
 noble though overheated figure being again clad in its blue silk 
 domino, while in his hands he held a book bound in scarlet morocco- 
 paper, heavily gilt and from which he declaimed in a loud yet lan- 
 guishing tone. His eyes had that charming lustre peculiar to 
 euamoured tom-cats, and his cheeks, including the side-wings of the 
 nose, were pale as if from suffering. Still this pallor admits of a 
 philosophically anthropological explanation, if we remember that the 
 Marquis had swallowed the night before a whole tumbler of Glauber 
 salts. 
 
 Hirsch Hyacinthus was down on all fours on the floor, and with 
 a great piece of white chalk was busy in drawing on the brown tiles, 
 the following characters, or something like them — 
 
 U W— W W— W W v — ' w 
 
 V-/ W— W W V w — w v-> 
 
 WW 
 
 29* 
 
— 342 — 
 
 This business appeared to be anything but agreeable to the little 
 man, for puffing at every stoop, he growled vexedly, " Spondee — 
 Trochee, Jambus, Pyrr-hic, Anapest — and the pest !" For the sake 
 of working more at his ease, he had taken off his red coat, and there 
 now appeared two short modest looking legs in tight scarlet breeches, 
 and somewhat longer arms, in white loose sleeves. 
 
 " What curious figures are those ?" I inquired. 
 
 "These are feet, the size of life," he groaned for answer — " and I 
 wretched man ! — must keep these feet in my head, and my hands 
 already ache with all the feet they've had to write. These are the 
 real feet of poetry — and if it wasn't for the accomplishments I'm 
 getting, I'd let the poetry run with all its feet. Just now, I have 
 private lessons from the Marquis in the poetry-business. The Mar- 
 quis reads the poem and explains how many feet there are in it, and 
 then I must note them down and reckon up whether the poem is all 
 right." 
 
 " You find us," remarked the Marquis in didactically pathetic 
 tone, " engaged in a truly poetic occupation. I well know, Doctor, 
 that you belong to that body of poets who have ideas of their own, 
 and do not perceive that in poetry, metre is the main thing. But a 
 refined spirit can only express itself in refined forms, and these are 
 only to be learned from the Greeks and from those modern poets 
 who strive to think like Greeks, feel like Greeks, and bring their 
 feelings home, in the Greek fashion, to a man." 
 
 "To man, of course, and not to woman, as an unclassic, romantic 
 poet is bound to do," replied my Insignificance. 
 
 " Herr Gumpel talks, now and then, like a book," w T hispered Hya- 
 cinth aside to me, as he contracted his thin lips, winked his little 
 eyes with delighted pride, and significantly shook his small head, 
 whose every motion was one of wondering amazement. "I tell 
 you," he continued, in somewhat louder tones, " he talks sometimes 
 like a book, and then he's what you might call no sort of a man at 
 all, but a higher sort of being, and 1 become regularly dumb the 
 nearer I come to him." 
 
 " And what have you there in your hands ?" I inquired of the 
 Marquis. 
 
 " Gems," he replied, laconically, holding out the book. 
 
 At the word " gems," Hyacinth leaped up, but when he saw the 
 book smiled pityingly. The precious gem in question had on its 
 title-page the following words : 
 
— 343 — 
 
 POEMS 
 
 OP 
 
 AUGUST, COUNT VON PLATEN. 
 
 6TUTTGABD AND TÜEBINGEN I 
 • PUBLISHED BY J. G. COTTA. 
 
 1828. 
 
 On the blank leaf was neatly written, " A Gift of true Brotherly 
 Friendship." 
 
 Meanwhile, the work smelt of a certain singular perfume, which 
 has not the slightest affinity with Eau de Cologne, and which was 
 perhaps to be attributed to the circumstance that the Marquis had 
 been reading in it all night long. 
 
 " I havn't slept a wink all night," he complained to me. I was so 
 severely worked that I had to get up eleven times. Fortunately, I 
 had this glorious bit of reading by me, and I got from it not only 
 poetical instruction, but also sound consolation for life. Look ! see 
 how I honor the book ! there is not a single leaf torn out of it, and 
 yet as I sat — you understand me — I was often tempted" — 
 
 "You are not the first, Herr Marquis, who has undergone the 
 same temptation." 
 
 " I swear, sir, by our blessed Lady of Loretto, and as true as I'm 
 an honorable man, that these poems havn't their equal ! You know 
 that I was in a state of desperation yesterday evening — au desespoir, 
 as one might say — because Fate forbade me to possess my Julia. 
 Then I read these poems — one every time when I had to get up — 
 and the result has been, that I feel as indifferent to women as if not 
 one of the creatures had ever existed. And that is the beauty of 
 this poet, that he only burns with warm feelings — friendship — for 
 men. Yes, he prefers us to women ; and for this very preference we 
 ought to be grateful to him. How much greater he is, in this, than 
 common poets ! You do not find him flattering the every day tastes 
 of the masses : he cures us of that passion for women which causes 
 us so much suffering. Oh woman ! woman ! what a benefactor to his 
 race is that man who frees us from your chains ! It is an eternal 
 shame that Shakspeare never applied his wonderful theatrical talent, 
 to this end since he, as I have just found in these poems, was inspired 
 by the same greatness of soul as the great Count Platen, who says, 
 in his sonnets, of Shakspeare : 
 
 u A maid's caprices never broke thy slumbers, 
 And yet for friendship still we see thee yearning; 
 From female snares, a friend thy steps is turning, 
 His friendship is thy care, and fires thy numbers." 
 
- BU — 
 
 While the Marquis declaimed these rerses with enthusiasm, and 
 while the moisture gathered on his tongue, Hyacinth was making a 
 series of grimaces which were evidently inspired by anything but 
 assent, though they appeared partly to be those of vexation and partly 
 of affirmation, until he at last exclaimed — 
 
 " Herr Marquis, you talk like a book, and the verses go out like a 
 purge, but I don't like their contents As a man, I feel nattered that 
 Count Platen gives us the preference, but, as a friend to women, I 
 go against such men. Such is man ! One likes onions, and another 
 has the feeling for warm friendship ; but I, as an honest man, must 
 confess that I prefer onions, and that a cross-eyed cook maid is more 
 to my taste than the most beautiful friend, such as your poet talks 
 about. And, in fact, I must say, that I, for one, can't begin to see 
 so much beauty in the male sex that one can fall in love with it." 
 
 Hyacinth spoke these last words while giving a side squint at his 
 own reflection in the mirror, as though he were the ideal pattern of 
 manly perfection. But the Marquis, without suffering himself to be 
 disturbed read on — 
 
 " 'Hope's foam-built palaces may fall together, 
 We strive, yet do not come at all together ; 
 Melodious from thy mouth my name is ringing, 
 And yet my verse thou wilt not call together, 
 Like sun and moon must we be ever parted, 
 That use and custom may be all together? 
 Oh lean thine head on mine for sweet in union, 
 Thy dark locks and my light ones fall together; 
 But ah! I dream, for lo I see thee parting 
 Ere joy has found us in one thrall together; 
 Our souls are bleeding since our forms are parted, 
 Would we were flowers, oft bound and all together !' " 
 
 "Queer poetry that !" exclaimed Hyacinth, as he re-echoed tffe 
 rhymes, " ' Use and custom all together,' ' thrall together ' and ' fall 
 together'! Queer poetry! I've got a cousin who, when he rends 
 poetry, often for fun puts 'from before' and ' from behind' in turn at 
 the end of every other verse, but I declare I never knew that the 
 poems he made up that way ought to be called ' Gazelles.' I must 
 try myself and see whether the verses which the Marquis has just 
 declaimed won't be improved by putting 'from before' and 'fiom 
 behind,' in turn after the 'together.' Depend upon it they'll be 
 twenty per cent, stronger I" 
 
 Without attending to this speech, the Marquis drove ahead in Iiis 
 declamation of " gazelles " and sonnets, in which the loving one sings 
 his " friend of beauty," praises him, wails over him, accuses him of 
 
— 345 — 
 
 indifference, devises plans to attain him, ogles him, is jealous of him, 
 languishes for him, fondles through a whole scale of love-tones with 
 him, and that so hieltingly, amorously and lecherously, that the 
 reader would suppose that the poet were a maiden su florin g with 
 nymphomania. One thing, however, must seem to him, to a certain 
 degree extraordinary, that this maiden is always complaining that her 
 love is contrary to the usual manner or " custom ;" that she cherishes 
 as intense a hatred of this "custom which parts," as a pick-pocket 
 could against the police ; that in her love she would fain embrace 
 the " limbs " of her friend ; that she laments dolefully over envious 
 wretches who cunningly part us, "to hinder us and keep us ever 
 parted;" that she bewails annoying personal afflictions on the part 
 of her friend; that she assures him that she will only casually glance 
 at him ; that she protests that " no single syllable shall shock thine 
 ear," and finally confesses, that 
 
 " My -wish, in others but gave birth to strife, 
 Thou hast not granted it, but oh! as yet 
 Thou hast not said me nay, oh my STveet life!" 
 
 I must do the Marquis the justice to admit, that he declaimed 
 these verses well, sighed at full length in repeating them, and 
 groaned as he slid- along the sofa, as if sympathetically coquetting 
 with the cushions. Meanwhile Hyacinth continued to babble the 
 verses after him, not omitting to interweave with them his own 
 original chatter. He honoured the odes with the most attention. 
 " There's a heap more to be learned," quoth he, " from this sort of 
 poetry, than from your sonnets and gazelles ; for in the odes the feet 
 are set down all fair and square, and a man can count up every 
 poem nice and easy. Every poet ought to do in his hardest poetry- 
 verses like Count Platen — that is, set it down with the feet up, and 
 say to folks, " See here — I'm an honourable man, one of the kind 
 that don't cheat, The straight and crooked marks which I put 
 before every poem, are what you may call the counter-feet* of it, and 
 you may reckon up for yourself the trouble it all cost me. In fact, 
 they're a kind of yard-stick for every poem— take it and measure 'em 
 with it, and if you find I cheat you out of a single syllable, why then 
 
 call me a d *-d rascal— that's all !" But then the public may be 
 
 taken in just by the honourable face he puts on it, When the feet 
 are all set down so honest-looking and plain, the reader '11 say — 
 " Well, I'm not going to be one of your suspicious sort — what's the 
 
 * Conto-finio, a simulated account. 
 
— 346 — 
 
 use of counting after the man — I dare say it's all right! — I ain't 
 a-going to do it !" And he don't do it — and gets cheated. And 
 who can always count 'em up ? Now we're in Italy and I've got 
 time to write the feet on the ground with chalk, and collate every 
 ode. But in Hamburgh, where I've my business to attend to, I've 
 no time for it, and must take Count Platex without calling him to an 
 account, just as a man takes the bags of money from the treasury with 
 the number of the dollars they hold, written on 'em. They go about, 
 sealed up, from one man to another, every body takes it for granted 
 that they hold as much as the number says — and yet it has hap- 
 pened, that a man who didn't have much to do has opened one and 
 counted the specie, and found it ran short a few dollars. And there 
 may be just the same sort of swindling in poetry. Particularly do 
 I mistrust when I think of bags of money. For my own brother-in- 
 law has told me, that in the House of Correction at Odensee, they've 
 got a fellow who had some sort of a situation in the Post Office, and 
 who opened the specie-bags that went through his hands, and then 
 sewed 'em up again and forwarded 'em. "When one hears of such 
 rascality, he loses his trust in fellow-mortals, and gets to be a mis- 
 trustful man. There's ever so much rascality in this world, and I 
 suppose it's the same in the poetry business as in any other." 
 
 " Honesty," continued Hyacinth, while the Marquis declaimed 
 on, all absorbed in feeling and without attending to us, " Honesty, 
 Doctor, is the correct thing, and a man who isn't honest I consider 
 as a scamp, and when I consider a man as a scamp, I'll buy nothing 
 from him, read nothing of his, in short, devil the bit of business of 
 any sort will I do with him. I'm a man, Doctor, who don't set my- 
 self up on any thing, but if there's any thing I do set myself up on, 
 it is on doing the correct thing. If you've no objection, I'd like to 
 tell you of a noble trait in my character, and you'll be astonished at 
 it. I tell you you'll be astonished as sure as I'm an honorable man. 
 There's a man lives in the Spear-Place in Hamburgh, and he's a 
 green-grocer, and his name's Blocky — that is to say, I say that his 
 name's Blocky because we're good friends, for his real name is 
 Block. And his wife of course is Madam Block, and she never 
 could bear that her husband should buy lottery tickets of me and 
 when he did, I did'nt dare to go to his house with 'em. So he used 
 to tell me in the street, ' I want this or that number, and here's the 
 money, Hirsch !' And I'd say, ' All right, Blocky !' And when I 
 got home, I used to lay the number he'd taken apart for him under 
 cover, and write on it in German hand, ' On account of Herr Chris 
 
— 347 — 
 
 TiAN Hin rich Block.' And now just listen and be astonished. It 
 was a fine spring day and the trees round the Exchange were all 
 green, and the zephyr airs were nice, and the sun shone in the 
 heaven and I stood by the Bank of Hamburgh. And then Blocky 
 — my Blocky, you know — came walking along with fat Mrs. Blocky 
 on his arm, and was the first to speak to me, and spoke of the 
 Lord's splendid Spring, and made some patriotic remarks on the 
 town-guard, and asked me how business was, and I told him that a 
 little while before there'd been a chap in the pillory, and so as we 
 talked he told me that the night before he'd dreamed that number 
 1538 had drawn the grand prize — and just at that instant, while 
 Madam Block was looking at the statutes of the Emperors before 
 the Town-hall, he put thirteen louis d'ors, full weight, into my hand. 
 Lord ! it seems to me that I can feel them now — and before Madam 
 could turn around, I said, ' All right, Blocky !' and went away. 
 And I went at once, without stopping, to the head office and got 
 number 1538, and covered it up as soon as I was home, and wrote 
 on the cover, ' On account of Herr Christian Hinrich Block." 
 And what did the Lord do ? Fourteen days later, to try my 
 honesty, he let number 1538 turn up a prize of fifty thousand marks. 
 And what did Hirsch then do, the same Hirsch who now stands 
 before you ? This Hirsch put on a clean white shirt, and a clean 
 white cravat, and took a hackney coach and went to the head office, 
 and drew his fifty thousand marks and rode with 'em to the Spear- 
 Place.- — And when Blocky saw me, he says, ' Hirsch, what are you 
 dressed up so fine for, to-day ?' I however didn't answer a word, 
 but set a great astonishing bag of gold on the table, and said, right 
 cheerful and jolly, 1 Herr Christian Hinrich Block ! — number 1538, 
 which you were so kind as to order of me, has been so lucky 
 as to draw fifty thousand marks. I have the honor to present you 
 that same money in this bag, and take the liberty of begging a re- 
 ceipt for the amount !' When Blocky heard that, he began to cry ; 
 when Madame Block heard it, she cried ; the fat red servant-girl 
 cried ; the crooked shop-boy cried ; the children cried ; and I ? a man 
 of feelings as I am, couldn't cry at all, but fainted dead away, and it 
 wasn't till I came to, that the tears came into my eyes — like a river 
 — and I cried for three hours !" 
 
 The voice of the little man quivered as he told this story, and with 
 an air of joy he drew from his pocket the packet I have already 
 spoken of, unrolled the faded rose silk, and showed me the document 
 in which Herr Christian Hinrich Block acknowledged the receipt 
 
— 348 — 
 
 of fifty thousand marks. " When I die," said Hyacinth with a tear 
 in his eye, "this receipt must be buried with me, and on the Judg- 
 ment Day, when I must give an account of all my deeds, then I will 
 go with this receipt in my hand before the throne of the Lord, and 
 when my Evil Angel has read off the list of all the evil deeds I've 
 been guilty of, and my good angel has read off in turn all my good 
 deeds, I'll say, calm and easy, ' Be quiet ! — all I want to know is if 
 this receipt is correct ? — is that the handwriting of Herr Christian 
 ETinrich Block ?' Then a little angel will come flying up, and he'll 
 say that he knows Block's hand perfectly well, and he'll tell the 
 whole story of the honorable business I carried through. — And the 
 Creator of Eternity, the Almighty, who knows all things will re- 
 member it all and he will praise me before the sun, moon and stars, 
 and reckon up at once in his head that if the value of my evil deeds 
 be subtracted from fifty thousand marks, that there'll remain a bal- 
 ance to my account, and he'll say, * Hirsch, you are appointed an 
 angel of the first class, and may wear wings with white and red 
 feathers.' " 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Who is, then, the Count Platen, whom we have, in the previous 
 chapter, learned to know as a poet and warm friend ? Ah ! dear 
 reader, I have been reading that very question for a long time in 
 your countenance, and it is with a trembling heart that I set about 
 answering it. The worst thing with German authors is, that when- 
 ever they show up a fool, they must beforehand set him forth in full, 
 by means of wearisome descriptions of character, and personal pe- 
 culiarities, firstly, that the reader may know of his existence, and 
 secondly, that they may understand how, where, and when the lash 
 cuts — before or behind. It was a different matter with the ancients, 
 and it is still different with some modern nations, for instance, the 
 F-nglish and French, who have a public life, and, in consequence, pub- 
 lic characters. We Germans, on the contrary, though we have a 
 foolish enough public, have very few fools, distinguished enough to 
 be generally recognised as ' characters,' when used in prose or in 
 verse. The few men of this mould whom we possess are perfectly 
 justifiable in giving themselves airs of importance. They are of in- 
 estimable value, and are entitled to the highest claim to our conside- 
 
— 349 — 
 
 ration. For instance, the TTcrr Privy Counsellor Schmaltz, Pro- 
 fessor at the University of Berlin, is a man worth his weight in gold; 
 a humorous writer could never do without him, and he himself is so 
 perfectly conscious of his personal importance and needfulness that 
 he loses no opportunity to supply such writers with material for 
 satire. For this purpose, therefore, he labors night and day, either 
 as statesman, civil villain, or civilian,* deacon, anti-Hegelian, and 
 patriot, to make himself as ridiculous as possible, and thus advance 
 that literature for which he sacrifices himself. And therefore the 
 German universities deserve great praise, since they supply us with 
 more fools than any other trades- unions, especially Goettingen, which 
 I have never failed to appreciate, so far as this point is concerned. 
 This is the true and secret reason why I have always boldly advocated 
 the maintenance of the Universities, even while preaching freedom 
 of exercising a trade, and recommending the abolition of the guilds. 
 When fools of note are thus wanting, the world cannot be too grate- 
 ful to me, should I bring out a few new ones, and render them avail- 
 able. For the advancement of literature, I will therefore now speak 
 more in detail of Count August von Platen Hallermunde. I will 
 so arrange it, that he may be made well enough known to be useful, 
 and to a certain degree celebrated, giving him, as it were, a literary 
 fattening, as the Iroquois are said to do with prisoners who are sub- 
 sequently devoured at their festivals. In this business, I shall act 
 with all due honor and courtesy, as a good citizen should, touching 
 on the material, or so-called personal interests, only so far as they 
 are needed, to throw light upon spiritual phenomena, always giving 
 the point of view from which I regarded him, and not unfrequently 
 exhibiting the spectacles wherewith I took my peep. 
 
 The point of view from which I first beheld Count Platen, was 
 Munich, the scene of those efforts which rendered him very celebrated 
 among his acquaintances, and where he will unquestionably be im- 
 mortal — so long as he lives. The spectacles with which I saw him 
 belonged to certain inhabitants of the city, who, in their merry mo- 
 ments, occasionally indulged in merry remarks relative to his personal 
 appearance. I have never seen him myself, and when I have a fancy 
 to imagine him, I recall the droll rage with which my friend, Doctor 
 Lautenbacher, attacked poetic folly in general, and particularly that 
 of a certain Count Platen, who, with a wreath of laurel on his brow, 
 stood in an attitude of poetic inspiration on the public promenade at 
 
 * Servilist in the original which I presume to be a Rabelisian " twist" of the word 
 Civilist. — [Note by Translator.] 
 
 30 
 
— 850 — 
 
 Erlangen, staring, with spectacled nose, up at Heaven. Others have 
 spoken better of the poor Count, lamenting only his straitened cir- 
 cumstances, which, as he was very ambitious of honor, compelled him 
 to extraordinary industry, and thus at least gave him distinction as a 
 poet. They also praised his complaisance and courtesy towards 
 younger people, with whom he was modesty itself, since he only, in 
 the most amiable manner, begged their permission to occasionally 
 visit them in their rooms ; and carried his kindness so far as to call 
 again, even when they had intimated, in the most significant manner, 
 that his calls were no longer agreeable. Such stories, of course, 
 moved my pity to a certain extent, although I found that his failures 
 in the art of pleasing were very natural. In vain the poor Count 
 often complained that 
 
 "Thy beautiful blonde youth, thou gentle boy, 
 Rejects a dismal, melancholy friend. 
 Well, then! my thoughts to jest and joke I'll lend, 
 Instead of tears, which now my spirits cloy : 
 And for the unknown gift of laughing joy, 
 My earnest prayers ere long to Heaven shall tend!" 
 
 In vain the poor Count declared that he was destined to become 
 the greatest of poets ; that the shadow of the laurel was already 
 visible on his brow, and that he could also make his sweet boys im- 
 mortal, in poems which would live forever. Alas ! even this celebrity 
 was not acceptable to any one, nor was it, in fact, a thing to be par- 
 ticularly desired. I shall never forget the suppressed laughter with 
 which one of these candidates for immortality was stared at by some 
 genial frieuds, one day, in the Arcade at Munich. One sharp-witted 
 knave even declared that he could see the reflection of a laurel wreath 
 between the coat tails of the caudidate. So far as I am concerned, 
 dear reader, I am not so malicious as you think ; I pity the poor 
 Count, and when others mock him, I doubt whether he has ever prac- 
 tically revenged himself on the hated " custom" spoken of, although 
 in his songs he sighs for such revenge — no, I rather believe in the 
 repulsive afflictions, injurious disregard, and rejections, of which he 
 sings so plaintively. I believe, in fact, that he acted towards morality 
 in a far more laudable manner than he was desirous of doing, and it 
 is possible that he can boast, with General Tilly, "I was never 
 intoxicated, never touched a woman, and never lost a battle." It 
 was, beyond question, for this that the poet says of himself : 
 
 " Thou art a sober and a modest youth." 
 
— 351 — 
 
 Th? poor youth, or rather the poor old youth — for he had several 
 lustrums behind him— once squatted, unless I err, at the University 
 of Erlangen, where some sort of occupation had been allotted him, 
 but as this was insufficient for his soaring spirit, since with his in- 
 creasing lustrums he lusted with greater lustiness for illustrious 
 lustre, and as he day by day felt himself more inspired with his future 
 glory, he gave up his business, being determined to live by writing, 
 by gifts from Heaven whenever they might turn up, and by similar 
 earnings. For the county of the Count is unfortunately situated in 
 the moon, and, owing to the bad state of the roads which communi- 
 cate with Bavaria, will not (according to Gruithuisen's calculation) 
 be attainable until 20,000 years have elapsed, after which time, when 
 that planet approaches the earth, he will be able to draw from it 
 his enormous revenues. 
 
 At an earlier period Don Platen De Collibrados Haller- 
 muxde had published by Brockhaus in Leipsig, a collection of 
 poems with the title of " Lyrical Leaves, No. L," which of course 
 met with no success, although he assured us in the preface that the 
 Seven Wise Men had lavished their praise on the author. At a 
 later date he wrote, in Tieck's style, several dramatic legends and 
 stories, which also had the fortune to remain hidden from the igno- 
 rant multitude and were only read by the Seven Wise Men. In 
 order to get a few more readers the Count applied himself to con- 
 troversy, and wrote a satire against eminent writers, especially 
 against Muellxer, who was already universally hated and morally 
 overthrown, so that the Count came just in the nick of time to give 
 the dead Court Counsellor Oerixdur, another coup de grace, not 
 gracefully however, but very awkwardly in the Falstaffian manner 
 in the thigh. A dislike of Muellxer inspired every noble heart, the 
 attack of the Count "took," and "The Mysterious and Terrible 
 Fork" met here and there with a kindly reception, not from the 
 public at large but among literati and the regular school-people — the 
 latter being pleased with the satire because it was not an imitation 
 of the romantic Tieck, but of the classic Aristophaxes. 
 
 I believe that it was about this time that the Count travelled to 
 Italy, no longer entertaining a doubt but that he would be able to 
 live by his poetry. Cotta had indeed paid him the common prosaic 
 honor to pay him money for his bill for poetry; for Poetry, the 
 nobly-born, never has any money herself, and when in difficulties 
 always goes to Cotta. Now the Count versified day and night ; he 
 no longer copied the patterns of Tieck and of Aristophanes, but 
 
or 2 
 
 imitated first Goethe in ballads, then Horace in odes, then 
 Petrarch in sonnets, then Hafiz in Persian gazelles — in short, he 
 gave us, such as it was, a selection of flowers of the best poets, and- 
 with it his own lyrical leaves, under the title of " Poems of Count 
 Platen, &c." 
 
 No one in Germany is so indulgent as I towards poetic produc- 
 tions, and I am willing from my very soul that a poor devil like 
 Platen should enjoy his bit of celebrity which he has so bitterly 
 earned by the sweat of his brow. And no one is more willing to 
 praise Ids industry, his efforts and his poetry, or to recognize his 
 metrical merits. My own efforts enable me better than another to 
 appreciate those merits. The bitter labor, the indescribable perse- 
 verance, the chattering of teeth through weary winter nights, the 
 restrained anger at a fruitless straining for effect, is far more appar- 
 ent to one of us than to the ordinary reader who supposes that the 
 smoothness, neatness and polish of the Count's verses are the effect 
 of ease, and who thanklessly enjoys himself over the glittering play 
 of words, just as spectators at the feats of circus artistes, when they 
 behold the latter dancing on ropes, hopping among eggs, or stand- 
 ing on their heads, never reflect that the poor fellows have acquired 
 this pliancy of limb and poetry of motion only by long years of hard 
 work and bitter hunger. I, who have never worried myself so much 
 in poetry, and who have always exercised it in company with good 
 eating, esteem poor Platen all the more, since his experiences 
 have been of such a sour and sober nature; I will boast for him that 
 no literary rope-dancer in Europe can balance so well as he on slack 
 gazelles, that no one can perform so well as he such an egg dance as 
 
 w w — www 
 
 w w — w w w w> &C. 
 
 and that no one can stand so well on his head. If the muses are 
 not complaisant to him, he at least has the genius of our language 
 in his power, or knows how to clothe it with power. As for win- 
 ning the willing love of the genius, it is beyond his power, he must 
 perseveringly run after this youth as after others, and his utmost 
 ability is to catch the outward form, which despite its beautiful 
 contour never speaks to our soul. Nevey did the deep tones of 
 nature, as we find them in popular song among children and other 
 true poets, burst from the soul of Platen, or bloom forth like an 
 apocalypse from it the desperate effort which ho is obliged to make 
 in order to say something he calls a "great deed in words," — for so 
 
— 353 — 
 
 utterly unfamiliar is he with the true spirit of poetry, that he does 
 not know that the successful mastery of words can only be a great 
 deed for the rhetorician; for the true poet it should be a natural 
 occurrence. Unlike the true poet, language was never yet his mas- 
 ter ; on the contrary, he has become master of it, playing on it as a 
 virtuoso plays on an instrument. The more he advanced in this 
 mechanical facility, the higher opinion did he form of his own powers 
 of performance; he learned how to play in every manner and metre; 
 he versified even the most difficult passages, often poetising, so to 
 speak, on the G string, and was vexed when the public did not 
 applaud. Like all virtuosi who have developed this sort of single- 
 string talent, he only exerted himself for applause, regarding with 
 anger the celebrity of others. He envied his colleagues all that they 
 gained, as for instance, when he fired five-act pasquinades at Clausen 
 at a time when he could not attract more than a mere poetic squib 
 at himself; he laid a strong hand on every review in which others 
 were praised, and cried without ceasing, "I am not sufficiently 
 praised, I am not sufficiently praised, for I am the poet, the poet of 
 poets," &c. Such a hunger and thirst for praise, and for alms, was 
 never yet shown by a true poet, by Klopstock or by Goethe, to 
 whose companionship Count Platen has appointed himself, although 
 any one can see that he justly forms a triumvirate only with Aug. 
 Wilhelm von Schlegel, and perhaps with Ramler. " The great 
 Ramler," as he was called in his own time, when he, without a 
 laurel-crown, it is true, but with all the greater cue and hair-bag, 
 with his eyes raised to Heaven, and with a canvass umbrella under 
 his arm, wandered scanning about in the Berlin Thiergarten ; believed 
 himself to be the representative of poetry on earth. His verses 
 were the most perfect in the German language, and his adorers, 
 among whom even a Lessing went astray, believed that poetry could 
 go no further. Such, at a late date, was almost the case with Aug. 
 Wilhelm von Schlegel, whose poetical insufficiency became mani- 
 fest as the language was more fully developed, so that many who 
 once looked upon the singer of Arion as an Arion himself, now re- 
 gard him merely as a school-master of some ability. But whether 
 Count Platen is as yet qualified to laugh at the otherwise really 
 great Schlegel, as the latter once laughed at Ramler, I cannot 
 take it on me to say. But this I do know, that they are all three 
 on a par in poetry, and though Count Platen, in his gazelles, dis- 
 plays ever so exquisitely his juggling arts of balance; though he 
 executes his egg-dance ever so admirably, and if he, in his plays, even 
 
 30* 
 
— 354 — 
 
 stands on his head — he is not for all that a poet." " He is no poet," 
 pay the ungrateful youths whom he so tenderly sings. " He is no 
 poet," respond the ladies," who perhaps (I must say this at least 
 in his behalf) are not altogether impartial judges in the matter, 
 and who, from the penchant which they detect in him, are either 
 jealous or fearful that the tendency of his poems is such as to 
 endanger their hitherto favourable position in society. Severe 
 critics, who wear first-class spectacles, add their voice to this ver- 
 dict, or express themselves with more laconic significance. " What 
 do you find in the poems of the Count Platen von Hallermunde?" 
 I recently asked such a man. "I find bottom!" was the reply. * "You 
 refer to the fundamental and laborious character of his style?" I 
 replied. " No," said he, " I refer also to the subject matter." 
 
 As regards this subject matter of the Platen poems, it is one 
 which I cannot honestly praise, and yet I cannot unconditionally 
 assent to the furious disapprobation with which our Catos speak of 
 Ihem — or are silent ! Ckacun a son gout, the one loves an ox, the 
 other Waschischta's cow. I even blame the terrible Rhadamanthine 
 seriousness with which this subject matter of the Platen poems is 
 made in turn the subject of scientific criticism in the Berlin annuals. 
 But such are men, and so easy do they find it to fall in a rage, when 
 speaking of sins which they've no mind to. I recently read, in the 
 Morgenblatle, an article entitled " From the Journal of a Pteader," in 
 which Count Platen expressed himself against those who so severely 
 blame his " friendship-love," with that modesty which is his distin- 
 guishing characteristic, and by which his style may be readily recog- 
 nised in the article referred to. When he says that the " Hegelian 
 Weekly Journal" accuses him, with " laughable pathos," of a secret 
 vice, he then, as the reader will infer, simply anticipates the censure 
 of people, whose opinion he has ascertained from others. He 
 has, however, been wrongly informed ; in this light, the pathetic 
 shall never be found fault with by me ; the noble Count is to me rather 
 an agreeable subject, and in his noble penchant I only behold some- 
 thing anachronistic, or a timid and bashful parody of an antique excess 
 of passion. And here we hit the nail on the head — in ancient times, 
 that taste was in accordance with the manner of the age, and showed 
 itself with heroic openness. As, for instance, when the Emperor 
 Nero, on vessels of! gold and ivory, held a banquet which cost mil- 
 lions, and, amid public festivities, married, from out his seraglio of 
 youths, one named Pythagoras, (cuncta denique spectata quce etiam 
 
 [* Sitzfleisch ! war die Antwort.] 
 
— 355 — 
 
 mfemina nox operit,) and afterwards fired Eome with the wedding- 
 torch, that he might, by the roaring flames, the better sing the Fall 
 of Troy. He was a gazelle poet, of whom I would speak with 
 pathos ; but I can only smile at the modern Pythagorean, who in the 
 Rome of the present day, meanly, and soberly and anxiously sneaks 
 among the paths of friendship, his blonde countenance simply dis- 
 gusting the loveless youths, and who afterwards, by the light of a 
 wretched oil lamp, sighs forth his gazelles. From such a point of 
 view, it is interesting to compare the poems of Platen with those of 
 Petronius. In the latter we see straight-forward, antique, plastic, 
 heathen nakedness ; but Count Platen, despite his boasting of the 
 classic style, rather treats his subject in a manner which is altogether 
 romantic, deeply yearning, and priestlike — nay, and I must add, even 
 hypocritical. For the Count frequently masks himself in pious feel- 
 ings, he evades every indication of the sex ; only the initiated are to 
 understand his meaning; he believes that he has sufficiently blinded 
 the multitude when he occasionally lets the word " friend" slip out ; 
 and it is with him as with the ostrich, which believes itself to be well 
 enough hidden when its head is stuck in the sand, although the tail 
 is plaiuly visible. Our illustrious and noble bird would have done 
 better had he hidden his tail, and shown us his head more openly. In 
 fact, he is rather a man of tail than a man of " head." The name 
 man is altogether unsuitable for him ; his love has a passive, Pytha- 
 gorean character ; he is a pathic in his poems ; he is a woman, and 
 one, at that, who has a lewd passion for her own sex — in fact, a male 
 iribade. This anxious, pliant, submissive nature, glides through all his 
 love-poems ; he is always finding some new "friend in beauty ;" in all 
 his verses we discover polyandria, and even when he sentimalises — 
 
 " Thou loT'st in silence— would that it had bound me ! 
 That I had only east on thee my glances ! 
 ITad I, with word?. ne*er made the first advances, 
 These anxious sorrows had not twined around me. 
 And yet I would not be as love first found me ! 
 Woe to the day which coldly ends its chances! 
 'Tis from that realm where, lost in raptured trances, 
 Blest angels mingle." 
 
 — we at once think of the angels who came to Lot, the son of Haran, 
 and who only escape d with difficulty and effort the most rapturous 
 trances, as we read in the books of Moses, where, unfortunately, the 
 sonnets and gazelles which were sung before Lot's door, are not 
 recorded. Everywhere, in Platen's poems, we see the ostrich, which 
 only hides its head, the vain, weak bird, which has the most beautiful 
 
— 356 — 
 
 plumage, and yet cannot fly ; and which, ever quarrelsome, stumbles 
 along over the polemic sandy desert of literature. With his -fine 
 feathers, without the power to soar, with his fine verse, without 
 poetic flight, he is the very opposite to that eagle of song who, with 
 less brilliant wings, still rises to the sun. I must return to my old 
 refrain ; Count Platen is no poet. 
 
 Two things are required of every poet ; that there should be 
 natural tones in his lyric poems, and characters in his epic or dra- 
 matic productions. If he cannot legitimately establish himself on 
 these points, he must lose his title as poet, although all his other 
 family-papers and diplomas of nobility are in perfect order. I have 
 no doubt that the last is the case with Count Platen, and I am 
 convinced that he would only deign a smile of pityiug sorrow to any 
 one who should attempt to cast doubt on his title as Count. But 
 dare to so much as level a couplet at his poetic title, and he will at 
 once set himself down and publish five act satires against you. The 
 want of natural chords in the poems of the Count is the more touch- 
 ing from the fact that he lives in an age when he dare not so much 
 as name his real feelings, when the current morality which is so 
 directly opposed to his Iovp, even forbids him to openly express his 
 sorrows, and when he must anxiously and painfully disguise every 
 sentiment for fear of offending by so much as a single syllable the 
 ear of the public as well as that of the " disdainful and beautiful 
 one." This constant fear suppresses every natural chord in him— it 
 condemns him to metrically labor away at the feelings of other poets 
 which have already passed muster as acceptable, and which must of 
 necessity be used to cloak his own conceptions. It may be that 
 wrong is done him when, those Avho understand such unfortunate 
 situations assert that Count Platen is desirous of showing himself 
 as Count in poetry and of holding in it to his nobility, and that he 
 consequently only expresses the feelings of such well-known families 
 as have their sixty-four descents. Had he lived in the days of the 
 Roman Pythagoras, it may be that he would have expressed these 
 feelings more openly and perhaps have passed for a true poet. Then 
 natural chords at least would not have been missed in his lyric 
 poems — albeit the want of characters in his dramas must ever have 
 remained, at least until he changed his moral nature and became an 
 altogether different man. The forms of which I speak are those 
 independent creatures which spring perfect and fully armed from the 
 creative power of the poet, as Pallas Athene sprang from the head 
 of Kronion — living dream-forms whose mystic birth stands, far more 
 
— 357 — 
 
 than is imagined, in active relation with the mental and moral nature 
 of the poet — a spiritual production denied to the one who, a mere 
 fruitless creature, vanishes gazelle-like in his windy weakness. 
 
 These are, however, after all, only the private opinions of a poet 
 and their importance depends on the degree of credit which is ac- 
 corded them. But I cannot avoid mentioning that Count Platen 
 has often assured the public that in days as yet to come he will com- 
 pose the most remarkable poetry of which no one has as yet even a 
 presentiment, yes, and that he will publish Iliads and Odyssies and 
 classic tragedies, and similar immortally colossal poems, after he has 
 toiled so, or so many lustrums. Reader, you have perhaps read 
 some of these outpourings of self-consciousness in his laboriously 
 filed verses, and the promise of such a glorious future was probably 
 the pleasanter to you, when the Count at the same time represented 
 all the cotemporary German poets, with the exception of the aged 
 Goethe, as a set of nasty wretches who only stood in his way on the 
 path to immortality, and who were so devoid of shame as to pluck 
 the laurels and the praise which of right belonged to him alone. 
 
 I will pass over what I heard in Munich on this theme ; but for 
 the sake of chronology I must mention that it was at this time that 
 the King of Bavaria announced his intention of bestowing on some 
 German poet a pension without any attendant official duties ; an 
 unusual example which might have the happiest result on the entire 
 literature of Germany. I was told — 
 
 But I will not quit my theme ; I spoke of the vain boasting of 
 Count Platen, who continually cried : — I am the poet, the poet of 
 poets ! I shall yet write Iliads and Odyssies, <fcc, &c. I know not 
 what the public thinks of such boasting but I know right well what 
 a poet thinks of them — that is to say, a true poet who has felt the 
 ashamed sweetness and the secret trembling of poetry, and who like 
 a happy page who enjoys the secret favors of a princess, most 
 assuredly will not boast of them in the public market place. 
 
 Not unfrequently has the Count for thus puffing himself up, been 
 soundly taken down, yet like Falstaffhe always knew how to excuse 
 himself. He has for such excuses a useful talent which is peculiarly 
 his own and one deserving special mention. It lies in this that 
 Count Platen who is familiar with every failing in his own breast is 
 also quick at recognizing the faintest trace of kindred faults in any 
 great man, and is not less prompt on the strength of this elective 
 affinity of vice to institute a comparison between the other and him- 
 self. Thus, for instance, having observed that Shakespeare's son- 
 
— 358 — 
 
 nets are addressed to a young man and not to a woman, he at once 
 praises Shakespeare for choosing so rationally, compares himself 
 with him — and that is all which he has to say of him. One might 
 negatively write an apology for Count Platen and assert that he 
 has not as yet developed this or that failing because he has not as 
 yet compared himself with this or that great man who has been 
 reputed guilty of them. Most genial, however, and amazing did he 
 show himself in the choice of one in whose life he discovered speeches 
 void of modesty, and by whose example he fain would lend a color 
 to his own boasting. In fact, the words of this man as establishing 
 such a point, have not been cited — for it was none other than Jesus 
 Christ himself, who has hitherto always been taken for the pattern 
 of meekness and humility. Christ once boasted ! the most humble 
 of mankind, and the more humble — since he was the divinest? Yes 
 — what has escaped all theologians was discovered by Count Platen, 
 for be insinuates that Christ, when he stood before Pilate, was not 
 humble nor did he answer humbly, for when the latter asked him 
 11 Art thou the King of the Jews ?" he answered, " Thou sayest it." 
 And so says he, the Count Platen : "I am he, I am the Poet !" — 
 "What the hate of one who scorned Christ never as yet effected, 
 was brought to pass by the exegesis of self-enamored vanity. 
 
 As we know what we should think when any one thus cries with- 
 out intermission : " I am the Poet !" so we also understand the 
 affinity which it has to the immensely remarkable poems which the 
 Count, when he has attained due ripeness, intends to write, and 
 which are to surpass in such an unheard of manner all his previous 
 performances. We know well enough that the later works of a true 
 poet are no more superior to his first than the later children to 
 which a woman gives birth are superior to her first born — although 
 the bearing them is easier. The lioness does not first bring forth a 
 puppy, then a hare, then a hound and finally a lion. Madame 
 Goethe, at her first birth brought forth her young lion, and he in 
 turn at the first throw, gave us his lion of Berlichingen. Even so 
 did Schiller bring forth his " Robbers," whose claws at once 
 showed the lion breed. At a later date came the polish and re- 
 finement and finish in the "Natural Daughter" and the " Bride of 
 Messina." It was not thus with Count Platen, who began with 
 anxious and elaborate art, and of whom the poet sings : — 
 
 " Thou who from naught so lightly did'st advance, 
 With thy smooth licked and lackered countenance, 
 Like some toy-puppet neatly carved from cork." 
 
— 359 — 
 
 Yet should I speak out the very thought of my soul, I would con- 
 fess that I by no means regard Count Platen as the extraordinary 
 fool which one would take him to be from his boasting and incessant 
 burning of incense before his own shrine. A little folly, it is well 
 known, always accompanies poetry, but it would be terrible if 
 Nature should burden a single man with such an incredible quantity 
 of folly as would suffice for a hundred poets, and give him therewith 
 such an insignificant dose of poetry. I have reason to suspect that 
 the Count does not believe in his own boasting, and that he, poverty- 
 stricken in life as in literature, is compelled in literature as in life by 
 the needs of the instant, to be his own self-praising Ritffiano. 
 Hence the phenomena of which one might say that they have 
 rather a psychological than an aesthetic interest ; hence the joint 
 company of the most lamentable somnambulism of the soul and 
 affected excess of pride, hence the miserable little deeds with a 
 speedy death and the threatened big deeds with then future immor- 
 tality ; hence the high flashing beggarly pride, and the languishing 
 slavish submissiveness ; hence the unceasing cry that " Cotta lets 
 him starve," and again that " Cotta lets him starve," hence the 
 paroxysms of Catholicism, &c, &c. 
 
 Whether the Count is in earnest with all his Catholicism, is to me 
 a matter of doubt. Nor do I know whether he has become especially 
 Catholic, like certain of his high-born friends. That he intended to 
 do so, first came to my knowledge from the public papers, wherein 
 it was even stated that Count Platen wa.s about to become a monk 
 and retire to a monastery. Scandal-mongers were of the opinion, 
 that the vows of poverty and of abstinence from women would not, in 
 his case, present any remarkable difficulties. Of course when this 
 news was heard in Munich, the pious chimes rang loudly in the 
 hearts of his friends. His poems were praised with Kyrie Eleison 
 and Hallelujah in the priestly papers ; and, indeed, the holy disciples 
 of coelibacy must have greatly rejoiced over those poems in which 
 all are so strongly recommended to refrain from contact with the 
 female sex. My poems unfortunately have a directly opposite ten- 
 dency, and it might indeed concern me greatly, but ought not to 
 astonish me, that priests and singers of boys are not interested in 
 them. And quite as little was I astonished when the day before 
 my departure for Italy, I learned from my friend, Doctor Kolb, that 
 Count Platen was very inimically disposed towards me, and that 
 he had already prepared my utter annihilation in a comedy, entitled 
 King CEdijpus, which in Augsburg had got into the hands of certain 
 
— 360 — 
 
 princes and counts, whose names I have either forgotten or shah 
 forget. Others also told me that Count Platen hated me, assuming 
 the position of an enemy towards me ; — and I would much prefer to 
 have it reported that Count Platen hated me to my face, than that 
 he loved me behind my bade. As for the holy men whose holy 
 hatred burst out at the same time against me, and which was in- 
 spired, not only by my anti-ccelibatic poems, but also by the Political 
 Annals which I then published, it is evident enough that I could 
 only gain when it became evident enough that I was none of their 
 party. And when I here intimate that nothing good is said of them, 
 it does not follow that I speak evil of them. I am even of the 
 opinion that they, purely out of love for what is good, seek to 
 weaken the words of the Evil One by pious deception, and by slan- 
 der pleasing to the Lord. Those good people who, in Munich, 
 presented themselves publicly as a congregation, have been foolishly 
 honoured with the title of Jesuits. They are in faith no Jesuits, or 
 they would have seen for example that of all men, I — one of the bad- 
 least understand the literary alchemic art, by which, as in a mental 
 mint, 1 strike ducats out of my enemies, and that in such a manner, that 
 I retain the ducats while my foes get the blows. They would have 
 seen, too, that such blows, with their impressions, lose nothing of 
 their value, even when the name of the mint-master is worn away ; 
 and that a wretched criminal does not feel the lash the less severely, 
 though the hangman who lays it on be declared dishonourable. But 
 — and this is the chief point — they would have seen that a slight 
 prepossession for the anti-aristocratic Voss, and a few merry vergings 
 towards jokes on the Virgin Mary,* for which they pelted me with 
 filth and stupidity, did not proceed from any anti-catholic zeal. In 
 truth they are no Jesuits, but only mixtures of filth and of stupidity, 
 whom I am no more capable of hating, than I do a manure wagon 
 and the oxen which draw it, and who, with all their efforts, only 
 reach the very opposite of what they intended, and can only bring 
 me to this point, that I show them how Protestant I am;, that 1 
 exercise my good Protestant right to its fullest extent, and swing 
 around the good Protestant battle-axe with a right good will. To 
 win over the multitude, they may have the old women's tales of my 
 unbelief repeated by their poet laureate as much as they please — but 
 by the well-known blows they shall recognise the fellow-believer with 
 Luther, Lessing and Voss. Of course I could not swing the old 
 axe with the earnestness of these heroes — for I burst into laughter 
 
 * Muttirgotksvritze. 
 
— 3G1 — 
 
 at the sight of such enemies, and I have a bit of the Eulenspiegel 
 nature in me, and love a seasoning of jokes — and yet I would not 
 rap those manure oxen less soundly although I beforehand wreathe 
 my axe with smiling flowers. 
 
 But I will not wander from my subject. I believe that it was 
 about the time in question that the Kiug of Bavaria, from the motives 
 alluded to, gave to Count Platen an annual pension of six hundred 
 florins, and that indeed, not from the public treasury, but from his 
 own royal private purse, this being requested by the Count as an 
 especial favor. I mention this circumstance, trifling as it seem, 
 (since it characterizes the caste of the Count,) for the benefit of the 
 investigator into the secrets of nature, and who perhaps studies the 
 aristocracy. Every thing is of importance to science, and let him 
 who would reproach me for devoting myself too seriously to Count 
 Platen, go to Paris, and see with what care the accurate, exquisite 
 Cuvter, in his lectures, describes the filthiest insect even to the 
 minutest particulars. I even regret that I cannot more accurately 
 determine the date of those six hundred and forty florins ; but this 
 much I know that it was subsequent to the composition of " King 
 CEdipus" and that the play would not have been so biting if its 
 author had had something more to bite. 
 
 It was in North Germany, where I was suddenly called by the 
 death of my father, that I first received the monstrous creation 
 winch had finally crept from the great egg over which our beautifully 
 plumed ostrich had so long brooded, and which had been greeted 
 long in advance by the night-owls of the congregation with pious 
 croaking, and by the noble peacocks with joyful spreading of plumes. 
 It was to be at least a destroying basilisk — dear reader, do you 
 know what the legend of the basilisk is ? People say, that when a 
 male bird lays an egg after the manner of the female, that a poison- 
 ous creature is hatched from it whose breath poisons the air, and 
 which can only be destroyed by holding a mirror before it, in which 
 case it dies from terror at its own ugliness. 
 
 Sacred sorrows which I would not profane, first permitted me, two 
 months later, when visiting the watering place Helgoland, to read 
 " King CEdipus," and there, raised to a lofty state of mind by the 
 continual aspect of the great, bold sea ; the petty narrow thoughts 
 and the literary botching of the high-born writer, were to me visible 
 enough. I saw him at length in that master-work exactly as he is, 
 with all his blooming decay, all his copiousness of want of spirit, 
 all his vain imaginings without imagination, a writer, forced without 
 
 31 
 
— 362 — 
 
 force, piqued without being piquant, a dry watery soul, a dismal de- 
 bauchee. This troubadour of misery, weakened in body and in 
 soul, sought to imitate the most powerful, the richest in fancy and 
 most brilliant poets of the young Grecian world ! Nothing is really 
 more ropulsive than this cramp-racked inability which would fain 
 puff itself up into the likeness of bold strength, these wearily col- 
 lected invectives, foul with the mouldiness of ancient spite, and this 
 painfully labored imitation of delirious rapture, trembling through- 
 out at syllables and trifles. As a matter of course there is nowhere 
 in the Count's work the trace of an idea of a deep world-annihilation 
 such as lies darkling at the base of every Aristophanic comedy, and 
 from which the latter shoots like a phantastic ironic magic tree 
 rich in the blooming garniture of flowers of thought, bearing amid its 
 branches nests of* singing nightingales and capering apes. Such an 
 idea, with the death merriment and the fireworks of destruction 
 which it involves, cannot of course be anticipated from the poor 
 Count. The central point, the first and last idea, ground and aim 
 of his so called comedy, consists, as in the " Mysterious and Terrible 
 Fork" of petty literary managing; the poor Count indeed could 
 only imitate a few of the external traits of Aristophanes — the 
 dainty verses and the vulgar words. I say vulgar words, not wish- 
 ing to use any vulgar expression myself. Like a brawling woman, 
 he casts whole flower-pots of abuse on the heads of the German 
 poets. I heartily forgive the Count his spite, but he should have 
 guarded against a few oversights. He should at least have honored 
 our sex, since we are not women but men and consequently belong 
 to a sex which is in his opinion the fair sex, and which he so dearly 
 loves. In this he manifests a lack of delicacy, and many a youth 
 will in consequence doubt the sincerity of his homage, since every 
 one must feel that he who loves truly, honours the whole sex. The 
 singer Frauenlob was undoubtedly never rude to a lady and a 
 1'laten should show more regard towards men. But the indelicate 
 wretch ! he tells the public without reserve that we poets in North 
 Germany have all "the itch, giving us cause, alas ! to use a salve, in 
 filthy scent peculiarly rich." The rhyme is good. But he handles 
 Immermann the most rudely. In the very beginning of his poem he 
 makes the poet do something which I dare not describe, behind a 
 screen, and yet which cannot be disproved. I even deem it very 
 probable that Immermann has more than once done such things. 
 But it is characteristic of the imagination of Count Platen that it 
 always induces him to attack his enemies a posteriori. He did not 
 
— 363 — 
 
 even spare Houwald, that good soul, soft-hearted as a maiden — ah 1 
 perhaps it is on account of this gentle womanlikeness, that a 
 Platen hates him. Muellner, whom he, as he says, "long since by 
 real wit laid low deprived of force," rises again like a dead man from 
 the grave. Child and child's child are not spared in their rights. 
 Raupach is a Jew — 
 
 " The small Jew canker-worm — 
 
 Who now as Raupach holds so high his nose."* 
 
 " Who scrawls tragedies in sickly, drunken headaches." Far worse 
 does it fare with the " Baptized Heine." Yes, yes, reader, you are not 
 mistaken, it is I of whom he speaks, and in King (Edipus you may 
 read, how I am a real Jew ; how I, after writing love-songs for a few 
 hours sit me down and clip ducats ; how I on the Sabbath higgle and 
 trade with some long-bearded Moses and sing the Talmud ; how I on 
 Easter night slay a Christian youth, and out of malice choose some 
 unfortunate writer for the purpose — no, dear reader, I will not tell you 
 lies, such admirably painted pictures are not to be found in King 
 (Edipus, and the fact that they are not there, is the very thing which 
 I blame. Count Platen has sometimes the best subjects and does 
 not know how to treat them. If he had only been gifted with a 
 little more imagination, he would have shown me up at least as a 
 secret pawn-broker, and what comic scenes he might then have 
 sketched ! It really vexes me when I see how the poor Count 
 suffers every opportunity to be witty to escape him. How gloriously 
 he could have represented Raupach as a tragedy-Rothschild, from 
 whom the royal theatres get their loans ! By slightly modifying the 
 plot of the fable, he might have made far better use of (Edipus him- 
 self, the hero of his play. Instead of the latter murdering his father 
 Laius, and marrying his mother Jocasta, he ought, on the contrary, 
 to have so arranged it, that (Edipus should murder his mother and 
 marry his father. A Platen in such a poem must have succeeded 
 wonderfully in the dramatic (pe) drastic, his own natural feelings 
 would have stood him in stead of any effort; like a nightingale, he 
 need only have sung the throbbings of his own breast, and he would 
 have brought out a piece which, if the dead dear gazelling iFFLANDf 
 still lived, would beyond question, be at once studied in Berlin, and 
 played in private theatres. I can imagine nothing more perfect than 
 
 * Das Jiidchen Raupel, 
 
 Das jetzt als Raupach trägt so hoch die Nase, 
 f Der gazelige Iffland. Gazelle f selig = gaselig 
 
— 364 — 
 
 the actor "Wurm in the performance of such an CEdipus. He would 
 surpass himself. Again, I do not find it politic in the Count, that 
 he assures us in his comedies that he has " real wit." Or is he work- 
 ing to bring about the startling and unprecedented effect as a coup 
 de theatre, of making the public continually expect wit, which after 
 all will not appear? Or does he wish to encourage the public to 
 look for the real secret wit in the play, the whole affair being a 
 game at blind-man's buff, in which the Platenic wit is so shrewd as 
 not to suffer itself to be caught ? It is probably for this reason that 
 the public, which is accustomed to laugh at comedies, is so solemn 
 and sad over the Platen pieces, in vain it hunts for the hidden wit 
 and cannot find it, in vain the hidden wit squeaks out " here I am," 
 and again more clearly "here I am, here I am indeed !"• — all is of no 
 avail, the public is dumb and makes a solemn face. But I who 
 know where the joke really lies, have laughed from my heart as I 
 detected the meaning of '"the count-like imperious poet, who veils 
 himself in an aristocratic nimbus, who boasts that every breath 
 which passes his teeth is a crushing to fragments," and who says to 
 all the German poets : 
 
 " Yes, like to Nero I would ye had but one head, 
 That by one blow of wit I might decapitate it." 
 
 The verse is incorrect. But the hidden joke consists in this; that 
 the Count really wishes that we were all out and out Neros, and he, 
 on the contrary, our single dear friend, Pythagoras. 
 
 Perhaps I will, for the benefit of the Count, yet praise many a 
 hidden jest of his up into notice, but since he in his " King CEdipus" 
 has touched me on my tenderest point — for what can be dearer to 
 me than my Christianity ? — it should not be blamed in me if I, yield- 
 ing to human weakness honor the CEdipus, this " great deed in 
 words," less fervently than the earlier works of its composer. 
 
 Meanwhile, true merit never misses its reward, and the author of 
 the CEdipus will prove to be no exception to the rule, though he has 
 here a:s everywhere yielded entirely to the interest of his noble and 
 spiritual bum-bailiffs. * Aye, there is a very old tradition among 
 the races of the East and of the West that every good or bad deed 
 has its direct consequences for the doer. And the day will come 
 when they will come — get ready, I beg you reader, for a flourish of 
 the pathetic and the terrible combined — the day will come when 
 they will rise from Tartarus — " the Eumenides," the terrible daugh- 
 
 * Hintersassen. 
 
— 365 — 
 
 ters of Night. By the Styx ! — and by this oath the gods never 
 swore falsely — the day will come when they will appear, the gloomy, 
 primsevally just sisters, and they will appear with countenances 
 serpent-locked and glowing with rage, with the same scourges of 
 snakes with which they once scourged Orestes, the unnatural sinner 
 who murdered his mother, the Tyndaridean Clyt^emnestra. It may 
 be that even now the Count hears the serpent's hiss — I beg you, 
 reader, just at this instant to think of the Wolf's Eavine and the 
 Samiel music — perhaps even now the secret shudder of the sinner 
 seizes on the Count, heaven grows dark, night birds cry, distant 
 thunders roll, lightning flashes, there is a smell of colophonium, — 
 woe ! woe ! the illustrious ancestors rise from their graves, they cry 
 three and four times "woe ! woe !" over their wretched descendant, 
 they conjure him to don their breeches of iron mail to protect him- 
 self from the terrible lashes — for the Eumenides intend slashing him 
 with them — the serpents of the scourge will ironically solace them- 
 selves with him, and like the lascivious King Rodrigo, when he was 
 shut in the Tower of Serpents, the poor Count will at last whimper 
 and wail 
 
 " Ah ! they're biting, ah ! they're biting 
 That with which I chiefly sinned!" 
 
 Be not alarmed, dear reader — 'tis all a joke ! These terrible 
 Eumenides are nothing but a merry comedy, which I, after a fe^ 
 lustrums, intend writing under this title, and the tragic verses which 
 just now frightened you so much, are to be found in the j oiliest book 
 in the world, in Don Quixotte de la Mancha, where an old respecta- 
 ble lady in waiting recites them before all the court. I see that 
 you're smiling again. Let us take leave of each other merry and 
 laughing ! If this last chapter Js tiresome it is owing to the 
 subject ; besides it was written rather for profit than for pleasure, 
 aud if I have succeeded in making a new fool fit for use in literature, 
 the Father-Land owes me thanks. I have made a field capable of 
 cultivation on which more gifted authors will sow and harvest. The 
 modest consciousness of this merit is my best reward. To such 
 kings as are desirous of presenting me, over and above this, with 
 snuff boxes for my deserts, I would remark that the book firm of 
 "Hoffmann and Campe" in Hamburgh, are authorized to receive 
 any thing of the sort on my account. 
 
 Written in the latter part of the autumn of 1829. 
 
 31* 
 
 . 
 
— 366 — 
 
 3. 
 
 THE CITY OF LUCCA. 
 
 " The City of Lucca," which is connected with " The Baths of 
 Lucca" and which was written at the same time, is not given here 
 by any means as a picture by itself, but as the conclusion of a period 
 of life corresponding with that of one of the world's. 
 
 CHAPTER t 
 
 Nature around us acts upon Man — why not Man upon the Nature 
 which encircles him ? In Italy she is passionate like the people who 
 live there ; with us in Germany she is more solemn, reflective and 
 patient. Was there once a time when Nature had like Man a 
 deeper life ? The force of soul in Orpheus, says the legend, could 
 move trees and rocks by his inspired rhymes. Could the like be 
 done now ? Man and nature have become phlegmatic, and stare 
 gaping at each other. A royal Prussian poet will never, with 
 the chords of his harp, set the Tempelower Hill or the Berlin 
 lindens to dancing. 
 
 Nature has also her history, and it is an altogether different 
 Natural History from that which is taught in schools. Let one 
 of those grey old lizards which 1 have dwelt for centuries in the 
 rocky crevices of the Appenines be appointed as an altogether 
 extraordinary Professor* at one of our Universities, and we should 
 learn from him some very extraordinary things. But the pride of 
 certain gentlemen of the legal faculty would rebel against such an 
 appointment. One of them already cherishes a secret jealousy of 
 the poor puppy Fido Savant, fearing lest he may displace him in 
 erudite fetching and carrying. 
 
 * An " extraordinary Professor" at a German University is not, as mi^ht be supposed, 
 from the name, one preeminent in dignity or distinguished by very remarkable qualifi- 
 cations. He is on the contrary a sort of brevetted Professor, awaiting his promotion to » 
 regular appointment in ordinary.— [Note by Translator.'] 
 
— 367 — 
 
 The lizards, with their cunning little tails and bright crafty eyes, 
 have told me wonderful things as I clambered along among the cliffs 
 of the Appenines. Truly there are things between heaven and earth 
 which not only our philosophers but even our commonest blockheads 
 have not comprehended. 
 
 The lizards have told me that there is a legend among the stones 
 that God will yet become a stone to redeem them from their torpid 
 motionless condition. One old lizard was however of the opinion 
 that this stone-incarnation will not take place until God shall have 
 changed himself into every variety of animal and plant and have 
 redeemed them. 
 
 But few stones have feeling and they only breathe in the moon- 
 light. But these few which realize their condition are fearfully 
 miserable. The trees are better off — they can weep. But animals 
 are the most favored, for they can speak, each after its manner, and 
 Man the best of all. At some future time, after all the world has 
 been redeemed, then all created things will speak as in those prim- 
 eval times of which poets sing. 
 
 The lizards are an ironic race, and love to quiz other animals. 
 But they were so meek and submissive to me, and sighed with such 
 honorable earnestness as they told me stories of Atlantis, which 
 I some day will write out for the pleasure and profit of the world. 
 It went so to my very soul among those little creatures who guard 
 the secret annals of Nature. Are they perhaps enchanted families 
 of priests, like those of ancient Egypt, who, prying into the secrets 
 of Nature dwelt amid labrynthine rocky grottoes ? And we see 
 on their little heads, bodies and tails, just such wondrous charac- 
 ters and signs, as in the Egyptian hieroglyphic caps and garments 
 of the hierophants. 
 
 My little friends also taught me a language of signs, by means of 
 which I could converse with silent Nature. This often cheered my 
 soul, especially towards evening, when the mountains were veiled in 
 fearful pleasant shadows, and the water-falls roared, and every plant 
 sent forth its perfume, and hurried lightnings twitched hither and 
 thither, — 
 
 s Nature ! thou dumb maiden ! — well do I understand thy sum- 
 mer lightning, that vain effort at speech which convulses thy lovely 
 countenance, and thou movest me so deeply that I weep. But then 
 thou understandest me also, and thou art glad and smilest on me 
 with thy golden eyes. Beautiful one, I understand thy stars and 
 thou understandest my tears ! 
 
— 368 — 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 " Nothing in the world will go backwards," said an old lizard to 
 me. " Every thing pushes onwards and finally there will be a grand 
 advance in all Nature. The stones will become plants, the plants 
 animals, the animals human beings, and human beings Gods." 
 
 " But," I cried, " what will become of those good folks, the poor 
 old Gods r 
 
 " That will all arrange itself, good friend," replied he. "Probably 
 they will abdicate, or be placed in some honorable way or other on 
 the retired list." 
 
 I learned many another secret from my hieroglyph-skinned natural 
 philosopher ; but I gave him my word of honor to reveal nothing. 
 I know no more than Schelling and Hegel. 
 
 " What do you think of these two ?" once inquired of me the old 
 lizard with a scornful smile, as I chanced to mention their names. 
 
 " When we reflect," I replied, " that they are merely men and not 
 lizards, we should be amazed at their knowledge. At bottom they 
 teach one and the same doctrine, the Philosophy of Identity which 
 you so well know ; but differ in their manner of setting it forth. 
 When Hegel sets forth the principles of his philosophy, one imag- 
 ines that he sees those neat figures which an expert schoolmaster 
 knows how to form by an artistic combination of all manner of num- 
 bers, so that a common observer only sees in them the superficial — 
 the house or boat or absolute soldier formed from the figures, while 
 a reflecting school -boy rather sees in the picture the solution of a 
 deep problem in arithmetic. But what Schelling sets forth 
 reminds us of those Indian images of beasts which are formed them- 
 selves by bold combinations from other beasts, serpents, birds, ele- 
 phants and similar material. This sort of representation is far 
 more agreeable, cheerful, and causes warmer throbbings of the heart. 
 All lives in it, while the abstract Hegelian ciphers stare at us, on 
 the contrary, so gray, so cold and dead." 
 
 " Good, good !" replied the old lizard. " I see what you mean; 
 but tell me, have these philosophers many auditors ?" 
 
 I explained to him how in the learned caravanserai at Berlin the 
 " camels" assemble around the fountain of Hegelian wisdom, kneel 
 down to be loaded with precious skins, and then wend their way on 
 through the sandy deserts of the Mark. I further described to him 
 
— 369 — 
 
 how the modern Athenians crowded to the well of the spiritual 
 wisdom of Schelling as though it were the best of beer, the lush of 
 life, the swizzle of immortality. — 
 
 The little natural philosopher paled with all the yellowness of 
 envy as he heard that his colleagues had such a run of customers, 
 and he vexedly asked, " Which of the two do you regard as the 
 greater ?" " That," I replied, " is as difficult to answer as though 
 you had inquired of me if the Schechner were greater than the 
 Sonntag and I think — " 
 
 " Think!" cried the lizard, in a sharp aristocratic tone indicating 
 the very intensity of slight — " think ! who among you thinks ? My 
 wise gentleman, for some three thousand years I have devoted myself 
 to investigating the spiritual functions of animals, with especial 
 regard to men, monkeys and snakes as objects of study. I have 
 expended as much untiring industry on these curious beings as 
 Lyonnet on caterpillars, and as a result of all my observations, 
 experiments and anatomical comparisons, I can plainly assure you 
 that no human being thinks, only once in a while something occurs 
 to a man, or comes into his head, and these altogether unintentional 
 accidents they call thoughts, while the stringing them together they 
 call thinking. But in my name you may deny it ; no man thinks, no 
 philosopher thinks, neither Schelling nor Hegel thinks, and as for 
 all their philosophy it is empty air and water like the clouds of 
 Heaven. I have seen myriads of such clouds, proud and confident, 
 sweeping their course above me, and the next morning's sun 
 dissolved them again into their primaeval nothingness ; — there is 
 but one true philosophy, and that is written in eternal hieroglyphs 
 on my own tail." 
 
 With these words, which were spoken with disdainful pathos, the 
 old lizard turned his back on me, and as he slowly wiggled away, I 
 saw on him the most singular characters, which in variegated signi- 
 ficance spread at length over his entire tail. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The dialogue detailed in the previous chapter took place between 
 the Baths of Lucca and the city of that name, not far from the great 
 chestnut tree, whose wild green twigs overshadow the brook, and 
 in the vicinity of an old white bearded goat who dwelt there as a 
 
— 370 — 
 
 hermit. I was on the way to Lucca, to visit Francesca and Matilda, 
 whom I was to meet there as agreed on eight days before. But I 
 had went thither in vain the first time, and now I was once more on 
 the road. I went on foot through beautiful mountain tracts and 
 groves, where the gold oranges, like day stars shone out from the 
 dark green, and where garlands of grape-vines in festal drapery 
 spread along for leagues. The whole country is there as garden-like 
 and adorned as the rural scenes depicted in our theatres, even the 
 peasants resembling those gay figures which delight us as a sort of 
 singing, smiling and danciug stage ornament. No Philistine faces, 
 anywhere. And if there are Philistines here, they are at least Italiau 
 orange-Philistines and not the plump, heavy German potato-Philis- 
 tines. The people are picturesque and ideal as their country, and 
 every man among them has such an individual expression of counte- 
 nance, and knows how to set forth his personality in gestures, fold 
 of the cloak, and, if needful in ready handling of his knife. With us 
 on the contrary, one sees nothing but mere men with universally 
 similar countenances; when twelve of them are together they make 
 a round dozen, and if any one attacks them they call for the police. 
 
 I was struck in the Luccan district, as in other parts of Tuscany, 
 with the great felt hats with long waving ostrich plumes worn by 
 the women ; and even the girls who plaited straw had these heavy 
 coverings for the head. The men on the contrary generally wear a 
 light straw hat, and young fellows receive them as presents from 
 girls who have braided with them their love thoughts, and it may be 
 many a sigh besides. So sat Francesca once among the girls and 
 flowers of the Yal d'Arno, weaving a hat for her Caro Cecco, and 
 kissing every straw as she took it, trilling at times her " Occhie, 
 Stelle mortale ;" — the curly-locked head which afterwards wore it so 
 prettily is now tonsured, and the hat itself hangs, old and worn-out, 
 in the corner of a gloomy abbe's-cell in Bologna. 
 
 I am one of that class who are always taking shorter cuts than 
 those given by the regular highway, and who in consequence are 
 often bewildered in narrow, woody and rocky paths. That happened 
 to me during my walk to Lucca, and I was beyond question twice 
 as long on the journey as any ordinary high-road traveller would 
 have been. A sparrow, of whom I inquired the way, chirped and 
 chirped and could give me no correct information. Perhaps he did 
 not know himself. The butterflies and dragon-flies who sat on great 
 flower-bells, would not throw me a word, fluttering away, even before 
 my question was asked, and the flowers shook their soundless bell- 
 
— '671 — 
 
 heads. Often the wild myrtles awakened me, tittering with delicate 
 voices from afar. Then I hurriedly climbed the highest crags, and 
 cried, " Ye clouds of heaven ! sailors of the air ! which is the way to 
 Francesca ? Is she in Lucca ? Tell me what she does ? What is 
 she dancing ? Tell me all, and when ye have told me, tell me it 
 once again !" 
 
 In such excesses of folly it was natural enough that a solemn 
 eagle, wakened by my cry from his solitary dreams, should have 
 gazed on me with contemptuous displeasure. But I willingly for- 
 give him ; for he had never seen Francesca, and could in conse- 
 quence sit so sublimely on his firm rock, and gaze so free of soul 
 at heaven, or stare with such impertinent calmness down on me. 
 Such an eagle has such an insupportably proud glance, and looks 
 at one as though he would say, " What sort of a bird art thou V* 
 Knowest thou not that I am as much of a king as I was in those 
 heroic days when I bore Jupiter's thunders and adorned Napo- 
 leon's banners ? Art thou a learned parrot who hast learned 
 the old songs all by heart and pedantically repeats them ? Or a 
 sulky turtle-dove who feels beautifully and cooes miserably ? Or an 
 almanac nightingale ?* Or a gander who has seen better days and 
 whose ancestors saved the capitol ? Or an altogether servile farm- 
 yard cock, around whose neck, out of irony, men hang my image in 
 miniature, the emblem of bold flight, and who for that reason spreads 
 himself and struts as though he himself were a veritable eagle ? But 
 you know, reader, how little cause I have to feel injured when an 
 eagle thinks so of me. I believe that the glance which I cast at 
 him was even prouder than his own, and if he took the trouble to 
 inquire of the first laurel in his way he now knows who I am. 
 
 I had really lost my way in the mountains as the twilight shadows 
 began to fall, as the forest songs grew silent and as the trees rustled 
 more solemnly. A sublime tranquillity and an inexpressible joy 
 swept like the breath of God through the changed silence. Here 
 and there beautiful dark eyes gleamed up at me from the ground, 
 disappearing in the same instant. Delicate whispers played with my 
 heart, and invisible kisses merrily swept my cheek. The evening 
 crimson hung over the hills like a royal mantle, and the last sun rays 
 lit up their summits till they seemed like kings with gold crowns on 
 their heads. And I stood like an Emperor of the World, among 
 these crowned vassals who in silence did me homage. 
 
 * Almanachsnachtigall. 
 
— 372 — 
 
 CHAPTEB IV. 
 
 1 po not know if the monk who met me not far from Lucca is a 
 pious man. But I know that his aged body hides, poor and bare, in 
 a coarse gown year out and year in ; his torn sandals do not suffici- 
 ently protect his feet when he climbs the rocks through bush and 
 thorn, that he may. when far up there, console the sick or teach 
 children to pray ; — and he is content, if any one, for his pains, puts a 
 piece of bread in his bag and lets him have a little straw to sleep 
 on. 
 
 "Against that man I will write nothing," said I to myself: "When 
 I am again at home in Germany, sitting at ease in my great arm- 
 chair by a crackling stove, well fed and warm, and writing against 
 Catholic priests — I will write nothing against that man — " 
 
 To write against Catholic priests one must know their faces. But 
 the original faces are only to be found in Italy. The German Catho- 
 lic priests and monks are only bad imitations, often mere parodies of 
 the Italian, and a comparison of the two would be like comparing 
 Roman or Florentine pictures of the saints with the scare-crow, 
 pious caricatures which cume from the blockhead bourgeois pencil 
 of some Nuremberg town-painter, or were born. of the blessed sim- 
 plicity of some soul-borer who owes his dreary existence to the long- 
 haired Christian new Germau school. 
 
 The priests in Italy have long settled down into harmony with 
 public opiniou : the people there are so accustomed to distinguish 
 between clerical dignity and priests without dignity, that they can 
 honor the one even when they despise the other. Even the contrast 
 which the ideal duties and requirements of the spiritual condition 
 form with the unconquerable demands of sensuous nature, — that 
 infinitely old. eternal conflict between the spirit and matter — makes 
 of the Italian priest a standing character of popular humor in satires, 
 songs and novels. Similar phenomena are to be found all the world 
 over where there is a like priestly rank, as for instance in Hindostan. 
 In the comedies of this prinuvvally pious land, as we have remarked 
 in the Sacontala, and find confirmed in the more recently translated 
 \ r asantasena. a Brarain always plays the comic part, or as we might 
 say. the priest-harlequin, without the least disturbance of the rever- 
 ence due to his sacrificial functions and his privileged holiness — as 
 little in fact as an Italian would experience in hearing of mass or 
 
— 373 — 
 
 confessing to a priest whom he had found the day before tipsy in tb<* 
 mud of the street. In Germany it is different ; there, the Catholic 
 priest will not only set forth his dignit) by his office, but also his 
 office by his person ; and because he perhaps in the beginning was 
 in earnest with his calling, and subsequently found that his vows of 
 chastity and of poverty conflicted somewhat with the old Adam, he 
 will not publicly violate them, (particularly lest by so doing he might 
 lay himself open to our friend Krug of Leipsig,) and so endeavors to 
 assume at least the appearance of a holy life. Hence, sham-holiness, 
 hypocrisy and the gloss of outside piety among German priests, 
 while with the Italians the mask is more transparent, manifesting 
 also a certain plump fat irony and a digestion of the world passing 
 right comfortably. 
 
 But what avail such general reflections ! They would be of but 
 little use to you, dear reader, if you had a desire to write against 
 the Catholic priesthood. To do this one should see with his own 
 eyes the faces thereunto pertaining. Of a truth it is not enough to 
 h*ve seen them in the royal opera-house in Berlin. The last head- 
 aianager did his best to make the coronation-array in the Maid of 
 Orleans true to life, to give his fellow-countrymen an accurate idea 
 of a procession, and to show them priests of every color. But the 
 most accurate costumes cannot supply the original countenances, 
 and though an extra hundred thousand dollars should be fooled 
 away for gold mitres, festooned surplices, embroidered chasubles, 
 and similar stuff — still the cold reasoning Protestant noses which 
 come protesting out from beneath the mitres aforesaid, the lean 
 meditative legs which peep from under the white lace of the sur- 
 plices, and the enlightened bellies, a world too wide for the chasu- 
 bles — would all remind one of us that it was not Catholic clergymen 
 but Berlin worldings which wander over the stage. 
 
 I have often reflected whether the chief stage-manager would not 
 have succeeded better and have brought more accurately before our 
 eyes the idea of a procession if he had had the priestly parts played, 
 not by the ordinary supernumeraries but by those Protestant clergy- 
 men of the theological faculty who know how to preach so ortho- 
 dcxically in the Church Journal, and from the pulpit, against 
 " Reason," " worldly lusts," " Gesenius," and " Devil-dom." We 
 should then have seen faces whose priestly stamp would have cor- 
 responded far more illusively with the part. It is a well known 
 observation that priests, all the world over, whether Rabbis, Muftis, 
 Dominicans, Councillors of the Consistory, Popes, Bonzes, in short, 
 
 32 
 
— 374 — 
 
 'he whole diplomatic corps of the Lord, have a certain family like 
 uess in their faces, such as we are accustomed to find in those who 
 follow the same trade. Tailors in every quarter of the globe have 
 weak legs, butchers and soldiers all have a fierce color and style and 
 the Jews have their own peculiar honorable expression, not because 
 they spring from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but because they are 
 business men, and the Frankfort Christian shopman looks as much 
 ike a Frankfort Jewish shopman as one rotten egg looks like another. 
 And the spiritual shop-people, such as get their living by the reli- 
 gion-business, also acquire by it a resemblance in countenance. The 
 Catholic priest does business like a clerk who has a place in an ex- 
 tensive establishment. The firm of the Church, at whose head is 
 the Pope, gives him a regular occupation and a regular salary ; he 
 works leisurely or lazily like every man who is not in business on 
 his own account, and has many fellow-laborers, and who escapes 
 observation among the multitude — only he has the credit of the 
 house at heart, and still more its permauence, since by a bankruptcy 
 he would lose his means of support. The Protestant clergyman is, 
 on the contrary, everywhere himself principal, and he carries on the 
 religion-business on his own account. He does not drive a whole- 
 sale business like his Catholic colleague, but only a small retail 
 trade, and as he represents his own interests, it would never do for 
 him to be negligent. He must cry up his articles of faith to the 
 people, depreciate those of his rivals, and like a real retailer, he 
 stands in his small shop, full of professional envy of all the large 
 houses, particularly of the great firm in Rome, which salaries so 
 many thousaud book-keepers and salesmen, and has its factories in 
 every quarter of the globe. 
 
 Each has of course its physiognomic separate effect, but these are 
 not perceptible from the parquette. In their main features, the 
 family likeness between Catholic and Protestant remains unchanged, 
 and if the head-manager would pay down liberally to the gentlemen 
 aforesaid, he could induce them to act their parts admirably — as they 
 are in the habit of doing. Even their walk and gait would conduce 
 to the illusion, though a sharp practised eye would readily detect 
 certain shades of difference between it and that of Catholic priests 
 and monks. 
 
 A Catholic priest walks as if heaven belonged to him ; a Protest 
 ant clergyman, on the contrary, goes about as if he had taken a lease 
 of it. 
 
— 375 — 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 It was not till night that I reached the City of Lucca. 
 
 How differently it had appeared to me the week before as I wan- 
 dered by day through the echoing deserted streets, and imagined 
 myself transported to one of those enchanted cities of which my 
 nurse had so often told me. Then the whole city was silent as the 
 grave, all was so pale and death-like ; the gleam of the sun played 
 on the roofs like gold-leaf on the head of a corpse ; here and there 
 from the windows of a mouldering house hung ivy tendrils like dried 
 green tears, everywhere glimmering dreary and dismally petrifying 
 death. The town seemed but the ghost of a town, a spectre of stone 
 in broad daylight. I sought long and in vain for some trace of a 
 living being. I can only remember that before an old Palazzo lay 
 a beggar sleeping with outstretched open hand. I also remem- 
 ber having seen above at the window of a blackened mouldering 
 little house, a monk, whose red neck and plump shining pate, pro- 
 truded right far from his brown gown, and near him a full-breasted 
 stark-naked girl was visible, while below in the half-open house-door 
 I saw entering, a little fellow in the black dress of an abbe, and who 
 carried with both hands a mighty, full-bellied wine-flask. At the 
 same instant there rang not far off a delicately ironic little bell, 
 while in my memory tittered the novels of Messer Boccacio. But 
 these chimes could not entirely drive away the strange shudder 
 which ran through my soul. It held me the more ironly bound since 
 the sun lit up so warmly and brightly the uncanny buildings ; and I 
 marked well that ghosts are far more terrible when they cast aside 
 the black mantle of night to show themselves in the clear light of 
 noon. 
 
 But what was my astonishment at the changed aspect of the city 
 when I, eight days later, revisited Lucca. " What is that ?" I cried, 
 as innumerable lights dazzled my eyes and a stream of human beings 
 whirled through the streets. Has an entire race risen spectre-like 
 from the grave to mock life with the maddest mummery ?" The 
 lofty melancholy houses were bright with lamps, variegated carpets 
 hung from every window, nearly hiding the crumbling grey walls, 
 and above them peered out lovely female faces, so fresh, so blooming, 
 that I well marked that it was Life herself celebrating her bridal feast 
 flith Death and who had invited the Beauty of Life as a priest. Yes, 
 
— 376 
 
 it was such a living death feast, though I do know exactly how it 
 was called in the calendar. At any rate it was the flaying day of 
 some blessed martyr or other, for I afterwards saw a holy skull and 
 several extra hones adorned with flowers and gems, carried around 
 with bridal music. It was a fine procession. 
 
 First of all went such Capuchins as were distinguished from the 
 other monks by wearing long beards, and who formed as it were the 
 sappers of this religious army. Theu followed beardless Capuchins, 
 among whom were many noble countenances, and even many a 
 youthful and beautiful face, which looked well with the broad ton- 
 sure, since the head seemed through it as if braided around with a 
 neat garland of hair, and which came forth with the bare neck in 
 admirable relief from the brown cowl. These were followed by 
 cowls of other colors, black, white, yellow and gaily striped as well 
 as down drawn triangular hats, iu short, all those cloister costumes 
 which the euterprize of our theatrical manager has made so familiar. 
 After the monkish orders came the regular priests, with white shirts 
 over black pantaloons, and wearing colored caps, who were in turn 
 succeeded by still more aristocratic clergymen, wrapped in different 
 colored silken garments and bearing on their heads a sort of high 
 caps, which iu all probability originated in Egypt, and with which 
 we are familiar from the works of Dexox, from the " Magic Flute," 
 and from Belzoxi. These latter had faces which bore marks of long 
 service, and appeared to form a sort of old guard. Last of all came 
 the regular staff around a canopied throne, beneath which sat an 
 old num with a still higher head-dress and in a still richer mantle, 
 whose extremity was borne after the manner of pages by two other 
 old men clad iu a similar manner. 
 
 The first monks went with folded arms in solemn silence, but those 
 with the high caps sang a most miserable and unhappy psalm, so 
 nasally, so shuffliugly. and so gruntiugly, that I am perfectly con- 
 vinced that if the Jews had formed the great mass of the people, 
 and if their religion had been the established religion, the aforesaid 
 psalmcdising would have been characterized with the name of 
 '•mauscheln."* Fortunately one could only half hear it, since 
 
 * }fausc'idn — a slang term signifying bo speak like a Jew. It is iWired from Manse 
 or iftimrfrri «n equally vulgar name for a Jew, corresponding to the old-fash ion «. d 
 Fjiglish word " smouch."' If. as is said. Mauschel is derived from Mooes, the rerb in 
 question should strictly he rendered " t"» mosey."' Unf ^rtunatelv this word is already 
 pre-occupied iu En-Iish with an entirely different meaning To mosey, aa the re tu la* 
 d uibtless knows, signifies to beat h rapid retreat, or. musically speaking, to perform ■ 
 l'.xod2S in the time o: Mouc i» EgiUo. 
 
— 377 — 
 
 there marched behind the procession with a full accompaniment of 
 drums and fifes, several companies of troops, besides which there 
 was on each side near the priests in their flowing robes, grenadiers 
 going by two and two. There were almost as many soldiers as 
 clergy, but it requires many bayonets now-a-days to keep up religion 
 and even when the blessing is given cannon must roar significantly 
 in the distance. 
 
 When I see such a procession, in which clergymen amid military 
 escort walk along so miserably and sorrowfully, it strikes painfully 
 to my soul, and it seems to me as though I saw our Saviour him- 
 self surrounded by lance-bearers and led to judgment. The stars at 
 Lucca felt beyond question as I did, and as I sighing, glanced up at 
 them, they looked down on me, one with my soul, with their pious 
 eyes, so clear and bright. But we needed not their light. Thous- 
 ands and fresh thousands of lamps and candles and girls' faces 
 gleamed from all the windows ; at the corners of the streets flaring 
 pitch-hoops were placed, and then every priest had his own private 
 torch-bearer to keep him company. The Capuchins had generally 
 little boys, who carried their lights for them, and the youthful fresh 
 little faces looked up from time to time right curiously and pleased 
 at the old solemn beards. A poor Capuchin like these cannot 
 afford a greater torch-bearer and the boy to whom he teaches the 
 Ave Maria, or whose old aunt confesses to him, must, at the pro- 
 cession, perform this service gratis, and beyond question it is not 
 done with the less love on that account. The monks who came 
 after did not have much larger boys ; a few more respectable orders 
 had grown up youths, and the high-minded and mitred priests re- 
 joiced in having each a real citizen to hold a candle. But the one 
 last of all, the Lord Archbishop — for such was the man who in 
 aristocratic humility went along beneath the canopy, and whose 
 train was borne by grey pages — had on either side a lackey, each bril- 
 liant in blue livery with yellow laces, and who bore a white wax 
 taper as ceremoniously as though he officiated at court. 
 
 At all events this candle-bearing seemed to me to be a good 
 arrangement, since it enabled me to see so plainly the faces per- 
 taining to Catholicism, and now I have seen them, and in the best 
 of lights at that. And what did I see? Well! the clerical stamp 
 was nowhere wanting. But if this was not thought of, there was as 
 great a variety in the faces as in those of other men. One was pale, 
 another red, this man held his nose well up, that one was dejected, 
 here there was a flashing black, there a flickering grey eye — but in 
 
 32* 
 
— 378 — 
 
 every face there was a trace of the same malady; a terrible incur- 
 able malady, which will probably be the reason why my descendant, 
 when he a century later looks at the procession in Lucca, will not 
 find a single one of all those faces. I fear that I myself am infected 
 with that illness, and that one result of it is that languor which so 
 strangely steals over me when I see the sickly face of a monk, and 
 read in it such sorrows as hide under a coarse cowl ; aggravated love, 
 gout, disappointed ambition, spine complaint, remorse, hemorrhoids, 
 and the heart-wounds which are caused by the ingratitude of friends, 
 by the slander of enemies, and by our own sins. Yea, all of these, 
 and far many more, which find no more difficulty in settling under a 
 coarse cowl than beneath a fashionable dress coat. ! it is no 
 exaggeration when the poet cries out in his agony, " life is a sickness, 
 all the world a lazar-house ?" 
 
 "And Death is our physician!" — Ah, I will say nothing evil of 
 him and disturb none in their confidence in him ; for as he is the 
 only physician, they may as well believe that he is the best, and that 
 the only remedy which he employs, his eternal earth-cure, is also the 
 best. His friends can say at least this much in his favor, that he is 
 always at hand, and that despite his immense practice, he makes no 
 one wait who earnestly desires to see him. And often does he 
 follow his patient, even to the procession and bears for them the 
 torch. Surely it was Death himself whom I saw walking by the 
 side of a pale, sorrowful priest ; bearing in his thin, quivering, bony 
 hands, a flickering torch, who nodded pleasantly and consolingly with 
 his anxious, bald pate, and who weak as he himself was on the legs, still 
 held up, from time to time, the old priest, whose steps seemed grow- 
 ing weaker and readier to fall. He seemed to be whispering courage 
 to the latter, " only wait a few short hours, then we will be home, 
 and I will lay thee in bed, and thy cold, weary limbs may rest as 
 long as they will, and thou shalt sleep so soundly that thou wilt not 
 hear the whimpering of the little St. Michael's bell." 
 
 "And against that man, also, I will write nothing," thought I, as 
 I saw the poor pale priest, whom Death himself was lighting to hia 
 bed. 
 
 Alas ! one ought really to write against no one in this wörld. We 
 are all of us sick and suffering enough in this great Lazaretto, and 
 many a piece of polemical reading involuntarily reminds me of a 
 revolting quarrel in a little hospital at Cracow, where I was an 
 accidental spectator, and where it was terrible to hear the sick 
 mocking and reviling each other's infirmities, how emaciated con- 
 
— 3^ — 
 
 sumptives ridiculed those who were bloated with dropsy, how one 
 laughed at the cancer in the nose of another, and he again jeered 
 the locked-jaw and distorted eyes of his neighbors, until finally those 
 who were mad with fever sprang naked from bed, and tore the 
 coverings and sheets from the maimed bodies around, and there was 
 nothing to be seen but revolting misery and mutilation. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 He then also poured forth to the other immortals assembled 
 Sweetest pleasantest nectar, the goblet quickly exhausting 
 And still an infinite laughter rang from the happy immortals 
 As they saw how Hephaestos around was. so cleverly passing. 
 Thus through the live long day until the sun was declining 
 The feast went on, nor was wanting through all the genial banquet 
 Either the sound of the strings of the exquisite lyre of Apollo 
 Nor the soft song of the Muse with voices sweetly replying. 
 
 Suddenly there came gasping towards them a pale Jew, dripping 
 with blood, a crown of thorns on his head ; bearing a great cross of 
 wood on his shoulder ; and he cast the cross on the high table of the 
 gods, so that the golden goblets trembled and fell, and the gods 
 grew dumb and pale, and ever paler, till they melted in utter mist. 
 
 Then there were dreary days, and the world became grey and 
 gloomy. There were no more happy immortals, and Olympus be- 
 came a hospital, where flayed, roasted and spitted gods went 
 wearily, wandering round, binding their wounds and singing sorrowful 
 songs. Religion no longer offered joy, but consolation ; it was a 
 woeful, bleeding religion of transgressors. 
 
 Was it, perhaps, necessary for miserable and oppressed humanity ? 
 He who sees his God suffer, bears more easily his own afflictions. 
 The merry gods of old, who felt no pangs, knew not of course the 
 feelings of poor tortured Man, who in turn could in his need find no 
 heart to turn to them. They were festival gods, around whom the 
 world danced merrily, and who could only be praised at feasts. 
 Therefore they were never loved from the very soul and with all the 
 heart. To be so loved — one must be a sufferer. Pity is the last 
 consecration of love, it may be, love itself. Of all the gods who 
 loved in the olden time, Christ is the one who has been the most 
 loved. Especially by the women 
 
 Avoiding the bustling throng, I lost myself in a solitary church, 
 
— 380 — 
 
 and what you, dear reader, have just read, are not so much my own 
 thoughts, as certain involuntary words which came to life in me, 
 while I reclining on one of the old benches for prayer, let the tones 
 of the organ flow freely through my breast. Thus I lie in soul amid 
 strange phantasies, the wondrous music suggesting, from time to 
 time, a more wondrous text. At times my eyes sweep through the 
 dim growing archways, seeking the dark visible echoes of forms 
 belonging to those organ melodies. Who is that veiled figure kneel 
 ing yonder before an image of the Madonna ? The swinging lamp 
 which hangs before it, lights up fearfully yet sweetly the beautiful 
 Mother of Suffering of a crucified love, the Yenus dolorosa; but 
 pandering gleams, full of mystery, fall, from time to time, as if by 
 stealth, on the beautiful outlines of the veiled and praying lady. 
 She lay, indeed, motionless on the stone altar steps, but in the 
 quivering light her shadow seemed to live and often ran up to me 
 and then retreated in haste, like a dumb negro, the timid love-mes- 
 senger of a harem — and I understood him. He announced the arrival 
 of his lady, the Sultaness of my heart. 
 
 Minute by miuute it grew darker in the empty house, here and 
 there an undefined form glided along the pillars, now and then a soft 
 murmur was heard in a side-chapel, and the organ groaned out its 
 long-drawn tones, like the heart of a sighing giant. 
 
 It seemed as though those organ notes would never cease, as though 
 the death-notes of that living death would endure forever. I felt an 
 indescribable depression of spirits, and such a nameless, anxious 
 terror, as though I had been buried in a trance. Yes, as though I, 
 one of the long dead, had risen from my grave, and had gone with 
 dark mysterious comrades of the night into the Church of Phantoms, 
 to hear the Prayer of the Dead and confess the Sins of the Corpse. 
 I often felt as though I saw seated near me, in the spectral twilight, 
 the long departed of the city, in obsolete Old-Florentine dresses, 
 with long pale faces, with gold bound books of devotion in their thin 
 hands, secretly whispering, nodding in silent melancholy-wise, one to 
 the other. The wailing tone of a far away Bell of the Dead, 
 reminded me again of the sick priest whom I had seen in the pro- 
 cession, and I said to myself :. he too is now with the departed, but 
 he will come here to read the first Night-Mass, and then the sad 
 spectre scene will begin in earnest. But suddenly there arose from 
 the steps of the altar, the lovely form of the veiled and praying 
 lady — 
 
 Yes, it was she, her living shade had already driven afar the white 
 
— 381 — 
 
 phantoms, 1 now saw but her alone. I followed her quickly from 
 the church, and as she, on passing the door, raised her veil, I saw it 
 was Francesca's face, bedewed with tears. It was like a white rose 
 flowered to fulness by love-longing, pearled by the dew of night and 
 gleaming in the moon-rays. " Francesca, dost thou love me ?" I 
 asked much and she answered but little. I accompanied her to 
 the Hotel Croce di Malta, where she and Matilda lodged. The 
 streets were empty, the houses slept with their window-eyes closed, 
 only here and there, through their wooden lashes, there gleamed a 
 light. High in heaven, among the clouds, there was a clear green 
 space, and in it swam the half moon, like a gondola in an emeraldine 
 sea. In vain I begged Francesca to look up for once at our dear 
 old trusty friend — but she kept her head dreamily bent downwards. 
 Her gait, once so elate and spirited, yet gliding, was now as it were 
 in ecclesiastical measure, her steps were gloomy and Catholic, she 
 moved as if to the music of an organ on some high festival day, and 
 as her limbs had in other nights been inspired by Sin, so they now 
 seemed to be inspired by Religion. On the way she crossed her 
 head and breast before every saint's image ; and in vain did I at- 
 tempt to aid her in this. But when we, on the Market Place, passed 
 the Church of San Michiele, where the marble Mother of Pain 
 gleamed forth dimly from her dark niche, with a gilded sword in her 
 heart and a crown of lamps on her head, Francesca suddenly cast 
 her arms around my neck, kissed me, and whispered " Cecco, Cecco, 
 caro Cecco !" 
 
 I calmly took charge of the kiss, though I well knew that it 
 was really intended for a Bolognese abbe, a servant of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. As a Protestant, I did not scruple to appropriate 
 to my use the goods of the Catholic Church, and I consequently 
 secularised the pious kiss of Francesca on the spot. I know that 
 when the priests come to hear of this they will rage, they will scream 
 out church robbery at me, and if possible, would gladly apply to me 
 the French Law of Sacrilege. To my sorrow^ I must confess that 
 the aforesaid kiss was the only one which I got hold of, that night. 
 Francesca had determined to devote the night, kneeling and in 
 prayer, to the safety of her soul. In vain did I beg leave to share 
 her pious exercises ; — when she reached her room she shut the door 
 in my face. In vain did I stand a whole hour without, begging for 
 entrance, sighing every possible sigh, feigning pious tears and 
 swearing the most sanctified oaths — of course with clerical reserva- 
 tion. — I felt that I was, little by little, becoming a Jesuit, I grew 
 
— 382 — 
 
 altogether depraved, aud finally offered for one night to become 
 Catholic. 
 
 " Francesca I" I cried, " Star of my thoughts ! Thought of my 
 soul! vita della mia vita! my beautiful, oft-kissed, slender, Catholic 
 Francesca ! for this one night, if thou wilt grant it to me, I will 
 become a Catholic — but only for this night ! the beautiful, blessed. 
 Catholic night ! I will lie in thy arms, with deepest Catholicism, I 
 will believe in the Heaven of thy love, we will kiss the sweet confes- 
 sion from our lips, the Word will be made flesh, Faith will become 
 corporeal in body and in form ! oh what religion ! Ye priests ring 
 forth meanwhile in j.oy yoür Kyrie Eleison, ring, burn incense, sound 
 the bells ! let the organ be heard, peal out the mass of Palestrina 
 — that is the Body ! — I believe, I am blest, I sleep — but so soon as 
 I awake on the next morning, I will rub away sleep and Catholicism 
 from my eyes, and see again clearly the sunlight and the Bible, and 
 be as before, Protestant, reasonable and sober. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 When the next day the sun smiled gloriously down from heaven, 
 it banished all the sad thoughts and sombre feelings which the pro- 
 cession of the previous night had awakened in me, and had made life 
 appear like a sickness and the world like a hospital. 
 
 All the town was alive with a cheerful multitude — gaily decked 
 mortals — while here and there among them hastened along a black 
 little priest. All was noise and laughter and gossip ; scarce could 
 we hear the chiming of the bells, which summoned us to grand mass 
 in the Cathedral. This is a beautiful simple church, whose fa9ade of 
 variegated marble, is ornamented with those short pillars, rising one 
 above the other, and which look with such a merry melancholy on 
 us. Within, pillars and walls were clad in scarlet drapery, and serene 
 music swelled forth over the wave-like masses of human beings. 
 Francesca leaned upon my arm, and as I, on entering, gave her 
 holy water, and as our souls were electrified by the delicious damp 
 touch of each other's fingers, I received, simultaneously, such an 
 electric shock on my leg, that I very nearly tumbled for terror over 
 the kneeling peasant women who, clad all in white and loaded with 
 long ear-rings and necklaces of yellow gold, covered in masses the 
 floor. As I looked around, I saw aaoiaor Kneeling female, fanning 
 
herself, and behind the fan I spied my Lady's merry eyes. I bent 
 towards her, and she breathed at the same time languish i ugly into 
 my ear, "delightful!" 
 
 " For God's sake !" I whispered to her, " be serious ! If you laugh, 
 we shall certainly be turned out of doors !" 
 
 But prayer and entreaty was in vain. Fortunately no one under 
 otood the language in which we spoke. For wbea my Lady arose 
 and accompanied us through the throng to the high altar, she gave 
 herself entirely up to her wild caprices without the slightest caution, 
 as though we had stood alone on the Appenines. She ridiculed 
 everything, even the poor painted pictures on the wall did not escape 
 her arrows. 
 
 " Look there," she cried, " at Lady Eve nSe Rib, how she chats 
 with the Serpent ! It was a good idea, that, of the painter to give 
 the snake a human head with a human countenance ; but it would 
 have been much more sensible if he had adorned the face of the 
 seducer with a military moustache. Look there, Doctor, at the 
 angel announcing to the highly blest Virgin her blessed 1 situation,' 
 and who laughs at tTie same time so ironically. I know what the 
 rascal is thinking of! And that other Maeia, at whose feet the 
 holy alliance of the East are kneeling with their offerings of gold 
 and incense — doesn't she look like Catalani ?" 
 
 Signora Fraxcesca, who, on account of her ignorance of English, 
 understood nothing of all this chatter, save the word Catalani, 
 quickly remarked that the lady of whom our friend spoke had really 
 lost most of her celebrity. But our friend did not suffer herself to 
 be in the least put out, and passed her comments on the pictures of 
 the Passion to that of the Crucifixion, an exquisitely beautiful paint- 
 ing, where, among others, three stupid idle faces were painted, look- 
 ing on at their ease at the divine martyrdom, and which My Lady 
 insisted, represented the deputies plenipotentiary of Austria, Russia, 
 and France. 
 
 Meanwhile the old frescoes, which occasionally appeared between 
 the folds of scarlet drapery, had with their wondrous earnestness of 
 expression, some influence in subduing the British love of mockery. 
 There were among them faces from the heroic age of Lucca, of which < 
 so much is said in Machiavelli, that romantic Sallust, whose spirit 
 sweeps towards us with such fire from the songs of Dante, the 
 Catholic Homer. In those faces the strong feelings and barbaric 
 thoughts of the Middle Age are well expressed, although on the 
 mouth of many a silent youth there quivers a smiling confession that 
 
— 884 
 
 in those days all the roses were not of stone or unblown, and although 
 through the pious down-drooping eye-lashes of many a Madonna of 
 the day there twinkles a roguish leer of love, as though she were 
 willing to present us with another infant Jasu«. At all events it is 
 a higher spirit which speaks to us from those old Florentine paint- 
 ings : it is the truly heroic, which we recognize in the marble images 
 of the Gods of Antiquity, and which does not consist as our aesthetic 
 philosophers suppose in eternal calm without passion, but in an 
 eternal passionate emotion without unrest. We also see in several 
 oil paintings of a later day which hang in the Cathedral of Lucca, 
 the same old Florentine spirit — perhaps as a traditional echo. I 
 was particularly pleased with a ' Wedding of Cana,' by a scholar of 
 Andrea pel Sarto, and which was somewhat harshly and stiffly 
 painted. In it the Saviour sits between the soft fair bride and a 
 Pharisee whose stony law-table countenance is in amazement at the 
 genial prophet who so cheerfully mingles with the merry guests, and 
 treats them to miracles far surpassing those of Moses ; for the latter, 
 though he struck with all his force on the rocks, brought forth 
 nothing but water, while the latter needed only to speak a single 
 word to fill all the jars with the best of wine. Far softer, almost 
 Venetian in color, is the portrait of an unknown person hanging 
 near it and in which the pleasant blending of hues is strangely quali- 
 fied by a pain which thrills the soul. It represents Mary anointing 
 the feet of Jesus and drying them with her hair. Christ sits there 
 among his disciples, a beautiful, intelligent God, who with human 
 sorrow feels a fearful pious commiseration for his own body, which 
 ere long must suffer so much ; and to whom the flattering unction of 
 honour which the dead receive is already due and already realized. 
 He smiles calmly on the kneeling woman, who impelled by a presen- 
 timent of loving anguish performs her pitying task, a deed which 
 will never be forgotten so long as suffering humanity shall endure, 
 and which will breathe forth a perfume for the refreshing of those 
 suffering for thousands of years. With the exception of the youth 
 who rested on the bosom of Christ, and who remarks the deed, 
 none of the Apostles appear to realize its peculiar significance, and 
 the one with the red beard appears, even as the Scripture states, to 
 make the morose remark, "Why was not this ointment sold for 
 three hundred pence and given to the poor?" This economical 
 Apostle was the one who carried the purse, the familiarity with 
 money and business appears to have rendered him insensible to all 
 the unselfish perfume of love, he would gladly exchange it for pence 
 
— 3ö5 — 
 
 for a practical purpose, and it was just he, the penny changer, who 
 betrayed the Saviour — for thirty pence. Thus does the Bible sym- 
 bolically in the history of the Banker among the Apostles reveal the 
 unholy power of seduction which lurks in the money-bag, and warn 
 us against the faithlessness of money brokers. Every rich man is a 
 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 "You are making faces as though you were trying to choke down 
 your piety, dear Doctor," whispered my Lady. " I was just looking 
 and — excuse me if the remark is slanderous — but I really thought 
 that you looked like a good Christian." 
 
 "Between you and me I am so ; yes, Christ — " 
 
 " Do you believe, perhaps, that he is a God ?" 
 
 " That, of course, my good Matilda. He is the God whom I 
 mostly love — not because he is a legitimate God whose Father since 
 time immemorial ruled the world ; but because he, though a born 
 Dauphin of Heaven is democratically minded, loving no courtly cere- 
 monial splendor, because he is not a God of shaven and shorn book- 
 ish pedants and laced men-at-arms, and because he is a modest God 
 of the People, a citizen-GoD, tin hon dieu citoyen. Truly, if Christ 
 were no God, I would vote that he should be such, and much rather 
 than an absolute God who has forced himself to power would I obey 
 him, the elected God, the God of my choice. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Archbishop, a solemn grey old man, read mass in person and 
 to tell the truth, not only I, but even to a certain degree, my Lady, 
 was moved by the spirit latent in this holy ceremony and by the 
 sanctity of the old man who officiated ; — albeit every old man is in 
 and by himself a priest, and the ceremonies of the Catholic world 
 are so primaevally old that they are perhaps the only ones which 
 have remained from the infancy of the world and have a claim on 
 our pious feelings as a memorial of the first forefathers of all man- 
 kind. " Look, my Lady," said I, " every gesture which you here 
 behold, the manner of laying on the hands and the spreading out of 
 the arms, this bowing, this washing of the hands, this burning and 
 offering of incense, this cup, yes, the entire clothing of the man from 
 the mytra* to the hem of the stole — all is ancient Egyptian and 
 
 * Mithra, mvtra, mitre. 
 
 33 
 
— 386 — 
 
 the remains of a priesthood of whose wondrous existence the oldest 
 records only tell us a little, an early hierarchy which investigated the 
 first wisdom of the world, which discovered the first gods, which 
 invented the first symbols, and by whom young humanity " 
 
 u Was first cheated and betrayed," added my Lady, in a bitter 
 tone, " and I believe, Doctor, that of this earliest age of the world 
 there remains nothing but a few dreary formulas of deceit. And 
 they are still active and potent. Only look there, for instance, at 
 the fearfully benighted faces ! — particularly at that fellow who is 
 planted on his stupid knees, and who, with his wide, staring mouth, 
 looks so much like an ultra-blockhead." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake I" I remarked, in a soothing manner, " what 
 does it matter if that head has received so little of the light of 
 reason? What is that to us? Why should that irritate you? 
 Don't you see every day, oxen, cows, dogs, asses, which are quite as 
 stupid without suffering your equanimity to be disturbed at the sight 
 or being excited to angry expressions ?" 
 
 " Ah, that is an entirely different matter," rejoined my Lady, " for 
 those beasts have tails behind, and I vex myself just forthat, to think 
 that a fellow who is so bestially stupid has, however, behind him. 
 no tail at all. 
 
 « Yes — that is a very different matter, indeed, my Lady I* 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 After the mass there was still much to see and to hear, especi- 
 ally the sermon of a great two-fisted monk, whose bold, command- 
 ing old Roman countenance contrasted singularly with his coarse 
 cowl, so that he looked like the Emperor of Poverty. He preached 
 of heaven and of hell, falling at times into the wildest enthusiasm. 
 His description of heaven was somewhat barbarously overloaded, 
 since he filled it with gold, silver, jewels, costly food and wine of 
 the best vintages. He made too, such inspired mouth-watering 
 grimaces, and rolled himself to and fro in his gown as though he 
 believed himself to be flying among white-winged angels and one of 
 them. Much less delightful, yes, even very practically earnest, was 
 his description of hell. Here the man was far more in his element. 
 He was especially zealous against those sinners who do not believe, 
 as Christianly as they should, in the old fires of hell, and even think 
 
— 387 — 
 
 that they have somewhat cooled down of late preparatory to a 
 general extinguishment. " And," he cried, " if hell were going out, 
 then would I with my breath blow up the last glimmering coals till 
 they should blaze up again into all the first fury of their flame." 
 Had any one heard the voice, like the north wind, with which these 
 words were howled forth, and could he have seen the glowing face, 
 the red neck strong as a buffalo's, and the mighty fist of the monk, 
 he would not have regarded this hellish threat as a hyperbole. 
 " Hike this man," said my Lady. 
 
 " There you are right," I replied, " and he pleases me too, bettei 
 than our soft homoeopathic spiritual doctors, who dilute their one- 
 ten-thousandth grain of reason with a bucket of moral water, and 
 with it preach us to repose of a Sunday." 
 
 " Yes, Doctor, I have respect for his hell, but I can't quite agree 
 with him as to his heaven. In fact I very early had my doubts as 
 to the nature of heaven. While I was still very young in Dublin, I 
 often lay on my back in the grass, and looked up at heaven and 
 wondered if it really contained so many splendid things as people 
 said ! ' And,' thought I, 4 if it does, why is it that none of these fine 
 things ever fall down— say a diamond ear-ring or a pearl-necklace, 
 or at least a piece of pine-apple cake ? and why is it that nothing 
 but hail, snow or common rain ever comes down ? That isn't 
 exactly as it should be,' thought I — " 
 
 " Why do you say that, my Lady ? Why not rather be silent 
 with such doubts ? Unbelievers who put no faith in heaven should 
 not make proselytes ; I much less blame — on the contrary I rather 
 praise — the efforts of those convert-makers who have a splendid 
 heaven and who, so far from wishing to keep it to themselves, invite 
 their fellow-mortals to share it with them, and who never rest till 
 their invitations are accepted." 
 
 " I have always wondered, Doctor, that so many rich people of 
 that sort, such as Presidents, Yice-Presidents or Secretaries of 
 societies for converting unbelievers, take such pains to make, for 
 instance, some rusty old Jew-beggar fit for heaven, and to secure his 
 future society there, without ever so much as dreaming of letting 
 him take part in the things which they enjoy here on earth — such as 
 inviting him during summer to their country-seats, where there are 
 beyond question dainties which would taste as good to the poor 
 rogue as though he were in heaven itself." 
 
 u That is intelligible enough, my Lady ; the heavenly delights cost 
 nothing and it is often a double, pleasure when we can make our 
 
— 388 — 
 
 fellow-beings happy at so slight an expense. But to what pleasures 
 can the unbeliever invite any one ?" 
 
 " To nothing, Doctor, but to a long peaceful sleep, which may, 
 however, be very desirable to a suffering mortal, especially if he has 
 been previously tormented with importunate invitations to heaven." 
 
 The beautiful woman spoke these words with bitter accents which 
 went to the heart, and it was not without some earnestness that ] 
 replied : " Dear Matilda, in all that I have seen and done in this 
 world I have not once troubled myself as to whether there were a 
 heaven or a hell. I am too great and too proud to be tempted by 
 heavenly rewards or alarmed by the punishments of hell. I strive 
 for the good because it is beautiful and irresistibly attracts me, and 
 I hate the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. Even as a boy 
 when I read Plutarch— and I still read him every night in bed and 
 often feel as if I would fain jump up and take extra-post and become 
 a great man — even then I was pleased with the story of the woman 
 who went through the streets of Alexandria, bearing in one hand a 
 burning torch and in the other a leathern bottle of water, crying to 
 the multitude that with the water she would quench the fire of hell 
 and with the torch would set fire to heaven, so that people should 
 cease to do evil merely from fear of punishment and not do good 
 for the sake of reward. All our deeds should spring from the source 
 of an unselfish love, whether there is to be a continuance after death 
 or not." 
 
 " Then you do not believe in immortality ?" 
 
 " Oh, you are shrewd, my Lady ! / doubt it ? /, whose heart 
 ever strikes deeper and deeper root into the most distant millen- 
 niums of the past and of the future. I, who am myself one of the 
 most immortal of men, whose every breath is an eternal life, whose 
 every thought is an undying star — I disbelieve in immortality !" 
 
 " I think, Doctor, that it must require an inordinate share of 
 vanity and presumption too, after enjoying so much that is good 
 and beautiful on earth, to ask immortality of the Lord in addition 
 to it all ! Man, the aristocrat among animals, who thinks himself 
 better than his fellow-creatures, would like also to work out for him- 
 self this privilege of endless life by court-like hymns of adoration 
 and praise and kneeling-prayer. Oh, I know what that twitching 
 of the lips means, my immortal gentleman !" 
 
- 389 — 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Signora begged us to accompany her to a convent where a 
 miraculous cross, the most remarkable in all Tuscany, was preserved. 
 And it was well that we left the Cathedral, for my lady's eccentrici- 
 ties would have soon got us into a scrape. She foamed over with 
 brilliant caprices, pretty and pleasant foolish fancies, which leaped 
 about self-willed and wild as kittens. On leaving the Cathedral she 
 dipped her forefinger three times in the holy water, and sprinkled 
 herself with it each time, murmuring, " Dem zrfardeyim kinnim" 
 which is, according to her assertion, the Arabic formula used by sor- 
 ceresses to transform a human being to an ass. 
 
 On the Piazza, or open place before the Cathedral, a body of troops, 
 nearly all clad in Austrian uniform, were exercising, the word of 
 command being given in German. At least I heard the German 
 words — " Prcesentirts Gewehr! Fuss Gewehr! Schüllers Gewehr! 
 Rechts um! Halt!"* I believe that in all the Italian, as well as in 
 several other European States they command in German. Ought 
 we Germans to plume ourselves on it? Have we so many orders to 
 give in this world that German has even become the language of com- 
 mand ? Or have we been ordered about so much that those who are 
 obedient and subject best understand the German tongue? 
 
 My Lady did not seem to be a friend to parades and reviews : 
 " I do not like," said she, "to be near such men with sabres and guns, 
 particularly when they march along in great numbers, and in regular 
 rows in great reviews. What if some one among these thousands of 
 men should suddenly go mad, and shoot me dead on the spot with 
 the musket which he holds in his hand? Or, what if he should sud- 
 denly become rational and think? What have I to risk? or lose? 
 even if they should take my life ? Perhaps, the other world, which 
 they promise us, isn't so brilliant after all, as they say, and if it be 
 ever so bad they certainly cannot give me less than six kreutzers a 
 day — suppose, then, just for the joke of the thing, that I stab that 
 little English lady with the impertinent nose? Wouldn't I be in the 
 greatest danger of my life then ? If I were a king I would divide 
 my soldiers into two classes, and one of them should believe in im- 
 mortality, so that they might be brave in battle, and not fear death, 
 
 * Present arms ! Ground arms I Shoulder arms! Right about face ! Halt! 
 
 33* 
 
— 390 - 
 
 and I would only use them in war. But the others should be 
 employed in parades and reviews, and lest it should come into their 
 heads that they have nothing to lose, (and so kill somebody for the 
 sake of a joke) I would forbid them on pain of death to believe in 
 immortality, — yes, I would even give them some butter on their 
 ammunition bread, so that they might have a real fancy to live. 
 But the first, those immortal heroes, should have a right hard life 
 of it, so that they might despise mortality and regard the roar of the 
 cannon as the introduction to a better life." 
 
 " My Lady," said I, " you would be but an indifferent ruler. You 
 know but little of government, and nothing at all of politics. If you 
 had read the Political Annals " 
 
 "I understand them, perhaps, even better than you, my dear 
 Doctor. While I was very young, I tried to instruct myself in 
 them. While I was still young iu Dublin " 
 
 " And lay on your back in the grass — reflecting or not — as at 
 Ramsgate " 
 
 A glance as of a light reproach of ingratitude shot from my Lady's 
 eyes, but she then smiled again, and continued : " While I was yet 
 young in Dublin, and used to sit on a corner of the cricket where 
 mother's feet rested, I had all sorts of questions to ask, what the 
 tailors, the shoemakers, the bakers, in short, what all sorts of people 
 had to do in the world ? And mother explained that the tailors 
 made clothes, the shoemakers made shoes, the bakers baked bread. — 
 And when I asked what the kings did? Mother told me that they 
 governed. 1 Dear mother,' I replied ; ' do you know that if I were a 
 king, I'd go one whole day without reigning, just to see how it looked 
 in the world.' ' Dear child' said mother, ' many a king does that 
 and yet the world looks just the same as ever.'" 
 
 " Yes, my Lady, your mother was really in the right. Particularly 
 here in Italy are there such kings, as we see for instance in Pied- 
 mont and Naples " 
 
 " Well Doctor, we shouldn't blame an Italian king for not reigning 
 on some days when it is so terribly warm. The only danger is that 
 the Carbonari may turn such a day to account, for I have re- 
 marked that now-a-days revolutions always break out on those 
 days when no reigning is going on. If the Carbonari made a mis- 
 take and believed that it was a day without reigning, when contrary 
 to all expectation the king did reign, they all lost their heads. 
 Therefore the Carbonari can never be careful enough and must be 
 particular in choosing their time. So that the most delicate and 
 
— 391 — 
 
 difficult duty of the king is to keep secret those days when there 
 is no reigning, and then they should at least sit down three cr 
 four times on the thrvme, and perhaps mend a pen or seal up en- 
 velopes, or rule white paper — all for show of course — so that the pea- 
 pie outside who peep into the palace-windows may believe in ail 
 sincerity that the reigning is still going on." 
 
 While such remarks came from my Lady's delicate little mouth 
 there swam a smile of tranquil happiness around the full rosy lips of 
 Francesca. She scarcely spoke, but her gait was no longer inspired 
 with the sighing rapture of self-denial so manifest on the previous 
 evening. She now walked triumphantly along, every step the sound 
 of a trumpet ; and yet it seemed to be rather a spiritual victory, than 
 one of this world which inspired her movements. She was almost 
 the ideal image of a church triumphant, and around her head swept 
 an invisible glory. But the eyes, as if smiling through tears, were 
 again those of a child of this world, and in the varied stream of 
 humanity which swept past us no single article of clothing had 
 escaped her searching glance. 
 
 "Ecco!" was her exclamation, "what a shawl! — the Marquis 
 shall buy me such a cashmere for my turban when I dance Roxe- 
 lana. Ah ! and he has promised me a diamond cross too !" 
 
 Poor GKjmpelino ! you will agree to the shawl without much de- 
 murring — the cross however will cost you many a bitter hour. But 
 Signora will torture you so long and keep you so long on the rack 
 that you must at last give in to her wishes ! 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The church in which the miraculous crucifix of Lucca is to be seen, 
 belongs to a monastery, the name of which at this instant has 
 escaped me. 
 
 As we entered the church there lay on their knees before the 
 high altar a dozen monks in silent prayer. Only now and then they 
 spoke, as if in chorus, a few broken words which echoed as it were 
 awefully through the solitary columned aisles. The church was 
 dark, except that through small painted windows fell a many-colored 
 light on bald heads and brown cowls. Unpolished lamps of copper 
 dimly illuminated the blackened frescoes and altar-pieces, while from 
 the wall projected carved wooden heads of saints, coarsely colored, 
 
— 392 — 
 
 and which in the dubious flickering light seemed grinning at us in 
 grim life. Suddenly my lady screamed aloud, and pointed to a tomb 
 stone beneath our feet, on which in relief was the stiff image of a 
 bishop with mythra and crosier, folded hands and trodden away nose. 
 "Ah!" she whispered, "I just then trod rudely on his stone nose, 
 and now he will appear to me in dreams, and then his nose — who 
 knows ? " 
 
 The sacristan, a pale young monk, showed us the miraculous cross, 
 and narrated the miracle which it had effected. Whimsical as I am, 
 I probably did not appear incredulous on this occasion. I have now 
 and then my attacks of belief in marvels, especially when, as in this in- 
 stance the place and the hour are favorable to them, and I then believe 
 that everything in the world is a miracle and all history a legend. 
 Was I inspired with the faith in marvels of Francesca who kissed 
 the "cross with the wildest enthusiasm ? I was vexed and annoyed 
 with the wild mockery of the witty English lady — perhaps I was the 
 more irritated by it since I felt that I was not myself entirely free from 
 the contagion, yet still regarded it as by no means praiseworthy. It 
 cannot be denied that the passion for ridicule and mockery, the delight 
 in the incongruity of things, has something evil in it, while seriousness 
 is more allied with the better feelings — virtue, the sense of liberty and 
 love itself are very serious. Meanwhile there are hearts in which 
 jest and earnest, the bad and the holy, heat and cold mingle so 
 strangely, that it would be difficult to pass a separate judgment on 
 either. Such a heart swam in the bosom of Matilda ; often it was a 
 freezing island of ice on whose polished mirror-like ground there 
 bloomed forth deeply longing, glowing forests of palms — as often an 
 enthusiastic blazing volcano, which was suddenly overwhelmed by a 
 laughing avalanche of snow. She was by no means evilly inclined, 
 with all her abandon — not even sensuous ; nay, I believe that she had 
 only caught the humorous side of sensuality, and delighted herself 
 with it as with a merry, ridiculous puppet show. It was a humorous 
 longing, a sweet curiosity to know how this or that queer character 
 would behave when in love. How entirely different was Francesca ! 
 There was a catholic unity in all her thoughts and feelings. By day 
 she was a pale yearning moon, by night a glowing sun — moon of my 
 days ! sun of my nights ! I shall never see thee again ! 
 
 " You are right," said my Lady, " I also believe in the wonder- 
 working powers of a cross. I am convinced that if the Marquis does 
 not higgle and hesitate too long over the diamond cross, it will cer- 
 tainly work a brilliant miracle on the Signora, and she will be at last 
 
— 393 — 
 
 so dazzled by its brilliancy as even to be enamored of his nose. And 
 I have often heard of the miraculous powers of crosses of nobility 
 which have the power of changing an honest man into a rascal." 
 
 And so the beautiful lady ridiculed everything. She flirted with 
 the poor sacristan — made the drollest excuses to the bishop with the 
 worn-out nose, declining in the politest manner any return of her call, 
 and as we came to the holy-water font, she again attempted to turn 
 me into an ass. 
 
 Whether it was a sincere mood inspired by the place, or whether 
 it was that I felt inclined to rebuff as sharply as possible this jest, 
 which really vexed me, I know not, but I assumed the appropriate 
 pathos, and spoke : 
 
 " My Lady, I have no liking for those of your sex who despise 
 religion. Beautiful women without religion are like flowers without 
 perfume, resembling those cold sober tulips which look upon us 
 from their porcelain vases, as though they themselves were of porce- 
 lain, and which if they could speak, would without doubt, explain to 
 us how very naturally they grow from a bulb, how all-sufficient it is 
 for any one here below not to smell badly, and how, so far as per- 
 fume is concerned, a rational flower has no need of it whatever." 
 
 Even at the very mention of a tulip, my Lady was in a state of the 
 most passionate excitement, and as I spoke, her idiosyncracy against 
 the flower acted so powerfully, that she held her ears as if desperate. 
 It was half of it acted, but half was piqued earnestness, as she cast 
 at me a bitter glance, and asked from her very heart, and with all 
 the sharpness of irony — 
 
 "And you, dear flower, which of the current religions do you 
 profess ?" 
 
 " I, my Lady, have them all, the perfume of my soul rises to 
 Heaven and overcomes even the immortal gods themselves." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 As Signora could not understand our conversation, which was 
 carried on principally in English, she conceived the idea — Lord 
 knows how ! — that we were quarrelling about the pre-eminence of our 
 respective nations. She, therefore, began to praise the English and 
 the Germans also, although at heart she regarded the former as 
 wanting sense, and the latter as stupid. And she had a peculiarly 
 
— 394 — 
 
 bad opinion of the Prussians, whose country according to her geo- 
 graphy, lay far beyond England and Germany, while her worst ill-will 
 was reserved for the King of Prussia, the great Federigo, before 
 whom, her enemy Signora Seraphina, had danced the previous year 
 in a ballet at her benefit : for singular enough, this king, that is 
 to say, Frederick the Great, still lives on the Italian stage, and in 
 the memory of the Italian people. 
 
 " No," said my Lady, without paying the slightest attention to 
 Signora's sweet caresses and blandishments — " no, it is not neces- 
 sary to change this man into an ass. Why, he not only changes his 
 opinions every ten steps and continually contradicts himself, but 
 now he even turns missionary, and, upon my word, I believe he 
 is a Jesuit in disguise. I must make up devout faces myself to be 
 safe, or else he'll give me over to his fellow hypocrites in Christ, to 
 the dilettanti of the Holy Inquisition, who will burn me in effigy, 
 since the police does not as yet permit them to throw people in per- 
 son into the fire. Oh ! honorable gentleman, dear sir, don't believe 
 that I am as intelligent as I seem to be ; indeed, I am not wanting in 
 religion, I am not a tulip, on my honor, no tulip ! for heaven's sake, 
 no tulip — I had rather believe anything ! I believe now in the prin- 
 cipal things in the Bible. I believe that Abraham begat Isaac, that 
 Isaac begat Jacob, and that Jacob begat Judah, and that Judah in 
 turn " knew" his daughter-in-law Tamar on the highway. I believe, 
 too, that Lot drank too much with his daughters. I believe that 
 Potiphar's wife kept in her hands the robes of Joseph. I believe that 
 both the elders who surprised Susanna in her bath were very old. 
 Moreover, I believe that the patriarch Jacob cheated first his brother 
 and then his father-in-law, that King David gave Uriah a good ap- 
 pointment in the army, that Solomon got himself a thousand wives 
 and then complained that all was vanity ! I believe in the Ten Com- 
 mandments, too ; and even keep most of them. I do not covet my 
 neighbor's ox, nor his maid-servant, nor his cow, nor his ass. I do 
 not work on the Sabbath, the seventh day on which the Lord rested ; 
 yet, to be on the safe side, since we don't know exactly which was 
 the seventh day of rest, I often do nothing through the whole week. 
 But, as for the commandments of Christ, I always obeyed the one 
 which is most important — that we should love our enemies — for, ah ! 
 those persons whom I have best loved, were always, without my 
 knowing- it, my worst enemies." 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Matilda, do not weep !" I cried as there once 
 more darted forth a tone of the acutest anguish from the most genial 
 
— 395 — 
 
 mockery like a serpent from a bed of flowers. I well knew that tone 
 which often thrilled the wild and witty crystal-heart of the strange 
 and lovely woman, powerfully it was true, but never for a long time, 
 aud I well knew that it would vanish as readily as it had risen, before 
 the first jest which one would utter to her, or which would flit 
 through her own soul. While she stood leaning against the mon- 
 astery gate, pressing her burning cheeks against the cold stone, and 
 wiping the tears from her eyes with her long hair, I tried to revive her 
 merry mood by mystifying poor Francesca ; giving the latter the 
 most important particulars of the Seven Years' War, which appeared 
 to be to her a matter of especial interest, and which she believed to be 
 still going on. I told her many interesting things of the great 
 Federigo, the witty gaiter-god of Sans Souci who invented the 
 Prussian monarchy, and when young played right well on the flute and 
 made French verses. Francesca asked me if the Prussians or the 
 Germans would , conquer ? For, as I have already intimated she 
 supposed the former to be an entirely different race, and it is indeed 
 common enough in Italy to imply by the name Germans only the 
 natives of Austria. Signora was not a little astonished when I told 
 her that I myself had lived for a long time in the Capitate delta 
 Prussia, that is to say in Berelino, a city which lies very far up on 
 the map, not far from the North Pole. She shuddered as I depicted 
 to her the dangers to w T hich one is there exposed from the Polar 
 bears which stray about the streets. " For dear Francisca," I ex- 
 plained to her, "in Spitzbergen there are by far too many bears 
 which lie there in garrison and they sometimes visit Berlin, either 
 inspired by desire to see the ' bear'* and the Bassa, or else to eat a 
 good dinner at Bergermann's in the Cafe Royal — an indulgence which 
 sometimes costs more money than they have with them, in which 
 case one of the bears is bound down there until his companions 
 return and pay for him, whence the expression of ■ to bind a bear,' 
 originated. Many bears live in the city itself ; yes, some people even 
 assert that Berlin owes its origin to the bears and ought really to be 
 called Bearlin. The town-bears are however very tame, and some 
 of them are so highly educated that they write the most beautiful 
 tragedies and compose the finest music. Wolves are also very com- 
 mon there, but as they generally go clad in sheet's clothing on 
 
 * Yide page 86. It may be remarked that a " bear" not only signifies a debt, but is 
 also used by students as an abusive epithet. It is in this latter sense as well as the 
 former that Heine here uses it. 
 
— 396 — 
 
 account of the cold, they are difficult to recognize. 1 Snow-geese'* 
 flutter about there and sing bravura airs, while reindeer, f who are 
 dear enough to their tenants, reign with undisputed sway as con- 
 noisseurs in art. On the whole the Berliners live very temperately 
 and industriously, and most of them sit buried up to their navels in 
 snow, writing works of positive religion, devotional books, religious 
 tales for daughters of the higher classes, catechisms, sermons for 
 every day in the year, Eloha-poems, and are meanwhile very moral — 
 for they sit up to the navel in snow." 
 
 "Are the Berliners then Christians?" cried Signora, in amazement. 
 
 " Their Christianity is of a peculiar species. This religion is at 
 bottom utterly and entirely wanting in them, and they are also, much 
 too reasonable to seriously practise it. But as they know that 
 Christianity is necessary in a state, so that the subjects may be nicely 
 obedient, and so that people may not steal and murder too much, 
 they endeavor with great eloquence, to at least convert their fellow 
 beings to Christianity, seeking as it were "substitutes" in a religion, 
 whose maintenance is desirable to them, and whose strict practice as 
 well as profession would give them too much trouble. In this di- 
 lemma, they employ the zealous service of poor Jews, w r ho are 
 obliged to become Christians for them, and as this race will do any- 
 thing for gold, and for good words, they have at length exercised 
 themselves completely into the very depths of Christianity. Yes — 
 so deeply that they cry out as well as the best against unbelief, 
 fight as for life and death for the Trinity, believe in it even in the 
 dog-days, rage against the naturalists, slip secretly around in many 
 lands as missionaries and spies of the faith, circulate tracts, roll up 
 their eyes better than any one in the churches, make the most hypo- 
 critical faces, and act piety with such success, that the old 1 two of a 
 trade' envy is beginning already to show itself, and the old masters 
 of the business secretly bewail that Christianity is at present entirely 
 in the hands of the Jews." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Though Signora did not understand me, you at least dear reader 
 will have no difficulty in doing so. My Lady also understood me, 
 
 * Schneegaense from Schneegans. Lat. Anser hyperborceus, soft white pretty misses of 
 the kind which reminded Thackeray of rabbits, 
 f Eennthiere, a reindeer. Eentirer, one who lives on his rents. 
 
— 397 — 
 
 and the effect thereof was to revive her good humor. But as I — (I 
 do not really know if it was done with a serious expression) — under- 
 took to assert that the multitude needed a settled religion, she could 
 not refrain from again attacking me in her peculiar manner. 
 
 " People must have a religion !" she cried. " Always must I hear 
 that text preached by a thousand stupid, and by endless thousands 
 of hypocritical lips " 
 
 "And yet my Lady it is true. As the mother cannot answer 
 every question to the child with truth, because its power of compre- 
 hension is not sufficient, so in like manner there must be a positive 
 religion, a church which can answer for the people according to their 
 comprehension, and reduce to the test of the senses, all such ques- 
 tions as transcend sensation." 
 
 " Oh misery ! Doctor, your very comparison puts me in mind of a 
 story which in its application is not very favorable to your theory. 
 While I was yet young in Dublin " 
 
 " And lay on your back " 
 
 " Pshaw ! Doctor, there's no speaking a reasonable word with 
 you — stop laughing at me, I say, in that indecent way and listen. 
 While I was still young in Dublin and sat at my mother's feet, I 
 once asked what people did with the old full moons. 'My dear 
 child,' said mother, 1 the Lord breaks the old moons to pieces with 
 the sugar hammer, and makes little stars of them.' One shouldn't 
 blame my mother for telling such a story, for with the very best 
 astronomical knowledge, she could never have explained to me the 
 whole system of the sun, moon and stars, and she accordingly 
 answered the supernatural question in a natural way. But it would 
 have been better had she put off the question until I was older, or at 
 least told me the plain truth. For when I afterwards was looking with 
 little Lucy at the full moon, and explained to her how stars were to 
 be made from it, she laughed at me and said that her grandmother, 
 old Mrs. O'Meara, had told lier that the full moons were eaten in 
 hell for fire-melons, and because there was no sugar there, they 
 sprinkled them with pepper and salt. As Lucy had at first laughed 
 at my naive evangelic opinion, so I now laughed at her gloomy 
 catholic idea, from laughing we got to fighting; we scratched, and we 
 spit at each other in the real polemic style, until little O'Doxxel 
 came out of school and separated us. This boy had been better 
 instructed than we in the heavenly science, he understood mathema- 
 tics, and calmly explained to us our mutual errors, and the folly of 
 oar quarrel. And what was the result? Why we two girls at once 
 
 34 
 
— 398 — 
 
 stopped our quarrel, aud united our forces to give the quiet little 
 mathematician a good beating." 
 
 "My Lady, I am troubled, grieved at what you say, for you are in 
 the right. But matters can't be changed, people will always go on 
 fighting as to the pre-eminence of the conceptions of religion, which 
 were first instilled into their minds, and the reasonable men among 
 them will thereby be doomed to double suffering. Once, of course- 
 things were different, when it never occurred to any one to particularly 
 extol the doctrines or solemnity of his religion, or to press it on any 
 one. Religion was a dear and beautiful tradition, holy narratives, 
 commemorative festivals and mysteries were handed down from 
 ancestors as the sacred family rites of the people, and it would have 
 been a harsh and cruel thing for a Greek, if a foreigner, not of his 
 race, had demanded fellowship in the same religion with him ; and 
 it would have seemed to him a still more inhuman thing, to induce 
 any one by compulsion or cunning, to give up the religion to which 
 he was born, and to substitute for it a strange one. But there came 
 a race from Egypt, from the fatherland of the crocodile and of priest- 
 hood, and in addition to cutaneous diseases, and the stolen vessels of 
 gold and silver, this race brought with it a so-called positive religion, 
 a so-called church, a structure of dogmas, in which men must believe, 
 and holy ceremonies which men must celebrate — the first type of 
 later religions of state. Then arose the endless finding of faults in 
 human nature, the making of proselytes, the compulsion of faith, and 
 all that holy torture which has cost the human race so much blood, 
 and so many tears." 
 
 " God damn this -pnmevil race I"* 
 
 " Oh, Matilda, it has long been damned, and has dragged the 
 agonies of its damnation with it for thousands of years. 0, this 
 Egypt ! her works defy time, her pyramids still stand un shattered as 
 of old, her mummies are as imperishable as ever, and not less imper- 
 ishable is that mummy of a race, which wanders over the world 
 wrapped in most ancient swathing bands of letters, a petrified frag- 
 ment of the History of the World, a spectre which gets its living by 
 trading in bills of exchange and old pantaloons. My Lady, do you 
 see yonder, that old man with a white beard, the point of which 
 seems to be growing black again, — a man with ghost-like eyes." 
 
 " Are not the ruins of the old Roman graves there?" 
 
 " Yes — and there he sits offering his prayer, a fearful prayer, in 
 
 * Goddamm ! dieses Uruebelvolk. 
 
— 399 — 
 
 which he bewails his sufferings, and accuses races which have long 
 since vanished from the earth, and now live only in nursery legends — 
 while he in his pain, scarce marks that he sits on the graves of those 
 very enemies for whose destruction he prays to heaven. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I spoke in the previous chapter of positive religions, only so far as 
 they are especially privileged by the state, as churches, under the 
 name of state-religions. But there is a pious dialectic, dear reader, 
 which will prove to you in the most convincing manner, that the 
 opponent of the ecclesiastical system of such a religion of state is 
 also an enemy of religion, and of the state, an enemy of God and of 
 the king, or as the common formula reads, an enemy of the throne 
 and of the altar. But / tell you that it is a lie, I honor the real 
 holiness of every religion, and conform myself to the interests of the 
 state. And if I do not render homage, and devote myself to Anthro- 
 pomorphism, I still believe in the power and glory of God, and even 
 though kings are so insane as to resist the spirit of the people, or 
 even so ignoble as to oppress their organs by neglect and persecu- 
 tion, I still remain, in accordance with my deepest conviction, an 
 adherent to the kingdom and to the monarchical principle. I do not 
 hate the throne, but I do those windy nothings of aristocratic vermin 
 which have nestled in the crannies of the old throne, and whose cha- 
 racter Montesquieu has described so accurately with the words : 
 " Ambition hand in hand with Indolence, Yulgarity allied to Pride, 
 the longing to become rich without labor, the dislike of truth, flat- 
 tery, treachery, faithlessness and the breaking of words, the con- 
 tempt of the duties of the citizen, the fear of princely virtue, and an 
 interest in princely vice I" I do not hate the altar, but I hate the 
 serpents which lurk amid the loose stones of the old altar ; those 
 malignantly cunning snakes which can smile innocently as flowers, 
 while they secretly spirt their poison into the cup of life, and hiss 
 slander into the ear of the pious one praying ; those glossy, gliding 
 worms with soft sweet words : 
 
 Mel in ore, verba 1 actis 
 
 Fei in corde, fraus in factis."* 
 
 * It were a pity to spare the lover of Latin rhymes a line ol this fine old proverb, wbich 
 
— 400 — 
 
 And just because I am a friend of the state and of religion, do I 
 hate that abortion termed the religion of state, that mockery of a 
 creation, which was born of the lewd love of the worldly and the 
 spiritual powers, that mule which the white stallion of Anti-Christ 
 begot upon the she-ass of Christ. If there were no such religion of 
 state, no privilege of dogma and of a religion, Germany would be united 
 and strong, and her sons lordly and free. But as it is, our poor Father- 
 land is torn by divisions of creeds, the people are separated into war- 
 ring parties in religion, Protestant subjects quarrel with Catholic 
 princes, or vice-versa, everywhere there is mistrust, or crypto- 
 Catholicism or crypto-Protestantism, accusations of heresy, espion- 
 age of views and opinions, pietism, mysticism, smelliug of rats by 
 church journals, sectarian hatred and zeal for conversion, so that while 
 we fight for heaven above, we are all going to the devil here on earth 
 below. An indifferentism in religion would be, perhaps, the only 
 thing which could save us, and by becoming weak in faith, Germany 
 might grow politically strong. 
 
 But it is as ruinous for religion itself, and for her holy existence, 
 when she is clad with privileges, and when her servants are espe- 
 cially endowed by the state with power to represent it, so that one 
 hand as it were washes the other, the religious the worldly, and vice- 
 versa, from which a wish-wash results which is to the blessed Loed a 
 folly, and to man a torture. If the state has opponents, they will 
 become foes to the religion which confers privileges on the state, and 
 consequently renders them allies ; and even the innocent believer 
 will become mistrustful when he detects political objects in religion. 
 But the most repulsive of all is the pride of the priests when they, 
 for the service which they think they have done the state, presume 
 
 crackles like a fire of twigs in so many eccentric collections of the XVI. and XVII. cen- 
 turies. 
 
 K Multis annis jam peractis 
 Nulla fides est in pactis, 
 Mel in ore. verba lactis, 
 Fel in corde, fraus in factis." 
 
 and which is translated in the following very slip-shod manner, in " The Sketch Book of 
 Meister Karl:" 
 
 u For many years, my friend, the fact is, 
 That honesty is out of practice, 
 And houeid words and fawning smile 
 Are ever mixed with fraud and guile." 
 I have somewhere met with another version of these rhymes, in which the first line 
 was given thus : 
 
 "Omnibus rebus jam peractis." 
 
 [Notes by Translator. 
 
— 401 — 
 
 to count upon the support of the latter, and when they in return for 
 the spiritual fetters which they have lent the state to bind the people, 
 betake themselves to the protection of the state's bayouets. Reli- 
 gion can never sink so low as when she is in such a manner raised to 
 a religion of state, her last claim to innocence is then vitiated, and 
 she becomes as brazenly proud as a declared coucubine. Of course, 
 more homage and assurances of reverence are then made her, she 
 every day celebrates new conquests in gleaming processions, where 
 even generals who once served under Bonaparte bear torches, the 
 proudest spirits swear fidelity to her banner, day by day unbelievers 
 are converted and baptized — but all this pouring on of water butters 
 no parsnips, and the new recruits of the religion of state are like 
 those of Falstaff— they fill the state. As for self-sacrifice no one 
 even speaks of such a thing, the missionaries with their tracts and 
 books travel about like commercial agents with their samples — there 
 is no longer any danger in the business, and all goes on in a regular 
 mercantile economical form. 
 
 Only so long as religions are rivals and more persecuted than per- 
 secutors, are they noble and worthy of honor, and only then do we 
 find inspiration sacrifice, martyrs and palms. How beautiful, how 
 holy and lovely, how strangely sweet was the Christianity of the 
 early ages while it as yet resembled its divine Founder in the heroism 
 of suffering ! Then there was still the legend of a god, all their 
 own, who, in the form of a gentle youth, wandered, under the palms 
 of Palestine and preached human love, and set forth those doctrines 
 of freedom and of equality, which at a later day were recognised as 
 true by the reason of the greatest thinkers, and which as a French 
 gospel inspired our age. But let any one compare that religion of 
 Christ with the different Christianities which have been formed in 
 different countries as religions of state — for instance, the Roman 
 Apostolic Catholic Church, or even that Catholicism without poetry 
 which we see ruling as " High Church of England," that dismal, 
 crumbling skeleton of faith from which all fresh life has departed ! 
 The monopoly of system is as injurious to religions as to trades, 
 they are only strong and energetic by free competition, and they will 
 again bloom up in their primitive purity and beauty, so soon as the 
 political equality of the Lord's service, or so to speak, so soon as the 
 trades-freedom of the divinities is introduced. 
 
 The noblest minded men in Europe have long since asserted that 
 this is the only means to preserve religion from an utter overthrow ; 
 but its present servants would sooner sacrifice the altar itself than 
 
 Q <* 
 
 O-t 
 
— 402 — 
 
 the least thing which is sacrificed on it; just as the nobility would 
 sooner give up to utter destruction the throne and the illustrious 
 Highness seated thereon, than that he should seriously give up the 
 most improper of his proper privileges. But is the affected interest 
 for throne and altar only a mocking show played off before the people ? 
 He who has been behind the scenes and peeped into the mysteries 
 of the business, knows that the priests do not so much as the laity 
 respect that God, whom they, for their own profit and at will knead 
 from bread and words, and that the nobility respect the king much 
 less than a serf would have them do, and that they in their hearts, 
 scorn and despise even that royalty for which they in public manifest 
 so much honor, and seek to awaken respect in others ; in fact, they 
 resemble those people who exhibit for money to the gaping public in 
 booths on the market place, a Hercules, or a giant, or a dwarf, or a 
 savage, or a fire-eater, or some other remarkable man of whom they 
 praise the strength, size, bravery and invulnerability ; or if he is a 
 1 dwarf, his wisdom. All this they do with the most incredible readi- 
 ness of speech, blowing at times their trumpet, and wearing a gayly 
 colored jacket, while in their hearts they laugh at the ready faith of 
 the staring people, and mock the poor be-praised subject, who by 
 dint of daily intercourse has become very uninteresting to them, 
 and whose weaknesses and whose arts acquired by training, they 
 understand only too accurately. 
 
 Whether the blessed Lord will long suffer the priests to pass off a 
 bug-bear for him, and make money by the show is more than I 
 know; — at least it would cause me no surprise if I should some day 
 read in the Ham bury Impartial Correspondent, that the old Jehovah 
 warns every one against giving credit in his name to any one, no 
 matter who he be, or even to his own son. But I am convinced — 
 and time will show it — that there will come a day, when kings will 
 no longer submit to be the show-puppets of their high-born despisers, 
 when they will burst loose from etiquette, and break down the 
 marble booths in which they are shown. Then they will disdainfully 
 cast aside the shining frippery* intended to impose upon the people, 
 the red mantle which terrified, in such a headsman-like manner, the 
 diamond tiara which was pulled over their ears that they might not 
 hear the voices of the people, the golden rod given as a sham sign of 
 supremacy into their hands — and the kings set free will become free 
 
 * Plunder" in the original, meaning frippery, lumber, trash, baggage and also plunder. 
 The same word is used in the same senses in the Western United States. " So Tom got 
 Judy and all her plunder." — Crockett's Almanac. [Note by Translator. 
 
— 403 — 
 
 as other men, and walk freely among them, and feel free, and marry 
 free, and express their opinions freely, and that will be the emanci-» 
 pation of monarchs. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 But what are the aristocrats to do when they have been robbed 
 of their crowned means of subsistence, when kings are a special pro- 
 perty of the people, maintaining an honorable and stable govern- 
 ment accordiug to the will of the people — the only source of all 
 power? What will the priests do when kings perceive that a little 
 consecrated oil cannot make any human head guillotine-proof, just 
 as the people on their part learn from day to day, that no one can 
 grow fat on sacramental wafers ? Well, of course nothing will then 
 remain for the aristocracy and clergy, save to join hands, and cabal 
 and intrigue against the new order of things in this world. 
 
 Yain efforts ! The age like a fiery giantess tranquilly advances, 
 giving no heed to the chatter of the snappish priestlings and lord- 
 lings down below. How they howl whenever one of them has burnt 
 his snout on the foot of the giantess, or when she has trodden un- 
 wittingly upon a head or two, so that the dark reactionary poison 
 spirts forth ! Then their vindictiveness turns all the more bitterly 
 against single children of the age, and powerless against the mass, 
 they seek to assuage their cowardly spark of spirit on individuals. 
 
 Ah! we must confess that many a poor child of the age feels none 
 the less the stabs which he receives in the dark, from lurking lords and 
 priests, and oh ! though a glory gathers around the wounds of the 
 conqueror, yet they still bleed and smart ! It is a strange martyr- 
 dom, that which such conquerors endure in our days, and one which 
 cannot be done away with by bold confession, as in those early 
 ages when the martyrs found a speedy scaffold, or the burning pile 
 with its wild hurrahs! The spirit of martyrdom to sacrifice all 
 earthly things for a heavenly jest, is still the same as ever ; but it 
 has lost much of its deepest cheerfulness of faith, it has become 
 rather a resigned endurance, a firm holding out, a lifelong dying, and 
 it even happens that in cold gray hours even the holiest martyrs are 
 assailed by doubts. There is nothing so terrible as hours like those 
 wherein Marcus Brutus began to doubt the reality of that virtue 
 for which he had suffered all things. And, ah ! he was a Roman who 
 
— 404 — 
 
 lived in the palmy days of the Stoa ; but we are of modern softer 
 *tuff, and withal we witness the successful course of a philosophy, 
 which grants to any inspiration whatever only a relative significance, 
 and thus in itself annihilates it, or at any rate, neutralises it into a 
 self-conscious Don Quixotery. 
 
 The cool, calm, cunning philosophers ! How compassionately they 
 smile on the self-torture and mad freaks of a poor Don Quixote, yet 
 with all their school-wisdom do not perceive that that Don Quixotery 
 is the most laudable thing in life, yes, life itself, and that it inspires 
 to bolder effort the whole world, and all in it which philosophises, 
 plays, plants and gapes ! For the great mass of the people, with the 
 philosophers, is, without knowing it, nothing but a colossal Sancho 
 Panza who, despite all his sober dread of whippings and homely 
 wisdom, still follows the knight in all his dangerous adventures, 
 lured by the promised reward in which he believes, because he longs 
 for it, but still more attracted by the mystic power which enthusiasm 
 always exerts on the masses — as we see in all political and religious 
 revolutions, and it may be, also, daily in the smallest events. 
 
 Thus, for example, you, dear reader, are in spite of yourself the 
 Sancho Panza of the insane poet, whom you follow through the 
 erratic mazes of this book — it may be while shaking your head mis- 
 givingly — but whom you still follow. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Strange ! The Life and Deeds of the Sagacious Knight Don 
 Quixote de la Mancha, written by Don Miguel de Cervantes Saa- 
 vedra, was the first book which I read after I had attaiued a tolerably 
 boy age of discretion, and had become to a certain degree familiar with 
 the nature of letters. I can well remember the bit of leisure time, 
 when I early one morning stole away from home, and hastened to the 
 Court Garden, that I might read Don Quixote without being dis- 
 turbed. It was a beautiful May-day, the blooming Spring lay lurking 
 in the silent morning light, listening to the sweet praises of her 
 flatterer the nightingale, and the bird sang so softly and caressingly, 
 with such melting enthusiasm, that the most shamefaced buds sprang 
 into life, and the love-longing grass and the sun-rays quivering in 
 perfume, kissed more hurriedly, and trees and flowers trembled for 
 sheer rapture. But I sat myself down on an old mossy stone-bench in 
 
— 405 — 
 
 the so-called " walk of sighs," and solaced my little heart with the 
 great adventures of the daring knight. In my childish uprightness 
 of heart, I took it all in sober earnest, and ridiculously as the poor 
 hero was treated by luck, I still thought that it was a matter of 
 course, and must be so, the being laughed at as well as being 
 wounded, and that troubled me sadly as I sympathised with it all in 
 my soul. I was a child, and knew nothing of the irony which God 
 had twined into his world as he created it — and I could have found it 
 in my heart to weep the bitterest tears, when the noble knight, for 
 all his heroic courage received only ingratitude and blows ; and as I, 
 who was as yet unpractised in reading, pronounced every word 
 aloud, it was possible for birds and trees, brook and floVers to hear 
 everything with me, and as such innocent beings of nature knew as 
 little as children of the irony of the great world, they took it all for 
 sober earnest, and wept with me over the sorrows of the poor knight; 
 even a worn-out old oak sighed deeply, and a water-fall shook more 
 rapidly his white beard and seemed to scold at the wickedness of the 
 world. We felt that the heroic will of the knight, was not the less 
 worthy of admiration, when the lion turned tail on jjira without 
 wishing to fight, and that his deeds were the more praiseworthy in 
 proportion to the weakness and meagreness of his frame, the brittle- 
 ness of his armor, and the worthlessness of his palfrey. We despised 
 the base mob who treated him with such thrashing rudeness, and 
 still more that mob of a higher rank, which, ornamented with gay 
 silk attire, aristocratic phrase and ducal titles, scorned a man who 
 was in strength of soul so immeasurably their superior. Dulcinea's 
 Knight rose higher in my estimation, and gained more and more in 
 my love, the more I read in that wondrous book — and that I did 
 every day in the same garden, so that by the Autumn I had con- 
 cluded the story— and never, in all my life, shall I forget the day on 
 which I read of the sorrowful combat wherein the knight was so 
 shamefully subdued ! 
 
 It was a gloomy day, hideous clouds swept along the grey heaven, 
 the yellow leaves fell painfully from the trees, heavy tears hung on 
 the last flowers, which fading in sorrow sunk their dying heads, the 
 nightingales had 'lung been silent, the image of all things passing 
 away stared at me still and deathlike on every side, — and my head 
 was all but broken as I read how the noble knight lay bewildered 
 and crushed on the -ground, and without removing his vizor, spoke 
 with weak and sickly voice to the victor as though from the grave : 
 " Dulcinea is the fairest woman in the world, and I am the most 
 
— 406 — 
 
 unfortunate Knight on earth, but it is not fit that my weakness 
 should give the lie to this truth — so on with thy lance, Knight!" 
 
 Ah! this gleaming Knight of the silver moon, who conquered the 
 bravest and noblest man in the world, was a disguised barber I 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 That was all long, long ago. Many fresh springs have bloomed 
 since then, but they were all wanting in their greatest charm, for 
 alas ! I no longer believe in the sweet falsehoods of the nightingale, 
 the flatterer of Spring, I know how quickly its bloom passes away, 
 and when I see the latest rosebuds, I see them blooming forth glow- 
 ing with pain, growing pale and scattering in the wind. On every 
 hand I perceive a winter in disguise. 
 
 But in my breast that flaming love still blooms which rises full of 
 longing over the whole earth and sweeps dreamily and wildly, through 
 the yawning realms of heaven, is struck back by the cold stars, 
 sinking agap to this little ball of earth, and which with sighs and 
 shouts of exultation must confess that in all creation there is nothing 
 more beautiful or better than the heart of man. This love is Inspi- 
 ration, ever of a divine nature whether her deeds be of folly or of 
 wisdom. And so it happened, that the little boy by no means lav- 
 ished those tears in vain, which he shed over the sorrows of the mad 
 knight, any more, indeed, than the youth did in later years, when he 
 many a night in his narrow study, wept over the death of the holiest 
 heroes of liberty — over King Agis of Sparta, over Caius and Tibe- 
 rius Gracchus of Rome, over Jesus of Jerusalem, and over Robes- 
 pierre and Saint Just of Paris. Now that I have donned the toga 
 virilis, and must myself be a man, there is an end to weeping, and 
 the business in hand is to act like a man, after the manner of great 
 predecessors, and if God so wills to be wept in turn in future 
 years by boys and youths. Yes — these are the ones on whom we 
 may count in this cold age ; for they will be inspired by the gloomy 
 breath which is wafted to them from ancient lore, and it is thus that 
 they appreciate the hearts of flame of the present age. Youth is 
 unselfish in thought and in feeling, and, therefore, thinks and feels 
 the truth most deeply, and is not backward when a bold participa- 
 tion in faith or deed is called for. Older people are selfish and 
 small-souled ; they think more of the interest of their money than of 
 the interest of mankind ; they let their little boat swim calmly along 
 
— 407 — 
 
 in the gutter of life, troubling themselves but little as to the sailor 
 who on the high seas fights the billows, or they creep with sticky 
 obstinacy to the summit of a mayoralty, or to the presidency of a club, 
 and shrug their shoulders at the images of heroes which the storm 
 cast down from the pillars of renown, telling, perhaps, meanwhile, how 
 they too, when young, also ran their heads against the wall, but that 
 they afterwards made friends with the wall because the wall was the 
 Absolute, that which was appointed so to be, the existing in aud for 
 itself, that which because it is, is also reasonable, and that, therefore, 
 he is unreasonable who will not endure a sublimely reasonable unde- 
 niably existing, firmly grounded Absolutism. Alas ! these rejectors 
 and challengers, who philosophise us into a mild servitude, are always 
 more worthy of regard than the rejected, who, in the defence of 
 despotism, never take stand on the reasonable ground of reason, but 
 strong in their familiarity with history, defend it as a right of 
 prescription and custom with which men have gradually grown fami- 
 liar in the course of time, and which is now legally and equitably 
 impregnable. 
 
 Perhaps, you are in the right, and I am only a Don Quixote, and 
 the reading of all manner of strange books has turned my 'üead as 
 the Knight of La Mancha's was turned, and Jean Jacqüeb Üous- 
 seau was my Amadis de Gaul, Mirabeau was my Roldan or Agra- 
 manto, and I have studied too deeply in the heroic deeds of the 
 French Paladins, and of the Round Table of the National Conven- 
 tion. It is true that my madness and the fixed ideas which I have 
 gathered from those books are of a diametrically different descrip- 
 tion from the monomania and madness of the Manchan. He was 
 desirous of restoring decaying chivalry to its pristine splendor, while 
 I, on the contrary, would utterly destroy all that there is as yet 
 remaining from those days ; and we, consequently work with views 
 at utter variance. My colleague regarded wind-mills as giants — I, 
 however, in the braggart giants of the day see only noisy wind-mills ; 
 he thought that leathern wine-sacks were mighty magicians, while I, 
 in our cotemporary enchanters, see nothing but leather-headed wine- 
 sacks ; he took beggarly pot-houses for castles, ass-drivers tor cava- 
 liers, low prostitutes for court-ladies — while I take our castles for 
 mere inns for blackguards, our knights for ass-drivers, our court- 
 ladies for common whores, and as he mistook a puppet-show for the 
 deeds of a state, so do 1 regard our state deeds as mere puppet- 
 comedies ; yet just as bravely as the bold Knight of La Mancha do 
 I let drive into the wooden trash. Ah ! such a heroic deed often 
 
— 408 — 
 
 costs me as much as it did him, and I must like him often suffer 
 much for the honor of my lady. If I would only be false to her from 
 fear or base avarice, I might live comfortably in this absolute exist- 
 ing reasonable world, and I could lead some lovely Maritornes to 
 the altar, and be blessed by sleek magicians and banquet with noble 
 ass-drivers, and beget harmless novels and the like base little slaves ! 
 Instead of that, adorned with the three colors of my lady, I must 
 constantly be taking my place on the combatting ground, and dash 
 onward through fearful toil and tumult — and I fight my way 
 through no victory which does not also cost me some heart's blood 
 By day and night I am in extremity, for those enemies are so treach- 
 erous, that many whom I long ago struck down to death, still give 
 themselves the guise of living forms, and changing into every shape, 
 weary and disgust me by day and by night. How many sufferings 
 have I endured through these wretched ghosts ! Where love 
 bloomed for me, they stole in, the false stealthy spectres, and broke 
 even the most innocent buds. Everywhere, and most unexpectedly, 
 I found on the ground their silvery trace of slime, and unless I 
 beware I may slip on it to my destruction in the house of the nearest 
 and dearest love. You may laugh, and regard such anxious feeling 
 as to idle phantoms as the delusions of a Don Quixote. But ima- 
 gined woes pain none the less, and if one believes that he has drunk 
 hemlock, he may waste away, and at least, certainly will not fatten 
 on the thought. And it is a slander to say, that I have grown fat 
 on it, at least, I have as yet gained no fat sinecure, though I have 
 the talent which would qualify me for one. As for fat, my 
 fatality drives every trace of it from me.* I fancy that every means 
 has been taken to keep me lean ; when I hungered they fed me with 
 snakes ; when I thirsted they gave me wormwood to drink, and they 
 poured hell into my heart till I wept poison and sighed fire. Yes — 
 they stole by night into my very dreams — and there I see horrible 
 spectres, the noble lackey faces with gnashing teeth, the threatening 
 banker noses, the deadly eyes glaring from cowls, the white ruffied 
 hands with gleaming knives. 
 
 Even the old lady who lives next to me, my neighbor through the 
 wall, thinks that I am insane, and declares that I talk the maddest 
 stuff in my sleep, and that last night she distinctly heard me call out 
 that, " Dulcinea is the fairest woman in the world, and I am the 
 most unfortunate Knight on earth, but it is not fit that my weakness 
 should give the lie to this truth — so on with thy lance, Knight!" 
 
 * Auch is von dem Fett der Vetterschaft nichts an mir zu verspüren. 
 
— 409 — 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 (NOVEMBER, 1830.) 
 
 I do not know what the peculiar feeling of reverence was, which im- 
 pelled me to modify even the most trivial of several expressions in the 
 foregoing pages, and which on a subsequent reading appeared to be 
 rather too harsh. The manuscript had already become as yellow as 
 a corpse, and I could not persuade myself to mutilate it. Every- 
 thing which has been written for years, seems to have an inherent, 
 right to remain uninjured — even these pages, which to a certain degree 
 belong to a dark past. For they were written nearly a year before 
 the third Hegira of the Bourbons, at a time which was harsher 
 than the harshest phrase, a time when it seemed as if the battle for 
 liberty might yet be delayed for a century. It was to say the least, 
 a matter for critical and nice reflection, when we saw our knightly 
 nobility looking so confident — how they had their faded coats of 
 arms freshly painted, how they tourneyed with shield and spear at 
 Munich and Potsdam, and how they sat so proudly on their high 
 steeds as though they would ride to Quedlinburg to have themselvs 
 retouched by Gottfried Basse. 
 
 Still more insufferable were the triumphant and treacherous eyes 
 of our priests, who hid their long ears so slyly under their cowls, 
 that we continually anticipated the most deadly wiles. No one could 
 know beforehand that the noble knights would shoot so wretchedly 
 wide of the mark, and generally from an ambuscade, or at least 
 in galloping away with averted heads, like flying Bashkirs. Just as 
 little could one know beforehand that the serpent-like sagacity of our 
 priests could be so brought to shame — ah! it is enough to awaken one's 
 pity to see how stupidly they use their best poison, and how in their 
 rage they throw the arsenic in great lumps at our heads, instead of 
 sprinkling it by the ounce and amiably in our soup ; how they rum- 
 mage among the long forgotten children's clothes of their enemies 
 to dis( over some obsolete baby wrappings from which to nose out 
 trouble, how they even rake the fathers of their enemies out of their 
 graves to see if they perhaps were circumcised — oh the fools ! who 
 imagine that they have discovered that the lion belongs to the feline 
 
 35 
 
— 410 — 
 
 race, and with this natural historical discovery go hissing about so 
 long, that finally the great cat exemplifies the ex ungue Jeonem on their 
 own flesh ! Oh ! the obscure wights upon whom no light shines until 
 they hang in person on the lamp post ! With the entrails of an ass 
 would I string my lyre that I might worthily sing them — the shorn 
 blockheads ! 
 
 A mighty joy seizes on me ! While I sit and write, music sounds 
 ander my window, and in the elegiac grimness of the long drawn out 
 melody, I recognise that Marseilles hymn with which the beautiful 
 Barbaroux and his companions greeted the city of Paris, that rans 
 des vetches of liberty, whose tones gave the Swiss in theTuileries the 
 homesickness, that triumphant death song of the Gironde — the old 
 sweet cradle song. 
 
 What a song ! It shudders through me with fire and joy, and 
 lights up in me the glowing stars of inspiration, and the rockets of 
 scorn and mockery. Yes, they shall not be wanting in the great- 
 fireworks of the age. Ringing fire-streams of song shall pour forth 
 in bold cascades from the summit of Freedom's revels ; as the Ganges 
 leaps from Himalaya! And thou dear Satyra, daughter of the just 
 Themis and of goat-footed Pan, lend me thine aid, for thou art by 
 the mother's side of Titanic blood, and hatest like me the enemies of 
 thy kin, the weak usurpers of Olympus. Lend me the sword of thy 
 mother that I may execute the hated brood, and give me the pipes 
 of thy father that I therewith, may pipe them to death. 
 
 Already they hear the deathly piping and panic fears seize them, 
 and they again take to flight in bestial forms as of old, when we piled 
 Pelion upon Ossa. 
 
 Aus armes ci toy ens ! 
 
 They did great injustice to us poor Titans, when they blamed the 
 dark ferocity with which we raged upward in that storming of 
 heaven — ah ! down there in Tartarus it was terrible and dark ; we 
 heard there, only the howls of Cerberus and the rattling of chains, 
 and it is pardonable if we appear somewhat savage, in comparison 
 with those divinities, comme il faut, who so refined and elegant in 
 manners, enjoyed in the cheerful saloons of Olympus, so much ex- 
 quisite nectar and so many sweet concerts given by the Muses. 
 
 I can writejio more, for the music under my window intoxicates 
 my head, and still more forcibly am I moved by the refrain. 
 
 Aux armes citoyensl 
 
ENGLISH FRAGMENTS. 
 
 1 828. 
 
 * Happy Albion ! merry Old England ! why did I leave thee?— To fly 
 from the society of gentlemen, and to be among a pack of blackguards, 
 the only one who lives and acts with consciousness ?" 
 
 " Honorable People," by W. Ai.i-.si.q. 
 
 The " English Fragments" were partly written two years ago for 
 the " Universal Political Annals," which I at that time published 
 with Lindner, to supply a want of the time, and believing them to 
 be appropriate, I have added them as a completion of the u Pictures 
 of Travel." 
 
 I trust that the amiable reader will not misapprehend my object 
 in giving these English Fragments. Perhaps, I may, at a proper 
 time, supply further contributions of {he same nature. Our litera- 
 ture is by no means too richly provided with them. Though England 
 has been frequently described by our novelists, Willibald Alexis 
 is the only one who has set forth her local peculiarities and costumes 
 with true outline and color. I believe that he was never in the 
 country, and knows its physiognomy only by that strange intuition 
 which renders a personal examination of the reality needless to a 
 poet. In like manner, I myself, wrote eleven years ago, " William 
 Ratcliff," to which I here the more emphatically refer, since it not 
 only contains an accurate picture of England, but also the germ of 
 my later observations of the country which I had not then seen. 
 The piece may be found in the 
 
 "Tragedies, with a Lyrical Intermezzo, by Henry Heine. 
 Berlin, 1823, published by F. Duemmler." 
 
 As for books of travel in England, I am continent, that with the 
 exception of those of Archenholtz and Gcede, thei^ are none which 
 set forth matters as they really are there, which can be compared 
 to a work published this year by Frankh, in Munich. I refer to 
 " Letters of a Dead Man. A Fragmentary Diary, k,>pt in Eng- 
 land, Wales, Ireland and France, in the years 1828 and 1829." 
 
 It is moreover in many other respects an admirable book, and fully 
 deserves the praise which Goethe and Varnhagen Von Ense have 
 lavished on it in the Berlin Annuals of Scientific Criticism. 
 
 Henry Heine. 
 
 Hamburg, Nov. 15, 1830. 
 
 (411) 
 
— 412 — 
 1« 
 
 DIALOGUE ON THE THAMES. 
 
 The sallow man stood near me on the deck, as I gazed 
 
 on the green shores of the Thames, while in every corner of my soul 
 the nightingales awoke to life. ''Land of Freedom!" I cried, — "I 
 greet thee ! — Hail to thee, Freedom, young sun of the renewed 
 world ! Those older suns. Love and Faith are withered and cold, 
 and can no longer light nor warm us. The ancient myrtle woods 
 which were once all too full, are now deserted, and only timid turtle- 
 doves nestle amid the soft thickets. The old cathedrals once piled 
 in towering height by an arrogantly pious race, which fain would 
 force its faith into heaven are brittle, and their gods have ceased to 
 believe in themselves. Those divinities are worn out, and our age 
 lacks the imagination to shape new. Every power of the human 
 breast now tends to a love of Liberty, and Liberty is, perhaps, the 
 religion of the modern age. And it is a religion not preached to the 
 rich, but to the poor, and it has in like manner its Evangelists, its 
 martyrs, and its Iscariots !" 
 
 "Young enthusiast," said the sallow man, " you will not find what 
 you seek. You may be in the right in believing that Liberty is a 
 new religion which will spread itself over all the woild. But at 
 every race of old, when it received Christianity did so according to 
 its requirements and its peculiar character, so, at present, every 
 country adopts from the new religion of liberty only that which is 
 in accordance with its local needs and national character. 
 
 " The English are a domestic race, living a limited, peaceable 
 family life, and the Englishman seeks in the circle of those con- 
 nected with and pertaining to him, that easy state of mind which 
 is denied to him through his innate social incapacity. The English- 
 man is, therefore, contented with that liberty which secures his most 
 personal rights and guards his body, his property, and his conjugal 
 relations, his religion, and even his whims, in the most unconditional 
 manner. No one is freer in his home than an Englishman, and to 
 use a celebrated expression he is king and bishop between his four 
 stakes, and there is much truth in the common saying, that 1 my 
 house is my castle.' 
 
 " If the Englishman has the greatest need of personal freedom, the 
 Frenchman, in case of need, can dispense with it, if we only grant 
 him that portion of universal liberty known as equality. The French 
 
— 413 — 
 
 are not a domestic but a social race, they are no friends to a silent 
 Utc-a te'e, which they call une conversation Anglaise, they i un gossip- 
 ing about from the cafe* to the casino, and from the casino to the 
 salons, their light champagne-blood and in-born talent for company, 
 drives them to social life, whose first and last principle, yes, 
 whose very soul is equality. The development of the social princi- 
 ple in France necessarily involved that of equality, and if the ground 
 of the Revolution should be sought in the budget ; it is none the less 
 true that its language and tone were drawn from those wits of low 
 degree who lived in the salons of Paris, apparently on a footing of 
 equality with the high noblesse, and who were now and then 
 reminded, it may have been, by a hardly perceptible, yet not on that 
 account less aggravating, feudal smile, of the great and ignominious ine- 
 quality which lay between them. And when the canaille roturUre took 
 the liberty of beheading that high noblesse, it was done less to inherit 
 their property than their ancestry, and to introduce a noble equality 
 in place of a vulgar inequality. And we are the better authorized to 
 believe that this striving for equality was the main principle of the 
 revolution, since the French speedily found themselves so happy and 
 contented under the dominion of their great Emperor, who fully 
 appreciating that they were not yet of age, kept all their f reedom 
 within the limits of his powerful guardianship, permitting them only 
 the pleasure of a perfect and admirable equality. 
 
 Far more patient than the Frenchman the Englishman, easily bears 
 the glances of a privileged aristocracy, consoling himself with the re- 
 flection, that he has a right by which it is rendered impossible to the 
 others to disturb his personal comfort or his daily requirements. 
 Nor does the aristocracy here make a show of its privileges as on 
 the Continent. In the streets and in places of public resort in 
 London, colored ribbons are only seen on women's bonnets, and gold 
 and silver signs of distinction, on the dresses of lackeys. Even that 
 beautiful colored livery which indicates with us military rank, is in 
 England anything but a sign of honor, and as an actor after a play 
 hastens to wash off the rouge, so an English officer hastens when the 
 hours of active duty are over, to strip off his red coat and again 
 appear like a gentleman, in the plain garb of a gentleman. Only at 
 the theatre of St. James are those decorations and costumes, which 
 were raked from the off-scourings of the middle ages, of any avail. 
 There we may see the ribbons of orders of nobility, there the stars 
 glitter, silk knee-breeches and satin trains rustle, golden spurs and 
 old fashioned French styles of expression clatter, there the knight 
 
 35* 
 
— 414: — 
 
 struts and the lady spreads herself. But what does a free English- 
 man cure lor the court comedy of St. James ! so long as it does 
 not trouble him, and so long as no one interferes when he plays 
 comedy in like manner in his own house, making his lackeys kneel 
 before him, or plays with the garter of a pretty cook-maid ? — " horn 
 soit qui mal y pensei" 
 
 " As for the Germans they need neither freedom nor equality. They 
 are a speculative race, idealogists, prophets aud after thinkers, 
 dreamers who only live in the past and in the future, and who have 
 no present. Englishmen and Frenchmen have a present — with them, 
 every day has its field of action, its opposing element, its history. 
 The German has nothing for which to battle, and when he began to 
 realize that there might be things worth striving for, his philosophi- 
 sing wiseacres taught him to doubt the existence of such things. It 
 cannot be denied that the Germans love liberty. But it is in a 
 different manner from other people. The Englishman loves liberty 
 as his lawful wife, and if he does not treat her with remarkable 
 tenderness, he is still ready in case of need to defend her like a man, 
 and woe to the red coated rascal who forces his way to her bed- 
 room — let him do so as a gallant or as a catch poll. The French- 
 man loves liberty as his bride. He burns for her, he is a flame, he 
 casts himself at her feet with the most extravagant protestations, 
 he will fight for her to the death, he commits for her sake a thousand 
 follies. The German loves liberty as though she were his old 
 grandmother." 
 
 Men are strange beings ! We grumble in our fatherland, every 
 stupid thing, every contrary trifle vexes us there ; like boys we 
 are always long to rush forth into the wide world, and when we 
 finally find ourselves out in the wide world, we find it a world too wide, 
 and often yearn in secret for the narrow stupidities and contrarieties 
 of home ; yes, we would fain be again in the old chamber, sitting 
 behind the familiar stove, making for ourselves as it were a "cubby 
 house" near it, aud nestling there, read the " German General Adver- 
 tiser." So it was with me in my journey to England. Scarcely 
 had I lost sight of the German shore ere there awoke in me a curious 
 after-love for the German night-caps and forest-like wigs which I had 
 just left in discontent, and when the fatherland faded from my eyes 
 I found it again in my heart. 
 
 And therefore it may be that my voice quivered in a somewhat 
 lower key as I replied to the sallow man: "Dear sir — do not scold 
 the Germans !" If they are dreamers, still many of them have dreamed 
 
— 415 — 
 
 such beautiful • dreams, that I would hardly incline to change them 
 for the waking realities of our neighbors. Since we all sleep and 
 dream, we can perhaps dispense with freedom, for our tyrants also 
 sleep, and only dream their tyranny. We only awoke once ; when 
 the Catholic Romans robbed us of our dream freedom : then we 
 acted and conquered and laid us down again and dreamed. 0, sir ! 
 do not mock our dreamers, for now and theu they speak, like som- 
 nambulists, wondrous things in sleep, and their words become the 
 seeds of freedom. No one can foresee the turn which things may 
 take. The splenetic Briton, weary of his wife, may put a halter 
 round her neck and sell her in Smithfield. The flattering French- 
 man may perhaps be untrue to his beloved bride and abandon^her, 
 and singing, dance after the court dames (courlisanes) of his royal 
 palace (palais royal). But the German will never turn his old grand- 
 mother quite out of doors, he will always find a place for her by his 
 fire side, where she can tell his listening children, her legends. 
 Should freedom ever — which God forbid — vanish from the entire 
 world, a German dreamer would discover her again in his dreams." 
 
 While the steamboat, and with it our conversation, swam thus along 
 the stream, the sun had set and his last rays lit up the hospital at 
 Greenwich, an imposing palace-like building which in reality consists 
 of two wings, the space between which is empty, and a green hill 
 crowned with a pretty little tower, from which one can behold those 
 passing by. On the water, the throng of vessels became denser and 
 denser, and I wondered at the adroitness with which the larger 
 avoided contact. While passing many a sober and friendly face 
 nodded greetings — faces whom we had never seen before, and were 
 never to see again. We sometimes came so near, that it was possible 
 to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart swells at 
 the sight of so many swelling sails, and we feel strangely moved 
 when the confused hum and far off dancing-music, and the deep 
 voices of sailors resound from the shore. But the outlines of all 
 things vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening 
 mist, and there only remained visible a forest of masts, rising long 
 and bare above it. 
 
 The sallow man still stood near me and gazed reflectively on 
 high, as though he sought for the pale stars in the cloudy heaven. 
 And still gazing on high, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and 
 said in a tone as though secret thoughts involuntarily became 
 words — "Freedom and equality! they are not to be found on earth 
 below nor in heaven above. The stars on high are not alike, for one 
 
— 416 — 
 
 is greater and brighter than the other ; none of them wander free, all 
 obey a prescribed and iron-like law — there is slavery in heaven as on 
 earth. I" 
 
 "There is the Tower!" suddenly cried one of our travelling com- 
 panions, as he pointed to a high building which rose like a spectral 
 gloomy dream above the cloud-covered London. 
 
 2. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the 
 astonished spirit, I have seen it and am still astonished — and still 
 there remains fixed in my memory the stone forest of houses, and 
 amid them the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their 
 motley passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger and of 
 hatred — 1 mean London. 
 
 Send a philosopher to London but for your life, no poet! Send a 
 philosopher there, and stand him at a corner of Cheapside, where he 
 will learn more than from all the books of the last Leipzig fair; and 
 as the billows of human life roar around him, so will a sea of new 
 thoughts rise before him, and the Eternal Spirit which moves upon 
 the face of the waters will breathe upon him ; the most hidden 
 secrets of social harmony will be suddenly revealed to him, he will 
 hear the pulse of the world beat audibly, and see it visibly— for, if 
 London is the right hand of the world — its active mighty right hand 
 — then we may regard that route which leads from the Exchange to 
 Downing Street, as the world's pyloric artery. 
 
 But never send a poet to London ! This downright earnestness of 
 all things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this 
 troubled spirit in pleasure itself, this exaggerated London, smothers 
 the imagination and rends the heart. And should you ever send a 
 German poet thither— a dreamer, who stares at everything, even a 
 ragged beggar-woman, or the shining wares of a goldsmith's shop — 
 why, then, at least, he will find things going right badly with him, 
 and he will be hustled about on every side, or, perhaps, be knocked 
 over with a mild " God damn!"* God damn .'—damn the knocking 
 
 * The English or American reader has doubtless heard the expression, " God damn 
 it!" and also "Damnation I" but I am not aware that the interjection quoted by Heine 
 is used in our language. Popular opinion in A.nerica ascribes it exclusively to Geilnaus, 
 
— 417 — 
 
 about and pushing ! I see at a glance that these people have enough 
 to do. They live on a grand scale, and though food and clothes are 
 dearer with them than with us, they must still be better fed and 
 clothed than we are — as gentility requires. Moreover, they have enor- 
 mous debts, yet occasionally in a vain-glorious, mood they make ducks 
 and drakes of their guineas, pay other nations to box about for their 
 pleasure, give their kings a handsome douceur into the bargain — and, 
 therefore, John Bull must work to get the money for such expendi- 
 ture. By day and by night he must tax his brain to discover new 
 machines, and he sits and reckons in the sweat of his brow, and runs 
 and rushes without much looking around, from the Docks to the 
 Exchange, and from the Exchange to the Strand, and, therefore, it 
 is quite pardonable, if he, when a poor German poet, gazing into a 
 print-shop window, stands bolt in his way on the corner of Cheapside, 
 should knock the latter sideways with a rather rough f> God damn!" 
 
 But the picture at which I was gazing as I stood at Cheapside 
 corner, was that of the French crossing the Beresina. 
 
 And when I, jolted out of my gazing, looked again on the raging 
 street, where a parti-colored coil of men, women and children, horses, 
 stage-coaches, and with them a funeral, whirled groaning and creak- 
 ing along, it seemed to me as though all London were such a 
 Beresina Bridge where every one presses on in mad haste to save his 
 scrap of life, where the daring rider stamps down the poor pedes- 
 trian, where every one who falls is lost forever ; where the best 
 friends rush, without feeling, over each other's corpses, and where 
 thousands in the weakness of death, and bleeding, grasp in vain at 
 the planks of the bridge, and are shot down into the icy grave of death. 
 
 How much more pleasant and homelike it is in our dear Germany ! 
 With what dreaming comfort, in what Sabbath-like repose all glides 
 along here! Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses 
 shine in the quiet sunshine, swallows flit over the flag-stones, fat 
 court-councillor-esses smile from the windows, while along the echo- 
 ing streets there is room enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, 
 and for men to stand at ease and chat about the theatre, and bow 
 deeply— oh, how deeply ! — when some small aristocratic scamp or 
 vice scamp, with colored ribbons on his shabby coat, or some court- 
 marshal* struts along, as if in judgment, graciously returning salu- 
 tations ! 
 
 who have hut a limited familiarity with English. Many eminent French writers also 
 seem to labor under an erroneous impression, that a mysterious expletive written by 
 them '• Göddern I" or <: Qodam !" is used in English.— [Note by Translator.] 
 * Hofmarschalkchen 
 
— 418 — 
 
 I had made up my mind in advance, not to be astonished at that im- 
 mensity of London of which I had heard so much. But I had as little 
 success as the poor school-boy, who determined beforehand not to feel 
 the whipping which he was to receive. The facts of the case were, that 
 he expected to get the usual blows with the usual stick in the usual 
 way on the back, whereas he received a most unusually severe lick- 
 ing on an unusual place with a cutting switch. I anticipated great 
 palaces and saw nothing but mere small houses. But their very 
 uniformity aud their limitless extent impress the soul wonderfully. 
 
 These houses of brick, owing to the damp atmosphere and coal 
 smoke, are all of an uniform color, that is to say of a brown olive 
 green, and are all of the same style of building, generally two or three 
 windows wide, three stories high and finished above with small red 
 tiles, which remind one of newly extracted bleeding teeth, while the 
 broad and accurately squared streets which these houses form, seem 
 to be bordered by endlessly long barracks. This has its reason in 
 the fact that every English family, though it consist of only two per- 
 sons, must still have a house to itself for its own castle, and rich 
 speculators to meet the demand, build wholesale, entire streets of 
 these dwellings which they retail singly. In the principal streets of 
 the city where the business of London is most at home, where old 
 fashioned buildings are mingled with the new, and where the fronts 
 of the houses are covered with signs, yards in length, generally 
 gilt, and in relief, this characteristic uniformity is less striking — 
 the less so indeed because the eye of the stranger is incessantly 
 caught by the new and brilliant wares exposed for sale in the win- 
 dows. And these articles do not merely produce an effect, because 
 the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which he manu- 
 factures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp and 
 every boot, every tea kettle and every woman's dress, shines out so 
 invitingly and so "finished" There is also a peculiar charm in the 
 art of arrangement, in the contrast of colors, and in the variety of 
 the English shops ; even the most commonplace necessaries of life, 
 appear in a startling magic light through this artistic power of 
 setting forth everything to advantage. Ordinary articles of food 
 attract us by the new light in which they are placed, even uncooked 
 fish lie so delightfully dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales 
 attracts us ; raw meat lies, as if painted, on neat and many-colored 
 porcelain plates, garlanded about with parsley — yes everything seems 
 painted, reminding us of the highly polished yet modest pictures of 
 Franz Miekis. But the human beings whom we see are not so 
 
— 419 — 
 
 cheerful as in the Dutch paintings for they sell the jolliest wares 
 with the most serious faces, and the cut and color of their clothes is 
 as uniform as that of their houses. 
 
 On the opposite side of the town, which they call the "West End — 
 '•H'he west end of the town" — and where the more aristocratic and less 
 occupied world lives, the uniformity spoken of is still more domi- 
 nant; yet here there are very long and very broad streets where all 
 the houses are large as palaces, though anything but remarkable as 
 regards their exterior, unless we except the fact that in these, -as in 
 all the better class of houses in London, the windows of the first 
 etage (or second story) are adorned with iron barred balconies, and 
 also on the rcz de chaussie there is a black railing protecting the 
 entrance to certain subterranean apartments. In this part of the 
 city there are also great ''squares," where rows of houses like those 
 already described form a quadrangle, in whose centre, there is a 
 garden enclosed by an iron railing and containing some statue or 
 other. In all of these places and streets, the eye is never shocked 
 by the dilapidated huts of misery. Everywhere we are stared 
 down on by wealth and respectability, while crammed away in 
 retired lanes and dark damp alleys, poverty dwells with her rags 
 and her tears. 
 
 The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, 
 and does not chance right into the regular quarters of the multitude, 
 sees little or nothing of the fearful misery existing there. Only here 
 and there at the mouth of some dark alley stands a ragged woman 
 with a suckling babe at her weak breast, and begs with her eyes. 
 Perhaps if those eyes are still beautiful, we glance into them and 
 are shocked at the world of wretchedness visible within. The com- 
 mon beggars are old people, generally blacks, who stand at the 
 corners of the streets, cleaning pathways — a very necessary thing in 
 muddy London— and ask for " coppers" in reward. It is in the 
 dusky twilight that Poverty with her mates Yice and Crime glide 
 forth from their lairs. They shun daylight the more anxiously since 
 their wretchdness there contrasts more cruelly with the pride of 
 wealth which glitters everywhere, only Hunger sometimes drives 
 them at noon-day from their dens, and then they stand with silent, 
 speaking eyes, staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who hur- 
 ries along, busy and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who like a sur- 
 feited god rides by on his high horse, casting now and then an 
 aristocratically indifferent glance at the mob below, as though they 
 were swarming ants, or rather a mass of baser beings, whose joys 
 
— 420 — 
 
 and sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings. Yes — for 
 over the vulgar multitude which sticks fast to the soil, soar like 
 beings of a higher nature, England's nobility, to whom their little 
 island is only a temporary resting place, Italy their summer garden, 
 Paris their social saloon, and the whole world their inheritance. 
 They sweep along, knowing nothing of sorrow or suffering, and their 
 gold is a talisman which conjures into fulfilment their wildest wish. 
 
 Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be, where others 
 swell in scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with 
 indifferent hand a crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be 
 wherewith thou moistenest it ! Thou poisonest thyself with thine 
 own tears. Well art thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to 
 Vice and Crime. Outlawed criminals often bear more humanity in 
 their hearts than those cool, reproachless town burghers of virtue, 
 in whose white hearts, the power of evil it is true is quenched — but 
 with it, too, the power of good. I have seen women on whose cheeks 
 red vice was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. I 
 have seen women — I would that I saw them again ! 
 
 3. 
 
 THE ENGLISH. 
 
 Under the archways of the London Exchange, every nation hag 
 its allotted place, and on high tablets we read the names of 
 Russians, Spaniards, Swedes, Germans, Maltese, Jews, Hanseatics, 
 Turks, &c. Now, however, you would seek them there in vain, for 
 the men have been jostled away- — where Spaniards once stood Dutch- 
 men now stand, the citizens of Hansetowns have elbowed out the 
 Jews, Russians are now where Turks once were, Italians are on the 
 ground once held by Frenchmen — even the Germans have advanced 
 a little. 
 
 As in the London Exchange, so in the rest of the world the ancient 
 tablets have remained, and men have been moved away while other 
 people appear in their place, whose new heads agree very indifferently 
 with the old inscriptions. The old stereotyped characteristics of 
 races as we find them in learned compendiums and ale-houses, are 
 no longer profitable, and can only lead us into dreary errors. As we 
 during the last ten years have observed a striking change in the 
 character of our western neighbors just so has there been since the 
 
— 421 — 
 
 continent was thrown open, a corresponding metamorphosis on the 
 other side of the canal. Stiff, taciturn Englishmen go pilgrim-like 
 in hordes to France, there to learn to speak and move their limbs, 
 and on returning, we observe with amazement that their tongues are 
 loosened, they no longer have two left hands, and are no longer 
 contented with beef-steak and plum-puddings. I myself have seen 
 such an Englishman, who in Tavistock Tavern asked for some sugar 
 with his cauliflowers — a heresy against the stern laws of the English 
 cuisine, which nearly caused the waiter to fall flat on his back — for, 
 certainly, since the days of the Roman Invasion, cauliflower was 
 never cooked otherwise than by simply boiling in water, nor was it 
 ever eaten with sweet seasoning. It was the self-same Englishman, 
 who, although I had never seen him before, sat down opposite to me 
 and began to converse so genially in French, that I could not for my 
 life help telling him how delighted I was to meet, for once, an English- 
 man who was not reserved towards strangers, whereupon he, without 
 smiling, quite as candidly remarked that he merely talked with me 
 for the sake of practice in French. 
 
 It is amazing how the French, day by day, become more reflecting, 
 deeper and more serious, while the English on the other hand strive 
 to assume a light, superficial and cheerful manner; not merely in 
 life but in literature. The London presses are fully busied with 
 fashionable works, with romances which move in the glittering sphere 
 of "high life," or mirror it, as for instance, " Almacks," or " Vivian 
 Grey," " Tremaine," " The Guards," and " Flirtation." This last 
 romance bears a name which would be most appropriate for the 
 whole species, since it indicates that coquetry with foreign airs and 
 phrases, that clumsy refinement, that heavy bumping lightness, 
 that sour style of honied compliment, that ornamented coarseness, 
 in a word, the entire lifeless life of those wooden butterflies, who 
 flutter in the saloons of West London. 
 
 But, on the contrary, what a literature is at present offered us by 
 the French press — that real representative of French spirit and 
 volition ! When their great Emperor undertook in the leisure of his 
 captivity to dictate his life, to reveal the most secret solutions of the 
 enigmas of. his divine soul, and to change the rocks of St. Helena to 
 a chair of history, from whose height, his cotemporaries should be 
 judged, and latest posterity be taught, then the French themselves 
 begun to employ the days of their adversity and the period of their 
 political inactivity as profitably as possible. They also are now 
 writing the history of their deeds, the hands which once grasped the 
 
 36 
 
— 422 — 
 
 sword are again becoming a terror to their enemies by wielding the 
 pen, the whole nation is busied in publishing its memoirs, and if it 
 will follow my advice it will prepare a particular edition ad usum 
 Delphini, with nicely colored engravings of the taking of the Bastile, 
 and storming of the Tuileries. 
 
 If I have above remarked, that the English of the present day are 
 seeking to become light and frivolous, and endeavoring to creep into 
 the monkey's skin which the French are gradually stripping off, I 
 must also add that the tendency in question proceeds rather from 
 the nobility and gentry, or aristocratic world, than from the citizens. 
 On the contrary, the trading and working portion of the people, 
 especially the merchants in the manufacturing towns, and nearly all 
 the Scotch, bear the external marks of pietism — yes, I might almost 
 say of puritanism, so that this blessed portion of the people contrast 
 with the worldly-minded aristocrats, like the cavaliers and round- 
 heads, so truthfully set forth by Scott in his novels. Those readers 
 honor the Scottish bard too highly, who believe that his genius 
 imitated and penetrated the outer form and inner manner of feeling 
 of those two historical parties, and that it is an indication of his 
 poetic greatness7 that he, free from prejudice as a God in his judg- 
 ment, does justice to both, and treats them with equal love. Let 
 any one cast a glance into the prayer meetings of Liverpool or Man- 
 chester, and then into the fashionable saloons of the West End, and 
 he will plainly see that Walter Scott has simply described his own 
 times, and clothed forms which are altogether modern, in dresses of 
 the olden time. And if we remember that he himself from one side 
 as a Scotchman, sucked in by education and national influence a 
 Puritan spirit, while on the other side, as a tory who even regarded 
 himself as a scion of the Stuarts, he must have been right royally 
 and aristocratically inclined, and that therefore his feelings and 
 thoughts must have embraced either tendency with equal love, and 
 must also have been neutralised by their opposition, we can very 
 readily understand his impartiality in describing the democrats and 
 aristocrats of Cromwell's time, an impartiality which might well 
 lead us into error if we hoped to find in his History of Napoleon, 
 an equally " fair play" description of the heroes of the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 He who regards England attentively may now find daily opportu- 
 nities of observing those two tendencies, the frivolous and the puri- 
 tanic, in their most repulsive vigor, and with them of course their 
 mutual contest. Such an opportunity was recently manifested in 
 
— 423 — 
 
 the famous suit at law of Mr. Wakefield, a gay cavalier, who, in an 
 off-hand manner eloped with the daughter of the rich Mr. Turnfr, a 
 Liverpool merchant, and married her at Gretna Green, where a 
 blacksmith lives who forges the strongest sort of fetters. The 
 entire head-hanging community, the whole race of the elect of the 
 Lord screamed murder at such horrible conduct ; in the conventicles 
 of Liverpool the vengeance of Heaven was evoked on Wakefield 
 and his brother who assisted — they prayed that the earth's abyss 
 might swallow them as it once swallowed Korah, Dathan and 
 Abtragt, while to make celestial anger more certain, they bfoughl 
 the thunders of the King's Bench, of the Lord Chancellor, and even 
 of the Upper House to bear on this profaner of the holy sacra- 
 ment - while in the fashionable saloons people merely laughed 
 merrily and jested in the most liberal manner, at the bold damsel- 
 stealer. But the contrast of the two states of thought or feeling 
 was recently shown me in the most delightful manner, as I sat in the 
 grand opera near two fat Manchester ladies, who visited this rendez- 
 vous of the aristocratic world for the first time in their lives, and who 
 could not find words strong enough to express the utter detestation 
 and abhorrence which filled their hearts as the ballet began, and the 
 short-skirted beautiful dancing girls exhibited their lasciviously 
 graceful movements, and fell passionately, like burning Bacchantes, 
 into the arms of the male dancers who leaped towards them. The 
 inspiring music, the primitive clothing of flesh colored stockinet, the 
 bounds so like the exuberance of nature, all united to force the sweat 
 of agony from the poor ladies — their bosoms flushed with repugnance, 
 they continually heaved out in chorus " shocking ! for shame! for 
 shame!" and were so benumbed with horror, that they could not for 
 an instant take their opera-glasses from their eyes, and consequently 
 remained in that situation to the last instant when the curtain fell. 
 
 Despite these diametrically opposed tendencies of mind and of life, 
 we still find in the English people an unity in their way of thinking, 
 which comes from the very fact that they are always realizing that 
 they are a people by themselves ; the modern cavaliers and round- 
 heads may hate and despise one another mutually and as much as 
 they please, they do not for all that cease to be English ; as such 
 they are at union and together, like plants which have grown out of 
 the same soil, and are strangely interwoven with it. Hence the 
 secret unity of the entire life and activity and intercourse of England, 
 which at the first glance seems to us but a theatre of confusion and 
 of contradiction. Excessive wealth and misery, orthodoxy and infi- 
 
— 424 — 
 
 delity, freedom and serfdom, cruelty and mildness, honor and deceit; 
 all of these incongruities in their maddest extremes, over all a gray 
 misty heaven, on every side buzzing machines, reckoning, gas lights, 
 chimneys, pots of porter, closed mouths, all this hangs together in 
 such-wise, that we can hardly think of the one without the other, and 
 that which singly, really ought to excite our astonishment or laughter, 
 appears to be, when taken as a part of the whole, quite commonplace 
 and serious. 
 
 But I imagine that such would be the case everywhere, even in 
 countries of which we have much more eccentric conceptions, and 
 where we anticipate a much richer booty of merriment or amaze- 
 ment. Our earnest longing to travel, our desire to see foreign lands, 
 particularly as we feel it in early youth, generally results from an 
 erroneous anticipation of extraordinary contrasts, and from that 
 spiritual pleasure in masquerades, which makes us involuntarily 
 expect to find the men and manner of thought of our own home, and 
 to a certain degree pur nearest friends and acquaintances, dis- 
 guised in foreign dress and mauners. If we think for example of the 
 Hottentots, at once the ladies of our native town dance around in 
 our imaginations, but painted black and endowed with the proper a 
 posteriori developments, while our beaux esprits climb the palm-trees 
 as bush-beaters ; and if we think of the North-Polanders, we see 
 there also the well known faces, our aunt glides in her dog-sleigh 
 over the ice road, the dry Herr Conrector lies lazy on the bear skin, 
 and calmly sips his morning train-oil, Madame the inspector's wife, 
 Madame the tax gatherer's lady and Madame, the wife of the 
 Councillor of Infibulation gossip together and munch candles. But 
 when we are really in those countries we at once observe that 
 mankind has there grown up from infancy with its manners and 
 modes, that people's faces harmonise with their thoughts and needs — 
 yes that plants, animals, human beings and the land itself form a 
 harmonious whole. 
 
 4. 
 
 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 BY WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Poor Walter Scott ! Hadst thou been rich thou would'st not 
 have written that book, and so had'st not become a poor Walter 
 
— 425 — 
 
 Scott ! But the trustees of the Constable estate met together, and 
 reckoned up and ciphered, and after much subtraction and division, 
 shook their heads and there remained for poor Walter Scott nothing 
 but laurels and debts. Then the most extraordinary of all came to 
 pass ; the singer of great deeds wished for once to try his hand at 
 heroism, he made up his mind to a cessio bonorum, the laurels of the 
 great unknown were taxed to cover great and well-known debts — 
 and so there came to life in hungry haste, in bankrupt inspiration, 
 the Life of Napoleon, a book to be roundly paid for by the wants 
 of the English people in general, and of the English ministry in 
 particular. 
 
 Praise him, the brave citizen ! praise him ye united Philistines of 
 all the earth ! praise him thou beautiful shopkeeper's virtue which 
 sacrificest everything to meet a note on the day when it is due — only 
 do not ask of me that I praise him too ! 
 
 Strange ! the dead emperor is even in his grave, the bane of the 
 Britons, and through him, Britannia's greatest poet has lost his 
 laurels ! 
 
 He was Britannia's greatest poet, let people say and imagine what 
 they will. It is true that the critics of his romances carped and 
 cavilled at his greatness, and reproached him, that he assumed too 
 much breadth in execution, that he went too much into details, that 
 his great characters were only formed by the combination of a mass 
 of minor traits, that he required an endless array of accessories to 
 bring out his bold effects — but to tell the truth, he resembled in all 
 this a millionaire, who keeps his whole property in the f irm of small 
 specie, and who must drive up three or four wagons lull of sacks of 
 pence and farthings when he has a large sum to pay. Should any 
 one complain of the ill-manners of such a style of liquidation with its 
 attendant troubles of heavy lifting and hauling, and endless counting, 
 he can reply with perfect truth, that no matter how he gives the 
 money, he still gives it, and that he is in reality just as well able to 
 pay, and quite as rich as another who owns nothing but bullion in 
 bars, yes, that he even has an advantage greater than that of mere 
 facility of transport, since in the vegetable market gold bars are 
 useless, while every huckster woman will grab with both hands at 
 pence and farthings when they are offered her. Now, all this popular 
 wealth of the British poet is at an end, and he, whose change was so 
 current that the Duchess and the cobbler's wife received it with the 
 same interest has now become a poor Walter Scott. His destiny 
 recalls the legend of the mountain elves, who, mockingly benevolent, 
 
 36* 
 
— 426 — 
 
 gave money to poor people which was bright and profitable so long 
 as they spent it wisely, but which turned to mere dust when applied 
 to unworthy purposes. Sack by sack we opened Walter Scott's 
 new load — and lo ! instead of gleaming smiling pence there was 
 nothing but idle dust, and dust again ! He was justly punished by 
 those mountain elves of Parnassus, the Muses, who like all noble- 
 minded women are enthusiastic Napoleonists, and who were conse- 
 quently doubly enraged at the misuse of the spirit treasure which 
 had been loaned. 
 
 The value and tendency of this work of Scott's have been shown 
 up in the journals of all Europe. Not only the embittered French, 
 but also the astonished fellow countrymen of the author have uttered 
 sentence of condemnation against it. In such a world-wide discon- 
 tent the Germans must also have their share, and therefore the 
 Stuttgard Literary Journal* spoke out with a fiery zeal, difficult to 
 restrain within due limit, while the Berlin Annuals of Scientific 
 Criticism,^ expressed itself in tones of cold tranquillity, and the 
 critic who was the more readily swayed by that tranquillity, the less 
 he admired the hero of the book, characterises it with these admirably 
 appropriate words. 
 
 " In this narration we find neither substance nor color, harmony 
 nor life. The mighty subject drags heavily along, entangled in 
 superficial, not in profound perplexities, uncertain and changeable 
 without any manifestation of the characteristic; no leading principle 
 strikes us in its affected singularity, its violent points are nowhere 
 visible, its connection is merely external, its subject matter and sig- 
 nificance are hardly appreciable. In such a manner of portrayal all 
 the light of history must be quenched, and itself be reduced to, not 
 wonderful, but common-place stories. The unnecessary remarks 
 and reflections which often intrude themselves on the subject under 
 consideration are of a corresponding description. Such a watery 
 transparent preparation has long been out of date in our reading 
 world. The scanty pattern of a moral, applicable only to certain 
 particulars is unsatisfactory. " 
 
 I would willingly pardon poor Scott for such and even worse 
 things to which the sharp witted, Berlin reviewer, Yarnhagen von 
 Ense gives utterance. We are all mortal and the best of us may 
 once in a while write a bad book. People then say that the thing 
 is below criticism and, that ends the matter. But it is really extra- 
 
 * Stuttgarter Literaturblatt 
 
 |- Berliner Jahrbücher fur wissenschaftliche Critik. 
 
— 427 — 
 
 ordinary that in this new work we do not find a trace of Scott's 
 beautiful style. The colorless commonplace strain is spriukled in vain 
 with sundry red, green, and blue words, in vain do glittering patches 
 from the poets cover the prosaic nakedness, in vain does the authoi 
 rob all Noah's ark to find bestial comparisons, and in vain is the 
 word of G-OD itself cited to heighten the color of stupid thoughts. 
 Stranger still is it that Walter Scott has not here succeeded in a 
 single effort to bring into play his inborn talent of sketching charac- 
 ters, and of catching the traits of the outer Napoleon. Walter 
 Scott learned nothing from those beautiful pictures which represent 
 Napoleon surrounded by his generals and statesmen, though every 
 one who regards them without prejudice, must be deeply moved by 
 the tragic tranquillity and antique severity of those features, which 
 contrast in such fearful sublimity with the modern, excitable, pictur- 
 esque faces of the day, and which seem to announce something of the 
 incarnate God. But if the Scottish poet could not comprehend the 
 form, how much less capable must he have been of grasping the 
 character of the Emperor, and I therefore willingly pardon his blas- 
 phemy of a divinity whom he never knew. And I must also forgive 
 him that he regards his Wellington as a god, and in deifying 
 him, falls into such excessive manifestations of piety, that, rich as 
 he is in figures of beasts, he knows not wherewith to compare him. 
 
 But if I am tolerant towards Walter Scott, and forgive him the 
 emptiness, errors, slanders and stupid things in his book — nay, if I 
 even pardon him the weariness and ennui which its reading caused 
 me — I cannot for all that forgive him its tendency. This is nothing 
 less than the exculpation of the English Ministry as regards the 
 crime of St. Helena. " In this case of equity between the English 
 Ministry and public opinion," as the Berlin reviewer expresses it, 
 "Walter Scott makes himself judge of its merits," he couples legal 
 quibblings with his poetic talent, in order to distort both facts and 
 history, and his clients, who are at the same time his patrons, may 
 well afford, beside the regular fees, to privately press an extra douceur 
 into his hand. 
 
 The English have merely murdered the Emperor — but Walter 
 Scott sold him. It was a real Scotch trick, a regular specimen of 
 Scottish national manners, and we see that Scotch avarice is still the 
 same old dirty spirit as ever, and has not changed much since the 
 days of Naseby, when the Scotch sold their own king, who had 
 confided himself to their protection, for the sum of four hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling. That king was the same Charles 
 
— 428 — 
 
 Stuart, whom the bards of Caledonia now sing so gloriously — the 
 Englishman murders, but the Scotchman sells and sings. 
 
 The English Ministry, to aid in the work, threw open the archives 
 of the Foreign Office to their advocate, and he has, in the ninth 
 volume of his work, scrupulously availed himself of every official 
 document which could throw an advantageous light upon his own 
 side, and a corresponding darkness upon that of his enemies. On 
 this account, the ninth volume in question, still possesses a peculiar 
 interest, despite all its aesthetic worthlessness, in which it is in no 
 respect behind its predecessors. We expect in it important public 
 papers, and since we find none, it is a proof that there were noue in 
 existence which spoke in favor of the English ministers, — and this 
 negative content of the book is an important result. 
 
 All the booty thus obtained from the English archives was limited 
 to a few credible documents from the noble Sir Hudson Lowe and 
 his myrmidons, and a few verbal expressions of General Gourgaud, 
 who, if he really uttered them, deserves to be regarded as a shame- 
 less traitor to his imperial master and benefactor. I will not inquire 
 into the authenticity of these expressions ; it even seems to be true 
 that Baron Turner, one of the three mute supernumeraries of the 
 great tragedy, has borne witness to them ; but I do not see to what 
 favorable result they lead, save that Sir Hudson Lowe was not the 
 only blackguard in St. Helena. With such assistance, and with 
 pitiable suggestions of his own, Walter Scott treats the history of 
 the imprisonment of Napoleon, and labors to convince us that the 
 ex-Emperor — so the ex-poet terms him — could not have acted more 
 wisely than to yield himself to the English, although he must have 
 foreseen his banishment to St. Helena, and that he was there treated 
 in the most charming manner, since he had plenty to eat and to 
 drink ; and that he, finally, fresh and sound, and as a good Christian, 
 died of a cancer in his stomach. 
 
 Walter Scott, by thus admitting, to a certain degree, that the 
 Emperor foresaw how far the generosity of the English would extend, 
 viz., to St. Helena, frees him at least from the common reproach : 
 the tragic sublimity of his ill fortune so greatly inspired him, that he- 
 regarded civilized Englishmen as Persian barbarians, and looked upon 
 the beef-steak kitchen of St. James' as the fire-side of a great mon- 
 arch — and so committed a heroic blunder. Sir Walter Scott also 
 makes of the Emperor the greatest poet who ever lived, since he 
 very seriously insinuates that all the memorable writings which set 
 forth his sufferings in St. Helena, were collectively dictated by himself. 
 
— 429 — 
 
 I cannot here refrain from the remark, that this part of "Walter 
 Scott's book, with the writings themselves of which he speaks, 
 especially the memoirs of O'Meara and the narrative of Captain 
 Maitland, remind me sometimes so pointedly of the drollest story 
 in the world, that the bitterest vexation of my soul suddenly bursts 
 out into merry laughter. And the story of which I speak is none 
 other than the History of Lemuel Gulliver, a book over which I, as a 
 boy, once had rare times, and in which much that is exquisitely 
 delightful may be read : how the little Lilliputians could not conceive 
 what was to be done with their great prisoner ; how they climbed 
 upon him by thousands, and bound him down with innumerable fine 
 hairs ; how they, with preparations on a grand scale, built for him a 
 great house, all to himself; how they bewailed the vast amount of 
 victuals with which they must daily provide him ; how they con- 
 tinually blackened his character in the State Council, always grieving 
 that he was too great a cost to the country ; how they would gladly 
 have destroyed him, but feared lest in death his corpse might bring 
 forth a pestilence ; how they finally made up their minds to be most 
 gloriously magnanimous and leave him his titles, only putting out his 
 eyes, &c. Truly, Lilliput is everywhere where a great man is sub- 
 jected to little ones, who torment him incessantly, in the most piti- 
 fully petty manner, and who in turn endure from him great suffering 
 and dire extremity, — but had Dean Swift written his book in our 
 day, the world would have seen, in his brilliantly polished mirror, only 
 the history of the imprisonment of the Emperor, and have recognized 
 even in the very color of the coats and countenances, those dwarfs 
 who tormented him. 
 
 Only the conclusion of the story of St. Helena is somewhat dif- 
 ferent, for in it the Emperor dies of a cancer in the stomach, and 
 Walter Scott assures us that it was the sole cause of his death. In 
 this I will not contradict him. The thing is not impossible. It is 
 possible that a man who lies stretched on the rack may suddenly, and 
 very naturally, die of an apoplexy. But the wicked world will say 
 that the tormentor was the cause of his death. And the wicked 
 world has taken it into its head to regard the affair in question in a 
 very different light from our good Walter Scott. If this good man, 
 who is in other respects so firm in his Bible, and who so readily quotes 
 the gospel, sees in that uproar of elements and in that hurricane 
 which burst forth at the death of Napoleon, nothing but an event 
 which also took place at the death of Cromwell, the world will still 
 have its own peculiar thoughts regarding it. It regards the death 
 
— 430 — 
 
 of Napoleon as a most terrible, tremendous and revolting crime, 
 and its wild burst of agonized feeling becomes adoration. In vain 
 does Walter Scott play the advocator* diaboli — the canonization 
 of the dead Emperor flows from every noble heart ; every noble heart 
 of the great European fatherland despises his petty executioners, and 
 with them the great bard who has sung himself into being their 
 accomplice. The Muses will yet inspire better singers in honor of 
 their favorite ; and should men be dumb, then the stones will speak, 
 and the martyr-cliffs of St. Helena will rise fearfully from the waves 
 of the sea, and tell to thousands of years their terrible story. 
 
 OLD BAILEY. 
 
 The very name of " Old Bailey" sends a shudder through the soul. 
 We at once think of a great, black, repulsive building — the palace 
 of misery and of crime. The left wing, which forms the real New- 
 gate, serves as a prison for criminals. In it we see nothing but a high 
 wall of square, weather-blackened stones, in which are two niches, with 
 equally black, allegorical figures, one of which, unless I err, repre- 
 sents Justice, whose right hand, with the scales, is, as usual, broken 
 off, so that nothing remains but a blind female figure with a sword. 
 Not far off, and about the centre of the building, is the altar of this 
 goddess, that is to say, the window by which the gallows is erected, 
 and finally, to the right is the Criminal Court, where the quarter 
 sessions are held. Here is a gate which, like that of Dante's Hell, 
 should bear the inscription : 
 
 " Per me si va ne la citta dolente, 
 Per me si va ne l'eterno dolore, 
 Per me si va tra la perduta gente." 
 
 Through this gate we come to a small court, where the scum of the 
 people assemble to see criminals pass, and here their friends and ene- 
 mies also assemble — relations, beggar-children, weak-minded people, 
 and especially old women, who discuss the criminal cases of the day 
 perhaps, with more insight into their merits than judge and jury pos- 
 sess, despite the time so pleasanlty passed in ceremonies, or so drearily 
 lost in law. Why, I have seen, outside the court door, an old woman 
 who, amid her gossips, defended poor Black William better than his 
 
— 431 — 
 
 very learned counsel did within — and as she wiped away her last tear 
 with a ragged apron, it seemed to me that with it vanished the last 
 trace of William's guilt. 
 
 In the court-room itself, which is not very large, there is below — 
 beyond the so-called " bar," — little room for the public, but in the 
 upper portion there are, on both sides, very spacious galleries, with 
 raised benches, where the spectators stand, their heads appearing as 
 if piled in rows, step above step. 
 
 When I visited Old Bailey, I obtained a place in one of these 
 galleries, for which I gave the old porteress a shilling. I arrived just 
 at the instant in which the jury were about to determine whether 
 Black William was guilty or not guilty of the accusation. 
 
 Here, as in other courts of justice in London, the judges sit in 
 blue-black togas, which are trimmed with light blue violet, and wear 
 white powdered wigs with which black eyes and whiskers, frequently 
 contrast in the drollest manner. They sit around a long green table 
 on high chairs at the upper end of the hall, just where a Scripture 
 text, warning against unjust judgments, is placed before their eyes. 
 On either side are benches for the jurymen, and places where the 
 prosecutors and witnesses stand. Directly opposite the judges, is the 
 place for the accused, which latter do not sit on "the poor sinners' 
 bench" as in the criminal courts of France and Rhenish Germany, 
 but must stand upright behind a singular plank, which is carved 
 above like a narrow arched gate. In this an optic mirror is placed, 
 by means of which the judge is enabled to accurately observe the 
 countenance of the accused. Before the latter, certain green leaves 
 or herbs are placed to strengthen their nerves — and it may be that 
 this is sometimes necessary, when a man is in danger of losing his 
 life. On the judges' table I saw similar green leaves, and even a 
 rose. I know not why it was, but the sight of that rose affected me 
 strangely. A red blooming rose, the flower of love and of spring, 
 upon the terrible judges' table of the Old Bailey ! It was close, 
 gloomy and sultry in the hall. Everything seemed so fearfully vexa- 
 tious, so insanely serious ! the people present looked as though 
 spiders were creeping over their shy and fearful faces. The iron 
 scales rattled audibly over the head of poor Black William. 
 
 A jury had also formed itself in the gallery. A fat woman, above 
 whose red bloated cheeks two little eyes glittered like glow worms, 
 made the remark, that Black William was a very good-looking 
 fellow. But her neighbor, a delicate piping soul in a body of bad 
 post-paper, declared that he wore his black hair too long and matted, 
 
— 432 — 
 
 and that his eyes gleamed like those of Kean in Othello, "while on 
 the other hand," she continued, " Thompson is a very different sort 
 of a person mem, I assure you, with light hair and very well edecated 
 person too, mem — for he plays the flute a little, and paints a little, 
 and speaks French a little" — " And steals a little too — hey?*' — added 
 the fat woman. " Fiddlesticks on stealing !" replied the lean 
 body — " that is'nt half so bad, mem, as forgery, you know ; for a 
 thief, if he's stolen nothing but a sheep, gets Botany Bay for it, 
 but if a man counterfeits somebody's hand — why he hangs for it. 
 mem — as sure as fate, without pity or mercy." "Without pity or 
 mercy !" sighed a half-starved mau in a widower looking black coat. 
 " Hang! — why, why no man has a right to put another to death, and 
 Christians ought to be the last to think of it, for they ought to 
 remember that Christ our Lord and Saviour, who gave ns our 
 religion, was innocent when he was tried and executed!" "Pshaw!" 
 cried the lean woman, and smiled with her thin lips — " if they did'nt 
 hang such a forger, no rich man would ever be sure of his money, for 
 instance, the fat Jew in Lombard street, Saint Swithin's lane, or our 
 friend Mr. Scott whose writing was imitated so well. And then Mr. 
 Scott has worked so hard to get his money — trouble enough mem, 
 I assure you — and folks do say that he got rich by taking other 
 peoples' diseases on himself. Yes, mem, they say the very children 
 run after him in the street, and cry ' I'll give ye six pence if you'll 
 take my toothache !' or • we'll give ye a shilling, if you'll take Jim- 
 my's hump-back !' " u Well ! — that's odd !" interrupted the fat 
 woman. " And it's odd too, that Black William and Thompson 
 used to be such cronies together, and lived and ate and drank 
 together, and now, James Thompson accuses his old friend of forgery 1 
 But why isu't Thompson's sister here ? — why she used to be a-run- 
 ning everywhere after her sweet William." A pretty girl, on whose 
 lovely face lay a deep expression of grief, like a dark veil over a 
 rose bouquet, here whispered with tears, a long sad story, of which I 
 could only understand that her friend, the pretty Mary, had been 
 cruelly beaten by her brother, and lay sick to death in her bed. 
 " Pshaw !" — don't call her ' pretty Mary,' grumbled the fat woman, 
 discontentedly, " she's too slim, too much like a stick, to be called 
 pretty, and if her AVilliam is hung — " 
 
 Just at this instant the jury appeared, and declared that the 
 accused was guilty of forgery. As Black William was led from the 
 hall, he cast a long, long glance upon Edward Thompson. 
 
 There is an eastern legend that Satan was ouce an angel, and 
 
— 433 — - 
 
 lived in heaven with other angels, until he sought to seduce them 
 from their allegiance, and therefore, he was thrust down by Divinity, 
 into the endless night of hell. But as he sank from heaven, he 
 looked ever on high, ever at the angel who accused him ; the deeper 
 he sank, more terrible and yet more terrible became his gaze. And 
 it must have been a fearful glance, for the angel whom it met became 
 pale — red was never again seen in his cheeks, and since that time he 
 has been called the Angel of Death. 
 
 Pale as that Angel of Death, grew Edward Thompson. 
 
 6. 
 
 THE NEW MINISTRY. 
 
 Last summer, I made in Bedlam the acquaintance of a philoso- 
 pher, who, with mysterious looks and whispers, communicated to me 
 many weighty conclusions as to the origin of evil. Like many of his 
 colleagues, he held the opinion that it involved a history. So far as 
 I was concerned, I also assented to what he assumed and declared, 
 that the fundamental evil of the world arose from the fact that the 
 blessed Lord had not created money enough. 
 
 " You're right," replied the philosopher : " the blessed Lord was 
 uncommongly short of funds, when he created the world. He had to 
 borrow money of the devil, and mortgage the world to him as a 
 pledge. But as the Lord, according to every law of God and of 
 justice is still in debt to him for the world; common politeness of 
 course hindered him from preventing his creditor going about in the 
 property, and making all sorts of trouble and mischief. But the 
 Devil for his part, is deeply interested in the preservation of the 
 world, lest he lose his pledge, so that he takes good care that things 
 do not go altogether to the devil, and the blessed Lord who is not 
 stupid by any means, and who knows very well that he has his secret 
 guarantee in the Devil's selfishness, often goes so far as to give over 
 the whole government of the world to old Nick — that is to say, tells 
 him to form a ministry. Then, as a matter of course, Samiel takes 
 command of the armies of hell, Beelzebub becomes Chancellor, 
 Yitzliputzli is Secretary of State, the old grandmother gets the 
 colonies, and so forth. These allies then carry oa business according 
 {. ) their own evil will, but as their own interests compel them to take 
 
 3? 
 
— 434 — 
 
 good care of the world, they make up for this necessity, by always 
 employing the vilest means to bring about their good aims. L 'y, 
 they carried this to such an extent that God in Heaven could no 
 longer endure their rascality, and commissioned an angel to form a 
 new ministry. He, of course gathered about him all the good spirits. 
 A pleasant joyful heat again ran through the world, there was light, 
 and the evil spirits vanished. But they did not quietly fold their 
 claws and kick their hoofs in idleness — no, they went to work in 
 secret against all that was good, they poisoned the new springs of 
 health, they spitefully snapped every rose-bud of the fresh spring, 
 they disturbed the tree of life with their amendments, a chaotic 
 destruction threatened everything, and the blessed Lord will have 
 after all to hand things ovar to the Devil, so that he, even by employ- 
 ing bad means, may at least keep things together. Just see, all that 
 is the evil result of a debt." 
 
 This theory of my Bedlamite friend possibly explains the present 
 change in the English ministry. The friends of Canning are now 
 subdued — those friends, whom I call the good spirits of England, be- 
 cause their opponents are devils, and, Avith the dumb devil, Welling- 
 ton, at their head, now raise their cry of victory. Let no one scold 
 poor George — he has been compelled to yield to circumstances. No 
 one can deny that after Canning's death the Whigs were no longer 
 in condition to maintain peace in England, since the measures, which 
 they were in consequence obliged to adopt, were constantly nullified 
 by the Tories. The king, to whom the maintenance of public tran- 
 quillity — i. c, the security of his crown— seemed the principal thing, 
 was therefore obliged to transfer the government to the Tories. And 
 oh! they will now again, as of old, govern all the fruits of the peo- 
 ple's industry into their own pockets ; like reigning corn-market Jews, 
 they will be bulls themselves, and raise the price of bread-stuffs, 
 while poor John Bull becomes lean with hunger, and finally must sell 
 himself with body-service to the high gentlemen. And then they 
 will yoke him to the plough, and lash him, and he will not so much 
 as dare to low, for on one side the Puke of Wellington will threaten 
 with the sword, and on the other the Archbishop of Canterbury will 
 bang him on the head with the Bible — and there will be peace in the 
 land. 
 
 The source of all the evil is the debt, the "national debt," or, a* 
 Cobbet says, "the king's debt." Cobbet remarks on this, and justly 
 that while the name of the king is prefixed to all institutes, as foi 
 instance, "the king's army," "the king's navy," "the king's courts,* 
 
— 435 — 
 
 "the king's prisons," &c., the debt, which really sprang from these 
 institutions, is never called the king's debt, and that it is the only 
 case in which the nation has been so much honored as to have any- 
 thing called after it. 
 
 The greatest evil is the debt. It cannot be denied that it upholds 
 the English state, and that so firmly that the worst of devils cannot 
 break it down; but it has also resulted in making of all England one 
 vast tread-mill, where the people must work day and night to fatten 
 their creditors. It has made England old and gray with the cares 
 of payment, and banished from her every cheerful and youthful feel- 
 ing, and finally — as is the case with all deeply indebted men — has 
 bowed the country down into the most abject resignation — though 
 nine hundred thousand muskets, and as many sabres and bayonets, 
 lie in the Tower of London. 
 
 THE DEBT. 
 
 When I was a boy, there were three things which especially inte- 
 rested me in the newspapers. I first of all was accustomed to seek 
 under the head, " Great Britain," whether Richard Martin had not 
 presented a fresh petition to Parliament for the more humane treat- 
 ment of poor horses, dogs and asses. Then under " Frankfort," 
 I looked to see whether Dr. Schreiber had addressed the Diet on the 
 subject of the Grand-Ducal purchasers of Hessian domains. Then 
 I at once attacked "Turkey," and read through the long Constanti- 
 nople, merely to find if a Grand Vizier had not been honored with 
 the silken noose. 
 
 This last subject always supplied me with the most copious food 
 for reflection. That a despot should strangle his servants without 
 ceremony, seemed to me to be natural enough ; for I had once seen, 
 in a menagerie, how the king of beasts fell into such a majestic rage, 
 that he would, beyond question, have torn to pieces many an innocent 
 spectator, had he not been caged in a secure constitution of iron 
 bars. But what really astonished me was, that after the strangula- 
 tion of the old Mr. Grand Vizier, there was always a new one willing 
 to become Grand Vizier in turn. 
 
 Now that I am older grown, and busy myself more with the Eng- 
 
— 436 — 
 
 lish than with their friends, the Turks; a like amazement seizes me, 
 when I see how, after the resignation of a prime-minister, another 
 at once forces himself into his place, although the new one is always 
 a man who has wherewithal to live, and who (with the exception of 
 Wellington) is anything but a blockhead. This has been especially 
 the case since the French Revolution ; care and trouble have multi- 
 plied themselves in Downing Street, and the burden of business is 
 well nigh unbearable. 
 
 Affairs of state, and their manifold relations, were much simpler 
 in the olden time, when reflecting poets compared the government to 
 a ship, and the minister to a steersman. Now, however, all is more 
 complicated and entangled ; the common ship of state has become a 
 steamboat, and the minister no longer has a mere helm to control, 
 but must, as responsible engineer, take his place below, amid the 
 immense machinery, and anxiously examine every little iron rivet, 
 every wheel which could cause a stoppage — must look by day and by- 
 night into the blazing fire, and sweat with heat and vexation, since, 
 through the slightest carelessness on his part, the boiler might burst 
 and vessel and passengers be lost. Meanwhile, the captain and pas- 
 sengers walk calmly on the deck — as calmly flutters the flag from its 
 staff ; and he who sees the boat gliding so pleasantly along, never 
 thinks of the terrible machinery, or of the care and trouble hidden 
 in its bowels. 
 
 They sink down to early graves, those poor, responsible engineers 
 of the English ship of state ! The early death of the great Pitt is 
 touching ; still more so that of the yet greater Fox. Percival 
 would have died of the usual ministerial malady, had he not been 
 more promptly made away with by a stab from a dirk. It was the 
 ministerial malady, too, w r hich brought Castlereagh to such a state 
 of desperation that he cut his throat at North Cray, in the county 
 of Kent. We saw the god-like Canning poisoned by High-Tory 
 slanders, and sink like a sick Atlas under his w r orld-burden. One 
 after the other, they are interred in Westminster, those poor minis- 
 ters, who must think day and night for England's kings, while the 
 latter, thoughtless and in good condition, have lived along to the 
 greatest age of man. 
 
 But what is the name of the great care, which preys by night and 
 by day on the brains of the English ministers, and kills them? It 
 is — the debt, the debt ! 
 
 Debts, like patriotism, religion, honor, &c, belong it is true to the 
 special distinctions of the humanity — for animals do not contract 
 
— 437 — 
 
 debts — but they are also a special torment to mankind, and as they 
 ruin individuals, so do they also bring entire races to destruction, 
 and appear to replace the old destiny, in the national tragedies of 
 our day. And Eugland cannot escape this destiny, her ministers see 
 the dire catastrophe approach, and die in the swoon of despair. 
 
 Were I the royal Prussian head calculator, or a member of the 
 corps of geniuses, then would I reckon in the usual manner, the 
 entire sum of the English debt in silver groschen, and tell you pre- 
 cisely, how many times we could cover with them, the great Frederic 
 street or the entire earth. But figures were never ray forte, and I 
 had rather leave to an Englishman, the desperate business of counting 
 his debts, and of calculating from them, the resulting ministerial 
 crisis. For this business, no one is better than old (Jobbet, and I 
 accordingly communicate the following conclusions, from the last, 
 number of his Register. 
 
 * " The condition of things, is as follows : 
 
 1. — "This government, or rather this aristocracy and church; but 
 if you will have it so, this government, borrowed a large sum of 
 money, for which it has purchased many victories, both by land and 
 sea — a mass of victories of every sort and size. 
 
 2. — "I must however remark by the way, on what occasions, and 
 for what purposes, these victories were bought; the occasion was 
 that of the French revolution, which destroyed all aristocratic 
 privileges and clerical tithes ; while the object, was the prevention of 
 a parliamentary reform in Eugland, which would probably have had 
 as its consequence, a similar destruction of all aristocratic privileges 
 and clerical tithes. 
 
 3. — "To prevent the example set by the French, from being fol- 
 lowed by the English, it was necessary to attack the French, to 
 impede their progress, to render dangerous their newly obtained 
 freedom, to drive them to desperate acts, and finally, to make such a 
 scare-crow and bug-bear of the revolution, to the people that the very 
 name of liberty should suggest nothing but an aggregate of wicked- 
 ness, cruelty and blood, while the English people in the excitement 
 
 * I have preferred, for reasons which will be intelligible to those who are desirous of 
 closely following Heine's conceptions, to give an accurate version of his translation, 
 rather than the original. The point in question is not Cobbet, but Cobbet as Heine 
 understood him. To use Cobbet's own words in reference to one of his own versions as 
 given in the very Register referred to, I can say with truth that "as to the translation, 
 it was origiii illy done at Philadelphia." though I trust it will not be found as Cobhet 
 admits of himself, that " the translator has made some addition to the authorities 
 referred to." — [Xote by Translator.] 
 
— 438 — 
 
 of their terror, should go so far, as to fairly fall in love with the same 
 despotic government which once flourished in France, and which 
 every Englishman has abhorred from the days of Alfred the Great 
 down to those of George the Third. 
 
 4. — "To execute these intentions, the aid of divers foreign nations 
 was needed, and these nations were consequently subsidized with 
 English gold ; French emigrants were sustained with English money ; 
 in short, a war of twenty-two years was carried on, to subdue that 
 people which had risen up against aristocratic privileges and clerical 
 tithes. 
 
 5. — "Our government therefore, gained 'numberless victories' 
 over the French, who, as it seems were always conquered ; but these, 
 our numberless victories, were bought, that is to say, they were 
 fought by mercenaries, whom we hired for this purpose, and we had 
 in uur pay at one and the same time, whole swarms of Frenchmen, 
 Dutchmen, Swiss, Italians, Russians, Austriaus, Bavarians, Hessians, 
 Hanoverians, Prussians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Neapolitans, Maltese, 
 and God knows how many nations besides. 
 
 6. — " By thus seeking foreign service, and by using our own fleet 
 and armies, we bought so many victories over the French, (the poor 
 devils being without money to do business in like manner,) that we 
 finally subdued their revolution, and restored their aristocracy to a 
 certain degree, although all that could be done, was of no avail to 
 restore the clerical tithes. 
 
 7. — "After we had successfully finished this great task, and had 
 also by means of it, put down every Parliamentary reform in Eng- 
 land ; our government raised a roar o£ victory which strained their 
 lungs not a little, and which was sustained as loudly as possible, by 
 every creature in this country, who in one way or another, lived by 
 public taxes. 
 
 8. — "This excessive intoxication of delight, lasted nearly two years 
 in this once so happy nation ; to celebrate our victories, they heaped 
 together public feasts, theatrical shows, arches of triumph, mock 
 battles, and similar pleasures, which cost more than a quarter of a 
 million pounds sterling, and the House of Commons, unanimously 
 voted a vast sum, (I believe three million pounds sterling) to erect 
 triumphal arches, and other monuments to commemorate the glorious 
 events of the war. 
 
 9. — " Since the time of which I speak, we have constantly had the 
 fortune to live under the government of the same persons who con- 
 ducted our affairs during the aforesaid glorious war. 
 
— 439 — 
 
 10. — " Since that time we have been at profound peace with all the 
 world; we may indeed assume that such is still the case, despite our 
 little difficulty with the Turks ; and therefore one might suppose that 
 there is no reason in the world, why we should not now be happy : we 
 are at peace, our soil brings forth its fruits abundantly, and as the 
 philosophers and lawgivers of our time declare, we are the most en- 
 lightened nation on the face of the earth, We really have schools 
 everywhere, to instruct the rising generation ; we have not merely a 
 rector, or vicar, or curate in every diocese in the kingdom, but we 
 also have in each of these dioceses, perhaps six more teachers of 
 religion, of which each is of a different kind from his four colleagues, 
 so that our country is abundantly supplied with instruction of every 
 kind, in order that no human being of all this happy land shall live 
 in ignorance — and consequently our astonishment must be all the 
 greater that any one who will become Prime Minister of this happy 
 land, should regard the office as such a heavy and painful burden. 
 
 11. — "Alas! we have one misfortune, and it is a real misfortune, 
 viz., we have bought several victories — they were splendid and we 
 got them at a bargain — they were worth three or four times as much 
 as we gave for them, as Lady Teazle says to her husband, when she 
 comes home from buying — there was much inquiry and a great 
 demand for victories ; in short we could have done nothing more 
 reasonable than to supply ourselves at such cheap rates with so 
 great a quantity of reputation. 
 
 12. — " But, I confess it with a heavy heart, we have, like many 
 other people, borrowed the money with which we bought these vic- 
 tories as we wanted them, and now we can no more get rid of the 
 debt than a man can of his wife, when he has once had the good luck 
 to load himself with the lovely gift. 
 
 13. — " Hence it comes that every minister who undertakes our 
 affairs, must also undertake the payment of our victories, not a 
 fartlr.ng of which has as yet been counted off. 
 
 14. — It is true that he is not obliged to see that the whole sum 
 which we borrowed to pay for our victories, is paid down in the lump, 
 capital and interest; but he must see — more's the pity! — to the 
 regular payment of the interest; and this interest, reckoned up with 
 the pay of the army, and other expenses coming from our victories, 
 is so significant that a man must have pretty strong nerves if he will 
 undertake the business of paying them. 
 
 15. — " At an earlier date, before we took to buying victories and 
 supplying ourselves too freely with glory, we already had a debt of 
 
— 440 — 
 
 rather more than two hundred million?, while all the poor rates in 
 England and Wales together did not annually amount to more than 
 two millions, which was before we had any of that burden which 
 under the name of dead weight is now piled upou us, and which is 
 entirely the result of our thirst for glory. 
 
 16. — " In addition to this money which was borrowed from credi- 
 tors who cheerfully lent it, our government in its thirst for victories, 
 also indirectly raised a great loan from the poor ; that is to say, they 
 raised the usual taxes to such a height, that the poor were far more 
 oppressed than ever, and so that the amount of poor and of poor 
 rates increased incredibly. 
 
 17. — " The poor taxes annually increase from two to eight millions ; 
 the poor have therefore, as it were, a mortgage or hypotheca on the 
 land, and this causes again a debt of six millions, which must be 
 added to those other debts caused by our passion for glory and by 
 the purchase of our victories. 
 
 18. — f* The dead weight consists of annuities, which we pay, under 
 the name of pensions, to a multitude of men, women and children, as 
 a reward for the services which those men have rendered, or should 
 have rendered, in gaining our victories. 
 
 19. — l> The capital of the debt which this government has con- 
 tracted in getting its victories consists of about the following sums: 
 
 Pounds Sterlixq. 
 
 Sums added to the National Debt, 800,000,000 
 
 Sums added to the actual debt for poor-rates, - - - 150,000X00 
 Dead weight, reckoned as capital of a debt, .... - 175,000,000 
 
 £1,125,000,000 
 
 That is to say, eleven hundred and twenty-five millions, at rrve per 
 cent., is the sum total of those annual fifty-six millions; yes, this is 
 about the present total, only that the Poor-rates Debt is not included 
 in the accounts which were laid before Parliament, since the country 
 pays them at once into the different parishes. If any one, therefore, 
 will subtract that six millions from the forty-six millions, it follows 
 that the creditors holding the State Debt, and the dead weight peo- 
 ple, really swallow up all the rest. 
 
 20. — " The Poor-rates are, however, just as much a debt as the 
 debt held by the state's creditors, and apparently sprang from the 
 same source. The poor are crushed to the earth by the terrible load 
 of taxes; every other person has borne, of course, some of the bur- 
 den, but all, except the poor, contrived to shift it more or less from 
 their shoulders, until it finally fell with a fearful weight entirely on 
 
— 4M — 
 
 the latter,* and they lost their beer-barrels, their copper kettles, their 
 pewter plates, their clocks, their beds, and even the tools of their 
 trades ; they lost their clothes, and were obliged to dress in rags — 
 yes, they lost the very flesh from their bones. It was impossible to 
 go further; and of that which had been taken from them, something 
 was restored under the name of increased Poor-rates. These are, in 
 consequence, a real debt — a real mortgage on the land. The interesl 
 of this debt may, it is true, be withheld ; but were this done, the peo- 
 ple, who have a right to require it, would rise in a body and demand, 
 no matter how, payment of the whole amount. This is consequently 
 a real debt, and a debt which must be paid to the uttermost farthing, 
 and, as I distinctly declare, preference will be demanded for it before 
 all other debts. 
 
 21. — "It is therefore unnecessary to wonder at the hard case of 
 those who undertake such duties ! It would be rather a matter 
 of astonishment if any one would attempt such a task, were it not 
 left to his free will to also undertake, as he pleased, a radical change 
 in the whole system. 
 
 22. — " Here there is no possibility of relief, should one undertake 
 to lower the annual expenditure of the state creditors' debt, and of 
 the dead weight debt, and to expect such a diminution of the debt, 
 or such a reduction from the country, or to hinder its causing great 
 commotion, or to prevent half a million human beings, in or about 
 London, from perishing of hunger, it is necessary that far more 
 appropriate and proportional reductions be made in other directions, 
 before the reduction of those two debts, or their interest, be attempted. 
 
 23. — " As we have already seen, these victories were purchased 
 with the view of preventing a reform of Parliament in England, and 
 to maintain aristocratic privileges and clerical tithes, and it would be, 
 in consequence, a deed of cruelty which would cry aloud to Heaven, 
 should we take their lawful dues from those persons who lent us the 
 money, or if we withdrew payment from the people who hired us the 
 hands with which we won the victories. It would be a deed of cruelty 
 which would bring down the vengeance of God on us, should we com- 
 mit such things, while the profitable posts of honor of the aristocracy, 
 
 * This simile forcibly recalls n common newspaper paragraph, to the following effect: 
 " The Revenue is the great subject which interests England, and especially wheu asso- 
 ciated with the present National Debt. Not long ago, an Englishman observed a stone 
 roll duwn a staircase. It bumped on every stair till it came to the bottom : there of course 
 it rested. "That stone," said he "resembles the National Debt of my country: it has 
 bumped on every grade of the community, but its weight is on tbv; lowest." 
 
 [Xotc by Translator. 
 
— U2 — 
 
 their pensions, sinecures, royal gifts, military rewards, and finally, the 
 tithes of the clergy, remained untouched ! 
 
 24. — " Here — here, therefore, lies the difficulty : he who becomes 
 minister must be minister of a country which has a great passion for 
 victories, which is sufficiently supplied with them, and has obtained 
 incomparable military glory ; but which — more's the pity — has not 
 yet paid for these spleudid things, and which now leaves it to the 
 Minister to settle the bill, without his knowing where he is to get the 
 money." 
 
 These be things which bear down a Minister to his grave, or at 
 least make of him a madman. England owes more than she can pay. 
 Let no one boast that she possesses Iudia, and rich colonies. As it 
 appears from the last Parliamentary debates, England does not draw 
 a single farthing of income from her vast, immeasurable India— nay, 
 she must pay thither several millions from her owu resources. This 
 country only benefits England by the fact that certain Britons, who 
 there grow rich, aid the industry and the circulation of money at 
 home by their wealth, while a thousand others gain their bread from 
 the East India Company. The colonies, therefore, yield no income 
 to the state, require supplies, and are of service simply to commerce,* 
 and to enrich an aristocracy, whose younger sons and nephews are 
 sent thither as governors and subordinate officials. The payment 
 of the National Debt falls consequently altogether upon Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland. But here, too, the resources are not so great as 
 the debt itself. Let us hear what Cobbet says of this : 
 
 " There are people who, to suggest some sort of relief, speak of the 
 resources of the country. These are the scholars of the late Col- 
 quhoun, a thief-catcher, who wrote a great book to prove that our 
 debt need not trouble us in the least, since it is so small in proportion 
 to the resources of the nation ; and, in order that his shrewd reader 
 may get an accurate idea of the vastness of these resources, he makes 
 an estimate of all that the land contains, dowu to the very rabbits, 
 aud really seems to regret that he could not, in addition to them, 
 reckon up the rats and mice. He makes his estimate of the value 
 of the horses, cows, sheep, sucking-pigs, poultry, game, rabbits, fish, 
 the value of household stuff, clothes, fuel, sugar, groceries — in short, 
 of everything in the country ; and after he has assumed the whole 
 and added to them the value of the farms, trees, houses, mines — the 
 yield of the grass, corn, turnips and flax — and brought out of it a 
 
 * Simp]}- to commerce: — [Note by Translator. 
 
— 4±3 — 
 
 sum of God knows how many thousand millions, he struts and sneers 
 in his sly, bragging, Scotch fashion — something like a turkey-cock — 
 and laughing with scorn, asks people like me, ' How, with resources 
 like these, can you fear a national bankruptcy V 
 
 " The man never reflects that all the houses are wanted to live in, 
 the farms, to yield fodder, the clothes to cover our nakedness, the 
 cows, to give milk to quench thirst, the horned cattle, sheep, swine, 
 poultry and rabbits, to eat; yes — the devil take the contrary obsti- 
 nate Scotchman ! — these things are not where they are to be sold so 
 that people can pay the National Debt with the proceeds. In fact he 
 has actually reckoned up the daily wages of the workingmen among 
 the resources of the nation ! This stupid devil of a thief-catcher 
 whose brethren in Scotland made a doctor of him because he wrote 
 such an excellent book, seems to have altogether forgotten that 
 laborers want their daily hire themselves, to buy with it something 
 to eat and drink, He might as well have set a value upon the blood 
 in our veins as if it were stuff to make blood-puddings of!" 
 
 So far Cobbet. While I translate his words into German, he 
 bursts forth, as if in person, in my memory, as he appeared during 
 last year at the noisy dinner in the Crown and Anchor tavern. I 
 see him again with his scolding red face, and his radical laugh in 
 which the most venomous deathly hatred combined terribly with the 
 scornful joy which sees beforehand in all certainty the downfall of 
 his enemies. 
 
 Let no one blame me for quoting Gobbet ! Accuse him as much 
 as you please of unfairness, of a passion for reviling and of an 
 altogether too vulgar personality, but no one can deny that he 
 possesses much eloquence of spirit, and that he very often, as in the 
 above assertions, is in the right. lie is a chained dog,* who attacks 
 at once in a rage every one whom he does not know, who often bites 
 the best friends of the family in the legs, who always barks, and who 
 on that account is not minded even when he barks at a real thief. 
 Therefore the aristocratic thieves who plunder England do not 
 regard it as necessary to cast the snarling Cobbet a crust and so 
 stop his mouth. This aggravates him most bitterly and he shows 
 his hungry teeth. 
 
 ♦This comparison of Cobbet to a bull-dog, "the dog of England" must strike the 
 reader as particularly felintous. Corbet indeed appears to have entertained a remark- 
 able affection for the animal in question. In speaking of abolishing the baiting of bulla 
 with dogs, he bursts forth against the abolition of " that ancient, hardy and anti-puri- 
 tanical sport and of extirpating a race of animals which are peculiar to this island, 
 peculiarly characteristic of its people." Tide Cobbet's Register. May 22 to May 29, 1802 
 
 [Note by IVanslator. 
 
Old Cobbet! dog of England! I do not love you, for every 
 vulgar nature is hateful to me, but I pity you from my deepest soul, 
 when I see that you cannot break loose from your chain, nor reach 
 those thieves, who, laughing slip away their plunder before your eyes, 
 and mock your fruitless leaps and unavailing howls. 
 
 8. 
 
 THE OPPOSITION PARTY. 
 
 A friend of mine has very aptly compared the opposition in Par- 
 liament to an opposition coach. Every one knows that this is a 
 public stage-coach, which some speculating company start at their 
 own expense, and run at such low rates, that the travellers give it 
 the preference over the already established line. The latter must 
 also put down their prices to 1veep passengers, but are soon outbid, 
 or rather underbid by the new opposition coach, ruin themselves by 
 the competition, and are obliged eventually to give up the business. 
 If the opposition coach has at last and after this fashion gained the 
 da}*, and finds itself the only one on a certain route, it at once puts 
 up the prices, often higher than those of the old coach, and the poor 
 passengers, far from gaining often lose by the change, and must curse 
 and pay until a new opposition coach renews the old game, and then 
 new hopes and new deceptions follow in turn. 
 
 How full of blood and pride were the Whigs when the Stuait 
 party were defeated, and the Protestant dynasty ascended the Eng- 
 lish throne ! The Tories then formed the opposition and John Bull, 
 the poor state passenger, had good cause to roar with joy when they 
 got the upper hand. But his joy was of short duration, he was 
 annually obliged to pay a higher and still higher fare, there was dear 
 paying and bad riding, more than that, the coachmen were very rude, 
 there was nothing but jolting and bumping, every corner-stone 
 threatened an upset, and poor John Bull thanked the Lord his 
 maker, when at last the reins of the state-coach were held by other 
 and better hands. 
 
 Unfortunately the joy did not last long this time either, the new 
 opposition coachmen fell dead from the coach-box, others got off 
 cautiously when the horses became restive, and the old drivers, the 
 
— 445 — 
 
 old courtly riders with golden spurs again took their old places, and 
 cracked away with the old whips. 
 
 I will not run this figure of speech to the ground, and I therefore 
 turn again to the words "Whigs" and "Tories," which I have 
 already used to indicate the two opposition parties, and a discussion 
 of the names will be all the better, since they have for a long time 
 been a source of confusion of ideas. 
 
 As the names of Ghibellines and Guelfs acquired by mutations and 
 new events, during the middle ages, the vaguest and most opposite 
 significations, so also at a later date in England did those of Whigs 
 and Tories, the origin of which is at present scarcely known. Some 
 assert that they were formerly abusive terms which eventually became 
 honest party names, which often happens, as for instance when a 
 party in Holland baptised themselves "beggars" from les gueux, as 
 at a latter date the Jacobins often called themselves sans culottes, 
 and as perhaps the serviles and dark-lantern folks of our own time 
 will perhaps, at some future day, bear these names as glorious 
 epithets of honor — a thing which, it must be admitted they cannot 
 now do. The word Whig is said to have signified in Ireland some- 
 thing disagreeably sour,* and was there used to ridicule the Presby- 
 terians or new sects in general. The word Tory which was used 
 about the same time as a party name, signified in Ireland a sort of 
 scabby thieves. Both nicknames became general in the time of tne 
 Stuarts, and during the disputes between the sects and the dominant 
 church. 
 
 The general view is, that the Tories incline altogether to the side 
 of the throne, and fight for the crown's privileges ; while, on the other 
 hand, the Whigs lean towards the people, and protect their rights. 
 These explanations are, however, vague, and are rather bookish than 
 practical. The terms may be regarded rather as coterie names. They 
 indicate men who cling together on certain opposing questions, whose 
 predecessors and Mends held together on the 'same grounds, and who 
 through political storms, bore in common their joys, sorrows, and the 
 enmity of the opposite party. Principles never enter into considera- 
 tion ; they do not unite on certain ideas, but on certain rules of state 
 government — on the abolition or- maintenance of certain abuses — on 
 certain bills, certain hereditary questions, — no matter from what point 
 of view, generally from mere custom. The English do not however 
 
 * Sauertopfisch. This word as used by Heine signifies sour or crabbed, but its com- 
 ponent parts of sauer or sour, and Topf, a pot or pipkin, seem to refer with peculiar 
 aptness to the culinary meaning of " Whig"— i. e., a sort of sour whey. 
 
 38 
 
— Uß — 
 
 let themselves be led astray by these party names. When they speak 
 of Whigs, they do not form in so doing a definite idea, as we do in 
 speaking of Liberals, when we at once bring before us men who are, 
 from their very souls, sincere as to certain privileges of freedom — 
 but they think of an external union of people, of whom each one, 
 judged by his private manner of thought, would form a party by him- 
 self, and who, as I have already said, fight against the Tories through 
 the impulse of extraneous causes, accidental interests, and the asso- 
 ciations of enmity or friendship. In such a state as this, we cannot 
 imagine a strife against aristocracy in our sense of the term, since 
 the Tories are really not more aristocratic than the Whigs, and often 
 even not more so than the bourgeoisie, or middle-class, themselves, 
 who regard the aristocracy as something unchangeable as the sun, 
 moon and stars — who see in the privileges of the nobility and clergy 
 that which is not merely profitable to the state, but is actually a 
 necessity of nature, and who would perhaps fight for these privileges 
 with far more zeal than the aristocrats themselves, since they believe 
 more implicitly in them, while the latter have very generally lost their 
 faith. In this point of view, we must admit that the spirit of the 
 English is still over-clouded by the night of the Middle Ages — the 
 holy idea of a citizen-like equality has not, as yet, enlightened them ; 
 and many a citizen-statesman in England, who has Tory tendencies, 
 ought not, by any means, to be regarded as servile, or be counted 
 among those servile hounds who could be free, and still creep back 
 into their old kennel and bay the sun of freedom. 
 
 The names of Whig and Tory are consequently utterly useless, so 
 far as comprehending the British opposition is concerned, and Fran- 
 cis Burdett, at the beginning of the session of last year, very cor- 
 rectly declared that these names have now lost all their significance. 
 On this remark, Thomas Lethbridge, a man whom the Lord has not 
 endowed with too much wit, made a very good joke — perhaps the 
 only one of his life — which was as follows: "He. has un-toried the 
 ; Tories and un-wigged the Whigs." 
 
 Far more significant are the names, " reformers," or " ra.dical 
 reformers," or, in short, "radicals." They are generally regarded as 
 oue and the same, and they aim at the same defects in the State and 
 suggest the same remedies, differing only in the moderation or inten- 
 sity of their views. The defect alluded to is the well-known evil 
 manner of popular representation, by which the so-called rotten- 
 boroughs — obsolete, uninhabited places — or, to speak more correctly, 
 the oligarchs to whom they belong, have the right to send representa- 
 
— 447 — 
 
 tives for the people to Parliament, while great and populous cities, 
 among them many manufacturing towns, have not a single repre- 
 sentative. The wholesome cure of this defect is naturally in the so- 
 called Parliamentary Reform. This, of course, is not regarded as an 
 ultimate aim, but as a means. It is hoped that by it the people will 
 attain a better representation of its interests, and the abolition of aris- 
 tocratic abuses, and help in their affliction. As may be supposed, the 
 Reform — this just and moderate demand— has its champions among 
 moderate men, who are anything but Jacobins ; and when they are 
 called reformers, it has a meaning differing, as widely as earth from 
 heaven, from that of radicals, which is pronounced in an altogether 
 different tone — as for instance, when Hunt or Cobbet is mentioned, 
 or any of the impulsive, raging, revolutionary men, who cry for Par- 
 liamentary reform that they may bring about the overthrow of all 
 forms, the victory of avarice, and complete mob-rule. The shades in 
 the coryphaei of these parties are consequently innumerable. But, 
 as before said, the English know their men very well ; names do not 
 deceive the public, and the latter decides, with great accuracy, where 
 the battle is in earnest and where it is mere show. Often, for years 
 together, the strife in Parliament is little more than an idle game, 
 a tournament, where the champions contend for a color chosen for a 
 freak; but when there is a real strife, we see them all hasten, each 
 man to the flag of his natural party. This we saw in the days of 
 Canning. The mosj; passionate opponents united when it came to a 
 war of positive interests : Tories, Whigs and Radicals formed a 
 phalanx around the bold citizen-minister, who sought to diminish the 
 pride of the oligarchy. But I still believe that many a high-born 
 Whig, who sat proudly behind Canning, would have wheeled right 
 about face to the old fox-hunting order, had the question of abolish- 
 ing all the privileges of the nobility been suddenly agitated. T believe 
 (God forgive me the sin !) that Francis Burdett himself, who during 
 his youth was one of the hottest radicals, and is not as yet classed 
 among the moderate reformers, would, in such a case, have very 
 quickly have seated himself by Sir Thomas Lethbridge. The ple- 
 beian radicals are perfectly aware of this, and they hate, therefore, 
 the so-called Whigs, who advocate Parliamentary reform — yes, 
 almost more than the utterly hostile high Tories. 
 
 At present the English opposition consists more of actual reform- 
 ers than of Whigs. The leader of the opposition in the Lower 
 House belongs unquestionably to the latter. I allude to Brougham. 
 
 We daily read, in the papers, the reports of the speeches of this 
 
— 448 — 
 
 bold hero of Parliament. The personal peculiarities which are mani- 
 fested in the delivery of these speeches are not so well known, and 
 yet we must know them to duly appreciate the latter. The sketch 
 which an intelligent Englishman has made of Brougham's appear- 
 ance in Parliament, may be appropriately given here : 
 
 " On the first bench, at the left side of the Speaker, sits a figure, 
 which appears to have cowered so long by the study-lamp, that not 
 only the bloom of life, but even life's strength, seem to have begun 
 to exhaust themselves ; and yet it is this apparently helpless form 
 which attracts every eye in the house, and which, as it rises in a 
 mechanical, automatic manner, excites all the reporters behind us 
 into rapid movement, while every corner of the gallery is filled as 
 though it were a massy stone vault, and the mob of men without 
 presses in through both the side-doors. In the House below, an 
 equal interest seems to manifest itself, for, as that form slowly unfolds 
 itself in a vertical curve, or rather into a vertical zig-zag of stiff 
 lines joined together, the two zealots on either side, who just before 
 sought in crying out to check each other, have suddenly sunk back 
 into their places, as though they had espied an air-gun hidden under 
 the Speaker's robe. 
 
 " After this bustle of preparation and during the breathless still- 
 ness which follows, Henry Brougham has slowly and with thought- 
 ful step, approached the table and there stands bent together — his 
 shoulders elevated, his head inclined forward, his upper lip and 
 nostrils quivering, as though he feared to utter a word. His external 
 appearance, his manner, almost resembles that of one of those 
 preachers who hold forth in the open air — not a modern man of the 
 kind who attracts the indolent crowd on Sunday — but one of those 
 preachers of the olden time, who sought to uphold purity of faith 
 and to spread it forth in the wilderness, when it was banished from 
 the city and even from the church. The tones of his voice are full 
 and melodious, but they rise slowly, thoughtfully, and as we are 
 tempted to believe, even with difficulty, so that we know not whether 
 the intellectual strength of the man is incapable of mastering the 
 subject, or whether his physical strength is inadequate to express it. 
 His first sentence, or rather the first members of his sentence — for 
 we soon find that with him every sentence goes further than the 
 entire speeches of many other people — come forth very coldly and 
 without confidence, and are especially so far from the real question 
 under discussion, that no one can comprehend how he will bring 
 them to bear upon it. It is true that every one of these sentences 
 
— 449 — 
 
 is deep, clear and satisfactory in itself, evidently drawn with artistic 
 selection from the most chosen materials, and let them come from 
 what department of science they may, they still contain its purest 
 essence. We feel that they will all be bent in a determined direction 
 and that too with wondrous force; but the force is as yet invisible 
 as the wind, and like it, we know not whence it cometh or whither it 
 goeth. 
 
 "But when a sufficient number of these beginning sentences have 
 gone forth in advance ; when every lemma which human knowledge 
 can supply to confirm a conclusion has been rendered serviceable ; 
 when every exception has, by a single impulse, been successfully 
 thrust forward, and when the whole army of political and moral 
 truths stands in battle array — then it moves forwards to a determi- 
 nation, firmly closed as a Macedonian phalanx, and irresistible as 
 Highlanders when they charge with fixed bayonets. 
 
 " When a leading point has been won with this apparent weakness 
 and uncertainty, behind which however a real strength and firmness 
 lies concealed, then the orator rises both physically and mentally, 
 and with a bolder and shorter attack he conquers a second position. 
 After the second he conquers a third, after the third a fourth, and so 
 on until all the principles and the entire philosophy of the question 
 in dispute are, as it were conquered, and until every one in the House 
 who has ears to hear and a heart to feel, is as irresistibly convinced 
 of the truths which he has just heard, as of his own existence, so that 
 Brougham if he would pause here, could pass unconditionally for the 
 greatest logician of Saint Stephen's Chapel. The intellectual re- 
 sources of the man are really marvellous, and he almost recals the 
 old northern legend of one who always slew the first masters of 
 every branch of learning, and thereby became sole heir to all their 
 united spiritual abilities. Let the subject be as it may, sublime or 
 commonplace, abstruse or practical, Henry Brougham still under- 
 stands it — and understands it fundamentally. Others may rival him, 
 yes, one or the other may even surpass him in the knowledge of the 
 external beauties of ancient literature, but no one is more deeply 
 penetrated than he by the spirit of the glorious and glowing philo- 
 sophy, which gleams like a precious gem from the caskets left us by 
 antiquity. Brougham does not use the clear, faultless, and at the 
 same time somewhat courtly language of Cicero, and his speeches 
 are as little in the form of those of Demosthenes, though they have 
 something of their color ; buthe is not wanting either in the strongly 
 logical conclusions of the Roman orator, nor the terrible words of 
 
 38* 
 
— 450 — 
 
 scorn of the Greek. Add to this that no one understands better 
 than he, how to use the knowledge of the day in his Parliamentary 
 speeches, so that they sometimes, apart from their political tendency 
 and signification, merit our admiration merely as lectures on philo- 
 sophy, literature and art. 
 
 "It is, however, altogether impossible to analyze the character of 
 the man while hearing him speak. When he, as already described, 
 has laid the foundation of his speech on a good philosophical ground 
 and in the depths of reason ; when he again returned to the work, 
 applies to it plummet and measure to see if all is in order, and seems 
 to try with a giant's hand if all holds together securely ; when he has 
 firmly bound together the thoughts of all hearers with arguments as 
 with ropes which no one can rend asunder — then he springs in power 
 on the edifice which he has built, he raises his form aud his voice, he 
 conjures the passions from their most secret hiding place, and sub- 
 dues and overwhelms his gaping Parliamentary cotemporanes and 
 the whole murmuring House. That voice which was at first so slow 
 and unassuming, is now like the deafening roar aud the endless 
 billows of the sea ; that form, which before seemed sinking under its 
 own weight, now looks as though it had nerves of steel and sinews of 
 copper, yes, as though it were immortal and unchangeable as the 
 truths which it has just spoken ; that face which before was pale and 
 cold as a stone, is now animated and gleaming, as though its inner 
 spirit were still mightier than the words spoken ; and from those 
 eyes, which at first looked so humbly at us with their blue and 
 tranquil rings, as though they would beg our forbearance and forgive- 
 ness, there now shoots forth a meteoric fire which lights up every 
 heart with admiration. In this manner he concludes the second, the 
 passionate or declamatory part of his oration. 
 
 •• When he has attained what might be regarded as the summit of 
 eloquence, when he looks around as if to behold with a scornful 
 laugh the admiration which he has excited, then his form again sinks 
 together aud his voice sinks to the most singular whisper, which ever 
 came from human breast. This strange lowering or rather letting 
 fall of expression, gesture and voice which Brougham possesses to a 
 perfection, such as was never found in any other orator, produces a 
 wonderful effect, and those deep, solemn, almost murmured-out words, 
 which are however fully audible, even to the breathing of every single 
 syllable, bear with them a magic power, which no one can resist, even 
 when he hears them for the first time and has not learned their real 
 significance and effect But let no one believe that the orator or the 
 
— 451 — 
 
 oration is exhausted. These subdued glances, these softened tones 
 signify nothing less than the beginning of a peroration, wherewith 
 the orator, as though he feels that he has gone too far, will again 
 soothe his opponent. On the contrary, this contraction of the body 
 is no sign of weakness, and this lowering of the voice is no prelude 
 to fear and exhaustion ; it is the loose, hanging inclination of the 
 body, in a wrestler, who looks for an opportunity by which he can 
 grasp his adversary the more powerfully, it is the recoil of the tiger, 
 who an instant after leaps with more certain claws upon his prey, it 
 is the indication that Henry Brougham puts on all his armor, and 
 grasps his mightiest weapons. He was clear and convincing in his 
 arguments, in conjuring up the passions he was it is true somewhat 
 supercilious, yet powerful and triumphant ; now, however, he puts the 
 last and longest arrow to his bow — he will be terrible in his invec- 
 tives. "Woe to the man on whom that eye. which was once so calm 
 and blue, now flashes from the mysterious darkness of its contracted 
 brows ! Woe to the wight to whom these half-whispered words are 
 a portent of the terrible fate which hangs over him ! 
 
 " He, who as a stranger, visits to-day perhaps for the first time the 
 Gallery of Parliament, does not know what is coming. He merely 
 sees a man, who convinces him with his arguments, who has warmed 
 him with his passion, and who now appears to arrive with that 
 strange whispering, at a weak and impotent conclusion. stranger ! 
 wert thou acquanted with the phenomena of this House, and on a 
 seat whence thou could'st see all the members of Parliament, thou 
 would'st soon mark that they are by no means of thy opinion so far 
 as concerns a lame and impotent conclusion. Thou would'st see 
 many a man, whom party feeling or presumption has driven without 
 proper ballast or needful helm, into this stormy sea, and who now 
 glances around as fearfully and anxiously as a sailor on the China 
 Seas, when he on one side of the horizon discovers the dark calm, 
 which is a sure presage that on the other, ere a minute has passed 
 away, the typhoon will blow with its destructive breath — thou 
 would'st perceive some shrewd man well nigh groaning, and who 
 trembles in body and soul like a small bird, which yielding to the 
 fascination of a rattlesnake feels with terror its danger, yet cannot 
 help itself, and which yields in a miserably foolish manuer to destruc- 
 tion ; or thou would'st observe some tall antagonist who clings 
 with shaking legs to the benches, lest the approaching storm should 
 drive him away; or thou would'st perhaps even see a stately pursy 
 representative of some fat county, who digs both fists into the 
 
— 452 — 
 
 cushions of his bench, fully determined, in case a man of his weight 
 should be cast from the House, still to keep his seat and to bear it 
 thence, beneath him. And now it comes — the words, which were so 
 deeply whispered and murmured, swell out so loudly that they out- 
 sound even the rejoicing cry of his own party, aud after some un- 
 lncky opponent has been flayed to the bones, and his mutilated 
 limbs have been stamped on through every figure of speech, then the 
 body of the orator is as if broken down aud shattered by the power 
 of his own soul, he sinks back on his seat, and the assenting applause 
 of the assembly bursts forth without restraint." 
 
 I was never so fortunate as to be able to see Brougham at my 
 leisure, during the delivery of such a speech in Parliament. I only 
 heard him speak in fragments, or on unimportant subjects, and I 
 seldom saw his face while so doing. But always, as I soon observed, 
 whenever he began to speak, an almost painful silence at once fol- 
 lowed. The sketch of him given above, is most certainly not exag- 
 gerated. His figure, of ordinary stature, is very meagre and in 
 perfect keeping with his head, which is thinly covered w r ith short 
 black hair which lies smooth towards the temples. This causes the 
 pale, long face to look even thinner, its muscles are ever in strange 
 nervous movement, and he who observes them, sees the orator's 
 thoughts, before they are spoken. This spoils his witty outbursts ; 
 since jests like borrowers should, to succeed, surprise us unawares. 
 Though his black dress is altogether gentlemanly, even to the very 
 cut of the coat, it still gives him a certain clerical appearance. 
 Perhaps this is owing more to his frequent bending of the back, 
 and the lurking, ironic suppleness of his whole body. One of my 
 friends first called my attention to this "clerical" appearance in 
 Brougham's manner and the above sketch fully confirms the acute- 
 ness of the remark. The "lawyerlike" in his general appearance, 
 was first suggested to me by the manner in which he continually de- 
 monstrates with his pointing finger, while he nods assentingly with 
 his head. 
 
 The restless activity of the man is his most wonderful feature. 
 These speeches in Parliament are delivered after he has been eight 
 hours at his daily tasks, that is to say, practising law in the courts, 
 and when he perhaps has sat up half the night, writing an article for 
 the Edinburgh Review, or laboring on his improvements of Popular 
 Education and Criminal Law. The first mentioned work, that on 
 Criminal Legislation, with which Brougham and Peel are now princi- 
 pally busied, is perhaps the most useful, certainly the most neces- 
 
— 453 — 
 
 sary ; for England's laws are even more cruel than her oligarchs. 
 Brougham's celebrity was first founded by the suit against the 
 Queen. He fought like a knight for this high dame, and, as any one 
 might suppose, George IV. will never forget the service rendered to 
 his wife. Therefore, when, in April last, the Opposition conquered, 
 Brougham did not enter the ministry ; although, according to old 
 custom, such an entry was due to him, as leader of the Opposition. 
 
 THE EMANCIPATION. 
 
 Talk politics with the stupidest Englishman, and he will be sure to 
 say something sensible. But so soon as the conversation turns on 
 rdiyion, the most intelligent Englishman utters nothing but silly 
 speeches. Hence arises all that confusion of ideas, that mixture of 
 wisdom and nonsense, whenever Catholic Emancipation is discussed 
 in Parliament : a question in which politics and religion come into 
 collision. It is seldom possible for the English, in their Parlia- 
 mentary discussions, to give utterance to a principle ; they discuss 
 only the profit or loss of things, and bring forth facts, pro or con. 
 
 With mere facts, there can indeed be much fighting, but no vic- 
 tory — they induce nothing but blows on one or the other side ; and 
 the spectacle of such a strife reminds us of the well-known pro pair ia 
 conflicts of German students, the results of which are, that so and 
 so many lunges are exchanged, and so and so many carte and tierce 
 thrusts made, and nothing gained with it all. 
 
 In the year 1827, as a matter of course, the Emancipationists 
 again fought the Orangemen in Westminster, and as another matter 
 of course, nothing came of it. The best " hitters" of the Emanci- 
 pation party were Burdett, Plunkett, Brougham and Canning. 
 Their opponents, with the exception of Peel, were the well known, 
 or more correctly speaking, the not-at-all-known, fox-hunting squire- 
 archy. 
 
 At all times, the most intelligent and gifted statesmen of England 
 have fought for the civil liberty of the Catholics ; and this they did, 
 inspired as much by the deepest sense of right, as by political shrewd- 
 ness. Pitt himself, the discoverer of the firm system, held to the 
 Catholic party. In like manner, Burke, the great renegade of free- 
 
— 451 — 
 
 dorn, could not so far suppress the voice of his heart as to act against 
 Ireland. Even Canning, while vet a slave to Toryism, could not 
 behoid, without emotion, the misery of Ireland ; and at a time wheu 
 be was accused of luke-warmness. he showed, in a naively touching 
 manner, how dear its cause was to him. In fact, a great man can. to 
 attain great aims, ofteu act contrary to his convictions, and go ambigu- 
 ously from one party to another: and. in such cases, we must be com- 
 plaisant enough to admit, that he who will establish himself on a 
 certain height must yield accordingly to circumstances, like the 
 weather-cock on a church spire, which, though it be made of iron, would 
 soon be broken aud cast down by the storm-wiud, if it remained 
 obstinately immoveable, and did not understand the noble art of 
 turning to every wind. But a great man will never so far coutradict 
 his own feelings as to see. or it may be. increase, with cold-blooded 
 indifference, the misfortunes of his fellow countrymen. As we love 
 our mother, so do we love the soil on which we were born, and even 
 so do we love the flowers, the perfume, the language and the men 
 peculiar to that soil. Xo religion is so bad and no politics so good, 
 that they can extinguish such a love iu the bosoms of its devotees, 
 and Burke and Canning, though Protestants and Tories, could not. 
 for all that, take part against poor green Eriu, Those Irishmen who 
 spread terrible misery and unutterable wretchedness over their father- 
 land, are men — like the late Castlerkagh. 
 
 It is a regular matter of course that the great mass of the English 
 people should be opposed to the Catholics, aud daily besiege Parlia- 
 ment for the purpose of withholding privileges from the latter. 
 There is a love of oppression in humau nature, and wheu even we. as 
 is constantly done, complain of civil inequality, our eyes are always 
 directed upwards — we see only those who stand over us, and whose 
 privileges abuse us. But we never look downwards when complain- 
 ing thus — the idea never comes into our heads to raise to our level 
 those who are placed by unjust custom below us ; yes, we are souudly 
 vexed when they seek to ascend, and we rap them on the head. The 
 Creole demands equality with the European, but oppresses the 
 Mulatto, and flares up iu a rage when the latter puts himself on an 
 equality with him.* Just so does the Mulatto treat the Mestizo, and 
 he in turn the Negro. The small citizen of Frankfort worries himself 
 over the privileges of the nobility, but he worries himself much more, 
 when any oue snggests to him the emancipation of his Jews. I have 
 
 * Hr.Ni srr 'st* :- ' -v,- W:o-vd u-der the cmraon.bat erroneous Eurcpe&n i-iea, that 
 
 a Or mit is one of nibbed IJooJ. — IXotc by TVomfaitor. 
 
— 455 
 
 a friend in Poland, who is wild for freedom and equality, but who, to 
 this hour, has n ver freed his peasants from their serfdom. 
 
 No explanation is requisite to show why the Catholics are prr- 
 secuted, so far as the English clergy is concerned. Persecution of 
 those who think differently is everywhere a clerical monopoly, and 
 the Angelican Church strongly asserts her rights. Of course tithes 
 are the main thing with her ; by emancipating the Catholics, she 
 would lose a great part of her income, and the sacrifice of 8dfiiniere*i, 
 is a talent manifested as little by the priests of love, as by sinful 
 laymen. Hence it happened, that that glorious revolution, to which 
 England owes most of her present liberty sprang from religious Pro- 
 testant zeal : a circumstance, which imposes special duties of grati- 
 tude towards the dominant church, and causes her to regard the 
 latter, as the main bulwark of her freedom. Many a fearful soul 
 may at present really dread Catholicism and its restoration, and 
 think of the flaming piles of Smithfield — and a burnt child dreads 
 the fire ! There are also timid members of Parliament, who dread a 
 new Gunpowder Plot — those fear powder most, who have not dis- 
 covered it — and so they often feel as if the green benches on which 
 they sit in St. Stephen's Chapel, became, little by little, warmer 5 
 and when an orator, as very often happens, mentions the name of 
 Guy Fawkes, they cry out " hear ! hear !" as if in terror. As for 
 the Rector of Goettingen, who has an appointment in London as 
 King of England, he is fully familiar with his policy of moderation 
 and forbearance ; he declares himself in favor of neither party, he 
 sees both mutually weaken themselves by combat, he smiles in his 
 hereditary manner when they peaceably court him, he knows every 
 thing, does nothing, and in cases of difficulty, leaves everything to 
 his head catch-poll, Wellington. 
 
 I trust that I may be pardoned for treating in a flippant tone, a 
 question on whose solution depends the happiness of England, and 
 with it perhaps directly, that of all the world. But just the 
 weightier the subject, so much the more merrily must we manage 
 it ; the bloody butchery of battles, the fearful whetting of the sickle 
 of death, would be beyond all-bearing, did there not ring out with it, 
 and through it, deafening military music, with its joy-inspiring drums 
 and trumpets. This the English know right well, and therefore, 
 their Parliament displaj^s a cheerful comedy of the most unrestrained 
 wit, and of the wittiest unrestraint. In the most serious debates, 
 where the lives of thousands and the welfare of whole countries is at 
 stake, it never occurs to any one to make a stiff German district- 
 
— 456 — 
 
 representative face,* or to declaim French-pathetically, and theii 
 minds like their bodies act freely and without restraiut. Jest, self- 
 quizzing, sarcasms, natural disposition and wisdom, malice and good 
 nature, logic and verse, spray forth in the freshest variations of 
 color, so that the annals of Parliament) years after, afford us a most 
 glorious entertainment. How strongly do these debates contrast 
 with the empty, bolstered-up, blotting-paper speeches, of our South 
 German Chambers, whose tiresomeness defies the patience of the 
 most unwearied newspaper reader; yes, whose very aroma, suffices 
 to scare away any living reader, so that we must believe that the 
 tiresomeness in question, is a secret and deliberate iutention to 
 frighten the public from reading their acts, and thereby, to keep 
 them secret, despite their publicity. 
 
 If the manner in which the English treat the Catholic question in 
 Parliament is but little adapted to produce a result, it is not the less 
 true, that the reading of these debates is on that account, all the 
 more interesting, because facts are more entertaining than abstrac- 
 tions, and they are especially amusing, when a cotemporary event is 
 narrated in a story-telling form, which handles it with witty persiflage, 
 and thereby illustrates it, it may be, in the best possible manner. 
 In the debate on the royal speech. December 3d, 1825, we had in the 
 Upper House, one of these parallel histories, such as described, and 
 which I here literally translate: (vid. Parliamentary History and 
 Review during the session of 1825-1826, page 31.) 
 
 "Lord King remarked, that if England could be called flourishing 
 and happy, there were notwithstanding, six millions of Catholics in 
 an altogether differeut condition, on the other side of the Irish Chan- 
 nel, and that the bad government there, was a shame to our age and 
 to every Briton. The whole world, said he, is now too reasonable to 
 excuse governments which oppress their subjects, or rob them of a 
 right, on account of differences in religion. Ireland and Turkey could 
 be regarded as the only countries in Europe, where whole classes of 
 men were oppressed and made to suffer, on account of their creeds. 
 The Grand Sultan had endeavored to convert the Greeks, in the 
 same mauner in which the English Government had attempted the 
 conversion of the Catholics, but without result. When the unfortu- 
 nate Greeks bewailed their sufferings, and begged in the humblest 
 manner to be treated a little better than Mahometan dogs, the 
 Sultan summoned his Grand Yizier to give council. This Grand 
 
 * Landdcendegesicht :— a face for Bunkum. 
 
— 457 - 
 
 Vizier had beeu formerly a friend and more recently an enemy of the 
 Sultana. He had thereby suffered considerably in the favor of his 
 lord, and was obliged to endure, in his own Divan, many contradictions 
 from his own officers and servants. (Laughter.) He was an enemy 
 of the Greeks. The second person in influence in the Divan was the 
 Reis EfFendi, who was favorably inclined to the just demands of that 
 unlucky race. This officer, as was well-known, was Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs and his policy merited and received general approba- 
 tion. He manifested in this field extraordinary liberality and talent, 
 he did much good and would have effected much more, had he not 
 been impeded in all his measures by his less enlightened colleagues. 
 He was in fact the only man of real genius in the whole Divan, 
 (Laughter,) and he was esteemed as an ornament to the statesmen 
 of Turkey, since he was also endowed with poetic talent. The 
 Kiaya-Bey or Minister of the Interior and the Kapitän Pasha were 
 also opposed to the Greeks ; the leader of the whole opposition to 
 the demand for rights of this race was the Grand Mufti, or the head 
 of the Mahometan Faith. (Laughter.) This officer was an enemy 
 to every change. He had regularly opposed every improvement in 
 commerce, every improvement in justice, every improvement in 
 foreign policy. (Laughter.) He declared and showed himself on 
 every occasion to be the great champion of existing abuses. He was 
 the most finished intriguer in the whole Divan. (Laughter.) At an 
 earlier time he had declared for the Sultana, but he had turned 
 against her so soon as he feared that he thereby might lose his seat 
 in the Divan, and had even gone over to the party of her enemies. 
 The proposition was once made to enlist some Greeks into the corps 
 of regular troops or Janissaries, but the Head-Mufti raised against this 
 such a terrible hue and cry — something like our No-Popery cry, — 
 that those who adopted the measure were obliged to quit the Divan. 
 He gained the upper hand and so soon as this was done, he declared 
 himself in favor of the very cause against which he previously dis- 
 played all his zeal. He took care of the Sultan's conscience and of 
 his own ; but it had been remarked that his conscience was never in 
 opposition to his interests. (Laughter.) Having studied the Turk- 
 ish Constitution with the utmost accuracy, he had found in it that it 
 was substantially Mahometan, (Laughter.) and consequently must 
 be inimical to all the rights of the Greeks. He had therefore deter- 
 mined to adhere firmly to the cause of intolerance, and was soon 
 surrounded by Mollahs, Imans and Dervishes, who confirmed him in 
 ais noble determinations. To complete this picture of a perfect 
 
 89 
 
— 453 — 
 
 division in the Divan, it should also be mentioned that its members 
 had agreed to unite on certain questions, and to oppose one another 
 on others, without breaking up their union. After the evil arising 
 from such a Divan had been seen, after it had been seen too how the 
 Musselman realm had been torn, and that by their intolerance to the 
 Greeks, and by their own want of harmony ; we should pray Heaven 
 to preserve the father land from such a division in the Cabinet." 
 
 It requires no remarkable acuteness to guess who the persons are, 
 here disguised in Turkish names ; still less is it necessary to set forth 
 the moral of "the tale in dry words. The cannon of Navarino have 
 spoken it out loud enough ; and when the Sublime Porte shall be 
 shattered — and shattered it will be, despite Pera's plenipotentiaried 
 lackeys, who oppose the ill-will of the people — then John Bull may 
 call to mind that, with changed names, the fable applies to him. 
 England may already surmise something of the kind, since its best 
 journalists have declared against the war of intervention, and signi- 
 fied, naively enough, that the other nations of "Europe might, with 
 equal right, take up the part of Catholic Ireland, and compel the 
 British Government to a better treatment of it. They think that 
 they have thereby fully refuted the right of intervention, whereas 
 they have simply illustrated it more perfectly and intelligibly. Of 
 course, the nations of Europe would have the most sacred right to 
 remedy, by force of arms, the sufferings of Ireland ; and this right 
 would soon be realized, were not injustice the stronger. It is no 
 longer crowned-heads, but the people themselves, who are the heroes 
 of modern times, and these heroes have also formed their holy alli- 
 ance. They hold together wherever there is a question of the com- 
 mon weal, or the popular rights of political and religious liberty ; 
 they are connected by the Idea \; they have sworn themselves to it, 
 and bleed for it — yes, they themselves have become an idea — and 
 therefore it runs like a sharp pain through the hearts of all the peo- 
 ple, when the Idea is made to suffer, though it be in the uttermost 
 corner of the earth. 
 
 10. 
 
 WELLINGTON. 
 
 The man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune every- 
 where, and wherever the greatest men in the world were unfortunate ; 
 
— 450 — 
 
 and that excites us, and makes him hateful. We see in him only the 
 victory of stupidity over genius — Arthur Wellington triumphant 
 where Napoleon Bonaparte is overwhelmed ! Never was a man 
 more ironically gifted by Fortune, and it seems as though she would 
 exhibit his empty littleness by raising him high on the shield of vic- 
 tory. Fortune is a woman, and perhaps, in womanly wise, she cher- 
 ishes a secret grudge against the man who overthrew her former 
 darling, though the very overthrow came from her own will. Now 
 she lets him conquer again on the Catholic Emancipation question — 
 yes, in the very fight in which George Canning was destroyed. It 
 is possible that he might have been loved had the wretched London- 
 derry been his predecessor in the ministry ; but it happens that he 
 is the successor of the noble Canning — of the much wept, adored, 
 great Canning, — and he conquers where Canning was overwhelmed. 
 Without such an adversity of prosperity, Wellington would perhaps 
 pass for a great man ; people would not hate him, would not measure 
 him too accurately, at least not with the heroic measure with which a 
 Napoleon and a Canning is measured, and consequently it would 
 never have been discovered how small he really is as a man. 
 
 He is a small man, and smaller than small at that. The French 
 could say nothing more sarcastic of Polignac, than that he was a 
 Wellington without celebrity. In fact, what remains when we strip 
 from a Wellington the field-marshal's uniform of celebrity ? 
 
 I have here given the best apology for Lord Wellington — in the 
 English sense of the word. My readers will be astonished when I 
 honorably confess that I once praised this hero — and clapped on all 
 sail in so doing. It is a good story, and I will tell it here : 
 
 My barber, in London, was a radical, named Mr. White — a pooi 
 little man in a shabby black dress, worn until it almost shone white 
 again ; he was so lean that even his full face looked like a profile, 
 and the sighs in his bosom were visible ere they rose. These sighs 
 were caused by the misfortunes of Old England — by the impossi- 
 bility of paying the National Debt. 
 
 M Ah !" I generally heard him sigh, " why need the English people 
 trouble themselves as to who reigns in France, and what the French 
 are a-doing at home ? But the high nobility, sir, and the High 
 Church, were afraid of the principles of liberty of the French Revo- 
 lution, and, to keep down these principles, John Bull must give his 
 gold and his blood, and make debts into the bargain. We've got all 
 we wanted out of the war — the revolution has been put down, the 
 French eagles of liberty have had their wings cut, and the High 
 
— 460 — 
 
 Church may be cock-sure that none of them eagles will come a-flying 
 over the Channel ; and now the high nobility and the High Church 
 between 'em ought to pay, any way, for the debts, which were made 
 for their own good, and not for any good of the poor people. Ah ! — 
 the poor people !" 
 
 Whenever Mr. White came to the " poor people," he always 
 sighed more deeply than ever, and the refrain then was, that bread 
 and porter were so dear, that the poor people must starve to feed fat 
 lords, stag-hounds and priests, and that there was only one remedy. 
 At these words he was wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it 
 murderously up and down the strop, Jie murmured grimly to himself, 
 " Lords, priests, hounds 1" 
 
 But his radical rage boiled most fiercely against the Duke of Wel- 
 lington ; he spat gall and poison whenever he alluded to him, and as 
 he lathered me, he himself foamed with rage. Once I was fairly 
 frightened, when he, while barbering away at my neck, burst out in 
 wonted wise against Wellington, murmuring all the while : " If I 
 only had him this way under my razor, I'd save him the trouble of 
 cutting his own throat, as his brother in office and fellow countryman, 
 Londonderry did, who killed himself that-a-way at North Cray, in 
 Kent — God damn him-!" 
 
 I felt that the man's hand trembled, and fearing lest he might 
 imagine in his excitement that I really was the Duke of Wellington, 
 I endeavored to allay his violence, and in an underhanded manner, to 
 soothe him, I called up his national pride, I represented to him that 
 the Duke of Wellington had advanced the glory of the English, that 
 he had always been an innocent tool in the hands of others, that he 
 was fond of beefsteak, and that he finally — but the Lord only knows 
 what fine things I said of Wellington, as I felt that razor tickling 
 around my throat ! 
 
 What vexes me most is the reflection that Wellington will be as 
 immortal as Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that in like manner 
 the name of Pontius Pilate will be as little likely to be forgotten as 
 that of Christ. Wellington and Napoleon ! It is a wonderful 
 phenomenon that the human mind can at the same time think of both 
 these names. There can be no greater contrast than the two, even 
 in their external appearance. Wellington, the dumb ghost, with an 
 ashy grey soul in a buckram body, a wooden smile in his freezing 
 face — and by the side of that think of the figure of Napoleon, every 
 inch a god ! 
 
— 461 — 
 
 That figure never disappears from my memory, I still see him, 
 high on his steed with eternal eyes in his marble-like, imperial face, 
 glancing calm as destiny on the guards defiling past — he was then 
 sending them to Russia, and the old grenadiers glanced up at him, 
 so terribly devoted, so all-consciously serious, so proud in death- 
 
 Te, Caesar, morituri, aalutant! 
 
 There often steals over me a secret doubt, whether I ever really 
 saw him, if we were ever cotemporaries, and then it seems to me as 
 if his portrait torn from the little frame of the present, vanished 
 away more proudly and imperiously in the twilight of the past. His 
 name even now sounds to us like a word of the early world, and as 
 antique and as heroic as those of Alexander and Caesar. It has 
 already become a rallying word among races, and when the East and 
 the West meet, they fraternise on that single name. 
 
 I once felt in the deepest manner how significantly and magically 
 that name can sound. It was in the harbor of London, at the India 
 Docks, and on board an East Indiaman just arrived from Bengal. 
 It was a giant-like ship fully manned with Hindoos. The grotesque 
 forms and groups, the singularly variegated dresses, the enigmatical 
 expressions of countenance, the strange gestures, the wild and 
 foreign ring of their language, their shouts of joy and their laughter, 
 with the seriousness ever rising and falling on certain soft yellow 
 faces, their eyes like black flowers which looked at me as with 
 wondrous woe — all of this awoke in me a feeling like that of enchant- 
 ment, I was suddenly as if transported into Scherezade's story, and 
 I thought that broad leaved-palms, and long-necked camels, and 
 gold covered elephants and other fable-like trees and animals must 
 forthwith appear. The supercargo who was on the vessel, and who 
 understood as little of the language as I myself, could not in his 
 real English narrow-mindedness narrate to me enough of what a 
 ridiculous race they were, nearly all pure Mahometans collected from 
 every land of Asia, from the limits of China to the Arabian sea, there 
 being even some jet black, woolly-haired Africans among them. 
 
 To one whose whole soul was weary of the spiritless West, and 
 who was as sick of Europe as I then was, this fragment of the East 
 which moved cheerfully and changingly before my eyes was a re- 
 freshing solace, my heart enjoyed at least a few drops of that draught 
 which I had so often tasted in gloomy Hanoverian or Royal Prussian 
 winter nights, and it is very possible that the foreigners saw in me 
 how agreeable the sight of them was to me, and how gladly I would 
 
 39* 
 
 I 
 
— 462 — 
 
 have spoken a kind word to them. It was aiso plain from the very 
 depths of their eyes how much I pleased them, and they would also 
 have willingly said something pleasant to me, and it was a vexation 
 that neither understood the other's language. At length a means 
 occurred to me of expressing to them with a single word my friendly 
 feelings, and stretching forth my hands reverentially as if in 
 loving greeting, I cried the name, "Mahomed!" Joy suddenly 
 flashed over the dark faces of the foreigners, and folding their 
 arms as reverentially in turn, as a cheerful greeting they exclaimed 
 " Bonaparte!" 
 
 1L 
 
 THE LIBERATION". 
 
 Should the time for leisurely research ever return to me, I will 
 prove in the most tiresomely fundamental manner, that it was not 
 India, but Egypt which originated that system of castes, which has for 
 two thousand years disguised itself in the garb of every country, 
 and has deceived every age in its own language, which is now per- 
 haps dead, yet which counterfeiting the appearance of life wanders 
 about among us, evil-eyed and mischief making, poisoning our bloom- 
 ing life with its corpse vapor ; yes, which like a vampire of the 
 Middle Ages, sucks blood from the nations, and light from their 
 hearts. It was not merely crocodiles which knew so well how to 
 weep, which sprang from the mud of the Nile, but also priests who 
 understand it far better, and that privileged hereditary race of 
 warriors, who in their lust of murder and ravenous appetites far 
 surpass any crocodiles. 
 
 Two deeply thinking men of the German nation discovered the 
 soundest and best counter-charm to the worst of all Egyptian 
 plagues, and by the black art — by gunpowder and the art of printing 
 — they broke the force of that clerical and laical hierarchy, which had 
 formed itself from an union of the priesthood and warrior caste, that 
 is to say, from the so-called Catholic Church, and from the feudal 
 nobility, and which enslaved all Europe both in body and in the spirit. 
 The printing-press burst asunder the walls of the building of dogmas 
 in which the great priest of Rome had imprisoned souls, and Northern 
 Europe again breathed freely, freed from the night-mare of that 
 
- 463 — 
 
 clevgy which had indeed abandoned the form of Egyptian inheri- 
 tance of rank, but which remained all the truer to the Egyptian 
 priestly spirit, since it presented itself with greater sternness and 
 asperity, as a corporation of old bachelors, continued not by natural 
 propagation, but by a Mameluke system of recruiting. In like man- 
 ner we see how the warlike caste has lost its power since the old 
 routine of the business is worth nothing in the modern methods of 
 war. For the strongest castles are now thrown down by the trumpet- 
 tones of the cannon as the walls of Jericho were thrown down of old, 
 the iron harness of the knight is no better protection against the 
 leaden rain, than the linen blouse of the peasant ; powder makes 
 men equal; a citizen's musket fires as well as a nobleman's — the 
 people rise. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 The earlier efforts of which we read in the history of the Lombard 
 and Tuscan republics, of the Spanish communes, and of the free cities 
 in Germany and other countries, do not deserve the honor of being 
 classed as a movement on the part of the people ; they were not 
 efforts to attain liberty, but merely liberties ; not battles for right, 
 but for municipal rights ; corporations fought for privileges, and all 
 remained fixed in the bonds of gilds and trade's unions. 
 
 Not until the days of the Reformation did the battle assume general 
 and spiritual proportions, and then liberty was demanded, not as 
 an imported, but as an aboriginal ; not as an inherited, but as an 
 inborn right. Principles were brought forward instead of old 
 parchments ; and the peasants in Germany, and the Puritans in 
 England, fell back on the gospel whose texts then were of as high 
 authority as our modern reasoning. Yes, and even higher, since 
 they were regarded as the revealed reason of God himself. There it 
 stood legibly written, that men are of equal birth, that the pride 
 which exalts itself must be damned, that wealth is a sin, and that the 
 poor also are summoned to enjoyment in the beautiful garden of 
 God, the common Father of all. 
 
 With the Bible in one hand and with the sword in the other, the 
 peasants swept over South Germany, and announced to the proud and 
 wealthy burgher-hood of high-towered Nuremberg, that in future no 
 house should be left standing, which seemed other than a peasant's 
 house. So truly and so deeply had they comprehended the truth. 
 Even at the present day in Franconia and in Suabia, we see traces 
 of this doctrine of equality, and a shuddering reverence of the holy 
 spirit creeps over the wanderer, when he sees in the moonshine the 
 
dark ruins of castles from the time of the Peasant's War. It is well 
 for him, who, in sober, waking mood, sees naught besides ; but if one 
 is a " Sunday child" — and everyone familiar with history is that — he 
 Will also see the high hunt, in which the German nobility, the rudest 
 and sternest in the world, pursued their victims. He will see 
 how unarmed men were slaughtered by thousands ; how they were 
 racked, speared and martyred ; and from the waving corn-fields he 
 will see the bloody peasant's heads nodding mysteriously, while above 
 a terrible lark is heard whistling, piping revenge, like the Piper of 
 Helfenstein.* 
 
 The brothers in England and Scotland were more fortunate ; their 
 defeat was neither so disgraceful nor so unproductive, and to the 
 present day we see there the results of their rule. But they did not 
 effect a firm foundation of their principles, the dainty cavaliers now 
 rule again as before, and amuse themselves with merry tales of the 
 stiff old Roundheads, which a friendly bard has written so prettily 
 to entertain their leisure hours. No social overthrow took place iu 
 Great Britain, the frame-work of civil and political institutions 
 remained undisturbed, the tyranny of castes and of trade-guilds has 
 remained there, till the present day, and though penetrated by the 
 light and warmth of modern civilization, England is still congealed 
 in a medieval condition, or rather in the condition of a fashionable 
 Middle Age. The concessions which have there been made to 
 libcial ideas, have been with difficulty wrested from this mediaeval 
 immovability, and all modern improvements have there proceeded, 
 not from a principle, but from actual necessity, and they all bear the 
 curse of that half-way system which inevitably makes new exertion 
 and new conflicts to the death, with all their attendant dangers, a 
 matter of necessity. The religious reformation in England is conse- 
 quently but half perfected, and one finds himself much worse off 
 between the four bare prison walls of the Episcopal Anglican Church, 
 than in the large, beautifully painted and softly cushioned prison for 
 the soul, of Catholicism. Nor has it succeeded much better with the 
 political reformation ; popular representation is in England as faulty 
 as possible, and if ranks are no longer distinguished by their coats, 
 they are at least divided by different courts of justice, patronage, 
 rights of court presentation, prerogatives, customary privileges and 
 similar fatalities ; and if the rights of person and property of the 
 people depend no longer upon aristocratic caprice, but upon laws, 
 
 * Or perhaps the piper of Hamelin, so quaintly sung by Browning ? 
 
still these laws are nothing but another sort of teeth with which the 
 aristocratic brood seizes its prey, and another sort of daggers, where- 
 with it treacherously murders the people. For in reality, no tyrant 
 upon the Continent squeezes, by his own arbitrary will, so many 
 taxes out of his subjects, as the English people are obliged to pay 
 by law ; and no tyrant was ever so cruel as England's Criminal 
 Law, which daily commits murder for the amount of one shilling, and 
 that with the coldest formality. Although many improvements 
 have recently been made in this melancholy state of affairs in Eng- 
 land ; although limits have been placed to temporal and clerical 
 avarice, and though the great falsehood of a popular representation, 
 is, to a certain degree, occasionally modified by transferring the 
 perverted electoral voice of a rotten borough to a great manufac- 
 turing town, and although the harshest intolerance is here and there 
 softened by giving certain rights to other sects, still it is all a 
 miserable patching up which cannot last long, and the stupidest 
 tailor in England can foresee that, sooner or later, the old garment 
 of state will be rent asunder into the wretchedest of rags. 
 
 * * * #• * * * 
 
 "No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment; for 
 that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment and the 
 rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles ; 
 else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles 
 perish : but they put new wine into new bottles and both are 
 preserved." 
 
 The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love, and hence 
 comes the harmony of the views of the elder Preacher in the Mount, 
 who spoke against the aristocracy of Jerusalem ; and those later 
 preachers of the mountain, who from the summit of the Convention 
 in Paris, preached a tri-colored gospel, according to which, not 
 merely the form of the State, but all social life should be, not 
 patched, but formed anew, and be not only newly-founded, but 
 newly-born. 
 
 I speak of the French Revolution, that epoch of the world, in 
 which the doctrines of freedom and of equality rose so triumphantly 
 from those universal sources of knowledge which we call reason, and 
 I which must, as an unceasing revelation which repeats itself in every 
 human head, and founds a distinct branch of knowledge, be far pre- 
 ferable to that transmitted revelation which makes itself known 
 only in a few of the elect, and which can only be believed by the 
 multitude. The privileged aristocracy, the caste-system with their 
 
— 466 — 
 
 peculiar rights, were never able to combat this last-mentioned sort 
 of revelation, (which is itself of an aristocratic nature,) so safely and 
 surely as reason, which is democratic by nature, now does. The 
 history of revolution is the military history of this strife, in which we 
 have all taken a greater or lesser part ; it is the fight to the death 
 with Egyptianism. 
 
 Though the swords of the enemies grow duller day by day, and 
 though we have already conquered the best positions, still we cannot 
 raise the song of victory until the work is perfected. We can only 
 during the night, between battles, when there are armistices, go forth 
 with the lantern on the field of death to bury the dead. Little avails 
 the short burial service 1 Calumny, the vile insolent spectre, sits 
 upon the noblest graves. 
 
 Oh, that the battle were only with those hereditary foes of truth 
 who so treacherously poison the good name of their enemies, and 
 who even humiliated that first Preacher of the Mount ; since when 
 they could no longer deny that he was the greatest of men, they 
 made of him the least of gods. He who fights with priests may 
 make up his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled 
 by the most infamous lies and the most cutting slanders. But as 
 those flags which are most rent, or blackened by powder-smoke in the 
 battle, are more highly prized than the whitest and souudest recruiting 
 banners, aud as they are at last laid up as national relics in cathe- 
 drals, so at some future day the names of our heroes, the more they 
 are torn and blackened will be all the more enthusiastically honored 
 in the holy Genofeva Church of Freedom. 
 
 The revolution itself has been slandered, like its heroes, and repre- 
 sented as a terror to princes, and as a popular scare-crow in libels 
 of every description. All of the so-called " horrors of the Revolu- 
 tion" have been learned by heart by children in the schools, and at 
 one time nothing was seen in the public fairs but harshly-colored 
 pictures of the Guillotine. It cannot be denied that this machine 
 which was invented by Monsieur Guillotin, a French physician and 
 a great world orthopaedist, and with which the stupidest heads are 
 easily separated from evil hearts, this most excellent and wholesome 
 machine, has indeed been applied rather frequently, but still only in 
 incurable diseases, in such cases for example as treachery, falsehood 
 and weakness, and the patients were not for a long time tortured, 
 racked and broken on the wheel as thousands upon thousands of 
 and vilains, citizens and peasants were tortured, racked and broken 
 roturiers on the wheel in the good old time. It is of course terrible, 
 
 40 
 
— 467 — 
 
 that the French, with this machine, once even amputated the hor>d 
 of State and no one knows whether they ought tobe accused, on that 
 account, of parricide or of suicide ; but on more moderate and thorough 
 reflection, we find that Louis of Prance was less a sacrifice to passion 
 than to circumstances, and that those men who forced the people 
 on to such a sacrifice, and who have themselves in every age, poured 
 forth princely blood far more abundantly, should not appear solely as 
 accusers. Only two kings, both of them rather kings of the nobility 
 than of the people, were sacrificed by the people, and that not in a 
 time of peace, or to subserve petty interests, but in the extrernest 
 needs of war, when they saw themselves betrayed, and when they 
 least spared their own blood. But certainly more than a thousand 
 princes were treacherously slain, on account of avarice or frivolous 
 interests, by the dagger, by the sword, and by the poison of nobility 
 and priests. It really seems as though these castes regarded regicide 
 as one of their privileges, and therefore bewail the more selfishly the 
 death of Louis the XYI. and of Charles I. Oh ! that kings at last 
 would perceive, that they, could live more safely as kings of the 
 people, and protected by the law, than under the guard of their noble 
 body-murderers. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 But not only have the heroes of our revolution and the revolution 
 itself, been slandered, but even our entire age has been parodied 
 with unheard-of wickedness, and if one hears or reads our vile 
 traducers and scorners, then he will learn that the people are the 
 canaille — the vile mob — that freedom is insolence, and with heaven- 
 bent eyes and pious sighs, our enemies complain and bewail that we 
 were frivolous and had, alas ! no religion. Hypocritical, sneaking 
 souls, who creep about bent down beneath the burden of their secret 
 vices, dare to vilify an age which is, perhaps, holier than any of its 
 predecessors or successors, an age that sacrifices itself for the sins 
 of the past and for the happiness of the future, a Messiah among 
 centuries, which could hardly endure its bloody crown of thorns and 
 heavy cross, did it not now and then trill a merry vaudeville, and 
 crack a joke at the modern Pharisees and Sadducees. Its colossal 
 pams would be intolerable without such jesting and persiflage ! 
 Seriousness shows itself more majestically when laughter leads the 
 way. And the age in this shows itself exactly like its children 
 among the French, who have written very terrible, frivolous books, 
 and yet have been very strong and serious when strength and serious- 
 ness were necessary, as for instance Du Clos, and evec Louvet dk 
 
— 468 — 
 
 Couvrai, who both, when it came home to them, fought for freedom 
 with the boldness of martyrs and with self-sacrifices, yet who wrote 
 very trivially and lasciviously, and, alas ! had no religion ! 
 
 As if freedom were not as good a religion as any other ! And 
 since it is ours, we may, measuring with the same meter, declare its 
 contemners to be themselves frivolous and irreligious. 
 
 Yes, I repeat the words, with which I opened these pages : free- 
 dom is a new religion, the religion of our age. If Christ be no 
 longer the God of this religion, he is nevertheless one of 'its high- 
 priests, and his name shines consolingly into the hearts of the younger 
 believers. But the French are the chosen race of the new religion, 
 the first gospels and dogmas were penned in their language. Paris is 
 the New Jerusalem, and the Ehine is the Jordan, which separates 
 the land of liberty from the country of the Philistines. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 WRITTEN NOVEMBER 29, 1830. 
 
 It was in depressed times in Germany — times which were under 
 arrest — when I wrote the second volume of the Pictures of Travel, 
 and had it printed as I wrote. But before it appeared, something 
 relative to it was whispered about; it was said that my book would 
 encourage and awaken the co wed-down spirit of freedom, and that 
 measures were being taken to suppress it. When such rumors were 
 afloat, it was advisable to bring out the book as quickly as possible, 
 and to drive it through the press. As it was necessary that it should 
 contain a certain number of leaves, to escape the requisitions of the 
 eminently estimable censorship, I followed the example of Bene- 
 venuto Cellini, who, when he, in founding his Perseus, found him- 
 self short of bronze, to supply the deficiency, and to fill up the 
 mould, threw into the melted metal all the tin plates which he could 
 find. It was, beyond question, easy enough to detect the difference 
 between the tin — especially the tin termination of the book — and the 
 better bronze ; but any one who understood the business, would not 
 betray the secrets of the workman. 
 
 But as ever3 T thing in this world is liable to turn up again, so it 
 came to pass that, in this very volume, I found myself again in the same 
 
— 469 - 
 
 scrape, and I have been obliged to again throw somt tin into the 
 mould — let me hope that this renewed melting of baser metal will 
 simply be attributed to the pressure of the times. 
 
 Ah ! the whole book sprang from the pressue of the times, as did 
 the similar tendency of earlier writings. The more intimate friends 
 of the writer, who are acquainted with his private circumstances, 
 know well how little his own vanity forced him to the tribune, and 
 how great were the sacrifices which he was obliged to make for 
 every independent word which he has spoken since then and — if God 
 will ! — which he still means to speak. Now-a-days, a word is a deed 
 whose consequences cannot be measured, and no one knows whether 
 he may not eventually appear as blood-witness for every word. 
 
 For years I have waited in vain for the words of those bold 
 orators, who once in the meetings of the German Burschenschaft, so 
 often claimed a hearing, who so often overwhelmed me with their 
 rhetorical talent, and spoke a language spoken so oft before ; they 
 were then so forward in noise — they are now so backward in 
 silence.* How they then reviled the French and the Southern Babel, 
 and the un-German frivolous betrayers of the Fatherland, who praised 
 French-dom. That praise verified itself in the great week ! 
 
 Ah, the great week of Paris ! The spirit of freedom, which was 
 wafted thence over Germany, upset, of course, here and there, some 
 night-lamps, so that the red curtains of sundry thrones took fire, 
 and golden crowns grew hot under blazing night-caps ; but the old 
 catch-polls, in whom the royal police trusted, are already bringing 
 out the fire-buckets, and now scent around all the more suspiciously 
 and forge all the more firmly their secret chains, and I mark well 
 that a far more impenetrable prison vault is being arched over the 
 German people. 
 
 Poor imprisoned people ! be not cast down in your need — Oh, 
 that I could speak catapults ! Oh, that I could shoot falaricas from 
 my heart ! 
 
 The aristocratic icy coat of reserve melts from my heart, a strange 
 sorrow steals over me — is it love, and naught save love for the Ger- 
 man race ? Or is it sickness ? — my soul quivers and my eyes burn, 
 and that is an unfortunate occurrence for a writer, who should com- 
 mand his material, and remain nicely objective, as the schools of art 
 require, and as Goethe himself did — he has grown to be eighty years 
 old in so doing, and a minister, and portly at that — poor German 
 race ! that is thy greatest man ! 
 
 * Sie waren sonst so vorlaut, und sind jetet so nachstül. 
 
 40 
 
— 470 — 
 
 I still have a few octavo pages to fill, and will do so with a story 
 — it has been floating in ray head since yesterday — a story from the 
 life of Chart.es the Fifth. But it is now a long time since I heard 
 it, and I no longer remember its details with accuracy. Such thiDgs 
 are easily forgotten, if one does not receive a regular salary for 
 reading them every half year from his lecture books. But what does 
 it matter, if the names of places and historical dates are forgotten ; 
 so long as their inner significance, or their moral remains in a man's 
 memory. This it is which really stirs in my soul and mournfully 
 moves me even to tears. I fear lest sickness should overpower me. 
 
 The poor emperor was captive to his enemies, and lay in stern 
 imprisonment. I believe that it was in Tyrol. There he sat in soli- 
 tary sorrow, abandoned by all his knights and courtiers, and no one 
 came to his aid. I know not if he already had in those days that pale 
 complexion, like cheese, with which Holbein portrays him. But the 
 misanthropically scornful under-lip protruded, beyond question, even 
 more markedly then, than in his pictures. He must have despised 
 the beings who fawned and wagged around him in the sunshine of 
 prosperity, and who left him now in dark and bitter need. Suddenly 
 the prison door opened, and there entered a man wrapped in a cloak, 
 and when it was cast aside, the emperor recognised in the visitor 
 his trusty Kunz von der Rosen, the court-fool. This one brought 
 him consolation and counsel — and it was the court-fool. 
 
 0, German Fatherland ! dear German race ! I am thy Kunz von 
 der Rosen. The man whose real office was pastime, and who only 
 made thee merry in better days, forces his way into thy prison, in time 
 of need ; here, beneath my mantle, I bring thee thy strong sceptre 
 and the beautiful crown— dost thou not remember me, my emperor ? 
 If I cannot free thee, I will at least console thee, and thou shouldst 
 have some one by thee who will talk with thee about thy all too 
 pressing oppressions, and will wake up thy courage, and who loves 
 thee, and whose best jokes and best blood are ever at thy service. 
 For thou, my people, art the true emperor, the true lord of the land 
 — thy will is sovereign and far more legitimate than that purple tel 
 est notre plaisir, who grounds his claim upon a divine right, without 
 any better guarantee than the quackery of shaven and shorn jug- 
 glers — thy will, my people, is the only righteous source of all power. 
 Yea, even though thou liest down there in fetters, thine own good 
 right must prevail at last, the day of freedom draws near, a new time 
 begins — my emperor, the night is over, and the red light of morning 
 gleams without. 
 
— 471 — 
 
 " Kunz von der Hosen, my poor fool, thou errest. Thou hast 
 mistaken the shining axe of the executioner for the sun, and the 
 morning-red is nothing but blood." 
 
 " No, no, my emperor, it is the sun, though it rises in the West — 
 since six thousand years, we have always seen it rise in the East — it 
 is high time that it for once made a change in its course." 
 
 " Kunz von der Rosen, my fool, thou hast lost the bells from thy 
 red cap, and it now has such a strange look, that red cap !" 
 
 " Ah, my emperor, in your distress I have shaken my head in such 
 mad earnest, that the fool's bell fell from my cap ; but it is none the 
 worse for that !" 
 
 " Kunz von der Rosen, my fool, what is it breaking and cracking 
 without there ?" 
 
 " Hush — silence ! it is the saw and the carpenter's axe, and the 
 doors of your prison will soon be broken in, and you will be free, my 
 emperor !" 
 
 "Am I then really emperor? Ah, it is only the fool who tells 
 me so !" 
 
 " Oh, do not sigh so, my dear, dear lord, it is the air of the dun- 
 geon which so dispirits you ; when you have regained your power, 
 you will once more feel the bold imperial blood in your veins, and 
 you will be proud as an emperor, and arrogant, and gracious, and 
 unjust, and smiling, and ungrateful, as princes are." 
 
 " Kunz von der Rosen, my fool, when I am again free, what wilt 
 thou be doing ?" 
 
 " I will sew new bells on my cap." 
 
 " And how shall I reward thy fidelity ?" 
 
 "Ah! dear master — do not suffer me to be put to death 1" 
 
 END OF THE PICTURES OP TRAVEL. 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Since the publication of the first number of Mr. Leland's version 
 of " Heine's Pictures of Travel," the publisher has frequently realized 
 from personal assurances and letters from eminent literary authori- 
 ties, both in America and Europe, that such an undertaking was not 
 only acceptable to the reading public, but that it has been executed 
 with remarkable fidelity and spirit. He avails himself of this oppor- 
 tunity to return his sincerest thanks to those who have so kindly 
 approved the work, including, of course, those members of the press 
 who have favored it with examination and criticism. 
 
 The first translation of a classic work into another language is 
 almost always an unenviable task, particularly when the work in ques- 
 tion is of so very difficult a nature as the Reisebilder, and in which, 
 as in our " new lands" of the West, a very great proportion of the 
 labor which they demand falls upon him who first breaks ground. 
 In face of these facts, the publisher is both gratified and grateful 
 that the numerous notices, which the work has received from the 
 press, have been, almost without exception, of the most favorable 
 nature, and that those journals, which had most frequently manifested 
 a thorough familiarity with Heine, have been the ones which have 
 most decidedly praised the merits of Mr. Leland's translation. 
 
 The following selections will satisfy the reader, that the publisher's 
 debt of gratitude to the press is not without foundation : 
 
 The London Leader of September 1st, 1855, contains a long and 
 brilliant review of Mr. Leland's translation of the Pictures of Travel, 
 from which I extract the following : 
 
 " Nature one day resolved to make a witty German. But as this 
 supreme paradox was not to be achieved all at once, it happened that 
 in the ardour of a great purpose, she mistook Hebrew blood for Ger- 
 man, and while she was busy adding the wit, allowed the best moral 
 qualities of the German to slip out of her hands. So, instead of the 
 witty Teuton she intended, she would have produced merely a Vol- 
 tairian Jew, speaking the German language, if she had not, perceiving 
 her mistake before it was too late, superadded, as some compensa- 
 tion for the want of morale, a passionate heart, blending its emotions 
 with the most delicate and imaginative sensibility to the beau- 
 ties of earth and sky, and a supreme lyrical genius which could 
 weave the wit, and the passion, and the imagination into songs light 
 and lovely as the rainbows on the spray of the summer torrent. 
 
 " Thus it came to pass that we have that wonderful human com- 
 
pound, Heinrich Heine, a writer who is master of a German prose as 
 light and subtle, and needle-pointed as Voltaire's French, and of a 
 poetic style as crystalline, as graceful, and as musical as that of 
 Geothe's best lyrics ; but a writer who is destitute of the distinct 
 moral couvictiou which often inspired Voltaire, and still more utterly 
 destitute of the profound wisdom and the depth of love and rever- 
 ence which roll like a deep river under the sparkling, dimpling sur- 
 face of Goethe's song. Indeed, we know nothing more likely to im- 
 press a reader with the grander elements of Goethe's mind than a 
 comparison of his lyrics with Heine's, for the very reason that Heiue 
 quite equals Goethe in all the charms of mere sou;/; and has one 
 quality mingling itself with his lyrical power which Goethe had not — 
 namely, wit; or rather to express it more specifically, French esprit. 
 For, alien as this quality might seem to passionate love-songs and 
 thrilling legendary pictures, such as form the majority of Heine's 
 poems, it is, nevertheless, almost every where present, giving your 
 rising tears the accompaniment of a laugh, and before you have lost 
 the cold shudder at his spectral visions, appealing irresistibly to your 
 sense of fuu. We cannot agree with his very clever American trans- 
 lator, that Humor is Heine's grand characteristic. He certainly has 
 humor — perhaps even enough to set up an inferior genius as a humo- 
 rist — but we think it will be found that his greatest effects in prose, 
 and most of the contrasts that startle us in his poetry arise from a 
 Mephistophelean wit, a verneinender Geist, rather than from humor 
 Vilich affirms all that is genuinely human, instead of denying it, and 
 is in fact, an exuberant sympathy acting in company with a sense of 
 the ludicrous, while wit is the critical intellect acting in company with 
 that same sense. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are 
 many passages of Sterne-like humor in Heine, and hereiu he is least 
 akin to the French, and most nearly allied to the broader, deeper Ger- 
 man nature, which atones for the want of esprit by something which 
 esprit will never supersede — loving earnestness." 
 
 " But it is time to turn from such rambling remarks to the object 
 that suggested them — namely, the translation of Heine's Reiscbilder, 
 by a very gifted American. Gf Heine, more even than of the major- 
 ity of poets, we must say he is untranslatable felicitous. Hence 
 when we praise Mr. Lelaud's translation — and we do so very sincerely 
 — we must not be understood to mean that it will give the English 
 reader a true conception of Heine's genius. Mr. Leland has that 
 grand requisite of a translator, rigorous faithfulness; he has also 
 poetical sensibility, command of language, and an evidently acute 
 perception of wit; in short he spoils Heine's poems perhaps as little 
 as it is possible to spoil them in a translation. This may not seem to 
 be high praise, but we firmly believe that it is the very highest praise 
 tliat can ever be given to a translation of Heine's poems, and we 
 recommend the reader who is hopeless of knowing these poems in the 
 original to make his acquaintance with them through Mr. Loland's 
 version." 
 
The London K Athenamm of December 29, 1855, contains a review 
 of the " Pictures of Travel by Henry Heine, translated by Charles 
 G. Leland," As the Atlienceum, from its frequent and admirably 
 written articles on Heine is entitled to the consideration due to the 
 highest English authority on the subject, the American publisher 
 takes the liberty of giving the main portion of its views both as to 
 the merits and demerits of the translation. As regards the very few 
 inaccuracies subsequently pointed out by the reviewer, he feels called 
 on to state that the circumstances under which the version was pro- 
 duced were such as to render it a matter of surprise that they are so 
 limited in number. 
 
 " Mr. Leland has ably acquitted himself of a very difficult task, — 
 reproducing the spirit of the original as much, perhaps as is possible, 
 where so eccentric a writer, whose wit turns so much upon peculiar- 
 ities of expression, has to be dealt with, and bringing to bear a copious 
 knowledge of things as an assistance in finding proper equivalents for 
 words. Particularly prominent is his erudition in the " Burschikos" 
 language — i. e. the slang of the students,— -which frequently occurs 
 in the ' Reisebilder,' and the notes that he appends in explanation of 
 the phrases, proper to this classic tongue, will render his translation 
 valuable to many even of those who can read Heine in the original. 
 
 " We would however suggest a careful revision of the work in case 
 a subsequent impression is intended. Mr. Leland is evidently too 
 familiar with the language and the allusions of Heine to sin from 
 mere ignorance, but here and there we have noticed a mistake of care- 
 lessness which might as well be weeded out." 
 
 The London Literary Gazette of Oct. 13, 1855, in a brief notice 
 speaks of Heine's Pictures of Travel, translated by Charles. G. 
 Leland, as a literal translation which will give an idea of the original 
 subject to those not acquainted with German. 
 
 Dr. R. W. Griswold's " Poets and Poetry of America," edition 
 of 1855, p. 595, contains the following: 
 
 "Mr. Leland's 'Pictures of Travel,' translated from the German 
 of Henry Heine, is an admirable rendering of the great wits, ' Reise- 
 bilder,' in which the spirit of the original is given with a point and 
 elegance rarely equalled in English versions of German poetry, while 
 the whole is singularly literal and exact." 
 
 The New York Knickerbocker Magazine of February, 1856, contains 
 the following: 
 
 "Mr. Leland has made translations of popular songs, ballads, and 
 minor poems from almost all the languages of ancient and modern 
 Europe. From the French of all patois, and from the Languc d'Oc 
 and the Langue d'Oil of the Troubadour and the Trouvere ; from 
 the German of Goethe, Schiller, and Heine ; from the most obscure 
 
and corrupted German of the provinces, and from the German of the 
 ' Nibelungen Lied,' and of the Minnesingers ; from Dutch, Danish, 
 Swedish, Spanish, Kuss, Polish, Bohemian and Croatian; from 
 the Italian of Tuscany, and from the Venetian and other dialects; 
 from the Horatian Latin, from Monk-Latin, from the Latin of the 
 rhyming- versifiers, and from the Latin of the Macaronic poets. 
 Here is enough, in all conscience, when we consider that these trans- 
 lations were carefully executed, and, as we have been informed, are 
 strikingly after the spirit of the originals. His latest and most im- 
 portant effort of this kind is a translation of the ' Reixebilder, 1 or 
 ' Pictures of Travel,' of Heine, already noticed in our pages. Heine, 
 as every one know r s, is the literary idol of young Germany. His free 
 mode of thought in religion, politics, morals, and criticism, ha? won 
 him a host of admirers among a nation who are thirsting for liberty 
 in any form, and who eagerly grasp at the shadow if the substance 
 be denied them. Apart from the liberal tendencies of Heine, which 
 he possesses in common with his more enlightened countrymen, no 
 one can deny his transcendent genius. Among the more sedate and 
 orderly lights of German literature, he blazes like a wild and erratic 
 meteor. A poet, a humorist, a wit, a satirist, a critic, a scholar, in 
 the highest sense of all these terms ; his is a genius the like of w T hich 
 Germany has not seen since Goethe, and in all his fulness may never 
 see again. To the translation of this remarkable author, Mr. Le- 
 land brings as remarkable qualifications, and faithfully has he per- 
 formed his task. The common faults of translators are, that they 
 are either so literal as to preserve the dead form of their original, in 
 all its strange wrappings of foreign idioms, while the subtler spirit 
 escapes, or so free as to endeavor to make the spirit manifest without 
 the intervention of its visible form. Mr. Leland has steered a mid- 
 dle course between these two extremes. Both the form and essence 
 of Heine are preserved in his translation; but without resorting to 
 the aid of German idioms to convey ideas which can be more truth- 
 fully reproduced in our own. We shall not be guilty of the presump- 
 tion of pronouncing authoritatively on the merits of Mr. Leland's 
 translation as a translation. To do that, is to set up the claim of an 
 equal knowledge of both languages. There are, doubtless, many 
 who, with not half our German, or a tithe of Mr. Leland's, will write 
 pages upon the subject. All that we wish to say is, that the ' Pictures 
 of Travel,' in its English dress, is a delightful volume, and deserving 
 of the widest popularity. 
 
 From the New York Tribune, July 31st, 1855. 
 No modern German writer, for either wit or wickedness, can be 
 compared with Henry Heine. A Jew in lineage, an atheist in feeling, 
 a devotee of the apotheosis of matter in doctrine, and a worshipper 
 of aesthetic voluptuousness in religion, he has launched the keenest 
 darts of satire against the most warmly cherished opinions and 
 customs of the age. Whatever change may have come over him in 
 his recent days of bed-ridden infirmity, he has left his stamp on 
 
German literature, as the boldest, sharpest, wittiest, profanest and 
 most reckless writer in the language. Still as we are bound to give 
 the devil his due, it must be admitted that Heine exhibits an immense 
 fund of vitality, a surprising insight into the weakness of human 
 nature, and a certain vein of sincerity which somewhat mitigates the 
 bitterness of his sardonic scorn. It is well remarked by the transla- 
 tor of this work in his discriminating preface : " It were worse than 
 folly to attempt to palliate Heine's defects. That they exist engrained, 
 entwined and integrate with his better qualities, admits no doubt or 
 denial. But they have been in every age so strikingly characteristic 
 of every writer of his class, that we are forced to believe them 
 inseparable." 
 
 * * * * * •* * 
 
 "The Pictures of Travel," of which we have here the first monthly 
 instalment, has never before been published in an English translation, 
 and is entirely beyond the reach of most "oversetters" of German 
 Mr. Leland, however, has acquitted himself of presumption by the 
 manner in which he has executed his task. lie not only shows an 
 intimate knowledge of the original, but a remarkable facility in 
 retaining the spirit of the author's pungent humor, which so easily 
 evaporates in translation. In the poetical pieces, his mastery of 
 English versification enables him to preserve the odd turns of the 
 original, without too great a sacrifice of verbal fidelity. 
 
 The Commonwealth (Glasgow, Scotland) of September 6th, 1855, 
 in commenting upon the London Leader's notice of Heine, remarks 
 that 
 
 " We seize with delight upon the specimens of translation given in 
 the Leader. The second we have not seen before. The first we 
 happen to know with perfect intimacy and can express our assent to 
 the cordial applause bestowed on the translator by the Leader. 
 These English verses are an achievement in poetical translation." 
 
 The New York Albion of July 14th, 1855, says of the translation of 
 
 Heine. 
 
 "It is well that an author exercising so vast an influence over the 
 great German world should become known beyond the limits of his 
 native tongue, and that he should have found an interpreter in this 
 country, of a tarn of mind that fits him to comprehend and appreciate 
 so peculiar a genius, and of such skill and taste as enable him 
 worthily to execute the difficult task of rendering him from one lan- 
 guage into another. Mr. Leland, judging from his contributions to 
 literature — a few of which have from time to time appeared in our 
 columns — must have been long familiar with Heine and the school at 
 the head of which he stands, We are not, therefore, surprised to find 
 that this first portion of Heine's Reisebilder, done into English, 
 promises us a faithful, genial, and scholarly work. * * 
 We augur for it — if not the popularity that greets many a trashy bit 
 of fustian — a cordial welcome from the elite of readers. There are, 
 
we know, men by the score, who cannot for the life of them discover 
 the merits of Rabelais, Sterne, Swift, Beranger, Carlyle, and others, 
 who — widely as they differ from each other, possess in common the 
 rare gift of originality. To such we cannot recommend Heine. We 
 turn him over to the few who can pardon much that runs counter to 
 their views or prejudices, for the sake of what they may gather that 
 is earnest, suggestive, humorous, or pathetic, in a "witty, wise and 
 wicked" writer. We only hope that Mr. Leland will 
 
 have given our readers half the pleasure we have derived from his 
 conscientious and spirited labours." 
 
 The Westminster Review of January, 1856, in a long article on 
 Heine based on the publisher's (Ueik's) German edition of Heine's 
 Works and on Hoffmann and Campe' s " Vermischte Schriften von 
 Heinrich Heine," mentions in a brief but complimentary manner 
 " the meritorious translation of Heine's Works by Charles Leland." 
 
 The Philadelphia North American of September 15th, 1855, says, that 
 "The Pictures of Travel, as will ere this have doubtless been per- 
 ceived by many of our readers, consist in a series of aesthetical 
 sketches, in prose and verse, of various wanderings, through various 
 years, over the States of Germany. It would be a work of super- 
 erogation to dwell upon the merits of the original. Popular opinion 
 breathing as well from the wayside auberge of the Tyrol as from the 
 most difficult and hypercritical salons of France, England and Ger- 
 many, has for a quarter of a century possessed but one phase of 
 judgment on this point. Our business, however, is with the merits 
 of Mr. Leland's translation. And here, the task is happily an easy 
 one. For though the temptation, on a perusal of this work, is irre- 
 sistible, a comparison of the respective merits of Mr. Leland and 
 Professor Longfellow as translators, is manifestly unfair. The latter 
 selects the gem from his author, and devotes a peculiar talent and an 
 unwearied industry to their polishing and preparation for the English 
 and American market. The former takes his subject en bloc, and 
 accomplishes his task from beginning to end ; giving us not only the 
 richest, but the dullest sides of the tapestry ; and while he vies suc- 
 cessfully with any competitor in the rendering of those chef oV ceuvres 
 on which an artist's fame depends with the general reader, spares 
 not to devote equal attention to the remaining passages, to which the 
 accurate student looks for the sustainment of an author's reputation. 
 This is what constitutes a chief merit of the pages before us. In 
 the verses the reader will recognize many of the most exquisite pas- 
 sages of the German lyre ; and in the prose portions he will be surprised 
 and delighted with the mixture of wild pathos and intense humor. 
 
 The London Illustrated News in speaking of the poems of Heine, 
 says, that 
 
 " It is scarcely necessary to state, that the poetry will be found, 
 for the most part, very well done in Mr. Leland's translation." 
 
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