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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 http://archive.org/details/prosewritersofge01hedg 
 
PROSE WRITERS 
 
 OF 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC H. HEDGE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 Die deutsche Nation ist nicht die ausgebildetste, nicht die reichste an Geistes- 
 und Kunstprodukten, aber sie ist die aufgeklaerteste, weil sie die graendlichste ist, 
 sie ist eine philosophische Nation — Fr. H. Jaoobi. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 PUBLISHED BY CAREY AND HART 
 1848 
 
ENTERED, ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1847. BY 
 
 CAREY AND HART, 
 
 IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN. 
 PRINTED BY T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS. 
 
 (2) 
 
mi 
 
 PEEEACE 
 
 The volume of translations which is now offered to the Public, 
 though bearing the title, "Prose Writers of Germany," in conformity 
 with the series of publications to which it belongs, is far from pre- 
 tending to be a complete exhibition of the prose literature of that 
 nation. 
 
 The impossibility of representing in adequate specimens, the vast 
 body of writers who might claim to be represented under this title, 
 together with the unsatisfactoriness of brief extracts, has induced the 
 editor to adopt a different course, — to give few writers and large 
 samples, and instead of a " collection," as Mr. Longfellow has cha- 
 racterized his "Poets and Poetry of Europe," to make a selection. 
 
 Every selection is liable to the charge of partiality ; and those who 
 are much conversant with German literature will doubtless miss some 
 favorites who shall seem to them entitled to a place in these pages. 
 It is believed however that the Classics, in the stricter sense, (writers 
 of the first class) are mostly here. With regard to the rest, access or 
 want of access to their writings has had some share, as well as per- 
 sonal preference, in determining the admissions and the omissions. 
 
 Some difficulty has been found in reconciling a just apportionment 
 of space in our pages to different writers with the prescribed limits 
 of the work. The difficulty, the editor is aware, has not been entirely 
 overcome. While want of room has compelled him to omit altogether 
 some writers whom he would gladly have introduced into the present 
 
 (iii) 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 selection, he regrets that the same necessity has required him in 
 several instances to limit his extracts. 
 
 The editor avails himself of this opportunity to thank those who 
 have assisted him in the work of translation. Besides his indebted- 
 ness to existing publications, especially to Carlyle's German Romance, 
 he has to acknowledge the contributions of J. Elliot Cabot, Esq.,* 
 Rev. J. Weiss, f Rev. C. T. Brooks, J Mr. Geo. Bradford, § and Mr. 
 Geo. Ripley. || The extracts from Moser, w T ith the exception of the 
 first, and that from Hamann, are by the same, anonymous, contribu- 
 tor. Likewise the translations from Hegel are by an anonymous 
 friend possessing peculiar qualifications for that difficult task. Above 
 all, his thanks are due to the Rev. Mr. Furness of Philadelphia, who 
 has kindly taken upon himself the general superintendence of the 
 work while passing through the press. 
 
 Bangor, May, 1847. 
 
 * In the translations from Kant with the exception of the last, and in the translation 
 from Schelling. 
 
 f In the translation from Schiller. 
 
 J In the extracts from the Titan of Jean Paul. 
 
 § In the translation from Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften. 
 
 || In the translation from Schleiermacher. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER Page 9 
 
 On Education 11 
 
 Concerning God the Father 15 
 
 Concerning Angels 16 
 
 Simple Method how to Pray 18 
 
 Prayer at the Diet of Worms 20 
 
 Selections from Letters — Letter to the Elector Frederic 20 
 
 To the Elector John 23 
 
 To Caspar Guttel 23 
 
 To his Wife 25 
 
 To his Wife 25 
 
 To his Wife 26 
 
 JACOB BOEHME 35 
 
 To the Reader 37 
 
 Of God and the Divine Nature 37 
 
 Of God's First Manifestation of Himself in the Trinity 38 
 
 Of Eternal Nature after the fall of Lucifer, &c 38 
 
 Of the Creation of Angels, &c 41 
 
 Describing what Lucifer was, &c 41 
 
 Of the Third Principle, or Creation of the Natural World 42 
 
 Of Paradise 42 
 
 Concerning the Supersensual Life 43 
 
 Concerning the Blessing of God in the Goods of this World 44 
 
 On True Resignation 45 
 
 ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA 46 
 
 On Envy 46 
 
 JUSTUS MOSER 50 
 
 Letter from an Old Married Woman, &c 52 
 
 How to Attain to an Adequate Expression of Our Ideas 54 
 
 Moral Advantages of Public Calamities 55 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT 57 
 
 From the Critique of the Judgment 63 
 
 1* (v) 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 The Notion of Adaptation in Nature 65 
 
 Judgment by Means of Taste, Aesthetic 66 
 
 The Pleasure that Determines the Aesthetic Judgment 67 
 
 The Pleasure Derived from the Agreeable 67 
 
 The Pleasingness of Good, Connected with Interest 67 
 
 Comparisons of the Three Kinds of Pleasure 68 
 
 The Beautiful What 68 
 
 Comparison of the Beautiful with the Agreeable 68 
 
 An Aesthetic Judgment, when not pure 69 
 
 Of the Ideal of Beauty 70 
 
 Plan of an Everlasting Peace 71 
 
 Of the Guaranty of an Everlasting Peace 73 
 
 Supposed Beginning of the History of Man 74 
 
 Remark 77 
 
 Conclusion of the History , 78 
 
 Concluding Remark 79 
 
 JOHANN GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING 81 
 
 From Laocoon 85 
 
 From the Educator of the Human Race 91 
 
 Fables 95 
 
 Extract 98 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN 99 
 
 Letter to J. C. Lavater 102 
 
 Supplementary Remarks 106 
 
 On the Sublime and the Naive 107 
 
 JOHANN GEORG HAMANN 119 
 
 The Merchant 121 
 
 CHRISTOPH MARTIN WIELAND 128 
 
 Philosophy Considered as the Art of Life 130 
 
 Letter to a Young Poet 132 
 
 On the Relation of the Agreeable and the Useful 1 38 
 
 From the Dialogues of the Gods 141 
 
 JOHANN AUGUST MUSAUS 154 
 
 Dumb Love 158 
 
 MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS 182 
 
 Dedication to Friend Hans 182 
 
 Advertisement to Subscribers 182 
 
 Speculations on New Years' Day 183 
 
 The Sorrows of Young Werther 183 
 
 On Prayer 183 
 
 A Correspondence 184 
 
 On Klopstock's Odes 185 
 
CONTENTS. vh 
 
 JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER 187 
 
 On the Nature of Man 191 
 
 Of the Truth of Physiognomy 193 
 
 Of the Universality of Physiognomical Sensations 1 95 
 
 On Freedom and Necessity 196 
 
 Of the Excellence of the Form of Man 1 97 
 
 Of the Congeniality of the Human Form 198 
 
 Resemblance between Parents and Children 200 
 
 Observations on the Dying and the Dead 202 
 
 Of the Influence of Countenance on Countenance 202 
 
 Of the Influence of the Imagination 203 
 
 Male and Female 204 
 
 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI 206 
 
 From the Flying Leaves 209 
 
 Learned Societies 220 
 
 JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON HERDER 231 
 
 Love and Self 236 
 
 Tithon and Aurora 242 
 
 Metempsychoris 248 
 
 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GCETHE 263 
 
 The Vicar of Wakefield 270 
 
 From the Elective Affinities 278 
 
 Confessions of a Fair Saint 282 
 
 Indenture 304 
 
 The Exequies of Mignon 305 
 
 Extracts 306 
 
 Novelle 345 
 
 The Tale 353 
 
 JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER 365 
 
 Upon Naive and Sentimental Poetry 372 
 
 JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE 383 
 
 The Destination of Man 384 
 
 JOHANN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER 405 
 
 Rome 407 
 
 Leibgeber to Siebenkiis 411 
 
 Second Extract from " Flower, Fruit and Thorn pieces" 413 
 
 Dream 415 
 
 Letter to my Friends 417 
 
 The Marriage 418 
 
 Thoughts 420 
 
 AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL 423 
 
 Lectures on Dramatic Literature 424 
 
viii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FRIEDRICH DANIEL ERNST SCHLEIERMACHER 441 
 
 Discourse IV. Church and Priesthood 441 
 
 GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL 446 
 
 Introduction to the Philosophy of History 447 
 
 Who thinks abstractly 1 456 
 
 JOHANN HEINRICH DANIEL ZSCHOKKE 459 
 
 The Poor Vicar 459 
 
 FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL 472 
 
 Lectures on the Philosophy of History 473 
 
 NOVALIS (FRIEDRICH VON HARDENBERG) 489 
 
 From Heinrich von Oefterdinger 491 
 
 From the Fragments 496 
 
 LUDWIG TIECK , 498 
 
 The Elves 501 
 
 FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH VON SCHELLING 509 
 
 On the Relation of the Plastic Arts of Nature 510 
 
 ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN 521 
 
 The Golden Pot 522 
 
 ADALBERT VON CHAMISSO 544 
 
 The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl 547 
 
Ij (][( Sr 1 r JJ| \f In) 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 Born 1483. Died 1546. 
 
 " Japed de stirpe satwm Doctore Luthero 
 Majorem nobis nulla propago dabit." 
 
 To Martin Luther belongs, with strict 
 propriety, the foremost place in this collec- 
 tion intended to represent the German mind. 
 Luther is regarded by his countrymen as the 
 original of that mind, — the prototype of all that 
 is most distinctive in German modes of thought 
 and speech. Other writers of German had 
 attained to eminence before him. Tauler, in 
 particular, the celebrated mystic of Strasburg, 
 is still an honored name. Nevertheless, the 
 national-intellectual life of Germany dates from 
 Luther as its parent source, and is emphati- 
 cally referred to him by a grateful posterity. 
 There is scarcely another instance in history, 
 in which an individual, without secular autho- 
 rity or military achievement, has so stamped 
 himself upon a people and made himself, to so 
 great an extent, the leader, the representative, 
 the voice of the nation. He has been to Ger- 
 many, in this respect, what Homer was to 
 Greece. 
 
 While devoting himself to the regeneration 
 of the national religion, he unconsciously con- 
 ferred upon the national literature a service as 
 signal in its kind, as any which the church de- 
 rived from his labors. He first gave to that 
 literature an adequate organ. He created the 
 language* which is now written and spoken 
 by educated Germans. For though a constant 
 approximation to the modern High German is 
 undoubtedly visible in the writings of his im- 
 mediate predecessors, — as e. g. in Albrecht 
 Diirer, the painter, and the translator of the 
 Gesta Romanorum, — there is still a great 
 stride between their language and the Lu- 
 theran, in point of movement and well-defined 
 inflection. On the whole, the modern High 
 German must be considered as having first at- 
 
 * " Er schuf die Deutsche Sprache." Heine. This may 
 seem too strongly put, when we consider the necessary 
 laws of language The Lutheran was not a creation out 
 of nothing, certainly ; hut it was the evolution of a per- 
 fect and harmonious form out of a rude and undigested 
 mass. 
 
 tained its full development and perfect finish 
 in Luther's version of the Bible. By means 
 of that book, it obtained a currency which no- 
 thing else could have given it. It became 
 fixed. It became universal. It became the 
 organ of a literature which, more than any 
 other since the Greek, has been a literature 
 of ideas. It became the vehicle of modern 
 philosophy, — the cradle of those thoughts which, 
 at this moment, act most intensely on the hu- 
 man mind. 
 
 Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, in Sax- 
 ony, during a visit of his parents to that city, 
 November 10, 1483. His father, Hans Luther, 
 a poor miner, who had previously resided in 
 the village of Mohra, removed to Mansfeld the 
 following year; and here it was that Martin 
 received the first rudiments of education. At 
 the age of twenty, he obtained the degree of 
 Master at the University of Erfurth. His father 
 had destined him to the study of the Law, but 
 Theology drew him with irresistible attraction. 
 He became a monk of the Augustine order, at 
 Erfurth, and, in process of time, Doctor of Di- 
 vinity, at Wittenberg. 
 
 He began his labors, as a reformer, in the 
 year 1517, with an attack on the sale of Indul- 
 gences, in ninety-five propositions, which he 
 sent forth into the world, as it were a cartel 
 aimed at Tetzel and Rome. Three years later 
 we find him at the Diet of Worms, defending 
 himself and his doctrine before the emperor 
 Charles V. and the German princes. That 
 was the most remarkable assembly ever con- 
 vened on earth, — an empire against a man ! 
 Lucas Cranach's picture represents Luther as 
 he stood there, so lone and strong, with his 
 great fire-heart, — a new Prometheus, confront- 
 ing the Jove of the sixteenth century and the 
 German Olympus. "Here I stand, I cannot 
 otherwise. God help me ! Amen." Imme- 
 diately upon this followed his translation of 
 the Bible, which was his best defence; and 
 
 (9) 
 
10 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 from this time, until his death, which occurred 
 on the 18th February, 1546, such a succession 
 of labors in behalf of the Reformed religion, as 
 to justify the epitaph, 
 
 " Pestis eram vivens, moriens, tua mors ero Papa /" 
 
 Luther is represented as a man of low sta- 
 ture* but handsome person, with a " clear brave 
 countenance," lively complexion, and falcon 
 eyes. Antonio Varillasf says; "Nature gave 
 him an Italian head upon a German body ; such 
 was his vivacity and diligence, his cheerfulness 
 and health." His voice was clear and pene- 
 trating, his eloquence overpowering. Me- 
 lanchthon,on beholding his picture, exclaimed, 
 " Fulmina erant singula verba tua" Another 
 contemporary said of him, that he was a man 
 "to stop the wrath of God." Another calls 
 him the third Elias. He was a husband and a 
 father, fond of society, of a free and jovial na- 
 ture, much given to music, himself a composer 
 and an able performer on the flute. A man 
 of singular temperance and great industry. 
 He throve best on hard work and spare diet. 
 An easy life made him sick. As to his cha- 
 racter, a man without guile, open, sincere, 
 generous, obliging, patient, brave, devout. " He 
 was not only the greatest," says Henry Heine,! 
 " but the most German man of our history. In 
 his character all the faults and all the virtues 
 of the Germans are combined on the largest 
 scale. Then he had qualities which are very 
 seldom found united, which we are accustomed 
 to regard as irreconcileable antagonisms. He 
 was, at the same time, a dreamy mystic and 
 a practical man of action. His thoughts had 
 not only wings but hands. He spoke and he 
 acted. He was not only the tongue but the 
 sword of his time. Moreover, he was, at the 
 same time, a scholastic word-thresher and an 
 inspired, God-intoxicated prophet. When he 
 had plagued himself all day long with his dog- 
 matic distinctions, in the evening he took his 
 
 * " Untergesptzter Statur." See Des seligen Zeugen 
 Oottes. D. Martin Luther's Lcbens umstiinde in 4. Th. 
 von Friedrich Siegmund Keil. Leipzig. 1764. 
 
 f Liber hist, de haeres, quoted by Keil. 
 
 \ Zur Gescliichte der Religion und Philosophie in 
 Deutschland. Salon, vol. 2d. Hamburg. 1835. 
 
 flute and gazed at the stars, dissolved in me- 
 lody and devotion. He could scold like a fish- 
 wife, and he could be soft, too, as a tender 
 maiden. Sometimes he was wild as the storm 
 that uproots the oak, and then again, he was 
 gentle as the zephyr that dallies with the vio- 
 let. He was full of the most awful reverence 
 and of self-sacrifice in honor of the Holy Spirit. 
 He could merge himself entirely in pure spi- 
 rituality. And yet he was well acquainted 
 with the glories of this world, and knew how 
 to prize them ; and out of his mouth blossomed 
 the famous saying, 
 
 " Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weiber und Gesang, 
 Der bleibt ein Jfarr sein Lebenlang." 
 
 He was a complete man, I would say, an ab- 
 solute man, one in whom matter and spirit 
 were not divided. To call him a spiritualist, 
 therefore, would be as great an error as to call 
 him a sensualist. How shall I express it] 
 He had something original, incomprehensible, 
 miraculous, such as we find in all providential 
 men, — something awfully naive, blunderingly 
 wise, sublimely narrow; — something invinci- 
 ble, demoniacal." 
 
 The position which Luther holds in the es- 
 timation of his countrymen, as father of the 
 German language and literature, together with 
 the intrinsic worth of his writings, has seemed 
 to me to justify more copious extracts, than one 
 who knows him only as the great Reformer 
 or the dogmatic theologian, might expect to 
 find in a work like this. I have endeavored 
 to preserve in the translation the slight taste 
 of antiquity which marks the writer of the 
 sixteenth century ; although the language of 
 Luther is less antiquated than' that of contem- 
 porary English writers. In fact the antiquity 
 resides in the thought rather than the idiom. 
 The idiom is substantially that of the present 
 day. 
 
 The following specimens, with the excep- 
 tion of the letters, are taken from the edition 
 of Luther's works by Walch, in twenty-four 
 vols. 4to. The letters are from the complete 
 collection published by Martin Leberecht de 
 Wette, in five vols. 8vo. Berlin. 1826. 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 11 
 
 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 FROM ADISCOURSE ON THE SPIRITUAL ADVANTAGES ARISING FROM 
 THE FURTHERANCE OF SCHOOLS, AND THE INJURY CONSEQUENT 
 ON THE N EGLECT OF THEM. 
 
 Now if thou hast a child that is fit to receive 
 instruction, and art able to hold him to it and 
 dost not, but goest thy way and carest not what 
 shall become of the secular government, its 
 laws, its peace, &c, thou warrest against the 
 secular government, as much as in thee lies, 
 like the Turk, yea, like the Devil himself. For 
 thou withholdest from the kingdom, principal- 
 ity, country, city, a redeemer, comfort, corner- 
 stone, helper and saviour. And on thy account 
 the emperor loses both sword and crown ; the 
 country loses safe-guard and freedom, and thou 
 art the man through whose fault (as much as 
 in thee lies) no man shall hold his body, wife, 
 child, house, home and goods in safety. Rather 
 thou sacrificest all these without ruth in the 
 shambles, and givest cause that men shall be- 
 come mere beasts, and at last devour one an- 
 other. This all thou wilt assuredly do, if thou 
 withdraw thy child from so wholesome a con- 
 dition, for the belly's sake. Now art thou not 
 a pretty man and a useful in the world? who 
 makest daily use of the kingdom and its peace, 
 and by way of thanks, in return, robbest the 
 same of thy son, and deliverest him up to ava- 
 rice, and labourest with all diligence to this 
 end, that there may be no man who shall help 
 maintain the kingdom, law and peace ; but that 
 all may go to wreck, notwithstanding thou thy- 
 self possessest and holdest body and life, goods 
 and honour by means of said kingdom. 
 
 I will say nothing here of how fine a plea- 
 sure it is for a man to be learned, albeit he 
 have never an office ; so that he can read all 
 manner of things by himself at home, talk and 
 converse with learned people, travel and act in 
 foreign lands. For peradventure there be few 
 who will be moved by such delights. But see- 
 ing thou art so bent upon mammon and victual, 
 look here and see how many and how great 
 goods God has founded upon schools and scho- 
 lars, so that thou shalt no more despise learning 
 and art by reason of poverty. Behold! empe- 
 rors and kings must have chancellors and 
 scribes, counsellors, jurists and scholars. There 
 is no prince but he must have chancellors, ju- 
 rists, counsellors, scholars and scribes : so like- 
 wise, all counts, lords, cities, castles must have 
 syndics, city clerks, and other learned men ; 
 nay, there is not a nobleman but must have a 
 scribe. Reckon up, now, how many kings, 
 princes, counts, lords, cities and towns, &c. 
 Where will they find learned men three years 
 hence? seeing that here and there already a 
 want is felt. Truly I think kings will have to 
 become jurists and princes chancellors, counts 
 and lords will have to become scribes, and 
 burgomasters sacristans. 
 
 Therefore I hold that never was there a bet- 
 
 ter time to study than now ; not only for the 
 reason that the art is now so abundant and so 
 cheap, but also because great wealth and honour 
 must needs ensue, and they that study now will 
 be men of price ; insomuch that two princes 
 and three cities shall tear one another for a 
 single scholar. For look above or around thee 
 and thou wilt find that innumerable offices wait 
 for learned men, before ten years shall have 
 sped ; and that few are being educated for the 
 same. 
 
 Besides honest gain, they have, also, honour. 
 For chancellors, city clerks, jurists, and people 
 in office, must sit with those who are placed on 
 high, and help counsel and govern, And they, 
 in fact, are the lords of this world, although 
 they are not so in respect of person, birth and 
 rank. 
 
 Solomon himself mentions that a poor man 
 once saved a city, by his wisdom, against a 
 mighty king. Not that 1 would have, herewith, 
 warriors, troopers, and what belongs to strife 
 done away, or despised and rejected. They 
 also, where they are obedient, help to preserve 
 peace and all things with their fist. Each has 
 his honour before God as well as his place and 
 work. 
 
 On the other hand, there are found certain 
 scratchers* who conceit that the title of writer 
 is scarce worthy to be named or heard. Well 
 then, regard not that, but think on this wise : 
 these good people must have their amusement 
 and their jest. Leave them their jest, but re- 
 main thou, nevertheless, a writer before God 
 and the world. If they scratch long, thou shalt 
 see that they honour, notwithstanding, the pen 
 above all things; that they place itj" upon hat 
 and helmet, as if they would confess, by their 
 action, that the pen is the top of the world, 
 without which they can neither be equipped 
 for battle nor go about in peace ; much less 
 scratch so securely. For they also have need 
 of the peace which the emperors, preachers and 
 teachers (the lawyers) teach and maintain. 
 Wherefore thou seest that they place our imple- 
 ment, the dear pen, uppermost. And with 
 reason, since they gird their own implement, 
 the sword, about the thighs ; there it hangs fitly 
 and well for their work ; but it would not be- 
 seem the head ; there must hover the plume. 
 If, then, they have sinned against thee, they 
 herewith expiate the offence, and thou must 
 forgive them. 
 
 There be some that deem the office of a 
 writer to be an easy and trivial office ; but to 
 ride in armour, to endure heat, cold, dust, thirst 
 and other inconvenience, they think to be la- 
 borious. Yea ! that is the old, vulgar, daily 
 tune; that no one sees where the shoe pinches 
 another. Every one feels only his own troubles, 
 
 * Scharrhansen, men who scratch for money, and think 
 of nothing else. Tr. 
 
 |The word Feder, feather, is used indifferently in Ger- 
 man to denote pen or plume. Tr. 
 
12 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 and stares at the ease of others. True it is, it 
 would be difficult for me to ride in armour ; but 
 then, on the other hand, I would like to see the 
 rider who should sit me still the whole day- 
 long and look into a book, though he were not 
 compelled to care for aught, to invent or think 
 or read. Ask a chancery-clerk, a preacher or 
 an orator, what kind of work writing and ha- 
 ranguing is? Ask a schoolmaster what kind 
 of work is teaching and bringing up of boys ? 
 The pen is light, it is true, and among all trades 
 no tool so easily furnished as that of the writing- 
 trade, for it needeth only a goose's wing, of 
 which one shall everywhere find a sufficiency. 
 gratis. Nevertheless, in this employment, the 
 best piece in the human body, (as the head) 
 and the noblest member, (as the tongue) and 
 the highest work (as speech) must take part 
 and labour most; while, in others, either the 
 fist or the feet or the back, or members of that 
 class alone work ; and they that pursue them 
 may sing merrily the while, and jest freely, 
 which a writer cannot do. Three fingers do 
 the work (so they say of writers), but the whole 
 body and soul must cooperate. 
 
 I have heard of the worthy and beloved em- 
 peror Maximilian, how, when the great boobies 
 complained that he employed so many writers 
 for missions and other purposes, he is reported 
 to have said; "what shall I do 1 ? They will 
 not suffer themselves to be used in this way, 
 therefore I must employ writers.'' And fur- 
 ther : " Knights I can create, but doctors I can- 
 not create/' So have I likewise heard of a fine 
 nobleman, that he said, " I will let my son 
 study. It is no great art to hang two legs over 
 a steed and be a rider ; he shall soon learn me 
 that ; and he shall be fine and well-spoken." 
 
 They say, and it is true, the pope was once 
 a pupil too. Therefore despise me not the fel- 
 lows who say "panem propter Deum" before the 
 doors and sing the bread-song.* Thou hearest, 
 as this psalm says, great princes and lords sing. 
 I too have been one of these fellows, and have 
 received bread at the houses, especially at 
 Eisenach, my native city. Although, afterward, 
 my dear father maintained me, with all love 
 and faith, in the high school at Erfurt, and, by 
 his sore sweat and labour, has helped me to 
 what I have become, — still I have been a beg- 
 gar at the doors of the rich, and, according to 
 this psalm, have attained so far by means of 
 the pen, that, now, I would not compound with 
 the Turkish emperor, to have his wealth and 
 forego my art. Yea I would not take for it the 
 wealth of the world many times multiplied; 
 and yet, without doubt, I had never attai#ed to 
 it, had I not chanced upon a school and the 
 writers' trade. 
 
 Therefore let thy son study, nothing doubting, 
 and though he should beg his bread the while, 
 
 * A song or psalm which the poor students of Luther's 
 time sang, when they went about imploring charity at 
 the doors of the rich. 
 
 yet shalt thou give to our Lord God a fine piece 
 of wood out of which he can whittle thee a lord. 
 And be not disturbed that vulgar niggards con- 
 temn the art so disdainfully, and say: Aha! if 
 my son can write German and read and cipher, 
 he knows enough ; I will have him a merchant. 
 They shall soon become so tame that they will 
 be fain to dig with their fingers, ten yards deep 
 in the earth, for a scholar. For my merchant 
 will not be a merchant long, when law and 
 preaching fail. That know I for certain ; we 
 theologians and lawyers must remain, or all 
 must go down with us together. It cannot be 
 otherwise. When theologians go, then goes the 
 word of God, and remains nothing but the hea- 
 then, yea! mere devils. When jurists go, then 
 goes justice together with peace, and remains 
 only murder, robbery, outrage, force, yea ! mere 
 wild beasts. But what the merchant shall earn 
 and win, when peace is gone, I will leave it to 
 his books to inform him. And how much profit 
 all his wealth shall be to him when preaching 
 fails, his conscience, I trow, shall declare to 
 him. 
 
 I will say briefly of a diligent pious school-teacher 
 or 7nagister, or of whomsoever it is. that faithfully 
 brings up boys and instructs them, that such an 
 one can never be sufficiently recompensed or paid 
 iciih money ; as also the heathen Aristotle says. 
 Yet is this calling so shamefully despised among 
 us, as though it were altogether nought. And 
 we call ourselves Christians! 
 
 And if I must or could relinquish the office 
 of preacher and other matters, there is no office 
 I would more willingly have than that of school- 
 master or teacher of boys. For I know that 
 this work, next to the office of preacher, is the 
 most profitable, the greatest and the best. Be- 
 sides, I know not even, which is the best of the 
 two. For it is hard to make old dogs tame and 
 old rogues upright; at which task, nevertheless, 
 the preacher's office labours, and often labours 
 in vain. But young trees be more easily bent 
 and trained, howbeit some should break in the 
 effort. Ecloved ! count it one of the highest virtues 
 upon earth, to educate faithfully the children of 
 others, which so few, and scarcely any, do by their 
 own. 
 
 ON THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 FROM AN EXHORTATION OF M. LUTHER TO THE COtJNCILMEN OF 
 ALL THE CITIES OF GERMANY TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN 
 CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Let us consider our former misery and the 
 darkness wherein we have been. I deem that 
 Germany has never before heard so much of 
 God's word as now. One finds no trace of it 
 in history. If, then, we let it pass thus, without 
 thanks or honour, it is to be feared we shall 
 suffer yet more horrible darkness and plagues. 
 Dear Germans ! buy while the market is at the 
 door. Gather while the sun shines and the 
 weather is good. Use God's grace and word 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 13 
 
 while it is there. For you shall know that 
 God's grace and word is a travelling shower 
 which does not appear again where it has once 
 been. It dwelled once with the Jews, but gone 
 is gone ; — now they have nothing. Paul brought 
 it into Greece, but gone is gone; — now they 
 have got the Turk. Rome and Italy have had 
 it once ; gone is gone ; — now they have got the 
 Pope. And ye Germans must not think that 
 you will have it forever ; for ingratitude and 
 neglect will not suffer it to remain. Therefore 
 seize and hold fast whoever can. Idle hands 
 have slender years. 
 
 Yea! sayest thou, though it be fitting and 
 necessary to have schools, of what use is it to 
 teach the Latin, Greek and Hebrew tongues, 
 and other fine arts? Could we not teach, in 
 German, the Bible and God's word, which are 
 sufficient for salvation ? Answer : Yes, I know 
 alas! too well, that we Germans must always 
 be and continue beasts and wild animals. So 
 the surrounding nations call us, and we deserve 
 it well. But I wonder we never say : of what 
 use are silks, wine, spices and outlandish wares 
 of foreign nations ? seeing we have wine, corn, 
 wool, flax, wood and stones in German lands — 
 not only a sufficiency for support, but also a 
 choice and selection for honour and adornment? 
 We are willing to contemn the arts and lan- 
 guages which, without any injury, are a great 
 ornament, use, honour and advantage, both for 
 the understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, and 
 for the conduct of worldly government ; and are 
 not willing to dispense with outlandish wares 
 which are neither necessary nor useful, and 
 moreover distress and ruin us. Have we not 
 good reason to be called German fools and 
 beasts 1 
 
 Indeed, if there were no other use to be de- 
 rived from the languages, it ought to rejoice and 
 animate us that we have so noble and fine a 
 gift of God ; wherewith he has visited and fa- 
 voured us Germans above all other lands. It 
 doth not appear that the Devil would suffer 
 these same languages to come forward by means 
 of the High-schools and Cloisters ; on the con- 
 trary they have always raved most vehemently 
 and still rave against them. For the Devil 
 smelled the roast,* that if the languages revived, 
 his kingdom would get a hole which he could 
 not easily stop up again.j- Now, since he hath 
 not been able to prevent their revival, he thinks 
 
 * " To smell the roast" is a proverbial expression with 
 the Germans, equivalent to our " smell the rat," i.e. to 
 suspect mischief. Tr. 
 
 t The study of the Greek and the Hebrew is said to 
 have been discouraged by the clergy prior to the Refor- 
 mation, in order to prevent a nearer acquaintance with 
 the Scriptures. "They have discovered," says a monk 
 of that period, "a new language which they call the 
 Greek ; beware of it, for it is the mother of all heresies. 
 I see in the hands of some a book written in that lan- 
 guage, called the New Testament. It is a book full of 
 thorns and poison. And as to Hebrew, my beloved bre- 
 thren, you may be sure that whoever meddles with that 
 will immediately become a Jew." Tr. 
 
 still to keep them so poorly, that they shall de- 
 cline and fall away again of themselves. It is 
 no welcome guest that hath come into his house 
 with them ; therefore he means to entertain him 
 in such a way that he shall not long remain. 
 There be few of us that perceive this wicked 
 trick of the Devil, my dear masters ! Therefore, 
 beloved Germans ! let us here open our eyes, 
 thank God for the noble treasure and take fast 
 hold of it, that it may not again be wrested from 
 us, and the Devil wreak his spite. For we 
 cannot deny this, that howbeit the gospel came 
 and comes daily through the Holy Spirit alone, 
 yet it came through the instrumentality of the 
 languages, and, by means of them, has ad- 
 vanced, and by means of them must be pre- 
 served. For straightway, when God was minded 
 to let his gospel go forth into all the world 
 through the apostles, he gave tongues for that 
 end. And he had before diffused the Latin and 
 Greek tongues so widely in all lands, by means 
 of the Roman Government, to the end that his 
 gospel might bring forth fruit speedily far and 
 near. Thus also hath he done now. No one 
 knew why God caused the languages to revive, 
 until now, when it is evident that it was done 
 for the gospel's sake, the which he was minded 
 afterward to reveal, and thereby to discover and 
 destroy the kingdom of Antichrist. For this 
 cause also he gave Greece to the Turks, that the 
 Greeks who were driven out and scattered 
 abroad might carry forth the Greek tongue and 
 become an introduction to the study of other 
 languages also. 
 
 And let us understand this, that we shall not 
 be able to preserve the gospel without the lan- 
 guages. The languages are the sheath in which 
 this sword of the Spirit is hid. They are the 
 casket in which this jewel is borne. They are 
 the vessel in which this drink is contained. 
 They are the cupboard in which this food is 
 laid. And, as the evaagile itself showeth, they 
 are the baskets which hold these loaves and fishes 
 and fragments. Yea! if we should so err as to 
 let the languages go, (which God forbid?) we 
 shall not only lose the gospel, but it shall come 
 to pass, at length, that we shall not know to 
 speak or write, neither Latin nor German aright. 
 Of this let the miserable and dreadful example 
 of the High-schools and Convents be a proof 
 and a warning ; where they have not only lost 
 all knowledge of the gospel, but have so cor- 
 rupted the Latin and the German language that 
 the wretched people have beome mere beasts, 
 cannot write or speak correctly, either Latin or 
 German, and have also well nigh lost their 
 natural reason. 
 
 Yea! sayest thou, many of the Fathers have 
 attained to blessedness, and have also taught, 
 without languages. That is true. But to what 
 dost thou impute it, that they have so often 
 failed in the Scriptures'? How often does St. 
 Augustin fail in the psalms, and in other ex- 
 positions? So also Hilary, yea all who have 
 taken upon themselves to expound Scripture 
 2 
 
14 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 without the languages. Was not St. Jerome 
 compelled to translate the Psalter anew from 
 the Hebrew, because, when men argued with 
 the Jews out of our Psalter, they mocked and 
 said it was not so written in the Hebrew, as 
 our people quoted it? 
 
 Thence comes it that since the time of the 
 apostles the Scripture has remained so obscure 
 and that no certain and permanent exposition 
 of it hath been written. For even the holy- 
 Fathers (as I have said) have often failed, and 
 because they were ignorant of the languages, 
 they are seldom agreed, but one goes this way, 
 another that. St. Bernard was a man of a large 
 spirit, insomuch that I might almost place him 
 above all other teachers who have become cele- 
 brated, both ancient and modern. But see, how 
 he so often sports with the Scriptures, (howbeit 
 spiritually) and quotes them aside of their true 
 meaning ! For this cause the sophists have said 
 that the Scriptures were dark, and have thought 
 that in its own nature the word of God was so 
 obscure and spoke so strangely. But they see 
 not that the whole difficulty lies in the lan- 
 guages. Nothing more simple than the word 
 of God has ever been spoken ; so we under- 
 stood the tongues. A Turk must needs speak 
 obscurely to me — because I know not his lan- 
 guage — whom, nevertheless, a Turkish child of 
 seven years can well understand. 
 
 Neither let us be deceived for that some boast 
 themselves of the Spirit and think meanly of the 
 Scripture. Some also like the Brethren, the 
 Waldenses, deem the languages not to be useful. 
 But, dear friend, Spirit here, Spirit there, — I have 
 also been in the Spirit and have also seen Spi- 
 rits, (if ever it be lawful to boast of one's own 
 flesh) perhaps more than these same people 
 shall see in a year, howsoever they boast them- 
 selves. Also, my spirit has proved itself some- 
 what, while theirs is quite silent in a corner 
 and does little else than protrude its praise. I 
 might have led a pious life and have preached 
 well^ enough in quiet. But the Pope and the 
 Sophists and the whole Government of Anti- 
 christ I should have been forced to leave as 
 they are. The Devil cares not for my spirit so 
 much as for my language, and my pen in the 
 Scriptures. For my spirit takes nothing from 
 him save myself alone. But the holy Scriptures 
 and the languages make the world too narrow 
 for him and injure him in his kingdom. So then, 
 I cannot praise the Brethren, the Waldenses, in 
 that they despise the tongues. For though they 
 should teach aright, they must often fail of the 
 right text, and remain unarmed and unfurnished 
 to battle for the faith against error. 
 
 Now, although, as I have said before, there 
 were no soul and no need of schools and lan- 
 guages for God's sake and the Scriptures, — yet 
 were this alone a sufficient reason for establish- 
 ing everywhere the very best schools both for 
 boys and girls, — that the world has need of 
 skilful men and women in order to maintain 
 outwardly its secular condition. The men 
 
 should be fit to govern Land and People; the 
 women should be well able to guide and pre- 
 serve house, children and servants. Now must 
 such men be made out of boys and such women 
 must be made out of little girls. Therefore it 
 is important to train and educate little boys and 
 girls aright for such work. I have said above 
 that the common man does nothing toward this 
 end, neither can he, neither will he, neither 
 knows he. Princes and lords ought to do it, but 
 they are occupied with sleigh-riding, with drink- 
 ing and with mummery; they are laden with 
 grave and important affairs of the kitchen, the 
 cellar and the chamber. And though some 
 would do it willingly, the others must needs 
 scare them with the fear of being called fools 
 or heretics. Therefore, my beloved Council-men, 
 it remains in your hands alone. You have 
 space and vocation for it more than princes and 
 lords. 
 
 Thou sayest let each one teach and train his 
 own. Answer: Yes! we know very well what 
 kind of teaching and training that is. Even 
 when it is carried farthest and succeeds well, 
 it amounts to nothing more than a little disci- 
 pline of forced and decent manners. For the 
 rest, they are mere blocks of wood, and know 
 nothing either of this or of that, and can neither 
 counsel nor help. But if they were taught and 
 trained in schools or elsewhere, where there 
 are learned and able masters and mistresses, 
 who teach languages and other arts and histo- 
 ries, they would hear the history and the say- 
 ings of all the world ; — how it fell out with this 
 or that city or kingdom or prince, man or woman ; 
 and they would be able, in a short time, to bring 
 before them, as it were in a mirror, the being, 
 life, counsels and designs, the successes and 
 failures of the whole world, from the beginning; 
 whence they might learn to order their thoughts 
 and adjust themselves to the course of the world, 
 in the fear of God. And they should be made 
 witty and wise by these histories, knowing what 
 to seek and what to avoid in this outward life ; 
 and should be able moreover to advise and 
 govern others. But the education which is given 
 at home, without such schools, attempts to make 
 us wise by our own experience. Ere that comes 
 to pass we shall be dead a hundred times over, 
 and shall have acted inconsiderately all our life 
 long. For experience requires much time. 
 
 How much time and trouble are bestowed in 
 teaching children to play at cards, to sing and 
 to dance. Why will we not spend as much 
 time in teaching them to read and other accom- 
 plishments, while they are young and have lei- 
 sure and capacity and disposition for them 1 I 
 speak for myself: if I had children and were 
 able, they should not only hear me languages 
 and histories, but they should also sing and learn 
 music and the whole of the mathematics. For 
 what is all this but mere child's play, in which 
 the Greeks aforetime instructed their children, 
 and by means of which they afterward became 
 wonderfully skilful people and capable of many 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 15 
 
 things ? Yea ! what grief it is to me now, that 
 I did not read more poets and histories, and 
 that no one instructed me in these matters. 
 Instead thereof, I have been made to read the 
 Devil's filth, philosophers and schoolmen, with 
 great cost and labour and injury, so that I have 
 enough to do to get rid of it all. 
 
 Thou sayest, who can give up his children 
 and train them all, for squires ? They must at- 
 tend to the work at home. Answer : My opi- 
 nion is not that we should establish such schools 
 as there have been heretofore, where a youth 
 would pore for twenty or thirty years over Do- 
 natus and Alexander and learn nothing after 
 all. We have a different world now, and things 
 are otherwise managed. My counsel is that 
 the boys should be suffered to go to school an 
 hour or two each day and none the less work 
 at home the rest of the time, — learn a handy- 
 craft and do whatever is wanted of them. Let 
 both go together, seeing they are young and can 
 wait. Besides, do they not spend ordinarily 
 tenfold as much time at marbles and ball and 
 in running and wrestling? 
 
 So likewise a girl may find time enough to 
 go to school an hour a day, and still wait upon 
 her work at home. They sleep away and dance 
 away and play away more time than that. 
 The only difficulty is this, that there is no hearty 
 desire to train the young and to help and in- 
 struct the world with fine people. The Devil 
 loves, rather, coarse blocks and good-for-nothing 
 people, that man may not fare too well upon 
 the earth. 
 
 Therefore, dear masters, take to heart the 
 work which God so imperatively demands of 
 you, to which your office binds you, which is so 
 necessary to the young, and which neither the 
 world nor the Spirit can do without. Alas! we 
 have long enough been rotting and corrupting 
 in darkness. All too long have we been " Ger- 
 man beasts." Let us, for once, make use of our 
 reason, that God may mark our gratitude for his 
 gifts, and that other lands may take note that 
 we too are men, and such as can either learn 
 something useful of them or teach them some- 
 thing; — so that by us also the world may be 
 made better. I have done my part. It was 
 my desire to counsel and help the German land. 
 And albeit some may contemn me in this thing 
 and give to the winds my faithful advice and 
 pretend to better knowledge, I must even en- 
 dure it. I well know that others might have 
 done better 5 but seeing they are silent, I have 
 done as well as I could. It is better to speak 
 right forth, however unskilfully, than always to 
 be silent on this head. And I am in hope that 
 God will arouse some among you, to the end 
 that my true counsel may not wholly fall in the 
 dust, and that you will consider not him that 
 speaketh but ponder the thing itself and let it 
 go forward. ****** 
 
 Herewith I commend you to the grace of God. 
 May he soften and kindle your hearts so that 
 they shall earnestly take the part of these poor, 
 
 suffering, forsaken youth, and, by Divine aid, 
 counsel and help them to a happy and Chris- 
 tian government of the German land, in body 
 and soul, with all fulness and redundancy, to 
 the praise and honour of God the Father, through 
 Jesus Christ our Saviour ! Amen. 
 Given at Wittenberg, Anno, 1524. 
 
 CONCERNING GOD THE FATHER. 
 
 FROM AN EXPOSITION OF THE CHRISTIAN CREED, DELIVERED AT 
 SMALCALD IN THE YEAR 1537. 
 
 Art. I. " I believe in God the Father, the Al- 
 mighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth." 
 
 Here, it is first of all held up to us, that we 
 know and learn whence we are derived, what 
 we are and where we belong. All wise men 
 have ever been concerned to know whence the 
 world and ourselves have proceeded, but have 
 not been able to discover. They have supposed 
 that man is born by chance, without a master 
 by whom his birth is ordained and brought to 
 pass, and that he lives and dies by chance, like 
 other beasts. Some have advanced farther and 
 have pondered this subject until they were 
 forced to conclude that the world and man must 
 have proceeded from an eternal God, because 
 they are such mighty and glorious creations. 
 Nevertheless, they have not been able to attain 
 to any true knowledge thereof. But we know 
 it well, howbeit not of and from ourselves but 
 from the word of God which is here brought 
 before us, in the creed. Therefore wouldst thou 
 know whence thou and I and all men are de- 
 rived, listen and I will tell thee. It is God the 
 Father, the almighty creator of heaven and 
 earth, an only God, who has created and pre- 
 serves all things. Now thou knowest it. It is 
 indeed a simple doctrine to look at, and a plain 
 sermon. And yet no man, be he as wise as he 
 could be, was able to find it, save he who came 
 down from heaven and revealed the same to us. 
 
 The wise man, Aristotle, concludes that the 
 world existed from eternity. To that one must 
 say, that he knew nothing at all of this art. But 
 when it is said that heaven and earth are a 
 creation or work made by him who is called 
 an only God and made out of nothing; that is an 
 art above all arts. And thus it is with me and 
 thee and the world. Sixty years ago I was 
 nothing as yet. And so, innumerable children 
 will be born after us who as yet are nothing. 
 So the world six thousand years ago was nothing, 
 and, in time, will be nothing again. And so, 
 all was brought out of nothing into being, and 
 shall be brought out of being into nothing again, 
 until all is created anew, more glorious and fair. 
 This, I say, we know, and the Holy Scripture 
 teacheth it us, and little children have it pre- 
 sented to them thus, in the words of the creed 
 — "I believe in God the Father, &c. v 
 
 Therefore, learn first of all, from this, whence 
 thou comest ; namely from him who is called 
 
16 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 Creator of heaven and earth. That may be 
 counted a great and sublime honour, which I 
 ought reasonably to accept with great joy, that 
 I am called and am a creature and work of the 
 only and most high God. The world seeketh 
 after honour with money, force and the like. 
 But it hath not the piety rightly to consider and 
 reflect upon this honour, concerning which we 
 pray, through the mouth of young children, here 
 in the creed, that God is our master, who has 
 given us body and soul, and preserves them still 
 from day to day. If we rightly believed this, and 
 deemed it true, there would spring from it great 
 praise and boasting ; for that I can say, the 
 Master who has created the sun, he has also 
 created me. As now the sun boasts its beauty 
 and its glory, so will I boast and say: I am the 
 work and creature of my God. 
 
 With this honour should every man be satis- 
 fied, and say with joy, I believe in God, Creator 
 of heaven and earth, who has hung his name 
 ahout my neck, that I should be his creature, 
 and that he should be called my God and Maker. 
 It is a children's sermon and a common saying, 
 nevertheless, one sees well who they be that 
 understand it. We deem it no particular honour 
 that we are God's creatures, but that any one 
 should be a prince or great lord, we open eyes 
 and mouth. Yet are these but human creatures, 
 as Peter calls them, and an afterwork. For, if 
 God did not come first with his creature, and 
 make a man, there could be no prince. Yet do 
 all men clamour about such an one, as if it were 
 some great and precious thing, whereas it is 
 much greater and more glorious to be a creature 
 of God. Therefore should servants and maid- 
 servants and all men accept this high honour, 
 and say, I am a man. That is a higher title 
 than to be a prince. Not God, but men make 
 the prince, but God alone can make me a man. 
 
 It is said of the Jews, that they have a prayer 
 wherein they praise God for three things. First, 
 that they are created men and not irrational 
 animals. Secondly, that they are created male 
 and not female. Thirdly, that they are created 
 Jews and not heathen. But that is praising God 
 as fools are wont, by flouting and vilifying other 
 creatures of God, at the same time. So doth 
 not the Psalmist praise him. He includes all 
 that God has made, and says, Praise the Lord 
 on the earth ! ye whales and all the deeps ! &c. 
 
 Furthermore, this article teacheth us not only 
 who hath created us and whence we are, but 
 also where we belong. This is shown us by 
 the word Father. He is at the same time Father 
 and Almighty Creator. The beasts cannot call 
 him Father, but we are to call him thus and to 
 be called his children. With this word he 
 showeth what destination he hath appointed us, 
 having first taught us whence we are and what 
 praise and honour have been bestowed upon us. 
 What is the end and purpose of the whole? 
 This, — that ye shall be children and that I will 
 be your Father. That I have not only created 
 you and will preserve you here, but that I will 
 
 have you to children, and suffer you to be my 
 heirs, who shall not be thrust out of the house 
 like other creatures, oxen, cows, sheep, &c, that 
 either perish all, or else are eaten, but, besides 
 that ye are my creatures, ye shall also be for- 
 evermore my children and live alway. 
 
 Thus do we pray and confess, when we say 
 in the creed, I believe in God the Father, that, 
 in like manner as he is Father and liveth for- 
 ever, we also, as his children, shall live forever 
 and shall not perish. Therefore are we by so 
 much a higher and fairer creation than other 
 creatures, that we are not only creatures of God 
 and his work, but are destined also to live for- 
 ever with our Father. 
 
 This is an article with which we should day 
 by day converse, that, the longer we taste 
 thereof, the more we may prove it ; for it is im- 
 possible, with words or with thoughts, to com- 
 prehend what is meant by God the Father. A 
 sated and weary heart may hear but doth not con- 
 sider it. But the heart which rightly received 
 such words would often think thereon with joy, 
 and when it looked upon the sun, moon, and 
 other creatures, would recognise herein a special 
 favour, that it is called a child of God, and that 
 God is willing to be and remain our Father, and 
 that we shall evermore live and remain with 
 God. 
 
 This then is the first article, whence we 
 briefly learn that a Christian is a fair and glorious 
 creation that cometh from God, and that the end 
 which he craves and for which he is destined, 
 is eternal life. 
 
 CONCERNING ANGELS. 
 
 FROM A DISCOURSE ON GOOD AND EVIL ANGELS, PREACHED AT WIT- 
 TEMBKRG, AT THE FEAST OF MICHA ELM AS, 15 3 3; FROM THE WORDS : 
 " TAKE HEED THAT YE DESPISE NOT ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES ! 
 FOR I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT IN HEAVEN, THEIR ANGELS DO ALWAYS 
 BEHOLD THE FACE OF MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN." MATT. 
 
 xvm. 10. 
 
 * * * Seeing then, that the Feast of St. 
 Michael, and of all the angels, exists, we will 
 retain the same in our churches. Not for secular 
 reasons alone, and the income which is derived 
 from it; but much rather for spiritual reasons. 
 Because it is useful and necessary that Christians 
 should continue in the right understanding of 
 angels, — so that the young people may not grow 
 up, neither learning nor knowing what dear 
 angels purpose and do ; and have no joy therein, 
 and never thank God the Lord for this gift and 
 benefit. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Now beginneth the Lord a sermon for chil- 
 dren, and saith, " Take heed that ye despise not 
 one of these little ones," &c. There thou hast 
 a clear text, which thou oughtest, with certainty, 
 to believe. For this man, Christ, knows, of a 
 surety, that children have angels, which do not 
 make the children, but help to preserve them 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 17 
 
 whom God hath created. So then, we preachers 
 and parents ought to begin where Christ began, 
 and impress upon children that they have an- 
 gels. * * * After this manner would I 
 train a child from early youth, and say to him, 
 Dear child, thou hast an own angel. If thou 
 prayest morning and evening, this angel shall 
 be near thee and shall sit by thy little bed. He 
 has a little white coat, and he shall nurse thee 
 and rock thee and take care of thee, that the 
 bad man, the Devil, may not come nigh thee. 
 Also, when thou lovest to say thy Benedicite and 
 thy Gratias before meat, thy little angel will be 
 near thy table, and will wait upon thee and 
 guard thee and watch, that no evil may befal 
 thee, and that thy food may do thee good. If 
 this were impressed upon children, they would 
 learn and accustom themselves from youth up 
 to the thought that the angels are with them. 
 And this would not only serve to make them 
 rely on the protection of the dear angels, but 
 also cause that they should be well-behaved, 
 and learn to stand in awe, and to think : Though 
 our parents are not with us, yet the angels are 
 here ; they are looking after us, that the evil 
 Spirit may do us no mischief. 
 
 This, peradventure, is a childish sermon, but, 
 nevertheless, it is good and needful ; and so 
 needful and so simple that it may profit us old 
 folks also. For the angels are not only present 
 with children, but also with us who are old. 
 So says St. Paul, in the first epistle to the Co- 
 rinthians, xi. 10, "For this cause ought the 
 woman to have a power on her head, because 
 of the angels." Women should not be adorned 
 in the church and in the congregation as if they 
 were going to a dance, but be covered with a 
 veil for the sake of the angels. St. Paul here 
 fetcheth in the angels, and saith that they are 
 present at the sermon, and at sacred offices and 
 divine service. This service of the angels doth 
 not seem to be precious, but herein we see 
 what are genuine good works. The dear angels 
 are not proud as we men ; but they walk in 
 divine obedience, and in the service of men, and 
 wait upon young children. How could they 
 perform a meaner work than to wait day and 
 night upon children ? What doth a child ? It 
 eats, weeps, sleeps, &c. Truly, an admirable 
 thing, that the holy ministering Spirits should 
 wait upon children who eat, drink, sleep, and 
 wake ! To look at it, it doth indeed seem a 
 lowly office. But the dear angels perform it 
 with joy, for it is well pleasing to God, who 
 hath enjoined it upon them. A monk, on the 
 contrary, saith, shall I wait upon children'? 
 That will I not do. I will go about higher and 
 greater works. I will put on a cowl and will 
 mortify myself in the cloister, &c. But if thou 
 wilt consider it aright, these are the highest and 
 best offices, which are rendered to children and 
 to pious Christians. What do parents ? What 
 are their works? They are the menials and 
 the servants of young children. All that they 
 do — they themselves confess — they do for the 
 c 
 
 sake of their children, that they may be edu- 
 cated. So do also the dear angels. Why, then, 
 should we be ashamed to wait upon children ? 
 And if the dear angels did not take charge of 
 children, what would become of them? For 
 parents, with the help of prince and magistrate, 
 are far too feeble to bring them up. Were it 
 not for the protection of the dear angels, no 
 child would grow to full age, though the parents 
 should bestow all possible diligence upon them. 
 Therefore hath God ordained, and set for the 
 care and defence of children, not only parents, 
 but also emperors, kings, princes, and lastly, his 
 high and great Spirits, the holy angels, that no 
 harm may befall them. It were well that the 
 children were impressed with these things. 
 
 On the other hand, one should also tell chil- 
 dren of the wiles of the Devil and of evil 
 spirits. Dear child, one should say to them, if 
 thou wilt not be pious, thy little angel will run 
 away from thee, and the evil Spirit, the black 
 Popelmann, will come to thee. Therefore, be 
 pious and pray, and thy little angel will come 
 to thee, and the Popelmann will leave thee. 
 And this is even the pure truth. The Devil 
 sits in a corner, and if he could throttle both 
 parent and child, he would do it not otherwise 
 than gladly. ****** 
 
 Thus are the dear angels watchmen also, and 
 keep watch over us and protect us. And were 
 it not for their guardianship, the black Nick 
 would soon find us, seeing he is an angry and 
 untiring Spirit ; but the dear angels are our true 
 guardians against him. When we sleep, and 
 parents at home and the magistrate in the city 
 and the prince of the country sleep likewise, 
 and can neither govern nor protect us, then 
 watch the holy angels and guard and govern 
 us for the best. When the Devil can do nothing 
 else, he affrighteth me in my sleep, or maketh 
 me sick that I cannot sleep. Then no man can 
 defend me ; all they that are in the house are 
 asleep ; but the dear angels sit at my bed-side, 
 and they say to the Devil : Let this man sleep, 
 &c. This is the office which the angels perform 
 for me, unless I have deserved that God should 
 withdraw his hand from me, and not permit his 
 angels to guard and defend me, but suffer me 
 to be scourged a little, to the end that I may be 
 humbled, and acknowledge the blessing of God 
 which he conferreth upon me by the ministry 
 of the dear angels. 
 
 Further, it is the office of the dear angels to 
 protect and accompany me when I journey, — 
 to be with me by the way. When I arise in 
 the morning and perform my prayer, and pro- 
 nounce the blessing of the morning and go forth 
 into the field, I am to know that God's angels 
 are with me, — that he keeps good watch over 
 me against the devils that are around me, be- 
 hind and before. 
 
 * * * This doctrine comforteth and re- 
 joiceth us, and causeth that we take courage in 
 our necessities, and think within ourselves : Thou 
 art alone, it may be, and yet thou art not alone ; 
 2* 
 
IS 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 the dear angels given thee hy God are present 
 with thee. Thus we read in the second book 
 of Kings, c. vi. When the prophet Elisha was 
 about to go forth from the city of Dothan with 
 his servants, he saw a great army of the king 
 of Syria, which had come to take him. Never- 
 theless the prophet went forth. This was an 
 excellent boldness that the prophet should go 
 forth with his servant against so large a host 
 and a nation of warriors. The servant was 
 affrighted, and said, "Alas, my master! what 
 shall we do?" But the prophet was undis- 
 mayed, and said, Fear not: for they that be 
 with us are more than they that be with them. 
 Such was his defiance and courage. The ser- 
 vant could not see it, but the prophet prayed 
 that the Lord would open the eyes of his ser- 
 vant. Then he saw that the mountain was full 
 of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. 
 
 So, likewise, we read of the patriarch Abra- 
 ham, that he sent out his servant to bring home 
 a wife for his son Isaac. And when the ser- 
 vant knew not the way, Abraham said, " The 
 Lord God of heaven shall send his angel before 
 thee, and thou shalt take unto my son a wife 
 from thence." Abraham sends his servant out 
 as one would throw a feather into the air. It 
 doth not trouble him that his son Isaac is not 
 acquainted with the bride, and doth not know 
 where she is to be found ; but he saith : The 
 Lord will let his angel go with thee, who shall 
 show thee the way; and thou shalt find the 
 bride. Is it not a fine thing that the angel of 
 the Lord must be present and woo a wife for 
 Isaac ? It sounds foolish in the ear of Reason, 
 that an angel should trouble himself as to how 
 we wed. * * * And David also, in the 
 thirty-fourth Psalm, saith: "The angel of the 
 Lord encampeth round about them that fear him 
 and delivereth them." Castra metatur angelus 
 Domini, the angel of the Lord erects a bulwark, 
 he saith. An angel can soon do that. In a 
 trice he can make a rampart and a bulwark 
 about a city, and it shall be an excellent wall. 
 
 In like manner, we read that the bad and the 
 good angels contend and war with each other. 
 We know not how this is, neither do we behold 
 it; but the Holy Scripture declareth it. 
 
 How many devils were there, thinkest thou, 
 last year, at the diet at Augsburg? Every 
 bishop brought as many devils there as a dog 
 hath fleas at St. John's time. But God sent 
 thither also more numerous and more powerful 
 angels, so that their evil purpose was defeated. 
 And howbeit the devils stood in our way, and 
 we were forced to separate ere peace was made, 
 yet were our enemies unable to accomplish 
 aught that they meditated and desired. 
 
 In the Revelation of St. John, cap. xii., it is 
 written that the old dragon, the Devil, and Mi- 
 chael contended one against the other. The 
 Devil had his angels and came up against Mi- 
 chael : and Michael had his angels also. That 
 must have been a grand and mighty warfare in 
 which the holy angels and the devils strove 
 
 thus with each other. The Devil is strong in 
 understanding, power and wisdom; but Michael 
 with his angels was too strong and powerful 
 for him, and thrust him out of heaven. That 
 is a warfare which is carried on every day in 
 the Christian world. For heaven is Christen- 
 dom on the earth. There good and evil angels 
 contend. The Devil hinders men from receiv- 
 ing the gospel, creates enthusiasts and factious 
 spirits. Even among us, he maketh many to 
 be sluggish and cold. That is the Devil's army 
 in which he placeth himself and fighteth against 
 us. But Michael with his angels is with us. 
 He awakeneth other pious preachers, who con- 
 tinue in the pure doctrine and in the truth, that 
 all may not perish. For one preacher can save 
 twelve cities, if God will. 
 
 I myself do often feel the raging of the Devil 
 within me. At times I believe; at times I be- 
 lieve not. At times I am merry; at times I am 
 sad. Yet do I see that it happeneth not as the 
 evil multitude wish, who would not give so 
 much as a penny for preaching, baptism and 
 sacrament. Now although the Devil is beyond 
 measure wicked and hath no good thing in pur- 
 pose, yet do all orders proceed and remain ac- 
 cording to wont. ***** 
 
 If we keep these instructions of which I have 
 spoken, then shall we continue in the true un- 
 derstanding and faith, and the dear angels will 
 continue in their office and honours. They will 
 do what is commanded them by God, and we 
 shall do whatsoever is commanded us. That 
 thus we and they may know and praise God 
 for our Creator and Lord, Amen. 
 
 DR. MARTIN LUTHER'S 
 SIMPLE METHOD HOW TO PRAY. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR MASTER PETER BA.LBIERER. (BARBER.) 
 
 Dear Master Peter. 
 
 1 give you as good as I have, and will show 
 you how I myself manage with prayer. Our 
 Lord God grant unto you and every one to ma- 
 nage better. Amen! 
 
 First, when I feel that I am become cold and 
 indisposed to prayer, by reason of other business 
 and thoughts, I take my psalter and run into 
 my chamber, or, if day and season serve, into 
 the church to the multitude, and begin to repeat 
 to myself — just as children use — the ten com- 
 mandments, the creed, and, according as I have 
 time, some sayings of Christ or of Paul, or some 
 psalms. Therefore it is well to let prayer be 
 the first employment in the early morning, and 
 the last in the evening. Avoid diligently those 
 false and deceptive thoughts which say : Wait 
 a little, I will pray an hour hence ; I must first 
 perform this or that. For, with such thoughts, 
 a man quits prayer for business which lays hold 
 of and entangles him, so that he comes not to 
 pray, the whole day long. 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 19 
 
 Howbeit works may sometimes occur which 
 are as good, or better than prayer, especially if 
 necessity require them. There is a saying to 
 this effect, which goes under the name of St. 
 Jerome : " All the works of the faithful are 
 prayer." And there is a proverb : "Whoso la- 
 bours faithfully, he prays twice." The meaning 
 of which saying must be, that a believer fears 
 and honours God in his labour, and thinks of 
 his commandment — to do wrong to no man,— 
 not to steal nor take advantage, nor to betray. 
 And, doubtless, such thoughts and such faith 
 make his work a prayer and an offering of 
 praise. On the other hand, it must be equally 
 true that the works of the unbelieving are mere 
 curses, and that he who labours unfaithfully 
 curses twice. For the thoughts of his heart in 
 his employment must lead him to despise God 
 and to transgress his law, to do wrong to his 
 neighbour, to steal and to betray. What are 
 such thoughts but mere curses against God and 
 man ? * * * Of constant prayer, Christ in- 
 deed says, men ought always to pray. For men 
 ought always to guard against sin and wrong, 
 which no man can do except he fear God and 
 set his commandment before his eyes. Never- 
 theless, we must take heed that we do not dis- 
 use ourselves to actual prayer, and interpret 
 works to be necessary which are not necessary, 
 and by that means become at last negligent and 
 indolent, and cold and reluctant to pray. For 
 the Devil is not indolent nor negligent around 
 us. And our flesh is alive and fresh toward 
 sin and averse from the spirit of prayer. 
 
 Now when the heart is warmed by this oral 
 communion and has come to itself, then kneel 
 down or stand with folded hands and eyes to- 
 ward heaven, and say or think, in as few words 
 as possible, &c. &c* 
 
 Finally, observe that thou must ever make 
 the "Amen" strong, and not doubt but that God 
 assuredly heareth thee with all his grace, and 
 saith " yea" to thy prayer. And think that thou 
 kneelest or standest not alone, but the whole 
 Christendom, or all pious Christians, with thee, 
 and thou among them, in consenting unanimous 
 supplication which God cannot despise. And 
 quit not thy prayer until thou hast said or 
 thought, — "Go to now, this prayer hath been 
 heard with God ; that know I surely and of a 
 truth." That is the meaning of Amen. 
 
 Also, thou must know that I would not have 
 thee to repeat all these words in thy prayer, for 
 that would make it, at last, a babble and a vain 
 empty gossip — a reading from the book and 
 after the letter, such as the rosaries of the laity 
 and the prayers of priests and monks have been. 
 My purpose is to awaken the heart and instruct 
 it what kind of thoughts to connect with the 
 Lord's prayer. If the heart be rightly warmed 
 and eager for prayer, it can express these thoughts 
 with very different words, perhaps with fewer, 
 
 * Here follows, in the original, after a brief invocation, 
 a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 perhaps with more. For I, myself, do not bind 
 myself to precisely these words and syllables, 
 but say the words to-day after this fashion, to- 
 morrow otherwise, according as I feel warm 
 and free. I keep as nearly as I can to the same 
 thoughts and meaning. But it will sometimes 
 happen that, while engaged with some single 
 article or petition, I walk into such rich thoughts 
 that I leave the other six.* And when these 
 rich and good thoughts come, one ought to give 
 place to them and let other prayers go, and listen 
 in silence, and on no account offer any hin- 
 drance; for then the Holy Ghost himself preaches, 
 and one word of his preaching is better than a 
 thousand of our prayers. And so I have often 
 learned more in one prayer than 1 could have 
 got from much reading and composing. 
 
 Wherefore, it is of the greatest importance 
 that the heart be disengaged and disposed to 
 prayer ; as saith the Preacher, (cap. iv. 17,) 
 "Prepare thy heart before prayer, that thou 
 mayest not tempt God."-j- What else is it, but 
 tempting God, when the mouth babbles while 
 the heart is distracted with other things'? Like 
 that priest who prayed after this fashion : " Deus 
 in auditcnium meum intende ■ Fellow, hast thou 
 unharnessed the horses ? Dornine ad adjuvan- 
 dwn me festina ; Maid, go and milk the cows! 
 Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto ; Run, boy, 
 as if the Devil were after thee!" &c. Of such 
 prayers I have heard and experienced much in 
 Popedom, in my day. * * * But now, God 
 be praised, I see well that that is not prayer, in 
 which one forgets what one has said. For a 
 true prayer is conscious of all its words and 
 thoughts, from the beginning to the end of the 
 prayer. 
 
 Even so a good and diligent barbert must fix 
 his thoughts, his purpose and his eyes, with 
 great exactness upon the razor and the hair, and 
 not forget where he is, in the stroke or the cut. 
 But if he chooses to chat much at the same time, 
 or hath his thoughts or his eyes elsewhere, he is 
 like to cut one's mouth and nose, and throat into 
 the bargain. Thus each thing — if it is to be 
 done well — requires the entire man, with all 
 his senses and members. As the saying goes : 
 Pluribus intentus, minor est ad singula sensus : he 
 who thinks of many things thinks of nothing, 
 and does nothing aright. How much more 
 must prayer — if it is to be a good prayer — pos- 
 sess the heart entirely and alone. 
 
 This is briefly said of the "Our Father," or 
 of prayer, as I myself am wont to pray. For, 
 to this day, I suck still at the Paternoster, like 
 a child. I eat and drink thereof like a full- 
 grown man ; and can never have enough. It 
 is to me, even more than the psalter, (which 
 notwithstanding, I dearly love,) the best of all 
 prayers. Assuredly, it will be found that the 
 
 * Luther divides the Lord's Prayer into seven petitions. 
 
 f The text here quoted is probably the first verse of the 
 fifth chapter of Eccl. ; but it differs widely from the com- 
 mon English version. 
 
 t Luthef was probably writing to a barber by profession. 
 
20 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 right Master hath ordained and taught it. And 
 it is a pity upon pities that such a prayer of 
 such a Master, should be babbled and rattled 
 over by all the world, so entirely without devo- 
 tion. Many pray, it may be, some thousand 
 Paternosters a year; and if they should pray a 
 thousand years, after that fashion, they would 
 not have tasted or prayed one letter or tittle 
 thereof. In fine, the Paternoster (as well as the 
 name and word of God) is the greatest martyr 
 upon earth, for every one tortures and abuses it ; 
 few comfort and make it glad by a true use of it. 
 
 LUTHER'S PRAYER 
 AT THE DIET OF WORMS. 
 
 Almighty, eternal God ! What a strange 
 thing is this world! How doth it open wide 
 the mouths of the people ! How small and poor 
 is the confidence of men toward God ! How is 
 the flesh so tender and weak, and the Devil so 
 mighty and so busy through his apostles and the 
 wise of this world ! How soon do they with- 
 draw the hand, and whirl away and run the 
 common path and the broad way to hell, where 
 the godless belong. They look only upon that 
 which is splendid and powerful, great and 
 mighty, and which hath consideration. If I 
 turn my eyes thither also, it is all over with 
 me ; the bell is cast and the judgment is pro- 
 nounced. Ah God! Ah God! 0, Thou my 
 God ! Thou my God, stand Thou by me against 
 the reason and wisdom of all the world. Do 
 Thou so ! Thou must do it, Thou alone. Be- 
 hold, it is not my cause but thine. For my own 
 person I have nothing to do here with these 
 great lords of the world. Gladly would I too 
 have good quiet days and be unperplexed. But 
 Thine is the cause, Lord ; it is just and eternal. 
 Stand Thou by me, Thou true, eternal God ! I 
 confide in no man. It is to no purpose and in 
 vain. Everything halteth that is fleshly, or that 
 savoureth of flesh. God ! O God ! Hearest 
 Thou not, my God? Art Thou dead? No! 
 Thou canst not die. Thou only hidest Thyself. 
 Hast Thou chosen me for this end ? I ask Thee. 
 But I know for a surety that Thou hast chosen 
 me. Ha! then may God direct it. For never 
 did I think, in all my life, to be opposed to such 
 great lords ; neither have I intended it. Ha ! 
 God, then stand by me in the name of Jesus 
 Christ, who shall be my shelter and my shield, 
 yea ! my firm tower, through the might and 
 strengthening of thy Holy Spirit. Lord! where 
 stayest Thou ? Thou my God ! where art Thou ? 
 Come, come! I am ready, even to lay down 
 my life for this cause, patient as a little lamb. 
 For just is the cause and Thine. So will I not 
 separate myself from Thee forever. Be it de- 
 termined in Thy name. The world shall not 
 be able to force me against my conscience, though 
 it were full of devils. And though my body, 
 
 originally the work and creature of Thy hands, 
 go to destruction in this cause — yea, though it 
 be shattered in pieces — Thy word and Thy Spi- 
 rit, they are good to me still ! It concerned! 
 only the body. The soul is Thine and belong- 
 ed! to Thee, and shall also remain with Thee, 
 forever. Amen. God help me ! Amen. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM LUTHER'S LETTERS. 
 
 FROM A COLLECTION IN FIVE VOLS. 8vo., PUBLISHED BY DR. W. M. L. 
 DE WETTE, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT BASLE. BERLIN. 18 2 6. 
 
 Extract from a Letter to the Elector Frederic and Duke John 
 of Saxony, containing an admonition to those princes to sup- 
 press, according to the authority entrusted to them by God, the 
 rebellious spirit which at that time possessed the peasantry in 
 various parts of Germany, and which manifested itBelf in the 
 destruction of churches and in other riotous acts. 
 
 To the most Serene, the High-born Princes and 
 Lords, Duke Frederic, Elector of the Roman 
 Empire, and John, Duke of Saxony, Land- 
 grave of Thuringen and Margrave of Meissen 
 —-my most gracious Masters : 
 Grace and peace in Christ Jesus our Saviour. 
 — This fortune hath ever the Holy Word of 
 God, that wherever it appeareth, Satan opposed! 
 it with all his power; first, with the fist and 
 insolent force ; and where that will not avail, 
 he assaileth it with false tongues, with erring 
 spirits and teachers. Where he cannot quell it 
 with his might, he would suppress it by means 
 of cunning and lies. Thus did he in the begin- 
 ning, when the gospel first came into the world. 
 He assaulted it mightily with the Jews and the 
 Gentiles, shed much blood, and made Christen- 
 dom full of martyrs. When that availed not, 
 he brought on false prophets and erring spirits, 
 and made the world full of heretics and sects. 
 * * * So must it be now, that it may be 
 seen that it is the genuine Word of God, because 
 it happeneth unto it as it hath happened in all 
 time. Pope and emperor, kings and princes 
 assail it with the fist, and would fain quell it 
 with force. They damn it, blaspheme it, and 
 persecute it unheard and unknown, like men 
 devoid of sense. But judgment hath been pro- 
 nounced, and their defiance condemned long ago. 
 (Ps. 2.) " Why do the heathen rage and the 
 people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the 
 earth rise up and the rulers take counsel to- 
 gether against the Lord and against his Anointed. 
 But he that sitteth in the heavens shall mock 
 at them ; the Lord shall have them in derision. 
 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath 
 and vex them in his sore displeasure." Thus, 
 of a certainty, shall it happen to our raging 
 princes. And they will have it so, for they will 
 neither see nor hear. God hath blinded and 
 hardened them, that they shall run upon de- 
 struction and be shattered in pieces. They 
 have been sufficiently warned. 
 
 All this Satan seeth well, and perceiveth that 
 such raging will come to nought. Yea! he 
 noteth and feeleth that the more it is oppressed 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 21 
 
 (as is the wont of God's word) the more doth it 
 spread and increase. Therefore he will now 
 attack it with false spirits and sects. And we 
 must consider this, and not surfer ourselves to 
 be deceived by it. For it must be so, as Paul 
 saith to the Corinthians : " For there must be also 
 heresies among you, that they which are ap- 
 proved may be made manifest among you." So 
 then, Satan being cast out, after that he hath 
 wandered about one year or three, through dry 
 places, seeking rest and finding none, he hath 
 settled down in your Electoral and Princely 
 Graces' dominions, and hath made him a nest 
 at Alstadt, and thinks to fight against us under 
 cover of our own peace and shelter and protec- 
 tion. For Duke George's kingdom, howbeit it 
 is near, is far too kind and gentle toward this 
 undaunted and unconquerable spirit, (for so it 
 boasteth itself) to prevent the manifestation of 
 its bold daring and defiance. It shrieks and 
 wails horribly, and complains of its sufferings, 
 whereas no one hath yet touched it, neither with 
 the fist, nor with the mouth, nor with the pen. 
 They dream to themselves some great cross 
 which they suffer. So wantonly and without 
 all reason must the Devil lie. ! he cannot 
 by any possibility hide himself. 
 
 Now it is a special joy to me' that our own 
 proceed not after this fashion. And they them- 
 selves boast that they are not of our party, and 
 that they have learned nothing and received 
 nothing from us. No ! they come from heaven, 
 and hear God himself speaking with them as 
 with the angels ; and it is a poor thing that Faith 
 and Love and the cross of Christ are preached 
 at Wittenberg. God's voice, say they, thou must 
 hear thyself, and must suffer and feel God's 
 work within, that thou mayest know how heavy 
 thy pound is. Scripture is naught — "Bah! Bi- 
 ble, bubble, babble /" &c. &c. If we should speak 
 such words of them, their cross and suffering I 
 ween would be dearer than the cross of Christ, 
 and they would esteem it more highly. So will- 
 ing is that miserable spirit to bear the credit 
 of cross and suffering, and yet they cannot bear 
 that one should entertain the least doubt or 
 question that their voice is from heaven and 
 their work of God ; but they will have it straight- 
 way believed by force, without consideration. 
 So that I have never read or heard of a more 
 high-minded or prouder " Holy Spirit ," (if such it 
 be.) But here is neither time nor room to judge 
 their doctrine. I have examined and judged it 
 twice, I think, ere this, and, if need be, can judge 
 it again, and will, by the grace of God. 
 
 I have written this letter to your Princely 
 Graces chiefly for this cause, that I have heard 
 and have also gathered from their writing, how 
 this selfsame spirit will not rest its cause upon 
 the Word alone, but is minded to carry it on 
 with the fist, and would fain rise with force 
 against the magistracy, and straightway set on 
 foot a veritable rebellion. Here Satan suffereth 
 the rogue to peep forth. It is too palpable ! 
 * * * Therefore, your Princely Graces, here 
 
 is no time to sleep or loiter, for God demands 
 and will have an answer touching the negligent 
 use of the sword which he hath committed to 
 you in earnest. Neither is it excusable, before 
 the people and the world, that your Princely 
 Graces should tolerate rebellious and insolent 
 fists. 
 
 * * * First, it must needs be a bad spirit 
 which cannot manifest its fruit in any other way 
 than by destroying churches and cloisters, and 
 burning saints, which the most abandoned vil- 
 lains in the world can do as well, especially 
 when they are safe and unresisted. I would 
 think more of this Alstadt Spirit if it would go 
 up against Dresden, or Berlin, or Ingolstadt, and 
 there storm and break down cloisters and burn 
 saints. 
 
 Secondly, that they boast themselves of the 
 Spirit availeth nothing, for we have the word 
 of St. John for it, to prove first the Spirits whe- 
 ther they be of God. Now is this Spirit not yet 
 proved, but dashes on with impetuous vehe- 
 mence, and rages wantonly, according to its 
 own pleasure. If it were a good Spirit, it would 
 first suffer itself to be proved and judged in hu- 
 mility, as the Spirit of Christ doth. * * * 
 What manner of Spirit is that which fears in 
 the presence of two or three and cannot bide a 
 dangerous assembly 1 I will tell thee. He 
 smelleth the roast.* He hath had his nose hit 
 once or twice by me in my cloister at Witten- 
 berg. Hence he fears the soup, and will not 
 stand, save where his own people are, who say 
 yea, to his precious words. If I (who have no 
 Spirit at all and have no voice from heaven) 
 had suffered such a word to be heard of me by 
 my papists, how would they have cried victory, 
 and have stopped my mouth ! 
 
 I cannot boast myself and bid defiance with 
 such lofty words. I am a poor miserable man. 
 I did not open my cause with excellency of 
 speech, but, as Paul confesses of himself, with 
 weakness and fear, and much trembling. And 
 he might, notwithstanding, have boasted of a 
 voice from heaven, had he chosen. How hum- 
 bly I attacked the Pope, how I besought and 
 entreated, let my first writings prove. Never- 
 theless, with this poor spirit of mine, I have 
 done that which this world-eating spirit of theirs 
 hath not yet attempted, but, on the contrary, 
 hath thus far shunned and fled, after a very 
 knightly and manly fashion; and hath even 
 most nobly boasted of such evasion, as of a 
 knightly and sublime act of the Spirit. For I 
 stood up to dispute at Leipsic before the most 
 dangerous of all assemblies. I appeared at 
 Augsburgh before my greatest enemy, without 
 escort. I stood up at Worms before the empe- 
 ror and the whole empire, albeit I knew before- 
 hand that my escort were betrayed, and that 
 wild, strange malice and treachery were level- 
 led against me. 
 
 Weak and poor as I then was, yet such was 
 
 * Smells a rat. 
 
22 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 the state of my heart, — had I known that as many- 
 devils were aiming at me as there were tiles 
 on the roofs at Worms, I would none the less 
 have ridden in ; and yet I had never heard 
 aught, as yet, of the voice from heaven and of 
 God's pounds and works, and of the Alstadt 
 Spirit. Item: I have been made to answer for 
 myself, in corners, — to one, to two, and to three, 
 to whomsoever, and where and howsoever they 
 listed to question me. My timid and poor spirit 
 hath been forced to stand forth, free as a flower 
 of the field, and could not appoint either time, 
 or person, or place, or mode, or measure, but 
 must be ready and willing to give an answer to 
 every man, as St. Peter teacheth. 
 
 And this Spirit, which is as high above us as 
 the sun is above the earth, which scarce consi- 
 ders us as worms, appoints for himself only un- 
 perilous, friendly, and safe judges and hearers, 
 and will not stand and answer to two or to three 
 in sundry places. He feels somewhat that he 
 does not love to feel, and thinks to scare us with 
 swelling words. Well! we can do nothing but 
 what Christ gives us. If He shall leave us, 
 then shall a rustling leaf perchance affright us ; 
 but if He will keep us, that spirit shall yet be 
 made sensible of its lofty boasting.* 
 
 But I would fain know whether, — seeing the 
 Spirit is not without fruit, and that theirs is so 
 much loftier than ours, — whether it bears nobler 
 fruit than ours'? Truly, it ought to bear other 
 and better fruit than ours, seeing it is better and 
 nobler. So we teach and profess, that the Spirit 
 which we preach bears the fruits spoken of by 
 Paul to the Galatians — " love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
 temperance." In fine, the fruit of our Spirit is 
 the fulfilling of the ten commandments of God. 
 Now then, the Alstadt Spirit, that will not leave 
 ours in peace, must, of a surety, yield something 
 higher than love and faith, long-suffering and 
 peace; notwithstanding St. Paul reckons love 
 to be the highest fruit. It must do much better 
 than God hath commanded. I would fain know 
 what that is, since we are assured that the Spirit 
 imparted by Christ is given for this end only, 
 that we fulfil the commandment of God. * * 
 
 I perceive as yet no particular fruit of the 
 Alstadt Spirit, except that it is minded to strike 
 with the fist, and to destroy wood and stone. 
 Love, peace, long-suffering, goodness, gentle- 
 ness, — they have thus far been very sparing in 
 their exhibition of. Doubtless, they would not 
 have the fruits of the Spirit become too common. 
 But I can show, by the grace of God, much fruit 
 of the Spirit among our people. And, if it comes 
 to boasting, I might set up my single person — 
 the meanest and most sinful of all — against all 
 the fruits of the whole Alstadt Spirit, much as 
 they blame my life. But, to accuse the doctrine 
 of any man because of the infirmities of his life 
 -*-that is not the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spi- 
 rit reproveth false doctrine, and beareth them 
 
 * i. e. be made sensible of the vanity of it. 
 
 that are weak in faith and in life, as Paul teach- 
 eth, Rom. xiv. and in all places. Neither am 
 I troubled that the Alstadt Spirit is so unfruitful, 
 but because it is a lying Spirit, and setteth itself 
 up to judge the doctrine of others. 
 
 * * * Be this then the conclusion of the 
 whole matter, my gracious Masters. Your 
 Graces shall not hinder the function of the Word. 
 Let them preach away as much as they please, 
 and against whom they please, for, as I have 
 said, there must be sects, and the Word of God 
 must take the field and fight. * * * If 
 their Spirit be the true one, it will not be afraid 
 of us, but maintain its ground. If our Spirit be 
 the true one, it will not be afraid of them, nor 
 of any man. Let the Spirits tilt and charge 
 against each other. If, meanwhile, some are 
 led astray, so be it ! It is according to the course 
 of war. Where there is fighting and strife, some 
 must fall and some must be wounded. But he 
 that striveth honourably shall receive a crown. 
 
 But if they attempt to do more than to fight 
 with the word; if they go about to destroy and 
 to smite with the fist ; — then your Graces shall 
 take hold, whether it be we or whether it be 
 they, and straightway forbid them the land, and 
 say to them : " We will willingly bear with you, 
 and see you contend with the Word for the 
 maintenance of the true doctrine ; but keep the 
 fist still, for that is our business ; or else take 
 yourselves out of the land." For we who bear 
 the Word of God must not fight with our fists. 
 * * * Our work is to preach and to suffer, 
 not to defend ourselves and to strike. Christ 
 and his apostles destroyed no churches and 
 broke in pieces no images, but won hearts with 
 God's word, and then churches and images fell 
 of themselves. So should we do likewise. * * 
 
 What need we care for wood and stone, if 
 we have men's hearts? See how I do. I have 
 never laid hands on a single stone. I have de- 
 stroyed and burned nothing in the cloisters. 
 And yet, through my word, the cloisters are now 
 empty in many places, — even under those 
 Princes who are opposed to the gospel. Had I 
 attacked them with storm, like these prophets, 
 the hearts of men in all the world would have 
 remained captive, and I should only have de- 
 stroyed here and there a little wood and stone. 
 Who would have been the better for that 1 ? 
 Honour and fame may be sought that way, but, 
 assuredly, the good of souls is not sought by 
 such means. There be some who think that I, 
 without carnal weapons, have done the Pope 
 more injury than a mighty king could have done. 
 But these prophets, willing to do something 
 special and better, and not being able, leave the 
 saving of souls and take to assailing wood and 
 stone. That is the new and wonderful work 
 of this high Spirit. 
 
 If they argue that the Jews were commanded 
 in the law of Moses to destroy all idols, and to 
 abolish the altars of the false gods, the answer 
 is, they themselves know that God, from the 
 beginning, has wrought with one word and 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 23 
 
 faith, but with diverse kinds of saints and 
 works. ******* 
 
 Nay, if it were right that we Christians should 
 storm and break down churches like the Jews, 
 it would follow further that we ought to put to 
 death all who are not Christians, as well as de- 
 stroy images, — as the Jews were commanded 
 to slay the Canaanites and the Amorites. Then 
 the Alstadt Spirit would have nothing more to 
 do but to shed blood ; and all who did not bear 
 their "voice from heaven" must be slain by 
 them, that there might remain no occasion of 
 offence among the people of God. Which of- 
 fence is much greater from living unchristian 
 men, than from images of wood and stone. * * 
 
 The removing of offences must be accom- 
 plished by the Word of God. For though all 
 outward offence were destroyed and done away, 
 it would avail nothing, unless the hearts of men 
 were brought from unbelief to the true faith. 
 For an unbelieving heart will always find new 
 cause of offence ; as it came to pass among the 
 Jews, who erected ten idols where they de- 
 stroyed one. Wherefore, we must employ the 
 true method, according to the New Testament, 
 of banishing the Devil and offences; that is, the 
 Word of God. With that we must turn away 
 the hearts of men from evil ; and then, perad- 
 venture, the Devil with all his splendour and 
 his power shall fall of himself. 
 
 Here will I rest the matter for the present, 
 humbly beseeching your Princely Graces ear- 
 nestly to discountenance such storming and 
 swarming, that these matters may be managed 
 by the word of God alone, as befitteth Chris- 
 tians ; and that all occasion of tumult, for which 
 Master Omnes* is ever more than too much in- 
 clined, may be averted. For they be no Chris- 
 tians who, not content with the Word of God, 
 are fain to lay hold with their fists also, and are 
 not rather ready to suffer all things, — yea, though 
 they boast themselves filled with ten Holy Spirits 
 and filled again. 
 
 May God's mercy strengthen and keep your 
 Princely Graces evermore! Amen! Given the 
 21st August, Anno 1524. 
 
 Your Princely Graces' 
 
 Obedient Mart. Luther, Doctor. 
 
 TO THE ELECTOR JOHN. 
 
 A LETTER OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT IN RETURN FOR A PRESENT OF 
 SOME ARTICLES OF CLOTHING. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ! Most Serene, 
 High-born Prince, and Gracious Lord ! I have 
 long delayed to thank your Electoral Princely 
 Grace for the clothes and garment sent and pre- 
 sented to me. But I will humbly entreat your 
 Electoral Princely Grace not to believe them 
 that speak of me as one that hath need. Alas ! 
 
 * The mob. 
 
 I possess more, especially from your Electoral 
 Princely Grace, than my conscience will bear. 
 It befitteth me not, as a preacher, to have super- 
 fluity, neither do I desire it. 
 
 Hence I receive your Electoral Princely 
 Grace's all too generous and gracious favour in 
 such wise, that I straightway fear. For by no 
 means would I willingly, here in this life, be 
 found with those to whom Christ saith : "Wo 
 unto you that are rich, for ye have had your re- 
 ward." Moreover, to speak after the manner 
 of this world, I would not be burthensome to 
 your Electoral Princely Grace, since I know that 
 your Electoral Princely Grace hath so much of 
 giving to do that it may not have more than 
 enough for its need. For too much bursts the 
 bag. 
 
 Wherefore, although the liver-coloured cloth 
 had been too much, yet, that I may be grateful 
 to your Electoral Princely Grace, I will also 
 wear the black coat in honour of your Electoral 
 Princely Grace, howbeit it is far too costly for 
 me, and were it not your Electoral Princely 
 Grace's gift, I could nevermore wear such a coat. 
 
 For this cause, I entreat that your Electoral 
 Princely Grace will wait until I complain and 
 beg, myself, to the end that your Electoral 
 Princely Grace's anticipation of my wants may 
 not make me shy of begging for others who are 
 much more worthy of such grace. For without 
 this, your Electoral Princely Grace does too 
 much for me. Which Christ shall graciously 
 and richly recompense. That he may do so, I 
 pray from my heart. Amen. 
 
 Your Electoral Princely Grace's 
 Obedient Martinus Luther. 
 The 17th Aug. 1529. 
 
 EXTRACT 
 
 FROM A LETTER TO CASPAR GUTTEL, PREACHER AT EISLEBEN. 
 WRITTEN AGAINST THE ANTINOMIANS. JANUARY, 1539. 
 
 * * * I marvel much how the rejection 
 of the Law and the Ten Commandments can be 
 imputed to me, seeing there are so many and 
 such various expositions of the Ten Command- 
 ments by me, which are daily preached and 
 made the subject of exercises in our churches ; 
 to say nothing of the Confession and the Apology 
 and our other books. Moreover they are sung 
 in two different ways, and painted and printed, 
 and done in woodcuts, and repeated by the 
 children, morning, noon, and evening, so that 
 I know of no way in which they are not prac- 
 tised, save (alas !) that we do not paint and 
 practise them in our conduct and life as we 
 ought to do. And I myself, old and instructed 
 as I am, repeat them daily, word for word, like 
 a child. So, if any one had received a different 
 doctrine from my writings and yet saw how 
 diligently I handled the Ten Commandments, he 
 ought to have accosted me in this wise : " Dear 
 
24 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 Doctor Luther, how is it that thou insistest so 
 strongly on the ten commandments, seeing it is 
 thy doctrine that they ought to be rejected?" 
 So ought they to have done, and not to have 
 mined in secret behind me, to wait for my 
 death, to make of me what they listed, after 
 that. ******* 
 
 I have taught indeed, and still teach, that 
 sinners should be moved to repentance by 
 preaching, or by the contemplation of the suf- 
 ferings of Christ, that they may see how great 
 is the wrath of God against sin, for which 
 no other remedy could be found than that the 
 Son of God should die for it. Which doctrine 
 is not mine but St. Bernard's. What do I say? 
 St. Bernard's? It is the doctrine of all Christ- 
 endom. It is the preaching of all the prophets 
 and the apostles. But how doth it follow there- 
 from, that the Law should be done away? I 
 find no such consequence in my dialectic, and 
 I would like to see and hear the master who 
 could demonstrate the same. * * * Yor 
 the devil knoweth that Christ may soon and 
 easily be withdrawn, but the Law is written in 
 the core of the heart and cannot by any possi- 
 bility be done away. * * * But he goeth 
 about to make people secure, and teacheth them 
 to regard neither the Law nor sin, that when, 
 hereafter, they are suddenly overtaken by death 
 or an evil conscience, who before had been 
 accustomed only to sweet security, they may 
 sink, without help, into hell, because they have 
 learned nothing but sweet security in Christ. 
 * * * It is only sorrowful and suffering 
 hearts that feel their sin, and they are to be 
 comforted, for the dear Jesus can never bemade 
 sweet enough to such. * * * But these 
 spirits are not such Christians, because they are 
 so secure and of good courage. Neither are 
 their hearers such, for they also are secure and 
 well to do. A fine and beautiful maiden singeth 
 in a certain place — an excellent singer — " He 
 hath fed the hungry with good things, and the 
 rich he hath sent empty away, He hath put 
 down the mighty from their seats and exalted 
 them of low degree. And his mercy is on them 
 that fear him." (Luke i. 50, 52, 53,) If this 
 magnificat be correct, God must be an enemy of 
 spirits that are secure and that fear him not. 
 And such spirits must they be, who put away 
 Law and sin. * * * For this I will and 
 may boast with truth, that no papist of this time 
 is, with such conscience and earnest, a papist 
 as I have been. For what is now a papist is 
 not so, from the fear of God, as I, poor wight, 
 was forced to be. But they seek other things, 
 as any one may see, and they themselves know 
 it. I have had to experience that saying of St. 
 Peter : " Crescite in cognitione Domini." I see no 
 Doctor, no Council, no Fathers — though I should 
 even distil their books, as it were, and make a 
 quinta essentia out of them — who have accom- 
 plished the " crescite" at once, at the beginning, 
 in such sort, as to make the crescite a perfectvm 
 esse. By token, St. Peter himself was forced to 
 
 learn his own crescite from St. Paul, Gal. ii. 11, 
 and St. Paul from Christ himself, who must say 
 to him : " Sufficit tibi mea gratia," &c. 2 Cor. 
 xii. 9. 
 
 Dear God! can they not bear that the holy 
 Church should confess herself a sinner and be 
 lieve in forgiveness of sins, and pray for the 
 same, in the Lord's prayer? 
 
 Ah ! I ought, in reason, to have peace with 
 mine own. To have to do with the papists 
 were enough. One might well nigh come to 
 say with Job and with Jeremiah : "Would that 
 I had never been born !" So likewise might I 
 almost say : Would that I had never come with 
 my books ! I care nothing for them. I could 
 bear that they had already perished, all of them, 
 and that the writings of these high spirits were 
 offered for sale in all the bookstalls as they de- 
 sire, — that they might have their fill of fair 
 fame. Then again, I must not esteem myself 
 better than our dear Goodman of the house, — 
 Jesus Christ, — who, also, here and there com- 
 plaineth : " In vain have I laboured, and my 
 trouble is lost."* But the Devil is lord of this 
 world. And I could never believe, myself, that 
 the Devil should be lord and god of this world, 
 until now that I have pretty much experienced 
 that this also is an article of faith : Princeps 
 mimdi, deus hujus sceculi. But God be praised ! 
 it will remain unbelieved, peradventure, by the 
 children of men ; and I, myself, believe it but 
 feebly. For every man is well pleased with 
 his own way, and all hope that the Devil is 
 beyond the sea, and God in our pockets. 
 
 But, for the sake of the pious who wish to be 
 saved, we must live, preach, write, do all and 
 suffer all. Otherwise, when we behold so 
 many devils and false brethren, it were better 
 to preach nothing, to write nothing, to do no- 
 thing, but only to die quickly and be buried. 
 They pervert and blaspheme all things, and 
 make of them nothing but mischief and a cause 
 of offence, even as the Devil rideth and guideth 
 them. There will and must be fighting and 
 suffering. We cannot have it better than the 
 dear prophets and apostles, to whom it hap- 
 pened also after the same fashion. * * * 
 
 It was a special presumption and arrogance 
 in them that they also must needs bring forth 
 something new and peculiar, that people might 
 say, "I opine truly, this is a man! He is 
 another Paul ! Must they of Wittenberg alone 
 know all things? I have a head too!" Yea! 
 a head indeed, that seeketh its own honour and 
 befool eth itself with its own wisdom ! * * 
 
 From all which we see, and might, if we 
 would, understand the history of the churches 
 from the beginning. It hath happened so in all 
 time. Wherever God's word hath arisen and 
 his flock been gathered together, the Devil hath 
 become aware of the light, and hath blown 
 against it, out of every corner; — puffed and 
 
 * These words are given as a quotation from Isaiah, 
 xlix. 4. 
 
 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 25 
 
 stormed with great and strong winds to put out 
 the divine light. And if one or two winds 
 were checked and fended off, he hath evermore 
 blown through some new hole, and stormed 
 against the light. And there has been no end 
 nor cessation, neither will be until the last day. 
 
 I hold that I alone (not to speak of the elders) 
 have suffered more than twenty storm-winds 
 and factions which the Devil hath blown. First, 
 there was Popedom. Yea ! I think all the world 
 should know with how many storm-winds, Bulls 
 and books the Devil hath raged against me from 
 that quarter ; how miserably they tore, devoured 
 and destroyed me; and how I only breathed 
 upon them a little now and then, with no effect, 
 save that they became the more wrathful and 
 mad to blow and to spit, without ceasing, to this 
 day. And when I had now well nigh ceased 
 to fear this manner of the Devil's spitting, he 
 bursts me another hole by means of Miinzer and 
 that uproar, wherewith he had near blown out 
 my light. And when Christ had almost stopped 
 that hole, he tears me sundry panes out of my 
 window with Karlstadt, and breezes and fumes, 
 so that I thought he would carry away the light, 
 wax and wick together. But here too. God 
 helped his poor torch and preserved it, that it 
 went not out. Then came the Sacramentists 
 and the Baptists, pushed open door and window, 
 and thought to quench the light. Perilous they 
 made it, but their will they accomplished not. 
 
 And though I were to live yet a hundred 
 years, and could lay all future storms and fac- 
 tions, as, by the grace of God, I have laid past 
 and present ones, I see well that no rest would 
 be secured by such means to our posterity, 
 seeing the Devil lives and reigns. Wherefore 
 I also pray for an hour of grace,* and desire no 
 more of this stuff. Ye, our posterity! do ye 
 continue to pray and diligently to follow after 
 the word of God ! Preserve God's poor taper ! 
 Be warned and armed! as those who must ex- 
 pect every hour that the Devil will break you a 
 pane or a window, or tear open door or roof, to 
 put out the light. For he will not die before 
 the last day. I and thou must die, and when 
 we are dead he shall remain the same that he 
 hath ever been, and cannot cease from storming. 
 
 I see yonder, from afar, how he puffeth out 
 his cheeks, till he becometh red in the face, and 
 intendeth to blow and to storm. But as our 
 Lord Christ, in the beginning, (even in his own 
 person,) smote those puffed cheeks with his fist, 
 and caused them * * * so will he do now 
 and ever forth. For he cannot lie who saith, 
 " I am with you always unto the end of the 
 world:" * * * Jesus Christ, " heri et hodie 
 et in scecula" — who was, and is, and shall be. 
 Yea ! so the man is called, and so no other man 
 is called, and so no other shall be called. 
 
 For thou and I were nothing a thousand 
 years ago; nevertheless, the Church was pre- 
 served without us. It must have been his doing 
 
 * i. e. for the final hour. 
 D 
 
 whose name is 11 qui erat" and "heri.'" So, now, 
 too, we exist not by our own life, and the 
 
 Church is not preserved by our means, and 
 
 we and it must go to destruction together, as 
 we daily experience, were there not another 
 man who evidently sustains both the Church 
 and us whose name is "qui est" and "ho- 
 die." Even so shall we contribute nothing to 
 the preservation of the Church when we are 
 dead ; but it will be his doing whose name is 
 "qui venturus est" and "in scecula." And what 
 we now say of ourselves, as touching these 
 things, that have our forefathers also been con- 
 strained to say, as the Psalms and the Scripture 
 witness ; and our posterity shall also experience 
 the same, and they shall sing with us and the 
 whole Church, Ps. 124, "Had it not been the 
 Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say." 
 * * * For this time enough of such com- 
 plaining ! Our dear Lord Christ be and remain 
 our dear Lord Christ, praised in eternity ! Amen. 
 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 To my Gracious Lady,* Catherine Luther, of 
 Bora and Zulsdorf, near Wittenberg, — my 
 Sweetheart . 
 
 Grace and peace, my dear maid and wife ! 
 Your Grace shall know that we are here, God 
 be praised ! — fresh and sound ; eat like Bohe- 
 mians, — yet not to excess — guzzle like Germans, 
 — yet not much ; — but are joyful. For our gra- 
 cious Lord of Magdeburg, Bishop Amsdorf, is 
 our messmate. We know nothing new but that 
 Doct. Caspar Mecum and Menius have journeyed 
 from Hagenau to Strasburg, in the service and 
 in honour of Hans von Jehnen. M. Philippsj" 
 is nice again, God be praised ! Tell my dear 
 Doct. Schiefer, that his King Ferdinand will 
 have a cry, as if he would ask the Turk to be 
 godfather, over the Evangelical Princes. Hope 
 it is not true, it would be too bad. Write me 
 whether you got all that I sent you, as lately, 
 90 Fl. by Wolf Paerman, &c. Herewith I com- 
 mend you to God. Amen. And let the children 
 pray. There is here such a heat and drought 
 that it is unspeakable and insupportable, day 
 and night. Come dear Last Day ! Amen. Fri- 
 day after Margarethae, 1540. The Bishop of 
 Magdeburg sends thee friendly greeting. 
 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 To the rich Lady at Zulsdorf, Lady Katherin 
 Lutherin, — bodily resident at Wittenberg, and 
 mentally wandering at Zulsdorf, — my be- 
 loved, — for her own hands. In her absence 
 to be broken and read by Doct. Pomeran, 
 Preacher. 
 
 * Jungfer, literally, virgin. Luther's letters to his wife 
 are generally marked by a dash of irony, particularly in 
 the superscriptions. f Melanchthon. 
 
 3 
 
36 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 * grant that we may find a 
 
 good drink of beer with you! For, God willing, 
 to-morrow, as Tuesday, we will set out for Wit- 
 tenberg. It is all dung with the Diet at Hage- 
 nau, — pains and labour lost, and expenses in 
 vain. Howbeit, if we have done nothing else 
 we have brought M. Philipps out of hell, and 
 will fetch him home again, from the grave, with 
 much joy, if God will, and by his grace, Amen. 
 The Devil out here is, himself, possessed with 
 nine bad devils ; he is burning and doing mis- 
 chief, after a frightful fashion. More than a 
 thousand acres of wood in the Thuringian forest 
 belonging to my most Gracious Master have 
 been burned and are yet burning. Moreover, 
 there is tidings to-day that the forest of Werda 
 is also on fire, and many others beside. No 
 attempts to quench the flames are of any avail. 
 That will make wood dear. Pray and cause 
 prayers to be said against the wicked Satan, 
 who seeketh, vehemently seeketh to ruin us not 
 only in body and soul but also in name and 
 estate. May Christ our Lord come from heaven 
 and kindle a bit of a fire too, for the Devil and 
 his angels, that he shall not be able to quench ! 
 Amen ! I am not certain whether this letter 
 will find you at Wittenberg or at Zulsdorf, else 
 I would have written more. Herewith I com- 
 mend thee to God, Amen ! Greet our children, 
 our boarders and all. Monday after Jacobi 1540. 
 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 To the deeply learned Lady Katharin Lutherin, 
 — my Gracious Housewife at Wittenberg. 
 Grace and Peace ! Dear Kate, we sit here 
 and let ourselves be martyred, and would fain 
 be off; but methinks that cannot be, under a 
 week. Thou mayest tell M. Philipps to correct 
 his postil. He never understood why our Lord, 
 in the gospel, calls riches thorns. Here is the 
 school to learn that. But I shudder to think 
 that thorns, in the Scripture, are always threat- 
 ened with fire. Wherefore I have the greater 
 patience, if haply, by the help of God, I may be 
 able to bring some good to pass. Thy sons are 
 still at Mansfeld. For the rest, we have enough 
 to eat and to drink, and should have good days, 
 were it not for this vexatious affair. I think 
 the Devil is mocking us. May God mock him 
 again ! Pray for us ! The messenger is in 
 great haste. St. Dorothy's day, 1546. 
 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 To my dear Housewife, Katharin Lutherin, Doc- 
 toress, Self-martyress, my Gracious Lady, — 
 for her hands and feet. 
 
 Grace and Peace in the Lord ! Dear Kate, 
 * A line is wanting here. 
 
 do thou read John and the little catechism, con 
 cerning which thou once saidst, that all con- 
 tained in that book is by me. For thou must 
 needs care, before thy God, just as if he were 
 not Almighty, and could not create ten Doctor 
 Martins if the single old one were to drown in 
 the Saale,or the Oven-hole, or Wolf 'sVogelheerd. 
 Leave me in peace with thy anxiety. I have 
 a better guardian than thou and all the angels 
 are. He lies in the crib, and hangs upon the 
 Virgin's teats, but sitteth, nevertheless, at the 
 right hand of God, the Almighty Father. There- 
 fore be in peace. Amen ! 
 
 I think that hell and the whole world must 
 now be emptied of all their devils, who, — per- 
 ad venture all on my account, — have come to»- 
 gether, here in Eisleben. So firm and hard the 
 matter stands. * * * Pray ! pray ! pray 
 and help us that we may do well ! For I was 
 minded to grease the wagon to-day, in ira mea, 
 but pity for my fatherland withheld me. I too 
 am become a jurist. But it will not go. It were 
 better they let me remain a theologian. * * * 
 They demean themselves as they were God ; 
 which they were best cease from betimes, ere 
 their God-head becomes a devil-head, as it hap- 
 pened unto Lucifer, who could not remain in 
 heaven by reason of his arrogance. Well, God's 
 will be done ! * * * The domestic wine 
 here is good, and the Naumburg beer is very 
 good, except that I think it makes my breast 
 full of phlegm with its pitch. The Devil has 
 spoiled us the beer, in all the world, with his 
 pitch, and, with you, the wine, with sulphur. 
 * * * And know that all the letters which 
 thou hast written have arrived here ; and to-day 
 came that which thou wrotest next Friday, to- 
 gether with the letter of M. Philipps, — that thou 
 mayest not be impatient. The Sunday after 
 Dorothy's day, 1546. 
 
 Thy dear Lord, 
 
 M. Ltjther. 
 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 To my friendly, dear Kate Luther, at Witten- 
 berg. For her own hands, &c. 
 Grace and Peace in the Lord ! Dear Kate, 
 we arrived to-day, at 8 o'clock, in Halle ; but 
 could not proceed to Eisleben, for there met us 
 a great Anabaptist with billows of water and 
 cakes of ice, covering the country, and threaten- 
 ing us with baptism. For the same cause we 
 could not return again, on account of the Mulda ; 
 but were forced to lie still at Halle, between 
 the waters. Not that we thirsted to drink of 
 them. We took, instead, good Torgau beer and 
 good Rhenish wine, and comforted and refreshed 
 ourselves with the same, while we waited till 
 the Saale should have spent her wrath. For, 
 since the people and the coachmen and we 
 ourselves, were fearful, we did not wish to 
 venture into the water and tempt God. For 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 27 
 
 the Devil is our enemy and dwelleth in the 
 water, and prevention is better than complain- 
 ing, and there is no need to give the Pope and 
 his officers occasion for a foolish joy. * * * 
 For the present, nothing more, except to bid thee 
 pray for us and be good. I think if thou hadst 
 been with us, thou wouldst also have counselled 
 us to do as we have done. Then, for once, we 
 had followed thy counsel. Herewith be com- 
 mended to God. Amen. Halle, on the day of 
 Paul's conversion, anno 1546. 
 
 Martinus Luther, Doct. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER. 
 
 A LETTER OF CONSOLATION IN SICKNESS. 
 
 To my dear Father, Hans Luther, citizen at 
 Mansfeld in the valley. — Grace and Peace in 
 Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour ! Amen. 
 Dear Father, Jacob, my brother, has written 
 me that you are dangerously sick. Seeing then 
 that the air is now bad, and that otherwise 
 there is danger from all quarters, — also in regard 
 of the times, I am moved with anxiety on your 
 account. For although God has hitherto given 
 and preserved to you a firm and hardy body, 
 yet doth your age, at this time, cause me anxious 
 thoughts. Albeit, without that, we are none of 
 us secure of our life a single hour, neither ought 
 we to be. Wherefore, I had been beyond mea- 
 sure delighted to come to you bodily, but my 
 good friends have dissuaded me therefrom, and 
 I myself must think that I ought not to tempt 
 God by venturing upon danger, for you know 
 with what favour lords and peasants regard 
 me. 
 
 But great joy would it be to me, — so it were 
 possible — that you, together with the mother, 
 would suffer yourselves to be brought hither to 
 us ; which my Kate also with tears desireth, 
 and we all. I hope it; we would wait upon 
 you after the best manner. To this end have I 
 despatched Cyriac to you, to see if your weak- 
 ness might allow of it. For whether, according 
 to the will of God, you are destined for longer 
 life here, or for life hereafter, I would, from my 
 heart, as is fitting, be bodily near you, and, 
 according to the fourth* commandment, with 
 childlike faith and service, prove myself grate- 
 ful toward God and you. 
 
 Meanwhile, I pray the Father, — who hath 
 created and given you for a father to me, — from 
 my heart's ground, that he would strengthen 
 you according to his groundless love, and en- 
 lighten and preserve you by his Spirit, that you 
 may know, with joy and thanksgiving, the 
 blessed doctrine of his Son, our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, to which you have now, by his grace, 
 been called, and have come out of the horrible 
 former darkness and errors. And I hope that 
 
 * According to the Lutheran Catechism, which adopts 
 the Roman Catholic arrangement of the Decalogue. 
 
 his Grace which hath given you this knowledge, 
 and therewith hath begun his work in you, will 
 preserve and continue it to the end, into yonder 
 life and the joyful future of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Amen! 
 
 For he hath already sealed this doctrine and 
 faith in you, and confirmed it with tokens, to 
 wit: that you have suffered, for my name's 
 sake, much reviling, contumely, scorn, mockery, 
 contempt, hatred, enmity, and danger, together 
 with us all. But these are the true signs wherein 
 we must be like unto our Lord Christ, as St. 
 Paul saith, Rom. viii. 17, that we may be glori 
 fied together with him. 
 
 Wherefore let your heart be refreshed and 
 comforted now in your weakness, for we have, 
 in yonder life with God, a sure and faithful 
 helper, Jesus Christ, who, for us, hath destroyed 
 death together with sin, and now sitteth there 
 for us, and, together with all the angels, looketh 
 down upon us and tendeth us, when we go out, 
 that we need not care, nor fear to sink, nor fall 
 into ruin. For he hath said it and promised, 
 he will and cannot lie nor deceive us. Thereof 
 there can be no doubt. Ask ! saith he, and ye 
 shall receive, seek and ye shall find ! Knock 
 and it shall be opened unto you ! And the 
 whole psalter is full of such comfortable assu- 
 rances, especially the 91st psalm, which is par- 
 ticularly good to be read by all that are sick. 
 * * * But, if it be his will that you be still 
 withheld from that better life, and continue to 
 suffer with us in this troubled and unblest vale 
 of sorrows, and to see and hear our misery, and, 
 together with all Christians, help to bear and 
 overcome it, he will also give you grace to ac- 
 cept all this with willing obedience. For this 
 cursed life is nothing else but a right vale of 
 sorrows. The longer one remaineth in it, the 
 more sin, wickedness, plague and misery one 
 sees and experiences, and there is no cessation 
 nor diminution of the same until we are beaten 
 upon with the spade. Then, at last, it must 
 cease and suffer us to sleep contentedly, in the 
 peace of Christ, until he shall come and wake 
 us again with gladness. Amen ! 
 
 Herewith I commend you to Him who loveth 
 you better than you love yourself, and hath 
 proved his love in that he hath taken your sins 
 upon himself, and paid with his blood, and hath 
 given you to know the same by his gospel and 
 to believe it by his Spirit. * * * The same, 
 our dear Lord and Saviour be with you and by 
 you, until — God grant it may come to pass here 
 or yonder — we see each other again in joy. 
 For our faith is sure, and we doubt not that we 
 shall shortly see each other again with Christ; 
 seeing the departure from this life to God is 
 much less than if I should come hither from you 
 at Mansfeld, or you should go hence from me 
 at Wittenberg. That is true, of a certainty. It 
 is but an hour of sleep, and then all shall be 
 changed. 
 
 Howbeit, I hope that your pastor and preacher 
 will show you richly a true service in these 
 
28 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 things, so that you scarce shall need ray gossip, 
 — yet could I not omit to excuse ray bodily ab- 
 sence, which, God knows, grieveth me from the 
 heart. 
 
 My Kate, Hanschen, Lenichen, Aunt Lehne 
 and the whole house greet you and pray for 
 you faithfully. Greet my dear mother and all 
 our friends! God's Grace and Power be and 
 remain with you forever! Amen. 
 
 Your dear son, 
 
 MaRTINUS LtJTHER. 
 
 Wittenberg, 15th February, anno 1530. 
 
 TO HIS SON JOHN. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little 
 son. I see with pleasure that thou learnest 
 well and prayest diligently. Do so, my son, and 
 continue. When I come home I will bring thee 
 a pretty fairing. 
 
 I know a pretty, merry garden wherein there 
 are many children. They have little golden 
 coats, and they gather beautiful apples under 
 the trees, and pears, cherries, plums and wheat- 
 plums; — they sing and jump and are merry. 
 They have beautiful little horses, too, with gold 
 bits and silver saddles. And I asked the man 
 to whom the garden belongs, whose children 
 they were ? And he said, They are the children 
 that love to pray and to learn, and are good. 
 Then I said, Dear man, I have a son too, his 
 name is Johnny Luther. May he not also come 
 into this garden and eat these beautiful apples 
 and pears, and ride these fine horses'? Then 
 the man said, If he loves to pray and to learn, 
 and is good, he shall come into this garden, and 
 Lippus and Jost too, and when they all come 
 together they shall have fifes and trumpets, 
 lutes, and all sorts of music, and they shall dance, 
 and shoot with little cross-bows. 
 
 And he showed me a fine meadow there in 
 the garden, made for dancing. There hung 
 nothing but golden fifes, trumpets, and fine silver 
 cross-bows. But it was early, and the children 
 had not yet eaten ; therefore I could not wait 
 the dance, and I said to the man : Ah ! dear sir ! 
 I will immediately go and write all this to my 
 little son Johnny, and tell him to pray diligently, 
 and to learn well, and to be good, so that he 
 may also come to this garden. But he has an 
 aunt Lehne, he must bring her with him. Then 
 the man said, It shall be so ; go and write him 
 so. 
 
 Therefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn 
 and pray away ! and tell Lippus and Jost too, 
 that they must learn and pray. And then you 
 shall come to the garden together. Herewith I 
 commend thee to Almighty God. And greet 
 aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my sake. 
 Thy dear Father, 
 
 Martinus Luther. 
 
 Anno 1530. 
 
 TO JONAS VON STOCKHAUSEN. 
 
 A LETTER OF ADVICE INSTRUCTING HIM HOW TO CONTEND WITH 
 HIS WEARINESS OF LIFE. WRITTEN THE 2 7th NOV., 1632. 
 
 To the severe and firm Jonas von Stockhausen, 
 Captain at Nordhausen, my Gracious Master 
 and good friend. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ! Severe, firm, 
 dear Master and friend. It hath been made 
 known to me by good friends how hardly the 
 foul Fiend assaileth you with weariness of life 
 and desire of death. ! my dear friend, here 
 is high time not to trust, by any means, nor to 
 follow your own thoughts, but to hear other 
 people who are free from such buffetings. Yea! 
 bind your ear firmly to our mouth, and let our 
 word enter your heart; so shall God through 
 our word comfort and strengthen you. 
 
 In the first place, you know that man shall 
 and must obey God, and diligently guard him, 
 self against disobedience to his will. Since 
 then you are sure and must comprehend that 
 God gives you life, and will not yet have you 
 dead, your thoughts should yield to his Divine 
 will, and you should obey him cheerfully, and 
 have no doubt that such thoughts, as disobedient 
 to the will of God, are, of a certainty, shot and 
 thrust with force into your heart by the Devil. 
 Wherefore you behove to resist them firmly, 
 and forcibly bear, or tear them out again. 
 
 To our Lord Christ, also, life was sore and 
 bitter, yet would he not die without his Father's 
 will, and he fled death, and preserved life 
 while he could, and said, My hour is not yet 
 come. And Elias and Jonas, and other pro- 
 phets, called and cried for death, by reason of 
 great sorrow and impatience of life, and, more- 
 over, cursed their birth, their day and life. Yet 
 were they constrained to live and to bear their 
 weariness with all their might, until their hour 
 came. 
 
 Truly, you behove to follow these words and 
 examples, as the words and admonitions of the 
 Holy Spirit, and to spue out and throw from 
 you the thoughts which drive you the contrary 
 way. And, though it may be sore and difficult 
 to do, let it seem to you as if you were bound 
 and fettered with chains, out of which you must 
 twist and work yourself loose, till the sweat 
 breaks from you. For the Devil's darts, when 
 they stick so deep, may not be drawn forth 
 with laughter, nor without labour ; but with 
 force must they be torn out. 
 
 Wherefore it is needful that you take heart 
 and comfort against yourself, and speak with 
 indignation against yourself: "Nay, fellow! be 
 thou never so unwilling to live, yet shalt thou 
 and must thou live; for my God will have it 
 so, and I will have it so. Get you gone! ye 
 devil's thoughts of dying and death, into the 
 abyss of hell. Ye have nothing to do here," 
 &c. And grind your teeth together against such 
 thoughts, and set up such a hard head for God"s 
 will, and make yourself more obstinate and stiff- 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 29 
 
 necked than any curst boor or shrew, yea, harder 
 than any anvil of iron. 
 
 If you shall so attack yourself and contend 
 against yourself, God will surely help you. 
 But if you do not struggle nor defend yourself, 
 but leave such thoughts free to plague you at 
 their leisure, you will soon be lost. 
 
 But the best of all advice is, not to fight with 
 them always, but, if you can, to despise them, — 
 to act as though you felt them not, to think of 
 something else, and to speak in this wise : 
 Come! Devil, do not teaze me! I cannot now 
 attend to thy thoughts ; I must ride, drive, eat, 
 drink, do this or that ; — also, I must be merry 
 now. Come again to-morrow ! &c. And take 
 in hand whatever else you can, play and the 
 like, that you may be able, freely and easily, to 
 despise such thoughts, and send them from you, 
 even with coarse, uncivil words, as: Dear Devil, 
 if thou canst come no nearer to me, then 
 ■ , &c., I cannot wait for thee now. 
 
 Let them read you, as touching such matters, 
 the example of the " Louse-cracker,'' of the 
 " Goose-fife," and the like, in Gerson, de cogita- 
 tionibus blasphemice. This is the best counsel ; 
 and our prayer, and the prayers of all good 
 Christians, shall help you. Herewith I com- 
 mend you to our dear Lord, the only Saviour, 
 and true conqueror, Jesus Christ. May he 
 maintain his victory and triumph against the 
 Devil in your heart, and rejoice us all by his aid 
 and his wonders in you ; which we comfortably 
 hope and pray, according as he hath bidden 
 and assured us. Amen ! 
 
 Doctor Martinus Luther. 
 Wittenberg, Wednesday after Catharinse. 
 
 TO THE LADY VON STOCKHAUSEN. 
 
 LUTHER COUNSELS HER IN RELATION TO THE MELANCHOLY OF HER 
 HUSBAND. 
 
 To the honourable and virtuous Lady N. von 
 Stockhausen, Captain's lady at Nordhausen, 
 —my gracious and kind friend. 
 Grace and peace in Christ ! Honourable and 
 virtuous Lady ! I have written, in haste, a 
 brief letter of consolation to your dear Lord. 
 Well! the Devil is hostile to you both, for that 
 you love his enemy, Christ. You must pay the 
 price of that, as he himself saith : "Because I 
 have chosen you, therefore the world hateth 
 you and the prince thereof ; but be of good 
 cheer." Precious, in the sight of God, are the 
 sufferings of his saints. But now, in haste, I 
 can write but little. Take heed, before all 
 things, that you leave not your husband one 
 moment alone ; and let him have nothing where- 
 with he might do injury to himself. Solitude, 
 to him, is pure poison, and therefore the Devil 
 himself driveth him to it. But it were well to 
 tell or to have read in his presence, many 
 stories, new tidings, and strange matters. It 
 will not be amiss, if, at times, they are idle and 
 
 false tidings, and tales of Turks, Tartars, and 
 the like ; — if haply he may be incited thereby, 
 to laugh and to jest. And then, down upon 
 him with comfortable words of Scripture. 
 Whatsoever you do, let it not be lonesome or 
 still about him ; that he may not sink into 
 thought. It shall do no harm, if he should be 
 made angry on account thereof. Pretend as if 
 you were sorry for it, and scold, &c. But still 
 do it the more. Take this in haste, for want of 
 better. Christ, who is the cause of such sorrow, 
 will help him, as he hath lately conferred help 
 on yourself. Only hold fast ! you are the apple 
 of his eye. Whoever toucheth that, toucheth 
 him. Amen ! 
 
 Doctor Martinus Luther. 
 Wittenberg, Wednesday after Catharinse, 1532. 
 
 TO CHANCELLOR BRUCK. 
 
 A LRTTER OF ENCOURAGEMENT IN RELATION TO THE CAUSE OF 
 THE REFORMERS. 
 
 To the estimable right learned Master Gregory 
 Bruck, Doctor of Laws, the Elector of Saxony 
 his Chancellor and Counsellor, my gracious 
 Master and friendly, dear Gossip. 
 Grace and peace in Christ ! Estimable, right 
 learned, dear Master and dear Gossip. I have 
 written now several times to my most gracious 
 Lord and to our friends, so that I think I have 
 overdone the matter, — especially, as concerneth 
 my most gracious Lord ; — as if I doubted that 
 the aid and grace of God were more abundant 
 and more powerful with his Electoral Princely 
 Grace than with me. I have done it at the in- 
 stigation of our people, of whom some are so 
 careful and cast down, as if God had forgotten 
 us. — who cannot forget us except he first forget 
 himself. Then were our cause not his cause, 
 nor our doctrine his Word. Otherwise, if we 
 be assured and doubt not that it is his cause and 
 Word, then is our prayer certainly heard, and 
 aid is already decreed and prepared, and we 
 shall be helped. It cannot fail. For he saith : 
 " Can a woman forget her child, that she should 
 not have compassion on the fruit of her womb ? 
 And though she should forget, yet will not I for- 
 get thee," &c. 
 
 I saw lately two miracles. First, as I looked 
 out at the window, I saw the stars in the hea- 
 vens and the whole fair dome of God ; yet did 
 I see no pillars on which the Master had placed 
 this dome. Nevertheless, the heavens fell not, 
 and the dome stands yet fast. Now there are 
 some that seek for such pillars. They would 
 fain lay hold of and feel them. And because 
 they cannot do this, they struggle and tremble 
 as though the heaven must certainly fall, for no 
 other reason than because they cannot seize or 
 see the pillars. Could they but lay hold of these, 
 the heaven would stand firm. 
 
 Next, I saw also great thick clouds hover over 
 us with such weight that they might be likened 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 to a great sea. Yet saw I no floor upon which 
 they rested or found footing, nor any vessels in 
 which they were contained. Still they fell not 
 down upon us, but greeted us with a sour face 
 and flew away. When they were gone, then 
 shone forth both the floor and our roof which 
 had held them, — the rainbow. That was a 
 weak, thin, small floor and roof; and it va- 
 nished in the clouds ; and, in appearance, was 
 more like an image, such as is seen through a 
 painted glass, than a strong floor. So that one 
 might despair on account of the floor, as well 
 as on account of the great weight of water. 
 Nevertheless, it was found in truth, that this 
 almighty image (such it seemed) bore the bur- 
 den of the waters and protected us. Yet there 
 be some who consider, regard and fear the 
 water and the thickness of the clouds and the 
 heavy burden of them, more than this thin, nar- 
 row and light image. For they would fain feel 
 the strength of the image, and because they can- 
 not do this, they fear that the clouds will occa- 
 sion an everlasting sin-flood. 
 
 Thus, in friendly wise, must I jest with your 
 Honour, and yet write without jesting ; for I 
 have had special joy, in that I learned that your 
 Honour hath had, before all others, good courage 
 and a cheerful heart in this, our buffeting. I 
 had hoped that, at the least, a pax politica might 
 have been obtained, but God's thoughts are far 
 above our thoughts. And it is even right, for 
 He, as St. Paul saith, heareth and doth supra 
 quam intelligimus aut petimus. " For we know 
 not how to pray as we ought." (Rom. viii. 26.) 
 If he should hear us now, after the same man- 
 ner in which we pray, — that the emperor may 
 give us peace, — it might be infra, not supra 
 quam intelligimus, and the emperor, not God, 
 should have the glory. * * * But this work 
 which God hath vouchsafed to us by his Grace, 
 he will also bless and further by his Spirit. He 
 will find way, time and place to help us, and 
 will neither forget nor delay. They have not 
 yet accomplished the half of what they under- 
 take, the viri sanguinis. Nor have they yet all 
 returned to their homes, or whither they would 
 go. Our rainbow is weak, their clouds are 
 mighty, but in fine videbitur cujus toni. Your 
 Honour will pardon my gossip, and comfort 
 Magister Philip and all the rest. Christ shall 
 also comfort and preserve me our most gracious 
 Lord. To Him be praise and thanks in eter- 
 nity! Amen! To His Grace I also faithfully 
 commend your Honour. 
 
 Martinus Luther, Doct. 
 Ex Eremo, 5 Aug. anno mdxxx. 
 
 TO JOSEPH LEVIN METZSCH AT MILA. 
 
 ANSWER TO THE QUESTION WHETHER INHERITED DEBTS ARE TO 
 BE CONSIDERED AS A PART OF THE CROSS LAID UPON US BY GOD. 
 
 To the severe and firm Joseph Levin Metzsch, 
 at Mila, my kind, good Master and friend. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ! Severe, firm, 
 dear master and friend. Whereas you are 
 moved to know if pecuniary debt, inherited 
 from parents, be also a cross imposed by God, — 
 you may suppose that every scourge wherewith 
 God scourgeth his children is a portion of the 
 holy cross. Seeing then that debts, or need, or 
 poverty are no light scourge, for him who knows 
 not how to bear them, they are also, without 
 doubt, a perceptible particle of the holy cross, 
 with the children of God who know how to bear 
 and to use it. But, like every other chastise- 
 ment of the dear Father, it ought not to terrify 
 the conscience, as a serious disfavour, but to 
 comfort and strengthen it, as a fatherly rod or 
 fox-tail.* For whether one fall into debt wan- 
 tonly or carelessly, or whether one innocently 
 inherit it, it is nevertheless appointed by God, 
 and the rod is laid upon us through our own 
 carelessness and wantonness. Herewith be 
 commended to God ! Amen. 
 
 Martinus Luther. 
 
 L2th March, 1520. 
 
 TO THE POPE, LEO X. 
 
 EXTRACTS. 
 
 Luther, in this letter, defends himself from the charge of hav- 
 ing attacked the person of the Pope ; expresses his willingness 
 to do all that is required of him, except to recant or renounce 
 the right of private interpretation, and admonishes the Pope 
 not to listen to flatterers, but to those who speak the truth. — 
 This letter was originally written in Latin, and afterwards 
 translated by Luther himself into German. 
 
 To the most Holy Father in God, Leo the tenth, 
 Pope at Rome, all blessedness in Christ Jesus 
 our Lord ! Amen. 
 
 Most holy Father in God, the troubles and the 
 controversy in which I have been entangled 
 now, these three years, with certain wild men, 
 compel me, from time to time, to look toward 
 thee, and to think of thee. Yea! seeing it is 
 believed that thou art the only principal cause 
 of this controversy, I cannot avoid to think of 
 thee without cessation. For though I am com- 
 pelled by some of thy unchristian flatterers, who, 
 without all reason, are incensed against me, — 
 to appeal from thy chair and judgment to a free 
 Christian council in my cause ; yet have I never 
 so estranged my mind from thee, as not, with all 
 my powers, to wish the best at all times to thee 
 and thy Romish Chair, and, with diligent, hearty 
 prayer, as much as I was able, to implore the 
 same from God. True it is, that I have taken 
 upon myself greatly to despise and to overcome 
 them that hitherto have been at pains to threaten 
 me with the loftiness and greatness of thy name 
 and power. But there is now one thing which 
 I may not despise, which also is the reason that 
 I write to thee again ; and that is, that I per- 
 ceive that I am maligned and misinterpreted, 
 and am said not even to have spared thy person. 
 
 * A kind of whip. 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 31 
 
 But I will freely and openly confess that, so 
 far as I am conscious, as oft as I have made 
 mention of thy person, I have ever said the best 
 and most honourable things concerning thee. 
 And if, at any time, I have not done so, I can, 
 myself, in no wise commend it, and must con- 
 firm the judgment of my accusers with full con- 
 fession, and wish for nothing more dearly, than 
 to sing the counterpart of this my insolence and 
 wickedness, and to retract my faulty word. I 
 have called thee a Daniel in Babylon ; and how 
 diligently I have defended thy innocence against 
 the slanderer Sylvester, every one who reads it 
 may superabundantly understand. * * * 
 
 * * * But this is true, I have freely at- 
 tacked the Romish Chair, which they name the 
 Roman Court, concerning which thou thyself 
 must confess, — and no one upon earth can con- 
 fess otherwise, — that it is viler and more shame- 
 ful than ever was Sodom or Gomorrah or Baby- 
 lon. And, as far as I perceive, its wickedness 
 henceforth is neither to be counselled nor helped. 
 Everything there has become altogether despe- 
 rate and bottomless. Wherefore it hath vexed 
 me, that under thy name and the semblance of 
 the Romish Church, the poor people, in all the 
 world, have been cheated and injured. Against 
 which I have contended and will yet contend, 
 while my Christian spirit liveth within me. * * 
 
 * * * Meanwhile thou sittest, holy Father 
 Leo, like a sheep among the wolves, and like 
 Daniel among the lions, and like Ezekiel among 
 the scorpions. What canst thou alone do among 
 so many wild monsters ? And though three or 
 four learned and pious Cardinals should fall to 
 thy lot, what were they among such a multi- 
 tude? Ye should sooner perish with poison ere 
 ye could undertake to help the matter. It is 
 over with the Romish Chair. God's wrath, 
 without cessation, hath overtaken it. It is op- 
 posed to the general Councils. It will not suffer 
 itself to be instructed nor reformed. Yet shall 
 not its raging and unchristian manners hinder 
 it from fulfilling that which is said of its mother, 
 the ancient Babylon, "We would have healed 
 Babylon and she is not healed, — we will let her 
 go." Jer. li. 9. 
 
 Haply, it were thy task and that of the Car- 
 dinals to prevent this misery ; but the sickness 
 mocks medicine ; — horse and carriage obey not 
 the coachman. This is the cause why I have 
 ever so grieved, thou good Leo, that thou hast 
 been made a pope at this time, who wert well 
 worthy to have been pope in better times. The 
 Roman Chair is not worthy of thee and the like 
 of thee ; rather the evil Spirit ought to be pope, 
 who also surely doth reign in Babylon, more 
 than thou. 
 
 ! would to God thou wert rid of the honour, 
 as they call it, — thy most mischievous friends,— 
 and mightest maintain thyself with some pre- 
 bend, or with thy paternal inheritance! Truly, 
 none but Judas Iscariot and his like, whom 
 God hath rejected, should be honoured with 
 such honour. For tell me, whereunto art thou 
 
 yet of use in Popedom ? Save, that the worse 
 and more desperate it grows, the more vehe- 
 mently it abuseth thy power and title to injure 
 the people in body and soul, to increase sin and 
 shame, and to quench faith and truth. O! thou 
 most unhappy Leo! thou sittest in the most 
 dangerous of all chairs. Verily! I tell thee the 
 truth, for I bear thee good-will. * * * 
 
 * * * I will speak yet farther. It had 
 never entered my heart to storm against the 
 Roman Court nor to dispute concerning it. For 
 since I saw that there was no help, — that cost 
 and pains were lost, I treated it with contempt, 
 gave it a letter of dismission, and said ; Adieu 
 dear Rome ! That which stinketh, let it stink 
 on ! and that which is filthy, let it be filthy still ! 
 (Revel, xx. 11.) And so I betook myself to the 
 silent, quiet study of the Holy Scriptures, that I 
 might become profitable to them among whom 
 I dwelt. And, when now I laboured not un- 
 fruitfully in this matter, the evil Spirit opened 
 his eyes and became aware of the same. 
 Straightway he stirred up, with a mad ambition, 
 his servant John Eck.^ — a special enemy of 
 Christ and the truth, — and bade him drag me, 
 unawares, into a disputation ; — seizing upon a 
 word touching the popedom that had escaped 
 me by chance. ****** 
 
 * * * So now I come, holy Father Leo, 
 and laying myself at thy feet, entreat thee, if it 
 be possible, to put forth thine hand, and to place 
 a bridle upon those flatterers who are enemies 
 of peace, and yet pretend peace. But, as to 
 retracting my doctrine, of that nothing will come. 
 And let no one take it upon himself, except he 
 wish to entangle the matter in still greater con- 
 fusion. Moreover, I may not suffer rule or 
 measure in the interpretation of the Scripture, 
 seeing that the word of God, which teacheth all 
 freedom, must not and shall not be bound. If 
 these two articles be allowed me, nothing else 
 shall be laid upon me, that I will not do and 
 suffer with all willingness. I am an enemy to 
 strife and will incense or provoke no one, but 
 neither will I be provoked. And if I be pro- 
 voked I will not be without a word, spoken or 
 written, God willing. Thy Holiness may with 
 short and easy words take it upon thyself, and 
 extinguish all this controversy, and thereupon 
 be silent and command peace, which I have, 
 alway, been altogether eager to hear. 
 
 Wherefore, my Holy Father, do not listen to 
 thy sweet ear-singers, who say that thou art not 
 mere man, but united with God, and hast all 
 things to command and to require. It may not 
 be, and thou wilt not effect it. Thou art the 
 servant of all the servants of God, and art in a 
 more dangerous and miserable condition than 
 any man upon the earth. Let them not deceive 
 thee, who lie to thee and pretend that thou art 
 lord of the world ; and who will not suffer any 
 one to be a Christian except he be subject to 
 thee; — who babble that thou hast power in 
 heaven, in hell, and in purgatory. They are 
 thy enemies, and seek to destroy thy soul. 
 
32 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 * * * They err all, who say thou art above 
 the Council and universal Christendom. They 
 err who give to thee alone the power to inter- 
 pret Scripture. They, all of them, seek nothing 
 else than how they may sanction their unchris- 
 tian doings in Christendom by means of thy 
 name; as the evil Spirit, alas! hath done through 
 many of thy predecessors. In brief, believe 
 none who exalt thee, but only them who humble 
 thee. That is God's judgment, as it is written : 
 "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, 
 and exalted them of low degree." Luke i. 52. 
 
 See how unlike are Christ and his vicege- 
 rents ! For they would all fain be his vicege- 
 rents, and, verily, I fear, they are too truly his 
 vicegerents. For a vicegerent is so in the ab- 
 sence of his lord. If then a pope reigneth in 
 the absence of Christ, who dwelleth not in his 
 heart, is he not too truly the vicegerent of Christ? 
 
 * * * But what may such a pope be except 
 an antichrist and an idol? How much better 
 did the apostles, who called themselves, and 
 suffered themselves to be called, only servants 
 of Christ, who dwelt in them, and not vicege- 
 rents of an absent Christ. 
 
 Peradventure I am impudent, in that I seem 
 to instruct so great a height, from which every 
 one should receive instruction, — and as some 
 of thy poisonous flatterers represent thee, — from 
 which all kings and judgment- seats receive 
 judgment. But I follow in this St. Bernard, in 
 his book addressed to pope Eugene, which all 
 popes ought to know by heart. I do it, not 
 with the design to instruct thee, but from a pure 
 fidelity of care and duty which, of right, con- 
 straineth every man to take thought for his 
 neighbour even in those things which are secure, 
 and suffereth us to regard neither honour nor 
 dishonour, so diligently doth it consider a neigh- 
 bour's danger and mishap. Wherefore, since I 
 know that thy Holiness floateth and hovereth 
 at Rome, — that is, upon the highest seas, — with 
 countless dangers raging on all sides, and liveth 
 and worketh in such misery that, haply, thou 
 hast need of the help, even of the meanest 
 Christian, I have thought it not unmeet that I 
 should forget thy majesty until I had fulfilled 
 the duty of brotherly love. I may not flatter in 
 so serious and dangerous a matter, in which,—- 
 if there be some who will not understand that 
 I am thy friend and more than subject, — there 
 shall yet be found one who understandeth it. 
 
 In conclusion, that I may not appear empty 
 before thy Holiness, I bring with me a little 
 book,* which has gone forth under thy name; 
 for a good wish and a beginning of peace and 
 good hope ; from which thy Holiness may taste 
 with what kind of business I would fain occupy 
 myself, and not unprofitably, if thy unchristian 
 flatterers would let me. It is a little book, if 
 thou regardest the paper ; but yet the whole 
 sum of a Christian life is comprehended in it, 
 if the sense be understood. I am poor and 
 
 * Liber dc Libertate Christiana. 
 
 have nothing else wherewith I may make 
 proof of my service ; neither canst thou be 
 benefited more than with spiritual benefits. 
 Herewith I commend myself to thy Holiness, 
 whom may Jesus Christ preserve forevermore ! 
 Amen. 
 
 Wittenberg, 6th September, 1520. 
 
 TO BARBARA LISCHNERIN. 
 
 EXTRACT. 
 
 LUTHER SEEKS TO PACIFY HER IN REGARD TO HER DOUBTS OF 
 
 FUTURE BLESSEDNESS. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ! Virtuous, dear 
 Lady! Your dear brother, Jerome Weller, hath 
 made known to me that you are greatly troubled 
 with doubts respecting the eternal Providence. 
 For which I am heartily sorry. May Christ, 
 our Lord, deliver you therefrom ! Amen. 
 
 For I know the sickness well, and have lain 
 in the hospital with it, even unto eternal death. 
 Now would I fain, over and above my prayers, 
 counsel and comfort you. But writing in such 
 matters is a feeble thing; yet, as much as in me 
 lies, will I not. refrain therefrom, if God will 
 give me grace for the work. And I will make 
 known to you how God hath helped me to es- 
 cape such buffetings, and with what art I yet 
 preserve myself from them day by day. 
 
 First, you must fix it firmly in your heart, 
 that such thoughts are assuredly the inflation 
 and the fiery darts of the Devil. So saith the 
 Scripture, Prov. xxv. 27, " He that searcheth the 
 height of majesty shall be cast down.' 1 * Now 
 are such thoughts nothing but a searching of the 
 Divine Majesty; they would fain search his 
 high Providence. And Jesus Sirach saith: 
 "Mtiora ne qucesieris" " Thou shalt not inquire 
 after that which is too high for thee ;" but what 
 God hath commanded thee, that look after. For 
 it profiteth thee nothing to gaze after that which 
 is not commanded thee. And David also com- 
 plaineth that he had brought evil upon himself, 
 when he would inquire after things that were 
 too high for him. 
 
 Wherefore it is certain, that this cometh not 
 from God but from the Devil. He plagues the 
 heart therewith ; that men may become enemies 
 of God and despair ; which, notwithstanding, 
 God hath strictly forbidden in the first com- 
 mandment; and he willeth that men shall trust 
 and love and praise Him by whom we live. 
 
 Secondly, when such thoughts occur, you shall 
 learn to ask yourself: " Friend, in what com- 
 mandment is it written that I should think of 
 these things or handle them?" And if no such 
 commandment is found, then learn to say: " So 
 get thee gone, thou ugly Devil ! Thou wouldst 
 fain drive me to care for myself; whereas God 
 everywhere speaketh: "I care for thee; look 
 
 * English version : For men to search their own glory 
 is not glory. 
 
MARTIN 
 
 unto me and wait that which I shall appoint, 
 and let me care," — as St. Peter teacheth, — 1 
 Pet. v. 7 : " Cast all your care upon him for he 
 careth for you;" and David, Ps. lv. 22: "Cast 
 thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain 
 thee." 
 
 Thirdly, albeit, such thoughts do not imme- 
 diately cease, (for the Devil doth not willingly 
 desist,) you likewise, on your part, must not 
 cease, but must still turn your heart away from 
 them, and say : " Hearest thou not, Devil, that I 
 will not have such thoughts'? And God hath 
 forbidden them. Get thee gone, I must now 
 be thinking of his commandments, and let him 
 care for me himself the while. If thou art so 
 exceeding wise in such matters, then get thee to 
 heaven, and dispute with God himself. He 
 can sufficiently answer thee." And, in this 
 way, you must still send him from you, and 
 turn your heart toward the commandments of 
 God. 
 
 FROM A LETTER 
 
 TO THE CHRISTIANS AT ANTWERP, IN WHICH LUTHER CAUTIONS 
 THEM AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS. 
 
 Grace and peace from God our Father and 
 the Lord Jesus Christ ! My very dear masters 
 and friends in Christ ! I am moved by Chris- 
 tian love and carefulness to send this writing 
 unto you. For I have learned how that Spirits 
 of error are bestirring themselves among you, 
 which have the boldness to hinder and defile 
 the Christian doctrine, as happeneth in various 
 places. ******* 
 
 * * * This one will have no baptism, 
 that one denies the sacrament, another supposes 
 a world between this and the last day. Some 
 teach that Christ is not God ; some say this and 
 some say that; and there are almost as many 
 sects and creeds as there are heads. There is 
 no simpleton now so rude, but if he dream or 
 imagine somewhat, the Holy Spirit must have 
 inspired it, and he claims to be a prophet. * 
 
 * * * So then, dear friends, there hath 
 come among you also a Spirit of disorder, in 
 bodily shape, who would fain cause you to err, 
 and lead you astray from the right under- 
 standing, into his conceits. Therefore take heed 
 and be warned ! But that you may the better 
 avoid his tricks, I will here relate some of them. 
 
 One article is : he holds that every man hath 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The second : The Holy Spirit is nothing else 
 than our own reason and understanding. 
 
 The third : Every man believes. 
 
 The fourth: There is no hell or damnation, 
 but only the flesh is damned. 
 
 The fifth : Every soul will have eternal life. 
 
 The sixth : Nature teaches that I should do 
 unto my neighbour as I would that he should 
 do to me'; and to will this is faith. 
 
 E 
 
 LUTHER. 33 
 
 The seventh: The Law is not violated by 
 evil lust, so I do not gratify the lust. 
 
 The eighth : He who hath not the Holy Spirit, 
 hath also no sin, for he hath no reason. 
 
 All these are mere wanton articles of folly, 
 and excepting the seventh, not worth answering. 
 And your love shall do right to despise this 
 Spirit. For he is as many others are now, here 
 and there, w ho care not much what they teach, 
 and only desire that men may speak of them, 
 and have to do with them. And the Devil also 
 seeketh this uneasiness, that he may wrestle 
 with us, and the while hinder us, so that we 
 forget the true doctrine, or converse not with it. 
 Even so he useth to deceive the people with 
 other hobgoblins, that they may miss their way, 
 &c. And he setteth their mouth agape, that 
 they cannot attend to their business the while. 
 Just so this Spirit does with you, in these arti- 
 cles. 
 
 Wherefore, be warned, for God's sake, and 
 take heed that ye despise and let go all that 
 presenteth itself as new and strange, and which 
 it is not necessary to the salvation of the soul to 
 know. For, with such goblins, he seeketh to 
 catch the idle. ****** 
 
 We have all enough to do, our whole life 
 long, to learn the commandments of God and 
 his Son Christ. When we are well instructed 
 in these, we will further inquire into these 
 secret articles, which this Spirit stirreth up 
 without cause, only that he may obtain honour 
 and fame. So then continue in the way, and 
 learn what Paul teacheth the Romans, and look 
 at my preface there, that you may know which 
 is the right method of learning in the Scriptures ; 
 and withdraw yourselves from useless prattlers. 
 Herewith I commend you to God. And pray 
 for me ! Amen. 
 
 TO HIS MESSMATES. 
 
 HE COMPARES THE ACTIONS OF THE BIRDS ABOUT HIM TO A DIET. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ, dear Masters and 
 friends! I have received the letters written 
 by you all, and have learned how it fareth on 
 every hand. That you, on your part, may learn 
 how it fareth here, I give you to know that we, 
 namely I, Master Veit and Cyriac, go not to the 
 Diet at Augsburg, but we have come to a diet 
 of a different sort, elsewhere. 
 
 There is a rookery just beneath our window like 
 to a little forest. There the jackdaws and the 
 crows have established a diet. There is such 
 a riding to and fro, — such a screaming day and 
 night without cessation, as if they were all 
 drunk, full and mad. Young and old chatter 
 together, so that I wonder how voice and breath 
 can hold out so long. And I would like to know 
 if any of this nobility and military gentry are 
 left with you ; for methinks they have assembled 
 together here, from all the world. I have not 
 yet seen their emperor, but the nobility and the 
 
34 MARTIN 
 
 great fellows hover and wriggle constantly be- 
 fore our eyes. They are not very splendidly 
 clad, but simply, in uniform colour, all alike 
 black, all alike gray-eyed, and all alike sing one 
 song; yet with a pleasant difference of young 
 and old, great and small. They care not for 
 great palaces and halls; for their hall is arched 
 with the fair wide heaven ; their floor is the 
 field, wainscotted with beautiful green bows ; 
 and the walls are as wide as the ends of the 
 world. Neither do they care for steed or har- 
 ness. They have feathered wheels with which 
 they can fly from the firelocks and escape from 
 wrath. They are grand, mighty lords ; but what 
 they will decree, I know not yet. 
 
 But so far as I have learned from their inter- 
 preter, they intend a mighty expedition and 
 warfare against wheat, rye, oats, malt, and all 
 kinds of grain ; and there will be many a knight 
 made in this cause, and great deeds will be 
 done. 
 
 Thus do we sit here at the diet, and hear and 
 see with great joy and love how the princes and 
 lords, together with the other estates of the em- 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 pire, sing and luxuriate so joyfully together. 
 But a special joy have we when we see in what 
 a knightly fashion they wriggle, wipe their bills, 
 and overthrow the defence, that they may con- 
 quer and acquire glory against corn and malt. 
 We wish them joy and weal, and especially 
 that they may be spitted upon a hedge-stake. 
 But I hold that they are nothing else but sophists 
 and papists, with their preaching and writing ; 
 whom I must needs have before me in a heap, 
 that I may hear their lovely voice and discourse, 
 and see how useful a gentry it is, to devour all 
 that is on the earth, and, in return, to chatter 
 for pastime. 
 
 To-day we have heard the first nightingale, 
 for they have not been willing to trust April. 
 Hitherto we have had only splendid weather. 
 It hath not rained once, except yesterday, a 
 little. With you peradventure it may be other- 
 wise. Herewith be commended to God, and 
 keep house well ! 
 
 Martixus Luther, Doct. 
 From the Diet of the Malt-Turks, 28th April, 
 anno 1530. 
 
JACOB BOEHME.* 
 
 Born 1576. Died 1824. 
 
 This celebrated mystic, whose speculations 
 procured for him, in his own age, the significant 
 title of "Philosophies Teutonicus," appears in 
 strong contrast with the great Reformer by 
 whose side he is placed in these pages.f He 
 may be regarded as the antipodes of Luther in 
 all the leading tendencies of his mind. Lu- 
 ther's fame rests on his character, — that of 
 Boehme is derived from his thought. The one 
 was a man of action, with an eye to practical 
 effect in all that he wrote and did ; the other 
 was a quietist, whose spirit reposed with intense 
 inwardness on itself, and who knew no world 
 but that of his own dreams. Luther sought to 
 ground a popular theology, Boehme strove to 
 penetrate the deepest mysteries of Being. Lu- 
 ther aimed at what was needful or profitable 
 for the daily use and conduct of life, Boehme 
 aspired to the highest truth. The one laboured 
 to instruct the masses, the other to instruct 
 himself. The former had his sphere in the 
 actual, the other in the absolute. They relate 
 to each other as Paul and John. 
 
 Boehme, like Luther, was a son of the people. 
 His birthplace was Alt Seidenberg, in Lower 
 Lusatia, near Gorlitz, where he afterward 
 practised his craft. His parents were peasants 
 of the poorest sort; his calling that of shoe- 
 maker. Born to narrow fortunes and humble 
 hopes, the shoemaker of Gorlitz, like his Eng- 
 lish fellow-craftsman, the shoemaker of Leices- 
 ter, was "one of those to whom under ruder or 
 purer form, the Divine Idea of the Universe is 
 pleased to manifest itself, and across all the 
 hulls of ignorance and earthly degradation, 
 shine through, in unspeakable awfulness, in 
 unspeakable beauty, on their souls."]: He re- 
 
 * Called by English writers, Bekmen. This corruption 
 seems past recovery. 
 
 f Although placed by his side, in accordance with the 
 plan of this work, Boehme is more than half a century 
 removed from Luther in chronological order. The in- 
 terval between them is far from being a blank in the 
 literary history of Germany. It contains many names of 
 note ;— among which those of Zwingli, Ulrich von Hutten, 
 Sebastian Frank, and Johann Fischart, would claim a 
 distinguished place in a complete survey of German lite- 
 rature,— but none which properly come within the scope 
 of this Collection. 
 
 | Carlyle. 
 
 ceived no instruction from books until his 
 eleventh year, and then, from no other but 
 the bible, the ability to read which, was the 
 extent of his schooling. But, before this, he 
 had received instruction of a different sort, 
 while tending cattle in the fields. 
 
 "His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills." 
 
 And there the God who delights to pour out 
 his Spirit in vessels of this quality, — " Der stets 
 den Schafern gnadig sich bewies" — drew 
 near to his soul in the eternal melodies of 
 Nature. Established in his calling at Gorlitz, 
 " sitting in his stall, working on tanned hides, 
 amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, 
 and a nameless heap of rubbish," he continued 
 to see visions and to dream dreams, and be- 
 lieved himself the recipient and medium of 
 Divine revelations. At three different times, 
 according to his own account, he was environed 
 with supernatural light, which attended him, 
 in one instance, for seven successive days. 
 "Replenished with heavenly knowledge," he 
 went out into the fields, and "viewing the 
 herbs and the grass, he saw into their essences 
 and properties, which were discovered to him 
 by their lineaments, figures, and signatures."* 
 The first reflection of this illumination was the 
 "Aurora," or "The Morning-redness in the 
 East," which he wrote with no view to publi- 
 cation, but merely by way of record and mem- 
 orandum, — " that the mysteries revealed to him 
 might not pass through him as a stream." It 
 became public without his consent, and was 
 seized and condemned as heretical by the 
 Senate of Gorlitz, at the instigation of a clerical 
 persecutor. The author was admonished to 
 write no more books, but to confine himself to 
 his proper calling. As if the proverb, "iVe 
 swtor," &c, had been made expressly for him, 
 Boehme meekly promised obedience, not doubt- 
 ing, in his simplicity, that he had committed 
 
 ♦ See "Jacob Behmen's Theosophick Philosophy, un- 
 folded in divers Considerations and Demonstrations, by 
 Edward Taylor. With a short account of the life of Jacob 
 Behmen." London, 1691. 
 
36 
 
 JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 an error. A silence of seven years ensued. At 
 the expiration of this term, having meanwhile 
 removed from Gorlitz to Dresden, and expe- 
 riencing new motions of the Spirit, he no longer 
 hesitated to write and to publish. He composed, 
 in rapid succession, a large number of works, 
 in which he endeavors to communicate his 
 revelations; struggling painfully with want of 
 culture and of language, in his attempts to 
 express ideas so far beyond the range of that 
 experience which had furnished the only dialect 
 he knew. Latin words and scientific terms, 
 picked up in conversation with scholars, without 
 any clear understanding of their import, are 
 brought in to eke out his slender vocabulary ; 
 and serve only to enhance the obscurity, by the 
 unusual and illegitimate sense in which they 
 are employed. "Art," he says, "hath not 
 written here, neither was there any time to 
 consider how to set it punctually down, accord- 
 ing to the right understanding of the letters, 
 but all was ordered according to the direction 
 of the Spirit, which often went in haste. And 
 though I could have written in a more accurate, 
 fair, and plain manner, yet the reason was this, 
 that the burning fire did often force forward 
 with speed, and the hand and pen must hasten 
 directly after it, for it cometh and goeth as a 
 sudden shower." — " I can write nothing of my- 
 self, but as a child which neither know T eth nor 
 understandeth, but only that which the Lord 
 vouchsafeth to know in me." 
 
 Never, since the days of the Apostles, has 
 such defective scholarship been united with 
 such intellectual fecundity and such important 
 results. Jacob Boehme has been a guide and a 
 prophet to men of the profoundest intellect, of 
 the most exalted station, and the most distin- 
 guished piety. Religious sects have been 
 founded on his doctrine, and called by his name. 
 William Law, the most devout of English 
 mystics, was his disciple, and published an 
 English edition of his works. Schelling, the 
 most cultivated of German Transcendentalists, 
 author of the " Philosophy of Identity," bears 
 witness to the depth and wealth of his intuitive 
 wisdom, and reflects it in his Ontology. Goethe, 
 in his youthful speculations, seems to have 
 borrowed from him the leading idea of his cos- 
 mogony.* King Charles I. of England is said 
 
 * The idea that the material universe was created out 
 of the ruins of a fallen, spiritual world. See "Aus mei- 
 nem Leben," Book VIII. 
 
 to have sent a special messenger to Gorlitz to 
 learn of Boehme, and, after reading, in the 
 English, the "Answers to the forty questions of 
 the soul," to have declared, that " if, as he had 
 been informed, the author was no scholar, it 
 was evident that the Holy Ghost yet dwelled 
 in men." 
 
 It is not easy to collect the true form of 
 Boehme's philosophy out of the thick obscurity 
 of his writings. And it is more difficult still, 
 to separate the pure idea from the form, in a 
 system so complicated with Christian mythology 
 and Christian dogmatics. One knows not how 
 much or how little may be intended by the 
 theological phraseology in which the author has 
 clothed his speculations, where biblical terms 
 are often so warped from their literal import. 
 But if we divide the various systems of philoso- 
 phy, according to their ontological characteris- 
 tics, into three classes; viz: the Magian or 
 Dualistic, — the Unitarian, with its numberless 
 varieties, theistic, atheistic, and pantheistic, 
 from Anaximander to Spinoza, — and, thirdly, 
 the Platonic or Trinitarian ; — the speculations 
 of Boehme will be found in the last of these 
 divisions. He belongs to the Platonic family 
 of philosophers, by virtue of the triune nature 
 which he ascribes to Being. His system* 
 supposes three Principles, in which all Being 
 is comprised. The first Principle, or the Fa- 
 ther, — " the eternal Darkness," like the to sv of 
 the Platonic Trinity, is destitute of intelligence 
 in itself (oaoyo$), although the Father of intelli- 
 gence. It is not so much God as the source of 
 God. " Fons deitatis." From this first Prin- 
 ciple proceeds, by eternal generation, the second 
 Principle, the Son, "the eternal Light." And 
 from these two proceeds, by eternal generation, 
 the third, "the Outbirth," which is the imme- 
 diate cause of the material creation. These 
 three Principles are undivided in God; but, 
 through the fall of Lucifer and his angels, they 
 have become separated in Nature and in man. 
 Man, in his natural state, partakes of the first 
 Principle, and of the life which proceeds from 
 the third. He becomes possessed of the second 
 only by regeneration in Christ. Furthermore, 
 these three Principles are manifested in seven 
 elements or " Fountain Spirits," as they are 
 denominated by Boehme. The first is called 
 
 * For an account of this system, see "A Compendious 
 View of the Grounds of the Teutonic Philosophy, pub- 
 lished by a gentleman retired from business." London, 
 1770. 
 
JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 37 
 
 Astringency ; the second, Attraction ; the third, 
 Anguish; the fourth, Heat. These four con- 
 stitute the first Principle. The fifth is Light ; 
 the sixth, Sound. These two constitute the 
 second Principle. The seventh is the Body 
 generated by the other six, in which they live 
 and work, and which represents the third 
 Principle. 
 
 A full account of this system would far 
 exceed the limits and design of this sketch. 
 The points which have been mentioned are 
 those which seemed to be most characteristic 
 and fundamental, as well as most necessary for 
 the right understanding of the extracts given 
 
 below. As to the practical part of Boehme's 
 doctrine, it may be summed up in his own 
 words, — said to have been written in an album 
 — which contain, in fact, the substance of all 
 practical philosophy. 
 
 " Wem Zeit ist wie die Ewigkeit 
 Und Ewigkeit is wie die Zeit 
 Der ist befreit von allem Streit,"* 
 
 When he felt himself seized with what he 
 supposed to be his last sickness, he caused 
 himself to be removed to his old residence, 
 Gorlitz, and having, as, it is said, predicted the 
 hour of his death, departed, saying, " Now I go 
 hence into Paradise." 
 
 TO THE 
 
 READER OF THESE WRITINGS * 
 
 It is written, "The natural man understand- 
 etli not the things of the Spirit, nor the mysteries 
 of the kingdom of God, they are foolishness unto 
 him, neither can he know them :" therefore I 
 admonish and exhort the Christian lover of 
 mysteries, if he will study these high writings, 
 and read, search, and understand them, that he 
 do not read them outwardly only, with sharp 
 speculation and reasoning ; for in so doing, he 
 shall remain in the outward, imaginary ground 
 only, and obtain no more than a counterfeited 
 colour or feigned shadow of them. 
 
 For a man's own reason, without the light of 
 God, cannot come into the ground of them, it is 
 impossible ; for let his wit be never so subtil, it 
 apprehends spiritual things but, as it were, the 
 shadow in a glass. ***** 
 
 Now if any would search the divine ground, 
 that is, the divine Revelation, or manifestation, 
 that God has been pleased to make of himself, 
 he must first consider with himself, for what 
 end he desires to know such things, whether he 
 desires to practise that which he might obtain, 
 and bestow it to the glory of God, and the wel- 
 fare of his neighbour ; also whether he desires 
 to die to earthliness, and to his own will, and 
 to live in that which he seeks and desires, and 
 to be one spirit with it. 
 
 If he have not a purpose, that, if God should 
 reveal himself and his mysteries to him, he 
 would be one spirit and have one will with 
 God, and wholly resign and yield himself up to 
 him, that God's Spirit may do what he pleases 
 with him, and by him, and that God may be his 
 knowledge, will and working- he is not yet fit 
 for such knowledge and understanding. 
 
 For there are many that seek mysteries and 
 hidden knowledge, merely that they may be 
 respected and highly esteemed by the world, 
 
 * From the " Compendious View of the grounds of the 
 Teutonic Philosophy." 
 
 and for their own gain and profit; but they at- 
 tain not this ground, " where the Spirit searches 
 all things, even the deep things of God." 
 
 It must be a totally resigned and yielded 
 will, in which God himself searches and works, 
 and which continually pierces into God, in 
 yielding and resigned humility, seeking nothing 
 but his eternal native country, and to do his 
 neighbour service ; and then it may be attained. 
 He must begin with effectual repentance and 
 amendment, and with prayer that his under- 
 standing may be opened from within; for then 
 the inward spirit will bring itself into the out- 
 ward understanding. 
 
 But when he reads such writings and yet 
 cannot understand them, he must not presently 
 throw them away, and think it is impossible to 
 understand them ; no, but he must turn his mind 
 to God, beseeching him for grace and under- 
 standing, and read again, and then he shall see 
 more and more in them, till at length he be 
 drawn, by the power of God. into the very depth 
 itself, and so come into the supernatural and 
 supersensual ground, namely, into the eternal 
 unity of God, where he shall hear unspeakable 
 and effectual words of God, which will bring 
 him back and outward again (by the divine ef- 
 fluence) to the very grossest and meanest matter 
 of the earth, and afterward back and inwards 
 to God again ; then it is that the Spirit of God 
 searches all things with him, and by him, and 
 so he is rightly taught and driven by God. 
 
 Of God and the Divine Nature. 
 
 The soul, which has its original out of God's 
 first principle in creation, and was breathed 
 from God into man in the third principle, (that 
 is, into the sidereal and elementary birth,) is 
 
 * To whom time is as eternity, 
 And eternity as time, 
 He is freed from all strife. 
 4 
 
38 
 
 JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 capable of seeing further than any other crea- 
 ture into the first principle of God, out of and 
 in and from the essence of which it proceeded. 
 And this is not marvellous, for it does but be- 
 hold itself in the rising of its birth, out of which 
 it came originally, and, by the power of its light, 
 can see the whole depth of the Father in the 
 first principle, by which he manifested himself 
 in creation. 
 
 This the devils also see in a degree ; for they 
 
 also are out of the same first principle, they also 
 
 wish that they might not see nor feel it; but it 
 
 is their own fault that they separated themselves 
 
 from the second principle, which is called, and 
 
 is God, one in essence and threefold in personal 
 
 distinction, which is shut up to them. 
 ****** * * 
 
 ******* 
 
 When I consider what God is, then I say, He 
 is the One! in reference to the creature, as an 
 eternal nothing. He has neither foundation, be- 
 ginning nor abode ; he needs not either space or 
 place ; he begetteth himself in himself, from eter- 
 nity to eternity • and the outgoing out of the will 
 in itself is God. 
 
 He is neither like or resembleth any thing, 
 and has no peculiar place where he dwells; 
 the true heaven where God dwells is all over and in 
 all places, for wheresoever he was before the creation, 
 there he is still, namely, in himself, the Essence of 
 all essences; all is generated from him, and is 
 originally from him. 
 
 ******** 
 
 God, without nature and creature, has no 
 name, but is called only the eternal Good, that 
 is, the eternal One! the Profundity of all beings! 
 There is no place found for him, therefore can 
 no creature rightly name him: for all names 
 stand in the formed word of power, but God is, 
 himself, the root of all power, without beginning 
 and name • therefore said he to Jacob, " Where- 
 fore askest thou what is my name V 
 ***** *** 
 
 Of God's first manifestation of himself in 
 the trinitt. 
 
 God is the will of the wisdom ; the wisdom 
 is his manifestation. 
 
 In this eternal generation we are to under- 
 stand three things; namely, 1. An eternal will. 
 2. An eternal mind of the will. 3. The egress, 
 efflux, or effluence from the will and mind, 
 which is a spirit of the will and mind. 
 
 The will is the Father : the mind is the con- 
 ceived comprehension, or receptacle of the will, 
 or the centre to something; and it is the will's 
 heart, that is the Son of God ; and the egress of 
 the will and mind is the power and spirit. 
 ******** 
 
 And as we perceive that in this world there 
 is fire, air, water, and earth, also the sun and 
 the stars, and therein consist all the things of 
 this world ; so you may conceive, by way of 
 similitude, that the Father is the fire of the 
 whole, holy, constellations, and that the Son, 
 
 namely, his heart, is the sun which sets all the 
 constellations in a light, pleasant habitation ; 
 and that the Holy Ghost is the air of the life, 
 without which neither sun nor constellation 
 would subsist. 
 
 ****** ** 
 
 Of eternal nature after the fall of Luci- 
 fer, AND OF THE CREATION OF THIS WORLD, 
 AND OF MAN. 
 
 Reader, understand and consider my writings 
 aright. We have no power or ability to speak 
 of the birth of the Deity, for it never had any 
 beginning from all eternity ; but we have power 
 to speak of God our Father, what he is, and how 
 the eternal geniture is, and of the nativity, birth, 
 and working of nature. 
 
 And though it is not very good for us to know 
 the austere, earnest, strong, fierce, severe, and 
 original birth of nature, as it came to be sepa- 
 rated, and first manifested by the apostasy of 
 Lucifer, and into the knowledge, feeling, and 
 comprehensibility of which our first parents 
 brought upon themselves, and upon us their 
 posterity, through the poisoning venom and in- 
 fection they received, by the instigation and de- 
 ceit of the devil ; yet we have very great need 
 of this knowledge, that we thereby may learn 
 to know the devil, who dwells in the most 
 strong, severe, and cruel birth of all, and to 
 know our own enemy, SELF, which our first 
 parents awakened and roused up, and we carry 
 within us, and which we ourselves now are. 
 ****** ** 
 
 I know very well, and my spirit and mind 
 shows me, that many will be offended at the 
 simplicity and meanness of the author, for offer- 
 ing to write of such high things, and will think 
 he has no authority to do it, and that he sins, 
 and runs contrary to God and His will, in pre- 
 suming, being but a man, to go about to speak 
 and say what God is. For it is lamentable, 
 that, since the fall of Adam, we should be so 
 continually cheated by the devil, as to think 
 that we are not the children of God, nor of his 
 essence, or offspring. 
 
 Your monstrous, outward, bestial form or 
 shape indeed is not God, nor of his essence ; but 
 the hidden man, which is the soul, is the proper 
 essence of God, forasmuch as the love in the 
 light of God, is sprung up in your centre, out of 
 which the Holy Ghost proceeds, and wherein 
 the second principle of God consists. How 
 then should you not have power and authority 
 to speak of God, who is your Father, of whose 
 essence you (the regenerated) are, as a child is 
 the Father's own substance? The Father is 
 the eternal power, or virtue ; the Son is the 
 heart and light continuing eternally in the Fa- 
 ther; and all regenerated souls continue in the 
 Father and the Son; and now seeing the Holy 
 Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, 
 the eternal power of the Father is in you, and 
 the eternal light of the Son shines in you. 
 ******** 
 
JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 39 
 
 If you lift up your thoughts and minds, and 
 ride upon the chariot of the soul, (as is before- 
 mentioned,) and look upon yourself, and all 
 creatures, and consider how the birth of life in 
 you takes its original, and what the light of your 
 life is, whereby you can behold the sun, and 
 also look with your imagination beyond the sun 
 into a vast space to which the eyes of your 
 body cannot reach, and then consider what the 
 cause might be that you are more rational than 
 the other creatures, seeing you can, by the ope- 
 rations of your mind, search into every thing ; 
 you will, if you be born of God, attain to what 
 God and the eternal birth is ; for you will see, 
 feel, and find, that all creation must yet have a 
 higher root, from whence it proceeded, which 
 is not visible, but hidden. Now if you farther 
 consider what preserveth all thus, and whence 
 it is, then you will find the Eternal that has 
 no beginning, the Original of the eternal princi- 
 ple, namely, the eternal, indissoluble band of 
 Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And then, secondly, 
 you will see the separation ; in that the mate- 
 rial world, with the stars and elements, are out 
 of the first principle of creation, which contains 
 the outward and third principle of this world. 
 For you will find in the elementary kingdom 
 or dominion, a cause in every thing wherefore 
 it generates and moves as it does ; but you 
 will not find the first cause whence it is so ; 
 and that therefore there must be two several 
 principles, for you find in the visible things a 
 corruptibility, and perceive that they must have 
 a beginning, because they have an end, and 
 these two principles are the first and third. 
 
 You find in all things a glorious power and 
 virtue, which is the life growing and springing 
 of every thing, and that therein lies its beauty 
 and pleasant welfare. Now look upon an herb 
 or plant, and consider what is its life which 
 makes it grow, and you shall find in the ori- 
 ginal, harshness, bitterness, fire, and water, 
 whence proceeds the pleasant smell and colours, 
 for if it be severed from its own mother that gene- 
 rated it at the beginning, then it remains dead. 
 
 Thus you see that there is an eternal root 
 which affords this, and must be a principle, 
 which the stock itself is not, and that principle 
 has its original from the light of nature. * * 
 ******** 
 
 But what do you think was before the times 
 of the creating of this world ? For out of that 
 proceeded the root of this earth and stones, as 
 also the stars and elements. But of what con- 
 sists the root? You will find therein nothing 
 else but bitterness, harshness, astringent sour- 
 ness and fire, and these are but one thing, 
 namely, the pure, eternal element, and from 
 which all outward, natural things were gene- 
 rated after the fall of Lucifer; for, before his 
 fall, there was but one pure element. Now in 
 these forms you cannot find God ; the pure Deity 
 being incomprehensible, unperceivable, al- 
 mighty, and all powerful. Where is it then 
 men may find God? 
 
 Here open your noble mind, and search fur- 
 ther. For seeing God is only good, whence 
 comes the evil ? And seeing also that he alone 
 is the life, and the light, and the holy power, 
 as is undeniably true, whence comes the anger 
 of God ? Whence comes the devil, and his 
 evil will? And whence has hell -fire its ori- 
 ginal? Seeing there was nothing before God 
 manifested himself in creation, but only God, 
 who was, and is a Spirit, and continues so in 
 eternity. Whence then is the first matter of 
 evil? Here blind reason gives this judgment, 
 that there must needs have been in the spirit 
 of God, a will to generate the source and foun- 
 tain of anger and evil. 
 
 But the Scripture says, the devil was created 
 a holy angel ; and it further says, " Thou art not 
 a God that wills evil;" and, by Ezekiel, God 
 declares, "that as sure as he lives, he wills not 
 the death of a sinner ;" and this is testified by 
 God's earnest and severe punishing of the devil, 
 and of all sinners, that he is not pleased with 
 death. 
 
 What then is the first matter of evil in the 
 devil? And what moved him to anger, seeing 
 he was created out of the original, eternal Spirit 
 of God? Or whence is the original of evil, 
 and of hell, wherein the devils shall remain 
 forever, when this world, with the stars, ele- 
 ments, earth, and stones, shall perish in the end 
 of time? 
 
 Beloved Reader, open the eyes of your mind 
 here, and know, that no other anguish or source 
 of punishment will spring up in Lucifer than 
 his own quality, or working property ; for that 
 is his hell which he himself formed; and be- 
 cause the light of God is his eternal shame, 
 therefore is he God's enemy, because he is no 
 more in the light of God. 
 
 Now, nothing can be here produced by rea- 
 son, that God should ever have used any matter 
 out of which to create the devil, for then the 
 devil might justify himself, that he was made 
 evil, and created of evil matter. But God cre- 
 ated him out of nothing but merely and entirely 
 out of his own divine essence, as well as the 
 other angels; as it is written, "Through him 
 and in him are all things." And his only is the 
 kingdom, the power and the glory ; and all is 
 in him, as the Holy Scriptures witness. And 
 if it were not thus, no sin could be imputed to 
 the devil, nor to men, if they were not eternal, 
 and had their being out of God himself. 
 ****** ** 
 
 If, therefore, you will speak or think of God, 
 you must consider that he is All. * * 
 #*** **** 
 
 And seeing that he himself witnesses, that 
 his is the kingdom and the power, from eternity 
 to eternity; and that he calls himself Father, 
 (and the Son, the Second Person in the Trinity, 
 begotten of his Father,) therefore we must seek 
 for him in the original of his manifesting him- 
 self in the tri-une One ; namely, Father, Son, 
 and Spirit ; from whom all creation proceeded ; 
 
40 
 
 JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 and we can say no otherwise, but that the first 
 principle in creation is God the Father himself, 
 as the source, or fountain of life. 
 
 Yet there is found in the original of life the 
 most fierce and strong birth, namely, harshness, 
 bitterness, anguish, and fire ; of which we can- 
 not say that it is God ; and yet is the most in- 
 ward first source of all light, and that is in God 
 the Father; according to which he calls him- 
 self an angry, zealous, or jealous God, and a 
 consuming fire. And this source is the first 
 principle, and that is God the Father in the ori- 
 ginality, or first manifestation of himself, at the 
 beginning in creation. 
 
 ******** 
 And in this first principle, prince Lucifer, 
 at the extinguishing in himself the light of the 
 second principle, continued ; and is ever the 
 same abyss of hell; wherein the soul also con- 
 tinues which extinguishes that light which shines 
 from the heart of God, (into every man that 
 cometh into the world,) being then separated 
 from the second principle. For which cause 
 also, at the end of time, there will be a separa- 
 tion or parting asunder of the saints of light 
 from the damned, whose source of life will be 
 without the light of God, and the working foun- 
 tain of their condition as a boiling, springing 
 torment. 
 
 ******** 
 I will now write of the second principle, of 
 the clear, pure Deity ; namely, of the heart of 
 God, that is, the power, glory, or lustre of God 
 the Father, in the Son. In the first principle, I 
 have mentioned harshness, bitterness, anguish, 
 and fire, yet they are not separate but one only 
 thing, and they generate one another in the first 
 source of all creation. And if now the second 
 principle did not break forth, and spring up in 
 the birth of the Son, then the Father would be 
 a dark valley ; and the Son, who is the heart, 
 the love, the brightness, and the sweet rejoicing 
 of the Father (in whom the Father is well 
 pleased) opens another principle. 
 
 This is now what the evangelist John says, 
 chap. 1, "In the beginning was the word; and 
 the word was with God ; and the word was 
 God. The same was in the beginning with 
 God. All things were made by him, and with- 
 out him was not anything made. In him was 
 life." And he is another person than the Fa- 
 ther, for in his centre there is nothing else but 
 mere joy, love and pleasure. * * * 
 The evangelist says further, "And the life 
 was the light of men." Here, man, take now 
 this light of life, which was in the word and is 
 eternal ; and behold the Being of all beings, and 
 especially thyself; seeing thou art an image, 
 life, and derive thy being of the unsearchable 
 God ; and a likeness as to him. Here consider 
 time and eternity ; heaven and hell ; this world ; 
 light and darkness ; pain, and the source; life 
 and death. Here examine thyself, whether 
 thou hast the light and life of the Word in thee ; 
 so shalt thou be able to see and understand all 
 
 things : for thy life was in the word, and was 
 made manifest in the image which God created ; 
 it was breathed into it from the Spirit of the 
 Word. Now lift up thy understanding in the 
 light of thy life; and behold the formed Word! 
 Consider its generation, for all is manifest in the 
 light of life. 
 
 Although here the tongue of man cannot utter, 
 declare, express nor fathom this great depth, 
 where there is neither number nor end ; yet we 
 have power to speak thereof, as children talk 
 of their father. 
 
 Now being to speak of the holy Trinity, we 
 must, first, say that there is one God, and he is 
 called God the Father and Creator of al! things, 
 who is almighty, and all in all; whose are all 
 things, and in whom and from whom all tilings 
 proceed, and in whom they remain eternally. 
 And then we say, that he is three in persons, 
 and has, from eternity, generated his Son out 
 of himself, who is his heart, light and love : and 
 yet they are not two, but one eternal essence. 
 And further we say, the Scripture tells us that 
 there is a Holy Ghost, which proceeds from the 
 Father and the Son, and there is but one es- 
 sence in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 ******** 
 
 But the Holy Ghost is not known or mani- 
 fested in the original of the Father before the 
 light, or son [break forth] but when the soft 
 fountain springs up in the light, then he goes 
 forth as a strong almighty spirit in great joy 
 from the pleasant source of water and of the 
 light; and he makes the forming [shaping, 
 figuring] and images [or species], and he is the 
 centre in all created essences ; in which centre 
 the light of life, in the light of the son or heart 
 of the father, takes its original. And the Holy 
 Ghost is a several person, because he proceeds 
 [as a living power and virtue] from the Father 
 and the Son; and confirms the birth, generating 
 or working of the holy Trinity. 
 ******** 
 
 Thus God is one only undivided essence, and 
 yet threefold in personal distinction, one God, 
 one Will, one heart, one desire, one pleasure, 
 one beauty, one almightiness, one fulness of all 
 things, neither beginning nor ending: for if I 
 should go about to seek for the beginning or 
 ending of a small dot, or punctum, or of a per- 
 fect circle, I should be confounded. 
 
 And although I have written here of the 
 springing of the second principle, and the birth 
 of the divine essence in the Trinity, as if it took 
 a beginning, yet you must not understand it as 
 having any beginning, for the eternal manifes- 
 tation of the pure Deity is thus, without begin- 
 ning or end ; and that in the originalness in 
 creation : for I am permitted to write as far as 
 of the originalness. to the end that man might 
 learn to know himself, what he is, and what 
 God in the Triune One, heaven, angels, devils, 
 and hell are. And also what the wrath of God 
 and hell fire is, by the extinguishment of the 
 divine light. 
 
JACOB BOEHME. 41 
 
 Of the creation of Angels, and of Lucifer; 
 describing how he was in the angeli- 
 cal form, and how he is now in his own 
 proper form, bt his rejecting, and there- 
 by extinguishing, the divine light of 
 the second principle in himself. 
 
 Behold, child of man, all the angels were 
 created in the first principle, and by the flowing 
 forth of the Holy Spirit were formed, and bodied 
 in a true angelical and spiritual manner, and 
 enlightened from the light of God, that they 
 might increase the paradisical joy, and abide 
 therein eternally; 'but being they were to abide 
 eternally, they must be formed out of the first 
 principle which is an indissoluble band;' and 
 they were to look upon the heart or Son of God, 
 to receive his light, and to feed upon the word, 
 which food was to be their holy preservation, 
 and to keep their image clear and light; even 
 as the heart or Son of God in the second prin- 
 ciple, manifests and enlightens the Father, 
 namely, the first principle ; and in those two 
 principles the divine power, the pure elements, 
 paradise, and kingdom of heaven spring up. 
 
 Thus it is with those angels that continued 
 in the kingdom of heaven in the first paradise ; 
 they stand in the first principle in the indisso- 
 luble band, enlightened by the Son in the second 
 principle; their food is the divine word; and 
 their thoughts and mind is in the will of the 
 Trinity in the Deity. The confirming and es- 
 tablishing of their life, will, and doings, is the 
 power of the Holy Ghost : whatever the Holy 
 Spirit does in the regenerating of paradise, and 
 the holy wonders, the angels rejoice at, and sing 
 the joyful Hallelujahs of Paradise concerning 
 the pleasant saving and eternal birth. All they 
 do is an increase of their heavenly joy, delight, 
 and pleasure in the heart or Son of God; and 
 they sport in holy obedience in the will of the 
 eternal Father; and to this end their God cre- 
 ated them : that he might be manifested, and 
 rejoice in his creatures, and his creatures in him ; 
 so that there might be an eternal sport of love, 
 in the centre of the multiplying of the pure 
 eternal nature in the indissoluble eternal band. 
 
 But this sport of love was spoiled by Lucifer 
 himself, who is so called, because of the extin- 
 guishment of the light of the Son of God in him, 
 and his being cast out of his throne. 
 
 DESCRIBING WHAT HE THEN WAS, AND ALSO 
 WHAT HE NOW IS. 
 
 He was the most glorious prince in heaven, 
 and king over many legions of angels, and had 
 he introduced his will into the divine meekness, 
 and the light of the Son of God, and continued 
 in the harmony wherein God had created him, 
 then he would have stood, and nothing could 
 have cast him out of the light. For he, as well 
 as the other angels, was created of the pure 
 eternal nature, out of the indissoluble band, and 
 stood in the first Paradise. He felt and saw 
 the generation of the holy Deity in the birth of 
 F 
 
 the second principle, namely, of the heart or Son 
 of God, and the outflowing of the Holy Ghost; 
 his food was of the word of the Lord, and therein 
 he should have continued an angel of light. 
 
 But he saw his own great beauty and glory, 
 and that he was a prince standing in the first 
 principle, and in his own desire went into the 
 centre, and would himself be God. He despised 
 the birth of the Son and heart of God, and the 
 soft and very lovely influence, working, and 
 qualification thereof. He entered with his will 
 into SELF, and meant to be a very potent and 
 terrible Lord in the first principle, and would 
 work in the strength of the fire, in the centre of 
 nature ; he therefore could no longer be fed from 
 the word of the Lord, and so his light went out 
 by the heart or Son of God departing from him ; 
 for thereby the second principle was shut up to 
 him; and presently he became loathsome in 
 Paradise, and was cast out with all his legions 
 that stuck to and depended upon him. 
 
 And so he lost God, the kingdom of heaven, 
 and all paradisical knowledge, pleasure and 
 joy; he also presently lost the image of God, 
 and the confirmation of the Holy Ghost ; for be- 
 cause he despised the second principle, wherein 
 he was an angel and image of God, all heavenly 
 things departed from him, and he fell into the 
 dark vale, or valley of darkness, and could no 
 more raise his imagination up into God, but re- 
 mained in the anguishes of the first four forms 
 of the original of nature. 
 
 For he is always shut up in the first principle, 
 (as in the eternal death,) and yet he raises him- 
 self up continually, thinking to reach the heart 
 of God, and to domineer over it; for his bitter 
 sting climbs up eternally in the source or root 
 of the fire, and affords him a proud will to have 
 all at his pleasure, but he attains nothing. His 
 food is the source or fountain of poison, namely, 
 the brimstone spirit : his refreshing is the eternal 
 cold fire : he has an eternal hunger in the bit- 
 terness ; an eternal thirst in the source of the 
 fire. His climbing up is his fall, and the more 
 he climbs up in his will the greater is his fall : 
 as one standing upon a high clift would cast 
 himself down into a bottomless pit, he looks still 
 further, and he falls in further and further, and 
 yet can find no ground. 
 
 Thus he is an eternal enemy to the heart or 
 Son of God, and to all the holy angels, and he 
 cannot now frame any other will in himself. 
 
 His angels or devils are of very many several 
 sorts; for, at the time of Lucifer's creation, he 
 stood in the kingdom of heaven in the point, 
 locus, or place, where the Holy Ghost in the 
 birth of the heart of God in Paradise, did open 
 infinite and innumerable centres in the eternal 
 birth of pure eternal nature ; and therefore their 
 quality was also manifold, and all should have 
 been and continued angels of God, if Lucifer 
 had not corrupted and thereby destroyed them : 
 and so now every one in his fall continues in 
 his own essences, -excluded from the light of the 
 second principle, which they extinguished in 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 themselves : and so it is with the soul of man, 
 when it rejects the light of God, and it goes out 
 of that soul. 
 
 Of the third principle, oh creation of the 
 material world, with the stars and ele- 
 ments ; wherein the first and second 
 principle is more clearly understood. 
 
 The eternal and indissoluble band, which is 
 the first principle wherein the essence of all 
 essences stands, is not easily nor in haste to be 
 understood ; therefore it is necessary that the 
 desirous reader should the more earnestly con- 
 sider himself what he is, and whence his rea- 
 son, his inward senses, and thoughts do pro- 
 ceed, for therein he finds the similitude of God, 
 especially if he considers and meditates what 
 his soul is, which is an eternal, incorruptible 
 spirit. 
 
 For if the reader be born of God in true re- 
 signation, there is no nearer way for him to 
 come to the knowledge of the third principle, 
 than by considering the new birth, how the 
 soul is new born by the love of God in the light, 
 and how it is translated out of darkness into the 
 light by a second birth. And now every one 
 finds by experience, that falls into the wrath of 
 God, and whereof there are terrible examples, 
 that the soul must endure uneasiness and tor- 
 ment in itself, in the birth of its own life, so 
 long as it is in the wrath of God ; and then if it 
 be born again, there is great exulting joy arises 
 in it; and thus there is found very clearly and 
 plainly two principles ; also God, Paradise and 
 the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 For you find in the root of the original of the 
 spirit of the soul, the most inimicitious, irksome 
 source, torment, or working property, wherein 
 the soul without the light of God is like all de- 
 vils, being an enmity in itself, striving against 
 God and goodness, and climbing up with pride 
 in the strength of the fire, in a bitter, fierce, ma- 
 licious wrathfulness against God, against heaven, 
 against all creatures in the light of the second 
 principle, and also against all creatures in the 
 third principle of this world, setting up them- 
 selves alone. 
 
 Now the Scripture witnesses throughout, and 
 the new-born man finds it so, that when the 
 soul is new born in the light of God, then it is 
 quite otherwise, and contrary to what it was 
 before. It finds itself very humble, meek, cour- 
 teous, and pleasant; it readily bears all manner 
 of crosses and persecution; it turns the outward 
 body from out of the way of the wicked ; it re- 
 gards no reproach, disgrace or scorn, put upon 
 it from the devil or man; it places its confi- 
 dence, refuge and love in the heart or Son of 
 God ; it is fed by the word of God, and cannot 
 be hurt, or so much as touched by the devil; for 
 although it is in its own substance, and stands 
 in the first principle in the indissoluble band, 
 it is enlightened with the light of God in the 
 Son or second principle, and the Holy Ghost 
 (who goes forth out of the eternal birth or gene- 
 
 ration of the Father, in the light of the heart or 
 Son of God) goes in it, and establishes it the 
 child of God ; therefore all that it does, living 
 in the light of God, is done in the love of God ; 
 and the devil cannot see that soul, for the second 
 principle, in which it then lives, and in which 
 God, and the kingdom of heaven is, as also the 
 angels and Paradise, is shut up from him, and 
 he cannot get to it. * * * * * 
 ******** 
 
 Therefore, man, consider with thyself, 
 where thou art ; namely, on one part, [that is, 
 thy body and outward carcass of clay, thou art 
 a guest for awhile in this outward world, travel- 
 ling in the vanity of time] under the influence 
 of the stars, and four elements ; one other part, 
 [namely, thy soul in its own self and creaturely 
 being, that is, in its fallen state, without the 
 divine light or regeneration] in the dark world 
 among the devils ; and as to the third part, 
 [namely, thy divine image and spirit of love, in 
 the eternal light] in the divine power in heaven : 
 that property which is master in thee, its servant 
 thou art ; prank and vapour as stately and glo- 
 riously as thou wilt in the sun's light, yet thy 
 fountain shall be made manifest to thee. 
 
 Of Paradise. 
 
 Moses says, that, when God had made man, 
 he planted a garden in Eden, and there he 
 put man, to till and keep the same ; and caused 
 all manner of fruits to grow, pleasant for the 
 sight and good for food ; and planted the tree 
 of life also, and the tree of knowledge of good 
 and evil in the midst. 
 
 Here lies the veil before the face of Moses, 
 in that he had a bright shining countenance, 
 that sinful Israel cannot look him in the face ; 
 for the man of vanity is not worthy to know 
 what Paradise is; and albeit it be given us to 
 know it according to the inward, hidden man, 
 yet by this description we shall remain as dumb 
 to the beast, but yet be sufficiently understood 
 by our fellow scholars in the school of the great 
 master. 
 
 Poor reason, which is gone forth with Adam 
 out of Paradise, asks where is Paradise to be 
 had or found ? Is it far off or near? Or, when 
 the souls go into Paradise, whither do they go ? 
 Is it in the place of this world, or without the 
 .place of this world above the stars ? where is 
 it that God dwells with the angels ? and where 
 is that desirable native country where there is 
 no death 1 Being there is no sun nor stars in 
 it, therefore it cannot be in this world, or else 
 it would have been found long ago. 
 
 Beloved reason; one cannot lend a key to 
 another to unlock this withal ; and if any have 
 a key, he cannot open it to another, as antichrist 
 boasts that he has the keys of heaven and hell ; 
 it is true, a man may have the keys of both in 
 this life time, but he cannot open with them for 
 any body else ; every one must unlock it with 
 his own key, or else he cannot enter therein ; 
 for the Holy Ghost is the key, and when any 
 
JACOB BOEHME. 43 
 
 one has that key, then he may go both in and 
 out. 
 
 Paradise was the heavenly essentiality of the 
 second principle. It budded in the beginning 
 of the world through the earthly essentiality, as 
 the eternity is in the time, and the divine power 
 is through all things ; and yet is neither com- 
 prehended or understood of any earthly thing 
 in self-hood. 
 
 In Paradise the essence of the divine world 
 penetrated the essence of time, as the sun pene- 
 trates the fruit upon a tree, and effectually works 
 in it into a pleasantness, that it is lovely to look 
 upon and good to eat; the like we are to un- 
 derstand of the garden of Eden. 
 
 The garden Eden was a place upon the earth 
 where man was tempted ; and the Paradise 
 was in heaven, and yet was in the garden Eden ; 
 for as Adam before his sleep, and before his 
 Eve was made out of him, was, as to his inward 
 man, in heaven, and, as to the outward, upon 
 the earth ; and as the inward, holy man pene- 
 trated the outward, as a fire through heats an 
 iron, so also the heavenly power out of the pure, 
 eternal element penetrated the four elements, 
 and sprang through the earth, and bare fruits, 
 which were heavenly and earthly, and were 
 qualified, sweetly tempered of the divine power, 
 and the vanity in the fruit was held as it were 
 swallowed up, as the day hides the night, and 
 holds it captive in itself, that it is not known 
 and manifest. 
 
 The whole world would have been a mere 
 Paradise if Lucifer had not corrupted it, who 
 was in the beginning of his creation an hierarch 
 in the place of this world ; but seeing God knew 
 that Adam would fall, therefore Paradise sprang 
 forth and budded only in one certain place, to 
 introduce and confirm man in his obedience 
 therein. God nevertheless saw he would de- 
 part thence, whom he would again introduce 
 thereinto by Christ, and establish him anew in 
 Christ to eternity in Paradise, therefore God 
 promised to regenerate it anew in Christ, in the 
 Spirit of Christ in the human property. 
 
 There is nothing that is nearer you, than hea- 
 ven, Paradise, and hell ; unto which of them you 
 are inclined, and to which of them you tend or 
 walk, to that in this life-time you are most near. 
 You are between both ; and there is a birth between 
 each of them. You stand in this world between 
 both the gates, and you have both the births in 
 you. God beckons to you in one gate, and calls 
 you ; the devil beckons you in the other gate and 
 calls you ; with whom you go, with him you enter 
 in. The devil has in his hand, power, honour, 
 pleasure, and worldly joy; and the root of these 
 is death and hell -fire. On the contrary, God 
 has in his hand, crosses, persecution, misery, 
 poverty, ignominy, and sorrow ; and the root of 
 these is a fire also, but in the fire there is a light, 
 and in the light the virtue, and in the virtue the 
 Paradise ; and in the Paradise are the angels, 
 and among the angels, joy. The gross fleshly 
 eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the 
 
 third principle, and see only by the splendour 
 of the sun ; but when the Holy Ghost comes 
 into the soul, then he regenerates it anew in 
 God, and then it becomes a paradisical child, 
 who gets the key of Paradise, and that soul 
 sees into the midst thereof. 
 
 But the gross body cannot see into it, because 
 it belongs not to Paradise ; it belongs to the 
 earth, and must putrefy and rot, and rise in a 
 new virtue and power in Christ, at the end of 
 days; and then it may also be in Paradise, and 
 not before ; it must lay off the third principle, 
 namely, this skin or covering which father Adam 
 and mother Eve got into, and in which they 
 supposed they should be wise by wearing all 
 the three principles manifested on them. Oh! 
 that they had preferred the wearing two of the 
 principles hidden in them, and had continued 
 in the principle of light, it had been good for us. 
 But of this I purpose to speak hereafter when I 
 treat about the fall. 
 
 Thus now in the essence of all essences, there 
 are three several distinct properties, with one 
 source or property far from one another, yet 
 not parted asunder, but are in one another as 
 one only essence; nevertheless the one does 
 not comprehend the other, as in the three ele- 
 ments, fire, air, water; all three are in one 
 another, but neither of them comprehend the 
 other. And as one element generates another 
 and yet is not of the essence, source, or property 
 thereof; so the three principles are in one an- 
 other, and one generates the other; and yet 
 none of them all comprehends the other, nor is 
 any of them the essence or substance of the 
 other. 
 
 The third principle, namely, this material 
 world, shall pass away and go into its ether, and 
 then the shadow of all creatures remain, also 
 of all growing things [vegetables and fruits] 
 and of all that ever came to light; as also the 
 shadow and figure of all words and works ; and 
 that incomprehensibly, like a nothing or shadow 
 in respect of the light, and after the end of time 
 there will be nothing but light and darkness; 
 where the source or property remain in each 
 of them as it has been from eternity, and the 
 one shall not comprehend the other. 
 
 Yet whether God will create more after this 
 world's time, that my spirit doth not know ; for 
 it apprehends no farther than what is in its 
 centre wherein it lives, and in which the Para- 
 dise and the kingdom of heaven stands. 
 
 CONCERNING THE SUPERSENSUAL 
 LIFE.* 
 
 A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MASTER AND DISCIPLE. FROM THE SIXTH 
 BOOK OF THE WORK ENTITLED " THE WAY TO CHRIST." 
 
 1. The Disciple said to the Master : How 
 
 * Translated from the Extract in Kunzel's " Drei Bii* 
 cher Deutscher Prosa." 
 
44 
 
 JACOB BOEHME. 
 
 may I attain to the supersensual life, that I may 
 see God and hear him speak ? 
 
 The Master said : If thou canst raise thyself 
 for a moment thither, where no creature dwell- 
 eth, thou shalt hear what God saith. 
 
 2. The Disciple said : Is that near or far? 
 The Master said : It is in thee, and if thou 
 
 canst be silent and cease, for an hour, from all 
 thy willing and brooding, thou shalt hear un- 
 speakable words of God. 
 
 3. The Disciple said : How may I hear, if I 
 cease from all willing and brooding ? 
 
 The Master said : If thou wilt cease from all 
 brooding and willing of thine own, then the 
 eternal Hearing and Seeing and Speaking shall 
 be revealed in thee, and shall discern God 
 through thee. Thine own hearing and willing 
 and seeing hinders thee, that thou canst not see 
 nor hear God. 
 
 4. The Disciple said : Wherewith shall I hear 
 and see God, seeing he is above nature and 
 creature? 
 
 The Master said : If thou keepest silence, thou 
 art what God was before nature and the creature, 
 and out of which he made thy nature and 
 creature. Then shalt thou hear and see with 
 that wherewith God, in thee, saw and heard, 
 before thine own willing and seeing and hearing 
 did begin. 
 
 5. The Disciple said : What doth hinder me 
 that I cannot attain thereunto ? 
 
 The Master said : Thine own willing and 
 hearing and seeing, and because thou dost strive 
 against that whence thou hast proceeded. With 
 thine own will thou separatest thyself from 
 God's willing, and with thine own seeing thou 
 seest only in thy willing. And thy willing 
 stoppeth thine hearing with the obstinate con- 
 cupiscence of earthly, natural things, and leadeth 
 thee into a pit, and overshadoweth thee with 
 that which thou desirest, so that thou canst not 
 attain to the supernatural, supersensual. 
 
 G. The Disciple said: Seeing I am in nature, 
 how can I pass through nature into the super- 
 sensual deep, without destroying nature? 
 
 The Master said: To that end three things 
 are requisite. The first is, that thou shouldst 
 surrender thy will unto God and let thyself 
 down into the deeps of his mercy. The second 
 is, that thou shouldst hate thine own will, and 
 not do that whereunto thy will impelleth thee. 
 The third is, that thou shouldst bring thyself 
 into subjection to the Cross, that thou mayest be 
 able to bear the assaults of nature and creature. 
 If thou doest this, God will in-speak into thee, 
 and will lead thy passive will into himself, — 
 into the supernatural deep, and thou shalt hear 
 what the Lord speaketh in thee. 
 
 7. The Disciple said : It were necessary that 
 I should quit the world and my life, in order to 
 do this. 
 
 The Master said : If thou leave the world, 
 thou wilt come into that whereof the world is 
 made. And if thou losest thy life, and comest 
 into impotence of thine own faculty, then shall 
 
 thy life be in that, for the sake of which thou 
 didst leave thy life, — that is in God, whence it 
 came into the body. 
 
 8. The Disciple said : God has created man 
 in the life of nature, that he may have dominion 
 over all creatures upon the earth, and be lord 
 of everything in this world. Therefore, surely, 
 he ought to possess it for his own. 
 
 The Master said : If, in the outward alone, 
 thou governest all animals, then thou art with 
 thy will and thy government according to the 
 manner of beasts, and exercisest only a symbo- 
 lical and perishable dominion, and bringest thy 
 desire into the beastly Essence wherewith thou 
 wilt become infected and entangled, and acquire 
 the nature of a beast. But if thou hast left the 
 symbolical way, thou shalt stand in the super- 
 symbolical and shalt reign over all creatures, in 
 the ground out of which they were created. 
 And then nothing upon earth shall harm thee, 
 for thou wilt have relations with all things, and 
 nothing will be foreign from thee. 
 
 CONCERNING THE BLESSING OF GOD 
 IN THE GOODS OF THIS WORLD* 
 
 FROM THE WORK ENTITLED " THE THREEFOLD LIFE OF MAN." 
 
 Matt has free permission to disport himself, 
 on the earth, in whatsoever employment he will. 
 Do what he will, everything stands in the mira- 
 culous power of God. A swineherd is as dear 
 to him as a Doctor, so he be pious and confide 
 purely in God's will. The simple is as useful 
 to him as the wise. For with the wise man 
 he rules, and with the simple he builds. Both 
 are equally instruments of his wondrous deeds. 
 Each has his calling wherein he passeth his 
 time ; and all are equal before him. * * * 
 
 * * * As the flowers of the earth do not 
 envy one another, although one is more beauti- 
 ful and more powerful than another, but all, in 
 a friendly manner, stand side by side, and each 
 rejoices in the other's virtue; — and, as a physi- 
 cian mingles together various kinds of herbs of 
 which each gives forth its power and its virtue 
 and all minister unto the sick; — so, likewise, 
 do we all please God, as many of us as enter 
 into his will. We all stand together in his field. 
 And as thorns and thistles spring forth from the 
 ground and choke and devour many a good herb 
 and flower ; so, likewise, is the godless who 
 trusteth not in God, but buildeth upon himself, 
 and thinketh : " I have my God in my box, I 
 will hoard and leave great treasures to my chil- 
 dren, that they also may sit in the place of mine 
 honour ; that is the true way ;" — and therewith 
 rendeth many a heart that it also waxeth care- 
 less and thinketh that is the right way to hap- 
 piness ; that a man possess riches, and power 
 and honour, he hath happiness. Yet, if we 
 
 * From the above-mentioned work of Kiinzel. 
 
JACOB B 
 
 consider it, it happeneth to one as to another; 
 and the poor soul is none the less lost. For the 
 rich man's dainties taste no hetter to him than 
 the hungry man's morsel of bread. Everywhere 
 there is care, grief, fear, sickness, and, at last, 
 death. It is all a fighting with shadows, in this 
 world. The mighty sitteth in the dominion of 
 the spirit of this world, and he that feareth God 
 sitteth in the dominion of divine power and 
 wisdom. The dominion of this world endeth 
 with the body, but the dominion in the Spirit 
 of God endureth forever. 
 
 OF TRUE RESIGNATION* 
 
 If we would inherit the filiation, we must 
 also put on the new man, which can inherit 
 the filiation, which is like the Deity. God will 
 have no sinner in heaven, but such as are born 
 anew, and become children, who have put on 
 heaven. 
 
 A man must wrestle so long, until the dark 
 centre that is shut up so close, break open, and 
 the spark in the eentre kindle, and from thence 
 immediately the noble lily, twig and branch, 
 sprouts, as from the divine grain of mustard- 
 seed, as Christ says. A man must pray ear- 
 nestly, with great humility, and for a while 
 become a fool in his own reason, and see him- 
 self as void of understanding thereon, until 
 Christ be formed in this new incarnation. 
 
 And then when Christ is born, Herod is ready 
 to kill the child ; which he seeks to do out- 
 wardly by persecutions, and inwardly by tempt- 
 ations, to try whether this lily branch will be 
 strong enough to destroy the kingdom of the 
 Devil, which is made manifest in the flesh. 
 
 Then the destroyer of the serpent is brought 
 into the wilderness, after he is baptized with 
 the Holy Spirit, and tempted and tried whether 
 he will continue in resignation in the will of 
 God : he must stand so fast, that if need re- 
 quire, he would leave all earthly things, and 
 even the outward life, to be a child of God. 
 
 No temporal honor must be preferred before 
 the filiation, but he must with his will leave 
 and forsake it all, and not account it his own, 
 but esteem himself as a servant in it only, in 
 obedience to his master ; he must leave all 
 worldly property. We do not mean that he 
 may not have, or possess anything ; but his 
 heart must forsake it, and not bring his will 
 into it, nor count it his own ; if he sets his heart 
 upon it, he has no power to serve them that 
 stand in need, with it. 
 
 Self serves only that which is temporary ; 
 but resignation has rule over all that is under 
 
 * From " the Way to Christ.' 
 
 OEHME. 45 
 
 it. Self must do what the Devil will have it 
 to do in fleshly voluptuousness and pride of 
 life ; but resignation treads it under the feet of 
 the mind. Self despises that which is lowly 
 and simple ; but resignation sits down with the 
 lowly in the dust: it says, I will be simple in 
 myself, and understand nothing, lest my under- 
 standing should exalt itself, and sin. I will lie 
 down in the courts of my God, at his feet, that I 
 may serve the Lord in that which he commands 
 me. I will know nothing of myself that the 
 commandment of the Lord may lead and guide 
 me, and that I may only do what God doth 
 through me, and will have done by me: I will 
 sleep until the Lord awaken me with his spi- 
 rit ; and if he will not, then will I cry out eter- 
 nally in him in silence, and wait his commands. 
 
 Beloved Brethren, men boast much now-a- 
 days of Faith, but where is that faith ? The 
 modern faith is but the history. Where is that 
 child that believes that Jesus is born ? If that 
 child were in being, and did believe that Jesus 
 is born, it would also draw near to the sweet 
 child Jesus, and receive him, and nurse him. 
 
 Alas ! the faith now-a-days is but historical, 
 and a mere knowledge of the story that the 
 Jews killed him, that he left this world, that 
 he is not king on earth in the animal man, but 
 that men may do as they list, and need not die 
 from sin, and their evil lusts ; all this the wicked 
 child self-rejoices in, that it may fatten the Devil 
 by living deliciously. 
 
 This shows that true faith was never weaker 
 since Christ's time than it now is ; when, never- 
 theless, the world cries aloud, and says, we 
 have found the true faith, and contend about a 
 child, so that there was never worse contention 
 since men were on earth. 
 
 If thou have that new-born child which was 
 lost and is found again, then let it be seen in 
 power and virtue, and let us openly see the 
 sweet child Jesus brought forth by thee, and 
 that thou art his nurse ; if not, then the children 
 in Christ will say, thou hast found nothing but 
 the history, namely, the cradle of the child. 
 
 Beloved Brethren, this is a time of seeking 
 and of finding : it is a time of earnestness ; 
 whom it touches, it touches home: he that 
 watches shall hear and see it; but he that 
 sleeps in sin, and says in the fat days of his 
 voluptuousness, all is peace and quiet, we hear 
 no sound from the Lord ; he shall be blind. 
 But the voice of the Lord has sounded in all 
 the ends of the earth, and in the trouble that 
 is upon the face of the earth a smoke arises, 
 and in the midst of the smoke there is a great 
 brightness in the divine light that is in the 
 children of God. Hallelujah. Amen. Shout 
 unto the Lord in Sion, for all mountains and 
 hills are full of his glory: he flourishes like a 
 green branch, and who shall hinder it? 
 
ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA. 
 
 Born 1642. Died 1709. 
 
 This celebrated ecclesiastic — the most popu- 
 lar preacher of his day, was descended from 
 noble ancestors, and bore the family name of 
 Ulrich Megerle. His parents, Jacob and Ve- 
 rona Megerle, resided at Krahenhennstetten, a 
 village near the city of Moskirch, in Suabia. 
 He distinguished himself in early youth by his 
 industry and talents, and an ardent thirst for 
 knowledge. He received a classical education 
 at the Latin schools at Moskirch, Ingolstadt 
 and Salzburg. In his eighteenth year he en- 
 tered the order of the barefooted Augustine 
 monks, at Mariabrunn, and studied philosophy 
 and theology in a convent of that order at Vi- 
 enna. Two years later, having been conse- 
 crated priest and made doctor of theology, he 
 went as holiday - preacher to the convent of 
 Taxa, near Dachau, in Bavaria. From there 
 he returned to Vienna, where he soon acquired 
 an extended fame by his popular eloquence. 
 In 1669 he was made imperial court-preacher 
 by Leopold L, an office which he filled with 
 general acceptance for twenty years. During 
 this time he rose from grade to grade in his 
 order, and became successively provincial pro- 
 curator, lector, pater spiritualis, prior and defi- 
 nitor of his province. As prior, he attended 
 the meeting of the general chapter of his order, 
 in Rome, 1689, preached there several times 
 with great applause, and was presented by 
 pope Innocent XI. with a consecrated cross. 
 
 ON ENVY. 
 
 FROM A WORK ENTITLED " JUDAS THE ARCH VILLAIN." 
 ****** 
 
 I have always heard indeed that: 
 As the bell is, so it dingeth, 
 As the singer, so he singeth. 
 As the spawn is, so the fish, 
 As the cook, so is the dish. 
 As the cobbler, the shoe will look. 
 As the writer, so the book. 
 As the leech is, so the salve, 
 As the cow, so is the calf. 
 As the teacher, so the rede, 
 As the pasture, so the feed. 
 (46) 
 
 As definitor, he contributed greatly to the im- 
 provement of several of the convents of his 
 order. He died at Vienna, December 1st, 1709, 
 in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 
 
 As a pulpit-orator, Pater Abraham a Sancta 
 Clara was distinguished by a broad humor, in 
 which he resembles some of his contemporaries 
 in the English and Scottish churches. By 
 Protestants he was, for a long time, considered 
 as a mere clerical zany, or spiritual buffoon. 
 But he glowed with a genuine enthusiasm for 
 virtue and religion, was deeply convinced of 
 the truth of what he taught, and possessed a 
 profound knowledge of man and the world, 
 sound practical morality, a complete mastery 
 of his native language, great affluence of ima- 
 gination, a brilliant wit, an animated delivery, 
 and an excoriating satire. On the other hand, 
 his characteristic faults were utter want of 
 taste, a perpetual striving after effect, delight 
 in puns and antitheses, a fondness for the bi- 
 zarre, and a style which, though suited to his 
 peculiar manner, is altogether beneath the dig- 
 nity of his subject. He was an orator for the 
 people in the full sense of the word, and al- 
 though beyond his age in many respects, con- 
 formed himself to the tastes and habits of the 
 times. He was devoted to his order, which he 
 served with great fidelity and beneficent effect 
 during the whole of his active life. 
 
 As the soil is, so the crop, 
 
 As the dancer, so the hop. 
 
 As the tree is, so the pear, 
 
 As the ma'am, the maidens are. 
 
 As the soldier, so the battle, 
 
 As the herdsman, so the cattle. 
 
 As the lord, the servants be, 
 
 As the parent, the progeny. 
 I have always heard, have always read, have 
 always written, have always said that these 
 things are so ; but now I perceive that not al- 
 ways as the parents are, so is the progeny. 
 Adam a good father ; Cain, his son, an arch 
 villain; Noah, the father, a saint; Ham, the 
 son, a scamp ; Abraham, the father, God-blessed ; 
 
ABRAHAM A S 
 
 Ishmael, the son, God-cursed ; Isaac, the father, 
 an angel ; Esau, his son, a devil ; Jacob, the 
 father, a lamb ; Reuben, the son, a ram ; David, 
 the father, a friend of God ; Absalom, the son, 
 a foe of God, &c. Yea, I know and I can show 
 a lady before whose beauty Helena of Greece 
 must hide herself, a lady before whose white 
 face lilies must blush with shame, a lady be- 
 fore whose grace of form Spring comes too late 
 with its decorations, a lady whose countenance 
 is more sun-bright than the sun, before whose 
 loveliness the morning-red pales with wonder; 
 and yet this beautiful and elect lady has a daugh- 
 ter who is to view, like a heap of impurity ; for 
 she is savage as a dung-heap, black as a coal- 
 heap, inopportune as a funeral-heap, stiff-necked 
 as a stone-heap, unclean as an ant-heap, ugly 
 as a dirt-heap, yea as the Devil himself. This 
 most beautiful lady is Virtue, Honour, Science — 
 everything good ; but the daughter which she 
 produces is cursed Envy. In the island of 
 Malta there are no serpents, in Sardinia there 
 are no wolves, in Germany there are no croco- 
 diles, in Tuscany there are no ravens, in Hel- 
 lespontus there are no dogs, in Iceland there is 
 nothing poisonous, but in the whole world there 
 is not a place where there is no envy. 
 
 Daniel lived at court, and was quite a distin- 
 guished lord at court ; nay he rose so high that 
 he was all-potent with King Darius, and that 
 prince never saw better than when Daniel was 
 the apple of his eye ; and well shall it be with 
 every monarch who has such a right hand as 
 was the faithful Daniel. Nevertheless, this 
 pious minister experienced, at last, a change in 
 his king, from the best wine into the sharpest 
 vinegar. For he commanded by an inhuman 
 decree that Daniel should be cast into the den 
 of lions, that those voracious animals might be 
 gorged with so stately a crumb. But the meat 
 was too good for such guests. Now I read it in 
 thy forehead, how thou art tickled with curiosity 
 to know the crime and misdeed of Daniel, Per- 
 haps he was untrue to his king ? though truth, 
 at court, is generally quite genuine and almost 
 brand-new, because it is so seldom used. Per- 
 haps he suffered himself to be bribed with <k- 
 narii, and afterwards used spadilles against his 
 own king* whereby he lost his game ? Perhaps 
 he betrayed the designs and ripe resolves of the 
 king to the opposite party, and so blabbed 
 blameably out of school ? Perhaps he divided 
 the king's rents and moneys, as the wolf divided 
 the sheep ? The wolf, namely, divided six 
 sheep with the shepherd, in this way : The first 
 is mine, the second ought to be yours ; but he 
 took it likewise to himself; the third is mine 
 again, the fourth, in strict justice, should be 
 yours; but he took that also, &c; so that at la3t 
 nothing was left to the shepherd. Perhaps 
 Daniel had been sleepy in his service at court, 
 and made his appearance only on occasions 
 when some offices had become vacant? Per- 
 
 * An allusion to the game of quadrille, or ombre. Tr. 
 
 ANCTA CLARA. 47 
 
 haps Daniel had shown a friendly rudeness or 
 a rude friendliness to one or the other of the 
 court-dames ? Nothing of the kind ! Not at all ! 
 Daniel was a right, upright, well-disposed, just, 
 intelligent, conscientious minister at court; not 
 a guilty but a guiltless, not a blameable but a 
 blameless servant, and a prophet besides, and 
 an interpreter of dreams into the bargain, and 
 a chronicler on the top of that. If so, what was 
 it then that plunged him into the tyrannous 
 lions-den? Ask not long! A court-dog bit him, 
 a court-cat scratched him, a court-arrow pierced 
 him. He burned his mouth with a court-soup, 
 he knocked his head against a court-door. Un- 
 derstand me right ; it was envy among the mi- 
 nisters and courtiers at court that caused him 
 to fall. So it happened to Henry, Count of Hol- 
 stein, at the court of Edward III., king of Eng- 
 land. So it happened to Belisarius, the great 
 war-chief, at the court of the emperor Justinian. 
 So it happened to Aristides, to Scipio, to The- 
 mistocles, to Tully, to Epaminondas, to Socrates, 
 to Pompey, to Iphicrates, to Conon, to Chabrias. 
 But those are all foreign names. So it happened 
 to many Ferdinands, Henrys, Rudolphs, Casi- 
 mirs, Philips, Conrads, Wolfgangs, &c, whom 
 cursed envy plunged into misery. 0, envy ! 0, 
 envy! ******* 
 ******** 
 Goodly brothers had Joseph. Gen. 37. If 
 these be brothers, then sloe-bushes maybe called 
 grape-vines. If these be brothers, then the 
 wolf may be called the burgomaster of the sheep 
 Not brothers were they, but brooders of all evil. 
 When the honest youth, Joseph, out of brotherly 
 love and sincerity, told them his dream, — of 
 which it might be easily surmised that it was 
 no empty vision but a prophecy of his future 
 good fortune, — they straightway grew pale at 
 the relation. What ! said they, thou young pi- 
 geon-bill! wilt thou be a king, and shall thy 
 fortune mount so high that we shall bow the 
 knee to thee and serve thee ? Nay, the Devil 
 bend thy neck, arrogant booby ! &c. They were 
 so embittered against him that they could not 
 look upon him. Yea they were driven so far 
 by damned envy, that they resolved to throttle 
 this their brother. But let us reason together a 
 little, ye shepherds ! (although you ought more 
 properly to have been swine-herds.) Hear me. 
 Either it is true that your brother is to be king, 
 or it is not true. If it be not true, then laugh 
 at the empty dream, and rather banter this 
 young A. B. C.-smith with brotherly jests. Put 
 a shepherd's staff in his hand instead of a scep- 
 tre, and say laughingly, God save your majesty! 
 &c. But if it is true that he is to be king, then 
 you ought not to be angry with him on that ac- 
 count, but rather to rejoice, and to say : So then 
 Joseph is to be a king ! That is the greatest 
 honour for us, and everlasting renown for our 
 whole family. Well, we shall no longer wear 
 our dirty shepherds' knapsacks, but every one 
 of us will be a gentleman, and how good it will 
 seem when we are called, my lord ! Then, of 
 
•lb 
 
 ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA. 
 
 a surety, brother Reuben will be made chief 
 master of ceremonies; then, certainly, brother 
 Zebulon will have the situation of president of 
 the chamber ; brother Issachar cannot fail to 
 become chief of the kitchen department ; he 
 loves a good bit, anyhow. Brother Simeon, 
 without doubt, will be lord chamberlain, for he 
 knows how to sport the compliments. Think 
 on me! brother Ashur will be master of the 
 chase. How he will hunt ! Then we will 
 have a different state of things. Now we must 
 stuff our hungry stomachs with sour turnips; 
 then they will serve up to us other bits. 0, God 
 grant that our brother may be a king! That is 
 the kind of talk that Joseph's brothers should 
 have held. But cursed envy perverted their 
 understanding, disordered their reason, and they 
 would rather suffer evil days and laborious days 
 than to see Joseph exalted to royal dignity. O, 
 hellish envy! The envious man is contented 
 with his own poverty if he only sees that his 
 neighbour is not rich. The envious man finds 
 satisfaction in his own misery if he only notes 
 that it is not well with his neighbour. The 
 envious man complains not of his want of un- 
 derstanding and his ignorance if he only per- 
 ceives that his neighbour also hath not much 
 faculty. The envious man is willing to remain 
 abject if he only finds that his neighbour does 
 not rise. The envious man laments not his 
 mis-shape and his scarecrow face if he only 
 knows that his neighbour is not fair. O, cursed 
 envy ! thou sippest and suckest out of gall, honey, 
 and out of honey, gall; for thy neighbour's good 
 is to thee an evil, and thy neighbour's evil is to 
 thee a good. 0! 0! 0! *^ * * * 
 ***** * * 
 
 The envious are, how are they ? They are 
 like muck-chafers, which from the fairest roses 
 suck only poison, not honey; so the envious 
 seek in their object only what is defective, the 
 good they pass over in silence. The envious 
 are, how are they? They are like files or rasps, 
 which devour, gnaw, bite and tear other things, 
 but destroy themselves also thereby. So the 
 envious seek to injure their neighbour and waste 
 the health of their own body and soul. The 
 envious are, how are they? They are like 
 wells, which are generally cool when the wea- 
 ther is warm, and generally warm when the 
 weather, especially in winter, is cold ; so is it 
 well with the envious when it is ill with others, 
 and ill with them when it is well with others. 
 The envious are, how are they? They are like 
 the thunderbolt which, for the most part, strikes 
 only lofty edifices, not those which are low ; so 
 the envious hate those whom God has exalted. 
 The envious are, how are they? They are like 
 the quails. Those evil birds sigh when the sun 
 rises; sc the envious sigh and are pained when 
 they see their neighbours rise, and grow in 
 riches and honour. The envious are, how are 
 they? They are like a tree beneath which 
 young trees are growing, but the great tree op- 
 presses them with its branches, for it cannot 
 
 bear that other trees shall grow to equal it. So 
 the envious labour diligently to prevent that any 
 one should rise from low to high estate. The 
 envious are, how are they? They are like men 
 sick of a fever, to whom sweet food tastes bitter. 
 Even so nothing more embitters the envious 
 than when they perceive that their neighbour 
 enjoys good and sweet fortune. The envious 
 are, how are they? They are like flies, which 
 usually plague men there where they are sore 
 or wounded. So the envious seek only that in 
 their neighbour which is blameworthy; what 
 is virtuous and commendable they freely pass 
 over in silence. The envious are, how are they ? 
 They are like buckets in a well ; when one 
 goes down the other mounts, when one goes up 
 the other descends. So it is well with the en- 
 vious, and he prospers greatly when he sees 
 his neighbour fall, and when his neighbour 
 mounts, the envious is cast down thereby. 
 
 0, thou cursed vice ! Thou art a maggot of 
 the soul ; further yet, thou art an imposthume 
 of the heart; further yet, thou art a pest of the 
 five senses ; further yet, thou art a poison of the 
 limbs; further yet, thou art a dangerous fever 
 of the blood ; further yet, thou art a giddiness 
 of the brain ; further yet, thou art a darkness of 
 the understanding ; further yet, thou art a hang- 
 man and torturer and tyrant of the human body. 
 Other vices have a little pleasure and imaginary 
 delight. The wooing of Bathsheba sugared the 
 heart of David somewhat. When Herod shared 
 the board and bed of his brother's wife, he en- 
 joyed a momentary satisfaction. When Nebu- 
 chadnezzar set up for a god, and, in his arrogance 
 and pride, suffered himself to be worshipped ; 
 the reputation of the thing tickled him a little. 
 When the rich man gorged himself every day, 
 his daily gormandizing, no doubt, gave him 
 pleasure. When Achan made too long fingers 
 and stumbled over the seventh* commandment, 
 he enjoyed becoming rich without labour. * * 
 In short, all other vices have on them and in 
 them and with them a honey, although in small 
 weight, but the envious finds nothing but sor- 
 rows. ****** 
 
 An envious man may eat what he will and 
 how he will and when he will and as much as 
 he will and where he will, he will nevertheless 
 remain dog-meagre, because everything, with 
 him, is changed into poison. * * * There- 
 fore God the Lord himself asked Cain, after he 
 had washed his hands in his brother's blood : 
 " Quare concidit fades tua ?" "Cain, why hath 
 thy countenance fallen?'' The fellow was as 
 lean as a ramrod ; but there was no other cause 
 for it than damned envy, which is a poison to 
 human health. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Of what country the prodigal son was, is not 
 precisely known; but I believe he was an Irish- 
 
 *The eighth, according to the division of most Pro- 
 testant sects. Tr. 
 
ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA, 
 
 40 
 
 man* What his name was, is not generally 
 understood ; but I believe it was Malefacius. 
 From what place he took his title (seeing he 
 was a nobleman), has not yet been discovered ; 
 but I believe it was Maidsberg or Womenham. 
 What was the device in his coat of arms, no 
 one has described ; but I believe it was a sow's 
 stomach in a field verd. 
 
 This chap travelled with well-larded purse 
 through various countries and provinces, and 
 returned no better but rather worse. So it often 
 happens still, that many a noble youth has his 
 travels changed to travails. Not seldom also, 
 he goes forth a good German and returns a bad 
 Herman.^ What honour or credit is it to the 
 noble river Danube that it travels through dif- 
 ferent lands, through Suabia, Bavaria, Austria, 
 Hungary, and at last unites with a sow?* The 
 pious Jacob saw, in his journey, a ladder to 
 heaven; but alas! many of our Quality find, in 
 their journeys, a ladder into hell. If, nowadays, 
 a man travel not, he.is called a Jack-in-the-cor- 
 ner and one who has set up his rest behind the 
 stove. But tell me, dear half-Germans! (for 
 whole Germans ye have long ceased to be.) Is 
 it not true ? Ye send your sons out that they 
 may learn strange vices at great cost in stranger- 
 lands, when, with far less expense, they might 
 be acquiring virtues at home. They return with 
 no more point to them than they went out, ex- 
 cept that they bring home some new fashion of 
 point-lace. They return no more gallant, unless 
 it be that gallant comes from the French galant. 
 They return more splendidly clad, but good 
 habits were better than to be finely habited. 
 New-fashioned hats, new-fashioned periwigs, 
 new-fashioned collars, new-fashioned coats, 
 new-fashioned breeches, new-fashioned hose, 
 new-fashioned shoes, new-fashioned ribbons, 
 new-fashioned buttons, — also new-fashioned 
 consciences creep into our beloved Germany 
 through your travels. Your fool's-frocks change 
 too with every moon ; and soon the tailors will 
 have to establish a university and take Doctors' 
 degrees, and afterwards bear the title of Right- 
 reverend Doctors of fashion. 
 
 If I had all the new fashions of coats for four 
 and twenty years, I would almost make a cur- 
 tain before the sun with them, so that men 
 should go about with lanterns in the day-time. 
 At least, I would undertake to hide all Turkey 
 with them, so that the Constantinopolitans should 
 think their Mahomed was playing blind-the-cat 
 with them. An old witch, at the request of 
 king Saul, called the prophet Samuel from the 
 dead, that he might know the result of his arms. 
 
 *An untranslateable pun. Irrliinder, literally, err- 
 lander, one who wanders from country to country, a 
 vagabond. Tr. 
 
 t The translator is in doubt as to the meaning of this 
 quip. Perhaps Herman stands for the Spanish Hermano; 
 and the meaning is— a bad brother, a loose companion. 
 
 % The river Save, called in Germau Sau, which is the 
 German for sow. This river joins the Danube between 
 Semlin and Belgrade. Tr. 
 
 a 
 
 It will soon come to pass, that people will want 
 to call from the dead the identical tailor and 
 master who made the beautiful Esther's gar- 
 ment, when she was so well-pleasing in the 
 eyes of Ahasuerus. ***** 
 * * * So the prodigal son learned but little 
 good in foreign lands. His doing was wooing ; 
 his thinking was drinking; his Latin was "Pro- 
 ficiat* his Italian, Brindisi* his Bohemian, 
 Sasdravi* his German, Gesegnefs Gott* In one 
 word, he was a goodly fellow always mellow, 
 a vagrant, a bacchant, an amant, a turbant, a 
 distillant, &c. Now he had wasted his sub- 
 stance in foreign provinces and torn his con- 
 science to tatters as well as his clothes. He 
 might, with truth, have said to his father what 
 the brothers of Joseph said, without truth, to 
 Jacob when they showed him the bloody coat, 
 " fera pessima" &c, "an evil beast hath devoured 
 him." An evil beast devoured the prodigal son; 
 an evil beast, the golden eagle, an evil beast, 
 the golden griffin, an evil beast, the golden buck, 
 an evil beast, the golden bear. These tavern- 
 beasts reduced the youngster to that condition 
 that his breeches were as transparent as a 
 fisherman's net, his stomach shrunk together 
 like an empty bladder, and the mirror of his 
 misery was to be seen on the sleeve of his dirty 
 doublet, &c. And now when the scamp had 
 got sick of the swine-diet, more wholesome 
 thoughts came into his mind and he would go 
 straight home to his old father and seek a favour- 
 able hearing at his feet; in which he succeeded 
 according to his wish. And his own father fell 
 quite lovingly on the neck of the bad vocativo, 
 for which a rope would have been fitter. Yea, 
 he was introduced with special joy and jubilee 
 into the paternal dwelling, sudden preparations 
 were made for a feast, kitchen and cellar were 
 put in requisition, and the best and fattest calf 
 must be killed in a hurry and cooked and 
 roasted. Away with the rags and tatters! and 
 hurrah ! for the velvet coat and the prinked up 
 hat and a gold ring! Bring on your fiddlers! 
 allegro ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the other brother comes home 
 and hears from afar a fiddling, and a fifing, and 
 a scraping, and a dancing, and a hopping, and a 
 shouting, &c. Holloa! he says, what"s that? 
 The devil and his grand-mother ! What's to pay 
 now ? Surely my sister is not having a wedding? 
 I heard nothing about any bride when I went 
 out this morning. While he hovers in these 
 thoughts, some one reaches him a glass of wine 
 out of the window and the house-servant runs 
 toward him with the tidings that his brother, 
 who fared so ill in foreign parts, was come 
 home, and he must come in immediately and 
 sit down to a roast of veal. At this he became 
 entirely pale with sheer envy, and, while they 
 waited on his brother in that style, he sat down 
 before the door of the house and bit his nails, 
 
 * Proficiat or prosit, a salutation at drinking, equivalent 
 to " Your health." Tr. 
 
 5 
 
50 ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA. 
 
 and gnashed his teeth, and scratched his head, 
 and turned up his nose, and sighed from his 
 heart, and fasted and tormented himself so with 
 his envy, that he had well nigh been struck 
 with apoplexy. O fool ! How much better 
 would it have been, had the gispus gone in and 
 welcomed his brother home ! And if he had 
 given him an old felt, it would have done no 
 harm, seeing he had brought no hat with him. 
 And if he had sat down to table with him and 
 helped to make way with the roasted calf, and 
 pledged him heartily in a few healths, and 
 hopped about to the voice of the clear-sounding 
 
 horns, and worn through a pair of shoe-soles 
 and half another with dancing, it would have 
 been much better and God would not have been 
 so much offended thereat. But with his fasting 
 and his envy, which tormented him more than 
 the fiery serpents did the people of Israel, he 
 deserved hell. In other cases affliction is a 
 road to heavenly courts, and suffering a way to 
 eternal joys ; and pains are the outriders of 
 eternal merriment; but the torments of the en- 
 vious fool are the earnest-money of eternal 
 damnation. ****** 
 ****** * * 
 
JUSTUS 
 
 MOSER. 
 
 Born J720. 
 
 The following account of this genial writer 
 and true-hearted man, as well as the first speci- 
 men from his writings, is from Mrs. Austin's 
 German Prose Writers. The other transla- 
 tions are furnished by a friend. 
 
 The writings of Moser are little known in 
 this country, yet they are distinguished by a 
 vigorous, homely good 6ense, a freedom from 
 all affectation, a knowledge of the condition of 
 the laboring classes, and a zeal for their im- 
 provement and happiness, which obtained for 
 him, not unjustly, the name of the Franklin of 
 Germany. He was born in 1720, at Osnabruck, 
 where his father filled high offices under the 
 government He early gave proofs of great 
 talents, which were judiciously cultivated by 
 his mother. He studied law at Jena and Got- 
 tingen; but the open book of human life was 
 his favorite and most important study. As a 
 man of business, he was the able and zealous 
 defender of oppressed innocence, and resisted 
 alone the arbitrary will of the then ruler of 
 Osnabruck. The confidence of his country- 
 men raised him, in 1747, to the honorable post 
 of " Advocatus Patriae," and the Landstande 
 appointed him Secretary and Syndic of the 
 Order of Knights. His noble character was 
 put to the test during the troubles of the Seven 
 years' War, and secured him the respect of 
 Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick. He was em- 
 ployed for eight months in London in trans- 
 acting the affairs of the troops subsidized by 
 England, and his residence in that country 
 added much to his practical experience. He 
 was for twenty years (during the minority of 
 the English prince, who, in 1761, was acknow- 
 ledged protestant bishop and sovereign of Osna- 
 briick), virtually, though not nominally, chief- 
 counsellor of the regent. Nothing but Moser's 
 great talents, knowledge of business, and in- 
 dustry, united to his unswerving integrity, fair- 
 ness and disinterestedness, would have enabled 
 him to steer his course, free from all suspicion 
 or reproach, between the conflicting interests 
 of the sovereign and the states, both of whom 
 
 Died 1794. 
 
 he served. For six years he was justiciary of 
 the criminal court of Osnabruck ; and on his 
 resignation, was appointed privy referendary 
 of the government, which post he held till his 
 death, January 8th, 1794. 
 
 Moser's objects in writing were far higher 
 than the gratification of the vanity, or the ac- 
 quisition of the fame, of an author ; yet there 
 is no writer whose works have a more enduring 
 reputation. They may serve as a model for all 
 who are inspired with the noble desire of ren- 
 dering intelligible to the people their own true 
 interests ; — the highest office in which genius, 
 wit, learning, or eloquence, can ever be em- 
 ployed. 
 
 Gifted in an eminent degree with a sound 
 mind in a sound body, he devoted both to the 
 service of his country and of mankind, and he 
 closed a happy, useful, and honorable life at 
 the age of 74, " having had much to rejoice, 
 little to sadden, and nothing to offend him," as 
 he himself thankfully acknowledged. There 
 is a beautiful passage in Goethe's life,* of 
 which I subjoin an abridged translation. 
 
 " The little essays or papers of this admirable 
 man, relating to matters of social and political 
 interest, had been printed some years before in 
 the Osnabruck newspaper, and had been point- 
 ed out to me by Herder, who suffered nothing 
 of merit to pass unobserved. Moser's daughter 
 was now occupied in collecting them. 
 
 " They were all conceived in one spirit, and 
 are all distinguished for their intimate know- 
 ledge of the condition of the middle and lower 
 classes, and indeed of the whole fabric of 
 society. The author, with a perfect freedom 
 from prejudice, analyzes the relations of the 
 several classes to each other, and also those 
 existing between the several towns and villages 
 of the country. The public revenues and ex- 
 penditure, the advantages and disadvantages 
 of the various branches of industry, are brought 
 distinctly before us, and old times compared 
 and contrasted with new. 
 
 * Diclitung und Wahrheit, book XIII. 
 
 (51) 
 
MOSER. 
 
 52 
 
 " The internal condition of Osnabriick, and 
 its relation to other countries, particularly Eng- 
 land, are clearly stated, and practical conse- 
 quences deduced. Though he calls them ' Pat- 
 riotic Fantasies,' their contents are in fact true 
 and practicable. 
 
 " And as the whole structure of society rests 
 on the basis of family, he devotes his especial 
 attention to that. He treats, seriously or spor- 
 tively, of the changes in manners and habits, 
 dress, diet, domestic life, and education. It 
 would be necessary to make an inventory of 
 every incident of social life, if we would ex- 
 haust the subjects which he handles. And how 
 inimitable is the handling ! It is a thorough 
 man of business speaking to the people in a 
 weekly paper, in order to render intelligible to 
 all the intentions and projects of a wise and 
 benevolent government; by no means in a 
 merely didactic style, but in a variety of forms, 
 which we might almost call poetical, and which 
 certainly deserve to be called rhetorical, in the 
 
 best sense of the word. He is always master 
 of his subject, and has the art of giving a lively 
 color to the most serious; sometimes assuming 
 one mask, sometimes another, sometimes speak- 
 ing in his own person, with a gay and tempered 
 irony ; vigorous and true, sometimes even rough 
 and almost coarse, but in every case so appro- 
 priate, that it is impossible not to admire the 
 talents, the good sense, the facility, lightness, 
 taste and originality of the writer. In the 
 choice of his subjects, his profound knowledge 
 of them, enlarged views, skilful and appro- 
 priate handling, deep and yet gay humor, I can 
 compare him to none but Franklin." 
 
 Nothing can be added to this just and beauti- 
 ful description of Moser's " Patriotische Fan- 
 tasien." It remains only to say, that his " His- 
 tory of Osnabriick," is equally remarkable for 
 the accurate antiquarian knowledge it exhibits. 
 He left some other works, among which is a 
 defence of the German language and litera- 
 ture, in answer to Frederic the Great. 
 
 LETTER 
 
 FROM AN OLD MARRIED WOMAN TO A SENSITIVE YOUNG LADY. 
 
 You do your husband injustice, dear child, if 
 you think he loves you less than formerly. He 
 is a man of an ardent, active temper, who loves 
 labour and exertion, and finds his pleasure in 
 them ; and as long as his love for you furnished 
 him with labour and exertion he was com- 
 pletely absorbed in it. But this has, of course, 
 ceased; your reciprocal position, — but by no 
 means his love, as you imagine, — has changed. 
 
 A love which seeks to conquer, and a love 
 which has conquered, are two totally differen* 
 passions. The one puts on the stretch all the 
 virtues of the hero ; it excites in him fear, hope, 
 desire; it leads him from triumph to triumph, 
 and makes him think every foot of ground that 
 he gains, a kingdom. Hence it keeps alive and 
 fosters all the active powers of the man who 
 abandons himself to it. The happy husband 
 cannot appear like the lover; he has not like 
 him to fear, to hope, and to desire; he has no 
 longer that charming toil, with all its triumphs, 
 which he had before, nor can that which he has 
 already w on be a conquest. 
 
 You have only, my dear child, to attend to 
 this most natural and inevitable difference, and 
 you will see in the whole conduct of your hus- 
 band, who now finds more pleasure in business 
 than in your smiles, nothing to offend you. You 
 wish — do you not? — that be would still sit with 
 you alone on the mossy bank in front of the 
 grotto, as he used to do, look in your blue eyes, 
 and kneel to kiss your pretty hand. You wish 
 
 that he would paint to you, in livelier colours 
 than ever, those delights of love which lovers 
 know how to describe with so much art and 
 passion ; that he would lead your imagination 
 from one rapture to another. My wishes, at 
 least for the first year after I married my hus- 
 band, went to nothing short of this. But it will 
 not do ; — the best husband is also the most use- 
 ful and active member of society ; and when 
 love no longer demands toil and trouble, — when 
 every triumph is a mere repetition of the last, — 
 when success has lost something of its value 
 along with its novelty, — the taste for activity no 
 longer finds its appropriate food, and turns to 
 fresh objects of pursuit. The necessity for oc- 
 cupation and for progress is of the very essence 
 of our souls ; and if our husbands are guided 
 by reason in the choice of occupation, we ought 
 not to pout because they do not sit with us so 
 often as formerly by the silver brook or under 
 the beech tree. At first I too found it hard to 
 endure the change. But my husband talked to 
 me about it with perfect frankness and sincerity. 
 " The joy with which you receive me," said he, 
 " does not conceal your vexation, and your sad- 
 dened eye tries in vain to assume a cheerful 
 look ; I see what you want, — that I would sit 
 as I used to do on the mossy bank, hang on all 
 your steps, and live on your breath ; but this is 
 impossible. I would bring you down from the 
 top of the church steeple on a rope ladder, at 
 the peril of my life, if I could obtain you in no 
 other way ; but now, as I have you fast in my 
 arms, as all dangers are passed and all obstacles 
 overcome, my passion can no longer find satis- 
 
MOSER. 
 
 53 
 
 faction in that way. What has once been sa- 
 crificed to my self-love, ceases to be a sacrifice. 
 The spirit of invention, discovery, and conquest, 
 inherent in man, demands a new career. Be- 
 fore I obtained you I used all the virtues I pos- 
 sessed as steps by which to reach you; but now, 
 as I have you, I place you at the top of them, 
 and you are the highest step from which I now 
 hope to ascend higher." 
 
 Little as I relished the notion of the church 
 tower, or the honour of serving as the highest 
 step under my husband's feet, time and reflec- 
 tion on the course of human affairs convinced 
 me that the thing could not be otherwise. I 
 therefore turned my active mind, which would 
 perhaps in time have been tired of the mossy 
 bank, to the domestic business which came 
 within my department; and when we had both 
 been busy and bustling in our several ways, and 
 could tell each other in the evening what we 
 had been doing, he in the fields, and I in the 
 house or the garden, we were often more happy 
 and contented than the most loving couple in 
 the world. 
 
 And, what is best of all, this pleasure has not 
 left us after thirty years of marriage. We talk 
 with as much animation as ever of our domestic 
 affairs ; I have learned to know all my hus- 
 band's tastes, and I relate to him whatever I 
 think likely to please him out of journals, whe- 
 ther political or literary ; I recommend books to 
 him, and lay them before him ; I carry on the 
 correspondence with our married children, and 
 often delight him with good news of them and 
 our little grandchildren. As to his accounts, I 
 understand them as well as he, and make them 
 easier to him by having mine of all the yearly 
 outlay which passes through my hands, ready 
 and in order ; if necessary, I can send in a state- 
 ment to the treasury chamber, and my hand 
 makes as good a figure in our cash-book as his ; 
 we are accustomed to the same order, we know 
 the spirit of all our affairs and duties, and we 
 have one aim and one rule in all our undertakings. 
 
 This would never have been the case if we 
 had played the part of tender lovers after mar- 
 riage as well as before, and had exhausted our 
 energies in asseverations of mutual love. We 
 should perhaps have regarded each other with 
 ennui, and have soon found the grotto too damp, 
 the evening air too cool, the noontide too hot, 
 the morning fatiguing. We should have longed 
 for visitors, who when they came would not 
 have been amused, and would have impatiently 
 awaited the hour of departure, or, if we went 
 to them, would have wished us away. Spoiled 
 by effeminate trifling, we should have wanted 
 to continue to trifle, and to share in pleasures 
 we could not enjoy ; or have been compelled to 
 find refuge at the card-table, — the last place at 
 which the old can figure with the young. 
 
 Do you wish not. to fall into this state, my 
 dear child ? Follow my example, and do not 
 torment yourself and your excellent husband 
 with unreasonable exactions. Don't think, how- 
 
 ever, that I have entirely renounced the plea- 
 sure of seeing mine at my feet. Opportunities 
 for this present themselves far more frequently 
 to those who do not seek, but seem to avoid 
 them, than to those who allow themselves to be 
 found on the mossy bank at all times, and as 
 often as it pleases their lord and master. 
 
 I still sometimes sing to my little grandchil- 
 dren, when they come to see me, a song which, 
 in the days when his love had still to contend 
 with all sorts of obstacles, used to throw him 
 into raptures; and when the little ones cry, 
 "Ancora! ancora! grandmamma," his eyes fill 
 with tears of joy. I asked him once whether 
 he would not now think it too dangerous to 
 bring me down a rope-ladder from the top of 
 the church steeple, upon which he called out 
 as vehemently as the children, "0, ancora! 
 grandmamma, ancora!" 
 
 P. S. — One thing, my dear child, I forgot. It 
 seems to me that you trust too entirely to your 
 good cause and your good heart, (perhaps, too, 
 a little to your blue eyes,) and do not deign to 
 try to attract your husband anew. I fancy you 
 are, at home, just as you were a week ago, in 
 
 society, at our excellent G "s, where I found 
 
 you as stiff and silent as if you had met only to 
 tire each other to death. Did you not observe 
 how soon I set the whole company in motion 1 
 This was merely by a few words addressed to 
 each, on the subject I thought most agreeable or 
 most flattering to him. After a time the others 
 began to feel more happy and at their ease, and 
 we parted in high spirits and good humour. 
 
 What I did there, I do daily at home. I try 
 to make myself and all around me agreeable. 
 It will not do to leave a man to himself till he 
 comes to you, to take no pains to attract him, or 
 to appear before him with a long face. But it 
 is not so difficult as you think, dear child, to 
 behave to a husband so that he shall remain 
 forever in some measure a lover. I am an old 
 woman, but you can still do what you like; a 
 word from you at the right time will not fail of 
 its effect. What need have you to play the suf- 
 fering virtue 1 The tear of a loving girl, says 
 an old book, is like a dew-drop on the rose ; but 
 that on the cheek of a wife is a drop of poison 
 to her husband. Try to appear cheerful and 
 contented, and your husband will be so; and 
 when you have made him happy, you will be- 
 come so, not in appearance, but in reality. 
 
 The skill required is not so great. Nothing 
 flatters a man so much as the happiness of his 
 wife; he is always proud of himself as the 
 source of it. As soon as you are cheerful, you 
 will be lively and alert, and every moment will 
 afford you an opportunity of letting fall an agree- 
 able word. Your education, which gives you 
 an immense advantage, will greatly assist you ; 
 and your sensibility will become the noblest 
 gift that nature has bestowed on you, when it 
 shows itself in affectionate assiduity, and stamps 
 on every action a soft, kind, and tender charac- 
 ter, instead of wasting itself in secret repinings. 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 MOSER. 
 
 HOW TO ATTAIN TO AN ADEQUATE 
 EXPRESSION OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 Youn complaint, dearest friend, that you can 
 seldom satisfy yourself perfectly, in expression 
 and execution, when you attempt to impart 
 weighty and interesting truth, may, likely 
 enough, be well founded; but I am not yet con- 
 vinced, that this arises from any deficiency of 
 language. All words, especially dead words on 
 paper, to which indeed the physiognomy is 
 wanting, to assist expression, are but very im- 
 perfect signs of our thoughts and feelings, and 
 we are often more affected by another's silence, 
 than by the finest written discourse. But these 
 signs, too, have their accompaniments, to the 
 feeling and thinking reader; and as he who 
 understands music, does not employ the notes 
 slavishly,* so the reader, who has the necessary 
 capacity, can, by the help of written words, ac- 
 company the writer in his elevation, and draw 
 out of his soul, all that remained behind. 
 
 I should rather say, that your thoughts and 
 feelings were not sufficiently developed, when 
 you made an attempt to express them. Most 
 writers content themselves with thinking over 
 their subject calmly, then forming what they 
 call a plan, and handling their theme accord- 
 ingly ; or they avail themselves of the heat of 
 the first impulse ; and their glowing imagina- 
 tion presents us a fresh painting, often glaring 
 and powerful enough, and yet the result disap- 
 points their expectations. But indispensable as 
 it is, that he, who would express forcibly a 
 great truth, should revolve it beforehand, order 
 his expressions, and handle his theme, accord- 
 ing to its nature, with all energy ; this is not yet 
 the precise method by which we can attain to 
 a powerful expression of our sentiments. 
 
 However evident to me a truth may be, after 
 I have gained instruction on the subject from 
 books and my own reflections, and however 
 well acquainted with it I may seem to myself, 
 I do not venture to form my plan immediately 
 and to treat it accordingly. I rather reflect, that 
 it has innumerable windings and aspects not 
 directly obvious, and I must first strive to master 
 as many of these as possible, before I commu- 
 nicate myself, or consider the plan and expres- 
 sion. Accordingly, as soon as I feel inspired by 
 my subject and prepared for utterance, I first 
 throw all that comes into my mind upon paper. 
 Another day, if the subject attracts me anew, I 
 proceed in the same way, and this I repeat so 
 long as the fire and the impulse last, penetrating 
 ever deeper into the subject. So soon as I have 
 put something on paper and relieved the mind 
 of its first burden, it gradually extends its grasp 
 and gains new views, which nearer images at 
 first concealed. The farther it penetrates, and 
 the more it discovers, the more fiery and pas- 
 sionate it becomes in behalf of its beloved ob- 
 ject. It is continually discovering more beauti- 
 
 * i.e. with a slavish confinement to the written signs. 
 Tr. 
 
 ful relations, feels itself lighter and freer in 
 comparison, gets acquainted and familiar with 
 all parts, dwells upon and delights in their con- 
 templation, and does not desist, till the last grace 
 is bestowed. 
 
 And now when I have got so far, and have 
 commonly spent many days and nights, — morn- 
 ing and evening hours. — while I lay down the 
 pen at the least appearance of languor, I begin, 
 in the hours of business, to read over what I 
 have written and to reflect how I shall arrange 
 my plan. Generally, during this employment, 
 the best method of arrangement discloses itself, 
 or if I cannot decide upon it, I lay my paper 
 aside and wait for a happier hour, which must 
 come wholly of itself, and does come readily, 
 after one has once become familiar with a truth. 
 But the best way of presenting the subject, is 
 always that, and that only, which grows out of 
 the subject itself during the process. Thus I 
 begin to arrange gradually all I have gained in 
 this way out of my own mind, to strike out 
 what is not appropriate, and bring every thing 
 into its place. 
 
 Commonly, all that I first set down, comes to 
 nothing; but there are scattered particulars 
 which I now find necessary to note, with the 
 general result. I retain more of the subsequent 
 efforts in which there is a tendency to greater 
 precision ; and the final improvements conduce, 
 for the most part, only to the perspicuity and 
 ease of my essay. The order or arrangement 
 of the argument follows of itself, the main 
 design, and the colouring I leave to the hand 
 which, without the necessity of special guidance, 
 paints with power and warmth what the heated 
 imagination feels with increasing force. 
 
 Yet I will not say, that, in this respect, you 
 can immediately trust yourself. Every principle 
 has its own place, and it does not operate with 
 one as with another. Suppose I would prove 
 to you the doubtful value of previous prepara- 
 tion, and should begin by saying, " Garrick ad- 
 mired Clairon, as the greatest actress of France, 
 but thought it rather small in her, that she could 
 decide in her own room, in cold blood, upon the 
 degree of rage to which she would rise, as 
 Medea." You might easily discern the justness 
 of the comparison, but not feel all I wish you 
 to feel in reading it. Garrick never disposed 
 his parts beforehand ; he merely wrought him- 
 self up into the situation of the person he had 
 to represent, and then left it to his mighty soul, 
 to exercise all its art, according to the feeling 
 of the moment. And so must every one do, 
 who would conceive forcibly great sentiments. 
 
 The colouring is easier when separated from 
 the general tone, but, in connexion with it, more 
 difficult. On this subject, it is not easy to furnish 
 rules. It is mastered only by attentive observa- 
 tion of nature, and much experience of what 
 should be adopted or rejected, expressed strong- 
 ly or slightly. Subordination in the grouping is 
 the principal thing, and if you are happy and 
 accurate in this, the various stand-points, from 
 
MOSER. 
 
 55 
 
 which your readers will survey your delinea- 
 tion, deserve only a general consideration. 
 
 Among a million of men, there is perhaps not 
 move than one, who knows how to put his soul 
 on the stretch so far, that it produces all it is 
 capable of producing. Great numbers possess 
 a multitude of impressions, whether from art or 
 nature, concealed within, without being them- 
 selves conscious of it. The soul must be placed 
 in circumstances of emotion, it must be warmed 
 in order to unfold itself fully, and excited to 
 enthusiasm in order that it may yield up all 
 that is in it. Horace recommends wine as a 
 gentle torture of the soul. Others regard fond- 
 ness for the subject in hand, as mightier, than 
 the thirst for discoveries. Every one must 
 make the experiment for himself. Rousseau 
 never gave the first movements of his soul. He 
 who offers these only and nothing more, presents 
 such truths alone as are common, and known to 
 all men. He, on the other hand, practised often 
 ten times over the system, which I have pro- 
 posed to you, and did not desist, so long as there 
 was any thing to be drawn forth. When a 
 great man pursues this course, we may be pretty 
 certain, he will press farther, than any have 
 done before him. Whenever you are con- 
 scious of being stronger in feeling, than in ex- 
 pression, be assured that your soul is sluggish, 
 and refuses to bring forth all that is in her. 
 Assail her, when you feel the time has come, 
 and compel her to exert herself. All the ideas, 
 with which she has been at any time impressed, 
 and those, which she herself has produced un- 
 consciously from these impressions, must be put 
 into motion and glow. She must compare, re- 
 solve, and feel what she could never do without 
 this stimulus; she must be enamoured and 
 warmed with her great subject. But where 
 there is this love for the subject, there needs no 
 arrangement. Scarcely can one tell when it is 
 done, how he passed from one point to another. 
 
 THE MORAL ADVANTAGES OF PUBLIC 
 CALAMITIES. 
 
 " 0, if it were only Easter, if only the long 
 winter-evenings were over!" said to me last 
 autumn a tenant, who had not reaped for him- 
 self, his wife and seven children, so much as 
 would keep them till Martinmas. The flax he 
 had sown had not come up, and the last year's 
 scarcity had already disabled him from paying 
 his rent. 
 
 " Now,'" said I to him yesterday, « Easter is 
 come and the long winter is over, and I see you 
 are still alive, with your wife and all your 
 children. I suppose you have earned your bread 
 with difficulty, but it could never have tasted 
 so good, as it has this winter, when it was the 
 rarest thing you had." 
 
 " It was indeed very difficult," he replied, 
 44 you see my house is altogether miserable, my 
 
 wife and children naked, and myself enfeebled. 
 It has been so hard for us. The flax we still 
 had, was soon spent. A pound of bread cost a 
 skein, and there were only three who could 
 spin, and nine who must eat. There was no 
 work to be had out of the house, and when 
 Christmas came, our flax was spun and gone. 
 Ah, thou melancholy Christmas ! — My wife had 
 already pawned her petticoats and caps ; we 
 could not go to God"s church. There was 
 nothing besides in the house, on which we 
 could raise any money, but the cow. I wished 
 to drive her away to sell, but my wife and 
 children held her fast embraced, and we all 
 cried out, and stood so a long sad time. I 
 walked out at last, for I could no longer endure 
 my misery. I staid away two hours, that I 
 might not see my own dying with hunger. 
 But it was always as if six horses drew me 
 back ; I must return home. I passed by an 
 oven filled with bread ; and want, the sweet 
 savour and opportunity made me a thief ; so 
 miserable had I become. With this stolen 
 bread we solemnized our Christmas. But I rose 
 the next morning before day, took my cow, and 
 carried her to the man from whom I had stolen 
 the bread. With a thousand tears I acknow- 
 ledged to him the deed ; and the man, whom I 
 had known as hard and avaricious, gave her to 
 me again and a bushel of rye also. Since then, 
 my landlord, to whom I am yet in debt for the 
 past year, and whom I could not have spoken 
 to before, because he had nothing left himself, 
 has given me aid. Ah, Sir! there is still pity 
 in the world, there are still secret virtues, which 
 we do not find out till the time of need!" 
 
 The last remark of the good man pleased me. 
 "But what will you do now?" I asked. t; I 
 must now to Holland," said he, "to earn some- 
 thing to pay my debts. But I have no money 
 for the journey, and since I have received so 
 much from all I know, I can apply to nobody, 
 
 and so my cow must still " Here he could 
 
 say no more for sobbing, and tears rolled down 
 his sorrowful face. — "And who knows whether 
 I shall ever return from Holland, since I find 
 myself so weak after such a wretched winter, 
 and must make great exertions now, to earn 
 only so much as I owe for corn and rent." 
 
 I provided him for his journey, his main- 
 tenance, his children; and now I made haste 
 to think over the secret virtues, which want 
 discloses in so many hearts. How great, how 
 noble, thought I, has many a heart shown it- 
 self in the present scarcity! What concealed 
 fountains of virtue have been opened by want, 
 and how many thanks do we owe to Providence 
 for these trials. 
 
 Prosperous and easy times, long continued, 
 finally lull men to sleep. The poor man is un- 
 grateful, because help comes promptly, and 
 prompt help renders him negligent in his busi- 
 ness. The philosopher amuses himself with 
 an ideal world, and the statesman with idle 
 projects. Mere voluptuous passions arise from 
 
06 
 
 MOSER. 
 
 repose, and find an easy gratification. The 
 virtues hold their even way with the civilities. 
 Nothing compels feeling and decision. Interest 
 in the public good slackens, and all goes on so 
 indifferently well, that even the greatest genius 
 is only half developed. But if want breaks in. 
 if peril demands heroes, and a universal call 
 summons the soul ; if the State is striving against 
 its downfall ; if its dangers are increasing with 
 every neglected moment; if the most frightful 
 crisis can only be diverted by the greatest sacri- 
 fice; then all is action and greatness; the orator 
 waxes mighty, the genius surpasses his own 
 hopes, courage and constancy inspire the friend; 
 heart and hand open with equal promptitude ; 
 performance follows resolve, and the soul is 
 astonished at its own powers. It finds in itself 
 unknown virtues, mounts ever higher, and dis- 
 cerns from new elevations an ever widening 
 field of duty. Great things, and things adored 
 in a state of tranquillity, vanish with its flight; 
 and man shows himself once more a creature 
 worthy of the Godhead. 
 
 How many seeds of virtue would never 
 germinate, and how few would ripen, if there 
 were no want, no adversity! To how many 
 have not their own hearts been revealed by the 
 
 sight of a poor man wasting away ! And how 
 many a poor man has not been inspired by 
 hunger, with feeling, gratitude and inclination 
 for labour, which before he had neglected! 
 Will not also many of our country-people dis- 
 cern, better than before, the worth of modera- 
 tion and frugality? and many have learnt to 
 do without a multitude of things, which they 
 formerly thought absolutely necessary? I do 
 not now refer to the political uses of public 
 calamities ; that would lead to other considera- 
 tions. How salutary, how instructive, as well 
 for the heart as for the understanding, is thus 
 the present scarcity ! The good Providence 
 seems to have ordained that this should occur, 
 at least once, in every generation. Without this 
 awakening, many would lead a very stupid 
 life. The more refined part of mankind cer- 
 tainly take sufficient pains to deserve abundant 
 chastisement, and — when they do not receive 
 enough in this way — to torment themselves. 
 But their sensibility needs but a slight occasion 
 to call it into action ; and Heaven needs not 
 punish any land in order to chastise some few 
 fools. Too great, or too unfeeling, to suffer by 
 a public calamity, they are left to the martyr- 
 dom of their own imagination. 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 Born 1724. Died 1804. 
 
 A slight acquaintance with the German 
 literature of the last half-century, discovers the 
 vast influence, on all its productions, of the 
 critical and transcendental philosophies. These 
 terms, which are sometimes confounded, desig- 
 nate two distinct branches of speculation. The 
 critical philosophy begins and ends with Kant. 
 The transcendental, to which it gave birth, 
 developed itself with various phases in the sys- 
 tems of those philosophers, who, after him, 
 attained successively the highest eminence, as 
 metaphysicians; particularly, Fichte, Schel- 
 ling, Hegel. The transcendental philosophy, 
 although, in one sense, the offspring of the 
 critical, differs from it in its positive, system- 
 atic and constructive character; whereas, in 
 the critical, the negative and destructive ten- 
 dency predominates. Kant has, properly speak- 
 ing, no system ; he is analytic, not synthetic. 
 Both these philosophies, however, are parts of 
 one movement, and may properly enough be 
 comprised under one denomination. The term 
 transcendental, according to the current use, 
 has this comprehension at present, and is likely 
 to retain it. 
 
 The history of European philosophy exhibits 
 perhaps no other instance of a movement so 
 succinct, so defined and complete ; — so epic as 
 that represented by the four names which have 
 been mentioned. Kant, the critic, prepares 
 the way by analyzing our cognitions, and dis- 
 encumbering the ground of traditionary errors. 
 Fichte, the idealist, pursues to its last results 
 the subjective path of philosophical inquiry. 
 Schelling, the pantheistic realist, takes the 
 objective direction. Finally, Hegel, the en- 
 cyclopedist, describes the outermost circle and 
 lays the ground-plan which embraces and clas- 
 sifies all branches and topics of philosophy in 
 one comprehensive system. 
 
 To the influence of this philosophy on the 
 national mind, German literature owes some 
 of its most distinctive features ; in particu- 
 lar, that thoughtful tone and that profound 
 spirit which so strongly characterize it. If 
 it be inferior to others in some particu- 
 lars; if it has less of creative genius and 
 
 affluence than the English, less of grace and 
 plausibility than the French, of artistic perfec- 
 tion than the Italian, of romantic and popular 
 interest than the Spanish ; it is superior to all 
 these in intensity and depth. It presents a 
 greater amount of ideas in proportion to its 
 extent, acts more powerfully on the mind in 
 proportion to the genius embarked in it; has 
 more of that quality which is called suggestive 
 than any literature of modern Europe. And 
 for these properties it is principally indebted to 
 the efforts and speculations of those great men 
 who have labored so assiduously to found a 
 science of absolute truth.* 
 
 Immanuel Kant was born at Konigsberg, in 
 old Prussia, April 22d, 1724. His father pur- 
 sued the business of a saddler in one of the 
 suburbs of that city. In his ninth year, he was 
 put to school at the Collegium Fredericianum, 
 where he distinguished himself by his applica- 
 tion, and laid the foundation of that vast eru- 
 dition by which he was afterwards distinguish- 
 ed. In 1740, he entered the university of his 
 native city, where he first studied theology, 
 and afterwards applied himself to philosophy 
 and the exact sciences. After leaving the 
 university, he held the office of private tutor 
 in several families, and resided for nine years 
 with Count Hiillesen of Arnsdorf. In 1755, 
 he returned to Konigsberg, and took the degree 
 of Master of Arts. For fifteen years he lec- 
 tured, in connection with the university, on 
 logic, metaphysics, physics, and mathematics. 
 In 1770, he was made Professor ordinarius of 
 logic and metaphysics; which office he re- 
 tained till 1794 ; refusing several more lucra- 
 tive offers from other universities. He died, 
 February 12th, 1804, in his eightieth year; 
 having never travelled above seven miles from 
 
 * "German literature is inextricably interwoven with 
 German philosophy. There is not a fairy-tale of Tieck, 
 not a song of Goethe, not a play of Schiller, not a criti- 
 cism of Schlegel, not a description of Humboldt, in which 
 this undercurrent is not perceptible. Nay, however para- 
 doxical it may appear, I will venture to affirm that Ger- 
 man music has received much of its peculiar character 
 from the same source, that the compositions of Beethoven, 
 Weber, Spohr. Mendelssohn, are deeply tinctured with 
 the same spirit."— Mrs. Austin. 
 
 (57) 
 
58 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 his native city, but leaving a name which had 
 traversed the civilized world. Kant remained 
 unmarried, but was social in his habits, and a 
 welcome visiter in the first families of Konigs- 
 berg, who knew how to prize the greatest in- 
 tellect of the age. He was an agreeable com- 
 panion, and entertained his company with 
 amusing anecdotes, of which he possessed an 
 inexhaustible store, and which he related in a 
 very dry manner, with unmoved countenance, 
 exciting great merriment in others. He dressed 
 with elegance, and was fond of cards ; seldom 
 passing an evening without a game of l'hombre, 
 which he considered as the only certain means 
 of withdrawing his mind from strenuous thought, 
 and composing himself to rest. 
 
 Reichardt, in the "Urania" for 1812, has 
 given a spirited sketch of his person and habits. 
 " He was utterly dry in body and mind. More 
 meagre, nay withered, than his little body, per- 
 haps none ever existed; colder and more purely 
 secluded within himself, no sage ever lived. 
 A high, cheerful brow, a fine nose and bright 
 clear eyes, distinguished advantageously the 
 upper part of his countenance. But the lower 
 part, on the other hand, was the most perfect 
 expression of coarse sensuality, which showed 
 itself to excess, especially in eating and drink- 
 ing. He loved a good table in cheerful com- 
 pany. 1 ' " So boundless a memory as Kant pos- 
 sessed one shall seldom find. His lectures 
 were rendered exceedingly interesting thereby. 
 His lectures on physics and physical geography, 
 in particular, were very instructive and pleas- 
 ing to young people, by reason of his measure- 
 less acquaintance with history, travels, biogra- 
 phy, novels, and all departments which could 
 furnish materials for enriching and illustrating 
 those sciences. Although he had his notes be- 
 fore him, he seldom looked at them, and often 
 repeated whole columns of names and dates 
 from memory." 
 
 " The life-history of Immanuel Kant," says 
 Heine, " is difficult to describe. For he had 
 neither life nor history. He lived a mechanic- 
 ally regular, almost abstract bachelor-existence, 
 in a still, retired street of Konigsberg, an an- 
 cient city on the north-eastern boundary of 
 Germany. I do not think that the great clock 
 of the cathedral in that place accomplished its 
 daily task in a more passionless and regular 
 manner than its countryman, Immanuel Kant. 
 Rising, coffee-drinking, writing, reading lec- 
 tures, dining, walking, — everything had its 
 
 set time ; and the neighbours knew with per- 
 fect accuracy that it was half-past three o'clock, 
 when Immanuel Kant, in his grey body-coat, 
 with his rattan in his hand, came out of his 
 house-door, and bent his steps toward the little 
 linden-alley which, for his sake, is still called 
 the philosopher's walk. Eight times he walked 
 up and down that alley, at all seasons of the 
 year ; and when the weather was dull, and the 
 grey clouds portended rain, his servant, old 
 Lampe, was seen walking behind him with 
 anxious concern, carrying a long umbrella un- 
 der his arm, like a picture of providence. 
 
 Strange contrast between the outward life 
 of the man and his destructive, world-to-pieces- 
 crushing thought! Truly, if the citizens of 
 Konigsberg had suspected the entire import of 
 that thought, they would have felt a far more 
 shuddering horror for that man than for the 
 executioner, — an executioner who beheads only 
 men. But the good people saw in him nothing 
 more than a professor of philosophy, and when, 
 at the set time, he passed along, they gave him 
 friendly greeting, and perhaps set their watches 
 by him." 
 
 His fame, at present, rests chiefly on his la- 
 bors as a metaphysician. But, in his own day, 
 he was scarcely less distinguished by his con- 
 tributions to the exact sciences than by his in- 
 vestigation of the intellectual powers and the 
 ideal world. He published important treatises 
 on various subjects connected with physical 
 science, of which the most celebrated is the 
 " Universal Natural History and Theory of the 
 Heavens." In this work he seems to have an- 
 ticipated some of the subsequent discoveries in 
 astronomy. In particular, he conjectured the 
 existence of another planet beyond Saturn, 
 more than twenty years before Sir W. Herschel 
 had discovered the Georgium Sidus. The fol- 
 lowing is an extract from the passage in which 
 this conjecture is propounded. " Should there 
 not be between Saturn, the outermost of the 
 planets which we know, and the least eccentric 
 comet, which descends to us from a distance, 
 perhaps ten times greater, another planet whose 
 motion approaches more nearly to the cometary 
 than that of Saturn?" * * * "The law 
 which determines the relation between the 
 eccentricity of the planetary orbits and their 
 distance from the sun supports this conjec- 
 ture."* 
 
 * Mlgemeine JVaturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels. 
 Erster Theil. 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 59 
 
 Kant's moral character, distinguished for 
 probity and a high sense of honor, was held in 
 the highest estimation by his fellow-citizens. 
 
 There is an entertaining biography of him 
 by Borrowsky, a personal friend. 
 
 For the following " Remarks" on Kant's phi- 
 losophy, the editor is indebted to the translator 
 of the extracts which are given from the " Cri- 
 tique on the Faculty of judging," and the 
 " Plan for an everlasting peace."* 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 [Iir reading Kant's writings, the observation 
 often forces itself upon us, that the words will 
 very well bear a construction quite opposite to 
 that he himself seems to put upon them; and 
 we discover that they are equally intelligible 
 and harmonious from two entirely distinct points 
 of view. It is true, indeed, of all honest and 
 thorough discussion of principles, that its appli- 
 cation is infinitely wider than the particular 
 intent of the writer. Thus a profound remark 
 in Morals is equally applicable to Physics, Art, 
 and Politics. But in Kant, born to represent an 
 important step in the progress of Modern Philo- 
 sophy, this double meaning, passing easily into 
 open contradiction, accompanied too by the most 
 entire earnestness and strictness of inquiry, is 
 particularly remarkable, and has given occasion 
 to much difference of opinion as to the whole 
 scope and fundamental character of his philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 Thus he is commonly cited as the founder 
 of modern Transcendentalism, which in the 
 popular estimate is equivalent to Mysticism ; 
 yet where the aim is rather to find fault than to 
 understand, it is easy too to make him out a 
 materialist and a skeptic. This peculiarity, 
 allied to and resulting from the very nature of 
 his system, as we shall hereafter see, must be 
 understood and kept in view in the study of his 
 writings, and particularly in the Critique of the 
 Judgment, (from which the longest of our ex- 
 tracts is taken) ; which it renders one of the 
 most interesting, but most difficult of his writ- 
 ings. 
 
 Kant's starting-point is altogether with the 
 Materialists, or as they call themselves of late, 
 the Common-sense, or Inductive Philosophers. 
 In common with all the world of his time, and 
 with most persons of the present day, he as- 
 sumes that our knowledge is limited, both in 
 extent and in degree ; that we know in part, 
 and parts only. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fact that we have Expe- 
 rience, of some kind, whatever be its value, 
 remains unshaken ; and with this he commences 
 his examination of our Cognitive Faculty; hav- 
 ing for his aim to discover, and after the rigidest 
 scrutiny, set down, as Knowledge, only what 
 we certainly know ; leaving all that belongs to 
 Opinion, Faith or Feeling, to stand on its own 
 basis. 
 
 As his Test of Certainty, he appeals directly to 
 the private intuition, or consciousness, not rely- 
 ing on Experience, however often repeated ; for, 
 
 as he says, this, though it may be amply suffi- 
 cient for the uses of everyday life, is yet easily 
 distinguishable from absolute and original cer- 
 tainty. This latter he calls Knowledge d priori, 
 by which is to be understood, not a knowledge 
 preceding Experience, but deriving its support 
 from something prior to and independent of 
 Experience. For example, our conception of a 
 triangle, though suggested by the actual figure, 
 cannot be derived from it; for there is no perfect 
 triangle; none perfectly adequate to the con- 
 ception. 
 
 It is obvious that on the strict application of 
 this test, most of our so-called Knowledge must 
 take another name ; and the inquiry occurs : 
 whether there be anything in Experience de- 
 serving to be called Knowledge. 
 
 Kant answers that there is : viz. That in all 
 our perceptions of outward things, they must 
 appear as existing in Space and Time. This is 
 not the result of Experience ; for all Experience 
 must presuppose it ; and whatever validity we 
 may allow our knowledge of phenomena, of 
 this at least we are certain, that they can appear 
 to us only in Space and Time. 
 
 These, then, are the forms of our perceptions ; 
 not indicating anything in the nature of the 
 objects perceived, but mere subjective forms. 
 
 Accordingly, he divides Knowledge into two 
 kinds ; Knowledge of Forms, (subjective Know- 
 ledge); and Knowledge of subject-matter, (ob- 
 jective Knowledge) ; and he says that of the 
 latter we not only have nothing, but cannot 
 even conceive of the possibility of our ever 
 having any knowledge of things as they are in 
 themselves. 
 
 It would not be possible for us in the brief 
 space devoted to this sketch of Kant's philoso- 
 phy, to give even a general account of his de- 
 velopment of his theory of Perception, nor of his 
 critique of the Understanding. Suffice it to say 
 that on this principle of the subjectiveness of 
 all Knowledge, he proceeds to construct a sys- 
 tem of subjective Knowledge, (Understanding); 
 embracing, according to him, all our proper 
 cognitive faculty. 
 
 It is evident, however, from what has already 
 been said, that as Knowledge relates only to 
 the forms and conditions of Experience, it must 
 depend entirely upon the possibility of Expe- 
 rience ; and where this is impossible, Know- 
 ledge must also be impossible. Now, Kant 
 
 * J. Elliot Cabot, Esq. 
 
CO 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 finds certain conceptions in the mind, not only 
 unconnected with, but, by their very nature, 
 transcending all possibility of Experience. For 
 example, our conceptions of God, Freedom, and 
 Immortality, to which no possible sensuous ex- 
 perience can be adequate. Such conceptions 
 Kant calls Transcendental Ideas; and the faculty 
 conceiving them, Reason. The Transcendental 
 Ideas lay claim to absolute certainty and objec- 
 tivity, without reference to Experience. This 
 is evidently in contradiction to the theory of 
 Knowledge according to the Understanding. 
 Finite perception is deceptive, and must appeal 
 to Experience as the test of its correctness. The 
 claims of the Transcendental Ideas to theoretic 
 Knowledge, therefore, must be considered as an 
 overweening pretence, and they should rather 
 be called transcendent, than transcendental. 
 They cannot give us any information as to the 
 nature of any object; but, at most, like empiri- 
 cal conceptions, declare some law of the subject. 
 And in support of this he shows that every 
 Transcendental Idea contains a contradiction; 
 that is, when we endeavour to give it a theo- 
 retic application, to declare what it asserts con- 
 cerning its object, two opposite propositions of 
 equal apparent truth are the result. Thus our 
 idea as to the extent of the Universe, — it is 
 equally easy to maintain that it is infinite, or 
 that it is finite ; eternal, or having originated in 
 Time, and so on. And these Antinomies of Pure 
 Reason, as he calls them, he shows are inherent 
 in all Ideas. 
 
 To the Transcendental Ideas he accordingly 
 assigns a merely subjective application. 
 
 Wherever the Subject and the Object coincide, 
 there, according to him, is the true province of 
 the Transcendental Ideas, for then they have 
 objective validity. Thus in the practical Ideas, 
 as Kant styles them ; for instance the Idea of 
 Duty; here the conception (Subject) and the 
 Object, (the course of life to be pursued,) coincide. 
 
 So of the idea of God. Considered theoreti- 
 cally, that is, if we attempt to discover his na- 
 ture, we are baffled and fall into contradictions, 
 from the weakness of human powers; — such 
 conceptions are transcendent, not transcendental. 
 But considering God as the foundation of the 
 moral order of the Universe, of the idea of Duty, 
 we are in no danger of error, for here both ends 
 of the problem are within our reach. 
 
 Kant's skepticism is therefore wholly theoreti- 
 cal j and he consoles himself for the unwelcome 
 results of his inquiries by the reflection that all 
 the practical and solid interests of humanity re- 
 main untouched ; and that only our vain as- 
 sumption of knowledge, unsuited to our nature 
 and position, is affected. It is of no importance 
 whether our notions of God are correct, theoreti- 
 cally, or not; it is sufficient that we have a sub- 
 jective (practical) knowledge of him, in the 
 Idea of Duty. 
 
 Kant's method, as already explained, is em- 
 pirical, or so to say, narrative. He begins with 
 certain universally-admitted facts, and proceeds 
 
 to examine their consequences and relations, as 
 they fall under his hand, but without searching 
 out their foundation or ultimate significance. 
 
 Thus he gives us the forms, Space and Time, 
 as if for aught he knows there may be others 
 that he has not yet discovered. And he does 
 not inquire why it is that these and no others 
 should exist. They stand there without our 
 knowing whence or how. But if we examine 
 into their nature we discover them to be essen- 
 tially connected v/ith the nature of sensuous 
 Perception ; and they conduct us to new points 
 of view in relation to Kant's system. 
 
 All Knowledge must presuppose some con- 
 nection between the Subject and the Object ; 
 the mind and the thing; and whichever it may 
 be that acts on the other, there is at all events 
 a communication between them. And more- 
 over this empirical communication must depend 
 upon an original and essential connection. If 
 we could imagine two essentially and primarily 
 distinct kinds of Matter, they could not act upon 
 each other, nor could there be any communica- 
 tion between them. For Matter can act or be 
 acted upon only according to its laws. But the 
 laws of Matter are its essence, and if they act 
 according to the same laws they must be iden- 
 tical. It is necessary, therefore, and an an- 
 tecedent condition of the perception of things, 
 that both they and we should be parts of one 
 identical nature. So too in proceeding beyond 
 mere sensuous perception, — the abstract rules 
 formed by the Understanding, e. g. the common 
 hypotheses in Physics, presuppose a like iden- 
 tity, for they are formed by generalization, and 
 this is impossible without at least a dim idea 
 of a common centre of all things. The reason 
 why animals, or men reduced to a mere animal 
 existence, do not generalize nor form rules, ex- 
 cept to a very limited extent, is that this Idea 
 is not present in their consciousness, (or only 
 very dimly,) but exists outside of them, as In- 
 stinct. 
 
 So that the simplest Experience presupposes 
 an entire continuity throughout the Universe as 
 its fundamental condition. This series or con- 
 tinuity, considered abstractly, is Space. Space 
 is not the idea, but the abstraction of the material 
 Universe ; for it belongs to subjective perception 
 and Understanding, which have nothing to do 
 with Ideas; but it is a sufficient recognition, 
 by the sensuous faculty, of what the Reason af- 
 terwards comes to know as concrete Truth. 
 Thus we cannot imagine a limitation of Space, 
 nor of a place where it is not. The edge, or 
 boundary of Space, or a vacuum where there is 
 Extension without Space, is an absurdity. And 
 it is equally impossible to imagine an object not 
 in Space. 
 
 Space is in fact the abstraction of the Infinite 
 displayed in the Finite. For Matter, though 
 necessarily connected with and supported by 
 Spirit, is yet its direct opposite. Every one of 
 the qualities of Matter is antagonistic to the cor- 
 responding spiritual quality. Thus Spirit is in- 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 61 
 
 finite and eternal ; Matter finite and transitory. 
 Or rather, Matter, if it could be considered by 
 itself, would be a mere negation, and is inca- 
 pable of being expressed without its opposite. 
 For transience, for example, implies a certain 
 duration. The material Universe, therefore, is 
 an embodied contradiction, and Space of course 
 a mere suspension or abstraction of this. Thus 
 Space is both the affirmative condition and the 
 negation of Extension ; for there is no unlimited 
 Extension, and limitation is equivalent to ne- 
 gation. 
 
 So of Time. It differs from Space only as 
 quality from quantity ; Intension from Exten- 
 sion ; the inward from the outward sense, so 
 called. As Matter is limited in extent, so also 
 it is transient in substance ; and as Space con- 
 tains both extension and limitation, so Time is 
 embodied Change, i. e. persistence and tran- 
 sience: we cannot arrest any particle of it, as 
 the Present, for as we pause, it is already Past. 
 Every-day experience shows us that our notion 
 of Time depends upon the number of events 
 that have successively impressed us and then 
 given place to others. Amid a rapid succession 
 of interesting events, a week, when past, seems 
 a month, and a month a year, for we date from 
 each succeeding event. On the other hand, to 
 measure Time for economic purpose, we em- 
 ploy astronomic changes, since here the succes- 
 sion is unvarying. 
 
 It is the profound remark of an ancient Hin- 
 doo book, that Time is the connection of Matter 
 and Spirit. And the same is true of Space. 
 
 The interesting point here, and that to which 
 the preceding inquiries tend, is this : That not 
 the Transcendental Ideas alone, but the com- 
 monest and simplest experience must necessa- 
 rily contain a contradiction, to the Understand- 
 ing. Time is the contradiction of Eternity, yet 
 also of the moment, or point in Time ; Space is 
 the opposition of Unity, yet also of the point 
 in Space. And it is also very remarkable that 
 Kant in the table which he gives of the differ- 
 ent classes of possible judgments, and also in 
 his table of Categories, or classes under which 
 all pure conceptions of the Understanding may 
 be reduced, has in each instance distributed 
 them under various heads, by threes, of which 
 two are contraries and the third their result; 
 without giving any deduction, or reason for so 
 doing. Thus under the head of Quantity, in 
 judgment, he gives : Universal, Particular, and 
 Special ; and under the same head in the Ca- 
 tegories, he gives: Unity, Multiplicity, and To- 
 tality; and so on through the whole. The 
 truth is that each of these classes contains, not 
 only three kinds of judgment, or of conceptions, 
 but also the three elements necessary to every 
 judgment and every conception ; viz. the con- 
 tradiction and its result. Thus if I say : This 
 paper is white, here we have the general at- 
 tribute, white, the limitation, to this piece of 
 paper, (negation of other paper) ; and the re- 
 sult, this special piece of paper. So of all con- 
 
 ceptions, and so of all knowledge ; there is no 
 possible act of cognition that does not embrace 
 this element of contradiction. It is the combi- 
 nation of outside and inside, light and darkness, 
 extent and limitation, requisite to every sen- 
 suous impression ; and it is the puzzle in the 
 highest problems that employ the mind of man. 
 Thus in Civil Government, the coexistence of 
 personal freedom, (which supposes each indi- 
 vidual supreme and unlimited), with Society, 
 in which he is only a part. So in Religion, the 
 fierce disputes that have agitated the world 
 now for eighteen centuries, arise solely from the 
 impossibility, and at the same time the ever-re- 
 curring necessity, of conceiving Man to be at 
 once human and divine, finite and infinite ; 
 and the difficulty of reconciling the doctrine of 
 Immortality and possible perfection, with the 
 common views of h umanity, on any other ground. 
 A finite immortal is the most tremendous of 
 contradictions. This is the cause of the horror 
 with which the doctrine of the mere humanity 
 of Jesus Christ is looked upon by most persons. 
 
 But these contradictions and these impossi- 
 bilities are such only to the Understanding ; that 
 is, the mind employed only with particulars. 
 The contradiction truly exists in the Universe, 
 and to him who does not transcend it, does not 
 see it and its contrary united in an harmonious 
 synthesis, it is final. But in reality it is super- 
 ficial, and Reason, or the mind contemplating 
 things as a Whole, readily resolves it. Then 
 it is no longer contradiction, but the necessary 
 organism of the Idea. 
 
 Kant, from his point of view, was quite right 
 in making knowledge subjective only, for he 
 confines his inquiries as to the Cognitive faculty 
 entirely to the Understanding, or subjective 
 Reason, to the very nature of which, this an- 
 tagonism of the subjective and objective, and 
 their absolute separation, is altogether essential. 
 
 There is another branch of Kant's enquiry, 
 touched upon in the beginning of these re- 
 marks, but which our limits forbid our discus- 
 sing at much length ; leading, however, to the 
 same point. This is the distinction he makes 
 between the •phenomenon, or appearance of a 
 thing, and the thing itself, and his doctrine that 
 we can know nothing of the latter, but that 
 all our perception and knowledge is confined 
 to the former. This evidently follows from his 
 premises. 
 
 For if all our intercourse with things is that 
 of one thing with another, it must evidently be 
 merely outward, like all relations of things to 
 each other. 
 
 If we bring two bodies together, they touch 
 only their outer surfaces ; an inward union is 
 impossible. Modern Chemistry has shown ex- 
 perimentally that the transformations of Matter 
 are merely apparent, and consist solely of vari- 
 ous combinations of the same particles. Bodies 
 apparently the most distinct, for example, 
 starch, gum, sugar, fat, and the woody fibre of 
 6 
 
62 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 plants are the same or nearly so, in composi- 
 tion. For Matter, as has been well said, has 
 no inside, but only outside, and is capable only 
 of outward relations. 
 
 This Kant shows, psychologically, in our 
 sensuous perceptions. For what do we after 
 all mean, when we say we perceive a thing, 
 for instance a tree? Plainly nothing more than 
 that we see certain colours and outlines ap- 
 parently connected and belonging to some 
 thing. 
 
 But whether there is anything really existing 
 in that place, or whether it be only something 
 within myself, or the effect of another thing, 
 I cannot (with absolute certainty) tell. For 
 our senses are our only evidence, and they pre- 
 tend to nothing more than a perception of ap- 
 pearances. To another intelligence, or to dif- 
 ferently constructed senses, the object may ap- 
 pear quite different. At first sight, indeed, 
 it might seem that we do entirely rely upon the 
 report of our senses ; but let any one compare 
 his knowledge of any outward fact with his 
 perception of a mathematical truth, and he will 
 find the former much the weaker. We may 
 admit the possibility of our being persuaded to 
 change our notions as to the colour, shape, and 
 other qualities of any object; but we cannot for 
 an instant admit the possibility of being con- 
 vinced that two and two do not make four. 
 Now evidently there are no degrees of certainty ; 
 we either know, or we do not know. 
 
 Kant accordingly comes to the conclusion 
 that we cannot, properly speaking, know any- 
 thing of the real nature or substance of objects : 
 and that all we can hope to know about them 
 is their effect upon ourselves ; or at the most, 
 the forms and rules of this subjective effect. 
 
 Nevertheless our claim of objective know- 
 ledge continues : in spite of the contradiction 
 of the Understanding, there is an instinctive 
 feeling that it is not absolute, but only the dif- 
 ferent sides of one truth. And in truth the 
 contradiction here too belongs only to the Un- 
 derstanding, transcending its province. It is 
 true, that of anything absolutely objective, 
 really foreign to our nature, we can know 
 nothing objectively ; and more than this, as we 
 have seen above, we could not have even sub- 
 jective knowledge of an absolute object; it 
 would be for us a mere non-entity. 
 
 But this antithesis of Subject and Object is 
 entirely subordinate and belongs wholly to the 
 Understanding Reflection and consciousness 
 indeed by nature require it, and depend upon 
 it; but it is the prerogative of Reason to see 
 through and reconcile all distinctions and oppo- 
 sitions, not indeed annihilating them, but ap- 
 pointing to them their proper sphere. 
 
 So that this contradiction to the Understand- 
 ing is so far from interfering with the validity 
 of the Transcendental Ideas (conceptions of the 
 Reason) that it is essential to their nature. 
 Knowledge is not rendered impossible by it, 
 but all knowledge, down to the merest sensu- 
 
 ous perception, is shown by Kant himself (pro- 
 perly understood), to contain and require it. 
 
 Kant is not the only philosopher who has ar- 
 rived at these contradictions. They are neces- 
 sarily present in the Understanding; and in all 
 empirical philosophy, logically carried out, this 
 is made evident. The only escape is either in 
 the feebleness that cannot understand its own 
 results ; or in wilfully ignoring them, which is 
 the course pursued by Cousin, and more avow- 
 edly by the " Scotch School." 
 
 But the interesting feature in Kant's inquiry, 
 and that which gives it its place in the History 
 of Philosophy, arises from the faithfulness with 
 which it is made. His rigid and faithful ex- 
 amination of facts of consciousness brought him 
 to principles, which his adherence to the com- 
 mon point of view made him reject or overlook, 
 but which in fact involved a revolution in Phi- 
 losophy. His close analysis revealed the con- 
 tradiction contained in those propositions which 
 seem most solid and certain to the Understand- 
 ing, and this showed the true province and the 
 limitations of this faculty (or rather this direc- 
 tion of the mind), by pushing to their necessary 
 consequences the common principles. It is not 
 sufficient to contradict or refute Error; it is 
 requisite moreover to show that it is an em- 
 bodied self-contradiction and self-refutation, and 
 to see this the repugnant elements must be dis- 
 played. It is this dialectic that makes the value 
 of Kant's Critique, and it is not the less inter- 
 esting for being unconscious. 
 
 Among the extracts we have given from 
 Kant's writings, that from the Critique of the 
 Judgment is intended as a specimen of his 
 method and style in his strictly scientific works. 
 This book is remarkable as displaying in the 
 most striking manner the contradiction above 
 alluded to. Thus in his principle that Beauty 
 is a subjective fitness; — when it is evident, and 
 indeed he himself has explained, that fitness 
 necessarily implies an object, something for 
 which the thing is fit; and when he speaks of 
 a "normal regularity without law" etc., — here 
 and throughout we have the material stand- 
 point, and also the idealistic, to which the 
 former necessarily leads. This extract may 
 also serve as a specimen of Kant's scientific 
 style, which is perfectly uniform throughout his 
 more important works. Its crabbed, harsh 
 character, and the frequent use of unusual 
 words, or at least of words used in unusual 
 senses, will no doubt excuse us in the eyes of 
 our readers from giving extracts of sufficient 
 length, to afford any adequate means of judg- 
 ing of Kant's general merits as a philosopher. 
 But what is given may be enough at least to 
 correct or prevent some false impressions; be- 
 ing as we have said, as far as it goes, a fair 
 specimen of the whole. 
 
 The other extracts exhibit Kant rather as a 
 philanthropist and a well-read scholar than as 
 a philosopher, and both in matter and in style 
 are much less abstruse and peculiar. 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 63 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 CRITIQUE OF THE JUDGMENT. 
 
 The domain of our general cognitive faculty 
 comprehends two provinces, one embracing our 
 conceptions of Nature, and the other the idea 
 of Freedom ; for in each of these it has a priori 
 authority. Philosophy is divided accordingly into 
 theoretical and practical. * * * The system of 
 laws, relating to our conceptions of Nature, is 
 derived from the Understanding, and is theore- 
 tical. That arising from the idea of Freedom, 
 is derived from the Reason, and is exclusively 
 practical. * * * The subject-matter to which 
 the laws of the cognitive faculty apply, is nothing 
 else than the aggregate of all objects of possible 
 experience, considered merely as phenomena. 
 * * * The provinces of Understanding and 
 of Reason therefore are different, though their 
 subject-matter is the same, and they do not in- 
 terfere with each other ' for this reason,'* that 
 conceptions relating to Nature give us objects 
 as present to Perception (Jlnschauung),~f though 
 not as the things themselves, but only as phe- 
 nomena; the idea of Freedom on the other 
 hand has to do with the thing itself, but not as 
 an object of sensation. Thus neither can give 
 a theoretical knowledge of its Object (nor even 
 of the subject thinking), in its essential nature, 
 for this would be the Supersensuous ; the idea 
 of which must indeed be presupposed as the 
 foundation of the possibility of Experience, but 
 can never be raised and enlarged into a cogni- 
 tion. * * * Now, although an impassable 
 chasm is established between the province of 
 the conception of Nature (as the Sensuous), and 
 that of the idea of Freedom (the Supersensuous), 
 so that no passage is possible from the former 
 to the latter, as if they were two different 
 worlds, one of which could have no influence 
 upon the other ; yet there exists an obligation 
 that the latter should exert an influence over 
 the former : that is, that the idea of Freedom 
 should actualize in the sensible world, the end 
 sought by its laws. It must be conceivable 
 therefore, that Nature should admit at least the 
 possibility of a coincidence with the ends to be 
 accomplished in the sensible world in accord- 
 ance with the laws of Freedom. There must 
 therefore be a ground of unity between the 
 supersensuous foundation of Nature, with the 
 principle of Freedom ; and this, though we can 
 have no 'complete' cognition of it, either theore- 
 tical or practical, yet makes the transition pos- 
 sible from the one system of views to the 
 other. ****** 
 
 But among the higher cognitive faculties there 
 is one that forms a connecting link between the 
 Understanding and the Reason. This is the 
 
 ♦The words between commas ' ' here and elsewhere 
 are inserted to render the sense more clear. Tr. 
 
 f I am obliged (reluctantly) to translate Anschauung by 
 Perception, instead of Intuition, since by the latter word 
 we mean an intellectual beholding, which is never Kant's 
 sense. Tr. 
 
 Judgment, concerning which we have reason 
 (from analogy) to conjecture that it also has, if not 
 a peculiar province, yet a principle peculiar to 
 itself, and a priori, though certainly subjective. 
 * * * For all the faculties or capabilities of 
 the mind may be reduced to three, which are 
 not farther reducible to any common principle ; 
 viz : the Cognitive faculty the sentiment of 
 Pleasure or Pain and Desire. The laws of the 
 cognitive faculty are given by the Understand- 
 ing alone, * * * an d those of Desire, (as 
 subject to the idea of Freedom), by the Reason. 
 Between these lies the sentiment of Pleasure; 
 as the Judgment between Understanding and 
 Reason. It is therefore at least to be conjectured, 
 that the Judgment also must contain an a priori 
 principle of its own; and as Pleasure or Pain 
 is necessarily connected with Desire, a transition 
 must thus be formed between the pure cognitive 
 faculty, i. e. from the province of Nature, to that 
 of Freedom; just as in its logical employment 
 it renders possible a connection of Understand- 
 ing with Reason. * * * A reference to this 
 analogy is familiar even to the common under- 
 standing, and we often call beautiful objects in 
 Nature or Art by names which seem to pre- 
 suppose a moral judgment. We call trees ma- 
 jestic and splendid; or fields smiling and happy; 
 — even colours are said to be innocent, modest, 
 tender, &c. * * * Taste makes possible as 
 it were the passage from the pleasures of sense 
 to habitual moral interest, without too abrupt a 
 transition. ***** 
 
 Judgment is the faculty of conceiving the 
 Particular as contained in the Universal. Where 
 the Universal, (the rule, the principle, the law,) 
 is given, Judgment, which subordinates the 
 Particular to it, is determinative. But where the 
 Particular is given, for which the Universal is 
 to be sought, it is merely reflective. 
 
 The determinative Judgment has only to sub- 
 ordinate particulars to the general transcenden- 
 tal laws furnished by the Understanding; the 
 law is given a priori. But so manifold are the 
 forms in Nature, the modifications as it were 
 of the general transcendental principles of Na- 
 ture, left undetermined by the laws furnished 
 a priori by the pure Understanding (since these 
 apply only to the possibility of Nature in general, 
 as perceptible by the senses), that there must 
 exist for them laws, which indeed as empirical, 
 may be accidental to the view of our understand- 
 ing, but which, if they are to have the name of 
 la ws, (as the idea of nature demands), must be 
 considered as necessary, and as proceeding from 
 a principle of unity among the manifold parti- 
 culars. 
 
 The reflective Judgment, whose province it 
 is to ascend from the Particular in Nature to 
 the Universal, is therefore in need of a princi- 
 ple, and this it cannot derive from Experience, 
 since its very aim is to establish the unity of all 
 empirical principles under principles higher 
 though likewise empirical, and thus to establish 
 the possibility of a systematic subordination 
 
64 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 among them. Such a transcendental principle, 
 the reflective Judgment therefore must give to 
 itself, and cannot take it from anything else, 
 (since it would then he determinative) ; nor yet 
 impose it upon Nature, since all study of the 
 laws of Nature must conform to Nature, as 
 something independent of the conditions of re- 
 flection. 
 
 Now as the general laws of Nature* have 
 their foundation in the Understanding, the prin- 
 ciple in question can be no other than this, 
 that the particular, empirical laws (as far as 
 they are left indeterminate by the general laws,) 
 are to be considered as so connected together 
 as if Nature had been subjected to these also, 
 by an Understanding (though not by ours), so 
 as to render possible a system of Experience 
 according to particular natural laws. Not as 
 if such an Understanding must actually be pos- 
 tulated, (for it is only the reflective and not the 
 determinative Judgment that requires this idea 
 as its principle) — but the reflective faculty pre- 
 scribes it as a law for itself, and not for Nature. 
 
 Now since the conception of an object, as 
 containing at the same time the reason of the 
 actual existence of the object, is called the end, 
 and since the harmony of a particular thing 
 with that in the nature of things which is pos- 
 sible only from their adaptation to ends, is called 
 the fitness of its form, it follows that the princi- 
 ple of Judgment, as respects the Form of things, 
 under the laws of Experience, is the fitness of 
 Nature in her manifold variety. That is, by this 
 view, Nature is so conceived as if there were 
 an Understanding that contained a principle of 
 union among her various empirical laws. 
 
 The fitness of Nature, therefore, is a special 
 conception a priori, having its origin solely in 
 the reflective Judgment. For we cannot ascribe 
 to natural objects anything like an aiming of 
 Nature in them at ends, but only use this con- 
 ception in aid of our study of Nature in relation 
 to the connection of Phenomena which is given 
 by empirical laws. * * * * * 
 
 This transcendental conception of a fitness in 
 Nature belongs neither to our conceptions of 
 Nature nor to the idea of Freedom, since it at- 
 tributes nothing to the object (Nature), but only 
 gives the way in which we must proceed in the 
 study of the objects in Nature, with a viem to a 
 complete coherent system of Experience. It is 
 thus a subjective principle (maxim) of the Judg- 
 ment; and hence we are rejoiced, as if at a 
 happy accident, favourable to our endeavours, 
 (and in fact relieved from a necessity), when 
 we meet such a systematic unity among merely 
 empirical laws; although we must necessarily 
 presuppose that such a unity exists, without be- 
 ing able to comprehend or prove it. * * 
 
 The Understanding is indeed in possession 
 of general laws of Nature a priori, without 
 which Nature could not be an object of Expe- 
 
 * Space and Time, the (subjective) conditions of the 
 existence of Phenomena. Tr. 
 
 rience. It is requisite, however, that there 
 should also exist a certain order in the rules of 
 Nature that relate to particulars, which are 
 known to the Understanding only by Expe- 
 rience, and as far as it is concerned, acciden- 
 tal* 
 
 These rules, without which there could be 
 no passing from the general possibility of Expe- 
 rience to an actual experience,! the Understand- 
 ing must conceive as laws, (i. e. as necessary) ; 
 since otherwise they would form no order of 
 Nature : — though it does not perceive, and may 
 never comprehend them. So that although the 
 Understanding can declare nothing a priori as 
 to the nature of objects, yet in compliance with 
 these laws of ' particular' Experience, as we call 
 them, it is necessary to presuppose an a priori 
 principle : — viz. that a cognizable order of Na- 
 ture under these laws, is possible ; and to lay 
 this at the foundation of all study of Nature. 
 As for instance is expressed in the following 
 propositions : That there is in Nature a system 
 of genera and species comprehensible by us; — 
 that these approach a common type, so that a 
 transition from one to the other, and thus to a 
 higher order, is possible: That though at first it 
 seems to us unavoidable to suppose, for the spe- 
 cific variety of effects in Nature, an equal vari- 
 ety of causes, yet they may perhaps be em- 
 braced under a few principles, with the disco- 
 very of which we are to employ ourselves, &c. 
 
 This harmony of Nature with our cognitive 
 faculty is presupposed a priori by the Judgment 
 as the foundation of its examination of Nature 
 in her 'particular or' empirical laws. For the 
 Understanding the objective existence of this har- 
 mony, is accidental ; — the Judgment alone as- 
 cribes it to Nature, as 'an adaptation or' fitness 
 to our cognitive faculty, transcending Experi- 
 ence. For without presupposing this, we should 
 have no order of Nature under particular laws, 
 and hence no clue for experience and inquiry 
 into these laws in their manifold variety. For 
 it is easily conceivable, notwithstanding all 
 the uniformity of Nature in her general laws, 
 without which ' even' the form of an empirical 
 cognition would not be possible, that never- 
 theless, the variety of particular laws and their 
 effects might be so great that it would be im- 
 possible for our Understanding to discover in 
 Nature any comprehensible system of subdivi- 
 sion into genera and species, by which one 
 should throw light upon the other, and render 
 it possible for us to combine so confused (or, 
 
 * That is, the Understanding knows only their exist- 
 ence, and not why they exist, (their principle) : — so that 
 it cannot pronounce them necessary. Tr. 
 
 f The general possibility of Experience is given a pri- 
 ori, in Space and Time ; but in order to have any expe- 
 rience of an actual thing, there must pre-exist a synthesis 
 or union of various particulars in a more general whole. 
 We cannot perceive an isolated quality; e.g. colour 
 without extension, or vice-versa. This union Kant calls 
 the Unity of Apperception, and declares it to be a neces- 
 sary antecedent of Experience. Tr. 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 G5 
 
 properly speaking, so infinitely complex) a mass 
 into a coherent experience. * * * 
 
 This harmony of Nature, amid the complexity 
 of her particular laws, with our need of finding 
 in her, general principles, must, as far as our 
 faculties reach, be considered accidental, but 
 yet as a necessary postulate of our Understand- 
 ing, and hence as a fitness in Nature to the 
 aim of our Understanding in its striving after 
 Knowledge. The general laws of the Under- 
 standing, which are at the same time laws of 
 Nature, are as necessary to Nature (though 
 ! subjective, or' arising from spontaneity) as the 
 laws of motion. * * * But that the order 
 of Nature under particular laws in all their 
 possible variety and dissimilarity, transcending 
 our powers of comprehension, is yet in reality 
 fitted to our cognitive faculties, is, so far as we 
 can see, accidental ; and the discovery of this 
 order is the business of the Understanding, 
 which is thus directed to its true function, the 
 introduction of unity of principle among these 
 various particular laws. This design the Judg- 
 ment is forced to ascribe to Nature ; since the 
 Understanding can furnish no such law. * * 
 
 The Judgment is thus in possession of an a 
 priori principle of the possibility of Nature, but 
 it is only a subjective one, whereby a law is 
 prescribed, not to Nature, but to itself in its 
 study of Nature. This law we may call the law 
 of Specification in Nature, as to her empirical 
 laws. 
 
 This is not seen a priori in Nature, but postu- 
 lated, as the principle according to which we 
 must conceive the subdivision of her general 
 laws, and the subordination under them of her 
 particular laws. So that when it is said that 
 Nature subdivides her general laws according 
 to a principle of fitness to our cognitive faculty, 
 * * * we neither give a law to Nature, nor 
 learn one from her by Experience, though this 
 may confirm it. For this only is intended ; that 
 however Nature may be constituted as to her 
 general principles, we must at all events pursue 
 our study of her empirical laws according to 
 this principle and the maxims founded on it; 
 since it is only so far as this is done, that we 
 can proceed in the employment of our Under- 
 standing in Experience, and the acquisition of 
 Knowledge. 
 
 The attaining of any end is connected with a 
 feeling of Pleasure, and where the condition of 
 attaining the end is an a priori notion ; (as in 
 the present case, a principle of the reflective 
 Judgment), the feeling of Pleasure is placed on 
 a foundation a priori, and of universal validity. 
 
 Now although we do not and cannot trace 
 the slightest feeling of Pleasure from the coin- 
 cidence of our perceptions with the laws and 
 universal ideas of Nature, (the Categories) ; 
 since the Understanding proceeds without ' con- 
 scious' aim, by the necessity of its nature; yet 
 on the other hand the discovery that two or 
 more apparently heterogeneous laws are era- 
 I 
 
 braced under one common principle, is the oc- 
 casion of very marked satisfaction, often indeed 
 of an admiration, which does not cease even 
 when we are familiar with the object. 
 
 It is true 'that in many cases' we no longer 
 feel any pleasure to arise from the compre- 
 hensibility of Nature, and her unity amid the 
 divisions of genera and species (whereby alone 
 Experience and knowledge of her particular 
 laws is possible) ; but it must certainly have 
 been felt at one time ; and it is only because 
 the commonest experience would not be pos- 
 sible without this harmony, that it has gradually 
 lost itself in the mere cognition, and is no 
 longer distinguished. * * * On the other 
 hand, a view of Nature which should declare 
 at the outset, that at the slightest advance 
 beyond the commonest experience we should 
 come upon a heterogeneousness of her laws, 
 making the combination of particular laws 
 under general principles of Experience, im- 
 possible for our Understanding, would be al- 
 together repulsive to us : for this is opposed 
 to the principle of the (subjective) harmony of 
 Nature in her divisions, with the reflective 
 Judgment. 
 
 This postulate of the Judgment however is 
 so undefined as to the extent to which this 
 principle of the ideal fitness of Nature to our 
 cognitive faculty is to be allowed, that if we 
 should be told that a deeper or wider know- 
 ledge of Nature from observation must at last 
 reveal to us a complexity in her laws, not re- 
 ducible to a single principle by any human un- 
 derstanding; we should have nothing to ob- 
 ject: though it is more agreeable to us when 
 hopes are afforded, that the more we penetrate 
 into Nature, or become acquainted with out- 
 ward, as yet unknown laws, the more simple 
 and consonant we shall find her principles, 
 amid all the apparent heterogeneousness of her 
 empirical laws. * * * 
 
 THE NOTION OF ADAPTATION IN NATURE, AP- 
 PLIED TO ./ESTHETICS . 
 
 The merely subjective in the notion of an 
 object ; i. e. its relation to the Subject, and not 
 to the thing, forms the (esthetic* character of the 
 notion; but that which aids, or may be em- 
 ployed in determining the nature of the thing 
 as an object of knowledge, is its logical validity. 
 t In the cognition of a sensible object, both 
 these relations occur. * * * Sensation ex- 
 presses both the merely subjective in our 
 notions of outward things, and also their 
 material (real) principle, whereby their actual 
 existence is declared. * * * But that sub- 
 jective element in a notion, which can in no 
 case form part of a cognition, is the pleasure or 
 displeasure connected with it. For by pleasure 
 or the contrary, I know nothing of the object, 
 though the sentiment may result from a cog- 
 
 * ^Esthetic with Kant means sensuous; dependent on, 
 or belonging to the senses. Tr. 
 
 6* 
 
6G 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 nition. Now the adaptedness of a thing, as 
 given in perception, is no quality of the object, 
 for that could not be perceived, though it may- 
 be inferred from a knowledge of the thing. So 
 that this adaptedness, preceding the cognition, 
 and not even aiming at knowledge of the ob- 
 ject, yet still immediately connected with its 
 notion, is that subjective element in the notion, 
 which cannot form any part of cognition. 
 
 The object therefore is said to be adapted, 
 only because its image 'or notion' is imme- 
 diately connected with the feeling of pleasure ; 
 and the notion 'itself is an aesthetic notion' as to 
 the fitness of the object. The only question is 
 whether such a notion of fitness exists. 
 
 When the mere apprehension of the form of 
 a sensible object, unconnected with any con- 
 ception or definite knowledge, is attended with 
 pleasure, the notion is thereby referred, not to 
 the object, but merely to the subject ; * and the 
 pleasure can express only the harmony of the 
 object with the cognitive faculties exercised in 
 the reflective Judgment; thus a mere subjec- 
 tive, formal adaptedness of the object. For 
 such apprehension of forms by the Imagination 
 can never take place without some comparison 
 (even though unconscious) on the part of the 
 reflective Judgment, of the apprehensions with 
 its faculty of connecting sensations with ideas. 
 
 When therefore in this comparison the Imagi- 
 nation (the faculty of a priori perceptions) is 
 unexpectedly brought into harmony with the 
 Understanding (the faculty of conceptions), by 
 means of the notion of an object, and thereby 
 a feeling of pleasure awakened; in such case 
 there must appear to us to exist a fitness of the 
 object to the reflective Judgment. This is an 
 (Esthetic judgment as to the fitness of the object; 
 neither founding itself upon, nor giving any 
 conception of the thing itself. 
 
 Whenever the form of an object (abstracted 
 from its material influence upon us, as Sensa- 
 tion), in merely considering it, without reference 
 to any conception of its nature, is found by the 
 Judgment to cause pleasure by its mere image, 
 this pleasure the Judgment decides to be neces- 
 sarily connected with the notion ; not merely 
 for the particular person, but for all. The 
 object in such case is said to be beautiful; and 
 the ability to judge by means of this pleasure 
 (and thus to form judgments of universal 
 validity), is called Taste. * * * 
 
 Judgment by means of Taste, is jesthetic. 
 
 In order to determine whether a thing is 
 beautiful or not, we do not refer the notion to 
 its object, through the Understanding (as in 
 cognition); but to the Subject, and the feeling 
 of pleasure or displeasure, through the Imagi- 
 nation. * * * * 
 
 All notions may refer to objects, except those 
 relating to the sentiment of pleasure or dis- 
 pleasure, for this denotes nothing in the Object, 
 but only an affection of the Subject. * * * 
 
 An objective fitness can be known only from the 
 reference of particulars to a certain end, thus 
 only from a conception 'of the nature of the 
 object.' * * * It is either outward adapted- 
 ness, i. e. usefulness: or inward adaptedness, 
 i. e. the perfection of the thing. — That the satis- 
 faction derived from an object, whence we call 
 it beautiful, cannot depend on any notion of its 
 usefulness, is sufficiently evident from what has 
 been said. For then it would not be a pleasure 
 derived immediately from the object, which is 
 the essential condition of a judgment concern- 
 ing Beauty. But an objective, inward fitness, 
 i. e. Perfection, comes nearer to the predicate 
 of Beauty, and it has hence been held by dis- 
 tinguished philosophers, that Perfection, indis- 
 tinctly conceived, is synonymous with Beauty. — 
 It is of the greatest importance in a Critique of 
 Taste, to determine whether Beauty can be 
 resolved into the idea of Perfection. 
 
 In order to judge of objective fitness, we must 
 always have the conception of an end, and 
 where the fitness is not outward, (Usefulness), 
 but inward ; the conception of an inward end 
 which shall contain the ground of the inward 
 possibility of the object. Now as end is some- 
 thing the idea of which may be considered as 
 the ground of the possibility of the object itself, 
 in order to conceive of an objective fitness in a 
 thing, the conception of what it ought to be must 
 precede it. * * * The merely formal ele- 
 ment in the notion of a thing: i. e. the com- 
 bination of the Manifold into one, (leaving its 
 nature undetermined), gives of itself no know- 
 ledge of objective fitness ; since as we abstract 
 from the particular thing, as an end, (that 
 which it ought to be), nothing is left but the 
 subjective fitness of the notions in the mind of 
 the beholder ; * * * but nothing as to the 
 perfection of any object. * * * Thus, for 
 example, if I come upon a grassy spot in the 
 woods, around which the trees stand in a circle, 
 and do not image to myself any purpose ; (as 
 for instance, that it might be used for a rustic 
 dance) ; the mere form will not give me the 
 least idea of perfection. But to conceive of 
 formal, objective fitness, without any end pro- 
 posed ; that is the mere form of a perfection ; 
 * * * is a complete contradiction. 
 
 Now Taste is aesthetic Judgment: i. e. it rests 
 upon subjective grounds, and cannot have any 
 conception, (and thus not that of a particular 
 end), as its motive. Therefore the idea of 
 Beauty, as a formal, subjective fitness, by no 
 means involves any perfection of the thing; and 
 the distinction between the ideas of the Beauti- 
 ful and of the Good, (as if they differed only in 
 logical form, the former merely a confused, the 
 latter a distinct idea of Perfection), is without 
 foundation. For then there would be no specific 
 difference between them, and an aesthetic judg- 
 ment would be at the same time cognitive. * * 
 
 But I have already shown that the aesthetic 
 Judgment is peculiar in this, that it gives no 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 67 
 
 knowledge whatever, (not even confused), of 
 its Object, * * * but refers the image, wherein 
 an Object is presented ' to the mind,' merely to 
 the subject. ***** 
 
 THE PLEASURE THAT DETERMINES THE MS- 
 THETIC JUDGMENT, IS ENTIRELY UNCON- 
 NECTED WITH INTEREST. 
 
 Interest is the pleasure that we connect with 
 the notion that a certain thing exists. It is 
 therefore constantly connected with Desire ; 
 which is either its motive, or necessarily con- 
 nected therewith. Now when it is asked 
 whether a thing is beautiful or not, we do not 
 seek to know whether the existence of the thing 
 can be of any importance to us, or to any one : 
 but only what is our judgment respecting it, 
 apart from the question of its existence? If any 
 one ask me whether the palace I see before me, 
 is beautiful, I may indeed say that I am not 
 fond of things made only to be stared at ; or I 
 may answer after the manner of the Iroquois 
 Sachem, who liked nothing in Paris better than 
 the restaur ans ; or I may scold in Rousseau's 
 style, about the vanity of the great, who waste 
 the sweat of the people on such superfluities ; 
 or finally, I can easily persuade myself that if I 
 were upon an uninhabited island, without hope 
 of ever seeing men again, and by my mere wish 
 could conjure up such a palace, I should never 
 give myself even this trouble, if I already had 
 a hut that suited me. All this may be granted; 
 but this is not now the question. The point is 
 only whether the mere image of the thing in 
 my mind is accompanied by pleasure ; however 
 indifferent I may be as to its existence. It is 
 easy to see that it is what I make out of the 
 notion within me, and not that wherein I am 
 dependent on the existence of the object, that 
 enables me to say that it is beautiful, and to 
 prove that I have Taste. 
 
 Every one must confess that a judgment con- 
 cerning Beauty, with which the slightest interest 
 is mingled, is quite partial, and no pure aesthetic 
 judgment. We must be altogether disinterested, 
 and indifferent as to the existence of the thing, 
 in order to judge in matters of Taste. 
 
 We cannot better illustrate this point, (which 
 is of special importance), than by contrasting 
 with the pure, disinterested* pleasure of the 
 aesthetic judgment, pleasure that is connected 
 with interest. ***** 
 
 THE PLEASURE DERIVED FROM THE AGREE- 
 ABLE, IS CONNECTED WITH INTEREST. 
 
 The Agreeable is that which is pleasing to 
 the senses, in Sensation. * * * By Sensa- 
 tion we understand an image received through 
 the senses, referring to an object; and, to prevent 
 the continual danger of misunderstanding, we 
 
 * A judgment as to an object giving Pleasure, may be 
 entirely disinterested, but yet very interesting: i. e. it does 
 not found itself upon any interest, but produces it. Such 
 are all purely moral judgments. * * * * 
 
 shall call that which constantly and necessarily 
 remains subjective, and can in no case con- 
 stitute a notion of an object, by the customary 
 name of Feeling. 
 
 The green colour of the meadows belongs to 
 objective sensation, as the perception of a Sen- 
 sible object ; but the agreeableness of the colour 
 belongs to subjective Sensation, whereby no 
 object is given ; i. e. to Feeling. * * * 
 
 Now, that my judgment of a thing, declaring 
 it to be agreeable, expresses an interest in it, is 
 clear from this, that it excites by means of Sen- 
 sation, a desire for such things; hence the plea- 
 sure presupposes, not a mere judgment con- 
 cerning it, but a reference of its existence to 
 my condition, go far as affected by such an 
 object. * * * It is not mere approbation I 
 bestow on it, but inclination is excited by it; 
 and those sensations which are the most vividly 
 and intensely agreeable, are so far from being 
 connected with Judgment as to the object of 
 the sensation, that those who are constantly 
 bent on enjoyment willingly disclaim all Judg- 
 ment. 
 
 THE PLEASINGNESS OF GOOD IS CONNECTED 
 WITH INTEREST. 
 
 Good is that which is pleasing to us, through 
 the Reason, by its bare idea. We say that a 
 thing is good for something, (useful), when it 
 pleases us as means only; but we call that 
 good in itself which pleases by itself. But in 
 each is contained the idea of purpose, and thus 
 the relation of the Reason to a volition, (at least 
 in possibility) ; consequently, a pleasure at the 
 existence of an object or an action; i. e. Interest. 
 
 In order to pronounce a thing good, I must 
 know what sort of a thing it is ; that is, I must 
 have a conception of its nature. Flowers, fan- 
 ciful pictures, interwoven figures, such as are 
 called Arabesques, convey no particular idea, 
 and yet are pleasing. ' On the other hand,' the 
 pleasure derived from Beauty is necessarily 
 dependent on the notion of an object, and thus 
 contains the indication of some conception, 
 though it does not determine its precise charac- 
 ter. Herein it is distinguished from the Agree- 
 able, which rests entirely upon Sensation. * * 
 
 The Agreeable and the Good are distinguish- 
 ed from each other, it is true, in the commonest 
 experience. We say unhesitatingly of a highly- 
 seasoned dish, prepared with every provocative 
 of appetite, that it is agreeable, and at the same 
 time that it is not good; since it is pieasing 
 immediately to the senses, but mediately, i. e. 
 through a consideration of its consequences, it 
 is disagreeable. * * * But notwithstanding 
 this difference, they agree in this, that they are 
 always connected with an interest in the object; 
 not only the agreeable, and that which is good 
 as means, (the Useful), but also absolute and 
 universal Good, viz : moral Good, which carries 
 with it the highest interest, since it is the object 
 of the Will, (that is, of Desire, determined by 
 Reason). But to will anything, and to take 
 
68 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 pleasure in its existence — that is, to take an in- 
 terest in it, are identical. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE THREE KINDS OF FLEA- 
 SURE. 
 
 The Agreeable and the Good have each a 
 reference to Desire, and carry with them, the 
 one a pathological, the other a pure practical 
 satisfaction, produced not by the mere notion 
 of the thing, but by its existence. * * * 
 
 'On the contrary,' the aesthetic Judgment is 
 purely contemplative ; that is, indifferent to the 
 existence of the object, and regards only the 
 relation which the nature of the thing bears to 
 the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. * * 
 
 It results, therefore, that Taste is the faculty 
 of judging of an object or a sentiment, by means 
 of the pleasure or displeasure arising from it, 
 unconnected with any interest. The object of 
 such pleasure is called beautiful. 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL IS THAT WHICH, APART FROM 
 ANY CONCEPTION, IS CONSIDERED AS AFFORD- 
 ING PLEASURE TO ALL. 
 
 This definition of the Beautiful follows from 
 the foregoing definition of it as the object of 
 disinterested pleasure. For, when any one per- 
 ceives that the pleasure afforded by a thing is 
 unconnected with interest, that thing he cannot 
 consider otherwise than as pleasing to all. For 
 as the pleasure is founded upon no private in- 
 clination, or consideration of interest, but, on 
 the contrary, as the mind feels itself entirely 
 unbiassed in the satisfaction attributed to the 
 object, the pleasure cannot depend upon any 
 private circumstances or conditions ; it must 
 therefore be considered as founded in an attri- 
 bute common to all, and a like pleasure must 
 be presumed to be felt by every one. * * 
 So that Taste must necessarily be considered 
 as the power of judging of that by which even 
 Feeling may be communicated, and thus as 
 aiding in the accomplishment of what is sought 
 by every one's natural inclination. 
 
 A man left on a desert island would orna- 
 ment neither his hut nor his person, for himself. 
 He would not seek for flowers, much less plant 
 them, for ornament. It is only in society that it 
 occurs to him to be not only a man, but a man 
 of Taste, (the commencement of civilization); 
 for as such is one considered who is desirous 
 of communicating his pleasure to others, and 
 expert in doing so, and who is not satisfied 
 with an object unless he can share with others 
 the pleasure it affords. Hence we expect and 
 require of every one this regard to universal 
 communication, as it were from an original 
 contract dictated by Humanity itself. * * * 
 
 Here is a pleasure which, like all pleasure 
 or displeasure not resulting from the idea of 
 Freedom, (that is, from the previous determina- 
 tion of the higher faculty of Desire, by pure 
 Reason), cannot be understood from concep- 
 tions, as if necessarily connected with the notion 
 of an object, but only through reflective Percep- 
 
 tion ; and thus like all empirical judgments, 
 can claim no objective necessity, nor a priori 
 validity. But the aesthetic judgment, like all 
 empirical judgments, claims only acquiescence 
 from every one, which notwithstanding its 
 essentially accidental nature, it well may. The 
 only astonishing and remarkable point is, that 
 it is no empirical conception, but a feeling of 
 Pleasure, (and thus no conception whatever), 
 which is to be attributed to every one, and con- 
 nected with the notion of the thing, as if it were 
 a predicate belonging to its cognition. A single 
 empirical judgment, for example, when we find 
 a movable drop of water in a rock-crystal, 
 rightly demands that every one should find it 
 so, since it is formed according to the universal 
 conditions of the determinative Judgment, and 
 the laws of all possible Experience. So he who 
 feels pleasure in the mere contemplation of the 
 form of an object, without reference to a con- 
 ception, properly claims the agreement of all, 
 although it is a private and empirical judgment, 
 since the ground of this pleasure is to be sought 
 in the universal though subjective condition of 
 reflective judgments. * * * So that the 
 pleasure in an aesthetic judgment is dependent 
 indeed on an empirical notion, and cannot be 
 connected a priori with any conception ; (we 
 cannot determine a priori what will be agreea- 
 ble to Taste, or the contrary; we must make 
 the experiment) ; but it is the foundation of the 
 judgment, since it depends merely upon reflec- 
 tion and the universal though subjective condi- 
 tions of the harmony on which all cognition of 
 objects is founded. ***** 
 
 We therefore speak of the Beautiful as if 
 Beauty were something in the nature of the 
 thing, and as if our Judgment were logical, (giv- 
 ing a knowledge of the object through concep- 
 tions ' of its nature'); whereas it is only cesthetic, 
 and contains only a relation of the object to the 
 subject. And this because the aesthetic judg- 
 ment herein resembles the logical judgment, that 
 it may claim universal validity. 
 
 This universality, however, cannot be derived 
 from conceptions, for there is no transition from 
 conceptions to the feeling of pleasure or dis- 
 pleasure, except in the purely practical (' moral ) 
 laws; and these are accompanied by interest, 
 and thus distinguished from the pure aesthetic 
 Judgment. 
 
 Accordingly the aesthetic judgment must con- 
 tain, together with the consciousness of being 
 divested of all Interest, a claim to universal 
 validity, independent of objective universality; 
 that is, a subjective universality. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE BEAUTIFUL WITH THE 
 AGREEABLE BY MEANS OF THE ABOVE CRITE- 
 RION. 
 
 As to the Agreeable, it is felt by every one, 
 that a judgment founded upon his private feel- 
 ing, and asserting only that the object is pleasing 
 to him, is confined to himself. Then when a 
 man says: This Canary wine is pleasant: he 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 69 
 
 will not object if any one correct his expression, 
 and tell him he should rather say: It is pleasant 
 to me. * * * To one person the colour of 
 violet is soft and pleasing, to another dead and 
 flat. One man is fond of wind-instruments, 
 another of stringed instruments. To contend 
 about such things, and to pronounce the judg- 
 ment of others, differing from our own, incor- 
 rect, as if there were a logical opposition be- 
 tween them, would be folly. As to the Agree- 
 able the maxim holds, therefore, that every one 
 has a taste of his own, in matters of Sense. 
 
 As to the Beautiful, however, the case is quite 
 different. Here it would be absurd for any one 
 pretending to Taste to think to justify himself 
 by saying that the object, (the building we see, 
 the garment that person wears, the concert we 
 listen to, the poem that is to be criticised), is 
 beautiful to him. For he should not call it beau- 
 tiful, if it pleases him alone. There may be 
 many things pleasing and attractive to him, but 
 this is nothing to any one else : if he declare 
 anything to be beautiful, he attributes the same 
 pleasure to others; he judges not for himself 
 alone, but for all ; and speaks of Beauty as a 
 quality of the thing. 
 
 We say, therefore, the thing is beautiful ; not 
 expecting the assent of others, from having often 
 found them to agree with us in opinion, but re- 
 quiring it. We find fault with men if they judge 
 otherwise, as wanting in that Taste which 
 should be an universal attribute. 
 
 As to the Beautiful, therefore, we cannot say 
 that every one has a taste of his own. For this 
 would be to declare that there is no such thing 
 as Taste; that is, no aesthetic judgment that can 
 properly claim the assent of all. 
 
 In respect to the Agreeable, there is indeed a 
 degree of unanimity in men's judgments, in re- 
 ference to which some are said to have Taste 
 and others not; and this not as signifying a per- 
 fection of the organs of Sense, but of the faculty 
 of judging as to the Agreeable. Thus one who 
 knows how to regale his guests with various 
 luxuries, (agreeable to the different senses,) so 
 as to please all, is said to have Taste. But the 
 universality is here only comparative, and thus 
 this kind of Taste is capable only of general 
 rules, as being derived from Experience, and 
 not of universal laws, such as the aesthetic judg- 
 ment claims to establish for the Beautiful. * * 
 
 It is to be remarked, however, in this place, 
 that the aesthetic Judgment presupposes nothing 
 more than a general assent, * * * thus the 
 possibility of an aesthetic judgment possessing 
 universal validity. It does not postulate the as- 
 sent of every person, (for this belongs only to a 
 logically universal judgment, which can be sup- 
 ported by demonstration), but only demands this 
 assent, as an example of the rule, the confirma- 
 tion of which is sought, not from conceptions, 
 but from the agreement 'in feeling' of other 
 persons. * * * Whether any particular 
 person who thinks to pronounce an aesthetic 
 judgment do really judge in accordance with 
 
 this principle, may be uncertain; but that he 
 does refer to it, and therefore that his judgment 
 is aesthetic, is declared by the use of the word 
 Beauty. ****** 
 
 AN ./ESTHETIC JUDGMENT, WHEREIN AN OBJECT 
 IS PRONOUNCED BEAUTIFUL AS CONNECTED 
 WITH A PARTICULAR IDEA, IS NOT PURE. 
 
 There are two kinds of Beauty ; Beauty de- 
 tached (pulchritudo vaga), and Beauty adherent 
 (pulchritudo adherens). The former presupposes 
 no idea of the object; the latter presupposes an 
 idea, and an adequate perfection of the thing. 
 Under the first. class are embraced the 'inde- 
 pendent and' self- subsisting beauties of any 
 object; the other includes (as dependent and 
 attached to the idea of some particular thing) 
 objects conceived to exist for a special end. 
 The beauty of flowers is free, detached Beauty. 
 What the flower actually is, only the botanist 
 knows ; and even he, though he sees in it the 
 reproductive organ of the plant, yet in judging 
 of it as an object of Taste, pays no regard to 
 this natural end. This Judgment, therefore, is 
 founded upon no perfection of any sort ; no in- 
 ward fitness regulating the management of the 
 parts. Many birds, such as parrots, humming- 
 birds, the birds of Paradise, and various sea- 
 shells, are beautiful in themselves ; not as con- 
 nected with an object with reference to its de- 
 sign, but independently and of themselves. So 
 drawings a la grecque, arabesque borders, &c., 
 signify nothing, represent no particular object, 
 and express no particular idea, but are free, 
 detached Beauty. So what are called fantasies, 
 in Music (without theme) ; indeed all Music 
 without text may be considered as of this kind. 
 
 In judging of detached Beauty, in its form, 
 the aesthetic Judgment is pure. It presupposes 
 no idea of a design to be accomplished, which 
 should be represented by the object ; for by this 
 the freedom of the Imagination, sporting as it 
 were in contemplation of the object, would 
 only be restrained. But human Beauty (whether 
 of a man, a woman, or a child) ; the beauty of 
 a horse ; of a building (church, palace, arsenal, 
 or summer-house), presupposes the idea of 
 design, which determines what the thing should 
 be ; the idea of perfection. It is therefore 
 merely adherent Beauty. Thus as the con- 
 nection of the Agreeable (in Sensation), with 
 Beauty, which properly concerns only Form, 
 ^isturbs the purity of the Judgment ; so also 
 connection with the Good (that is, something for 
 which the thing, from its design, is good), is 
 likewise destructive of the purity of the aesthetic 
 Judgment. 
 
 'For example' we might add much that is 
 pleasing when seen by itself, to a building, 
 were it not that it is intended for a church : it 
 might ornament a figure to cover it with traoery- 
 work, and delicate, yet regular lines, as in the 
 tatooing of the New Zealanders ; were it not 
 that it is a human being: this countenance 
 might have much more delicate features, and a 
 
7 a 
 
 IM MANUEL KANT. 
 
 softer and more pleasing outline, were it not 
 intended to represent a man, or indeed a war- 
 rior. So the pleasure derived from the inward 
 design of a thing, which determines its precise 
 character, is founded upon an idea; but that 
 derived from Beauty is by nature such that it 
 presupposes no conception, but is connected im- 
 mediately with the image of the thing. 
 
 Now if the aesthetic judgment is made de- 
 pendent on design, and thus a judgment of the 
 Reason, it is no longer a pure aesthetic judg- 
 ment. 
 
 It is true that this advantage is gained by the 
 connection of aesthetic with intellectual plea- 
 sure, that 'the principle of Taste becomes 
 fixed, and though not universal, yet it is capable 
 of being subjected, as to certain things, to fixed 
 rules. These rules, however, are then no longer 
 rules of Taste, but of a union of Taste with 
 Reason ; i. e. the Beautiful with the Good. * * 
 
 OF THE IDEAL OF BEAUTY. 
 
 As to Taste, 1 therefore,' there are no objec- 
 tive rules * * to determine what is beau- 
 tiful. For all Judgment from this source is 
 aesthetic, that is, subjective Feeling and not a 
 conception of any object, that determines it. 
 To seek a principle of Taste which should 
 give indefinite conceptions a universal criterion 
 of the Beautiful, is a fruitless endeavour, since 
 what is sought is impossible and self-contra- 
 dictory. 
 
 That this feeling (of pleasure or displeasure) 
 shall be capable of being generally communi- 
 cated, and this without any conception 'of the 
 nature of the object;' and the general approxi- 
 mate agreement of all ages and all nations, in 
 relation to this feeling, as to certain objects is 
 the empirical though obscure criterion of Taste, 
 scarcely reaching to conjecture, which, as so 
 many examples show us, has a deep-hidden 
 foundation in the common nature of Man; in 
 the common principles of Judgment as to the 
 Forms under which objects are presented to us. 
 
 Hence some products of Taste are considered 
 as models ; not as if Taste could be acquired, 
 by imitation ; for Taste must be a faculty of the 
 individual; but he who copies a model, shows 
 himself expert, as far as he copies correctly; 
 but Taste involves the power of judging of the 
 model itself. 
 
 From this it follows that the highest model, 
 the prototype of Taste can be only an Idea, 
 which every one must awaken in himself. * * 
 
 An Idea is properly a conception of Reason; 
 an Ideal is the image of some thing adequate 
 to the Idea. Each such prototype of Taste 
 rests indeed upon the vague idea of a maximum 
 'of Beauty,' but can be reached only by repre- 
 sentation, and not by conceptions. It is there- 
 fore more properly called an Ideal 'than an 
 Idea' of Beauty ; and this, though we may not 
 possess it, yet we strive to produce within our- 
 selves. But since it depends upon represen- 
 
 tation, and not upon conception, it is an Ideal 
 of the Imagination only; the Imagination being 
 the faculty of Representation. Now how do 
 we arrive at this Ideal of Beauty? A priori, or 
 by Experience ? And also, what kind of Beauty 
 is capable of an Ideal? 
 
 It is to be observed in the first place, that the 
 Beauty for which we are to expect an Ideal, is 
 not vague, but fixed Beauty, 'controlled by' a 
 conception of objective fitness. An Ideal there- 
 fore is not the object of a perfectly pure aesthetic 
 judgment, but of one partaking in a measure of 
 the nature of an idea. That is, the principles 
 by which we judge concerning an Ideal, have 
 for their foundation some idea of Reason, ac- 
 cording to definite conceptions, and this idea 
 determines a priori, the design upon which rests 
 the possibility of the object. An Ideal of beau- 
 tiful flowers ; of fine furniture ; of a beautiful 
 view, is inconceivable. Even indeed as to 
 Beauty dependent on adaptation to particular 
 ends, an Ideal is often inconceivable ; for ex- 
 ample, an Ideal of a beautiful dwelling-house, 
 of -a beautiful tree, garden, &c. ; probably be- 
 cause the purpose is not sufficiently definite and 
 fixed by the notion of the thing, and thus the 
 fitness is almost as ' floating and' unattached to 
 a ' particular' object, as in the case of vague or 
 detached Eeauty. 
 
 Man, as ' a being,' having the end of his ex- 
 istence within himself, and able to determine 
 its aims by means of Reason, or, where he is 
 obliged to take them from the outward world, 
 yet able to compare them with fundamental 
 and universal aims, and to form an aesthetic 
 judgment from the comparison, Man alone can 
 present an Ideal of Beauty, in like manner as 
 Humanity alone, among all earthly things, can 
 afford an Ideal of perfection in him, as In- 
 telligence. ***** 
 
 The Ideal of the human form consists in the 
 expression of the moral nature, without which 
 it cannot afford a universal and positive pleasure, 
 (as distinguished from the merely negative satis- 
 faction of an academically correct representa- 
 tion). ****** 
 
 The correctness of such an Ideal of Beauty is 
 tested in this; that it permits no intermixture 
 of sensuous satisfaction with the pleasure de- 
 rived from the object, and yet excites a strong 
 interest in it. 
 
 ***** * 
 
 Taking the result of the above investigations, 
 we find that all depends on the conception of 
 Taste; and that this is the faculty of judging 
 of an object according to the free, yet normal 
 action of the Imagination. * * * But that 
 the Imagination should be free, and yet essen- 
 tially subject to law, that is, that it should con- 
 tain an autonomy, is a contradiction. 
 
 The Understanding alone gives the law. But 
 if the Imagination is compelled to proceed ac- 
 cording to a definite law, the product will be 
 determined as to its Form, according to certain 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 71 
 
 conceptions of the perfection of the thing, and 
 in this case the pleasure will not be owing to 
 Beauty, but to Goodness, (to Perfection, though 
 mere formal Perfection), and the judgment will 
 be no a\sthetic judgment. 
 
 It is thus a normal regularity, without law; 
 a subjective harmony of the Imagination and 
 the Understanding, without any objective har- 
 mony, (wherein the notion is referred to a pre- 
 cise conception of the object) ; and it is thus 
 alone that the freedom and regularity of the 
 Understanding can co-exist with the peculiar 
 nature of an aesthetic judgment. 
 
 We find regular, geometrical figures, a circle, 
 a square, a cube, &c, commonly given by critics 
 of Taste as the simplest and most undoubted 
 examples of Beauty; and yet they are called 
 regular, because they can only be conceived of 
 as mere representatives of a particular idea, 
 which prescribes to the figure the law by which 
 alone it exists. Thus one of the two must be 
 wrong ; either this judgment of the critics, in 
 ascribing Beauty to these figures, or ours, which 
 declares fitness, without conception, essential to 
 Beauty. 
 
 Now it is not necessary to select a man of 
 taste, in order to discover that greater pleasure 
 is afforded by the figure of a circle than by a 
 scrawl, and more in an equilateral and equi- 
 angular triangle than in one of uneven shape 
 and as it were deformed. For this requires 
 only common sense, and not Taste. Where we 
 find a purpose, for example, to determine the 
 size of a place, or to make accessible the rela- 
 tions of the parts to each other and to the whole ; 
 — here regular figures, and those of the simplest 
 kind are required ; and the pleasure depends 
 not immediately upon the image of the figure, 
 but on its applicability to various purposes. A 
 room whose walls form unequal angles, a 
 garden of such a shape, in short all disturbance 
 of symmetry, as well in the forms of animals, 
 (e. g. to be one-eyed), as of buildings or flower- 
 beds, is unpleasant, because inappropriate ; not 
 only practically, as relates to a particular use 
 of these things, but also in judging of them ge- 
 nerally, as adapted to various purposes. This 
 is not the case with the aesthetic judgment, 
 which if pure, unites pleasure or displeasure 
 with the mere view of the object, immediately, 
 without reference to any employment or end. 
 * * * All stiff regularity, approaching the 
 mathematical, is unpleasant, from its affording 
 no continued exercise of the perceptive powers; 
 and where neither knowledge nor a special end 
 is sought, it is tedious. On the other hand what- 
 ever affords a ready and agreeable exercise to 
 the Imagination, is always new, and we do not 
 tire of beholding it. 
 
 Marsden, in his description of Sumatra, makes 
 the remark that in this island the wild beauties 
 of Nature everywhere surround the beholder, 
 and thus have little attraction for him ; whereas 
 a pepper-garden, where the poles upon which 
 
 this plant climbs, form parallel lines of alleys, 
 had a great charm for him when he came upon 
 it in the midst of the forest; and he concludes 
 from this that the apparently lawless beauty of 
 the wilderness is pleasing only as variety, to 
 one who has become tired of regularity. 
 
 But he would have only to make the experi- 
 ment of spending a day in his pepper-garden, 
 to see that when the Understanding has satis- 
 fied the craving for order which everywhere 
 accompanies it, the object is no longer interest 
 ing, but on the contrary imposes an irksome 
 restraint upon the Imagination ; whereas the 
 profusion of Nature, lavish even to extravagance 
 in that country, where it is subjected to no rules 
 of art, would afford constant nourishment to his 
 taste. 
 
 Thus the song of birds, irreducible to any 
 musical rules, seems to have more freedom, and 
 thus to offer more to the Taste, than even the 
 human voice, though exercised according to all 
 the rules of Music. For we sooner tire of the 
 latter, if often and long repeated. * * * 
 
 A distinction is also to be made between 
 beautiful objects, and beautiful views of objects, 
 (which may be indistinct, from distance). In 
 the latter case pleasure seems to arise not so 
 much from what is seen, as from what we are led 
 to imagine in the field of view ; that is, from the 
 fancies with which the mind pleases itself, be- 
 ing constantly excited by the variety upon which 
 the eys falls; thus for example in the varying 
 shapes in a wood-fire, or a murmuring brook ; 
 neither of which are beautiful, but which have 
 a charm for the imagination, by the excitement 
 they afford. * * * For the Imagination (as 
 a productive faculty of Cognition), has great 
 power in creating as it were another Nature, 
 from the material furnished by actual Nature. 
 With this we occupy ourselves when 'the world 
 of : experience seems too common-place ; we 
 re-model it, still indeed according to the laws 
 of analogy, but also on principles that lie higher 
 up in the Reason, and which are as truly na- 
 tural to us as those in accordance with which 
 the Understanding apprehends empirical Na- 
 ture. 
 
 Herein we feel our freedom from the law of 
 association that attaches to the empirical use of 
 this faculty, and according to which indeed Na- 
 ture furnishes us with material ; but this is 
 wrought by us into something quite different 
 and superior to nature. * * * 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 "PLAN FOR AN EVERLASTING PEACE."* 
 
 Nations, 'considered collectively' as States, 
 maybe judged by the same rules as individuals, 
 who, in the state of nature (i. e. of independence 
 of outward laws), are obnoxious to each other 
 by their mere contiguity, and each of whom 
 
 * Zum ewigen Friedcn. Konigsberg. 1795. 
 
72 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 may and ought, for the sake of his own"? safety, 
 to demand of the other to enter into a compact 
 with him, of the nature of a civil government, 
 whereby each may be secured in his right. 
 * * * The attachment of savages to their 
 lawless freedom, 'and their preference of un- 
 ceasing conflict to submission to the restraint of 
 laws to be established by themselves — and thus 
 of insane freedom to that in accordance with 
 Reason — is looked upon by us with profound 
 contempt, and considered as rudeness, want of 
 civilization, and bestial degradation of huma- 
 nity. It would seem, therefore, as if cultivated 
 nations, united into separate States, must hasten 
 to escape as soon as possible from so degraded 
 a condition. Instead of this, however, the ma- 
 jesty of every State (for the majesty of a people 
 is an absurd expression) is thought to consist 
 precisely in this, that it is subject to no restraint 
 from outward laws, and the glory of its chief 
 magistrate to be, that without exposing himself 
 to danger, he has many thousands at his com- 
 mand, ready to be sacrificed for a matter that 
 does not concern them at all :* and the differ- 
 ence between the savages of Europe and those 
 of America consists principally in this, that 
 whereas many tribes of the latter have been 
 entirely eaten up by their enemies, the former 
 know how to make a better use of the conquered 
 than to feed upon them, and prefer increasing 
 by them the number of their subjects, and thus 
 of the implements for yet more extensive wars. 
 
 When we consider the depravity of human 
 nature, which shows itself openly in the uncon- 
 trolled relations of nations (whilst in the condi- 
 tion of civil government it is in a great measure 
 veiled), — it is much to be wondered at that the 
 word Eight has not as yet been dispensed with, 
 as pedantic, in military politics, and that no 
 State has yet dared openly to declare itself for 
 this opinion. For Hugo Grotius, Puffendorf, 
 Vattel, &c. (no very comforting counsellors), are 
 still faithfully cited in justification of warlike 
 attacks, though their code, whether philosophi- 
 cal or diplomatic, has not and cannot have the 
 least legal force, since States as such are subject 
 to no common outward authority; and though 
 there is no instance where a State has ever 
 been induced by any arguments armed with the 
 voices of such mighty men, to desist from its 
 intention. 
 
 This reverence which every State pays (at 
 least in words) to the idea of Right, proves that 
 there exists in Man (though as yet undeveloped) 
 the germ of a more complete mastery over the 
 evil principle within, and a hope of similar vic- 
 tory in others. For otherwise States intending 
 to make war upon each other would never make 
 use of the word Right, unless it were in mock- 
 ery, as the Gallic prince, who declared : " That 
 
 ♦Thus a Bulgarian prince answered the Grecian empe- 
 ror, who good-naturedly wished to decide their dispute by 
 a duel :— " A smith who has tongs will not pull red-hot 
 iron out of the fire with his fingers." 
 
 it was the preference that Nature has given to 
 the stronger over the weaker, that the latter 
 should obey." 
 
 The mode by which States maintain their 
 rights is never legal process, as where an out- 
 ward tribunal exists, but only War, and this and 
 its favourable event, Victory, do not decide the 
 right ; a treaty of peace terminates only the ex- 
 isting war, and not the state of War, a new pre- 
 text being easily found* * * * Reason, 
 1 therefore,' from the throne of the supreme moral 
 authority, entirely condemns War, as a means of 
 obtaining justice, and on the other hand makes 
 Peace an immediate duty. But Peace cannot 
 be made or secured without a compact among 
 nations. So that a league of a peculiar nature 
 is demanded, which we may call a league of 
 Peace (fcedus pacificum), and which would be 
 distinguished from a compact of peace (pactum 
 pads), in this, that the object of the latter is to 
 put an end only to one war, but that of the for- 
 mer to abolish War forever. * * * 
 
 The practicability (objective reality) of this 
 idea of a Federation, to extend by degrees over 
 all States, and thus lead to an everlasting Peace, 
 may be easily shown. For if by good fortune 
 a mighty and enlightened nation should be able 
 to form itself into a republic (which from its 
 nature must be inclined to lasting peace), this 
 would give a centre for the federative union of 
 other states, to collect around it, and thus secure 
 the freedom of each, according to the idea of 
 international Law, and to spread itself out by 
 degrees farther and farther by repeated unions 
 of this kind. 
 
 * * ****** 
 
 The idea of international Law, as a right to 
 make War, that is, a right to determine what is 
 just, not by universal laws limiting the freedom 
 of each, but by one-sided maxims, through force, 
 — it is utterly without meaning, unless we un- 
 derstand by it, that it is quite right that men 
 with such views should perish by mutual anni- 
 hilation, and thus find everlasting Peace in the 
 wide grave, that covers all the horror of vio- 
 lence, together with its authors. 
 
 There is no other way in accordance with 
 Reason, for States to escape from the condition 
 of lawlessness in their relations to each other, 
 than by giving up, like private individuals, their 
 wild (lawless) freedom, and submitting to pub- 
 lic laws. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Since the communion (more or less close) 
 between the nations of the earth, has extended 
 so far that an act of injustice done in one part 
 of the earth is felt in all, the idea of cosmopoli- 
 tan Law is no fantastic nor exaggerated notion, 
 but the necessary complement of the unwritten 
 code, as well of civil as international Law ; ne- 
 cessary to the public Law of the human race in 
 general, and thus to eternal Peace, with the ap- 
 proach of which we can flatter ourselves only 
 on this condition. ***** 
 
 If it is our duty 'to strive for' this state of 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 73 
 
 public Law, and if at the same time there is a 
 well-grounded hope that it may be actualized, 
 though only in an infinitely extended approxi- 
 mation, then an everlasting Peace, to succeed 
 the hitherto falsely so called treaties of Peace, 
 (properly truces), is no empty idea, but a pro- 
 blem to be solved progressively, and continu- 
 ally approaching the goal, since the periods of 
 equal progress are, we hope, constantly be- 
 coming shorter. ***** 
 
 ON THE GUARANTY OF AN EVERLASTING PEACE. 
 
 This guaranty is given by nothing less than 
 the great Artist, Nature, (natura dcedala reruni), 
 from whose mechanical course the design shines 
 visibly forth, to produce through the very dis- 
 sensions of men an involuntary concord. We 
 give therefore to Nature, considered as the 
 overpowering influence of a Cause unknown to 
 us in the laws of its action, the name of Fate ; 
 but viewing it as adaptation to a design run- 
 ning through the Universe ; as the recondite 
 wisdom of a higher Cause whose energy is 
 directed towards the objective destination* of 
 the human race, we name it Providence; not, 
 indeed, that we, properly speaking, know, or 
 can even infer it, from these contrivances of 
 Nature ; but we are obliged to suppose it, to 
 form any conception of their possibility, accord- 
 ing to the analogy of human contrivances. The 
 relation, however, and the harmony 'of this 
 Cause' with the end immediately prescribed to 
 us by Reason (in Morals) is an idea in theory 
 transcending our powers, but practically, (for 
 instance, as to the idea of the duty of Peace, 
 and the employment of the mechanism of Na- 
 ture to this end), established, and its reality 
 well-founded. ****** 
 
 Before examining farther into the nature of 
 this guaranty, it will be necessary first to con- 
 sider the situation in which Nature has placed 
 the actors in her great theatre, and which 
 makes the secure establishment of Peace finally 
 necessary ; and afterwards the manner in which 
 she brings this about. 
 
 The arrangement provided by Nature for 
 this end consists in this : 1. That she has taken 
 care that in all parts of the earth, men shall be 
 able to live ; 2. That she has scattered them, 
 by means of War, in all directions, even to the 
 most inhospitable regions, in order that these 
 may be peopled ; 3. That, by the same means, 
 she has compelled them to enter into relations 
 more or less founded upon Law. 
 
 It is admirable that even the cold deserts on 
 the Arctic Sea produce moss, which the rein- 
 deer digs from under the snow, to be itself the 
 food or the steed of the Ostiacs or Samoides ; or 
 that the salt sand wastes provide the camel, 
 created as it were for crossing them ; in order 
 not to leave these regions unoccupied. * * * 
 
 * That is, the destiny of the race, in History, as dis- 
 tinguished from Virtue, the destination of the indivi- 
 dual. Tr. 
 
 E 
 
 But 'the inhabitants of these countries' were 
 driven thither probably by War alone. * * * 
 Nature, in providing that it should be possible 
 for man to inhabit every part of the earth, at 
 the same time despotically willed that they 
 should inhabit every part, even against their 
 inclination, and without connecting with this 
 necessity the moral constraint of an idea of 
 Duty, but choosing War as the means of ac- 
 complishing this purpose. Thus we see nations, 
 the identity of whose language testifies to their 
 common origin, as the Samoides on the Frozen 
 Ocean and a nation of similar language a thou- 
 sand miles distant, on the other side of the 
 Altai mountains; between whom a different 
 (Mongolian) nation, an equestrian and warlike 
 people, has thrust itself, and thus driven one 
 portion of the tribe to such a distance, into the 
 most inhospitable regions, whither they would 
 certainly never have spread from their own 
 inclination. So the Fins in the northernmost 
 parts of Europe, called Laplanders, and the 
 Hungarians, with whom they are related in 
 language, are now widely separated by the 
 Gothic and Sarmatian races that have pene- 
 trated between them. And what can have 
 driven the Esquimaux, (a race quite different 
 from any of the American, and perhaps consist- 
 ing of ancient European adventurers), into the 
 North ; and the Pescheras in South America 
 into Terra del Fuego, except War; of which 
 Nature avails herself as means of peopling all 
 parts of the earth % * * * * * 
 
 Thus much concerning what Nature does for 
 her own purposes, with the human race, consi- 
 dered as a race of animals. 
 
 Now comes the question, which touches the 
 most important point in the design of an ever- 
 lasting Peace. ' What does Nature to this' in- 
 tent, as to the aim which Man's reason makes 
 his duty ; that is, what does she in furtherance 
 of his moral endeavour ; and how does she gua- 
 ranty that what Man ought to do, but does not, 
 according to his nature as a free being, he shall 
 nevertheless do, without prejudice to his free- 
 dom, by a natural necessity. * * * 
 
 When I say of Nature that she ivills this or 
 that to take place, I mean by this, not that she 
 makes it our duty, (for this belongs solely to the 
 free practical Reason), but that she does it her- 
 self, whether we wish it or not: (fata volentem 
 ducunt, nolentem trahunt). 
 
 1. Even if a nation were not driven by inter- 
 nal discord to submit to the restraint of public 
 laws, yet War would accomplish this from with- 
 out ; for, according to the beforementioned pro- 
 vision of Nature, every nation finds in its neigh- 
 bourhood another nation pressing upon it, against 
 which it must inwardly organize itself into a 
 State, in order to be prepared for resistance. 
 Now the republican form of government is the 
 only one perfectly adapted to the rights of Man, 
 but also the hardest to establish, and yet more 
 difficult to preserve. So that many maintain 
 that it would have to be a commonwealth of 
 7 
 
74 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 angels, since men, with their selfish inclinations, 
 are not capable of so sublime a form of govern- 
 ment. But here Nature comes to the assistance 
 of this universal Will, so honoured, but practi- 
 cally so powerless; and this by means of these 
 same selfish inclinations. So that it requires 
 only a good organization of the State, (which 
 surely is within the power of men), so to array 
 these forces against each other, that the one 
 shall prevent or neutralize the evil effect of the 
 other ; so that the result for the Reason will be 
 the same as if neither existed. Thus a man, 
 though not morally good, may be compelled to 
 be a good citizen. Paradoxical as it may sound, 
 the problem of civil organization maybe solved 
 by a nation of devils, provided they have un- 
 derstanding. It runs thus: — "So to order and 
 organize a multitude of rational beings, all re- 
 quiring universal laws for their protection, but 
 each secretly inclined to make himself an ex- 
 ception to their operation, that though they con- 
 flict in their private feeling, yet these feelings 
 shall so counteract each other that in civil rela- 
 tions the result will be the same as if they had 
 no such evil feelings." 
 
 Such a problem must be capable of a solution. 
 For it is not the moral improvement of mankind, 
 but only the mechanism of Nature, as to which 
 we inquire how it is to be employed in the af- 
 fairs of men, so to direct the conflict of hostile 
 sentiments among a people, that they shall 
 oblige each other to submit to compulsory laws, 
 and thus bring about a condition of tranquillity 
 in which laws are effective. This may be seen 
 even in actually existing States, though very 
 imperfectly organized; they approach in out- 
 ward condition very near to what the idea of 
 Right commands, though inward morality is 
 certainly not the cause ; for good government is 
 not the product of Morality, but, vice-versa, a 
 good moral development of a nation is to be 
 expected only from good government. 
 
 So that the mechanism of Nature, through 
 selfish inclinations, which are naturally opposed 
 to each other in their outward effects also, serves 
 as an instrument to prepare the way for what 
 Reason aims at, the law of Right; and thus, as 
 far as depends on the State, to further and se- 
 cure inward as well as outward Peace. 
 
 We may say, therefore, that Nature impera- 
 tively demands that the right shall finally pre- 
 vail. What is neglected at first brings itself 
 about at last, though with much discomfort. * * 
 
 2. The idea of international Law presupposes 
 a separation of many independent, neighbouring 
 States, and though this in itself is a state of War 
 (unless a federative union repress the outbreak 
 of hostilities), yet even this is more in accord- 
 ance with Reason than an amalgamation, by a 
 power overgrowing the others and passing into 
 a universal monarchy. For laws are always 
 weakened in proportion to the increase of the 
 area of government; and a soulless despotism, 
 after having rooted out the germs of good, falls 
 at last into anarchy. Nevertheless it is the de- 
 
 sire of every State (or of its rulers) thus to bring 
 about a state of enduring Peace, by monopolis- 
 ing, if possible, the government of the whole 
 world. But Nature will have it otherwise. 
 
 She makes use of two means to prevent na- 
 tions from intermingling, and to separate them : 
 the difference of Language, and the difference 
 of Creed, which indeed carries with it an incli- 
 nation to mutual hatred, and an excuse for War; 
 but yet, in the advance of culture, and the gra- 
 dually increasing friendly intercourse of man- 
 kind, leads to greater harmony of principles, 
 and to a peaceful understanding, brought about 
 and secured, not like the despotism above spoken 
 of (on the grave of Freedom), by the exhaustion 
 of all forces, but by their equilibrium amid the 
 liveliest contention. 
 
 3. As Nature wisely separates nations, though 
 the will of each State, supported too by princi- 
 ples of international law, would seek for union, 
 by cunning or violence ; — so on the other hand 
 she unites nations whom the idea of cosmopo- 
 litan Right would not have protected against 
 violence and war, by mutual interest. 
 
 This is the spirit of Commerce, which cannot 
 coexist with War, and which, sooner or later, 
 takes possession of every nation. For as among 
 all means of influence under the command of 
 the governing authority of the State, the power 
 of money is most to be relied on, States are 
 compelled (not precisely by moral motives) to 
 encourage Peace ; and in whatever quarter of 
 the world War threatens to break out, to prevent 
 it by negotiations, as if in constant league to 
 this end. ******* 
 
 Thus does Nature guaranty everlasting Peace, 
 by the very mechanism of human passions ; not 
 indeed so securely that future Peace can be 
 (theoretically) prophesied ; but practically she is 
 successful, and renders it our duty to labour to 
 bring about this end, as no mere chimera. 
 
 SUPPOSED BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY 
 OF MAN. 
 
 To strew conjectures in the course of a his- 
 tory, in order to fill up a gap in the narrative, 
 may be regarded as allowable ; since that which 
 went before, as remote cause, and that which 
 came after, as effect, may furnish a tolerably 
 safe guide to the discovery of the intermediate 
 causes, and thus make the transition intelligible. 
 But to create a history entirely out of conjecture, 
 seems to be little better than laying the plan of 
 a novel. Such a history ought not to be called 
 a conjectural history, but a mere fiction. Never- 
 theless, that which ought not to be hazarded in 
 relation to the progressive history of human af- 
 fairs, may yet be attempted in relation to the 
 first beginning of the same, so far as that begin- 
 ning ?s the work of Nature. For here, it is not 
 necessary to invent. Experience will suffice, 
 if we assume, that experience, in the first be- 
 
IMMANU 
 
 ginning of things, was neither better nor worse 
 than now, — an assumption which agrees with 
 the analogy of nature, and has nothing presump- 
 tuous in it. A history of the first unfolding of 
 freedom from an original capacity in the nature 
 of man, is something very different from the 
 history of freedom in its progress, which can 
 have no other basis than received accounts. 
 
 Conjecture, however, must urge no extrava- 
 gant claims to assent. It must announce itself 
 not as serious occupation, but only as an exer- 
 cise permitted to the imagination, under the 
 guidance of reason, by way of. recreation and 
 mental hygiene. Accordingly, it must not mea- 
 sure itself with a narrative on the same subject, 
 which has been proposed and believed as actual 
 history, and whose evidence depends on far 
 other grounds than those of natural philosophy. 
 For this reason, and because I am attempting 
 here a mere pleasure-excursion, I may count on 
 the privilege of being allowed to avail myself 
 of a certain ancient, sacred document, and of 
 fancying that my excursion made on the wings 
 of imagination, though not without a guiding 
 thread deduced by reason from experience, has 
 hit the exact line which that document histori- 
 cally describes. The reader will turn over the 
 leaves of the document (first book of Moses, 
 from the second to the fourth chapter), and, fol- 
 lowing step by step, see whether the course 
 pursued by philosophy according to ideas, coin- 
 cides with the one which is there indicated. 
 
 Not to lose ourselves in merely fantastic con- 
 jectures, we must begin with that which cannot 
 be deduced by human reason from antecedent 
 natural causes, viz. the existence of man. We 
 must suppose him existing in fully developed 
 stature, in order that he may be independent 
 of maternal aid. We must suppose a pair, in 
 order that he may propagate his species ; and 
 yet but a single pair, in order that war may not 
 spring up at once, between those who are near 
 together and yet estranged from each other; 
 and that Nature may not be charged, on the 
 score of various parentage, with having made 
 no sufficient provision for union, as the chief 
 end of human destination. For the unity of the 
 family from which all men were to derive their 
 origin, was undoubtedly the best means to bring 
 about this end. I place this pair in a region 
 secured against the attack of beasts of prey, and 
 richly furnished by nature with the means of 
 support ; that is, in a kind of garden, and in a 
 climate forever genial. Farther still, I contem- 
 plate them at that period only, at which they 
 have already made important progress in the 
 ability to use their powers. I begin therefore 
 nut with the utter rudeness of nature, lest there 
 should be too many conjectures for the reader, 
 and too few probabilities, if I were to attempt 
 to fill up this gap, which probably comprises a 
 long period of time. 
 
 The first man, then, could stand and walk ; 
 he could speak (Gen. ii. 20.) and even talk, that 
 is, speak according to connected ideas (v. 23.), 
 
 EL KANT. 75 
 
 consequently, think. All these faculties he was 
 forced to acquire for himself, for if they had 
 been inborn, they would be hereditary, which 
 is contrary to experience. But I here assume 
 that he is already possessed of these faculties, 
 and direct my attention exclusively to the deve- 
 lopment of the moral in his doing and abstain- 
 ing, which necessarily presupposes the faculties 
 in question. 
 
 At first, the novice is guided solely by in- 
 stinct, that voice of God which all animals obey. 
 This allowed him certain articles of food and 
 forbade others. (Gen. iii. 2. 3.) It is not ne- 
 cessary however, to suppose, for this purpose, a 
 special. instinct which has since been lost. It 
 might have been simply the sense of smell, its 
 relation to the organ of taste, and the known 
 sympathy of the latter with the instruments of 
 digestion. Hence a capacity, the like of which 
 may still be observed, to predict the suitableness 
 or unsuitableness of any particular species of 
 food. It is not even necessary to suppose this 
 sense stronger in the first pair than it is now; 
 for it is well known what difference exists in 
 the powers of perception, between those who 
 are occupied with their senses alone and those 
 who are occupied, at the same time, with their 
 thoughts, and thereby diverted from their sensa- 
 tions. 
 
 So long as inexperienced man obeyed this 
 call of Nature, he found his account in so doing. 
 Soon, however, Reason began to stir and be 
 sought to extend his knowledge of the means 
 of subsistence beyond the bounds of instinct, by 
 a comparison of that which he had eaten with 
 that which resembled it, in the judgment of 
 another sense than the one to which the instinct 
 attached, — the sense of sight. (Gen. iii. 6.) 
 This experiment might have had a happy issue, 
 although instinct did not advise, provided it did 
 not forbid. But it is a property of reason to be 
 able, with the help of imagination, to elaborate 
 artificial desires not only without a natural im- 
 pulse, but even against the impulses of nature. 
 These desires which, in their first manifesta- 
 tion, we call wantonness, gradually produce a 
 whole swarm of unnecessary and even of un- 
 natural propensities, to which we give the name 
 of luxury. The occasion of the first defection 
 from natural instinct, may have been a trifle, 
 but the consequence of this first experiment 
 was, that man became conscious of his reason, 
 as a faculty capable of extension beyond the 
 limits within which other animals are held ; 
 and this consequence was of great importance 
 and had a decisive influence on his way of life. 
 Although, therefore, it may have been merely a 
 fruit, the sight of which tempted him to partake 
 of it by its resemblance to other pleasant fruits, 
 of which he had already partaken ; yet if we 
 add the example of an animal to whose nature 
 such fruit was adapted, whereas it was not 
 adapted to the nature of man, and, consequently, 
 forbidden to him by an opposing natural in- 
 stinct ; — this circumstance would give to reason 
 
70 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 the first occasion to practise chicanery with Na- 
 ture (Gen. iii. 1.) and, in spite of her prohibition, 
 to make the first experiment of a free choice ; 
 which experiment, being the first, probably did 
 not result according to expectation. No matter 
 how insignificant the injury which ensued, 
 man's eyes were opened by it. (Gen. iii. 7.) 
 He discovered in himself the capacity to select 
 his own life-path, instead of being confined to a 
 given one, like other animals. The momentary 
 pleasure which the perception of this advantage 
 might awake in him, must have been followed 
 immediately by fear and anxiety. How was 
 he, who, as yet, knew nothing according to its 
 hidden qualities and remote effects, — how was 
 he to proceed with his newly discovered power 1 ? 
 He stood, as it were, on the brink of an abyss. 
 From the single objects of his desire, as they 
 had hitherto been indicated to him by instinct, 
 he learned their infinity, an infinity in which 
 he was as yet unprepared to choose. It was 
 not possible for him however to return from 
 this state of freedom once tasted, to that of 
 servitude, or subjection to the law of instinct. 
 
 Next to the instinct of nourishment, by which 
 Nature preserves the individual, the instinct of 
 sex, by which she provides for the preservation 
 of the species, is the most important. Reason, 
 once called into action, began without much 
 delay to manifest its influence here likewise. 
 Man soon found that what, with other animals, 
 is transient and for the most part dependent on 
 periodical impulse, was capable of being pro- 
 longed and even increased, in his case, by means 
 of the imagination, which acts with greater 
 moderation indeed, but also with greater per- 
 manence and uniformity, the more the object is 
 withdrawn from the senses; and that, by this 
 means, the satiety which the satisfaction of a 
 merely animal desire brings with it, might be 
 prevented. Accordingly, the fig-leaf (v. 7.) 
 was the product of a far greater exercise of 
 reason, than that which appeared in the first 
 stage of its development. For to render a pro- 
 pensity more intense and more permanent by 
 withdrawing the object of it from the senses, 
 shows a consciousness of some degree of power 
 of reason over impulses, and not merely, like 
 that first step, a capacity to serve them to a 
 greater or less extent. Denial was the artifice 
 which led from the joys of mere sensation to 
 ideal ones, from mere animal desire to love, 
 and, with love, from the feeling of the merely 
 agreeable, to the taste for the beautiful, first in 
 man, and then in nature. Propriety, — the dis- 
 position to inspire respect in others by the decent 
 concealment of whatsoever might produce con- 
 tempt, — as the true foundation of all genuine 
 social union, gave moreover the first hint to the 
 cultivation of man, as a moral being. — A small 
 beginning, but one which makes an epoch, by 
 giving a new direction to thought, is more im- 
 portant than the whole immeasurable series of 
 extensions given to culture, in consequence of it. 
 
 The third step in the progress of reason, after 
 
 it had connected itself with the first felt and 
 immediate necessities, was the deliberate ex- 
 pectation of the future. This faculty, by means 
 of which not only the present life-moment is 
 enjoyed, but the coming and often far distant 
 time made present, is the most decisive mark 
 of the advantage possessed by man in being 
 able to prepare himself, according to his destina- 
 tion, for distant ends; but it is also, at the same 
 time, the most inexhaustible fountain of cares 
 and troubles, occasioned by the uncertain future, 
 from which all other animals are freed, (vs. 
 13 — 19.) The man, who had himself and a 
 wife, together with future children, to support, 
 anticipated the ever-growing difficulty of his 
 labour. The woman anticipated the evils to 
 which Nature had subjected her sex, and the 
 added ones which the stronger man would lay 
 upon her. Both saw with fear, in the back 
 ground of the picture, after a toilsome life, that 
 which indeed befalls inevitably all creatures, but 
 without occasioning them any anxiety, namely, 
 death. And they seemed to reproach them- 
 selves for the use of reason which had brought 
 all these evils upon them, and to count it a 
 crime. To live in their posterity, who might 
 experience a happier lot, and, as members of a 
 family, lighten the common burden, was, per- 
 haps, the only consoling prospect which still 
 sustained them. (Gen. iii. 16 — 20.) 
 
 The fourth and last step in the progress of 
 reason, and that which raised man entirely 
 above the fellowship of the beasts, was this, 
 that he comprehended, however, obscurely, that 
 he is truly the aim of Nature, and that nothing 
 which lives upon the earth can rival him in 
 this. The first time that he said to the sheep : 
 " that skin which thou wearest, Nature gave 
 thee not for thine own sake but for mine," and 
 so saying, took it from the animal and put it 
 upon himself; (v. 21.) he became conscious of 
 a prerogative which, by virtue of his nature, he 
 possessed above all other animals. He no longer 
 regarded these as his associates in creation, but 
 as means and instruments committed to his will, 
 for the accomplishment of whatsoever ends he 
 pleased. This conception includes, though dim- 
 ly, the converse ; viz. that he could not say the 
 same of his fellowman, but must regard him as 
 an equal partaker with himself of the gifts of 
 Nature. We have here a remote preparative 
 for those limitations which reason was here- 
 after to impose upon the will of man in regard 
 to his fellow, and which are even more neces- 
 sary than inclination and love, to the constitu- 
 tion of society. 
 
 And thus had man, — in consideration of his 
 title to be an end unto himself, to be regarded 
 as such by every other and by none to be used 
 merely as a means to other ends, — entered into 
 an equality with all rational beings of whatsoever 
 rank. (Gen. iii. 22.) It is here, and not in the 
 possession of reason, considered merely as an 
 instrument for the satisfaction of various pro- 
 pensities, that we are to look for the ground of 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 77 
 
 that unlimited equality of man even with higher 
 beings, who may be incomparably superior to 
 him in natural endowments, but no one of whom 
 has therefore a right to manage and dispose of 
 him at pleasure. This step in the progress of 
 reason is therefore simultaneous with the dis- 
 missal of man from the mother-lap of Nature ; 
 — a change which was honourable indeed, but 
 at the same time dangerous, inasmuch as it 
 drove him forth from the unmolested and safe 
 condition in which his childhood was nursed, 
 as it were from a garden which had maintained 
 him without any care on his part, (v. 23.) and 
 thrust him into the wide world, where so many 
 cares and troubles and unknown evils awaited 
 him. Hereafter, the burdens of life will often 
 elicit the wish for a paradise — the creature of 
 his imagination — where he may dream or trifle 
 away his existence in quiet inactivity and un- 
 interrupted peace. But reason, restless and irre- 
 sistibly impelling him to unfold the capacities 
 implanted in him, stations itself between him 
 and that region of imaginary joys, and will not 
 permit him to return into that condition of rude 
 simplicity out of which it has drawn him forth, 
 (v. 24.) It impels him to undergo with patience 
 the labour which he hates, to chase the gauds 
 which he despises, and to forget even death so 
 terrible to him, in the pursuit of those trifles 
 whose loss is more terrible still. 
 
 REMARK. 
 
 From this sketch of the first history of man it 
 appears, that his departure from the Paradise 
 which reason represents as the first residence 
 of his species, was nothing else than the transi- 
 tion from the rudeness of a merely animal na- 
 ture, to humanity, from the leading strings of 
 instinct to the guidance of reason, — in a word, 
 from the guardianship of Nature, to a state of 
 freedom. Whether man has gained or lost by 
 this change, can no longer be a question, if we 
 regard the destination of the species, which con- 
 sists solely in progress toward perfection ; how- 
 ever defective may have been the first attempts, 
 and even a long series of successive attempts to 
 penetrate to this end. Nevertheless, this course 
 which, for the species, is a progress from worse 
 to better, is not exactly such for the individual. 
 Before reason was awakened, there was neither 
 command nor prohibition, and consequently no 
 transgression. But when reason began its work, 
 and, weak as it was, came into collision with 
 animalism in all its strength, it was unavoida- 
 ble that evils, and what was worse, with the 
 growing cultivation of reason, vices should 
 arise, which were entirely foreign from the 
 state of ignorance, and consequently of inno- 
 cence. The first step out of this state, therefore, 
 on the moral side, was a Fall; on the physical, 
 a number of life-ills, hitherto unknown, were 
 the effect; consequently, the punishment of that 
 Fall. So the history of Nature begins with good, 
 for it is the work of God; but the history of Free- 
 dom begins with evil, for it is the work of man. 
 
 For the individual who, in the use of his free- 
 dom, has reference only to himself, the change 
 was a loss. For Nature, whose aim in relation 
 to man, is directed to the species, it was a gain. 
 The former, therefore, has reason to ascribe all 
 the evils that he suffers, and all the evils that 
 he does, to his own fault; at the same time, 
 however, as a member of the whole, (the spe- 
 cies) he must admire and commend the wisdom 
 and propriety of the arrangement. 
 
 In this way, we may reconcile, with each 
 other, and with reason, the oft misinterpreted, 
 and, in appearance, successively conflicting as- 
 sertions of the celebrated J. J. Rousseau. In 
 his work on The Influence of the Sciences, and 
 in that on The Inequality of Men, he very cor- 
 rectly exhibits the unavoidable contradiction 
 which exists between culture and the nature 
 of man, as a physical race of beings, in which 
 each individual is to fulfil entirely his destina- 
 tion. But in his 'Emil' and his 1 Social Contract' 
 and other writings, he endeavours to solve the 
 difficult problem, and to show how culture must 
 proceed in order to unfold, according to their 
 destination, the faculties of Humanity as a moral 
 species, so that there may no longer be any con- 
 flict between the natural and the moral destina- 
 tion. From this conflict,* since culture has not 
 
 * To mention but a few instances of this conflict be- 
 tween the effort of Humanity to fulfil its moral destina- 
 tion on the one hand, and the unchangeable observance 
 of the laws implanted in man's nature, adapted to a rude 
 and animal condition on the other hand, I adduce the 
 following. The epoch of man's majority, i. e. the im- 
 pulse as well as the capacity to propagate his species, is 
 set by Nature at the age of sixteen or seventeen years; 
 an age at which the youth, in a rude state of Nature, be- 
 comes literally a man; for he possesses then the power 
 to maintain himself, to beget children, and to maintain 
 them, together with his wife. The simplicity of his wants 
 makes this easy. In a state of cultivation, on the other 
 hand, many means, acquired skill, as well as favourable 
 external circumstances, are necessary for this purpose ; 
 so that, civilly, this epoch is deferred, on an average, by 
 at least ten years. Nature, meanwhile, has not changed 
 her period of maturity to suit the progress of social re- 
 finement, but obstinately insists on her own law, which 
 she has calculated for the preservation of the human 
 race, as an animal species. Hence arises an unavoidable 
 conflict between the purposes of Nature and the customs 
 of Society. The natural man has already attained to 
 manhood at an age when the civil man is still a youth, 
 or even a child. For we may call him a child who, on 
 account of his years, (in a state of civilization) cannot 
 even maintain himself, much less his kind ; although he 
 has the impulse and the capacity, and, consequently, the 
 call of Nature to beget his kind. Assuredly, Nature has 
 not implanted instincts and capacities in living beings, 
 merely that they may war against and suppress them. 
 The tendencies of Nature, therefore, are not designed for 
 a state of civilization, but solely for the preservation of 
 the human species as a race of animals. There is an 
 unavoidable collision between nature and civilization, 
 in this particular, which only a perfect civil polity — the 
 highest aim of culture — can do away. At present, the 
 interval in question (between natural and civil majority) 
 is usually beset with vices and their consequences, the 
 manifold evils of humanity. 
 
 Another example which proves the truth of the propo- 
 7* 
 
7y 
 
 IM MANUEL KANT. 
 
 yet rightly commenced, much less completed its 
 course, according to true principles, educating 
 alike the man and the citizen, arise all the real 
 evils which oppress human life, and all the 
 vices which dishonour it. The propensities 
 which lead to those vices, and on which the 
 blame is laid in such cases, are good in them- 
 selves, and have their end as natural endow- 
 ments. But these natural endowments, being 
 calculated for a state of Nature alone, are trench- 
 ed upon by progressive culture, and, in turn, 
 re-act upon culture, until perfected Art returns 
 to Nature again ; which is the final goal in the 
 moral destination of the human species. 
 
 CONCLUSION" OF THE HISTORY. 
 
 The beginning of the next period was the 
 transition of man from an era of peace and ease 
 to one of labour and discord, as a prelude to 
 social union. And here again we must make a 
 great leap, and suppose him at once in posses- 
 sion of tame animals, and of fruits which he 
 could multiply by sowing and planting : (Gen. 
 Tv. 2.) although it must have been a long pro- 
 cess, by which he arrived from the rude life of 
 
 sition, that Nature has implanted in us two tendencies 
 to two different ends, viz., of man as an animal and of 
 man as a moral species, is the Ars longa vita brevis of 
 Hippocrates. Science and art might he carried much far- 
 ther by a single mind which is made for them, after it 
 has once attained the requisite maturity of judgment by 
 long discipline and acquired knowledge, than by succes- 
 sive generations of learned men ; provided that single 
 head could live through the whole period, occupied by 
 those successive generations, with the same youthful 
 power of intellect. Now Nature has evidently taken her 
 determination respecting the duration of human life, 
 from a very different point of view than the promotion 
 of science. For when a man of the happiest intellect 
 stands on the brink of the greatest discoveries, which he 
 is authorized to expect from his skill and experience, old 
 age comes in ; he grows dull, and must leave it to another 
 generation, beginning with the A. B. C, and going over 
 the whole ground again which he has been over, to add 
 another span to the progress of culture. Accordingly, the 
 progress of the human race toward the fulfilment of its 
 entire destination appears to be continually interrupted, 
 and in continual danger of falling back again into primi- 
 tive rudeness. And the Grecian philosopher did not com- 
 plain entirely without cause, when he said "it is a pity 
 that man must die then when he has just begun to un- 
 derstand how he ought to live." 
 
 We may take, for a third example, the inequality of 
 the human condition. Not the inequality of natural 
 endowments nor of the gifts of Fortune, but that inequa- 
 lity in universal human rights, concerning which Rous- 
 seau complains with much truth, but which is inseparable 
 from culture as long as it proceeds without a plan, as it 
 must for a long time, and to which Nature certainly did 
 not destine man, seeing she gave him freedom, and rea- 
 son to restrain that freedom solely by its own universal 
 and external legality, which we call civil right. Man 
 was intended to work his way gradually out of the rude- 
 ness of his natural tendencies, and while he lifts himself 
 above them, nevertheless to take heed that he does not 
 sin against them ; a faculty which he does not acquire till 
 late, and after many unsuccessful attempts. In the mean- 
 while, Humanity sighs under various evils which, from 
 inexperience, it inflicts upon itself. 
 
 a hunter to the first of these possessions, or from 
 the irregular digging of roots and gathering of 
 fruits to the second. At this point, the division 
 between men who had hitherto lived peaceably 
 side by side, behoved to begin ; the consequence 
 of which was the separation of those addicted 
 to different modes of life, and their dispersion 
 over the earth. The life of the shepherd is not 
 only easy, but affords also the most certain sup- 
 port, since there can be no want of feed in a 
 soil which is uninhabited far and wide. On 
 the other hand, agriculture or planting is very 
 toilsome, dependent on the uncertainty of the 
 weather ; consequently insecure, and requiring, 
 moreover, permanent buildings, ownership of 
 the soil, and sufficient power to defend it. But 
 the herdsman hates this property in the soil, 
 which limits the freedom of his pasturage. 
 With regard to the first point, the agriculturalist 
 might seem to envy the herdsman as more 
 favoured by Heaven than himself (v. 4.) ; in 
 fact, however, he was much troubled by him as 
 long as he remained in his neighbourhood ; for 
 the browsing cattle did not spare his planta- 
 tions. Since now it was easy for the herdsman, 
 after the damage which he had caused, to with- 
 draw himself to a distance and thus escape 
 reprisals, seeing he left nothing which he could 
 not as well find everywhere else, it was proba- 
 bly the husbandman who first used violence 
 against these trespasses which the herdsman 
 thought lawful, and who, since the occasion for 
 these trespasses could never entirely cease, was 
 compelled, unless he would lose the fruits of 
 his long diligence, to remove as far as possible 
 from those who led a nomadic life. (v. 16.) 
 This separation makes the third epoch. 
 
 A soil, on the working and planting of which 
 (especially with trees), the support of life de- 
 pends, requires fixed habitations ; and, for the 
 defence of these against all assaults, a multitude 
 of men who shall assist each other. Conse- 
 quently, men addicted to this mode of life, could 
 no longer disperse by families, but must keep 
 together and establish villages, (improperly 
 called cities), in order to protect their property 
 against hunters or hordes of vagrant herdsmen. 
 The first necessities of life, the production of 
 which involved various pursuits (v. 20.), might 
 now be exchanged, the one for the other. The 
 necessary consequence of this was culture, and 
 the beginning of the arts, as well of amusement 
 as of industry, (vs. 21, 22.) But what, is most 
 important, there was also some arrangement 
 toward a civil constitution and public justice j 
 at first, indeed, with respect only to gross acts 
 of violence, the avenging of which was now 
 no longer left to individuals, as in the savage 
 state, but committed to a legalized power which 
 kept the whole together; that is a kind of 
 Government, beyond which there was no exe- 
 cutive force (vs. 23, 24.) From this first rude 
 institution, all human arts, among which that 
 of society and civil security is the most pro- 
 fitable, could gradually unfold themselves, the 
 
IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 79 
 
 human race multiply, and like swarms of bees 
 diffuse itself from a common centre, by sending 
 forth cultivated colonists. With this period, 
 also, the inequality among men, — that rich foun- 
 tain of so much evil, but also of all good — began 
 and continued to increase. 
 
 So long, indeed, as the nomadic, herd-tending 
 nations which acknowledge God alone for their 
 ruler, hovered around the inhabitants of cities, 
 and the husbandmen, who had a man (magis- 
 trate) for their master* (vi. 4.), and, being sworn 
 foes of property in land, assumed a hostile atti- 
 tude toward them, and were hated by them in 
 turn, there was continual war between the two, 
 or, at least, continual danger of war ; and there- 
 fore both nations could enjoy, internally at least, 
 the inestimable blessing of freedom. For the 
 danger of war is even now the only thing that 
 qualifies Despotism. Wealth is required in 
 order that a State may become a Power ; but 
 without liberty there can be no wealth-pro- 
 ducing industry. To supply the place of this, 
 in a poor nation, there must be a general par- 
 ticipation in the maintenance of the common 
 weal. And this again cannot exist without a 
 feeling of liberty. 
 
 In time, however, the growing luxury of the 
 city-dwellers, particularly the art of pleasing, 
 by which the city women eclipsed the dirty 
 nymphs of the wilderness, could not but prove 
 a powerful temptation to those herdsmen to 
 form connexions with them, and thus to suffer 
 themselves to be drawn into the splendid misery 
 of the cities. Then, with the amalgamation of 
 two once hostile nations, — putting an end to all 
 danger of war, but, at the same time also, to all 
 liberty, — it came to pass that the despotism of 
 powerful tyrants on the one hand, together with 
 a culture scarcely yet commenced, — soulless 
 luxury in abject slavery, combined with all the 
 vices of the savage state — on the other hand 
 irresistibly diverted the human race from that 
 progressive cultivation of their capacity for 
 good, prescribed to them by Nature, and thereby 
 rendered them unworthy of their very exis- 
 tence, as a species intended to rule over the 
 earth, and not merely to enjoy as brutes or to 
 serve as slaves, (v. 17.) 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARK. 
 
 The thinking man feels a sorrow that may 
 even lead to moral corruption, of which the 
 thoughtless knows nothing. He feels, namely, 
 a discontent with that Providence which guides 
 the course of the world at large, when he re- 
 flects on the evils which oppress the human 
 race to so great an extent, and seemingly with- 
 
 * The Arabian Bedouins still call themselves children 
 of a former Sheik, the founder of their tribe (as Beni 
 Aled, Sec). This personage, however, is by no means 
 a ruler, and can exercise, of his own will, no authority 
 over them. For in a nation of herdsmen, as no one 
 possesses real estate which he would have to leave behind, 
 any family that is discontented may easily separate itself 
 from the tribe, and go to strengthen another. 
 
 out the hope of anything better. It is of the 
 greatest importance, however, to be satisfied with 
 Providence, notwithstanding it has prescribed to 
 us a path so full of toil in our earthly world ; 
 partly that we may still take courage amid our 
 difficulties; partly, lest, in ascribing these evils 
 to Fate, we forget our own guilt, which perhaps 
 is the sole cause of them, and so neglect to seek 
 a remedy for them in self-reformation. 
 
 It must be confessed that the greatest evils 
 which afflict civilized nations arise from war : 
 not so much indeed from that which actually 
 is, or has been, as from the never-ending, ever- 
 increasing preparation for that which is to be. 
 To this end are applied all the forces of the 
 State and all the fruits of its culture, which 
 might be used for still further culture. Free- 
 dom is, in many points, materially invaded, and 
 the motherly care of the State for individual 
 members, changed to requisitions of inexorable 
 severity; which, nevertheless, are justified by 
 the fear of external danger. But, would this 
 culture, would the intimate union of the various 
 classes of the Commonwealth for the mutual 
 furthering of their prosperity, would the same 
 population, nay, would that degree of freedom, 
 which, under very restrictive laws, still exists, — 
 would they be found, were it not for that respect 
 for Humanity which the constant dread of war 
 enforces in the Heads of States'? Look at 
 China, which, though she may suffer a sudden 
 invasion, yet, in consequence of her situation, 
 has no powerful enemy to fear ; and where, 
 consequently, every trace of freedom is ob- 
 literated ! In that stage of culture, therefore, at 
 which the human race at present stands, war 
 is an indispensable means for the promotion of 
 further culture ; and not till the progress of cul- 
 ture is completed (God knows when), would a 
 perpetual peace be salutary for us ; and not till 
 then would it be possible. Accordingly, so far 
 as this point is concerned, we ourselves are to 
 blame for the evils of which we so bitterly 
 complain; and the sacred record is quite right 
 in representing the amalgamation of nations 
 into one Community, and their perfect deliver- 
 ance from external danger, while their culture 
 has scarcely yet commenced, as a hindrance to 
 all further culture, and a lapse into irremediable 
 corruption. 
 
 The second cause of discontent among men 
 is the order of Nature with respect to the short- 
 ness of life. It is true, one must have esti- 
 mated very erroneously the value of life, to 
 wish it longer than it actually is ; for that would 
 be only prolonging a struggle with perpetual 
 difficulties. On the other hand, however, one 
 can hardly blame a childish judgment for fear- 
 ing death without loving life, or for thinking. — 
 difficult as it may be to spend a single day in 
 tolerable contentment, — that there are never 
 days enough in which to repeat the torment. 
 But when we consider, with how many cares 
 the means of maintaining so short a life af- 
 flict us, and how much injustice is perpetrated 
 
80 IMMANUEL KANT. 
 
 in the hope of some future, though equally- 
 transient good, it is reasonable to conclude, that, 
 if men could look forward to a life of eight 
 hundred years or more, the father would no 
 longer be secure of his life from the son, the 
 brother from the brother, friend from friend ; 
 and that the vices of so long-lived a race would 
 reach such a height as to render man worthy 
 of no better fate, than to be swept from the 
 earth in a general flood, (vs. 12, 13.) 
 
 The third wish, or rather empty longing, (for 
 one is conscious that the object can never be 
 attained) is the shadow-image of that golden age 
 so much praised by the poets : — a state in which 
 men are to be freed from all imaginary neces- 
 sities imposed by luxury, and contented with 
 the simple wants of Nature ; where there is to 
 be a perfect equality of condition, everduring 
 peace; in a word, the pure enjoyment of a 
 careless life spent in idle dreaming or in childish 
 sports. This longing, which makes the Robinson 
 Crusoes and the voyages to the South Sea Islands 
 so attractive, illustrates the satiety which the 
 thinking man experiences in a state of civiliza- 
 tion, if he seeks its value in enjoyment alone, 
 and balances the counterweight of indolence, 
 when admonished by reason to give value to 
 life, by means of action. The vanity of this 
 desire of a return to the period of simplicity and 
 innocence, is abundantly evident, when, from 
 the above representation of his original condi- 
 tion, we learn that man could not maintain 
 himself in it, precisely, because it does not satisfy 
 him ; and that he is still less disposed to return 
 
 to it again. So that, after all, the present la- 
 borious condition is to be regarded as his own 
 
 choice. 
 
 Such a representation of his history is there- 
 fore profitable to man, and conducive to his in- 
 struction and improvement, as showing him that 
 he must not charge Providence with the evils 
 which afflict him; also, that he is not justified 
 in imputing his own crimes to the transgression 
 of his first Parents, creating an hereditary ten- 
 dency to similar transgressions in their des- 
 cendants, (for voluntary actions have nothing 
 hereditary in them), but that, on the contrary, 
 he may, with perfect justice, regard their actions 
 as his own, and, accordingly, take to himself 
 the whole blame of the evils arising from the 
 misuse of his reason; since he cannot but be 
 conscious that he would have done precisely as 
 they did, in similar circumstances, and that the 
 first use which he made of his reason would 
 have been, — in spite of the admonitions of Na- 
 ture, — to abuse it. This point of moral evil 
 being adjusted, those which are strictly physical 
 will hardly be found to yield a balance in our 
 favour, if tried by a debt and credit account of 
 guilt and desert. 
 
 And so the result of an attempt to construct 
 a history of primitive man by the aid of philo- 
 sophy, is contentment with Providence and the 
 course of human things on the whole, as pro- 
 ceeding not from good to bad but from worse 
 to better. To this process every one, for his 
 part, is called upon by Nature herself, to con- 
 tribute according to his power. 
 
JOHANN GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING. 
 
 Born 1729. Died 1781. 
 
 Lessing was the son of a Lutheran Clergy- 
 man ; his birthplace, Kamentz in Upper Lu- 
 satia. 
 
 Biography, fond to trace the promise of future 
 greatness in childish caprices, pleases itself 
 with the circumstance, that at the age of five, 
 he was unwilling to have his picture taken 
 otherwise, than with a great pile of books by 
 his side. So great, it is intimated, was the 
 child's passion for Letters ! 
 
 At the age of twelve he was sent to the 
 High-school at Meissen in Saxony, where he 
 labored with great diligence and laid the 
 foundation of his extensive erudition. At 
 seventeen he entered the university of Leip- 
 zig, where his parents wished him to study 
 theology. But following the bent of his own 
 genius, he studied everything else instead; 
 and though a constant hearer of the cele- 
 brated Ernesti, he otherwise gave no heed to 
 prepare himself for the sacred office. He felt 
 the secret ''Drang] which indicated another 
 calling, and in fact before he left Leipzig had 
 already begun his literary career, as a writer 
 for the stage. The Drama was his first love ; 
 but he did not confine himself to that, nor to 
 any one province of literature. Indeed there 
 is scarcely one which his learning and his 
 genius have not illustrated. 
 
 In 1750 he went to Wittenberg to prosecute 
 his theological studies in compliance with the 
 earnest solicitation of his parents. His younger 
 brother, Johann Gottlieb, was already a student 
 at this university ; and the two, in conjunction, 
 published several essays in theology and polite 
 literature, which procured them much honor 
 from the Public, and some odium from the 
 orthodox. 
 
 Lessing however did not remain Jong in 
 Wittenberg, nor did he ever become a preacher. 
 He w^ent to Berlin, and lived as author by pro- 
 fession, in intimate communion with Mendels- 
 sohn, Nicolai, Rammler, and others, supporting 
 himself by his pen. Some of his principal 
 works, particularly Emilia Galotti and the Lao- 
 coon, were published during this period, and 
 
 L 
 
 while holding the office of secretary to General 
 Tauenzien, at Breslau. In 1760 he was made 
 member of the Royal academy of sciences at 
 Berlin. In 1766 he accepted a situation con- 
 nected with the theatre at Hamburg, as thea- 
 trical critic, and there wrote his Dramaturgic 
 In 1770 he was made librarian to the library 
 at Wolfenbuttel, in the Duchy of Brunswick- 
 Wolfenbiittel, where, with the exception of a 
 tour to Italy, made in the company of the here- 
 ditary Prince of Brunswick, he remained until 
 his death. Here he published his Nathan the 
 Wise, and several theological treatises. The 
 latter involved him in vexatious controversies, 
 and subjected him to persecutions which em- 
 bittered the remainder of his days, and, as it is 
 thought, abridged their term. He died in the 
 beginning of his fifty-third year ; too soon for 
 the interests of literature, too late for his own 
 peace. 
 
 The life comprehended in this brief outline 
 w r as singularly unblessed. Lessing was not 
 made of the stuff which thrives in the world of 
 men. He was one of those illstarred geniuses, 
 who, owing to some fatality or some defect, or, 
 quite as often perhaps, to some unwonted and 
 unaccommodating virtue, fail to find an equal 
 and congenial sphere for the exercise of their 
 faculties, and are never at one with their 
 destiny. His erratic course, not wholly free 
 from folly,* was crossed with frequent vexa- 
 tions and bitter disappointments. He had the 
 misfortune, among others, to lose, soon after 
 marriage, a beloved wife to whom he had been 
 betrothed for six years. — " Six years," says He- 
 gelf — "what a long time for a betrothed pair! 
 and, in this interim, almost nothing but vexation 
 and suffering through sickness. And then the 
 duration of the marriage, — only three years! 
 Who can help thinking, in such a case, of the 
 vanity of man and his dearest cares] Should 
 we not think that, if a man could know this 
 
 *He is accused of having been addicted to games of 
 hazard. 
 
 f " Ueber Lessing's Briefwechsel mit seiner Frau." He- 
 gel's Vermischte Schriften. 
 
 (81) 
 
82 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 beforehand, he would prefer an earlier death 
 than Nature had intended, to such a life?" 
 
 "That a man like Lessing," says Heine,* 
 " could never be happy you will easily com- 
 prehend. Even if he had not loved the truth, 
 and if he had not everywhere fought for it, of 
 his own free will, he must nevertheless have 
 been unhappy, for he was a Genius. They 
 will pardon thee everything, said lately a sigh- 
 ing poet; they will pardon thy riches, they 
 will pardon thy high birth, they will pardon 
 thy handsome figure, they will even pardon thy 
 talent, but to genius men are inexorable. There- 
 fore is the history of great men always a mar- 
 tyr-legend. If they suffered not for great 
 Humanity, they suffered for their own great- 
 ness, for their great manner of being, for their 
 unphilistine ways, their dissatisfaction with 
 ostentatious common-place, with the smirking 
 meanness of their environment ; — a dissatisfac- 
 tion which naturally drives them into extra- 
 vagances, e. g. into the play-house, or even 
 into the gambling-house, as happened to poor 
 Lessing. ***** 
 
 It is heart-rending to read in his biography, 
 how Destiny denied this man every joy, and 
 how it was not even permitted him to recreate 
 himself from his daily conflicts, in the peaceful 
 bosom of a family. Once only, Fortune seemed 
 disposed to favor him. She gave him a be- 
 loved wife, a child. But this happiness was 
 like the sunbeam which gilds the wing of a 
 passing bird. It passed as soon. The wife 
 died in giving birth to her first child ; the 
 child immediately after birth. Concerning the 
 latter, he wrote to a friend these horribly witty 
 words : " My joy was but brief. And I was 
 unwilling to lose him, — this son. For he had 
 so much sense ! So much sense ! Do not think 
 that the few hours of paternity have made me 
 such an ape of a father. I know what I say. 
 Was it not a proof of sense, that he came so 
 unwillingly into the world 1 — that he suspected 
 mischief so soon ? Was it not a proof of sense, 
 that he seized the first opportunity to be oft' 
 again ? — I had hoped, for once, to have some 
 comfort like ether people. But it proved a bad 
 business for me." 
 
 "There was one sorrow of which Lessing 
 never spoke with his friends ; that was, his 
 awful loneliness, his spiritual isolation. Some 
 of his cotemporaries loved him, no one under- 
 
 * Salon, vol. ii. 
 
 stood him. Mendelssohn, his best friend, de- 
 fended him with zeal when he was accused of 
 Spinozism. The zeal and the defence were as 
 laughable as they were superfluous. Be quiet 
 in thy grave, old Moses ! thy Lessing, to be 
 sure, was on the way to this dreadful error, 
 this pitiable calamity — Spinozism. But the 
 All-highest, the Father in heaven rescued him, 
 at the right moment, by death. Be quiet, thy 
 Lessing was not a Spinozist, as slander would 
 have it. He died a good deist, like thee and 
 Nicolai, and Teller, and the Universal Ger- 
 man Library !" 
 
 This life, so unsuccessful, so tragic, in its 
 personal aspects, was eminently successful in 
 its fruits. German literature is indebted to 
 Lessing as scarcely to any other name in its 
 annals. He has been to it what Luther was 
 to the language, — the father of a new era and 
 order of things. That era of the German in- 
 tellect which has just transpired, that era which 
 gave to Germany her present intellectual posi- 
 tion among the nations, and which, through her 
 influence, has become an era in the progress of 
 the universal mind, dates from Lessing, its 
 earliest representative in general literature; 
 as Kant was its earliest representative in phi- 
 losophy. He first delivered his countrymen 
 from the tyranny of French forms, and, placing 
 before them the true models of all time, parti- 
 cularly Shakspeare and the Greeks, led them 
 back to Nature, and, through Nature, to new 
 creations. Great as a poet, — although his sub- 
 lime ideal of the poet's function led him to dis- 
 claim that title, — * he was still greater as a 
 critic, and, therein, a true son of his country, a 
 
 * He thus speaks of himself at the close of the Drama- 
 turgic: '• I am neither actor nor poet. It is true men 
 have sometimes done me the honour to rank me in the 
 latter class. But it is only because they misunderstood 
 me. They should not infer so liberally from some dra- 
 matic attempts which I have hazarded. Not every one 
 who takes the brush in his hand is a painter. The oldest 
 of those attempts were made at that age when we are 
 so willing to mistake pleasure and facility for genius. 
 Whatever is tolerable in the later ones, I am very con- 
 scious that I owe it wholly and only to criticism. I fefil 
 not in me the living fountain which struggles forth, of 
 its own force, and, by its own force, shoots up in such 
 rich, fresh and pure rays. I have to squeeze every tiling 
 out of me by pressure and pipes. * * * I have there- 
 fore always been shamed or vexed, when I have heard or 
 read anything in dispraise of criticism. It has been said 
 to stifle genius; and I had flattered myself that I derived 
 from it something which approaches very near to Genius. 
 I am a cripple, and cannot possibly be edified by a philip- 
 pic against crutches. But, to be sure, as the crutch may 
 help the lame man to move from place to place, but can 
 never make him a runner, so it is with criticism." 
 
LESSING. 
 
 83 
 
 genuine representative of the national mind. 
 Germany has produced no greater critic than 
 Lessing. And when we say this, we place 
 him at the head of that " group" in the " Pha- 
 lanx" of Letters. Herder testifies of him, that 
 " no modern writer has exercised a greater in- 
 fluence on Germany, in matters of taste and of 
 refined and profound judgment on literary sub- 
 jects." " Lessing's judgments have, for the 
 most part, been confirmed by time. What then 
 seemed sharp, is now thought just ; what was 
 then hard, is now sober truth." I know scarce 
 any one who could speak of himself, as a writer, 
 with greater modesty and dignity than Lessing. 
 And generally, he is, without question, in ex- 
 tent of reading, in critical acumen, and in many- 
 sided, manly understanding, the first critic of 
 Germany."* His dissertation on the Fable is 
 affirmed by the same author, to be the " most 
 concise and philosophic theory concerning any 
 species of composition, that has been written 
 since Aristotle." 
 
 But Lessing wrought even more powerfully, 
 by his character and example, as the fearless 
 advocate of truth, and the uncompromising en- 
 emy of all narrowness, and false enlightenment, 
 and pretence, — of all half- culture and half- 
 truth, — than by his critical theories. This is 
 Heine's view of him. " Since Luther, Germany 
 has produced no greater and better man than 
 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. These two are 
 our pride and our delight. Like Luther, Les- 
 sing acted not only by means of certain specific 
 performances, but by stirring the German na- 
 tion to its depths, and producing a wholesome 
 mental commotion with his criticism and his 
 polemics. He was the living criticism of his 
 time, and his whole life was polemic. That 
 criticism made itself felt in the widest domain 
 of thought and feeling; in religion, in science, 
 in art. That polemic overcame every adver- 
 sary, and grew stronger with every victory. 
 Lessing, according to his own confession, re- 
 quired such controversy, for the development 
 of his own mind. He resembled that fabulous 
 Norman who inherited the talents, knowledge, 
 and faculties of the men whom he slew in bat- 
 tle, and, in this way, at last, was endued with 
 all possible advantages and excellences. It 
 may be supposed that such a battle - loving 
 champion must occasion no small noise in Ger- 
 many, quiet Germany, which, at that time, was 
 
 * Herder's Zerstreute Blatter. II. Th. " Gotthold Eph- 
 raim Lessing." 
 
 more sabbath-still than now-a-days. People 
 were confounded at his literary boldness. But 
 this very quality was of great service to him. 
 For " oser" is the secret of success in literature 
 as well as in revolutions — and in love. At 
 Lessing's sword trembled all. No head was 
 secure from him. * * * Whom his sword 
 could not reach, he slew with the arrows of his 
 wit. * * * Lessing's wit is not like that 
 Enjouement,that Gaite, those springing saillies 
 which are known in this country. His wit 
 was not the little French grey-hound, that runs 
 after its own shadow ; it was more like a great 
 German cat, that plays with the mouse before 
 devouring it. * * * Thus, by his contro- 
 versies, he has rescued many a name from well- 
 deserved oblivion. Several tiny authors he has, 
 as it were, spun round with the most genial 
 ridicule, with the most costly humor; and now 
 they are preserved to endless ages in his works, 
 like insects caught in a piece of amber. While 
 killing his adversaries, he made them immortal. 
 Who of us would ever have heard of that Klotz 
 on whom Lessing has expended so much ridi- 
 cule and acutenessl The rocks which he 
 hurled upon that poor antiquary, and with 
 which he crushed him, are now his indestruc- 
 tible monument. 
 
 It is worthy of note that the wittiest man in 
 Germany was also, at the same time, the most 
 honest. Nothing can equal his love of truth. 
 Lessing made not the slightest concession to 
 falsehood, even when, after the usual fashion 
 of the worldly wise, he could promote the cause 
 of Truth by it. He could do everything for the 
 truth except to lie for it. Whoso thinks, said 
 he once, to recommend Truth by all sorts of 
 masks and paints, would fain be her pimp; but 
 her lover he never was. 
 
 To no one is the beautiful saying of BufFon — 
 " the style is the man" — more applicable than 
 to Lessing. His manner of writing is entirely 
 like his character, true, firm, unadorned, beau- 
 tiful and imposing by its inherent strength. 
 His style is the style of Roman architecture ; 
 the greatest solidity with the greatest simpli- 
 city." 
 
 His influence in Theology has been as great, 
 perhaps, as in Criticism and Art, although less 
 generally acknowledged, and although most 
 vehemently resisted at the time. In Theology, 
 as in every other department, he was a refor- 
 mer, at war with the prevailing opinions of his 
 time ; and was persecuted, as only theological 
 
B4 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 reformers are. He published some fragments 
 of an anonymous skeptic, found in the library 
 at Wolfenbiittel, containing doubts which Les-„ 
 sing wished to have solved, but which he was 
 accused of circulating with impious designs 
 against the essential truths of Christianity. In 
 the storm of abuse occasioned by these publica- 
 tions he appeals from Lutheran Divines to Lu- 
 ther himself. "O ! that he could judge me ; — 
 he whom I would prefer of all others for my 
 judge ! Luther, thou ! Great misunderstood ! 
 And by none more misunderstood than by those 
 short-sighted, headstrong men who, with thy 
 slippers in their hands, saunter screaming or 
 indifferent along the path prepared by thee. 
 Thou hast delivered us from the yoke of Tra- 
 dition : who shall deliver us from the more in- 
 tolerable yoke of the Letter ! Who shall bring 
 us at last a Christianity such as thou wouldst 
 now teach, such as Christ himself would teach !"* 
 That judgment, in the spirit of Luther, which 
 he so vainly craved during his life, was libe- 
 rally accorded to him, by all the best minds of 
 Germany, after his death ; and by none more 
 liberally than by Herder, than whom he could 
 not have wished for himself — among the living 
 — a fitter judge. " Lessing's last days," says 
 this writer,f " were destined to be embittered 
 by a theological controversy from which, if the 
 Public has not yet derived all the benefit which 
 he certainly expected and intended, it can 
 hardly be considered his faulty He published 
 the « Fragments, by an anonymous Author,' re- 
 lating to the Resurrection and other points of 
 biblical history. I, who knew Lessing person- 
 ally, who knew him at the time when the 
 above-mentioned pieces had probably come into 
 his hands, and, as I now infer from many ex- 
 pressions of his, were then exercising his mind 
 intensely ; I, who also heard him converse on 
 subjects of this kind, and believe myself to be 
 sufficiently acquainted with his character in 
 what relates to manly love of truth; — I am 
 convinced, for my own part, (for others, I nei- 
 ther pretend nor care to be,) that he procured 
 the publication of these pieces solely and purely 
 
 *"Durch die Fragmente des Wolfenbiittelischen Un- 
 gonannten veranlasste Schriften." 
 
 t Zerstreute Bliitter. II. " Gotthold Ephraim Lessing." 
 
 t The strictest theologian will scarcely deny at present 
 that the publication of the fragments lias been of service. 
 The surest proof of which is that if they were to appear 
 now they would scarcely attract the attention which men 
 then involuntarily bestowed upon them. A sign that 
 we have advanced. 
 
 for the interests of Truth, tor the sake of freer 
 and manly inquiry, examination and confirma- 
 tion on all sides. He has affirmed this himself 
 so often, so strongly, so plainly ; — the whole 
 manner in which he published these Fragments, 
 and, as a layman, gave here and there his 
 thoughts upon them, sometimes in the way of 
 refutation ; — Lessing's general character, as it 
 must have impressed every one who knew him 
 (and those who did not should be cautious in 
 their judgment of it) ; — all this is to me a pledge 
 of his pure philosophical conviction, that hereby 
 also he should occasion and effect something 
 useful, to wit, — I repeat it again, — free inves- 
 tigation of the truth, — of truth so important, as 
 this history must be to every one who believes 
 it, or who believes on it. If, of all truths and 
 histories, this truth and this history alone may 
 not be investigated, — may not be investigated 
 in relation to every doubt and every doubter, — 
 that is not Lessing's fault. But, in our day, no 
 theologian and no religionist will maintain this. 
 If we grant this one proposition, — that Truth 
 must and can be investigated; — that Truth 
 gains with every free and earnest examination, 
 precisely in that degree and proportion in which 
 it is cognizable by us, and consequently, only 
 in such measure binding upon us ; — if we grant 
 this proposition, which the history of all times, 
 and religions, and peoples, especially the his- 
 tory and truth of the Christian religion, wher- 
 ever it has been questioned and assailed, incon- 
 trovertibly proves: then Lessing has won. And 
 then, instead of talking of crooked, malicious, 
 wicked designs, we should thank him that he 
 has given us occasion for the investigation and 
 confirmation of the most important truths ; in 
 short, for triumph. 
 
 ******** 
 I thanked him, always, for making me ac- 
 quainted with doubts which occupy me and 
 bring me farther ; which develope thoughts in 
 me, although not in the smoothest way. 
 ******** 
 And where art thou now, noble truth-seeker, 
 truth-perceiver, truth-defender? What seest, 
 what discernest thou now ] Thy first glance 
 beyond the bounds of this darkness, of this 
 earth -mist; in what a different, higher light 
 did it reveal to thee all which thou sawest and 
 soughtest on earth ! To seek the truth, not to 
 have discovered it; to strive for the good, not 
 to have already embraced all goodness ; — this 
 was here thy contemplation, thy serious em- 
 
LESSING. 
 
 ployment, thy study, thy life. Eye and heart 
 thou soughtest ever to keep awake and sound; 
 and to no vice wast thou so opposed, as to vague, 
 creeping 1 hypocrisy, to our customary, daily 
 half-lie and half-truth, to the false politeness 
 which is never helpful, to dissembling philan- 
 thropy which never desires to be, or can be be- 
 neficent ; — but most of all (agreeably to thy 
 office and vocation) to that wearisome, drowsy, 
 half-truth which, in all our knowing and learn- 
 ing, like rust and cancer, gnaws, from early 
 childhood, in human souls. This monster, with 
 all its frightful brood, thou assailedst like a 
 hero, and bravely hast thou fought thy fight. 
 Many passages in thy books, full of pure truth, 
 full of manly, firm sentiments, full of golden, 
 eternal goodness and beauty, will encourage, 
 instruct, confirm, awaken men who, also, like 
 
 SO 
 
 thee, shall serve the truth entirely ; so long as 
 truth is truth and the human mind is what it 
 was created to be ; who shall serve every 
 truth ; even though, at first, it may seem dread- 
 ful and hateful ; — persuaded that, in the end, it 
 will prove, nevertheless, to be wholesome, re- 
 freshing, beautiful. Wherever thou hast erred, 
 where thy acuteness and thine ever active, 
 lively mind lured thee aside into by-ways ; — in 
 short, where thou wast a man, thou erredst, 
 assuredly not willingly, and strovest ever to 
 become a whole man ; a progressive, growing 
 spirit." 
 
 Vitis ut arhoribus decori est, ut vitibus uvie, 
 Tu decus oinrie tuis : postquam te fata tulere 
 Ipsa Pales a^ros, atque ipse reliquit Apollo. 
 Sparse humum foliis inducite fontibus umbras, 
 Et tumulum facite et tumulo superaddite carmen. 
 "Candidas isrnotum mira'ur lumen Olympi 
 Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis." 
 
 « FROM LAOCOON."* 
 
 LAOCOON, OR THE LIMITS OF PAINTING AND POETRY. 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The first one who compared Painting with 
 Poetry, was a man of refined feeling, who had 
 experienced in himself a similar effect from 
 these two arts. Both, he perceived, represent 
 absent things as present, appearances as reality. 
 Both deceive, and the deceptions of both give 
 pleasure. 
 
 A second sought to penetrate into the interior 
 of this pleasure, and discovered that, in both 
 cases, it flows from the same source. Beauty, 
 the first notion of which we derive from cor- 
 poreal objects, has general rules which will 
 bear application to various objects, — to actions, 
 to thoughts, as well as to forms. 
 
 A third, who reflected on the value and dis- 
 tribution of these general rules, observed that 
 some of them obtain most in Painting, others in 
 Poetry, and that in regard to one class there- 
 fore Painting may assist Poetry, in regard to 
 the other, Poetry Painting — with illustrations 
 and examples. 
 
 The first was the Amateur, the second the 
 Philosopher, the third the Critic. 
 
 * The Laocoon of Lessing is the masterpiece of German 
 criticism, as his Emilia Galotti is the masterpiece of Ger- 
 man Tragedy. It unites, with extensive erudition and 
 rare penetration, a poet's feeling for beauty and art. The 
 general subject is announced in the preface, the greater 
 part of which is given above. But, in addition to the 
 arguments which bear directly on that subject, it contains 
 many general reflections on art and poetry, of great value. 
 The brief extract which is here offered, contains Lessing's 
 answer to the question, why Laocoon does not ' cry,' in 
 the representation of the sculptor, as well as in that of 
 the poet ? 
 
 The two first were not likely to make a false 
 use, either of their feelings or their conclusions. 
 In the observations of the critic, on the other 
 hand, the principal point is the correctness of 
 the application to specific cases; and since 
 there are fifty witty critics to one of penetra- 
 tion, it would be a wonder if this application 
 were always made with that caution which is 
 necessary to maintain a just balance between 
 the two arts. 
 
 If Apeiles and Protogenes, in their lost works 
 on painting, confirmed and illustrated the rules 
 of that art by the already established rules of 
 poetry, we may rest assured that they did it 
 with that moderation and accuracy with which 
 we still see Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, Quinti- 
 lian, in their works, apply the principles and 
 experiences of Painting to Eloquence and Po- 
 etry. It is the prerogative of the ancients, in 
 nothing, to have done, either too much or too 
 little. 
 
 But we moderns have thought to surpass 
 them in many things, by converting their little 
 pleasure-paths into highways, although the 
 shorter and safer highways have dwindled, by 
 that means, into bypaths that lead through wil- 
 dernesses. 
 
 The dazzling antithesis of the Greek Vol- 
 taire, that painting is silent poetry, and poetry a 
 speaking picture, would scarcely be found in 
 any text-book. It was one of those conceits in 
 which Simonides abounded, in which that por- 
 tion which is true is so obvious, that men think 
 they must overlook what is indefinite and false 
 in them. 
 
 The ancients, however, did not overlook it. 
 On the contrary, while they limited the saying 
 of Simonides to the effects produced by the two 
 arts, they did not forget to insist that, notwith- 
 8 
 
86 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 standing the perfect similarity of these effects, 
 they dilfered, nevertheless, as well in the ob- 
 jects as in the manner of their imitation. (Tto? 
 xai tportoif /xifi^rssu^). 
 
 But just as if no such difference existed, many 
 of the latest critics have drawn from that coin- 
 cidence between painting and poetry, the most 
 crude conclusions. At one time, they force 
 poetry into the narrow bounds of painting; at 
 another, they give to painting the entire dimen- 
 sions of the wide sphere of poetry. All that is 
 lawful in the one they concede to the other; all 
 that pleases or displeases in the one must needs 
 be pleasing or displeasing in the other also. 
 Full of this idea, they pronounce the most shal- 
 low judgments with the most confident tone. 
 They treat the differences observed between 
 the works of a poet and a painter handling the 
 same theme, as faults which they charge upon 
 the one or the other, according as their taste 
 inclines more to the one or the other art. 
 
 And this false criticism has, to some extent, 
 misled the virtuosi themselves. It has engen- 
 dered a fondness for sketching in poetry, and 
 introduced allegory into painting. Men have 
 attempted to make the former "a speaking 
 picture," without properly understanding what 
 Poetry can or ought to paint ; and to make the 
 latter " a silent poem," not considering in what 
 degree Painting is capable of expressing univer- 
 sal conceptions, without departing too far from 
 her destination and becoming a kind of arbi- 
 trary writing. 
 
 To counteract this false taste and these un- 
 founded judgments is the principal design of 
 the following essays. Their origin is accidental, 
 and their growth has followed rather the order 
 of my reading than the methodical development 
 of general principles. They are, therefore, not 
 so much a book, as irregular collectanea for a 
 book. 
 
 As I make the "Laocoon" my point of de- 
 parture, and often recur to it, I have determined 
 to give it a share in the title. 
 
 I. 
 
 The universal and principal characteristic of 
 the Greek master-pieces in painting and in 
 sculpture, according to Herr Winkelmann, is a 
 noble simplicity and a quiet grandeur, as well 
 in the attitude as in the expression. "As the 
 depth of the sea," he says, " remains for ever 
 quiet, however the surface may rage, so the ex- 
 pression, in the figures of the Greeks, discovers, 
 in the midst of passion, a great and calm soul. 
 
 " This soul paints itself in the face of the Lao- 
 coon, and not in the face alone, under the most 
 vehement suffering. The pain apparent in all 
 the muscles and sinews of the body, and which, 
 without considering the face and other parts, 
 we seem almost to feel ourselves, in the painful 
 drawing in of the abdomen alone, — this pain, I 
 say, manifests itself nevertheless with no degree 
 of violence in the face, or in the whole attitude. 
 
 He raises no such fearful cry as Virgil sings of 
 his Laocoon ; the opening of the mouth does not 
 permit it; it is rather an anxious and oppressed 
 sigh, as described by Sadolet. The pain of the 
 body and the greatness of the soul are expressed 
 with equal force in the narrow structure of the 
 figure, and, as it were, weighed, the one against 
 the other. Laocoon suffers, but he suffers like 
 the Philoctetes of Sophocles; his misery touches 
 our soul, but we wish, at the same time, to re- 
 semble this great man in his capacity of endur- 
 ance. 
 
 " The expression of so great a soid far transcends 
 the imitation of mere natural beauty. The artist 
 must have felt in himself the strength of mind 
 which he has impressed upon his marble. Greece 
 possessed artists and philosophers in the same 
 person, and had more than one Metrodorus. 
 Wisdom joined hands with Art, and breathed 
 into her figures a more than common soul, &c." 
 
 The observation on which this criticism is 
 based, that the pain of Laocoon does not show 
 itself in his countenance with that degree of 
 vehemence which might be expected from its 
 intensity, is perfectly correct. Further, it is in- 
 disputable that, in this very circumstance, in 
 which a half-critic might judge the artist to 
 have fallen below Nature and not to have 
 reached the true pathos of pain, his wisdom is 
 most conspicuously manifest. 
 
 But, in regard to the reason which Herr 
 Winkelmann assigns for this wisdom, and in 
 regard to the universality of the rule which he 
 deduces from this reason, I venture to be of a 
 different opinion. 
 
 I confess, the depreciating side-glance which 
 he throws at Virgil, first caused me to doubt; 
 and then the comparison with Philoctetes. 
 
 " Laocoon suffers like the Philoctetes of 
 Sophocles." How does this character suffer? 
 It is singular that his suffering should have left 
 such a different impression upon our minds. 
 The complaints, the screams, the wild execra- 
 tions with which his pain filled the camp, in- 
 terrupting the sacrifices and all solemn acts, 
 sounded not less terribly through the desert 
 island. They were the cause of his being 
 banished thither. What tones of impatience, 
 of misery, of despair ! The poet made the 
 theatre resound with his imitation of them. 
 
 A cry is the natural expression of bodily 
 pain. Homer's wounded warriors fall, not 
 seldom, with a cry to the ground. Venus, when 
 injured, shrieks aloud,* not that she may be 
 characterized by this cry as the luxurious God- 
 dess of pleasure, but that Nature may have her 
 due. For even the iron Mars, when he feels 
 the lance of Diomed, cries so horribly, "as if 
 ten thousand mad warriors were shrieking at 
 once," that both armies are terrified. f Not- 
 withstanding Homer elevates his heroes so far 
 above human nature in some things, they al- 
 ways remain true to it, when it comes to the 
 feeling of pain or affront, and to the expression 
 
 * Iliad, E. v. 343. t Iliad, i b - 859. 
 
LESSING. 
 
 87 
 
 of that feeling by cries or tears or by railing. 
 In their deeds they are beings of a higher 
 order ; but, in their sensations, they are veritable 
 men. 
 
 I know, we more refined Europeans, of a 
 wiser posterity, understand better how to govern 
 our mouth and our eyes. Courtesy and grace 
 forbid cries and tears. The active courage of 
 the first, rude age of the world has transformed 
 itself, with us, into a suffering one. Yet even 
 our ancestors were greater in the latter, than in 
 the former kind. But our ancestors were bar- 
 barians. To suppress all pain, to look with 
 unflinching eye on the stroke of death, to die 
 laughing under the bites of adders, to mourn 
 neither one's own sin nor the loss of one's 
 dearest friend, — these are traits of the old 
 Northern heroism. Palnatoko gave the citizens 
 of Joms command, to fear nothing, nor so much 
 as to name the word fear. 
 
 Not so the Greek ! He felt and he feared. 
 He gave utterance to his pains and his grief. 
 He was not ashamed of any human weakness ; 
 but he allowed none to withhold him from the 
 path of honour, or to hinder him in the fulfil- 
 ment of his duty. What was savageness and 
 callousness with the barbarians, was, with 
 him, the result of principle. Heroism, with 
 him, was like the hidden sparks in the flint, 
 which sleep peacefully so long as they are not 
 awakened by external force ; and neither take 
 from the stone its smoothness nor its coldness. 
 With the barbarian, heroism was a bright, de- 
 vouring flame which raged without ceasing, de- 
 stroying or blackening, at least, every other good 
 quality in his nature. When Homer leads the 
 Trojans to battle, with wild shouts, and the 
 Greeks, on the other hand, in resolute silence, — 
 the commentators remark well, that the poet 
 intended hereby to describe the former as bar- 
 barians, and the latter as civilized nations. I 
 wonder they have not noticed a similar cha- 
 racteristic contrast in another passage. The 
 hostile armies have concluded an armistice. 
 They are occupied with the burning of their 
 dead,— an employment which does not pass 
 without hot tears on both sides ; Saxpva &p/xa 
 %tovrts. But Priam forbids his Trojans to weep ; 
 Ǥ' fitt xTjuslv Ilptawoj ^ufyaj. He forbids them 
 to weep, says Madame Dacier, because he fears 
 that they will make themselves too tender, and 
 enter the conflict with less courage, on the mor- 
 row. Good ! but I ask why must Priam alone 
 fear this? Why does not Agamemnon also 
 give the same command to his Greeks 1 The 
 meaning of the poet lies deeper. He designs 
 to teach us, that only the civilized Greek can 
 weep and be brave at the same time ; whereas 
 the Trojans, in order to be so, must first extin- 
 guish every feeling of humanity. 'SsfMaaafuu 
 ye psv udsv xTuuetv, he makes the intelligent son 
 of the wise Nestor say, in another place. 
 
 It is worthy of note, that among the few 
 tragedies that have come down to vis from 
 antiquity, there are two in which bodily pain 
 
 constitutes not the least part of the misery, 
 with which the hero suffers. The Philoctetes 
 and the Dying Hercules. The latter, also, like 
 the former, is represented by Sophocles as wail- 
 ing, moaning, weeping, and crying. Thanks 
 to our decent neighbours, those masters of pro- 
 priety, a howling Philoctetes, a crying Hercules, 
 would now be most ridiculous and intolerable 
 characters on the stage. True, one of their 
 newest poets* has ventured upon Philoctetes. 
 But did he dare to show them the true Phi- 
 loctetes ? 
 
 Even a Laocoon is numbered among the lost 
 pieces of Sophocles. Would that Fate had 
 spared us this Laocoon ! From the very slight 
 notices of it, which the ancient grammarians 
 have given, it is impossible to determine how 
 the poet handled this subject. But of this I am 
 sure, that he did not represent Laocoon as more 
 stoical than Philoctetes and Hercules. Every- 
 thing stoical is untheatrical, and our compas- 
 sion is always commensurate with the suffer- 
 ing expressed by the object that interests us. 
 It is true, if we see that object bear his misery 
 with a great soul, that greatness of soul will 
 provoke our admiration. But admiration is a 
 cold feeling which precludes every warmer 
 sentiment and every clear representation, with 
 its vacant stare. 
 
 And now I come to my inference. If it is 
 true that cries, under the infliction of bodily 
 pain, — more especially, according to the old 
 Greek view of the subject, — are perfectly con- 
 sistent with greatness of soul ; then the desire 
 of representing such a soul, cannot be the rea- 
 son why the artist was nevertheless unwilling 
 to imitate those cries in his marble. On the 
 contrary, there must be some other reason why, 
 in this particular, he departs from his rival, the 
 poet, who expresses these cries with the most 
 deliberate intention. 
 
 a 
 
 Whether it be fable or history, that the first 
 essay in the plastic arts was made by Love, — 
 this much is certain, that she was never weary 
 of guiding the hand of the great, old masters. 
 For, whereas, at the present day, painting is 
 pursued, in its whole extent, as that art which 
 imitates bodies in general, upon surfaces, the 
 wise Greek confined it within much narrower 
 limits. He restricted it to the imitation of those 
 bodies which are beautiful. Their artists paint- 
 ed nothing but the beautiful. Even vulgar 
 beauty, the beauty of inferior orders, was, with 
 them, only an incidental theme, — their exercise, 
 their recreation. Their works aimed to please 
 by the perfection of the object itself. They 
 were too great to demand of the spectator, that 
 he should content himself with the mere cold 
 enjoyment arising from a successful likeness,— 
 from the contemplation of their own skill. 
 Nothing in their art was dearer to them, no- 
 
 * Chateaubrun. 
 
88 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 thing seemed to them more noble, than the aim 
 of the art. 
 
 " Who would wish to paint thee, since no one 
 likes to look upon thee said the ancient epi- 
 grammatist,* of a very deformed person. Many 
 a modern artist would say: "Be thou as de- 
 formed as it is possible to be ; I will paint thee 
 notwithstanding. Though no one loves to look 
 upon thee, yet shall men look with pleasure on 
 my painting, not because it represents thee, but 
 as a proof of my art which knows how to copy 
 such a scarecrow so accurately." 
 
 True, the propensity to glory in mere skill, 
 undignified by the worth of its object, is too na- 
 tural not to have produced, among the Greeks 
 also, a Pausonius and a Pyreicus. They had 
 such painters, but they rendered them strict 
 justice. Pausonius, whose department was be- 
 low the beauties of ordinary nature, — whose 
 depraved taste loved best to represent the un- 
 sightly and defective in the human form, — lived 
 in the most contemptible poverty. And Pyreicus 
 who painted barber's-rooms, dirty workshops, 
 asses and kitchen-herbs, with all the diligence 
 of a Dutch artist, — as if things of that sort were 
 so charming and so rare in nature, acquired the 
 name of Rhyparographer, or painter of filth ; 
 although the luxurious rich purchased his pic- 
 tures for their weight in gold, as if to help their 
 nothingness by this imaginary value. j" 
 
 The magistrates, themselves, did not think it 
 unworthy their attention, to detain the artist 
 forcibly within his proper sphere. The law of 
 the Thebans, which required the imitation of 
 the beautiful and forbade the imitation of the 
 deformed, is well known. It was not a law 
 against bunglers, as it is generally, and even by 
 Junius himself,}: considered to be. It condemned 
 the Greek Ghezzi, — the unworthy artifice of 
 obtaining a resemblance by exaggerating the 
 deformities of the originals ; in a word, — cari- 
 cature. 
 
 We laugh when we are told that even the 
 arts were subject to civil laws, with the an- 
 cients. But we are not always right when we 
 laugh. Unquestionably, the laws must not 
 arrogate to themselves any power over the 
 sciences, for the object of the sciences is truth. 
 Truth is necessary to the soul, and it is tyranny 
 to place the slightest restriction on the gratifica- 
 tion of this essential want. But the object of 
 the arts, being pleasure, is not indispensable. 
 Therefore it may well depend on the legislator, 
 what kind of pleasure he will allow, and in 
 what degree he will allow it. 
 
 The plastic arts especially, besides the in- 
 evitable influence which they exert on the 
 character of a nation, are capable of an effect 
 which demands the close inspection of the Law. 
 If beautiful men produced beautiful statues, 
 
 * Antiochus. (Antholog. Lib. ii. Cap. iv.) 
 
 f Hence Aristotle advises that his pictures should not 
 be shown to young people, that their imagination might 
 be kept pure from ugly images. Aristot. Polit. L. 8. C. 5. 
 
 X De Pictura. vet. lib. ii. cap. iv. 
 
 these again reacted upon those ; and the state 
 was indebted to beautiful statues, among other 
 causes, for its beautiful men. With us, the 
 sen>itiveness of maternal imagination appears 
 to express itself only in monsters. 
 
 From this point of view, I think, I see a truth 
 in certain ancient traditions which have been 
 rejected, without qualification, as lies. The 
 mothers of Aristomenes, of Aristodamas, of 
 Alexander the Great, of Scipio, of Augustus, of 
 Galerius, — all dreamed, during their pregnancy, 
 of serpents. The serpent was a symbol of god- 
 head, and the beautiful statues and paintings 
 of Bacchus, of Apollo, of Mercury, of Hercules, 
 were seldom without a serpent. The honest 
 women had feasted their eyes on the god, during 
 the day; and the confounding dream awakened 
 the image of the beast. Thus I rescue the 
 dream, and surrender the explanation which 
 the pride of their sons, and the impudence of 
 flatterers have made of it. There must have 
 been some reason why the adulterous fancy 
 was always a serpent. 
 
 But I wander out of my way. I only wished 
 to establish this point, that with the ancients 
 beauty was the highest law of the plastic arts. 
 
 And, this point established, it follows neces- 
 sarily, that everything else, to which the plastic 
 arts might likewise extend, must yield, alto- 
 gether, where it was found incompatible with 
 beauty ; and where it was compatible with 
 beauty, must, at least, be subordinated to that. 
 
 I will go no farther than the expression. 
 There are passions and degrees of passion 
 which manifest themselves in the countenance, 
 by the ugliest distortions, and throw the whole 
 body into such violent attitudes, that all the 
 beautiful lines which define it in a state of 
 rest, are lost. Accordingly, the ancient artists 
 either abstained altogether from the representa- 
 tion of these passions ; or they reduced them to 
 a lower degree, — one in which they are suscep- 
 tible of some measure of beauty. 
 
 Rage and despair disfigured none of their 
 works. I venture to affirm that they have never 
 represented a Fury.* 
 
 They reduced anger to earnestness. With 
 the poet, it was the angry Jupiter who hurled 
 the lightning; with the artist, it was only the 
 earnest. 
 
 Lamentation was softened into concern. And 
 where this could not be done. — where lamenta- 
 tion would have been as belittling as it was 
 disfiguring, — what did Timanthes in that case? 
 His picture of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, — 
 wherein he apportions to each of the spectators 
 the degree of sorrow, proper to each, but covers 
 the face of the father, which should have ex- 
 hibited the most intense of all; — is well known, 
 and many handsome things have been said con- 
 cerning it. One says : " the painter had so ex- 
 hausted himself in sad countenances, that he 
 
 * Except on coins, whose figures belong not to Art, but 
 to the language of symbols. 
 
89 
 
 despaired of his ability to give the father a 
 sadder one."* "He confessed by this," says 
 another, " that the grief of a father, in such a 
 case, is beyond all expression. 'j- For my part, 
 I see here neither the incompetence of the 
 artist, nor the incompetence of the art. With 
 the increase of the passion, the traits of coun- 
 tenance corresponding to that passion are pro- 
 portionally marked. The highest degree of it 
 has the most decided expression ; and nothing 
 in art is easier than to represent what is decided. 
 But Timanthes knew the limits which the 
 Graces have assigned to his art. He knew that 
 the degree of lamentation which became Aga- 
 memnon, as father, manifests itself in distor- 
 tions, which are always ugly. He carried the 
 expression of grief only so far as beauty and 
 dignity could be combined with it. What was 
 ugly he would fain have passed over, or would 
 fain have softened ; but since his composition 
 did not allow of both, what else remained but 
 to conceal it? — What he might not paint, he left 
 to be conjectured. This concealment is a sacri- 
 fice which the artist made to beauty. It is an 
 example showing, not how expression may be 
 carried beyond the bounds of art, but how it 
 must be made subject to the first law of art, the 
 law of beauty. 
 
 Now, applying this to the Laocoon, we see 
 clearly the reason which I am seeking. The 
 master laboured for the highest beauty possible, 
 under the given conditions of bodily pain. Bodily 
 pain, in all its deforming vehemence, was in- 
 compatible with that beauty. It was necessary 
 therefore, that he should reduce it, — that he 
 should soften cries into sighs. Not because 
 crying betrays an ignoble soul, but because it 
 disfigures the countenance, in a manner which 
 is disgusting. Do but tear open the mouth of 
 Laocoon, in imagination, and judge ! Let him 
 scream and see! Before, it was a creation which 
 inspired compassion, because it united pain with 
 beauty. Now, it has become an unsightly, an 
 abominable creation, from which we are fain to 
 turn away our faces, because the sight of pain 
 awakens displeasure ; and that displeasure is 
 not converted into the sweet sentiment of pity 
 by the beauty of the suffering object. 
 
 The mere wide opening of the mouth, setting 
 aside the violent and disgusting derangement 
 and distortion of the other parts of the counte- 
 nance, produced by it, — causes, in painting, a 
 spot and in sculpture, a cavity, which produces 
 the most disagreeable effect in the world. 
 Montfaucon discovered little taste when he de- 
 clared an old, bearded head, with wide, gaping 
 mouth, to be a Jupiter delivering an oracle.^ 
 Must a god scream when he discloses the fu- 
 ture ? Would an agreeable outline of the mouth 
 render his speech suspicious ? Neither do I 
 believe Valerius, when he says that Ajax, in the 
 
 * Pliny, lib. xxxv. sect. 35. 
 
 | Valerius Maximus, lib. viii. cap. 2. 
 
 X Antiq. expl. T. I. p. 50. 
 
 M 
 
 abovementioned picture of Timanthes, is repre- 
 sented as screaming.* Far inferior masters, and 
 that too, in times when art had already dege- 
 nerated, do not let even the wildest barbarians, 
 when suffering the terrors of death beneath the 
 sword of the conqueror, open the mouth so wide 
 as to scream. 
 
 It is certain that this reduction of extreme 
 bodily pain to a lesser degree of feeling was 
 observable in various ancient works of art. The 
 suffering Hercules in the poisoned garment, by 
 an unknown master, was not the Sophoclean 
 Hercules, who shrieked so dreadfully, that the 
 Locrian rocks and the Eubaean Cape resounded 
 with his cries. He was mure gloomy than wild. 
 The Philoctetes of Pythagoras Leontinus seemed 
 to communicate his sufferings to the beholder, 
 an effect which the slightest touch of the horri- 
 ble would have prevented. 
 
 III. 
 
 But, as has been hinted, art, in modern times, 
 has had its limits greatly enlarged. It is con- 
 tended that the sphere of its imitations embraces 
 the whole extent of visible nature, of which the 
 beautiful is only a small part. Truth and ex- 
 pression are said to be its first law ; and as 
 Nature herself always sacrifices beauty to higher 
 ends, so the artist also is required to subordinate 
 the beautiful to his general calling, and to pursue 
 it no further than truth and expression permit. 
 Enough that by truth and expression, deformi- 
 ties of Nature are changed into beauties of Art. 
 
 Suppose we leave uncontested, for the pre- 
 sent, the worth or unworthiness of these views, 
 may there not be other considerations, indepen- 
 dent of these, which should induce the artist to 
 set bounds to expression, and not to take it from 
 the extreme point of the action represented ? 
 
 I think that the single moment of time, to 
 which the material limits of art confine all its 
 imitations, will lead to such considerations. 
 
 Since the artist can use but one moment of 
 everchanging nature, and the painter, more 
 especially, can use that moment only from a 
 single point of view; and since their works are 
 made, not to be seen merely, but to be contem- 
 plated, and to be contemplated repeatedly and 
 long, it is evident that in the selection of that 
 single moment and that single point of view, 
 too much care cannot be had to choose the most 
 fruitful. But only that is fruitful which gives 
 the imagination free play. The more we see, 
 the more we must be able to imagine ; and the 
 more we imagine, the more we must think we 
 see. Now, in the whole course of a passion, 
 
 * He enumerates the degrees of grief expressed by 
 Timanthes as follows: — Calchantem tnstem, moestmn 
 Ulyssern, clamantem Ajacem, lamentantem Menelaum.— 
 A screaming Ajax would have been an ugly figure; and 
 since Cicero and Quintilian do not mention it in their 
 descriptions of this work, I am the rather justified in 
 regarding it as an addition, with which Valerius has 
 enriched it, out of his own head. 
 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 there is no one moment which possesses this 
 advantage in so slight a degree, as the climax 
 of that passion. There is nothing beyond it ; 
 and to exhibit to the eye the uttermost, is to 
 bind the wings of Imagination, and to compel 
 her, since she is unable to exceed the sensible 
 impression, to occupy herself with feebler 
 images, below that impression, shunning, as 
 limitation, the visible fulness expressed. When, 
 therefore, Laocoon sighs, Imagination can hear 
 him cry; but when he cries, she can neither 
 rise one step above that representation, nor sink 
 one step below it, without beholding him in a 
 more tolerable, and, consequently, less interest- 
 ing condition. She hears him merely groan, or 
 she sees him already dead. 
 
 Further, since this single moment receives 
 from art an unchangeable duration, it should 
 express nothing that can be conceived only as 
 transient. All phenomena to whose essence, 
 according to our notion, it belongs, to break 
 forth suddenly, and suddenly to vanish, — to be 
 what they are for one moment only, — all such 
 phenomena, whether pleasing or terrible, ac- 
 quire, through the prolongation given to them 
 in works of art, so unnatural an aspect, that the 
 impression is weakened each time we look 
 upon it, until, at last, the whole subject pro- 
 duces only shuddering or disgust. La Metrie, 
 who caused himself to be painted and engraved 
 as a second Democritus, laughs but the first 
 time he is seen. If we look at him often, the 
 philosopher becomes a buffoon, and the laugh 
 changes to a grin. So of cries. The violent 
 pain which extorts the cry is either soon re- 
 lieved, or else it destroys the sufferer. Although, 
 therefore, a man of the greatest patience and 
 fortitude may cry, he does not cry unceasingly. 
 And it is only this appearance of perpetuity in 
 the material imitations of art, that makes his 
 crying seem like feminine impotence or like 
 childish petulance. This, at least, the author 
 of the Laocoon was bound to avoid, even 
 though the act of crying were not incompatible 
 with beauty, or though his art would allow him 
 to express suffering without beauty. 
 
 Among ancient painters, Timomachus seems 
 to have delighted most in scenes of vehement 
 passion. His raving Ajax and his infanticide 
 Medea were celebrated paintings. But, from 
 the descriptions we have of them, it appears 
 that he well understood and knew how to seize 
 that point, where the beholder does not so much 
 see as imagine the uttermost, — that appearance 
 with which we do not so necessarily connect 
 the idea of transitoriness, that we are displeased 
 with the prolongation of it. The Medea he did 
 not represent at the moment when she is ac- 
 tually slaying her children, but at the moment 
 previous to that, when maternal love is yet 
 contending with jealousy. We foresee the result 
 of this conflict. We tremble in anticipation of 
 beholding soon the cruel Medea only, and our 
 imagination far surpasses all that the painter 
 could exhibit to us of that dread moment. But 
 
 for that very reason, the continued irresolution 
 of Medea is so far from displeasing, in a work 
 of art, that we even wish it had been so in 
 reality, — that the conflict had never been de- 
 cided, or had been protracted, until time and 
 reflection should have assuaged the fury of 
 passion, and secured to the maternal sentiment 
 the victory. Timomachus earned great and 
 frequent praises by this proof of wisdom, which 
 gave him a decided superiority over another 
 unknown painter, who was foolish enough to 
 exhibit Medea at the very height of her mad- 
 ness, and thus to give that fleeting and transient 
 fit of extreme rage, a permanence which is an 
 outrage against Nature. A poet who reproaches 
 him witVi this want of judgment, says wittily, — 
 addressing the picture itself, — " Dost thou then 
 forever thirst after the blood of thy children'? 
 Is there ever a new Jason, ever a new Creusa 
 incessantly irritating thee ? To the Devil with 
 thee, then, even in the picture," he adds, full 
 of disgust. 
 
 Of the Raving Ajax of Timomachus, some 
 judgment may be formed from the account of 
 Philostratus.* Ajax was not represented in it, 
 as he storms among the herds, chaining and 
 slaying oxen and rams instead of men. But 
 the master exhibits him, on the contrary, as he 
 sits exhausted there, after these mad exploits, 
 and revolves the intention of destroying him- 
 self. And that is truly the "raving Ajax,'' not 
 because he raves at this moment, but because 
 it is evident that he has been raving, and be- 
 cause the extent of his madness is seen most 
 vividly in the shame and despair which over- 
 whelm him at the recollection. The storm is 
 inferred from the wrecks and the corpses which 
 it has cast upon the strand. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I review the reasons assigned, why the au- 
 thor of the Laocoon was obliged to observe a 
 certain measure in the representation of bodily 
 pain; and I find that they are all derived from 
 the peculiar nature of his art, and its necessary 
 limits and requirements. They will hardly be 
 found applicable to poetry. 
 
 Without inquiring at present, how far the 
 poet can succeed in depicting corporeal beauty, 
 it is indisputable that, as the whole immea- 
 surable domain of perfection is open to him, so 
 the visible form, by means of which perfection 
 becomes beauty, is only one of the least of 
 those aids by which he contrives to interest us 
 in his characters. Oftentimes he neglects this 
 aid altogether, assured that when his hero has 
 once obtained our good-will, we shall be so 
 much occupied with his nobler qualities, that 
 we shall not think of his personal appearance; 
 or so won by them, that, if we do think of the 
 person, we shall give it, of our own accord, a 
 beautiful, or at least an indifferent look. At all 
 events, he will not find it necessary to consult 
 
 * Vita Apoll. lib. ii. cap. 22. 
 
LESSING. 
 
 91 
 
 the eye in each particular trait, which is not 
 expressly designed for the eye. When Virgil's 
 Laocoon cries, who considers that a large mouth 
 is necessary for this purpose, and that a large 
 mouth is not becoming. Enough that " Clamo- 
 res horrendos ad sidera tollit" is sublime to the 
 ear, whatever it may be to the eye. If any 
 one requires here a beautiful image, he has 
 entirely missed the impression which the poet 
 intended. 
 
 Again, the poet is not required to concentrate 
 his sketch into a single moment. He can, if he 
 pleases, take each action at its origin and carry 
 it through to its termination. Each of those 
 variations, which would cost the painter a 
 separate picture, costs him but a single stroke. 
 And though this one stroke, in itself consider- 
 ed, might offend the imagination of the hearer, 
 it is so well prepared by what preceded, or so 
 qualified and compensated by what follows, 
 that it loses its individuality, and, taken in con- 
 nection with the rest, produces the most charm- 
 ing effect. Although, therefore, it were really 
 unbecoming for a man to cry out in the ex- 
 tremity of pain; how can this trifling, transient 
 impropriety injure, in our estimation, one whom 
 we have already learned to know and to love, 
 as the most careful of patriots, and the most 
 devoted of fathers ? We refer his cries, not to 
 his character, but solely to his intolerable pain. 
 This is all that we hear in his cries; and it 
 was only by means of them, that the poet could 
 make that pain apparent to his readers. 
 
 Who then will reproach him? Who will 
 not rather confess that, if the artist did well 
 not to represent Laocoon as crying, the poet 
 did equally well to let him cry. 
 
 FROM "THE EDUCATION OF THE 
 HUMAN RACE."* 
 
 What education is to the individual, revela- 
 tion is to the whole human race. 
 
 Education is a revelation which is made to 
 the individual ; and revelation is an education 
 which has taken place and is still taking place 
 with the whole human race. 
 
 Whether any advantage may accrue to the 
 science of education, by considering education 
 from this point of view, I shall not here inquire. 
 But unquestionably, it may be of great use in 
 theology, and may help to resolve many diffi- 
 
 * This Essay is considered as one of great importance 
 in speculative theology. It contains the germ of all that 
 is most valuable in subsequent speculations on these 
 subjects. The greater part of it is given above. The 
 little that has been omitted seemed not to be essential to 
 the fair presentation of the author's idea. The original 
 is divided into formal propositions, numbering one hun- 
 dred. It was thought best to omit the formality of the 
 numbers in the translation. 
 
 culties, to regard revelation as an education of 
 the human race. 
 
 Education gives man nothing which he might 
 not have had from himself; it only gives him 
 that, which he might have had from himself, 
 more rapidly and more easily. So too, revela- 
 tion gives mankind nothing which the human 
 reason, left to itself, might , not also have at- 
 tained to ; but it gave ihem and gives them 
 what is most important, sooner. 
 
 And as, in education, it is not a matter of in- 
 difference, in what order the faculties of man 
 are unfolded, as education cannot communi- 
 cate all things at once, — even so God, in his 
 revelation, has found it necessary to observe a 
 certain order, a certain measure. 
 
 Although the first man had been furnished, 
 at the outset, with the notion of an only God, 
 yet this notion, being not an acquired, but an 
 itnparted one, could not possibly continue, in 
 its purity, for any length of time. As soon as 
 human reason, left to itself, began to work upon 
 it, it separated the one Immeasurable into 
 several Immeasurables, and gave to each of 
 these parts its own peculiar characteristic. 
 
 Thus arose, in a natural way, polytheism and 
 idolatry. And who knows how many million 
 years human reason might have wandered 
 about in these aberrations, notwithstanding 
 everywhere and at all times, individual men 
 perceived that they were aberrations ; had it 
 not pleased God, by a new impulse, to give it 
 a better direction ? 
 
 But since he could not and would not reveal 
 himself again to each individual, he selected a 
 single nation for his special training: and that 
 the most rude and savage of all, in order to 
 begin with them from the foundation. 
 
 This was the Israelitish nation, concerning 
 which, it is not even known, what kind of 
 worship they had in Egypt. For slaves so 
 degraded, as they were, were not allowed to 
 take part in the worship of the Egyptians ; and 
 the God of their fathers had become wholly 
 unknown to them. 
 
 Perhaps the Egyptians had expressly forbid- 
 den them any god or gods, had taught them 
 to believe that they had no god or gods, that 
 to have a god or gods was a prerogative of the 
 superior Egyptians. Perhaps they had taught 
 them this in order to tyrannize over them with 
 the greater show of justice. Do not Christians 
 at the present day pursue very much the same 
 course with their slaves'? 
 
 To this rude people, therefore, God caused 
 himself at first to be proclaimed as the God of 
 their fathers, in order first to familiarize them 
 with the idea, that they too had a God of their 
 own. 
 
 By means of the miracles with which he 
 brought them out of Egypt, he proved himself, 
 in the next place, a God who was mightier than 
 all other gods. And while he continued to 
 manifest himself as the mightiest of all, a dis- 
 tinction which only one can possess, he accus- 
 
92 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 tomed them gradually to the notion of an only 
 God. 
 
 But how far was this conception, of an only 
 God, below the true transcendental idea of 
 unity, which reason, so long afterward, learned 
 to deduce, with certainty, from the idea of in- 
 finity. 
 
 The nation was very far from being able to 
 raise itself to the true conception of the One, 
 although the more enlightened among the people 
 had already approximated more or less nearly 
 to this idea. And this was the true and only 
 cause why they so often forsook their own, and 
 thought to find the only, that is, the most power- 
 ful God, in some other divinity, of another nation. 
 
 But what kind of moral training was possible 
 for a nation so rude, so unskilled in abstract 
 thought, so completely in its childhood? Only 
 such a one as corresponds with the period of 
 childhood ; an education by means of immediate, 
 sensual rewards and punishments. 
 
 So here again, education and revelation coin- 
 cide. As yet, God could give his people no 
 other religion and no other law than one, by the 
 keeping or transgressing of which, they might 
 hope to be happy or fear to be wretched, here 
 on earth. For, as yet, their thoughts extended 
 no further than the present life. They knew 
 of no immortality of the soul; they longed for 
 no future state of being. To have revealed to 
 them those things to which their reason as yet 
 was so little adequate, what else would this 
 have been, on the part of God, but to commit 
 the fault of the vain pedagogue, who would 
 rather urge his pupil forward and make a dis- 
 play of his proficiency, than instruct him tho- 
 rough ly ? 
 
 But wherefore, it may be asked, wherefore 
 this education of so rude a people, with whom 
 it was necessary to begin thus at the very be- 
 ginning? I answer, to the end that individuals 
 among them might, in process of time, be used, 
 with so much the greater safety, as educators 
 of other nations. God educated in them the 
 future teachers of mankind. This the Jews 
 became; and only they could become this, — 
 only men of a nation so trained. 
 
 For, further. When the child had grown up, 
 under blows and caresses, and was now arrived 
 to years of discretion, all at once, the Father 
 sent it abroad. And there, at once, it acknow- 
 ledged the advantages it had enjoyed without 
 acknowledging them in its Father s house. 
 
 During the time that God had led his chosen 
 people through all the stages of a childish dis- 
 cipline, the other nations of the earth had ad- 
 vanced, in their own way, by the light of rea- 
 son. Most of them had remained far behind 
 the chosen people, but some of them had out- 
 stripped it. And thus it happens with children 
 who are suffered to grow up by themselves. 
 Many remain quite rude, but some cultivate 
 themselves to an astonishing degree. 
 
 But these favoured few prove nothing against 
 the use and the necessity of education. And 
 
 so the few heathen nations which, up to this 
 period, seemed to have got the start of the cho- 
 sen people, even in the knowledge of God, 
 prove nothing against revelation. The child of 
 education begins with slow but certain steps ; 
 it is late in overtaking many a more happily 
 organized child of Nature, but it does overtake 
 it at last, and, thenceforward, can nevermore 
 be overtaken by it. 
 
 As yet the Jewish nation had worshipped, in 
 their Jehovah, rather the mightiest than the 
 wisest of all the gods ; as yet they had feared 
 him, as a jealous God, rather than loved him. 
 And this too may serve as a proof, that the con- 
 ceptions they had formed of their highest and 
 only God, are not exactly the true conceptions, 
 those which we ought to have of God. But now 
 the time had arrived when these conceptions 
 of theirs were to be enlarged, ennobled, rectified. 
 For this purpose, God made use of a quite 
 natural method ; — a better and more correct 
 standard, by which they had now the oppor- 
 tunity of estimating him. 
 
 Hitherto, they had measured him only with 
 the miserable idols of the small and rude na- 
 tions, their neighbours, with whom they had 
 lived in a state of perpetual jealousy : but now, 
 in their captivity, under the wise Persians, they 
 began to measure him with the Being of all 
 beings, whom a more disciplined reason had 
 learned to acknowledge and to adore. 
 
 Revelation had guided their reason, and now, 
 all at once, reason threw light upon their reve- 
 lation. 
 
 This was the first mutual service which both 
 rendered to each other ; and so far is this reci- 
 procal influence from being derogatory to the 
 author of both, that, without it, one of the two 
 would be superfluous. 
 
 The child, sent into foreign lands, saw other 
 children, who knew more and behaved better 
 than himself. Mortified, he asked himself, why 
 do not I know that too? Why do not I also 
 live thus? Might not this have been taught to 
 me also in my Father's house? Might not I 
 also have been held to this ? Then he looks up 
 his elementary books once more, with which 
 he had long been disgusted, for the sake of 
 casting the blame upon them. But behold! he 
 recognizes that it is not the fault of the books, 
 but purely his own fault, that he did not long 
 ago possess the same knowledge and live in the 
 same manner. 
 
 Thus enlightened respecting their own na- 
 tional treasures, the Jews returned and became 
 an entirely different people, whose first care 
 was to make this light permanent among them- 
 selves. Soon there was no more thought of de- 
 fection or idolatry. For one may become faith- 
 less to a national god, but never to God, when 
 once a true knowledge of him has been attained. 
 
 Theologians have sought to explain this entire 
 change of the Jewish people, in different ways. 
 And one who has well exposed the insufficiency 
 of these different explanations, assigns, as the 
 
LESSING. 93 
 
 true reason of this change, the visible fulfilment 
 of the prophecies uttered and written respecting 
 the Babylonish captivity and the restoration 
 from the same. But this reason, too, can be 
 true only as it supposes more elevated concep- 
 tions of God, now first attained to. Now, for 
 the first time, the Jews must have perceived, 
 that working miracles and foretelling the future 
 belonged to God alone. Hitherto, they had as- 
 cribed both to the false idols; and this was the 
 reason that miracle and prophecy had hitherto 
 made so feeble and transient an impression on 
 their minds. 
 
 Without doubt, too, the Jews became more 
 familiar with the doctrine of immortality, under 
 the Chaldeans and Persians. They obtained a 
 still more intimate acquaintance with it, in the 
 schools of the Greek philosophers in Egypt. 
 
 But it was not with this doctrine, in their sa- 
 cred writings, as it was with that of the unity 
 and the attributes of God. And therefore the 
 belief in the immortality of the soul, could never 
 be the belief of the whole people. It was and 
 continued the belief only of a particular sect. 
 
 A preparation for the doctrine of the immor- 
 tality of the soul may be found in the divine 
 threat to visit the sins of the fathers upon the 
 children, to the third and fourth generation. 
 This accustomed the fathers to live, in imagina- 
 tion, with their latest posterity, and to feel, in 
 anticipation, the misery they might bring upon 
 their innocent heads. An allusion to this doc- 
 trine is found in whatever would excite curi- 
 osity and give occasion for questions ; as, for 
 example, the often recurring phrase, "gathered 
 to his fathers," as synonymous with dying. An 
 indication of it is found in whatever contained 
 a germ from which the unrevealed truth could 
 be developed. Of this character, was the in- 
 ference which Christ drew from the expression, 
 " the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob." 
 This indication, indeed, seems to me capable 
 of being developed into a strict demonstration. 
 
 In these preparations, allusions, and indi- 
 cations, consists the positive perfection of an 
 elementary book. Its negative perfection con- 
 sists in this, that the way to those truths which 
 are still kept back, is not closed or obstructed. 
 
 But every elementary book is suited only to a 
 particular age. For the child, that has outgrown 
 it, to linger over it longer than was intended, is 
 injurious. For, in order to connect any kind of 
 use with this detention, it is necessary to sup- 
 pose more in the book than it actually contains, 
 to import into it more than it will bear. It is 
 necessary to seek and to make too many allu- 
 sions and hints, to shake out* the allegories too 
 assiduously, to interpret the examples too mi- 
 nutely, to press the words too far. In this way, 
 the child acquires a narrow, perverted, hair- 
 splitting mind, becomes fond of mystery, super- 
 stitious, and impatient of everything that is 
 
 * t. e. As one shakes a vessel or cloth, to empty it com- 
 pletely of its contents. Tr. 
 
 easy and intelligible. This is the way in which 
 the Rabbins treated their sacred books. This 
 was the kind of character which they, thereby, 
 impressed on the mind of their people. 
 
 A better teacher must come and snatch the 
 elementary book, which he has exhausted, out 
 of the pupil's hands. — Christ came. 
 
 God designed to embrace, in one plan of 
 education, only that portion of the human race, 
 which was already united in itself, by language, 
 by action, by government, and by otlier natural 
 and political relations. And this portion was 
 now ripe for the second great step in the pro- 
 gress of their education. That is, this portion 
 of mankind had advanced so far in the exercise 
 of their reason, as to be capable of and to re- 
 quire nobler and worthier motives for their 
 moral conduct, than the temporal rewards and 
 punishments which had guided them hitherto. 
 The infant becomes a boy. Sweetmeats and 
 toys give place to the growing desire to be as 
 free, as honoured and as happy as he sees his 
 older brothers and sisters. 
 
 The better sort among that portion of man- 
 kind had long been accustomed to be governed 
 by a shadow of these nobler motives. The 
 Greek and the Roman did everything, that they 
 might continue to live in the memory of their 
 fellow-citizens, after death. It was time that 
 another, actual life, to be expected after this, 
 should influence their actions. And thus Christ 
 became the first reliable, practical teacher of 
 the immortality of the soul. 
 
 The first reliable teacher — reliable, on ac- 
 count of the prophecies which seemed to be 
 fulfilled in him, on account of the miracles 
 which he performed, on account of his own 
 resurrection from the dead, with which he 
 sealed his doctrine. Whether we are able, at 
 this day, to demonstrate this resurrection and 
 these miracles, I shall leave out of view. I 
 shall also leave out of view the question, what 
 was the person of Christ 1 All this may have 
 been important to secure the reception of his 
 doctrine then, but it is no longer so necessary 
 to the understanding of his doctrine now. The 
 first practical teacher. For to suppose, to wish, 
 to believe the immortality of the soul, as a phi- 
 losophical speculation, is one thing; to conform 
 one's inward and outward life to it, is another 
 thing. And this, at least, was first taught by 
 Christ. For, though it was the belief of many 
 nations, before him, that evil actions would be 
 punished in the life to come, it was only those 
 actions which were injurious to society, and 
 which therefore had a penalty attached to them 
 already by society. It was reserved for him 
 alone to recommend inward purity of heart 
 with a view to another life. 
 
 His disciples faithfully disseminated this doc- 
 trine. And if they had rendered no other ser- 
 vice than to procure the more general diffusion, 
 among various nations, of a truth which Christ 
 seemed to have designed for the Jews alone, 
 | they ought, even on this account, to be reckoned 
 
94 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 among the educators and benefactors of the 
 human race. True, they mingled this one great 
 doctrine with other doctrines, the truth of which 
 was less apparent, and the use of which was 
 less edifying. How could it be otherwise? Let 
 us not, therefore, reproach them. Rather let us 
 seriously inquire whether even these associated 
 doctrines did not give a new impulse and direc- 
 tion to human reason. 
 
 This much, at least, is matter of experience, 
 that the books of the New Testament, in which 
 these doctrines, after some time, found a repo- 
 sitory, have furnished and still furnish the 
 second better elementary book for the human 
 race. For seventeen hundred years they have 
 occupied the human understanding more than 
 all other books. More than all other books, 
 they have enlightened it, even though it were 
 by means of that light which the human under- 
 standing itself has carried into it. No other 
 book could possibly have become so generally 
 known among different nations. And, unques- 
 tionably, the converse of such entirely dissimi- 
 lar modes of thought, with the same book, has 
 aided the human understanding more than if 
 each nation had had an elementary book of its 
 own, peculiar to itself. 
 
 Moreover, it was highly essential that each 
 nation should, for a time, regard this book as 
 the Non plus ultra of its knowledge. For the 
 boy, too, must look upon his elementary book, 
 in this light, at first, that his eagerness to finish 
 may not hurry him on to things for which he 
 has laid as yet no sufficient foundation. And, 
 what is still of the highest importance, beware, 
 you of superior ability, who stamp and glow 
 with impatience at the last page of this element- 
 tary book ; beware of betraying to your school- 
 mates what you suspect, or begin already to 
 discern. Until they have come up with you, 
 these weaker brethren, rather look back your- 
 self once more into this elementary book, and 
 examine if that which you regard as a pecu- 
 liarity in the method, or as intended to fill up 
 a gap in the didactic portions, be not something 
 more than that. 
 
 You have seen, in the infancy of mankind, in 
 the doctrine of the unity of God, that mere 
 truths of reason are taught, at first, as truths 
 directly revealed, in order to diffuse them more 
 rapidly, and to ground them more firmly. You 
 experience the same thing in the boyhood of 
 mankind, in the doctrine of the immortality of 
 the soul. This doctrine is preached, in the se- 
 cond, more perfect elementary book, as revela- 
 tion ; not taught as the result of human reason- 
 ing. As it no longer needs the Old Testament 
 to teach the unity of God, and as we gradually 
 begin to be able to dispense with the aid of the 
 New, in regard to the doctrine of the immortal- 
 ity of the soul, may there not be mirrored there 
 still other doctrines which it is designed that 
 we shall wonder at as revelations, until reason 
 has learned to deduce them from and to con- 
 nect them with other established truths ? 
 
 For example, the doctrine of the Trinity. What 
 if this doctrine were designed to guide the human 
 understanding at last, after numberless aberra- 
 tions to the right and to the left, to the recogni- 
 tion of the truth that God cannot be one in the 
 same sense in which finite things are one, — 
 that even his unity must be a transcendental 
 unity, not excluding a kind of plurality? Must 
 not God at least have the most perfect concep- 
 tion of himself? i. e. a conception in which 
 everything is contained, that is contained in 
 himself. But could everything be contained in 
 that conception which is contained in himself, 
 if, of his necessary actuality,* as of his other 
 qualities, there were merely a conception, a 
 bare possibility? This possibility exhausts the 
 essence of his other qualities, but does it also 
 of his necessary actuality ? I think not. Con- 
 sequently, either God can have no perfect con- 
 ception of himself, or this perfect conception is 
 just as necessarily actual, as he is himself. My 
 reflection in the mirror is an empty image of 
 me, and nothing more; because it has only that 
 of me, from which rays of light are thrown 
 upon the surface of the mirror. But if this 
 image contained everything, without exception, 
 that is contained in me, it would no longer be 
 a mere image, but an actual duplicate of my- 
 self. If I think I see the same duplication of 
 the being of God, it is not so much an error of 
 mine, perhaps, as it is the inability of language 
 to express my conception. This much is indis- 
 putable, that those who wished to make this 
 idea popular, could hardly have chosen a more 
 appropriate and intelligible expression than that 
 of a Son whom God generates from all eternity. 
 
 And the doctrine of hereditary sin. How, 
 if everything should convince us, at last, that 
 man, in the first and lowest stage of his hu- 
 manity, is not sufficiently master of his actions, 
 to be capable of obeying a moral law? 
 
 And the doctrine of the satisfaction made by 
 the Son. How, if everything should force us, 
 at last, to assume that God, notwithstanding 
 that original incapacity of man, chose rather to 
 give him moral laws and to pardon all trans- 
 gressions of the same, in consideration of his 
 Son, that is, in consideration of the self-subsis- 
 tent extent of all his perfections, before which 
 and in which, every imperfection of the in- 
 dividual vanishes; that he chose rather to do 
 this, I say, than not to give him moral laws, 
 and thereby to exclude him from that moral 
 felicity which cannot be conceived as possible, 
 without those laws? 
 
 Let it not be objected, that this kind of rea- 
 soning concerning the mysteries of religion is 
 forbidden. The word mystery signified, in the 
 first ages of Christianity, something very dif- 
 ferent from that which we understand by it 
 now ; and the development of revealed truths 
 into truths of reason is absolutely necessary, if 
 
 * The copy before me has fVirksamkeit (activity) which 
 I take to be a misprint for Wirklichkeit. Tr. 
 
LESSING. 
 
 95 
 
 ever men are to be helped by them. At the 
 time when they were revealed, they were not 
 yet truths of reason ; but they were revealed 
 in order to become so. They were the Farit, 
 as it were, which the arithmetical teacher tells 
 his scholars beforehand, in order that they may 
 have some regard to it, in their reckoning. If 
 the scholars were to content themselves with 
 the Facit announced to them beforehand, they 
 would never learn to reckon, and so fail to 
 fulfil the purpose for which the good master 
 gave them a clue in their labours. 
 
 And why may we not be guided by a re- 
 ligion, with whose historical truth, if you please, 
 there are so many difficulties, to nearer and 
 better conceptions of the Divine Being, of our 
 own nature and our relations to God, excep- 
 tions to which human reason would never 
 have attained of itself? 
 
 It is not true, that speculations concerning 
 these things have ever done mischief, or proved 
 injurious to society. Not the speculations them- 
 selves, but the folly, the tyranny, of attempting 
 to suppress them, of not allowing their own 
 to those who had their own, is liable to this 
 reproach. On the contrary, these speculations, 
 whatever may be their result in individual 
 cases, are unquestionably the most fitting exer- 
 cise of the human understanding, generally, as 
 long as the human heart, generally, is only 
 capable, at the utmost, of loving virtue for the 
 sake of its eternally happy consequences. For, 
 with this self-interestedness of the human heart, 
 to exercise the human understanding, also, on 
 those things only, which concern our bodily 
 necessities, would tend rather to blunt than to 
 sharpen it. It needs, positively, to be exer- 
 cised with spiritual objects, if ever it is to 
 attain its perfect illumination, and produce that 
 purity of heart which shall make us capable 
 of loving virtue for its own sake. 
 
 Or is the human race destined never to 
 reach this highest grade of culture and purity? 
 Never? Let me not imagine this blasphemy, 
 thou All-good ! Education has its aim, with 
 the race, not less than with the individual. 
 That which is educated is educated for some 
 end. The flattering prospects which are opened 
 to the youth, the honour and affluence which 
 are held up before him, — what are these, but 
 means by which he is educated to become a 
 man, a man who, though these prospects of 
 affluence and honour should fail, shall still be 
 capable of doing his duty? Is this the aim of 
 human education? And does the Divine educa- 
 tion fall short of this ? Wnat Art can accom- 
 plish with the individual, shall not Nature ac- 
 complish with the whole? Blasphemy! Blas- 
 phemy ! 
 
 No! it will come! it will surely come, the 
 period of perfection, when, the more convinced 
 his understanding is of an ever better Future, 
 the less man will need to borrow from that 
 Future the motives of his actions ; when he 
 will choose the good because it is good, and 
 
 not because arbitrary rewards are annexed to 
 it which are only to fix and strengthen his 
 wandering gaze, at first, until he is able to ap- 
 preciate the interior and nobler reward of well- 
 doing. It will surely come, the period of a 
 new, eternal gospel, which is promised us, even 
 in the elementary books of the New Covenant. 
 Proceed in thine imperceptible course, Eternal 
 Providence! Only let me not despair of thee, 
 because imperceptible. Let me not despair of 
 thee, even though thy steps, to me, should seem 
 to retrograde. It is not true, that the shortest 
 way is always a straight one. Thou hast, in 
 thine eternal course, so much to take along 
 with thee ! So many sidelong steps to make ! 
 And what if it be now, as good as proved, that 
 the great, slow wheel which brings the race 
 nearer to its perfection, is put in motion, only 
 by smaller, quicker wheels, of which each con- 
 tributes its part to the same end ? 
 
 Not otherwise ! The path, by which the race 
 attains to its perfection, each individual man — 
 some earlier, and some later — must first have 
 gone over. " Must have gone over in one and 
 the same life? Can he have been a sensual 
 Jew and a spiritual Christian in the same life ? 
 Can he, in the same life, have overtaken both 
 these?" Perhaps not! But why may not each 
 individual man have existed more than once 
 in this world? Is this hypothesis, therefore, so 
 ridiculous, because it is the oldest ? because it 
 is the one which the human understanding im- 
 mediately hit upon, before it was distracted and 
 weakened by the sophistry of the schools? Why 
 may not I, at one time, have accomplished, 
 already here on earth, all those steps tov\ ai d 
 my perfection, which mere temporal rewards 
 and punishments will enable man to accom- 
 plish ; and, at another time, all those, in which 
 we are so powerfully assisted by the prospect 
 of eternal compensations? Why should 1 not 
 return as often as I am able to acquire new 
 knowledges, new talents? Is it because I carry 
 away so much, at one time, as to make it not 
 worth the while to return? Or, because I for- 
 get that I have been here before ? It is well 
 for me that I forget it. The remembrance of 
 my former states would allow me to make but 
 a poor use of the present. Besides, what I am 
 necessitated to forget now, have I forgotten it 
 forever? Or because, on this supposition, too 
 much time would be lost to me? Lost? What 
 have I then to delay? Is not the whole eternity 
 mine ? 
 
 FABLES. 
 
 ZEUS* AND THE SHEEP. 
 
 The sheep was doomed to suffer much from 
 all the animals. She came to Zeus and prayed 
 
 * The Father of the Gods is, by German writers, more 
 often designated by his Greek than by his Latin name. 
 The translator has thought best to retain this appellation 
 where it occurs in the original. 
 
96 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 him to lighten her misery. Zeus appeared 
 willing, and said to the sheep : I see indeed, my 
 good creature, I have made thee too defenceless. 
 Now choose in what way I may best remedy 
 this defect. Shall I furnish thy mouth with ter- 
 rible teeth and thy feet with claws? 
 
 Ah ! no, said the sheep, I do not wish to have 
 anything in common with the beasts of prey. 
 
 Or, continued Zeus, shall I infuse poison into 
 thy spittle ? 
 
 Alas! replied the sheep; the poisonous ser- 
 pents are so hated. 
 
 What then shall I do ? I will plant horns in 
 thy forehead, and give strength to thy neck. 
 
 Not so, kind Father ! I might be disposed to 
 butt like the he-goat. 
 
 And yet, said Zeus, thou must, thyself, be 
 able to injure others, if others are to beware of 
 injuring thee. 
 
 Must I ? sighed the sheep. ! then, Kind 
 Father, let me be as I am. For the ability to 
 injure will excite, I fear, the desire. And it is 
 better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. 
 
 Zeus blessed the good sheep, and from that 
 time forth, she forgot to complain. 
 
 THE BLIND HEN. 
 
 A hen which had become blind continued to 
 scratch for food as she had been used. What 
 availed it the industrious fool? Another hen, 
 that could see, but wished to spare her tender 
 feet, never forsook the side of the former, 
 and without scratching enjoyed the fruit of 
 scratching. For as often as the blind hen turned 
 up a corn, the seeing one devoured it. 
 
 The laborious German compiles the collectanea 
 which the witty Frenchman uses. 
 
 THE WOLF ON HIS DEATHBED. 
 
 A wolf lay at the last gasp, and was review- 
 ing his past life. It is true, said he, I am a 
 sinner, but yet, I hope, not one of the greatest. 
 I have done evil, but I have also done much 
 good. Once, I remember, a bleating lamb that 
 had strayed from the flock, came so near to me, 
 that I might easily have throttled it; but I did 
 it no harm. At the same time, I listened with 
 the most astonishing indifference to the gibes 
 and scoffs of a sheep, although I had nothing to 
 fear from protecting dogs. 
 
 I can testify to all that, said his friend the 
 fox, who was helping him prepare for death. I 
 remember perfectly all the circumstances. It 
 was just at the time when you were so dread- 
 fully choked with that bone, which the good- 
 natured crane afterwards drew out of your 
 throat. 
 
 .flSSOP AND THE ASS. 
 
 Said the ass to iEsop : The next time you tell 
 a story about me, let me say something that is 
 right rational and ingenious. 
 
 You something ingenious! said ^Esop ; what 
 propriety would there be in that ? Would not the 
 people say you were the moralist and I the ass? 
 
 HERCULES. 
 
 When Hercules was received into heaven he 
 paid his respects to Juno before all the other 
 divinities. The whole Heaven and Juno were 
 astonished. Dost thou show such preference to 
 thine enemy? Yes, replied Hercules, even to 
 her. It was her persecution alone, that furnished 
 the occasion of those exploits, with which I have 
 earned Heaven. 
 
 Olympus approved the answer of the new 
 God, and Juno was reconciled. 
 
 THE BOY AND THE SERPENT. 
 
 A boy played with a tame serpent. My dear 
 little animal, said the boy; I would not be so 
 familiar with thee had not thy poison been 
 taken from thee. You serpents are the most 
 malicious and ungrateful of all animals. I have 
 read how it fared with a poor countryman who, 
 in his compassion, took up a serpent, — perhaps 
 it was one of thy ancestors, — which he found 
 half-frozen under a hedge, and put it into his 
 bosom to warm it. Scarcely had the wicked 
 creature begun to revive, when it bit its bene- 
 factor ; and the poor, kind countryman was 
 doomed to die. 
 
 I am amazed, said the serpent. How partial 
 your historians must be ! Ours relate the affair 
 very differently. Thy kind man thought the 
 serpent was actually frozen, and, because it 
 was one of the variegated sort, he put it into 
 his bosom, in order, when he reached home, to 
 strip off its beautiful skin. Was that right ? 
 
 Ah ! be still ! replied the boy. When was 
 there ever an ingrate who did not know how 
 to justify himself? 
 
 True, my son, said his father, who had listened 
 to the conversation. Nevertheless, when you 
 hear of an extraordinary instance of ingratitude, 
 be sure to examine carefully all the circum- 
 stances, before you brand a human being with 
 so detestable a fault. Real benefactors have 
 seldom had ungrateful debtors; — no! I will 
 hope, for the honour of humanity, — never. But 
 benefactors with petty, interested motives, — 
 they, my son, deserve to reap ingratitude in- 
 stead of acknowledgments. 
 
 THE YOUNG SWALLOW. 
 
 What are you doing there? demanded a 
 swallow of the busy ants. We are collecting 
 stores for the winter, was the ready answer. 
 
 That is wise, said the swallow; I will do so 
 too. And immediately she began to carry a 
 number of dead spiders and flies into her nest. 
 
 But to what purpose is that? asked her mother 
 at last. To what purpose ? Stores for the ugly 
 winter, dear mother. Do thou gather likewise. 
 The ants have taught me this providence. 
 
 0! leave to earthly ants this small wisdom; 
 replied the old one. That which befits them, 
 befits not the nobler swallows. Kind Nature 
 has destined us for a happier fate. When the 
 rich Summer is ended, we go hence; we gra- 
 dually fall asleep on our journey, and then 
 
LESSING. 
 
 07 
 
 warm marshes receive us, where we rest with- 
 out wants, until a new Spring awakens us to a 
 new life. 
 
 THE APE AND THE FOX. 
 
 Name to me an animal, though never so skil- 
 ful, that I cannot imitate ! So bragged the ape 
 to the fox. But the fox replied : And do thou 
 name to me an animal so humble as to think of 
 imitating thee ! 
 
 Writers of my country! Need I explain my- 
 self more fully ! 
 
 ZEIS AND THE HORSE. 
 
 Father of beasts and of men ! — so spake the 
 horse, approaching the throne of Zeus, — I am 
 said to be one of the most beautiful animals 
 with which thou hast adorned the world ; and 
 my self-love leads me to believe it. Neverthe- 
 less, might not some things in me still be im- 
 proved ? 
 
 And what in thee, thinkest thou, admits of 
 improvement? Speak! I am open to instruc- 
 tion, said the indulgent god with a smile. 
 
 Perhaps, returned the horse, I should be 
 fleeter if my legs were taller and thinner. A 
 long swan -neck would not disfigure me. A 
 broader breast would add to my strength. And, 
 since thou hast once for all destined me to bear 
 thy favourite, man, — the saddle which the well- 
 meaning rider puts upon me might be created 
 a part of me. 
 
 Good ! replied Zeus, wait a moment. Zeus, 
 with earnest countenance, pronounced the cre- 
 ative word. Then flowed life into the dust ; 
 then organized matter combined ; and suddenly 
 stood before the throne, the ugly camel. 
 
 The horse saw, shuddered and trembled with 
 fear and abhorrence. 
 
 Here, said Zeus, are taller and thinner legs ; 
 here is a long swan-neck; here is a broader 
 breast; here is the created saddle! Wilt thou, 
 horse ! that I should transform thee after this 
 fashion ? 
 
 The horse still trembled. 
 
 Go ! continued Zeus. Be instructed, for this 
 once, without being punished. But to remind 
 thee, with occasional compunction, of thy pre- 
 sumption, — do thou, new creation, continue ! — 
 Zeus cast a preserving glance on the camel ; — 
 and never shall the horse behold thee without 
 shuddering. 
 
 THE RAVEN. 
 
 The fox saw how the raven robbed the altars 
 of the gods, and lived, like them, upon their 
 sacrifices. And he thought within himself: I 
 would like to know, whether the raven par- 
 takes of the sacrifices because he is a prophetic 
 bird ; or whether he is considered a prophetic 
 bird, because he is so bold as to partake of the 
 sacrifices. 
 
 THE EAGLE AND THE FOX. 
 
 Be not so proud of thy flight ! said the fox to 
 the eagle. Thou mountest so high into the air 
 
 N 
 
 for no other purpose but to look farther about 
 thee for carrion. 
 
 So have I known men who became deep- 
 thinking philosophers, not from love of truth, 
 but for the sake of lucrative offices of instruction. 
 
 THE SWALLOW. 
 
 Believe me, friends! the great world is not 
 for the philosopher, — is not for the poet. Their 
 real value is not appreciated there ; and often, 
 alas ! they are weak enough to exchange it for 
 a far inferior one. 
 
 In the earliest times, the swallow was as 
 tuneful and melodious a bird as the nightingale. 
 But she soon grew tired of living in the solitary 
 bushes, heard and admired by no one but the 
 industrious countryman, and the innocent shep- 
 herdess. She forsook her humbler friend and 
 moved into the city. What followed ? Because 
 the people of the city had no time to listen to 
 her divine song, she gradually forgot it, and 
 learned, instead thereof, to — build ! 
 
 THE RAVEN. 
 
 The raven remarked that the eagle sat thirty 
 days upon her eggs. "And that, undoubtedly," 
 said she, " is the reason why the young of the 
 eagle are so all -seeing and strong. Good! I 
 will do the same." 
 
 And since then, the raven actually sits thirty 
 days upon her eggs ; but, as yet, she has hatched 
 nothing but miserable ravens. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SOLOMON. 
 
 An honest old man still bore the burden and 
 heat of the day. With his own hands he 
 ploughed his field; with his own hand he cast 
 the pure seed into the loosened bosom of the 
 willing earth. 
 
 Suddenly under the broad shadow of a Lin- 
 den-tree, there stood before him a godlike ap- 
 parition. The old man was astounded. I am 
 Solomon, said the phantom, with a voice which 
 inspired confidence. What dost thou here, old 
 man 1 
 
 If thou art Solomon, replied the old man, how 
 canst thou ask? In my youth, thou sentest me 
 to the ant: I considered her ways, I learned 
 from her to be diligent and to hoard. What I 
 then learned, I still practise. 
 
 Thou hast learned thy lesson but half, re- 
 turned the Spirit. Go to the ant again ! And 
 now learn from her, also, to rest in the winter 
 of thy days, and to enjoy what thou hast ga- 
 thered ! 
 
 THE SHEEP. 
 
 When Jupiter celebrated his nuptials, and 
 all the animals brought him gifts. Juno missed 
 the sheep. 
 
 Where is the sheep ? asked the goddess. 
 Why does the good sheep delay to bring us her 
 well-meant offering? 
 
 The dog took upon himself to reply, and said : 
 9 
 
9b 
 
 LESSING. 
 
 Be not angry, Goddess! It is but to-day that I 
 saw the sheep. She was very sad, and lamented 
 aloud. 
 
 And why grieved the sheep ? asked the God- 
 dess, beginning to be moved. 
 
 Ah wretched me ! she said ; I have, at pre- 
 sent, neither wool nor milk. What shall I bring 
 to Jupiter? Shall I, I alone, appear empty before 
 him? Rather will I go and beg the shepherd 
 to make an offering of me. 
 
 At this moment, — together with the prayer 
 of the shepherd, — the smoke of the offered sheep 
 ascended to Jupiter through the clouds, — a 
 sweet-smelling savour. And now had Juno 
 wept the first tear, if ever tears bedewed im- 
 mortal eyes. 
 
 THE POSSESSOR OF THE BOW. 
 
 A man had an excellent bow of ebony, with 
 which he shot very far and very sure, and which 
 he valued at a great price. But once, after con- 
 sidering it attentively, he said: "A little too 
 rude still ! Your only ornament is your polish. 
 It is a pity! However, that can be remedied," 
 thought he. " I will go and let a first-rate artist 
 carve something on the bow." He went, and 
 the artist carved an entire hunting-scene upon 
 the bow. And what more fitting for a bow 
 than a hunting-scene ? 
 
 The man was delighted. "You deserve this 
 embellishment, my beloved bow." So saying 
 he wished to try it. He drew the string. The 
 bow broke ! 
 
 THE AGED WOLF.* 
 
 The mischievous wolf had begun to decline 
 in years, and conceived the conciliating resolu- 
 tion of living on a good footing with the shep- 
 herds. Accordingly, he took up his march and 
 came to the shepherd whose folds were nearest 
 to his den. Shepherds ! said he, you call me a 
 blood-thirsty robber, which I really am not. To 
 be sure, I must hold by your sheep, when I am 
 hungry ; for hunger hurts. Protect me from 
 hunger ; only give me enough to eat, and you 
 shall be very well satisfied with me ; for really, 
 I am the tamest and most gentle of creatures, 
 when I have had enough to eat. 
 
 When you have had enough? Very likely; 
 replied the shepherd. But when will that be? 
 You and avarice never have enough. Go your 
 ways ! 
 
 * From " The History of the aged Wolf," in seven fa- 
 bles.— The first fable. 
 
 I want to ask you something, said a young 
 eagle to a contemplative and profoundly learned 
 owl. They say there is a bird called Merops, 
 who, when he ascends into the air, flies with 
 the tail first, and with the head turned toward 
 the earth. Is that true ? 
 
 No, indeed! answered the owl; it is a silly 
 invention of man. He may he a Merops him- 
 self; for he is, all the time, wishing to fly to 
 heaven, but is not willing, for one moment, to 
 lose sight of the earth. 
 
 THE WASPS. 
 
 Foulness and corruption were destroying the 
 proud fabric of a war-horse which had been 
 shot beneath its brave rider. Ever-active Na- 
 ture always employs the ruins of one creation 
 for the life of another. And so there flew forth 
 a swarm of young wasps from the fly-blown 
 carrion. Ah ! cried the wasps, what a divine 
 origin is ours ! The most superb horse, the fa- 
 vourite of Neptune, is our progenitor. 
 
 The attentive fabulist heard the strange boast, 
 and thought of the modern Italians, who con- 
 ceive themselves to be nothing less than the 
 descendants of the ancient, immortal Romans, 
 because they were born among their graves. 
 
 THE PEACOCKS AND THE CROW. 
 
 A vain crow adorned herself with the feathers 
 of the richly-tinted peacocks, which they had 
 shed, and when she thought herself sufficiently 
 tricked out, mixed boldly with these splendid 
 birds of Juno. She was recognized, and quickly 
 the peacocks fell upon her with sharp bills, to 
 pluck from her the lying bravery. 
 
 Cease now! she cried at length, you have 
 your own again ! But the peacocks, who had 
 observed some of the crow's own shining wing- 
 feathers, replied : Be still, miserable fool ! these 
 too cannot be yours ! And they continued to 
 peek. 
 
 EXTRACT 
 
 FROM LESSING'S THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS. 
 
 If God should hold all truth inclosed in his 
 right hand, and in his left only the ever-active 
 impulse to the pursuit of truth, although with 
 the condition that I should always and forever 
 err ; and should say to me : Choose ! I should 
 fall with submission upon his left hand, and 
 say : Father, give ! Pure Truth is for Thee alone ! 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 Bom 1729. Died 1786. 
 
 A Jew by birth and conviction, this able 
 writer and excellent man is celebrated, not 
 less for the services rendered to his own peo- 
 ple, his "kinsmen according to the flesh," 
 by his labors as a Hebraist and expositor of 
 Jewish affairs, than for those which literary 
 Germany associates with his honored name. 
 No man has done more to soften the rigor of 
 that hostility which embittered the lot of the 
 German Israelite, a century ago. Since 
 Maimonides, no Jewish writer, not excepting 
 the famous Manasseh Ben Israel, has exerted 
 a greater influence on the Jewish mind.* 
 Since Nathaniel, no one has better deserved 
 the commendation bestowed on that disciple : 
 "An Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no 
 guile !" He was one of those who have 
 wrought even more by what they were than 
 by what they did. His writings are a valuable 
 contribution to the literature of his country; 
 but his character, as an upright, magnanimous 
 and religious man, is a legac} 7 to his brethren, 
 more valuable than his writings, and "richer 
 than all his tribe." 
 
 Mendelssohn f was a native of Dessau. His 
 father Mendel who taught the Jews' school in 
 that city was wretchedly poor and could give 
 him nothing but the Mishna and the Gemarra ; 
 himself more familiar with Hebrew roots than 
 with any more substantial nourishment. He 
 speaks of being roused at three o'clock, A. M., 
 in the winter, wrapped in a cloak and carried 
 to the "seminary," when only seven years 
 old. 
 
 At an early age he fell in with the More 
 Nebochim, or Guide of the Perplexed, a work 
 of Maimonides, the intense study of which 
 made an era in his life ; and that in two ways. 
 It laid the foundation of his mental culture, 
 and also of his bodily disease and suffering. 
 
 * I speak only of those whom Israel has acknowledged 
 and retained. Spinoza, unquestionably the greatest in- 
 tellect that has sprung from the seed of Abraham since 
 the dispersion, can hardly be ranked as a Jewish writer. 
 
 f The following sketch is taken chiefly frntn the " Me- 
 moirs of Moses Mendelssohn, &c," by M. Samuels. 
 Second Edition. London. 1827. 
 
 " Maimonides," he said, " is the cause of my 
 deformity,* he spoiled my figure, and ruined 
 my constitution; but still I doat on him for 
 many hours of dejection, which he has con- 
 verted into hours of rapture. And if he has 
 unwittingly weakened my body, has he not 
 made ample atonement by invigorating my 
 soul with his sublime instructions V 1 
 
 At fourteen, we find him an adventurer at 
 Berlin, without the means of procuring a single 
 meal. In his distress, he applied to Rabbi 
 Frankel, who had been his teacher at Dessau ; 
 "and there he happened to meet with Mr. 
 Hyam Bamberg, a benevolent man, and an 
 encourager of aspiring young Jews, who al- 
 lowed him, on the Rabbi's intercession, an 
 attic to sleep in, and two days' board weekly." 
 His first object was not to get a living but to 
 get an education. He had come to Berlin for 
 this purpose, and to this he devoted several 
 successive years of intense application, under 
 all the difficulties and discouragements which 
 may be supposed to hamper a youth so circum- 
 stanced ; without teachers, without books, with 
 seldom enough to satisfy his hunger, and to 
 whom a belly -full was, as Lamb says, 'a 
 special Pr.ovidence.' The manner in which 
 he studied Latin illustrates his indomitable 
 energy in the pursuit of knowledge. Having 
 mastered the nouns and the verbs and procured 
 an old second-hand dictionary, he set himself 
 to translate into Latin Locke's " Essay on the 
 Human Understanding," a task which he ac- 
 tually accomplished, at that early stage of his 
 progress ; fighting his way through difficulties, 
 metaphysical and philological, with a painful 
 laboriousness unknown, out of Germany, in 
 modern times. 
 
 His only means of support during this 
 period, in addition to the charity of Herr Bam- 
 berg, was an occasional gruschen obtained by 
 copying Hebrew for his old master. He sub- 
 sisted principally on dry brown bread, and 
 when purchasing a loaf, " he would notch it, 
 
 * Mendelssohn was hump-backed and extremely small 
 and feeble in person. 
 
 (99) 
 
100 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 according to the standard of his means, into 
 so many meals; never eating according to his 
 appetite, but according to his finances." 
 
 In this way he spent several years of hard- 
 ship and suffering, during which, however, he 
 had by dint of incredible exertions, made him- 
 self thoroughly acquainted with the principal 
 languages and the mathematics. But now a 
 kind Providence brought him acquainted with 
 a wealthy manufacturer of the Jewish faith, 
 who received him into his house, as the tutor 
 of his children, then into his counting-room, as 
 clerk, and finally into his silk-manufactory, 
 first as manager, and soon after as partner. 
 A new tide in his affairs set in with this con- 
 nection. An immediate support, not ample at 
 first, but sufficient for his wants, was secured 
 to him, and he now commenced his career as 
 an author, devoting his days to business, and 
 his nights to Letters. About this time, he 
 became acquainted with Abbt, Nicolai and 
 Lessing. With the latter, he formed an inti- 
 mate friendship, from which he derived incal- 
 culable benefit in the way of literary and 
 philosophic culture, and which he always re- 
 garded as among the most fortunate circum- 
 stances of his life. " Lessing loved Men- 
 delssohn," says his biographer, " for his excel- 
 lent heart and highly cultivated understanding, 
 and Mendelssohn was no less attached to Les- 
 sing for his inflexible consistency and his tran- 
 scendent abilities. A union founded on esteem 
 and friendship was cemented between them, 
 which neither time nor long separation, nothing 
 indeed but death could dissolve. The noble 
 monument of their mutual affection, preserved 
 to posterity in the latter pages of the Morgen- 
 stunden, will endure as long as virtue and 
 science are cherished and cultivated among 
 mankind." In Lessing, than whom no man 
 was ever more free from the prejudices of 
 creed and nation, Mendelssohn found a hearty 
 sympathy and an effective fellow-laborer in his 
 various projects for bettering the condition of 
 the German Jews ; an object, which, then and 
 at all times, lay nearest his heart. Indeed the 
 known friendship of so eminent a man for one 
 of that tribe, in defiance of all the prejudices 
 of his age, was scarcely less important to the 
 Jews in general than it was to Mendelssohn 
 in particular. 
 
 One of the first, perhaps the very first lite- 
 rary effort by which he became distinguished 
 beyond the pale of his own communion, was 
 
 his " Philosophical Dialogues," a work which 
 owed its origin to the following circumstance. 
 " Lessing once brought to Mendelssohn a work 
 written by a celebrated character, to hear his 
 opinion upon it. Having given it a reading, 
 he told his friend that he deemed himself a 
 match for the author, and would refute him. 
 Nothing could be more welcome to Lessing, 
 and he strongly encouraged the idea. Ac- 
 cordingly, Mendelssohn sat down and wrote 
 his "Philosophical Dialogues," in which he 
 strictly redeemed his pledge of confuting the 
 author ; and carried the manuscript to Lessing 
 for examination. 'When I am at leisure,' 
 said Lessing, ' I will peruse it' After a con- 
 venient interval, he repeated his visit, when 
 Lessing kept up a miscellaneous conversation, 
 without once mentioning the manuscript in 
 question ; and the other, being too bashful to 
 put him in mind of it, was obliged to de- 
 part. The same thing happened at several 
 subsequent meetings. At last, he mustered 
 sufficient resolution to inquire after it. Want 
 of leisure was pleaded as before, but now " he 
 would certainly read it. Mr. Mendelssohn 
 might, in the mean while, take yonder small 
 volume home with him, and let him know his 
 opinion of it." On opening it, Mendelssohn 
 was not a little surprised to see his own Dia- 
 logues in print. "Put it into your pocket," 
 said Lessing, good-naturedly, " and this Mam- 
 mon along with it. It is what I got for the 
 copyright ; it will be of service to you." He 
 afterward, at the instigation of Nicolai and 
 Lessing, collected all his philosophical lucu- 
 brations, and published them under the title 
 " Philosophische Schriften" Three editions 
 of this work which appeared, anonymously at 
 first, but afterward with the author's name, 
 were exhausted in a short time. 
 
 Through his connection with Herr Bernard, 
 Mendelssohn soon became rich, as a Jew should 
 be, and, being rich, he married, as a rich Jew 
 should do. His wife was a daughter of Abra- 
 ham Gavgenheim of Hamburg. By her he had 
 several children, among them a son who gave 
 rise to one of his most celebrated works — 
 the " Morgenstunden" (Morning-hours.) This 
 book consists of lectures on the existence of 
 God, — the result of many years' inquiry on that 
 subject — the original design of which was to 
 instruct his oldest son, Joseph, his son-in-law 
 and other Jewish youths in the rudiments of 
 religion. The lessons were given before the 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 101 
 
 hours of business, whence the title Morgen- 
 stunden. The work is a fragment, the death 
 of the author arresting its progress soon after 
 the publication of the first volume. 
 
 The most popular of his works and that 
 which contributed most to his celebrity abroad, 
 was his Phaedon, a work on the immortality of 
 the soul, based on Plato's dialogue of that name 
 — in fact a translation of Plato, with much ad- 
 ditional matter of his own. In less than two 
 years it went through three large German edi- 
 tions and was translated into the English, 
 French, Dutch, Italian, Danish, and Hebrew. 
 
 Mendelssohn's fame was at its height, and zea- 
 lous Christians were wondering that so enlight- 
 ened and exemplary a man should retain the faith 
 of his Fathers, when his peace and religious li- 
 berty were somewhat rudely assailed — though 
 with no unkind intentions — by a challenge from 
 Lavater, who, with an obtuse zeal which knew 
 no scruple on the score of delicacy, sought to 
 drag him into theological controversy. The 
 good Lavater, with all his humanity, was a 
 little intolerant in matters of religion. A re- 
 ligious man and not a Christian by profession, 
 was an idea for which he could find no room 
 in his philosophy. It was not enough that Men- 
 delssohn was all that a Christian should be; 
 he insisted on a formal and public renunciation 
 of Judaism in favor of Christianity. In order 
 to bring about this result, he dedicated to him 
 his translation of Bonnet's "Inquiry into the 
 evidences of Christianity," with the request 
 that he would refute it, in case he should find 
 the argument untenable ; and that, if it should 
 seem to him conclusive, he would " do what 
 policy, love of truth and probity demanded, 
 what Socrates doubtless would have done, had 
 he read the work and found it unanswerable ;" 
 thus offering him the alternative, either to in- 
 cur the odium of his own people by formally 
 abjuring the faith of his Fathers, or to draw 
 down upon himself the wrath of the Christian 
 clergy by a public assault on their religion. 
 
 To a timid and sensitive nature like Men- 
 delssohn's, constitutionally averse from all con- 
 troversy and especially from controversy in 
 religion, such a challenge was perfectly over- 
 whelming. Prostrate with ill health at the 
 time, he suffered intensely from this attempt to 
 drag him forth from the strict reserve which he 
 had always maintained on these subjects. But 
 rallying himself to reply, he adroitly put by 
 both horns of the threatened dilemma, in a 
 
 letter which satisfied all parties and which 
 drew from Lavater a public apology and re- 
 tracttation of his peremptory challenge. 
 
 The agitation caused by this transaction 
 aggravated Mendelssohn's constitutional com- 
 plaints and brought on a severe sickness which 
 threatened his life and, for a long time, incapa- 
 citated him for intellectual labor. After his 
 recovery, he published his commentary on Ec- 
 clesiasticus ; soon after, his translation of the 
 Pentateuch, "a work," says his biographer, 
 " which forms an epoch in the history of mo- 
 dern Judaism, and which, for its vast utility 
 and the immense good it has wrought, entitles 
 the author to the eternal gratitude of his na- 
 tion." To this was added a metrical transla- 
 tion of the psalms. Then followed a work 
 which excited a good deal of attention in Ger- 
 many, at the time, entitled " Jerusalem, oder 
 uber religiose Macht und Judenthum."* It 
 contained a plea for toleration founded on the 
 principles of the social compact, together with 
 an able defence of Judaism. It is still the best 
 treatise on these subjects. 
 
 Mendelssohn was doomed to experience an- 
 other severe trial of his sensibility, in an attack 
 on his friend Lessing, by Friedrich Heinrich 
 Jacobi. This eminent author published a 
 volume of " Letters to Mr. Mendelssohn on the 
 Doctrine of Spinoza," in which he charged 
 Lessing with being an "implicit Spinozist." 
 Mendelssohn endeavored to refute the charge 
 in a work entitled " Moses Mendelssohn to the 
 friends of Lessing." The answer was con- 
 sidered triumphant and drew from Kantf the 
 remark, " It is Mendelssohn's fault that Jacobi 
 thinks himself a philosopher." 
 
 But the excitement of a controversy so re- 
 pugnant to his gentle nature, acted fatally on 
 his long enfeebled constitution and reduced him 
 to that degree that a trifle sufficed to snap the 
 slender thread which bound him to this world. 
 Returning from the synagogue one frosty 
 morning, he took a cold of which he died with- 
 in four days ; on the 4th January 1786, in his 
 fifty-eighth year. 
 
 "Mendelssohn died as he had lived, calm 
 and placid, and took an earthly smile with him 
 
 * Jerusalem, or on religious power and Judaism. 
 
 f Speaking of Kant, it is worthy of note that Mendels- 
 sohn, in the earlier part of his career, was the successful 
 competitor of this distinguished philosopher in a contest 
 for the prize awarded by the Royal Academy of Berlin, to 
 the best essay on the question: "Are metaphysics sus- 
 ceptible of mathematical demonstration ?" 
 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 into eternity. When his death became known, 
 the whole city of Berlin was a scene of un- 
 feigned sorrovv. The citizens of all denomina- 
 tions looked on his death as a national cala- 
 mity." 
 
 " Mendelssohn was of a short stature, very 
 thin, and deformed in the back. His com- 
 plexion was very dark and sallow ; hair black 
 and curly; nose rather large and aquiline. A 
 gentle smile played around his mouth which 
 was always a little open. Nothing could ex- 
 ceed the fire of his eyes, and there was so 
 much kindness, modesty, and benevolence por- 
 trayed on his countenance that he won every 
 heart at first sight. His vaulted brow and the 
 general cast of his features bespoke a vast in- 
 tellect and a noble heart." 
 
 "From sensual gratification he abstained 
 firmly to the end. It was inconceivable that 
 the quantity of food to which he restricted him- 
 
 self could nourish a human body. Yet Provi- 
 dence had blessed him with affluence; his 
 fortune enabled him to live genteelly and keep 
 a hospitable table ; and it was affecting to see 
 him press his guests to partake of viands and 
 liquors which he himself, though never so de- 
 sirous, durst not venture to taste." 
 
 His disinterestedness was without limits and 
 his beneficence corresponded with his means. 
 
 Professor Rammler erected to him a monu- 
 ment with this inscription : 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN, 
 BORN AT DESSAU OF HEBREW PARENTS, 
 A SAGE LIKE SOCRATES, 
 FAITHFUL TO THE ANCIENT CREED, 
 TEACHING IMMORTALITY, 
 HIMSELF IMMORTAL. 
 
 Besides the works which have been men- 
 tioned, he published several others in German 
 and some in Hebrew. 
 
 LETTER TO J. C. LAVATER * 
 
 IN ANSWER TO A CHALLENGE EITHER TO REFUTE BONNET'S EVI- 
 DENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, OR ELSE TO ADOPT THE CHRISTIAN 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Honoured Philanthropist, 
 
 You were pleased to dedicate to me your 
 translation from the French of Bonnet's Inquiry 
 into the Evidences of the Christian Religion, 
 and most publicly and solemnly to conjure me 
 " to ref ute that work, in case I should rind the 
 main arguments in support of the facts of Chris- 
 tianity untenable, or should I find them con- 
 clusive, to do what policy, love of truth, and 
 probity bid me, what Socrates would have done 
 had he read the work, and found it unanswer- 
 able;" which, I suppose, means, to renounce 
 the religion of my fathers, and embrace that 
 which Mr. Bonnet vindicates. Now, were I 
 ever mean-spirited enough to balance love of 
 truth and probity against policy, I assure you I 
 should, in this instance, throw them all three 
 into the same scale. 
 
 I should deem myself beneath a worthy 
 man's notice, did I not acknowledge, with a 
 grateful heart, the friendship and kindness you 
 manifest for me in that dedication, which I am 
 fully persuaded flowed from a pure source, and 
 cannot be ascribed to any but benevolent and 
 philanthropic motives. Yet I must own that it 
 appeared to me exceedingly strange, and I 
 should have expected anything rather than a 
 public challenge from a man like Lavater. 
 
 It seems you still recollect the confidential 
 
 * From the "Memoirs of Moses Mendelssohn," by M. 
 Samuels. For an account of this correspondence, see the 
 biographical sketch given above. 
 
 conversation I had the pleasure of holding with 
 yourself and your worthy friends in my apart- 
 ment. Can you then possibly have forgotten 
 how frequently I sought to divert the discourse 
 from religious to more neutral topics, and how 
 much yourself and your friends had to urge me 
 before I would venture to deliver my opinion 
 on a subject of such vital importance ? If I am 
 not mistaken, preliminary assurances were even 
 given that no public use should ever be made of 
 any remarkable expression that might drop on 
 the occasion. Be that as it may, I will rather 
 suppose myself in error than tax you with a 
 breach of promise. But as I so sedulously 
 sought to avoid an explanation in my own 
 apartment amidst a small number of worthy 
 men, of whose good intentions I had every rea- 
 son to be persuaded, it might have been reason- 
 ably inferred that a public one would be ex- 
 tremely repugnant to my disposition ; and that 
 I must have inevitably become the more em- 
 barrassed when the voice demanding it hap- 
 pened to be entitled to an answer at any rate. 
 What then, sir, could induce you to single me 
 thus, against my well-known disinclination, out 
 of the many, and force me into a public arena 
 which I so much wished never to have occasion 
 to enter ? If even you placed my reserve to the 
 score of mere timidity and bashfulness, these 
 very foibles would have deserved the modera- 
 tion and forbearance of a charitable heart. 
 
 But my scruples of engaging in religious con- 
 troversy never proceeded from timidity or bash- 
 fulness. Let me assure you that it was not only 
 from the other day that I began searching into 
 my religion. No, I became very early sensible 
 of the duty of putting my actions and opinions 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 103 
 
 to a test. That I have from my early youth 
 devoted my hours of repose and relaxation to 
 philosophy and the arts and sciences, was done 
 for the sole purpose of qualifying myself for 
 this important investigation. What other mo- 
 tives could I have had ? In the situation I was 
 then in, not the least temporal benefit was to 
 be expected from the sciences. I knew very 
 well that I had no chance of getting forward in 
 the world through them. And as to the gra- 
 tification they might afford me — alas! much 
 esteemed philanthropist! — the station allotted 
 to my brethren in the faith, in civil society, is 
 so incompatible with the expansion of the mind, 
 that we certainly do not increase our happiness 
 by learning to view the rights of humanity 
 under their true aspect. On this point, too, I 
 must decline saying any more. He that is ac- 
 quainted with our condition, and has a human 
 heart, will here feel more than I dare to ex- 
 press. 
 
 If, after so many years of investigation, the 
 decision of my mind had not been completely 
 in favour of my religion, it would infallibly 
 have become known through my public con- 
 duct. I do not conceive what should rivet me 
 to a religion to appearance so excessively se- 
 vere, and so commonly exploded, if I were not 
 convinced in my heart of its truth. Let the 
 result of my investigation have been what it 
 may, so soon as I discovered the religion of my 
 fathers not to be the true one, I must of course 
 have discarded it. Indeed, were I convinced 
 in my heart of another religion being true, there 
 could not, in my opinion, be a more flagitious 
 depravity than to refuse homage to truth, in 
 defiance of internal evidence. What should 
 entice me to such depravity ? Have I not 
 already declared, that in this instance, policy, 
 love of truth, and probity, would lead me to 
 steer the same course? 
 
 Were I indifferent to both religions, or derided 
 and scorned, in my mind, revelation in general, 
 I should know well enough what policy sug- 
 gests, when conscience remains neutral. What 
 is there to deter me? Fear of my brethren in 
 the faith ? Their temporal power is too much 
 curtailed to daunt me. What then? Obstinacy? 
 Indolence ? A predilection for habitual notions ? 
 Having devoted the greatest portion of my life 
 to the investigation, I may be supposed to pos- 
 sess sufficient good sense not to sacrifice the 
 fruit of my labours to such frivolities. 
 
 Thus you see, sir, that, but for a sincere con- 
 viction of my religion, the result of my theologi- 
 cal investigations would have been sealed by a 
 public act of mine. Whereas, on the contrary, 
 they have strengthened me in the faith of my 
 fathers ; still I could wish to move on quietly 
 without rendering the public an account of the 
 state of my mind. I do not mean to deny that 
 I have detected in my religion human additions 
 and base alloy, which, alas ! but too much tar- 
 nish its pristine lustre. But where is the friend 
 of truth that can boast of having found his reli- 
 
 gion free from similar corruptions? We all, 
 who go in search of truth, are annoyed by the 
 pestilential vapour of hypocrisy and supersti- 
 tion, and wish we could wipe it off without 
 defacing what is really good and true. Yet of 
 the essentials of my religion I am as firmly, as 
 irrefragably convinced, as you, sir, or Mr. Bon- 
 net, ever can be of those of yours. And I here- 
 with declare, in the presence of the God of 
 truth, your and my creator and supporter, by 
 whom you have conjured me in your dedica- 
 tion, that I will adhere to my principles so long 
 as my entire soul does not assume another na- 
 ture. My contrariety to your creed, which I 
 expressed to yourself and to your friends, has 
 since, in no respect, changed. And as to my 
 veneration for the moral character of its founder! 
 had you not omitted the reservations which I so 
 distinctly annexed to it, I should concede as much 
 now. We must finish certain inquiries once in 
 our life, if we wish to proceed further. This, I 
 may say, I had done, with regard to religion, 
 several years ago. I read, compared, reflected, 
 and — made up my mind. 
 
 Yet, for what I cared, Judaism might have 
 been hurled down in every polemical compen- 
 dium, and triumphantly sneered at in every 
 academic exercise, and I would not have enter- 
 ed into a dispute about it. Rabbinical scholars, 
 and rabbinical smatterers, might have grubbed 
 in obsolete scribblings, which no sensible Jew 
 reads or knows of, and amused the public with 
 the most fantastic ideas of Judaism, without so 
 much as a contradiction on my part. It is by 
 virtue that I wish to shame the opprobrious 
 opinion commonly entertained of a Jew, and 
 not by controversial writings. My religious 
 tenets, philosophy, station in civil society, all 
 furnish me with the most cogent reason for 
 abstaining from theological disputes, and for 
 treating in my publications of those truths only 
 which are equally important to all persuasions. 
 
 Pursuant to the principles of my religion, I 
 ain not to seek to convert any one who is not 
 born according to our laws. This proneness to 
 conversion, the origin of which some would fain 
 tack on the Jewish religion, is, nevertheless, 
 diametrically opposed to it. Our rabbins una- 
 nimously teach, that the written and oral laws, 
 which form conjointly our revealed religion, are 
 obligatory on our nation only. "Moses com- 
 manded us a law, even the inheritance of the 
 congregation of Jacob." We believe that all 
 other nations of the earth have been directed 
 by God to adhere to the laws of nature, and to 
 the religion of the patriarchs. Those who regu- 
 late their lives according to the precepts of this 
 religion of nature and of reason, are called vir- 
 tuous men of other nations, and are the children 
 of eternal salvation. 
 
 Our rabbins are so remote from Proselytoma- 
 nia, that they enjoin us to dissuade, by forcible 
 remonstrances, every one who comes forward 
 to be converted. We are to lead him to reflect 
 that, by such a step, he is subjecting himself 
 
104 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 needlessly, to a most onerous burthen; that, in 
 his present condition, he has only to observe the 
 precepts of a Nouchide, to be saved ; but the 
 moment he embraces the religion of the Israel- 
 ites, he subscribes gratuitously to all the rigid 
 rites of that faith, to which he must then strictly 
 conform, or await the punishment which the 
 legislator has denounced on their infraction. 
 Finally, we are to hold up to him a faithful pic- 
 ture of the misery, tribulation, and obloquy, in 
 which the nation is now living, in order to guard 
 him from a rash act, which he might ultimately 
 repent. 
 
 Thus, you see, the religion of my fathers does 
 not wish to be extended. We are not to send 
 missions to both the Indies, or to Greenland, to 
 preach our doctrine to those remote people. 
 The latter, in particular, who, by all accounts, 
 observe the laws of nature stricter than, alas ! 
 we do, are, in our religious estimation, an envi- 
 able race. Whoever is not born conformable 
 to our laws, has no occasion to live according 
 to them. We alone consider ourselves bound 
 to acknowledge their authority ; and this can 
 give no offence to our neighbours. Let our no- 
 tions be held ever so absurd, still there is no 
 need to cavil about them, and others are cer- 
 tainly at liberty to question the validity of laws, 
 to which they are, by our own admission, not 
 amenable ; but whether they are acting manly, 
 socially, and charitably, in ridiculing these laws, 
 must be left to their consciences. So long as 
 we do not tamper with their opinions, wrangling 
 serves no purpose whatsoever. 
 
 Suppose there were amongst my contempo- 
 raries, a Confucius or a Solon, I could, consis- 
 tently with my religious principles, love and 
 admire the great man, but I should never hit 
 on the extravagant idea of converting a Confu- 
 cius or a Solon. What should I convert him 
 for ? As he does not belong to the congregation 
 of Jacob, my religious laws were not legislated 
 for him ; and on doctrines we should soon come 
 to an understanding. Do I think there is a 
 chance of his being saved ? I certainly believe, 
 that he who leads mankind on to virtue in this 
 world, cannot be damned in the next. And I 
 need not now stand in awe of any reverend col- 
 lege, that would call me to account for this opi- 
 nion, as the Sorbonne did honest Marmontel. 
 
 I am so fortunate, as to count amongst my 
 friends, many a worthy man, who is not of my 
 faith. We love each other sincerely, notwith- 
 standing we presume, or take for granted, that, 
 in matters of belief, we differ widely in opinion. 
 I enjoy the delight of their society, which both 
 improves and solaces me. Never yet has my 
 heart whispered, "Alas! for this excellent man's 
 soul !" — He who believes that no salvation is to 
 be found out of the pale of his own church, 
 must often feel such sighs rise in his bosom. 
 
 It is true, every man is naturally bound to 
 diffuse knowledge and virtue among his fellow- 
 creatures, and to eradicate error and prejudice 
 as much as lies in his power. It might there- 
 
 fore be concluded, that it is a duty, publicly to 
 fling the gauntlet at every religious opinion, 
 which one deems erroneous. But all prejudices 
 are not equally noxious. Certainly, there are 
 some which strike directly at the happiness of 
 the human race ; their effect on morality is ob- 
 viously deleterious, and we cannot expect even 
 a casual benefit from them. These must be 
 unhesitatingly assailed by the philanthropist. 
 To grapple with them, at once, is indisputably 
 the best mode, and all delay, from circuitous 
 measures, unwarrantable. Of this kind are 
 those errors and prejudices which disturb man's 
 own, and his fellow-creatures' peace and hap- 
 piness, and canker, in youth, the germ of bene- 
 volence and virtue, before it can shoot forth. 
 Fanaticism, ill-will, and a spirit of persecution, 
 on the one side, levity, Epicurism, and boasting 
 infidelity, on the other. 
 
 Yet the opinions of my fellow-creatures, erro- 
 neous as they may appear to my conviction, do 
 sometimes belong to the higher order of theo- 
 retical principles, and are too remote from prac- 
 tice, to become immediately pernicious; they 
 constitute, however, from their generality, the 
 basis, on which the people who entertain them 
 have raised their system of morality and social 
 order ; and so they have casually become of 
 great importance to that portion of mankind. 
 To attack such dogmas openly, because they 
 appear prejudices, would be like sapping the 
 foundation of an edifice, for the purpose of ex- 
 amining its soundness and stability, without 
 first securing the superstructure against a total 
 downfall. He who values the welfare of man- 
 kind more than his own fame, will bridle his 
 tongue on prejudices of this description, and 
 beware of seeking to reform them prematurely 
 and precipitately, lest he should overset, what 
 he thinks a defective theory of morality, before 
 his fellow-creatures are firm in the perfect one, 
 which he means to substitute. 
 
 Therefore, there is nothing inconsistent in my 
 thinking myself bound to remain neutral, under 
 the impression of having detected national pre- 
 judices and religious errors amongst my fellow- 
 citizens, — provided these errors and prejudices 
 do not subvert, directly, either their religion or 
 the laws of nature, and that they have a ten- 
 dency to promote, casually, that which is good 
 and desirable. The morality of our actions, 
 when founded in error, it is true, scarcely de- 
 serves that name ; and the advancement of 
 virtue will be always more efficaciously and 
 permanently effected through the medium of 
 truth, where truth is known, than through that 
 of prejudice or error. But where truth is not 
 known, where it has not become national, so as 
 to operate as powerfully on the bulk of the 
 people as deep-rooted prejudice — there prejudice 
 will be held almost sacred by every votary of 
 virtue. 
 
 How much more imperative, then, does this 
 discretion become, when the nation, which, in 
 our opinion, fosters such prejudices, has rendered 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 105 
 
 itself otherwise estimable through wisdom and 
 virtue, when it contains numbers of eminent 
 men, who rank with the benefactors of man- 
 kind ! The human errors of such a noble por- 
 tion of our species, ought to be deferentially 
 overlooked by one, who is liable to the same ; 
 he should dwell on its excellences only, and 
 not insidiously prowl to pounce upon it, where 
 he conceives it to be vulnerable. 
 
 These are the reasons which my religion and 
 my philosophy suggest to me, for scrupulously 
 avoiding polemical controversy. Add to them, 
 my local relations to my fellow-citizens, and 
 you cannot but justify me. I am one of an op- 
 pressed people, who have to supplicate shelter 
 and protection of the ascendant nations ; and 
 these boons they do not obtain everywhere, in- 
 deed nowhere, without more or less of restric- 
 tion.* Rights granted to every other human 
 being, my brethren in the faith willingly forego, 
 contented with being tolerated and protected ; 
 and they account it no trifling favour, on the 
 part of the nation, who takes them in on bear- 
 able terms, since, in some places, even a tem- 
 porary domicile is denied them. Do the laws of 
 Zurich allow your circumcised friend to pay you 
 a visit there ? No. — What gratitude then do 
 not my brethren owe to the nation, which in- 
 cludes them in its general philanthropy, suffer- 
 ing them, without molestation, to worship the 
 Supreme Being after the rites of their ancestors? 
 The government under which I live, leaves 
 nothing to wish for in this respect; and the 
 Hebrews should therefore be scrupulous in ab- 
 staining from reflections on the predominant 
 religion, or, which is the same thing, in touching 
 their protectors, where men of virtue are most 
 tender. 
 
 By those principles, I have resolved invaria- 
 bly to regulate my conduct ; unless extraordinary 
 inducements should compel me to deviate from 
 them. Private appeals, from men of worth, I 
 have taken the liberty tacitly to decline. The 
 importunities of pedants, who arrogated to 
 themselves the right of worrying me publicly, 
 on account of my religious principles, I con- 
 ceived myself justified in treating with con- 
 tempt. But the solemn conjuration of a Lavater, 
 demands at any rate this public avowal of my 
 sentiments: lest too pertinacious a silence should 
 be construed into disregard, or — into acquies- 
 cence. 
 
 I have read, with attention, your translation 
 of Bonnet's work. After what I have already 
 stated, conviction becomes, of course, foreign to 
 the question: but, even considered abstractedly, 
 as an apology of the Christian religion, 1 must 
 own, it does not appear to me to possess the 
 merit which you attach to it. I know Mr. Bon- 
 net from other works, as an excellent author; 
 but I have read many vindications of the same 
 
 * Justice and gratitude require nie to observe, that this 
 was written in the middle of the last century. Enlightened 
 Europe presents in our days, but one state to verify it. 
 o 
 
 religion, I will not only say by English writers, 
 but by our own German countrymen, which I 
 thought much more recondite and philosophical 
 than that by Bonnet, which you • are recom- 
 mending for my conversion. If I am not mis- 
 taken, most of your friend's hypotheses are even 
 of German growth ; for the author of the Essai 
 de Psychologies to whom Mr. Bonnet cleaves so 
 firmly, owes almost every thing to German phi- 
 losophers. In the matter of philosophical prin- 
 ciples, a German has seldom occasion to borrow 
 of his neighbours. 
 
 Nor are the general reflections premised by 
 the author, in my judgment, the most profound 
 part of the work; at least the application and 
 use which he makes of them, for the vindica- 
 tion of his religion, appear to me so unstable 
 and arbitrary, that I scarcely can trace Bonnet 
 in them. It is unpleasant, that my opinion hap- 
 pens to be so much at variance with yours ; but 
 I am inclined to think, that Bonnet's internal 
 conviction, and laudable zeal for his religion, 
 have given to himself a cogency in his argu- 
 ments, which, for my own part, I cannot dis- 
 cover in them. The major part of his conse- 
 quents flow so vaguely from the antecedents, 
 that I am confident I could vindicate any re- 
 ligion by the same ratiocination. After all, this 
 may not be the author's fault; he could have 
 written for those only who are convinced like 
 himself, and who read merely to fortify them- 
 selves in their belief. When an author once 
 agrees with his readers about the result, they 
 will not fall out about the argument. But at 
 you, sir, I may well be astonished ; that you 
 should deem that work adequate to convince a 
 man, who, from his principles, cannot but be 
 prepossessed in favour of its reverse. It was 
 probably impossible for you to identify the 
 thoughts of a person, like me, who is not fur- 
 nished with conviction, but has to seek it. But 
 if you have done so, and believe, notwithstand- 
 ing, what you have intimated, that Socrates 
 himself would have found Mr. Bonnet's argu- 
 ments unanswerable, one of us is, certainly, a 
 remarkable instance of the dominion of pre- 
 judice and education, even over those who go, 
 with an upright heart, in search of truth. 
 
 I have now stated to you the reasons why I 
 so earnestly wish to have no more to do with 
 religious controversy; but I have given you, at 
 the same time, to understand that I could, very 
 easily, bring forward something in refutation of 
 Mr. Bonnet's work. If you should prove peremp- 
 tory, I must lay aside my scruples, and come to 
 a resolution of publishing, in a counter-inquiry, 
 my thoughts, both on Mr. Bonnet's work, and on 
 the cause which he vindicates. But, I hope 
 you will exonerate me from this irksome task, 
 and rather give me leave to withdraw to that 
 state of quietude, which is more congenial to 
 my disposition. Place yourself in my situation; 
 take my view of circumstances, not yours, and 
 you will no longer strive against my reluctance. 
 I should be sorry to be led into the temptation 
 
106 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 of breaking through those boundaries, which I 
 have, after such mature deliberation, marked 
 out to myself. 
 
 I am, with most perfect respect, 
 yours sincerely, 
 
 Moses Mendelssohn. 
 Berlin, the 12th of December, 1769. 
 
 To this Lavater replied in a second Letter, 
 which gave rise to another publication on the 
 part of Mendelssohn, entitled, 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS. 
 **** * *** 
 
 * * * As to what regards Bonnet's 
 work, I confess, that my judgment on it referred 
 entirely to the purpose for which it was recom- 
 mended to me by Mr. Lavater. I might, it is 
 true, have taken for granted, that it was not at 
 all Mr. Bonnet's aim to oppugn, by his Inquiry, 
 any religious persuasion whatsoever, least of all 
 Judaism; but that he had only the benevolent 
 intention of leading, by means of a more whole- 
 some philosophy, back into the paths of truth, 
 the sceptics and weak in faith of his own 
 church, who have been deluded by a false 
 philosophy, to laugh at religion, Providence, 
 the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, 
 and retribution, as absurd superstitions. In this 
 light I should have considered Mr. Bonnet's 
 work, in order to form a more correct estimate 
 of its merits. 
 
 But the unlucky dedication had at once de- 
 ranged the proper aspect of things. And as 
 that was the point from which I started, and 
 not knowing that the author had disapproved 
 of the translator's proceeding, I read the whole 
 performance under the impression, that it was 
 levelled against myself, and those of my per- 
 suasion. In this view, then, the use and ap- 
 plication which Mr. Bonnet makes of philosophi- 
 cal principles, could not but appear to me loose 
 and arbitrary ; and I could say, with propriety, 
 that I was confident I could vindicate, in the 
 same manner, any religion one pleases. * * 
 * * * I will mention a single point by way 
 of illustration. 
 
 Mr. Bonnet constitutes miracles the infallible 
 criterions of truth ; and maintains that if there 
 be but credible testimony that a prophet has 
 wrought miracles, his divine mission is no 
 longer to be called in question. He then 
 actually demonstrates, by very sound logic, 
 that there is nothing impossible in miracles, 
 and that testimony concerning them may be 
 deserving of credit. 
 
 Now, according to my religious theory, mira- 
 cles are not, indiscriminately, a distinctive mark 
 of truth ; nor do they yield a moral evidence 
 of a prophet's divine legation. The public 
 giving of the law, only, could, according to our 
 creed, impart satisfactory authenticity ; because 
 the ambassador had, in this case, no need of 
 credentials, the divine commission being given 
 
 in the hearing of the whole nation. Here no 
 truths were to be confirmed by actual proceed- 
 ings, no doctrine by preternatural occurrences, 
 but it was intended it should be believed, that 
 the divine manifestation had chosen this very 
 prophet for its legate, as every individual had 
 himself heard the nomination. Accordingly, 
 we read (Exod. xix. 9.), " And the Lord said 
 unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick 
 cloud, that the people may hear when I speak 
 unto thee, and believe thee forever :" (Exod. 
 iii. 12.) "And this shall be a token unto thee, 
 When thou hast brought forth the people out 
 of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this moun- 
 tain/' Our belief in a revealed religion is, 
 therefore, not founded in miracles, but on a 
 public legislation. The precept to hearken to 
 a wonder-working prophet (Deut. xviii. 15.) is, 
 as our rabbins teach, a mere implicit law, as 
 given by the legislator, and quite independent 
 of the intrinsic evidence of such wonders. So 
 does a similar law (Deut. xvii. 6.) direct us to 
 abide, in juridical cases, by the evidence of two 
 witnesses, though we are not bound to consider 
 their evidence as infallible. Further informa- 
 tion on this Jewish elemental law will be 
 found in Maimouides' Elements of the Law, 
 chap. 8, 9, 10. And there is an ample illustra- 
 tion of this passage of Maimonides, in Rabbi 
 Joseph Albo, Sepher Ikkarim, sect, i., cap. 18. 
 
 I also meet with decisive texts in the Old 
 Testament, and even in the New, showing that 
 there is nothing extraordinary in enticers and 
 false prophets performing miracles;* whether 
 by magic, occult sciences, or by the misapplica- 
 tion of a gift truly conferred on them for proper 
 purposes, I will not pretend to determine. So 
 much, however, appears to me incontrovertible, 
 that, according to the naked text of Scripture, 
 miracles cannot be taken as absolute criterions 
 of a divine mission. 
 
 I could, therefore, perfectly well maintain 
 that an argument, founded on the infallibility 
 of miracles, does not decide any thing against 
 the believers in my religion, since we do not 
 acknowledge that infallibility. My Jewish 
 principles will fully bear me out in the asser- 
 tion, that I would undertake to vindicate, by 
 similar reasoning, any religion one pleases ; 
 because I do not know any religion which has 
 not signs and miracles to produce ; and surely 
 every one has a right to place confidence in his 
 forefathers. All revelation is propagated by 
 tradition and by monuments. There, I sup- 
 pose, we agree. But, according to the funda- 
 mentals of my religion, not miracles only, but 
 
 * How are we, for instance, to account for the Egyp- 
 tian magicians? In the Old Testament (Deut. xiii. 2.), 
 a case is laid down, when we are not to hearken to a 
 prophet or a dreamer of dreams, even if he give a sign 
 or a wonders hut put him to death. In the New Testa- 
 ment, it is distinctly said (Matt. xxiv. 24.), " For there 
 shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall 
 show great signs and wonders." Sec. Not to mention 
 other texts. 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 107 
 
 a public giving of the law, must be the origin 
 of tradition. 
 
 It will now be seen that the assertion of 
 mine, which Mr. Lavater calls singular, is not 
 only compatible with the belief in a revelation, 
 but that it even emanates from the very ele- 
 ments of my religion. As an Israelite, I have 
 argued on Israelitish principles. How could I 
 have done otherwise, under the impression that 
 Mr. Bonnet meant to controvert those principles ? 
 But now that I am aware that this excellent 
 author's design was to oppugn the unbelievers 
 of his own church only, and to show them that 
 the doctrines which they revile, are, by far, 
 more reconcilable with sound reason than their 
 own fantastic deliration, many difficulties which 
 I have met with on reading the German trans- 
 lation, of course vanish of themselves ; and I 
 must own, that, so far as its scope goes, the 
 work is more important, and more worthy 
 of Mr. Bonnet's pen, than I had, at first, an 
 idea of. 
 
 ON THE SUBLIME AND THE NAIVE IN 
 POLITE LITERATURE.* 
 
 In - reading Longinus his treatise on the sub- 
 lime, one cannot but regret that the work of 
 Csecilius, treating of the same matter, has been 
 lost. Longinus, it is true, says of him, that "he 
 merely laboured to give us an idea of the 
 sublime, by an infinite number of examples, as 
 if no one knew what it was, but wholly omit- 
 ted what is most essential, that is, the method 
 by which we may accustom our minds to a 
 true elevation." But as Longinus occupied 
 himself exclusively with the latter, — taking the 
 former for granted, either as something which 
 every one, as he thought, must be acquainted 
 with, or as known to his Terentian, at least, 
 out of Ctecilius ; we are in want of a very 
 necessary part of the knowledge of the sublime, 
 to wit, a lucid explanation of it; and those 
 translators and commentators of Longinus who 
 have endeavoured to supply this defect, do not 
 appear to have been very successful in their 
 attempts. 
 
 Perhaps the idea of the sublime, which, as 
 Longinus says, constitutes the highest perfec- 
 tion in writing, may be rendered somewhat 
 clearer by the principles which have been 
 established in the foregoing essaysf on the 
 nature of the sentiments and on the sources of 
 the fine arts in general. 
 
 We have seen that the strictly beautiful has 
 its own determinate limits which it may not 
 
 * Belles lettres, Schbne Wissenschaften, literally Beauti- 
 ful sciences. I prefer the above as being more English and 
 customary, while it answers more exactly to the subject 
 matter of this treatise. Tr. 
 
 t See "Mendelssohn's philosophische Schriften," in 
 two vols., Berlin, 1777, from which this essay is taken. 
 Tr. 
 
 pass. When the whole extent of the ob- 
 ject is not taken in by the senses at once, it 
 ceases to be sensuously beautiful and becomes 
 monstrous or disproportionately great in extension. 
 The sensation which is then awakened is one 
 of a mixed character indeed, but one which 
 has something repulsive for well-educated 
 minds accustomed to order and symmetry. 
 The senses discover the boundaries at last, but 
 cannot, without difficulty, embrace and com- 
 bine them in one idea. 
 
 When the limits of this extension are still 
 farther removed, they may vanish entirely, at 
 last, to the senses, and then arises the sensuous 
 immeasurable. The senses, perceiving some- 
 thing connected, wander about to discover its 
 limits and lose themselves in the illimitable. 
 Thence, as was shown in the first treatise,* 
 arises, at first, a shuddering which comes over 
 us, and then something like giddiness which 
 often obliges us to take our eyes from the 
 object. The vast ocean, a far extended plain, 
 the innumerable host of the stars, every height 
 or depth whose limits are not discoverable, and 
 other like objects of Nature, which seem im- 
 measurable to the senses, awaken this kind of 
 sensation, which, as is there set forth more 
 minutely, is, in some cases, exceedingly plea- 
 sant, but, in others, may occasion discomfort. 
 
 The artist also avails himself of these sensa- 
 tions on account of their agreeableness, and 
 endeavours to produce them by imitation. The 
 imitation of the sensuous immeasurable is de- 
 nominated, in general terms, the grand. By this 
 term is understood not a limited magnitude, but 
 one which seems to be limitless, and is adapted 
 to produce an agreeable awe. There is, in art, 
 a particular method of producing this sensation, 
 where the immeasurable itself cannot be repre- 
 sented. It is to repeat, at equal intervals of 
 time or space, a single impression, unaltered, 
 uniform, and very often. The senses, in that 
 case, detect no symmetrical process, no rule of 
 arrangement from which the end of this repeti- 
 tion might be inferred; they are thrown into a 
 state of restlessness which resembles the awe 
 produced by the immeasurable. An instance, 
 in architecture, is a straight colonnade in which 
 the columns are like and separated from each 
 other by equal distances. A colonnade of this 
 kind has something grand which immediately 
 disappears when the uniformity of the repeti- 
 tion is interrupted and a prominent contrast 
 introduced at certain intervals. The monotonous 
 iteration of a single sound after equal pauses 
 has the same effect in music, and is used to 
 express veneration, the terrible, the awful. In 
 literary composition there are arts of speech 
 which produce the same effect. Sometimes it 
 is done by the multiplication of conjunctions, — 
 of the connecting and : 
 
 Und das Geschrei und der todtenden Wuth und 
 der donnernde Himniel. 
 
 * Zusiitze zu deu Briefen iiber die Empfindungeu, p. 
 36. Tr. 
 
108 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 So too, 
 
 und ist noch und denkt noch und fluchet. 
 
 Sometimes too by the multiplication of verbs 
 or nouns without the connecting and. Longinus 
 gives an example from Xenophon: They dashed 
 their shields against each other, they crowded, 
 they struggled, they slew, they fell. * * 
 » * " * * * * * * 
 
 The climax which increases in regular gra- 
 dations has a similar effect; but this pleases 
 also for other reasons, which it would be out 
 of place to enlarge upon here. 
 
 As diere is an illimitable in extended magni- 
 tude, whose effects we have just described, so 
 there is an illimitable in intensity, or unextend- 
 ed magnitude, which produces similar effects. 
 Power, genius, virtue, have their unextended 
 immeasurable, which also awakens a sensation 
 of awe, and which has at the same time this 
 advantage, that it does not, by tedious uniform- 
 ity, terminate at last in satiety and disgust, as 
 is apt to be the case with the immeasurable in 
 extension. They are various as they are great, 
 and, as it was remarked in the passage already 
 referred to, the sensation which they excite is 
 unmixed on the part of the object ; and there- 
 fore it is that the soul affects these with so much 
 eagerness. We commonly call the intensively 
 great, powerful ; and the powerful, in its per- 
 fection, we designate with the special appella- 
 tion of sublime. We may say then, generally, 
 that everything which is, or appears immeasur- 
 able in the degree of its perfection, is called 
 sublime. We call God the most sublime of be- 
 ings. We call a truth sublime, which concerns 
 a very perfect nature, as God, the universe, the 
 human soul ; which is of immeasurable value 
 to human kind, or for the discovery of which a 
 great genius was required. In the fine arts and 
 in letters, the sensuously perfect representation 
 of the immeasurable will be grand, powerful or 
 sublime, according as the magnitude relates to 
 extension or number, to a degree of strength, or 
 particularly to a degree of perfection. 
 
 The sensation produced by the sublime is a 
 compound one. The greatness arrests our at- 
 tention ; and since it is the greatness of perfec- 
 tion, the soul clings with pleasure to that object, 
 and all collateral ideas are thrown into obscu- 
 rity. The illimitableness awakens an agreeable 
 awe which pervades us wholly, while the va- 
 riety prevents us from being satiated, and gives 
 the imagination wings to penetrate farther and 
 ever farther. All these sensations blend toge- 
 ther in the soul ; they flow into each other, and 
 grow to a single sentiment which we call ad- 
 miration. If, therefore, we wished to describe 
 the sublime according to its effects, we might 
 say it is the sensuously perfect in art which is 
 capable of exciting admiration. 
 
 Every perfection which, by its greatness, sur- 
 passes our ordinary conceptions, which exceeds 
 the expectation we had of a certain object, or 
 which outdoes all that we had imagined of per- 
 
 fection, is an object of admiration. The deter- 
 mination of Regulus to return to Carthage, al- 
 though well advised of the tortures which 
 awaited him there, is sublime, and excites 
 admiration, because we had not supposed that 
 the duty of keeping one's promise, even with 
 an enemy, could exert such power over the 
 human heart. The unexpected reconciliation 
 of Augustus with Cinna, in the celebrated tra- 
 gedy of Corneille, produces the same effect, 
 because the character of this prince had pre- 
 pared us for a very different course of conduct. 
 In Canute, the mercy shown to Ulfo does not 
 create so sudden a sensation, because it was 
 not so unexpected in view of the character of 
 the ever merciful Canute. 
 
 Finally, the attributes of the Supreme Being, 
 as recognized in his works, awaken the most 
 extatic admiration, because they surpass all that 
 we can imagine of greatness, perfection, subli- 
 mity. 
 
 Since the great and the sublime are so nearly 
 related, we see why artists so often maintain 
 the sublime by means of the great, and, as it 
 were, by sensible impressions of the great, pre- 
 pare us for the intellectual conception of the 
 sublime. They magnify the measure or the 
 proportions of those things which they desire to 
 represent as sublime. They make use of a 
 bright lustre which dazzles by its intensity, or 
 of an obscurity which causes the boundaries of 
 objects to disappear, but never of a moderate 
 light. The image of the sublime is never fully 
 drawn ; single traits are hyperbolically exag- 
 gerated, and the rest left indefinite, in order 
 that the imagination may lose itself in their 
 vastness. 
 
 " I stretch my head into the clouds, 
 
 My arm into eternity." 
 
 We accompany the sublime in poetry with 
 the great in music, with the artificially immea- 
 surable in iteration, &c. ; not because all that is 
 great is also sublime, as is generally supposed, 
 but because similar sensations mutually support 
 each other, and because the great is precisely 
 the same in respect to the external senses, that 
 the sublime is in relation to the inner sense. 
 Therefore, the impression on the inner sense 
 must needs be strengthened when the external 
 senses are, by means of similar impressions, 
 attuned in harmony with it. 
 
 Admiration in regard to the productions of 
 the fine arts, as well as the perfection which is 
 expressed by it, may be of two different kinds. 
 Either the object to be represented possesses in 
 and of itself qualities which are admirable; in 
 which case the admiration of the object be- 
 comes the dominant idea in the soul ; or the 
 object is not particularly remarkable in and of 
 itself, but the artist possesses the skill to bring 
 out its qualities and to place them in an un- 
 common light ; and then the admiration is di- 
 rected rather to the imitation than to the arche- 
 type, rather to the excellences of art than to the 
 excellences of the object. And as every work 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN, 
 
 109 
 
 is an embodying of the perfections of the mas- 
 ter, so the admiration, in the latter case, regards 
 more especially the artist and his characteristic 
 excellences. We admire his great wit, his ge- 
 nius, his imagination, and other faculties of the 
 soul which harmonize together for so worthy 
 an end; and whose invisible nature he has 
 found means to manifest in his work. That 
 which especially pleases us in art, considered 
 as art, refers to the intellectual endowments of 
 the artist, which are brought to view in his 
 works. When these exhibit the marks of genius 
 or of extraordinary talent, they excite our admi- 
 ration. 
 
 This classification will furnish opportunities 
 of deciding how far the sublime is compatible 
 with ornate expression, and in what cases it 
 rejects such expression. We will begin with 
 that species in which the admiration arises im- 
 mediately from the object itself. 
 
 Perfections of the external condition are of too 
 little worth to excite the admiration of a man 
 of understanding. Hence riches, splendour, 
 authority and power without merit are justly 
 excluded from the province of the sublime. 
 
 " Those things," says Longinus very strikingly, 
 "the contempt of which is considered as some- 
 thing great, can never possess real sublimity in 
 themselves." In fact we admire not so much 
 those who possess great wealth or hold distin- 
 guished posts of honour, as those who might 
 have these things, but who, from a noble mag- 
 nanimity, reject them. Therefore the repre- 
 sentation of these things in architecture and the 
 arts of embellishment, where advantages of ex- 
 ternal condition come into consideration, may 
 be showy, proud, splendid ; — but true sublimity 
 is attained only by means of a noble simplicity, 
 i. e. by the avoidance of all which would seem 
 to place much value on those advantages. Not 
 the lavish use of wealth and splendour, but a 
 wise indifference toward them exalts the soul 
 and teaches us to know its real dignity. They 
 must be objects of importance with the spend- 
 thrift, if he wishes to shine with them. 
 
 Physical perfections, as, for example, uncom- 
 mon strength or bravery, a beautiful form in an 
 insignificant posture, a beautiful countenance 
 whose features indicate neither intellect nor 
 sentiment, an extraordinary nimbleness in the 
 motions of the limbs without grace or attraction, 
 &c, may indeed excite a slight degree of admi- 
 ration, but we are never so charmed as we are 
 in contemplating great mental perfections. A 
 great intellect, great and noble sentiments, a 
 happy imagination combined with penetrating 
 sagacity, generous and vehement emotions 
 which rise above the conceptions of ordinary 
 minds, whether they have a true or only an 
 apparent good for their object, and, in general, 
 all great qualities of mind which surprise us 
 unexpectedly, ravish our soul and lift it, as it 
 were, above itself. The immeasurably great 
 which is there implied, and which seems new, 
 because unsuspected, fixes the attention of the 
 
 mind and enfeebles all collateral ideas, uncon- 
 genial with it, to such an extent that the soul 
 finds no transition to other objects, but, for 
 awhile, is lost in wonder. When this inability 
 to quit the object continues for a time, that state 
 of mind is called astonishment. 
 
 This admiration, however, may be likened 
 almost to a flash of lightning, which dazzles us 
 for a moment and disappears, unless its flame 
 is maintained and nourished by the fire of a 
 gentle sentiment. When we love the object 
 which we admire, or when, by undeserved 
 suffering, it merits our compassion, then admi- 
 ration alternates with a more affectionate senti- 
 ment, in our minds; we wish, we hope, we 
 fear for the object of our love or of our compas- 
 sion; and we admire his great soul which is 
 raised above hope and fear. When the artist, 
 by his magic power, can transport us into this 
 frame of mind, he has reached the summit of 
 his art, and satisfied art's worthiest aims. It is 
 a spectacle pleasing to the gods, says an ancient 
 philosopher, when they behold a good man 
 struggling with fate, sacrificing everything but 
 his virtue. Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad quod 
 respiciat intentus operi suo Deus : ecce par Deo 
 dignum, vir fortis cum mala for tuna compositus !* 
 
 These then are the principal kinds of admi- 
 ration which flow directly from the object itself 
 without reference to the perfections of the artist. 
 We will examine how far external embellish- 
 ment of expression is compatible with them. 
 
 The truly sublime, as has been stated in the 
 foregoing remarks, occupies the faculties^of the 
 soul to such an extent, that all collateral ideas 
 connected with it must needs disappear. It is 
 a sun which shines alone and eclipses all feebler 
 lights with its splendour. Moreover in the 
 moment when we perceive the sublime, neither 
 wit nor imagination can perform their functions, 
 to turn our thoughts in any other direction ; for 
 no other similar idea was ever connected in our 
 mind with the object of admiration, so as to 
 follow naturally in its own train according to 
 the laws of the imagination. Whoever doubts 
 this, let him consider that, according to our ex- 
 planation, the unexpected, the new is an essen- 
 tial condition of the sublime. It is this, pre- 
 cisely, that causes the strong impression which 
 admiration makes on our minds, and which is 
 not unfrequently succeeded by astonishment, or 
 even by a kind of stupor — a loss of consciousness. 
 
 Hence it is evident that excessive ornament 
 is incompatible with the sublime of the first 
 class. Any amplification, by means of collate- 
 ral ideas, is unnatural; for all such ideas are 
 necessarily thrown, as it were, into the darkest 
 shade. The analysis of the main idea would 
 weaken admiration by its slowness ; it would 
 allow us to feel the sublime only by little and 
 little. On the other hand, comparisons and 
 other ornaments of speech are still more out of 
 place, since wit and imagination, from which 
 
 * Seneca, de Providentia, C. II. 
 10 
 
110 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 they spring, suspend their functions during the 
 contemplation of the sublime, and allow the 
 soul the repose which is necessary to dwell on 
 that idea and to think it over in all its grandeur. 
 The main idea of the sublime is properly that, 
 
 " Judicis argutum quod non formidat acumen." 
 
 We may say of it, volet hoc sub luce videri ■ 
 whereas of collateral ideas it may be said, hoc 
 amat obscurum. Therefore the artist, in the 
 representation of this species of the sublime, 
 should cultivate a naive, inartificial expression, 
 which leaves the reader or spectator to imagine 
 more than is said. Nevertheless, the expression 
 must be derived from actual vision (anschauend), 
 and if possible refer to particular instances, in 
 order that the mind of the reader may be 
 roused and inspired to meditation. 
 
 We will illustrate these thoughts by some 
 examples. This proposition, what God willed, 
 that came to pass, contains the same lofty idea 
 which we admire in the well-known "God said, 
 Let there be light, and there was light." But the 
 former expression is abstract and therefore not 
 sufficiently inspired. This sensuous act, "said," 
 — this individual object, light, make the idea an 
 intuition, and give it life. 
 
 Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis 
 Cuncta supercilio moventis, 
 
 is an unusually sublime conception ; but sub- 
 stitute mente or voluntate instead of supercilio, 
 or regnantis instead of moventis, and a portion 
 of the sublimity vanishes, because the concrete 
 ideas are changed to abstract ones. The omni- 
 potent wink, supercilio, the sensuous action, 
 moventis, produce in our imagination the sub- 
 lime image of the Jupiter of Phidias. We see 
 the omnipotent, if I may use the expression, face 
 to face, Qui totum nutu tremefacit Olympum. 
 In the following passage of Horace, 
 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis 
 Impavidum ferient ruins, 
 
 the danger which threatens the wise man is 
 perfectly painted, while the state of his soul by 
 which it is more particularly designed to excite 
 our admiration, is indicated by only one word, 
 impavidum. Substitute 
 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 
 Justum et tenacem propositi virum 
 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse; 
 
 and where then is the admired sublimity? The 
 misplaced circumlocution has detained the im- 
 patient mind of the spectator, eager for the is- 
 sue, too long, and suffered the fire of expectation 
 to become extinct. The same remark will ap- 
 ply to the sacred psalmist, in reference to that 
 passage in which he carried out a similar idea 
 more worthily perhaps than Horace. " There- 
 fore will we not fear though the earth be 
 removed and though the mountains should be 
 carried into the midst of the sea." The danger, 
 in this case, is described as minutely, but with 
 far greater truth than in Horace. But how could 
 the influence of trust in God be expressed more 
 simply and artlessly, — " we will not fear" — for 
 which the Hebrew needs but three syllables. 
 
 Observe, by the way, the careful selection of 
 phrases in both these great poets, if it may be 
 allowed us to compare them together. Horace 
 describes the quality of mind of a Stoic philo- 
 sopher, whom the thought, that destiny is neces- 
 sary and immutable, has rendered insensible to 
 all untoward accidents. He may anticipate 
 every evil; the ruins of the world actually smite 
 him, feriunt ruincc, — but he is not dismayed. 
 No calamity can overtake him unprepared. He 
 has armed himself against every stroke of Fate. 
 The sacred poet, on the other hand, is speaking 
 of the state of mind of a good man, who reposes 
 entirely on God and places his trust in him. He 
 may be alarmed when sudden danger threatens, 
 but his thoughts recur to God. Therefore he is 
 not afraid. 
 
 Some objects are, in their nature, so perfect, 
 so sublime, that they cannot be reached by any 
 finite thought, nor correctly indicated by any 
 sign, nor represented as they are by any pic- 
 tures ; such are God, the universe, eternity, &c. 
 Here the artist must strain all the powers of his 
 mind to find the worthiest figures by which 
 these infinitely sublime ideas may be brought 
 sensuously before the mind. He may do so the 
 more safely that the thing signified must always 
 remain greater than the sign he employs ; and 
 consequently his expression, however full he 
 may make it, will always be naive in compari- 
 son with the thing. The sacred poet sings : 
 
 Lord, thy mercy reaches above the heavens, 
 And thy truth above the clouds, 
 Thy justice is like the mountains of God, 
 And thy right an unfathomable deep ! 
 
 SjC 3ji jjc 5jC 5j< ifc 
 
 The sublime in sentiment, or the heroic, 
 which, as we remarked above, is an inferior 
 variety of the sublime of the first class, consists 
 in those perfections of the affective powers 
 which excite admiration. When the hero him- 
 self is introduced and made to utter such senti- 
 ments in person, he should express himself as 
 briefly and as inartificially as possible. A great 
 soul utters its sentiments gracefully and empha- 
 tically, but without parade of diction. It argues 
 greater perfection when our noble sentiments 
 have become, as it were, a second nature ; when 
 we think greatly and act greatly without know- 
 ing it or without making any particular merit 
 of it. Hence we are pleased with the emphatic 
 brevity of the old Horatius, "Qu'il mourut;" — 
 of Brutus in Voltaire, "Brutus l'eut iramole" — 
 and the artless offer of friendship in Corneille, 
 " soyons amis, Cinna!" 
 
 To this class belongs the answer of that Spar- 
 tan who, when a Persian soldier boasted that 
 the arrows and javelins of the Persian army 
 would cover the sun, replied. Then we shall 
 fight in the shade. The epitaph of Simonides 
 on the Lacedaemonians, who fell in battle at 
 Thermopylae, is of the same kind ; 
 
 Die hospes Spartae nos te hie vidisse jacentes 
 Dum Sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur.* 
 
 * Cicero. Tuscul. Quaest. L. I. 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 These patriotic men considered their death as 
 sufficiently compensated, if Sparta learned that 
 they had fallen, while obeying the sacred laws 
 of their country. 
 
 But though the heroic soul is thus immovable 
 in its sentiments and thus brief and emphatic 
 in the expression of them, when the determina- 
 tion has once been formed ; it must show itself 
 rich and inexhaustible in thought, when deli- 
 berating on its actions, and while yet uncertain 
 which the path is that virtue prescribes. It 
 must be neither obstinate nor rash, and, in 
 doubtful cases, must weigh the reasons for and 
 against its purposed course with great caution, 
 before it inclines to one or the other side. Then, 
 the sublime in sentiment admits of the richest 
 ornament in expression. All the fire of rhetoric 
 is brought into requisition, in order to exhibit 
 the motives, on both sides, in the strongest light. 
 The undetermined soul wavers as if driven by 
 waves from one side to the other, and carries 
 the hearer with it in every direction, until it 
 recognizes the voice of virtue which puts an 
 end to its irresolution. 
 
 Immediately, all doubts are removed, all ob- 
 stacles overcome, the resolve stands firm and 
 nothing can cause it to vacillate again. 
 
 From the sublime of this last description have 
 arisen the monologues in tragedies, which, in 
 modern times, since the Chorus is done away, 
 have come very much into vogue. The mono- 
 logue of Augustus in the tragedy of China, (Act 
 VI. sc. III.) that of Rodogune in the tragedy of 
 that name, (Act III. sc. 3.) of Agamemnon in 
 the tragedy of Iphigenia, (Act IV. sc. 3.) of Cato 
 in Addison, (Act. V. sc. 1.) of iEneas in the 
 Dido of Metastasio, (Act. I. sc. 19.) are master- 
 pieces in their kind. But they are all outdone 
 by the celebrated soliloquy of Shakspeare's 
 Hamlet, Act. III. sc. 2. 
 
 * * * * # * # 
 
 Among all the varieties of the sublime, the 
 sublime of passion, — when the soul is suddenly 
 stunned with terror, remorse, anger, and des- 
 pair, — requires the most artless expression. A 
 mind in commotion is occupied singly and alone 
 with its own passion, and every idea which 
 would withdraw it from that, is torture to it. 
 The soul labours under the multitude of con- 
 ceptions which overwhelm it. In the moment 
 of vehement emotion they all press forward for 
 utterance, and since the mouth cannot utter 
 them all at once, it hesitates and is scarce able 
 to pronounce the single words which first offer 
 themselves. 
 
 What, for example, could CEdipus say, in that 
 terrible moment when, by the confession of the 
 ancient servant, the whole mystery was ex- 
 plained to him, and he felt that the terrible 
 imprecation which he had pronounced against 
 the murderer of Laius must fall upon himself? 
 
 Wo ! wo ! now all is plain ! 
 Sophocles makes him exclaim. CEdipus, to 
 whom so many oracles, testimonies and circum- 
 stances were known in relation to this matter, 
 
 which seemed now to contradict each other, 
 and now to contradict his own consciousness, 
 perceives at length, with horror, that they per- 
 fectly agree, and that he is the most miserable 
 of men. Wo ! wo ! is the expression of Nature 
 in the first stupor, the sigh which the wretch 
 heaves forth when he can find no words. And 
 the first idea which could arise again in the 
 soul of CEdipus must needs have reference to 
 the agreement of the circumstances. "Now all 
 is clear." 
 
 Seneca, on the contrary, who seems to have 
 thought this much too quiet, makes his CEdipus, 
 on the same occasion, rave after a very different 
 fashion : 
 
 Dehisce tellus tuque tenebrarum potens 
 In Tartara ima rector umbrarum rape. 
 
 One sees that the more foaming the words, the 
 colder the heart; for we feel that it is the stilted 
 poet, not the wretched CEdipus whom we hear. 
 
 In Shakspeare's Macbeth, Macduff learns 
 that Macbeth has seized on his castle and mur- 
 dered his wife and children. He falls into a 
 profound melancholy; his friend endeavours to 
 comfort him, but he hears nothing; he is medi- 
 tating the means of revenge, and breaks forth 
 at last into those terrible words : 
 
 He hath no children ! 
 These few words breathe more vengeance than 
 could have been expressed in a whole oration. 
 
 When Joseph could no longer contain himself 
 for grief, and had removed all the bystanders, 
 in order to discover himself to his brethren, 
 what words should he find to express the con- 
 dition of his soul ? How make known to his 
 brethren, in one word, that he was the indivi- 
 dual whom they had abused, but their brother 
 still ? u I am Joseph" he says ; " doth my Father 
 yet live?'''' "And they could not answer him, 
 for they were troubled at his presence." 
 
 Louginus has remarked, that the true sublime 
 may sometimes be attained by mere silence. 
 "The sublime," he says, in the ninth division 
 of his treatise, " is nothing but the echo of a 
 great mind. And therefore we sometimes ad- 
 mire the mere musing of a man, even when he 
 utters no word, like the silence of Ajax in Hell,* 
 which has in it more sublimity than all which 
 he could have said." This eloquent silence is 
 imitated by Virgil, j" who says of Dido, when 
 addressed by iEneas in the Elysian fields: 
 
 Ilia solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat, 
 Nec magis incepto vultum sennone movetur 
 Quam si dura silex aut stet Marpesia cautes. 
 Tandem proripuit sese, aique ininiica refugit 
 In nemus umbriferum. 
 
 Among the moderns, Klopstock has likewise 
 attempted to make use of this sublime silence, 
 in that passage where Abdiel is addressed by 
 the repentant Abaddon, who was his friend 
 before they fell, with what success I will not 
 undertake to say. 
 
 Where this dumb rhetoric, if it may be called 
 
 * Odyssee, B. XL v. 563. t jEneid, B. VI. v. 469. 
 
112 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 so, is connected with the sublime in passion, at 
 the right point, it is capable of producing the 
 most happy effect on the mind of the attentive 
 spectator. In the (Edipus of Sophocles, (Act 
 IV. sc. 3.) the Corinthian shepherd says to 
 (Edipus in the presence of Jocaste that he may 
 return without fear to Corinth ; that Merope is 
 not his mother, nor Polybius his father ; that he 
 himself, the shepherd, had discovered him on 
 the mountain Citharon, and brought him from 
 thence to Corinth. This declaration must needs 
 strike the mind of Jocaste like a thunderbolt. 
 She is now fully informed with regard to her 
 terrible fate. She had caused her son to be 
 exposed on that very mountain, for fear that he 
 might some time murder his father Laius ac- 
 cording to the oracle. CEdipus was found on 
 that mountain, and is now her husband. The 
 dark sayings of Tiresias and the whole of the 
 terrible mystery are suddenly made clear to her 
 soul. But she is dumb. Grief has so stupified 
 her that she stands there like a pillar. Her 
 husband and son continues to inquire of the 
 shepherd. What despair must have shown 
 itself in her looks during this conversation ! 
 CEdipus, tormented by the most dreadful doubts, 
 is impelled by his rashness to put a question to 
 her also. Now she suddenly wakes from her 
 death-slumber. 
 
 Joe. How, what did he say? For the sake of heaven, if thou 
 lovest thyself, cease to inquire farther. I am sufficiently misera- 
 ble thus. 
 
 CEdip. Be calm ' And though I were descended from three-fold 
 slaves, it cannot dishonour thee. 
 
 Joe. Nevertheless, obey me ! Be entreated ! do it not ! 
 
 (Edip. Nay ! I must bring the truth to light. 
 
 Joe. Ah ! Knowest thou what weighty reasons I have for pre- 
 venting thee ! 
 
 CEdip. It is even these secret reasons which double my unea- 
 siness. 
 
 Joe. (.aside). Miserable ! that thou mightest never learn who 
 thou art ! 
 
 CEdip. Bring hither the other shepherd speedily. Let the queen 
 be ashamed of my condition if she will, and be proud of her own. 
 
 Joe. Alas ! alas ! Thou most miserable of all mortals ! This is 
 all that I have to say to thee. I can endure it no longer. {Exit.) 
 
 So speaks the true sublime in passion. The 
 dumbness of Jocaste, so long as the discourse 
 was not addressed to her, the wild, despairing 
 looks, the oppression, the convulsive trembling 
 in every joint, with which a good actress would 
 accompany this dreadful silence, produce the 
 utmost terror in the spectators, who are kept in 
 a state of constant expectation by the impatience 
 of CEdipus, and the near development of the 
 great mystery. They are not yet indeed fully 
 informed as to the fate of Jocaste; but so much 
 the more terrible are the anticipations to which 
 her conduct, the responses of the oracles, and 
 the sayings of Tiresias, give rise. 
 
 At length, she speaks; but what words ! what 
 perplexity! "How? What said he ?" &c. In 
 departing, she gives us plainly enough to un- 
 derstand what purpose she nourishes in her 
 breast, and hastens to execute without wit- 
 nesses. "This is all that I have to say to thee ; 
 I can endure no longer!" Who does not now 
 
 tremble for her life ? Who does not follow her 
 with the eyes, and wish that she might not be 
 left to herself, in her despair? CEdipus, only, 
 is too much occupied with himself, and appre- 
 hends no danger on her part. She departs, and 
 we learn, in the beginning of the fifth act, that 
 our fear was but too well founded. 
 
 So much for the sublime of the first class, in 
 which the ground of admiration is to be found 
 in the object itself, which is brought before us. 
 Perhaps I have dwelt on it too long; but the 
 sublime in sentiment required a more detailed 
 exposition from the circumstance that, among 
 all the examples of the sublime which Longinus 
 adduces, there is to be found scarcely one which 
 can be ranked in this class. I except the case 
 of the silence of Ajax, which really belongs 
 here, as also the well-known exclamation of 
 that hero: "0! Father Zeus! deliver the Greeks 
 from darkness! Let it be light, that our eyes 
 may see once more. In the light of day destroy 
 us, if thou hast so determined!" — which Longi- 
 nus quotes in his ninth section. 
 
 The second class of the sublime is that in 
 which the admiration is directed rather to the 
 art of representing than to the representation 
 itself; and, therefore, as was shown above, 
 recurs, for the most part, to the genius and the 
 wonderful abilities of the author. The object 
 in itself may contain nothing lofty, nothing ex- 
 traordinary; but we admire the great talents 
 of the poet, his happy imagination, his power 
 of invention, his deep insight into the nature 
 of things, into characters and passions, and the 
 noble manner in which he has known how to 
 express his excellent thoughts. A man rolling 
 in the agonies of death, on the field of battle, 
 is not, in itself, a remarkable object. But who 
 does not admire the genius of a Klopstock in 
 describing this circumstance. It was a happy 
 conception, in the outset, — and one which 
 opened a field for great thoughts, — to place an 
 atheist instead of an ordinary man in this 
 situation. 
 
 And the victor approaching, 
 
 And the rearing steed, and the din of the sounding armour, 
 And the cries and the rage of the slaying and the thundering 
 heaven 
 
 Storms over him. He lies and sinks with cloven head, 
 Stupid and unconscious among the dead, and thinks he is passing 
 away. 
 
 Again he lifts himself up and still is, and thinks still, and curses, 
 Because he still is, and spurts with his pale dying fingers 
 Blood toward heaven ; curses God and would fain yet deny him. 
 
 That which the painters call fracas, — the 
 wild tumult on a field of battle, — which is here 
 described with admirable traits, throws the 
 mind of the reader into the utmost commotion. 
 The raving despair of the atheist, who now 
 feels that there is a God, in the midst of this 
 terrible uproar, attracts our whole attention and 
 fills us with disgust and amazement. The 
 horrible, the dreadful assails us on every side. 
 On all hands we have the sensibly immeasur- 
 able, which causes a shuddering sensation, one 
 after another, and, agreeably to the explanation 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 113 
 
 given above, maintains the feeling of the 
 sublime. What a thought, 
 
 Curses God and would fain yet deny him ! 
 ***** 
 
 But there are also some objects entirely de- 
 void of interest in themselves, which give the 
 artist not the least advantage and leave it 
 entirely to the power of his genius, how far 
 they shall appear sublime to us, i. e., how far 
 they shall excite our admiration. An example 
 of this kind is the passage quoted by Longinus 
 from Demosthenes. " Will ye then — confess to 
 me — will ye then run back and forth continu- 
 ally and ask among yourselves what is there 
 new? What can be more new than that one 
 man from Macedonia makes war upon all 
 Greece? Is Philip dead? No, by the Gods! 
 he is only indisposed. But ! ye Athenians, 
 what is that to you ? Suppose, that which is 
 human should happen to him ; assuredly you 
 would make to yourselves another Philip.'' 
 What is there great in this passage ? What 
 else awakens the idea of the immeasurable 
 here, but the wonderful mind of the orator who 
 knows how to avail himself so felicitously of 
 the most insignificant circumstances, in order to 
 give life, emphasis, and inspiration to his dis- 
 course ? 
 
 No one is more happy in taking advantage 
 of the commonest circumstances and making 
 them sublime, by a fortunate turn, than Shak- 
 speare. The effect of this species of the 
 sublime must necessarily be stronger, the more 
 unexpectedly it surprises us and the less pre- 
 pared we were to anticipate such weighty and 
 tragic consequences from such trivial causes. 
 I will give one or two examples of this, out of 
 Hamlet. The king institutes public entertain- 
 ments in order to dissipate the melancholy of 
 the prince. Plays are performed. Hamlet has 
 seen the tragedy of Hecuba. He appears to 
 be in good humour. The company leaves him ; 
 and now mark with astonishment the tragic 
 consequence which Shakspeare knows how to 
 draw from these trivial common circumstances. 
 The prince soliloquizes, 
 
 ! what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! 
 Is it not monstrous that this player here, 
 But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 
 Could force his soul so to his own conceit, 
 That from her working all his visage wanned ; 
 Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect, 
 A broken voice and his whole function suiting 
 With forms to his conceit ! And all lor nothing ! 
 For Hecuba ! 
 
 What 's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba, 
 That he should weep for her ? What would he do 
 Had he the motive and the cue for passion 
 That 1 have ? 
 
 What a master-trait ! Experience teaches that 
 persons afflicted with melancholy find unex- 
 pectedly in every occasion, even in entertain- 
 ments, a transition to the prevailing idea of 
 their grief; and the more it is attempted to 
 divert them from it, the more suddenly they fall 
 Dack. This experience guided the genius of 
 p 
 
 Shakspeare wherever he had to depict melan 
 choly. His Hamlet and his Lear are full of 
 these unexpected transitions causing terror to 
 the spectator. 
 
 In the third act, Guildenstern, a former con- 
 fidant of Hamlet, at the instigation of the king 
 endeavours to sound him and to ascertain the 
 secret cause of his melancholy. The prince 
 detects his purpose and resents it. 
 
 Guild. 0, my lord ! if my duty be too bold, my love is too un- 
 mannerly. 
 
 Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this 
 
 pipe? 
 
 Guild. My lord, I cannot. 
 
 Ham. I pray you. 
 
 Gttil. Believe me 1 cannot. 
 
 Ham. I do beseech you. 
 
 Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your 
 finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will 
 discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. 
 
 Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of har- 
 mony ; I have not the skill. 
 
 Ham. Why. look you now, how unworthy a thing do you make 
 of rne ! You would play upon me ; you would seem to know my 
 stops ; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of 
 my compass : and there is much music, excellent voice in this 
 little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'S blood! do you 
 think 1 am easier to be played on than a pipe ! Call me what 
 instrument you will, though you can fret me you cannot play 
 upon me. 
 
 None but Shakspeare must venture to intro- 
 duce such common matters upon the stage, for 
 no one but he possesses the art to use them. 
 Must not the spectator, in this case, be as much 
 amazed as Guildenstern, who feels the superior 
 address of the prince, and withdraws, covered 
 with shame ? 
 
 If the artist wishes to give us, in his work, a 
 clear and sensible proof of those perfections 
 which he possesses in the highest degree, he 
 must direct his attention to the highest beauties 
 which can animate his description. The little 
 touches of the pencil, it is true, attest the 
 finishing hand of the master, his diligence and 
 his care to please. But it is not in them, cer- 
 tainly, that we are to look for the sublime which 
 deserves our admiration. Admiration is a 
 tribute which we owe to extraordinary gifts of 
 mind. These are what we call genius in the 
 strictest sense. Accordingly, wherever, in a 
 work of art, there are found sensible marks of 
 genius, there we are ready to accord to the 
 artist the admiration which is his due. But the 
 unimportant adjuncts, the last finish — that 
 which belongs indeed to the picture, but does 
 not constitute an essential part of the picture — 
 exhibits too plainly the diligence and the care 
 which it has cost the artist; and we are accus- 
 tomed to deduct so much from genius as we 
 ascribe to diligence. 
 
 It appears then that, in this class of the sub- 
 lime, the artist is free to use the whole wealth 
 of his art in order to place in their true light 
 the beauties which he has introduced by a 
 happy thought. And herein this kind dis- 
 tinguishes itself from the former in which the 
 I naive and inartificial mode of treatment is pre- 
 J ferable. Nevertheless, even here, the artist 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 must not honour with too much care and labour 
 those little beauties which perhaps would oc- 
 cupy minds of a lower order for a long time ; 
 and he may only then not reject them, when 
 they offer themselves, as it were, unbidden. 
 
 I shall content myself with adducing a single 
 example. The sacred Psalmist says of the Sun, 
 (Ps. xix. G.) 
 
 "He cometh forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber, 
 And rejoiceth like a hero to run a race." 
 
 Both images are uncommonly sublime and in 
 the last, especially, Hogarth finds a similarity 
 of thought to the celebrated antique — the Apollo 
 — whom the artist has happily characterized, 
 as the God of day, by the swiftness with which 
 he seems to step forth and to shoot his arrows ; 
 —if the arrow can be regarded as intended to 
 signify the rays of the sun. But these great 
 beauties, even in the hands of so great a master 
 as Rousseau, if not entirely dissipated, are at 
 least very much degraded from their sublimity 
 by too diligent elaboration. . 
 
 Cet astre ouvre sa carritlre 
 Comme un Epoux glorieux, 
 Qui des l'Aube matinale 
 De sa couche nuptiale 
 Sort brillant et radieux 
 L' universe a sa presence 
 Semble sortir du neant. 
 II prend sa course, il s'avance, 
 Comme un superb geant. 
 
 Here we find eight words of the original text 
 spread out into nine verses ; but how have they 
 suffered by this extension! * * * 
 ******* 
 
 For the rest, it is evident from our explana- 
 tion, that this second class of the sublime may 
 consist in the thoughts as well as the expression; 
 and — as it respects the thoughts — in the under- 
 standing as well as the imagination, in the 
 creative power, in the comparisons, in striking 
 sentences, sentiments, descriptions of characters, 
 passions, the manners of men and objects in 
 Nature ; — and, as it respects the expression — in 
 the use of ornate diction, in the choice of epithets 
 designating the most sensuous qualities, in the 
 arrangement and connection of words, and final- 
 ly, in the euphony and harmony of the periods. 
 For the artist may display his extraordinary 
 talents by all these beauties. 
 
 It will not be necessary to remind the reader 
 that both kinds of the sublime are often found 
 united in works of art. In the essay on the first 
 principles of art it has been already observed, 
 with respect to imitation, that our pleasure in 
 a successful likeness of imitative art is far 
 greater than our pleasure in a form produced 
 by Nature herself, because in the former case, 
 the idea of the artist comes in and heightens the 
 enjoyment. Now this is true not only of imita- 
 tion, but of all beauty, as it was also there 
 remarked. They please far more when they 
 are viewed, at the same time, as expressions of 
 the perfections of the artist who produced them. 
 Although he must not seek, of himself, to appear 
 and to shine, yet there will always remain some 
 
 footprints of genius which occasionally betray 
 him and indicate the giant who stamped them 
 there. Therefore, in many cases, subjective 
 sublimity may be united with objective. But 
 the expression will admit of more or less orna- 
 ment, according as our admiration is directed 
 rather to the object itself, or to the skill of the 
 artist. This must depend, in particular cases, 
 on the nature of the subject to be handled and 
 on the design of the artist. 
 
 It would be superfluous, moreover, to illustrate 
 all these remarks with examples, since the 
 treatise of Longinus, who seems to occupy him- 
 self singly and exclusively with the second 
 species of the sublime, is in every one's hands. 
 My design was merely to make the idea of the 
 sublime, which is often talked about in connec- 
 tion with works of the fine arts, a little clearer ; 
 and I am satisfied if I have not been wholly 
 unsuccessful in this attempt. I shall content 
 myself with adding one or two remarks. 
 
 Longinus says, in the seventh division of his 
 work, " You may be assured, in general, that that 
 is really beautiful and sublime which pleases 
 always and all men." Perrault is not satisfied 
 with this proposition of Longinus, and says of 
 it, in his answer to the eleventh observation of 
 Boileau on Longinus, that, according to this pre- 
 cept, the sublime would be extremely rare, since 
 men of different age, different education and 
 mode of life conceive the same thing in very 
 different ways. It seems to me that Perrault is 
 right, so far as the sublime of the second class 
 is concerned. It requires oftentimes a very 
 deep insight into the mysteries of art, to be able 
 to admire the talents of the artist. And how 
 small is the number of the noble ones who pos- 
 sess this insight! But the sublime in the object, 
 and, especially, the sublime in sentiment, surely 
 move men of all classes, as soon as they under- 
 stand the words by which it is expressed. 
 
 Nay, men of ordinary minds, whose feeling 
 is not entirely perverted, must admire the sub- 
 lime in sentiment the more, the more it exceeds 
 their way of thinking and the less they had sup- 
 posed the human soul to possess such perfec- 
 tions. It is objected that the most refined critics 
 have disputed with regard to certain passages, 
 whether they are to be classed with the sublime. 
 For example, the passage from the holy scrip- 
 tures, " God said, Let there be light, and there 
 was light," belongs unquestionably to the sub- 
 lime of the first class, and yet its sublimity has 
 been doubted by many discerning minds. Where 
 then, in this case, is the agreement which we 
 are to regard as a criterion of the sublime of the 
 first class? But let it be considered that the op- 
 ponents of Longinus have never doubted that 
 the fact in itself — " God said, Let there be light, 
 and there was light" — is sublime. Only they 
 have refused to concede that it was the inten- 
 tion of the Lawgiver to say something sublime 
 with these words ; that is, they allowed to this 
 passage a sublimity of the first class, and only 
 doubted whether that of the second class could 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 115 
 
 be ascribed to it. One sees too, with wonder, 
 in the controversies respecting this passage, how 
 little the critics have been willing to under- 
 stand one another. The one party appeals con- 
 tinually to the sublimity of the act and the 
 simplicity of the language, the other party is 
 silent on this point and speaks only of the pur- 
 pose of the Lawgiver, who, to speak after the 
 manner of men, did not assuredly mean in this 
 passage, to tax his mental faculties to say some- 
 thing sublime. Had they explained themselves, 
 the controversy would have been at an end. 
 
 Longinus, therefore, is not only right in saying 
 that what pleases always and all men is really 
 beautiful and sublime, but, so far as the sublime 
 of the first class is concerned, we may invert 
 the proposition and say that the sublime must 
 always please and please all men. The words 
 of the Greek critic, which immediately follow, 
 prove moreover that he is actually speaking of 
 the sublime of the first class, when he says that 
 it pleases always and all men, although he has 
 never expressly pointed out this essential dis- 
 tinction. He says: "When people of various 
 tastes, of dissimilar habits, differing in know- 
 ledge and in years, have been moved by the 
 same thing, the consent of so many diversities 
 affords us so much the greater certainty, that 
 what is so admired must infallibly possess sub- 
 limity." 
 
 For the rest, since the sublime is found only 
 in connection with great and extraordinary 
 powers of mind, ordinary wit or the faculty of 
 seeing, in things that differ, unimportant resem- 
 blances, is justly excluded, as well from the 
 sublime of the first, as of the second class. 
 Pointed antitheses, epigrammatic conceits, far- 
 fetched and artificial wit, may amuse and en- 
 tertain us pleasantly enough for a time, but they 
 can never excite admiration. They may even 
 hinder it, inasmuch as they are marks of a little 
 mind which makes an insignificant relation, 
 discovered by it, a matter of importance. The 
 smallest soul has something more important to 
 do, in a moment of strong emotion, than to no- 
 tice insignificant allusions and relations and to 
 dwell upon them. Only an indifferent mind 
 can be so oppressed with ennui as to find en- 
 tertainment in trifles. 
 
 All this, however, applies only to common, 
 hair splitting wit. There is a great and noble 
 kind founded not in empty likenesses and idle 
 allusions and relations, but in fruitful truths and 
 often in worthy sentiments. This higher wit 
 is a fruitful source of the sublime and the ad- 
 mirable in the fine arts. Even the most vehe- 
 ment passion does not exclude antitheses which 
 rest on some important truth or sentiment. The 
 good writers of antiquity knew only this genuine 
 species of wit, which entertains, moves and in- 
 structs at the same time. In the place of this, 
 some of their followers introduced an empty 
 shimmer, which rather dazzles than illumines. 
 
 The following are examples of sublime 
 thoughts clothed in wit. 
 
 The answer of Alexander when Parmenio 
 said to him ; "I would accept the offer of Da- 
 rius if I were Alexander;" "So would I," re- 
 plied the prince, "if I were Parmenio." 
 
 "He who would fear nothing," says an an- 
 cient philosopher, "let him learn to fear God." 
 From this probably arose the sublime verse of 
 Racine: 
 
 Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d 'autre crainte. 
 
 Athalie, Act t Sc. L 
 
 Omnia terrarum subacta 
 
 Prater atrocem animum Catonis.— Horat. 
 
 Neque Cato post libertatem vixit neque libertas post Catonem. 
 
 ScTiec. 
 
 Tout etait Dieu excepts Dieu meme ; et le monde que Dieu 
 avait fait pour manife^ter sa puissance, semblait etre devenu un 
 temple d'idoles. — Bossuet. Hist. Univ. 
 
 Fern unter ihnen hat ftis menschliche Geschlecht, 
 Im Himmel und im Niclits, ein doppelt Biirgerrecht. 
 Aus ungleich festem Stoffhat Gott es auserlesen, 
 Halb zu der Ewigkeit, halb aber zum Verwesen. 
 Zweideutig Mittelding von Engeln und von Vieh, 
 Es iiberlebt sich selbst und stirbt und stirbet nie. 
 
 Holler. 
 
 Examples of pathetic or passion-moving anti- 
 theses : — 
 
 How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! The 
 greatest among the nations, the princess of the provinces is be- 
 come tributary \—Jerem. Lam. c. i, v. L 
 
 Anibalem pater filio meo potui placare. Filium Anibali non 
 
 possum. Vultum ipsius Anibalis quern armati exercitus susti- 
 
 nere nequeunt, quern horret populus Romanus, — tu sustinebis ? 
 
 Deterreri hie sine te potius, quam illic vinci. Valeant apud 
 
 3, sicut pro te hodie valuerunt.— Tit. Liv. I. 23. 
 
 Leve toi triste objet d'horreur et de tendresse ; 
 Leve toi cher appui qu'esperait ma vieillesse : 
 Viens embrasser ton pere ! II t'a du condamner, 
 Mais s r il n'etait Brutus il t'allait pardonner. 
 Va, ne t'atteudris point ; sois plusRomain que moi ; 
 Et que Rome t'admire en se vengeant de toi. 
 
 Brutus, Act V. Sc. 7. 
 
 The sublime, in general, and especially that 
 of the first class, stands in such close connection 
 with the naive in expression, as has been al- 
 ready suggested above, that it may not be un- 
 suitable to inquire here wherein the naive con- 
 sists, and how far it may be used in the works 
 of the fine arts. 
 
 We have no German word to denote this pro- 
 perty. 'Natural,' 'artless,' expresses too little. 
 Men often, in common life, express themselves 
 naturally and artlessly without being naive. 
 'Noble simplicity,' on the other hand, expresses 
 too much and denotes only a certain species of 
 the naive. We often say of certain comical 
 expressions, that they are naive, although they 
 are anything but noble. We must, therefore, 
 make use of this outlandish word ; but we will 
 endeavour to ascertain the idea which is usually 
 connected with it. 
 
 Simplicity is unquestionably a necessary in* 
 gredient of naivete. As soon as an expression 
 becomes profound, vivid, highly ornate, naivete 
 must be altogether denied it ; and, so far, the 
 sublime in expression is opposed to the naive. 
 But mere simplicity is not enough. Beneath 
 this simple exterior there must lie a beautiful 
 
116 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 thought, an important truth, a nohle sentiment 
 or passion, which utters itself in an inartificial 
 manner. A merely simple expression leaves 
 us unaffected, but when a beautiful thought 
 dwells, like a lofty soul, in this unadorned body, 
 our heart is touched with a soft emotion, and 
 we exclaim with pleasure, How naive ! The 
 country manners prevalent in our times are ex- 
 tremely simple ; but are they naive like the 
 manners of the Arcadian shepherds and other 
 citizens of the golden age, which probably never 
 existed except in the imagination of the poet? 
 And what other reason is there for this differ- 
 ence, but the noble sentiments imputed to the 
 latter, in addition to their external simplicity? 
 Perhaps then, we may establish the following 
 definition : When an object is noble, beautiful, 
 or is associated with important consequences, 
 and is indicated by a simple sign, we call the 
 designation naive. 
 
 This definition would be perfectly applicable 
 to all those cases in which the person, into 
 whose mouth the naive saying is put, has really 
 beautiful, noble or significant thoughts, and only 
 makes use of simple expressions. For example, 
 Virgil says in his third eclogue, 
 
 Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella, 
 Et l'ugit ad sahces, et se cupit ante videri. 
 
 This is uncommonly naive. The hiding of 
 Galatea appears to be mere innocent sport; but 
 there is a tender affection at the bottom of it. 
 She provokes the shepherd by this agreeable 
 play to pursue her behind the willows. She 
 could not more happily signify to him her secret 
 passion. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The epigrammatic inscription on ihe brazen 
 cow of Myron, 
 
 Herdsman, wherefore hurriest thou 
 
 Back so far for me ? 
 
 Why thy goad upliftest now 
 
 And urgest me to flee ? 
 
 J am the artist Myron's cow 
 
 And cannot go with thee, 
 
 is naive for the same reason ; because, at first 
 sight, it seems to be a mere narrative, but, in 
 reality, contains a very flattering compliment to 
 the artist. 
 
 Derision also sometimes assumes the air of 
 innocent narrative in order to conceal its design, 
 and thereby to make the satire more biting. 
 Praise and blame are both the more emphatic, 
 the less designed and the more accidental they 
 appear. 
 
 ******* 
 
 On dit que l'Abbe Roquette 
 
 Preehe les sermons d'autrui : 
 Moi qui scais qu'il les achete, 
 
 Je souiicus qu'ils sont a lui. 
 
 Boileau. 
 
 Huissiers, qu'on fasse silence 1 
 Dit en tenant audience 
 TJn President de, Bauge ; 
 C'est an bruit a tete fendre, 
 
 Nous avons deja juge 
 Dix causes sans les entendre. 
 
 J. B. Rousseau. 
 
 Praise sometimes wears the mask of reproach, 
 and is all the more flattering : 
 
 Helas qu'est devenu ce terns, cet heureux temps 
 Ou les Rois s'honoraient du nom de faineans! 
 
 And so, inversely, blame sometimes takes the 
 guise of eulogy, whereby the irony is rendered 
 more severe. 
 
 ******* 
 
 La Fontaine loses his benefactress, Madame 
 de Lasabliere, and meets his friend, M. d'Her- 
 vart. "My dear La Fontaine," said his honest 
 friend, " 1 have heard of the misfortune which 
 has befallen you. You resided with Madame 
 de Lasabliere ; she is dead. I wished to pro- 
 pose to you to come and live with me." " I 
 was just going there," answered La Fontaine. 
 
 Generally, the naive in moral character con- 
 sists in an external simplicity, which uninten- 
 tionally discovers internal worth ; in ignorance 
 of the world's ways; in unconcern about false 
 interpretation, in that confiding manner which 
 is not founded in stupidity and want of ideas, 
 but in magnanimity, innocence, goodness of 
 heart, and an amiable persuasion that others 
 are not worse disposed toward us, than we 
 are toward them. If, therefore, we regard the 
 external conduct of men as the sign of their 
 internal character and worth, the naive, here 
 too, will require simplicity of expression, toge- 
 ther with dignity and significance in the thing 
 expressed. 
 
 It is the same with the naive in the human 
 countenance, which is so essential to the painter 
 and sculptor. It is always the unstudied, the 
 artless in exterior, undesignedly evincing inter- 
 nal excellence. Since the features, the airs and 
 gestures of men are signs of their propensities 
 and sentiments ; since every feature in the 
 countenance expresses a propensity, and every 
 mien an emotion corresponding to it, a naive 
 character is ascribed to the tout ensemble of all 
 the features and gestures, when, as it were, 
 without design, without pretence, without self- 
 consciousness, they discover a happy and harmo- 
 nious combination of tendencies and sentiments. 
 Hence the naive in the character of a child, 
 when, amidst the otherwise monotonous fea- 
 tures of a childish face, tender germs of meek- 
 ness, love, innocence and graeiousness appear. 
 
 Grace, or elevated beauty in movement, is 
 also connected with the naive, inasmuch as the 
 movements which charm us are natural, have 
 an easy flow, and slide gently one into another, 
 and unintentionally and unconsciously indicate 
 that the motive forces in the soul, from which 
 these voluntary motions flow, sport and unfold 
 themselves in the same unstudied, harmonious, 
 and artless manner. Hence, the idea of inno- 
 cence and of moral simplicity is always asso- 
 ciated with a lofty grace. The more this beauty 
 of motion is combined with consciousness and 
 appears to be the work of design, the more it 
 departs from the naive and acquires a studied 
 character; and, when the accompanying inter- 
 nal emotions do not agree with it, an affected 
 
MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 117 
 
 character. Nothing is so disgusting as insipid 
 naivete, or an outward simplicity which ap- 
 pears to have designs and makes pretensions. 
 
 On the other hand, when simplicity in mo- 
 tion betrays, at the same time, want of thought 
 and want of feeling, it is called stupidity; and 
 when inactivity is added, we have the niais. 
 In general, then, according to these considera- 
 tions, it requires, in all cases, an artless external 
 simplicity, together with internal worth or signi- 
 ficance, to constitute the naive. 
 
 There are cases, however, where he who 
 speaks naively has really nothing more in his 
 mind than the words he makes use of express, 
 and consequently discovers, on his part, no 
 more of internal worth than appears outwardly, 
 but where the hearers, by means of other cir- 
 cumstances, are enabled to connect a good deal 
 more with those words which seem so indif- 
 ferent, or to draw important consequences from 
 them. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The well-known passage in Gellert :*— 
 
 " What did you say, Papa ? You made a mistake ; 
 
 You said I was only fourteen years old." 
 "No! fourteen years and seven weeks," 
 
 is uncommonly naive, because the speaker, 
 (Fiekchen), without perceiving it, betrays the 
 secret wishes of her heart. She means to set 
 her father right, to show him that he has mis- 
 calculated by seven weeks, and, in doing so, 
 shows how carefully she must have calculated 
 herself. Contrary to her purpose, therefore, she 
 says more than she meant to say ; and yet we 
 call her answer naive. 
 
 Thus we sometimes, from haste, let fall a 
 naive word, whereby we betray an important 
 secret. 
 
 ******* 
 
 When this takes place in the heat of passion, 
 a naive betrayal of the most secret thoughts 
 may have a very tragic effect. There is a trait 
 of this kind in the Romeo and Juliet of Herr 
 Weisse. The Countess Capulet, who is far from 
 suspecting that her Juliet is in love with Romeo, 
 but, on the contrary, has reason to suppose that 
 she hates this Montague, as all her family hate 
 and prosecute him, because he has killed her 
 cousin Tybalt, (on account of whose death Juliet 
 pretends to be inconsolable, while the absence 
 of Romeo is the real cause of her grief) — this 
 Countess Capulet comes to cheer her daughter, 
 and to inform her that the Count of Lodrona 
 has applied for her hand. 
 
 Mad. Capulet. I bring you joyful news, Juliet; joyful for us 
 all, especially joyful for you. 
 
 Juliet (quickly). Has Romeo been pardoned ? — (Frightened). 
 Alas ! how weak my head is. Is Romeo punished t 
 
 A French writer (Diet. Encycl. Art. Naivete) 
 makes a distinction, which seems to be war- 
 ranted by the use of language, between naivete 
 and a naivete. A naivete, he says, is the name 
 we give to a thought, a trait of the imagination, 
 
 * Fabeln und Erzahlungen, 2 B. s. 115. 
 
 a sentiment which escapes us against our will 
 and may sometimes injure us ; an expression 
 originating in vivacity, carelessness, inexperi- 
 ence of the ways of the world. Of this de- 
 scription is the answer of a wife to her dying 
 husband, who was designating the person 
 whom he wished her to marry after his death: 
 "Take him," said he, "you will be happy with 
 him!" " Ah, yes," replied she, "I have often 
 thought of it." 
 
 Naivete, on the other hand, is the language 
 of fine genius and of discerning simplicity. It 
 is the most simple picture of a refined and in- 
 genious idea; a masterpiece of art in him in 
 whom it is not natural. 
 
 But, since both kinds of the naive have cer- 
 tain marks in common, it will be necessary, in 
 order not to exclude any of them, to extend our 
 definition of the naive somewhat. When, by 
 a simple expression, something is understood 
 to be designated, which is important in itself 
 or may have important consequences, whether 
 it be the design of the speaker to imply more 
 than he says, or whether without purpose, and, 
 sometimes, against his purpose, he betrays more 
 than he says, the expression is called, in each 
 of these cases, naive. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The effects of the naive are, first, an agree- 
 able astonishment, a slight degree of wonder 
 at the unexpected significance which lay con- 
 cealed beneath an outward simplicity. We 
 love to fix our attention on an object which re- 
 veals to us more and more, the longer we dwell 
 upon it, which performs, as it were, more than 
 it seemed to promise. If now, this interior 
 significance arises from a high degree of per- 
 fection, there ensues the feeling of awe which 
 accompanies the sublime ; but combined with 
 a joyous sensation which approaches very 
 nearly to laughter. For the simplicity of the 
 expression forms a kind of contrast with the 
 importance of the thing signified, or with the 
 consequences flowing from it, which tempts to 
 laughter, and the sense of this contrast, if not 
 suppressed by stronger sentiments, manifests it- 
 self in actual laughter. When overpowered by 
 the sublime, it is no longer laughter, which the 
 contrast produces, but the trace of a gracious 
 smile which plays about the lips and loses itself 
 in lofty admiration. This is always the feeling 
 which we have when surprised by the naive in 
 moral character. The man devoid of sentiment, 
 who judges according to appearance, will not 
 witness the morally naive without laughing; 
 for he sees nothing more than the contrast with 
 the customs of the world which he knows 
 better, and the strangeness of that too cer^iin 
 confidence in the goodness of others, which 
 provokes him to loud laughter. The man of 
 sensitive heart, on the contrary, sees through to 
 the inner worth, recognises the magnanimity 
 from which that indecision and seeming strange- 
 ness spring; and while his lips move them- 
 selves to laugh, a feeling of awe comes over his 
 
118 
 
 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 heart and resolves the laugh into wondering 
 meditation. The naive in the features of the 
 countenance produces a similar effect, only that 
 the inclination to laugh, in this case, will mani- 
 fest itself with much weaker indications, be- 
 cause the contrast here is not so obvious. The 
 man devoid of sentiment will contemplate it 
 with indifferent eyes because the air and the 
 features seem to him unmeaning; and, with 
 the more discerning, the contrast produces no 
 other effect than a gentle opening of the lips 
 and an almost imperceptible lengthening of the 
 mouth, which is rather an approval than a 
 smile. 
 
 If the essence of the naive is an evil, — not a 
 dangerous one, — a weakness, an error, a folly 
 which is not followed by any perceptible mis- 
 fortune, the naive is merely ludicrous. In this 
 case, the effect will differ according as the in- 
 dividual, from whom it comes, intends that 
 more should be understood than he says, or, 
 unintentionally, betrays more than he says. In 
 the former case, he makes us laugh ; in the 
 latter, he makes himself ridiculous. Of this 
 examples enough have been given above, and 
 the application is so easy that we may reason- 
 ably leave it to the reader. 
 
 But when the essence of the naive consists 
 in actual danger, a misfortune which befalls 
 some one in whose fate we are interested, the 
 naive is tragic, and when the danger is a 
 dreaded consequence of the naive, the effect is 
 terrible and prostrates every feeling of the 
 ludicrous. An example of this is the above- 
 
 mentioned passage from Romeo and Juliet. 
 Another, equally striking, is the too ingenuous 
 confession of Monime in the Mithridates of 
 Racine ; when this princess suffers herself to 
 be betrayed into confidential communications 
 by the wily Mithridates and confesses to him 
 her love-affairs, but perceives with terror, during 
 the relation, that Mithridates loses colour and 
 begins to grow pale with rage. 
 
 But when the dreaded evil is not a conse- 
 quence of the naivete, but is connected with it 
 in some other way, — as sign with the thing 
 signified, — the smile which the perception of 
 the contrast provokes may consist with the sad- 
 dest emotions. Andromache smiles at the 
 simple fears of the little Astyanax, and, at the 
 same time, scalding tears roll down her cheeks. 
 The whole pit laughs at the innocence of the 
 little Arabella,* without detriment to the tragic 
 sensation. Nay, our compassion for these chil- 
 dren is the more lively, the more they show by 
 their naive conduct, that they are unconscious 
 of the misfortune in which they are most nearly 
 concerned. Whence it is evident, how un- 
 founded is the opinion of some critics, who 
 would have all sentiments which contain any 
 touch of the ludicrous, banished from the tragic 
 stage. 
 
 This matter deserves further discussion, but 
 it does not belong to the object which I had 
 proposed to myself. 
 
 * An allusion to Lessing's "Miss Sarah Sampson." 
 Tr. 
 
 * 
 
JOHANN GEO 
 
 KG HAMANN. 
 
 Born 1730. 
 
 The "Magus of the North," as he was 
 pleased to style himself in his contributions to 
 the periodical literature of his time, is a name 
 little celebrated beyond the select circle of his 
 admirers, but greatly honored within that circle. 
 Hamann was one of those who waken an in- 
 tense interest in a few, and none at all in the 
 mass. 
 
 A native of Konigsberg, in compliance with 
 the wishes of his father, he studied theology at 
 the university in that city. But an impedi- 
 ment in his speech and a preference for criti- 
 cism, philology and poetry, induced him to 
 devote himself principally to those pursuits and 
 to make the Law his nominal profession. In 
 1752 he entered the family of the Baroness of 
 Budberg, in Kurland, as a private tutor; after- 
 ward that of General von Witten in the same 
 capacity, and in 1755 became domesticated 
 with a merchant in Riga where he grew so 
 familiar with the business of commerce, that he 
 undertook a mercantile expedition to Holland 
 and England. The ill success of this enter- 
 prise occasioned him deep chagrin, and, while 
 in London, he resolved on a change of life. He 
 turned his attention to religion, but without 
 resuming theology as a profession. He returned 
 to Riga where he resided a few years, and after- 
 ward to his native city; devoting himself to 
 literary pursuits and particularly to ancient 
 literature and the Oriental languages. In 1764 
 he made the tour of Germany and Switzerland, 
 and went to Warsaw in the capacity of tra- 
 velling tutor to a nobleman from Kurland. In 
 1777 he received an appointment under the 
 Prussian Government to an office connected 
 with the Customs-department, in Konigsberg. 
 In 1784 a pension bestowed by a kind patron 
 gave him a pecuniary independence and the 
 means of devoting himself entirely to letters. 
 But, before he could reap the full benefit of 
 this provision, he was overtaken by death, on a 
 journey for the benefit of his health, June 21st, 
 1788. 
 
 Hamann is indebted for his reputation to the 
 
 Died 1788. 
 
 testimony of a few names of the highest mark, 
 such as Herder, Jacobi, Goethe, and Jean Paul, 
 rather than to any great popularity which his 
 works have had with the German Public. He 
 belonged to that class of writers who love the 
 shade and lose more by obscurity than they 
 gain by originality ; — who repel, by the un- 
 couth shapes, in which their thoughts are dis- 
 guised, more readers than they attract by the 
 rarity and pickedness of the thoughts them- 
 selves. He is a humorist, but of a sombre 
 complexion, with a strong dash of cynicism. 
 At the same time, a deep religious sentiment 
 pervades his writings which show him to be an 
 orthodox believer, according to the letter, like 
 his contemporary — in all else, his antipodes — 
 Matthias Claudius. " The Kernel of his works," 
 says Herder, " contains many seed-corns of 
 great truths, new observations and the results 
 of a wonderfully extensive reading ; the shell 
 is a laborious texture of strong expressions, 
 allusions and word-flowers. He read much and 
 with taste (multum et multa), but the balsam- 
 odors from the ethereal table of the ancients, 
 mixed with occasional vapors of Gaul and the 
 steam of British humor, formed a perfect cloud 
 around him. His observations often combine 
 a whole view in a single view-point; but let 
 the reader stand at that view-point, otherwise 
 he will see everything askew, and common 
 mould instead of microscopic forests. Every 
 thought of his is an unstrung pearl ; every 
 thought is wrapped in the very word without 
 which it could neither have been thought nor 
 spoken." 
 
 " The great Hamann," says Jean Paul, " is 
 a deep sky full of telescopic stars, with many 
 a nebula which no eye can resolve." And 
 again, "Hamann's style is a river which the 
 storm drives back toward its source, making it 
 innavigable for Dutch market-boats." 
 
 But the best account of Hamann is that given 
 by Goethe in his autobiography.* 
 
 " Since I was tempted to the Sibylline cha- 
 racter which I gave to these leaves, as well as 
 
 * " Aus meinem Leben." Zwolftes Buch. 
 
 (119) 
 
120 
 
 HAM ANN. 
 
 to the publication of them, by Hamann, this 
 seems to me a proper place to speak of that 
 worthy and influential man, who was to us 
 then as great a mystery, as he has been to his 
 country ever since. His " Socratic Memora- 
 bilia" excited attention and were especially 
 dear to those who could not adjust themselves 
 to the dazzling spirit of the times. They 
 seemed to reveal a deep-thinking, thorough 
 man, who, while he was well acquainted with 
 the public world and literature, still held to 
 something secret and inscrutable, and expressed 
 himself in a very peculiar way concerning it. 
 He was regarded indeed, by those who ruled 
 the literature of the day, as an abstruse enthu- 
 siast ; but the upstriving youth of the country 
 yielded itself witiiout resistance to his attrac- 
 tion. Even " the silent in the land," as — half 
 in jest and half in earnest — they were called; 
 those pious souls, who without confessing to 
 any particular communion, formed an invisible 
 church, turned their attention toward him, and 
 to my Klettenberg, as well as to her friend 
 Moser, the ' Magus of the North,' was a wel- 
 come phenomenon. One inclined the rather 
 to come into relations with him, since it was 
 understood that, though distressed with the 
 narrowness of domestic circumstances, he could 
 still maintain this beautiful and lofty way of 
 thinking. With President von Moser's great 
 influence, it would have been easy to provide 
 a tolerable and comfortable existence for a 
 man of such simple habits. In fact an opening 
 was made and the mutual understanding and 
 approximation between them had gone so far, 
 that Hamann undertook the long journey from 
 Konigsberg to Darmstadt. But the president 
 being accidentally absent, that strange indivi- 
 dual — for what reason, no one knew — imme- 
 diately returned. Notwithstanding, a friendly 
 correspondence was still maintained. I possess 
 to this day two letters of the Konigsberger to 
 his patron, which bear witness to the wonder- 
 ful greatness and intensity of their author. 
 
 " But so good an understanding was not long 
 to remain. These pious persons had imagined 
 him pious too, after their fashion. They had 
 regarded him with reverence as the 'Magus 
 of the North,' and supposed that he would al- 
 ways continue to present a venerable aspect. 
 But already in his 'Clouds,' an afterpiece to 
 the ' Socratic Memorabilia,' he had given 
 some offence; and when, after that, he published 
 the 'Crusades of a Philologian,' which not 
 
 only exhibits on its title-page the goats-profile 
 of a horned Pan, but on one of the first leaves 
 of which, also, a large cock, in wood-engraving, 
 beating time to young cockerels who stand 
 before him with notes in their claws, shows 
 himself, in the highest degree, ludicrous; — 
 whereby certain pieces of church-music, not 
 approved by the author, were intended to be 
 ridiculed ; — then arose, among the well-mean- 
 ing and persons of delicate feeling, an aversion 
 which the author was soon made to perceive, 
 while he, on his part, not edified thereby, with- 
 drew himself from a nearer connection with 
 them. * * * * * * 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 " The principle to which the various declara- 
 tions of Hamann may be reduced, is this : 'All 
 that man undertakes, whether with word or 
 deed, or however performed, should be the 
 result of the union of all his powers; every 
 partial effort is to be condemned.' A glorious 
 maxim ! but difficult to observe. With respect 
 to life and art it may do very well. But in 
 every communication by word which is not 
 poetical, there is great difficulty in carrying it 
 out. For the word, in order to express any- 
 thing, in order to mean anything, must detach 
 itself, must individuate itself. Man, when he 
 speaks, must, for the moment, become one- 
 sided ; there can be no communication, no doc- 
 trine, without separation. But as Hamann, 
 once for all, resisted this separation and under- 
 took to speak as he felt, imagined, thought, 
 with perfect unity, and demanded the same of 
 others, he came into collision with his own 
 style and with all that others might produce. 
 In order to perform the impossible, he grasps 
 at all the elements. The deepest, mysterious 
 intuitions, where Nature and Spirit meet in se- 
 cret, the illuminating flashes of the understand- 
 ing which burst forth from such meeting, the sig- 
 nificant images that hover in those regions, the 
 sayings of sacred and profane writers crowding 
 upon him, and whatever else may adjoin itself, 
 humoristically, hereto, — all this forms the won- 
 drous whole of his style, of his communications. 
 Unable to associate with him in the deeps, to 
 wander with him on the heights, to make our- 
 selves masters of the forms which float before 
 him, to discover the sense of a passage, which 
 is merely indicated, in an infinitely extended 
 literature ; — it grows ever thicker and darker 
 around us, the more we study him. And this 
 darkness will increase with coming years, 
 
HAMANN. 
 
 because his allusions are directed principally to 
 certain peculiarities dominant, at the time, in 
 literature and life. In my collection there are 
 some of his printed sheets in which he has 
 cited, with his own hand, in the margin, the 
 passages to which he alludes. On turning to 
 those passages, one is met again by an equivo- 
 cal double-light which is in the highest degree 
 agreeable; only one must renounce entirely 
 what is usually called understanding. Such 
 leaves, therefore, deserve to be called Sibylline, 
 because one cannot contemplate them in and 
 for themselves, but must wait for an opportunity 
 to recur to their oracles. Every time we con- 
 sult them, we think to find something new, 
 because the indwelling sense of each passage 
 touches and moves us in manifold ways. 
 
 "Personally, I have never seen him, nor come 
 into any immediate relation to him through 
 letters. He seems to me, in the connections 
 of life and friendship, to have been, in the 
 highest degree, clear, and to have felt very 
 correctly the relations of men to each other 
 and to himself. All the letters that I have 
 seen of him were admirable and much more 
 intelligible than his other writings, because 
 
 121 
 
 here, the reference to time and circumstances, 
 as well as to personal relations, was much more 
 evident. And yet I thought to perceive in 
 them, that, feeling with the greatest naivete 
 the superiority of his mental gifts, he always 
 thought himself a little wiser and more know- 
 ing than his correspondents, whom he treated 
 ironically rather than heartily. If this was 
 true of particular cases only, yet those cases 
 constituted, for me, the majority, and a reason 
 for not wishing to come any nearer to him." 
 
 The principal works of Hamann are the 
 "Memorabilia of Socrates," "Golgotha and 
 Scheblimini," and " Sibylline Leaves by the 
 Magus of the North." The specimen given 
 below does not verify the peculiarities men- 
 tioned in these quotations. It was a youthful 
 essay which the author was hardly willing to 
 publish with the rest of his works. It is 
 given not as a characteristic, but, simply, as 
 the most intelligible specimen of an author 
 whom, on account of his peculiar position in 
 German Literature, it was thought best to 
 represent in this Collection. The translation 
 is by an anonymous friend of the editor. 
 
 THE MERCHANT. 
 
 FROM HAMANN'S SCHRIFTEN, HERAUSGEGEBEN VON FRIEDRICH 
 ROTH. BERLIN. BEY G. REIMER. 1821. VOL. L 
 
 Supplement to a translation of Dangeuil's Remarques 
 sur les Avantages et les Desavantages de la France et de 
 la Gr. Bretagne, par Rapport au Commerce et aux autres 
 Sources de la Puissance, &x. 
 
 There are virtues, which originate like colo- 
 nies, as others seem to be the growth of the 
 age. Our sensitiveness to what we now name 
 the world, or honour, would be as incompre- 
 hensible to the ancients, as it is difficult to the 
 moderns to imagine a passionate love of coun- 
 try, or to feel it themselves. 
 
 History furnishes most indubitable proofs of 
 special care taken by the most ancient nations 
 for the regulation of civil society. Their policy 
 extended from divine service to the theatre, 
 dancing and music. Everything was employed 
 by them as an implement of the government. 
 One spirit united families, whose activity and 
 exercise were promoted even by domestic dis- 
 sensions. This spirit made them fruitful in 
 projects, and the performance corresponded. 
 
 The common weal seems to have been extin- 
 guished since the period when, instead of citi- 
 zens, there were vassals who assumed to be 
 masters of their own actions and their property, 
 when they had paid homage to their chief. To 
 Q 
 
 this chief it was, in part, no longer possible, in 
 part no longer necessary, to be a father to his 
 country. In these times, the prince was per 
 haps an armed Hobbes, or a prototype of Ma- 
 chiavel, or a Vespasian, ruling by tax-gatherers 
 and vampires; or the slave of priests. His in- 
 clinations, his court, and certain classes, took the 
 place of the public welfare. He imitated those 
 philosophers who took the earth for the centre 
 of the universe. 
 
 The style of our offices has likewise served 
 to divert the mind from the common weal. To 
 seem worthy of a place which can seldom be 
 the object of the wishes of a rational man, we 
 bring ourselves betimes into, I know not what, 
 entanglements. How many submit for the sake 
 of daily bread, and from the fear of man, to 
 slavish cringing, and to perjury! 
 
 ******* 
 
 Aiming at a yearly income and a comfortable 
 livelihood, zeal to imitate or excel others in a 
 pageantry of trifles, hence arises the monopoly 
 which every one pursues in his class. The 
 accumulations of prosperity and avarice dissi- 
 pate the minds of our youth too much to leave 
 space enough for great passions and power for 
 great undertakings. How many, besides, find 
 their fortune already complete, having thought 
 as little of building it up, as of building up 
 themselves. One may say, in truth, of places 
 
122 HAMANN. 
 
 of honour and estates, that to despise both, we 
 need only look at their possessors. 
 
 Witty minds have not failed to remark, on 
 the derision expressed by nature, In that she 
 appoints, on this earth, the cattle in the field to 
 be more learned than we, and the bird in the 
 heavens more wise. But has it not been her 
 intention that man should owe his prerogatives 
 to the social affections ; should early accustom 
 himself to reciprocal dependence ; seeing be- 
 times the impossibility of dispensing with 
 others 1 Wherefore has she sought to compen- 
 sate death, not by a cold mechanism, but by the 
 soft and ardent inclination of love ? Wherefore 
 has her Author provided by laws, that marriage 
 should spread, and that families, by ingrafting 
 with families, should form new bonds of friend- 
 ship'? Wherefore are his goods so differently 
 appointed to the earth and its dwellers, but to 
 render them social? The fellowship and ine- 
 quality of men are also nowise among the pro- 
 jects of our wit. They are no inventions of 
 policy, but designs of Providence, which, like 
 all other laws of nature, man has partly misun- 
 derstood, and partly abused. 
 
 Nothing reminds us more impressively of the 
 advantages of union than the benefits which 
 flow from commerce in human society. Through 
 this it is, that that is everywhere, which is any- 
 where. It satisfies our wants, it prevents satiety 
 by new desires, and these it allays too. It 
 maintains peace among nations, and is their 
 horn of plenty. It furnishes them with arms, 
 and decides their doubtful fortune. Men labour 
 for it, and it rewards their diligence with trea- 
 sures. It enlarges their intercourse, develops 
 their powers, makes itself not only their wea- 
 pon, but employs their genius, their courage, 
 their virtues, their vices. Every harbour, every 
 canal, every bridge, every floating palace and 
 army, are its works. Through its influence, the 
 arts are awakened and extended. Our side- 
 boards and the toilets of the ladies are adorned 
 with its gifts. The poisons of our kitchens, and 
 the antidotes of our physicians pass through its 
 hands. It atones for frugality by profusion. Its 
 exercise consists in exact integrity, and from its 
 gains the patriot distributes prizes, and performs 
 his vows. 
 
 What happy changes may not the world pro- 
 mise itself from the commercial spirit, now 
 beginning to prevail, if it should be purified by 
 insight and noble impulses? Perhaps we may 
 not vainly flatter ourselves with the hope that, 
 through its influence, the love of the public 
 good will be re-established, and the virtues of 
 the citizen raised from their ashes to their 
 original splendour. 
 
 The demand of commerce for liberty pro- 
 mises to hasten the happy return of that blessing 
 to man. The unrestrained energy, the unim- 
 peded skill of each individual, and all that each 
 undertakes not at variance with the common 
 good, will gradually banish that unbridled auda- 
 city with which every one in our times allows 
 
 himself in everything, and aims to make possi- 
 ble whatever he considers useful to himself 
 alone. 
 
 Inestimable good! without which men can 
 neither think nor act, whose loss robs him of 
 every privilege! By thee, trade blooms, and 
 extends through all ranks ! Each resumes his 
 ancient and natural rights, which we had re- 
 nounced from servile passions and prejudices ! 
 
 Holland has, to the advantage of her trade, 
 abolished tyrannical persecution for conscience' 
 sake, and adopted among her fundamental laws 
 that freedom of opinion which is as reasonable 
 as it is beneficial. Why should it not tend to 
 the renown of the Roman tax-gatherers, that 
 they were the first who concerned themselves 
 to relieve their countrymen from the blindness 
 of superstition ?* 
 
 The spirit of trade may perhaps abolish in 
 time the inequality of ranks, and level those 
 heights, those hills, which vanity and avarice 
 have thrown up, in order not only to receive 
 sacrifices thereon, but to control with more ad- 
 vantage the course of nature. The incapacity 
 of the idle ceases to be a mark of distinction 
 gratifying to his pride, where the effort, and 
 labour, and sweat of contemporaries make their 
 life costly, and alone claim consideration and 
 favour. The laurels wither with the decay of 
 the fathers. Their rest on the bed of honour 
 has become to us more indifferent than to their 
 useless posterity, who enjoy the same repose on 
 the cushions of prosperity and tedium. These 
 dead are here, to bury completely the glory of 
 their dead. Trade is, at the same time, the 
 shovel which stirs the heaped-up gold, like the 
 corn, and preserves it either for the bosom of 
 the earth, or for the enjoyment of her children. 
 Through it, gold is not only increased and made 
 fruitful, but also useful, and a medium of life 
 for man. But where it stands highest, the citi- 
 zen must be most moderate in his gains, since, 
 were all the world to have enough, none would 
 have too much or too little. 
 
 Men knew formerly very little of the prin- 
 ciples of trade. It was pursued rudely, and 
 was so much contemned, as to be left almost 
 entirely to the Jews. Now, on the other hand, 
 men have with much sagacity aimed to make 
 a science of commerce. Although its objects 
 and ideas are in part arbitrary, and depend on 
 the imagination ; yet men have attempted to 
 unite the theory of trade, and its exercise with 
 as much exactness as the astronomers to found 
 their reckonings on imaginary lines and hypo- 
 theses. How much weighty insight, have not 
 the prince and the people gained besides, by a 
 thorough examination of the sources of trade ? 
 
 * Cicero says, De Nat. Deor. III. 19, that they were the 
 first who considered it absurd to believe those gods who 
 had been men. Self-interest led them to this rational 
 conclusion, because the lands consecrated to the Immor- 
 tals were exempt from taxes. Whether we have profited 
 more from distempered and false, or suffered more from 
 great and noble views, may be a problem. 
 
HAMANN. 123 
 
 That instructive satire on monarchs, which 
 the inventor of chess, according to the fancy of 
 a distinguished poet* had in mind, is no longer 
 a picture of our kings. They have better learned 
 to appreciate the worth of their subjects. They 
 now know that the state becomes great, only 
 when they promote population by abundant 
 sustenance, regard idleness as an injury to their 
 violated majesty, punish it with contempt and 
 hunger, consider it the masterpiece of their 
 wisdom, to multiply the hands of diligence, as 
 well as to lighten its labour, and watch over 
 the education of orphans and foundlings. 
 
 The subject has learnt better to understand 
 and to employ the fruits of the soil and his own 
 sweat. Philosophy is no longer sculpture. 
 The scholar is called back from the Spanish 
 castles of the intellectual world, and from the 
 shades of the library, to the great theatre of 
 nature and her doings, to living art, and her 
 implements, to social employments, and their 
 moving springs. He is an attentive spectator, 
 a scholar, an intimate of the peasant, the arti- 
 san, the merchant, and through universal ob- 
 servation and research, becomes the helper and 
 teacher of all.f 
 
 When even the common man becomes an 
 object of importance to the state, because its 
 strength flows from his preservation, industry, 
 and increase, then the interest, which the com- 
 monwealth takes in the industry of every day- 
 labourer, is sure to instil into him, in time, nobler 
 sentiments. "If those artisans had known," 
 says Plutarch, " that through their labour, 
 Amphion would surround a city with walls, 
 or Thales still a tumult of the people, with 
 what ambition, what delight, had they carved 
 the lyres of these men 
 
 Trade has served for a demonstration of all 
 
 * No prince this game invented, that will I dare to say, 
 Too plainly, his own image before him, it doth lay, 
 For idly while he sitteth, the monarch little knows, 
 The peasant, whom he vexeth, defendeth his repose. 
 The sovereign is the queen, to raise and to depress, 
 And the inglorious king, to all men valueless, 
 To the high place, he dozing fills, doth owe 
 The crown, that decks in state his empty brow. 
 
 Regnier lends the last touch to this picture, in his four- 
 teenth satire. 
 
 " Les fous sont aux echecs les plus proches des Rois." 
 
 1 1 appeal merely to that great monument, that has 
 been raised by two philosophers in France to the glory 
 of their native land. One cannot refuse admiration to 
 the Encyclopedia, to which I here refer, on the score of 
 the mechanic arts. This gigantic work, which appears 
 to need a Briareus (I know not whether my memory 
 for Dishes me with the right name of the heaven-stormer 
 with the hundred hands), could fall to no more capable 
 and enterprising undertaker, than M. Diderot. Besides 
 his articles, which do honour to him and the work, I am 
 delighted to refer to the essay of Boulanger on the com- 
 pulsory labourers, on the dams and bridges, under the 
 title Corvee. (Ponto et Chaussees.) 
 
 t In his Essay on the Duty of Philosophers to asso- 
 ciate with Public Men. 
 
 these truths, and the pursuit of it has con- 
 firmed their force. When, therefore, the de- 
 ceitful, lying, avaricious disposition of an an- 
 cient nation* is ascribed to their calling, when 
 reference is made to a modern country, ren- 
 dered habitable by skilful industry, and pow- 
 erful by trade, where the moral virtues, and 
 the smallest offices of human love are re- 
 garded as wares; when it is said that with the 
 art of calculation that resoluteness cannot ex- 
 ist, by which the renunciation of selfishness, 
 and magnanimous sentiments are attained, that 
 attention to trifles limits the circle of mental 
 vision, and reduces elevation of thought, it is 
 certainly the duty of the merchant to refute 
 these charges. 
 
 Was it the fault of religion, that in those dark 
 times of superstition, the spiritual order adopted 
 a sort of assie?ito-contract,-\ that the priest car- 
 ried on a most lucrative stock-jobbing, derived 
 premiums from the fear of hell, sold the church- 
 soil to the dead, taxed the early days of mar- 
 riage, and made a profit on sins, which he for 
 the most part invented himself? 
 
 We laugh at the wise Montaigne, who was 
 anxious, lest the introduction of powder and 
 shot should annihilate bravery. Let us feel a 
 more earnest anxiety for the moral results of 
 trade. Much pains have been taken certainly 
 to perfect the science, but perhaps too little 
 thought has been given to forming the mer- 
 chant. The spirit of trade should be the spirit 
 of traders, and their morals, the groundwork 
 of its reputation. Both should be better en- 
 couraged by rewards, supported by laws, and 
 upheld by examples. 
 
 " The occupation most useful to society," says 
 an ancient writer.J "should assuredly be fol- 
 lowed with emulation, I mean agriculture, 
 which would prosper greatly, if rewards were 
 offered, giving it the preference. The com- 
 monwealth would hereby gain infinite advan- 
 tage, the public revenues be increased, and 
 sobriety be associated with improved industry. 
 The more assiduous the citizens became in 
 their occupations, the less would extravagance 
 prevail. Is a republic favourably situated for 
 commerce, honours shown to trade would multi- 
 ply merchants and commodities. If on any 
 one who discovered a new source of gain, with- 
 out detriment to the commonwealth, a mark of 
 honour should be conferred, public spirit would 
 never be extinguished. In short, were every 
 one convinced, that rewards would accompany 
 whatever was done to promote the public good, 
 this would be a great impulse to discover some- 
 thing valuable. But the more men have at 
 heart the general welfare, the more will be 
 
 * The Carthaginians, Cicero's second oration against 
 Rullus. 
 
 f A contract between the King of Spain and other 
 powers for introducing negro-slaves into the Spanish 
 colonies. 
 
 X Xenophon, in the Conversation between Hiero and 
 Simonides. 
 
124 
 
 HAM ANN. 
 
 devised and undertaken for its sake." This 
 rich passage exhausts almost all I could say, 
 or could wish to say. My readers will there- 
 fore be content with the gleaning only of a few 
 remarks. 
 
 Our merchants should above all be stimulated 
 by these considerations, to make their calling, 
 not merely a gainful trade, but a respected 
 rank. I remember to have read, that in Guinea, 
 the merchant is the nobleman, and that he 
 pursues trade by virtue of his dignity, and 
 royal privileges. On his elevation to that rank, 
 the king forbids the waves to injure the new 
 nobleman, or merchant. This monarch doubt- 
 less prizes his merchants highly, because from 
 them comes his greatness, and wonders per- 
 haps that our kings grant nobility only to 
 soldiers and courtiers, or even drive a trade 
 with it, and sell it for ready money. 
 
 The nobility of the merchant must not be 
 confounded with military nobility. The pre- 
 rogatives of the latter are founded on the cir- 
 cumstances of the times when it arose. Na- 
 tions plundered one another, remained nowhere 
 at home, lived like robbers, or had to defend 
 themselves against robbers. Kings believed 
 they could immortalize themselves only by 
 conquests. These required blood and noble 
 blood. The military order had consequently 
 the highest rank, and whoever distinguished 
 himself in this, was ennobled. The preten- 
 sions of these heroes were allowed to descend 
 to their children, that, inflamed by the deeds 
 of their ancestors, they might make it their 
 glory, like them, to die. This was an artifice, 
 to transmit a certain spirit to the children, and 
 to elevate the military class, which at that time 
 was the only privileged one. This being the 
 origin and the purpose of their nobility, those 
 are the genuine knights, who, born in the 
 counting-rooms of acquisitiveness instead of 
 the tent, are trained to be voluptuaries and 
 cowardly prodigals. They might make use of 
 their weapons, like the discarded patron of 
 Venice.* 
 
 Our times are no longer warlike and the 
 deeds of the most renowned heroes, 
 
 " From Macedonia's madman to the Swede," 
 
 will appear to us soon like the adventures of 
 Don Quixote. The nation, which distinguished 
 itself by the sword to the last, has become 
 much more honourable and mighty through the 
 plough. Men no longer desolate other lands by 
 conquests, but conquer their own by trade. If 
 war is still carried on, it is as a defence against 
 jealous rivals, or to establish the balance of 
 power. We prepare, not now for triumphs, 
 but to enjoy peace ; and the time is perhaps 
 
 * St. Theodore, whose statue is in St. Mark's place, 
 holding a shield in the right hand, and a lance in the 
 left. The Venitians, instead of this martial saint, have 
 taken St. Mark for their patron since his bones were 
 brought to the city, by their merchants.— Amelot de la 
 Houssage. 
 
 near, when the peasant and citizen will en- 
 noble their class. 
 
 The merchant has thus, as it were, taken the 
 place of the soldier. Does not his rank, conse- 
 quently, deserve to be elevated by like respect, 
 and like means? The profession of arms has 
 become great through the nobility. Commerce 
 must become great through merchants, that is, 
 such merchants, as do not think it necessary to 
 gain honour by purchased privileges merely, 
 but place their dignity in the prosperity of 
 trade, and hold those gains unworthy, which 
 would poison its sources. To devastate, to de- 
 stroy, to become rich, this is the only thing, in 
 which the military spirit of the nobility shows 
 itself in the mercantile profession. 
 
 The rewards, marks of honour, and privileges 
 of the merchant must give him in the eyes 
 of his countrymen a visible distinction, that 
 continually admonishes him to uphold' the flou- 
 rishing prosperity of the country, which the 
 soldier must devastate against his own will, 
 with the same courage, ambition, and elevation 
 of mind. 
 
 Thanks be to the age in which we live ! our 
 merchants need as little to be cheats, as our 
 nobility ignoramuses. If there are yet among 
 Christians, persons, whose whole soul is made 
 up of avarice, who aim to enrich themselves by 
 usury and deceit, they must not be ennobled. 
 Besides, what avail them those certificates of 
 liberality, for which ancestors are assigned them, 
 but to make them exhibit a ridiculous resem- 
 blance to that species of mouse whose wings 
 render his rank among animals ambiguous? 
 
 I come to the morals of the mercantile class, 
 on which depends the pursuit, as well as the 
 prosperity of trade. Good faith, honesty, love 
 of the commonwealth, must be here the moving 
 springs, like diligence in manufactures, work- 
 shops, and agriculture ; — double objects of equal 
 elevation, which claim all the care and thought 
 of the government, because from their union 
 springs the good of the whole nation. 
 
 If the merchants were regarded as mediators 
 between the different members of the State,* 
 with how much right would their avocations 
 become more public and solemn ! The com- 
 mon weal, as it were, compensates them. On 
 its preservation depend their rank and occu- 
 pation. It must therefore take more interest 
 in their condition; but on the other hand, the 
 merchant should be more mindful of the obliga- 
 tions they are under to the public, and the con- 
 sideration they owe it on this account. 
 
 Public credit is the soul of trade; it rests on 
 the confidence, which individual citizens ac- 
 quire through honourable dealing. This sum 
 of the private credit of numerous citizens of the 
 same place, taken together, is a deposit, which 
 should be sacred to all the members of the com- 
 munity, because it involves in itself the imme- 
 diate interest of each member, to support ac- 
 
 * Hume's Essays. 
 
HAM ANN. 125 
 
 cording to his means, the credit of the rest, and 
 to protect it from all adulteration and diminution. 
 Whoever brings the public faith under suspicion, 
 deserves severer punishment than the man who 
 robs the public coffer entrusted to him. 
 
 Readiness to pay is a result of the moral cha- 
 racter of the debtor, which speaks well to the 
 creditor for his wisdom and honesty. This 
 readiness furnishes not only the best security 
 for the gold committed to strange hands, but 
 serves as a pledge against possible misfortunes. 
 The virtue of a merchant should thus bear the 
 same relation to his good name, as the ware to 
 the coin. 
 
 But chiefly the merchant presupposes the up- 
 right citizen, because the welfare of trade must 
 be often in opposition tolas own private advan- 
 tage. To maintain the former, demands there- 
 fore sacrifices from the disinterestedness and 
 self-denial of the latter. Mere rapacity renders 
 the merchant sharp-sighted to the greatness of 
 the advantage, without his picturing to himself 
 the consequences to his fellow-citizens, and to 
 commerce. He swallows down each bit, and 
 considers neither the wants of the future nor 
 the bones with which he will be choked. The 
 present and the certain prevent his discerning 
 a greater good, which might compel an expendi- 
 ture of time, or which he must share with others. 
 Thus he disregards for the sake of his own ad- 
 vantage, not only the public revenue, but even 
 the interests of his own posterity. The stream 
 may fail, the harbour be destroyed — nothing but 
 his own loss is of importance in his eyes, and 
 the profits of a year will be preferred, without a 
 scruple of conscience, to the gain of a century. 
 
 Plato* describes both the riches and the po- 
 verty of the artisan as the ruin of his profes- 
 sion. " Is he rich," says he, " think you he will 
 be anxious about his work? No, he and his 
 art will be ruined by indolence and neglect. 
 Is he needy, how can he procure suitable im- 
 plements? He is clumsy, and leaves behind 
 him, in his children and apprentices only bun- 
 glers." Let us be assured, that the merchant's 
 love of gain is far more detrimental to the im- 
 provement of trade. And does not experience 
 teach us that the very vices, whereby property 
 has been or can be acquired, at the same time 
 destroy its value? The counting-room is a school 
 of deceit and avarice ; what wonder ? when the 
 household is a temple of disorder and waste! 
 The exchange is ashamed of these freebooters, 
 and the city of their memory. Trade execrates 
 their oppressions, and the public their profession. 
 
 The merchant, on the other hand, who loves 
 his country, its present and future welfare, 
 plants trees that may give shade to his posterity. 
 He abhors as a theft all gain which is contrary 
 to the general good of commerce. He seeks by 
 wise undertakings, to attract to the country new 
 branches of trade. He supports and upholds 
 the old, which, if they do not immediately bring 
 
 * Republic. B. IV. 
 
 him fruit a hundred fold, yet employ the hands 
 of his fellow-citizens, and with the ruin of which, 
 numerous other lateral branches would be de- 
 stroyed. This merchant is no phantom. I 
 myself know merchants who have greatness 
 of soul enough to make the expansion of trade, 
 and not private gain, their ultimate object, who 
 think not only of its arithmetic, but also of its 
 morals and its utility. Holland should bore 
 through her dams, if she had not merchants, 
 who out*)f love to her soil, can employ their 
 millions in a trade which now yields little, or 
 is indeed the occasion of loss, like the whale- 
 fishery. The merchant is therefore capable of 
 great sentiments. To encourage them is worth 
 the pains. 
 
 The green cap, the broken bench formerly 
 terrified the cheat. Wherein does he now find 
 his security, but in the defence, which he durst 
 not stoop to himself, but which is offered him, 
 and in the ruin of better citizens. Hope and 
 compassion, which are left him, inspire bold- 
 ness, while the final disgrace renders fear and 
 repentance inactive. 
 
 An ancient nation is spoken of,* where the 
 taste for beauty cost lovers dear. From their 
 contributions a bridal treasure was collected for' 
 those daughters of the land whom nature had 
 refused to furnish with recommendations. How 
 near does not this come to the use, made at pre- 
 sent, of the virtue of an honourable man? 
 
 If a city contains not more than one upright 
 citizen, it is on his account the laws were made, 
 and on his account the magistracy instituted. 
 Not to accommodate those offenders, who are 
 studious only to infringe and corrupt justice, are 
 the laws entrusted to you, fathers of the city! 
 but to support this honest man, that he may 
 not be wearied out, terrified, or impeded, that 
 unhindered, he may do all the good his patriotic 
 soul devises and his magnanimous heart sug- 
 gests for the benefit of the commonwealth. 
 Then will his zeal, in gratitude for your support, 
 find fresh nutriment, and his example become 
 the pattern and inheritance of his house. 
 
 Let us argue from single individuals to whole 
 families. They are the elements of civil soci- 
 ety ; consequently, their social influence is in- 
 disputably greater than men seem to recognise. 
 The welfare of the community is bound up with 
 the virtues and vices, the flourishing and decay of 
 certain families. A single family has often been 
 sufficient to corrupt the morals of a whole State, 
 to impress its own form on the mass, or to fix 
 it there ; to bring certain principles and customs, 
 on which business depends, into favour or con- 
 tempt. Mahomet was first the prophet of his 
 own family, and afterwards of a great people. 
 Ought not the cares of the magistracy to extend 
 to the fostering of some families, and the de- 
 pression of others ? 
 
 If it is justifiable policy, in opening the view 
 of a building, that adorns a certain part of the 
 
 * Herodotus. I. 96. 
 11* 
 
12G 
 
 HAM ANN. 
 
 city, to remove a few miserable hovels, if it is 
 a duty to transfer to the mouth of the stream 
 such trades as taint the purity of its waters, 
 and to remove them from the place where it 
 enters their walls, there is a far more urgent 
 call on the magistracy, to protect families whose 
 integrity is exposed to the vexations of envy, 
 and the rage of wickedness, to uphold them as 
 the keystone of the laws, and on the other hand, to 
 watch those whose views spread secret poison 
 among their fellow-citizens. 
 
 The family mania, whose mere name excites 
 suspicions of an infectious disease, is in our days 
 greater than ever. The selfishness, which unites 
 whole families in extorting from the community 
 the same assistance that relations are obliged 
 to lend each other, has extended a detrimental 
 indulgence to the children of great families, to 
 whom men, in spite of stupidity and worthless- 
 ness, hardly venture to refuse preferences and 
 offices any longer, and who, through the base- 
 ness of their intercessors and patrons, are some- 
 times placed in a position to justify themselves 
 again, by the choice of others. Hence those 
 conspiracies to put down merit, the rewards of 
 which they seek to marry with their like, in case 
 of need to disarm the laws, or give their ex- 
 pounders cunning. Hence those nurseries of 
 old customs, to whose service certain houses are 
 more devoted, than the corporations at Ephesus 
 to their Diana. To this prevailing evil there 
 could not be a more forcible check, than through 
 the family spirit itself, whose application as 
 much to the public good generally, as to com- 
 merce in particular, I would here recommend. 
 
 The family spirit, of which I speak, deserves 
 at least more attention, than the author of the 
 Fable of the Bees claims for a certain portion 
 of ignorance, which he holds must be main- 
 tained, in every well-constituted community. 
 This spirit consists in a remarkable strength of 
 certain natural gifts or propensities, which 
 through the impression of domestic example, 
 and the consequent training, becomes hereditary 
 and is transmitted. I premise here particularly 
 a certain amount of social tendencies, and the 
 seeds of citizen-like virtues, (for why should not 
 these be capable of imitation and degeneracy, 
 like other tendencies and dispositions?) an 
 amount which would enable us to forget our 
 private good in the public approbation and wel- 
 fare, to prefer the honour of the order, to which 
 we devote ourselves, and its social advantages, 
 above self-preservation and individual advan- 
 tage. 
 
 It is this family spirit which has built cities, 
 and through which they subsist. It was doubtless 
 most active when their foundations were laid 
 and the walks first marked out. None of those 
 small communities thought of anything else but 
 the city; even when his own house began to 
 occupy him, the thoughts of the individual were 
 far from being directed from the public works to 
 his own building, but this latter was always sub- 
 ordinate to the former. The city was completed, 
 
 yet was still a subject of discourse ; each was still 
 occupied in the work undertaken ; one still inquir- 
 ed of another, what was to be supplied and added ? 
 Children and children's children carried out and 
 improved the plan which the first founder had 
 devised. The more distant the times, the more 
 obscure was the tradition of the value, the na- 
 ture and the circumstances of an inheritance, 
 which had cost many generations, and for the 
 rent of which the care and management should 
 be undertaken by us. The peril of capital in 
 hands, which have not earned it, is great. The 
 zeal, the blessings, the wishes, wherewith the 
 first founders of our dwelling-places bequeath 
 them to their latest possessors in spite of their 
 ingratitude, kindles yet perhaps some sparks in 
 the souls of a few families, who make known 
 and reveal to us the spirit of the first benefac- 
 tors. It is these patriots to whose families 
 every city should offer the right and honour 
 of representing those by whom it was built and 
 founded. 
 
 If there are besides, families which have in- 
 herited from their ancestors the true principles 
 of trade, and a genuine love of it, these are the 
 lifeguardsmen, from whose services commerce 
 receives warmth and splendour. They are to 
 be regarded as the dam, which gives security to 
 its course, as the lighthouse, by which the wan- 
 dering mariner directs his path, and at whose 
 sight the stranger rejoices. Such families should 
 not be allowed to go to decay, but rather be 
 encouraged, distinguished, preferred, so that the 
 spirit which animates them may be immortal ; 
 for with them trade rises and falls, and under 
 its ruins they must be buried. 
 
 These thoughts have not entered into my 
 mind by mere accident. They are founded in 
 some degree on a stray paper, which I had 
 partly in view, and of which in part this seems 
 to be written in continuation. The author 
 would not be injured by a publicity to which 
 every thing that is found, is exposed. For the 
 rest, I am as little inclined to gratify the curiosity 
 of readers by an account of the accident, which 
 threw this paper into my hands, as to trouble 
 myself about their conjectures. My view in the 
 communication of this fragment will be in part 
 
 justified by its perusal. 
 
 * # * $ * . 4 4s 
 
 " This family from the grandfather down- 
 ward, has closely interwoven its own conse- 
 quence with the good of the community. The 
 grandfather died and left behind, by will, to 
 his numerous heirs, some hundred thousands, 
 which for the extension of commerce, and to 
 draw the Polish merchandise to Miza, he had 
 lent to the Poles, according to the wishes of 
 their kings. The war ruined this scheme. The 
 son received nothing but the debts of his father, 
 and carried on likewise an extensive trade. 
 This man did every thing, although the result 
 was unfortunate. How much would he not 
 have undertaken in better circumstances ! In 
 his civil offices he concerned himself, merely, 
 
HAM 
 
 for the improvement of general commerce, and 
 his views were far from being limited td his 
 own especial benefit. The former, and not the 
 latter, he regarded as the inheritance of his 
 family. Careless in his domestic economy, he 
 was the more zealous to frame for the good 
 of the city new plans and institutions, which 
 are yet in existence. He always appealed to the 
 old laws, and was urgent to be judged thereby. 
 The word public he uttered with reverence. 
 He loved the Pole, in spite of all his folly and 
 levity, because he furnished commodities for 
 trade, and hated the Englishman, so respectable 
 as he is otherwise, because he employed his 
 countrymen as beasts of burden, as carriers to 
 his customers. He sighed over the existing 
 decay; and zeal for the public good at last 
 destroyed him. He lived like a Roman with 
 his great deeds, eating roots, and he was proud 
 to be a citizen. He was called obstinate, but 
 none presumed to perpetrate any baseness be- 
 fore his eyes. Whoever knows men, under- 
 stands their language. An obstinate man means 
 a man, who can be brought to no conclusion 
 without reflection, who does not lay aside and 
 alter the plan, by which he wishes to proceed, 
 according to the fancy of every one, but con- 
 tinues true to the precepts of sound reason and 
 conscience, and is far above the judgments of 
 complaisant, frivolous people. The children of 
 this citizen inherited the spirit and the principles 
 of their father, which perhaps are no longer 
 suitable to our times. Love for the public good 
 is their passion ; it gives them penetration and 
 courage, whereby they are an offence to those, 
 
 ANN. 127 
 
 who ride in gilt coaches, and adorn themselves 
 with the spoils of trade. They resist the seduc- 
 tions of strangers, who come to us as to savages, 
 to carry on our commerce. If this family wish 
 to assert the principles of their father, against 
 their competitors, they are compelled to resolve 
 on their own ruin. Their plans were well laid, 
 and aimed likewise at the extension of the 
 commerce of Poland and Curland, to Holland 
 and France, for which a good friend sacrificed 
 himself. Nevertheless, they failed through rivals, 
 with whom all methods are good, whereby they 
 can cut rushes for their own roofs, through the 
 dishonesty of agents, corrupted by the impunity, 
 — as things go now, — of acting against the laws, 
 and the shallow ambition of making a fortune 
 without a good name. Men admire Marius, 
 sitting on the ruins of Carthage, the greatest of 
 commercial cities, and amidst its fallen heaps 
 raising himself above the vicissitudes of his 
 own destiny. I have not yet forgotten the words 
 of a dying son of this house, with which he con- 
 soled his brother, by whom he was honoured 
 as a second father. They merit to be preserved, 
 " Who knows, my brother, whether the ruin of 
 a house like ours may not conduce to general 
 progress? Men will thereby come to the know- 
 ledge, how much is due to honourable citizens, 
 and be warned, not to be so hard with others. 1 ' 
 This man felt himself stronger perhaps in cold 
 blood, than Glover in the midst of his inspira- 
 tion, when he conceived the noble sentiment, 
 with which his hero devoted himself and his 
 handful, exclaiming, "Freedom and rny coun- 
 try !" 
 
CHRISTOPH MARTIN WIELAND. 
 
 Born 1733. Died 1813. 
 
 Wieland was a native of Suabia. His 
 father, a Lutheran divine, who, at the birth of 
 this son, resided in Oberholzheim, removed soon 
 after to Biberach, where Wieland spent his 
 childish years. 
 
 His early education was superintended by 
 his father in person. At the age of seven he 
 read Latin. At twelve he gave indications of 
 his poetic genius in German and Latin verse. 
 At fourteen he was put to school at Klosterber- 
 gen, near Magdeburg, where he remained two 
 years, and then continued his studies under 
 private instruction at Erfurt. In 1750, he en- 
 tered the University of Tubingen as a student 
 of law, but devoted himself chiefly to literary 
 pursuits. Thence he sent the first cantos of 
 an epic poem to Bodmer at Zurich, who was 
 so much struck with this juvenile performance, 
 that he invited the young poet to reside with 
 him. He remained in Switzerland eight years, 
 writing and publishing several minor works. 
 At the end of this period he returned to Bibe- 
 rach, where he was made a member of the 
 Council, and appointed Director of Chancery, 
 and where he married, in 1765. In 1769, he 
 was elected Professor of Philosophy at Erfurt, 
 an office which he retained but three years, and 
 then accepted an invitation from the Duchess 
 Amalia, of Weimar, to superintend the educa- 
 tion of her sons. Wieland had already become 
 distinguished as an author. His Agathon, his 
 Musarion, his Don Silvio de Rosalva, had 
 placed him at the head of the national litera- 
 ture of that day. His translation of Shakspeare, 
 the first in the German language, had also 
 been published some time before. With the 
 leisure of his new office and the security of a 
 pension for life, he now devoted himself with 
 increased zeal to literary pursuits. Amidst his 
 numerous engagements and a constant series 
 of publications, original and translated, prose 
 and verse, he undertook the German Mercury, 
 a monthly periodical, which he edited during 
 the rest of his life. In 1798, he purchased with 
 the proceeds of his literary labors an estate at 
 Osmansstadt, near Weimar, where he intended 
 to pass the remainder of his days; but, after 
 
 the death of his wife, at the solicitation of the 
 Duchess, he returned to Weimar, and there 
 resided until his death, which occurred January 
 20th, 1813. 
 
 In Wieland we notice first his singular fer- 
 tility. The industry of the man is amazing, 
 and enlarges our idea of the capabilities of a 
 human life. His translations from Shakspeare, 
 Horace, Lucian, Cicero, would alone be suffi- 
 cient to establish his reputation for literary 
 diligence. When we add to these some fifty 
 volumes of original productions, and consider, 
 moreover, how much of his time was spent in 
 editorial labors and official duties, we have an 
 example of productiveness which has few pa- 
 rallels in the history of letters, and which 
 places Wieland on a level, in this particular, 
 with Lope de Vega, Voltaire, and Sir Walter 
 Scott. 
 
 As to quality, it must be confessed that Wie- 
 land's excellence lies rather in the manner than 
 in the matter. He is more graceful than ener- 
 getic, more agreeable than impressive, more 
 sportive than profound. ' Words that burn' are 
 not found on his page, nor thoughts that make 
 one close the book and ponder, and rise up in- 
 tellectually new-born from the reading. But 
 then he has charms of manner that lure the 
 reader on and hold him fast. And when we 
 speak of him as not profound, we speak in rela- 
 tion to German standards. Unlike the gener- 
 ality of his countrymen, he occupied himself 
 with the show of things rather than their sub- 
 stance ; with phenomena rather than laws. He 
 loved to discourse pleasantly, rather than to 
 investigate conscientiously, or to settle accu- 
 rately. What Goethe says of him is very cha- 
 racteristic ; that in all he did he cared less 
 for a firm footing than for a clever debate." 
 
 As a poet, he has been accused of licentious- 
 ness. Voluptuousness would be a more proper 
 designation. His poetry is certainly liable to 
 objection on that score. At the same time, it 
 is free from coarseness and from all that — in 
 his own phrase — 'offends against the Graces.' 
 It should be observed too, that Wieland's life 
 was pure and exemplary in all respects. Whe- 
 
 (128) 
 
WIEL 
 
 ther prose or poetry, his writings are distin- 
 guished by elegance of style and perfect finish. 
 He elaborated all that he wrote with great 
 care, and declared that he spent one-sixth part 
 of his time in copying. 
 
 His intellectual life is divided into two periods 
 distinctly marked in his works. He began his 
 literary career a zealous enthusiast. His first 
 productions are strongly tinctured with reli- 
 gion, and treat, in part, of religious subjects. 
 He afterward became an Epicurean (theoreti- 
 cally) in morals; a materialist, or common- 
 sense man, in philosophy; placed experience 
 above faith ; believed in no ideas but those 
 which are derived through the senses; and good- 
 humorcdly satirized all lofty aspiration, and 
 everything which leaned, as he thought, to 
 spiritual excess. It would be difficult to find 
 another author whose earlier and later produc- 
 tions exhibit such a contrast as those of Wie- 
 land. 
 
 Bouterwek, in his " History of German Po- 
 etry and Eloquence," thus characterizes him : 
 " The names of Klopstock and Wieland denote 
 opposite extremes. While Klopstock carried 
 the poetry of the supersensual, in its most so- 
 lemn earnestness, to excess, Wieland laugh- 
 ingly turned his back on supersensual things, 
 and declared war against all extravagance. 
 His poetry was not meant to be trifling, any 
 more than his character was trifling; but he 
 would have it subordinate to a philosophy which 
 he had learned, in the French school, to regard 
 as the only sound one. In this way, Wieland 
 became a philosophical poet of sensualism, such 
 as Germany had never seen before. But far 
 from advocating a sensualism which degrades 
 man to a beast, he wished to establish that 
 form of virtue which, according to the doctrine 
 of Shaftesbury, he held to be of the same 
 origin with the love of the beautiful, as the 
 only true one, in opposition to all which seemed 
 to him extravagant and fantastic. Conscious 
 of the strictest purity in his own morals, he 
 never doubted that a poet, especially in the 
 capacity of satirist, might, without scruple, 
 paint the most voluptuous charms of sense as 
 seductively as was consistent with the laws of 
 beauty. Only what offended the Graces— ac- 
 cording to his principles — was to be strictly 
 excluded from the domain of poetry. This 
 sesthetic morality which Wieland introduced 
 into German literature, operated beneficially as 
 
 R 
 
 AND. 129 
 
 a counterpoise to the false rigorism by which 
 criticism in Germany was oppressed.'' " Satire 
 has never contended with such polished wea- 
 pons, as in Wieland's writings, against that 
 enthusiasm to which no modern nation is so 
 much inclined as the German." " With all his 
 faults and defects, and whatever a one-sided 
 criticism may bring forward to his disparage- 
 ment, he is still one of the great poets who are 
 the pride of German literature." "He had 
 imbibed so much of the taste of the French, 
 along with their philosophy, that he bore the 
 name of the ' German Voltaire' in Germany 
 and out of Germany. But in all that Voltaire 
 has written there is not a trace to be found of 
 Wieland's ideal of moral loveliness. Among 
 Italian poets, Ariosto is the one whose humor 
 agrees best with Wieland's manner." "His 
 Muse rather smiled than laughed." " This 
 inextinguishable cheerfulness, united with such 
 knowledge of mankind, such refinement of wit 
 and taste, such fulness of imagination, with so 
 soft, so luxurious, so apparently careless, and 
 yet so cultivated a style, is found in no other 
 poet." 
 
 The following extract from Goethe's Eulogy 
 of Wieland is taken from Mrs. Austin's "Cha- 
 racteristics of Goethe." 
 
 "The effect of Wieland's writings on the 
 public was uninterrupted and lasting. He edu- 
 cated his age, and gave a decided impulse to 
 the taste and to the judgment of his contempo- 
 raries. And whence proceeded this great in- 
 fluence which he exercised over the Germans? 
 It was the consequence of the vigor and frank- 
 ness of his character. Man and author were, 
 in him, completely blended; his poetry was 
 life, his life poetry. Whether in verse or in 
 prose, he never concealed what was his predo- 
 minant feeling at the moment, nor what was 
 his general frame of mind. From the fertility 
 of his mind flowed the fertility of his pen. I 
 use the word pen not as a rhetorical phrase ; it 
 has here a peculiar appropriateness; and if 
 pious reverence ever hallowed the quill with 
 which an author wrote his works, assuredly 
 that which Wieland used was worthy of this 
 distinction. He wrote everything with his own 
 hand, and very beautifully ; at once freely and 
 carefully. He kept what he had written ever 
 before his eyes, examined, altered, improved 
 it ; unweariedly cast and recast ; nay, had the 
 patience, repeatedly, to transcribe whole works 
 ] of considerable extent. And this gave his pro- 
 
WIELAND. 
 
 130 
 
 ductions the delicacy, the elegance, clearness, 
 the natural grace which cannot be attained by 
 mere drudgery, but by cheerful, genial atten- 
 tion to a work already completed. 
 
 " Our friend was capable of the highest en- 
 thusiasm, and, in youth, gave himself completely 
 up to it. Those glad bright regions of the 
 golden time, that paradise of innocence, he 
 dwelt in longer than others. His natal roof, 
 hallowed by the presence of his father, a learn- 
 ed pastor; the ancient cloister of Bergen be- 
 neath its shade of antique times on the shores 
 of the Elbe, where his pious teacher lived in 
 patriarchal simplicity; the still monastic Tubin- 
 gen; the simple dwellings of Switzerland, sur- 
 rounded by gushing brooks, washed by clear 
 lakes hemmed in by rocks ; in all he found his 
 Delphi; in all, the groves and thickets in which, 
 even when arrived at manhood, he still revelled. 
 Amid such scenes he felt the mighty attraction 
 of the movements which the manly innocence 
 of the Greeks has bequeathed to us. He lived 
 in the lofty presence of Cyrus, Araspes and 
 Panthea. He felt the Platonic spirit move 
 within him. ***** jj u t precisely 
 because he had the good fortune to linger so 
 long in these higher regions, because he was 
 permitted so long to regard all that he thought, 
 felt, imagined and dreamed, as the most abso- 
 lute reality, was the fruit, which he was at last 
 compelled to pluck from the tree of knowledge, 
 the more bitter to him. Who may escape the 
 conflict with the outer world ] Our friend, like 
 the rest, was drawn into the strife ; reluctantly 
 he submitted to be contradicted by life and ex- 
 perience. And as, after long struggling, he 
 could not succeed in combining these noble 
 images with the ordinary world, these high 
 
 intents with the necessities of the day, he deter- 
 mined to accept the actual, as necessary ; and 
 declared what had hitherto appeared to him 
 truth, to be fantastic visions. * * * * 
 He declared war on all that cannot be shown 
 to exist in reality ; first on Platonic love ; then 
 on all dogmatizing philosophy, especially the 
 two extremes — the Stoic and the Pythago- 
 rean. * * * * * * 
 
 "It has been acutely remarked by some 
 foreigners that German authors take less heed 
 of the public than those of other nations ; and 
 that, therefore, it is easy to discern, in their 
 writings, the man educating himself, the man 
 who wants to owe something to himself; and 
 consequently, to read his character. This was 
 peculiarly true of Wieland, and it would be the 
 more interesting to follow his writings and his 
 life with this view, since suspicions have been 
 cast upon his character, drawn from these very 
 writings. Many men still misunderstand him, 
 because they imagine the many-sided must be 
 indifferent, the mobile must be infirm and in- 
 consistent. They do not reflect that character 
 regards the practical alone. Only in what a 
 man does, in what he continues to do and per- 
 sists in doing, can he show character ; and in 
 this sense, there never was a firmer, more con- 
 sistent man than Wieland. When he gave 
 himself up to the variety of his sensations, to 
 the mobility of his thoughts, and permitted no 
 single impression to obtain dominion over him, 
 he showed, by that very process, the firmness 
 and certainty of his mind. He loved to play 
 with his conceptions, but never — I take all his 
 contemporaries to witness — never with his 
 opinions. And thus he won and retained numer- 
 ous friends." 
 
 PHILOSOPHY CONSIDERED AS THE ART 
 OF LIFE AND HEALING ART OF THE 
 SOUL. 
 
 Men" had lived, and perhaps lived many 
 thousand years, before one of them hit upon the 
 thought that life could be an art ; and, in all 
 probability, every other art, from the arts of 
 Tubalcain to the art of catching flies, — which 
 Shah Baham, a peritus in arte, assures us, is not 
 so easy a matter as some people imagine, — had 
 long been invented, when, at last, the sagacious 
 Greeks, along with other fine arts and sciences, 
 invented also this famous art of life, called Phi- 
 losophy : or, if they did not altogether invent it, 
 
 first reduced it to the form of art, and carried it 
 to a high degree of refinement. 
 
 By far the greater part of the children of men 
 never dreamed that there was such an art. 
 People lived without knowing how they did it, 
 very much as Mons. Jourdain in Moliere's 
 " Citizen Gentleman,'" had talked prose all his 
 life, or as we all draw breath, digest, perform 
 various motions, grow and thrive, without one 
 in a thousand knowing or desiring to know by 
 what mechanical laws or by what combination 
 of causes all these things are done. And in 
 this thick fog of ignorance innumerable nations 
 in Asia, Africa, America, and the Islands of the 
 South Sea, white and olive, yellow-black and 
 
WIE LAND. 
 
 131 
 
 pitch-black, bearded and unbearded, circum- 
 cised and uncircumcised, tattooed and untat- 
 tooed, with and without rings through the nose, 
 from the giants in Patagonia to the dwarfs on 
 Hudson's Bay, &c. &c, live to this hour. And 
 not only so, but even of the greatest portion of 
 
 I the inhabitants of our enlightened Europe, it 
 may be maintained with truth, that they know 
 as little about said art of life and that they care 
 as little about it as the careless people of Ota- 
 heite or the half- frozen inhabitants of Terra del 
 Fuego, who are scarcely more than sea-calves. 
 
 The strangest part of this business is, that all 
 these people, who, according to a very moderate 
 calculation, constitute nearly the whole human 
 race, — like their ancestors as far back as Adam 
 and Eve, who also knew nothing of the afore- 
 said fine art, — notwithstanding their ignorance, 
 live away as courageously as if they were 
 finished masters of it. Nay more, the greater 
 part of these bunglers get on so well, as it re- 
 spects all the most essential and important func- 
 tions of human life, that scarcely one of the 
 hired masters and professors of the art can hold 
 a candle to them. 
 
 Cicero says somewhere, " Nature is the best 
 guide of life," which probably means, that Na- 
 ture shows us best how we may help ourselves 
 through this earthly state. Further, he says, 
 "No one can fail who suffers himself to be 
 guided by her." On this guidance, therefore, it 
 would seem that men must always have relied. 
 This same Nature, they thought, which teaches 
 us to breathe, eat, drink, to move hands and 
 feet, &c, teaches us also how to use our senses, 
 our memory, our understanding, and all our 
 other powers; teaches us what is fitting and 
 what is not fitting. It requires only so much 
 attention as every object enforces of itself, to see 
 and feel whether it is friendly or hostile. Our 
 nose and our tongue teach us, without any other 
 instruction, what fruits, herbs and roots, &c, are 
 good to eat. At a pinch, hunger teaches the 
 same, without much circumstance. Nature has 
 provided for all pressing necessities. Either 
 the thing which we require exists already ; — 
 and then we have whatever is needed to seize 
 and enjoy it ; — or, at least, the materials of it ex- 
 ist ; and then we have just so much understand- 
 ing, power, and natural dexterity in our mem- 
 bers, as is necessary to form those materials to 
 our use and purpose. What does not succeed 
 the first time, will succeed the tenth or the 
 twentieth. If two arms are not sufficient, four, 
 six, eight will accomplish it. Every new trial 
 adds something to our knowledge of the thing, 
 and to our faculty. We learn by errors and 
 
 j failures, and become masters by practice, with- 
 out perceiving how it has come about. And 
 this same Nature which carries us so far, always 
 conceals from us what lies too far to be reached 
 from the place assigned us; makes us happy 
 by ignorance, and has given us this beneficent 
 sluggishness, of which the world-reformers make 
 so much complaint, for no other purpose but 
 
 that the everlasting desire to improve our con- 
 dition may not cause us to fall from the frying- 
 pan into the fire, and that we may not fare like 
 that man who, in order to feel better, physicked 
 himself to death, and had for his epitaph : Per 
 star meglio sto qui. 
 
 So Nature teaches all men how to live, who 
 have not run away from the instruction and 
 discipline of the good Mother. And, in all 
 this, as you perceive, there is no art. It is Na- 
 ture herself, bodily. The celebrated Quam 
 multis non ego! of the ancient philosopher is the 
 native philosophy of all Samoyedes, Laplanders, 
 Esquimaux, &c. — a philosophy in which the 
 New Hollanders or the New Walesmen, as the 
 honest people must suffer themselves to be 
 called, according to the arbitrary pleasure of 
 the gentlemen with the firelocks, who have the 
 command, appear to have made the greatest 
 progress. Let no man come and say that such 
 a life is an oyster-life. Call it, if you please, a 
 continual childhood ; but honour Nature who 
 conducts these her children, by the shortest 
 route, to the beate vivere at which we enlight- 
 ened people seldom or never arrive, merely on 
 account of the great multitude of roads which 
 lead to it. 
 
 The wise Theophrastus (not Paracelsus, but 
 the scholar and successor of the divine Aristotle) 
 lived ninety years, and when he came to die, 
 he complained against Nature because " she has 
 given man so little time to live, and because an 
 honest fellow must die at the very moment 
 when he has begun to comprehend a little the 
 art of life." When did ever a New Hollander 
 make so unreasonable a complaint? When he 
 has come to be an hundred years old (which is 
 nothing rare with them), he has lived just one 
 hundred years, and rises satisfied from the ban- 
 quet of Nature ; — and truly, a banquet that, in 
 which Nature furnishes such poor entertain- 
 ment, that the strictest candidate for canoniza- 
 tion need not scruple to share it. 
 
 But — let me remark in passing — I am very 
 far from believing that Theophrastus made the 
 foolish speech which is imputed to him. The 
 people around his bed did not exactly under- 
 stand what he said, and then some schoolmaster 
 came along, a good while after, and tried to 
 make sense of it, and made nonsense. I would 
 bet that Theophrastus meant neither more nor 
 less than this ; that he regretted he had not been 
 wise enough, sixty or seventy years before, to see 
 that he might have saved himself the trouble 
 of studying, as art and science, what Nature 
 would have taught him far better and more 
 surely, without study, if he had had the sim- 
 plicity of mind to heed her instruction. It was 
 not innocent Nature but his own folly that he 
 blamed, as most men are wont to do in his case ; 
 although they might as well let it alone; for 
 what is the use of repentance when one has no 
 time left for amendment'? 
 
 Notwithstanding all that has been said, it is 
 by no means my intention to dispute the value, 
 
132 
 
 W I E L A N D. 
 
 whatever it may be, of the above-mentioned art 
 of life. 
 
 It has somewhere been said, that art is, at 
 bottom, nothing else than Nature herself, who, 
 by means of man, as her most perfect instru- 
 ment, unfolds and brings to perfection under a 
 different name, what before she had merely 
 sketched, as it were, or hastily begun. If art 
 is that, and so far as it is that, it is worthy of 
 all honour. 
 
 Yes, even then, when it merely comes in aid 
 of enfeebled or corrupted Nature, it is, like the 
 art of medicine, sometimes beneficial, although 
 often just as uncertain and just as ineffectual as 
 that. When Nature no longer suffices for the 
 support of life, then, to be sure, art must patch 
 and prop, and plaster and doctor as well as it 
 can. Or, to speak more correctly, even in this 
 case, the good, universal Mother has provided 
 for her darling child. She has remedies in her 
 store-chamber for every wound or disease of 
 the outward or the inward man, so that art 
 has nothing to do but to observe and to exhibit. 
 The simpler then the remedies are, the less they 
 have been tampered with, the better for the 
 sufferer. And still, the successful issue must be 
 expected from Nature alone. If she has strength 
 enough left to raise herself up by the hand of 
 art, well and good; — if not, then, for art too, 
 nothing remains, but to let the sick man die and 
 to embalm the dead. Art cannot supply the 
 power of life where it is wanting. 
 
 It was long ago that philosophy, on account 
 of this resemblance to the healing art, received 
 the name of " medicine for the soul." And 
 truly, this qualification seems better adapted to 
 secure its acceptance, than when it claims to 
 teach us to live according to the rules of art. 
 For who that has the free use of his natural 
 powers does not feel that he can live without 
 it? On the other hand, when it presents itself 
 only as physician, then the well know that they 
 have nothing to do with it. 
 
 The Indians in the islands of the South sea, 
 it seems, are unacquainted with medicines. 
 With them slight wounds or illnesses heal them- 
 selves; and of great ones they die — as we do. 
 And as they are so fortunate as to have no idea 
 of a soul in and of itself as a man in their ap- 
 prehension is always a man, made out of one 
 piece, so they know nothing of particular dis- 
 eases of the soul ; or if ever they experience 
 an attack of this kind, the hunger-cure, for 
 which they have but too frequent opportunity, 
 is generally the most effectual remedy. 
 
 On the other hand, when the progress of 
 refinement in a nation has gone so far, that 
 body and soul, instead of being as they should 
 be one person, are treated as two powers with 
 different interests, each having its separate 
 establishment, like naughty husbands and wives; 
 what is more natural than, that bad conse- 
 quences should result from such an ill-starred 
 union 1 ? Man is then no longer that noble being 
 in whom all is sense and power and soul, 
 
 in whom, so to speak, everything corporeal is 
 spiritual, and everything spiritual, corporeal. 
 He is an unnatural, Centaur-like compound of 
 animal and spirit, in which the one lives at the 
 other's expense, in which the animal creates 
 for itself necessities, the spirit passions, projects 
 and aims of which the natural man knows 
 nothing. Each oppresses, drags, worries and 
 exhausts the other as much as it can, and a 
 vast number of bodily and mental diseases are 
 the ultimate fruit of this putting asunder what 
 God had joined together. In such cases, when 
 the evil has reached its height, that " medical 
 art for the soul" may offer its aid with some 
 degree of success; and either relieve the patient 
 by purging, bleeding and clysters ; or, at least, 
 by means of agreeable opiates, procure for him 
 a delusive rest. 
 
 But this art has never yet been found able to 
 effect a radical cure; and we may boldly main- 
 tain, that when a nation has once fajlen into 
 the hands of the two Goddesses of Healing, it is 
 irrecoverably lost ; not because one must needs 
 burst with their medicines, but because when- 
 ever they are resorted to, the evil has already 
 proceeded too far to admit of entire restoration. 
 
 I said Philosophy might the rather maintain 
 its place, as healing art for the soul, because 
 then, the well would know that they had no- 
 thing to do with it. But as all arts love to 
 make themselves more important than they 
 are, so this art too has found means to impose 
 itself upon all the world as indispensable. Like 
 its sister art, which ministers to the body, it 
 will not allow any one to be entirely well. Ac- 
 cording to its doctrine and its ideal of health, 
 the whole earth is one great lazar-house of 
 bodily and mental diseases, and there is no 
 man well enough to dispense with its prescrip- 
 tions. Happily, this assumption is not conceded 
 to either of these arts. Nature knows nothing 
 of ideals. As long as a man feels himself 
 sound, he has a right to think himself sound ; 
 and, without troubling himself whether others 
 object to that view or not, he lives straight for- 
 ward as a healthy man; and (like Voltaire's 
 Zadig) reads not a letter of all the learned dis- 
 sertations, in which gentlemen undertake to 
 prove it impossible that he should be well. 
 There are cases, it is true, in which a sick man 
 is only the more dangerously sick, because un- 
 conscious of his malady. But these cases are 
 rare, and cannot deprive the great mass of those 
 who feel well, of their traditional right to that 
 feeling. 
 
 LETTER TO A YOUNG POET. 
 
 Well then, my young friend ! No man can 
 escape his destiny; and if you too are destined 
 to the laurel-wreath and the dark cell of the 
 divine Tasso, or to the spital and the postumous 
 fame of the Portuguese Camoens, can I, weak 
 mortal, prevent it? 
 
WIEL AND. 
 
 133 
 
 I have heard your confession and have pon- 
 dered well the whole case. Your inward voca- 
 tion seems indeed to admit of no douht. 
 
 Such tension of the inner and the outer 
 senses! All so sharply tuned that the softest 
 breath of Nature causes the entire organ of the 
 soul to vibrate harmoniously like an iEolian 
 harp; and every sensation gives back, with 
 heightened beauty and the purest accord, like 
 a perfect echo, the melody of the object, and 
 grows ever sweeter as it gradually dies away. 
 
 A memory in which nothing is lost, but every- 
 thing imperceptibly coalesces into that fine, 
 plastic, half spiritual substance from which 
 Fancy breathes forth its own new and magical 
 creations. 
 
 An imagination which, by an involuntary, 
 inward impulse, idealizes each individual ob- 
 ject, clothes everything abstract in determinate 
 forms, to the simple sign supplies impercepti- 
 bly ever the thing itself or an image resembling 
 it, in short, which embodies all that is spiritual 
 and purifies and ennobles into spirituality all 
 that is material. 
 
 A warm and tender soul which kindles with 
 every breath, all nerve, sensation and sym- 
 pathy; which can imagine nothing dead, no- 
 thing unfeeling in Nature, but is ever ready to 
 impart its own excess of life, feeling, passion to 
 all things about it, ever with the greatest ease 
 and rapidity to metamorphose others into itself 
 and itself into others. 
 
 A passionate love for the wonderful, the 
 beautiful and the sublime in the material and 
 the moral world, a love avowed from earliest 
 youth and never false to itself. 
 
 A heart which beats high at every noble deed 
 and revolts with horror from every bad, coward- 
 ly and unfeeling one. 
 
 Add to all this, together with the most cheer- 
 ful temperament and quick circulation, an in- 
 born propensity to reflect, to search within, to 
 pursue your own thoughts, to rove in a world 
 of ideas, and, together with the most social dis- 
 position and the most delicate vivacity of sym- 
 pathetic inclinations, an ever predominant love 
 for solitude, for the silence of the forest, for 
 all that promotes the quiet of the senses, all 
 that disengages the soul from the burdens by 
 which it is hampered in its free and peculiar 
 flight, or that rescues it from the distractions 
 which interrupt its inward occupations. 
 
 To be sure, if all this does not constitute 
 native endowment for a poet to he, if it is not 
 sufficient to assure a youth that — to speak with 
 the philosopher among the poets — it is the 
 Muses themselves that have sent him this 
 beautiful phrenzy, which he can no more shake 
 off than Virgil's Cumsean Sibyl can shake off 
 the prophetic god — * 
 
 Be easy, my friend ! I recognise and reve- 
 rence the indelible character by which Nature 
 
 * Wieland, of all writers, indulges most frequently in 
 that very convenient figure called aposiopesis by the 
 rhetoricians, of which the above is a specimen. Tr. 
 
 has consecrated you to the priesthood of the 
 Muses, and since, according to the divine Plato, 
 it is only necessary that the Muses' fury, in 
 order to produce the finest effects, should seize 
 a tender and uncoloured soul, I must be greatly 
 deceived or you will do honour to the theory 
 of our philosopher. 
 
 I do not consider it exactly an infallible 
 diagnostic of a genuine inward vocation, — ne- 
 vertheless it is generally at least the case, — that 
 an almost irresistible impulse to the art in 
 which they are destined to excel manifests 
 itself in future virtuosi, in poets, painters, &c, 
 from their earliest youth. And this sign of 
 election, my young friend, is also found in 
 you. 
 
 You say, " As far as I can look back into the 
 first years of my life, I cannot remember the 
 time when I did not make verses. The inborn 
 sensibility of my ear to the music of fine verse, 
 the rapture which dissolved me, when, even 
 in my boyhood, I declaimed certain passages 
 in which the versification was particularly 
 good from ancient or modern poets, especially 
 from the .^Eneid and Horace's Odes, the often 
 repetition and dwelling on those lines, on 
 which, even when I read them to myself, I 
 know not what internal, spiritual ear feasted, 
 as on the dying echo of the song of the Muses, 
 — all this, with me, preceded instruction. And 
 so it came to pass, that I made all kinds of 
 verses and observed a number of rules before 
 I had the least idea — in the way of learned 
 knowledge — of prosody, rhythm, poetic num- 
 bers, imitative harmony, and the like. Nothing 
 could equal my love for the poets, except the 
 ease with which I understood them, the inter- 
 est they inspired in me, and the almost ecstatic 
 rapture in which I continued for hours in the 
 enjoyment of some particularly beautiful pas- 
 sage, and the visions which it conjured up in 
 my soul. With Virgil, Haller, Milton, and the 
 five first cantos of Klopstock, I forgot eating 
 and drinking, play, sleep, myself and the 
 world. I experienced, indeed, from my early 
 youth, the same opposition from those who had 
 charge of my education, — whether as a natural 
 or a hired duty, — which Ovid, Ariosto, Tasso, 
 and so many other celebrated poets had to con- 
 tend with. But strong nature prevailed, and 
 the Genius, or the evil Spirit, as you would 
 rather call it, that possessed me, was not to 
 be expelled, neither by fair means nor foul. 
 Even when I made no verses, my guardians, 
 the enemies of the Muse, gained nothing. All 
 the ideas and knowledges with which they 
 endeavoured to stuff my mind, either fell 
 through or were transmuted into poetic matter. 
 Whatever I studied, physics, metaphysics, 
 ethics, history, politics, — everything, with me, 
 was converted into epopee and drama. And 
 while the teacher, with the air of a mystagogue, 
 was explaining the monadology of Leibnitz, 
 my imagination was developing the plan of a 
 poem on the origin of Venus from the foam of 
 
134 
 
 WIEL AND. 
 
 the sea; or I was making the statue of Pyg- 
 malion start into life before my eyes, or I was 
 explaining to myself how the great principle 
 of the Orphic cosmogony, Love, like the lyre 
 of Amphion, could unite the elements into a 
 world by its attractive energy." 
 
 What can I answer, my dear friend, to facts 
 of such potency? I seem to hear my own his- 
 tory. All this, word by word, was my own 
 case, five and thirty years ago : and if, not- 
 withstanding these plain indications of Nature, 
 I would still keep you on this side of the dan- 
 gerous Rubicon, I have at least quite other rea- 
 sons for so doing than distrust of your talent 
 and ability. 
 
 The very first flowers of the fertile soil 
 which has fallen to your lot, notwithstanding 
 you think so modestly of them yourself, would 
 be sufficient to inspire me with the fairest hopes 
 respecting you, and the rather, precisely be- 
 cause, with so decided a natural vocation and 
 so much preparatory discipline and years of 
 study, you are still so little satisfied with your 
 own productions, and are almost as much 
 offended by praise which you cannot persuade 
 yourself that you have merited, as others would 
 be by the most merited censure. I know no 
 more decided criterion of true talent, than this 
 difficulty of satisfying one's self, this unwearied 
 striving after something higher, this unaffected 
 contempt of present attainments, compared 
 with what one trusts hereafter to be, and this 
 delicate feeling of the beauties in the works of 
 other men, and of the deficiencies in one's own ; 
 qualities which I have so often had occasion 
 to notice in you, and which are so seldom 
 found in poets, young or old. 
 
 Wonder at me as much as you please, my 
 dear friend ! But it is precisely my well- 
 grounded conviction that Mother Nature really 
 designed to make a poet of you, and that, if 
 you should give yourself up to your inclination, 
 you would become wholly a poet and therefore 
 lost for all other modes of life, — it is even tins 
 that makes me tremble for you. Unhappily, 
 the good mother has thought of everything else 
 except the one important point, that she ought 
 to have brought over Plutus to her plan. How 
 could she forget that poets, no more than birds 
 of Paradise, can live on flower-odours; and 
 that the very man who has all the elementary 
 Spirits at his command, and whom it costs but 
 a stroke of the pen to summon the most splen- 
 did magic banquet-table out of the ground, is, 
 of all men in the world, the nearest to starva- 
 tion, unless by chance some compassionate 
 Genius (who, however, is not to be counted on) 
 has provided better for him than Nature, the 
 Muses, or he himself. 
 
 It would be a very different affair, indeed, 
 if you intended to follow the wise counsel 
 which Hcrr Klinggut gives his friend, to pursue 
 poetry, which he deems to be in every point 
 of view a very uncertain business, only as a 
 collateral employment by the side of some 
 
 lucrative office or other honest subsistence in 
 the learned or civil line. * • ■ 
 
 * * * * ♦ 
 
 But the verses, which in that case, are sent 
 "to Dessau to the press," are of a quality con- 
 forming; and it must be confessed that the 
 poets of narrower income, have, generally, 
 very different views in regard to this matter. 
 He who makes verses only then when he 
 knows of nothing else in God's world to do, 
 will be just such a kind of poet as one, who 
 attends to painting only in lost hours, will be a 
 Raffael. 
 
 What I now say is between ourselves. The 
 Graces forbid that I should deprive the gentle- 
 men, who know how to spend their waste 
 hours to so good advantage, of their pastime! 
 Suffice it that you, my young friend, happily 
 or unhappily for yourself, are not of this cat- 
 egory. Your love for the Muse is a serious 
 passion which must decide the fate of your 
 life. 
 
 Yon will be everywhere — in all the events, 
 relations, employments, business, sorrows and 
 joys of your earthly pilgrimage — a poet. You 
 will always think, feel, speak, act as only a 
 poet thinks, feels, speaks, acts ; and though, for 
 ten years in succession, you should not have 
 made a single verse, yet all that you had seen, 
 heard, tried, done, and suffered in those ten 
 years, would either have been poetry or have 
 been turned to poetry; and at the end of this — 
 to the Muses, apparently, lost — period of your 
 life, there would lie more germs and embryos 
 of poems of all kinds in your soul, than you 
 would have time to unfold, though you should 
 reach the age of Bodmer or of Nestor. 
 
 But alas! this is not all. You will also com- 
 mit follies which only a poet can be guilty of. 
 With the most fortunate head and the best of 
 hearts, you will stand, every moment, in a false 
 light before the world; you wi 11 always hear 
 complaints and reproaches, and still you will 
 always injure only yourself; and whatever pains 
 you may take to persuade men that you are a 
 harmless, innocent, well-meaning being, men 
 will stare at you as a strange animal, will not 
 know what to make of your way of thinking 
 and being, and will entertain, every minute, 
 serious doubts of your understanding and your 
 heart. 
 
 All this, my beloved, diffuses very unpleasant 
 consequences over the life of the individual 
 who is endowed with this admired and des- 
 pised, envied and hated, flattered and almost 
 always badly rewarded talent, which gives him 
 such singular advantages over ordinary men, — 
 so much power over their imagination, and such 
 inexhaustible means of helping himself, — in his 
 own. 
 
 The golden fcc&e jSiaxroft the unnoticed, narrow 
 path through life — the eternal wish of all souls 
 which are made for the quiet enjoyment of Na- 
 ture and for living with their own ideas — will 
 become for you a tree of Tantalus. A hateful 
 
W I E L A N D. 
 
 135 
 
 celebrity, which you will find it impossible to 
 escape, will poison your rest and inundate you 
 with an inexhaustible flood of thousand - fold, 
 worthless, but all the more troublesome, petty 
 annoyances, which will not even leave you the 
 poor illusion of being at least rewarded with 
 love for the pleasure you have conferred upon 
 the world. 
 
 A love for the Muses, like yours, generally 
 terminates like the passion of an inexperienced 
 p # air of turtle-dove souls, who, in the place of all 
 other dower, bring to each other an unbounded 
 treasure of fondness, and have forgotten all pro- 
 vision for the necessities of life in the sweet 
 delusion that love will always be meat and 
 drink to them. The enchanted lover by the 
 side of his beloved, is perfectly assured that a 
 straw-built shed, is a fairy palace ; that, with her 
 beaming eyes, he needs no light ; in her warm 
 bosom, no firing ; in short, that, in the ocean of 
 bliss in which his intoxicated soul is rioting, 
 like the gods in heaven, be needs nothing ex- 
 cept — that the sweet illusion should last forever. 
 But this is the very point in which he has reck- 
 oned without his host. 
 
 It has not been considered that hours, days, 
 months, perhaps whole years will come, in 
 which fancy, deprived of its magic power, will 
 deliver us up to the disagreeable feeling of the 
 present ; and that, with its deceitful nature, it 
 magnifies the evils which oppress us as much, 
 as, in happy hours, it enhances what is pleasant 
 in our condition. It has not been taken into the 
 account, that even if it were according to na- 
 ture, never to wake of ourselves from the beau- 
 tiful Endymion-dream in which we have been 
 lapped, yet the sober people about us would 
 certainly not fail, either from good will or ill 
 will to shake and shove us until they had played 
 us the evil trick which the Corinthian experi- 
 enced at the hands of his relatives, who drugged 
 him with hellebore until all the splendid trage- 
 dies disappeared, which he thought he saw on 
 the empty boards. 
 
 This circumstance alone would be sufficient 
 to justify all my solicitude regarding the way 
 of life on which you are about to enter. The 
 true poet, however rare — according to the afore- 
 said Herr Klinggut — the louisd'or and the 
 sugarplums may be with him, yet finds himself 
 in about the same situation in which a possessor 
 of the philosopher's stone might be. Both per- 
 haps — the one with his talisman in his head 
 and heart, the other with his powder in his 
 pocket — might be happy, if it were only possible 
 to conceal their secret from all the world. But 
 since this is out of the question, they may both 
 be sure that means enow will be found to make 
 them pay dearly for the advantage which they 
 possess over other honest people. 
 
 When, my friend, I indulge these fears for 
 your future happiness, the louisd'or and the 
 sugarplums are the least that I am thinking of. 
 The latter, with all things thereto pertaining, 
 confectionary and wines, — all, except the order- 
 
 insignia, you will come to taste, it may be, but 
 too often; and so much money as a poet needs 
 who lays no claims to a villa like Boileau's and 
 Pope's, or even to a Ferney, may also be found. 
 Horace dined as often as he pleased, at the ta- 
 bles of the great at Rome, resided as often and 
 as long as he pleased, in the splendid house of 
 Maecenas or in his elegant villa at Tibur, had 
 his own little Sabinum, — knew scarcely any 
 other plague than those which he had to endure 
 from authors, from the Public, from his own 
 celebrity, through the misfortune of being the 
 first lyric poet of Rome ; and yet he was often 
 so hard pressed with all this, that, notwithstand- 
 ing his love for the Muses, he swore he would 
 be hanged if he had not rather sleep away his 
 time than to make verses. 
 
 Read what this amiable poet — a refined man 
 of the world, as well as a man of genius and 
 distinguished acquirements — says in many parts 
 of his letters, especially in the nineteenth, to 
 Maecenas, and in the second of the second book, 
 to Julius Florus, of the discomforts and plagues 
 of the poet's calling. And read also, if you 
 please, the notes of his newest commentator,* 
 who appears to have understood the author 
 more clearly and intimately than many others, 
 for the simple reason, that he had had very 
 much the same experience himself. Since we 
 must once for all fulfil our destiny, it is well 
 at least to know what we have to expect, and 
 how much or how little we can build on those 
 receipts which are considered the surest. 
 
 Among all the beautiful visions which cheer 
 and animate a young poet, when he enters on 
 the long and painful career whose goal so few 
 of the thousands that run in it ever reach, the 
 most delightful perhaps is this : 1 the hope that 
 something more than applause, — the empty 
 digito monstrari et dicier hie est — that the love of 
 the nation for which he labours, will be the 
 prize of his unwearied efforts.' Do not, my 
 friend, flatter yourself with so vain a hope. The 
 highest on which you can count are moments 
 of favour, brief effervescences occasioned by the 
 pleasure which you have conferred upon us in 
 these moments, and for which it is thought that 
 you are abundantly recompensed by the conde- 
 scension which permits itself to be entertained 
 by you. From the moment that we perceive 
 or imagine that you are striving for our appro- 
 bation, we look upon you with the same eyes 
 with which we regard all other pretenders to 
 the character of virtuosi in the entertaining arts, 
 and you stand, whether you like it or not, on 
 the same level with jugglers, rope-dancers, and 
 histrionic performers. All your exertions to at- 
 tain a high degree of perfection we regard as 
 simply your duty, and wo unto you, if you do 
 not always surpass yourself, or ever hold your- 
 self at liberty to sleep upon your laurels! 
 
 You will not find this thought very encourag- 
 ing; but I have not yet told you the worst. 
 
 * Wieland here refers to himself. Tr. 
 
136 
 
 W I E L A N D. 
 
 Your relation to the Public, as poet, is much less 
 advantageous than if you had the honour to be 
 a great Kadenzen-macher or the Parisian Grand- 
 Diable. For these arts, every man possesses a 
 standard of perfection, and can judge, with 
 more or less correctness, how much is required 
 to perform this or that miracle. But with the 
 poetic art the contrary is the case. Among a 
 thousand readers, scarcely one has a clear and 
 definite idea of the difficulties and of the highest 
 in art. The readers or hearers know whether 
 the poet interests them or makes them gape. 
 But that is all. And, since a very indifferent 
 and a very careless work may have something 
 interesting as well as a masterpiece, you may 
 expect that when your work has ceased to be 
 the curiosity of the fair,* the first novel which 
 is new, which has a little wit, here and there 
 an astonishment, a pathetic passage, or a slip- 
 pery picture, will seize the attention of the read- 
 ing world and displace your work though all 
 the nine Muses had helped you produce it. Do 
 not hope, by any strain of your faculties, by any 
 ideal perfection for which you have striven 
 with all the powers of your mind, to obtain 
 what, according to your ideas of art, and with 
 a full consciousness of what you have accom- 
 plished, seems to you but simple justice. That 
 you will never obtain ; not because men intend 
 to deny you justice, but because they have no 
 conception of all that which it is necessary to 
 know, in order to render it. 
 
 When a poetical work, in addition to all other 
 essential qualities of a good poem, is what Ho- 
 race calls totum teres atque rotundum, when, to- 
 gether with the finest polish, it possesses the 
 greatest ease, when the language is uniformly 
 pure, the expression always adequate, the 
 rhythm always music, when the rhyme always 
 comes of itself in its proper place without be- 
 ing foreseen, when the whole stands forth as 
 if cast at one casting or blown with one breath, 
 and nowhere shows a trace of labour or effort, 
 it may be set. down as certain that such a pro- 
 duction has cost the poet, whatever his talent, 
 infinite pains. That lies in the nature of the 
 case ; and since perhaps there is no European 
 language in which it is more difficult to com- 
 pose beautiful verses than in ours, the labour 
 and the effort required to arrive at any degree 
 of perfection in such a language must be pro- 
 portionally greater. 
 
 But do not fancy, if ever you should succeed 
 in producing such a work, that the reader will 
 give you the least credit for that which you 
 have performed over and above what was re- 
 quired. He would have been quite satisfied, 
 as daily experience shows, with less. Nay, 
 what is worst of all, this very ease, this smooth- 
 ness, this roundness which has cost you so 
 much, and which the occasional but rare con- 
 noisseur acknowledges with becoming coolness, 
 
 * New publications in Germany are generally brought 
 out at the semi-annual fair of Leipsic. Tr. 
 
 will only injure your work with the great mass. 
 " I suppose it does not cost you the least trouble 
 to write such verses," is the compliment which 
 will greet you on every side. And as men are 
 accustomed to estimate a work in proportion to 
 the apparent difficulty of producing it, so yours 
 will incur a kind of contempt on account of that 
 very thing on which you have most congratu- 
 lated yourself. It will be read perhaps with 
 more pleasure than many other works of the 
 same season. But because men think that no 
 thing is easier than for you to manufacture such 
 things, you will scarcely have finished one be- 
 fore people will expect of you another like it, 
 as if you had done nothing as yet. And if you 
 are so disobliging or lazy or unfruitful, as not 
 to fulfil the expectation of your patrons with all 
 speed, some new fabrication which contains 
 something to laugh at or to weep at, will take 
 the attention of the leisure world and the work 
 on which your whole soul has impressed itself, 
 the work of your love, of your night watches, 
 the work for which you have summoned all your 
 powers, on which you have expended all your 
 talent, all your knowledge of the mysteries of 
 art, will be confounded with the mushrooms 
 which spring up in a single night, will be thrown 
 into a corner, and, in a short time, be as clean 
 forgotten as if it had never been. 
 
 All this, my friend, is something so natural, 
 such an everyday affair, it has been from the 
 same causes so universal in all nations, at least 
 in certain periods, that it would be ridiculous 
 to complain of it. True, it is not very pleasant 
 to be surprised with experiences of this kind; 
 and, at the moment when this shall happen to 
 you, you will be more than once tempted to 
 envy the happiness of every honest Boeotian 
 who, with just that portion of human sense 
 which he brought with him, eats his bread in 
 the sweat of his face, and, for want of the 
 doubtful advantage of having ten thousand peo- 
 ple whom he never saw mentioning his name 
 and undertaking to pass judgment on him and 
 his merits or demerits, is richly indemnified by 
 the enjoyment of a life which glides unknown 
 but peacefully down the stream of time. 
 
 I should never have done if I were to reckon 
 up to you all the varieties of vexation and dis- 
 comfort which await you on the other side of 
 the Aganippe, which is the perilous Rubicon for 
 you. I doubt not that, as to many of them. I 
 should tell you nothing but what you knew be- 
 fore. But do not forget to take into the account 
 the delicate sensibility and irritability of a poetic 
 organization. A thousand things which will em- 
 bitter your life are trifles in themselves consi- 
 dered ; but for the nervous system, for the 
 imagination, for the heart of a poet, they will 
 be heavy sorrows. A single perverse or mali- 
 cious criticism, one stupid look of a hearer at a 
 passage which ought to have given him an 
 electric shock, or the question : " What was 
 your meaning in that passage?" at some deli- 
 cate stroke of irony, will render you insensible 
 
137 
 
 to the approbation of thousands ; and for the 
 sake of one such citation as you have seen of 
 some quite virginal stanza of a favourite poem 
 in a book where you certainly did not expect it, 
 a citation or rather adulteration by some harm- 
 less academic philosopher, who wished to honour 
 the poet, you will wish that you could annihi- 
 late your best work. 
 
 I say nothing of the treatment you have to 
 expect from others, brothers in art, connoisseurs, 
 critics, reviewers, &c. You will, if I am not 
 greatly deceived in you, adopt Horace's method 
 in regard to all gentlemen of this description. 
 Expect then also Horace's fate ; that is, to be 
 read with pleasure in secret, to be deluged with 
 praise to your face, and publicly to be honoured 
 on every occasion with critical shrugging of the 
 shoulders, or at best with silence. A common 
 soldier who by mere dint of talent and merit 
 should rise to the office of field-marshal, would 
 be a great rarity. But an author who, without 
 belonging to a clique, without having made dis- 
 ciples, without having let his reputation to the 
 potentates of the Republic of Letters for the 
 time being, without having adopted young au- 
 thors in clientele, and so created for himself a 
 sturdy band of followers who shall be always 
 ready to attack with foot and fist all who may 
 have incurred the disfavour of their patron : an 
 author, I say, who, without all these aids, and, 
 what must not be forgotten, without being pro- 
 tected by the segis of golden mediocrity, should 
 arrive merely by his own merits at the quiet 
 possession of an undisputed property in fame 
 and authority with his contemporaries, would 
 be a still greater rarity. Strange things some- 
 times happen in this world, and some one may 
 win the golden prize; but who can calculate 
 that he shall be that one? 
 
 On the whole, if an extended and decided 
 fame, and the advantages connected therewith 
 are the goal for which you run, you may pre- 
 pare yourself betimes to find every conceivable 
 hindrance in your way, and at last perhaps to 
 see people arrive there before you. who, instead 
 of running in the prescribed path, jump the 
 barriers, cut across the field, and by a happy 
 impudence appropriate the prize which they 
 never could have won in the ordinary course. 
 "The race is not to the swift," says Solomon, 
 "nor the battle to the strong, but time and 
 chance happeneth to all." 
 
 You know, my dear friend, how many reasons 
 I have for feeling the liveliest interest in your 
 affairs. I see you entering on a path which 
 probably will not lead you to the temple of For- 
 tune ; and yet I have not the heart to keep you 
 back. I myself love the art, to which you are 
 about to devote yourself with such decided 
 capacity, too well not to experience a kind of 
 inward rebuke when seeking to deter you from 
 it. And how can I help foreseeing the answer 
 with which you will beat to the ground at 
 once all that I can oppose to your resolution ? 
 Nor is it my design to deter you ; I would only 
 s 
 
 compel you, before you choose your part for 
 ever, to consider the dangers and discomforts 
 of the path which seems to you so charming. 
 
 In Horace's day, poetry chanced to be the 
 way in which a kind of fortune could be made. 
 He says it was necessity, which dares every- 
 thing, that impelled him to make verses. 
 
 Ibit eo quo vis, qui zonam perdidit. 
 
 With us, I fear, it is just the reverse. The nar- 
 row path across the Helicon is generally the 
 direct road into the arms of the beggarly god- 
 dess whom Horace wished to escape. Perhaps 
 you may live to witness a happier day for the 
 German Muses. Perhaps some other prince is 
 destined to realize the glory which was despised 
 by the great king,* who, after forty years laden 
 with every other kind of fame, in which he had 
 done nothing for our literature, and was en- 
 tirely unacquainted with it, finally contented 
 himself with the merit of publicly upbraiding 
 us with its barrenness and defects. Perhaps — 
 but no ! — these hopeful perhapses are after all 
 very uncertain, and in fact far more improba- 
 ble than many now dream. Rather therefore 
 picture to yourself the worst; and since, in any 
 case, you have no great talent for the philosophy 
 of Aristippus, and are not strongly disposed, 
 whatever the advantages to be gained by it, to 
 expend much incense on the gods of this world, 
 or on those who dispense their favours, exa- 
 mine yourself carefully, whether in the lap of 
 your beloved Muse you can be happy with a 
 meal of potatoes and cold water? 
 
 And if then, my friend, all things considered, 
 you are resolved to venture, promise me with 
 hand and mouth (since I have told you before- 
 hand the worst that can happen) never in your 
 life, however it may fare with you, to complain 
 of the envy of your rivals and guild-brethren, 
 of the indifference of the great, and the ingrati- 
 tude of the Public. 
 
 Nothing is at once more unjust and more 
 foolish than to whine because things are as they 
 have always been, and because the world, in- 
 stead of revolving around our own dear little 
 self, in its eternal on-rush takes us along with 
 it, like imperceptible atoms, without being aware 
 of it. 
 
 Mankind around us, from the greatest to the 
 least, have so much to do with themselves and 
 their own necessities, so much with their own 
 plans, wants, passions and the momentary sug- 
 gestions of the good or evil Demon, which every 
 one, will he or nill he, must bear on his shoul- 
 ders, that it is not to be wondered at, if they do 
 not trouble themselves much about our affairs. 
 And yet, if you help a man in his need or con- 
 fer a pleasure upon him when, where, and as 
 he desires, he will thank you for it sincerely at 
 the moment. But how can we demand of him 
 that he should thank us also for unasked and 
 unavailing services, or that he shall feel obliged 
 
 * Frederic II. Tr. 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 W I EL AND. 
 
 to us when we have sung his ears full at the 
 wrong time? How can we demand that other 
 men, amid the pressure of their business, cares, 
 dissipations, entertainments, shall attach the 
 same importance that we do to the art which 
 we pursue, the objects with which our soul is 
 filled, the work with which we are occupied 
 and with which they perhaps do not know 
 what in God's world to do. How can we 
 reasonably demand that they should have as 
 practised an ear for the music of our verses, 
 that they should notice the finer beauties of a 
 poetic picture as accurately or estimate them as 
 highly as if they had made such matters a 
 special study for many years? 
 
 It lies in the nature of things that much in 
 works of wit, of taste, of art, must be lost to the 
 mere amateur. But the Public are not therefore 
 unjust toward writers of distinguished merit nor 
 without a feeling of the value of the master- 
 pieces of the poetic art. See how well every 
 day manufactures, sine pondere et arte, are re- 
 ceived, where there is anything in them that 
 can please. The reading world wishes to be 
 entertained and amused in a great variety of 
 ways, and it loves variety so much, that an 
 author must be altogether insipid who does not 
 succeed in attracting notice, and in being for a 
 time at least distinguished among the daily in- 
 creasing crowd of competitors. Even in the 
 easiest and most artless kind, — that which has 
 scarcely anything of poetry, except vividness of 
 expression and rhyme — wit or humour or the 
 felicitous ejaculation of a momentary feeling is 
 enough to make an author beloved and esteemed 
 by a nation. Let not the fault therefore be in 
 yourself, my young friend. Deserve public ap- 
 probation, and it will not be denied you. Spread 
 all your saiis, and, not content with ordinary 
 prizes, enrich our literature with works which, 
 instead of entertaining for the moment only, 
 shall possess themselves of the entire soul of 
 the reader, bring all his organs of sensation into 
 play, warm and enchant his imagination with 
 an unbroken illusion, afford nourishment to his 
 mind, and to his heart the sweet enjoyment of 
 its best feelings, — its moral sense, its interest in 
 others' joys and sorrows, its admiration of all 
 that is beautiful and great in Humanity. And, 
 depend upon it, the Public will feel all the gra- 
 titude for such a work, which you can reason- 
 ably desire. 
 
 I add this clause, because it would be mad- 
 ness to expect more of men than they can give. 
 And by what right do authors alone demand 
 from their nation more justice, more gratitude, 
 more equality and constancy than any other 
 man of merit — in whatever category he may be 
 —can expect from it? 
 
 I have thought this little digression necessary, 
 that you may not consider that, which I have 
 now stated merely as fact respecting the dis- 
 agreeable circumstances in the life of a poet, as 
 a lamentation wrung from me by the feeling or 
 the memory of my own experiences. In every 
 
 conceivable mode of life and in all conceivable 
 circumstances, the life of man is compassed 
 about with manifold actual, imaginary, natural 
 and self-made plagues ; and in the surprise of 
 the moment, a very small pain may sometimes 
 extort from us a loud cry. But who would be 
 in despair at unavoidable, universal and there- 
 fore very endurable ills? Quisque suos patimur 
 manes. It needed no reference to my own case, 
 in order to speak to you of universal experiences, 
 common to all times and to all nations where 
 literature has flourished. 
 
 You, my friend, know me well enough to 
 know that I am satisfied with my lot in every 
 point of view. From my youth up, I have loved 
 art more than what is called fame and success; 
 and always the unadulterated feeling of a few 
 noble souls, the unexpected kind-hearted thanks 
 of some brave, upright man, who could have no 
 private purposes in praising me, have been 
 more to me than the calm approbation of the 
 connoisseur or the loud applause of the multi- 
 tude; although, in a career of more than thirty 
 years, these too have not been wanting. But I 
 should arrogate to myself a merit to which I 
 have no claim, were I to deny that, after 
 spending the greater part of my life in the 
 service of the Muses, I have done more for my- 
 self than for others. It was the pure truth— 
 and will probably remain true to the end of my 
 days — that I said to my Muse, from the fulness 
 of my heart, more than fifteen years ago, when 
 living at the farthest extreme of South Germany, 
 entirely secluded from our Parnassus and with- 
 out any literary connexions, 
 
 If thou pleasest not, if world and connoisseur agree 
 
 To disparage thy merit, 
 
 Let thy consolation be, in this calamity, 
 
 That with sweet pains thou hast conferred much joy on me. 
 
 Thou art still, O Muse ! the happiness of my life, 
 
 And if no one listens to thee, thou singest to me alone. 
 
 I am greatly mistaken if, in the course of 
 your life, this sentiment does not become your 
 sentiment also. And so, whichever way your 
 fate may lead you, I have still this consolation 
 always, that a fountain of happiness is spring- 
 ing up within you, which can sweeten every 
 care of life and double the enjoyment of its 
 highest pleasures, and which, even when it 
 begins to fail, will still have a few nectar-drops 
 left for your solace, in the days in which we 
 have no pleasure. 
 
 ON THE RELATION OF THE AGREE- 
 ABLE AND THE BEAUTIFUL TO THE 
 USEFUL. 
 
 Balzac, whose " Letters," once so admired, 
 would furnish an inexhaustible fund of anti- 
 theses, concetti and other witticisms for epi- 
 grammatists by profession, was often in the 
 predicament of saying something very flat when 
 he imagined that he had said something very 
 ingenious. Nevertheless, he sometimes made 
 
WIEL 
 
 a good hit, as one who spends his whole life 
 in chasing after thoughts necessarily must. 
 
 In the following passage I am pleased with 
 the concluding thought, notwithstanding its epi- 
 grammatic turn, on account of the simplicity 
 and luminous truth of the image in which it is 
 clothed. "We must have books,'' he says, "for 
 recreation and entertainment, as well as books 
 for instruction and for business. The former 
 are agreeable, the latter useful ; and the human 
 mind requires both. The Canon-law and the 
 codes of Justinian shall have due honour, and 
 reign at the universities, but Homer and Virgil 
 need not therefore be banished. We will cul- 
 tivate the olive and the vine, but without era- 
 dicating the myrtle and the rose." 
 
 I have two remarks to make, however, re- 
 specting this passage. In the first place, Balzac 
 concedes too much to those pedants, who turn 
 up their noses at the favourites of the Muses 
 and their works, when he reckons the Homers 
 and the Virgils among the merely agreeable 
 writers. Antiquity, more wise in this respect, 
 thought differently ; and Horace maintains with 
 good reason, that there is more practical phi- 
 losophy to be learned from Homer than from 
 Crantor and Chrysippus. 
 
 In the next place, it seems to me on the 
 whole to indicate rather a mercantile than a 
 philosophical way of thinking, when people 
 place the agreeable and the useful in opposition 
 to each other, and look upon the former with a 
 kind of contempt in comparison with the latter. 
 
 Presuming that what we understand by the 
 agreeable is something that violates neither 
 law nor duty nor sound moral sentiment, I 
 say that the useful, as opposed to the agreeable 
 and the beautiful, is common to us with the 
 lowest brute ; and that when we love and 
 honour that which is useful in this sense, we 
 do only what the ox and the ass do likewise. 
 The value of such utility depends on the greater 
 or less degree of indispensableness which at- 
 taches to it. So far therefore as a thing is 
 necessary to the preservation of the human 
 species and of civil society, so far it is good 
 indeed, but not on that account excellent. Ac- 
 cordingly, we desire the useful, not on its own 
 account, but only on account of certain advan- 
 tages which we derive from it. The beautiful 
 on the other hand we love by virtue of an in- 
 trinsic superiority of our nature over the merely 
 animal. For man alone of all animals is 
 endowed with a delicate feeling for order and 
 beauty and grace. Hence, he is so much the 
 more perfect, so much the more a man, the 
 more extended and intense his love for the 
 beautiful, and the greater the refinement and 
 accuracy with which, by mere sensation, he 
 can distinguish different degrees and kinds of 
 beauty. And therefore, moreover, it is only 
 the beautiful in art as well as in the mode of 
 life and in morals, that distinguishes social, 
 developed, refined man from savages and bar- 
 barians. Nay, all the arts without exception, 
 
 AND. 139 
 
 and the sciences too, owe their growth almost 
 exclusively to this love for the beautiful and 
 the perfect, inherent in man, and would still 
 be infinitely removed from that degree of per- 
 fection to which they have risen in Europe, if 
 men had attempted to confine them within the 
 narrow limits of the necessary and the useful, 
 in the common acceptation of those words. 
 
 Socrates did so, and if ever he was mistaken 
 in anything, it was in this. Keppler and 
 Newton would never have discovered the laws 
 of the mundane system, — the noblest product 
 of human thought, — if, in conformity with his 
 precepts, they had confined geometry to mere 
 mensuration, and astronomy to the mere neces- 
 sities of travel by land and sea, and to the 
 making of almanacs. 
 
 Socrates exhorted painters and sculptors to 
 combine the agreeable and the beautiful with 
 the useful ; just as he urged mimic dancers to 
 ennoble the pleasure which their art was 
 capable of yielding, and to entertain the heart 
 together with the senses. According to the 
 same principle, he behoved to admonish those 
 labourers who occupy themselves with things 
 essential, to combine the useful as far as pos- 
 sible with the beautiful. But to deny the name 
 of beautiful lo everything that is not useful is 
 to confound ideas. 
 
 It is true, Nature herself has established a 
 relation between the useful, and the beautiful 
 and graceful. But these are not desirable be- 
 cause they are useful, but because it is the 
 nature of man to enjoy a pure satisfaction in 
 the contemplation of them, a satisfaction 
 altogether similar to that which we derive 
 from the contemplation of moral excellence, 
 and as much a want of rational beings as 
 food, clothing, shelter, are wants of the animal 
 man. 
 
 I say of the animal man because they are 
 common to him with all other, or at least, with 
 most other animals. But neither these animal 
 necessities, nor the power and the effort to 
 satisfy them, constitute him a man. In pro- 
 viding food, in building his nest, in choosing a 
 mate, in training his young, in battling with 
 others who would deprive him of his food, or 
 take possession of his dwelling, — in all this he 
 acts, materially considered, as an animal. It 
 is the way and manner in which man — unless 
 reduced to the condition of a brute, and kept 
 therein by cogent, external circumstances — per- 
 forms these animal functions, that distinguishes 
 him from and raises him above all other orders 
 of animals, and characterizes his humanity. 
 For this animal that calls itself man, and this 
 only, possesses an inborn feeling for beauty and 
 order, possesses a heart disposed to communi- 
 cation of itself, to sympathy with sorrow and 
 with joy, and to an infinite diversity of agree- 
 able and beautiful sentiments. Only this ani- 
 mal possesses a strong propensity to imitate 
 and to create, and labours unceasingly to im- 
 prove what he has invented and made. 
 
140 
 
 WIEL AND, 
 
 All these qualities together distinguish him 
 essentially from other animals, make him their 
 lord and master, subject land and sea to his 
 dominion, and lead him from step to step so 
 far, that, by the almost unlimited extension of 
 his artistic powers, he is enabled to transform 
 Nature herself, and, from the materials which 
 she furnishes, to create for himself a new 
 world, more perfectly adapted to his particular 
 ends. 
 
 The first thing, in which man displays this 
 his superiority, is the refinement and ennobling 
 of all those wants, impulses and functions 
 which he has in common with other animals. 
 The time which he requires for this purpose is 
 not to be considered. Enough that he finally 
 arrives at that point where he is no longer 
 necessitated to- beg his sustenance from mere 
 chance, and where the greater certainty of a 
 richer and better support allows him leisure to 
 think also of perfecting the other necessities of 
 life. He invents one art after another, and 
 each increases the security or the pleasure of 
 his existence. And so he ascends continually 
 from the indispensable to the convenient, from 
 the convenient to the beautiful. 
 
 The natural society into which he is born, 
 combined with the necessity of securing him- 
 self against the injurious consequences of a too 
 great extension of the human species, leads him 
 at last to civil society and civilized modes of life. 
 
 But here too, no sooner has he provided for 
 the necessary, for the means of internal and 
 external security, than we find him occupied, 
 in thousand-fold ways, with beautifying this 
 his new condition. Imperceptibly small vil- 
 lages are transformed into large cities, the 
 abodes of the arts and of commerce, and points 
 of union for the different nations of the earth. 
 Man spreads himself ever farther in all senses 
 and in all directions. Navigation and traffic 
 multiply relations and pursuits by multiplying 
 the wants and the goods of life. Wealth and 
 luxury refine every art whose mother was want 
 and necessity; leisure, ambition, and public 
 encouragement promote the growth of the 
 sciences, which, by the light they diffuse over 
 all the objects of human life, become rich 
 sources of new advantages and enjoyments. 
 
 But in the same proportion in which man 
 adorns and improves his external condition, 
 his feeling for the morally beautiful is also un- 
 folded. He renounces the rude and inhuman 
 uses of the savage state, he learns to abhor all 
 violent conduct toward his kind, and accustoms 
 himself to laws of justice and propriety. The 
 manifold relations of the social condition un- 
 fold and determine the ideas of politeness and 
 etiquette, and the desire of pleasing others and 
 of gaining their esteem teaches him to restrain 
 his passions, to conceal his faults, to turn his 
 best side out, and to perform whatsoever he 
 does, in a decent manner. In a word, his 
 manners improve with the rest of his con- 
 dition. 
 
 Through all these gradations he raises him- 
 self at last to the highest perfection of mind, 
 possible in this present life, to the great idea 
 of the whole of which he is a part, to the ideal 
 of the fair and good, to wisdom and virtue, and 
 to the worship of the inscrutable, original 
 Power of Nature, the universal Father of 
 Spirits, to know whose laws and to do them is 
 his greatest privilege, his first duty and his purest 
 pleasure. 
 
 All this we denominate, with one word, the 
 progress of Humanity. And now let every one 
 answer for himself the question, whether man 
 would have made this progress if that inborn 
 feeling of the beautiful and the graceful had re- 
 mained inactive in him? Take from him this, 
 and all the results of his dormant power, all the 
 monuments of his greatness, all the riches of 
 Nature and Art of which he has possessed him- 
 self, disappear; he relapses into the brutal con- 
 dition of the inhabitants of New Holland ; and, 
 with him, Nature herself relapses into savage 
 and formless chaos. 
 
 What are all these steps by which man gra- 
 dually approaches perfection but successive 
 embellishments, embellishments of his neces- 
 sities, his mode of living, his habitation, his 
 apparel, his implements, embellishments of his 
 mind and heart, his sentiments and passions, 
 his language, manners, customs, pleasures? 
 
 What a distance from the earliest hovel to a 
 building of Palladio ! From the canoe of a Ca- 
 rib to a ship of the line ! From the three blocks 
 by which, in the remotest ages, the Boeotians 
 represented the three Graces, to the Graces of 
 Praxiteles! From a village of Hottentots or 
 wild Indians to a city like London! From the 
 ornaments of a woman of New Zealand to the 
 state-dress of a sultana ! From the dialect of 
 the natives of Otaheite to the languages of Ho- 
 mer, of Virgil, Tasso, Milton and Voltaire! 
 
 What innumerable gradations of embellish- 
 ment must men and human things have passed 
 through before they could overcome this almost 
 measureless interval! 
 
 The desire to beautify and refine, and the 
 dissatisfaction with the lower grade as soon as 
 a higher was known, are the true, the only, and 
 the very simple forces by which man has been 
 urged onward to the point at which we find 
 him. All nations which have perfected them- 
 selves are a proof of this proposition. And if 
 there are any to be found which, without any 
 special impediment, physical or moral, have 
 always remained stationary in the same degree 
 of imperfection, or which betray an entire want 
 of those motives to progress, which have been 
 mentioned, we should have reason to regard 
 them rather as a particular species of man-like 
 animals than as actual men of our own race 
 and kind. 
 
 If now, as no one will deny, everything 
 which tends to perfect man and his condition 
 deserves the name of useful, where is there any 
 ground for this hateful antithesis which certain 
 
WIELAND. 
 
 Ostrogoths still make between the useful and 
 the beautiful? Probably these people have 
 never thought what the consequences would 
 be, if a nation, which has reached a high degree 
 of refinement, should banish or let starve its 
 musicians, its actors, its poets, its painters, and 
 other artists ; in a word, all who minister in the 
 kingdom of the Muses and the Graces; — or, 
 what would be quite as bad, if it should lose its 
 taste in all these arts. 
 
 The loss of things which are incomparably- 
 less important would make a great gap in its 
 prosperity. If one should reckon up to you 
 what the consequences would be to the French, 
 if only the two little articles, fans and snuff- 
 boxes, were stricken out from the number of 
 European necessities, and if you were to con- 
 sider that these are but two little twigs of the 
 countless branches of that industry elicited by 
 the love for playthings and trinkets, wherewith 
 all the large children in trowsers and long coats 
 around us are affected, and if you were to cal- 
 culate how useful to the world even these use- 
 less things are, and were to reflect that the de- 
 partments of the beautiful and the useful are 
 not exclusive departments, but are so manifoldly 
 intertwined with each other that it is impossible 
 ever to define with certainty and precision then- 
 respective boundaries, in short, that there exists 
 such an intimate relation between them that 
 almost all that is useful is or may be made beau- 
 tiful, and all that is beautiful useful; — if you 
 were to consider all this, you would — 
 
 But there are some people who, like the Ab- 
 derites, grow no wiser by considering. He 
 whose head has, once for all, a crook in it, will 
 never, in his life, be brought to see things as 
 they are seen by all the rest of the world who 
 look straight before them. 
 
 And then there is still another class of incor- 
 rigible people who have always been avowed 
 contemners of the beautiful, not because their 
 head is placed awry, but because they call no- 
 thing useful that does not fill their purse. Now, 
 the trade of a sycophant,, a quack, a dealer in 
 charms, a clipper of ducats, a pimp, a Tartuffe, 
 is certainly not beautiful ; it is therefore per- 
 fectly natural that this gentry should manifest 
 on every occasion a profound contempt for that 
 kind of beauty which yields them nothing. Be- 
 sides, to how many a blockhead is stupidity 
 useful ! How many would lose their whole 
 authority, if those among whom they had won 
 or stolen it, had taste enough to distinguish the 
 genuine from the false, the beautiful from the 
 ugly ! Such persons, to be sure, have weighty, 
 personal reasons to be enemies of wit and taste. 
 They are in the condition of the honest fellow 
 who had married his homely daughter to a blind 
 man, and was unwilling that his son-in-law 
 I should be couched. 
 
 But the rest of us, who can only gain by being 
 made wiser, — what Abderites we should be if 
 we suffered ourselves to be persuaded by these 
 gentlemen who are interested in the matter, to 
 
 141 
 
 become blind or to remain blind, in order that 
 the ugliness of their daughters may not come to 
 light ! 
 
 FROM THE DIALOGUES OF THE GODS* 
 
 DIALOGUE VI. 
 Mercury brings to the banqueting Gods the informa- 
 tion that they iiave been formally deposed in the Roman 
 Senate — under the government of the Emperor Theodo- 
 sius the great — Jupiter discusses this event with great 
 moderation, and reveals to the Gods consoling glimpses 
 of the Future. 
 
 SPEAKERS. 
 
 JUPITER, JUNO, APOLLO, MINERVA, VENUS, BAC- 
 CHUS, VESTA, CERES, VICTORIA, Q.UIRINUS, 
 SERAPIS, MOMUS AND MERCURY. 
 
 Jupiter and Juno, with the other inhabitants of 
 Olympus, are sitting in an open hall of the Olym- 
 pian palace, at sundry large tables. Ganymede 
 and Antinous are pouring out nectar for the gods, 
 Hebe, for the goddesses. The Muses perform table 
 music, the Graces and the Hours dance pantomimic 
 dances ; and Jocus, from time to time, provokes the 
 blessed gods to loud laicghter, by his caricatures 
 and his lazzi. In the moment of the greatest mer- 
 riment, Mercury comes flying in, in great haste. 
 
 Jupiter. You are late, my son ; how you look ! 
 What news do you bring us from below there? 
 
 Venus, to Bacclius. He seems to have a heavy 
 load of it ; how troubled he looks ! 
 
 Mercury. The newest that I bring with me is 
 not very well calculated to enhance the mirth 
 which, I see, reigns here at this moment. 
 
 Jupiter. At least your looks are not, Mercury. 
 What can have happened so bad as to disturb 
 even the gods in their enjoyment? 
 
 Quirinus. Has an earthquake destroyed the 
 Capitol ? 
 
 Mercury. That would be a trifling affair. 
 
 Ceres. Has a violent eruption of iEtna de- 
 vastated my beautiful Sicily ? 
 
 Bacchus. Or has an untimely frost blighted 
 the Campanian vines? 
 
 Mercury. Trifles! Trifles! 
 
 Jupiter. Well ! Come ! Out with your tale 
 of wo ! 
 
 Mercury. It is nothing more than — {He hesi- 
 tates.) 
 
 Jupiter. Do not make me impatient, Hermes ! 
 What is ' nothing more than V 
 
 Mercury. Nothing, Jupiter, but that at Rome 
 on a motion made in the Senate by the Impe- 
 rator in his own person, and carried by an 
 overwhelming majority, you have been form- 
 ally DEPOSED. 
 
 * These dialogues were suggested to Wieland by his 
 translations of Lucian. Some of them are mere jeux 
 d'esprit in imitation of that author on whom he had ex- 
 pended three years' labour. Some have a deeper meaning. 
 The author says of them, " I do not wish for readers who 
 need to be informed that they have a very serious pur- 
 pose." Tr. 
 
142 
 
 W I EL AND. 
 
 (77/e gods all 7~isc from the tabic in great com- 
 motion. Jupiter, icho alone remains seated, laugh- 
 ing.) Is that all? That is what I have been 
 expecting this long while. 
 
 Jill the gods at once. Jupiter deposed ! Is it 
 possible? Jupiter! 
 
 Juno. You talk like a crazy man, Mercury. — 
 iEsculapius, do feel of his pulse! 
 
 The gods. Jupiter deposed! 
 
 Mercury. As I said, formally and solemnly, by 
 a great majority of voices, declared to be a man 
 of straw — what do I say ? a man of straw is 
 something ; — less than a man of straw, a no- 
 thing: robbed of his temples, his priests, his 
 dignity as supreme protector of the Roman em- 
 pire ! 
 
 Hercules. That is mad news, Mercury! — But, 
 as true as I am Hercules, (flourishing his club) 
 they shall not have done me that for nothing! 
 
 Jupiter. Be quiet, Hercules ! — So then, Jupiter 
 Optimus Maximus, Capitolinus, Feretrius, Sta- 
 tor, Lapis, &c. &c, has finished his part? 
 
 Mercury. Your statue is thrown down, and 
 they are now busily employed in demolishing 
 your temple. The same tragedy is going on in 
 all the provinces and corners of the Roman em- 
 pire. Everywhere legions of goat-bearded, semi- 
 human beings, with torches and crowbars, ham- 
 mers, mattocks and axes are falling to work and 
 destroying with fanatic rage the venerable ob- 
 jects of the arch-old popular faith. 
 
 Serapis. Wo is me ! What will be the fate of 
 my splendid temple at Alexandria and my su- 
 perb colossal image ! If the desert of Thebais 
 spews out but one half of its sacred Satyrs 
 against them, it is a gone case. 
 
 Momus. ! you have nothing to fear, Serapis. 
 Who would dare to touch your image, when it 
 is an understood thing at Alexandria, that, on 
 the least outrage committed against it by any 
 sacrilegious hand, heaven and earth will tumble 
 into ruins and Nature sink back into ancient 
 chaos? 
 
 Quirinus. Only, one cannot always depend on 
 that sort of tradition, my good Serapis ! It might 
 happen to you as it did to the massive-gold 
 statue of the goddess Anaitis at Zela, with re- 
 gard to which, it was also believed, that the 
 first one who offered any violence to it, would 
 be struck dead on the spot. 
 
 Serapis. And what happened to that statue? 
 
 Quirinus. When the Triumvir, Antony, had 
 routed Pharnaces at Zela, the city, together with 
 the temple of Anaitis, was plundered ; and no 
 one could tell what had become of the massive- 
 gold goddess. Some years after, it happened 
 that Augustus was spending the night at Bono- 
 nia with one of Antony's veterans. The Impe- 
 rator was splendidly entertained, and, at table, 
 the conversation happening to turn on the battle 
 of Zela and the plunder of the temple of Anai- 
 tis, he asked his host, as an eyewitness, whether 
 it was true that the first one who laid hand on 
 her fell suddenly dead to the ground? — You 
 behold that rash man before you, said the 
 
 veteran, and you are actually supping from a 
 leg of the goddess. I had the good fortune to 
 seize upon her first. Anaitis is a very good 
 person, and I gratefully confess, that I am in- 
 debted to her for all my wealth. 
 
 Serapis. That is poor consolation which you 
 give me, Quirinus ! If such things are going on 
 in the world as Mercury reports, I can promise 
 myself no better fate for my colossus at Alexan- 
 dria. It is really dreadful that Jupiter can look 
 so composedly on such enormities! 
 
 Jupiter. You would do well, Serapis, if you 
 would follow my example. For a Divinity of 
 Pontus, you have enjoyed the honour of being 
 worshipped from East to West long enough, 
 and you can hardly expect that your temples 
 should fare better than mine, or that your colos- 
 sus should last longer than the god-like master- 
 piece of Phidias. Surely you do not look to be 
 the only one that stands upright, when all the 
 rest of us are fallen. 
 
 Momus. Fy ! Fy ! Jupiter, what have you 
 done with your famous thunderbolts, that you 
 submit so quietly to your fall? 
 
 Jupiter. If I were not what I am, I should 
 answer that foolish question with one of them, 
 witling! 
 
 Quirinus to Mercury. You must tell it to me 
 again, Mercury, before I can believe you. Do 
 you mean to say then, that my Flamen is 
 abolished ? my temple closed ? that my festival 
 is no longer celebrated ? Have the enervated, 
 slavish, unfeeling Quirites degenerated to this 
 degree of ingratitude toward their founder ? 
 
 Mercury. I should deceive you, if I were to 
 give any other account. 
 
 Victoria. Then I need not ask what has be- 
 come of my altar and my statue in the Julian 
 Curia. The Romans have so long forgotten the 
 art of conquering, that I find nothing more 
 natural than that they should not even be able 
 to bear the presence of my image any longer. 
 With every look which they cast upon it, it 
 would seem to reproach them with their shame- 
 ful degeneracy. Victoria has nothing more to 
 do with Romans whose very name has become 
 an insult among Barbarians, which only blood 
 can wash out. 
 
 Vesta. Under such circumstances they will 
 be sure not to let the sacred fire burn any longer 
 in my temple. Heaven ! What will be the 
 fate of my poor virgins ? 
 
 Mercury. O, they will not touch a hair of 
 their heads, venerable Vesta ! They will let 
 them very quietly die of hunger. 
 
 Quirinus. How times change ! Formerly, it 
 was a dreadful misfortune for the whole Roman 
 Empire, if the sacred fire, on the altar of Vesta, 
 went out. 
 
 Mercury. And now, there would be a deal 
 more fuss made, if the fire should go out in 
 some Roman cook's -shop than if the Vestals 
 should let theirs expire twice every week. 
 
 Quirinus. But who then, in future, is to be 
 the patron and protector of Rome, in my stead ? 
 
W I E L A N D. 
 
 143 
 
 Mercury. St. Peter with the douhle key has 
 bespoken this little office for himself. 
 
 Quirinus. St. Peter with the double key ! Who 
 is he 1 
 
 Mercury. I do not exactly know, myself. 
 Ask Apollo ; perhaps he can give you more 
 information on the subject. 
 
 Apollo. That is a man, Quirinus, who, in his 
 successors, will govern half the world for eight 
 hundred years ; although he himself was only 
 a poor fisherman. 
 
 Quirinus. What ! Will the world let itself be 
 governed by fishers? 
 
 Apollo. At least by a certain kind of fishers, 
 by fishers of men, who with a very ingenious 
 kind of bow-net, called decretals, will gradually 
 catch all the nations and princes of Europe. 
 Their commands will be regarded as divine 
 oracles and a piece of sheep-skin or of paper 
 sealed with St. Peter's fisher's-ring will have 
 power to create and depose kings. 
 
 Quirinus. This St. Peter, with his double key, 
 must be a mighty conjuror! 
 
 Apollo. Not at all ! The strangest and most 
 miraculous things in the world come about, as 
 you ought to know by this time, in a very 
 natural way. The avalanche, which over- 
 whelms a whole village, was at first a little 
 snow-ball ; and a stream which bears large 
 vessels is a gurgling rock-fountain in its origin. 
 Why may not the successors of a Galilean 
 fisherman, in a few centuries, become masters 
 of Rome, and, by means of a new religion, 
 whose chief priests they have constituted them- 
 selves, and with the aid of an entirely new 
 morality and system of politics which they 
 know how to rear upon that religion, become 
 at last, masters for a time of half the world? 
 Did you not yourself tend the herds of the King 
 of Alba, who was a very small potentate, be- 
 fore you placed yourself at the head of all the 
 banditti in Latium, and patched together the 
 little robbers-nest, which, in process of time, 
 became the capital and queen of the world ? 
 St. Peter, it is true, made no great figure in his 
 life-time, but he will see the time when em- 
 perors shall hold the stirrups for his successors, 
 and queens with all humility kiss their feet. 
 
 Quirinus. What things one lives to see, when 
 one is immortal ! 
 
 Apollo. To be sure, it requires a good deal 
 of time and no little art to make that progress 
 in man-fishing. But the fishes must be stupid 
 enough, who will let themselves be caught by 
 them. 
 
 Quirinus. Meanwhile, we are and remain all 
 of us deposed, eh ? 
 
 Mercury. It seems likely to stop at that, for 
 the present. 
 
 Several gods. Better not be immortal, than 
 experience such things. 
 
 Jupiter. My dear sons, uncles, nephews, and 
 cousins, all and severally ! I see that you treat 
 this little revolution, which I have very quietly 
 seen approaching this long while, more tragi- 
 
 cally than the thing is worth. May I ask you 
 to sit down again in your places, and let us 
 discuss these matters calmly and candidly over 
 a glass of nectar. Everything in nature has its 
 time, everything is liable to change, and so too 
 are human opinions. They ever change with 
 circumstances, and if we consider what a dif- 
 ference only fifty years makes between the 
 grandsire and the grandson, it really will not 
 seem strange that the world should appear to 
 take an entirely new shape in the course of one 
 thousand or two thousand years. For at bot- 
 tom it is only in appearance after all. It re- 
 mains forever the same comedy though with 
 different masks and names. The foolish peo- 
 ple there below have practised superstition 
 with us long enough, and if there are some 
 among you who thought themselves benefited 
 by it, I must tell them that they were mistaken. 
 One would not grudge that mankind should 
 grow wiser at last, if they can. By heaven ! 
 it were none too soon. But that is not to be 
 thought of, at present. True, they always flat- 
 ter themselves that the last folly of which they 
 have become conscious, is the last they shall 
 commit. The hope of better times is their 
 everlasting chimera, by which they are forever 
 deluded, in order to be forever deluded again; 
 because they will never come to understand 
 that not the time, but their own inborn, in- 
 curable folly, is the cause why their condition 
 never improves. For it is, once for all, their 
 lot not to be able to enjoy anything good with 
 a pure enjoyment, and to exchange one folly, 
 of which they have grown weary at last, like 
 children of a worn-out doll, for a new one, 
 with which, for the most part, they fare worse 
 than before. This time, it actually looked as 
 if they would gain by the exchange, but I knew 
 them too well not to foresee that they were not 
 to be helped in this way. For though Wisdom 
 herself should descend to them, in person, and 
 dwell visibly among them, they would not cease 
 to hang ribbons and feathers and rags and bells 
 about her, until they had made a fool of her. 
 Believe me, Gods, the song of triumph, which 
 they are raising, at this moment, on account of 
 the glorious victory they have obtained over 
 our defenceless statues, is a raven-cry prophetic 
 of wo to posterity. They think to improve, and 
 will fall from the frying-pan into the fire. They 
 are weary of us, they wish to have nothing 
 more to do with us. So much the worse for 
 them ! We need them not. If their priests 
 pronounce us unclean and evil spirits and as- 
 sure the foolish people that an ever-burning 
 gulph of brimstone is our dwelling, why need 
 that trouble us? Of what importance is it to 
 us, what conceptions half-reasoning creatures 
 of earth may form of us? or in what relation 
 they place themselves to us, and whether they 
 smoke us with a sickening compound of the 
 stink of sacrifices and incense, or with hellish 
 brimstone ? Neither the one nor the other 
 reaches to us. You say, they do not know us, 
 
144 
 
 WIEL AND. 
 
 when they wish to withdraw themselves from 
 our government. Did they know us better 
 while they served us? What the poor people 
 call their religion is their concern not ours. It 
 is they alone who gain or lose by ordering their 
 life rationally or irrationally. And their de- 
 scendants, when hereafter they shall feel the 
 consequences of the unwise decrees of their 
 Valentinians, their Gratiani, and their Theo- 
 dosii, will find cause enough to regret the un- 
 wise provisions which will accumulate on their 
 giddy heads a flood of new and insupportable 
 evils, of which the world had no conception 
 as long as it adhered to the old faith or the old 
 superstition. It would be a very different 
 affair, if they really improved their condition 
 under the new arrangement ! Who of us would 
 or could blame them for that? But it is just 
 the opposite ! They resemble a man, who, for 
 the sake of driving away some trifling evil 
 with which he might live to the age of Titho- 
 nus, suffers ten others, which are ten times 
 worse, to be fastened upon him. Thus, for 
 example, they raise a great outcry against our 
 priests, because they entertained the people, 
 who are everywhere superstitious and will 
 always remain so, with delusions, which how- 
 ever benefited the State as well as them- 
 selves. Will their priests do better ? At this 
 moment they are laying the foundation of a 
 superstition, which will benefit no one but 
 themselves, and which, instead of strengthen- 
 ing the political constitution, will confound and 
 undermine all human and civil relations, — a 
 superstition which will lie like lead on their 
 brains, exclude every sound conception of 
 things, natural and moral, and, under pretence 
 of a chimerical perfection, will poison humanity 
 in every man in the very germ. When the 
 worst has been said that can be said with 
 truth of the superstition which has hitherto 
 fooled the world, men will be forced, here- 
 after, to confess, that it was far more human, 
 more innocent, and more beneficial, than the 
 new one which is substituted in its place. Our 
 priests were infinitely more harmless than those 
 to whom they must now yield. They enjoyed 
 their authority and their income in peace, were 
 in harmony with every one and assailed no 
 man's faith. These are greedy of dominion 
 and intolerant, they persecute one another with 
 the uttermost rage on account of the most in- 
 significant verbal subtleties, decide by a majority 
 of voices what must be thought concerning un- 
 thinkable things and what must be said con- 
 cerning unspeakable things, and treat all, who 
 think or speak otherwise, as enemies of God 
 and man. It was a thing scarce heard of for 
 a thousand years, that the priests of the gods 
 came into collision with the civil authority, un- 
 til encroached upon by these raving iconoclasts. 
 The new priesthood on the contrary, since their 
 party has been in power, have not ceased to 
 confound the world. As yet, their pontiffs 
 work under ground, but soon they will grasp 
 
 at the sceptres of kings and assume to be vice, 
 gerents of their God, and under this title arro- 
 gate to themselves an hitherto unheard of do- 
 minion over heaven and earth. Our priests 
 indeed, as was proper, were not very zealous 
 promoters — or at least they were not avowed 
 enemies — of philosophy, from which they had 
 nothing to fear under the protection of the 
 laws. Least of all, did they dream of sub- 
 jecting the thoughts and opinions of men to 
 their jurisdiction, and of hindering their free 
 circulation in society. Theirs, on the other 
 hand, who, as long as they were the weaker 
 party, made so much boast of having Reason 
 on their side and always placed her in the van, 
 whenever attacked by ours, — now that she 
 would only be an hindrance to them, in their 
 farther operations, — will dismiss her from their 
 service and will not rest until they have made 
 all dark around them, until they have with- 
 drawn from the people all means of enlighten- 
 ment and stamped the free use of the natural 
 judgment as the greatest of all crimes. For- 
 merly, while they lived on alms themselves, 
 the wealth and decent living of our priests was 
 an abomination to them; now that they are 
 driving with full sails, the moderate revenues 
 of our temples are much too small to satisfy 
 the necessities of their pride and vanity. Al- 
 ready their pontiffs at Rome, through the li- 
 berality of superstitious and wealthy matrons, 
 whose enthusiastic sentimentality they know 
 how to avail themselves of in so masterly a 
 manner, by the most shameless legacy-hunting, 
 and a thousand other arts of the same sort, have 
 placed themselves in a condition to surpass the 
 first persons in the State, in splendor, luxury, 
 and expense. But all these fountains, although 
 grown to rivers by ever new accessions, will 
 not satisfy these insatiable men. They will 
 invent a thousand unheard of means to tax the 
 simplicity of rude and deluded men; even the 
 sins of the world they will convert to golden 
 fountains by their magic art, and, to render these 
 fountains more productive, they will invent a 
 monstrous number of new sins, of which the 
 Theophrasts and the Epictetusses had no con- 
 ception. 
 
 But why do I speak of all this ? What is it 
 to us what these people do or leave undone, or 
 how well or ill they avail themselves of their 
 new dominion over the sickly souls of men who 
 are enervated and crippled by lust and bondage? 
 They who deceive the rest are themselves de- 
 luded. They too know not what they do. But 
 it becomes us to treat them with indulgence as 
 diseased and insane, and, without regard to 
 their gratitude or ingratitude, in future also, still 
 to confer upon them as much good as their own 
 folly may yet leave us the opportunity of doing. 
 The unhappy ! Whom but themselves do they 
 injure, when of their own accord they deprive 
 themselves of the beneficent influence by which 
 Athens became the school of wisdom and of 
 art, and Rome the lawgiver and mistress of the 
 
WIE L AND, 
 
 145 
 
 earth, by which both attained a degree of cul- 
 ture to which even the better descendants of the 
 barbarians, who are now about to divide among 
 themselves the lands and wealth of these de- 
 generate Greeks and Romans, will never be 
 able to rise. For what is to become of men 
 from whom the Muses and the Graces, Philoso- 
 phy and all the beautifying arts of life and the 
 finer enjoyment of life have withdrawn them- 
 selves, together with the gods, their inventors 
 and protectors ? I foresee with one glance all 
 the evil that will thrust itself in, in the place of 
 the good, all the unformed, the perverted, the 
 monstrous and misshapen that these fanatical 
 destroyers of the beautiful will rear on the ashes 
 and the ruins of works of genius, of wisdom and 
 art, and I am disgusted with the loathsome 
 spectacle. Away with it! For, so truly as I 
 am Jupiter Olympius, it shall not always remain 
 so, although centuries will elapse before Hu- 
 manity reaches the lowest abyss of its fall, and 
 centuries more before, with our aid, it works its 
 way once more above the slime. The time will 
 come when they will seek us again, invoke our 
 aid once more, and confess that they are power- 
 less without us. The time will come when with 
 unwearying diligence they will drag forth from 
 the dust once more, or excavate from rubbish 
 and corruption every ruined or defaced relic 
 of those works which, by our influence, once 
 sprung from the mind and hands of our fa- 
 vourites, and exhaust themselves in vain, with 
 affected enthusiasm, to imitate those miracles 
 of genuine inspiration and the actual afflatus of 
 divine powers. 
 
 Apollo. Most surely it will come, Jupiter, that 
 time ! I see it as if it stood already before me, 
 in the full glory of the present. They will again 
 erect our images, will gaze upon them with a 
 feeling of awe and adoring wonder, will use 
 them as models for their idols, which had be- 
 come frights in barbarous hands ; and — O ! what 
 a triumph ! their pontiffs themselves will take 
 pride in erecting the most magnificent temple 
 to us, under a different name ! 
 
 Jupiter, ( with a large goblet of nectar in his hand) 
 Here s to the Future! [to Minerva.) My daugh- 
 ter, we'll drink to the time when you shall see 
 all Europe converted into a new Athens, filled 
 with academical lyceums, and perhaps shall 
 hear the voice of philosophy from the midst of 
 the forests of Germany, more clear and free than 
 formerly from the halls of Athens and Alexan- 
 dria. 
 
 Minerva, (slightly shaking her head) I am glad, 
 Father Jupiter, to see you of such good cheer in 
 view of the present aspects; but you will par- 
 don me if I believe as little in a new Athens as 
 in a new Olympus. 
 
 Quirinus. (to Mercury) I can't get that Peter 
 with the double key. who is to be my successor, 
 out of my head, Mercury ! How is it with that 
 key? Is it an actual or emblematic, a natural 
 or a magic key ? Where did he get it, and what 
 will he unlock with it 1 
 
 T 
 
 Mercury. All that I can tell you about it, 
 Quirinus, is, that with this key he can unlock 
 Heaven or Tartarus to whom he pleases. 
 
 Quirinus. He may unlock Tartarus to whom 
 he will for all me ; but as to Heaven! — that is 
 a very different matter. 
 
 Mercury. Indeed, they are preparing to peo- 
 ple Heaven with such an enormous quantity of 
 new gods of their sort, that there will hardly be 
 any room left for us old ones. 
 
 Jupiter. Leave that to me, Hermes! They 
 could easily deprive us of our temples and ter- 
 ritories on the earth ; but, in Olympus, we have 
 been established too long to be crowded out. 
 For the rest, as a proof of our perfect impar- 
 tiality, we will concede to the new Romans the 
 right of apotheosis, notwithstanding their inso- 
 lence, under the same conditions as to the old. 
 As I understand, most of their candidates who 
 lay claim to this promotion are not persons of 
 the best society. Therefore, before we admit 
 any one, with St. Peter's permission we will 
 examine him a little. If it shall appear that, 
 in virtue of his other qualities and merits, he 
 can maintain his place among us, no objection 
 shall be made on account of the golden circle 
 round his head; and Momus himself shall not 
 twit him with the miracles which are wrought 
 with his bones or his wardrobe. 
 
 Juno. You may do as you please with regard 
 to the men, Jupiter; but I protest against the 
 introduction of the ladies. 
 
 Venus. There are said to be some very pretty 
 ones among the number. 
 
 Jupiter. We will talk about that when the 
 case occurs. And now — not a word more de 
 odiosis! A fresh cup, Antinous! 
 
 DIALOGUE VIII. 
 
 jupiter, numa, afterward as uxKJfowsr * 
 
 Jupiter. How happens it, Numa, that we have 
 not seen you now, for several days, at the table 
 of the Gods ? 
 
 Numa. The accounts which Mercury lately 
 brought us from Rome left me no rest until I 
 had seen with my own eyes how matters stood. 
 
 Jupiter. And how did you find thein ? 
 
 Numa. I say it with heavy heart, Jupiter, but 
 probably I tell you nothing new, when I say 
 that your authority with mortals appears to be 
 irrecoverably lost. 
 
 Jupiter. Did you not hear what Apollo said 
 at table the other day ? 
 
 Numa. He gave you very distant consolation, 
 Jupiter ; and even this consolation turns at last 
 on a verbal quibble. It is just as if a Chaldean 
 soothsayer had comforted Alexander the Great, 
 when about to die of a miserable fever at Baby- 
 lon in the midst of the enjoyment of his con- 
 quests, with the assurance that two thousand 
 
 * He is so still to most persons at the present day, and 
 he appears here to give some important information re- 
 specting his true character and aim. 
 
 13 
 
146 
 
 WIEL AND. 
 
 years after his death a noble descendant of the 
 great Wittekind would wear his picture in a 
 ring. Such a thought may be very agreeable as 
 long as one is in good condition ; but it is a poor 
 indemnification for the loss of the first throne in 
 the world. 
 
 Jupiter. I should have thought, friend Numa, 
 that your residence in Olympus would have 
 corrected your notions of such things ! 
 
 Numa. I know very well that a decree of the 
 senate at Rome cannot deprive you of the in- 
 fluence which you have on the affairs of the 
 world below ; but — 
 
 Jupiter, (smiling) Speak out plainly what you 
 think! My ear has grown patient of late — 
 'But' what? 
 
 Numa. Your influence, after all, cannot be 
 very considerable ; or else I cannot conceive 
 how you could suffer yourself to be deprived of 
 the divine authority and the high privileges 
 which you have enjoyed for so many centuries 
 throughout the Roman world, without so much 
 as stirring a finger. 
 
 Jupiter. I can pardon my Flamen for not 
 comprehending a thing of this sort; but you, 
 Numa !— 
 
 Numa. To speak candidly, Jupiter, although 
 I may be considered in some sort the founder 
 of the old Roman religion, it was never my in- 
 tention to give more nourishment to the super- 
 stition of the rude Romans than was absolutely 
 necessary to polish them. I did not indeed 
 make any essential change in the service of 
 those gods which a primeval, popular belief 
 had long established in the possession of the 
 public veneration. Nevertheless, it was my aim 
 to keep the way open, so to speak, to a purer 
 knowledge of the Supreme Being, and at least 
 to prevent the coarsest kind of idolatry by not 
 allowing the Godhead to be represented in the 
 temples, neither in the likeness of beasts nor 
 even of men. I regarded even then the dif- 
 ferent persons and names, which the faith of 
 the forefathers had exalted into gods, either as 
 symbols of the invisible and unfathomable 
 arch-Power of Nature, or as men whom the gra- 
 titude of posterity for great services conferred on 
 social and civil life, had raised to the rank of 
 publicly worshipped, guardian spirits. 
 
 Jupiter. And ocular evidence has taught you 
 that you did not err greatly, in this latter notion 
 at least; although I am not of your opinion a9 
 it regards the images of the gods. 
 
 Numa. Had there been Phidiasses and Alka- 
 meneses in Latium in my day, it is probable that 
 these artists might have led me too to a differ- 
 ent way of thinking. 
 
 Jupiter. If, then, you have never held us for 
 anything else than we are, whence your sur- 
 prise that we are quite willing to let it pass, 
 when the inhabitants of the earth have also 
 advanced so far as to regard us in the same 
 light 1 
 
 Numa. It may be owing to the habit of living 
 among you, and of seeing you so long in posses- 
 
 sion of the worship of mankind. Both these 
 circumstances have placed you in a strange kind 
 of chiaroscuro to my eye, and have given me 
 imperceptibly, perhaps, too high an opinion of 
 your nature and dignity. In short, I confess 
 that it will be difficult for me, Jupiter, to accus- 
 tom myself to a different way of thinking. 
 
 Jupiter. I am half inclined to come forth from 
 the chiaroscuro, and to draw away the veil from 
 the secrets of my family, concerning which so 
 many excellent people on the earth have cud- 
 gelled their brains to no purpose. 
 
 Numa. I am sure you will lose nothing by it. 
 
 Jupiter. One always gains by the truth, friend 
 Numa! — You know that no one of us, Olym- 
 pians, long as we have existed and far as our 
 sight extends, can refer to a time when this im- 
 measurable whole began to be, whose exist- 
 ence, on the contrary, is the most convincing 
 proof that it had no beginning. On the other 
 hand it may be affirmed with the same cer- 
 tainty, that, of all its visible parts, no one has 
 always existed precisely as it is. Thus, for ex- 
 ample, the earth which we once inhabited has 
 undergone several great revolutions, of which, 
 in part, some traces have been preserved by 
 oral tradition among the oldest nations. Of this 
 kind is the tradition current among the North- 
 landers, the Indians and the Egyptians, that 
 there was a time when the earth was inhabited 
 by gods. In fact, the inhabitants of the earth in 
 this first period, if they can be called men, were 
 a kind of men who would compare with the 
 present race, as the Olympian Jupiter of Phi- 
 dias, with the Priapus-images of fig-tree wood 
 which the country people stick up to protect 
 their gardens ; so far did they surpass in size 
 and beauty, bodily strength and mental powers, 
 the men of after times. With them and by 
 means of them, the earth enjoyed a state of per- 
 fection which was worthy of its then inhabit- 
 ants. But, in the course of thousands of years, 
 it has undergone great changes. A part of the 
 posterity of the first inhabitants degenerated in 
 the different regions of the earth, over which 
 their increase compelled them to spread them- 
 selves. Extraordinary events, earthquakes, vol- 
 canoes, floods, changed the shape of the planet. 
 While whole countries were swallowed up in 
 the ocean, others gradually emerged from the 
 waves; but the greater part of the old inhabit- 
 ants of the earth perished in this fearful revolu- 
 tion of things. The few who remained, wan- 
 dered singly, amazed and dispirited, among the 
 ruins of Nature. Here and there, indeed, acci- 
 dent brought a Deucalion and a Pyrrha together, 
 but their descendants soon degenerated, through 
 want and misery, into beastly savages. Mean- 
 while, the earth gradually recovered from the 
 chaotic state which naturally resulted from those 
 terrible convulsions, and became evermore fitted 
 for the habitation and subsistence of its new in- 
 habitants. The new races with which it was 
 peopled supported themselves scantily with 
 hunting and fishing, and where these failed, 
 
W I E L A N D. 
 
 147 
 
 with acorns and other wild fruits. They dwelt, 
 for the most part, in forests and caves ; and the 
 most of them were so rude, that they did not 
 even know the use of fire. Happily, a family 
 of that first and more perfect race had preserved 
 itself on the summit of Imaus, with all their 
 original excellences, and in the enjoyment of 
 all the advantages derived from the arts and 
 sciences invented by their ancestors. Necessi- 
 tated by similar catastrophes to relinquish the 
 seats of their inheritance, they scattered them- 
 selves to the east and to the west, and wherever 
 they came, their arrival was like the appearance 
 of beneficent gods. For, besides a cultivated 
 language and gentle manners, they brought all 
 the arts, of which no trace was to be found 
 among those wild-animal-men, and the want 
 of which was the very cause which had de- 
 graded them to that inhuman animality. You 
 will comprehend, friend Numa, that they were 
 received as gods by these wretched creatures, 
 and that, by all the good which they communi- 
 cated, by the arts of agriculture, by the breeding 
 of domestic animals, the planting of fruit trees, 
 whereby they became creators of a new world, 
 by the civil societies whose founders, by the cities 
 whose builders and lawgivers they became, by 
 the pleasant arts of the Muses, whereby they 
 diffused milder manners, more refined plea- 
 sures, and a sweeter enjoyment of life, — you 
 will comprehend, I say, that by all these bene- 
 fits they had deserved so well of mankind, that, 
 after their death, (of which their ascension into 
 this purer element was the natural consequence) 
 they came to be honoured as guardian gods by 
 a grateful posterity. You will further compre- 
 hend, that they who once conferred so many 
 and such great benefits on mortals, after their 
 transition to a higher mode of life, should still 
 find pleasure in caring for men who had re- 
 ceived from them all that made them men, and 
 in general to watch over the preservation of all 
 that of which they had been, in some sense, the 
 creators. 
 
 Numa. Now, suddenly, everything which, 
 before, I had seen only as in a mist, is made 
 clear to me. 
 
 Jupiter. And now too, it will be clear to you, 
 I hope, why I said I was very willing that men 
 should become sufficiently enlightened to regard 
 us as nothing more than we actually are. Su- 
 perstition and priestcraft, powerfully supported 
 by poets, artists and mythologians, had gradu- 
 ally converted the service which was paid us, 
 and which we accepted, only on account of its 
 beneficial influence on Humanity, into a mad 
 idolatry, which neither could nor ought to con- 
 tinue, which was necessarily undermined by an 
 ever-growing culture, and like all human things, 
 must finally fall back into itself. How could I 
 desire that that should not ensue, which, accord- 
 ing to the eternal laws of necessity, must needs 
 ensue? 
 
 Numa. But these fanatical innovators are not 
 contented with merely purifying a service so 
 
 ancient, and founded on such important bene- 
 fits ; they destroy, they annihilate it! They rob 
 you of that which they actually owe to you; 
 and far from reducing the ideas of the nations 
 respecting the gods of their fathers to the stan- 
 dard of truth, they carry the madness of their 
 impious insolence so far as to pronounce you 
 evil demons and hellish spirits, and to treat you 
 as such. 
 
 Jupiter. Do not be angry, good Numa! Was 
 I not also forced, while my altars yet smoked, 
 to endure every coarse and indecent tale with 
 which the poets entertained their gaping hearers 
 at my expense ? What does it signify to me 
 what is thought or said of me there below, 
 since the period has once for all arrived, when 
 the service of Jupiter has ceased to be bene- 
 ficial to men? Shall I force them with thunder- 
 bolts to have more respect for me ? Of what 
 importance can it be to me, whether they assign 
 Olympus or Tartarus to me for a dwelling? 
 Am I not secure against all the consequences of 
 their opinion ? Or will Ganymede pour out for 
 me one cup the less of nectar on their account? 
 
 Numa. But it is of importance to them, Jupiter, 
 not to deprive themselves of all the benefits 
 which the world has hitherto enjoyed under 
 your government, by the abandonment of all 
 communion between themselves and you, into 
 which they are now suffering themselves to be 
 betrayed. 
 
 Jupiter. I thank you for your good opinion of 
 my government, friend Pompilius ! There are 
 certain wise people below there, who do not 
 think quite so highly of my influence in human 
 things, and — strictly considered — they may not 
 be so far out of the way. One cannot do more 
 for people than they are receptive of. I have 
 never liked to employ myself with working 
 miracles, and so every thing goes its natural 
 course, — mad enough, as you see, and yet, on 
 the whole, not so bad but that one may get on 
 with it. And so it will remain for the future, 
 I think. Whatever I can contribute to the com- 
 mon good, without sacrificing my repose, I shall 
 always be pleased to do. But as to playing the 
 enthusiast and letting myself be crucified for 
 ingrates and fools — that is not in Jupiter's line, 
 my good Numa ! 
 
 The Unknown appears. 
 
 Numa. Who may that stranger be, who is 
 coming towards us yonder? Or are you already 
 acquainted with him, Jupiter ? 
 
 Jupiter. Not that I remember. He has some- 
 thing in his appearance, which indicates no 
 common character. 
 
 The Unknown. Is it permitted me to take part 
 in your conversation? I confess, it hath drawn 
 me hither from a considerable distance. 
 
 Jupiter, (aside) A new kind of magnetism ! 
 (To the unknown.) You know then, already, 
 whereof we were speaking? 
 
 The Unknown. I possess the faculty of being 
 where I wish to bej and where two are in- 
 
148 
 
 WIE L AND. 
 
 quiring after truth, I seldom fail, visibly or in- 
 visibly, to make the third. 
 
 Numa. (shaking his head, softly to Jupiter) A 
 queer customer ! 
 
 Jupiter, (without minding Numa, to the Un- 
 known) In that case, you are an excellent com- 
 panion! I rejoice to make your acquaintance. 
 
 Numa. (to the Unknown) May I ask your name? 
 and whence you come? 
 
 The Unknown. Neither the one nor the other 
 has anything to do with the subject matter 
 which you were discussing. 
 
 Jupiter. We were speaking merely of facts. 
 And these, as you know, appear differently to 
 each observer, according to his stand-point and 
 the quality of his eyes. 
 
 The Unknown. And yet each thing can be 
 seen correctly only from one point of view. 
 
 Numa. And that is — ? 
 
 The Unknown. The centre of the Whole. 
 
 Jupiter, (aside, to Numa) In that man there 
 ! is either a great deal, or nothing. — (To the Un- 
 known.) You know the Whole then? 
 
 The Unknown. Yes. 
 
 Numa. And what do you call its centre ? 
 
 The Unknown. Perfection ; from which every- 
 thing is equally remote and to which everything 
 approximates. 
 
 Numa. And how does each thing appear to 
 you from this centre? 
 
 The Unknown. Not fragmentary, not as it is in 
 particular places and periods of time, not as it 
 relates to these or those things, not as it loses or 
 j gains by its immersion in the atmosphere of 
 human opinions and passions, not as it is falsi- 
 fied by folly or poisoned by corruption of heart; 
 but as it relates to the whole, in its beginning, 
 progress and issue, in all its forms, movements, 
 operations and consequences; — that is, in the 
 measure in which it contributes to the eternal 
 growth of the perfection of the whole. 
 
 Jupiter. That is not bad ! 
 
 Numa. And seen from this point of view, 
 how do you find the subject of which we were 
 speaking when you came, — the great cata- 
 strophe which, in these days, without respect 
 or mercy, has overthrown everything that, for 
 so many centuries, was most venerable and 
 sacred to the human race? 
 
 The Unknown. It followed necessarily, for it 
 had been a long while preparing ; and it needs 
 at last, as you know, but a single blast to over- 
 throw an old, ill-joined, thoroughly ruinous 
 fabric, and one, moreover, which was founded 
 on the sand. 
 
 Numa. But it was such a magnificent struc- 
 ture, so venerable in its antiquity, possessing, 
 with all its variety, so much simplicity, so bene- 
 ficent in the protection which Humanity, the 
 laws, the security of the States enjoyed so 
 long under its lofty arches ! Would it not 
 have been better to repair than to destroy it? 
 Our philosophers at Alexandria had formed 
 such beautiful projects not merely to restore its 
 former authority but even to give it a far greater 
 
 splendour and especially a symmetry, a beauty, 
 a convenience which it never had before ! It 
 was a Pantheon of such great extent and such 
 ingenious construction that all the religions in the 
 world — even this new one if it would only be 
 peaceable — might have found space enough 
 within its walls. 
 
 The Unknown. It is a pity that, with all these 
 apparent advantages, it was nevertheless built 
 only on the movable sand ! And as to peace- 
 ableness ! — how can you expect that, in a matter 
 of such great importance, truth and delusion 
 should agree together ? 
 
 Numa. That is a very easy matter, if only 
 mankind will agree among themselves. They 
 are never more grossly deluded than when they 
 imagine themselves in exclusive possession of 
 the truth. 
 
 The Unknown. If it is not their destination to 
 be deceived — and that, surely, you will not 
 maintain — then it cannot and will not be their 
 lot to wander forever in error and delusion, like 
 sheep without a shepherd. Between darkness 
 and light, twilight and half-light is certainly 
 better than complete night ! but only as a transi 
 tion from that to pure all-irradiating daylight. 
 The day has now dawned, and would you 
 lament that night and twilight are past? 
 
 Jupiter. You love allegory, as I hear, young 
 man ! I, for my part, love to speak roundly and 
 plainly. I suppose you mean to say that men 
 will be made happier by this new order of 
 things ? I hope they may, but as yet I see very 
 poor preparations for it. 
 
 The Unknown. Without fail the condition of 
 these poor mortals will be better and infinitely 
 better. Truth will put them in possession of 
 that freedom which is the most indispensable 
 condition of happiness : for truth alone makes 
 free. 
 
 Jupiter. Bravo! I heard that five hundred 
 years ago in the Stoa at Athens, until I was sick 
 of it. Propositions of this kind are just as in- 
 disputable and contribute just as much to the 
 welfare of the world as the great truth, that 
 once one is one. As soon as you will bring me 
 intelligence that the foolish people below there 
 have become better men than their fathers, since 
 that a great part of them believe differently from 
 their fathers, I will call you the messenger of 
 very good tidings. 
 
 The Unknown. The corruption of mankind 
 was so great that even the most extraordinary 
 provisions could not remedy the evil at once. 
 But, assuredly, they will grow better when truth 
 shall have made them free. 
 
 Jupiter. I believe so too, but, it seems to me, 
 that is saying no more than if you should say, 
 that as soon as all men are wise and good they 
 will cease to be foolish and perverse ; or that, 
 when the golden age arrives in which every 
 man shall have abundance, no one will suffer 
 hunger any more. 
 
 The Unknown. I see the time actually coming 
 when all who do not purposely close their 
 
WIELAND. 
 
 149 
 
 hearts to the truth, will, by means of it, attain 
 to a perfection of which yfcur philosophers never 
 dreamed. 
 
 Jupiter. Have you been initiated in the mys- 
 teries of Eleusisl 
 
 The Unknown. I know them as well as if I 
 had been. 
 
 Jupiter. Then you know what is the ultimate 
 aim of those mysteries. 
 
 The Unknown. To live happily, and to die 
 with the hope of a better life. 
 
 Jupiter. You seem to be a great philanthropist ; 
 do you know anything more salutary for mortals 
 than this? 
 
 The Unknown. Yes. 
 
 Jupiter. Let me hear it, if I may ask. 
 
 The Unknown. To give them in reality what 
 those mystagogues at Eleusis promised. 
 
 Jupiter. I fear that is more than you or I will 
 be able to perform. 
 
 The Unknown. You have never tried, Jupiter. 
 
 Jupiter. Who likes to speak of his services? 
 But you may easily suppose that I could not 
 have attained to the honour which has been 
 paid me by so many great and powerful nations 
 for several thousand years, without having 
 served them to some extent. 
 
 The Unknown. That may have been a long 
 while ago ! He who is unwilling to do more for 
 man than he can do ' without sacrificing his re- 
 pose,' will not accomplish much in their behalf. 
 I confess, I have laboured sore. 
 
 Jupiter. I like you, young man. In your 
 years this amiable enthusiasm, which sacrifices 
 itself for others, is a real merit. Who can offer 
 himself up for mankind without loving them ? 
 And who can love them without thinking better 
 of them than they deserve ? 
 
 The Unknown. I think neither too well nor 
 too ill of them. I pity their misery. I see 
 that they may be helped ; and they shall be 
 helped. 
 
 Jupiter. It is even as I said. You are full of 
 courage and good-will, but you are still young: 
 the folly of earth's people has not yet made you 
 tender. When you are as old as I am, you will 
 sing a different song ! 
 
 The Unknown. You speak as might be ex- 
 pected of you. 
 
 Jupiter. It seems scandalous to you to hear 
 me talk thus, does it? You have formed a 
 great and benevolent plan for the good of man- 
 kind. You burn with the desire to execute it. 
 You live and have your being in it ; your far- 
 seeing glance shows you all its advantages; 
 your courage swallows up all difficulties ; you 
 have set your existence upon it ; how can you 
 help believing that it will be accomplished? 
 But you have to do with men, my good friend ! 
 Do not be offended, if I speak exactly as I 
 think: it is the privilege of age and experience. 
 You seem to me like a tragic poet who under- 
 takes to perform an excellent piece with no- 
 thing but crippled, dwarfed, halt and hunch- 
 backed actors. Once more, my friend, you are 
 
 not the first who has undertaken to accomplish 
 something great with men; but I tell you that, 
 as long as they are what they are, all such 
 attempts will come to nothing. 
 
 The. Unknown. For that very reason, they 
 must be made new men. 
 
 Jupiter. New men ! (laughing} That, indeed ! 
 If you could only do that! But I think I under- 
 stand you. You mean to remodel them, to give 
 them a new and better form. The model is 
 there; you have only to form them after your- 
 self. But that is not all that is required. Na- 
 ture must furnish the clay for your creation; 
 and you will have to take that as it is. Think 
 of me, my friend ! You will take all possible 
 pains with your pottery, and when it comes 
 out of the furnace, you will see yourself dis- 
 graced by it. 
 
 The Unknown. The clay — to continue your 
 figure — is not so bad in itself, as you think. It 
 can be purified and made as plastic as I re- 
 quire it, in order to make new and better men 
 out of it. 
 
 Jupiter. I rejoice to hear it. Have you made 
 the experiment? 
 
 The Unknown. I have. 
 
 Jupiter. I mean, on the large scale. For suc- 
 cess in one piece out of a thousand, does not 
 decide the matter. 
 
 The Unknown, (after some hesitation) If the 
 experiment on the large scale has not yet suc- 
 ceeded according to my mind, I know, at least, 
 why it could not be otherwise. It will be 
 better in time. 
 
 Jupiter. In time? Yes, to be sure! we always 
 hope the best from time. And who would un- 
 dertake anything great without that hope? We 
 shall see how time will fulfil your expectations. 
 I can promise you little good for the next thou- 
 sand years. 
 
 The Unknown. You have, I see, a small scale, 
 old King of Crete ! What are a thousand years, 
 compared with the period required for the com- 
 pletion of the great work of making a single 
 family of good and happy beings out of the 
 whole human race ? 
 
 Jupiter. Ah ! you are right. How many thou- 
 sand years the Hermetic philosophers have 
 been labouring on their stone, without complet- 
 ing it? And what is the undertaking of those 
 wise masters compared with yours ? 
 
 The Unknown. Your jest is unseasonable. 
 The work which I have undertaken, is just as 
 possible as that the seed of a cedar should grow 
 to a great tree ; only that the cedar does not, it 
 is true, attain its perfection as rapidly as a 
 poplar. 
 
 Jupiter. And you should have as much time 
 for the accomplishment of your work as you 
 desire, if it depended only on that. But the 
 certain and enormous evils, with which man- 
 kind for so many centuries are to purchase the 
 hope of an uncertain good, give the thing a 
 different shape. What shall we think of a 
 plan intended to benefit the human race, which 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 W IE LAND. 
 
 so fails in the execution, that a large portion of 
 the human race, for a period whose duration is 
 incalculable, are rendered beyond all compari- 
 son more miserable and (what is worse still) 
 more depraved in head and heart than they 
 ever were before? I appeal to ocular evidence, 
 and yet all that we have witnessed since the 
 murder of the brave enthusiast, Julian, was but 
 a small prelude to the immeasurable calamities 
 which the new hierarchy will bring down on 
 poor foolish mortals who suffer themselves to 
 be lured into the unsuspected snare, by every 
 new song which is piped to them. 
 
 The Unknown. All these evils about which 
 you complain, in the name of Humanity, — you 
 who formerly took their misery so little to 
 heart, — are neither the conditions nor the con- 
 sequences of the great plan of which we speak. 
 They are the obstacles which oppose it from 
 without, and with which the light will have to 
 contend but too long, until it has finally over- 
 come the darkness. Is it the fault of the wine 
 when it is spoiled in mouldy vessels ? Since 
 it is the nature of the case, that mankind can 
 advance in wisdom and goodness, only by im- 
 perceptible degrees ; since from within and 
 without such an infinite number of enemies 
 are labouring against their amendment; since 
 the difficulties increase with every victory and 
 even the most effective measures, from the 
 mere circumstance that they have to pass 
 through human heads and to be confided to 
 human hands, become new obstacles; how can 
 you be surprised that it is not'in my power to 
 procure for my brethren the happiness which 
 I have designed for them at a less cost? How 
 gladly would I have relieved them of all their 
 misery at once ! But even I can effect nothing 
 in opposition to the eternal laws of necessity. 
 Suffice it that the time will come at last. — 
 
 Jupiter, (somewhat vexed) Well then! we will 
 let it come ; and the poor fools to whom you 
 are so kindly disposed, must see, meanwhile, 
 how they can help themselves ! As I said, my 
 sight does not extend far enough to judge of so 
 far-looking and complicated a plan as yours. 
 The best of it is, that we are immortal and 
 therefore may hope to see the result at last, how- 
 ever many Platonic ages we have to wait for it. 
 
 The Unknown. My plan, great as it is, is at 
 bottom the simplest in the world. The way 
 in which I am sure of effecting the general 
 happiness is the same by which I conduct 
 each individual to happiness ; and the pledge 
 of its safety is, that there is no other. For the 
 rest, I end as I began : it is impossible not to be 
 deceived, so long as one regards things frag- 
 mentarily and as they appear in the particular. 
 They are, in reality, nothing but what they are 
 in the whole ; and the perfection which unites 
 all in one, toward which everything tends and 
 in which everything will finally rest, is the 
 only view-point from which everything is seen 
 aright. And herewith, fare ye well! (He 
 vanishes.) 
 
 Numa. (to Jupiter) What say you to this ap- 
 parition, Jupiter ? 
 
 Jupiter. Ask me again fifteen hundred years 
 hence. 
 
 DIALOGUE IX. 
 
 JUPITER AND JUNO. 
 
 Jupiter, half-sitting, half-reclining on a couch 
 strown with roses. Juno, sitting at his feet. 
 
 Jupiter. And is this all, dear Juno, that you 
 have to ask of me ? You might have requested 
 an impossibility ; and to oblige you I would 
 have attempted to make it possible. 
 
 Juno. You are very gallant, Jupiter. I shall 
 never expect anything unreasonable of you. 
 
 Jupiter. The kings and the nobility have al- 
 ways belonged to your department, and the 
 least you can expect of my affection is, that I 
 should leave you unmolested in your own 
 sphere. 
 
 Juno. Nor do my wishes extend any farther 
 than that. For since I know your present prin- 
 ciples, it would be asking too much to require 
 that you, for your own part, should take a live- 
 lier interest in kings. 
 
 Jupiter. I perceive you think I incline too 
 strongly to the side of the people. There may 
 be some foundation for that opinion ; but in 
 fact it is only because it has been one of my 
 first principles of government to take the side 
 of those who are likely to retain the right at 
 last. The present time is not favourable to the 
 ' Shepherds of the people.' It is now the people's 
 turn ; and I am afraid, my love, that I am doing 
 very little for you and your clients, when I 
 swear to you that I will place no hindrances in 
 the way of the measures which you shall adopt 
 for their advantage. 
 
 Juno. I trust things have not yet come to that 
 pass, that the inhabitants of the earth have only 
 to imagine that we have no more power over 
 them, in order to be independent of us. 
 
 Jupiter. As I said, you can try. I leave you 
 perfect freedom ; only I foresee that, as matters 
 stand, you will have but little pleasure in the 
 result. 
 
 Juno. I would rather you did not foresee that. 
 If I were suspicious — 
 
 Jupiter. That you have always been a little, 
 lady of my heart! But this time you would do 
 me injustice. It is my serious intention to keep 
 my promise to you, and to leave the governing 
 gentlemen below there to your powerful protec- 
 tion and — to their fate. 
 
 Juno. 1 confess, Jupiter, I do not exactly un- 
 derstand how the king of gods and of men can 
 be so indifferent in the affairs of kings, and, 
 without moving a finger, can look quietly on 
 and see his sub-delegates gradually changed into 
 theatre-princes and card-kings. 
 
 Jupiter. It will not come to that so easily, my 
 dearest. 
 
 Juno. It has come to that already in some 
 places, and it will come to that everywhere at 
 last, if w& fold our hands in our laps any longeT. 
 
WIEL 
 
 Jupiter. We shall not assuredly make a man 
 like Henry IV. of France, or Frederick the only, 
 out of a king of cards ; and he who lets a king 
 of cards be made of himself deserves nothing 
 better. 
 
 Juno. That is a mere evasion, sir husband. 
 You know very well that such kings as you 
 have named are extremely rare products of 
 Nature and circumstances ; and so much the 
 better. The kings at bottom are our vicegerents 
 after all, and for that purpose the ordinary ones 
 are good enough, provided we do not let them 
 fall. 
 
 Jupiter. The compliment which you are pleased 
 to pay me in those words is not very flattering ; 
 but, basta ! We will not enter into any explana- 
 tion on this subject. I shall not let my vicege- 
 rents, as you call them, fall, as long as they can 
 stand on their own legs. My office is to let no 
 one be oppressed if I can help it. Only, dear 
 wife, do not let us forget the great truth, that 
 kings exist for the sake of the people, and not 
 the people for the sake of the kings. 
 
 Juno. With your permission, sir husband, 
 that is an old saw, which, like most wise say- 
 ings of the kind, seems to say a great deal, and 
 in fact says very little. Kings exist to govern 
 the people, and the people must let themselves 
 be governed by them. That is the thing; and 
 so old Homer, even in his day, understood it, 
 when he makes the wise Ulysses say to the 
 stupid populace of the Grecian army : " The 
 government of many is not good ! Let one only 
 be ruler, one only be king."* And, that no one 
 may imagine the sceptre to depend on arbitrary 
 will, he wisely adds, that it is Jupiter himself 
 from whose hand kings receive this sign of su- 
 preme power. This is truth, and I know no 
 higher. 
 
 Jupiter. I am very much obliged to you and 
 to old Homer! But to speak candidly, what 
 might pass for true in a certain sense, in those 
 rude times of the world's first youth, is no longer 
 so when applied to a people who through ex- 
 perience and cultivation have reached that 
 point at last where they are masters of their 
 own reason, and have grown strong enongh to 
 shake off the yoke of ancient prejudices and 
 errors. Nations, indeed, have their childhood 
 as well as individuals; and, as long as they are 
 ignorant and weak and foolish like children, 
 they must be treated like children, and govern- 
 ed by blind obedience to an authority which is 
 not responsible to them. But nations do not, any 
 more than individuals, remain children for ever. 
 It is a crime against Nature to wish to keep 
 them in perpetual childhood by force or fraud ; 
 or, as is generally the case, by both. And it is 
 both folly and crime to treat them as children 
 still, when they have already ripened into men. 
 
 Juno. I willingly concede, Jupiter, that a high 
 degree of culture requires a different kind of 
 government from that which is most fitting for 
 
 * See Iliad, B. II. vs. 204, 205. Tr. 
 
 AND. 151 
 
 a people that is yet entirely rude, or that is still 
 in the first stages of its culture. But all the phi- 
 losophers of the earth will never cause that ten 
 millions of men, who together constitute a na- 
 tion, shall have two millions of Epaminondasses 
 and Epictetusses at their head; and so the say- 
 ing of Ulysses will always remain true : 
 
 "Truly we cannot all reign, not all be kings, we Achaians, 
 Nor is polycracy good; let one and one only be ruler, 
 One only kingf* 
 
 Jupiter. Granted! Only let every people, when 
 it has arrived at that point where it can un- 
 derstand its own rights and calculate its own 
 powers, for which in fact nothing more is re- 
 quired than an ordinary share of common sense, 
 — let every such people have the privilege of 
 managing its own political institutions, (/wno 
 shakes her head.) I mean, they should be allowed 
 to empower those of their number in whose 
 judgment and integrity they have most confi- 
 dence, to adopt such measures as shall hinder 
 the arbitrary power of the individual and of 
 the few who know how to possess themselves 
 of his favour and confidence from doing mis- 
 chief, from wasting the powers of the state, 
 corrupting its morals, and making a crime of 
 wisdom, virtue, and the candour which says 
 aloud what it believes to be true ; in short — 
 
 Juno. ! you are perfectly right there, Jupi- 
 ter ! Kings must not be suffered to do that. 
 They must be restrained by religion and laws, 
 of course ! They must know that they receive 
 their sceptre from the hands of Jupiter alone. 
 
 Jupiter. Dear wife, do not harp upon this 
 string any more, if I may make the request. I 
 know best how the matter stands. But suppose 
 it were as you say, the people would be little 
 benefited if kings had no one over them beside 
 me. I should have to remind them of it with 
 thunder and lightning every moment, or they 
 would govern exactly as if there were no Jupi- 
 ter over them, although they should sacrifice 
 whole hecatombs to me every morning with the 
 greatest ceremony. 
 
 Juno. I do not mean that religion shall be the 
 only thing which they respect — 
 
 Jupiter, (somewhat passionately} The worst 
 kings will always respect us most, — they who 
 have made the great Ulyssean principle : that 
 kings have their sceptre from me, one of the 
 first articles of faith, and thereon grounded a 
 blind subjection which is made the most sacred 
 duty of the people. 
 
 Juno. But I say that they must govern accord- 
 ing to laws whose end is the common good. 
 
 Jupiter. The common good ! — A beautiful say- 
 ing! And who shall give them these laws'? 
 
 Juno. O ! Themis has published them long 
 ago all over the world ! Where is there a na- 
 tion so barbarous as not to know the universal 
 laws of justice and right 1 
 
 Jupiter. So innocent as you affect to be, child ! 
 Suppose now kings and their tools, or rather 
 imperious courtiers and servants and their obe- 
 
152 
 
 WIELAND. 
 
 client instruments the kings, in spite of old 
 Themis and her antiquated laws, should govern 
 only according to their own will and pleasure, 
 and because they have the power and are an- 
 swerable to no one should do as much evil or — 
 what is the same thing to the people — should 
 suffer as much evil to be done as they please ; 
 How then ? 
 
 Juno. That is the very thing that we must 
 prevent, Jupiter! Else why are we in the 
 world? 
 
 Jupiter. We ! Well, to be sure, my darling, 
 you are right there ! — only that the more rea- 
 sonable class of men view the thing from an- 
 other side. We mortals, they think, are after 
 all the only ones who have suffered under the 
 former government. We can help ourselves ; 
 and we will help ourselves. He who trusts 
 that others will do for him that which he can 
 do for himself, and in the doing of which no 
 one is so much interested as himself, will al- 
 ways be poorly served. 
 
 Jwno. How you talk! If mortals below there 
 should hear you talk in this way — 
 
 Jupiter. We are speaking between ourselves, 
 child ! If we do not see clearly ! — I do not ob- 
 ject however that all men should know that I, 
 for my part, always hold with him who does 
 his duty. I am very willing that people should 
 grow wiser. There was a time when they 
 showed me unmerited honour. All the mis- 
 chief that was done by lightning among them 
 was placed to my account; and dear Heaven 
 knows what foolish things I often had to hear, 
 when the lightning struck my own temple or 
 passed by many rogues to fall on some innocent 
 person. Now that the brave North American, 
 Franklin, has invented the lightning-rod, and 
 since the people know that metals, high trees, 
 the pinnacles of towers, and things of that sort 
 are natural conductors of lightning, my thunder- 
 bolts are ever less feared. But I never think 
 of being jealous about it. 
 
 Juno. We have imperceptibly fallen into a 
 moralising vein, dear Jupiter! 
 
 Jupiter. And morals, you think, have nothing 
 to do with politics ? 
 
 Juno. Not that exactly. But I think that po- 
 litics have a morals of their own, and that what 
 is the rule of right for the subjects is not always 
 so for the monarchs. 
 
 Jupiter. I remember the time when I thought 
 so too. It is a very convenient and pleasant 
 way of thinking for kings ; but times change, 
 my love ! 
 
 Juno. If we only remain firm, there is nothing 
 to fear. 
 
 Jupiter. Hear me, Juno! You know that I 
 possess the privilege of seeing somewhat farther 
 into the Future than the rest of you. Your con- 
 fident tone sometimes tempts me to discover to 
 you more than I had originally intended. 
 
 Juno. And what mystery may that be which 
 makes you look so serious ? 
 
 Jupiter. Everything, dear Juno, is subject to 
 
 the eternal law of change. The time has now 
 arrived for monarchies to cease ; and (in a lower 
 tone) our own tends to its decline as well as the 
 rest. It is not much to be regretted, for it was 
 only patchwork after all. 
 
 Juno. You speak as in a dream, Jupiter. 
 
 Jupiter. First reigned Uranus and Gaia ; then 
 came the kingdom of Saturn ; this gave place to 
 mine ; and now — 
 
 Juno. And now? You do not mean to abdi- 
 cate your kingdom in favour of the National 
 Assembly at Paris, do you? 
 
 Jupiter. And now the kingdom of Nemesis 
 has come ! 
 
 Juno. The kingdom of Nemesis ? 
 
 Jupiter. The kingdom of Nemesis! So I am 
 assured by a primeval oracle long forgotten by 
 gods and men, which Themis uttered while 
 still in possession of the Delphian soil, and 
 which I recall again in these days. 
 
 "When after long revolving centuries," says 
 the oracle, "there shall be a kingdom on the 
 earth in which the tyranny of kings, the inso- 
 lence of the great, and the oppression of the 
 people keep equal pace with the cultivation of 
 all the faculties of Humanity, and both at last 
 are so near their acme, that in a moment the 
 eyes of all the oppressed are opened and all 
 arms raised for revenge, then inexorable but 
 ever just Nemesis, with her diamond bridle in 
 one hand and her scale which measures with 
 a hair's breadth exactness in the other, will 
 descend upon the throne of Olympus to humble 
 the proud, to exalt the depressed, and to exer- 
 cise a strict retribution upon every sinner who 
 has trampled the rights of Humanity under foot, 
 and who in the intoxication of his insolence 
 would acknowledge no other laws than the ex- 
 travagant demands of his passions and his hu- 
 mours. Content to reign under her, Jupiter 
 himself will then be nothing more than the 
 executor of the laws which she will enact for 
 the nations of the earth. An age more golden 
 than the Saturnian will then be diffused among 
 innumerable generations of better men. Uni- 
 versal harmony will make one family of them, 
 and mortality will be the only difference be- 
 tween the happiness of the inhabitants of earth 
 and of Olympus." 
 
 Juno, (laughing) That sounds splendidly, Ju- 
 piter ! — And you believe in this fine poetic 
 dream, and are resolved, as it would seem, 
 with your hands in your lap, to await its fulfil- 
 ment? 
 
 Jupiter, (gravely) I am resolved to submit 
 myself to the only Power which is above me, 
 and if you would take good advice, you would 
 follow my example, and quietly let come what 
 must come at last, though we should all so for- 
 get ourselves as to attempt to hinder it. 
 
 Juno. ! certainly I shall let come what I 
 can't hinder ! But why therefore remain inac- 
 tive ? Why divest ourselves, before the time, 
 of the power which we actually possess, to 
 oblige an old oracle ? and not rather summon 
 
W I E L A N D. 
 
 153 
 
 all our powers to restrain the Demon of rebel- 
 lion and the rage for governing which has taken 
 possession of the people'? I insist on my old 
 Homeric Oracle : " The government of many is 
 bad !" Nations must enjoy the privileges of 
 liberty under a paternal government; nothing 
 is more reasonable. But they must not attempt 
 to govern themselves, they must not attempt to 
 throw off the indispensable yoke of relations 
 and duties, and to introduce an equality which 
 is not in the nature of men or of things, and 
 which makes the deluded happy in a moment 
 of intoxication, only to make them more fear- 
 fully sensible of their actual misery, on awak- 
 ing. 
 
 Jupiter. Be unconcerned, my best of wives ! 
 Nemesis and Themis will know how to reduce 
 
 to the right measure what is now too much 0) 
 too little, too rash or too one-sided. 
 
 Juno. I am not yet disposed to abdicate my 
 share in the government of the world to another 
 I still feel courage in me to preside over my 
 ofiice myself; and if you always hold with those 
 who do their duty, I promise myself your ap- 
 probation. At least I have your word that you 
 will not labour against me. 
 
 Jupiler. And I swear to you by the diamond 
 bridle of Nemesis, that I will keep it as long as 
 you are wise enough to bridle yourself. Do as 
 you think best, but do not compel me to do my 
 duty, my dear ! 
 
 Juno, (embracing him) Let the beautiful Anti- 
 nous fill you your great cup with nectar, Jupiter ; 
 and take your ease. You shall be satisfied with me. 
 
JOHANN AUGUST MUSAUS.* 
 
 Born 1735. Died 1787. 
 
 Johann August Musaus was born in the 
 year 1735, at Jena, where his father then held 
 the office of Judge. The quick talents, and 
 kind lively temper of the boy, recommended 
 him to the affection of his uncle, Herr Weissen- 
 born, Snperintendent at Allstadt, who took him 
 to his house, and treated him in all respects 
 like a son. Johann was then in his ninth year : 
 a few months afterwards, his uncle was pro- 
 moted to the post of General Superintendent at 
 Eisenach ; a change which did not alter the 
 domestic condition of the nephew, though it 
 replaced him in the neighbourhood of his pa- 
 rents ; for his father had also been transferred 
 to Eisenach, in the capacity of Councillor and 
 Police Magistrate. With this hospitable rela- 
 tive he continued till his nineteenth year. 
 
 Old Weissenborn had no children of his own, 
 and he determined that his foster-child should 
 have a liberal education. In due time he placed 
 him at the University of Jena, as a student of 
 theology. It is not likely that the inclinations 
 of the youth himself had been particularly con- 
 sulted in this arrangement; nevertheless he 
 appears to have studied with sufficient dili- 
 gence ; for in the usual period of three years 
 and a half, he obtained his degree of Master, 
 and what was then a proof of more than ordi- 
 nary merit, was elected a member of the Ger- 
 man Society. With these titles, and the 
 groundwork of a solid culture, he returned to 
 Eisenach, to wait for an appointment in the 
 Church, of which he was now licentiate. 
 
 For several years, though he preached with 
 ability, and not without approval, no appoint- 
 ment presented itself; and when at last a 
 country living in the neighbourhood of Eisenach 
 was offered him, the people stoutly resisted the 
 admission of their new pastor, on the ground, 
 says his Biographer, that " he had once been 
 seen dancing." It may be, however, that the 
 sentence of the peasants was not altogether so 
 infirm as this its alleged very narrow basis 
 would betoken: judging from external circum- 
 stances, it by no means appears that devotion 
 
 * From Carlyle's German Romance. 
 
 was at any time the chief distinction of the new 
 candidate; and to a simple rustic flock, his 
 shining talents, unsupported by zeal, would be 
 empty and unprofitable, as sounding brass or a 
 tinkling cymbal. At all events, this hindrance 
 closed his theological career : it came in good 
 season to withdraw him from a calling, in 
 which, whether willingly or unwillingly adopt- 
 ed, his history must have been dishonest and 
 contemptible, and his gifts could never have 
 availed him. 
 
 Musaus had now lost his profession ; but his 
 resources were not limited to one department 
 of activity, and he was still young enough to 
 choose another. His temper was gay and kind- 
 ly; his faculties of mind were brilliant, and 
 had now been improved by years of steady in- 
 dustry. His residence at Eisenach had not 
 been spent in scrutinizing the phases of church 
 preferment, or dancing attendance on patrons 
 and dignitaries : he had stored his mind with 
 useful and ornamental knowledge ; and from 
 his remote watch-tower, his keen eye had dis- 
 cerned the movements of the world, and firm 
 judgments of its wisdom and its folly were 
 gathering form in his thoughts. In his twenty- 
 fifth year he became an author ; a satirist, and 
 what is rarer, a just one. Germany, by the 
 report of its enemies and lukewarm friends, is 
 seldom long without some Idol; some author 
 of superhuman endowments, some system that 
 promises to renovate the earth, some science 
 destined to conduct, by a north-west passage, 
 to universal knowledge. At this period, the 
 Brazen Image of the day was our English 
 Richardson: his novels had been translated 
 into German with unbounded acceptance ;* and 
 Grandison was figuring in many weak heads 
 as the sole model of a true Christian gentle- 
 man. Musaus published his German Grandi- 
 son in 1760 ; a work of good omen as a first 
 attempt, and received with greater favor than 
 the popularity of its victim seemed to promise. 
 It co-operated with Time in removing this spi- 
 
 * See the Letters of Meta, Klopstock's lady, in Richard- 
 son's Life and Correspondence. 
 
 (154) 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 155 
 
 ritual epidemic ; and appears to have survived 
 its object, for it was reprinted in 1761. 
 
 The success of his anonymous parody, how- 
 ever gratifying to the youthful author, did not 
 tempt him to disclose his name, and still less 
 to think of literature as a profession. With his 
 cool sceptical temper, he was little liable to 
 over-estimate his talents, or the prizes set up 
 for them; and he longed much less for a literary 
 existence than for a civic one. In 1763, his 
 wish, to a certain extent, was granted : he be- 
 came Tutor of the Pages in the court of Wei- 
 mar; which office, after seven punctual and 
 laborious years, he exchanged for a professor- 
 ship in the Gymnasium, or public school of the 
 same town. He had now married ; and amid 
 the cares and pleasures of providing for a 
 family, and keeping house like an honest 
 burgher, the dreams of fame had faded still 
 farther from his mind. The emoluments of 
 his post were small ; but his heart was light, 
 and his mind humble : to increase his income 
 he gave private lessons in history and the like, 
 " to young ladies and gentlemen of quality ;" 
 and for several years took charge of a few 
 boarders. The names of Wieland and Goethe 
 had now risen on the world, while his own was 
 still under the horizon : but this obscurity, en- 
 joying as he did the kind esteem of all his 
 many personal acquaintances, he felt to be a 
 very light evil ; and participated without envy 
 in whatever entertainment or instruction his 
 famed contemporaries could afford him. With 
 literature he still occupied his leisure ; he had 
 read and reflected much ; but for any public 
 display of his acquirements he was making no 
 preparation, and feeling no anxiety. 
 
 After an interval of nineteen years, the ap- 
 pearance of a new idol again called forth his 
 iconoclastic faculty. Lavater had left his 
 parsonage among the Alps, and set out on a 
 cruize over Europe, in search of proselytes and 
 striking physiognomies. His theories, sup- 
 ported by his personal influence, and the 
 honest rude ardor of his character, became 
 the rage in Germany ; and men, women, and 
 children were immersed in promoting philan- 
 thropy, and studying the human mind. Where- 
 upon Musaus grasped his satirical hammer; and 
 with lusty strokes, defaced and unshrined the 
 false divinity. His Physiognomical Travels, 
 which appeared in 1779, is still ranked by the 
 German critics among the happiest productions 
 
 of its kind in their literature ; and still read for 
 its wit and acuteness, and genial overflowing 
 humour, though the object it attacked has long 
 ago become a reminiscence. At the time of its 
 publication, when everything conspired to give 
 its qualities their full effect, the applause it 
 gained was instant and general. The author 
 had, as in the former case, concealed his name: 
 but the public curiosity soon penetrated the 
 secret, which he had now no interest in keep- 
 ing; and Musaus was forthwith enrolled among 
 the lights of his day and generation ; and courte- 
 ous readers crowded to him from far and near, 
 to see his face, and pay him the tribute of their 
 admiration. This unlooked-for celebrity he 
 valued at its just price ; continuing to live as 
 if it were not ; gratified chiefly in his character 
 of father, at having found an honest way of 
 improving his domestic circumstances, and en- 
 larging the comforts of his family. The ground 
 was now broken, and he was not long in digging 
 deeper. 
 
 The popular traditions of Germany, so nu- 
 merous and often so impressive, had attracted 
 his attention ; and their rugged Gothic vigor, 
 saddened into sternness or venerable grace by 
 the flight of ages, became dearer to his taste, 
 as he looked abroad upon the mawkish deluge 
 of Sentimentality, with which The Sorrows of 
 Werter had been the innocent signal for a 
 legion of imitators to drown the land. The 
 spirit of German imagination seemed but ill 
 represented by these tearful persons, who, if 
 their hearts were full, minded little though 
 their heads were empty : their spasmodic ten- 
 derness made no imposing figure beside the 
 gloomy strength, which might still in frag- 
 ments be discerned in their distant predecessors. 
 Of what has been preserved from age to age 
 by living memory alone, the chance is that it 
 possesses some intrinsic merit : its very exist- 
 ence declares it to be adapted to some form of 
 our common nature, and therefore calculated 
 more or less to interest all its forms. It struck 
 Musaus that these rude traditionary fragments 
 might be worked anew into shape and polish, 
 and transferred from the hearths of the common 
 people, to the parlors of the intellectual and 
 refined. He determined on forming a series of 
 Volksmdhrchen, or Popular Traditionary Tales ; 
 a task of more originality and smaller promise 
 in those days than it would be now. In the 
 collection of materials, he spared no pains ; and 
 despised no source of intelligence, however 
 
15G 
 
 M US A US, 
 
 mean. He would call children from the street; 
 become a child along with them, listen to their 
 nursery tales, and reward his tiny narrators 
 with a dreyer apiece. Sometimes he assembled 
 a knot of old women, with their spinning- 
 wheels, about him ; and amid the hum of their 
 industrious implements, gathered stories of the 
 ancient time from the lips of the garrulous 
 sisterhood. Once his wife had been out pay- 
 ing visits : on opening the parlor door at her 
 return, she was met by a villanous cloud of 
 tobacco-smoke ; and venturing forward through 
 the haze, she found her husband seated by the 
 stove, in company with an old soldier, who was 
 smoking vehemently on his black stump of 
 pipe, and charming his landlord, between whiffs, 
 with legendary lore. 
 
 The Volksmdhrchen, in five little volumes, 
 appeared in 1782. They soon rose into favor 
 with a large class of readers ; and while many 
 generations of novels have since that time been 
 ushered into being, and conducted out of it, 
 they still survive, increasing in popularity ra- 
 ther than declining. This pre-eminence is 
 owing less to the ancient materials, than to 
 the author's way of treating them. The pri- 
 mitive tradition often serves him only as a 
 vehicle for interesting description, shrewd sar- 
 castic speculation, and gay fanciful pleasantry, 
 extending its allusions over all things past and 
 present, now rising into comic humor, now 
 sinking into drollery, often tasteless, strained, 
 or tawdry, but never dull. The traces of poetry 
 and earnest imagination, here and there dis- 
 cernible in the original fiction, he treats with 
 levity and kind sceptical derision: nothing is 
 required of the reader but what all readers are 
 prepared to give. Since the publication of this 
 work, the subject of popular tradition has been 
 handled to triteness; Volksmdhrchen have been 
 written and collected without stint or limit; 
 and critics, in admitting that Musaus was the 
 first to open this mine of entertainment, have 
 lamented the incongruity between his subject 
 and his style. But the faculty of laughing has 
 been given to all men, and the feeling of 
 imaginative beauty has been given only to a 
 few : the lovers of primeval poetry, in its un- 
 adulterated state, may censure Musaus; but 
 they join witn the public at large in reading 
 him. 
 
 This book of Volksmdhrchen established the 
 character of its author for wit and general 
 
 talent, and forms the chief support of his repu- 
 tation with posterity. A few years after, he 
 again appeared before the public with a humor- 
 ous performance, entitled, Friend Hein's Ap- 
 paritions, in the style of Holberg, printed in 
 1785. Friend Hein is a name under which 
 Musaus, for what reason his commentator Wie- 
 land seems unable to inform us, usually personi- 
 fies Death : the essay itself, which I have never 
 seen, may be less irreverent and offensive to 
 pious feeling than its title indicates, and it is 
 said to abound with " wit, humor, and know- 
 ledge of life," as much as any of his former 
 works. He had also begun a second series of 
 Tales, under the title of Slraussfedern (Os- 
 trich-feathers) : but only the first volume had 
 appeared, when death put a period to his labors. 
 He had long been in weakly health: often 
 afflicted with violent head-aches : his disorder 
 was a polypus of the heart, which cut him off 
 on the 28th of October 1787, in the fifty-second 
 year of his age. The Straussfedern was com- 
 pleted by another hand; and a small volume 
 of Remains, edited by Kotzebue in 1791, con- 
 cludes the list of his writings. A simple but 
 tasteful memorial, we are told, was erected 
 over his grave by some unknown friend. 
 
 Musaus was a practical believer in the Ho- 
 ratian maxim, Nil admirari : of a jovial heart, 
 and a penetrating, well-cultivated understand- 
 ing, he saw things as they were, and had little 
 disposition or aptitude to invest them with any 
 colors but their own. Without much effort, 
 therefore, he stood aloof from every species of 
 cant; and was the man he thought himself, 
 and wished others to think him. Had his tem- 
 per been unsocial and melancholic, such a creed 
 might have rendered him spiteful, narrow, and 
 selfish : but nature had been kinder to him than 
 education ; he did not quarrel with the world, 
 though he saw its barrenness, and knew not 
 how to make it solemn any more than lovely ; 
 for his heart was gay and kind, and an imper- 
 turbable good-humor, more potent than a pano- 
 ply of brass, defended him from the stings and 
 arrows of outrageous Fortune to the end of his 
 pilgrimage. Few laughers have walked so 
 circumspectly, and acquired or merited so much 
 affection. By profession a Mornus, he looked 
 upon the world as little else than a boundless 
 Chase, where the wise were to recreate them- 
 selves with the hunting of Follies ; and perhaps 
 he is the only satirist on record of whom it can 
 
MUS AUS. 
 
 157 
 
 be said, that his jesting never cost him a friend. 
 His humor is, indeed, untinctured with bitter- 
 ness; sportful, ebullient, and guileless, as the 
 frolics of a child. He could not reverence men ; 
 but with all their faults he loved them ; for 
 they were his brethren, and their faults were 
 not clearer to him than his own. He inculcated 
 or entertained no lofty principles of generosity ; 
 yet though never rich in purse, he was always 
 ready to divide his pittance with a needier fel- 
 low-man. Of vanity, he showed little or none : 
 in obscurity he was contented ; and when his 
 honors came, he wore them meekly, and was 
 the last to see that they were merited. In 
 society he was courteous and yielding ; a uni- 
 versal favorite ; in his chosen circle, the most 
 fascinating of companions. From the slenderest 
 trifle, he could spin a boundless web of drollery ; 
 and his brilliant mirth enlivened without wound- 
 ing. With the foibles of others, he abstained 
 from meddling ; but among his friends, we are 
 informed, he could for hours keep the table in 
 a roar, when, with his dry inimitable vein, he 
 started some banter on himself or his wife, 
 and, in trustful abandonment, laid the reins on 
 the neck of his fancy to pursue it. Without 
 enthusiasm of character, or any pretension to 
 high or even earnest qualities, he was a well- 
 conditioned, laughter-loving, kindly man ; led 
 a gay, jestful life ; conquering by contentment 
 and mirth of heart, the long series of difficulties 
 and distresses with which it assailed him ; and 
 died regretted by his nation, as a forwarder of 
 harmless pleasure ; and by those that knew him 
 better, as a truthful, unassuming, affectionate, 
 and, on the whole, very estimable person. 
 
 His intellectual character corresponds with 
 his moral and social one ; not high or glorious, 
 but genuine so far as it goes. He does not 
 approach the first rank of writers; he attempts 
 not to deal with the deeper feelings of the 
 heart; and for instructing the judgment, he 
 ranks rather as a sound, well-informed, com- 
 mon-sense thinker, than as a man of high wis- 
 dom or originality. He advanced few new 
 truths, but he dressed many old ones in sprightly 
 apparel ; and it ought to be remembered, that 
 he kept himself unspotted from the errors of 
 his time ; a merit which posterity is apt to un- 
 derrate ; for nothing seems more stolid than a 
 past delusion; and we forget that delusions, 
 destined also to be past, are now present with 
 ourselves, about us and within us, which, were 
 
 the task so easy, it is pity that we do not forth- 
 with convict and cast away. Musaus had a 
 quick vigorous intellect, a keen eye for the 
 common forms of the beautiful, a fancy ever 
 prompt with allusions, and an overflowing store 
 of sprightly and benignant humor. These na- 
 tural gifts he had not neglected to cultivate by 
 study both of books and things; his reading 
 distinguishes him even in Germany ; nor doe3 
 he bear it about him like an ostentatious burden, 
 but in the shape of spiritual strength and plenty 
 derived from it. As an author, his beauties and 
 defects are numerous and easily discerned. His 
 style sparkles with metaphors, sometimes just 
 and beautiful, often new and surprising ; but it 
 is laborious, unnatural, and diffuse. Of his 
 humor, his distinguishing gift, it may be re- 
 marked, that it seems copious rather than fine, 
 and originates rather in the understanding than 
 in the character : his heart is not delicate, or 
 his affections tender ; but he loves the ludicrous 
 with true passion ; and seeing keenly, if he 
 feels obtusely, he can choose with sufficient 
 skill the point of view from which his object 
 shall appear distorted, as he requires it. This 
 is the humor of a Swift or a Voltaire, but not 
 of a Cervantes, or even of a Sterne in his best 
 passages ; it may produce a Zadig or a Battle 
 of the Books; but not a Don Quixote or a 
 Corporal Trim. Musaus is, in fact, no poet ; 
 he can see, and describe with rich graces what 
 he sees ; but he is nothing, or very little, of a 
 maker. His imagination is not powerless : it 
 is like a bird of feeble wing, which can fly from 
 tree to tree ; but never soars for a moment into 
 the aBther of Poetry, to bathe in its serene 
 splendor, with the region of the Actual lying far 
 below, and brightened into beauty by radiance 
 not its own. He is a man of fine and varied 
 talent, but scarcely of any genius. 
 
 These characteristics are apparent enough 
 in his Popular Tales ; they may be traced even 
 in the few specimens of that work, by which he 
 is now introduced to the English reader. As 
 has been already stated, his Volksmdhrchen 
 exhibit himself much better than his subject. 
 He is not admitted by his critics to have seized 
 the finest spirit of this species of fiction, or 
 turned it to the account of which it is capable 
 in other hands. Whatever was austere or 
 earnest, still more, whatever bordered upon 
 awe or horror, his riant fancy rejected with 
 aversion : the rigorous moral sometimes hid in 
 these traditions, the grim lines of primeval feel- 
 14 
 
158 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 ing and imagination to be traced in them, had 
 no charms for him. These ruins of the remote 
 time he has not attempted to complete into a 
 perfect edifice, according to the first simple 
 plan; he has rather pargetted them anew, and 
 decorated them with the most modern orna- 
 ments and furniture ; and he introduces his 
 guests, with a roguish smile at the strange, 
 antic contrast they are to perceive between the 
 movables and the apartment. Sometimes he 
 rises into a flight of simple eloquence, and for 
 a sentence or two, seems really beautiful and 
 affecting ; but the knave is always laughing in 
 his sleeve at our credulity, and returns with 
 double relish to riot at will in his favorite do- 
 main. 
 
 Of the three Tales* here offered to the reader, 
 nothing need be said in explanation ; for their 
 whole significance, with all their beauties and 
 *Only one is given in this volume.— Ed. 
 
 blemishes, lies very near the surface. I have 
 selected them, as specimens at once of his man- 
 ner and his materials, in the hope that, convey- 
 ing some impression of a gifted and favorite 
 writer, they may furnish a little entertainment 
 both to the lovers of intellectual novelty, and 
 of innocent amusement. To neither can I pro- 
 mise very much : Musaus is a man of sterling 
 powers, but no literary monster ; and his Tales, 
 though smooth and glittering, are cold ; they 
 have beauty, yet it is the beauty not of living 
 forms, but of well-proportioned statues. Mean- 
 while, I have given him as I found him, endea- 
 voring to copy faithfully; changing nothing, 
 whether I might think it good or bad, that my 
 skill enabled me to keep unchanged. With all 
 drawbacks, I anticipate some favor for him: 
 but his case admits no pleading; being clear 
 by its own light, it must stand or fall by a first 
 judgment, and without the help of advocates. 
 
 DUMB LOVE. 
 
 There was once a wealthy merchant, Mel- 
 chior of Bremen by name, who used to stroke 
 his beard with a contemptuous grin, when be 
 heard the Rich Man in the Gospel preached of, 
 whom, in comparison, he reckoned little better 
 than a petty shopkeeper. Melchior had money 
 in such plenty, that he floored his dining-room 
 all over with a coat of solid dollars. In those 
 frugal times, as in our own, a certain luxury 
 prevailed among the rich ; only then it had a 
 more substantial shape than now. But though 
 this pomp of Melchior s was sharply censured 
 by his fellow-citizens and consorts, it was, in 
 truth, directed more to trading speculation than 
 to mere vain-glory. The cunning Bremer easily 
 observed, that those who grudged and blamed 
 this seeming vanity, would but diffuse the repu- 
 tation of his wealth, and so increase his credit. 
 He gained his purpose to the full ; the sleeping 
 capital of old dollars, so judiciously set up to 
 public inspection in the parlour, brought interest 
 a hundred fold, by the silent surety which it 
 offered for his bargains in every market ; yet, 
 at last, it became a rock on which the welfare 
 of his family made shipwreck. 
 
 Melchior of Bremen died of a surfeit at a 
 city-feast, without having time to set his house 
 in order ; and left all his goods and chattels to 
 an only son, in the bloom of life, and just arrived 
 at the years when the laws allowed him to 
 take possession of his inheritance. Franz Mel- 
 cherson was a brilliant youth, endued by nature 
 with the best capacities. His exterior was 
 gracefully formed, yet firm and sinewy withal ; 
 
 his temper was cheery and jovial, as if hung- 
 beef and old French wine had joined to influ- 
 ence his formation. On his cheeks bloomed 
 health ; and from his brown eyes looked mirth- 
 fulness and love of joy. He was like a marrowy 
 plant, which needs but water and the poorest 
 ground to make it grow to strength ; but which, 
 in too fat a soil, will shoot into luxuriant over- 
 growth, without fruit or usefulness. The father's 
 heritage, as often happens, proved the ruin of 
 the son. Scarce had he felt the joy of being 
 sole possessor and disposer of a large fortune, 
 when he set about endeavouring to get rid of it 
 as of a galling burden ; began to play the Rich 
 Man in the Gospel to the very letter ; went 
 clothed in fine apparel, and fared sumptuously 
 everyday. No feast at the bishop's court could 
 be compared for pomp and superfluity with his ; 
 and never while the town of Bremen shall en- 
 dure, will such another public dinner be con- 
 sumed, as it yearly got from him ; for to every 
 burgher of the place he gave a Krusel-soup and 
 a jug of Spanish wine. For this, all people cried : 
 Long life to him ! and Franz became the hero 
 of the day. 
 
 In this unceasing whirl of joviality, no thought 
 was cast upon the Balancing of Entries, which, 
 in those days, was the merchant's vademecum, 
 though in our times it is going out of fashion, 
 and for want of it the tongue of the commercial 
 beam too frequently declines with a magnetic 
 virtue from the vertical position. Some years 
 passed on without the joyful Franz's noticing a 
 diminution in his incomes; for at his father's 
 death every chest and coffer had been full. The 
 voracious host of table-friends, the airy company 
 of jesters, gamesters, parasites, and all who had 
 
MUS 
 
 their living by the prodigal son, took special 
 care to keep reflection at a distance from him ; 
 they hurried him from one enjoyment to another ; 
 kept him constantly in play, lest in some sober 
 moment Reason might awake, and snatch him 
 from their plundering claws. 
 
 But at last their well of happiness went sud- 
 denly dry; old Melchior's casks of gold were 
 now run off even to the lees. One day, Franz 
 ordered payment of a large account ; his cash- 
 keeper was not in a state to execute the precept, 
 and returned it with a protest. This counter- 
 incident flashed keenly through the soul of 
 Franz ; yet he felt nothing else but anger and 
 vexation at his servant, to whose unaccountable 
 perversity, by no means to his own ill husbandry, 
 he charged the present disorder in his finances. 
 Nor did he give himself the trouble to investi- 
 gate the real condition of the business ; but after 
 flying to the common Fool's-litany, and thunder- 
 ing out some scores of curses, he transmitted to 
 his shoulder-shrugging steward the laconic or- 
 der: Find means. 
 
 Bill-brokers, usurers, and money-changers now 
 came into play. For high interest, fresh sums 
 were poured into the empty coffers ; the silver 
 flooring of the dining-room was then more po- 
 tent in the eyes of creditors, than in these times 
 of ours the promissory obligation of the Congress 
 of America, with the whole thirteen United 
 States to back it. This palliative succeeded for 
 a season; but, underhand, the rumour spread 
 about the town, that the silver flooring had been 
 privily removed, and a stone one substituted in 
 its stead. The matter was immediately, by 
 application of the lenders, legally inquired into, 
 and discovered to be actually so. Now, it could 
 not be denied, that a marble-floor, worked into 
 nice Mosaic, looked much better in a parlour, 
 than a sheet of dirty, tarnished dollars : the 
 creditors, however, paid so little reverence to 
 the proprietor's refinement of taste, that on the 
 spot they, one and all, demanded payment of 
 their several moneys ; and as this was not com- 
 plied with, they proceeded to procure an act of 
 bankruptcy; and Melchior*s house, with its ap- 
 purtenances, offices, gardens, parks, and furni- 
 ture, were sold by public auction, and their late 
 owner, who in this extremity had screened 
 himself from jail by some chicanery of law, 
 judicially ejected. 
 
 It was now too late to moralize on his ab- 
 surdities, since philosophical reflections could 
 not alter what was done, and the most whole- 
 some resolutions would not bring him back his 
 money. According to the principles of this our 
 cultivated century, the hero at this juncture 
 ought to have retired with dignity from the 
 stage, or in some way terminated his existence : 
 to have entered on his travels into foreign parts, 
 or opened his carotid artery ; since in his native 
 town he could live no longer as a man of honour. 
 Franz neither did the one nor the other. The 
 quen-dira-t-on, which French morality employs 
 as bit and curb for thoughtlessness and folly, 
 
 AUS. 159 
 
 had never once occurred to the unbridled 
 squanderer in the days of his profusion, and 
 his sensibility was still too dull to feel so keenly 
 the disgrace of his capricious wastefulness. He 
 was like a toper, who has been in drink, and 
 on awakening out of his carousal, cannot rightly 
 understand how matters are or have been with 
 him. He lived according to the manner of un- 
 prospering spendthrifts ; repented not, lamented 
 not. By good fortune, he had picked some relics 
 from the wreck; a few small heir-looms of the 
 family; and these secured him for a time from 
 absolute starvation. 
 
 He engaged a lodging in a remote alley, into 
 which the sun never shone throughout the year, 
 except for a few days about the solstice, when 
 it peeped for a short while over the high roofs. 
 Here he found the little that his now much-con- 
 tracted wants required. The frugal kitchen of 
 his landlord screened him from hunger, the 
 stove from cold, the roof from rain, the four 
 walls from wind ; only from the pains of tedium 
 he could devise no refuge or resource. The 
 light rabble of parasites had fled away with 
 his prosperity; and of his former friends there 
 was now no one that knew him. Reading had 
 not yet become a necessary of life ; people did 
 not yet understand the art of killing time by 
 means of those amusing shapes of fancy which 
 are wont to lodge in empty heads. There 
 were yet no sentimental, pedagogic, psychologic, 
 popular, simple, comic, or moral tales ; no novels 
 of domestic life, no cloister-stories, no romances 
 of the middle ages; and of the innumerable 
 generation of our Henrys, and Adelaides, and 
 Cliffords, and Emmas, no one had as yet lifted 
 up its mantua-maker voice, to weary out the 
 patience of a lazy and discerning public. In 
 those days, knights were still diligently pricking 
 round the tilt-yard ; Dietrich of Bern, Hilde- 
 brand, Seyfried with the Horns, Rennewart the 
 Strong, were following their snake and dragon 
 hunt, and killing giants and dwarfs of twelve 
 men's strength. The venerable epos, Theuer- 
 dank, was the loftiest ideal of German art and 
 skill, the latest product of our native wit, but 
 only for the cultivated minds, the poets and 
 thinkers of the age. Franz belonged to none 
 of those classes, and had therefore nothing to 
 employ himself upon, except that he tuned his 
 lute, and sometimes twanged a little on it ; then, 
 by way of variation, took to looking from the 
 window, and instituted observations on the 
 weather; out of which, indeed, there came no 
 inference a whit more edifying than from all 
 the labours of the most rheumatic meteorologist 
 of this present age. Meanwhile, his turn for 
 observation ere long found another sort of 
 nourishment, by which the vacant space in his 
 head and heart was at once filled. 
 
 In the narrow lane right opposite his win- 
 dow, dwelt an honest matron, who, in hope of 
 better times, was earning a painful living by 
 the long threads, which, assisted by a mar- 
 vellously fair daughter, she winded daily from 
 
100 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 her spindle. Day after day the couple spun a 
 length of yarn, with which the whole town of 
 Bremen, with its walls and trenches, and all its 
 suburbs, might have been begirt. These two 
 spinners had not been born for the wheel ; they 
 were of good descent, and had lived of old in 
 pleasant aflluence. The fair Meta s father had 
 once had a ship of his own on the sea, and, 
 freighting it himself, had yearly sailed to Ant- 
 werp ; but a heavy storm had sunk the vessel, 
 u with man and mouse," and a rich cargo, into 
 the abysses of the ocean, before Meta had 
 passed the years of her childhood. The mo- 
 ther, a staid and reasonable woman, bore the 
 loss of her husband and all her fortune with a 
 wise composure ; in her need she refused, out 
 of noble pride, all help from the charitable sym- 
 pathy of her relations and friends ; considering 
 it as shameful alms, so long as she believed, 
 that in her own activity she might find a living 
 by the labour of her hands. She gave up her 
 large house, and all her costly furniture, to the 
 rigorous creditors of her ill-fated husband, hired 
 a little dwelling in the lane, and span from 
 early morning till late night, though the trade 
 went sore against her, and she often wetted the 
 thread with her tears. Yet. by this diligence 
 she reached her object, of depending upon no 
 one, and owing no mortal any obligation. By 
 and by she trained her growing daughter to the 
 same employment ; and lived so thriftily, that 
 she laid by a trifle of her gainings, and turned 
 it to account by carrying on a little trade in 
 flax. 
 
 She, however, nowise purposed to conclude 
 her life in these poor circumstances ; on the 
 contrary, the honest dame kept up her heart 
 with happy prospects into the future, and hoped 
 that she should once more attain a prosperous 
 situation, and in the autumn of her life enjoy 
 her woman's-summer. Nor were these hopes 
 grounded altogether upon empty dreams of 
 fancy, but upon a rational and calculated ex- 
 pectation. She saw her daughter budding up 
 like a spring rose, no less virtuous and modest 
 than she was fair ; and with such endowments 
 of heart and spirit, that the mother felt delight 
 and comfort in her, and spared the morsel from 
 her own Hps, that nothing might be wanting in 
 an education suitable to her capacities. For 
 she thought, that if a maiden could come up to 
 the sketch which Solomon, the wise friend of 
 woman, has left of the ideal of a perfect wife, 
 it could not fail that a pearl of such price would 
 be sought after, and bidden for, to ornament 
 some good man's house; for beauty, combined 
 with virtue, in the days of Mother Brigitta, were 
 as important in the eyes of wooers, as, in our 
 days, birth combined with fortune. Besides, 
 the number of suitors was in those times greater ; 
 it was then believed that the wife was the most 
 essential, not, as in our refined economical 
 theory, the most superfluous item in the house- 
 hold. The fair Meta, it is true, bloomed only 
 like a precious rare flower in the green-house, 
 
 not under the gay, free sky ; she lived in 
 maternal oversight and keeping, sequestered 
 and still ; was seen in no walk, in no company ; 
 and scarcely once in the year passed through 
 the gate of her native town ; all which seemed 
 utterly to contradict her mother's principle. The 
 old Lady E of Memel understood it other- 
 wise, in her time. She sent the itinerant Sophia, 
 it is clear as day, from Memel into Saxony, sim- 
 ply on a marriage speculation, and attained her 
 purpose fully. How many hearts did the wan- 
 dering nymph set on fire, how many suitors 
 courted her ? Had she stayed at home, as a do- 
 mestic modest maiden, she might have bloomed 
 away in the remoteness of her virgin cell, with- 
 out even making a conquest of Kubbuz the 
 schoolmaster. Other times, other manners. 
 Daughters with us are a sleeping capital, which 
 must be put in circulation if it is to yield any 
 interest ; of old, they were kept like thrifty 
 savings, under lock and key ; yet the bankers 
 still knew where the treasure lay concealed, 
 and how it might be come at. Mother Brigitta 
 steered towards some prosperous son-in-law, 
 who might lead her back from the Babylonian 
 captivity of the narrow lane into the land of 
 superfluity, flowing with milk and honey; and 
 trusted firmly, that in the urn of Fate, her 
 daughter's lot would not be coupled with a 
 blank. 
 
 One day, while neighbour Franz was look- 
 ing from the window, making observations on 
 the weather, he perceived the charming Meta 
 coming with her mother from church, whither 
 she went daily, to attend mass. In the times 
 of his abundance, the unstable voluptuary had 
 been blind to the fairer half of the species ; the 
 finer feelings were still slumbering in his breast; 
 and all his senses had been overclouded by the 
 ceaseless tumult of debauchery. But now the 
 stormy waves of extravagance had subsided ; 
 and in this deep calm, the smallest breath of 
 air sufficed to curl the mirror surface of his 
 soul. He was enchanted by the aspect of this, 
 the loveliest female figure that had ever flitted 
 past him. He abandoned from that hour the 
 barren study of the winds and clouds, and now 
 instituted quite another set of Observations for 
 the furtherance of Moral Science, and one 
 which afforded to himself much finer occupa- 
 tion. He soon extracted from his landlord in- 
 telligence of this fair neighbour, and learned 
 most part of what we know already. 
 
 Now rose on him the first repentant thought 
 for his heedless squandering; there awoke a 
 secret good-will in his heart to this new ac- 
 quaintance; and for her sake he wished that 
 his paternal inheritance were his own again, 
 that the lovely Meta might be fitly dowered 
 with it. His garret in the narrow lane was 
 now so dear to him, that he would not have 
 exchanged it with the Schudding itself* 
 
 * One of the largest buildings in Bremen, where the 
 meetings of the merchants are usually held. 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 161 
 
 Throughout the day he stirred not from the 
 window, watching for an opportunity of glan- 
 cing at the dear maiden ; and when she chanced 
 to show herself, lie felt more rapture in his 
 soul than did Horrox in his Liverpool Observa- 
 tory, when he saw, for the first time, Venus 
 passing over the disk of the Sun. 
 
 Unhappily the watchful mother instituted 
 counter-observations, and ere long discovered 
 what the lounger on the other side was driving 
 at; and as Franz, in the capacity of spendthrift, 
 already stood in very bad esteem with her, this 
 daily gazing angered her so much, that she 
 shrouded her lattice as with a cloud, and drew 
 the curtains close together. Meta had the strict- 
 est orders not again to appear at the window ; 
 and when her mother went with her to mass, 
 she drew a rain-cap over her face, disguised 
 her like a favourite of the Grand Signior, and 
 hurried till she turned the corner with her, and 
 escaped the eyes of the lier-in-wait. 
 
 Of Franz, it was not held that penetration 
 was his master faculty; but Love awakens all 
 the talents of the mind. He observed, that by 
 his imprudent spying, he had betrayed himself; 
 and he thenceforth retired from the window, 
 with the resolution not again to look out at it, 
 though the Venerabile itself were carried by. On 
 the other hand, he meditated some invention 
 for proceeding with his observations in a private 
 manner ; and without great labour, his combin- 
 ing spirit mastered it. 
 
 He hired the largest looking-glass that he 
 could find, and hung it up in his room, with 
 such an elevation and direction, that he could 
 distinctly see whatever passed in the dwelling 
 of his neighbours. Here, as for several days 
 the watcher did not come to light, the screens 
 by degrees went asunder; and the broad mirror 
 now and then could catch the form of the noble 
 maid, and, to the great refreshment of the vir- 
 tuoso, cast it truly back. The more deeply love 
 took root in his heart,* the more widely did his 
 wishes extend. It now struck him that he ought 
 to lay his passion open to the fair Meta, and 
 investigate the corresponding state of her opi- 
 nions. The commonest and readiest way which 
 lovers, under such a constellation of their wishes, 
 strike into, was in his position inaccessible. In 
 those modest ages, it was always difficult for 
 Paladins in love to introduce themselves to 
 daughters of the family; toilette calls were not 
 in fashion; trustful interviews tete-a-tete were 
 punished by the loss of reputation to the female 
 sharer; promenades, esplanades, masquerades, 
 pic-nics, goutes, soupes, and other inventions of 
 modern wit for forwarding sweet courtship, 
 had not then been hit upon; yet, notwithstand- 
 ing, all things went their course, much as they 
 do with us. Gossipings, weddings, lykewakes, 
 were, especially in our Imperial Cities, privi- 
 leged vehicles for carrying on soft secrets, and 
 expediting marriage contracts: hence the old 
 
 * 'A7t6 tov bpq.v ip^trat rii fpijiv. 
 V 
 
 proverb, One wedding makes a score. But a poor 
 runagate no man desired to number among his 
 baptismal relatives; to no nuptial dinner, to no 
 wake-supper, was he bidden. The by way of 
 negotiating, with the woman, with the young 
 maid, or any other serviceable spirit of a go-be- 
 tween, was here locked up. Mother Brigitta 
 had neither maid nor woman ; the flax and 
 yarn trade passed through no hands but her 
 own ; and she abode by her daughter as closely 
 as her shadow. 
 
 In these circumstances, it was clearly impos- 
 sible for neighbour Franz to disclose his heart 
 to the fair Meta, either verbally or in writing. 
 Ere long, however, he invented an idiom, which 
 appeared expressly calculated for the utterance 
 of the passions. It is true, the honour of the 
 first invention is not his. Many ages ago, the 
 sentimental Celadons of Italy and Spain had 
 taught melting harmonies, in serenades beneath 
 the balconies of their dames, to speak the lan- 
 guage of the heart; and it is said that this me- 
 lodious pathos had especial virtue in love mat- 
 ters ; and, by the confession of the ladies, was 
 more heart-affecting and subduing, than of yore 
 the oratory of the reverend Chrysostom, or the 
 pleadings of Demosthenes and Tully. But of 
 all this the simple Bremer had not heard a syl- 
 lable ; and, consequently, the invention of ex- 
 pressing his emotions in symphonious notes, and 
 trilling them to his beloved Meta, was entirely 
 his own. 
 
 In an hour of sentiment, he took his lute : he 
 did not now tune it merely to accompany his 
 voice, but drew harmonious melodies from its 
 strings ; and Love, in less than a month, had 
 changed the musical scraper to a new Amphion. 
 His first efforts did not seem to have been no- 
 ticed ; but soon the population of the lane were 
 all ear, every time the dilettante struck a note. 
 Mothers hushed their children, fathers drove 
 the noisy urchins from the doors, and the per- 
 former had the satisfaction to observe that Meta 
 herself, with her alabaster hand, would some- 
 times open the window as he began to prelude. 
 If he succeeded in enticing her to lend an ear, 
 his voluntaries whirled along in gay allegro, or 
 skipped away in mirthful jigs ; but if the turn- 
 ing of the spindle, or her thrifty mother, kept 
 her back, a heavy-laden andante rolled over the 
 bridge of the sighing lute, and expressed, in 
 languishing modulations, the feeling of sadness 
 which love-pain poured over his soul. 
 
 Meta was no dull scholar; she soon learned 
 to interpret this expressive speech. She made 
 various experiments to try whether she had 
 rightly understood it, and found that she could 
 govern at her will the dilettante humours of the 
 unseen lute - twanger ; for your silent modest 
 maidens, it is well known, have a much sharper 
 eye than those giddy flighty girls, who hurry 
 with the levity of butterflies from one object to 
 another, and take proper heed of none. She 
 felt her female vanity a little flattered ; and it 
 pleased her that she had it in her power, by a 
 14* 
 
1G2 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 secret magic, to direct the neighbouring lute, 
 and tune it now to the note of joy, now to the 
 whimpering moan of grief. Mother Brigitta. 
 on the other hand, had her head so constantly- 
 employed with her traffic on the small scale, 
 that she minded none of these things; and the 
 sly little daughter took especial care to keep her 
 in the dark respecting the discovery; and, in- 
 stigated either by some touch of kindness for 
 her cooing neighbour, or perhaps by vanity, that 
 she might show her hermeneutic penetration, 
 meditated on the means of making some sym- 
 bolical response to these harmonious apostrophes 
 to her heart. She expressed a wish to have 
 flower-pots on the outside of the window ; and 
 to grant her this innocent amusement was a 
 light thing for the mother, who no longer feared 
 the coney-catching neighbour, now that she no 
 longer saw him with her eyes. 
 
 Henceforth Meta had a frequent call to tend 
 her flowers, to water them, to bind them up, 
 and guard them from approaching storms, and 
 watch their growth and flourishing. With in- 
 expressible delight the happy Franz explained 
 this hieroglyphic altogether in his favour ; and 
 the speaking lute did not fail to modulate his 
 glad emotions, through the alley, into the heed- 
 ful ear of the fair friend of flowers. This, in 
 her tender virgin heart, worked wonders. She 
 began to be secretly vexed, when Mother Bri- 
 gitta, in her wise table-talk, in which at times 
 she spent an hour chatting with her daughter, 
 brought their melodious neighbour to her bar, 
 and called him a losel and a sluggard, or com- 
 pared him with the Prodigal in the Gospel. 
 She always took his part; threw the blame of 
 his ruin on the sorrowful temptations he had 
 met with ; and accused him of nothing worse 
 than not having fitly weighed the golden pro- 
 verb, A penny saved is a penny got. Yet she de- 
 fended him with cunning prudence; so that it 
 rather seemed as if she wished to help the conver- 
 sation, than took any interest in the thing itself. 
 
 While Mother Brigitta within her four walls 
 was inveighing against the luckless spendthrift, 
 he on his side entertained the kindest feelings 
 towards her; and was considering diligently 
 how he might, according to his means, improve 
 her straitened circumstances, and divide with 
 her the little that remained to him, and so that 
 she might never notice that a portion of his pro- 
 perty had passed over into hers. This pious 
 outlay, in good truth, was specially intended not 
 for the mother, but the daughter. Underhand 
 he had come to know, that the fair Meta had a 
 hankering for a new gown, which her mother 
 had excused herself from buying, under pretext 
 of hard times. Yet he judged quite accurately, 
 that a present of a piece of stuff, from an un- 
 known hand, would scarcely be received, or 
 cut into a dress for Meta; and that he should 
 spoil all, if he stept forth and avowed himself 
 the author of the benefaction. Chance afforded 
 him an opportunity to realize this purpose in 
 the way he wished. 
 
 Mother Brigitta was complaining to a neigh- 
 bour, that flax was very dull; that it cost her 
 more to purchase than the buyers of it would 
 repay ; and that hence this branch of industry 
 was nothing better, for the present, than a 
 withered bough. Eaves-dropper Franz did not 
 need a second telling; he ran directly to the 
 goldsmith, sold his mothers ear-rings, bought 
 some stones of flax, and, by means of a negoti- 
 atress, whom he gained, had it offered to the 
 mother for a cheap price. The bargain was 
 concluded; and it yielded so richly, that on 
 All-Saints' day the fair Meta sparkled in a 
 fine new gown. In this decoration she had 
 such a splendour in her watchful neighbour's 
 eyes, that he would have overlooked the 
 Eleven Thousand Virgins, all and sundry, had 
 it been permitted him to choose a heart s-mate 
 from among them, and fixed upon the charm- 
 ing Meta. 
 
 But just as he was triumphing in the result 
 of his innocent deceit, the secret was betrayed. 
 Mother Brigitta had resolved to do the flax- 
 retailer, who had brought her that rich gain, a 
 kindness in her turn; and was treating her 
 with a well-sugared rice-pap, and a quarter- 
 stoop of Spanish sack. This dainty set in mo- 
 tion not only the toothless jaw, but also the 
 garrulous tongue of the crone : she engaged to 
 continue the flax-brokerage, should her con- 
 signer feel inclined, as from good grounds she 
 guessed he would. One word produced an- 
 other ; Mother Eve's two daughters searched, 
 with the curiosity peculiar to their sex, till at 
 length the brittle seal of female secresy gave 
 way. Meta grew pale with affright at the dis- 
 covery, which would have charmed her, had 
 her mother not partaken of it. But she knew 
 her strict ideas of morals and decorum ; and 
 these gave her doubts about the preservation of 
 her gown. The serious dame herself was no 
 less struck at the tidings, and wished, on her 
 side too, that she alone had got intelligence of 
 the specific nature of her flax-trade ; for she 
 dreaded that this neighbourly munificence might 
 make an impression on her daughter's heart, 
 which would derange her whole calculations. 
 She resolved, therefore, to root out the still ten- 
 der germ of this weed, in the very act, from the 
 maiden heart. The gown, in spite of all the 
 tears and prayers of its lovely owner, was first 
 hypothecated, and next day transmitted to the 
 huckster's shop ; the money raised from it, with 
 the other profits of the flax speculation, accurate- 
 ly reckoned up, were packed together, and un- 
 der the name of an old debt, returned to " Mr. 
 Franz Melcherson, in Bremen,'' by help of the 
 Hamburg post. The receiver, nothing doubting, 
 took the little lot of money as an unexpected 
 blessing; wished that ail his father's debtors 
 would clear off their old scores as conscientious- 
 ly as this honest unknown person ; and had not 
 the smallest notion of the real position of affairs. 
 The talking brokeress, of course, was far from 
 giving him a true disclosure of her blabbing; 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 103 
 
 she merely told him, that Mother Brigitta had 
 given up her flax-trade. 
 
 Meanwhile, the mirror taught him, that the 
 aspects over the way had altered greatly in a 
 single night. The flower-pots were entirely 
 vanished ; and the cloudy veil again ohscured 
 the friendly, horizon of the opposite window. 
 Meta was seldom visible ; and if for a moment, 
 like the silver moon from among her clouds in 
 a stormy night, she did appear, her countenance 
 was troubled, the fire of her eyes was ex- 
 tinguished, and it seemed to him, that, at times, 
 with her finger, she pressed away a pearly 
 tear. This seized him sharply by the heart; 
 and his lute resounded melancholy sympathy in 
 soft Lydian mood. He grieved, and meditated 
 to discover why his love was sad; but all his 
 thinking and imagining were vain. After some 
 days were past, he noticed, to his consternation, 
 that his dearest piece of furniture, the large 
 mirror, had become entirely useless. He set 
 himself one bright morning in his usual nook, 
 and observed that the clouds over the way had, 
 like natural fog, entirely dispersed ; a sign which 
 he at first imputed to a general washing; but 
 ere long he saw that, in the chamber, all was 
 waste and empty; his pleasing neighbours had 
 in silence withdrawn the night before, and 
 broken up their quarters. 
 
 He might now, once more, with the greatest 
 leisure and convenience, enjoy the free prospect 
 from his window, without fear of being trouble- 
 some to any ; but for him, it was a dead loss to 
 miss the kind countenance of his Platonic love. 
 Mute and stupified, he stood, as of old his fel- 
 low-craftsman, the harmonious Orpheus, when 
 the dear shadow of his Eurydice again vanish- 
 ed down to Orcus; and if the bedlam humour 
 of those "noble minds," who raved among us 
 through the by-gone lustre, but have now like 
 drones disappeared with the earliest frost, had 
 then been ripened to existence, this calm of his 
 would certainly have passed into a sudden hur- 
 ricane. The least he could have done, would 
 have been to pull his hair, to trundle himself 
 about upon the ground, or run his head against 
 the wall, and break his stove and window. All 
 this he omitted; from the very simple cause, 
 that true love never makes men fools, but rather 
 is the universal remedy for healing sick minds 
 of their foolishness, for laying gentle fetters on 
 extravagance, and guiding youthful giddiness 
 from the broad way of ruin to the narrow path 
 of reason ; for the rake whom love will not re- 
 cover, is lost irrecoverably. 
 
 When once his spirit had assembled its scat- 
 tered powers, he set on foot a number of in- 
 structive meditations on the unexpected pheno- 
 menon, but too visible in the adjacent horizon. 
 He readily conceived that he was the lever 
 which had effected the removal of the wander- 
 ing colony : his money-letter, the abrupt conclu- 
 sion of the flax-trade, and the emigration which 
 had followed thereupon, were like reciprocal 
 exponents to each other, and explained the 
 
 whole to him. He perceived that Mother 
 Brigitta had got round his secrets, and saw from 
 every circumstance that he was not her hero; 
 a discovery which yielded him but little satis- 
 faction. The symbolic responses of the fair 
 Meta, with her flower-pots, to his musical pro- 
 posals of love ; her trouble, and the tear which 
 lie had noticed in her bright eyes shortly before 
 her departure from the lane, again animated 
 his hopes, and kept him in good heart. His 
 first employment was to go in quest, and try to 
 learn where Mother Brigitta had pitched her 
 residence, in order to maintain, by some means 
 or other, his secret understanding with the 
 daughter. It cost him little toil to find her 
 abode; yet he was too modest to shift his own 
 lodging to her neighbourhood ; but satisfied 
 himself with spying out the church where she 
 now attended mass, that he might treat himself 
 once each day with a glance of his beloved. 
 He never failed to meet her as she returned, 
 now here, now there, in some shop or door 
 which she was passing, and salute her kindly; 
 an equivalent for a billet-doux, and productive 
 of the same effect. 
 
 Had not Meta been brought up in a style too 
 nun-like, and guarded by her rigid mother as a 
 treasure, from the eyes of thieves, there is little 
 doubt that neighbour Franz, with his secret 
 wooing, would have made no great impression 
 on her heart. But she was at the critical age, 
 when Mother Nature and Mother Brigitta, with 
 their wise nurture, were perpetually coming 
 into collision. The former taught her, by a 
 secret instinct, the existence of emotions, for 
 which she had no name, and eulogized them as 
 the panacea of life ; the latter warned her to 
 beware of the surprisals of a passion, which 
 she would not designate by its true title, but 
 which, as she maintained, was more pernicious 
 and destructive to young maidens than the 
 small-pox itself. The former, in the spring of 
 life, as beseemed the season, enlivened her 
 heart with a genial warmth ; the latter wished 
 that it should always be as cold and frosty as 
 an ice-house. These conflicting pedagogic sys- 
 tems of the two good mothers, gave the tract- 
 able heart of the daughter the direction of a 
 ship, which is steered against the wind, and 
 follows neither the wind nor the helm, but a 
 course between the two. She maintained the 
 modesty and virtue which her education, from 
 her youth upwards, had impressed upon her; 
 but her heart continued open to all tender feel- 
 ings. And as neighbour Franz was the first 
 youth who had awakened these slumbering 
 emotions, she took a certain pleasure in him, 
 which she scarcely owned to herself, but which 
 any less unexperienced maiden would have re- 
 cognised as love. It was for this that her de- 
 parture from the narrow lane had gone so near 
 her heart ; for this that the little tear had trickled 
 from her beautiful eyes; for this that, when the 
 watchful Franz saluted her as she came from 
 church, she thanked him so kindly, and grew 
 
164 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 scarlet to the ears. The lovers had in truth 
 never spoken any word to one another; but he 
 understood her, and she him, so perfectly, that 
 in the most secret interview they could not have 
 explained themselves more clearly; and both 
 contracting parties swore in their silent hearts, 
 each for himself, under the seal of secresy, the 
 oath of faithfulness to the other. 
 
 In the quarter, where Mother Brigitta had 
 now settled, there were likewise neighbours, 
 and among these likewise girl-spiers, whom the 
 beauty of the charming Meta had not escaped. 
 Right opposite their dwelling, lived a wealthy 
 Brewer, whom the wags of the part, as he was 
 strong in means, had named the Hop-King. He 
 was a young, stout widower, whose mourning 
 year was just concluding, so that now he was 
 entitled, without offending the precepts of de- 
 corum, to look about him elsewhere for a new 
 helpmate to his household. Shortly after the 
 departure of his whilom wife, he had in secret 
 entered into an engagement with his Patron 
 Saint, St. Christopher, to offer him a wax-taper 
 as long as a hop-pole, and as thick as a mash- 
 ing-beam, if he would vouchsafe in this second 
 choice to prosper the desire of his heart. 
 Scarcely had he seen the dainty Meta, when 
 he dreamed that St. Christopher looked in upon 
 him, through the window of his bed-room in 
 the second story,* and demanded payment of 
 his debt. To the quick widower this seemed 
 a heavenly call to cast out the net without de- 
 lay. Early in the morning he sent for the 
 brokers of the town, and commissioned them 
 to buy bleached wax ; then decked himself like 
 a Syndic, and set forth to expedite his marriage 
 speculation. He had no musical talents, and 
 in the secret symbolic language of love he was 
 no better than a blockhead ; but he had a rich 
 brewery, a solid mortgage on the city-revenues, 
 a ship on the Weser, and a farm without the 
 gates. With such recommendations, he might 
 have reckoned on a prosperous issue to his 
 courtship, independently of all assistance from 
 St. Kit, especially as his bride was without 
 dowry. 
 
 According to old use and wont, he went 
 directly to the master hand, and disclosed to 
 the mother, in a kind neighbourly way, his 
 christian intentions towards her virtuous and 
 honourable daughter. No angel's visit could 
 have charmed the good lady more than these 
 glad tidings. She now saw ripening before 
 her the fruit of her prudent scheme, and the 
 fulfilment of her hope again to emerge from 
 her present poverty into her former abundance; 
 she blessed the good thought of moving from 
 the crooked alley, and in the first ebullition of 
 her joy, as a thousand gay ideas were ranking 
 themselves up within her soul, she also thought 
 
 * St. Christopher never appears to his favourites, like 
 the other Saints, in a solitary room, encircled with a 
 glory : there is no room high enough to admit him ; thus 
 the celestial Son of Anak is obliged to transact all busi- 
 ness with his wards outside the window. 
 
 of neighbour Franz, who had given occasion to 
 it. Though Franz was not exactly her bosom- 
 youth, she silently resolved to gladden him, as 
 the accidental instrument of her rising star, 
 with some secret gift or other, and by this 
 means likewise recompense his well-intended 
 flax-dealing. 
 
 In the maternal heart the marriage-articles 
 were as good as signed; but decorum did not 
 permit these rash proceedings in a matter of 
 such moment. She therefore let the motion lie 
 ad referendum, to be considered by her daughter 
 and herself; and appointed a term of eight days, 
 after which " she hoped she should have it in 
 her power to give the much-respected suitor a 
 reply that would satisfy him;" all which, as the 
 common manner of proceeding, he took in good 
 part, and with his usual civilities withdrew. 
 No sooner had he turned his back, than spin- 
 ning-wheel and reel, swingling-stake and hat- 
 chel, without regard being paid to their faithful 
 services, and without accusation being lodged 
 against them, were consigned, like some luck- 
 less Parliament of Paris, to disgrace, and dis- 
 missed as useless implements into the lumber- 
 room. On returning from mass, Meta was 
 astonished at the sudden catastrophe which had 
 occurred in the apartment; it was all decked 
 out as on one of the three high Festivals of the 
 year. She could not understand how her thrifty 
 mother, on a work-day, had so neglectfully put 
 her active hand in her bosom ; but before she 
 had time to question the kindly-smiling dame 
 concerning this reform in household affairs, she 
 was favoured by the latter with an explanation 
 of the riddle. Persuasion rested on Brigitta's 
 tongue ; and there flowed from her lips a stream 
 of female eloquence, depicting the offered hap- 
 piness in the liveliest hues which her imagina- 
 tion could lay on. She expected from the chaste 
 Meta the blush of soft virgin bashfulness, which 
 announces the noviciate in love ; and then a 
 full resignation of herself to the maternal will. 
 For of old, in proposals of marriage, daughters 
 were situated as our princesses are still ; they 
 were not asked about their inclination, and had 
 no voice in the selection of their legal helpmate, 
 save the Yes before the altar. 
 
 But Mother Brigitta was in this point widely 
 mistaken ; the fair Meta did not at the unex- 
 pected announcement grow red as a rose, but 
 pale as ashes. An hysterical giddiness swam 
 over her brain, and she sank fainting in her 
 mother s arms. When her senses were recalled 
 by the sprinkling of cold water, and she had in 
 some degree recovered strength, her eyes over- 
 flowed with tears, as if a heavy misfortune had 
 befallen her. From all these symptoms, the 
 sagacious mother easily perceived that the mar- 
 riage-trade was not to her taste ; at which she 
 wondered not a little, sparing neither prayers 
 nor admonitions to her daughter to secure her 
 happiness by this good match, not flout it from 
 her by caprice and contradiction. But Meta 
 could not be persuaded that her happiness de- 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 105 
 
 pended on a match to which her heart gave no 
 assent. The debates between the mother and 
 the daughter lasted several days, from early 
 morning to late night: the term for decision 
 was approaching ; the sacred taper for St. Chris- 
 topher, which Og King of Bashan need not 
 have disdained had it been lit for him as a 
 marriage torch at his espousals, stood in readi- 
 ness, all beautifully painted with living flowers 
 like a many-coloured light, though the Saint had 
 all the while been so inactive in his client's 
 cause, that the fair Meta's heart was still bolted 
 and barred agaiust him fast as ever. 
 
 Meanwhile she had bleared her eyes with 
 weeping, and the maternal rhetoric had worked 
 so powerfully, that, like a flower in the sultry 
 heat, she was drooping together, and visibly 
 fading away. Hidden grief was gnawing at 
 her heart; she had prescribed herself a rigorous 
 fast, and for three days no morsel had she eaten, 
 and with no drop of water moistened her parch- 
 ed lips. By night sleep never visited her eyes ; 
 and with all this she grew sick to death, and 
 began to talk about extreme unction. As the 
 tender mother saw the pillar of her hope waver- 
 ing, and bethought herself that she might lose 
 both capital and interest at once, she found, on 
 accurate consideration, that it would be more 
 advisable to let the latter vanish, than to miss 
 them both; and with kindly indulgence plied 
 into the daughter's will. It cost her much con- 
 straint, indeed, and many hard battles, to turn 
 away so advantageous an offer ; yet at last, 
 according to established order in household 
 governments, she yielded unconditionally to the 
 inclination of her child, and remonstrated no 
 more with her beloved patient on the subject. 
 As the stout widower announced himself on 
 the appointed day, in the full trust that his 
 heavenly deputy had arranged it all according 
 to his wish, he received, quite unexpectedly, a 
 negative answer, which, however, was sweet- 
 ened with such a deal of blandishment, that he 
 swallowed it like wine-of-wormwood mixed 
 with sugar. For the rest, he easily accommo- 
 dated himself to his destiny; and discomposed 
 himself no more about it, than if some bargain 
 for a ton of malt had chanced to come to no- 
 thing. Nor, on the whole, had he any cause to 
 sorrow without hope. His native town has 
 never wanted amiable daughters, who come up 
 to the Solomonic sketch, and are ready to make 
 perfect spouses; besides, notwithstanding this 
 unprospered courtship, he depended with firm 
 confidence upon his Patron Saint; who in fact 
 did him such substantial service elsewhere, that 
 ere a month elapsed, he had planted, with much 
 pomp, his devoted taper at the friendly shrine. 
 
 Mother Brigitta was now fain to recall the 
 exiled spinning-tackle from its lumber-room, 
 and again set it in action. All once more went 
 its usual course. Meta soon bloomed out anew, 
 was active in business, and diligently went to 
 mass ; but the mother could not hide her secret 
 grudging at the failure of her hopes, and the 
 
 annihilation of her darling plan ; she was sple- 
 netic, peevish, and dejected. Her ill-humour 
 had especially the upper hand that day when 
 neighbour Hop-King held his nuptials. As the 
 wedding-company proceeded to the church, with 
 the town-band bedrumming and becymballing 
 them in the van, she whimpered and sobbed as 
 in the evil hour when the Job's-news reached 
 her, that the wild sea had devoured her hus- 
 band, with ship and fortune. Meta looked at 
 the bridal-pomp with great equanimity; even 
 the royal ornaments, the jewels in the myrtle- 
 crown, and the nine strings of true pearls about 
 the neck of the bride, made no impression on 
 her peace of mind ; a circumstance in some 
 degree surprising, since a new Paris cap, or any 
 other meteor in the gallery of Mode, will so 
 frequently derange the contentment and domes- 
 tic peace of an entire parish. Nothing but the 
 heart-consuming sorrow of her mother discom- 
 posed her, and overclouded the gay look of her 
 eyes ; she strove by a thousand caresses and 
 little attentions to work herself into favour; and 
 she so far succeeded that the good lady grew a 
 little more communicative. 
 
 In the evening, when the wedding-dance be- 
 gan, she said, "Ah, child! this merry dance it 
 might have been thy part to lead off. What a 
 pleasure, hadst thou recompensed thy mother's 
 care and toil with this joy ! But thou hast 
 mocked thy happiness, and now I shall never 
 see the day when I am to attend thee to the 
 altar." — "Dear mother," answered Meta, "I 
 confide in Heaven ; and if it is written above 
 that I am to be led to the altar, you will surely 
 deck my garland : for when the right wooer 
 comes, my heart will soon say Yes." — " Child, 
 for girls without dowry there is no press of 
 wooers ; they are heavy ware to trade with. 
 Now-a-days the bachelors are mighty stingy; 
 they court to be happy, not to make happy. 
 Besides, thy planet bodes thee no good; thou 
 wert born in April. Let us see how it is writ- 
 ten in the Calendar; 'A damsel born in this 
 month is comely of countenance, slender of 
 shape, but of changeful humour, has a liking to 
 men. Should have an eye upon her maiden 
 garland, and so a laughing wooer come, not 
 miss her fortune.' Alas, it answers to a hair ! 
 The wooer has been here, comes not again : 
 thou hast missed him."—" Ah, mother, let the 
 planet say its pleasure, never mind it ; my heart 
 says to me that I should love and honour the 
 man who asks me to be his wife : and if I do 
 not find that man, or he do not seek me, I will 
 live in good courage by the labour of my hands, 
 and stand by you, and nurse you in your old 
 age, as beseems a good daughter. But if the 
 man of my heart do come, then bless my choice, 
 that it may be well with your daughter on the 
 Earth ; and ask not whether he is noble, rich, 
 or famous, but whether he is good and honest, 
 whether he loves and is loved." — "Ah, daugh- 
 ter ! Love keeps a sorry kitchen, and feeds one 
 poorly, along with bread and salt." — " But yet 
 
16G 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 Unity and Contentment delight to dwell with, 
 him, and these season bread and salt with the 
 cheerful enjoyment of our days." 
 
 The pregnant subject of bread and salt con- 
 tinued to be sifted till the night was far spent, 
 and the last fiddle in the wedding-dance was 
 resting from its labours. The moderation of the 
 prudent Meta, who, with youth and beauty on 
 her side, pretended only to an altogether bounded 
 happiness, after having turned away an advan- 
 tageous offer, led the mother to conjecture that 
 the plan of some such salt-trade might already 
 have been sketched in the heart of the virgin. 
 Nor did she fail to guess the trading-partner in 
 the lane, of whom she never had believed that 
 he would be the tree for rooting in the lovely 
 Meta's heart. She had looked upon him only 
 as a wild tendril, that stretches out towards 
 every neighbouring twig, to clamber up by means 
 of it. This discovery procured her little joy; 
 but she gave no hint that she had made it. 
 Only, in the spirit of her rigorous morality, she 
 compared a maiden who lets love, before the 
 priestly benediction, nestle in her heart, to a 
 worm-eaten apple, which is good for the eye, 
 but no longer for the palate, and is laid upon a 
 shelf and no more heeded, for the pernicious 
 worm is eating its internal marrow, and cannot 
 be dislodged. She now despaired of ever hold- 
 ing up her head again in Bremen ; submitted 
 to her fate, and bore in silence what she thought 
 was now not to be altered. 
 
 Meanwhile the rumour of the proud Meta's 
 having given the rich Hop -King the basket, 
 spread over the town, and sounded even into 
 Franz's garret in the alley. Franz was trans- 
 ported with joy to hear this tale confirmed ; and 
 the secret anxiety lest some wealthy rival might 
 expel hi in from the dear maiden's heart tor- 
 mented him no more. He was now certain of 
 his object; and the riddle, which for every one 
 continued an insoluble problem, had no mystery 
 for him. Love had already changed a spend- 
 thrift into a dilettante; but this for a bride- 
 seeker was the very smallest of recommenda- 
 tions, a gift which in those rude times was re- 
 warded neither with such, praise nor with such 
 pudding, as it is in our luxurious century. The 
 fine arts were not then children of superfluity, 
 but of want and necessity. No travelling pro- 
 fessors were at that time known, save the Prague 
 students, whose squeaking symphonies solicited 
 a charitable coin at the doors of the rich. The 
 beloved maiden's sacrifice was too great to be 
 repaid by a serenade. And now the feeling of 
 his youthful dissipation became a thorn in the 
 soul of Franz. Many a touching monodrama 
 did he begin with an O and an Ah, besighing 
 his past madness: "Ah, Meta," said he to him- 
 self, "why did I not know thee sooner! Thou 
 hadst been my guardian angel, thou hadst saved 
 me from destruction. Could I live my lost years 
 over again, and be what I was, the world were 
 now Elysium for me, and for thee I would make 
 it an Eden! Noble maiden, thou sacrificest 
 
 thyself to a wretch, to a beggar, who has nothing 
 in the world but a heart full of love, and despair 
 that he can offer thee no happiness such as thou 
 deservest." Innumerable times, in the parox- 
 ysms of these pathetic humours, he struck his 
 brow in fury, with the repentant exclamation : 
 "0 fool ! O madman! thou art wise too late." 
 
 Love, however, did not leave its working 
 incomplete. It had already brought about a 
 wholesome fermentation in his spirit, a desire 
 to put in use his powers and activity, to try if 
 he might struggle up from his present nothing- 
 ness : it now incited him to the attempt of exe- 
 cuting these good purposes. Among many spe- 
 culations he had entertained for the recruiting 
 of his wrecked finances, the most rational and 
 promising was this : To run over his father's 
 ledgers, and there note down any small escheats 
 which had been marked as lost, with a view 
 of going through the land, and gleaning, if so 
 were that a lock of wheat might still be gathered 
 from these neglected ears. With the produce 
 of this enterprise, he would then commence 
 some little traffic, which his fancy soon extended 
 over all the quarters of the world. Already, in 
 his mind's eye, he had vessels on the sea, which 
 were freighted with his property. He proceeded 
 rapidly to execute his purpose; changed the 
 last golden fragment of his heritage, his father's 
 hour-egg,* into money, and bought with it a 
 riding nag, which was to bear him as a Bremen 
 merchant out into the wide world. 
 
 Yet the parting with his fair Meta went sore 
 against his heart. "What will she think," said 
 he to himself, "of this sudden disappearance, 
 when thou shalt no more meet her in the 
 church-way? Will she not regard thee as faith- 
 less, and banish thee from her heart?"' This 
 thought afflicted him exceedingly; and for a 
 great while he could think of no expedient for 
 explaining to her his intention. But at last in- 
 ventive Love suggested the idea of signifying 
 to her from the pulpit itself his absence and its 
 purpose. With this view, in the church, which 
 had already favoured the secret understanding 
 of the lovers, he bought a Prayer "for a young 
 Traveller, and the happy arrangement of his 
 affairs;" which was to last, till he should come 
 again and pay his groschen, for the Thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 At the last meeting, he had dressed himself 
 as for the road ; he passed quite near his sweet- 
 heart; saluted her expressively, and with less 
 reserve than before ; so that she blushed deep- 
 ly; and Mother Brigitta found opportunity for 
 various marginal notes, which indicated her 
 displeasure at the boldness of this ill-bred fop, 
 in attempting to get speech of her daughter, and 
 with which she entertained the latter not in the 
 most pleasant style the live-long day. From 
 that morning Franz was no more seen in Bre- 
 men, and the finest pair of eyes within its cir- 
 
 * The oldest watches, from the shape they had, were 
 named hour-eggs. 
 
MUSAUS. 107 
 
 cuit sought for him in vain. Meta often heard 
 the Prayer read, but she did not heed it, for her 
 heart was troubled because her lover had be- 
 come invisible. This disappearance was inex- 
 plicable to her; she knew not what to think 
 of it. After the lapse of some months, when 
 time had a little softened her secret care, and 
 she was suffering his absence with a calmer 
 mind, it happened once, as the last appearance 
 of her love was hovering upon her fancy, that 
 this same Prayer struck her as a strange matter. 
 She coupled one thing with another, she guessed 
 the true connection of the business, and the 
 meaning of that notice. And although church 
 litanies and special prayers have not the repu- 
 tation of extreme potency, and for the worthy 
 souls that lean on them, are but a supple staff, 
 inasmuch as the fire of devotion in the Christian 
 flock is wont to die out at the end of the sermon ; 
 yet in the pious Meta's case, the reading of the 
 last Prayer was the very thing which fanned 
 that fire into a flame ; and she never neglected, 
 with her whole heart, to recommend the young 
 traveller to his guardian angel. 
 
 Under this invisible guidance, Franz was 
 journeying towards Brabant, to call in some 
 considerable sums that were due him at Ant- 
 werp. A journey from Bremen to Antwerp, in 
 the time when road-blockades were still in 
 fashion, and every landlord thought himself 
 entitled to plunder any traveller who had pur- 
 chased no safe-conduct, and to leave him pining 
 in the ward-room of his tower, was an under- 
 taking of more peril and difficulty, than in our 
 days would attend a journey from Bremen to 
 Kamtschatka : for the Landfried (or Act for sup- 
 pressing Private Wars), which the Emperor 
 Maximilian had proclaimed, was in force 
 through the Empire, rather as a law than an 
 observance. Nevertheless our solitary traveller 
 succeeded in arriving at the goal of his pilgrim- 
 age, without encountering more than a single 
 adventure. 
 
 Far in the wastes of Westphalia, he rode one 
 sultry day till nightfall, without reaching any 
 inn. Towards evening stormy clouds towered 
 up at the horizon, and a heavy rain wetted him 
 to the skin. To the fondling, who from his 
 youth had been accustomed to all possible con- 
 veniences, this was a heavy matter, and he felt 
 himself in great embarrassment how in this 
 condition he should pass the night. To his com- 
 fort, when the tempest had moved away, he saw 
 a light in the distance ; and soon after, reached 
 a mean peasant hovel, which afforded him but 
 little consolation. The house was more like a 
 cattle-stall, than a human habitation ; and the 
 unfriendly landlord refused him fire and water, 
 as if he had been an outlaw. For the man was 
 just about to stretch himself upon the straw 
 among his steers ; and too tired to relight the 
 fire on his hearth, for the sake of a stranger. 
 Franz in his despondency uplifted a mournful 
 miserere, and cursed the Westphalian steppes 
 with strong maledictions : but the peasant took 
 
 it all in good part; and blew out his light with 
 great composure, troubling himself no farther 
 about the stranger; for in the laws of hospitality 
 he was altogether uninstructcd. But as the 
 wayfarer, standing at the door, would not cease 
 to annoy him with his lamentations, he en- 
 deavoured in a civil way to get rid of him, con- 
 sented to answer, and said: "Master, if yon 
 want good entertainment, and would treat your- 
 self handsomely, you could not find what you 
 are seeking here. But ride there to the left 
 hand, through the bushes; a little way behind, 
 lies the Castle of the valiant Eberhard Bronk- 
 horst, a knight who lodges every traveller, as a 
 Hospitaller does the pilgrims from the Holy 
 Sepulchre. He has just one maggot in his head, 
 which sometimes twitches and vexes him ; he 
 lets no traveller depart from him unbasted. If 
 you do not lose your way, though he may dust 
 your jacket, you will like your cheer prodigi- 
 ously." 
 
 To buy a mess of pottage, and a stoop of wine, 
 by surrendering one's ribs to the bastinado, is 
 in truth no job for every man, though your 
 spungers and plate-lickers let themselves be 
 tweaked and snubbed, and from rich artists 
 willingly endure all kinds of tar-and-feathering, 
 so their palates be but tickled for the service. 
 Franz considered for a while, and was unde- 
 termined what to do; at last he resolved on 
 fronting the adventure. " What is it to me,"' 
 said he, "whether my back be broken here on 
 miserable straw, or by the Ritter Bronkhorst? 
 The friction will expel the fever which is com- 
 ing on, and shake me tightly if I cannot dry my 
 clothes." He put spurs to his nag. and soon 
 arrived before a castle-gate of old Gothic archi- 
 tecture ; knocked pretty plainly on the iron door, 
 and an equally distinct "Who's there?" re- 
 sounded from within. To the freezing pas- 
 senger, the long entrance ceremonial of this 
 door-keeper precognition was as inconvenient, 
 as are similar delays to travellers who, at bar- 
 riers and gates of towns, bewail or execrate the 
 despotism of guards and tollmen. Nevertheless 
 he must submit to use and wont, and patiently 
 wait to see whether the philanthropist in the 
 Castle was disposed that night for cudgelling a 
 guest, or would choose rather to assign him a 
 couch under the open canopy. 
 
 The possessor of this ancient tower had 
 served, in his youth, as a stout soldier in the 
 Emperor s army, under the bold Georg von 
 Fronsberg, and led a troop of foot against the 
 Venetians ; had afterwards retired to repose, 
 and was now living on his property ; where, to 
 expiate the sins of his campaigns, he employed 
 himself in doing good works; in feeding the 
 hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, lodging 
 pilgrims, and cudgelling his lodgers out of doors. 
 For he was a rude wild son of war ; and could 
 not lay aside his martial tone, though he had 
 lived for many years in silent peace. The 
 traveller, who had now determined for good 
 quarters to submit to the custom of the house, 
 
168 MUSAUS. 
 
 had not waited long till the holts and locks be- 
 gan rattling within, and the creaking gate-leaves 
 moved asunder, moaning in doleful notes, as if 
 to warn or to deplore the entering stranger. 
 Franz felt one cold shudder after the other run- 
 ning down his hack, as he passed in: neverthe- 
 less he was handsomely received; some servants 
 hastened to assist him in dismounting; speedily 
 unhuckled his luggage, took his steed to the 
 stahle, and its rider to a large well-lighted 
 chamher, where their master was in waiting. 
 
 The warlike aspect of this athletic gentleman, 
 —who advanced to meet his guest, and shook 
 him by the hand so heartily, that he was like 
 to shout with pain, and bade him welcome 
 with a Stentor's voice, as if the stranger had 
 been deaf, and seemed withal to be a person 
 still in the vigour of life, full of fire and strength, 
 —put the timorous wanderer into such a terror, 
 that he could not hide his apprehensions, and 
 began to tremble over all his body. 
 
 " What ails you, my young master," asked the 
 Ritter, with a voice of thunder, " that you quiver 
 like an aspen leaf, and look as pale as if Death 
 had you by the throat?" 
 
 Franz plucked up a spirit ; and considering 
 that his shoulders had at all events the score to 
 pay. his poltroonery passed into a species of 
 audacity. 
 
 "Sir," replied he, "you perceive that the rain 
 has soaked me, as if 1 had swum across the 
 Weser. Let me have my clothes dried or 
 changed; and get me, by way of luncheon, a 
 well-spiced aleberry, to drive away the ague-fit 
 that is quaking through my nerves ; then I shall 
 come to heart, in some degree." 
 
 "Good!" replied the Knight; "demand what 
 you want; you are at home here." 
 
 Franz made himself be served like a bashaw ; 
 and having nothing else but currying to expect, 
 he determined to deserve it ; he bantered and 
 bullied, in his most imperious style, the servants 
 that were waiting on him ; it comes all to one, 
 thought he, in the long run. "This waistcoat," 
 said he, " would go round a tun ; bring me one 
 that fits a little better: this slipper burns like a 
 coal against my corns ; pitch it over the lists : 
 this ruff is stiff as a plank, and throttles me like 
 a halter; bring one that is easier, and is not 
 plastered with starch." 
 
 At this Bremish frankness, the landlord, far 
 from showing any anger, kept inciting his ser- 
 vants to go briskly through with their commands, 
 and calling them a pack of blockheads, who 
 were fit to serve no stranger. The table being 
 furnished, the Ritter and his guest sat down to 
 it, and both heartily enjoyed their aleberry. 
 The Ritter asked : " Would you have aught 
 farther, by way of supper!" 
 
 "Bring us what you have," said Franz, "that 
 I may see how your kitchen is provided." 
 
 Immediately appeared the Cook, and placed 
 upon the table a repast with which a duke 
 might have been satisfied. Franz diligently 
 fell to, without waiting to be pressed. When 
 
 he had satisfied himself: "Your kitchen," said 
 he, "is not ill-furnished, I perceive; if your 
 cellar corresponds to it, I shall almost praise 
 your house-keeping." 
 
 Broukhorst nodded to his Butler, who directly 
 filled the cup of welcome with common table 
 wine, lasted, and presented it to his master, and 
 the latter cleared it at a draught to the health 
 of his guest. Franz pledged him honestly, and 
 Bronkhorst asked : " Now, fair sir, what say you 
 to the wine I" 
 
 " I say," answered Franz, " that it is bad. if 
 it is the best sort in your catacombs; and good, 
 if it is your meanest number." 
 
 " You are a judge," replied the Ritter : " Here, 
 Butler, bring us of the mother-cask." 
 
 The Butler put a stoop upon the table, as a 
 sample, and Franz having tasted it, said, " Ay, 
 this is genuine last year's growth; we will stick 
 by this." 
 
 The Ritter made a vast pitcher of it be 
 brought in ; soon drank himself into hilarity 
 and glee beside his guest; began to talk of his 
 campaigns, how he had been encamped against 
 the Venetians, had broken through their barri- 
 cado, and butchered the Italian squadrons, like 
 a flock of sheep. In this narrative he rose into 
 such a warlike enthusiasm, that he hewed down 
 bottles and glasses, brandishing the carving-knife 
 like a lance, and in the fire of action came so 
 near his messmate with it, that the latter was 
 in fright for his nose and ears. 
 
 It grew late, but no sleep came into the eyes 
 of the Ritter ; he seemed to be in his proper 
 element, when he got to speak of his Venetian 
 campaigns. The vivacity of his narration in- 
 creased with every cup he emptied ; and Franz 
 was afraid that this would prove the prologue 
 to the melodrama, in which he himself was to 
 play the most interesting part. To learn whe- 
 ther it was meant that he should lodge within 
 the Castle, or without, he demanded a bumper 
 by way of good-night. Now, he thought, his 
 host would first force him to drink more wine, 
 and if he refused, would, under pretext of a 
 drinking quarrel, send him forth, according to 
 the custom of the house, with the usual viaticum. 
 Contrary to his expectation, the request was 
 granted without remonstrance ; the Ritter in- 
 stantly cut asunder the thread of his narrative, 
 and said : " Time will wait on no one ; more of 
 it to-morrow !" 
 
 "Pardon me, Herr Ritter," answered Franz, 
 "to-morrow by sunrise I must over hill and 
 dale ; I am travelling a far journey to Brabant, 
 and must not linger here. So let me take leave 
 of you to-night, that my departure may not dis- 
 turb you in the morning." 
 
 "Do your pleasure," said the Ritter; "but 
 depart from this you shall not, till I am out of 
 the feathers, to refresh you with a bit of bread, 
 and a toothful of Dantzig, then attend you to 
 the door, and dismiss you according to the 
 fashion of the house." 
 
 Franz needed no interpretation of these 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 169 
 
 words. Willingly as he would have excused 
 his host this last civility, attendance to the door, 
 the latter seemed determined to abate no whit 
 of the established ritual. He ordered his ser- 
 vants to undress the stranger, and put him in 
 the guest's-bed ; where Franz, once settled on 
 elastic swan's-down, felt himself extremely 
 snug, and enjoyed delicious rest; so that ere he 
 fell asleep, he owned to himself that, for such 
 royal treatment, a moderate bastinado was not 
 too dear a price. Soon pleasant dreams came 
 hovering round his fancy. He found his charm- 
 ing Meta in a rosy grove, where she was walk- 
 ing with her mother, plucking flowers. In- 
 stantly he hid himself behind a thick-leaved 
 hedge, that the rigorous duenna might not see 
 him. Again his imagination placed him in the 
 alley, and by his looking-glass he saw the 
 snow-white hand of the maiden busied with 
 her flowers ; soon he was sitting with her on 
 the grass, and longing to declare his heartfelt 
 love to her, and the bashful shepherd found no 
 words to do it in. He would have dreamed 
 till broad mid-day, had he not been roused by 
 the sonorous voice and clanking spurs of the 
 Ritter, who, with the earliest dawn, was hold- 
 ing a review of kitchen and cellar, ordering a 
 sufficient breakfast to be readied, and placing 
 every servant at his post, to be at hand when 
 the guest should awake, to dress him, and wait 
 upon him. 
 
 It cost the happy dreamer no small struggling 
 to forsake his safe and hospitable bed ; he rolled 
 to this side and to that; but the pealing voice 
 of the worshipful Knight came heavy on his 
 heart; and dally as he might, the sour apple 
 must at last be bit. So he rose from his down; 
 and immediately a dozen hands were busy 
 dressing him. The Ritter led him into the par- 
 lour, where a small well-furnished table waited 
 them ; but now, when the hour of reckoning 
 had arrived, the traveller's appetite was gone. 
 The host endeavoured to encourage him. "Why 
 do you not get to ? Come, take somewhat for 
 the raw foggy morning." 
 
 " Herr Ritter," answered Franz, " my stomach 
 is still too full of your supper; but my pockets 
 are empty ; these I may fill for the hunger that 
 is to come." 
 
 With this he began stoutly cramming, and 
 stowed himself with the daintiest and best that 
 was transportable, till all his pockets were 
 bursting. Then observing that his horse, well 
 curried and equipt, was led past, he took a 
 dram of Dantzig, for good-bye, in the thought 
 that this would be the watch-word for his host 
 to catch him by the neck, and exercise his 
 household privileges. 
 
 But, to his astonishment, the Ritter shook him 
 kindly by the hand, as at his first entrance, 
 wished him luck by the way, and the bolted 
 door was thrown open. He loitered not in 
 putting spurs to his nag ; and, tip ! tap ! he was 
 without the gate, and no hair of him harmed. 
 
 A heavy stone was lifted from his heart, as 
 w 
 
 he found himself in safety, and saw that he had 
 got away with a whole skin. He could not un- 
 derstand how the landlord had trusted him the 
 shot, which, as he imagined, must have run 
 pretty high on the chalk ; and he embraced 
 with warm love the hospitable man, whose 
 club-law arm he had so much dreaded ; and he 
 felt a strong desire to search out, at the foun- 
 tain-head, the reason or unreason of the ill report 
 which had affrighted him. Accordingly, he 
 turned his horse, and cantered back. The 
 Knight was still standing in the gate, and des- 
 canting with his servants, for the forwarding of 
 the science of horse-flesh, on the breed, shape, 
 and character of the nag and his hard pace; he 
 supposed the stranger must have missed some- 
 thing in his travelling gear, and he already 
 looked askance at his servants for such negli- 
 gence. 
 
 " What is it, young master," cried he, " that 
 makes you turn again, when you were for pro- 
 ceeding ?" 
 
 " Ah! yet a word, valiant Knight," cried the 
 traveller. "An ill report has gone abroad, that 
 injures your name and breeding. It is said that 
 you treat every stranger that calls upon you with 
 your best ; and then, when he leaves you, let 
 Mm feei the weight of your strong fists. This 
 story I have credited, and spared nothing to de- 
 serve my due from you. I thought within my- 
 self, His worship will abate me nothing; I will 
 abate him as little. But now you let me go, 
 without strife or peril ; and that is what sur- 
 prises me. Pray, tell me, is there 1 any shadow 
 of foundation for the thing, or shall I call the 
 foolish chatter lies next time I hear it ?" 
 
 The Ritter answered : " Report has nowise 
 told you lies ; there is no saying, that circulates 
 among the people, but contains in it some grain 
 of truth. Let me tell you accurately how the 
 matter stands. I lodge every stranger that comes 
 beneath my roof, and divide my morsel with 
 him, for the love of God. But I am a plain 
 German man, of the old cut and fashion ; speak 
 as it lies about my heart, and require that my 
 guest also should be hearty and confiding ; 
 should enjoy with me what I have, and tell 
 frankly what he wants. Now, there is a sort of 
 people that vex me with all manner of grimaces; 
 that banter me with smirkings, and bows, and 
 crouchings ; put all their words to the torture ; 
 make a deal of talk without sense or salt ; think 
 they will cozen me with smooth speeches ; be- 
 have at dinner as women at a christening. If I 
 say, Help yourself! out of reverence, they pick 
 you a fraction from the plate, which I would 
 not offer to my dog; if I say, Your health! they 
 scarcely wet their lips from the full cup, as if 
 they set God's gifts at nought. Now, when the 
 sorry rabble carry things too far with me, and I 
 cannot, for the soul of me, know what they 
 would be at, I get into a rage at last, and use 
 my household privilege ; catch the noodle by 
 the spall, thrash him sufficiently, and pack him 
 out of doors. This is the use and wont with 
 15 
 
170 MUSAUS. 
 
 me, and I do so with every guest that plagues 
 me with these freaks. But a man of your stamp 
 is always welcome : you told me plump out in 
 plain German what you thought, as is the fashion 
 with the Bremers. Call on me boldly again, if 
 your road lead you hither. And so, God be with 
 you." 
 
 Franz now moved on, with a joyful humour, 
 towards Antwerp ; and he wished that he might 
 everywhere find such a reception as he had met 
 with from the Ritter Eberhard Bronkhorst. On 
 approaching the ancient Queen of the Flemish 
 cities, the sail of his hope was swelled by a 
 propitious breeze. Riches and superfluity met 
 him in every street; and it seemed as if scarcity 
 and want had been exiled from the busy town. 
 In all probability, thought he, there must be 
 many of my father's debtors who have risen 
 again, and will gladly make me full payment 
 whenever I substantiate my claims. After rest- 
 ing for a while from his fatigues, he set about 
 obtaining, in the inn where he was quartered, 
 some preliminary knowledge of the situation of 
 his debtors. 
 
 " How stands it with Peter Martens ?" in- 
 quired he one day, of his companions at table ; 
 " is he still living, and doing much business ?" 
 
 " Peter Martens is a warm man," answered 
 one of the party ; " has a brisk commission trade, 
 and draws good profit from it." 
 
 "Is Fabian van Plurs still in good circum- 
 stances?" 
 
 " ! there is no end to Fabian's wealth. He 
 is a Councillor 5 his woollen manufactories are 
 thriving incredibly." 
 
 " Has Jonathan Frischkier good custom in his 
 trade ?" 
 
 "Ah! Jonathan were now a brisk fellow, 
 had not Kaiser Max let the French chouse him 
 out of his Princess.* Jonathan had got the 
 furnishing of the lace for the bride's dress, but 
 the Kaiser has left poor Frischkier in the 
 lu rch, as the bride has left himself. If you have 
 a fair one, whom you would remember with a 
 bit of lace, he will give it you at half price." 
 
 "Is the firm Op de Butekant still standing, 
 or has it sunk?" 
 
 " There was a crack in the beams there some 
 years ago; but the Spanish caravelles have put 
 a new prop to it, and it now holds fast." 
 
 Franz inquired about several other in* rchants, 
 who were on his list; found that most of them, 
 though in his father's time they had "failed," 
 were now standing firmly on their legs ; and 
 inferred from this, that a judicious bankruptcy 
 had, as from of old, been the wine of future 
 gains. This intelligence refreshed him mightily : 
 he hastened to put his documents in order, and 
 submit them to the proper parties. But with 
 the Antwerpers, he fared as his itinerating 
 countrymen do with shopkeepers in the Ger- 
 man towns; they find everywhere a friendly 
 welcome at their first appearance, but are looked 
 
 * Anne of Britanny. 
 
 upon with cheerfulness nowhere, when they 
 come collecting debts. Some would have no- 
 thing to do with these former sins; and were 
 of opinion, that by the tender of the legal five- 
 per-cent composition, they had been entirely 
 abolished : it was the creditor's fault if he had 
 not accepted payment in time. Others could 
 not recollect any Melchior of Bremen; opened 
 their Infallible Books, found no debtor-entry 
 marked for this unknown name. Others, again, 
 brought out a strong counter-reckoning ; and 
 three days had not passed, till Franz was sitting 
 in the Debtors' Ward, to answer for his father's 
 credit, not to depart till he had paid the utter- 
 most farthing. 
 
 These were not the best prospects for the 
 young man, who had set his hope and trust 
 upon the Antwerp patrons of his fortune, and 
 now saw the fair soap-bubble vanish quite 
 away. In his strait confinement, he felt him- 
 self in the condition of a soul in Purgatory, now 
 that his skiff had run ashore and gone to pieces, 
 in the middle of the haven where he thought 
 to find security. Every thought of Meta was as 
 a thorn in his heart; there was now no shadow 
 of a possibility, that from the whirlpool which 
 had sunk him, he could ever rise, and stretch 
 out his hand to her ; nor, suppose he should get 
 his head above water, was it in poor Meta's 
 power to pull him on dry land. He fell into a 
 sullen desperation ; had no wish but to die 
 speedily, and give his woes the slip at once ; 
 and, in fact, he did attempt to kill himself by 
 starvation. But this is a sort of death which is 
 not at the beck of every one, so ready as the 
 shrunk Pomponius Atticus found it, when his 
 digestive apparatus had already struck work. 
 A sound peptic stomach does not yield so tame- 
 ly to the precepts of the head or heart. After 
 the moribund debtor had abstained two days 
 from food, a ravenous hunger suddenly usurped 
 the government of his will, and performed, of 
 its own authority, all the operations which, in 
 other cases, are directed by the mind. It 
 ordered his hand to seize the spoon, his mouth 
 to receive the victual, his inferior maxillary 
 jaw to get in motion, and itself accomplished 
 the usual functions of digestion, unordered. 
 Thus did this last resolve make shipwreck, on 
 a hard bread-crust; for, in the seven-and-twen- 
 tieth year of life, it has a heroism connected 
 with it, which in the seven-and-seventieth is 
 entirely gone. 
 
 At bottom, it was not the object of the bar- 
 barous Antwerpers to squeeze money from the 
 pretended debtor, but only to pay him none, as 
 his demands were not admitted to be liquid. 
 Whether it were, then, that the public Prayer 
 in Bremen had in truth a little virtue, or that 
 the supposed creditors were not desirous of 
 supporting a superfluous boarder for life, true it 
 is, that after the lapse of three months, Franz 
 was delivered from his imprisonment, under 
 the condition of leaving the city within four- 
 and-twenty hours, and never again setting foot 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 171 
 
 on the soil and territory of Antwerp. At the j 
 same time, he received five crowns for travel- 
 ling expenses from the faithful hands of Justice, 
 which had taken charge of his horse and lug- 
 gage, and conscientiously balanced the produce 
 of the same against judicial and curatory ex- 
 penses. 
 
 With heavy-laden heart, in the humblest 
 mood, with his staff in his hand, he left the rich 
 city, into which he had ridden some time before 
 with high-soaring hopes. Broken down, and 
 undetermined what to do, or rather altogether 
 without thought, he plodded through the streets 
 to the nearest gate, not minding whither the 
 road into which chance conducted him might 
 lead. He saluted no traveller, he asked for no 
 inn, except when fatigue or hunger forced him 
 to lift up his eyes, and look around for some 
 church-spire, or sign of human habitation, when 
 he needed human aid. Many days he had 
 wandered on, as if unconsciously ; and a secret 
 instinct had still, by means of his uncrazed feet, 
 led him right forward on the way to home ; 
 when, all at once, he awoke as from an op- 
 pressive dream, and perceived on what road 
 he was travelling. 
 
 He halted instantly, to consider whether he 
 should proceed or turn back. Shame and con- 
 fusion took possession of his soul, when he 
 thought of skulking about in his native town as 
 a beggar, branded with the mark of contempt, 
 and claiming the charitable help of his towns- 
 men, whom of old he had eclipsed by his 
 wealth and magnificence. And how in this 
 form could he present himself before his fair 
 Meta, without disgracing the choice of her 
 heart % He did not leave his fancy time to finish 
 this doleful picture ; but wheeled about to take 
 the other road, as hastily as if he had been 
 standing even then at the gate of Bremen, and 
 the ragged apprentices had been assembling to 
 accompany him with jibes and mockery through 
 the streets. His purpose was formed ; he would 
 make for the nearest seaport in the Nether- 
 lands; engage as a sailor in a Spanish ship, to 
 work his passage to the new world ; and not 
 return to his country, till in the Peruvian land 
 of gold he should have regained the wealth, 
 which he had squandered so heedlessly, before 
 he knew the worth of money. In the shaping 
 of this new plan, it is true, the fair Meta fell so 
 far into the back -ground, that even to the 
 sharpest prophetic eye she could only hover as 
 a faint shadow in the distance ; yet the wan- 
 dering projector pleased himself with thinking 
 that she was again interwoven with the scheme 
 of his life ; and he took large steps, as if by this 
 rapidity he meant to reach her so much the 
 sooner. 
 
 Already he was on the Flemish soil once 
 more ; and found himself at sunset not far from 
 Rheinberg, in a little hamlet, Rummelsburg by 
 name, which has since, in the Thirty Years' 
 War, been utterly destroyed. A caravan of 
 carriers from Lyke had already filled the inn, 
 
 so that Mine Host had no room left, and re- 
 ferred him to the next town ; the rather that he 
 did not draw too flattering a presage, from his 
 present vagabond physiognomy, and held him 
 to be a thieves' purveyor, who had views upon 
 the Lyke carriers. He was forced, notwith- 
 standing his excessive weariness, to gird him- 
 self for march, and again to take his bundle on 
 his back. 
 
 As in retiring, he was muttering between his 
 teeth some bitter complaints and curses of the 
 Landlord's hardness of heart, the latter seemed 
 to take some pity on the forlorn wayfarer, and 
 called after him, from the door: "Stay, neigh- 
 bour, let me speak to you : if you wish to rest 
 here, I can accommodate you after all. In that 
 Castle are empty rooms enow, if they be not 
 too lonely; it is not inhabited, and I have got 
 the keys." Franz accepted the proposal with 
 joy, praised it as a deed of mercy, and requested 
 only shelter and a supper, were it in a castle 
 or a cottage. Mine Host, however, was privily 
 a rogue, whom it had galled to hear the stranger 
 drop some half-audible contumelies against him, 
 and meant to be avenged on him, by a Hob- 
 goblin that inhabited the old fortress, and had 
 many long years before expelled the owners. 
 
 The Castle lay hard by the hamlet, on a steep 
 rock, right opposite the inn, from which it was 
 divided merely by the highway, and a little 
 gurgling brook. The situation being so agree- 
 able, the edifice was still kept in repair, and 
 well provided with all sorts of house-gear ; for 
 it served the owner as a hunting-lodge, where 
 he frequently caroused all day ; and so soon as 
 the stars began to twinkle in the sky, retired 
 with his whole retinue, to escape the mischief 
 of the Ghost, who rioted about in it the whole 
 night over, but by day gave no disturbance. 
 Unpleasant as the owner felt this spoiling of 
 his mansion by a bugbear, the nocturnal sprite 
 was not without advantages, for the great 
 security it gave from thieves. The Count could 
 have appointed no trustier or more watchful 
 keeper over the Castle, than this same Spectre, 
 for the rashest troop of robbers never ventured 
 to approach its station. Accordingly he knew 
 of no safer place for laying up his valuables, 
 than this old tower, in the hamlet of Rummels- 
 burg, near Rheinberg. 
 
 The sunshine had sunk, the dark night was 
 coming heavily on, when Franz, with a lantern 
 in his hand, proceeded to the castle-gate, under 
 the guidance of Mine Host, who carried in his 
 hand a basket of victuals, with a flask of wine, 
 which he said should not be marked against 
 him. He had also taken along with him a 
 pair of candlesticks, and two wax-lights; for in 
 the whole Castle there was neither lamp nor 
 taper, as no one ever staid in it after twilight. 
 In the way, Franz noticed the creaking, heavy- 
 laden basket, and the wax-lights, which he 
 thought he should not need, and yet must pay 
 for. Therefore he said : « What is this super- 
 fluity and waste, as at a banquet? The light 
 
172 MUSAUS. 
 
 in the lantern is enough to see with, till I go to 
 bed ; and when I awake, the sun will be high 
 enough, for I am tired completely, and shall 
 sleep with both eyes." 
 
 " I will not hide from you," replied the land- 
 lord, "that a story runs of there being mischief 
 in the Castle, and a Goblin that frequents it. 
 You, however, need not let the thing disturb 
 you; we are near enough, you see, for you to 
 call us, should you meet with aught unnatural ; 
 I and my folks will be at your hand in a twink- 
 ling, to assist you. Down in the house there, 
 we keep astir all night through, some one is 
 always moving. I have lived here these thirty 
 years; yet I cannot say that I have ever seen 
 aught. If there be now and then a little hurly- 
 bu dying at nights, it is nothing but cats and 
 martens rummaging about the granary. As a 
 precaution, I have provided you with candles : 
 the night is no friend of man ; and the tapers 
 are consecrated, so that sprites, if there be such 
 in the Castle, will avoid their shine." 
 
 It was no lying in Mine Host to say that he 
 had never seen anything of spectres in the 
 Castle ; for by night he had taken special care 
 not once to set foot in it; and by day, the 
 Goblin did not come to sight. In the present 
 case, too, the traitor would not risk himself 
 across the border. After opening the door, he 
 handed Franz the basket, directed him what 
 way to go, and wished him good-night. Franz 
 entered the lobby without anxiety or fear ; be- 
 lieving the ghost story to be empty tattle, or a 
 distorted tradition of some real occurrence in 
 the place, which idle fancy had shaped into an 
 unnatural adventure. He remembered the stout 
 Ritter Eberhard Bronkhorst, from whose heavy 
 arm he had apprehended such maltreatment, 
 and with whom, notwithstanding, he had found 
 so hospitable a reception. On this ground be 
 had laid it down as a rule deduced from his 
 travelling experiences, when he heard any com- 
 mon rumour, to believe exactly the reverse, and 
 left the grain of truth, which, in the opinion of 
 the wise Knight, always lies in such reports, 
 entirely out of sight. 
 
 Pursuant to Mine Host's direction, he as- 
 cended the winding stone stair; and reached a 
 bolted door, which he opened with his key. A 
 long dark gallery, where his footsteps resound- 
 ed, led him into a large hall, and from this, a 
 side-door, into a suite of apartments, richly pro- 
 vided with all furniture for decoration or con- 
 venience. Out of these he chose the room which 
 had the friendliest aspect, where he found a 
 well-pillowed bed ; and from the window could 
 look right down upon the inn, and catch every 
 loud word that was spoken there. He lit his 
 wax-tapers, furnished his table, and feasted 
 with the coinmodiousness and relish of an 
 Otaheitean noble. The big-bellied flask was 
 an antidote to thirst. So long as his teeth were 
 in full occupation, he had no time to think of 
 the reported devilry in the Castle. If aught 
 now and then made a stir in the distance, and 
 
 Fear called to him. " Hark ! hark ! There comes 
 the Goblin;" Courage answered: "Stuff! It is 
 cats and martens bickering and caterwauling." 
 But in the digestive half-hour after meat, when 
 the sixth sense, that of hunger and thirst, no 
 longer occupied the soul, she directed her atten- 
 tion from the other five exclusively upon the 
 sense of hearing; and already Fear was whis- 
 pering three timid thoughts into the listener's 
 ear, before Courage had time to answer once. 
 
 As the first resource, he locked the door, and 
 bolted it; made his retreat to the walled seat 
 in the vault of the window. He opened this, 
 and to dissipate his thoughts a little, looked out 
 on the spangled sky, gazed at the corroded 
 moon, and counted how often the stars snuffed 
 themselves. On the road beneath him all was 
 void ; and in spite of the pretended nightly 
 bustle in the inn, the doors were shut, the lights 
 out, and everything as still as in a sepulchre. 
 On the other hand, the watchman blew his 
 horn, making his "List, gentlemen!" sound 
 over all the hamlet ; and for the composure of 
 the timorous astronomer, who still kept feasting 
 his eyes on the splendour of the stars, uplifted 
 a rusty evening-hymn right under his window; 
 so that Franz might easily have carried on a 
 conversation with him, which, for the sake of 
 company, he would willingly have done, had 
 he in the least expected that the watchman 
 would make answer to him. 
 
 In a populous city, in the middle of a numer- 
 ous household, where there is a hubbub equal 
 to that of a bee-hive, it may form a pleasant 
 entertainment for the thinker to philosophize 
 on Solitude, to decorate her as the loveliest 
 playmate of the human spirit, to view her un- 
 der all her advantageous aspects, and long for 
 her enjoyment as for hidden treasure. But in 
 scenes, where she is no exotic, in the isle of 
 Juan Fernandez, where a solitary eremite, 
 escaped from shipwreck, lives with her through 
 long years; or in the dreary night-time, in a 
 deep wood, or in an old uninhabited castle, 
 where empty walls and vaults awaken horror, 
 and nothing breathes of life, but the moping 
 owl in the ruinous turret ; there, in good sooth, 
 she is not the most agreeable companion for the 
 timid anchorite that has to pass his time in her 
 abode, especially if he is every moment looking 
 for the entrance of a spectre to augment the 
 party. In such a case it may easily chance that 
 a window conversation with the watchman 
 shall afford a richer entertainment for the spirit 
 and the heart, than a reading of the most attrac- 
 tive eulogy on solitude. If Ritter Zimmerman 
 had been in Franz's place, in the castle of 
 Rummelsburg, on the Westphalian marches, he 
 would doubtless in this position have struck out 
 the fundamental topics of as interesting a trea- 
 tise on Society, as, inspired to all appearance by 
 the irksomeness of some ceremonious assembly, 
 he has poured out from the fulness of his heart 
 in praise of Solitude. 
 
 Midnight is the hour at which the world of 
 
MUS A US. 
 
 173 
 
 spirits acquires activity and life, when hebe- 
 tated animal nature lies entombed in deep slum- 
 ber. Franz inclined getting through this critical 
 hour in sleep rather than awake; so he closed 
 his window, went the rounds of his room once 
 more, spying every nook and crevice, to see 
 whether all was safe and earthly, snuffed the 
 lights to make them burn clearer ; and without 
 undressing or delaying, threw himself upon his 
 bed, with which his wearied person felt unusual 
 satisfaction. Yet he could not get asleep so fast 
 as he wished. A slight palpitation at the heart, 
 which he ascribed to a tumult in the blood, 
 arising from the sultriness of the day. kept him 
 waking for a while ; and he failed not to employ 
 this respite in offering up such a pithy evening 
 prayer, as he had not prayed for many years. 
 This produced the usual effect, that he softly 
 fell asleep while saying it. 
 
 After about an hour, as he supposed, he 
 started up with a sudden terror ; a thing not at 
 all surprising when there is tumult in the blood. 
 He was broad awake : he listened whether all 
 was quiet, and heard nothing but the clock 
 strike twelve ; a piece of news which the watch- 
 man forthwith communicated to the hamlet in 
 doleful recitative. Franz listened for a while, 
 turned on the other side, and was again about 
 to sleep, when he caught, as it were, the sound 
 of a door grating in the distance, and imme- 
 diately it shut with a stifled bang. "Alack! 
 Alack!" bawled Fright into his ear; "this is 
 the Ghost in very deed!" — "Tis nothing but 
 the wind," said Courage manfully. But quickly 
 it came nearer, nearer, like the sound of heavy 
 footsteps. Clink here, clink there, as if a cri- 
 minal were rattling his irons, or as if the porter 
 were walking about the Castle with his bunch 
 of keys. Alas, here was no wind business! 
 Courage held his peace ; and quaking Fear drove 
 all the blood to the heart, and made it thump 
 like a smith's forehammer. 
 
 The thing was now beyond jesting. If Fear 
 would still have let Courage get a word, the 
 latter would have put the terror-struck watcher 
 in mind of his subsidiary treaty with Mine Host, 
 and incited him to claim the stipulated assist- 
 ance loudly from the window; but for this there 
 was a want of proper resolution. The quaking 
 Franz had recourse to the bed-clothes, the last 
 fortress of the timorous, and drew them close 
 over his ears, as Bird Ostrich sticks his head in 
 the grass, when he can no longer escape the 
 huntsman. Outside it came along, door up, 
 door to, with hideous uproar ; and at last it 
 reached the bed-room. It jerked sharply at the 
 lock, tried several keys till it found the right 
 one ; yet the bar still held the door, till a bounce 
 like a thunderclap made bolt and rivet start, 
 and threw it wide open. Now stalked in a 
 long lean man, with a black beard, in ancient 
 garb, and with a gloomy countenance, his eye- 
 brows hanging down in deep earnestness from 
 his brow. Over his right shoulder he had a 
 scarlet cloak ; and on his head he wore a peaked 
 
 hat. With a heavy step, he walked thrice in 
 silence up and down the chamber; looked at 
 the consecrated tapers, and snuffed them that 
 they might burn brighter. Then he threw aside 
 his cloak, girded on a scissor-pouch which he 
 had under it, produced a set of shaving-tackle, 
 and immediately began to whet a sharp razor 
 on the broad strap which he wore at his 
 girdle. 
 
 Franz perspired in mortal agony under his 
 coverlet; recommended himself to the keeping 
 of the Virgin; and anxiously speculated on the 
 object of this manoeuvre, not knowing whether 
 it was meant for his throat or his beard. To 
 his comfort, the Goblin poured some water from 
 a silver flask into a basin of silver, and with his 
 skinny hand lathered the soap into light foam ; 
 then set a chair, and beckoned with a solemn 
 look to the quaking looker-on to come forth from 
 his recess. 
 
 Against so pertinent a sign, remonstrance was 
 as bootless as it is against the rigorous commands 
 of the Grand Turk, when he transmits an exiled 
 vizier to the Angel of Death, the Capichi Bashi 
 with the Silken Cord, to take delivery of his 
 head. The most rational procedure that can 
 be adopted in this critical case, is to comply 
 with necessity, put a good face on a bad busi- 
 ness, and with stoical composure let one's throat 
 be noosed. Franz honoured the Spectre's order ; 
 the coverlet, began to move, he sprang sharply 
 from his couch, and took the place pointed out 
 to him on the seat. However strange this quick 
 transition from the uttermost terror to the boldest 
 resolution may appear, I doubt not but Moritz 
 in his Psychological Journal could explain the 
 matter till it seemed quite natural. 
 
 Immediately the Goblin Barber tied the towel 
 about his shivering customer ; seized the comb 
 and scissors, and clipped off his hair and beard. 
 Then he soaped him scientifically, first the beard, 
 next the eye-brows, at last the temples and the 
 hind-head ; and shaved him from throat to nape, 
 as smooth and bald as a Death's-head. This 
 operation finished, he washed his head, dried 
 it clean, made his bow, and buttoned up his 
 scissor-pouch ; wrapped himself in his scarlet 
 mantle, and made for departing. The conse- 
 crated tapers had burnt with an exquisite bright- 
 ness through the whole transaction; and Franz, 
 by the light of them, perceived in the mirror 
 that the shaver had changed him into a Chinese 
 pagoda. In secret he heartily deplored the loss 
 of his fair brown locks; yet now took fresh 
 breath, as he observed that with this sacrifice 
 the account was settled, and the Ghost had no 
 more power over him. 
 
 So it was in fact; Redcloak went towards 
 the door, silently as he had entered, without 
 salutation or good-b'ye ; and seemed entirely the 
 contrast of his talkative guild -brethren. But 
 scarcely was he gone three steps, when he 
 paused, looked round with a mournful expres- 
 sion at his well -served customer, and stroked 
 the flat of his hand over his black bushy beard. 
 13* 
 
174 
 
 MUS AUS. 
 
 He did die same a second time; and again, just 
 as he was in the act of stepping out at the door. 
 A thought struck Franz that the Spectre wanted 
 something; and a rapid combination of ideas 
 suggested, that perhaps he was expecting the 
 very service he himself had just performed. 
 
 As the Ghost, notwithstanding his rueful look, 
 seemed more disposed for banter than for se- 
 riousness, and bad played his guest a scurvy 
 trick, not done him any real injury, the panic 
 of the latter had now almost subsided. So he 
 ventured the experiment, and beckoned to the 
 Ghost to take the seat from which he had him- 
 self just risen. The Goblin instantly obeyed, 
 threw ofF his cloak, laid his barber tackle on the 
 table, and placed himself in the chair, in the 
 posture of a man that wishes to be shaved. 
 Franz carefully observed the same procedure 
 which the Spectre had observed to him, clipped 
 his beard with the scissors, cropt away his hair, 
 lathered his whole scalp, and the Ghost all the 
 while sat steady as a wig-block. The awkward 
 journeyman came ill at handling the razor ; he 
 had never had another in his hand ; and he shore 
 the beard right against the hair ; whereat the 
 Goblin made as strange grimaces as Erasmus's 
 Ape, when imitating its master's shaving. Nor 
 was the unpractised bungler himself well at 
 ease, and he thought more than once of the sage 
 aphorism, What is not thy trade make not thy 
 business ; yet he struggled through the task, the 
 best way he could, and scraped the Ghost as 
 bald as he himself was. 
 
 Hitherto the scene between the Spectre and 
 the traveller had been played pantomimically ; 
 the action now became dramatic. " Stranger," 
 said the Ghost, " accept my thanks for the ser- 
 vice thou hast done me. By thee I am delivered 
 from the long imprisonment, which has chained 
 me for three hundred years within these walls ; 
 to which my departed soul was doomed, till a 
 mortal hand should consent to retaliate on me 
 what I practised on others in my lifetime. 
 
 " Know that of old a reckless scorner dwelt 
 within this tower, who took his sport on priests 
 as well as laics. Count Hardman, such his 
 name, was no philanthropist, acknowledged no 
 superior and no law, but practised vain caprice 
 and waggery, regarding not the sacredness of 
 hospitable rights: the wanderer who came be- 
 neath his roof, the needy man who asked a cha- 
 ritable alms of him, he never sent away unvi- 
 sited by wicked joke. I was his Castle Barber, 
 still a willing instrument, and did whatever 
 pleased him. Many a pious pilgrim, journeying 
 past us, I allured with friendly speeches to the 
 hall; prepared the bath for him, and when he 
 thought to take good comfort, shaved him smooth 
 and bald, and packed him out of doors. Then 
 would Count Hardman, looking from the win- 
 dow, see with pleasure how the foxes' whelps 
 of children gathered from the hamlet to assail 
 the outcast, and to cry as once their fellows to 
 Elijah: 'Baldhead! Baldhead !' In this the 
 scoffer took his pleasure, laughing with a devil- 
 
 ish joy, till he would hold his pot-paunch, and 
 his eyes ran down with water. 
 
 "Once came a saintly man, from foreign 
 lands ; he carried, like a penitent, a heavy cross 
 upon his shoulder, and had stamped five nail- 
 marks on his hands, and feet, and side ; upon 
 his head there was a ring of hair like to the 
 Crown of Thorns. He called upon us here, re- 
 questing water for his feet, and a small crust of 
 bread. Immediately I took him to the bath, to 
 serve him in my common way ; respected not 
 the sacred ring, but shore it clean from off him. 
 Then the pious pilgrim spoke a heavy malison 
 upon me : ' Know, accursed man, that when 
 thou diest, Heaven, and Hell, and Purgatory's 
 iron gate, are shut against thy soul. As goblin 
 it shall rage within these walls, till unrequired, 
 unbid, a traveller come and exercise retaliation 
 on thee.' 
 
 " That hour I sickened, and the marrow in 
 my bones dried up ; I faded like a shadow. My 
 spirit left the wasted carcase, and was exiled to 
 this Castle, as the saint had doomed it. In vain 
 I struggled for deliverance from the torturing 
 bonds that fettered me to Earth ; for thou must 
 know, that when the soul forsakes her clay, she 
 panteth for her place of rest, and this sick long- 
 ing spins her years to aeons, while in foreign 
 elements she languishes for home. Now self- 
 tormenting, I pursued the mournful occupation 
 I had followed in my lifetime. Alas ! my up- 
 roar soon made desolate this house ! But seldom 
 came a pilgrim here to lodge. And though I 
 treated all like thee, no one would understand 
 me, and perform, as thou, the service which has 
 freed my soul from bondage. Henceforth shall 
 no hobgoblin wander in this Castle ; I return to 
 my long-wished-for rest. And now, young stran- 
 ger, once again my thanks, that thou hast loosed 
 me ! Were I keeper of deep-hidden treasures, 
 they were thine ; but wealth in life was not my 
 lot, nor in this Castle lies there any cash en- 
 tombed. Yet mark my counsel. Tarry here 
 till beard and locks again shall cover chin and 
 scalp ; then turn thee homewards to thy native 
 town ; and on the Weser-bridge of Bremen, at 
 the time when day and night in Autumn are 
 alike, wait for a Friend, who there will meet 
 thee, who will tell thee what to do, that it be 
 well with thee on Earth. If from the golden 
 horn of plenty, blessing and abundance flow to 
 thee, then think of me ; and ever as the day 
 thou freedst me from the curse comes round, 
 cause for my soul's repose three masses to be 
 said. Now fare thee well. I go, no more re- 
 turning."* 
 
 With these words the Ghost, having by his 
 copiousness of talk satisfactorily attested his for- 
 mer existence as court-barber in the Castle of 
 Rummelsburg, vanished into air, and left his 
 deliverer full of wonder at the strange adven- 
 
 * I know not whether the reader has observed that our 
 Author makes the Spectre speak in iambics, a whim which 
 here and there comes over him in other tales also.— Wie- 
 land. 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 lib 
 
 ture. He stood for a long while motionless ; in 
 doubt whether the whole matter had actually- 
 happened, or an unquiet dream had deluded 
 his senses ; but his bald head convinced him 
 that here had been a real occurrence. He re- 
 turned to bed, and slept, after the fright he had 
 undergone, till the hour of noon. The treacher- 
 ous Landlord had been watching since morning, 
 when the traveller with the scalp was to come 
 forth, that he might receive him with jibing 
 speeches under pretext of astonishment at his 
 nocturnal adventure. But as the stranger loitered 
 too long, and mid-day was approaching, the 
 affair became serious ; and Mine Host began to 
 dread that the Goblin might have treated his 
 guest a little harshly, have beaten him to a jelly 
 perhaps, or so frightened, him that he had died 
 of terror ; and to carry his wanton revenge to 
 such a length as this had not been his intention. 
 He therefore rung his people together, hastened 
 out with man and maid to the tower, and reach- 
 ed the door of the apartment where he had 
 observed the light on the previous evening. He 
 found an unknown key in the lock ; but the door 
 was barred within, for after the disappearance 
 of the Goblin, Franz had again secured it. He 
 knocked with a perturbed violence, till the Se- 
 ven Sleepers themselves would have awoke at 
 the din. Franz started up, and thought in his 
 first confusion that the Ghost was again stand- 
 ing at the door, to favour him with another call. 
 But hearing Mine Host's voice, who required 
 nothing more but that his guest would give some 
 sign of life, he gathered himself up and opened 
 the room. 
 
 With seeming horror at the sight of him, Mine 
 Host, striking his hands together, exclaimed : 
 "By Heaven and all the saints! Redcloak" (by 
 this name the Ghost was known among them) 
 "has been here, and has shaved you bald as a 
 block! Now, it is clear as day that the old story 
 is no fable. But tell me how looked the Goblin : 
 what did he say to you 1 ? what did he do?" 
 
 Franz, who had now seen through the ques- 
 tioner, made answer : " The Goblin looked like 
 a man in a red cloak ; what he did is not hidden 
 from you, and what he said I well remember: 
 1 Stranger,' said he, ' trust no innkeeper who is 
 a Turk in grain. What would befall thee here 
 he knew. Be wise and happy. I withdraw 
 from this my ancient dwelling, for my time is 
 run. Henceforth no goblin riots here; I now 
 become a silent Incubus, to plague the Landlord ; 
 nip him, tweak him, harass him, unless the 
 Turk do expiate his sin ; do freely give thee 
 prog and lodging till brown locks again shall 
 cluster round thy head.''* 
 
 The Landlord shuddered at these words, cut 
 a large cross in the air before him, vowed by 
 the Holy Virgin to give the traveller free board 
 so long as he liked to continue, led him over to 
 his house, and treated him with the best. By 
 
 * Here, too, on the spectre's score, Franz makes extem- 
 pore iambics.— Wieland. 
 
 this adventure, Franz had well nigh got the re- 
 putation of a conjurer, as the spirit thenceforth 
 never once showed face. He often passed the 
 night in the tower ; and a desperado of the vil- 
 lage once kept him company, without having 
 beard or scalp disturbed. The owner of the 
 place, having learned that Redcloak no longer 
 walked in Rummelsburg, was, of course, de- 
 lighted at the news, and ordered that the stran- 
 ger, who, as he supposed, had laid him, should 
 be well taken care of. 
 
 By the time when the clusters were beginning 
 to be coloured on the vine, and the advancing 
 autumn reddened the apples, Franz's brown 
 locks were again curling over his temples, and 
 he girded up his knapsack; for all his thoughts 
 and meditations were turned upon the Weser- 
 bridge, to seek the Friend, who, at the behest 
 of the Goblin Barber, was to direct him how to 
 make his fortune. When about taking leave of 
 Mine Host, that charitable person led from his 
 stable a horse well saddled and equipt, which 
 the owner of the Castle had presented to the 
 stranger, for having made his house again habit- 
 able ; nor had the Count forgot to send a suffi- 
 cient purse along with it, to bear its travelling 
 charges; and so Franz came riding back into 
 his native city, brisk and light of heart, as he 
 had ridden out of it twelve months ago. He 
 sought out his old quarters in the alley, but 
 kept himself quite still and retired ; only in- 
 quiring underhand how matters stood with the 
 fair Meta, whether she was still alive and un- 
 wedded. To this inquiry he received a satis- 
 factory answer, and contented himself with it 
 in the meanwhile; for, till his fate were de- 
 cided, he would not risk appearing in her sight, 
 or making known to her his arrival in Bremen. 
 
 With unspeakable longing, he waited the 
 equinox ; his impatience made every interven- 
 ing day a year. At last the long-wished-for term 
 appeared. The night before, he could not close 
 an eye, for thinking of the wonders that were 
 coming. The blood was whirling and beating 
 in his arteries, as it had done at the Castle of 
 Rummelsburg, when he lay in expectation of 
 his spectre visitant. To be sure of not missing 
 his expected Friend, he rose by day-break, and 
 proceeded with the earliest dawn to the Weser- 
 bridge, which as yet stood empty, and untrod 
 by passengers. He walked along it several 
 times in solitude, with that presentiment of 
 coming gladness, which includes in it the real 
 enjoyment of all terrestrial felicity; for it is not 
 the attainment of our wishes, but the undoubted 
 hope of attaining them, which offers to the 
 human soul the full measure of highest and 
 most heart-felt satisfaction. He formed many 
 projects as to how he should present himself to 
 his beloved Meta, when his looked-for happi- 
 ness should have arrived ; whether it would be 
 better to appear before her in full splendour, or 
 to mount from his former darkness with the 
 first gleam of morning radiance, and discover 
 to her by degrees the change in his condition. 
 
176 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 Curiosity, moreover, put a thousand questions 
 to Reason in regard to the adventure. Who can 
 the Friend he that is to meet me on the Weser- 
 bridgel Will it he one of my old acquaintances, 
 by whom, since my ruin, I have been entirely 
 forgotten? How will he pave the way to me 
 for happiness? And will this way be short or 
 long, easy or toilsome? To the whole of which 
 Reason, in spite of all her thinking and specu- 
 lating, answered not a word. 
 
 In about an hour, the Bridge began to get 
 awake; there was riding, driving, walking to 
 and fro on it; and much commercial ware 
 passing this way and that. The usual day- 
 guard of beggars and importunate persons also 
 by degrees took up this post, so favourable for 
 their trade, to levy contributions on the public 
 benevolence ; for of poor-houses and work- 
 houses, the wisdom of the legislature had as 
 yet formed no scheme. The first of the tatter- 
 ed cohort that applied for alms to the jovial 
 promenader, from whose eyes gay hope laughed 
 forth, was a discharged soldier, provided with 
 the military badge of a timber leg, which had 
 been lent him, seeing he had fought so stoutly 
 in former days for his native country, as the 
 recompense of his valour, with the privilege of 
 begging where he pleased; and who now, in 
 the capacity of physiognomist, pursued the 
 study of man upon the Weser-bridge, with such 
 success, that he very seldom failed in his at- 
 tempts for charity. Nor did his exploratory 
 glance in anywise mislead him in the present 
 instance; for Franz, in the joy of his heart, 
 threw a white engelgroschen into the cripple's 
 hat. 
 
 During the morning hours, when none but 
 the laborious artisan is busy, and the more 
 exalted townsman still lies in sluggish rest, he 
 scarcely looked for his promised Friend; he 
 expected him in the higher classes, and took 
 little notice of the present passengers. About 
 the council-hour, however, when the Proceres 
 of Bremen were driving past to the hall, in 
 their gorgeous robes of office, and about ex- 
 change-time, he w r as all eye and ear; he spied 
 the passengers from afar ; and when a right 
 man came along the bridge, his blood began to 
 flutter, and he thought here was the creator of 
 his fortune. Meanwhile hour after hour passed 
 on ; the sun rose high ; ere long the noontide 
 brought a pause in business ; the rushing crowd 
 faded away ; and still the expected Friend ap- 
 peared not. Franz now walked up and down 
 the Bridge quite alone; had no society in view 
 but the beggars, who were serving out their 
 cold collations, without moving from the place. 
 He made no scruple to do the same ; and, not 
 being furnished with provisions, he purchased 
 some fruit, and took his dinner inter ambulan- 
 dum. 
 
 The whole club that was dining on the 
 Weser-bridge had remarked the young man, 
 watching here from early morning till noon, 
 without addressing any one, or doing any sort 
 
 of business. They held him to be a lounger; 
 and though all of them had tasted his bounty, 
 he did not escape their critical remarks. In 
 jest, they had named him the Bridge-bailiff. 
 The physiognomist with the timber-toe, how- 
 ever, noticed that his countenance was not now 
 so gay as in the morning; he appeared to be 
 reflecting earnestly on something; he had drawn 
 his hat close over his face ; his movement was 
 slow and thoughtful ; he had nibbled at an ap- 
 ple-rind for some time, without seeming to be 
 conscious that he was doing so. From this ap- 
 pearance of affairs, the man-spier thought he 
 might extract some profit; therefore he put his 
 wooden and his living leg in motion, and stilted 
 off to the other end of the Bridge, and lay in 
 wait for the thinker, that he might assail him, 
 under the appearance of a new arrival, for a 
 fresh alms. This invention prospered to the 
 full : the musing philosopher gave no heed to 
 the mendicant, put his hand into his pocket 
 mechanically, and threw a six-groat piece into 
 the fellow's hat, to be rid of him. 
 
 In the afternoon, a thousand new faces once 
 more came abroad. The watcher was now 
 tired of his unknown Friend's delaying, yet 
 hope still kept his attention on the stretch. He 
 stept into the view of every passenger, hoped 
 that one of them would clasp him in his arms; 
 but all proceeded coldly on their way ; the most 
 did not observe him at all, and few returned 
 his salute with a slight nod. The sun was 
 already verging to decline, the shadows were 
 becoming longer, the crowd upon the Bridge 
 diminished; and the beggar-piquet by degrees 
 drew back into their barracks in the Matten- 
 burg. A deep sadness sank upon the hopeless 
 Franz, when he saw his expectation mocked, 
 and the lordly prospect which had lain before 
 him in the morning, vanish from his eyes at 
 evening. He fell into a sort of sulky despera- 
 tion ; was on the point of springing over the 
 parapet, and dashing himself down from the 
 Bridge into the river. But the thought of Meta 
 kept him back, and induced him to postpone 
 his purpose till he had seen her yet once more. 
 He resolved to watch next day when she should 
 go to church, for the last time to drink delight 
 from her looks, and then forthwith to still his 
 warm love for ever in the cold stream of the 
 Weser. 
 
 While about to leave the Bridge, he was met 
 by the invalided pikeman with the wooden leg, 
 who, for pastime, had been making many 
 speculations as to what could be the young 
 man's object, that had made him watch upon 
 the Bridge from dawn to darkness. He him- 
 self had lingered beyond his usual time, that he 
 might wait him out ; but as the matter hung too 
 long upon the pegs, curiosity incited him to turn 
 to the youth himself, and question him respect- 
 ing it. 
 
 " No offence, young gentleman, 1 ' said he : 
 "allow me to ask you a question." 
 
 Franz, who was not in a very talking humour, 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 177 
 
 and was now meeting, from the mouth of a 
 cripple, the address which he had looked for 
 with such longing from a friend, answered 
 rather testily: " Well, then, what is it? Speak, 
 old gray beard !" 
 
 "We two," said the other, "were the first 
 upon the Bridge to-day, and now, you see, we 
 are the last. As to me and others of my kidney, 
 it is our vocation brings us hither, our trade of 
 alms-gathering; but for you, in sooth you are 
 not of our guild ; yet you have watched here 
 the whole blessed day. Now I pray you, tell 
 me, if it is not a secret, what it is that brings 
 you hither ; or what stone is lying on your heart, 
 that you wished to roll away." 
 
 " What good were it to thee, old blade," said 
 Franz, bitterly, " to know where the shoe pinches 
 me, or what concern is lying on my heart ? It 
 will give thee small care." 
 
 " Sir, I have a kind wish towards you, be- 
 cause you opened your hand to me, and twice 
 gave me alms, for which God reward you; but 
 your countenance at night was not so cheerful 
 as in the morning, and that grieves my heart." 
 
 The kindly sympathy of this old warrior 
 pleased the misanthrope, so that he willingly 
 pursued the conversation. 
 
 " Why, then," answered he, " if thou wouldst 
 know what has made me battle here all day 
 with tedium, thou must understand that I was 
 waiting for a Friend, who appointed me hither, 
 and now leaves me to expect in vain." 
 
 " Under favour," answered Timbertoe, " if I 
 might speak my mind, this Friend of yours, be he 
 who he like, is little better than a rogue, to lead 
 you such a dance. If he treated me so, by my 
 faith, his crown should get acquainted with my 
 crutch next time we met. If he could not keep 
 bis word, he should have let you know, and not 
 bamboozled you as if you were a child." 
 
 " Yet I cannot altogether blame this Friend," 
 said Franz, " for being absent : he did not pro- 
 mise ; it was but a dream that told me I should 
 meet him here." 
 
 The goblin tale was too long for him to tell, 
 so he veiled it under cover of a dream. 
 
 "Ah! that is another story," said the beggar; 
 "if you build on dreams, it is little wonder that 
 your hope deceives you. I myself have dream- 
 ed much foolish stuff in my time; but I was 
 never such a madman as to heed it. Had I all 
 the treasures that have been allotted to me in 
 dreams, I might buy the city of Bremen, were 
 it sold by auction. But I never credited a jot 
 of them, or stirred hand or foot to prove their 
 worth or worthlessness : I knew well it would 
 be lost. Ha ! I must really laugh in your face, 
 to think that on the order of an empty dream, 
 you have squandered a fair day of your life, 
 which you might have spent better at a merry 
 banquet." 
 
 " The issue shows that thou art right, old 
 man, and that dreams many times deceive. 
 But," continued Franz, defensively, " I dreamed 
 so vividly and circumstantially, above three 
 x 
 
 months ago, that on this very day, in this very 
 place, I should meet a Friend, who would tell 
 me things of the deepest importance, that it 
 was well worth while to come and see if it would 
 come to pass." 
 
 "0, as for vividness," said Timbertoe, "no 
 man can dream more vividly than I. There is 
 one dream I had, which I shall never in my 
 life forget. I dreamed, who knows how many 
 years ago, that my Guardian Angel stood before 
 my bed in the figure of a youth, with golden 
 hair, and two silver wings on his back, and said 
 to me : * Berthold, listen to the words of my 
 mouth, that none of them be lost from thy heart. 
 There is a, treasure appointed thee, which thou 
 shalt dig, to comfort thy heart withal for the re- 
 maining days of thy life. To-morrow, about 
 evening, when the sun is going down, take spade 
 and shovel on thy shoulder ; go forth from the 
 Mattenburg on the right, across the Tieber, by 
 the Balkenbrucke, past the Cloister of St. John's, 
 and on to the Great Roland.* Then take thy 
 way over the Court of the Cathedral, through 
 the Schusselkorb, till thou arrive without the 
 city at a garden, which has this mark, that a 
 stair of three stone steps leads down from the 
 highway to its gate. Wait by a side, in secret, 
 till the sickle of the moon shall shine on thee, 
 then push with the strength of a man against 
 the weak-barred gate, which will resist thee 
 little. Enter boldly into the garden, and turn 
 thee to the vine trellices which overhang the 
 covered-walk ; behind this, on the left, a tall 
 apple-tree overtops the lowly shrubs. Go to the 
 trunk of this tree, thy face turned right against 
 the moon : look three ells before thee on the 
 ground, thou shalt see two cinnamon-rose bushes ; 
 there strike in, and dig three spans deep, till 
 thou find a stone plate ; under this lies the trea- 
 sure, buried in an iron chest, full of money, and 
 money's worth. Though the chest be heavy and 
 clumsy, avoid not the labour of lifting it from 
 its bed ; it will reward thy trouble well, if thou 
 seek the key which lies hid beneath it.' " 
 
 In astonishment at what he heard, Franz 
 stared and gazed upon the dreamer, and could 
 not have concealed his amazement, had not the 
 dusk of night been on his side. By every mark 
 in the description, he had recognized his own 
 garden, left him by his father. It had been the 
 good man's hobby in his life ; but on this ac- 
 count had little pleased his son; according to 
 the rule that son and father seldom sympathize 
 in their favourite pursuit, unless indeed it be a 
 vice, in which case, as the adage runs, the apple 
 often falls at no great distance from the trunk. 
 Father Melchior had himself laid out this gar- 
 
 * The rude figure of a man in armour, usually erected 
 in the public square, or market place of old German 
 towns, is called the Folandsaule, or Rutlandsiiule, from 
 its supposed reference to Roland the famous Peer of 
 Charlemagne. The proper and ancient name, it seems, 
 is Rugelandsdule, or Pillar of Judgment ; and the stone 
 indicated, of old, that the town possessed an independent 
 jurisdiction.— .E<Z. 
 
178 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 den, altogether to his own taste, in a style as 
 wonderful and varied as that of his great-great- 
 grandson, who has immortalized his paradise 
 hy an original description in Hirschfeldts Garden- 
 Calendar. He had not, it is true, set up in it 
 any painted menagerie for the deception of the 
 eye ; but he kept a very large one, notwithstand- 
 ing, of springing-horses, winged-lions, eagles, 
 griffins, unicorns, and other wondrous beasts, 
 all stamped on pure gold, which he carefully 
 concealed from every eye, and had hid in their 
 iron case beneath the ground. This paternal 
 Tempe the wasteful son, in the days of his ex- 
 travagance, had sold for an old song. 
 
 To Franz, the pikeman had at once become 
 extremely interesting, as he perceived that this 
 was the very Friend, to whom the Goblin in 
 the Castle of Rummelsburg had consigned him. 
 Gladly could he have embraced the veteran, 
 and in the first rapture called him friend and 
 father : but he restrained himself, and found it 
 more advisable to keep his thoughts about this 
 piece of news to himself. So he said: "Well, 
 this is what I call a circumstantial dream. But 
 what didst thou do, old master, in the morning, 
 on awakening? Didst thou not follow whither 
 thy Guardian Angel beckoned thee?" 
 
 " Pooh," said the dreamer, " why should I 
 toil, and have my labour for my pains ? It was 
 nothing, after all, but a mere dream. If my 
 Guardian Angel had a fancy for appearing to 
 me, I have had enow of sleepless nights in my 
 time, when he might have found me waking. 
 But he takes little charge of me, I think, else I 
 should not, to his shame, be going hitching here 
 on a wooden leg." 
 
 Franz took out the last piece of silver he had 
 on him: "There," said he, "old father, take 
 this other gift from me, to get thee a pint of 
 wine for evening-cup ; thy talk has scared away 
 my ill humour. Neglect not diligently to fre- 
 quent this Bridge ; we shall see each other here, 
 I hope, again." 
 
 The lame old man had not gathered so rich a 
 stock of alms for many a day, as he was now 
 possessed of; he blessed his benefactor for his 
 kindness, hopped away into a drinking-shop, to 
 do himself a good turn; while Franz, enlivened 
 with new hope, hastened off to his lodging in 
 the alley. 
 
 Next day he got in readiness everything that 
 is required for treasure-digging. The unessential 
 equipments, conjurations, magic-formulas, magic- 
 girdles, hieroglyphic characters, and such like, 
 were entirely wanting : but these are not indis- 
 pensable, provided there be no failure in the 
 three main requisites : shovel, spade, and before 
 all — a treasure underground. The necessary 
 implements he carried to the place a little be- 
 fore sunset, and hid them for the meanwhile in 
 a hedge ; and as to the treasure itself, he had 
 the firm conviction that the Goblin in the Castle, 
 and the Friend on the Bridge, would prove no 
 liars to him. With longing impatience he ex- 
 pected the rising of the moon ; and no sooner 
 
 did she stretch her silver horns over the bushes, 
 than he briskly set to work, observing exactly 
 everything the Invalid had taught him; and 
 happily accomplished the raising of the trea- 
 sure, without meeting any adventure in the pro- 
 cess, without any black dog having frightened 
 him, or any bluish flame having lighted him to 
 the spot. 
 
 Father Melchior, in providently burying this 
 penny for a rainy day, had nowise meant that 
 his son should be deprived of so considerable a 
 part of his inheritance. The mistake lay in this, 
 that Death had escorted the testator out of the 
 world in another way than said testator had 
 expected. He had been completely convinced, 
 that he should take his journey, old and full of 
 days, after regulating his temporal concerns 
 with all the formalities of an ordinary sick-bed ; 
 for so it had been prophesied to him in his 
 youth. In consequence he purposed, when, 
 according to the usage of the Church, extreme 
 unction should have been dispensed to him, to 
 call his beloved son to his bed-side, having pre- 
 viously dismissed all bystanders ; there to give 
 him the paternal blessing, and by way of fare- 
 well memorial direct him to this treasure buried 
 in the garden. All this, too, would have hap- 
 pened in just order, if the light of the good old 
 man had departed, like that of a wick whose 
 oil is done; but as Death had privily snuffed 
 him out at a feast, he undesignedly took along 
 with him his Mammon secret to the grave ; and 
 almost as many fortunate concurrences were 
 required before the secreted patrimony could 
 arrive at the proper heir, as if it had beeti for- 
 warded to its address by the hand of Justice 
 itself. 
 
 With immeasurable joy the treasure-digger 
 took possession of the shapeless Spanish pieces, 
 which, with a vast multitude of other finer 
 coins, the iron chest had faithfully preserved. 
 When the first intoxication of delight had in 
 some degree evaporated, he bethought him how 
 the treasure was to be transported, safe and 
 unobserved, into the narrow alley. The burden 
 was too heavy to be carried without help ; thus, 
 with the possession of riches, all the cares at- 
 tendant on them were awakened. The new 
 Croesus found no better plan, than to entrust his 
 capital to the hollow trunk of a tree that stood 
 behind the garden, in a meadow : the empty 
 chest he again huried under the rose-bush, and 
 smoothed the place as well as possible. In the 
 space of three days, the treasure had been faith- 
 fully transmitted by instalments from the hollow 
 tree into the narrow alley; and now the owner 
 of it thought he might with honour lay aside his 
 strict incognito. He dressed himself with the 
 finest; had his Prayer displaced from the church; 
 and required, instead of it, " a Christian Thanks- 
 giving for a Traveller, on returning to his native 
 town, after happily arranging his affairs." He 
 hid himself in a corner of the church, where he 
 could observe the fair Meta, without himself 
 being seen ; he turned not his eye from the 
 
MUSAUS. 
 
 179 
 
 maiden, and drank from her looks the actual 
 rapture, which in foretaste had restrained him 
 from the hrealc-neck somerset on the Bridge of 
 the Weser. When the Thanksgiving came in 
 hand, a glad sympathy shone forth from all her 
 features, and the cheeks of the virgin glowed 
 with joy. The customary greeting on the way 
 homewards was so full of emphasis, that even 
 to the third party who had noticed them, it 
 would have heen intelligible. 
 
 Franz now appeared once more on the Ex- 
 change ; began a branch of trade, which in a 
 few weeks extended to the great scale ; and as 
 his wealth became daily more apparent, Neigh- 
 bour Grudge, the scandal-chewer, was obliged 
 to conclude, that in the cashing of his old debts, 
 he must have had more luck than sense. He 
 hired a large house, fronting the Roland, in the 
 Market-place ; engaged clerks and warehouse- 
 men, and carried on his trade unweariedly. 
 Now the sorrowful populace of parasites again 
 diligently handled the knocker of his door ; ap- 
 peared in crowds, and suffocated him with 
 assurances of friendship, and joy-wishings on 
 his fresh prosperity ; imagined they should once 
 more catch him in their robber claws. But ex- 
 perience had taught him wisdom ; he paid them 
 in their own coin, feasted their false friendship 
 on smooth words, and dismissed them with 
 fasting stomachs; which sovereign means for 
 scaring off the cumbersome brood of pickthanks 
 and toad-eaters, produced the intended effect, 
 that they betook themselves elsewhither. 
 
 In Bremen, the remounting Melcherson had 
 become the story of the day ; the fortune which 
 in some inexplicable manner he had realized, 
 as was supposed, in foreign parts, was the sub- 
 ject-matter of all conversations at formal din- 
 ners, in the Courts of Justice, and at the Ex- 
 change. But in proportion as the fame of his 
 fortune and affluence increased, the contented- 
 ness and peace of mind of the fair Meta dimin- 
 ished. The friend in petto was now, in her 
 opinion, well qualified to speak a plain word. 
 Yet still his Love continued Dumb ; and except 
 the greeting on the way from church, he gave 
 no tidings of himself. Even this sort of visit 
 was becoming rarer; and such aspects were 
 the sign not of warm, but of cold weather in 
 the atmosphere of Love. Jealousy,* the baleful 
 Harpy, fluttered round her little room by night, 
 and when sleep was closing her blue eyes, 
 croaked many a dolorous presage into the ear 
 of the re-awakened Meta. " Forego the flatter- 
 ing hope of binding an inconstant heart, which, 
 like a feather, is the sport of every wind. He 
 loved thee, and was faithful to thee, while his 
 lot was as thy own: like only draws to like. 
 Now a propitious destiny exalts the Changeful 
 far above thee. Ah ! now he scorns the truest 
 thoughts in mean apparel, now that pomp, and 
 wealth, and splendour dazzle him once more; 
 
 * Jealousy, too, (at bottom a very sad spectre, but not 
 here introduced as one), now croaks in iambics, us the 
 Goblin Barber lately spoke in ihem.—Wielaud. 
 
 and courts, who knows what haughty fair one 
 that disdained him when he lay among the 
 pots, and now with siren call allures him back 
 to her. Perhaps her cozening voice has turned 
 him from thee, speaking with false words: 'For 
 thee, God's garden blossoms in thy native town : 
 friend, thou hast now thy choice of all our 
 maidens ; choose with prudence, not by the eye 
 alone. Of girls are many, and of fathers many, 
 who in secret lie in wait for thee; none will 
 withhold his darling daughter. Take happiness 
 and honour with the fairest; likewise birth and 
 fortune. The councillor dignity awaits thee, 
 where vote of friends is potent in the city.' " 
 
 These suggestions of Jealousy disturbed and 
 tormented her heart without ceasing: she re- 
 viewed her fair contemporaries in Bremen, 
 estimated the ratio of so many splendid matches 
 to herself and her circumstances; and there- 
 suit was far from favourable. The first tidings 
 of her lover's change of situation had in secret 
 charmed her ; not in the selfish view of be- 
 coming participatress in a large fortune ; but 
 for her mother's sake, who had abdicated all 
 hopes of earthly happiness, ever since the mar- 
 riage project with neighbour Hop-King had 
 made shipwreck. But now poor Meta wished 
 that Heaven had not heard the Prayer of the 
 Church, or granted to the traveller any such 
 abundance of success ; but rather kept him by 
 the bread and salt, which he would willingly 
 have shared with her. 
 
 The fair half of the species are by no means 
 calculated to conceal an inward care : Mother 
 Brigitta soon observed the trouble of her 
 daughter ; and without the use of any great 
 penetration, likewise guessed its cause. The 
 talk about the re-ascending star of her former 
 flax-negotiator, who was now celebrated as the 
 pattern of an orderly, judicious, active trades- 
 man, had not escaped her, any more than the 
 feeling of the good Meta towards him ; and it 
 was her opinion, that if he loved in earnest, it 
 was needless to hang off so long, without ex- 
 plaining what he meant. Yet out of tender- 
 ness to her daughter, she let no hint of this dis- 
 covery escape her; till at length poor Meta's 
 heart became so full, that of her own accord 
 she made her mother the confident of her sor- 
 row, and disclosed to her its true origin. The 
 shrewd old lady learned little more by this dis- 
 closure than she knew already. But it afforded 
 opportunity to mother and daughter for a full, 
 fair, and free discussion of this delicate affair. 
 Brigitta made her no reproaches on the subject; 
 she believed that what was done could not be 
 undone ; and directed all her eloquence to 
 strengthen and encourage the dejected Meta to 
 bear the failure of her hopes with a steadfast 
 mi rid. 
 
 With this view, she spelt out to her the ex- 
 tremely reasonable moral a, 6, ab ; discoursing 
 thus: "My child, thou hast already said a, thou 
 must now say b too; thou hast scorned thy for- 
 tune when it sought thee, now thou must sub 
 
180 
 
 MUSAUS. 
 
 mit when it will meet thee no longer. Ex- 
 perience has taught me, that the most confident 
 Hope is the first to deceive us. Therefore, fol- 
 low my example; abandon the fair cozener 
 utterly, and thy peace of mind will no longer 
 be disturbed by her. Count not on any im- 
 provement of thy fate ; and thou wilt grow con- 
 tented with thy present situation. Honour the 
 spinning-wheel, which supports thee : what are 
 fortune and riches to thee, when thou canst do 
 without them ?" 
 
 Close on this stout oration followed a loud 
 humming symphony of snap-reel and spinning- 
 wheel, to makeup for the time lost in speaking. 
 Mother Brigitta was in truth philosophising 
 from the heart. After her scheme for the 
 restoration of her former affluence had gone to 
 ruin, she had so simplified the plan of her life, 
 that Fate could not perplex it any more. But 
 Metavvas still far from this philosophical centre 
 of indifference ; and hence this doctrine, con- 
 solation, and encouragement, affected her quite 
 otherwise than had been intended : the con- 
 scientious daughter now looked upon herself as 
 the destroyer of her mother's fair hopes, and 
 suffered from her own mind a thousand re- 
 proaches for this fault. Though she had never 
 adopted the maternal scheme of marriage, and 
 had reckoned only upon bread and salt in her 
 future wedlock ; yet, on hearing of her lover's 
 riches and spreading commerce, her diet-project 
 had directly mounted to six plates ; and it de- 
 lighted her to think, that by her choice she 
 should still realize her good mother's wish, and 
 see her once more planted in her previous 
 abundance. 
 
 This fair dream now vanished by degrees, 
 as Franz continued silent. To make matters 
 worse, there spread a rumour over all the city, 
 that he was furnishing his house in the most 
 splendid fashion for his marriage with a rich 
 Antwerp lady, who was already on her way to 
 Bremen. This Job*s-news drove the lovely 
 maiden from her last defence", she passed on 
 the apostate sentence of banishment from her 
 heart : and vowed from that hour never more 
 to think of him ; and as she did so, wetted the 
 twining thread with her tears. 
 
 In a heavy hour she was breaking this vow, 
 and thinking, against her will, of the faithless 
 lover: for she had just spun off a rock of flax; 
 and there was an old rhyme which had been 
 taught her by her mother for encouragement to 
 diligence : 
 
 Spin, daughterkin, spin, 
 Thy sweetheart 's within ! 
 
 which she always recollected when her rock 
 was done ; and along with it the memory of 
 the Deceitful necessarily occurred to her. In 
 this heavy hour, a finger rapped with a most 
 dainty patter at the door. Mother Brigitta look- 
 ed forth : the sweetheart was without. And 
 who could it be] Who else but neighbour 
 Franz, from the alley? He had decked himself 
 with a gallant wooing-suit; and his well-dress- 
 
 ed, thick brown locks shook forth perfume. 
 This stately decoration boded, at all events, 
 something else than flax-dealing. Mother Bri- 
 gitta started in alarm : she tried to speak, but 
 words failed her. Meta rose in trepidation 
 from her seat, blushed like a purple rose, and 
 was silent. Franz, however, had the power of 
 utterance ; to the soft adagio which he had in 
 former days trilled forth to her, he now ap- 
 pended a suitable text, and explained his dumb 
 love in clear words. Thereupon he made 
 solemn application for her to the mother ; jus- 
 tifying his proposal by the statement, that the 
 preparations in his house had been meant for 
 the reception of a bride, and that this bride was 
 the charming Meta. 
 
 The pointed old lady, having brought her 
 feelings once more into equilibrium, was for 
 protracting the affair to the customary term of 
 eight days for deliberation ; though joyful tears 
 were running down her cheeks, presaging no 
 impediment on her side, but rather answer of 
 approval. Franz, however, was so pressing in 
 his suit, that she fell upon a middle path be- 
 tween the wooer's ardour and maternal use and 
 wont, and empowered the gentle Meta to de- 
 cide in the affair according to her own good 
 judgment. In the virgin heart there had occur- 
 red, since Franz's entrance, an important revo- 
 lution. His presence here was the most speak- 
 ing proof of his innocence ; and as, in the course 
 of conversation, it distinctly came to light, that 
 his apparent coldness had been nothing else 
 than zeal and diligence in putting his commer- 
 cial affairs in order, and preparing what was 
 necessary for the coming nuptials, it followed 
 that the secret reconciliation would proceed 
 forthwith without any stone of stumbling in its 
 way. She acted with the outlaw, as Mother 
 Brigitta with her disposted spinning gear, or the 
 First-born Son of the Church with an exiled 
 Parliament; recalled him with honour to her 
 high-beating heart, and reinstated him in all his 
 former rights and privileges there. The decisive 
 three-lettered little word, that ratifies the happi- 
 ness of love, came gliding with such unspeak- 
 able grace from her soft lips, that the answered 
 lover could not help receiving it with a warm 
 melting kiss. 
 
 The tender pair had now time and opportu- 
 nity for deciphering all the hieroglyphics of their 
 mysterious love ; which afforded the most plea- 
 sant, conversation that ever two lovers carried 
 on. They found, what our commentators ought 
 to pray for, that they had always understood 
 and interpreted the text aright, without once 
 missing the true sense of their reciprocal pro- 
 ceedings. It cost the delighted bridegroom al- 
 most as great an effort to part from his charming 
 bride, as on the day when he set out on his cru- 
 sade to Antwerp. However, he had an impor- 
 tant walk to take; so at last it became time to 
 withdraw. 
 
 This walk was directed to the Weser-bridge, 
 to find Timbertoe, whom he had not forgotten, 
 
MUS AUS. 
 
 181 
 
 though he had long delayed to keep his word 
 to him. Sharply as the physiognomist, ever 
 since his interview with the open-handed 
 Bridge-bailiff, had been on the outlook, he could 
 never catch a glimpse of him among the pas- 
 sengers, although a second visit had been faith- 
 fully promised. Yet the figure of his benefactor 
 had not vanished from his memory. The mo- 
 ment he perceived the fair - apparelled youth 
 from a distance, he stilted towards him, and 
 gave him kindly welcome. Franz answered 
 his salutation, and said : " Friend, canst thou 
 take a walk with me into the Neustadt, to trans- 
 act a small affair? Thy trouble shall not be 
 unpaid." 
 
 "Ah! why not?" replied the old blade; 
 " though I have a wooden leg, I can step you 
 with it as stoutly as the lame dwarf that crept 
 round the city-common j* for the wooden leg, 
 you must know, has this good property, it never 
 tires. But excuse me a little while till Gray- 
 cloak is come: he never misses to pass along 
 the Bridge between day and night." 
 
 " What of Graycloak ?" inquired Franz : " let 
 me know about him." 
 
 " Graycloak brings me daily about nightfall a 
 silver groschen, I know not from whom. It is 
 of no use prying into things, so I never mind. 
 Sometimes it occurs to me Graycloak must be 
 the devil, and means to buy my soul with the 
 money. But, devil or no devil, what care I? 
 I did not strike him on the bargain, so it cannot 
 hold." 
 
 " I should not wonder," answered Franz, with 
 a smile, " if Graycloak were a piece of a knave. 
 But do thou follow me : the silver groschen shall 
 not fail thee." 
 
 Timbertoe set forth, hitched on briskly after 
 his guide, who conducted him up one street 
 and down another, to a distant quarter of the 
 city, near the wall ; then halted before a neat 
 little new-built house, and knocked at the door. 
 When it was opened : " Friend," said he, " thou 
 madest one evening of my life cheerful ; it is 
 just that I should make the evening of thy life 
 cheerful also. This house, with its appurte- 
 
 * There is an old tradition, that a neighbouring Coun- 
 tess promised in jest to give the Bremers as much land as 
 a cripple, who was just asking her for alms, would creep 
 round in a day. They took her at her word; and the 
 cripple crawled so well, that the town obtained this large 
 common by means of him. 
 
 nances, and the garden where it stands, are 
 thine; kitchen and cellar are full; an attendant 
 is appointed to wait upon thee ; and the silver 
 groschen, over and above, thou wilt find every 
 noon lying under thy plate. Nor will I hide 
 from thee that Graycloak was my servant, whom 
 I sent to give thee daily an honourable alms, 
 till I had got this house made ready for thee. 
 If thou like, thou mayest reckon me thy proper 
 Guardian Angel, since the other has not acted 
 to thy satisfaction." 
 
 He then led the old man into his dwelling, 
 where the table was standing covered, and 
 everything arranged for his convenience and 
 comfortable living. The grayhead was so as- 
 tonished at his fortune, that he could not un- 
 derstand or even believe it. That a rich man 
 should take such pity on a poor one, was incom- 
 prehensible : he felt disposed to take the whole 
 affair for magic or jugglery, till Franz removed 
 his doubts. A stream of thankful tears flowed 
 down the old man's cheeks ; and his benefactor, 
 satisfied with this, did not wait till he should 
 recover from his amazement and thank him in 
 words, but, after doing this angel-message, va- 
 nished from the old man's eyes, as angels are 
 wont ; and left him to piece together the affair 
 as he best could. 
 
 Next morning, in the habitation of the lovely 
 Meta, all was as a fair. Franz despatched to 
 her a crowd of merchants, jewellers, milliners, 
 lace-dealers, tailors, sutors, and semstresses, in 
 part to offer her all sorts of wares, in part their 
 own good services. She passed the whole day 
 in choosing stuffs, laces, and other requisites for 
 the condition of a bride, or being measured for 
 her various new apparel. The dimensions of 
 her dainty foot, her beautifully-formed arm, and 
 her slim waist, were as often and as carefully 
 meted, as if some skilful statuary had been tak- 
 ing from her the model for a Goddess of Love. 
 Meanwhile, the bridegroom went to appoint the 
 bans; and before three weeks were past, he led 
 his bride to the altar, with a solemnity by which 
 even the gorgeous wedding-pomp of the Hop- 
 King was eclipsed. Mother Brigitta had the 
 happiness of twisting the bridal-garland for her 
 virtuous Meta ; she completely attained her wish 
 of spending her woman's-summer in propitious 
 affluence ; and deserved this satisfaction, as a 
 recompense for one praiseworthy quality which 
 she possessed : She was the most tolerable mo- 
 ther-in-law that has ever been discovered. 
 
 16 
 
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS. 
 
 Born 1740. 
 
 This writer, better known in Germany by 
 the assumed name of Asrnus, is not usually 
 numbered with the Classics of his country, but 
 enjoyed a wider popularity than many who are 
 so ranked. He is eminently a writer of and for 
 the people, and would seem in some cases to 
 affect a certain "Jack Downing" rudeness for 
 the sake of rendering himself acceptable to un- 
 cultivated readers. But this sort of petulance, 
 with him, never degenerates into gross vul- 
 garity; and though we feel the want of refine- 
 ment in all his productions, he never positively 
 disgusts. The coarseness is in the manner, 
 never in the thought. For the rest, he is tho- 
 roughly healthy, and acts with tonic effect on 
 mind and heart. He is a humorist, never grace- 
 ful, but always genial, hearty, downright. He 
 resembles Jean Paul in childlike freshness of 
 feeling and nobility of sentiment; and com- 
 mends himself ' to every man's conscience' by 
 the pure morality and moral purpose which 
 pervade his writings; as also by his independent 
 
 Died 1815. 
 
 confession and defence of the popular religion, 
 in a period of which Tieck says, that religion 
 was then a contraband article in literature, and 
 was pardoned in Asmus only on account of his 
 genuine Germanism. 
 
 He was born at Reinfeld in Holstein, studied 
 at Jena, and spent the greater part of his life 
 as private citizen at Wandsbeck, where, under 
 the name of Asmus, he wrote for the Wands- 
 becker Bote, (Wandsbeck Messenger). In 1776, 
 he received the appointment of " Upper Land- 
 Commissioner" at Darmstadt, where he was 
 expected to edit a popular newspaper. But not 
 liking the situation he resigned it the following 
 year, and returned to Wandsbeck. In 1778, 
 he was made first inspector of the Schleswig- 
 Holstein bank at Altona, with the privilege of 
 residing at Wandsbeck. He died, aged seventy- 
 five, at the house of his son-in-law, the book- 
 seller Friedrich Perthes: Hamburg, January 
 21st, 1815. 
 
 DEDICATION TO FRIEND HAIN * 
 
 I have the honour, Sir, to be acquainted with 
 Mister, your brother; he is my good friend and 
 patron. I have also, it may be, other introduc- 
 tions to you ; but I think it best to come to you 
 directly, in person. You are not in favour of 
 introductions, and are not used to make many 
 compliments. 
 
 I am told there are people — they are called 
 men of strong minds — who never, in their life, 
 have troubled themselves about Hain ; and who, 
 behind his back, even mock at him and his thin 
 legs. I am not a man of strong mind. To tell 
 the truth, my blood runs cold whenever I look 
 at you, Sir. And yet I am willing to believe 
 that you are a good man, when one is sufficiently 
 acquainted with you ; and yet I seem to have a 
 kind of home-sickness and longing after thee, 
 thou old porter, Ruprecht, — that thou rnayest 
 one day come and loose my girdle and lay me 
 safely to rest in the place appointed, in expecta- 
 tion of better times. 
 
 * Death. Tr. 
 
 Here I 've been writing a little book, and I 
 bring it to you. It 's poetry and prose. Don't 
 know whether you are fond of poems. Should 
 hardly think you were, since, as a general thing, 
 you don't like jokes, and the times are past 
 when poems were anything more than jokes. 
 There are some things in the book which I hope 
 will not be wholly displeasing to you. The 
 greater part is mere setting, and trifling enter- 
 tainment. Do what you please with it. 
 
 Your hand, dear Hain! And when you draw 
 near at last, be not too hard upon me and my 
 friends. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT FOR SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 I am going to collect my works, like other 
 folks, and publish them. No one has asked me 
 to do so, it is true, as is sometimes the case ; and 
 I know better than any benevolent reader, how 
 little would be lost if my works should remain 
 as unknown as I am myself. But then sub- 
 scribing and publishing is so nice, and such a 
 
 (182) 
 
DIUS. 
 
 183 
 
 pleasure and honour for me and my old aunt! 
 Besides, it is every man's own choice whether 
 he will subscribe or not. Therefore, I mean to 
 publish them with the title, " Asmus omnia sua 
 secum portans, or Complete works of the Wands- 
 beck Carrier." ***** 
 
 I meant, at first, to have the portraits of all 
 the subscribers engraved in the frontispiece. 
 But they told me that would be inconvenient ; 
 so I gave it up. ***** 
 
 Finally, benevolent readers know, from the 
 Gbttinger Muscn-Almanach, where I sometimes 
 give myself another name, and particularly from 
 the Wandsbeck Carrier, what they are to expect ; 
 and it is not my fault if any one subscribes and 
 afterwards is dissatisfied. 
 
 Nov. 8th, 1774. Asmus. 
 
 SPECULATIONS ON NEW-YEARS' DAY. 
 
 A happy new year ! A happy new year to 
 my dear country, the land of old integrity and 
 truth ! A happy new year to friends and ene- 
 mies, Christians and Turks, Hottentots and 
 Cannibals! To all on whom God permits his 
 sun to rise and his rain to fall ! Also to the poor 
 negro slaves who have to work all day in the 
 hot sun. It 's wholly a glorious day, — the new- 
 years' day ! At other times, I can bear that a 
 man should be a little bit patriotic, and not make 
 court to other nations. True, one must not speak 
 evil of any nation. The wiser part are, every- 
 where, silent; and who would revile a whole 
 nation for the sake of the loud ones ? As I said, 
 I can bear at other times, that a man should be 
 a little patriotic ; but on new-year's day my 
 patriotism is dead as a mouse ; and it seems to 
 me on that day as if we were all brothers, and 
 had one Father who is in heaven; as if all the 
 goods of the world were water which God has 
 created for all men, as I once heard it said, &c. 
 
 And so I am accustomed, every new-years' 
 morning, to sit down on a stone by the way- 
 side, to scratch with my staff in the sand before 
 me, and to think of this and of that. Not of my 
 readers. I hold them in all honour ; but on new- 
 years' morning, on the stone by the way-side, I 
 think not of them ; but I sit there and think that 
 during the past year I saw the sun rise so often, 
 and the moon, — that I saw so many rainbows 
 and flowers, and breathed the air so often, and 
 drank from the brook, — and then I do not like 
 to look up, and I take, with both hands, my cap 
 from my head and look into that. 
 
 Then I think also of my acquaintance who 
 have died during the year; and how they can 
 talk now with Socrates and Numa, and other 
 men of whom I have heard so much good, and 
 with John Huss. And then it seems as if graves 
 opened round about me, and shadows with bald 
 crowns and long gray beards came out of them 
 and shook the dust out of their beards. That 
 must be the work of the " Everlasting Hunts- 
 
 man," who has his doings about the twelfth. 
 The old pious long-beards would fain sleep. 
 But a glad new year to your memory and to the 
 ashes in your graves!! 
 
 THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER. 
 
 FIRST AND SECOND PART. LEIPZIG. 1774. 
 
 Don't know whether it 's history or poetry. 
 It is all very natural, and has a way of drawing 
 the tears from one's head right movingly. Well, 
 love is a strange thing! It will not be played 
 with like a bird. I know it, how it goes through 
 body and life, and beats and rages in every vein, 
 and plays tricks with the head and reason. 
 
 Poor Werther ! He had else such fine con- 
 ceits and thoughts. Had he but taken a journey 
 to Paris or to Pekin ! But no ! He would not 
 leave the fire and the spit, and went round and 
 round it till he went to pieces. 
 
 And there 's the misery, that one can have 
 such talents and gifts, and yet be so weak. 
 Therefore they ought to make a turf-seat by his 
 grave under the Linden-tree by the church-yard 
 wall, that one might sit down upon it and lay 
 his head in his hand, and weep over human 
 weakness. But when thou hast finished weep- 
 ing, good gentle youth ! when thou hast finished 
 weeping, lift up thy head with joy, and place 
 thy hand against thy side! For there is such a 
 thing as Virtue. That too goes through body 
 and life, and beats and rages in every vein. She 
 is said not to be attainable without much earnest- 
 ness and conflict, and therefore not to be much 
 known or loved. But he who has her has a rich 
 reward in sunshine and frost and rain, and 
 when Friend Hain comes with his scythe. 
 
 ON PRAYER. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM A LETTER " TO MY FRIEND ANDREW." 
 
 To distort one's eyes in prayer does not seem 
 to me necessary; I hold it better to be natural. 
 But then one must not blame a man on that ac- 
 count, provided he is no hypocrite. But that a 
 man should make himself great and broad in 
 prayer, — that, it seems to me, deserves reproach, 
 and is not to be endured. One may have cou- 
 rage and confidence, but he must not be con- 
 ceited and wise in his own conceit; for if one 
 knows how to counsel and help himself, the 
 shortest way is to do it. Folding the hands is a 
 fine external decorum, and looks as if one sur- 
 rendered himself without capitulation, and laid 
 down his arms. But the inward, secret yearning, 
 billow-heaving, and wishing of the heart, — that, 
 in my opinion, is the chief thing in prayer ; and 
 therefore I cannot understand what people mean 
 who will not have us pray. It is just as if they 
 said one should not wish, or one should have no 
 
184 
 
 CLAUDIUS. 
 
 beard and no ears. That must be a blockhead 
 of a boy who should have nothing to ask of his 
 father, and who should deliberate the whole 
 day whether he will let it come to that extre- 
 mity. When the wish within you concerns you 
 nearly, Andrew, and is of a warm complexion, 
 it will not question long; it will overpower you 
 like a strong and armed man. It will just hurry 
 on a few rags of words, and knock at the door 
 of heaven. ****** 
 ******* 
 
 Whether the prayer of a moved soul can ac- 
 complish and effect anything, or whether the 
 Nexus Rerum does not allow of that, as some 
 learned gentlemen think — on that point I shall 
 enter into no controversy. I have great respect 
 for the Nexus Rerum, but I cannot help thinking 
 of Samson who left the Nexus of the gate-leaves 
 uninjured and carried the whole gate, as every 
 one knows, to the top of the hill. And, in short, 
 Andrew, I believe that the rain comes when it 
 is dry, and that the heart does not cry in vain 
 after fresh water, if we pray aright and are 
 rightly disposed. 
 
 " Our Father" is once for all the best prayer, 
 for you know who made it. But no man on 
 God's earth can pray it after him, precisely as 
 he meant it. We cripple it with a distant imita- 
 tion ; and each more miserably than the other. 
 But that matters not, Andrew, if we only mean 
 well; the dear God must do the best part at 
 any rate, and he knows how it ought to be. 
 Because you desire it, I will tell you sincerely 
 how I manage with " Our Father." But it seems 
 to me a very poor way, and I would gladly be 
 taught a better. 
 
 Do you see, when I am going to pray, I think 
 first of my late father, how he was so good and 
 loved so well to give to me. And then I picture 
 to myself the whole world as my Father's house, 
 and all the people in Europe, Asia, Africa and 
 America, are then, in my thoughts, my brothers 
 and sisters ; and God is sitting in heaven on a 
 golden chair, and has his right hand stretched 
 out over the sea to the end of the world, and 
 his left full of blessing and good ; and all around 
 the mountain-tops smoke — and then I begin: — 
 
 Our Father who art in heaven. 
 Hallowed be thy name. 
 Here I am already at fault. The Jews are 
 said to have known special mysteries respect- 
 ing the name of God. But I let all that be, and 
 only wish that the thought of God and every 
 trace by which we can recognise him, may be 
 great and holy above all things, to me and all 
 men. 
 
 Thy kingdom come. 
 Here I think of myself, how it drives hither 
 and thither within me, and now this governs 
 and now that; and that all is sorrow of heart 
 and I can light on no green branch. And then 
 I think how good it would be for me, if God 
 would put an end to all discord and govern me 
 himself. 
 
 Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth. 
 
 Here I picture to myself heaven and the holy 
 angels who do his will with joy, and no sorrow 
 touches them, and they know not what to do 
 for love and blessedness, and frolic night and 
 day; and then I think: if it were only so here 
 on the earth ! 
 
 Give us this day our daily bread. 
 Everybody knows what daily bread means, 
 and that one must eat as long as one is in the 
 world, and also that it tastes good. I think of 
 that. Perhaps too, my children occur to me, 
 how they love to eat and are so lively and joyful 
 at table. And then 1 pray that the dear God 
 would only give us something to eat. 
 
 Forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors. 
 
 It hurts when one receives an affront; and 
 revenge is sweet to man. It seems so to me, 
 too, and my inclination leads that way. But 
 then the wicked servant in the gospel passes 
 before my eyes and my heart fails, and I resolve 
 that I will forgive my fellow-servant and not 
 say a word to him about the hundred pence. 
 
 And lead us not into temptation. 
 
 Here I think of various instances where peo- 
 ple, in such and such circumstances, have stray- 
 ed from the good and have fallen ; and that it 
 would be no better with me. 
 
 But deliver us from evil. 
 
 Here I still think of temptations and that man 
 is so easily seduced and may stray from the 
 straight path. But at the same time 1 think of 
 all the troubles of life, of consumption and old 
 age, of the pains of child-birth, of gangrene and 
 insanity and the thousand-fold misery and heart- 
 sorrow that is in the world and that plagues and 
 tortures poor mortals, and there is none to help. 
 And you will find, Andrew ! if tears have not 
 come before, they will be sure to come here ; 
 and one can feel such a hearty yearning to be 
 away and can be so sad and cast down in one's 
 self, as if there were really no help at all. But 
 then one must pluck up courage again, lay the 
 hand upon the mouth and continue, as it were, 
 in triumph : 
 
 For thine is the kingdom and the power and the 
 glory forever. Amen. 
 
 A CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BETWEEN ME AND MY COUSIN RESPECTING ORTHODOXY AND IM- 
 PROVEMENTS IN RELIGION. 
 
 Highly Lamed, 
 
 Highly to be honoured Mr. Cousin,— 
 I have heard, for some time past, so much 
 about the religion of reason and the religion of 
 the bible, about orthodox and philosophical 
 Theologians, that my head turns round, and I 
 know no longer who is right and who is wrong. 
 
CLAUDIUS. 
 
 180 
 
 To mend religion with reason, — that, to be sure, 
 seems to me as if I should undertake to correct 
 the sun by my old wooden house-clock. But, 
 on the other hand, philosophy seems to me a 
 good thing, too; and much that is objected to 
 the orthodox strikes me as true. Mr. Cousin 
 wfll do me a real favour, if he will expound 
 this matter to me. Especially whether phi- 
 losophy is a broom to sweep the filth out of the 
 temple; and whether I must take my hat off" 
 with a more profound reverence to an orthodox 
 or to a philosophical Herr Pastor. 
 
 I have the honour to remain with special 
 esteem, 
 
 My highly lamed, 
 
 Highly to be honoured Mr. Cousin's 
 obedient servant and Cousin, 
 Asmus. 
 
 Answer. 
 
 Dear Cousin, — 
 
 Philosophy is good and people are wrong 
 who treat it with scorn. But revelation relates 
 to philosophy, not as more and less but as 
 heaven and earth, upper and under. I cannot 
 explain it to you better than by the chart which 
 you once made of the pond behind your late 
 father's garden. You used to be fond of sailing 
 on the pond, cousin, and so you had constructed, 
 with your own hand, a chart of all the depths 
 and shallows of the pond ; and according to 
 that you sailed about, and it answered very 
 well. But if now a whirlwind, or the Queen 
 of Otaheite, or a water-spout had taken you, 
 with your boat and your chart, and had set you 
 down in the midst of the ocean, Cousin, and 
 you had attempted to sail there too by your 
 chart, it would not have answered. The fault 
 is not in the chart; it was a very good chart for 
 the pond ; but the pond is not the ocean, you 
 see. Here you would have to make another 
 chart; but that other chart would remain, for 
 the most part, blank, because the sand-banks 
 here lie very deep. And, Cousin, sail away 
 there without fear ; you may meet with sea- 
 wonders, but you will not run ashore. 
 
 Hence, you may judge, yourself, how far phi- 
 losophy is a broom to sweep the cobwebs from 
 the temple. In a certain sense, it may be such 
 a broom. Or you may call it a hare's foot to 
 brush the dust from the sacred statues. But 
 whoso should undertake therewith to carve and 
 whittle at the statues himself, — look you! he 
 expects more of the hare's foot than it is equal 
 to. And that is highly ridiculous and a scandal 
 to behold. 
 
 ******* 
 
 That Christianity is to level all heights, that 
 it is not merely, like virtue, to modify and regu- 
 late, but, like corruption, to carry away every 
 peculiar form and beauty, in order that some- 
 thing new may be born out of it: that, indeed, 
 will not appear to Reason. Nor need it, if only 
 it be true. When Abraham was commanded 
 to leave his country and his kindred and his 
 y 
 
 father's house and to go out into a country which 
 was afterward to be made known to him, do 
 you not think that his natural feeling rebelled 
 and that Reason had all sorts of well-grounded 
 scruples and stately doubts to oppose to such a 
 journey? But Abraham believed the word and 
 went out. And there is and was no other way. 
 For he could not see the promised land from 
 Haran ; and "Niebuhr's Travels" was not pub- 
 lished then. If Abraham had debated the 
 matter with his reason, he would certainly have 
 remained in his country and with his kindred 
 and would have taken his ease. The promised 
 land would have lost nothing, in that case; but 
 he would not have entered it. See, Cousin, so 
 it is, and so it stands in the Bible. 
 
 Since then, the sacred statues cannot be re- 
 stored by the help of Reason, it is patriotic, in 
 a high sense of the word, to leave the ancient 
 form uninjured and to let one's-self be slain for 
 a tittle of the Law. And if that is what is 
 meant by an orthodox Herr Pastor, you cannot 
 bow too low to such an one. But they call 
 other things orthodox, besides that. 
 
 Now farewell, dear Cousin, and wish for 
 peace. But, for the rest, do not let the strife 
 and the field-cry harm a hair of your head ; and 
 use religion more wisely than they. Touching 
 that matter, I have Potiphar's wife before my 
 eyes. You know the Potiphar ? That sanguine 
 and rheumatic person seized the mantle, and 
 Joseph fled. Regarding the point saillant, the 
 spirit of religion, it is idle to dispute ; because, 
 according to the Scripture, no one knows that 
 but he who receives it ; and then there is no 
 time to doubt and to dispute. 
 
 To sum up all, Cousin, Truth is a giant who 
 lies by the wayside and sleeps. They who 
 pass by, see well his giant form, but him they 
 see not, and in vain they lay the finger of their 
 vanity on the nose of their reason. When he 
 puts off the veil, then you will see his face. 
 Until then, our consolation must be that he is 
 under the veil. And do you go reverently and 
 tremblingly by; and be not over wise, dear 
 Cousin, &c. 
 
 ON KLOPSTOCK S ODES * 
 
 No, they 're not verses ; verses must rhyme 
 together, — that's what Master Ahrens used to 
 tell us at school. He would set me before him 
 when he said so, and pull me by the ears, and 
 say : Here an ear, and there an ear, — that rhymes, 
 and so must verses. — And then, too, I can read 
 a matter of two hundred verses an hour, and 
 very often it affects me no more than wading 
 through the water : the rhymes, too, play about 
 one's head, as the waves do about one's heels ; 
 but here I can't stir from the spot, and it seems 
 as if all the time shapes were putting themselves 
 in my way, that I have seen before in dreams. 
 
 * Translated by Rev. C. T. Brooks. 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 CLAUDIUS. 
 
 To be sure, it 's printed like verse, and there 's 
 a deal of melody and harmony in it, and yet it 
 can't be verse, anyhow. Some time I '11 ask 
 
 cousin about it. 
 
 Cousin says they are verses, too, and that al- 
 most every verse is a bold steed with free neck, 
 that scents the warm-seated rider afar off and 
 neighs inspiration. I had understood from 
 Master Ahrens that verses were a sort of sound- 
 ing, foamy substance, that must rhyme ; but Herr 
 Ahrens ! Herr Ahrens ! you have operated on my 
 eye-teeth there. Cousin says it must not foam at 
 all, but must be clear as a dew-drop, and pene- 
 trating as a sigh of love, and that in this dewy 
 clearness and in warm-breathing tenderness lies 
 the whole merit of modern poetry. He took 
 the book out of my hand, and read (page 41) 
 from the piece called " The Comforter." 
 * * * *** ** 
 
 "Does that foam, cousin? How do you feel 
 under it?' - — How do I feel? It stirs up a Hal- 
 lelujah in me, too, but I daren't express it, be- 
 cause I 'm such a common churl ; I could pluck 
 the stars from heaven and strew them at the 
 Comforter's feet, and then sink into the earth. 
 That 's how I feel ! " Bravo ! cousin ! Those 
 must be verses, that infect you with such an 
 itching to pluck the stars. Read the book 
 through; you'll relish it, and for the rest, don't 
 be ashamed of the Hallelujah that stirs in you. 
 Common! what 's common ? With odes there 's 
 no respect of persons ; you or a king, one 's 
 as good as t'other! And, cousin, let me tell 
 you, the fairest seraph, in the dreadful solemn 
 pomp of his six wings, is only a poor vulgar 
 churl in the sight of God ! But, as I said, read 
 the book through." — Have read it, and now I '11 
 tell you how it went with me. When you read 
 one of the pieces for^the first time, you come 
 out of the bright day into a glimmering chamber 
 full of paintings; at first you see little or no- 
 thing, but when you have been there a while, 
 by-and-bye the paintings begin to be visible and 
 to take right hold of you, and then you shut-to 
 the door and lock yourself in, and walk up and 
 down, and find yourself mightily quickened 
 with the pictures, and the rose-clouds, and fine 
 rainbows, and light Graces with soft sensibility 
 in their looks, and all that. Here and there 
 I 've hit upon passages, where I felt quite giddy, 
 and it seemed just as if an eagle set out to fly 
 right up to heaven, and now had got so high, 
 that you could only see motion, but couldn't tell 
 whether the eagle made it or whether it was 
 only a lusus acris, a play of the air. Then I like 
 to put the book down, and take a whiff with 
 Uncle Toby. 
 
 About the dove-tailing of the words, too, in 
 these Odes, I 've often had my own notions, and 
 about the metre, and I d be willing to bet, 
 there 's some special trick there, too, if one only 
 understood it right. The metre isn't the same 
 in all the Odes : not at all ; in some it's like the 
 roaring of a storm through a great forest, *in 
 others soft as the moon walking through the 
 sky ; and this don't seem to have come so acci- 
 dentally either. 
 
 THE EARLY GRAVES. 
 
 " All hail to thee, silvery moon, 
 Lovely, lonely companion of night ! 
 
 Dost thou llee ? Haste thee not ; linger, friend of thought ! 
 Lo, she abides ! 'twas the cloud, only, swept by. 
 
 " Naught but the waking of May 
 Sweeter is than the summer night, 
 When the dew, pure as light, trickles from his locks, 
 And o'er the brow of the hill redly he climbs. 
 
 " Ye nobler ones, ah, even now 
 Sober moss on your grave-stones grows. 
 Oh how blest was I once, when with you I saw 
 Redden the dawn of the day. glimmer the night !" 
 
 There — I should like to have made that, or, 
 at least, to be sleeping with the rest of 'em under 
 a stone all overgrown with "sober moss," and 
 hear, overhead, such a sigh from a good youth, 
 whom in life I had held dear. My handful of 
 dust would stir in the grave, and my shade 
 would come up through the moss to the good 
 youth, give him a hearty grip of the paw, and 
 smack awhile at his neck in the moonshine. 
 
 And then the Titles over the pieces ! yes, they 
 are always so short and well given, and a good 
 title over a piece is like a good face to a man. 
 The Dedication, too, is brave — "To Bernstorf," 
 and nothing more. And in fact what use of 
 such a long talk about Maecenas and grace and 
 gracious? The great man don't relish it, and 
 it eats up the little one's stomach. 
 
 On the whole this book has shed me a real 
 light on Herr Ahrens and verse-making. I figure 
 the poet to myself as a noble, tender-hearted 
 youth, who at certain hours grows as plethoric- 
 ally desperate, as when one of us is ridden by 
 the nightmare, and then comes on a fever which 
 makes the fine, tender-hearted youth hot and 
 sick, until the materia peccans secretes itself in 
 the shape of an ode, elegy, or something of the 
 sort; and whoever comes near him, catches the 
 infection: 
 
 Braga comes down through the oak foliage to 
 impregnate the soul of the patriot-poet, that it 
 may bring to light in its time a ripe and vigor- 
 ous fruit ; but he who is wanton and flirts with 
 foreigners, lays wind eggs. 
 
 The author is said to be one Klopstock; — 
 should like right well to see him some day. 
 
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER. 
 
 Born 1741. Died 1801. 
 
 Switzerland comes in for a share in the 
 literary honors of Germany, whose language 
 extends beyond the Rhine, and whose litera- 
 ture rejoices in the contributions of such men 
 as Bodmer, Gessner, Lavater, von Zimmerman, 
 von Salis, Pestalozzi. 
 
 Among these, the name of Lavater stands 
 first in cosmopolitan significance, denoting one 
 of the most remarkable men of his time ; wor- 
 shipped by one-half the world, and flouted by 
 the other ; a man in whom strength and weak- 
 ness, depth and simplicity, liberality and nar- 
 rowness were singularly blended. On the 
 whole, an original mind and a true philosopher. 
 His physiognomical essays, by which he is 
 principally known at the present day, consti- 
 tute but a small part of his literary labors. He 
 wrote with acceptance on a great variety of 
 subjects, and on none more effectively than on 
 questions of theology. He was also a maker 
 of poems. Among those who knew him best, 
 he was distinguished more by his moral traits 
 than by his intellectual gifts ; by his purity of 
 heart, his deep humility, his fervent piety, his 
 Christian charity and zeal for mankind. A 
 more thoroughly good man the annals of litera- 
 ture do not exhibit, nor a more devoted Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 Lavater* was born at Zurich, on the 14th 
 November, 1741. His father, Henry Lavater, 
 was Doctor of Medicine, and Member of the 
 Government of Zurich ; a man of universally 
 acknowledged integrity, of unwearied applica- 
 tion, and a sound understanding ; an excellent 
 economist. His mother, whose maiden name 
 was Regula Escher, was a woman of marked 
 character and extraordinary gifts. Whatever 
 of genius he inherited, must have come from 
 that side of the house. 
 
 His childhood promised poorly. He repre- 
 sents himself as excelling, at that period, in 
 nothing but awkwardness and stupidity ; " any- 
 thing but apt to learn, very inattentive, change- 
 ful, impatient, pettish, thoughtless, and simple. 
 
 * The following sketch is taken principally from the 
 Memoir, by Thomas Holcroft, prefixed to his translation 
 of Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy. There is a bio- 
 graphy of him, by his son-in-law, G. Gessner. 
 
 The slightest tendency to pleasantry or wit 
 was never discovered in me. I recollect how 
 much I suffered, at this early period of my life, 
 from timidity and bashfulness. I observed and 
 felt, but could never communicate my feelings 
 and observations ; or if I attempted such a com- 
 munication, the manner in which I did it was 
 so absurd and drew upon me so much ridicule, 
 that I soon found myself incapable of uttering 
 another word." 
 
 His imagination appears to have been, at this 
 season, the most active of his mental powers. 
 " My imagination was continually at work to 
 conceive and plan what might appear uncom- 
 mon and extraordinary. Every building ap- 
 peared to me too small, every tower too low, 
 every animal too diminutive." * * 
 " My indefatigably inventive imagination was 
 frequently occupied with two singular subjects, 
 — with framing plans for impenetrable prisons, 
 and with the idea of becoming the chief of a 
 troop of banditti. In the latter case, however, 
 it is to be understood that not the least tincture 
 of cruelty or violence entered into my thoughts. 
 I meant neither to murder nor distress; my 
 timid and good heart shuddered at such an 
 idea. But to steal with ingenious artifice and 
 then bestow the stolen property with similar 
 adroitness and privacy on another who might 
 want it more ; to do no serious injury, but to 
 produce extraordinary changes and visible ef- 
 fects, while I myself remained invisible, was 
 one of my favorite conceptions." Notwith- 
 standing these mental vagaries, his religious 
 feelings were early developed and very intense. 
 He was, through life, a firm believer in the 
 power of faith and the immediate, objective 
 efficacy of prayer, of which he conceived him- 
 self to have had extraordinary personal ex- 
 perience. " It is scarcely possible to conceive 
 the strength of my faith in these years, when 
 I was in difficulty and trouble. If I could 
 pray, it seemed to me that I had already ob- 
 tained the object of my prayer. Once, when 
 I had given in a Latin exercise on which much 
 depended, I recollected, after it was in the 
 hands of the master, that I had written relata 
 
 (187) 
 
188 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 instead of revelata. Can there be a stronger 
 proof of the simplicity and strength of my 
 childish faith than that I prayed to God that 
 he would correct the word and write ve above 
 it with black ink ! The ve was written above 
 in another hand with black ink, somewhat 
 blacker than mine, and my exercise was ad- 
 judged faultless. I believe the correction was 
 made by the master, from the partial kindness 
 he entertained for me, and I think it was 
 anxiety and presentiment on my part which 
 assumed the form of prayer." 
 
 While at school in Zurich, he conceived the 
 idea of being a minister of the gospel. It was 
 suggested to him in the following manner: 
 " Mr. Caspar Ulrich, minister at Fraumiinster, 
 and one of the superintendents of the gym- 
 nasium or college, came one day into the school 
 and exclaimed among the scholars, "Which 
 of you will be a minister ?" Young Lavater, 
 without ever having thought of such a thing 
 before, cried out so hastily and loudly that all 
 his companions burst out into a loud laugh, " I ! 
 I!" He answered thus without any considera- 
 tion, or inclination. But scarcely had the word 
 passed his lips when he began to feel a desire 
 which soon became a wish, and that wish a 
 firm resolution." 
 
 In 1755, Lavater left the grammar-school 
 and entered the college in his native city, 
 where he contracted an intimate friendship 
 with Fuseli, afterwards so celebrated as a 
 painter. In 1759 he was received into the 
 theological class under Zimmerman, professor 
 of divinity; and in 1762, was ordained a 
 minister. 
 
 About this time, he distinguished himself, as 
 a friend of the oppressed, by his efforts, in con- 
 junction with his friends Fuseli and Pestalozzi, 
 to bring to justice the bailiff of Griiningen, one 
 of the bailiwicks of Zurich ; Felix Grebel, a 
 man " who grossly abused his authority as a 
 magistrate and was notoriously guilty of acts 
 of oppression and extortion, but whose victims 
 being poor, dared not complain to the magis- 
 trates of Zurich, because the burgo-master 
 was father-in-law of the delinquent." 
 
 In June, 1766, he married Miss Anna Schinz, 
 the daughter of a respectable merchant, who 
 held an office in the civil magistracy. The 
 following year, he published his Swiss Songs 
 which passed through a greater number of 
 editions than any other of his numerous works. 
 
 In 1769 he was appointed deacon and 
 preacher to the orphan-house at Zurich. In 
 this situation he was unwearied in acts of 
 benevolence. In the great dearth which oc- 
 curred in Switzerland, in the years 1770 and 
 1771, a large portion of his own small income 
 was given in charity, which, with his personal 
 applications at the houses of the rich, caused 
 him to be long remembered as the benefactor 
 of the poor. 
 
 His first work on physiognomy was publish- 
 ed in 1772; in 1775 the first volume of his 
 celebrated Physiognomical Fragments for the 
 Promotion of the Knowledge and Love of Man- 
 kind. In 1775 Lavater was made pastor or 
 first preacher to the orphan-house, and, ten 
 years after, pastor of the church of St. Peter, 
 which office he held till his death. 
 
 When the French took possession of Switzer- 
 land in 1798, he protested against their ravages 
 in a publication addressed to the Directory, 
 entitled, "Words of a free Switzer to the 
 Great Nation," which gained him the applause 
 of Europe for its high-toned courage. The 
 following year, he was seized and carried 
 prisoner to Basel, on the charge of a con- 
 spiracy against the French, but was released, 
 after a confinement of several weeks, for want 
 of evidence. 
 
 In September, 1799, he received a gun-shot 
 wound from a French soldier while standing 
 before his door, which, though it healed for a 
 while, proved ultimately fatal. The last year 
 of his life was one of great bodily suffering 
 occasioned by his wound which he bore with 
 admirable patience, praying for the man who 
 had wounded him, " that he might never suffer 
 the pains he had caused him to endure." In 
 the intervals of suffering his mental activity 
 continued unabated, and several small works 
 were published, during this period. On one 
 occasion, he caused himself to be carried to 
 church and addressed an affectionate farewell 
 exhortation to his beloved flock. 
 
 About a fortnight before his death, he finished 
 his last literary production, which was a poem (!) 
 written with great spirit, and entitled " Zurich 
 at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century." 
 On the last of December he was so much ex- 
 hausted that what he said could only be heard 
 by applying the ear to his lips. Yet even in 
 this condition he dictated some verses (German 
 hexameters) for his colleague to read to his 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 189 
 
 congregation on the morning of the new year's 
 day. 
 
 He died Friday, January 2d, 1801. 
 
 As a physiognomist, the character to which 
 he is principally indebted for his fame, Lavater 
 has shown himself an original observer, and 
 may even claim to be called, in some sense, a 
 discoverer. He differed from all who had pre- 
 ceded him in this science, in directing his at- 
 tention rather to the firm and stationary — " the 
 defined and definable" — parts of the counte- 
 nance than to those which are movable and 
 accidental. He distinguished between what is 
 superficial in the character, — the passions and 
 accidental determinations of the individual, — 
 and the original self. The former he supposed 
 to be indicated by the movable and muscular 
 parts of the countenance, the latter by the firm 
 and bony. In order to form an opinion of the 
 character from the face, he required to see the 
 face at rest, — in sleep or in an unconscious 
 state. " The greater pa rt of the physiogno- 
 mists," he says, " speak only of the passions, or 
 rather of the exterior signs of the passions, and 
 the expression of them in the muscles. But 
 these exterior signs are only transient circum- 
 stances, which are easily discoverable. It has 
 therefore always been my object to consider the 
 general and fundamental character of the man, 
 from which, according to the state of his exte- 
 rior circumstances and relations, all his passions 
 arise as from a root."* 
 
 The following anecdote is related by his son- 
 in-law, G. Gessner, as an instance of his prac- 
 tical skill in this science. " A person to whom 
 he was an entire stranger was once announced 
 and introduced to him as a visitor. The first 
 idea that rose in his mind, the moment he saw 
 him, was : ' This man is a murderer.' He how- 
 ever immediately suppressed the thought as 
 unjustifiably hasty and severe, and conversed 
 with the person with his accustomed civility. 
 The cultivated understanding, extensive infor- 
 mation and ease of manner which he discovered 
 in his visitor, inspired him with the highest re- 
 spect for his intellectual endowments ; and his 
 esteem for these, added to his natural candor 
 and benevolence, induced him to disregard the 
 unfavorable impression he had received from 
 his first appearance, with respect to his moral 
 
 * From a conversation with the Emperor Joseph II., 
 quoted by Holcroft. 
 
 character. The next day he dined with him 
 by invitation ; but soon after it was known that 
 this accomplished gentleman was one of the 
 assassins of the late king of Sweden ; and he 
 found it advisable to leave the country as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 The following extracts from Goethe's remi- 
 niscences of Lavater, contained in the " Dicht- 
 ung und Wahrheit" give us the reflection of 
 his personality in a mind of a very different 
 order from his own. 
 
 " Not long after this, I came into connection 
 with Lavater also. The ' Letter of a Pastor 
 to his Colleagues'* had been very luminous to 
 him, in passages ; for there was much in it that 
 fully coincided with his own sentiments. With 
 his ceaseless driving, our correspondence soon 
 became very brisk. He was just making ear- 
 nest preparations for his larger Physiognomik. 
 He called upon everybody to send him draw- 
 ings, profiles, but especially pictures of Christ; 
 and although what I could render in this way 
 amounted to almost nothing, he insisted upon 
 it, once for all, that he would have a Saviour 
 drawn according to my conception of him. 
 Such requisitions of the impossible gave rise to 
 many jests, and I knew no other way of defend- 
 ing myself against his peculiarities but by turn- 
 ing out my own." * * * "He had com- 
 missioned a not unskilful painter in Frankfort 
 to send him the profiles of several individuals 
 whom he mentioned. The sender allowed 
 himself the jest of sending Bahrdt's portrait at 
 first, instead of mine ; whereupon came back a 
 pleasant indeed, but a thundering epistle, with 
 all sorts of trumps and asseverations that this 
 could not be my picture, and with whatever else 
 Lavater, on such an occasion, might have to 
 say in confirmation of his physiognomical doc- 
 trine." "The idea of humanity which had 
 formed itself in him from his own humanity 
 was so intimately connected with the concep- 
 tion of Christ, which he carried living within 
 him, that it was inconceivable to him, how a 
 man could live and breathe without being a 
 Christian." " One must either be a Christian 
 with him, a Christian after his sort, or one must 
 draw him over to one's self, and convince him, 
 too, of the truth of that in which one found re- 
 pose. This requisition, so immediately opposed 
 to the liberal, cosmopolitan feeling to which I 
 gradually confessed myself, had not the best 
 
 * One of Goethe's youthful productions. 
 
190 
 
 LAVA TER. 
 
 effect with me. All attempts at conversion, 
 when they are unsuccessful, render the intended 
 proselyte obstinate and hardened ; and this was 
 my case ; the rather when Lavater came for- 
 ward at last with the hard dilemma; 'Either 
 Christian or atheist' I replied to this, that if 
 he would not leave me my Christianity, as I 
 had hitherto cherished it, I could perhaps make 
 up my mind to atheism ; especially, since I saw 
 that no one knew exactly what was meant by 
 either." 
 
 " Our first meeting was hearty; we embraced 
 in the most friendly manner, and I immediately 
 found him as he had been represented to me in 
 so many pictures. An individual, unique, dis- 
 tinguished in a way which has not been seen 
 and will not be seen again, I saw living and 
 effective before me. He, on the contrary, be- 
 trayed in the first moment, by sundry singular 
 exclamations, that he had expected me other- 
 wise. Whereupon I told him, agreeably to my 
 inborn and incultivated realism, that since God 
 and Nature had once for all been pleased to 
 make me so, we too would content ourselves 
 with that. Now, the most important points 
 upon which we had been least able to agree in 
 our letters, came indeed into immediate discus- 
 sion ; but space was not allowed us for a tho- 
 rough treatment of them, and I experienced 
 what had never occurred to me before. 
 
 " We others, when we wished to discuss mat- 
 ters of the mind and heart, were accustomed to 
 withdraw ourselves from the crowd, and even 
 from society ; because, with the manifold ways 
 of thinking and different stages of culture, it is 
 difficult to come to an understanding even with 
 a few. But Lavater was of quite a different 
 mind. He loved to extend his operations far 
 and wide. He was never at home but in the 
 congregation, for the instruction and entertain- 
 ment of which he had a special talent, based 
 on his great physiognomical gift. To him was 
 given a correct discernment of persons and of 
 spirits ; so that he saw in each one quickly what 
 was the probable state of his mind." " The 
 profound meekness of his look, the determined 
 loveliness of his lips, even his true-hearted 
 Swiss dialect which sounded through his High 
 German, — and how much else that distinguish- 
 ed him — imparted to every one with whom he 
 conversed the most agreeable repose of mind. 
 Even his somewhat forward bending position 
 of the body — a consequence of his flat chest — 
 contributed not a little to equalize the prepon- 
 
 derance of his presence with the rest of the 
 
 company. 
 
 "Toward assumption and conceit he knew 
 how to bear himself very quietly and dexter- 
 ously. For while he seemed to evade, he turned 
 forth suddenly some great view, which the nar- 
 row-minded opponent could never have thought 
 of, like a diamond shield ; and yet knew then 
 how to temper the light which flashed from it 
 so agreeably, that men of this kind generally 
 felt themselves instructed and convinced, at 
 least in his presence. Perhaps the impression 
 may have continued with many ; for selfish men 
 may be good too, at the same time. All that is 
 required is that the hard shell which encloses 
 the fruitful kernel should be dissolved by a gen- 
 tle influence." 
 
 " For me the intercourse with Lavater was 
 highly important and instructive." " Very re- 
 markable and rich in results for me were the 
 conversations of Lavater with the Fraulein von 
 Klettenberg. Here now stood two decided 
 Christians over against each other, and it was 
 plain to see how the same confession changes 
 its aspect with the sentiments of different indi- 
 viduals," — "how men and women need a dif- 
 ferent Savior. Fraulein von Klettenberg related 
 to her's, as to a lover to whom one yields one- 
 self unconditionally." " Lavater, on the other 
 hand, treated his as a friend whom one emulates 
 without envy, and full of love." 
 
 "Notwithstanding the religious and moral, 
 but by no means anxious tendency of his mind, 
 he was not insensible when the spirits were 
 stimulated to cheerfulness and mirth by the 
 events of life. He was sympathizing, ingenious 
 and witty, and loved the same in others, pro- 
 vided it remained within the bounds which his 
 delicate feelings prescribed to him. If one 
 ventured beyond these, he used to pat him on 
 the shoulder, and call the offender to order 
 with a true-hearted " Behave now !"* 
 
 " One became virginal by his side, in order 
 not to touch him with anything disgusting." 
 
 " Lavater's mind was altogether imposing. 
 In his neighborhood one could not resist a de- 
 cided influence." 
 
 "He who feels a synthesis right pregnant 
 within himself, has properly the right to ana- 
 lyze ; because, in external particulars, he proves 
 and legitimates his inward whole. Of Lavater's 
 manner of proceeding in this matter be one only 
 
 * " Bisch guet" " be good." Swiss dialect. 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 191 
 
 example given. Sundays, after the sermon, he 
 was required, as minister, to present the short- 
 handled velvet bag to each one who came out, 
 and to receive the alms with a blessing. Now 
 he would impose it upon himself e. g. this Sun- 
 day, to look no one in the face, but only to 
 watch the hands, and to interpret to himself 
 their form. And not only the form of the fingers, 
 but their expression in dropping the gift, did 
 not escape his attention ; and he had much to 
 communicate to me about it afterward. How 
 instructive and stimulating must such commu- 
 nications be to me who was also on the way to 
 qualify myself for a painter of men !" 
 
 " Lavater's mind inclined strictly to realism. 
 He knew nothing ideal, except under a moral 
 form. If we hold fast this idea, we shall best 
 
 understand a rare and singular man." " Scarcely 
 ever was there one more passionately concerned 
 to be rightly known than he ; and it was this, 
 especially, which qualified him for a teacher." 
 
 " The realization of the person of Christ was 
 his favourite object." 
 
 " Every talent, which is founded in a decided 
 natural tendency, appears to us to have some- 
 thing magical, because we cannot classify it or 
 its effects, under an idea. And, really, Lava- 
 ter's insight into individual men transcended 
 all ideas. It was astounding to hear him, when 
 he spoke confidentially of this or that person ; 
 nay, it was fearful to live in the vicinity of a 
 man by whom every limit, with which Nature 
 has been pleased to limit us individuals, was 
 clearly perceived !" 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF MAN, WHICH IS 
 THE FOUNDATION OF THE SCIENCE 
 OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 Of all earthly creatures man is the most per- 
 fect, the most imbued with the principles of 
 life. 
 
 Each particle of matter is an immensity ; each 
 leaf a world; each insect an inexplicable com- 
 pendium. Who then shall enumerate the grada- 
 tions between insect and man? In him all the 
 powers of nature are united. He is the essence 
 of creation. The son of earth, he is the earth's 
 lord; the summary and central point of all exist- 
 ence, of all powers, and of all life, on that earth 
 which he inhabits. 
 
 Of all organized beings with which we are 
 acquainted, man alone excepted, there are none 
 in which are so wonderfully united the three 
 different kinds of life, the animal, the intellectual, 
 and the moral. Each of these lives is the com- 
 pendium of various faculties, most wonderfully 
 compounded and harmonized. 
 
 To know, to desire, to act, or accurately to 
 observe and meditate ; to perceive and to wish ; 
 to possess the powers of motion and of resist- 
 ance ; these combined, constitute man an animal, 
 intellectual, and moral being. 
 
 Man, endowed with these faculties, with this 
 triple life, is in himself the most worthy subject 
 of observation, as he likewise is himself the 
 most worthy observer. Under whatever point 
 of view he may be considered, what is more 
 worthy of contemplation than himself? In him 
 each species of life is conspicuous ; yet never 
 can his properties be wholly known, except by 
 the aid of his external form, his body, his super- 
 ficies. How spiritual, how incorporeal soever, 
 his internal essence may be, still is he only visi- 
 ble and conceivable from the harmony of his 
 constituent parts. From these he is inseparable. 
 
 He exists and moves in the body he inhabits, 
 as in his element. This material man must be- 
 come the subject of observation. All the know- 
 ledge we can obtain of man must be gained 
 through the medium of our senses. 
 
 This threefold life, which man cannot be de- 
 nied to possess, necessarily first becomes the 
 subject of disquisition and research, as it pre- 
 sents itself in the form of body, and in such of 
 his faculties as are apparent to sense. 
 
 There is no object in nature, the properties 
 and powers of which can be manifest to us in 
 any other manner than by such external ap- 
 pearances as affect the senses. By these all 
 beings are characterized. They are the founda- 
 tions of all human knowledge. Man must 
 wander in the darkest ignorance, equally with 
 respect to himself and the objects that surround 
 him, did he not become acquainted with their 
 properties and powers by the aid of their ex- 
 ternals ; and had not each object a character 
 peculiar to its nature and essence, which ac- 
 quaints us with what it is, and enables us to 
 distinguish it from what it is not. 
 
 All bodies which we survey appear to sight 
 under a certain form and superficies. We be- 
 hold those outlines traced which are the result 
 of their organization. I hope I shall be pardoned 
 the repetition of such commonplace truths, since 
 on these are built the science of physiognomy, 
 or the proper study of man. However true these 
 axioms, with respect to visible objects, and par- 
 ticularly to organized bodies, they are still more 
 extensively true when applied to man, and his 
 nature. The organization of man peculiarly 
 distinguishes him from all other earthly beings; 
 and his physiognomy, that is to say, the superfi- 
 cies and outlines of this organization, show him 
 to be infinitely superior to all those visible be- 
 ings by which he is surrounded. 
 
 We are unacquainted with any form equally 
 
.92 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 noble, equally majestic, with that of man, and 
 in which so many kinds of life, so many powers, 
 so many virtues of action and motion, unite, as 
 in a central point. With firm step he advances 
 over the earth's surface, and with erect body 
 raises his head toward heaven. He looks for- 
 ward to infinitude ; he acts with facility, and 
 swiftness inconceivable, and his motions are 
 the most immediate and the most varied. By 
 whom may their varieties be enumerated? He 
 can at once both suffer and perform infinitely 
 more than any other creature. He unites flexi- 
 bility and fortitude, strength and dexterity, acti- 
 vity and rest. Of all creatures he can the soonest 
 yield, and the longest resist. None resemble 
 him in the variety and harmony of his powers. 
 His faculties, like his form, are peculiar to him- 
 self. 
 
 How much nobler, more astonishing, and more 
 attractive will this form become, when we dis- 
 cover that it is itself the interpreter of all the 
 high powers it possesses, active and passive! 
 Only in those parts in which animal strength 
 and properties reside does it resemble animals. 
 But how much is it exalted above the brute in 
 those parts in which are the powers of superior 
 origin, the powers of mind, of motion! 
 
 The form and proportion of man, his superior 
 height, capable of so many changes, and such 
 variety of motion, prove to the unprejudiced 
 observer his supereminent strength, and asto- 
 nishing facility of action. The high excellence 
 and physiological unity of human nature are 
 visible at the first glance. The head, especially 
 the face, and the formation of the firm parts, 
 compared to the firm parts of other animals, 
 convince the accurate observer, who is capable 
 of investigating truth, of the greatness and su- 
 periority of his intellectual qualities. The eye, 
 the look, the cheeks, the mouth, the forehead, 
 whether considered in a state of entire rest or 
 during their innumerable varieties of motion, 
 in fine, all that is understood by physiognomy, 
 is the most expressive, the most convincing 
 picture of interior sensation, desires, passions, 
 will, and of all those properties which so much 
 exalt moral above animal life. 
 
 Although the physiological, intellectual, and 
 moral life of man, with all their subordinate 
 powers and their constituent parts, so eminently 
 unite in one being; although these tlv.ee kinds 
 of life do not. like three distinct families, reside 
 in separate parts, or stories of the body ; but co- 
 exist in one point, and by their combination 
 form one whole ; yet is it plain that each of 
 these powers of life has its peculiar station, 
 where it more especially unfolds itself, and acts. 
 
 It is beyond contradiction evident that, though 
 physiological or animal life displays itself 
 through all the body, and especially through all 
 the animal parts, yet does it act most conspicu- 
 ously in the arm, from the shoulder to the ends 
 of the fingers. 
 
 It is equally clear that intellectual life, or the 
 powers of the understanding and the mind, 
 
 make themselves most apparent in the circum- 
 ference and form of the solid parts of the head, 
 especially the forehead ; though they will dis- 
 cover themselves to an attentive and accurate 
 eye in every part and point of the human body, 
 by the congeniality and harmony of the various 
 parts, as will be frequently noticed in the course 
 of this work. Is there any occasion to prove 
 that the power of thinking resides neither in the 
 foot, in the hand, nor in the back ; but in the 
 head, and its internal parts? 
 
 The moral life of man, particularly, reveals 
 itself in the lines, marks, and transitions of the 
 countenance. His moral powers and desires, 
 his irritability, sympathy, and antipathy ; his 
 facility of attracting or repelling the objects that 
 surround him ; these are all summed up in, and 
 painted upon, his countenance when at rest. 
 When any passion is called into action, such 
 passion is depicted by the motion of the mus- 
 cles, and these motions are accompanied by a 
 strong palpitation of the heart. If the counte- 
 nance be tranquil, it always denotes tranquillity 
 in the region of the heart and breast. 
 
 This threefold life of man, so intimately in- 
 terwoven through his frame, is still capable of 
 being studied in its different appropriate parts; 
 and did M r e live in a less depraved world we 
 should find sufficient data for the science of 
 physiognomy. 
 
 The animal life, the lowest and most earthly, 
 would discover itself from the rim of the belly 
 to the organs of generation, which would become 
 its central or focal point. The middle or moral 
 life would be seated in the breast, and the heart 
 would be its central point. The intellectual 
 life, which of the three is supreme, would reside 
 in the head, and have the eye for its centre. If 
 we take the countenance as the representative 
 and epitome of the three divisions, then will the 
 forehead, to the eyebrows, be the mirror, or 
 image, of the understanding; the nose and 
 cheeks the image of the moral and sensitive 
 life; and the mouth and chin the image of the 
 animal life ; while the eye will be to the whole 
 as its summary and centre. I may also add 
 that the closed mouth at the moment of most 
 perfect tranquillity is the central point of the 
 radii of the countenance. It cannot however 
 too often be repeated that these three lives, by 
 their intimate connection with each other, are 
 all, and each, expressed in every part of the 
 body. 
 
 What we have hitherto said is so clear, so 
 well known, so universal, that we should blush 
 to insist upon such common-place truths, were 
 they not, first, the foundation on which we must 
 build all we have to propose ; and, again, had 
 not these truths (can it be believed by futurity?) 
 in this our age been so many thousand times 
 mistaken and contested, with the most incon- 
 ceivable affectation. 
 
 The science of physiognomy, whether under- 
 stood in the most enlarged or most confined 
 sense, indubitably depends on these general and 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 193 
 
 incontrovertible principles; yet, incontrovertible 
 as they are, they have not been without their 
 opponents. Men pretend to doubt of the most 
 striking, the most convincing, the most self-evi- 
 dent truths; although, were these destroyed, 
 neither truth nor knowledge would remain. 
 They do not profess to doubt concerning the 
 physiognomy of other natural objects, yet do 
 they doubt the physiognomy of human nature ; 
 the first object, the most worthy of contempla- 
 tion, and the most animated which the realms 
 of nature contain. 
 
 OF THE TRUTH OF PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 All countenances, all forms, all created beings, 
 are not only different from each other in their 
 classes, races, and kinds, but are also individu- 
 ally distinct. 
 
 Each being differs from every other being of 
 its species. However generally known, it is a 
 truth the most important to our purpose, and 
 necessary to repeat, that, " There is no rose per- 
 fectly similar to another rose, no egg to an egg, 
 no eel to an eel, no lion to a lion, no eagle to an 
 eagle, no man to a man." 
 
 Confining this proposition to man only, it is 
 the first, the most profound, most secure, and 
 unshaken foundation-stone of physiognomy that, 
 however intimate the analogy and similarity of 
 the innumerable forms of men, no two men can 
 be found who, brought together, and accurately 
 compared, will not appear to be very remark- 
 ably different. 
 
 Nor is it less incontrovertible that it is equally 
 impossible to find two minds, as two counte- 
 nances, which perfectly resemble each other. 
 
 This consideration alone will be sufficient to 
 make it received as a truth, not requiring farther 
 demonstration, that there must be a certain na- 
 tive analogy between the external varieties of 
 the countenance and form, and the internal va- 
 rieties of the mind. Shall it be denied that this 
 acknowledged internal variety among all men 
 is the cause of the external variety of their forms 
 and countenances ? Shall it be affirmed that 
 the mind does not influence the body, or that 
 the body does not influence the mind? 
 
 Anger renders the muscles protuberant; and 
 shall not therefore an angry mind and protube- 
 rant muscles be considered as cause and effect ? 
 
 After repeated observation that an active and 
 vivid eye and an active and acute wit are fre- 
 quently found in the same person, shall it be 
 supposed that there is no relation between the 
 active eye and the active mind 1 ? Is this the 
 effect of accident ? Of accident ! Ought it not 
 rather to be considered as sympathy, an inter- 
 changeable and instantaneous effect, when we 
 perceive that, at the very moment the under- 
 standing is most acute and penetrating and the 
 wit the most lively, the motion and fire of the 
 eye undergo, at that moment, the most visible 
 change ? 
 
 Shall the open, friendly, and unsuspecting 
 eye and the open, friendly,, and unsuspecting 
 z 
 
 heart be united in a thousand instances, and 
 shall we say the one is not the cause, the other 
 the effect? 
 
 Shall nature discover wisdom and order in 
 all things; shall corresponding causes and ef- 
 fects be everywhere united ; shall this be the 
 most clear, the most indubitable of truths; and 
 in the first, the most noble of the works of na- 
 ture, shall she act arbitrarily, without design, 
 without law? The human countenance, that 
 mirror of the Divinity, that noblest of the works 
 of the Creator, — shall not motive and action, 
 shall not the correspondence between the inte- 
 rior and the exterior, the visible and the invisi- 
 ble, the cause and the effect, be there apparent? 
 
 Yet this is all denied by those who oppose 
 the truth of the science of physiognomy. 
 
 Truth, according to them, is ever at variance 
 with itself. Eternal order is degraded to a jug- 
 gler, whose purpose it is to deceive. 
 
 Calm reason revolts at the supposition that 
 Newton or Leibnitz ever could have the coun- 
 tenance and appearance of an idiot, incapable 
 of a firm step, a meditating eye ; of compre- 
 hending the least difficult of abstract proposi- 
 tions, or of expressing himself so as to be un- 
 derstood ; that one of these in the brain of a 
 Laplander conceived his Theodica ; and that 
 the other in the head of an Esquimaux, who 
 wants the power to number farther than six, 
 and affirms all beyond to be innumerable, had 
 dissected the rays of light, and weighed worlds. 
 
 Calm reason revolts when it is asserted that the 
 strong man may appear perfectly like the weak, 
 the man in full health like another in the last 
 stage of a consumption, or that the rash and 
 irascible may resemble the cold and phlegmatic. 
 It revolts to hear it affirmed that joy and grief, 
 pleasure and pain, love and hatred, all exhibit 
 themselves under the same traits; that is to 
 say, under no traits whatever, on the exterior 
 of man. Yet such are the assertions of those 
 who maintain physiognomy to be a chimerical 
 science. They overturn all that order and com- 
 bination by which eternal wisdom so highly 
 astonishes and delights the understanding. It 
 cannot be too emphatically repeated, that blind 
 chance and arbitrary disorder constitute the 
 philosophy of fools ; and that they are the bane 
 of natural knowledge, philosophy and religion. 
 Entirely to banish such a system is the duty of 
 the true inquirer, the sage, and the divine. 
 
 All men, (this is indisputable), absolutely all 
 men, estimate all tilings whatever by their 
 physiognomy, their exterior, temporary superfi- 
 cies. By viewing these on every occasion, they 
 draw their conclusions concerning their internal 
 properties. 
 
 What merchant, if he be unacquainted with 
 the person of whom he purchases, does not 
 estimate his wares by the physiognomy or ap- 
 pearance of those wares ? If he purchase of a 
 distant correspondent, what other means does 
 he use in judging whether they are or are not 
 equal to his expectation ? Is not his judgment 
 17 
 
194 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 determined by the colour, the fineness, the su- 
 perficies, the exterior, the physiognomy? Does 
 he not judge money by its physiognomy? Why 
 does he take one guinea and reject another ? 
 Why weigh a third in his hand? Does he not 
 determine according to its colour, or impression; 
 its outside, its physiognomy ? If a stranger 
 enter his shop, as a buyer or seller, will he not 
 observe him ? Will he not draw conclusions 
 from his countenance? Will he not, almost 
 before he is out of hearing, pronounce some 
 opinion upon him, and say : ' This man has an 
 honest look,' 'That man has a pleasing, or for- 
 bidding, countenance?' What is it to the pur- 
 pose whether his judgment be right or wrong? 
 He judges. Though not wholly, he depends in 
 part upon the exterior form, and thence draws 
 inferences concerning the mind. 
 
 How does the farmer, walking through his 
 grounds, regulate his future expectations by the 
 colour, the size, the growth, the exterior ; that is 
 to say, by the physiognomy of the bloom, the 
 stalk, or the ear, of his corn; the stem, and 
 shoots of his vine-tree ? ' This ear of corn is 
 blighted,' 'That wood is full of sap; this will 
 grow, that not,' affirms he, at the first or second 
 glance. 'Though these vine-shoots look well, 
 they will bear but few grapes.' And where- 
 fore ? He remarks, in their appearance, as the 
 physiognomist in the countenances of shallow 
 men, the want of native energy. Does not he 
 judge by the exterior? 
 
 Does not the physician pay more attention to 
 the physiognomy of the sick than to all the ac- 
 counts that are brought him concerning his 
 patient? Zimmermann, among the living, may 
 be brought as a proof of the great perfection at 
 which this kind of judgment has arrived; and 
 among the dead, Kempf, whose son has written 
 a treatise on Temperament. 
 
 The painter Yet of him I will say no- 
 thing ; his art too evidently reproves the childish 
 and arrogant prejudices of those who pretend to 
 disbelieve physiognomy. 
 
 The traveller, the philanthropist, the misan- 
 thrope, the lover, (and who not?) all act ac- 
 cording to their feelings and decisions, true or 
 false, confused or clear, concerning physiognomy. 
 These feelings, these decisions, excite compas- 
 sion, disgust, joy, love, hatred, suspicion, confi- 
 dence, reserve, or benevolence. 
 
 Do we not daily judge of the sky by its phy- 
 siognomy? No food, not a glass of wine or 
 beer, not a cup of coffee or tea, comes to table, 
 which is not judged by its physiognomy, its ex- 
 terior, and of which we do not thence deduce 
 some conclusion respeciing its interior, good or 
 bad properties. 
 
 Is not all nature physiognomy, superficies 
 and contents; body, and spirit; exterior effect 
 and internal power ; invisible beginning and 
 visible ending? 
 
 f What knowledge is there, of which man is 
 capable, that is not founded on the exterior ; 
 the relation that exists between visible and 
 
 invisible, the perceptible and the impercepti- 
 ble ? 
 
 Physiognomy, whether understood in its most 
 extensive or confined signification, is the origin 
 of all human decisions, efforts, actions, expecta- 
 tions, fears, and hopes; of all pleasing and un- 
 pleasing sensations, which are occasioned by 
 external objects. 
 
 From the cradle to the-grave, in all conditions 
 and ages, throughout all nations, from Adam to 
 the last existing man, from the worm we tread 
 on to the most sublime of philosophers, (and 
 why not to the angel, why not to the Mediator 
 Christ?) physiognomy is the origin of all we do 
 and suffer. 
 
 Each insect is acquainted with its friend and 
 its foe ; each child loves and fears, although it 
 knows not why. Physiognomy is the cause ; 
 nor is there a man to be found on earth who is 
 not daily influenced by physiognomy; not a 
 man who cannot figure to himself a countenance 
 which shall to him appear exceedingly lovely, 
 or exceedingly hateful; not a man who does 
 not more or less, the first time he is in company 
 with a stranger, observe, estimate, compare, 
 and judge him, according to appearances, al- 
 though he might never have heard of the word 
 or thing called physiognomy ; not a man who 
 does not judge of all things that pass through 
 his hands, by their physiognomy; that is, of 
 their internal worth by their external appear- 
 ance. 
 
 The art of dissimulation itself, which is ad- 
 duced as so insuperable an objection to the truth 
 of physiognomy, is founded on physiognomy. 
 Why does the hypocrite assume the appearance 
 of an honest man, but because that he is con- 
 vinced, though not perhaps from any systematic 
 reflection, that all eyes are acquainted with the 
 characteristic marks of honesty. 
 
 What judge, wise or unwise, whether he con- 
 fess or deny the fact, does not sometimes in this 
 sense decide from appearances ? Who can, is, 
 or ought to be, absolutely indifferent to the 
 exterior of persons brought before him to be 
 judged ?* What king would choose a minister 
 without examining his exterior, secretly at least, 
 and to a certain extent? An officer will not 
 enlist a soldier without thus examining his ap- 
 pearance, his height out of the question. What 
 master or mistress of a family will choose a ser- 
 vant without considering the exterior ; no matter 
 whether their judgment be or be not just, or 
 whether it be exercised unconsciously? 
 
 I am wearied of citing instances so numerous, 
 and so continually before our eyes, to prove that 
 men, tacitly and unanimously, confess the influ- 
 ence which physiognomy has over their sensa- 
 tions and actions. I feel disgust at being obliged 
 to write thus, in order to convince the learned 
 
 * Franciscus Valesius says— Sed legibus etiam civilibus, 
 in quibus iniquum sit censere esse aliquid futile aut va- 
 rium, cautum est ; lit si duo homines inciderent in crimi- 
 nis suspicionem, is primum torqueatur qui sit aspectu 
 deformior. 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 105 
 
 of truths with which every child is or may be 
 acquainted. 
 
 He that hath eyes to see, let him see ; but 
 should the light, by being brought too close to 
 his eyes, produce phrenzy, he may burn him- 
 self by endeavouring to extinguish the torch of 
 truth. I use such expressions unwillingly, but 
 I dare do my duty, and my duty is boldly to 
 declare that I believe myself certain of what I 
 now and hereafter shall aifirm ; and that I think 
 myself capable of convincing all real lovers of 
 truth, by principles which are in themselves in- 
 controvertible. It is also necessary to confute 
 the pretensions of certain literary despots, and 
 to compel them to be more cautious in their 
 decisions. It is therefore proved, not because 
 I say it, but because it is an eternal and mani- 
 fest truth, and would have been equally truth, 
 had it never been said, that, whether they are 
 or are not sensible of it, all men are daily in- 
 fluenced by physiognomy ; that, as Sultzer has 
 affirmed, every man, consciously or inconscious- 
 ly, understands something of physiognomy; nay, 
 that there is not a living being that does not, 
 at least after its manner, draw some inferences 
 from the external to the internal ; that does 
 not judge concerning that which is not, by that 
 which is, apparent to the senses. 
 
 This universal, though tacit confession, that 
 the exterior, the visible, the superficies of ob- 
 jects, indicates their nature, their properties, 
 and that every outward sign is the symbol of 
 some inherent quality, I hold to be equally 
 certain and important to the science of physi- 
 ognomy. 
 
 I must once more repeat, when each apple, 
 each apricot, has a physiognomy peculiar to 
 itself, shall man, the lord of earth, have none ? 
 The most simple and inanimate object has its 
 characteristic exterior, by which it is not only 
 distinguished as a species, but individually; 
 and shall the first, noblest, best harmonized, 
 and most beauteous of beings be denied all 
 characteristic. 
 
 But whatever may be objected against the 
 truth and certainty of the science of physiog- 
 nomy, by the most illiterate, or the most learn- 
 ed ; how much soever he who openly professes 
 faith in this science, may be subject to ridicule, 
 to philosophic pity and contempt; it still cannot 
 be contested that there is no object, thus con- 
 sidered, more important, more worthy of obser- 
 vation, more interesting than man, nor any 
 occupation superior to that of disclosing the 
 beauties and perfections of human nature. 
 
 Such were my opinions six or eight years 
 ago. Will it in the next century be believed 
 that it is still, at this time, necessary to repeat 
 these things ; or that numerous obscure witlings 
 continue to treat with ridicule and contempt 
 the general feelings of mankind, and observa- 
 tions which not only may be, but are demon- 
 strated ; and that they act thus without having 
 refuted any one of the principles at which they 
 laugh ; yet that they are, notwithstanding, con- 
 
 tinually repeating the words, philosophy and 
 enlightened age 1 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSALITY OF PHYSIOGNOMONIC At 
 SENSATION. 
 
 By physiognomonical sensation, I here un- 
 derstand " those feelings which are produced 
 at beholding certain countenances, and the con- 
 jectures concerning the qualities of the mind, 
 which are produced by the state of such coun- 
 tenances, or of their portraits drawn or paint- 
 ed." 
 
 This sensation is very universal ; that is to 
 say, as certainly as eyes are in any man or any 
 animal, so certainly are they accompanied by 
 physiognomonical sensations. Different sensa- 
 tions are produced in each by the different 
 forms that present themselves. 
 
 Exactly similar sensations cannot be gene- 
 rated by forms that are in themselves dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 Various as the impressions maybe which the 
 same object makes on various spectators, and 
 opposite as the judgments which may be pro- 
 nounced on one and the same form, yet there 
 are certain extremes, certain forms, physiogno- 
 mies, figures, and lineaments, concerning which 
 all, who are not idiots, will agree in their opin- 
 ions. So will men be various in their decisions 
 concerning certain portraits, yet will be unani- 
 mous concerning certain others ; will say, " this 
 is so like it absolutely breathes,'' or, " this is 
 totally unlike." Of the numerous proofs which 
 might be adduced of the universality of phy- 
 siognomonical sensation, it is only necessary to 
 select a few, to demonstrate the fact. 
 
 I shall not here repeat what I have already 
 noticed, on the instantaneous judgment which 
 all men give, when viewing exterior forms. I 
 shall only observe that, let any person, but for 
 two days, remark all that he hears or reads, 
 among men, and he will everywhere hear and 
 read, even from the very adversaries of phy- 
 siognomy, physiognomonical judgments concern- 
 ing men ; will continually hear expressions like 
 these : " You might have read it in his eyes," 
 "The look of the man is enough," "He has 
 an honest countenance," " His manner sets 
 every person at his ease," "He has evil eyes," 
 " You read honesty in his looks," " He has an 
 unhealthy countenance," "I will trust him for 
 his honest face," " Should he deceive me, I 
 will never trust man more," "That man has 
 an open countenance," "I suspect that insi- 
 dious smile," "He cannot look any person in 
 the face." The very judgments that should 
 seem to militate against the science are but 
 exceptions which confirm the universality of 
 physiognomonical sensation. "His appearance 
 is against him," "This is what I could not 
 have read in his countenance," " He is better 
 or worse than his countenance bespeaks." 
 
 If we observe mankind, from the most finish- 
 ed courtier, to the lowest of the vulgar, and 
 listen to the remarks they make on each other, 
 
196 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 we shall be astonished to find how many of 
 them are entirely physiognomonical. 
 
 I have lately had such frequent occasion of 
 observing this among people who do not know 
 that I have published any such work as the 
 present, people, who perhaps never heard the 
 word physiognomy, that I am willing, at any 
 time, to risk my veracity on the proof that all 
 men, unconsciously, more or less, are guided by 
 physiognomonical sensation. 
 
 Another, no less convincing, though not suf- 
 ficiently noticed, proof of the universality of 
 physiognomonical sensation, that is to say, of 
 the confused feeling of the agreement between 
 the internal character and the external form, is 
 the number of physiognomonical terms to be 
 found in all languages, and among all nations ; 
 or, in other words, the number of moral terms, 
 which, in reality, are all physiognomonical ; but 
 this is a subject that deserves a separate trea- 
 tise. How important would such a treatise be 
 in extending the knowledge of languages, and 
 determining the precise meaning of words! 
 How new ! How interesting! 
 
 Here I might adduce physiognomonical pro- 
 verbs ; but I have neither sufficient learning nor 
 leisure to cite them from all languages, so as 
 properly to elucidate the subject. To this might 
 be added the numerous physiognomonical traits, 
 characters, and descriptions, which are so fre- 
 quent in the writings of the greatest poets, and 
 which so much delight all readers of taste, 
 sensibility, knowledge of human nature, and 
 philanthropy. 
 
 Physiognomonical sensation is not only pro- 
 duced by the sight of man, but also by that 
 of paintings, drawings, shades, and outlines. 
 Scarcely is there a man in a thousand who, if 
 such sketches were shown him, would not of 
 himself form some judgment concerning them, 
 or, at least, who would not readily attend to the 
 judgment formed by others. 
 
 ON FREEDOM AND NECESSITY. 
 
 My opinion, on this profound and important 
 question, is, that man is as free as the bird in 
 the cage ; he has a determinate space for action 
 and sensation, beyond which he cannot pass. 
 As each man has a particular circumference of 
 body, so has he likewise a certain sphere of 
 action. One of the unpardonable sins of Hel- 
 vetius, against reason and experience, is, that 
 he has assigned to education the sole power of 
 forming, or deforming the mind. I doubt if any 
 philosopher of the present century has imposed 
 any doctrine upon the world so insulting to 
 common sense. Can it be denied that certain 
 minds, certain frames, are by nature capable, or in- 
 capable, of certain sensations, talents, and actions'? 
 
 To force a man to think and feel like me, is 
 equal to forcing him to have my exact forehead 
 and nose ; or to impart unto the eagle the slow- 
 ness of the snail, and to the snail the swiftness 
 of the eagle : yet this is the philosophy of our 
 modern wits. 
 
 Each individual can but what he can, is but 
 what he is. He may arrive at, but cannot ex- 
 ceed, a certain degree of perfection, which 
 scourging, even to death itself, cannot make 
 him surpass. Each man must give his own 
 standard. We must determine what his pow- 
 ers are, and not imagine what the powers of 
 another might effect in a similar situation. 
 
 When, oh ! men and brethren, children of the 
 common Father, when will you begin to judge 
 each other justly 7 When will you cease to re- 
 quire, to force, from the man of sensibility the 
 abstraction of the cold and phlegmatic ; or from 
 the cold and phlegmatic the enthusiasm of the 
 man of sensibility? When cease to require 
 nectarines from an apple-tree, or figs from the 
 vine ? Man is man, nor can wishes make him an 
 angel; and each man is an individual self, with 
 as little ability to become another self as to be- 
 come an angel. So far as my own sphere ex- 
 tends, I am free ; within that circle I can act. I, 
 to whom one talent only has been intrusted, 
 cannot act like him who has two. My talent, 
 however, may be well or ill employed. A cer- 
 tain quantity of power is bestowed on me, 
 which I may use, and by use increase, by 
 want of use diminish, and by misuse totally 
 lose. But I never can perform, with this quan- 
 tity of power, what might be performed with a 
 double portion, equally well applied. Industry 
 may make near approaches to ingenuity, and 
 ingenuity to genius, wanting exercise, or oppor- 
 tunity of unfolding itself, or rather may seem 
 to make these approaches; but never can indus- 
 try supply total absence of genius or ingenuity. 
 Each must remain what he is, nor can he extend 
 or enlarge himself beyond a certain size ; each 
 man is a sovereign prince, but, whether small 
 or great, only in his own principality. This he 
 may cultivate so as to produce fruits equal to 
 one twice as large, that shall be left half uncul- 
 tivated. But, though he cannot extend his prin- 
 cipality, yet, having cultivated it well, the lord 
 of his neighbours may add that as a gift. Such 
 being freedom and necessity, it ought to render 
 each man humble yet ardent, modest yet active. 
 Hitherto and no farther. Truth, physiognomy, 
 and the voice of God, proclaim aloud to man, 
 Be what thou art, and become what thou canst. 
 
 The character and countenance of every man 
 may suffer astonishing changes; yet only to a 
 oertain extent. Each has room sufficient : the 
 least has a large and good field, which he may 
 cultivate, according to the soil ; but he can only 
 sow such seed as he has, nor can he cultivate 
 any other field than that on which he is sta- 
 tioned. In the mansion of God, there are, to 
 his glory, vessels of wood, of silver, and of gold. 
 All are serviceable, all profitable, all capable of 
 divine uses, all the instruments of God : but the 
 wood continues wood, the silver, silver, the gold, 
 gold. Though the golden should remain unused, 
 still they are gold. The wooden may be made 
 more serviceable than the golden, but they con- 
 tinue wood. No addition, no constraint, no 
 
LAVATER, 
 
 197 
 
 effort of the mind, can give to man another na- 
 ture. Let each be what he is, so will he be 
 sufficiently good, for man himself, and God. 
 The violin cannot have the sound of the flute, 
 nor the trumpet of the drum. But the violin, 
 differently strung, differently fingered, and dif- 
 ferently bowed, may produce an infinite variety 
 of sounds, though not the sound of the flute. 
 Equally incapable is the drum to produce the 
 sound of the trumpet, although the drum be 
 capable of infinite variety. 
 
 I cannot write well with a bad pen, but with 
 a good one I can write both well and ill. Being 
 foolish I cannot speak wisely, but I may speak 
 foolishly although wise. He who nothing pos- 
 sesses, can nothing give ; but, having, he may 
 give, or he may refrain. Though, with a thou- 
 sand florins, I cannot buy all I wish, yet am I 
 at liberty to choose, among numberless things, 
 any whose value does not exceed that sum. In 
 like manner am I free, and not free. The sum 
 of my powers, the degree of my activity or in- 
 activity, depend on my internal and external 
 organization; on incidents, incitements, men, 
 books, good or ill fortune, and the use I may 
 make of the quantity of power I possess. " It is 
 not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, 
 but of God that showeth mercy. Nor may the 
 vessel say to the potter, Why hast thou made me 
 thus ? But the righteous lord reapeth not where 
 he hath not sowed, nor gather eth where he hath 
 not strewed. Yet, with justice, he demandeth 
 five other talents from him who received five, 
 two from him who received two, and one from 
 him who received one." 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSAL EXCELLENCE OF THE FORM 
 OF MAST. 
 
 The title of this fragment is expressive of the 
 contents, or rather of the very soul, of the whole 
 work ; therefore, what I may here say, in a 
 separate section, may be accounted as nothing ; 
 yet how vast a subject of meditation may it 
 afford to man ! 
 
 Each creature is indispensable in the immen- 
 sity of the creations of God ; but each creature 
 does not know it is thus indispensable. Man 
 alone, of all earth's creatures, rejoices in his 
 indispensability. 
 
 No man can render any other man dispensa- 
 ble. The place of no man can be supplied by 
 another. 
 
 This belief of the indispensability, and indi- 
 viduality, of all men, and in our own metaphy- 
 sical indispensability and individuality, is, again, 
 one of the unacknowledged, the noble fruits of 
 physiognomy; a fruit pregnant with seeds most 
 precious, whence shall spring lenity and love ! 
 Oh! may posterity behold them flourish; may 
 future ages repose under their shade ! The 
 worst, the most deformed, the most corrupt of 
 men, is still indispensable in this world of God, 
 and is more or less capable of knowing his own 
 individuality, and unsuppliable indispensability. 
 The wickedest, the most deformed of men, is 
 
 still more noble than the most beauteous, most 
 perfect animal. — Contemplate, oh man! what 
 thy nature is, not what it might be, not what is 
 wanting. Humanity, amid all its distortions, will 
 ever remain wondrous humanity! 
 
 Incessantly might I repeat doctrines like this! 
 — Art thou better, more beauteous, nobler, than 
 many others of thy fellow -creatures? If so, 
 rejoice, and ascribe it not to thyself, but to him 
 who, from the same clay, formed one vessel for 
 honour, another for dishonour; to him who, 
 without thy advice, without thy prayer, without 
 any desert of thine, caused thee to be what thou 
 art. 
 
 Yea, to Him ! — "For what hast thou, oh man, 
 that thou didst not receive ? Now if thou didst 
 receive, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst 
 not received?" "Can the eye say to the hand, 
 I have no need of thee?" "He that op- 
 pressed! the poor, reproacheth his Maker." 
 " God hath made of one blood all nations of 
 men." 
 
 Who feels, more deeply, more internally, all 
 these divine truths than the physiognomist? 
 The true physiognomist, who is not merely a 
 man of literature, a reader, an author, but — a 
 man. 
 
 Yes, I own, the most humane physiognomist, 
 he who so eagerly searches for whatever is good, 
 beautiful, and noble in nature, who delights in 
 the Ideal, who duly exercises, nourishes, refines 
 his taste, with humanity more improved, more 
 perfect, more holy, even he is in frequent dan- 
 ger, at least is frequently tempted to turn from 
 the common herd of depraved men ; from the 
 deformed, the foolish, the apes, the hypocrites, 
 the vulgar of mankind ; in danger of forgetting 
 that the misshapen forms, these apes, these hy- 
 pocrites, also are men; and that, notwithstand- 
 ing all his imagined or his real excellence, all 
 his noble feelings, the purity of his views, (and 
 who has cause to boast of these?) all the firm- 
 ness, the soundness, of his reason, the feelings 
 of his heart, the powers with which he is en- 
 dowed, although he may appear to have ap- 
 proached the sublime ideal of Grecian art, still 
 he is, very probably, from his own moral defects, 
 in the eyes of superior beings, in the eyes of his 
 much more righteous brother, as distorted as the 
 most ridiculous, most depraved, moral or physi- 
 cal monster appears to be in his eyes. 
 
 Liable as we are to forget this, to be reminded 
 thereof is necessary, both to the writer and the 
 reader of this work. Forget not that even the wisest 
 of men are men. Forget not how much positive 
 good may be found, even in the worst; and that 
 they are as necessary, as good in their place, as 
 thou art. Are they not equally indispensable, 
 equally unsuppliable ? They possess not, either 
 in mind or body, the smallest thing exactly as 
 thou dost. Each is wholly and in every part 
 as individual as thou art. 
 
 Consider each as if he were single in the 
 universe. Then wilt thou discover powers 
 and excellencies in him which, abstractedly of 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 comparison, deserve all attention and admi- 
 ration. 
 
 Compare him, afterward, with others; his 
 similarity, his dissimilarity, to so many of his 
 fellow-creatures. How must this awaken thy 
 amazement ! How wilt thou value the indivi- 
 duality, the indispensability of his being ! How 
 wilt thou wonder at the harmony of his parts, 
 each contributing to form one whole, at their 
 relation, the relation of his million-fold indivi- 
 duality, to such a multitude of other individuals ! 
 Yes ! We wonder and adore the so simple yet 
 so infinitely varied expression of almighty 
 power inconceivable, so especially and so glo- 
 riously revealed in the nature of man. 
 
 No man ceases to be a man, how low soever 
 he may sink beneath the dignity of human na- 
 ture. Not being beast, lie still is capable of 
 amendment, of approaching perfection. The 
 worst of faces still is a human face. Humanity 
 ever continues the honour and ornament of man. 
 
 It is as impossible for a brute animal to be- 
 come man, although he may, in many actions, 
 approach, or almost surpass him, as for man to 
 become a brute, although many men indulge 
 themselves in actions which we cannot view in 
 brutes without abhorrence. 
 
 But the very capacity of voluntarily debasing 
 himself in appearance, even below brutality, is 
 the honour and privilege of man. This very 
 capacity of imitating all things by an act of his 
 will, and the power of his understanding, — this 
 very capacity man only has, beasts have not. 
 The countenances of beasts are not susceptible 
 of any remarkable deterioration, nor are they 
 capable of any remarkable amelioration, or 
 beautifying. The worst of the countenances of 
 men may be still more debased, but they may, 
 also, to a certain degree, be improved aud en- 
 nobled. 
 
 The degree of perfection or degradation, of 
 which man is capable, cannot be described. 
 
 For this reason, the worst countenance has a 
 well-founded claim to the notice, esteem, and 
 hope of all good men. 
 
 Again ; in every human countenance, how- 
 ever debased, humanity still is visible, that is, 
 the image of the Deity. 
 
 I have seen the worst of men, in their worst 
 of moments, yet could not all their vice, blas- 
 phemy, and oppression of guilt, extinguish the 
 light of good that shone in their countenances ; 
 the spirit of humanity, the ineffaceable traits of 
 internal, eternal perfectibility. — The sinner we 
 would exterminate, the man we must embrace. 
 
 Oh physiognomy ! What a pledge art thou 
 of the everlasting clemency of God toward man ! 
 
 Therefore, inquire into nature, inquire what 
 actually is. — Therefore, man, be man, in all thy 
 researches; form not to thyself ideal beings, for 
 thy standard of comparison. 
 
 Wherever power is, there is subject of admi- 
 ration ; and human, or, if so you would rather, 
 divine power, is in all men. Man is a part of 
 the family of men ; thou art man, and every 
 
 other man is a branch of the same tree, a mem- 
 ber of the same body, is what thou art, and is 
 more deserving regard than if he were perfectly 
 similar, had exactly the same goodness, the 
 same degree of worth thou hast; for he would 
 then no longer be the single, indispensable, un- 
 suppliable individual which he now is. — Oh 
 man ! Rejoice with whatever rejoices in its ex- 
 istence, and contemn no being whom God doth 
 not contemn. 
 
 OF THE CONGE XI ALTTT OF THE HUMAJT FORM. 
 
 In organization nature continually acts from 
 within outwards, from the centre to the cir- 
 cumference. The same vital powers that make 
 the heart beat give the finger motion ; that 
 which roofs the scull arches the finger-nail. Art 
 is at variance with itself; not so nature. Her 
 creation is progressive. From the head to the 
 back, from the shoulder to the arm, from the arm 
 to the hand, from the hand to the finger, from 
 the root to the stem, the stem to the branch, the 
 branch to the twig, the twig to the blossom and 
 fruit, each depends on the other, and all on the 
 root; each is similar in nature and form. No 
 apple of one branch can, with all its properties, 
 be the apple of another ; not to say another tree. 
 There is a determinate effect of a determinate 
 power. Through all nature each determinate 
 power is productive only of such and such deter- 
 minate effects. The finger of one body is not 
 adapted to the hand of another body. Each part 
 of an organized body is an image of the whole, 
 has the character of the whole. The blood in 
 the extremity of the finger has the character of 
 the blood in the heart. The same congeniality 
 is found in the nerves, in the bones. One spirit 
 lives in all. Each member of the body is in 
 proportion to that whole of which it is a part. 
 As from the length of the smallest member, the 
 smallest joint of the finger, the proportion of the 
 whole, the length and breadth of the body may 
 be found, so also may the form of the whole 
 from the form of each single part. When the 
 head is long, all is long, or round when the head 
 is round, and square when it is square. One 
 form, one mind, one root, appertain to all. 
 Therefore is each organized body so much a 
 whole that, without discord, destruction, or de- 
 formity, nothing can be added or diminished. 
 Every thing in man is progressive, every thing 
 congenial; form, stature, complexion, hair, skin, 
 veins, nerves, bones, voice, walk, manner, style, 
 passion, love, hatred. One and the same spirit 
 is manifest in all. He has a determinate sphere 
 in which his powers and sensations are allowed, 
 within which they may be freely exercised, but 
 beyond which he cannot pass. Each counte- 
 nance is, indeed, subject to momentary change, 
 though not perceptible, even in its solid parts; 
 but these changes are all proportionate; each 
 is measured, each proper and peculiar to the 
 I countenance in which it takes place. The ca- 
 I pability of change is limited. Even that which 
 I is affected, assumed, imitated, heterogeneous, 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 199 
 
 still lias the properties of the individual, origi- 
 nating in the nature of the whole, and is so de- 
 finite that it is only possible in this, but. in no 
 other, being. 
 
 I almost blush to repeat this in the present 
 age. Posterity! what wilt thou think to see 
 me obliged so often to demonstrate to pretended 
 sages that nature makes no emendations? She 
 labours from one to all. Hers is not disjointed 
 organization ; not mosaic work. The more of 
 the mosaic there is in the works of artists, ora- 
 tors, or poets, the less are they natural; the less 
 do they resemble the copious streams of the 
 fountain, the stem extending itself to the re- 
 motest branch. 
 
 The more there is of progression, the more is 
 there of truth, power, and nature; the more ex- 
 tensive, general, durable, and noble is the effect. 
 The designs of nature are the designs of a mo- 
 ment. One form, one spirit, appears through 
 the whole. Thus nature forms her least plant, 
 and thus her most exalted man. I shall have 
 effected nothing by my physiognomonical la- 
 bours if I am not able to destroy the opinion, 
 so tasteless, so unworthy of the age, so opposite 
 to all sound philosophy, that nature patches up 
 the features of various countenances, in order to 
 make one perfect countenance ; and I shall 
 think them well rewarded if the congeniality, 
 uniformity, and agreement of human organiza- 
 tion be so demonstrated that he who shall deny 
 it will be declared to deny the light of the sun 
 at noon-day. 
 
 The human body is a plant; each part has 
 the character of the stem. Suffer me to repeat 
 this continually, since this most evident of all 
 things is continually controverted, among all 
 ranks of men, in words, deeds, books, and works 
 of art. 
 
 Therefore it is that I find the greatest incon- 
 gruities in the heads of the greatest masters. I 
 know no painter of whom I can say he has 
 thoroughly studied the harmony of the human 
 outline, not even Poussin ; no, not even Raphael 
 himself. Let any one class the forms of their 
 countenances, and compare them with the forms 
 of nature; let him, for instance, draw the out- 
 lines of their foreheads, and endeavour to find 
 similar outlines in nature, and he will find in- 
 congruities which could not have been expected 
 in such great masters. 
 
 Excepting the too great length and extent, 
 particularly of his human figures, Chodowiecki, 
 perhaps, had the most exact feeling of congeni- 
 ality, in caricature ; that is to say, of the relative 
 propriety of the deformed, the humorous, or 
 other characteristical members and features ; for 
 as there is conformity and congeniality in the 
 beautiful, so is there also in the deformed. 
 Every cripple has the distortion peculiar to 
 himself, the effects of which are extended to his 
 whole body. In like manner the evil actions 
 of the evil, and the good actions of the good, 
 have a conformity of character, at least they are 
 all tinged with this conformity of character. 
 
 Little as this seems to be remarked by poet3 
 and painters, still is it the foundation of their 
 art, for wherever emendation is visible, there 
 admiration is at an end. Why has no painter 
 yet been pleased to place the blue eye beside 
 the brown one? Yet, absurd as this would be, 
 no less absurd are the incongruities continually 
 encountered by the physiognomonical eye; — the 
 nose of Venus on the head of a Madonna. 1 have 
 been assured by a man of fashion, that at a mas- 
 querade he, with only the aid of an artificial nose, 
 entirely concealed himself from the knowledge 
 of all his acquaintance. So much does nature 
 reject what does not appertain to herself. 
 
 To render this indisputable, let a number of 
 shades be taken and classed according to the 
 foreheads. We shall show, in its place, that all 
 real and possible human foreheads may be 
 classed under certain signs, and that their classes 
 are not innumerable. Let him next class the 
 noses, then the chins ; then let him compare the 
 signs of the noses and foreheads, and he will 
 find certain noses are never found with certain 
 foreheads; and, on the contrary, other certain 
 foreheads are always accompanied by a certain 
 kind of noses, and that the same observation is 
 true with respect to every other feature of the 
 face, unless the movable features should have 
 something acquired which is not the work of 
 the first formation and productive power of na- 
 ture, but of art, of accident, of constraint. Ex- 
 periment will render this indisputable. As a 
 preliminary amusement for the inquiring reader, 
 I will add what follows. 
 
 " Among a hundred profiles with circular fore- 
 heads, I have never yet met with one Roman 
 nose. In a hundred other square foreheads I 
 have scarcely found one in which there were 
 not cavities and prominences. I never yet saw 
 a perpendicular forehead, with strongly arched 
 features, in the lower part of the countenance, 
 the double chin excepted. 
 
 I meet no strong-bowed eyebrows combined 
 with bony, perpendicular countenances. 
 
 Wherever the forehead is projecting, so, in 
 general, are the under lips, children excepted. 
 
 I have never seen gently arched yet much 
 retreating foreheads combined with a short 
 snub nose, which in profile is sharp and 
 sunken. 
 
 A visible nearness of the nose to the eye is 
 always attended by a visible wideness between 
 the nose and mouth. 
 
 A long covering of the teeth, or, in other 
 words, a long space between the nose and mouth, 
 always indicates small upper lips. Length of 
 form and face is generally attended by well- 
 drawn, fleshy lips. I have many further obser- 
 vations in reserve on this subject, which are 
 withheld only till further confirmation and pre- 
 cision are obtained. I shall produce but one 
 more example, which will convince all, who 
 possess acute physiognomonical sensation, how 
 great is the harmony of all nature's forms, and 
 how much she hates the incongruous. 
 
200 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 Take two, three, or four shades of men, re- 
 markable for understanding, join the features so 
 artificially that no defect shall appear, as far as 
 relates to the act of joining; that is, take the 
 forehead of one, add the nose of a second, the 
 mouth of a third, the chin of a fourth, and the 
 result of this combination of the signs of wisdom 
 shall be folly. Folly is perhaps nothing more 
 than the annexation of some heterogeneous ad- 
 dition. — 'But let these four wise countenances 
 be supposed congruous?' — Let them so be sup- 
 posed, or as nearly so as possible, still their 
 combination will produce the signs of folly. 
 
 Those, therefore, who maintain that conclu- 
 sions cannot be drawn from a part, from a single 
 section of the profile, to the whole, would be 
 perfectly right if unarbitrary nature patched up 
 countenances like arbitrary art ; but so she does 
 not. Indeed when a man, being born with un- 
 derstanding, becomes a fool, there an expression 
 of heterogeneousness is the consequence. Either 
 the lower part of the countenance extends itself, 
 or the eyes acquire a direction not conformable 
 to the forehead, the mouth cannot remain closed, 
 or the features of the countenance in some other 
 manner, lose their consistency. All becomes 
 discord; and folly, in such a countenance, is 
 very manifest. If the forehead be seen alone, 
 it can only be said: " So much can or could, this 
 countenance, by nature, unimpeded by acci- 
 dent." But if the whole be seen, the past and 
 present general character may be determined. 
 
 Let him who would study physiognomy, study 
 the relation of the constituent parts of the coun- 
 tenance ; not having studied these he has studied 
 nothing. 
 
 He, and he alone, is an accurate physiogno- 
 mist, has the true spirit of physiognomy, who 
 possesses sense, feeling, and sympathetic per- 
 ception of the congeniality and harmony of na- 
 ture; and who hath a similar sense and feeling 
 for all emendations and additions of art and 
 constraint. He is no physiognomist who doubts 
 of the propriety, simplicity, and harmony of na- 
 ture ; or who has not this physiognomical essen- 
 tial ; who supposes nature selects members to 
 form a whole, as a compositor in a printing- 
 house takes letters to make up a word ; who can 
 suppose the works of nature are the patchwork 
 of a harlequin jacket. Not so is the most insigni- 
 ficant of insects compounded, much less the most 
 perfect of organized beings, man. He breathes 
 not the breath of wisdom who doubts of this 
 progression, continuity, and simplicity of the 
 structures of nature. He wants a general feel- 
 ing for the works of nature, consequently of art, 
 the imitator of nature. I shall be pardoned this 
 warmth. It is necessary. The consequences 
 are infinite, and extend to all things. He has 
 the master-key of truth who has this sensation 
 of the congeniality of nature, and by necessary 
 induction of the human form. 
 
 All imperfection in works of art, productions 
 of the mind, moral actions, errors in judgment; 
 all scepticism, infidelity, and ridicule of reli- 
 
 gion, naturally originate in the want of this 
 knowledge and perception. He soars above all 
 doubt of the Divinity and Christ who hath them, 
 and who is conscious of this congeniality. He 
 also, who at first sight thoroughly perceives the 
 congeniality of the human form, and feels that 
 from the want of this congeniality arises the 
 difference observed between the works of na- 
 ture and of art, is superior to all doubt con- 
 cerning the truth and divinity of the human 
 countenance. 
 
 Those who have this sense, this feeling-, call 
 it what you please, will attribute that only, and 
 nothing more, to each countenance which it is 
 capable of receiving. They will consider each 
 according to its kind, and will as little seek to 
 add a heterogeneous character as a heteroge- 
 neous nose to the face. Such will only unfold 
 what nature is desirous of unfolding, give what 
 nature is capable of receiving, and take away 
 that with which nature would only be encum- 
 bered. They will perceive any discordant trait 
 of character, when it makes its appearance in 
 the child, pupil, friend, or wife, and will en- 
 deavour to restore the original congeniality, the 
 equilibrium of character and impulse, by acting 
 upon the still remaining harmony, by co-operat- 
 ing with the yet unimpaired essential powers. 
 They will consider each sin, each vice, as de- 
 structive of this harmony; will feel how much 
 each departure from truth in the human form, 
 at least to eyes more penetrating than human 
 eyes are, must distort, be manifest, and become 
 displeasing to the Creator by rendering it unlike 
 his image. Who, therefore, can judge better of 
 the works and actions of man, who less offend, 
 or be offended, who more clearly develope 
 cause and effect, than the physiognomist, pos- 
 sessed of a full portion of this knowledge and 
 perception 1 
 
 RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN PARENTS AND CHIL- 
 DREN. 
 
 The resemblance between parents and chil- 
 dren is very commonly remarkable. 
 
 Family physiognomy is as undeniable as na- 
 tional. To doubt this is to doubt what is self- 
 evident; to wish to interpret it is to wish to 
 explore the inexplicable secret of existence. 
 Striking and frequent as the resemblance be- 
 tween parents and children is, yet have the 
 relations between the characters and counten- 
 ances of families never been investigated. No 
 one has, to my knowledge, made any regular 
 observations on this subject. I must also con- 
 fess that I have myself made but few, with 
 that circumstantial attention which is necessary. 
 All I have to remark is what follows. 
 
 When the father is somewhat stupid, and 
 the mother strikingly the reverse, then will 
 most of the children be endued with extraordi- 
 nary understanding. 
 
 When the father is good, truly good, the chil- 
 dren will in general be well disposed; at least 
 most of them will be benevolent. 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 201 
 
 The son appears most to inherit moral good- 
 ness from the good father, and intelligence from 
 the intelligent mother ; the daughter to partake 
 of the character of the mother. 
 
 If we wish to find the most certain marks of 
 resemblance between parents and children, they 
 should be observed within an hour or two after 
 birth. We may then perceive whom the child 
 most resembles in its formation. The most 
 essential resemblance is usually afterwards lost, 
 and does not, perhaps, appear for many years ; 
 or not till after death. 
 
 When children, as they increase in years, 
 visibly increase in the resemblance of form 
 and features to their parents, we cannot doubt 
 that there is an increasing resemblance of cha- 
 racter. Howmuchsoever the characters of chil- 
 dren may appear unlike those of the parents 
 they resemble, yet will this dissimilarity be 
 found to originate in external circumstances, 
 and the variety of these must be great indeed, 
 if the difference of character be not, at length, 
 overpowered by the resemblance of form. 
 
 From the strongly delineated father, I be- 
 lieve, the firmness and the kind (I do not say 
 the form, but the kind) of bones and muscles 
 is derived; and from the strongly delineated 
 mother the kind of nerves and form of the coun- 
 tenance ; if the imagination and love of the 
 mother have not fixed themselves too deeply in 
 the countenance of the man. 
 
 Certain forms of countenance in children 
 appear for a time undecided whether they shall 
 take the resemblance of the father or of the 
 mother ; in which case I will grant that exter- 
 nal circumstances, preponderating love for the 
 father or mother, or a greater degree of inter- 
 course with either, may influence the form. 
 
 We sometimes see children who long retain 
 a remarkable resemblance to the father, but, at 
 length, change and become more like the mo- 
 ther. 
 
 I undertake not to expound the least of the 
 difficulties that occur on this subject, but the 
 most modest philosophy may be permitted to 
 compare uncommon cases with those which are 
 known, even though they too should be inex- 
 plicable ; and this I believe is all that philosophy 
 can and ought to do. 
 
 We know that all longing, or mother-marks, 
 and whatever may be considered as of the 
 same nature, which is much, do not proceed 
 from the father, but from the imagination of the 
 mother. We also know that children most re- 
 semble the father only when the mother has a 
 very lively imagination, and love for, or fear of, 
 the husband ; therefore, as has been before ob- 
 served, it appears that the matter and quantum 
 of the power and of the life, proceed from the 
 father ; and from the imagination of the mother 
 sensibility, the kind of nerves, the form, and 
 the outward appearance. 
 
 If, therefore, in a certain decisive moment, 
 the imagination of the mother should suddenly 
 pass from the image of her husband to her own 
 2a 
 
 image, it might, perhaps, occasion a resemblance 
 of the child, first to the father, and, afterward, 
 to the mother. 
 
 There are certain forms and features of coun- 
 tenance which are long propagated, and others 
 which as suddenly disappear. The beautiful 
 and the deformed (I do not say forms of coun- 
 tenance, but what is generally supposed to be 
 beauty and deformity) are not the most easily 
 propagated; neither are the middling and in- 
 significant ; but the great and the minute are 
 easily inherited, and of long duration. 
 
 Parents with small noses may have children 
 with the largest and strongest defined ; but the 
 father or mother seldom, on the contrary, have 
 a very strong, that is to say, large-boned nose, 
 which is not communicated, at least to one of 
 their children, and which does not remain in 
 the family, especially when it is in the female 
 line. It may seem to have been lost for many 
 years, but, soon or late, will again make its ap- 
 pearance, and its resemblance to the original 
 will be particularly visible a day or two after 
 death. 
 
 If the eyes of the mother have any extraor- 
 dinary vivacity, there is almost a certainty that 
 these eyes will become hereditary ; for the 
 imagination of the mother is delighted with 
 nothing so much as with the beauty of her own 
 eyes. Physiognomonical sensation has been, 
 hitherto, much more generally directed to the 
 eyes than to the nose and form of the face ; 
 but, if women should once be induced to ex- 
 amine the nose, and form of the face, as as- 
 siduously as they have done their eyes, it is to 
 be expected that the former will be no less 
 strikingly hereditary than the latter. 
 
 Short and well-arched foreheads are easy of 
 inheritance, but not of long duration ; and here 
 the proverb is applicable, Quod citojit, cito perit. 
 (Soon got, soon gone.) 
 
 It is equally certain and inexplicable, that 
 some remarkable physiognomies, of the most 
 fruitful persons, have been wholly lost to their 
 posterity ; and it is as certain and inexplicable 
 that others are never lost. 
 
 Nor is it less remarkable that certain strong 
 countenances, of the father or mother, disappear 
 in the children and revive fully in the grand- 
 children. 
 
 As a proof of the power of the imagination 
 of the mother, we sometimes see that a woman 
 shall have children by her second husband 
 that shall resemble the first, at least in the 
 general appearance. The Italians, however, 
 are manifestly too extravagant when they sup- 
 pose children that strongly resemble their father 
 are base born. They say that the imagination of 
 the mother, during the commission of a crime so 
 shameful, is wholly occupied with the possibility 
 of surprise by, and of course with the image of, 
 her husband. But, were this fear so to act, the 
 form of the children must not only have the 
 very image of the father, but also his appearance 
 of rage and revenge ; without which, the adulter- 
 
202 
 
 L AVATER. 
 
 cms wife could not imagine the being surprised 
 by, or image of, her husband. It is this ap- 
 pearance, this rage, that she fears, and not the 
 man. 
 
 Natural children generally resemble one of 
 their parents more than the legitimate. 
 
 The more there is of individual love, of pure, 
 faithful, mild affection ; the more this love is 
 reciprocal, and unconstrained, between the 
 father and mother, which reciprocal love and 
 affection implies a certain degree of imagi- 
 nation, and the capacity of receiving impres- 
 sions, the more will the countenances of the 
 children appear to be composed of the features 
 of the parents. 
 
 The sanguine of all the temperaments is the 
 mo*t easily inherited and with it, volatility; 
 which, when once introduced, will require 
 great exertion and suffering for its extermina- 
 tion. 
 
 The natural timidity of the mother may 
 easily communicate the melancholy tempera- 
 ment of the father. Be it understood that this 
 is easy, if, in the decisive moment, the mother 
 be suddenly seized by some predominant fear; 
 and that it is less communicable when the fear 
 is less hasty, and more reflective. Thus we 
 find those mothers, who, during the whole time 
 of their pregnancy, are most in dread of pro- 
 ducing monstrous, or marked children, because 
 they remember to have seen objects that ex- 
 cited abhorrence, generally have the best form- 
 ed, and freest from marks ; for the fear, though 
 real, was the fear of reflection, and not the sud- 
 den effect of an object exciting abhorrence, 
 rising instantaneously to sight. 
 
 When both parents have given a deep root 
 to the choleric temperament in a family, it may 
 probably be some centuries before it be again 
 moderated. Phlegm is not so easily inherited, 
 even though both father and mother should be 
 phlegmatic, for there are certain moments of 
 life when the phlegmatic acts with its whole 
 powers, although it acts thus but rarely, and 
 these moments may, and must, have their ef- 
 fects ; but nothing appears more easy of in- 
 heritance than activity and industry, when these 
 have their origin in organization, and the neces- 
 sity of producing alteration. It will be long 
 before an industrious couple, to whom not only 
 a livelihood, but business is, in itself, necessary, 
 shall not have a single descendant with the like 
 quality of industry, as such mothers are gene- 
 rally prolific. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON" THE DTING AND THE DEAD. 
 
 I have seen one man of fifty, another of 
 seventy years of age, who during life appeared 
 not to have the least resemblance to their sons, 
 and whose countenances seemed to be of a 
 quite different class ; yet, the second day after 
 death, the profile of the one had a striking re- 
 semblance to the profile of his eldest, and that 
 of the other, to the profile of his third son; 
 stronger, indeed, and as a painter would say, 
 
 harder. On the third day, a part of the resem- 
 blance disappeared. 
 
 Of the many dead persons I have seen, 1 
 have uniformly observed that sixteen, eighteen, 
 or twenty-four hours, after death (according to 
 the disease), they have had a more beautiful 
 form, better defined, more proportionate, har- 
 monized, homogeneous, more noble, more ex- 
 alted, than they ever had during life. 
 
 May there not be, thought I, in all men an 
 original physiognomy, subject to be disturbed by 
 the ebb and flow of accident and passion, and 
 is not this restored by the calm of death, as 
 troubled waters, being again left at rest, be- 
 come clear ? 
 
 Among the dying, I have observed some who 
 have been the reverse of noble or great during 
 life, and who, some hours before their death, or 
 perhaps some moments (one was in a delirium), 
 have shown an inexpressible ennobling of the 
 countenance. Everybody saw a new man; 
 colouring, drawing, and grace, all was new, all 
 bright, as the morning ; heavenly ; beyond ex- 
 pression, noble, and exalted ; the most inatten- 
 tive must see, the most insensible feel, the image 
 of God. I saw it break forth and shine through 
 the ruins of corruption, was obliged to turn 
 aside in silence and adore. Yes, glorious God! 
 still art thou there, in the weakest, most fallible 
 men ! 
 
 OF THE INFLUENCE OF COUNTENANCE ON 
 COUNTENANCE. 
 
 As the gestures of our friends and intimates 
 often become our own, so, in like manner, does 
 their appearance. Whatever we love we would 
 assimilate to ourselves; and whatever, in the 
 circle of affection, does not change us into 
 itself, that we change, as far as may be, into 
 ourselves. 
 
 All things act upon us, and we act upon all 
 things ; but nothing has so much influence as 
 what we love ; and among all objects of affec- 
 tion, nothing acts so forcibly as the countenance 
 of man. Its conformity to our countenance 
 makes it most worthy our affection. How could 
 it act upon, how attract our attention, had it not 
 some marks, discoverable or undiscoverable, 
 similar to, at least of the same kind with, the 
 form and features of our own countenance ? 
 
 Without, however, wishing farther to pene- 
 trate what is impenetrable, or to define what is 
 inscrutable, the fact is indubitable that counte- 
 nances attract countenances, and also that coun- 
 tenances repel countenances ; that similarity of 
 features between two sympathetic and affec- 
 tionate men increases with the development, 
 and mutual communication, of their peculiar, 
 individual, sensations. The reflection, if I may 
 so say, of the person beloved, remains upon the 
 countenance of the affectionate. 
 
 The resemblance frequently exists only in a 
 single point, — in the character of mind and 
 countenance. 
 
LAVA 
 
 A resemblance in the system of the bones 
 presupposes a resemblance of the nerves and 
 muscles. 
 
 Dissimilar education may affect the latter so 
 much that the point of attraction may be invisi- 
 ble to unphysiognomonical eyes. — Suffer the two 
 resembling forms to approach, and they will 
 reciprocally attract and repel each other ; re- 
 move every intervening obstacle, and nature 
 will soon prevail. They will recognize each 
 other, and rejoice in the flesh of their flesh, 
 and the bone of their bone; with hasty steps 
 will proceed to assimilate. Countenances, also, 
 which are very different from each other, may 
 communicate, attract, and acquire resemblance : 
 nay, their likeness may become more striking 
 than that of the former, if they happen to be 
 more flexible, more capable, and to have greater 
 sensibility. 
 
 This resemblance of features, in consequence 
 of mutual affection, is ever the result of internal 
 nature and organization, therefore of the cha- 
 racter of the persons. It ever has its foundation 
 in a preceding, perhaps imperceptible resem- 
 blance, which might never have been animated, 
 or suspected, had it not been set in motion by 
 the presence of the sympathetic being. 
 
 It would be of infinite importance to give the 
 characters of those countenances which most 
 easily receive and communicate resemblance. 
 It cannot but be known that there are counte- 
 nances which attract all, others that repel all, 
 and a third kind which are indifferent. The 
 all-repelling render the ignoble countenances, 
 over which they have continued influence, more 
 ignoble. The indifferent allows no change. The 
 all-attracting either receive, give, or reciprocally 
 give and receive. The first change a little, the 
 second more, the third most. "These are the 
 souls," says Hemsterhuys the younger, "which 
 happily, or unhappily, add the most exquisite 
 discernment to that excessive internal elasticity 
 which occasions them to wish and feel immo- 
 derately ; that is to say, the souls which are so 
 modified, or situated, that their attractive force 
 meets the fewest obstacles in its progress." 
 
 It would be of the utmost importance to study 
 this influence of countenance, this intercourse 
 of mind. I have found the progress of resem- 
 blance most remarkable when two persons, the 
 one richly communicative, the other apt to re- 
 ceive, have lived a considerable time together, 
 without foreign intervention ; when he who gave 
 had given all, or he who received could receive 
 no more, physiognomonical resemblance, if I so 
 dare say, had attained its punctum saturationis. 
 It was incapable of farther increase. 
 
 A word here to thee, youth, irritable and easy 
 to be won. Oh ! pause, consider, throw not thy- 
 self too hastily into the arms of a friend un- 
 tried. A gleam of sympathy and resemblance 
 may easily deceive thee. If the man who is thy 
 second self have not yet appeared, be not rash; 
 thou shalt find him at the appointed hour. Be- 
 ing found, he will attract thee to himself, will 
 
 TER. 203 
 
 give and receive whatever is communicable. 
 The ardour of his eyes will nurture thine, and 
 the gentleness of his voice will temper thy too 
 piercing tones. His love will shine in thy coun- 
 tenance, and his image will appear in thee. 
 Thou wilt become what he is, and yet remain 
 what thou art. Affection will make qualities in 
 him visible to thee which never could be seen 
 by an uninterested eye. This capability of re- 
 marking, of feeling what there is of divine in 
 him, is a power which will make thy counte- 
 nance assume his resemblance. 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION ON 
 THE COUNTENANCE. 
 
 A word only, on a subject concerning which 
 volumes might be written, for it is a subject I 
 must not leave wholly in silence. The little, 
 the nothing, I have to say upon it, can only act 
 as an inducement to deeper meditation on a 
 theme so profound. 
 
 Imagination acts upon our own countenance, 
 rendering it in some measure resembling the 
 beloved or hated image, which is living, pre- 
 sent, and fleeting before us, and is within the 
 circle of our immediate activity. If a man, 
 deeply in love, and supposing himself alone, 
 were ruminating on his beloved mistress, to 
 whom his imagination might lend charms, 
 which, if present, he would be unable to dis- 
 cover, — were such a man observed by a person 
 of penetration, it is probable that traits of the 
 mistress might be seen in the countenance of 
 this meditating lover. So might, in the cruei 
 features of revenge, the features of the enemy 
 be read, whom imagination represents as pre- 
 sent. And thus is the countenance a picture of 
 the characteristic features of all persons ex- 
 ceedingly loved or hated. It is possible that an 
 eye less penetrating than that of an angel may 
 read the image of the Creator in the countenance 
 of a truly pious person. He who languishes after 
 Christ, the more lively, the more distinctly, the 
 more sublimely, he represents to himself the 
 very presence and image of Christ, the greater 
 resemblance will his own countenance take of 
 this image. The image of imagination often 
 acts more effectually than the real presence ; 
 and whoever has seen him of whom we speak, 
 the great HIM, though it were but an instanta- 
 neous glimpse, Oh ! how incessantly will the 
 imagination reproduce his image in the coun- 
 tenance ! 
 
 Our imagination also acts upon other counte- 
 nances. The imagination of the mother acts 
 upon the child. Hence men have long attempted 
 to influence the imagination for the production 
 of beautiful children. In my opinion, however, 
 it is not so much the beauty of surrounding 
 forms as the interest taken concerning forms, in 
 certain moments ; and here, again, it is not so 
 much the imagination that acts as the spirit, that 
 being only the organ of the spirit. Thus it is 
 true that it is the spirit that quickenelK the flesh 
 and the image of the flesh, merely considered 
 
204 
 
 LAVATER. 
 
 as such, prqfiteth nothing. A look of love, from 
 the sanctuary of the soul, has, certainly, greater 
 forming powers than hours of deliberate con- 
 templation of the most beautiful images. This 
 forming look, if so I may call it, can as little be 
 premeditatedly given as any other naturally 
 beautiful form can be imparted by a studious 
 contemplation in the looking-glass. All that 
 creates and is profoundly active in the inner 
 man, must be internal, and be communicated 
 from above; as I believe it suffers itself not to 
 be occasioned, at least not by forethought, cir- 
 cumspection, or wisdom in the agent to produce 
 such effects. Beautiful forms, or abortions, are 
 neither of them the work of art or study, but of 
 intervening causes, of the quick-guiding provi- 
 dence, the predetermining God. 
 
 Instead of the senses, endeavour to act upon 
 affection. If thou canst but incite love, it will 
 of itself seek and find the powers of creation. 
 But this very love must itself be innate before 
 it can be awakened. Perhaps, however, the 
 moment of this awakening is not in our power ; 
 and, therefore, to those who would, by plan and 
 method, effect that which is in itself so extraor- 
 dinary, and imagine they have had I know not 
 what wise and physiological circumspection 
 when they first awaken love, I might exclaim 
 in the words of the enraptured singer : " I charge 
 you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes 
 and the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up 
 nor awake my love till he please." — Here, be- 
 hold thy forming Genius. — " Behold he cometh, 
 leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the 
 hills, like a young hart." (Song of Sol. chap. ii. 
 7, 8, 9.) 
 
 Moments unforeseen; rapid as the lightning, 
 in my opinion, form and deform. Creation, of 
 whatever kind, is momentaneous: the develop- 
 ment, nutriment, change, improving, injuring, is 
 the work of time, art, industry, and education. 
 Creative power suffers not itself to be studied. 
 Creation cannot be meditated. Masks may be 
 moulded, but living essence, within and without 
 resembling itself, the image of God, must be 
 created, born, 11 not of the will of the flesh, nor of 
 the will of man, but of God." 
 
 MALE AND FEMALE. 
 
 In general (for I neither can nor will state 
 anything but what is most known) how much 
 more pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affection- 
 ate, flexible, and patient, is woman than man ! 
 
 The primary matter of which she is con- 
 stituted appears to be more flexible, irritable, 
 and elastic than that of man. 
 
 Women are formed to maternal mildness, and 
 affection ; all their organs are tender, yielding, 
 easily wounded, sensible, and receptible. 
 
 Among a thousand females there is scarcely 
 one without the genuine feminine signs ; the 
 flexible, the round, and the irritable. 
 
 They are the counterpart of man, taken out 
 of man, to be subject to man; to comfort him 
 like angels, and to lighten his cares. " She shall 
 
 be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in 
 faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety." 
 (1 Tim. ii. 15.) 
 
 This tenderness, this sensibility, this light 
 texture of their fibres and organs, this volatility 
 of feeling renders them so easy to guide and 
 to tempt; so ready to submit to the enter- 
 prise and power of the man; but more power- 
 ful through the aid of their charms than man, 
 with all his strength. The man was not first 
 tempted, but the woman, afterward the man 
 by the woman. 
 
 But, not only easily to be tempted, she is ca- 
 pable of being formed to the purest, noblest, 
 most seraphic virtue ; to everything which can 
 deserve praise or affection. 
 
 Highly sensible of purity, beauty, and sym- 
 metry, she does not always take time to reflect 
 on internal life, internal death, internal corrup- 
 tion. " The woman saw that the tree was good 
 for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, 
 and a tree to be desired to make one wise, and 
 she took of the fruit thereof." (Gen. iii. 6.) 
 
 The female thinks not profoundly ; profound 
 thought is the power of the man. 
 
 Women feel more. Sensibility is the power 
 of woman. 
 
 They often rule more effectually, more sove- 
 reignly, than man. They rule with tender looks, 
 tears, and sighs ; but not with passion and 
 threats ; for if, or when, they so rule, they are 
 no longer women, but abortions. 
 
 They are capable of the sweetest sensibility, 
 the most profound emotion, the utmost humility, 
 and the excess of enthusiasm. 
 
 In their countenance are the signs of sanctity 
 and inviolability, which every feeling man ho- 
 nours, and the effects of which are often mira- 
 culous. 
 
 Therefore, by the irritability of their nerves, 
 their incapacity for deep inquiry and firm deci- 
 sion, they may easily, from their extreme sensi- 
 bility, become the most irreclaimable, the most 
 rapturous enthusiasts. 
 
 Their love, strong and rooted as it is, is very 
 changeable ; their hatred almost incurable, and 
 only to be effaced by continued and artful flat- 
 tery. Men are most profound ; women are 
 more sublime. 
 
 Men most embrace the whole ; women re- 
 mark individually, and take more delight in 
 selecting the minutiae which form the whole. 
 Man hears the bursting thunder, views the de- 
 structive bolt with serene aspect, and stands 
 erect amidst the fearful majesty of the stream- 
 ing clouds. 
 
 Woman trembles at the lightning, and the 
 voice of distant thunder ; and shrinks into her- 
 self, or sinks into the arms of man. 
 
 Man receives a ray of light single, woman 
 delights to view it through a prism, in all its 
 dazzling colours. She contemplates the rain- 
 bow as the promise of peace ; he extends his 
 inquiring eye over the whole horizon. 
 
 Woman laughs, man smiles ; woman weeps, 
 
LAVATER. 
 
 205 
 
 man remains silent. Woman is in anguish 
 when man weeps, and in despair when man is 
 in anguish ; yet has she often more faith than 
 man. 
 
 Man without religion is a diseased creature, 
 who would persuade himself he is well and 
 needs not a physician; but woman without re- 
 ligion is raging and monstrous. 
 
 A woman with a beard is not so disgusting 
 as a woman who acts the free-thinker ; her sex is 
 formed for piety and religion ; to women Christ 
 first appeared ; but he was obliged to prevent 
 them from too ardently and too hastily em- 
 bracing him. — Touch me not. They are prompt 
 to receive and seize novelty, and become its 
 enthusiasts. 
 
 The whole world is forgotten in the emotion 
 caused by the presence and proximity of him 
 they love. 
 
 They sink into the most incurable melan- 
 choly, as they also rise to the most enraptured 
 heights. 
 
 The feelings of the man are more imagina- 
 tion ; those of the female more heart. 
 
 When communicative, they are more commu- 
 nicative than man ; when secret, more secret. 
 
 In general they are more patient, long-suffer- 
 ing, credulous, benevolent, and modest. 
 
 Woman is not a foundation on which to build. 
 She is the gold, silver, precious stones, wood, 
 hay, stubble (1 Cor. iii. 12); the materials for 
 building on the male foundation. She is the 
 leaven, or, more expressively, the oil to the vine- 
 gar of man ; the second part of the book of man, 
 
 Man, singly, is but half man; at least but 
 half human, — a king without a kingdom. Wo- 
 
 man, who feels properly what she is, whether 
 still or in motion, rests upon the man ; nor is 
 man what he may and ought to be but in con- 
 junction with woman. Therefore, " It is not 
 good that man should be alone, but that he 
 should leave father and mother and cleave to 
 his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." 
 
 A WORD ON THE PHYSIOGNOMICAL RELATION OF 
 THE SEXES. 
 
 Man is the most firm — woman the most flex- 
 ible. 
 
 Man is the straightest — woman the most 
 bending. 
 
 Man stands steadfast — woman gently trips. 
 
 Man surveys and observes — woman glances 
 and feels. 
 
 Man is serious — woman is gay. 
 
 Man is the tallest and broadest — woman less 
 and taper. 
 
 Man is rough and hard — woman smooth and 
 soft. 
 
 Man is brown — woman is fair. 
 
 Man is wrinkly — woman less so. 
 
 The hair of man is more strong and short — 
 of woman longer and more pliant. 
 
 The eyebrows of man are compressed — of 
 woman less frowning. 
 
 Man has most convex lines — woman most 
 concave. 
 
 Man has most straight lines-— woman most 
 curved. 
 
 The countenance of man, taken in profile, is 
 more seldom perpendicular than that of the 
 woman. 
 
 Man is most angular — woman most round. 
 
 18 
 
FRIEDRICH HE 
 
 INRICH JACOBI. 
 
 Born 1743. 
 
 A devout soul, a penetrating intellect, — poet 
 and philosopher in one. Jacobi has been called, by 
 some, the "German Plato," in honour of the high 
 religious tone which characterizes his writings. 
 
 Born at Dusseldorf, son of a merchant, he 
 was early devoted to the same calling by his 
 father, who sent him to Frankfort to be trained 
 for the counting-room and the exchange. Here 
 his pious spirit and studious habits drew upon 
 him the ridicule of his companions, and fore- 
 told the future man. From Frankfort he went 
 to Geneva, where he addicted himself to lite- 
 rary pursuits, and particularly to the French 
 language and literature, while prosecuting the 
 mercantile training which his father had marked 
 out for him. After a residence of three years 
 in this place, he returned to Dusseldorf and en- 
 tered his father's establishment, whose business 
 he conducted faithfully, though reluctantly, for 
 several years. It was at this period that he mar- 
 ried Betty von Clermont, a lady of Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle, who brought him wealth, together with 
 great personal and mental attractions. A pre- 
 ponderating taste for letters, and an appointment 
 under Government, which he received through 
 his friend and patron Count von Goltstein, in- 
 duced him to abandon his commercial engage- 
 ments ; and in 1779 he received a call, as Privy 
 Councillor, to Munchen. But his exposure of the 
 abuses of the Bavarian system of customs was 
 attended with consequences which rendered 
 that post uncomfortable, and he retired to Pem- 
 pelfort, an estate which he had purchased in 
 the neighbourhood of Dusseldorf. He here 
 applied himself with exclusive devotion to litera- 
 ture, and some of his best productions were 
 written during this period. The death of his 
 beautiful and accomplished wife, of whom 
 Goethe speaks so enthusiastically in his me- 
 moirs, threw a gloom over this otherwise so 
 happy interspace of private life. He still con- 
 tinued his establishment at Pempelfort, with the 
 aid of the two maiden sisters so wittily cele- 
 brated by Frau von Arnim, until the progress 
 of the French revolution, whose consequences 
 began to be felt in that region, impelled him to 
 move to the province of Holstein, the native 
 
 Died 1819. 
 
 country of his father. He resided for some 
 time at Eutin, in this district, and in 1601 
 visited Paris. In 1804 he was invited to the 
 newly-formed Academy of Sciences at Munich, 
 of which he was afterwards made president. 
 He was the rather induced to accept this invi- 
 tation on account of the loss of a considerable 
 part of his property by the misfortunes of his 
 brother-in-law. At the age of seventy he re- 
 signed this office, the salary of which was con- 
 tinued to him during the remainder of his life. 
 He died, March 10th, 1819. 
 
 Jacobi is ranked, and justly, among the phi- 
 losophers of modern Germany, although his 
 philosophy, far from shaping itself into a sys- 
 tem, denies, — and that denial may be regarded 
 as one of its leading characteristics, — on philo- 
 sophical grounds, the possibility of a system, 
 and maintains, that any system of philosophy 
 carried to its legitimate results must lead to 
 fanaticism. He vindicated the " affective''' part 
 of man's nature, which the Kantian exaltation 
 of pure reason had seemed to disparage, at 
 least to neglect, and gave to feeling* its due 
 place and authority as a medium and interpreter 
 of truth. Kant had shown the impossibility of 
 absolute knowledge. Jacobi went farther, and 
 maintained that the knowledge of the impossi- 
 bility of absolute knowledge is also not absolute, 
 as Kant had seemed to represent it ; — that we 
 have but an imperfect understanding of our 
 own ignorance. He differed from contempo- 
 rary philosophers, in being a devout believer in 
 revelation, — in the Christian revelation. The 
 gospel was to him the test and criterion of all 
 truth. For the rest, he was an eclectic, and 
 welcomed light from whatsoever quarter it 
 came. In philosophical insight he is surpassed 
 by none, and though his fixed idea of the 
 impossibility of a systematic philosophy may 
 have somewhat vitiated his view of existing 
 philosophies, his criticisms on some of them 
 are among the best that have been essayed. 
 
 * Closely connected with this merit, is the distinction 
 between reason and the understanding, now so widely 
 accepted, which Jacobi was the first to point out, or, at 
 least, to make prominent. 
 
 (206) 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 207 
 
 As a writer of German, in the opinion of the 
 author of this essay, he handles the language 
 more skilfully than any of his contemporaries, 
 Goethe only excepted. Many are more elo- 
 quent, but none (of the old school) possess his 
 ease and grace. Some of the later writers, 
 for example Heine, surpass him in this parti- 
 cular; but German rhetoric has undergone a 
 great change for the better during the last 
 thirty years. Of German philosophers, he is 
 the least obscure, and the one whose writings, 
 if translated, would prove most acceptable to 
 the English mind. 
 
 His principal works are, " Woldemar" and 
 "Alwill's Correspondence," two philosophical 
 novels, " Letters on Spinoza," " Of Divine 
 things and the revelation of them," " Letter to 
 Fichte," " David Hume on faith, or Idealism and 
 Realism." 
 
 On the whole, as Wieland has been denomi- 
 nated the Frenchman among German writers, 
 so, and with greater justice, Jacobi may be 
 termed English-German. In his strong prac- 
 tical tendency, and especially in his cautious, 
 unscientific, but severely critical, not profound, 
 but acute and ecclesiastical - mercantile way 
 of judging philosophical questions, he manifests 
 an affinity with the English mind which is not 
 to be found, to the same extent, in any of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 This is Mrs. Austin's view of him. " As a 
 writer of fiction, he is distinguished for vigor- 
 ous painting, admirable delineation of nature 
 and the human heart, warmth and depth of 
 feeling, and a lively, bold, yet correct, turn of 
 expression. As a philosopher, he is admired 
 for his rare depth of thought, (?) for the fervor 
 of his religious feelings, and the originality and 
 beauty of his style. At the same time, there 
 are few authors concerning whom opinions vary 
 more than concerning Jacobi. It seems as if 
 his works of imagination injured him with the 
 philosophers, and his philosophy with the poets. 
 
 " Jacobi's polemical merits were great. He 
 pointed out the chasms, the unconnectedness, 
 and the mischievous results of the prevalent 
 opinions with critical acuteness, and with all 
 the eloquence of a just aversion. With his 
 peculiar modes of thinking, it was natural that 
 he should not become the disciple of any other 
 philosopher, and that he should come into con- 
 flict alternately with the dogmatic Mendels- 
 sohn, the critical Kant, the idealistical Fichte, 
 
 and the pantheistical Schelling* against the 
 latter of whom, indeed, he expressed himself 
 with too much bitterness. Jacobi's place among 
 the pure searchers after truth must, however, 
 remain for ever uncontested ; and his character 
 is rich in all that can attract the wise and 
 good."f 
 
 Bouterwek, one of the most capable and ju- 
 dicious critics of Germany, characterizes Ja- 
 cobi as follows: — 
 
 " This writer does not belong to the perfectly 
 correct stylists, whose greatest merit, however, 
 often consists merely in elegant phrases and 
 turns of expression. But, like Herder and 
 Johannes Midler, he towers above all other 
 German prosaists of his age in the powerful 
 and original manner in which he expresses his 
 thoughts. His style is the true image of his 
 mind. ****** 
 
 " The supreme want of his heart was religion, 
 but a religion which should consist with reason. 
 By a severe criticism of the various metaphysi- 
 cal systems he had satisfied himself that no 
 religious truth is susceptible of metaphysical 
 demonstration ; but also that Reason, by means 
 of which man becomes capable of the idea of 
 truth, is a higher principle in our mind than 
 the mere understanding which forms general 
 conceptions and combines them in judgments 
 from which we draw conclusions. Reason, ac- 
 cording to his view, included that same element 
 of feeling, of which he could not divest himself 
 in his search after pure truth. Nevertheless, 
 there never perhaps was an understanding more 
 clear and incorruptible than his. * * * * 
 
 " Jacobi's style is not laconic but pregnant. 
 Every principal word has a deeply considered 
 and sharply determined signification. Notwith- 
 standing its easy and graceful turns, it exhibits 
 no trace of flightiness. Not unfrequently it 
 possesses a very agreeable rotundity. In his 
 syntax he allows himself some liberties which 
 are not common, but which have already been 
 imitated by other writers, and which promote 
 distinctness and force of expression. That 
 Jacobi, ever intent on the most fitting expres- 
 sion, should have discovered in the German 
 language some turns peculiar to it and hitherto 
 little used, is the more remarkable, since, like 
 Johannes Miiller, he had received, in his youth, 
 a part of his education in Geneva, and had 
 
 * See the "Conversations-Lexicon." Art. Jacobi. Ed. 
 | Mrs. Austin's "German Prose Writers." 
 
208 
 
 J ACOBI. 
 
 become master of the French language as no 
 philosophical writer in Germany, beside him- 
 self is known to have been, since Leibnitz."* 
 
 What Goethe thought and hoped of Jacobi 
 when both were young, may be seen from the 
 following account which he gives of their meet- 
 ing: 
 
 " Although the poetical mode of presentation 
 occupied me chiefly and was properly congenial 
 with my nature, yet reflections on subjects of 
 every kind were not strange to me, and Jacobi's 
 original and constitutional direction toward the 
 inscrutable, w r as, in the highest degree, wel- 
 come and genial. Here, there was no contro- 
 versy — neither a Christian one, as with Lavater, 
 nor a didactic one, as with Basedow. The 
 thoughts which Jacobi communicated to me 
 sprung immediately from his feelings; and how 
 peculiarly was I penetrated when, with un- 
 conditioned confidence, he hid not from me 
 the deepest demands of his soul ! From so 
 wondrous a combination of want, passion and 
 ideas, there could arise, for me also, only fore- 
 feelings of that which perhaps would be clearer 
 to me at some future time. Happily I too had 
 — if not cultivated — yet worked my nature on 
 this side, and had received into myself the be- 
 ing and the way-of-thinking of an extraordinary 
 man, imperfectly indeed, and as it were sur- 
 reptitiously; but I was already experiencing 
 therefrom the most important consequences. 
 This mind which wrought so decidedly upon 
 me, and which was to have so great an influ- 
 ence upon my whole way of thinking, was 
 Spinoza. Namely, after I had looked about in 
 all the world in vain for some means of form- 
 ing my strange nature, I chanced at last on 
 that man's "Ethics." Of what I may have 
 read for myself out of that work, or of what I 
 may have read into it, I can give no account. 
 Enough, I found here a sedative for my passions ; 
 a large and free view of the sensual and moral 
 world seemed to open itself before me. But 
 what especially chained me to him, was the 
 boundless disinterestedness which shone forth 
 from every proposition. That wonderful word : 
 " Whoso loveth God aright, must not demand 
 that God should love him in return," with all 
 the premises on which it rests, and all the con- 
 sequences that flow from it, filled entirely my 
 meditation. To be disinterested in all, and 
 
 * Bouterwek's " Oesckichte der Poesie unci Bercdsam- 
 keit," quoted by Wolff. 
 
 most disinterested in love and friendship, was 
 my highest joy, my maxim, my exercise; so 
 that that petulant later saying : " If I love thee, 
 what 's that to thee," is spoken from my very 
 heart For the rest, here also let it not be 
 overlooked, that the most intimate connections 
 spring from opposition. The all-composing 
 quietism of Spinoza contrasted with my all- 
 upstirring endeavor ; his mathematical method 
 was the antagonist to my poetical way of feel- 
 ing and presenting; and precisely that ruled 
 mode of treatment, which was thought not 
 suitable to moral subjects, made me his pas- 
 sionate disciple, his most decided adorer. Mind 
 and heart, understanding and sentiment, sought 
 each other with necessary, elective affinity; 
 and by this means a union of the most dissimi- 
 lar natures was brought about. 
 
 " All this was still in the first stage of action 
 and reaction, fermenting and seething. Fred. 
 Jacobi, the first one whom I permitted to look 
 into this chaos, he, whose nature was also 
 laboring in the deepest, heartily accepted my 
 confidence, returned it, and sought to guide me 
 into his way of thinking. He too felt an un- 
 speakable spiritual want; he too would not 
 have it silenced by foreign aid, but satisfied by 
 development and light from within. What he 
 imparted to me of the state of his mind T could 
 not comprehend, the rather because I could 
 form no conception of my own. But he, who 
 had advanced so far before me in philosophical 
 thinking and even in the study of Spinoza, en- 
 deavored to guide and enlighten my dark 
 striving. Such a pure, spiritual affinity, was 
 new to me, and awakened a passionate longing 
 for further communication. At night, after we 
 had already parted and withdrawn into our 
 sleeping-apartments, I would seek him again. 
 The moonshine trembled on the broad Rhine ; 
 and we, standing at the window, revelled in 
 the fulness of reciprocal giving and receiving 
 which swells forth so richly in that glorious 
 period of development. * * * * 
 * * * ***** 
 
 " Then, when I returned to my friend Jacobi, 
 I enjoyed the rapturous feeling of a union 
 through the innermost mind. We were both 
 animated by the liveliest hope of a common 
 activity. I vehemently urged him to set forth 
 vigorously, in some form or other, all that was 
 moving and working within him. It was the 
 means by which I had extricated myself from 
 
J ACOBI. 
 
 so many perplexities, and I hoped that it would 
 prove effectual with him also. He delayed not 
 to seize it with spirit ; and how much that is 
 good, beautiful and heart-rejoicing has he not 
 produced ! 
 
 " And so we parted, at last, with the blessed 
 
 209 
 
 feeling of eternal union, without any fore-feel- 
 ing that our striving" would take opposite direc- 
 tions, as, in the course of life, was but too 
 manifest."* 
 
 * " jius meinem Leben" Part third. Book fourteenth. 
 
 FROM THE " FLYING LEAVES." 
 
 My aim is not to help the reader while away 
 the time, but rather to aid those to whom, as to 
 me, the time is already too fleeting. 
 
 I can live in harmony with every one who 
 lives in harmony with himself. 
 
 What dost thou call a beautiful soul ? Thou 
 callest a beautiful soul one that is quick to per- 
 ceive the good, that gives it due prominence and 
 holds it immovably fast. 
 
 It is absurd for a man to say that he hates 
 and despises men, but loves and honours Hu- 
 manity. A general without a particular, a 
 Humanity worthy of honour and love without 
 men who are worthy of honour and love, is a 
 fiction of the brain, a thing that has no exist- 
 ence. 
 
 It is the custom of virtue to note the failings 
 of distinguished men not otherwise than with a 
 certain timidity and shame. It is the custom 
 of vice to cover impudence with the appellation 
 of love of truth. 
 
 To lay aside all prejudices is to lay aside all 
 principles. He who is destitute of principles 
 is governed, theoretically and practically, by 
 whims. 
 
 Man, according to Moses, was created last ; all 
 the varieties of irrational animals were created 
 before him. This order is still repeated in each 
 individual man. He follows first the animal, the 
 coarser propensities,— coarse, animal pleasure ; 
 but he is created for immortality, and can find 
 the way to immortality. But he can also become 
 more beastly than a beast, and use the means 
 of immortality in such a way as to become 
 more mortal, — as to draw upon himself suffer- 
 ings and diseases from which the brute is free. 
 He can " with the armour of light extend the 
 kingdom of darkness and of barbarism.'' Herder, 
 in his "jlelteste Urkunde" remarks that Adam, 
 after the Fall, clothed himself in the life of ani- 
 mals. Man is guided by propensities, and all 
 his propensities belong to his nature. But the 
 propensity which makes him man, which dis- 
 tinguishes him, is the true life-propensity proper 
 to his species, — the propensity to a higher life. 
 2b 
 
 Even in the mere faculty of perception, which 
 may be regarded as opposed to the faculty of 
 sensation, this propensity appears. For the 
 faculty of perception, the power of projecting 
 objects out of himself, of raising himself above 
 them in order to contemplate them, is objective, 
 and is the foundation of the regal dignity of 
 man. It strikes the first spark of a love which 
 differs so widely from what we call lust that it 
 is capable of resisting and overcoming that lust. 
 The earnest observer finds everywhere, from 
 first to last, the same economy. But the inner- 
 most essence of the purely human propensity, — 
 as the proper seat of liberty, as the mystery of 
 substance, — is inscrutable for us. 
 
 There is no one thing in the world for which 
 we can conceive an interest and a love that 
 shall endure forever. Therefore fidelity is re- 
 quired of us, and a firm intent which the soul 
 must be able to create for itself. He who learns 
 this acquires freedom ; acquires something of 
 that great property, the property of having life 
 in himself, which is the true philosopher's stone. 
 
 The secret of the moral sense and feeling is 
 the secret of everlasting life, in contradistinction 
 to our present existence, which is fleeting how- 
 ever we may strive against it, and leads to 
 death. In moral feeling there is a presentiment 
 of eternity. I know nothing sublimer and pro- 
 founder than the saying of the New Testament, 
 "Our life is hid in Christ (the God-man) with 
 God.'' Unquestionably, our life, if there is any 
 true life in us, is hidden deep within us. Never- 
 theless it commands, apodictically,* its own 
 preservation ; commands that we bring it forth 
 to the light. Faith and experience, therefore, 
 are the only way by which we can arrive at 
 the knowledge of the truth. True, it is a mys- 
 tic, and to brutalism altogether intolerable, way. 
 We must be able to inflict pain upon ourselves 
 if we would attain to virtue and honour. Cou- 
 rage, resolution, is, above all things, necessary 
 to man. 
 
 What is it that we admire in a Bayard, a 
 Montrose, a Ruyter, a Douglas, in the friends of 
 Cimon, who offered themselves up at Tanagra ? 
 We admire this in them, that they did not doat 
 on the body but lived exclusively the life of the 
 
 * J)podiktisch, equivalent to absolutely ; from the Greek 
 anoSciKi'v/xi, to demonstrate ; also, to appoint, to require 
 by law. Tr. 
 
 18* 
 
210 
 
 JACOBI. 
 
 soul. They were not what accident would 
 make of them, but what they themselves had 
 resolved to be. He to whom the law, which he 
 is to follow, does not stand forth as a God, has 
 only a dead letter which cannot possibly quicken 
 him. 
 
 Every aptitude to an end is a virtue. The 
 inquiry after the highest virtue is an inquiry 
 after the highest end. The rank of the virtues 
 must therefore be determined according to the 
 rank of the ends. To discover the system of 
 ends it is necessary to ascertain what is the des- 
 tination of man, his highest and ultimate aim. 
 
 The wise man is known by the choice of the 
 ends which he proposes to himself ; the prudent 
 man is known by the choice of the means by 
 which he attains his ends, whether they be wise 
 or unwise. But how are the ends themselves 
 to be known ? Is the choice of the wisest to 
 decide ? Then we cannot say, as we have just 
 said, that the wise man is known by his ends. 
 Semper idem velle atque idem nolle. But what 
 is this one, and the same which is to be always 
 willed ? It is the glory of God. 
 
 It is agreeable to the dignity of man to hold 
 his "passions in subjection, to govern them. 
 But the feeling of dignity does not consist in 
 the governing as such, but in that whereby we 
 govern, in the consciousness of a higher destina- 
 tion. Man knows a higher good ; this it is that 
 overcomes, not his will. 
 
 Every activity proposes to itself a passivity, 
 every labour enjoyment. But every enjoyment 
 presupposes a want; when that is satisfied, the 
 enjoyment ends. All pleasure is necessarily 
 transient. 
 
 We enjoy ourself, however, only in our work, 
 in our doing, and our best enjoyment is our best 
 doing. 
 
 Man imputes to himself the ability to be con- 
 stant by his own proper force, and places his 
 honour in that ability. A man of his word, and 
 a man of honor are synonymous terms. He 
 who can embrace a purpose and persist in it, 
 who can act from a resolve, unsupported by 
 present inclination, nay, even in opposition to 
 present inclination, emotion, or passion, of him 
 we say, " he has character," " he is a man." We 
 despise the man who is always only what 
 things, accidents, circumstances, make of him ; 
 the fickle, the inconstant, the wavering. We 
 honour him who can resist objects and the im- 
 pressions which they make upon him, who 
 knows how to maintain his self in the face of 
 them, who lets himself be instructed but not 
 changed by them. 
 
 To believe in humanity, to trust a friend un- 
 conditionally, we call great and noble. Want 
 of faith, doubt, suspicion, have something little, 
 
 ignoble ; they originate in fear. A noble and 
 courageous mind then believes and confides. It 
 believes and confides not because it is a good 
 calculator ; its faith, its confidence, is power of 
 feeling, not a cold exercise of the understanding. 
 On the contrary, this power is opposed to the 
 understanding inasmuch as it raises itself above 
 it. 
 
 When man abides in the creature, he sinks 
 behind and before into nothing. 
 
 When feeling and sentiment vanish, words 
 and ceremonies remain and make themselves 
 important. 
 
 Where morals are, there reason reigns over 
 sense. And, vice versa, where reason begins 
 to obtain the ascendency over sense, there morals 
 arise. 
 
 The first step in the corruption of morals is 
 no longer to regard public opinion ; the last step 
 is the absence of public opinion. Every one 
 does, then, what pleases him ; to every one it 
 seems right to follow his own lusts. Morals 
 have ceased from the land. 
 
 Have not all virtues sprung up before they 
 had either name or precept? The book of life 
 must be written before an index can be affixed 
 to it. Our moral philosophies are such indexes 
 made after the book ; and they are generally 
 made by men who understand nothing of the 
 book. Others, who also understand nothing of 
 it, think that the index is the basis of the book, 
 and the art of referring to it the true art of life. 
 But they always refer to it for others, not for 
 themselves. 
 
 Life is not a particular form of body, but the 
 body is a particular form of life. The body 
 relates to the soul as the word to the thought. 
 
 The essence of reason consists in self-percep- 
 tion. It returns into self. That which it per- 
 ceives, so far as it is conditioned by sense, it 
 calls nature. That which it perceives, so far 
 as it is not conditioned by sense, it calls the 
 Divine Being. 
 
 True enlightenment is that which teaches 
 man that he is a law to himself. True culture 
 is that which accustoms him to obey this law 
 without regard to reward and punishment. 
 
 In an age in which the good and the true are 
 considered as two different and often conflict- 
 ing things, every thing must conflict. 
 
 All laws, considered in the origin of their 
 power, are despotic. Sic volo sic jubeo. Laws 
 of the will are not laws which the will receives, 
 but laws which the will gives. There is no- 
 thing above the will ; in it is original life. How 
 should a law be able to produce a will ? Where 
 
JACOBI, 
 
 211 
 
 this seems to be the case, a law-giving will is 
 already presupposed, which, in that particular 
 instance, appears as executive power. 
 
 " Peace is the masterpiece of reason," says 
 Johann Muller. This is true, not only in re- 
 gard to civil polity, but in every regard. 
 
 It is not truth, justice, liberty, which men 
 seek; they seek only themselves. And 0! that 
 they knew how to seek themselves aright ! 
 
 What have not men tried and applied in 
 order to guaranty to each other reciprocally, 
 their identity, — the being and enduring of their 
 7. All civil order has this for its first and last 
 object, that the will of to-day may be valid also 
 to-morrow. Hence, religion has been held so 
 sacred among all nations. They fixed by means 
 of it the changeable ness of their nature. 
 
 He who cannot help himself seeks protection 
 from others in return for service, subjection, all 
 kinds of acknowledgment. Thus arose magis- 
 trates, judges, leaders. Right was sought first 
 with the stronger; he helped to find it. The 
 first natural potentates were fathers, afterwards 
 patriarchs, — the patricians in Rome, later, free- 
 holders. He who could help himself was more 
 highly esteemed than he who was forced to 
 seek help from others. Hence, it has come to 
 pass that down to the present day, men boast 
 more of strength than of justice, for justice 
 makes equal. 
 
 So soon as man begins to believe in others no 
 more than he believes in himself, all Gouverne- 
 ment de confiance is at an end. 
 
 The aim of civil polities, so far as they are 
 grounded in reason, is to give to pure, practical 
 reason a body. Systems of ethics alone cannot 
 do that. Reason must be expressed outwardly, 
 embodied in external institutions, which serve, 
 as far as possible, to supply the place of peculiar 
 power, — its self-existence 
 
 Man esteems human feelings higher than the 
 express laws by which it is intended to govern 
 those feelings. He makes the love of parents, 
 of children, the love of friends, fidelity, com- 
 passion, the basis of all duties; not only tole- 
 rating exceptions from the law on their account, 
 but even reproving the strength of mind which 
 exalts itself above every feeling by means of 
 ideas. 
 
 As a countenance is made beautiful by the 
 soul's shining through it, so the world is beauti- 
 ful by the shining through it of a Gud. 
 
 As my own self is present to me in an in- 
 comprehensible manner, so God is present to 
 me likewise, in an incomprehensible man- 
 ner. 
 
 Instinct harmonizes the interior of animals, 
 Religion the interior of man. 
 
 Through the dark of world-events there 
 sometimes dart lightnings which tear asunder 
 the clouds and discover heaven, the dwelling 
 of God. In the heart of man, in his spirit, 
 these lightnings are kindled and shoot upward. 
 
 Man as a finite being must everywhere make 
 nature — finiteness — his foundation. He would 
 not free himself from nature, but free his nature, 
 or at least endue it with freedom. 
 
 Certain as it is that we live in time as our 
 element, and cannot, for a moment, imagine 
 ourselves out of time, without likewise ima- 
 gining the cessation of our being ; we can as 
 little conceive ourselves as children of time 
 and our existence as given in time alone. On 
 the contrary, we have a most intense conscious- 
 ness of something beyond time. In ourselves 
 we call it self, out of ourselves, God ; but that 
 which is in time we call nature or the perish- 
 able. Every perishable is given in an imperish- 
 able, and presupposes it, or it could not be. 
 We live thereby that we continually interrupt 
 eternity and make a beginning and an end. 
 
 Nothing terrifies man so much, nothing brings 
 such gloom over his spirit, as when, to his ap- 
 prehension, God vanishes out of Nature, as 
 when God hides his face from him, as when 
 design, wisdom, goodness, do not appear to rule 
 in Nature, but only blind necessity or senseless 
 chance. 
 
 As man instinctively interprets the features, 
 gestures, and accents of his fellow-men, and 
 thus attains to language, even so he interprets 
 Nature instinctively also. As men originally 
 communicate, and understand one another by 
 expressions of their interior which have been 
 implanted by nature, not invented by them- 
 selves, so God communicates with the human 
 race through his creation. Out of the natural 
 language between man and man there arises 
 an artificial one of arbitrary signs ; and man 
 can so abuse this art, as by means of it to de- 
 ceive himself with regard to the original design. 
 So it is with religion which degenerates, in his 
 hands, into empty ceremonies, and at last into 
 irreligion. 
 
 Without religion, whither will ye flee for 
 safety, in a world full of death, full of pains, 
 full of warring passions? Envy with its com- 
 panions, slander and malice, assail you in every 
 situation, so soon as ye begin to take comfort in 
 it, so soon as ye begin, in any way, to distin- 
 guish yourselves in it. Wherever ye flee, in- 
 justice and wickedness are the stronger. Neither 
 are ye true to yourselves; no inclination, no 
 purpose, no living and strengthening thought 
 can ye hold fast at will. Ye summon in vain 
 
212 
 
 JACOBI. 
 
 all the powers and faculties of the understand- 
 ing. The understanding can only elaborate, its 
 deliberative will can only unite here and sepa- 
 rate there what already is. What comfort, 
 therefore, unless the spirit can lift itself up to 
 something unchangeable, to something eternal? 
 unless it can embrace a faith which shall over- 
 come the world ? Perfect blessedness is no- 
 where, and nowhere would there be consola- 
 tion even, if religion were not. Everywhere 
 man must help himself with something. One 
 grasps at honour, another at pleasure, and de- 
 stroys his inner life. Religion only can purify 
 and deliver it. 
 
 Man is unceasingly employed in raising him- 
 self from the stuff to the form, from the actual 
 to the possible, from the world to God. 
 
 It is impossible to be a hero in anything un- 
 less one is first a hero in faith. 
 
 The characteristic sign of genius is to forget 
 one's self by living in an idea. Life in an idea 
 must entirely swallow up the proper, natural 
 life. 
 
 As long as man forgets more slowly than he 
 learns, he advances. He ceases to advance, and 
 retrogrades, when he forgets sooner and more 
 than he can learn. 
 
 With the approach of old age I experienced, 
 as never before, that the living spirit in man is 
 every thing, his knowledge nothing. 
 
 In love we exert ourselves to be all that we 
 can be, in the presence of the beloved object. 
 Through that we become acquainted with the 
 feeling of shame for ourselves in the highest 
 degree. In ordinary intimacies, the reverse is 
 found ; they help us to be less ashamed of our- 
 selves; they put us at our ease ; we relax in 
 our intercourse with the friend, and precisely 
 in his presence are the least that we can be. 
 
 Unwillingly I assail, unwillingly I refute, not 
 only because I know from experience how little 
 truth is benefited thereby, but because the na- 
 ture of human knowledge itself convinces me 
 of the same thing. Before I can expose an er- 
 ror, I must be able to demonstrate the truth 
 which contradicts that error. Error in itself 
 is always invisible; its nature is absence of 
 light. 
 
 That which is written in the taste of the times 
 needs no justification. Agreement supplies the 
 place of proofs ; whereas the most profound op- 
 position awakens only anger. 
 
 Only those thoughts which the most profound 
 earnestness has produced and perfected, take a 
 cheerful form. They make a man joyful. This 
 is the secret of the Socratic irony. And hence 
 
 it is that the taste for genuine Socratic irony is 
 so rare. 
 
 A man of taste is one who feels the beautiful 
 immediately; who derives the feeling of the 
 beautiful immediately from the beautiful. Any 
 one who possesses a considerable degree of sa- 
 gacity and understanding may judge very cor- 
 rectly, up to a certain point, in accordance with 
 a received model; he may decide for others 
 whether a given work of art is beautiful or not; 
 he may determine the why and the degree of 
 its beauty. But because he can do this, he is 
 not therefore a man of taste, and not unfre- 
 quently he is guilty of gross error. The beau- 
 tiful has this in common with all original (na- 
 ture) that it is recognised without a mark. It 
 is, and manifests itself; it may be indicated but 
 not demonstrated. 
 
 We exhaust ourselves in the generation of our 
 intellectual offspring. We weaken the power 
 of representation in ourselves by representing 
 for others ; so that, in a strict sense, we give 
 forth truth. What we communicate, (make 
 common) of that we lose the proper possession. 
 
 ***** We forget while 
 teaching others, and, with our disciples, we be- 
 come our own disciples by being obliged to 
 stoop to them. It may come to pass, that one 
 shall believe only that which one can succeed 
 in imparting to others. All this, however, is 
 true only of those labours in which truths are eli- 
 cited from the innermost soul. In all other 
 cases the " docendo discimus'* holds good. 
 
 It happens to us with ideas* as with money. 
 The general sign is metamorphosed, in our im- 
 agination, into the thing itself; we prefer it to 
 that, the seemingly universal medium to each 
 particular end.j" 
 
 Avarice is a root of all evil. 
 
 We make ourselves giddy and sink down into 
 the centre of nothing, i. e. of positive falsehood, 
 I when we undertake to restore from the under- 
 standing that which has perished as a feeling 
 from the heart. 
 
 Our mundane system is said to be composed 
 of the ruins of a sun. The dissectiug, divelling 
 understanding, when it attempts to create, de- 
 vises only ruins. Man must annihilate a portion 
 of every knowledge in order to grasp it, for he 
 
 * ' Begriffen: Conceptions, perhaps, is a more lite- 
 ral rendering; concipio, cum-capio, that which is taken 
 together in one act of the mind. Begreifen is to grasp to 
 take in, but begriff, as now used, lies between conception 
 and idea: more objective than the former, more subjec- 
 tive than the latter, in its original acceptation. Tr. 
 
 | Coleridge says, somewhere, that our conceptions may 
 be so adequate as to preclude the desire of realizing them. 
 This I take to be the sense of the above; this is that in- 
 tellectual avarice which contents itself with the means, 
 the representative of values, without attempting to re- 
 alize them in action. Tr. 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 213 
 
 can ?Tasp only with his conception ; he possesses 
 the thing only so far as he knows how to bring 
 it under a word. 
 
 Every mediate designation must have been 
 preceded by an immediate, every artificial by a 
 natural. The more mediated our designation 
 becomes, the more artificial our language, the 
 more confused and dim our conceptions of the 
 truth. 
 
 All philosophising is only a more extended 
 fathoming of the invention of language. 
 
 There is often such a silence in me, so pro- 
 found a meditation, that I cannot express how 
 distracted seem to me all men whom I see be- 
 fore me. No one listens. 
 
 In nature, and, in general, in the actual, the 
 true, everything is positive. In the understand- 
 ing and its possibility, everything is negative. 
 For, in the understanding, everything stands un- 
 der conceptions, and the most comprehensive 
 are generally the most empty. At whatsoever 
 the understanding aims, the white which it seeks 
 to hit is nihility, or the All-minus diversity, indi- 
 viduality, personality. 
 
 Because man falls into self-contradiction, there- 
 fore he philosophises. In innumerable ways 
 he loses the connection of his truths, i. e. they 
 come into collision with each other, they mutu- 
 ally cancel each other. Here comes in the right 
 of the stronger. Which is the more, the most 
 positive 1 that is the controversy. To one man 
 this seems most positive, to another that. Nay, 
 in the same individual this may be most posi- 
 tive to-day, to-morrow that. When this happens 
 frequently, the whole understanding of the man 
 becomes confused; it finds nowhere a steady 
 hold. 
 
 It is a strange pretence, that we seek truth 
 disinterestedly. Man seeks it disinterestedly 
 just as we may say of the brute that it seeks its 
 food disinterestedly, solely in obedience to an 
 instinct. Man seeks truth because untruth kills 
 him, and because he seeks a foundation for his 
 best feelings and wishes ; he longs for the foun- 
 tain of the good, the beautiful, of truth and life. 
 
 What do we mean when we say that truth 
 should be sought for its own sake, and that we 
 should sacrifice everything to that? Is it a com- 
 mand of instinct, or do I see something for which 
 I strive! The aim of philosophy, it is said, is 
 to understand ourselves. So it appears in re- 
 flection ; but its origin is, that contradiction has 
 arisen within us, that we see double, that a truth 
 was taken from us which we are desirous of 
 possessing again. We are looking round after 
 tlie truth that has flown. There is, originally, 
 no mere inconsiderate curiosity ; but there is an 
 original interest. We find ourselves in the truth, 
 
 and only by degrees do we become aware that 
 we did not possess it entire. 
 
 Of those who boast that they seek truth for 
 its own sake, the greater part are seeking only 
 a system, and when they have found one, no 
 matter what one, they are satisfied. 
 
 Reason is the consciousness of the spirit. He 
 who loses reason loses himself, his self-con- 
 sciousness, his proper being and persistence, his 
 person. Personality is inseparable from reason, 
 reason from personality. * * * * 
 Reason also is necessarily connected with liberty, 
 and the consciousness of personality is the conscious- 
 ness of liberty. 
 
 He who philosophises for himself meets, at 
 every step, with difficulties, of which he who 
 philosophises for a school experiences nothing. 
 
 In my younger days it stood thus with me in 
 regard to philosophy. I seemed to myself to be 
 heir to immeasurable riches, and only some un- 
 important lawsuits and some unmeaning for- 
 malities seemed to hinder me from taking full 
 possession of my inheritance. The suits, while 
 pending, grew to be important. At last, it ap- 
 peared that I had inherited nothing but lawsuits, 
 and that the whole bequest was in insolvent 
 hands. 
 
 Some men have, so to speak, only examples 
 in their head, others have laws likewise. Vi- 
 gorous reasoning is shown in finding laws for 
 examples and examples for laws. The eye of 
 the understanding contracts itself, as it were, in 
 forming conceptions, and expands in applying 
 them. The merely book-learned have, for the 
 most part, very narrow minds, and so too have 
 the merely mechanically practical. 
 
 Philosophy is an internal life. A philosophi- 
 cal life is a collected life. By means of true 
 philosophy the soul becomes still, and, at last, 
 devout. 
 
 Philosophising is striving to sail up the stream 
 of being and of knowing, to its source. 
 
 In regard to the ultimate objects of human 
 contemplation, the most common conceptions 
 are the truest. After pondering till we are 
 weary, we are forced to return to them at last, 
 and to allow the truth of the saying, that to 
 children and to men of simple understandings 
 are revealed the things which are hidden from 
 the wise. 
 
 I have been young and now I am old, and I 
 bear my testimony that I have never found tho- 
 rough, pervading, enduring morality with any 
 but such as feared God, — not in the modern 
 sense, but in the old child-like way. And only 
 with such too, have I found a rejoicing in life,— 
 
214 
 
 JACOBI. 
 
 a hearty, victorious cheerfulness of so distin- 
 guished a kind, that no other is to be compared 
 with it. 
 
 I too believe on account of miracles; namely, 
 on account of the miracle of liberty, which is a 
 continuous miracle, and has much analogy with 
 the miracle on which Christendom is founded, — 
 the reception of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 
 
 To be free and to be a spirit are one and the 
 same. Where spirit is, there is invention, cre- 
 ative power, originality, self-existence. 
 
 Every great example takes hold of us with 
 the authority of a miracle, and says to us : If ye 
 had but faith, ye should also be able to do the 
 things which I do. 
 
 Love, admiration, reverence, are the founda- 
 tion of all morality. We feel ourselves as cause, 
 as person, and so personify everything, — streams, 
 winds, storms, trees, — whatever stirs and bene- 
 fits or harms us. Whatever we know or judge 
 of the internal powers of things, we know and 
 judge by sympathy, by presentiment. Every 
 man has his own individual universe. The 
 more he is able to transport himself into other 
 things, to live the life of those things, to unite 
 his life with theirs, the greater his being becomes. 
 
 The best thing in being man, after all, is that 
 the good which we have enjoyed does not perish 
 from us, — that it establishes itself within and 
 around us, propagates itself, multiplies ; and that 
 thus we acquire ever more power for greater 
 enjoyment. 
 
 To embrace an object in such a way as to see 
 nothing beyond it, — there is no other way to be 
 a hero. 
 
 I have all reverence for principles which 
 grow out of sentiments, but as to sentiments 
 which grow out of principles, you shall scarcely 
 build a house of cards thereon. 
 
 The first and necessary condition of morality 
 —the power of acting in obedience to laws — is 
 easily confounded with morality itself, which 
 consists in a longing after something higher. 
 
 To perform noble and beautiful acts is natural 
 to man; it is easy for him, he finds immediate 
 impulses to such acts in himself. On the other 
 hand, virtue, which, in the proper sense, is 
 founded on self-denial, is everywhere difficult. 
 To virtue he must accustom himself with great 
 labour, and laboriously suffer the habit to be 
 formed in him. Nevertheless Nature has im- 
 planted magnanimity in him, thereby indicating 
 a power of self-control in his mind, which acts 
 previous to all deliberation. 
 
 Most men can get accustomed to diligence 
 and obedience; and the whole budget of ideas 
 and sentiments by which it is proposed to con- 
 
 trol or regulate the animal propensities, amounts 
 to nothing in comparison with acquired skill in 
 work and the love of work which grows out of it. 
 
 It is never too late with us, so long as we are 
 still aware of our faults and bear them impa- 
 tiently, — so long as noble propensities, greedy 
 of conquest, stir within us. 
 
 How happy you are, said I to L., in possess- 
 ing so much freedom of will ! While I said this, 
 it struck me with new force that we place that 
 which we call freedom of will, not so much in 
 the power of choice, as in the power of execut- 
 ing our volitions. 
 
 The strongest passion in man is ambition. 
 That which satisfies a true ambition promotes 
 the love of God, and leads us nearer to the 
 knowledge of Him. 
 
 It is sometimes necessary to let five be even.* 
 I have all my life practised this doctrine, more 
 than I ought, from natural facility of temper. 
 But then I have never been able to prevail on 
 myself, while letting five be even, to maintain 
 solemnly that there is no such thing as even, or 
 that five is the law of the even. 
 
 The Athenians, on the day after the assassi- 
 nation of Archias, sent to the Thebans, whom 
 Pelopidas had set free, five thousand men, as 
 auxiliaries against the Lacedaemonians. We 
 often find this among the Greeks, that they re- 
 garded no danger in actions which honour and 
 propriety demanded of them. Wisdom and 
 prudence, with them, were very different things. 
 With all the faults and vices of these people, 
 there lived in them something of genuine free- 
 dom, which impelled them, strengthened them, 
 and gave to their courage a sublime character, 
 entirely wanting to the courage of the moderns. 
 It stood very clear before their eyes that man 
 has a better soul and that this better soul should 
 hold the lower in subjection. 
 
 The greater a man's ability to act for distant 
 ends, the stronger his mind. 
 
 Man cannot reform himself in detail, nor, in 
 general, can he keep his promises to himself, for 
 he himself is the sport of passions, and only the 
 law above him is constant. That he can ac- 
 knowledge this law, subject himself to its dis- 
 cipline, in fine, appropriate to himself the love 
 of it and make it a part of his character,— 
 therein consists his dignity. And the character 
 of the righteous man is no other than this. It 
 is folly to build upon a man who has only dis- 
 position (though it were the very best) without 
 principles whereby to guide this disposition and 
 to govern himself. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 * A proverbial expression signifying that one must not 
 be too strict in a given case,— must let a thing pass. Tr. 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 215 
 
 We always live prospectively, never retro- 
 spectively, and there is no abiding moment. 
 Therefore let us seek internal peace, before all 
 things, and sacrifice everything to that. Every 
 lot is tolerable ; only dissatisfaction with our- 
 selves is not tolerable ; and there is a degree 
 of remorse from which there is no deliverance. 
 
 We may surrender ourselves without danger 
 to impressions made by Nature, also to impres- 
 sions made by men. Call it enthusiasm, call it 
 fanaticism, provided our feeling is only the re- 
 sult of an actual relation, there is no harm to be 
 feared. But as soon as we attempt to perpetuate 
 the feeling beyond its natural duration, as soon 
 as we take pains to imitate it, and lastly, when 
 we even go so far as to endeavour to awaken 
 the feelings of others in ourselves, we are in 
 the way of self-delusion and hypocrisy. 
 
 Mankind are forever employed in giving their 
 unreason a different shape, and each time they 
 persuade themselves that they have converted 
 it into reason. They fall out of one superstition 
 into another, and with every new start, they 
 think they have gained in the knowledge of 
 truth. It is error itself which continually drives 
 them before it, while they think they are flying 
 from it of their own accord. But it is contrary 
 to the nature of error to drive men to the truth. 
 The truth is altogether internal, and he who 
 possesses it is in danger of losing it when he 
 attempts to make it external, when he regards 
 that which he has made external as the truth 
 itself. For truth is not this or that opinion, but 
 an insight which is elevated above every 
 peculiar opinion. 
 
 Although man daily detects himself in mis- 
 taking the symptoms of an event for its cause, 
 he continually commits the same error anew, 
 and will rather help himself with the most 
 absurd explanations, than be contented with a 
 thorough account of the matter. For example, 
 nothing lies more plain before his eyes than 
 that no individual can originate from mere com- 
 position, and yet the materialist will rather sup- 
 pose that this may take place in some incom- 
 prehensible way, than assume the incompre- 
 hensible directly and at once. His soul assures 
 him with all its power and with a distinctness 
 which exceeds all other distinctness, that the 
 will is before the deed, life before food, but he 
 reasons out the reverse. 
 
 When we call the system of the heavens a 
 mechanism, we no longer wonder at that me- 
 chanism, but we wonder at a Newton, a Kep- 
 ler, who with their intellect could explore it, 
 and unfold it to us. But if we enter into the 
 understanding of these great men, we no longer 
 wonder even at that; the mechanism of its re- 
 flective action becomes intelligible to us, and 
 that which we can thoroughly understand, that 
 which follows from necessity, we cannot won- 
 
 der at. At the utmost, we contemplate it with 
 astonishment, as we contemplate a lofty moun- 
 tain, or the boundless ocean. We can truly 
 wonder, only at that which is a wonder (a 
 miracle), or which seems to us such. The 
 wonder-working from love is God ; the wonder- 
 working from malice is Satan. The brute can 
 be astonished with terror or with joy, man 
 alone can wonder. 
 
 The truly good can be preserved only by 
 means of itself, and all efforts to preserve it by 
 means of anything formal or external to itself, 
 — with whatsoever kind of sugar or salt, — are 
 vain. 
 
 Human reason is the symptom of the highest 
 life that we know. But it has not its life in 
 itself, it must receive it at every moment. Life 
 is not in it, but it is in life. What life is, — its 
 source and nature, — is for us the deepest mys- 
 tery. 
 
 Man's light is in the impulse of elevation to 
 something higher. Not because I raise myself 
 above something, but because I raise myself to 
 something, do I approve myself. 
 
 I know no deeper philosophy than that of 
 Paul in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the 
 Romans. In the merely natural man dwells 
 sin. Regeneration is the basis of Christianity. 
 He who banishes the doctrine of Grace from 
 the bible, abolishes the whole bible. 
 
 "In the beginning was the Word ;" means, 
 the will was before the deed, the end before 
 the means, the design before the act, the soul 
 before the body, the form before the formless, 
 life before death. 
 
 It is ever beneath the dignity of man to give 
 laws, merely as the stronger, and to rejoice in 
 the pressure which he exercises like a sense- 
 less block, by mere bulk, as if it were a living 
 force. 
 
 The actual right of the stronger consists only 
 in his being able to possess himself of the will 
 of the less strong. It is with this just as it is 
 with the ruling thoughts and sentiments in our 
 soul. 
 
 True, the strongest is always king, not the 
 strongest to subject the will of all to himself so 
 that they shall do his will though contrary to 
 their own, but the strongest to execute their 
 will, to act in conformity with it. 
 
 Men will always act according to their pas- 
 sions. Therefore the best government is that 
 which inspires the nobler passions and destroys 
 the meaner. 
 
 The written, actual laws have grown out of 
 
216 
 
 J ACOBI 
 
 customs, which customs have no other origin 
 than the natural inclinations and propensities 
 of men who have united themselves in a cer- 
 tain body. Thus justice arose. If we were to 
 take away from the law all that has grown up 
 freely and naturally, there would be little good 
 and much evil left. That which still holds 
 society together and makes life tolerable is the 
 work of liberty and Nature. 
 
 Despotism is easier than liberty, as vice is 
 easier than virtue. 
 
 Justice is the freedom of those who are equal. 
 Injustice is the freedom of those who are un- 
 equal. 
 
 It is impossible to diminish poverty by the 
 multiplication of goods ; for manage as we may, 
 misery and suffering will always cleave to the 
 border of superfluity. 
 
 Manage a mad-house as you will, you never 
 can make a rational community of it. * * * 
 It seems to me as if I should go mad myself 
 when I hear those who only lust after the fruits 
 of slavery raving about freedom. 
 
 As history is generally written, it is far from 
 giving us a more accurate knowledge of man. 
 On the contrary, it only makes him more unin- 
 telligible. And yet the true aim of the historian 
 should be, so to represent the different modes 
 of being which are natural to man, that we shall 
 recognise them as natural. 
 
 The inventions and experiences of so many 
 ages and nations have only, as it were, fastened 
 themselves upon us. We have adopted them 
 hastily, on account of certain prominent advan- 
 tages, without investigating them in their origin 
 and their consequences. 
 
 We cannot return to the old forms, and ought 
 not to endeavour to do so, but we can return to 
 the sentiments connected with those forms ; and 
 they lie very near us. 
 
 Nothing tends more to bring confusion and 
 death into arts and morals, than when men 
 blindly transfer the experience of one age to 
 another. 
 
 It is a consequence of civilization, that man 
 can produce without invention, know without 
 insight. So far, civilization makes man mecha- 
 nical. It is to be observed, however, that while 
 it kills him a parte post, it may perhaps quicken 
 him in the same degree, a parte ante. 
 
 " Mon ame active a besoin d'aliment." (Mem. 
 d'Hipp. Clairon.) How ridiculous the requisi- 
 tion of those boastful philosophers, that man 
 should despise all enjoyment! This being, so 
 through and through necessitous, is to be blessed 
 
 in himself alone, in his action, in his striving 
 after nothing! Everything in us is to be con- 
 trary to nature, contempt of nature ! 
 
 That which man seeks, which everywhere 
 guides him, — yea! enlightens him even, is joy. 
 Let him, it is said, seek joy in himself ; that is 
 constant, for his self can never desert him. 
 False ! The 1 of to-day is not the I of yester- 
 day. The two are often so different that the 
 one knows not how to find itself in the other. 
 His empty form is pure nothing, and the per- 
 manent (that in him which is not form) is 
 wholly unknown to him. He seeks himself 
 everywhere in Nature, and finds himself not. 
 That which he took for himself is only the re- 
 flection of something else. That something 
 vanished ; it was perishable, and he sank back 
 into his own nothingness. 
 
 Man is a struggling creature. He feels in 
 time, which never stands still, which has no 
 proper moment. What is the present? An 
 appearance compounded of the past and the 
 future. And yet wise men have reproved man 
 for forgetting the present, for dreaming away 
 his life with hopes, and fondly sacrificing to 
 them all actual enjoyment. Tell me, ye sages! 
 whoso strives for show-good, — is he not deluded 
 as well when he seizes it as when he only pur- 
 sues it? Where is he among your disciples 
 who has ever found peace and blessedness in 
 what you call the present? A thing of the 
 future is man, and strive he must without 
 ceasing. But in the path of the true good, toge- 
 ther with the joys of hope, he finds also the 
 repose of enjoyment. Created for eternity, but 
 created out of finite nature. Seize the Proteus 
 which, — terrified by its changing forms, — thou 
 hast so often let slip from thy hands ; seize it 
 and let it not go ; for under every one of its 
 forms lies the true, the prophetic, the divine. 
 
 Better make use of an asses' bridge than never 
 be able to stir from the spot. Everything good 
 has come to us in this way, and wo unto us 
 should the bridge no longer hold ! 
 
 In one thing men of all ages are alike ; they 
 have believed obstinately in themselves. 
 
 When we lose our faith in persons, we lose 
 still more our faith in generalities. 
 
 The most universal rule that I know for the 
 writer and also for the artist, is that his expres- 
 sion be always beneath the thing which he re- 
 presents. I hold this to be the true secret of 
 mind and of power. 
 
 True attention is the product of love. 
 
 Without repose of soul, nothing great is pro- 
 duced. When little passions are tugging at a 
 man he can produce only little things, and that 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 217 
 
 only at intervals. Even where strong passion 
 brings great things to pass, there is a kind of 
 repose in the soul. Everything is concentrated 
 upon that one, and the soul reposes on that 
 (central) point. 
 
 Nothing is more ruinous for a man than when 
 he is mighty enough in any part, to right him- 
 self without right. 
 
 Is it supposed that liberty consists in the 
 faculty of choosing opposite things ? Only on 
 that ground, and so far forth as we are able to 
 do that, we are not free. Because the evening 
 robs us of feelings, resolutions, views which we 
 had in the morning; because we cannot hold 
 fast our own wishes, our character, our person ; 
 because rain and sunshine, health and sickness, 
 change us through and through ; therefore we 
 complain of bondage. If man were always of 
 the same mind, his reason would keep its even 
 course, and it would never occur to him that he 
 was not free. 
 
 By every sensible impression we are divorced 
 from ourselves, and never are we divorced from 
 ourselves by free activity. 
 
 Where does Nature end? There where free- 
 dom begins. It is precisely this end that I seek. 
 I follow after miracles as others follow after the 
 science which abolishes miracles. He who 
 makes an end of miracles is not my friend. 
 
 The true and the good resemble gold. Gold 
 seldom appears obvious and solid, but it per- 
 vades invisibly the bodies that contain it. 
 
 The French rulers have too high an opinion 
 of man's powers, and too low an opinion of his 
 destination, which makes a strange, repulsive 
 contrast. 
 
 No tradition assigns a beginning to justice, 
 but only to injustice. Before the silver, the 
 brazen, the iron age, there was a golden ; man 
 was at peace with himself. All governments 
 are, to a certain extent, a treaty with the De- 
 vil. 
 
 We may have a perfect insight as to how it 
 has come to pass, that in the same field where, 
 a thousand years ago, justice was sown, nothing 
 now springs from the same seed but tares, 
 without being able, by means of this insight, to 
 help the evil. What is to be done in this ne- 
 cessity ? Burke's answer to this question is — 
 " What necessity commands." 
 
 It is an indispensable condition of a morality 
 that is to be efficient, to believe in a higher 
 order of things, of which the common and visi- 
 ble is an heterogeneous part, that must assimi- 
 late itself to the higher. Both together must 
 constitute but one kingdom, but one creation. 
 2 c 
 
 Are not understanding and reason organs of 
 one and the same being? Assuredly. By means 
 of the one the created, — Nature or the creature, 
 — is unfolded to man ; by means of the other, 
 the Creator. In the consciousness of man that 
 he is creature, but God's creature, understand- 
 ing and reason are connected together in him. 
 Humanity is destroyed by the separation of the 
 one from the other. Without religion, man be- 
 comes a beast ; without humanity, a visionary. 
 
 A want which can attain to its satisfaction, 
 that is, to a feeling of the good, is no evil, but a 
 stimulus which quickens. As the wants of a 
 being, so is the being itself, and the worth of 
 its life. 
 
 To philosophize is to recollect ourselves on 
 all sides. We defend ourselves against the 
 contradiction which threatens to destroy the 
 unity of our consciousness, (our personality), 
 which threatens to kill us. He who would re- 
 collect himself outside of sense, outside of all 
 feeling, of all conception, by mere thinking as 
 such, becomes mad. 
 
 Yesterday I despatched my answer to Kant, 
 wherein I expressed my conviction that even 
 the knowledge of our ignorance is patch-work. 
 Three days I had plagued myself with this let- 
 ter. I was tired, out of humour. My sisters 
 came and begged me to read them something. 
 They were not well, and I could not refuse their 
 request. I asked, what? A portion of Stoll- 
 berg's Sophocles? Without inward vocation or 
 predilection I began to read the first piece in the 
 second volume, the Ajax. And yet I scarce re- 
 member, in all my life, to have been so taken, 
 so carried away by any reading, so wondrously 
 filled with thoughts and feelings. 
 
 You know how strange and disagreeable the 
 subject of this piece. Ajax sitting upon the 
 slaughtered cattle presents a half-sickening, half- 
 repellent spectacle. Minerva, who first appears, 
 goddess of wisdom as she is, says many insipid 
 things ; and yet what an impression she imme- 
 diately makes in her second dialogue with Ulys- 
 ses, after Ajax has appeared in his madness! 
 The insipid babbler becomes a celestial being 
 the moment she says : 
 
 " Odysseus, seest thou now how great the power 
 Is of the Gods ? Was e'er a wiser man 
 Than he ? or furnished more for noble deeds V* 
 
 And Ulysses answers : 
 
 " More than at him, I look upon myself 
 And see that we, we mortals, all who live 
 Are visionary forms and shadows." 
 
 And then the Chorus and Tekmessa, and 
 Ajax himself! 
 
 When, in connection with this sublime poem, 
 we happen to think of the decent, probable, re- 
 gular, dramas of the French, why are we seized 
 with such disgust at those products of art which 
 lay claim to faultlessness on the score of reason? 
 Why does their art so fall to the ground before 
 19 
 
218 
 
 J ACOBI. 
 
 the art of the Greeks? It falls to the ground 
 because the Greek is a true poet, because he is 
 a Seer. " Thou art the mouth of Truth,' ; we say- 
 to the Greek. "Thou givest to us again that 
 which hath appeared to thyself."' The other has 
 only uncertain traditions, and gives us, out of 
 them, only what seems to him probable. 
 
 Fulness of human sense ! Yes ! thou art ex- 
 alted far above thine inflated substitute, abstrac- 
 tion ! Alas for the pure cognition which is only 
 skin and skeleton, without bowels, without soul ! 
 "Who knoweth the things of a man save the 
 spirit of man which is in him ?" Fountain of 
 all certainty! thou art and I am! And I begin 
 to doubt that I am, when I listen to you, ye law- 
 givers of reason ! ye creators of a pure philoso- 
 phy! 
 
 It belongs to the nature of man not to be able 
 to imagine an end, that is, not to be able to ima- 
 gine a genuine whole. Because he cannot ima- 
 gine an end, he deludes himself with the notion 
 that he can imagine the infinite, as something 
 positive. 
 
 The respect for science, as such, is entirely 
 the same with that which men have for pro- 
 perty, and for that which secures to them its 
 possession. Science incorporates the true, gives 
 it a visible, serviceable body which eats and 
 drinks, and renders services in return. Then, 
 the living and philosophical in the sciences gra- 
 dually dies out ; the spirit which acquired them 
 has vanished; the gatherer is followed by a 
 spendthrift. 
 
 The natural striving of man to arrive at a 
 perfect understanding of himself has much ana- 
 logy with the wish to be as happy, according to 
 the vulgar expression, "as a king;' 1 that is, to 
 be in possession of all the means of satisfying 
 one's appetites and passions. The thoughtless 
 dream of a condition in which there is nothing 
 but joy and delight. But man can thrive only 
 in want, in labour, and in dangers. And as to 
 his mind, if that is to prosper, it must be con- 
 scious of a constant progress from one degree 
 of clearness to another. 
 
 From the sensuous, however we may refine 
 it, we cannot derive that which must be appre- 
 hended immediately by the spirit. When the 
 process of abstraction from the sensuous is com- 
 plete there remains = 0, and not the absolute, 
 fair, and good, and true. Therefore we know 
 nothing of an absolute fair and good and true, 
 and nothing of God unless we possess a higher 
 faculty for the perception of truth than the senses 
 and the thinking power. 
 
 All my convictions rest on the single one of 
 the liberty of man. This idea is peculiar to 
 me, and distinguishes my philosophy (if men 
 choose to honour a system of faith with that 
 name,) from all that have preceded it. 
 
 It is much more dangerous, and a much 
 greater evil to abrogate conscience with law 
 and letter, than the reverse. 
 
 If we must be the victims either of feelings 
 and inclinations, or of words and death, I would 
 much sooner make up my mind to the former. 
 
 An elevation above sensual appetites and in- 
 clinations, without a whither, (a definite direc- 
 tion,) is an empty elevation ; and a blind law 
 is no better than a blind impulse. It is with 
 morality as it is with the self-love of man; 
 without given impulses, inclinations, and pas- 
 sions, they can neither of them become appa- 
 rent, or have an application. 
 
 " Is there a progress of humanity in the good 
 and in light?'' If by good and light we under- 
 stand what the sublimest philosophers of anti- 
 quity, Pythagoras and Plato, understood by these 
 terms, then it is my decided opinion that there 
 is no such progress of humanity. I even main- 
 tain that these men would not have deserved 
 the name of divine, and that they must have 
 had a very imperfect knowledge of their busi- 
 ness, if they supposed that by means of civil 
 institutions, of modes of education, by means 
 of scholastic exercise and practice, they could 
 establish a kind of learning by rote of the in- 
 ternal;* that they could gently and gradually, by 
 means of deep-planned mechanism, make wis- 
 dom and virtue, and their daughter, liberty, the 
 habit of a nation, nay, of the world ; so that 
 men should thenceforth not only be able to pre- 
 fer, but should actually and universally prefer 
 that happiness which is a property of the per- 
 son, a quality of the mind, to that which depends 
 on external things, and is a mere state of sen- 
 sual enjoyment. Folly, vice, servitude, and, 
 with the last, every evil, may be introduced; 
 not virtue and liberty. Health is not contagious 
 like the plague and the yellow fever. Neither 
 can it be elaborated by art, still less created; 
 for it is original and comes from the mother's 
 womb, firmer or weaker, more perfect or less 
 perfect. 
 
 If reason possessed power, says a profound 
 writer, as she possesses authority, justice and 
 peace would everywhere rule. But now, with 
 her dwells only right ; elsewhere, with sensual 
 appetite, desire, passion, strength. 
 
 On account of this disproportion, mankind 
 have divided themselves into two parties. The 
 one — the earliest in its origin — cast about for 
 means to bring force on the side of right. They 
 invented wisely and also experimented success- 
 fully, but never with permanent results. All 
 their undertakings proved failures, more or less, 
 in the end, and dispersion ensued. But unde- 
 stroyed and indestructible, — however frequently 
 
 * Auswendig lernen des inwendigen; literally, an ex- 
 ternal learning of the internal. 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 219 
 
 and strangely they have been scattered and may 
 be again in time to come, — they steadfastly per- 
 severe and will persevere in their intent. No 
 one, not even from their own midst, knows their 
 present strength or weakness. 
 
 The other party, likewise dissatisfied with 
 this twofold dominion in man, and desirous of 
 putting an end to the schism, — after mature 
 consideration of the hindrances which had 
 caused the shipwreck of all the undertakings of 
 the former, — hit upon the thought of an entirely 
 opposite method. Instead of endeavouring to 
 bring over force to the side of the right, they 
 sought to bring over right to the side of force. 
 They sought not to make the rational strong, 
 but to make the strong rational. They accused 
 the former system of hostility to Nature, of aim- 
 ing at oppression and tyrannous despotism. On 
 the other hand, they boasted that their own was 
 in harmony with Nature, and, at the same time, 
 did not conflict with Reason ; that it only de- 
 sired a good understanding between the two. 
 Their plan was this. The whole gigantic pro- 
 geny of sense, the lusts and passions should 
 quietly come together, and consult among them- 
 selves what was best. The best was union. 
 But, it was agreed, they would never be able to 
 realize this union until they had put an end to 
 the controversy with Reason, who dwelt toge- 
 ther with them in their common country, the 
 human mind. Experience had shown that she 
 was never to be quite overpowered and entirely 
 cast out. This, in fact, was no misfortune, since 
 the senses could so easily make peace with 
 Reason and then employ her to their own ad- 
 vantage, nay, make her entirely their own. The 
 way to do this, was the establishment of a com- 
 munity, the plan of which might, without hesi- 
 tation, be left to Reason to draw up. For, it 
 was argued, Reason desires justice only for the 
 sake of the common good, in other words, she 
 desires only that each one should have his own ; 
 the individual she does not regard nor care for. 
 Neither does she regard herself; — that is the 
 property or vice only of that which is an indi- 
 vidual, a person, a self. Reason has nothing of 
 this sort, nor indeed, of genuine reality. There- 
 fore, it was agreed, they could boldly rely on 
 the impartiality of Reason, and not only confide 
 to her, unconditionally, the organization of the 
 commonweal to be established in connection 
 with her, but even allot to her the dignity of the 
 chief magistracy therein ; — an office like the royal 
 one in Sparta. An Ephorate* might be esta- 
 blished in connection therewith, and committed 
 to the jurisdiction of the understanding. The 
 people had elected Reason and placed her over 
 them, simply and solely that she should main- 
 tain order and harmony in their midst; she be- 
 longed to the commonweal, not the common- 
 weal to her; the collective will was the true 
 
 * The office of the Ephori . E<popoi— a department of the 
 Spartan Government. The word signifies properly, in- 
 spectors, from eru and opaco. Tr. 
 
 sovereign from whom Reason derived her royal 
 title and the authority connected with it, merely 
 as a fief. Should she ever forget this, assume 
 independent powers, and attempt to exalt her 
 nominal authority above the true, then the 
 Ephorate must immediately come to the rescue 
 and resist such attempt. They could place the 
 utmost reliance on the watchfulness of the un- 
 derstanding, in this matter, because the under- 
 standing is thoroughly and altogether a man of 
 the people. 
 
 The two systems which are here presented 
 may be compared, — as formerly the systems of 
 Idealism and Realism were compared, — with 
 the two opposite astronomical systems of Pto- 
 lemy and Copernicus. Only the order of time, 
 in this case, must be reversed ; the latter must 
 be considered as the elder, the former as the 
 younger. 
 
 What history is not richer — does not contain 
 far more than they by whom it is enacted, the 
 present witnesses, see, experience and know ? 
 What mortal understandeth his way ? 
 
 "Tous les gouts sont pour moi respectable," 
 says Voltaire in a frivolous poem. I can adopt 
 that saying of his, as a philosopher, and only 
 require that every one should confess his taste 
 clearly and distinctly. There are but two phi- 
 losophies essentially distinct from each other. 
 I will call them Platonism and Spinozism. Be- 
 tween these two spirits we may choose ; that is, 
 we may be taken with the one or the other, so 
 that we shall attach ourselves to that alone, and 
 be forced to regard that alone as the spirit of 
 truth. It is the whole disposition of the man 
 that must decide here. It is impossible to divide 
 the heart between the two, still more impossible 
 to unite them. Where there is the appearance 
 of the latter, there language deceives, there is 
 double-tonguedness. 
 
 Every man has some kind of religion ; that is, 
 a supreme truth by which he measures all his 
 judgments, — a supreme will by which he mea- 
 sures all his endeavours; — these every one has 
 who is at one with himself, who is everywhere 
 decidedly the same. But the worth of such a 
 religion, and the honour due to it, and to him 
 who has become one with it, cannot be deter- 
 mined by its amount. Its quality alone decides 
 and gives to one conviction, to one love or 
 friendship, a higher value than to another. 
 
 At bottom every religion is anti- christian 
 which makes the form the thing, the letter the 
 substance. Such a materialistic religion, in or- 
 der to be at all consistent, ought to maintain a 
 material infallibility. ***** 
 
 There are but two religions, Christianity and 
 paganism, the worship of God and idolatry. 
 A third between these two is not possible. 
 Where idolatry ends, there Christianity begins, 
 
220 
 
 J AC 
 
 OBI. 
 
 and where idolatry begins, there Christianity- 
 ends. Thus the apparent contradiction is done 
 away between the two propositions ; — " Whoso 
 is not against me is for me ;" and " whoso is 
 not for me is against me." 
 
 As all men are, by nature, liars, so all men 
 are also, by nature, idolaters, — drawn to the 
 visible and averse from the invisible. Hamann 
 called the body the first-born, because God first 
 made a clod of earth, and then breathed into it 
 a breath of life. The formation of the earth- 
 clod and the spirit are both of God, but only the 
 spirit is from God ; and only on account of the 
 spirit is man said to be made after the likeness 
 of God. 
 
 Since man cannot do without the letter, — 
 images and parables, — no more than he can 
 dispense with time, which is incidental to the 
 finite, although both shall cease, I honour the 
 letter, so long as there is a breath of life in it, 
 for that breath's sake. 
 
 LEARNED SOCIETIES— THEIR SPIRIT 
 AND AIM. 
 
 A DISCOURSE PRONOUNCED AT THE PUBLIC RE-OPENING OF THE 
 ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT MUENCKEN. 1807. 
 
 "E pur si move."— Galilei. 
 
 The most ancient of those academies which 
 have become celebrated in Europe have grown 
 out of voluntary associations of learned men, 
 mutually attracted to each other by an equal 
 desire for knowledge. The growth of science, 
 the promotion of it by reciprocal aid, by col- 
 lective diligence, by friendly emulation, was the 
 design of their union. 
 
 So pure and vigorous a beginning could not 
 but be attended with success. It surpassed 
 every expectation ; it became famous ; it threw 
 an astounding lustre far into the distance. 
 
 This lustre stimulated and awakened the de- 
 sire of imitation. It was attempted to produce 
 the like, to elaborate by artificial means what is 
 least capable of being- so elaborated, the spirit 
 of inquiry, particularly of invention, without 
 that holy flame which kindles the soul and 
 causes it to strive with ardour, to struggle un- 
 ceasingly for the knowledge of the truth, for 
 virtue, for science and wisdom, as for ultimate 
 and supreme ends which will not suffer them- 
 selves to be subordinated to any other. The 
 love of imitation had other aims which were 
 higher in its estimation, to which science and 
 wisdom were to be subservient, and for whose 
 sake alone they were to exist. This was to 
 change wisdom into folly, to rob science of its 
 proper life, to sever it from its own in order to 
 make it produce from a foreign root such fruits 
 as were desired. 
 
 The necessary consequence ensued. Never- 
 theless, imitation succeeded here and there in 
 
 producing a sufficient illusion. Occasionally 
 even, something praiseworthy was brought to 
 pass; but no genuine tree of knowledge and of 
 life. The results produced were plants resem- 
 bling the chemical silver tree or tree of Diana; 
 wonderful enough and often right pleasant to 
 behold ; only that interior life and the power 
 of propagation were wanting. 
 
 The Bavarian Academy of Sciences, although 
 one of the later born, in fact, the youngest of all, 
 may boast an equality with those ancient ones 
 as it regards the purity of its origin. It was 
 founded in silence by two noble men, von Lin- 
 brun and Lori. These men conceived the pur- 
 pose of establishing in Miinchen a learned so- 
 ciety which should draw to itself the best heads, 
 not only in Bavaria, but in all South Germany. 
 They had been impelled to this enterprise by 
 serious considerations of the disproportion in 
 the state of the sciences, the arts and intellec- 
 tual culture generally, between North and South 
 Germany, and of the consequences flowing from 
 the difference which was manifested here. 
 They bad observed how strikingly the progress 
 of the one and the stationary character of the 
 other were depicted in the whole social condi- 
 tion of the nations inhabiting the one and the 
 other region ; and how they were every day 
 becoming more visible and more sensible. The 
 nature of this difference may be found described 
 with fidelity and truth by Loreng Westenrieder 
 in the first part of the history of the Bavarian 
 Academy of Sciences, pp. 3 — 9. * * * * 
 
 The abovementioned excellent men, Linbrun 
 and Lori, confided the noble wish, which made 
 their own breast too narrow for them, to a few 
 friends who gave their assent and united them- 
 selves with them. The first meeting was held in 
 the house of Herr von Linbrun, Oct. 12th, 1758. 
 
 The undertaking of these few men, banded 
 together for the noblest purposes, was concealed 
 at first with the greatest care. Nor did they 
 venture to appear openly until, proceeding with 
 the utmost caution, they had associated with 
 themselves men of distinguished reputation or 
 of great authority, in their own country and 
 elsewhere. They knew what hindrances would 
 even now interfere with the fulfilment of their 
 wish to convert their enterprise into a public 
 institution, and they overcame them by pru- 
 dence. They carefully abstained from giving 
 utterance to their higher aims, and only directed 
 attention to those advantages of such an institu- 
 tion, by which even vulgar souls may be im- 
 pressed and won. " They abstained'' — it is ver- 
 bally recorded in the history of the Bavarian 
 Academy of Sciences — " from the mention of 
 those things against which difficulties and ob- 
 jections might be raised, and spoke only of the 
 use and the reputation of the thing." 
 
 Such a servile form has the best, the highest 
 and the most venerable ever and everywhere 
 been forced to assume, in order to gain admis- 
 sion and to pass for something in civil society. 
 Ignorance, says Fontenelle, in his immortal 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 221 
 
 history of the Parisian Academy of Sciences, 
 affects to regard as useless that of which it has 
 no knowledge. It revenges itself in this way. 
 It says: 'Have we not our own moon to illu- 
 mine our own nights? Of what use is it to 
 know that the planet Jupiter has four? To 
 what purpose so many observations, so many 
 laborious calculations to determine their course 
 with precision? We shall see none the clearer 
 for them ; and Nature, who placed these little 
 stars so far from our eyes, appears not to have 
 made them for us.'* And yet those four moons 
 of Jupiter, invisible to the naked eye, have been 
 of far greater use to us than our own moon which 
 shines so brightly. Only since our acquaintance 
 with them have Geography and Navigation been 
 enabled to make important advances; incom- 
 parably better maps and charts have been pro- 
 duced ; and, by means of the latter especially, the 
 lives of innumerable seamen have been saved. 
 
 This example of the satellites of Jupiter is 
 only one out of many which might be adduced, 
 of the use of astronomical labours, and in jus- 
 tification of the great outlays of every kind 
 which this science demands. But the mass of 
 the high and low know nothing of the satellites 
 of Jupiter ; at the utmost, they have a dim 
 and confused knowledge of them. Still less do 
 they know of the connection of these satellites 
 with Navigation. In fact, they have scarce 
 heard the report of the perfection to which that 
 science has arrived, within a short time. 
 
 Fontenelle then adds a great number of ex- 
 amples in illustration of the advantages which 
 the diligence of a few men, devoted to the 
 sciences, has conferred upon all classes of 
 human society. Men enjoy these really count- 
 less advantages without considering their origin, 
 without considering the way by which they 
 have reached us. No one considers how much 
 there was to be invented here ; and few per- 
 haps are competent even to imagine the powers 
 of mind which must have been brought into 
 action, in each one of these inventions, in order 
 to originate or to complete them. But it ought 
 to be remembered, that the innumerable pro- 
 cesses which we now universally perform with 
 unthinking facility, could not be performed in 
 this way, unless thought, — unless the most stre- 
 nuous efforts of reflection, — had preceded them. 
 This antecedent living agency now manifests 
 itself, embodied in serviceable manipulations, 
 in mere acquired mechanical facilities, in life- 
 less instruments and machines. With these 
 latter the spirit created for itself, — produced 
 with free activity out of senseless matter, — un- 
 feeling, dumb and deaf menials, the most per- 
 fect, because they are entirely destitute of voli- 
 tion, and never fail nor err. Thus, every work- 
 shop of mechanics and artificers announces to 
 
 * More remarkable still, is another similar example. A 
 Parisian lady of rank understood perfectly the use of the 
 moon, "because it illumines our nights." But why the 
 sun should appear in the heavens, in broad daylight, she 
 could not comprehend. 
 
 him that gives heed, a mind that has become 
 invisible, which here wrought and bequeathed, 
 and departed after it had fulfilled its task: an- 
 nounces it without words ; silently represents 
 that infinitely self-multiplying power of inven- 
 tion, which must throw every one, who is capa- 
 ble of apprehending what is admirable, into 
 thoughtful astonishment. 
 
 Nevertheless, however exalted beyond con- 
 tradiction the truth just propounded, however 
 unquestionable the manifold use which the hu- 
 man race has derived for the ordinary pur- 
 poses of life from the progress of science, it is 
 equally certain and undeniable, on the other 
 hand, that science in its origin and progress 
 had, immediately in view, not that use, but 
 solely and singly itself and its own extension. 
 The impulse which seeks knowledge and in- 
 sight has this in common with the impulse which 
 seeks enjoyment, happiness, the sustenance of 
 life: that it seeks its object simply for the object's 
 sake, as ultimate end, not as means to other 
 ends. It springs directly from the spirit of man; 
 it is one of its peculiar powers and virtues, 
 similar to that other sacred power of our spirit 
 which produces those human qualities which 
 we call virtuous qualities, and — in consideration 
 of their immediate origin — virtues, such as cou- 
 rage, magnanimity, justice, general benevolence. 
 
 With respect to life and happiness, no one 
 doubts that these are desired for their own 
 sakes, and he who should propose the question, 
 what are they good for, would only provoke 
 our laughter. Of science, on the other hand, 
 and of virtue, it is almost universally assumed, 
 that they have a reason, a use, an end, beyond 
 themselves, by which they first become desira- 
 ble. They are supposed to have been arbitra- 
 rily invented to serve an arbitrary purpose. 
 That virtue and knowledge belong to the being 
 of man, that they unfold themselves necessa- 
 rily out of that being, and with it, like language, 
 without which men are not and never were; 
 that where virtue, knowledge, and their begin- 
 ning, the significant word, the intelligible speech, 
 should be wanting, there all humanity would be 
 also wanting, and the mere animal present it- 
 self instead; this the vulgar souls, who know 
 only wants of the body, and none of the spirit, 
 will never comprehend. These men, all earth, 
 unconscious of any immediate instinct, except 
 that which man has in common with the brute, 
 the instinct of desire, of pleasure, of sensual 
 enjoyment, have ever the objects of that instinct 
 alone and unchangeably in view, as last and 
 highest ends. Only that appears to them real, 
 approved, and good, in respect to man, which is 
 found substantiated in the sounder animal, and 
 may be demonstrated from that, as the only re- 
 vealer of unadulterated, pure truth. Whatso- 
 ever is more than that, is, to them, of evil. Still, 
 they tolerate science, and even acknowledge 
 that it deserves the support and encouragement 
 of the State, provided it conforms itself to the 
 State, and does not aspire beyond the state of 
 19 * 
 
222 
 
 JACOBI. 
 
 bondage for which it was born. Any other 
 science, that which would be an end unto itself, 
 and assumes to be free-born, they will not ac- 
 knowledge. They despise the fool, hate her, 
 and persecute her for her pride's sake. No effort 
 of the mind, no pursuit, shall he cherished, pro- 
 moted, and rewarded, which cannot demonstrate 
 its immediate utility in relation to ordinary life. 
 Every science, and every line art, must carry on, 
 or at least assist in carrying on, some honest 
 handicraft, and derive all its worth and all its 
 dignity from its aptitude for this handicraft, or 
 for some manual use. Each must declare what 
 guild or what trade it belongs to, and be able 
 also to demonstrate that belonging. They main- 
 tain that every science or art which cannot 
 comply with this requisiiion ought to be banished 
 from the country as a breadless art. Not to be- 
 long to the productive class, which is otherwise 
 considered as a mark of nobility, is thought to 
 render science ignoble, and to fix upon her the 
 reproach of idleness. 
 
 These principles and demands of the com- 
 mon mind must appear ridiculous, and, in the 
 highest degree, absurd to those who are at 
 all acquainted with the history of human in- 
 ventions, even supposing they were not other- 
 wise disinclined to the common way of thinking 
 on this subject. The history of inventions proves 
 that the most important and the most useful of 
 them have been a secondary and unexpected 
 result of those efforts of mind from which this 
 precise gain could nowise have been anticipated. 
 "When, in the seventeenth century, the greatest 
 geometricians employed themselves in investi- 
 gating the nature of a new curve, which they 
 called the cycloid, they had no other interest in 
 that investigation than that of mere speculation 
 and the ambition of discovering theorems, each 
 more difficult than the former. None of these 
 men had the most distant idea that they were 
 exerting themselves for the general good. But 
 afterward, when the nature of the cycloid had 
 been thoroughly ascertained, it was found that, 
 by means of this knowledge, the greatest possi- 
 ble perfection could be given to the pendulum, 
 and the utmost precision introduced into the 
 measurement of time.' * 
 
 It would be superfluous to accumulate in- 
 stances of this sort, since it lies in the nature of 
 the thing, that the practical application must 
 needs be subsequent to the scientific discovery. 
 Every useful invention has compounded itself, 
 as it were, out of several discoveries, observa- 
 tions, propositions, which had no probable rela- 
 tion to each other, which, in point of time, 
 were often far distant from each other, and 
 which belonged to men of the most different 
 characters, views, and pursuits. "The conflu- 
 ence of several truths," remarks the sagacious 
 Fontenelle, " even of the most abstract, almost 
 always produces a useful application, which 
 20uld not have been anticipated, because the 
 
 * Pref. de l'hist. de l'academie Royale de sciences. 
 
 combination was necessary to produce it. The 
 ancients were acquainted with the magnet, but ) 
 they had observed only its power of attracting 
 iron. It needed but one experience more, and 
 they would have discovered its polar tenden- 
 cies, and the inestimable prize of the compass 
 would have been theirs. Had they devoted a 
 little more time and attention to a curiosity ap- 
 parently useless and unprofitable, the hidden 
 utility would have revealed itself to them. No 
 human imagination was competent to presup- 
 pose the invention of the telescope and the mi- 
 croscope, with which a new eye was given to 
 man for two worlds at once, the sublime world 
 of the immeasurably great, and the still more 
 wonderful one, it may be, of the immeasurably 
 little. It was necessary that mathematics should 
 enrich itself through a series of centuries with 
 ever greater discoveries, before a Johannes Kep- 
 ler could appear with his dioptrics, and bring 
 the invention of the astronomical sight-instru- 
 ment to light." 
 
 The result of all these considerations is, that 
 governments, in the formal institution of learned 
 societies, may indeed have respect to the benefits 
 which such societies will confer on the common 
 weal, and may make those benefits their aim, but 
 never, on that account, should thus make utility 
 a condition of science, and demand that this shall 
 be its only object. A government which should 
 do this would betray a want of insight into the 
 nature of science, and would require the im- 
 possible. Still more incompatible with the na- 
 ture of science would be the attempt to make 
 it, any where, national or even provincial. There 
 may be economical societies of this kind, which 
 should, in each case, derive their names from 
 the material want which led to their institution ; 
 fruit-growing, wood-saving, coal or turf-finding, 
 bog-draining societies. But academies of sciences, 
 which are merely national, or provincial, or 
 economical, there cannot be. 
 
 It is by no means intended, however, in what 
 has now been said, that scientific men, who feel 
 a special impulse to employ themselves with 
 objects of immediate utility, and to apply their 
 scientific acquirements to those objects, like Du- 
 hamel du Monceau, Daubenton, and others, men 
 who have rendered equal services to science 
 and to their country, that such men should be 
 excluded from an academy of sciences, or that, 
 as members of such an academy, they should 
 not hand in essays on national and provincial 
 objects, and lay them before the society for ex- 
 amination. How many invaluable disquisitions 
 of this kind are found in the annals of the 
 French and other academies of sciences ! But 
 such productions should ever bear on their face 
 the stamp of science ; they should spring from 
 the spirit of science, and be filled with it. 
 
 Even Colbert, when he founded the academy 
 of sciences at Paris, more than a hundred years 
 ago, planted himself on that higher stand-point, 
 from which the immediate dignity of science is 
 recognised in its whole extent, together with its 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 223 
 
 indirect worth, I mean its utility, and it would 
 be disreputable now to choose a lower one. 
 " The penetrating mind of Colbert,"' says a judi- 
 cious modern historian, " did not fail to perceive 
 the close connection which exists between the 
 sciences and the arts, and between the fine arts 
 and the mechanical. He felt the necessity of 
 perfecting the theories of mathematics, of astro- 
 nomy, and of physics, in order to effect a mani- 
 fold application of their principles. He had 
 perceived that the progress of the mechanical 
 arts presupposes the development of good taste, 
 and that taste requires models and patterns for 
 comparison. The academies of painting, of 
 sculpture, of architecture, and of music, sprung 
 up and yielded a flattering compensation to the 
 masters of art, encouragement to the pupils, to 
 all the citizens of the State instruction and ex- 
 amples. The beautiful had its temple, its ser- 
 vice, its priests, as Truth had hers. Colbert's 
 administration was wise. He had no occasion 
 to fear the progress and diffusion of right views. 
 Far from shunning men of learning and intel- 
 lect, he attracted, he gathered them around him; 
 he freed them from the cares of subsistence. 
 Even foreigners experienced his favour, and 
 many were first made known to their own 
 country by the distinction so unexpectedly ac- 
 corded to them by France."* 
 
 Although France, at the time when the 
 academy exclusively devoted to mathematical 
 and physical science was established, could 
 exhibit a considerable number of important 
 men who were qualified to come forward as 
 members of this society and to give it authority, 
 yet Colbert spared no expense in drawing to 
 Paris learned men of other countries who might 
 give to the new Institute still greater strength 
 and splendour. Romer was summoned from 
 Denmark, Cassini from Italy, Huyghens from 
 Holland. Attracted by large emoluments they 
 exchanged their native country for France. 
 Other distinguished men in all parts of Europe 
 were induced to take part in the new Institute, 
 at least as foreign members. Others still, at 
 home and abroad, who could not enter as fel- 
 low-labourers in any of the departments of the 
 Academy of Sciences at Paris, but who other- 
 wise possessed acknowledged merit and had 
 made themselves a name as men of learning, 
 received pensions, distinctions, gifts, without 
 any requisition being made of them in return. 
 Everywhere appeared the lofty ambition of the 
 minister and of his king, — who in many respects 
 was really and truly great-minded, — to manifest 
 a wise disinterestedness and to make it promi- 
 nent. They wished to encourage and reward, 
 and in doing this, they attained also all those 
 "Hher ends, the pursuit of which, by any other 
 method, will always be a vain undertaking. 
 
 A wise Government, and one of large views, 
 establishes academies to effect what can only 
 
 * Tableau des revolutions du systeme politique de 
 l'Europe depths la fin du XV. Siecle par Frederic Ancil- 
 lon.— T. iv. p. 115, 204. 
 
 be effected by means of such institutions, — a 
 collective force which shall accomplish and 
 produce what disconnected individual powers, 
 although of the greatest possible efficacy in 
 themselves, would never be able to accomplish 
 and produce. To this end it collects together a 
 number of learned and judicious men thorough- 
 ly versed in their respective arts ; unites them 
 in an association, and provides this association 
 with all the aids, stores, and instruments, 
 which are necessary for their different pursuits. 
 Through the union of the members of such a 
 society in one place, the most rapid and mani- 
 fold communication is rendered possible among 
 them ; and to make this communication more cer- 
 tain, regular meetings are appointed. Sciences, 
 which thought themselves strangers to each 
 other, now learn their near and nearer relations ; 
 onesidedness disappears ; reciprocal action, mu- 
 tual influence,and a scientific common-spirit arise. 
 
 Where the seat of a learned society of this 
 description is at the same time the seat of go- 
 vernment and the metropolis of the land, the 
 advantages are still greater. Scientific intuition 
 and the insight of experience impart themselves 
 mutually, they interpenetrate each other; light 
 gains new life, life new light ; every sphere of 
 vision is enlarged, every faculty is enhanced. 
 
 Even men of the world in the distinctive 
 sense of that phrase, I mean those who claim 
 to be exclusively such, who pride themselves 
 thereon, as the highest boast, — even they are 
 singly seized, changed and ennobled by instruc- 
 tion. They feel that they must relax some- 
 thing of the law of pure ignorance and solemn 
 idleness, the strict and assiduous observance of 
 which converts them into the most extraordi- 
 nary kind of pedants ; since the prerogative- 
 maxim, 11 the more worthless the more worthy" dies 
 of its own meaning, the moment it is distinctly 
 pronounced. Be it that this maxim refuses to 
 be so expressed and understood, let it seek 
 palliation and pretexts, it only renders itself 
 more hateful by its pains ; it only accelerates 
 its own downfal ; in which downfal its whole 
 aristocratic connection are inevitably involved. 
 
 To this connection belong especially the fol- 
 lowing assertions: 
 
 The assertion, that a living, far-reaching in- 
 tuition, an intuition which affects the great, the 
 universal, is incompatible with thorough know- 
 ledge and perfectly accurate conceptions, — al- 
 together incompatible with true and genuine 
 learning and science ; on the contrary, that it is 
 compatible only with very general and loose 
 sketches of the understanding drawn from ap- 
 pearances alone ; 
 
 The assertion, that you must guard against 
 principles, because principles lead to systems, 
 and all systems are false ; 
 
 The assertion, that only the old method (rou- 
 tine) which arrogates to itself the honoured 
 title of experience, guides in the right path, and 
 that in order not to stray from that path, it is 
 necessary to follow that guide in all cases, 
 
224 
 
 JACOBI. 
 
 blindly, and that you must never use your own 
 eyes for the sake of finding it; 
 
 The twin assertion, that you must distrust 
 reason which only hatches mistaken theories, 
 and always hold by the positive ; by this posi- 
 tive we are to understand either a tradition 
 which has become senseless and absurd by the 
 change of times, or new and purely arbitrary 
 arrangements ;* 
 
 Finally, the assertion, which expresses the 
 whole at once, that theoretical shallowness is the 
 condition of practical excellence. 
 
 Not so did the truly great men of the world, 
 of ancient, middle and modern times, contend. 
 While earning the gratitude and admiration 
 of posterity even more than of their contempo- 
 raries, they remembered well the source from 
 which those powers that enabled them to be- 
 come so mighty, so prominent, and so glorious, 
 had flowed; and not only did they continue to 
 draw from it, but they sought to render it more 
 accessible, and especially more copious, so that, 
 by channels and pipes, it might be conducted in 
 all directions, for the use of the multitude. They 
 all loved the sciences, sought the intercourse of 
 the learned, and, with their counsel and aid, ac- 
 complished the most important and difficult un- 
 dertakings. Several of these statesmen and men 
 of the world were scientific men in the more 
 proper and strict acceptation, — men of learning 
 in the most comprehensive sense of the word. 
 
 History names to us, as belonging to this latter 
 class, among the ancient Greeks, a Charaondas, 
 Archytas, Zaleucus ; a Dion, Epaminondas, Pe- 
 ricles and Xenophon; a Phocion and Demetrius 
 of Phalera. together with many others. The 
 Macedonian Alexander himself may be reckoned 
 in this enumeration ; after him, the first Ptole- 
 mies and their competitors, the kings of Per- 
 gamus. 
 
 Among the Romans — (I omit the first kings, 
 a Numa, Servius Tullius, Tarquinius Priscus ; 
 as, in speaking of the Greeks, I omitted their 
 eldest philosophers, who were all rulers, kings, 
 princes and statesmen) — history names to us, 
 as active friends and promoters of science, in 
 the time of the Republic, a Scipio, Lselius, Lu- 
 cullus, Asinius Pollio (founder of the first public 
 library at Rome), Cato, Brutus, Cicero, Julius 
 CcEsar. 
 
 The last in this catalogue, unquestionably the 
 greatest statesman and military hero of them 
 all, was also the most thorough scholar, the 
 deepest and most comprehensive thinker of 
 them all ; although he himself gave Cicero the 
 preference, in this respect, of whom he said that 
 he had won for himself a crown of laurel which 
 was more honourable than all triumphs; since 
 it was greater glory to have extended the limits 
 
 * The warning of Tertullian, that tradition nailed God 
 himself to the cross, has been elsewhere quoted by the 
 author of this essay. This Father of the Church, on the 
 same occasion, makes the important remark: Dominus 
 noster, Jesus Christus veritatem se non consuetudinem 
 cognominavit. 
 
 of Roman learning than to have extended the 
 limits of the Roman territory. The emendation 
 of the calendar, which he undertook with the 
 Alexandrian astronomer, Sosigenes, his deter- 
 mination and division of the year, which, with 
 some corrections since added, obtains to this day 
 
 and continues to bear the name of its author, 
 
 these are sufficiently notorious. An ever-active 
 military life, full of dangers and exploits, did 
 not prevent him from writing philosophical, 
 grammatical, and political works, besides his 
 incomparable history of the Gallic war. It was 
 because he could comprehend and penetrate 
 with philosophic eye the connection of the ages, 
 that he knew how to rule his own. He who 
 wants the former, — the power of vision and the 
 practice requisite for such insight, — will assur- 
 edly never succeed in the latter. His age will 
 overcome him and make him a laughing-stock, 
 with all his plans and labours. Not seeing 
 what is, he will imagine himself to see with 
 the greatest clearness what is not; everywhere 
 he will see, as well in his fears as in his hopes 
 and trusts. Such a one may have read all the 
 books of history from the beginning of the world, 
 and know them by heart; the great book of the 
 world is still a closed book to him. He has 
 never learned what occasioned the appearance 
 of each particular crisis — the present among the 
 rest — at that particular time when it appeared. 
 This intuition which comprehends, at the same 
 time, with a clear distinction, that which works 
 by necessity and that which works with freedom, 
 is the philosophic spirit itself, which, as some- 
 thing divine, alone possesses genuine power. 
 That which exists merely as a consequence of 
 the times, works on necessarily and blindly ; its 
 action is wholly earthly, and mere bondage. 
 That which works with freedom interrupts the 
 times, changes them for centuries to come, en- 
 lightens, ennobles, sets free. 
 
 Obviously to the dullest sense, the history of 
 Rome under the emperors illustrates the close 
 connection between the welfare of science and 
 the welfare of the State. Along the whole series 
 of the Ccesars, we find the one and the other 
 always on the same level, now higher, now 
 lower. Who does not know the history of the 
 first four successors of Augustus? Exactly in 
 proportion as any one of these rulers showed 
 himself more unworthy of the throne, more in- 
 human, foolish, mad than another, were the 
 sciences at Rome neglected, persecuted, banished 
 the kingdom. Under the reign of Vespasian, 
 beneficent as it was glorious, and under his suc- 
 cessor Titus, art and science revived ; they were 
 promoted, rewarded. Quinctilian and the elder 
 Pliny illustrated this period. Then followed 
 the cruel Domitian. This man hoped to be able, 
 together with the sciences and arts, to abolish 
 from the foundation whatever ennobles and ex- 
 alts the human soul. Not without reason, had 
 he succeeded ! Men of lofty purpose were no 
 more to be ; nothing venerable, says Tacitus, was 
 permitted anywhere to spring up and show it- 
 
J ACOBI. 
 
 225 
 
 self. But in vain did be oppress and banish all 
 the friends of the good and the true. His threats 
 and his ravings were insufficient to prevent a 
 multitude of noble youths from wandering to 
 Bithynia to behold the example and to hear the 
 wisdom of Epietetus. Exile and the sword had 
 still spared many, out of the midst of whom, 
 after the fall of the tyrant, a Ncrva and a Trajan 
 came forth to heal the wounds of Humanity 
 once more. 
 
 After Domitian, five excellent rulers in turn 
 ascended the throne. Then began, with Com- 
 modus, a new series of monsters, who trode in 
 the steps of the Tiberii and the Neros, who pur- 
 posely imitated, and in the variety of their vices 
 and enormities, exceeded them ; and still adopt- 
 ed the name of Antonine. — At length there ap- 
 peared once more a man who was worthy to 
 bear this great name ; and he refused to assume 
 it. This was the youth Alexander Severus. I 
 should perish, said he, beneath the weight of a 
 name which was borne by Pius and Marcus. 
 Of the thirteen years 1 reign of this youth it has 
 been justly said, that it might serve hoary heads 
 for a model. With this great and good prince, 
 the sun rose for the last time on the sciences 
 and virtues and all good order. He died, and 
 day returned not again to Rome. With the 
 death of Philosophy (how could it be otherwise'?) 
 her daughter Jurisprudence also perished. Rea- 
 son itself seemed to be extinguished. All was 
 darkness and chaos. Barbarism triumphed in 
 a twofold form, and, with blended savageness 
 and degeneracy, produced a state of things never 
 before experienced by man. 
 
 But that which works only destructively has 
 its limit where its action must cease, and give 
 place to a new and opposite principle. — a cre- 
 ative, a forming and reforming power. The 
 destructive is not from the beginning, but the 
 creative. This alone is eternal ; its forces wax 
 not old. 
 
 And so, in this case also, after a long night a 
 new dawn began to break. He who introduced 
 it was the same great individual with whom 
 the German empire begins. 
 
 In his prosperous expedition against the Lon- 
 gobardi in Italy, Charlemagne became acquaint- 
 ed with the great spirit of antiquity, through its 
 ruins; and his heart kindled for the revival of 
 the sciences and arts throughout the whole ex- 
 tent of his dominions. He called Alcuin and 
 other learned men and lovers of science, to his 
 court. These established there a peculiar asso- 
 ciation, of which Charlemagne himself was a 
 member, and gave it the name of Academy. 
 Thus originated the first European learned So- 
 ciety. Alcuin appears, for a long time, to have 
 been its head. Among its members were num- 
 bered, besides the emperor himself, and his fa- 
 mous chancellor, Eginhard, — the archbishop of 
 Mayence, Riculph ; farther, Theodulph, Angil- 
 bert and others. The numerous progeny of this 
 institute shed their lustre over the whole of the 
 ninth century. 
 
 2d 
 
 That Charlemagne did not gather learned 
 men around him merely because, with his fiery 
 zeal for knowledge, their conversation must 
 needs be dear to him; but that the education 
 of the whole people, the ennobling of the na- 
 tional character, lay near his heart, is proved 
 by the comprehensive provisions for public in- 
 struction which he made, and of which he is 
 properly the founder. " With him," says Hege- 
 wiseh very justly, "began the first transition of 
 the Germans from merely sensuous activity to 
 activity of mind." 
 
 If his plan were to succeed, it must begin with 
 those who immediately surrounded the throne. 
 On that account. Charlemagne founded the Aca- 
 demy at his court, and, by the powerful influ- 
 ence of his example, set in motion every mind 
 that Nature had endowed with any degree of 
 talent. No longer might the great look with 
 contempt upon every species of intellectual em- 
 ployment, even to reading and writing ; unless 
 they were willing to see those whom they de- 
 spised for their want of birth, exalted above 
 them and enjoying exclusive favour. By this 
 means, Charlemagne, in a few years, procured 
 for himself able assistants and zealous partici- 
 pators in his lofty schemes. 
 
 He then went a step farther and ordered 
 schools to be established in connection with 
 every convent and every cathedral; and, what 
 was most important, they were so arranged as 
 to be useful not only in the education of those 
 who devoted themselves to the clerical office, 
 but also in the education of the laity, especially 
 those of rank. For the benefit of the common 
 people, and of those country-priests who were 
 not sufficiently instructed, he caused passages 
 to be collected from the Fathers, translated into 
 the German, and read by the priests to the peo- 
 ple on Sundays and public festivals of the 
 Church. 
 
 From no one of the edicts of this truly great 
 man, who wished not only to command but to 
 rule, does his straight-forward and profound 
 sense, his penetrating intellect, shine forth more 
 conspicuously than from that just mentioned. 
 He understood the direction which enlighten- 
 ment must take, in order that it may be true 
 and entirely sound. 
 
 Unfortunately, this great Reformer was, at 
 the same time, a conqueror, and thought it ne- 
 cessary to convert obstinate pagans with the 
 sword. Thus it came to pass, that he laboured 
 against himself, and that what he planted did 
 not attain sufficient strength. The schools which 
 he established continued indeed; they even 
 multiplied with the spread of Christendom and 
 the wants of a more numerous clergy which 
 that spread occasioned. But now, in the supply 
 of these wants, everything else was forgotten. 
 The schools educated only priests, and imparted 
 to them only, in a very imperfect manner, what 
 was absolutely essential to their calling. The 
 most profound and pernicious ignorance pre- 
 vailed. Hierarchy and feudal anarchy reached 
 
226 
 
 J A C OBI. 
 
 the summit of their power. State and Church 
 ran wild; that epoch began which properly 
 bears the name of the middle ages. 
 
 Towards the middle of this period, at the be- 
 ginning of the thirteenth century, those four- 
 limbed bodies for teaching and learning were 
 formed, whose offspring to this day bear the 
 barbarous name of Universities. With these, — 
 with the unlimited power of scholasticism, which 
 then culminated, — with the Dominicans and 
 Franciscans, — the eclipse of Reason became 
 central. Knowledge of the languages and an- 
 cient literature fell into utter contempt. They 
 who occupied themselves with these in any 
 degree were derided as dullards. Neverthe- 
 less, all this while, and through the whole me- 
 dieval period, instruction, by way of preparation, 
 in the seven liberal arts, as they were called, 
 continued; and to this institution — to the pre- 
 paratory schools — it is chiefly owing, that an- 
 cient literature did not pass into entire oblivion, 
 and that the possibility remained of a return to 
 the beautiful, the great and the true which had 
 vanished with the fore-world. 
 
 It is very remarkable that though important 
 progress was made in some departments of 
 science during the middle ages — as in geometry 
 and arithmetic with Gerbert, in natural science 
 with Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon ; — and 
 even though other branches of human know- 
 ledge unfolded themselves as new instincts, and 
 introduced learned occupations even among the 
 laity, — as jurisprudence and medicine which 
 arose at the same time, toward the end of the 
 eleventh century, — the former at Bologna, the 
 latter at Salerno: — that notwithstanding these 
 onward movements and the mighty impulse given 
 to the thinking faculty by scholastic studies, the 
 culture of reason, in its proper sense, did not arise 
 or come to view. It arose first with the revival 
 of ancient literature, and made mighty progress 
 when, in Italy, through the instrumentality of 
 Cosmo de Medicis, that Platonic Jlcademy, cele- 
 brated not only in the annals of the learned, but 
 in the history of the world, was formed, and, 
 almost contemporary with it, a similar learned 
 society in Germany, under the patronage of 
 John of Dalburg, which called itself the Rhe- 
 nish, and which proved even more fruitful than 
 that of Florence. 
 
 Heeren remarks of the Florentine Institute, 
 that " in an age when the institutions for the 
 promotion of the sciences were all, as yet, under 
 the control of the convents or of certain corpora- 
 tions, Cosmo, in his Platonic Academy, exhi- 
 bited the first model of a free union for scientific 
 culture, of which the many subsequent institu- 
 tions of this kind were imitations, bearing the 
 name (academies) without, for the most part, 
 inheriting their spirit."* 
 
 Of the Rhenish Institute, Hegewisch says, 
 after remarking that nothing of the kind had 
 ever been seen in Germany before, except once 
 at the court of Charlemagne : " so far as we are 
 * Gesch. des Studiums der classischen Lit. B. II. par. 20. 
 
 acquainted with this association, it was estab- 
 lished precisely on that footing which seems 
 most suitable for literary societies. The only 
 bond which united the members, was mutual 
 friendship originating in a common desire of 
 being useful, and founded on reciprocal esteem. 
 Among the members of this society were the 
 Freiherr von Dalburg, afterward Bishop of 
 Worms, the friend of Conrad Celtes, of Rudoiph 
 Agricola, of Johann Reuchlin, and of every 
 man who, by virtue of distinguished talents, 
 merited a place by the side of these ; Wilibald 
 Birkhaimer. who, as a statesman, a soldier, and 
 an elegant writer, was an extraordinary pheno- 
 menon in Germany at that time ; together with 
 many others distinguished partly by their rank 
 and station, and partly by their learning and 
 talents.'"* 
 
 What made the preceding centuries so dark 
 and ever darker is sufficiently notorious, after 
 the labours of so many excellent men devoted 
 to the illustration of this subject. Ignorance and 
 barbarism grew in proportion as hierarchy and 
 feudalism reared their summits over against 
 each other, and wrought together, without con- 
 cert, in the destruction of all true civil power. 
 
 This form of government could not reform it- 
 self, (as, in fact, no one has yet done ; evil, in 
 and of itself, can only grow worse continually ;) 
 it had to go down, and a new one to arise in its 
 stead. This took place after a series of events. 
 — crusades, and extended navigation, with all 
 which they brought in their train, — had enlarged 
 the sphere of vision of the nations, and given 
 them the courage and the capacity to assert the 
 feeling, common to all men, of self-propertyf 
 against spiritual and personal tyranny. There 
 arose a numerous class who, by virtue of their 
 education, by their mode of living, their investi- 
 gations and experiences, had attained to very 
 different views of the world and man, and to 
 quite other criteria of the know-worthy and the 
 true, than those which the schools and the lec- 
 ture-rooms of the time could furnish. { This 
 class, or rather the taste for the good and the 
 true, which had sprung from an understanding 
 of the really useful, of that which benefits man- 
 kind in general, gained the ascendancy. The 
 native oppressors and devastators of Ausonii 
 disappeared, and citizen-princes arose in their 
 place. The age of the Medicis began, and, at 
 Florence, that Academy mentioned above, which 
 numbered among its most active members and 
 promoters, a Duke Frederic of Urbino, and the 
 celebrated King Mathias Corvinus of Hungary. 
 The inspiration of Italy passed over to Ger- 
 many, but with this difference, that whereas 
 there, citizen-scholars became princes, here, on 
 the other hand, princes, and the companions of 
 princes, became scholars, or, at least, friends, 
 
 * Allgemeine Uebersicht der deutsch. Kulturgeschichte. 
 S. 189. 191. 192. 
 
 t Selbst angehdrigkeit— the belonging to one's self. 
 
 J Geschichte der Kiinste und Wissenschaften, v. Buhle. 
 Abt. vi. B. 2. Absch. I. 
 
JACOBI. 
 
 227 
 
 lovers, and promoters of science. Who has not 
 heard, in this connection, the names of Frederic 
 the Wise of Saxony, of Philip of the Palatinate, 
 of the Dukes Eberhard and Ulrich of Witten- 
 berg, of Johannes von Dalburg, of Count Mo- 
 ritz von Spiegelberg, of Rudolph von Lange, 
 and their pupils, Hermann von Nuenar and 
 Hermann von dem Busche, above all, of Ulrich 
 von Hutten ? 
 
 Contemporary with these excellent men were 
 the three patriarchs of German humanities,* 
 Rudolph Agricola. Johann Reuchlin, and Conrad 
 Celtes. The series of excellent writers who 
 appeared in our country in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury are to be regarded as the descendants of 
 these. Yet they were not schoolmen, but only 
 transient teachers, for a longer or shorter period, 
 in universities, and belonged rather, especially 
 the two former, to the great world and the life 
 of* affairs. To them chiefly it is to be ascribed, 
 that classic literature, and with it philosophy 
 and history, gained currency among the higher 
 classes also, and were introduced at courts. On 
 the other hand, they, for their part, received a 
 kind of culture which is gained only by inter- 
 course with the actual world, by participation 
 in its affairs, and by intimate acquaintance with 
 the principal conductors of those affairs ; by 
 mutual influence, action and reaction. Neither 
 science nor government can thrive without some 
 reciprocal action of this sort. For how can ig- 
 norance rule wisely, or even execute successfully 
 its unwise plans? How can it preserve its au- 
 thority, without which there is no true and en- 
 during power in governments? And, on the 
 other hand, how could science and wisdom 
 make their dignity and their authority immedi- 
 ately felt? make it that which proves itself, 
 universally, the stronger? Neither is compati- 
 ble with the nature of man. Therefore let 
 strength cleave to wisdom and wisdom to 
 strength. 
 
 No one will question that the vast change 
 which took place with the nations of Europe in 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and which 
 has now been sketched with few strokes, was 
 a change which ennobled humanity throughout 
 this quarter of the globe, a real and general im- 
 provement of the human condition. It may be 
 asked, however, with respect to the farther pro- 
 gress which has been making, for more than 
 three centuries, in the same direction, or at least 
 apparently in the same direction, whether this 
 progress, the reality of which cannot be disputed, 
 has been a progress toward a better and ever 
 better? Consequently, whether humanity, in 
 this age, may boast itself and rejoice to have 
 drawn much nearer to the great end of the 
 race, inward and outward peace, by universal 
 and sure knowledge of the know-worthy, by 
 universal and firm possession of the have- 
 
 * Der dcutsr.hen humanislen, i. e. of those who, in 
 Germany, cultivated the "humanities," as they are called. 
 
 worthy, than our fathers were three hundred 
 years ago ? 
 
 This question, in order to be satisfactorily an- 
 swered, must be put on higher grounds and in 
 a form which concerns human nature in general. 
 The problem would then read thus : Has the 
 human race an attainable goal here on earth? 
 And, if there is such a goal, is the whole race 
 approaching it gradually, by different, and even 
 apparently opposite paths? Or may single na- 
 tions, at least, be moving toward it, by a con- 
 tinued approximation, until somewhere, at last, 
 it is reached ? 
 
 All the animal races have a goal which they 
 may attain to. The tendency of each one is ful- 
 filled, entirely satisfied ; it completes its course, 
 lives out its life. Not so man. He is a yonder- 
 sided being. His senses and his understanding 
 he has in common with the brute. Reason be- 
 longs to him alone. By means of that, he is 
 made capable of a God and of virtue, of the 
 beautiful, the good, the sublime. His instinct is 
 religion. 
 
 The faculties which man possesses in com- 
 mon with the lower animals, he can use, culti- 
 vate, and apply in an infinitely greater variety 
 of ways than they ; and, with his more cunning 
 understanding, which, as mere understanding, 
 he owes, after all, only to a richer and more ar- 
 tificial organization, he may advance to such an 
 extent that, compared with his speechless bro- 
 thers, even on this stage, he shall be capable of 
 seeming an essentially different being from 
 them, living and free, endued with a creative 
 spirit, a self-existing being. 
 
 But let us not forget to notice that the pro- 
 gress which man makes with the mere under- 
 standing, which necessarily relates to objects of 
 sense alone, is, to say the least, indifferent in re- 
 spect to reason, i. e. the cultivation of genuine 
 humanity, of that which, exclusively and alone, 
 makes man man. That is to say, the progress 
 may be, and, in the beginning, always is, of such 
 a nature as to prepare the way for the influence 
 of true humanity, as to accompany and to pro- 
 mote it. But it may also acquire such a charac- 
 ter, and has hitherto, in the most diverse ways, 
 always acquired it, as to produce a strikingly 
 opposite effect; as to destroy humanity, to sup- 
 press reason, and crowd everything divine out 
 of the human breast. 
 
 The fact is but too evident, that a people may 
 be admirably skilled in the arts, possess a many- 
 sided culture, and even exhibit, outwardly, the 
 most refined morals, and yet, at the same time, 
 be inwardly, in the highest degree, corrupt, 
 deeply immoral, God-forgetting, on the whole, 
 destitute of all virtue. 
 
 Impressed with this truth, which the past and 
 the presentalike universally confirm,that a culture 
 relating to the sensual life alone, far from aiding 
 humanity by its progress, oppresses and corrupts 
 it in its innermost being, and, in spite of all our 
 refinement and affluence, makes us, in truth, 
 only worse and more miserable animals, — deeply 
 
228 
 
 J ACOBI. 
 
 impressed with this truth, Rousseau wished, in 
 order to get rid of our understanding which in- 
 vents sciences, arts, and laws, to our undoing, 
 that we might, renouncing our reason also, (in 
 his zeal he forgot this part of our nature,) return 
 to the forest, become four-footed and innocent 
 once more, if this were only practicable now. 
 
 This fiery orator, and all who, since him, 
 have handled the same subject, themselves saw 
 by the light of the understanding only; and 
 so the solution of this knot must needs be an 
 impossibility for them. If reason, they main- 
 tained, is incapable of producing a 1 heaven-on- 
 earth,' she is deserving of no particular regard, 
 at least, is not worth all the fuss which has 
 hitherto been made about her. Others, who 
 wished to preserve the authority of that which 
 they denominated reason, contended that the 
 heaven-on-earth would come, and that so soon 
 as — no other should be talked of. The unphi- 
 losophical mocked at this, and, without waiting 
 for that which reason might accomplish at some 
 future period, they made their heaven-on-earth, 
 as well as they could, on the spot. The philo- 
 sophers, in silence, did the same. 
 
 The true word of this enigma, or its solution, 
 is a yes and a no at the same time, — both equal 
 in force, both equal in right, and of such a cha- 
 racter, that the negation does not cancel the 
 affirmation, nor the affirmation the negation, but 
 both maintain themselves over against each 
 other, and are mutually balanced. 
 
 When the faculty of desire has given the 
 ends, the understanding assists to find the means 
 necessary to the attainment of those ends. It 
 distinguishes, combines, arranges, weighs, and 
 considers. It calms the mind to prudence. 
 But it is incapable of generating ends — original 
 ends — out of itself. These all spring from sen- 
 sual or supersensual, corporeal or spiritual 
 wants. In and with those, works the under- 
 standing, in and with these, Reason. 
 
 It is a truth old as the human species, that 
 sense and reason are in continual conflict with 
 each odier, that now one and now the other is 
 in the ascendancy. Herein is manifested the 
 discoid of man with himself, caused by two 
 propensities essentially different in their de- 
 mands, and often diametrically opposite in their 
 operation. One of these propensities produces 
 the practical understanding, the other practical 
 Reason. 
 
 There can be no dispute as to which of these 
 propensities deserves, absolutely and always, 
 the preference and the supremacy. No one 
 denies that the highest authority belongs to 
 Reason, and that unconditional obedience is due 
 to her precepts. 
 
 Understanding may exist in the highest de- 
 gree, even where the most profligate aims are 
 manifest. It executes with equal assiduity the 
 best and the worst. Of itself, it knows not 
 what is good or bad, but only what is more or 
 less. It can only mete according to a given 
 measure : it can only deliberate, not subordi- 
 
 nate ;* it can only number, compute, calculate. 
 To make out a first cause or an ultimate aim, 
 
 lies entirely beyond its sphere. 
 
 "What is good," says the wise man of 
 Stagira, "is so by the inherent power of the 
 object; and life itself is a good, only because 
 we learn what is good, by means of it.'' Rea- 
 son alone makes known to us what is good in 
 itself. Reason is the faculty of proposing to 
 ourselves the highest. As such, it stood with 
 the ancients, under the title of Wisdom, at the 
 head of the virtues; it arranged them, it had 
 invented them. Prudence is the virtue of the 
 understanding. That faculty discovers and re- 
 veals what is serviceable, unconcerned as to the 
 worth of the end, whether good or bad. 
 
 "If Reason had the power as she has the 
 authority," says a profound English thinker,f 
 "Justice and Peace, the Good and the Beautiful 
 would everywhere reign supreme." But now 
 she has only right on her side ; strength dwells 
 elsewhere, with sensual desire, with the appe- 
 tites and passions. This disproportion cannot 
 be universally abolished, but the nobler or the 
 ignobler may obtain more or less the ascen- 
 dancy, and the times, accordingly, be better or 
 worse. 
 
 Only that — according to the definition of one 
 of our most acute and noble thinkers — deserves 
 to be called a better age,in which human nature 
 in a state of the most active self-development, 
 although defective in some points, yet, on the 
 whole, harmonious, has distinguished itself by 
 nobleness of sentiment and energy of mind in 
 entire nations; in which a noble and difficult 
 aim was clearly discerned and boldly and stead- 
 fastly pursued. The value of an age, therefore, 
 is not to be estimated by the bloom of the arts, 
 or by the multitude of learned acquirements, 
 by which particular classes of cultivated indi- 
 viduals may be distinguished ; not by the pow- 
 ers and deeds of single, celebrated men, nor by 
 the predominance of a so called enlightenment, 
 in the best sense of the word; seeing that the 
 faculty of moral self-determination is cultivated 
 less by instruction than by living example, and, 
 in an enervated century, all moral doctrines, 
 although they may take root in the understand- 
 ing, act but feebly on the character. Least of 
 all, is the value of an age to be estimated by 
 the standard of public self-content, which is 
 generally considered a less fallible one; since 
 man may easily sink so low that the manner of 
 his well-being shall concern him but little, if 
 only, on the whole, he is tolerably well. Let it 
 first be ascertained what kind of well-being the 
 people enjoy. Enjoyment is stimulating and 
 honourable, only as a consequence of true self- 
 development; and the real happiness of man, 
 
 * The epigrammatic force of the German is lost in this 
 translation of the phrase, nur ueber: nicht unterlcgen, i. 
 e., only overlay, not underlay. But the rendering, it is 
 believed, is otherwise exact. Tr. 
 
 t Joseph Butler. 
 
J ACOBI. 
 
 229 
 
 which, at bottom, we all crave, is a noble hap- 
 piness* 
 
 Tried by these principles, the age in which 
 we live, can hardly receive the testimony that 
 it belongs to the better sort. 
 
 Means we have, as no generation ever had 
 before us. But with this wealth of means what 
 ends do we attain? What ends do we propose 
 to ourselves? We are full of science, and are 
 daily inventing new arts, but men, such as the 
 ancient, and even the middle times — such as 
 the lifteenth and sixteenth century produced, 
 are proportionally rare among us. Our pride is 
 to be able to dispense with such powers and 
 virtues. So Pericles of old pronounced his 
 Athenians happy, in that they had no need to 
 be Spartans in virtue. f As, in the earliest 
 times, men were at pains to subdue wild beasts, 
 and to impart to the beasts which they sub- 
 dued, habits contrary to their instincts ; so, in 
 later times, an entire, degenerate Humanity 
 strives to subdue true humanity, wherever it is 
 still active, to bring it beneath the power of a 
 cultivated animalism which deems itself su- 
 perior, to suppress or to pervert, on all sides, 
 the higher instinct, so that, of all which has 
 ever borne the name of virtue, there shall be 
 nothing left but so called utilities, which may 
 also be applied to vicious ends. To this class 
 belong courage, industry, moderation, obedience, 
 to which men may actually, to a certain extent, 
 be merely trained, as we train animals. This 
 is the true pedagogic of our time, the only one 
 which the time esteems. It shows itself inex- 
 haustible in devising new methods to attain 
 the abovementioned end, — to separate what is 
 merely useful in virtue from virtue itself, and 
 to make it a matter of public opinion, that 
 naked virtue, which would be estimated, not by 
 what it fetches, but by what it costs, should be 
 sent to the mad-house. And thus we become 
 every day more intelligent,^ more ingenious, 
 and, in the same proportion, more irrational. § 
 Individually and in the mass, — nationally, — we 
 have become more devoid of reason. 
 
 " Egoism and rage for enjoyment on principle," 
 says the writer just quoted, " under the name 
 of sound philosophy, destroy the fairest relations 
 of life. The flattering happiness-doctrine, by 
 which it was proposed at first to dam the stream 
 of passion, has long since become a frail skiff, 
 which follows the current. The more earnest 
 and exalted morality which inspires man with 
 a consciousness of his dignity, has become too 
 strange and too high for the people. They can- 
 not comprehend it. Man, in general, is consci- 
 entious, in the strictest sense, only then, when, 
 in secret also, he feels the necessity of shame, 
 
 * See, Die goldenen Jahrhunderte, v. Fr. Bouterwek. 
 Neues Museum der Phil, und Lit. Band I. Heft 2. 
 t Thucydides, ii. 34-39. 
 X Verstundig . 
 
 § Unvernutifiig. — Observe all along the distinction, no- 
 where so prominent as with Jacobi, between the under- 
 standing and the reason. Tr. 
 
 before another than himself. The belief in that 
 other, has been, for centuries, by instruction and 
 tradition, identified with attachment to a church. 
 The inconsiderate cry of enlightenment has torn 
 the people away from the Church, and Con- 
 science is left without house or home. And 
 now one party thirsts for sweet pleasure, to 
 drain the cup of life to the dregs, and the other 
 party crawls back to the cross in the literal sense 
 of these words. Amid this disgusting (we may 
 call it) opposition between a reviving priestcraft 
 and a happiness-theory which knows not God, 
 a generation is growing up whose destiny no 
 philosophy can control. It would need no ex- 
 traordinary occurrences to deliver up this gene- 
 ration to a new Mohammed. For it needs but 
 few syllogisms now-a-days, to rob men of the 
 principles of their 'human understanding,' as 
 they call it. Popular enlightenment among us 
 is unnaturally advanced. Its unnatural begin- 
 ning and progress portend its natural termina- 
 tion. Posterity will not wonder if, in the desert 
 of unbelief, men raise serpents and pray to 
 golden calves once more ; and if, in this ser- 
 pent -and -calf- service, philosophers tend the 
 altars." 
 
 Remarkable signs exhibit themselves. But 
 twenty years ago, all shallow heads were agreed 
 with Voltaire, Helvetius, Diderot, and their dis- 
 ciples, that philosophy and every method of 
 cultivating and diffusing it, were good and 
 wholesome. Now, all shallow heads are equally 
 unanimous in the contrary opinion. All philo- 
 sophising is affirmed to be useless and even 
 pernicious. They became convinced, by an 
 extraordinary event, that egoism cannot be made 
 just, at least, not in the gross, in the way which 
 their teachers had affirmed. They became 
 convinced that a pure democracy of mere appe- 
 tites and passions, however organized, can never 
 become a kingdom of happiness and peace 
 Hence they concluded (for the principle of ego- 
 ism, as the only true principle, they once for 
 all, could not let go) that it is better to renounce 
 all hope of justice, to give up Humanity, and 
 to abandon everything to Chance. 
 
 Far be it from us to concur with them. A 
 loud appeal against them to the genius of Hu- 
 manity, is the duty of every noble-minded man. 
 We need heroes of humanity; and they will 
 appear, as they have hitherto appeared in every 
 case in which the highest necessity demanded 
 them. As to the how and the when, let no one 
 ask. Let each one perform, in his place, what 
 the better, the reliable spirit within him enjoins. 
 
 This spirit, as it is its own highest end, so it 
 is its own only means. Against the power 
 thereof no other power may stand. It will 
 pierce through and overcome. 
 
 It is impossible that a pure and clear under- 
 standing should be incompatible with an ele- 
 vated reason. Rather, when used aright, they 
 must mutually promote each other. There can 
 be no bad use of the reason. And even of the 
 understanding, there can only then be a bad 
 20 
 
230 
 
 J A COB I. 
 
 use, when that faculty is already, in part, sub- 
 jugated, and, in the same measure, eclipsed by 
 the senses which it was ordained to rule. Only 
 then will it prove itself hostile to reason, — place 
 itself as a dark body before the sun of the spirit 
 and intercept its rays. Its self-eclipses are not 
 to be likened to the eclipses of the moon, in re- 
 lation to which Thucydides says; "that the 
 Greeks of his day had long since ceased to be 
 afraid of eclipses of the sun, but that eclipses of 
 the moon still excited their alarm." They did 
 not comprehend how a body could stand in its 
 own light. 
 
 It is plain, to him who reflects, in what way 
 these general considerations connect themselves 
 with what was said above, concerning learned 
 societies of old and recent time, and what bear- 
 ing they have on the new dedication of the 
 Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences. They 
 came unsought. Dulness and narrowness can- 
 not comprehend the design of these intellectual 
 alliances. With bold assumption, they pronounce 
 judgment upon them, or ask for results of im- 
 mediate utility. These our Academy indeed, as 
 the Keeper of the scientific (and what splendid !) 
 treasures and collections of our illustrious mo- 
 narch and of this, kingdom, (a beautiful addition 
 to its destination, which hitherto no other aca- 
 demy in the world has possessed, to this extent) 
 can point to with serene brow ; but they are not 
 the only thing that gives value to this fair circle 
 of the priests of humanity. The high ancestors 
 
 of our Maximilian Joseph founded this Institute 
 and made its conduct their care. The Genius 
 of this kingdom would have mourned if our age 
 had suffered it to become extinct. This was 
 not to be apprehended. The lofty prince whom, 
 with joy and triumph, we call ours, — whom, 
 with full heart, we call the king ; he who, in all 
 ways, blesses his people, is willing also to in- 
 crease their fame by helping to preserve to them 
 so sacred an inheritance, by furnishing it anew, 
 by enlarging its powers, by increasing its splen- 
 dor. 
 
 Those who conclude, this day, the renewed 
 alliance of truth and wisdom, are justly inspired 
 with the hope of something better, and with 
 courage to promote it. "An institution of peace, 
 and for the mediation of the antagonistic in time, 
 by science?'* has been founded. It is allowed 
 us to speak freely of the advantages, but also of 
 the defects of the time. Whatever it possesses 
 that is costly and excellent in relation to science 
 and art, is presented to us, in rich abundance, 
 by royal liberality. To contribute something 
 toward the promotion of the highest, and of 
 whatsoever is wanting to the time, shall be 
 the unalterable aim of our most zealous en- 
 deavours. 
 
 Blessings on the best of kings, who called this 
 union into being, and who will foster and pre- 
 serve it! 
 
 * Excellent words of Sehelling. 
 
JOH ANN GOTTFKI 
 
 Bom 1744. 
 
 Tins honored name, than which Germany 
 has few more prized, represents a wide range 
 of intellect, and covers a large space in the 
 national literature. Herder is a literature in 
 himself, including theology, philosophy, history, 
 criticism, poetry ; all the various departments 
 of literary effort, and approved in all. He sur- 
 passes all his contemporaries in breadth, and 
 most of them in depth. Such union of breadth 
 and depth has seldom been seen. To him may 
 be ascribed the epithet " myriad-minded." He 
 towers above the ordinary level of humanity, 
 not, like most great men, in a single peak, but 
 with a many-headed elevation; a vast moun- 
 tain-range whose highest summits mingle with 
 the skies ; whose sunny slopes are covered with 
 luxurious vegetation ; whose secret valleys are 
 haunted by the Muse of Romance, and beneath 
 whose surface are mines of gold. 
 
 Had Herder possessed the element of form in 
 any degree proportioned to the sumless wealth 
 of his intellect and his all-sided culture, he 
 would have been the first poet, not of Germany 
 only, but of his age, of any age. There lay his 
 defect. He was no artist. Like king David, 
 he collected materials from the ends of the 
 earth, but it was not given to him to rear a 
 temple therewith. With all his voluminous- 
 ness he has left no perfect work. Even his 
 "Ideas toward a philosophy of the history of 
 Humanity" is fragmentary, as the name im- 
 ports. 
 
 Herder was born at Mohrungen in East 
 Prussia, where his father was Cantor* of the 
 church and usher in a female seminary. His 
 early education was better adapted to make 
 him a good man than a brilliant scholar, being 
 confined to the reading of the bible and the 
 hymn-book. Other books, which his thirst for 
 knowledge constrained him to seek, he was 
 obliged to read by stealth; and it is related 
 that he used to climb a tree and lash himself 
 with a leathern strap to one of the branches for 
 this purpose. 
 
 * An office in the Lutheran Church, of which the prin- 
 cipal duty is that of precentor— whence the name. 
 
 ED VON HERDER. 
 
 Died 1S03. 
 
 He learned to write, and the beauty of his 
 chirography procured him a patron in Trescho, 
 a clergyman who employed him as amanuensis, 
 and permitted him to share the instruction of 
 his sons in the Latin and Greek languages. 
 The intense application with which he devoted 
 himself to the pursuit of knowledge brought on 
 a disease of the eyes, from which he never en- 
 tirely recovered. A Russian surgeon who had 
 afforded him temporary relief, and who was 
 then a visiter in the house of Trescho, per- 
 suaded him to study surgery in St. Petersburg, 
 and offered not only to pay his expenses thither, 
 but to give him gratuitous instruction. But at 
 Konigsberg, on their way, Herder was so over- 
 come by the sight of a dissection which he 
 witnessed, that he abandoned this project, and 
 turned his attention to theology. He remained 
 in Konigsberg for this purpose, supporting him- 
 self, as a private instructor, while pursuing his 
 studies at the university. He there formed an 
 acquaintance with Hamann and with Kant 
 
 In 1765, he was appointed teacher and 
 preacher at the Cathedral school at Riga, 
 where he kindled the enthusiastic devotion 
 of his hearers and pupils by his word and his 
 writings. For here commenced his career as 
 an author. In 1768, he declined a call to St. 
 Petersburg as inspector of the St. Peter's school 
 in that city, and accepted the office of travel- 
 ling chaplain to the prince of Holstein-Eutin. 
 In this capacity he travelled through Germany 
 as far as Strassburg, where he was induced to 
 resign his office on account of his eyes, which 
 began to trouble him again, and to undergo an 
 operation which detained him for a long while 
 in that city. Here he became acquainted with 
 Goethe, w r ho was then a student of Law at 
 Strassburg. Goethe attributes great value to 
 this acquaintance in his auto-biography, and 
 makes much of Herder's influence on his mind 
 and character at that forming period of his life. 
 "I might count myself fortunate," he says, 
 "that by an unexpected acquaintance, what- 
 ever of self-complacency, of self-mirroring, of 
 vanity, pride, and highmindedness might slum- 
 
 (231) 
 
232 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 ber or work in me, was subjected to a very 
 severe trial which was unique in its kind, by 
 no means proportionate to the time, but so much 
 the more penetrating and sensible. 
 
 M For the most significant occurrence and that 
 which was to have the most important conse- 
 quences for me, was an acquaintance and a 
 consequent nearer connection with Herder. He 
 had accompanied the prince of Holstein-Eutin, 
 who was afflicted with melancholy, in his tra- 
 vels, and had come with him as far as Strass- 
 burg. Our society, as soon as they were aware 
 of his presence, felt an earnest desire to ap- 
 proach him, and this gratification happened to 
 me first in a quite unexpected and accidental 
 manner. I had gone to the hotel ' Zum 
 Geist? to visit I know not what distinguished 
 stranger. At the foot of the stairs I met a man 
 who was also on the point of ascending, and 
 whom I might have taken for a clergyman. 
 His powdered hair was rolled up into a round 
 lock; a black dress likewise distinguished him, 
 but still more a long black silk mantle, the end 
 of which he had gathered together and thrust 
 into his pocket. This somewhat striking, but, 
 on the whole, gentlemanly and agreeable ap- 
 pearance, of which I had already heard speak, 
 left me no doubt that he was the celebrated 
 arrival, and my address must have convinced 
 him at once that I knew who he was. He 
 asked my name, which could be of no import- 
 ance to him ; but my frankness appeared to 
 please him, for he responded to it with great 
 kindness, and, as we ascended the stairs toge- 
 ther, showed himself ready at once for a lively 
 communication. It has escaped me whom we 
 then visited. Enough, at parting, I begged 
 permission to call upon him at his lodgings, 
 which he accorded to me in a manner suffi- 
 ciently friendly. I did not fail to avail myself 
 repeatedly of this permission, and was more and 
 more attracted by him. He had somewhat 
 gentle in his carriage that was exceedingly 
 fitting and graceful, without being exactly 
 adrett ; a round face, a significant brow, a 
 somewhat blunt nose, a somewhat prominent 
 but highly individual, agreeable, amiable mouth; 
 under black eyebrows a pair of coal-black eyes 
 which did not fail of their effect, although one 
 of them was wont to be red and inflamed. By 
 manifold questions he sought to make himself 
 acquainted with me and my condition, and his 
 power of attraction operated ever more strongly 
 
 upon me. I was generally of a confiding na- 
 ture, and for him, especially, I had no secret. 
 But it was not long before the repellent pulse 
 of his nature came in and occasioned me no 
 little discomfort. ******** 
 
 " Herder had now separated himself from the 
 prince and removed to quarters of his own, re- 
 solved to submit himself to an operation by 
 Lobstein. Here I found the benefit of those 
 exercises by which I had endeavored to blunt 
 my sensitiveness. I was able to assist at the 
 operation, and, in various ways, to be helpful 
 and serviceable to so worthy a man. I had 
 every reason to admire his great fortitude and 
 patience ; for neither under the various wounds 
 inflicted by the surgeon, nor under the oft-re- 
 peated, painful bandage, did he manifest the 
 least vexation ; and he appeared to be the one 
 among us who suffered the least. But then, in 
 the intervals, we had to bear in various ways 
 the mutations of his humor. ***** 
 
 " Herder could be most sweetly engaging and 
 genial ; but he could as easily also turn forth a 
 vexatious side. All men indeed have this at- 
 traction and repulsion according to their nature, 
 — some more, some less, — some in slower, some 
 in quicker pulses. Few can really overcome 
 their peculiarity in this regard, although many 
 appear to do so. In the case of Herder, the 
 overweight of his contrary, bitter, biting humor 
 was unquestionably owing to his malady and 
 the sufferings which arose from it. This case 
 often occurs in life, and we do not sufficiently 
 consider the moral effects of diseased condi- 
 tions, and therefore judge many characters 
 very unjustly, because we regard all men as 
 healthy, and require of them that they shall 
 conduct themselves accordingly. 
 
 " During the whole time of this cure, I visited 
 Herder morning and evening; I also remained 
 with him sometimes the whole day, and accus- 
 tomed myself in a short time to his chiding and 
 fault-finding, the rather that I learned every 
 day to estimate more highly his great and 
 beautiful qualities, his extended knowledge, 
 and his deep insight. The influence of this 
 goodnatured grumbler was great and important. 
 He was five years older than I, which makes a 
 great difference in our younger days, and since 
 I acknowledged him for what he was, since I 
 knew how to value what he had already pro- 
 duced, he necessarily acquired a great supe- 
 riority over me. But the relation was not an 
 
HERDER. 
 
 233 
 
 agreeable one. Older people with whom I had 
 hitherto conversed had spared me while endea- 
 voring to educate me ; perhaps they had spoiled 
 me by their yieldingness ; but no approbation 
 was ever to be had from Herder, whatever pains 
 one might take to obtain it. While, therefore, 
 on the one hand, my great attachment and re- 
 verence for him, and on the other, the discom- 
 fort which he awakened in me for ever con- 
 tended together, there arose in me a contradic- 
 tion, the first in its kind I had ever experienced. 
 As his conversations were always significant, 
 whether asking or answering, or in whatever 
 way he imparted himself, it could not fail that 
 I should be daily and hourly led on by him to 
 new views. ****** 
 
 During so vexatious and painful a cure, our 
 Herder lost nothing of his vivacity, but that 
 vivacity grew ever less beneficent. He could 
 not write a note containing a request, without 
 spicing it with some kind of jeer. Thus, for 
 example, he wrote to me once : 
 
 "If the epistles of Brutus thou hast in Cicero's Letters, 
 Thou whom, from well-polished shelves, the school-conso- 
 lers—the classics 
 Comfort in splendid editions; but outwardly rather than 
 inly ; — 
 
 Thou who from Gods or from Goths, or, it may be, from 
 
 mud* art descended, 
 Goethe send them to me." 
 
 To be sure, it was not handsome that he al- 
 lowed himself this jest with my name ; for the 
 proper name of a man is not like a cloak which 
 merely hangs round him, and at which one can 
 pluck and twitch, but a close-fitting garment ; 
 nay, it is something which grows to him like 
 the skin itself, and which cannot be scratched 
 or wounded without injury to himself. 
 
 On the other hand, the preceding reproof was 
 better founded. I had taken the authors which 
 I had received in exchange from Langer, toge- 
 ther with some beautiful editions out of my 
 father's collection, with me to Strassburg, and 
 arranged them in a neat book-case with the 
 best intention to use them. But how should 
 the time which was broken into fragments by a 
 hundred different kinds of activity, suffice for 
 this] Herder, who was a great observer of 
 books, because he needed them every moment, 
 noticed my beautiful collection on his first visit; 
 but he noticed too, that I made no use of it ; 
 wherefore, as the greatest enemy of all seem- 
 ing and ostentation, he used with every occa- 
 sion to twit me on that point. * * * 
 
 * " Von Quttern von Qothen oder von Kothe;" 1 puns on 
 Goethe's name. — Ed. 
 
 2 E 
 
 Of such jests, more or less gay or abstruse, 
 lively or bitter, I might mention many. Thoy 
 did not vex me, but they were unpleasant. But 
 as I knew how to value whatever contributed 
 to my education, and since I had sacrificed 
 many of my earlier opinions and inclinations, I 
 soon adjusted myself thereto, and only endea- 
 voured, so far as it was possible for me from 
 my then point of view, to separate just reproof 
 from unjust invective. And so not a day passed 
 that was not most fruitfully instructive for 
 me. ****** 
 
 ******** 
 
 After the cure had been protracted beyond 
 all reasonable bounds, and Lobstein began to 
 waver and to repeat himself in his treatment, 
 our whole relation was overcast. Herder be- 
 came impatient and out of humor ; he could 
 not succeed in continuing his activity as here- 
 tofore, and he was obliged to restrain himself, 
 the rather that the blame of the unsuccessful 
 chirurgical undertaking was imputed to his too 
 great intellectual activity, and his uninter- 
 rupted, lively and even merry intercourse with 
 us. In short, after so much torture and suffer- 
 ing, the artificial lachrymal duct would not 
 form, and the desired communication could not 
 be brought about. It was found necessary to 
 let the wound heal in order that the evil might 
 not grow worse. If, during the operation, we 
 were compelled to admire Herder's fortitude 
 under such pains, his melancholy, nay, grim 
 resignation to the idea of being obliged to bear 
 such a blemish through life, had in it something 
 sublime, whereby he secured to himself forever 
 the veneration of those who saw him and loved 
 him. This misfortune, which disfigured so sig- 
 nificant a face, could not but be the more vexa- 
 tious from the circumstance, that he had be- 
 come acquainted with and had won the affec- 
 tions of a distinguished lady in Darmstadt. It 
 was chiefly on this account that he had sub- 
 mitted to that cure, in order, on his return, to 
 appear more free, more joyful, and with im- 
 proved looks before his half-betrothed, and to 
 connect himself more surely and inseparably 
 with her."* 
 
 In 1770, Herder received a call to Biicke- 
 burg as superintendant, court-preacher, and 
 member of the consistory. There he became 
 the confidential friend of Count Wilhelm, of 
 Schaumburg-Lippe and his wife, and added to 
 
 * Aus meinem Leben. Part 2d. Book 10th. 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 his literary fame by several important publica- 
 tions. In 1775, he was invited to a professor- 
 ship of theology in Gottingen; but objections 
 having been raised on the score of questionable 
 orthodoxy, he accepted a call which came to 
 him from Weimar to fill the offices of court- 
 preacher, of general superintendent, and coun- 
 sellor of the upper Consistory in that Electorate. 
 Here he remained during the rest of his life, 
 and by his fame as pulpit-orator, by his services 
 as superintendent of the schools, and zealous 
 promoter of all good works, by the establish- 
 ment of a seminary for teachers, by the reforms 
 which he introduced into the liturgy and the 
 catechetical instruction, he endeared himself 
 alike to prince and people. In 1789, he was 
 made vice-president, in 1801, president of the 
 upper Consistory. At the same time he received 
 from the Elector of Bavaria the diploma of no- 
 bility. 
 
 He died, December 18th, 1803, in the sixtieth 
 year of his age. His remains were deposited 
 in the vault of the city-church, and, in 1819, 
 a monument of cast-iron was erected over them, 
 "which expressed the characteristic aspirations 
 of his soul with the brief inscription, Licht, 
 JLiebe, Leben."* 
 
 The highest panegyric on Herder is that 
 pronounced by his true friend and fervent ad- 
 mirer, Jean Paul, in his Vorschule der JEsthetik. 
 
 " That noble spirit was misunderstood by op- 
 posite times and parties, yet not entirely with- 
 out fault of his own. For he had the fault, 
 that he was no star of first or of any other 
 magnitude, but a clump of stars out of which 
 each one spells a constellation to please him- 
 self; one man a pair of scales, or the constella- 
 tion of Autumn ; another, a crab, or the constel- 
 lation of Summer, and so on. Men, with powers 
 of various kinds, are always misunderstood; 
 those with powers of only one kind, seldom. 
 The former come in contact with all, both like 
 and unlike ; the latter only with their like. * * 
 
 " Born, as it were, with a love-potion of fervid 
 
 passion for nature, like a Brahmin, with the 
 
 lofty Spinozism of the heart, he cherished and 
 
 held fast to his heart every animalcule and 
 
 every blossom. A travelling-carriage driven 
 
 through greening life was his sun-chariot, and 
 
 only under the free heaven, as also at the sound 
 
 of music, would his heart, like a flower, with a 
 
 right, wide-cheered expansion, unfold. 
 
 * " Lij;ht, Love, Life." See Wolff's Encyclopedia of 
 German literature. 
 
 * * * * I can say but little 
 about him, and insufficient at best. A man 
 who could be resolved into words must be an 
 every-day man. The star-heaven no star-map 
 paints, although painting may represent a land- 
 scape. ****** 
 
 " So this beloved spirit resembled the swans 
 which, in the harsh season of the year, keep 
 the waters open by their motion. 
 ** * ***** 
 
 " I have not yet spoken the fullest word con- 
 cerning him. If he was no poet, as he often, 
 indeed, thought of himself, and also of other 
 very celebrated people, standing, as he did, 
 close by the Homeric and Shakspearian stand- 
 ard; — then he was merely something better, 
 namely, a poem, an Indian-Greek epos made by 
 some purest God. * * * * 
 
 " But how shall I analyze it? since in his beau- 
 tiful soul, precisely as in a poem, everything 
 coalesced, and the good, the true, the beautiful, 
 constituted an inseparable triunity. Greece 
 was to him the highest, and, however universal 
 too his epic - cosmopolitan taste, praising and 
 acknowledging — even the style of his Hamann 
 — he still clung most intensely, like a much- wan- 
 dered Odysseus after his return from all blos- 
 som lands, to his Greek home. He and Goethe 
 only (each after his own fashion) are our resto- 
 rers, or Winkelmanns of singing Greece, whose 
 Philomel-tongue not all the prosers of foregone 
 centuries had been able to loose. 
 
 Herder was, as it were, a Greek composition 
 after the life. Poetry was not merely a hori- 
 zon-appendix to his life, — as one often sees, in 
 bad weather, a pile of rainbow-coloured clouds 
 in the horizon, — but it rose shining, like a free, 
 light rainbow, over the thick atmosphere of life, 
 and spanned it as a heaven's- gate. Hence his 
 Greek veneration for all the stages of life, his 
 adjusting, epic manner in all his works, which, 
 like a philosophical epos, brings all times, 
 forms, people, spirits, as with the great hand of 
 a god, impartially before the secular eye that 
 measures years only by centuries, and so pro- 
 vides for them the widest arena. Hence his 
 Greek disgust at every preponderance of the 
 scale to one or the other side. Many storm- 
 and-rack poems* could aggravate his mental 
 torture into a bodily one. He wished to see 
 the sacrifices of poesy as fair and undefiled as 
 the thunder of heaven permits to scathed hu- 
 
 * His soul-words first reclaimed the author from the 
 youthful confounding of force with beauty. 
 
HERDER. 
 
 235 
 
 manity. Therefore, like a Grecian poem, he 
 often drew, by mere dint of jest, around every 
 fairest sentiment, — e. g. pathos, — an early boun- 
 dary-line of beauty. Only men of shallow sen- 
 timents revel in them ; those of more profound 
 sensibility shun their despotism, and, therefore, 
 have the appearance of coldness. A great 
 poetical soul can more easily be anything- else 
 on the earth than happy, for man has something 
 of the Lavatere-p\a.nt, which, for years, defies 
 every winter, but grows tender and perishes as 
 soon as it bears flowers. True, the poet is an 
 eternal youth, and the dew of the morning lies 
 upon him his whole life-day long ; but without 
 sun the drops are dim and cold. 
 
 " Few minds are learned after the same grand 
 fashion as he. The greater part pursue only 
 the rare, the least known in any science. He, 
 on the contrary, received only the great streams, 
 but those of all sciences, into his heaven-mirror- 
 ingocean, which, resolving, impressed upon them 
 its own motion from west to east. Many are 
 clasped by their learning as by a withering ivy, 
 but he as by a grape-vine. Everywhere — or- 
 ganically poetizing — to appropriate to himself 
 the opposite, was his character ; and around the 
 dry kernel-house of a Lambert he wove a sweet 
 fruit-hull. Thus he combined the boldest free- 
 dom of philosophy, concerning Nature and God, 
 with the most pious faith, a faith extending 
 even to presentiments. Thus he exhibited the 
 Greek humanity, to which he restored the name, 
 in the most tender regard for all purely human 
 relations, and in his Lutheran indignation 
 against all whereby they were poisoned, how- 
 ever sanctioned by Church and State. He was 
 a fort overgrown with flowers, a Northern oak 
 whose branches were sensitive plants. How 
 gloriously irreconcilable he burned against every 
 creeping soul, against all looseness and self- 
 contradiction, dishonesty, and poetical slime- 
 softness ; as also against German critical rude- 
 ness and all sceptres in paws; and how he 
 exorcised the serpents of his time ! But would 
 you hear the softest of voices, it was his in love 
 — whether for a child or a poem, or for music — 
 or in mercy for the weak. He resembled his 
 friend Hamann, who was at once a hero and a 
 child ; who, like an electrized person in the 
 dark, stood harmless, with a glory encircling 
 his head, until a touch drew the lightning from 
 hi n. 
 
 " When he painted his Hamann as an angry 
 
 prophet, as a demoniacal spirit, and even placed 
 him above himself, (although Hamann was less 
 Grecian and mobile, light-blooming and mi- 
 nutely organized,) and when we heard with 
 grief that his true world and friendship's-island 
 were merged in that writer's tomb, we became 
 aware, from his longing, that, inwardly, he 
 judged the age (according to his highest ideal) 
 more severely than he outwardly appeared to 
 do, with his toleration and his all-sidedness. 
 Therefore there pervades his works a secret, 
 now Socratic, now Horatian irony, which only 
 those who knew him understand. Altogether, 
 he was little weighed and little estimated ; and 
 only in particulars, not in the whole. That 
 task remains for the diamond-scales of posterity, 
 into which none of the flint-stones shall come, 
 with which the rude prosaists, and ruder Kant- 
 ians, and rude poeticians* would half stone 
 and half enlighten him.f 
 
 "The good spirit gave and suffered much. 
 Two sayings of his, though unmeaning to 
 others, remain to me always for contemplation. 
 One was what he once said to me, with a me- 
 lancholy feeling of the coldness and barrenness 
 of the times, upon a Sunday amid the ringing 
 of the near church-bells, whose tones flowed 
 down to us as out of the old centuries : that he 
 wished he had been born in the middle ages. 
 The other, very different, was: that he wished 
 to behold an apparition, and that he felt nothing 
 and had no presentiment of the usual fear of 
 ghosts. O, the pure soul, of spirit-kin ! To 
 him this was possible, poetical as he was, and 
 although such natures usually shudder most at 
 the long, silent veils which pass and rest behind 
 death, — for he himself was a spiritual appa- 
 rition to the earth, and never forgot his own 
 kingdom. His life was a shining exception to 
 ofttimes tainted geniality ; he sacrificed, like 
 the ancient priests, even at the altar of the 
 Muses, only with white garments. 
 
 " He seems to me now, — much as Death usu- 
 ally lifts men up into a holy transfiguration, — in 
 his present distance and elevation, no more shin- 
 ing than formerly, by my side, here below. I ima- 
 gine him yonder, behind the stars, precisely in 
 his right place, and but little changed, his griefs 
 excepted. Well then ! celebrate right festively 
 yonder thy harvest-feast, thou pure, thou spirit- 
 
 * Poetiker. This word means neither poets nor poetas- 
 ters, but men who theorize on the subject of poetry. Tr. 
 t In London transparent flints are ground into lenses. 
 
236 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 friend ! May thy coronal of heavy wheat-ears 
 blossom on thy head into alight flovver-chaplet! 
 Thou sun-flower transplanted to thy sun at last ! 
 
 "In his song to the night he says to his 
 sleeping body : 
 
 Slumber well, meanwhile, thou sluggish burden 
 Of my earthly walk. Her mantle 
 Over thee spreads the Night, and her lamps 
 Burn above thee in the holy pavilion. 
 
 Otherwise now and colder stands the star-night 
 above his mould. Alas! he who only read him 
 has scarcely lost him ; but he who knew and 
 loved him is not to be consoled any more by his 
 immortality, but only by the immortality of the 
 human soul. If there were no such immortality, 
 if our whole life here is only an evening twilight 
 preceding the night, not a morning twilight; 
 if the lolly mind is also let down after the body 
 by coffin-ropes into the pit : O ! then I know 
 not why we should not, at the graves of great 
 
 men, do from despair what the ancient savage 
 nations did from hope, that is, throw ourselves 
 after them into the pit, as those people did into 
 the tombs of their princes, so that the foolish, 
 violent heart that will obstinately beat for some- 
 thing divine and eternal, may be choked at 
 once. ****** Oil well know 
 that he tolerated such griefs least of all. He 
 would point now to the glittering stars of 
 spring, above which he now dwells ; he would 
 beckon to us to listen to the nightingales which 
 now sing to us and not to him ; and he would 
 be more moved than he seemed to be. * * 
 ******* 
 
 We will now love that great soul together, and 
 if, at times, we are moved too painfully by his 
 memory, we will read over again all whereby 
 he made known to us the immortal and divine, 
 and himself." 
 
 LOVE AND SELF. 
 
 AN APPENDIX TO THE LETTER OF HERR HEMSTERHUIS, ON DESIRE. 
 • 
 
 It is a beautiful legend of the most ancient 
 poetry ; that Love drew forth the world from 
 chaos and bound the creatures reciprocally to 
 each other with the bands of desire and long- 
 ing; that, by these tender ties, she keeps all 
 things in order and leads all to the One, — the 
 great fountain of all light, as of all love. How- 
 ever various the names and garbs under which 
 this poetical system has been presented, we re- 
 cognise in all this general truth ; that love 
 unites and that hate divides; that all enjoyment 
 of gods and of men consists in the love and 
 union of homogeneous things; but, that longing 
 and desire are, as it were, the bride-maids of 
 Love, — the strong, yet tender arms, which in- 
 duce and prepare all enjoyment, nay more, 
 which confer in themselves the greatest enjoy- 
 ment, by anticipation. 
 
 Soon, however, another side of this system 
 became apparent, viz. : that this love has limits, 
 and that a perfect union of beings in our uni- 
 verse is seldom or never known; that, there- 
 fore, the bands of this union, desire and long- 
 ing, must often relax in the moment of the 
 greatest strain, and yield, too often, alas ! weari- 
 ness and satiety instead of enjoyment. It was 
 soon perceived, that, in this law, also, there was 
 wisdom ; since the Creator, by this means, has 
 provided as carefully for the firm persistence 
 of individual beings, as, by means of love and 
 longing, he has provided for the union and kind- 
 ly co-presence of many. It was seen that both 
 these forces, which are, in the spiritual world, 
 what attraction and repulsion are in the cor- 
 poreal, are requisite to the preservation and 
 
 firm tenure of the universe. And I believe it 
 was Empedocles who first made Hatred and 
 Love delineators of the outline of all beings* 
 " By Hatred," he says, " things are separated, and 
 each individual remains what it is ; by Love 
 they are united and connect themselves one 
 with another." That is, as far as they can be 
 united. For even Love, according to the Greeks, 
 is ruled by Fate ; and Necessity, the oldest of the 
 gods, i6 mightier than Love. According to 
 Plato's idea, the latter was born of Need and 
 Superfluity, in the gardens of Jupiter. Accord- 
 ingly, she partakes of the nature of both, and 
 is always dependent on her parents. 
 
 I fancy it will not be unpleasant to follow 
 this double walk ; the rather, that Herr Hem- 
 sterhuis has led us very agreeably on one side, 
 reserving to himself the other for another trea- 
 tise ; which, however, he has not yet written, 
 or which I have not yet seen. 
 
 That love unites the different beings, and that 
 all desire is only a striving after this union, as 
 the only possible enjoyment of beings now 
 separated, — this our author has proved with such 
 exquisite examples, that too copious additions 
 on this point would be a useless superfluity. 
 Every craving for sensual and spiritual enjoy- 
 ment, all desire of friendship and of love, 
 thirsts after union with the object affected, be- 
 cause it forefeels, in that object, a new and 
 delightful enjoyment of its own reality. The 
 Godhead has wisely and kindly ordained that 
 we shall be sensible of our existence, not in 
 ourselves, but only by reaction, as it were, in 
 some object without us ; after which, accord- 
 
 * Ef 5e kotu) 6ia/xop<pa Kai avhi^a travra -rreXovrai 
 Y.vv docjJr) ev <pi\orr]Ti Kai aWijXoicri iroSeiTai 
 Ek tojv yap navT oca tjv ooaa tz can Kai tarat. 
 
HERDER. 
 
 237 
 
 ingly, we strive, for which we live, in which 
 we have a double and manifold existence. The 
 multitude of attractive objects with which Na- 
 ture has surrounded us, have, therefore, been 
 placed by her at such various distances, and 
 endowed with such various kinds and degrees 
 of attraction, as to produce in us a rich and 
 delicate concert of sensations, of various tones 
 and modes; and to make our heart and life, as 
 it were, a Harmonica of desire, the artistic image 
 of an ever purer, insatiable, eternal longing. 
 
 Coarse, sensual enjoyment converts the object 
 which we craved, into itself, and destroys it. 
 It is vivid, therefore, for, in it there is a perfect 
 union; but it is, likewise, coarse and transient. 
 There are those who enjoy only with the tongue. 
 Hence, in common life, the word, taste* is gene- 
 rally used in reference to this sense. Enjoy- 
 ment, in this case, is a union. — that is, a solution 
 of the finest juices. But it also ends with this, 
 for the object is devoured, destroyed. In a cer- 
 tain sense, therefore, the finest enjoyment, here 
 too, precedes the enjoyment. The craving for 
 a beautiful fruit is pleasanter than the fruit it- 
 self. The eye excites the most agreeable sen- 
 sation in the tongue. " Voluptatem prsesagit 
 multa cupido." Thus it is with the enjoyment 
 of odors, and even of tones. We draw them 
 into ourselves; we drink the stream of their 
 delight with long draughts. And only then, do 
 we say that we enjoy music, when it dissolves 
 the heart and becomes one with the inward 
 music of our sensations. The stream of melody, 
 fine as it is, is nevertheless devoured. It con- 
 tinues to exist only in the harmonious effects, — 
 the pleasant vibrations which it produced in us. 
 
 The more spiritual our enjoyment, the more 
 permanent it is; the more permanent its object 
 without us. But let us also add, the weaker it 
 is ; for the object is and. remains without us ; 
 and only in its image, that is, — slightly or not 
 all, — becomes one with us. The eye is never 
 wearied with seeing : for how little does the 
 heart receive with the sight! How little can 
 the mere light-ray contribute to the most intense 
 enjoyment! ***** 
 ******* 
 
 Indeed, the virtuosi in regard to this organ — 
 those who have cultivated their vision to a 
 luxurious enjoyment — appear to be sensible of 
 this. How do they seek to animate the object 
 before them ! They hunt after every impres- 
 sion of light and shade, of colour, form, ges- 
 ture; in order to feel and grope out the spirit 
 of the author, if they are artists, or the objects 
 themselves, if they live in these, although it is 
 a mere apparition which they have before them. 
 Here again, the enjoyment consists in the con- 
 ceit of a union. A feeble conceit, but a happy 
 one! The eye does not destroy the essence of 
 the beloved object, only because it cannot incor- 
 porate the same with itself. If this object seems 
 to the deluded a fountain of inexhaustible 
 
 * In German, geniessen, literally, to enjoy. 
 
 charms, it is well for him, the blissfully de- 
 luded, who enjoys it. He draws forever, and 
 never exhausts, because he can draw no perfect 
 and intense draught. The beloved images flee 
 before him and are still present to him. He 
 lives in the sweet dream of a visible, intellec- 
 tual phantom. 
 
 Imperceptibly, we have come upon that form 
 of enjoyment, which, apparently, is the most 
 enduring, but which, also, is the least satisfac- 
 tory to our mortal nature, — the ideal fruition of 
 corporeal beauty, — or, as it is called by enthu- 
 siasts, the enjoyment of Platonic love. The 
 name of Plato is improperly applied to it; for 
 he is speaking of intellectual Ideas, to be 
 enjoyed by the intellect, and which cannot be 
 enjoyed in any other way; and not of a mad 
 spiritualizing of the corporeal, which often ends 
 in a too coarse corporeity. That this is not a 
 spiritual fruition, is evident from the fact that it 
 destroys the body without satisfying the mind. 
 It sins against the nervous fluid, as the passion 
 of love, when of too coarse a character, sins 
 against flesh and blood. It shows itself herein, 
 not to be genuine enjoyment, — a happy contem- 
 plation of that kind, in which the beloved ob- 
 ject becomes one with ourselves. How can 
 that which is corporeal become one with pure 
 spirit? Two things, that, properly speaking, 
 have nothing in common, and could only be 
 combined, in the beginning, as the Greeks 
 fabled, by a kind of voluntary intoxication. 
 The mind can enjoy spiritual qualities and ob- 
 jects. Its union with these is pure and so calm 
 as that ancient Hymn makes God say: 11 Ml is 
 mine, for I have it in meV A possession and a 
 fruition of which the soul is capable only in 
 respect to the purest objects. Then it hovers 
 and tastes like a beautiful butterfly which enjoys 
 the flower without destroying it. Where it 
 enjoys as a caterpillar, it devours, alas ! leaf and 
 flower. 
 
 We begin then to speak of the more genuine 
 kinds of spiritual longing,— Friendship and Love. 
 After what Hemsterhuis has told us of these, I 
 shall add but a few traits. 
 
 The image of Friendship employed by the 
 ancients, — two hands joined together, — appears 
 to me the most fitting symbol of its union, its 
 aim, and its enjoyment. More significant than 
 the two according instruments. These express 
 only companionship, which is far from being 
 friendship. A companionable man is easy and 
 well disposed. He adapts himself easily to 
 every company, and every company adapts it- 
 self easily to him. He oppresses no one with 
 his presence, he crowds no one; and therefore 
 every one likes to be with him. In a certain 
 degree, one is even intimate with him, because 
 one feels that there is no mischief in the man. 
 Characters of this sort are good for daily inter- 
 course. But Friendship! what a different, sacred 
 band is that! It unites hearts and hands in one 
 common aim; and where that aim is obvious, 
 where it is continuous, requiring exertion, where 
 
238 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 it lies among or behind dangers ; there, the band 
 of friendship is often so strict, so firm and 
 hearty, that nothing but death has power to 
 separate it. The phalanx of Greek friends in 
 battle, who all conquered or died as one man, — 
 those bright twin stars of friendship, which, in 
 all nations, Hebrews and Greeks, Scythians and 
 savages, shine forth from the night of ages, and 
 are so grateful to the heart of man, — what made 
 them friends'? A common aim united them; 
 danger drew the knot ; tried faith, continuous, 
 growing zeal, glorious labour, common enjoyment 
 of that labour; — finally, necessity and death, 
 made that knot indissoluble. 
 
 How truly said one, of his friend : " Thy love 
 to me surpassed the love of women !" Creation 
 knows nothing nobler than two voluntarily and 
 indissolubly united hands. — two hearts and lives 
 that have voluntarily become one. It matters 
 not, whether these two hands are male or fe- 
 male, or of both sexes. It is a proud but irra- 
 tional prejudice on the part of men, that only 
 they are capable of friendship. Woman is often 
 tenderer, truer, firmer, more golden-pure in that 
 relation, than many a weak, unfeeling, impure, 
 masculine soul. Where there is want of truth, 
 where there is vanity, rivalry, heedlessness, 
 there, friendship, in either sex, is impossible. 
 Marriage, likewise, should be friendship; and 
 wo! if it is not, if it is only love and desire. 
 To a noble woman, it is sweet to sutler for her 
 husband, as well as to rejoice with him, to 
 feel that she is honoured, esteemed and happy 
 in him and he in her. The common education 
 of their children is the beautiful, leading aim 
 of their friendship, which sweetly rewards them 
 both, even in gray old age. They stand there, 
 and will continue to stand like two trees with 
 branches interlocked, begirt with a garland of 
 youthful green, — saplings and twigs. In all 
 cases, a life, in common, is the marrow of true 
 friendship. Mutual unlocking and sharing of 
 hearts, intense joy in each other, sympathy in 
 each other's sufferings, counsel, consolation, ef- 
 fort, mutual aid, — these are its diagnostics, its 
 delights, its interior recompense. What delicate 
 secrets in friendship! Refinements of feeling, 
 as if the soul of the one were directly conscious 
 of the soul of the other, and, anticipating, dis- 
 cerned the thoughts of that soul as clearly as its 
 own! And, assuredly, the soul has sometimes 
 power thus to discern thoughts and to dwell 
 immediately and intimately in the heart of an- 
 other. There are moments of sympathy, even 
 in thoughts, without the slightest external occa- 
 sion, which indeed no psychology can explain, 
 but which experience teaches and confirms. 
 There are mutual, simultaneous recollections of 
 one another — even at a distance — on the part 
 of absent friends, which are often of the most 
 wonderful, overpowering kind. And indeed, 
 if ever the soul possesses the mysterious power 
 to act directly, without organs, on another soul, 
 ! where would such action be more natural than 
 ! in the case of friends ? This relation is purer, 
 
 and therefore, assuredly, mightier also than 
 love. For if love will lift itself up to the strength 
 and duration of eternity, it must first purify it- 
 self from coarse sensuality, and become true and 
 genuine friendship. How seldom does it arrive 
 at this! It destroys itself or destroys its object 
 with penetrating, devouring flames; and both 
 the loving and the loved lie there, as it were, a 
 heap of ashes. But the glow of friendship is 
 pure, refreshing, human warmth. The two 
 flames upon one altar play into each other, and 
 frolicking, lift and bear one another aloft, and 
 often, in the melancholy hour of separation, they 
 soar rejoicing, and united, and victorious, up- 
 ward to the land of the purest union, of truest, 
 inseparable friendship. 
 
 May the reader pardon the explicitness with 
 which I have handled this point! Since I look 
 upon it as the true, singular, and most beautiful 
 union of souls, and therefore also, as the noblest 
 and sweetest enjoyment of which humanity is 
 capable, to which even love itself is subservi- 
 ent; — since there are so many degrees of friend- 
 ship, from easy companionship, to the most sub- 
 lime, silent, enduring sacrifice, which, to be sure, 
 has been the portion only of the most select 
 souls, and only in very rare circumstances and 
 combinations ; but which is to be regarded in 
 such instances as the highest privilege, the genu- 
 ine antepast of a future, higher existence; — 
 briefly, since, in friendship, there is union, al- 
 most without organs, pure, perfect and ever- 
 growing ; — therefore, as it seems to me, it is also 
 the highest point of all desire, and, precisely, in 
 seasons of the greatest strain and pressure, be- 
 comes the purest joy of earth. Here operates 
 the genuine magnetism of human souls, and we 
 know that the magnet attracts the more power- 
 fully the more it is exercised. Unused, it is dead. 
 Without confidence and truth severely tried, no 
 friendship, no interchange of hearts is possible. 
 
 But Nature saw that this pure, heavenly flame 
 is, for the most part, for us on the earth, too re- 
 fined. Therefore she clothed it in earthly, sen- 
 sible charms ; and so Venus Urania appeared 
 as — Aphrodite. Love was intended to invite 
 us to friendship. Love is to become, itself, the 
 most intense friendship. 
 
 I find its highest degree of rapture not there 
 where, as Herr Hemsterhuis says, Nature de- 
 ludes us with an instant of earthly union, (an 
 instant which loses itself in mere surrounding 
 want,) but in the first happy discovery, — in that 
 moment, beyond all description sweet, when 
 the beloved two become aware that they love, 
 and tell each other so, with such certainty and 
 sweet consent, however imperfect and involun- 
 tary the confession. Why must I use the word, 
 'tell.' How poor! What can the dead tongue, — 
 what can pining language say, when even the 
 soul-enkindled, fiery glance drops it wings and 
 veils its glory? If there is a moment of hea- 
 venly rapture, and a pure union of embodied 
 beings here on earth, it is this. So unlike that 
 which pining enjoyment allows us! I know 
 
HERDER. 239 
 
 not what mythology of some Asiatic nation it is, 
 which divides its periods of highest antiquity 
 according to the manner in which men, while 
 as yet they were paradisaical spirits, loved each 
 other. At first, for many thousands of years, 
 with looks; afterwards, with a kiss — a mere 
 touch ; — until, at last, in the course of long ages, 
 they gradually degenerated into lower forms of 
 enjoyment. That moment of spiritual recogni- 
 tion, that betraying of the soul by a look, trans- 
 ports us as it were into those primeval times, 
 and, with them, into the joys of Paradise. Then 
 we enjoy, with a retrospective sentiment, what 
 we had so long sought and did net dare to con- 
 fess to ourselves. Then too we enjoy prospect- 
 ively the delights of the future. — not with pre- 
 sentiment merely, but with possession. Yes! 
 if one may say so, with more than possession. 
 The future can only unfold, seldom add. Often 
 it detracts, and diminishes, with every enjoy- 
 ment, the belief in enjoyment. That first mo- 
 ment, is when Psyche first beholds the god of 
 love, whom, veiled, she had so long loved. Ah ! 
 why, unhappy one ! didst thou let the spark 
 fall, and thereby terminate, for so long a period, 
 all thy joys ? 
 
 Certain it is, that those souls which are created 
 for the truest, purest, noblest love, fear this mo- 
 ment of betrayal as their worst foe, and defer it 
 with the utmost shyness. The female sex which, 
 in all matters of love, is more delicate than ours, 
 feels how much its flame loses with every en- 
 joyment, and how, contrary to the nature of all 
 other flames, it goes out when it breaks forth, 
 and with every manifestation, weakens its inte- 
 rior force and blessedness. Shy and holy, they 
 seek, therefore, to preserve the secret in the 
 heart of the lover himself, as soon as it is made 
 certain. And nothing is more easily made cer- 
 tain than this. The secret is profaned, as it 
 were, if it but touch the lips. It dies, in a mea- 
 sure, with the first kiss, with the first sigh. But 
 since we are, once for all, bodies, Psyche, as the 
 ancient fable teaches, must lose her celestial 
 wings, with her first descent into matter. Is it 
 strange that she should endeavor so long, and 
 with so much pains, to delude herself with the 
 belief, that she loves not the body, but only that 
 which is connatural with herself, — the soul of 
 the beloved 1 It is, as if she were ashamed of 
 her degradation, and prophesied the brief dura- 
 tion of the pleasure which she seeks. How does 
 she accordingly disguise that pleasure! In the 
 kiss, she seeks only a union of souls, as sings the 
 love-breathing poem below.* 
 
 * Dtim semihulco suavio 
 Meum puellum suavior, 
 Dulcemque fiorem spiritus 
 Duco ex aperto tramite ; 
 
 Aninia tunc, aegra et saucia, 
 Cucurrit ad labias mini, 
 Orisque rictum perviuin 
 Et iabra pueri mollia, 
 Rimata itineri transitus, 
 Ut transiliret nititur. 
 
 Long passages in the fourth book of Lucretius 
 describe this striving, this vain and ever unsa- 
 tisfied striving after a union of beings, so em 
 piratically, so philosophically and powerfully, as 
 if Lucretius had written to illustrate the system 
 of our author, or as if the latter had taken his 
 system of love arid enjoyment from the former. 
 
 It is fortunate that Nature coupled this decep- 
 tive phantom of intimate union, on the spiritual 
 side, with friendship ; and, on the side of the 
 body, with an electric spark of her omnipotence, 
 by which, from a union, incomprehensible to 
 us, of two beings, a third is produced ; — as it 
 were a creation of love, of desire and unsatis- 
 fied longing. And so the fiery chain trails itself 
 along. There is added to it, between need and 
 excess, a new link, in which is propagated the 
 kindling spark of desire. I remark in general, 
 that the Creator has left no degree of union, 
 among the creatures of his Nature, without fruit. 
 The first degree of sensual enjoyment, which 
 the very infant sucks in, yields us life-sap. It 
 elaborates for us a nobler material out of a 
 poorer. The finer the organ, the more spiritual 
 the offspring of its conception. Odors strengthen 
 and refresh the soul. Music comforts and soothes 
 the heart with celestial drink. Pictures — "Si- 
 mulacra pabula amoris" — bring thoughts to the 
 mind, more delicate than their own material. 
 And finally, Friendship and Love — the one the 
 marriage of spirits, the other of bodies — offer us 
 a cup of enjoyment, wreathed with the fairest 
 fruits. Friendship awakens noble sentiments, 
 aspirations, deeds. Love, like the divine spring- 
 sun, quickens the tender, motherly vine with 
 foliage and fruits. In it is laid the creative 
 power of the first Cause. 
 
 It would seem also that Nature has taken 
 care to replace and requite the brief and fleet- 
 ing enjoyment of love, with a dower direct from 
 her own bosom, by which it was designed that 
 the humblest living creature should be honoured 
 with a spark of the Godhead. That is, parental 
 affection, the love of Father and Mother. This 
 love is divine, for it is disinterested and often 
 without return. It is heavenly, for it is capable 
 of being shared among many, and still remains 
 entire, undivided, and without envy. Finally, 
 it is infinite and eternal, for it vanquishes love 
 and death. Detestable is the mother who pre- 
 fers her lover to her child. The very beasts 
 shame her. They have often died joyfully for 
 their young. ****** 
 Maternal tenderness is the pledge of love with 
 which Nature, as it were out of her own heart, 
 has requited the mother's pains. Nothing sur- 
 passes the anxiety with which the mother seeks 
 
 Turn, si mora; quid plusculae 
 Fuisset in coitu osculi, 
 Amoris igne percita, 
 Transisset et me linqueret; 
 Et mira prorsum res toret, 
 Ut ad me Herein mortuus, 
 Ad puerum ut intus viverem. 
 
 Aul: Gell: L. XIX. Cap. 11. 
 
240 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 a lost child, and nothing can equal the joy with 
 which, alter long seeking, after many years' se- 
 paration, she finds it again, and embraces it as 
 if new-born. The craving of a mother after 
 children is the most beautiful form of longing 
 which lay in the girdle of Love ; — out of which 
 that girdle seems to be wholly woven in pure 
 female hearts. They are the priestesses at the 
 sacred fire of Vesta; and wo to the despicable 
 creature that glows with another flame instead 
 of this ! Only the point of his arrow has Cupid 
 anointed with desire.* Alas! if the whole ar- 
 iow glows with it. 
 
 From the tender, divine, eternal love of the 
 parent, to whom can I ascend but to Thee? 
 great universal Mother ! Tender, highest Fa- 
 ther ! My language has no name for the feeling 
 with which Thou hast established Thyself in 
 every creature, in every nerve and corner of 
 each beating heart, and hast given to each its 
 own joys, immeasurable, inexplicable, insensible 
 to every other. Thy whole creation is a weft 
 which Power drew forth out of nothing, of which 
 Wisdom laid the warp, and in which Love in- 
 wrought its thousandfold figures rich in signifi- 
 cance and love. Who shall not love Thee, there- 
 fore, since every creature draws but to thee, 
 points but to thee? And who can love Thee as 
 he ought, seeing he is overwhelmed in the ocean 
 of thyf thoughts and fore-reaching sensations ; 
 and even, regarding himself alone, sinks down 
 into the deepest deep ? Thou sharest the fate 
 of all parents, — more loving than loved. But 
 Thou art exalted above all others in this, that 
 Thou thyself hast created in me the longing 
 after Thee, and canst lead me ever nearer to 
 Thyself by the bands of knowledge and of love. 
 Thou wilt and must do this; my whole heart 
 declares it. For the little spark of knowledge 
 and of love that is in me is only an off-glance 
 of thine infinite flame. Therefore must Thou 
 know and name and seek and love me a thou- 
 sand-fold more intensely than I can name and 
 seek Thee. And this eternal drawing of thy 
 heart to mine is, to me, an implanted voucher 
 of my undying inclination to Thee, and of an 
 ever-growing enjoyment of Thee. 
 
 But how is the Eternal enjoyed ? By contem- 
 plation or by sensation? Our author has a hard 
 remark about enthusiasts, which, if carefully 
 examined, might prove alas! too true. It is a 
 general experience that, in all cases of enthu- 
 siasm, women have been implicated. Often, 
 the men have only caught the infection from 
 the women, who, it was said, had borne them 
 anew. The women were a kind of mediators 
 of the Godhead to the men. Atid how they 
 conceived of the Godhead, especially the human 
 God, and with what feeling they embraced him, 
 is known to the world, from many writings and 
 letters. The fainting which the holy Theresa 
 experienced before the altar, when the celestial 
 
 * Xptffar CKpVKTOV Ol^OV t/J£(3l{J. EuripidcS. 
 
 f i. e. Inspired by thee. Tr. 
 
 Cupid touched her heart, considered in relation 
 to the body alone, could hardly have differed 
 from every other faintness caused by love. For 
 love is the same in its action on the vital fluids 
 of the body, whatever may be its object. In all 
 sentiments of this kind, the greatest caution is 
 necessary, even to the most innocent. Even 
 upon the stream of divine love, the heart re- 
 mains a human heart still. All mediatresses. 
 even though it were the Mother of God, are 
 dangerous. And so, to the female heart, all 
 earthly mediators may become dangerous ; and 
 the heavenly mediator likewise, if too sensually 
 felt. God requires to be loved with the whole 
 soul and all its powers, but not with the effer- 
 vescence of the nervous fluid, in a diseased, 
 epileptic body. 
 
 We come naturally to the limits which have 
 been set to love and longing, in every enjoyment 
 here below. These are not merely, as Herr 
 Hemsterhuis seems to think, our organs; but, as 
 he himself discovers, at last, our isolated indivi- 
 dual existence. He likens that property of the 
 soul, which resists commixture with other be- 
 ings, to the vis inertice in matter. And, assuredly, 
 this power of inaction must be something dif- 
 ferent and more than the great mass of mecha- 
 nical philosophers know or say about it. The 
 words themselves, — Power and Inaction, — relate 
 to each other like Bewegung (motion) and Grund 
 (stationary ground) in the word Bewegungsgrunde 
 (motives). Moreover, Leibnitz and all the better 
 class of Hhinkers have hazarded conjectures re- 
 lative to the interior constitution of matter, to 
 which I would fain hope for a pleasant addition 
 in the promised observations of Herr Hemster- 
 huis. For the present, we will leave this re- 
 semblance where it is, and consider the limits 
 which have been set to desire in the soul, by 
 the nature of the soul itself. We are individual 
 beings, and must continue so, unless, in the pur- 
 suit of enjoyment, we abandon the ground of 
 all enjoyment — our own consciousness — and are 
 willing to lose ourselves, in order to find our- 
 selves - again, in another being, that, after all, 
 is not and never can be, our self. Even if I 
 should lose myself in Deity, as mysticism re- 
 quires, without any further feeling or conscious- 
 ness of myself; it would no longer be I that 
 enjoyed. The Godhead would have swallowed 
 me up, and would enjoy in my stead. How 
 well has Providence contrived, therefore, in 
 awakening the music of our sensations gradually 
 in various tones and modes; now exciting de- 
 sire, now checking it, exercising it here actively, 
 there passively, and ever, after the most honey* 
 ed enjoyment, throwing us back upon our poor 
 self, as if saying to us, 'Thou art but a limited 
 individual creation. Thou thirstest after per- 
 fection, but findest it not. Do not pine at the 
 fountain of this one enjoyment, but gather thy- 
 self up and strive for something further.' 
 
 Let us look at this in some of the most striking 
 proofs and examples. 
 
 All robber-like enjoyment, all enjoyment which 
 
HERDER. 211 
 
 destroys its object, is given us merely as a want 
 by tbe hand of Necessity. It uses itself up and 
 dies in itself. Man is a tyrant in the universe, 
 but how soon is even this little tyrant satiated 
 with plunder, if he keeps within the bounds of 
 nature ! Every sensual enjoyment is, strictly, 
 but a modified necessity. Where mutual de- 
 struction ends, there, first, begins a freer, finer en- 
 joyment, — a joyful consorting together of several 
 beings who mutually seek and love each other. 
 A tyrant who would be all in himself, who 
 would devour all, as Saturn devours his chil- 
 dren, is capable neither of friendship nor of 
 love, not even of paternal affection. He op- 
 presses and suppresses. Nothing can grow by 
 his side, much less together with him, in a com- 
 mon crown. 
 
 Where several beings are in pleasant juxta- 
 position, and wish mutually to enjoy one another, 
 it is evident that no one of them must aim at 
 individual, peculiar, consequently, not at the 
 highest enjoyment: otherwise he destroys all 
 around him. He must give and take, suffer and 
 act, attract toward himself and gently impart of 
 himself. This, indeed, makes every enjoyment 
 imperfect; nevertheless, it is the true tact and 
 the very pulse of life; — the modulation and eco- 
 nomy of desire, of love, and of all the sweets 
 of longing. Here I direct attention to the beau- 
 tiful wisdom of Nature, who, with sexes, mo- 
 ments, circumstances, ages, situations, has divided 
 and, as it were, cradled all things in this systole 
 and diastole of passive and active, giving and 
 receiving. As yonder in the heavens two lights, 
 so God has created here on the earth, two sexes 
 which are designed to afford each other a mu- 
 tual counterpoise, in the oscillation of feeling. 
 One supplies to the other what is wanting of 
 tenderness on the one side, and of strength on 
 the other. And in the domain of love tender- 
 ness is mightier than strength. God has indem- 
 nified and veiled with attractions the weakness 
 of woman. Where, in compliance with some 
 necessity, he has departed from the law of 
 beauty, there he has flung around her the girdle 
 of love endowed with Desire, which, as said the 
 Goddess, " vanquished! all strength." In friend- 
 ship also, one party is always the more active, 
 the other, auxiliary and passive ; one masculine, 
 the other feminine; and often, in the inverse 
 order of the sexes. In this marriage of souls, 
 a monotone is neither agreeable nor profitable, 
 nor possible. Consonant tones are required for 
 the melody of life and enjoyment, not unison. 
 Otherwise, friendship is soon lost in mere fel- 
 lowship. 
 
 Hence it is evident, moreover, that the attrac- 
 tive power of an individual, human soul neither 
 can nor ought to extend itself without limit. 
 Nature has drawn narrow boundaries around 
 each individual, and it is the most dangerous of 
 all dreams to imagine one's self unlimited where 
 one is limited, to believe one's self the Despot 
 of the universe when one is living oidy on single 
 alms. To embrace the whole creation with love 
 2f 
 
 sounds beautiful, but we must begin with the 
 individual, with the nearest. And he who can- 
 not love that, deeply, intensely, entirely, how 
 should he be able to love that which is remote 
 and which throws but feeble rays upon him 
 from a foreign star? How should he be able to 
 love it with any feeling which deserves the 
 name of love? The greatest cosmopolites are 
 generally the neediest beggars, and they who 
 embrace the entire universe with love, for the 
 most part, love nothing but their narrow self. 
 
 I come to the comparison which Herr H. 
 makes between the States of Greece and our 
 own; in which he seems to reproach the Chris- 
 tian religion with lessening the interest of its 
 followers in the transient welfare of the secular 
 State, through over -much care for the eternal 
 well-being of the individual. The reproach 
 would be well founded if the care for the eter- 
 nal were opposed to the care for the temporal ; 
 and if a happy State could be anything else than 
 a collection of happy individuals. It is only a 
 misunderstood religion, a religion of priests, that 
 will maintain the former. And with regard to 
 the latter, the individual can only care for his 
 own welfare and leave it to him who has con- 
 trived or who trains the machine, (as Herr 
 Hemsterhuis himself calls the State,) to care for 
 the welfare of the whole, according to his good- 
 will or power. That lawgivers have, almost 
 uniformly, misused the Christian religion and 
 mixed it up with their barbarous feudal and 
 knightly institutions, is the crying evil in all 
 Christian history. But, for this, we are not to 
 blame the religion, but the coarse hands which 
 have kneaded it with this heterogeneous politi- 
 cal dough. Religion, as our author has justly 
 defined it, is the free relation of the individual 
 to the Supreme Being. Those who have sought 
 to honour it with the name of a political ma- 
 chine, have, more than any others, deformed 
 and degraded it. 
 
 But to our subject! Nature always begins 
 with the individual, and not till she has adjusted 
 and satisfied the propensities of the individual, 
 in his own little circle, does she connect several 
 together, and arrange their sentiments into a 
 common weal. The welfare of the State con- 
 sists of happy families, or else it is an imaginary 
 quantity. When, in the individual man, sensual 
 and spiritual joys, friendship and love, parental 
 affection and personal virtue, are well-ordered 
 and well-paired, then he is happy in himself 
 and in others. He cannot, like ocean-slime, 
 commingle with all ; he cannot love, praise, and 
 approve all in an equal degree, or change every 
 mote into a sunbeam, in order to love it as a 
 sunbeam. In attempting to do this, he injures 
 the good as well as the bad, and, at last, loses 
 entirely his judgment and his stand-point. Who- 
 so cannot repel, neither can he attract. The 
 two powers are but one pulsation of the soul. 
 
 Thus it is with us in this world; and how 
 will it be, farther on, in our eternal pilgrimage? 
 It can scarcely be otherwise. The existence of 
 21 
 
242 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 others, so far as they are connected with us, by 
 love and longing, rests wholly on our own being 
 and consciousness. If we could lose that, we 
 could have no enjoyment from those. With each 
 succeeding step, our existence must necessarily 
 become more free and effective. Our enjoy- 
 ments will become less corrupting and destruc- 
 tive. We shall learn evermore to find pleasure 
 in giving and in doing, rather than in passive 
 reception. Nevertheless, it should seem that 
 the mutual relation which constitutes the sum 
 of our whole happiness, can never entirely 
 cease. In order to give, there must always be 
 objects to receive. In order to act, there must 
 always be those for whom to act. Friendship 
 and love can never exist except between beings 
 mutually free, — consonant,not unison, least of all 
 identified. And finally, as to the enjoyment of 
 the Highest, it must always be, as our author 
 says, " hyperbole and asymptote." The hyperbole 
 forever approaches the asymptote, but never 
 reaches it. It is our happiness that we can 
 never lose the conception of our own being and 
 attain to the infinite one, — that we are God. 
 We shall always remain creatures, though we 
 should become the creators of vast worlds. We 
 shall approach perfection, but never become in- 
 finitely perfect. The greatest good which God 
 could bestow on his creatures was, and will be, 
 their individual existence. It is even through 
 this that He exists for them ; and, through this, 
 he will be to them more and more, from stage 
 to stage, ALL IN ALL. 
 
 TITHON AND AURORA. 
 
 Although, in general, no epitaph or pane- 
 gyric uses to notice how long a man has outlived 
 himself, yet is this one of the most remarkable 
 and not infrequent phenomena in the history of 
 human lives. The earlier the play of the facul- 
 ties and passions begins, the more impetuously 
 it is continued, and assailed in various ways by 
 external accident, the oftener shall one discover 
 cases of that early exhaustion of the soul, — of 
 the warrior laid prostrate without death or 
 wound. — of a manly, and, often even, of a 
 youthful extreme age. A man may go about for 
 a long while, with a living body, like the image 
 of his own funeral monument; his spirit gone 
 from him, — a shadow and a memory of his 
 former name. Many causes may contribute to 
 this early death : qualities of mind and heart, 
 too great activity and too sluggish patience, re- 
 laxation as well as over-tension, too rapid pros- 
 perity and too protracted adversity. For it is a 
 general truth, that health, cheerfulness, pleasure, 
 and virtue, are ever the medium between two 
 extremes. Either on the precipitous or the shal- 
 low shore of the stream, the vessel may be 
 wrecked. In the middle, it is easy and pleasant 
 sailing. Many a one has grown old because he 
 wanted the true interior source of activity. He 
 
 was a brook that contracts its waters into itself 
 and soon dries up and shows its melancholy 
 bed. This one endeavoured to make seeming 
 supply the place of being. The darkness pass- 
 ed away, and the glow-worms in the hair glit- 
 tered as sparkling diamonds no longer. That 
 one would accomplish by toil and memory, 
 what intelligence and genius alone can perform. 
 The overloaded memory gave way, excessive 
 labor tired, and the want of the essential was 
 at last painfully apparent. Another, while a 
 youth, overstrained his nobler powers; he piled 
 up mountains of imagination to the skies, and 
 soon, without the lightning of Jupiter, found 
 under them his grave. Still another, whose 
 learning and effort had no object but his own 
 ease, abandoned learning and effort as soon as 
 he had obtained that ease, and buried himself 
 in a blessed decay. Here, one, without desert, 
 has had his brain turned by an unexpected pros- 
 perity, a too rapidly acquired fame, an unlooked 
 for success in action. He has no longer any 
 thought beyond this success. His seductive 
 goddess, Fortune, has crowned him at once with 
 laurel, with poplar, and with poppy. He falls 
 asleep or babbles nonsense in her enervating 
 lap. There, one of great merit has suffered too 
 long with undeserved misfortune, until his 
 shoulders are bowed, his breast contracted, his 
 arm paralysed, and he can no longer stand erect 
 and recruit himself. A thunderbolt from heaven 
 has stricken the oak even to its root and de- 
 prived it of the power of life. To this one — a 
 man of manifold capacity — there was wanting 
 a capacious breast to despise envy and to wait 
 for better times. He suffered himself to be 
 drawn into conflict with it, and the flying eagle 
 was unworthily vanquished by the viper that 
 held him in her folds. That one, — a man of 
 honest industry, — was wanting in intelligence. 
 His more cunning enemies soon made him 
 powerless and wretched. And thus it befell 
 ten other characters, in other situations. Hard 
 by the theatre of civil life, there is generally a 
 hospital, and in that the greater part of the 
 actors gradually lose themselves. 
 
 Two things especially contribute to this re- 
 sult, and they, too, are extremes. In the first 
 place, the arbitrariness of the ruling great; and, 
 secondly, a too refined delicacy and carefulness. 
 As to the former, it is a well-known and favorite 
 saying, that nothing is so troublesome as grati- 
 tude, nothing so insupportable as continued re- 
 spect and the daily spectacle of acknowledged 
 merit. Accordingly, new favor purchases for 
 itself new gratitude ; and creatures w r hom the 
 great purposely attract to themselves, — in whom 
 they even pretend to find gifts and merits which 
 the gods never gave them, — have, for them, a 
 peculiar charm, as their own creation. The sap 
 is withdrawn from the old trees that the young 
 world may bloom and thrive. Whoso, in such 
 cases, is not greater than he on whom he de- 
 pends, dies inwardly with self-consuming vexa- 
 tion. The majestic voice of Philip the second, 
 
HERDER. 
 
 243 
 
 " Yo el has slain many a one of this de- 
 
 scription. Opposed to this murder of human 
 merits and powers, there is another, which may 
 be termed the most refined species of self-mur- 
 der. It is the more to be lamented because it 
 occurs only in the case of the most elect of men ; 
 I suddenly or gradually breaking in pieces their 
 costly mechanism. Men of extreme delicacy 
 of feeling have a ' Highest' after which they 
 strive, — an idea to which they attach themselves 
 with unspeakable longing, — an ideal perfection 
 which they pursue with irresistible impulse. 
 When deprived of this idea, when this fair 
 image is destroyed before their eyes, the heart 
 of their flower is broken, and feeble, withered 
 leaves alone remain. Perhaps, more of the 
 dead of this description go about in society, 
 than one might at first suppose, because they, 
 of all men, most carefully conceal their grief, 
 and hide even from their friend the slow poison 
 of their death, — that sad secret of the heart. 
 Shakspeare, who depicted all conditions of the 
 soul, has delineated, also, this epoch of the sink- 
 ing or confusion of the faculties, in various situa- 
 tions and characters, with great truth and exact- 
 ness. One, — perhaps the crown of lamentations 
 over such a state, — may serve as an example 
 of all. 
 
 ! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
 
 The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword, 
 
 The expectancy and rose of the fair State, 
 
 The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 
 
 The observed of all observers ! quite, quite down ! 
 
 Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 
 
 Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh ; 
 That unmatched form and stature of blown youth, 
 Blasted with extasy. 
 
 Not only individual persons outlive them- 
 selves, but much oftener and longer, those poli- 
 tico-moral persons, so called, — institutions, forms 
 of polity, classes, corporations. Often, their body 
 remains, for centuries, as a show, when the soul 
 of that body has long since fled ; or they creep 
 about as shadows among living forms. To be 
 convinced of this, let any one enter a Jewish 
 synagogue, or read Anquetil*s Zend-Avesta, and 
 the sacred books of the Brahmins. There is no 
 doubt that all these religious institutions were 
 once very useful, and that, in every one of these 
 hulls, lay the germs of a great development. 
 Time has developed each of them more or less, 
 — one happily, so that we are disposed perhaps 
 to look for more in it than was there ; another 
 imperfectly and feeble; as in the great course 
 of Nature it will fall out. Nevertheless, every- 
 thing has its goal, and the Rabbi, the Destur, the 
 Mobed, — perhaps also the Brahmin, — has, in the 
 great whoie, outlived himself. In some regions 
 of Mahommedanism, something similar is al- 
 ready reported of the Koran, although that is 
 the youngest of bibles. And in Christendom, 
 true as its pure fountain streams, with the water 
 of eternal life, how many a vessel is already 
 broken that was thought to have exhausted this 
 fountain ! How many a form which still stands 
 j there, had long ago outlived itself! Look at the 
 
 Romish Mass! Listen to many of their litanies 
 and prayers! Into what times do they take us 
 back ! What a strange savor of long-perished 
 ages! As, in Religion, the priestly order, so in 
 other institutions the orders connected with them 
 follow each its living or its dead. Consider so 
 many institutions and orders of the middle ages ! 
 Where they could not follow the Genius of opi- 
 nion and renew their youth with him, they 
 either remained stationary on the shore or else 
 the stream bore them lifeless on, until they found 
 somewhere their place of rest. Even in Cer- 
 vantes' days the Duke of Bejar would not allow 
 that Don Quixote should be dedicated to him, 
 so long as he supposed it to be a serious book 
 of knight-errantry; because the taste for such 
 things had already begun to be ridiculous. He 
 accepted the Dedication gladly when, as the 
 book was read to him, he discovered its true 
 character. Time has enacted novels of this 
 kind with several institutions. The princes and 
 heroes of Corneille are for the most part insup- 
 portable to us, and we wonder how other times 
 could ever put together, believe and admire 
 such nonsense. Shakspeare's court-scenes seem 
 to us like Capital and State acts. The knights 
 of our day are no longer of the ancient order ; 
 and that kingly word of Louis XIV. : " L'Etat? 
 e'est moi !'' will ever remain the appropriate 
 epitaph of that great world-monarch. 
 
 " Whatsoever had a birth must die," says the 
 Brahmin ; and that, which seeks to defer its 
 downfall by artificial methods, in resorting to 
 such methods, has already outlived itself. In 
 the early spring, the foliage and grass of the 
 former year are often still visible ; much of it 
 has retained its place ; but, in a short time, the 
 whole is vanished, and a new raiment covers 
 the trees and the bosom of the earth. 
 
 If there is anything in the circle of Humanity 
 which ought not to outlive itself, it is Science 
 and Art. The nature of these is eternal, and 
 they are capable of the purest truth and of infi- 
 nite extension. And indeed the real essence 
 of Art and Science never dies, never changes. 
 But their forms are all the more perishable, as 
 they appear, above all things, to depend on their 
 masters and discoverers, — to originate, to flou- 
 rish, and to perish with them. So long as the 
 discoverer lives, so long as the master teaches 
 and directs, men draw living thoughts from his 
 living fountain. In the second and third gene- 
 ration, one already wanders through schools that 
 echo and ape him. The image of the master 
 stands there dead. His science and his art has 
 outlived itself, not in his own, but in his suc- 
 cessors' works. 
 
 Travels give us a long catalogue of things 
 which have thus outlived themselves. Travels 
 in the history, as well as in the actual inspection 
 of regions, countries, institutions, persons, classes. 
 Who that enters an ancient castle, an old-fa- 
 shioned knightly hall, an archive of old diplo- 
 mas and treaties, of old arms and decorations ; 
 
244 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 old court-houses, churches, convents, palaces and 
 imperial cities, does not feel himself translated 
 into a perished century? In a tour through Ger- 
 many, one often finds, within a circle of a few- 
 miles, the ancient, the middle, the modern and 
 most modern ages together. Here, we hreathe 
 still the air of the twelfth century; there, we 
 hear the melodies of the sixteenth, the tenth, the 
 fourth. All at once, you enter cabinets which 
 have been instituted under the luxurious Ducal 
 Government, — galleries collected under Louis 
 XIV., and end with institutions which seem to 
 have been devised for the twentieth century. 
 Instructive as this chaos may be for the travel- 
 ler, it would be very confusing and oppressive 
 for the resident, did not human nature accustom 
 itself to all things. " Lord, by this time he stink- 
 eth, for he hath been dead four days ;" said the 
 sorrowing sister ; one might say, with regard to 
 many institutions, four centuries, and still they 
 are not offensive to their brothers and sisters. 
 These are accustomed to the odor, and find it 
 nourishing. 
 
 Italy seems to me the most instructive theatre 
 of these life-epochs and world-ages. There, 
 yon can be with Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, 
 Etruscans, nay, if you please, with Chineses, with 
 Hindoos, and with the people of Madagascar! 
 In Rome, alone, you may follow Paganism from 
 Romulus to Diocletian, and Christianity from 
 Constantine to Pius. There, and in the Italian 
 provinces, you may live at pleasure in the fif- 
 teenth, the sixteenth, or the eighteenth century. 
 And if you investigate the monuments of Na- 
 ture, you will come upon self-survivals which 
 will take you beyond the bounds of history. It 
 requires a capacious mind to embrace, to dis- 
 tinguish, to classify all these scenes. But, to 
 such a mind, they exhibit a compend of all his- 
 tory, which floods us, at last, with, I know not, 
 what pleasing but dissolving melancholy. 
 
 The cloud-capt towers, &c. &c. 
 
 We are sucli stuff 
 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 Enough of sleep and of dying out! Let us 
 now speak of waking and rejuvenescence ! 
 How is this brought about? By Revolution? 
 
 I confess that, among the misused words of 
 our modern, fashionable vocabulary, few are so 
 displeasing to me as this ; because it has entirely 
 departed from its original, pure signification, 
 and carries with it the most mischievous con- 
 fusion of thought. In astronomy, we call revo- 
 lution a movement of the great world -bodies 
 which returns into itself, — determined by mea- 
 sure, number and forces; a movement, which 
 is not only the most peaceful order in itself, but, 
 in connection with other harmonious powers, 
 establishes the kingdom of eternal order. Thus 
 the earth revolves around itself and makes day 
 and night, and by means of these, arranges and 
 regulates the sleep and the waking of its crea- 
 tures, their time for rest and the circle of their 
 
 occupations. Thus the earth moves around the 
 sun and makes the year, and by means of that, 
 the seasons, and by means of them, the changes 
 of labour and of mortal enjoyment. The revo- 
 lution of the moon around our earth gives to the 
 sea its ebb and flood, determines the periods of 
 diseases, and perhaps, of the growth of plants. 
 In this sense it is useful to notice revolutions ; 
 for, in them, we observe a course of affairs 
 which returns into itself, and, in that course of 
 things, the laws of a perpetual order. In such 
 a course there is nothing abrupt, arbitrary, with- 
 out reason. There is nothing of destruction in 
 it, but a gently vibrating thread of conservation. 
 Revolutions of this kind are the dance of the 
 Hours around the throne of Jupiter. They are 
 the chaplet of victory on the immortal head of 
 the god, after the conquest of chaos. 
 
 Also, if we draw down this idea of Revolu- 
 tion from heaven to earth, it can be no other 
 than the idea of a silent progress of things, of 
 a re-appearance of certain phenomena, accord- 
 ing to their peculiar nature, consequently, of the 
 design of an ever-working Wisdom, Order and 
 Goodness. In this sense, we speak of the revo- 
 lutions of arts and sciences, that is, a periodical 
 return of them, the causes of which, we en- 
 deavor to investigate in history, and, as it were, 
 to calculate astronomically. Thus the Pytha- 
 goreans spoke of the revolutions of the human 
 soul, that is, of its periodical return into other 
 forms. Thus have men investigated the laws 
 of the revolution of human thoughts ; when 
 they return from oblivion into remembrance ; 
 when visions and desires, when activities and 
 passions which had gone to sleep, reappear 
 once more. In all these things, it has been at- 
 tempted to discover the laws of a hidden, silent 
 order of Nature. 
 
 But the meaning of this word has undergone 
 a detestable change, because, in the barbarous 
 centuries, men knew of no other revolutions 
 than conquests, overturns, oppressions, confu- 
 sions without motive, aim or order. Then it 
 was called revolution, when the nethermost 
 was made uppermost, — when, by the so-called 
 right of war, a nation lost more or less of its 
 property, its laws, its goods ; or when, by the 
 right of monarchy, all those so-called rights 
 were enforced, which St. Thomas, Machiavel 
 and Naude afterwards collected from actual 
 events and brought together in one chapter. 
 Then, finally, it was called a revolution, when 
 the ministers did what the rulers themselves 
 would not do ; or when, here and there, the 
 People undertook that which they could rarely 
 execute so well as kings or ministers. Hence 
 the numerous Histoires des Revolutions, — a kind 
 of book whose title is all the more popular, that 
 its contents are, for the most part, unintelligible 
 or abominable. The notion of an aim or object 
 was almost lost sight of. History became an 
 exhibition of entanglements without a denoue- 
 ment. For. after the conclusion of each revolu- 
 tion, so called, the confusion, in the kingdoms 
 
HERDER. 
 
 245 
 
 where they occurred, was greater than before. 
 Revolutions of this sort, whencesoever they 
 may derive their origin, are signs of barbarism, 
 of an insolent force, of a mad wilfulness. 
 The more reason and moderation increase 
 among men, the rarer they will become, until, 
 at last, they entirely disappear. Then the word 
 Revolution will revert to its pure and true mean- 
 ing. Then it will mean, in history also as 
 elsewhere, a course of things arranged accord- 
 ing to laws, — a course of events which peace- 
 fully returns into itself. In this view alone is 
 history worth the study; for, as to the revolu- 
 tions of wild elephants, when they tear up trees 
 and devastate villages, — from these there is not 
 much to be learned. 
 
 Not to mislead, therefore, with this abused 
 word, and not to make destructive violence a 
 medicine for mortal ills, we will keep the path of 
 healing Nature. Not Revolutions, but Evolutions 
 are the silent process of the great mother, where- 
 with she awakens slumbering powers, brings 
 germs to maturity, gives renewed youth to pre- 
 mature age, and new life to seeming death. 
 Let us see what this remedy comprehends, and 
 how it heals. 
 
 If we suppose Nature to have an aim on the 
 earth, that aim can be no other than the develop- 
 ment of her powers in all forms, kinds and ways. 
 These evolutions proceed slowly, often imper- 
 ceptibly; and, for the most part, they appear 
 periodically. After a night of sleep, follows a 
 morning of awakening. Under the shade of 
 the former, Nature had re-collected her powers, 
 in order to meet the latter with spirit. In the 
 ages of man, childhood continues long; body 
 and mind advance with a slow growth, until, 
 with collected energies, the flower of youth 
 breaks forth, and the fruit of later years comes 
 gradually to maturity. Very improperly have 
 these periods of development been called revo- 
 lutions. There is nothing here that revolves, 
 but faculties are evolved, developed. Ever, 
 the more recondite and deeper-lying come forth 
 to view, which, without many a preceding one, 
 could not have been brought into action. There- 
 fore Nature made periods. She gave the crea- 
 ture time to recover itself from one exertion 
 gone through with, in order to begin, with joy, 
 and to accomplish another and more difficult. 
 For when the plant puts forth a flower, or when 
 the fruit is forming in it, unquestionably more 
 inward and finer forces are put in action than 
 when the sap was entering the stem, and the 
 lowest leaves were brought forth. In the ordi- 
 nary course of things, Nature does not leave her 
 work until all its physical powers have been 
 brought into action ; the innermost, as it were, 
 turned outward, and the development, which, 
 at every step, is assisted by a kindly cpigenesis, 
 has become as perfect as it could become, un- 
 der the given conditions. 
 
 Men are accustomed to regard each individual 
 object, and especially each living individual as 
 an isolated whole ; but a nearer view shows it 
 
 to be connected with soil, climate, weather; 
 with the periodical breath of all Nature ; and 
 that, according to these, it lasts for a longer or 
 shorter time, grows early old or easily renews 
 its youth. Man, a rational, moral and political 
 creation, lives, by means of these capacities and 
 powers, in a peculiar and infinitely extended ele- 
 ment. His reason is connected with the reason 
 of others, his moral culture with the conduct of 
 others, his capacity to constitute himself a free 
 being, — both in himself and in connection with 
 others, — is so intimately connected with the way 
 of thinking, the reasonableness, the active enter- 
 prise of many, that out of this element, he must 
 needs be like a fish on dry land, or a bird in a 
 space destitute of air. His best powers die out, 
 his capacity remains a dead capability; and all 
 effort, out of time and place, and without the 
 co-operation of the elements, is like a flower in 
 the midst of winter. It is Nature that makes 
 seasons ; it is she that furthers capacities. She 
 furthers them also in human kind. Individual 
 men, classes, corporations, whole societies and 
 nations, can only advance with this stream, they 
 have done all if they steer wisely upon it. Let 
 no one think that, if all the regents of the earth 
 from the proudest Negro King to the mightiest 
 Khan of the Tartars should combine to make 
 to-day yesterday and to hinder forever the pro- 
 gressive development of the human race, whe- 
 ther it lead to youth or to old age they eould 
 ever accomplish their aim. This can never be 
 an aim with wise rulers, simply, because there 
 is no sense in such fruitless endeavor. 
 
 A wise ruler then will always regard himself 
 as the householder, not as the antagonist of Na- 
 ture. He will improve every circumstance which 
 she offers, to the best issues. Here leaves are 
 falling, there a whole autumn of leaves lie al- 
 ready in their shrouds. He will not attempt to 
 restore them again to their former places on 
 limb and twig. Can he give them back their 
 former freshness and sap which made them a 
 living whole with the tree on which they hung? 
 And if he cannot do this, how then? Will he 
 crown himself with a withered wreath of dried 
 leaves, because they were other once than they 
 are now ? What Nature could not keep, will 
 the gardener keep it ? and that too, not in con- 
 formity with the ends of Nature, but in direct 
 opposition to them ? Infinitely more beautiful 
 the task to follow Nature, to mark her times, to 
 awaken powers wherever they slumber, to pro- 
 mote thought, activity, invention, joy and love, 
 in whatsoever field of useful employment. Ne- 
 cessity comes at last and compels with iron 
 sceptre. He who obeys reason and measure 
 will prevent necessity. Often, he will need 
 only to beckon with the lily-staff of Oberon, and 
 here new flowers will spring instead of the 
 withered ones, and there, if the blossom-time is 
 past, nourishing fruits will come to maturity. 
 He will come to the aid of the young shoot and 
 take it under his protection against oppressive 
 weeds. The old wild tree he will not cut down, 
 21* 
 
HER 
 
 DER. 
 
 but graft more genial fruits upon it, and the 
 rejuvenized tree will wonder, itself, at its nobler 
 existence. A slight anticipation of this kind, by 
 which one nation had got the start of another, 
 has often secured to it, for centuries, unattaina- 
 ble advantages. England acquired the position 
 which she now occupies, by a somewhat earlier 
 adoption and application of certain points of 
 constitutional finance and commerce, which had 
 long before germinated in other countries, but 
 which folly and passion had suppressed. After 
 many violent revolutions which passed over 
 her, like bloody thunder-showers, it was given 
 to the most peaceful and silent revolution, to 
 awaken a new activity, and thereby to establish, 
 for centuries, the prosperity of a living constitu- 
 tion. If in the time of William the Third, she 
 had attempted to renew the feudal, military and 
 forest laws of William the Conqueror, where 
 would she be now ? 
 
 All orders and arrangements of society are the 
 children of Time. This ancient mother produced, 
 nourished, educated them ; she adorned and 
 fitted them out; and after a longer or shorter 
 term of life, she buries them as she buries and 
 renews herself. Whoever therefore confounds 
 his own being with the duration of an order or 
 institution, gives himself unnecessary torment. 
 That which was before thee, will be behind 
 thee too, if it is to be. For thine own part, act 
 understanding^ and wisely; time will proceed 
 in its great course and accomplish its own. Be 
 in thine own person more than thine order; and 
 then, however that may grow old, thou wilt be, 
 for thyself and for others, always young. Yea, 
 the darker the night, the brighter shalt thou 
 beam a star ! He who does not raise himself 
 above the breastwork of his order, is no hero 
 within it. An order, as such, makes only pup- 
 pets. Personality makes worth and merit. The 
 more that idle, dead hull which conceals the 
 best as well as the poorest kernel falls away, 
 the more the fair and ripe fruit appears. Assu- 
 redly, therefore, it is no retrocession, but an 
 evolution of the times, when the order ceases to 
 be all, and men demand to see, in each order, 
 persons, men, active beings. And since, without 
 a new incursion of barbarism, and with the daily 
 increasing necessities of Europe, this feeling 
 must necessarily increase, there remains only 
 one counsel which can secure each one against 
 the senescence of his order. Be something in 
 your order, and then you will be the first to 
 perceive, to avoid and to amend its defects. 
 Its old age will appear rejuvenized in you, 
 precisely because there is something in you 
 which would grace every form and live in all. 
 
 The excellent Paolo Sarpi wrote a treatise, 
 the title of which attracted me exceedingly : 
 "How opinions are born and die in us." I was 
 very curious to become acquainted with its con- 
 tents. And although I saw from Foscarini's 
 extract in Grisellini, that it was not likely to 
 contain what I had supposed, this capital pro- 
 blem nevertheless was often in my thoughts. 
 
 Many are the ways in which, from earliest 
 childhood, we arrive at opinions with which 
 we clothe ourselves, body and soul. Many of 
 them cleave to us with great tenacity, and the 
 silliest we generally keep concealed behind our 
 innermost, ninth skin, where, let no one pre- 
 sume to touch them ! Unfortunately, however, 
 Time will touch them, and often with very rude 
 hands. And he who, in order to save his life, 
 that is, his reason, peace and the self-conscious- 
 ness of internal worth, cannot yield the skin 
 and hair of his opinions to the meddling Satan, 
 is in bad hands. For that which is mere opi- 
 nion, or even false opinion, will assuredly perish 
 in the fierce fire of purification. But is it not 
 something better that shall arise in its place? 
 Instead of opinions received on authority or 
 even, as Franklin relates, from politeness, know- 
 ledge from conviction, reason approved by our 
 own investigation, and a self-acquired felicity 
 shall be our portion. The old man in us must 
 die that a new youth may spring up. 
 
 " But how may this be ! Can a man return 
 into his mother's womb and be born again?" 
 To this doubt of old Nicodemus, the only an- 
 swer that can be given is: ' PalingenesiaP — not 
 Revolution, but a happy Evolution of the faculties 
 which slumber in us, and by means of which 
 we renew our youth. What we call outliving 
 ourselves, — that is, a kind of death, — is, with 
 souls of the better sort but sleep, which precedes 
 a new waking, a relaxation of the bow which 
 prepares it for new use. So rests the fallow- 
 field, in order to produce the more plentifully 
 hereafter. So dies the tree in winter, that it 
 may put forth and blossom anew in the spring. 
 Destiny never forsakes the good, as long as he 
 does not forsake himself, and ignobly despair 
 of himself. The Genius which seemed to have 
 departed from him, returns to him again, at the 
 right moment, bringing new activity, fortune 
 and joy. Sometimes the Genius comes in the 
 shape of a friend, sometimes in that of an un- 
 expected change of times. Sacrifice to this 
 Genius even though you see him not! Hope in 
 back-looking, returning Fortune, even when you 
 deem her far off! If the left side is sore, lay 
 yourself on the right; if the storm has bent your 
 sapling one way, bend it the other way, until it 
 attains, once more, the perpendicular medium. 
 You have wearied your memory? Then exercise 
 your understanding. You have striven too dili- 
 gently after seeming, and it has deceived you? 
 Now seek being. That will not deceive. Un- 
 merited fame has spoiled you ? Thank Heaven 
 that you are rid of it, and seek, in your own 
 worth, a fame which cannot be taken away. 
 Nothing is nobler and more venerable than a 
 man, who, in spite of fate, perseveres in his 
 duty, and who, if he is not happy outwardly, at 
 least deserves to be so. He will certainly be- 
 come so, at the right season. The Serpent of 
 time often casts her slough, and brings to the 
 man in his cave, if not the fabled jewel on 
 her head and the rose in her mouth, at least 
 
247 
 
 medicinal herbs which procure him oblivion of 
 the past, and restoration to new life. 
 
 Philosophy abounds in remedies designed to 
 console us for misfortunes endured, but unques- 
 tionably, its best remedy is when it strengthens 
 us to bear new misfortunes, and imparts to us a 
 j firm reliance on ourselves. The illusion which 
 weakens the faculties of the soul, comes, for the 
 most part, from without. But the objects which 
 environ us are not ourselves. It is sad indeed, 
 when the situation in which a man is placed, is 
 so embittered and made so wretched, that he 
 has no desire to touch one of its grapes or 
 flowers, because they crumble to ashes in his 
 hands, like those fruits of Sodom. Nevertheless, 
 the situation is not himself; let him, like the 
 tortoise, draw in his limbs and be what he can 
 and ought. The more he disregards the conse- 
 quences of his actions, the more repose he has 
 in action. Thereby the soul grows stronger and 
 revivifies itself, like an ever-springing fountain. 
 The fountain does not stop to calculate through 
 what regions of the earth its stream shall flow, 
 what foreign matter it shall take in, and where 
 it shall finally lose itself. It flows from its own 
 fulness, with an irrepressible motion. That 
 which others show us of ourselves is only ap- 
 pearance. It has always some foundation, and 
 is never to be wholly despised ; but it is only 
 the reflection of our being in them, mirrored 
 back to us from their own ; often a broken and 
 dim form, and not our being itself. Let the 
 little insects creep over and around you, and be 
 at the uttermost pains to make you appear dead ; 
 they work in their nature. Work you in yours, 
 and live ! In fact, our breast, our character, 
 keeps us always more and longer upright, than 
 all the acumen of the head, than all the cunning 
 of the mind. In the heart we live, and not in 
 the thoughts. The opinions of others may be a 
 favorable or unfavorable wind in our sails. As 
 the ocean its vessels, so circumstances at one 
 time may hold us fast, at another may power- 
 fully further us ; but ship and sail, compass, 
 helm and oar, are still our own. Never, then, 
 like old Tithonus, grow gray in the conceit that 
 your youth has passed away, Rather, with 
 newly awakened activity, let a new Aurora 
 daily spring from your arms. 
 
 I ought now to speak to the greater problem, 
 so peculiarly adapted to our times: Whether 
 nations, countries, states, must also decline with 
 old age, or whether they too are capable of a 
 new youth? And by what means that youth 
 may be renewed ? On this question there is 
 great division of opinion, and, as each opinion 
 knows how to fortify itself with examples from 
 history, this very difference in the answers is 
 itself a proof of the indefiniteness of the ques- 
 tion. What is it that can grow old in a nation, 
 a country, a state? What, in them, can or ought 
 to be made young again ? Is it the soul, the 
 air, the sky? And how are these changed for 
 the better or worse ? Is it the farms, meadows, 
 forests, salt-springs, mines, trees? Or is it the 
 
 manner of working them, the profit and the ap- 
 plication of their products ? Is it these alone, 
 or is it man himself, his race, his manners, his 
 education and mode of living, his principles and 
 opinions, his relations and conditions? And 
 how shall these be changed ? By speeches and 
 writings, or by institutions and well-directed, 
 consistent, continued action ? And what object 
 shall this change accomplish ? Superfluity for 
 the few, comfort and idleness for the many, or 
 the happiness of all? And wherein consists 
 the happiness of all? In arts and sciences? 
 In seeming or in being? In loquacious enlight- 
 enment or in genuine culture? All these, and 
 perhaps other questions, should be considered 
 with careful reference to place, time and cir- 
 cumstances, and a comparison with more an- 
 cient examples and their consequences. And 
 then, it would probably be found : 
 
 1. That land and people never grow old, or 
 only at a very late period ; but that States, as 
 human institutions, as children of the times, or 
 even, in many cases, as the mere growth of ac- 
 cident, have their age and their youth, and, con- 
 sequently, an ever-progressive, imperceptible 
 movement toward growth, toward blossoming, 
 or toward dissolution. 
 
 2. That man, often individual men, may re- 
 tard or promote these periods, nay, that they are 
 mostly promoted by opposite measures. 
 
 3. That when forces are at work, either for 
 bloom or for dissolution, their progress is rapid, 
 and everything appears to assimilate itself with 
 them, until trivial circumstances, — often again, 
 individual men, — give the stream a different di- 
 rection ; which new direction, again, is the re- 
 sult of a living presence, although it sometimes 
 appears to be the effect of chance. 
 
 4. That, finally, in order to forestall those 
 fearful explosions which are called political re- 
 volutions, and which ought to be entirely foreign 
 from the book of human affairs, the State has no 
 other remedy, but to preserve or to restore the 
 natural relation, the healthy action of all its 
 parts, the brisk circulation of its juices, and 
 must not contend against the nature of things. 
 Sooner or later the strongest machine must suc- 
 cumb in that contest; but Nature never grows 
 old. She only renews her youth periodically, 
 in all her living forces. 
 
 The timid nature of man, always compassed 
 about with hope and fear, often prophesies dis- 
 tant evils as near, and calls that death, which is 
 only a wholesome slumber, a necessary, health- 
 bringing relaxation. And so it generally de- 
 ceives itself in its predictions concerning lands 
 and kingdoms. Powers lie dormant which we 
 do not perceive. Faculties and circumstances 
 are developing themselves, on which we could 
 not calculate. But even when our judgment is 
 true, it usually leans too much to one side. " If 
 this is to live," we say, " that must die/' We 
 do not consider, whether it may not be possible 
 that both shall live and act favorably on each 
 other ? 
 
248 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 The good Bishop Berkeley, who was no poet, 
 was inspired, by his beneficent zeal for America, 
 to write the following * * * * 
 
 Westward the star of empire takes its way; 
 
 The four first acts already past, 
 The fifth shall close the drama with the day, 
 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last.* 
 
 So prophesied the good-natured Bishop, and 
 if his spirit could now glance at yonder up- 
 striving America, he would perhaps discover, 
 with that same glance, that, in the arms of the 
 old Tithon, Europe, also, a new Aurora was 
 slumbering. Not four, scarcely three acts in the 
 great drama of this, still youthful, quarter of the 
 globe, are past; and who shall say how many 
 times yet the old Tithon of the human race may 
 and will renew his youth upon our earth ! 
 
 METEMPSYCHOSIS, 
 
 IN THREE DIALOGUES. 
 
 DIALOGUE I. 
 CHARICLES AND THE AGES. 
 
 Char. You are just the person I wished to 
 see, Theages. You will be surprised to find me 
 in this laboratory of learning. 
 
 Theag. What books are these ? Greek, Latin, 
 English, even Hebrew ! What are they all 
 about 1 ? — Metempsychosis. Well! to be sure, that 
 is a fertile subject to talk about and to write 
 about. 
 
 Char. Let us talk about it then. 
 
 Theag. With all my heart; I have nothing 
 else to do. An hypothesis so rich and concerning 
 things so remote ; for and against which so 
 much may be said, certainly deserves a few 
 words for and against. But we must first come 
 to an understanding with ourselves as to the 
 meaning of metempsychosis. There are three 
 sorts, an ascending, a descending, and a circular. 
 Do we understand each other? 
 
 Theag. Perfectly. The ascending is the re- 
 fining of lower germs of life into higher; as if, 
 for example, the soul of a plant should become 
 an animal, the soul of an animal a man, &c. 
 The descending is the Brahminical hypothesis ; 
 that good men are rewarded by being changed 
 into cows, sheep, and white elephants, and the 
 wicked punished by becoming tigers and swine. 
 The third or circular is— circular. Which shall 
 we discuss first ? 
 
 Theag. Whichever you please. The first or 
 ascending is very probable, and, if true, destroys 
 the second and the third. If the upward course 
 is the law of Nature with all living things, then 
 nothing can move backward or in a perpetual 
 circle. Then man too must forward. The chain 
 cannot break with him — the highest Jink that 
 we know. He is a being like all other beings, 
 and if everything else advances, according to a 
 
 * The original gives the entire poem of which the above 
 is the concluding stanza, together with a German version 
 of it. 
 
 universal law of Nature, then he too must ad- 
 vance. 
 
 Char. But we are supposing this law of Na- 
 ture already proved. 
 
 Theag. We will not suppose it then. For the 
 present, we will know nothing of the first sort 
 of metempsychosis; whether, e. g., man was 
 first a plant, then an animal, and has reached 
 his present condition by a constant progress. 
 We will speak only of the second and third 
 journey, — backwards and round about. We will 
 inquire whether there are data in nature, expe- 
 riences of the human species, fore-feelings in our 
 soul, ideas in God, as far as he is known to us, or 
 in the general course of the world, which autho- 
 rize such a supposition. Do you trust yourself 
 to answer that question? 
 
 Char. Almost. And I will begin with the 
 most intelligible — with the experiences of hu- 
 man kind. Do you not know great and rare 
 men who cannot have become what they are, 
 at once, in a single human existence ? Who 
 must have often existed before, in order to have 
 attained that purity of feeling, that instinctive 
 impulse for all that is true, beautiful and good; 
 in short, that elevation and natural supremacy 
 over all around them ? Do you know none 
 such ? 
 
 Theag. I know none. 
 
 Char. Have you never read of such rare, 
 great, eminent characters ? 
 
 Theag. friend, why amuse ourselves with 
 ranging great men according to uniforms? I 
 know great men in life and in history, but no 
 one who must necessarily have been several I 
 times in a human mother's womb, in order to 
 be the man he is. The greatest men, I have 
 always found, were the most modest and sin- 
 cere. They made no mystery of what they 
 seemed to themselves, of what they once were, 
 of what they became and how. They did not 
 throw themselves into mount iEtna in order to 
 become gods ;}■ for the iron sandals will come 
 to light in time. On the contrary, they confessed 
 and gave their " Confessions" to the world and 
 to posterity. 
 
 Char. And what did they confess ? Do not 
 you remember Pythagoras who had been Eu 
 phorbus? Do you not remember Apollonius of 
 Tyana ? 
 
 Theag. We will leave these fabulous shades, 
 and come, if you please, to persons who stand it 
 the light. Petrarch's, Cardanus's, Montaigne's, Lu 
 ther's, Rousseau's Confessions, — do they breathe 
 a syllable of those great, or at least rare men 
 having been in the world before ? of their feeling 
 that they could not otherwise have become what 
 they endeavored to be? On the contrary, do they 
 not candidly confess how they had worked their 
 way upward, how, with difficulty, they had 
 raised themselves out of nothing, how they still 
 felt all manner of faults and weaknesses within 
 
 t Deus immortalis haberi 
 Dura cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus iEtnam 
 Insiluit.— Uorat. 
 
HERDER. 
 
 219 
 
 themselves, and how, carried away thereby, 
 they would undoubtedly have become bad men 
 if they had given themselves the reins? You 
 remember what Socrates said of the physiogno- 
 mist? And Socrates was certainly very capable 
 of Pythagorean dreams. 
 
 Char. Perhaps, of this Pythagorean dream, 
 too. But altogether, we know too little about 
 Socrates from his own mouth; he speaks only 
 through the mouth of others. Therefore leave 
 examples, and say : do you not think there have 
 been very few truly great people in the world? 
 
 Theag. They would not be called great, were 
 there not few of them. 
 
 Char. Do you suppose that these great men, 
 rare as they have been in all centuries, became 
 what they were and what, in all time, they will 
 be, by mere industry, by pains-taking of which 
 every mechanical mind is capable? or by Na- 
 ture alone, by a kind of native sense, by an in- 
 spiration which they did not give to themselves, 
 which never deserted them, which no one could 
 imitate, and which every one who attempted to 
 imitate, failed ? They appeared like Genii, they 
 vanished like Genii, and men could only say : 
 " there he was, there he stood ; he is no more ; 
 where is there another like him?" Is not that 
 your opinion ? 
 
 Theag. I need not opine, for all history con- 
 firms it. But what has this to do with metem- 
 psychosis ? 
 
 Char. Hear me further. Do not these great 
 characters appear, for the most part, all at once ? 
 Like a cloud of celestial spirits, they descended 
 from on high; — like men risen from the dead, 
 born again, who, after a long night of sleep, 
 brought back the old time, and stood forth as 
 youths in new and celestial beauty. Does it 
 not seem as if the wheel of the times must re- 
 volve in order to produce the human race anew, 
 to waken the understanding, to renovate virtue? 
 What if these revolutions in the visible world 
 are, what the name imports, revolutions also in 
 the invisible, — the spirit-world, — a coming again 
 of old, noble spirits and races of men? 
 
 Theag. That sounds fine. Let us see what 
 the splendid vision amounts to. That great 
 spirits are rare, I do not deny. I grant further, 
 that what they were, they could be by nature 
 alone, and not by an vmprobiis labor. But this is 
 no argument for Metempsychosis. Among brutes 
 also, there are, in every species, large gradations 
 and differences of faculty which only those ob- 
 serve, who live, as it were, on intimate terms 
 with that species. Must the souls of these ani- 
 mals have therefore migrated? Must the more 
 intelligent dog have been many times a dog, in 
 order to become what he is? Or is it not rather 
 evident, that everything depends on happier 
 organization, a more sprightly genesis, a nobler 
 lineage, on favorable local circumstances, on 
 climate, birth, training and hundred-armed ac- 
 cident, which, with all its ramifications, it is so 
 difficult to compute and to mould ? Now com- 
 pare brutes with man, a two-stringed fiddle with 
 2g 
 
 the organ ! What an infinite diversity must 
 there not be in the human species, even because 
 the extent of man's powers is so great, his for- 
 mation so delicate, his faculties so manifold, the 
 climate in which he lives, the world of circum- 
 stances which acts upon him so wonderfully 
 diverse, in short, the links of his chain so com- 
 mensurable and so incommensurable, as you 
 please to consider it! What may not man become? 
 Who has ever determined the goal — so much 
 and no more? What may not come to pass out 
 of so great a multitude, in the stream of the 
 ever-progressive development of the world and 
 of human kind? Would it not be a far greater 
 wonder, if all men were born blockheads, than 
 that there should bp, occasionally, a man of 
 sense, as is now the case? Shall the electric 
 spark, in no instance, shine forth pure and 
 bright? Shall not the genuine human form 
 show itself here and there in an army of larva ? 
 What need of goblins and revenants? since this 
 nobler form is the true and peculiar form of 
 humanity, from which we have only degene- 
 rated, by malformations too easily accounted for. 
 You might as well maintain that angels embody 
 themselves in these higher specimens of huma- 
 nity, or, — if their genius works instinctively,— 
 that certain animals endowed with certain art- 
 istic faculties are reproduced in them. I see 
 not why we must needs disturb the dead and 
 conjure up the prophet Samuel in his night- 
 gown, merely that we may say ; " I see gods 
 arise out of the earth." View Humanity hu- 
 manly, and it will appear human to you. View 
 individual great men in their organization, their 
 birth, their education, their place and position, 
 and you will not need to cross the sea, in quest 
 of shadows. 
 
 Char. But that these rare men should be, for 
 the most part, cotemporary ? — 
 
 Theag. Is that your proof, my good metemp- 
 sychosist? As though a heap of shadows were 
 blown along, as in Dante's hell, by a gust of 
 wind ; or as if a troop of giants, as in Bodmer's 
 Noah, came sailing in a balloon, and were 
 pleased to alight here ! Consult history, you 
 will always find that men are awakened by 
 external causes, that circumstances, a demand, 
 a want, a reward, called them forth ; that emu- 
 lation stimulated them ; that a long series of 
 errors had just run itself out; that a night of the 
 ages had past away, and it was time, at last, 
 that morning should dawn once more. Gene- 
 rally, there had been so much preparatory labor 
 and discipline, that these more fortunate men 
 needed only to profit by the failures and pains 
 of their ancestors, to attain to honor. After 
 many dissonances, they hit at last the consonant 
 points of the cord. — That is all that our eye can 
 discover from a comparison of periods and of 
 men. As to groping farther into the invisible 
 after the finger of the Godhead, and endeavor- 
 ing to ascertain when and how he causes men 
 to be born ; — I hold that to be above our sphere. 
 I If we are going to poetise, I can as well derive 
 
250 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 them from the moon, under certain happy phases, 
 as by a palingenesia from the fore-world, which 
 does not change quite so regularly as the moon. 
 
 Char. The latter circumstance matters not. 
 We are as yet far too young in history, we have 
 experienced too few of those periodical revolu- 
 tions, to be able to compute them as we do the 
 changes of the moon. 
 
 Thcag. Then also we are too young to cherish 
 fictions which we cannot prove, for which all 
 history furnishes no sure data. Young or old, 
 the return of the human species must have be- 
 come perceptible, the ebb and flood of spirits 
 must have been observed, though only by way 
 of conjecture. Nay, if with that return, the hu- 
 man understanding and moral refinement, the 
 inward activity and elasticity of men be sup- 
 posed to increase; heavens! what glorious men 
 we should have, by this time, in those who have 
 been here ten times before ! And where are 
 these ? Where are they, my friend ? The wisest, 
 best and strongest men, — have they lived in 
 modern times or in antiquity ? And how often 
 have the Homers, the Socrateses, the Pythago- 
 rases, the Epaminondases, the Scipios appeared 
 in the world 1 to say nothing of their having 
 grown from century to century. The human 
 phoenixes have always been rare, and will al- 
 ways remain so. We need not expect that, 
 suddenly, with the year 1800, gods will walk 
 the earth instead of men, because the revolving 
 wheel has dried the wet clay and brought the 
 figures into shape. Let us therefore leave these 
 divinations in their proper place, and content 
 ourselves with being men, such as our forefathers 
 were, once - baked men, and not sewed up, a 
 second time, in Jupiter's thigh. Or if, my dear 
 migrationist, you know any story out of your 
 primeval world, which I also remember, bring 
 it forwards. 
 
 Char. You shall have it; only I beg you to 
 be candid, and not to deny the thoughts and 
 reminiscences of your youth, especially of your 
 early, unsophisticated childhood. Have you 
 never had remembrances of a former state, 
 which you could find no place for in this life ? 
 In that beautiful period, when the soul is yet a 
 half-closed bud, have you not seen persons, been 
 in places, of which you were ready to swear 
 that you had seen those persons, or had been in 
 those places before? And yet it could not have 
 been in this life, as you can satisfy yourself on 
 reflection. Whence, then are those remini- 
 scences ? Whence can they be, but from some 
 former state ? Therefore are they so sweet, so 
 elevating! The most blessed moments, the 
 grandest thoughts, are from that source. In our 
 more ordinary seasons, we look back with asto- 
 nishment on ourselves, we do not comprehend 
 ourselves. And such are we ; we who, from a 
 hundred causes, have sunk so deep and are so 
 wedded to matter, that but few reminiscences 
 of so pure a character remain to us. The nobler 
 class of men who, separated from wine and 
 meat, lived in perfect simplicity, temperate, and 
 
 according to the order of Nature, carried it fur- 
 ther, no doubt, than others, as we learn from the 
 example of Pythagoras of Iarchas, of Apollonius 
 and others, who remembered distinctly what 
 and how many times they had been in the 
 world before. If we are blind, or can see but 
 two steps beyond our noses, ought we therefore 
 to deny that others may see a hundred or a 
 thousand degrees farther, even to the bottom of 
 time, into the deep, cool well of the fore-world, 
 and there discern everything plain and bright 
 and clear? 
 
 Theag. You are a true Pythagorean, my friend, 
 and worthy to attain to the deepest well of the 
 fore-time; yea! to the original fountain of truth 
 itself, if men ever arrive there. I will freely 
 confess to you, that those sweet dreams of me- 
 mory are known to me also, among the expe- 
 riences of my childhood and youth. I have 
 been in places and circumstances of which I 
 could have sworn that I had been in them be- 
 fore. I have seen persons with whom I seemed 
 to have lived before ; with whom I was, as it 
 were, on the footing of an old acquaintance. 
 But may there not be some other cause for such 
 experiences? 
 
 Char. I know of none but the remembrance 
 of a former state. 
 
 Theag. Certainly, of a former state ; only not 
 beyond this life, and in another body. Have 
 you never watched yourself, and observed how 
 the soul is always occupied in secret? how, 
 especially, in childhood, it makes plans, corn- 
 bines thoughts, builds bridges, meditates ro- 
 mances, and repeats all this in dreams, with 
 the magic colors of the dream-world? Look at 
 that child playing and entertaining itself ill 
 silence. He talks with himself; he is in a 
 dream of vivid images. These images and 
 thoughts will some time return to him, at a time 
 when he does not expect it, and no longer re- 
 members whence they are. They will appear 
 to him with all the decorations of the scene in 
 which he first conceived them, or which, it may 
 be, a youthful dream brought before his mind. 
 The situation will create a pleasant delusion, 
 as every retrospect which brings agreeable 
 images before the mind deludes us. It will be 
 taken for an inspiration because it actually 
 comes like an inspiration from another world ; 
 that is, rich in images and without pains. A 
 single trait of the present picture will recall it; 
 a single sound which now touches the soul, 
 awakens all the slumbering tones of former 
 times. These are moments of the sweetest 
 rapture, especially in beautiful, wild, romantic 
 spots, in moments of pleasant intercourse with 
 persons who, with an agreeable illusion, unex- 
 pectedly create in us, or we in them, the feel- 
 ing, as it were, of an earlier acquaintance : re- 
 miniscences of paradise, but not of a previous 
 human life ; the paradise, rather, of youth, of 
 childhood, or of pleasant dreams which we bad 
 either sleeping or waking, and which, in fact, 
 are the true paradise. The palingenesia is there- 
 
HERDER. 
 
 251 
 
 fore correct, only not so wonderful as you sup- 
 pose, but, on the contrary, very natural. 
 
 Char. Your explanation is charming, but — 
 Theug. I think it will prove convincing, if 
 we watch ourselves. Do you not think that 
 man experiences the highest delight and even 
 a kind of ecstasy, when he beholds a dream, 
 which the soul had composed out of its dearest 
 images, suddenly and unexpectedly, though only 
 partially realized? Must not the soul welcome 
 such a dream with rapture, and embrace it as 
 Adam embraced Eve, when it sees in it the 
 image of itself, the creation of its sweetest mo- 
 ments, the fruit of its secret love? Behold, 
 my friend, hence come those surprises, those 
 sudden and often so pleasing, so deeply pro- 
 phetic and powerful sympathies ; hence the 
 divine and divining power of first impressions. 
 The second impression can never give it. That 
 only weakens the rapture of the first and de- 
 composes the picture. As long as the soul 
 realizes the first dream, it floats, as it were, in 
 the Elysium of childhood. When the dream is 
 dissolved, then, alas! the gods have become 
 men, then we must till the ground and eat our 
 bread in sorrow and in the sweat of our face. 
 Observe particularly, that, with well-organized 
 men, reminiscences of this kind are mostly 
 beautiful, but wild, romantic, often exaggerated, 
 precisely like the impressions and feelings of 
 their youth. Sickly people retain ideas of pain, 
 weak people feelings of difficulty and trouble — 
 the reflections of their early impressions. These 
 feelings return, at certain times, in moments of 
 weakness, of sudden attack, when the soul is 
 off its guard and gives itself up to involuntary 
 combinations of thought; they return often; 
 they become dominant feelings. I could men- 
 tion striking examples of this, but they would 
 lead us too far out of the way. Observe people 
 in love, and insane people, — especially melan- 
 choly love and mild insanity, — you will see the 
 power of first impressions, the entire youth of 
 the soul in every trait of the pictures which 
 filled their minds; you will hear them in all 
 the complainings of their aberrations. Nay, 
 observe your own soul in dreams. There, we 
 all wander alike. After a certain age, we de- 
 corate all our dreams with scenes of our youth : 
 the very persons who appear in them, if they 
 were our nearest and most beloved, assume 
 other, and, as it seems, more lovely and roman- 
 tic forms. In all the fantasies of love the first 
 impression is the dearest, the most indelible. 
 In short, we spell together, where we can, an 
 alphabet out of our youth whose traits are the 
 most agreeable, the most impressive, the most 
 familiar to us. Have I satisfied you with my 
 solution ? 
 
 Char. Not entirely. Some reminiscences are 
 so wonderful, so foreign, and, to use your lan- 
 guage, so incapable of being spelt with the im- 
 pressions of the youth and childhood of this 
 life, that — 
 
 Theag. That they necessarily require another 
 
 world, a former life? Well, then, why are you 
 not true to your own hypothesis? Why do you 
 not actually assume another world, a foregone 
 connection in the world of spirits and of souls, 
 as Plato fabled, as the old Rabbins and many 
 nations conceived ? Methinks, if we must dream, 
 we shall do well to dream the freest of dreams. 
 Imagine, for example, how once, with your be- 
 loved in the land of spirits you 
 
 " Swarmed unseen, small as a ray of light ; 
 Think how, upon an orange leaf, 
 You met for sport and jest ; 
 In the luxurious lap of young auriculas, 
 Oft winged with converse sweet the laggard time." 
 
 Why must you make your scene so narrow and 
 let the soul beg so often and laboriously, in our 
 poor humanity, the spiritual alms which it 
 may have far cheaper and all at once if you 
 send it into the realm of spirits and divest it 
 entirely of its corporeal nature. Have you never 
 read letters from the dead to the living? 
 Char. Many. 
 
 Theag. Well, then, you know what freedom 
 and absence of restraint there is in the kingdom 
 of spirits. Therefore it is that children love 
 dreams of this kind so much, because they blend 
 them with their own dreams, which they seem 
 to confirm therewith as with traditions from 
 another world. For myself, though I tolerate 
 these things in poetry, and once delighted in 
 them, at my present time of life I am content to 
 renounce the dream of pre-existence, and to 
 study my soul in its present bonds, in its poor 
 actuality. 
 
 Char. And what results do you draw from 
 your studies in it ? 
 
 Theag. Results ? That 's more than I know. 
 But the study itself, it seems to me, is very pro- 
 fitable, and I wish that we might study our 
 children for the same purpose. 
 
 Char. For what purpose ? 
 
 Theag. To notice their first impressions, the 
 manner in which their souls are affected by 
 them, the secret ideas and images with which 
 they entertain themselves, which they spin and 
 spin, like a fine invisible web, according to their 
 own will and pleasure. Have you never ob- 
 served that children will sometimes, on a sud- 
 den, give utterance to ideas which make us 
 wonder how they got possession of them, which 
 presuppose a long series of other ideas and se- 
 cret self-communings, which break forth like a 
 full stream, out of the earth, an infallible sign 
 that the stream was not produced in a moment 
 from a few rain-drops, but had long been flow- 
 ing concealed beneath the ground, and, it may 
 be, had broken through many a cave, had car- 
 ried away many a rock, and contracted many 
 defilements ? 
 
 Char. And if we do observe this, who can 
 resist Nature ? Can we arrest the course of 
 these streams or bring them to light ? Can we 
 change the constitution of the earth and of 
 human souls according to our pleasure ? 
 | Theag. We can in one sense, and in another 
 
252 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 sense we cannot. We can as far as we ought, 
 and we ought as far as we can. If the souls 
 of our children are dear to us, and we are as 
 deeply convinced as I am, of the power of first 
 impressions, ought we not imperceptibly to 
 guide and to determine these first impressions, 
 so far as they are in our power? I say, imper- 
 ceptibly, for else it is all in vain. The soul, in 
 its most secret operations, bears no restraint, no 
 mechanical law; it works freely out of its own 
 nature ; and these first efforts contain the em- 
 blem of all its future workings through the 
 whole course of its life. To watch it, therefore, 
 and, when in pleasant wilds and agreeable 
 labyrinths it wanders and loses its way, to 
 guide it in the shape of a bright star, or like 
 Minerva in Homer, in the form of a foreign tra- 
 veller, — not teacher or overseer, — in short, as a 
 certain philosopher desired for his daily por- 
 tion, to supply to our children joyful morning- 
 images and youthful pictures, that hereafter at 
 evening and in old age, they may have glad 
 reminiscences from the Platonic kingdom of 
 spirits and may acquire no debasing and terrible 
 ideas of metempsychosis ; — that I think we can 
 and ought to do ; although, of course, subject to 
 the power of fate. 
 
 Char. Yes ! to be sure, subject to the power 
 of fate. 
 
 Theag. For we are not masters of all our 
 own ideas and impressions, much less of the 
 impressions of our friends and our children. It 
 is not we ourselves who have placed our souls 
 here, much less have we armed their forces against 
 the universe which streams to them from every 
 side. There are actually persons who are des- 
 tined to sorrows and misfortune, for whom early 
 impressions and ideas, cares and disease have 
 in a great measure diminished and destroyed 
 the joy of life. The cup which they are to 
 drink has been made bitter, or else turbid and 
 distasteful ; for there are evils which cannot be 
 wholly done away in this life. These persons, 
 too, must content themselves, meanwhile, to bear 
 with cheerfulness, at least with equanimity, the 
 burden which is laid upon them, the insepara- 
 ble burden of life, and to await in hope another, 
 freer, better being. 
 
 Char. Do you see now how you arrive at my 
 metempsychosis? Who knows what these peo- 
 ple may have committed in their former state, 
 that they are now made so miserable by the 
 band of fate and not by their own fault? But 
 you are preparing to go. 
 
 Theag. It is late. Another time we will 
 begin where we leave off, as is the law of me- 
 tempsychosis. Sleep well, Charicles, and dream 
 of the primeval realms of love, and not that 
 you were once Sejanus or Ra vail lac. 
 
 Char. In that case it were well that I am no 
 longer so, and that my evil destiny lies already 
 behind me. Sleep well ! 
 
 DIALOGUE II. 
 Charicles. I hope, my friend, to hear you speak 
 
 more reasonably to-day on the subject of our 
 conversation. Yesterday you were somewhat 
 w;arm. 
 
 Thcages. That depends on what you mean 
 by 'reasonable' and 'warm.' If equanimity is 
 shown by investigating, then I had it yesterday; 
 but if you desire that laxity and coldness to 
 which everything is indifferent — 
 
 Char. Not exactly indifferent. To whom can 
 it be a matter of indifference that poor, vexed 
 man should find some indemnification for pre- 
 sent, pressing evils, at least in the beautiful 
 visions of hope ? that he should receive some 
 light concerning God, the world, the course of 
 fate? Where Seneca's reasons cease, where 
 even Religion does not explain, but only ties 
 new knots, there — 
 
 Theag. Charicles, let us not bring religion into 
 the play, especially in so disparaging manner. 
 Religion, most surely, knows nothing of metem- 
 psychosis, but points in quite another direction, 
 with all its promises, threats, commands, exam- 
 ples. The wheel of Ixion, the stone of Sisy- 
 phus, the drawing of the Danaides — such would 
 be the eternal revolution of human destiny, not 
 a comforting, heavenly recompense. In Dante's 
 hell, the hypocrites walk with leaden mantles 
 and averted, backward-looking-face, in a perpe- 
 tual circle ; they go forever and never move 
 from the spot, and forever look behind them 
 with their twisted necks. 
 
 Char. But, my friend, do you also look back 
 calmly, a few moments. How many wretches 
 are there behind you, who have not deserved to 
 fall so low, who, therefore, must rise higher in 
 this life in order to reconcile us, in some degree, 
 with Divine justice and mercy. 
 
 Theag. To reconcile? You would then be an 
 enemy of God, if there be no migration of souls 
 in the circulations of Humanity? You must 
 needs deny his justice and paternal goodness, if 
 he did not permit you to return to this earth 
 again and again ? For myself, I confess I am 
 heartily satisfied with having been once on the 
 earth and lived my life, as man. For at best, 
 says one of the eldest sages, it is " labor and 
 sorrow :'' and that is its everlasting circle. 
 " Man who is born of woman is of few days and 
 full of trouble. He cometh forth as a flower 
 and is cut down ; he fleeth also as a shadow 
 and continueth not." That is his destiny. 
 
 Char. A sad destiny ! 
 
 Theag. Sad or consoling, — enough, it is his 
 destiny. When you look at human life in all 
 its connections, does not everything within you 
 seem to cry aloud : " God be praised ! I am to 
 be lived but once." The morning of our days, 
 how soon past! The bud of our earthly being 
 how soon withered ! Now the day gets sultry, 
 weariness of life succeeds ; gradually the evening 
 draws nigh, and the sun goes down. Man fades 
 as he bloomed, he forgets his own thoughts, he 
 distrusts his own powers, he dies before he dies, 
 and rejoices to find his grave. This is the un- 
 changeable circle of the days and seasons, of 
 
HERDER. 
 
 253 
 
 the life-period and human ages on our earth. 
 And you would have the wretch tread this circle 
 a thousand times when he rejoices to have trod- 
 den it but once ! You would have Nature, like 
 Penelope, forever weave her web and weave it 
 ! anew, only to destroy it again. Unfortunate 
 1 Humanity with all its talents, hopes and powers ! 
 Weak-minded Penelope! — for whose under- 
 standing at least I would not be a suitor. 
 
 Char. But, my friend, has not the tree, the 
 flower, the day, the same destiny? and do they 
 not return too? It appears to be the law of 
 Nature ; why should weak, proud man alone 
 resist it? 
 
 Theag. Truly, he would be weak and proud, 
 to resist it as a tree, as a flower, or as the day ; 
 but he is neither of the three ; and furthermore 
 these three do not return. The tree stands rooted 
 in the earth, and if it has, as I doubt not, a life, 
 it is only the first germ of an inferior kind of 
 life. This, it is a great while in working out, 
 and must remain long in its place. Every year 
 is to it but one day ; the spring its morning, the 
 winter its sleep. It must endure, produce many 
 leaves, blossoms and fruits which serve the air, 
 animals, man, — the whole superior creation. 
 Then it gradually grows old and dies. That 
 which now shoots forth around it, is not itself 
 but its offspring. What has become of its life- 
 power and life-breath, in odors, blossoms, leaves, 
 fruits, we know or do not know. Our glance 
 cannot and must not penetrate the kingdom of 
 productive powers. The tree, then, does not 
 come within your palingenesia ; it does not mi- 
 grate, but lives out its life, as a world of change- 
 able, unreturning leaves, blossoms and fruits. 
 The same of the flower. And the simile of 
 the day, which certainly never returns, was, un- 
 doubtedly, meant only as a simile. You are, 
 therefore, entirely without example in the order 
 of nature. And do you think that man, man 
 alone, is to be this example of an Ixionic-Tan- 
 talistic-Danaidal destiny? an example without 
 example, nay, almost without design? 
 
 Char. Not entirely without design. He would 
 learn the science of life in the only way in which 
 it can be learned ; by the most many-sided view 
 of it, and the most living experience. He would, 
 therefore, always be tried, purified, refined, con- 
 firmed ; the thread of his identity would con- 
 tinue and he would advance, however much he 
 might seem to move in a circle. 
 
 Theag. A slow progress ! in which Fate would 
 treat us as Phrygians, who are always wise be- 
 hindhand, and never know how the boy feels 
 who receives the stripes, until they have re- 
 ceived them themselves. And to receive these 
 Stripes forever ! 
 
 Char. Fate will not inflict them without need ; 
 and since it is once for all established, that we 
 really and truly know only that which we have 
 ourselves tried and experienced — 
 
 Theag. It seems to me, my friend, that you 
 ) abuse the truest of propositions, when you 
 apply it in that way. I need not try everything 
 
 in this world; else, wo to poor humanity! 
 What wise man would wish to be inoculated 
 with the plague in order to ascertain its true 
 nature? What man would wish to be a patri- 
 cide or a matricide, in order to learn how Nero 
 or any other monster must have felt? And 
 what kind of a destiny would that be, which 
 should find pleasure in making me perform all 
 sorts of detestable parts, in order to give me the 
 feeling that I had performed them ? You see 
 what a system it is that can furnish occasion for 
 all manner of enormities, making the lusts 
 which the villain feels within himself, his pre- 
 sent '■destination? and giving him, when he dies 
 upon the gallows, the sweet consolation that 
 "now he has expiated one of his debts; — it 
 was his destination to tread that path at pre- 
 sent ; what he has not yet learned and expe- 
 rienced, he will have time to learn in other sta- 
 tions." 
 
 Char. We will not speak of these abuses. 
 The best things may be abused, in the worst 
 manner, by foolish and wicked men. I return 
 to my question. How will you vindicate the 
 goodness of God who has made the lot of man 
 so unequal? Either, the ideas of evil and good, 
 perfect or imperfect, happy or unhappy, must 
 be very indifferent to him ; or — 
 
 Theag. Or we ought not to measure him by 
 our petty, narrow, pitiful standard. Who is 
 happy? Who is unhappy? Is the civilized 
 man more so than the savage? The slave in 
 golden, more than the slave in iron chains? 
 Where, on our earth, dwells perfection ? Where 
 has it built itself an house ? Are we constituted 
 its judges? We who live only on the dole of its 
 grace and mercy? God created us not to judge 
 the human species, but to live in it and to re- 
 joice in our place, and to bless our kind wherever 
 and as far as we can. He himself has done no 
 more than, according to his wisdom, he could; — 
 than, according to his goodness, he should. He 
 took counsel of both, and so he created the hu- 
 man race. Who can ask; "why no higher?" 
 " why no lower?" Enough, it exists; and let 
 each one rejoice that he too exists, enjoy his 
 being, and trust in Him who brought him hither, 
 that He will also lead him forth and lead him 
 farther. 
 
 Char. So, the inequalities of the human con- 
 dition, on our earth, find no explanation with 
 you ? 
 
 Theag. No other than this: "they lay in the 
 plan of creation." Our planet, as it is once for 
 all constituted, was intended to bear what it 
 can, to produce what it can. Therefore it has 
 been made a globe with all varieties of climate, 
 of country, of vegetable, animal, human kinds. 
 The ladder is erected in both hemispheres, its 
 rounds are innumerable : where do they termi- 
 nate? Through an hundred gates everything 
 presses into the kingdom of God, and, through 
 hundred thousand, forth again, in all gradations, 
 upwards, forwards. Where God shall bless the 
 poor, merchandised negro? whether in a para- 
 22 
 
254 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 dise among the mountains,* or beneath a lazy 
 bishop s mitre, because he lias once ground him- 
 self weary, — let those decide who can. As 
 diverse as this world is, so diverse will the 
 future also be. Or if not, — if everything is to 
 be united by simpler ends and more determinate 
 magnitudes, — why, so much the better ! Enough, 
 I often find happiness here, where I sought it 
 not; beauty beneath a covering which seemed 
 most foreign to it; wisdom and virtue, for the 
 most part, in rude, despised and undistinguish- 
 able forms. Precisely, where paint and prink- 
 ing begin, there truth, justice, happiness cease ; 
 and shall we let our poor pilgrim migrate to 
 these gilded pagodas, to lose the truth which 
 they possess and to exchange inward worth and 
 wealth for wretched outward tinsel? The more 
 I learn to know Humanity by other tokens than 
 the cut of the cloak, the more cause I find, even 
 in this stage of being, to adore Providence with 
 kneeling reverence. Where we expect the 
 greatest misery, there dwells often the greatest 
 happiness. Simplicity is not stupidity, and cun- 
 ning is neither blessing nor wisdom. I there- 
 fore still hold with the poet ; — 
 
 " Wisely doth Destiny its gifts allot ; 
 To each, food, shelter, raiment and what not, 
 Strength to the poor and to the weak man, place." 
 
 Char. But, my dear friend, you surely know 
 the law of economy which holds as well in re- 
 gard to power as to space ? It rules throughout 
 all Nature. Is it not very probable that the 
 Deity is guided by it in the propagation and 
 progress of human souls? He who has not 
 become ripe in one form of Humanity, is put 
 into the oven again, and, some time or other, 
 must be perfected. 
 
 Theag. But suppose he should be burned in 
 the process? The mould of humanity is so 
 narrow, the position — whether here or there, in 
 rags or in purple — has so little to do with the 
 result, that he who cannot be upright in one 
 costume, will scarcely be so in another. At all 
 events, there must be no necessity about it, else 
 all the morality of free-agency is at an end, and 
 man is thrown about like a stone, and shoved 
 hither and thither like a clod of earth. Do you 
 see where your hypothesis is leading you again? 
 To a fatal necessity which enfeebles all striving 
 and aspiration after happiness, beauty, virtue 
 in every form, under every mask, and binds us 
 in fetters of blind obedience to the car of Des- 
 tiny. But we have been prating long enough 
 in this narrow room ; and that has made our 
 conversation assume such a contracted, meta- 
 physical character. Look at the beautiful, 
 starry night! Yonder rises the moon. I pro- 
 pose, that we should betake ourselves, soul and 
 body, out of this metaphysical atmosphere into 
 free Nature. 
 
 * — " Simple Nature to his hope has given 
 Behind the cloud-topt hill an humbler heaven, 
 Some safer world in depth of woods embraced 
 Some happier island on the wat'ry waste." 
 
 They went forth and soon the tone of their 
 conversation was changed. The holy silence 
 which night spread around them, the bright 
 celestial luminaries suspended like lamps above 
 their heads, on the one side some lingering 
 shimmer of the evening red, on the other the 
 moon lifting herself softly from behind the 
 shadows of the forest : — how does this magnifi- 
 cent temple exalt, expand, enlarge the soul ! At 
 such moments, one feels so perfectly the beauty 
 and the nothingness of earth, and what refresh- 
 ment God has provided for us on this star, on 
 which sun and moon, the two fair lights of 
 heaven, alternating, conduct us through life, 
 and how low and small and vanishing is this 
 speck of our earth, compared with the measure- 
 less splendor and glory of stars, suns and ; 
 worlds. 
 
 What think you now, said Theages, of your jj 
 principium minimi, according to which, you would 
 be forever knocking about on the earth, chained 
 to a grain of sand ? Look at the heavens, God's 
 star-writing, the primeval tradition of our im- 
 mortality, the luminous chart of our far pil- 
 grimage! Where does the universe end? And 
 why do rays come down to us from yonder 
 farthest star? Why have there been given to 
 man the glance and the flaming flight of im- 
 mortal hopes ? Why, when we have been ex- 
 hausted with the rays of the sun and bound fast 
 to the dust all the day, does God unveil to us at 
 night this sublime field of infinite eternal pros- 
 pects? We stand lost amid the host of the 
 worlds of God, lost in the abyss of his immen- 
 sity round about us. And what should bind 
 my spirit to this weary sand-grain, when my 
 body, the hull, has sunk into the ground? All 
 the laws which bind me here, evidently relate 
 to my body only. That is formed of this earth 
 and must return to this earth again. The laws 
 of motion, the pressure of the atmosphere, — 
 everything confines that, and only that, here 
 below. The spirit once escaped, once rid of 
 the delicate but strong bands of sense, impulse, 
 propensity, duty and custom which bind it to 
 this little sphere of visibility ; what earthly 
 power can hold it longer? What law of Nature 
 has been discovered which should compel souls 
 to revolve in this narrow race-course ? The 
 spirit is raised above the bounds of time, it 
 despises space and the slow movements of 
 earth. Once disembodied, it is immediately in 
 its place, its sphere, in the new kingdom to 
 which it belongs. Perhaps that kingdom is 
 around us and we perceive it not ; perhaps it 
 is near us and we know not of it, except in 
 occasional moments of happy fore-feeling, when 
 the soul, as it were, attracts it to itself, or it the 
 soul. Perhaps, too, there are appointed for us 
 places of rest, regions of preparation, other 
 worlds in which, — as on a golden heaven-lad- 
 der — ever lighter, more active and blest, we 
 may climb upward to the fountain of all light, 
 ever seeking, never reaching the centre of our 
 pilgrimage, — the bosom of the Godhead. For 
 
HERDER. 
 
 255 
 
 we are and must ever be limited, imperfect, 
 finite beings. But wberever I may be, through 
 whatever worlds I may be led, I shall remain 
 forever in the hands of the Father who hath 
 brought me hither and who calls me further; 
 forever in the infinite bosom of God. 
 
 j I am sorry, said Charicles, to interrupt you in 
 your contemplations which remove you so far 
 
 , from our earth ; but do not leave me behind. 
 Wherever you are free, wise and active, there 
 is heaven ; and why, then, do you shun and flee 
 the earth? If you can live more freely, wisely, 
 happily, in some other human form, and so 
 ascend continually in your inward condition, 
 wliat matters place and scene? Here or there, 
 God's world is God's world; one theatre is as 
 good as another. Our earth too is a star among 
 stars. 
 
 Theag. Well, my friend ; but how far is it 
 possible to climb in our humanity'? Is not its 
 sphere as narrowly bounded, as dusty and as 
 filthy as this star itself? The best of hearts is 
 still but a human heart; body is body and 
 earthly life is earthly life. The miserable de- 
 tails of business, the cares of life, so necessary 
 and yet so unprofitable, still recur. The differ- 
 ent life-periods, with their changing imperfec- 
 tions, recur. Even in regard to virtues, the 
 human race is divided into its two sexes, which 
 stand over against each other, on one root, 
 mutually embrace and crown one another, but 
 can never become one and the same perfection, 
 in human life. What the one has, is wanting 
 to the other. What one man has, another man 
 wants. Birth, station, climate, education, office, 
 mode of living forever limit and impede. Man 
 grows for a few years only, and then stands 
 s,till or declines and recedes. If he attempts, 
 in old age, to appear a youth and to imitate 
 others, he becomes ridiculous, he becomes 
 childish. In short, it is a narrow sphere, this 
 earthly life; and do what we will, as long as 
 we are here, it is impossible to escape this nar- 
 rowness without greater injury and the' entire 
 loss of ourselves. But hereafter, when death 
 shall burst these bonds, when God shall trans- 
 plant us like flowers into quite other fields and 
 surround us with entirely different circumstan- 
 ces, then, — Have you never experienced, my 
 friend, what new faculty a new situation gives 
 to the soul? a faculty, which, in our old corner, 
 in the stifling atmosphere of old circumstances 
 and occupations, we had never imagined, had 
 never supposed ourselves capable of? 
 
 Char. Who has not experienced that? From 
 that very circumstance I drew the refreshing 
 draught of the Lethe stream with which my 
 palingenesia has already rejuvenized me, here 
 on this earth. I feel, as you do, that, in spite 
 of all our striving and effort, the sphere of 
 humanity is insurmountable, and that our nature 
 is circumscribed within fixed limits. Here, on 
 this earth, no tree reaches to the heavens ; cer- 
 tain stains, once contracted, all the rivers of the 
 world cannot wash out; many weaknesses and 
 
 imperfections, after a certain length of time, 
 can scarcely be recognised, much less laid aside. 
 Often, the coarser are exchanged for the more 
 refined and more dangerous. All that is true. 
 Moreover, I see very well, that, in the narrow, 
 ever repeated circle of earthly life, nothing 
 superlatively great is to be effected. There is 
 so much useless trouble, and, from renewed 
 elfort, so little of fresh acquisition. The do- 
 main which you unfold is indeed more exten- 
 sive, the field to which you invite is infinite, — 
 the host of all the worlds that lie in my eternal 
 path toward the Godhead. But, friend, who 
 shall give me wings for such a flight? It seems, 
 always, as if something hurled me back to my 
 earth. It seems to me, as if I had not yet used 
 up that, had not yet made myself sufficiently 
 light to ascend higher ; who shall give me wings ? 
 
 Theag. If you will not receive them from the 
 sacred hand which points thither, then receive 
 at least some feathers from friendly — from your 
 friend Newton's hands. 
 
 Char. From Newton's? 
 
 Theag. Even so. The system which he con- 
 structed out of stars and suns — let that be to 
 you the fabric of your immortality, of an ever- 
 during progress and upward flight. Are not all 
 the planets of our solar system bound to each 
 other and to their centre or focus, the sun, by 
 the power of attraction ? 
 
 Char. Unquestionably. 
 
 Theag. They constitute then a firm, an inde- 
 structible whole, in which, if anything should 
 be changed or disturbed, the whole, with its 
 great harmonies, must suffer and go to ruin. 
 
 Char. Precisely so. The planets all relate to 
 the sun, and the sun, with its forces, its bulk, its 
 light, its warmth and distance, relates to the 
 planets. 
 
 Theag. And yet the planets are only the 
 staging of the theatre, the dwelling-places of 
 the creatures, who, on them, revolve around the 
 infinitely more beautiful Sun of eternal goodness 
 and truth, in various degrees of removal, with 
 various eclipses, perihelia and aphelia. Is it 
 possible that the scenes themselves should be 
 so closely connected and not the contents of the 
 scenes, — the play itself? Is it to be supposed, 
 that the planets are so exactly arranged in rela- 
 tion to each other and to the Sun, and that the 
 destiny of those who live in them, and for 
 whose sake they have been prepared, is not as 
 closely connected, and more closely, inasmuch 
 as being is more than costume, matter more than 
 place, life and subject more than theatre and 
 stage? In nature everything is related, — morals 
 and physics — like body and spirit. Morality is 
 only a more beautiful physique of the spirit. 
 Our future destination is a new link in the chain 
 of our being, which connects itself with the pre- 
 sent link most minutely and by the most subtile 
 progression, as our earth is connected with the 
 sun, and the moon with our earth. 
 
 Char. I surmise what you would say, my 
 friend, but — 
 
256 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 Theag. In these matters we can do nothing 
 else but surmise and forebode. And beneath 
 the silent gaze of the stars, in the face of the 
 friendly moon, the surmises which we send into 
 that immeasurable distance are so great, so 
 elevating! Imagine, for a moment, that our 
 star-fabric is as closely connected in regard to 
 the moral condition of its inhabitants as it is in 
 its physical circumstances, — that it is a choir of 
 sisters praising the Creator in various tones and 
 proportions, but with the harmony of a single 
 power. Imagine that, from the farthest planet 
 to the sun, there are gradations of being as of 
 light, of distance, of masses, of forces, (and no- 
 thing is more probable) ; imagine the sun to be 
 the rendezvous of all the beings of the system 
 which he rules as he is the king of all light, of 
 all warmth, of all beauty and truth which he 
 communicates, in various gradations, to the 
 creatures. Behold here the great ladder by 
 which all ascend, and the long way which we 
 have yet to tread, before we arrive at the centre 
 and father-land of that which, in our star-sys- 
 tem, we call Truth, Light, Love ! 
 
 Char. So, then, the farther removed from our 
 sun, the darker, the coarser? On the other hand, 
 the nearer to that body, the brighter, the lighter, 
 the warmer, the swifter 1 ? The beings in Mer- 
 cury, which is always hidden in the rays of the 
 sun, must indeed differ in their nature from the 
 sluggish inhabitants of Saturn — those dark Pata- 
 gonian giants who scarcely, in thirty years, get 
 round the sun, and whose night, even with its 
 five moons, is poorly lighted. Our earth then 
 would occupy a middle station? 
 
 Theag. And perhaps that is the very reason 
 why we are such middling creatures, standing 
 half-way between the dark Satumians and the 
 bright sun -light, the fountain of all truth and 
 beauty. Our reason is, in fact, but in its first 
 dawn here; our freedom of will, too, and our 
 moral energy is but so so. It is well, therefore, 
 that we are not to tarry for ever on this earth- 
 planet, where, it is most likely, we should never 
 come to much. 
 
 Char. You think, then, that we are destined 
 to travel through all the planets? 
 
 Theag. That I know not. Each planet may 
 send its inhabitants, who are all, in various de- 
 grees, aspiring to one Sun, by the shortest route 
 to that goal, and by such stages and gradations 
 as the Creator shall judge to be necessary for 
 them. How if our moon, for example, — and, 
 if I remember right, Milton so describes her,* 
 and several Oriental sects have so philosophized 
 concerning her, — how if our moon should be the 
 paradise of recreation, where weary pilgrims, 
 escaped from the mists of this earth-valley, live 
 in a purer atmosphere, in gardens of peace and 
 social enjoyment, and prepare themselves for 
 the contemplation of the higher light toward 
 which the inhabitants of other planets are also 
 
 *" Those argent fields, more likely, habitants, 
 Translated saints or middle spirits hold 
 Betwixt the angelical and human kind." 
 
 travelling? It seems to me as if the moon pro- 
 mised us this with her calm consoling light, — 
 as if she shone for no other purpose but to show 
 us the glory of another world, and to inspire 
 soft, dewy dreams of amaranthine bowers of 
 peace, and an indissoluble, blessed friendship. 
 
 Char. You dream pleasantly, my friend, in 
 the face of the moon, and I love to dream with 
 you. It has often seemed to me too, when 
 filled with sadness and gentle melancholy at 
 the remembrance of departed, dearly loved 
 friends, as if the moon-beams were their lan- 
 guage, and I could almost hope- to see their 
 shining forms before me, or to feel, gliding 
 down upon a ray, the kiss of their pure lips on 'I 
 my soul. But enough of this! We are both 
 getting to be fantastic dreamers. Tell me fur- 
 ther. 
 
 Theag. I have no inclination. I lack the blue, 
 emerald gold-wings to carry you from star to 
 star, to show you how our sun, too, speeds 
 round a greater sun, how everything in creation 
 rejoices in a harmony in which suns and earths 
 are measured, numbered, weighed as notes, and 
 doubtless, also, and how much more, the des- 
 tiny, the life of their inhabitants. O! how great 
 is the dwelling in which the Creator has placed 
 me, and 0. how fair ! fair by night and by day, 
 here and yonder, the view of sun, moon and 
 star ! My course is the path of the All of worlds ; 
 that uttermost star lights me on my way, and 
 the harmony of all stars — the music of spiritual 
 ideas and relations — accompanies me in it. But 
 ah ! my friend, all this is only twilight, conceit, 
 surmise, compared with the infinitely purer and 
 higher light of the religion of the spirit and the 
 heart. On this earth everything is rounded with 
 necessity, and we yearn, with ' the earnest ex- 
 pectation of the creature,' to be free. We have 
 within us ideas of love, of friendship, of beauty, 
 of truth which, here on earth, we know only in 
 shadows and dream-images, so imperfect, so 
 often disturbed, deceived, and always incom- 
 plete ! We thirst for a river of purer joys ; and 
 it seems to me that the hope, the desire itself, 
 is a sure prophecy of fruition. Take the purest 
 relations of this world, the joys of a father, a 
 mother, with what cares are they blended ! with 
 what pains and inconveniences are they inter- 
 rupted ; and how do they only minister, after 
 all, to necessity, to a foreign, higher relation! 
 " In that world," says the scripture, " they nei- 
 ther marry nor are given in marriage, but are 
 as the angels of God." There love is freed from 
 the coarser propensities, there friendship is pure 
 and without the separations and burdens of this 
 earth ; there is more effective action with happy 
 and beautiful concord, and a true, eternal aim ; 
 in fine, throughout, more of truth, of goodness, 
 of beauty than this earth, even though we should 
 return to it a hundred times, could afford. 
 
 " Him, Parmeno !— him do I pronounce 
 The happiest, who when, from sorrow free, 
 His eyes have seen the things which we now see— 
 This sun, these stars, clouds, moon and fire— 
 
HERDER. 
 
 257 
 
 Again returneth thither whence he came. 
 
 For whether thou shalt live an hundred years 
 
 Or live hut f<;w, thou seest these, and aught 
 
 More beautiful than these hatli no man seen. 
 
 Hold then this term of life, of which I speak, 
 
 But as a market or a caravan, 
 
 Where there is crowding, stealing, sport, and pains 
 
 Enow. The earlier thou depart est hence, 
 
 The sooner shalt thou find the better hostelry, 
 
 If thou the pilgrim's penny — Truth 
 
 Provided hast, and hast no enemy. 
 
 Who long delays grows weary of the way 
 
 Him overtakes old age, and many wants 
 
 And plagues are his, and many foes. 
 
 He dies not happily who lives too long."* 
 
 How then would it be with him who should 
 tarry here for ever, and again and again return 
 to this ' market-place V 
 
 Whether the silence of the night and the 
 sublime harmony of the stars had reconciled 
 the systems of the two friends, or whether 
 Charicles had much to answer, they embraced 
 and parted in silence. Theages seemed lost in 
 the infinite blue of heaven and the shining star- 
 ladder which so many nations, savages and 
 sages, have denominated the way of souls. And 
 truly a more sublime race that, and a richer, 
 fairer Palingcnesia than, even in its happiest 
 forms, the needy narrow earth could afford. 
 
 " Pater anne aliquas ad crelum hinc ire putandum est 
 Sublimes animas? iterumque ad tarda reverti 
 Corpora? Quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido]" 
 
 DIALOGUE III. 
 
 The next morning, as if by appointment, 
 Theages and Charicles met in a walk of which 
 both were fond, and where they were accus- 
 tomed often to bathe their souls in the beams 
 of the rising sun. Both were wrapped in the 
 silence which twilight and waking bring with 
 them, a holy silence from which the dawning 
 day gently and gradually rouses us. They left 
 each other undisturbed. With the blush of the 
 morning before them and the joyous choir of all 
 the newly awakened beings around them, they 
 sat dumb for awhile, until, at last, when the 
 sun had risen, and the scene became more 
 animated, Charicles proposed that they should 
 strike into the neighbouring wood through 
 which, by a small circuit, they might take their 
 way home. During the walk he imperceptibly 
 directed the conversation to yesterday's topic. 
 
 Charicles. What did you dream of last night, 
 Theages? Your visions must have been agree- 
 able, for you seemed to be entirely lost last 
 night among the stars and worlds. 
 
 Theages. When the sun is in the sky, one 
 must not relate dreams, Charicles ; then they 
 lose the accompaniment of scene and decora- 
 tion. There is a time for everything. See you 
 not how the sun, with its glory, has veiled the 
 entire host of those worlds of yesterday, and 
 how sadly the moon looks in the heavens yon- 
 der — a pale cloudlet! Probably our conversa- 
 tion would be like it, if it should attempt to 
 resume the prophecies of yesterday. There- 
 
 * From a fragment of Menander. 
 2h 
 
 fore, Charicles, put out the night-lamp and bring 
 forward something of a more cheerful character, 
 wherewith we may strengthen ourselves for the 
 day. 
 
 Char. I think we may resume our yesterday's 
 conversation and still attain that end. For, my 
 friend, I feel now, very plainly, that the morn- 
 ing and not the evening is the time for discus- 
 sions which take us back into the childhood of 
 our race — the early morning of human ideas 
 and images. Our studied night-wisdom has 
 dazzled us. Where we should have conjectured, 
 we asserted ; where we should have thought 
 humanly, we thought divinely. 
 
 Theag. Do you mean me ? 
 
 Char. Perhaps a little. For you too, I am 
 afraid, have been too much exalted by theology 
 and philosophy, Newton and Christianity. You 
 would soar to the stars; but our way at present 
 is still on the earth; you are ashamed of your 
 step-brothers, the brute animals, and would 
 mount up into the society of beings whom you 
 have never seen, and perhaps never will see — 
 the inhabitants of Mercury, of the sun and of 
 the moon. 
 
 Theag. No, I am not ashamed of my half- 
 brothers, the brutes ; on the contrary, as far as 
 they are concerned, I am a great advocate of 
 metempsychosis. I believe, for a certainty, that 
 they will ascend to a higher grade of being, 
 and am unable to comprehend how any one can 
 object to this hypothesis which seems to have 
 the analogy of the whole creation in its favor. 
 
 Char. Now you are in the right way. 
 
 Theag. It is the way I have always been in, 
 as far as this point is concerned. Do not you 
 remember that you yourself strayed from it yes- 
 terday? Do you like JEsop's fables, Charicles? 
 
 Char. Very much, but what have they to do 
 with the matter? 
 
 Theag. I regard them as the compass which 
 shows us our relation to the brutes. Severally 
 and collectively the animals still play their 
 fables. ^Esop, the great philosopher and mo- 
 ralist, has only made their play intelligible to 
 us ; he has made their characters speak to our 
 comprehension ; for, to their own comprehen- 
 sion, they speak and act continually. And know 
 you what is man's part in this progressive fable 
 of the animals? He is the general proposition, 
 the moral of the fable, the tongue in the balance. 
 He uses the whole creation, and consequently 
 the characters of animals. They act before 
 him, they act for him, and he — thinks. His 
 l this fable teaches,' he has to repeat every mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Char. And has this anything to do with the 
 metempsychosis of animals? 
 
 Theag. Much, as it seems co me. To make 
 the brute-fable a man-fable, there wants nothing 
 but the conclusion, the general proposition, he 
 doctrine. That brute-character, so determined, 
 so sure, so rich in art and so instructive, — give 
 it but a little spark of that light we call reason 
 and you have the man. There he is, and he 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 HERDER 
 
 gathers now instruction, doctrine, art from his 
 former character as brute. He brings his former 
 mode of life more or less into consciousness, 
 and if he chooses, learns wisdom therefrom. 
 He must learn, as man, to order wisely and well 
 what, as brute, he can, and likes and wills. 
 This, me thinks, is the anthropogenesia and the 
 palingenesia of brutes into men. 
 
 Char. The picture is fine: but the thing? Is 
 it so certain, Theages, that every man has an 
 animal character ? 
 
 Theag. If you doubt it, look at the countenances 
 of men under the influence of passion, of strong 
 passion ; observe in secret their mode of life 
 and the sharply marked traits of their character ; 
 it shall go hard but you will discover in the for- 
 mation, the air, the gesture, and still more in the 
 progressive action of their life, the fox, the wolf, 
 the cat, the tiger, the dog, the weasel, the vul- 
 ture, the parrot, with the rest of the honorable 
 company that came out of Noah's ark. 
 
 Char. You jest. I have hitherto considered 
 the whole hypothesis as a joke, over the dessert, 
 when we cover our mouths to the nose exclusive, 
 with the napkin and ask : 1 Who was I ? What 
 beast have I been ?' 
 
 Theag. As things go, it is a joke and must re- 
 main so. Who knows himself to the bottom of 
 his character? And how should another know 
 us at a glance, as soon as we cover up the 
 mouth with our napkin? What would come of 
 it, if man should set the images of the animals 
 with which he is daily conversant in his life's- 
 almanac, and should converse with them in his 
 own animal character in return? It was de- 
 signed that we should be men, not animals. The 
 tongue in the balance is to guide us, and not the 
 dead weight of character and animal instincts 
 laid in the scales. The animal-human counte- 
 nance is human, enlightened. The features are 
 separated, especially the most characteristic fea- 
 tures. Forehead, nose, eyes and cheeks are in- 
 finitely dignified, ennobled, beautiful in man, as 
 compared with the brute. 
 
 Char. Then the animal formation is only the 
 basis of the human character, which is to be en- 
 lightened bythelightof reason, and systematized, 
 beautified, and elevated by the moral sentiments 
 of the human heart? The ground of our capa- 
 cities and traits, as beings of sense, — the re- 
 mains of purely sensual faculties, propensities, 
 and impulses — these are animal, and are after- 
 ward only polished and regulated by our reason? 
 
 Theag. Study men, and you will find abundant 
 proofs of it. For when we separate the haughty 
 moral element, we are all pretty much agreed 
 in our judgment of traits and characters. In na- 
 ture and in an JEsop's fable, we call a fox a 
 fox, and not a lion. In human life our judgments 
 are apt to be confused, as from hundred other 
 causes, so also from this, that it is actually the 
 aim of human culture and the destination of 
 man to extinguish the animal character and the 
 animal habits, to a certain extent, and to make 
 men of us, or, if you will, angels in humanity. 
 
 Every one would fain be thought to have reached 
 this point himself; but envy and malice love to 
 find in others the old. rude beast entire, with no 
 trace of man or angel. Hence it is, that this 
 hypothesis is so abused, and, at last, falls into 
 contempt, either because it is misunderstood, or 
 because it is feared. But, without it, I know 
 not what is to become of the numerous host of 
 creatures beneath us — our characteristic and 
 sensitive half-brothers in field and forest. 
 
 Char. What is to become of them? Nothing 
 different from what they are. They transmi- 
 grate into new forms of their own species ; they 
 become finer deer, finer birds. 
 
 Theag. Finer tigers, finer apes and wolves, 
 and at the last day, I suppose, these will be 
 raised too and accompany us? It is surely not 
 your serious conviction, my friend, that the in- 
 nermost creation — the ever-proceeding, new 
 creation — must needs conform to the classifica- 
 tions of the late Baron Linne? 
 
 Char. Not mine exactly ; but our friend Har- 
 modius would suffer martyrdom for this opinion. 
 
 Theag. Well, he would die a very innocent 
 death then. Our classifications are not so exhaus- 
 tive as is usually supposed. They exist only 
 for our senses, for our faculties ; they are not the 
 muster-rolls by which Nature arranges her crea- 
 tures,— categories which she has prescribed to 
 herself in order to keep each creature in its 
 proper place. See how the different classes of 
 creation run into each other ! How the organi- 
 zations ascend and struggle upward from all 
 points, on all sides ! And then again, what a 
 close resemblance between them ! Precisely as 
 if, on all our earth, the form-abounding Mother 
 had proposed to herself but one type, one proto- 
 plasma according to which and for which she 
 formed them all. Know you what that form is? 
 It is the identical one which man also wears. 
 
 Char. It is true ; even in the most imperfect 
 animal, some resemblance to this capital form 
 of organization is not to be mistaken. 
 
 Theag. It is even more evident internally than 
 it is externally. Even in insects, an analogon 
 of the human anatomy has been discovered, 
 though, compared with ours, enveloped and 
 seemingly disproportionate. The different mem- 
 bers, and consequently, also, the powers which 
 work in them, are yet undeveloped, not orga- 
 nized to our fulness of life. It seems to me that 
 throughout creation, this finger-mark of Nature 
 is the Ariadne-thread that conducts us through 
 the labyrinth of animal forms, ascending and 
 descending. 
 
 But, my friend, we have walked and talked 
 ourselves tired. Suppose we sit down beneath 
 these pleasant trees and look at the swan that 
 rows and glasses himself on yonder shining 
 surface. 
 
 They seated themselves and rested awhile. 
 The wash of the waves and the whispering 
 trees agreeably damped their thoughts until, at 
 last, Charicles resumed the thread of the con- 
 versation. 
 
HERDER. 
 
 259 
 
 Char. ***** Tell me, 
 beloved, something of your day-dreams on the 
 subjects of which we have been speaking, as 
 you told me yesterday of your night-dreams. 
 The sight of this fair river, the sublime silence 
 of this forest, methinks, are as favorable to such 
 imaginings as the starred roof of heaven. Here, 
 at least, we form, ourselves, a part of the chorus. 
 
 Theag. And did we not there, too ? Or are 
 we not here, also, in the midst of a river of 
 heaven, a chorus of earthly stars ! All the life 
 of Nature, all the tribes and species of animated 
 creation — what are they but sparks of the God- 
 head, a harvest of incarnate stars, among which, 
 the two human sexes stand forth like sun and 
 moon. We overshine, we dim the other figures, 
 hut, doubtless, we lead them onward in a chorus 
 invisible to ourselves. 0, friend, that an eye 
 were given us to trace the shining course of this 
 divine spark — to see how life flows to life, and 
 ever refining, impelled through all the veins of 
 creation, wells up into a purer, higher life ! What 
 a new city of God, what a creation within crea- 
 tion should we then behold ! From the first 
 atom, the most unfruitful dust scarce escaped 
 from nonentity, through all the varieties of orga- 
 nization up to that little universe of multiform 
 life — man, what a shining labyrinth! But the 
 human understanding cannot detect it; it sees 
 things only the outside, it sees only forms, not the 
 transmigrating, up-striving souls. The interior 
 mechanism of Nature, her living wheels and 
 breathing forces, these, in their too exceeding 
 glory, are to us a aSn<r, the Kingdom of Night, the 
 hull and vein of unborn lives self-engendered 
 in eternal progression. 
 
 * * * * " Alas our sight 's so ill 
 
 That things which swiftest move, seem to stand still." 
 
 I need not veil myself before thee, great Pan ! 
 eternal fountain of life ! Thou hast veiled me 
 within myself. Do I know the world of lives 
 which I call my body ? Doubtless, my too feeble 
 soul, could she see the countless host which 
 ministers to her in all degrees and varieties of 
 animation, would drop her imperial sceptre and 
 sink from her throne. In my veins, in the mi- 
 nutest vascules allotted to me, these souls are 
 pilgriming toward a higher life, as, already, 
 through so manifold paths and preparations, 
 they have travelled from all creation into me. I 
 prepare them for their farther progress, as every- 
 thing before has prepared them for me. No 
 destruction, no death is there in creation, but 
 dissolution, parturition, lustration. So the tree 
 with its boughs and limbs elaborates the humors 
 of the earth and the air, the fire of the soil and 
 the heavens into its own nature — itself and its 
 children into nobler sap. Its leaves imbibe and 
 make fruitful. Every leaf is a tree, formed 
 upon a green plain, in a slender fabric, because 
 creation had not room to produce them all as 
 perfect trees. From every bud, therefore, and 
 every twig she thrusts forth tree-spirits. The 
 all-bearing Mother clothes herself with green 
 life ; every flower which unfolds itself is a bride, 
 
 every blossoming tree is a great family of lives. 
 The kingdom of animals — our mute fellow-citi- 
 zens — destroys thousand forms of inferior kind 
 in order to animate its own higher forms; and 
 finally, man, the chief artificer and destroyer in 
 creation, — he gives life and takes it, he is, with- 
 out knowing it, the goal of his inferior brethren, 
 to which, perhaps, they are all imperceptibly 
 conducted. 
 
 Beautiful, floating swan ! In what a shining 
 element thy creator has placed thee to love and 
 admire thyself! With thy fair, bowed neck, in 
 the pure, fresh whiteness of innocence, thou 
 swimmest a queen, a soft splendor-form, on the 
 clear surface of the waves. Thy world is a 
 mirror, thy life a decoration and an art. What 
 will be thine employment, when, hereafter, in 
 a human form, thou projectest lines of beauty 
 and studiest graces in thyself or in nature ? 
 
 Char. Apropos ! my friend, have you ever 
 read Bishop Berkeley's* novel, " Gaudentio of 
 Lucca?" 
 
 Theag. I am not acquainted with it. 
 Char. He has a very pretty idea of metempsy- 
 chosis, which he ascribes to his Mezzoranians. 
 He represents them as believing that the souls 
 of animals covet the habitation of a human body, 
 and seek, by every means, to steal into it. In this 
 they succeed so soon as man lets fall the torch 
 of his reason, and with it, the power of self- 
 government. Then he becomes revengeful, 
 cruel, lecherous, avaricious, according as this or 
 that animal has pursued him, and usurped the 
 place of his rational soul. Methinks, the alle- 
 gory is fine. 
 
 Theag. As indeed, Berkeley was altogether a 
 fine and rare man. That way of presenting it, 
 clothes a truth so beautifully ! 
 
 Char. And what think you of the metempsy- 
 chosis of the Jews, which the Rabbins call Ib- 
 bur? They say that several souls, human souls, 
 may adjoin themselves to an individual, and, at 
 certain times, — when a friendly Spirit sees that 
 he requires it and God permits, — help, strength- 
 en, inspire him, dwelling with and in him. But 
 they quit him again, when the business in which 
 they were to aid him is accomplished, except 
 in cases where God favors an individual with 
 this sort of aid to the end of his days. 
 
 Theag. A very pretty fiction ! It is founded 
 in the perception that man acts very unequally 
 at different times, and in old age, especially, 
 often sinks far beneath himself. The foreign, 
 auxiliary spirit has forsaken him, and he sits 
 there naked with his own. Moreover, the fable 
 is a beautiful commendation of extraordinary 
 men ; for what a compliment, to suppose that 
 the soul of a sage is animated by the soul of an 
 eider sage, or even by several at once ! But 
 surely you do not regard this beautiful, poetical 
 invention, as physical historical truth ! 
 
 Char. Who knows ? The revolution of hu- 
 man souls has been universally believed by 
 
 * So, in the original. Tr. 
 
200 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 many nations. You remember the question put 
 to John : Art thou Elias ? art thou that prophet ? 
 You know too, who even confirmed tliis idea, 
 and said expressly, it is Elias. 
 
 Theag. And you have probably read the 
 younger Helmont de revolutione animarum? He 
 has adduced, in two hundred problems, all the 
 sayings and all the arguments which can pos- 
 sibly be urged in favor of the return of souls 
 into human bodies, according to Jewish ideas. 
 
 Char. I must say, I have always liked the 
 Jewish doctrine of the revolution of souls. Are 
 you well acquainted with it? 
 
 Theag. Pretty well. It asserts that the soul 
 returns into life twice or thrice — in extraordi- 
 nary cases oftener — and accomplishes what it 
 had left unfinished. It supposes that God has 
 divided the periods of the world's history ac- 
 cording to these revolutions of souls; that he 
 has determined the degrees of light and of twi- 
 light, of suffering and of joy ; in fine, the destiny 
 and the duration of the world in conformity 
 with them. The first resurrection is a revolu- 
 tion of these perfected souls, returned into life. 
 
 Char. What have you to object to that? 
 
 Theag. Nothing, except that I can say nothing 
 for it; because the whole is either a poetic fic- 
 tion or rests in the counsels of God. At any 
 rate, the passages which are quoted in favor of 
 it prove nothing. 
 
 Char. And is there no weight in the argu- 
 ments from reason which are adduced in its 
 support? For example, that God, who is no 
 respecter of persons, has shown so much re- 
 spect for persons during one existence of souls 
 in this world; that the Long-suffering and the 
 Just gives every one space and time for repent- 
 ance ; that the fruition of life has been, to many, 
 so embittered and so abridged, without any 
 fault of their own ? You slighted these reasons, 
 my friend, because, if I may say so, you were 
 prejudiced against the doctrine. But look at the 
 thing humanly; consider the fate of the misborn, 
 the deformed, the poor, the stupid, the crippled, 
 the fearfully degraded and ill-treated; of young 
 children who had scarce seen the light and 
 were forced to depart. Take all this to heart, 
 and you must either have weak conceptions of 
 the progress of such people in the world to 
 come, or they must first have wings made for 
 them here, that they may learn to soar even at 
 a distance after others, that they may be, in 
 some measure, indemnified for their unhappy 
 or unhappily abbreviated existence in this world. 
 Promotion to a higher, human existence, is 
 scarcely to be thought of in their case. 
 
 Theag. Why not? None can give as God 
 gives, and no one can indemnify and compen- 
 sate like God. To all beings he gave their ex- 
 istence, of his own free love. If some appear 
 to have been more neglected than others, has 
 he not places, contrivances, worlds enough, 
 where, by a single transplantation, he can in- 
 demnify and compensate a thousand-fold? A 
 child prematurely removed — a youth whose 
 
 nature was too delicate, as it were, for the rude 
 climate of this world — all nations have felt that 
 such are loved by the gods,* and that they have 
 transferred the treasured plant into a fairer gar- 
 den. Or do you suppose that God has no other 
 spot but this earth ? Must he root up others in 
 order to make room for these, and let the uptom 
 plant wait and wither in the store-chamber of 
 unborn souls until he can find a place for it? 
 How many are made happy in another world 
 by having been unhappy here ! My friend, do 
 you know Kleist's fable of the maimed crane? 
 
 Char. I am not acquainted with it. 
 
 Theag. It is one of the finest that was ever 
 made. 
 
 " When Autumn-winds had laid the forest bare 
 And scattered chrystal rime upon the plain, 
 There lighted on the strand a troop of cranes 
 Seeking a kinder earth beyond the sea. 
 Lamed by the fowler's shaft one luckless bird 
 Sat lone and sad and dumb, nor lent her voice 
 To swell the jubilee of the exulting host ; 
 Mocked and contemned— the outcast of her tribe. 
 Not by mine own fault am I maimed, thought she, 
 Musing within herself. I served no less than ye 
 Our Commonwealth. Unjustly am 1 spumed. 
 But what shall be my fate whom pain 
 Hath reft of strength to endure the distant flight T 
 Ah, wretched me ! the water soon must prove 
 My certain grave. Why left he life — 
 The cruel foe that robbed me of my powers T 
 Meanwhile the favoring wind blows fresh from shore; 
 The troop begin, in order due, their march, 
 And speed with sounding wings, and scream with joy. 
 Left far behind, that lone one lighted oft 
 Upon the lotus-leaves which strewed the sea, 
 And hopeless sighed with grief and bitter pain. 
 After long rest she saw the better land, 
 The kinder heaven which sudden healed her wound. 
 An unknown Providence had been her guide, 
 While many mockers found a watery grave. 
 * # * * 
 
 Ye whom the heavy hand of dire mischance 
 Bows to the earth, ye innocent who mourn, 
 Weary of life, despair not of the end, 
 But dare the necessary journey through. 
 There is a better land beyond the sea 
 And ye shall find your healing and reward." 
 
 Char. A beautiful fable for my side, too. Let 
 us move, my friend, and on the way, you must 
 allow me a few more questions. How comes 
 it that the wisest nations of antiquity and those 
 far removed from each other have believed so 
 long in the doctrine of transmigration, — and 
 that, too, of the worst kind, — in the return of 
 human beings, in the doctrine which teaches 
 that man becomes an animal once more ? 
 
 Theag. You have already answered the ques- 
 tion, Charicles; it was the childhood of the 
 world and the world's wisdom respecting human 
 destiny. With some nations, for example the 
 Egyptians and Hindoos, and perhaps too with 
 Pythagoras, it was designed as a moral fable, ■% 
 representing the doctrine of ecclesiastical pe- 
 nance in a sensuous and comprehensible form. 
 
 Char. A strange ecclesiastical penance, con- 
 veyed in a fiction ! 
 
 Theag. To a certain extent, the two (the doc- 
 trine and the fiction) necessitated each other. 
 
 * Sv 01 Scot <pi\Saiv airo$vrjo~K€L vsos. 
 
HERDER. 
 
 261 
 
 You know that the wisdom of the most ancient 
 nations was lodged with the priests. When 
 they could give the rude people no right notions 
 respecting the world to come or had none to 
 give, was it not well that they should seek to 
 deter them by a future of sensuous retribution ] 
 "You who are cruel, shall be changed into 
 tigers, as even now you manifest a tiger-soul. 
 You who are impure, shall be swine ; you who 
 are proud, shall be peacocks ; and so you shall 
 do penance for a long while, until you are found 
 worthy to resume your desecrated humanity." 
 These representations, addressed to the senses, 
 and clothed with the authority of religion, 
 would, undoubtedly, have a greater effect than 
 metaphysical subtilties. Each one saw the 
 nature of the threatened beast and its destiny 
 before him. The vicious felt the beastly cha- 
 racter in himself, and nothing was more natural 
 than that he should fear a corresponding fate, 
 that is, a real transition into that animal. This 
 doctrine, once established, might deter from 
 many vices and lead to many virtues. Who 
 would not rather be a white elephant than a 
 swine? especially one who viewed the nature 
 and the fate of animals with the eyes of the 
 Hindoos and the Egyptians, — with that quiet 
 familiarity in which the childhood of the world 
 lived with the brute creation. But you do not 
 suppose, Charicles, that this doctrine is neces- 
 sary or fitting for us? 
 
 Char. In many cases, a belief in it would be 
 no evil. If the cruel man, who persecutes a 
 poor stag to death, were seized, at that moment, 
 with a lymphatic presentiment : " So will it fare 
 with thee ; thy soul shall pass into a stag and 
 be tortured to death ;" perhaps he might ex- 
 tinguish the joyless brutality in himself. 
 
 Theag. I doubt it, my friend, if the immediate 
 contemplation of the pain is unable to extinguish 
 it. For us, it seems to me, this whole doctrine 
 of transmigration has lost its sting. If I am not 
 good as man, am I likely to become so as 
 tiger? since then, it is my nature to be that 
 whereinto I am changed. If I am condemned 
 to eat grass, like an irrational ox, how shall I 
 begin, in that state, to use my reason better than 
 I used it while a man. God himself has bound 
 my eyes and taken from me the light of the 
 understanding, and how then shall I learn to 
 see more clearly? If my degradation is to be 
 mere penance in the eyes of an arbitrary judge, 
 why, be it so! but reformation — a rational, 
 moral reformation in myself, it can never be; 
 because, in my degradation, that which alone 
 could reform me has been taken away. Is one 
 not rather likely to be embittered against God, 
 who deprives us of our eyes because we have 
 not used them aright, and, because we have 
 not disciplined our heart to right sentiments, 
 hardens it in the shape of something vicious 
 and wretched? 
 
 Char. There is much to be said in relation to 
 that point ; at any rate, the fiction had its use 
 as parable for the people. 
 
 Theag. Even as parable for the people, the 
 tale is not suited to our times. It seems to me 
 that man should learn to look upon himself as 
 occupying the highest grade, and use his present 
 existence peremptorily. He must know of no 
 retreat or by-way where he can bring up what 
 he has neglected here. At least, the Deity has 
 referred him to none. Aut Ccesar aut nihil : aut 
 nunc aut nunquam. Even among the ancients, 
 all active, noble nations that were not beguiled 
 by fable-wisdom and the foolish penances of 
 their priests, have proposed to themselves a no- 
 bler condition after death, as the goal of their 
 endeavor. The being 'gathered to one's fa- 
 thers' of the oriental nations, the Elysium of 
 the Greeks, the Walhalla of the Norlanders, are 
 certainly more beautiful views of death than 
 that of the ox or the cow waiting for the dying 
 man who holds the cow's tail in his hand ; or 
 the body of a strange mother into which he 
 must slip, in order to whimper again as child. 
 
 Char. True, they are low ideas that gather 
 about this hypothesis. But how then could the 
 wise Pythagoras deem it worthy of being trans- 
 planted to Europe ? 
 
 Theag. One brings all sorts of things from 
 abroad, not only gold and jewels, but also mon- 
 keys and curiosities. Besides, it is not probable 
 that Pythagoras made the same use of this doc- 
 trine that the later false Pythagoreans did. He 
 too spoke of a Tartarus and an Elysium, like 
 the other philosophers and poets of Greece. 
 And, altogether, we know too little of that truly 
 great man, to be able to judge of his parables 
 and symbols ; we know him only through the 
 medium of fable. 
 
 And ! my friend, Pythagoras or no Pytha- 
 goras, what need of all this controversy and 
 argument, with which we, too, have wasted our 
 time ? Ask your heart and the truth which 
 dwells there. When you stand before the statue 
 of a high-hearted Apollo, do you not feel what 
 you lack of being that form ? Can you ever 
 attain to it here below, and can your heart ever 
 rejoice in it, though you should return ten times? 
 And yet, that was only the idea of an artist, the 
 happy dream of a mortal, — a dream which our 
 narrow breast also inclosed. How ! has the 
 almighty Father no nobler forms for us than 
 those in which our heart now heaves and groans? 
 Our language, — all communication of thought, — 
 what bungling work it is ! Hovering on the tip 
 of our tongues, between lip and palate, in a few 
 syllabled tones, our heart, our innermost soul 
 would communicate itself to another, so that he 
 shall comprehend us, shall feel the ground of 
 our innermost being. Vain endeavor ! Wretched 
 pantomime with a few gestures and vibrations 
 of air! The soul lies captive in its dungeon, 
 bound as with a sevenfold chain, and only 
 through a strong grating, and only through a 
 pair of light and air-holes can it breathe and 
 see. And always it sees the world on one side 
 only, while there are a million other sides before 
 us and in us, had we but more and other senses, 
 
262 
 
 HERDER. 
 
 and could we but exchange this narrow hut of 
 our body for a freer prospect. And shall we 
 be forever contented with this nook, this dun- 
 geon ? What wretch, doomed to life-long misery 
 in this life, confines his wishes to the throwing 
 off of this world s burden, without the sense or 
 the hope of requital for his present disappoint- 
 ment and degradation? When, even at the 
 sweetest fountains of friendship and love, we 
 so often pine, thirsty and sick, seeking union 
 and finding it not, begging alms from every 
 earthly object and always poor, always unsatis- 
 fied; and when we find, at last, that all the 
 aims and plans of earth are vanity and vanity, 
 and feel that daily, — what free and noble soul 
 does not lift itself up and despise everlasting 
 tabernacles and wanderings in the circle of 
 earthly deserts. 
 
 " The soul longs from her prison-house to come, 
 
 And we would seal and sew up, if we could, the womb ! 
 
 We seek to close and plaister up, by art, 
 
 The cracks and breaches of the extended shell, 
 
 And in that narrow cell 
 
 Would rudely force to dwell 
 
 The noble, vigorous bird already wing'd to part." 
 
 During these conversations, they had imper- 
 ceptibly reached the end of the forest. At the 
 last tree Charicles stood still. Before we leave 
 this wood, Theages, said he, I must tell you the 
 
 result of our conversations. In all the forms 
 and conditions of humanity, the cultivation of 
 our wit, uur sagacity, or other branches of the 
 human intellect, is of less consequence than the 
 education of the heart; and that heart is in all 
 men a human heart. And it may be educated, 
 to a certain degree, in all the forms and situa- 
 tions of humanity. As to the extent to which 
 it has been developed in this situation, and the 
 way in which Providence may succor the un- 
 fortunate and the suffering, that I leave to 
 Heaven, and venture not to make its secret 
 ways the race-course or the beaten highway of 
 an hypothesis by which man is to be scared, or 
 in which the sluggish and the fro ward shall find 
 their account. Sacred to me is the saying of the 
 gospel : " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs 
 is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they 
 that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed 
 are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' : 
 Purification of the heart, the ennobling of the 
 soul, with all its propensities and cravings, — 
 this, it seems, to me, is the true palingenesia of 
 this life, after which, I doubt not, a happy, more 
 exalted, but yet unknown metempsychosis awaits 
 us. Herewith I am content, and ^ thank you 
 that you have unfolded for me my thoughts. 
 They embraced each other, and parted. 
 
JOHANN WOLFGA 
 
 Born 1749. 
 
 The biography of this extraordinary person- 
 age is yet to be written. His own memoirs, 
 'Am* meinem Leben\ &c., — comprise but the 
 first half of that full, rich life, of which the last 
 half was the fullest, the richest. The materi- 
 als for a farther and complete delineation are 
 not wanting,* but the historian who shall col- 
 lect, and arrange, and reproduce these in a 
 'Life of Goethe' worthy that name, has not 
 yet been found. Shall we look to the author 
 of the ' Life of Schiller' for this service 1 Or 
 will Germany herself, out of the countless host 
 of her literary artificers, furnish the historian 
 of her own Genius ] 
 
 Meanwhile, it is gratifying to learn that the 
 autobiography is about to be given to the Ame- 
 rican Public, in a translation by one of our own 
 countrymen,! which, if it fairly represents the 
 original, can hardly fail to be a popular work. 
 From this they will learn, if they have not 
 already learned, that Johann Wolfgang v. 
 Goethe was born at Frankfort on the Mayn, on 
 the 28th of August, 1749, at midday, " as the 
 clock struck twelve;" that his father was a 
 wealthy and cultivated Reichsbiirger, who 
 lived much in his Italian reminiscences ; that 
 his maternal grandfather, Johann Wolfgang v. 
 Textor, was a man of mark, the chief magis- 
 trate of the Imperial city ; that the experiences 
 and observations of his boyhood, — house-build- 
 ing, coronation, the seven years' war, the as- 
 pects of his native city, arts and trades, boyish 
 love and shame and disappointment — wrote 
 imperishable records, materials for future cre- 
 ations, on the poet's heart ; that, after a various 
 and careful education at home, he was in due 
 season matriculated at Leipzig, fell sick and 
 returned to Frankfort, a confirmed invalid, 
 much to his father's chagrin ; that he recovered 
 his health and studied law at Strassburg where 
 he received the Doctor's degree, and where he 
 
 * See the volumes of Goethe's correspondence with dis- 
 tinguished cotemporaries, published since his death, the 
 ' Tag und Jahres Hefte," and the works of Eckermann, 
 Falk, v. Miiller, Doring and others. 
 
 t Parke Godwin, Esq. Since the above was written the 
 work referred to has appeared. See No. LXXV. of Wi- 
 ley and Putnam's Library of Choice Reading. 
 
 NG VON GOETHE. 
 
 Died 1832. 
 
 diverged into an episode of love and romance 
 of which the charming Friederike of Sesenheim 
 was the heroine ; that he began to practise his 
 profession at Frankfort, but soon slid into lite- 
 rature, made an era therein, publishing Wer- 
 ther's Leiden and Goetz von Berlichingen, 
 and so completed the first phase of his poetic 
 life. Furthermore, if all the parts of these 
 memoirs are given, we shall see the poet again 
 in the character of declared and accepted lover, 
 — the betrothed of the beautiful Lili ; — since 
 "it was the strange ordination of the High, 
 above us ruling, that, in the progress of my 
 wondrous life-course, I should also experience 
 the feelings of a betrothed." We shall see 
 him, next, this cold, impassive, self-sufficing 
 Goethe, — as he has been depicted, — the man 
 who lived only for self and Art, — we shall see 
 him, on the summit of the Alps, turning his 
 back upon Italy, the land of his youthful dreams, 
 the pilgrim -goal of the artist, and hastening 
 home, unable to resist any longer the passion 
 which drew him back to his beloved :* and that, 
 
 * Hear his own account of the matter. " It seems to 
 me as if man, in such cases, had no power of decision in 
 himself, but were rather governed and determined by 
 earlier impressions. Lorn hardy and Italy lay as some- 
 thing wholly foreign before me, Germany as something 
 known and love-worthy, full of friendly, domestic pros- 
 pects. And — let me confess it— that which had so long 
 compassed me about, which had borne up my existence, 
 continued, at this moment also, to be the most indispen- 
 sable element, out of whose limits I did not trust myself 
 to pass. A small golden heart which I had received from 
 her in the fairest hours, hung still, by the same riband 
 by which she had fastened it, love-warmed upon my neck. 
 I seized and kissed it. And here let me insert the poem 
 occasioned by this circumstance. 
 
 " 4 Memorial thou of a joy whose sound has died away ! 
 
 Which I yet wear about my neck, 
 
 Holdest thou, longer than the soul-band, us two ? 
 
 Prolongest thou the brief days of love ? 
 
 Do 1 flee, Lili, before thee? Must I, still led by thy band, 
 
 Through distant vales and forests wander ! 
 
 Ah Lili's heart could not so quickly 
 
 From my heart fall. 
 
 Like a bird who breaks his string 
 
 And returns to the forest ; 
 
 He drags — captivity's dishonor, — 
 
 A bit of the string still after him. 
 
 It is the old, free-born bird no longer, 
 
 He has already been some one's property.' 
 
 " I rose quickly that I might get away from the steep 
 spot, and that the friend storming toward me, with the 
 knapsack-bearing guide, might not whirl me away with 
 
 (263) 
 
2G4 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 after the resolution to separate himself from 
 her, wrung from him hy his sister, was already 
 formed or forming within him. We shall see 
 this connection sundered, for reasons which are 
 not very obvious ; but not till after long and 
 dire struggles through " a cursed state which, 
 in some respects, might be likened to Hades," 
 and a " torture which, even in the remembrance, 
 is well nigh insupportable." 
 
 Finally, we shall see him called to the court 
 of Weimar by the hereditary prince, Karl Au- 
 gust, afterward Grand Duke, there to become 
 the client of a life-long patronage, as honorable 
 to one party as it was beneficial to both. 
 
 Then, we have what may be regarded as the 
 continuation of these memoirs, in the " ltalien- 
 ische Reise" the " Zweiler romischer Aufent- 
 halt" and the " Campagne in Frankreich." 
 And, be it remarked by the way, these are not 
 the least impressive of Goethe's works. He 
 maintains, as a writer of travels, the same rank 
 which distinguishes him in every species of 
 composition. 
 
 In 1779, Goethe was made Privy Counsellor ; 
 he received the title of nobility in 1782, tra- 
 velled in Italy and Sicily, and sojourned in 
 Rome during the two years from 1786 to 1788 ; 
 made another visit in 1790 ; and, in 1792 ac- 
 companied the Grand Duke in the French cam- 
 paign. In 1806, he married a Miss Vulpius, the 
 mother of his only surviving child. In 1815, 
 he was made Prime Minister; and although, 
 during the last four years of his life, he with- 
 drew himself from State affairs, he continued 
 to labor in his vocation as a poet with unabated 
 diligence, and apparently with unabated faculty, 
 until the hour of his death, which overtook him, 
 as it were with the pen in his hand, on the 22d 
 March, 1832, in the eighty-third year of his 
 age. 
 
 There is great satisfaction in contemplating 
 so complete a life, a life in which the idea and 
 the task have been so visibly and utterly ful- 
 filled and accomplished. 
 
 At the age of eighty, Goethe often spoke of 
 his death, and of how it might still be deferred. 
 
 him into the steep abyss. I likewise greeted the pious 
 Pater, and turned myself, without losing a word, toward 
 the path by which we had come. A little lingering the 
 friend followed, and, notwithstanding his love and attach- 
 ment to me, he remained for awhile some distance he- 
 hind, until, at last, the glorious waterfall brought us to- 
 gether again, kept us together, and thai, which had once 
 for all been determined, was also finally accepted as 
 wholesome and good."— Aus meincm Leben. 
 
 " Yes !" said he, " we can make head against 
 him for some time yet. As long as one creates 
 there can be no room for dying. But yet the 
 night, the great night will come in which no 
 man can work." It was about this time that 
 he lost his only son. " Here then," he writes 
 to Zelter, "can the mighty conception of duty 
 alone hold us erect. I have no other care but 
 to keep myself in equipoise ; the body must, the 
 spirit will ; and he who sees a necessary path 
 prescribed to his will, has no need to ponder 
 much." Was Goethe wanting in sensibility, 
 because he did not give himself up to the 
 lamentation of that loss? "Thus did he shut 
 up the deepest grief within his breast, and 
 hastily seized upon a long postponed labor, in 
 order entirely to lose himself in it. In a fortnight 
 he had nearly completed the fourth volume of 
 his Life, when Nature avenged herself for the 
 violence he had done her. The bursting of a 
 blood-vessel brought him to the brink of the 
 grave."* 
 
 He entirely recovered himself from this at- 
 tack, and resumed his task. In the year pre- 
 ceding that of his death, he had still to finish 
 the second part of Faust. God willing, he would 
 not die till that was accomplished. " He laid it 
 down as a law to himself, to complete it wor- 
 thily ; and on the day before his last birth-day 
 he was enabled to announce that the highest 
 task of his life was completed. He sealed it 
 under a ten-fold seal, escaped from the congra- 
 tulations of his friends, and hastened to revisit, 
 after many years, the scenes of his earliest 
 cares and endeavors, as well as of the richest 
 and happiest hours of his life. He went to 
 Ilmenau. The deep calm of the woods, the 
 fresh breath of the hills, breathed new life into 
 him. With refreshed and invigorated mind he 
 returned home and felt himself inspired to un- 
 dertake new observations of Nature. The 
 Theory of Colors was revised, completed and 
 confirmed, the nature of the rainbow more ac- 
 curately examined, and unwearied thought be- 
 stowed on the spiral tendency of vegetation."* 
 And when, at last, the brief and painless 
 sickness which terminated his earthly career 
 I had laid him prostrate. " faithful to his princi- 
 ples he continued to occupy himself that he 
 might not give the thinking faculty time to 
 grow dull and inactive. Even when he had 
 
 * Chancellor von Miiller, in Mrs. Austin's Characteris- 
 tics. 
 
GOETHE. 205 
 
 lost the power of speaking, his hand preserved 
 the character of his life. His voice was mute, 
 but he traced characters in the air. And when 
 his hand sank slowly on his knee, the radiant 
 star had sunk beneath our horizon."* 
 
 The statesman-poet was inhumed with the 
 pomp befitting his illustrious name. Agreeably 
 to the wishes of the Grand Duke, who had pre- 
 ceded him by a few years, his remains were 
 deposited by the side of that Prince and " the 
 glorious Schiller." The royal vault of Weimar 
 holds henceforth the honored frame in which 
 that life was performed; to the living Weimar 
 and to us and to all generations belongs " the 
 absolute total of that life's vast sum." 
 
 The first thing that strikes us in the life of 
 Goethe is the wonderful fortune of the man. 
 No Genius was ever more favored from with- 
 out. Sophocles alone, among the poets of all 
 generations, may vie with him in this. We 
 look in vain for another instance of so rich a 
 nature coupled with so kind a destiny. It 
 would seem as if all things had conspired for 
 once to make a perfect lot ; genius, organiza- 
 tion, beauty of person, high culture, riches, 
 rank, renown, length of days. Does the work 
 performed correspond to the advantages enjoy- 
 ed I Does the result justify the partiality of 
 Fortune 1 — is a question which other ages must 
 answer. 
 
 Goethe's genius is distinguished by its versa- 
 tility. No other writer has shone with such 
 various excellence. The two poles of the hu- 
 man intellect, poetry and science, define the 
 range of his mind. His writings embrace both 
 these extremes, and touch almost every topic 
 of interest between the two. To speak only 
 of more prominent and unquestioned excel- 
 lences ; — as a lyric poet, he has no equal. And 
 this will be found, perhaps, in the final judg- 
 ment, to constitute his chief merit. The union 
 of perfect finish with perfect freedom ; the 
 uttermost abandonment of fancy, joined to the 
 uttermost self-possession of artistic judgment; 
 the wild freshness of poetic feeling — the very 
 breath and aroma of Nature — accompanied by 
 that profound philosophy which, rather felt than 
 seen, pervades all his writings ; — all this gives 
 to Goethe s lyrics the highest relish or which 
 that form of poetry is susceptible. The singular 
 facility with which these pieces were produced, 
 resembling improvisation or inspiration rather 
 
 than composition, has contributed, in some cases, 
 no doubt, to enhance their peculiar charm. " I 
 had come," says he, " to regard the poetic talent 
 dwelling in me, entirely as nature; the rather 
 that I was directed to look upon external Na- 
 ture as its proper subject. The exercise of this 
 poetic gift might be stimulated and determined 
 by occasion ; but it flowed forth most joyfully, 
 most richly, when it came involuntarily or even 
 against my will. * * * * * 
 I was so accustomed to say over a song to my- 
 self without being able to collect it again, that 
 I sometimes rushed to the desk, and, without 
 taking time to adjust a sheet that was lying 
 crosswise, wrote the poem diagonally from be- 
 ginning to end, without stirring from the spot. 
 For the same reason, I preferred to use a pencil, 
 which gives the characters more willingly. For 
 it had sometimes happened that the scratching 
 and sputtering of the pen would wake me from 
 my somnambulistic poetizing, distract my at- 
 tention, and stifle some small product in the 
 birth. For such poetry I had a special rever- 
 ence. My relation to it was something like 
 that of a hen to the chickens, which, being fully 
 hatched, she sees cheeping about her. My for- 
 mer desire to communicate these things only 
 by reading them aloud, renewed itself again. 
 To barter them for money seemed to me detest- 
 able."* 
 
 Goethe claims our admiration next, as a 
 painter of character. Here too, the very highest 
 rank, second to Shakspeare only, has been as- 
 signed to him. His characters have the Shak- 
 spearean merit of being, at the same time, 
 universal and individual, impersonations of a 
 general type, and veritable men and women, 
 such as one might look to meet with, any day 
 of the year, in their respective circles. And 
 where he transcends the sphere of ordinary 
 humanity, as in the case of Mignon, he gives 
 us nothing inconceivable or inconsequent, hut 
 a nature that carries its constitutive law within 
 itself, which all its movements obey, by which 
 they are to be interpreted, and by which they 
 must be judged. His success is greatest in 
 female character, of which almost every variety 
 is represented in his works. Running through 
 the series of those works, we perceive a moral 
 gradation oi iemdic ciicirdciyr, iroin vjretcnen 
 the uncultivated, the unconscious, the betrayed 
 but still pure, to Makaria, in whom female 
 
 * Notes to Mrs. Austin's Characteristics. 
 
 * Aus meinem l>ben. IVth part. 
 
 2 I 23 
 
266 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 virtue reaches its apotheosis, and whose only 
 connection with this earth is to counsel and to 
 bless. As we follow this ascending scale, we 
 divine a moral purpose in the author, who, with 
 each new character, has spread before us a dis- 
 tinct level of human culture, and by successive 
 attractions has indicated the upward path of 
 aspiration and self-conquest, by which Humanity 
 must reach its destination. 
 
 Another characteristic excellence of Goethe 
 is herewith suggested, viz : his veneration for 
 women. This sentiment, with him, was not 
 chivalry which, in assuming a protective atti- 
 tude, assumes and emphasizes a weakness in 
 the female nature, and thus degrades where it 
 professes to honor; and whose very homage, 
 fantastical and patronizing as it is, contains a 
 latent irony the more bitter, perhaps, because 
 unintentional. Goethe's respect for women was 
 a philosophical appreciation of the real dignity 
 and unacknowledged riches of the female cha- 
 racter, coupled with the reverent homage of 
 the heart for what the understanding so clearly 
 discerned ; a homage which two such living 
 examples as the Grand Duchess and the Duchess 
 Mother of Weimar could not fail to keep in 
 active exercise. In the extent to which he 
 carried this appreciation of female excellence 
 lie stands alone ; far in the van of opinion as 
 yet pronounced. No writer has estimated so 
 highly, none so truly, the influence of woman 
 on the social and moral destiny of man. The 
 saving and benign power of the feminine ele- 
 ment in human things is made prominent in all 
 his creations. In some of them it is a cardinal 
 point. It is the pivot in ' Wilhelm Meister' 
 and the climax of 'Faust,' at the close of which 
 it is announced with prophetic emphasis, as a 
 fit conclusion "to the swelling theme :" — " Das 
 ewig weibliche zieht uns hindu." 
 
 A contemporary remarks in accordance with 
 this view, that Goethe "always represents the 
 highest principle in a feminine form." " As in 
 Faust the purity of Gretchen resisting the de- 
 mon always, even after all her faults, is an- 
 nounced to have saved her soul to heaven ; and, 
 in the second part, appears not only redeemed 
 herself, but, by her innocence and forgiving 
 tenderness, hallowed to redeem the being who 
 had injured her ; so, in the Meister, these wo- 
 men hover round the narrative, each embodying 
 the spirit of the scene. The frail Philina, grace- 
 ful though contemptible, represents the degra- 
 
 dation incident to leading an exclusively poetic 
 life. Mignon, gift divine as ever the Muse be- 
 stowed on the passionate heart of man, with her 
 soft, mysterious inspiration, represents the high 
 desire that leads to this mistake, as Aurelia the 
 desire for excitement, Teresa practical wisdom, 
 gentle tranquillity, which seem most desirable 
 after the Aurelia glare. Of the "Beautiful 
 Soul" and Natalia we have already spoken. 
 The former embodies what was suggested to 
 Goethe by the most spiritual person he knew 
 in youth, Fraulein von Klettenberg, over whom, 
 as he said, in her invalid loneliness, the Holy 
 Ghost brooded like a dove. Entering on the 
 Wanderjahre, Wilhelm becomes acquainted 
 with another woman who seems the comple- 
 ment of all the former, and represents the idea 
 which is to mould and to guide him in the reali- 
 zation of all the past experience. This person, 
 long before we see her, is announced in various 
 ways as a ruling power. She is the last hope 
 in cases of difficulty, and, though an invalid, 
 and living in absolute retirement, is consulted 
 by her connections and acquaintance as an un- 
 erring judge in all their affairs. All things 
 tend toward her as a centre; she knows all, 
 governs all, but never goes forth from herself. 
 Wilhelm at last visits her. He finds her infirm 
 in body, but equal to all she has to do. Charity 
 and counsel to men who need her, are her 
 business ; astronomy her pleasure." * * 
 * * * * " The apparition of the 
 celestial Makaria seems to announce the ulti- 
 mate destiny of the soul of man."* 
 
 As a writer of German prose, or, to use a 
 coinage derived from that language, — as a 
 stylist, Goethe's pre-eminence is undisputed 
 and, even by his most determined opponents 
 and detractors, emphatically affirmed. Menzel, 
 whose work on German literature suggests the 
 idea of having been written for the express 
 purpose of abusing him and one or two others 
 of like political sentiments, says : " He could 
 make everything, even the smallest and mean- 
 est, delightful by the magic of his representa- 
 tion." " Goethe possesses in the highest degree 
 the talent of making his reader an accomplice 
 — of forcing from him a feeling of approbation. 
 He carried in his hand the talisman which con- 
 trols all hearts. No poet has so completely 
 mastered the charm which language possesses. 
 We cannot guard ourselves against the secret 
 
 * Dial. Vol. II. No. 1. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 267 
 
 enchantment with which he captivates our in- 
 jnost soul and seduces us to the very opposite 
 of all that we had previously felt and believed."* 
 And yet this author maintains that the writer 
 who exercised this magic power was destitute 
 of genius. The more pity for genius, if true ! 
 
 Goethe's style is a puzzle. It excites our 
 wonder how language can be so colorless, so 
 free from mannerism, and, at the same time, so 
 impressive, so suggestive, so individual. "It 
 seems quite a simple style," says Carlyle, "re- 
 markable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, 
 in short its commonness ; and yet it is the most 
 uncommon of all styles. We feel as if every 
 one might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable." 
 
 His power, as a moral teacher, is not so ge- 
 nerally understood and acknowledged as the 
 other qualities which have been mentioned. 
 Yet there are some by whom it is more strongly 
 asserted and more deeply felt than all the other 
 excellences which have been claimed for him. 
 There are some who profess to have derived 
 from him their strongest moral impressions, and 
 who maintain that, as a teacher of moral truth, 
 he has been more to them than any other, than 
 all other writers. Nor will this seem strange, 
 if we consider what constitutes an effective 
 moralist, or what it is that gives force to the 
 statement of moral truth. It is not enthusiasm, 
 or fine sentiment, or declamation, but the clear 
 intuition, the veritable experience, the unbiassed 
 sincerity of a free and commanding mind. A 
 character distinguished for moral worth is not 
 necessary for this purpose, nor great activity 
 of religious sentiment. The saint may instruct 
 us better than all books by his life, but not 
 necessarily — because he is a saint — by his 
 writings. There may be great moral worth 
 and a great deal of religious sentiment without 
 that intellectual sincerity which brings us into 
 immediate contact with the truth, and the want 
 of which will vitiate the strongest statement. 
 This sincerity of the intellect is something 
 very different from conscientiousness. It is seem- 
 ingly independent of any moral quality except 
 the single one of courage. It is the rarest at- 
 tribute in literature. It does not readily com- 
 bine with natures in which sentiment predomi- 
 nates. It indicates rather a predominance of 
 the intellectual. Only once in the tide of time, 
 was the highest degree of it found united with 
 
 * Menzel's German Literature translated by C. C. 
 Pel ton. 
 
 the highest degree of moral purity and reli- 
 gious faith. It is the quality most essential in 
 the communication of moral, as of all other 
 truth. 
 
 We are apt to deceive ourselves as to the 
 moral value of certain impressions derived from 
 books. We mistake the transient excitation of 
 the nobler sentiments produced by eloquent 
 declamation or by the exhibition of romantic 
 excellence in works of fiction, — by such cha- 
 racters, for instance, as the Marquis of Posa in 
 Don Carlos, — for a genuine renewal of the 
 moral man. We think we are burnt clean by 
 the temporary glow into which we are thrown. 
 The nature of such excitement differs but little 
 from that produced by alcoholic stimulants, 
 amid animated discussion and congenial friends. 
 It is stimulus without nourishment, ebullition 
 without growth. It has something maudlin. It 
 acts chiefly on the nerves. Its final effect is 
 rather to enervate than to educate the soul. 
 He only instructs who gives me light, who 
 effects a permanent lodgment, in the mind, of 
 some essential truth. The effective moralist is 
 not the enthusiast, but the impartial and clear- 
 seeing witness ; not he who declaims most elo- 
 quently about the truth, but he who makes me 
 see it ; who gives me a clear intuition of a 
 moral fact. 
 
 Goethe was peculiarly fitted, by habit and 
 endowment, to be a witness of the truth, so far 
 as truth is a matter of intellectual discernment. 
 Not over-scrupulous in his way of life, he prac- 
 tised the most scrupulous fidelity to himself, as 
 a seeker of the truth. He gave no license to 
 his mind. Where he could not or would not 
 perform, he would know. He wanted not 
 courage nor candor to see truly in morals and 
 religion as in everything else. He loved sen- 
 sual indulgence right well, but he loved truth 
 more. A man of sincerest intellect, who suf- 
 fered neither fear nor hope, nor prepossession 
 of any kind, to come between him and the 
 light ; with whom to see was the first necessity 
 of his nature ; to state distinctly to himself and 
 others what he saw, the next. 
 
 Unquestionably, he was no saint. His wildest 
 admirers have sought no place for him in the 
 Christian Calendar, though greater sinners than 
 he may be found in it and among its most 
 honored names. But neither was he a bad 
 man in any allowable sense of the word, as 
 every one must know who considers the moral 
 conditions on which alone true poetry is possi- 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 2G8 
 
 ble. Whe-ein he transgressed the social law 
 and the Christian standard, let judgment be 
 pronounced without fear or favor. But for 
 every count on which verdict is given, let irre- 
 fragable testimony be required. Let not the 
 hero of his time, a hero of the true sort, — one 
 who labored through life, with whatever judg- 
 ment or success, to build up and not to destroy, 
 to lead Humanity onward to the prize of beauty 
 through the knowledge of the truth, — let not 
 such a one be surrendered to the scourge of the 
 tongue on grounds of hearsay and fallible in- 
 ference. Let not a great and illustrious name 
 be ruthlessly tossed to the dogs and to all the 
 birds. If the good and evil of his life, the 
 positive and the negative, were fairly weighed 
 in the balance together, the result would pro- 
 bably indicate a higher grade of moral excel- 
 lence than most of his accusers have attained 
 to. It is not, however, on the moral character 
 of the man that any safe judgment as to the 
 moral character of his writings can be based. 
 Grant him immoral; — still his testimony to 
 moral truth, if sincere, (and no one versed in 
 his writings can doubt his sincerity), may be all 
 the more impressive on that account. It is the 
 testimony of one who was biassed by no pre- 
 possessions in favor of that to which he testifies, 
 who took nothing for granted, believed nothing 
 because it was the general conviction, said no- 
 thing because it was expected, who would 
 neither deceive himself nor be deceived by 
 others. It is the testimony of one who had 
 seen with his own eyes, and those eyes the 
 keenest, the most unprejudiced, that ever sought 
 to penetrate the relations of things ; — who had 
 experienced with his own heart, and that heart 
 one to which all experiences were familiar, 
 which gave itself up without reserve to all the 
 discipline of life, which had proved all things 
 and knew and confessed what was good. 
 
 In reading Goethe we do not feel, as when 
 reading Dante or Milton, that we are conversing 
 with a pure and lofty spirit; but we do feel 
 that we are conversing with a competent wit- 
 ness, or better still, with an incorruptible judge. 
 The verdict which he will give is a part of his 
 life. It is a fact in Nature. The fault which 
 most readers find with his writings is want of 
 heat. He betrays no passionate interest in any 
 subject, in any character, and seeks to excite 
 none in his readers. To stir the blood is not 
 his aim. Intense emotion he purposely avoids 
 
 as incompatible with the higher purposes of 
 art. There is no gush, no rush, no pouring 
 forth of a full soul, excepting in his lyric 
 poems. But what he wants in enthusiasm 
 he makes up in sincerity and precision. If 
 there is no declamation, there is also no 
 cant, no straining, nothing said for effect. 
 Therefore his words have weight. They 
 drop like the oracles of destiny from his 
 pen. When he states with characteristic 
 calmness that " only with renunciation, can 
 life, properly speaking, be said to begin;" 
 that saying, though it does but repeat in 
 substance what we had always been told, 
 has all the freshness of an original discovery. 
 This sincere word, wrung from the experience 
 of such a mind, carries with it a deeper convic- 
 tion than all the arguments and all the decla- 
 mation that have ever been employed to enforce 
 the duty of self-denial. 
 
 With strong propriety may Goethe be termed 
 a moral teacher, and the highest rank assigned 
 to him as such. He will be found, on a careful 
 study, to have the moral law in view, and to aim 
 at enforcing it ; even there, where he has been 
 charged with an immoral tendency; — and no- 
 where more emphatically, than in the " Elective 
 Affinities." The imputation cast upon this work 
 is a specimen of the hasty and superficial manner 
 in which his writings have been judged. The 
 aim of the " Elective Affinities" is to illustrate 
 the ethics of married life, to expose the mischief 
 of ill-considered and unequal matches, and the 
 terrible consequences of even mental infidelity 
 to the marriage vow. He who can read the 
 book attentively and understandingly, and find 
 in it any other meaning than this, might dis- 
 cover a plea for jealousy in Othello, or an apo- 
 logy for murderous ambition in Macbeth. A 
 writer, already quoted, has better understood 
 the worth and purport of this finished work. 
 " The mental aberrations of the consorts from 
 their plighted faith, though, in the one case 
 never indulged, and though, in the other, no 
 veil of sophistry is cast over the weakness of 
 passion, but all that is felt, expressed with the 
 openness of one who desires to legitimate what 
 he feels, — are punished with terrible griefs and 
 a fatal catastrophe. Ottilia, that being of ex- 
 quisite purity, with intellect and character so 
 harmonized in feminine beauty, as they never 
 before were found in any portrait of woman 
 painted by the hand of man, perishes on finding 
 
GOE 
 
 that she lias been breathed upon by unhal- 
 lowed passion, and led to err, even by her ig- 
 norant wishes, against what is held sacred. 
 There is indeed a sadness, as of an irresistible 
 fatality, brooding over the whole. It seems as 
 if only a ray of angelic truth could have enabled 
 these beings to walk in this twilight, at first so 
 soft and alluring, then deepening into blind 
 horror. But if no such ray came to prevent 
 their earthly errors, it seems to point heaven- 
 ward, in the saintly sweetness of Ottilia. Her 
 nature, too fair for vice, too finely wrought 
 even for error, comes lonely, intense and pale, 
 like the evening star on the cold wintry night. 
 Tt tells of other worlds, where the meaning of 
 such passages as this must be read to those 
 faithful and pure like her, victims perishing in 
 the green garlands of youth, to atone for the 
 un worthiness of others. An unspeakable pathos 
 is felt from the minutest trait in this character, 
 and deepens with every new study of it. Not 
 even in Shakspeare, have I so felt the organ- 
 izing power of Genius. I feel myself familiar- 
 ized with all beings of her order. I see not 
 only what she was, but what she might have 
 been, and live with her in yet untrodden 
 realms."* 
 
 Of Goethe's character, as a statesman and a 
 citizen, no labored justification will be expected 
 in a work like this. That he did not use his 
 powers and influence for revolutionary purposes, 
 seems to have been the chief cause of the dis- 
 esteem into which he has fallen with certain 
 revolutionary spirits of Germany, and of those 
 aspersions which have acted on public opinion 
 with us. True, he was decidedly conservative, 
 so far as State institutions were concerned ; for 
 he saw little promise for man from measures, 
 of which all that could with certainty be fore- 
 seen, was, that they were subversive of present 
 order and peace. He believed that all which 
 was wanted, or all which was really desirable, 
 might be accomplished, with greater certainty, 
 by the agency of existing institutions. 
 "iVarre wenn es brennt so losche. 
 Hat's gebrannt bau wieder auf.' 
 
 Heine refers this conduct of Goethe to his pe- 
 culiar position. " The giant was minister in a 
 German dwarf- state. He could never move 
 naturally. They said of the sitting Jupiter of 
 Phidias at Olympia, that, if he should suddenly 
 stand up, he would burst the vaulted roof of the 
 
 * S. M. Fuller. Dial, ubi supra. 
 
 THE. 269 
 
 temple. This was precisely the position of 
 Goethe at Weimar. If he had suddenly started 
 up from his sitting rest, he would have broken 
 through the ceiling of the State, or, what is 
 more likely, he would have broken his own 
 head against it. The German Jupiter quietly 
 kept his seat." But in fact he needs no such 
 apology. The question by which he must be 
 tried, is not, whether he has adopted this or 
 that particular method of advancing the inte- 
 rests of Humanity; but whether he has ad- 
 vanced the interests of Humanity at all, by any 
 method whatsoever] Whether he labored, on 
 the whole, to make men wiser, better, happier 3 
 The answer to this question must be sought in 
 his works. We may demand of a man, that he 
 should not be indifferent to certain ends ; but 
 the method we must leave to himself. "It 
 cannot be too often repeated," say3 Mrs. Aus- 
 tin, " that Goethe was not a partisan. That 
 he was indifferent to the progress of human 
 improvement and the sum of human happiness, 
 as some have maintained, seems to me incre- 
 dible. Are we justified in accusing him of 
 apathy and selfishness, because he had a dread 
 of violent political convulsions? a distrust of 
 the efficacy of abrupt changes in the mechanism 
 of government ] It was not surely indifference 
 to the welfare of mankind, but that he thought 
 it a pernicious illusion to look for healing there, 
 from whence he was convinced no healing 
 could ever come. His labors for the improve- 
 ment of the human race were unwearied, calm 
 and systematic." 
 
 With regard to his private character, it 
 would be easy to accumulate testimony of the 
 highest authority in favor of those qualities in 
 which he has been supposed to be most de- 
 ficient. But for those who have learned to be- 
 lieve in him for his works' sake, such testimony 
 would be superfluous ; and for those who are, 
 once for all, determined against him, it would 
 be unavailing. "Pity, that so few are ac- 
 quainted with this excellent, man in respect of 
 his heart !" said the meek and pious Stilling, 
 who could speak from personal experience of 
 Goethe's worth. That he had faults it needs 
 no testimony to prove. It may safely be taken 
 for granted. That he had uncommon faults, or 
 any which — as things go — might not naturally 
 be expected from a man of the world : to prove 
 this, requires more testimony than has yet been 
 adduced. And so we will dismiss the subject 
 with his own words : " Life to all of us is suf- 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 fering ; who save God alone shall call us to our 
 reckoning 1 By the failings we recognise the 
 species, by the excellences the individual. 
 Defects we all have in common, virtues belong 
 to each severally :" and with these of Wieland, 
 which, though they refer rather to his official 
 than his private action, are not out of place in 
 this connection : " If I had cause to be ever so 
 angry with Goethe, or to feel ever so much 
 offended and aggrieved by his conduct; yet, 
 when I recollect (what no one can know better 
 than I) what incredible services he rendered to 
 our Sovereign, during the early years of his 
 reign, with what entire self-forgetfulness he 
 devoted himself to his service ; how much that 
 was noble and great that yet slumbered in the 
 princely youth he first called forth, I could fall 
 on my knees before him, and praise and wor- 
 ship our Master Goethe more than for all the 
 productions of his genius or his intellect." 
 
 It is time to conclude this essay, already 
 drawn out beyond its legitimate bounds. The 
 general misunderstanding which prevails among 
 
 us respecting this hero of modern literature has 
 caused it to assume a more apologetic character 
 than its author could wish, than he feels to be 
 consistent with his own respect for the man. 
 In a few years, all external testimony as to his 
 merits or demerits, will have perished from the 
 earth ; but his works will bear witness of him 
 when there is no other. These have become 
 a part of the world. Iphigenia and Tasso are 
 indestructible possessions of the human mind, 
 and Faust will endure while the Brocken 
 stands or the Rhine flows. "In him," says 
 Fichte, "the noblest blossom of Humanity, 
 which Nature had put forth but once beneath 
 the Grecian sky, by one of her miracles was 
 repeated here in the North. To him it was 
 given to measure two different epochs of hu- 
 man culture with all their gradations. And if 
 our race are destined to ascend to higher de- 
 grees of excellence, it will not be without his 
 co-operation."* 
 
 * Fichte, ueber Oeist und Buchstabe in der Philosophic 
 Philosophisches Journal, vol. IX. 
 
 THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM GOETHE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.* 
 
 Now Herder came, and together with his 
 great learning, he brought with him many other 
 assistances, and the later publications besides. 
 Among these he announced to us the Vicar of 
 Wakefield as an excellent work, with the German 
 translation of which he wished to make us ac- 
 quainted by reading it aloud to us himself. 
 
 His method of reading was quite peculiar ; 
 one who has heard him preach will easily form 
 an idea of it for himself. He delivered every- 
 thing, and this romance as well as the rest, in a 
 serious and simple style, perfectly removed from 
 all imitative-dramatic representation, and avoid- 
 ing even that variety which is not only permit- 
 ted, but even required, in an epical delivery; I 
 mean that slight change of voice which sets in 
 relief what is spoken by the different charac- 
 ters, and by means of which the interlocutors 
 are distinguished from the narrator. Without 
 being monotonous, Herder let everything follow 
 along in the same tone, just as if nothing of it 
 was present before him, but all was only his- 
 torical ; as if the shadows of this poetic crea- 
 tion did not affect him in a life-like manner, but 
 only glided gently by. Yet this manner of de- 
 livery had an infinite charm in his mouth: for, 
 as he felt it all most deeply, and knew how to 
 estimate the variety of such a work, so its whole 
 
 * See No. LXXVI. of Wiley and Putnam's Library of 
 Choice Reading. 
 
 merit appeared in perfect purity, and the more 
 clearly, as you were not disturbed by passages 
 sharply spoken out, nor interrupted in the feel- 
 ing which the whole was meant to produce. 
 
 A Protestant country-clergyman is, perhaps, 
 the most beautiful subject for a modern idyl ; he 
 appears, like Melchizedek, as Priest and King 
 in one person. In the most innocent situation 
 which can be imagined in the world, that of a 
 husbandman, he is, for the most part, united to 
 his people by similar occupations, as well as by 
 similar family relationships ; he is a father, a 
 master of a family, an agriculturist, and thus a 
 perfect member of the community. On this 
 pure, beautiful, earthly foundation, reposes his 
 higher calling; to him is it given to guide men 
 through life, to take care for their spiritual edu- 
 cation, to bless them at all the leading epochs 
 of their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to 
 console them, and, if present consolation is not 
 sufficient, he calls up before them the hope and 
 firm assurance of a happier future. Imagine to 
 yourself such a man, with feelings of pure hu- 
 manity, strong enough not to deviate from them 
 under any circumstances, and by this already 
 elevated above the many, of whom one can ex- 
 pect neither purity nor firmness ; give him the 
 learning necessary for his office, as well as a 
 cheerful, equable activity which is even pas- 
 sionate, for he neglects no moment for doing 
 good, — and you will have him well endowed. 
 But at the same time add the necessary limited- 
 ness, so that he must not only labor on in a small 
 circle, but may also, perchance, pass over to a 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 271 
 
 smaller ; grant him good-nature, placability, 
 resolution, and everything else praiseworthy 
 that springs from so decided a character, and 
 over all this a serene condescension and a 
 smiling forbearance towards his own failings 
 and those of others: so will you have put 
 together pretty well the image of our excellent 
 Wakefield. 
 
 The delineation of this character on his course 
 of life through joys and sorrows, and the ever 
 increasing interest of the plot, by the combi- 
 nation of what is quite natural with the strange 
 and the wonderful, make this romance one of 
 the best which has ever been written ; besides 
 this, it has the great superiority of being quite 
 moral, nay, in a pure sense, Christian, for it re- 
 presents the reward of good intentions and per- 
 severance in the right, it strengthens an uncon- 
 ditional confidence in God, and asserts the final 
 triumph of good over evil, and all this without 
 a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was 
 preserved from both of these by an elevation of 
 mind that shows itself throughout in the form 
 of irony, by reason of which this little work 
 must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The 
 author, Dr. Goldsmith, has without question great 
 insight into the moral world, into its strength 
 and its infirmities ; but at the same time he may 
 thankfully acknowledge that he is an English- 
 man,* and reckon highly the advantages which 
 his country and his nation afforded him. The 
 family, with whose delineation he has here 
 busied himself, stands upon one of the lowest 
 steps of citizen-comfort, and yet comes in con- 
 tact with the highest; its narrow circle, which 
 becomes still more contracted, extends its in- 
 fluence into the great world through the natural 
 and common course of things ; this little skiff 
 floats full on the agitated waves of English life, 
 and in weal or wo it has to expect injury or 
 help from the vast fleet which sails around it. 
 
 I may suppose that my readers know this 
 work and remember it ; whoever hears it named 
 for the first time here, as well as he who is in- 
 duced to read it again, will thank me. For the 
 former I would merely remark, en passant, that 
 the Vicar's wife is of that busy, good sort, who 
 allows herself and family to want for nothing, 
 but who is also somewhat vain of herself and 
 family. There are two daughters ; Olivia, hand- 
 some and more devoted to the exterior, and 
 Sophia, charming and more given to her inner 
 self; nor will I omit mentioning an industrious 
 son, Moses, who is somewhat astringent and 
 emulous of his Father. 
 
 If Herder could be accused of any fault in 
 his reading aloud, it was impatience ; he did 
 not wait until the hearer had heard and com- 
 prehended a certain part of the details, so as to 
 be able to feel and think correctly about them ; 
 he would hurry on immediately to see their 
 
 * Goldsmith was an Irishman by birth, and received his 
 education at Dublin, Edinburgh and Leyden, and spent 
 six months at Padua, where he is supposed to have taken 
 his degree.— Trans. 
 
 effect, and yet he was displeased with this too 
 when it manifested itself in us. He blamed the 
 excess of feeling which overflowed from me at 
 every step in the story. I felt, like a man, like 
 a young man ; everything was living, true, and 
 present before me. He, considering only the 
 artistic keeping and form, saw clearly, indeed, 
 that I was overpowered by the subject-matter, 
 and this he was unwilling to allow. Peglow's 
 reflections, besides, which were not of the most 
 refined character, were still worse received; but 
 he was especially angry at our want of keenness 
 in not seeing beforehand the contrasts which 
 the author often makes use of, and in suffering 
 ourselves to be moved and carried away by 
 them without remarking the oft-returning art. 
 Nor would he pardon us for not having seen at 
 once, or at least suspected from the first, where 
 Burchell is on the point of discovering himself 
 by passing over in his narration from the third 
 to the first person, that he himself was the lord 
 whom he was talking about ; and when, finally, 
 we rejoiced like children at the denouement, and 
 the transformation of the poor, needy wanderer, 
 into a rich, powerful lord, he immediately re- 
 called the passage, which, according to the au- 
 thor's plan, we had overlooked, and then he 
 read us a powerful lecture on our stupidity. It 
 will be seen from this that he regarded the 
 work merely as a production of Art, and re- 
 quired the same of us who were yet wandering 
 in that state where it is very allowable to let 
 works of art affect us just as if they were pro- 
 ductions of Nature. 
 
 I did not suffer myself to be at all confused 
 by Herder's invectives; for young people have 
 the happiness or unhappiness, that, when any- 
 thing has produced an effect on them, this effect 
 must be wrought out within themselves; from 
 which much good, as well as much mischief 
 arises. The above work had produced a great 
 impression upon me, for which I could not ac- 
 count. Properly speaking, I felt myself in uni- 
 son with that ironical tone of mind which ele- 
 vates itself above every object, above fortune 
 and misfortune, good and evil, death and life, 
 and thus attains to the possession of a truly 
 poetical world. In fact, though I could not be- 
 come conscious of this until later, it was enough 
 that it gave me much to do at the moment; but 
 I could by no means have expected to see my- 
 self so soon transposed from this fictitious world 
 into an actual one so similar. 
 
 My fellow-boarder, Weyland, who enlivened 
 his quiet, laborious life, by visiting his friends 
 and relations in the country, (for he was a na- 
 tive of Alsace,) did me many services on my 
 little excursions, by introducing me to different 
 localities and individuals, sometimes in person, 
 sometimes by his recommendations. He had 
 often spoken to me about a country clergyman 
 who lived near Drusenheim, six leagues from 
 Strasburg, in possession of a good benefice, with 
 an intelligent wife and a pair of lovely daugh- 
 ters. The hospitality and agreeableness of this 
 
272 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 family were always highly extolled. It scarcely 
 needed all this to draw thither a young rider 
 who had already accustomed himself to spend 
 all his leisure days and hours on horseback and 
 in the open air. We decided upon this trip, too, 
 on which my friend had to promise that, on in- 
 troducing me, he would say neither good nor ill 
 of me, but would treat me with general indif- 
 ference, and would also allow me to make my 
 appearance clad, if not meanly, yet somewhat 
 poorly and slovenly. He consented to this, and 
 promised himself some sport from it. 
 
 It is a pardonable whim in men of conse- 
 quence to place their exterior advantages in 
 concealment now and then, so as to give the 
 fairer play to the intrinsic worth of their inner 
 man. For this reason the incognito of princes, 
 and the adventures resulting therefrom, are al- 
 ways highly pleasing; they appear like masked 
 divinities, who can nobly reckon at double their 
 value all the good offices shown to them as in- 
 dividuals, and are able either to make light of 
 the disagreeable or to avoid it. That Jupiter 
 should be well pleased in his incognito with 
 Philemon and Baucis, and Henry the Fourth 
 with his peasants after a hunting party, is quite 
 conformable to Nature, and we like it well; but 
 that a young man, of no importance or name, 
 should take it into his head to derive any plea- 
 sure from an incognito, might be construed by 
 many as an unpardonable arrogance. Yet since 
 the question here is not whether such opinions 
 and deeds are praiseworthy or blameable, but 
 how they may have shown themselves and been 
 put into execution, we will pardon the young- 
 ster his self-conceit for this time, for the sake of 
 our own amusement; and the more so as I must 
 here affirm, in my excuse, that from youth up, a 
 love for masquerade had been excited in me 
 even by my stern father himself. 
 
 This time too, partly with my own cast-off 
 clothes, partly with some borrowed garments 
 and by the manner of combing my hair, I had, 
 if not disfigured myself, yet at least botched up 
 my accoutrements so outlandishly that my friend 
 could not help laughing along the way, espe- 
 cially since I knew how to take off to the life 
 the bearing and gesture of the Latin Eiders (as 
 such-looking figures are called) when they sit 
 on horseback. The fine road, the most splendid 
 weather, and the neighborhood of the Rhine, 
 put us in the best humor. We stopped a mo- 
 ment in Drusenheim, he to make himself spruce, 
 and I to rehearse the part I was to play, for I 
 was afraid of speaking now and then out of 
 character. The country here has the character- 
 istics of all the open, level parts of Alsace. We 
 rode by a pleaeant foot-path over the meadows, 
 soon reached Sesenheim, left our horses at the 
 tavern, and walked leisurely towards the par- 
 sonage. u Do not be put out," said Weyland, 
 showing me the house from a distance, "that it 
 looks like an old and miserable farm-house; it 
 is so much the younger inside." We stepped 
 into the court-yard ; the whole pleased me well : 
 
 for it was just what is called picturesque, and 
 what had so magically interested me in the 
 Dutch school of art. The effect which time 
 produces on all the works of man was strongly 
 perceptible. House, barn and stable were just 
 at that point of dilapidation where, in doubtful 
 hesitation betwixt repairing and rebuilding, men 
 often neglect the one without being able to ac- 
 complish the other. 
 
 As in the village, so in the court-yard of the 
 Parsonage, everything was quiet and deserted. 
 We found the father quite alone, a little man, 
 wrapped up within himself, but friendly not- 
 withstanding; the family were then in the field. 
 He bade us welcome, and offered us some re- 
 freshment, which we declined. My friend hur- 
 ried away to look after the ladies, and I remained 
 alone with our host. " Perhaps," said he, " you 
 are surprised to find me so miserably quartered 
 in a wealthy village, and with a lucrative bene- 
 fice ; but," continued he, " it proceeds from irre- 
 solution. Long since it has been promised me 
 by the parish, and even by those in higher 
 places, that the house should be rebuilt; many 
 plans have been already drawn, examined and 
 altered, none of them altogether rejected, and 
 none carried into execution. This has lasted so 
 many years, that I scarcely know how to com- 
 mand my impatience." I answered him what- 
 ever I thought likely to cherish his hopes, and 
 encourage him to take up the affair more vigor- 
 ously. Thereupon he proceeded to describe 
 familiarly the personages on whom such matters 
 depend, and although he was no great hand at 
 the delineation of character, yet I could easily 
 comprehend how the whole business must have 
 been delayed. The confidentialness of the man 
 was something peculiar ; he talked to me as if he 
 had known me for ten years, though there was 
 nothing in his look from which I could have 
 suspected that he was directing any particular 
 scrutiny to my character. At last my friend 
 came in with the mother. She seemed to look 
 at me with altogether different eyes. Her coun- 
 tenance was regular, and its expression intelli- 
 gent; she must have been handsome in her 
 youth. Her figure was tall and spare, but not 
 more so than became her years, and when seen 
 from behind she had yet quite a youthful and 
 pleasing appearance. The elder daughter then 
 came bouncing in briskly ; she inquired after 
 Frederica, just as both the others had also done. 
 The father assured them that he had not seen 
 her since all three had gone out together. The 
 daughter again went out to the door to look for 
 her sister ; the mother brought us some refresh- 
 ment, and Weyland continued the conversation 
 with the old couple, which referred to nothing 
 but known persons and circumstances ; for it is 
 usually the case, when acquaintances meet after 
 some length of time, that they make inquiries 
 about the members of a large circle, and mutu- 
 ally give each other information. I listened, 
 and now learned how much I had to promise 
 myself from this circle. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 273 
 
 The elder daughter again came hastily back 
 into the room, anxious at not having found her 
 sister. They felt uneasy about her, and scolded 
 at this or that bad habit ; only the father said, 
 very composedly : "Always let her alone ; she 
 is back again already !" At this instant, in fact, 
 she entered the door ; and then truly a most 
 charming star arose in this terrestrial heaven. 
 Both daughters still wore nothing but German, as 
 they used to call it. and this almost obsolete nation- 
 al costume became Frederica particularly well. 
 A short, white, full skirt, with a furbelow, not so 
 long but it left the neatest little foot visible up 
 to the ankle; a tight white bodice and a black 
 taffeta apron, — there she stood, on the boundary 
 between country beauty and city belle. Slender 
 and airy, she tripped along as if she had nothing 
 to carry, and her neck seemed almost too deli- 
 cate for the luxuriant braids of flaxen hair on 
 her elegant little head. A free, open glance 
 beamed from her calm blue eyes, and her pretty 
 little turned-up nose peered inquiringly into the 
 air with as much unconcern as if there could be 
 nothing like care in the world ; her straw hat 
 dangled on her arm, and thus, at the first glance, 
 I had the delight of seeing her perfect grace, 
 and acknowledging her perfect loveliness. 
 
 I now began to act my character subdued ly, 
 half ashamed to have played a joke on such 
 good people, whom I had leisure enough to ob- 
 serve: for the girls continued the previous con- 
 versation, and that with feeling and humor. 
 All the neighbors and connections were again 
 brought upon the tapis, and to my imagination 
 there seemed such a swarm of uncles and aunts, 
 relations, cousins, comers and goers, gossips and 
 guests, that I thought myself lodged in the live- 
 liest world possible. All the members of the 
 family had spoken some words with me, the 
 mother looked at me every time she came in or 
 went out, but Frederica first entered into con- 
 versation with me, and as I took up and glanced 
 through the music that was lying around, she 
 asked me if I played also? When I told her 
 "Yes," she requested me to perform something ; 
 but the father would not allow this, for he main- 
 tained that it was becoming in her to serve her 
 guest first, with some piece of music or other, 
 or a song. 
 
 She played several things with some execu- 
 tion, in the style which one usually hears in the 
 country, and on a harpsichord, too, that the 
 schoolmaster should have tuned long since, if 
 he had only had time. She was now to sing a 
 song also, something of the tender-melancholy ; 
 but she could not succeed with it. She rose up 
 and said, smiling, or rather with that touch of 
 serene joy which ever reposed on her counte- 
 nance : " If I sing poorly, I cannot lay the blame 
 on the harpsichord or the schoolmaster ; but let 
 us go out of doors, then you shall hear my Alsa- 
 tain and Swiss songs, they sound much better." 
 
 During tea, an idea which had already struck 
 me before, occupied me to such a degree, that I 
 became meditative and silent, although the live- 
 2 K 
 
 liness of the elder sister, and the gracefulness 
 of the younger, shook me often enough out of 
 my contemplations. My astonishment at find- 
 ing myself so actually in the Wakefield family 
 was beyond all expression. The father, indeed, 
 could not be compared with that excellent man ; 
 but where will you find his like? On the other 
 hand, all the worth which is peculiar to the 
 husband there, here appeared in the wife. You 
 could not see her without at once reverencing 
 and fearing her. In her we saw the fruits of a 
 good education ; her demeanor was quiet, easy, 
 cheerful, and inviting. 
 
 If the elder daughter had not the celebrated 
 beauty of Olivia, yet she possessed a fine figure, 
 was lively, and rather impetuous ; she every- 
 where showed herself active, and lent a helping 
 hand to her mother in all things. It was not 
 hard to put Frederica in the place of Primrose's 
 Sophia : for of her there is little said, we take 
 it for granted that she is lovely ; and this girl 
 was lovely indeed. Now as the same occupa- 
 tion and the same general situation, wherever 
 they can occur, produce similar, if not the same 
 effects, so here too many things were talked 
 about and happened which had already taken 
 place in the Wakefield family. But when a 
 younger son, long spoken of and impatiently 
 expected by the father, at last sprang into the 
 room, and boldly sat himself down by us, taking 
 but little notice of the guests, I could scarcely 
 help exclaiming: "Moses, are you here too!" 
 
 The conversation at table extended my insight 
 into this country and family circle, as they chat- 
 ted about various pleasant incidents which had 
 happened here and there. Frederica, who sat 
 next to me, took occasion from that circumstance 
 to describe to me different localities which it 
 might be worth my while to visit. As one little 
 story always calls out another, I was able to 
 mingle in the conversation the better, and relate 
 similar incidents, and as, besides this, a good 
 country wine was by no means spared, I stood 
 in danger of slipping out of my character, for 
 which reason my provident friend took advan- 
 tage of the beautiful moonlight, and proposed a 
 walk, which was immediately resolved on. He 
 gave his arm to the elder, I to the younger, and 
 thus we went through the wide plains, paying 
 more attention to the heavens above than to the 
 earth beneath, which lost itself in extension 
 around us. There was nothing of moonshine 
 about Frederica's conversation, however ; by 
 the clearness with which she spoke she turned 
 night into day, and there was nothing in it which 
 hinted at or would have excited feeling, only 
 her expressions addressed themselves more than 
 ever to me, while, as I walked by her side, she 
 represented to me her own situation, as well as 
 the neighborhood and her acquaintances, just as 
 I wished to be made acquainted with them ; 
 then she added that she hoped I would make 
 no exception, and would visit them again, as all 
 strangers had willingly done who had once 
 lodged at the Parsonage. 
 
274 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 It was very pleasant to me to listen silently 
 to the descriptions which she gave of the little 
 world in which she moved, and of the persons 
 whom she particularly valued. She thereby 
 imparted to me a clear, and, at the same time, 
 such an amiable idea of her situation, that it had 
 a very strange effect on me : for I felt at once a 
 deep regret that I had not lived with her sooner, 
 and at the same time a right painful jealous 
 feeling towards all who had hitherto had the 
 good fortune to surround her. I also watched 
 closely, as if I had had a right to do so, all her 
 descriptions of men, whether they appeared 
 under the names of neighbors, cousins, or fami- 
 liar friends, and my conjectures inclined now 
 to one, now to another ; but how should I have 
 discovered anything in my complete ignorance 
 of all the circumstances? She at last became 
 more and more talkative, and I constantly more 
 and more silent. It was so good to listen to her, 
 and as I heard only her voice, while the out- 
 lines of her countenance, like the rest of the 
 world around, floated dimly in the twilight, it 
 seemed to me as if I could see into her heart, 
 and that I could not but find it very pure, since 
 it unbosomed itself to me in such unembarrassed 
 prattle. 
 
 When my companion and I retired to the 
 guest-chamber which was prepared for us, he, 
 with self-complacency, immediately broke out 
 into pleasant jesting, and took great credit to 
 himself for having surprised me so much with 
 the likeness of the Primrose family. I chimed 
 in with him, by showing myself thankful. 
 " Truly," cried he, " the story is all here together. 
 This family may well be compared to that, and 
 the gentleman in disguise here, may assume the 
 honor of passing for Mr. Burchell; moreover, 
 since scoundrels are not so necessary in every- 
 day life as in romances, I will for this time un- 
 dertake the role of the Nephew, and will behave 
 myself better than he did." However, I imme- 
 diately changed this conversation, pleasant as it 
 was to me, and first of all asked him, on his 
 conscience, if he had not betrayed me ? He 
 answered me "No!" and I ventured to believe 
 him. They had rather inquired, said he, after 
 the jovial table-companion who boarded at the 
 same house with him in Strassburg, and of 
 whom they had heard all sorts of preposterous 
 stuff. I now went to other questions : Had she 
 ever been in love? Was she now in love? 
 Was she engaged? He said "No" to them all. 
 "In truth," replied I, "that such a serenity 
 should come by nature is inconceivable to me. 
 If she had loved and lost, and again recovered 
 herself, or if she was betrothed, in both these 
 cases I could account for it." 
 
 Thus we chatted together till deep in the 
 night, and I was awake again at the dawn. 
 My longing to see her once more seemed un- 
 conquerable ; but while I was dressing I was 
 horrified at the confounded wardrobe I had so 
 capriciously selected. The further I advanced 
 in putting on my clothes, the meaner I seemed 
 
 in my own eyes : for everything was calculated 
 for just that effect. I might perchance have set 
 my hair to rights ; but when at last I forced my 
 arms into the borrowed, worn-out grey coat, the 
 short sleeves of which gave me the most absurd 
 appearance, I fell decidedly into despair, and 
 the more so since I could see myself only piece- 
 meal, in a little looking-glass, and then each 
 part always looked more ridiculous than the rest. 
 
 During this toilette my friend awoke, and 
 with the satisfaction of a good conscience, and 
 in the feeling of pleasurable hopes for the day, 
 he looked out at me from under the quilted silk 
 coverlet. I had envied his fine clothes for a 
 long time already, as they hung over the chair, 
 and had he been of my size, I would have car- 
 ried them oft" before his very eyes, dressed my- 
 self in them, and hurrying into the garden, left 
 my cursed husks for him ; he would have had 
 good humor enough to deck himself out in my 
 clothes, and our tale would have found a merry 
 ending early in the morning. But that was not 
 now to be thought of, as little as any other fea- 
 sible accommodation. To appear again before 
 Frederica in such a figure that my friend could 
 give me out as a laborious and accomplished 
 but poor student of Theology, — before Frederica, 
 who yesterday evening had spoken so friendly 
 to my disguised self, — that was altogether im- 
 possible. There I stood, vexed and thoughtful, 
 and summoned up all my power of invention; 
 alas ! it deserted me ! But now when he, com- 
 fortably stretched out in bed, after fixing his 
 eyes upon me for a while, all at once burst out 
 into a loud laugh, and exclaimed : " Yes ! it is 
 true, you do look most confoundedly !" I replied 
 impetuously: "And I know what I will do. 
 Good bye, and make my excuses!" "Are you 
 crazy !" cried he, springing out of bed and try- 
 ing to detain me. But I was already out of the 
 door, down the stairs, out of the house and yard, 
 to the tavern ; in an instant my horse was sad- 
 dled, and I hurried away in mad vexation, gal- 
 loping towards Drusenheim, dashed through the 
 place, and still onwards ! 
 
 As I thought myself by this time in safety, I 
 began to ride more leisurely, and now first felt 
 how infinitely against my will I was going away. 
 But I resigned myself to my fate, recalled to 
 mind the promenade of yesterday evening with 
 the greatest calmness, and cherished the secret 
 hope of seeing her soon again. Yet this quiet 
 feeling again changed itself into impatience, and 
 I now determined to ride rapidly into the city, 
 change my dress, take a good fresh horse, and 
 then, as my passion made me believe, I could at 
 all events return before dinner, or, as was more 
 probable, to the dessert or towards evening, and 
 beg my forgiveness. 
 
 I was just about to put spurs to my horse to 
 execute this resolve, when another, and, as 
 seemed to me, a happier thought came into my 
 head. In the tavern at Drusenheim, the day 
 before, I had noticed a son of the landlord very 
 nicely dressed, who, up early to-day and busied 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 275 
 
 about his rural arrangements, had saluted me 
 from his court-yard as I rode by. He was of 
 my size, and had slightly reminded me of my- 
 self. Thought, done! My horse was hardly 
 turned around, when I found myself in Drusen- 
 , heim ; I brought him into the stable, and made 
 the fellow my proposal in brief: that he should 
 lend me his clothes, as I had something merry 
 on foot at Sesenheim. I had no need to talk 
 long; he agreed to the proposition with joy, 
 and praised me for wishing to make some sport 
 for the Mamsells ; they were so gallant and good, 
 especially Mamselle Rica, and the parents, too, 
 liked to see everything go on merry and pleasant. 
 He considered me attentively, and as from my 
 appearance he might have taken me for a poor 
 starveling, he said: "If you wish to insinuate 
 yourself into their good graces, this is the right 
 way." Meanwhile we had already made 
 rapid advances in our toilette ; he could not 
 indeed trust me with his holiday clothes on the 
 strength of mine ; but he was honest-hearted, 
 and had my horse in his stable. I soon stood 
 there right trig, threw back my shoulders, and 
 my friend seemed to contemplate his likeness 
 with complacency. " Well, Mr. Brother !" said 
 he, giving me his hand, which I grasped hearti- 
 ly, " don't come too near my gal, she might mis- 
 take you !" 
 
 My hair, which now had its full growth again, 
 I could part at top pretty much like his, and as 
 I looked at him repeatedly, 1 found it comical 
 to imitate closely his thicker eyebrows, with a 
 burnt cork, and bring mine nearer together in 
 the middle, so as with my enigmatical inten- 
 tions, to make myself an external riddle like- 
 wise. "Now have you not," said I, as he 
 handed me his be-ribboned hat, " something or 
 other to be done at the Parsonage, so that I 
 may announce myself there in a natural man- 
 ner 1 ?" "Good!" replied he, "but then you 
 must wait two hours yet. There is a confine- 
 ment at our house ; I will offer to take the cake 
 
 i to the Parson's wife,* and you might carry it 
 over there. Pride must be paid for, and so 
 must a joke." — I concluded to wait, but these 
 two hours were infinitely long, and I was dying 
 of impatience when the third hour passed by 
 before the cake came out of the oven. I got it 
 at last, quite hot, and hastened away with my 
 credentials in the most beautiful sunshine, ac- 
 
 i companied for a space by my Ditto, who pro- 
 mised to come after me in the evening and 
 bring me my clothes, which however, I briskly 
 declined, and reserved to myself the privilege 
 of returning him his own when I was done 
 with them. 
 
 I had not skipped far with my present, which 
 I carried neatly tied up in a napkin, when, in 
 the distance, I saw my friend approaching with 
 the two ladies. My heart was uneasy, although 
 in fact it was unnecessary under this jacket. I 
 stood still, took breath, and tried to think how I 
 
 * The general custom of the country villages in Pro- 
 testant Germany on such interesting occasions.— Trans. 
 
 should begin ; and now I first remarked that the 
 nature of the ground was very much in my 
 favor ; for they were walking on the other side 
 of the brook, which, together with the strips of 
 meadow through which it ran, kept the two 
 foot-paths pretty far apart. When they were 
 just opposite to me, Frederica, who had already 
 perceived me long before, cried : " George, what 
 have you got there ?" I was clever enough to 
 cover my face with my hat, which I took off, at 
 the same time holding up the loaded napkin 
 high in the air. " A christening-cake !" cried she 
 at that ; " how does your sister do !" " Gooed," 
 said I, for I tried to talk strange, if not exactly 
 in the Alsatian dialect. " Carry it to the house !" 
 said the elder, "and if you do not find mother, 
 give it to the maid ; but wait for us, we will be 
 back soon, do you hear?" I hastened along my 
 path in the joyous feeling of the best hope that, 
 as the beginning was so lucky, all would go off 
 well, and I soon reached the Parsonage. I 
 found nobody either in the house or the kitchen; 
 I did not wish to disturb the old gentleman, 
 whom I might have supposed busy in the study ; 
 I therefore sat me down on the bench before the 
 door, placed the cake beside me, and pressed 
 my hat upon my face. 
 
 I cannot easily recall more delightful sensa- 
 tions. To sit here again on this threshold, over 
 which, a short time before, I had blundered out 
 in despair ; to have seen her already, to have 
 heard her dear voice again so soon after my 
 chagrin had pictured to me a long separation, to 
 be expecting every moment herself, and a dis- 
 covery at which my heart throbbed fast, and yet, 
 in this ambiguous case, it would be an exposure 
 without shame ; for from its very beginning it 
 was a merrier prank than any of those they had 
 laughed at so much yesterday. Love and Ne- 
 cessity are yet the best masters ; they both 
 worked together here, and their pupil was not 
 unworthy of them. 
 
 But the maid came stepping out of the barn. 
 "Now! did the cake turn out well !" cried she 
 to me; "how does your sister do?" "All 
 gooed," said I, and pointed to the cake without 
 looking up. She took up the napkin and mut- 
 tered : " Now what's the matter with you to-day 
 again ? Has little Barbara been looking at some- 
 body else once more ? Don't let us suffer for 
 that ! A happy couple you will make, if you 
 carry on so !" As she spoke pretty loud, the 
 Parson came to the window and asked : " What's 
 the matter?" She showed him; I stood up 
 and turned myself towards him, but yet kept 
 the hat over my face. As he spoke rather 
 kindly to me and had asked me to remain, I 
 went towards the garden, and was just going in, 
 when the Parson's wife, who was enteripg the- 
 court-yard gate, called to me. As the sun shone 
 right in my face, I once more took advantage of 
 my hat, and saluted her with a ploughman's 
 scrape ; but she went into the house after she 
 had bidden me not go away without eating 
 | something. I now walked up and down in the 
 
276 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 garden ; everything had hitherto had the best 
 success, yet I drew a deep breath when I re- 
 flected that the young people would soon return. 
 But the mother unexpectedly stepped up to me, 
 and was just going to ask me a question, when 
 she looked me in the face so that I could not 
 conceal myself any longer, and the question 
 stuck in her mouth. " I was looking for George," 
 said she, after a pause, "and whom do I find? 
 Is it you, young sir ? How many forms have 
 you, then?" "In earnest only one," replied I; 
 " in sport as many as you like." " Which sport 
 I will not spoil," smiled she; "go out behind 
 the garden and into the meadow until it strikes 
 twelve, then come back, and I will already have 
 contrived the joke." I did so ; but when I was 
 outside of the hedge that bounds the village 
 gardens, and was going into the meadow, I saw 
 some country people coming along the foot-path 
 towards me, who embarrassed me. I therefore 
 turned aside into a little grove which crowned 
 an elevation near by, in order to conceal myself 
 there till the appointed time. Yet how strangely 
 was I surprised when I entered it ! for it ap- 
 peared to be a neatly trimmed place, with 
 benches, from every one of which could be en- 
 joyed a fine view of the country. Here was 
 the village and the church tower, here Dru- 
 senheim, and behind it the woody islands of the 
 Rhine, in the opposite direction was the Vosgian 
 mountain-range, and at last the Minster of Strass- 
 burg. These different heaven-bright pictures 
 were surrounded by frames of foliage, so that 
 one could imagine nothing more joyous and 
 more pleasing. I sat me down upon one of the 
 benches, and noticed on the largest tree an ob- 
 long little board with the inscription : " Frede- 
 rica's Repose." It never entered into my head 
 that I could have come to disturb this repose : 
 for a budding passion has this beauty about it, 
 that, as it is unconscious of its origin, neither 
 does it spend any thought upon its end, and as 
 it feels itself glad and cheerful, it can have no 
 presentiment that it may make mischief too. 
 
 Scarcely had I had time to look about me and 
 lose myself in sweet reveries, when I heard 
 somebody coming; it was Frederica herself. 
 " George, what are you doing here ?" she cried 
 from a distance. "Not George!" cried I, run- 
 ning towards her, " but one who craves forgive- 
 ness of you a thousand times." She looked at 
 me with astonishment, but soon collected her- 
 self and said, after drawing a deeper breath : 
 " You abominable fellow, how you frighten 
 me !" " The first disguise has led me into the 
 second," exclaimed I; "the former would have 
 been unpardonable if I had only known in any 
 manner whom I was going to see, but this one 
 you will certainly forgive, for it is the form of 
 a man whom you meet in so friendly a man- 
 ner." Her pale cheeks had colored up with 
 the loveliest rosy-red. " You shall not be treat- 
 ed worse than George, at all events ! But let 
 us sit down! I confess that the fright has 
 thrilled through all my limbs." I sat down be- 
 
 side her, exceedingly agitated. " We know 
 everything already from your friend, up to this 
 morning," said she, "now do you tell me the 
 rest." I did not suffer her to ask twice, but de- 
 scribed to her my horror at my yesterday's 
 figure, and my rushing out of the house, so 
 comically that she laughed heartily and de- 
 lightedly; then I went on with what follow- 
 ed, with all modesty, indeed, yet passionately 
 enough to have well passed for a declaration 
 of love in historical form. At last I solemnized 
 my pleasure at finding her again, by a kiss upon 
 her hand, which she suffered to remain in mine. 
 If she had taken upon herself the expense of 
 the conversation during yesterday evening's 
 moonlight walk, I now, on my part, richly re- 
 paid the debt. The pleasure of seeing her 
 again, and being able to say to her everything 
 that I had kept back yesterday, was so great, 
 that, in my eloquence, I did not remark how 
 meditative and silent she was becoming. Once 
 more she drew a deep breath, and over and 
 over again I begged her forgiveness for the 
 fright which I had caused her. How long we 
 may have sat there I know not ; but all at once 
 we heard some one call "Rica! Rica!" It was 
 the voice of her sister. "That will be a pretty 
 story to tell," said the dear girl, restored to her 
 perfect serenity again ; "she is coming hither 
 from the side next to me," added she, bending 
 over so as half to conceal me : " turn yourself 
 away, so that she will not recognize you at 
 once." The sister came up to the spot, but not 
 alone; Weyland was with her, and both, as 
 soon as they saw us, stood still as if petrified. 
 
 If we should all at once see a powerful flame 
 burst out from a quiet roof, or should meet a 
 monster whose deformity was at the same time 
 revolting and fearful, we should not be struck 
 with such massive astonishment as seizes us, 
 when, unexpectedly, we see with our own eyes 
 something we had believed morally impossible. 
 " What is this ?" cried the elder, with the 
 rapidity of one who is frightened to death : 
 "What is this? you with George! Hand-in- 
 hand ! How am I to understand this ?" — " Dear 
 sister," replied Frederica, very doubtfully, " the 
 poor fellow is begging something of me ; he has 
 something to beg of you, too, you must forgive 
 him beforehand." "I don't understand, — I 
 don't comprehend — " said her sister, shaking 
 her head and looking at Weyland, who, in his 
 quiet way, stood by in perfect tranquillity, and 
 contemplated the scene without any kind of ex- 
 pression. Frederica arose and drew me after 
 her. "No hesitating!" cried she! "Pardon 
 begged and granted !" "Now do!" said I, step- 
 ping pretty near the elder, " I have need of par- 
 don!" She drew back, gave a loud shriek, and 
 blushed over and over; then threw herself 
 down on the grass, burst into a roar of laughter, 
 and could not get enough of it. Weyland 
 smiled as if pleased, and cried : " You are a 
 rare youth !" Then he shook my hand in his. 
 He was not usually liberal with his caresses, 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 277 
 
 but his shake of the hand had something hearty 
 and enlivening about it; yet he was sparing of 
 this also. 
 
 After taking some time to recover and collect 
 ourselves, we set out on our return to the village. 
 On the way I learned how this singular ren- 
 counter had been occasioned. Frederica had at 
 last parted from the promenaders to rest herself 
 in her little nook for a moment before dinner, 
 and when the other two came back to the house, 
 the mother had sent them to call Frederica in 
 the greatest haste, as dinner was ready. 
 
 The elder sister manifested the most extrava- 
 gant delight, and when she learned that the 
 mother had already discovered the secret, she 
 exclaimed : " All that is left now is that father, 
 brother, servant-man and maid, should be cheat- 
 ed likewise." When we were at the garden- 
 hedge, Frederica insisted upon going beforehand 
 into the house with my friend. The maid was 
 busy in the kitchen-garden, and Olivia (for so I 
 may be allowed to name the elder sister here), 
 called out to her : " Here, I have something to 
 tell you!" She left me standing by the hedge, 
 and went towards the maid. I saw that she 
 was speaking to her very earnestly. Olivia re- 
 presented to her that George had quarrelled with 
 Barbara, and seemed desirous of marrying her. 
 The lass was not displeased at this ; I was now 
 called, and was to confirm what had been said. 
 The handsome, stout girl cast down her eyes, 
 and remained so till I stood quite near before 
 her. But when, all at once, she looked into the 
 strange face, she too gave a loud scream and 
 ran away. Olivia bade me run after her and 
 hold her fast, so that she should not get into the 
 house and give the alarm ; while she herself 
 wished to go and see how it was with her 
 father. On the way Olivia met the servant-boy, 
 who was in love with the maid ; I had in the 
 mean time hurried after the maid, and held her 
 fast. " Only think ! what good luck !" cried 
 Olivia : " it 's all over with Barbara, and George 
 marries Liese." " I have thought he would for 
 a long while," said the good fellow, and stood 
 there disconsolate. 
 
 I had given the maid to understand, that all 
 we had yet to do was to cheat the father. We 
 went up to the lad, who turned away and would 
 have walked off; but Liese took him aside, and 
 he, too, when he was undeceived, made the 
 most extraordinary gestures. We went together 
 to the house. The table was covered, and the 
 father already in the room. Olivia, who kept 
 me behind her, stepped to the threshold and 
 said : " Father, you have no objections to George's 
 dining with us to-day? but you must let. him 
 keep his hat on." "With all my heart!" said 
 the old man, "but why such an unusual thing? 
 Has he hurt himself?" She led me forward as 
 I stood, with my hat on. " No !" said she, hand- 
 ing me into the room, " but he has a bird-cage 
 under it, and the birds might fly out and make 
 a deuce of a fuss ; for there are nothing but loose 
 wild birds there." The father was pleased with 
 
 the joke, without precisely knowing what it 
 meant. At this instant she took off my hat, 
 made a ploughman's scrape, and required me 
 to do the same. The old man looked at me, 
 recognized me, but was not put out of his 
 priestly self-possession. " Ay, ay, Mr. Candi- 
 date !" exclaimed he, raising a threatening finger 
 at me : " You have changed saddles very quickly, 
 and over-night I have lost an assistant, who 
 yesterday promised me so faithfully that he 
 would often mount my pulpit on week-days." 
 Thereupon he laughed heartily, bade me wel- 
 come, and we sat down to table. Moses came 
 in much later ; for, as the youngest and spoiled 
 child, he had accustomed himself not to hear 
 the dinner-bell. Besides, he took very little 
 notice of the company, scarce even when he 
 contradicted them. In order to make surer of 
 him, they had placed me, not between the 
 sisters, but at the end of the table, where George 
 often used to sit. As he came in at the door, 
 which was behind me, he slapped me smartly 
 on the shoulder, and said: "Good dinner to you, 
 George!" " Many thanks, youngster!" replied 
 I. The strange voice and the strange face 
 startled him. "What say you?" cried Olivia: 
 " does he not look very like his brother ?" " Yes, 
 from behind," replied Moses, who managed to 
 recover his composure immediately, like other 
 folk. He did not look at me again, and busied 
 himself merely with zealously devouring the 
 dishes, in order to make up for lost time. Then, 
 too, he thought proper occasionally to find some- 
 thing for himself to do in the yard and the gar- 
 den. At the dessert the genuine George came 
 in, and made the scene still more lively. They 
 rallied him for his jealousy, and would not 
 praise him for having gotten himself a rival in 
 me ; but he was modest and clever enough, 
 and, in a half-confused manner, he mixed up 
 himself, his sweetheart, his ditto, and the Mam- 
 sells with each other to such a degree, that at 
 last nobody could tell whom he was talking 
 about, so that they were glad to give him a 
 glass of wine and a piece of his own cake to 
 eat, to keep him quiet. 
 
 At table there was some talk about going to 
 walk ; which however did not suit me very well 
 in my peasant's clothes. But the ladies, early 
 on that day already, when they learned who 
 had run away in such a desperate hurry, had 
 remembered that a hunting-coat of a cousin of 
 theirs, in which he used to go sporting when he 
 was here, was hanging in a clothes-press. Yet 
 I declined, apparently with all sorts of jokes, 
 but with a feeling of secret vanity, not wishing, 
 as cousin, to disturb the good impression I had 
 made in the character of peasant. The father 
 had gone to take his afternoon nap ; the mother, 
 as always, was busy about her housewifery. 
 But my friend proposed that I should tell them 
 some story, to which I immediately agreed. We 
 repaired to a spacious arbor, and I gave them a 
 tale which I have since written out under the title 
 of The New Melusina, (post, 324). It bears about the 
 24 
 
278 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 same relation to The New Paris* as the Youth 
 bears to the Boy, and I would insert it here, 
 were I not afraid of injuring, by its outlandish 
 play of Fancy, the rural reality and simplicity 
 which agreeably surround us. Enough : I suc- 
 ceeded in that which rewards the inventors and 
 narrators of such productions, I succeeded in 
 awakening curiosity, in fixing the attention, in 
 inciting them to give over-hasty solutions of im- 
 penetrable riddles, in deceiving their expecta- 
 tions, in confusing them by making that wonder- 
 ful which was merely strange, in arousing sym- 
 pathy and fear, in making them anxious, in 
 moving them ; and at last, by the inversion of 
 what was apparently sober earnest into an in- 
 genious and cheerful jest, this little tale satisfied 
 the mind, leaving behind it materials for new 
 images to the imagination, and to the under- 
 standing for further reflection. 
 
 Should any one hereafter read this tale in 
 print, and doubt whether it could have and pro- 
 duce such an effect, let him remember that, pro- 
 perly speaking, man is only intended to have 
 influence while present. Writing is an abuse 
 of language, reading silently to one's self is a 
 pitiful succedaneum of speech. The strongest 
 influence in a man's power is made by his per- 
 sonal presence, youth is the most powerful upon 
 youth, and hence too arise the purest influences. 
 These are they which enliven the world, and 
 can perish neither morally nor physically. I 
 had inherited from my father a certain loqua- 
 cious fondness for teaching; from my mother 
 the faculty of representing, clearly and power- 
 fully, everything that the imagination can pro- 
 duce or grasp, of giving a freshness to known 
 stories, of inventing and relating others, and 
 even making them up as I went along. By my 
 paternal endowment I was for the most part 
 rather a bore to the company : for who likes to 
 listen to the opinions and sentiments of another, 
 especially a youth, whose judgment, on account 
 of his fragmentary experience, seems constantly 
 insufficient? My mother, on the contrary, had 
 thoroughly qualified me for social conversations. 
 For to the imagination even the emptiest tale 
 has an elevated charm, and even the smallest 
 quantity of solid matter is thankfully received 
 by the understanding. 
 
 By such recitals, which cost me nothing, I 
 made myself beloved by children, I excited and 
 delighted youth, and drew upon me the atten- 
 tion of older persons. But in society, such as it 
 commonly is, I was soon obliged to stop these 
 practices, and I have thereby lost but too much 
 of the enjoyment of the world and of intellec- 
 tual improvement ; yet both these parental gifts 
 accompanied me throughout my whole life, 
 united with a third, namely, the necessity of ex- 
 pressing myself figuratively and by comparisons. 
 In consideration of these peculiarities, Doctor 
 Gall, a man of as much profundity as acuteness, 
 discovering them by his Theory, assured me 
 
 that I was properly speaking born for a popular 
 orator. At this disclosure I was not a little con- 
 founded : for as I discovered, in my nation, no 
 opportunity to harangue about anything, it would 
 follow, if his assertion were well-grounded, that 
 everything else I could undertake, would have 
 been, alas, but a mistaken vocation ! 
 
 FROM THE "ELECTIVE AFFINITIES."* 
 
 PART SECOND. CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 Ottilia this afternoon had taken a walk to 
 the lake. She carried the child and read as 
 she walked, according to her custom. In this 
 manner she arrived at the oak by the ferry. 
 The boy had fallen asleep : she seated herself, 
 laid him down beside her, and continued her 
 reading. The book was one of those that draw 
 to them a tender soul and will not let it go. 
 She forgot time and the hour, and did not con- 
 sider that by land it was a long way back to 
 the new building ; but she sat absorbed in her 
 book, in herself, so lovely to look upon that the 
 trees and bushes around should have been ani- 
 mated and gifted with eyes to admire and de- 
 light in her. Just then a ruddy gleam of the 
 sinking sun fell behind her, and gilded her 
 cheeks and shoulders. 
 
 Edward, who had succeeded in making his 
 way thus far unobserved, finding his park empty 
 and the region solitary, ventured on still farther. 
 At last he breaks through the thicket near the 
 oak, sees Ottilia and she sees him; he flies to 
 her and throws himself at her feet. After a 
 long silent pause, in which both seek to collect 
 themselves, he explains to her in a few words 
 why and how he had come here; that he had 
 sent the Major to Charlotte, that their common 
 fate was at this moment deciding. That he had 
 never doubted her love, she also certainly never 
 his — that he now asks her consent. 
 
 Ottilia spoke thus in haste. She recalled at 
 once to mind all that might occur. She was 
 happy in Edward's presence, but felt that she 
 must send him away. " I beg, I entreat you, 
 dearest," she cried, " return and wait for the 
 Major." " I obey your command," cried Ed- 
 ward, while he first gazed passionately on her 
 and then seized her in his arms. She embraced 
 him with hers, and pressed him most tenderly 
 to her breast. Hope shot, like a star that falls 
 from heaven, away over their heads. They 
 imagined, they believed that they now belonged 
 to each other ; they exchanged, for the first time, 
 decided, free kisses, and then, with a violent 
 and painful effort, tore themselves apart. — The 
 sun had set, it was growing dusk — and a damp 
 vapor was rising from the lake. Ottilia stood 
 perplexed and excited. She looked over toward 
 the house on the hill, and thought she saw Char- 
 
 * See Part First, Book II.— Trans. 
 
 ♦ Translated by Mr. G. P. Bradford. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 279 
 
 lotto's white dress on the balcony. It was a 
 long way round the lake, and she knew how 
 impatiently Charlotte was waiting for the child. 
 She sees the plane trees opposite her ; only a 
 piece of water separates her from the path that 
 leads directly up to the building. In her 
 thoughts, as with her eyes, she has already 
 crossed. The risk of venturing on the water 
 with the child vanishes in this extremity. She 
 hastens to the boat, and does not feel that her 
 heart beats violently, that her feet totter, and 
 that her senses threaten to fail her. She springs 
 into the boat, seizes the oar, and pushes oft from 
 the land. She is obliged to use force, and re- 
 peat the effort. The boat rocks and glides a 
 little way out into the lake ; with the child on 
 her left arm, the book in her left hand, and the 
 oar in her right, she staggers, loses her foothold, 
 and falls into the boat. The oar escapes from 
 her hand on one side, and, in her efforts to re- 
 cover herself, child and book fall on the other 
 into the water. She still grasps the child's 
 clothes; but the helpless position in which she 
 lies hinders her from rising herself. Her right 
 hand, which remains free, is not sufficient to 
 enable her to turn round and raise herself up. 
 At last, however, she succeeds, draws the child 
 out of the water, but its eyes are closed, it has 
 ceased to breathe ! 
 
 In an instant she recovers entirely her self- 
 possession, but so much the greater is her pain. 
 The boat has drifted nearly to the middle of the 
 lake, the oar is floating far away, she sees no 
 one on the shore, and indeed what would it 
 have availed her to see anyone? Separated 
 from all, she floats on the faithless, inaccessible 
 element. 
 
 In this emergency she has to look for aid 
 within herself. Often has she heard of the re- 
 suscitation of the drowned. On her very birth- 
 day she had experienced this herself. She strips 
 the child and dries it with her muslin dress. 
 She tears open her bosom, and bares it for the 
 first time to the free heaven; for the first time 
 she presses a living being to her pure naked 
 breast, alas! no longer a living being! The 
 cold limbs of the unfortunate creature chilled 
 her bosom to her inmost heart. Endless tears 
 gush from her eyes, and impart a semblance of 
 life and warmth to the surface of the stiffened 
 corpse. ******* 
 
 * * * She does not give over her efforts, 
 she wraps it in her shawl, and by rubbing, 
 pressing, breathing on it, by kisses and tears, 
 she thinks to supply the place of those remedies 
 that are denied to her, cut off as she is from 
 communication with others. 
 
 All in vain ! Motionless the child lies in her 
 arms, motionless stands the boat on the watery 
 plain ; but even here her beautiful spirit does 
 not leave her helpless. She turns toward hea- 
 ven. Kneeling she sinks down in the boat, and 
 with both arms raises the stiffened child above 
 her innocent breast, marble-like in whiteness, 
 and alas ! in coldness too. With moist eyes she 
 
 looks upward and invokes help from thence 
 where a tender heart hopes to find the greatest 
 fulness when all else fails. 
 
 And not in vain does she turn to the stars, 
 which already are beginning one by one to 
 twinkle forth. A soft wind rises and drives 
 the boat to the plane-trees. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 She hastens to the new building, calls out the 
 surgeon and gives him the child. The ever- 
 ready man treats the delicate body with suc- 
 cessive applications according to the customary 
 manner. Ottilia assists him in all; she pro- 
 cures, she fetches, she assumes the care, moving, 
 indeed, as in another world, for the height of 
 misery like the highest happiness changes the 
 face of all things ; and only when, after all 
 means have been tried, the worthy man shakes 
 his head, first to her hopeful questions making 
 no answer, then answering with a whispered 
 No, she leaves Charlotte's chamber, where all 
 this had taken place, and hardly has she enter- 
 ed the parlor, when, unable to reach the sofa, 
 she falls on her face, exhausted on the floor. 
 
 At this moment they hear Charlotte's carriage 
 drive up to the house. The surgeon earnestly 
 beseeches the bystanders to remain behind. He 
 will go to meet her and prepare her for what 
 has happened ; but already she has entered her 
 apartment. She finds Ottilia on the floor, and 
 one of the maids rushes toward her with cries 
 and tears. The surgeon comes in and she 
 learns all at once. But how can she, at once, 
 give up all hope 1 ? The experienced, skilful and 
 wise man begs her only not to see the child ; 
 and goes away to beguile her with new at- 
 tempts. She has seated herself on her sofa; 
 Ottilia still lies on the floor, but raised a little 
 so that her head lies sunk on Charlotte's knees. 
 The medical friend goes backward and forward. 
 He appears to be busied about the child, while 
 his care in reality is directed to the women. In 
 this way midnight comes on, the death-stillness 
 becoming always deeper. Charlotte no longer 
 conceals from herself that the child can never 
 be restored to life. She desires to see it. It 
 has been wrapt in clean, warm, woollen cloths, 
 and laid in a basket which they set by her on 
 the sofa, — only the little face is uncovered. 
 Calm and beautiful it lies there. 
 
 The news of the melancholy accident had 
 excited a stir in the village and reached the 
 inn. The Major had come up to the house by 
 the well-known way : he went round the house, 
 and meeting with one of the servants who had 
 run out into the out-building to fetch something, 
 he gained more exact information, — and sent 
 for the surgeon to come out. The latter came, 
 astonished at seeing his old patron, informed 
 him of the present state of things, and under- 
 took to prepare Charlotte to see him. He went 
 in, and with this intention began a conversa- 
 tion by which he led her imagination from one 
 object to another, until he at last brought before 
 
280 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Charlotte's mind her friend, intimated his cer- 
 tain sympathy, his nearness to her spirit in his 
 modes of thinking, and at last his actual near- 
 ness in person. Enough, she learned that her 
 friend was at the door, was apprized of all that 
 had happened, and wished to be admitted. 
 
 The Major entered the room. Charlotte 
 saluted him with a painful smile. He stood 
 before her. * * * * Charlotte 
 pointed to a seat, and thus they sat opposite to 
 each other in silence, the night through. Ottilia 
 still lay quietly on Charlotte's knees ; she 
 breathed softly as she slept or seemed to sleep. 
 
 The morning dawned, the light was extin- 
 guished, and both friends seemed to awake as 
 from a gloomy dream. Charlotte looked at the 
 Major, and said, "Explain to me, my friend, by 
 what providence you came here to take part in 
 this scene of sorrow ?" 
 
 " This is neither the time nor place," said the 
 Major, answering her as she had spoken in a 
 low, subdued voice, as if they did not wish to 
 waken Ottilia, " this is neither the time nor place 
 for reserve, or delicate management in approach- 
 ing the subject I would speak of. The situation 
 in which I find you is so awful that the impor- 
 tant matter itself, for which I came, loses its 
 value by side of it." He then acknowledged 
 to her very calmly and simply the object of his 
 mission, so far as Edward had part in sending 
 him, the design of his coming so far as his own 
 free will, his own interest was concerned. He 
 presented both with much tenderness and yet 
 with sincerity. Charlotte listened calmly, and 
 appeared to be neither surprised nor displeased 
 at it. 
 
 When the Major had ended, Charlotte re- 
 plied, and in so low a voice that he was obliged 
 to move his seat nearer : " I have never before 
 found myself in circumstances like these; but 
 in similar cases, I have always said to myself, 
 * how will it be on the morrow ?' I feel truly 
 and deeply that the fate of several persons lies 
 in my hands ; and what I have to do is clear to 
 me and soon explained. I consent to the separa- 
 tion. I ought to have resolved on it sooner. 
 By my delay and opposition I have been the 
 death of the child. There are certain things 
 which Destiny obstinately determines shall be. 
 In vain that Reason and Virtue, Duty and all 
 that is holy throw themselves in the way. 
 Something shall take place that is right to it, 
 though it seems not right to us ; and at last it 
 carries its point let us demean ourselves as we 
 may. Yet what do I say? Rather will Des- 
 tiny again bring about my own wish, my own 
 purpose, against which I inconsiderately acted. 
 Have I not myself already thought of Ottilia 
 and Edward together as a most suitable pair ? 
 Have I not even myself sought to bring them 
 near to each other ? Were not you yourself, my 
 friend, knowing to this plan 1 ? And why could 
 I not distinguish the caprice of a man from true 
 love? Why did I accept his hand, when, as a 
 friend, I might have made him and another 
 
 wife happy? And consider, too, this unhappy 
 slumberer ! I tremble for the moment when 
 she awakes from her half-death-sleep to con- 
 sciousness. How shall she live, how shall she 
 be consoled, if she cannot hope, by her love, to 
 make good to Edward, what she, as the instru- 
 ment of the strangest destiny, has robbed him 
 of? And she can restore all to him, by the 
 fondness, the passion with which she loves 
 him. Love can bear all, it can do much more, 
 it can restore all. As for myself, I must not be 
 considered in the present posture of affairs. 
 
 " Retire quietly, my dear Major ; say to Ed- 
 ward that I consent to the separation ; that I 
 give up the whole matter to him and you to 
 manage in your own way. That I am uncon- 
 cerned about my own future condition, and can 
 be so in every sense. I will sign every paper 
 which shall be brought to me. Only let it not 
 be required of me to co-operate, to consider or 
 advise." 
 
 The Major arose. She reached to him her 
 hand over Ottilia. He pressed his lips on that 
 dear hand. " And for myself, what may I hope ?" 
 he whispered gently. 
 
 " Allow me to remain still in your debt for 
 
 the answer to that question," replied Charlotte : 
 
 "we have not deserved to be unhappy; but 
 
 neither have we deserved to be happy together." 
 * * * ***** 
 
 Charlotte sat only a few minutes, absorbed in 
 r?er reflections after the Major had left her ; for 
 hardly had he gone when Ottilia raised herself 
 up with her eyes fixed intently on her friend. ! 
 First she raised herself from her lap, then from 
 the floor, and stood before Charlotte. 
 
 " For the second time," thus began the glo- 
 rious child, with an invincible, graceful earnest- 
 ness, "for the second time, I experience the 
 same thing. You once said to me, 'It often 
 happens that, at different times in our lives, we 
 meet with like things, occurring in a similar 
 way, and always in important moments.' I now 
 find your remark to be true, and feel impelled 
 to make a confession to you. Shortly after my 
 mother's death, I, then a little child, had moved 
 my stool to your side, you were sitting on a sofa 
 as now, my head lay on your knees. I was 
 neither asleep nor awake, but in a kind of 
 slumber. I heard, very distinctly, everything 
 that went on around me, especially everything 
 that was said ; and yet I could not move myself, 
 nor speak, nor, even if I had wished it, so much 
 as signify that I was conscious. At that time 
 you spoke with a friend about me : you lamented 
 my lot — in being left behind in the world, a 
 poor orphan ; you painted my dependent condi- 
 tion, and how unhappy it might be with me if 
 a special star of good fortune did not rule over 
 my destiny. I comprehended well and exactly, 
 perhaps too strictly, all that you appeared to wish 
 for me, and to demand of me. I made, here- 
 upon, laws for myself, according to my limited 
 views. By these I have lived for a long time ; 
 in conformity with these, what I did or forbore 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 281 
 
 to do was regulated, at that time when you loved 
 me and took care of me ; when you received 
 me into your house, and still for some time after. 
 
 But I have wandered away from my path, I 
 have broken my laws, I have even lost the feel- 
 ing of them ; and now, after a terrible occur- 
 rence, you again give me light on my present 
 situation which is more deplorable than the first. 
 Resting on your lap, half-lifeless, as from a 
 strange world, I hear once more your gentle 
 voice over my ear. I learn the aspect of my 
 condition; I shudder at myself; but, as at that 
 time, so now also, in my half-lifeless sleep, I 
 have marked out for myself my new path. I 
 have resolved as I then did, and what that reso- 
 lution is you must learn at once. Edward shall 
 never be mine. In a fearful way has God 
 opened my eyes to see in what a crime I am 
 entangled. I will atone for it : and let no one 
 think to turn me away from my purpose. Take 
 then, dearest, your steps accordingly. Recall 
 the Major ; write to him that no steps be taken. 
 How distressed was I that I could not move nor 
 stir as he went away. I wished to start up, to 
 cry out, that you might not allow him to go 
 away with hopes so pernicious." 
 
 Charlotte saw Ottilia's state, she felt it, but 
 hoped by time and her representations to make 
 some change in her resolutions. Yet when she 
 uttered some words that pointed to a future, to 
 a mitigation of pain, to hope; "No!" cried Ot- 
 tilia, with exaltation, " seek not to move me, to 
 delude me : the moment I learn that you have 
 consented to a separation, I expiate in that same 
 lake my error, my crime." 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 While in a happy, peaceful daily intercourse, 
 relations, friends, household companions, are 
 wont to discuss what happens, or is to happen, 
 more than is necessary or reasonable ; while 
 they repeatedly communicate to each other their 
 purposes, undertakings, occupations, and without 
 taking mutual counsel, yet always conduct their 
 whole course of life as if by mutual advice ; 
 we find, on the other hand, that in moments of 
 importance — the very occasions in which it 
 would seem that the assistance and support of 
 others are most needed — the individuals draw 
 back into themselves, strive to transact every- 
 thing for themselves, to conduct everything in 
 their own way, and while they conceal from 
 each other their own individual methods, only 
 the result, the object, and what is attained, be- 
 come common property once more. 
 
 After so many strange and unhappy events, 
 a certain silent seriousness came over the two 
 friends, which manifested itself in a lovely 
 sparing of one another. Quite silently Charlotte 
 had sent the child to the Chapel : there it rested 
 as the first victim of a dark and fearful destiny. 
 
 Charlotte turned back as far as was possible 
 toward life, and here she found that Ottilia had 
 the first need of her aid. She occupied herself 
 chiefly with her, without, however suffering it to 
 2l 
 
 be marked. She knew how much the heavenly 
 child loved Edward ; she had gradually inquired 
 out the scenes that preceded the fatal accident, 
 and learned every circumstance, partly from Ot- 
 tilia herself, partly through the letters of the 
 Major. 
 
 Ottilia, on her part, lightened, to a great ex- 
 tent, Charlotte's momentary life. She was open, 
 talkative even, but never was the conversation 
 of the present or of what had so lately happen- 
 ed. She had always noted, observed — she knew 
 much — all this now turned to account. She 
 entertained and diverted Charlotte, who still 
 cherished in secret the hope of seeing so worthy 
 a pair united. But it was otherwise with Ottilia 
 She had discovered to her friend the secret of 
 her life-course ; she was emancipated from her 
 early narrowness, from servitude. By her re- 
 pentance, by her resolution, she also felt herself 
 freed from the burden of that guilt, that calamity. 
 She had no longer need to do violence to her.-elf. 
 She had, in the depths of her heart, pardoned 
 herself, but only on condition of complete re- 
 nunciation, and this condition was unalterable 
 for all the future. 
 
 Thus passed some time, and Charlotte felt 
 how very much the house and park, water, rock 
 and tree groups, only renewed, daily, painful 
 feelings in them both. That the scene must be 
 changed was but too clear ; in what way to do 
 this was not so easy to decide. Should the two 
 women continue together? Edward's earlier 
 wish seemed to enjoin this ; his explanation, his 
 threats to make it necessary. But how could it 
 fail to be seen that both women, with all good- 
 will, with all reasonableness, found themselves 
 in a painful relation to each other ? Their con- 
 versation was evasive : often there were some 
 things they chose but to half understand; but 
 oftener an expression was misinterpreted, if not 
 by the understanding, at least by the feelings. 
 They feared to wound each other, and this very 
 fear was the first thing to be wounded and the 
 first to wound. 
 
 Did they wish to change the scene, and, at 
 the same time, be separated, at least for a while, 
 from each other, then the old question came 
 up, where should Ottilia go? That rich and 
 distinguished family beforementioned had made 
 fruitless attempts to procure for a very promising 
 daughter, the heiress of the house, female com- 
 panions who should serve to amuse her and 
 excite her emulation. Already on the last visit 
 of the Baroness, and lately by letters, Charlotte 
 bad been urged to send Ottilia there, and she 
 now proposed it again. But Ottilia decidedly 
 refused to go, where she must find what is 
 called the great world. u Suffer me, dear aunt," 
 said she, "in order that I may not appear nar- 
 row-minded and wilful, to speak out that which, 
 in any other case, it would be a duty not to 
 speak of, but rather to conceal. A person dis- 
 tinguished by misfortune, even if without any 
 fault, is marked in a fearful way. His presence 
 excites in all who see and notice him a kind of 
 24* 
 
282 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 horror. Every one thinks to see in him the 
 dread thing which has been laid on him. Every 
 one is curious and anxious at the same time. 
 In like manner a house, a town in which some- 
 thing dreadful has happened, becomes fearful 
 to every one who enters it. There the light of 
 day shines not so clear, and the stars appear to 
 lose their lustre. How great, and yet excusable 
 perhaps, is the indiscretion of people towards 
 such unhappy persons, their foolish obtrusive- 
 ness and awkward kindness! Pardon me that 
 I say it - but I suffered incredibly with that poor 
 maiden when Luciana dragged her out of the 
 secret chambers of the house, kindly occupied 
 herself with her, and, with the best intentions, 
 wished to force her to play and dance. As the 
 poor child, growing ever more frightened, fled 
 and sunk away in a swoon, I caught her in my 
 arms, the company were terrified and excited, 
 and every one then first became really curious 
 about the unhappy creature. I little thought 
 then that a like fate was in reserve for me ; but 
 my sympathy, so true and vivid, still survives. 
 I can now turn the compassion I felt for her 
 upon myself, and guard myself from giving oc- 
 casion to such scenes." 
 
 " But nowhere, dear child," replied Charlotte, 
 " will you be able to withdraw yourself from 
 the eyes of men ; we have no cloisters, in which 
 formerly an asylum for such feelings was to be 
 found." 
 
 "It is not solitude that constitutes the asylum, 
 dear aunt,'" answered Ottilia. " The refuge most 
 to be prized is to be sought there where we can 
 be active. All expiations, all renunciations are 
 no way adapted to rescue us from a fatal, threat- 
 ening destiny, if it is determined to pursue us. 
 Only when I am forced, in an idle condition, to 
 serve as a show to the world, does it disturb 
 and pain me. But if I am found, cheerfully 
 occupied with labor, unwearied in my duty, 
 then can I endure the eyes of all, since I need 
 not shrink from those of Heaven." "I am much 
 mistaken," replied Charlotte, "if your inclination 
 does not draw you again to the boarding-school." 
 
 "Yes," replied Ottilia, "I do not deny it. I 
 imagine it to myself a happy destination to 
 guide others in the common way, when the 
 path in which we ourselves have been led has 
 been most uncommon. Do we riot in history 
 see, that those who, on account of great moral 
 calamities, have withdrawn into the deserts, 
 have by no means remained concealed and 
 buried as they hoped. They have been called 
 back to the world in order to guide the wander- 
 ing in the right way. And who could do it 
 better than those already initiated in the error- 
 paths of life ? They have been called to aid the 
 unhappy, and who are better fitted for this than 
 those whom no earthly woes can any longer 
 reach?" 
 
 " You choose a singular destination," answer- 
 ed Charlotte ; " I will not oppose you ; let it be 
 so, though only, as I hope, for a short time." 
 
 " How very much I have to thank you," said 
 
 Ottilia, "that you are willing to allow me to 
 make this trial, this experience ! If I do not j 
 flatter myself too much, it shall prove good for 
 me. In that place, I shall be reminded how- 
 many trials I endured there, and how little, 
 how utterly insignificant they were, in compari- 
 son with those I was afterwards doomed to ex- 
 perience. How serenely shall I look upon the 
 troubles of the young folks, smile at their childish 
 pains, and guide them with gentle hand through , 
 all their wanderings ! The happy are not fitted 
 to have charge of the happy; it lies in human I 
 nature always to require more of one's self and | 
 others, the more one has received. Only the 
 self-recovered unhappy know how to cherish 
 for themselves and others the feeling that even 
 a moderate degree of happiness is to be enjoyed 
 with rapture." 
 
 " Suffer me," said Charlotte, at last, after more 
 consideration, "to bring forward one more ob- 
 jection which appears to me the most important. 
 It relates not to yourself, but to a third person. 
 The sentiments of the good, sensible, pious as- 
 sistant are known to you. In the course you 
 take, you will become every day more valuable 
 and indispensable to him. As he already feels 
 that he would not willingly live without you, 
 so certainly, in future, when he has once be- \ 
 come accustomed to your co-operation, he will I 
 no longer be able, without you, to carry on his 
 affairs. You will thus aid him at first, only to 
 prove an injury to him afterward." 
 
 " Destiny has not dealt gently with me," re- 
 plied Ottilia, " and whoso loves me has, perhaps, 
 nothing better to expect. As our friend is so 
 good and intelligent, I hope, for this very reason, 
 that the feeling of a pure relation to me will be 
 developed in him. He will behold in me a 
 consecrated person, who, in this way alone, 
 perhaps, may hope to counterbalance a fearful 
 evil to herself and others, by devoting herself 
 to the Holy which, invisibly surrounding us, can 
 alone protect us against those terrible powers 
 that are ever pressing upon us." 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A FAIR SAINT* 
 
 Till my eighth year, I was always a healthy 
 child ; but of that period I can recollect no more, 
 than of the day when I was born. About the 
 beginning of my eighth year, I was seized with 
 a hemorrhage ; and from that moment my soul 
 became all feeling, all memory. The smallest 
 circumstances of that accident are yet before 
 my eyes, as if they had occurred but yesterday. 
 
 During the nine months, which I then spent 
 patiently upon a sick bed, it appears to me, the 
 ground-work of my whole turn of thought was 
 laid; for the first means were then afforded to 
 my spirit of developing itself in its own manner. 
 
 I suffered and I loved ; this was the peculiar 
 form of my heart. In the most violent fits of 
 * Wilhelm Meister. T. Carlyle's translation. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 283 
 
 coughing, in the depressing pains of fever, I lay 
 I quiet, like a snail drawn back within its house: 
 I the moment I obtained a respite, I wanted to 
 ! enjoy something pleasant; and as every other 
 pleasure was denied me, I endeavored to amuse 
 myself with the innocent delights of eye and 
 ear. The people brought me dolls and picture 
 books ; and whoever chose to sit beside my bed, 
 was forced to tell me something. 
 
 From my mother I rejoiced to hear the Bible 
 histories : and my father entertained me with 
 natural curiosities. He had a very pretty cabi- 
 net, from which he brought me first one drawer 
 and then another, as occasion served ; showing 
 me the articles, and pointing out their proper- 
 ties. Dried plants and insects, with many kinds 
 of anatomical preparations, such as human skin, 
 bones, mummies and the like, were in succes- 
 sion laid upon the sick bed of the little one ; the 
 birds and animals he killed in hunting were 
 shown to me before they passed into the kitchen : 
 and that the Prince of the World might also 
 have a voice in this assembly, my aunt related 
 to me love adventures out of fairy tales. All 
 was accepted, all took root. There were hours, 
 in which I vividly conversed with the invisible 
 Power: I can still repeat some verses, which I 
 then dictated, and my mother wrote. 
 
 Frequently I told my father back again, what 
 , I had learned from him. I would scarce take 
 any physic, without asking where the simples 
 grew that it was made of, what look they had, 
 what names they bore. Nor had the stories of 
 my aunt alighted upon stony ground. I figured 
 myself out in pretty clothes; and met the most 
 delightful princes, who could find no peace or 
 rest, till they discovered who the unknown 
 Beauty was. One adventure of this kind with 
 a charming little angel, dressed in white with 
 golden wings, who warmly courted me, I dwelt 
 upon so long, that my imagination painted out 
 his form till it was almost visible. 
 
 After a year, I was pretty well restored to 
 health ; but nothing of the giddiness of childhood 
 ' remained with me. I could not play with dolls ; 
 I longed for beings that were able to return my 
 love. Dogs, cats and birds, of which my father 
 kept a great variety, afforded me delight : but 
 ; what would I have given for such a creature as 
 my aunt once told me of! It was a lamb, which 
 a peasant girl took up and nourished in a wood; 
 but in the guise of this pretty beast, an en- 
 chanted prince was hid ; who at length appeared 
 in his native shape, a lovely youth, and recom- 
 pensed his benefactress by his hand. Such a 
 lamb as this I would have given the world for. 
 
 But none was to be had ; and as everything 
 about me went along quite naturally and com- 
 monly, I by degrees abandoned nearly all my 
 hopes of such a precious treasure. Meanwhile 
 I comforted myself by reading books, in which 
 the strangest incidents were represented. Among 
 them all, my favorite was the Christian German 
 Hercules; that devout love history was altogether 
 ai my way. Whenever anything befel his dear 
 
 Valiska, and cruel things befel her, he prayed 
 before he hastened to her aid, and the prayers 
 were standing there verbatim. My longing after 
 the Invisible, which I had always dimly felt, 
 was strengthened by such means : for, in short, 
 it was ordained that God should also be my 
 confidant. 
 
 As I grew older I continued reading, Heaven 
 knows what, in a chaotic order. The Roman 
 Octavia was the book I liked beyond all others. 
 The persecutions of the first Christians, deco- 
 rated with the charms of a romance, awoke 
 the deepest interest in me. 
 
 But my mother now began to murmur at my 
 constant reading; and to humor her, my father 
 took away my books to-day, but gave them back 
 to-morrow. She was wise enough to see that 
 nothing could be done in this way; she next 
 insisted merely that my Bible should be read 
 with equal diligence. To this I was not disin- 
 clined : and I accordingly perused the sacred 
 volume with a lively interest. Withal my mo- 
 ther was extremely careful that no books of a 
 corruptive tendency should come into my hands : 
 immodest writings I would, of my own accord, 
 have cast away ; for my princes and my prin- 
 cesses were all extremely virtuous. 
 
 To my mother, and my zeal for knowledge, 
 it was owing that with all my love of books I 
 also learned to cook ; for much was to be seen 
 in cookery. To cut up a hen, a pig, was quite 
 a feast for me. I used to bring the entrails to 
 my father, and he talked with me about them, 
 as if I had been a student of anatomy. With 
 suppressed joy, he would often call me his mis- 
 fashioned son. 
 
 My twelfth year was now behind me. I 
 learned French, dancing and drawing: I re- 
 ceived the usual instructions in religion. In the 
 latter many thoughts and feelings were awak- 
 ened ; but nothing properly relating to my own 
 condition. I liked to hear the people speak of 
 God ; I was proud that I could speak on these 
 points better than my equals. I zealously read 
 many books, which put me in a case to talk 
 about religion ; but it never once occurred to me 
 to think how matters stood with me, whether 
 my soul was formed according to these holy pre- 
 cepts, whether it was like a glass from which 
 the everlasting sun could be reflected in its 
 glancing. From the first, I had presupposed all 
 this. 
 
 My French I learned with eagerness. My 
 teacher was a clever man. He was not a vain 
 empiric, not a dry grammarian : he had learning, 
 he had seen the world. Instructing me in lan- 
 guage, he satisfied my zeal for knowledge in a 
 thousand ways. I loved him so much, that I 
 used to wait his coming with a palpitating heart. 
 Drawing was not hard for me : I would have 
 made a greater progress, had my teacher been 
 possessed of head and science ; he had only 
 hands and practice. 
 
 Dancing was at first my smallest entertain- 
 ment: my body was too sensitive for this, and I 
 
284 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 learned it only in the company of my sisters. 
 But our dancing master took a thought of gather- 
 ing all his scholars, male and female, and giving 
 them a ball. This event gave dancing quite 
 another charm for me. 
 
 Amid a throng of boys and girls, the most re- 
 markable were two sons of the Marshal of the 
 Court. The youngest was of my age, the other 
 two years older ; they were children of such 
 beauty, that, according to the universal voice, 
 no one had seen their equals. For my part, 
 scarcely had I noticed them, when I lost sight 
 of all the other crowd. From that moment I 
 began to dance with care, and to wish that I 
 could dance with grace. How came it, on the 
 other hand, that these two boys distinguished 
 me from all the rest ? No matter ; ere an hour 
 had passed, we had become the warmest friends ; 
 and our little entertainment did not end, till we 
 had fixed upon the time and place where we 
 were next to meet. What a joy for me ! And 
 how charmed was I next morning, when both 
 of them inquired about my health, each in a 
 gallant note, accompanied with a nosegay ! I 
 have never since felt as I then did ! Compli- 
 ment was met by compliment; letter answered 
 letter. The church and the public walks were 
 grown a rendezvous ; our young acquaintances, 
 in all their little parties, now invited us together ; 
 while, at the same time, we were sly enough to 
 veil the business from our parents, so that they 
 could see no more of it than we thought good. 
 
 Thus had I at once got a pair of lovers. I 
 had yet decided upon neither ; they both pleased 
 me, and we did extremely well together. All 
 at once, the eldest of the two fell very sick. I 
 myself had frequently been sick ; and thus I 
 was enabled, by despatching to him many little 
 dainties and delicacies suited for a sick person, 
 to afford some solace to the sufferer. His parents 
 thankfully acknowledged my attention : in com- 
 pliance with the prayer of their beloved son, 
 they invited me, with all my sisters, to their 
 house, so soon as he had risen from his sick bed. 
 The tenderness, which he displayed on meeting 
 me, was not the feeling of a child ; from that 
 day I gave the preference to him. He warned 
 me to keep our secret from his brother ; but the 
 flame could no longer be concealed ; and the 
 jealousy of the younger completed our romance. 
 He played us a thousand tricks ; eager to anni- 
 hilate our joys, he but increased the passion he 
 was seeking to destroy. 
 
 At last, then, I had actually found the wished- 
 for lamb ; and this attachment acted on me like 
 my sickness ; it made me calm, and drew me 
 back from noisy pleasures. I was solitary, I 
 was moved; and thoughts of God again occurred 
 to me. He was again my confidant, and I well 
 remember with what tears I often prayed for 
 this poor boy, who still continued sickly. 
 
 The more childishness there was in this ad- 
 venture, the more did it contribute to the forming 
 of my heart. Our French teacher had now 
 turned us from translating, into daily writing 
 
 him some letter of our own invention. I brought 
 my little history to market, shrouded in the 
 names of Phyllis and Damon. The old man 
 soon saw through it; and to render me commu- 
 nicative, praised my labor very much. I still 
 waxed bolder ; came openly out with the affair, 
 adhering even in the minute details to truth. I 
 do not now remember what the passage was at 
 which he took occasion to remark : " How pretty, 
 how natural it is ! But the good Phyllis had 
 better have a care ; the thing may soon grow 
 serious. 1 ' 
 
 It vexed me, that he did not look upon the 
 matter as already serious ; and I asked him, with 
 an air of pique, what he meant by serious. He 
 did not force me to repeat the question ; he ex- 
 plained himself so clearly, that I scarce could 
 hide my terror. Yet, as anger came along with 
 it, as I took it ill that he should entertain such 
 thoughts, I kept myself composed, I tried to jus- 
 tify my nymph; and said with glowing cheeks: 
 " But, sir, Phyllis is an honorable girl." 
 
 He was rogue enough to banter me about my 
 honorable heroine. While we were speaking 
 French, he played upon the word honnete, and 
 hunted the honorableness of Phyllis over all its 
 meanings. I felt the ridicule of this, and was 
 extremely puzzled. He, not to frighten me, 
 broke off; but afterwards he often led the con- 
 versation to such topics. Plays and little histo- 
 ries, which I was reading and translating with 
 him, gave him frequent opportunity to show 
 how feeble a security our boasted virtue was 
 against the rules of inclination. I no longer 
 contradicted him ; but I was in secret scanda- 
 lized ; and his remarks became a burden to me. 
 
 With my worthy Damon, too, I by degrees fell 
 out of all connection. The chicanery of the 
 younger boy destroyed our intercourse. Soon 
 after, both these blooming creatures died. I 
 lamented sore; however, in a short time I 
 forgot. 
 
 But Phyllis rapidly increased in stature ; was 
 altogether healthy, and began to see the world. 
 The hereditary Prince now married; and a short 
 time after, on his father's death, began his rule. 
 Court and town were in the liveliest movement: 
 my curiosity had copious nourishment. There 
 were plays and balls, with all their usual accom- 
 paniments ; and though my parents kept retired 
 as much as possible, they were obliged to show 
 themselves at court, where I of course was in- 
 troduced. Strangers were pouring in from every 
 side ; high company was in every house ; even 
 to us some cavaliers were recommended, others 
 introduced ; and at my uncle's, men of every 
 nation might be met with. 
 
 My honest Mentor still continued, in a modest 
 and yet striking way, to warn me ; and I to take 
 it ill of him in secret. With regard to his asser- 
 tion, that women under every circumstance were 
 weak, I did not feel at all convinced ; and here 
 perhaps I was in the right, and my Mentor in 
 the wrong ; but he spoke so earnestly, that once 
 I grew afraid he might be right, and said to him. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 285 
 
 with much vivacity : " Since the danger is so 
 great, and the human heart so weak, I will pray 
 to God that He may keep me." 
 
 This simple answer seemed to please him, 
 , for he praised my purpose ; but on my side it 
 was anything but seriously meant. It was in 
 1 truth but an empty word ; for my feelings to- 
 wards the Invisible were almost totally extin- 
 guished. The hurry and the crowd with which 
 I was surrounded dissipated my attention, and 
 carried me along as in a powerful stream. 
 These were (he emptiest years of my life. All 
 day long to speak of nothing, to have no solid 
 thought; never to do anything but revel: such 
 was my employment. On my beloved books I 
 never once bestowed a thought. The people 
 whom I lived among had not the slightest tinge 
 of literature or science : they were German 
 courtiers ; a class of men at that time altogether 
 destitute of mental culture. 
 
 Such society, it may be thought, must naturally 
 have led me to the brink of ruin. I lived away 
 in mere corporeal cheerfulness ; I never took 
 myself to task, I never prayed, I never thought 
 about myself or God. Yet I look upon it as a 
 providential guidance, that none of these many 
 ; handsome, rich and well-dressed men could take 
 ! my fancy. They were rakes, and did not hide 
 it ; this scared me back : their speech was fre- 
 quently adorned with double meanings ; this 
 offended me, and made me act with coldness 
 towards them. Many times their improprieties 
 surpassed belief; and I did not prevent myself 
 from being rude. 
 
 Besides, my ancient counsellor had once in 
 confidence contrived to tell me, that, with the 
 greater part of these lewd fellows, health as 
 > well as virtue was in danger. I now shuddered 
 at the sight of them ; I was afraid, if one of 
 them in any way approached too near me. I 
 j would not touch their cups or glasses, even the 
 ; chairs they had been sitting on. Thus morally 
 and physically I remained apart from them ; all 
 the compliments they paid me I haughtily ac- 
 cepted of, as incense that was due. 
 
 Among the strangers then resident among us, 
 there was one young man peculiarly distin- 
 guished, whom in sport we used to call Narciss. 
 He had gained a reputation in the diplomatic 
 line ; and among the various changes now oc- 
 curring at our court, he was in hopes of meeting 
 with some advantageous place. He soon became 
 acquainted with my father : his acquirements and 
 | manners opened for him the way to a select 
 society of most accomplished men. My father 
 often spoke in praise of him: his figure, which 
 was very handsome, would have been more 
 pleasing, had it not been for a certain air of self- 
 complacency, which breathed from all his car- 
 riage. I had seen him ; I thought well of him ; 
 but we had never spoken. 
 
 At a great ball, where we chanced to be in 
 company, I danced a minuet along with him ; 
 but this too passed without results. The more 
 violent dances, in compliance with my father's 
 
 will, who felt anxieties about my health, I was 
 accustomed to avoid : in the present case, when 
 these came on, I retired to an adjoining room, 
 and began to talk with certain of my friends, 
 elderly ladies, who had set themselves to cards. 
 
 Narciss, who had jigged it for a while, at last 
 came into the room in which I was ; and hav- 
 ing got the better of a bleeding at the nose, that 
 had overtaken him in dancing, he began to 
 speak with me about a multitude of things. In 
 half an hour, the talk had grown so interesting, 
 that neither of us could endure to think of 
 dancing any more. We were rallied by our 
 friends for this ; but we did not let their banter- 
 ing disturb us. Next evening, we recommenced 
 our conversation, and were very careful not to 
 hurt our health. 
 
 The acquaintance then was made. Narciss 
 was often with my sisters and myself ; and I 
 now once more began to reckon over and con- 
 sider what I knew, what I thought of, what I 
 had felt, and what I could express myself about 
 in conversation. My new friend had mingled 
 in the best society; besides the department of 
 history and politics, with every part of which 
 he was familiar, he had gained extensive lite- 
 rary knowledge ; there was nothing new that 
 issued from the press, especially in France, that 
 he was unacquainted with. He brought or sent 
 me many a pleasant book ; but this we kept as 
 secret as forbidden love. Learned women had 
 been made ridiculous, well-informed women 
 were with difficulty tolerated ; apparently, be- 
 cause it would have been uncourtly to put so 
 many ill-informed gentlemen to shame. Even 
 my father, much as he delighted in this new 
 opportunity of cultivating my mind, expressly 
 stipulated that our literary commerce should re- 
 main a secret. 
 
 Thus our intercourse continued almost for a 
 year and a day ; and still I could not say that 
 in any wise Narciss had ever shown me aught 
 of love or tenderness. He was always com- 
 plaisant and kind ; but manifested nothing like 
 attachment: on the contrary, he even seemed to 
 be in some degree affected by the charms of my 
 youngest sister, who was then extremely beau- 
 tiful. In sport, he gave her many little friendly 
 names, out of foreign tongues; for he could 
 speak two or three of these extremely well : 
 and loved to mix their idiomatic phrases with 
 his German. Such compliments she did not 
 answer very liberally ; she was entangled in a 
 different noose ; and being very sharp, while he 
 was very sensitive, the two were often quarrel- 
 ling about trifles. With my mother and my 
 aunt, he kept himself on very pleasant terms; 
 and thus by gradual advances, he was grown 
 to be a member of the family. 
 
 Who knows how long we might have lived 
 in this way, had a curious accident not altered 
 our relations all at once. My sisters and I were 
 invited to a certain house, to which we did not 
 like to go. The company was too mixed ; and 
 persons of the stupidest if not the rudest stamp 
 
286 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 were often to be met with there. Narciss, on 
 this occasion, was invited also; and on his ac- 
 count I felt inclined to go, for I was sure of find- 
 ing one at least with whom I could converse as 
 I desired. Even at table, we had many things 
 to suffer ; for several of the gentlemen had drunk 
 too much : and after rising from it, they insisted 
 on a game at forfeits. It went on with great 
 vivacity and tumult. Narciss had lost a for- 
 feit: they ordered him, by way of penalty, to 
 whisper something pleasant in the ear of every 
 member of the company. It seems, he staid too 
 long beside my neighbor, the lady of a Captain. 
 The latter on a sudden struck him such a box 
 with his fist, that the powder flew about my 
 eyes and blinded me. When I had cleared my 
 sight, and in some degree recovered from my 
 terror, I saw that both of them had drawn their 
 swords. Narciss was bleeding; and the other, 
 mad with wine and rage and jealousy, could 
 scarcely be held back by all the company : I 
 seized Narciss, led him by the arm up stairs ; 
 and as I did not think my friend even here in 
 safety from his frantic enemy, I shut the door 
 and bolted it. 
 
 Neither of us looked upon the wound as seri- 
 ous ; for a slight cut across the hand was all we 
 saw. Soon, however, I perceived a stream of 
 blood running down his back, and a deep wound 
 appeared upon his head. I now began to be 
 afraid. I hastened to the lobby, to get help ; 
 but I could see no person ; every one had staid 
 below to calm the raving captain. At last a 
 daughter of the family came skipping up ; her 
 mirth annoyed me; she was like to die with 
 laughing at the bedlam spectacle. I conjured 
 her for the sake of Heaven to get a surgeon ; 
 and she, in her wild way, sprang down the 
 stair to fetch me one herself. 
 
 Returning to my wounded friend, I bound 
 my handkerchief about his hand ; and a neck- 
 kerchief, that was hanging on the door, about 
 his head. He was still bleeding copiously : he 
 now turned pale, and seemed as if he were 
 about to faint. There was none at hand to aid 
 me : I very freely put my arm around him ; 
 patted his cheek, and tried to cheer him up by 
 little flatteries. It seemed to act upon him like 
 a spiritual remedy ; he kept his senses, but he 
 sat as pale as death. 
 
 At last the active housewife entered : it is 
 easy to conceive her terror when she saw my 
 friend in this predicament, lying in my arms, 
 and both of us bestreamed with blood. No one 
 had supposed that he was wounded ; all imagin- 
 ed I had carried him away in safety. 
 
 Now smelling-bottles, wine, and everything 
 that could support and stimulate, were copi- 
 ously produced. The surgeon also came ; and 
 I might easily have been dispensed with. Nar- 
 ciss, however, held me firmly by the hand ; I 
 would have staid without holding. During the 
 dressing of his wounds, I continued wetting his 
 lips with wine ; I minded not though all the 
 company were now about us. The surgeon 
 
 having finished, his patient took a mute but 
 tender leave of me, and was conducted home. 
 
 The mistress of the house now led me to her 
 bed-room : she was forced to strip me alto- 
 gether. * * * No portion of my clothes 
 could be put on again ; and as the people of the 
 house were all either less or larger than myself, 
 I was taken home in a strange disguise. My 
 parents were, of course, astonished. They felt 
 exceedingly indignant at my fright, at the 
 wounds of their friend, at the captain's mad- 
 ness, at the whole occurrence. A very little 
 would have made my father send a challenge 
 to the captain, that he might avenge his friend 
 without delay. He blamed the gentlemen that 
 had been there, because they had not punished 
 such a murderous attempt upon the spot: for it 
 was but too clear, that the captain, instantly on 
 striking, had pulled out his sword and wounded 
 the other from behind. The cut across the hand 
 had not been given, until Narciss himself was 
 grasping at his sword. I felt unspeakably 
 affected and altered : or, how shall I express it ? 
 The passion, which was sleeping at the deepest 
 bottom of my heart, had at once broken loose, 
 like a flame on getting air. And if joy and plea- 
 sure are well suited, for the first producing and 
 the silent nourishing of love, yet this passion, 
 bold by nature, is most easily impelled by terror 
 to decide and to declare itself. My mother 
 gave some physic to her little flurried daughter, 
 and made her go to bed. With the earliest 
 morrow, my father hastened to Narciss, whom 
 he found lying very sick of a wound fever. 
 
 He told me little of what passed between 
 them, but tried to quiet me about the probable 
 results of this event. They were now consider- 
 ing whether an apology should be accepted of, 
 whether the affair should go before a court of 
 justice, and many other points of that descrip- 
 tion. I knew 'my father too well to doubt that 
 he would be averse to see the matter end with- 
 out a duel : but I held my peace ; for I had 
 learned from him before, that women should 
 not meddle in such things. For the rest, it did 
 not strike me as if anything had passed between 
 the friends, in which my interests were specially 
 concerned : but my father soon communicated to 
 my mother the purport of their further conver- 
 sation. Narciss, he said, appeared to be exceed- 
 ingly affected at the help afforded by me ; had 
 embraced him, declared himself my debtor for 
 ever, signified that he desired no happiness ex- 
 cept what he could share with me, and concluded 
 by entreating that he might presume to ask my 
 hand. All this mamma repeated to me, but 
 subjoined the safe reflection, that "as for what 
 was said in the first agitation of mind in such a 
 case, there was little trust to be placed in it." 
 " Of course, none,' : I answered with affected 
 coldness; though all the while I was feeling 
 Heaven knows what and how. 
 
 Narciss continued sick for two months ; owing 
 to the wound in his right hand, he could not 
 even write. Yet, in the meantime, he showed 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 287 
 
 me his regard by the most obliging courtesies. 
 All these unusual attentions I combined with 
 what my mother had disclosed to me; and con- 
 stantly my head was full of fancies. The whole 
 city talked of the occurrence. With me they 
 spoke of it in a peculiar tone ; they drew infer- 
 
 ! ences which, greatly as I struggled to avoid 
 them, touched me very close. What had for- 
 merly heen habitude and trifling, was now grown 
 seriousness and inclination. The anxiety in which 
 I lived was the more violent, the more carefully 
 I studied to conceal it from every one. The idea 
 of losing him affrighted me ; the possibility of 
 any closer union made me tremble. For a half- 
 prudent girl, there is really something awful in 
 the thought of marriage. 
 
 By such incessant agitations, I was once more 
 
 ' led to recollect myself. The gaudy imagery of 
 a thoughtless life, which used to hover day and 
 night before my eyes, was at once blown away. 
 My soul again began to wake : but the greatly 
 interrupted intimacy with my Invisible Friend 
 was not so easy to renew. We still continued 
 at a frigid distance : it was again something ; 
 but little to the times of old. 
 
 A duel had been fought, and the captain been 
 severely wounded, before I ever heard of it. 
 The public feeling was in all senses strong on 
 the side of my lover, who at length again ap- 
 peared upon the scene. But first of all, he came 
 with his head tied up and his arm in a sling, to 
 visit us. How my heart beat while he was 
 there ! The whole family was present ; general 
 thanks and compliments were all that passed 
 on either side ; Narciss, however, found an op- 
 portunity to show some secret tokens of his love 
 
 1 to me, by which means my inquietude was but 
 increased. After his recovery, he visited us 
 throughout the winter on the former footing; 
 
 1 and in spite of all the soft private marks of ten- 
 derness, which he contrived to give me, the 
 whole affair remained unsettled, undiscussed. 
 
 In this manner was I kept in constant prac- 
 tice. I could not trust my thoughts to mortal ; 
 and from God I was too far removed. Him I 
 had quite forgot for four wild years : I now 
 again began at times to think of him ; but our 
 acquaintance was grown cool ; they were visits 
 of mere ceremony, which I paid him ; and as, 
 besides, in paying them, I used to dress myself 
 in fine apparel, to set before him self-compla- 
 
 - cently my virtue, honor and superiorities to 
 
 I others, he did not seem to notice me or know 
 me in that finery. 
 
 A courtier would have been exceedingly dis- 
 tiessed, if the prince who held his fortune in 
 his hands had treated him in this way : but for 
 me I did not sorrow at it. I had what I re- 
 
 I quired, health and conveniences ; if God should 
 
 j please to think of me, well ; if not, I reckoned 
 
 j I had done my duty. 
 
 This, in truth, I did not think at that period : 
 yet it was the true figure of my soul. But, to 
 change and purify my feelings, preparations 
 were already made. 
 
 The spring came on : Narciss once visited 
 me, unannounced, and at a time when I hap 
 pened to be quite alone. He now appeared in 
 the character of lover ; and asked me if I could 
 bestow on him my heart, and when he should 
 obtain some lucrative and honorable place, 
 along with it my hand. 
 
 He had been received into our service: but 
 at first they kept him back, and would not 
 rapidly promote him, because they dreaded his 
 ambition. Having some little fortune of his 
 own, he was left with a slender salary. 
 
 Notwithstanding my regard for him, I knew 
 that he was not a man to treat with altogether 
 frankly. I drew up, therefore, and referred him 
 to my father. About my father's mind he did 
 not seem to doubt; but wanted previously to be 
 at one with me, upon the spot. I at last said, 
 yes ; but stipulated as an indispensable condi- 
 tion that my parents should concur. He then 
 spoke formally with both of them ; they signified 
 their satisfaction ; mutual promises were given 
 on the faith of his advancement, which it was 
 expected would be speedy. Sisters and aunts 
 were informed of this arrangement, and the 
 strictest secrecy enjoined on them. 
 
 Thus from a lover I had got a bridegroom. 
 The difference between the two soon showed 
 itself to be considerable. If any one could 
 change the lovers of all honorable maidens into 
 bridegrooms, it would be a kindness to our sex, 
 even though marriage should not follow the 
 connection. The love between two persons 
 does not lessen by the change, but it becomes 
 more reasonable. Innumerable little follies, all 
 coquetries and caprices, disappear. If the bride- 
 groom tells us, that we please him better in a 
 morning cap than in the finest head-dress, no 
 discreet young woman will disturb herself about 
 her hair-dressing ; and nothing is more natural 
 than that he too should think solidly, and rather 
 wish to form a housewife for himself than a 
 gaudy doll for others. And thus it is in every 
 province of the business. 
 
 Should a young woman of this kind be fortu- 
 nate enough to have a bridegroom who possesses 
 understanding and acquirements, she learns from 
 him more than universities and foreign lands 
 can teach. She not only willingly receives in- 
 struction, when he offers it, but she endeavors 
 to elicit more and more from him. Love makes 
 much that was impossible possible. By degrees 
 too that subjection, so necessary and so graceful 
 for the female sex, begins : the bridegroom does 
 not govern like the husband; he only asks; but 
 his mistress seeks to notice what he wants, and 
 to offer it before he asks it. 
 
 So did experience teach me what I would 
 not for much have missed. I was happy ; truly 
 happy, as woman could be in the world ; that 
 is to say, for a while. 
 
 The Serious of my old French teacher now 
 occurred to me ; as well as the defence, which 
 I had once suggested in regard to it. 
 
 With God I had again become a little more 
 
288 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 acquainted. He had given me a bridegroom 
 whom I loved ; and for this I felt some thank- 
 fulness. Earthly love itself concentrated my 
 soul, and put its powers in motion ; nor did it 
 contradict my intercourse with God. I naturally 
 complained to him of what alarmed me : but I 
 did not perceive that I myself was wishing and 
 desiring it. In my own eyes, I was strong; I 
 did not pray: "Lead us not into temptation!"' 
 My thoughts were far beyond temptation. In 
 this flimsy tinsel-work of virtue I came to God : 
 he did not drive me back. On the smallest 
 movement towards him, he left a soft impres- 
 sion in my soul ; and this impression caused 
 me always to return. 
 
 Except Narciss, the world was altogether 
 dead to me ; excepting him, there was nothing 
 in it that had any charm. Even my love for 
 dress was but the wish to please him : if I knew 
 that he was not to see me, I could spend no 
 care upon it. I liked to dance; but if he was 
 not beside me, it seemed as if I could not bear 
 the motion. At a brilliant festival, if he was 
 not invited, I could neither take the trouble of 
 providing new things, nor of putting on the old 
 according to the mode. To me they were alike 
 agreeable, or rather I might say, alike burden- 
 some. I used to reckon such an evening very 
 fairly spent, when I could join myself to any 
 ancient card-party, though formerly I was with- 
 out the smallest taste for such things ; and if 
 some old acquaintance came and rallied me 
 about it, I would smile, perhaps for the first 
 time all that night. So likewise it was with 
 promenades, and every social entertainment 
 that can be imagined : 
 
 Him had 1 chosen from ail others, 
 His would 1 be, and not another's; 
 To me his love was all in alL 
 
 Thus I was often solitary in the midst of 
 company; and real solitude was generally ac- 
 ceptable to me. But my busy soul could neither 
 sleep nor dream ; I felt and thought, and longed 
 for the ability to speak about my feelings and 
 my thoughts with God. From this were feelings 
 of another sort unfolded ; but they did not con- 
 tradict the former : my affection to Narciss ac- 
 corded with the universal scheme of nature ; it 
 nowhere hindered the performance of a duty. 
 They did not contradict each other, yet they 
 were immensely different. Narciss was the 
 only living form which hovered in my mind, 
 and to which my love was all directed ; but the 
 other feeling was not directed towards any 
 form, and yet it was unspeakably agreeable. I 
 no longer have it, I no longer can impart it. 
 
 My lover, whom I used to trust with all my 
 secrets, did not know of this. I soon discovered 
 that he thought far otherwise : he often gave 
 me writings, which opposed with light and 
 heavy weapons all that can be called connection 
 with the Invisible. I used to read the books, 
 because they came from him : but at the end, I 
 knew no word of all that had been argued in 
 them. 
 
 Nor in regard to sciences and knowledge was 
 there any want of contradiction in our conduct. 
 He did as all men do, he mocked at learned 
 women; and yet he kept continually instructing 
 me. He used to speak with me on all subjects, 
 law excepted ; and while constantly procuring 
 books of every kind for me, he frequently re- 
 peated the uncertain precept, " That a lady ought 
 to keep the knowledge she might' have, more 
 secret than the Calvinist his creed in Catholic 
 countries." And while I, by natural conse- 
 quence, endeavored not to show myself more 
 wise or learned than formerly before the world, 
 Narciss himself was commonly the first who 
 yielded to the vanity of speaking about me and 
 my superiorities. 
 
 A nobleman of high repute, and at that time 
 valued for his influence, his talents and accom- 
 plishments, was living at our Court with great 
 applause. He bestowed especial notice on 
 Narciss, whom he kept continually about him. ! 
 They had once an argument about the virtue of 
 women. Narciss repeated to me what had 
 passed between them ; I was not wanting with 
 my observations ; and my friend required of 
 me a written essay on the subject. I could 
 write French fluently enough ; I laid a good 
 foundation with my teacher. My correspond- 
 ence with Narciss was likewise carried on in 
 French : except in French books, there was then 
 no elegant instruction to be had. My essay 
 pleased the Count ; I was obliged to let him 
 have some little songs, which I had lately been 
 composing. In short, Narciss appeared to revel 
 without stint in the renown of his beloved : and 
 the story, to his great contentment, ended with 
 a French epistle in heroic verse, which the 
 Count transmitted to him on departing ; in which 
 their argument was mentioned, and my friend 
 reminded of his happiness in being destined, 
 after all his doubts and errors, to learn most 
 certainly what virtue was, in the arms of a vir- 
 tuous and charming wife. 
 
 He showed this poem first of all to me, and 
 then to almost every one ; each thinking on the 
 matter what he pleased. Thus did he act in 
 several cases ; every stranger, whom he valued, 
 must be made acquainted in our house. 
 
 A noble family was staying for a season in 
 the place, to profit by the skill of our physician. 
 In this house too, Narciss was looked on as a 
 son : he introduced me there ; we found among 
 these worthy persons the most pleasant enter- 
 tainment for the mind and heart. Even the 
 common pastimes of society appeared less empty 
 here than elsewhere. All knew how matters 
 stood with us : they treated us as circumstances 
 would allow, and left the main relation unal- 
 luded to. I mention this one family; because, 
 in the after period of my life, it had a powerful 
 influence upon me. 
 
 Almost a year of our connection had elapsed; 
 and along with it, our spring was over. The 
 summer came, and all grew drier and more 
 earnest. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 2b 9 
 
 By several unexpected deaths, some offices 
 were rendered vacant, which Narciss might 
 make pretensions to. The instant was at hand, 
 in which my whole destiny must be decided ; 
 and while Narciss and all our friends were 
 making every effort to efface some impressions, 
 which obstructed him at Court, and to obtain 
 for him the wished-for situation, I turned with 
 my request to my Invisible Friend. I was re- 
 ceived so kindly, that I gladly came again. I 
 confessed without disguise my wish that Narciss 
 might obtain the place: but my prayer was not 
 importunate ; and I did not require that it should 
 happen for the sake of my petition. 
 
 The place was obtained by a far inferior 
 competitor. I was dreadfully troubled at this 
 news ; I hastened to my room, the door of which 
 I locked behind me. The first fit of grief went 
 off in a shower of tears ; the next thought was, 
 "Yet it was not by chance that it happened;'' 
 and instantly I formed the resolution to be well 
 contented with it, seeing'even this apparent evil 
 would be for my true advantage. The softest 
 emotions then pressed in upon me, and divided 
 all the clouds of sorrow. I felt that, with help 
 like this, there was nothing one might not en- 
 dure. At dinner I appeared quite cheerful, to 
 the great astonishment of all the house. 
 
 Narciss had less internal force than I, and I 
 was called upon to comfort him. In his family, 
 too, he had many crosses to encounter, some of 
 which afflicted him considerably ; and, such 
 true confidence subsisting between us, he in- 
 trusted me with all. His negotiations for en- 
 tering on foreign service were not more fortu- 
 nate ; the whole of this I deeply felt on his 
 account and mine ; the whole of it I ultimately 
 carried to the place, where my petitions had 
 i already been so well received. 
 1 The softer these experiences were, the oftener 
 did I endeavor to renew them; I hoped conti- 
 nually to meet with comfort, where I had so 
 often met with it. Yet I did not always meet 
 with it: I was as one that goes to warm him 
 i in the sunshine, while there is something stand- 
 ing in the way that makes a shadow. "What 
 is this ?" I asked myself. I traced the matter 
 zealously, and soon perceived that it all de- 
 pended on the situation of my soul : if this was 
 not turned in the straightest direction towards 
 God, I still continued cold; I did not feel his 
 counter influence; I could obtain no answer. 
 The second question was : " What hinders this 
 direction?" Here I was in a wide field ; I per- 
 plexed myself in an inquiry, which lasted nearly 
 all the second year of my attachment to Narciss. 
 I might have ended the investigation sooner; 
 for it was not long till I had got upon the proper 
 trace ; but I would not confess it, and I sought 
 a thousand outlets. 
 
 I very soon discovered that the straight direc- 
 tion of my soul was marred by foolish dissipa- 
 tions, and employment with unworthy things. 
 The How and the Where were clear enough to 
 me. Yet by what means could I help myself, 
 2 M 
 
 or extricate my mind from the calls of a world 
 where everything was either cold indifference 
 or hot insanity ? Gladly would I have left things 
 standing as they were, and lived from day to 
 day, floating down with the stream, like other 
 people whom I saw quite happy : but I durst 
 not; my inmost feelings contradicted me too 
 often. Yet if I determined to renounce society, 
 and alter my relations to others, it was not in 
 my power. I was hemmed in as by a ring 
 drawn round me : certain connections I could 
 not dissolve; and, in the matter, which lay 
 nearest to my heart, fatalities accumulated and 
 oppressed me more and more. I often went 
 to bed with tears ; and, after a sleepless night, 
 arose again with tears : I required some strong 
 support; and God would not vouchsafe it me, 
 while I was running with the cap and bells. 
 
 I proceeded now to estimate my doings, all 
 and each ; dancing and play were first put upon 
 their trial. Never was there anything spoken, 
 thought, or written, for or against these practices, 
 which I did not examine, talk of, read, weigh, 
 reject, aggravate, and plague myself about. If I 
 gave up these habits, I was certain that Narciss 
 would be offended ; for he was excessively afraid 
 of the ridicule, which any look of straight-laced 
 conscientiousness gives one in the eyes of the 
 world. And doing what I now looked upon as 
 folly, noxious folly, out of no taste of my own, 
 but merely to gratify him, it all grew dreadfully 
 irksome to me. 
 
 Without disagreeable prolixities and repeti- 
 tions, it is not in my power to represent what 
 pains I took, in trying so to counteract those oc- 
 cupations, which distracted my attention and 
 disturbed my peace of mind, that my heart, in 
 spite of them, might still be open to the influ- 
 ences of the Invisible Being. But at last with 
 pain I was compelled to feel, that in this way 
 the quarrel could not be composed. For no 
 sooner had I clothed myself in the garment of 
 folly, than it came to be something more than 
 a mask ; that foolishness pierced and penetrated 
 me through and through. 
 
 May I here overstep the province of a mere 
 historical detail, and offer one or two remarks 
 on what was then taking place within me? 
 What could it be, which so changed my tastes 
 and feelings, that, in my twenty-second year, 
 nay earlier, I lost all relish for the recreations 
 with which people of that age are harmlessly 
 delighted ? Why were they not harmless for 
 me? I may answer, Just because they were 
 not harmless ; because I was not, like others of 
 my years, unacquainted with my soul. No! I 
 knew from experiences, which had reached me 
 unsought, that there are loftier emotions, which 
 afford us a contentment such as it is vain to seek 
 in the amusement of the world; and that in 
 these higher joys there is also kept a secret trea- 
 sure for strengthening the spirit in misfortune. 
 
 But the pleasures of society, the dissipations 
 of youth, must needs have had a powerful 
 charm for me, since it was not in my power to 
 25 
 
290 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 engage in them without participation, to act 
 among them as if they were not there. How 
 many things could I now do, if I liked, with 
 entire coldness, which then dazzled and con- 
 founded me, nay threatened to obtain the mas- 
 tery over me ! Here there could no medium be 
 observed ; either those delicious amusements, or 
 my nourishing and quickening internal emotions, 
 must be given up. 
 
 But in my soul, the strife had, without my 
 own consciousness, already been decided. Even 
 if there still was anything within me that longed 
 for earthly pleasures, I was now become unfitted 
 for enjoying them. Much as a man might 
 hanker after wine, all desire of drinking would 
 forsake him, if he should be placed among full 
 barrels in a cellar, where the foul air was like 
 to suffocate him. Free air is more than wine : 
 this I felt but too keenly ; and from the first, it 
 would have cost me little studying to prefer the 
 good to the delightful, if the fear of losing the 
 affection of Narciss had not restrained me. But 
 at last, when after many thousand struggles, 
 and thoughts continually renewed, I began to 
 cast a steady eye upon the bond which held me 
 to him, I discovered that it was but weak, that 
 it might be torn asunder. I at once perceived 
 it to be only as a glass bell, which shut me up 
 in the exhausted airless space : One bold stroke 
 to break the bell in pieces, and thou art deli- 
 vered ! 
 
 No sooner thought than tried. I drew off the 
 mask, and on all occasions acted as my heart 
 directed. Narciss I still cordially loved : but 
 the thermometer, which formerly had stood in 
 hot water, was now hanging in the natural air; 
 it could rise no higher than the warmth of the 
 atmosphere directed. 
 
 Unhappily it cooled very much. Narciss drew 
 back, and began to assume a distant air : this 
 was at his option; but my thermometer de- 
 scended as he drew back. Our family observed 
 this ; questioned me, and seemed to be surprised. 
 I explained to them with stout defiance, that 
 heretofore I had made abundant sacrifices; that 
 I was ready, still further and to the end of my 
 life, to share all crosses that befell him ; but that 
 I required full freedom in my conduct, that my 
 doings and avoidings must depend upon my 
 own conviction ; that indeed I would never 
 bigotedly cleave to my own opinion, but on the 
 other hand would willingly be reasoned with ; 
 yet, as it concerned my own happiness, the de- 
 cision must proceed from myself, and be liable 
 to no manner of constraint. The greatest phy- 
 sician could not move me by his reasonings to 
 take an article of food, which perhaps was alto- 
 gether wholesome and agreeable to many, so 
 soon as my experience had shown that on all 
 occasions it was noxious to me ; as I might pro- 
 duce coffee for an instance ; and just as little, 
 nay still less, would I have any sort of conduct, 
 which misled me, preached up and demonstrated 
 upon me as morally profitable. 
 
 Having so long prepared myself in silence, 
 
 these debates were rather pleasant than vexa- 
 tious to me. I gave vent to my soul ; I felt the 
 whole worth of my determination. I yielded 
 not a hair's breadth ; and those to whom I owed 
 no filial respect were sharply handled and des- 
 patched. In the family I soon prevailed. My 
 mother from her youth had entertained these 
 sentiments, though in her they had never reached 
 maturity ; for no necessity had pressed upon her, 
 and exalted her courage to achieve her purpose. 
 She rejoiced in beholding her silent wishes ful- 
 filled through me. My younger sisters seemed 
 to join themselves with me; the second was 
 attentive and quiet. Our aunt had the most to 
 object. The arguments, which she employed 
 appeared to her irrefragable, and they were 
 irrefragable, being altogether common-place. 
 At last I was obliged to show her, that she had 
 no voice in the affair in any sense ; and after 
 this, she seldom signified that she persisted in 
 her views. She was indeed the only person 
 who observed this passage close at hand, with- 
 out in some degree experiencing its influence. I 
 do not calumniate her, when I say that she had 
 no character, and the most limited ideas. 
 
 My father acted altogether in his own way. 
 He spoke not much, but often, with me on the 
 matter: his arguments were rational; and being 
 his arguments, they could not be impugned. It 
 was only the deep feeling of my right that gave 
 me strength to dispute against him. But the 
 scenes soon changed ; I was forced to make ap- 
 peal to his heart. Straitened by his understand- 
 ing. I came out with the most pathetic pleadings. 
 I gave free course to my tongue and to my tears. 
 I showed him how much I loved Narciss ; how 
 much constraint I had for two years been en- 
 during ; how certain I was of being in the right ; 
 that I was ready to testify that certainty by the 
 loss of my beloved bridegroom and prospective 
 happiness ; nay, if it were necessary, by the loss 
 of all that I possessed on earth ; that I would 
 rather leave my native country, my parents and 
 my friends, and beg my bread in foreign lands, 
 than act against these dictates of my conscience. 
 He concealed his emotion ; he said nothing on 
 the subject for a while, and at last he openly 
 declared in my favor. 
 
 During all this time Narciss forbore to visit 
 us ; and my father now gave up the weekly 
 club, of which the former was a member. The 
 business made a noise at court, and in the town. 
 People talked about it, as is common in such 
 cases, which the public takes a vehement in- 
 terest in, because its sentence has usurped an 
 influence on the resolutions of weak minds. I 
 knew enough about the world to understand, 
 that one's conduct is often censured by the very 
 persons who would have advised it had one 
 consulted them : and independently of this, with 
 my internal composure, I should have looked on 
 all such transitory speculations just as if they 
 had not been. 
 
 On the other hand, I hindered not myself from 
 yielding to my inclination for Narciss. To me 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 291 
 
 he had become invisible, and to him my feelings 
 had not altered. I loved him tenderly; as it 
 were anew, and much more steadfastly than 
 formerly. If he chose to leave my conscience 
 undisturbed, then I was his: wanting this con- 
 dition, I would have refused a kingdom with 
 him. For several months, I bore these feelings 
 and these thoughts about with me ; and finding, 
 at last, that I was calm and strong enough to go 
 peacefully and firmly to work, I wrote him a 
 polite but not a tender note, inquiring why he 
 never came to see me. 
 
 As I knew his manner of avoiding to explain 
 himself in little matters, but of silently doing 
 what seemed good to him, I purposely urged 
 him in the present instance. I got a long, and 
 as it seemed to me a pitiful reply, in a vague 
 style and unmeaning phrases, stating, that with- 
 out a better place, he could not fix himself and 
 offer me his hand ; that I best knew how hardly 
 it had fared with him hitherto ; that as he was 
 afraid lest a fruitless intercourse, so long con- 
 tinued, might prove hurtful to my reputation, I 
 would give him leave to continue at his present 
 distance ; so soon as it was in his power to 
 make me happy, he would look upon the word 
 which he bad given me as sacred. 
 
 I answered him upon the spot, that as our in- 
 tercourse was known to all the world, it might 
 perhaps be rather late to spare my reputation ; 
 for which, at any rate, my conscience and my 
 innocence were the surest pledges : however, 
 that I hereby freely gave him back his word, 
 and hoped the change would prove a happy one 
 for him. The same hour I received a short 
 reply, which was, in all essential particulars, 
 entirely synonymous with the first. He adhered 
 to his former statement, that so soon as he ob- 
 tained a situation, he would ask me if I pleased 
 to share his fortune with him. 
 
 This I interpreted as meaning simply nothing. 
 I signified to my relations and acquaintances, 
 that the affair was altogether settled ; and it 
 was so actually. Having, nine months after- 
 wards, obtained the much desired preferment, 
 he offered me his hand ; but under the condi- 
 tion, that as the wife of a man who must keep 
 house like other people, I should alter my opi- 
 nions. I returned him many thanks : and hast- 
 ened with my heart and mind away from this 
 transaction ; as one hastens from the play-house 
 when the curtain falls. And as he, a short time 
 afterwards, found a rich and advantageous 
 match, a thing now easy for him ; and as I now 
 knew him to be happy in the way he liked, my 
 own tranquillity was quite complete. 
 
 I must not pass in silence the fact, that several 
 times before he got a place, and after it, there 
 were respectable proposals made to me ; which, 
 however, I declined without the smallest hesi- 
 tation, much as my father and my mother could 
 have wished for more compliance on my part. 
 
 At length, after a stormy March and April, 
 the loveliest May weather seemed to be allotted 
 me. With good health, I enjoyed an inde- 
 
 scribable composure of mind : look around me 
 as I pleased, my loss appeared a gain to me. 
 Young and full of sensibility, I thought the uni- 
 verse a thousand times more beautiful than for- 
 merly, when I required to have society and 
 play, that in the fair garden tedium might not 
 overtake me. And now, as I did not conceal 
 my piety, I likewise took heart to own my love 
 for the sciences and arts. I drew, painted, 
 read ; and found enow of people to support me : 
 instead of the great world which I had left, or 
 rather which had left me, a smaller one was 
 formed about me, which was infinitely richer 
 and more entertaining. I had a turn for social 
 life ; and I do not deny that, on giving up my 
 old acquaintances, I trembled at the thought of 
 solitude. I now found myself abundantly, per- 
 haps excessively, indemnified. My acquaint- 
 ances ere long were very numerous; not at 
 home only, but likewise among people at a dis- 
 tance. My story had been noised abroad ; and 
 many persons felt a curiosity to see the woman 
 who had valued God above her bridegroom. 
 There was a certain pious tone to be observed 
 at that time generally over Germany. In the 
 families of several counts and princes, a care 
 for the welfare of the soul had been awakened. 
 Nor were there wanting noblemen who showed 
 a like attention ; while in the inferior classes, 
 sentiments of this kind were diffused on every 
 side. 
 
 The noble family, whom I made mention of 
 above, now drew me nearer to them. They 
 had, in the meanwhile, gathered strength ; 
 several of their relations having settled in the 
 town. These estimable persons courted my 
 familiarity, as I did theirs. They had high con- 
 nections; I became acquainted, in their house, 
 with a great part of the princes, counts, and 
 lords of the Empire. My sentiments were not 
 concealed from any one ; they might be honored 
 or be tolerated ; I obtained my object ; none at- 
 tacked me. 
 
 There was yet another way, by which I was 
 again led back into the world. About this 
 period, a step-brother of my father, who till now 
 had never visited the house except in passing, 
 staid with us for a considerable time. He had 
 left the service of his court, where he enjoyed 
 great influence and honor, simply because all 
 matters were not managed quite according to 
 his mind. His intellect was just, his character 
 was rigid. In these points he was very like my 
 father ; only the latter had withal a certain touch 
 of softness, which enabled him with greater ease 
 to yield a little in affairs, and though not to do, 
 yet to permit, some things against his own con- 
 viction ; and then to evaporate his anger at them, 
 either in silence by himself, or in confidence 
 amid his family. My uncle was a great deal 
 younger ; and his independence of spirit had 
 been favored by his outward circumstances. 
 His mother had been very rich ; and he still 
 had large possessions to expect from her near 
 and distant relatives : so he needed no foreign 
 
292 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 increase ; whereas my father, with his moderate 
 fortune, was bound to his place by the considera- 
 tion of his salary. 
 
 My uncle had become still more unbending 
 from domestic sufferings. He had early lost an 
 amiable wife and a hopeful son; and from that 
 time, he appeared to wish to push away from 
 him everything that did not hang upon his in- 
 dividual will. 
 
 In our family, it was whispered now and then 
 with some complacency, that probably he would 
 not wed again, and so we children might antici- 
 pate inheriting his fortune. I paid small regard 
 to this ; but the demeanor of the rest was not a 
 little modified by their hopes. In his own im- 
 perturbable firmness of character, my uncle had 
 grown into the habit of never contradicting any 
 one in conversation. On the other hand, he lis- 
 tened with a friendly air to everyone's opinion; 
 and would himself elucidate and strengthen it 
 by instances and reasons of his own. All who 
 did not know him fancied that he thought as 
 they did : for he was possessed of a preponde- 
 rating intellect ; and could transport himself into 
 the mental state "of any man, and imitate his 
 manner of conceiving. With me he did not 
 prosper quite so well : for here the question was 
 about emotions, of which he had not any glimpse; 
 and with whatever tolerance, and sympathy, 
 and rationality, he spoke about my sentiments, 
 it was palpable to me that he had not the slight- 
 est notion of what formed the ground of all my 
 conduct. 
 
 With all his secrecy, we by and by found out 
 the aim of his unusual stay with us. He had, 
 as we at length discovered, cast his eyes upon 
 our youngest sister, with the view of giving her 
 in marriage, and rendering her happy as he 
 pleased; and certainly considering her personal 
 and mental attractions, particularly when a 
 handsome fortune was laid into the scale along 
 with them, she might pretend to the first matches. 
 His feelings towards me he likewise showed us 
 pantomimically, by procuring me a post of Cano- 
 ness, the income of which I very soon began to 
 draw. 
 
 My sister was not so contented with his care 
 as I. She now disclosed to me a tender secret, 
 which hitherto she very wisely had kept back ; 
 fearing, as in truth it happened, that I would by 
 all means counsel her against connection with 
 a man who was not suited to her. I did my 
 utmost, and succeeded. The purpose of my 
 uncle was too serious and too distinct; the pros- 
 pect for my sister, with her worldly views, was 
 too delightful to be thwarted by a passion which 
 her own understanding disapproved; she mus- 
 tered force enough to give it up. 
 
 On her ceasing to resist the gentle guidance 
 of my uncle, the foundation of his plan was 
 quickly laid. She was appointed Maid of Honor 
 at a neighboring court, where he could commit 
 her to the oversight and the instructions of a 
 lady, his friend, who presided there as Gover- 
 ness with great applause. I accompanied her 
 
 to the place of her new abode. Both of us had 
 reason to be satisfied with the reception which 
 we met with ; and frequently I could not help 
 in secret smiling at the character, which now 
 as Canoness, as young and pious Canoness, I 
 was enacting in the world. 
 
 In earlier times, a situation such as this would 
 have confused me dreadfully; perhaps have 
 turned my head ; but now, in midst of all the 
 splendors that surrounded me, I felt extremely 
 cool. With great quietness, I let them frizzle 
 me, and deck me out for hours ; and thought no 
 more of it than that my place required me to 
 wear that gala livery. In the thronged saloons, 
 I spoke with all and each, though no shape or 
 character among them made impression on me. 
 On returning to my house, nearly all the feeling 
 I brought back with me was that of tired limbs. 
 Yet my understanding drew advantage from the 
 multitude of persons whom I saw; and I grew 
 acquainted with some ladies, patterns of every 
 virtue, of a noble and good demeanor; par- 
 ticularly with the Governess, under whom my 
 sister was to have the happiness of being 
 formed. 
 
 At my return, hower, the consequences of 
 this journey, in regard to health, were found to 
 be less favorable. With the greatest temper- 
 ance, the strictest diet, I had not been as I used 
 to be, completely mistress of my time and 
 strength. Food, motion, rising and going to 
 sleep, dressing and visiting, had not depended, 
 as at home, on my own conveniency and wilL 
 In the circle of social life, you cannot stop with- 
 out a breach of courtesy: all that was needful I 
 had willingly performed ; because I looked upon 
 it as my duty, because I knew that it would 
 soon be over, and because I felt myself com- 
 pletely healthy. Yet this unusual restless life 
 must have affected me more strongly than I was 
 aware of. Scarcely had I reached our house, 
 and cheered my parents with a comfortable 
 narrative, when a hemorrhage attacked me, 
 which, although it was not dangerous or lasting, 
 yet left a weakness after it perceptible for many 
 a day. 
 
 Here, then, I had another lesson to repeat. I 
 did it joyfully. Nothing bound me to the world ; 
 and I was to be convinced that here the true 
 good was never to be found : so I waited in the 
 cheerfullest and meekest state ; and after having 
 abdicated life, I was retained in it. 
 
 A new trial was awaiting me: my mother 
 took a painful and oppressive ailment, which 
 she had to bear five years, before she paid the 
 debt of nature. All this time we were sharply 
 proved. Often when her terror grew too strong, 
 she would make us all be summoned in the 
 night before her bed, that so at least she might 
 be busied if not bettered by our presence. The 
 load grew heavier, nay scarcely to be borne, 
 when my father too became unwell. From liis 
 youth, he frequently had violent headaches; 
 which, however, at the longest, never used to 
 last beyond six-and-thirty hours. But now they 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 293 
 
 were continual ; and when they mounted to a 
 high degree of pain, his moanings tore my very 
 heart. It was in these tempestuous seasons 
 that I chiefly felt my bodily weakness; because 
 it kept me from my holiest and dearest duties, 
 or rendered the performance of them hard to an 
 extreme degree. 
 
 It was now that I could try whether the path, 
 which I had chosen, was the path of fantasy or 
 truth ; whether I had merely thought as others 
 showed me, or the object of my trust had a 
 reality. To my unspeakable support, I always 
 found the latter. The straight direction of my 
 heart to God, the fellowship of the "Beloved 
 Ones'"* I had sought and found ; and this was 
 what made all things light to me. As a traveller 
 in the dark, my soul, when all was pressing on 
 me from without, hastened to the place of re- 
 fuge, and never did it return empty. 
 
 In later times, some champions of religion, 
 who seem to be animated more by zeal than 
 feeling for it, have required of their brethren to 
 produce examples of prayers actually heard ; 
 apparently, because they wished for seal and 
 writing, that they might proceed against their 
 adversaries diplomatically and juridically. How 
 unknown must the true feeling of the matter be 
 to these persons ! how few real experiences can 
 they themselves have made ! 
 
 I can say that I never returned empty, when 
 in straits and oppression I called on God. This 
 is saying infinitely much ; more I must not and 
 cannot say. Important as each experience was 
 at the critical moment for myself, the recital of 
 them would be flat, improbable and insignifi- 
 cant, were I to specify the separate cases. Happy 
 was I, that a thousand little incidents in combi- 
 nation proved, as clearly as the drawing of my 
 breath proved me to be living, that I was not 
 without God in the world. He was near to me, 
 I was before him. This is what, with a diligent 
 avoidance of all theological systematic terms, I 
 can with the greatest truth declare. 
 
 Much do I wish that in those times too I had 
 been entirely without system. But which of us 
 arrives early at the happiness of being conscious 
 of his individual self in its own pure combina- 
 tion, without extraneous forms ? I was in earnest 
 with religion. I timidly trusted in the judgments 
 of others; I entirely gave in to the Hallean sys- 
 tem of conversion ; but my nature would by no 
 means tally with it. 
 
 According to this scheme of doctrine, the 
 alteration of the heart must begin with a deep 
 terror on account of sin ; the heart in this agony 
 must recognise in a less or greater degree the 
 punishment which it has merited, must get a 
 foretaste of Hell, and so embitter the delight of 
 sin. At last it feels a very palpable assurance 
 of grace ; which, however, in its progress often 
 fades away, and must again be sought with 
 earnest prayer. 
 
 Of all this no jot occurred with me. When I 
 
 * So in the original.— Ed. 
 
 
 sought God sincerely, he let himself be found 
 of me, and did not reproach me about bygone 
 things. On looking back, I saw well enough 
 where I had been unworthy, where I still was 
 so; but the confession of my faults was altoge- 
 ther without terror. Not for a moment did the 
 fear of Hell occur to me : nay, die very notion 
 of a wicked Spirit, and a place of punishment 
 and torment after death, could nowise gain ad- 
 mission to the circle of my thoughts. I looked 
 upon the men, who lived without God, whose 
 hearts were shut against the trust in and the 
 love of the Invisible, as already so unhappy that 
 a hell and external pains appeared to promise 
 rather an alleviation than an aggravation of 
 their misery. I had but to turn my eyes upon 
 the persons in this world, who in their breasts 
 gave scope to hateful feelings ; who hardened 
 their hearts against the Good of whatever kind, 
 and strove to force the Evil on themselves and 
 others ; who shut their eyes by day, that so they 
 might deny the shining of the sun : How unut- 
 terably wretched did these persons seem to me! 
 Who could have formed a Hell to make their 
 situation worse ? 
 
 This mood of mind continued in me, without 
 change, for half a score of years. It maintained 
 itself through many trials ; even at the moving 
 death-bed of my beloved mother. I was frank 
 enough on this occasion not to hide my com 
 fortable frame of mind from certain pious but 
 rigorously orthodox people ; and I had to surfer 
 many a friendly admonition on that score. They 
 reckoned they were just in season for explain- 
 ing with what earnestness one ought to strive 
 to lay a right foundation in the days of health 
 and youth. 
 
 In earnestness I too determined not to fail. 
 For the moment, I allowed myself to be con- 
 vinced ; and fain would I have grown for life, 
 distressed and full of fears. But what was my 
 surprise on finding absolutely that I could not! 
 When I thought of God, I was cheerful and con- 
 tented: even at the painful end of my dear mo- 
 ther, I did not shudder at the thought of death. 
 Yet I learned many and far other things than 
 my uncalled teachers thought of, in these solemn 
 hours. 
 
 By degrees I grew to doubt the dictates of so 
 many famous people, and retained my senti- 
 ments in silence. A certain lady of my friends, 
 to whom I had at first disclosed too much, in- 
 sisted still on interfering with my business. 
 Of her too I was forced to rid myself; at last I 
 firmly told her, that she might spare herself this 
 labor, as I did not need her counsel ; that I knew 
 my God, and would have no guide but him. 
 She felt exceedingly offended ; I believe she 
 never quite forgave me. 
 
 This determination to withdraw from the ad- 
 vices and the influence of my friends, in spiritual 
 matters, produced the consequence, that also in 
 my temporal affairs I gained sufficient courage 
 to obey my own persuasions. But for the assist- 
 ance of my faithful invisible Leader, I could 
 25* 
 
294 GOETHE. 
 
 not have prospered here. I am still gratefully- 
 astonished at his wise and happy guidance. No 
 one knew how matters stood with me ; even I 
 myself did not know. 
 
 The thing, the wicked and inexplicable thing, 
 which separates us from the Being to whom we 
 owe our life, and in whom all that deserves the 
 name of life must find its nourishment; the 
 thing, which we call Sin, I yet knew nothing of. 
 
 In my intercourse with my invisible Friend, 
 I felt the sweetest enjoyment of all my powers. 
 My desire of constantly enjoying this felicity 
 was so predominant, that I abandoned without 
 hesitation whatever marred our intercourse ; and 
 here experience was my surest teacher. But it 
 was with me as with sick persons, who have 
 no medicine, and try to help themselves by 
 diet. Something is accomplished, but far from 
 enough. 
 
 I could not always live in solitude ; though in 
 it I found the best preservative against the dis- 
 sipation of my thoughts. On returning to the 
 tumult, the impression it produced upon me 
 was the deeper for my previous loneliness. 
 My most peculiar advantage lay in this, that 
 love for quiet was my ruling passion, and that 
 in the end I still drew back to it. I perceived, 
 as in a kind of twilight, my weakness and my 
 misery ; and tried to save myself by avoiding 
 danger and exposure. 
 
 For seven years I had used my dietetic 
 scheme. I held myself not wicked, and I 
 thought my state desirable. But for some pecu- 
 liar circumstances and occurrences, I had re- 
 mained in this position: it was by a curious 
 path that I got further. Contrary to the advice 
 of all my friends, I entered on a new connection. 
 Their objections made me pause at first. I 
 turned to my invisible Leader, and, as he per- 
 mitted me, I went forward without fear. 
 
 A man of spirit, heart and talents, had bought 
 a property beside us. Among the strangers 
 whom I grew acquainted with, were this per- 
 son and his family. In our manners, domestic 
 economy and habits, we accorded well ; and 
 thus we soon approximated to each other. 
 
 Philo, as I propose to call him, was already 
 middle aged: in certain matters he was highly 
 serviceable to my father, whose strength was 
 now decaying. He soon became the friend of 
 the family ; and finding in me, as he was pleased 
 to say, a person free alike from the extravagance 
 and emptiness of the great world, and from the 
 narrowness and aridness of the still world in 
 the country, he courted intimacy with me, and 
 ere long we were in one another's confidence. 
 To me he was very pleasing and useful. 
 
 Though I did not feel the smallest inclination 
 or capacity for mingling in public business, or 
 seeking any influence on it, yet I liked to hear 
 about such matters, liked to know whatever 
 happened far and near. Of worldly things, I 
 loved to get a clear though unconcerned percep- 
 tion : feeling, sympathy, affection, I reserved for 
 God, for my people and my friends. 
 
 The latter were, if I may say so, jealous of 
 Philo, in my new connection with him. In 
 more than one sense, they were right in warning 
 me about it. I suffered much in secret; for 
 even I could not consider their remonstrances 
 as altogether empty or selfish. I had been ac- 
 customed, from of old, to give a reason for my 
 views and conduct ; but in this case my convic- 
 tion would not follow. I prayed to God, that 
 here a.s elsewhere he would warn, restrain and 
 guide me; and as my heart on this did not dis- 
 suade me, I went forward on my way with 
 comfort. 
 
 Philo on the whole had a remote resemblance 
 to Narciss ; only a pious education had more 
 enlivened and concentrated his feelings. He 
 had less vanity, more character : and, in busi- 
 ness, if Narciss was delicate, exact, persevering, 
 indefatigable, the other was clear, sharp, quick 
 and capable of working with incredible ease. 
 By means of him, I learned the secret history 
 of almost every noble personage with whose 
 exterior I had grown acquainted in society. It 
 was pleasant for me to behold the tumult, off 
 my watch-tower, from afar. Philo could now 
 hide nothing from me : he confided to me by 
 degrees his own concerns both inward and out- 
 ward. I was in fear because of him ; for I 
 foresaw certain circumstances and entangle- 
 ments ; and the mischief came more speedily 
 than I had looked for. There were some con- 
 fessions he had still kept back ; and even at last 
 he told me only what enabled me to guess the 
 worst. 
 
 What an effect had this upon my heart! I 
 attained experiences, which to me were alto- 
 gether new. With infinite sorrow I beheld an 
 Agathon, who, being educated in the groves of 
 Delphi, yet owed his school fee, which he was 
 now obliged to pay with its accumulated in- 
 terest ; and this Agathon was my especial friend. 
 My sympathy was lively and complete ; I suf- 
 fered with him ; both of us were in the strangest 
 state. 
 
 After having long occupied myself with the 
 temper of his mind, I at last turned round to 
 contemplate my own. The thought: 'Thou art 
 no better than he,' rose like a little cloud before 
 me, and gradually expanded till it darkened all 
 my soul. 
 
 I now not only thought myself no better than 
 he ; I felt this, and felt it as I should not wish to 
 do again. Nor was it any transitory mood. For 
 more than a year, I was constrained to feel that, 
 if an unseen hand had not restrained me, i 
 might have become a Girard, a Cartouche, a 
 Damiens, or any wretch you can suppose. The 
 tendencies to this I traced too clearly in my 
 heart. Heavens ! what a discovery ! 
 
 If hitherto I never had been able, in the 
 faintest degree, to recognise in myself the reality 
 of sin by experience, its possibility was now 
 become apparent to me by anticipation, in the 
 most tremendous manner. And yet I knew not 
 evil; I but feared it: I felt that I might be 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 2<J5 
 
 guilty, and could not accuse myself of being 
 so. 
 
 Deeply as I was convinced that such a tem- 
 perament of soul, as I now saw mine to be, 
 could never be adapted for that union with the 
 invisible Being, which I hoped for after death ; 
 I did not, in the smallest, fear that I should 
 finally be separated from him. With all the 
 wickedness, which I discovered in my heart, I 
 still loved Him ; I hated what I felt, nay, wished 
 to hate it still more earnestly ; my whole desire 
 was to be delivered from this sickness, and this 
 tendency to sickness ; and I was persuaded that 
 the great Physician would at length vouchsafe 
 his help. 
 
 The sole question was : What medicine will 
 cure this malady? The practice of virtue? 
 This I could not for a moment think. For ten 
 years, I had already practised more than mere 
 virtue ; and the horrors now first discovered 
 had, all the while, lain hidden at the bottom of 
 my soul. Might they not have broken out with 
 me, as they did with David when he looked on 
 Bathsheba ? Yet was not he a friend of God ; 
 and was not I assured in my inmost heart that 
 God was my friend? 
 
 Was it then an unavoidable infirmity of hu- 
 man nature ? Must we just content ourselves 
 in feeling and acknowledging the sovereignty 
 of inclination ? And, with the best will, is there 
 nothing left for us but to abhor the fault we have 
 committed, and on the like occasion to commit 
 it again ? 
 
 From systems of morality I could obtain no 
 comfort. Neither their severity, by which they 
 try to bend our inclinations, nor their attractive- 
 ness, by which they try to place our inclinations 
 on the side of virtue, gave me any satisfaction. 
 The fundamental notions, which I had imbibed 
 from intercourse with my invisible Friend, were 
 of far higher value to me. 
 
 Once, while I was studying the songs com- 
 posed by David after that tremendous fall, it 
 struck me very much that he traced his indwell- 
 ing corruption even in the substance out of 
 which he had been shaped ; yet that he wished 
 to be freed from sin, and that he earnestly en- 
 treated for a pure heart. 
 
 But how was this to be attained ? The answer 
 from the Scripture I was well aware of: 'That 
 the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin' was 
 a Bible truth, which I had long known. But 
 now for the first time, I observed that as yet I 
 had never understood this oft-repeated saying. 
 The questions: What does it mean? How is it 
 to be? were day and night working out their 
 answers in me. At last I thought I saw as by 
 a gleam of light, that what I sought was to be 
 found in the incarnation of the everlasting Word, 
 by whom all things, even we ourselves, were 
 made. That the Eternal descended as an in- 
 habitant to the depths in which we dwell, which 
 he surveys and comprehends ; that he passed 
 through our lot from stage to stage, from concep- 
 tion and birth to the grave ; that by this mar- 
 
 vellous circuit he again mounted to those shining 
 Heights, whither we too must rise in ordei to 
 be happy: all this was revealed to me, as in a 
 dawning remoteness. 
 
 Oh ! Why must we, in speaking of such things, 
 make use of figures, which can only indicate 
 external situations ! Where is there in His eyes 
 aught high or deep, aught dark or clear ? It is 
 we only that have an Under and Above, a night 
 and day. And even for this did He become like 
 us, since otherwise we could have had no part 
 in him. 
 
 But how shall we obtain a share in this price- 
 less benefit? 'By faith,' the Scripture says. 
 And what is faith ? To consider the account of 
 an event as true — what help can this afford me ? 
 I must be enabled to appropriate its effects, its 
 consequences. This appropriating faith must 
 be a state of mind peculiar, and to the natural 
 man, unknown. 
 
 ' Now, gracious Father, grant me faith !' so 
 prayed I once in the deepest heaviness of heart. 
 I was leaning on a little table, where I sat; my 
 tear-stained countenance was hidden in my 
 hands. I was now in the condition, in which 
 we seldom are, but in which we are required to 
 be, if God is to regard our prayers. 
 
 that I could but paint what I felt then ! A 
 sudden force drew my soul to the cross where 
 Jesus once expired : it was a sudden force, a 
 pull, I cannot name it otherwise, such as leads 
 our soul to an absent loved one : an approxima- 
 tion, which perhaps is far more real and true 
 than we imagine. So did my soul approach 
 the Son of Man, who died upon the cross ; and 
 that instant did I know what faith was. 
 
 ' This is faith !' said I ; and started up as half 
 affrighted. I now endeavored to get certain 
 of my feeling, of my view ; and shortly I be- 
 came convinced that my spirit had acquired a 
 power of soaring- upwards, which was altogether 
 new to it. 
 
 Words fail us in describing such emotions. I 
 could most distinctly separate them from all 
 fantasy : they were entirely without fantasy, 
 without image ; yet they gave us just the cer- 
 tainty of their referring to some object, which 
 our imagination gives us when it paints for us 
 the features of an absent lover. 
 
 When the first rapture was over, I observed 
 that my present state of soul had formerly been 
 known to me ; only I had never felt it in such 
 strength ; I had never held it fast, never made 
 it mine. I believe, indeed, that every human 
 soul at intervals feels something of it. Doubt- 
 less it is this which teaches every mortal that 
 there is a God. 
 
 With this power, which used to visit me from 
 time to time, I had hitherto been well content: 
 and had not, by a singular arrangement of events, 
 that unexpected sorrow weighed upon me for a 
 twelvemonth ; had not my own ability and 
 strength on this occasion altogether lost its credit 
 with me ; I perhaps might have been satisfied 
 with this condition all my days. 
 
296 
 
 GOETHE, 
 
 But now, since that great moment, I had as it 
 were got wings. I could mount aloft above 
 what used to threaten me; as the bird can fly- 
 singing and with ease across the fiercest stream, 
 while the little dog stands anxiously baying on 
 the bank. 
 
 My joy was indescribable ; and though I did 
 not mention it to any one, my people soon ob- 
 served an unaccustomed cheerfulness in me, and 
 could not understand the reason of my joy. Had 
 I but forever held my peace, and tried to nourish 
 this serene temper in my soul ! Had I not al- 
 lowed myself to be misled by circumstances, so 
 as to reveal my secret! Then might I again 
 have saved myself a long and tedious circuit. 
 
 As in the previous ten years of my Christian 
 course, this necessary force had not existed in 
 my soul, I had just been in the case of other 
 worthy people ; had helped myself by keeping 
 my fancy always full of images, which had 
 some reference to God : a practice so far truly 
 useful ; for noxious images and their baneful 
 consequences are by that means kept away. 
 Often too our spirit seizes one or other of these 
 spiritual images, and mounts with it a little way 
 upwards; like a young bird fluttering from twig 
 to twig. 
 
 Images and impressions pointing towards God 
 are presented to us by the institutions of the 
 Church, by organs, bells, singing, and particu- 
 larly by the preaching of our pastors. Of these 
 I used to be unspeakably desirous : no weather, 
 no bodily weakness could keep me back from 
 church ; the sound of the Sunday bells was the 
 only thing that rendered me impatient on a sick 
 bed. Our head Court chaplain, a gifted man, I 
 heard with great delight: his colleagues too I 
 liked ; and I could pick the golden apple of the 
 word from the common fruit, with which on 
 earthen platters it was mingled. With public 
 ordinances, all sorts of private exercises were 
 combined ; and these too but nourished fancy 
 and a finer kind of sense. I was so accustomed 
 to this track, I reverenced it so much, that even 
 now no higher one occurred to me. For my 
 soul has only feelers, and not eyes; it gropes, 
 but does not see : Ah ! that it could get eyes and 
 look! 
 
 On this occasion, therefore, I again went with 
 a longing mind to sermon : but alas, what hap- 
 pened ! I no longer found what I was wont to 
 find. These preachers were blunting their teeth 
 upon the shell, while I enjoyed the kernel. I 
 soon grew weary of them ; and I had already 
 been so spoiled, that I could not be content with 
 the little they afforded me. I required images, 
 I wanted impressions from without; and reck- 
 oned it a pure spiritual desire that I felt. 
 
 Philo's parents had been in connection with 
 the Hermhuther community : in his library were 
 many writings of Count Zinzendorf s. He had 
 spoken with me very candidly and clearly on 
 the subject more than once ; inviting me to turn 
 over one or two of these treatises, if it were but 
 for the sake of studying a psychological pheno- 
 
 menon. I looked upon the Count, and those 
 that followed him, as very heterodox: and so 
 the Ebersdorf hymn-book, which my friend had 
 pressed upon me, lay unread. 
 
 However, in my total destitution of external 
 excitements for my soul, I opened up the hymn- 
 book as it were by chance ; and found in it, to 
 my astonishment, some songs which actually, 
 though under a fantastic form, appeared to sha- 
 dow what I felt. The originality and the sim- 
 plicity of their expression drew me on. It 
 seemed to be peculiar emotions expressed in a 
 peculiar way ; no school technology suggested 
 any notion of formality or common-place. I 
 was persuaded that these people felt as I did : I 
 was very happy to lay hold of here and there 
 a stanza in their songs, to fix it in my memory, 
 and carry it about with me for days. 
 
 Since the moment, when the truth had been 
 revealed to me, some three months had in this 
 way passed along. At last I came to the deter- 
 mination of disclosing everything to Philo, and 
 asking him to let me have those writings, about 
 which I was now become immoderately curious. 
 Accordingly I did so, notwithstanding there was 
 something in my heart, which earnestly dis- 
 suaded me. 
 
 I circumstantially related to him all the story: 
 and, as he was a leading person in it, and my 
 narrative conveyed the sharpest reprimand on 
 him, he felt surprised and moved to an extreme 
 degree. He melted into tears. I rejoiced at 
 this; believing that in his mind also a full and 
 fundamental change had taken place. 
 
 He provided me with all the writings that I 
 could require ; and now I had excess of nour- 
 ishment for my imagination. I made rapid pro- 
 gress in the Zinzendorfic mode of thought and 
 speech. And be it not supposed that I am yet 
 incapable of prizing the peculiar turn and man- 
 ner of the Count. I willingly do justice to him ; 
 he is no empty fantast; he speaks of mighty 
 truths, and mostly in a bold figurative style ; the 
 people who despise him know not either how 
 to value or discriminate his qualities. 
 
 At that time I became exceedingly attached 
 to him. Had I been mistress of myself, I would 
 certainly have left my friends and country, and 
 gone to join him. We should infallibly have 
 understood each other, and should hardly have 
 agreed together long. 
 
 Thanks to my better genius that now kept 
 me so confined by my domestic duties! I reck- 
 oned it a distant journey if I visited the garden. 
 The charge of my aged weakly father afforded 
 me employment enough, and in hours of recre- 
 ation I had Fancy to procure me pastime. The 
 only mortal whom I saw was Philo : he was 
 highly valued by my father ; but with me, his 
 intimacy had been cooled a little by the late 
 explanation. Its influence on him had not pene- 
 trated deep ; and as some attempts to talk in 
 my dialect had not succeeded with him, he 
 avoided touching on this subject ; and the more 
 readily, as his extensive knowledge put it always 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 297 
 
 in his power to introduce new topics in his con- 
 versation. 
 
 I was thus a Herrnhuth sister on my own 
 footing. I had especially to hide this new turn 
 of my temper and my inclinations from the 
 head Court chaplain, whom, as my father con- 
 fessor, I had much cause to honor; and whose 
 high merits, his extreme aversion to the Herrn- 
 huth community did not diminish in my eyes 
 even then. Unhappily this worthy person had 
 to suffer many troubles on account of me and 
 others. 
 
 Several years before he had become acquaint- 
 ed with an upright pious gentleman, residing in 
 a distant quarter; and had long continued in 
 ; unbroken correspondence with him as with one 
 who truly sought God. How painful was it to 
 the spiritual leader, when this gentleman sub- 
 sequently joined himself to the community of 
 Herrnhuth, where he lived for a long while ! 
 How delightful, on the other hand, when at 
 length he quarrelled with the brethren; deter- 
 mined to settle in our neighborhood ; and seemed 
 once more to yield himself completely to the 
 guidance of his ancient friend ! 
 
 The stranger was presented, as in triumph, 
 by the upper Pastor to all the chosen lambs of 
 his fold. To our house alone he was not intro- 
 duced, because my father did not now see com- 
 | pany. The gentleman obtained no little appro- 
 bation : he combined the polish of the court 
 with the winning manner of the Brethren ; and 
 having also many fine qualities by nature, he 
 soon became the favorite saint with all who 
 knew him; a result at which the chaplain was 
 exceedingly contented. But, alas! it was merely 
 in externals that the gentleman had split with 
 the community ; in his heart he was yet entirely 
 a Herrnhuther. He was, in truth, concerned 
 for the reality of the matter : but yet the gim- 
 cracks, which the Count had stuck around it, 
 were at the same time quite adapted to his 
 taste. Besides he had now become accustomed 
 to this mode of speaking and conceiving; and 
 if he had to hide it carefully from his ancient 
 friend, it but became the more necessary for 
 him, whenever he could get a knot of trusty 
 persons round him, to come forth with his cou- 
 plets, litanies, and little figures; in which, as 
 might have been supposed, he met with great 
 applause. 
 
 I knew nothing of the whole affair, and daw- 
 dled forward in my separate path. For a long 
 time, we continued mutually unknown. 
 
 At a leisure hour, I happened once to visit a 
 lady who was sick. I found several acquaint- 
 ances along with her ; and soon perceived that 
 my appearance had cut short their conversation. 
 I affected not to notice anything ; but saw ere 
 long, with great surprise, some Herrnhuth figures 
 stuck upon the wall in elegant frames. Quickly 
 comprehending what had passed before my en- 
 trance, I expressed my pleasure at the sight in 
 a few suitable verses. 
 
 Conceive the wonder of my friends! We 
 2 N 
 
 explained ourselves; instantly we were agreed, 
 and in each other's confidence. 
 
 I henceforth often sought for opportunities of 
 going out. Unhappily I found them only once 
 in three or four weeks: yet I grew acquainted 
 with our gentleman apostle, and by degrees 
 with all the body. I visited their meetings, 
 when I could : with my social disposition, it 
 was quite delightful for me to communicate to 
 others, and to hear from them, the feelings 
 which till now I had conceived and harbored 
 by myself. 
 
 But I was not so completely taken with my 
 friends, as not to see that few of them could 
 really feel the sense of those affecting words 
 and emblems; and that from these they drew 
 as little benefit, as formerly they did from the 
 symbolic language of the Church. Yet, notwith- 
 standing, I went on with them, not letting this 
 disturb me. I thought I was not called to search 
 and try the hearts of others; even although by 
 long-continued guiltless exercisings, I had been 
 prepared for something better. 1 had my share 
 of profit from our meetings : in speaking, I in- 
 sisted on attending to the sense and spirit, which, 
 in things so delicate, is rather apt to be disguised 
 by words than indicated by them; and for the 
 rest I left with silent toleration each to act ac- 
 cording to his own conviction. 
 
 These quiet times of secret social joy were 
 shortly followed by storms of open bickering 
 and contradiction; contentions which excited 
 great commotion, I might almost say occasioned 
 not a little scandal, in the Court and town. 
 The period was now arrived when our Chap- 
 lain, that stout gainsayer of the Herrnhuth Bre- 
 thren, must discover, to his deep, but I trust, 
 sanctified humiliation, that his best and once 
 most zealous hearers were now all leaning to 
 the side of that Community. He was exces- 
 sively provoked : in the first moments, he forgot 
 all moderation : and could not, even if he had 
 inclined it, afterwards retract. Violent debates 
 took place ; in which most happily I was not 
 mentioned ; both as I was but an accidental 
 member of that hated body; and as our zealous 
 preacher could not spare my father and my 
 friend, in certain civic matters. With silent 
 satisfaction, I continued neutral. It was irksome 
 to me to converse about such feelings and ob- 
 jects, even with well affected people, if they 
 could not penetrate the deepest sense, and lin- 
 gered merely on the surface. But to strive with 
 adversaries about things on which even friends 
 could scarcely understand each other seemed 
 to me unprofitable, nay pernicious. For I could 
 soon perceive that many amiable noblemen, 
 who on this occurrence could not shut their 
 hearts to enmity and hatred, had very soon 
 passed over to injustice ; and, in order to defend 
 an outward form, had almost sacrificed their 
 most substantial duties. 
 
 Greatly as the worthy clergyman might, in 
 the present case, be wrong; much as others 
 tried to irritate me at him, I could never hesi- 
 
298 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 tate to give him my sincere respect. I knew 
 him well: I could candidly transport myself 
 into his way of looking at these matters. I have 
 never seen a man without his weaknesses ; only, 
 in distinguished men they strike us more. We 
 wish, and will at all rates have it, that persons 
 privileged as they are should at the same time 
 pay no tribute, no tax whatever. I honored him 
 as a superior man: and hoped to use the influ- 
 ence of my calm neutrality to bring about, if not 
 a peace, at least a truce. I know not what my 
 efforts might have done; but God concluded the 
 affair more briefly, and took the Chaplain to 
 Himself. On his coffin, all wept who lately had 
 been striving with him about words. His up- 
 rightness, his fear of God, no one ever had 
 doubted. 
 
 I too was ere long forced to lay aside this 
 Hermhuth doll work, which, by means of these 
 contentions, now appeared before me in a rather 
 different light. Our uncle had in silence exe- 
 cuted his intentions with my sister. He offered 
 her a young man of rank and fortune as a bride- 
 groom ; and showed, by a rich dowry, what 
 might be expected of himself. My father joy- 
 fully consented : my sister was free and fore- 
 warned, she did not hesitate to change her state. 
 The bridal was appointed at my uncle's castle : 
 family and friends were all invited ; and we 
 came in the highest spirits. 
 
 For the first time in my life, the aspect of a 
 house excited admiration in me. I had often 
 heard of my uncle's taste, of his Italian archi- 
 tect, of his collections and his library ; but, com- 
 paring this with what I had already seen, I had 
 formed a very vague and fluctuating picture of 
 it in my thoughts. Great, accordingly, was my 
 surprise at the earnest and harmonious impres- 
 sion which I felt on entering the house, and 
 which every hall and chamber deepened. If 
 elsewhere pomp and decoration had but dissi- 
 pated my attention, I felt here concentrated and 
 drawn back upon myself. In like manner, the 
 preparatives for these solemnities and festivals 
 produced a silent pleasure, by their air of dig- 
 nity and splendor ; and to me it seemed as in- 
 conceivable, that one man could have invented 
 and arranged the whole of this as that more 
 than one could have combined to labor in so 
 high a spirit. Yet withal the landlord and his 
 people were entirely natural; not a trace of 
 stiffness or of empty form was to be seen. 
 
 The wedding itself was managed in a striking 
 way: an exquisite strain of vocal music came 
 upon us by surprise ; and the clergyman went 
 through the ceremony with a singular solemnity. 
 I was standing by Philo at the time ; and instead 
 of a congratulation, he whispered in my ear : 
 "When I saw your sister give away her hand, 
 I felt as if a stream of boiling water had been 
 poured upon me." " Why so ?" I inquired. " It 
 is always the way with me," said he, " when I 
 behold two people joined." I laughed at him ; 
 but I have often since had cause to recollect his 
 words. 
 
 The revel of the party, among whom were 
 many young people, looked particularly glitter 
 ing and airy, as everything around us was dig- 
 nified and serious. The furniture, plate, table 
 ware, and table ornaments, accorded with the 
 general whole; and if in other houses, the fur- 
 nisher and architect seemed to have proceeded 
 from the same school, it here appeared that both 
 furnisher and butler had taken lessons from the 
 architect. 
 
 We staid together several days ; and our in- 
 telligent and gifted landlord had variedly pro- 
 vided for the entertainment of his guests. I did 
 not in the present case repeat the melancholy 
 proof, which has so often in my life been forced 
 upon me, how unhappily a large mixed com- 
 pany are situated, when, altogether left to them- 
 selves, they must select the most general and 
 vapid pastimes, that the blockheads of the party 
 may not want amusement, however it may fare 
 with those that are not such. 
 
 My uncle had arranged it altogether differ- 
 ently. Two or three Marshals, if I may call them 
 so, had been appointed by him : one of them 
 had charge of providing entertainment for the 
 young. Dances, excursions, little games, were 
 of his invention, and under his direction ; and 
 as young people take delight in being out of 
 doors, and do not fear the influences of the air, 
 the garden and the garden hall had been as- 
 signed to them ; while some additional pavilions 
 and galleries had been erected and appended 
 to the latter, formed of boards and canvas 
 merely, but in such proportions, so elegant and 
 noble, they reminded one of nothing else but 
 stone and marble. 
 
 How rare is a festivity, in which the person 
 who invites the guests feels also that it is his 
 duty to provide for their conveniences and wants 
 of every kind! 
 
 Hunting and card parties, short promenades, 
 opportunities for trustful private conversations, 
 were afforded to the elder persons: and who- 
 ever wished to go earliest to bed was certain to 
 be lodged the most remote from noise. 
 
 By this happy order, the space in which we 
 lived appeared to be a little world ; and yet. 
 considered narrowly, the castle was not large; 
 without an accurate knowledge of it, and with- 
 out the spirit of its owner, it would have been 
 impossible to keep so many people in it, and to 
 quarter each according to his humor. 
 
 As the aspect of a well-formed person pleases 
 us, so also does a fair establishment, by means 
 of which the presence of a rational intelligent 
 mind is made apparent to us. We feel a joy in 
 entering even a cleanly house, though it may be 
 tasteless in its structure and its decorations; be- 
 cause it shows us the presence of a person cul- 
 tivated in at least one sense. Doubly pleasing 
 is it, therefore, when, from a human dwelling, 
 the spirit of a higher though merely sensual cul- 
 ture speaks to us. 
 
 All this was vividly impressed upon my ob- 
 servation at my uncle's castle. I had heard 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 299 
 
 and read much of art ; Philo, too, was a lover 
 of pictures, and had a fine collection ; I myself 
 had often practised drawing; but I had been 
 too deeply occupied with my emotions for tast- 
 ing aught that did not bear upon the one thing 
 , needful, which alone I was bent on carrying to 
 perfection ; and besides, such objects of art as 
 I had seen appeared, like all other worldly ob- 
 jects, to distract my thoughts. But now for the 
 first time, outward things had led me back upon 
 myself: I now first perceived the difference 
 between the natural charm of the nightingale's 
 song, and that of a four-voice anthem pealed 
 from the expressive organs of men. 
 
 I did not hide my joy at this discovery from 
 my uncle; who, when all the rest were settled 
 at their posts, was wont to come and talk with 
 me in private. He spoke with great modesty 
 of what he had produced and made his own ; 
 with great decision, of the views in which it 
 had been gathered and arranged : and I could 
 easily observe that he spoke with a forbearance 
 towards me ; seeming, in his usual way, to rate 
 the excellence, of which he was himself pos- 
 sessed, below the excellence, which, in my 
 opinion, was the best and properest. 
 
 " If we can conceive it possible," he once ob- 
 served, " that the Creator of the world himself 
 assumed the form of his creature, and lived in 
 ; that manner for a time upon the earth, this crea- 
 I ture must appear to us of infinite perfection, be- 
 | cause susceptible of such a combination with 
 its Maker. Hence, in our idea of man there 
 can be no inconsistency with our idea of God : 
 I and if we often feel a certain disagreement with 
 Him, and remoteness from Him, it is but the 
 more on that account our duty, not like advo- 
 I cates of the wicked Spirit, to keep our eyes con- 
 l tinually upon the nakedness and weakness of 
 our nature; but rather to seek out every pro- 
 , perty and beauty, by which our pretension to 
 a similarity with the Divinity may be made 
 good." 
 
 I smiled and answered : " Do not make me 
 blush, dear uncle, by your complaisance in talk- 
 ing in my language ! What you have to say is 
 of such importance to me, that I wish to hear 
 it in your own most peculiar style ; and then 
 what parts of it I cannot quite appropriate, I 
 will endeavor to translate." 
 
 " I may continue," he replied, " in my own 
 most peculiar way, without any alteration of 
 my tone. Man's highest merit always is as 
 much as possible to rule external circumstan- 
 ces, and as little as possible to let himself be 
 ruled by them. Life lies before us, as a huge 
 quarry lies before the architect : he deserves not 
 the name of architect, except when, out of this 
 fortuitous mass, he can combine, with the great- 
 est economy, suitableness and durability, some 
 form, the pattern of which originated in his 
 
 i spirit. All things without us, nay, I may add, 
 all things on us, are mere elements ; but deep 
 
 1 within us, lies the creative force, which out of 
 these can produce what they were meant to be ; 
 
 and which leaves us neither sleep nor rest, till 
 in one way or another, without us or on us, this 
 has been produced. You, my dear niece, have, 
 it may be, chosen the better part: you have 
 striven to bring your moral being, your earnest 
 lovely nature to accordance with itself and with 
 the Highest ; but neither ought we to be blamed, 
 when we strive to get acquainted with the sen- 
 tient man in all his comprehensiveness, and to 
 bring about an active harmony among his pow- 
 ers." 
 
 By such discoursing, we in time grew more 
 familiar; and I begged of him to speak with 
 me as with himself, omitting every sort of con- 
 descension. "Do not think," replied my uncle, 
 " that I flatter you, when I commend your mode 
 of thinking and of acting. I reverence the in- 
 dividual who understands distinctly what he 
 wishes ; who unweariedly advances, who knows 
 the means conducive to his object, and can seize 
 and use them. How far his object may be great 
 or little, may merit praise or censure, is the next 
 consideration with me. Believe me, love, most 
 part of all the misery and mischief, of all that 
 is denominated evil, in the world, arises from 
 the fact that men are too remiss to get a proper 
 knowledge of their aims, and when they do 
 know them to work intensely in attaining them. 
 They seem to me like people who have taken 
 up a notion, that they must and will erect a 
 tower, and who yet expend on the foundation 
 no more stones and labor than would be suf- 
 ficient for a hut. If you, my friend, whose 
 highest want it was to perfect and unfold your 
 moral nature, had, instead of those bold and 
 noble sacrifices, merely trimmed between your 
 duties to yourself and to your family, your bride- 
 groom, or perhaps your husband, you must have 
 lived in constant contradiction with your feel- 
 ings, and never could have had a peaceful mo- 
 ment." 
 
 " You employ the word sacrifice," I answered 
 here ; " and I have often thought that to a higher 
 purpose, as to a divinity, we offer up, by way 
 of sacrifice, a thing of smaller value ; feeling, 
 like persons who should willingly and gladly 
 bring a favorite lamb to the altar, for the health 
 of a beloved father." 
 
 " Whatever it may be," said he, " reason or 
 feeling that commands us to give up the one 
 thing for the other, to choose the one before the 
 other, decision and perseverance are, in my 
 opinion, the most noble qualities of man. You 
 cannot have the ware and the money both at 
 once : and he who always hankers for the ware 
 without having heart enough to give the money 
 for it, is no better off than he who repents him 
 of the purchase when the ware is in his hands. 
 But I am far from blaming men on this account : 
 it is not they who are to blame : it is the diffi- 
 cult entangled situation they are in ; they know 
 not how to guide themselves in its perplexities. 
 Thus, for instance, you will on the average find 
 fewer bad economists in the country than in 
 towns, and fewer again in small towns than in 
 
300 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 great; and why? Man is intended for a limited 
 condition ; objects that are simple, near, deter- 
 minate, he comprehends, and he becomes ac- 
 customed to employ such means as are at hand ; 
 but on entering a wider field, he now knows 
 neither what he would nor what he should ; 
 and it amounts to quite the same, whether his 
 attention is distracted by the multitude of ob- 
 jects, or is overpowered by their magnitude and 
 dignity. It is always a misfortune for him, 
 when he is induced to struggle after anything, 
 with which he cannot join himself by some 
 regular exertion of his powers. 
 
 " Certainly," pursued he, " without earnest- 
 ness there is nothing to be done in life : yet 
 among the people whom we name cultivated 
 men, but little earnestness is to be found : in 
 labors and employments, in arts, nay, even in 
 recreations, they proceed, if I may say so, with 
 a sort of self-defence ; they live, as they read a 
 heap of newspapers, only to be done with it; 
 they remind one of that young Englishman at 
 Rome, who told, with a contented air, one even- 
 ing in some company, that 'to-day he had des- 
 patched six churches and two galleries.' They 
 wish to know and learn a multitude of things, 
 and exactly those with which they have the 
 least concern ; and they never see that hunger 
 is not stilled by snapping at the air. When I 
 become acquainted with a man, my first inquiry 
 is : With what does he employ himself, and how, 
 and with what degree of perseverance ? The 
 answer regulates the interest which I shall take 
 in him for life." 
 
 " My dear uncle," I replied, " you are per- 
 haps too rigorous ; you perhaps withdraw your 
 helping hand from here and there a worthy man 
 to whom you might be useful." 
 
 " Can it be imputed as a fault," said he, "to 
 one who has so long and vainly labored on them 
 and about them'? How much we have to suffer 
 in our youth from men, who think they are in- 
 viting us to a delightful pleasure party, when 
 they undertake to introduce us to the Danaides 
 or Sysiphus ! Heaven be praised ! I have rid 
 myself of these people : if one of them unfor- 
 tunately comes within my sphere, instantly, 
 in the politest manner, I compliment him out 
 again. It is from these people that you hear 
 the bitterest complaints about the miserable 
 course of things, the aridity of science, the levity 
 of artists, the emptiness of poets, and much 
 more of that sort. They do not recollect that 
 they, and the many like them, are the very per- 
 sons who would never read a book, which had 
 been written just as they require it; that true 
 poetry is alien to them ; that even an excellent 
 work of art can never gain their approbation 
 save by means of prejudice. But let us now 
 break off ; for this is not the time to rail or to 
 complain." 
 
 He directed my attention to the different pic- 
 tures, which were fixed upon the wall : my eye 
 dwelt on those whose look was beautiful or sub- 
 ject striking. This he permitted for a while ; 
 
 at last he said: "Bestow a little notice on the 
 spirit, which is manifested in these other worka. 
 Good minds delight to trace the finger of the 
 Deity in nature : why not likewise pay some 
 small regard to the hand of his imitator?" He 
 then led my observation to some unobtrusive 
 figures ; endeavoring to make me understand, 
 that it was the history of art alone, which could 
 give us an idea of the worth and dignity of any 
 work of art; that we should know the weary 
 steps of mere handicraft and mechanism, over 
 which the man of talents has arisen in the 
 course of centuries, before we can conceive how 
 it is possible for the man of genius to move with 
 airy freedom, on the pinnacle whose very aspect 
 makes us giddy. 
 
 With this view, he had formed a beautifu 
 series of works ; and whilst he explained it. i 
 could not help conceiving that I saw before me 
 a similitude of moral culture. When I expressed 
 my thoughts to him, he answered : " You are 
 altogether in the right; and we see from this, 
 that those do not act properly, who follow moral 
 cultivation by itself exclusively. On the con- 
 trary, it will be found that he whose spirit 
 strives for a development of this kind, has like- 
 wise every reason, at the same time, to improve 
 his finer sentient powers, that so he may not 
 run the risk of sinking from his moral height, 
 by giving way to the enticements of a lawless 
 fancy, and degrading his moral nature by allow- 
 ing it to take delight in tasteless baubles, if not 
 in something worse." 
 
 I did not in the least suspect him of levelling 
 at me ; but I felt myself struck, when I thought 
 how many insipidities had been among the 
 songs that used to edify me ; and how little 
 favor the figures, which had joined themselves 
 to my religious ideas, would have found in the 
 eyes of my uncle. 
 
 Philo, in the mean time, had frequently been 
 busied in the library: he now took me along 
 with him. We admired the selection as well 
 as the multitude of books. They had been col- 
 lected on my uncle's general principle ; there 
 were none among them to be found but such 
 as either lead us to correct knowledge, or teach 
 us right management; such as either give us fit 
 materials, or further the concordance of our 
 spirit. 
 
 In the course of my life, I had read very 
 largely; in certain branches, there was scarce 
 a work unknown to me : the more pleasant 
 was it for me here, to speak about the general 
 survey of the whole, and to observe deficien- 
 cies, where I had formerly seen nothing but a 
 hampered confusion or a boundless expansion. 
 
 Here too we became acquainted with a very 
 interesting, quiet man. He was a physician 
 and a naturalist : he seemed rather one of the 
 Penates than of the inmates. He showed us 
 the museum, which like the library was fixed 
 in glass cases to the walls of the chamber, 
 adorning and ennobling the space which it did 
 not crowd. On this occasion, I recalled with 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 301 
 
 joy the days of youth, and showed my father 
 many objects, which he formerly had laid upon 
 the sick bed of his little child, that had yet 
 scarcely looked into the world. At the same 
 time, the Physician, in our present and follow- 
 ing conversations, did not scruple to avow how 
 I nearly he approximated to me in respect of my 
 religious sentiments : he warmly praised my 
 uncle for his tolerance, and his esteem of all 
 that testified or forwarded the worth and unity 
 of human nature; admitting also, that he called 
 for a similar return from others, and was wont 
 ttftshun and to condemn nothing else so heartily 
 as individual darkness and narrowness of mind. 
 
 Since the nuptials of my sister, joy had sparkled 
 in the eyes of our uncle : he often spoke with 
 me of what he meant to do for her and for her 
 children. He had several fine estates; he ma- 
 naged them himself, and hoped to leave them 
 in the best condition to his nephews. Regarding 
 the small estate, on which we were at present 
 living, he appeared to entertain peculiar thoughts. 
 " I will leave it to none," said he, " but to a per- 
 son who can understand, and value and enjoy 
 what it contains, and who feels how loudly every 
 
 ■ man of wealth and quality, especially in Ger- 
 many, is called on to exhibit something like a 
 model to others." 
 
 Most part of his guests were now gone ; we 
 too were making ready for departure, thinking 
 we had seen the final scene of this solemnity; 
 when his attention in affording us some digni- 
 fied enjoyment produced a new surprise. We 
 had mentioned to him the delight which the 
 chorus of voices, that suddenly commenced with- 
 out accompaniment of any instrument, had given 
 us, at my sister's marriage. We hinted, at the 
 same time, how pleasant it would be were such 
 a thing repeated ; but he seemed to pay no heed 
 to us. The livelier, on this account, was our 
 surprise, when he said one evening : " The music 
 of the dance has died away ; our transitory, 
 youthful friends have left us; the happy pair 
 themselves have a more serious look than they 
 
 ■ had some days ago : to part at such a time, when 
 we perhaps shall never meet again, certainly 
 never without changes, exalts us to a solemn 
 mood, which I know not how to entertain more 
 nobly than by the music that some of you were 
 lately signifying a desire to have repeated." 
 
 The chorus, which had in the meanwhile 
 gathered strength, and by secret practice more 
 expertness, was accordingly made to sing us a 
 series of four and of eight voiced melodies, 
 which, if I may say so, gave a real foretaste of 
 bliss. Till then, I had only known the pious 
 mode of singing, as good souls practise it, fre- 
 ; quently with hoarse pipes, imagining, like wild 
 birds, that they are praising God, while they 
 procure a pleasant feeling to themselves. Or 
 perhaps I had hearkened to the vain music of 
 concerts, in which one is at best invited to ad- 
 mire the talent of the singer, and very seldom 
 even to a transient feeling of enjoyment. Now, 
 nowever, I was listening to music, which, as it 
 
 originated in the deepest principles of the most 
 accomplished human beings, was by suitable 
 and practised organs in harmonious unity made 
 again to address the deepest and best principles 
 of man, and to impress him at that moment 
 with a lively sense of his likeness to the Deity. 
 They were all devotional songs, in the Latin 
 language: they sat like jewels in the golden 
 ring of a polished intellectual conversation; and 
 without pretending to edify, they elevated me 
 and made me happy in the most spiritual man- 
 ner. 
 
 At our departure, he presented all of us with 
 handsome gifts. To me he gave the cross of 
 my order, more beautifully and artfully worked 
 and enamelled than I had seen it before. It 
 was hung upon a large brilliant, by which it was 
 likewise fastened to the chain, and to which it 
 gave the aspect of the noblest stone in the cabi- 
 net of some collector. 
 
 My sister with her husband went to their 
 estates ; the rest of us to our abodes ; appearing 
 to ourselves, so far as outward circumstances 
 were concerned, to have returned to quite an 
 every-day existence. We had been, as it were, 
 dropped from a palace of the fairies down upon 
 the common earth ; and were again obliged to 
 help ourselves as best we could. 
 
 The singular experiences, which this new 
 circle had afforded, left a fine impression on my 
 mind. This, however, did not long continue in 
 its first vivacity ; although my uncle tried to 
 nourish and renew it, by sending to me certain 
 of his best and most pleasing works of art ; 
 changing them, from time to time, with others 
 which I had not seen. 
 
 I had been so much accustomed to be busied 
 with myself, in regulating the concerns of my 
 heart and temper, and conversing on these 
 matters with persons of a like mind, that I 
 could not long study any work of art attentively 
 without being turned by it back upon myself. I 
 was used to look upon a picture or a copperplate 
 merely as upon the letters of a book. Fine print- 
 ing pleases well : but who would read a book 
 for the beauty of its printing? In like manner, 
 I required of each pictorial form that it should 
 tell me something, should instruct, affect, im- 
 prove me : and after all my uncle's letters to 
 expound his works of art, say what he would, I 
 continued in my former humor. 
 
 Yet not only my peculiar disposition, external 
 incidents and changes in our family still further 
 drew me back from contemplations of that na- 
 ture, nay for some time even from myself. I 
 had to suffer and to do, more than my slender 
 strength seemed fit for. 
 
 My maiden sister had till now been as a 
 right arm to me. Healthy, vigorous, unspeakably 
 good-natured, she had managed all the house- 
 keeping, I myself being busied with the personal 
 nursing of our aged father. She was seized with 
 a catarrh, which changed to a disorder in the 
 lungs: in three weeks she was lying in her 
 coffin. Her death inflicted wounds on me, the 
 26 
 
302 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 scars of which I am not yet willing to exa- 
 mine. 
 
 I was lying sick before they buried her : the 
 old ailment in my breast appeared to be awaken- 
 ing ; I coughed with violence, and was so hoarse 
 I could not speak beyond a whisper. 
 
 My married sister, out of fright and grief, was 
 brought to bed before her time. Our old father 
 thought himself at once about to lose his children 
 and the hope of their posterity : his natural tears 
 increased my sorrow ; I prayed to God that he 
 would give me back a sufferable state of health. 
 I asked him but to spare my life until my father 
 should be dead. I recovered ; I was what I 
 reckoned well ; being able to discharge my du- 
 ties, though with pain. 
 
 My sister was again with child. Many cares, 
 which in such cases are committed to the mo- 
 ther, in the present instance fell to me. She 
 was not altogether happy with her husband ; 
 this was to be hidden from our father : I was 
 frequently made judge of their disputes ; in 
 which I could decide with greater safety, as 
 my brother trusted in me, and the two were 
 really worthy persons, only each of them, in- 
 stead of humoring, endeavored to convince the 
 other ; and out of eagerness to live in constant 
 harmony, they never could agree. I now learn- 
 ed to mingle seriously in worldly matters, and 
 to practise what of old I had but sung. 
 
 My sister bore a son : the feebleness of my 
 father did not hinder him from travelling to her. 
 The sight of the child exceedingly enlivened and 
 cheered him ; at the christening, contrary to his 
 custom, he seemed as if inspired ; nay, I might 
 say like a Genius with two faces. With the one 
 he looked joyfully forward to those regions 
 which he soon hoped to enter ; with the other, 
 to the new, hopeful, earthly life, which had 
 arisen in the boy that was descended from him. 
 On our journey home, he never tired with talk- 
 ing to me of the child, its form, its health, and 
 his wish that the endowments of this new de- 
 nizen of earth might be cultivated rightly. His 
 reflections on the subject lasted when we had 
 arrived at home : it was not till some days 
 afterwards, that I observed a kind of fever in 
 him ; which displayed itself, without shivering, 
 in a sort of languid heat commencing after din- 
 ner. He did not yield, however ; he went out 
 as usual in the mornings, faithfully attending to 
 the duties of his office, till at last continuous 
 serious symptoms kept him in the house. 
 
 I never shall forget with what distinctness, 
 clearness, and repose of mind, he settled in the 
 greatest order the concerns of his house, the ar- 
 rangements of his funeral, as if these had been 
 the business of some other person. 
 
 With a cheerfulness, which he never used to 
 show, and which now mounted to a lively joy, 
 he said to me, " Where is the fear of death 
 which once I felt 1 Shall I shrink at departing ? 
 I have a gracious God ; the grave awakes no 
 terror in me ; I have an eternal life." 
 
 To recall the circumstances of his death, 
 
 which shortly followed, forms one of the most 
 pleasing entertainments of my solitude: the 
 visible workings of a higher Power in that so- 
 lemn time, no one shall argue from my memory 
 and my belief. 
 
 The death of my beloved father altogether 
 changed my mode of life. From the strictest 
 obedience, the narrowest confinement, I passed 
 at once into the greatest freedom ; I enjoyed it 
 like a sort of food from which one has long ab 
 stained. Formerly I very seldom spent two 
 hours from home ; now I very seldom lived a 
 day there. My friends, whom I had been allow- 
 ed to visit but by hurried snatches, wished to 
 have my company uninterruptedly, as I did to 
 have theirs. I was often asked to dinner : at 
 walks and pleasure jaunts I never failed. Eul 
 when once the circle had been fairly run, I saw 
 that the invaluable happiness of liberty consist- 
 ed, not in doing what one pleases and what 
 circumstances may invite to, but in being able, 
 without hindrance or restraint, to do in the 
 direct way what one regards as right and pro- 
 per : and in this case, I was old enough to reach 
 a precious truth, without having smarted for my 
 ignorance. 
 
 One pleasure I could not deny myself: it 
 was, as soon as might be, to renew and strengthen 
 my connection with the Herrnhuth Brethren. I 
 made haste accordingly to visit one of their 
 establishments at no great distance : but here I 
 by no means found what I had been anticipating. 
 I was frank enough to signify my disappoint- 
 ment, which they tried to soften by alleging that 
 the present settlement was nothing to a full and 
 fitly organized community. This I did not take 
 upon me to deny ; yet in my thought, the genuine 
 spirit of the matter should have been displayed 
 in a small body as well as in a great one. 
 
 One of their Bishops who was present, a per- 
 sonal disciple of the Count, took considerable 
 pains with me. He spoke English perfectly, 
 and as I too understood a little of it, he reckoned 
 this a token that we both belonged to one class : 
 I however reckoned nothing of the kind ; his 
 conversation did not in the smallest satisfy me. 
 He had been a cutler ; was a native of Moravia: 
 his mode of thought still savored of the artisan. 
 With Herr Von L — , who had been a Major in 
 the French service, I got upon a better footing ; 
 yet I never could reduce myself to the submis- 
 siveness, which he displayed to his superiors; 
 nay, I felt as if one had given me a box on the 
 ear, when I saw the Major's wife, and other 
 women more or less like ladies, take the Bishop's 
 hand and kiss it. Meanwhile a journey into 
 Holland was proposed ; which, however, doubt- 
 less for my good, did not take place. 
 
 About this time, my sister was delivered of 
 a daughter; and now it was the turn of us 
 women to exult, and to consider how the little 
 creature should be bred like one of us. The 
 husband, on the other hand, was not so satisfied, 
 when in the following year another daughter 
 saw the light : with his large estates, he wanted 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 303 
 
 to have boys about him, who in future might 
 assist him in his management. 
 
 My health was feeble ; I kept myself in 
 peace; and observing a quiet mode of life, I 
 enjoyed a tolerable equability. I was not afraid 
 of death ; nay, I wished to die ; yet I secretly 
 
 I perceived that God was granting time for me 
 to prove my soul, and to advance still nearer to 
 himself. In my many sleepless nights espe- 
 cially, I have at times felt something, which I 
 cannot undertake to describe. 
 
 It was as if my soul were thinking separately 
 from the body ; she looked upon the body as a 
 foreign substance, as we look upon a garment. 
 She pictured with extreme vivacity events and 
 
 , times long past, and felt by means of this, events 
 that were to follow. Those times are all gone 
 by; what follows likewise will go by; the body 
 too will fall to pieces like a vesture ; but I, the 
 well-known I, I am. 
 
 The thought is great, exalted and consoling ; 
 yet an excellent friend, with whom I every day 
 became more intimate, instructed me to dwell 
 on it as little as I could. This was the Phy- 
 sicia/i whom I met with in my uncle's house, 
 and who since then had accurately informed 
 himself about the temper of my body and my 
 spirit. He showed me how much these feel- 
 
 : ings, when we cherish them within us inde- 
 
 , pendently of outward objects, tend as it were to 
 
 j excavate us, and to undermine the whole foun- 
 dation of our being. "To be active," he would 
 say, "is the primary vocation of man; all the 
 
 j intervals, in which he is obliged to rest, he 
 should employ in gaining clearer knowledge of 
 
 I external things, for this will in its turn facilitate 
 
 ■ activity." 
 
 This friend was acquainted with my custom 
 
 I of looking on my body as an outward object ; he 
 knew also that I pretty well understood my con- 
 stitution, my disorder, and the medicines of use 
 for it ; nay, that by continual sufferings of my 
 
 | own or other people, I had really grown a kind 
 of half doctor ; he now carried forward my at- 
 
 ' tention from the human body, and the drugs 
 which act upon it, to the kindred objects of crea- 
 tion : he led me up and down as in the Paradise 
 of the first man ; only, if I may continue my 
 
 . comparison, allowing me to trace in dim re- 
 moteness the Creator walking in the Garden in 
 the cool of the evening. 
 
 How gladly did I now see God in nature, 
 
 : when I bore him with such certainty within my 
 heart ! How interesting to me was his handy- 
 work ; how thankful did I feel that he had 
 pleased to quicken me with the breath of his 
 mouth ! 
 
 We again had hopes that my sister would 
 ! present us with a boy; her husband waited 
 
 anxiously for that event, but did not live to see 
 
 it. He died in consequence of an unlucky fall 
 | from horseback; and my sister followed him, 
 
 soon after she had brought into the world a 
 | lovely boy. The four orphans they had left I 
 
 could not look at but with sadness. So many 
 
 healthy people had been called away before 
 poor sickly me ; might I not also have to witness 
 blights among these fair and hopeful blossoms? 
 I knew the world sufficiently to understand 
 what dangers threaten the precarious breeding 
 of a child, especially a child of rank ; and it 
 seemed to me that since the period of my youth 
 these dangers had increased. I felt that weakly 
 as I was, I could not be of much, perhaps of 
 any service to the little ones ; and I rejoiced the 
 more on finding that my uncle, as indeed might 
 have been looked for, had determined to devote 
 his whole attention to the education of these 
 amiable creatures. And this they doubtless 
 merited in every sense : they were handsome ; 
 and with great diversities, all promised to be 
 well conditioned, reasonable persons. 
 
 Since my worthy Doctor had suggested it, I 
 loved to trace out family likenesses among our 
 relatives and children. My father had carefully 
 preserved the portraits of his ancestors, and got 
 his own and those of his descendants drawn by 
 tolerable masters ; nor had my mother and her 
 people been forgotten. We accurately knew the 
 characters of all the family: and as we had 
 frequently compared them with each other, we 
 now endeavored to discover in the children the 
 same peculiarities outward or inward. My 
 sister's eldest son, we thought, resembled his 
 paternal grandfather, of whom there was a fine 
 youthful picture in my uncle's collection : he 
 had been a brave soldier ; and in this point too 
 the boy took after him, liking arms above all 
 other things, and busying himself with them 
 whenever he had opportunity. In paying me a 
 visit this was constantly remarkable : my father 
 had possessed a very pretty armory; and the 
 boy got neither peace nor rest till I had given 
 him a pair of pistols and a fowling-piece out of 
 it, and he had learned the proper way of using 
 them. At the same time, in his conduct or his 
 bearing, there was nothing which approached 
 to rudeness : on the other hand, he was always 
 meek and sensible. 
 
 The eldest daughter had attracted my espe- 
 cial love ; of which perhaps the reason was 
 that she resembled me, and of all the four held 
 closest to me. But I may well admit that the 
 more closely I observed her as she grew, the 
 more she shamed me ; I could not look on her 
 without a sentiment of admiration ; nay, I may 
 almost say, of reverence. You would scarce 
 have seen a nobler form, a more peaceful spirit, 
 an activity so equable and universal. No mo- 
 ment of her life was she unoccupied ; and every 
 occupation in her hands grew dignified. All 
 seemed indifferent to her, so that she could but 
 accomplish what was proper in the place and 
 time ; and in the same manner, she could pa- 
 tiently continue unemployed, when there was 
 nothing to be done. This activity without the 
 need of occupation I have never elsewhere met 
 with. In particular her conduct to the suffering 
 and destitute was from her earliest youth inimi- 
 table. For my part, I freely confess that I never 
 
304 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 had the gift myself to make a business of bene- 
 ficence : I was not niggardly to the poor; nay, 
 I often gave too largely for my means; yet this 
 was little more than buying myself off ; and a 
 person needed to be made for me, if I was to 
 bestow attention on him. Directly the reverse 
 was the conduct of my niece. I never saw her 
 give a poor man money ; whatever she obtained 
 from me for this purpose, she failed not in the 
 first place to change lor some necessary article. 
 Never did she seem more lovely in my eyes, 
 than when rummaging my clothes-presses: she 
 was always sure to light on something which I 
 did not wear and did not need : and to sew 
 these old cast articles together, and put them on 
 some ragged child, she thought her highest hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Her sister's turn of mind appeared already 
 different: she had much of her mother; she 
 promised to be soon very elegant and beautiful, 
 and she now bids fair to keep her promise. She 
 is greatly taken up with her exterior ; from her 
 earliest years, she could deck herself and bear 
 herst If in a way that struck you. I still remem- 
 ber with what ecstasy, when quite a little crea- 
 ture, she beheld her figure in a mirror, after I 
 had been obliged to bind on her some precious 
 pearls, once my mother's, which she had by 
 chance discovered near me. 
 
 In reflecting on these diverse inclinations, it 
 was pleasant for me to consider how my pro- 
 perty would, after my decease, be shared among 
 them, and again called into use by them. I saw 
 the fowling-pieces of my father once more tra- 
 velling round the fields upon my nephew's 
 shoulder, and birds once more falling out from 
 his hunting-pouch: I saw my whole wardrobe 
 issuing from the church at the Easter Confirma- 
 tion, on the persons of tidy little girls ; while 
 the best pieces of it were employed to decorate 
 some virtuous burgher maiden on her marriage 
 day. In furnishing such children and poor little 
 girls, Natalia had a singular delight; although, 
 as I must here remark, she did not show the 
 smallest love, or if I may say it, smallest need 
 of a dependence upon any visible or invisible 
 Being, such as I had manifested in my youth so 
 strongly. 
 
 When I further thought that her younger sis- 
 ter, on that very day, would wear my jewels 
 and my pearls at court, I could view with peace 
 my possessions like my body given back to the 
 elements. 
 
 The children waxed apace : to my comfort, 
 they are healthy, handsome, clever creatures. 
 That my uncle keeps them from me I endure 
 without repining : when staying in the neighbor- 
 hood, or even in the town, they seldom see me. 
 
 A singular personage, regarded as a French 
 clergyman, though no one rightly knows his 
 history, has been intrusted with the oversight 
 of all the children. He has them taught in va- 
 rious places ; they are put to board now here 
 now there. 
 
 At first I could perceive no plan whatever in 
 
 this mode of education ; till at last the Doctor 
 told me that the Abbe had convinced my uncle, 
 that in order to accomplish anything by educa- 
 tion, we must first become acquainted with the 
 pupil's tendencies and wishes : that when these 
 are ascertained, he ought to be transported to a 
 situation where he may, as speedily as possible, 
 content the former and attain the latter ; and so 
 if we have been mistaken, may still in time 
 perceive his error ; and at last having found 
 what suits him, may hold the faster by it, may 
 the more diligently fashion himself according to 
 it. I wish this strange experiment may pros- 
 per : with such excellent natures it perhaps is 
 possible. 
 
 But there is one peculiarity in these instruct- 
 ors, which I never can approve of: they study 
 to seclude the children from whatever might 
 awaken them to an acquaintance with them- 
 selves and with the invisible, sole, faithful Friend. 
 I often take it badly of my uncle that, on this 
 account, he looks on me as dangerous for the 
 little ones. Thus in practice there is no man 
 tolerant ! Many assure us that they willingly 
 leave each to take his way; yet all of them en- 
 deavor to exclude from action every one that 
 does not think as they do. 
 
 This removal of the children troubles me the 
 more, the more I am convinced of the reality 
 of my belief. How can it fail to have a heavenly 
 origin, an actual object, when in practice it is so 
 effectual? Is it not by practice only that we 
 prove our own existence? Why then, by a like 
 mode, may we not demonstrate to ourselves the 
 influence of that Power who gives us all good 
 things ? 
 
 That I am still advancing, never retrograding; 
 that my conduct is approximating more and 
 more to the image I have formed of perfection; 
 that I every day feel more facility in doing what 
 I reckon proper, even while the weakness of 
 my body hinders me so much : can all this be 
 accounted for upon the principles of human na- 
 ture, whose corruption I have seen so clearly? 
 For me, at least, it cannot. 
 
 I scarce remember a command; to me there 
 is nothing that assumes the aspect of a law ; it 
 is an impulse, which leads me, and guides ine 
 always rightly. I freely follow my emotions, 
 and know as little of constraint as of repentance. 
 God be praised that I know to whom I owe 
 this happiness, and that I cannot think of these 
 advantages without humility! Never shall I 
 run the risk of growing proud of my own abi- 
 lity and power, having seen so clearly what a 
 monster might be formed and nursed in every 
 human bosom, did not higher influence restrain 
 us. 
 
 INDENTURE. 
 
 FROM THE SAMS. 
 
 Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, 
 occasion transient. To act is easy, to think is 
 
GOE 
 
 THE. 
 
 305 
 
 hard; to act according to our thought is trouble- 
 some. Every beginning is cheerful ; the thres- 
 hold is the place of expectation. The boy stands 
 astonished, his impressions guide him ; he learns 
 sportfully, seriousness comes on him by sur- 
 
 ; prise. Imitation is born with us; what should 
 
 I be imitated is not easy to discover. The excel- 
 lent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The 
 
 ' height charms us, the steps to it do not; with 
 the summit in our eye, we love to walk along 
 the plain. It is but a part of art that can be 
 
 i taught ; the artist needs it all. Who knows it 
 half, speaks much and is always "wrong ; who 
 knows it wholly, inclines to act and speaks sel- 
 dom or late. The former have no secrets and 
 no force ; the instruction they can give is like 
 
 ' baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single 
 day ; but flour cannot be sown, and seed corn 
 ought not to be ground. Words are good, but 
 they are not the best. The best is not to be ex- 
 
 . plained by words. The spirit in which we act 
 is the highest matter. Action can be understood 
 and again represented by the spirit alone. No 
 one knows what he is doing, while he acts 
 rightly; but of what is wrong we are always 
 conscious. Whoever works with symbols only 
 is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There 
 are many such, and they like to be together. 
 Their babbling detains the scholar ; their obsti- 
 nate mediocrity vexes even the best. The in- 
 struction, which the true artist gives us, opens 
 up the mind ; for where words fail him, deeds 
 
 i speak. The true scholar learns from the known 
 to unfold the unknown, and approaches more 
 and more to being a master. 
 
 THE EXEQUIES OF MIGNON. 
 
 FROM THE SAME. 
 
 The Abbe called them in the evening to at- 
 
 > tend the exequies of Mignon. The company 
 proceeded to the Hall of the Past; they found 
 it magnificently ornamented and illuminated. 
 The walls were hung with azure tapestry al- 
 
 • most from the ceiling to the floor, so that nothing 
 but the cornices and friezes above and below 
 were visible. On the four candilabras in the 
 corners, large wax lights were burning; smaller 
 lights were in the four smaller candilabras 
 placed by the sarcophagus in the middle. Near 
 
 . this stood four Boys, dressed in azure with 
 silver ; they had broad fans of ostrich feathers, 
 
 i which they waved above a figure that was 
 resting upon the sarcophagus. The company 
 sat down : two invisible Choruses began in a 
 soft musical recitative to ask: "Whom bring ye 
 us to the still dwelling?" The four Boys replied 
 with lovely voices: "'Tis a tired playmate 
 whom we bring you; let her rest in your still 
 
 ! dwelling, till the songs of her heavenly sisters 
 once more awaken her." 
 
 2o 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 "Firstling of youth in our circle, we welcome 
 thee! With sadness welcome thee! May no 
 boy, no maiden follow ! Let age only, willing 
 and composed, approach the silent Hall, and in 
 the solemn company, repose this one dear 
 child ! 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 Ah ! reluctantly we brought her hither ! Ah ! 
 
 and she is to remain here ! Let us too remain ; 
 
 let us weep, let us weep upon her bier! 
 
 m 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Yet look at the strong wings ; look at the 
 light clear robe ! how glitters the golden band 
 upon her head ! Look at the beautiful, the noble 
 repose ! 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 Ah ! the wings do not raise her ; in the frolic 
 game, her robe flutters to and fro no more ; 
 when we bound her head with roses, her looks 
 on us were kind and friendly. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Cast forward the eyes of your spirits ! Awake 
 in your souls the imaginative power, which 
 carries Life, the fairest, the highest of earthly 
 endowments, away beyond the stars. 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 But ah ! We find her not here ; in the garden 
 she wanders not ; the flowers of the meadow 
 she plucks no longer. Let us weep, we are 
 leaving her here ! Let us weep and remain 
 with her ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Children, turn back into life! Your tears let 
 the fresh air dry which plays upon the rushing 
 water. Fly from Night! Day and Pleasure and 
 Continuance are the lot of the living. 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 Up ! Turn back into life ! Let the day give 
 us labor and pleasure, till the evening brings 
 us rest, and the nightly sleep refreshes us. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Children ! Hasten into life ! In the pure gar- 
 ments of beauty, may Love meet you with 
 heavenly looks and with the wreath of im- 
 mortality I" 
 
 The Boys had retired ; the Abbe rose from 
 his seat, and went behind the bier. "It is the 
 appointment," said he, " of the Man who pre- 
 pared this silent abode, that each new tenant 
 of it shall be introduced with a solemnity. 
 After him, the builder of this mansion, the 
 founder of this establishment, we have next 
 brought a young stranger hither ; and thus al- 
 ready does this little space contain two altogether 
 different victims of the rigorous, arbitrary and 
 inexorable goddess of Death. By appointed 
 laws we enter into life ; the days are num- 
 bered, which make us ripe to see the light; but 
 26* 
 
306 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 for the duration of our life there is no law. 
 The weakest thread will spin itself to unex- 
 pected length ; and the strongest is cut suddenly 
 asunder by the scissors of the Fates, delighting, 
 as it seems, in contradictions. Of the child, 
 whom we have here committed to her final 
 rest, we can say but little. It is still uncertain 
 whence she came ; her parents we know not ; 
 the years of her life we can only conjecture. 
 Her deep and closely shrouded soul allowed us 
 scarce to guess at its interior movements ; there 
 was nothing clear in her, nothing open but her 
 affection for the man, who had snatched her 
 from the hands of a barbarian. This impas- 
 sioned tenderness., this vivid gratitude, appeared 
 to be the flame, which consumed the oil of her 
 life : the skill of the physician could not save 
 that fair life, the most anxious friendship could 
 not lengthen it. But if art could not stay the 
 departing spirit, it has done its utmost to pre- 
 serve the body, and withdraw it from decay. A 
 balsamic substance has been forced through all 
 the veins, and now tinges, in the place of blood, 
 these cheeks too early faded. Come near, my 
 friends, and view this wonder of art and care!" 
 
 He raised the veil : the child was lying in 
 her angel's dress, as if asleep, in the most soft 
 and graceful posture. They approached it, and 
 admired this show of life. Wilhelm alone con- 
 tinued sitting in his place ; he was not able to 
 compose himself : what he felt, he durst not 
 think ; and every thought seemed ready to 
 destroy his feeling. 
 
 For the sake of the Marchese, the speech had 
 been pronounced in French. That nobleman 
 came forward with the rest, and viewed the 
 figure with attention. The Abbe thus pro- 
 ceeded. "With a holy confidence, this kind 
 heart, shut up to men, was continually turned 
 to its God. Humility, nay an inclination to 
 abase herself externally, seemed natural to her. 
 She clave with zeal to the catholib religion, in 
 which she had been born and educated. Often 
 she expressed a still wish to sleep on conse- 
 crated ground : and according to the usage of 
 the church we have therefore consecrated this 
 marble coffin, and the little earth, which is 
 hidden in the cushion that supports her head. 
 With what ardor did she in her last moments 
 kiss the image of the Crucified, which stood 
 beautifully figured, on her tender arm, with 
 many hundred points !" So saying, he stripped 
 up her right sleeve ; and a crucifix, with marks 
 and letters round it, showed itself in blue upon 
 the white skin. 
 
 The Marchese looked at this with eagerness, 
 stooping down to view it more intensely. "O 
 God !" cried he, as he stood upright, and raised 
 his hands to Heaven ; " Poor child ! Unhappy 
 niece ! Do I meet thee here ! What a painful 
 joy to find thee, whom we had long lost hope 
 of; to find this dear frame, which we had long 
 believed the prey of fishes in the ocean, here 
 preserved, though lifeless! I assist at thy funeral, 
 splendid in its external circumstances, still more 
 
 splendid from the noble persons who attend 
 thee to thy place of rest. And to these," added 
 he with a faltering voice, "so soon as I can 
 speak, I will express my thanks." 
 
 Tears hindered him from saying more. By 
 the pressure of a spring, the Abbe sank the 
 body into the cavity of the marble. Four Youths, 
 dressed as the Boys had been, came out from 
 behind the tapestry; and lifting the heavy, 
 beautifully ornamented lid upon the coffin, thus 
 began their song. 
 
 THE TOUTHS. 
 
 " Well is the treasure now laid up ; the fair 
 image of the Past ! Here sleeps it in the marble, 
 undecaying ; in your hearts too it lives, it works. 
 Travel, travel back into life ! Take along with 
 you this holy Earnestness; for Earnestness aloue 
 makes life eternity." 
 
 The invisible Chorus joined in with the last 
 words : but no one heard the strengthening 
 sentiment; all were too much busied with them- 
 selves, and the emotions, which these wonder- 
 ful disclosures had excited. The Abbe and 
 Natalia conducted the Marchese out ; Theresa 
 and Lothario walked by Wilhelm. It was not 
 till the music had altogether died away, that 
 their sorrows, thoughts, meditations, curiosity 
 again fell on them with all their force, and 
 made them long to be transported back into 
 that exalting scene. 
 
 EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM WILHELM MEISTER'S TRAVELS.* 
 
 By a short and pleasant road, Wilhelm had 
 reached the town, to which his letter was di- 
 rected. He found it gay and well built ; but its 
 new aspect showed too clearly that not long 
 before it must have suffered by a conflagration. 
 The address of his letter led him into the last 
 small uninjured portion of the place, to a house 
 of ancient, earnest architecture, yet well kept, 
 and of a tidy look. Dim windows, strangely 
 fashioned, indicated an exhilarating pomp of 
 colours from within. Nor, in fact, did the inte- 
 rior fail to correspond with the exterior. In 
 clean apartments, everywhere stood furniture 
 which must have served several generations, 
 intermixed with very little that was new. The 
 master of the house received our traveller 
 kindly, in a little chamber similarly fitted up. 
 These clocks had already struck the hour of 
 many a birth and many a death ; everything 
 which met the eye reminded one that the past 
 might, as it were, be protracted into the present. 
 
 The stranger delivered his letter ; but the 
 landlord, without opening it, laid it aside, and 
 endeavored, in a cheerful conversation, imme- 
 diately to get acquainted with his guest. They 
 soon grew confidential ; and as Wilhelm, con- 
 trary to his usual habit, let his eye wander in- 
 * See Vol. IV. German Romance, by T. Carlyle. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 307 
 
 quisitively over the room, the good old man said 
 to him : " My domestic equipment excites your 
 attention. You here see how long a thing may 
 last; and one should make such observations 
 now and then, by way of counterbalance to so 
 much in the world that rapidly changes and 
 passes away. This same tea-kettle served my 
 parents, and was a witness of our evening fa- 
 mily assemblages ; this copper fire-screen still 
 guards me from the fire, which these stout old 
 tongs still help me to mend ; and so it is with 
 all throughout. I had it in my power to bestow 
 my care and industry on many other things, as 
 I did not occupy myself with changing these 
 external necessaries, a task which consumes so 
 many people's time and resources. An affec- 
 tionate attention to what we possess makes us 
 rich, for thereby we accumulate a treasure of 
 remembrances connected with indifferent things. 
 I knew a young man who got a common pin 
 from his love, while taking leave of her ; daily 
 fastened his breast -frill with it, and brought 
 back this guarded and not unemployed treasure 
 from a long journeying of several years. In us 
 little men, such little things are to be reckoned 
 virtue." 
 
 " Many a one too, ; ' answered Wilhelm, " brings 
 back, from such long and far travellings, a sharp 
 pricker in his heart, which he would fain be 
 quit of." 
 
 The old man seemed to know nothing of Le- 
 nardo's situation, though in the meanwhile he 
 had opened the letter and read it; for he re- 
 turned to his former topics. 
 
 "Tenacity of our possessions," continued he, 
 " in many cases gives us the greatest energy. 
 To this obstinacy in myself I owe the saving of 
 my house. When the town was on fire, some 
 people wished to snatch out their goods, and 
 lodge them here. I forbade this ; bolted my 
 doors and windows; and turned out, with seve- 
 ral neighbors, to oppose the flames. Our efforts 
 succeeded in preserving this summit of the 
 town. Next morning all was standing here as 
 you now see it, and as it has stood for almost a 
 hundred years." 
 
 « Yet you will confess," said Wilhelm, " that 
 no man withstands the change which Time 
 produces." 
 
 "That, in truth!" said the other: "but he 
 who holds out longest has still done something. 
 
 "Yes! even beyond the limits of our being 
 we are able to maintain and secure ; we trans- 
 i mit discoveries, we hand down sentiments, as 
 well as property : and as the latter was my 
 chief province, I have for a long time exercised 
 the strictest foresight, invented the most pecu- 
 liar precautions ; yet not till lately have I suc- 
 ceeded in seeing my wish fulfilled. 
 
 " Commonly the son disperses what the father 
 has collected, collects something different, or in 
 a different w r ay. Yet if we can wait for the 
 grandson, for the new generation, we find the 
 same tendencies, the same tastes, again making 
 their appearance. And so at last, by the care 
 
 of our Pedagogic friends, I have found an active 
 youth, who, if possible, pays more regard to old 
 possession than even I, and has withal a vehe- 
 ment attachment to every sort of curiosities. 
 My decided confidence he gained by the violent 
 exertions with which he struggled to keep off 
 the fire from our dwelling. Doubly and trebly 
 has he merited the treasure which I mean to 
 leave him : nay, it is already given into his 
 hands ; and ever since that time our store is in- 
 creasing in a wonderful way. 
 
 " Not all, however, that you see here is ours. 
 On the contrary, as in the hands of pawnbrokers 
 you find many a foreign jewel, so with us I can 
 show you precious articles, which people, under 
 the most various circumstances, have deposited 
 with us, for the sake of better keeping." 
 
 Wilhelm recollected the beautiful Box, which, 
 at any rate, he did not like to carry with him 
 in his wanderings ; and showed it to his land- 
 lord. The old man viewed it with attention ; 
 gave the date when it was probably made ; and 
 showed some similar things. Wilhelm asked 
 him if he thought it should be opened. The old 
 man thought not. "I believe, indeed." said he, 
 " it could be done without special harm to the 
 casket; but as you found it in so singular a way, 
 you must try your luck on it. For if you are 
 born lucky, and this little box is of any conse- 
 quence, the key will doubtless by and by be 
 found, and in the very place where you are 
 least expecting it." 
 
 "There have been such occurrences," said 
 Wilhelm. 
 
 "I have myself experienced such," replied 
 the old man ; " and here you behold the strangest 
 of them. Of this ivory crucifix I have had for 
 thirty years, the body with the head and feet, 
 in one place. For its own nature, as well as 
 for the glorious art displayed in it, I kept the 
 figure laid up in my most private drawer : nearly 
 ten years ago I got the cross belonging to it, with 
 the inscription ; and was then induced to have 
 the arms supplied by the best carver of our day. 
 Far, indeed, was this expert artist from equal- 
 ling his predecessor; yet I let his work pass, 
 more for devout purposes, than for any admira- 
 tion of its excellence. 
 
 "Now, conceive my delight! A little while 
 ago the original, genuine arms, were sent me, 
 as you see them here united in the loveliest 
 harmony ; and I, charmed at so happy a coin- 
 cidence, cannot help recognising in this crucifix 
 the fortunes of the Christian religion, which, 
 often enough dismembered and scattered abroad, 
 will ever in the end again gather itself together 
 at the foot of the Cross." 
 
 Wilhelm admired the figure, and its strange 
 combination. "I will follow your counsel," 
 added he ; " let the casket continue locked till 
 the key of it be found, though it should lie till 
 the end of my life." 
 
 " One who lives long," said the old man, 
 " sees much collected and much cast asunder." 
 
 The young partner in the house now chanced 
 
308 GOETHE. 
 
 to enter, and Wilhelm signified bis purpose of 
 intrusting the Box to their keeping. A large 
 book was thereupon produced, the deposit in- 
 scribed in it, with many ceremonies and stipu- 
 lations ; a receipt granted, which applied in 
 words to any bearer, but was only to be honored 
 on the giving of a certain token agreed upon 
 with the owner. 
 
 So passed their hours in instructive and en- 
 tertaining conversation, till at last Felix, mounted 
 on a gay pony, arrived in safety. A groom had 
 accompanied him, and was now for some time 
 to attend and serve Wilhelm. A letter from 
 Lenardo, delivered at the same time, complained 
 that he could find no vestige of the Nut-brown 
 Maid ; and Wilhelm was anew conjured to do 
 his utmost in searching her out. Wilhelm im- 
 parted the matter to his landlord. The latter 
 smiled, and said : " We must certainly make 
 every exertion, for our friend's sake 5 perhaps I 
 may succeed in learning something of her. As 
 I keep these old primitive household goods, so 
 likewise have I kept some old primitive friends. 
 You tell me that this maiden's father was dis- 
 tinguished by his piety. The pious have a more 
 intimate connection with each other than the 
 wicked; though externally it may not always 
 prosper so well. By this means I hope to obtain 
 some traces of what you are sent to seek. But, 
 as a preparative, do you now pursue the resolu- 
 tion of placing your Felix among his equals, and 
 turning him to some fixed department of acti- 
 vity. Hasten with him to the great Institution. 
 I will point out the way you must follow in 
 order to find the Chief, who resides now in one, 
 now in another division of his Province. You 
 shall have a letter, with my best advice and 
 direction." 
 
 ******** 
 
 The pilgrims pursuing the way pointed out to 
 them, had, without difficulty, reached the limits 
 of the Province, where they were to see so 
 many singularities. At the very entrance, they 
 found themselves in a district of extreme fer- 
 tility; in its soft knolls, favorable to crops ; in 
 its higher hills, to sheep-husbandry; in its wide 
 bottoms, to grazing. Harvest was near at hand, 
 and all was in the richest luxuriance : yet what 
 most surprised our travellers was, that they ob- 
 served neither men nor women ; but in all 
 quarters, boys and youths engaged in preparing 
 for a happy harvest, nay already making ar- 
 rangements for a merry harvest-home. Our tra- 
 vellers saluted several of them, and inquired 
 for the Chief, of whose abode, however, they 
 could gain no intelligence. The address of their 
 letter was : To the Chief, or the Three. Of this 
 also the boys could make nothing ; however, 
 they referred the strangers to an Overseer, who 
 was just about mounting his horse to ride off. 
 Our friends disclosed their object to this man; 
 the frank liveliness of Felix seemed to please 
 him, and so they all rode along together. 
 
 Wilhelm had already noticed, that in the cut 
 
 and color of the young people's clothes, a variety 
 prevailed, which gave the whole tiny popula- 
 tion a peculiar aspect: he was just about to 
 question his attendant on this point, when a 
 still stranger observation forced itself upon him ; 
 all the children, how employed soever, laid 
 down their work, and turned with singular, yet 
 diverse gestures, towards the party riding past 
 them ; or rather, as it was easy to infer, towards 
 the Overseer, who was in it. The youngest laid 
 their arms crosswise over their breasts, and 
 looked cheerfully up to the sky; those of middle 
 size held their hands on their backs, and looked 
 smiling on the ground ; the eldest stood with a 
 frank and spirited air ; their arms stretched 
 down, they turned their heads to the right, and 
 formed themselves into a line ; whereas the 
 others kept separate, each where he chanced 
 to be. 
 
 The riders having stopped and dismounted 
 here, as several children, in their various modes, 
 were standing forth to be inspected by the Over- 
 seer, Wilhelm asked the meaning of these ges- 
 tures ; but Felix struck in, and cried gaily : 
 "What posture am I to take, then?" 
 
 "Without doubt," said the Overseer, "as the 
 first posture : The arms over the breast, the face 
 earnest and cheerful towards the sky." 
 
 Felix obeyed, but soon cried : " This is not 
 much to my taste ; I see nothing up there : does 
 it last long 1 ? But yes!" exclaimed he joyfully, 
 " yonder are a pair of falcons flying from the 
 west to the east: that is a good sign too?" 
 
 " As thou takest it, as thou behavest," said the 
 other; "now mingle among them, as they min- 
 gle." He gave a signal, and the children left 
 their postures, and again betook them to work, 
 or sport, as before. 
 
 " Are you at liberty," said Wilhelm then, "to 
 explain this sight which surprises me? I easily 
 perceive that these positions, these gestures, are 
 salutations directed to you." 
 
 "Just so," replied the Overseer; "salutations 
 which at once indicate in what degree of cul- 
 ture each of these boys is standing." 
 
 "But, can you explain to me the meaning of 
 this gradation?" inquired Wilhelm; "for that 
 there is one, is clear enough." 
 
 " This belongs to a higher quarter," said the 
 other: "so much, however, I may tell you, that 
 these ceremonies are not mere grimaces ; that 
 on the contrary, the import of them, not the 
 highest, but still a directing, intelligible import, 
 is communicated to the children ; while, at the 
 same time, each is enjoined to retain and con- 
 sider for himself whatever explanation it has 
 been thought meet to give him ; they are not 
 allowed to talk of these things, either to strangers 
 or among themselves ; and thus their instruc- 
 tion is modified in many ways. Besides, se- 
 crecy itself has many advantages; for when 
 you tell a man at once and straight forward, the 
 purpose of any object, he fancies there is nothing 
 in it. Certain secrets, even if known to every 
 one, men find that they must still reverence by 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 309 
 
 concealment and silence, for this works on mo- 
 desty and good morals." 
 
 "I understand you," answered Wilhelm: 
 1 why should not the principle which is so ne- 
 cessary in material things, be applied to spiritual 
 also? But perhaps, in another point, you can 
 satisfy my curiosity. The great variety of shape 
 and color in these children's clothes attracts my 
 notice; and yet I do not see all sorts of colors, 
 but a few in all their shades, from the lightest 
 to the deepest. At the same time, I observe that 
 by this no designation of degrees in age or merit 
 can be intended; for the oldest and the youngest 
 boys may be alike both in cut and color, while 
 those of similar gestures are not similar in 
 dress." 
 
 "On this matter also," said the other, "silence 
 is prescribed to me : but I am much mistaken, 
 or you will not leave us without receiving all 
 the information you desire." 
 
 Our party continued following the trace of the 
 Chief, which they believed themselves to be 
 upon. But now the strangers could not fail to 
 notice, with new surprise, that the farther they 
 advanced into the district, a vocal melody more 
 and more frequently sounded towards them 
 from the fields. Whatever the boys might be 
 engaged with, whatever labor they were carry- 
 ing on, they accompanied it with singing ; and 
 it seemed as if the songs were specially adapted 
 to their various sorts of occupation, and in simi- 
 lar cases, everywhere the same. If there chanced 
 to be several children in company, they sang 
 together in alternating parts. Towards evening, 
 appeared dancers likewise, whose steps were 
 enlivened and directed by choruses. Felix 
 struck in with them, not altogether unsuccess- 
 fully, from horseback, as he passed ; and Wil- 
 helm felt gratified in this amusement, which 
 gave new life to the scene. 
 
 "Apparently," he said to his companion, 
 "you devote considerable care to this branch 
 of instruction; the accomplishment, otherwise, 
 could not be so widely diffused, and so com- 
 pletely practised." 
 
 "We do," replied the other: "on our plan, 
 Song is the first step in education ; all the rest 
 are connected with it, and attained by means 
 of it. The simplest enjoyment, as well as the 
 simplest instruction, we enliven and impress by 
 Song; nay, even what religious and moral 
 principles we lay before our children, are com- 
 municated in the way of Song. Other ad- 
 vantages for the excitement of activity, spon- 
 taneously arise from this practice ; for, in ac- 
 customing the children to write the tones they 
 are to utter, in musical characters, and as oc- 
 casion serves, again to seek these characters in 
 the utterance of their own voice ; and besides 
 this, to subjoin the text below the notes, they 
 are forced to practise hand, ear, and eye at 
 once, whereby they acquire the art of penman- 
 ship sooner than you would expect ; and as all 
 this in the long run is to be effected by copying 
 precise measurements and accurately settled 
 
 numbers, they come to conceive the high value 
 of Mensuration and Arithmetic much sooner 
 than in any other way. Among all imaginable 
 things, accordingly, we have selected music as 
 the element of our teaching; for level roads run 
 out from music towards every side." 
 
 Wilhelm endeavored to obtain still farther 
 information, and expressed his surprise at hear- 
 ing no instrumental music : " This is by no means 
 neglected, here," said the other; "but practised 
 in a peculiar district, one of the most pleasant 
 valleys among the Mountains; and there again 
 we have arranged it so that the different instru- 
 ments shall be taught in separate places. The 
 discords of beginners, in particular, are banished 
 into certain solitudes, where they can drive no 
 one to despair ; for you will confess that in 
 well-regulated civil society, there is scarcely a 
 more melancholy suffering to be undergone, 
 than what is forced on us by the neighbourhood 
 of an incipient player on the flute or violin. 
 
 " Our learners, out of a laudable desire to be 
 troublesome to no one, go forth of their accord, 
 for a longer or a shorter time, into the wastes; 
 and strive, in their seclusion, to attain the merit 
 which shall again admit them into the inhabited 
 world. Each of them, from time to time, is 
 allowed to venture an attempt for admission, 
 and the trial seldom fails of success ; for bash- 
 fulness and modesty, in this, as in all other 
 parts of our system, we strongly endeavor to 
 maintain and cherish. That your son has a 
 good voice, I am glad to observe: all the rest is 
 managed with so much the greater ease." 
 
 They had now reached a place where Felix 
 was to stop and make trial of its arrangements, 
 till a formal reception should be granted him. 
 From a distance, they had been saluted by a 
 jocund sound of music; it was a game in which 
 the boys were, for the present, amusing them- 
 selves in their hour of play. A general chorus 
 mounted up ; each individual of a wide circle 
 striking in at his time, with a joyful, clear, firm 
 tone, as the sign was given him by the Over- 
 seer. The latter more than once took the 
 singers by surprise, when at a signal he sus- 
 pended the choral song, and called on any 
 single boy, touching him with his rod, to catch 
 by himself the expiring tone, and adapt to it a 
 suitable song, fitted also to the spirit of what 
 had preceded. Most part showed great dex- 
 terity; a few, who failed in this feat, willingly 
 gave in their pledges, without altogether being 
 laughed at for their ill success. Felix was child 
 enough to mix among them instantly; and in 
 his new task he acquitted himself tolerably 
 well. The First Salutation was then enjoined 
 on him : he directly laid his hands on his breast, 
 iooked upwards, and truly with so roguish a 
 countenance, that it was easy to observe no 
 secret meaning had yet in his mind attached 
 itself to this posture. 
 
 The delightful spot, his kind reception, the 
 merry playmates, all pleased the boy so well, 
 that he felt no very deep sorrow as his father 
 
310 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 moved away : the departure of the pony was 
 perhaps a heavier matter; but he yielded here 
 also, on learning that in this circle it could not 
 possihly be kept; and the Overseer promised 
 him, in compensation, that he should find an- 
 other horse, as smart and well-broken, at a 
 time when he was not expecting it. 
 
 As the Chief, it appeared, was not to be come 
 at, the Overseer turned to Wilhelm and said : 
 "I must now leave you, to pursue my occupa- 
 tions ; but first I will bring you to the Three, 
 who preside over our sacred things. Your letter 
 is addressed to them likewise, and they together 
 represent the Chief." Wilhelm could have 
 wished to gain some previous knowledge of 
 these sacred tbings, but his companion answered : 
 "The Three will doubtless, in return for the 
 confidence you show in leaving us your son, 
 disclose to you in their wisdom and fairness 
 what is most needful for you to learn. The 
 visible objects of reverence, which I named 
 sacred things, are collected in this separate 
 circle ; are mixed with nothing, interfered with 
 by nothing : at certain seasons of the year only 
 are our pupils admitted here, to be taught in 
 their various degrees of culture, by historical 
 and sensible means ; and in these short inter- 
 vals they carry off a deep enough impression to 
 suffice them for a time, during the performance 
 of their other duties." 
 
 Wilhelm had now reached the gate of a 
 wooded vale, surrounded with high walls : on 
 a certain sign the little door opened, and a man 
 of earnest and imposing look received our tra- 
 veller. The latter found himself in a large 
 beautifully umbrageous space, decked with the 
 richest foliage, shaded with trees and bushes of 
 all sorts; while stately walls and magnificent 
 buildings were discerned only in glimpses 
 through this thick natural boscage. A friendly 
 reception from the Three, who by and by ap- 
 peared, at last turned into a general conversa- 
 tion, the substance of which we now present in 
 an abbreviated shape. 
 
 "Since you intrust your son to us," said they, 
 "it is fair that we admit you to a closer view 
 of our procedure. Of what is external you have 
 seen much, that does not bear its meaning on 
 its front. What part of this do you chiefly wish 
 to have explained?" 
 
 "Dignified, yet singular gestures of salutation 
 I have noticed, the import of which I would 
 gladly learn : with you, doubtless, the exterior 
 has a reference to the interior, and inversely; 
 let me know what this reference is." 
 
 "Well-formed, healthy children," replied the 
 Three, " bring much into the world along with 
 them : Nature has given to each whatever he 
 requires for time and duration; to unfold this 
 is our duty; often it unfolds itself better of its 
 own accord. One thing there is, however, which 
 no child brings into the world with him ; and 
 yet it is on this one thing that all depends for 
 making man in every point a man. If you 
 can discover it yourself, speak it out." Wil- 
 
 helm thought a little while, then shook his 
 
 head. 
 
 The Three, after a suitable pause, exclaimed : 
 "Reverence!" Wilhelm seemed to hesitate. 
 " Reverence !" cried they a second time. " All 
 want it, perhaps you yourself. 
 
 " Three kinds of gestures you have seen; and 
 we inculcate a threefold Reverence, which, 
 when commingled and formed into one whole, 
 attains its highest force and effect. The first is 
 Reverence for what is above us. That posture, 
 the arms crossed over the breast, the look turned 
 joyfully towards Heaven ; that is what we have 
 enjoined on young children ; requiring from them 
 thereby a testimony that there is a God above, 
 who images and reveals himself in parents, 
 teachers, superiors. Then comes the second, 
 Reverence for what is under us. Those hands 
 folded over the back, and, as it were, tied to- 
 gether, that down-turned, smiling look, announce 
 that we are to regard the Earth with attention 
 and cheerfulness: from the bounty of the Earth 
 we are nourished : the Earth affords unutterable 
 joys ; but disproportionate sorrows she also 
 brings us. Should one of our children do him- 
 self external hurt, blameably or blamelessly; 
 should others hurt him accidentally or purpose- 
 ly ; should dead involuntary matter do him 
 hurt; then let him well consider it; for such 
 dangers will attend him all his days. But from 
 this posture we delay not to free our pupil, the 
 instant we become convinced that the instruc- 
 tion connected with it has produced sufficient 
 influence on him. Then, on the contrary, we 
 bid him gather courage, and turning to his com- 
 rades, range himself along with them. Now, 
 at last, he stands forth, frank and bold; not self- 
 ishly isolated; only in combination with his 
 equals does he front the world. Farther we 
 have nothing to add." 
 
 "I see a glimpse of it!" said Wilhelm. "Are 
 not the mass of men so marred and stinted, be- 
 cause they take pleasure only in the element of 
 evil-wishing and evil-speaking? Whoever gives 
 himself to this, soon comes to be indifferent to- 
 wards God, contemptuous towards the world, 
 spiteful towards his equals ; and the true, genu- 
 ine, indispensable sentiment of self-estimation 
 corrupts into self-conceit and presumption. Al- 
 low me, however," continued he, "to state one 
 difficulty. You say that reverence is not natural 
 to man : now, has not the reverence or fear of 
 rude people for violent convulsions of Nature, 
 or other inexplicable, mysteriously- foreboding 
 occurrences, been heretofore regarded as the 
 germ out of which a higher feeling, a purer sen- 
 timent, was by degrees to be developed?" 
 
 "Nature is indeed adequate to fear," replied 
 they ; " but to reverence not adequate. Men 
 fear a known or unknown powerful being ; the 
 strong seeks to conquer it, the weak to avoid it; 
 both endeavor to get quit of it, and feel them- 
 selves happy when for a short season they have 
 put it aside, and their nature has in some de- 
 gree restored itself to freedom and independence. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 311 
 
 The natural man repeats this operation millions 
 of times in the course of his life; from fear he 
 struggles to freedom ; from freedom he is driven 
 back to fear, and so makes no advancement. 
 To fear is easy, but grievous ; to reverence is 
 difficult, but satisfactory. Man does not will- 
 ingly submit himself to reverence; or rather he 
 never so submits himself: it is a higher sense, 
 which must be communicated to his nature ; 
 which only in some peculiarly favored indivi- 
 duals unfolds itself spontaneously, who on this 
 account too have of old been looked upon as 
 saints and gods. Here lies the worth, here lies 
 the business of all true Religions ; whereof there 
 are likewise only three, according to the objects 
 towards which they direct our devotion." 
 
 The men paused ; Wilhelm reflected for a 
 time in silence ; but feeling in himself no pre- 
 tension to unfold the meaning of these strange 
 words, he requested the Sages to proceed with 
 their exposition. They immediately complied. 
 "No religion that grounds itself on fear," said 
 they, " is regarded among us. With the reve- 
 rence, to which a man should give dominion in 
 his mind, he can, in paying honor, keep his own 
 honor; he is not disunited with himself, as in 
 the former case. The Religion which depends 
 on reverence for what is above us, we denomi- 
 nate the Ethnic ; it is the religion of the nations, 
 and the first happy deliverance from a degrad- 
 ing fear : all Heathen religions, as we call them, 
 are of this sort, whatsoever names they may 
 bear. The Second Religion, which founds it- 
 self on reverence for what is around us, we de- 
 nominate the Philosophical ; for the philosopher 
 stations himself in the middle, and must draw 
 down to him all that is higher, and up to him 
 all that is lower, and only in this medium con- 
 dition does he merit the title of Wise. Here, 
 as he surveys with clear sight his relation to his 
 equals, and therefore to the whole human race ; 
 his relation likewise to all other earthly circum- 
 stances and arrangements necessary or acci- 
 dental, he alone, in a cosmic sense, lives in 
 Truth. But now we have to speak of the Third 
 Religion, grounded on reverence for what is be- 
 neath us: this we name the Christian, as in the 
 Christian religion such a temper is with most 
 distinctness manifested : it is a last step to which 
 mankind were fitted and destined to attain. 
 But what a task was it, not only to be patient 
 with the Earth, and let it lie beneath us, we 
 appealing to a higher birth-place; but also to 
 recognise humility and poverty, mockery and 
 despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering 
 and death, to recognise these things as divine; 
 nay, even on sin and crime to look not as hin- 
 drances, but to honor and love them as further- 
 ances, of what is holy. Of this, indeed, we find 
 some traces in all ages: but the trace is not the 
 goal ; and this being now attained, the human 
 species cannot retrograde ; and we may say, that 
 the Christian religion having once appeared 
 cannot again vanish ; having once assumed its 
 divine shape, can be subject to no dissolution." 
 
 "To which of these religions do you specially 
 adhere?" inquired Wilhelm. 
 
 "To all the three," replied they: "for in their 
 union they produce what may properly be called 
 the true religion. Out of those Three Reve- 
 rences springs the highest reverence, reverence 
 for one's self, and those again unfold themselves 
 from this; so that man attains the highest ele- 
 vation of which he is capable, that of being jus- 
 tified in reckoning himself the Best that God 
 and Nature have produced ; nay, of being able 
 to continue on this lofty eminence, without being 
 again by self-conceit and presumption drawn 
 down from it into the vulgar level." 
 
 "Such a confession of faith, developed in this 
 manner, does not repulse me," answered Wil- 
 helm ; " it agrees with much that one hears now 
 and then in the course of life ; only, you unite 
 what others separate." 
 
 To this they replied : "Our confession has al- 
 ready been adopted, though unconsciously, by a 
 great part of the world." 
 
 " How, then, and where ?" said Wilhelm. 
 
 "In the Creed!" exclaimed they: "for the 
 first Article is Ethnic, and belongs to all na- 
 tions ; the second, Christian, for those struggling 
 with affliction and glorified in affliction ; the 
 third, in fine, teaches an inspired Communion 
 of Saints, that is, of men in the highest degree 
 good and wise. And should not therefore the 
 Three Divine Persons, under the similitudes 
 and names of which these threefold doctrines 
 and commands are promulgated, justly be con- 
 sidered as in the highest sense One !" 
 
 "I thank you," said Wilhelm, "for having 
 pleased to lay all this before me in such clear- 
 ness and combination, as before a grown-up 
 person, to whom your three modes of feeling 
 are not altogether foreign. And now, when I 
 reflect that you communicate this high doctrine 
 to your children, in the first place as a sensible 
 sign, then, with some symbolical accompani- 
 ment attached to it, and at last unfold to them 
 its deepest meaning, I cannot but warmly ap- 
 prove of your method." 
 
 " Right," answered they: "but now we must 
 show you more, and so convince you the better 
 that your son is in no bad hands. This, how- 
 ever, may remain for the morrow : rest and 
 refresh yourself, that you may attend us in the 
 morning, as a man satisfied, and unimpeded, 
 into the interior of our Sanctuary." 
 
 * # * * * * * 
 
 At the hand of the Eldest, our friend now 
 proceeded through a stately portal, into a round, 
 or rather octagonal hall, so richly decked with 
 pictures, that it struck him with astonishment 
 as he entered. All this, he easily conceived, 
 must have a significant import, though at the 
 moment he saw not so clearly what it was. 
 While about to question his guide on this sub- 
 ject, the latter invited him to step forward into 
 a gallery, open on the one side, and stretching 
 round a spacious gay flowery garden. The 
 
312 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 wall, however, not the flowers, attracted the 
 eyes of the stranger ; it was covered with 
 paintings, and Wilhelm could not walk far 
 without observing that the Sacred Books of the 
 Israelites had furnished the materials for these 
 figures. 
 
 " It is here," said the Eldest, " that we teach 
 our First Religion, the religion which, for the 
 sake of brevity, I named the Ethnic. The spirit 
 of it is to be sought for in the history of the 
 world ; its outward form, in the events of that 
 history. Only in the return of similar destinies 
 on whole nations, can it properly be appre- 
 hended." 
 
 "I observe," said Wilhelm, "you have done 
 the Israelites the honor to select their history as 
 the groundwork of this delineation, or rather, 
 you have made it the leading object there." 
 
 "As you see," replied the Eldest; "for you 
 will remark, that on the socles and friezes we 
 have introduced another series of transactions 
 and occurrences, not so much of a synchronistic, 
 as of a symphonistic kind ; since, among all na- 
 tions, we discover records of a similar import, 
 and grounded on the same facts. Thus you 
 perceive here, while in the main field of the 
 picture, Abraham receives a visit from his gods 
 in the form of fair youths, Apollo, among the 
 herdsmen of Admetus, is painted above on the 
 frieze. From which we may learn, that the 
 gods, when they appear to men, are commonly 
 unrecognised of them." 
 
 The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the 
 most part, met with well-known objects, but 
 they were here exhibited in a livelier and more 
 expressive manner than he had been used to 
 see them. On some few matters he requested 
 explanation, and at last could not help returning 
 to his former question: Why the Israelitish his- 
 tory had been chosen in preference to all others ? 
 
 The Eldest answered : " Among all Heathen 
 religions, for such also is the Israelitish, this has 
 the most distinguished advantages; of which I 
 shall mention only a few. At the Ethnic judg- 
 ment-seat, at the judgment-seat of the God of 
 Nations, it is not asked Whether this is the 
 best, the most excellent nation, but whether it 
 lasts, whether it has continued. The Israelitish 
 people never was good for much, as its own 
 leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a thou- 
 sand times reproachfully declared ; it possesses 
 few virtues, and most of the faults of other na- 
 tions : but in cohesion, steadfastness, valor, and 
 when all this would not serve, in obstinate 
 toughness, it has no match. It is the most per- 
 severant nation in the world : it is, it was, and 
 it will be; to glorify the name of Jehovah, 
 through all ages. We have set it up, therefore, 
 as the pattern figure ; as the main figure, to 
 which the others only serve as a frame." 
 
 " It becomes not me to dispute with you," 
 said Wilhelm, "since you have instruction to 
 impart. Open to me, therefore, the other ad- 
 vantages of this people, or rather of its history, 
 of its religion." 
 
 "One chief advantage," said the other, is its 
 excellent collection of Sacred Books. These 
 stand so happily combined together, that even 
 out of the most diverse elements, the feeling of 
 a whole still rises before us. They are com- 
 plete enough to satisfy; fragmentary enough to 
 excite ; barbarous enough to rouse ; tender 
 enough to appease : and for how many other 
 contradicting merits might not these Books, 
 might not this one Book, be praised!" 
 
 The series of main figures, as well as their 
 relations to the smaller which above and below 
 accompanied them, gave the guest so much to 
 think of, that he scarcely heard the pertinent 
 remarks of his guide ; who, by what he said, 
 seemed desirous rather to divert our friend's at- 
 tention, than to fix it on the paintings. Once, 
 however, the old man said, on some occasion: 
 "Another advantage of the Israelitish religion, 
 I must here mention ; it has not embodied its 
 god in any form ; and so has left us at liberty 
 to represent him in a worthy human shape, and 
 likewise, by way of contrast, to designate Idola- 
 try by forms of beasts and monsters." 
 
 Our friend had now, in his short wandering 
 through this hall, again brought the spirit of 
 universal history before his mind; in regard to 
 the events, he had not failed to meet with 
 something new. So likewise, by the simultane- 
 ous presentment of the pictures, by the reflec- 
 tions of his guide, many new views had risen 
 on him; and he could not but rejoice in think- 
 ing that his Felix was, by so dignified a visible 
 representation, to seize and appropriate for his 
 whole life those great, significant, and exem- 
 plary events, as if they had actually been pre- 
 sent, and transacted beside him. He came at 
 length to regard the exhibition altogether with 
 the eyes of the child, and in this point of view 
 it perfectly contented him. Thus wandering 
 on, they had now reached the gloomy and per- 
 plexed periods of the history, the destruction of 
 the City and the Temple, the murder, exile, 
 slavery of whole masses of this stiff-necked 
 people. Its subsequent fortunes were delineated 
 in a cunning allegorical way ; a real historical 
 delineation of them would have lain without 
 the limits of true Art. 
 
 At this point, the gallery abruptly terminated 
 in a closed door, and Wilhelm was surprised to 
 see himself already at the end. " In your his- 
 torical series," said he, " I find a chasm. You 
 have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and 
 dispersed the people ; yet you have not intro- 
 duced the divine Man who taught there shortly 
 before ; to whom, shortly before, they would 
 give no ear." 
 
 "To have done this, as you require it, would 
 have been an error. The life of that divine 
 Man, whom you allude to, stands in no connec- 
 tion with the general history of the world in 
 his time. It was a private life ; his teaching 
 was a teaching for individuals. What has 
 publicly befallen vast masses of people, and 
 the minor parts which compose them, belongs 
 
GOE 
 
 313 
 
 to the general history of the world, to the gene- 
 ral religion of the world ; the religion we have 
 named the First. What inwardly hefalls in- 
 dividuals, belongs to the Second religion, the 
 
 . Philosophical : such a religion was it that Christ 
 taught and practised, so long as he went about 
 
 , on Earth. For this reason, the external here 
 closes, and I now open to you the internal." 
 
 A door went back, and they entered a similar 
 gallery; where Wilhelm soon recognised a cor- 
 
 ■ responding series of pictures from the New 
 Testament. They seemed as if by another hand 
 than the first: all was softer; forms, move- 
 ments, accompaniments, light, and coloring. 
 
 " Here,' 1 said the guide, after they had looked 
 over a few pictures, "you behold neither actions 
 nor events, but Miracles and Similitudes. There 
 is here a new world, a new exterior, different 
 
 , from the former ; and an interior, which was 
 altogether wanting there. By Miracles and 
 Similitudes, a new world is opened up. Those 
 make the common extraordinary, these the ex- 
 traordinary common." 
 
 u You will have the goodness," said Wilhelm, 
 "to explain these few words more minutely; 
 for, by my own light, I cannot." 
 
 " They have a natural meaning," said the 
 other, " though a deep one. Examples will 
 bring it out most easily and soonest. There is 
 
 j nothing more common and customary than eat- 
 ing and drinking; but it is extraordinary to 
 transform a drink into another of more noble 
 
 ! sort; to multiply a portion of food that it suffice 
 a multitude. Nothing is more common than 
 
 , sickness and corporeal diseases ; but to remove, 
 to mitigate these by spiritual, or spiritual-like 
 means, is extraordinary ; and even in this lies 
 the wonder of the Miracle, that the common and 
 the extraordinary, the possible and the impossi- 
 ble, become one. With the Similitude again, 
 with the Parable, the converse is the case : here 
 it is the sense, the view, the idea, that forms 
 
 ■ the high, the unattainable, the extraordinary. 
 When this embodies itself in a common, cus- 
 tomary, comprehensible figure, so that it meets 
 us as if alive, present, actual ; so that we can 
 seize it, appropriate, retain it, live with it as 
 with our equal : this is a second sort of miracle, 
 
 ■ and is justly placed beside the first sort; nay, 
 perhaps preferred to it. Here a living doctrine 
 is pronounced, a doctrine which can cause no 
 argument : it is not an opinion about what is 
 riyht and wrong ; it is Right and Wrong them- 
 selves, and indisputably." 
 
 This part of the gallery was shorter ; indeed 
 it formed but the fourth part of the circuit en- 
 closing the interior court. Yet if in the former 
 i part you merely walked along, you here liked 
 to linger, you here walked to and fro. The ob- 
 jects were not so striking, not so varied: yet 
 they invited you the more to penetrate their 
 I deep still meaning. Our two friends, accord- 
 | ingly, turned round at the end of the space, 
 j Wilhelm, at the same time, expressing some 
 surprise that these delineations went no farther 
 2p 
 
 than the Supper, than the scene where the Mas- 
 ter and his Disciples part. He inquired for the 
 remaining portion of the history. 
 
 " In all sorts of instruction," said the Eldest, 
 "in all sorts of communication, we are fond of 
 separating whatever it is possible to separate; 
 for by this means alone can the notion of im- 
 portance and peculiar significance arise in the 
 young mind. Actual experience of itself min- 
 gles and mixes all things together: here, accord- 
 ingly, we have entirely disjoined that sublime 
 Man's life from its termination. In life, he ap- 
 pears as a true Philosopher — let not the expres- 
 sion stagger you — as a wise man in the highest 
 sense. He stands firm to his point; he goes on 
 his way inflexibly; and while he exalts the 
 lower to himself, while he makes the ignorant, 
 the poor, the sick, partakers of his wisdom, of 
 his riches, of his strength, he, on the other hand, 
 in no wise conceals his divine origin ; he dares 
 to equal himself with God, nay, to declare that 
 he himself is God. In this manner is he wont, 
 from youth upwards, to astound his familiar 
 friends ; of these he gains a part to his own 
 cause; irritates the rest against him ; and shows 
 to all men, who are aiming at a certain eleva- 
 tion in doctrine and life, what they have to look 
 for from the world. And thus, for the noble 
 portion of mankind, his walk and conversation 
 are even more instructive and profitable than 
 his death : for to those trials every one is called, 
 to this trial but a few. Now, omitting all that 
 results from this consideration, do but look at 
 the touching scene of the Last Supper. Here 
 the Wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those that 
 are his own utterly orphaned behind him ; and 
 while he is careful for the Good, he feeds along 
 with them a traitor by whom he and the Better 
 are to be destroyed." 
 
 With these words the Eldest opened a door ; 
 and Wilhelm faltered in surprise, as he found 
 himself again in the first hall at the entrance. 
 They had, in the meanwhile, as he now saw, 
 passed round the whole circuit of the court. " I 
 hoped," said Wilhelm, " you were leading me 
 to the conclusion, and you take me back to the 
 beginning." 
 
 "For the present," said the Eldest, "I can 
 show you nothing farther : more we do not lay 
 before our pupils, more we do not explain to 
 them, than what you have now gone through. 
 All that is external, worldly, universal, we com- 
 municate to each from youth upwards; what is 
 more particularly spiritual and conversant with 
 the heart, to those only who grow up with some 
 thoughtfulness of temper ; and the rest, which 
 is opened only once a-year, cannot be imparted 
 save to those whom we are sending forth as 
 finished. That last Religion which arises from 
 the Reverence of what is beneath us; that vene- 
 ration of the contradictory, the hated, the avoid- 
 ed, we give each of our pupils, in small portions 
 by way of outfit, along with him into the world, 
 merely that he may know where more is to be 
 had, should such a want spring up within him. 
 27 
 
3U 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 I invite you to return hither at the end of a year, 
 to visit our general festival, and see how far 
 your son is advanced: then shall you be admit- 
 ted into the Sanctuary of Sorrow." 
 
 "Permit me one question," said Wilhelm: 
 " as you have set up the life of this divine Man 
 for a pattern and example, have you likewise 
 selected his sufferings, his death, as a model of 
 exalted patience ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly we have," replied the Eldest. 
 " Of this we make no secret ; but we draw a 
 veil over those sufferings, even because we re- 
 verence them so highly. We hold it a damnable 
 audacity to bring forth that torturing Cross, and 
 the Holy One who suffers on it, or to expose 
 them to the light of the sun, which hid its face 
 when a reckless world forced such a sight on 
 it; to take these mysterious secrets, in which 
 the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid, and play 
 with them, fondle them, trick them out. and rest 
 not till the most reverend of all solemnities ap- 
 pears vulgar and paltry. Let so much, for the 
 present, suffice to put your mind at peace re- 
 specting your son ; and to convince you, that on 
 meeting him again, you will find him trained, 
 more or less, in one department or another, but 
 at least in a proper way ; and, at all events, not 
 wavering, perplexed, and unstable." 
 
 Wilhelm still lingered, looking at the pictures 
 in this entrance-hall, and wishing to get expla- 
 nation of their meaning. " This, too," said the 
 Eldest, "we must still owe you for a twelve- 
 month. The instruction which, in the interim, 
 we give the children, no stranger is allowed to 
 witness: then, however, come to us; and you 
 will hear what our best speakers think it ser- 
 viceable to make public on these matters." 
 
 Shortly after this conversation, a knocking 
 was heard at the little gate. The Overseer of 
 last night announced himself : he had brought 
 out Wilhelm's horse; and so our friend took 
 leave of the Three ; who, as he set out, con- 
 signed him to the Overseer with these words : 
 " This man is now numbered among the Trusted, 
 and thou understandest what thou hast to tell 
 him in answer to his questions ; for, doubtless, 
 he still wishes to be informed on much that he 
 has seen and heard while here : purpose and 
 circumstance are known to thee." 
 
 Wilhelm had, in fact, some questions on his 
 mind ; and these he ere long put into words. 
 As they rode along they were saluted by the 
 children, as on the preceding evening; but to- 
 day, though rarely, he now and then observed 
 a boy who did not pause in his work to salute 
 the Overseer, but let him pass unheeded. Wil- 
 helm asked the cause of this, and what such an 
 exception meant. His companion answered : 
 " It is full of meaning ; for it is the highest pun- 
 ishment which we inflict on our pupils ; they 
 are declared unworthy to show reverence, and 
 obliged to exhibit themselves as rude and un- 
 cultivated natures: but they do their utmost to 
 get free of this situation, and in general adapt 
 themselves with great rapidity to any duty. 
 
 Should a young creature, on the other hand, ob- 
 durately make no attempt at return and amend- 
 ment, he is then sent back to his parents, with 
 a brief but pointed statement of his case. Who- 1 
 ever cannot suit himself to the regulations, must 
 leave the district where they are in force." 
 
 Another circumstance excited Wilhelm's cu- 
 riosity to-day, as it had done yesterday: the 
 variety of color and shape apparent in the dress 
 of the pupils. Hereby no gradation could be 
 indicated ; for children who saluted differently, 
 were sometimes clothed alike ; and others agree- 
 ing in salutation, differed in apparel. Wilhelm 
 inquired the reason of this seeming contradic- 
 tion. " It will be explained," said the other, 
 " when I tell you, that, by this means, we 
 deavor to find out the children's several cna- 
 racters. With all our general strictness and 
 regularity, we allow in this point a certain lati- 
 tude of choice. Within the limits of our own 
 stores of cloths and garnitures, the pupils are 
 permitted to select what color they please; and 
 so likewise within moderate limits, in regard to 
 shape and cut. Their procedure, in these mat- 
 ters, we accurately note ; for by the color, we 
 discover their turn of thinking ; by the cut, thpir 
 turn of acting. However, a decisive judgment 
 in this is rendered difficult by one peculiar pro- 
 perty of human nature, by the tendency to imi- 
 tate, the inclination to unite with something. 
 It is very seldom that a pupil fancies any dress 
 that has not been already there ; for most part, 
 they select something known, something which 
 they see before their eyes. Yet this also we 
 find worth observing; by such external circum- 
 stances, they declare themselves of one party 
 or another; they unite with this or that; and 
 thus some general features of their characters 
 are indicated ; we perceive whither each tends, 
 what example he follows. 
 
 " We have had cases where the dispositions 
 of our children verged to generality; where one 
 fashion threatened to extend over all ; and any 
 deviation from it to dwindle into the state of an 
 exception. Such a turn of matters we endeavor 
 softly to stop : we let our stores run out ; this 
 and that sort of stuff, this and that sort of decora- 
 tion, is no longer to be had : we introduce some- 
 thing new and attractive ; by bright colors and 
 short smart shape, we allure the lively; by 
 grave shadings, by commodious many-folded 
 make, the thoughtful ; and thus, by degrees, re- 
 store the equilibrium. 
 
 "For to uniform, we are altogether disin- 
 clined ; it conceals the character, and, more 
 than any other species of distortion, withdraws 
 the peculiarities of children from the eye of 
 their superiors." 
 
 Amid this and other conversation, Wilhelm 
 reached the border of the Province ; and this at 
 the point, where, by the direction of his anti- 
 quarian friend, he was to leave it, to pursue his 
 next special object. 
 
 At parting, it was now settled with the Over- 
 seer, that, after the space of a twelvemonth, 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 315 
 
 Vilhelm should return, when the grand Trien- 
 ial Festival was to be celebrated ; on which 
 ccasion all the parents were invited ; and 
 :inished pupils were sent forth into the tasks of 
 .hanceful life. Then, too, so he was informed, 
 ie might visit at his pleasure all the other Dis- 
 'ricts; where, on peculiar principles, each branch 
 if* education was communicated and reduced to 
 practice in complete isolation, and with every 
 urtherance. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 That a year must have passed since Wilhelm 
 eft the Pedagogic Province, is rendered certain, 
 jy the circumstance, that we now meet him at 
 l.he Festival to which he had been invited : but 
 is our wandering Renunciants sometimes un- 
 expectedly dive down and vanish from our 
 sight, and then again emerge into view at a 
 place where they were not looked for, it cannot 
 ;be determined with certainty what track they 
 aave followed in the interim. 
 
 Now, however, the Traveller advances from 
 the side of the plain country into the Pedagogic 
 Province: he comes over fields and pasturages; 
 skirts, on the dry lea, many a little freshet; sees 
 bushy rather than woody hills; a free prospect 
 on all sides, over a surface but little undulated. 
 On such tracks, he did not long doubt that he 
 jwas in the horse-producing region; and accord- 
 ingly, he failed not here and there to observe 
 greater or smaller herds of mares and foals. 
 !But all at once the horizon darkens with a fierce 
 cloud of dust, which, rapidly swelling nearer 
 and nearer, covers all the breadth of the space ; 
 yet at last, rent asunder by a sharp side wind, 
 is forced to disclose its interior tumult. 
 
 At full gallop, rushes forward a vast multi- 
 tude of these noble animals, guided and held 
 together by mounted keepers. The monstrous 
 hurlyburly whirls past the wanderer ; a fair boy 
 among the keepers looks at him with surprise; 
 pulls in ; leaps down, and embraces his father. 
 
 Now commences a questioning and answer- 
 ling: the boy relates that an agricultural life had 
 not agreed with him ; the harvest-home he had 
 
 ■ indeed found delightful, but the subsequent ar- 
 rangements, the ploughing and digging, by no 
 
 ■ means so. This the Superiors remark, and ob- 
 serve at the same time that he likes to employ 
 himself with animals; they direct him to the 
 useful and necessary domestic breeds; try him 
 
 [as a sequestered herdsman and keeper, and at 
 last promote him to the more lively equestrian 
 occupation ; where accordingly he now, himself 
 a young foal, has to watch over foals, and to 
 forward their good nourishment and training, 
 under the oversight of skilful comrades. 
 
 Father and son, following the herd, by vari- 
 ous lone-lying spacious farm-yards, reached the 
 town or hamlet, near which the great annual 
 I Market was held. Here rages an incredible 
 i confusion, in which it is hard to determine 
 whether merchants or wares raise more dust. 
 From all countries, purchasers assemble here to 
 
 procure animals of noble blood and careful 
 training; all the languages of the Earth, you 
 would fancy, meet your ear. Amid all this hub- 
 bub, too, rises the lively sound of powerful wind- 
 instruments : everything bespeaks motion, vigor, 
 and life. 
 
 The wanderer meets his Overseer of last 
 year, who presents him to the others: he is even 
 introduced to one of the Three; and by him, 
 though only in passing, paternally and expres- 
 sively saluted. 
 
 Wilhelm, here again observing an example 
 of exclusive culture and life-leading, expresses 
 a desire to know in what else the pupils are 
 practised, by way of counterpoise ; that so in 
 this wild, and, to a certain degree, savage occu- 
 pation of feeding animals, the youth may not 
 himself roughen into an animal. And, in 
 answer, he is gratified to learn, that precisely 
 with this violent and rugged-looking occupation 
 the softest in the world is united ; the learning 
 and practising of languages. 
 
 "To this," it was said, "we have been in- 
 duced by the circumstance, that there are youths 
 from all quarters of the world assembled here : 
 now to prevent them from uniting, as usually 
 happens when abroad, into national knots, and 
 forming exclusive parties, we endeavor by a free 
 communication of speech to approximate them. 
 
 " Indeed, a general acquaintance with lan- 
 guages is here in some degree rendered neces- 
 sary ; since, in our yearly market -festivals, 
 every foreigner wishes to converse in his own 
 tones and idiom ; and, in the course of cheapen- 
 ing and purchasing, to proceed with all possible 
 convenience. That no Babylonish confusion of 
 tongues, however, no corruption of speech, may 
 arise from this practice, we employ a different 
 language month by month, throughout the year: 
 according to the maxim, that in learning any- 
 thing, its first principles alone should be taught 
 by constraint. 
 
 " We look upon our scholars,'' said the Over- 
 seer, "as so many swimmers, who, in the ele- 
 ment which threatened to swallow them, feel 
 with astonishment that they are lighter, that it 
 bears and carries them forward : and so it is 
 with everything that man undertakes. 
 
 " However, if any one of our young men show 
 a special inclination for this or the other lan- 
 guage, we neglect not, in the midst of this 
 tumultuous-looking life, which nevertheless of- 
 fers very many quiet, idly solitary, nay, tedious 
 hours, to provide for his true and substantial 
 instruction. Our riding grammarians, among 
 whom there are even some pedagogues, you 
 would be surprised to discover among these 
 bearded and beardless Centaurs. Your Felix 
 has turned himself to Italian ; and in the mono- 
 tonous solitude of his herdsman life, you shall 
 hear him send forth many a dainty song with 
 proper feeling and taste. Practical activity and 
 expertness are far more compatible with suf- 
 ficient intellectual culture, than is generally 
 supposed." 
 
310 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Each of these districts was celebrating its 
 peculiar festival ; so the guest was now con- 
 ducted to the Instrumental Music department. 
 This tract, skirted by the level country, began 
 from its very border to exhibit kind and beauti- 
 fully changing valleys, little trim woods; soft 
 brooks, by the side of which, among the sward, 
 here and there a mossy crag modestly stood 
 forth. Scattered, bush-encircled dwellings you 
 might see on the hill-sides; in soft hollows, the 
 houses clustered nearer together. Those grace- 
 fully separated cottages lay so far apart, that 
 neither tones nor mistones could be heard from 
 one to the other. 
 
 They now approached a wide space, begirt 
 with buildings and shady trees, where crowded, 
 man on man, all seemed on the stretch of ex- 
 pectation and attention. Just as the stranger 
 entered, there was sent forth from all the in- 
 struments a grand symphony, the full rich power 
 and tenderness of which he could not but ad- 
 mire. Opposite the spacious main orchestra, 
 was a smaller one, which failed not to attract 
 his notice : here stood various younger and elder 
 scholars ; each held his instrument in readiness 
 without playing ; these were they who as yet 
 could not, or durst not, join in with the whole. 
 It was interesting to observe how they stood as 
 it were on the start ; and our friend was in- 
 formed that such a festival seldom passed over, 
 without some one or other of them suddenly 
 developing his talent. 
 
 As among the instrumental music, singing 
 was now introduced, no doubt could remain 
 that this also was favored. To the question, 
 What other sort of culture was here blended in 
 kind union with the chief employment, our 
 wanderer learned in reply, that it was Poetry, 
 and of the lyrical kind. In this matter, it ap- 
 peared, their main concern was, that both arts 
 should be developed each for itself and from 
 itself, but then also in contrast and combination 
 with each other. The scholars were first in- 
 structed in each according to its own limitations ; 
 then taught how the two reciprocally limit, and 
 again reciprocally free each other. 
 
 To poetical rhythm, the musical artist opposes 
 measure of tone and movement of tone. But 
 hei • the mastery of Music over Poesy soon 
 sh< ws itself; for if the latter, as is fit and ne- 
 cessary, keep her quantities never so steadily 
 in view, still for the musician few syllables are 
 decidedly short or long; at his pleasure he can 
 overset the most conscientious procedure of the 
 rhythmer, nay, change prose itself into song; 
 from which, in truth, the richest possibilities 
 present themselves ; and the poet would soon 
 feel himself annihilated, if he could not, on his 
 own side, by lyrical tenderness and boldness, 
 inspire the musician with reverence; and, now 
 in the softest sequence, now by the most abrupt 
 transitions, awaken new feelings in the mind. 
 
 The singers to be met with here are mostly 
 poets themselves. Dancing also is taught in its 
 fundamental principles; that so all these ac- 
 
 complishments may regularly spread themselves 
 
 into every district. 
 
 The guest, on being led across the next bound- 
 ary, at once perceived an altogether different 
 mode of building. The houses were no longer 
 scattered into separation, no longer in the shape 
 of cottages : they stood regularly united, beauti- 
 ful in their exterior, spacious, convenient, and 
 elegant within ; you here saw an unconfined, 
 well-built, stately town, corresponding to the 
 scene it stood in. Here the Plastic Arts, and 
 the trades akin to them, have their home ; and 
 a peculiar silence reigns over these spaces. 
 
 The plastic artist, it is true, must still figure 
 himself as standing in relation to all that lives 
 and moves among men : but his occupation is 
 solitary; and yet, by the strangest contradiction, 
 there is perhaps no other that so decidedly re- 
 quires a living accompaniment and society. 
 Now here, in that circle, is each in silence form- 
 ing shapes that are forever to engage the eyes 
 of men ; a holiday stillness reigns over the 
 whole scene ; and did you not here and there 
 catch the picking of stone-hewers, and the mea- 
 sured stroke of carpenters, who are now busily 
 employed in finishing a lordly edifice, the air 
 were unmoved by any sound. 
 
 Our wanderer was struck, moreover, by the 
 earnestness, the singular rigor with which be- 
 ginners, as well as more advanced pupils, were 
 treated ; it seemed as if no one by his own 
 power and judgment accomplished anything, 
 but as if a secret spirit, striving towards one 
 single great aim, pervaded and vivified them 
 all. Nowhere did you observe a scheme or 
 sketch ; every stroke was drawn with fore- 
 thought. As the wanderer inquired of his guide 
 the reason of this peculiar procedure, he was 
 told : That Imagination was in itself a vague, 
 unstable power, which the whole merit of the 
 plastic artist consisted in more and more deter- 
 mining, fixing, nay, at last, exalting to visible 
 presence. 
 
 The necessity for sure principles in other arts 
 was mentioned. " Would the musician," it was 
 said, " permit his scholar to dash wildly over 
 the strings, nay, to invent bars and intervals for 
 himself at his own good pleasure? Here it ; s 
 palpable that nothing can be left to the capri:e 
 of the learner: the element he is to work in is 
 irrevocably given ; the implement he is to wield 
 is put into his hands; nay, the very way and 
 manner of his using it, I mean the changing of 
 the fingers, he finds prescribed to him ; so or- 
 dered, that the one part of his hand shall give 
 place to the other, and each prepare the proper 
 path for its follower: by such determinate co* 
 operation only can the impossible at last become 
 possible. 
 
 "But what chiefly vindicates the practice of 
 strict requisitions, of decided laws, is that ge- 
 nius, that native talent, is precisely the readiest 
 to seize them, and yield them willing obedience. 
 It is only the half- gifted that would wish to 
 put his own contracted singularity in the place 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 317 
 
 of the unconditioned whole, and justify his false 
 attempts under cover of an unconstrainable ori- 
 ginality and independence. To this we grant 
 no currency: we guard our scholars from all 
 such misconceptions, whereby a large portion 
 of life, nay, often the whole of life, is apt to be 
 perplexed and disjointed. 
 
 " With genius we love most to be concerned ; 
 for this is animated just by that good spirit of 
 quickly recognising what is profitable for it. 
 Genius understands that Art is called Art be- 
 cause it is not Nature. Genius bends itself to 
 respect even towards what may be named con- 
 ventional : for what is this but agreeing, as the 
 most distinguished men have agreed, to regard 
 the unalterable, the indispensable as the best? 
 And does not such submission always turn to 
 good account? 
 
 " Here, too, as in all our departments, to the 
 great assistance of the teachers, our three Reve- 
 rences and their signs, with some changes suit- 
 able to the nature of the main employment, 
 have been introduced and inculcated/' 
 
 The wanderer, in his farther survey, was 
 surprised to observe that the Town seemed still 
 extending; street unfolding itself from street, 
 and so offering the most varied prospects. The 
 exterior of the edifices corresponded to their 
 destination; they were dignified and stately, 
 not so much magnificent as beautiful. To the 
 nobler and more earnest buildings in the centre 
 of the Town, the more cheerful were harmoni- 
 ously appended ; till farther out, gay decorated 
 suburbs, in graceful style, stretched forth into 
 the country, and at last separated into garden- 
 houses. 
 
 The stranger could not fail to remark, that the 
 dwellings of the musicians in the preceding dis- 
 trict were by no means to be compared, in 
 beauty or size, with the present, which painters, 
 statuaries, and architects inhabited. He was 
 told that this arose from the nature of the thing. 
 The musician, ever shrouded in himself, must 
 cultivate his inmost being, that so he may turn 
 it outwards. The sense of the eye he may not 
 flatter. The eye easily corrupts the judgment 
 of the ear, and allures the spirit from the inward 
 to the outward. Inversely, again, the plastic 
 artist has to live in the external world ; and to 
 manifest his inward being, as it were uncon- 
 sciously, in and upon what is outward. Plastic 
 artists should dwell like kings and gods: how 
 else are they to build and decorate for kings and 
 gods? They must at last so raise themselves 
 above the common, that the whole mass of a 
 people may feel itself ennobled in and by their 
 works. 
 
 Our friend then begged an explanation of 
 another paradox: Why at this time, so festive, 
 so enlivening, so tumultuously excited, in the 
 other regions, the greatest stillness prevailed 
 here, and all labors were continued ? 
 
 "A plastic artist," it was answered, "needs 
 no festival ; for him the whole year is a festival. 
 When he has accomplished something excellent, 
 
 it stands, as it has long done before his own eye, 
 now at last before the eye of the world: in his 
 task he needed no repetition, no new effort, no 
 fresh success; whereas the musician constantly 
 afflicts himself with all this; and to him, there- 
 fore, the most splendid festival, in the most 
 numerous assemblage, should not be refused." 
 
 "Yet, at such a season," replied Wilhelm, 
 "something like an exhibition might be desira- 
 ble ; in which it would be pleasant to inspect 
 and judge the triennial progress of your best 
 pupils." 
 
 " In other places," it was answered, " an ex- 
 hibition may be necessary; with us it is not. 
 Our whole being and nature is exhibition. Look 
 round you at these buildings of every sort : all 
 erected by our pupils ; and this not without 
 plans, a hundred times talked of and meditated ; 
 for the builder must not grope and experiment; 
 what is to continue standing, must stand rightly, 
 and satisfy, if not forever, yet at least for a long 
 space of time. If we cannot help committing 
 errors, we must build none. 
 
 "With statuaries we proceed more laxly, 
 most so of all with painters ; to both we give 
 liberty to try this each in his own way. It 
 stands in their power to select in the interior 
 or exterior compartments of edifices in public 
 places, some space which they may incline to 
 decorate. They give forth their ideas, and if 
 these are in some degree to be approved of, the 
 completion of them is permitted, and this in two 
 ways : either with liberty, sooner or later, to 
 remove the work, should it come to displease 
 the artist ; or, with the condition that what is 
 once set up shall remain unalterable in its 
 place. Most part choose the first of these offers, 
 retaining in their own hands this power of re- 
 moval ; and in the performance, they constantly 
 avail themselves of the best advice. The second 
 case occurs seldomer ; and we then observe 
 that the artist trusts less to himself, holds long 
 conferences with companions and critics, and 
 by this means produces works really estimable, 
 and deserving to endure." 
 
 After all this, our Traveller neglected not to 
 ask : What other species of instruction was com- 
 bined with the main one here ? and received 
 for answer, that it was Poetry, and of the Epic 
 sort. 
 
 This to our friend must have seemed a little 
 singular, when he heard farther that the pupils 
 were not allowed to read or hear any finished 
 poems by ancient or modern poets. "We merely 
 impart to them," it was said, " a series of my- 
 thuses, traditions, and legends, in the most 
 laconic form. And now, from the pictorial or 
 poetic execution of these subjects, we at once 
 discover the peculiar productive gift of the 
 genius devoted to the one or the other art. Both 
 poet and painter thus labor at the same foun- 
 tain ; and each endeavors to draw off the water 
 to his own advantage, and attain his own re- 
 quired objects with it; in which he succeeds 
 much better, than if he attempted again to 
 27* 
 
318 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 fashion something that has been fashioned al- 
 ready.'' 
 
 The Traveller himself had an opportunity of 
 seeing how this was accomplished: several 
 painters were busy in a room ; a gay young 
 friend was relating with great minuteness a 
 very simple story ; so that he employed almost 
 as many words as the others did pencil-strokes, 
 to complete the same exhibition and round it 
 fully off. 
 
 He was told, that in working together the 
 friends were wont to carry on much pleasant 
 conversation; and that in this way several im- 
 provisatori had unfolded their gifts, and suc- 
 ceeded in exciting great enthusiasm for this 
 twofold mode of representation. 
 
 Our friend now reverted his inquiries to the 
 subject of plastic art. " You have no exhibi- 
 tion," said he ; " and therefore, I suppose, give 
 no prize either S" 
 
 " No," said the other, " we do not ; but here, 
 close by, we can show you something which 
 we reckon more useful.'' 
 
 They entered a large hall, beautifully lighted 
 from above ; a wide circle of busy artists first 
 attracted the eye; and from the midst of these, 
 rose a colossal group of figures, elevated in the 
 centre of the place. Male and female forms, of 
 gigantic power, in violent postures, reminded 
 one of that lordly fight between Heroic youths 
 and Amazons, wherein hate and enmity at last 
 issue in mutually regretful alliance. This strik- 
 ingly intertwisted piece of art presented an 
 equally favorable aspect from every point of its 
 circuit. In a wide ring round it were many 
 artists sitting and standing, each occupied in his 
 own way ; the painter at his easel, the drawer 
 at his sketch-board; some were modelling it in 
 full, others in bas-relief; there were even archi- 
 tects engaged in planning the pedestal, on which 
 a similar group, when wrought in marble, was 
 to be erected. Each individual was proceeding 
 by his own method in this task : painters and 
 drawers were bringing out the group to a plain 
 surface ; careful, however, not to destroy its 
 figures, but to retain as much of it as possible. 
 In the same manner were works in bas-relief 
 going forward. One man only had repeated the 
 whole group in a miniature scale ; and in cer- 
 tain movements and arrangements of limbs, he 
 really seemed to have surpassed his model. 
 
 And now it came out that this man was the 
 maker of the model ; who, before working it in 
 marble, had here submitted his performance 
 not to a critical, but to a practical trial ; and by 
 accurately observing whatever any of his fellow- 
 artists in his special department and way of 
 thought might notice, retain or alter in the 
 group, was purposing, in subsequent considera- 
 tion, to turn all this to his own profit; so that, 
 when at length the grand work stood finished 
 in marble, though undertaken, planned, and 
 executed by one, it might seem to belong to all. 
 
 The greatest silence reigned throughout this 
 apartment also ; but the Superior raised his 
 
 voice, and cried: "Is there any of you, then 
 who in presence of this stationary work can, 
 with gifted words, so awaken our imagination, 
 that all we here see concreted, shall again be- 
 come fluid, without losing its character ; and so 
 convince us, that what our artist has here laid 
 hold of, was indeed the worthiest?" 
 
 Called forth on all sides by name, a fair 
 youth laid down his work ; and as he stept for- 
 ward, began a quiet speech, seemingly intended 
 merely to describe the present group of figures; 
 but ere long he cast himself into the region of 
 poetry, plunged into the middle of the action, 
 and ruled this element like a master; by de- 
 grees, his representation so swelled and mounted 
 by lordly words and gestures, that the rigid 
 group seemed actually to move about its axis, 
 and the number of its figures to be doubled and 
 trebled. Wilhelm stood enraptured, and at last 
 exclaimed: "Can we now forbear passing over 
 into song itself, into rhythmic melody?" 
 
 " This I should wish to hinder," said the 
 Overseer ; " for if our excellent statuary will be 
 candid, he will confess to us that our poet 
 scarcely pleases him; and this because their 
 arts lie in the most opposite regions : on the 
 other hand, I durst bet, that here and there a 
 painter has not failed to appropriate some living 
 touches from the speech. 
 
 "A soft kindly song, however, I could wish 
 our friend to hear : there is one, for instance, 
 which you sing to an air so lovely and earnest; 
 it turns on Art in general, and I myself never 
 listen to it without pleasure." 
 
 After a pause, in which they beckoned to 
 each other, and settled their arrangements by 
 signs, the following heart and spirit stirring song 
 resounded in stately melody from all sides : 
 
 When inventing, when selecting, 
 
 Artist, by thyself continue long : 
 When some good thou art effecting, 
 
 Haste and see it in the throng. 
 Here in others look, discover 
 
 What thy own life's course has been; 
 And thy deeds of years past over 
 
 In thy fellow man be seen. 
 
 The devising, the uniting, 
 
 What and how the forms shall be; 
 One thing will the other lighten, 
 
 And at last comes joy to thee ! 
 Wise and true what thou impartest, 
 
 Fairly shaped, and softly done : 
 Thus of old the cunning artist 
 
 Artist-like his glory won. 
 
 As all Nature's thousand changes 
 
 But one changeless God proclaim; 
 So in Art's wide kingdoms ranges 
 
 One sole meaning still the same : 
 This is Truth, eternal Reason, 
 
 Which from Beauty takes its dress, 
 And serene through time and season, 
 
 Stands for aye in loveliness. 
 
 While the orator, the singer, 
 
 Pour their hearts in rhyme and prose, 
 'Neath the painter's busy finger, 
 
 Shall bloom forth Life's cheerfu. rose ; 
 Girt with sisters ; in the middle, 
 
 And with Autumn's fruitage blent, 
 That of life's mysterious riddle 
 
 Some short glimpses may be hent. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 319 
 
 Thousandfold, and graceful, show thou, 
 
 Form from forms evolving fair ; 
 And of man's bright image know thou 
 
 That a God once tarried there : 
 And whate'er your tasks or prizes, 
 
 Stand as brethren one and all, 
 WhUe, like song, sweet incense rises 
 
 From the altar at your call. 
 
 All this Wilhelm could not but let pass, 
 though it must have seemed paradoxical enough ; 
 and, had he not seen it with his eyes, might 
 
 I even have appeared impossible. But now, 
 when it was explained and pointed out to him, 
 openly and freely, and in fair sequence, he 
 scarcely needed to put any farther question on 
 the subject. However, he at last addressed his 
 conductor as follows : " I see here a most pru- 
 dent provision made for much that is desirable 
 in life : but tell me farther, which of your 
 regions exhibits a similar attention to Dramatic 
 Poetry, and where could I instruct myself in 
 
 ! that matter ? I have looked round over all your 
 edifices, and observed none that seemed des- 
 tined for such an object." 
 
 " In reply to this question, we must not hide 
 from you, that, in our whole Province, there is 
 
 j no such edifice to be seen. The drama pre- 
 
 I supposes the existence of an idle multitude, per- 
 
 I haps even of a populace ; and no such class 
 finds harbor with us ; for birds of that feather, 
 when they do not in spleen forsake us of their 
 own accord, we soon take care to conduct over 
 
 I the marches. Doubt not, however, that in our 
 Institution, so universal in its character, this 
 point was carefully meditated : but no region 
 could be found for the purpose, everywhere 
 some important scruple came in the way. In- 
 deed, who among our pupils could readily de- 
 termine, with pretended mirth, or hypocritical 
 sorrow, to excite in the rest a feeling untrue in 
 itself, and alien to the moment, for the sake of 
 calling forth an always dubious satisfaction'? 
 Such juggleries we reckoned in all cases dan- 
 gerous, and could not reconcile with our earnest 
 
 > objects." 
 
 "It is said, however," answered Wilhelm, 
 "that this far-stretching art promotes all the rest, 
 
 i of whatever sort." 
 
 "Nowise," answered the other: "it employs 
 the rest, but spoils them. I do not blame a 
 player for uniting himself with a painter; but 
 the painter, in such society, is lost. Without 
 any conscience, the player will lay hold of 
 whatever art or life presents him, and use it for 
 his fugitive objects, indeed with no small profit: 
 the painter, again, who could wish in return to 
 extract advantage from the theatre, will con- 
 stantly find himself a loser by it ; and so also 
 in the like case will the musician. The com- 
 bined Arts appear to me like a family of sisters, 
 of whom the greater part were inclined to good 
 
 j economy, but one was light-headed, and desirous 
 to appropriate and squander the whole goods 
 and chattels of the household. The Theatre is 
 this wasteful sister : it has an ambiguous origin, 
 
 which in no case, whether as art or trade or 
 amusement, it can wholly conceal." 
 
 Wilhelm cast his eyes on the ground with a 
 deep sigh ; for all that he had enjoyed or suf- 
 fered on the Stage rose at once before his mind ; 
 and he blessed the good men who were wise 
 enough to spare their pupils such pain, and, out 
 of principle and conviction, to banish such errors 
 from their sphere. 
 
 His attendant, however, did not leave him 
 long in these meditations, but continued : " As 
 it is our highest and holiest principle that no 
 talent, no capacity be misdirected, we cannot 
 hide from ourselves that among so large a num- 
 ber, here and there a mimical gift will some- 
 times decidedly come to light ; exhibiting itself 
 in an irresistible desire to ape the characters, 
 forms, movements, speech of others. This we 
 certainly do not encourage ; but we observe our 
 pupil strictly, and if he continue faithful to his 
 nature, then we have already established an in- 
 tercourse with the great theatres of all nations, 
 and so thither we send any youth of tried capa- 
 bility, that, as the duck on the pond, so he on 
 the boards, may be forthwith conducted, full 
 speed, to the future quack-quacking, and gibble- 
 gabbling of his life." 
 
 Wilhelm heard this with patience, but only 
 with half-conviction, perhaps with some spleen : 
 for so strangely is man tempered, that he may 
 be persuaded of the worthlessness of any darl- 
 ing object, may turn away from it, nay, even 
 execrate it, but yet will not see it treated in this 
 way by others ; and perhaps the Spirit of Con- 
 tradiction which dwells in all men, never rouses 
 itself more vehemently and stoutly than in such 
 cases. 
 
 And the Editor of these sheets may himself 
 confess, that he lets not this strange passage 
 through his hands without some touch of anger. 
 Has not he, too, in many senses, expended more 
 life and faculty than was right on the Theatre ? 
 And would these men convince him that this 
 has been an unpardonable error, a fruitless 
 toil? 
 
 But we have no time for appending, in 
 splenetic mood, such remembrances and after- 
 feelings to the narrative : for our friend now 
 finds himself agreeably surprised, as one of the 
 Three, and this a particularly prepossessing one, 
 again comes before his eyes. Kind, open meek- 
 ness, announcing the purest peace of soul, came 
 in its refreshing effluences along with him. 
 Trustfully the Wanderer could approach, and 
 feel his trust returned. 
 
 Here he now learned that the Chief was at 
 present in the Sanctuary, instructing, teaching, 
 blessing ; while the Three had separated to visit 
 all the Regions, and everywhere, after most 
 thorough information obtained, and conferences 
 with the subordinate Overseers, to forward what 
 was in progress, to found what was newly plan- 
 ned, and thereby faithfully discharge their high 
 duty. 
 
 This same excellent person now gave him a 
 
320 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 more comprehensive view of their internal 
 situation and external connections ; explained 
 to him the mutual influences of one Region on 
 another ; and also by what steps, after a longer 
 or a shorter date, a pupil could be transferred 
 from the one to the other. All this harmonized 
 completely with what he already knew. At 
 the same time, he was much gratified by the 
 description given of his son ; and their farther 
 plan of education met with his entire approval. 
 
 He was now, by the Assistants and Overseer, 
 invited to a Miners' Festival, which was forth- 
 with to be celebrated. The ascent of the Moun- 
 tains was difficult; and Wilhelm fancied he ob- 
 served that his guide walked even slower to- 
 wards evening, as if the darkness had not been 
 likely to obstruct their path still more. But 
 when deep night came round them, this enigma 
 was solved : our Wanderer observed little flames 
 come glimmering and wavering forth from many 
 dells and chasms; gradually stretch themselves 
 into lines, and roll over the summits of the 
 mountains. Much kindlier than when a vol- 
 cano opens, and its belching roar threatens 
 whole countries with destruction, did this fair 
 light appear; and yet, by degrees, it glowed 
 with new brightness; grew stronger, broader, 
 more continuous ; glittered like a stream of 
 stars, soft and lovely indeed, yet spreading 
 boldly over all the scene. 
 
 After the attendant had a little while enjoyed 
 the surprise of his guest, for they could clearly 
 enough observe each other, their faces and forms 
 as well as their path being illuminated by the 
 light from the distance — he began: "You see 
 here, in truth, a curious spectacle : these lights, 
 which, day and night, the whole year over, 
 gleam and work under ground, forwarding the 
 acquisition of concealed and scarcely attainable 
 treasures ; these now mount and well forth 
 from their abysses, and gladden the upper night. 
 Scarcely could one anywhere enjoy so brave a 
 review, as here, where this most useful occupa- 
 tion, which in its subterranean concealment is 
 dispersed and hidden from the eye, rises before 
 us in its full completeness, and bespeaks a great 
 secret combination." 
 
 Amid such speeches and thoughts, they had 
 reached the spot where these fire-brooks poured 
 themselves into a sea of flame, surrounding a 
 well-lighted insular space. The Wanderer 
 placed himself in the dazzling circle, within 
 which, glittering lights by thousands formed an 
 imposing contrast with the miners, ranked round 
 it like a dark wall. Forthwith arose the gayest 
 music, accompanied by becoming songs. Hol- 
 low masses of rock came forward on machinery, 
 and opened a resplendent interior to the eye of 
 the delighted spectator. Mimetic exhibitions, 
 and whatever else at such a moment can gratify 
 the multitude, combined with all this at once to 
 excite and to satisfy a cheerful attention. 
 
 But with what astonishment was Wilhelm 
 filled, when, on being introduced to the Su- 
 periors, he observed Friend Jarno, in solemn 
 
 stately robes, among the number ! " Not in 
 vain," cried Jarno, " have I changed my former 
 name with the more expressive title of Montan : 
 thou findest me here initiated in mountain and 
 cave ; and now, if questioned, I could disclose 
 and explain to thee much that a year ago was 
 still a riddle to myself." 
 
 As Wilhelm, in order to reach any point of 
 the line marked out by the first Arrow, had to 
 proceed obliquely through the country, he found 
 himself necessitated to perform the journey on 
 foot, leaving his luggage to be carried after him. 
 For this walk of his, however, he was richly 
 rewarded; meeting at every step, quite unex- 
 pectedly, with loveliest tracts of scenery. They 
 were of that sort, which the last slope of a 
 mountain region forms in its meeting with the 
 plain country; bushy hills, their soft declivities 
 employed in domestic use ; all level spaces 
 green ; nowhere aught steep, unfruitful, or un- 
 ploughed to be noticed. Ere long he reached 
 the main valley, into which the side -waters 
 flowed ; and this too was carefully cultivated, 
 graceful when you looked over it; with taper 
 trees marking the bends of the river, and of the 
 brooks which poured into it. On looking at his 
 map, his indicator, he observed with surprise 
 that the line drawn for him cut directly through 
 this valley ; so that, in the first place, he was at 
 least on the right road. 
 
 An old castle, in good repair, and seemingly 
 built at different periods, stood forth on a bushy 
 hill ; at the foot of which a gay hamlet stretched 
 along, with its large inn rising prominent among j 
 the other houses. Hither he proceeded ; and 
 was received by the landlord kindly enough, 
 yet with an excuse that he could not be admit- 
 ted, unless by the permission of a party who 
 had hired the whole establishment for a time; 
 on which account he, the landlord, was under 
 the necessity of sending all his guests to the 
 older inn, which lay farther up the hamlet. 
 After a short conference, the man seemed to 
 bethink himself, and said : " Indeed there is no 
 one of them at home even now ; but this is Sa- 
 turday, and the Bailiff will not fail to be here 
 soon ; he comes every week to settle the ac- i 
 counts of the last, and make arrangements for 
 the next. Truly, there is a fair order reigns 
 among these men, and a pleasure in having to 
 do with them, though they are strict enough; 
 for if they yield one no great profit, it is sure 
 and constant." He then desired his new guest 
 to amuse himself in the large upper hall, and 
 await what farther might occur. 
 
 Here Wilhelm, on entering, found a large 
 clean apartment; except for benches and tables, 
 altogether empty. So much the more was he 
 surprised to see a large tablet inserted above 
 one of the doors, with these words marked on 
 it in golden letters, Ubi homines sunt modi sunt ; 
 which in modern tongue may signify, that where 
 men combine in society, the way and manner 
 
GOE 
 
 in which they like to be and to continue together 
 is directly established. This motto made our 
 Wanderer think; he took it as a good omen; 
 finding here, expressed and confirmed, a prin- 
 ciple which he had often, in the course of life, 
 perceived for himself to be furthersome and 
 reasonable. He had not waited long, when the 
 Bailiff made his appearance; who being fore- 
 warned by the landlord, after a short conversa- 
 tion, and no very special scrutiny, admitted 
 Wilhelm on the following terms : To continue 
 three days ; to participate quietly in whatever 
 should occur; and happen what might, to ask 
 no questions about the reason, and at taking 
 leave, to ask none about the score. All this our 
 traveller was obliged to comply with, the deputy 
 not being allowed to yield in a single point. 
 
 The Bailiff was about retiring, when a sound 
 of vocal music rolled up the stair: two pretty 
 young men entered singing; and these the Bail- 
 iff, by a simple sign, gave to understand that 
 their guest was accepted. Without interrupting 
 their song, they kindly saluted the stranger, and 
 continued their duet with the finest grace, show- 
 ing clearly enough that they were well trained, 
 and complete masters of their art. As Wilhelm 
 testified the most attentive interest, they paused 
 and inquired : If in his own pedestrian wan- 
 derings no song ever occurred to him, which 
 he went along singing by himself? u A good 
 voice," answered Wilhelm, " Nature has in truth 
 denied me : yet I often feel as if a secret Genius 
 were whispering some rhythmic words in my 
 ear; so that, in walking, I move to musical 
 measure ; fancying, at the same time, that I 
 hear low tones, accompanying some song, which, 
 in one way or another, has pleasantly risen be- 
 fore me." 
 
 " If you recollect such a song, write it down 
 for us," said they : " We shall see if we have 
 skill to accompany your singing Demon." He 
 took a leaf from his note-book, and handed them 
 the following lines : 
 
 From the mountains to the champaign, 
 
 By the glens and hills along, 
 Comes a rustling and a tramping, 
 
 Cornes a motion as of song : 
 And this undetermined roving 
 
 Brings delight, and brings good heed; 
 And thy striving, be 't with Loving, 
 
 And thy living, be 't in Deed ! 
 
 After brief study, there arose at once a gay 
 marching melody, which, in its repetition and 
 restriction still stepping forward, hurried on the 
 hearer with it: he was in doubt whether this 
 was his own tune, his former theme; or one 
 now for the first time so fitted to the words, 
 that no other movement was conceivable. The 
 singers had for some time pleasantly proceeded 
 in this manner, when two stout young fellows 
 came in, whom, by their accoutrements, you 
 directly recognised as masons ; two others, who 
 followed them, being as evidently carpenters. 
 These four, softly laying down their tools, list- 
 ened to the music, and soon struck in with sure 
 and decided voices ; so that to the mind it 
 2a 
 
 THE. 321 
 
 seemed as .if a real wayfaring company were 
 stepping along over hill and valley; and Wil- 
 helm thought he had never heard anything so 
 graceful, so enlivening to heart and mind. This 
 enjoyment, however, was to be increased yet 
 farther, and raised to the highest pitch, by the 
 entrance of a gigantic figure, mounting the stair 
 with a hard firm tread, which, with all his ef- 
 forts, he could scarcely moderate. A heavy- 
 laden dorsel he directly placed in the corner; 
 himself he seated on a bench, which beginning 
 to creak under his weight, the others laughed, 
 yet without going wrong in their music. Wil- 
 helm, however, was exceedingly surprised, when, 
 with a huge bass voice, this Son of Anak joined 
 in also. The hall quivered; and it was to be 
 observed that in his part he altered the burden, 
 and sang it thus : 
 
 Life 's no resting, but a moving, 
 
 Let thy life be deed on deed ! 
 
 Farther, you could very soon perceive that he 
 was drawing down the time to a slower step, 
 and forcing the rest to follow him. Of this, 
 when at last they were satisfied and had con- 
 cluded, they accused him ; declaring he had 
 tried to set them wrong. 
 
 " Not at all !" cried he : " it is you who tried 
 to set me wrong; to put me out of my own 
 step, which must be measured and sure, if I am 
 to walk with my loading up hill and down dale, 
 and yet, in the end, arrive at my appointed 
 hour, to satisfy your wants. 
 
 One after the other, these persons now passed 
 into an adjoining room to the Bailiff; and Wil- 
 helm easily observed that they were occupied 
 in settling accounts ; a point, however, as to 
 which he was not allowed at present to inquire 
 farther. Two fair lively boys in the mean- 
 while entered, and began covering a table in 
 all speed, moderately furnishing it with meat 
 and wine; and the Bailiff, coming out, invited 
 them all to sit down along with him. The boys 
 waited; yet forgot not their own concern, but 
 enjoyed their share in a standing posture. Wil- 
 helm recollected witnessing similar scenes 
 during his abode among the players ; yet the 
 present company seemed to be of a much more 
 serious cast ; constituted not out of sport, for 
 show, but with a view to important concerns 
 of life. 
 
 The conversation of the craftsmen with the 
 Bailiff added strength to this conviction. These 
 four active young people, it appeared, were 
 busy in the neighbourhood, where a violent con- 
 flagration had destroyed the fairest village in 
 the country ; nor did Wilhelm fail to learn that 
 the worthy Bailiff was employed in getting 
 timber and other building materials ; all which 
 looked the more enigmatical, as none of these 
 persons seemed to be resident here, but in all 
 other points announced themselves as transitory 
 strangers. By way of conclusion to the meal, 
 St. Christopher, such was the name they gave 
 the giant, brought out, for good-night, a dainty 
 glass of wine, which had before been set aside : 
 
322 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 a gay choral song kept the party still some time 
 together, after they were out of sight ; and then 
 Wilhelm was at last conducted to a chamber of 
 the loveliest aspect and situation. The full 
 moon, enlightening a rich plain, was already 
 up ; and in the bosom of our Wanderer it awoke 
 remembrances of similar scenes. The spirits 
 of all dear friends hovered past him : especially 
 the image of Lenardo rose in him so vividly, 
 that he might have fancied the man himself 
 was standing before his eyes. All this had pre- 
 pared him with its kind influences for nightly 
 rest; when, on a sudden, there arose a tone of 
 so strange a nature, that it almost frightened 
 him. It sounded as from a distance, and yet 
 seemed to be in the house itself; for the build- 
 ing quivered many times, and the floors rever- 
 berated when the sound rose to its highest pitch. 
 Wilhelm, though his ear was usually delicate in 
 discriminating tones, could make nothing of this: 
 he compared it to the droning roar of a huge 
 organ-pipe, which, for sheer compass, produces 
 no determinate note. Whether this nocturnal 
 terror passed away towards morning, or Wil- 
 helm by degrees became accustomed to the 
 sound, and no longer heeded it, is difficult to 
 discover: at any rate, he fell asleep; and was 
 in due time pleasantly awakened by the rising 
 sun. 
 
 Scarcely had one of the boys who were in 
 waiting brought him breakfast, when a figure 
 entered, whom he had already noticed last 
 night at supper, without clearly ascertaining 
 his quality. A well-formed, broad-shouldered, 
 yet nimble man; who now, by the implements 
 which he spread out, announced himself as 
 Barber, and forthwith prepared for performing 
 his much-desired office on Wilhelm. For the 
 rest, he was quite silent: and with a light hand 
 he went through his task, without once having 
 opened his lips. Wilhelm therefore began, and 
 said: "Of your art you are completely master; 
 and I know not that I have ever had a softer 
 razor on my cheeks: at the same time, how- 
 ever, you appear to be a strict observer of the 
 laws of the Society." 
 
 Roguishly smiling, laying his finger on his 
 lips, the taciturn shaver glided through the door. 
 " By my sooth !" cried Wilhelm after him, " I 
 think you must be old Redcloak ; if not himself, 
 at least a descendant of his : it is lucky for you 
 that you ask no counter service of me ; your 
 turn would have been but sorrily done." 
 
 No sooner had this curious personage retired, 
 than the well-known Bailiff came in, inviting 
 onr friend to dinner for this day, in words 
 which sounded pretty strange: the Bond, so 
 said the speaker expressly, gave the stranger 
 welcome; requested his company at dinner; 
 and took pleasure in the hope of being more 
 closely connected with him. Inquiries were 
 then made as to the guest's health, and how he 
 was contented with his entertainment; to all 
 which he could only answer in terms of satis- 
 faction. He would, in truth, have liked much 
 
 to ask of this man, as previously of the silent 
 Barber, some information touching the horrid 
 sound, which throughout the night bad, if not 
 tormented, at least discomposed him : but, 
 mindful of his engagement, he forbore all ques- 
 tions ; hoping that, without importunity, from 
 the good-will of the Society, or in some other 
 accidental way, he might be informed according 
 to his wishes. 
 
 Our friend, now when left alone, began to 
 reflect on the strange person who had sent him 
 this invitation, and knew not well what to 
 make of the matter. To designate one or more 
 superiors by a neuter noun, seemed to him a 
 somewhat precarious mode of speech. For the 
 rest, there was such a stillness all round, that 
 he could not recollect of ever having passed a 
 stiller Sunday. He went out of doors; and. 
 hearing a sound of bells, walked towards the 
 village. Mass was just over; and among the 
 villagers and country-people crowding out of 
 church, he observed three acquaintances of last 
 night; a mason, a carpenter, and a boy. Farther 
 on, he met among the Protestant worshippers 
 the other corresponding three. How the rest 
 managed their devotion was unknown to him: 
 but so much he thought himself entitled to con- 
 clude, that in this Society a full religious tolera- 
 tion was practised. 
 
 About midday, at the castle-gate, he was met 
 by the Bailiff ; who then conducted him through 
 various halls into a large antechamber, and 
 there desired him to take a seat. Many persons 
 passed through into an adjoining hall. Those 
 already known were to be seen among them ; 
 St. Christopher himself went by: all saluted the 
 Bailiff and the stranger. But what struck our 
 friend most in this affair was, that the whole 
 party seemed to consist of artisans ; all dressed 
 in the usual fashion, though extremely neat and 
 clean : a few among the number you might at 
 most perhaps have reckoned of the clerk 
 species. 
 
 No more guests now making their appear- 
 ance, the Bailiff* led our friend through the 
 stately door into a spacious hall. Here a table 
 of immense length had been covered ; past the 
 lower end of which he was conducted, towards 
 the head, where he saw three persons standing 
 in a cross direction. But what was his astonish- 
 ment when he approached, and Lenardo, scarce- 
 ly yet recognised, fell upon his neck. From this 
 surprise he had not recovered, when another 
 person, with no less warmth and vivacity, like- 
 wise embraced him; announcing himself as our 
 strange Friedrich, Natalia's brother. The rap- 
 ture of these friends diffused itself over all pre- 
 sent; an exclamation of joy and blessing sounded 
 along the whole table. But in a moment, the 
 company being seated, all again became silent; 
 and the repast, served up with a certain solem- 
 nity, was enjoyed in like manner. 
 
 Towards the conclusion of the ceremony, 
 Lenardo gave a sign: two singers rose; and 
 Wilhelm was exceedingly surprised to hear in 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 323 
 
 this place his yesternight's song; which we, for 
 the sake of what follows, shall beg permission 
 to insert once more. 
 
 From the mountains to the champaign, 
 
 By the glens and lulls along, 
 Comes a rustling and a tramping, 
 
 Comes a motion as of song : 
 And this undetermined roving 
 
 Brings delight, and brings good heed ; 
 And thy striving, he't with Loving, 
 
 And thy living, be't in Deed ! 
 
 Scarcely had this duet, accompanied by a 
 chorus of agreeable number, approached its 
 conclusion, when two other singers, on the op- 
 posite side, started up impetuously; and, with 
 earnest vehemence, inverted rather than con- 
 tinued the song; to Wilhelm's astonishment, 
 proceeding thus : 
 
 For the tie is snapt asunder, 
 
 Trust and loving hope are fled; 
 Can I tell, in fear and wonder, 
 
 With what dangers now bested, 
 I, cut off from fnend and brother, 
 
 Like the widow in her wo, 
 With the one and not the other, 
 
 On and on, my way must go ! 
 
 The chorus, taking up this strophe, grew 
 more and more numerous, more and more voci- 
 ferous; and yet the voice of St. Christopher, 
 from the bottom of the table, could still be dis- 
 tinctly recognised among them. The lamenta- 
 tion, in the end, rose almost to be frightful : a 
 spirit of dispiritment, combining with the skil- 
 ful execution of the singers, introduced some- 
 thing unnatural into the whole, so that it pained 
 our friend, and almost made him shudder. In 
 truth, they all seemed perfectly of one mind ; 
 and as if lamenting their own fate on the eve 
 of a separation. The strange repetitions, the 
 frequent resuscitation of a fatiguing song, at 
 length became dangerous in the eyes of the 
 Bond itself: Lenardo rose, and all instantly sat 
 down, abruptly breaking off their hymn. The 
 other, with friendly words, thus began : 
 
 " Indeed I cannot blame you for continually 
 recalling to your minds the destiny which stands 
 before us all, that so, at any hour, you may be 
 ready for it. If aged and life-weary men have 
 called to their neighbors : Think of dying! we 
 younger and life-loving men may well keep en- 
 couraging and reminding one another with the 
 cheerful words: Think of wandering! Yet, 
 withal, of a thing which we either voluntarily 
 undertake, or believe ourselves constrained to, 
 it were well to speak with cheerfulness and 
 moderation. You yourselves know best what, 
 in our situation, is fixed, and what is movable : 
 let us enjoy the former, too, in sprightly and gay 
 tones; and to its success be this parting cup 
 now drunk!" He emptied his glass, and sat 
 down : the four singers instantly rose, and in 
 flowing connected tones, thus began : 
 
 Keep not standing fix'd and rooted, 
 
 Briskly venture, briskly roam, 
 Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, 
 
 And stout heart, are still at home. 
 
 In each land the sun does visit, 
 
 We are gay, whate'er betide : 
 To give room for wand'ring is it 
 
 That the world was made so wide. 
 
 As the chorus struck in with its repetition 
 of these lines, Lenardo rose, and with him all 
 the rest. His nod set the whole company into 
 singing movement; those at the lower end 
 marched out, St. Christopher at their head, in 
 pairs through the hall; and the uplifted wan- 
 derers' song grew clearer and freer, the farther 
 they proceeded ; producing at last a particularly 
 good effect, when, from the terraces of the castle- 
 garden, you looked down over the broad valley, 
 in whose fulness and beauty you might well 
 have liked to lose yourself. While the multi- 
 tude were dispersing this way and that, accord- 
 ing to their pleasure, Wilhelm was made ac- 
 quainted with the third Superior. This was 
 the Amtmann ; by whose kind influence many 
 favors had been done the Society ; in particular, 
 the Castle of his patron the Count, situated 
 among several families of rank, had been given 
 up to their use, so long as they might think fit 
 to tarry here. 
 
 Towards evening, while the friends were in 
 a far-seeing grove, there came a portly figure 
 over the threshold, whom Wilhelm at once re- 
 cognised as the Barber of this morning. To a 
 low mute bow of the man, Lenardo answered: 
 " You now come, as always, at the right season ; 
 and will not delay to entertain us with your 
 talent. I may be allowed," continued he, turn- 
 ing towards Wilhelm, " to give you some know- 
 ledge of our Society, the Bond of which I may 
 flatter myself that I am. No one enters our 
 circle unless he have some talents to show, 
 which may contribute to the use or enjoyment 
 of society in general. This man is an excellent 
 surgeon ; of his skill as a beard-artist you your- 
 self can testify : for these reasons, he is no less 
 welcome than necessary to us. Now, as his 
 employment usually brings with it a great and 
 often burdensome garrulity, he has engaged, for 
 the sake of his own culture, to comply with a 
 certain condition ; as, indeed, every one that 
 means to live with us must agree to constrain 
 himself in some particular point, if the greater 
 freedom be left him in all other points. Ac- 
 cordingly, our Barber has renounced the use of 
 his tongue, in so far as aught common or casual 
 is to be expressed by it: but by this means, 
 another gift of speech has been unfolded in him, 
 which acts by forethought, cunningly and plea- 
 surably ; I mean the gift of narration. 
 
 "His life is rich in wonderful experiences, 
 which he used to split in pieces, babbling of 
 them at wrong times ; but which he now, con- 
 strained by silence, repeats and arranges in his 
 quiet thought. This also his power of imagina- 
 tion now forwards, lending life and movement 
 to past occurrences. With no common art and 
 skill, he can relate to us genuine Antique Tales, 
 or modern stories of the same fabulous cast; 
 thereby, at the right hour affording us a most 
 
324 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 pleasant entertainment, when I loose his tongue 
 for him; which I now do; giving him, at the 
 eame time, this praise, that in the considerable 
 period during which I have known him, he has 
 never once heen guilty of a repetition. I cannot 
 but hope, that, in the present case, for love and 
 respect to our clear guest, he will especially dis- 
 tinguish himself." 
 
 A sprightly cheerfulness spread over Red- 
 cloak's face ; and without delay, he began 
 speaking as follows. 
 
 THE NEW MELTJSINA. 
 
 " Respected gentlemen ! Being aware that 
 preliminary speeches and introductions are not 
 much to your taste, I shall without farther talk 
 assure you, that in the present instance, I hope 
 to fulfil your commission moderately well. 
 From me has many a true history gone forth 
 already, to the high and universal satisfaction 
 of hearers : but, to-day I may assert, that I have 
 one to tell, which far surpasses the former; and 
 which, though it happened to me several years 
 ago, still disquiets me in recollecting it, nay, 
 still gives hope of some farther development. 
 
 " By way of introduction, let me confess, that 
 I have not always so arranged my scheme of 
 life as to be certain of the next period in it, or 
 even of the next day. In my youth, I was no 
 first-rate economist; and often found myself in 
 manifold perplexity. At one time, I undertook 
 a journey, thinking to derive good profit in the 
 course of it: but the scale I went upon was too 
 liberal ; and after having commenced my travel 
 with Extra-post, and then prosecuted it for a 
 time in the Diligence, I at last found myself 
 obliged to front the end of it on foot. 
 
 " Like a gay young blade, it had been from 
 of old my custom, on entering any inn, to look 
 round for the landlady, or even the cook, and 
 wheedle myself into favor with her; whereby, 
 for most part, my shot was somewhat reduced. 
 
 " One night at dusk, as I was entering the 
 Post-house of a little town, and purposing to set 
 about my customary operations, there came a 
 fair double-seated coach with four horses, rat- 
 tling up to the door behind me. I turned round ; 
 and observed in it a young lady, without maid, 
 without servants. I hastened to open the car- 
 riage for her, and to ask if I could help her in 
 anything. On stepping out, a fair form dis- 
 played itself; and her lovely countenance, if 
 you looked at it narrowly, was adorned with a 
 slight shade of sorrow. I again asked if there 
 was aught I could do for her. '0 yes!' said 
 she, 'if you will lift that little Box carefully, 
 which you will find standing on the seat, and 
 bring it in : but I beg very much of you to carry 
 it with all steadiness, and not to move or shake 
 it in the least.' I took out the Box with great 
 care; she shut the coach-door: we walked up 
 stairs together, and she told the servants that 
 she was to stay here for the night. 
 
 "We were now alone in the chamber: she 
 
 desired me to put the Box on the table, which 
 was standing at the wall ; and as, by several 
 of her movements, I observed that she wished 
 to be alone, I took my leave, reverently but 
 warmly kissing her hand. 
 
 " ' Order supper for us two,' said she then : 
 and you may well conceive with what pleasure 
 I executed the commission ; scarcely deigning, 
 in my pride of heart, to cast even a side-look on 
 landlady and menials. With impatience I ex- 
 pected the moment that was to lead me back 
 to her. Supper was served : we took our seats 
 opposite each other ; I refreshed my heart, for 
 the first time during a considerable while, with 
 a good meal ; and no less with so desirable a 
 sight beside me ; nay, it seemed as if she were 
 growing fairer and fairer every moment. 
 
 "Her conversation was pleasant; yet she 
 carefully waived whatever had reference to af- 
 fection and love. The cloth was removed : I 
 still lingered, I tried all sorts of manoeuvres to 
 get near her ; but in vain ; she kept me at my 
 distance, by a certain dignity which I could not 
 withstand ; nay, against my will, I had to part 
 from her at a rather early hour. 
 
 " After a night passed in waking or unrestfully 
 dreaming, I rose early; inquired whether she 
 had ordered horses; and learning that she had 
 not, I walked into the garden, saw her standing 
 dressed at the window, and hastened up to her. 
 Here, as she looked so fair, and fairer than ever, 
 love, roguery, and audacity all at once started 
 into motion within me : I rushed towards her, 
 and clasped her in my arms. 'Angelic, irre- 
 sistible being.' cried I, 'pardon ! but it is impos- 
 sible — !' With incredible dexterity she whisked 
 herself out of my arms, and I had not even time 
 to imprint a kiss on her cheek. 'Forbear such 
 outbreakings of a sudden foolish passion,' said 
 she, 'if you would not scare away a happiness 
 which lies close beside you, but which cannot 
 be laid hold of till after some trials.' 
 
 " ' Ask of me what thou pleasest. angelic spi- 
 rit'/ cried I: 'but do not drive me to despair.' 
 She answered with a smile: 'If you mean to 
 devote yourself to my service, hear the terms. 
 I am come hither to visit a lady of my friends, 
 and with her I purpose to continue for a time: 
 in the meanwhile, I could wish that my carriage 
 and this Box were taken forward. Will you 
 engage with it? You have nothing to do. but 
 carefully to lift the Box into the carriage and 
 out; to sit down beside it. and punctually take 
 charge that it receive no harm. When you 
 1 enter an inn, it is put upon a table, in a chamber 
 by itself, in which you must neither sit nor 
 sleep. You lock the chamber -door with this 
 key, which will open and shut any lock, and 
 has the peculiar property, that no lock shut by 
 it can be opened in the interim.' 
 
 "I looked at her; I felt strangely enough at 
 heart : I promised to do all, if 1 might hope to 
 see her soon, and if she would seal this hope to 
 me with a kiss. She did so; and from that 
 moment, I had become entirely her bondman. 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 32a 
 
 I was now to order horses, she said. We set- 
 tled the way I was to take ; the places where I 
 was to wait, and expect her. She at last pressed 
 a purse of gold into my hand, and I pressed my 
 lips on the fair hand that gave it me. She seemed 
 moved at parting ; and for me, I no longer knew 
 what I was doing or was to do. 
 
 "On my return from giving my orders, I 
 found the room-door locked. I directly tried 
 my master-key, and it performed its duty per- 
 fectly. The door flew up : I found the chamber 
 empty ; only the Box standing on the table where 
 I had laid it. 
 
 " The carriage drove up : I carried the Box 
 carefully down with me, and placed it by my 
 side. The hostess asked : ' Where is the lady, 
 then V A child answered : 1 She is gone into the 
 town.' I nodded to the people ; and rolled off 
 in triumph from the door, which I had last 
 night entered with dusty gaiters. That in my 
 hours of leisure I diligently meditated on this ad- 
 venture, counted my money, laid many schemes, 
 and still now and then kept glancing at the Box, 
 you will readily imagine. I posted right for- 
 ward; passed several stages without alighting; 
 and rested not till I had reached a considerable 
 town, where my fair one had appointed me to 
 wait. Her commands had been pointedly obey- 
 ed : the Box always carried to a separate room, 
 and two wax candles lighted beside it, for such 
 ■■ also had been her order. I would then lock the 
 chamber ; establish myself in my own, and take 
 such comfort as the place afforded. 
 
 "For a while I was able to employ myself 
 with thinking of her ; but by degrees the time 
 began to hang heavy on my hands. I was not 
 used to live without companions : these I soon 
 found, at tables-d'hote, in coffee-houses, and 
 public places, altogether to my wish. In such 
 a mode of living my money began to melt away ; 
 and one night, it vanished entirely from my 
 purse, in a fit of passionate gaming, which I 
 had not had the prudence to abandon. Void of 
 money ; with the appearance of a rich man, ex^ 
 pecting a heavy bill of charges; uncertain whe- 
 ther and when my fair one would again make 
 her appearance, I felt myself in the deepest 
 embarrassment. Doubly did I now long for 
 her; and believe, that, without her and her gold, 
 it was quite impossible for me to live. 
 
 " After supper, which I had relished very 
 little, being forced for this time to consume it in 
 solitude, I took to walking violently up and down 
 my room : I spoke aloud to myself, cursed my 
 folly with horrid execrations, threw myself on 
 the floor, tore my hair, and indeed behaved in 
 the most outrageous fashion. Suddenly, in the 
 adjoining chamber where the Box was, I heard 
 j a slight movement, and then a soft knocking at 
 ! the well-bolted door, which entered from my 
 J apartment. I gather myself, grope for my mas- 
 j ter-key; but the door-leaves fly up of them- 
 selves; and in the splendor of those burning 
 wax-lights enters my Beauty. I cast myself at 
 | her feet, kiss hejr robe, her hands; she raises 
 
 me ; I venture not to clnsp her, scarcely to look 
 at her; but candidly and repentantly confess to 
 her my fault. ' It is pardonable,' said she ; 
 'only it postpones your happiness and mine. 
 You must now make another tour into the world, 
 before we can meet again. Here is more money,' 
 continued she, 'sufficient if you husband it with 
 any kind of reason. But as wine and play have 
 brought you into this perplexity, be on your 
 guard in future against wine and women, and 
 let me hope for a glad meeting when the time 
 comes.' 
 
 "She retired over the threshold; the door- 
 leaves flew together : I knocked, I entreated ; 
 but nothing farther stirred. Next morning while 
 presenting his bill, the waiter smiled, and said: 
 'So we have found out at last, then, why you 
 lock your door in so artful and incomprehensible 
 a way, that no master-key can open it. We sup- 
 posed you must have much money and precious 
 ware laid up by you ; but now we have seen 
 your treasure walking down stairs ; and in good 
 truth, it seemed worthy of being well kept.' 
 
 "To this I answered nothing; but paid my 
 reckoning, and mounted with my Box into the 
 carriage. I again rolled forth into the world, 
 with the firmest resolution to be heedful in 
 future of the warning given me by my fair and 
 mysterious friend. Scarcely, however, had I 
 once more reached a large town, when forth- 
 with I got acquainted with certain interesting 
 ladies, from whom I absolutely could not tear 
 myself away. They seemed inclined to make 
 me pay dear for their favor : for while they 
 still kept me at a certain distance, they led me 
 into one expense after the other ; and I, being 
 anxious only to promote their satisfaction, once 
 more ceased to think of my purse, but paid and 
 spent straight forward, as occasion needed. 
 But how great was my astonishment and joy, 
 when, after some weeks, I observed that the 
 fulness of my store was not in the least dimin- 
 ished, that my purse was still as round and 
 crammed as ever ! Wishing to obtain more 
 strict knowledge of this pretty quality, I set 
 myself down to count ; I accurately marked the 
 sum; and again proceeded in my joyous life as 
 before. We had no want of excursions by land, 
 and excursions by water ; of dancing, singing, 
 and other recreations. But now it required 
 small attention to observe that the purse was 
 actually diminishing; as if by my cursed count- 
 ing, I had robbed it of the property of being 
 uncountable. However, this gay mode of ex- 
 istence had been once entered on ; I could not 
 draw back ; and yet my ready money soon 
 verged to a close. I execrated my situation ; 
 upbraided my fair friend, for having so led me 
 into temptation; took it as an offence that she 
 did not again show herself to me ; renounced, 
 in my spleen, all duties towards her; and re- 
 solved to break open the Box, and see if per- 
 adventure any help might be found there. I 
 was just about proceeding with my purpose; 
 but I put it off" till night, that I might go through 
 28 
 
326 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 the business with full composure; and, in the 
 mean time, I hastened off to a banquet, for 
 which this was the appointed hour. Here 
 again we got into a high key ; the wine and 
 trumpet-sounding had flushed me not a little, 
 when by the most villanous luck it chanced, 
 that during the dessert, a former friend of my 
 dearest fair one, returning from a journey, en- 
 tered unexpectedly, placed himself beside her, 
 and, without much ceremony, set about assert- 
 ing his old privileges. Hence, very soon arose 
 ill-humor, quarrelling, and battle: we plucked 
 out our spits ; and I was carried home half-dead 
 of several wounds. 
 
 "The surgeon had bandaged me and gone 
 away: it was far in the night; my sick-nurse 
 had fallen asleep ; the door of the side-room 
 went up ; my fair mysterious friend came in, 
 and sat down by me on the bed. She asked 
 how I was : I answered not, for I was faint 
 and sullen. She continued speaking with much 
 sympathy: she rubbed my temples with a cer- 
 tain balsam, whereby I felt myself rapidly and 
 decidedly strengthened, so strengthened that I 
 could now get angry and upbraid her. In a 
 violent speech I threw all the blame of my 
 misfortune on her; on the passion she had in- 
 spired me with ; on her appearing and vanish- 
 ing, and the tedium, the longing which in such 
 a case I could not but feel. I waxed more and 
 more vehement, as if a fever had been coming 
 on ; and I swore to her at last, that if she would 
 not be mine, would not now abide with me and 
 wed me, I had no wish to live any longer; to 
 all which I required a peremptory answer. As 
 she lingered and held back with her expla- 
 nation, I got altogether beside myself, and tore 
 off my double and triple bandages, in the firm- 
 est resolution to bleed to death. But what was 
 my amazement, when I found all my wounds 
 healed, my skin smooth and entire, and this 
 fair friend in my arms! 
 
 "Henceforth we were the happiest pair in 
 the world. We both begged pardon of each 
 other, without either of us rightly knowing 
 why. She now promised to travel on along 
 with me : and soon we were sitting side by 
 side in the carriage; the little Box lying oppo- 
 site us on the other seat. Of this I had never 
 spoken to her, nor did I now think of speaking, 
 though it lay there before our eyes; and both 
 of us, by tacit agreement, took charge of it, as 
 circumstances might require ; I, however, still 
 carrying it to and from the carriage, and busy- 
 ing myself, as formerly, with the locking of the 
 doors. 
 
 "So long as aught remained in my purse, I 
 had continued to pay; but when my cash went 
 done, I signified the fact to her. 1 That is easily 
 helped,' said she, pointing to a couple of little 
 pouches fixed at the top, to the side of the car- 
 riage. These I had often observed before, but 
 never turned to use. She put her hand into the 
 one, and pulled out some gold pieces, as from 
 the other some coins of silver; thereby showing 
 
 me the possibility of meeting any scale of ex- 
 penditure, which we might choose to adopt. 
 And thus we journeyed on from town to town, 
 from land to land ; contented with each other 
 and with the world : and I fancied not that she 
 would again leave me ; the less so, that for 
 some time she had evidently been as loving 
 wives wish to be, a circumstance by which our 
 happiness and mutual affection was increased 
 still farther. But one morning, alas! she could 
 not be found : and as my actual residence, with- 
 out her company, became displeasing, I again 
 took the road with my Box ; tried the virtue of 
 the two pouches, and found it still unimpaired. 
 
 "My journey proceeded without accident. 
 But if I had hitherto paid little heed to the 
 mysteries of my adventure, expecting a natural 
 solution of the whole, there now occurred some- 
 thing which threw me into astonishment, into 
 anxiety, nay, into fear. Being wont, in my im- 
 patience for change of place, to hurry forward 
 day and night, it was often my hap to be travel- 
 ling in the dark ; and when the lamps, by any 
 chance, went out, to be left in utter obscurity. 
 Once in the dead of such a night, I had fallen 
 asleep ; and on awakening, I observed the glim- 
 mer of a light on the covering of my carriage. 
 I examined this more strictly, and found that it 
 was issuing from the Box ; in which there seem- 
 ed to be a chink, as if it had been chapped by 
 the warm and dry weather of summer, which 
 was now come on. My thoughts of jewels 
 again came into my head ; I supposed there 
 must be some carbuncle lying in the Box, and 
 this point I forthwith set about investigating. I 
 postured myself as well as might be, so that my 
 eye was in immediate contact with the chink. 
 But how great was my surprise, when a fair 
 apartment, well-lighted, and furnished with 
 much taste and even costliness, met my inspec- 
 tion, just as if I had been looking down through 
 the opening of a dome into a royal saloon! A 
 fire was burning in the grate; and before it 
 stood an arm-chair. I held my breath and con- 
 tinued to observe. And now there entered from 
 the other side of the apartment a lady with a 
 book in her hand, whom I at once recognised 
 for my wife, though her figure was contraotdj 
 into the extreme of diminution. She sat down 
 in the chair by the fire to read; she trimmed 
 the coals with the most dainty pair of tongs; 
 and in the course of her movements, I could 
 clearly perceive that this fairest little creature 
 was also in the family way. But now I was 
 obliged to shift my constrained posture a little; 
 and the next moment, when 1 bent down to 
 look in again, and convince myself that it was 
 no dream, the light, had vanished, and my eye 
 rested on empty darkness. 
 
 " How amazed, nay, terrified I was, you may 
 easily conceive. I started a thousand thoughts 
 on this discovery, and in truth could think no- 
 thing. In the midst of this, I fell asleep ; and 
 on awakening, I fancied that it must have been 
 a mere dream : yet I felt myself in some degree 
 
327 
 
 estranged from my fair one ; and though I 
 watched over the Box, but so much the more 
 carefully, I knew not whether the event of her 
 reappearance in human size was a thing which 
 I should wish or dread. 
 
 "After some time she did in fact reappear: 
 one evening, in a white robe, she came gliding 
 in; and as it was just then growing dusky in 
 my room, she seemed to me taller than when I 
 had seen her last: and I remembered having 
 heard that all beings of the mermaid and 
 gnome species increased in stature very per- 
 ceptibly at the fall of night. She flew, as usual, 
 to my arms ; but I could not with right gladness 
 press her to my obstructed breast. 
 
 w ' My dearest,' said she, 1 1 now feel by thy 
 reception of me, what, alas, I already knew too 
 well. Thou hast seen me in the interim: thou 
 art acquainted with the state in which, at cer- 
 tain times, I find myself ; thy happiness and 
 mine is interrupted, nay, it stands on the brink 
 of being annihilated altogether. I must leave 
 thee; and I know not whether I shall ever see 
 thee again.' Her presence, the grace with 
 which she spoke, directly banished from my 
 memory almost every trace of that vision, which 
 indeed had already hovered before me as little 
 more than a dream. I addressed her with kind 
 vivacity, convinced her of my passion, assured 
 her that I was innocent, that my discovery was 
 accidental: in short, I so managed it that she 
 appeared composed, and endeavored to corn- 
 pose me. 
 
 '"Try thyself strictly,' said she, 'whether this 
 discovery has not hurt thy love, whether thou 
 canst forget that I live in two forms beside thee, 
 whether the diminution of my being will not 
 also contract thy affection.' 
 
 " I looked at her : she was fairer than ever ; 
 and I thought within myself: Is it so great a 
 misfortune, after all, to have a wife who from 
 time to time becomes a dwarf, so that one can 
 carry her about with him in a casket? Were it 
 not much worse if she became a giantess, and 
 put her husband in the box ? My gaiety of heart 
 had returned. I would not for the whole world 
 have let her go. ' Best heart,' said I, ' let us be 
 and continue ever as we have been. Could 
 either of us wish to be better? Enjoy thy con- 
 veniency ; and I promise thee to guard the Box 
 with so much the more faithfulness. Why 
 should the prettiest sight I have ever seen in 
 my life make a bad impression on me ? How 
 happy would lovers be, could they but procure 
 such miniature pictures ! And after all it was 
 but a picture, a little sleight-of-hand-deception. 
 Thou art trying and teasing me: but thou shalt 
 see how I will stand it.' 
 
 '"The matter is more serious than thou 
 thinkest,' said the fair one: 'however, I am 
 truly glad to see thee take it so lightly; for 
 much good may still be awaiting us both. I 
 will trust in thee; and for my own part do my 
 utmost: only promise me that thou wilt never 
 mention this discovery by way of reproach. 
 
 Another prayer likewise I most earnestly make 
 to thee : Be more than ever on thy guard against 
 wine and anger.' 
 
 " I promised what she required ; I could have 
 gone on promising to all lengths; but she her- 
 self turned aside the conversation ; and thence- 
 forth all proceeded in its former routine. We 
 had no inducement to alter our place of re- 
 sidence : the town was large, the society vari- 
 ous ; and the fine season gave rise to many an 
 excursion, and garden-festival. 
 
 "In all such amusements the presence of my 
 wife was welcome, nay, eagerly desired, by 
 women as well as men. A kind insinuating 
 manner, joined with a certain dignity of bearing 
 secured to her on all hands praise and estima- 
 tion. Besides, she could play beautifully on the 
 lute, accompanying it with her voice ; and no 
 social night could be perfect, unless crowned by 
 the graces of this talent. 
 
 "I will be free to confess that I have never 
 got much good of music; on the contrary, it has 
 always rather had a disagreeable effect on me. 
 My fair one soon noticed this, and accordingly, 
 when by ourselves, she never tried to entertain 
 me by such means : in return, however, she 
 appeared to indemnify herself while in society, 
 where indeed she always found a crowd of 
 admirers. 
 
 " And now, why should I deny it, our late 
 dialogue, in spite of my best intentions, had by 
 no means sufficed to abolish the matter within 
 me : on the contrary, my temper of mind had 
 by degrees got into the strangest tune, almost 
 without my being conscious of it. One night, 
 in a large company, this hidden grudge broke 
 loose, and by its consequences produced to my- 
 self the greatest damage. 
 
 " When I look back on it now, I in fact loved 
 my Beauty far less, after that unlucky discovery: 
 I was also growing jealous of her ; a whim that 
 had never struck me before. This night at 
 table, I found myself placed very much to my 
 mind beside my two neighbours, a couple of 
 ladies, who, for some time, had appeared to me 
 very charming. Amid jesting and soft small 
 talk, I was not sparing of my wine : while, on 
 the other side, a pair of musical dilletanti had 
 got hold of my wife, and at last contrived to 
 lead the company into singing separately, and 
 by way of chorus. This put me into ill-humor. 
 The two amateurs appeared to me impertinent; 
 the singing vexed me; and when, as my turn 
 came, they even requested a solo-strophe from 
 me, I grew truly indignant, I emptied my glass, 
 and set it down again with no soft movement. 
 
 "The grace of my two fair neighbours soon 
 pacified me, indeed ; but there is an evil na- 
 ture in wrath, when once it is set agoing. It 
 went on fermenting within me, though all things 
 were of a kind to induce joy and complaisance. 
 On the contrary, I waxed more splenetic than 
 ever when a lute was produced, and my fair 
 one began fingering it and singing, to the ad- 
 miration of all the rest. Unhappily, a general 
 
328 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 silence was requested. So then, I was not even 
 to talk any more ; and these tones were going 
 through me like a toothach. Was it any won- 
 der that, at last, the smallest spark should blow 
 up the mine ? 
 
 "The songstress had just ended a song amid 
 the loudest applauses, when she looked over to 
 me; and this truly with the most loving face in 
 the world. Unluckily, its lovingness could not 
 penetrate so far. She perceived that I had just 
 gulped down a cup of wine, and was pouring 
 out a fresh one. With her right forefinger, she 
 beckoned to me in kind threatening. 1 Consider 
 that it is wine !' said she, not louder than for 
 myself to hear it. — 'Water is for mermaids!' 
 cried I. — 'My ladies,' said she to my neighbours, 
 'crown the cup with all your gracefulness, that 
 it be not too often emptied.' — 'You will not let 
 yourself be tutored ?' whispered one of them in 
 my ear. — 'What ails the Dwarf?' cried I, with 
 a more violent gesture, in which I overset the 
 glass. — 'Ah, what you have spilt!' cried the 
 paragon of women ; at the same time, twanging 
 her strings, as if to lead back the attention of 
 the company from this disturbance to herself. 
 Her attempt succeeded ; the more completely 
 as she rose to her feet, seemingly that she might 
 play with greater convenience, and in this atti- 
 tude continued preluding. 
 
 "At sight of the red wine running over the 
 table-cloth, I returned to myself. I perceived 
 the great fault I had been guilty of; and it cut 
 me through the very heart. Never till now had 
 music spoken to me : the first verse she sang 
 was a friendly good-night to the company, here 
 as they were, as they might still feel themselves 
 together. With the next verse they became as 
 if scattered asunder ; each felt himself solitary, 
 separated, no one could fancy that he was pre- 
 sent any longer. But what shall I say of the 
 last verse? It was directed to me alone; the 
 voice of injured Love bidding farewell to Mo- 
 roseness and Caprice. 
 
 "In silence I conducted her home; forebod- 
 ing no good. Scarcely, however, had we reached 
 our chamber, when she began to show herself 
 exceedingly kind and graceful, nay, even ro- 
 guish; she made me the happiest of all men. 
 
 "Next morning, in high spirits and full of 
 love, I said to her : ' Thou hast so often sung, 
 when asked in company; as, for example, thy 
 touching farewell song last night. Come now, 
 for my sake, and sing me a dainty gay welcome 
 to this morning hour, that we may feel as we 
 were meeting for the first time.' 
 
 '"That I may not do, my friend,' said she 
 seriously. ' The song of last night referred to 
 our parting, which must now forthwith take 
 place : for I can only tell thee, the violation of 
 thy promise and oath will have the worst con- 
 sequences for us both ; thou hast scoffed away 
 a great felicity, and I too must renounce my 
 dearest wishes.' 
 
 " As I now pressed and entreated her to ex- 
 plain herself more clearly, she answered : 
 
 ' That, alas, I can well do ; for, at all events, 
 my continuance with thee is over. Hear, then, 
 what I would rather have concealed to the 
 latest times. The form, under which thou 
 sawest me in the Box, is my natural and proper 
 form : for I am of the race of King Eckwald, 
 the dread Sovereign of the Dwarfs, concerning 
 whom authentic History has recorded so much. 
 Our people are still as of old laborious and busy, 
 and therefore easy to govern. Thou must not 
 fancy that the Dwarfs are behindhand in their 
 manufacturing skill. Swords which followed 
 the foe, when you cast them after him ; invisible 
 and mysteriously binding chains ; impenetrable 
 shields, and such like ware, in old times, formed 
 their staple produce. But now they chiefly em- 
 ploy themselves with articles of convenience 
 and ornament; in which truly they surpass all 
 people of the Earth. I may well say, it would 
 astonish thee to walk through our workshops 
 and warehouses. All this would be right and 
 good, were it not that with the whole nation in 
 general, but more particularly with the royal 
 family, there is one peculiar circumstance con- 
 nected.' 
 
 She paused for a moment; and I again begged 
 farther light on these wonderful secrets; which 
 accordingly she forthwith proceeded to grant. 
 
 " ' It is well known,' said she, ' that God, so 
 soon as he had created the world, and the ground 
 was dry, and the mountains were standing 
 bright and glorious, that God, I say, thereupon, 
 in the very first place, created the Dwarfs; to 
 the end, that there might be reasonable beings 
 also, who, in their passages and chasms, might 
 contemplate and adore his wonders in the in- 
 ward parts of the Earth. It is farther well 
 known, that this little race by degrees became 
 uplifted in heart, and attempted to acquire the 
 dominion of the Earth ; for which reason God 
 then created the Dragons, in order to drive back 
 the Dwarfs into their mountains. Now, as the 
 Dragons themselves were wont to nestle in the 
 large caverns and clefts, and dwell there ; and 
 many of them, too, were in the habit of spitting 
 fire, and working much other mischief, the poor 
 little Dwarfs were by this means thrown into 
 exceeding straits and distress, so that not know- 
 ing what in the world to do, they humbly and 
 fervently turned to God, and called to him in 
 prayer, that he would vouchsafe to abolish this 
 unclean Dragon generation. But though it con- 
 sisted not with his wisdom to destroy his own 
 creatures, yet the heavy sufferings of the poor 
 Dwarfs so moved his compassion, that anon he 
 created the Giants, ordaining them to fight these 
 Dragons, and if not root them out, at least lessen 
 their numbers. 
 
 " ' Now, no sooner had the Giants got mode- 
 rately well through with the Dragons, than their 
 hearts also began to wax wanton ; and, in their 
 presumption, they practised much tyranny, es- 
 pecially on the good little Dwarfs, who then 
 once more in their need turned to the Lord ; 
 and he, by the power of his hand, created the 
 
GOE 
 
 329 
 
 Knights, who were to make war on the Giants 
 and Dragons, and to live in concord with the 
 Dwarfs. Hereby was the work of creation com- 
 pleted on this side: and it is plain, that hence- 
 forth Giants and Dragons, as well as Knights 
 and Dwarfs, have always maintained them- 
 selves in being. From this, my friend, it will 
 be clear to thee, that we are of the oldest race 
 on the Earth; a circumstance which does us 
 honor, but, at the same time, brings great disad- 
 vantage along with it. 
 
 "'For as there is nothing in the world that 
 can endure forever, but all that has once been 
 great, must become little and fade, it is our lot, 
 also, that ever since the creation of the world, 
 we have been waning and growing smaller; 
 especially the royal family, on whom, by reason 
 of their pure blood, this destiny presses with the 
 heaviest force. To remedy this evil, our wise 
 teachers have many years ago devised the ex- 
 pedient of sending forth a Princess of the royal 
 house from time to time into the world, to wed 
 some honorable Knight, that so the Dwarf pro- 
 geny may be refected, and saved from entire 
 decay.' 
 
 " Though my fair one related these things 
 with an air of the utmost sincerity, I looked at 
 her hesitatingly; for it seemed as if she meant 
 to palm some fable on me. As to her own 
 dainty lineage, I had not the smallest doubt: 
 but that she should have laid hold of me in 
 place of a Knight, occasioned some mistrust; 
 seeing I knew myself too well to suppose that 
 my ancestors had come into the world by an 
 immediate act of creation. 
 
 "I concealed my wonder and scepticism, and 
 asked her kindly : 'But tell me, my dear child, 
 how hast thou attained this large and stately 
 shape? For I know few women that in rich- 
 ness of form can compare with thee.* — 1 Thou 
 shalt hear,' replied she. 'It is a settled maxim 
 in the Council of the Dwarf Kings, that this ex- 
 traordinary step be forborne as long as it possibly 
 can ; which, indeed, I cannot but say is quite 
 natural and proper. Perhaps they might have 
 lingered still longer, had not my brother, born 
 after me, come into the world so exceedingly 
 small, that the nurses actually lost him out of 
 his swaddling-clothes, and no creature yet knows 
 whither he is gone. On this occurrence, unex- 
 ampled in the annals of Dwarfdom, the Sages 
 were assembled ; and without more ado, the 
 resolution was taken, and I sent out in quest of 
 a husband.' 
 
 "'The resolution!' exclaimed I: 'that is all 
 extremely well. One can resolve, one can take 
 his resolution : but to give a Dwarf this hea- 
 venly shape, how did your Sages manage that?' 
 
 1 'It had been provided for already,' said she, 
 'by our ancestors. In the royal treasury, lay a 
 monstrous gold ring. I speak of it as it then 
 appeared to me, when I saw it in my childhood: 
 for it was this same ring, which I have here on 
 my finger. We now went to work as follows: 
 
 " ' I was informed of all that awaited me ; 
 2b 
 
 and instructed what I had to do and to forbear. 
 A splendid palace, after the pattern of my fa- 
 ther's favorite summer residence, was then got 
 ready: a main edifice, wings, and whatever 
 else you could think of. It stood at the entrance 
 of a large rock-cleft, which it decorated in the 
 handsomest style. On the appointed day, our 
 court moved thither, my parents also and my- 
 self. The army paraded ; and four-and-twenty 
 priests, not without difficulty, carried on a costly 
 litter the mysterious ring. It was placed on the 
 threshold of the building, just within the spot 
 where you entered. Many ceremonies were 
 observed ; and after a pathetic farewell, I pro- 
 ceeded to my task. I stept forward to the ring ; 
 laid my finger on it ; and that instant, began 
 perceptibly to wax in stature. In a few mo- 
 ments I had reached my present size ; and then 
 I put the ring on my finger. But now, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, the doors, windows, gates 
 flapped to; the wings drew up into the body 
 of the edifice ; instead of a palace, stood a little 
 Box beside me; which I forthwith lifted, and 
 carried off with me; not without a pleasant 
 feeling in being so tall and strong, still, indeed, 
 a dwarf to trees and mountains, to streams and 
 tracts of land ; yet a giant to grass and herbs ; 
 and above all, to ants, from whom we Dwarfs, 
 not being always on the best terms with them, 
 often suffer considerable annoyance. 
 
 " ' How it fared with me on my pilgrimage, I 
 might tell thee at great length. Suffice it to say, 
 I tried many; but no one save thou seemed 
 worthy of being honored to renovate and per 
 petuate the line of the glorious Eckwald.' 
 
 " In the course of these narrations, my head 
 had now and then kept wagging, without my- 
 self having absolutely shaken it. I put several 
 questions; to which I received no very satisfac- 
 tory answers; on the contrary, I learned, to my 
 great affliction, that after what had happened, 
 she must needs return to her parents. She had 
 hopes still, she said, of getting back to me : but 
 for the present, it was indispensably necessary 
 to present herself at court ; as otherwise, both 
 for her and me, there was nothing but utter 
 ruin. The purses would soon cease to pay ; 
 and who knew what all would be the conse- 
 quences ? 
 
 "On hearing that our money would run short, 
 I inquired no farther into consequences : I 
 shrugged my shoulders; I was silent, and she 
 seemed to understand me. 
 
 "We now packed up, and got into our car- 
 riage ; the Box standing opposite us ; in which, 
 however, I could still see no symptoms of a pa- 
 lace. In this way we proceeded several stages. 
 Post-money and drink-money were readily and 
 richly paid from the pouches to the right and 
 left; till at last we reached a mountainous dis- 
 trict; and no sooner had we alighted here, than 
 my fair one walked forward, directing me to 
 follow her with the Box. She led me by rather 
 steep paths to a narrow plot of green ground, 
 through which a clear brook now gushed in 
 28* 
 
330 GOETHE. 
 
 little falls, now ran in quiet windings. She 
 pointed to a little knoll ; bade me set the Box 
 down there, then said : ' Farewell ! Thou wilt 
 easily find the way back; remember me; I 
 hope to see thee again.' 
 
 " At this moment, I felt as if I could not leave 
 her. She was just now in one of her fine days, 
 or if you will, her fine hours. Alone with so 
 fair a being, on the green sward, among grass 
 and flowers, girt in by rocks, waters murmuring 
 round you, what heart could have remained in- 
 sensible ! I came forward to seize her hand, to 
 clasp her in my arms : but she motioned me 
 back ; threatening me, though still kindly enough, 
 with great danger, if I did not instantly withdraw. 
 
 '"Is there no possibility, then,' exclaimed I, 
 'of my staying with thee, of thy keeping me 
 beside thee?' These words I uttered with such 
 rueful tones and gestures, that she seemed 
 touched by them, and after some thought, con- 
 fessed to me that a continuance of our union 
 was not entirely impossible. Who happier 
 than I! My importunity, which increased every 
 moment, compelled her at last to come out with 
 her scheme, and inform me that if I too could 
 resolve on becoming as little as I had once seen 
 her, I might still remain with her, be admitted 
 to her house, her kingdom, her family. The 
 proposal was not altogether to my mind ; yet at 
 this moment I positively could not tear myself 
 away; so, having already for a good while been 
 accustomed to the marvellous, and being at all 
 times prone to bold enterprises, I closed with 
 her offer, and said she might do with me as she 
 pleased. 
 
 " I was thereupon directed to hold out the 
 little finger of my right hand: she placed her 
 own against it; then with her left hand, she 
 quite softly pulled the ring from her finger, and 
 let it run along mine. That instant, I felt a 
 violent twinge on my finger : the ring shrunk 
 together, and tortured me horribly. I gave a 
 loud cry, and caught round me for my fair one, 
 but she had disappeared. What state of mind 
 I was in during this moment, I find no words 
 to express ; so I have nothing more to say, but 
 that I very soon, in my miniature size, found 
 myself beside rny fair one in a wood of grass- 
 stalks. The joy of meeting after this short yet 
 most strange separation, or, if you will, of this 
 re-union without separation, exceeds all concep- 
 tion. I fell on her neck; she replied to my 
 caresses, and the little pair was as happy as the 
 large one. 
 
 " With some difficulty, we now mounted a 
 hill: I say difficulty, because the sward had be- 
 come for us an almost impenetrable forest. Yet 
 at length we reached a bare space; and how 
 surprised was I at perceiving there a large 
 bolted mass ; which, ere long, I could not but 
 recognise for the Box, in the same state as when 
 I had set it down. 
 
 " ' Go up to it, my friend,' said she, 1 and do 
 but knock with the ring: thou shalt see won- 
 ders.' I went up accordingly, and no sooner had 
 
 I rapped, than I did, in fact, witness the great- 
 est wonder. Two wings came jutting out; and 
 at the same time there fell, like scales and 
 chips, various pieces this way and that; while 
 doors, windows, colonnades, and all that be- 
 longs to a complete palace at once came into 
 view. 
 
 " If ever you have seen one of Rontchen's 
 desks; how, at one pull, a multitude of springs 
 and latches get in motion, and writing board 
 and writing materials, letter and money com- 
 partments, all at once, or in quick succession, 
 start forward, you will partly conceive how this 
 palace unfolded itself, into which my sweet 
 attendant now introduced me. In the large 
 saloon, I directly recognised the fire-place which 
 I had formerly seen from above, and the chair 
 in which she had then been sitting. And on 
 looking up, I actually fancied I could still see 
 something of the chink in the dome, through 
 which I had peeped in. I spare you the de- 
 scription of the rest: in a word, all was spa- 
 cious, splendid, and tasteful. Scarcely had I 
 recovered from my astonishment, when I heard 
 afar off a sound of military music. My better 
 half sprang up ; and with rapture announced 
 to me the approach of His Majesty her Father. 
 We stept out to the threshold, and here beheld 
 a magnificent procession moving towards us, 
 from a considerable cleft in the rock. Soldiers, 
 servants, officers of state, and glittering courtiers, 
 followed in order. At last you observed a 
 golden throng, and in the midst of it the King 
 himself. So soon as the whole procession had 
 drawn up before the palace, the King, with his 
 nearest retinue, stept forward. His loving 
 daughter hastened out to him, pulling me along 
 with her. We threw ourselves at his feet; he 
 raised me very graciously ; and on coining to 
 stand before him, I perceived, that in this little 
 world I was still the most considerable figure. 
 We proceeded together to the palace; where 
 His Majesty, in presence of his whole court, 
 was pleased to welcome me with a well-studied 
 oration, in which he expressed his surprise at 
 finding us here; acknowledged me as his son- 
 in-law, and appointed the nuptial ceremony to 
 take place on the morrow. 
 
 " A cold sweat went over me as I heard him 
 speak of marriage : for I dreaded this event 
 more than music, which otherwise appeared to 
 me the most hateful thing on Earth. Your 
 music-makers, I used to say, enjoy at least the 
 conceit of being in unison with each other, and 
 working in concord : for when they have tweak- ' 
 ed and tuned long enough, grating our ears with 
 all manner of screeches, they believe in their 
 hearts that the matter is now adjusted, and one 
 instrument accurately suited to the other. The 
 band-master himself is in this happy delusion; 
 and so they set forth joyfully, though still tear- 
 ing our nerves to pieces. In the marriage-state, 
 even this is not the case: for although it is but 
 a duet, and you might think two voices, or even 
 two instruments, might in some degree be at- 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 331 
 
 tuned to each other, yet this happens very sel- 
 dom: for while the man gives out one tone, the 
 wife directly takes a higher one, and the man 
 again a higher ; and so it rises from the cham- 
 ber to the choral pitch, and farther and farther, 
 till at last wind-instruments themselves cannot 
 reach it. And now, as harmonical music itself 
 is an offence to me, it will not be surprising 
 that disharmonical should be a thing which I 
 cannot endure. 
 
 " Of the festivities in which the day was 
 spent, I shall and can say nothing: for I paid 
 small heed to any of them. The sumptuous 
 victuals, the generous wine, the royal amuse- 
 ments, I could not relish. I kept thinking and 
 considering what I was to do. Here, however, 
 there was but little to be considered. I deter- 
 mined, once for all", to take myself away, and 
 hide somewhere. Accordingly, I succeeded in 
 reaching the chink of a stone, where I entrench- 
 ed and concealed myself as well as might be. 
 My first care after this was to get the unhappy 
 ring off my finger ; an enterprise, however, 
 which would by no means prosper, for on the 
 contrary, I felt that every pull I gave, the metal 
 grew straiter and cramped me with violent 
 pains, which again abated so soon as I desisted 
 from my purpose. 
 
 "Early in the morning I awoke (for my little 
 person had slept, and very soundly) ; and was 
 just stepping out to look farther about me, when 
 I felt a kind of rain coming on. Through the 
 grass, flowers, and leaves, there fell as it were 
 something like sand and grit in large quantities ; 
 but what was my horror when the whole of it 
 became alive, and an innumerable host of Ants 
 rushed down on me! No sooner did they ob- 
 serve me, than they made an attack on all 
 sides; and though I defended myself stoutly 
 and gallantly enough, they at last so hemmed 
 me in, so nipped and pinched me, that I was 
 glad to hear them calling to surrender. I sur- 
 rendered instantly and wholly; whereupon an 
 Ant of respectable stature approached me with 
 courtesy, nay, with reverence, and even recom- 
 mended itself to my good graces. I learned 
 that the Ants had now become allies of my 
 father-in-law, and by him been called out in the 
 present emergency, and commissioned to fetch 
 me back. Here then was little I in the hands 
 of creatures still less. I had nothing for it but 
 looking forward to the marriage; nay, I must 
 now thank Heaven, if my father-in-law were 
 not wroth, if my fair one had not taken the 
 sullens. 
 
 "Let me skip over the whole train of cere- 
 monies : in a word, we were wedded. Gaily 
 and joyously as matters went, there were, never- 
 theless, solitary hours, in which you were led 
 astray into reflection ; and now there happened 
 to me something which had never happened 
 before: what, and how, ycu shall learn. 
 
 "Everything about me was completely adapt- 
 ed to my present form and wants ; the bottles 
 and glasses were in a fit ratio to a little toper, 
 
 nay, if you will, better measure, in proportion, 
 than with us. In my tiny palate, the dainty 
 tidbits tasted excellently; a kiss from the little 
 mouth of my spouse was still the most charm- 
 ing thing in nature; and 1 will not deny that 
 novelty made all these circumstances highly 
 agreeable. Unhappily, however, I had not for- 
 gotten my former situation. I felt within me a 
 scale of bygone greatness; and it rendered me 
 restless and cheerless. Now, for the first time, 
 did I understand what the philosophers might 
 mean by their Ideal, which they say so plagues 
 the mind of man. I had an Ideal of myself; 
 and often in dreams I appeared as a giant. In 
 short, my wife, my ring, my dwarf figure, and 
 so many other bonds and restrictions, made me 
 utterly unhappy, so that I began to think seri- 
 ously about obtaining my deliverance. 
 
 "Being persuaded that the whole magic lay 
 in the ring, I resolved on filing this asunder. 
 From the court-jeweller, accordingly, I borrow- 
 ed some files. By good luck, I was left-handed, 
 as, indeed, throughout my whole life, I had 
 never done aught in the right-handed way. I 
 stood tightly to the work : it was not small : for 
 the golden hoop, so thin as it appeared, had 
 grown proportionably thicker in contracting 
 from its former length. All vacant hours I 
 privately applied to this task ; and at last, the 
 metal being nearly through, I was provident 
 enough to step out of doors. This was a wise 
 measure : for all at once the golden hoop started 
 sharply from my finger, and my frame shot aloft 
 with such violence, that I actually fancied I 
 should dash against the sky; and, at all events, 
 I must have bolted through the dome of our 
 palace ; nay, perhaps, in my new awkward- 
 ness, have destroyed this summer-residence al- 
 together. 
 
 " Here then was I standing again ; in truth, 
 so much the larger, but also, as it seemed to me, 
 so much the more foolish and helpless. On re- 
 covering from my stupefaction, I observed the 
 royal strong-box lying near me, which I found 
 to be moderately heavy, as I lifted it, and car- 
 ried it down the foot-path to the next stage ; 
 where I directly ordered horses, and set forth. 
 By the road, I soon made trial of the two side- 
 pouches. Instead of money, which appeared 
 to be run out, I found a little key: it belonged 
 to the strong-box, in which I got some moderate 
 compensation. So long as this held out, I made 
 use of the carriage: by and by I sold it, and 
 proceeded by the Diligence. The strong-box, 
 too, I at length cast from me, having no hope 
 of its ever filling again. And thus in the end, 
 though after a considerable circuit, I again re- 
 turned to the kitchen-hearth, to the landlady 
 and the cook, where you were first introduced 
 to me." 
 
 WHERE IS THE TRAITOR? 
 
 "No! No!'' exclaimed he, violently and 
 hastily rushing into the chamber allotted him, 
 and setting down his candle : "No ! it is impos- 
 
332 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 sible! But whither shall I turn ? For the first 
 time I think otherwise than he ; for the first 
 time, I feel, I wish otherwise. O father! couldst 
 thou but be present invisibly, couldst thou but 
 look through and through me, thou wouldst see 
 that I am still the same, still thy true, obedient, 
 affectionate son. Yet to say No ! To contradict 
 my father's dearest, long-cherished wish! How 
 shall I disclose it? How shall I express it? No, 
 I cannot marry Julia! While I speak of it, I 
 shudder. And how shall I appear before him, 
 tell him this, him the good, kind father? He 
 looks at ine with astonishment, without speak- 
 ing: the prudent, clear-sighted, gifted man, can 
 find no words. Wo is me ! Ah, I know well 
 to whom I would confide this pain, this per- 
 plexity; who it is I would choose for my ad- 
 vocate! Before all others, thou, Lucinda ! And 
 I would first tell thee how I love thee, how I 
 give myself to thee, and pressingly entreat thee 
 to speak for me ; and if thou canst love me 
 again, if thou wilt be mine, to speak for us 
 both." 
 
 To explain this short pithy monologue will 
 require some details. 
 
 Professor N. of N. had an only boy of singular 
 beauty, whom, till the child's eighth year, he 
 had left entirely in charge of his wife. This 
 excellent woman had directed the hours and 
 days of her son, in living, learning, and all good 
 behaviour. She died ; and the father instantly 
 felt, that to prosecute this parental tutelage was 
 impossible. In their lifetime, all had been har- 
 mony between the parents : they had labored 
 for a common aim, had determined in concert 
 what was next to be done ; and the mother had 
 not wanted skill to execute wisely, by herself, 
 what the two had planned together. Double 
 and treble was now the widower's anxiety, see- 
 ing, as he could not but daily see, that for the 
 sons of professors, even in universities, it was 
 only by a sort of miracle that a happy educa- 
 tion could be expected. 
 
 In this strait he applied to his friend the 
 Oberamtmann of R., with whom he had already 
 been treating of plans for a closer alliance be- 
 tween their families. The Oberamtmann gave 
 him counsel and assistance: so the son was 
 established in one of those Institutions, which 
 still flourish in Germany, and where charge is 
 taken of the whole man, and body, soul, and 
 spirit are trained with all attention. 
 
 The son was thus provided for ; the father, 
 however, felt himself very lonely: robbed of 
 his wife ; shut out from the cheerful presence 
 of the boy, whom he had seen, without effort of 
 his, growing up in such desirable culture. But 
 here again the friendship of the Oberamtmann 
 served him in good stead : the distance of their 
 abodes vanished before his affection, his desire 
 for movement, for diversion of thought. In this 
 hospitable home the widowed Man of Letters 
 found, in a family circle motherless like his 
 own, two beautiful little daughters growing up 
 in diverse loveliness; a state of things which 
 
 more and more confirmed the fathers in their 
 purpose, in their hope, of one day seeing their 
 families united in the most joyful bonds. 
 
 They lived under the sway of a mild good 
 Prince : the meritorious Oberamtmann was cer- 
 tain of his post during life; and in the appoint- 
 ment of a successor, his recommendation was 
 likely to go far. And now, according to the 
 wise family arrangement, sanctioned also by 
 the Minister, Lucidor was to train himself for 
 the important office of his future father-in-law. 
 This in consequence he did, from step to step. 
 Nothing was neglected in communicating to 
 him all sorts of knowledge, in developing in 
 him all sorts of activity, which the State in any 
 case requires: practice in rigorous judicial law, 
 and also in the laxer sort, where prudence and 
 address find their proper field; foresight for 
 daily ways and means ; not excluding higher 
 and more comprehensive views, yet all tending 
 towards practical life, and so as with effect and 
 certainty to be employed in its concerns. 
 
 With such purposes had Lucidor spent his 
 school-years : by his father and his patron, he 
 was now warned to make ready for the uni- 
 versity. In all departments he already showed 
 the fairest talents ; and to Nature he was farther 
 indebted for the singular happiness of inclining, 
 out of love for his father, out of respect for his 
 friend, to turn his capabilities, first from obe- 
 dience, then from conviction, on that very object 
 to which he was directed. He was placed in 
 a foreign university, and here, both by his own 
 account in his letters, and by the testimony of 
 his teachers and overseers, he continued walk- 
 ing in the path that led towards his appointed 
 goal. It was only objected to him, that in cer- 
 tain cases he had been too impetuously brave. 
 The father shook his head at this ; the Ober- 
 amtmann nodded. Who would not have been 
 proud of such a son ? 
 
 Meanwhile, the two daughters, Julia and 
 Lucinda, were waxing in stature and graces. 
 Julia, the younger, waggish, lovely, unstable, 
 highly entertaining; the other difficult to pour- 
 tray, for, in her sincerity and purity, she repre- 
 sented all that we prize most in woman. Visits 
 were paid and repaid ; and, in the Professor's 
 house, Julia found the most inexhaustible amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 Geography, which he failed not to enliven by 
 Topography, belonged to his province ; and no 
 sooner did Julia cast her eyes on any of the 
 volumes, of which a whole series from Ho- 
 mann's warehouse were standing there, than 
 the cities all and sundry had to be mustered, 
 judged, preferred, or rejected: all havens espe- 
 cially obtained her favor ; other towns, to acquire 
 even a slight approval from her, must stand 
 forth well supplied with steeples, domes, and 
 minarets. 
 
 Julia's father often left her for weeks to the 
 care of his tried friend. She was actually ad- 
 vancing in knowledge of her science; and al- 
 ready the inhabited world, in its main features, 
 
GOETHE. 333 
 
 in its chief points and places, stood before her 
 with some accuracy and distinctness. The 
 garbs of foreign nations attracted her peculiar 
 attention ; and often when her foster-father 
 asked her in jest; If among the many young 
 handsome men who were passing to and fro 
 before her window, there was not some one or 
 other whom she liked? she would answer: 
 "Yes, indeed, if he do but look odd enough." 
 And as our young students are seldom behind- 
 hand in this particular, she had often occasion 
 to take notice of individuals among them : they 
 brought to her mind the costume of foreign na- 
 tions; however, she declared in the end, that 
 if she was to bestow her undivided attention on 
 any one, be must be at least a Greek, equipped 
 in the complete fashion of his country; on 
 which account, also, she longed to be at some 
 Leipzig Fair where, as she understood, such 
 persons were to be seen walking the streets. 
 
 After his dry and often irksome labors, our 
 Teacher had now no happier moments, than 
 those he spent in mirthfully instructing her ; 
 triumphing withal, in secret, that a being so 
 attractive, ever entertaining, ever entertained, 
 was in the end to be his own daughter. For 
 the rest, the two fathers had mutually agreed, 
 that no hint of their purpose should be com- 
 municated to the girls; from Lucidor, also, it 
 was kept secret. 
 
 Thus had years passed away, as indeed they 
 very lightly pass; Lucidor presented himself 
 completed, having stood all trials to the joy 
 even of the superior overseers, who wished 
 nothing more heartily than being able, with a 
 good conscience, to fulfil the hopes of old, 
 worthy, favored, and deserving servants. 
 
 And so the business had at length by quiet 
 regular steps come so far, that Lucidor, after 
 having demeaned himself in subordinate sta- 
 tions to universal satisfaction, was now to be 
 placed in a very advantageous post, suitable to 
 his wishes and merits, and lying just midway 
 between the University and the Oberamtman- 
 ship. 
 
 The father now spoke with his son about 
 Julia, of whom he had hitherto only hinted, as 
 about his bride and wife, without any doubt or 
 condition; congratulating him on the happiness 
 of having appropriated such a je wel to himself. 
 The Professor saw in fancy his daughter-in-law 
 again from time to time in his house ; occupied 
 with charts, plans, and views of cities: the son 
 recalled to mind the gay and most lovely crea- 
 ture, who, in times of childhood, had, by her 
 rogueries as by her kindliness, always delighted 
 him. Lucidor was now to ride over to the 
 Oberamimann's, to take a closer view of the 
 full-grown fair one ; and, for a few weeks, to 
 surrender himself to the habitudes and fami- 
 liarity of her household. If the young people, 
 as was to be hoped, should speedily agree, the 
 Professor was forthwith to appear, that so a 
 solemn betrothment might forever secure the 
 anticipated happiness. 
 
 Lucidor arrives, is received with the friend- 
 liest welcome ; a chamber is allotted him; he 
 arranges himself there, and appears. And now 
 he finds, besides the members of the family 
 already known to us, a grown-up son ; misbred 
 certainly, yet shrewd and good-natured; so that 
 if you liked to take him as the Jesting Counsel- 
 lor of the party, he fitted not ill with the rest. 
 There belonged, moreover, to the house, a very 
 old, but healthy and gay -hearted man; quiet, 
 wise, discreet ; completing his life, as it were, 
 and here and there requiring a little help. Di- 
 rectly after Lucidor, too, there had arrived an- 
 other stranger ; no longer young, of an impres- 
 sive aspect, dignified, thoroughly well-bred, and, 
 by his acquaintance with the most distant quar- 
 ters of the world, extremely entertaining. He 
 was called Antoni. 
 
 Julia received her announced bridegroom in 
 fit order, yet with an excess rather than a defect 
 of frankness: Lucinda, on the other hand, did 
 the honors of the house, as her sister did those 
 of herself. So passed the day ; peculiarly agree- 
 able to all, only to Lucidor not: he, at all times 
 silent, had been forced, that he might avoid 
 sinking dumb entirely, to employ himself in 
 asking questions ; and in this attitude, no one 
 appears to advantage. 
 
 Throughout he had been absent-minded ; for 
 at the first glance he had felt, not aversion or 
 repugnance, yet estrangement, towards Julia : 
 Lucinda, on the contrary, attracted him, so that 
 he trembled every time she looked at him with 
 her full pure peaceful eyes. 
 
 Thus hard bested, he reached his chamber 
 the first night, and gave vent to his heart in that 
 soliloquy with which we began. But to explain 
 this sufficiently, to show how the violence of 
 such an emphatic speech agrees with what we 
 know of him already, another little statement 
 will be necessary. 
 
 Lucidor was of a deep character ; and for 
 most part had something else in his mind, than 
 what the present scene required : hence talk 
 and social conversation would never prosper 
 rightly with him; he felt this, and was wont to 
 continue silent, except when the topic happened 
 to be particular on some department which he 
 had completely studied, and of which, whatever 
 he needed was at all times ready. Besides this, 
 in his early years at school, and later at the 
 university, he had been deceived in friends, and 
 had wasted the effusions of his heart unhappily; 
 hence every communication of his feelings 
 seemed to him a doubtful step, and doubting 
 destroys all such communication. With his 
 father he was used to speak only in unison ; 
 therefore, his full heart poured itself out in mo- 
 nologues, so soon as he was by himself. 
 
 Next morning he had summoned up his reso- 
 lution ; and yet he almost lost heart and com- 
 posure again, when Julia met him with still 
 more friendliness, gaiety, and frankness, than 
 ever. She had much to ask ; about his journeys 
 by land and journeys by water ; how, when a 
 
334 GOETHE. 
 
 student, with his knapsack on his back, he had 
 roamed and climbed through Switzerland, nay, 
 crossed the Alps themselves. And now of those 
 fair islands on the great Southern Lake, she had 
 much to say; and then backwards, the Rhine 
 must be accompanied from his primary origin; 
 at first, through most undelicious regions, and 
 so downwards through many an alternation, till 
 at length, between Maynz and Coblenz, you 
 find it still worth while respectfully to dismiss 
 the old River from his last confinement, into the 
 wide world, into the sea. 
 
 Lucidor, in the course of this recital, felt him- 
 self much lightened in heart; he narrated will- 
 ingly and well, so that Julia at last exclaimed 
 in rapture: " It is thus that our other self. should 
 be !" At which phrase Lucidor again felt 
 startled and frightened ; thinking he saw in it 
 an allusion to their future pilgrimage in common 
 through life. 
 
 From his narrative duty, however, he was 
 soon relieved : for the stranger, Antoni, very 
 speedily overshadowed all mountain streams, 
 and rocky banks, and rivers whether hemmed 
 in or left at liberty. Under his guidance you 
 now went forward to Genoa; Livorno lay at no 
 great distance ; whatever was most interesting 
 in the country you took with you as fair spoil ; 
 Naples, too, was a place you should see before 
 you died ; and then, in truth, remained Constan- 
 tinople, which also was by no means to be 
 neglected. Antoni's descriptions of the wide 
 world carried the imagination of every hearer 
 along with him, though Antoni himself intro- 
 duced little fire into the subject. Julia, quite 
 enraptured, was still nowise satisfied : she longed 
 for Alexandria, Cairo, and, above all, for the 
 Pyramids : of which, by the lessons of her in- 
 tended father-in-law, she had gained some mo- 
 derate knowledge. 
 
 Lucidor, next night (he had scarcely shut his 
 door; the candle he had not put down) ex- 
 claimed : " Now, bethink thee, then ; it is grow- 
 ing serious ! Thou hast studied and meditated 
 many serious things: what avails thy law-learn- 
 ing, if thou canst not act like a man of law ? 
 View thyself as a delegate, forget thy own feel- 
 ings, and do what it would behove thee to do 
 for another. It thickens and closes round me 
 horribly ! The stranger is plainly come for the 
 sake of Lucinda ; she shows him the fairest, 
 noblest social and hospitable attentions: that 
 little fool would run through the world with any 
 one for anything or nothing. Besides, she is a 
 wag ; her interest in cities and countries is a 
 farce, by which she keeps us in silence. But 
 why do I look at the affair so perplexedly, so 
 narrowly? Is not the Oberamtmann himself 
 the most judicious, the clearest, the kindest me- 
 diator? Thou wilt tell him how thou feelest 
 and thinkest ; and he will think with thee, if 
 not likewise feel. With thy father he has all in- 
 fluence. And is not the one as well as the other 
 his daughter 1 ? What would this Antoni the 
 Traveller with Lucinda, who is born for home, 
 
 to be happy and to make happy? Let the wa- 
 vering quicksilver fasten itself to the Wandering 
 Jew : that will be a right match." 
 
 Next morning Lucidor came down, with the 
 firm purpose of speaking with the father ; and 
 waiting on him expressly to that end, at the 
 hour when he knew him to be disengaged. 
 How great was his vexation, his perplexity, on 
 learning that the Oberamtmann had been called 
 away on business, and was not expected till the 
 day after the morrow ! Julia, on this occasion, 
 seemed to be expressly in her travelling fit ; she 
 kept by the world- wanderer, and, with some 
 sportive hits at domestic economy, gave up Lu- 
 cidor to Lucinda. If our friend, viewing this 
 noble maiden from a certain distance, and under 
 one general impression, had already, with his 
 whole heart, loved her, he failed not now in 
 this nearest nearness to discover with double 
 and treble vividness in detail, all that had be- 
 fore as a whole attracted him. 
 
 The good old friend of the family now brought 
 himself forward, in place of the absent father : 
 he too had lived, had loved ; and was now, 
 after many hard buffetings and bruises of life, 
 resting at last, refreshed and cheerful, beside 
 the friend of his youth. He enlivened the con- 
 versation ; and especially expatiated on per- 
 plexities in choice of wives; relating several 
 remarkable examples of explanations, both in 
 time and too late. Lucinda appeared in all her 
 splendor. She admitted : That accident, in all 
 departments of life, and so likewise in the busi- 
 ness of marriage, often produced the best result; 
 yet that it was finer and prouder when one 
 could say he owed his happiness to himself, to 
 the silent calm conviction of his heart, to a noble 
 purpose and a quick determination. Tears stood 
 in Lucidor's eyes as he applauded this senti- 
 ment : directly afterwards, the two ladies went 
 out. The old president liked well to deal in i 
 illustrative histories; and so the conversation I 
 expanded itself into details of pleasant instances, I 
 which however, touched our hero so closely, 
 that none but a youth of as delicate manners as ! 
 his could have refrained from breaking out with j 
 his secret. He did break out, so soon as he was 
 by himself. 
 
 "I have constrained myself!'' exclaimed he: 
 " with such perplexities I will not vex my good 
 father : I have forborne to speak : for I see in 
 this worthy old man the substitute of both fa- 
 thers. To him will I speak ; to him disclose 
 the whole: he will surely bring it about; he 
 has already almost spoken what I wish. Will 
 he censure in the individual case what he 
 praises in general? To-morrow I visit him: I 
 must give vent to this oppression." 
 
 At breakfast, the old man was not present : 
 last night he had spoken, it appeared, too much ; 
 had sat too long, and likewise drunk a drop or 
 two of wine beyond his custom. Much was 
 said in his praise ; many anecdotes were re- 
 lated ; and precisely of such sayings and do- 
 ings as brought Lucidor to despair for not hav- 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 335 
 
 ing forthwith applied to him. This unpleasant 
 feeling was but aggravated, when he learned 
 that in such attacks of disorder the good old 
 man would often not make his re-appearance 
 for a week. 
 
 For social converse, a country residence has 
 ! many advantages; especially when the owners 
 of it have, for a course of years, been induced, 
 as thinking and feeling persons, to improve the 
 natural capabilities of their environs. Such 
 had been the good fortune of this spot. The 
 Oberamtmann, at first unwedded, then in a 
 long happy marriage, himself a man of fortune, 
 and occupying a lucrative post, had, according 
 to his own judgment and perception, according 
 to the taste of his wife, nay, at last according to 
 the wishes and whims of his children, laid out 
 and forwarded many larger and smaller deco- 
 rations ; which by degrees being skilfully con- 
 nected with plantations and paths, afforded to 
 the promenader a very beautiful, continually 
 varying, characteristic series of scenes. A pil- 
 grimage through these, our young hosts now 
 proposed to their guest; as in general we take 
 pleasure in showing our improvements to a 
 stranger, that so what has become habitual in 
 our eyes, may appear with the charm of novelty 
 in his, and leave with him, in permanent re- 
 membrance, its first favorable impression. 
 
 The nearest, as well as the most distant part 
 of the grounds, was peculiarly appropriate for 
 modest decorations, and altogether rural indivi- 
 dualities. Fertile hills alternated with well- 
 watered meadows ; so that the whole was 
 visible from time to time, without being flat; 
 and if the land seemed chiefly devoted to pur- 
 poses of utility, the graceful, the attractive, was 
 by no means excluded. 
 
 To the dwelling and office-houses were united 
 various gardens, orchards, and green spaces ; 
 out of which you imperceptibly passed into a 
 little wood, with a broad, clear carriage-road 
 winding up and down through the midst of it. 
 Here, in a central spot, on the most considerable 
 elevation, there had been a Hall erected, with 
 side-chambers entering from it. On coming 
 through the main-door, you saw in a large 
 mirror the most favorable prospect which the 
 country afforded ; and were sure to turn round 
 that instant, to recover yourself on the reality 
 from the effect of this its unexpected image : 
 for the approach was artfully enough contrived, 
 and all that could excite surprise was carefully 
 hid till the last moment. No one entered but 
 felt himself pleasurably tempted to turn from 
 the mirror to Nature, and from Nature to the 
 mirror. 
 
 Once in motion in this fairest, brightest, long- 
 est day, our party made a spiritual campaign 
 of it, over and through the whole. Here the 
 daughiers pointed out the evening seat of their 
 good mother, where a stately box-tree had kept 
 clear space all round it. A little farther on, 
 Lucinda s place of morning-prayer was half- 
 I roguishly exhibited by Julia: close to a little 
 
 brook, between poplars and alders, with mea- 
 dows sloping down from it, and fields stretch- 
 ing upwards. It was indescribably pretty. You 
 thought you had seen such a spot everywhere, 
 but nowhere so impressive, and so perfect in 
 its simplicity. In return for this, the young 
 master, also half against Julia's will, pointed 
 out the tiny groves, and child's gardens, which, 
 close by a snug-lying mill, were now scarcely 
 discernible : they dated from a time when Julia, 
 perhaps in her tenth year, had taken it into her 
 head to become a milleress; intending, after the 
 decease of the two old occupants, to assume the 
 management herself, and choose some brave 
 millman for her husband. 
 
 " That was at a time,'' cried Julia, " when I 
 knew nothing of towns lying on rivers, or even 
 on the sea; nothing of Genoa, of Naples, and 
 the like. Your worthy father, Lucidor, has con- 
 verted me ; of late I come seldom hither." She 
 sat down with a roguish air, on a little bench, 
 that was now scarcely large enough for her; 
 under an elder-bough, which had bent deeply 
 towards the ground: "Fie on this cowering!" 
 cried she ; then started up, and ran off with her 
 gay brother. 
 
 The remaining pair kept up a rational con- 
 versation ; and in these cases, reason approaches 
 close to the borders of feeling. Wandering over 
 changeful, simple natural objects, to contemplate 
 at leisure how cunning scheming man contrives 
 to gain some profit from them ; how his percep- 
 tion of what is laid before him, combining with 
 the feeling of his wants, does wonders, first in 
 rendering the world inhabitable, then in peo- 
 pling it, and at last in overpeopling it: all this 
 could here be talked of in detail. Lucinda gave 
 account of everything ; and, modest as she was, 
 she could not hide that these pleasant and con- 
 venient combinations of distant parts by roads, 
 had been her work, under the proposal, direc- 
 tion, or favor of her revered mother. 
 
 But as the longest day at last bends down to 
 evening, our party were at last forced to think 
 of returning ; and while devising some pleasant 
 circuit, the merry brother proposed that they 
 should take the short road, though it command- 
 ed no fine prospects, and was even in some 
 places more difficult to get over. "For," cried 
 he, "you have preached all day about your de- 
 corations and reparations, and how you have 
 improved and beautified the scene for pictorial 
 eyes and feeling hearts: let me also have my 
 turn." 
 
 Accordingly, they now set forth over ploughed 
 grounds, by coarse paths, nay, sometimes pick- 
 ing their way by stepping-stones in boggy 
 places ; till at last they perceived, at some 
 distance, a pile of machinery towering up in 
 manifold combination. More closely examined, 
 it turned out to be a large apparatus for sport 
 and games, arranged not without judgment, and 
 in a certain popular spirit. Here, fixed at suit- 
 able distances, stood a large swing-wheel, on 
 which the ascending and the descending riders 
 
336 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 might still sit horizontally, and at their ease; 
 other see-saws, swing-ropes, leaping-poles, howl- 
 ing and nine-pins courses, and whatever can be 
 fancied for variedly and equally employing and 
 diverting a crowd of people gathered on a large 
 common. " This," cried he, "is my invention, 
 my decoration ! And though my father found 
 the money, and a shrewd fellow the brain ne- 
 cessary for it, yet without me, whom you often 
 call a person of no judgment, money and brain 
 would not have come together." 
 
 In this cheerful mood, the whole four reached 
 home by sunset. Antoni also joined them ; but 
 the little Julia, not yet satisfied with this unrest- 
 ing travel, ordered her coach, and set forth on a 
 visit to a lady of her friends, in utter despair at 
 not having seen her for two days. The party 
 left behind began to feel embarrassed before 
 they were aware; it was even mentioned in 
 words that the father's absence distressed diem. 
 The conversation was about to stagnate, when 
 all at once the madcap sprang from his seat, 
 and in a few moments returned with a book, 
 proposing to read to the company. Lucinda 
 forbore not to inquire how this notion had oc- 
 curred to him, now for the first time in a twelve- 
 month. "Everything occurs to me," said he, 
 M at the proper season : this is more than you 
 can say for yourself." He read them a series 
 of genuine Antique Tales ; such as lead man 
 away from himself, flattering his wishes, and 
 making him forget all those restrictions, between 
 which, even in the happiest moments, we are 
 still hemmed in. 
 
 " What shall I do now !" cried Lucidor, when 
 at last he saw himself alone. " The hour presses 
 on: in Antoni I have no trust; he is an utter 
 stranger, I know not who he is, how he comes 
 to be here, nor what he wants ; Lucinda seems 
 to be his object; and if so, what can I expect 
 of him? Nothing remains for me but applying 
 to Lucinda herself: she must know of it, she 
 before all others. This was my first feeling : 
 why do we stray into sidepaths and subter- 
 fuges ? My first thought shall be my last, and I 
 hope to reach my aim." 
 
 On Saturday morning, Lucidor, dressed at an 
 early hour, was walking to and fro in his 
 chamber; thinking and conning over his pro- 
 jected address to Lucinda, when he heard a 
 sort of jestful contention before his door, and the 
 door itself directly afterwards went up. The 
 mad younker was shoving in a boy before him, 
 w r ith coffee and baked ware for the guest; he 
 himself carried cold meats and wine. " Go 
 thou foremost," cried the younker: "for the 
 guest must be first served ; I am used to serve 
 myself. My friend, to-day I am entering some- 
 what early and tumultuously : but let us take 
 our breakfast in peace ; then we shall see what 
 is to be done; for of our company there is no- 
 thing to be hoped. The little one is not yet 
 back from her friend ; they two have to pour 
 out their hearts together every fortnight, other- 
 wise the poor dear hearts would burst. On 
 
 Saturdays, Lucinda is good for nothing; she 
 balances her household accounts for my father; 
 she would have had me taking share in the con- 
 cern, but Heaven forbid ! When I know the I 
 price of anything, no morsel of it can I relish. : 
 Guests are expected to-morrow ; the old man . 
 has not yet got refitted ; Antoni is gone to hunt, 1 
 we will do the same." 
 
 Guns, pouches, and dogs were ready, as our 
 pair stept down into the court; and now they 
 set forth over field and hill, shooting at best 
 some leveret or so, and perhaps here and there 
 a poor indifferent undeserving bird. Meanwhile 
 they kept talking of domestic affairs, of the 
 household and company at present assembled 
 in it. Antoni was mentioned, and Lucidor failed 
 not to inquire more narrowly about him. The 
 gay younker, with some self-complaisance, as- 
 serted, that strange as the man was, and much 
 mystery as he made about himself, he, the gay 
 younker, had already seen through him and 
 through him. "Without doubt," continued he, 
 "Antoni is the son of a rich mercantile family, 
 whose large partnership concern fell to ruin at ; 
 the very time when he, in the full vigor of 
 youth, was preparing to take a cheerful and 
 active hand in their great undertakings, and 
 withal to share in their abundant profits. 
 Dashed down from the summit of his hopes, he 
 gathered himself together, and undertook to 
 perform for strangers what he was no longer in 
 a case to perform for his relatives. And so he 
 travelled through the world ; became thoroughly 
 acquainted with it and its mutual traffickings ; 
 in the meanwhile, not forgetting his own ad- 
 vantage. Unwearied diligence and tried fidelity 
 obtained and secured for him unbounded con- 
 fidence from many. Thus in all places he ac- 
 quired connections and friends ; nay, it is easy 
 to see that his fortune is as widely scattered 
 abroad as his acquaintance ; and accordingly 
 his presence is from time to time required in all 
 quarters of the world." 
 
 These things the merry younker told in a j 
 more circumstantial and simple style, intro- 
 ducing many farcical observations, as if he 
 meant to spin out his story to full length. 
 
 " How long, for instance," cried he, " has this 
 Antoni been connected with my father ! They 
 think I see nothing, because I trouble myself 
 about nothing ; but for this very reason, I see it 
 better, as I take no interest in it. To my father 
 he has intrusted large sums, who again has de- 
 posited them securely and to advantage. It 
 was but last night that he gave our old dietetic 
 friend a casket of jewels; a finer, simpler, cost- 
 lier piece of ware, I never cast my eyes on, 
 though I saw this only with a single glance, for 
 they make a secret of it. Most probably it is to 
 be consigned to the bride for her pleasure, satis- 
 faction, and future security. Antoni has set his 
 heart on Lucinda! Yet when I see them to- 
 gether, I cannot think it a well-assorted match. 
 The hop-skip would have suited him better ; I 
 believe, too, she would take him sooner than 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 337 
 
 the elder would. Many a time, I see her look- 
 ing over to the old curmudgeon, so gay and 
 sympathetic, as if she could find in her heart to 
 spring into the coach with him, and fly off at 
 full gallop." Lucidor collected himself: he 
 knew not what to answer ; all that he heard 
 obtained his internal approbation. The younker 
 proceeded: "All along the girl has had a per- 
 verted liking for old people : I believe, of a 
 truth, she would have skipped away and wed- 
 ded your father, as briskly as she would his 
 son." 
 
 Lucidor followed his companion, over stock 
 and stone, as it pleased the gay youth to lead 
 him : both forgot the chase, which at any rate 
 could not be productive. They called at a 
 farm-house, where, being hospitably received, 
 the one friend entertained himself with eating, 
 drinking, and tattling : the other again plunged 
 into meditations, and projects for turning this 
 new discovery to his own profit. 
 
 From all these narrations and disclosures, 
 Lucidor had acquired so much confidence in 
 Antoni, that immediately on their return he 
 asked for him, and hastened into the garden, 
 where he was said to be. In vain ! No soul 
 was to be seen anywhere. At last he entered 
 the door of the great Hall ; and strange enough, 
 the setting sun, reflected from the mirror, so 
 dazzled him, that he could not recognise the 
 two persons, who were sitting on the sofa; 
 though he saw distinctly that it was a lady and 
 a man, which latter was that instant warmly 
 kissing the hand of his companion. How great, 
 accordingly, was Lucidor's astonishment, when, 
 on recovering his clearness of vision, he beheld 
 Antoni sitting by Lucinda ! He was like to sink 
 through the ground : he stood, however, as if 
 rooted to the spot ; till Lucinda, in the kindest, 
 most unembarrassed manner, shifted a little to 
 a side, and invited him to take a seat on her 
 right hand. Unconsciously he obeyed her, and 
 while she addressed him, inquiring after his 
 present day's history, asking pardon for her ab- 
 sence on domestic engagements, he could scarce- 
 ly hear her voice. Antoni rose, and took his 
 leave : Lucinda, resting herself from her toil, as 
 the others were doing, invited Lucidor to a 
 short stroll. Walking by her side, he was silent 
 and embarrassed ; she, too, seemed ill at ease : 
 and had he been in the slightest degree self- 
 collected, her deep-drawn breathing must have 
 disclosed to him that she had heartfelt sighs to 
 suppress. She at last took her leave, as they ap- 
 proached the house : he on the other hand 
 turned round, at first slowly, then at a violent 
 pace, to the open country. The park was too 
 narrow for him; he hastened through the fields, 
 listening only to the voice of his heart, and 
 without eyes for the beauties of this loveliest 
 evening. When he found himself alone, and 
 his feelings were relieving their violence in a 
 shower of tears, he exclaimed : 
 
 "Already in my life, but never with such 
 fierceness, have I felt the agony which now 
 2s 
 
 makes me altogether wretched : to see the long- 
 wished-for happiness at length reach me ; hand- 
 in-hand and arm-in-arm unite with me ; and at 
 the same moment announce its eternal depar- 
 ture! I was sitting by her, I was walking by 
 her; her fluttering garment touched me, and I 
 have lost her! Reckon it not over, torture not 
 thy heart with it; be silent, and determine!" 
 
 He laid a prohibition on his lips; he held his 
 peace, and planned and meditated, stepping 
 over field and meadow and bush, not always 
 by the smoothest paths. Late at night, on re- 
 turning to his chamber, he gave voice to his 
 thoughts for a moment, and cried : " To-mor- 
 row morning I am gone ; another such day I 
 will not front." 
 
 And so, without undressing, he threw him- 
 self on the bed. Happy, healthy season of 
 youth ! He was already asleep ; the fatiguing 
 motion of the day had earned for him the 
 sweetest rest. Out of bright morning dreams, 
 however, the earliest sun awoke him : this was 
 the longest day in the year ; and for him it 
 threatened to be too long. If the grace of the 
 peaceful evening star had passed over him un- 
 noticed, he felt the awakening beauty of the 
 morning only to despair. The world was lying 
 here as glorious as ever; to his eyes it was still 
 so ; but his soul contradicted it ; all this be- 
 longed to him no longer, he had lost Lucinda. 
 
 His travelling-bag was soon packed; this he 
 was to leave behind him : he left no letter with 
 it; a verbal message in excuse of absence from 
 dinner, perhaps also from supper, might be left 
 with the groom, whom at any rate he must 
 awaken. The groom, however, was awake 
 already : Lucidor found him in the yard, walk- 
 ing with large strides before the stable-door. 
 " You do not mean to ride'?" cried the usually 
 good-natured man, with a tone of some spleen. 
 " To you I may say it ; but young master is 
 growing worse and worse. There was he 
 driving about far and near yesterday ; you 
 might have thought he would thank God for a 
 Sunday to rest in. And see, if he does not 
 come this morning before daybreak, rummages 
 about in the stable, and while I am getting up, 
 saddles and bridles your horse, flings himself 
 on it, and cries : 'Do but consider the good work 
 I am doing ! This beast keeps jogging on at a 
 staid juridical trot, I must see and rouse him 
 into a smart life-gallop.' He said something 
 just so, and other strange speeches besides." 
 
 Lucidor was doubly and trebly vexed : he 
 liked the horse, as corresponding to his own 
 character, his own mode of life : it grieved him 
 to figure his good sensible beast in the hands 
 of a madcap. His plan, too, was overturned ; 
 his purpose of flying to a college friend, with 
 whom he had lived in cheerful cordial union, 
 and in this crisis seeking refuge beside him. 
 His old confidence had been awakened, the in- 
 tervening miles were not counted ; he had 
 fancied himself already at the side of his true- 
 hearted and judicious friend, finding counsel 
 29 
 
338 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 and assuagement from bis words and looks. 
 This prospect was now cut off: yet not entirely, 
 if he could venture with the fresh pedestrian 
 limbs, which still stood at his command, to set 
 forth towards the goal. 
 
 First of all, accordingly, he struck through 
 the park; making for the open country, and the 
 road which was to lead him to his friend. Of 
 his direction he was not quite certain, when 
 looking to the left, his eye fell upon the Hermi- 
 tage, which had hitherto been kept secret from 
 him ; a strange edifice, rising with grotesque 
 joinery through bush and tree : and here, to his 
 extreme astonishment, he observed the good old 
 man, who for some days had been considered 
 sick, standing in the gallery under the Chinese 
 roof, and looking blithely through the soft morn- 
 ing. The friendliest salutation, the most pres- 
 sing entreaties to come up, Lucidor resisted 
 with excuses and gestures of haste. Nothing 
 but sympathy with the good old man, who, has- 
 tening down with infirm step, seemed every 
 moment in danger of falling to the bottom, could 
 induce him to turn thither, and then suffer him- 
 self to be conducted up. With surprise he 
 entered the pretty little hall : it had only three 
 windows, turned towards the park ; a most 
 graceful prospect : the other sides were deco- 
 rated, or rather covered, with hundreds of por- 
 traits, copperplate, or painted, which were fixed 
 in a certain order to the wall, and separated by 
 colored borders and interstices. 
 
 " I favor you, my friend, more than I do every 
 one; this is the sanctuary in which I peacefully 
 spend my last days. Here I recover myself 
 from all the mistakes, which society tempts me 
 to commit : here my dietetic errors are correct- 
 ed, and my old being is again restored to equi- 
 librium." 
 
 Lucidor looked over the place ; and being 
 well read in history, he easily observed that 
 an historical taste had presided in its arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 " Above, there, in the frieze," said the eld 
 virtuoso, "you will find the names of distin- 
 guished men in the primitive ages; then those 
 of later antiquity ; yet still only their names, 
 for how they looked would now be difficult to 
 discover. But here, in the main field, comes 
 my own life into play: here are the men whose 
 names I used to hear mentioned in my boyhood. 
 For some fifty years or so, the name of a dis- 
 tinguished man continues in the remembrance 
 of the people; then it vanishes, or becomes 
 fabulous. Though of German parentage, I was 
 born in Holland ; and for me, William of Orange, 
 Stadtholder. and King of England, is the patri- 
 arch of all common great men and heroes. 
 
 "Now, close by Wiiliam, you observe Louis 
 XIV. as the person who — " How gladly would 
 Lucidor have cut short the good old man, had 
 it but been permitted him, as it is to us the nar- 
 rators : for the whole late and latest history of 
 the world seemed impending; as from the por- 
 traits of Frederick the Great and his generals, 
 
 towards which he was glancing, was but too 
 clearly to be gathered. 
 
 And though the kindly young man could not 
 but respect his old friend's lively sympathy in 
 these things, or deny that some individual fea- 
 tures and views in this exhibitory discourse 
 might be interesting; yet at college he had heard 
 the late and latest history of Europe already: 
 and what a man has once heard, he fancies 
 himself to know forever. Lucidor's thoughts 
 were wandering far away; he heard not, he 
 scarcely saw ; and was just on the point, in spite 
 of all politeness, of flinging himself out, and 
 tumbling down the long fatal stair, when a loud 
 clapping of hands was heard from below. 
 
 While Lucidor restrained his movement, tijk 
 old man looked over through the window, and 
 a well-known voice resounded from beneath: 
 " Come down, for Heaven's sake, out of your 
 historic picture gallery, old gentleman ! Con- 
 clude your fasts and humiliations, and help me 
 to appease our young friend, when he learns it 
 Lucidor's horse I have ridden somewhat hard; 
 it has lost a shoe, and I was obliged to leave the 
 beast behind me. What will he say? He is 
 too absurd, when one behaves absurdly." 
 
 "Come up!" said the old man, and turned in 
 to Lucidor: "Now, what say you?" Lucidor 
 was silent, and the wild blade entered. The 
 discussion of the business lasted long: at length 
 it was determined to despatch the groom forth- 
 with, that he might seek the horse and take 
 charge of it. 
 
 Leaving the old man, the two younkers hast- 
 ened to the house ; Lucidor, not quite unwill- 
 ingly, submitting to this arrangement. Come 
 of it what might, within these walls the sole 
 wish of his heart was included. In such des- 
 perate cases, we are, at any rate, cut off from 
 the assistance of our free will ; and we feel 
 ourselves relieved for a moment, when, from 
 any quarter, direction and constraint takes hold 
 of us. Yet, on entering his chamber, he found 
 himself in the strangest mood; like a man who, 
 having just left an apartment of an inn, is forced 
 to return to it, by the breaking of an axle. 
 
 The gay younker fell upon the travelling-bag, 
 unpacking it all in due order; especially select- 
 ing every article of holiday apparel, which, 
 though only on the travelling scale, was to be 
 found there. He forced Lucidor to put on fresh 
 shoes and stockings ; he dressed for him his 
 clustering brown locks, and decked him at all 
 points with his best skill. Then stepping back, 
 and surveying our friend and his own handi- 
 work, from head to foot, he exclaimed : " Now, 
 then, my good fellow, you do look like a man 
 that has some pretensions to pretty damsels; 
 and serious enough, moreover, to spy about you 
 for a bride. Wait one moment ! You shall see 
 how I too can produce myself, when the hour 
 strikes. This knack I learned from your mili- 
 tary officers ; the girls are always glancing at 
 them ; so I likewise have enrolled myself among 
 a certain Soldiery; and now they look at me 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 339 
 
 too, and look again, and no soul of them knows 
 what to make of it. And so, from this looking 
 and relooking, from this surprise and attention, 
 a pretty enough result now and then arises ; 
 which, though it were not lasting, is worth en- 
 joying for the moment. 
 
 "But, come along, my friend, and do the like 
 service for me ! When you have seen me case 
 myself by piecemeal in my equipment, you will 
 not say that wit and invention have been de- 
 nied me." He now led his friend through 
 several long spacious passages of the old castle. 
 "I have quite nestled myself here," cried he. 
 "Though I care not for hiding, I like to be 
 alone ; you can do no good with other people." 
 
 They were passing by the office-rooms, just 
 as a servant came out with a patriarchal writ- 
 ing-apparatus, black, massive, and complete; 
 paper, too, was not forgotten. 
 
 "I know what is to be blotted here again," 
 cried the younker: "go thy ways, and leave 
 me the key. Take a look of the place, Lucidor ; 
 it will amuse you till I am dressed. To a friend 
 of justice, such a spot is not odious, as to a tamer 
 of horses." And with this, he pushed Lucidor 
 into the hall of judgment. 
 
 Lucidor felt himself directly in a well-known 
 and friendly element; he thought of the days 
 when he, fixed down to business, had sat at 
 such a table ; and listening and writing, had 
 trained himself to his art. Nor did he fail to 
 observe, that in this case an old stately domestic 
 Chapel had, under the change of religious ideas, 
 been converted to the service of Themis. In 
 the repositories, he found some titles and acts 
 already familiar to him : in these very matters 
 he had co-operated, while laboring in the Capi- 
 tal. Opening a bundle of papers, there came 
 into his hands a rescript, which he himself had 
 dictated ; another, of which he had been the 
 originator. Hand-writing and paper, signet and 
 
 j president's signature, everything recalled to him 
 that season of juridical effort, of youthful hope. 
 
 , And here, when he looked round, and saw the 
 Oberamtmann's chair, appointed and intended 
 for himself; so fair a place, so dignified a circle 
 of activity, which he was now like to cast away, 
 and utterly lose, all this oppressed him doubly 
 and trebly, as the form of Lucinda seemed to 
 retire from him at the same time. 
 
 He turned to go out into the open air, but 
 found himself a prisoner. His gay friend, heed- 
 
 « lessly or roguishly, had left the door locked. 
 
 I Lucidor, however, did not long continue in this 
 
 ' durance ; for the other returned ; apologised for 
 his oversight, and really called forth good humor 
 by his singular appearance. A certain audacity 
 
 ' of color and cut in his clothes was softened by 
 
 • natural taste, as even to tattooed Indians we 
 refuse not a certain approbation. "To-day," 
 
 , cried he, "the tedium of bygone days shall be 
 made good to us. Worthy friends, merry friends 
 are come; pretty girls, roguish and fond; and 
 my father, to boot ; and wonder on wonder ! 
 your father too. This will be a festival, truly; 
 
 they are all assembled for breakfast in the par- 
 lor." 
 
 With Lucidor, at this piece of information, it 
 was as if he were looking into deep fog; all the 
 figures, known and unknown, which the words 
 announced to him, assumed a spectral aspect: 
 yet his resolution, and the consciousness of a 
 pure heart, sustained him ; and, in a few se- 
 conds, he felt himself prepared for everything. 
 He followed his hastening friend with a steady 
 step, firmly determined to await the issue, be it 
 what it might, and explain his own purposes, 
 come what come might. 
 
 And yet, at the very threshold of the hall, he 
 was struck with some alarm. In a large half 
 circle, ranged round by the windows, he imme- 
 diately descried his father with the Oberamt- 
 mann, both splendidly attired. The two sisters, 
 Antoni, and others known and unknown, he 
 hurried over with a glance, which was threat- 
 ening to grow dim. Half wavering, he ap- 
 proached his father; who bade him welcome 
 with the utmost kindness, yet in a certain style 
 of formality which scarcely invited any trustful 
 application. Standing before so many persons, 
 he looked round to find a place among them for 
 the moment : he might have arranged himself 
 beside Lucinda ; but Julia, contrary to the rigor 
 of etiquette, made room for him, so that he was 
 forced to step to her side. Antoni continued 
 by Lucinda. 
 
 At this important moment, Lucidor again felt 
 as if he were a delegate; and, steeled by his 
 whole juridical science, he called up in his own 
 favor the fine maxim : That we should transact 
 affairs delegated to us by a stranger, as if they 
 were our own ; why not our own, therefore, in 
 the same spirit? Well practised in official ora- 
 tions, he speedily ran over what he had to say. 
 But the company, ranged in a formal semicircle, 
 seemed to outflank him. The purport of his 
 speech he knew well ; the beginning of it he 
 could not find. At this crisis, he observed on a 
 table, in the corner, the large ink -glass, and 
 several clerks sitting round it : the Oberamtmann 
 made a movement as if to solicit attention for a 
 speech; Lucidor wished to anticipate him ; and, 
 at that very moment, Julia pressed his hand. 
 This threw him out of all self-possession; con- 
 vinced him that all was decided, all lost for 
 him. 
 
 With the whole of these negotiations, these 
 family alliances, with social conventions and 
 rules of good manners, he had now nothing more 
 to do: he snatched his hand from Julia s, and 
 vanished so rapidly from the room, that the 
 company lost him unawares, and he out of doors 
 could not find himself again. 
 
 Shrinking from the light of day, which shone 
 down upon him in its highest splendor ; avoid- 
 ing the eyes of men ; dreading search and pur- 
 suit, he hurried forwards, and reached the large 
 garden-hall. Here his knees were like to fail 
 him ; he rushed in, and threw himself, utterly 
 I comfortless, upon the sofa beneath the mirror. 
 
340 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 1 
 
 Amid the polished arrangements of society, to 
 be caught in such unspeakable perplexity! It 
 dashed to and fro like waves about him and 
 within him. His past existence was struggling 
 with his present: it was a frightful moment. 
 
 And so he lay for a time, with his face hid 
 in the cushion, on which last night Lucinda's 
 arm had rested. Altogether sunk in his sor- 
 row, he had heard no footsteps approach ; feel- 
 ing some one touch him, he started up, and per- 
 ceived Lucinda standing by his side. 
 
 Fancying they had sent her to bring him 
 back, had commissioned her to lead him with 
 fit sisterly words into the assemblage to front 
 his hated doom, he exclaimed: "You they 
 should not have sent, Lucinda : for it was you 
 that drove me away. I will not return. Give 
 me, if you are capable of any pity, procure me 
 convenience and means of flight. For, that you 
 yourself may testify how impossible it was to 
 bring me back, listen to the explanation of my 
 conduct, which to you and all of them must 
 seem insane. Hear now the oath which I have 
 sworn in my soul, and which I incessantly re- 
 peat in words : with you only did I wish to 
 live: with you to enjoy, to employ my days, 
 from youth to old age, in true honorable union. 
 And let this be as firm and sure as aught ever 
 sworn before the altar ; this which I now swear, 
 now when I leave you, the most pitiable of all 
 men." 
 
 He made a movement to glide past her, as 
 she stood close before him ; but she caught him 
 softly in her arms. "What is this!" exclaim- 
 ed he. 
 
 "Lucidor!" cried she, "not pitiable as you 
 think : you are mine, I am yours ; I hold you in 
 my arms; delay not to throw your arms about 
 me. Your father has agreed to all; Antoni 
 marries my sister." 
 
 In astonishment he recoiled from her : " Can 
 it be?" Lucinda smiled and nodded; he drew 
 back from her arms. " Let me view once more, 
 at a distance, what is to be mine so nearly, so 
 inseparably." He grasped her hands: "Lu- 
 cinda, are you mine ?" 
 
 She answered : " Well, then, yes," the sweet- 
 est tears in the truest eyes; he clasped her to 
 his breast, and threw his head behind hers; he 
 hung like a shipwrecked mariner on the cliffs 
 of the coast ; the ground still shook under him. 
 And now his enraptured eye, again opening, 
 lighted on the mirror. He saw her there in his 
 arms, himself clasped in hers; he looked down, 
 and again to the image. Such emotions accom- 
 pany man throughout his life. In the mirror, 
 also, he beheld the landscape, which last night 
 had appeared to him so baleful and ominous, 
 now lying fairer and brighter than ever; and 
 himself in such a posture, on such a back- 
 ground! Abundant recompense for all sorrows! 
 
 "We are not alone," said Lucinda; and 
 scarcely had he recovered from his rapture, 
 when, all decked and garlanded, a company of 
 girls and boys came forward, carrying wreaths 
 
 of flowers, and crowding the entrance of the 
 Hall. "This is not the way," cried Lucinda: 
 " how prettily it was arranged, and now it is all 
 running into tumult!" A gay march sounded 
 from a distance ; and the company were seen 
 coming on by the large road in stately proces- 
 sion. Lucidor hesitated to advance towards 
 them ; only on her arm did he seem certain of 
 his steps. She stayed beside him, expecting 
 from moment to moment the solemn scene of 
 meeting, of thanks for pardon already given. 
 
 But by the capricious gods it was otherwise 
 determined. The gay clanging sound of a pos- 
 tilion's horn, from the opposite side, seemed to 
 throw the whole ceremony into rout. " Who 
 can be coming?" cried Lucinda. The thought 
 of a strange presence was frightful to Lucidor; 
 and the carriage seemed entirely unknown to 
 him. A double-seated, new, spick-and-span 
 new travelling chaise! It rolled up to the Hail. 
 A well-dressed, handsome boy sprang down; 
 opened the door; but no one dismounted; the 
 chaise was empty. The boy stept into it ; with 
 a dexterous touch or two he threw back the 
 tilts ; and there, in a twinkling, stood the 
 daintiest vehicle in readiness for the gayest 
 drive, before the eyes of the whole party, who 
 were now advancing to the spot. Antoni, out- 
 hastening the rest, led Julia to the carriage. 
 "Try if this machine," said he, "will please 
 you ; if you can sit in it, and over the smoothest 
 roads, roll through the world beside me: I will 
 lead you by no other but the smoothest ; and 
 when a strait comes, we shall know how to 
 help ourselves. Over the mountains, sumpters 
 shall carry us, and our coach also." 
 
 "You are a dear creature!" cried Julia. The 
 boy came forward ; and, with the quickness of 
 a conjurer, exhibited all the conveniences, little 
 advantages, comforts, and celerities of the whole 
 light edifice. 
 
 " On Earth I have no thanks," cried Julia ; 
 "but from this little moving Heaven, from this 
 cloud, into which you raise me, I will heartily 
 thank you." She had already bounded in, 
 throwing him kind looks and a kiss of the hand. 
 " For the present you come not hither ; but there 
 is another whom I mean to take along with me 
 in this proof excursion ; he himself has still a 
 proof to undergo." She called to Lucidor; who, 
 just then occupied in mute conversation with 
 his father and father-in-law, willingly took 
 refuge in the light vehicle ; feeling an irresist- 
 ible necessity to dissipate his thoughts in some 
 way or other, though it were but for a moment. 
 He placed himself beside her; she directed the 
 postilion where he was to drive. Instantly 
 they darted off, enveloped in a cloud of dust ; 
 and vanished from the eyes of the amazed 
 spectators. 
 
 Julia fixed herself in the corner, as firmly 
 and commodiously as she could wish. "Now 
 do you shift into that one too, good brother ; so 
 that we may look each other rightly in the 
 
 face." 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 341 
 
 Lucidor. You feel my confusion, my embar- 
 rassment: I am still as if in a dream ; help me 
 out of it. 
 
 Julia. Look at these gay peasants, how kindly 
 they salute us ! You have never seen the Upper 
 Hamlet yet, since you came hither. All good 
 substantial people there, and all thoroughly de- 
 voted to me. No one of them so rich that you 
 
 , cannot, by a time, do a little kind service to 
 him. This road, which we whirl along so 
 smoothly, is my father's doing; another of his 
 benefits to the community. 
 
 Lucidor. I believe it, and willingly admit it: 
 but what have these external things to do with 
 the perplexity of my internal feelings? 
 
 Julia. Patience a little ! I will show you the 
 riches of this world and the glory thereof. Here 
 now we are at the top ! Do but look how clear 
 the level country lies all round us leaning 
 against the mountains! All these villages are 
 much, much indebted to my father ; to mother 
 and daughters too. The grounds of yon little 
 hamlet are the border. 
 
 Lucidor. Surely you are in a very strange 
 mood : you do not seem to be saying what you 
 meant to say. 
 
 Julia. But now look down to the left; how 
 beautifully all this unfolds itself! The Church, 
 with its high lindens ; the Amthaus, with its 
 poplars, behind the village knoll ! Here, too, are 
 
 ! the garden and the park. 
 The postilion drove faster. 
 Julia. The Hall up yonder you know : it 
 looks almost as well here, as this scene does 
 from it. Here, at the tree, we shall stop a mo- 
 ment: now in this very spot our image is re- 
 flected in the large mirror ; there they see us 
 
 j full well, but we cannot see ourselves. — Go 
 
 , along, postilion ! — There, some little while ago, 
 two people, I believe, were reflected at a 
 shorter distance ; and, if I am not exceedingly 
 mistaken, to their great mutual satisfaction. 
 
 Lucidor, in ill humor, answered nothing : they 
 went on for some time in silence, driving very 
 hard. "Here," said Julia, "the bad road be- 
 gins: a service left for you to do, some day. 
 Before we go lou^r, look down once more. My 
 mother's boxtree rises with its royal summit 
 
 • over all the rest. Thou wilt drive," continued 
 she to the postilion, "down this rough road ; we 
 shall take the foot-path through the dale, and so 
 be sooner at the other side than thou." In dis- 
 mounting, she cried : " Well, now, you will con- 
 fess, the Wandering Jew, this restless Antoni 
 the Traveller, can arrange his pilgrimages pret- 
 tily enough for himself and his companions : it 
 is a very beautiful and commodious carriage." 
 
 And with this she tripped away down hill: 
 Lucidor followed her, in deep thought ; she 
 was sitting on a pleasant seat ; it was Lucinda's 
 little spot. She invited him to sit by her. 
 
 Julia. So now we are sitting here, and one is 
 nothing to the other. Thus it was destined to 
 be. The little Quicksilver would not suit you. 
 Love it you could not, it was hateful to you. 
 
 Lucidor's astonishment increased. 
 
 Julia. But Lucinda, indeed ! She is the para- 
 gon of all perfections ; and the pretty sister was 
 once for all cast out. I see it, the question 
 hovers on your lips : who has told us all so ac- 
 curately ? 
 
 Lucidor. There is treachery in it! 
 
 Julia. Yes, truly ! There has been a Traitor 
 at work in the matter. 
 
 Lucidor. Name him. 
 
 Julia. He is soon unmasked : You ! You have 
 the praiseworthy or blameworthy custom of 
 talking to yourself: and now, in the name of 
 all, I must confess that in turn we have over- 
 heard you. 
 
 Lucidor (starting up). A sorry piece of hospi- 
 tality, to lay snares for a stranger in this way! 
 
 Julia. By no means ! We thought not of 
 watching you, more than any other. But, you 
 know, your bed stands in the recess of the wall ; 
 on the opposite side is another alcove, common- 
 ly employed for laying up household articles. 
 Hither, some days before, we had shifted our 
 old man's bed ; being anxious about him in his 
 remote Hermitage : and here, the first night, 
 you started some such passionate soliloquy, 
 which he next morning took his opportunity of 
 rehearsing. 
 
 Lucidor had not the heart to interrupt her. 
 He withdrew. 
 
 Julia (rising and following him). What a 
 service this discovery did us all ! For I will 
 confess, if you were not positively disagreeable, 
 the situation which awaited me was not by any 
 means to my mind. To be Frau Oberamt- 
 mannin, what a dreadful state! To have a 
 brave gallant husband, who is to pass judgment 
 on the people ; and, for sheer judgment, cannot 
 get to justice ! Who can please neither high nor 
 low ; and, what is worst, not even himself! I 
 know what my poor mother suffered from the 
 incorruptibility, the inflexibility of my father. 
 At last, indeed, but not till her death, a certain 
 meekness took possession of him : he seemed to 
 suit himself to the world, to make a truce with 
 those evils which, till then, he had vainly 
 striven to conquer. 
 
 Lucidor (stopping short; extremely discon- 
 tented with the incident; vexed at this light 
 mode of treating it). For the sport of an evening 
 this might pass ; but to practise such a disgrac- 
 ing mystification, day and night, against an un- 
 suspicious stranger, is not pardonable. 
 
 Julia. We are all equally deep in the crime; 
 we all hearkened you : yet I alone pay the 
 penalty of eavesdropping. 
 
 Lucidor. All! So much the more unpardon- 
 able! And how could you look at me, through- 
 out the day, without blushing, whom at night 
 you were so contemptuously overreaching'? But 
 I see clearly with a glance, that your arrange- 
 ments by day were planned to make mockery 
 of me. A fine family ! And where was your 
 father's love of justice all this while! — And 
 Lucinda ! — 
 
 29* 
 
342 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 Julia. And Lucinda ! What a tone was that ! 
 You meant to say, did not you, How deeply it 
 grieved your heart to think ill of Lucinda, to 
 rank her in a class with the rest of us ? 
 
 Lucidor. I cannot understand Lucinda. 
 
 Julia. In other words this pure noble soul, 
 this peacefully composed nature, benevolence, 
 goodness itself, this woman as she should be, 
 unites with a light-minded company, with a 
 freakish sister, a spoiled brother, and certain 
 mysterious persons! That is incomprehensible! 
 
 Lucidor. Yes, indeed, it is incomprehensible. 
 
 Julia. Comprehend it then ! Lucinda, like the 
 rest of us, had her hands bound. Could you 
 have seen her perplexity, how fain she would 
 have told you all, how often she was on the 
 very eve of doing it, you would now love her 
 doubly and trebly, if indeed true love were not 
 always tenfold and hundredfold of itself. I can 
 assure you, moreover, that all of us at length 
 thought the joke too long. 
 
 Lucidor. Why did you not end it then ? 
 
 Julia. That, too, I must explain. No sooner 
 had my father got intelligence of your first mo- 
 nologue, and seen, as was easy to do, that none 
 of his children would object to such an ex- 
 change, than he determined on visiting your 
 father. The importance of the business gave 
 him much anxiety. A father alone can feel 
 the respect which is due to a father. " He 
 must be informed of it in the first place," said 
 mine, " that he may not in the end, when we 
 are all agreed, be reduced to give a forced and 
 displeased consent. I know him well : I know 
 how any thought, any wish, any purpose cleaves 
 to him ; and I have my own fears about the 
 issue. Julia, his maps and pictures, he has 
 long viewed as one thing ; he has it in his eye 
 to transport all this hither, when the young pair 
 are once settled here, and his old pupil cannot 
 change her abode so readily; on us he is to 
 bestow his holidays ; and who knows what 
 other kind friendly things he has projected? He 
 must forthwith be informed what a trick Na- 
 ture has played us, while yet nothing is declared, 
 nothing is determined." And with this, he 
 exacted from us all the most solemn promise 
 that we should observe you, and come what 
 might, retain you here till his return. How this 
 return has been protracted ; what art, toil, and 
 perseverance it has cost to gain your father's 
 consent, he himself will inform you. In short, 
 the business is adjusted ; Lucinda is yours. 
 
 And thus had the two promenaders, sharply 
 removing from their first resting-place, then 
 pausing by the way, then speaking, and walk- 
 ing slowly through the green fields, at last 
 reached the height, where another well-levelled 
 road received them. The carriage came whirl- 
 ing up : Julia in the meanwhile turned her 
 friend's attention to a strange sight. The whole 
 machinery, of which her gay brother had brag- 
 ged so much, was now alive and in motion; the 
 wheels were already heaving up and down a 
 multitude of people ; the seesaws were flying ; 
 
 maypoles had their climbers ; and many a bold 
 artful swing and spring over the heads of an 
 innumerable multitude you might see ventured. 
 The younker had set all agoing, that so the 
 guests, after dinner, might have a gay spectacle 
 awaiting them. "Thou wilt drive through the 
 Nether Hamlet," cried Julia; "the people wish 
 me well, and they shall see how well I am 
 off." 
 
 The Hamlet was empty: the young people 
 had all run to the swings and seesaws ; old 
 men and women, roused by the driver's horn, 
 appeared at doors and windows ; every one 
 gave salutations and blessings, exclaiming : " 
 what a lovely pair !" 
 
 Julia. There, do you hear ? We should have 
 suited well enough together after all ; you may 
 rue it yet. 
 
 Lucidor. But now, dear sister ! 
 
 Julia. Ha ! Now dear, when you are rid 
 of me 1 
 
 Lucidor. One single word ! On you rests a 
 heavy accusation : what did you mean by that 
 squeeze of the hand, when you knew and felt 
 my dreadful situation'? A thing so radically 
 wicked I have never met with in my life be- 
 fore. 
 
 Julia. Thank Heaven, we are now quits; 
 now all is pardoned. I had no mind for you } 
 that is certain ; but that you had utterly and ab- 
 solutely no mind for me, this was a thing which 
 no young woman could forgive ; and the squeeze 
 of the hand, observe you, was for the rogue. I 
 do confess, it was almost too roguish ; and I 
 forgive myself, because I forgive you ; and so 
 let all be forgotten and forgiven! Here is my 
 hand. 
 
 He took it ; she cried : " Here we are again ! 
 In our park again ; and so in a trice, we whirl 
 through the wide world, and back too; we 
 shall meet again." 
 
 They had reached the garden-hall ; it seemed 
 empty; the company, tired of waiting, had gone 
 out to walk. Antoni, however, and Lucinda 
 came forth. Julia stepping from the carriage 
 flew to her friend; she thanked him in a cordial 
 embrace, and restrained not the most joyful 
 tears. The brave man's cheeks reddened, his 
 features looked forth unfolded ; his eye glanced 
 moist; and a fair imposing youth shone through 
 the veil. 
 
 And so both pairs moved off to join the com- 
 pany, with feelings which the finest dream 
 could not have given them. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Thus, my friends," said Lenardo, after a 
 short preamble, " if we survey the most popu- 
 lous provinces and kingdoms of the firm Earth, 
 we observe on all sides that wherever an avail- 
 able soil appears, it is cultivated, planted, shaped, 
 beautified ; and in the same proportion, coveted, 
 taken into possession, fortified and defended. 
 Hereby we bring home to our conceptions the 
 high worth of property in land ; and are obliged 
 
GOETHE. 343 
 
 to consider it as the first and best acquirement 
 that can be allotted to man. And if on closer 
 inspection we find parental and filial love, the 
 union of countrymen and townsmen, and there- 
 fore the universal feeling of patriotism, founded 
 immediately on this same interest in the soil, 
 we cannot but regard that seizing and retaining 
 of Space, in the great or the small scale, as a 
 thing still more important and venerable. Yes, 
 Nature herself has so ordered it! A man born 
 on the glebe comes by habit to belong to it ; the 
 two grow together, and the fairest ties are spun 
 from their union. Who is there then that would 
 spitefully disturb this foundation-stone of all 
 existence ; that would blindly deny the worth 
 and dignity of such precious and peculiar gifts 
 of Heaven? 
 
 " And yet we may assert, that if what man 
 possesses is of great worth, what he does and 
 accomplishes must be of still greater. In a wide 
 view of things, therefore, we must look on pro- 
 perty in land as one small part of the possessions 
 that have been given us. Of these the greatest 
 and the most precious part consists especially 
 in what is movable, and in what is gained by a 
 moving life. 
 
 "Towards this quarter, we younger men are 
 peculiarly constrained to turn ; for though we 
 had inherited from our fathers the desire of 
 abiding and continuing, we find ourselves called 
 by a thousand causes nowise to shut our eyes 
 against a wider outlook and survey. Let us 
 hasten, then, to the shore of the Ocean, and con- 
 vince ourselves what boundless spaces are still 
 lying open to activity ; and confess that, by the 
 bare thought of this, we are roused to new vigor. 
 
 "Yet not to lose ourselves in these vast ex- 
 panses, let us direct our attention to the long 
 and large surface of so many countries and 
 kingdoms, combined together on the face of the 
 Earth. Here we behold great tracts of land 
 tenanted by Nomades ; whose towns are mov- 
 able, whose life-supporting household goods can 
 be transferred from place to place. We see 
 them in the middle of the deserts, on wide green 
 pasturages, lying as it were at anchor in their 
 desired haven. Such movement, such wander- 
 ing, becomes a habit with them, a necessity ; in 
 the end they grow to regard the surface of the 
 world as if it were not bulwarked by mountains, 
 were not cut asunder by streams. Have we 
 not seen the North-east flow towards the South- 
 west, one people driving another before it, and 
 lordship and property altogether changed? 
 
 " From over-populous countries, a similar ca- 
 lamity may again, in the great circle of vicissi- 
 tudes, occur more than once. What we have 
 to dread from foreigners, it may be difficult to 
 say ; but it is curious enough, that by our own 
 over-population, we ourselves are thronging one 
 another in our own domains, and without wait- 
 ing to be driven, are driving one another forth, 
 passing sentence of banishment each against his 
 fellow. 
 
 " Here now is the place and season for giving 
 
 scope in our bosoms, without spleen or anger, 
 to a love of movement; for unfettering that im- 
 patient wish which excites us to change our 
 abode. Yet, whatever we may purpose and 
 intend, let it be accomplished not from passion, 
 or from any other influence of force, but f rom a 
 conviction corresponding to the wisest judgment 
 and deliberation. 
 
 " It has been said, and over again said : Where 
 I am well, is my country ! But this consolatory 
 saw were better worded : Where I am useful, 
 is my country! At home, you may be useless, 
 and the fact not instantly observed ; abroad in 
 the world, the useless man is speedily convicted. 
 And now, if I say : Let each endeavor every- 
 where to be of use to himself and others, this is 
 not a precept, or a counsel, but the utterance of 
 life itself. 
 
 " Cast a glance over the terrestrial ball, and 
 for the present leave the ocean out of sight ; let 
 not its hurrying fleets distract your thoughts : 
 but fix your eye on the firm earth, and be amazed 
 to see how it is overflowed with a swarming 
 ant tribe, jostling and crossing, and running to 
 and fro forever ! So was it ordained of the Lord 
 himself, when, obstructing the Tower of Babel, 
 he scattered the human race abroad into all the 
 world. Let us praise his name on this account, 
 for the blessing has extended to all generations. 
 
 " Observe now, and cheerfully, how the young, 
 on every side, instantly get into movement. As 
 instruction is not offered them within doors, and 
 knocks not at their gates, they hasten forthwith 
 to those countries and cities whither the call of 
 science and wisdom allures them. Here, no 
 sooner have they gained a rapid and scanty 
 training, than they feel themselves impelled to 
 look round in the world, whether here and there 
 some profitable experience, applicable to their 
 objects, may not be met with and appropriated. 
 Let these try their fortune ! We turn from them 
 to those completed and distinguished men, those 
 noble inquirers into Nature, who wittingly en- 
 counter every difficulty, every peril, that to the 
 world they may lay the world open, and, through 
 the most Impassable, pave easy roads. 
 
 "But observe also, on beaten highways, how 
 dust on dust, in long cloudy trains, mounts up, 
 betokening the track of commodious top-laden 
 carriages, in which the rich, the noble, and so 
 many others, are whirled along ; whose varying 
 purposes and dispositions Yorick has most dain- 
 tily explained to us. 
 
 " These the stout craftsman, on foot, may 
 cheerily gaze after ; for whom his country has 
 made it a duty to appropriate foreign skill, and 
 not till this has been accomplished, to revisit his 
 paternal hearth. In still greater numbers, do 
 traffickers and dealers meet us on our road : the 
 little trader must not neglect, from time to time, 
 to forsake his shop that he may visit fairs and 
 markets, may approach the great merchant, and 
 increase his own small profit, by example and 
 participation of the boundless. But yet more 
 restlessly do we descry cruizing on horseback, 
 
344 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 singly, on all high and bye ways, that multitude 
 of persons whose business it is, in lawful wise, 
 to make forcible pretension to our purses. Sam- 
 ples of all sorts, prize-catalogues, invitations to 
 purchase, pursue us into town-houses and coun- 
 try-houses, and wherever we may seek refuge: 
 diligently they assault us and surprise us ; them- 
 selves offering the opportunity, which it would 
 have entered no man's mind to seek. And what 
 shall I say of that People which, before all others, 
 arrogates to itself the blessing of perpetual wan- 
 dering, and by its movable activity contrives to 
 overreach the resting, and to overstep the walk- 
 ing ? Of them we must say neither ill nor good ; 
 no good, because our League stands on its guard 
 against them ; no ill, because the wanderer, 
 mindful of reciprocal advantage, is bound to 
 treat with friendliness whomsoever he may 
 meet. 
 
 u But now, above all, we must mention with 
 peculiar affection, the whole race of artists ; for 
 they, too, are thoroughly involved in this uni- 
 versal movement. Does not the painter wan- 
 der, with pallet and easel, from face to face ; 
 and are not his kindred laborers summoned, 
 now this way, now that, because in all places 
 there is something to be built and to be fashion- 
 ed ? More briskly, however, paces the musician 
 on his way ; for he peculiarly it is, that for a 
 new ear has provided new surprise, for a fresh 
 mind fresh astonishment. Players, too, though 
 they now despise the cart of Thespis, still rove 
 about in little choirs; and their moving world, 
 wherever they appear, is speedily enough built 
 up. So likewise, individually, renouncing se- 
 rious profitable engagements, these men delight 
 to change place with place, according as rising 
 talents, combined with rising wants, furnish 
 pretext and occasion. For this success they 
 commonly prepare themselves, by leaving no 
 important stage in their native land untrodden. 
 
 " Nor let us forget to cast a glance over the 
 professorial class : these, too, you find in con- 
 tinual motion, occupying and forsaking one chair 
 after the other, to scatter richly abroad, on every 
 side the seeds of a hasty culture. More assidu- 
 ous, however, and of wider aim, are those pious 
 60uls who disperse themselves through all quar- 
 ters of the world, to bring salvation to their 
 brethren. Others, on the contrary, are pilgrim- 
 ing to seek salvation for themselves : they march 
 in hosts to consecrated, wonder-working places, 
 there to ask and receive what was denied their 
 souls at home. 
 
 "And if all these sorts of men surprise us 
 less by their wandering, as for most part, with- 
 out wandering, the business of their life were 
 impossible, of those again who dedicate their 
 diligence to the soil, we should certainly expect 
 that they, at least, were fixed. By no means ! 
 Even without possession, occupation is con- 
 ceivable ; and we behold the eager farmer for- 
 saking the ground which for years has yielded 
 him profit and enjoyment: impatiently he 
 searches after similar or greater profit, be it far 
 
 or near. Nay, the owner himself will abandon 
 his new-grubbed clearage so soon as, by his cul- 
 tivation, he has rendered it commodious for a 
 less enterprising husbandman: once more he 
 presses into the wilderness; again makes space 
 for himself in the forests ; in recompense of that 
 first toiling, a double and treble space ; on 
 which also, it may be, he thinks not to con- 
 tinue. 
 
 "There we shall leave him, bickering with 
 bears and other monsters ; and turn back into 
 the polished world, where we find the state of 
 things no whit more stationary. Do but view i 
 any great and regulated kingdom : the ablest 
 man is also the man who moves the oftenest; 
 at the beck of his prince, at the order of Irii 
 minister, the Serviceable is transferred from 
 place to place. To him also our precept will 
 apply: Everywhere endeavor to be useful, 
 everywhere you are at home. Yet if we ob- 
 serve important statesmen leaving, though re- 
 luctantly, their high stations, we have reason to 
 deplore their fate: for we can neither recog- 
 nise them as emigrators nor as migrators: not 
 as emigrators, because they forego a covetable 
 situation without any prospect of a better even 
 seeming to open ; not as migrators, because to 
 be useful in other places is a fortune seldom 
 granted them. 
 
 "For the soldier, again, a life of peculiar 
 wandering is appointed ; even in peace, now 
 this, now that post is intrusted to him ; to fight, 
 at hand or afar off for his native country, he 
 must keep himself perpetually in motion or 
 readiness to move ; and not for immediate de- 
 fence alone, but also to fulfil the remote pur- 
 poses of nations and rulers, he turns his steps 
 towards all quarters of the world ; and to few 
 of his craft is it given to find any resting-place. 
 And as, in the soldier, courage is his first and 
 highest quality, so this must always be con- 
 sidered as united with fidelity; and accord- 
 ingly we find certain nations, famous for trust- 
 worthiness, called forth from their home, and 
 serving spiritual or temporal regents as body- 
 guards. 
 
 "Another class of persons indispensable to 
 governments, and also of extreme mobility, we 
 see in those negotiators, who, despatched from 
 court to court, beleaguer princes and ministers, 
 and overnet the whole inhabited world with 
 their invisible threads. Of these men also, no 
 one is certain of his place for a moment. In 
 peace, the ablest of them are sent from country 
 to country; in war, they march behind the 
 army when victorious, prepare the way for it 
 when fugitive ; and thus are they appointed 
 still to be changing place for place; on which 
 account, indeed, they at all times carry with 
 them a stock of farewell cards. 
 
 "If hitherto at every step we have contrived 
 to do ourselves some honor, declaring as we 
 have done the most distinguished portion of 
 active men to be our mates and fellows in 
 destiny, there now remains for you, my beloved 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 345 
 
 friends, by way of termination, a glory higher 
 than all the rest, seeing you find yourselves 
 united in brotherhood with princes, kings, and 
 emperors. Think first, with blessings and 
 reverence, of the imperial wanderer Hadrian, 
 who on foot, at the head of his army, paced 
 out the circle of the world which was subject 
 to him, and thus in very deed took possession 
 of it. Think then with horror of the Conqueror, 
 that armed Wanderer, against whom no resist- 
 ance availed, no wall or bulwark could shelter 
 harmless nations. In fine, accompany with 
 honest sympathy those hapless exiled princes, 
 who, descending from the summit of the height, 
 cannot even be received into the modest guild 
 of active wanderers. 
 
 "And now while we call forth and illustrate 
 all this to one another, no narrow despondency, 
 no passionate perversion can rule over us. The 
 time is past when people rushed forth at ran- 
 dom into the wide world : by the labors of 
 scientific travellers describing wisely and copy- 
 ing like artists, we have become sufficiently ac- 
 quainted with the Earth, to know moderately 
 well what is to be looked for everywhere. 
 
 "Yet for obtaining perfect information an in- 
 dividual will not suffice. Our Society is found- 
 ed on the principle that each in his degree, for 
 his purposes, be thoroughly informed. Has any 
 one of us some country in his eye, towards 
 which his wishes are tending, we endeavor to 
 make clear to him, in special detail, what was 
 hovering before his imagination as a whole : to 
 afford each other a survey of the inhabited and 
 inhabitable world, is a most pleasant and most 
 profitable kind of conversation. 
 
 "Under this aspect, we can look upon our- 
 selves as members of a Union belonging to the 
 world. Simple and grand is the thought ; easy 
 is its execution by understanding and strength. 
 Unity is all-powerful ; no division, therefore, no 
 contention among us ! Let a man learn, we say, 
 to figure himself as without permanent external 
 relation; let him seek consistency and sequence 
 not in circumstances but in himself; there will 
 he find it; there let him cherish and nourish it. 
 He who devotes himself to the most needful 
 will in all cases advance to his purpose with 
 greatest certainty : others again, aiming at the 
 higher, the more delicate, require greater pru- 
 dence even in the choice of their path. But let 
 a man be attempting or treating what he will, 
 he is not, as an individual, sufficient for him- 
 self; and to an honest mind, society remains the 
 highest want. All serviceable persons ought 
 to be related with each other, as the building 
 proprietor looks out for an architect, and the 
 architect for masons and carpenters. 
 
 "How and on what principle this Union of 
 ours has been fixed and founded, is known to 
 all. There is no man among us, who at any 
 moment could not to proper purpose employ his 
 faculty of action ; who is not assured that in all 
 places, whither chance, inclination, or even pas- 
 sion may conduct him, he will be received, em- 
 2t 
 
 ployed, assisted ; nay, in adverse accidents, as 
 far as possible, refitted and indemnified. 
 
 "Two duties we have most rigorously under- 
 taken : first, to honor every species of religious 
 worship, for all of them are comprehended 
 more or less directly in the Creed : secondly, in 
 like manner to respect all forms of government; 
 and since every one of them induces and pro- 
 motes a calculated activity, to labor according 
 to the wish and will of constituted authorities, 
 in whatever place it may be our lot to sojourn, 
 and for whatever time. Finally, we reckon it 
 our duty, without pedantry or rigor, to practise 
 and forward decorum of manners and morals, 
 as required by that Reverence for ourselves, 
 which arises from the Three Reverences ; 
 whereto we universally profess our adherence ; 
 having all had the joy and good fortune, some 
 of us from youth upwards, to be initiated like- 
 wise in the higher general Wisdom taught in 
 certain cases by those venerable men. All this, 
 in the solemn hour of parting, we have thought 
 good once more to recount, to unfold, to hear 
 and acknowledge, as also to seal with a trustful 
 Farewell. « 
 
 Keep not standing fix'd and rooted, 
 Briskly venture, briskly roam ! 
 
 Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, 
 And stout heart are still at home. 
 
 In each land the sun does visit, 
 We are gay whate'er betide ; 
 
 To give space for wand'ring is it 
 That the world was made so wide." 
 
 NOVELLE. 
 
 FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 16 32.* 
 
 The spacious courts of the Prince's Castle 
 were still veiled in thick mists of an autumnal 
 morning; through which veil, meanwhile, as it 
 melted into clearness, you could more or less 
 discern the whole Hunter-company, on horse- 
 back and on foot, all busily astir. The hasty 
 occupations of the nearest were distinguishable : 
 there was lengthening, shortening of stirrup-lea- 
 thers ; there was handing of rifles and shot- 
 pouches, there was putting of game-bags to 
 rights ; while the hounds, impatient in their 
 leashes, threatened to drag their keepers off 
 with them. Here and there, too, a horse showed 
 spirit more than enough ; driven on by its fiery 
 nature, or excited by the spur of its rider, who 
 even now in the half-dusk could not repress a 
 certain self-complacent wish to exhibit himself. 
 All waited however on the Prince, who, taking 
 leave of his young consort, was now delaying 
 too long. 
 
 United a short while ago, they already felt 
 the happiness of consentaneous dispositions ; 
 both were of active vivid character; each will- 
 ingly participated in the tastes and endeavors 
 of the other. The Prince's father had already, 
 in his time, discerned and improved the season 
 
 * Translated by Thomas Carlyle. 
 
346 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 when it became evident that all members of 
 the commonwealth should pass their days in 
 equal industry; should all, in equal working 
 and producing, each in his kind, first earn and 
 then enjoy. 
 
 How well this had prospered was visible in 
 these very days, when the head-market was a 
 holding, which you might well enough have 
 named a fair. The Prince yester-even had led 
 his Princess on horseback through the tumult 
 of the heaped-up wares; and pointed out to her 
 how on this spot the Mountain region met the 
 Plain country in profitable barter : he could 
 here, with the objects before him, awaken her 
 attention to the various industry of his Land. 
 
 If the Prince at this time occupied himself 
 and his servants almost exclusively with these 
 pressing concerns, and in particular worked in- 
 cessantly with his Finance-minister, yet would 
 the Huntmaster too have his right; on whose 
 pleading, the temptation could not be resisted 
 to undertake, in this choice autumn weather, a 
 Hunt that had already been postponed ; and so 
 for the household itself, and for the many stran- 
 ger visitants, prepare a peculiar and singular 
 festivity. 
 
 The Princess staid behind with reluctance : 
 but it was proposed to push far into the Moun- 
 tains, and stir up the peaceable inhabitants of 
 the forests there with an unexpected invasion. 
 
 At parting, her lord failed not to propose a 
 ride for her, with Friedrich, the Prince-Uncle, 
 as escort: "I will leave thee," said he, "our 
 Honoiio too, as Equerry and Page, who will 
 manage all." In pursuance of which words, 
 he, in descending, gave to a handsome young 
 man the needful injunctions ; and soon thereafter 
 disappeared with guests and train. 
 
 The Princess, who had waved her handker- 
 chief to her husband while still down in the 
 court, now retired to the back apartments, which 
 commanded a free prospect towards the Moun- 
 tains; and so much the lovelier, as the Castle 
 itself stood on a sort of elevation, and thus, be- 
 hind as well as before, afforded manifold mag- 
 nificent views. She found the fine telescope 
 still in the position where they had left it yes- 
 ter-even, when amusing themselves over bush 
 and hill and forest-summit, with the lofty ruins 
 of the primeval Stammburg, or Family Tower; 
 which in the clearness of evening stood out 
 noteworthy, as at that hour with its great light- 
 and-shade masses, the best aspect of so venera- 
 ble a memorial of old time was to be had. This 
 morning too, with the approximating glasses, 
 might be beautifully seen the autumnal tinge 
 of the trees, many in kind and number, which 
 had struggled up through the masonry unhin- 
 dered and undisturbed during long years. The 
 fair dame, however, directed the tube somewhat 
 lower, to a waste stony flat, over which the 
 Hunting-train was to pass : she waited the mo- 
 ment with patience, and was not disappointed : 
 for with the clearness and magnifying power 
 of the instrument her glancing eyes plainly dis- 
 
 tinguished the Prince and the Head-Equerry; 
 nay, she forbore not again to wave her hand- 
 kerchief, as some momentary pause and looking- 
 back was fancied perhaps, rather than observed. 
 
 Prince-Uncle, Friedrich by name, now with 
 announcement, entered, attended by his Painter, 
 who carried a large portfolio under his arm. 
 " Dear Cousin," said the hale old gentleman, 
 "we here present you with the Views of the 
 Stammburg, taken on various sides to show how 
 the mighty Pile, warred on and warring, hag 
 from old times fronted the year and its weather; 
 how here and there its wall had to yield, here 
 and there rush down into waste ruins. How- 
 ever, we have now done much to make the 
 wild mass accessible ; for more there wants not 
 to set every traveller, every visitor, into asto- 
 nishment, into admiration." 
 
 As the Prince now exhibited the separate 
 leaves, he continued: "Here where, advancing 
 up the hollow-way, through the outer ring-walls, 
 you reach the Fortress proper, rises against us a 
 rock, the firmest of the whole mountain; on 
 this there stands a tower built, yet when Nature 
 leaves off, and Art and Handicraft begin, no one 
 can distinguish. Farther you perceive side- 
 wards walls abutting on it, and donjons terrace- 
 wise stretching down. But I speak wrong, for 
 to the eye it is but a wood that encircles that 
 old summit; these hundred and fifty years no 
 axe has sounded there, and the massiest stems 
 have on all sides sprung up : wherever you 
 press inwards to the walls, the smooth maple, 
 the rough oak, the taper pine, with trunk and 
 roots oppose you ; round these we have to wind, 
 and pick our footsteps with skill. Do but look 
 how artfully our Master has brought the cha- 
 racter of it on paper : how the roots and stems, 
 the species of each distinguishable, twist them- 
 selves among the masonry, and the huge boughs 
 come looping through the holes. It is a wilder- 
 ness like no other; an accidentally unique lo- 
 cality, where ancient traces of long- vanished 
 power of Man, and the ever-living, ever-working 
 power of Nature show themselves in the most 
 earnest conflict.' 
 
 Exhibiting another leaf, he went on : " What 
 say you now to the Castle-court, which, become 
 inaccessible by the falling in of the old gate- 
 tower, had for immemorial time been trodden 
 by no foot? We sought to get at it by a side; 
 have pierced through walls, blasted vaults asun- 
 der, and so provided a convenient but secret 
 way. Inside it needed no clearance ; here 
 stretches a flat rock-summit, smoothed by nature ; 
 but yet strong trees have in spots found luck 
 and opportunity for rooting themselves there; 
 they have softly but decidedly grown up, and 
 now stretch out their boughs into the galleries 
 where the knights once walked to and fro ; nay, 
 through the doors and windows into the vaulted 
 halls; out of which we would not drive them \ 
 they have even got the mastery, and may keep 
 it. Sweeping away deep strata of leaves, we 
 have found the notablest place all smoothed, 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 347 
 
 the like of which were perhaps not to be met 
 with in the world. 
 
 "After all this, however, it is still to be re- 
 marked, and on the spot itself well worth ex- 
 amining, how on the steps that lead up to the 
 main tower, a maple has struck root and fa- 
 shioned itself to a stout tree, so that you can 
 hardly with difficulty press by it, to mount the 
 battlements and gaze over the unbounded pros- 
 pect. Yet here, too, you linger pleased in the 
 shade ; for that tree is it which high over the 
 whole wondrously lifts itself into the air. 
 
 « Let us thank the brave Artist, then, who so 
 deservingly in various pictures teaches us the 
 whole, even as if we saw it: he has spent the 
 fairest hours of the day and of the season there- 
 in, and for weeks long kept moving about these 
 scenes. Here in this corner has there for him, 
 and the warder we gave him, been a little 
 pleasant dwelling fitted up. You could not 
 think, my Best, what a lovely outlook into the 
 country, into court and walls, he has got there. 
 But now when all is once in outline, so pure, so 
 characteristic, he may finish it down here at his 
 ease. With these pictures we will decorate 
 our garden-hall; and no one shall recreate his 
 eyes over our regular parterres, our groves and 
 shady walks, without wishing himself up there, 
 to follow, in actual sight of the old and of the 
 new, of the stubborn, inflexible, indestructible, 
 and of the fresh, pliant, irresistible, what reflec- 
 tions and comparisons would rise for him." 
 
 Honorio entered, with notice that the horses 
 were brought out; then said the Princess, turn- 
 ing to the Uncle: "Let us ride up; and you 
 will show me in reality what you have here set 
 before me in image. Ever since I came among 
 you, I have heard of this undertaking ; and 
 should now like of all things to see with my 
 own eyes what in the narrative seemed impos- 
 sible, and in the depicting remains improbable.' 1 
 — " Not yet, my Love," answered the Prince : 
 " what you here saw is what it can become and 
 is becoming : for the present much in the enter- 
 prise stands still amid impediments; Art must 
 first be complete, if Nature is not to shame it." 
 — " Then let us ride at least upwards, were it 
 only to the foot: I have the greatest wish to-day 
 to look about me far in the world." — "Altogether 
 as you will it," replied the Prince. — "Let us 
 ride through the Town, however," continued 
 the Lady, " over the great market-place, where 
 stands the innumerable crowd of booths, look- 
 ing like a little city, like a camp. It is as if the 
 wants and occupations of all the families in the 
 land were turned outwards, assembled in this 
 centre, and brought into the light of day: for 
 the attentive observer can descry whatsoever it 
 is that man performs and needs ; you fancy, for 
 the moment, there is no money necessary, that 
 all business could here be managed by barter, 
 and so at bottom it is. Since the Prince, last 
 night, set me on these reflections, it is pleasant 
 to consider how here, where Mountain and 
 Plain meet together, both so clearly speak out 
 
 what they require and wish. For as the High- 
 lander can fashion the timber of his woods into 
 a hundred shapes, and mould his iron for all 
 manner of uses, so these others from below 
 come to meet him with most manifold wares, 
 in which often you can hardly discover the 
 material or recognise the aim." 
 
 "I am aware," answered the Prince, "that 
 my Nephew turns his utmost care to these 
 things : for specially, on the present occasion, 
 this main point comes to be considered, that one 
 receive more than one give out: which to 
 manage is, in the long run, the sum of all 
 Political Economy, as of the smallest private 
 housekeeping. Pardon me, however, my Best: 
 I never like to ride through markets; at every 
 step you are hindered and kept back ; and then 
 flames up in my imagination the monstrous 
 misery, which, as it were, burnt itself into my 
 eyes, when I witnessed one such world of 
 wares go off in fire. I had scarcely got to " 
 
 " Let us not lose the bright hours," interrupted 
 the Princess, for the worthy man had already 
 more than once afflicted her with the minute 
 description of that mischance : how he being 
 on a long journey, resting in the best inn, on the 
 market-place which was just then swarming 
 with a fair, had gone to bed exceedingly fa- 
 tigued ; and in the night-time been, by shrieks, 
 and flames rolling up against his lodging, hide- 
 ously awakened. 
 
 The Princess hastened to mount her favorite 
 horse : and led, not through the backgate up- 
 wards, but through the foregate downwards, 
 her reluctant-willing attendant : for who but 
 would gladly have ridden by her side, who but 
 would gladly have followed after her. And so 
 Honorio too had without regret staid back from 
 the otherwise so wished-for Hunt, to be exclu- 
 sively at her service. 
 
 As was to be anticipated, they could only 
 ride through the market step by step ; but the 
 fair Lovely one enlivened every stoppage by 
 some sprightly remark. "I repeat my lesson of 
 yester-night," said she, " since Necessity is try- 
 ing our patience." And in truth, the whole 
 mass of men so crowded about the riders, that 
 their progress was slow. The people gazed 
 with joy at the young dame ; and, on so many 
 smiling countenances, might be read the plea- 
 sure they felt to see that the first woman in the 
 land was also the fairest and gracefullest. 
 
 Promiscuously mingled stood, Mountaineers, 
 who had built their still dwellings amid rocks, 
 firs, and spruces; Lowlanders from hills, mea- 
 dows, and leas ; craftsmen of the little towns ; 
 and what else had all assembled there. After 
 a quiet glance, the Princess remarked to her 
 attendant, how all these, whencesoever they 
 came, had taken more stuff than necessary for 
 their clothes, more cloth and linen, more ribands 
 for trimming. It is as if the woirlen could not 
 be bushy enough, the men not puffy enough, to 
 please themselves. 
 
 " We will leave them that," answered the 
 
348 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 uncle: "spend his superfluity on what he will, 
 a man is happy in it ; happiest when he there- 
 with decks and dizens himself." The fair 
 dame nodded assent. 
 
 So had they by degrees got upon a clear 
 space, which led out to the suburbs, when, at 
 the end of many small booths and stands, a 
 larger edifice of boards showed itself, which 
 was scarcely glanced at till an ear-lacerating 
 bellow sounded forth from it. The feeding- 
 hour of the wild beasts there exhibited seemed 
 to have come : the Lion let his forest and 
 desert-voice be heard in all vigor; the horses 
 shuddered, and all must remark how, in the 
 peaceful ways and workings of the cultivated 
 world, the King of the wilderness so fearfully 
 announced himself. Coming nearer the booth, 
 you could not overlook the variegated colossal 
 pictures representing with violent colors and 
 strong emblems those foreign beasts ; to a sight 
 of which the peaceful burgher was to be irre- 
 sistibly enticed. The grim monstrous tiger was 
 pouncing on a blackamoor, on the point of tear- 
 ing him in shreds; a lion stood earnest and 
 majestic, as if he saw no prey worthy of him ; 
 other wondrous party-colored creatures, beside 
 these mighty ones, deserved less attention. 
 
 "As we come back," said the Princess, "we 
 will alight and take a nearer view of these 
 gentry." — " It is strange," observed the Prince, 
 " that man always seeks excitement by Terror. 
 Inside, there, the Tiger lies quite quiet in his 
 cage; and here must he ferociously dart upon 
 a black, that the people may fancy the like is 
 to be seen within : of murder and sudden death, 
 of burning and destruction, there is not enough ; 
 but ballad-singers must at every corner keep 
 repeating it. Good man will have himself 
 frightened a little ; to feel the better, in secret, 
 how beautiful and laudable it is to draw breath 
 in freedom." 
 
 Whatever of apprehensiveness from such 
 bugbear images might have remained was soon 
 all and wholly effaced, as, issuing through the 
 gate, our party entered on the cheerful lest of 
 scenes. The road led first up the River, as yet 
 but a small current, and bearing only light 
 boats, but which by and by, as a renowned world- 
 stream, would carry forth its name and waters, 
 and enliven distant lands. They proceeded 
 next through well-cultivated fruit-gardens and 
 pleasure-grounds, softly ascending; and by de- 
 grees you could look about you in the now-dis- 
 closed much-peopled region, till first a thicket, 
 then a little wood admitted our riders, and the 
 gracefullest localities refreshed and limited their 
 view. A meadow vale leading upwards, shortly 
 before mown for the second time, velvet-like to 
 look upoz), watered by a brook rushing out lively 
 copious at once from the uplands above, received 
 them as with welcome ; and so they approached 
 a higher freer station, which, on issuing from 
 the wood, after a stiff ascent, they gained ; and 
 could now descry, over new clumps of trees, 
 the old Castle, the goal of their pilgrimage, 
 
 rising in the distance, as pinnacle of the rock 
 and forest. Backwards, again (for never did 
 one mount hither without turning round), they 
 caught, through accidental openings of the high 
 trees, the Prince's Castle, on the left, lightened 
 by the morning sun ; the well-built higher quar- 
 ter of the Town softened under light smoke- 
 clouds ; and so on, rightwards, the under Town, 
 the River in several bendings with its meadows 
 and mills ; on the farther side, an extensive fer- 
 tile region. 
 
 Having satisfied themselves with the pros- 
 pect, or rather as usually happens when we 
 look round from so high a station, become 
 doubly eager for a wider, less limited view, they 
 rode on, over a broad stony flat, where the 
 mighty Ruin stood fronting them, as a green- 
 crowned summit, a few old trees far down 
 about its foot : they rode along ; and so arrived 
 there, just at the steepest most inaccessible side. 
 Great rocks jutting out from of old, insensible 
 of every change, firm, well-founded, stood 
 clenched together there ; and so it towered up- 
 wards: what had fallen at intervals lay in huge 
 plates and fragments confusedly heaped, and 
 seemed to forbid the boldest any attempt. But 
 the steep, the precipitous is inviting to youth: 
 to undertake it, to storm and conquer it, is for 
 young limbs an enjoyment. The Princess testi- 
 fied desire for an attempt ; Honorio was at her 
 hand • the Prince-Uncle, if easier to satisfy, took 
 it cheerfully, and would show that he too had 
 strength ; the horses were to wait below among 
 the trees ; our climbers make for a certain point, 
 where a huge projecting rock affords a standing- 
 room, and a prospect, which indeed is already 
 passing over into the bird's-eye kind, yet folds 
 itself together there picturesquely enough. 
 
 The sun, almost at its meridian, lent the 
 clearest light; the Prince's Castle, with its com- 
 partments, main buildings, wings, domes, and 
 towers, lay clear and stately; the upper Town 
 in its whole extent; into the lower also you 
 could conveniently look, nay, by the telescope 
 distinguish the booths in the market-place. So 
 furthersome an instrument Honorio would never 
 leave behind : they looked at the River up- 
 wards and downwards, on this side the moun- 
 tainous, terrace-like, interrupted expanse, on 
 that the ups welling, fruitful land, alternating in 
 level and low hill; places innumerable ; for it 
 was long customary to dispute how many of 
 them were here to be seen. 
 
 Over the great expanse lay a cheerful still- 
 ness, as is common at noon ; when, as the 
 Ancients were wont to say, Pan is asleep, and 
 all Nature holds her breath not to awaken 
 him. 
 
 "It is not the first time," said the Princess, 
 " that I, on some such high far-seeing spot, have 
 reflected how Nature all clear looks so pure and 
 peaceful, and gives you the impression as if 
 there were nothing contradictory in the world ; 
 and yet when you return back into the habita- 
 tion of man, be it lofty or low, wide or narrow, 
 
GOE 
 
 there is ever somewhat to contend with, to 
 battle with, to smooth and put to rights." 
 
 Honorio who, meanwhile, was looking through 
 the glass at the Town, exclaimed: "See! see! 
 There is fire in the market !'' They looked, and 
 could observe some smoke, the flames were 
 smothered in the daylight. "The fire spreads!" 
 cried he, still looking through the glass; the 
 mischief indeed now became noticeable to the 
 good eyes of the Princess; from time to time 
 you observed a red burst of flame, the smoke 
 mounted aloft; and Prince-Uncle said: "Let 
 us return ; that is not good : I always feared I 
 should see that misery a second time." They 
 descended, got back to their horses. " Ride," 
 said the Princess to the Uncle, "fast, but not 
 without a groom; leave me Honorio, we will 
 follow without delay." The Uncle felt the 
 reasonableness, nay necessity of this; and 
 started off down the waste stony slope, at the 
 quickest pace the ground allowed. 
 
 As the Princess mounted, Honorio said : 
 "Please your Excellency to ride slow! In the 
 Town as in the Castle, the fire-apparatus is in 
 perfect order; the people, in this unexpected 
 accident, will not lose their presence of mind. 
 Here, moreover, we have bad ground, little 
 stones and short grass ; quick riding is unsafe ; 
 in any case, before we arrive, the fire will be 
 got under." The Princess did not think so ; 
 she observed the smoke spreading, she fancied 
 that she saw a flame flash up, that she heard 
 an explosion; and now in her imagination all 
 the terrific things awoke, which the worthy 
 Uncle's repeated narrative of his experiences in 
 that market-conflagration had too deeply im- 
 planted there. 
 
 Frightful doubtless had that business been, 
 alarming and impressive enough to leave be- 
 hind it, painfully through life long, a boding and 
 image of its recurrence, when, in the night- 
 season, on the great booth-covered market-space, 
 a sudden fire had seized booth after booth, be- 
 fore the sleepers in these light huts could be 
 shaken out of deep dreams : the Prince himself, 
 as a wearied stranger arriving only for rest, 
 started from his sleep, sprang to the window, 
 saw all fearfully illuminated; flame after flame, 
 from the right, from the left, darting through 
 each other, rolls quivering towards him. The 
 houses of the market-place, reddened in the 
 shine, seemed already glowing, threatened every 
 moment to kindle, and burst forth in fire : be- 
 low, the element raged without let; planks 
 cracked, laths cracked, the canvass flew abroad, 
 and its dusky fire-peaked tatters whirled them- 
 selves round and aloft, as if bad spirits, in their 
 own element, with perpetual change of shape, 
 were, in capricious dance, devouring one another; 
 and there and yonder would dart up out from 
 their penal fire. And then with wild howls 
 each saved what was at hand : servants and 
 masters labored to drag forth bales already 
 seized by the flames, to snatch away yet some- 
 what from the burning shelves, and pack it into 
 
 THE. 349 
 
 the chests, which too they must at last leave a 
 prey to the hastening flame. How many a one 
 could have prayed but for a moment's pause to 
 the loud-advancing fire ; as he looked round for 
 the possibility of some device, and was with 
 all his possession already seized : on the one 
 side, burnt and glowed already, what on the 
 other still stood in dark night. Obstinate 
 characters, will-strong men grimly fronted the 
 grim foe, and saved much, with loss of their 
 eyebrows and hair. Alas, all this waste con- 
 fusion now rose anew before the fair spirit of 
 the Princess ; the gay morning prospect was all 
 overclouded, and her eyes darkened ; wood and 
 meadow had put on a look of strangeness, of 
 danger. 
 
 Entering the peaceful vale, heeding little its 
 refreshing coolness, they were but a few steps 
 down from the copious fountain of the brook 
 which flowed by them, when the Princess 
 descried, quite down in the thickets, something 
 singular, which she soon recognised for the 
 tiger: springing on, as she a short while ago 
 had seen him painted, he came towards her ; 
 and this image, added to the frightful ones she 
 was already busy with, made the strangest im- 
 pression. " Fly ! your Grace," cried Honorio, 
 " fly !" She turned her horse towards the steep 
 hill they had just descended. The young man, 
 rushing on towards the monster, drew his pistol 
 and fired when he thought himself near enough; 
 but, alas, without effect; the tiger sprang to a 
 side, the horse faltered, the provoked wild beast 
 followed his course, upwards straight after the 
 Princess. She galloped, what her horse could, 
 up the steep stony space ; scarcely apprehend- 
 ing that so delicate a creature, unused to such 
 exertion, could not hold out. It overdid itself, 
 driven on by the necessitated Princess; it 
 stumbled on the loose gravel of the steep, and 
 again stumbled ; and at last fell, after violent 
 efforts, powerless to the ground. The fair dame, 
 resolute and dextrous, failed not instantly to get 
 upon her feet ; the horse too rose, but the tiger 
 was approaching; though not with vehement 
 speed ; the uneven ground, the sharp stones 
 seemed to damp his impetuosity; and only 
 Honorio flying after him, riding with checked 
 speed along with him, appeared to stimulate 
 and provoke his force anew. Both runners, at 
 the same instant, reached the spot where the 
 Princess was standing by her horse : the Knight 
 bent himself, fired, and with this second pistol 
 hit the monster through the head, so that it 
 rushed down; and now, stretched out in full 
 length, first clearly disclosed the might and 
 terror whereof only the bodily hull was left 
 lying. Honorio had sprung from his horse ; 
 was already kneeling on the beast, quenching 
 its last movements, and held his drawn hanger 
 in his right hand. The youth was beautiful; 
 he had come dashing on as in sports of the 
 lance and the ring the Princess had often seen 
 him do. Even so in the riding-course would 
 his bullet, as he darted by, hit the Turk s head 
 30 
 
350 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 on the pole, right under the turban in the brow; 
 even so would he, lightly prancing up, prick his 
 naked sabre into the fallen mass, and lift it 
 from the ground. In all such arts he was dex- 
 trous and felicitous; both now stood him in 
 good stead. 
 
 " Give him the rest," said the Princess : " I 
 fear he will hurt you with his claws." — "Par- 
 don!" answered the youth: "he is already dead 
 enough ; and I would not hurt the skin, which 
 next winter shall shine upon your sledge." — 
 "Sport not," said the Princess: "whatsoever of 
 pious feeling dwells in the depth of the heart 
 unfolds itself in such a moment." — "I too," 
 cried Honorio, " was never more pious than 
 even now ; and therefore do I think of what is 
 joyfullest; I look at the tiger's fell only as it 
 can attend you to do you pleasure." — " It would 
 for ever remind me," said she, "of this fearful 
 moment." — "Yet is it," replied the youth with 
 glowing cheeks, "a more harmless spoil than 
 when the weapons of slain enemies are carried 
 for show before the victor." — "I shall bethink 
 me, at sight of it, of your boldness and clever- 
 ness ; and need not add that you may reckon 
 on my thanks and the Prince's favor for your 
 life long. But rise ; the beast is clean dead, let 
 us consider what is next: before all things 
 rise!" — "As I am once on my knees," replied 
 the youth, " once in a posture which in other 
 circumstances would have been forbid, let me 
 beg at this moment to receive assurance of the 
 favor, of the grace which you vouchsafe me. I 
 have already asked so often of your high con- 
 sort for leave and promotion to go on my travels. 
 He who has the happiness to sit at your table, 
 whom you honor with the privilege to entertain 
 your company, should have seen the world. 
 Travellers stream in on us from all parts; and 
 when a town, an important spot in any quarter 
 of the world comes in course, the question is 
 sure to be asked of us, were we ever there ? 
 Nobody allows one sense, till one has seen all 
 that: it is as if you had to instruct yourself only 
 for the sake of others." 
 
 "Rise!" repeated the Princess : "I were loth 
 to wish or request aught that went against the 
 will of my Husband ; however, if I mistake not, 
 the cause why he has restrained you hitherto 
 will soon be at an end. His intention was to 
 see you ripened into a complete self-guided 
 nobleman, to do yourself and him credit in 
 foreign parts, as hitherto at court; and I should 
 think this deed of yours was as good a recom- 
 mendatory passport as a young man could wish 
 for to take abroad with him." 
 
 That, instead of a youthful joy, a certain 
 mournfulness came over his face, the Princess 
 had not time to observe, nor had he to indulge 
 his emotion; for, in hot haste, up the steep, 
 came a woman, with a boy at her hand, straight 
 to the group so well known to us ; and scarcely 
 had Honorio, bethinking him, arisen, when they 
 howling and shrieking cast themselves on the 
 carcass ; by which action, as well as by their 
 
 cleanly decent, yet party-colored and unusual 
 dress, might be gathered that it was the mistress 
 of this slain creature, and the black-eyed black- 
 locked boy, holding a flute in his hand, her son; 
 weeping like his mother, less violent but deeply 
 moved, kneeling beside her. 
 
 Now came strong outbreakings of passion 
 from this woman ; interrupted, indeed, and 
 pulse-wise ; a stream of words, leaping like a 
 stream in gushes from rock to rock. A natural 
 language, short and discontinuous, made itself 
 impressive and pathetic: in vain should we 
 attempt translating it into our dialects ; the ap- 
 proximate purport of it we must not omit. " They 
 have murdered thee, poor beast! murdered 
 without need! Thou wert tame, and wouldst 
 fain have laid down at rest and waited our 
 coming ; for thy foot-balls were sore, thy claws 
 had no force left. The hot sun to ripen them 
 was wanting. Thou wert the beautifullest of 
 thy kind: who ever saw a kingly tiger so glori- 
 ously stretched out in sleep, as thou here liest, 
 dead, never to rise more. When thou awokest 
 in the early dawn of morning, and openedst thy 
 throat, stretching out thy red tongue, thou wert 
 as if smiling on us ; and even when bellowing, 
 thou tookest thy food from the hands of a 
 woman, from the fingers of a child. How long 
 have we gone with thee on thy journeys ; how 
 long has thy company been useful and fruitful 
 to us ! To us, to us of a very truth, meat came 
 from the eater, and sweetness out of the strong. 
 So will it be no more. Wo ! wo !" 
 
 She had not done lamenting, when over the 
 smoother part of the Castle Mountain, came 
 riders rushing down ; soon recognised as the 
 Prince's Hunting-train, himself the foremost. 
 Following their sport, in the backward hills, 
 they had observed the fire-vapors ; and fast 
 through dale and ravine, as in fierce chase, 
 taken the shortest path towards this mournful 
 sign. Galloping along the stony vacancy, they 
 stopped and stared at sight of the unexpected 
 group, which in that empty expanse stood out 
 so mark worthy. After the first recognition there 
 was silence; some pause of breathing-time ; 
 and then what the view itself did not impart,, 
 was with brief words explained. So stood the 
 Prince, contemplating the strange unheard-of 
 incident; a circle round him of riders, and 
 followers that had run on foot. What to do was 
 still undetermined ; the Prince intent on order- 
 ing, executing, when a man pressed forward 
 into the circle ; large of stature, party-colored, 
 wondrously-apparelled, like wife and child. 
 And now the family in union testified their 
 sorrow and astonishment. The man. however, 
 soon restrained himself, bowed in reverent dis- 
 tance before the Prince, and said: "It is not 
 the time for lamenting; alas, my lord and 
 mighty hunter, the lion too is loose, hither to- 
 wards the mountains is he gone : but spare 
 him, have mercy that he perish not like this 
 good beast." 
 
 " The Lion !" said the Prince : « Hast thou the 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 351 
 
 trace of him ?" — " Yes, Lord ! A peasant down 
 there, who had heedlessly taken shelter on a 
 tree, directed me farther up this way, to the left; 
 but I saw the crowd of men and horses here ; 
 anxious for tidings of assistance, I hastened 
 hither." — "So then," commanded the Prince, 
 "draw to the left, Huntsmen; you will load 
 your pieces, go softly to work, if you drive him 
 into the deep woods, it is no matter : but in the 
 end, good man, we shall be obliged to kill your 
 animal; why were you improvident enough to 
 let him loose?" — "The fire broke out," replied 
 he, " we kept quiet and attentive ; it spread fast, 
 but at a distance from us, we had water enough 
 for our defence ; but a heap of powder blew 
 up, and threw the brands on to us, and over our 
 heads: we were too hasty, and are now ruined 
 people." 
 
 The Prince was still busy directing ; but for 
 a moment all seemed to pause, as a man was 
 observed hastily springing down from the 
 heights of the old Castle ; whom the troop soon 
 recognised for the watchman that had been sta- 
 tioned there to keep the Painter's apartments, 
 while he lodged there and took charge of the 
 workmen. He came running, out of breath, 
 yet in few words soon made known that the 
 Lion had lain himself down, within the high 
 ring-wall, in the sunshine, at the foot of a large 
 beech, and was behaving quite quietly. With 
 an air of vexation, however, the man concluded : 
 Why did I take my rifle to town yesternight, 
 to have it cleaned ; he had never risen again, 
 the skin had been mine, and I might all my 
 life have had the credit of the thing." 
 
 The Prince, whom his military experiences 
 here also stood in stead, for he had before now 
 been in situations where from various sides in- 
 evitable evil seemed to threaten, said hereupon : 
 " What surety do you give me that if we spare 
 your lion, he will not work destruction among 
 us, among my people?" 
 
 " This woman and this child," answered the 
 father hastily, « engage to tame him, to keep him 
 peaceable, till I bring up the cage, and then we 
 can carry him back unharmed and without 
 harming any one." 
 
 The boy put his flute to his lips ; an instru- 
 ment of the kind once named soft, or sweet 
 flutes; short-beaked like pipes: he, who under- 
 stood the art, could bring out of it the gracefullest 
 tones. Meanwhile the Prince had inquired of 
 the watchman how the lion came up. " By the 
 hollow-way," answered he, " which is walled 
 in on both sides, and was formerly the only en- 
 trance, and is to be the only one still : two foot- 
 paths, which led in elsewhere, we have so 
 blocked up and destroyed that no human being, 
 except by that first narrow passage, can reach 
 die Magic Castle which Prince Friedrich's talent 
 and taste is making of it." 
 
 After a little thought, during which the Prince 
 looked round at the boy, who still continued as 
 if softly preluding, he turned to Honorio, and 
 said : " Thou hast done much to-day, complete 
 
 thy task. Secure that narrow path ; keep your 
 rifles in readiness, but do not shoot till the crea- 
 ture can no otherwise be driven back: in any 
 case, kindle a fire, which will frighten him if 
 he make downwards. The man and woman 
 take charge of the rest." Honorio rapidly be- 
 stirred himself to execute these orders. 
 
 The child continued his tune, which was no 
 tune ; a series of notes without law, and per- 
 haps even on that account so heart- touching : 
 the bystanders seemed as if enchanted by the 
 movement of a song-like melody, when the fa- 
 ther with dignified enthusiasm began to speak 
 in this sort: 
 
 " God has given the Prince wisdom, and also 
 knowledge to discern that all God's works are 
 wise, each after its kind. Behold the rock, how 
 he stands fast and stirs not, defies the weather 
 and the sunshine; primeval trees adorn his 
 head, and so crowned he looks abroad ; neither 
 if a mass rush away, will this continue what it 
 was, but falls broken into many pieces and 
 covers the side of the descent. But there too 
 they will not tarry, capriciously they leap far 
 down, the brook receives them, to the river he 
 bears them. Not resisting, not contradictory, 
 angular ; no, smooth and rounded they travel 
 now quicker on their way, arrive, from river to 
 river, finally at the ocean, whither march the 
 giants in hosts, and in the depths whereof 
 dwarfs are busy. 
 
 "But who shall exalt the glory of the Lord, 
 whom the stars praise from Eternity to Eternity ! 
 Why look ye far into the distance? Consider 
 here the bee : late at the end of harvest she still 
 busily gathers, builds her a house, tight of cor- 
 ner, straight of wall, herself the architect and 
 mason. Behold the ant: she knows her way, 
 and loses it not; she piles her a dwelling of 
 grass-halms, earth-crumbs, and needles of the 
 fir ; she piles it aloft and arches it in ; but she 
 has labored in vain, for the horse stamps, and 
 scrapes it all in pieces: lo ! he has trodden 
 down her beams, and scattered her planks ; 
 impatiently he snorts and cannot rest ; for the 
 Lord has made the horse comrade of the wind 
 and companion of the storm, to carry man whi- 
 ther he wills, and woman whither she desires, 
 But in the Wood of Palms arose he, the Lion, 
 with earnest step traversed the wilderness ; 
 there rules he over all creatures, his might who 
 shall withstand ? Yet man can tame him ; and 
 the fiercest of living things has reverence for the 
 image of God, in which too the angels are made, 
 who serve the Lord and his servants. For in 
 the den of Lions Daniel was not afraid : he re- 
 mained fast and faithful, and the wild bellow- 
 ing interrupted not his song of praise." 
 
 This speech, delivered with expression of a 
 natural enthusiasm, the child accompanied here 
 and there with graceful tones; but now, the 
 father having ended, he, with clear melodious 
 voice and skilful passaging, struck up his war- 
 ble, whereupon the father took the flute, and 
 gave note in unison, while the child sang : 
 
352 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 From the Dens, I, in a deeper, 
 Prophet's long of praise can hear ; 
 Angel-host he hath for keeper, 
 .Needs tine good man there to fear? 
 
 Lion, Lioness, agazing, 
 Mildly pressing round him came ; 
 Yea, that humble, holy praising, 
 It hath made them tame. 
 
 The father continued accompanying this 
 strophe with his flute ; the mother here and 
 there touched in as second voice. 
 
 Impressive, however, in a quite peculiar de- 
 gree, it was, when the child now began to shuffle 
 the lines of the strophe into other arrangement ; 
 and thereby if not bring out a new sense, yet 
 heighten the feeling by leading it into self-ex- 
 citement : 
 
 Angel-host around doth hover, 
 Us in heavenly tones to cheer : 
 In the dens our head doth cover : 
 Needs the poor child there to fear ? 
 
 For that humble holy praising 
 Will permit no evil nigh : 
 Angels hover, keeping, gazing, 
 Who so safe as 1 ? 
 
 Hereupon with emphasis and elevation began 
 all three : 
 
 For th' Eternal rules above us, 
 Lands and oceans rules his will ; 
 Lions even as lambs shall love us, 
 And the proudest waves be still. 
 
 Whetted sword to scabbard cleaving, 
 Faith and Hope victorious see, 
 Strong, who, loving and believing, 
 Prays, Lord, to thee. 
 
 All were silent, hearing, hearkening; and 
 only when the tones ceased could you remark 
 and distinguish the impression they had made. 
 All was as if appeased ; each affected in his 
 way. The Prince, as if he now first saw the 
 misery that a little while ago had threatened 
 him, looked down on his spouse, who leaning 
 on him forbore not to draw out the little em- 
 broidered handkerchief, and therewith covered 
 her eyes. It was blessedness for her to feel her 
 young bosom relieved from the pressure with 
 which the preceding minutes had loaded it. A 
 perfect silence reigned over the crowd ; they 
 seemed to have forgotten the dangers : the con- 
 flagration below ; and above, the rising up of a 
 dubiously-reposing Lion. 
 
 By a sign to bring the horses, the Prince first 
 restored the group to motion ; he turned to the 
 woman, and said: "You think then that, once 
 find the lion, you could, by your singing, by the 
 singing of this child, with help of these flute- 
 tones, appease him, and carry him back to his 
 prison, unhurt and hurting no one V They an- 
 swered yes, assuring and affirming; the Castel- 
 lan was given them as guide. And now the 
 Prince started off in all speed with a few ; the 
 Princess followed slower with the rest of the 
 train ; mother and son, on their side, under con- 
 duct of the warder, who had got himself a mus- 
 ket, mounted up the steeper part of the height. 
 
 Before the entrance of the hollow-way which 
 opened their access to the Castle, they found the 
 hunters busy heaping up dry brushwood, to 
 
 have, in any case, a large fire ready for kindling. 
 " There is no need," said the woman : " it will 
 all go well and peaceably, without that." 
 
 Farther on, sitting on a wall, his double-barrel 
 resting in his lap, Honorio appeared ; at his 
 post, as if ready for every occurrence. How 
 ever, he seemed hardly to notice our party ; he 
 sat as if sunk in deep thoughts, he looked round 
 like one whose mind was not there. The wo- 
 man addressed him with a prayer not to let the 
 fire be lit; he appeared not to heed her words; 
 she spoke on with vivacity, and cried : " Hand- 
 some young man, thou hast killed my tiger, I 
 do not curse thee ; spare my lion, good young 
 man, I will bless thee." 
 
 Honorio was looking straight out before him, 
 to where the sun on his course began to sink. 
 " Thou lookest to the west," cried the woman ; 
 " thou dost well, there is much to do there ; 
 hasten, delay not, thou wilt conquer. But firs', 
 conquer thyself." At this he appeared to give 
 a smile ; the woman stept on ; could not, how- 
 ever, but look back once more at him : a ruddy 
 sun was overshining his face ; she thought she 
 had never seen a handsomer youth. 
 
 "If your child," said the warder now, " with 
 his fluting and singing, can, as you are per- 
 suaded, entice and pacify the lion, we shall soon 
 get mastery of him after, for the creature has 
 lain down quite close to the perforated vaults 
 through which, as the main passage was blocked 
 up with ruins, we had to bore ourselves an en- 
 trance into the Castle-Court. If the child entioe 
 him into this latter, I can close the opening with 
 little difficulty ; then the boy, if he like, can 
 glide out by one of the little spiral stairs he wil! 
 find in the corner. We must conceal ourselves; 
 but I shall so take my place that a rifle-ball can, 
 at any moment, help the poor child in case of 
 extremity." 
 
 " All these precautions are unnecessary ; God 
 and skill, piety and a blessing, must do the 
 work." — "May be," replied the warder; "how- 
 ever, I know my duties. First, I must lead you, 
 by a difficult path, to the top of the wall, right 
 opposite the vaults and opening I have men- 
 tioned : the child may then go down, as into the 
 arena of the show, and lead away the animal, 
 if it will follow him." This was done: wardei 
 and mother looked down in concealment, as the 
 child descending the screw-stairs, showed him- 
 self in the open space of the Court, and disap- 
 peared opposite them in the gloomy opening; 
 but forthwith gave his flute voice, which hy 
 and by grew weaker, and at last sank dumb. 
 The pause was bodeful enough ; the old Hunter, 
 familiar with danger, felt heart-sick at the sin- 
 gular conjuncture ; the mother, however, with 
 cheerful face, bending over to listen, showed 
 not the smallest discomposure. 
 
 At last the flute was again heard ; the child 
 stept forth from the cavern with glittering satis- 
 fied eyes, the lion after him, but slowly, and as 
 it seemed with difficulty. He showed here and 
 there desire to lie down ; yet the boy led him 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 353 
 
 in a half-circle through the few disleaved many- 
 tinted trees, till at length, in the last rays of the 
 sun which poured in through a hole in the 
 ruins, he set him down, as if transfigured in the 
 bright red light ; and again commenced his pa- 
 . cifying song, the repetition of which we also 
 ' cannot forbear : 
 
 From the Dens, I, m a deeper, 
 
 Prophet's song of praise can hear ; 
 
 Angel-host he hath for keeper, 
 
 Needs the good man there to fear ? 
 
 Lion, Lioness, agazing, 
 
 Mildly pressing round him came ; 
 
 Yea, that humble, holy praising, 
 
 It hath made them tame. 
 
 Meanwhile the lion had laid itself down quite 
 close to the child, and lifted its heavy right 
 fore-paw into his bosom; the boy as he sung 
 gracefully stroked it; but was not long in ob- 
 serving that a sharp thorn had stuck itself be- 
 tween the balls. He carefully pulled it out ; 
 with a smile, took the party-colored silk-hand- 
 kerchief from his neck, and bound up the fright- 
 ful paw of the monster; so that his mother for 
 joy bent herself back with outstretched arms ; 
 and perhaps, according to custom, would have 
 shouted and clapped applause, had not a hard 
 hand gripe of the warder reminded her that the 
 danger was not yet over. 
 
 Triumphantly the child sang on, having with 
 a few tones preluded : 
 
 For th' Eternal rules above us, 
 
 Lands and oceans rules his will ; 
 
 Lions even as lambs shall love us, 
 
 And the proudest waves be still. 
 
 Whetted sword to scabbard cleaving, 
 
 Faith and Hope victorious see, 
 
 Strong, who, loving and believing, 
 
 Prays, Lord, to thee. 
 
 Were it possible to fancy that in the counte- 
 nance of so grim a creature, the tyrant of the 
 . woods, the despot of the animal kingdom, an 
 expression of friendliness, of thankful content- 
 ment could be traced, then here was such trace- 
 able ; and truly the child in his illustrated look 
 had the air as of a mighty triumphant victor; 
 the other figure, indeed, not that of one van- 
 quished, for his strength lay concealed in him ; 
 but yet of one tamed, of one given up to his 
 own peaceful will. The child fluted and sang 
 on, changing the lines according to his way, and 
 adding new : 
 
 And so to good children bringeth. 
 Blessed Angel help in need ; 
 Fetters o'er the cruel fhngelh, 
 Worthy art with wings doth speed. 
 So have tamed, and firmly iron'd 
 To a poor child's feeble knee, 
 Him the forest's lordly tyrant, 
 Soug and Piety. 
 
 THE TALE* 
 
 In his little Hut, by the great River, which a 
 heavy rain had swoln to overflowing, lay the 
 
 * Translated by Carlyle. The editor has preferred to 
 publish this " Tale" without the translator's comments. 
 Whoever is curious to see these, and to have a key to 
 2 U 
 
 ancient Ferryman, asleep, wearied by the toil 
 of the day. In the middle of the night, loud 
 voices awoke him ; he heard that it was travel- 
 lers wishing to be carried over. 
 
 Stepping out, he saw two large Will-o'-wisps, 
 hovering to and fro on his boat, which lay 
 moored : they said, they were in violent haste, 
 and should have been already on the other side. 
 The old Ferryman made no loitering ; pushed 
 off, and steered with his usual skill obliquely 
 through the stream ; while the two strangers 
 whillled and hissed together, in an unknown 
 very rapid tongue, and every now and then 
 broke out in loud laughter, hopping about, at 
 one time on the gunwale and the seats, at an- 
 other on the bottom of the boat. 
 
 "The boat is heeling!" cried the old man; 
 " if you don't be quiet, it will overset ; be seated, 
 gentlemen of the wisp !" 
 
 At this advice they burst into a fit of laughter, 
 mocked the old man, and were more unquiet 
 than ever. He bore their mischief with pa- 
 tience, and soon reached the farther shore. 
 
 " Here is for your labor !" cried the travellers, 
 and as they shook themselves, a heap of glitter- 
 ing gold-pieces jingled down into the wet boat. 
 " For Heaven's sake, what are you about?" cried 
 the old man ; "you will ruin me forever! Had 
 a single piece of gold got into the water, the 
 stream, which cannot suffer gold, would have 
 risen in horrid waves, and swallowed both my 
 skiff" and me; and who knows how it might 
 have fared with you in that case : here, take 
 back your gold." 
 
 "We can take nothing back, which we have 
 once shaken from us," said the Lights. 
 
 "Then you give me the trouble," said the old 
 man, stooping down, and gathering the pieces 
 into his cap, "of raking them together, and car- 
 rying them ashore, and burying them." 
 
 The Lights had leaped from the boat, but the 
 old man cried: "Stay; where is my fare?" 
 
 "If you take no gold, you may work for no- 
 thing," cried the Will-o'-wisps. — "You must 
 know that I am only to be paid with fruits of 
 the earth." — "Fruits of the earth? we despise 
 them, and have never tasted them." — " And yet 
 I cannot let you go, till you have promised that 
 you will deliver me three Cabbages, three Arti- 
 chokes, and three large Onions." 
 
 The Lights were making off* with jests; but 
 they felt themselves, in some inexplicable man- 
 ner, fastened to the ground : it was the unplea- 
 santest feeling they had ever had. They en- 
 gaged to pay him his demand as soon as possi- 
 ble : he let them go, and pushed away. He 
 was gone a good distance, when they called to 
 him: "Old man! Holla, old man! the main 
 point is forgotten!" He was off, however, and 
 did not hear them. He had fallen quietly down 
 that side of the River, where, in a rocky spot, 
 which the water never reached, he meant to 
 
 this wondrous production, is referred to "Carlyle's Mis- 
 cellanies." Boston: James Munroe & Co. Vol. IV 
 Appendix. 
 
 30* 
 
354 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 bury the pernicious gold. Here, between two 
 high crags, he found a monstrous chasm; shook 
 the metal into it, and steered back to his cottage. 
 
 Now, in this chasm, lay the fair green Snake, 
 who was roused from her sleep by the gold 
 coming chinking down. No sooner did she fix 
 her eye on the glittering coins, than she ate 
 them all up, with the greatest relish, on the 
 spot; and carefully picked out such pieces as 
 were scattered in the chinks of the rock. 
 
 Scarcely had she swallowed them, when, 
 with extreme delight, she began to feel the 
 metal melting in her inwards, and spreading 
 all over her body ; and soon, to her lively joy, 
 she observed that she was grown transparent 
 and luminous. Long ago she had been told that 
 this was possible ; but now being doubtful 
 whether such a light could last, her curiosity 
 and the desire to be secure against the future, 
 drove her from her cell, that she might see who 
 it was that had shaken in this precious metal. 
 She found no one. The more delightful was it 
 to admire her own appearance, and her grace- 
 ful brightness, as she crawled along through 
 roots and bushes, and spread out her light among 
 the grass. Every leaf seemed of emerald, every 
 flower was dyed with new glory. It was in 
 vain that she crossed the solitary thickets ; but 
 her hopes rose high, when, on reaching the open 
 country, she perceived from afar a brilliancy 
 resembling her own. « Shall I find my like at 
 last, then?" cried she, and hastened to the spot. 
 The toil of crawling through bog and reeds gave 
 her little thought; for though she liked best to 
 live in dry grassy spots of the mountains, among 
 the clefts of rocks, and for most part fed on spicy 
 herbs, and slaked her thirst with mild dew and 
 fresh spring water, yet for the sake of this dear 
 gold, and in the hope of this glorious light, she 
 would have undertaken anything you could 
 propose to her. 
 
 At last, with much fatigue, she reached a wet 
 rushy spot in the swamp, where our two Will- 
 o'-wisps were frisking to and fro. She shoved 
 herself along to them ; saluted them, was happy 
 to meet such pleasant gentlemen related to her 
 family. The Lights glided towards her, skipped 
 up over her, and laughed in their fashion. 
 "Lady Cousin," said they, "you are of the hori- 
 zontal line, yet what of that? It is true we are 
 related only by the look ; for observe you," here 
 both the Flames, compressing their whole 
 breadth, made themselves as high and peaked 
 as possible, " how prettily this taper length be- 
 seems us gentlemen of the vertical line ! Take 
 it not amiss of us, good Lady ; what family can 
 boast of such a thing? Since there ever was a 
 Jack-o ; -lanthorn in the world, no one of them 
 has either sat or lain." 
 
 The Snake felt exceedingly uncomfortable in 
 the company of these relations; for let her hold 
 her head as high as possible, she found that she 
 must bend it to the earth again, would she stir 
 from the 6pot; and if in the dark thicket she 
 had been extremely satisfied with her appear- 
 
 ance, her splendor in the presence of these 
 cousins seemed to lessen every moment, nay 
 she was afraid that at last it would go out en- 
 tirely. 
 
 In this embarrassment she hastily asked : if 
 the gentlemen could not inform her, whence 
 the glittering gold came, that had fallen a short 
 while ago into the cleft of the rock; her own 
 opinion was, that it had been a golden shower, 
 and had trickled down direct from the sky. The 
 Will-o'-wisps laughed, and shook themselves, 
 and a multitude of gold-pieces came clinking 
 down about them. The Snake pushed nimbly 
 forwards to eat the coin. " Much good may it 
 do you, Mistress," said the dapper gentlemen: 
 "we can help you to a little more." They shook 
 themselves again several times with great quick- 
 ness, so that the Snake could scarcely gulp the 
 precious victuals fast enough. Her splendor 
 visibly began increasing ; she was really shin- 
 ing beautifully, while the Lights had in the 
 meantime grown rather lean and short of sta- 
 ture, without however in the smallest losing 
 their good-humor. 
 
 "I am obliged to you for ever," said the Snake, 
 having got her wind again after the repast, 
 "ask of me what you will; all that I can I 
 will do." 
 
 " Very good !" cried the Lights. " Then tell 
 us where the fair Lily dwells ? Lead us to the 
 fair Lily's palace and garden; and do not lose 
 a moment, we are dying of impatience to fall 
 down at her feet." 
 
 c: This service," said the Snake with a deep 
 sigh, " I cannot now do for you. The fair Lily 
 dwells, alas, on the other side of the water."— 
 " Other side of the water ? And we have come 
 across it, this stormy night ! How cruel is the 
 River to divide us! Would it not be possible to 
 call the old man back ?"' 
 
 "It would be useless," said the Snake; "for 
 if you found him ready on the bank, he would 
 not take you in ; he can carry any one to this 
 side, none to yonder." 
 
 " Here is a pretty kettle of fish !" cried the 
 Lights : " are there no other means of getting 
 through the water ?" — " There are other means, 
 but not at this moment. I myself could tnke 
 you over, gentlemen, but not till noon." — "That 
 is an hour we do not like to travel in." — "Then 
 you may go across in the evening, on the great 
 Giant's shadow." — " How is that?" — "The great 
 Giant lives not far from this ; with his body he 
 has no power ; his hands cannot lift a straw, 
 his shoulders could not bear a faggot of twigs ; 
 but with his shadow he has power over much, 
 nay all. At sunrise and sunset therefore he is 
 strongest ; so at evening you merely put your- 
 self upon the back of his shadow, the Giant 
 walks softly to the bank, and the shadow car- 
 ries you across the water. But if you please, 
 about the hour of noon, to be in waiting at that 
 corner of the wood, where the bushes overhang 
 the bank, I myself will take you over and pre- 
 sent you to the fair Lily : or on the other hand, 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 355 
 
 if you dislike the noontide, you have just to go 
 at nightfall to that bend of the rocks, and pay 
 a visit to the Giant; he will certainly receive 
 you like a gentleman." 
 
 With a slight bow, the Flames went off; and 
 the Snake at bottom was not discontented to get 
 rid of them ; partly that she might enjoy the 
 brightness of her own light, partly satisfy a 
 curiosity with which, for a long time, she had 
 been agitated in a singular way. 
 
 In the chasm, where she often crawled hither 
 and thither, she had made a strange discovery. 
 For although in creeping up and down this 
 abyss, she had never had a ray of light, she 
 could well enough discriminate the objects in it, 
 by her sense of touch. Generally she met with 
 nothing but irregular productions of nature ; at 
 one time she would wind between the teeth of 
 large crystals, at another she would feel the 
 barbs and hairs of native silver, and now and 
 then carry out with her to the light some strag- 
 gling jewels. But to her no small wonder, in a 
 rock which was closed on every side, she had 
 come on certain objects which betrayed the 
 shaping hand of man. Smooth walls on which 
 she could not climb, sharp regular corners, well- 
 formed pillars ; and what seemed strangest of 
 all, human figures which she had entwined 
 more than once, and which appeared to her to 
 be of brass, or of the finest polished marble. 
 All these experiences she now wished to com- 
 bine by the sense of sight, thereby to confirm 
 what as yet she only guessed. She believed 
 she could illuminate the whole of the subter- 
 ranean vault by her own light ; and hoped to 
 get acquainted with these curious things at 
 once. She hastened back ; and soon found, by 
 the usual way, the cleft by which she used to 
 penetrate the Sanctuary. 
 
 On reaching the place, she gazed around 
 with eager curiosity; and though her shining 
 could not enlighten every object in the rotund o, 
 yet those nearest her were plain enough. With 
 astonishment and reverence she looked up into 
 a glancing niche, where the image of an august 
 King stood formed of pure Gold. In size the 
 figure was beyond the stature of man, but by 
 its shape it seemed the likeness of a little rather 
 than a tall person. His handsome body was 
 encircled with an unadorned mantle ; and a 
 garland of oak bound his hair together. 
 
 No sooner had the Snake beheld this reverend 
 figure, than the King began to speak, and asked: 
 "Whence comest thou?'' — "From the chasms 
 where the gold dwells," said the Snake. — 
 "What is grander than gold?" inquired the 
 King. — « Light," replied the Snake. " What is 
 more refreshing than light?" said he. — " Speech," 
 answered she. 
 
 During this conversation, she had squinted to 
 a side, and in the nearest niche perceived an- 
 other glorious image. It was a Silver King in 
 a sitting posture ; his shape was long and rather 
 languid ; he was covered with a decorated 
 robe ; crown, girdle, and sceptre were adorned 
 
 with precious stones: the cheerfulness of prido 
 was in his countenance ; he seemed about to 
 speak, when a vein which ran dimly-colored 
 over the marble wall, on a sudden became 
 bright, and diffused a cheerful light throughout 
 the whole Temple. By this brilliancy the Snake 
 perceived a third King, made of Brass, and 
 sitting mighty in shape, leaning on his club, 
 adorned with a laurel garland, and more like a 
 rock than a man. She was looking for the 
 fourth, which was standing at the greatest 
 distance from her ; but the wall opened, while 
 the glittering vein started and split, as lightning 
 does, and disappeared. 
 
 A Man of middle stature, entering through 
 the cleft, attracted the attention of the Snake. 
 He was dressed like a peasant, and carried in 
 his hand a little Lamp, on whose still flame 
 you liked to look, and which in a strange man- 
 ner, without casting any shadow, enlightened 
 the whole dome. 
 
 "Why comest thou, since we have light?" 
 said the golden King. — " You know that I may 
 not enlighten what is dark." — "Will my King- 
 dom end?" said the silver King. — "Late or 
 never," said the old Man. 
 
 With a stronger voice the brazen King began 
 to ask : " When shall I arise?" — " Soon," replied 
 the Man. — "With whom shall I combine?" said 
 the King. — " With thy elder brothers," said the 
 Man. — "What will the youngest do?" inquired 
 the King. — "He will sit down," replied the 
 Man. 
 
 " I am not tired," cried the fourth King, with 
 a rough faltering voice. 
 
 While this speech was going on, the Snake 
 had glided softly round the temple, viewing 
 everything; she was now looking at the fourth 
 King close by him. He stood leaning on a pil- 
 lar ; his considerable form was heavy rather 
 than beautiful. But what metal it was made 
 of could not be determined. Closely inspected, 
 it seemed a mixture of the three metals which 
 its brothers had been formed of. But in the 
 founding, these materials did not seem to have 
 combined together fully; gold and silver veins 
 ran irregularly through a brazen mass, and gave 
 the figure an unpleasant aspect. 
 
 Meanwhile the gold King was asking of the 
 Man, "How many secrets knowest thou?" — 
 "Three," replied the Man. — "Which is the 
 most important?" said the silver King. — "The 
 open one," replied the other. — " Wilt thou open 
 it to us also ?" said the brass King. — " When I 
 know the fourth," replied the Man. — "What 
 care I ?" grumbled the composite King, in an 
 under tone. 
 
 "I know the fourth," said the Snake; ap- 
 proached the old Man, and hissed somewhat in 
 his ear. "The time is at hand!" cried the old 
 Man, with a strong voice. The temple re- 
 echoed, the metal statues sounded ; and that in- 
 stant the old Man sank away to the westward, 
 and the Snake to the eastward ; and both of 
 
356 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 them passed through the clefts of the rock, with 
 the greatest speed. 
 
 All the passages, through which the old Man 
 travelled, filled themselves, immediately behind 
 him, with gold : for his Lamp had the strange 
 property of changing stone into gold, wood into 
 silver, dead animals into precious stones, and 
 of annihilating all metals. But to display this 
 power, it must shine alone. If another light 
 were beside it, the Lamp only cast from it a 
 pure clear brightness, and all living things were 
 refreshed by it. 
 
 The old Man entered his cottage, which was 
 built on the slope of the hill. He found his 
 Wife in extreme distress. She was sitting at 
 the fire weeping, and refusing to be consoled. 
 " How unhappy am I !" cried she : " Did not I 
 entreat thee not to go away to-night?'' — " What 
 is the matter, then ?" inquired the husband, 
 quite composed. 
 
 " Scarcely wert thou gone," said she, sobbing, 
 " when there came two noisy Travellers to the 
 door: unthinkingly I let them in; they seemed 
 to be a couple of genteel, very honorable peo- 
 ple ; they were dressed in flames, you would 
 have taken them for Will-o'-wisps. But no 
 sooner were they in the house, than they began, 
 like impudent varlets, to compliment me, and 
 grew so forward that I feel ashamed to think 
 of it. ; ' 
 
 " No doubt," said the husband with a smile, 
 "the gentlemen were jesting: considering thy 
 age, they might have held by general polite- 
 ness." 
 
 " Age ! what age V cried the Wife : " wilt 
 thou always be talking of my age 1 How old 
 am I then"? — General politeness! But I know 
 what I know. Look round there what a face 
 the walls have ; look at the old stones, which I 
 have not seen these hundred years; every film 
 of gold have they licked away, thou couldst not 
 think how fast; and still they kept assuring me 
 that it tasted far beyond common gold. Once 
 they had swept the walls, the fellows seemed 
 to be in high spirits, and truly in that little 
 while they had grown much broader and 
 brighter. They now began to be impertinent 
 again, they patted me, and called me their 
 queen, they shook themselves, and a shower 
 of gold pieces sprang from them ; see how they 
 are shining there under the bench! But, ah! 
 what misery! Poor Mops ate a coin or two; 
 and look, he is lying in the chimney, dead. 
 Poor Pug! O well-a-day! I did not see it till 
 they were gone; else I had never promised to 
 pay the Ferryman the debt they owe him." — 
 " What do they owe him ?" said the Man. — 
 "Three Cabbages," replied the Wife, "three 
 Artichokes, and three Onions : I engaged to 
 go when it was day, and take them to the 
 River." 
 
 "Thou mayest do them that civility," said 
 the old Man ; " they may chance to be of use 
 to us again." 
 
 " Whether they will be of use to us I know 
 
 not; but they promised and vowed that they 
 
 would." 
 
 Meantime the fire on the hearth had burnt 
 low ; the old Man covered up the embers with 
 a heap of ashes, and put the glittering gold 
 pieces aside ; so that his little Lamp now gleam- 
 ed alone, in the fairest brightness. The walls 
 again coated themselves with gold, and Mops 
 changed into the prettiest onyx that could be 
 imagined. The alternation of the brown and 
 black in this precious stone made it the most 
 curious piece of workmanship. 
 
 "Take thy basket," said the Man, "and put 
 the onyx into it ; then take the three Cabbages, 
 the three Artichokes, and the three Onions; 
 place them round little Mops, and carry them 
 to the River. At noon the Snake will take 
 thee over ; visit the fair Lily, give her the onyx, 
 she will make it alive by her touch, as by her 
 touch she kills whatever is alive already. She 
 will have a true companion in the little dog. 
 Tell her not to mourn ; her deliverance is near; 
 the greatest misfortune she may look upon as 
 the greatest happiness : for the time is at hand.'' 
 
 The old Woman filled her basket, and set 
 out as soon as it was day. The rising sun 
 shone clear from the other side of the River, 
 which was glittering in the distance ; the old 
 woman walked with slow steps, for the basket 
 pressed upon her head, and it was not the onyx 
 that so burdened her. Whatever lifeless thing 
 she might be carrying, she did not feel the 
 weight of it; on the other hand, in those cases 
 the basket rose aloft, and hovered along above 
 her head. But to carry any fresh herbage, or 
 any little living animal, she found exceedingly 
 laborious. She had travelled on for some time, 
 in a sullen humor, when she halted suddenly 
 in fright, for she had almost trod upon the 
 Giant's shadow, which was stretching towards 
 her across the plain. And now, lifting up her 
 eyes, she saw the monster of a Giant himself, 
 who had been bathing in the River, and was 
 just come out, and she knew not how she 
 should avoid him. The moment he perceived 
 her, he began saluting her in sport, and the 
 hands of his shadow soon caught hold of the 
 basket. With dexterous ease they picked away 
 from it a Cabbage, an Artichoke, and an Onion, 
 and brought them to the Giant's mouth, who 
 then went his way up the River, and let the 
 Woman go in peace. 
 
 She considered whether it would not be bet- 
 ter to return, and supply from her garden the 
 pieces she had lost ; and amid these doubts, she 
 still kept walking on, so that in a little while 
 she was at the bank of the River. She sat 
 long waiting for the Ferryman, whom she per- 
 ceived at last, steering over with a very singular 
 traveller. A young, noble-looking, handsome 
 man, whom she could not gaze upon enough, 
 stept out of the boat. 
 
 " What is it you bring?" cried the old man. 
 "The greens which those two Will-o'-wisps 
 owe you," said the Woman, pointing to her 
 
357 
 
 ware. As the Ferryman found only two of 
 each sort, he grew angry, and declared he would 
 have none of them. The Woman earnestly 
 entreated him to take them ; told him that she 
 could not now go home, and that her burden for 
 the way which still remained was very heavy. 
 He stood by his refusal, and assured her that it 
 did not rest with him. « What belongs to me," 
 said he, "I must leave lying nine hours in a 
 heap, touching none of it, till I have given the 
 River its third." After much higgling, the old 
 man at last replied : " There is still another 
 way. If you like to pledge yourself to the 
 River, and declare yourself its debtor, I will 
 take the six pieces; but there is some risk in 
 it." — "If I keep my word, I shall run no risk?" 
 — "Not the smallest. Put your hand into the 
 stream," continued he, " and promise that within 
 four-and-twenty hours you will pay the debt." 
 
 The old Woman did so ; but what was her 
 affright, when on drawing out her hand, she 
 found it black as coal ! She loudly scolded the 
 old Ferryman; declared that her hands had 
 always been the fairest part of her; that in 
 spite of her hard work, she had all along con- 
 trived to keep these noble members white and 
 dainty. She looked at the hand with indig- 
 nation, and exclaimed in a despairing tone: 
 " Worse and worse ! Look, it is vanishing en- 
 tirely: it is grown far smaller than the other." 
 
 "For the present it but seems so," said the 
 old man; "if you do not keep your word, how- 
 ever, it may prove so in earnest. The hand 
 will gradually diminish, and at length disappear 
 altogether, though you have the use of it as 
 formerly. Every thing as usual you will be 
 able to perform with it, only nobody will see 
 it." — " I had rather that I could not use it, and 
 no one could observe the want," cried she ; 
 "but what of that, I will keep my word, and 
 rid myself of this black skin, and all anxieties 
 about it." Thereupon she hastily took up her 
 basket, which mounted of itself over her head, 
 and hovered free above her in the air, as she 
 hurried after the Youth, who was walking softly 
 and thoughtfully down the bank. His noble 
 form and strange dress had made a deep im- 
 pression on her. 
 
 His breast was covered with a glittering coat 
 of mail ; in whose wavings might be traced 
 every motion of his fair body. From his shoul- 
 ders hung a purple cloak ; around his uncovered 
 head flowed abundant brown hair in beautiful 
 locks: his graceful face, and his well-formed 
 feet were exposed to the scorching of the sun. 
 With bare soles, he walked composedly over 
 the hot sand; and a deep inward sorrow seemed 
 to blunt him against all external things. 
 
 The garrulous old Woman tried to lead him 
 into conversation; but with his short answers 
 he gave her small encouragement or informa- 
 tion ; so that in the end, notwithstanding the 
 beauty of his eyes, she grew tired of speaking 
 with him to no purpose, and took leave of him 
 with these words : « You walk too slow for me, 
 
 worthy sir; I must not lose a moment, for I 
 have to pass the River on the green Snake, and 
 carry this fine present from my husband to the 
 fair Lily." So saying she stept faster forward ; 
 but the fair Youth pushed on with equal speed, 
 and hastened to keep up with her. " You are 
 going to the fair Lily!" cried he; "then our 
 roads are the same. But what present is this 
 you are bringing her?" 
 
 "Sir," said the Woman, "it is hardly fair, 
 after so briefly dismissing the questions I put 
 you, to inquire with such vivacity about my 
 secrets. But if you like to barter, and tell me 
 your adventures, I will not conceal from you 
 how it stands with me and my presents." They 
 soon made a bargain ; the dame disclosed her 
 circumstances to him ; told the history of the 
 Pug, and let him see the singular gift. 
 
 He lifted his natural curiosity from the basket, 
 and took Mops, who seemed as if sleeping softly, 
 into his arms. "Happy beast!" cried he; "thou 
 wilt be touched by her hands, thou wilt be 
 made alive by her ; while the living are obliged 
 to fly from her presence to escape a mournful 
 doom. Yet why say I mournful ! Is it not far 
 sadder and more frightful to be injured by her 
 look, than it would be to die by her hand 1 Be- 
 hold me," said he to the Woman ; "at my years, 
 what a miserable fate have I to undergo. This 
 mail which I have honorably borne in war, this 
 purple which I sought to merit by a wise reign, 
 Destiny has left me ; the one as a useless bur- 
 den, the other as an empty ornament. Crown, 
 and sceptre, and sword are gone ; and I am as 
 bare and needy as any other son of earth ; for 
 so unblessed are her bright eyes, that they take 
 from every living creature they look on all its 
 force, and those whom the touch of her hand 
 does not kill are changed to the state of shadows 
 wandering alive." 
 
 Thus did he continue to bewail, nowise con- 
 tenting the old Woman's curiosity, who wished 
 for information not so much of his internal as 
 of his external situation. She learned neither 
 the name of his father, nor of his kingdom. He 
 stroked the hard Mops, whom the sunbeams 
 and the bosom of the youth had warmed as if 
 he had been living. He inquired narrowly 
 about the man with the Lamp, about the in- 
 fluences of the sacred light, appearing to expect 
 much good from it in his melancholy case. 
 
 Amid such conversation, they descried from 
 afar the majestic arch of the Bridge, which ex- 
 tended from the one bank to the other, glittering 
 with the strangest colors in the splendors of the 
 sun. Both were astonished ; for until now they 
 had never seen this edifice so grand. " How !" 
 cried the Prince ! " was it not beautiful enough, 
 as it stood before our eyes, piled out of jasper 
 and agate ? Shall we not fear to tread it, now 
 that it appears combined, in graceful complexity, 
 of emerald and chrysopras and chrysolite V 
 Neither of them knew the alteration that had 
 taken place upon the Snake : for it was indeed 
 the Snake, who every day at noon curved her- 
 
358 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 self over the River, and stood forth in the form 
 of a bold-swelling bridge. The travellers stept 
 upon it with a reverential feeling, and passed 
 over it in silence. 
 
 No sooner had they reached the other shore, 
 than the bridge began to heave and stir; in a 
 little while, it touched the surface of the water, 
 and the green Snake in her proper form came 
 gliding after the wanderers. They had scarcely 
 thanked her for the privilege of crossing on her 
 back, when they found that, besides them three, 
 there must be other persons in the company, 
 whom their eyes could not discern. They heard 
 a hissing, which the Snake also answered with 
 a hissing; they listened, and at length caught 
 what follows: "We shall first look about us in 
 the fair Lily's Park," said a pair of alternating 
 voices ; " and then request you at nightfall, so 
 soon as we are anywise presentable, to intro- 
 duce us to this paragon of beauty. At the shore 
 of the great Lake, you will find us." — "Be it 
 so," replied the Snake ; and a hissing sound 
 died away in the air. 
 
 Our three travellers now consulted in what 
 order they should introduce themselves to the 
 fair Lady ; for however many people might be 
 in her company, they were obliged to enter and 
 depart singly, under pain of suffering very hard 
 severities. 
 
 The Woman with the metamorphosed Pug in 
 the basket first approached the garden, looking 
 round for her Patroness ; who was not difficult 
 to find, being just engaged in singing to her 
 harp. The finest tones proceeded from her, first 
 like circles on the surface of the still lake, then 
 like a light breath they set the grass and the 
 bushes in motion. In a green enclosure, under 
 the shadow of a stately group of many diverse 
 trees, was she seated ; and again did she en- 
 chant the eyes, the ear, and the heart of the 
 woman, who approached with rapture, and 
 swore within herself that since she saw her 
 last, the fair one had grown fairer than ever. 
 With eager gladness from a distance she ex- 
 pressed her reverence and admiration for the 
 lovely maiden. "What a happiness to see you, 
 what a Heaven does your presence spread 
 around you ! How charmingly the harp is lean- 
 ing on your bosom, how softly your arms sur- 
 round it, how it seems as if longing to be near 
 you, and how it sounds so meekly under the 
 touch of your slim fingers ! Thrice happy youth, 
 to whom it were permitted to be there!" 
 
 So speaking she approached ; the fair Lily 
 raised her eyes ; let her hands drop from the 
 harp, and answered: "Trouble me not with 
 untimely praise ; I feel my misery but the more 
 deeply. Look here, at my feet lies the poor 
 Canary-bird, which used so beautifully to ac- 
 company my singing; it would sit upon my 
 harp, and was trained not to touch me ; but to- 
 day, while I, refreshed by sleep, was raising a 
 peaceful morning hymn, and my little singer 
 was pouring forth his harmonious tones more 
 gaily than ever, a Hawk darts over my head ; 
 
 the poor little creature, in affright, takes refuge 
 in my bosom, and I feel the last palpitations of 
 its departing life. The plundering Hawk indeed 
 was caught by my look, and fluttered fainting 
 down into the water ; but what can his punish- 
 ment avail me? my darling is dead, and his 
 grave will but increase the mournful bushes of 
 my garden." 
 
 "Take courage, fairest Lily!" cried the Wo- 
 man, wiping off a tear, which the story of the 
 hapless maiden had called into her eyes; "com- 
 pose yourself; my old man bids me tell you to 
 moderate your lamenting, to look upon the 
 greatest misfortune as a forerunner of the 
 greatest happiness, for the time is at hand; 
 and truly," continued she, "the world is going 
 strangely on of late. Do but look at my hand, 
 how black it is! As I live and breathe, it is 
 grown far smaller: I must hasten, before it 
 vanish altogether ! Why did I engage to do the 
 Will-o'-wisps a service, why did I meet the 
 Giant's shadow, and dip my hand in the River? 
 Could you not afford me a single cabbage, an 
 artichoke, and an onion? I would give them 
 to the River, and my hand were white as 
 ever, so that I could almost show it with one 
 of yours. 
 
 "Cabbages and onions thou mayest still find: 
 but artichokes thou wilt search for in vain. No 
 plant in my garden bears either flowers or fruit; 
 but every twig that I break, and plant upon the 
 grave of a favorite, grows green straightway, 
 and shoots up in fair boughs. All these groups, 
 these bushes, these groves my hard destiny has 
 so raised around me. These pines stretching 
 out like parasols, these obelisks of cypresses, 
 these colossal oaks and beeches, were all little 
 twigs planted by my hand, as mournful me- 
 morials in a soil that otherwise is barren." 
 
 To this speech the old Woman had paid little 
 heed ; she was looking at her hand, which, in 
 presence of the fair Lily, seemed every moment 
 growing blacker and smaller. She was about 
 to snatch her basket and hasten off, when she 
 noticed that the best part of her errand had 
 been forgotten. She lifted out the onyx Pug, 
 and set him down, not far from the fair one, in 
 the grass. " My husband," said she, " send-: 
 you this memorial ; you know that you can 
 make a jewel live by touching it. This pretty 
 faithful dog will certainly afford you much en- 
 joyment; and my grief at losing him is bright- 
 ened only by the thought that he will be in 
 your possession." 
 
 The fair Lily viewed the dainty creature 
 with a pleased, and as it seemed, with an asto- 
 nished look. "Many signs combine," said she, 
 " that breathe some hope into me : but ah ! is it 
 not a natural deception which makes us fane}', 
 when misfortunes crowd upon us, that a better 
 day is near? 
 
 ■ What can these many signs avail me 
 
 My Singer's Death, thy coal-black Hand ? 
 This Dog of Onyx, that can never fail me ? 
 And coming at the Lamp's command ! 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 359 
 
 • From human joys removed forever, 
 
 With sorrows compassed round 1 sit : 
 Is there a Temple at the River? 
 Is there a Bridge T Alas, not yet !' " 
 
 The good old dame had listened with impa- 
 tience to this singing, which the fair Lily ac- 
 companied with her harp, in a way that would 
 have charmed any other. She was on the point 
 of taking leave, when the arrival of the green 
 Snake again detained her. The Snake had 
 caught the last lines of the song, and on this 
 matter forthwith began to speak comfort to the 
 fair Lily. 
 
 "The Prophecy of the Bridge is fulfilled!" 
 cried the Snake : " you may ask this worthy 
 dame how royally the arch looks now. What 
 formerly was untransparent jasper, or agate, 
 allowing but a gleam of light to pass about its 
 edges, is now become transparent precious 
 stone. No beryl is so clear, no emerald so 
 beautiful of hue." 
 
 "I wish you joy of it," said Lily, "but you 
 will pardon me if I regard the prophecy as yet 
 unaccomplished. The lofty arch of your bridge 
 can still but admit foot-passengers; and it is 
 promised us that horses and carriages and tra- 
 vellers of every sort shall, at the same moment, 
 cross this bridge in both directions. Is there 
 not something said, too, about pillars, which are 
 to arise of themselves from the waters of the 
 River?" 
 
 The old Woman still kept her eyes fixed on 
 her hand ; she here interrupted their dialogue, 
 and was taking leave. " Wait a moment," said 
 the fair Lily, " and carry my little bird with 
 you. Bid the Lamp change it into topaz ; I will 
 enliven it by my touch ; with your good Mops 
 it shall form my dearest pastime : but hasten, 
 hasten ; for, at sunset, intolerable putrefaction 
 will fasten on the hapless bird, and tear asunder 
 the fair combination of its form forever." 
 
 The old Woman laid the little corpse, wrapped 
 in soft leaves, into her basket, and hastened 
 away. 
 
 -However it may be," said the Snake, re- 
 commencing their interrupted dialogue, "the 
 Temple is built." 
 
 " But it is not at the River," said the fair one. 
 
 " It is yet resting in the depths of the Earth," 
 said the Snake ; " I have seen the Kings and 
 conversed with them." 
 
 "But when will they arise?" inquired Lily. 
 
 The Snake replied : " I heard resounding in 
 the Temple these deep words, The time is at 
 hand.'' 
 
 A pleasing cheerfulness spread over the fair 
 Lily's face : " : T is the second time," said she, 
 u that I have heard these happy words to-day : 
 when will the day come for me to hear them 
 thrice ?" 
 
 She rose, and immediately there came a 
 lovely maiden from the grove, and took away 
 her harp. Another followed her, and folded 
 up the fine-carved ivory stool, on which the fair 
 one had been sitting, and put the silvery cushion 
 
 under her arm. A third then made her ap- 
 pearance, with a large parasol worked with 
 pearls; and looked whether Lily would require 
 her in walking. These three maidens were 
 beyond expression beautiful ; and yet their 
 beauty but exalted that of Lily, for it was plain 
 to every one that they could never be compared 
 to her. 
 
 Meanwhile the fair one had been looking, 
 with a satisfied aspect, at the strange onyx 
 Mops. She bent down, and touched him, and 
 that instant he started up. Gaily he looked 
 around, ran hither and thither, and at last, in 
 his kindest manner, hastened to salute his bene- 
 factress. She took him in her arms, and pressed 
 him to her. " Cold as thou art," cried she, " and 
 though but a half-life works in thee, thou art 
 welcome to me ; tenderly will I love thee, pret- 
 tily will I play with thee, softly caress thee, and 
 firmly press thee to my bosom." She then let 
 him go, chased him from her, called him back, 
 and played so daintily with him, and ran about 
 so gaily and so innocently with him on the 
 grass, that with new rapture you viewed and 
 participated in her joy, as a little while ago her 
 sorrow had attuned every heart to sympathy. 
 
 This cheerfulness, these graceful sports were 
 interrupted by the entrance of the woful Youth. 
 He stepped forward, in his former guise and 
 aspect; save that the heat of the day appeared 
 to have fatigued him still more, and in the pre- 
 sence of his mistress he grew paler every mo- 
 ment. He bore upon his hand a Hawk, which 
 was sitting quiet as a dove, with its body shrunk 
 and its wings drooping. 
 
 u It is not kind in thee," cried Lily to him, 
 "to bring that hateful thing before my eyes, the 
 monster, which to-day has killed my little 
 singer." 
 
 " Blame not the unhappy bird !" replied the 
 Youth; "rather blame thyself and thy destiny; 
 and leave me to keep beside me the companion 
 of my wo." 
 
 Meanwhile Mops ceased not teasing the fair 
 Lily; and she replied to her transparent favor- 
 ite, with friendly gestures. She clapped her 
 hands to scare him off ; then ran, to entice him 
 after her. She tried to get him when he fled, 
 and she chased him away when he attempted 
 to press near her. The Youth looked on in si- 
 lence, with increasing anger ; but at last, when 
 she took the odious beast, which seemed to him 
 unutterably ugly, on her arm, pressed it to her 
 white bosom, and kissed its black snout with 
 her heavenly lips, his patience altogether failed 
 him, and full of desperation he exclaimed : 
 "Must I, who by a baleful fate exist beside thee, 
 perhaps to the end, in an absent presence, who 
 by thee have lost my all, my very self, must I 
 see before my eyes, that so unnatural a monster 
 can charm thee into gladness, can awaken thy 
 attachment, and enjoy thy embrace ? Shall I 
 any longer keep wandering to and fro, measur- 
 ing my dreary course to that side of the River 
 and to this 1 No, there is still a spark of the 
 
300 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 old heroic spirit sleeping in my bosom ; let it 
 start this instant into its expiring flame! If 
 stones may rest in thy bosom, let me be changed 
 to stone ; if thy touch kills, I will die by thy 
 hands." 
 
 So saying he made a violent movement; the 
 Hawk flew from his finger, but lie himself 
 rushed towards the fair one ; she held out her 
 hands to keep him off, and touched him only 
 the sooner. Consciousness forsook him ; and 
 she felt with horror the beloved burden lying 
 on her bosom. With a shriek she started back, 
 and the gentle youth sank lifeless from her arms 
 upon the ground. 
 
 The misery had happened! The sweet Lily 
 stood motionless, gazing on the corpse. Her 
 heart seemed to pause in her bosom ; and her 
 eyes were without tears. In vain did Mops 
 try to gain from her any kindly gesture; with 
 her friend, the world for her was all dead as 
 the grave. Her silent despair did not look round 
 for help; she knew not of any help. 
 
 On the other hand, the Snake bestirred her- 
 self the more actively; she seemed to meditate 
 deliverance ; and in fact her strange movements 
 served at last to keep away, for a little, the im- 
 mediate consequences of the mischief. With 
 her limber body, she formed a wide circle round 
 the corpse, and seizing the end of her tail be- 
 tween her teeth, she lay quite still. 
 
 Ere long one of Lily's fair waiting-maids ap- 
 peared ; brought the ivory folding-stool, and 
 with friendly beckoning constrained her mistress 
 to sit down on it. Soon afterwards there came 
 a second ; she had in her hand a fire-colored 
 veil, with which she rather decorated than con- 
 cealed the fair Lily's head. The third handed 
 her the harp, and scarcely had she drawn the 
 gorgeous instrument towards her, and struck 
 some tones from its strings, when the first maid 
 returned with a clear round mirror; took her 
 station opposite the fair one ; caught her looks 
 in the glass, and threw back to her the loveliest 
 image that was to be found in nature. Sorrow 
 heightened her beauty, the veil her charms, the 
 harp her grace ; and deeply as you wished to 
 see her mournful situation altered, not less 
 deeply did you wish to keep her image, as she 
 now looked, forever present with you. 
 
 With a still look at the mirror, she touched 
 the harp ; now melting tones proceeded from 
 the strings, now her pain seemed to mount, and 
 the music in strong notes responded to her wo; 
 sometimes she opened her lips to sing, but her 
 voice failed her ; and ere long her sorrow melted 
 into tears, two maidens caught her helpfully in 
 their arms, the harp sank from her bosom, 
 scarcely could the quick servant snatch the in- 
 strument and carry it aside. 
 
 Who gets us the Man with the Lamp, before 
 the sun set?" hissed the Snake, faintly, but au- 
 dibly: the maids looked at one another, and 
 Lily's tears fell faster. At this moment came 
 the Woman with the Basket, panting and alto- 
 gether breathless. » I am lost, and maimed for 
 
 life!'' cried she: "see how my hand is almost 
 I vanished ; neither Ferryman nor Giant would 
 ! take me over, because I am the River's debtor- 
 in vain did I promise hundreds of Cabbages I 
 and hundreds of Onions ; they will take no more 
 than three ; and no Artichoke is now to be found 
 in all this quarter. 
 
 - Forget your own care," said the Snake, "and 
 try to bring help here : perhaps it may come to 
 yourself also. Haste with your utmost speed 
 to seek the Will-o'-wisps ; it is too light for you 
 to see them, but perhaps you will hear them 
 laughing and hopping to and fro. If they he 
 speedy, they may cross upon the Giant's sha- 
 dow, and seek the Man with the Lamp and 
 send him to us." 
 
 The Woman hurried off at her quickest pace, 
 and the Snake seemed expecting as impatiently 
 as Lily the return of the Flames. Alas ! the 
 beam of the sinking Sun was already gilding 
 only the highest summits of the trees, in the 
 thicket, and long shadows were stretching over 
 lake and meadow ; the Snake hitched up and 
 down impatiently, and Lily dissolved in tears. 
 
 In this extreme need, the Snake kept looking 
 round on all sides ; for she was afraid every 
 moment that the Sun would set, and corruption 
 i penetrate the magic circle, and the fair youth 
 immediately moulder away. At last she noticed 
 sailing high in the air, with purple-red feathers, 
 I the Prince's Hawk, whose breast was catching 
 I the last beams of the Sun. She shook herself I 
 I for joy at this good omen ; nor was she deceived : 
 j for shortly afterwards the Man with the Lamp 
 was seen gliding towards them across the Lake, 
 fast and smoothly, as if he had been travelling 
 on skates. 
 
 The Snake did not change her posture ; but 
 Lily rose and called to him : •• What good spirit 
 sends thee, at the moment when we were de- 
 siring thee, and needing thee, so much?" 
 
 " The spirit of my Lamp," replied the Man, 
 "has impelled me, and the Hawk has conducted 
 me. My Lamp sparkles when I am needed, 
 and I just look about me in the sky for a signal ; 
 some bird or meteor points to the quarter to- 
 wards which I am to turn. Be calm, fairest 
 Maiden! whether I can help I know not: an 
 individual helps not, but he who combines him- 
 
 ! self with many at the proper hour. We will 
 postpone the evil, and keep hoping. Hold thy 
 circle fast," continued he, turning to the Snake; 
 then set himself upon a hillock beside her, and 
 illuminated the dead body. "Bring the little 
 Bird hidier too, and lay it in the circle !' ; The 
 maidens took the little corpse frorr. the basket, 
 
 i which the old Woman had left standing, and 
 did as he directed. 
 
 Meanwhile the Sun had set, and as the dark- 
 ness increased, not only the Snake and the old 
 Man's Lamp began shining in their fashion, but 
 also Lily's veil gave out a soft light, which 
 gracefully tinged, as with a meek dawning red, 
 
 ! her pale cheeks, and her white robe. The 
 party looked at one another, silently reflecting; 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 361 
 
 care and sorrow were mitigated by a sure 
 hope. 
 
 It was no unpleasing entrance, therefore, that 
 i the woman made, attended by the two gay 
 Flames, which in truth appeared to have been 
 , very lavish in the interim, for they had again 
 ' become extremely meager ; yet they only bore 
 , themselves the more prettily for that, towards 
 Lily and the other ladies. With great tact, and 
 expressiveness, they said a multitude of rather 
 common things to these fair persons ; and de- 
 clared themselves particularly ravished by the 
 charm which the gleaming veil spread over 
 Lily and her attendant. The ladies modestly 
 cast down their eyes, and the praise of their 
 ! beauty made them really beautiful. All were 
 peaceful and calm, except the old Woman. In 
 spite of the assurance of her husband, that her 
 hand could diminish no farther, while the Lamp 
 shone on it, she asserted more than once, that 
 if things went on thus, before midnight this 
 noble member would have utterly vanished. 
 
 The Man with the Lamp had listened atten- 
 tively to the conversation of the Lights; and 
 was gratified that Lily had been cheered, in 
 some measure, and amused by it. And, in truth, 
 midnight had arrived they knew not how. The 
 old Man looked to the stars, and then began 
 speaking : " We are assembled at the propitious 
 j hour ; let each perform his task, let each do his 
 duty; and a universal happiness will swallow 
 up our individual sorrows, as a universal grief 
 consumes individual joys." 
 
 At these words arose a wondrous hubbub ; 
 for all the persons in the party spoke aloud, 
 each for himself, declaring what they had to 
 do ; only the three maids were silent ; one of 
 them had fallen asleep beside the harp, another 
 near the parasol, the third by the stool ; and you 
 could not blame them much, for it was late. 
 The Fiery youths, after some passing compli- 
 ments which they devoted to the waiting-maids, 
 had turned their sole attention to the Princess, 
 as alone worthy of exclusive homage. 
 
 " Take the mirror," said the Man to the Hawk ; 
 "and with the first sunbeam illuminate the 
 three sleepers, and awake them, with light re- 
 flected from above." 
 
 The Snake now began to move ; she loosened 
 her circle, and rolled slowly, in large rings, for- 
 ward to the River. The two Will-o'-wisps fol- 
 lowed with a solemn air ; you would have taken 
 them for the most serious Flames in nature. 
 The old Woman and her husband seized the 
 Basket, whose mild light they had scarcely ob- 
 served till now ; they lifted it at both sides, and 
 it grew still larger and more luminous ; they 
 lifted the body of the Youth into it, laying the 
 Canary-bird upon his breast; the Basket rose 
 into the air and hovered above the old Woman's 
 j head, and she followed the Will-o'-wisps on 
 i foot. The fair Lily took Mops on her arm, and 
 : followed the Woman ; the Man with the Lamp 
 i concluded the procession, and the scene was 
 curiously illuminated by these many lights. 
 2 v 
 
 But it was with no small wonder that the 
 party saw, when they approached the River, a 
 glorious arch mount over it, by which the help- 
 ful Snake was aflbrding them a glittering path. 
 If by day they had admired the beautiful trans- 
 parent precious stones, of which the Bridge 
 seemed formed ; by night they were astonished 
 at its gleaming brilliancy. On the upper side 
 the clear circle marked itself sharp against the 
 dark sky, but below, vivid beams were darting 
 to the centre, and exhibiting the airy firmness 
 of the edifice. The procession slowly moved 
 across it ; and the Ferryman who saw it from 
 his hut afar off, considered with astonishment 
 the gleaming circle, and the strange lights which 
 were passing over it. 
 
 No sooner had they reached the other shore, 
 than the arch began, in its usual way, to swag 
 up and down, and with a wavy motion to ap- 
 proach the water. The Snake then came on 
 land, the Basket placed itself upon the ground, 
 and the Snake again drew her circle round it. 
 The old Man stooped towards her, and said : 
 "What hast thou resolved on?" 
 
 "To sacrifice myself rather than be sacri- 
 ficed," replied the Snake ; " promise me that 
 thou wilt leave no stone on shore." 
 
 The old Man promised ; then addressing 
 Lily: "Touch the Snake," said he, "with thy 
 left hand, and thy lover with thy right." Lily 
 knelt, and touched the Snake, and the Prince's 
 body. The latter in the instant seemed to come 
 to life ; he moved in the basket, nay, he raised 
 himself into a sitting posture ; Lily was about 
 to clasp him ; but the old Man held her back, 
 and himself assisted the youth to rise, and led 
 him forth from the Basket and the circle. 
 
 The Prince was standing; the Canary-bird 
 was fluttering on his shoulder ; there was life 
 again in both of them, but the spirit had not 
 yet returned; the fair youth's eyes were open, 
 yet he did not see, at least he seemed to look 
 on all without participation. Scarcely had their 
 admiration of this incident a little calmed, when 
 they observed how strangely it had fared in the 
 meanwhile with the Snake. Her fair taper 
 body had crumbled into thousands and thou- 
 sands of shining jewels ; the old Woman reach- 
 ing at her Basket had chanced to come against 
 the circle ; and of the shape or structure of the 
 Snake there was now nothing to be seen, only 
 a bright ring of luminous jewels was lying in 
 the grass. 
 
 The old Man forthwith set himself to gather 
 the stones into the basket; a task in which his 
 wife assisted him. They next carried the 
 Basket to an elevated point on the bank ; and 
 here the man threw its whole lading, not with- 
 out contradiction from the fair one and his wife, 
 who would gladly have retained some part of 
 it, down into the River. Like gleaming twink- 
 ling stars the stones floated down with the 
 waves; and you could not say whether they 
 lost themselves in the distance, or sank to die 
 bottom. 
 
 31 
 
3G2 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he with the Lamp, in a 
 respectful tone to the Lights, "I will now show 
 you the way, and open you the passage ; but 
 you will do us an essential service, if you please 
 to unbolt the door, by which the Sanctuary must 
 be entered at present, and which none but you 
 can unfasten." 
 
 The Lights made a stately bow of assent, and 
 kept their place. The old Man of the Lamp 
 went foremost into the rock, which opened at 
 his presence; the Youth followed him, as if 
 mechanically; silent and uncertain, Lily kept 
 at some distance from him ; the old Woman 
 would not be left, and stretched out her hand 
 that the light of her husband's Lamp might still 
 fall upon it. The rear was closed by the two 
 Will-o'-wisps, who bent the peaks of their flames 
 towards one another, and appeared to be en- 
 gaged in conversation. 
 
 They had not gone far till the procession 
 halted in front of a large brazen door, the leaves 
 of which were bolted with a golden lock. The 
 Man now called upon the Lights to advance ; 
 who required small entreaty, and with their 
 pointed flames soon ate both bar and lock. 
 
 The brass gave a loud clang, as the doors 
 sprang suddenly asunder ; and the stately figures 
 of the Kings appeared within the Sanctuary, 
 illuminated by the entering Lights. All bowed 
 before these dread sovereigns, especially the 
 Flames made a profusion of the daintiest 
 reverences. 
 
 After a pause, the gold King asked : " Whence 
 come ye?" — "From the world," said the old 
 Man. — " Whither go ye ?" said the silver King. 
 — •' Into the world ;" replied the Man. — " What 
 would ye with us ?" cried the brazen King. — 
 * Accompany you," replied the Man. 
 
 The composite King was about to speak, 
 when the gold one addressed the Lights, who 
 had got too near him : " Take yourselves away 
 from me, my metal was not made for you." 
 Thereupon they turned to the silver King, and 
 clasped themselves about him ; and his robe 
 glittered beautifully in their yellow brightness. 
 " You are welcome," said he, " but I cannot feed 
 you ; satisfy yourselves elsewhere, and bring 
 me your light." They removed ; and gliding 
 past the brazen King who did not seem to 
 notice them, they fixed on the compounded 
 King. " Who will govern the world?" cried he 
 with a broken voice. — "He who stands upon 
 his feet," replied the old Man. — "I am he," 
 said the mixed King. — " We shall see," replied 
 the Man : " for the time is at hand.'" 
 
 The fair Lily fell upon the old Man's neck, 
 and kissed him cordially. "Holy Sage !" cried 
 she, "a thousand times I thank thee: for I hear 
 that fateful word the third time." She had 
 scarcely spoken, when she clasped the old Man 
 still faster : for the ground began to move be- 
 neath them; the Youth and the old Woman 
 also held by one another ; the Lights alone did 
 not regard it. 
 
 You could feel plainly that the whole Tem- 
 
 ple was in motion; as a ship that softly glides I 
 away from the harbor, when her anchors are j 
 lifted ; the depths of the Earth seemed to open 
 for the Building as it went along. It struck on 
 nothing ; no rock came in its way. 
 
 For a few instants, a small rain seemed to i 
 drizzle from the opening of the dome ; the old 
 Man held the fair Lily fast, and said to her: 
 " We are now beneath the River ; we shall soon 
 be at the mark." Ere long they thought the 
 Temple made a halt ; but they were in an error : 
 it was mounting upwards. 
 
 And now a strange uproar rose above their I 
 heads. Planks and beams in disordered com- 
 bination now came pressing and crashing in, at i 
 the opening of the dome. Lily and the Woman 
 started to a side; the Man with the Lamp laid | 
 hold of the Youth, and kept standing still. The j 
 little cottage of the Ferryman, for it was this 
 which the Temple in ascending had severed 
 from the ground and carried up with it, sank 
 gradually down, and covered the old Man and 
 the Youth. 
 
 The women screamed aloud, and the Tem- 
 ple shook, like a ship running unexpectedly 
 aground. In sorrowful perplexity, the Princess 
 and her old attendant wandered round the cot- 
 tage in the dawn ; the door was bolted, and to 
 iheir knocking, no one answered. They knock 
 ed more loudly, and were not a little struck, 
 when at length the wood began to ring. By 
 virtue of the Lamp locked up in it, the hut had 
 been converted from the inside to the outside 
 into solid silver. Ere long too its form changed: 
 for the noble metal shook aside the accidental 
 shapes of planks, posts, and beams, and stretch- 
 ed itself out into a noble case of beaten orna- 
 mented workmanship. Thus a fair little tem- 
 ple stood erected in the middle of the large 
 one ; or if you will, an Altar worthy of tne 
 Temple. 
 
 By a stair which ascended from within, the 
 noble Youth now mounted aloft, lighted by the 
 old man with the Lamp ; and, as it seemed, 
 supported by another, who advanced in a white 
 short robe, with a silver rudder in his hand; 
 and was soon recognised as the Ferryman, the 
 former possessor of the cottage. 
 
 The fair Lily mounted the outer steps, which 
 led from the floor of the Temple to the Altar; 
 but she was still obliged to keep herself apart 
 from her Lover. The old Woman, whose hand 
 in the absence of the Lamp had grown stiil 
 smaller, cried : "Am I then to be unhappy after 
 all? Among so many miracles, can there he 
 nothing done to save my hand ?" Pier husbanU 
 pointed to the open door, and said to her : " N : 
 the day is breaking; haste, bathe thyself in the 
 River." — "What an advice!" cried she: "it 
 will make me all black : it will make me vanish 
 altogether : for my debt is not yet paid." " Go," 
 said the man, "and do as I advise thee; a!) 
 debts are now paid." 
 
 The old Woman hastened away; and at that 
 moment appeared the rising sun, upon the rim 
 
GOETHE. 
 
 363 
 
 of the dome. The old Man stept between the 
 Virgin and the Youth, and cried with a loud 
 voice: "There are three which have rule on 
 Earth; Wisdom, Appearance, and Strength." 
 At the first word, the gold King rose ; at the 
 
 , second, the silver one; and at the third, the 
 brass King slowly rose ; while the mixed King 
 on a sudden very awkwardly plumped down. 
 
 Whoever noticed him could scarcely keep 
 from laughing, solemn as the moment was: for 
 he was not sitting, he was not lying, he was 
 not leaning, but shapelessly sunk together. 
 
 The Lights, who till now had been employed 
 upon him, drew to a side ; they appeared, al- 
 though pale in the morning radiance, yet once 
 more well-fed, and in good burning condition ; 
 with their peaked tongues, they had dexterously 
 licked out the gold veins of the colossal figure 
 to its very heart. The irregular vacuities which 
 this occasioned had continued empty for a time, 
 and the figure had maintained its standing pos- 
 ture. But when at last the very tenderest fila- 
 ments were eaten out, the image crashed sud- 
 denly together ; and that, alas, in the very parts 
 which continue unaltered when one sits down; 
 whereas the limbs, which should have bent, 
 sprawled themselves out unbowed and stiff. 
 Whoever could not laugh was obliged to turn 
 away his eyes ; this miserable shape and no- 
 
 t shape was offensive to behold. 
 
 The Man with the Lamp now led the hand- 
 some Youth, who still kept gazing vacantly 
 beibre him, down from the altar, and straight 
 to the brazen King. At the feet of this mighty 
 Potentate, lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The 
 young man girt it round him. " The sword on 
 the left, the right free !" cried the brazen voice. 
 They next proceeded to the silver King; he 
 bent his sceptre to the youth ; the latter seized 
 it with his left hand, and the King in a pleasing 
 voice, said : " Feed the sheep ! : ' On turning to 
 the golden King, he stooped with gestures of 
 paternal blessing, and pressing his oaken gar- 
 land on the young man's head, said : " Under- 
 stand what is highest!" 
 
 During this progress, the old Man had care- 
 fully observed the Prince. After girding on the 
 sword, his breast swelled, his arms waved, and 
 his feet trod firmer ; when he took the sceptre 
 in his hand, his strength appeared to soften, and 
 by an unspeakable charm to become still more 
 subduing; but as the oaken garland came to 
 deck his hair, his features kindled, his eyes 
 gleamed with inexpressible spirit, and the first 
 word of his mouth was " Lily!" 
 
 '•Dearest Lily!" cried he, hastening up the 
 silver stairs to her, for she had viewed his pro- 
 gress from the pinnacle of the altar; "Dearest 
 Lily! what more precious can a man, equipt 
 with all, desire for himself than innocence and 
 the still ailection which thy bosom brings me ? 
 my friend!" continued he, turning to the old 
 Man, and looking at the three statues; "glorious 
 and secure is the kingdom of our fathers ; but 
 thou hast forgotten the fourth power, which 
 
 rules the world, earlier, more universally, more 
 certainly, the power of Love." With these 
 words, he fell upon the lovely maiden's neck; 
 she had cast away her veil, and her cheeks 
 were tinged with the fairest, most imperishable 
 red. 
 
 Here the old Man said, with a smile: "Love 
 does not rule; but it trains, and that is more." 
 
 Amid this solemnity, this happiness and rap- 
 ture, no one had observed that it was now broad 
 day; and all at once, on looking through the 
 open portal, a crowd of altogether unexpected 
 objects met the eye. A large space surrounded 
 with pillars formed the fore-court, at the end of 
 which was seen a broad and stately Bridge 
 stretching with many arches across the River. 
 It was furnished, on both sides, with commodi- 
 ous and magnificent colonnades for foot-travel- 
 lers, many thousands of whom were already 
 there, busily passing this way or that. The 
 broad pavement in the centre was thronged 
 with herds and mules, with horsemen and car- 
 riages, flowing like two streams, on their several 
 sides, and neither interrupting the other. All 
 admired the splendor and convenience of the 
 structure ; and the new King and his Spouse 
 were delighted with the motion and activity of 
 this great people, as they were already happy 
 in their own mutual love. 
 
 "Remember the Snake in honor," said the 
 man with the Lamp ; " thou owest her thy life, 
 thy people owe her the Bridge, by which these 
 neighboring banks are now animated and com- 
 bined into one land. Those swimming and 
 shining jewels, the remains of her sacrificed 
 body, are the piers of this royal bridge ; upon 
 these she has built and will maintain herself." 
 
 The party were about to ask some explana- 
 tion of this strange mystery, when there entered 
 four lovely maidens at the portal of the Temple. 
 By the Harp, the Parasol, and the folding Stool, 
 it was not difficult to recognise the waiting- 
 maids of Lily; but the fourth, more beautiful 
 than any of the rest, was an unknown fair one, 
 and in sisterly sportfulness she hastened with 
 them through the Temple, and mounted the 
 steps of the Altar. 
 
 " Wilt thou have better trust in me another 
 time, good wife ?" said the man with the Lamp 
 to the fair one: "Well for thee, and every living 
 thing that bathes this morning in the River!" 
 
 The renewed and beautified old Woman, of 
 whose former shape no trace remained, em- 
 braced with young eager arms the man with 
 the Lamp, who kindly received her caresses. 
 "If I am too old for thee," said he, smiling, 
 " thou mayest choose another husband to-day ; 
 from this hour no marriage is of force, which is 
 not contracted anew." 
 
 " Dost thou not know, then," answered she, 
 "that thou too art grown younger !" — "It de- 
 lights me if to thy young eyes I seem a hand- 
 some youth : I take thy hand anew, and am 
 well content to live with thee another thousand 
 years." 
 
304 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 The Queen welcomed her new friend, and 
 went down with her into the interior of the 
 altar, while the King stood between his two 
 men, looking towards the bridge, and atten- 
 tively contemplating the busy tumult of the 
 people. 
 
 But his satisfaction did not last; for ere long 
 he saw an object which excited his displeasure. 
 The great Giant, who appeared not yet to have 
 awoke completely from his morning sleep, came 
 stumbling along the Bridge, producing great 
 confusion all around him. As usual, he had 
 risen stupified with sleep, and had meant to 
 bathe in the well-known bay of the River: in- 
 stead of which he found firm land, and plunged 
 upon the broad pavement of the Bridge. Yet 
 although he reeled into the midst of men and 
 cattle in the clumsiest way, his presence, won- 
 dered at by all, was felt by none; but as the 
 sunshine came into his eyes, and he raised his 
 hands to rub them, the shadows of his monstrous 
 fists moved to and fro behind him with such 
 force and awkwardness, that men and beasts 
 were heaped together in great masses, were 
 hurt by such rude contact, and in danger of be- 
 ing pitched into the River. 
 
 The King, as he saw this mischief, grasped 
 with an involuntary movement at his sword ; 
 but he bethought himself, and looked calmly at 
 his sceptre, then at the Lamp and the Rudder 
 of his attendants. " I guess thy thoughts," said 
 the man with the Lamp ; " but we and our gifts 
 are powerless against this powerless monster. 
 Be calm ! He is doing hurt for the last time, and 
 happily his shadow is not turned to us." 
 
 Meanwhile the Giant was approaching nearer ; 
 in astonishment at what he saw with open eyes, 
 he had dropt his hands ; he was now doing no 
 injury, and came staring and agape into the 
 forecourt. 
 
 He was walking straight to the door of the 
 Temple, when all at once in the middle of the 
 court, he halted, and was fixed to the ground. 
 He stood there like a strong colossal statue, of 
 reddish glittering stone, and his shadow pointed 
 out the hours, which were marked in a circle 
 on the floor around him, not in numbers, but in 
 noble and expressive emblems. 
 
 Much delighted was the King to see the 
 monster's shadow turned to some useful pur- 
 pose; much astonished was the Queen; who, 
 on mounting from within the Altar, decked in 
 
 royal pomp with her virgins, first noticed the 
 huge figure, which almost closed the prospect 
 from the Temple to the Bridge. 
 
 Meanwhile the people had crowded after the 
 Giant, as he ceased to move ; they were walk- 
 ing round him, wondering at his metamorphosis. 
 From him they turned to the Temple, which 
 they now first appeared to notice, and pressed 
 towards the door. 
 
 At this instant the Hawk with the mirror 
 soared aloft above the dome ; caught the light 
 of the sun, and reflected it upon the group, 
 which was standing on the altar. The Kii.g, 
 the Queen, and their attendants, in the dusky 
 concave of the Temple, seemed illuminated by 
 a heavenly splendor, and the people fell upon 
 their faces. When the crowd had recovered 
 and risen, the King with his followers had 
 descended into the Altar, to proceed by secret 
 passages into his palace ; and the multitude 
 dispersed about the Temple to content their 
 curiosity. The three Kings that were standing 
 erect they viewed with astonishment and re- 
 verence; but the more eager were they to dis- 
 cover what mass it could be that was hid behind 
 the hangings, in the fourth niche ; for by some 
 hand or another, charitable decency had spread 
 over the resting-place of the Fallen King a 
 gorgeous curtain, which no eye can penetrate, 
 and no hand may dare to draw aside. 
 
 The people would have found no end to their 
 gazing and their admiration, and the crowding 
 multitude would have even suffocated one an- 
 other in the Temple, had not their attention 
 been again attracted to the open space. 
 
 Unexpectedly some gold-pieces, as if falling 
 from the air, came tinkling down upon the 
 marble flags ; the nearest passers-by rushed 
 thither to pick them up ; the wonder was re- 
 peated several times, now here, now there. It 
 is easy to conceive that the shower proceeded 
 from our two retiring Flames, who wished to 
 have a little sport here once more, and were 
 thus gaily spending, ere they went away, the 
 gold which they had licked from the members 
 of the sunken King. The people still ran eagerly 
 about, pressing and pulling one another, even 
 when the gold had ceased to fall. At length 
 they gradually dispersed, and went their way; 
 and to the present hour the Bridge is swarm- 
 ing with travellers, and the Temple is the most 
 frequented on the whole Earth. 
 
PAINTED BYA.ORAFF. 
 
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER. 
 
 Born 1759. Died 1805. 
 
 The life and character of this most popular 
 of German writers have been made familiar to 
 the English and American Public by Mr. Car- 
 lyle's excellent biography, republished in this 
 country several years since, and still the best, 
 if not the only one, in the English language. 
 It has the credit of having been translated into 
 German at the solicitation of his late Excel- 
 lency, von Goethe. To this everywhere acces- 
 sible and everywhere satisfactory work the 
 reader is referred for a fuller account of Schil- 
 ler than is compatible with the scope of the 
 present publication. For readers of German, 
 there is Doring's well-known work, and later 
 and better, Schiller's Leben, &c, by Frau von 
 Wolzogen, sister-in-law of the poet. 
 
 A very brief notice must suffice for these 
 pages. Schiller was a native of Marburg, in 
 the duchy of Wurtemberg. His father, Johann 
 Caspar Schiller, a military officer in the service 
 of the Duke, was piously solicitous to procure 
 for his son the best education which his cir- 
 cumstances would allow. For this purpose he 
 was first placed under the tuition of a private 
 instructer, a clergyman by the name of Moser, 
 and afterward sent to the Latin school at Lud- 
 wigsburg. It was the wish of his parents — 
 and his own choice, as he ripened toward man- 
 hood, coincided with theirs — that he should 
 become a divine ; but the offer of the Duke and 
 the preference shown to the sons of military 
 officers at the new seminary established by him 
 at Stuttgard, induced them to place him at that 
 institution, where his studies assumed a dif- 
 ferent direction, and where, after devoting him- 
 self awhile to law, he finally settled upon me- 
 dicine. 
 
 The six years spent at this institution are 
 represented as the most wretched of his life. 
 "The Stuttgart system of education," says his 
 biographer, "seems to have been formed on the 
 principle, not of cherishing and correcting na- 
 ture, but of rooting it out and supplying its 
 place with something better. The process of 
 teaching and living was conducted with the 
 stiff formality of military drilling. Everything 
 
 went on by statute and ordinance ; there was 
 no scope for the exercise of freewill, no allow- 
 ance for the varieties of original structure. A 
 scholar might possess what instincts or capa- 
 cities he pleased, the ' regulations of the school' 
 took no account of this ; he must fit himself 
 into the common mould which, like the old 
 giant's bed, stood there appointed by superior 
 authority to be filled alike by the great and the 
 little. The same strict and narrow course of 
 reading and composition was marked out for 
 each beforehand, and it was by stealth if he 
 read or wrote anything beside." * * * * 
 " The pupils were kept apart from the conver- 
 sation or sight of any person but their teachers; 
 none ever got beyond the precincts of despotism 
 to snatch even a fearful joy. Their very amuse- 
 ments proceeded by word of command." 
 
 This sort of discipline was ill adapted to 
 educate a poet. Some natures would have 
 been utterly perverted or crushed by it. In 
 Schiller it produced an intense inwardness. 
 His soul was thrust back within itself, and 
 found refuge in the world of ideas from the hard 
 formalities of his scholastic life. This effect 
 was both a benefit and an evil. It is impossible 
 to say whether, on the whole, he gained or 
 lost by it. On the one hand, it stimulated his 
 productiveness and was probably the chief and 
 immediate cause of his literary efforts ; and on 
 the other hand, it gave his poetry that sub- 
 jective character, the excess of which is its 
 great defect. Perhaps, a more genial nurture 
 would have corrected this error by awakening 
 an interest in actual life; and perhaps too, 
 such a nurture might have given his faculties 
 a different direction and left the poet undeve- 
 loped. It is doubtful if any training could have 
 supplied that intimate communication with ex- 
 ternal nature, that eye for forms, that love of 
 things, that sunny realism which constitutes so 
 essential a qualification of the true poet, and 
 which seems to be a natural endowment, unat- 
 tainable and inimitable. 
 
 In 1780 Schiller, having completed his me- 
 dical studies, was appointed surgeon to the 
 31 * (365) 
 
366 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 regiment Auge, in the Wiirtemberg army. In 
 1781 he published his " Robbers," composed, it 
 is said, some years before, at the age of nine- 
 teen, but concealed, for fear of offence, until he 
 had completed his studies. This juvenile effort 
 is, in every point of view, a wonderful produc- 
 tion. Considered as a specimen of precocious 
 genius, it is one of the most remarkable extant. 
 Moreover, it stands decidedly at the head of that 
 class of writings to which it belongs, — a class 
 characterized by stormy force and passionate 
 extravagance of sentiment and diction, "a 
 savageness of unreclaimed blood." The " Sa- 
 tanic school" it is denominated by Mr. Carlyle. 
 Most of Byron's works rank in this rubric. 
 Even the " Sorrows of Werter," though with 
 some latitude of interpretation, has been thus 
 classed. Schiller's drama stands pre-eminent 
 among works of this description, surpassing 
 everything of the sort in that peculiar power 
 of fervid declamation which constitutes one of 
 its distinguishing features. The "Corsair" and 
 "Giaour" are milk-and-water idyls compared 
 with it. The " Robbers" forms an era in litera- 
 ture. It was soon translated into most of the 
 languages of Europe, and everywhere wel- 
 comed as the word which all men were wait- 
 ing to hear. Not only did the pent volcano in 
 the author's own breast find vent in those 
 " power-words," but he appeared as the spokes- 
 man of his time, — the voice of that muttered 
 uneasiness and impatience of existing institu- 
 tions which marked the epoch immediately 
 preceding the French revolution. In strong 
 and terrible accents it spoke the hoarded wrath 
 of long centuries of misrule and oppression. It 
 was an angry scream which pierced every soul 
 from the Rhine to the Baltic, and startled the 
 eagles of dominion on their ancient sceptres, — 
 a prophecy of that tempest which soon after 
 burst upon the world and changed the face of 
 empires. Popular as it was with the young, 
 and on the stage, it is doubtful if the real merits 
 of the " Robbers," to this day, have been duly 
 appreciated by the critics. Its extravagances 
 and puerilities, unhappily but too prominent, 
 have thrown a shade over its great excellences 
 and biassed the judgment of mature and less 
 inflammable readers. It is not, as sometimes 
 represented, a mere farrago of power-words 
 and rodomontade. It is far more than that. It 
 is a genuine work of genius, a work unsur- 
 passed, with the exception of Faust, by any- 
 thing since Shakspeare, in imaginative power, 
 
 in the vivid delineation of vice and passion, and 
 in tragic interest. Schiller has produced many i 
 things far superior to the " Robbers," as works 
 of art, but nothing that equals it in vigor and 
 effect. The promise implied in this first effort, ' 
 which the author himself has stigmatised as a 
 "monster born of the unnatural union of Genius 
 with Thraldom," was never quite realized in i 
 his subsequent productions. 
 
 Meanwhile the publication of this tragedy ! 
 was attended with some disagreeable conse- ! 
 quences to the author. He drew down upon 
 himself the wrath of the people of the Grisons 
 by an offensive allusion, aspersing the reputa- 
 tion of that district ; he incurred the suspicion 
 of the Grand Duke by becoming an author, u 
 well as by the specific character of his drama , 
 and finally subjected himself to repeated arrests 
 for going to Manheim " without leave" to wit- 
 ness its performance at the theatre in that city. 
 The result was that Schiller made his escape 
 from surgery and persecution at Stuttgart and 
 fled to Manheim, where he found a temporary 
 support by writing for the stage. After a short 
 residence in this city he went to Mayence, 
 then to Dresden, then to Leipzig. He also 
 resided for a while at the estate of the Frau 
 von Wolzogen. In 1784 he was made Counsel- 
 lor by the Duke of Weimar, and in 1787 took 
 up his residence in that city. Here, after some 
 hesitation and coyness, and overcoming of pre- 
 judice on both sides, he became acquainted 
 and finally intimate with Goethe, whose nature, 
 in most respects the antipodes of his own, acted 
 with decisive effect on Schiller's genius and 
 destiny. Indeed, his acquaintance with Goethe 
 seems to have been the most powerful influence 
 to which his riper years were subjected. Goethe 
 has given an account of the formation of this 
 acquaintance, from which it appears how diffi- 
 cult it was for these two spirits, the idealist 
 and the realist, — each so determined in his 
 way, — to amalgamate or even to converse. 
 The unbroken friendship subsisting between 
 them for nearly twenty years, is a rare and 
 beautiful passage in literary history, and highly 
 creditable to both parties. In Goethe it re- 
 quired a severe struggle with fixed views and 
 purposes, and some magnanimity, to make the 
 first advances to the young poet whom, on his 
 return from Italy, he found in full possession 
 of the popular ear and heart, and threatening 
 to re-induce a style and tendency which he, 
 for his part, had laid aside with the crudities 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 307 
 
 of his youth, and was every way endeavoring 
 to counteract and supplant. Schiller himself 
 thought they should never come together, and 
 writes thus of their first interview : " Though 
 it did not at all diminish the idea, great as it 
 was, which I had previously formed of Goethe, 
 I doubt if we shall ever come into close com- 
 munication with each other. Much that still 
 interests me has already had its epoch with 
 him ; his whole nature is from its very origin 
 otherwise constructed than mine ; his world is 
 not my world, our modes of conceiving things 
 appear to be essentially different." Goethe, on 
 the other hand, relates that Schiller during 
 this interview, in which the conversation 
 turned on the metamorphosis of plants, said 
 many things which pained him excessively, 
 but that he determined to take no notice of 
 them, and to discover, if possible, something 
 which was common to both, and which might 
 serve as the basis of an harmonious relation. 
 Long after Schiller's death he remarks of their 
 intimacy : " There was something providential 
 in my connection with Schiller ; it might have 
 happened earlier or later without so much 
 significance; but that it should occur just at 
 this time, when I had my Italian journey be- 
 hind me, and Schiller began to be weary of 
 his philosophical speculations, led to very im- 
 portant consequences for both." Mr. Carlyle 
 remarks : " If we regard the relative situation 
 of the parties, and their conduct in this matter, 
 we must recognise in both of them no little 
 social virtue, at all events, a deep disinterested 
 love of worth. In the case of Goethe, more 
 especially, who, as the elder and every way 
 greater of the two, has little to expect in com- 
 parison with what he gives, this friendly union, 
 had we space to explain its nature and progress, 
 would give new proof that, as poor Jung Stil- 
 ling also experienced, ' the man's heart which 
 few know, is as true and noble as his genius 
 which all know.' " 
 
 In 1789 Schiller was made, through the me- 
 diation of Goethe, Professor extraordinary of 
 philosophy at Jena, and, the year following, 
 was married to Fraulein von Lengefeld. In 
 1791 he was attacked with a violent disease 
 of the chest, which, for a long while, incapa- 
 citated him for literary and professional labor. 
 During this interval^ he received from the 
 hereditary Prince of Denmark and Count von 
 Schimmelman, a pension of one thousand rix 
 dollars for three years. After his recovery he 
 
 applied himself with renewed and suicidal 
 devotion to his former pursuits, compelling 
 himself to labor oftentimes, when nature was 
 unequal to the effort, and seconding nature 
 with stimulants. " His intolerance of inter- 
 ruption," says his biographer, " first put him on 
 the plan of studying by night ; an alluring but 
 pernicious practice which began at Dresden 
 and was never afterwards given up." * * * 
 "During summer, his place of study was in 
 a garden, which he at length purchased, in 
 the suburbs of Jena." * * * In this garden 
 "Schiller built himself a small house with a 
 single chamber. It was his favorite abode 
 during the hours of composition ; a great part 
 of the works he then wrote were written here." 
 
 * * * "On sitting down to his desk at night 
 he was wont to keep some strong coffee or 
 wine-chocolate, but more frequently a flask of 
 old Rhenish or Champagne standing by him, 
 that he might repair the exhaustion of nature." 
 
 * * * "In winter he was to be found at his 
 desk till four or even five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, in summer till towards three. He then 
 went to bed, from which he seldom rose till nine 
 or ten." As might be expected, this insane and 
 ruinous mode of life soon used up the feeble 
 remains of a constitution originally slender, and 
 long impaired by disease. The only wonder is, 
 that nature endured the outrage so long. 
 Goethe says : " This habit not only injured his 
 health but also his productions: the faults 
 which some wise heads find in his works, pro- 
 ceed, I think, from this source. All the pas- 
 sages which they blame may be styled patho- 
 logical passages; for they were written on 
 those days when he had not strength to do his 
 best." 
 
 In 1801, by the advice of his physician, he 
 removed from Jena to Weimar, where he re- 
 sided until his death. The Grand Duke allowed 
 him a pension of a thousand dollars yearly, 
 and offered to give him twice as much, in case 
 he should be hindered by sickness. Schiller 
 declined this last offer and never availed him- 
 self of it. "I have talents," said he, "and must 
 help myself." His chief income was derived 
 from his works, and he compelled himself to 
 write two dramas yearly, to meet the growing 
 expenses of his family. In 1802 he was en- 
 nobled by the emperor of Germany. He had 
 previously received the rights of citizenship 
 from the French Republic, at the commence- 
 ment of the Revolution. 
 
368 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 After attending a representation of his own 
 " Tell" at Berlin, where he was received with 
 great honor, he died at Weimar, May 19th, 
 1805, in his forty-seventh year ; having, in the 
 language of Goethe, " sacrificed life to the de- 
 lineation of life."* 
 
 The forty years which have elapsed since 
 his death have not diminished the estima- 
 tion in which Schiller is held by his country- 
 men. He is still the most popular of German 
 writers. Goethe, indeed, is preferred by men 
 of the highest culture ; Goethe is the prophet 
 of the philosophical and profound; but Schiller 
 is the poet of the people, and, in all probability, 
 will long continue to hold the supreme rank in 
 the popular estimation. In a great measure, 
 this popularity is owing to intrinsic merit. 
 Schiller's excellences are perfectly intelligible ; 
 they commend themselves at first sight; they 
 lie on the surface. Not that he lacks profound- 
 ness; but he does not, like so many of his 
 countrymen, court obscurity ; he does not hide 
 a second meaning behind the first; there is 
 nothing esoteric in his writings; he never 
 enigmatizes. Goethe maintained that a perfect 
 work of art must leave something to conjec- 
 ture. This was not Schiller's theory of art. 
 At least, it was not his practice. Though emi- 
 nently reflective, he is perfectly transparent. 
 In part, however, the popularity of Schiller 
 may be ascribed to the zeal with which, in 
 early life, he advocated the cause of liberty ; 
 and another reason still, is the dramatic form 
 which his genius assumed at the outset, and 
 the wide circulation and commanding emphasis 
 given to his writings by theatrical exhibition. 
 The dramatic poet possesses a great advantage, 
 in this respect, over other authors. "In the 
 first place, it is evident," says Jean Paul, "how 
 far one of the latter class, with his scattered 
 recluse-readers, honored but little, and that only 
 by cultivated men, read perhaps twice in suc- 
 cession, but not heard forty times in succession; 
 — it is evident, I say, how far such an Irus in 
 fame, such a John Lackland falls below the 
 stage-poet, who not only wears these laurel- 
 gleanings upon his head, but adds to them the 
 rich harvest, that prince and chimney-sweep, 
 
 *" He had," says Goethe, " an awful progressiveness. 
 When I had been a week without seeing him, I was amazed 
 and knew not where to take hold of him, and found him 
 already advanced again. And so he went ever forward 
 for forty-six years. Then, indeed, he had gone far 
 enough." 
 
 and every generation and every age get his 
 thoughts into their heads and his name into 
 their mouths ; that often the most miserable 
 market- towns, whenever a more miserable 
 strolling actor's company moves into them, 
 harness themselves to the triumphal car in 
 which such a writer is borne." * * * " There 
 are a hundred other advantages which, by the 
 figure of permission {Jigura prateritionis), I 
 might mention, but which I prefer to omit; 
 this, e. g., that a dramatic author (and often- 
 times he is present and hears it all) employs, 
 as it were, a whole corporation of hands in his 
 service; * * * furthermore, that he is 
 learned by heart, not only by the actors, but, 
 after many repetitions, by the hearers also, and 
 is continually praised anew in all the standing 
 though tedious theatrical notices of the daily 
 and monthly journals." * * * " Hence we 
 may explain the fact, that our cold Germany 
 has exerted itself so much and so well for 
 
 Schiller and so little for Herder."* No 
 
 writer of any nation, at present, fills so large a 
 place in the mind of his country, or exercises 
 such fascination over it, as Schiller. Scarcely 
 less read than Scott, he is far more deeply 
 loved, — loved with the passionate interest 
 which attaches to a great unfinished life ; with 
 that yearning which follows a beautiful spirit 
 too soon withdrawn from the earth. To him 
 belongs the peculiar charm which made Byron, 
 for a while, the idol of the young; but without 
 the moral abatements so lamentable in his 
 case, — the charm of intensity. Add to this the 
 feminine delicacy of Racine, the masculine sin- 
 cerity, if not the austere sanctity, of Milton, 
 the soaring mind of Tasso, the studied elegance 
 of Virgil, the tragic seriousness of Euripides: 
 all these combine to render Schiller not only 
 the favorite of his own nation, but the delight 
 of the world. Frederic Schlegel characterizes 
 him as " the true founder of the German dra- 
 ma," the man who gave it " its proper sphere 
 and its most happy form."f The most elaborate 
 eulogy of Schiller is that of Menzel, in his 
 survey of German literature, in which the poet 
 is not inaptly compared to Raphael. Mr. Long- 
 fellow has cited this full-mouthed panegyric in 
 the notice of Schiller contained in " The Poets 
 and Poetry of Europe." For this reason, it was 
 thought best to omit it here and to substitute 
 
 *From "Katzenberger's Badereise." 
 
 t Lectures on the History of Literature, vol. ii. 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 369 
 
 instead the more discriminating, if less lauda- 
 tory criticism of Mr. Carlyle.* 
 
 "From many indications, we can perceive 
 that to Schiller the task of the Poet appeared 
 of far weightier import to mankind in these 
 times than that of any other man whatever. 
 It seemed to him that he was " casting his 
 bread upon the waters, and would find it after 
 many days ;" that when the noise of all conju- 
 rors, and demagogues, and political reformers 
 had quite died away, some tone of heavenly 
 wisdom that had dwelt even in him might still 
 linger among men, and be acknowledged as 
 heavenly and priceless, whether as his or not ; 
 whereby, though dead, he would yet speak, and 
 his spirit would live throughout all generations, 
 when the syllables that once formed his name 
 had passed into forgetfulness forever. We are 
 told, "he was in the highest degree philan- 
 thropic and humane; and often said that he 
 had no deeper wish than to know all men hap- 
 py." What was still more, he strove, in his 
 public and private capacity, to do his utmost 
 for that end. Honest, merciful, disinterested, 
 he is at all times found : and for the great duty 
 laid on him no man was ever more unweariedly 
 ardent. It was 'his evening song and his 
 morning prayer.' He lived for it ; and he died 
 for it ; ' sacrificing,' in the words of Goethe, 
 'his Life itself to this delineating of Life.' In 
 collision with his fellow-men, — for with him as 
 with others this also was a part of his relation 
 to society, — we find him no less noble than in 
 friendly union with them. He mingles in none 
 of the controversies of the time ; or only like a 
 god in the battles of men. In his conduct to- 
 wards inferiors, even ill-intentioned and mean 
 inferiors, there is everywhere a true, dignified, 
 patrician spirit. Ever witnessing, and inwardly 
 lamenting, the baseness of vulgar Literature in 
 his day, he makes no clamorous attacks on it ; 
 alludes to it only from afar: as in Milton's 
 writings, so in his, few of his contemporaries 
 are named, or hinted at; it was not with men, 
 but with things that he had a warfare. In a 
 word, we can say of Schiller, what can be said 
 only of few in any country or time : He was a 
 high ministering servant at Truth's altar ; and 
 bore him worthily of the office he held. Let 
 this, and that it was even in our age, be forever 
 remembered to his praise. 
 
 " Schiller's intellectual character has, as in- 
 
 * From " Carlyle's Miscellanies." Boston, James Mun- 
 roe and Co., vol. ii. 
 
 2 w 
 
 deed is always the case, an accurate conformity 
 with his moral one. Here too he is simple in 
 his excellence ; lofty rather than expansive or 
 varied ; pure, divinely ardent rather than great. 
 A noble sensibility, the truest sympathy with 
 Nature, in all forms, animates him ; yet scarcely 
 any creative gift altogether commensurate with 
 this. If to his mind's eye all forms of Nature 
 have a meaning and beauty, it is only under a 
 few forms, chiefly of the severe or pathetic 
 kind, that he can body forth this meaning, can 
 represent as a Poet what as a Thinker he dis- 
 cerns and loves. We might say, his music is 
 true spheral music ; yet only with few tones, 
 in simple modulation ; no full choral harmony 
 is to be heard in it. That Schiller, at least in 
 his later years, attained a genuine poetic style, 
 and dwelt, more or less, in the perennial regions 
 of his Art, no one will deny : yet still his poetry 
 shows rather like a partial than a universal 
 gift; the labored product of certain faculties 
 rather than the spontaneous product of his 
 whole nature. At the summit of the pyre, 
 there is indeed white flame ; but the materials 
 are not all in flame, perhaps not all ignited. 
 Nay, often it seems to us, as if poetry were, on 
 the whole, not his essential gift ; as if his genius 
 were reflective in a still higher degree than 
 creative ; philosophical and oratorical rather 
 than poetic. To the last, there is a stiffness in 
 him, a certain infusibility. His genius is not 
 an iEolian harp, for the common wind to play 
 with, and make wild, free melody ; but a sci- 
 entific harmonica, that being artfully touched 
 will yield rich notes, though in limited mea- 
 sure. It may be, indeed, or rather it is highly 
 probable, that of the gifts which lay in him 
 only a small portion was unfolded : for we are 
 to recollect that nothing came to him without 
 a strenuous effort ; and that he was called away 
 at middle age. At all events, here as we find 
 him we should say, that of all his endowments 
 the most perfect is understanding. Accurate, 
 thorough insight is a quality we miss in none 
 of his productions, whatever else may be want- 
 ing. He has an intellectual vision, clear, wide, 
 piercing, methodical, — a truly philosophic eye. 
 Yet in regard to this also it is to be remarked, 
 that the same simplicity, the same want of uni- 
 versality again displays itself. He looks aloft 
 rather than around. It is in high, far-seeing 
 philosophic views that he delights ; in specu- 
 lations on Art, — on the dignity and destiny of 
 Man, rather than on the common doings and 
 
370 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 interests of Men. Nevertheless these latter, 
 mean as they seem, are boundless in signifi- 
 cance ; for every the poorest aspect of Nature, 
 especially of living Nature, is a type and mani- 
 festation of the invisible spirit that works in 
 Nature. There is properly no object trivial 
 or insignificant : but every finite thing, could 
 we look well, is as a window, through which 
 solemn vistas are opened into Infinitude itself. 
 But neither as a Poet nor as a Thinker, neither 
 in delineation nor in exposition and discussion, 
 does Schiller more than glance at such objects. 
 For the most part, the Common is to him still 
 the Common, or is idealized, rather as it were 
 by mechanical art than by inspiration : not 
 by deeper poetic or philosophic inspection, dis- 
 closing new beauty in its every-day features, 
 but rather by deducting these, by casting them 
 aside, and dwelling on what brighter features 
 may remain in it. Herein Schiller, as, indeed, 
 himself was modestly aware, differs essentially 
 from most great poets; and from none more 
 than from his great contemporary, Goethe. 
 Such intellectual preeminence as this, valuable 
 though it be, is the easiest and the least valu- 
 able ; a preeminence that indeed captivates the 
 general eye, but may, after all, have little in- 
 trinsic grandeur. Less in rising into lofty ab- 
 stractions lies the difficulty, than in seeing well 
 and lovingly the complexities of what is at 
 hand. He is wise who can instruct us and 
 assist us in the business of daily virtuous living ; 
 he who trains us to see old truth under Aca- 
 demic formularies may be wise or not as it 
 chances; but we love to see Wisdom in unpre- 
 tending forms, to recognise her royal features 
 under week-day vesture. — There may be more 
 true spiritual force in a Proverb than in a phi- 
 losophical system. A King in the midst of his 
 body-guards, with all his trumpets, war-horses, 
 and gilt standard-bearers, will look great though 
 he be little ; but only some Roman Carus can 
 give audience to satrap - ambassadors, while 
 seated on the ground, with a woollen cap, and 
 supping on boiled peas, like a common soldier. 
 
 " In all Schiller's earlier writings, nay, more 
 or less, in the whole of his writings, this aris- 
 tocratic fastidiousness, this comparatively bar- 
 ren elevation, appears as a leading character- 
 istic. In speculation he is either altogether 
 abstract and systematic, or he dwells on old, 
 conventionally - noble themes; never looking 
 abroad, over the many-colored stream of life, 
 to elucidate and ennoble it ; or only looking on 
 
 it, so to speak, from a college window. The 
 philosophy even of his Histories, for example, 
 founds itself mainly on the perfectibility of man, 
 the effect of constitutions, of religions, and other 
 such high, purely scientific objects. In his 
 Poetry we have a similar manifestation. The 
 interest turns on prescribed, old-established 
 matters, common love mania, passionate great- 
 ness, enthusiasm for liberty, and the like. This, 
 even in Don Karlos, a work of what may be 
 called his transition-period, the turning-point 
 between his earlier and his later period, where 
 we still find Posa, the favorite hero, ' towering 
 aloft, far-shining, clear and cold, as a sea bea- 
 con.' In after years, Schiller himself saw well 
 that the greatest lay not here. With unwea- 
 ried effort he strove to lower and to widen his 
 sphere, and not without success, as many of his 
 Poems testify; for example, the Lied der 
 Glocke (Song of the Bell), every way a noble 
 composition ; and, in a still higher degree, the 
 tragedy of Wilhelm Tell, the last, and, so far 
 as spirit and style are concerned, the best of 
 all his dramas. 
 
 " Closely connected with this imperfection, 
 both as cause and as consequence, is Schiller's 
 singular want of Humor. Humor is properly 
 the exponent of low things; that which first 
 renders them poetical to the mind. The man 
 of Humor sees common life, even mean life, 
 under the new light of sportfulness and love; 
 whatever has existence has a charm for him. 
 Humor has justly been regarded as the finest 
 perfection of poetic genius. He who wants it, 
 be his other gifts what they may, has only half 
 a mind ; an eye for what is above him, not for 
 what is about him or below him. Now, among 
 all writers of any real poetic genius, we cannot 
 recollect one who, in this respect, exhibits such 
 total deficiency as Schiller. In his whole writ- 
 ings there is scarcely any vestige of it, scarcely 
 any attempt that way. His nature was without 
 Humor ; and he had too true a feeling to adopt 
 any counterfeit in its stead. Thus no drollery 
 or caricature, still less any barren mockery, 
 which, in the hundred cases, are all that we 
 find passing current as Humor, discover them- 
 selves in Schiller. His works are full of la- 
 bored earnestness; he is the gravest of ail 
 writers. Some of his critical discussions, es- 
 pecially in the Aesthetische Briefe, where he 
 designates the ultimate height of man's culture 
 by the title of Spieltrieb (literally, sport- im- 
 pulse), prove that he knew what Humor was, 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 371 
 
 and how essential ; as indeed, to his intellect, 
 all forms of excellence, even the most alien to 
 his own, were painted with a wonderful fidelity. 
 Nevertheless, he himself attains not that height 
 which he saw so clearly ; to the last the Spiel- 
 trieb could be little more than a theory with 
 him. With the single exception of Wallen- 
 stein's Lager, where, too, the Humor, if it be 
 such, is not deep, his other attempts at mirth, 
 fortunately very few, are of the heaviest. A 
 rigid intensity, a serious enthusiastic ardor, 
 majesty rather than grace, still more than 
 lightness or sportfulness, characterizes him. 
 Wit he had, such wit as keen intellectual in- 
 sight can give ; yet even of this no large en- 
 dowment. Perhaps he was too honest, too 
 sincere, for the exercise of wit ; too intent on 
 the deeper relations of things to note their 
 more transient collisions. Besides, he dealt in 
 Affirmation, and not in Negation; in which 
 last, it has been said, the material of wit chiefly 
 lies. 
 
 " These observations are to point out for us 
 the special department and limits of Schiller's 
 excellence ; nowise to call in question its reality. 
 Of his noble sense for Truth, both in specula- 
 tion and in action ; of his deep, genial insight 
 into nature ; and the living harmony in which 
 he renders back what is highest and grandest 
 in Nature, no reader of his works need be re- 
 minded. In whatever belongs to the pathetic, 
 the heroic, the tragically elevating, Schiller is 
 at home, a master ; nay perhaps the greatest 
 of all late poets. To the assiduous student, 
 moreover, much that lay in Schiller, but was 
 never worked into shape, will become partially 
 visible : deep, inexhaustible mines of thought 
 and feeling : a whole world of gifts, the finest 
 produce of which was but beginning to be real- 
 ized. To his high-minded, unwearied efforts, 
 what was impossible, had length of years been 
 granted him ! There is a tone in some of his 
 later pieces, which here and there breathes of 
 the very highest region of Art. Nor are the 
 natural or accidental defects we have noticed 
 in his genius, even as it stands, such as to ex- 
 clude him from the rank of great Poets. Poets 
 whom the whole world reckons great, have, 
 more than once, exhibited the like. Milton, 
 for example, shares most of them with him: 
 like Schiller he dwells, with full power, only 
 in the high and earnest; in all other provinces 
 exhibiting a certain inaptitude, a certain ele- 
 phantine unpliancy: he too has little Humor; 
 
 his coarse invective has in it contemptuous 
 emphasis enough, yet scarcely any graceful 
 sport. Indeed, on the positive side also, these 
 two worthies are not without a resemblance. 
 Under far other circumstances, with less mas- 
 siveness, and vehement strength of soul, there 
 is in Schiller the same intensity; the same 
 concentration, and towards similar objects, to- 
 wards whatever is sublime in Nature and in 
 Art, which sublimities they both, each in his 
 several way, worship with undivided heart. 
 There is not in Schiller's nature the same rich 
 complexity of rhythm, as in Milton's, with its 
 depths of linked sweetness ; yet in Schiller too 
 there is something of the same pure, swelling 
 force, some tone which, like Milton's, is deep, 
 majestic, solemn. 
 
 " It was as a Dramatic Author that Schiller 
 distinguished himself to the world : yet often 
 we feel as if chance rather than a natural ten- 
 dency had led him into this province ; as if his 
 talent were essentially, in a certain style, ly- 
 rical, perhaps even epic, rather than dramatic. 
 He dwelt within himself, and could not without 
 effort, and then only within a certain range, 
 body forth other forms of being. Nay, much 
 of what is called his poetry seems to us, as 
 hinted above, oratorical rather than poetical; 
 his first bias might have led him to be a speaker, 
 rather than a singer. Nevertheless, a pure 
 fire dwelt deep in his soul ; and only in Poetry, 
 of one or the other kind, could this find utter- 
 ance. The rest of his nature, at the same 
 time, has a certain prosaic rigor: so that not 
 without strenuous and complex endeavors, long 
 persisted in, could its poetic quality evolve it- 
 self. Quite pure, and as the all-sovereign ele- 
 ment, it perhaps never did evolve itself ; and 
 among such complex endeavors, a small ac- 
 cident might influence large portions in its 
 
 course. Of Schiller's Philosophic talent, 
 
 still more of the results he had arrived at in 
 philosophy, there were much to be said and 
 thought, which we must not enter upon here. 
 As hinted above, his primary endowment seems 
 to us fully as much philosophical as poetical ; 
 his intellect, at all events, is peculiarly of that 
 character ; strong, penetrating, yet systematic 
 and scholastic, rather than intuitive ; and ma- 
 nifesting this tendency both in the objects it 
 treats, and in its mode of treating them. The 
 transcendental Philosophy, which arose in Schil- 
 ler's busiest era, could not remain without in- 
 fluence on him : he had carefully studied Kant's 
 
372 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 system, and appears to have not only admitted 
 but zealously appropriated its fundamental doc- 
 trines; remoulding them, however, into his 
 own peculiar forms, so that they seem no longer 
 borrowed, but permanently acquired ; not less 
 Schiller's than Kant's. Some, perhaps little 
 aware of his natural wants and tendencies, are 
 of opinion that these speculations did not profit 
 him. 
 
 " Among younger students of German Lite- 
 rature, the question often arises, and is warmly 
 mooted : whether Schiller or Goethe is the 
 greater Poet? Of this question we must be 
 allowed to say that it seems rather a slender 
 one, and for two reasons. First, because Schil- 
 ler and Goethe are of totally dissimilar endow- 
 ments and endeavors, in regard to all matters 
 intellectual, and cannot well be compared to- 
 gether as Poets. Secondly, because if the 
 question mean to ask, which Poet is on the 
 whole the rarer and more excellent, as probably 
 it does, it must be considered as long ago abun- 
 dantly answered. To the clear-sighted and 
 modest Schiller, above all, such a question 
 would have appeared surprising : No one knew 
 better than himself, that as Goethe was a born 
 Poet, so he was in a great part a made Poet ; 
 that as the one spirit was intuitive, all-embrac- 
 ing, instinct with melody, so the other was 
 scholastic, divisive, only partially and as it were 
 artificially melodious. Besides, Goethe has 
 lived to perfect his natural gift, which the less 
 happy Schiller was not permitted to do. The 
 
 UPON NAIVE AND SENTIMENTAL 
 POETRY* 
 
 There are moments in our life when we feel 
 a kind of love and tender respect for Nature in 
 plants, minerals, animals, landscapes, and for 
 human nature in children, in the manners of 
 rustics and of the primitive times : not on ac- 
 count of its sensuous interest, nor because it 
 satisfies our intellect or taste, for the opposite 
 may often occur with both, but solely because it 
 is Nature. Every cultivated man, not entirely 
 deficient in feeling, is sensible of this, when he 
 walks in the open air, or is living in the coun- 
 try, or lingers near the monuments of past 
 time : in short, when he is overtaken, in the midst 
 of artificial relations and situations, by the sim- 
 plicity of nature. It is this interest, often 
 amounting to a want, which underlies many of 
 * Translated by Rev. J. Weiss. 
 
 former accordingly is the national Poet; the 
 latter is not and never could have been. We 
 once heard a German remark, that readers to 
 their twenty-fifth year usually preferred Schil- 
 ler ; after their twenty-fifth year, Goethe. This 
 probably was no unfair illustration of the ques- 
 tion. Schiller can seem higher than Goethe 
 only because he is narrower. Thus to unprac- 
 tised eyes, a Peak of Teneriffe, nay, a Strass- 
 burg Minster, when we stand on it, may seem 
 higher than a Chimborazo ; because the former 
 rise abruptly, without abutment or environment ; 
 the latter rises gradually, carrying half a world 
 aloft with it; and only the deeper azure of the 
 heavens, the widened horizon, the 'eternal 
 sunshine' disclose to the geographer that the 
 ' Region of Change' lies far below him. 
 
 "However, let us not divide these two Friends, 
 who in life were so benignantly united. With- 
 out asserting for Schiller any claim that even 
 enemies can dispute, enough will remain for 
 him. We may say that, as a Poet and Thinker, 
 he attains to a perennial Truth, and ranks 
 among the noblest productions of his century 
 and nation. Goethe may continue the German 
 Poet, but neither through long generations can 
 Schiller be forgotten." 
 
 As, of all German writers, Schiller is per- 
 haps the best known, or least misunderstood, 
 among us ; as he has rank as poet rather than 
 prose-writer, the following essay must suffice 
 for the present collection. 
 
 our passions for flowers and creatures, for sim- 
 ple gardens, for walks, for the country and its 
 inhabitants, for many products of distant an- 
 tiquity, and the like. But this presupposes that 
 neither affectation nor an otherwise accidental 
 interest comes into play. Then this kind of 
 interest in nature occurs only under two con- 
 ditions. In the first place it is absolutely neces- 
 sary, that the object which excites it should be 
 Nature, or taken for such by us : secondly, that, 
 in the widest signification of the term, it should 
 be naive, that is, that nature should stand in con- 
 trast with art, and rebuke it. Nature becomes 
 naive as soon as these two conditions are com- 
 bined. 
 
 From this point of view nature becomes for 
 us nothing more nor less than independent 
 Being, the persistence of things by themselves, 
 existence according to peculiar 'and immutable 
 laws. 
 
SCHILLER. 373 
 
 This conception is absolutely prerequisite, if 
 we would take interest in like phenomena. 
 Could one, with the eornpletest deception, give 
 a natural look to an artificial flower, or carry 
 the imitation of naive manners to the highest 
 point of illusion, the discovery that it was all 
 imitation would entirely destroy the feeling of 
 which we speak* Whence it is clear that this 
 kind of pleasure in nature is moral and not 
 aesthetic : for it is mediated by an idea, and is 
 not created by direct contemplation. Besides 
 which, it is by no means directed towards 
 beauty of form. For instance : what attraction 
 would a colorless flower, a fountain, a mossy 
 stone, the twitter of birds, the humming of bees, 
 have for us in themselves? What could give 
 them a claim to our love 1 We do not love the 
 objects themselves, but the ideas they represent. 
 We love in each of them the still, creative life, 
 the tranquil production out of itself, existence 
 according to its own laws, eternal unity with 
 itself. 
 
 They are what we were ; they are what we 
 again should be. Like them, we were Nature ; 
 and our culture ought to lead us back to Nature, 
 by the path of reason and freedom. Then they 
 are at the same time the representation of our 
 lost childhood, which forever remains the dear- 
 est to us : hence, they fill us with a certain sad- 
 ness; and at the same time the representation 
 of our loftiest completion in the ideal : hence, 
 they give us a sublime emotion. 
 
 But their completeness is not their merit, 
 since it is not the work of their own choice. 
 They secure for us, then, this entirely peculiar 
 pleasure, that without making us ashamed, they 
 are our model. They surround us, as a con- 
 tinual divine manifestation, but more refreshing 
 than dazzling. What makes their character 
 complete is exactly that in which our own is 
 deficient: what distinguishes us from them is 
 exactly that of divinity in which they fail. We 
 are free, and they are necessary : we alter, they 
 remain one. But the divine or the ideal ob- 
 tains, only when the differences are blended, 
 when the will follows freely the law of neces- 
 sity, and the reason maintains its sway through 
 every change of fancy. Then we forever per- 
 ceive in them that which we lack, but for which 
 we are invited to strive, and to which, even 
 though we never attain it, we may yet hope to 
 approximate in an infinite progression. We 
 perceive in ourselves a superiority, which they 
 
 * Kant, the first to my knowledge who directed reflec- 
 tion expressly towards this phenomenon, remarks, that 
 if we heard a man imitate with complete success the 
 note of a nightingale, and yielded to the impression with 
 profound emotion, all our pleasure would vanish with 
 the dissipation of this illusion. See the chapter in the 
 Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, upon Intellectual interest 
 in the beautiful. Whoever has learned to admire the 
 author only as a great thinker, will here he delighted to 
 meet with a trace of his heart; and to l>e convinced, 
 by the discovery, of his fitness for this lofty vocation, 
 which unquestionably demands the union of both those 
 qualities. 
 
 lack, but which they can either never share, 
 like the senseless creation, or only as they pro- 
 ceed in our path, like the state of childhood. 
 Hence, as idea, they create for us the sweetest 
 enjoyment of our manhood, although they must 
 of necessity humiliate us with respect to each 
 determinate condition of our manhood. 
 
 As this interest for nature is based upon an 
 idea, it can be shown only in dispositions sus- 
 ceptible of ideas, that is, in moral ones. By far 
 the majority of men only affect it; and the uni- 
 versality of this sentimental taste in our times, 
 which displays itself, especially since the ap- 
 pearance of certain writings, in affected travels, i 
 gardens of like sort, walks and other fondnesses 
 of the kind, is no proof at all for the univer- 
 sality of the true sentiment. Yet Nature will 
 always exert something of this influence upon 
 the most insensible, since for that the com- 
 mon bias of all men to the moral is adequate ; 
 and all of us without distinction, however 
 great a disproportion there may be between 
 our acts and the simplicity and truth of Na- 
 ture, are compelled to that in idea. This sen- 
 timent for Nature and incitement from objects 
 standing in a close relation with us, — as for 
 example, children and childlike people, — and 
 bringing nearer to us both self - retrospection 
 and our own unnature, is especially strong and 
 universal. It is erroneous to suppose, that it is 
 only the appearance of helplessness which 
 makes us, at certain times, linger with so much 
 emotion near children. Perhaps that may be 
 the case with some, who are wont to feel, in the 
 presence of weakness, nothing but their own 
 superiority. But the feeling of which I speak 
 occurring only in entirely moral dispositions, 
 and not to be confounded with that excited by 
 the playful activity of children, is rather hu- 
 miliating than gratifying to self-love; and in- 
 deed if any superiority is noticeable at all, it is 
 by no means on our side. We experience emo- 
 tion, not while we look down upon the child 
 from the height of our power and perfection, 
 but while we look up, out of the limitation of 
 our condition which is inseparable from the 
 definite mode to which we have attained, at the 
 child's boundless cleterminablenessand its perfect 
 innocence. And, at such a moment, our feeling 
 is too plainly mingled with a certain sadness, 
 to allow us to mistake its source. The child 
 represents the bias and determination, we repre- 
 sent the fulfilment, which forever remains in- 
 finitely far behind the former. Hence the child 
 is an actualization of the ideal, not indeed of 
 one fulfilled, but of one proposed; and so it is 
 by no means the appearance of its neediness 
 and limits which moves us, but, on the con 
 trary, the appearance of its free and pure power, 
 its integrity, its infinity. For this reason, a child 
 will be a holy object to the man of morality 
 and feeling, that is, an object which, by the 
 magnitude of an idea, abolishes every actual 
 magnitude, and which wins again in rich mea- 
 sure from the estimation of the reason all that 
 32 
 
374 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 it may lose in the estimation of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 Out of this very contradiction between the 
 judgment of the reason and of the understand- 
 ing, proceeds the entirely peculiar phenomenon 
 of mixed feeling, which a naive disposition ex- 
 cites in us. It unites childlike with childish sim- 
 plicity. By the latter, it gives the understand- 
 ing an idea of weakness, and produces that 
 laughter by which we make known our (theo- 
 retic) superiority. But as soon as we have 
 reason to believe that childish simplicity is 
 at the same time childlike, and that conse- 
 quently its source is not folly, or imbecility, but 
 a loftier (practical) strength, a heart full of in- 
 nocence and truth, which makes ashamed, by 
 its internal greatness, the mediation of art, — 
 then that triumph of the understanding is over, 
 and a jest at simpleness passes over into admi- 
 ration of simplicity. We feel ourselves com- 
 pelled to respect the object at which we pre- 
 viously laughed, and, while casting a look into 
 ourselves, to lament that we are not like it. 
 Thus arises the entirely peculiar appearance 
 of a feeling, in which are blended gay derision, 
 reverence and sadness.* The Naive demands, 
 
 * Kant, in a note to the Analysis of the Sublime 
 (Critique of Aesth. Judg., p. 225, 1st Ed.), in like manner 
 distinguishes this three-fold composition in the percep- 
 tion of the Naive, hut he gives another explanation of 
 it. " Something of both (the animal feeling of pleasure, 
 and the spiritual feeling of respect) united, is found in 
 naivete, which is the outbreak of the originally natural 
 uprightness of humanity against the art of dissimula- 
 tion become a second nature. We laugh at the simplicity 
 which does not yet understand how to dissimulate, and 
 still we enjoy that natural simplicity which disappoints 
 such arts. If we expected the every-day style of an af- 
 fected expression that is prudently established upon 
 aesthetic show, behold, it is unsophisticated, blameless 
 nature, which we were not at all prepared to meet, and 
 which, it would seem, was not meant to be exposed. 
 And because the aesthetic, but false, show, which com- 
 monly counts for much in our judgment, here suddenly 
 vanishes, and because, so to speak, our waggery is ex- 
 posed, this brings out in two opposite directions, a men- 
 tal agitation, which at the same time gives the body a 
 salutary shaking. But because something, which is in- 
 finitely better than all assumed style, that is, mental sin- 
 cerity (at least the tendency thereto), is not yet entirely 
 extinguished in human nature,— this it is which mingles 
 seriousness and regard in this play of the judgment. But 
 since the phenomenon lasts only for a little while, and 
 the veil of dissimulation is soon again drawn before it 
 a regret, which is an emotion of tenderness, mingles also 
 with our feeling; and it does not refuse to unite as play 
 with a hearty laugh, at the same time relieving the em- 
 barrassment of the person who is the object of it, because 
 he has not yet learned the way of the world." I must 
 confess the explanation does not entirely satisfy me, and 
 particularly for this reason, that it asserts something of 
 the Naive in general, which is chiefly true of one species, 
 the Naive of surprise, of which I shall afterwards speak. 
 It certainly excites laughter, when anybody exposes him- 
 self by naivete ; and in many cases this laughter may re- 
 sult from a previous expectation which is resolved into 
 nothing. But also naivete of the noblest kind, the Naive 
 of disposition, always excites a smile, which can hardly 
 have for its cause an expectation resolved into nothing ; 
 
 that Nature should bear away the victory over 
 Art,* whether it happen without the knowledge 
 and will of the person, or with his full con- 
 sciousness. In the first case it is the Naive of 
 Surprise, and delights: in the other case it is 
 the Naive of Disposition, and moves. 
 
 In the Naive of surprise, the person must be 
 morally able to deny nature ; in the Naive of 
 disposition he need not be so, and yet, if it would 
 afl'ect us as naivete, we need not imagine him 
 as physically unable to do so. Hence the talk 
 and actions of children give us the pure im- 
 pression of naivete, only so long as we do not 
 remember their incapacity for art, but merely 
 regard the contrast of their naturalness with the 
 art in us. A childishness, where it is no longer 
 expected, is Naive, and therefore that cannot be 
 ascribed, in strictness of meaning, to actual 
 childhood. 
 
 But in the cases, both of Naivete of Surprise 
 and that of Disposition, nature must be right, but 
 art be wrong. 
 
 The conception of the Naive is only com- 
 pleted by this final definition. Feeling is also 
 nature, and the rule of propriety is something 
 artificial ; but yet the victory of feeling over 
 propriety is nothing less than naive. If, on the 
 other hand, the same feeling overcomes artifice, 
 false propriety, dissimulation, we do not hesi- 
 tate to call that naive. -J- It is necessary, then, 
 that nature should triumph over art, not as a 
 dynamic magnitude, by its blind force, but as a 
 moral magnitude, by its form. The impropriety, 
 and not the insufficing of art, must have afforded 
 the victory to nature ; for nothing which results 
 
 but it is generally to be explained only by the contrast 
 of a certain demeanor with the once assumed and ex- 
 pected forms. I also doubt, whether the pity, which is 
 blended in our feeling at the Naive of the latter kind, 
 relates to the naive person, and not rather to ourselves, 
 or rather to mankind in general, of whose deterioration 
 we are reminded by such a circumstance. It is too 
 plainly a moral sadness, which must have a nobler object 
 than the physical weakness with which sincerity is 
 threatened in the customary routine of life; and this 
 object cannot well be other than the decay of truth and 
 simplicity in humanity. 
 
 * Perhaps I should briefly say; truth over Dissimula- 
 tion. But the idea of the Naive appears to me to include 
 still something more, while the simplicity which prevails 
 over artifice, and the natural freedom which conquers 
 stiffness and constraint, excite in us a similar percep- 
 tion. 
 
 f A child is ill bred, if it resists the precepts of a good 
 education from desire, caprice or passion : but it is naive, 
 if it releases itself by virtue of a free and healthy nature, 
 from the mannerism of an unwise education, from the 
 stiff postures of the dancing-master, and the like. The 
 same also occurs with that loosely defined naivete which 
 results from the transmission of humanity to the irra- 
 tional. If the weeds got the upper hand in a badly kept 
 garden, no one would find the appearance naive; but 
 there is something positively naive when the free growth 
 of outspreading branches destroys the laborious work of 
 the shears in a French garden. And so it is not at all 
 naive when a trained horse repeats his lesson badly out 
 of natural fatness, but there is something naive when he 
 forgets it out of natural freedom. 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 375 
 
 from deficiency can command respect. It is 
 true, that in the Naive of Surprise, it is always 
 the overplus of feeling and a deficiency of re- 
 straint which causes nature to be recognized : 
 but this deficiency and that overplus by no 
 
 I means create the Naive, for they only afford an 
 opportunity for nature to follow unimpeded its 
 moral capacity, that is, the law of harmony. 
 
 The Naive of Surprise can only appertain to 
 man, and to man alone, in so far as at that mo- 
 ment he is no longer pure and innocent nature. 
 It presupposes a will which does not harmonize 
 with that which nature does spontaneously. 
 Such a person, if rendered conscious of it, will 
 be frightened at himself: on the contrary, he 
 
 : who is naive by Disposition, will be surprised at 
 men and at their astonishment. Then, as the 
 truth does not here recognize the personal and 
 moral character, but only the natural character 
 released by feeling, so we attribute no merit to 
 the man for his uprightness, and our laughter, 
 which is restrained by no personal veneration 
 for him, is merited sport. But as here also it 
 is the uprightness of nature which breaks through 
 the veil of falseness, a satisfaction of a higher 
 kind unites with the mischievous pleasure at 
 having surprised a man. For nature, in oppo- 
 sition to artifice, and truth, in opposition to de- 
 ception, must always excite respect. We feel, 
 then, in the naive of surprise also, an actual 
 
 I moral pleasure, though not from a moral cha- 
 
 j racter* 
 
 It is true, we always respect nature in the 
 naive of surprise, since we must respect the 
 truth. On the contrary, we respect the person 
 in the naive of disposition, and then we enjoy 
 not only a moral pleasure, but also at a moral 
 object. In the one as in the other case nature 
 is right, so that she speaks the truth : but in the 
 latter case nature is not only right, but the per- 
 son is also worthy of respect. In the first case 
 the uprightness of nature always redounds to 
 the shame of the person, because it is involun- 
 tary; in the second it always redounds to his 
 merit, even supposing that he incurs odium by 
 • what it expresses. 
 
 We ascribe a naive disposition to a man, if, 
 in his judgments of things, he overlooks their 
 artificial and forced relations, and adheres only 
 to simple nature. We demand from him all 
 the judgments that can be made within the 
 limits of healthy nature ; and we completely 
 
 * As the naive depends only upon the form in which 
 something is said or done, this property disappears, as 
 soon as the thing itself, either through its causes or 
 through its effects, makes a preponderating or indeed 
 contradictory impression. By naivete of this kind even 
 a crime can be detected, but then we have neither the 
 quiet nor the leisure to direct our attention to the form 
 of the detection : and aversion for the personal character 
 absorbs all our satisfaction at the nature. And as a re- 
 volted feeling steals the moral pleasure at the upright- 
 j ness of nature, as soon as naivete gives knowledge of a 
 crime, just so does an excited compassion destroy our 
 mischievous pleasure, as soon as we see anybody placed 
 in peril by his naivete. 
 
 discharge him only from that which presup- 
 poses a separation from, at least a knowledge 
 of, nature, whether in feeling or in thought. 
 
 If a father tells his child, that this or that 
 man is pining in poverty, and the child hastens 
 to carry to the man his father's purse of gold, 
 the action is naive, for healthy nature acts out 
 of the child: and it would be perfectly right so 
 to proceed in a world where healthy nature 
 rules. He only regards the need and the nearest 
 method of satisfying it: such an extension of 
 the right of property, whereby a part of huma- 
 nity are left to perish, is not founded in simple 
 nature. The action of the child, then, is a re- 
 buke of the actual world, and our heart also 
 confesses it by the satisfaction which the action 
 causes it to feel. 
 
 If a man without knowledge of the world, 
 but otherwise of good capacity, confesses his 
 secrets to another, who betrays him, — but who 
 knows how to artfully dissimulate, — and by 
 this very candor lends him the means of doing 
 him an injury, we find it naive. We laugh at 
 him, but yet we cannot resist for that reason 
 highly prizing him. For his confidence in the 
 other results from the honesty of his own inten- 
 tions : at least he is naive only so far as that is 
 the case. 
 
 Hence the naive of reflection can never be a 
 property of corrupted men, but can only belong 
 to children and men with childlike dispositions. 
 The latter often act and think naively in the 
 most artificial relations of the great world. Out 
 of their own fine humanity they forget that they 
 have to do with a corrupted world, and they 
 demean themselves at the courts of kings with 
 an ingenuous innocence only to be found among 
 a race of shepherds. 
 
 Now it is not so easy always correctly to dis- 
 tinguish childish from childlike innocence, since 
 there are actions which waver between the ex- 
 treme limits of both, and which actually leave 
 us in doubt, whether we ought to laugh at sim- 
 pleness or reverence a noble simplicity. A very 
 remarkable instance of this kind is found in the 
 political history of Pope Adrian VI., which 
 SchrOekh has described for us with the thorough- 
 ness and pragmatic truth peculiar to himself. 
 This Pope, a Netherlander by birth, adminis- 
 tered the pontificate at a critical moment for the 
 hierarchy, when an embittered party exposed 
 without mercy the weak points in the Roman 
 church, and the adverse party was deeply in- 
 terested to conceal them. What the truly naive 
 character, if such a one ever strayed into the 
 holy chair of Peter, would have to do in this 
 case, is not the question: but rather, how far 
 such a naivete of disposition might be compati- 
 ble with the function of a Pope. This, by the 
 way, was something which by no means em- 
 barrassed the predecessors atid followers of 
 Adrian. With perfect uniformity they adhered 
 to the Romish system once for all accepted, no- 
 where to concede anything. But Adrian really 
 had the simple character of his nation and the 
 
376 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 innocence of his former rank. He was elevated 
 from the narrow sphere of the student to his 
 exalted post, and had never been false to the 
 simplicity of that character on the eminence of 
 his new dignity. The abuses in the church 
 disturbed him, and he was much too honest 
 openly to dissimulate his private convictions. 
 In conformity to such a mood he suffered him- 
 self, in the instruction with which he furnished 
 his legate to Germany, to fall into confessions, 
 before unheard of from any pope, and to flatly 
 impugn the principles of this court. Among 
 other things it says : " We know well that for 
 many years past much that is odious has been 
 perpetrated in this holy chair : no wonder if the 
 sickness has been transmitted from the head to 
 the members, from the Pope to the prelates. 
 We have all fallen away, and for a long time 
 past there has not been one of us who has done 
 a good thing, no, not one." Again, elsewhere, 
 he enjoins the legate to declare in his name, 
 H that he, Adrian, cannot be blamed on account 
 of that which happened through former popes, 
 and that such excesses had always displeased 
 him, even when he filled an inferior station," &c. 
 We can easily imagine what reception the Ro- 
 man clerisy gave to such naivete on the part of 
 the Pope. The least which they imputed to 
 him was that he had betrayed the church to the 
 heretics. Now this highly impolitic measure 
 of the Pope would compel our whole respect 
 and admiration, if we could only be convinced 
 that he was actually naive, that is, that he had 
 been forced to it only through the natural truth 
 of his character, without any regard to the pos- 
 sible consequences, and that he would have 
 done it none the less if he had anticipated the 
 whole extent of its unseemliness. But we have 
 some grounds for believing, that he did not 
 deem this step so very impolitic, and in his in- 
 nocence went so far as to hope, that he might 
 gain a very important advantage for the church 
 by his condescension toward the opposition. 
 He not only presumed that as an honest man 
 he ought to take this step, but to be able also as 
 Pope to justify it: and while he forgot, that the 
 most artificial of all structures could actually be 
 sustained by a systematic denial of the truth, he 
 committed the unpardonable error of using pre- 
 cepts in a position completely the reverse of 
 those natural relations in which they might 
 have been valid. This certainly modifies our 
 judgment seriously: and although we cannot 
 withhold our respect from the honesty of heart, 
 out of which that action flowed, it is not a little 
 weakened by the reflection, that nature had in 
 art, and the heart in the head, a feeble rival. 
 
 That is not a true genius which is not naive. 
 Nothing but its naivete makes it genius ; and 
 what it is in taste and intellect, it cannot con- 
 tradict in its morality. Unacquainted with rules, 
 the crutches of weakness and the taskmasters 
 of perversity, guided only by nature or by in- 
 stinct, its guardian angel, it passes tranquilly 
 and safely through all the snares of a vicious 
 
 taste, in which the pseudo-genius is inevitably 
 caught, unless it is acute enough to anticipate 
 them from afar. It is only granted to genius to 
 be always at home beyond the limits of the 
 familiar, and to extend, without transgressing, 
 nature. It is true the greatest genius now and 
 then commits the latter fault, but only because 
 it also has its moments of fantasy, when pro- 
 tecting nature leaves it: only because the force 
 of example wins it, or the corrupt taste of its 
 age seduces it. 
 
 Genius must solve the most complicated 
 problems with unpretending simplicity and 
 skill. The egg of Columbus is a sample of 
 every method of true spirit. It legitimates itself 
 as genius only by triumphing through simplicity 
 over the most factitious art. It proceeds not 
 according to familiar principles, but by impulses 
 and feelings. But its impulses are suggestions 
 of a god, — all which healthy nature does, is 
 divine, — and its feelings are laws for all ages 
 and for every race of men. 
 
 The childlike character which genius stamps 
 upon its works, it also manifests in its manners 
 and its private life. It is chaste, because nature 
 is always so : but it is not decent, because de- 
 cency is only native to depravity. It is intel- 
 ligent, for nature can never be the opposite ; 
 but it is not cunning, for only art can be so. It 
 is true to its character and its inclinations, but 
 not so much because it has principles, as be- 
 cause nature always returns through every 
 vacillation to its first position, always restores 
 the old necessity. It is modest, even bashful, 
 because genius itself is always a mystery, but 
 it is not anxious, because it does not know the 
 perils of the road on which it travels. We 
 know little of the private life of the greatest 
 geniuses, but even that little which has been 
 preserved, for example, concerning Sophocles, 
 Archimedes, Hippocrates, among the ancients, 
 and Ariosto, Dante and Tasso, Raphael, Albert 
 Diirer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, Fielding, Sterne, 
 and others of modern times, confirms this asser- 
 tion. 
 
 And even, a fact which seems to present far 
 greater difficulty, the great statesman and gene- 
 ral will exhibit a naive character, as soon as 
 their genius makes them great. Among the an- 
 cients, I will only here allude to Epaminondas 
 and Julius Caesar, and to Henry IV. of France, 
 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and Peter the 
 Great, among the moderns. The Duke of Marl- 
 borough, Turenne, Vendome, all display this 
 character. And in the other sex, nature has in- 
 dicated her highest perfection of naivete. Fe- 
 minine coquetry strives for nothing so much as 
 for the appearance of naivete : proof enough, if 
 we had no other, that the chief power of the 
 sex rests upon this quality. But since the pre- 
 valent principles of female education are in 
 lasting opposition to this character, it is as hard 
 for the woman morally, as for the man intel- 
 lectually, to maintain that noble gift of nature 
 with the advantages bestowed by generous cul- 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 377 
 
 ture. The woman who unites this naivete of 
 manners with a demeanor appropriate to the 
 world, merits our reverence as much as the 
 scholar who combines a genial freedom of 
 thought with ail the severity of the schools. 
 
 A naive expression necessarily flows out of 
 naive reflection, both in words and gestures: 
 and it is the most important element of grace. 
 Genius expresses thus naively its sublimest and 
 deepest thoughts : they are oracles from the 
 mouth of a child. While common sense, always 
 afraid of error, nails its words and conceptions 
 upon the cross of logic and grammar, while it is 
 hard and stiff" in order to be definite, multiplies 
 words lest it say too much, and prefers to ex- 
 tract all the force and keenness from its thought, 
 from dread of being inconsiderate, Genius, 
 with a single happy dash of the pencil, gives 
 to its thought a firm, forever definite and yet 
 flowing outline. If, on the one hand, the symbol 
 and the thing symbolized remain forever foreign 
 and heterogeneous, on the other, the speech 
 issues from the thought as by an inward neces- 
 sity, and is so entirely one with it, that the 
 spirit seems exposed even under its material 
 veil. In composition, it is expression of this 
 kind, where the symbol entirely vanishes in 
 the thing symbolized, and where the language 
 still leaves the thought which it expressed 
 naked, while another never can present with- 
 out at the same time concealing it, that we 
 style by eminence spirited and genial. 
 
 Innocence of heart expresses itself freely and 
 naturally in daily life, like genius in its works of 
 thought. It is notorious that in social life a man 
 eschews simplicity and severe integrity of ex- 
 pression in the same proportion as he lacks 
 purity of intention : and where offence is so 
 readily incurred, and the imagination so easily 
 corrupted, a constrained demeanor is a necessity. 
 Without being false, we often say what we do 
 not think : we invent circumlocutions in order 
 to say things which can offend only a sickly 
 vanity, or injure only a corrupt imagination. 
 An ignorance of these conventional laws, united 
 with natural uprightness, which despises every 
 labyrinth and show of falsehood (and not rude- 
 ness, which only rejects those laws because 
 they incommode it), creates a naivete of expres- 
 sion in intercourse, which consists in calling 
 things, which we either may not designate at 
 all or only artfully, by their right names and in 
 the curtest way. The customary expressions 
 of children are of this kind. They create 
 laughter from their contrast with our customs ; 
 and yet in our hearts we confess that the child 
 is right. 
 
 It is true that, strictly speaking, a naive dis- 
 position can be attributed to man only as a be- 
 ing not positively subject to nature, though still 
 only so far as pure nature really acts in him. 
 And yet, by an effect of the poetising imagina- 
 tion, it is often transferred from the rational to 
 the irrational. Thus we often attribute a naive 
 character to an animal, a landscape, a building, 
 2x 
 
 and to nature generally, in opposition to the 
 caprice and fantasy of man. But this always 
 demands that we should subjectively lend a 
 will to that which has none, and have regard 
 to its strict direction according to necessary 
 laws. Dissatisfaction at our own ill exercised 
 moral freedom, and at the lack of moral har- 
 mony in our actions, easily induces that kind 
 of mood in which we address an irrational 
 thing as a person, and imagine its eternal uni- 
 formity a merit, and envy its tranquil tenor, as 
 if it really had to struggle with a temptation to 
 be otherwise. At such a moment it jumps with 
 our humor to consider our prerogative of reason 
 an evil and a curse, and to deny justice to our 
 capacity and destiny, from a vivid sense of the 
 meagreness of our actual execution. 
 
 Then we see in irrational nature only a more 
 fortunate sister, who remained in the maternal 
 house, from which we stormed forth into the 
 distance, in the exuberance of our freedom. 
 With sorrowful longing we yearn to be back 
 again, as soon as we begin to feel the oppres- 
 siveness of culture, and to hear in the foreign 
 remoteness of art the winning voice of the 
 mother. While we were only nature's children 
 we were happy and perfect ; we became free, 
 and ceased to be both. Hence results a two- 
 fold and very dissimilar longing for nature, 
 longing for her happiness, longing for her per- 
 fection. The loss of the former is lamented 
 only by the sensuous man ; but the moral man 
 alone can mourn over the loss of the latter. 
 
 Ask yourself strictly then, sympathizing friend 
 of nature, does your indolence pine for her re- 
 pose? does your offended moral sense desire her 
 harmony ? Ask yourself candidly, does art dis- 
 gust you, and do you take refuge in the solitude 
 of inanimate nature from the abuses of society? 
 do you abhor its privations, its burdens, its dif- 
 ficulties, or its moral anarchy, its disorders, its 
 caprice ? You must meet the former with joy 
 and courage, and your compensation must be 
 the very freedom out of which they flow. You 
 may well propose the tranquil joy of nature for 
 your distant goal, but only such as is the prize 
 of your own worthiness. Then complain no 
 longer of the hardship of life, of the inequality 
 of conditions, of the stress of circumstances, of 
 the insecurity of property, of ingratitude, oppres- 
 sion, persecution. You must submit to all the 
 evils of culture with free resignation, you must 
 respect them as the natural conditions of the 
 only Good : you must lament only over its 
 wickedness, but not with unmanly tears. Much 
 rather care to act purely amid those contamina- 
 tions, freely under that slavery, firmly through that 
 fickle mutability, loyally through that anarchy. 
 Do not fear external, but internal confusion : 
 strive for unity, but seek it not in uniformity: 
 strive for repose, but through the equipoise, not 
 through the cessation, of your activity. That 
 nature, which you begrudge to the irrational, 
 deserves neither longing nor respect. It lies 
 behind you : it must forever lie behind you. 
 32* 
 
378 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 When you no longer feel the ladder which up- 
 held you, there remains for you no choice but 
 to grasp the law with free consciousness and 
 volition, or else to fall beyond deliverance into 
 a fathomless abyss. 
 
 But if you become consoled for the loss of 
 nature's happiness, then let her perfection be 
 your heart's ideal. If you step forth unto her 
 from your sphere of art, and see her before you 
 in her great tranquillity, in her naive beauty, in 
 her childlike innocence and simplicity, linger 
 before the picture, cherish that feeling: it is 
 worthy of your noblest manhood. Do not longer 
 indulge the wish or fancy to exchange with her, 
 but receive her into yourself and strive to wed 
 her infinite superiority to your own infinite pr- 
 erogative, and create from that union the divine. 
 Let her encompass you like a tender Idyll, in 
 which you may always find yourself again out 
 of the distractions of art, from which you may 
 gather new courage and confidence for the race, 
 and kindle afresh in your heart the flame of the 
 Ideal, which flickers and sinks so soon in the 
 storms of life. 
 
 If we call to mind the beautiful nature which 
 surrounded the ancient Greeks, if we recollect 
 how confidingly that people could live under 
 their fortunate heaven with free nature, how 
 much nearer their conception, their sentiment, 
 their manners lay to simple nature, and what a 
 true reflection of her their works of fancy are, it 
 must seem strange to observe that we find so few 
 traces among them of that sentimental interest 
 with which we moderns can cling to natural 
 scenes and characters. It is true, the Greek is in 
 the highest degree strict, true, circumstantial, in 
 his description of nature, but yet not a whit more 
 and with no heartier sympathy, than he is also 
 in the description of an array, a shield, a suit of 
 armor, a domestic utensil, or of any product of 
 mechanics. He seems to make no distinction 
 in his love for the object, between that which 
 is in itself, and that which is through art and 
 human will. Nature seems to interest his in- 
 tellect and curiosity more than his moral sense : 
 he does not cling to her, as we do, with hearti- 
 ness, with sensibility, with a sweet sadness. 
 And even when he personifies and deifies her 
 single manifestations, and represents their effects 
 as actions of a free being, he abolishes in her 
 that tranquil necessity, by which precisely she 
 is so attractive to us. His impatient fancy bears 
 him away over her to the drama of human life. 
 Nothing satisfies him but the free and living, 
 nothing but characters, actions, fates and man- 
 ners. And while we, in certain moral moods of 
 mind, could wish to give up the superiority of 
 our free volition, which causes us so much strife 
 with ourselves, so much unrest and confusion, 
 for the choiceless but tranquil necessity of the 
 irrational, the Greek fancy, precisely the re- 
 verse, is busy making human nature inchoate 
 even within the inanimate world, and giving 
 influence to Will in the province of blind ne- 
 cessity. 
 
 Whence indeed this diversity of spirit? How 
 comes it that we who are so far surpassed by 
 the ancients in everything that is nature, can 
 precisely here honor nature in a higher sense, 
 cling to her with heartfulness, and embrace 
 even the inanimate world with warmest sensi- 
 bility ? It is because with us nature has vanished 
 out of humanity, and we meet her again in her 
 truth only beyond the latter, in the world of 
 matter. It is not our greater conformity with 
 nature, but, quite the contrary, the incongruity 
 of our relations, conditions and manners, which 
 impels us to procure in the physical world that 
 which is hopeless in the moral world, namely, 
 satisfaction for the growing impulse for truth 
 and simplicity, which lies incorruptible and in- 
 effaceable in all human hearts, like the moral 
 disposition whence it flows. It is for this reason 
 that the feeling with which we cling to nature 
 is so nearly akin to the feeling which laments 
 the vanished age of childhood and of childlike 
 innocence. Our childhood is the only unmuti- 
 lated nature which we still find in cultivated 
 manhood : then it is no wonder if every vestige 
 of external nature conducts us back to our child- 
 hood. 
 
 It was very different with the ancient Greeks* 
 Their culture had not so far degenerated that 
 nature was abandoned. The whole structure 
 of their social life was based upon feelings, and 
 not upon a composition of art : their mythology 
 itself was the suggestion of a naive sentiment, 
 the creation of a joyous fancy, and not of a re- 
 fining reason, like the religion of later nations. 
 Then as the Greek had not lost the nature in 
 humanity, he could not be surprised by her be- 
 yond the limits of the latter: and so he could 
 have no pressing necessity for objects in which 
 he might recover her. In unison with himself, 
 and happy in the feeling of his humanity, he 
 fain held silently to that as his maximum, and 
 approached all else with difficulty: while we, 
 not in unison with ourselves, and unhappy in 
 our experiences of humanity, have no pressing 
 interest except to escape from it, and to thrust 
 from our vision a form so unsuccessful. 
 
 The feeling to which we here allude, is not 
 then, that which the ancients had : it is rather 
 identical with that which we have for the an- 
 
 * But with the Greeks only : for just such a lively ani- 
 mation and such a rich fulness of human life as sur- 
 rounded the Greek, was requisite, in order to transfer life 
 into the lifeless also, and to pursue with that zeal the 
 image of humanity. Ossian's human world, for example, 
 was needy and monotonous : the inanimate around him 
 was great, colossal, mighty. Thus it was imperative, 
 and maintained its rights over man himself: and hence 
 inanimate nature (in opposition to man) appears in the 
 songs of this poet much more as an object of sentiment. 
 But Ossian too laments a falling away of humanity : and 
 however small was the circle of his people's culture and 
 their corruptions, its experience was still lively and im- 
 pressive enough, to repel the singer, with his tenderness 
 and purity, back toward the inanimate, and to pour over 
 his songs that elegiac tone which we find so moving and 
 attractive. 
 
SCHILLER. 
 
 379 
 
 cients. They perceived naturally : we perceive 
 the natural. Without doubt, the feeling which 
 filled Homer's soul when he let his celestial 
 swineherd entertain Ulysses, was quite different 
 from that which moved the soul of the young 
 Werter, when he read the passage after a te- 
 dious company. Our sentiment for nature is 
 like the feeling of the invalid for health. 
 
 In the same degree that Nature vanished out 
 of human life as Experience and as the (active 
 and perceptive) Subject, we see her appearing 
 in the poetic world as Idea and as Object. That 
 nation which has proceeded farthest both in 
 unnature and in reflection upon it, must have 
 been the first to be most strongly moved by the 
 phenomenon of naivete, and to give to it a name. 
 This nation, so far as I know, was the French. 
 But perception of, and interest in, the naive, is 
 naturally much earlier, and dates from the very 
 commencement of moral and aesthetic deprava- 
 tion. This change in the perceptive mode is 
 extremely striking even so early as Euripides : 
 for example, when we compare him with his 
 predecessors and with ^Eschylus especially, 
 and yet that poet was the favorite of his age. 
 The same revolution is apparent also among 
 the old historians. Horace, the poet of a culti- 
 vated and corrupted age, extols tranquil happi- 
 ness in his Tibur; and we may designate him 
 as the true founder of this sentimental school 
 of poetry, while as a model he has not yet been 
 surpassed. We also find traces of this percep- 
 tion in Propertius, Virgil, and others, but few in 
 Ovid, who lacked heartfulness,and who mourns, 
 in his Exile at Tomi, the loss of that happiness 
 which Horace so readily dispenses with in his 
 Tibur. 
 
 Poets are universally, by their very concep- 
 tion, the guardians of nature. Where they can 
 no longer be so, and already feel in themselves 
 the destructive influence of capricious and arti- 
 ficial forms, or at least have had to struggle with 
 it, they will then appear as the witnesses and as 
 the avengers of nature. They will either be, or 
 they will seek, a lost nature. Thus two very 
 different schools of poetry arise, which cover 
 and exhaust the whole province of that art. All 
 who are really poets, will belong either to the 
 naive or to the sentimental school, according to 
 the constitution of the age in which they flou- 
 rish, or as contingent circumstances affect their 
 general culture and predominating neutral 
 tone. 
 
 The early poet of a naive and spiritual world, 
 and he, in an age of artificial culture, who is 
 nearest to him, is austere and coy, like the 
 virgin Diana in her forests. With no familiar 
 manners, he eludes the heart that seeks him, 
 and the longing that would embrace him. The 
 homely truthfulness with which he handles an 
 object often seems like insensibility. The ob- 
 ject possesses him entirely : his heart does not 
 lie, like a base metal, just beneath the surface, 
 but will be sought after in the depths, like gold. 
 He stands behind his work like the Infinite be- 
 
 hind the structure of the world. He is the work 
 and the work is him. We must first be unwor- 
 thy of the work, or unequal to it, or weary, only 
 to ask for him. 
 
 So appears, for example, Homer among the 
 ancients and Shakspeare among the moderns : 
 two very different natures, separated by the 
 immeasurable lapse of ages, but in this particu- 
 lar characteristic completely one. When I first 
 became acquainted with the latter poet, at a 
 very early age, I was troubled at the coldness, 
 the insensibility, which permitted him to jest in 
 the deepest pathos, to disturb with a clown the 
 heart-rending scenes in Hamlet, King Lear, 
 Macbeth, and others, which now held him fast 
 where my feelings hurried on, and now coldly 
 hastened forward where the heart would so 
 willingly have rested. Led by acquaintance 
 with the later writers, to seek for the poet in 
 the work, to meet his heart, to reflect familiarly 
 with him concerning his object, in short, to con- 
 template the object in the subject, — it was into- 
 lerable to me that the poet would nowhere suf- 
 fer contact, and never deign to talk with me. 
 And for many years he had all my reverence 
 and my study too, before I learned to win his 
 personality. I was yet incapable of under- 
 standing nature at first hand. I could only 
 tolerate her image reflected through the intel- 
 lect and adjusted by the rules; and the senti- 
 mental poets both of the French and Germans, 
 from 1750 to 1780, were just the proper subjects 
 for that end. But I am not ashamed of this 
 puerile judgment, since the mature critic passed 
 a similar one, and was naive enough to publish 
 it to the world. 
 
 The same thing happened to me with respect 
 to Homer, also, whom I knew at a still later 
 period. I remember now the remarkable place 
 in the sixth book of the Iliad, where Glaucus 
 and Diomed attack each other, and after one 
 recognises the other as his guest, exchange pre- 
 sents. This affecting picture of the piety with 
 which the laws of hospitality were observed in 
 war itself, can be matched with a description 
 of knightly magnanimity in Ariosto, where two 
 knights and rivals, Ferran and Rinaldo, the one 
 a Saracen, the other a Christian, make peace after 
 being covered with wounds in a violent con- 
 flict, and mount the same horse in order to seek 
 and bring back the flying Angelica. Different 
 as both examples are, they still coincide in the 
 effect upon our hearts, since both depict the 
 beautiful triumph of manners over passion, and 
 affect us with their naivete of disposition. But 
 how differently do the poets undertake the 
 description of this same action. Ariosto, the 
 citizen of a later age, whose manners had 
 deteriorated in simplicity, cannot conceal his 
 own admiration and emotion at the relation of 
 this event. The feeling of the remoteness of 
 these manners from those which characterise 
 his age, overpowers him. He abandons at once 
 the delineation of the object and appears in his 
 own person. The beautiful stanzas are well 
 
380 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 known, and have always excited special admi- 
 ration : 
 
 ■ O noble minds, by knights of old possess'd ! 
 Two faiths they knew, one love their hearts profess'd : 
 And still their limbs the smarting anguish feel 
 Of strokes indicted by the hostile steel. 
 Through winding paths and lonely woods they go, 
 Yet no suspicion their brave bosoms know. 
 At length the horse, with double spurring, drew 
 To where diverging ways appeared in view." 
 
 (Hoole.) 
 
 And now old Homer ! Hardly does Diomed 
 learn from the relation of Glaucus, his rival, 
 that the latter is a guest of his family from the 
 father's times downward, when he buries his 
 spear in the ground, talks cordially with him, 
 and they agree in future to avoid each other 
 during battle. But hear Homer himself: 
 
 "Henceforth let our spears 
 Avoid each other in tumultuous war ; 
 For many Trojans and renown'd allies 
 Have I to slay, whom to this arm some god 
 May bring, or else my speed may overtake ; 
 And many Greeks there are for thee to slay, 
 Whome'er thou canst ; but let us arms exchange, 
 That all who see our conference may know 
 We boast to be hereditary guests. 
 This said, both heroes leaping from their cars, 
 With mutual kindness joined their hands and pledged 
 The faith of friendship I" 
 
 A modern poet (at least one who is so in the 
 moral sense of that word) would have hardly 
 waited until now, in order to testify his plea- 
 sure at the action. And we should the easier 
 pardon him for it, since our heart also makes a 
 pause in the reading, and withdraws from the 
 object, in order to contemplate itself. But no 
 trace of all this in Homer: he proceeds in his 
 barren truthfulness, as if he had announced an 
 every-day affair, nay, as if he bore no heart in 
 his bosom : 
 
 " Then Saturaian love 
 Exalted Glaucus' liberal mind, who gave 
 His golden for Tydides' brazen arms, 
 Although a hundred oxen his were worth, 
 And those of Diomed no more than nine." 
 
 (Mtmfords' Translation.) 
 
 Poets of this naive kind are properly no 
 longer in their place in an artificial age. In 
 fact they are hardly possible there, at least only 
 if they run wild, and are saved from the crip- 
 pling influence of their times by a fortunate 
 destiny. They can never proceed out of society 
 itself; but they sometimes appear beyond its 
 limits, yet rather as strangers who astonish us, 
 and as untamed children of nature who scanda- 
 lise us. Beneficial as such phenomena are for 
 the artist who studies them, and for the genuine 
 connoisseur who knows how to estimate them, 
 they prosper little on the whole with their 
 period. The seal of ruler rests upon their 
 brow ; but we prefer to be rocked and carried 
 by the muses. The Critics, who are the special 
 hedge-trimmers of taste, hate them as bound- 
 breakers, and would fain suppress them. For 
 Homer himself need thank only the power of 
 more than a Millenium of evidence, for the 
 toleration of these aesthetic judges : it would 
 harass them not a little to maintain their rules 
 
 against his example, and his reputation against 
 
 their rules. 
 
 I said that the poet either i6 nature, or he 
 will seek her. If the former, he is naive; if the 
 latter, he is sentimental. 
 
 The poetic spirit is immortal and inalienable 
 in humanity: it cannot fail except simultane- 
 ously with that and with the poetic inclination. 
 For when the man removes himself, by the 
 freedom of his fancy and his understanding, 
 from the simplicity, truth, and necessity of 
 nature, not only the road to her remains forever 
 open to him, but a mightier and more inde- 
 structible instinct, the moral, also impels him 
 constantly back to her ; and the poetic capacity 
 stands in the closest relationship with this very 
 instinct. That, then, is not also lost together 
 with natural simplicity, but only operates in 
 another channel. 
 
 Nature is still the only flame which nourishes 
 the poetic spirit ; it creates its whole energy out 
 of her alone, and speaks to her even in the 
 artificial man comprised within his culture. 
 Every other mode of operation is foreign to the 
 poetic spirit; hence, by the way, all so called 
 works of humor are improperly styled poetic, 
 although, guided by the reputation of French 
 literature, we have for a long time confounded 
 the two qualities. It is still nature, I say, that 
 even in the artificial conditions of culture, gives 
 energy to the poetic spirit; only she stands in 
 a relation to it entirely new. 
 
 It is evident that, while man continues to be 
 pure and not rude nature, he acts as an un- 
 divided sensuous unity and as a harmonizing 
 whole. Sense and reason, the receptive and 
 the creative faculty, are not yet separate in their 
 operations, much less do they stand in opposi- 
 tion. The perceptions of the one are not the 
 formless sport of chance, the ideas of the other 
 are not the barren play of fancy ; the former 
 result from the law of necessity, the latter from 
 reality. When man has passed into the state 
 of culture, and art has lain her hand upon him, 
 that sensuous harmony within him is removed, 
 and he can only express himself as a moral 
 unity, that is, as striving after unity. The agree- 
 ment between his perception and reflection, 
 which took place in the first condition actually, 
 now exists only ideally. It is no longer in him, 
 but out of him ; as a thought which has yet to 
 be realized, and no longer as a fact of his life. 
 If now we apply the conception of poetry, 
 which is none other than to give humanity its 
 completest possible expression, to both the above 
 conditions, the result is, that in the condition of 
 natural simplicity, where the man still acts with 
 all his powers at once as a harmonious unity, 
 and where therefore the totality of his nature 
 fully expresses itself in reality, the completest 
 possible imitation of the actual must make the 
 poet ; that on the contrary, in the condition of 
 culture, where that harmonious co-operation of 
 his whole nature is only an idea, the elevation 
 of reality to the ideal, or what amounts to the 
 
SCHI 
 
 same thing, the representation of the ideal must 
 make the poet. And these are also the two 
 only possible modes in which the poetic genius 
 can find expression. They are, as we see, 
 entirely distinct; but there is a higher concep- 
 tion which comprehends them both, and we 
 l need not be surprised to find this conception 
 coinciding with the idea of humanity. 
 
 This is not the place to pursue farther this 
 thought, which only a special discussion can 
 place in its full light. But whoever knows how 
 to institute a comparison between the ancient 
 and modern poets*, not only according to acci- 
 dental forms, but according to the spirit, can 
 easily be satisfied of its truth. The former affect 
 us through their nature, through sensuous truth, 
 through living presence : the latter affect us 
 through ideas. 
 
 Moreover, this path which the modern poets 
 travel, is the same which man must commonly 
 pursue, as well in the part as in the whole. 
 Nature makes him one with himself, Art sepa- 
 rates and divides him, the Ideal restores his 
 unity. But since the ideal is an infinity which 
 man never reaches, the cultivated man can 
 never become perfect in his mode, as the na- 
 tural man is able to become in his. Then he 
 must be infinitely inferior to the latter in per- 
 fection, if regard is had only to the relation in 
 which both stand to their mode and their maxi- 
 mum. On the contrary, if we compare together 
 the modes themselves, it is evident that the goal 
 for which the man strives through culture, is 
 infinitely superior to that which he attains 
 through nature. The one then acquires his 
 value through positive attainment of a finite, 
 the other desires it through approximation to 
 an infinite, magnitude. But since the latter has 
 only degree and progress, the relative worth of 
 the cultivated man, taken as a whole, is never 
 determinable, although when partially regarded 
 he is found in necessary inferiority to him in 
 whom nature acts in her whole perfection. But 
 in so far as the final goal of humanity can only 
 be reached through that progress, and the na- 
 tural man can only proceed according as he 
 cultivates himself, and consequently passes over 
 into the other condition, — there is no question 
 to which of the two the preference is to be 
 awarded, with respect to that final goal. 
 
 What has here been said of the two distinct 
 forms of humanity, may also be applied to both 
 those poetic forms corresponding to them. 
 
 For this reason we ought not to compare to- 
 
 * Perhaps it is not superfluous to mention, that if the 
 modern poets are here set opposite to the ancient, we 
 are to understand not so much the difference in time as 
 the difference in manner. We have also in modern and 
 even in the latest times, naive poems in all classes, though 
 no longer of a style entirely pure ; and there is no want 
 of the sentimental among the old Latin, and even Grecian 
 poets. We frequently find both kinds united, not only in 
 the same poet, but even in the same work, as for exam- 
 ple in the Sorrows of Werter. Productions of this kind 
 Kill always have a superior effect. 
 
 LLER. 381 
 
 gether ancient and modern — naive and senti- 
 mental — poets, or, if we do, only beneath a 
 higher conception common to both : for such an 
 one there really is. For certainly, if we have 
 once partially abstracted the generic conception 
 of poetry from the old poets, nothing is easier, 
 but nothing also is more trivial, than to under- 
 value the moderns in comparison. If we only 
 call that poetry, which has uniformly affected 
 simple nature in all times, the only result will 
 be to render dubious the name of poet as ap- 
 plied to moderns exactly in their highest and 
 most peculiar beauty, because it is precisely 
 here that they speak only to the disciple of art, 
 and have nothing to say to simple nature.* The 
 richest contents will be empty show, and the 
 highest flight of poetry will be exaggeration to 
 him whose mind is not already prepared to 
 pass out of reality into the province of ideas. 
 The wish can never occur to a reasonable man, 
 to set a modern side by side with that in which 
 Homer is great; and it sounds laughable enough 
 to hear a Milton or a Klopstock styled the mo- 
 dern Homer. And just as little would any an- 
 cient poet, least of all Homer, be able to main- 
 tain a comparison with the modern poet in his 
 characteristics. The former, if I may so express 
 it, is powerful through the art of limitation ; the 
 latter through the art of illimitation. 
 
 And from the fact that the strength of the 
 ancient artist (for what has here been said of 
 the poet, can also be applied in general to the 
 liberal artist, under the restrictions which na- 
 turally occur) consisted in limitation, we may 
 explain the high superiority which the plastic 
 art of antiquity asserts over that of modern 
 times ; and, in general, the unequal relation of 
 value in which modern poetry and modern 
 plastic art stand to both species of art in anti- 
 quity. A work for the eye finds its perfection 
 only in limitation : a work for the imagination 
 can also attain it through the unlimited. Hence 
 a modern's preponderance in ideas helps him 
 little in plastic works ; he is compelled here to 
 define in space most rigidly the image of his 
 fancy, and consequently to measure himself 
 with the ancient artist precisely in that quality, 
 in which the latter holds the indisputable palm. 
 It is otherwise in poetic works ; and though the 
 ancient poets conquer here also in the simplicity 
 of their means, and in that which is sensuously 
 
 * It became Moliere at any rate, as a naive poet, to 
 leave to the decision of his maid-servant, what should 
 stand in his comedies and what should be subtracted. It 
 were to be wished that the masters of the French cothuru 
 had also tried that test upon their tragedies. But I do 
 not mean to propose that a similar test should be applied 
 to the Odes of Klopstock, to the finest passages in the 
 Messiah, in Paradise Lost, in Nathan the Wise, and 
 many other pieces. But what do I say ? This test is ac- 
 tually applied, and Moliere's maid reasons at full sweep, 
 in our critical libraries, philosophical and literary annals 
 and travels, upon poetry, art, and the like ; only, as is 
 reasonable, a little more insipidly on German than on 
 French soil, and in keeping with the style in the ser- 
 vants'-hall of German literature. 
 
382 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 presentable and corporeal, — the moderns in their 
 turn leave them behind in profusion of material, 
 in that which is irrepresentable and ineffable, 
 and in short, in that which we call spirit in a 
 work of art. 
 
 As the naive poet follows only simple nature 
 and perception, and confines himself only to 
 imitation of reality, he can only hold a single 
 relation to his subject, and in this respect, he 
 has no choice in his mode of handling. The 
 different impression of naive poems depends 
 (presupposing that we abstract all therein which 
 pertains to the contents, and regard that impres- 
 sion only as the pure effect of the poetic hand- 
 ling), only, I remark, upon the different de- 
 gree of one and the same perceptive method. 
 Even the difference in the external forms can 
 make no alteration in the quality of that aesthe- 
 tic impression. Let the form be lyric or epic, 
 dramatic or descriptive, we may indeed ex- 
 perience emotions more or less powerful, but 
 never of different kinds, supposing the contents 
 abstracted. Our feeling is altogether the same, 
 composed entirely of one element, so that we 
 can distinguish in it nothing else. Even the 
 difference of tongues and times makes no alter- 
 ation in this respect; for this pure unity of their 
 origin and their effect is precisely one charac- 
 teristic of naive poetry. 
 
 The case is entirely different with the senti- 
 mental poet. He reflects upon the impression 
 which the objects make upon him, and the emo- 
 tion into which he throws us and is thrown 
 himself, is only based upon that reflection. 
 
 Here the object is related to an idea, and its 
 poetic power only rests upon that relation. 
 Hence the sentimental poet is always involved 
 with two conflicting representations and per- I 
 ceptions, with reality as a limit and with his 
 idea as the unlimited : and the mingled feeling 
 which he excites will always betray this two- 
 fold source.* Since, then, a plurality of princi- 
 ples here occurs, it depends upon which of the 
 two predominates in the poet's perception and 
 in his representation, and a difference in the 
 handling is consequently possible. For now 
 the question arises, whether he will be more 
 occupied with the real, or more with the ideal, 
 whether he will treat the former as an object ' 
 of aversion, or the latter as an object of inclina- 
 tion. Then his representation will either be 
 satirical, or it will be elegiac (in a wider signi- 
 fication of this word, hereafter to be explained). 
 Every sentimental poet will conform to one of 
 these two methods of perception. 
 
 ♦Whoever notices the impression which naive poems 
 make upon himself, and is able to disconnect therefrom 
 the sympathy created by the contents, will find this im- 
 pression, even in very pathetic subjects, always cheerful, 
 always pure, always tranquil : while that of sentimental 
 poems is always somewhat grave and intensive. The 
 reason is, that while in the case of naive representations, 
 be the action what it will, we always rejoice at the truth, 
 at the living presence of the object in our imagination, 
 and seek nothing more than this, — in the sentimental, 
 on the contrary, we have to unite the presentation of the 
 imagination with an idea of the reason, which always 
 leaves us irresolute between two different conditions. 
 
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 
 
 Bom 17C2. Died 1814. 
 
 This brave and devoted spirit claims our in- 
 terest as the impersonation of transcendental 
 ethics. Among- the illustrious four* whose 
 names are most intimately associated with the 
 recent movement in German philosophy, his 
 function is that of moralist; a preacher of 
 righteousness. As a character, he is incom- 
 parably the most interesting of them all ; as a 
 writer, incomparably the most able and im- 
 pressive. The eloquence of transcendentalism 
 found in him its highest development. 
 
 Fichte recalls more than any modern the 
 heroes of the Stoa. The stern Promethean vigor 
 of that ancient school flowers anew in his word 
 and in his character, which was no less em- 
 phatic than his word. Goethe, with customary 
 aptness of characterisation, calls him " one of 
 the most vigorous personalities"! that ever was 
 seen. Few philosophers have so honored their 
 theory with personal illustrations. He carried 
 his philosophy into life and his life into philoso- 
 phy, acting as he spoke, from an eminence 
 above the level of the world. He created for 
 himself, out of the fruitful bosom of his own 
 ideality, a world of his own, — a world of great 
 thoughts and lofty aims, in which he had his 
 being and lived apart from his contemporaries, 
 even while he mingled with them in the thick- 
 est tumult of life, and threw himself with all 
 his presence into the sore conflict of his time. 
 
 In speculation, Fichte was closely and gene- 
 tically related to Kant. The Wissenschaftslehre 
 would never have been conceived, it is probable, 
 had not the Kritik der reinen Vernunft pre- 
 ceded. But he differed from his predecessor in 
 the practical tendency of his nature ; and this 
 it is which gives so decided a moral tone and 
 direction to his philosophy. Kant was satisfied 
 with the bare contemplation of abstract truth. 
 Fichte would fain realise the truth in action ; 
 he would bring it to bear on the civil and social 
 existence of man, or at least, on his own. He 
 would make the word flesh in his life. The 
 one resembled a mountain-lake embosomed in 
 
 * Kant, Fichte. Schelling, Hegel. 
 
 t Eine der tiichtigsten (doughtiest) Pers'dnlichkeiten. 
 
 deep solitude, which, he who would know it, 
 must make a special pilgrimage to visit. The 
 other was like a river, which, springing from 
 that lake, precipitates itself with passionate 
 force on the plain below, and then, more calmly, 
 gathers up its channelled waters and hastens 
 with its full heart to make glad the region 
 through which it flows. Fichte took a lively 
 interest in the social and political questions of 
 the day, and, as far as his function permitted, 
 an active part in the great movements by which 
 those questions were tried. He was an apostle 
 of liberty to his countrymen, and by his "Reden 
 an die Deutschen" did much to awaken that 
 resistance to Napoleon which finally resulted 
 in their emancipation from his dominion. 
 
 Notwithstanding this strong practical bias, 
 Fichte was a thorough idealist in philosophy. 
 A more radical and consistent system of ideal- 
 ism than the Wissenschaftslehre was never 
 offered to the world. What Kant had indicated 
 critically and negatively, Fichte endeavored to 
 establish constructively; i. e. the subjective- 
 ness of all our cognitions and experience. He 
 reascends the path by which Kant had descend- 
 ed in his analysis, and taking his stand in the 
 conscious I, endeavors thence to construct a 
 world. Nothing exists but the I ; and all our 
 experience, and the external world, as the ob- 
 ject of that experience, is a creation of the I, 
 but a necessary creation. Fichte endeavors to 
 develop the laws by which this creation pro- 
 ceeds. The idea of duty in this system is a 
 creative principle. Beings exist for us only as 
 we have duties toward them. The fact of 
 moral obligation is the central fact which de- 
 termines all things for moral agents. 
 
 The system was never popular, as, indeed, 
 no idealistic system ever was or can be. It 
 was made the subject of numberless satires, of 
 which the most remarkable is the Clavis Fich- 
 tiana of Jean Paul. But Fichte's influence is 
 independent of his system ; the great thoughts 
 which he put forth still heave the heart of Ger- 
 many, and his word is one of the powers which 
 now mould the world. 
 
 (383) 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 384 
 
 Fichte was the son of a ribbon-manufacturer 
 at Rammenau, near BischofTswerda, in Upper 
 Lusatia. The distinguished promise of his 
 childhood procured him a patron in a certain 
 Herr von Miltitz, and, through him, the means 
 of education which his father's poverty would 
 not allow. He was placed at the High School, 
 Schulpforte, then a Saxon Seminary. He 
 studied theology successively at Jena, Leipzig, 
 and Wittenberg. In 1788, he accepted the 
 office of private tutor to a family in Zurich. 
 Here he became acquainted with his future 
 wife and was betrothed. In 1790, he returned 
 to Leipzig, and devoted himself to study, par- 
 ticularly the study of the Kantian philosophy. 
 In 1791, he went to Warsaw in compliance 
 with an invitation to become a teacher in that 
 city. But the situation did not please him, and 
 he soon abandoned it. On his return, he tar- 
 ried some time in Konigsberg, where he became 
 acquainted with Kant, and where, with the hope 
 of making himself better known to that great 
 philosopher, he published his " Kritik alter 
 Offenbarung" (criticism of all revelation). 
 The work was anonymous, and was universally 
 believed to be Kant's, until he himself pointed 
 out the true author. Then Fichte's name blos- 
 somed at once into a wide and brilliant reputa- 
 tion, as the second great philosopher of Ger- 
 many ; and in 1794, he was called to succeed 
 Reinhold in the Professorial chair of Philoso- 
 phy at Jena. His influence on the students 
 w r as great and beneficent, but misunderstand- 
 ings between him and his colleagues, the charge 
 
 of atheism with which it was attempted to pre- 
 judice the Government against him, together 
 with numerous other vexations, induced him to 
 resign his office; and in 1799, he went to Ber- 
 lin, where he lived for awhile in literary retire- 
 ment. He was afterwards made Professor of 
 Philosophy in Erlangen ; but the war-troubles 
 of that stormy period drove him to Konigsberg, 
 and later to Copenhagen. In 1807, he return- 
 ed to Berlin once more, and with his "Ad- 
 dresses to the German Nation," and his lec- 
 tures, labored intrepidly and indefatigably for 
 the cause of freedom and German indepen- 
 dence. In 1809, he was made Professor of 
 Philosophy at the new University of Berlin, to 
 which he rendered incalculable service, both as 
 lecturer and as counsellor in its affairs. During 
 the " war of liberation," as it is called, he dis- 
 tinguished himself anew by his courage and 
 his patriotism, and died January 27th, 1814, of 
 a fever contracted by assiduous watching at the 
 sick-bed of his wife, who had contracted the 
 same by her own ministrations to the sick and 
 wounded, in a time of general distress. 
 
 In the first church-yard from the Oranien- 
 burg gate, of Berlin, stands a tall obelisk with 
 this inscription : — 
 
 THE TEACHERS SHALL SHINE 
 AS THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE FIRMAMENT; 
 AND THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 AS THE STARS FOREVER AND EVER. 
 
 It marks the grave of Fichte. The faithful 
 partner of his life sleeps at his feet 
 
 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARK. 
 
 [This work is intended to present, in a popu- 
 lar form, certain results of the Transcendental 
 Philosophy, or rather of the last Fichtean modi- 
 fication of that Philosophy. "Whatever of the 
 new philosophy is available out of the School," 
 says the author in his preface, "is to constitute 
 the subject of this work ; presented in that order 
 in which it would naturally unfold itself to art- 
 less reflection." — "The book is not designed for 
 philosophers by profession, and they will find 
 nothing in it which has not already been set 
 forth in the author's previous writings. It was 
 meant to be intelligible to all readers who are 
 capable of understanding a book at all. Un- 
 doubtedly, it will be thought unintelligible by 
 those who seek for nothing but a repetition, in 
 a somewhat different order, of phrases which 
 
 they have already learned by heart, and who 
 mistake this act of memory for an act of the 
 understanding." 
 
 The plan of the work is this. The author 
 supposes a mind. — as yet unversed in metaphy- 
 sical inquiries, but otherwise cultivated, — just 
 beginning to speculate on its own nature and 
 destiny, and the grounds of all being and know- 
 ing. He follows what he supposes to be the 
 natural course of such a mind, through three 
 successive stages, which constitute the three 
 divisions of the work. The first book is headed, 
 "Doubt." It leaves the inquirer in a state of 
 painful conflict between the instinctive belief 
 of the soul and the fatalistic conclusions to which 
 his reasonings have brought him. The second 
 book, entitled " Knowledge," overthrows the 
 whole fabric of sensible experience, and de- 
 monstrates that we properly know nothing be- 
 yond our momentary consciousness, and that 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 385 
 
 consciousness, the mere reflection of a reflection, 
 " the dream of a dream." I cannot say : / 
 feel, perceive, think ; but only : " there appears 
 a thought" of somewhat, that I call me, feeling, 
 perceiving, thinking. In short, this stage lands 
 us in absolute Pyrrhonism. At the same time, 
 the author refers us, for our satisfaction, to an- 
 other "organ" than that of Knowledge. That 
 other organ, "Faith," furnishes the title and 
 constitutes the subject of the third book. Faith 
 rebuilds, on moral grounds, the fabric which 
 speculation had destroyed. Not speculation, 
 but action, is the end of being. The call to act 
 is instinctive ; it is divine. If we accept that 
 call in faith and obey it, we resolve ourselves 
 of our doubts, so far as our act extends. We 
 assure ourselves, at least, of the topics of action. 
 Duty restores to us a God, an external world, 
 our own identity and continuity of being ; and 
 unfolds to us, as individuals and as a race, a 
 destination worthy all our powers and all our 
 love. 
 
 Thus the inquiry ends by legitimating the 
 innate convictions of the mind. It reconciles 
 us to all that is or shall be, as divinely appointed 
 process and end ; and yields an impregnable 
 peace, as its practical result. Tr.] 
 
 FROM THE FIRST BOOK. 
 DOUBT. 
 
 Now then, at length, I believe myself ac- 
 quainted with a good part of the world which 
 surrounds me ! And indeed I have bestowed 
 sufficient pains and care in becoming so. I 
 have credited only the consenting testimony of 
 my senses, and uniform experience. What I 
 saw I have touched, what I touched I have 
 analysed. I have repeated my observations 
 and repeated them again. I have compared 
 different appearances with each other ; and not 
 till I had comprehended their precise connec- 
 tion, — not till I could explain and derive the 
 one from the other, could calculate beforehand 
 the result that was to follow, and the observa- 
 tion of the result corresponded to my calcula- 
 tion, — have I allowed myself to be satisfied. 
 Wherefore I am now as sure of the correctness 
 of this portion of my knowledge, as of my own 
 existence. I tread with firm step the familiar 
 sphere of my world, and am ready at any mo- 
 ment to stake my being and well-being on the 
 infallibility of my convictions. 
 
 But, — what am I myself, and what is my 
 destination ? 
 
 Superfluous question ! It is long ago since 
 my instruction on this point was brought to a 
 close. It would require time to repeat to my- 
 self all that I have heard in detail and learned 
 and believed respecting it. 
 
 And in what way did I arrive at this know- 
 ledge which I dimly remember to possess 1 Did 
 I, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge, 
 work my way through uncertainty, through 
 doubt and contradiction ? Did I, when anything 
 credible offered itself, suspend my judgment, 
 2t 
 
 prove what was probable, and prove it again, 
 illustrate and compare ; until an inward voice, 
 unmistakeable and irresistible, called to me: It 
 is so, and only so ! as surely as thou livest and 
 hast thy being ? No ! I remember no such state. 
 Instruction on those subjects was offered me 
 before I desired it. I was answered before I 
 had put the question. I listened because I could 
 not avoid it. There remained fixed in my me- 
 mory so much as it pleased Chance to preserve. 
 Without examination, and without interest, I 
 let everything be as it was given. 
 
 How then can I persuade myself that I pos- 
 sess, in fact, any knowledge on this subject? If 
 I can know and be convinced of that alone 
 which I myself have discovered, — if I am act- 
 ually acquainted with that only which I myself 
 have experienced, — then I cannot say, in truth, 
 that I possess the least knowledge respecting 
 my own destination. I know only what others 
 profess to know concerning it; and all that I 
 can really affirm is this, that I have heard such 
 and such things in relation to it. 
 
 So then, while I have investigated for my- 
 self with accurate care the less important, I 
 have hitherto relied on the care and fidelity of 
 strangers in regard to the most important. I 
 have imputed to others an interest in the highest 
 concerns of Humanity, an earnestness, a preci- 
 sion which I had by no means discovered in 
 myself. I have estimated them unspeakably 
 higher than myself. 
 
 Whatever truth they know, from whence 
 can they know it except from their own reflec- 
 tion ? And why may not I discover the same 
 truth by the same reflection, since I avail as 
 much as they'? How have I hitherto underva- 
 lued and despised myself! 
 
 I will that it be so no longer. With this mo- 
 ment I will enter upon my rights and take pos- 
 session of the dignity which belongs to me. 
 Renounced be everything foreign ! I will in- 
 vestigate for myself. Be it that secret wishes 
 as to how the investigation may terminate, — be 
 it that a fore-loving inclination to certain tenets 
 stirs within me. I forget and deny it. I will 
 allow it no influence on the direction of my 
 thoughts. With severe accuracy I will go to 
 work. With candor I will confess to myself 
 the whole. Whatever I find to be truth, how- 
 ever it may sound, shall be welcome to me. I 
 will know. With the same certainty with which 
 I reckon that this ground will bear me when I 
 tread upon it, that this fire will burn me when 
 I come in contact with it, I will be able to com- 
 pute what I am and what I shall be. And if 
 this shall be found impossible, I will at least 
 know that it is impossible. And even to this 
 issue of my investigation I will submit myself, 
 if it shall discover itself to me as the Truth. — I 
 hasten to solve the problem which I have pro- 
 posed to myself. 
 
 I seize on-speeding Nature in her flight, ar- 
 rest her for an instant, fix firmly in my eye the 
 33 
 
386 FICHTE. 
 
 present moment, and reflect upon it ! — upon this 
 Nature by which my power of thought has 
 hitherto been unfolded, and formed for those 
 conclusions which are valid in her domain. 
 
 I am surrounded by objects which I am con- 
 strained to regard as wholes, existing for them- 
 selves, and mutually distinguished from each 
 other. I see plants, trees, animals. I ascribe, 
 to each individual, qualities and characteristics 
 by which I distinguish them from each other ; 
 to this plant such a form, to another a different 
 one ; to this tree leaves of such a figure, to an- 
 other tree leaves of a different figure. 
 
 Each object has its determinate number of 
 qualities, none over and none under. To every 
 question whether it be this or that? one who 
 knows it thoroughly can always answer with a 
 decisive yes or no, which puts an end to all 
 vacillation between being and not being. Every- 
 thing which exists is this something or it is not 
 this something. It is colored or it is not colored ; 
 has this hue or has it not, is pleasant to the 
 taste or unpleasant, is palpable or impalpable, 
 and so on, indefinitely. 
 
 Each object possesses each of these qualities 
 in a determinate degree. If there is a scale for 
 a certain quality, and if I can apply that scale, 
 I shall find a certain measure of that quality 
 which it does not in the least degree exceed or 
 fall below. If I measure the height of this tree, 
 it is determined ; it is not one line higher or 
 lower than it is. If I consider the green of its 
 leaves, it is a determined green, not, in the least 
 degree, darker or brighter, fresher or more faded 
 than it is ; though I may have neither scale nor 
 words to define it. If I cast my eye upon this 
 plant, it stands at a certain stage between its 
 germination and its maturity ; not, in the least 
 degree, nearer to or farther from either than it 
 is. Everything that is, is thoroughly deter- 
 mined ; it is what it is, and absolutely nothing 
 else. 
 
 But Nature hurries on with her constant 
 changes ; and while I speak of the moment on 
 which I have seized, it is flown, and everything 
 has changed. And before I had seized it, it 
 was likewise altogether different. As it was 
 when I seized it, it had not always been. It 
 became such. 
 
 Why now and from what cause did it be- 
 come precisely such as it became? Why, 
 among the infinitely various determinations 
 which Nature is capable of assuming, did she 
 assume, in this moment, precisely these which 
 she did assume, and no other? 
 
 For this reason : Because they were preceded 
 by precisely those which did precede them, and 
 could not have been preceded by any other ; 
 and because they followed precisely those, and 
 could not possibly have followed any other. If, 
 in the preceding moment, anything had been, 
 in the least degree, other than it was, then, in 
 the present, also, something would have been 
 other than it is. And why, in the preceding 
 
 moment, was everything such as it was? For 
 this reason : Because that which preceded it, 
 was such as it was. And that again depended 
 on the one which went before it, and that again 
 on its predecessor, and so on, indefinitely up- 
 ward. Even so, in the next following moment, 
 Nature will be determined as she will be, be- 
 cause, in the present, she is determined as she 
 is. And in this next following moment some- 
 thing would necessarily be otherwise than it 
 will be, if, in the present, the least thing were 
 other than it is. And, in the moment which 
 shall follow that, everything will be such as it 
 will be, because, in this next following, every- 
 thing was as it will be. And so, the successor 
 of that will depend upon that, as itself will 
 have depended on its antecedent, and so on, 
 indefinitely downward. 
 
 Nature travels through the infinite series of 
 her possible determinations without pause; and 
 the changes in these determinations are not law- 
 less, but strictly lawful. Whatever exists in 
 Nature is necessarily what it is, and it is abso- 
 lutely impossible that it should be otherwise. 
 I enter into a complete chain of phenomena, in 
 which every link is determined by its prede- 
 cessor, and determines its successor ; a fixed 
 connection of things, in which, from any given 
 moment, I might discover by mere reflection, 
 all possible states of the universe, ascending 
 (a parte ante), if I should explain the given mo- 
 ment, descending (a parte post), if I should 
 infer from it : if ascending, I should seek the 
 causes by which alone it could be what it is : 
 if descending, I should seek the consequences 
 which must necessarily flow from it. In every 
 part I receive the whole, because, it is only by 
 means of the whole, that each part is what it 
 is, and by means of that, it is necessarily what 
 it is. % ^ % % ^ 
 
 In every moment of her duration, Nature is a 
 connected whole. In every moment each in- 
 dividual part of her must be what it is, because, 
 all the other parts are as they are ; and you could 
 not move a grain of sand from its place, with- 
 out producing a change, invisible perhaps to 
 your eyes, through all parts of the immeasurable 
 whole. Every moment of this duration is de- 
 termined by all the past moments and deter- 
 mines all the coming moments ; and you can- 
 not, in the moment that now is, suppose the 
 position of a grain of sand to be different, with- 
 out being obliged to suppose the whole past, 
 indefinitely ascending, and the whole future, in- 
 definitely descending, to be different. Make 
 the experiment, if you will, with this grain of 
 sea-sand, which you behold. Imagine it lying 
 some paces farther toward the interior. Then, 
 the storm-wind which drove it hither from the 
 sea, must have been stronger than it actually 
 was. But then, too, the preceding weather by 
 which this storm-wind and the degree of its 
 strength were determined, must have been 
 other than it was ; and the weather by which 
 that, in like manner, was preceded and deter- 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 387 
 
 mined. And so you have, in an unlimited and 
 indefinitely ascending series, an entirely dif- 
 ferent temperature of the air, than that which 
 actually existed, and an entirely different cha- 
 racter of the bodies which influence that tem- 
 perature and are influenced by it. This tem- 
 perature has unquestionably a very decided 
 influence on the fruitfulness or unfruitfulness 
 of countries, and by means of these, and even 
 immediately, on the duration of human life. 
 How can you know, — for, since it is not per- 
 mitted us to penetrate into the interior of Na- 
 ture, it is sufficient, here, to indicate possibili- 
 ties. — how can you know but that, with such a 
 quality of weather as would have been required 
 to cast this grain of sand farther inward, one 
 of your forefathers might have perished with 
 hunger, or cold, or heat, before he begat the son 
 from whom you have descended, accordingly, 
 that you could not be, and that all which you 
 think to effect, in the present and for the future, 
 could not be, because a grain of sand lies in a 
 different place ? 
 
 I myself, with all that I call mine, am a link 
 in this chain of Nature's strict necessity. There 
 was a time — so others who lived in that time 
 inform me, and I myself am necessitated, by 
 reasoning, to suppose such a time, of which I 
 am not directly conscious, — there was a time in 
 which as yet I was not, and a moment in which 
 I began to be. I existed only for others, not yet 
 for myself. Since then, my self-consciousness 
 has gradually unfolded itself, and I have dis- 
 covered in myself certain faculties and dis- 
 positions, necessities and natural cravings. I 
 am a determinate existence, which at some time 
 or other began to be. 
 
 I did not originate of myself. It would be 
 the greatest contradiction to suppose that I was 
 before I was, in order to bring myself into 
 being. I became actual, by means of another 
 power, exterior to myself. And by what other 
 power but the universal power of Nature, 
 since I am a part of Nature ? The time of my 
 origin, and the qualities with which I originated, 
 were determined by this universal power of 
 Nature : and all the forms, under which these 
 inborn ground-qualities have since manifested 
 themselves, and will manifest themselves, so 
 long as I shall continue to be, are determined 
 by the same power of Nature. It was impos- 
 sible that another than me should have origi- 
 nated in my place. It is impossible that the 
 being which has so originated, can, in any mo- 
 ment of his existence, be other than he is and 
 shall be. 
 
 ******* 
 It is true I am conscious of myself, in my in- 
 nermost being, as self-subsisting and free in 
 various particulars of my life. But this con- 
 sciousness may be easily explained by the prin- 
 ciples which have been established, and be made 
 to appear perfectly consistent with the conclu- 
 sions which have just been drawn. My im- 
 mediate consciousness, — the real apperception, 
 
 — does not extend beyond myself and my con- 
 ditions. I know nothing immediately, except 
 my own states. Whatever I am enabled to 
 know, beyond these, I know only by inference, 
 in the same way in which I have just now in- 
 ferred original forces in Nature, which, by no 
 means, come within the circle of my percep- 
 tions. But I — that which I call me, — my per- 
 son — am not the man-making power of Nature 
 itself, but only one of its manifestations. And 
 only of this manifestation am I conscious, as of 
 myself; not of that power. That is only an 
 inference to which I am led by the necessity of 
 accounting for my existence. This manifesta- 
 tion, however, in its proper essence, is indeed 
 the product of an original and self-subsisting 
 power ; and must be found such in conscious- 
 ness. Hence I appear to myself altogether as 
 a self-subsisting being. For the same reason, I 
 appear to myself free, in particular passages of 
 my life, when these passages are manifestations 
 of that self-subsisting power which has fallen 
 to my share as an individual. On the other 
 hand, I appear to myself restrained and limited, 
 when, owing to a concatenation of external cir- 
 cumstances, originating in time, — not, however, 
 lying in the original determination of my in- 
 dividuality, — I cannot do that which I might 
 do, so far as my individual capacity is concern- 
 ed. I appear to myself to be coerced when 
 this individual capacity is compelled, by a su- 
 perior power opposed to it, to manifest itself 
 contrary to its own law. 
 
 Give a tree consciousness, and let it grow un- 
 obstructed, spread forth its boughs and produce 
 leaves, buds, blossoms, fruits, according to its 
 kind. It certainly will not feel itself restrain- 
 ed, because it happens to be a tree, and one of 
 this particular species, and this particular in- 
 dividual of that species. It will feel itself free, 
 because, in all those manifestations, it does 
 nothing but what its nature requires. It will 
 not choose to do anything else, because it can 
 only choose what that nature requires. But let 
 its growth be restrained by unfavorable wea- 
 ther, by want of nourishment, or other causes : 
 it will feel itself limited and thwarted, because 
 an impulse, which actually resides in its nature, 
 is not satisfied. Bind its freely on all sides 
 striving limbs to a trellis ; force strange shoots 
 upon it by grafting; and it will feel itself co- 
 erced in its action. Its limbs indeed continue 
 to grow, but not in that direction which its 
 forces would have taken, if left to themselves. 
 It produces fruits, indeed, but not those which 
 its original nature required. In my immediate 
 consciousness I appear to myself free. When I 
 reflect on the whole of Nature, I find that free- 
 dom is absolutely impossible. The former 
 must be subordinated to the latter, for only by 
 means of the latter can it be explained. 
 
 What high satisfaction does this system give 
 to my understanding! What order, what firm 
 connection, what am easy oversight does it in- 
 troduce into all my knowledge. Consciousness, 
 
388 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 according to this system, is not that stranger in 
 Nature, whose connection with being is so in- 
 comprehensible. It is at home there, and even 
 constitutes one of Nature's necessary conditions. 
 Nature rises gradually in the fixed gradation of 
 her productions. In rude matter she is simple 
 being. In organization she returns into herself 
 in order to act upon herself internally; — in the 
 plant to shape herself, in the animal to move 
 herself, and in man, as her highest masterpiece, 
 she returns into herself to behold and contem- 
 plate herself. She redoubles herself, as it were, 
 in him, and from simple being, becomes being 
 and consciousness in one. 
 
 It is easy to explain, in this connexion, how 
 I should know of my own being and its condi- 
 tions. My being and knowing have one com- 
 mon ground, — my nature in general. There is 
 in me no being which does not know of itself, 
 for the very reason that it is my being. 
 
 ******* 
 
 In each individual, Nature beholds herself 
 from a different point of view. I call myself i, 
 and you you. You call yourself I, and me you. 
 I am external to you, as you are external to me. 
 Of that which is external to me, I comprehend 
 first my nearest limits. You comprehend your 
 nearest limits. Starting from this point we 
 proceed, each through the next succeeding links, 
 and pass on. We describe very different series, 
 which here and there perhaps intersect each 
 other, but nowhere run side by side, in the 
 same direction. All possible individuals, and, 
 accordingly, all possible view -points of con- 
 sciousness, become actual. This consciousness 
 of all individuals combined, constitutes the per- 
 fected self-consciousness of the universe. And 
 there is no other ; for only in the individual, is 
 there perfect determinateness and actuality. 
 
 The testimony of each individual conscious- 
 ness is infallible, provided only, it is actually 
 the consciousness hitherto described. For this 
 consciousness unfolds itself out of the entire 
 course of Nature, proceeding according to fixed 
 laws ; and Nature cannot contradict herself. 
 Wherever there is a mental -representation, there 
 must be also a being corresponding thereto. 
 For the representations in the mind are gene- 
 rated only contemporaneously with the being 
 which corresponds to them. In each individual 
 his particular consciousness is throughout deter- 
 mined, for it is a product of his own nature. 
 No one has other cognitions, or has them in any 
 other degree of vividness than he actually has. 
 The contents of his cognitions are determined 
 by the standpoint which he occupies in the 
 universe. Their clearness and vividness are 
 determined by the more or less of energy, with 
 which the power of Humanity can manifest it- 
 self in his person. Give Nature a single con- 
 dition of a single person, be it never so insigni- 
 ficant, the course of a single muscle, the flexure 
 of a hair, and she would tell you — if she pos- 
 sessed general consciousness, and could answer 
 
 — all the thoughts which this person will think 
 during the whole period of his conscious exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Equally intelligible, according to this system, 
 is that well-known phenomenon in our con- 
 sciousness which we call the will. A volition 
 is the immediate consciousness of the activity 
 of our internal powers of Nature. The imme- 
 diate consciousness of a striving of these powers, 
 which is not yet effective, because hampered 
 by opposing powers, is conscious inclination or 
 desire. The struggle of conflicting powers is 
 irresolution ; the victory gained by one of them, 
 a resolve of the will. If the endeavoring power 
 is merely one which is common to us with the 
 plant or the brute, there has already ensued, in 
 our inner being, a division and a degradation. 
 The craving is not consistent with our rank in 
 the order of things, but beneath it; and may, 
 with propriety, be called, according to a certain 
 custom of speech, a low one. If that which 
 endeavors, is the whole undivided power of our 
 Humanity, then the craving is in harmony with 
 our nature, and may be called a higher. The 
 endeavor of this latter power, considered gene- 
 rally, may properly be termed a moral law. 
 Its effective action is a virtuous will, and the 
 act which flows from it, virtue. The triumph 
 of the former, without harmony with the latter, 
 is want of virtue. Its victory over the latter, 
 and against the opposition of the latter, is vice. 
 
 The power which overcomes, in each case, 
 overcomes necessarily. Its overweight is de- 
 termined by the connection of the universe. 
 Accordingly, the virtue, the want of virtue, the 
 vice, of each individual, is also irrevocably de- 
 termined by the same connection. Give Nature 
 again, the course of a muscle, the flexure of a 
 hair, in a certain individual, and if she could 
 think in the whole, and could answer your in- 
 quiry, she would disclose to you all the good 
 actions and all the evil actions of his life, from 
 the beginning to the end. But virtue does not 
 therefore cease to be virtue, and vice vice. The 
 virtuous is a noble, the vicious, an ignoble and 
 abominable nature ; but one which necessarily 
 flows from the connection of the universe. 
 
 There is remorse. It is the consciousness of 
 the still continuing struggle of Humanity in me, 
 even after it has been vanquished ; combined 
 with the unpleasant feeling, that it has been 
 vanquished. A disquieting, but still a precious 
 pledge of our nobler nature. From this con- 
 sciousness of our radical impulse, springs con- 
 science also, and its greater or less acuteness and 
 sensitiveness, — down to the absolute want of it, 
 — in different individuals. The less noble are 
 incapable of remorse, because Humanity, in 
 them, has not even power enough to contend 
 against the lower appetites. Reward and pun- 
 ishment are the natural consequences of virtue 
 and vice, which tend to produce new virtue 
 and new vice. By often and important victo- 
 ries, namely, our individual power is extended 
 and confirmed. From want of effectiveness 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 389 
 
 and from frequent defeats it becomes weaker 
 and weaker. 
 
 Only the ideas of blame and imputation have 
 no meaning, except in relation to external jus- 
 tice. He has incurred blame, and to him his 
 transgression is imputed, who forces Society to 
 use external, artificial forces, in order to hinder 
 the activity of those impulses which are preju- 
 dicial to the general safety. 
 
 My examination is concluded, and my desire 
 for knowledge satisfied. I know what I am in 
 general, and wherein consists the essence of 
 my kind. I am a manifestation, conditioned 
 by the entire universe, of a self - determining 
 power of Nature. My particular, personal con- 
 ditions it is impossible to discover by means of 
 their causes, for I cannot penetrate into the inte- 
 rior of Nature. But I become directly conscious 
 of them in myself. I know very well what 1 
 am at the present moment. I can remember 
 pretty well what I was formerly, and I shall 
 certainly experience what I am to be when I 
 am it. 
 
 It cannot occur to me to make any use of this 
 discovery, in action. For it is not I that act, 
 but Nature acts in me. I cannot think of un- 
 dertaking to make myself aught else than I am 
 destined by Nature to be. For it is not I that 
 make myself, but Nature that makes me, and 
 all that I shall be. I may repent and be glad 
 and make good resolutions, (although strictly 
 speaking / cannot even do this, since everything 
 must come to me of itself, if it is destined to 
 come at all :) but I may be sure that all my re- 
 pentance and all my resolutions cannot effect 
 the least alteration in that which I am, once for 
 all, destined to be. I am subject to the inexo- 
 rable power of strict Necessity. If that deter- 
 mines me to be a fool or vicious, without doubt, 
 I shall be a fool and vicious. If that deter- 
 mines me to be wise and good, without doubt, 
 I shall be wise and good. It is not Necessity's 
 fault or merit, nor mine. Necessity is subject 
 to its own laws, and I to its. Since I am aware 
 of this, it will be best for my peace of mind that 
 I should subordinate my wishes also to this 
 power, to which my being is, once for all, en- 
 tirely subject. 
 
 0, these opposing wishes ! For why should 
 I longer conceal the sorrow, the abhorrence, the 
 terror which has seized my inner man, from 
 the moment that I perceived how the inquiry 
 must terminate. I had made a sacred covenant 
 with myself, that inclination should have no 
 influence on the direction of my thought; and 
 indeed I have, consciously, allowed it none. 
 But shall I not therefore, at the conclusion, con- 
 fess to myself, that this result contradicts my 
 deepest, innermost presentiments, wishes, de- 
 mands ? And how can I, notwithstanding the 
 correctness and the trenchant sharpness of the 
 proofs which appear to me in this deliberation,, 
 believe in an interpretation of my existence 
 
 which so decidedly conflicts with the most inti- 
 mate root of that existence, and with the ends 
 for whose sake alone 1 wish to be, and without 
 which, I count my existence a curse? 
 
 Wherefore must my heart sorrow and be rent 
 for that which so completely satisfies my under- 
 standing 1 ? While nothing in Nature contradicts 
 itself, is man alone a contradictory being? — or, 
 perhaps, not man, but only I and those who re- 
 semble me. Ought I perhaps to have gone on 
 in the pleasant conceit which environed me, 
 to have kept within the circle of my being's 
 immediate consciousness, and never to have 
 raised the question concerning the grounds of 
 that being, the answer to which has now ren- 
 dered me miserable? But if my answer is cor- 
 rect, I could but raise that question. It was 
 not I that raised it, but thinking Nature in me. 
 I was doomed to misery, and I mourn in vain 
 the lost innocence of my mind, which can never 
 return. 
 
 But courage ! Let everything else forsake me, 
 if only this forsake me not. For the sake of a 
 mere preference, however deep in my interior 
 that preference may lie, and however sacred it 
 may seem to me, I cannot indeed relinquish 
 what follows from incontrovertible reasons. But 
 perhaps I have erred in my investigation. Per- 
 haps I have but half considered the sources 
 from which I was compelled to draw in con- 
 ducting it, and have looked at them only from 
 one side. I ought to repeat the investigation 
 from the opposite end, that I may have a point 
 from which to begin it. What is it then that so 
 mightily repels and offends me in that decision ? 
 What is it that I wished to find instead of it? 
 Let me, before all things, make clear to myself 
 that preference to which I appeal. 
 
 That I should be destined to be wise or good, 
 a fool or vicious, that I should be unable to 
 effect any change in that destination, that I 
 should be without merit in the former case, and 
 without blame in the latter, — this it was that 
 filled me with loathing and horror. That 
 ground of my being and of the conditions of 
 my being external to myself, whose manifesta- 
 tion, in turn, is determined by other grounds 
 external to itself, — that it was that so violently 
 repelled me. That freedom which is not my 
 own, but belongs to a foreign power without 
 me, and which, even in that power, is only a 
 conditioned, only a half-freedom, — that it was 
 that failed to satisfy me. / myself, that of 
 which I am conscious as of a self, as of my 
 own person, and which, in that system, appears 
 only as the manifestation of a higher power, 
 I myself would be self-subsisting, I would be 
 something, not in another and by means of an- 
 other, but for myself. I would be, in myself, 
 as such, the ultimate ground of my conditions. 
 The rank, which, in that system, is occupied by 
 an original power of Nature, I would occupy, 
 myself; but with this difference, that the mode 
 I in which I manifest myself, shall not be de- 
 o<3 * 
 
390 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 termined by foreign powers. I would possess 
 an inward power peculiar to myself, of mani- 
 festing myself in an infinite variety of ways, 
 like those powers of Nature ; a power which 
 should manifest itself exactly as it does, for no 
 other reason than because it manifests itself thus; 
 and not, like those powers of Nature, because 
 it is subject to such or such external conditions. 
 
 Where now, according to this my wish, should 
 be the proper seat and centre of that peculiar 
 power of the I? Evidently, not in my body, which 
 I am quite willing should pass — at least so far 
 as its being is concerned, if not in its ulterior 
 conditions — for a manifestation of the powers of 
 Nature ; neither in my sensual appetites, which 
 I regard as a referring of those powers to my 
 consciousness : consequently, in my thinking and 
 willing. I would will with freedom, accord- 
 ing to a freely proposed aim. And this will, 
 as absolute, ultimate ground, determined by no 
 possible higher than itself, should move and 
 shape, first my body, and then, by means of 
 that, the world which surrounds me. My ac- 
 tive, natural power should be subject only to 
 my will, and not be put in motion by anything 
 else but that. So should it be. There should 
 be a supreme good, according to spiritual laws. 
 I would be able to seek this with freedom until 
 I find it, to acknowledge it as such when I have 
 found it ; and it should be my fault if I found it 
 not. This supreme good I would be able to 
 will, simply because I will it; and if I willed 
 anything else in its stead, it should be my 
 fault. 
 
 ***** 
 Freedom, such as that which has been de- 
 manded above, is conceivable only in Intelli- 
 gences ; but without doubt, it is conceivable in 
 them. On this supposition, also, man as well 
 as Nature is perfectly intelligible. My body 
 and my power of operating in the world of the 
 senses, in this as in the other system, are a 
 manifestation of limited natural powers ; and 
 my natural inclinations are the relations of this 
 manifestation to my consciousness. The mere 
 cognition of that which exists without my ac- 
 tion, originates in the same way, on the suppo- 
 sition of freedom, as in the opposite system; 
 and up to this point they both agree. But ac- 
 cording to that, — and here begins the conflict of 
 the two systems — according to that, my capacity 
 of sensuous action continues subject to Nature, 
 and is still put in motion by the same power 
 which produced it; and thought has nothing to 
 do in the matter but to look on. According to 
 this, on the contrary, this capacity, when once 
 it exists, is under the dominion of a power 
 exalted above all Nature, and entirely inde- 
 pendent of Nature's laws, the power of con- 
 ceived purposes and of the will. Thought in 
 this case is not a mere spectator, but itself the 
 original of the action. There, it is external 
 powers, invisible to me, which put an end to 
 my irresolution and limit my activity, as well 
 as the immediate consciousness of that acti- 
 
 vity, my will, to a single point; just as the ac- 
 tivity of a plant, undetermined in itself, is 
 limited. Here, it is / myself, independent and 
 free from the influence of all external forces, 
 who put an end to my irresolution and deter- 
 mine myself by a recognition, freely produced 
 in myself, of the supreme good. 
 
 Which of these two opinions shall I embrace? 
 Am I free and self-subsisting, or am I nothing 
 in myself, and merely the apparition of a fo- 
 reign power ? 
 
 ******* 
 
 The system of liberty satisfies ; the opposite 
 deadens and annihilates my heart. To stand 
 there cold and dead, a mere spectator of chang- 
 ing events, an idle mirror of fleeting forms, — 
 such an existence is intolerable to me. I scorn 
 and curse it. I would love, I would lose my- 
 self in sympathy ; I would rejoice and be sad. 
 * * * I would do everything for the best; 
 would rejoice in myself when I have done right, 
 and would sorrow for myself when I have done 
 wrong. And even this sorrow should be sweet 
 to me, for it is interest in myself, and pledge of 
 future amendment. Only in love there is life ; 
 without it is death and annihilation. 
 
 But cold and impertinent the opposite system 
 steps in and mocks at this love. I am not and 
 I act not, when I listen to that. The object of 
 my intensest desire is a phantom of the brain, 
 a palpably demonstrable, coarse illusion. In- 
 stead of me there is and acts a foreign, to me 
 quite unknown power; and it becomes a mat- 
 ter of perfect indifference to me how that power 
 may unfold itself. Ashamed I stand there, with 
 my heartfelt affection and my good will, and 
 blush at that which I know to be the best in 
 me, and for whose sake alone I wish to be, 
 as it were a laughable folly. My holiest is de- 
 livered up to mockery. * * * * 
 
 * * * The same system, dry and heart- 
 less, but inexhaustible in explaining, explains 
 even this, my interest in liberty, my abhorrence 
 for the opposite opinion. It explains everything 
 which I bring forward against it out of my con- 
 sciousness ; and as often as I say it is so and so, 
 it answers me in the same dry and imperturba- 
 ble manner: "That is precisely what I say too; 
 and I tell thee, moreover, the reasons why it 
 must necessarily be so." * * * "Thouad- 
 mittest, without controversy, that notwithstand- 
 ing there is, in the plant, an instinct peculiar to 
 itself to grow and shape itself, yet the determi- 
 nate activity of this instinct depends on forces 
 external to itself. Give this plant consciousness 
 for a moment, and it will feel in itself this in- 
 stinct to grow, with interest and love. Convince 
 it by arguments drawn from reason, that this 
 instinct cannot effect the least thing for itself; 
 but that the measure of its manifestation is al- 
 ways determined by something external to 
 itself, and perhaps it will talk exactly as thou 
 hast just been talking. It will behave in a man- 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 391 
 
 ner which may be pardoned in a plant, but 
 which is altogether unbecoming in tkee, as a 
 higher product of Nature, capable of embracing 
 the whole of Nature in thy thought." 
 
 What can I object to such representations'? 
 * * * Undecided I cannot remain. All my 
 peace and all my dignity depends on the an- 
 swer to this question. Just as impossible is it 
 for me to come to a decision. I have absolutely 
 no ground for deciding, one way or the other. 
 
 Intolerable state of uncertainty and irresolu- 
 tion, into which I have been forced by the best 
 and most courageous resolve of my life ! What 
 power can deliver me from thee 1 What power 
 can deliver me from myself? 
 
 FROM THE THIRD BOOK. 
 FAITH. 
 
 * * * « Not merely to know, but to act 
 according to thy knowledge, is thy destination." 
 So says the voice which cries to me aloud from 
 my innermost soul, so soon as I collect and give 
 heed to myself, for a moment. " Not idly to in- 
 spect and contemplate thyself, nor to brood over 
 devout sensations ; — no ! thou existest to act. 
 Thine act, and only thine act, determines thy 
 worth." * 
 
 * * * Shall I refuse obedience to that in- 
 ward voice? I will not do it. I will give my- 
 self voluntarily the determination which that 
 impulse imputes to me. And I will embrace, 
 together with this resolution, the thought of its 
 reality and truth, and of the reality of all that 
 it presupposes. I will hold to the stand-point 
 of natural thinking, which this impulse assigns 
 to me, and renounce all those morbid specula- 
 tions and refinements of the understanding which 
 alone could make me doubt its truth. I under- 
 stand thee now, sublime Spirit!* I have found 
 the organ with which I embrace this reality, and 
 with it, probably, all other reality. Knowledge 
 is not that organ. No knowledge can ground 
 and demonstrate itself. Every knowledge pre- 
 supposes a higher as its ground, and this up- 
 ward process has no end. It is Faith, that vo- 
 luntary reposing in the view which naturally 
 presents itself, because it is the only one by 
 which we can fulfil our destination, — this it is 
 that first gives assent to knowledge, and exalts 
 to certainty and conviction what would other- 
 wise be mere illusion. It is not knowledge, but 
 a determination of the will to let knowledge 
 pass for valid. I hold fast, then, forever to this 
 expression. It is not a mere difference of terms, 
 but a real deep-grounded distinction, exercising 
 a very important influence on my whole mental 
 disposition. All my conviction is only faith, 
 and is derived from a disposition of the mind, 
 not from the understanding. * * * 
 
 * * * There is only one point to which I 
 have to direct incessantly all my thoughts : 
 What I must do, and how I shall most effectu- 
 
 * This refers to the second Book, which takes the form 
 of a dialogue between the inquirer and a Spirit. 
 
 ally accomplish what is required of me. All 
 my thinking must have reference to my doing, 
 — must be considered as means, however re- 
 mote, to this end. Otherwise, it is an empty, 
 aimless sport, a waste of time and power, and 
 perversion of a noble faculty which was given 
 me for a very different purpose. 
 
 I may hope, I may promise myself with cer- 
 tainty, that when I think after this manner, my 
 thinking shall be attended with practical results. 
 Nature, in which I am to act, is not a foreign 
 being, created without regard to me. It is fa- 
 shioned by the laws of my own thought, and 
 must surely coincide with them. It must be 
 everywhere transparent, cognisable, permeable 
 to me, in its innermost recesses. Everywhere 
 it expresses nothing but relations and references 
 of myself to myself; and as certainly as I may 
 hope to know myself, so certainly I may pro- 
 mise myself that I shall be able to explore that. 
 Let me but seek what I have to seek, and I shall 
 find. Let me but inquire whereof I have to in- 
 quire, and I shall receive answer. 
 
 t 
 
 That voice in my interior, which I believe, 
 and for the sake of which I believe all else that 
 I believe, commands me not merely to act in 
 general. That is impossible. All these general 
 propositions are formed only by my voluntary 
 attention and reflection directed to various facts ; 
 but they do not express a single fact of them- 
 selves. This voice of my conscience prescribes 
 to me with certainty, in each particular situa- 
 tion of my existence, what I must do and what 
 I must avoid in that situation. It accompanies 
 me, if I will but listen to it with attention, 
 through all the events of my life, and never re- 
 fuses its reward where I am called to act. It 
 establishes immediate conviction, and irresisti- 
 bly compels my assent. It is impossible for me 
 to contend against it. 
 
 To hearken to that voice, honestly and undis- 
 turbedly, without fear and without useless spe- 
 culation, to obey it, — this is my sole destination, 
 this the whole aim of my existence. My life 
 ceases to be an empty sport, without truth or 
 meaning. There is something to be done, sim- 
 ply because it must be done. That that which 
 conscience demands of me in particular, — of me 
 who have come into this situation, — may be ful- 
 filled, — for this purpose alone do I exist. To 
 perceive it, I have understanding; to do it, 
 power. 
 
 Through these commandments of conscience 
 alone come truth and reality into my concep- 
 tions. I cannot refuse attention and obedience 
 to them, without renouncing my destination. 
 
 I cannot, therefore, withhold my belief in the 
 reality which they bring before me, without, at 
 the same time, denying my destination. It is 
 absolutely true, without farther examination and 
 demonstration, — it is the first true, and the 
 ground of all other truth and certainty, — that I 
 must obey that voice. Consequently, according 
 
392 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 to this way of thinking, everything becomes true 
 and real for me, which the possibility of such 
 obedience presupposes. 
 
 There hover before me appearances in space, 
 to which I transfer the idea of my own being. 
 I represent them to myself as beings of my own 
 kind. Speculation, carried out, has taught me 
 or will teach me that these supposed rational 
 beings, without me, are only products of my 
 own conception ; that I am necessitated, once 
 for all, by laws of thought which can be shown 
 to exist, to represent the idea of myself out of 
 myself, and that, according to the same laws, 
 this representation can be transferred only to 
 certain determinate intuitions. But the voice 
 of my conscience cries to me : " Whatever these 
 beings may be in and for themselves, thou shalt 
 treat them as subsisting for themselves, as free, 
 self-existent beings, entirely independent of 
 thyself. Take it for granted that they are 
 capable of proposing to themselves aims inde- 
 pendently of thee, by themselves alone. Never 
 disturb the execution of these, their designs, but 
 further them rather, with all thy might. Re- 
 spect their liberty. Embrace with love their 
 objects as thine own." So must I act. And 
 to such action shall, will, and must all my 
 thinking be directed, if I have but formed the 
 purpose to obey the voice of my conscience. 
 Accordingly, I shall ever consider those beings, 
 as beings subsisting for themselves, and forming 
 and accomplishing aims independently of me. 
 From this stand-point, I cannot consider them 
 in any other light; and the above-mentioned 
 speculation will vanish like an empty dream 
 before my eyes. " I think of them as beings of 
 my own species :" said I just now • but strictly, 
 it is not a thought by which they are first repre- 
 sented to me as such. It is the voice of con- 
 science ; the command : " here restrain thy 
 liberty, here suppose and respect foreign aims ;" 
 this it is which is first translated into the 
 thought : " here is surely and truly, subsisting 
 for itself, a being like me." To consider them 
 otherwise, I must first deny the voice of my 
 conscience in life, and forget it in speculation. 
 
 There hover before me other appearances, 
 which I do not consider as beings like myself, 
 but as irrational objects. Speculation finds it 
 easy to show how the conception of such ob- 
 jects develops itself purely from my power of 
 conception, and its necessary modes of action. 
 But I embrace these same things also with 
 necessity and craving and fruition. It is not the 
 conception, no, it is hunger and thirst and the 
 satisfaction of these that makes anything food 
 and drink to me. Of course, I am constrained 
 to believe in the reality of that which threatens 
 my sensuous existence, or which alone can pre- 
 serve it. Conscience comes in, at once hallow- 
 ing and limiting this impulse of Nature. " Thou 
 shalt preserve, exercise and strengthen thyself, 
 and thy sensuous power : for this sensuous 
 power forms a part of the calculation, in the 
 plan of reason. But thou canst preserve it only 
 
 by a suitable use, agreeable to the peculiar in- 
 terior laws of such matters. And beside thy- 
 self, there are also others like thee, whose pow- 
 ers are calculated upon like thine own, and who 
 can be preserved only in the same way. Allow 
 to them the same use of their portion which it 
 is commanded thee to make of thine own por- 
 tion. Respect what comes to them, as their 
 property. Use what comes to thee in a suit- 
 able manner, as thy property." So must I act, 
 and I must think conformably to such action. 
 Accordingly, I am necessitated to regard these 
 things as standing under their own natural laws, 
 independent of me, but which I am capable of 
 knowing ; that is, to ascribe to them an existence 
 independent of myself. I am constrained to 
 believe in such laws, and it becomes my busi- 
 ness to ascertain them ; and empty speculation 
 vanishes like mist when the warming sun ap- 
 pears. 
 
 In short, there is for me, in general, no pure, 
 naked existence, with which I have no concern, 
 and which I contemplate solely for the sake of 
 contemplation. Whatever exists for me, exists 
 only by virtue of its relation to me. But there 
 is everywhere but one relation to me possible, 
 and all the rest are but varieties of this ; that 
 is my destination as a moral agent. My world 
 is the object and sphere of my duties, and ab- 
 solutely nothing else. There is no other world, 
 no other attributes of my world, for me. My 
 collective capacity, and all finite capacity is in- 
 sufficient to comprehend any other. Everything 
 which exists for me forces its existence and its 
 reality upon me, solely by means of this rela- 
 tion ; and only by means of this relation, do I 
 grasp it. There is utterly wanting in me an 
 organ for any other existence. 
 
 To the question, whether then in fact such a 
 world exists as I represent to myself? I can 
 answer nothing certain, nothing which is raised 
 above all doubt, but this : I have assuredly and 
 truly these definite duties, which represent them- 
 selves to me as duties toward such and such 
 persons, concerning such and such objects. 
 These definite duties I cannot represent to my- 
 self otherwise, nor can I execute them other- 
 wise, than as lying within the sphere of such 
 a world as I conceive. Even he who has 
 never thought of his moral destination, if any 
 such there could be, or who, if he has thought 
 about it generally, has never entertained the 
 slightest purpose of ever, in the indefinite future, 
 fulfilling it; even he derives his world of the 
 senses and his belief in the reality of such a 
 world, no otherwise than from his idea of a 
 moral world. If he does not embrace it with 
 the idea of his duties, he certainly does so with 
 the requisition of his rights. What he does not 
 require of himself, he yet requires of others, in 
 relation to himself; that they treat him with 
 care and consideration, agreeably to his nature, 
 not as an irrational thing, but as a free and self- 
 subsisting being. And so he is constrained, in 
 order that they may comply with this demand, 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 393 
 
 to think of them also, as rational, free, and self- 
 subsisting, and independent of the mere force 
 of Nature. And even though he should never 
 propose to himself any other aim in the use and 
 fruition of the objects which surround him, than 
 that of enjoying them, he still demands this en- 
 joyment as a right, of which others must leave 
 him in undisturbed possession. Accordingly, 
 he embraces even the irrational world of the 
 senses with a moral idea. No one who lives a 
 conscious life can renounce these claims to be 
 respected as rational and self-subsisting. And 
 with these claims at least there connects itself 
 in his soul, a seriousness, an abandonment of 
 doubt, a belief in reality ; if not with the ac- 
 knowledgment of a moral law in his interior. 
 Do but assail him who denies his own moral 
 destination and your existence and the exist- 
 ence of a corporeal world, except in the way 
 of experiment, to try what speculation can do, 
 — assail him actively, carry his principles into 
 life, and act as if he either did not exist, or as 
 if he were a piece of rude matter, and he will 
 soon forget the joke; he will become seriously 
 angry with you, he will seriously reprove you 
 for treating him so, and maintain that you ought 
 not and must not do so to him; and, in this 
 way, he will practically admit, that you possess 
 indeed the power of acting upon him, that he 
 exists, that you exist, and that there exists a 
 medium through which you act upon him; and 
 ihat you have at least duties toward him. 
 
 Hence it is not the action of supposed objects 
 without us, which exist for us only, and for 
 which we exist only, so far as we already know 
 of them, just as little is it an empty fashioning, 
 by means of our imagination and our think- 
 ing, — whose products would appear to us as 
 such, as empty pictures ; — it is not these, but 
 the necessary faith in our liberty and our power, 
 in our veritable action and in certain laws of 
 human action, which serves as the foundation 
 of all consciousness of a reality without us, a 
 consciousness which is itself but a belief, since 
 it rests on a belief, but one which follows ne- 
 cessarily from that belief. We are compelled 
 to assume that we act in general, and that we 
 ought to act in a certain way ; we are compelled 
 to assume a certain sphere of such action : this 
 sphere is the truly and actually existing world 
 as we find it. And vice versa, this world is ab- 
 solutely nothing but that sphere, and by no 
 means extends beyond it. The consciousness 
 of the actual world proceeds from the necessity 
 of action, and not the reverse, — i. e. the neces- 
 sity of action from the consciousness of such a 
 world. The necessity is first not the conscious- 
 ness ; that is derived. We do not act because 
 we agnize, but we agnize because we are des- 
 tined to act. Practical reason is the root of all 
 reason. The laws of action for rational beings 
 are immediately certain ; their world is certain, 
 only because they are certain. Were we to re- 
 nounce the former, the world, and, with it, we 
 ourselves, should sink into absolute nothing. 
 2z 
 
 We raise ourselves out of this nothing, and sus- 
 tain ourselves above this nothing, solely by 
 means of our morality. 
 
 II. 
 
 ******** 
 
 When I contemplate the world as it is, inde- 
 pendently of any injunction, there manifests it- 
 self in my interior the wish, the longing, no ! 
 not a longing merely, — the absolute demand for 
 a better world. I cast a glance at the relations 
 of men to each other and to Nature, at the 
 weakness of their powers, at the strength of 
 their appetites and passions. It cries to me 
 irresistibly from rny innermost soul : " thus it 
 cannot possibly be destined always to remain. 
 It must, ! it must all become other and better !" 
 
 I can in nowise imagine to myself the present 
 condition of man as that which is designed to 
 endure. I cannot imagine it to be his whole 
 and final destination. If so, then would every- 
 thing be dream and delusion, and it would not 
 be worth the trouble to have lived and to have 
 taken part in this ever-recurring, unproductive 
 and unmeaning game. Only so far as I can 
 regard this condition as the means of something 
 better, as a point of transition to a higher and 
 more perfect, does it acquire any value for me. 
 Not on its own account, but on account of some- 
 thing better for which it prepares the way, can 
 I bear it, honor it, and joyfully fulfil my part in 
 it. My mind can find no place, nor rest a mo- 
 ment, in the present; it is irresistibly repelled 
 by it. My whole life streams irrepressibly on 
 toward the future and better. 
 
 Am I only to eat and to drink that I may 
 hunger and thirst again, and again eat and drink, 
 until the grave, yawning beneath my feet, swal- 
 lows me up, and I myself spring up as food 
 from the ground ? Am I to beget beings like 
 myself, that they also may eat and drink and 
 die, and leave behind them beings like them- 
 selves, who shall do the same that I have done ? 
 To what purpose this circle which perpetually 
 returns into itself; this game for ever re-com- 
 mencing, after the same manner, in which 
 everything is born but to perish, and perishes 
 but to be born again as it was 1 This monster 
 which forever devours itself, that it may pro- 
 duce itself again, and which produces itself that 
 it may again devour itself? 
 
 Never can this be the destination of my being 
 and of all being. There must be something 
 which exists because it has been brought forth, 
 and which now remains and can never be 
 brought forth again, after it has been brought 
 forth once. And this, that is permanent, must 
 beget itself amid the mutations of the perishing, 
 and continue amid those mutations, and be 
 borne along unhurt upon the waves of time. 
 
 As yet our race wrings with difficulty its sus- 
 tenance and its continuance from opposing Na- 
 ture. As yet the larger portion of mankind are 
 bowed down their whole life long by hard 
 labor, to procure sustenance for themselves and 
 
394 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 the few who think for them. Immortal spirits 
 are compelled to fix all their thinking and 
 scheming, and all their efforts, on the soil which 
 bears them nourishment. It often comes to 
 pass as yet, that when the laborer has ended, 
 and promises himself, for his pains, the conti- 
 nuance of his own existence and of those pains ; 
 that then hostile elements destroy in a moment 
 what he had been slowly and carefully prepar- 
 ing for years, and delivers up the industrious 
 pains-taking man, without any fault of his own, 
 to hunger and misery. It often comes to pass 
 as yet, that inundations, storm-winds, volcanoes, 
 desolate whole countries, and mingle works 
 which bear the impress of a rational mind, as 
 well as their authors, with the wild chaos of 
 death and destruction. Diseases still hurry 
 men into a premature grave, men in the bloom 
 of their powers, and children whose existence 
 passes away without fruit or result. The pes- 
 tilence still stalks through blooming states, and 
 leaves the few who escape it, bereaved and 
 alone, deprived of the accustomed aid of their 
 companions ; and does all in its power to give 
 back to the wilderness the land which the in- 
 dustry of man had already conquered for its 
 own. 
 
 So it is, but so it cannot surely have been in- 
 tended always to remain. No work which 
 bears the impress of reason, and which was 
 undertaken for the purpose of extending the 
 dominion of reason, can be utterly lost in the 
 progress of the times. The sacrifices which 
 the irregular violence of Nature draws from 
 reason, must at least weary, satisfy and recon- 
 cile that violence. The force which has caused 
 injury by acting v/ithout rule, cannot be intended 
 to do so more in that way, it cannot be destined 
 to renew itself; it must be used up, from this 
 time forth and forever, by that one outbreak. 
 All those outbreaks of rude force, before which 
 human power vanishes into nothing, — those 
 desolating hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, 
 can be nothing else but the final struggle of the 
 wild mass against the lawfully progressive, life- 
 giving, systematic course to which it is com- 
 pelled, contrary to its own impulse. They can 
 be nothing but the last concussive strokes in the 
 formation of our globe, now about to perfect it- 
 self. That opposition must gradually become 
 weaker, and at last exhausted, since, in the 
 lawful course of things, there can be nothing 
 that should renew its power. That formation 
 must at last be perfected, and our destined 
 abode complete. Nature must gradually come 
 into a condition in which we can count with 
 certainty upon her equal step, and in which her 
 power shall keep unaltered a determinate rela- 
 tion with that power which is destined to govern 
 it, that is, the human. So far as this relation 
 already exists, and the systematic cultivation 
 of Nature has gained firm footing; the work- 
 manship of man, by its mere existence and its 
 effects, independent of any design on the part 
 of the author, is destined to react upon Nature, 
 
 and to represent in her a new and life-giving 
 principle. Cultivated lands are to quicken and 
 mitigate the sluggish, hostile atmosphere of the 
 eternal forests, wildernesses, and morasses. 
 Well-ordered and diversified culture is to diffuse 
 through the air a new principle of life and fruc- 
 tification ; and the sun to send forth its most 
 animating beams into that atmosphere which 
 is breathed by a healthy, industrious, and in- 
 genious people. Science, awakened, at first, by 
 the pressure of necessity, shall hereafter pene- 
 trate deliberately and calmly into the unchange- 
 able laws of Nature, overlook her whole power, 
 and learn to calculate her possible develop- 
 ments; — shall form for itself a new Nature in 
 idea, attach itself closely to the living and ac- 
 tive, and follow hard upon her footsteps. And 
 all knowledge which reason has wrung from 
 Nature, shall be preserved in the course of the 
 times, and become the foundation of further 
 knowledge, for the common understanding of 
 our race. Thus shall Nature become ever more 
 transparent and penetrable to human percep- 
 tion, even to its innermost secrets. And human 
 power, enlightened and fortified with its inven- 
 tions, shall rule her with ease, and peacefully 
 maintain the conquest once effected. By de- 
 grees, there shall be needed no greater outlay 
 of mechanical labor than the human body re- 
 quires for its development, cultivation and 
 health. And this labor shall cease to be a bur- 
 den ; for the rational being is not destined to 
 be a bearer of burdens. 
 
 But it is not Nature, it is liberty itself, that 
 occasions the most numerous and the most fear- 
 ful disorders among our kind. The direst enemy 
 of man is man. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 It is the destination of our race to unite in one 
 body, thoroughly acquainted with itself in all 
 its parts, and uniformly cultivated in all. Na- 
 ture, and even the passions and vices of man- 
 kind, have, from the beginning, drifted towards 
 this goal. A large part of the road which leads 
 to it is already put behind us, and we may count 
 with certainty that this goal, which is the con- 
 dition of further, united progress, will be reached 
 in due season. Do not ask History whether 
 mankind, on the whole, have grown more 
 purely moral ! They have grown to extended, 
 comprehensive, forceful acts of arbitrary will; 
 but it was almost a necessity of their condition 
 that they should direct that will exclusively to 
 evil. 
 
 Neither ask History whether the aesthetic 
 education and the culture of the understanding, 
 of the fore-world, concentrated upon a few sin- 
 gle points, may not have far exceeded, in de- 
 gree, that of modern times. It might be that 
 the answer would put us to shame, and that 
 the human race would appear, in this regard, 
 not to have advanced, but to have lost ground. 
 
 But ask History in what period the existing 
 culture was most widely diffused and distri- 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 395 
 
 buted among the greatest number of individu- 
 als? Undoubtedly, it will be found, that from 
 the beginning of history down to our own day, 
 the few light-points of culture have extended 
 their rays farther and farther from their centres, 
 have seized one individual after another, and 
 one people after another ; and that this diffusion 
 of culture is still going on before our eyes. 
 
 And this was the first goal of Humanity, on 
 its infinite path. Until this is attained, until 
 the existing culture of an age is diffused over 
 the whole habitable globe, and our race is made 
 capable of the most unlimited communication 
 with itself, one nation, one quarter of the 
 globe must await the other, on their common 
 path, and each must bring its centuries of ap- 
 parent stationariness or retrogradation, as a sa- 
 crifice to the common bond, for the sake of 
 which, alone, they themselves exist. 
 
 When this first goal shall be attained, when 
 everything useful that has been discovered at 
 one end of the earth, shall immediately be made 
 known and imparted to all, then Humanity, 
 without interruption, without cessation, and 
 without retrocession, with united force, and with 
 one step, shall raise itself up to a degree of cul- 
 ture which we want power to conceive. 
 
 ******* 
 
 * * * By the institution of this one true 
 State, and the firm establishment of this internal 
 peace, external war also, at least with true 
 States, will, at the same time, be rendered im- 
 possible. Even for the sake of its own advan- 
 tage, — in order that no thought of injustice, plun- 
 der and violence may spring up in its own sub- 
 jects, and no possible opportunity be afforded 
 them for any gain, except by labor and indus- 
 try, in the sphere assigned by law ; — every State 
 must forbid as strictly, must hinder as carefully, 
 must compensate as exactly, and punish as se- 
 verely, an injury done to the citizen of a neigh- 
 bor State, as if it were inflicted upon a fellow- 
 citizen. This law respecting the security of its 
 neighbors is necessary to every State which is 
 not a community of robbers. And herewith the 
 possibility of every just complaint, of one State 
 against another, and every case of necessary de- 
 fence is done away. 
 
 There are no necessary, continuous, immedi- 
 ate relations of States, as such, to each other, 
 that could engender warfare. As a general rule, 
 it is only through the relations of single citizens 
 of one State with the citizens of another, — it is 
 only in the person of one of its members, that 
 a State can be injured. But this injury will be 
 instantly redressed, and the offended State sa- 
 tisfied. ******* 
 
 * * * That a whole nation should deter- 
 mine, for the sake of plunder, to attack a neigh- 
 boring country with war, is impossible. Since, 
 in a State, in which all are equal, the plunder 
 would not become the booty of a few, but must 
 be divided equally among all, and so divided, 
 the portion of each individual would never re- 
 
 pay him for the trouble of a war. Only, then, 
 when the advantage to be gained falls to the lot 
 of a few oppressors, but the disadvantages, the 
 trouble, the cost fall upon a countless army of 
 slaves, — only then is a war of plunder possible 
 or conceivable. Accordingly, these States have 
 no war to fear from States like themselves, but 
 only from savages or barbarians, tempted to 
 prey by want of skill to enrich themselves by 
 industry; or from nations of slaves, who are 
 driven by their masters to plunder, of which 
 they are to enjoy no part themselves. As to the 
 first, each single State is undoubtedly superior 
 to them in strength, by virtue of the arts of cul 
 ture. As to the last, the common advantage of 
 all the States will lead them to strengthen them- 
 selves by union with each other. No free State 
 can reasonably tolerate, in its immediate vici- 
 nity, Polities whose rulers find their advantage 
 in subjecting neighbor nations, and which, there- 
 fore, by their mere existence, perpetually threat- 
 en their neighbors' peace. Care for their own 
 security will oblige all free States to convert all 
 around them into free States like themselves, 
 and thus, for the sake of their own well-being, 
 to extend the dominion of culture to the savages, 
 and that of liberty to the slave nations round 
 about them. And so, when once a few free 
 States have been formed, the empire of culture, 
 of liberty, and, with that, of universal peace, 
 will gradually embrace the globe. * * * 
 * * * In this only true State, all tempta- 
 tion to evil in general, and even the possibility 
 of deliberately determining upon an evil act, 
 will be cut off, and man be persuaded as pow- 
 erfully as he can be to direct his will to the 
 good. There is no man who loves evil because 
 it is evil. He loves in it only the advantages 
 and enjoyments which it promises, and which, 
 in the present state of Humanity, it, for the most 
 part, actually affords. As long as this state 
 continues, as long as a price is set upon vice, a 
 thorough reformation of mankind, in the whole, 
 is scarcely to be hoped for. But in a civil Po- 
 lity such as it should be, such as reason de- 
 mands, and such as the thinker easily describes, 
 although as yet he nowhere finds it, and such 
 as will necessarily shape itself with the first na- 
 tion that is truly disenthralled ; — in such a Po- 
 lity evil will offer no advantages, but, on the 
 contrary, the most certain disadvantages ; and 
 the aberration of self-love into acts of injustice, 
 will be suppressed by self-love itself. Accord- 
 ing to infallible regulations, in such a State, all 
 taking advantage and oppressing of others, every 
 act of self-aggrandizement at another's expense, 
 is not only sure to be in vain, — labor lost, — but 
 it reacts upon the author, and he himself inevi- 
 tably incurs the evil which he would inflict upon 
 others. Within his own State and without it, 
 on the whole face of the earth, he finds no one 
 whom he can injure with impunity. It is not, 
 however, to be expected that any one will re- 
 solve upon evil merely for evil's sake, notwith- 
 standing he cannot accomplish it, and nothing 
 
396 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 but his own injury can result from the attempt. 
 The use of liberty for evil ends is done away. 
 Man must either resolve to renounce his liberty 
 entirely, — to become, with patience, a passive 
 wheel in the great machine of the whole,— or 
 he must apply his liberty to that which is good. 
 
 And thus, then, in a soil so prepared, the 
 good will easily nourish. When selfish aims 
 no longer divide mankind, and their powers 
 can no longer be exercised in destroying one 
 another in battle, nothing will remain to them 
 but to turn their united force against the com- 
 mon and only adversary which yet remains, 
 resisting, uncultivated Nature. No longer sepa- 
 rated by private ends, they will necessarily 
 unite in one common end, and there will grow 
 up a body everywhere animated by one spirit 
 and one love. Every disadvantage of the indi- 
 vidual, since it can no longer be a benefit to any 
 one, becomes an injury to the whole, and to each 
 particular member of the same ; and is felt in 
 each member with equal pain, and with equal 
 activity redressed. Every advance which one 
 man makes, human nature, in its entireness, 
 makes with him. 
 
 Here, where the petty, narrow self of the per- 
 son is already annihilated by the Polity, every 
 one loves every other one truly, as himself, as 
 a component part of that great Self which alone 
 remains to his love, and of which he is nothing 
 but a component part, that only through the 
 Whole can gain or lose. Here the conflict of 
 evil with good is done away, for no evil can 
 any longer spring up. The contest of the good 
 with each other, even concerning the good, va- 
 nishes, now that it has become easy to them to 
 love the good for its own sake, and not for their 
 sakes, as the authors of it ; — now that the only 
 interest they can have is that it come to pass, 
 that truth be discovered, that the good deed be 
 executed ; not by whom it is accomplished. 
 Here every one is prepared to join his power 
 to that of his neighbor, and to subordinate it to 
 that of his neighbor. Whoever, in the judgment 
 of all, shall accomplish the best, in the best 
 way, him all will support, and partake with 
 equal joy in his success. 
 
 This is the aim of earthly existence which 
 Reason sets before us, and for the sure attain- 
 ment of which, Reason vouches. It is not a 
 goal for which we are to strive merely that our 
 faculties may be exercised on great objects, but 
 which we must relinquish all hope of realizing. 
 It shall and must be realized. At some time 
 or other, this goal must be attained ; as surely 
 as there is a world of the senses, and a race of 
 reasonable beings in time, for whom no serious 
 and rational object can be imagined but this, 
 and whose existence is made intelligible by this 
 alone. Unless the whole life of man is to be 
 considered as the sport of an evil Spirit, who 
 implanted this ineradicable striving after the 
 imperishable in the breasts of poor wretches, 
 merely that he might enjoy their ceaseless strug- 
 
 gle after that which unceasingly flees from them, 
 their still repeated grasping after that which 
 still eludes their grasp, the ir restless driving 
 about in an ever- returning circle; — and laugh 
 at their earnestness in this senseless sport: — 
 unless the wise man, who must soon see through 
 this game, and be tired of his own part in it, is 
 to throw away his life, and the moment of 
 awakening reason is to be the moment of earthly 
 death ; — that goal must be attained. ! it is 
 attainable in life and by means of life ; for Rea- 
 son commands me to live. It is attainable, for 
 I am. 
 
 UL 
 
 But how, when it is attained ? when Huma- 
 nity shall stand at the goal? What then? There 
 is no higher condition on earth than that. The 
 generation which first attains to it can do no. 
 thing farther than to persist in it, and maintain 
 it with all their powers ; die and leave de- 
 scendants who shall do the same that they have 
 done, and who, in their turn, shall leave de- 
 scendants that shall do the same. Humanity 
 would then stand still in its course. Therefore, 
 its earthly goal cannot be its highest goal. This 
 earthly goal is intelligible, and attainable, and 
 finite. Though we consider the preceding gene- 
 rations as means of developing the last and per- 
 fected, still we cannot escape the inquiry of 
 earnest Reason : " Wherefore then these lasf" 
 Given a human race on the earth, its existence 
 must indeed be in accordance with Reason, and 
 not contrary to it. It must become all that it 
 can become on earth. But why should it exist 
 at all, this human race? Why might it not as 
 well have remained in the bosom of Nothing? 
 Reason is not for the sake of existence, but ex- 
 istence for the sake of Reason. An existence 
 which does not, in itself, satisfy Reason, and 
 solve all her questions, cannot possibly be the 
 true one. 
 
 Then, too, are the actions commanded by the 
 voice of Conscience, whose dictates I must not 
 speculate about, but obey in silence, — are they 
 actually the means, and the only means, of ac- 
 complishing the earthly aim of mankind ? That 
 I cannot refer them to any other object but this, 
 that I can have no other intent with them, is 
 unquestionable. But is this my intent fulfilled 
 in every case ? Is nothing more needed but to 
 will the best, in order that it may be accom- 
 plished? Alas! most of our good purposes are, 
 for this world, entirely lost. And some of them 
 seem even to have an entirely opposite effect to 
 that which was proposed. On the other hand, 
 the most despicable passions of men, their vices 
 and their misdeeds, seem often to bring about 
 the good more surely than the labors of the just 
 man, who never consents to do evil that good 
 may come. It would seem that the highest good 
 of the world grows and thrives quite independ- 
 ently of all human virtues or vices, according to 
 laws of its own, by some invisible and unknown 
 power ; just as the heavenly bodies run through 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 397 
 
 their appointed course, independently of all hu- 
 man effort; and that this power absorbs into its 
 own higher plan all human designs, whether 
 good or ill ; and, by its superior strength, appro- 
 priates what was intended for other purposes 
 to its own ends. 
 
 If, therefore, the attainment of that earthly 
 goal could be the design of our existence, and 
 if no farther question concerning it remained to 
 Reason, that aim, at least, would not be ours, 
 but the aim of that unknown Power. We know 
 not at any moment what may promote it. No- 
 thing would be left us but to supply to that 
 Power, by our actions, so much material, no 
 matter what, to work up in its own way, for its 
 own ends. Our highest wisdom would be, not 
 to trouble ourselves about things in which we 
 have no concern ; to live, in each case, as the 
 fancy takes us, and quietly leave the conse- 
 quences to that Power. The moral law within 
 us would be idle and superfluous, and wholly 
 unsuited to a being that had no higher capacity 
 and no higher destination. In order to be at 
 one with ourselves, we should refuse obedience 
 to the voice of that law, and suppress it as a 
 perverse and mad enthusiasm. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 If the whole design of our existence were to 
 bring about an earthly condition of our race, all 
 that would be required would be some infalli- 
 ble mechanism to direct our action ; and we 
 need be nothing more than wheels well fitted 
 to the whole machine. Freedom would then 
 not only be useless, but a contradictory power ; 
 and good will would be quite superfluous. The 
 world, in that case, would be very clumsily 
 contrived — would proceed to its goal with loss 
 of power, and by circuitous paths. Rather, 
 mighty World -Spirit, hadst thou taken from us 
 this freedom, which, only with difficulty and 
 by a different arrangement, thou canst fit to thy 
 plans ; and compelled us at once to act as those 
 plans require. Thou wouldst then arrive at thy 
 goal by the shortest road, as the meanest of the 
 inhabitants of thy worlds can tell thee. 
 
 But I am free, and therefore such a concate- 
 nation of cause and effect, in which freedom is 
 absolutely superfluous and useless, cannot ex- 
 haust my whole destination. I must be free ; 
 for not the mechanical act, but the free deter- 
 mination of free-will, for the sake of the com- 
 mand alone, and absolutely, for no other reason, 
 so says the inward voice of conscience, — this 
 alone determines our true worth. . The band 
 with which the law binds me is a band for liv- 
 ing spirits. It scorns to rule over dead mechan- 
 ism, and applies itself alone to the living and 
 self-acting. Such obedience it demands. This 
 obedience cannot be superfluous. 
 
 And herewith, the eternal world rises more 
 brightly before me, and the ground-law of its 
 order stands clear before the eye of my mind. 
 In that world the will, purely and only, as it 
 
 lies, locked up from all eyes, in the secret dark 
 of my soul, is the first link in a chain of conse- 
 quences which runs through the whole invisible 
 world of spirits ; as in the earthly world tbe 
 deed, a certain movement of matter, becomes 
 the first link in a material chain which extends 
 through the whole material system. The will 
 is the working and living principle in the world 
 of Reason, as motion is the working and living 
 principle in the world of sense. I stand in the 
 centre of two opposite worlds, a visible in 
 which the deed, and an invisible, altogether 
 incomprehensible, in which the will decides. 
 I am one of the original forces for both these 
 worlds. My will is that which embraces both. 
 This will is in and of itself a constituent portion 
 of the supersensual world. When I put it in 
 motion by a resolution, I move and change 
 something in that world, and my activity flows 
 on over the whole, and produces something 
 new and ever-during, which then exists and 
 needs not to be made anew. This will breaks 
 forth into a material act, and this act belongs to 
 the world of the senses, and effects, in that, 
 what it can. 
 
 Not, when I am divorced from the connection 
 of the earthly world, do I first gain admission 
 into that which is above the earth. I am and 
 live in it already, far more truly than in the 
 earthly. Even now it is my only firm stand- 
 point ; and the eternal life, which I have long 
 since taken possession of, is the only reason 
 why I am willing still to prolong the earthly. 
 That which they denominate Heaven, lies not 
 beyond the grave. It is already here, diffused 
 around our Nature, and its light arises in every 
 pure heart. My will is mine, and it is the only 
 thing that is entirely mine, and which depends 
 entirely upon myself. By it I am already a 
 citizen of the kingdom of liberty and of self- 
 active Reason. My conscience, the tie by 
 which that world holds me unceasingly and 
 binds me to itself, tells me at every moment 
 what determination of my will (the only thing 
 by which, here in the dust, I can lay hold of 
 that kingdom) is most consonant with its order ; 
 and it depends entirely upon myself to give 
 myself the determination enjoined upon me. I 
 cultivate myself then for this world, and, ac- 
 cordingly, work in it and for it, while elaborat- 
 ing one of its members. I pursue in it, and in 
 il alone, without vacillation or doubt, according 
 to fixed rules, my aim ; — sure of success, since 
 there no foreign power opposes my intent. 
 
 ******* 
 
 That our good-will, in and for and through 
 itself, must have consequences, we know, even 
 in this life ; for Reason cannot require anything 
 without a purpose. But what these conse- 
 quences are, — nay, how it is possible that a mere 
 will can effect anything, — is a question to which 
 we cannot even imagine a solution, so long as 
 we are entangled with this material world ; 
 and it is the part of wisdom not to undertake 
 34 
 
398 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 an inquiry concerning which, we know before- 
 hand, that it must be unsuccessful. * * 
 
 * * * This then is my whole sublime 
 destination, my true essence. I am member 
 of two systems; a purely spiritual one, in which 
 I rfile by pure will alone ; and a sensuous one, 
 in which I work by my deed. * * * 
 
 * * * These two systems, the purely spi- 
 ritual and the sensuous, — which last may con- 
 sist of an immeasurable series of particular 
 lives, — exist in me from the moment in which 
 my active reason is developed, and pursue their 
 parallel course. The latter system is only an 
 appearance, for me and for those who share 
 with me the same life. The former alone gives 
 to the latter meaning, and purpose, and value. 
 I am immortal, imperishable, eternal, so soon 
 as I form the resolution to obey the law of Rea- 
 son ; and am not first to become so. The super- 
 sensuous world is not a future world, it is pre- 
 sent. It never can be more present, at any one 
 point of finite existence, than at any other point. 
 After an existence of myriad lives, it cannot be 
 more present, than at this moment. Other con- 
 ditions of my sensuous existence are to come ; 
 but these are no more the true life, than the 
 present condition. By means of that resolution, 
 I lay hold on eternity, and strip off this life in 
 the dust, and all other sensuous lives that may 
 await me, and raise myself far above them. I 
 become to myself the sole fountain of all my 
 being and of all my phenomena; and have 
 henceforth, unconditioned by aught without me, 
 life in myself. My will, which I myself, and 
 no stranger, fit to the order of that world, is this 
 fountain of true life and of eternity. 
 
 But only my will is this fountain ; and only 
 when I acknowledge this will to be the true 
 seat of moral excellence, and actually elevate 
 it to this excellence, do I attain to the certainty 
 and the possession of that supersensuous world. 
 ******* 
 
 The sense by which we lay hold on eternal 
 life we acquire only by renouncing and offering 
 up sense, and the aims of sense, to the law which 
 claims our will alone, and not our acts; — by 
 renouncing it with the conviction that to do so 
 is reasonable and alone reasonable. With this 
 renunciation of the earthly, the belief in the 
 eternal first enters our soul, and stands isolated 
 there, as the only stay by which we can still 
 sustain ourselves, when we have relinquished 
 everything else, as the only animating principle 
 that still heaves our bosom and still inspires 
 our life. Well was it said, in the metaphors 
 of a sacred doctrine, that man must first die to 
 the world and be born again, in order to enter 
 into the kingdom of God. 
 
 I see, 0! I see now, clear before mine eyes, 
 the cause of my former heedlessness and blind- 
 ness concerning spiritual things. Filled with 
 earthly aims, and lost in them with all my 
 scheming and striving; put in motion and im- 
 pelled only by the idea of a result, which is to 
 
 be actualized without us, by the desire of such 
 a result and pleasure in it; — insensible and 
 dead to the pure impulse of that Reason which 
 gives the law to itself, which sets before us a 
 purely spiritual aim, the immortal Psyche re- 
 mains chained to the earth; her wings are 
 bound. Our philosophy becomes the history of 
 our own heart and life. As we find ourselves, 
 so we imagine man in general and his destina- 
 tion. Never impelled by any other motive than 
 the desire of that which can be realized in this 
 world, there is no true liberty for us, no liberty 
 which has the ground of its determination ab- 
 solutely and entirely in itself. Our liberty, at 
 the utmost, is that of the self-forming plant; no 
 higher in its essence, only more curious in :'ts 
 result; not producing a form of matter witS 
 roots, leaves and blossoms, but a form of mind 
 with impulses, thoughts, actions. Of the true 
 liberty we are positively unable to comprehei: J 
 anything, because we are not in possession of 
 it. Whenever we hear it spoken of, we draw 
 the words down to our own meaning, or briefly 
 dismiss it with a sneer, as nonsense. With the 
 knowledge of liberty, the sense of another world 
 is also lost to us. Everything of this sort floats 
 by like words which are not addressed to us; 
 like an ash-grey shadow without color or mean- 
 ing, which we cannot by any end take hold of 
 and retain. Without the least interest, we let 
 everything go as it is stated. Or if ever a ro- 
 buster zeal impels us to consider it seriously, 
 we see clearly and can demonstrate that all 
 those ideas are untenable, hollow visions, which 
 a man of sense casts from him. And, according 
 to the premises from which we set out, an 1 
 which are taken from our own innermost expe- 
 rience, we are quite right; and are alike unan- 
 swerable and unteachable, so long as we remain 
 what we are. The excellent doctrines which 
 are current among the people, fortified with 
 special authority, concerning freedom, duty and 
 eternal life, change themselves for us into gro- 
 tesque fables, like those of Tartarus and the 
 Elysian fields; although we do not disclose the 
 true opinion of our hearts, because we think it 
 more advisable to keep the people in outward 
 decency by means of these images. Or if Wl 
 are less reflective, and ourselves fettered by the 
 bands of authority, then we sink, ourselves, to 
 the true plebeian level. We believe that which, 
 so understood, is foolish fable ; and find, in those 
 purely spiritual indications, nothing but the 
 promise of a continuance, to all eternity, of the 
 same miserable existence which we lead here 
 below. 
 
 To say all in a word : Only through a radi- 
 cal reformation of my will does a new light 
 arise upon my being and destination. Without 
 this, however much I may reflect, and however 
 distinguished my mental endowments, there is 
 nothing but darkness in me and around me. 
 The reformation of the heart alone conducts to 
 true wisdom. So then, let my whole life stream 
 incontinently toward this one end ! 
 
FICHTE. 399 
 
 IV. 
 
 My lawful will, simply as such, in and through 
 itself, must have consequences, certain and 
 without exception. Every dutiful determina- 
 tion of my will, although no act should flow 
 from it, must operate in another, to me incom- 
 prehensible, world ; and, except this dutiful de- 
 termination of the will, nothing can take effect 
 in that world. What do I suppose when I sup- 
 pose this? What do I take for granted 1 
 
 Evidently, a law, a rule absolutely and with- 
 out exception valid, according to which the du- 
 tiful will must have consequences. Just as in 
 the earthly world which environs me, I assume 
 a law according to which this ball, when im- 
 pelled by my hand with this given force, in this 
 given direction, must necessarily move in such 
 a direction, with a determinate measure of ra- 
 pidity ; perhaps impel another ball with this 
 given degree of force ; which other ball then 
 moves on with a determinate rapidity ; and so 
 on indefinitely. As in this case, with the mere 
 direction and movement of my hand, I know 
 and comprehend all the directions and move- 
 ments which shall follow it. as certainly as if 
 they were already present and perceived by 
 me ;— even so I comprehend, in my dutiful will, 
 a series of necessary and infallible consequences 
 in the spiritual world, as if they were already 
 present; — only that I cannot, as in the material 
 world, determine them ; i. e., I merely know 
 that they shall be, not how they shall be. I sup- 
 pose a law of the spiritual world, in which my 
 mere will is one of the moving forces, just as 
 my hand is one of the moving forces in the ma- 
 terial world. My firm confidence in the re- 
 sults of my volition and the thought of a law 
 of the spiritual world are one and the same 
 thing; — not two thoughts of which one is the 
 consequence of the other, but precisely the same 
 thought. Just as the certainty with which I 
 count upon a certain motion, and the thought of 
 a mechanical law of Nature, are the same. The 
 idea of Law expresses generally nothing else 
 but the fixed, immovable reliance of Reason 
 on a proposition, and the impossibility of sup- 
 posing the contrary. 
 
 I assume such a law of a spiritual world, 
 which my own will did not enact, nor the will 
 of any finite being, nor the will of all finite be- 
 ings together; but to which my will and the 
 will of all finite beings is subject. 
 
 * ****** 
 
 Agreeably to what has now been advanced, 
 the law of the supersensuous world should be 
 a Will 
 
 A Will which acts purely and simply as will, 
 by its own agency, entirely without any instru- 
 ment or sensuous medium of its efficacy ; which 
 is absolutely, in itself, at once action and result; 
 which wills and it is done, which commands 
 and it stands fast; in which, accordingly, the 
 demand of reason, to be absolutely free and 
 
 self- active, is represented. A Will which is 
 law in itself; which determines itself, not ac- 
 cording to humor and caprice, not after pre- 
 vious deliberation, vacillation and doubt, but 
 which is forever and unchangeably determined, 
 and upon which one may reckon with infallible 
 security; as the mortal reckons securely on the 
 laws of his world. A Will in which the law- 
 ful will of finite beings has inevitable conse- 
 quences, but only their will, which is immov- 
 able to everything else, and for which every- 
 thing else is as though it were not. 
 
 That sublime Will, therefore, does not pursue 
 its course for itself, apart from the rest of Rea- 
 son's world. There is between Him and all 
 finite, rational beings, a spiritual band, and him- 
 self is this spiritual band of Reason's world. I 
 will purely and decidedly my duty, and He then 
 wills that I shall succeed, at least in the world 
 of spirits. Every lawful resolve of the finite 
 will enters into him, and moves and determines 
 him — to speak after our fashion — not in conse- 
 quence of a momentary good pleasure, but in 
 consequence of the eternal law of his being. 
 
 With astounding clearness it now stands be- 
 fore my soul, the thought which hitherto had 
 been wrapped in darkness, the thought, that 
 my will, merely as such, and of itself, has con- 
 sequences. It has consequences because it is 
 infallibly and immediately taken knowledge of 
 by another, related will, which is itself an act, 
 and the only life-principle of the spiritual world. 
 
 In that Will it has its first consequence, and 
 only through that, in the rest of the spiritual 
 world which, in all its parts, is but the product 
 of that infinite Will. 
 
 Thus I flow, — the mortal must speak accord- 
 ing to his dialect, — thus I flow in upon that Will ; 
 and the voice of conscience in my interior, which, 
 in every situation of my life, instructs me what 
 I have to do in that situation, is that by means 
 of which He, in turn, flows in upon me. That 
 voice is the oracle from the eternal world, 
 made sensible by my environment, and trans- 
 lated, by my reception of it, into my language ; 
 which announces to me how I must fit myself 
 to my part in the order of the spiritual world, 
 or to the infinite Will, which itself is the order 
 of that spiritual world. I cannot oversee or see 
 through this spiritual order ; nor need I. I am 
 only a link in its chain, and can no more judge 
 of the whole, than a single tone in a song can 
 judge of the harmony of the whole. But what 
 I myself should be, in the harmony of Spirits, I 
 must know; for only I myself can make myself 
 that. And it is immediately revealed to me by 
 a voice which sounds over to me from that 
 world. Thus I stand in connection with the 
 only being that exists, and partake of its being. 
 There is nothing truly real, permanent, impe- 
 rishable in me, but these two ; — the voice of my 
 conscience and my free obedience. By means 
 of the first, the spiritual world bows down to 
 me and embraces me, as one of its members. 
 By means of the second, I raise myself into this 
 
400 FICHTE. 
 
 world, lay hold of it, and work in it. But that 
 infinite Will is the mediator between it and me; 
 for, of it and me, himself is the primal fountain. 
 This is the only true and imperishable, toward 
 which my soul moves from its inmost depth. 
 All else is only phenomenon, and vanishes and 
 returns again, with new seeming. 
 
 This Will connects me with itself. The same 
 connects me with all finite beings of my spe- 
 cies, and is the universal mediator between us 
 all. That is the great mystery of the invisible 
 world, and its ground-law, so far as it is a world, 
 or system of several individual wills : Union 
 and direct reciprocal action of several self-subsisting 
 and independent wills among each other. A mys- 
 tery which, even in the present life, lies clear 
 before all eyes, without any one's noticing it or 
 thinking it worthy his admiration. The voice 
 of Conscience, which enjoins upon each one his 
 proper duty, is the ray by which we proceed 
 from the Infinite, and are set forth as individual 
 particular beings. It defines the boundaries of 
 our personality ; it is, therefore, our true origi- 
 nal constituent, the ground and the stuff of all 
 the life which we live. 
 
 ******* 
 
 That eternal Will, then, is indeed world-cre- 
 ator, as he alone can be, — in the finite reason. 
 (The only creation which is needed.) They 
 who suppose him to build a world out of an 
 eternal sluggish matter, which world, in that 
 case, could be nothing else but inert and life- 
 less, like implements fashioned by human 
 hands, and not an eternal process of self-deve- 
 lopment; or who think they can imagine the 
 going forth of a material something out of no- 
 thing, know neither the world nor him. If 
 matter only is something, then there is nowhere 
 anything, and nowhere, in all eternity, can 
 anything be. Only Reason is, the infinite, in 
 itself, the finite in that and by that. Only in 
 our minds does he create the world ; or, at least, 
 that from which we unfold it, and that whereby 
 we unfold it ; — the call to duty, and the feel- 
 ings, perceptions and laws of thought, agreeing 
 therewith. It is his light whereby we see light, 
 and all that appears to us in that light. In our 
 minds he is continually fashioning this world, 
 and interposing in it by interposing in our minds 
 with the call of duty, whenever another free 
 agent effects a change therein. In our minds 
 he maintains this world, and, therewith, our 
 finite existence, of which alone we are capable, 
 in that he causes to arise out of our states new 
 states continually. After he has proved us suf- 
 ficiently for our next destination, according to 
 his higher aim, and when we shall have culti- 
 vated ourselves for the same, he will annihilate 
 this world for us by what we call death, and 
 introduce us into a new one, the product of 
 our dutiful action in this. All our life is his 
 life. We are in his hand, and remain in it, and 
 no one can pluck us out of it. We are eternal 
 because He is eternal. 
 
 Sublime, living Will! whom no name can 
 name, and whom no conception can grasp! 
 well may I raise my mind to thee, for thou and 
 I are not divided. Thy voice sounds in me, and 
 mine sounds back, in thee ; and all my thoughts, 
 if only they are true and good, are thought in 
 thee. In thee, the incomprehensible, I become 
 comprehensible to myself, and entirely compre- 
 hend the world. All the riddles of my exist- 
 ence are solved, and the most perfect harmony 
 arises in my mind. 
 
 Thou art best apprehended by childlike Sim- 
 plicity, devoted to thee. To her thou art the 
 heart-searcher who lookest through her inner- 
 most; the all -present, faithful witness of her 
 sentiments, who alone knowest that she meaneth 
 well, and who alone understandest her, when 
 misunderstood by all the world. Thou art to 
 her a Father, whose purposes toward her are 
 ever kind, and who will order everything for 
 her best good. She submitteth herself wholly, 
 with body and soul, to thy beneficent decrees. 
 Do with me as thou wilt, she saith, I know that 
 it shall be good, so surely as it is thou that dost 
 it. The speculative understanding, which has 
 only heard of thee, but has never seen thee, 
 would teach us to know thy being in itself, and 
 sets before us an inconsistent monster, which 
 it gives out for thine image, ridiculous to the 
 merely knowing, hateful and detestable to the 
 wise and good. 
 
 I veil my face before thee and lay my hand 
 upon my mouth. How thou art in thyself, and 
 how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know, 
 as surely as I can never be thou. Afier thou- 
 sand times thousand spirit-lives lived through, 
 I shall no more be able to comprehend thee 
 than now, in this hut of earth. That which I 
 comprehend becomes, by my comprehension of 
 it, finite; and this can never, by an endless 
 process of magnifying and exalting, be changed 
 into infinite. Thou differest from the finite, not 
 only in degree but in kind. By that magnifying 
 process they only make thee a greater and still 
 greater man, but never God, the Infinite, inca- 
 pable of measure. ***** 
 
 * * * I w iii n ot attempt that which is 
 denied to me by my finite nature, and which 
 could avail me nothing. I desire not to know 
 how thou art in thyself. But thy relations and 
 connections with me, the finite, and with all 
 finite beings, lie open to mine eye, when I be- 
 come what I should be. They encompass me 
 with a more luminous clearness than the con- 
 sciousness of my own being. Thou workest in 
 me the knowledge of my duty, of my destina- 
 tion in the series of rational beings. How ? I 
 know not, and need not to know. Thou know- 
 est and perceivest what I think and will. How 
 thou canst know it, — by what act thou bringest 
 this consciousness to pass, — on that point I 
 comprehend nothing. Yea! I know very well 
 that the idea of an act, of a special act of con- 
 sciousness, applies only to me but not to thee, 
 the Infinite. Thou wiliest, because thou will- 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 401 
 
 est, that my free obedience shall have conse- 
 quences in all eternity. The act of thy will I 
 cannot comprehend. I only know that it is not 
 like to mine. Thou doest, and thy will itself is 
 deed. But thy method of action is directly 
 contrary to that of which, alone, I can form a 
 conception. Thou livest and art, for thou know- 
 est, and wiliest, and workest, all present to 
 finite Reason. But thou art not such as through 
 ail eternity I shall alone be able to conceive of 
 Being. 
 
 In the contemplation of these thy relations to 
 me, the finite, I will be calm and blessed. I 
 know immediately, only what I must do. This 
 will I perform undisturbed and joyful, and 
 without philosophising. For it is thy voice 
 which commands me, it is the ordination of the 
 spiritual world-plan concerning me. And the 
 power by which I perform it is thy power. 
 Whatsoever is commanded me by that voice, 
 whatsoever is accomplished by this power, is 
 surely and truly good in relation to that plan. 
 I am calm in all the events of this world, for 
 they occur in thy world. Nothing can deceive, 
 or surprise, or make me afraid, so surely as thou 
 livest, and I behold thy life. For in thee and 
 through thee, infinite One ! I behold even my 
 present world in another light. Nature and 
 natural consequences in the destinies and ac- 
 tions of free beings, in view of thee, are empty, 
 unmeaning words. There is no Nature more. 
 Thou, thou alone art. 
 
 It no longer appears to me the aim of the 
 present world, that the above-mentioned state 
 of universal peace among men, and of their un- 
 conditioned empire over the mechanism of Na- 
 ture, should be brought about, — merely that it 
 may exist ; but that it should be brought about 
 by man himself. And, since it is calculated for 
 all, that it should be brought about by all, as 
 one great, free, moral community. Nothing new 
 and better for the individual, except through his 
 dutiful will, nothing new and better for the 
 community, except through their united, duti- 
 ful will, is the ground-law of the great moral 
 kingdom, of which the present life is a part. 
 
 The reason why the good-will of the indivi- 
 dual is so often lost for this world, is that it is 
 only the will of the individual, and that the 
 will of the majority does not coincide with it. 
 Therefore, it has no consequences but those 
 which belong to a future world. Hence, even 
 the passions and vices of men appear to co-ope- 
 rate in the promotion of a better state, not in 
 and for themselves ; — in this sense good can never 
 come out of evil, — but by furnishing a counter- 
 poise to opposite vices, and finally annihilating 
 those vices and themselves, by their preponde- 
 rance. Oppression could never have gained 
 the upper hand, unless cowardice, and base- 
 ness, and mutual distrust had prepared the way 
 for it. It will continue to increase, until it era- 
 dicates cowardice and the slavish mind ; and 
 despair re-awakens the courage that was lost. 
 Then the two antagonist vices will have de- 
 3a 
 
 stroyed each other, and the noblest in all human 
 relations, permanent freedom, will have come 
 forth from them. 
 
 The actions of free beings have, strictly speak- 
 ing, no other consequences than those which 
 affect other free beings. For only in such, and 
 for such, does the world exist ; and that, wherein 
 all agree, is the world. But they have conse- 
 quences in free agents only by means of the 
 infinite Will, by which all individuals exist. 
 A call, a revelation of that Will to us, is always 
 a requirement to perform some particular duty. 
 Hence, even that which we call evil in the 
 world, the consequence of the abuse of free- 
 dom, exists only through Him; and it exists for 
 all, for whom it exists, only so far forth as it 
 imposes duties upon them. Did it not fall 
 within the eternal plan of our moral education 
 and the education of our whole race, that pre- 
 cisely these duties should be laid upon us, they 
 would not have been imposed ; and that where- 
 by they are imposed, and which we call evil, 
 would never have been. In this view, every- 
 thing which takes place is good, and absolutely 
 accordant with the best ends. There is but one 
 world possible, — a thoroughly good one. Every- 
 thing that occurs in this world, conduces to the 
 reformation and education of man, and, by 
 means of that, to the furtherance of his earthly 
 destination. 
 
 It is this higher world-plan that we call Na- 
 ture, when we say Nature leads men through 
 want to industry, through the evils of general 
 disorder to a righteous polity, through the mise- 
 ries of their perpetual wars to final, ever-during 
 peace. Thy will, Infinite! thy providence 
 alone is this higher Nature. This too is best 
 understood by artless simplicity, which regards 
 this life as a place of discipline and education, 
 as a school for eternity; which, in all the for- 
 tunes it experiences, the most trivial as well as 
 the most momentous, beholds thy ordinations 
 designed for good ; and which firmly believes 
 that all things will work together for good to 
 those who love their duty and know thee. 
 
 ! truly have I spent the former days of my 
 life in darkness. Truly have I heaped errors 
 upon errors, and thought myself wise. Now 
 first I fully understand the doctrine which 
 seemed so strange to me, out of thy mouth, 
 wondrous Spirit!* although my understanding 
 had nothing to oppose to it. For now first I 
 overlook it, in its whole extent, in its deepest 
 ground, and in all its consequences. 
 
 Man is not a product of the world of sense; 
 and the end of his existence can never be at- 
 tained in that world. His destination lies be- 
 yond time and space and all that pertains to 
 sense. He must know what he is and what 
 he is to make himself. As his destination is 
 sublime, so his thought must be able to lift it- 
 self up above all the bounds of sense. This 
 
 * An allusion to the second book. 
 34* 
 
402 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 must be his calling. Where his being is do- 
 mesticated, there his thought must be domesti- 
 cated also; and the most truly human view, 
 that which alone befits him, that in which his 
 whole power of thought is represented, is the 
 view by which he lifts himself above those 
 limits, by which all that is of the senses is 
 changed for him into pure nothing, a mere re- 
 flection of the alone enduring, supersensual, in 
 mortal eyes. 
 
 Many have been elevated to this view with- 
 out scientific thought, simply by their great 
 heart and their pure moral instinct; because 
 they lived especially with the heart, and in the 
 sentiments. They denied, by their conduct, the 
 efficacy and reality of the world of sense ; and 
 in the shaping of their purposes and measures, 
 they esteemed as nothing that, concerning which, 
 they had not yet learned by thinking, that it is 
 nothing, even to thought. They who could say, 
 "our citizenship is in heaven; we have here no 
 continuing place, but seek one to come ;" — they 
 whose first principle was, to die to the world 
 and to be born anew, and even here, to enter 
 into another life, — they, truly, placed not the 
 slightest value upon all the objects of sense, and 
 were, to use the language of the School, practi- 
 cal transcendental Idealists. 
 
 Others who, in addition to the sensual acti- 
 vity which is native to us all, have, by their 
 thought, confirmed themselves in sense, be- 
 come implicated, and, as it were, grown toge- 
 ther with it; — they can raise themselves per- 
 manently and perfectly above sense only by 
 continuing and carrying out their thought. 
 Otherwise, with the purest moral intentions, 
 they will still be drawn down again by their 
 understanding; and their whole being will re- 
 main a continued and insoluble contradiction. 
 For such, that philosophy, which I now first 
 entirely understood, is the power by which 
 Psyche first strips off her caterpillar-hull, and 
 unfolds the wings on which she then hovers 
 above herself, and casts one glance on the slough 
 she has dropped, thenceforth to live and work 
 in higher spheres. 
 
 Blessed be the hour in which I resolved to 
 meditate on myself and my destination ! All 
 my questions are solved. I know what I can 
 know, and I am without anxiety concerning 
 that which I cannot know. I am satisfied. 
 There is perfect harmony and clearness in my 
 spirit, and a new and more glorious existence 
 for that spirit begins. 
 
 My whole, complete destination, I do not 
 comprehend. What I am called to be and shall 
 be, surpasses all my thought. A part of this 
 destination is yet hidden within myself, visible 
 only to him, the Father of Spirits, to whom it 
 is committed. I know only that it is secured 
 to me, and that it is eternal and glorious as him- 
 self But that portion of it which is committed 
 to me, I know. I know it entirely, and it is the 
 root of all my other knowledge. I know, in 
 
 every moment of my life, with certainty, what 
 I am to do in that moment. And this is my 
 whole destination, so far as it depends upon 
 me. From this, since my knowledge goes no 
 farther, I must not depart. I must not desire 
 to know anything beyond it. I must stand fast 
 in this one centre, and take root in it. All my 
 scheming and striving, and all my faculty, must 
 be directed to that. My whole existence must 
 inweave itself with it. * * * * 
 * * * I raise myself to this stand-point, 
 and am a new creature. My whole relation to 
 the existing world is changed. The ties by 
 which my mind was heretofore bound to this 
 world, and by whose secret attraction it followed 
 all the movements of this world, are forever 
 divided, and I stand free ; myself, my own 
 world, peaceful and unmoved. No longer 
 with the heart, with the eye alone, I seize the 
 objects about me, and, through the eye alone, 
 am connected with them. And this eye itself, 
 made clearer by freedom, looks through error 
 and deformity to the true and the beautiful ; 
 as, on the unmoved surface of the water, forms 
 mirror themselves pure, and with a softened 
 light. 
 
 My mind is forever closed against embarrass- 
 ment and confusion, against doubt and anxiety; 
 my heart is forever closed against sorrow, and 
 remorse, and desire. There is but one thing 
 that I care to know : What I must do ? And 
 this I know, infallibly, always. Concerning all 
 beside I know nothing, and I know that I know 
 nothing ; and I root myself fast in this my igno- 
 rance, and forbear to conjecture, to opine, to 
 quarrel with myself concerning that of which I 
 know nothing. No event in this world can 
 move me to joy, and none to sorrow. Cold and 
 unmoved I look down upon them all ; for I 
 know that I cannot interpret one of them, nor 
 discern its connection with that which is my 
 only concern. Everything which takes place 
 belongs to the plan of the eternal world, and is 
 good in relation to that plan; so much I know. 
 But what, in that plan, is pure gain, and what 
 is only meant to remove existing evil, accord- 
 ingly, what I should most or least rejoice in I 
 know not. In His world everything succeeds. 
 This suffices me, and in this faith I stand firm 
 as a rock. But what in His world is only germ, 
 what blossom, what the fruit itself, I know not. 
 
 The only thing which can interest me is tlie 
 progress of reason and virtue in the kingdom 
 of rational beings ; and that purely for its own 
 sake, for the sake of the progress. Whether I 
 am the instrument of this progress or another, 
 whether it is my act which succeeds or is 
 thwarted, or whether it is the act of another, is 
 altogether indifferent to me. I regard myself 
 in every case but as one of the instruments of a 
 rational design, and I honor and love myself, 
 and am interested in myself, only as such ; and 
 wish the success of my act, only so far as it goes 
 to accomplish that end. Therefore I regard ali 
 the events of this world in the same manner ; 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 403 
 
 ' only with exclusive reference to this one end ; 
 whether they proceed from me or from another, 
 whether they relate to me immediately, or to 
 others. My breast is closed against all vexa- 
 • tion on account of personal mortifications and 
 j affronts ; against all exaltation on account of 
 personal merits; for my entire personality 1ie»s 
 long since vanished, and been swallowed up in 
 the contemplation of the end. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Bodily sufferings, pain and sickness, should 
 such befall me, I cannot avoid to feel, for they 
 are events of my nature, and I am and remain 
 nature here below. But they shall not trouble 
 me. They affect only the Nature, with which 
 I am, in some strange way, connected ; not 
 myself, the being which is elevated above all 
 Nature. The sure end of all pain, and of all 
 susceptibility of pain, is death ; and of all which 
 the natural man is accustomed to regard as 
 evil, this is the least so to me. Indeed, I shall 
 not die for myself, but only for others, for those 
 that remain behind, from whose connexion I 
 am severed. For myself, the hour of death is 
 the hour of birth to a new and more glorious 
 life. 
 
 Since my heart is thus closed to all desire 
 for the earthly, since, in fact, I have no longer 
 any heart for the perishable, the universe ap- 
 
 i pears to my eye in a transfigured form. The 
 
 ' dead, inert mass which but choked up space 
 has vanished ; and instead thereof flows, and 
 waves, and rushes the eternal stream of life, and 
 power, and deed; — of the original life, of thy 
 life, Infinite ! For all life is thy life, and only 
 the religious eye pierces to the kingdom of veri- 
 table beauty. 
 
 I am related to Thee, and all that I behold 
 around me is related to me. All is quick, all is 
 soul, and gazes upon me with bright spirit-eyes, 
 and speaks in spirit-tones to my heart. Most 
 diversely sundered and severed, I behold, in 
 all the forms without me, myself again, and 
 
 , beam upon myself from them, as the morning 
 sun, in thousand dew-drops diversely refracted, 
 glances toward itself. 
 
 Thy life, as the finite can apprehend it, is a 
 willing which shapes and represents itself by 
 means of itself alone. This life, made sensible 
 in various ways to mortal eyes, flows through 
 me and from me downward, through the im- 
 measurable whole of Nature. Here it streams, 
 as self-creating, self-fashioning matter, through 
 
 ' my veins and muscles, and deposites its fulness 
 out of me, in the tree, in the plant, in the grass. 
 One connected stream, drop by drop, the form- 
 ing life flows in all shapes and on all sides, 
 wherever my eye can follow it, and looks upon 
 me, from every point of the universe, with a 
 different aspect, as the same force which fa- 
 shions my own body in darkness and in secret. 
 Yonder it waves free, and leaps and dances as 
 self-forming motion in the brute; and, in every 
 new body, represents itself as another separate, 
 self-subsisting world; — the same power which, 
 
 invisible to me, stirs and moves in my own 
 members. All that lives follows this universal 
 attraction, this one principle of all movement, 
 which conducts the harmonious shock from one 
 end of the universe to the other. The brute 
 follows it without freedom. I, from whom, in 
 the visible world, the movement proceeds, 
 (without, therefore, originating in me,) follow 
 it freely. 
 
 But pure and holy, and near to thine own es- 
 sence as aught, to mortal apprehension, can be ; 
 this thy life flows forth as a band which binds 
 spirits with spirits in one" as air and ether of 
 the one world of Reason, inconceivable and in- 
 comprehensible, and yet lying plainly revealed 
 to the spiritual eye. Conducted by this light- 
 stream, thought floats unrestrained and the same 
 from soul to soul, and returns purer and trans- 
 figured from the kindred breast. Through this 
 mystery the individual finds, and understands, 
 and loves himself only in another; and every 
 spirit detaches itself only from other spirits; 
 and there is no man, but only a Humanity; — 
 no isolated thinking, and loving, and hating, but 
 only a thinking, and loving, and hating in and 
 through one another. Through this mystery the 
 affinity of Spirits, in the invisible world, streams 
 forth into their corporeal nature, and represents 
 itself in two sexes, which, though every spiritual 
 band could be severed, are still constrained, as 
 natural beings, to love each other. It flows forth 
 into the affection of parents and children, of 
 brothers and sisters ; as if the souls were sprung 
 from one blood as well as the bodies; — as if 
 the minds were branches and blossoms of the 
 same stem. And from thence it embraces, in 
 narrower or wider circles, the whole sentient 
 world. Even the hatred of spirits is grounded 
 in thirst for love ; and no enmity springs up, 
 except from friendship denied. 
 
 Mine eye discerns this eternal life and motion, 
 in all the veins of sensible and spiritual Nature, 
 through what seems to others a dead mass. And 
 it sees this life forever ascend and grow, and 
 transfigure itself into a more spiritual expres- 
 sion of its own nature. The universe is no 
 longer, to me, that circle which returns into 
 itself, that game which repeats itself without 
 ceasing, that monster which devours itself in 
 .order to reproduce itself, as it was before. It is 
 spiritualized to my contemplation, and bears the 
 peculiar impress of the Spirit: continual pro- 
 gress toward perfection, in a straight line which 
 stretches into infinity. 
 
 The sun rises and sets, the stars vanish and 
 return again, and all the spheres hold their 
 cycle-dance. But they never return precisely 
 such as they disappeared ; and in the shining 
 fountains of life there is also life and progress. 
 Every hour which they bring, every morning 
 and every evening sinks down with new bless- 
 ings on the world. New life and new love drop 
 from the spheres, as dew-drops from the cloud, 
 and embrace Nature, as the cool night embraces 
 the earth. 
 
404 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 All death in Nature is birth ; and precisely 
 in dying, the sublimation of life appears most 
 conspicuous. There is no death-bringing prin- 
 ciple in Nature, for Nature is only life, through- 
 out. Not death kills, but the more living life, 
 which, hidden behind the old, begins and un- 
 folds itself. Death and birth are only the strug- 
 gle of life with itself to manifest itself in ever 
 more transfigured form, more like itself. 
 
 And my death, — can that be anything differ- 
 ent from this ? I, who am not a mere repre- 
 sentation and copy of life, but who bear within 
 myself the original, the alone true, and essential 
 life 3 It is not a possible thought that Nature 
 should annihilate a life which did not spring 
 from her; Nature, which exists only for my 
 sake, not I for hers. 
 
 But even my natural life, even this mere 
 representation of an inward invisible life to 
 mortal eyes, Nature cannot annihilate ; other- 
 wise she must be able to annihilate herself. — 
 She who exists only for me and for my sake, 
 and who ceases to exist, if I am not. Even be- 
 cause she puts me to death she must quicken 
 me anew. It can only be my higher life, un- 
 folding itself in her, before which my present 
 life disappears ; and that which mortals call 
 death is the visible appearing of a second vivi- 
 fication. Did no rational being, who has once 
 beheld its light, perish from the earth, there 
 would be no reason to expect a new heaven 
 and a new earth. The only possible aim of 
 Nature, that of representing and maintaining 
 Reason, would have been already fulfilled here 
 below, and her circle would be complete. But 
 the act by which she puts to death a free, self- 
 subsisting being, is her solemn, — to all Reason 
 
 apparent, — transcending of that act, and of 
 the entire sphere which she thereby closes. 
 The apparition of death is the conductor by 
 which my spiritual eye passes over to the new 
 life of myself, and of Nature, for me. 
 
 Every one of my kind who passes from earthly 
 connexions, and who cannot, to my spirit, seem 
 annihilated, because he is one of my kind, draws 
 my thought over with him. He still is, and to 
 him belongs a place. 
 
 While we, here below, sorrow for him with 
 such sorrow as would be felt, if possible, in the 
 dull kingdom of unconsciousness, when a hu- 
 man being withdraws himself from thence to 
 the light of earth's sun ; — while we so mourn, 
 on yonder side there is joy, because a man is 
 born into their world ; as we citizens of earth re- 
 ceive with joy our own. When I, sometime, shall 
 follow them, there will^e joy for me ; for sorrow 
 remains behind, in the sphere which I quit. 
 
 It vanishes and sinks before my gaze, the 
 world which I so lately admired. With all the 
 fulness of life, of order, of increase, which I be- 
 hold in it, it is but the curtain by which an in- 
 finitely more perfect world is concealed from 
 me. It is but the germ out of which that infi- 
 nitely more perfect shall unfold itself. My faith 
 enters behind this curtain, and warms and 
 quickens this germ. It sees nothing definite, 
 but expects more than it can grasp here below, 
 than it will ever be able to grasp in time. 
 
 So I live and so I am ; and so I am unchange- 
 able, firm and complete for all eternity. For 
 this being is not one which I have received 
 from without} it is my own only true being and 
 essence. 
 
JOHANN PAUL FRI 
 
 EDRICH RICHTER. 
 
 Born 1763. 
 
 Next to Schiller there is no writer whom 
 Germany cherishes with more enthusiastic at- 
 tachment than Jean Paul, — so he called him- 
 self, while living, and is still called since his 
 death. Confined to a narrower circle than 
 Schiller, he is even more intensely loved within 
 that circle than the great dramatist himself; 
 for he is a writer to be loved, if tolerated. 
 There is that in him which allows of no indif- 
 ference. He must either attach or repel. 
 Where he does not create an irreconcilable 
 aversion, he binds with indissoluble friendship. 
 Those who read him much, come into personal 
 relations with him, and sympathize with him 
 as with no other. Indeed, there is no other like 
 him in the history of literature. He is incom- 
 mensurable, and refuses to be classed ; com- 
 bining- the most contradictory characters and 
 gifts ; the humorist and the prophet ; the wild- 
 est fun with the steepest elevation of thought 
 and an infinite pathos ; the sharpest satire with 
 an all-embracing love ; a feeling for all little- 
 ness and little ones, with the loftiest sentiments 
 and aspirations; a prevailing subjectiveness, 
 with clear and original intuitions of men and 
 things. 
 
 The humorist predominates; and such hu- 
 mor ! It is not the humor of Cervantes, though 
 sunny and wholesome as his. It is not the 
 humor of Rabelais, having nothing of the satyr 
 or the 6wine ; and yet Rabelais himself is not 
 more wildly fantastic. Tt is not the humor of 
 Swift, though it lacks nothing of his irony ; nor 
 is it the humor of Sterne, though not less kind 
 and contemplative, and stuffed with conceits. 
 It is a humor quite his own, " compounded of 
 many simples and extracted from many ob- 
 jects." In this, as in other things, he resembles 
 no one else in the world but just Jean Paul. 
 He is Jean Paul, " the only." 
 
 He was sumptuously, marvellously endowed, 
 and if he wanted many essential qualifications 
 of a great poet, or even of a good writer, there 
 are others which he possessed in unrivalled 
 perfection. He has but one rival, and that is 
 Shakspeare, in exuberance of fancy. The in- 
 
 1 
 
 Died 1825. 
 
 continent, the inconceivable, the overwhelm- 
 ing affluence of images and illustrations, is 
 what first strikes us in his writings. The pa- 
 ragraph labors and staggers with meanings 
 and double meanings, and after-thoughts and 
 side-thoughts, conceits appended to every third 
 word, and ornaments stuck in, some sufficient- 
 ly bizarre, and others of supernal beauty, mak- 
 ing altogether "a piece of joinery so crossly 
 indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet 
 so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified 
 Mosaic," as no other writing can parallel. He 
 has absolutely no rival in what may be called 
 the inborn poetry of the heart, that sympathy 
 and identification of himself with all forms and 
 ways of being, that secret understanding with 
 Nature, that profound humanity which, in an 
 inferior degree, so happily distinguishes Words- 
 worth among English poets. Some of his 
 pieces, for example, Fibel and Quintus Fixlein, 
 constitute a new and higher order of idyl ; 
 combining the subjective piquancy of modern 
 thought with the classic outwardness of the 
 ancient model. 
 
 In power of imagination, also, he takes rank 
 among the first. Many of his characters are 
 wholly new creations, and have an individu- 
 ality and a self-subsistence which only true 
 genius can impart. It is in his visions, how- 
 ever, with which his works abound, that Rich- 
 ter's imagination is most active, producing an 
 apocalypse of the most extravagant and un- 
 heard-of portents, a swarming phantasmagory 
 of beautiful and terrible apparitions, which 
 make the application more appropriate to him 
 than to any other, of those lines which describe 
 one of his contemporaries : 
 
 "Within that mind's abyss profound, 
 As in some limbo vast, 
 More shapes and monsters did abound 
 To set the wondering world aghast, 
 Than wave- worn Noah fed or starry Tuscan found." 
 
 His faults as a writer are sufficiently promi- 
 nent, but, for the most part, so blended and 
 complicated with his peculiar merits, that we 
 cannot imagine them removed without destroy- 
 ing some characteristic excellence. An utter 
 
 (405) 
 
406 
 
 RICHTER. 
 
 want of grace and form, an habitual lugging 
 in of irrelevant learning, an excessive delight 
 in verbal quibbles and other conceits, obscurity, 
 constant iteration of one or two types of cha- 
 racter, exaggeration of one or two features of 
 society, want of action in his narratives, a su- 
 perfluity of tears and ecstasies not sufficiently 
 motived, a passion for extremes — these are 
 faults which have often been pointed out, and 
 which his warmest admirers will hardly deny. 
 On the other hand, the charge of affectation is 
 unjust. A mannerist he certainly is, but it is 
 the mannerism of idiosyncrasy, a bias in the 
 nature of the man, a kink in his genius, a mag- 
 got in his brain, without which he would not 
 be Jean Paul. 
 
 It is the moral qualities of Richter, far more 
 than his intellectual, which endear him to his 
 countrymen. To that true and loyal soul the 
 deep heart of Germany responds with all its 
 music. So loving, and believing, and hoping, 
 and aspiring, so innocent of all guile, and free 
 from all wrath, and bitterness, and evil speak- 
 ing, so full of all fine sentiments and generous 
 views, so abounding in compassion for all the 
 suffering, willing to clasp them all to his great 
 heart, which throbbed evermore with unebbing 
 and unspeakable affection for all his kind ; so 
 devout, and pure, and good ; he commends him- 
 self not only to his own people, but to humanity 
 everywhere ; to all that is best in the nature 
 of man. It is good to converse with him. His 
 word is sound and sanative, " pure as the heart 
 of the waters," and " pure as the marrow of 
 the earth." 
 
 The life's history of Jean Paul is gathered 
 partly from his autobiography, commenced not 
 many years before his death, and extending to 
 his thirteenth year; partly from an appendix 
 to that beginning by Herr Otto, a friend of the 
 deceased; and partly from his correspondence 
 with friends and contemporaries. A *• Life of 
 Jean Paul," in 2 vols. 12mo., embodying a 
 translation of the autobiographical fragment, 
 and continuing the narrative from the other 
 sources above mentioned, was published in 
 Boston,* a few years since, by a lady who 
 seems to have spared no pains to make herself 
 acquainted with her subject. To these two 
 
 * Life of Jean Paul Frederic Richter, compiled from 
 various sources, together with his autobiography, trans- 
 lated from the German. Boston: Charles C. Little & 
 James Brown. 
 
 volumes the editor of this work refers with 
 pleasure, as the best biography of Richter 
 known to him. 
 
 Richter was born at Wunsiedel, in that part 
 of Germany called the Ftchtelgebirge, or Pine-' 
 mountain. His father, then organist and under- 
 teacher at the gymnasium in that town, was 
 soon after appointed pastor (Lutheran) of a 
 church, in the small village of Joditz, and, 
 some years later, promoted to the larger living 
 of Schwarzenbach, on the Saale. From his 
 father Richter received his first instruction in 
 the languages. At sixteen, he was placed at 
 the gymnasium in Hof, a neighboring small 
 city. At eighteen, he entered the university 
 of Leipzig, where he began the study of theo- 
 logy, but soon gave himself up to genera) cil- 
 ture, and began his career as author, with the 
 publication of the " Greenland Lawsuits." His 
 father had died meanwhile, and he was thrown 
 entirely upon himself. His first attempts at 
 authorship were not successful, his situation 
 was perplexing, and the future looked grimly 
 on the penniless youth. " Fortune seemed to 
 have let loose her bandogs, and hungry Ruin 
 had him in the wind."* His mother had re- 
 moved to Hof, her birth-place, and there Jean 
 Paul joined her, in a house which had but one 
 apartment, pursuing his studies amid " the jin- 
 gle of household operations;" writing books 
 which would not sell, and tasting all the bit- 
 terness of extreme penury. " The prisoner's 
 allowance," he says, " is bread and water, but 
 I had only the latter." — " Nevertheless, I can- 
 not help saying to Poverty : Welcome ! so thou 
 come not at quite too late a time! Wealth 
 bears heavier on talent than Poverty. Under 
 gold-mountains and thrones who knows how 
 many a spiritual giant may lie crushed down 
 and buried ! When among the flames of youth, 
 and above all, of hotter pow 7 ers, the oil of Riches 
 is also poured in — little will remain of the 
 phcenix but his ashes ; and only a Goethe has 
 force to keep, even at the sun of good fortune, 
 his phcenix-wings unsinged."* For ten years 
 and upwards he fought this fight, during which 
 time his only support was the money earned 
 by the occasional but rare admission of one of 
 his contributions to the public journals. Never- 
 theless he refused the situation of a private 
 tutor, determined to succeed as author, or starve 
 in the attempt. And he triumphed, at last. 
 
 * Carlyle's Miscellanies, vol. II. 
 
RICHTER. 
 
 407 
 
 After repeated failures, the publication of the 
 "Invisible Lodge," in 1793, brought money, 
 fame, troops of friends, and, altogether, decided 
 his future. After the death of his mother, he 
 resided successively in several different places, 
 and finally fixed upon Baireuth, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Fichtelgebirge, as his home. 
 In 1801 he married Caroline Mayer, daughter 
 of a professor of medicine in Berlin. In 1801 
 he received from the Prince Primate, Von Dal- 
 berg, a small pension, which was afterward 
 paid to him by the King of Bavaria until his 
 
 ROME* 
 
 Half an hour after the earthquake the hea- 
 vens swathed themselves in seas, and dashed 
 them down in masses and in torrents. The 
 naked Campagna and heath were covered with 
 the mantle of rain. Gaspard was silent — the 
 heavens black — the great thought stood alone 
 in Albano that he was hastening on toward the 
 bloody scaffold and the throne-scaffolding of 
 humanity, the heart of a cold, dead heathen- 
 world, the eternal Rome; and when he heard, 
 i on the Ponte Molle, that he was now going across 
 the Tiber, then was it to him as if the past had 
 risen from the dead, as if the stream of time 
 ran backward and bore him with it ; under the 
 streams of heaven he heard the seven old 
 mountain-streams, rushing and roaring, which 
 once came down from Rome's hills, and, with 
 seven arms, uphove the world from its founda- 
 tions. At length the constellation of the moun- 
 tain city of God, that stood so broad before him, 
 opened out into distant nights; cities, with scat- 
 tered ligbts, lay up and down, and the bells 
 (which to his ear were alarm-bells) sounded 
 out the fourth hour;j- when the carriage rolled 
 through the triumphal gate of the city, the Porta 
 del Popolo ; then the moon rent her black hea- 
 vens, and poured down out of the cleft clouds 
 the splendor of a whole sky. There stood the 
 Egyptian Obelisk of the gateway, high as the 
 clouds, in the night, and three streets ran gleam- 
 ing apart. " So," (said Albano to himself, as 
 they passed through the long Corso to the tenth 
 ward) "thou art veritably in the camp of the 
 God of war ; here, where he grasped the hilt 
 of the monstrous war-sword, and with the point 
 made the three wounds in three quarters of the 
 world !" — Rain and splendor gushed through 
 the vast, broad streets — occasionally he passed 
 suddenly along by gardens, and into broad city- 
 deserts and market-places of the past. The 
 rolling of the chariot amidst the rush and roar 
 of the rain, resembled die thunder, whose days 
 
 * From an unpublished translation (complete) of "The 
 Titan" of J. Paul Richter, by Rev. C. T. Brooks, 
 t Ten o'clock. 
 
 death. In 1824 the failure of his eyesight im- 
 paired his activity, without arresting it entirely. 
 He continued to labor with the help of his ne- 
 phews, revising his works in order to a uniform 
 edition, and making the most of his declining 
 strength, until, for all literary purposes, it failed 
 him utterly. He died November 14, 1625. 
 He was buried by torch-light; the unfinished 
 manuscript of his Selina (a work on immor- 
 tality) was borne upon his coffin, and Klop- 
 stock's Ode, " Thou shalt arise, my soul," was 
 sung by the students of the Gymnasium. 
 
 were once holy to this heroic city, like the 
 thundering heaven to the thundering earth; 
 muffled-up forms, with little lights, stole through 
 ■ the dark streets; often there stood along palace 
 
 with colonnades in the light of the moon, often i 
 | a solitary gray column, often a single high fir- ; 
 
 tree, or a statue behind cypresses. Once, when | 
 I there was neither rain nor moonshine, the car- j 
 | riage went round the corner of a large house, 
 I on whose roof a tall, blooming virgin, with an i 
 I uplooking child on her arm, herself directed a 
 little hand-light, now toward a white statue, ! 
 now toward the child, and so, alternately, illu- | 
 minated each. This friendly group made its 
 way to the very centre of his soul, now so 
 highly exalted, and brought with it, to him, 
 many a recollection ; particularly was a Roman j 
 child to him a wholly new and mighty idea. 
 
 They alighted at last at the Prince di Lau- 
 n'a's, Gaspard 's father-in-law and old friend. 
 * * * Albano, dissatisfied with all, kept his 
 inspiration sacrificing to the unearthly gods of 
 the past round about him, after the old fashion, 
 namely, with silence. Well might he, and 
 could he, have discoursed, but otherwise ; in 
 odes, with the whole man, with streams which 
 mount and grow upwards. He looked ever 
 more and more longingly out of the window at 
 the moon in the pure rain-blue, and at single 
 columns of the Forum; out of doors there 
 gleamed for him the greatest world. — At last 
 he rose up, indignant and impatient, and stole 
 down into the glimmering glory, and stepped 
 before the Forum ; but the moonlit night, that 
 decoration-painter, which works with irregular 
 strokes, made almost the very stage of the scene 
 irrecognisable to him. 
 
 What a dreary, broad plain, loftily encom- 
 passed with ruins, gardens and temples, covered 
 with prostrate capitals of columns, and with 
 single, upright pillars, and with trees and a 
 dumb wilderness ! The heaped-up ashes out 
 of the emptied urn of Time — and the potsherds 
 of a great world flung around ! He passed by 
 three temple columns,* which the earth had 
 
 * Of Jupiter Tonans. 
 
408 RICH 
 
 drawn down into itself even to the breast, and 
 along through the broad triumphal arch of Sep- 
 timus Severus; on the right, stood a chain of 
 columns without their temple; on the left, at- 
 tached to a Christian church, the colonnade of 
 an ancient heathen temple, deep sunken into 
 the sediment of time ; at last the triumphal arch 
 of Titus, and before it, in the middle of the 
 woody wilderness, a fountain gushing into a 
 granite basin. 
 
 He went up to this fountain, in order to sur- 
 vey the plain, out of which the thunder-mouths 
 of the earth once arose ; but he went along as 
 over a burnt-out sun, hung round with dark, 
 dead earths. " Man, the dreams of Man !" 
 something within him unceasingly cried. He 
 stood on the granite margin, turning toward the 
 Coliseum, whose mountain ridges of wall stood 
 high in the moonlight, with the deep gaps which 
 had been hewn in them by the scythe of Time 
 — sharply stood the rent and ragged arches of 
 Nero's golden house close by, like murderous 
 cutlasses. The Palatine Hill lay full of green 
 gardens, and, in crumbling temple -roofs, the 
 blooming death- garland of ivy was gnawing, 
 and living ranunculi still glowed around sunken 
 capitals. — The fountain murmured babblingly 
 and forever, and the stars gazed steadfastly 
 down, with transitory rays, upon the still battle- 
 field, over which the winter of time had passed 
 without bringing after it a spring — the fiery soul 
 of the world had flown up, and the cold, crum- 
 bling giant lay around — torn asunder were the 
 gigantic spokes of the main-wheel, which once 
 the very stream of ages drove. And in addition 
 to all this, the moon shed down her light like 
 eating silver-water upon the naked columns, and 
 would fain have dissolved the Coliseum and 
 the temples and all into their own shadows! 
 
 Then Albano stretched out his arm into the 
 air, as if he were giving an embrace and flow- 
 ing away as in the arms of a stream, and ex- 
 claimed, " ye mighty shades, ye, who once 
 strove and lived here, ye are looking down from 
 Heaven, but scornfully, not sadly, for your great 
 fatherland has died and gone after you! Ah, 
 had I, on the insignificant earth, full of old eter- 
 nity, which you have made great, only done 
 one action worthy of you ! Then v/ere it sweet 
 to me and allowed me, to open my heart by a 
 wound, and to mix earthly blood with the hal- 
 lowed soil, and, out of the world of graves, to 
 hasten away to you, eternal and immortal ones! 
 But I am not worthy of it!" 
 
 At this moment there came suddenly along 
 up the Via sacra, a tall man, deeply enveloped 
 in a mantle, who drew near the fountain, with- 
 out looking round, threw down his hat, and held 
 a coal-black, curly, almost perpendicular, hind- 
 head under the stream of water. But hardly 
 had he, turning upward, caught a glimpse of 
 the profile of Albano, absorbed in his fancies, 
 when he started up, all dripping, — stared at the 
 count — fell into an amazement — threw his arms 
 high into the air — and said, "Amico?" — Albano 
 
 TER. 
 
 looked at him. — The stranger said, "Albano!" 
 " My Dian !" cried Albano ; they clasped each 
 other passionately and wept for love. 
 
 Dian could not comprehend it at all : he said 
 in Italian; "But it surely cannot be you, you 
 look old." He thought he was speaking Ger- 
 man all the time, till he heard Albano answer 
 in Italian. Both gave and received only ques- 
 tions. Albano found the architect merely 
 browner, but there was the lightning of the 
 eyes and every faculty in its old glory. With 
 three words he related to him the journey, and 
 who the company were. "How does Rome 
 strike you?" asked Dian, pleasantly. "As life 
 does," replied Albano, very seriously, "it makes 
 me too soft and too hard."—" I recognise here 
 absolutely nothing at all," he continued: "do 
 those columns belong to the magnificent temple 
 of Peace?" "No," said Dian, "to the temple 
 of Concord ; of the other there stands yonder 
 nothing but the vault." "Where is Saturn's 
 temple?" asked Albano. "Buried in St. Adri- 
 an's church ;" said Dian, and added hastily, 
 " close by stand the ten columns of Antonine's 
 temple ; — over beyond there the baths of Titus 
 — behind us the Palatine hill, and so on. Now 
 tell me — !" 
 
 They walked up and down the Forum, be- 
 tween the arches of Titus and Severus. Albano 
 — especially, near the teacher who, in the days 
 of childhood, had so often conducted him hither- 
 ward, — was yet full of the stream which had 
 swept over the world, and the all -covering 
 water sunk but slowly. He went on and said, 
 "to-day, when he beheld the Obelisk, the soft, 
 tender brightness of the moon had seemed to 
 him eminently unbecoming for the giant city; 
 he would rather have seen a sun blazing on its 
 broad banner ; but now the moon was the pro- 
 per funeral -torch beside the dead Alexander, 
 who, at a touch, collapses into a handful of 
 dust." — "The artist does not get far with feel- 
 ings of this kind," said Dian, " he must look 
 upon everlasting beauties on the right hand and 
 on the left." — " Where," Albano went on ask- 
 ing, "is the old lake of Curtius — the Rostrum — 
 the pila Horatia — the temple of Vesta — of Ve- 
 nus, and of all those solitary columns ?" — " And 
 where is the marble Forum itself?" said Dian , 
 " it lies thirty span deep below our feet." — 
 " Where is the great, free people, the senate of 
 kings, the voice of the orators, the procession to 
 the Capitol? Buried under the mountain of 
 potsherds. O Dian, how can a man who loses 
 a father, a beloved, in Rome shed a single tear 
 or look round him with consternation, when he 
 comes out here before this battle-field of time, 
 and looks into the charnel-house of the nations? 
 Dian, one would wish here an iron heart, for 
 fate has an iron hand !" 
 
 Dian, who nowhere stayed more reluctantly 
 than upon such tragic cliffs, hanging over as it 
 were into the sea of eternity, almost leaped off 
 from them with a joke ; like the Greeks, he 
 blended dances with tragedy ; " Many a thing 
 
RICH 
 
 is preserved here, friend !" said he : " in Adrian's 
 church yonder they will still show you the bones 
 of the three men that walked in the fire." 
 "That is just the frightful play of destiny," re- 
 plied Albano, "to occupy the heights of the 
 mighty ancients with monks shorn down into 
 slaves." 
 
 "The stream of time drives new wheels," 
 said Dian : " yonder lies Raphael twice buried."* 
 * * * And so they climbed silently and 
 speedily over rubbish and torsos of columns, 
 and neither gave heed to the mighty emotion 
 of the other. 
 
 Rome, like the Creation, is an entire wonder, 
 which gradually dismembers itself into new 
 wonders, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, St. Peter's 
 church, Raphael, &c. 
 
 With the passage through the church of St. 
 Peter, the knight began the noble course through 
 Immortality. The Princess let herself, by the 
 tie of Art, be bound to the circle of the men. As 
 Albano was more smitten with edifices than 
 with any other work of man ; so did he see from 
 afar, with holy heart, the long mountain-chain 
 of Art, which again bore upon itself hills ; so 
 did he stop before the plain, around which the 
 enormous colonnades run like Corsos, bearing a 
 people of statues; — in the centre shoots up the 
 obelisk, and on its right and left an eternal 
 fountain, and from the lofty steps, the proud 
 Church of the world, inwardly filled with 
 churches, rearing upon itself a temple toward 
 Heaven, looks down upon the earth. — But how 
 wonderfully, as they drew near, had its columns 
 and its rocky wall mounted up and flown away 
 from the vision ! 
 
 He entered the magic church, which gave the 
 world blessings, curses, kings and popes, with 
 the consciousness, that, like the world-edifice, it 
 was continually enlarging and receding more 
 and more the longer one remained in it. They 
 went up to two children of white marble, who 
 held an incense-muscle-shell of yellow marble; 
 the children grew by nearness, till they were 
 giants. At length they stood at the main altar 
 and its hundred perpetual lamps. What a still- 
 ness! Above them the heaven's arch of the 
 dome, resting on four inner towers ; around them 
 an over-arched city of four streets in which 
 stood churches. — The temple became greatest 
 by walking in it; and when they passed round 
 one column, there stood a new one before them, 
 and holy giants gazed earnestly down. 
 
 Here was the youth's large heart, after so 
 long a time, filled. "In no art," said he to his 
 father, " is the soul so mightily possessed with 
 the sublime as in architecture ; in every other 
 the giant stands within and in the depths of the 
 soul, but here he stands out of and close before 
 it." Dian, to whom all images were more clear 
 than abstract ideas, said he was perfectly right. 
 
 * The body in the Pantheon, the head in St. Luke's 
 church. 
 
 3 B 
 
 TER. 409 
 
 Fraischdorfer replied, "The sublime also here 
 lies only in the brain, for the whole church 
 stands after all in something greater, namely, in 
 Rome, and under the heavens, in the presence 
 of which latter, we certainly should not feel 
 anything." He also complained that the place 
 for the sublime in his head was very much 
 narrowed by the innumerable volutes and mo- 
 numents which the temple shut up therein at 
 the same time with itself." Gaspard, taking 
 everything in a large sense, remarked, " When the 
 sublime once really appears, it then, by its very 
 nature, absorbs and annihilates all little circum- 
 stantial ornaments." He adduced as evidence 
 the tower of the Minster,* and Nature itself, 
 which is not made smaller by its grasses and 
 villages. 
 
 Among so many connoisseurs of art, the Prin- 
 cess enjoyed in silence. 
 
 The ascent of the dome, Gaspard recom- 
 mended to defer to a dry and cloudless day, in 
 order that they might behold the queen of the 
 world, Rome, upon and from the proper throne ; 
 he therefore proposed, very zealously, the visit- 
 ing of the Pantheon, because he was eager to 
 let this follow immediately after the impression 
 of St. Peter's church. They went thither. How 
 simply and grandly the hall opens! Eight yel- 
 low columns sustain its brow, and majestically 
 as the head of the Homeric Jupiter its temple 
 arches itself. It is the Rotunda or Pantheon. — 
 " O the pigmies," cried Albano, " who would 
 fain give us new temples ! Raise the old ones 
 higher out of the rubbish, and then you have 
 built enough !"j- They stepped in ; — there rose 
 itself around them a holy, simple, free world- 
 structure, with its heaven-arches soaring and 
 striving upward, an Odeum of the tones of the 
 Sphere-music, a world in the world! And 
 overhead, the eye-socket of the light and of 
 the sky gleamed down, and the distant rack of 
 clouds seemed to touch the lofty arch over which 
 it shot along ! And round about them stood 
 nothing but the temple-bearers, the columns! 
 The temple of all gods endured and concealed 
 the diminutive altars of the later ones. 
 
 Gaspard questioned Albano about his impres- 
 sions. He said he preferred the larger church 
 of St. Peter. The knight approved, and said 
 that youth, like nations, always more easily 
 found and better appreciated the sublime than 
 the beautiful, and that the spirit of the young 
 man ripened from strong to beautiful, as the 
 body of the same ripens from the beautiful into 
 the strong; — however, he himself preferred the 
 Pantheon. "How could the moderns," said the 
 Counsellor of Arts, Fraischdorfer, " build any- 
 thing, except some little Bernini's Towers ?" 
 " That is why," said the offended Provincial 
 Architect, Dian, (who despised the Counsellor 
 
 * Strassburg. 
 
 t The hall of the Pantheon seems too low, because a 
 part of its steps is hidden by the rubbish. 
 
 X This opening in the roof is twenty-seven feet in 
 diameter. 
 
 35 
 
410 RICHTER. 
 
 of Arts, because he never made a good figure, 
 except in the aesthetic hall of judgment as 
 critic, never in the exhibition-hall as painter), 
 " we moderns are, without contradiction, stronger 
 in criticism; though in practice we are, collect- 
 ively and individually, blockheads." Bouverot 
 remarked, the Corinthian columns might be 
 higher. The Counsellor of Arts said, after all 
 he knew nothing more like this fine hemisphere 
 than a much smaller one, which he had found 
 in Herculaneum moulded in ashes, of the bosom 
 of a fair fugitive." The knight laughed, and 
 AJbano turned away in disgust and went to 
 the Princess. 
 
 He asked her for her opinion about the two 
 temples. "Sophocles here, Shakspeare there; 
 but I comprehend and appreciate Sophocles 
 more easily," she replied, and looked with new 
 eyes into his new countenance. For the super- 
 natural illumination through the zenith of Hea- 
 ven, not through a hazy horizon, transfigured, 
 in her eyes, the beautiful and excited counte- 
 nance of the youth ; and she took for granted 
 that the saintly halo of the dome must also exalt 
 her form — when he answered her, "Very good ! 
 But in Shakspeare, Sophocles also is contained, 
 not, however, Shakspeare in Sophocles — and in 
 Peter's Church stands Angelo*s Rotunda !" Just 
 then the lofty cloud, all at once, as by the blow 
 of a hand out of the ether, broke in two, and 
 the ravished Sun. like the eye of a Venus float- 
 ing through her ancient heavens, — for she once 
 stood even here, — looked mildly in from the 
 upper deep; then a holy radiance filled the 
 temple, and burned on the porphyry of the 
 pavement, and Albano looked around him in 
 an ecstasy of wonder and delight, and said with 
 low voice: "How transfigured at this moment 
 is everything in this sacred place ! Raphael's 
 spirit comes forth from his grave in this noon- 
 tide hour, and everything which its reflection 
 touches, brightens into godlike splendor !" The 
 Princess looked upon him tenderly, and he 
 lightly laid his hand upon hers, and said, as one 
 vanquished, " Sophocles !" 
 
 On the next moonlit evening, Gaspard be- 
 spoke torches, in order that the Coliseum, with 
 its giant-circle, might the first time stand in fire 
 before them. The knight would fain have gone 
 around alone with his son dimly through the 
 dim work, like two spirits of the olden time, 
 but the Princess forced herself upon him, from 
 a too lively wish to share with the noble youth 
 his great moments, and perhaps, in fact, her 
 heart and his own. Women do not sufficiently 
 comprehend that an idea, when it fills and ele- 
 vates man's mind, shuts it, then, against love, 
 and crowds out persons; whereas with woman 
 all ideas easily become human beings. 
 
 They passed over the Forum, by the Via 
 sacra, to the Coliseum, whose lofty, cloven fore- 
 head looked down pale under the moonlight. 
 They stood before the gray rock-walls, which 
 reared themselves on four colonnades one above 
 
 another, and the torchlight shot up into the arches 
 of the arcades, gilding the green shrubbery high 
 overhead, and deep in the earth had the noble 
 monster already buried his feet. They stepped 
 in and ascended the mountain, full of fragments 
 of rock, from one seat of the spectators to an- 
 other. Gaspard did not venture to the sixth or 
 highest, where the men used to stand, but Al- 
 bano and the Princess did. Then the youth 
 gazed down over the cliffs, upon the round, 
 green crater of the burnt-out volcano, which 
 once swallowed nine thousand beasts at once, 
 and which quenched itself with human blood. 
 The lurid glare of the torches penetrated into the 
 clefts and caverns, and among the foliage of the 
 ivy and laurel, and among the great shadows 
 of the moon, which, like recluses, kept them- 
 selves in cells. Toward the South, where the 
 streams of centuries and barbarians had stormed 
 in, stood single columns and bare arcades. 
 Temples and three palaces had the giant fed 
 and lined with his limbs, and still, with all 
 his wounds, he looked out livingly into the 
 world. 
 
 " What a people !" said Albano. " Here curled 
 the giant snake five times about Christianity. 
 Like a smile of scorn lies the moonlight down 
 below there upon the green arena, where once 
 stood the Colossus of the Sun-god. The star of 
 the north* glimmers low through the windows, 
 and the Serpent and the Bear crouch. What a 
 world has gone by!" — The Princess answered, 
 "that twelve thousand prisoners built this the- 
 atre, and that a great many more had bled 
 therein." "O! we too have building prisoners," 
 said he, " but for fortifications ; and blood, too, 
 still flows, but with sweat! No, we have no 
 present; the past, without it, must bring forth 
 a future." 
 
 The Princess went to break a laurel-twig and 
 pluck a blooming wall -flower. Albano sank 
 away into musing : the autumnal wind of the 
 past swept over the stubble. On this holy emi- 
 nence he saw the constellations, Rome's green 
 hills, the glimmering city, the Pyramid of Ces- 
 tius, — but all became Past, and on the twelve 
 hills dwelt, as upon graves, the lofty old spirits, 
 and looked sternly into the age, as if they were 
 still its kings and judges. 
 
 " This to remember the place and time !" said 
 the approaching Princess, handing him the 
 laurel and the flower. — "Thou mighty One! a 
 Coliseum is thy flower-pot ; to thee is nothing 
 too great, and nothing too small !" said he, and 
 threw the Princess into considerable confusion, 
 till she observed that he meant not her, but 
 nature. His whole being seemed newly and 
 painfully moved, and, as it were, removed to a 
 distance : he looked down after his father, and 
 went to find him ; he looked at him sharply, 
 and spoke of nothing more this evening. 
 
 * The Pole-star, as well as other northern constella- 
 tions, stands lower in the south. 
 
RICH 
 
 LEIBGEBER TO SIEBENKAS* 
 
 Baireuth, 21st September, 1785. 
 "Mr dear brother, and cousin, and uncle, and 
 father, and son, — The two ears and chambers 
 of your heart, are my whole genealogical tree ; 
 wherein you resemble Adam, who, when he 
 went out walking, carried with him the whole 
 future race of his relations, and his long line of 
 successors (which even yet is not all drawn out 
 and unwound), until he became a father, and 
 his wife bore a child. Would to God I had 
 been the first Adam ! * * * Siebenkas, I 
 adjure you, let me follow up this thought as 
 though I were crazed ; and don't expect another 
 word in this letter except such as may assist in 
 painting my portrait as the first father of man- 
 kind. 
 
 " Those scholars misunderstood me greatly 
 who may suppose that I was to be Adam, be- 
 cause, according to Puffendorf and many others, 
 the whole earth would then belong to me of 
 right, — like a European possession in the India 
 of the universe, — as my patrimonium Petri, Pauli, 
 Judce, inasmuch as I, the only Adam and man, 
 consequently as the first and last universal mo- 
 narch (though as yet without subjects), could 
 and might lay claim to the whole earth. The 
 Pope, as holy father, though not as first father, 
 may think of such things ; or rather, he did not 
 think about them centuries ago, when he ap- 
 pointed himself guardian and heir of all the 
 lands incorporated into the earth; nay, and did 
 not even blush to pile upon his earthly crown 
 yet two others — a heavenly crown and a crown 
 of hell. 
 
 " How little I desire ! My sole motive for 
 wishing to have been the old and oldest Adam, 
 is, that on my marriage-evening I might have 
 walked up and down with Eve outside the 
 espalier of Paradise, in our green honeymoon 
 aprons and skins, and have held a Hebrew 
 wedding-oration to the mother of mankind. 
 
 "Before I begin my speech, I must preface 
 with the remark, that before my fall the extra- 
 ordinarily felicitous idea suggested itself to me 
 of noling down the cream of my omniscience ; 
 for in my state of innocence, I possessed a know- 
 ledge of all the arts and sciences, universal as 
 well as scholastic history, the several penal and 
 other cou*es of law, and all the old dead lan- 
 guages, as well as the living : I was, as it were, 
 a living Pindus and Pegasus, a movable lodge 
 of sublime light, a royal literary society, a pocket- 
 seat of the Muses, and a short golden siecle de 
 Louis XIV. With the understanding I then 
 possessed, it was therefore less to be wondered 
 at, than to be considered as a piece of good 
 luck, that in my leisure moments I consigned 
 the best of my omniscience to paper ; so that 
 when I afterwards fell, and became silly, I had 
 
 * From "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces." Trans- 
 lated by Edw. Henry Noel. Boston : James Munroe &. Co. 
 1845. 
 
 TER. 411 
 
 extracts, or a resume, of my former knowledge 
 at hand, to which I was enabled to refer. 
 
 "'Virgin,' thus, beyond the gates of Paradise, 
 did I begin my discourse; 'Virgin, we are in- 
 deed the first parents, and have a mind to beget 
 other parents; but you think of nothing, as long 
 as you can only stick your spoon into a forbid- 
 den mess of sweetmeat. 
 
 " ' I, as man and protoplast, reflect and pon- 
 der ; and to-day. as I walk up and down, I will 
 be the marriage-priest and preacher (I wish I 
 had begotten another for this purpose) at our 
 holy ceremony, and represent to you and my- 
 self, in a short wedding-discourse, the grounds 
 of doubt and decision, the rationes dubitandi and 
 decidendi of the protoplasts, or first married pair 
 (i.e. myself and thee), in the act of reflecting 
 and considering ; and, moreover, how they con- 
 sider, in the first Pars, the grounds and reasons 
 not to fructify the earth, but this very day to 
 emigrate, the one into the old, the other into the 
 new world ; and, in the second Pars, the rea- 
 sons nevertheless to leave it alone, and to mar- 
 ry; whereupon a short elench, or usus epanor- 
 thoticus, shall appear and conclude the night. 
 
 PAHS I. 
 
 " 'Pious hearer! such as thou now beholdest 
 me in my sheep-skin, full of earnest and deep 
 thought, I am nevertheless full, not so much of 
 follies as of fools, between whom a wise man 
 is occasionally inserted by way of a parenthesis. 
 It is true, I am small of stature,* and the ocean 
 rose some way above my ankles, and wet my 
 new wild-beast skin; but, by heaven! I walk 
 up and down here, girded with a seed -bag, 
 containing the seeds of all nations, and I carry 
 the repertorium and treasury-chest of the whole 
 human race, a little world, and an orbis pictus, 
 before me, as pedlars carry their open ware- 
 house on their stomach; for Bonnet, who lives 
 within me, when he comes forth, will seat him- 
 self down at his writing-desk, and show that 
 all things are comprised one within the other, 
 one parenthesis or box within the other; that 
 the son is contained in the father, both in the 
 grandfather, and consequently in the great- 
 grandfather both the grandfather and his inser- 
 tions lie waiting; in the great-great-grandfather 
 the great-grandfather with the insertion of the 
 insertion, and with all his episodes, and so on. 
 Are not all religious sects — for I cannot make 
 myself too intelligible to thee, beloved bride—* 
 incorporated in thy bridegroom here present, 
 and with the exception of the Preadamites, even 
 the Adamites,t — all giants, the great Christopher 
 himself, — the people of all nations, all the ship- 
 loads of negroes destined for America, and the 
 red-marked packages, among which is the An- 
 
 * The French Academician Nicolas Henrion stretched 
 out Aciamto the length of 1-23 feet, 9 inches ; Heram, 118 
 feet, 9 3-4 inches. The above is related by the Rabbis, 
 viz., that Adam after the fall ran through the ocean : vide 
 the 4th Bibl. Disc, of Saurin. 
 
 t The well-known sect which went naked to church. 
 
412 
 
 RICHTER. 
 
 spach and Baireuth soldiery, bespoken by the 
 English? When you contemplate my interior, 
 Eve, do I not stand before you as a living street 
 of Jews, a Louvre of governors and kings, all of 
 whom I can beget if I please, supposing I am 
 not decided to the contrary by this first Pars ? 
 You must admire me, though at the same time 
 you may laugh, if you look at me attentively, 
 and placing your hand upon my shoulder, just 
 consider : Here in this man and protoplast lie 
 side by side, without quarrelling, all the facul- 
 ties and the whole race of man, — all the schools 
 of philosophy, sewing- schools, and spinning- 
 schools ; the best and most ancient princely 
 houses, though not yet cleanly picked out from 
 the common ships' companies; the whole free 
 imperial order of knighthood, though still packed 
 up with their vassals, cottiers, and tenants ; 
 convents of nuns, bound up with convents of 
 monks; barracks, and county -deputies, not to 
 mention the ecclesiastical chapters of provosts, 
 deacons, priors, sub-priors, and canons! What 
 a man andAnak! wilt thou say. Right, dear 
 one, so I am indeed ! I am, in fact, the nest- 
 dollar of the whole human cabinet of coins ; the 
 tribunal of all the courts of justice, which are, 
 moreover, all full without the absence of a single 
 member; the living corpus juris of all civilians, 
 canonists, feudalists, and publicists. Have I 
 not Meusel's learned Germany, and Jocher's 
 learned school -lexicon, complete within me? 
 and, more than that, Jocher and Meusel in per- 
 son, not to speak cf supplementary volumes? 
 
 " ' I should like to show you Cain. Supposing 
 I am persuaded by the second Pars, he would 
 be our first seedling and tendril, our prince of 
 Wales, of Calabria, of Asturia, and of the Bra- 
 zils. If he were transparent, as I believe, you 
 would see how every thing fits in him one 
 within the other, like beer-glasses ; all ecumenic 
 councils, and inquisitions, and propaganda, and 
 the devil and his grandmother. But, lovely one, 
 you did not note down any of your scientia media 
 before your fall, as I did, and consequently you 
 gaze into futurity as blind as a beetle ; but I, 
 who see through it quite clearly, perceive by 
 my chrestomathy that if I really avail myself 
 of my Blumenbach's nisus formativus, and cast 
 to-day a few protoplastic glances into the jus 
 luxandice coxce, or primes noctis* I shall not beget 
 ten fools, like another person, but whole bil- 
 lions of tens, and the units besides, when one 
 thinks of all the arrant Bohemians, Parisians, 
 inhabitants of Vienna, Leipzic, Baireuth, Hof, 
 Dublin, Kuhschnappel (together with their 
 wives and daughters), who will come into life 
 through me ; amongst whom there are always 
 a million for every five hundred who neither 
 listen to reason nor possess it. Duenna, as yet 
 you know but little of mankind ; you only know 
 two, for the snake is not one ; but I know what 
 I am about, and that with my limbus infantum 
 
 * Literally the " first night," because, according to 
 many scholars, Eve became the fruit-thief on the very 
 morning of her creation. 
 
 I shall at the same time open a bedlam. By 
 heaven ! I tremble and groan when I take but 
 a cursory glance between the leaves of the 
 course of centuries, and see nothing there but 
 stains of blood and patchwork quodlibets of fools ; 
 when 1 think of the trouble it will cost before 
 an age learns to write a legible hand as good 
 as that of an elephant's trunk or of a minister- 
 before poor humanity has passed through pre- 
 paratory schools, and hedge-schools, and private 
 French governesses, and can enter with honor 
 the Latin lyceum, royal and Jesuit schools— 
 before it can attend the fencing school, the 
 dancing floor, a drawing academy, and a dog- 
 maticum and clinicum. The devil! It makes 
 me hot only to think of it! It is true nobody 
 will call you the brood-hen of the future flight 
 of starlings, the cod-fish spawner, wherein Leu- 
 enhock counts nine million and a half of stock- 
 fish eggs ; it will not be laid at your door, my 
 little Eve; but your husband will bear all the 
 blame. He ought to have been wiser, people 
 will say, and rather not have begotten anything 
 at all than such a rabble as the greater number 
 of these robbers are ; such, for instance, as the 
 crowned emperors on the Roman throne, and 
 also the vicegerents on the Roman chair ; the 
 former of whom will name themselves after 
 Antoninus and Caesar, the latter after Christ and 
 Peter, and amongst whom may be found some 
 whose throne is a Liineburg chair of torture for 
 humanity, and a birth-chair of the scaffold, if it 
 be not indeed a Place de Greve reversed, serving 
 at one and the same time as a place of execu- 
 tion for the mass, and of pleasure for the indi- 
 vidual.* I shall also have Borgia, Pizarro, St. 
 Domenico, and Potemkin, brought up against 
 me ; and even granting that I could free my- 
 self from the reproach of these black exceptions, 
 I must nevertheless concede (and anti-Adams 
 will take hold of it utilitcr) that my descendants 
 and colonists cannot exist half an hour without 
 either thinking or committing some folly; that 
 in their giant war of passions they never esta- 
 blish a peace, seldom a truce ; that the chief 
 fault of man consists in his having so many 
 little faults that his conscience scarcely serves 
 him for anything else but to hate his neighbor, 
 and to have a morbid sensitiveness for the faults 
 of others; that he will never part with his evil 
 habits until he is on his death-bed, alongside 
 which is pushed a confessional, much as child- 
 ren are made to go to stool before they are put 
 to bed ; that he learns and loves the language 
 
 * It seems almost emblematic of the incorporation of 
 the fierce earnest tiger and the playful ape, that the 
 Place de Greve in Paris is at once the place of execution 
 for criminals, and the pleasure-ground for the public fes- 
 tivals ; that on one and the same spot a king's assassin 
 is torn asunder by horses, and a king's fete is celebrated 
 by the citizens; and that the fire-wheels of the victims 
 broken on the wheel and the fire-wheels of the fire-works 
 play together in close fellowship. Horrible contrasts! 
 which we must not accumulate, lest we fall into the 
 error of those who have given occasion for this rebuke. 
 
RICHTER. 
 
 413 
 
 of virtue, while he shows enmity to the virtuous 
 — resembling in this the citizens of London, 
 who hate the French, while they keep French 
 masters to learn their language. Eve, Eve! 
 we shall gain little honor by our marriage. 
 According to the fundamental text, Adam sig- 
 nifies red earth; and verily my cheeks will be 
 entirely composed thereof, and blush when I 
 think of the inexpressible and uninterrupted 
 vanity and self-conceit of our great-grandchild- 
 ren, — a vanity growing with every century. 
 No one will pull his own nose but he who 
 shaves himself; the high nobility will burn the 
 family -escutcheon at the door of their secret 
 chambers, and interweave the cruppers of their 
 horses into their initials ; reviewers will set 
 themselves above the authors, the latter above 
 the former ; the Heimlicher von Blaise will 
 present his hand for the orphan's kiss ; the la- 
 dies theirs to every one ; and the highest will 
 kiss the hem of the embroidered garment. Eve, 
 I had barely finished writing down my pro- 
 phetic extracts of the world's history up to the 
 sixth millennary, when you bit into the apple 
 under the tree ; and I, like an ass, followed 
 your example, and then everything escaped me. 
 God knows what may be the semblance of the 
 male and female fools of the other millennaries. 
 Virgin ! wilt thou now use the sternocleidomas- 
 toideum, as Sommering calls the nod of the head, 
 and therewith say thy yea, when I ask thee, 
 Wilt thou have this marriage-preacher to thy 
 wedded lord and husband 1 
 
 " 'You will answer, without doubt: We will 
 at least listen to the second Pars, wherein the 
 affair is considered in another point of view ; 
 and truly, pious reader, we had almost forgotten 
 to proceed to 
 
 PARS II. 
 
 and altogether to weigh the grounds which in- 
 duce protoplasts and first parents to be such, 
 and to marry, serving Destiny in the capacity 
 of sewing and spinning machines of linseed and 
 hemp, of flax and tow, which she may wind in 
 infinite coils and net- work round the earthly 
 sphere. My chief motive, and I hope thine 
 also, is my conception of the last day; for in 
 case we two become the entrepreneurs of the 
 human race, I shall behold all my descendants 
 steaming up on the last day from the calcined 
 earth into the nearest neighboring planet, and 
 arranging themselves in order for the last re- 
 view ; and in this blessed harvest of children 
 and grandchildren I shall meet some who are 
 gifted with understanding, and with whom one 
 can exchange a word or two — men whose whole 
 life passed under a thunder-cloud, and who lost 
 it in a storm, as, according to the belief of the 
 Romans, the favorites of the gods were struck 
 dead by lightning — men who, nevertheless, 
 neither bound their eyes or their ears in the 
 tempest. Furthermore, I behold there the four 
 glorious heathen evangelists, Socrates, Cato, 
 Epictetus, and Antoninus, who went about to 
 
 every house applying their throats, like the 
 pipes of fire-engines 200 feet in length, to every 
 damnable conflagration of the passions, and ex- 
 tinguishing them with the best and purest alpino 
 water. In short, we shall, if we so please, be 
 — I the grandpapa, and you the grandmamma, 
 of the most excellent people. I tell thee, Eve, 
 it is noted down here in my tracts and collecta- 
 nea, black upon white, that I shall be the fore- 
 father, the ancestor, the Bethlehem, and plastic 
 nature of an Aristotle, a Plato, a Shakspeare, 
 Newton, Rousseau, Goethe, Kant, and Leibnitz, 
 besides others who are still cleverer than their 
 protoplast himself. Eve ! thou acting and im- 
 portant member of this present fruit -bearing 
 society, or productive class in the state, consist- 
 ing of you and the wedding-orator, I swear to 
 you that I shall enjoy an hour of some blissful 
 eternities when I stand upon the neighboring 
 planet, and cast my eyes flightily over the circle 
 of classic and new-born men, and then kneel 
 down in rapture upon the satellite, and exclaim, 
 u Good morning, my children !" ' 
 
 " Ye Jews formerly had the habit of uttering 
 an ejaculatory prayer when ye met a wise man ; 
 but what prayer can I utter long enough, when 
 I behold at one glance all the wise men and 
 members of faculties, all of them, moreover, 
 my relations, who, in spite of the wolfish hunger 
 of the passions, yet knew how to renounce the 
 forbidden apple and pear and ananas, and who, 
 in their thirst after truth, committed no garden- 
 robbery from the tree of knowledge, like their 
 first parents, who seized the forbidden fruit, 
 though they felt no hunger, and attacked the 
 tree of knowledge, although they already pos- 
 sessed all knowledge, excepting that of the 
 snake's nature. Then I shall rise from the 
 ground, and rush among the crowd of my de- 
 scendants, and fall on the bosom of one chosen 
 one, and throw my arms round him, and say, 
 ' Thou true, good, contented, gentle son, if, in 
 the second Pars of my wedding -discourse, I 
 could have shown my Eve, the queen-mother 
 of the present swarm of bees around us, none 
 other but thee, sitting in thy breeding-cell, verily 
 the woman would have taken it to heart, and 
 listened to reason :' and the true good son art 
 thou, Siebenkas ; and thou wilt ever lie on the 
 rough hairy breast of 
 
 " Thy Friend." 
 
 second extract from " flower, fruit and 
 thorn pieces." 
 
 Man lies under the yoke of a twofold neces- 
 sity ; that of the day, which he bears without 
 murmur, and that of the year, which, though 
 more rare, he cannot endure without wrangling 
 and complaint. The daily and ever-renewed 
 necessity is, that no wheat grows in winter ; 
 that we are not gifted with wings, like so many 
 of the animal tribe ; that we cannot set our foot 
 upon the ring-shaped mountains of the moon, 
 and thence gaze on the descending sun glori- 
 35* 
 
414 
 
 RICHTER. 
 
 ously illumining the mile-deep abysses. The 
 yearly and more rare necessity is, that it rains 
 when the corn is in blossom ; that we cannot 
 walk conveniently in many a marshy meadow 
 of earth ; and that occasionally, because of corns 
 or our want of shoes, we cannot walk at all. 
 But the yearly necessity is, in fact, as great as 
 the daily one ; and it is just as foolish to resist 
 and murmur at a paralysis of the limbs, as at 
 our want of wings. All the past, and this alone 
 is the subject of our sorrow, is so much a matter 
 of iron-necessity, that in the eyes of a superior 
 being it is an equal folly, on the part of an apo- 
 thecary, whether he complain of his shop hav- 
 ing been burnt down, or of his inability to go 
 botanizing in the moon, though in the phials 
 there he would find many things which are 
 wanting in his. 
 
 I will here insert a little extra leaf upon the 
 consolations in our windy, cold, damp life. Let 
 those who are exceedingly vexed, and almost 
 inconsolable, at this short digression, seek con- 
 solation in the 
 
 EXTRA LEAF ON CONSOLATION. 
 
 A time will come, that is, must come, when 
 we shall be commanded by morality not only 
 to cease tormenting others, but also ourselves. 
 A time must come when man, even on earth, 
 shall wipe away most of his tears, were it only 
 from pride. 
 
 Nature, indeed, draws tears out of the eyes, 
 and sighs out of the breast, so quickly, that the 
 wise man can never wholly lay aside the garb 
 of mourning from his body ; but let his soul 
 wear none. For if it is over a merit to bear a 
 small suffering with cheerfulness, so must the 
 calm and patient endurance of the worst be a 
 merit, and will only differ in being a greater 
 one ; as the same reason which is valid for the 
 forgiveness of small injuries is equally valid for 
 the forgiveness of the greatest. 
 
 The first thing that we have to contend 
 against and despise, in sorrow as in anger, is 
 its poisonous enervating sweetness, which we 
 are so loath to exchange for the labor of consol- 
 ing ourselves, and to drive away by the effort 
 of reason. 
 
 We must not exact of philosophy, that with 
 one stroke of the pen it shall reverse the trans- 
 formation of Rubens, who, with one stroke of 
 his brush, changed a laughing child into a 
 weeping one. It is enough if it change the full- 
 mourning of the soul into half-mourning; it is 
 enough if I can say to myself, — I will be con- 
 tent to endure the sorrow that philosophy has 
 left me ; without it, it would be greater, and 
 the gnat's bite would be a wasp's sting. 
 
 Even physical pain shoots its sparks upon us 
 out of the electrical condenser of the imagina- 
 tion. We could endure the most acute pangs 
 calmly if they only lasted the sixtieth part of a 
 second ; but, in fact, we never have to endure 
 an hour of pain, but only a succession of the 
 sixtieth parts of a second, the sixty beams of 
 
 which are collected into the burning focus of a 
 second, and directed upon our nerves by the i 
 imagination alone. The most painful part of | 
 our bodily pain is that which is bodiless, or ! 
 immaterial, namely, our impatience, and the I 
 delusion that it will last forever. 
 
 There is many a loss over which we all know I 
 for certain that we shall no longer grieve in 
 twenty — ten — two years. Why do we not say 
 to ourselves : I will at once then, to-day, throw 
 away an opinion which I shall abandon in 
 twenty years? Why should I be able to aban- 
 don errors of twenty years' standing, and not 
 of twenty hours? 
 
 When I awake from a dream which an Ota- 
 heite has painted for me on the dark ground of 
 the night, and find the flowery land melted 
 away, I scarcely sigh, thinking to myself, " It 
 was only a dream." Why is it that if I had 
 really possessed this island while awake, and 
 it had been swallowed up by an earthquake, 
 why is it that I do not then exclaim, " The 
 island was only a dream?" Wherefore am I 
 more inconsolable at the loss of a longer drear, 1 
 than at the loss of a shorter — for that is the dif- 
 ference ; and why does man find a great loss 
 less probable and less a matter of necessity, 
 when it occurs, than a small one ? 
 
 The reason is, that every sentiment and every 
 emotion is mad, and exacts and builds its own 
 world. A man can vex himself that it is al- 
 ready, or only, twelve o'clock. What folly! 
 The mood not only exacts its own world, its 
 own individual* consciousness, but its owu time. 
 I beg every one to let his passions, for once, 
 speak out plainly within himself, and to probe 
 and question them to the bottom, as to what 
 they really desire. He will be terror-struck at 
 the enormity of these hitherto only half-muttered 
 wishes. Anger wishes that all mankind had 
 only one neck-, love, that it had only one heart; 
 grief, tv/o tear -glands; and pride, two bent 
 knees. 
 
 When I read in Widman's " Court Chronicle" 
 of the terrible bloody times of the Thirty Years' 
 War, and as it were lived them over again ; 
 when I heard once more the cries of the tor- 
 tured for help, as they struggled in the Danube- 
 whirlpools of their age, and again beheld the 
 clasping of hands, and the delirious wandering 
 to and fro on the several pillars of the crum- 
 bling bridges, against which struck foaming 
 billows and fiercely-driven fields of ice — and 
 thus reflected, "All the waves have subsided, 
 the ice has melted, the storm is mute, and the 
 human beings also with their sighs," I was filled 
 with a peculiar melancholy feeling of consola- 
 tion for all times; and I asked, "Was and is, 
 then, this fleeting misery beneath the church- 
 yard-gate of life, which three steps into the 
 nearest cavern could put an end to, worth all 
 this cowardly lamentation?" Verily, if there 
 be, as I believe there is, true constancy under 
 
 * " Sein eignes ich." Tr. 
 
RICHTER. 
 
 415 
 
 an eternal sorrow, then is patience under a fleet- 
 ing one scarcely worthy of the name. 
 
 A great and unmerited national calamity 
 should not humble us, as the theologians de- 
 mand, but rather make us proud. When the 
 long heavy sword of war falls upon humanity, 
 and when a thousand pale hearts are riven and 
 bleeding; or when, on a blue serene evening, 
 the hot smoky cloud of a city, cast on the fune- 
 real pyre, hangs darkly on the sky, — as though 
 it were the cloud of ashes of a thousand con- 
 sumed hearts and joys, — then be thy spirit lifted 
 up in pride, and let it contemn the tear and 
 that for which it falls, saying, "Thou art much 
 too insignificant, thou every-day life, for the in- 
 consolableness of an immortal, — thou tattered, 
 misshapen, wholesale existence ! Upon this 
 sphere, which is rounded with the ashes of 
 thousands of years, amid the storms of earth, 
 made up of vapors, it is a disgrace that the sigh 
 should only be dissipated together with the 
 bosom that gives it birth, and not sooner; and 
 that the tear should not perish except with the 
 eye whence it flows." 
 
 But then, moderate thy sublime indignation, 
 and put this question to thyself: If the hidden 
 Infinite One, who is encompassed by gleaming 
 abysses without bounds, and who hjmself cre- 
 ates the bounds, were now to lay immensity 
 open to thy view, and to reveal himself to thee 
 in his distribution of the suns, the lofty spirits, 
 the little human hearts, and our days and some 
 tears therein, — wouldst thou rise up out of thy 
 dust against him, and say, "Almighty ! be other 
 than Thou art !" 
 
 But be one sorrow alone forgiven thee, or 
 made good to thee — the sorrow for thy dead 
 ones ; for this sweet sorrow for the lost is itself 
 but another form of consolation. When the 
 heart is full of longing for them, it is but an- 
 other mode of continuing to love them ; and we 
 shed tears as well when we think of their de- 
 parture, as when we picture to ourselves our 
 joyful re-union — and the tears, methinks, differ 
 not. 
 
 DREAM.* 
 
 The object of this composition must serve as 
 the excuse of its boldness. 
 
 Man denies the existence of God with as little 
 feeling as most of us grant it. Even in our true 
 systems, we only collect words, counters and 
 medals, as the avaricious accumulate cabinets 
 of coins ; and it is not until long after, that we 
 exchange the words for sentiments, our coins 
 for enjoyments. A man may believe in the 
 immortality of the soul for twenty years, but 
 only in the twenty-first, in some great moment, 
 is he astonished at the rich substance of this 
 belief, at the warmth of this naphtha-spring. 
 
 Even so was I horror-struck at the poisonous 
 vapor which meets the heart of one who enters 
 for the first time into the atheistic seminary, as 
 though it would suffocate it. It would cause 
 me less pain to deny immortality than the ex- 
 istence of the Deity. In the former case, I lose 
 nothing but a world concealed by a fog; in the 
 latter case, I lose the present world, namely, its 
 Sun. The whole spiritual universe is split and 
 shattered by the hand of Atheism into countless 
 quicksilver points of individual existences,* 
 which twinkle, melt into one another, and wan- 
 der about, meet and part, without unity and 
 consistency. No one is so much alone in the 
 universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned 
 heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he 
 stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse 
 of nature, no longer moved or sustained by the 
 Spirit of the universe, but growing in its grave ; 
 and he mourns, until he himself crumbles away 
 from the dead body. 
 
 The whole world lies before him like the 
 great Egyptian sphinx of stone, which is half- 
 buried in the sand, and the universe is the cold 
 iron mask of the shapeless eternity. 
 
 Another aim of my composition is, to frighten 
 some of the reading or deep-read professors ; 
 for verily these people, since they have become 
 day -laborers, after the manner of condemned 
 criminals, in the waterworks and mining ope- 
 rations of the critical philosophy, weigh the ex- 
 istence of God as apathetically and as cold- 
 heartedly as though it were a question of the 
 existence of the kraken or the unicorn. 
 
 To others, who are not so far advanced as 
 these deep-read professors, I may observe, that 
 it is no inconsistency to unite a belief in immor- 
 tality with a belief in Atheism ; for the same 
 necessity which, in this life, threw the bright 
 dewdrop of my individual existence into a 
 flower-cup, and beneath a sun, can repeat it in 
 a second life; indeed, it is easier to embody me 
 a second time than the first time. 
 
 When we are told in childhood, that at mid- 
 night, when our sleep reaches near unto the 
 soul, and even darkens our dreams, the dead 
 rise out of their sleep and mimic the religious 
 service of the living in the churches, we shud- 
 der at death on account of the dead ; and in the 
 loneliness of night we turn away our gaze from 
 the long narrow windows of the silent church, 
 fearing to examine whether their glitter pro- 
 ceeds from the moonbeams, or not. 
 
 Childhood and especially its terrors and rap- 
 tures once more assume wings and brightness 
 in our dreams, and play like glow-worms in the 
 little night of the soul. Crush not these little 
 fluttering sparks! Leave us even our dark 
 painful dreams, as relieving middle tints of 
 reality! And what could compensate us for 
 our dreams, which bear us away from beneath 
 the roar of the waterfall into the mountain- 
 heights of childhood, where the stream of life, 
 
 * From the same. 
 
 * German, " ichs." 
 
416 
 
 RICHTER. 
 
 yet silent in its little plain, and a mirror of hea- 
 ven, flowed towards its precipices ! 
 
 Once on a summer evening I lay upon a 
 mountain in the sunshine, and fell asleep; and 
 1 dreamt that I awoke in the church-yard, hav- 
 ing been roused by the rattling wheels of the 
 tower-clock, which struck eleven. I looked for 
 the sun in the void night-heaven ; for I thought 
 that it was eclipsed by the moon. All the 
 graves were unclosed, and the iron doors of the 
 charnel-house were opened and shut by invisi- 
 ble hands. Shadows cast by no one flitted 
 along the walls, and other shadows stalked 
 erect in the free air. No one slept any longer 
 in the open coffins but the children. A grey, 
 sultry fog hung suspended in heavy folds in the 
 heavens, and a gigantic shadow drew it in like 
 a net, ever nearer, and closer, and hotter. Above 
 me I heard the distant fall of avalanches; be- 
 neath me, the earnest step of an immeasurable 
 earthquake. The church was heaved up and 
 down by two incessant discords, which strug- 
 gled with one another, and in vain sought to 
 unite in harmony. Sometimes a grey glimmer 
 flared up on the windows, and, molten by the 
 glimmer, the iron and lead ran down in streams. 
 The net of fog and the reeling earth drove me 
 into the temple, at the door of which brooded 
 two basilisks with twinkling eyes in two poi- 
 sonous nests. I passed through unknown sha- 
 dows, on whom were impressed all the centu- 
 ries of years. The shadows stood congregated 
 round the altar; and in all, the breast throbbed 
 and trembled in the place of a heart. One 
 corpse alone, which had just been buried in the 
 church, lay still upon its pillow, and its breast 
 heaved not, while upon its smiling countenance 
 lay a happy dream ; but on the entrance of one 
 of the living he awoke, and smiled no more. 
 He opened his closed eyelids with a painful 
 effort, but within there was no eye; and in the 
 sleeping bosom, instead of a heart there was a 
 wound. He lifted up his hands, and folded 
 thern in prayer; but the arms lengthened out 
 and detached themselves from the body, and 
 the folded hands fell down apart. Aloft, on the 
 church-dome, stood the dial-plate of Eternity ; 
 but there was no figure visible upon it, and it 
 was its own index; only a black figure pointed 
 to it, and the dead wished to read the time 
 upon it. 
 
 A lofty, noble form, Moving the expression of 
 a never-ending sorrow, now sank down from 
 above upon the altar, and all the dead ex- 
 claimed — "Christ! is there no God?" And he 
 answered— -" There is none!" The whole sha- 
 dow of each dead one, and not the breast alone, 
 now trembled, and one after another was se- 
 vered by the trembling. 
 
 Christ continued: — "I traversed the worlds. 
 I ascended into the suns, and flew with the 
 milky ways through the wildernesses of the 
 heavens; but there is no God! I descended as 
 far as Being throws its shadow, and gazed down 
 into the abyss, and cried aloud — 'Father, where 
 
 art thou?' but I heard nothing but the eternal 
 storm which no one rules; and the beaming 
 rainbow in the west hung, without a creating 
 sun, above the abyss, and fell down in drops; 
 and when I looked up to the immeasurable 
 world for the Divine Eye, it glared upon me 
 from an empty, bottomless socket, and Eternity 
 lay brooding upon chaos, and gnawed it, and 
 ruminated it. Cry on, ye discords! cleave the 
 shadows with your cries ; for he is not !" 
 
 The shadows grew pale and melted, as the 
 white vapor formed by the frost melts and be- 
 comes a warm breath, and all was void. Then 
 there arose and came into the temple — a terri- 
 ble sight for the heart — the dead children who 
 had awakened in the church-yard, and they 
 cast themselves before the lofty form upon the 
 altar, and said, " Jesus ! have we no Father ! ' 
 and he answered with streaming eyes, "We are 
 all orphans, I and you ; we are without a Fa- 
 ther." 
 
 Thereupon the discords shrieked more harsh- 
 ly; the trembling walls of the temple split 
 asunder, and the temple and the children sunk- 
 down, and the earth and the sun followed, and 
 the whole immeasurable universe fell rushing 
 past us; and aloft upon the summit of infinite 
 Nature stood Christ, and gazed down into the 
 universe, chequered with thousands of suns, as 
 into a mine dug out of the Eternal Night, 
 wherein the suns are the miners' lamps, and 
 the milky ways the veins of silver. 
 
 And when Christ beheld the grinding con- 
 course of worlds, the torch-dances of the hea- 
 venly ignes fatui, and the coral-banks of beating 
 hearts; and when he beheld how one sphere 
 after another poured out its gleaming souls into 
 the sea of death, as a drop of water strews 
 gleaming lights upon the waves, sublime, as the 
 loftiest finite being, he lifted up his eyes to the 
 Nothingness, and to the empty Immensity, and 
 said: "Frozen, dumb Nothingness! cold, eternal 
 Necessity! insane Chance! know ye what is 
 beneath you? When will ye destroy the build- 
 ing and me ? Chance ! knowest thou thyself 
 when with hurricanes thou wilt match through 
 the snow-storm of stars and extinguish one sup 
 after the other, and when the sparkling dew oi 
 the constellations shall cease to glisten as thou 
 passest by? How lonely is everyone in the 
 wide charnel of the universe ! I alone am in 
 company with myself. O Father! Father! 
 where is thine infinite bosom, that I may be at 
 rest? Alas! if every being is its own father 
 and creator, why cannot it also be its own de- 
 stroying angel? * * * Is that a man near 
 me? Thou poor one! thy little life is the sigh 
 of Nature, or only its echo. A concave miner 
 throws its beams upon the dust-clouds composed 
 of the ashes of the dead upon your earth, and 
 thus ye exist, cloudy, tottering images! Look 
 down into the abyss over which clouds of ashts 
 are floating by. Fogs full of worlds arise out 
 of the sea of death. The future is a rising va- 
 por, the present a falling one. Knowest thou 
 
RICHTER. 
 
 417 
 
 thy earth ?" Here Christ looked down, and his 
 ' eyes filled with tears, and he said, "Alas ! I too 
 was once like you : then I was happy, for I had 
 still my infinite Father, and still gazed joyfully 
 from the mountains into the infinite expanse of 
 heaven ; and I pressed my wounded heart on 
 i his soothing image, and said, even in the bitter- 
 ness of death : ' Father, take thy Son out of his 
 bleeding shell, and lift him up to thy heart.' 
 Ah, ye too, too happy dwellers of earth, ye still 
 believe in him. Perhaps at this moment your 
 sun is setting, and ye fall amid blossoms, radi- 
 ance, and tears, upon your knees, and lift up 
 your blessed hands, and call out to the open 
 heaven, amid a thousand tears of joy, 'Thou 
 knowest me too, thou infinite One, and all my 
 wounds, and thou wilt welcome me after death, 
 and wilt close them all.' Ye wretched ones ! 
 
 after death they will not be closed When 
 
 the man of sorrows stretches his sore wounded 
 back upon the earth to slumber towards a love- 
 lier morning, full of truth, full of virtue and of 
 joy, behold, he awakes in the tempestuous 
 chaos, in the everlasting midnight, and no morn- 
 ing cometh, and no healing hand, and no infinite 
 Father ! Mortal who art near me, if thou still 
 livest, worship him, or thou hast lost him for- 
 ever!" 
 
 And as I fell down and gazed into the gleam- 
 ing fabric of worlds, I beheld the raised rings 
 of the giant serpent of eternity, which had 
 couched itself round the universe of worlds, 
 and the rings fell, and she enfolded the universe 
 doubly. Then she wound herself in a thou- 
 sand folds round Nature, and crushed the worlds 
 together, and, grinding them, she squeezed the 
 infinite temple into one church-yard church — 
 and all became narrow, dark, and fearful, and 
 a bell -hammer stretched out to infinity was 
 about to strike the last hour of Time, and split 
 the universe asunder — when I awoke. 
 
 My soul wept for joy, that it could again 
 worship God; and the joy, and the tears, and 
 the belief in him, were the prayer. And when 
 I arose, the sun gleamed deeply behind the full 
 purple ears of corn, and peacefully threw the 
 reflection of its evening blushes on the little 
 moon, which was rising in the east without an 
 aurora. And between the heaven and the 
 earth a glad fleeting world stretched out its 
 short wings, and lived like myself in the pre- 
 sence of the infinite Father, and from all nature 
 around me flowed sweet peaceful tones, as 
 from evening bells. 
 
 LETTER TO MY FRIENDS, INSTEAD OF 
 PREFACE* 
 
 Of ways for becoming happier (not happy) 
 I could never inquire out more than three. The 
 
 * Life of duintus Fixlein. German Romance. T. 
 Carlyle, Vol. iii. Edinburgh. 1827. 
 
 3c 
 
 first, rather an elevated road, is this : To soar 
 away so far above the clouds of life, that you 
 see the whole external world, with its wolf- 
 dens, charnel-houses, and thunder-rods, lying 
 far down beneath you, shrunk into a little child's 
 garden. The second is : Simply to sink down 
 into this little garden ; and there to nestle your- 
 self so snugly, so homewise, in some furrow, 
 that, in looking out from your warm lark-nest, 
 you likewise can discern no wolf-dens, charnel- 
 houses, or thunder -rods, but only blades and 
 ears, every one of which, for the nest-bird, is a 
 tree, and a sun-screen, and rain-screen. The 
 third, finally, which I look upon as the hardest 
 and cunningest, is that of alternating between 
 the other two. 
 
 This I shall now satisfactorily expound to 
 men at large. 
 
 The Hero, the Reformer, your Brutus, your 
 Howard, your Republican, he whom civic storm, 
 or genius poetic storm, impels; in short, every 
 mortal with a great Purpose, or even a peren- 
 nial Passion (were it but that of writing the 
 largest folios), all these men fence themselves 
 in by their internal world against the frosts and 
 heats of the external, as the madman in a worse 
 sense does : every fixed idea, such as rules every 
 genius, every enthusiast, at least periodically, 
 separates and elevates a man above the bed 
 and board of this Earth, above its Dog's-grot- 
 toes, buckthorns and Devil's- walls ; like the 
 Bird of Paradise, he slumbers flying; and on 
 his outspread pinions, oversleeps unconsciously 
 the earthquakes and conflagrations of Life, in 
 his long fair dream of his ideal Mother-land. — 
 Alas ! To few is this dream granted ; and these 
 few are so often awakened by Flying Dogs !* 
 
 This skyward track, however, is fit only for 
 the winged portion of the human species, for 
 the smallest. What can it profit poor quill- 
 driving brethren, whose souls have not even 
 wing-shells, to say nothing of wings ? Or these 
 tethered persons with the best back breast and 
 neck fins, who float motionless in the wicker 
 Fish-box of the State, and are not allowed to 
 swim, because the Box or State, long ago tied 
 to the shore, itself swims in the name of the 
 Fishes? To the whole standing and writing 
 host of heavy-laden State-domestics, Purveyors, 
 Clerks of all departments, and all the lobsters 
 packed together heels overhead in the Lobster- 
 basket of the Government office-rooms, and for 
 refreshment, sprinkled over with a few nettles ; 
 to these persons, what way of becoming happy 
 here, can I possibly point out ? 
 
 My second merely ; and that is as follows : 
 To take a compound microscope, and with it to 
 discover, and convince themselves, that their 
 drop of Burgundy is properly a Red Sea, that 
 butterfly-dust is peacock-feathers, mouldiness a 
 flowery field, and sand a heap of jewels. These 
 microscopic recreations are more lasting than 
 all costly watering-place recreations. — But I 
 
 * So are the Vampyres called. 
 
418 
 
 RICHTER. 
 
 must explain these metaphors by new ones. 
 The purpose, for which I have sent Firkin's 
 Life into the Messrs. Lubeks' Warehouse, is 
 simply that in this same Life — therefore in this 
 Preface it is less needful — I may show to the 
 whole Earth that we ought to value little joys 
 more than great ones, the night-gown more than 
 the dress-coat ; that Plutus' heaps are worth 
 less than his handfuls, the plum than the penny 
 for a rainy day; and that not great, but little 
 good-haps can make us happy. — Can I accom- 
 plish this, I shall, through means of my Book, 
 bring up for Posterity, a race of men finding re- 
 freshment in all things ; in the warmth of their 
 rooms and of their night-caps ; in their pillows ; 
 in the three High Festivals ; in mere Apostles' 
 days ; in the Evening Moral Tales of their 
 wives, when these gentle persons have been 
 forth as ambassadors visiting some Dowager 
 Residence, whither the husband could not be 
 persuaded; in the bloodletting -day of these 
 their newsbringers ; in the day of slaughtering, 
 salting, potting against the rigor of grim winter ; 
 and in all such days. You perceive, my drift 
 is that man must become a little Tailor-bird, 
 which, not amid the crashing boughs of the 
 storm-tost, roaring, immeasurable tree of Life, 
 but on one of its leaves, sews itself a nest toge- 
 ther, and there lies snug. The most essential 
 sermon one could preach to our century, were 
 a sermon on the duty of staying at home. 
 
 The third skyward road is the alternation 
 between the other two. The foregoing second 
 way is not good enough for man, who here on 
 Earth should take into his hand not the Sickle 
 only, but also the Plough. The first is too good 
 for him. He has not always the force, like 
 Rugendas, in the midst of the Battle to compose 
 Battle-pieces ; and, like Backhuisen in the Ship- 
 wreck, to clutch at no board but the drawing- 
 board to paint it on. And then his pains are 
 not less lasting than his fatigues. Still oftener 
 is Strength denied its Arena: it is but the 
 smallest portion of life that, to a working soul, 
 offers Alps, Revolutions, Rhine -falls, Worms 
 Diets, and Wars with Xerxes ; and for the whole 
 it is better so: the longer portion of life is a 
 field beaten flat as a threshing-floor, without 
 lofty Gothard Mountains ; often it is a tedious 
 ice-field, without a single glacier tinged with 
 dawn. 
 
 But even by walking, a man rests and reco- 
 vers himself for climbing; by little joys and 
 duties, for great. The victorious Dictator must 
 contrive to plough down his battle Mars-field 
 into a flax and carrot field ; to transform his 
 theatre of war into a parlour theatre, on which 
 his children may enact some good pieces from 
 the Children's Friend. Can he accomplish this, 
 can he turn so softly from the path of poetical 
 happiness into that of household happiness, — 
 then is he little different from myself, who even 
 now, though modesty might forbid me to dis- 
 close it — who even now, I say, amid the crea- 
 tion of this Letter, have been enabled to reflect, 
 
 that when it is done, so also will the Roses and 
 Elder-berries of pastry be done, which a sure 1 
 hand is seething in butter for the Author of this 
 Work. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE* 
 
 Rise, fair Ascension and Marriage day, and 
 gladden readers also ! Adorn thyself with the 
 fairest jewel, with the bride, whose soul is as 
 pure and glittering as its vesture ; like pearl 
 and pearl-muscle, the one as the other, lustrous 
 and ornamental! And so over the espalier, 
 whose fruit-hedge has hitherto divided our dar- 
 ling from his Eden, every reader now presses 
 after him ! — 
 
 On the 9th of May, 1793, about three in the 
 morning, there came a sharp peal of trumpets, 
 like a light -beam, through the dim -red May- 
 dawn: two twisted horns, with a straight trum- 
 pet between them, like a note of admiration 
 between interrogation -points, were clanging 
 from a house in which only a parishioner (not 
 the Parson) dwelt and blew : for this parishioner 
 had last night been celebrating the same cere- 
 mony which the pastor had this day before him. 
 The joyful tallyho raised our Parson from his 
 broad bed (and the Shock from beneath it, who 
 some weeks ago had been exiled from the white 
 sleek coverlid), and this so early, that in the 
 portraying tester, where on every former morn- 
 ing he had observed his ruddy visage, and his 
 white bedclothes, all was at present dim and 
 crayoned. 
 
 I confess, the new-painted room, and a gleam 
 of dawn on the wall, made it so light, that he 
 could see his knee-buckles glancing on the chair. 
 He then softly awakened his mother (the other 
 guests were to lie for hours in the sheets), and 
 she had the city cook-maid to awaken, who, 
 like several other articles of wedding-furniture, 
 had been borrowed for a day or two from 
 Flachsenfingen. At two doors he knocked in 
 vain, and without answer ; for all were already 
 down at the hearth, cooking, blowing, and ar- 
 ranging. 
 
 How softly does the Spring day gradually 
 fold back its nun-veil, and the Earth grow bright, 
 as if it were the morning of a Resurrection! — 
 The quicksilver -pillar of the barometer, the 
 guiding Fire-pillar of the weather-prophet, rests 
 firmly on Fixlein's Ark of the Covenant. The 
 Sun raises himself, pure and cool, into the 
 morning-blue, instead of into the morning-red. 
 Swallows, instead of clouds, shoot skimming 
 through the melodious air. . . . O, the good 
 Genius of Fair Weather, who deserves many 
 temples and festivals (because without him no 
 festival could be held), lifted an aetherial azure 
 Day, as it were, from the well-clear atmosphere 
 of the Moon, and sent it down, on blue butter- 
 fly-wings — as if it were a blue Monday — glitter- 
 
 * From the same. 
 
RICHTER. 
 
 419 
 
 ing below the Sun, in the zigzag of joyful qui- 
 vering descent, upon the narrow spot of Earth, 
 which our heated fancies are now viewing. . . 
 And on this balmy, vernal spot, stand amid 
 flowers, over which the trees are shaking blos- 
 soms instead of leaves, a bride and a bride- 
 groom Happy Fixlein ! how shall I paint 
 
 thee without deepening the sighs of longing in 
 the fairest souls ? — 
 
 But soft! we will not drink the magic cup of 
 Fancy to the bottom, at six in the morning; but 
 keep sober till towards night! 
 
 At the sound of the morning prayer-bell, the 
 bridegroom — for the din of preparation was dis- 
 turbing his quiet orison — went out into the 
 church-yard, which (as in many other places) 
 together with the church, lay round his mansion 
 like a court. Here, on the moist green, over 
 whose closed flowers the church-yard wall was 
 still spreading broad shadows, did his spirit 
 cool itself from the warm dreams of Earth : 
 here, where the white flat grave -stone of his 
 Teacher lay before him like the fallen-in door 
 on the Janus'-lemple of Life, or like the wind- 
 ward side of the narrow house, turned towards 
 the tempests of the world : here, where the 
 little shrunk metallic door on the grated cross 
 of his father uttered to him. the inscriptions of 
 death, and the year when his parent departed, 
 and all the admonitions and mementos, graven 
 on the lead ; — there, I say, his mood grew softer 
 and more solemn ; and he now lifted up by 
 heart his morning prayer, which usually he 
 read ; and entreated God to bless him in his 
 office, and to spare his mother's life, and to look 
 with favor and acceptance on the purpose of 
 to-day. — Then, over the graves, he walked into 
 his fenceless little angular flower-garden; and 
 here, composed and confident in the divine 
 keeping, he pressed the stalks of his tulips 
 deeper into the mellow earth. 
 
 But on returning to the house, he was met on 
 all hands by the bell-ringing and the Janizary- 
 music of wedding-gladness ; — the marriage- 
 guests had all thrown off" their nightcaps, and 
 were drinking diligently ; — there was a clatter- 
 ing, a cooking, a frizzling ; — tea-services, coffee- 
 services, and warm beer-services, were advanc- 
 ing in succession; and plates full of bride-cakes 
 were going round like potter's frames or cistern- 
 wheels. — The Schoolmaster, with three young 
 lads, was heard rehearsing from his own house 
 an Arioso, with which, so soon as they were 
 perfect, he purposed to surprise his clerical su- 
 perior. — But now rushed all the arms of the 
 foaming joy-streams into one, when the sky- 
 queen besprinkled with blossoms, the bride, 
 descended upon Earth in her timid joy, full of 
 quivering, humble love ; — when the bells be- 
 gan ; — when the procession -column set forth 
 with the whole village round and before it ; — 
 when the organ, the congregation, the officiating 
 priest, and the sparrows on the trees of the 
 church-window, struck louder and louder their 
 rolling peals on the drum of the jubilee-festival. 
 
 . . . The heart of the singing bridegroom was 
 like to leap from its place for joy, " that on his 
 bridal-day, it was all so respectable and grand." 
 — Not till the marriage benediction could he 
 pray a little. 
 
 Still worse and louder grew the business 
 during dinner, when pastry-work and march- 
 pane-devices were brought forward, — when 
 glasses, and slain fishes (laid under the napkins 
 to frighten the guests; went round ; — and when 
 the guests rose, and themselves went round, 
 and at length danced round : for they had in- 
 strumental music from the city there. 
 
 One minute handed over to the other the 
 sugar-bowl and bottle-case of joy : the guests 
 heard and saw less and less, and the villagers 
 began to see and hear more and more, and to- 
 wards night they penetrated like a wedge into 
 the open door, — nay, two youths ventured even 
 in the middle of the parsonage-court, to mount 
 a plank over a beam, and commence seesawing. 
 — Out of doors, the gleaming vapor of the de- 
 parted Sun was encircling the Earth, the even- 
 ing-star was glittering over parsonage and 
 church-yard ; no one heeded it. 
 
 However, about nine o'clock, — when the 
 marriage- guests had well nigh forgotten the 
 marriage -pair, and were drinking or dancing 
 along for their own behoof ; when poor mortals, 
 in this sunshine of Fate, like fishes in the sun- 
 shine of the sky, were leaping up from their 
 wet cold element; and when the bridegroom 
 under the star of happiness and love, casting 
 like a comet its long train of radiance over all 
 his heaven, had in secret pressed to his joy-filled 
 breast his bride and his mother, — then did he 
 lock a slice of wedding -bread privily into a 
 press, in the old superstitious belief, that this 
 residue secured continuance of bread for the 
 whole marriage. As he returned, with greater 
 love for the sole partner of his life, she herself 
 met him with his mother, to deliver him in 
 private the bridal-nightgown and bridal-shirt, 
 as is the ancient usage. Many a countenance 
 grows pale in violent emotions, even of joy : 
 Thiennette's wax-face was bleaching still whiter 
 under the sunbeams of Happiness. 0, never 
 fall, thou lily of Heaven, and may four springs 
 instead of four seasons open and shut thy flower- 
 bells to the sun! — All the arms of his soul as 
 he floated on the sea of joy were quivering to 
 clasp the soft warm heart of his beloved, to en- 
 circle it gently and fast, and draw it to his own. 
 
 He led her from the crowded dancing-room 
 into the cool evening. Why does the evening, 
 does the night put warmer love in our hearts ? 
 Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness? or is 
 it the exalting separation from the turmoil of 
 life ; that veiling of the world, in which for the 
 soul nothing more remains but souls? — is it 
 therefore, that the letters in which the loved 
 name stands written on our spirit appear, like 
 phosphorus-writing, by night, in fire, while by 
 day in their cloudy traces they but smoke? 
 
 He walked with his bride into the Castle- 
 
420 RICHTER. 
 
 garden : she hastened quickly through the Castle, 
 and past its servants'-hall, where the fair flowers 
 of her young life had been crushed broad and 
 dry, under a long dreary pressure ; and her soul 
 expanded, and breathed in the free open garden, 
 on whose flowery soil destiny had cast forth the 
 first seeds of the blossoms which to-day were 
 gladdening her existence. Still Eden! Green 
 flower-chequered chiaroscuro! — The moon is 
 sleeping under ground like a dead one ; but be- 
 yond the garden the sun's red evening-clouds 
 have fallen down like rose-leaves; and the 
 evening-star, the brideman of the sun, hovers, 
 like a glancing butterfly, above the rosy red, 
 and, modest as a bride, deprives no single starlet 
 of its light. 
 
 The wandering pair arrived at the old gar- 
 dener's hut; now standing locked and dumb, 
 with dark windows in the light garden, like a 
 fragment of the Past surviving in the Present. 
 Bared twigs of trees were folding, with clammy 
 half-formed leaves, over the thick intertwisted 
 tangles of the bushes. — The Spring was stand- 
 ing, like a conqueror, with Winter at his feet. — 
 In the blue pond, now bloodless, a dusky even- 
 ing-sky lay hollowed out, and the gushing waters 
 were moistening the flower-beds. — The silver 
 sparks of stars were rising on the altar of the 
 East, and falling down extinguished in the red 
 sea of the West. 
 
 The wind whirred, like a night-bird, louder 
 through the trees, and gave tones to the acacia- 
 grove ; and the tones called to the pair who had 
 first become happy within it: "Enter, new 
 mortal pair, and think of what is past, and of 
 my withering and your own ; and be holy as 
 Eternity, and weep not only for joy, but for 
 gratitude also!" — And the wet-eyed bridegroom 
 led his wet-eyed bride under the blossoms, and 
 laid his soul, like a flower, on her heart, and 
 said : " Best Thiennette, I am unspeakably hap- 
 py, and would say much, and cannot — Ah, thou 
 Dearest, we will live like angels, like children 
 together ! Surely I will do all that is good to 
 thee ; two years ago I had nothing, no, nothing; 
 ah, it is through thee, best love, that I am happy. 
 I call thee Thou, now, thou dear good soul!" 
 She drew him closer to her, and said, though 
 without kissing him : " Call me Thou always, 
 Dearest !" 
 
 And as they stept forth again from the sacred 
 grove into the magic-dusky garden, he took off 
 his hat ; first, that he might internally thank 
 God, and secondly, because he wished to look 
 into this fairest evening sky. 
 
 They reached the blazing, rustling, marriage- 
 house, but their softened hearts sought stillness; 
 and a foreign touch, as in the blossoming vine, 
 would have disturbed the flower -nuptials of 
 their souls. They turned rather, and winded 
 up into the church-yard to preserve their mood. 
 Majestic on the groves and mountains stood 
 the Night before man's heart, and made that also 
 great. Over the white steeple-obelisk the sky 
 rested bluer •, and darker ; and behind it, wavered 
 
 the withered summit of the May-pole with faded 
 flag. The son noticed his father's grave, on 
 which the wind was opening and shutting, with 
 harsh noise, the little door of the metal cross, to 
 let the year of his death be read on the brass 
 plate within. An overpowering sadness seized 
 his heart with violent streams of tears, and 
 drove him to the sunk hillock, and he led his 
 bride to the grave, and said : " Here sleeps he, 
 my good father; in his thirty-second year, he 
 was carried hither to his long rest. thou 
 good, dear father, couldst thou to-day but see the 
 happiness of thy son, like my mother ! But thy 
 eyes are empty, and thy breast is full of ashes, 
 and thou seest us not." — He was silent. The 
 bride wept aloud ; she saw the mouldering cof- 
 fins of her parents open, and the two dead arise 
 and look round for their daughter, who had 
 stayed so long behind them, forsaken on the 
 Earth. She fell upon his heart, and faltered: 
 "O beloved, I have neither father nor mother, 
 do not forsake me !" 
 
 O thou who hast still a father and a mother, 
 thank God for it, on the day when thy soul is 
 full of joyful tears, and needs a bosom wherein 
 to shed thern. . . . 
 
 And with this embracing at a father's grave, 
 let this day of joy be holily concluded. 
 
 THOUGHTS* 
 
 The inner man, like the negro, is born white, 
 but is colored black by life. In advanced age 
 the grandest moral examples pass by us, and 
 our life-course is no more altered by them than 
 the earth is by a flitting comet ; but in child- 
 hood the first object that excites the sentiment 
 of love or of injustice flings broad and deep its 
 light or shadow over the coming years ; and as, 
 according to ancient theologians, it was only the 
 first sin of Adam, not his subsequent ones, whioh 
 descended to us by inheritance, so that since the 
 One Fall we make the rest for ourselves, in like 
 manner the first fall and the first ascent influ- 
 ence the whole life. 
 
 HOW CHILDREN LEARN TO WORSHIP. 
 
 Sublimity is the staircase to the temple of 
 religion, as the stars are to immensity. When 
 the vast is manifested in nature, as in a storm, 
 thunder, the starry firmament, death, then utter 
 the name of God before your child. Signal ca- 
 lamity, rare success, a great crime, a noble ac- 
 tion, are the spots upon which to erect the 
 child's tabernacle of worship. 
 
 Always exhibit before children, even upon 
 the borders of the holy land, of religion, solemn 
 and devout emotions. These will extend to 
 them, unveiling at length the object by which 
 they are excited, though at the beginning they 
 are awe-struck with you, not knowing where- 
 
 * From the Diadem. 1846. Carey & Hart, Philadelphia. 
 Translated by Miss L. Osgood. 
 
RICHTER. 
 
 421 
 
 fore. Newton, who uncovered his head when 
 the greatest Name was pronounced, thus be- 
 came without words a teacher of religion to 
 children. 
 
 Instead of carrying children frequently to 
 public worship, I should prefer simply to con- 
 duct them upon great days in nature or in hu- 
 man life into the empty church, and there show 
 them the holy place of adults. To this I might 
 add twilight, night, the organ, the hymn, the 
 priest, exhortation ; and so by a mere walk 
 through the building, a more serious impression 
 might remain in their young hearts than after a 
 whole year of common church routine. Let 
 every hour in which their hearts are consecrated 
 to religion, be to them as absorbing as that in 
 which they partake for the first time of the 
 Lord's Supper. 
 
 Let the Protestant child show reverence to 
 the Catholic images of saints by the road-side — 
 the same as to the ancient Druidical oak of his 
 ancestors. Let him as lovingly accept different 
 forms of religion among men, as different lan- 
 guages, wherein there is still but one human 
 mind expressed. Every genius has most power 
 in his own tongue, and every heart in its own 
 religion. 
 
 SUSCEPTIBILITY OF THE SENSES IN CHILDREN. 
 
 Who has not felt with me, that frequently a 
 rural nosegay, which was our delight when we 
 were children in the village, through its old fra- 
 grance produces for us in cities, in the advanced 
 years of manhood, an indescribably rapturous 
 return to godlike childhood, and like a flowery 
 divinity wafts us upward to the first encircling 
 Aurora-cloud of our earliest obscure sensations. 
 But could such a remembrance so forcibly sur- 
 prise us, were not the child's perception of 
 flowers most powerful and interior ? 
 
 JOYOUSNESS OF CHILDREN. 
 
 How should it be otherwise ? I can bear a 
 melancholy man, but never a melancholy child. 
 Into whatever quagmire the former sinks, he 
 may raise his eyes either to the realm of reason 
 or to that of hope ; but the little child sinks and 
 perishes in a single black poison-drop of the 
 present time. — Only imagine a child conducted 
 to the scaffold — Cupid in a German coffin — or 
 fancy a butterfly crawling like a caterpillar 
 with his four wings pulled off, and you will 
 feel what I mean. 
 
 TOYS. 
 
 You need not surround your children, like 
 those of the nobility, with a little world of turn- 
 er's toys. Let their eggs be white, not figured 
 and painted ; they can dress them out of their 
 own imaginations. On the contrary, the older 
 man grows, the larger reality appears. The 
 fields which glisten for the young with the 
 morning dew of love's brightness, chill the gray, 
 half-blind old man with heavy evening damps, 
 and at last he requires an entire world, even 
 the second, barely to live in. 
 
 LANGUAGES. 
 
 Do not torment your pupil with a thousand 
 tongues. The mere learning of languages is 
 like expending one's money in the purchase of 
 fine purses, or learning the Paternoster in every 
 tongue, but never praying with it. 
 
 HArPY FATHERS. 
 
 Two classes of men are happy fathers. The 
 first is a country gentleman, who enjoys such 
 golden means of exemption from other occupa- 
 tions, that his rural mansion can be a benevo- 
 lent asylum for his children; since not even 
 cards, hares, or rents are dearer to him than his 
 posterity. The other is a country minister — the 
 six days leisure, the rural seclusion from the 
 whirl of cities, the free air, the office itself, 
 which is a higher school of education, and on 
 every seventh day presents to the children their 
 dear father upon a glorious elevation, as the 
 pastor and the saint, thus impressing the seal 
 of office upon the instructions of the week — all 
 this opens to the clergyman an arena for educa- 
 tion, into which he may introduce with advan- 
 tage other children, as well as his own. 
 
 FEMALE DELICACY. 
 
 Boys may derive advantage from the evil 
 example of drunken Helots; girls should wit- 
 ness only what is good. Even boys do not 
 come forth from the Augean stable of world- 
 discipline without some smell of the barn. But 
 girls are tender, white, Paris-apple blossoms, 
 parlor flowers, whose delicate freshness cannot 
 bear to be handled, but may only be touched 
 with the finest brush. Like the priestesses of 
 antiquity, they should be brought up only in 
 holy places; the harsh, the indecorous, the vio- 
 lent, they may not hear, far less behold. 
 
 SEWING. 
 
 Most of the finger-works, whereby the female 
 quicksilver is made stationary, bring with them 
 this mischief — the mind, remaining idle, either 
 grows rusty with dullness, or is given over to 
 the circling maze of fancy, where wave succeeds 
 to wave. Sewing and knitting-needles, for in- 
 stance, keep open the wounds of disappointed 
 love longer than all the romances in the world ; 
 they are thorns which prick through the droop- 
 ing roses. But give the young girl such an oc- 
 cupation as young men generally have, which 
 shall require a new thought every minute, and 
 the old one cannot be continually raying up and 
 glaring before her. Especially, change of em- 
 ployment contributes to heal woman's heart; 
 constant progress in some one thing, man's. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Upon the mount of religion, man may indeed 
 still have sorrows, but they are brief. The 
 nights linger in valleys, but on the mountains 
 they are shortened, and ever a small red streak 
 points towards the rising day. 
 
 36 
 
422 
 
 RICHTER. 
 
 THE IDEAL. 
 
 Ye holy matrons of by-gone times ! As little 
 did ye know of the ideal heart, as of the circu- 
 lation of the pure blood which warmed and 
 colored you, when ye cried, "I do this for my 
 husband, lor my children," and appeared in 
 prosaic subjection to your cares and pursuits. 
 Yet that holy Ideal was passing through you, 
 as heaven's fire descends to the earth through 
 clouds. 
 
 MERRIMENT. 
 
 Is there anything in life so lovely and poet- 
 ical as the laugh and merriment of a young girl, 
 who still in harmony v/ith all her powers sports 
 with you in luxuriant freedom, and in her 
 mirthfulness neither despises nor dislikes ? Her 
 gravity is seldom as innocent as her playful- 
 ness; still less that haughty discontent which 
 converts the youthful Psyche into a dull, thick, 
 buzzing, wing- drooping night- moth. Among 
 a certain Indian tribe the youth selected at a 
 feast that maiden for marriage who laughed in 
 her sport; perhaps my opinion inclines the 
 same way. 
 
 Laughing cheerfulness throws day-light upon 
 all the paths of life; discontent blows her ill- 
 omened vapors from afar; depression produces 
 more confusion and distraction of thought than 
 the above-named giddiness. If, indeed, the 
 wife could stereotype this comedy by playing 
 it in wedded life, and sometimes enliven the 
 dull epic of the husband or hero, by her own 
 comic-heroic poetry, she would enjoy the delight 
 of winning and enchanting both husband and 
 children. Never fear that feminine playfulness 
 will exclude depth of character and sensibility. 
 The still energy of the heart is ever growing 
 and filling itself beneath the outward glee. 
 How heavenly, when at length for the first time 
 the laughing eye melts in love, and gushing 
 tears mirror forth the whole tender soul ! 
 
 Let then the laughter-loving creatures giggle 
 on at one another, and especially at the first 
 clumsy make-game wight who comes among 
 them, even should he be the writer of this pa- 
 ragraph. 
 
 Truthfulness is not so much a branch as a 
 blossom of moral, manly strength. The weak, 
 whether they will or not, must lie. As respects 
 children, for the first five years they utter neither 
 truth nor falsehood — they only speak. Their 
 talk is thinking aloud ; and as one half of their 
 thought is often an affirmative, and the other a 
 negative, and, unlike us, both escape from them, 
 they seem to lie, while they are only talking 
 with themselves. Besides, at first they love to 
 sport with their new art of speech ; and so talk 
 nonsense merely to hear themselves. Often 
 they do not understand your question, and give 
 an erroneous, rather than a false reply. — We 
 may ask, besides, whether, when children seem 
 to imagine and falsify, they are not often relat- 
 
 ing their remembered dreams, which necessa- 
 rily blend in them with actual experience. 
 
 Children everywhere fly on the warm, sunny- 
 side of hope. They say, when the bird or the 
 dog has escaped from them, without any reason 
 for the expectation-— " he will come back again 
 soon." And since they are incapable of distin- 
 guishing hope, that is, imagination, from reflec- 
 tion or truth, their self-delusion consequently 
 assumes the appearance of falsehood. For in- 
 stance, a truthful little girl described to me va- 
 rious appearances of a Christ-child, telling what 
 it had said and done. In all those cases in 
 which we do not desire to mirror before the 
 child the black image of a lie, it is sufficient to 
 say, « Be sober, have done with play." 
 
 Finally, we must distinguish between un- 
 truths relating to the future and the past. We 
 do not attribute to a grown man who breaks 
 his word in reference to some future perform- 
 ance, that blackness of perjury which we charge 
 on him who falsifies what has been already 
 done ; so with children, before whose brief 
 vision time, like space, is immeasurable, and 
 who are as unable to look through a day, as we 
 through a year, we should widely separate un- 
 truthfulness of promise from untruthfulness of 
 assertion. Truth is a divine blossom upon an 
 earthly root ; of course, it is in time not the 
 earliest, but the latest virtue. 
 
 THE CLASSICS. 
 
 The bulwarks around the city of God have 
 been laid by the ancients for every age, through 
 the history of their own. Manhood at the pre- 
 sent day would sink immeasurably low, did 
 not our youth pass through the still temple of 
 the great old times and men, as a vestibule to 
 the crowded Fair of modern life. The names 
 of Socrates, Cato, Epaminondas, &c, are pyra- 
 mids of human energy. Rome, Athens, Sparta, 
 are three coronation cities of the giant Geryon, 
 which, like primeval mountains of humanity, 
 grapple with youthful manhood, while modern 
 ones only attract the eye. 
 
 KEVERENCE FOR LIFE. 
 
 Only place all life before the child, as within 
 the realm of humanity, and thus the greater 
 reveals to him the less. Put life and soul into 
 everything : describe to him even the lily, which 
 he would pull up as an unorganized thing, as 
 the daughter of a slender mother, standing in 
 her garden-bed, from whom her little white off- 
 spring derives nutriment and moisture. And 
 let not this be done to excite an empty ener- 
 vated habit of pity, a sort of inoculation-hospital 
 for foreign pains, but from the religious cultiva- 
 tion of reverence for life, the God all-moving in 
 the tree-top and the human brain. The love 
 of animals, like maternal affections, has this 
 advantage, that it is disinterested and claims 
 no return, and can also at every moment find 
 an object and an opportunity for its exercise. 
 
AUGUST WILIIELM VON SCHLEGEL. 
 
 Born 1767. Died 1845. 
 
 A. W. von Schlegel, the eldest of the two 
 brothers whose several and joint labors have 
 contributed so largely to the literary and aes- 
 thetic culture of their nation and age, occupies 
 the front rank among the scholars and critics 
 of this century, whether we regard the extent 
 and variety of his learning or the acuteness of 
 his analysis and his luminous judgment. As a 
 translator he surpasses all who have ever la- 
 bored in that line. The fidelity with which 
 he has rendered Shakspeare, or rather the skill 
 with which he has reproduced him, has natu- 
 ralized that poet in all the states of Germany, 
 and made him not less a German than he is an 
 English classic, — perhaps even more popular 
 in the translation than in the original:-— a soli- 
 tary instance of literary transplantation, unless 
 the popular versions of the old Hebrew poets 
 may be regarded as another. "Such," says 
 Mrs. Austin, " is Herr von Schlegel's masterly 
 handling of his own language, and the exqui- 
 site nicety of his ear, that he has, in many 
 cases (for example, Hamlet's Soliloquy), caught 
 the very cadence of the original. With no 
 other living language, perhaps, than the Ger- 
 man, would this be possible ; and even in that 
 it is a wonderful achievement." " Calderon 
 presented still greater difficulties of a me- 
 trical kind ; these Herr von Schlegel has tri- 
 umphantly overcome ; he has adhered to the 
 original even in metre, rhyme, and assonance, 
 and has combined this exact imitation of form 
 with an. equally faithful interpretation of the 
 meaning. The translation of the two greatest 
 dramatic poets of two nations, so unlike in ge- 
 nius, shows a talent for discriminating, and a 
 power of handling all the forms and resources 
 of language, which have never been surpassed." 
 
 A. W. von Schlegel has attained no mean 
 reputation as an original poet, and would pro- 
 bably have figured more illustriously in that 
 capacity had not his poetic labors been eclipsed 
 by his critical. His chief excellence, as a poet, 
 consists in the perfection which he has given 
 to the forms of poetic composition, and his 
 magic mastery of language. 
 
 He was born at Hanover, on the 5th of Sep- 
 tember, 1767. His father held the office of 
 Counsellor of the Consistory in the Lutheran 
 Church. He received his early education in 
 the Lyceum of his native city, where, at the 
 age of eighteen, he recited before the Public, 
 on the occasion of the King's birth-day, a poem 
 on the history of German poetry, which at- 
 tracted a good deal of attention at the time. 
 Tn 1786 he entered the university of Gottingen, 
 where he became intimate with the poet Bur- 
 ger, and where he obtained the prize for a Latin 
 disquisition on the geography of Homer. After 
 he had finished his philological studies at the 
 university, he resided for some time in Amster- 
 dam, in the capacity of private tutor. In 1796 
 he returned to Germany, and resided at Jena, 
 where he became a diligent contributor to va- 
 rious literary journals. He was soon made 
 Professor in the university in that place, and 
 produced a great impression far and wide by 
 his lectures on aesthetics. In connection with 
 his brother Friedrich, with Tieck, Schelling, 
 and others, he edited a periodical work, in 
 which he labored to establish the Romantic 
 School of Art. In 1802 he removed to Berlin, 
 where he lectured on literature and art, and 
 contributed to various periodicals. In 1804 he 
 travelled with Madame de Stael, and resided 
 with her successively in Italy, in France, in 
 Vienna, and finally in Stockholm, where the 
 Crown -prince of Sweden cultivated his ac- 
 quaintance, and employed him as political 
 writer, and afterwards conferred upon him the 
 title of nobility. In 1808 he read, in Vienna, 
 the Lectures on Dramatic Art, from which the 
 following extracts are taken. In 1818 he re- 
 ceived an appointment as Professor at the new 
 university at Bonn, which he held until his 
 death. He commenced, in 1820, a journal de- 
 voted to the study of the Oriental languages, 
 called the "Indian Library." He also pub- 
 lished the Bhagavad- Gita, a philosophical 
 poem in the Sanscrit, and accompanied it with 
 a Latin translation. He wrote in the French 
 and in the Italian, as well as in his vernacular 
 
 (423) 
 
424 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 tongue. His "Comparison of the Phsedra of 
 Euripides with that of Racine," in the former 
 of those languages, and his treatise on the 
 bronze horses at Venice, in the latter, are 
 
 among the most important of his essays. He 
 was twice married and twice divorced. He 
 died at Bonn, 1845. 
 
 LECTURES ON DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 
 
 THE GREEK DRAMA. 
 
 (From the translation of John Black.) 
 
 When we hear the word theatre, we natu- 
 rally think of what with us bears the same 
 name ; and yet nothing can be more different 
 from our theatre than the Grecian, in every part 
 of its construction. If in reading the Grecian 
 pieces we associate our own stage with them, 
 the light in which we shall view them must be 
 false in every respect. 
 
 The accurate mathematical dimensions of the 
 principal part of it are to be found in Vitruvius, 
 who also distinctly points out the great differ- 
 ence between the Greek and Roman theatres. 
 But these and similar passages of the ancient 
 writers have been most perversely interpreted 
 by architects unacquainted with the ancient 
 dramatists ;* and the philologists on the other 
 hand, who were altogether ignorant of archi- 
 tecture, have also fallen into egregious errors. 
 The ancient dramatists are still, therefore, alto- 
 gether in want of that sort of illustration which 
 relates to scenic regulation. In many tragedies 
 I conceive that my ideas on this subject are suf- 
 ficiently clear; but others again present difficul- 
 ties which are not so easily solved. We find 
 ourselves most at a loss in figuring to ourselves 
 the representation of the pieces of Aristophanes ; 
 the ingenious poet must have brought his won- 
 derful inventions before the eyes of his au- 
 dience in a manner equally bold and astonish- 
 ing. Even Barthelemy's description of the 
 Grecian stage is not a little confused, and the 
 subjoined plan extremely erroneous; in the 
 place which he assigns for the representation 
 of the pieces in Antigone and Ajax, for instance, 
 he is altogether wrong. The following obser- 
 vations will not therefore appear the less super- 
 fluous, j" 
 
 The theatres of the Greeks were quite open 
 above, and their dramas were always acted in 
 open day, and beneath the canopy of heaven. 
 
 * We have a remarkable instance of this in the pre- 
 tended ancient theatre of Palladio, at Vicenza. Hercu- 
 laneum, it is true, had not then been discovered, and the 
 ruins of the ancient theatre are not easily understood, 
 if we have never seen one in an entire state. 
 
 1 1 am partly indebted for them to the illustrations of 
 a learned architect, M. Genelli, of Berlin, author of the 
 ingenious Letters on Vitruvius. We have compared 
 several Greek tragedies with our interpretation of this 
 description of Vitruvius, and endeavored to figure to 
 ourselves the manner in which they were represented; 
 and I afterwards found my ideas confirmed, on examina- 
 tion of the theatre of Herculaneum, and the two very 
 small theatres at Pompeii. 
 
 The Romans, at an after period, endeavored by 
 a covering to shelter the audience from the rays 
 of the sun ; but this degree of luxury was hardly 
 ever enjoyed by the Greeks. Such a state of 
 things appears very inconvenient to us ; but the 
 Greeks had nothing of effeminacy about them, 
 and we must not forget, too, the beauty of their 
 climate. When they were overtaken by a storm 
 or a shower, the play was of course interrupted , 
 and they would much rather expose themselves 
 to an accidental inconvenience, than, by shut- 
 ting themselves up in a close and crowded 
 house, entirely destroy the serenity of a religious 
 solemnity, which their plays certainly were* 
 To have covered in the scene itself, and impri- 
 soned gods and heroes in dark and gloomy 
 apartments with difficulty lighted up, would 
 have appeared still more ridiculous to them. 
 An action which so nobly served to establish 
 the belief of the relations with heaven could 
 only be exhibited under an unobstructed heaven, 
 and under the very eyes of the gods as it were, 
 for whom, according to Seneca, the sight of a 
 brave man struggling with adversity is a be- 
 coming spectacle. With respect to the supposed 
 inconvenience, which, according to the assertion 
 of many modern critics, was felt by the poets 
 from the necessity of always laying the scene 
 of their pieces before houses, a circumstance 
 that often forced them to violate probability, 
 this inconvenience was very little felt by tragedy 
 and the older comedy. The Greeks, like so 
 many southern nations of the present day, lived 
 much more in the open air than we do, and 
 transacted many things in public which usu- 
 ally take place with us in houses. For the 
 theatre did not represent the street, but a place 
 before the house belonging to it, where the altar 
 stood on which sacrifices to the household gods 
 were offered up. Here the women, who lived 
 in so retired a manner among the Greeks, even 
 those who were unmarried, might appear with 
 out impropriety. Neither was it impossible for 
 them to give a view of the interior of the houses; 
 and this was effected, as we shall immediately 
 see, by means of the encyclema. 
 
 But the principal reason for this observance 
 was that publicity, according to the republican 
 notions of the Greeks, was essential to a grave 
 and important transaction. This is clearly 
 proved by the presence of the chorus, whose 
 
 * They carefully made choice of a beautiful situation. 
 The theatre at Tauromenium, at present Taormina, *n 
 Sicily, of which the ruins are still visible, was, according 
 to Munter's description, situated in such a manner that 
 the audience had a view of iEtna over the back-ground 
 of the theatre. 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 425 
 
 remaining on many occasions when secret trans- 
 actions were going on, has been judged of ac- 
 cording to rules of propriety inapplicable to that 
 country, and most undeservedly censured. 
 
 The theatres of the ancients were, in compa- 
 rison with' the small scale of ours, of a colossal 
 magnitude, partly for the sake of containing the 
 whole of the people, with the concourse of 
 strangers who flocked to the festivals, and partly 
 to correspond with the majesty of the dramas 
 represented in them, which required to be seen 
 at a respectful distance. The seats of the spec- 
 tators consisted of steps, which rose backwards 
 round the semicircle of the orchestra (called by 
 us the pit), so that they all could see with equal 
 convenience. The effect of distance was reme- 
 died by an artificial heightening of the subject 
 represented to the eye and ear, produced by 
 means of masks, and contrivances for increasing 
 the loudness of the voice, and the size of the 
 figures. Vitruvius speaks also of vehicles of 
 sound, distributed throughout the building ; but 
 the commentators are very much at variance 
 with respect to them. We may without hesi- 
 tation venture to assume, that the theatres of 
 the ancients were constructed on excellent 
 acoustical principles. 
 
 The lowest step of the amphitheatre was still 
 raised considerably above the orchestra, and the 
 stage was placed opposite to it, at an equal de- 
 gree of elevation. The sunk semicircle of the 
 orchestra contained no spectators, and was des- 
 tined for another purpose. It was otherwise 
 however with the Romans, but we are not at 
 present considering the distribution of their 
 theatres. 
 
 The stage consisted of a strip which stretched 
 from one end of the building to the other, and 
 of which the depth bore little proportion to this 
 breadth. This was called the logeum, in the 
 Latin, pulpitum, and the usual place for persons 
 who spoke was in the middle of it. Behind 
 this middle part, the scene went inward in a 
 quadrangular form, with less depth, however, 
 than breadth. The space here comprehended 
 was called the proscenium. The remaining 
 part of the logeum, to the right and left of the 
 scene, had, both before, the brink which adjoined 
 the orchestra, and behind, a wall possessing no 
 scenical decorations, but entirely simple, or at 
 most architecturally ornamented, which was 
 elevated to an equal height with the uppermost 
 steps for the audience. 
 
 The decoration was contrived in such a man- 
 ner, that the principal object in front covered 
 the back-ground, and the prospects of distance 
 were given at two sides, the very reverse of 
 the mode adopted by us. This had also its 
 rules : on the left appeared the town to which 
 the palace, temple, or whatever occupied the 
 middle, belonged ; on the right the open country, 
 landscape, mountains, sea shore, &c. The late- 
 ral decorations were composed of triangles, 
 which turned on an axis fastened underneath ; 
 and in this manner the change of scene was 
 3d 
 
 effected.* In the hindmost decoration it is pro- 
 bable that many things were exhibited in a 
 bodily form which are only painted with us. 
 When a palace or temple was represented, 
 there appeared in the proscenium an altar, 
 which answered a number of purposes in the 
 performance of the pieces. 
 
 The decoration was for the most part archi- 
 tectural, but it was also not unfrequently a 
 painted landscape, as in Prometheus, where it 
 represented Caucasus ; or in Philoctetus, where 
 the desert island of Lemnos, with its rocks and 
 his cave, were exhibited. It is clear, from a 
 passage of Plato, that the Greeks, in the decep- 
 tions of theatrical perspective, carried things 
 much farther than we might have inferred 
 from some wretched landscapes discovered in 
 Herculaneum. 
 
 In the back wall of this scene there was a 
 large main entrance, and two side entrances. 
 It has been maintained, that from them it might 
 be discovered whether an actor played a prin- 
 cipal or under part, as in the first case he came 
 in at the main entrance, and in the second, at 
 the side doors. But this should be understood 
 with the distinction, that it must have been re- 
 gulated according to the nature of the piece. 
 As the hindmost decoration was generally a 
 palace, in which the principal characters of 
 royal descent resided, they naturally came 
 through the great door, while the servants re- 
 sided in the wings. There were two other en- 
 trances ; the one at the end of the logeum, from 
 whence the inhabitants of the town came ; the 
 other underneath in the orchestra, which was 
 the side for those who had to come from a dis- 
 tance : they ascended a staircase of the logeum 
 opposite to the orchestra, which could be applied 
 to all sorts of purposes, according to circum- 
 stances. The entrance, therefore, with respect 
 to the lateral decorations, declared the place 
 from whence the players were supposed to 
 come ; and it might naturally happen, that the 
 principal characters were in a situation to avail 
 themselves with propriety of the two last-men- 
 tioned entrances. The situation of these en- 
 trances serves to explain many passages in the 
 ancient dramas, where the persons standing in 
 the middle see some one advancing, long before 
 he approaches them. Beneath the seats of the 
 spectators a stair was somewhere constructed, 
 which was called the Charonic, and through 
 which the shadows of the departed, without 
 being seen by the audience, ascended into the 
 orchestra, and then, by the stair which we for- 
 merly mentioned, made their appearance on the 
 stage. The nearest brink of the logeum some- 
 
 * According to an observation on Virgil, by Servius, 
 the change of scene was produced partly by revolving, 
 and partly by withdrawing. The former applies to the 
 lateral decorations, and the latter to the middle or back- 
 ground. The partition in the middle opened, disappeared 
 at both sides, and exhibited to view a new picture. But 
 all the parts of the scene were not always changed at the 
 same time. 
 
 36* 
 
426 
 
 A. W. SCH 
 
 LEGEL. 
 
 times represented the sea-shore. The Greeks 
 were well skilled in availing themselves even 
 of what lay beyond the decoration, and making 
 it subservient to scenical effect. I doubt not, 
 thereibre, that in the Eumenides the spectators 
 were twice addressed as an assembled people ; 
 first, by Pythia, when she calls upon the Greeks 
 to consult the oracle ; and a second time, when 
 Pallas, by a herald, commands silence through- 
 out the place of judgment. The frequent ad- 
 dresses to heaven were undoubtedly directed 
 to a real heaven ; and when Electra, on her 
 first appearance, exclaims: "0 holy light, and 
 thou air which fillest the expanse between earth 
 and heaven!" she probably turned towards the 
 rising sun. The whole of this procedure is 
 highly deserving of praise; and though modern 
 critics have censured the mixture of reality and 
 imitation, as destructive of theatrical illusion, 
 this only proves that they have misunderstood 
 the essence of the illusion which can be pro- 
 duced by an artificial representation. If we 
 are to be truly deceived by a picture, that is, if 
 we are to believe in the reality of the object 
 which we see, we must not perceive its limits, 
 but look at it. through an opening; the frame at 
 once declares it for a picture. In scenical deco- 
 rations we are now unavoidably compelled to 
 make use of architectural contrivances, produc- 
 tive of the same effect as the frames of pictures. 
 It is consequently much better to avoid this, and 
 to renounce the modern illusion, though it may 
 have its advantages, for the sake of extending 
 the view beyond the mere decoration. It was, 
 generally speaking, a principle of the Greeks, 
 that everything imitated on the stage should, if 
 possible, consist of actual representation ; and 
 only where this could not be done were they 
 satisfied with a symbolical exhibition. 
 
 The machinery for the descent of the gods 
 through (he air, or the withdrawing of men from 
 the earth, was placed aloft behind the walls of 
 the two sides of the scene, and consequently 
 removed from the sight of the spectators. Even 
 in the time of iEschylus great use was made of 
 it, as he not only brings Oceanus through the air 
 on a griffin, but also introduces the whole choir 
 of ocean nymphs, at least fifteen in number, in 
 a winged chariot. There were hollow places 
 beneath the stage, and contrivances for thunder 
 and lightning, for the apparent fall or burning 
 of a house, &c. 
 
 An upper story could be added to the farther- 
 most wall of the scene, when they wished to 
 represent a tower with a wide prospect, or any- 
 thing similar. The encyclema could be thrust 
 behind the great middle entrance, a machine 
 of a semicircular form within, and covered 
 above, which represented the objects contained 
 in it as in a house. This was used for produc- 
 ing a great theatrical effect, as we may see from 
 many pieces. The side door of the entrance 
 would naturally be then open, or the curtain 
 which covered it withdrawn. 
 
 A stage curtain, which, we clearly see from 
 
 a description of Ovid, was not dropped, but 
 drawn upwards, is mentioned both by Greek 
 and Roman writers, and the Latin appellation, 
 auloeum, is even borrowed from the Greeks. I 
 suspect, however, that the curtain on the Attic 
 stage was not in use at its commencement. In 
 the pieces of iEschylus and Sophocles the scene 
 is evidently empty at the opening as well as the 
 conclusion, and therefore it did not require any 
 contrivance for preventing the view of the spec- 
 tators. However, in many of the pieces of Eu- 
 ripides, perhaps also in the OEdipus Tyrannus, 
 the stage is at once filled, and represents a 
 standing group, who could not have been first 
 assembled under the eyes of the spectators. It 
 must be recollected, that it was only the com- 
 paratively small proscenium, and not the logeum, 
 which was covered by the curtain ; for, from its 
 great breadth, to have attempted to screen the 
 logeum would have been almost impracticable, 
 without answering any good end. 
 
 The entrances of the chorus were beneath in 
 the orchestra, in which it generally remained, 
 and in which also it performed its solemn dance, 
 going backwards and forwards during the choral 
 songs. In the front of the orchestra, opposite 
 to the middle of the scene, there was an eleva- 
 tion with steps, resembling an altar, as high as 
 the stage, which was called thymele. This 
 was the station of the chorus when it did not 
 sing, but merely took an interest in the action. 
 The leader of the chorus then took his station 
 on the top of the thymele, to see what was 
 passing on the stage, and to communicate with 
 the characters. For though the choral song was 
 common to the whole, yet when it entered into 
 the dialogue one person spoke for the rest ; and 
 hence we are to account for the shifting from 
 thou to ye in addressing them. The thymele 
 was situated in the very centre of the building ; 
 all the measurements were calculated from it, 
 and the semicircle of the amphitheatre was de- 
 scribed round that point. It was, therefore, an 
 excellent contrivance to place the chorus, who 
 were the ideal representatives of the spectators, 
 in the very situation where all the radii were 
 concentrated. 
 
 The tragical imitation of the ancients was 
 altogether ideal, and rhythmical ; and in form- 
 ing a judgment of it, we must always keep this 
 in view. It was ideal, as its chief object was 
 the highest dignity and sweetness; and rhythm- 
 ical, as the gestures and inflections of voice 
 were measured in a more solemn manner than 
 in real life. As the plastic art of the Greeks 
 was formed, if we may so express ourselves, 
 with scientific strictness on the most general 
 conception, and embodied into various general 
 characters which were gradually invested with 
 the charms of animation, so that individuality 
 was the last thing to which they turned their 
 attention ; in like manner in the mimetic art, 
 their first idea was to exhibit their personages 
 with heroical grandeur, a dignity more than 
 human, and an ideal beauty : their second was 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 427 
 
 character ; and the last of all passion, which in 
 the collision was thus forced to give way. The 
 fidelity of the representation was less their ob- 
 ject than its beauty : with us it is exactly the 
 reverse. The use of masks, which appears as- 
 tonishing to us, was not only justifiable on this 
 
 I principle, but absolutely essential ; and far from 
 considering them in the light of a last recourse, 
 the Greeks would with justice have considered 
 as a last recourse the being obliged to allow a 
 player with vulgar, ignoble, or strongly marked 
 individual features, to represent an Apollo or a 
 Hercules. To them this would have appeared 
 downright profanation. How limited is the 
 power of the most finished actor, in changing 
 
 , the character of his features ! And yet this has 
 the most unfavorable influence on the expres- 
 sion of the passion, as all passion is tinged by 
 the character. Neither are we obliged to have 
 recourse to the conjecture, that they changed the 
 masks in the different scenes, for the purpose 
 of assuming a greater degree of joy or sorrow* 
 This would by no means have been sufficient, 
 as the passions are often changed in the same 
 
 • scene ; and then modern critics would still be 
 obliged to suppose, that the masks exhibited a 
 different appearance on one side from what they 
 did on the other, and that that side was turned 
 towards the spectators which the circumstances 
 of the moment required.-f- No; the countenance 
 
 I remained from beginning to end the very same, 
 as we may see from the antique masks cut out 
 in stone. For the expression of the passion, the 
 motion of the arms and hands, the attitudes, and 
 the tone of voice, remained to them. We com- 
 plain of the want of the expression of the face, 
 without reflecting, that at such a great distance 
 its effect would have been lost. 
 
 * I call it conjecture, though Barthelemy, in his Ana- 
 charsis, considers it a settled point. He cites no autho- 
 rities, and I do not recollect any. 
 
 f Voltaire, in his essay on the Tragedy of the Ancients 
 and Moderns, prefixed to Semirarnis, has actually gone 
 so far. Amidst a multitude of supposed improprieties, 
 
 1 which he crowds together to confound the admirers of 
 ancient tragedy, the following is one: Aucune nation 
 (that is to say, excepting the Greeks) ne fait paraitre ses 
 acteurs sur des especes d'echasses, le visage couvert d'un 
 masque qui exprime la douleur d'un cote et la joye de 
 l'autre. In a conscientious inquiry into the evidence for 
 
 1 an assertion so very improbable, and yet so boldly made, 
 I can only find one passage in Quinctilian, lib. 11. cap. 3, 
 and an allusion of Platonius still more vague. (Vide 
 Aristoph. ed. Kuster, prolegom. p. 10.) Both passages 
 refer only to the new comedy, and only amount to this, 
 
 : that in some characters the eyebrows were dissimilar. 
 As to the view with which this took place, I shall after- 
 wards say a word or two in considering the new Greek 
 comedy. Voltaire, however, is without excuse, as the 
 mention of the cothurnus leaves no doubt that he alluded 
 to tragic masks. But his error had probably no such 
 learned origin. In most cases, it would be a fruitless 
 task to trace the source of his ignorance. The whole 
 
 I description of the Greek tragedy, as well as that of the 
 cothurnus in particular, is worthy of the man whose 
 
 j knowledge of antiquity was such, that in his Essay on 
 
 i Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he boasts of having intro- 
 duced the Roman Senate on the stage in red mantles. 
 
 We are not now inquiring whether, without 
 the use of masks, it may not be possible to attain 
 a higher degree of separate excellence in the 
 mimetic art. This we would very willingly 
 allow. Cicero, it is true, speaks of the expres- 
 sion, the softness, and delicacy of the acting of 
 Roscius, in the same terms that a modern critic 
 would apply to Garrick or Schroder. But I 
 will not lay any stress on the acting of this cele- 
 brated player, the excellence of which has be- 
 come proverbial, because it appears from a 
 passage in Cicero that he frequently played 
 without a mask, and that this was preferred by 
 his contemporaries. I doubt, however, whether 
 this ever took among the Greeks. But the same 
 writer relates, that actors in general, for the 
 sake of acquiring the most perfect purity and 
 flexibility of voice (and not merely the musical 
 voice, otherwise the examples would not have 
 been applicable to the orator), submitted to such 
 a course of uninterrupted exercises as our mo- 
 dern players, even the French, who are the 
 strictest in their discipline, would consider a 
 most intolerable oppression. The ancients could 
 show their dexterity in the mimetic art, consi- 
 dered by itself without the accompaniment of 
 words, in their pantomimes, which they carried 
 to a degree of perfection altogether unknown to 
 the moderns. In tragedy, however, the great 
 object in the art was strict subordination ; the 
 whole was to appear animated by one spirit, 
 and hence, not merely the poetry, but the mu- 
 sical accompaniment, the scenical decoration 
 and representation, were all the creation of the 
 poet. The player was a mere tool, and his ex- 
 cellency consisted in the accuracy with which 
 he filled up his part, and by no means in arbi- 
 trary bravura, or an ostentatious display of skill. 
 
 As from the quality of their writing materials 
 they had not the convenience of many copies, 
 the parts were studied from the repeated deli- 
 very of the poet, and the chorus exercised in the 
 same manner. This was called teaching a 
 piece. As the poet was also a musician, and 
 for the most part a player likewise, this must 
 have greatly contributed to the perfection of the 
 representation. 
 
 We may safely allow that the task of the 
 modern player, who must change his person 
 without concealing it, is much more difficult; 
 but this difficulty affords us no just criterion for 
 deciding which of the two merits the preference 
 as a representation of the noble and the beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 As the features of the player acquired a more 
 decided expression from the mask, as his voice 
 was strengthened by a contrivance for that 
 purpose, the cothurnus, which consisted of seve- 
 ral considerable additions to his soles, as we 
 may see in the ancient statues of Melpomene, 
 raised in like manner his figure considerably 
 above the middle standard. The female parts 
 were also played by men, as the voice and other 
 qualities of women would have conveyed an 
 inadequate idea of the energy of tragic heroines. 
 
428 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 The forms of the masks * and the whole ap- 
 pearance of the tragic figures, we may easily 
 suppose, were sufficiently beautiful and digni- 
 fied. We should do well to have the ancient 
 sculpture always present to our minds ; and the 
 most accurate conception, perhaps, that we can 
 possibly have, is to imagine them so many sta- 
 tues in the grand style endowed with life and 
 motion. But, as in sculpture, they were fond 
 of dispensing as much as possible with dress, 
 for the sake of exhibiting the more essential 
 beauty of the figure ; on the stage they would 
 endeavour, from an opposite principle, to clothe 
 as much as they could well do, both from a re- 
 gard to decency, and because the actual forms 
 of the body would not correspond sufficiently 
 with the beauty of the countenance. They 
 would also exhibit their divinities, which in 
 sculpture we always observe either entirely 
 naked, or only half covered, in a complete dress. 
 They had recourse to a number of means for 
 giving a suitable strength to the forms of the 
 limbs, and thus restoring proportion to the in- 
 creased height of the player. 
 
 The great breadth of the theatre in proportion 
 to its depth must have given to the grouping of 
 the figures the simple and distinct order of the 
 bas-relief. We prefer on the stage, as well as 
 everywhere else, groups of a picturesque de- 
 scription, more crowded, in part covered by 
 themselves, and stretching out into distance ; 
 but the ancients were so little fond of foreshort- 
 ening, that even in their painting they generally 
 
 * We have obtained a knowledge of them from the 
 imitations in stone which have come down to us. They 
 display both beauty and variety. That great variety 
 must have taken place in the tragical department (in the 
 comic, we can have no doubt about the matter), is evi- 
 dent from the rich store of technical expressions in the 
 Greek language for every gradation of the age, and cha- 
 racter of masks. See the Onomasticon of Jul. Pollux. 
 In the marble masks, however, we can neither see the 
 thinness of the mass from which the real masks were 
 executed, the more delicate coloring, nor the exquisite 
 mechanism of their joinings. The abundance of excel- 
 lent workmen possessed by Athens, in everything which 
 had reference to the plastic arts, will warrant the con- 
 jecture that they were in this respect inimitable. Those 
 who have seen the masks of wax in the grand style, 
 which in some degree contain the whole head, lately 
 contrived at the Roman carnival, may form to them- 
 selves a pretty good idea of the theatrical masks of the 
 ancients. They imitate life even to its movements in a 
 most masterly manner, and at such a distance as that 
 from which the ancient players were seen, the deception 
 is most perfect. They always contain the apple of the 
 eye, as we see in the ancient masks, and the person 
 covered sees merely through the aperture left for the iris. 
 The ancients must have gone still farther, and contrived 
 also an iris for the masks, according to the anecdote of 
 the singer Thamyris, who, in a piece which was probably 
 of Sophocles, made his appearance with a blue and a 
 black eye. Even accidental circumstances were imi- 
 tated; for instance, the cheeks of Tyro, down which the 
 blood had rolled from the cruel conduct of his stepmother. 
 The head from the mask must no doubt have appeared 
 somewhat large for the rest of the figure ; but this dispro- 
 portion, in tragedy at least, would not be perceived from 
 the elevation of the cothurnus. 
 
 avoided it. The gestures accompanied the 
 rhythmus of the declamation, and were intended 
 to display the utmost beauty and sweetness. 
 The poetical conception required a certain de- 
 gree of repose in the action, and that the whole 
 should be kept in masses, so as to exhibit a suc- 
 cession of plastic attitudes; and it is not impro- 
 bable that the player remained for some time 
 motionless in the same position. But we are 
 not to suppose from this, that the Greeks wer? 
 contented with a cold and spiritless representa- 
 tion of the passions. How could we reconcile 
 such a supposition with the fact, that whole 
 lines in their tragedies are frequently dedicated 
 to inarticulate exclamations of pain, with which 
 we have nothing to correspond in any of our 
 modern languages? 
 
 It has been often conjectured that the delivery 
 of their dialogue must have resembled the mo- 
 dern recitative- For this conjecture there is no 
 other foundation than that the Greek, like almost 
 all the southern languages, must have been pro- 
 nounced with a greater musical inflection of the 
 voice than our languages of the north. In other 
 respects I conceive that their tragic declamation 
 must have been altogether unlike recitative, 
 much more measured, and far removed from 
 its learned and artificial modulation. 
 
 We come now to the essence of the Greek 
 tragedy itself. In stating that the conception 
 was ideal, we are not to understand that the 
 different characters were morally perfect. In 
 this case what room could there be for such an 
 opposition or conflict, as the plot of a drama re- 
 quires? Weaknesses, errors, and even crimes, 
 were portrayed in them, but the manners were 
 always elevated above reality, and every person 
 was invested with such a portion of dignity and 
 grandeur as was compatible with the share 
 which he possessed in the action. The ideality 
 of the representation chiefly consisted in the 
 elevation to a higher sphere. The tragical po- 
 etry wished wholly to separate the image of 
 humanity which it exhibited to us, from the 
 ground of nature to which man is in reality 
 chained down, like a feudal slave. How was 
 this to be accomplished 1 By exhibiting to us 
 an image hovering in the air t But this would 
 have been incompatible with the law of gravi- 
 tation and with the earthly materials of which 
 our bodies are framed. Frequently, what we 
 praise in art as ideal is really nothing more. 
 But the production of airy floating shadows can 
 make no durable impression on the mind. The 
 Greeks, however, succeeded in combining in 
 the most perfect manner in their art ideality 
 with reality; or, dropping school terms, an ele- 
 vation more than human with all the truth of 
 life, and all the energy of bodily qualities. They 
 did not allow their flgures to flutter without 
 consistency in empty space, but they fixed the 
 statue of humanity on the eternal and immov- 
 able basis of moral liberty ; and that it might 
 stand there unshaken, being formed of stone or 
 brass, or some more solid mass than the living 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 429 
 
 human bodies, it made an impression by its 
 own weight, and from its very elevation and 
 magnificence it was only the more decidedly 
 subjected to the law of gravity. 
 
 Inward liberty and external necessity are the 
 two poles of the tragic world. Each of these 
 ideas can only appear in the most perfect man- 
 ner hy the contrast of the other. As the feeling 
 of internal dignity elevates the man above the 
 unlimited dominion of impulse and native in- 
 stinct, and in a word absolves him from the 
 guardianship of nature, so the necessity which 
 he must also recognise ought to be no mere na- 
 tural necessity, but to lie beyond the world of 
 sense in the abyss of infinitude; and it must 
 consequently be represented as the invincible 
 power of fate. Hence it extends also to the 
 world of gods ; for the Grecian gods are mere 
 powers of nature, and although immeasurably 
 higher than mortal man, yet, compared with 
 infinitude, they are on an equal footing with 
 himself. In Homer and the tragedians the gods 
 are introduced in a manner altogether different. 
 In the former their appearance is arbitrary and 
 accidental, and can communicate no higher in- 
 terest to the epic poem than the charm of the 
 wonderful. But in tragedy the gods either enter 
 in obedience to fate, and to carry its decrees 
 into execution, or they endeavor in a godlike 
 manner to assert their liberty of action, and ap- 
 pear involved in the same struggles with destiny 
 which man has to encounter. 
 
 This is the essence of the tragic in the sense 
 of the ancients. We are accustomed to give to 
 all terrible or sorrowful events the appellation 
 of tragic, and it is certain that such events are 
 selected in preference by tragedy, though a me- 
 lancholy conclusion is by no means indispensa- 
 bly necessary ; and several ancient tragedies, 
 viz. the Eumenides, Philoctetes, and in some 
 degree also the GZdipus Colonus, without men- 
 tioning many of the pieces of Euripides, have a 
 happy and enlivening termination. 
 
 But why does tragedy select those objects 
 which are so dreadfully repugnant to the wishes 
 and the wants of our sensible nature? This 
 question has often been asked, and seldom an- 
 swered in a very satisfactory manner. Some 
 have said that the pleasure of such representa- 
 tions arises from the comparison between the 
 calmness and tranquillity of our own situation, 
 and the storms and perplexities to which the 
 victims of passion are exposed. But when we 
 take a warm interest in a tragedy, we cease to 
 think of ourselves ; and when this is not the 
 case, it is the best of all proofs that we take but 
 a feeble interest, and that the tragedy has failed 
 in its effects. Others again have had recourse 
 to our feelings for moral improvement, which 
 is gratified by the view of poetical justice in the 
 rewards of the good and the punishment of the 
 wicked. But he whom the aspect of such 
 dreadful examples could in reality improve, 
 would be conscious of a sentiment of depression 
 and humiliation, very far removed from genuine 
 
 morality and elevation of mind. Besides, poet- 
 ical justice is by no means indispensable in a 
 good tragedy; it may end with the suffering of 
 the just and the triumph of the wicked, when 
 the balance is once restored by the prospect of 
 futurity. Small will be our improvement, if 
 with Aristotle we say that the object of tragedy 
 is to purify the passions by pity and terror. In 
 the first place the commentators have never 
 been able to agree as to the meaning of this 
 proposition, and have had recourse to the most 
 forced explanations. Look for instance into the 
 Dramaturgic of Lessing. Lessing gives a new 
 explanation, and conceives he has found in 
 Aristotle a poetical Euclid. But mathematical 
 demonstrations are subject to no misconception, 
 and geometrical evidence is not applicable to 
 the theory of the fine arts. Supposing however 
 tragedy to operate this moral cure in us, it must 
 do so by the painful feelings of terror and com- 
 passion ; and it remains to be proved how we 
 should take a pleasure in subjecting ourselves 
 to such an operation. 
 
 Others have been pleased to say that we are 
 attracted to theatrical representations from the 
 want of some violent agitation to rouse us out 
 of the torpor of every-day life. I have already 
 acknowledged the existence of this want, when 
 speaking of the attractions of the drama : and 
 to it we are even to attribute the fights of wild 
 beasts and gladiators among the Romans. But 
 must we who are less indurated, and more in- 
 clined to tender feelings, be desirous of seeing 
 demi-gods and heroes descend into the bloody 
 lists of the tragic stage, like so many desperate 
 gladiators, that our nerves may be shaken by 
 the aspect of their sufferings ? No : it is not the 
 aspect of suffering which constitutes the charm 
 of a tragedy, or the amusement of a circus or 
 wild beast fight. In the latter we see a display 
 of activity, strength, and courage, qualities re- 
 lated to the mental and moral powers of man. 
 The satisfaction which we derive from the re- 
 presentation of the powerful situations and 
 overwhelming passions in a good tragedy, must 
 be ascribed either to the feeling of the dignity 
 of human nature, excited by the great models 
 exhibited to us, or to the trace of a higher order 
 of things, impressed on the apparently irregular 
 progress of events, and secretly revealed in 
 them ; or to both of these causes together. 
 
 The true cause, therefore, why in tragical 
 representations we cannot exclude even that 
 which appears harsh and cruel is, that a spirit- 
 ual and invisible power can only be measured 
 by the opposition which it encounters from some 
 external force that can be taken in by the senses. 
 The moral freedom of man can therefore only 
 be displayed in a conflict with the impulse of 
 the senses : so long as it is not called into action 
 by a higher power, it is either actually dormant 
 in him, or appears to slumber, as it can fill no 
 part as a mere natural entity. The moral part 
 of our nature can only be preserved amidst 
 struggles and difficulties, and if we were there- 
 
430 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 fore to ascribe a distinctive aim to tragedy, as 
 instructive, it should be this : that all these suf- 
 ferings must be experienced, and all these diffi- 
 culties overcome, to establish the claims of the 
 mind to a divine origin, and teach us to estimate 
 the earthly existence as vain and insignificant. 
 
 With respect to everything connected with 
 this point, I refer my hearers to the Section on 
 the Sublime in Kant's Criticism of the Judg- 
 ment (Kritik der Urtheilskraft), to the complete 
 perfection of which nothing is wanting but a 
 more definite idea of the tragedy of the ancients, 
 with which he does not seem to have been very 
 well acquainted. 
 
 I come now to another peculiarity which dis- 
 tinguishes the tragedy of the ancients from ours, 
 I mean the chorus. We must consider it as the 
 personification of opinion on the action which 
 is going on ; the incorporation into the repre- 
 sentation itself of the sentiments of the poet as 
 the interpreter for the whole human race. This 
 is the general poetical character which we must 
 here assign to it, and that character is by no 
 means affected by the circumstance that the 
 chorus had a local origin in the feasts of Bac- 
 chus, and that it always had a peculiar national 
 signification with the Greeks. We have already 
 said that, with their republican way of thinking, 
 publicity was considered essential to every im- 
 portant transaction. As in their compositions 
 they went back to the heroic ages, they gave a 
 certain republican cast to the families of their 
 heroes, by carrying on the action either in pre- 
 sence of the elders of the people, or those per- 
 sons whose characters entitled them to respect. 
 This publicity does not, it is true, correspond 
 with Homer's picture of the manners of the he- 
 roic age , but both in the costume and the my- 
 thology, the dramatic poetry generally displayed 
 a spirit of independence and conscious liberty. 
 
 The chorus was therefore introduced to give 
 the whole that appearance of reality which was 
 most consistent with the fable. Whatever it 
 might be in particular pieces, it represented in 
 general, first the national spirit, and then the 
 general participation of mankind. In a word, 
 the chorus is the ideal spectator. It mitigates 
 the impression of a heart-rending or moving 
 story, while it conveys to the actual spectator a 
 lyrical and musical expression of his own emo- 
 tions, and elevates him to the region of consi- 
 deration. 
 
 The modern critics have never known what 
 to make of the chorus ; and this is the less to 
 be wondered at, as Aristotle affords no satisfac- 
 tory solution of the difficulty. The business of 
 the chorus is better painted by Horace, who as- 
 scribes to it a general expression of moral par- 
 ticipation, instruction and admonition. But the 
 critics in question have either believed that its 
 chief object was to prevent the stage from ever 
 being altogether empty, although the proper 
 place for the chorus was not upon the stage ; or 
 they have censured it as a superfluous and 
 laughable accompaniment, and seemed asto- 
 
 nished at the supposed impropriety of carrying 
 on secret transactions in the presence of assem- 
 bled multitudes. This they consider as the 
 principal reason for the observance of the unity 
 of place, as it could not be changed by the poet 
 without the dismission of the chorus, an act 
 which would have required at least some sort 
 of pretext ; they believe that the chorus owed 
 its continuance from the first origin of tragedy 
 merely to accident ; and as it is easy to perceive 
 that in Euripides, the last tragic poet which we 
 have, the choral songs have frequently little or 
 no connection with the fable, and form a mere 
 episodical ornament, they therefore conclude 
 that the Greeks had only to take one other step 
 in dramatic art to explode the chorus altogether. 
 To refute these superficial conjectures, it is ouiy 
 necessary to observe, that Sophocles wrote a 
 Treatise on the chorus, in prose, in opposition 
 to the principles of some other poets, and that 
 far from following blindly the practice -which 
 he found established, like an intelligent artist 
 he could assign reasons for the system which 
 he adopted. 
 
 Modern poets of the very first rank, since the 
 revival of the study of the ancients, have often 
 attempted to introduce the chorus in their pieces, 
 for the most part without a correct, and always 
 without a vivid idea of its destination. But we 
 have no suitable singing or dancing, neither 
 have we, as our theatres are constructed, any 
 place for it ; and it will hardly ever succeed, 
 therefore, in becoming naturalized with us. 
 
 The Greek tragedy, in its pure and unaltered 
 state, will always for our theatre remain an 
 exotic plant, which we can hardly hope to cul- 
 tivate with any success, even in the hot-house 
 of learned art and criticism. The Grecian my- 
 thology, which constitutes the materials of an- 
 cient tragedy, is as foreign to the minds and 
 imaginations of most of the spectators, as its 
 form and mode of representation. But to en- 
 deavor to constrain another subject, an historical 
 one for example, to assume that form, must 
 always be a most unprofitable and hopeless 
 attempt. 
 
 I have called mythology the chief material 
 of tragedy. We know, indeed, of two historical 
 tragedies, by Grecian authors : the Capture of 
 Miletus, of Phrynichus, and the Persians, of 
 iEschylus, a piece which still exists ; but these 
 singular exceptions, both belonging to an epoch 
 when the art had not attained its full maturity, 
 among so many hundred examples of a differ- 
 ent description, serve to establish more strongly 
 the truth of the rule. The sentence passed by 
 the Athenians on Phrynichus, whom they sub- 
 jected to a pecuniary fine because, in the repre- 
 sentation of contemporary calamities which 
 with due caution he might have avoided, he 
 had agitated them in too violent a manner, 
 however hard and arbitrary it may appear in a 
 judicial point of view, displays nevertheless a 
 correct feeling with respect to the subject and 
 the limits of art. The mind suffering under the 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 431 
 
 near reality of the subject cannot preserve the 
 necessary repose and self-possession which are 
 necessary for the reception of pure tragical im- 
 pressions. The heroic fables, on the other hand, 
 appear always at a certain distance, and in the 
 light of the wonderful. The wonderful pos- 
 sesses the advantage of being believed, and in 
 some degree disbelieved, at the same time : be- 
 lieved in so far as it is founded on the connec- 
 tion with other opinions; disbelieved while we 
 never take such an immediate interest in it as 
 we do in what wears the hue of the every-day 
 life of our own age. The Grecian mythology 
 was a web of national and local traditions, held 
 in equal honor as a part of religion and as an 
 introduction to history; everywhere preserved 
 in full life among the people by customs and 
 monuments, and by the numberless works of 
 epic and mythical poets. The tragedians had 
 only therefore to engraft one species of poetry 
 on another : they were always allowed their 
 use of certain established fables, invaluable for 
 their dignity, grandeur, and remoteness from all 
 accessary ideas of petty description. Every- 
 thing, down to the very errors and weaknesses 
 of that departed race of heroes who claimed 
 their descent from the gods, was consecrated in 
 the eyes of the people. Those heroes were 
 painted as beings endowed with more than 
 human strength ; but, so far from possessing 
 unerring virtue and wisdom, they were also 
 represented as under the dominion of furious 
 and unbridled passions. It was a wild age of 
 effervescence : the cultivation of social order 
 had not as yet rendered the soil of morality 
 arable, and it yielded at the same time the 
 most beneficent and poisonous productions, with 
 the fresh and luxuriant fulness of a creative 
 nature. Here the monstrous and ferocious were 
 not a necessary indication of that degradation 
 and corruption with which they are necessarily 
 associated under the development of law and 
 order, and which fill us with sentiments of hcr- 
 ror and aversion. The criminals of the fabulous 
 ages are not, if we may be allowed the expres- 
 sion, amenable to the tribunals of men, but con- 
 signed over to a higher jurisdiction. Some are 
 of opinion that the Greeks, in their republican 
 zeal, took a particular pleasure in witnessing 
 the representation of the outrages and conse- 
 quent calamities of the different royal families, 
 and are almost disposed to consider the ancient 
 tragedy, in general, as a satire on monarchical 
 government. This party view would, however, 
 have deadened the interest of the audience, and 
 consequently destroyed the effect which it was 
 the aim of the tragedy to produce. But we 
 must remark, that the royal families, whose 
 crimes and misfortunes afforded the most abun- 
 dant materials for tragical pictures of a horrible 
 description, were the Pelopidae of Mycenae, and 
 the Labdacidae of Thebes, families which were 
 foreign to the Athenians, for whom the pieces 
 were composed. We do not see that the Attic 
 poets endeavored to exhibit the ancient kings 
 
 of their country in an odious light; on the con- 
 trary, they always hold up their national hero, 
 Theseus, for public admiration, as a model of 
 justice and moderation, the champion of the 
 oppressed, the first lawgiver, and even the 
 founder of their liberty; and it was one of their 
 favorite modes of flattering the people, to per- 
 suade them that, even in the heroic ages, Athens 
 was distinguished above all the other states of 
 Greece, for obedience to the laws, humanity, 
 and a knowledge of the rights of nations. The 
 general revolution, by which the independent 
 kingdoms of ancient Greece were converted 
 into a community of free states, had separated 
 the heroic age from the age of social cultivation, 
 by a wide interval, beyond which the genealogy 
 of a very few families only was attempted to 
 be traced. This was extremely advantageous 
 for the ideal elevation of the characters of their 
 tragedy, as few human things will admit of a 
 close inspection into them, without betraying 
 their imperfections. But in the very different 
 relations of the age in which those heroes lived, 
 the standard of mere civil and domestic mo- 
 rality was not applicable, and the feeling must 
 go back to the primary ingredients of humanity. 
 Before the existence of constitutions, — before the 
 proper development of law and right, the sove- 
 reigns and rulers were their own lawgivers in 
 a world not yet subjected to order ; and the 
 fullest scope was thus given to the dominion of 
 will for good and for bad purposes. Hereditary 
 rule, therefore, exhibited more striking instances 
 of sudden changes of fortune than the late times 
 of political equality. In these respects the high 
 rank of the principal characters was essential, 
 or at least favorable to tragic representation, 
 and not because, according to the idea of some 
 moderns, those only who can occasion the hap- 
 piness or misery of numbers are sufficiently im- 
 portant to interest us in their behalf, nor because 
 internal elevation of sentiment must be clothed 
 with external dignity, to claim our honor and 
 admiration. The Greek tragedians paint the 
 downfall of kingly houses without any reference 
 to the condition of the people ; they show us 
 the man in the king, and, far from veiling their 
 heroes from our sight in their purple mantles, 
 they allow us to look through their vain splen- 
 dor, into a bosom torn and harrowed up by 
 passions. That the regal pomp was not so 
 necessary as the heroic costume is evident, not 
 only from the practice of the ancients, but from 
 the tragedies of the moderns having a reference 
 to the throne, produced under different circum- 
 stances, namely, the existence of monarchical 
 government. They dare not draw from existing 
 reality, for nothing is less suitable for tragedy 
 than a court, and a court life. When they do 
 not therefore paint an ideal kingdom with dis- 
 tant manners, they fail into stiffness and for- 
 mality, which are much more destructive to 
 freedom and boldness of character, and to deep 
 pathos, than the narrow circle of private life. 
 A few mythological fables only seem origi- 
 
432 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 nally marked out for tragedy : such, for example, 
 as the long-continued alternation of aggressions, 
 vengeance, and maledictions, which we witness 
 in the house of Atreus. When we examine the 
 names of the pieces which are lost, we have 
 great difficulty in conceiving how the mytholo- 
 gical fables on which they are founded, as they 
 are known to us, could afford sufficient mate- 
 rials for the development of an entire tragedy. 
 It is true, the poets, in the various relations of 
 the same story, had a great amplitude of selec- 
 tion ; and this very variety justified them in 
 going still farther, and making considerable al- 
 terations in the circumstances of an event, so 
 that the inventions added to one piece some- 
 times contradict the accounts given by the same 
 poet in another. We are, however, principally 
 to ascribe the productiveness of mythology, for 
 the tragic art, to the principle which we ob- 
 serve so powerful throughout the whole histo- 
 rical range of Grecian cultivation ; namely, that 
 the power which preponderated for the time 
 assimilated everything to itself. As the heroic 
 fables, in all their deviations, were easily de- 
 veloped into the tranquil fulness and light va- 
 riety of epic poetry, they were afterwards 
 adapted to the object which the tragedians pro- 
 posed to accomplish, by earnestness, energy, 
 and compression ; and what in this change of 
 destination appeared inapplicable to tragedy 
 still afforded materials for a sort of half sportive, 
 though ideal representation, in the subordinate 
 walk of the satirical drama. 
 
 I shall be forgiven, I hope, if I attempt to 
 illustrate the above reflections on the essence 
 of the ancient tragedy, by a comparison bor- 
 rowed from the plastic arts, which will, I trust, 
 be found somewhat more than a mere fanciful 
 allusion. 
 
 The Homeric epic is, in poetry, what half- 
 raised workmanship is in sculpture, and tragedy 
 the distinctly separated group. 
 
 The poem of Homer, sprung from the soil of 
 the traditionary tale, is not yet purified from it, 
 as the figures of a bas-relief are borne by a 
 back-ground which is foreign to them. These 
 figures appear depressed, and in the epic poem 
 all is painted as past and remote. In the bas- 
 relief they are generally thrown into profile, 
 and in the epic characterized in the most artless 
 manner : they are, in the former, not properly 
 grouped, but follow one another ; and the Ho- 
 meric heroes, in like manner, advance singly in 
 succession before us. It has been remarked 
 that the Iliad is not definitively closed, but that 
 we are left to suppose something both to pre- 
 cede and to follow. The bas-relief is equally 
 boundless, and may be continued ad infinitum, 
 either from before or behind, on which account 
 the ancients preferred the selection of those 
 objects for it which admitted of an indefinite 
 extension, as the trains at sacrifices, dances, and 
 rows of combatants, &c. Hence they also ex- 
 hibited bas-reliefs on round surfaces, such as 
 vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where the two 
 
 ends are withdrawn from our sight by the curv- 
 ature, and where, on our advancing, one object 
 appears as another disappears. The reading 
 of the Homeric poetry very much resembles 
 such a circumgyration, as the present object 
 alone arrests our attention, while that which 
 precedes and follows is allowed to disappear. 
 
 But in the distinctly formed group, as in tra- 
 gedy, sculpture and poetry bring before our eyes 
 an independent and definite whole. To sepa- 
 rate it from natural reality, the former places it 
 on a base, as on an ideal ground. It also re- 
 moves as much as possible all foreign and acci- 
 dental accessaries, that the eye may wholly rest I 
 on the essential objects, the figures themselves. ' 
 These figures are wrought into the most com- I 
 plete rounding, yet they refuse the illusion of 
 colours, and announce by the purity and uni- 
 formity of the mass of which they are con- 
 structed, a creation not endowed with perishable 
 life, but of a higher and more elevated character. 
 
 Beauty is the object of sculpture, and .repose 
 is most advantageous for the display of beauty. 
 Repose alone, therefore, is suitable to the figure. 
 But a number of figures can only be connected 
 together and grouped by one action. The group 
 represents beauty in motion, and the object of 
 it is to combine both in the highest degree. 
 This can only be effected when the artist finds 
 means, in the most violent bodily or mental 
 anguish, to moderate the expression by manly 
 resistance, calm grandeur, or inherent sweet- 
 ness, in such a manner that, with the most 
 moving truth, the features of beauty shall yet 
 in nowise be disfigured. The observation of 
 Winkelmann on this subject is inimitable. He, 
 says that beauty with the ancients was the 
 tongue on the balance of expression, and in this 
 sense the groups of Niobe and Laocobn are 
 masterpieces ; the one in the sublime and se- 
 rious, the other in the learned and ornamental 
 style. 
 
 The comparison with ancient tragedy is the 
 more apposite here as we know that both iEs- 
 chylus and Sophocles produced a Niobe, and 
 that Sophocles was also the author of Laocoon. 
 In Laocoon the conflicting sufferings and an- 
 guish of the body, and the resistance of the soul , 
 are balanced with the most wonderful equili- 
 brium. The children calling for help, tender 
 objects of our compassion, and not of our admi- 
 ration, draw us back to the appearance of the 
 father, who seems to turn his eyes in vain to 
 the gods. The convolving serpents exhibit to 
 us the inevitable destiny which unites together 
 the characters in so dreadful a manner. And 
 yet the beauty of proportion, the pleasing flow 
 of the attitude, are not lost in this violent strug- 
 gle ; and a representation the most frightful to 
 the senses is yet treated with a degree of mode- 
 ration, while a mild breath of sweetness is dif- 
 fused over the whole. 
 
 In the group of Niobe there is also the most 
 perfect mixture of terror and pity. The up- 
 turned looks of the mother, and the mouth half 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 433 
 
 open in supplication, seem to accuse the invi- 
 sible wrath of Heaven. The daughter, clinging 
 in the agonies of death to the bosom of her mo- 
 ther, in her infantine innocence can have no 
 other fear than for herself: the innate impulse 
 of self-preservation was never represented in a 
 i manner more tender and affecting. Can there 
 on the other hand be exhibited to the senses a 
 more beautiful image of self- devoting heroic 
 magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body- 
 forwards, that if possible she alone may receive 
 the destructive bolt? Pride and repugnance 
 are melted down in the most ardent maternal 
 love. The more than earthly dignity of the 
 features is the less disfigured by pain, as from 
 the quick repetition of the shocks she appears, 
 as in the fable, to have become insensible and 
 motionless. But before this figure, twice trans- 
 formed into stone, and yet so inimitably ani- 
 mated, — before this line of demarcation of all 
 human suffering, the most callous beholder is 
 dissolved in tears. 
 
 In all the agitation produced by the sight of 
 these groups, there is still somewhat in them 
 which invites us to composed contemplation; 
 and in the same manner, the tragedy of the 
 ancients leads us, even in the course of the re- 
 presentation, to the most elevated reflections on 
 our existence, and those mysteries in our destiny 
 which can never be wholly explained. 
 
 .ESCHYLTJS. 
 
 iEschylus is to be considered as the creator 
 of tragedy, which sprung from him completely 
 armed, liked Pallas from the head of Jupiter. 
 He clothed it in a state of suitable dignity, and 
 gave it an appropriate place of exhibition ; he 
 was the inventor of scenic pomp, and not only 
 instructed the chorus in singing and dancing, 
 but appeared in the character of a player. He 
 was the first who gave development to the dia- 
 logue, and limits to the lyrical part of the tra- 
 gedy, which still however occupies too much 
 space in his pieces. He draws his characters 
 with a few bold and strongly marked features. 
 The plans are simple in the extreme : he did 
 not understand the art of enriching and varying 
 an action, and dividing its development and 
 catastrophe into parts, bearing a due proportion 
 to each other. Hence his action often stands 
 still, and this circumstance becomes still more 
 apparent, from the undue extension of his choral 
 songs. But all his poetry betrays a sublime and 
 serious mind. Terror is his element, and not 
 the softer affections ; he holds up the head of 
 Medusa to his astonished spectators. His man- 
 ner of treating fate is austere in the extreme: 
 he suspends it over the heads of mortals in its 
 gloomy majesty. The cothurnus of JEschylus 
 has as it were an iron weight : gigantic figures 
 alone stalk before our eyes. It seems as if it 
 j required an effort in him to condescend to paint 
 ! mere men to us : he abounds most in represen- 
 tation of gods, and seems to dwell with parti- 
 cular delight in exhibiting the Titans, those 
 3 E 
 
 ancient gods who signify the dark powers of 
 primitive nature, and who had long been driven 
 into Tartarus beneath a better regulated world 
 He endeavors to swell out his language to a 
 gigantic sublimity, corresponding with the stan- 
 dard of his character. Hence he abounds in 
 harsh combinations and overstrained epithets, 
 and the lyrical parts of his pieces are often ob- 
 scure in the extreme, from the involved nature 
 of the construction. He resembles Dante and 
 Shakspeare in the very singular cast of his 
 images and expressions. These images are 
 nowise deficient in the terrible graces, which 
 almost all the writers of antiquity celebrate in 
 iEschylus. 
 
 iEschylus flourished in the very first vigor 
 of the Grecian freedom, after its successful 
 struggle, and he seems to have been thoroughly 
 imbued with a proud feeling of the superiority 
 which this struggle reflected on the nation to 
 which he belonged. He was an eye-witness 
 of the greatest and most glorious event in the 
 history of Greece, the overthrow and annihila- 
 tion of the Persian hosts under Darius and 
 Xerxes, and had fought in the memorable bat- 
 tles of Marathon and Salamis with distinguished 
 bravery. In the Persians he has, in an indirect 
 manner, sung the triumph which he contributed 
 to obtain, while he paints the downfall of the 
 Persian projects, and the ignominious return of 
 the fugitive monarch to his royal residence. He 
 describes in the most vivid and glowing colors 
 the battle of Salamis. In this piece, and in the 
 Seven before Thebes, a warlike vein gushes 
 forth ; the personal inclination of the poet for 
 the life of a hero shines throughout with the 
 most dazzling lustre. It was well remarked 
 by Gorgias, the sophist, that Mars, instead of 
 Bacchus, dictated this last drama ; for Bacchus, 
 and not Apollo, was the patron of tragic poets, 
 which may appear somewhat singular on a first 
 view of the matter, but then we must recollect 
 that Bacchus was not merely the god of wine 
 and joy, but also the god of the highest degree 
 of inspiration. 
 
 Among the remaining pieces of ^Eschylus, 
 we have what is highly deserving of our atten- 
 tion, a complete triology. The antiquarian ac- 
 count of triologies is this, that in the more early 
 times the poet did not contend for the prize 
 with a single piece, but with three, which how- 
 ever were not always connected together by 
 their contents, and that a fourth satirical drama 
 was also attached to them. All these were 
 successively represented in one day. The idea 
 which we must form of the triology in relation 
 to the tragic art is this; a tragedy cannot be 
 indefinitely lengthened and continued, like the 
 Homeric epic poem for example, to which whole 
 rhapsodies have been appended ; for this is too 
 independent and complete within itself. Not- 
 withstanding this circumstance, however, seve- 
 ral tragedies may be connected together by 
 means of a common destiny running throughout 
 all their actions in one great cycle. Hence the 
 37 
 
434 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 fixing on the number three admits of a satisfac- 
 tory explanation. It is the thesis, the antithesis, 
 and the connection. The advantage of this 
 conjunction was that, in the consideration of the 
 connected fables, a more ample degree of grati- 
 fication was derived than could possibly be ob- 
 tained from a single action. The objects of the 
 three tragedies might be separated by a wide in- 
 terval of time, or follow close upon one another. 
 
 The three pieces of the triology of iEschylus 
 are Agamemnon, the Choephorss or Electra, and 
 the Eumenides or Furies. The object of the 
 first is the murder of Agamemnon by Clytem- 
 nestra, on his return from Troy. In the second, 
 Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother : 
 facto pius et sceleratus eodem. This deed, although 
 perpetrated from the most powerful motives, is 
 repugnant however to natural and moral order. 
 Orestes as a prince was, it is true, entitled to 
 exercise justice even on the members of his 
 own family; but he was under the necessity 
 of stealing in disguise into the dwelling of the 
 tyrannical usurper of his throne, and of going to 
 work like an assassin. The memory of his 
 father pleads his excuse ; but although Clytem- 
 nestra has deserved death, the blood of his 
 mother still rises up in judgment against him. 
 This is represented in the Eumenides in the 
 form of a contention among the gods, some of 
 whom approve of the deed of Orestes, while 
 others persecute him, till at last the divine wis- 
 dom, under the figure of Minerva, reconciles 
 the opposite claims, establishes a peace, and 
 puts an end to the long series of crimes and 
 punishments which desolated the royal house 
 of Atreus. 
 
 A considerable interval takes place between 
 the period of the first and second pieces, during 
 which Orestes grows up to manhood. The 
 second and third are connected together imme- 
 diately in the order of time. Orestes takes flight 
 after the murder of his mother to Delphi, where 
 we find him at the commencement of the Eu- 
 menides. 
 
 In each of the two first pieces, there is a visi- 
 ble reference to the one which follows. In 
 Agamemnon, Cassandra and the chorus pro- 
 phesy, at the close, to the arrogant Clytemnestra 
 and her paramour JEgisthus, the punishment 
 which awaits them at the hands of Orestes. In 
 the Choephorae, Orestes, immediately after the 
 execution of the deed, finds no longer any re- 
 pose ; the furies of his mother begin to persecute 
 him, and he announces his resolution of taking 
 refuge in Delphi. 
 
 The connection is therefore evident through- 
 out, and we may consider the three pieces, 
 which were connected together even in the re- 
 presentation, as so many acts of one great and 
 entire drama. I mention this as a preliminary 
 justification of Shakspeare and other modern 
 poets, in connecting together in one representa- 
 tion a larger circle of human destinies, as we 
 can produce to the critics who object to this the 
 supposed example of the ancients. 
 
 In Agamemnon it was the intention of JEs- 
 chylus to exhibit to us a sudden fall from the 
 highest pinnacle of prosperity and fame, into 
 the abyss of ruin. The prince, the hero, the 
 general of the whole of the Greeks, in the very 
 moment when he has succeeded in concluding 
 the most glorious action, the destruction of Troy, 
 the fame of which is to be re-echoed from the 
 mouths of the greatest poets of all ages, on en- 
 tering the threshold of his house, after which 
 he has long sighed, is strangled amidst the un 
 suspected preparations for a festival, according 
 to the expression of Homer, "like an ox in the 
 stall," strangled by his faithless wife ; her un- 
 worthy seducer takes possession of his throne, 
 and the children are consigned to banishment, 
 or to hopeless servitude. 
 
 With the view of giving the greater effect to 
 this dreadful alternation of fortune, the poet has 
 previously thrown a splendor over the destruc- 
 tion of Troy. He has done this in the first halt 
 of the piece in a manner peculiar to himself, 
 which, however singular, must be allowed to 
 be impressive in the extreme, and to lay fast 
 hold of the imagination. It is of importance to 
 Clytemnestra not to be surprised by the arrival 
 of her husband. She has therefore arranged 
 an uninterrupted series of signal-fires from Troy 
 to Mycenae to announce to her the great event. 
 The piece commences with the speech of a 
 watchman, who supplicates the gods for a re- 
 lease from his toils, as for ten long years he hail 
 been exposed to the cold dews of night, has 
 witnessed the various changes of the stars, and 
 looked in vain for the expected signal ; at the 
 same time he sighs in secret for the internal 
 ruin of the royal house. At this moment he 
 sees the blaze of the long wished-for fires, and 
 hastens to announce it to his mistress. A chorus 
 of aged persons appears, and in their songs they 
 trace back the Trojan war, throughout all its 
 eventful changes of fortune from its first origin, 
 and recount all the prophecies relating to it, and 
 the sacrifice of Iphigenia, at the expense of 
 which the voyage of the Greeks was purchased. 
 Clytemnestra declares the joyful cause of the 
 sacrifice which she orders, and the herald Tal- 
 thybius immediately makes his appearance, who 
 as an eye-witness announces the drama of the 
 conquered and plundered city consigned as a 
 prey to the flames, the joy of the victors, and the 
 glory of their leader. He displays with reluc- 
 tance, as if unwilling to shade the brilliancy of 
 his picture, the subsequent misfortunes of the 
 Greeks, their dispersion, and the shipwreck 
 suffered by many of them, an immediate symp- 
 tom of the wrath of the gods. We easily see 
 how little the unity of place was observed by 
 the poet, and that he rather avails himself of 
 the prerogative of his mental dominion over the 
 powers of nature, and adds wings to the circling 
 hours in their course towards their dreadful 
 goal. Agamemnon now comes, borne in a sort 
 of triumphal procession ; and seated in another 
 car, laden with booty, follows Cassandra, his 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 435 
 
 prisoner of war and mistress, according to the 
 privilege of the heroes of those days. Clytem- 
 nestra greets him with hypocritical joy and 
 veneration; she orders her slaves to cover the 
 ground with the most costly embroideries of 
 purple, that it might not be touched by the foot 
 
 j of the conqueror. Agamemnon, with sage mo- 
 deration refuses to receive an honor due only to 
 the gods ; at last he yields to their invitations 
 
 ' and enters the house. The chorus then begins 
 to utter dark forebodings. Clytemnestra returns 
 
 I to allure Cassandra to her destruction by the 
 art of soft persuasion. The latter remains dumb 
 and motionless, but the queen is hardly gone, 
 when, seized with a prophetic rage, she breaks 
 
 ; out into the most perplexing lamentations, after- 
 
 ; wards unveils her prophecies more distinctly to 
 the chorus ; she sees in her mind all the enor- 
 mities which have been perpetrated in that 
 house; the repast of Thyestes, which the sun 
 refused to look on ; the shadows of the dilace- 
 
 : rated children appear to her on the battlements 
 of the palace. She also sees the death prepared 
 for her master, and although horror-struck at 
 the . atrocious spectacle, as if seized with an 
 overpowering fury, she rushes into the house to 
 meet her inevitable death ; we then hear behind 
 the scenes the sighs of the dying Agamemnon. 
 The palace opens ; Clytemnestra stands beside 
 the body of her king and husband, an undaunted 
 criminal, who not only confesses the deed, but 
 boasts of it as a just requital for Agamemnon's 
 ambitious sacrifice of Iphigenia. The jealousy 
 towards Cassandra, and the criminal union with 
 the unworthy JEgisthus, which is first disclosed 
 after the completion of the murder towards the 
 conclusion of the piece, are motives which she 
 throws entirely into the back-ground, and hardly 
 touches on ; this was necessary to preserve the 
 dignity of the object. But Clytemnestra would 
 have been improperly portrayed as a weak 
 
 ! woman seduced from her duty ; she appeared 
 with the features of that heroic age so rich in 
 bloody catastrophes, in which all the passions 
 
 | were violent, and in which, both in good and 
 evil, men exceeded the ordinary standard of 
 later and more puny ages. What is so revolt- 
 ing, what affords such a deep proof of the de- 
 generacy of hurftan nature, as the spectacle of 
 horrid crimes conceived in a pusillanimous bo- 
 som? When such crimes are to be portrayed 
 by the poet, he must neither endeavor to em- 
 
 ; bellish them, nor to mitigate our horror and 
 aversion. The consequence which is thus given 
 to the sacrifice of Iphigenia has this particular 
 advantage, that it keeps within some bounds 
 our discontent at the fall of Agamemnon. He 
 cannot be pronounced wholly innocent; an 
 earlier crime recoils on his own head; and be- 
 sides, according to the religious idea of the an- 
 cients, an old curse hung over his house : iEgis- 
 thus, the contriver of his destruction, is a son of 
 that very Thyestes on whom his father Atreus 
 took such an unnatural revenge ; and this fatal 
 
 1 connection is conveyed to our minds in the most 
 
 vivid manner by the chorus, and more espe- 
 cially by the prophecies of Cassandra. 
 
 The scene of the Choephora? is before the 
 royal palace ; the grave of Agamemnon appears 
 on the stage. Orestes is seen with his faithful 
 Pylades, and opens the play (which is unfor- 
 tunately somewhat mutilated at the commence- 
 ment) at the sepulchre with a prayer to Mer- 
 cury, and with an invocation to his father, in 
 which he promises to avenge him, and to whom 
 he consecrates a lock. He sees a female train 
 in mourning weeds issue from the palace, who 
 bring a libation to the grave ; and, as he thinks 
 he recognizes his sister among them, he retires 
 with Pylades that he may first overhear them. 
 The chorus, which consists of captive Trojan 
 virgins, reveals with mournful gestures the oc- 
 casion of its mission, namely, a dreadful dream 
 of Clytemnestra ; it adds obscure forebodings 
 of the impending revenge for the bloody crime, 
 and bewails its lot in being obliged to serve 
 unworthy superiors. Electra asks the chorus if 
 they mean to fulfil the commission of her hostile 
 mother, or if they are to pour out their offering 
 in silence ; and in compliance with their advice, 
 she also offers up a prayer to the subterranean 
 Mercury and the soul of her father, in her own 
 name and that of the absent Orestes, that he 
 may appear and avenge him. In pouring out 
 the offering she joins in the lamentations of the 
 chorus for the departed. She then conjectures, 
 from finding a lock of hair resembling her own 
 in color, and seeing footsteps near the grave, 
 that her brother has been there; and when she 
 is almost frantic with joy at the thought, her 
 brother steps forward and discovers himself. 
 He soon overcomes her doubts by exhibiting to 
 her a tissue woven by herself: they give them- 
 selves np to their joy ; he addresses a prayer 
 to Jupiter, and makes known that Apollo has 
 called on him, under the most dreadful threats 
 of persecution from the furies of his father, to 
 destroy those who were guilty of his death in 
 the same manner in which he was destroyed, 
 namely, by guile and cunning. We have now 
 hymns on the part of the chorus and Electra, 
 which consist of prayers to her father's shade 
 and the subterranean divinities, and a recapitu- 
 lation of the motives for the deed, especially 
 those derived from the death of Agamemnon. 
 Orestes inquires into the vision which induced 
 Clytemnestra to offer the libation, and hears 
 that she dreamt that she gave her breast to a 
 dragon in her son's cradle and suckled it with 
 her blood. He now resolves to become the 
 dragon, and announces more distinctly his in- 
 tention of stealing into the house as a disguised 
 stranger, and attacking both her and iEgisthus 
 by surprise. With this view he withdraws 
 along with Pylades. The subject of the next 
 choral hymn is the boundless audacity of men 
 in general, and especially of women in their 
 illicit passions, confirmed by the most terrible 
 mythical examples, and the avenging justice 
 which always at last overtakes them. Orestes 
 
436 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 returns as a stranger, with Pylades, and desires 
 admission into the palace. Clytemnestra comes 
 out, and when she learns from him the death 
 of Orestes, at which Electra assumes a feigned 
 grief, she invites him to enter and partake of 
 their hospitality. After a short prayer of the 
 chorus, the nurse comes and mourns her foster 
 child ; the chorus inspires her with some hopes 
 of his being still in life, and advises her to con- 
 trive to bring ^Egisthus to Clytemnestra without 
 his body-guard. On the approaching aspect of 
 danger, the chorus proffers prayers to Jupiter 
 and Mercury for the success of the deed. iEgis- 
 thus enters into conversation with the messenger, 
 can hardly allow himself to be persuaded of the 
 truth of the joyful news of the death of Orestes, 
 and hastens into the house for the purpose of 
 ascertaining it, from whence, after a short prayer 
 of the chorus, we hear the cries of the murdered. 
 A servant rushes out and gives the alarm at the 
 door of the female dwelling, to warn Clytem- 
 nestra. She hears it, comes forward, and de- 
 mands an axe to defend herself; but as Orestes 
 rushes instantaneously on her with the bloody 
 sword, her courage fails her, and she holds up 
 to him the maternal breast in the most moving 
 manner. Hesitating in his purpose, he asks the 
 counsel of Pylades, who in a few lines exhorts 
 him by the most cogent reasons to persist ; after 
 an alternation of accusation and defence, he 
 pursues her into the house, that he may sacrifice 
 her beside the body of iEgisthus. The chorus 
 rejoices in a grave hymn at the completion of 
 the retaliation. The great door of the palace 
 opens, and exhibits in the inside the two dead 
 bodies on one bed. Orestes orders the servants 
 to unfold the capacious vestment in which his 
 father was entangled when he was slain, that 
 it may be seen by all the beholders ; the chorus 
 recognize the bloody spots in it, and mourn 
 afresh the murder of Agamemnon. Orestes, 
 while he feels that his mind is becoming con- 
 fused, lays hold of an opportunity of justifying 
 himself; he declares his intention of repairing 
 to Delphi to purify himself from the bloody 
 deed, and flies with terror from the furies of 
 his mother, whom the chorus does not perceive, 
 but conceives to be a mere phantom of his ima- 
 gination, but who nevertheless will no longer 
 allow him any repose. The chorus concludes 
 with a reflection on the threefold scene of mur- 
 der, in the royal palace, since the repast of 
 Thyestes. 
 
 The fable of the Eumenides is, as I have al- 
 ready said, the justification and absolution of 
 Orestes from his bloody crime ; it is a trial, but 
 a trial where the gods are accusers, and de- 
 fenders, and judges ; and the manner in which 
 the subject is treated corresponds with its ma- 
 jesty and importance. The scene itself brought 
 before the eyes of the Greeks the highest objects 
 of veneration which were known to them. 
 
 It opens before the celebrated temple at Del- 
 phi, which occupies the back-ground ; the aged 
 Pythia enters in sacerdotal pomp, addresses her 
 
 prayers to all the gods who presided, or still 
 preside, over the oracle, harangues the assem- 
 bled people (the actual), and goes into the tem- 
 ple to seat herself on a tripod. She returns full 
 of consternation, and describes what she has 
 seen in the temple : a man stained with blood, 
 supplicating protection, surrounded by sleeping 
 women with serpent hair ; she then makes her 
 exit by the same entrance. Apollo now appears | 
 with Orestes in his traveller's garb, and a sword 
 and an olive branch in his hands. He promises 
 him his farther protection, commands him to 
 flee to Athens, and recommends him to the care 
 of the present but invisible Mercury, to whom 
 travellers, and especially those who were under 
 the necessity of concealing their journey, were 
 usually consigned. 
 
 Orestes goes off at the side allotted to stran- 
 gers ; Apollo re-enters the temple, which re- 
 mains open, and the furies are seen in the inte- 
 rior sleeping on their seats. Clytemnestra now 
 ascends by the charonic stairs through the or- 
 chestra, and appears on the stage. We are not 
 to suppose her a haggard skeleton, but a figure 
 with the appearance of life, though paler, still 
 bearing her wounds in her breast, and shrouded 
 in ethereal -colored vestments. She calls re- 
 peatedly to the Furies in the language of vehe- 
 ment reproach, and then disappears, probably 
 through a trap-door. The Furies awake, and 
 when they no longer find Orestes, they dance 
 in wild commotion round the stage during the 
 choral song. Apollo returns from the temple, 
 and expels them from his sanctuary as profana- 
 tory beings. We may here suppose him ap- 
 pearing with the sublime displeasure of the 
 Apollo of the Vatican, with bow and quiver, or 
 clothed in his sacred tunic and chlamys. 
 
 The scene now changes ; but as the Greeks 
 on such occasions were fond of going the shortest 
 way to work, the back-ground remained proba- 
 bly unchanged, and had now to represent the 
 temple of Minerva, on the hill of Mars (Areo- 
 pagus), and the lateral decorations would be 
 converted into Athens and the surrounding 
 landscape. Orestes comes as from another land, 
 and embraces as a suppliant the statue of Pallas 
 placed before the temple. The chorus (who, ' 
 according to the directions of the poet, were 
 clothed in black, with purple girdles, and ser- 
 pents in their hair, — the masks with something 
 of the terrible beauty of Medusa heads, and 
 even the age marked on plastic principles, — ) 
 follow him on foot to this place, but remain 
 throughout the remainder of the piece beneath 
 in the orchestra. The Furies had at first exhi- 
 bited the rage of beasts of prey at the escape 
 of their booty, but they now sing with tranquil 
 dignity their high and terrible office among 
 mortals, claim the head of Orestes as forfeited 
 to them, and consecrate it with mysterious 
 charms to endless pain. Pallas, the warlike 
 virgin, appears in a chariot and four at the in- 
 tercession of the suppliant. She listens with 
 calm dignity to the mutual complaints of Orestes 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 437 
 
 and bis adversaries, and finally undertakes, 
 after due reflection, the office of umpire, at the 
 solicitation of the two parties. The assembled 
 judges take their seats on the steps of the tem- 
 ple, the herald commands silence among the 
 people by sound of trumpets, as at an actunl 
 tribunal. Apollo advances to advocate the 
 cause of the youth, the Furies in vain oppose 
 his interference, and the arguments for and 
 against the deed are gone through in short 
 speeches. The judges throw their calculi into 
 the urn, Pallas throws in a white one ; all are 
 wrought up to the highest pitch of expectation ; 
 Orestes calls out full of anguish to his protector: 
 
 Phoebus Apollo, how is the cause decided T 
 The Furies, on the other hand : 
 
 O black night, mother of all things, dost thou behold this 1 
 
 In the enumeration of the black and white 
 pebbles, they are found equal in number, and 
 the accused is therefore declared by Pallas 
 acquitted of the charge. He breaks out into 
 joyful expressions of thanks, while the Furies 
 on the other hand declaim against the arrogance 
 of the young gods, who take such liberties with 
 the race of Titan. Pallas bears their rage with 
 equanimity, addresses them in the language of 
 kindness, and even of veneration ; and these 
 beings, so untractable in their general disposi- 
 tion, are unable to withstand the power of her 
 mild and convincing eloquence. They promise 
 to bless the land over which she has dominion, 
 while Pallas assigns them a sanctuary in the 
 Attic territory, where they are to be called the 
 Eumenides, that is, the benevolent. The whole 
 ends with a solemn procession round the theatre, 
 with songs of invocation, while bands of child- 
 ren, women, and old men, in purple robes, and 
 with torches in their hands, accompany the 
 Furies in their exit. 
 
 Let us now take a retrospective view of the 
 J whole triology. In Agamemnon we observe in 
 the deed which is planned and executed, the 
 greatest display of arbitrary will and power : 
 the principal character is a great criminal; and 
 the piece ends with the revolting impressions 
 produced by the sight of triumphant tyranny 
 and crime. I have already alluded to the cir- 
 cumstance of a previous destiny. 
 
 The deed in the Choephorce is partly recom- 
 i mended by Apollo as an appointment of fate, and 
 partly originates in natural motives : the desire 
 of avenging the father, and the fraternal love 
 for the oppressed Electra. After the deed the 
 struggle between the most sacred feelings first 
 becomes manifest, and allows no repose to the 
 distracted youth. 
 
 From the very commencement, the Eume- 
 nides stands on the very highest tragical eleva- 
 tion : all the past is concentrated as it were in 
 one focus. Orestes has merely been the passive 
 instrument of fate ; and free agency is trans- 
 ferred to the more elevated sphere of the gods. 
 Pallas is properly the principal character. The 
 opposition between the most sacred relations, 
 
 which frequently appears beyond the power of 
 mortal solution, is represented as a contention 
 in the world of the gods. 
 
 And this leads me to the deep import of the 
 whole. The ancient mythology is in general 
 symbolical, although not allegorical ; for the two 
 are quite distinct. Allegory is the personifica- 
 tion of an idea, a fable solely undertaken with 
 such a view; but that is symbolical which has 
 been created by the imagination for other pur- 
 poses, or which has a reality in itself indepen- 
 dent of the idea, but which at the same time is 
 easily susceptible of a symbolical explanation, 
 and even of itself suggests it. 
 
 The Titans, in general, mean the dark pri- 
 mary powers of nature and of mind ; the later 
 gods, what enters more within the circle of con- 
 sciousness. The former are more nearly related 
 to the original chaos, the latter belong to a world 
 already subjected to order. The Furies are the 
 dreadful powers of conscience, in so far as it 
 rests on obscure feelings and forebodings, and 
 yields to no principles of reason. In vain 
 Orestes dwells on the just motives for the deed— 
 the voice of blood resounds in his ear. Apollo 
 is the god of youth, of the noble ebullition of 
 passionate discontent, of the bold daring action : 
 hence this deed was commanded by him. Pallas 
 is cool wisdom, justice, and moderation, which 
 alone can allay the dispute. 
 
 Even the sleep of the Furies in the temple 
 is symbolical ; for only in the holy place, in the 
 bosom of religion, can the fugitive find rest from 
 the stings of his conscience. Scarcely however 
 has he again ventured into the world, when the 
 image of his murdered mother appears, and 
 again awakens them. The very speech of 
 Clytemnestra is symbolical, as well as the attri- 
 butes of the Furies, the serpents, and the suck- 
 ing of blood. The same may be said of the 
 aversion of Apollo for them ; in fact this sym- 
 bolical application runs throughout the whole.— 
 The equal cogency of the motives for and 
 against the deed is denoted by the divided 
 number of the judges. When at last a sanctuary 
 is allotted to the softened Furies in the Athe- 
 nian territory, this is as much as to say that 
 reason shall not everywhere assert her power 
 against the instinctive impulse, that there are 
 certain boundaries in the human mind which 
 are not to be passed, and which every person 
 possessed of a sentiment of reverence will be- 
 ware of touching, if he wishes lo preserve in- 
 ward peace. 
 
 So much for the deep philosophical import, 
 which we are not to wonder at finding in this 
 poet, who, according to the testimony of Cicero, 
 was a Pythagorean. JEschylus had also his 
 political views. The first of these was the 
 rendering Athens illustrious. Delphi was the 
 religious centre of Greece, and yet how it is 
 thrown into the shade! It can only shelter 
 Orestes from the first onset of persecution, but 
 not afford him a complete freedom ; this is re- 
 served for the land where law and humanity 
 37* 
 
438 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 flourish. His principal object however was the 
 recommending as essential to the welfare of 
 Athens the Areopagus,* an uncorruptible yet 
 mild tribunal, in which the white pebble of 
 Pallas in favor of the accused does honor to the 
 humanity of the Athenians. The poet shows 
 us the origin of an institution fraught with bless- 
 ings to humanity, in an immense circle of 
 crimes. 
 
 But it will be asked, are not aims of this de- 
 scription prejudicial to the pure poetical impres- 
 sion which the whole ought to produce 1 Most 
 undoubtedly, in the manner in which other 
 poets, and especially Euripides, have proceeded 
 in such cases. But in iEschylus the aim is 
 much more subservient to the poetry than the 
 poetry to the aim. He does not lower himself 
 to a circumscribed reality, but elevates it on the 
 contrary to a higher sphere, and connects it with 
 the most sublime conceptions. 
 
 In the Orestiad (for so the three connected 
 pieces are called) we certainly possess one of 
 the most sublime poems that ever was conceived 
 by the human imagination, and probably the 
 most mature and faultless of all the productions 
 of his genius. The period of their composition 
 confirms this supposition ; for he was at least 
 sixty years old when he brought these dramas 
 on the stage, the last which he ever submitted 
 in competition for the prize at Athens. Every 
 one of his pieces however which have come 
 down to us is remarkable either for the display 
 of some peculiar property of the poet, or as in- 
 dicative of the step in the art on which he stood 
 at the time. 
 
 The Chained Prometheus is the representa- 
 tion of constancy under suffering, and that the 
 never-ending suffering of a god. Exiled to a 
 naked rock on the shore of the encircling ocean, 
 this drama still embraces the world, the Olym- 
 pus of the gods, and the earth of mortals, all 
 scarcely yet reposing in a secure state above the 
 dread abyss of the dark Titanian powers. The 
 idea of a self-devoting divinity has been myste- 
 
 * I do not find that this aim has ever been ascribed to 
 ^Eschylus by the express testimony of any ancient writer. 
 It is however, not to be mistaken, especially in the 
 speech of Pallas, beginning with the C80th verse. This 
 coincides with the account that in the very year when 
 the piece was represented, Olymp. Ixxx. 1, a certain 
 Ephialtes excited the people against the Areopagus, 
 which was the best guardian of the old and more austere 
 constitution, and kept democratic extravagance in check. 
 This Ephialtes was murdered one night by an unknown 
 hand. ^Eschylus received the first prize in the theatrical 
 games, but we know at the same time that he left Athens 
 immediately afterwards, and passed his remaining years 
 in Sicily. It is possible that, although the theatrical 
 judges did him the justice to which he was entitled, he 
 might be held in aversion by the multitude notwithstand- 
 ing, and that this without any express sentence of ba- 
 nishment might have induced him to leave his native 
 city. The story of the sight of the terrible chorus of 
 Furies having thrown children into mortal convulsions, 
 and caused women to miscarry, appears to me fabulous. 
 A poet would hardly have been crowned, who had been 
 the occasion of profaning the festival by such occurrences. 
 
 riously inculcated in many religions, as a con- 
 fused foreboding of the true; here however it 
 appears in a most alarming contrast with the 
 consolations of revelation.-' For Prometheus does 
 not suffer on an understanding with the power 
 by whom the world is governed, but he atones 
 for his disobedience, and that disobedience con- 
 sists in nothing but the attempt to give perfection 
 to the human race. It is thus an image of hu- 
 man nature itself: endowed with a miserable 
 foresight and bound down to a narrow exist- 
 ence, without an ally, and with nothing to op- 
 pose to the combined and inexorable powers of 
 nature, but an unshaken will and the conscious- 
 ness of elevated claims. The other poems of 
 the Greek tragedians are single tragedies: but 
 this may be called tragedy itself: its purest 
 spirit is revealed with all the annihilating and 
 overpowering influence of its first unmitigated 
 austerity. 
 
 There is little external action in this piece : 
 Prometheus merely suffers and resolves from 
 the beginning to the end ; and his sufferings 
 and resolutions are always the same. But the 
 poet has contrived in a masterly manner to in- 
 troduce variety and progress into that which in 
 itself was determinately filled, and given us a 
 scale for the measurement of the matchless 
 power of his sublime Titans in the objects by 
 which he has surrounded them. We have the 
 first silence of Prometheus while he is chained 
 down under the harsh inspection of Strength 
 and Force, whose threats serve only to excite a 
 useless compassion in Vulcan, who carries them 
 into execution ; then his solitary complaints, the 
 arrival of the tender ocean nymphs, whose kind 
 but disheartening sympathy induces him to give 
 vent to his feelings, to relate the causes of his 
 fall, and to reveal the future, though with pru- 
 dent reserve he reveals it only in part; the visit 
 of the ancient Oceanus, a kindred god of the 
 race of Titans, who, under the pretext of a 
 zealous attachment to his cause, advises him to 
 submission towards Jupiter, and who is on that 
 account dismissed with proud contempt; the 
 introduction of the raving Io, driven about from 
 place to place, the victim of the same tyranny 
 from which Prometheus himself suffers; his 
 prophecy of the wanderings to which she is still 
 doomed, and the fate which at last awaits her, 
 connected in some degree with his own, as from 
 her blood he is to receive a deliverer after 
 the lapse of many ages ; the appearance of 
 Mercury as a messenger of the tyrant of the 
 world, who with threats commands him to dis- 
 close the secret by which Jupiter may remain 
 on his throne secure from all the malice of fate; 
 and lastly, the yawning of the earth before Pro- 
 metheus has well declared his refusal, amidst 
 thunder and lightning, storms and earthquake, 
 by which he himself and the rock to which he 
 is chained are swallowed up in the abyss of 
 the nether world. The triumph of subjection 
 was never celebrated in more glorious strains, 
 and we have difficulty in conceiving how the 
 
A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 439 
 
 poet in the Freed Prometheus could sustain 
 himself on such an elevation. 
 
 In the dramas of iEschylus we have one of 
 many examples that, in every art as well as 
 nature, gigantic productions precede those that 
 evince regularity of proportion, which again in 
 their turn decline gradually into littleness and 
 insignificance, and that poetry in its original 
 appearance approaches always the nearest to 
 the reverence of religion, whatever form the 
 latter may assume among the various races of 
 men. 
 
 A saying of the poet, which has been pre- 
 served, affords us a proof that he endeavored 
 to maintain himself on this elevation, and pur- 
 posely avoided all artificial cultivation, which 
 might have the effect of lowering the divinity 
 of his character. His brethren stimulated him 
 to write a new Paean. He answered : " The 
 old one of Tynachus is the best, and the same 
 thing would happen here that was observable 
 in a comparison between the ancient and mo- 
 dern statues ; for the former with all their sim- 
 plicity were considered as divine, and the mo- 
 dern, with all the care bestowed on their 
 execution, were indeed admired, but bore much 
 less the impression of a divinity." He carries 
 his boldness in religious matters, as in every- 
 thing else, to the utmost limits; and he was 
 even accused of having in one of his pieces 
 disclosed the Eleusinian mysteries, and only 
 absolved on the intercession of his brother 
 Amynias, who displayed the wounds which he 
 had received in the battle of Salamis. He per- 
 haps believed that in the poetic communication 
 was contained the initiation into the mysteries, 
 and that nothing was in this way revealed to 
 any one who was not worthy of it. 
 
 The tragic style of JEschylus is still imper- 
 fect, and not unfrequently runs into the unmixed 
 epic and lyric. It is often disjointed, irregular, 
 and hard. To compose more regular and skil- 
 ful tragedies than those of iEschylus was by no 
 means difficult ; but in the more than mortal 
 grandeur which he displayed, it was impossible 
 that he should ever be surpassed ; and even 
 Sophocles, his younger and more fortunate rival, 
 did not in this respect equal him. The latter, 
 in speaking of iEschylus, gave a proof that he 
 was himself a reflecting artist : " ^Eschylus does 
 what is right without knowing it." These few 
 simple words exhaust the whole of what we 
 understand by powerful genius unconscious of 
 its powers. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 The birth-year of Sophocles was nearly at an 
 equal distance between that of his predecessor 
 and of Euripides, so that he was about half a 
 life-time from each : in this all the accounts are 
 found to coincide. He was however during 
 the greater part of his life the contemporary of 
 both. He frequently contended for the tragic 
 garland with JEschylus, and he outlived Euri- 
 pides, who himself attained a good age. If I 
 
 may speak in the spirit of the ancient religion, 
 it seems that a beneficent Providence wished 
 to evince to the human race, in the instance of 
 this individual, the dignity and felicity of their 
 lot, as he was endowed with every divine gift, 
 with all that can adorn and elevate the mind 
 and heart, and crowned with every blessing 
 imaginable in this life. Descended from rich 
 and honored parents, and born a free citizen of 
 the most cultivated state of Greece, such were 
 the advantages with which he entered the 
 world. Beauty of body and of soul, and the 
 uninterrupted enjoyment of both in the utmost 
 perfection, till the extreme limits of human ex- 
 istence ; an education the most extensive, yet 
 select, in gymnastics and music, the former so 
 important in the development of the bodily 
 powers, and the latter in the communication of 
 harmony ; the sweet blossom of youth, and the 
 ripe fruit of age; the possession and continued 
 enjoyment of poetry and art, and the exercise 
 of serene wisdom ; love and respect among his 
 fellow citizens, fame in other countries, and the 
 countenance and favor of the gods ; these are 
 the general features of the life of this pious and 
 virtuous poet. It would seem as if the gods, in 
 return for his dedicating himself at an early age 
 to Bacchus, as the giver of all joy, and the author 
 of the cultivation of the human race, by the re- 
 presentatiou of tragical dramas for his festivals, 
 had wished to confer immortality on him, so 
 long did they delay the hour of his death ; but 
 as this was impossible, they extinguished his 
 life as gently as possible, that he might imper- 
 ceptibly change one immortality for another, 
 the long duration of his earthly existence for an 
 imperishable name. When a youth of sixteen, 
 he was selected, on account of his beauty, to 
 play on the lyre, and to dance in the Greek 
 manner before the chorus of youths who, after 
 the battle of Salamis (in which ^Eschylus fought, 
 and which he has so nobly described), executed 
 the Paean round the trophy erected on that oc- 
 casion ; so that the fairest development of his 
 youthful beauty coincided with the moment 
 when the Athenian people had attained the 
 epoch of their highest glory. He held the rank 
 of general along with Pericles and Thucydides, 
 and, when arrived at a more advanced age, the 
 priesthood of a native hero. In his twenty-fifth 
 year he began to represent tragedies ; twenty 
 times he was victorious ; he often gained the se- 
 cond place, and he never was ranked in the third. 
 In this career he proceeded with increasing suc- 
 cess till he reached his ninetieth year ; and some 
 of his greatest works were even the fruit of a still 
 later period. There is a story of an accusation 
 brought against him by one or more of his elder 
 sons, of having become childish from age, be- 
 cause he was too fond of a grandchild by a 
 second wife, and of being no longer in a condi- 
 tion to manage his own affairs. In his defence 
 he merely read to his judges his CEdipus in Co- 
 lonos, which he had then composed in honor of 
 Colonos, his birth-place; and the astonished 
 
440 
 
 A. W. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 judges, without farther consultation, conducted 
 him in triumph to his house. If it be true that 
 the second (Edipus was written at so late an 
 age, as from its mature serenity and total free- 
 dom from the impetuosity and violence of youth 
 we have good reason to conclude that it actually 
 was, it affords us at once a pleasing picture of 
 the delight and reverence which attended his 
 concluding years. Although the various ac- 
 counts of his death appear fabulous, they all 
 coincide in this, that he departed without a 
 struggle, while employed in his art, or some- 
 thing connected with it, and that like an old 
 swan of Apollo, he breathed out his life in song. 
 I consider also the story of the Lacedemonian 
 general who had fortified the burying-ground 
 of his fathers, and who, twice exhorted by Bac- 
 chus in a vision to allow Sophocles to be there 
 interred, despatched a herald to the Athenians 
 on the subject, with a number of other circum- 
 stances, as the strongest possible proof of the 
 established reverence in which his name was 
 held. In calling him virtuous and pious, I spoke 
 in the true sense of the words ; for although his 
 works breathe the real character of ancient 
 grandeur, sweetness and simplicity, of all the 
 Grecian poets he is also the individual whose 
 feelings bear the strongest affinity to the spirit 
 of our religion. 
 
 One gift alone was refused to him by nature: 
 a voice attuned to song. He could only call 
 forth and direct the harmonious effusions of 
 other voices; he was therefore compelled to 
 depart from the established practice of the poet 
 acting a part in his own pieces, and only once 
 (a very characteristic trait) made his appear- 
 ance in the character of the blind singer Tha- 
 myris playing on the cithera. 
 
 As iEschylus, who raised tragic poetry from 
 its rude beginnings to the dignity of the cothur- 
 nus, was his predecessor ; the historical relations 
 in which he stood to Sophocles enabled the latter 
 to avail himself of the inventions of his original 
 master, so that jEschylus appears as the rough 
 designer, and Sophocles as the finished successor. 
 The more artful construction of the dramas of 
 the latter is easily perceived : the limitation of 
 the chorus with respect to the dialogue, the 
 polish of the rhythmus, and the pure Attic dic- 
 tion, the introduction of a greater number of 
 characters, the increase of contrivance in the 
 fable, the multiplication of incidents, a greater 
 
 degree of development, the more tranquil con- 
 tinuance of all the moments of the action, and 
 the greater degree of theatrical effect given to 
 incidents of a decisive nature, the more perfect 
 rounding of the whole, even considered in a 
 mere external point of view. But he excelled 
 iEschylus in somewhat still more essential, and 
 proved himself deserving of the good fortune 
 of having such a preceptor, and of entering into 
 competition with him in the same subjects: I 
 mean the harmonious perfection of his mind, 
 by which he fulfilled from inclination every 
 duty prescribed by the laws of beauty, and of 
 which the impulse was in him accompanied 
 by the most clear consciousness. It was im- 
 possible to exceed iEschylus in boldness of 
 conception ; I am inclined however to believe 
 that Sophocles appears only less bold from his 
 wisdom and moderation, as he always goes to 
 work with the greatest energy, and perhaps 
 with even a more determined severity, like a 
 man who knows the extent of his powers, and 
 is determined, when he does not exceed them, 
 to stand up with the greater confidence for his 
 rights. As iEschylus delights in transporting 
 us to the convulsions of the primary world of 
 the Titans, Sophocles on the other hand never 
 avails himself of the gods but when their ap- 
 pearance is necessary; he formed men, accord- 
 ing to the general confession of antiquity, better, 
 that is, not more moral, or exempt from error, 
 but more beautiful and noble than they appeared 
 in real life ; and while he took everything in 
 the most human signification, he was at the 
 same time aware of their superior destination. 
 According to all appearance he was also more 
 moderate than JEschylus in his scenic orna- 
 ments ; he displayed perhaps more taste and 
 selection in his objects, but did not attempt the | 
 same colossal pomp. 
 
 To characterize the native sweetness and 
 affection so eminent in this poet, the ancients 
 gave him the appellation of the Attic bee. 
 Whoever is thoroughly imbued with the feeling 
 of this property may flatter himself that a sense 
 for ancient art has arisen within him ; for the 
 affected sentimentality of the present day, far 
 from coinciding with him in this opinion, would 
 both in the representation of bodily sufferings, 
 and in the language and economy of the trage- 
 dies of Sophocles, find much of an unsupportable 
 austerity. 
 
FRIEDRICH DANIEL ERNST SCHLEIERMACHER. 
 
 Born 1769. Died 1834. 
 
 The respected divine who bore this name, 
 distinguished alike by his intellectual pre-emi- 
 nence and his beautiful piety, somewhat resem- 
 bles Fenelon in his relation to his time, and the 
 kind of influence which went forth from him. 
 With nothing of the mysticism of the French 
 saint, he possessed the same practical depth 
 of spirit and the same devout earnestness; 
 strongly contrasted in this respect with the ra- 
 tionalistic theologians of his day. As a German 
 and a theologian, he was learned, of course; 
 but he was far more than that ; he was also a 
 profound philosopher, and, in philosophy, a Pla- 
 tonist. No modern has entered more fully into 
 the meaning and spirit of the immortaj Greek, 
 whose works he translated in part. The great 
 aim of his life was to reconcile philosophy with 
 Christianity, and to revive the religious senti- 
 ment in an age when the atheistic philosophy 
 of France had brought a temporary blight upon 
 all the nobler products of the soul. The "Dis- 
 courses on Religion," from which the following 
 extract is taken, is a contribution to this end. 
 His last and his most important work is the 
 Christliche Glaubenslehre (Doctrine of Chris- 
 tianity). 
 
 Schleiermacher was born at Breslau, and 
 educated as a Moravian at the Seminary of the 
 United Brethren at Niesky. At the age of 
 twenty he left the society of the Moravians, 
 and studied theology at Halle. Having been 
 ordained as a preacher, he was minister for six 
 years at the hospital, Charite, in Berlin. During 
 this time, he published his Monologues and the 
 Discourses on Religion, and translated Blair's 
 and Fawcett's sermons. In 1802, he was ap- 
 
 pointed professor "extraordinary" of theology at 
 Halle, and preached to the University. During 
 the troublous period of the French invasion in 
 1807, when Halle was taken from the Prus- 
 sians, he returned to Berlin, and lectured and 
 preached with patriotic boldness on the state 
 of the times, unawed by Davoust, who then 
 occupied the city. In 1809, he was appointed 
 preacher to the Trinity church in Berlin, and 
 was married the same year. In 1810, at the 
 establishment of the University at Berlin, he 
 was made Professor of theology in that institu- 
 tion. This post he retained until his death. 
 In 1833, he visited England, and opened the 
 German church at the Savoy. 
 
 In person, Schleiermacher was diminutive 
 and deformed. As a preacher, he was un- 
 boundedly popular, although his discourses had 
 none of those qualities which stir the blood, but 
 consisted, for the most part, in plain practical 
 appeals to the understanding and the conscience. 
 He preached extempore, and, it is said, with no 
 other preparation than that which he allowed 
 himself on Sunday morning, — an hour before 
 service. His conduct during his last hours, as 
 related by his wife, was characteristic, and 
 illustrated the Christian faith and piety which 
 distinguished him through life. His last act, a 
 few minutes before death, was to administer 
 the service of the Eucharist to himself and his 
 family. "In these words of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures," he said, "I place my trust; they are 
 the corner-stone of my faith :" then turning to 
 his wife and children, " In this love and com- 
 munion of souls, then, we are and shall be one 
 and undivided." He died February 12, 1834. 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 ON THE SOCIAL ELEMENT IN RELIGION ; OR ON THE CHURCH AND 
 PRIESTHOOD. 
 Translated by Mr. George Ripley. 
 
 Those among you who are accustomed to re- 
 gard religion as a disease of the human mind, 
 cherish also the habitual conviction, that it is an 
 evil more easily borne, if it cannot be restrained, 
 3F 
 
 so long as it is only insulated individuals here 
 and there who are infected with it; but that 
 the common danger is raised to the highest de- 
 gree, and everything put at stake, as soon as a 
 too close connexion is permitted between many 
 patients of this character. In the former case 
 it is possible by a judicious treatment, as it M ere 
 by an antiphlogistic regimen, and by a healthy, 
 
 (441) 
 
44.2 
 
 SCHLEIERMACHER. 
 
 spiritual atmosphere, to ward off the violence of 
 the paroxysms ; and if not to entirely conquer 
 the exciting cause of the disease, to attenuate it 
 to such a degree that it shall be almost inno- 
 cuous. But in the latter case, we must despair 
 of every other means of cure, except that which 
 may proceed from some internal beneficent ope- 
 ration of Nature. For the evil is attended with 
 more alarming symptoms, and is more fatal in 
 its effects, when the too great proximity of other 
 infected persons feeds and aggravates it in every 
 individual; the whole mass of vital air is then 
 quickly poisoned by a few ; the most vigorous 
 frames are smitten with the contagion ; all the 
 channels in which the functions of life should 
 go on are destroyed; all the juices of the system 
 are decomposed ; and, seized with a similar 
 feverous delirium, the sound spiritual life and 
 productions of whole ages and nations are in- 
 volved in irremediable ruin. Hence your anti- 
 pathy to the church, to every institution which 
 is intended for the communication of religion, 
 is always more prominent than that which you 
 feel to religion itself: hence, also, priests, as the 
 pillars and the most efficient members of such 
 institutions, are, of all men, the objects of your 
 greatest abomination. 
 
 Even those among you who hold a little more 
 indulgent opinion with regard to religion, and 
 deem it rather a singularity than a disorder of 
 the mind, an insignificant rather than a danger- 
 ous phenomenon, cherish quite as unfavourable 
 impressions of all social organization for its pro- 
 motion. A slavish immolation of all that is free 
 and peculiar, a system of lifeless mechanism 
 and barren ceremonies, — these, they imagine, 
 are the inseparable consequences of every such 
 institution ; and these, the ingenious and elabo- 
 rate work of men, who, with almost incredible 
 success, have made a great merit of things which 
 are either nothing in themselves, or which any 
 other person was quite as capable of accom- 
 plishing as they. I should pour out my heart 
 but very imperfectly before you, on a subject to 
 which I attach the utmost importance, if I did 
 not undertake to give you the correct point of 
 view with regard to it. I need not here repeat 
 how many of the perverted endeavors and me- 
 lancholy fortunes of humanity you charge upon 
 religious associations ; this is clear as light, in a 
 thousand indications of your predominant indi- 
 viduals; nor will I stop to refute these accusa- 
 tions, one by one, in order to fix the evil upon 
 other causes. Let us rather submit the whole 
 conception of the church to a new examination, 
 and from its central point, throughout its whole 
 extent, erect it again upon a new basis, without 
 regard to what it has actually been hitherto, or 
 to what experience may suggest concerning it. 
 
 If religion exists at all, it must needs possess 
 a social character ; this is founded not only in 
 the nature of man, but still more in the nature 
 of religion. You will acknowledge that it indi- 
 cates a state of disease, a signal perversion of 
 
 nature, when an individual wishes to shut up 
 within himself anything which he has produced 
 and elaborated by his own efforts. It is the dis- 
 position of man to reveal and to communicate 
 whatever is in him, in the indispensable rela- 
 tions and mutual dependence not only of practical 
 life, but also of his spiritual being, by which he 
 is connected with all others of his race ; and the 
 more powerfully he is wrought upon by any- 
 thing, the more deeply it penetrates his inward 
 nature, so much the stronger is this social im- 
 pulse, even if we regard it only from the point 
 of view of the universal endeavor to behold 
 the emotions which we feel ourselves, as they 
 are exhibited by others, so that we may obtain 
 a proof from their example that our own expe- 
 rience is not beyond the sphere of humanity. 
 
 You perceive that I am not speaking here of 
 the endeavor to make others similar to ourselves, 
 nor of the conviction that what is exhibited in 
 one is essential to all ; it is merely my aim to 
 ascertain the true relation between our indivi- 
 dual life and the common nature of man, and 
 clearly to set it forth. But the peculiar object 
 of this desire for communication is unquestion- 
 ably that in which man feels that he is origin- 
 ally passive, namely, his perceptions and emo- 
 tions. He is here impelled by the eager wish 
 to know whether the power which has produced 
 them in him be not something foreign and un- 
 worthy. Hence we see man employed, from his 
 very childhood, with making revelations, which, 
 for the most part, are of this character ; the con- 
 ceptions of his understanding, concerning whose 
 origin there can be no doubt, he allows to rest 
 in his own mind, and still more easily he deter- 
 mines to refrain from the expression of his judg- 
 ments; but whatever acts upon his senses, what- 
 ever awakens his feelings, of that he desires to I 
 obtain witnesses, with regard to that he longs 
 for those who will sympathise with him. How 
 should he keep to himself those very operations 
 of the world upon his soul which are the most 
 universal and comprehensive, which appear to 
 him as of the most stupendous and resistless 
 magnitude'? How should he be willing to lock 
 up within his own bosom those very emotions 
 which impel him with the greatest power be- 
 yond himself, and in the indulgence of which, 
 he becomes conscious that he can never under- 
 stand his own nature from himself alone? It 
 will rather be his first endeavor, whenever a 
 religious view gains clearness in his eye, or a 
 pious feeling penetrates his soul, to direct the 
 attention of others to the same object, and, as far 
 as possible, to communicate to their hearts the 
 elevated impulses of his own. 
 
 If, then, the religious man is urged by his na- 
 ture to speak, it is the same nature which se- 
 cures to him the certainty of hearers. There is 
 no element of his being with which, at the same 
 time, there is implanted in man such a lively 
 feeling of his total inability to exhaust it by him« 
 self alone, as with that of religion. A sense of 
 religion has no sooner dawned upon him, than 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER. 443 
 
 he feels the infinity of its nature and the limita- 
 tion of his own ; he is conscious of embracing 
 but a small portion of it; and that which he 
 cannot immediately reach, he wishes to perceive, 
 as far as he can, from the representations of 
 others who have experienced it themselves, and 
 to enjoy it with them. Hence, he is anxious to 
 observe every manifestation of it; and, seeking 
 to supply his own deficiencies, he watches for 
 every tone which he recognizes as proceeding 
 from it. In this manner, mutual communica- 
 tions are instituted; in this manner, every one 
 feels equally the need both of speaking and 
 hearing. 
 
 But the imparting of religion is not to be 
 sought in books, like that of intellectual con- 
 ceptions and scientific knowledge. The pure 
 impression of the original product is too far de- 
 stroyed in this medium, which, in the same way 
 that dark-colored objects absorb a great propor- 
 tion of the rays of light, swallows up everything 
 belonging to the pious emotions of the hearty 
 which cannot be embraced in the insufficient 
 symbols from which it is intended again to pro- 
 ceed. Nay, in the written communications of 
 religious feeling, everything needs a double 
 and triple representation; for that which origin- 
 ally represented, must be represented in its 
 turn ; and yet the effect on the whole man, in 
 its complete unity, can only be imperfectly set 
 forth by continued and varied reflections. It is 
 only when religion is driven out from the society 
 of the living, that -it must conceal its manifold 
 life under the dead letter. 
 
 Neither can this intercourse of heart with 
 heart, on the deepest feelings of humanity, be 
 carried on in common conversation. Many per- 
 sons, who are filled with zeal for the interests 
 of religion, have brought it as a reproach against 
 the manners of our age, that while all other im- 
 portant subjects are so freely discussed in the 
 intercourse of society, so little should be said 
 concerning God and divine things. I would 
 defend ourselves against this charge by main- 
 taining that this circumstance, at least, does not 
 indicate contempt or indifference towards reli- 
 gion, but a happy and very correct instinct. In 
 the presence of joy and merriment, where ear- 
 nestness itself must yield to raillery and wit, 
 there can be no place for that which should be 
 always surrounded with holy veneration and 
 awe. Religious views, pious emotions, and se- 
 rious considerations with regard to them, — these 
 we cannot throw out to each other in such small 
 crumbs as the topics of a light conversation ; 
 and when the discourse turns upon sacred sub- 
 jects, it would rather be a crime than a virtue 
 to have an answer ready for every question, 
 and a rejoinder for every remark. Hence, the 
 religious sentiment retires from such circles as 
 are too wide for it, to the more confidential in- 
 tercourse of friendship, and to the mutual com- 
 munications of love, where the eye and the 
 countenance are more expressive than words, 
 and where even a holy silence is understood. 
 
 But it is impossible for divine things to be 
 treated in the usual manner of society, where 
 the conversation consists in striking flashes of 
 thought, gaily and rapidly alternating with each 
 other ; a more elevated style is demanded for 
 the communication of religion, and a different 
 kind of society, which is devoted to this pur- 
 pose, must hence be formed. It is becoming 
 indeed to apply the whole richness and magni- 
 ficence of human discourse to the loftiest subject 
 which language can reach, — not as if there were 
 any adornment, with which religion could not 
 dispense, but because it would show a frivolous 
 and unholy disposition in its heralds, if they did 
 not bring together the most copious resources 
 within their power, and consecrate them all to 
 religion: so that they might thus perhaps ex- 
 hibit it in its appropriate greatness and dignity. 
 Hence, it is impossible without the aid of po- 
 etry, to give utterance to the religious sentiment, 
 in any other than an oratorical manner, with 
 all the skill and energy of language, and freely 
 using, in addition, the service of all the arts, 
 which can contribute to flowing and impas- 
 sioned discourse. He, therefore, whose heart 
 is overflowing with religion, can open his mouth 
 only before an auditory, where that which i9 
 presented, with such a wealth of preparation, 
 can produce the most extended and manifold 
 effects. 
 
 Would that I could present before you an 
 image of the rich and luxurious life in this city 
 of God, when its inhabitants come together each 
 in the fulness of his own inspiration, which is 
 ready to stream forth without constraint, but at 
 the same time, each filled with a holy desire to 
 receive and to appropriate to himself everything 
 which others wish to bring before him. If one 
 comes forward before the rest, it is not because 
 he is entitled to this distinction, in virtue of an 
 office or of a previous agreement, nor because 
 pride and conceitedness have given him pre- 
 sumption : it is rather a free impulse of the 
 spirit, a sense of the most heart- felt unity of each 
 with all, a consciousness of entire equality, a 
 mutual renunciation of all First and Last, of 
 all the arrangements of earthly order. He 
 comes forward, in order to communicate to 
 others, as an object of sympathizing contempla- 
 tion, the deepest feelings of his soul while under 
 the influence of God ; to introduce them within 
 the sphere of religion, in which he breathes his 
 native air ; and to infect them with the conta- 
 gion of his own holy emotions. He speaks forth 
 the Divine which stirs his bosom, and in holy 
 silence the assembly follows the inspiration of 
 his words. Whether he tmveils a secret mys- 
 tery, or with prophetic confidence connects the 
 future with the present; whether he strengthens 
 old impressions by new examples, or is led by 
 the lofty visions of his burning imagination into 
 other regions of the world and into another 
 order of things ; the practised sense of his au- 
 dience everywhere accompanies his own ; and 
 when he returns into himself from his wander- 
 
444 
 
 SCHLEIERMACHER. 
 
 ings through the kingdom of God, his own heart 
 and that of each of his hearers are the common 
 dwelling-place of the same emotion. 
 
 If now the agreement of his sentiments with 
 that which they feel be announced to him, 
 whether loudly or low, then are holy mysteries 
 — not merely significant emblems, but, justly re- 
 garded, natural indications of a peculiar con- 
 sciousness, and peculiar feelings — invented and 
 celebrated, a higher choir, as it were, which in 
 its own lofty language answers to the appealing 
 voice. But not only, as it were ; for as such a 
 discourse is music without tune or measure, so 
 there is also a music among the Holy, which 
 may be called discourse without words, the 
 most distinct and expressive utterance of the 
 inward man. The Muse of Harmony, whose 
 intimate relation with religion, although it has 
 been for a long time spoken of and described, 
 is yet recognized only by few, has always pre- 
 sented upon her altars the most perfect and 
 magnificent productions of her selectest scholars, 
 in honor of religion. It is in sacred hymns and 
 choirs, with which the words of the poet are 
 connected only by slight and airy bands, that 
 those feelings are breathed forth which precise 
 language is unable to contain ; and thus the 
 tones of thought and emotion alternate with each 
 other in mutual support, until all is satisfied and 
 filled with the Holy and the Infinite. Of this 
 character is the influence of religious men upon 
 one another ; such is their natural and eternal 
 union. Do not take it ill of them, that this hea- 
 venly bond, — the most consummate product of 
 the social nature of man, but to which it does 
 not attain until it becomes conscious of its own 
 high and peculiar significance, — that this should 
 be deemed of more value in their sight, than 
 the political union, which you esteem so far 
 above everything else, but which will nowhere 
 ripen to manly beauty, and which compared 
 with the former, appears far more constrained 
 than free, far more transitory than eternal. 
 
 But where now, in the description which I 
 have given of the community of the pious, is 
 that distinction between priests and laymen, 
 which you are accustomed to designate as the 
 source of so many evils'? A false appearance 
 has deceived you. This is not a distinction 
 between persons, but only one of condition and 
 employment. Every man is a priest, so far as 
 he draws around him others, in the sphere which 
 he has appropriated to himself, and in which 
 he professes to be a master. Every one is a 
 layman, so far as he is guided by the counsel 
 and experience of another, within the sphere 
 of religion, where he is comparatively a stran- 
 ger. There is not here the tyrannic aristocracy, 
 which you describe with such hatred ; but this 
 society is a priestly people, a perfect repub- 
 lic, where every one is alternately ruler and 
 citizen, where everyone follows the same power 
 in another which he feels also in himself, and 
 with which he too governs others. 
 
 How then could the spirit of discord and di- 
 
 vision, — which you regard as the inevitable 
 consequence of all religious combinations, — find 
 a congenial home within this sphere? I see 
 nothing but that All is One, and that all the dif- 
 ferences which actually exist in religion, by 
 means of this very union of the pious, are gently 
 blended with each other. I have directed your 
 attention to the different degrees of religious- 
 ness, I have pointed out to you the different 
 modes of insight, and the different directions in 
 which the soul seeks for itself the supreme ob- 
 ject of its pursuit. Do you imagine that this 
 must needs give birth to sects, and thus destroy 
 all free and reciprocal intercourse in religion 1 ? 
 It is true indeed in contemplation, that every- 
 thing which is separated into various parts, and 
 embraced in different divisions, must be opposed 
 and contradictory to itself; but consider, I pray 
 you, how Life is manifested in a great variety 
 of forms, how the most hostile elements seek 
 out each other here, and for this very reason, 
 what we separate in contemplation, all flows 
 together in life. They, to be sure, who on one 
 of these points bear the greatest resemblance 
 to each other, will present the strongest mutual 
 attraction : but they cannot, on that account, 
 compose an independent whole ; for the degrees 
 of this affinity imperceptibly diminish and in- 
 crease, and in the midst of so many transitions 
 there is no absolute repulsion, no total separa- 
 tion, even between the most discordant ele- 
 ments. Take which you will of these masses, 
 which have assumed an organic form accord- 
 ing to their own inherent energy; if you do 
 not forcibly divide them by a mechanical ope- 
 ration, no one will exhibit an absolutely dis- 
 tinct and homogeneous character, but the ex- 
 treme points of each will be connected at the 
 same time with those which display different 
 properties and properly belong to another 
 mass. 
 
 If the pious individuals, who stand on the 
 same degree of a lower order, formed a closer 
 union with each other, there are yet some al- 
 ways included in the combination who have a 
 presentiment of higher things. These are better 
 understood by all who belong to a higher social 
 union, than they understand themselves ; and 
 there is a point of sympathy between the two 
 which is concealed only from the latter. If 
 those combine together, in whom one of the 
 modes of insight, which I have described, is 
 predominant, there will always be some among 
 them who understand at least both of the modes, 
 and since they in some degree belong to both, 
 they form a connecting link between two spheres 
 which would otherwise be separated. Thus 
 the individual who is more inclined to cherish 
 a religious connection between himself and na- 
 ture, is yet by no means opposed, in the essen- 
 tials of religion, to him who prefers to trace the 
 footsteps of the Godhead in history: and there 
 will never be wanting those who can pursue 
 both paths with equal facility. Thus in what- 
 ever manner you divide the vast province of 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER. 445 
 
 religion, you will always come back to the same 
 point. 
 
 If unbounded universality of insight be the 
 first and original condition of religion, and hence 
 also, most naturally, its fairest and ripest fruit, 
 you perceive that it cannot be otherwise than 
 that, in proportion as an individual advances in 
 religion, and the character of his piety becomes 
 more pure, the whole religious world will more 
 and more appear to him as an indivisible whole. 
 The spirit of separation, in proportion as it in- 
 sists upon a rigid division, is a proof of imper- 
 fection : the highest and most cultivated minds 
 always perceive a universal connection, and for 
 the very reason that they perceive it, they also 
 establish it. Since every one comes in contact 
 only with his immediate neighbor, but, at the 
 same time, has an immediate neighbor on all 
 sides and in every direction, he is, in fact, in- 
 dissolubly linked in with the whole. Mystics 
 and Naturalists in religion, they to whom the 
 Godhead is a personal Being, and they to whom 
 it is not, they who have arrived at a systematic 
 view of the Universe, and they who behold it 
 only in its elements or only in obscure chaos, — 
 all, notwithstanding, should be only one : one 
 band surrounds them ail ; and they can be to- 
 tally separated only by a violent and arbitrary 
 force; every specific combination is nothing 
 but an integral part of the whole, its peculiar 
 characteristics are almost evanescent, and are 
 gradually lost in outlines that become more and 
 more indistinct ; and at least those who feel 
 themselves thus united will always be the su- 
 perior portion. 
 
 Whence, then, but through a total misunder- 
 standing, have arisen that wild and disgraceful 
 zeal for proselytism to a separate and peculiar 
 form of religion, and that horrible expression 
 —"no salvation except with us." As I have 
 described to you the society of the pious, and 
 as it must needs be according to its intrinsic 
 nature, it aims merely at reciprocal communi- 
 cation, and subsists only between those who are 
 already in possession of religion, of whatever 
 character it may be ; how then can it be its 
 vocation to change the sentiments of those who 
 now acknowledge a definite system, or to intro- 
 duce and consecrate those who are totally desti- 
 tute of one? The religion of this society, as 
 such, consists only in the religion of all the pious 
 taken together ; as each one beholds it in the 
 rest, — it is Infinite, no single individual can 
 embrace it entirely, since so far as it is indivi- 
 dual, it ceases to be one, and hence no man can 
 attain such elevation and completeness, as to 
 raise himself to its level. If any one then, has 
 chosen a part in it for himself, whatever it may 
 be, were it not an absurd procedure for the so- 
 ciety to wish to deprive him of that which is 
 adapted to his nature, — since it ought to com- 
 prise this also within its limits, and hence some 
 one must needs possess it? 
 
 And to what end should it desire to cultivate 
 those who are yet strangers to religion? Its 
 
 own especial characteristic — the Infinite Whole 
 — of course it cannot impart to them ; and the 
 communication of any specific element cannot 
 be accomplished by the Whole, but only by in- 
 dividuals. But perhaps then, the Universal, the 
 Indeterminate, which might be presented, when 
 we seek that which is common to all the mem- 
 bers ? But you are aware, that as a general 
 rule, nothing can be given or communicated, in 
 the form of the Universal and Indeterminate: 
 specific object and precise form are requisite 
 for this purpose ; otherwise, in fact, that which 
 is presented would not be a reality but a nullity. 
 Such a society, accordingly, can never find a 
 measure or rule for this undertaking. 
 
 And how could it so far abandon its sphere 
 as to engage in this enterprise? The want on 
 which it is founded, the essential principle of 
 religious society, points to no such purpose. 
 Individuals unite with each other and compose 
 a Whole : the Whole, accordingly, rests in itself, 
 and needs not to strive for anything beyond. 
 Hence, whatever is accomplished in this way 
 for religion is the private affair of the indivi- 
 dual for himself, and if I may say so, more in 
 his relations out of the church than in it. Com- 
 pelled to withdraw into the inferior scenes of 
 life, from the circle of religious communion, 
 where the mutual existence and life in God 
 afford hiin the most elevated enjoyment, and 
 where his spirit, penetrated with holy feelings, 
 soars to the highest summit of consciousness, it 
 is his consolation that he can connect everything 
 with which he must there be employed, with 
 that which always retains the deepest signifi- 
 cance in his heart. As he descends from those 
 lofty regions, among those whose whole endea- 
 vor and pursuit are limited to earth, he easily 
 believes — and you must pardon him the feeling 
 — that he has passed from intercourse with 
 Gods and Muses, to a race of coarse barbarians. 
 He feels like a steward of religion among the 
 unbelieving, a herald of piety among the sa- 
 vages ; he hopes, like an Orpheus or an Am- 
 phion, to charm the multitude with his heavenly 
 tones ; he presents himself among them, like a 
 priestly form, clearly and brightly exhibiting the 
 lofty, spiritual sense, which fills his soul, in all 
 his actions and in the whole compass of his 
 Being. If the contemplation of the Holy and 
 the Godlike awakens a kindred emotion in 
 them, how joyfully does he cherish the first 
 presages of religion in a new heart, as a delight- 
 ful pledge of its growth even in a harsh and 
 foreign clime! With what triumph does he 
 bear the neophyte with him to the exalted as- 
 sembly ! This activity for the promotion of re- 
 ligion is only the pious yearning of the stranger 
 after his home, the endeavor to carry his father- 
 land with him in all his wanderings, and every- 
 where to find again its laws and customs as the 
 highest and most beautiful elements of his life ; 
 but the father-land itself, happy in its own re- 
 sources, perfectly sufficient for its own wants, 
 knows no such endeavor. 
 
 38 
 
GEORGE WILHELM F 
 
 RIEDRICH HEGEL.* 
 
 Born 1770. 
 
 George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the 
 last of the four great German philosophers, 
 was born August 27th, 1770, at Stuttgart, in 
 the kingdom of Wurtemberg. " It is quite re- 
 markable," says his biographer, " that one of 
 his sponsors was a professor of philosophy." He 
 was matriculated as a student of theology in 
 the University of Tubingen, in the year 1788. 
 After completing his University career, he pur- 
 sued an extensive and severe course of study 
 in comparative retirement, being meanwhile 
 chiefly employed as a teacher in private fami- 
 lies. In 1801 he became a public lecturer in 
 the University of Jena, dedicating his first work 
 to an examination of the difference between 
 the systems of Fichte and Schelling. Here he 
 continued to give courses of lectures, and to 
 develope his system, until the taking of Jena 
 by the French in 1806. For the next two years 
 he edited a newspaper, then he was rector of a 
 gymnasium in Nuremberg, where he perfected 
 his most important work, in which he gave a 
 new character to the whole system of Logic. 
 While professor of philosophy in Heidelberg 
 (1816-18) he published his Encyclopaedia, in 
 which his whole scheme of philosophy is con- 
 tained. He was called to Berlin in the year 
 1818, and remained there until his death, on 
 the fourteenth of November, 1831, when he 
 fell a victim to the cholera. 
 
 His philosophy claims to be the absolute sys- 
 tem, the result and culmination of all other 
 systems. In it he resumes the whole progress 
 of the human mind, and alleges that his sys- 
 tem, and that alone, is able to explain the whole 
 course of history, all the phenomena of nature, 
 all the problems of speculation. There is one 
 Absolute Substance pervading all things. That 
 Substance is Spirit. This Spirit is endued 
 with the power of development; it produces 
 from itself the opposing powers and forces of 
 the universe. All that we have to do is to 
 stand by and see the process going on. The 
 process is at first the evolution of antagonistic 
 
 * For this account of Hegel, and the translations from 
 his writings which follow, with the exception of the last, 
 the editor is indebted to a friend. 
 
 Died 1831. 
 
 forces ; then a mediation between them. All 
 proceeds by triplicates; there is the positive, 
 then the negative, then the mediation between 
 them, which produces a higher unity. This 
 again is but the starting point for a new series. 
 And so the process goes on, from stage to stage, 
 until the Absolute Spirit has passed through all 
 the stadia of its evolutions, and is exhibited in 
 its highest form in the Hegelian system of phi- 
 losophy. The system comprises three depart- 
 ments: Logic, Natural Philosophy, and the 
 Philosophy of Spirit. Logic is the science of 
 the Absolute Idea, in its abstract character; 
 in the Philosophy of Nature we have the same 
 Absolute in another, an external form ; in the 
 Philosophy of Spirit we have its highest stage. 
 Here it manifests itself as the Subjective Spirit, 
 the Objective Spirit, and the Absolute Spirit. 
 The Absolute Spirit, in fine, has three stages 
 of development, which are Religion, Art, and 
 Philosophy. 
 
 The collective works of this philosopher have 
 been published in eighteen octavo volumes. 
 They embrace, besides those already specified, 
 extensive courses of lectures upon Ethics, Art, 
 the Philosophy of History, the History of Phi- 
 losophy, and the Philosophy of Religion. His 
 system has produced a profound impression 
 upon the German mind. The theological and 
 philosophical controversies of the day rage 
 around it. It is reputed to be the most com- 
 prehensive and analytic of pantheistic schemes. 
 Its author and some of his disciples assert, that 
 it is the same system in the form of philosophy, 
 which Christianity gives us in the form of faith. 
 But its present position is that of hostility to 
 Christianity. 
 
 The style of Hegel is declared by one of his 
 friends to be "strong, pithy, and sometimes 
 knotty." His terminology is often obscure. 
 These characteristics may be noted in the fol- 
 lowing translations, which are chiefly taken 
 from his Philosophy of History. Though this 
 work was published after his death, yet the 
 first portion of it, from which our extracts are 
 derived, was printed from a full manuscript of 
 the author. 
 
 (446) 
 
HEGEL. 
 
 417 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY 
 OF HISTORY. 
 
 The subject of this course of Lectures is the 
 Philosophical History of the World. By this is 
 not meant general reflections upon history, such 
 as one might draw from it and illustrate by 
 appropriate examples, but the History of the 
 World itself. That its true nature may be 
 clearly seen, it seems to be necessary first of 
 all to go through with the other modes in which 
 history is treated. There are three general 
 classes into which historical works may be 
 divided : 
 
 1. Primitive History. 
 
 2. Systematic History, or History accompanied 
 by the reflections of the author. 
 
 3. Philosophical History. 
 
 1. PRIMITIVE HISTORY. 
 
 To give a definite image of what I mean by 
 this kind of history, I need only cite the names 
 of Herodotus, Thucydides, and other historians 
 of this stamp, who describe chiefly the deeds, 
 events, and conditions which they had directly 
 before them, and in the spirit of which they 
 themselves participated. That which was ex- 
 ternally present, they transferred in their his- 
 tories into the domain of mental conceptions. 
 The external phenomenon is here presented 
 again in the form of an internal conception. 
 So, for example, the poet takes the materials 
 which his experience and emotions give him, 
 and elaborates them into distinct and finished 
 pictures. These primitive historians have also 
 at hand the reports and narratives of other 
 men, (it is not possible for one man to see every- 
 thing.) but only as the poet has an ingredient 
 in the cultivated language to which he owes 
 so much. What memory carelessly keeps, the 
 historian compounds into one whole, places it 
 in the temple of Mnemosyne, and thus gives it 
 immortal duration. Sagas, popular songs and 
 traditions are to be excluded from such primi- 
 tive history, for these are confused and unsettled 
 things, and hence are peculiar to people that 
 have not yet obtained a definite historical cha- 
 racter. The sphere of events actually seen, or 
 that could be seen, gives a firmer basis than 
 does the dim antiquity where these sagas and 
 fables grow up, and they do not constitute a 
 part of the history of nations which have at- 
 tained a fixed individuality. 
 
 These primitive historians now fashion the 
 events, deeds, and conditions which were ac- 
 tually before them, into a work that gives to 
 others a distinct picture of their times. The 
 contents of such histories cannot, of course, be 
 of great outward compass, (see the works of 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, and Guicciardini;) for 
 they are essentially made up of what is present 
 and living around the authors. The state of 
 culture of the author is identical with that in 
 which those events were transacted, which he 
 fashions into a work ; the spirit of the author 
 
 and the spirit of the deeds he narrates are one 
 and the same. He describes that of which he has 
 been more or less a part, or in the midst of 
 which he has lived. There are short periods 
 of time, distinct images of men and events, in- 
 dividual traits not reflected upon, from which 
 he gathers his picture, in order to bring the scene 
 and persons as definitely to the conception of 
 after-times, as they stood before his own mind, 
 whether in actual vision or in graphic narratives. 
 He has nothing to do with reflections upon what 
 he describes, for he lives in the spirit of the 
 times, and has not yet got out beyond it : if he 
 belong, as did Caesar, to the class of generals or 
 statesmen, then his own ends and aims are the 
 ones which come out as historical. When it is 
 here said that such a historian does not reflect, 
 but that the persons and people themselves come 
 forward, this seems to be contradicted by the 
 speeches which we read, for example, in Thu- 
 cydides, and which, it is quite certain, were not 
 delivered as they are reported. But speeches 
 are acts among men, and essentially effective 
 acts also. People do indeed often say, it was 
 only a speech, and mean by this that it was a 
 harmless affair. Such speeches are mere talk, 
 and talk has the important advantage of being 
 harmless. But speeches from one people to an- 
 other, orations addressed to people and princes 
 are integral parts of history. Even if Thucy- 
 dides did compose the speeches he puts into the 
 mouth of Pericles, the most highly cultivated, 
 genuine, and noble of statesmen, yet are they 
 not foreign to Pericles. In these speeches, these 
 men speak out the maxims of their people, of 
 their own selves, their consciousness of their 
 political relations, as well as of their moral and 
 spiritual natures, the principles which guided 
 their aims and acts. What the historian lets 
 them say is not a loaned consciousness, but ex- 
 presses the very culture of the orators. 
 
 Of such writers of history, whom we must 
 study into, and by whom we must linger, if we 
 would live with the nations., and sink ourselves 
 into their spirit — of such historians, in whom we 
 seek not merely learning, but deep and genuine 
 delight, there are not so many to be found as 
 we might perchance suppose. Herodotus, the 
 father, that is the originator of history, and 
 Thucydides, have been already named. Xeno- 
 phon's Return of the Ten Thousand is a book 
 equally original; Csesar's Commentaries are the 
 simple master-piece of a great spirit. Irl an- 
 cient times, these historians were necessarily 
 great captains and statesmen; in the middle 
 ases, if we except the bishops who stood at the 
 centre of state affairs, the monks as naive chro- 
 niclers are to be reckoned here ; but they were 
 as isolated from the events they describe, as 
 those men of antiquity were connected with 
 them. In later times, all the relations of things 
 have changed. Our culture is essentially compre- 
 hensive, and immediately transforms all events 
 into reports which give a distinct picture of 
 them. We have admirable, simple, definite 
 
448 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 narratives of this kind, especially of military 
 transactions, which may well be placed by the 
 side of Caesar's, and are even more instructive 
 than his, on account of the fulness of their con- 
 tents, and the details of means and conditions. 
 The French Memoirs also belong here. Many 
 of these are written by men of talent and wit 
 about matters of limited interest, and they fre- 
 quently contain much of anecdote; but others are 
 true historical master-pieces, as those of Cardinal 
 de Retz, and bring to view a wider historical 
 field. In Germany there are but few masters 
 in this art; Frederic the Great (histoire de mon 
 temps) is an honorable exception. Such works 
 can fitly come only from men in high stations. 
 Only he who stands above can rightly survey 
 the field, and look at everything; not he who 
 has looked from below upwards through a 
 scanty opening. 
 
 2. SYSTEMATIC HISTORY. 
 
 The second kind of history we may call Sys- 
 tematic History, or history accompanied by the 
 reflections, and composed in view of the gene- 
 ral scheme of the author. It is history, in the 
 exhibition of which we are led beyond mere 
 present and passing events, not in reference to 
 time, but in respect of the spirit or views with 
 which it is composed. Under this second genus, 
 there are wholly different species to be dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 a. We wish for a general view of the whole 
 history of a people or country, or of the world, 
 in short, what we call General History. Here 
 the chief thing is the working up of the histori- 
 cal materials, and to this labor the author comes 
 with a spirit which is different from the spirit 
 of the periods of which he treats. In doing this, 
 the points of chief importance will be, on the 
 one hand, the principles which the author ap- 
 plies in judging of the character and tendency 
 of the acts and events he describes, and, on the 
 other hand, those which guide him in the com- 
 position of the history. The reflections and 
 judgments of us Germans upon these points 
 have been very manifold ; every writer of his- 
 tory has got his own special way in his own 
 head. The English and French, as a general 
 thing, know how history should be written: their 
 stage of culture is more general and national; 
 among us, each one thinks out some subtle pecu- 
 liarity, and instead of writing history, we are 
 always trying to find out the way in which his- 
 tory should be written. This first species of 
 excogitated history is near akin to primitive his- 
 tory, when it has no farther aim than to exhibit 
 the whole history of a country. Such compila- 
 tions (here belong the histories of Livy, Diodo- 
 rus, Siculus, von Midler's History of Switzer- 
 land) when well made are highly serviceable. 
 It would be best, if the historians would ap- 
 proximate to those of the first genus, and de- 
 scribe things so graphically, that the reader 
 might suppose he was hearing contemporaries 
 and eye-witnesses relate the events. But the 
 
 peculiar tone of mind which every individual 
 must have, who belongs to a particular stage of 
 national culture, frequently becomes modified 
 by the periods through which such a history 
 takes its course, and the spirit which speaks 
 from the historian is another than the spirit of 
 these times. Thus Livy lets the old kings of 
 Rome, the consuls and generals hold speeches 
 befitting only a skilful advocate of the times of 
 Livy, and which besides are most strongly con- 
 trasted with the genuine tales preserved from 
 those ancient times ; for example, the fable of 
 Menenius Agrippa. Thus, too, the same author 
 gives us descriptions of battles, as though he 
 had himself seen them, the outlines of which, 
 however, might be used for the battles of all 
 ages; and the definitiveness of whose details, 
 again, is in strong contrast with the want of 
 connection and inconsistency with which in 
 other passages he often speaks of the most im- 
 portant matters. The difference between such 
 a compiler and a primitive historian may be 
 best seen by comparing the work of Polybius, 
 so far as it has been preserved to us, with the 
 mode in which Livy makes use of extracts from, 
 and abridges it in the corresponding portions 
 of his history. John von Miilier, in the endeavor 
 to be true in his descriptions to the times which 
 he describes, has given to his history a formal, 
 grandiloquent and pedantic air. One would 
 much rather read such things in the old Swiss 
 chronicler, Tschudy himself; everything is more 
 simple and natural than in such a mere made- 
 up and affected antiquatedness. 
 
 A history of this kind which surveys long 
 periods, or the whole history of the world, must 
 in truth give up the exhibition of individual 
 facts, and abridge by abstractions, not merely 
 by leaving out events and actions, but by mak- 
 ing the author's thoughts the great means of 
 epitomising. A battle, a great victory, a siege, 
 are no longer themselves, but are condensed 
 into the simplest statements. When Livy tells 
 of the wars with the Volsci, he says sometimes, 
 (short enough,) this year war was carried on 
 with the Volsci. 
 
 b. A second kind of systematic history is the 
 pragmatical. When we have to do with what 
 is past, and busy ourselves about a remote world, 
 the mind, by its own activity, creates for itself 
 a present there, which is the reward of its toil. 
 The events are different, but what is universal 
 and internal in them, the connection, is one. 
 This abolishes the past, and makes the event 
 present. Pragmatical reflections, abstract as they 
 may be, do thus make the narrative of past 
 events into a matter of present interest, and 
 vivify them as with present life. Whether such 
 reflections are really interesting and enlivening, 
 depends upon the spirit of the author. Here 
 we are especially called upon to make mention 
 of those moral reflections, and that moral in- 
 struction to be got from history, for the sake of 
 which it has often been worked up. Although 
 it may be said that^ examples of virtue elevate 
 
HEGEL. 
 
 449 
 
 the soul, and are to be applied in the moral in- 
 struction of children, in order to impress them 
 with a love of excellence ; yet the destinies of 
 nations and states, their complicated interests, 
 conditions and conflicts are quite another field. 
 Regents, statesmen, and nations are very em- 
 phatically referred to the experience of history 
 for their instruction. But what experience and 
 history teach is this, that nations and govern- 
 ments have never learned anything from his- 
 tory, nor acted according to the lessons which 
 might have been drawn from it. Every period 
 has such peculiar circumstances, has such an 
 individual character, that in it we must and can 
 judge in view of its own circumstances alone. 
 In the pressure of the world's events, neither a 
 general principle, nor the recollection of similar 
 relations is of service ; for these, like a dim re- 
 membrance, have no power against the living 
 force and freedom of the present. Nothing, in 
 this respect, is emptier than the oft-repeated 
 appeal to Greek and Roman examples, so often 
 made among the French in the time of their 
 revolution. Nothing can be more diverse than 
 the character of those people and of our own 
 times. John von Muller had such moral ends in 
 view in his Universal as well as in his Swiss his- 
 tory; he prepared such instructions for princes, 
 governments and people, especially for the Swiss ; 
 (he made special collections of such maxims 
 and reflections, and often in his correspondence 
 gives the exact number of such reflections, which 
 he had finished in a week :) but all this can 
 hardly be reckoned among the best things he 
 has accomplished. It is only a thorough, free 
 and comprehensive view of the situations, and 
 the deep significancy of the idea by which we 
 judge of them, (as, for example, in Montesquieu's 
 Spirit of the Laws,) which can give truth and 
 interest to such reflections. Hence one such 
 history supersedes another; the materials are 
 open to every writer, every one can easily think 
 himself able to arrange and elaborate them, 
 and to make his own spirit pass for the spirit 
 of the times he describes. From satiety with 
 such histories, men have frequently gone back, 
 and given a picture of some one important 
 event, described from all points of view. Such 
 works are certainly of some value, but they 
 give, for the most part, only materials. The 
 Germans are content with them ; the French, 
 on the contrary, give such a spirited description 
 of the past, as makes it seem living and pre- 
 sent; they bring the past into direct connection 
 with present circumstances. 
 
 c. The third kind of systematic history is the 
 critical. This is rather history of history, criti- 
 cism of narratives, and investigation of their 
 truth and credibility. Whatever there is extra- 
 ordinary in it, and intended to be so, does not 
 consist in the subject-matter, but in the acute- 
 ness of the writer, whose object is to pare away 
 something from the narratives. The difference 
 between what was before held to be fact, and 
 what is now to be so held, is the measure of 
 3o 
 
 the fame of such a critical investigator of his- 
 tory; and it is not often considered, on the other 
 hand, how arbitrary are the notions and com- 
 binations to which he may have surrendered 
 himself. 
 
 d. The last kind of systematic history is that 
 which does not pretend to be more than the 
 history of some one department, as Art, Law, 
 or Religion. The special subject is here, indeed, 
 taken by itself, but since its history is written 
 from general points of view, it forms a transi- 
 tion to the Philosophical History of the World. 
 In our times this kind of history has been more 
 cultivated ; the philosophical principles con- 
 tained in these different branches have been 
 made more prominent. Such branches have a 
 connection with the whole of a people's history; 
 the main thing is, whether this connection is 
 truly exhibited, or is sought for only in external 
 relations. If the latter, then these separate de- 
 partments seem to be only accidental and indi- 
 vidual peculiarities of the nations. 
 
 3. PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY. 
 
 The third kind of history is the Philosophical. 
 In respect to the two previous divisions, there 
 was no need of clearing up their meaning; this 
 was understood of itself; but it is otherwise 
 with this last kind, which seems to demand 
 some explanation or justification. 
 
 The philosophy of history, then, in the most 
 general point of view, signifies nothing other 
 than a thoughtful consideration of history. As 
 rational beings, we can never leave off thinking; 
 thus we are distinguished from the brutes. In 
 our sensations, in our knowledge and apprehen- 
 sion, in our impulses and will, so far as they are 
 human, there is thought. It may seem that this 
 appeal to thought, in connection with history, is 
 unsatisfactory, since in history our thoughts must 
 be subordinate to what actually exists, to the 
 data given us, — must be founded upon, and 
 guided by, the facts ; while, on the other hand, 
 it is said philosophy has thoughts of its own, 
 engendered by mere speculation, without regard 
 to what actually exists. If it goes to work upon 
 history with such speculative notions, then it 
 only handles it as so much mere material; does 
 not leave it as it is, but fashions it after the 
 thought, constructs it a priori, as we say. And 
 since the only office of history is to grasp what 
 is and has been, events and acts, and as it is 
 more true in proportion as it adheres to its data, 
 it seems as though the business of philosophy 
 were in contradiction with such a procedure. 
 This apparent contradiction, and the objection 
 to a speculative treatment of history which 
 springs from it, we will here explain and refute, 
 without, however, going into a rectification of 
 the infinitely varied and right special awry no- 
 tions which are current, or always invented 
 anew, respecting the end, the interests and the 
 treatment of history, and its relation to philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 38* 
 
450 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 The only idea which philosophy brings along 
 with it to the consideration of history, is the 
 simple idea of reason, that reason rules the 
 world. This conviction and insight is indeed 
 an assumption in respect to history, as such ; in 
 philosophy, however, it is no assumption. In 
 philosophy, by means of speculative knowledge, 
 it is evinced that reason — and we may here be 
 allowed to abide by this expression, without 
 entering into an investigation of the relation in 
 which reason stands to God — that reason is the 
 substance of all things, as well as the infinite 
 power by which they are moved ; is itself the 
 illimitable material of all natural and spiritual 
 life, as well as the source of the infinite variety 
 of forms in which this material is livingly mani- 
 fested. It is the substance of all things, that is, 
 it is that whereby and wherein all that really 
 exists has its being and continuance ; it is the 
 infinite power, — for reason is not so impotent that 
 it can produce only an ideal, a something which 
 ever should be and never is, and which has its 
 being outside of and beyond all that actually 
 does exist, nobody knows where, some very 
 special thing in the heads of some men ; it is 
 the illimitable material of all essentiality and 
 truth, — for it is not subjected, as is finite action, 
 to the conditions forced upon it by external ma- 
 terials, from which it must receive nourishment 
 and objects for its activity; it feeds upon itself, 
 it creates its materials, viz. the infinite variety of 
 extant forms ; for only in the shape which reason 
 prescribes and justifies do phenomena come into 
 being, and begin to live. That it reveals itself 
 in the world, and that nothing in the world but 
 this is revealed ; that its honor and glory are 
 there, this is what, as we said, is proved by phi- 
 losophy, and is here assumed as proved. 
 
 Though we have said that we here assume 
 that reason rules the world, yet it is, in fact, not 
 so much an assumption, as it is the result of the 
 investigation we have started upon. From the 
 consideration of the history of the world itself, 
 we shall come to the result, that there has been 
 a rational process of things in it ; that it has 
 been the rational and necessary course of the 
 spirit which moves in the world, — a spirit 
 whose nature does indeed ever remain one and 
 the same, but which, in the existence of the 
 world, unfolds this its one nature. This must, 
 as was said, be the product of history. The his- 
 tory itself, however, we have to take as it is ; 
 we are to go to work historically, empirically. 
 It might be stated, as the first condition, that 
 we should truly comprehend the historical ma- 
 terials ; but in such general expressions as truly 
 and comprehend, there is an ambiguity. The or- 
 dinary and moderate historian, who thinks and 
 declares that he stands only as a recipient, and 
 gives himself up to the data, is yet not passive 
 with his thinking; he brings with him some 
 categories, through which he looks at what is 
 before him. In everything, especially, which is 
 meant to be scientific, reason may not slumber, 
 reflection must be applied. He who looks at 
 
 the world rationally, him the world also looks at 
 rationally ; the two are reciprocal. 
 
 There are some considerations which may 
 serve to illustrate the general conviction, that 
 reason has ruled in the world, and in its history, 
 also. These will give us an opportunity to 
 touch upon some of the chief points of difficulty. 
 
 One is the historical fact, that Anaxagoras, 
 the Greek, is said to have been the first to main- 
 tain that the vovj, understanding in general or 
 reason, rules the world, — not an intelligence, in 
 the sense of self-conscious reason — not a spirit, 
 as such — for the two are to be carefully distin- 
 guished from each other. The movements of 
 the solar system follow unchangeable laws; 
 these laws are the reason of this system ; but 
 neither the sun, nor the planets which describe 
 their orbits around it, according to these laws, 
 have any consciousness thereof. Such an idea 
 as this, that there is reason in nature, that it is 
 immutably governed by general laws, does not 
 strike us as strange ; we are used to the like, 
 and do not make much out of them. One rea- 
 son, therefore, why I mention this historical cir- 
 cumstance is, to make it apparent that history 
 teaches us that such like notions, which may 
 seem to us trivial, have not always been in the 
 world ; that such thoughts make epochs in the 
 history of the human mind. Aristotle says of 
 Anaxagoras, as the originator of this thought: 
 That he appeared like a sober man in the midst 
 of the drunken. Socrates received this thought 
 from Anaxagoras, and, with the exception of 
 the notion of Epicurus, who ascribed all events 
 to chance, it first became the predominant one 
 in philosophy. Plato represents Socrates as say- 
 ing : I rejoiced therein, and hoped that I had 
 found a teacher who would interpret nature for 
 me in accordance with reason, — who would 
 show me in the special its special end, and in 
 the whole its general purpose ; this hope I 
 would not have given up for much. But how 
 greatly was I deceived, when I now zealously 
 took up the writings of Anaxagoras himself, and 
 found that he only brought forward external 
 causes, as air, ether, water and the like, instead 
 of reason. We see that what Socrates found to 
 be unsatisfactory in the principle of Anaxagoras 
 was not the principle itself, but the failing to 
 apply it to nature in the concrete ; the latter 
 was not understood, comprehended, by means 
 of the principle ; the principle was held in the 
 mere abstract, nature was not grasped as a de- 
 velopment of it, as an organization produced by 
 reason. I would call your attention here, in the 
 very beginning, to the point; the difference there 
 is between holding a formula, a principle, a 
 truth only in the abstract, and the carrying it on 
 and out in definitive and exact application into 
 the concrete development. This difference is 
 of the widest application. 
 
 This idea, that reason governs the world, is 
 also connected with another application of it, 
 well known to us in the form of the religious 
 truth, that the world is not given over to acci- 
 
HEGEL. 
 
 451 
 
 dent, or to external and accidental causes, but is 
 under the government of a Providence. 1 might 
 appeal to your belief in this principle in this re- 
 ligious form, if it were not the peculiarity of the 
 science of philosophy, that it does not allow 
 authority to any assumptions ; or to speak from 
 another point of view, if it were not that the 
 science of which we here treat is itself to fur- 
 nish the proof, though not of the truth, yet of 
 the correctness of that principle. The truth, 
 now, that a Providence, that the Divine Provi- 
 dence presides over the events of the world, 
 corresponds with the above principle; for the 
 Divine Providence is wisdom and infinite 
 power, realizing its purposes, — that is, the ab- 
 solute, the rational end and destiny of the 
 world; reason is thought, determining itself 
 with perfect freedom. But, when further con- 
 sidered, the difference, the opposition even, of 
 this faith and of our principle shows itself in 
 the same way as with the demand of Socrates 
 in respect to the maxim of Anaxagoras. This 
 faith is equally indefinite, is what is called 
 faith in Providence in general, and does not go 
 forward to what is definite, — to an application 
 to the whole comprehensive course of the 
 world's history. Explaining history, generally 
 means only the unveiling of the passions of 
 men, their genius, their active powers ; and the 
 definite ends of Providence are called its plan. 
 But it is this plan which is said to be concealed 
 from our eyes, which it is audacity even to 
 wish to know. The ignorance of Anaxagoras 
 as to the mode in which the understanding 
 (yovs) reveals itself in actual existence, was an 
 unprejudiced one; he had not become conscious, 
 nor had any one then in Greece, of any further 
 application of his views; he was not yet able 
 to apply his general principle to the concrete, 
 to understand the latter by the former ; for So- 
 crates took the first step in grasping the union 
 of the concrete with the universal. Anaxagoras 
 was, then, not hostile to such an application; 
 but this common faith in Providence is polemi- 
 cal, at least against the application of its prin- 
 ciple to any wide extent, or against the attempt 
 to understand the general plan of Providence. 
 For, in special cases, those who hold it are will- 
 ing sometimes to allow pious minds to see, in 
 some single occurrences, not what is casual, but 
 the very appointments of God ; when, for ex- 
 ample, help unexpectedly comes to an individual 
 in great distress and need ; but such Providen- 
 tial ends are only of a limited kind, are only 
 the special ends of this individual. In the his- 
 tory of the world, however, we have to do with 
 individuals which are nations, with wholes 
 which are states ; we cannot then limit our- 
 selves to such retailing of faith in Providence, 
 nor yet to that merely abstract, undefined faith, 
 which only goes so far as to say that there is a 
 Providence in general, but will not advance to 
 the statement of its more definite acts. We 
 should rather earnestly endeavor to understand 
 the ways of Providence, its means and mani- 
 
 festations in history, and to bring those into 
 connexion with our general principle. 
 
 history as the manifestation op spirit. 
 
 The true sphere of the history of the world 
 is spiritual. The world comprises in itself both 
 the physical and the psychical nature ; physical 
 nature plays a large part in the history of the 
 world. But spirit, with the course of its deve- 
 lopment, is the substance of it. Nature is not 
 here to be considered, so far as it is in itself, as 
 it were, a system of reason, exhibited in a spe- 
 cial and peculiar element, but only as it stands 
 related to spirit. Spirit, however, in the theatre 
 of the world's history, exists in its most concrete 
 form, comes to its most real manifestations. In 
 order to understand its connexions with history, 
 we must make some preliminary and abstract 
 statements respecting the nature of spirit. 
 
 The nature of spirit may be easily understood 
 by comparison with that which is the entire op- 
 posite of it, — that is, matter. The substance of 
 matter is weight, which is only this, that it is 
 heavy ; the substance, the essence of spirit, on 
 the contrary, is freedom. Every one finds it im- 
 mediately credible that spirit, among other attri- 
 butes, also possesses freedom ; but philosophy 
 teaches us that all the attributes of spirit exist 
 only through freedom, that they all are only the 
 means of which freedom makes use, that this 
 alone is what they all seek for and produce. 
 The speculative philosophy recognises this fact, 
 that freedom is the only truth of spirit. Matter 
 shows that it is weight, by its tendency to one 
 centre of gravity; it is essentially made up of 
 parts, which parts exist separate from, and ex- 
 ternal to, each other; and it is ever seeking their 
 unity, and thus seeks to abolish itself, — seeks 
 the opposite of what it really is ; if it attained 
 this unity, it were no longer matter, it were de- 
 stroyed ; it strives to realize an idea, for in 
 unity it is merely ideal. Spirit, on the other 
 hand, is just this, that it has its centre in itself; 
 its unity is not outside of itself, but it has found 
 it; it is in itself and with itself. Matter has its 
 substance out of itself; spirit consists in being 
 with itself. This is freedom ; for when I am de- 
 pendent, I refer myself to something else which 
 is not myself; I cannot be without something 
 external ; but I am free when I am with myself. 
 This is self-consciousness, the consciousness of 
 one's self. Two things are here to be distin- 
 guished : first, that I know or am conscious ; 
 secondly, what I know or am conscious of. In 
 self-consciousness, the two come together, for 
 spirit knows itself; it judges of its own nature. 
 
 In this sense, we may say that the history of 
 the world is the exhibition of the process by 
 which spirit comes to the consciousness of that 
 which it really is, — of the signiiicancy of its 
 own nature. And as the seed contains in itself 
 the whole nature of the tree, even to the taste 
 and form of the fruit, so do the first traces of 
 spirit virtually contain the whole of history. 
 
452 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 The Oriental world did not know that spirit, 
 man as such, is of himself free ; since they knew 
 it not, they were not free; they only knew that 
 one is free ; but just on this account their free- 
 dom was only arbitrariness, wildness, obtuse 
 passion ; or, if not so, yet a mildness and tame- 
 ness of the passions, which is nothing but an 
 accident or caprice of nature. This one is, there- 
 fore, only a despot, not a free man. Among the 
 Greeks, the consciousness of freedom first arose, 
 and therefore they were free ; but they, as the 
 Romans also, only knew that some are free, not 
 that man, as such, is free. Even Plato and 
 Aristotle did not know this. Hence, the Greeks 
 not only held slaves, and had their life and the 
 continuance of their fair freedom bound thereby, 
 but their freedom itself was partly only an ac- 
 cidental and perishable flower, and partly a 
 hard servitude of the human and humane. The 
 German nations, under the influence of Chris- 
 tianity, first came to the consciousness that man, 
 as man, is free, — that freedom of soul consti- 
 tutes his own proper nature. This conscious- 
 ness came first into existence in religion, — in 
 the deepest religion of the spirit. But to fashion 
 the world after this principle, was a further pro- 
 blem ; the solution and application of which, 
 
 : demanded a severe and long labor. With the 
 reception of the Christian religion, for example, 
 
 j slavery did not at once come to an end, still less 
 did freedom at once become predominant in the 
 States; their governments and constitutions were 
 not immediately organized in a rational manner, 
 or even based upon the principle of freedom. 
 This application of the principle to the world 
 at large, this thorough penetration and reforma- 
 tion of the condition of the world by means of 
 it, is the long process which the history of the 
 nations brings before our eyes. I have already 
 called attention to the difference between a 
 principle, as such, and its application, — that is, 
 the introduction of it into the actual operations 
 
 , of spirit and life, and carrying it through all of 
 them ; this is a fundamental position in our 
 science, and it is essential that we hold it fast 
 in our thoughts. Here we have brought it out 
 distinctly, in respect to the Christian principle 
 of self-consciousness, of freedom ; but it is no 
 less essential in respect to the principle of free- 
 dom in general. The history of the world is 
 the progress in the consciousness of freedom, — 
 a progress which we shall have to recognise in 
 its necessity. 
 
 What we have now said, in general terms, 
 upon the difference in the knowledge of free- 
 dom which we find in different ages of the 
 world, gives us, also, the true division of the 
 history of the world, and the mode in which 
 we shall proceed to its discussion. The scheme 
 is this: the Oriental world only knew that one is 
 free ; the Greek and Roman world knew that 
 some are free ; but we know that all men, in 
 their true nature, are free, — that man, as man, 
 is free. 
 
 THE RELATION OF INDIVIDUALS TO THE WOBLd's 
 HISTORY. 
 
 In the history of the world something else 19 
 generally brought out by means of the actions 
 of individual men than they themselves aim at 
 or attain, than they directly know of or will j 
 they achieve their own ends, but something far- 
 ther is brought to pass in connection with their 
 acts, which also lies therein, but which did not 
 lie in their consciousness and purposes. As an 
 analogous example we cite the case of a man, 
 who, out of revenge, which may have been 
 justly excited, that is, by an unjust injury, goes 
 to work and sets fire to the house of another 
 man. Even in doing this, there is a connection 
 made between the direct act, and other, although 
 themselves merely external circumstances, which 
 do not belong to this act, taken wholly and di- 
 rectly by itself. This act, as such, is the holding 
 perhaps of a small flame to a small spot of a 
 wooden beam. What is not yet accomplished 
 by this act goes on and is done of itself; the 
 part of the beam that was set on fire is con- 
 nected with other parts of the same beam, this 
 too with the rafters and joists of the whole 
 house, this house with other houses, and a wide- 
 spread conflagration ensues, which destroys the 
 property and goods of many other men besides 
 the one against whom the revenge was directed, 
 and even costs many men their lives. All this 
 lay not in the general act, nor in the intention 
 of him who began it all. But, still farther, this 
 action has another general character and desti- 
 nation : in the purpose of the actor it was only 
 revenge against an individual by means of the 
 destruction of his property; but it is also a crime, 
 and this involves, farther, a punishment. This 
 may not have been included in the conscious- 
 ness, and still less in the will of the doer, but 
 still such is his act in itself, the general cha- 
 racter, the very substance of it, that which is 
 achieved by it. In this example all that we 
 would hold fast is, that in the immediate action 
 there can lie something more than what was in 
 the will and consciousness of the actor. The 
 substance of the action, and thereby the act 
 itself, here turns round against the doer ; it be- 
 comes a return-blow against him, which ruins 
 him. We have not here to lay any emphasis 
 upon the action considered as a crime ; it is in- 
 tended only as an analogous example, to show, 
 that in the definite action there may be some- 
 thing more than the end directly willed. 
 
 One other case may be adduced which will 
 come up later in its own place, and which, 
 being itself historical, contains, in the special 
 form which is essential to our purpose, the union 
 of the general with the particular, of an end 
 necessary in itself with an aim which might 
 seem accidental. It is that of Caesar, in danger 
 of losing the position he had obtained, if not of 
 superiority over, yet of equality with, the other 
 man who stood at the head of the Roman state, 
 and of submitting to those who were upon the 
 
HEGEL. 
 
 453 
 
 point of becoming his enemies. These enemies, 
 who at the same time had their own personal 
 ends in view, had on their side the formal con- 
 stitution of the State and the power of seeming 
 legality. Caesar fought to maintain his own 
 
 j position, honor, and safety, and the victory over 
 his opponents was at the same time the con- 
 quest of the whole kingdom : and thus he be- 
 came, leaving only the forms of the constitution 
 of the State, the sole possessor of power. The 
 carrying out of his own at first negative purpose 
 
 | got for him the supremacy in Rome ; but this 
 was also in its true nature a necessary element 
 in the history of Rome and of the world, so that 
 it was not his own private gain merely, but an 
 instinct which consummated that which, consi- 
 dered by itself, lay in the times themselves. 
 Such are the great men of history — those whose 
 private purposes contain the substance of that 
 which is the will of the spirit of the world. 
 This substance constitutes their real power 5 it 
 is contained in the general and unconscious in- 
 stinct of men; they are inwardly impelled 
 thereto, and have no ground on which they can 
 stand in opposing the man who has undertaken 
 the execution of such a purpose in his own in- 
 terest. The people assemble around his ban- 
 ner ; he shows to them, and carries out, that 
 which is their own immanent destiny. 
 
 Should we, farther, cast a look at the fate of 
 
 i these world-historical individuals, we see that 
 they have bad the fortune to be the leaders to 
 a consummation which marks a stage in the 
 progress of the general mind. That reason 
 makes use of these instruments we might call 
 its craft; for it lets them carry out their own 
 aims with all the rage of passion, and not only 
 keeps itself unharmed, but makes itself domi- 
 nant. The particular is for the most part too 
 
 ■ feeble against the universal; Ihe individuals 
 are sacrificed. Thus the world's history pre- 
 sents itself as the conflict of individuals, and in 
 the field of their special interests all goes on 
 very naturally. In the animal world the pre- 
 servation of life is the aim and instinct of each 
 
 !■ individual, and yet reason or general laws pre- 
 vail, and the individuals fall ; thus is it also in 
 the spiritual world. Passions destroy each 
 other; reason alone watches, pursues its end, 
 and makes itself authoritative. 
 
 THE STATE. 
 
 That which is substantial and true in man's 
 will is what we call morality and law ; and 
 this is what is divine in the external objects of 
 history. Antigone in Sophocles says: 'The di- 
 vine commands are not of yesterday or to-day ; 
 no, they live without end, and no one knows 
 whence and when they came.' Moral laws are 
 not accidental, but are reason itself. When 
 these moral laws or ethical principles, which 
 compose the true substance of humanity, have 
 authority in the actions and sentiments of men, 
 when they are really carried out and main- 
 tained, then we have the State. Now-a-days 
 
 there are manifold errors current upon this mat- 
 ter which pass for established truths, and have 
 all prejudices in their favor; we will only no- 
 tice a few of them, and such as have a special 
 bearing upon the aim of our history. 
 
 The State, we say, is the realisation of free- 
 dom in conformity with ethical laws. An opi- 
 nion directly opposed to this view is current, 
 which asserts that man is free by nature, and 
 that the society, the State, of which he is natu- 
 rally a member, must restrict this natural free- 
 dom. That man is free by nature is wholly 
 correct in the sense, that this is the true idea of 
 man, but this idea is something that is to be 
 realized ; it expresses his destination, and not 
 what he actually is at first; the nature of any 
 object can mean the same as the true conception 
 of it. But this is not the whole meaning of the 
 phrase; there is also included in it the notion 
 of the mode in which man existed in his natural 
 and undeveloped condition. In this sense, a 
 state of nature is generally assumed in which 
 man is represented as being in the possession 
 of his natural rights in the unrestricted exercise 
 and enjoyment of his freedom. This assump- 
 tion does not pass for something verified by 
 history; and if it were earnestly attempted, it 
 would be difficult to show that such a state of 
 nature either now exists, or has in past times 
 anywhere existed. States of savageness can ; 
 indeed be pointed out, but these are always 
 connected with rude passions and violence, 
 and, even when most cultivated, we find, among 
 such tribes, social regulations which restrict 
 true freedom. This whole assumption is one 
 of those misty figments which a theorising spirit 
 generates ; a notion necessarily flowing from 
 such a spirit, for which it then feigns a real 
 existence, without justifying itself in an historical 
 way. 
 
 Such as we find this state of nature to be in 
 fact, so is it in the notion thereof. Freedom, 
 being the ideality of what is primitive and na- 
 tural, is not found in the primitive and natural 
 condition of man; it must first be wrought out 
 and won, and that, too, by an unending media- 
 tion between the impulses of knowledge and 
 of will. Hence the state of nature is a state of 
 injustice, of force, of unrestrained natural im- 
 pulses to inhuman deeds and feelings. Society 
 and the State do indeed make restrictions, but 
 the restrictions are put upon these crude emo- 
 tions and rude impulses, upon fickleness and 
 passion. These limitations are made by that 
 constant process of mediation between opposing 
 principles, which is the only way in which such 
 freedom is produced, as is conformed to the 
 true idea thereof, and to the laws of reason. 
 Right and ethics belong to the very idea of free- 
 dom ; these are, in their very nature, universal 
 essences, objects, and ends ; they are found 
 only as we, by the activity of thought, distin- 
 guish ourselves from whatever is sensual, and 
 develope our characters in contrast with what 
 is merely natural ; and they must, so to speak, 
 
454 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 be moulded into and embodied in the will 
 which is at first only sensuous, even in opposi- 
 tion to this will. This is the everlasting mis- 
 apprehension of freedom, to know it only in its 
 formal and subjective aspects, abstracted from 
 its essential objects and aims; thus is it that 
 the limitation of those impulses, desires, and 
 passions, which belong only to single indivi- 
 duals as such, to the sphere of caprice and mere 
 liking, is taken to be a restriction of freedom. 
 Such limitation is rather absolutely necessary 
 to the emancipation of the will ; and society 
 and the State are the conditions under which 
 freedom is realised. 
 
 Another conception should be mentioned 
 which goes against the development of right 
 into its legal forms. The patriarchal state, 
 taken as a whole, or at least in some of its 
 branches, is looked upon as the condition in 
 which the moral and social elements of our 
 nature are best satisfied, in connection with the 
 demands of law, and it is said that justice itself 
 can be truly exercised only in conjunction with 
 these elements. The family relation lies at the 
 basis of the patriarchal condition ; and here we 
 have a development only of the first ethical 
 elements ; the State must also be added in order 
 to bring about a conscious development of the 
 second or higher elements. The patriarchal 
 relation is a state of transition, in which the 
 family has grown to a tribe or people ; it has 
 already ceased to have love and trust for its 
 only bonds; it has come to be a connection of 
 mutual service. The unity of the mere family 
 is one of natural sentiment; the State adds 
 higher bonds, and brings the members of the 
 family into a higher moral condition and con- 
 nections. 
 
 Finally it is said, that right and the true no- 
 tion of freedom lie in the general urill. When 
 we speak of the will as general, we mean, that 
 all individuals are to be subject to it; and when 
 freedom is said to consist in this, that the indi- 
 viduals give their assent, it is easily seen that 
 we have here got only the subjective elements 
 of the will. It comes out at last to a mere ma- 
 jority and minority, and Rousseau has already 
 remarked, that then there is no more freedom, 
 for the will of the minority is no longer regarded. 
 In the Polish diet every individual must give 
 his assent to a measure, or it could not pass; 
 and for the sake of such freedom the State was 
 ruined ; for every faction of the people can give 
 itself out to be the people. That which consti- 
 tutes the State is found rather in its culture than 
 in the people as a mass. 
 
 The State, as such, is neither a natural, nor, in 
 its highest form, a patriarchal condition, nor is it 
 the general will: but it is an ethical whole; the 
 State, embodied in the individuals, is the true 
 ethics. The State, its laws, its institutions are the 
 rights of the individuals belonging to it, are their 
 external possession ; and its soil, its mountains, 
 air, and waters, are their land, their fatherland; 
 their deeds make the history of this State ; that 
 
 which their forefathers have done belongs to 
 them, and lives in their memory. All is their 
 possession — even as the State also possesses 
 them — for it constitutes their substance, their 
 being. Their conceptions are thus fulfilled ; and 
 their will is the willing of these laws and of 
 this fatherland. It is this spiritual community 
 which makes one essence, which we call the 
 spirit of a people. The individuals belong to 
 it; every individual is the son of his people, 
 and at the same time, so far as the state is pro- 
 gressing, he is the son of his times; no one re- 
 mains behind them, nor can he overleap them; 
 this spiritual essence is his own, he is its repre- 
 sentative; he came forth from it. and stands in 
 it. Among the Athenians, Athena had a double 
 significancy; first, she designated their institu- 
 tions as a whole ; and she was also the goddess 
 who represented the unity, the spirit of the 
 people. 
 
 This spirit of a people is a definite spirit; its 
 character is determined by the historical stage 
 of their development. This spirit is the basis 
 out of which proceed all the forms of national 
 culture. It is an individuality, which in reli- 
 gion is represented, reverenced, and loved in 
 its essential character ; in art, it is exhibited in 
 visible images and forms; in philosophy, it is 
 known and apprehended as thought. The forms 
 which these things take are in inseparable union 
 with the spirit of the people ; the substance of 
 which they are formed and their objects are ori- 
 ginally the same ; hence, only with such a reli- 
 gion can we have such a state ; in such a state 
 only such a philosophy and art. This remark 
 is especially important in respect to the folly 
 of our times, in wishing to invent and carry 
 out state-constitutions independently of religion. 
 The Catholic confession, although standing in 
 common with the Protestant, within the bounds 
 of Christianity, does not allow that internal jus- 
 tice and morality of the state, which lies in the 
 more spiritual Protestant principle, and which 
 Protestantism ascribes to it. This sundering of 
 public law and the constitution of the state from 
 its true basis, is the necessary result of the pecu- 
 liar principle of the Catholic faith, which does 
 not acknowledge that law and morals have a 
 real, substantive existence of their own ; but 
 when they are thus torn loose from their spiritual 
 foundation, from the last sanctuary of the con- 
 science, from the same place where religion has 
 its seat, then the principles and institutions of 
 public law have no fixed centre, but remain 
 abstract and undefined. 
 
 Hence it is to be taken as a general principle, 
 that these essential things belong and go to- 
 gether, and that what is Ibreign to their spirit 
 can have no ingress into a world which has its 
 own limits. Thus Grecian art is the product 
 of the Greek religion and governments, and no 
 one can introduce it among ourselves. It is just 
 so with the Greek philosophy; though we may 
 learn much from it, yet it cannot satisfy us. 
 Spirit takes the form of universality; and if a 
 
HEGEL. 
 
 455 
 
 state is to advance in culture, if this is just its 
 office, this culture must be in conformity with 
 the laws of Spirit. Law, considered as freedom 
 determining itself, is the objectivity of spirit: 
 hence that alone is true volition, the will in the 
 truth of it, which obeys law, for it then obeys 
 only itself; it is then with itself and free ; this 
 is the freedom in the State for which the citizen 
 is active, and which fills his soul. In that the 
 State, the fatherland constitutes a community 
 of existence, in that the subjective will of man 
 becomes subject to the laws, the opposition 
 between freedom and necessity vanishes. The 
 rational, that which we have recognised as law, 
 is necessary; and we are free when we follow 
 what is rational ; the objective and subjective 
 will are thus reconciled. The ethics of the 
 State are not to be regarded as the same thing 
 with mere morality, are not the mere result of 
 reflection, are not dependent upon private con- 
 victions alone ; this is the system of morals fami- 
 liar to the modern world, while the true and 
 ancient system was based in this, that each man 
 stood to his duty. A citizen of Athens did as 
 it were by instinct what belonged to him to do ; 
 but if I reflect upon the object of my actions, I 
 must then have the consciousness that my own 
 will is first to come in as an essential element. 
 But the true ethics consists in duty, in conformity 
 with right, with law which has a real, substantial 
 existence; it has been justly called the second 
 nature, for the first nature of man is his primi- 
 tive, animal existence. 
 
 RELIGION", ART, PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 All spiritual action has for its aim and result 
 the production of the consciousness of the union 
 of the objective and the subjective ; in this is 
 freedom. This union appears to be produced 
 by the thinking subject, and to go out from it. 
 Religion stands at the head of the forms of this 
 union. Here the existing spirit, the spirit be- 
 longing to this world, becomes conscious of the 
 
 I Absolute Spirit; and in this consciousness of a 
 being existing in and for itself, the will of man 
 renounces its particular for private interests: in 
 devotion, he puts this aside, for here he can have 
 jj nothing to do with what is merely personal to 
 himself. If he is truly penetrated with devo- 
 tion, he knows that his particular interests are 
 subordinate. This concentration of soul shows 
 itself as feeling, but it also passes over into re- 
 flection ; the culttis, meaning by this all forms 
 of outward worship, is a manifestation of such 
 reflection ; the only destination and significancy 
 
 I of these externals is to produce that internal 
 union, — to lead the spirit thereto. By sacrifices, 
 man expresses his willingness to give up his 
 
 I own possessions, his own will, his own particu- 
 lar feelings. Thus Religion is the first form of 
 the union of the objective and subjective. The 
 second shape it takes is Art: this comes more 
 directly into the world of sense than religion; 
 
 I in its worthiest bearing its object is to exhibit, 
 
 J not, indeed, God as spirit, but the different visi- 
 
 ble representations which the different religions 
 give of God; and, then, what is divine and spi- 
 ritual in general. Art is intended to make what 
 is divine more clear ; it presents it to the imagi- 
 nation and contemplation in visible shapes. 
 Truth, finally, appears not only in the form of 
 feeling and of mental images of things, as in re- 
 ligion; not only in visible shapes, as in art; but 
 it is also elaborated by the thinking spirit. 
 Thus we attain the third mode of the union of 
 the objective and subjective, and that is philo- 
 sophy. This is the highest, freest, and purest 
 shape which it assumes. 
 
 THE UNINTELLIGIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The difficulty here lies partly in the want of 
 ability, in itself only a want of habit, to think 
 abstractly, that is, to hold unmixed thoughts 
 fast, and to move freely in them. In our ordi- 
 nary consciousness, thoughts are overlaid and 
 united with current materials from the world 
 of sense and of spirit ; and in our after-thoughts, 
 reflections and reasonings, we mix up feelings, 
 and mental images of visible objects, with the 
 thoughts themselves : in every sentence where 
 we speak only of what belongs to the world of 
 sense, e. g. this leaf is green, the categories of 
 being and singleness are involved. It is another 
 thing to make the unmixed thoughts themselves 
 the object of speculation. The other part of the 
 unintelligibility arises from the impatient desire 
 of having what exists in the consciousness, as a 
 thought or idea, also before the mind, in the 
 shape of some distinct image. It is a common 
 saying, we do not know what we are to think 
 about an idea which has been apprehended ; 
 with an idea there is nothing to be thought but 
 the idea itself. The sense, however, of that 
 expression is, that there is a longing for some 
 already known and current notion: when these 
 notions are taken away, it is, to the conscious- 
 ness, as though the very ground were removed, 
 upon which there was once a firm and home- 
 like standing-place. When one is transferred 
 into the pure region of ideas, he knows not 
 where in the world he is. Hence, those writers, 
 preachers and authors are found most intelli- 
 gible, who tell their readers or hearers things 
 which they already know by heart, which are 
 current with them, and understood of themselves. 
 
 There is a pretension, the opposite of this. 
 Philosophy lays claim to thinking, as the pecu- 
 liar form in which it works ; and every man is 
 by nature a thinking being. This science is, 
 now, often disdainfully treated by persons who 
 have never troubled themselves with studying 
 it, and who imagine that they understand, ab 
 ovo, all about philosophy and its conjunctures, 
 and are able to philosophize, and judge about 
 philosophy, just as they walk and talk with 
 their common education ; and especially on the 
 ground of their religious feelings. It is granted 
 that one must have studied the other sciences, 
 in order to understand them ; and that one is 
 justified in passing judgment upon them only 
 
456 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 when they are understood. It is granted that, 
 in order to make a shoe perfectly, one must 
 have learned and practised the art ; although 
 every man has the measure in his own foot, 
 and has hands, and, with these, natural adapt- 
 edness to the whole business. Only in philoso- 
 phizing, such like study, learning and pains are 
 not requisite. This convenient opinion has got 
 confirmation in the latest times, by means of the 
 theory of immediate knowledge, — of knowledge 
 by intuitive wisdom. 
 
 EMPIRICISM AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The principle of Experience contains one infi- 
 nitely important element, that in order to receive 
 and hold anything to be true, man must himself 
 be with it, have a knowledge of it as connected 
 with himself; to speak more definitely, that he 
 must find such an external object united, and 
 in unison with, the certainty of himself. He must 
 himself be there with it, either by means of his 
 external senses or his internal spirit, his essen- 
 tial self-consciousness. This principle is the 
 same as what now-a-days is called faith, direct 
 knowledge, the revelation in the external world, 
 and especially in one's own self. We call those 
 sciences which have been named philosophy, 
 empirical sciences, on account of the point of 
 departure which they take. But the essential 
 thing which they aim at and produce is a know- 
 ledge of laws, of general principles, a theory — the 
 thoughts that are contained in what is present 
 around us. Thus the system of Newton is called 
 Natural Philosophy ; while, again, Hugo Gro- 
 tius, combining together the historical relations 
 of different nations to one another, and reasoning 
 after the common fashion upon these data, ar- 
 rived at some general principles, a theory which 
 may be called the Philosophy of the Law of 
 Nations. The word philosophy still retains this 
 meaning universally in England. Newton has 
 the credit of being the greatest of philosophers ; 
 even down in the price-currents of the fabrica- 
 tors of instruments we find it ; those instruments 
 which are not brought under some special rubric 
 (as magnetic and electric apparatus), the ther- 
 mometers, barometers, and such like, are called 
 philosophical instruments • although one would 
 think that Thought alone, and not a composition 
 of iron, wood, &c, was the instrument of phi- 
 losophy* So, too, the science of Political Eco- 
 nomy, for which we are indebted to these latest 
 times, is called by them philosophy; while we 
 Germans name it rational Economy of the State. 
 In the mouths of English statesmen the expres- 
 
 * The Journal published by Thomson has the title, 
 "rfnnals of Philosophy, or Magazine for Chemistry, Mine- 
 ralogy, Mechanics, Natural History, Agriculture, and the 
 Arts." One can from this see for himself what the ma- 
 terials are which are here called philosophical. Among 
 the advertisements of new books in an English paper, I 
 lately found the following: " The Art of Preserving the 
 Hair, on Philosophical Principles, neatly printed in post, 
 8vo., price 7s." By philosophical principles are here 
 probably meant chemical, physiological, and such like. 
 
 sion, philosophical principles, is frequently used 
 with reference to the general principles of State 
 policy, even in public addresses. In a session 
 of Parliament on the 2d of February, 1825, 
 Brougham, by occasion of an Address in reply 
 to the Speech from the Throne, spoke of " those 
 philosophical principles of free trade, worthy of 
 a statesman — for without doubt they are philo- 
 sophical — on the adoption of which His Majesty 
 has this day congratulated Parliament." And 
 not only this member of the opposition, but the 
 Secretary of State, Canning, in reply to a toast 
 given him at the annual dinner of the Company 
 of Ship-owners, where Lord Liverpool, the 
 Prime Minister, presided, also said: "A period 
 has lately begun in which ministers have it in 
 their power to apply the correct maxims of a 
 deep philosophy to our national government." 
 However different the English Philosophy may 
 be from the German, when the very name is 
 elsewhere a by-word and reproach, or used as 
 some hateful thing, it is an occasion of rejoicing 
 to see it honored in the mouths of English 
 statesmen. 
 
 It is an old maxim, falsely ascribed to Aris- 
 totle in the sense that it expresses the stand- 
 point of his philosophy: nihil est in intellectu, 
 quod non fuerit in sensu: — there is nothing in 
 thought which was not first in sense, in expe- 
 rience. It is only a misunderstanding when it 
 is said, that the speculative philosophy will not 
 grant this principle. But, on the other hand, 
 it also maintains : nihil est in sensu, quod non 
 fuerit in intellectu, — first, in the very general 
 sense, that the mind (yov{) or, with deeper sig- 
 nificance of definition, the spirit, is the cause of 
 the world ; and, secondly, in the more special 
 sense, that our feelings in respect to justice, 
 morals and religion, are feelings, and so expe- 
 riences, in respect to matters which have their 
 root and seat in thought. 
 
 WHO THINKS ABSTRACTLY? 
 
 FROM HEGEL'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 
 
 Thinks? Abstractly? — " Sauve qui peut!" 
 " Save himself who can !" I hear a traitor ex- 
 claim, who, bribed by the enemy, would decry 
 this essay, as one that treats of Metaphysics. 
 For ' metaphysics ' and ' abstract,' and, I had 
 almost said, ' to think,' are words from which— 
 as from one infected with the plague — every 
 man is more or less disposed to run away. 
 
 I do not however intend here anything so 
 atrocious as an explanation of what is meant 
 by 'thinking' and by 'abstract.' I am frightened 
 enough myself when any one begins to ex- 
 plain ; for, at a pinch, I understand everything 
 myself. Besides, any explanation of the words, 
 'to think' and 'abstract,' would be quite super- 
 fluous. For it is even because the polite world 
 
HEG 
 
 knows so well what is meant by 'abstract,' that 
 it shuns the abstract. As no one craves what 
 he does not know, so no one can hate what he 
 does not know. Neither is it intended, by- 
 cunning stratagem, to attempt to reconcile the 
 polite world to the abstract, as if, e. g. under the 
 cover of a light conversation, 'thinking' and 
 'the abstract' should be tricked out, until, at 
 last, without being recognised, and without 
 awakening any abhorrence, they had crept into 
 good company, and even been imperceptibly 
 drawn in by said company, or, as they say in 
 Suabia, " gez'dunselt" in, — and then the author of 
 the plot should come forward and uncover this 
 otherwise strange guest, 'the abstract,' whom 
 the whole company had been acknowledging 
 and treating as a good friend, under a different 
 name. These scenes of recognition, by which 
 it is designed to instruct the world against its 
 will, have this unpardonable fault — they mor- 
 tify while they instruct; and they discover in 
 the machinist the wish to acquire a little repu- 
 tation by his arts. That mortification and this 
 vanity neutralize the intended effect, and dissi- 
 pate again the instruction purchased at such a 
 price. 
 
 Besides, the stratagem, in this instance, if any 
 such had been designed, is already defeated; 
 inasmuch as its successful execution requires 
 that the word of the enigma should not be pro- 
 nounced at the outset. But that has been done 
 in the present case, in the caption. If my essay 
 had contemplated a ruse like that which has 
 been described, these words, 'think' and 'ab- 
 stract,' ought not to have made their appear- 
 ance in the commencement ; but, like the minis- 
 ter of state in the play, they should wear an 
 over-coat through the whole piece, and then in 
 the last scene unbutton it, and let the star* of 
 wisdom beam forth. But the unbuttoning of 
 the metaphysical over-coat would not have so 
 good an effect as the unbuttoning of the minis- 
 terial. It would only reveal a couple of words; 
 and the best of the joke was to consist in show- 
 ing that the company had long been in posses- 
 sion of the thing. So they would gain, in the 
 end, nothing but the name ; whereas the minis- 
 terial star indicates something more real, to wit, 
 a purse with money in it. 
 
 It is presumed in good company — and that is 
 the kind of company we are now in — that every 
 one present knows what 'thinking' is, what 'ab- 
 stract' is. We have only to inquire who it is 
 that thinks abstractly. The design is not, as I 
 have already remarked, to reconcile the com- 
 pany to these things, to expect of them that 
 they should employ themselves with anything 
 difficult, to speak to their consciences for heed- 
 lessly neglecting what is so worthy and befitting 
 I a rational being. The object is rather to recon- 
 cile the polite world with itself, in case it should 
 feel — not exactly conscientious scruples on ac- 
 
 * In allusion to the star worn on the breast by certain 
 dignitaries.— 7Yans. 
 
 3h 
 
 EL. 457 
 
 count of said neglect — but yet inwardly, at 
 least, a certain respect for abstract thinking, as 
 for something exalted, and should turn from it 
 not because it is too mean, but because it is too 
 hiu;h, not because it is too common, but because 
 it is too distinguished ; or, contrariwise, because 
 it seems to be an espcce, something out of the 
 way, something whereby one is, not distin- 
 guished in general society as by new finery, 
 but rather excluded from it, or made ridiculous 
 in it, as by a poor dress, or by a rich one, where 
 the setting of the diamonds is old-fashioned, or 
 where the embroidery, though never so costly, 
 has long since come to be " Chinese." 
 
 Who thinks abstractly? The uncultivated 
 man, not the cultivated. People who belong 
 to good society do not think abstractly, because 
 it is too easy, because it is too low — low, not 
 according to outward condition; — they abstain 
 from it, not out of empty hauteur, which affects 
 to look with contempt on what is above its capa- 
 city, but on account of the intrinsic littleness of 
 the thing. 
 
 The prepossession and respect for abstract 
 thinking is so great, that refined noses will begin 
 to scent and anticipate Scitire or irony here. But 
 as my readers are readers of the Morgenblatt, 
 they know that a price is paid for satire ; and 
 they must suppose that I would rather earn that 
 price, and concur to obtain it, than give forth 
 my matters in this way, without remuneration. 
 
 I need but adduce, in defence of my proposi- 
 tion, certain examples, which, as every one will 
 allow, imply it. We will suppose, then, a mur- 
 derer is led to the place of execution. To the 
 common people he is nothing more than a mur- 
 derer. Ladies, perhaps, will remark that he is 
 a powerful, handsome, interesting man. But 
 the people before mentioned, think that remark 
 shocking. "What! a murderer handsome? How 
 can any one be so evil-minded as to think a 
 murderer handsome 1 It is to be feared you are 
 not much better than murderers yourselves." 
 " This is the corruption of morals which reigns 
 among the higher classes," adds, perhaps, a 
 priest, who knows the reason of things and the 
 hearts of men. 
 
 One who understands human nature, investi- 
 gates the course which the education of this 
 murderer has taken ; he finds in his history, in 
 his bringing-up, bad domestic relations between 
 his father and his mother; finds a monstrous 
 severity exercised towards him on the occasion 
 of some light offence, — a severity which has 
 embittered his feelings in relation to the civil 
 order; — finds a first reaction against this order, 
 which, caused his expulsion from it, and made 
 it impossible for him, thenceforward, to main- 
 tain himself otherwise than by crime. There 
 may be some who, when they hear this account 
 of the matter, will say. that man wishes to 
 apologize for this murderer ! I remember to 
 have heard, in my youth, a burgomaster com- 
 plain that writers of books were going too far, 
 were endeavoring to extirpate Christianity and 
 39 
 
458 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 justice altogether; that some one had written a 
 defence of suicide! — dreadful! too dreadful! 
 On inquiry, it appeared that he had in his mind 
 the " Sorrows of Werter." 
 
 This is thinking abstractly, — to see in a 
 murderer nothing but the abstract fact that he 
 is a murderer; and by means of this single 
 quality to expunge all else, all that is human in 
 him. 
 
 Quite otherwise did a refined, sentimental 
 Leipzig world. They bestrewed and be wreathed 
 the wheel, and the criminal who was bound 
 upon it, with flower-garlands. But this, again, 
 is an abstraction of an opposite kind. Chris- 
 tians may well practise rosicrucianism, or rather 
 cruciroseism, and wreathe the cross with roses. 
 The cross is a long-since hallowed gibbet and 
 wheel. It has lost its one-sided signification as 
 an instrument of degrading punishment, and 
 gives, on the contrary, the idea of the highest 
 sorrow and the uttermost rejection, combined 
 with extreme rapture and divine honor. The 
 Leipzig cross, on the other hand, wreathed with 
 violets and roses, represents an atonement in 
 the manner of Kotzebue, a kind of maudlin 
 agreement between sentiment and vice. 
 
 It was after a very different fashion that I 
 once heard a vulgar old crone — a spital woman 
 — slay the abstraction of a murderer, and raise 
 him again to honor. The severed head was 
 placed upon the scaffold, and the sun was 
 shining. " How beautifully," said she, "God's 
 sun of grace illumines Binder's head !" People 
 say to a wight against whom they are incensed, 
 " You are not worthy that the sun should shine 
 upon you!"' That woman saw that the mur- 
 derers head was shone upon by the sun, and 
 consequently was still worthy of the sun's light. 
 She raised him from the punishment of the 
 scaffold into the sun-grace of God. She did not 
 bring about the atonement with violets and sen- 
 timental vanity; but she saw him received with 
 grace into a higher sun. 
 
 "Old woman! your eggs are rotten!" says 
 the female purchaser to the huckster-woman. 
 "What!" replies the latter; "my eggs rotten! 
 Belike, you are rotten yourself. Do you say that 
 of my eggs? You? Didn't the lice eat up 
 your father on the public road? Didn't your 
 mother run off with the French ? Didn't your 
 grandmother die in the Spital ? Go ! get you a 
 whole smock, to go with your gauze necker- 
 chief! Everybody knows where that necker- 
 chief, and where all your caps come from. If 
 there were no officers, many a girl would not 
 
 be so prinked up now-a-days. And if mis- 
 tresses would look more to their housekeeping, 
 there's many a one would sit in the stocks. Go! 
 patch the holes in your stockings!" In short, 
 she does not leave her a whole thread. She 
 thinks abstractly, and concludes her, together 
 with neckerchief, caps, smock, &c, with fingers 
 and other parts, also with her father and all her 
 relations, under the single crime of having 
 charged her (the huckster) with rotten eggs. 
 Everything about her is colored through and 
 through with these rotten eggs; whereas, on the 
 contrary, those officers, of whom the huckster- 
 woman spoke, — if (what is very doubtful) there 
 is anything in the story, — must have seen some- 
 thing very different. 
 
 To come from the maid to servants: — a ser- 
 vant fares nowhere so badly as with men of in- 
 ferior rank and small income. The higher the 
 rank of the master, the better the condition of the 
 servant. Here, again, the common man thinks 
 more abstractly. He is haughty towards his 
 servant, relates to him as to a servant only. To 
 this one predicate he holds fast. A servant 
 fares best with Frenchmen. The man of rank 
 is familiar with his servant. The Frenchman 
 is "hail! fellow, well met!" with him. When 
 they are alone, the servant leads the conversa- 
 tion. See Diderot's Jacques et son maitre. The 
 master does nothing but take snuff and look at 
 his watch ; and, for the rest, lets the servant 
 have his way. The man of rank knows that 
 the servant is not merely a servant, that he is 
 acquainted with the news of the city, knows 
 the girls, and has good projects in his head. 
 He asks him about these things, and the servant 
 may say what he knows on the subjects on 
 which the master questions him. With a French 
 master, the servant may not only do this, but 
 may also bring his own matter on the tapis, and 
 have and maintain his own opinion. And if 
 the master wants anything, he is not to com- 
 mand, but he must first reason his own opinion 
 into the servant, and then give him a good word, 
 in order that his own opinion may retain the 
 ascendancy. 
 
 In military life, the same distinction is found, i 
 In Austria, the soldier can be flogged ; conse- 
 quently, he is a vile fellow ; for one who has a 
 passive right to be flogged, is a vile fellow. 
 And so the common soldier passes with the 
 officer for this abstraction, a floggable subject, 
 one with whom a gentleman who has a uniform 
 and Port d'epee must have intercourse. And 
 that is to give one's self to the Devil. 
 
JOHANN HEINRICH DANIEL ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 Bom 1771. 
 
 Zschokke has become known to the Ameri- 
 can Public, within a few years past, by trans- 
 lations of several of his tales. But Zschokke is 
 something more than a mere story-teller. He is 
 known in Germany as an historical writer, and 
 all his works discover the moral philosopher, 
 well versed in human nature and human af- 
 fairs, and one who has pondered deeply the 
 social and individual destination of man. 
 
 He was born, according to Wolff's Encyclo- 
 pasdia of German Literature, at Magdeburg, 
 March 22d, 1771, received a classical educa- 
 tion in his native city, and studied at Frankfort 
 on the Oder, where he afterwards took up his 
 residence, and in 1793 was made Professor of 
 Philosophy. He soon resigned this office, and 
 moved to Graubiindten, (Grisons,) where he 
 undertook the management of a seminary of 
 education. At the time of the French inva- 
 sion he acted as mediator, devoting himself 
 exclusively to the good of the country which 
 he had adopted as a second father-land. He 
 was made Government's Commissary for seve- 
 
 ral Cantons, and officiated for some time as 
 Lieutenant Governor at Basel. He then re- 
 tired to Castle Biberstein in Aargau, but was 
 soon summoned anew into public life, and made 
 Superintendent of the Mining and Forest de- 
 partments. In 1815, he was made member of 
 the general Council of the Cantons. Tn 1829, 
 he resigned all his public offices, and since that 
 time has devoted himself exclusively to lite- 
 rary pursuits, living and laboring, as author by 
 profession, at Aarau. 
 
 Zschokke has tried his hand at almost every 
 species of literary production, and has been 
 successful in all. He excels as narrator, com- 
 bining artistic judgment with exuberant fancy, 
 great power of characterization, a lively man- 
 ner, and a style admirably suited to his mate- 
 rial ; natural, but at the same time dignified 
 and correct. But his influence has been great- 
 est as historian and popular teacher, skilled to 
 comprehend and penetrate the spirit of the 
 time, and indefatigable in developing and dif- 
 fusing sound views of men and things. 
 
 LEAVES FROM THE JOURNAL OF A 
 POOR VICAR IN WILTSHIRE * 
 
 Bee. 15, 1764. — Received to-day from Dr. 
 Snarl, £10 sterling, being my half-year's salary. 
 The receipt even of this hardly-earned sum 
 was attended with many uncomfortable cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Not until I had waited an hour and a half in 
 the cold ante-room was I admitted to the pre- 
 sence of his Reverence. He was seated in an 
 easy-chair at his writing-desk. My money was 
 lying by him, ready counted. My low bow he 
 returned with a lofty side-nod, while he slightly 
 pushed back his beautiful black silk cap, and 
 immediately drew it on again. Really he is a 
 man of much dignity. I can never approach 
 
 * From " The Gift," 1844, Philadelphia, Carey &. Hart. 
 Translated by Rev. W. H. Furness. The translator ven- 
 tures the conjecture that the original fragment from 
 which Zschokke took the idea of this journal, and which 
 appeared in the British Magazine (1766), was written by 
 Goldsmith. It may be, as the German writer suggests, 
 the germ of the " Vicar of Wakefield," which appeared 
 first in 1772. 
 
 him without awe. I do not believe I should 
 enter the king's presence with less composure. 
 
 He did not urge me to be seated, although he 
 well knew that I had this very morning walked 
 eleven miles in the bad weather, and that the 
 hour and a half's standing in the ante-room had 
 not much helped to rest my wearied limbs. He 
 pointed me to the money. 
 
 My heart beat violently when I attempted to 
 introduce the subject which I had so long thought 
 over, of a little increase of my salary. I shall 
 never be able to conquer my timidity, even in 
 the most righteous cause. Twice, with an agony 
 as if I were about to commit a crime, I endea- 
 vored to break ground. Memory, words, and 
 voice failed me. The sweat started in great 
 drops on my forehead. 
 
 " What do you wish ?" said the Doctor, very 
 politely. 
 
 "I am — everything is so dear — scarcely able 
 to get along in these hard times, with this small 
 salary." 
 
 " Small salary, Mr. Vicar ! How can you 
 think so? I can at any time procure another 
 vicar for £15 sterling a year." 
 
 (459) 
 
460 
 
 ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 "For £15! Without a family, one might in- 
 deed get along with that sum." 
 
 "Your family, Mr. Vicar," said the doctor, in- 
 quiringly, " has not received any addition, I 
 trust. You have only two daughters?" 
 
 " Only two, your Reverence ; but they are 
 growing up. My Jenny, the eldest, is now 
 eighteen, and Polly, the younger, will soon be 
 twelve." 
 
 " So much the better. Can't your girls work?" 
 
 I was about to reply, when he cut me short 
 by rising and observing, while he went to the 
 window and drummed with his fingers on the 
 pane, that he had no time to talk with me to- 
 day. "Think it over," he concluded, "whether 
 you will retain your place at £15 a year, and 
 let me know. If you relinquish it, I hope you 
 will have a better situation for a New Year's 
 present." 
 
 He bowed very politely, and again touched 
 his cap. I swept up the money, and took my 
 leave. I was thunderstruck. He had never 
 received nor dismissed me so coldly before. 
 Without doubt somebody has been speaking ill 
 of me. He did not once invite me to dinner, as 
 had always before been his custom. I had de- 
 pended upon it, for I came from home without 
 breaking my fast. I bought a loaf in the outskirts 
 of the town at a baker's shop, which I had ob- 
 served in passing, and took my way home. 
 
 How cast down was I as I trudged along! I 
 cried like a child. The bread I was eating was 
 wet with my tears. 
 
 But fy, Thomas ! Shame upon thy faint heart ! 
 Lives not the gracious God still? What if thou 
 hadst lost the place entirely? And it is only £5 
 less ! It is indeed a quarter of my whole little 
 yearly stipend, and it leaves barely lOd. a day 
 to feed and clothe three of us. What is there 
 left for us? Who clothes the lilies of the field ! 
 Who feeds the young ravens ! We must deny 
 ourselves some of our luxuries. 
 
 Dec. 16. — I do believe Jenny's an angel. Her 
 soul is even more beautiful than her body. I 
 am almost ashamed of being her father. She is 
 so much better and more pious than I. 
 
 I had not the courage yesterday to tell my 
 girls the bad news. When I mentioned it. to- 
 day, Jenny at first looked very serious, but sud- 
 denly she brightened up and said, « Thou art 
 disquieted, father !" 
 
 "Should I not be so?" 
 
 " No, thou shouldst not." 
 
 " Dear child, we shall never be free from 
 debt and trouble. I do not know how we can 
 stand it. Our need is sore. £15 hardly suffice 
 for the bare necessaries of life. Who will as- 
 sist us?" 
 
 Instead of answering, Jenny gently passed 
 one arm round my neck, and pointed upwards 
 with the other. — "He, there!" said she. 
 
 Polly seated herself on my lap, patted my 
 face, and said, "I want to tell thee something. 
 I dreamed last night that it was New Year's 
 
 day, and that the king came to C . There 
 
 was a splendid show. The king dismounted 
 from his horse before our front door, and came 
 in. We had nothing to set before him, and 
 he commanded some of his own dainties to be 
 brought in dishes of gold and silver. The kettle- 
 drums and trumpets sounded outside; and only 
 think, with the sound of the music, in came 
 some people with a bishop's mitre upon a satin 
 cushion, a New Year's present for thee ! It 
 looked very funny, like the pointed caps of the 
 bishops in the old picture-book. But it became 
 thee right grandly. Yet I laughed myself almost 
 out of breath ; and then Jenny waked me up, 
 which made me quite angry. This dream has 
 certainly something to do with a New Year's 
 present. It is only fourteen days to New 
 Year's." 
 
 I said to Polly, "Dreams are but Seems;" but 
 she said, "Dreams come from God." 
 
 I believe no such thing. Still I write the 
 dream down, to see whether it be not a com- 
 forting hint from Heaven. A New Year's pre- 
 sent would be acceptable to all of us. 
 
 All day I have been at my accounts. I do 
 not like accounts. Reckoning and money mat- 
 ters distract my head, and make my heart 
 empty and heavy. 
 
 Dec. 17. — My debts. God be praised, are all 
 now paid, but one. At five different places I 
 paid off £7 lis. sterling. I have therefore left 
 in ready money, £2 9s. This must last a half- 
 year. God help us ! 
 
 The black hose that I saw at tailor Cutbay's I 
 must leave unpurchased, although I need them 
 sorely. They are indeed pretty well worn, yet 
 still in good condition, and the price is reason- 
 able. But Jenny needs a cloak a great deal 
 more. I pity the dear child when I see her 
 shivering in that thin camlet. Polly must be 
 satisfied with the cloak which her sister has 
 made for her so nicely out of her old one. 
 
 I must give up my share of the newspaper which 
 neighbor Westburn and I took together. It goes 
 hard with me. Here in C , without a news- 
 paper one knows nothing of the course of affairs. 
 At the horse-races at Newmarket, the Duke of 
 Cumberland won £5000 of the Duke of Grafton. 
 It is wonderful how literally the words of Scrip- 
 ture are always fulfilled, "To him who hath, 
 shall be given," and those other words, too, 
 "From him who hath not, shall be taken away." 
 I must lose £5 of even my poor salary. 
 
 Fy, Thomas, already murmuring again ! and 
 wherefore ? For a newspaper, which thou art 
 no longer able to take ? Shame on thee ! Thou 
 mayst easily learn from others whether General 
 Paoli succeeds in maintaining the freedom of 
 Corsica. The French have indeed promised 
 assistance to the Genoese ; but Paoli has 20,000 
 veterans. 
 
 Dec. 18. — Ah! how happy are we poor people 
 still ! Jenny has got a grand cloak at the slop- 
 
 J 
 
ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 40 1 
 
 shop for a mere song, and now she is sitting 
 there with Polly, ripping it to pieces, in order to 
 make it up anew. Jenny understands how to 
 trade and bargain better than I. But they let 
 her have things at her own price, her voice is 
 so gentle. We have now joy upon joy. Jenny 
 wants to appear in the new cloak for the first 
 time on New Year's Day. Polly has a hundred 
 comments and predictions about it. I wager, 
 the Dey of Algiers had not greater pleasure in 
 the costly present which the Venetians made 
 him, the two diamond rings, the two watches 
 set with brilliants, the pistols inlaid with gold, 
 the costly carpets, the rich housings, and the 
 20,000 sequins in cash. 
 
 Jenny says we must save the cloak in eat- 
 ables. Until New Year's, we must buy no 
 meat. This is as it should be. 
 
 Neighbor Westburn is a noble man. I told 
 him yesterday I must discontinue my subscrip- 
 tion for the newspaper, because I am not sure 
 of my present salary, nor even of my place. He 
 shook my hand and said, " Very well, then I 
 will take the paper, and you shall still read it 
 with me." 
 
 One must never despair. There are more 
 good men in the world than one thinks, espe- 
 cially among the poor. 
 
 The same day. Eve. — The baker is a crabbed 
 man. Although I owe him nothing, yet when 
 Polly went to fetch a loaf, and found it very 
 small and badly risen or half-burnt, he struck 
 up a quarrel with her, so that people stopped 
 in the street. He declared that he would not 
 sell upon trust — that we must go elsewhere for 
 our bread. I pitied Polly. 
 
 I wonder how the people here know every- 
 thing. Every one in the village is telling how 
 the doctor is going to put another curate in my 
 place. It will be the death of me. 
 
 The butcher, even, must have got a hint of it. 
 It certainly was not without design that he sent 
 his wife to me with complaints about the bad 
 times, and the impossibility of selling any longer 
 for anything but cash, She was indeed very 
 polite, and could not find words to express her 
 love and respect for us. She advised us to go 
 to Colswood, and buy the little meat we want 
 of him, as he is a richer man, and is able to wait 
 for his money. I cared not to tell the good wo- 
 man how that usurer treated us a year ago, 
 when he charged us a penny a pound more than 
 others for his meat, and, when his oaths and 
 curses could not help him out, and he could not 
 deny it, how he declared roundly that he must 
 receive a little interest when he was kept out 
 of his money a whole year, and then showed us 
 the door. 
 
 I still have in ready money £2 Is. 3d. What 
 shall I do, if no one will trust me, so that I may 
 pay my bills quarterly? And if Dr. Snarl ap- 
 points another curate, then must I and my poor 
 children be turned upon the street! 
 
 Be it so ; God is in the street also ! 
 
 Dec. 19, early. A. M. — I awoke very early to- 
 day, and pondered what I shall do in my diffi- 
 cult situation. I thought of Master Sitting, my 
 rich cousin at Cambridge ; only poor people 
 have no cousins, only the rich. Were New 
 Year's day to bring me a bishop's mitre, accord- 
 ing to Polly's dream, then I should have half 
 England for my relations. 
 
 I have written, and sent by the post, the fol- 
 lowing letter to the Rev. Dr. Snarl : 
 
 " I write with an anxious heart. It is said 
 that your reverence intends to appoint another 
 curate in my stead. I know not whether the 
 report has any foundation, or whether it has 
 arisen merely from my having mentioned to 
 some persons the interview I had with you. 
 
 " The office with which you entrusted me I 
 have discharged with zeal and fidelity ; I have 
 preached the word of God in all purity ; I have 
 heard no complaints. Even my inward monitor 
 condemns me not. I humbly requested for a 
 little increase of my small salary. Your reve- 
 rence spoke of reducing the small stipend, 
 which scarcely suffices to procure me and my 
 family the bare necessaries of life. Let your 
 humane heart decide. 
 
 " I have laboured sixteen years under your 
 reverence's pious predecessors, and a year and 
 a half under yourself. I am now fifty years 
 old. My hair begins to grow gray. Without ac- 
 quaintances, without patrons, without the pros- 
 pect of another living, without the means of 
 earning my bread in any other way, mine and 
 my children's fate depends upon your compas- 
 sion. If you fail us, there remains no support 
 for us but the beggar's staff. 
 
 "My daughters, gradually grown up, occasion, 
 with the closest economy, increased expense. 
 My eldest daughter, Jenny, supplies the place 
 of a mother to her sister, and conducts our do- 
 mestic concerns. We keep no maid; my daugh- 
 ter is maid, cook, washerwoman, tailoress, and 
 even shoemaker, while I am the carpenter, 
 mason, chimney-sweeper, woodcutter, gardener, 
 farmer, and wood-carrier of the household. 
 
 " God's mercy has attended us hitherto. We 
 have had no sickness. We could not have paid 
 for medicines. C is a little place. 
 
 " My daughters have in vain offered to do 
 other work, such as washing, mending, and 
 sewing. They very rarely get any. Here in 
 the country every one does her own housework ; 
 none are rich. 
 
 "It will be a hard task to carry me and mine 
 through the year upon £20; but it will be harder 
 still if I am to attempt it upon £15. But I throw 
 myself on your compassion and on God, and 
 pray your reverence at least to relieve me of 
 this anxiety." 
 
 After I had finished this letter, I threw my- 
 self upon my knees, (while Polly carried it to 
 the post-office,) and prayed for a happy issue. 
 I then became wonderfully clear and calm in 
 my mind. Ah ! a word to God is always a 
 word from God — so cheerfully came I from my 
 39* 
 
462 
 
 ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 little chamber, which I had entered with a 
 heavy heart. 
 
 Jenny sate at work at the window. She sate 
 there with the repose and grace of an angel. 
 Light seemed to stream from her looks. A slen- 
 der sunheam came through the window, and 
 transfigured the whole place. I was in a hea- 
 venly state. I seated myself at the desk, and 
 wrote my sermon, "On the joys of poverty. 1 ' 
 
 I preach in the pulpit as much to myself as 
 to my hearers ; and I come from church edified, 
 if no one else does. If others do not receive 
 consolation from my words, I find it myself. It 
 is with the clergyman as with the physician. 
 He knows the power of his medicines, but not 
 always their effect upon the constitution of 
 every patient. 
 
 The same day. A. M. — This morning I received 
 a note from a stranger who had tarried over 
 night at the inn. He begs me, on account of 
 urgent affairs, to come to him. 
 
 I have been to him. I found him a handsome 
 young man of about six-and-twenty, with noble 
 features and a graceful carriage. He had on an 
 old well-worn surtout and boots, which still bore 
 the marks of yesterday's travel. His round hat, 
 although originally of a finer material than 
 mine, was still far more defaced and shabby. 
 The young man appeared, notwithstanding the 
 derangement of his dress, to be of good family. 
 He had on at least a clean shirt of the finest 
 linen, which perhaps had just been given him 
 by some charitable hand. 
 
 He led me into a private room, begged par- 
 don a thousand times for having troubled me, 
 and proceeded to inform me in a very humble 
 manner, that he found himself in most painful 
 circumstances, that he knew nobody in this 
 place, where he had arrived last evening, and 
 had therefore had recourse to me as a clergy- 
 man. He was, he added, by profession, an 
 actor, but without employment, and intending 
 to proceed to Manchester. He had expended 
 nearly all his money, and had not enough to 
 pay his fare at the inn — to say nothing of the 
 expense of proceeding on his journey. Accord- 
 ingly he turned in his despair to me. Twelve 
 shillings would be a great assistance to him. 
 He promised, if I would favor him with that 
 advance, that he would honorably and thank- 
 fully repay it, so soon as he was again con- 
 nected with any theatre. His name is John 
 Fleetman. 
 
 There was no necessity of his painting his 
 distress to me so at large. His features ex- 
 pressed more trouble than his words. He pro- 
 bably read something of the same kind in my 
 face; for as he turned his eyes upon me, he 
 seemed struck with alarm, and exclaimed, 
 " Will you leave me then without help ?" 
 
 I stated to him that my own situation was 
 full of embarrassment, that he had asked of me 
 nothing less than the fourth part of all the 
 money I had in the world, and that I was in 
 
 great uncertainty as to the further continuance 
 of my office. 
 
 He immediately became cold in his manner, 
 and, as it were, drew back into himself, while 
 he remarked, " You comfort the unfortunate 
 with the story of your own misfortunes. I ask 
 nothing of you. Is there no one in C who 
 has pity, if he has no wealth V 
 
 I cast an embarrassed look at Mr. Fleetman, 
 and was ashamed to have represented my dis- 
 tressed situation to him as a reason for my re- 
 fusal to assist him. I instantly thought over all 
 my townsmen, and could not trust myself to 
 name one. I did not perhaps know their hearts 
 well enough. 
 
 I approached him, and laid my hand upon 
 his shoulder, and said, "Mr. Fleetman, you 
 grieve me. Have a little patience. You see I 
 am poor. I will help you if I can. I will give 
 you an answer in an hour." 
 
 I went home. On the way I thought to my- 
 self, "How odd! the stranger always comes 
 first to me, and an actor to a clergyman ! There 
 must be something in my nature that attracts 
 the wretched and the needy, like a magnet. 
 Whoever is in need comes to me, who have the 
 least to give. When I sit at table with stran- 
 gers, one of the company is sure to have a dog 
 who looks steadily at what I am eating, and 
 comes and lays his cold nose directly on my 
 knee." 
 
 When at home, I told the children who the 
 stranger was, and what he wanted. I wished 
 for Jenny's advice. She said tenderly, " I know, 
 father, what thou thinkest, and therefore I have 
 nothing to advise." 
 
 "And what do I think ?" 
 
 " Why, that thou wilt do unto this poor actor 
 as thou hopest God and Dr. Snarl will do unto 
 
 thee." 
 
 I had thought no such thing, but I wished I 
 had. I got the twelve shillings, and gave them 
 to Jenny to carry to the traveller. I did not care 
 to listen to his thanks. It humbles me. Ingra- 
 titude stirs my spirit up. And, besides, I had 
 my sermon to prepare. 
 
 The same day. Eve. — The actor is certainly a 
 worthy man. When Jenny returned from the 
 inn, she had much to tell about him, and also 
 about the landlady. This woman had found 
 out that her guest had an empty pocket, and 
 Jenny could not deny that she had brought him 
 some money. So Jenny had to listen to a long 
 sermon upon the folly of giving, when one has 
 nothing himself, and the danger of helping va- 
 grants, when one has not the wherewithal to 
 clothe his own children. "The shirt is nearer 
 than the coat." "To feed one's own maketh 
 fat," &c. &c. 
 
 I had just turned to my sermon again, when 
 Mr. Fleetman entered. He could not, he said, 
 
 leave C without thanking his benefactor, 
 
 by whose means he had been delivered from 
 the greatest embarrassment. Jenny was just 
 
ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 463 
 
 setting the table. We had an omelet and some 
 turnips. 1 invited the traveller to dine with us. 
 He accepted the invitation. It was very timely, 
 he intimated, for he had eaten a very scanty 
 breakfast. Polly brought some beer. We had 
 not for a long while fared so well. 
 
 Mr. Fleetman seemed to enjoy himself with 
 us. He had quite lost that anxious look he had, 
 yet there was the shy, reserved manner about 
 him, which is peculiar to the unfortunate. He 
 inferred that we were very happy, and of that 
 we assured him. He supposed also that I was 
 richer and better to do in the world than I de- 
 sired to appear. There he was mistaken. With- 
 out doubt the order and cleanliness of our par- 
 lor dazzled the good man, the clearness of the 
 windows, the neatness of the curtains, of the 
 dinner-table, the floor, and the brightness of our 
 tables and chairs. One usually finds a great 
 lack of cleanliness in the dwellings of the poor, 
 because they do not know how to save. But 
 order and neatness, as I always preached to my 
 sainted wife and to my daughters, are great 
 save-alls. Jenny is a perfect mistress therein. 
 She almost surpasses her mother, and she is 
 bringing up her sister Polly in the same way. 
 Her sharp eyes not a fly-mark can escape. 
 
 Our guest soon became quite familiar and in- 
 timate with us. He spoke more, however, of 
 our situation than of his own. The poor man 
 must have some trouble on his heart, I hope not 
 upon his conscience. I remarked that he often 
 broke off suddenly in conversation, and became 
 depressed, then again he would exert himself 
 to be cheerful. God comfort him ! 
 
 As he was quitting us after dinner, I gave 
 hiin much friendly counsel. Actors, I know, are 
 rather a light-minded folk. He promised me 
 sacredly, as soon as he should have money, to 
 send back my loan. He must be sincere in that, 
 for he looked very honest, and several times 
 asked, how long I thought I should be able with 
 the remainder of my ready money to meet the 
 necessities of my household. 
 
 His last words were, " It is impossible it 
 should go ill with you in the world. You have 
 heaven in your breast, and two angels of God 
 at your side." With these words, he pointed to 
 Jenny and Polly. 
 
 Dec. 20. — The day has passed very quietly, 
 but I cannot say very agreeably, for the grocer, 
 Jones, sent me his bill for the year. Consider- 
 ing what we had had of him, it was larger than 
 we had expected, although we had had nothing 
 of which we did not ourselves keep an account. 
 Only he had raised the price of all his arti- 
 cles. Otherwise, his account agreed honestly 
 with ours. 
 
 The worst is the arrears of my last year's bill. 
 He begged for the payment of the same, as he 
 is in great need of money. The whole of what 
 I owe him amounts to eighteen shillings. 
 
 I went to see Mr. Jones. He is a very polite 
 and reasonable man. I hoped to satisfy him by 
 
 paying him in part, and promising to pay the 
 remainder by Easter. But he was not to be 
 moved, and he regretted that he should be 
 forced to proceed to extremities. If he could, 
 he would gladly wait; but only within three 
 days he would have to pay a note which had 
 just been presented to him. With a merchant, 
 credit is everything. 
 
 To all this there was nothing to be said in 
 reply, after my repeated requests for delay had 
 proved vain. Should I have let him go to law 
 against me, as he threatened"? I sent him the 
 money, and paid off the whole debt. But now 
 my whole property has melted down to eleven 
 shillings. Heaven grant that the actor may 
 soon return what 1 loaned him. Otherwise I 
 know not what help there is for us. 
 
 Now go to, thou man of little faith, if thou 
 knowest not, God knoweth. Why is thy heart 
 cast down ? What evil hast thou done? Poverty 
 is no crime. 
 
 Dec. 24. — One may be right happy after all, 
 even at the poorest. We have a thousand plea- 
 sures in Jenny's new cloak. She looks as beauti- 
 ful in it as a bride. But she wishes to wear it the 
 first time abroad at church on New Year's day. 
 
 Every evening she reckons up, and shows 
 me with how little expense she has got through 
 the day. We are all in bed by seven o'clock, to 
 save oil and coals. That is no great hardship. 
 The girls are so much the more industrious in 
 the day, and they chat together in bed until mid- 
 night. We have a beautiful supply of turnips and 
 vegetables. Jenny thinks we can get through 
 six or eight weeks, without running in debt. That 
 were a stroke of management without parallel. 
 And until then, we all hope that Mr. Fleetman 
 will keep his word like an honest man, and pay 
 us back the loan. If I appear to distrust him, it 
 awakens all Jenny's zeal. She will allow no 
 evil of the comedian. 
 
 He is our constant topic. The girls especially 
 make a great deal out of him. His appearance 
 interrupted the uniformity of our life. He will 
 supply us with conversation for a full half year. 
 Pleasant is Jenny's anger, when the mischievous 
 Polly exclaims, "But he is an acior! - ' Then 
 Jenny tells of the celebrated actors in London 
 who are invited to dine with the princes of the 
 royal family; and she is ready to prove that 
 Fleetman will become one of the first actors in 
 the world, for he has fine talents, and a grace- 
 ful address and well-chosen phrases. "Yes, in- 
 deed !" said the sly Polly to-day, very wittily, 
 "beautiful phrases! he called thee an angel." 
 "And thee too," cried Jenny, somewhat vexed. 
 "But I was only thrown into the bargain," re- 
 joined Polly, "he looked only at thee." 
 
 This chat and childish raillery of my children, 
 awakened my anxiety. Polly is growing up ; 
 Jenny is eighteen. What prospect have I of 
 seeing these poor children provided for"? Jenny 
 is a well-bred, modest, handsome maiden; but 
 all C knows our poverty. We are therefore 
 
464 
 
 ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 little regarded, and it will be difficult to find a 
 husband for Jenny. An angel without money 
 is not thought half so much of now-a-days, as 
 a devil with a bag full of guineas. Jenny's 
 only wealth is her gentle face. That every- 
 body looks kindly on. Even the grocer, Jones, 
 when she carried him his money, gave her a 
 pound of almonds and raisins for a present, and 
 told her how he was grieved to take my money, 
 and that, if I bought of him, he would give me 
 credit till Easter. He has never once said so 
 much to me. 
 
 When 1 die, who will take care of my deso- 
 late children? Who ! the God of Heaven. They 
 are at least qualified to go to service anywhere. 
 I will not distress myself about the future. 
 
 Dec. 26. — Two hard days these have been. 
 I have never had so laborious a Christmas. I 
 preached my two sermons in two days five 
 times in four different churches. The road was 
 very bad, and the wind and weather fearful. 
 Age is beginning to make itself felt. I have not 
 the freshness and activity I once had. Indeed, 
 cabbage and turnips, scantily buttered, with 
 only a glass of fresh water, do not afford much 
 nourishment. 
 
 I have dined both days with Farmer Hurst. 
 The people in the country are more hospitable 
 by far than here in the town, where nobody has 
 thought of inviting me to dinner these six 
 months. Ah! could I have only had my daugh- 
 ters with me at table ! What profusion was 
 there ! Could they have only had for a Christ- 
 mas feast what the farmer's dogs received of 
 the fragments of our meal ! They did have 
 some cake, and they are feasting on it now 
 while I write. It was lucky that I had courage, 
 when the farmer and his wife pressed me to 
 eat more, to say that, with their leave, I would 
 carry a little slice of the cake home to my 
 daughters. The good-hearted people packed me 
 a little bag full, and, besides, as it rained piti- 
 fully, sent me home in their wagon. 
 
 Eating and drinking are indeed of little im- 
 portance, if one has enough to satisfy his hun- 
 ger and thirst. Yet it may not be denied that a 
 comfortable provision for the body is an agree- 
 able thing. One's thoughts are clearer. One 
 feels with more vivacity. 
 
 I am very tired. My conversation with 
 Farmer Hurst was noteworthy. I will write it 
 off to-morrow. 
 
 Dec. 27. — We have lived to know what per- 
 fect joy is. But one must be moderate in his joys. 
 The girls must learn self-restraint, and practise 
 themselves therein. Therefore I lay aside the 
 packet of money which Mr. Fleetman has- sent. 
 I will not break the seal until after dinner. My 
 daughters afe Eve's daughters. They are dying 
 of curiosity to know what Mr. Fleetman writes. 
 They are examining the address, and the packet 
 is passing from one to the other three times in 
 a minute. 
 
 Indeed, I am more disturbed than rejoiced. 
 I lent Mr. Fleetman only twelve shillings, and 
 he sends me back £5. God be praised ! He 
 must have been very successful. 
 
 How joy and sorrow interchange! I went 
 early this morning to the alderman, Mr. Field- 
 son, for I was told yesterday that the wagoner 
 Brook at Watton Basset had, on account of his em- 
 barrassments, destroyed himself. Some eleven 
 or twelve years ago I went security for him to 
 the amount of £100. He was distantly related 
 to my sainted wife. The bond has never been 
 cancelled. The man has latterly had much 
 trouble, and given himself up to drinking. 
 
 The alderman comforted me not a little. He 
 said he had heard the report, but that it was 
 very doubtful whether Brook had destroyed 
 himself. There had been no authentic intelli- 
 gence. So I returned home comforted, and 
 prayed by the way that God would be gracious 
 to me. 
 
 I had hardly reached the house, when Polly 
 ran to meet me, exclaiming, almost breathless, 
 "A letter! a letter from Mr. Fleetman, father, 
 with £5 ! But the packet has cost seven pence." 
 Jenny, with blushing looks, handed it to me be- 
 fore I laid down my hat and staff. The chil- 
 dren were half out of their wits with joy. So 
 I pushed aside their scissors, and said, "Do you 
 not see, children, that it is harder to bear a great 
 joy with composure than a great evil ? I have 
 often admired your cheerfulness when we were 
 in the greatest want, and knew not where we 
 were to find food for the next day. But now 
 the first smile of fortune puts you beside your- 
 selves. To punish you, I shall not open the let- 
 ter nor the packet of money until after dinner." 
 
 Jenny would have it that it was not the 
 money, but Mr. Fleetman's honesty and grati- 
 tude that delighted her, and that she only wanted 
 to know what he wrote and how he was ; but I 
 adhered to my determination. This little curi- 
 osity must learn to practise patience. 
 
 The same day. Eve. — Our joy is turned into 
 sorrow. The letter with the money came not 
 from Mr. Fleetman, but from the Rev. Dr. Snarl. 
 He gives me notice that our engagement will 
 terminate at Easter, and he informs me that 
 until that time I may look about for another 
 situation, and that he has accordingly not only 
 paid me up my salary in advance, that I may 
 bear any travelling expenses I may be at, but 
 also directed the new vicar, my successor, to 
 attend to the care of the parish. 
 
 Thus the talk of the people here in town was 
 not wholly without foundation, and it may also 
 be true, what is said, that the new vicar had 
 received his appointment thus readily, because 
 he has married a near relative of his Reverence, 
 a lady of doubtful reputation. So I must lose 
 my office and my bread for the sake of such a 
 person, and be turned into the street with my 
 poor children, because a man can be found to 
 buy my place at the price of his own honor. 
 
ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 465 
 
 Jenny and Polly turned deadly pale, when they 
 found that the letter came not from Mr. Fleet- 
 man, but from the Doctor, and that the money, 
 instead of being the generous return of a grate- 
 ful heart, was the last wretched payment for my 
 long and laborious services. Polly threw her- 
 self sobbing into a chair, and Jenny left the 
 room. My hand trembled as I held the letter 
 containing my formal dismissal. But I went 
 into my little chamber, locked myself in, and 
 fell upon my knees and prayed, while Polly 
 wept aloud. 
 
 I rose from my knees refreshed and com- 
 forted, and took my Bible ; and the first words 
 upon which my eyes fell were, " Fear not, for I 
 have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy 
 name ; thou art mine." 
 
 Then all fear vanished out of my heart. I 
 looked up, and said, " Yea, Lord, I am thine." 
 
 As Polly appeared to have ceased weeping, 
 I went back into the parlor ; but when I saw 
 her upon her knees praying, with her clasped 
 hands resting on a chair, I drew back and shut 
 the door very softly, that the dear soul might 
 not be disturbed. 
 
 After some time I heard Jenny come in. I 
 then returned to my daughters. They were sit- 
 ting at the window. I saw by Jenny's eyes 
 that she had been giving relief to her anguish 
 in solitude. They both looked timidly at me. 
 I believe they feared lest they should see des- 
 pair depicted on my countenance. But when 
 they saw that I was quite composed, and that I 
 addressed them with cheerfulness, they were 
 evidently relieved. I took the letter and the 
 money, and humming a tune, threw them into 
 my desk. They did not allude to what had 
 happened the whole day. This silence in them 
 was owing to a tender consideration for me; 
 with me it was fear lest I should expose my 
 weakness before my children. 
 
 Dec. 28. — It is good to let the first storm go 
 by, without looking one's troubles too closely in 
 the face. We have all had a good night's sleep. 
 We talk freely now of Dr. Snarl's letter, and of 
 my loss of office, as of old affairs. We propose 
 all kinds of plans for the future. The bitterest 
 thing is that we must be separated. We can 
 think of nothing better than that Jenny and 
 Polly should go to service in respectable families, 
 while I betake myself to my travels to seek 
 somewhere a place and bread for myself and 
 children. 
 
 Polly has again jecovered her usual cheerful- 
 ness. She brings out again her dream about 
 the bishop's mitre, and gives us much amuse- 
 ment. She counts almost too superstitiously 
 upon a New Year's present. I have some- 
 times thought much of dreams, but I do not be- 
 lieve in them. 
 
 As soon as the new vicar, my successor, shall 
 have arrived, and is able to assume the office, I 
 shall hand over to him the parish-books, and 
 take my way in search of bread elsewhere. 
 3i 
 
 In the meantime I will write to a couple of old 
 friends at Salisbury and Warminster, to request 
 them to find good places for my daughters, as 
 cooks, seamstresses, or chambermaids. Jenny 
 would be an excellent governess for little chil- 
 dren. 
 
 I will not leave my daughters here. The 
 place is poor, the people are unsocial, proud, 
 and have the narrow ways of a small town. 
 They talk now of nothing but the new vicar. 
 Some are sorry that I must leave, but I know 
 not who takes it to heart. 
 
 Dec. 29. — I have written to-day to my Lord 
 Bishop of Salisbury, and laid before him in 
 lively terms the sad, helpless situation of my 
 children, and my long and faithful services in 
 the vineyard of the Lord. He must be a hu- 
 mane pious man. May God touch his heart! 
 Among the three hundred and four parishes of 
 the county of Wiltshire, there must certainly be 
 found for me at least some little corner ! I do 
 not ask much. 
 
 Dec. 30. — The bishop's mitre that Polly 
 dreamt of must soon make its appearance, 
 otherwise I shall have to go to jail. I see now 
 very plainly that the jail is inevitable. 
 
 I am very weak, and in vain do I exert my- 
 self to practise my old heroism. Even strength 
 fails me for fervent prayer. My distress is too 
 much for me. 
 
 Yes, the jail is unavoidable. I will say it to 
 myself plainly, that I may become accustomed 
 to the prospect. 
 
 The All-merciful have mercy on my dear 
 children ! I may not — I cannot tell them. 
 
 Perhaps a speedy death will save me from 
 the disgrace. I feel as if my very bones would 
 crumble away ; fever-shivering in every limb, 
 I cannot write for trembling. 
 
 Some hours after. — Already I feel more com- 
 posed. I would have thrown myself into the 
 arms of God and prayed. But I was not well. 
 I lay down on my bed. I believe I have slept, 
 perhaps also I fainted. Some three hours have 
 passed. My daughters have covered my feet 
 with pillows. I am weak in body, but my 
 heart is again fresh. Everything which has 
 happened, which I have heard, flits before me 
 like a dream. 
 
 So the wagoner Brook has indeed made way 
 with himself. Alderman Fieldson has called 
 and given me the intelligence. He had the 
 coroner's account, together with the notice of 
 my bond. Brook's debts are very heavy. I 
 must account to Withell, a woollen-draper of 
 Trowbridge, for the hundred pounds sterling. 
 
 Mr. Fieldson had good cause to commiserate 
 me heartily. Good God! a hundred pounds 
 sterling! How shall I ever obtain it? All that 
 I and my children have in the world would not 
 bring a hundred shillings. Brook used to be 
 esteemed an upright and wealthy man. I never 
 
466 
 
 ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 thought that he would come to such an end. 
 The property of my wife was consumed in her 
 long sickness, and I had to sacrifice the few 
 acres at Bradford which she inherited. Now I 
 am a beggar. Ah ! if I were only a free beggar ! 
 I must go to prison, if Mr. Withell is not mer- 
 ciful. It is impossible for me even to think of 
 paying him. 
 
 Same day. Eve. — I am ashamed of my weak- 
 ness. What! to faint! to despair ! Fy! And 
 yet believe in a Providence! And a priest of 
 the Lord ! Fy, Thomas ! 
 
 I have recovered my composure, and done 
 what I should. I have just carried to the post- 
 office a letter to Mr. Withell, at Trowbridge, in 
 which I have stated my utter inability to pay 
 the bond, and confessed myself ready to go to 
 jail. If he has any human feeling, he will have 
 pity on me ; if not, he may drag me away, 
 whithersoever he will. 
 
 When I came from the office, I put the cou- 
 rage of my children to the proof. I wished to 
 prepare them for the worst. Ah! the maidens 
 were more of men than the man, more of Chris- 
 tians than the priest. 
 
 I told them of Brook's death, of my debt, and 
 of the possible consequences. They listened 
 earnestly and in great sorrow. 
 
 "To prison!" said Jenny, silently weeping, 
 while she threw her arms around me. "Ah, 
 thou good, poor father, thou hast done no wrong, 
 and yet hast to bear so much ! I will go to 
 Trowbridge ; I will throw myself at Withell's 
 feet ; I will not rise until he releases thee !" 
 
 " No," cried Polly, sobbing, " do not think of 
 such a thing. Tradesmen are tradesmen. They 
 will not for all thy tears give up a farthing of 
 father's debt. I will go the woollen-draper, 
 and bind myself to live upon bread and water, 
 and be his slave, until I have paid him with 
 my labor what father owes." 
 
 In forming such plans, they gradually grew 
 more composed. But they saw also the vanity 
 of their hopes. At last said Jenny, " Why all 
 these useless plans ? Let us wait for Mr. 
 Withell's answer. If he will be cruel, let him 
 be so. God is also in the jail. Father, go to 
 jail. Perhaps thou wilt be better there than 
 with us in our poverty. Go, for thou goest 
 without guilt. There is no disgrace in it for 
 thee. We will both go to service, and our 
 wages will procure thee everything needful. I 
 will not be ashamed eyen to beg. To go a-beg- 
 ging for a father has something honorable and 
 holy in it. We will come and visit thee from 
 time to time. Thou shalt be well taken care 
 of. We will fear no more." 
 
 "Jenny, thou art right," said Polly; "who- 
 ever fears, does not believe in God. I am not 
 afraid. I will be cheerful — as cheerful as I can 
 be, separated from father and thee." 
 
 Such conversations cheered my heart. Fleet- 
 man was right when he said that I had two 
 angels of the Lord at my side. 
 
 Dec. 31 The year is ended. Thanks be to 
 
 Heaven, it has been, with the exception of some 
 storms, a right beautiful and happy year ! It 
 is true, we often had scarcely enough to eat- 
 still we have had enough. My poor salary has 
 often occasioned me bitter cares, still our cares 
 have had their pleasures. And now I scarcely 
 possess the means of supporting myself and my 
 children half a-year longer. But how many 
 have not even as much, and know not where 
 to get another day's subsistence ! My place 
 have I lost. In my old age I am without office 
 or bread. It is possible that I shall spend the 
 next year in a jail, separated from my good ! 
 daughters. Still Jenny is right ; God is there 
 also in the jail ! 
 
 To a pure conscience there is no hell even 
 in hell, and to a bad heart no heaven in heaven. 
 I am very happy. 
 
 Whoever knows how to endure privation is 
 rich. A good conscience is better than that 
 which the world names honor. As soon as we 
 are able to look with indifference upon what 
 people call honor and shame, then do we be- 
 come truly worthy of honor. He who can des- 
 pise the world enjoys heaven. I understand 
 the gospel better every day, since I have learned 
 to read it by the light of experience. The scho- 
 lars at Oxford and Cambridge study the letter, 
 not the spirit. Nature is the best interpreter 
 of the Scriptures. 
 
 With these reflections I conclude the year. 
 
 I am very glad that I have now for some 
 time persevered in keeping this journal. Every- 
 body should keep one. One may learn more 
 from himself than from the wisest books. When, 
 by daily setting down our thoughts and feelings, 
 we in a manner portray ourselves, we can see 
 at the end of the year how many different faces 
 we have. Man is not always like himself. 
 He who says he knows himself, can answer 
 for the truth of what he says only at the mo- 
 ment. Few know what they were yesterday ; 
 still fewer what they will be to-morrow. 
 
 A day-book is useful also, because it helps us 
 to grow in faith in God and Providence. The 
 whole history of the world does not teach us 
 so much about these things as the thoughts, 
 judgments, and feelings of a single individual 
 for a twelvemonth. 
 
 I have also had this year new confirmation 
 of the truth of the old saying, " Misfortunes sel- 
 dom come singly, but the darkest hour is just 
 before morning." When things go hard with 
 me, then am I most at my ease, always except- 
 ing the first shock, for then I please myself with 
 the prospect of the relief which is sure to suc- 
 ceed, and I smile because nothing can disturb 
 me. On the other hand, when everything goes 
 according to my wishes, I am timid and anxious, 
 and cannot give myself up freely to joy. I dis- 
 trust the continuance of my peace. Those are 
 the hardest misfortunes which we allow to take 
 us by surprise. It is likewise true that trouble 
 looks more terrible in the distance than when 
 
ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 467 
 
 it is upon us. Clouds are never so black when 
 near as they seem in the distance. 
 
 1 have learnt from all my calamities to con- 
 sider, with the quickness of lightning, what 
 will be their worst effect upon me. So I pre- 
 pare myself for the worst, and it seldom comes. 
 
 This also I find good — I sometimes play with 
 my hopes, but I never let my hopes play with 
 me. So I keep them in check. I have only to 
 remember how rarely fortune has been favor- 
 able to me ; then all air castles vanish as if 
 they were ashamed to appear before me. Alas 
 for him who is the sport of his hopes ! He 
 pursues will-o'-the-wisps into bogs and mire. 
 
 New Year's Day, 1765. A. M. — A wonderful 
 and sad affair opens the year. Here follows 
 its history. 
 
 Early, about six o'clock, as I lay in bed think- 
 ing over my sermon, I heard a knocking at the 
 front door. Polly was up and in the kitchen. 
 She ran to open the door and see who was 
 there. Such early visits are not usual with us. 
 A stranger presented himself with a large box, 
 which he handed to Polly with these words : 
 
 "Mr. " (Polly lost the name) "sends this 
 
 box to the Rev. Vicar, and requests him to be 
 very careful of the contents." 
 
 Polly took the box with joyful surprise. The 
 man disappeared. Polly tapped lightly at my 
 chamber door to see whether I was awake. I 
 answered, and she came in, and wishing me 
 " a happy new year," as well as " good morn- 
 ing," added laughing, "you will see now, dear 
 father, whether Polly's dreams are not pro- 
 phetic. The promised bishop's mitre is come !" 
 And then she told me how a New Year's pre- 
 sent had been given her for me. It vexed me, 
 that she had not asked more particularly for the 
 name of my unknown patron or benefactor. 
 
 While she went out to light a lamp and call 
 Jenny, I dressed myself. I cannot deny that I 
 was burning with curiosity. For hitherto the 
 
 New Year's presents for the Vicar of C e 
 
 had been as insignificant as they were rare. I 
 suspected that my patron, the farmer, whose 
 good-will I appeared to have won, had meant 
 to surprise me with a box of cake, and I ad- 
 mired his modesty in sending me the present 
 before it was light. 
 
 When I entered the parlour, Polly and Jenny 
 were standing at the table on which lay the 
 box directed to me, carefully sealed, and of an 
 unusual size. I had never seen exactly such a 
 box before. I lifted it, and found it pretty 
 heavy. In the top were two smoothly cut round 
 holes. 
 
 With Jenny's help, I opened the box very 
 cautiously, as I had been directed to handle the 
 contents carefully. A fine white cloth was 
 
 removed, and lo ! but no, our astonishment 
 
 is indescribable. We all exclaimed with one 
 voice, " Good God !" 
 
 There lay a little child asleep, some six or 
 eight weeks old, dressed in the finest linen, 
 
 with rose-colored ribands. Its little head rested 
 upon a soft blue silk cushion, and it was well 
 wrapt up in a blanket. The covering as well 
 as the little cap, was trimmed with the costliest 
 Brabant lace. 
 
 We stood some moments gazing at it with 
 silent wonder. At last Polly broke out into a 
 comical laugh, and cried, " What shall we do 
 with it? This is no bishop's mitre!" Jenny 
 timidly touched the cheek of the sleeping babe 
 with the tip of her finger, and in a tone full 
 of pity, said, " Poor, dear little creature ! thou 
 hast no mother, or might as well have no mo- 
 ther ! Great God ! to cast off such a lovely, 
 helpless being! Only see, father, only see, 
 Polly, how peacefully and trustfully it sleeps, 
 unconscious of its fate, as if it knew that it is 
 lying in God's hand. Sleep on, thou poor, for- 
 saken one ! Thy parents are perhaps too high 
 in rank to care for thee, and too happy to permit 
 thee to disturb their happiness. Sleep on, we 
 will not cast thee out. They have brought thee 
 to the right place. I will be thy mother." 
 
 As Jenny was speaking, two large tears fell 
 from her eyes. I caught the pious, gentle- 
 hearted creature to my breast and said, " Be a 
 mother to this little one! The stepchildren of 
 fortune come to her stepchildren. God tries 
 our faith — no, he does not try it, He knows it. 
 Therefore is this forsaken little creature brought 
 to us. We do not indeed know how we shall 
 subsist from one day to another, but He knows, 
 who has appointed us to be parents to this or- 
 phan." 
 
 Thus the matter was soon settled. The child 
 continued to sleep sweetly on. In the mean- 
 while, we exhausted ourselves in conjectures 
 about its parents, who were undoubtedly known 
 to us, as the box was directed to me. Polly, 
 alas ! could tell us nothing more of the person 
 who brought it than she had already told. Now, 
 while the little thing sleeps, and I run over my 
 New Year's sermon upon " the Power of the 
 Eternal Providence," my daughters are holding 
 a council about the nursing of the poor stranger. 
 Polly exhibits all the delight of a child. Jenny 
 appears to be much moved. With me, it is as 
 if I entered upon the New Year in the midst 
 of miracles, and — it may be superstition, or it 
 may be not — as if this little child were sent to 
 be our guardian angel in our need. I cannot 
 express the feelings of peace, the still happiness 
 which I have. 
 
 Same day. Eve. — I came home greatly ex- 
 hausted and weary with the sacred labors of 
 the day. I had a long and rugged walk. But 
 I was inspirited by a happy return home, by 
 the cheerfulness of my daughters, by our plea- 
 sant little parlor. The table was ready laid 
 for me, and on it stood a flask of wine, a New 
 Year's present from an unknown benevolent 
 hand. 
 
 The looks of the lovely little child in Jenny's 
 arms refreshed me above all things. Polly 
 
468 
 
 ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 showed me the heautiful little bed of our nurs- 
 ling, the dozen fine napkins, the dear little caps 
 and night-clothes, which were in the box, and 
 then a sealed packet of money directed to me, 
 which they had found at the feet of the child 
 when it awoke, and they took it out. 
 
 Anxious to learn something of the parentage 
 of our little unknown inmate, I opened the 
 packet. It contained a roll of twenty guineas 
 and a letter, as follows : 
 
 "Relying with entire confidence upon the 
 piety and humanity of your Reverence, the un- 
 happy parents of this dear child commend it to 
 your care. Do not forsake it. We will testify 
 our gratitude when we are at liberty to make 
 ourselves known to you. Although at a dis- 
 tance, we shall keep a careful watch, and know 
 everything that you do. The dear boy is named 
 Alfred. He has been baptized. His board for 
 the first quarter accompanies this. The same 
 sum will be punctually remitted to you every 
 three months. Take the child. We commend 
 him to the tenderness of your daughter Jenny." 
 
 When I had read the letter, Polly leaped 
 with joy, and cried, " There 's the bishop's mi- 
 tre !" Bountiful Heaven! how rich had we 
 suddenly become ! We read the letter a dozen 
 times. We did not trust our eyes to look at the 
 gold upon the table. What a New Year's pre- 
 sent ! From my heaviest cares for the future 
 was I thus suddenly relieved. But in what a 
 strange and mysterious way! In vain did I 
 think over all the people I knew, in order to 
 discover who it might be who had been forced 
 by birth or rank to conceal the existence of their 
 child, or who were able to make such a liberal 
 compensation for a simple service of Christian 
 charity. I tasked my recollection, but I could 
 think of no one. And yet it was evident that 
 these parents were well acquainted with me 
 and mine. 
 
 Wonderful are the ways of Providence ! 
 
 Jan. 2. — Fortune is heaping her favors upon 
 me. This morning I again received a packet 
 of money, £12, by the post, with a letter from 
 Mr. Fleetman. It is too much. For a shilling 
 he returns me a pound. Things must have 
 gone well with him. He says as much. I 
 cannot, alas, thank him, for he has forgotten to 
 mention his address. God forbid I should be 
 puffed up with my present riches. I hope now 
 in time to pay off honestly my bond to Mr. 
 Withell. 
 
 When I told my daughters that I had received 
 a letter from Mr. Fleetman, there was a new 
 occasion for joy. I do not exactly understand 
 what the girls have to do with Mr. Fleetman. 
 Jenny grew very red, and Polly jumped up 
 laughingly, and held up both her hands before 
 Jenny's face, and Jenny behaved as if she was 
 right vexed with the playful girl. 
 
 I read out Fleetman's letter. But I could 
 scarcely do it, for the young man is an enthu- 
 siast. He writes many flattering things which 
 
 I do not deserve. He exaggerates everything, 
 even indeed when he speaks of the good Jenny. 
 I pitied the poor girl while I read. I did not 
 dare to look at her. The passage, however, 
 which relates to her, is worthy of note. It runs 
 thus : 
 
 "When, excellent sir, I went from your door, 
 I felt as if I were quitting a father's roof for the 
 bleak world. I shall never forget you, never 
 forget how happy I was with you. I see you 
 now before me, in your rich poverty, in your 
 Christian humility, in your patriarchal simpli- 
 city. And the lovely, fascinating Polly ; and 
 the — ah! for your Jenny I have no words! In 
 what words shall one describe the heavenly 
 loveliness by which everything earthly is trans- 
 figured? For ever shall I remember the mo- 
 ment when she gave me the twelve shillings, 
 and the gentle tone of consolation with which 
 she spoke to me. Wonder not that I have the 
 twelve shillings still. I would not part with 
 them for a thousand guineas. I shall soon per- 
 haps explain everything to you personally. 
 Never in my life have I been so happy or so 
 miserable as I am now. Commend me to your 
 sweet daughters, if they still bear me in re- 
 membrance." 
 
 I conclude from these lines that he intends 
 to come this way again. The prospect gives 
 me pleasure. In his unbounded gratitude, the 
 young man has perhaps sent me his all,- because 
 I once lent him half of my ready money. That 
 grieves me. He seems to be a thoughtless youth, 
 and yet he has an honest heart. 
 
 We have great delight in the little Alfred. 
 The little thing laughed to-day upon Polly, as 
 Jenny was holding him, like a young mother, in 
 her arms. The girls are more handy with the 
 little citizen of the world than I had anticipated. 
 But it is a beautiful child. We have bought him 
 a handsome cradle, and provided abundantly 
 for all his little wants. The cradle stands at 
 Jenny's bedside. She watches day and night, 
 like a guardian spirit, over her tender charge. 
 
 Jan. 3. — To-day, Mr. Curate Thomson arrived 
 with his young wife and sent for me. I went 
 to him immediately at the inn. He is an agree- 
 able man, and very polite. He informed me 
 that he was appointed my successor in office, 
 that he wished, if I had no objections, to enter 
 immediately upon his duties, and that I might 
 occupy the parsonage until Easter: he would in 
 the meanwhile take up his abode in lodgings 
 prepared for him at Alderman Fieldson's. 
 
 I replied that, if he pleased, I would resign 
 my office to him immediately, as I should thus 
 be more at liberty to look out for another situa- 
 tion. I desired only permission to preach a 
 farewell sermon in the churches in which I 
 had for so many years declared the word of the 
 Lord. 
 
 He then said that he would come in the after- 
 noon to examine the state of the parsonage. 
 — He has been here with his wife and Alderman 
 
ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 469 
 
 Fieldson. His lady was somewhat haughty, and 
 appears to be of high birth, for there was no- 
 thing in the house that pleased her, and she 
 hardly deigned to look at my daughters. When 
 she saw the little Alfred in the cradle, she 
 turned to Jenny, and asked whether she were 
 already married. The good Jenny blushed up 
 to her hair, and shook her little head by way 
 of negative, and stammered out something. I 
 had to come to the poor girl's assistance. My 
 lady listened to my story with great curiosity, 
 and drew up her mouth, and shrugged her 
 shoulders. It was very disagreeable, but I said 
 nothing. I invited them to take a cup of tea. 
 But they declined. Mr. Curate appeared to be 
 very obedient to the slightest hint of the lady. 
 We were very glad when the visit was over. 
 
 Jan. 6. — Mr. Withell is an excellent man, to 
 judge from his letter. He sympathizes with 
 me in regard to my unfortunate bond, and com- 
 forts me with the assurance that I must not dis- 
 quiet myself if I am not able to pay it for ten 
 years or ever. He appears to be well ac- 
 quainted with my circumstances, for he alludes 
 to them very cautiously. He considers me an 
 honest man. That gratifies me most. He shall 
 not find his confidence misplaced. I will go to 
 Trowbridge as soon as I can, and pay Mr. 
 Withell Fleetman's £12 sterling, as an instal- 
 ment of my monstrous debt. 
 
 Although Jenny insists that she sleeps soundly, 
 that little Alfred is very quiet o' nights, and only 
 wakes once, when she gives him a drink out of 
 his little bottle, yet I feel anxious about the 
 maiden. She is not so lively by far, as for- 
 merly, although she seems to be much happier 
 than when we were every day troubled about 
 our daily bread. Sometimes she sits with her 
 needle, lost in a reverie, dreaming with open 
 eyes ; or her hands, once so active, lie sunk 
 upon her lap. When she is spoken to, she 
 starts, and has to bethink herself what was 
 said. All this evidently comes from the inter- 
 ruption of her proper rest. But she will not 
 hear a word of it. We cannot even persuade 
 her to take a little nap in the daytime. She 
 declares that she feels perfectly well. 
 
 I had no idea that she had so much vanity. 
 Fleetman's praises have not displeased her. 
 She has asked me for his letter, to read once 
 more. And she has not yet returned it to me, 
 but keeps it in her work-basket! 
 
 I don't care, for my part! the vain thing! 
 
 Jan. 8. — My farewell sermon was accom- 
 panied with the tears of most of my hearers. 
 I see now at last that my parishioners love me. 
 They have expressed their obligations on all 
 hands and loaded me with gifts. I never be- 
 fore had such an abundance of provisions in 
 the house, so many dainties of all kinds, and so 
 much wine. A hundredth part of my present 
 plenty would have made me account myself 
 over-fortunate in past days. We are really 
 
 swimming in plenty. But a goodly portion has 
 already been disposed of. I know some poor 
 
 families in C e, and Jenny knows even 
 
 more than I. The dear people share in our 
 pleasures. 
 
 I was moved to the inmost by my sermon. 
 With tears had I written it. It was a sketch of 
 my whole past course from my call and settle- 
 ment. I am driven from the vineyard as an 
 unprofitable servant, and yet I have not labored 
 as a hireling. Many noble vines have I planted, 
 many deadly weeds cut away. I am driven 
 from the vineyard where I have watched, and 
 taught, and warned, and comforted, and prayed. 
 I have shrunk from no sick bed. I have 
 strengthened the dying for the last conflict with 
 holy hope. I have gone after sinners. I have 
 not left the poor, desolate. I have called back 
 the lost to the way of life. Ah ! all these souls 
 that were knit to my soul, are torn from me — 
 why should not my heart bleed ? But God's 
 will be done ! 
 
 Gladly would I now offer to take charge of 
 the parish without salary, but my successor has 
 the office. I have been used to poverty from 
 my birth, and care has never forsaken me since 
 I stepped out of my boy's-shoes. I have enough 
 for myself and my daughters in little Alfred's 
 board. We shall be able indeed to lay up 
 something. I would never again complain of 
 wind and weather beating against my grey 
 hairs, could I only continue to break the bread 
 of life to my flock. 
 
 Be it so! I will not murmur. The tear which 
 drops upon this page, is no tear of discontent. 
 I ask not for riches and good days, nor have I 
 ever asked. But, Lord ! Lord ! drive not thy 
 servant for ever from thy service, although his 
 powers are small. Let me again enter thy 
 vineyard, and with thy blessing win souls. 
 
 Jan. 13. — My journey to Trowbridge has 
 turned out beyond all expectation. I arrived 
 late with weary feet at the pleasant little old 
 city, and could not rouse myself from sleep until 
 late the next morning. After I had put on my 
 clean clothes (I had not been so finely dressed 
 since my wedding-day — the good Jenny shows 
 a daughter's care for her father,) I left the inn 
 and went to Mr. Withell's. He lives in a splendid, 
 great house. 
 
 He received me somewhat coldly at first; but 
 when I mentioned my name, he led me into his 
 little office. Here I thanked him for his great 
 goodness and consideration, told him how I had 
 happened to give the bond, and what hard for- 
 tunes had hitherto been mine. I then laid my 
 £12 upon the table. 
 
 Mr. Withell looked at me for a while in 
 silence, with a smile, and with some emotion. 
 He then extended his hand, and shook mine, 
 and said, "I know all about you. I have in- 
 formed myself particularly about your circum- 
 stances. You are an honest man. Take your 
 £12 back. I cannot find it in my heart to rob 
 40 
 
470 
 
 ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 you of your New Year's present. Rather let 
 me add a pound to it, to remember me by." 
 
 He arose, brought a paper from another room, 
 opened it and said, "You know this bond and 
 your signature ? I give it to you and your chil- 
 dren." He tore the paper in two, and placed 
 it in my hand. 
 
 I could find no words, I was so deeply 
 moved. My eyes filled. He saw that I would 
 thank him, but could not, and he said, "Hush! 
 hush ! not a syllable, I pray you. This is the 
 only thanks I desire of you. I would gladly 
 have forgiven poor Brook the debt, had he only 
 dealt frankly with me." 
 
 I don't know a more noble-hearted man than 
 Mr. Withell. He was too kind. He would have 
 me relate to him much of my past history. He 
 introduced me to his wife, and to the young 
 gentleman his son. He had my little bundle, 
 containing my old clothes, brought from the inn, 
 and kept me at his house. The entertainment 
 was princely. The chamber in which I slept, 
 the carpet, the bed, were so splendid and costly 
 that I hardly dared to make use of them. 
 
 The next day Mr. Withell sent me home in 
 his own elegant carriage. I parted with my 
 benefactor with a heart deeply moved. My 
 children wept with me for joy, when I showed 
 them the bond. "See," said I, "this light piece 
 of paper was the heaviest burthen of my life, 
 and now it is generously cancelled. Pray for 
 the life and prosperity of our deliverer !" 
 
 Jan. 16. — Yesterday was the most remarkable 
 day of my life. We were sitting together in the 
 forenoon ; I was rocking the cradle, Polly was 
 reading aloud, and Jenny was seated at the 
 -window with her needle, when she suddenly 
 jumped up, and then fell back again deadly 
 pale into her chair. We were all alarmed, and 
 cried, "What is the matter?" She forced a 
 smile, and said, " He is coming !" 
 
 The door opened, and in came Mr. Fleetman 
 in a beautiful travelling cloak. We greeted him 
 right heartily, and were truly glad to see him so 
 unexpectedly, and, as it appeared, in so much 
 better circumstances than before. He embraced 
 me, kissed Polly, and bowed to Jenny, who had 
 not yet recovered from her agitation. Her pale 
 looks did not escape him. He inquired anxiously 
 about her health. Polly replied to his questions, 
 and he then kissed Jenny's hand, as though he 
 would beg her pardon for having occasioned 
 her such an alarm. But there was nothing to 
 be said about it, for the poor girl grew red again 
 like a newly-blown rose. 
 
 I called for cake and wine, to treat my guest 
 and benefactor better than on a former occa- 
 sion; but he declined, as he could not tarry 
 long, and he had company at the inn. Yet at 
 Jenny's request, he sate down and took some 
 wine with us. 
 
 As he had spoken of the company which had 
 come with him, I supposed that it must be a 
 company of comedians, and inquired whether 
 
 they intended to stop and play in C , observ- 
 ing that the place was too poor. He laughed 
 out, and replied, " Yes, we shall play a comedy, 
 but altogether gratis." Polly was beside her- 
 self with joy, for she had long wanted to see a 
 play. She told Jenny, who had gone for the 
 cake and wine. Polly inquired whether many 
 actors had come with him. " A gentleman and 
 lady," said he, "but excellent players." 
 
 Jenny appeared unusually serious. She cast 
 a sad look at Fleetman, and asked, "And you— 
 will you also appear?" This was said in that 
 tone peculiarly soft, yet very penetrating, which 
 I have seldom observed in her, and only upon 
 rare occasions, and at the most serious moments. 
 
 Poor Fleetman himself trembled at her tone, 
 so like the voice of the angel of doom. He 
 looked up to her with an earnest gaze, and ap- 
 peared to struggle with himself for an answer, 
 and then advancing towards her a step, he said, 
 " Miss, by my God and yours, you alone can 
 decide that!" 
 
 Jenny dropped her eyes. He continued to 
 speak. She answered. I could not compre- 
 hend what they were about. They spoke — 
 Polly and I listened with the greatest attention, 
 but we neither of us understood a word, or 
 rather we heard words without any sense. And 
 yet Fleetman and Jenny appeared not only to 
 understand one another perfectly, but, what 
 struck me as very strange, Fleetman was deeply 
 moved by Jenny's answers, although they ex- 
 pressed the veriest trifles. At last Fleetman 
 clasped his hands passionately to his breast, 
 raised his eyes, streaming with tears, to heaven, 
 and with an impressive appearance of emotion, 
 exclaimed, " Then am I indeed unhappy !" 
 
 Polly could hold out no longer. With a comi- 
 cal vivacity, she looked from one to the other, 
 and at last cried out, " I do believe that you 
 two are beginning to play already!" 
 
 He pressed Polly's hand warmly, and said, 
 " Ah ! that it were so !" 
 
 I put an end to the confusion by pouring out 
 the wine. We drank to the welfare of our friend. 
 Fleetman turned to Jenny, and stammered out, 
 "Miss, in earnest, my welfare?" She laid her 
 hand upon her heart, cast down her eyes, and 
 drank. 
 
 Fleetman immediately became more com- 
 posed. He went to the cradle, looked at the 
 child, and when Polly and I had told him its 
 history, he said to Polly, with a smile, " Then 
 you have not discovered that I sent you this 
 New Year's present?" 
 
 We all exclaimed in utter amazement, "Who! 
 you?" He then proceeded to relate what fol- 
 lows: "My name," said he, "is not Fleetman. 
 I am Sir Cecil Fairford. My sister and myself 
 have been kept out of our rightful property by 
 my father's brother, who took advantage of cer- 
 tain ambiguous conditions in my father's will, 
 and involved us in a long and embarrassing 
 lawsuit. We have hitherto lived with difficulty 
 upon the little property left us by our mother, 
 
ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 471 
 
 who died early. My sister has suffered most 
 from the tyranny of her uncle, who was her 
 guardian, and who had destined her for the 
 son of an intimate and powerful friend of his. 
 But my sister, on the other hand, was secretly 
 contracted to the young Lord Sandom, whose 
 father, then living, was opposed to their mar- 
 riage. Without the knowledge either of my 
 uncle or the old lord, they were secretly mar- 
 ried. The little Alfred is their son. My sister, 
 under the pretence of benefiting her health and 
 availing herself of sea-bathing, left the house 
 of her guardian, and put herself under my pro- 
 tection. When the child was born, our great 
 concern was to find a place for it where it would 
 have the tenderest care. 1 accidentally heard 
 a touching account of the poverty and humanity 
 
 of the parish minister of C , and I came 
 
 hither to satisfy myself. The manner in which 
 I was treated by you decided me. 
 
 " I have forgotten to mention that my sister 
 never returned to her guardian. For about six 
 months ago I won the suit against him, and 
 entered into possession of my patrimony. My 
 uncle instituted a new suit against me for with- 
 drawing my sister from his charge ; but the old 
 Lord Sandom died suddenly a few days ago of 
 apoplexy, and my brother-in-law has made his 
 marriage public. So that the suit falls to the 
 ground, and all cause for keeping the child's 
 birth secret is removed. Its parents have now 
 come with me to take the child away, and I 
 have come to take away you and your family, 
 if the proposal I make you shall be accepted. 
 
 "During the lawsuit in which I have been 
 engaged, the living, which is in the gift of my 
 family, has remained unoccupied. I have at my 
 disposal this situation, which yields over £200 
 per annum. You, sir, have lost your place. 1 
 shall not be happy unless you come and reside 
 near me, and accept this living." 
 
 God only knows how I was affected at these 
 words. My eyes were blinded with tears of 
 joy. I stretched out my hands to the man who 
 came a messenger from heaven. I fell upon 
 his breast. Polly threw her arms around him 
 with a cry of delight. Jenny thankfully kissed 
 the baronet's hand. But he snatched it from 
 her with visible agitation, and left us. 
 
 My happy children were still holding me in 
 their embraces, and we were still mingling our 
 tears and congratulations, when the baronet re- 
 turned, bringing his brother-in-law, Lord San- 
 dom, with his wife. The latter was an uncom- 
 monly beautiful young lady. Without saluting 
 us, she ran to the cradle of her child. She 
 knelt down over the little Alfred, kissed his 
 
 cheeks, and wept freely with mingled pain and 
 delight. Her lord raised her up, and had much 
 trouble in composing her. 
 
 When she had recovered her composure, 
 and apologized to us all for her behaviour, she 
 thanked first me and then Polly, in the most 
 touching terms. Polly disowned all obligation, 
 and pointed to Jenny, who had withdrawn to 
 the window, and said, " My sister there has 
 been its mother !" 
 
 Lady Sandom approached Jenny, gazed at her 
 long in silence, and with evidently delighted sur- 
 prise, and then glanced at her brother with a 
 smile, and folded Jenny in her arms. The dear 
 Jenny, in her modesty, scarcely dared to look 
 up. " I am your debtor," said my lady, " but 
 the service you have rendered to a mother's 
 heart it is impossible for me to repay. Become 
 a sister to me, lovely Jenny; sisters can have 
 no obligations between them." As they em- 
 braced each other, the baronet approached. 
 "There stands my poor brother," said my lady; 
 " as you are now my sister, he may stand nearer 
 to your heart, dear Jenny, may he not?" 
 
 Jenny blushed and said, " He is my father's 
 benefactor." 
 
 "Will you not be," replied the lady, "the 
 benefactress of my poor brother ? Look kindly 
 on him. If you only knew how he loves you!" 
 
 The baronet took Jenny's hand and kissed it, 
 and said, as Jenny struggled to withdraw it, 
 "Miss, will you be unkind tome? I am unhappy 
 without this hand." Jenny, much disturbed, let 
 her hand remain in his. The baronet then led 
 my daughter to me, and begged me for my 
 blessing. 
 
 "Jenny," said I, "it depends upon thee. Do 
 we dream? Canst thou love him? Do thou 
 decide." 
 
 She then turned to the baronet, who stood 
 before her, deeply agitated, and cast upon him 
 a full, penetrating look, and then took his hand 
 in both hers, pressed it to her breast, looked 
 up to heaven, and softly whispered, " God has 
 decided." 
 
 I blessed my son and my daughter. They 
 embraced. There was a solemn silence. All 
 eyes were wet. 
 
 Suddenly Polly sprang up, laughing through 
 her tears, and flung herself upon my neck, 
 while she cried, "There! we have it! The 
 New Year's present! Bishop's mitres upon 
 bishop's mitres !" 
 
 Little Alfred awoke. 
 
 It is in vain — I cannot describe this day. 
 My happy heart is full, and I am continually 
 interrupted. 
 
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL. 
 
 Born 1772, Died 1829. 
 
 Friedrich, a younger brother of A. W. von 
 Schlegel, was born at Hanover, five years 
 later. Destined by his father to mercantile 
 pursuits, he was placed for that purpose in a 
 counting-room at Leipzig ; but feeling a strong 
 predilection for Letters, and discovering more 
 than ordinary capacity, he was recalled and 
 suffered to take his own course. He studied 
 Philology in Gottingen and in Leipzig, during 
 which time he read every author of note in the 
 Latin and Greek languages. He then resided 
 for awhile in Berlin and in Dresden, published 
 his "Greeks and Romans," 1797, and the fol- 
 lowing year, his "Poetry of the Greeks and 
 Romans," a continuation of the former. In 
 1800, he went as Privatdocent (private teacher) 
 to Jena, where he labored in conjunction with 
 his brother and others, of like views, and pub- 
 lished several poems. In 1803, at Cologne, he 
 went over to the Roman Catholic church* to- 
 gether with his wife, a daughter of Mendels- 
 sohn. He next resided for several years in 
 Paris, where he lectured on Philosophy, and 
 where he published his "Europa." While 
 here lie devoted himself to the study of the 
 southern languages, and particularly to that of 
 India. He also published, 1804, a collection 
 of romantic poems of the middle ages, from 
 printed sources and manuscripts ; and illustra- 
 tions of the history of Joan of Arc, drawn from 
 the Notices et Extraits. His Sprache und 
 Weisheit der lndier belongs to this period. 
 
 In 1808 he returned to Germany, and was 
 made secretary of the Austrian Government at 
 Vienna, where he exerted a powerful influence 
 by his proclamations against Napoleon. After 
 the conclusion of the peace, he gave lectures 
 in Vienna, on modern history and on the lite- 
 rature of all nations. In 1815, he was ap- 
 pointed by Prince Metternich, Austrian Coun- 
 sellor of Legation at the Diet in Frankfort. In 
 1818 he returned to Vienna, where he lived 
 as Secretary of the Court, and devoted himself 
 
 * According to Wolff in the Encyclopadie der Deutschen 
 Nationallitteratur. The Conversationslezicon refers this 
 apostasy to a later date,— 1808. 
 
 to literary pursuits. During this period he 
 published his "View of the present Political 
 Relations." In 1820 he undertook a periodical 
 called Concordia, the object of which was to 
 reconcile the different opinions on Church and 
 State. In 1827 he gave a course of lectures 
 in Vienna, on the Philosophy of Life, which 
 was published the following year. In Decem- 
 ber 1828, he began another course in Dresden, 
 on the Philosophy of Language and of the 
 Word. These lectures he did not live to com- 
 plete, but died in the midst of the course, Ja- 
 nuary 11th, 1829. It has been noted as em- 
 blematic of the man, that the last word which 
 came from his pen was aber (but). This was 
 written at eleven o'clock at night. At one, 
 he breathed his last. 
 
 Friedrich von Schlegel is thought to have 
 surpassed his brother in originality, to have 
 equalled him in depth and extent of learning, 
 but to fall far behind him in point of taste and 
 clearness. " Like his brother he opened to 
 Poetry and to Science in Germany, new and 
 hitherto unknown regions. He was the first 
 who specially directed attention to the great 
 intellectual treasures of the Indians, and intro- 
 duced among us the studies relating to these. 
 Later, after his change of faith, he assailed, in 
 the most decided manner, French democracy 
 and frivolity ; but then, in his capacity of phi- 
 losophical historian, he became an opponent of 
 religious and political liberty and enlighten- 
 ment, and completely lost himself at last in 
 misty speculations and politico-religious vaga- 
 ries."* With regard to this " change of faith," 
 and the criticisms and imputations to which it 
 gave rise, Mr. Carlyle judges thus: " Of Schle- 
 gel himself and his character and spiritual his- 
 tory we can profess no thorough or final under- 
 standing; yet enough to make us view him 
 with admiration and pity, nowise with harsh, 
 contemptuous censure; and must say, with 
 clearest persuasion, that the outcry of his being 
 ' a renegade,' &c., is but like other such out- 
 
 * Wolff's Encyclopadie. 
 
 (472) 
 
F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 473 
 
 cries, a judgment where there was neither jury, 
 nor evidence, nor judge. The candid reader 
 in this book itself,* to say nothing of all the 
 rest, will find traces of a high, far-seeing, ear- 
 
 * Schlegel's last work ; Lectures on the Philosophy of 
 Language, &c. 
 
 nest spirit, to whom 'Austrian Pensions' and 
 the Kaiser's crown and Austria altogether, 
 were but a light matter to the finding and vi- 
 tally appropriating of truth. Let us respect 
 the sacred mystery of a Person ; rush not irre- 
 verently into man's Holy of Holies !" 
 
 LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 HISTORY. 
 
 From the Translation of Robinson. 
 THE CHINESE EMPIRE. 
 
 The Chinese empire is the largest of all the 
 monarchies now existing on the earth, and on 
 this account alone may well challenge the at- 
 tention of the historical inquirer. It is not ab- 
 solutely the greatest in territorial extent, though 
 even in this respect it is scarcely inferior to the 
 greatest; but in point of population it is, in all 
 probability, the first. Spain, could we now 
 include in the number of her possessions her 
 American colonies, would exceed all other em- 
 pires in extent. The same may be said of 
 Russia, with her colonies and boundless pro- 
 vinces in the north of Asia. But, great as the 
 population of Russia may be, considered in it- 
 self and relatively to the other European states, 
 it can sustain no comparison with that of China. 
 England, with the East Indies and her colonial 
 possessions in the three divisions of the globe, 
 Polynesia, Africa, and America, has indeed a 
 very wide extent, and perhaps, including the 
 hundred and ten millions that own her sway in 
 India, comes the nearest, in point of population, 
 to China. Of the amount of the Chinese popu- 
 lation, which is not certainly known, that of In- 
 dia may furnish a criterion for a conjectural and 
 probable estimate. However, as this vast region 
 is everywhere intersected by navigable rivers 
 and canals, everywhere studded with large and 
 populous cities, and enjoys a climate as genial, 
 or even still more genial, and certainly far more 
 salubrious, than that of India ; as, like the latter 
 country, it everywhere presents to the eye the 
 richest culture, and is in all appearance as 
 much peopled, or over-peopled, we may take 
 India, whose total population is by no means 
 included in the hundred and ten millions under 
 British rule, as furnishing a pretty accurate 
 standard for the computation of the Chinese 
 population. Now, when we consider that even 
 China proper is larger than the whole western 
 peninsula of India, and that the vast coun- 
 tries dependent on China, such as Thibet and 
 Southern Tartary, are very populous, the con- 
 jectural calculation of the English writer whom 
 I follow in these remarks on the Chinese popu- 
 lation, and who reckons it at one hundred and 
 fifty millions, may be regarded as very mode- 
 rate, and might, with perfect safety, be consi- 
 derably raised. Thus then the Chinese popu- 
 lation is nearly as large as the whole population 
 3 k 
 
 of Europe, and constitutes, if not a fourth, at 
 least a fifth, of the total population of the globe. 
 
 Cursory comparisons of this kind are not 
 without value. The history of civilization, form- 
 ing the basis, and as it were the outward body, 
 of the philosophy of history, which should be 
 the inner and highest sense of the whole, is 
 deeply interesting in all that refers to the general 
 condition of humanity. And such an interest, 
 which does not of itself lie in mere statistical 
 calculations, but in the outward condition of 
 mankind, as the symbol of its inward state, 
 may very well belong to comparisons of this 
 nature. 
 
 The interest, however, which the philosophic 
 historian should take in all that relates to hu- 
 manity in general, and to the various nations 
 of the earth, ought not to be regulated by the 
 false standard of an indiscriminate equality, 
 considering all nations of equal importance, and 
 paying equal attention to all, without distinction. 
 This would imply insensibility to man's higher 
 nature, or ignorance of it. But this interest 
 should be measured not merely by the popula- 
 tion of a state, or by geographical extent of ter- 
 ritory, or by external power, but by population, 
 territory and power combined — by moral worth 
 and intellectual pre-eminence, by the scale of 
 civilization to which the nation has attained. 
 The Tongoosses, though a very widely-diffused 
 race — the Calmucks, though they have much to 
 claim our attention, compared with the other 
 nations of central Asia, cannot certainly excite 
 equal interest, or hold a place in the history 
 of human civilization with the Greeks or the 
 Egyptians ; though the territory of Egypt itself 
 is certainly not particularly large, nor, according 
 to our customary standard of population, were 
 its inhabitants, in all probability, ever very 
 numerous. In the same way, the Empire of 
 the Moguls, which embraced China itself, has 
 not the same importance in our eyes as the 
 Roman Empire, either in its rise or in its fall. 
 Writers of universal history have not however 
 always avoided this fault, and have been too 
 much disposed to place all nations on the same 
 historical footing, — on the false level of an in- 
 discriminate equality ; and to regard humanity 
 in a mere physical point of view, and according 
 to the natural classification of tribes and races. 
 In these sketches of history, the high and the 
 noble is often ranked with the low and the 
 vulgar; and neither what is truly great, nor 
 what is of lesser importance (for this, too, should 
 40^ 
 
474 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 not be overlooked), has its due place in these 
 portraits of mankind. 
 
 A numerous, or even excessive population, is 
 undoubtedly an essential element of political 
 power in a state ; but it is not the only, nor in 
 any respect the principal indication of the civi- 
 lization of a country. It is only in regard to 
 civilization that the population of China de- 
 serves our consideration. Although in these 
 latter times, when Europe, by her political as- 
 cendancy over the other parts of the world, 
 has proved the pre-eminence of her arts and 
 civilization, England and Russia have become 
 the immediate neighbors of China towards the 
 north and west, yet these territorial relations 
 affect not the rest of Europe; and China, when 
 we leave out of consideration its very import- 
 ant commerce, cannot certainly be accounted a 
 political power in the general system. Even 
 in ancient, as well as in modern times, China 
 never figured in the history of Western Asia or 
 Europe, and had no connection whatever with 
 their inhabitants; but this great country has 
 ever stood apart, like a world within itself, in 
 the remote, unknown Eastern Asia. Hence, 
 the earlier writers of universal history have 
 taken little or no notice of this great empire, 
 shut out as it was from the confined horizon of 
 their views. And this was natural, when we 
 consider that the conquests and expeditions of 
 the Asiatic nations were considered by these 
 writers as subjects of the first importance. 
 No conquerors have ever marched from China 
 into Western Asia, like Xerxes, for instance, 
 who passed from the interior of Persia to 
 Athens ; or Alexander the Great, who extended 
 his victorious march from his small paternal 
 province of Macedon to beyond the Indus, and 
 almost to the borders of the Ganges, though 
 the latter river, in despite of all his efforts, he 
 was unable to reach. But great victorious ex- 
 peditions have proceeded not from China, but 
 from Central Asia, and the nations of Tartary, 
 who have invaded China itself ; though in 
 those invasions the manners, mind, and civili- 
 zation of the Chinese have evinced their power, 
 since their Tartar conquerors, in the earliest 
 as in the latest times, have, after a few gene- 
 rations, invariably conformed to the manners 
 and civilization of the conquered nation, and 
 become more or less Chinese. Not only the 
 great population and flourishing agriculture 
 of this fruitful country, but the cultivation of 
 silk, for which it has been celebrated from all 
 antiquity, the culture of the tea -plant, which 
 forms such an important article of European 
 trade, as well as the knowledge of several 
 most useful medicinal productions of nature, 
 and unique, and, in their way, excellent pro- 
 ducts of industry and manufacture, prove the 
 very high degree of civilization to which this 
 people have attained. And why should not 
 that people be entitled to a high place, or one 
 of the highest among civilized nations, which 
 had known, many centuries before Europe, the 
 
 art of printing, gunpowder, and the magnet— 
 those three so highly celebrated and valuable 
 discoveries of European skill ? Instead of the 
 regular art of printing with transposable letters, 
 which would not suit the Chinese system of 
 writing, this people make use of a species of 
 lithography, which, to all essential purposes, is 
 the same, and attended with the same effects. 
 Gunpowder serves in China, as it did in Europe 
 in the infancy of the discovery, rather for amuse- 
 ment and fireworks, than for the more serious 
 purposes of war and conquest ; and though this 
 people are acquainted with the magnetic needle, 
 they have never made a like extended applica- 
 ation of its powers, and never employ it, either 
 in a confined river and coasting navigation, or 
 on the wide ocean, on which they never venture. 
 
 The Chinese are remarkable, too, for the ut- 
 most polish and refinement of manners, and 
 even for a precise civility and love of stately 
 ceremonial. In many respects, indeed, their 
 politeness and refinement almost equal those 
 of European nations, or at least are far supe- 
 rior to what we usually designate by the term 
 of oriental manners — a term which, in our 
 sense, can apply only to the nearer Mahometan 
 countries of the Levant. Of this assertion, we 
 may find a sufficient proof in any single tale 
 that portrays the present Chinese life and man- 
 ners ; in the novel, for instance, translated by 
 M. Remusat. In their present manners and 
 fashions, however, there are many things utterly 
 at variance with European taste and feelings; 
 I need only mention the custom of the digni- 
 taries, functionaries, and literary men letting 
 their nails grow to the length of birds' claws, 
 and that other custom in women of rank, of 
 compressing their feet to an extreme diminu- 
 tiveness. Both customs, according to the re- 
 cent account of a very intelligent Englishman, 
 serve to mark and distinguish the upper class ; 
 for the former renders the men totally incapa- 
 ble of hard or manual labor, and the latter im- 
 pedes the woman of rank in walking, or at 
 least gives her a mincing gait, and a languid, 
 delicate and interesting air. These minute 
 traits of manners should not be overlooked in 
 the general sketch of the nation, for they per- 
 fectly correspond to many other characteristic 
 marks and indications of the unnatural stiff- 
 ness, childish vanity, and exaggerated refine- 
 ment, which we meet with in the more im- 
 portant province of its intellectual character. 
 Even in the basis of all intellectual culture, the 
 language, or rather the writing of the Chinese, 
 this character of refinement, pushed beyond all 
 bounds and all conception, is visible, while, on 
 the other hand, it is coupled with great intel- 
 lectual poverty and jejuneness. A language 
 where there are not many more than three hun- 
 dred, not near four hundred, and (according to 
 the most recent critical investigation) only 272 
 monosyllabic primitive roots without any kind 
 of grammar; where the not merely various, but 
 utterly unconnected significations of one and the 
 
F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 475 
 
 same word are marked, in the first place, by a 
 varying modulation of the voice, according to a 
 fourfold method of accentuation ; in the next 
 place and chiefly, by the written characters, 
 which amount to the prodigious number of 
 eighty thousand, while the Egyptian hieroglyphs 
 do not exceed the number of eight hundred — 
 such a language must needs be the most arti- 
 ficial in the whole world ; — an inference, not 
 invalidated by the fact that, out of that great 
 number of all actual or possible written charac- 
 ters, but a fourth part perhaps is really in use, 
 and a still less portion is necessary to be learned. 
 As the meaning, especially of more complex 
 notions and abstract ideas, can be fully fixed 
 and accurately determined only by such artifi- 
 cial ciphers, the language is far more dependent 
 on these written characters than on living 
 sound ; for one and the same sound may often 
 be designated by 160 different characters, and 
 have as many significations. It not rarely occurs 
 that the Chinese, when they do not very well 
 understand each other in conversation, have re- 
 course to writing, and by copying down these 
 ciphers are enabled to divine each other's mean- 
 ing, and become mutually intelligible. Indeed, 
 it furnishes labor sufficient to fill up the life of 
 man, for even the European scholars who have 
 engaged in this study find it a matter of no 
 small difficulty, to devise a system whereby a 
 dictionary, or rather a systematic catalogue of 
 all these written characters may be composed, 
 to serve as a fit guide on this ocean of Chinese 
 signs. But we shall again have occasion to 
 recur to this subject ; and, indeed, it is only in 
 connection with the peculiarities of the Chinese 
 mind that this writing system can be properly 
 explained and understood in its true meaning, 
 or rather its meaningless construction and ela- 
 borateness. 
 
 Although the construction of canals, and all 
 the regulations of water-carriage, could have 
 attained only by degrees to their present state 
 of perfection, still this alone would prove the 
 very early attention which this people had 
 given to the arts of civilized life. Mention is 
 often made of them in the old Chinese histories 
 and imperial annals ; and the canals of China, 
 like the Nile in Egypt, were ever the objects of 
 most anxious solicitude to the government. 
 These annals, whenever they have occasion to 
 speak of those great inundations and destructive 
 floods which are of such frequent occurrence in 
 Chinese history, invariably represent the atten- 
 tion bestowed on water-courses and water-regu- 
 lations as the most certain mark of a wise, 
 benevolent and provident administration. On 
 the other hand, the neglect of this most import- 
 ant of administrative concerns is ever regarded 
 as the proof of a wicked, reckless and unfortu- 
 nate reign ; and in these histories some great 
 calamity, ox even violent catastrophe, is sure to 
 follow, like a stroke of divine vengeance, on 
 this unpardonable neglect of duty. 
 
 The long succession of the different native 
 
 dynasties of China, Tchin, Han, Tung, and 
 Sung, down to the Moguls, which fills the dif- 
 fuse annals of the empire, furnishes few im- 
 portant data on the intellectual progress of the 
 Chinese ; and everything of importance to the 
 object of our present inquiries, that can be ga- 
 thered out of the mass of political history, may 
 be reduced to a very few plain facts. The Eng- 
 lish writer, whom we have already cited, though 
 otherwise inclined to a certain degree of scep- 
 ticism in his views, fixes the commencement 
 of the historical ages of authentic history in the 
 ancient dynasty of Chow, eleven hundred years 
 before the Christian era. The first fact of im- 
 portance, as regards the moral and intellec- 
 tual civilization of China, is, that this country, 
 originally divided into many small principali- 
 ties and under petty sovereigns, whose power 
 was more limited, enjoyed a greater share of 
 liberty. The great burning of the books, of 
 which more particular mention will be pre- 
 sently made, as well as the erection of the 
 great wall, are attributed to the first general 
 emperor of all China, Chihoangti ; in whose 
 reign, too, Japan became a Chinese colony, or 
 received from China a political establishment. 
 At a still later period, as in the fifth century of 
 our era, and again at the time of the Mogul con- 
 quest under Zingis Khan, China was divided 
 into two kingdoms, a northern and a southern. 
 But there is another fact already mentioned, 
 that throws still stronger light on the high civili- 
 zation of China — it is, that at every period 
 when this empire has been conquered by the 
 Moguls and Tartars, the conquerors, overcome 
 in their turn by the ascendancy of Chinese civili- 
 zation, have, within a short time, invariably 
 adopted the manners, laws, and even the lan- 
 guage of China, and thus its institutions have 
 remained, on the whole, unaltered. But here 
 is a circumstance in Chinese history particularly 
 worthy of our attention. In no state in the 
 world do we see such an entire, absolute, and 
 rigid monarchical unity as in that of China, 
 especially under its ancient form ; although this 
 government is more limited by laws and man- 
 ners, and is by no means of that arbitrary and 
 despotic character which we are wont to attri- 
 bute to the more modern oriental states. In 
 China, before the introduction of the Indian re- 
 ligion of Buddhu, there was not even a distinct 
 sacerdotal class — there is no nobility, no heredi- 
 tary class with hereditary rights — education, and 
 employment in the service of the state, form the 
 only marks of distinction ; and the men of let- 
 ters and government functionaries are blended 
 together in the single class of Mandarins ; but 
 the state is all in all. However, this absolute 
 monarchical system has not conduced to the 
 peace, stability, and permanent prosperity of 
 the state, for the whole history of China, from 
 beginning to end, displays one continued series 
 of seditions, usurpations, anarchy, changes of 
 dynasty, and other violent revolutions and catas- 
 trophes. This is proved by the bare statement 
 
476 
 
 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 of facts, though the official language of the im- 
 perial annals ever concedes the final triumph 
 to the monarchical principle. 
 
 The same violent revolutions occurred in the 
 department of science and of public doctrines, 
 as in the instance already cited of the general 
 burning of the books by order of the first gene- 
 ral emperor, when the men of letters, or at least 
 a party of them, were persecuted, and four 
 hundred and sixty followers of Confucius burnt. 
 This act of tyranny undoubtedly supposes a 
 very violent contest between factions — an im- 
 portant political struggle between hostile sects, 
 and a mighty revolution in the intellectual 
 world. At the same time too, a favorite of 
 this tyrannical prince introduced a new system 
 of writing, which has led to the greatest confu- 
 sion, even in subsequent ages. Such an intellec- 
 tual revolution is doubtless evident on the intro- 
 duction of the Indian religion of Buddhu, or Fo, 
 (according to the Chinese appellation,) which 
 took place precisely three-and-thirty years after 
 the foundation of Christianity. The conquest of 
 China by the Moguls, under Zingis Khan, oc- 
 curred at the same time that their expeditions 
 towards the opposite quarter of Europe spread 
 terror and desolation over Russia and Poland, 
 as far as the confines of Silesia. This conquest 
 produced a reaction, and a popular revolution, 
 conducted by a common citizen of China, by 
 name Chow, restored the empire ; this citizen 
 afterwards ascended the throne, and became 
 the founder of a new Chinese dynasty. The 
 emperors of the present dynasty of Mantchou 
 Tartars, that has now governed China since the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, are distin- 
 guished for their attachment to the old customs 
 and institutions of China, and even to its lan- 
 guage and science ; and their elevation to the 
 throne has given rise to many great scientific 
 enterprises, and has been singularly favorable 
 to the investigations of those European scholars, 
 whose object it is to make us better acquainted 
 with China. But at the moment I am speaking, 
 a great rebellion has broken out in the northern 
 part of the kingdom, and in the opposite extre- 
 mity the Christians are exposed to a more than 
 ordinary persecution. 
 
 These few leading incidents in Chinese his- 
 tory may suffice to make known the principal 
 epochs in the intellectual progress and civiliza- 
 tion of this people. As the constitution and 
 development of the human mind are in each 
 of those ancient nations closely connected with 
 the nature of their language, and even some- 
 times (as in the case of the Chinese) with their 
 system of writing, the language of the latter 
 people being, on account of its amazing copious- 
 ness, less fit for conversation than for writing, I 
 shall now make a few remarks on the very 
 artificial mode of Chinese writing, which is 
 perfectly unique in its kind : but I shall confine 
 my observation to its general character, and 
 shall forbear entering into the vast labyrinth of 
 the eighty thousand cipher-signs of speech, and 
 
 all the problems and difficulties which they in- 
 volve. The Chinese writing was undoubtedly 
 in its origin symbolical, though the rude marks 
 of those primitive symbols can now scarcely 
 be discerned in the enigmatical abbreviations, 
 and in the complex combinations of the charac- 
 ters at present in use. It is no slight problem 
 even for the learned of China to reduce, with 
 any degree of certainty, the boundless quantity 
 of their written characters to their simple ele- 
 ments and primitive roots: in this, however, 
 they have succeeded, and have shown that all 
 these elements are to be found in the two hun- 
 dred and fourteen symbols, or keys of writing, 
 as they call them. The Chinese characters of 
 the primitive ages comprise only representa- 
 tions, indicated by a few rude strokes, of those 
 first simple objects which surround man while 
 living in the most simple state of society — 
 such as the sun and moon, the most familiar 
 animals, the common plants, the implements 
 of human labor, weapons, and the different 
 parts of human dwellings. This is the same 
 rude symbolical writing which we find among 
 other civilized/ nations, the Americans, for ex- 
 ample, and among them, the Mexicans in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 The celebrated French orientalist, Abel Re- 
 musat, who in our times has infused a new 
 life into the study of Chinese literature, and 
 especially thrown on the whole subject a much 
 greater degree of clearness than originally be- 
 longed to it, has, in his examination of this first 
 very meagre outline of the infant civilization 
 of China, wherein he discovers the then very 
 contracted circle of Chinese ideas, made many 
 intelligent observations, and many historical 
 deductions. And if, as he conjectures, the dis- 
 covery of Chinese writing must date its origin 
 four thousand years back, this would bring it 
 within three or four generations from the de- 
 luge, according to the vulgar era — an estimate 
 which certainly is not exaggerated. If this 
 European scholar, intimately conversant as 
 he is with Chinese antiquities and science, is 
 at a loss adequately to describe his astonish- 
 ment at the extreme poverty of these first sym- 
 bols of Chinese writing, so no one, doubtless, 
 possesses in a higher degree than himself all 
 the necessary attainments to enable him to ap- 
 preciate the immeasurable distance between 
 this first extreme jejuneness of ideas, and the 
 boundless wealth displayed in the latter artifi- 
 cial and complex writing of the Chihese. 
 
 But when, among other things, he calls our 
 attention to the fact that, in this primitive writ- 
 ing, even the sign or symbol of a priest is want- 
 ing—a symbol which together with the class 
 itself must exist among the very rudest nations 
 — I must concur in the truth of the remark : for 
 he himself adduces, among other characters, 
 one which must represent a magician. Now 
 among the heathen nations of the primitive age, 
 the one personage was certainly identical with 
 the other, as even among the Cainites was very 
 
F. SCHLEGEL. 477 
 
 probably the case. Even the combination of 
 several of those simple characters, which gene- 
 rally serve to denote the more abstract ideas, 
 seem often, or at least originally, not to have 
 been regulated by any profound principle of 
 symbolism, but to have arisen merely out of the 
 vulgar perceptions or impressions of every-day 
 life. For instance, the character denoting hap- 
 piness is composed of two signs, of which one 
 represents an open mouth, and the other a 
 handful of rice, or rice by itself. Here we see 
 no allusion is made to any very lofty or chime- 
 rical idea of happiness, or to any mystic or spi- 
 ritual conception of it ; but, as this written cha- 
 racter well evinces, the Chinese notion of hap- 
 piness is simply represented by a mouth filled 
 and saturated with good wine. Another ex- 
 ample of nearly the same kind, given by Re- 
 musat with a sort of polite reluctance, is the 
 character designating woman, which, when 
 doubled, signifies strife and contention, and 
 when tripled, immoral and disorderly conduct. 
 How widely removed are all those coarse 
 and trivial combinations of ideas from an ex- 
 quisite sense — a deep symbolism of Nature — 
 from those spiritual emblems in the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics, so far as they have been deci- 
 phered; although these emblems may have 
 been, and were in fact, applied to the purpose 
 of alphabetic usage. In the hieroglyphics there 
 is, besides the bare literal meaning, a high sym- 
 bolic inspiration, like a soul of life, the breathing 
 of a high, indwelling spirit, a deeply felt signi- 
 ficancy, a lofty and beautiful design apparent 
 through the dead characters denoting any par- 
 ticular name or fact. 
 
 But independently of this boundless chaos of 
 written characters, the Chinese undoubtedly 
 possess a system of scientific symbols and sym- 
 bolical signs, which constitute the substance 
 of their most sacred book, the I-King, which 
 signifies the book of unity, or, as others explain 
 it, the book of changes ; and either name will 
 agree with the meaning of those symbols which, 
 when rightly understood, and conceived in the 
 spirit of early antiquity, will appear to be of a 
 very remarkable and scientific nature. There 
 are only two primary figures or lines, from 
 which proceed originally the four symbols and 
 the eight kona or combinations representing 
 Nature, which form the basis of the high Chi- 
 nese philosophy. These first two primary prin- 
 ciples are a straight, unbroken line, and a line 
 broken or divided into two. If these first sim- 
 ple elements are doubled, namely, two straight 
 lines put under each other like our arithmetical 
 sign of equation, and two broken or divided 
 lines also put together, the different lines are 
 formed. According as one broken line occu- 
 pies the upper or the lower place, there are 
 two possible variations — when put together, 
 there are four possible variations ; and these 
 constitute the four symbols. But if three lines 
 of these two kinds, the straight and the broken, 
 are united or placed under each other, so, ac- | 
 
 cording to the number or the upper, middle or 
 lower place of either species of line, there are 
 eight possible combinations, and these are the 
 eight kona, which, together with the four sym- 
 bols, refer to the natural elements, and to the 
 primary principles of all things, and serve as 
 the symbolical expression, or scientific designa- 
 tion of these. 
 
 What is now the real sense and proper sig- 
 nification of those scientific primary lines among 
 the Chinese, which exert an influence over the 
 whole of their ancient literature, and upon 
 which they themselves have written an incre- 
 dible number of learned commentaries? Leib- 
 nitz supposed them to contain a reference to the 
 modern algebraical discoveries, and especially 
 to the binary calculation. Other writers, espe- 
 cially among the English, drawing their obser- 
 vations more from real life, remark on the other 
 hand, that this ancient system of mystical lines 
 serves at present the purpose of a sort of ora- 
 cular play of questions, like the turning up of 
 cards among Europeans, and is converted to 
 many superstitious uses, especially for making 
 pretended discoveries in alchemy, to which the 
 Chinese are very much addicted. But this is 
 only an abuse of modern times, which no longer 
 understand this primitive system of symbolical 
 signs and lines. The high antiquity of these 
 lines and of the eight kona can be the less a 
 matter of doubt, as even mythology has ascribed 
 them to the primitive patriarch of the Chinese, 
 Fohi, who is represented as having espied these 
 lines on the back of a tortoise, and having thence 
 deduced the written characters ; which many 
 of the learned Chinese wish to derive from 
 these eight kona or combinations of the first 
 symbolical lines. But the French scholar, whom 
 I have more than once had occasion to name, 
 and who is well able to form a competent opi- 
 nion on the subject, is most decidedly opposed 
 to this Chinese derivation of all the written 
 characters from the eight kona; and it would 
 appear, indeed, that the latter differ totally from 
 the common system of Chinese writing, and 
 must be looked upon as of a distinct scientific 
 nature. 
 
 Perhaps we may find a natural explanation 
 of the true, and not very hidden sense of these 
 signs, by comparing the fundamental doctrines 
 of the elder Greek philosophy and science of 
 Nature. Thus, in the writings of Plato, mention 
 is often made of the one and of the other, or of 
 unity and duality, as the original elements of 
 Nature and first principles of all existence. By 
 this is meant the doctrine of the first opposition 
 and of the many oppositions derived from the 
 first; and also of the possible, and conceivable, 
 or required adjustment and compromise be- 
 tween the two, and of the restoration of the 
 first unity and eternal equality anterior to all 
 opposition, and which terminates and absorbs 
 in itself all discord. Thus these eight kona, 
 and mathematical signs or symbolical lines of 
 ancient China, would comprise nothing more 
 
478 
 
 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 than a dry outline of all dynamical speculation 
 and science. And it is therefore quite consistent 
 that the old sacred hook which contains these 
 principles of Chinese science should he termed 
 either the book of unity or the book of changes ; 
 for doubtless this title refers to the doctrine of 
 an absolute unity, as the fundamental principle 
 of all things, and to the doctrine of differences, 
 or oppositions or changes springing out of that 
 first unity. 
 
 This doctrine of an opposition in all things — 
 in thought as in nature— will become more ap- 
 parent if we reflect on the new and brilliant 
 discoveries in natural philosophy. For as in 
 this science, the oxygen and hydrogen parts in 
 the chemistry of metals, or the positive or nega- 
 tive end of electrical phenomena, in the attract- 
 ing and repelling pole of magnetism, reveal 
 such an opposition and dynamic play of living 
 powers in nature ; so in this philosophy of 
 China, the abstract doctrine of this opposition 
 and dynamical change of existence seems to be 
 laid down with a sort of mathematical gene- 
 rality, as the basis of all future science. In our 
 higher natural philosophy, indeed, all this has 
 been proved from facts and experience ; and, 
 besides, this dynamic life forms but one element, 
 and the one branch of the science to be ac- 
 quired ; and a philosophy founded entirely on 
 this dynamical law of existence, without any 
 regard to the other and higher principle of in- 
 ternal experience and moral life, intellectual 
 intuition and divine revelation, would be at 
 best a very partial system, and by no means of 
 general application ; or if a general application 
 of such a system were made, it must lead to 
 endless mistakes, errors and contradictions. 
 That such a system of dynamical speculation 
 and science, if extended to objects where it 
 cannot be corroborated by facts, to all things 
 divine and human, real, possible, or impossible, 
 will undoubtedly lead to such a chaotic con- 
 fusion of ideas, we have had a memorable ex- 
 perience in the German "Philosophy of Nature" 
 of the last generation ; a philosophy which con- 
 sisted in a fanciful play of thought with Polari- 
 ties, and oppositions, and points of indifference be- 
 tween them, but which has been long appreciated 
 in its true worth and real nature, and consigned 
 to its proper limits. 
 
 Thus this outline of the old Chinese symbols 
 of thought, which have a purely metaphysical 
 import, would lay before its the most recent 
 error clothed in the most antique form — but the 
 Chinese system is in itself very remarkable and 
 important. The fundamental text of the old 
 sacred book on this doctrine of unity and oppo- 
 sitions, and which may now be easily compre- 
 hended, runs thus, according to Remusat's lite- 
 ral translation : "The great first principle has 
 engendered or produced two equations and dif- 
 ferences, or primary rules of existence: but the 
 two primary rules or two oppositions, namely, 
 Yn and Yang, or repose and motion (the affirm- 
 ative and negative as we might otherwise call 
 
 them), have produced four signs or symbols; 
 and the four symbols have produced the eight 
 kona, or further combinations." These eight 
 kona are kien, or ether, kui, or pure water, li, 
 or pure fire, tchin, or thunder, siun, the wind, 
 kan, common water, ken, a mountain, and kuen, 
 the earth. 
 
 On this ancient basis of Chinese philosophy, 
 proceeding from indifference to differences, was 
 afterwards founded the rationalist system of 
 Lao-tseu, whose name occurs somewhat earlier 
 than that of Confucius. The Taosse, or disci- 
 ples of Reason, as the followers of this philoso- 
 pher entitle themselves, have very much de- 
 generated, and have become a complete athe- 
 istical sect; though the blame of this must be 
 attributed, not to the founder, but to his disciples 
 only. It is however acknowledged that the 
 atheistical principles of this dead science of 
 reason, have been very widely diffused through- 
 out the Chinese empire, and for a certain period 
 were almost generally prevalent. 
 
 As it is necessary to keep in view a certain 
 chronological order, in our investigations of the 
 progressive development of Chinese intellect, I 
 may here observe that, as far as European re- 
 search has been able to ascertain, we may dis- 
 tinguish three principal and successive epochs 
 in the history both of the religion and science 
 of China. The first epoch is that of sacred tra- 
 dition, and of the old constitution of the Chinese 
 empire, and discloses those primitive views, 
 and that primitive system of ethics, on which 
 the empire was founded. The second, which 
 we may fix about six centuries before our era, 
 is the period of scientific philosophy, pursu- 
 ing two opposite paths of inquiry. Confucius 
 applied his attention entirely to the more prac- 
 tical study of ethics, with which, indeed, the 
 old constitution, history, and sacred traditions 
 of the Chinese were very intimately connected ; 
 and the pure morality of Confucius, which was 
 the first branch of Chinese philosophy known 
 in Europe, excited to a high degree the enthu- 
 siasm of many European scholars, who, by their 
 too exclusive admiration, were prevented from 
 forming a right estimate of the general character 
 of Chinese philosophy. 
 
 Another system of philosophy, purely specu- 
 lative and widely different from the practical 
 and ethical doctrine of Confucius, was the sys- 
 tem of Lao-tseu and his school, whence issued 
 the above-mentioned rationalist sect of Taosse, 
 that has at last fallen into atheism. As to the 
 question whether Lao-tseu travelled into the 
 remote West, or in case he came only as far as 
 Western Asia, whether he derived his system 
 from the Persian or Egyptian doctrines, or me- 
 diately from the Greek philosophy — this ques- 
 tion I shall not here stop to discuss, for the 
 matter is very doubtful in itself, and, were it 
 even proved, still all the doctrines borrowed 
 from the West were invested in a form purely 
 Chinese, and clothed in quite a native garb. 
 Those signs in the I-King, we have already 
 
F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 479 
 
 spoken of, evidently comprise the germ of such 
 an absolute, negative, and consequently athe- 
 istic rationalism — a mechanical play of idle ab- 
 stractions. The third epoch in the progress of 
 Chinese opinions is formed by the introduction 
 of the Indian religion of Buddha or of Fo. The 
 great revolution which had previously occurred 
 in the old doctrines and manners of China; and 
 the ruling spirit of that false and absolute ra- 
 tionalism, had already paved the way for the 
 foreign religion of Buddha, which, of all the 
 Pagan imitations of truth, occupies the lowest 
 grade. 
 
 The old sacred traditions of the Chinese are 
 not so overlaid, nor disfigured with fictions, as 
 those of most other Asiatic nations ; those of the 
 Indians, for example, and of the early nations 
 of Pagan Europe ; but their traditions breathe 
 the purer spirit of genuine history. Hence, the 
 poetry of the Chinese is not mythological, like 
 that of other nations, but is either lyrical, (as in 
 the Shi-King, a book of sacred songs, composed 
 or compiled by Confucius,) or is entirely con- 
 fined to the representation of real life, and of 
 the social relations — as in the modern tales and 
 novels, several of which have been translated 
 into the European languages. 
 
 The old traditions of the Chinese have many 
 traits of a kindred character with, or at least of 
 a strong resemblance to, the Mosaic revelation, 
 and even to the sacred traditions of the nations 
 of Western Asia, particularly the Persians ; and 
 in these traditions we find much that either 
 corroborates the testimony of Holy Writ, or at 
 least affords matter for further comparison. We 
 have before mentioned the very peculiar man- 
 ner in which the Chinese speak of the great 
 Flood, and how their first progenitors struggled 
 against the savage waters, and how this task 
 was afterwards neglected by bad or improvi- 
 dent rulers, who, in consequence of this neglect, 
 were brought to ruin. 
 
 I will cite but one instance, where the pa- 
 rallel is indeed remarkable. In the I-King, 
 mention is made of the fallen dragon, or of the 
 spirit of the dragon, that, for his presumption in 
 wishing to ascend to heaven, was precipitated 
 into the abyss; and the words in which this 
 event is described are precisely the same, or at 
 least very similar to those which our Scriptures 
 apply to the rebel angel, and the Persian books 
 to Ahriman. However, this dragon is whimsi- 
 cally, we might almost say, artlessly, made the 
 sacred symbol of the Chinese Empire and the 
 Emperor. The paternal power of the latter is 
 understood in a much too absolute sense ; not 
 only is the Emperor styled the lord of heaven 
 and earth, and even the sun of God, but his will 
 is revered as the will of God, or rather com- 
 pletely identified with it ; and even the most 
 determined eulogists of the Chinese constitution 
 and manners, cannot deny that the monarch is 
 almost the object of a real worship. Chris- 
 tianity teaches that all power is from God; but 
 it does not thereby declare that all power is one 
 
 and the same with God. Even a dominion 
 over nature and her powers is ascribed to the 
 Emperor of China, as the illustrious lord of 
 heaven and earth. 
 
 Moreover, no hereditary nobility, no classes 
 separated by distinctions of birth, exist in this 
 country, as in India. The Emperor, half iden- 
 tified with the Deity, had alone the privilege in 
 ancient times of offering on the sacred heights 
 of the great sacrifice to God. Some European 
 writers have, from this circumstance, conceived 
 the Chinese constitution to be theocratic ; but if 
 it be so, it is only in its outward form or original 
 mould ; for it would be difficult to show in it 
 any trace of a true, vital theocracy. All that 
 pomp of sacred ceremony and religious titles, 
 so strangely absurd, forms a striking contrast 
 with real history, and with that long succession 
 of profligate and unfortunate reigns, and per- 
 petual revolutions, which fill most of the" pages 
 of the Chinese annals. We should err greatly, 
 were we to regard all these high imperial titles 
 as the mere swell and exaggeration of Eastern 
 phraseology. The Chinese speak of their celes- 
 tial Empire of the Medium, as they call their 
 country, in terms which no European writer 
 would apply to a Christian state ; and such, in- 
 deed, as the Scriptures and religious authors use 
 in reference only to the kingdom of God. They 
 cannot conceive it possible for the earth to con- 
 tain two emperors at one and the same time, 
 and own the sway of more than one such abso- 
 lute lord and master. Hence, they look on 
 every solemn foreign embassy as a debt of 
 homage; nor is this sentiment the idle effect of 
 vanity or fancy — it is a firm and settled belief, 
 perfectly coinciding with the whole system of 
 their religious and political doctrines. 
 
 THE HINDOOS. 
 
 When Alexander the Great had attained the 
 object of his most ardent desires, and, realizing 
 the fabulous expedition of Bacchus and his train 
 of followers, had at last reached India, the 
 Greeks found this vast region, even on this side 
 of the Ganges — (for that river, the peculiar ob- 
 ject of Alexander's ambition, the conqueror, in 
 despite of all his efforts, was unable to reach)-— 
 the Greeks found this country extensive, fertile, 
 highly cultivated, populous, and filled with 
 flourishing cities, as it was divided into a num- 
 ber of great and petty kingdoms. They found 
 there an hereditary division of castes, such as 
 still subsists ; although they reckoned not four, 
 but seven, a circumstance, however, which, as 
 we shall see later, argues no essential differ- 
 ence in the division of Indian classes at that 
 period. They remarked, also, that the country 
 was divided into two religious parties or sects, 
 the Brachmans and the Samaneans. By the first, 
 the Greeks designated the followers of the reli- 
 gion of Brahma, as well as of Vishnoo and Siva, 
 a religion which still subsists, and is more 
 deeply rooted and more widely diffused and 
 prevalent in India than any other religious 
 
480 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 system ; distinguished as it is by its leading 
 dogma of the transmigration of souls, which has 
 exerted the mightiest influence on every depart- 
 ment of thought, on the whole bearing of Indian 
 philosophy, and on the whole arrangement of 
 Indian life. But by the Greek denomination of 
 Samaneans we must certainly understand the 
 Buddhists, as, among the rude nations of cen- 
 tral Asia, and in other countries, the priests of 
 the religion of Fo bear at this day the name of 
 Schamans. These priests indeed appear to be 
 little better than mere sorcerers and jugglers, as 
 are the priests of all idolatrous nations that are 
 sunk to the lowest degree of barbarism and 
 superstition. The word itself is pure Indian, 
 and occurs frequently in the religious and meta- 
 physical treatises of that people ; for originally, 
 and before it had received such a mean accep- 
 tation among those Buddhist nations, it had 
 quite a philosophical sense, as it still has in the 
 Sanscrit. This word denotes that equality of 
 mind, or that deep internal equanimity, which, 
 according to the Indian philosophy, must pre- 
 cede, and is indispensably requisite to the per- 
 fect union with the Godhead. In general, all 
 the names by which Buddha, the priests of his 
 religion, and its important and fundamental 
 doctrines are known, whether in Thibet, or 
 among the Mongul nations, in Siam, in Pegu, or 
 in Japan — in general, we say, all those names 
 are pure Indian words ; for the tradition of all 
 those nations, with unanimous accord, deduces 
 the origin of this sect from India. 
 
 The name of Buddha, which the Chinese have 
 changed or shortened into that of Fo, is rather 
 an honorary appellation, and is expressive of 
 the divine wisdom with which, in the opinion 
 of his followers, he was endowed ; or which 
 rather, according to their belief, became visible 
 in his person. The period of his existence is 
 fixed by many at six hundred years, by others 
 again at a thousand years, before the Christian 
 era. His real and historical name was Gau- 
 tama; and it is remarkable that the same name 
 was borne by the author of one of the principal 
 philosophical systems of the Hindoos, the Nyaya 
 philosophy, the leading principles of which will 
 be the subject of future consideration, when we 
 come to speak of the Indian philosophy. Indeed, 
 the dialectic spirit, which pervades the Nyaya 
 philosophy, would seem to be of a kindred na- 
 ture and like origin with the confused meta- 
 physics of the Buddhists. But the names, not- 
 withstanding their identity, denote two different 
 persons ; although even the founder of the dia- 
 lectic system, like almost all other celebrated 
 names in the ancient history, traditions and 
 sciences of the Indians, figures in the character 
 of a mythological personage. But we must first 
 take a view of the state of manners, and the 
 state of political civilization, in India, in order 
 to be able to form a right judgment and estimate 
 of the intellectual and scientific exertions of its 
 inhabitants, and of the peculiar nature and ten- 
 dency of the Indian opinions. 
 
 By the manner in which the Greek writers 
 speak of the two religious parties into which 
 Alexander found the country divided, it can 
 scarcely be doubted that the Buddhists at that 
 period were far more numerous, and more ex- 
 tensively diffused throughout India, than they 
 are at the present day, and this inference is 
 even corroborated by many historical vouchers 
 of the Indians themselves. Although the Budd- 
 hists are now but an obscure sect of dissenters 
 in the western peninsula, they are still tolera- 
 bly numerous in several of its provinces; while, 
 on the other hand, they have complete posses- 
 sion of the whole eastern and Indo-Chinese 
 peninsula. Besides this sect, there are many 
 other religious dissenters even in Hindostan ; 
 such, for instance, as the sect of Jains, who 
 steer a middle course between the followers of 
 the old and established religion of Brahma and 
 the Buddhists; for, like the latter, they reject the 
 Indian division and system of castes. * * * 
 This singular phenomenon of Indian life has 
 even some points of connection with a capital 
 article of their creed, the doctrine of the trans- 
 migration of souls — a doctrine which will be 
 later the subject of our inquiries, and which 
 we shall endeavor to place in a nearer and 
 clearer light. In showing the influence of the 
 institution of castes on the state of manners in 
 India, I may observe, in the first place, that in 
 this division of the social ranks there is no dis- 
 tinct class of slaves, (as was indeed long ago 
 remarked by the Greeks,) that is to say, no such 
 class of bought slaves — no men, the property 
 and merchandise of their fellow-men — as ex- 
 isted in ancient Greece and Rome, as exist even 
 at this day among Mahometan nations ; and, as 
 in the case of the Negroes, are still to be found 
 in the colonial possessions of the Christian and 
 European states. The laboring class of the 
 Sudras is undoubtedly not admitted to the high 
 privileges of the first classes, and is in a state 
 of great dependence upon these ; but this very 
 caste of Sudras has its hereditary and clearly 
 defined rights. It is only by a crime, that a 
 man in India can lose his caste, and the rights 
 annexed to it. These rights are acquired by 
 birth, except in the instance of the offspring of 
 unlawful marriages between persons of differ- 
 ent castes. The fate of these hapless wretches 
 is indeed hard — harder, almost, than that of 
 real slaves among other nations. Ejected, ex- 
 communicated as it were, loaded with maledic- 
 tion, they are regarded as the outcasts of society, 
 yea, almost of humanity itself. This terrible 
 exclusion, however, from the rights of citizen- 
 ship, occurs only in certain clearly specified 
 cases. There are even some cases of exception 
 explicitly laid down, where a marriage with a 
 person of different caste is permitted, or where 
 at least the only consequence to the children of 
 such marriage is a degradation to an inferior 
 class of society. But the general rule is, that a 
 lawful marriage can be contracted only with a 
 woman of the same caste. Women participate 
 
F. S CHLEGEL. 
 
 481 
 
 in all the rights of their caste ; in the high pre- 
 rogatives of Brahmins, if they are of the sacer- 
 dotal race, although there are not and never 
 were priestesses among the Indians, as among 
 the other heathen nations of antiquity; or in 
 the privileges of nobility, if they belong to the 
 caste of the Cshatriyas. These privileges which 
 belong and are secured to women, and this par- 
 ticipation in the rights and advantages of their 
 respective classes, must tend much, undoubt- 
 edly, to mitigate the injurious effects of poly- 
 gamy. The latter custom has ever prevailed, 
 and still prevails in India, though not to the 
 same degree of licentiousness, nor with the 
 same unlimited and despotic control as in Ma- 
 hometan countries ; but a plurality of wives is 
 there permitted only under certain conditions, 
 and with certain legal restrictions, consequently 
 in that milder form under which it existed of 
 old in the warm climes of Asia, and according 
 to the patriarchal simplicity of the yet thinly 
 peopled world. The much higher social rank, 
 and better moral condition of the female sex in 
 India, are apparent from those portraits of In- 
 dian life, which are drawn in their beautiful 
 works of poetry, whether of a primitive or a 
 later date, and from that deep feeling of ten- 
 derness, that affectionate regard and reverence, 
 with which the character of woman and her 
 domestic relations are invariably represented. 
 These few examples suffice to show the moral 
 effects of the Indian division of castes ; and 
 while they serve to defend this institution 
 against a sweeping sentence of condemnation, 
 or the indiscriminate censure of too partial pre- 
 judice, they place the subject in its true and 
 proper light, and present alike the advantages 
 and defects of the system. 
 
 ******* 
 
 When the Greeks, who accompanied or fol- 
 lowed Alexander into India, numbered seven 
 instead of four castes in that country, they did 
 not judge inaccurately the outward condition 
 of things, but they paid not sufficient attention 
 to the Indian notion of castes ; and their very 
 enumeration of those castes proves they had 
 some points of detail. In this enumeration, 
 they assign the first rank to the Brach?nans, or 
 wise men ; and by the artisans, they no doubt 
 understood the trading and manufacturing class 
 of the Vaisyas. The counsellors and intendants 
 of kings and princes do not constitute a distinct 
 caste, but are mere officers and functionaries, 
 who, if they be lawyers, belong to, and must be 
 taken from, the caste of Brahmins; though the 
 other two upper castes are not always rigidly ex- 
 cluded from these functions. The class, again, 
 that tends the breeding of cattle, and lives by 
 the chase, forms not a distinct caste, but merely 
 follows a peculiar kind of employment. And 
 when the Greeks make two castes of the agri- 
 culturists and the warriors, they only mean to 
 draw a distinction between the laborers and 
 the masters, or the real proprietors of the soil. 
 3 L 
 
 Even the name of Cshatriyas signifies landed 
 proprietor ; and as in the old Germanic consti- 
 tution, the arriere-ban was composed of landed 
 proprietors, and the very possession of the soil 
 imposed on the nobility the obligation of mili- 
 tary service; so, in the Indian constitution, the 
 two ideas of property inMand and military ser- 
 vice, are indissolubly connected. Some modern 
 inquirers have attached very great importance 
 to the undoubtedly wide and remarkable sepa- 
 ration of the fourth or menial caste of Sudras 
 from the three upper castes. They have thought 
 they perceived, also, a very great difference in 
 the bodily structure and general physiognomy 
 of this fourth caste from those of the others; and 
 have thence concluded that the caste of Sudras 
 is descended from a totally different race, some 
 primitive and barbarous people whom a more 
 civilized nation, to whom the three upper castes 
 must have belonged, have conquered and sub- 
 dued, and degraded to that menial condition, 
 the lowest grade in the social scale — a grade to 
 which the iron arm of law eternally binds them 
 down. This hypothesis is, in itself, not very im- 
 probable ; and it may be proved from history, 
 that the like has really occurred in several 
 Asiatic and even European countries. In the 
 back-ground of old, mighty and civilized na- 
 tions, we can almost always trace the primeval 
 inhabitants of the country, who, dispossessed 
 of their territory, have been either reduced to 
 servitude by their conquerors, or have gradually 
 been incorporated with them. These primitive 
 inhabitants, when compared with their later 
 and more civilized conquerors, appear indeed 
 in general rude and barbarous, though we find 
 among them a certain number of ancient cus- 
 toms and arts, which by no means tend to con- 
 firm the notion of an original and universal 
 savage state of nature. It is possible that the 
 same circumstances have occurred in India, 
 though this is by no means a necessary infer- 
 ence, for humanity in its progress follows not 
 one uniform course, but pursues various and 
 widely different paths; and hitherto, at least, 
 no adequate historical proof has, in my opinion, 
 been adduced for the reality of such an occur- 
 rence in India. It has also been conjectured 
 that the caste of warriors, or the princes and 
 hereditary nobility, possessed originally greater 
 power and influence; and that it is only by 
 degrees the race of Brahmins has attained to 
 that great preponderance which it displays in 
 later times, and which it even still possesses. 
 We find, indeed, in the old epic, mythological, 
 and historical poems of the Indians, many pas- 
 sages which describe a contest between these 
 two classes, and which represent the deified 
 heroes of India victoriously defending the wise 
 and pious Brahmins from the attacks of the 
 fierce and presumptuous Cshatriyas. This ac- 
 count, however, is susceptible of another inter- 
 pretation, and should not be taken exclusively 
 ill this political sense. That in the brilliant 
 period of their ancient and national dynasties 
 41 
 
462 
 
 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 and governments, the princes and warlike nobi- 
 lity possessed greater weight and importance 
 than at present, is quite in the nature of things, 
 and appears indeed to have been undoubtedly 
 the case. From many indications in the old 
 Indian traditions and histories, it would appear 
 that the caste of Cshatriyas was partially, at 
 least, of foreign extraction; while those tradi- 
 tionary accounts constantly represent the caste 
 of Brahmins as the highest class, and nobler 
 part, nay, the corner-stone of the whole com- 
 munity. 
 
 The origin of an hereditary caste of warriors, 
 when considered in itself, may be easily ac- 
 counted for, and it is nowise contrary to the na- 
 ture of things that, even in a state of society 
 where legal rights are yet undefined, the son, 
 especially the eldest, should govern and admin- 
 ister the territory or property which his deceased 
 father possessed, and even in those cases where 
 it was necessary, should take possession, admin- 
 ister, and defend this property by open force 
 and the aid of his dependants. 
 
 But afterwards, when the social relations be- 
 came more clearly fixed by law, and a union 
 on a larger scale was formed by a general 
 league, as the duties of military service were 
 annexed to the soil, so the right to the soil was 
 again determined by, and depended on, mili- 
 tary service ; now, in that primitive period of 
 history, such a political union might have been 
 formed by a common subordination to a higher 
 power, or by a confederacy between several 
 potentates; and this has really been the origin 
 of an hereditary, landed nobility, in many 
 countries. 
 
 The hereditary continuance or transmission 
 of arts and trades, whereby the son pursues the 
 occupation of the father, and learns and applies 
 what the latter has discovered, has nothing sin- 
 gular in itself, and appears indeed to contain its 
 own explanation. But it is not easy, or, at least, 
 equally so, to account for the exclusive distribu- 
 tion and the exact and rigid separation of castes, 
 particularly by any religious motives and prin- 
 ciples, which are, however, indubitably con- 
 nected with this institution. Still less can we 
 understand the existence of a great, hereditary 
 class of priests, eternally divided from the rest 
 of the community, such as existed both in India 
 and Egypt. To comprehend this strange phe- 
 nomenon, we must endeavor to discover its 
 origin, and trace it back, as far as is possible, to 
 the primitive ages of the world. If, for the 
 sake of brevity, I have used the expression, "a 
 class of hereditary priests," I ought to add, in 
 order to explain my meaning more clearly, that 
 the word priests must not be taken in that literal 
 sense which antiquity attached to it; that the 
 Brahmins axe not confined merely to the func- 
 tions of prayer, but are strictly and eminently 
 theologians, since they alone are permitted to 
 read and interpret the Vedas, while the other 
 castes can read only with their sanction such 
 passages of those sacred writings as are adapted 
 
 to their circumstances, and the fourth caste are 
 entirely prohibited from hearing any portion of 
 them. The Brahmins are also the lawyers and 
 physicians of India, and hence the Greeks did 
 not designate them erroneously, when they 
 termed them the caste of philosophers. * * 
 * * * Among the Indians, the ruling prin- 
 ciple of existence was the doctrine of the trans- 
 migration of souls, which appears indeed to be 
 the most characteristic of all their opinions, and 
 was, by its influence on real life, by far the 
 most important. We must in the first place 
 remember, and keep well in our minds, that, 
 among those nations of primitive antiquity, the 
 doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not 
 a mere probable hypothesis, which, as with 
 many moderns, needs laborious researches and 
 diffuse argumentations, in order to produce con- 
 viction on the mind. Nay, we can hardly give 
 the name of faith to this primitive conception; 
 for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling of 
 one's own being, and of what is actually pre- 
 sent ; and this firm belief in a mere future 
 existence exerted its influence on all sublunary 
 affairs, and was often the motive of mightier 
 deeds and enterprises, than any more earthly 
 interest could inspire. I said above, that the 
 doctrine of the transmigration of souls was not 
 unconnected with the Indian system of castes ; 
 for the most honorable appellation of a Brahmin 
 is Tvija, that is to say, a second time born, or 
 regenerated. On one hand, this appellation re- 
 fers to that spiritual renovation and second 
 birth of a life of purity consecrated to God, as 
 in this consists the true calling of a Brahmin, 
 and the special purpose of his caste. On the 
 other hand, this term refers to the belief that 
 the soul, after many transmigrations through 
 various forms of animals, and various stages of 
 natural existence, is permitted in certain cases, 
 as a peculiar recompense, when it has gone 
 through its prescribed cycle of migrations, to 
 return to the world, and be born in the class of 
 Brahmins. This doctrine of the transmigration 
 of souls through various bodies of animals or 
 other forms of existence, and even through more 
 than one repetition of human life (whether such 
 migrations were intended as the punishment of 
 souls for their viciousness and impiety, or as 
 trials for their further purification and amend- 
 ment) — this doctrine which has always been, 
 and is still so prevalent in India, was held like 
 wise by the ancient Egyptians. This accord- 
 ance in the faith of these two ancient nations, 
 established beyond all doubt by historical testi- 
 mony, is indeed remarkable ; and even in the 
 minutest particulars on the course of migration 
 allotted to souls, and on the stated periods and 
 cycles of that migration, the coincidence is often 
 perfectly exact. In this doctrine there was a 
 noble element of truth — the feeling that man, 
 since he has gone astray and wandered so far 
 from his God, must needs exert many efforts, 
 and undergo a long and painful pilgrimage, 
 before he can join the source of all perfection; — 
 
F. SCHLEG EL. 483 
 
 the firm conviction and positive certainty that 
 nothing defective, impure, or defiled with earthly 
 stains, can enter the pure region of perfect spirits, 
 or be eternally united to God ; and that thus, 
 before it can attain to this blissful end, the im- 
 mortal soul must pass through long trials and 
 many purifications. It may now well be con- 
 ceived, and indeed the experience of this life 
 would prove it, that suffering, which deeply 
 pierces the soul, anguish, that convulses all the 
 members of existence, may contribute, or may 
 even be necessary to the deliverance of the soul 
 from all alloy and pollution, as, to borrow a 
 comparison from natural objects, the generous 
 metal is melted down in fire and purged from 
 its dross. It is certainly true that the greater 
 the degeneracy and the degradation of man, the 
 nearer his approximation to the brute ; and 
 when the transmigration of the immortal soul 
 through the bodies of various animals is merely 
 considered as the punishment of its former 
 transgressions, we can very well understand 
 the opinion which supposes that man, who, by 
 his crimes and the abuse of his reason, had de- 
 scended to the level of the brute, should at last 
 be transformed into the brute itself. But what 
 could have given rise to the opinion that the 
 transmigration of souls through the bodies of 
 beasts was the road or channel of amendment, 
 was destined to draw the soul nearer to infinite 
 perfection, and even to accomplish its total 
 union with the Supreme Being, from whom, in 
 all appearance, it seemed calculated to remove 
 it further ? And as regards a return to the pre- 
 sent state and existence of man, what thinking 
 person would ever wish to return to a life 
 divided and fluctuating as it is, between desire 
 and disgust, wasted in internal and external 
 strife, and which, though brightened by a few 
 scattered rays of truth, is still encompassed 
 with the dense clouds of error; — even though 
 this return to earthly existence should be ac- 
 complished in the Brahminical class so highly 
 revered in India, or in the princely and royal 
 race so highly favored by fortune 1 There is in 
 all this a strange mixture and confusion of the 
 ideas of this world with those of the next ; and 
 how the latter is separated from the former by 
 an impassable gulf, they seem not to have been 
 sufficiently aware. Both these ancient nations, 
 the Egyptians as well as the Indians, regarded, 
 with few exceptions, the Metempsychosis, not 
 as an object of joyful hope, but rather as a 
 calamity impending over the soul; and whether 
 they considered it to be a punishment for earthly 
 transgressions, or a state of probation — a severe 
 but preparatory trial of purification — they still 
 looked on it as a calamity, which to avert or to 
 mitigate, they deemed that no attempt, no act, 
 no exertion, no sacrifice, ought to be spared. 
 
 In the manner, however, in which these two 
 nations conceived this doctrine, there was a 
 striking and fundamental difference; and if the 
 leading tenet was the same among both, the 
 views which each connected with it were very 
 
 dissimilar. Deprived, as we are, of the old 
 books and original writings of the Egyptians, 
 we are unable perfectly to comprehend and 
 seize their peculiar ideas on this subject, and 
 state them with the same assurance as we can 
 those of the Indians, whose ancient writings we 
 now possess in such abundance, and which in 
 all main points perfectly agree with the accounts 
 of the ancient classics. But we are left to infer 
 the ideas of the Egyptians on the Metempsy- 
 chosis only from their singular treatment of the 
 dead and the bodies of the deceased; from that 
 sepulchral art (if I may use the expression) 
 which with them acquired a dignity and an im- 
 portance, and was carried to a pitch of refine- 
 ment, such as we find among no other people ; 
 from that careful and costly consecration of the 
 corpse, which we still regard with wonder and 
 astonishment in their mummies and other monu- 
 ments. That all these solemn preparations, and 
 the religious rites which accompanied them, that 
 the inscriptions on the tombs and mummies had 
 all a religious meaning and object, and were 
 intimately connected with the doctrine of the 
 transmigration of souls, can admit of no doubt, 
 though it is a matter of greater difficulty to 
 ascertain with precision the peculiar ideas they 
 were meant to express. Did the Egyptians 
 believe that the soul did not separate imme- 
 diately from the body which it has ceased to 
 animate, but only on the decay and putrefaction 
 of the corpse ? Or did they wish, by their art 
 of embalmment, to preserve the body from 
 decay, in order to deliver the soul from the 
 dreaded transmigration 1 The Egyptian treat- 
 ment of the dead would certainly seem to 
 imply a belief that, for some time at least after 
 death, there existed a certain connection be- 
 tween the soul and body. Yet we cannot adopt 
 this supposition to an unqualified extent, as it 
 would be in contradiction to those symbolical 
 representations that so frequently occur in Egyp- 
 tian art, and in which the soul, immediately 
 after death, is represented as summoned before 
 the judgment-seat of God, severely accused by 
 the hostile demon, but defended by the friendly 
 and guardian spirit, who employs every resource 
 to procure the deliverance and acquittal of the 
 soul. Or did the Egyptians think that by all 
 these rites, as by so many magical expedients, 
 they would keep off the malevolent fiend from 
 the soul, and obtain for it the succour of good 
 and friendly divinities? Now, that the gates 
 of hieroglyphic science have been at last opened, 
 we may trust that a further progress in the 
 science will disclose to us more satisfactory in- 
 formation on all these topics. 
 
 The Indians, however, \\ ho always remained 
 total strangers to the mode of burial and treat- 
 ment of the dead practised in Egypt, adopted a 
 very different course to procure the deliverance 
 of the human soul from transmigration: they 
 had recourse to philosophy, to the highest aspir- 
 ings of thought towards God, to a total and 
 lasting immersion of feeling in the unfathom- 
 
484 
 
 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 able abyss of the divine essence. They have 
 never doubted that by this means a perfect 
 union with the Deity might be obtained even 
 in this life, and that thus the soul, emanci- 
 pated from all mutation and migration through 
 the various forms of animated nature in this 
 world of illusion, might remain forever united 
 with its God. Such is the object to which all 
 the different systems of Indian philosophy tend 
 — such is the term of all their inquiries. This 
 philosophy contains a multitude of the sub- 
 limest reflections on the separation from all 
 earthly things, and on the union with the God- 
 head ; and there is no high conception in this 
 department of metaphysics, unknown to the 
 Hindoos. But this absorption of all thought 
 and all consciousness in God — this solitary en- 
 during feeling of internal and eternal union 
 with the Deity, they have carried to a pitch 
 and extreme that may almost be called a moral 
 and intellectual self-annihilation. This is the 
 same philosophy, though in a different form, 
 which, in the history of European intellect 
 and science, has received the denomination of 
 mysticism. The possible excesses, the perilous 
 abyss in this philosophy has been in general ac- 
 knowledged, and even pointed out in particular 
 cases, where egotism or pride has been detected 
 under a secret disguise, or where this total ab- 
 straction of thought and feeling has spurned all 
 limit, measure, and law. In general, however, 
 the European mind, by its more temperate and 
 harmonious constitution, by the greater variety 
 of its attainments, and, above all, by the purer 
 and fuller light of revealed truth, has been pre- 
 served from those aberrations of mysticism 
 which in India have been carried to such a 
 fearful extent, not only in speculation, but in 
 real life and practice; and which, transcending 
 as they do all the limits of human nature, far 
 exceed the bounds of possibility, or what men 
 have in general considered as such. And the 
 apparently incredible things which the Greeks 
 related more than two thousand years ago, 
 respecting the recluses of India, or Gymnoso- 
 phists, as they called those Yogis, are found to 
 exist even at the present day ; and ocular ex- 
 perience has fully corroborated the truth of 
 their narratives. 
 
 * * $ * * * * 
 
 Of the political history of India, little can be 
 said, for the Indians scarcely possess any regu- 
 lar-history — any works to which we should 
 give the denomination of historical ; for their 
 history is interwoven and almost confounded 
 with mythology, and is to be found only in the 
 old mythological works, especially in their two 
 great national and epic poems, the Kamayan 
 and the Mahabarat, and in the eighteen Puranas 
 (the most select and classical of the popular 
 and mythological legends of India), and per- 
 haps in the traditionary history of particular 
 dynasties and provinces ; and even the works 
 «ve have mentioned are not merely of a mytho- 
 
 historical, but in a great measure of a theolo- 
 gical and philosophical purport. The more 
 modern history of Hindostan, from the first 
 Mahometan conquest at the commencement of 
 the eleventh century of our era, can indeed be 
 traced with pretty tolerable certainty; but as 
 this portion of Indian history is unconnected 
 with, and incapable of illustrating the true state 
 and progress of the intellectual refinement of 
 the Hindoos, it is of no importance to our imme- 
 diate object. The more ancient history of that 
 country, particularly in the earlier period, is 
 mostly fabulous, or, to characterize it by a softer, 
 and at the same time more correct name, a his- 
 tory purely mythic and traditionary ; and it 
 would be no easy task to divest the real and 
 authentic history of ancient India of the garb 
 of mythology and poetical tradition ; a task 
 which at least has not yet been executed with 
 adequate critical acumen. 
 
 Chronology, too, shares the same fate with the 
 sister science of history, for in the early period 
 it is fabulous, and in the more modern, it is 
 often not sufficiently precise and accurate. The 
 number of years assigned to the first three 
 epochs of the world must be considered as pos- 
 sessing an astronomical import, rather than as 
 furnishing any criterion for an historical use. It 
 is only the fourth and last period of the world — 
 the age of progressive misery and all-prevailing 
 wo, which the Indians term Caliyug — that we 
 can in any way consider an historical epoch ; 
 and this, the duration of which is computed at 
 four thousand years, began about a thousand 
 years before the Christian era. Of the progress 
 and term of this period of the world, considered 
 in reference to the history of mankind, the In- 
 dians entertain a very simple notion. They 
 believe that the condition of mankind will be- 
 come at first much worse, but will be afterwards 
 ameliorated. The regular historical epoch, when 
 the chronology of India begins to acquire greater 
 certainty, and from which indeed it is ordina- 
 rily computed, is the age of King Vikramaditya, 
 who reigned in the more civilized part of India, 
 somewhat earlier than the Emperor Augustus, 
 in the West, perhaps about sixty years before 
 our era. It was at the court of this monarch, 
 that nine of the most celebrated sages and poets 
 of the second era of Indian literature flourished ; 
 and among these was Calidas, the author of the 
 beautiful dramatic poem of Sacontala, so gene- 
 rally known by the English and German trans- 
 lations. It was in the age of Vikramaditya, that 
 the later poetry and literature of India, of which 
 Calidas was so bright an ornament, reached its 
 full bloom. The elder Indian poetry, particu- 
 larly the two great epic poems above mentioned, 
 entirely belong to the early and more fabulous 
 ages of the world ; so far at least as the poets 
 themselves are assigned to those ages, and figure 
 in some degree, as fabulous personages. We 
 may, however, observe that in the style of po- 
 etry, in art, and even in the language itself, 
 there reigns a very great difference between 
 
F. SCHLEGEL. 485 
 
 these primitive heroic poems, and the works of 
 Calidas and other contemporary poets — the dif- 
 ference is at least as great as that which exists 
 between Homer and Theocritus, or the other 
 Bucolic poets of Greece. The oldest of the two 
 epic poems of the Indians, the Ramayana, by 
 the poet Valimki, celebrates Rama, his love for 
 a royal princess, the beautiful Sita, and his con- 
 quest of Lanka, or the modern Isle of Ceylon. 
 Although in the old historical Sagas of the In- 
 dians, we find mention made of far-ruling mo- 
 narchs and all -conquering heroes, still these 
 traditions seem to show, as in the instanoe first 
 cited, that in the oldest, as in the latest times, 
 prior to foreign conquest, India was not united 
 in one great monarchy, but was generally par- 
 celled out into a variety of states; and this fact 
 serves to prove that such has ever been in gene- 
 ral the political condition of that country. The 
 whole body of ancient Indian traditions and 
 mythological history is to be found in the other 
 great epic of the Indians, the Mahabarata, whose 
 author, or at least compiler, was Vyasa, the 
 founder of the Vedanta philosophy, the most 
 esteemed and most prevalent of all the philoso- 
 phical systems of the Hindoos. 
 
 ******* 
 
 In the whole Indian philosophy, there are in 
 fact only three different modes of thought, or 
 three systems absolutely divergent, and we 
 shall give a sufficiently clear idea of these sys- 
 tems, if we say that the first is founded on na- 
 ture, the second on thought, or on the thinking 
 self, and the third attaches itself exclusively to 
 the revelation comprised in the Vedas. The 
 first system, which seems to be one of the most 
 ancient, bears the name of the Sanchya philo- 
 sophy — a name which signifies " the philosophy 
 of Numbers." This is not to be understood in 
 the Pythagorean sense, that numbers are the 
 principle of all things, or according to the very 
 similar principle laid down in the books of 
 I-King, where we find the eight kona, or the 
 symbolic, primary lines of all existence. But 
 the Sanchya system bears this name because it 
 reckons successively the first principles of all 
 things and of all being to the number of four or 
 five-and-twenty. Among these first principles, 
 it assigns the highest place to Nature, the second 
 to understanding, and by this is meant not 
 merely human understanding, but general and 
 even Infinite Intelligence ; so that we may con- 
 sider this system as a very partial philosophy 
 of Nature ; and indeed it has been regarded by 
 some Indian writers as atheistical — a censure 
 in which the learned Englishman, Mr. Cole- 
 brooke (to whose extracts and notices we are 
 indebted for our most precise information on 
 this whole branch of Indian literature), seems 
 almost inclined to concur. This system was, 
 however, by no means a coarse materialism, or 
 a denial of the Divinity and of everything sa- 
 cred. The doubts expressed in the passages 
 cited by Mr. Colebrooke, are directed far more 
 against the Creation than against God j they 
 
 regard the motive which could have induced 
 the Supreme Being, the Spirit of infinite perfec- 
 tion, to create the external world, and the pos- 
 sibility of such a creation. 
 
 This Sanchya Philosophy would bo more 
 properly designated in our modern philosophic 
 phraseology as a system of complete Dualism, 
 where two substances are represented as coex- 
 istent — on one hand, a self-existent energy of 
 Nature, which emanated, or eternally emanates, 
 from itself; and on the other hand, eternal truth, 
 or the Supreme and Infinite Mind. 
 
 The Indian Philosophers in general were so 
 inclined to regard the whole outward world of 
 sense, as the product of illusion, as a vain and 
 idle apparition, that we can well imagine they 
 were unable to reconcile the creation of such a 
 world (which appeared to them a world of 
 darkness, or perhaps, on a somewhat higher 
 scale, as an intermediate state of illusion,) with 
 their mystical notion of the infinite perfection 
 of the Supreme Being and Eternal Spirit. For 
 even in Ethics they were wont to place the idea 
 of Supreme Perfection in a state of absolute 
 repose, but not (at least to an equal degree) in 
 the state of active energy or exertion. Great 
 as the error of such a system of dualism may 
 be, there is yet a mighty difference between a 
 philosophy which denies, or at least miscon- 
 ceives, the Creation, and one which denies the 
 existence of the Deity ; for such atheism never 
 occurred to the minds of those philosophers. 
 The doctrine of a primary self-existing energy 
 in Nature, or of the eternity of the Universe, 
 may, in a practical point of view % appear as 
 gross an error, but in philosophy we must make 
 accurate distinctions, and forbear to place this 
 ancient dualism on the same level with that 
 coarse materialism, that destructive and athe- 
 istic Atomical philosophy, or any other doctrines 
 professed by the later sects of a dialectic Ra- 
 tionalism. 
 
 Valuable, undoubtedly, as are such extracts 
 and communications from the originals in a 
 branch of human science still so little known, 
 yet they will not alone suffice, and, without a 
 certain philosophic flexibility of talent in the 
 inquirer, they will fail to afford him a proper 
 insight into the true nature, the real spirit and 
 tendency of those ancient systems of philosophy. 
 That the Indian philosophy, even when it has 
 started from the most opposite principles, and 
 when its circuitous or devious course has 
 branched more or less widely from the common 
 path, is sure to wind round, and fall into the 
 one general track — the uniform term of all In- 
 dian philosophy — is well exemplified by the 
 second part of the Sanchya system (called the 
 Yoga philosophy), where we find a totally dif- 
 ferent principle proclaimed ; and while it ut- 
 terly abandons the primary doctrine of a self- 
 existent principle in Nature laid down in the 
 first part of the philosophy, it unfolds those 
 maxims of Indian mysticism which recur in 
 every department of Hindoo literature. That 
 41 * 
 
48G 
 
 F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 total absorption in the one thought of the Deity, 
 that entire abstraction from all the impressions 
 and notions of sense — that suspension of all 
 outward, and in part even of inward life, ef- 
 fected by the energy of a will tenaciously fixed 
 and entirely concentrated on a single point, and 
 by which, according to the belief of the Indians, 
 miraculous power and supernatural knowledge 
 are attained — are held up in the second part of 
 the Sanchya system as the highest term of all 
 mental exertion. The word, Yoga, signifies the 
 complete union of all our thoughts and faculties 
 with God, by which alone the soul can be freed, 
 that is, delivered from the unhappy lot of trans- 
 migration ; and this, and this only, forms the 
 object of all Indian philosophy. 
 
 The Indian name of Yogi is derived from the 
 same word, which designates this philosophy. 
 The Indian Yogi is a hermit or penitent, who, 
 absorbed in this mystic contemplation, remains 
 often for years fixed immovably to a single spot. 
 In order to give a lively representation of a 
 phenomenon so strange to us, which appears 
 totally incredible and almost impossible, although 
 it has been repeatedly attested by eye-witnesses, 
 and is a well-ascertained historical fact, I will 
 extract from the drama of Sacontala by the poet 
 Calidas, a description of a Yogi, remarkable for 
 its vivid accuracy, or, to use the expression of 
 the German commentator, its fearful beauty. 
 King Dusbmanta inquires of Indra's charioteer 
 the sacred abode of him whom he seeks ; and 
 to this the charioteer replies:* "A little beyond 
 the grove, where you see a pious Yogi, motion- 
 less as a pollard, holding his thick bushy hair 
 and fixing his eyes on the solar orb. Mark — 
 his body is half covered with a white ant's edi- 
 fice made of raised clay; the skin of a snake 
 supplies the place of his sacerdotal thread, and 
 part of it girds his loins ; a number of knotty 
 plants encircle and wound his neck ; and sur- 
 rounding birds' nests almost conceal his shoul- 
 ders." We must not take this for the invention 
 of fancy, or the exaggeration of a poet ; the ac- 
 curacy of this description is confirmed by the 
 testimony of innumerable eye-witnesses, who 
 recount the same fact, and in precisely similar 
 colors. During that period of wonderful phe- 
 nomena and supernatural powers — the first 
 three centuries of the Christian church — we 
 meet with only one Simon Stylites, or column- 
 stander; and his conduct is by no means held 
 up by Christian writers as a model of imitation, 
 but is regarded, at best, as an extraordinary ex- 
 ception permitted on certain special grounds. 
 In the Indian forests and deserts, and in the 
 neighborhood of those holy places of pilgrimage 
 mentioned above, there are many hundreds of 
 these hermits — those strange human phenomena 
 of the highest intellectual abstraction or delusion. 
 Even the Greeks were acquainted with them, 
 and, among so many other wonders, make men- 
 
 * We have transcribed Sir William Jones' own words, 
 as given in his translation of Sacontala. 
 
 tion of them, in their description of India, under 
 the name of the Gymnosophists. Formerly 
 such accounts would have been regarded as 
 incredible, and as exceeding the bounds of pos- 
 sibility ; but such conjectures can be of no avail 
 against historical facts repeatedly attested and 
 undeniably proved. Now that men are better 
 acquainted with the wonderful flexibility of 
 human organization, and with those marvellous 
 powers which slumber concealed within it, they 
 are less disposed to form light and hasty deci- 
 sions on phenomena of this description. The 
 whole is indeed a magical intellectual self-ex- 
 altation, accomplished by the energy of the will 
 concentrated on a single point: and this con- 
 centration of the mind, when carried to this ex- 
 cess, may lead not merely to a figurative, but to 
 a real intellectual self-annihilation, and to the 
 disorder of all thought, even of the brain. While 
 on the one hand we must remain amazed at the 
 strength of a will so tenaciously and persever- 
 ingly fixed on an object purely spiritual, we 
 must, on the other hand, be filled with profound 
 regret at the sight of so much energy wasted for 
 a purpose so erroneous, and in a manner so 
 appalling. 
 
 The second species of Indian philosophy, to- 
 tally different from the other two kinds, and 
 which proceeds not from Nature, but from the 
 principle of thought and from the thinking self, 
 is comprised in the Nyaya system, whose foun- 
 der was Gautama, a personage whom several 
 of the earlier investigators of Indian literature, 
 particularly Dr. Taylor, in his Translation of 
 the "Prabodha Chandrodaya" (page 116), have 
 confounded with the founder of the Buddhist 
 sect, as both bear the same name. But a closer 
 inquiry has proved them to be distinct persons ; 
 and Mr. Colebrooke himself finds greater points 
 of coincidence or affinity between the Sanchya 
 philosophy and Buddhism, than between the 
 latter and the Nyaya system. This Nyaya phi- 
 losophy, proceeding from the act of thought, 
 comprises in the doctrine of particulars, distinc- 
 tions and subdivisions, the application of the 
 thinking principle ; and this part of the system 
 embraces all which among the Greeks went 
 under the name of logic or dialectic ; and which 
 with us is partly classed under the same head. 
 Very many writings and commentaries have 
 been devoted to the detailed treatment and ex- 
 position of these subjects, which the Indians 
 seem to have discussed with almost the same 
 diffuseness, or at least copiousness, as the Greeks. 
 Like the Indians, the learned Englishman, who 
 has first unlocked to our view this department 
 of Indian literature, has paid comparatively 
 most attention to this second part of the Nyaya 
 philosophy. But all this logical philosophy, 
 though it may furnish one more proof (if such 
 be necessary) of the extreme richness, variety, 
 and refinement of the intellectual culture of the 
 Hindoos, yet possesses no immediate interest for 
 the object we here propose to ourselves. Mr. 
 Colebrooke remarks, however, that the funda- 
 
F. SCHLEGEL. 
 
 437 
 
 mental tenets of this philosophy comprise, as 
 indeed is evident, not merely a logic in the or- 
 dinary acceptation of the word, but the meta- 
 physics of all logical science. On this part of 
 the subject, I could have wished that in the 
 authentic extracts he has given us from the 
 Sancrit originals, he had more distinctly educed 
 the leading doctrines of the system, and thus 
 furnished us with adequate data for forming 
 a judgment on the general character of this phi- 
 losophy, as well as on its points of coincidence 
 with other systems, and with the philosophy of 
 the Buddhists. For although it appears to be 
 well ascertained that the religion of Buddha 
 sprang from some perverted system of Hindoo 
 philosophy, yet the points of transition to such 
 a religious creed existing in the Indian systems 
 of philosophy have not yet been clearly pointed 
 out. The Vedanta philosophy must here evi- 
 dently be excepted ; for to this Buddhism is as 
 much opposed as to the old Indian religion of 
 the Vedas. Moreover that endless confusion 
 and unintelligibleness of the Buddhist metaphy- 
 sics, which we have before spoken of, may first 
 be traced to the source of Idealism ; though in 
 the progress of that philosophy, many errors 
 have been associated with it, errors which even, 
 in its origin, were most widely removed from 
 it ; for every system of error asserts and even 
 believes that it is perfectly consistent, though in 
 none is such consistency found. 
 
 The basis and prevailing tendency of the 
 Nyaya system (to judge from the extracts with 
 which we have been furnished) is most decid- 
 edly ideal. On the whole we can very well 
 conceive that a system of philosophy beginning 
 with the highest act of thought, or proceeding 
 from the thinking self, should run into a course 
 of the most decided and absolute idealism, and 
 that the general inclination of the Indian philo- 
 sophers to regard the whole external world of 
 sense as vain illusion, and to represent indivi- 
 dual personality as absorbed in the Godhead 
 by the most intimate union, should have given 
 birth to a complete system of self-delusion — a 
 diabolic self-idolatry, very congenial with the 
 principles of that most ancient of all anti-chris- 
 tian sects — the Buddhists. 
 
 The Indian authorities cited by Colebrooke 
 impute to the second part of the Nyaya philo- 
 sophy a strong leaning to the atomical system. 
 We must here recollect that, as the Indian mind 
 pursued the most various and opposite paths of 
 inquiry even in philosophy, there were besides 
 the six most prevalent philosophic systems, re- 
 cognized as generally conformable to religion, 
 several others in direct opposition to the esta- 
 blished doctrines on the Deity and on religion. 
 Among these the Charvaca philosophy, which, 
 according to Mr. Colebrooke, comprises the 
 metaphysics of the sect of Jains, deserves a 
 passing notice. It is a system of complete ma- 
 terialism founded on the atomical doctrines, 
 such as Epicurus taught, and which met with 
 so much favor and adhesion in the declining 
 
 ages of Greece and Rome ; doctrines which 
 several moderns have revived in latter times, 
 but which the profound investigations of natural 
 philosophy, now so far advanced, will scarcely 
 ever permit to take root again. 
 
 The third species or branch of Indian philo- 
 sophy, is that which is attached to the Vedas, 
 and to the sacred revelation and traditions tlu.-y 
 contain. The first part of this philosophy — the 
 Mimansa — is, according to Mr. Colebrooke, more 
 immediately devoted to the interpretation of the 
 Vedas, and most probably contains the funda- 
 mental rules of interpretation, or the leading 
 principles, whereby independent reason is made 
 to harmonize with the word of revelation con- 
 veyed by sacred tradition. The second or 
 finished part of the system is called the Vedanta 
 philosophy. The last word in this term, " Ve- 
 danta," which is compounded of two roots, is 
 equivalent to the German word ende (end), or 
 still more to the Latin, finis, and denotes the 
 end or ultimate object of any effort; and so the 
 entire term Vedanta will signify a philosophy 
 which reveals the true sense, the internal spirit, 
 and the proper object of the Vedas, and of the 
 primitive revelation of Brahma comprised there- 
 in. This Vedanta philosophy is the one which 
 now generally exerts the greatest influence on 
 Indian literature and Indian life ; and it is very 
 possible that some of the six recognized, or at 
 least tolerated, systems of philosophy, may have 
 been purposely thrown into the back-ground, or, 
 when they clashed too rudely with the princi- 
 ples of the prevailing system, have been soft- 
 ened down by their partisans, and have thus 
 come to us in that state. A wide field is here 
 opened to the future research and critical inqui- 
 ries of Indian scholars. 
 
 This Vedanta philosophy is, in its general 
 tendency, a complete system of Pantheism ; but 
 not the rigid, mathematical, abstract, negative 
 Pantheism of some modern thinkers ; for such 
 a total denial of all personality in God, and of 
 all freedom in man, is incompatible with the 
 attachment which the Vedanta philosophy pro- 
 fesses for sacred tradition and ancient mytho- 
 logy ; and accordingly a modified, poetical, and 
 half- mythological system of Pantheism, may 
 here naturally be expected, and actually exists. 
 Even in the doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul, and of the Metempsychosis, the personal 
 existence of the human soul, inculcated by the 
 ancient faith, is not wholly denied or rejected 
 by this more modern system of philosophy ; 
 though on the whole it certainly is not exempt 
 from the charge of Pantheism. But all the sys- 
 tems of Indian philosophy tend more or less to 
 one practical aim — namely, the final deliver- 
 ance and eternal emancipation of the soul from 
 the old calamity — the dreaded fate — the fright- 
 ful lot — of being compelled to wander through 
 the dark regions of nature — through the various 
 forms of the brute creation — and to change ever 
 anew its terrestrial shape. The second point 
 in which the different systems of Indian philo- 
 
488 
 
 F. SCHLEGE L. 
 
 sophy mostly agree is this, that the various 
 sacrifices prescribed for this end in the Vedas, 
 are not free from blame or vice, partly on ac- 
 count of the effusion of blood necessarily con- 
 nected with animal sacrifice — and partly on 
 account of the inadequacy of such sacrifices to 
 the final deliverance of the soul, useful and 
 salutary though they be in other respects. 
 
 The general and fundamental doctrine of the 
 Metempsychosis has rendered the destruction 
 of animals extremely repulsive to Indian feel- 
 ings, from the strong apprehension that a case 
 may occur where, unconsciously and innocently, 
 one may violate or injure the soul of some former 
 relative in its present integument. But even 
 the Vedas themselves inculcate the necessity 
 of that sublime science which rises above na- 
 ture, for the attainment of the full and final de- 
 liverance of the soul; as is expressed in an old 
 remarkable passage of the Vedas, thus literally 
 translated by Mr. Colebrooke* " Man must 
 recognise the soul — man must separate it from 
 nature — then it comes not again — then it comes 
 not again." These last words signify, Then the 
 soul is delivered from the danger of a return to 
 earth — from the misfortune of transmigration, 
 and it remains forever united to God ; a union 
 which can be obtained only by that pure sepa- 
 ration from nature, which is that sublimest sci- 
 ence, invoked in the first words of this passage. 
 
 Animal sacrifices for the souls of the departed, 
 particularly for those of deceased parents, which 
 were regarded as the most sacred duty of the 
 son and of the posterity, were among those re- 
 ligious usages which occupied an important 
 place in the patriarchal ages, and were most 
 deeply interwoven with the whole arrangement 
 of life in that primitive period, as is evident 
 from all those Indian rites, and the system of 
 doctrines akin to them. These sacrifices are 
 certainly of very ancient origin, and may well 
 have been derived from the mourning father of 
 mankind, and the first pair of hostile brothers. 
 To these may afterwards have been added all 
 that multitude of religious rites and doctrines, 
 or marvellous theories respecting the immortal 
 soul and its ulterior destinies. Hence the in- 
 dispensable obligation of marriage for the Brah- 
 mins, in order to insure the blessing of legiti- 
 mate offspring, regarded as one of the highest 
 
 * See Colebrooke's article on the Vedas, in the eighth 
 volume of Asiatic Researches. 
 
 objects of existence in the patriarchal ages, for 
 the prayers of the son only could obtain the 
 deliverance, and secure the repose, of a departed 
 parent's soul ; and this was one of his most 
 sacred duties. The high reverence for women, 
 among the Indians, rests on the same religious 
 notion, as is expressed by the old poet in these 
 lines : 
 
 " Woman is man's better half. 
 Woman is man's bosom friend, 
 Woman is redemption's source. 
 From Woman springs the liberator." 
 
 This last line signifies, what we mentioned 
 above, that the son is the Liberator appointed 
 by God, to deliver by prayer the soul of his 
 deceased father. The poet then continues : — 
 "Women are the friends of the solitary — they 
 solace him with their sweet converse; like to 
 a father, in discharge of duty, consoling as a 
 mother in misfortune." 
 
 We should scarcely conceive it possible (and 
 it certainly tends to prove the original power, 
 copiousness and flexibility of the human mind) 
 that, by the side of a false mysticism totally 
 sunk and lost in the abyss of the eternally in- 
 comprehensible and unfathomable, like the In- 
 dian philosophy, a rich, various, beautiful and 
 highly- wrought poetry should have existed. 
 The Epic narrative of the old Indian poems 
 bears a great resemblance to the Homeric poetry, 
 in its inexhaustible copiousness, in the touching 
 simplicity of its antique forms, in justness of 
 feeling, and accuracy of delineation. Yet in its 
 subjects, and in the prevailing tone of its My- 
 thological fictions, this Indian Epic poetry is 
 characterized by a style of fancy incomparably 
 more gigantic, such as occasionally prevails in 
 the mythology of Hesiod — in the accounts of the 
 old Titanic wars — or in the fabulous world of 
 iEschylus, and of the Doric Pindar. In the 
 tenderness of amatory feeling, in the description 
 of female beauty, of the character and domestic 
 relations of woman, the Indian poetry may be 
 compared to the purest and noblest effusions of 
 Christian poesy; though, on the whole, from 
 the thoroughly mythical nature of its subjects, 
 and from the rhythmical forms of its speech, it 
 bears a greater resemblance to that of the an- 
 cients. Among the latter poets, Calidas, who 
 is the most renowned and esteemed in the dra- 
 matic poetry of the Indians, might be called, 
 by way of comparison, an Idyllic and senti- 
 mental Sophocles. 
 
NOVALIS. (FKIEDRICH VON II ARDENBEIIG). 
 
 Boru 1772. Died 1801. 
 
 Novalis is known as the associate of Tieck 
 and the Schlegels in establishing the Romantic 
 School of Poetry which blossomed in Germany 
 toward the close of the last century. But No- 
 valis possesses a significance independent of 
 any clique, and, amid this famed constellation, 
 shines as a particular star, with proper and in- 
 dividual lustre. The literary firmament of 
 Germany has many greater lights, but none 
 fairer. His contributions to the national lite- 
 rature are insignificant in extent, and consist, 
 for the most part, of fragments and rhapsodies; 
 but the little he wrote is instinct with a rare 
 and noble spirit, and the effect has been alto- 
 gether disproportionate to the bulk. 
 
 A singular charm invests this youth. For 
 youth he was at the time of his death. His pre- 
 mature decease enhances the interest created 
 by his lofty aims and his deep-eyed enthusiasm, 
 imparting a certain ideal and heroic beauty to 
 the early lost, whose germ of golden promise 
 was not permitted to unfold in this present. 
 Purity of heart, religious fervor, deep poetic 
 feeling, and mystic inwardness, combined with 
 true philosophic genius and scientific attain- 
 ments far above the standard of general scho- 
 larship, constitute his distinguishing charac- 
 teristics. 
 
 Friedrich von Hardenberg was born in the 
 county of Mansfeld, in Saxony. His father 
 (Baron von Hardenberg) and his mother were 
 members of the Moravian Communion, pro- 
 foundly religious, without narrowness or bigotry. 
 He was one of eleven children, all of whom are 
 said to have been distinguished by remarkable 
 endowments of mind and heart. As a child, 
 he was weakly, and discovered but little intel- 
 lect. But after a dangerous illness, which oc- 
 curred in his ninth year, he seemed to wake 
 as from a dream, and thenceforward showed 
 himself a youth of rare promise. He studied 
 successively at the universities of Jena, Leipzig 
 and Wittemberg, but chose a practical calling 
 for his pursuit, in preference to the learned 
 professions, and held an office under his father, 
 who was director of the government salt-works 
 in Saxony. 
 
 3m 
 
 The critical event of his life was the death 
 of his betrothed, Sophie v. K., who is repre- 
 sented as a being of preternatural beauty of 
 person and of soul. "The first glimpse," says 
 Tieck,* "of this beautiful and wondrous lovely 
 form determined his whole life ; nay, we may 
 say, that the sentiment which penetrated and 
 animated him became the theme of his whole 
 life." * * * " All who knew this wonder- 
 ful beloved of our friend, are agreed that no 
 description can express with what a grace and 
 heavenly charm this unearthly being moved, 
 what beauty shone around her, what pathos 
 and majesty invested her. Novalis became a 
 poet whenever he spoke of her." She died the 
 day but one succeeding her fifteenth birth-day, 
 the 19th March, 1797. " No one dared to com- 
 municate the tidings to Novalis. At length, 
 his brother Carl undertook it. The mourner 
 locked himself up for three days and nights, 
 and then journeyed to Arnstadt, that, with 
 faithful friends, he might be nearer the beloved 
 spot which now concealed the remains of this 
 most precious being." * * * "At this 
 period, Novalis lived only in his grief ; it be- 
 came natural to him to regard the visible and 
 the invisible world as one, and to distinguish 
 between life and death only by his longing for 
 the latter. At the same time, life became to 
 him transfigured, and his whole being was dis- 
 solved as in a lucid, conscious dream of a higher 
 existence." 
 
 Novalis died within four years from the date 
 of this affliction. That term comprises near> 
 all his writings. 
 
 " Since he had so far outstripped his age, his 
 country was authorized to expect extraordinary 
 things of him, had not this early death over- 
 taken him. The unfinished writings he has 
 left behind him have already wrought much ; 
 many of his great thoughts will exert their in- 
 spiration in the future, and noble minds and 
 deep thinkers will be enlightened and in- 
 flamed by the scintillations of his spirit." 
 
 * See the biographical sketch prefixed to Tieck and Fr. 
 Schlegel's edition of Novalis' works, from which this ac- 
 count is taken. 
 
 (489) 
 
NOVALIS. 
 
 490 
 
 " Novalis was tall, slender, and of noble pro- 
 portions. He wore his light-brown hair in pen- 
 dent locks ; his hazel eye was clear and gleam- 
 ing ; and the complexion of his countenance, 
 especially of the intellectual forehead, almost 
 transparent." * * * "Profile and expres- 
 sion resembled very nearly the Evangelist John, 
 as we see him in the glorious great picture of A. 
 Durer, preserved at Nurnberg and Miinchen." 
 
 " His conversation was lively and loud, his 
 gesticulation noble. I have never seen him 
 wearied ; even when we continued the conver- 
 sation far into the night, he put a stop to it 
 only by an effort of the will, in order to rest, 
 and still read before he slept. Ennui he knew 
 not, even in oppressive company with mediocre 
 heads, for he was sure to discover some person 
 who could impart to him a new knowledge 
 which might be of use to him, insignificant as 
 it seemed. His kindliness, his open communi- 
 cation, made him everywhere beloved. His 
 skill in the art of conversation was so great, 
 that inferior heads never perceived how far he 
 overlooked them. Though in conversation he 
 loved best to uncover the depths of the soul, 
 and spoke with enthusiasm of the regions of 
 the invisible, he was yet frolicsome as a child, 
 jested with unembarrassed cheerfulness, and 
 gave nimself to the jests of the company. 
 Without vanity or pride of learning, a stranger 
 to all affectation and hypocrisy, he was a 
 genuine, true man, the purest and loveliest 
 embodiment of a lofty, immortal mind." 
 
 "His true studies, for several years, had 
 been philosophy and physics. In the latter, 
 his observations, combinations, and surmises, 
 often outstripped his time. In philosophy, he 
 studied especially Spinoza and Fichte. * * * 
 His knowledge of mathematics and the me- 
 chanic arts, especially mining, was remarkable. 
 On the other hand, he was but little interested 
 in the fine arts. Music he loved much, but 
 had only a superficial knowledge of it ; to 
 sculpture and painting his mind was not much 
 drawn, although he could express the most 
 original ideas and the highest surmises respect- 
 ing all these arts. Thus I remember, e. g. a con- 
 troversy respecting landscape-painting, in which 
 
 I could not comprehend his view ; but the ex- 
 cellent landscape-painter, Friedrich, in Dres- 
 den, has since actualized it, in great part, out 
 of his own rich, poetic mind. * * * Goethe 
 had long been his study ; he preferred before 
 all other works Wilhelm Meister, as little as 
 one would suppose it, from his severe criticism 
 of this work in his Fragments." * * * 
 
 " It had become with him the most natural 
 view to regard the commonest, nearest, as 
 miraculous, and the strange, the supernatural, 
 as something common. Thus, every-day life 
 itself environed him like a wondrous tale, and 
 that region which most men but surmise or 
 doubt, as distant, incomprehensible, was to 
 him a beloved home. Thus he invented, un- 
 bribed by examples, a new mode of representa- 
 tion; and in many-sidedness of reference, in 
 his view of love, in his faith in it — as for him, 
 at once, instructress, wisdom, religion ; — in 
 that a single great life-moment and one deep 
 pain and loss became the substance of his 
 poetry and his contemplation, he alone among 
 moderns resembles the sublime Dante, and 
 sings to us, like him, an unfathomable mystic 
 song, very different from that of many imitators 
 who think they can put on and put off mysti- 
 cism like an ornament. Therefore is, also, 
 his Romance* consciously and unconsciously 
 but the representation of his own mind and 
 destiny; as he himself makes his Heinrich 
 say, in the fragment of the second part, that 
 destiny and mind are names of one idea." 
 
 Novalis did not leave the Lutheran Church 
 for the Church of Rome, as has been falsely 
 asserted, f 
 
 * Heinrich von Ofterdingen. 
 
 t See Tieck's preface to the fifth edition of Novalis' 
 works, in which he says: "I may affirm that to my 
 friend Hardenberg this transition into another Christian 
 Communion from the Lutheran, in which he was born, 
 was utterly impossible." This fifth edition excludes the 
 essay entitled " Christianity or Europe," which it seems 
 had been inserted in the fourth edition without Tieck's 
 consent, by Fr. von Schlegel, as seeming to favor Ro- 
 manism. This essay, when offered for publication in the 
 Athenieum, in 1799, had been rejected by a committee 
 of the friends of the author, consisting of Tieck, the two 
 Schlegels, and Schelling, as "weak and unsatisfactory," 
 and altogether unworthy of Novalis' genius. 
 
NOVALIS. 
 
 491 
 
 FROM HEINRICH VON OFTERDINGEN* 
 
 THE VISIT TO THE CAVE. 
 
 [Heinrich is travelling, with his mother, to 
 Augsburg, the residence of his grandfather. 
 Several merchants, bound in the same direction, 
 join their company. At an inn on the road 
 they fall in with an aged miner, who entertains 
 them with matters pertaining to his craft. At 
 length, he proposes an expedition to some caves 
 in the vicinity, in which he is joined by Hein- 
 rich, by the merchants, and by several villagers.] 
 
 The evening was cheerful and warm. The 
 moon stood in mild glory above the hills, and 
 caused wondrous dreams to arise in all crea- 
 tures. Herself a dream of the sun, she lay above 
 the introverted dream-world, and led Nature, 
 divided with innumerable boundaries, back into 
 that fabulous prime, when each germ still slum- 
 bered within itself, and, solitary and untouched, 
 longed in vain to unfold the dark fulness of its 
 measureless being. The wonder-story of the 
 evening mirrored itself in Heinrich's mind. It 
 seemed to him as if the world reposed unco- 
 vered within him, and exhibited to him, as to a 
 guest, all its treasures and its hidden charms. 
 The grand and simple appearance around him 
 seemed to him so intelligible. He thought Na- 
 ture incomprehensible to man, only because she 
 piles up around him the nearest, the most inti- 
 mate, with such lavishness of manifold expres- 
 sion. The words of the old man had opened a 
 hidden tapestry-door within him. He saw that 
 his little chamber was built contiguous to a lofty 
 minster, out of whose floor of stone arose the 
 grave fore-world, while from the dome, the 
 clear, glad future, in the form of angel-children, 
 hovered singing above it. Mighty voices trem- 
 bled through the silvery song, and through the 
 wide portals all creatures entered in, each ex- 
 pressing its inner nature in a simple petition, 
 and a dialect peculiar to itself. How did he 
 wonder that this luminous view, which was 
 now already become indispensable to his exist- 
 ence, had so long been foreign to him ! Now 
 he overlooked at once all his relations with the 
 wide world around him, and comprehended all 
 the strange conceptions and suggestions which 
 he had often experienced in the contemplation 
 of it. The story told by the merchants, of the 
 . youth who studied nature so diligently, and who 
 became the son-in-law of a king, came into his 
 mind, and a thousand other reminiscences of his 
 life associated themselves, of their own accord, 
 by a magic thread. 
 
 While Heinrich gave himself up to his medi- 
 tations, the company had approached the cave. 
 The entrance was low; the old man took a 
 torch, and clambering over some stones, entered 
 
 * An unfinished Romance, which the author designed, 
 he says, to be " an apotheosis of Poetry." The first part 
 contains the initiation of the poet; the second his trans- 
 figuration. The name of the hero is that of an actual 
 German poet or Minnesinger of the 13th century.— Tr. 
 
 first. A quite perceptible current of air streamed 
 toward him, and the old man assured them that 
 they might follow with safety. The most timid 
 went last, and held their weapons in readiness. 
 Heinrich and the merchants walked behind the 
 miner, and the boy strode briskly by his side. 
 The way, at first, was through a somewhat nar- 
 row passage, but soon terminated in a very ex- 
 tensive and lofty cave, which the glare of the 
 torches was unable wholly to illumine. One 
 saw, however, in the background, several open- 
 ings, which lost themselves in the wall of rock. 
 The floor was soft and tolerably even; likewise 
 the walls and the ceiling were not rough or 
 irregular. But what especially engaged the 
 attention of all, was the countless multitude of 
 bones and teeth which strewed the floor. Some 
 of them were perfectly preserved, in others 
 there were marks of corruption, and those which 
 here and there protruded from the walls, seemed 
 to have become petrified. Most of them were 
 of unusual size and strength. The old miner 
 rejoiced in these relics of a primeval age ; only 
 the peasants had misgivings about them, for 
 they regarded them as manifest traces of beasts 
 of prey at hand, although the old man pointed 
 out to them most convincingly the evidences of 
 an inconceivable antiquity, and asked them if 
 they had ever noticed any signs of ravages 
 among their herds, or of the plunder of human 
 neighbors, and whether they could regard, these 
 bones as those of known animals or men ? The 
 old man wished now to penetrate farther into 
 the mountain, but the peasants deemed it ad- 
 visable for them to retreat, and to await his 
 entrance before the cave. Heinrich, the mer- 
 chants, and the boy, remained with the miner, 
 and provided themselves with ropes and torches. 
 They soon reached a second cave, and the old 
 man did not forget to mark the passage through 
 which they had entered, by a figure composed 
 of bones, which he placed before it. This cave 
 resembled the first, and was equally rich in 
 animal remains. 
 
 Heinrich experienced a strange awe ; it struck 
 him as if he were wandering through the fore- 
 courts of the inner earth-palace. Heaven and 
 earth were suddenly far removed from him ; 
 and these dark, wide halls appeared to belong 
 to a wondrous subterranean kingdom. He 
 thought within himself, were it not possible 
 that a separate world stirs this monstrous life 
 beneath our feet 1 ? that unheard-of births have 
 their being and their doings in the fastnesses 
 of the earth, which the interior fire of the dark 
 womb works up into gigantic forms of spirit- 
 power? Might not, some time, these awful 
 strangers, driven forth by the in-pressing cold, 
 appear among us, while perhaps, at the same 
 time, heavenly guests — living, speaking Powers 
 of the star-world — became visible above our 
 heads? Are these bones the remains of emi- 
 grations toward the surface, or signs of a flight 
 into the deeps? 
 
 Suddenly, the old man called to the rest, and 
 
492 
 
 NOVALIS. 
 
 showed them a human footstep quite fresh on 
 the floor of the cave. No others appeared; so 
 he thought they might follow this trace without 
 fear of meeting with robhers. # # # 
 
 After some searching, they found in an angle 
 of the side-wall, on the right, a sloping passage, 
 into which the footsteps appeared to lead. Soon 
 they thought they could perceive a brightness, 
 which grew stronger the nearer they approached. 
 A new vault, of greater extent than the former, 
 opened itself before them, in the background of 
 which they saw, sitting by a lamp, the figure of 
 a man, who had a large book lying before him 
 on a stone tablet, in which he seemed to be 
 reading. He turned himself toward them, rose 
 and came to meet them. He looked neither old 
 nor young, no traces of time were perceptible 
 in him, except his straight grey hairs, which 
 were parted on the forehead. He had soles 
 bound to his feet, and seemed to have no other 
 clothing except a wide mantle which was folded 
 about him, and made more prominent his large 
 and noble form. It seemed as if he were re- 
 ceiving expected guests in his dwelling. 
 
 "It is kind in you to visit me," he said; "you 
 are the first friends I have seen here, as long as 
 I have lived in this place. It would seem that 
 people are beginning to consider more atten- 
 tively our large and wondrous house." The old 
 man replied : " We did not expect to find here 
 so friendly a host. We were told of wild beasts 
 and goblins, and find ourselves very agreeably 
 deceived. If we have disturbed you in your 
 devotions and profound contemplations, pardon 
 thus much to our curiosity." " Can any contem- 
 plation be more delightful," said the unknown, 
 " than that of glad and congenial human faces 1 
 Do not think me a misanthrope, because you find 
 me in this solitude. I have not fled the world, 
 I have only sought a place of rest, where I 
 might pursue my meditations undisturbed." 
 "Do you never repent your resolution? and are 
 there not hours when you feel afraid, and when 
 your heart longs for a human voice ?" 
 
 " Not now. There was a time, in my youth, 
 when ardent enthusiasm induced me to become 
 a recluse. Dim presentiments occupied my 
 youthful imagination. I hoped to find full nou- 
 rishment for my heart in solitude. Inexhaustible 
 seemed to me the fountain of my inner life. 
 But I soon perceived that one must bring with 
 him abundance of experiences, that a young 
 heart cannot be alone, nay, that it is only by 
 manifold converse with his kind, that man can 
 acquire a certain self-subsistence. * * * 
 The dangers and vicissitudes of war, the high 
 poetic spirit which accompanies a war-host, 
 tore me from my youthful solitude, and deter- 
 mined the fortunes of my life. It may be, that 
 the long tumult, the numberless events which I 
 witnessed, have expanded yet farther my taste 
 for solitude. Innumerable reminiscences are 
 entertaining company, — the more entertaining 
 the more varied the glance with which we 
 overlook them, and which now first discovers 
 
 their true connection, the deep meaning of their 
 sequence, and the import of their phenomena. 
 The true understanding of human history does 
 not unfold itself till late, and rather under the 
 still influences of recollection, than under the 
 more powerful impressions of the present time. 
 The nearest events seem but loosely connected, 
 but they sympathize all the more wonderfully 
 with remote ones ; and only then when one is 
 in a condition to overlook a long series, and 
 neither to take everything literally, nor, with 
 wanton vagaries, to confound the true order, 
 does one perceive the secret concatenation of 
 the former and the future, and learn to com- 
 pound history out of hope and memory. Only 
 he, however, to whom the entire fore-time is 
 present, can succeed in discovering the simple 
 rule of history. We attain only to imperfect, 
 cumbrous formulas, and may be glad if we can 
 but find for ourselves an available prescript, 
 which shall give us satisfactory solutions for our 
 own short life. But I may. venture to affirm 
 that every careful contemplation of the fates of 
 life affords a deep and inexhaustible enjoyment, 
 and, of all thoughts, exalts us most above earthly 
 ills. Youth reads history only from curiosity, 
 like an entertaining wonder-tale ; to riper age 
 it becomes a heavenly, consoling and edifying 
 friend, who by her wise discourses gently pre- 
 pares us for a higher, more comprehensive 
 career, and by means of intelligible images, 
 makes us acquainted with the unknown world. 
 The Church is the dwelling-house of History, 
 and the still churchyard her emblematic flower- 
 garden. Only aged, God-fearing men should 
 write of History, whose own history is nearly 
 at an end, and who have nothing more to hope 
 for, but to be transplanted into the garden. Not 
 gloomy and troubled will their account be ; — 
 rather, a ray from the cupola will exhibit every- 
 thing in the most correct and beautiful light, 
 and a holy Spirit will hover over those strangely 
 moved waters." * * * " When I consider 
 all these things aright, it seems to me as if the 
 historian should be a poet also, for only poets 
 understand the art of presenting events in their 
 true connection. In their narratives and fables, 
 I have observed with silent pleasure a delicate 
 feeling for the mysterious spirit of life. There 
 is more truth in their wonder-stories than in 
 learned chronicles. Although the personages 
 and their fortunes are fictitious, the sense in 
 which they are invented is true and natural. It 
 is to a certain extent indifferent, as it regards 
 our entertainment and our instruction, whether 
 the persons in whose destinies we trace our 
 own, actually lived or not. What we want is 
 an intuition of the great, simple soul of the phe- 
 nomena of time. If this wish is satisfied, we 
 do not trouble ourselves about the accidental 
 existence of the external figures." * * * 
 " Since I have inhabited this cave," continued 
 the recluse, " I have learned to meditate more 
 of the olden time. It is indescribable how this 
 study attracts. I can imagine the love which a 
 
NOV 
 
 miner must have for his handicraft. When I 
 look at these strange old bones which are ga- 
 thered together here in such a mighty multitude, 
 when I think of the wild time in which these 
 foreign, monstrous animals, impelled, perhaps, 
 by fear and alarm, crowded in dense masses 
 into these caves, and here found their death ; 
 when, again, I ascend to the times in which 
 these caverns grew together, and vast floods 
 covered the land, I appear to myself like a 
 dream of the future, like a child of the everlast- 
 ing peace. How quiet and peaceful, how mild 
 and clear is Nature at the present day, com- 
 pared with those violent, gigantic times ! The 
 most fearful tempest, the most appalling earth- 
 quake in our days, is but a faint echo of those 
 terrific birth-throes. It may be, that the vege- 
 table and animal world, and even the human 
 beings of that time, if any there were on single 
 islands in this ocean, had a different structure, 
 more firm and rude. At least, one ought not 
 to charge the traditions, which tell of a race of 
 giants, with fabrication." 
 
 '•'It is pleasant," said the old man, " to observe 
 the gradual pacification of nature. There ap- 
 pears to have formed itself gradually, a more 
 and more intimate agreement, a more peaceful 
 communion, a mutual assistance and animation ; 
 and we can look forward to ever better times. 
 Possibly, here and there the old leaven may 
 still ferment, and some violent convulsions may 
 ensue, but we can discern, notwithstanding 
 these, an almighty striving after a freer, a more 
 harmonious constitution; and, in this spirit, each 
 convulsion will pass by and lead us nearer to 
 the great goal. It may be, that Nature is no 
 longer so fruitful as formerly, that no metals or 
 precious stones are formed in these days, that 
 no more rocks and mountains arise, that plants 
 and animals no longer swell up to such asto- 
 nishing size and strength. But the plastic, en- 
 nobling, social powers of Nature have increased 
 all the more. Her disposition has become more 
 receptive and delicate, her fantasy more mani- 
 fold and emblematic, her touch lighter and more 
 artistic. She approaches human kind ; and if 
 once she was a wild-teeming rock, she is now 
 a still, germinating plant, a mere human artist." 
 ******* 
 
 Heinrich and the merchants had listened at- 
 tentively to this conversation, and the former, 
 especially, experienced new developments in 
 his fore-feeling soul. Many words, many thoughts, 
 fell like quickening fruit-seed into his bosom, 
 and transported him quickly from the narrow 
 sphere of his youth to the height of the world. 
 The hours just past lay like long years behind 
 him, and it seemed to him as if he had never 
 thought or felt otherwise than now. 
 
 The recluse showed them his books ; they 
 were old histories and poems. Heinrich turned 
 over the leaves of the large and beautifully-illu- 
 minated manuscripts. The short lines of the 
 verses, the titles, single passages, and the neat 
 pictures which appeared here and there, like 
 
 ALIS. 493 
 
 embodied words, for the purpose of seconding 
 the imagination of the reader, excited mightily 
 his curiosity. The recluse remarked his inward 
 joy, and explained to him the singular repre- 
 sentations. The most manifold life-scenes were 
 depicted there. Battles, funeral solemnities, 
 wedding -festivals, shipwrecks, caves and pa- 
 laces, kings, heroes, priests, old men and young, 
 men in foreign costume, and strange animals, 
 appeared in various alternations and connec- 
 tions. Heinrich could not see his fill, and would 
 have desired nothing better than to stay with 
 the recluse, who attracted him irresistibly, and 
 to be instructed by him concerning these books. 
 Meanwhile the old man asked if there were 
 any more caves, and the recluse answered that 
 there were several very spacious ones in the 
 vicinity, and that he would accompany him 
 thither. The old man was ready, and the re- 
 cluse, who had noticed the pleasure which 
 Heinrich had in his books, induced him to re- 
 main behind, and to entertain himself with these 
 during their absence. Heinrich was glad to 
 remain with the books, and thanked him heartily 
 for the permission. He turned over the leaves 
 with infinite joy. At length there fell into his 
 hands a book written in a foreign language, 
 which appeared to him to bear some resem- 
 blance to the Latin and to the Italian. He longed 
 very much to know the language, for the book 
 particularly pleased him, although he understood 
 not a word of it. It had no title, but he found, 
 in seeking, several pictures. They seemed to 
 him strangely familiar, and as he gazed more 
 attentively, he discovered his own form quite 
 distinguishable among the figures. He started 
 and thought he had been dreaming, but after 
 repeated inspection, he could not doubt the per- 
 fect similitude. He could scarcely believe his 
 senses when, presently, he discovered in one 
 of the pictures, the cave, with the recluse and 
 the old man by his side. By degrees, he found 
 in other pictures the Eastern maid, his parents, 
 the count and countess of Thuringen, his friend 
 the court-chaplain, and many others of his ac- 
 quaintance. But their garments were different, 
 and they appeared to belong to another age. A 
 great number of figures he knew not how to 
 name, yet they seemed familiar to him. He 
 saw his similitude in various situations. To- 
 ward the end of the book, he appeared larger 
 and nobler. A guitar was lying on his arm, 
 and the countess was handing him a garland. 
 He saw himself at the Imperial court, on ship- 
 board, in close embrace with a slender, lovely 
 maiden, in battle with wild-looking men, in 
 friendly converse with Saracens and Moors. A 
 man of earnest aspect appeared frequently in 
 his company. He conceived a profound reve- 
 rence for this lofty figure, and was rejoiced to 
 see himself arm in arm with him. The last 
 pictures were dark and unintelligible ; but some 
 of the forms of his dream surprised him with 
 intense delight. The conclusion appeared to 
 be wanting. Heinrich was much troubled, and 
 42 
 
494 
 
 NOVALIS. 
 
 wished nothing more ardently than to be able 
 to read the book and to possess it entire. He 
 viewed the pictures again and again, and was 
 confused when he heard the company returning. 
 An unaccountable shame came over him. He 
 did not dare to make known his discovery, and 
 merely asked the recluse, as unconcernedly as 
 possible, respecting the title and the language. 
 He learned that it was written in the Provencal 
 tongue. " It is a great while since I have read 
 it," said the recluse ; " I do not remember ex- 
 actly the subject. All I know is, that it is a 
 Romance of the wonderful fortunes of a poet, 
 in which poetry is represented and lauded in 
 manifold relations. The conclusion is wanting 
 to this copy, which I brought with me from Je- 
 rusalem, where I found it among the effects of 
 a deceased friend, and kept it as a memorial 
 of him. 
 
 THE POET AND HIS DAUGHTER. 
 
 The journey was now ended. It was toward 
 evening when our travellers arrived, safe and 
 in good spirits, in the world-renowned city of 
 Augsburg, and rode through the lofty streets to 
 the house of old Schwaning. * * * They 
 found the house illuminated, and a merry music 
 reached their ears. " What will you wager," 
 said the merchants, "that your grandfather is 
 giving a merry entertainment? We come as if 
 called. How surprised he will be at the unin- 
 vited guests ! Little does he dream that the 
 true festival is now to begin." 
 
 ******** 
 
 Among the guests, Heinrich had noticed a 
 man who appeared to be the person that he had 
 seen often at his side, in that book. His noble 
 aspect distinguished him before all the rest. A 
 cheerful earnestness was the spirit of his counte- 
 nance. An open, beautifully arched brow ; great, 
 black, piercing and firm eyes; a roguish trait 
 about the merry mouth, and altogether clear and 
 manly proportions made it significant and attract- 
 ive. He was strongly built, his movements were 
 easy and full of expression, and where he stood, 
 it seemed as if he would stand forever. Hein- 
 rich asked his grandfather about him. " I am 
 glad," said the old man, " that you have re- 
 marked him at once. It is my excellent friend 
 Klingsohr, the poet. Of his acquaintance and 
 friendship you may be prouder than of the em- 
 peror's. But how stands it with your heart? 
 He has a beautiful daughter ; perhaps she will 
 supplant the father in your regards. I shall be 
 surprised if you have not observed her." Hein- 
 rich blushed. " I was absent, dear grandfather. 
 The company was numerous, and I noticed only 
 your friend." "It is very easy to see," replied 
 Schwaning, « that you are from the north. We 
 will soon find means to thaw you, here. You 
 shall soon learn to look out for pretty eyes." 
 
 The old Schwaning led Heinrich to Kling- 
 sohr, and told him how Heinrich had observed 
 him at once, and felt a very lively desire to be 
 acquainted with him. Heinrich was diffident. 
 
 Klingsohr spoke to him in a very friendly man- 
 ner of his country and his journey. There was 
 something so confidential in his voice, that 
 Heinrich soon took heart and conversed with 
 him freely. After some time Schwaning re- 
 turned, and brought with him the beautiful 
 Mathilde. " Have compassion on my shy grand- 
 son, and pardon him for seeing your father be- 
 fore he did you. Your gleaming eyes will 
 awaken his slumbering youth. In his country 
 the spring is late." 
 
 Heinrich and Mathilde colored. They looked 
 at each other with wondering eyes. She asked 
 him with gentle, scarce audible words: "did 
 he like to dance?" Just as he was affirming 
 this question a merry dancing-music struck up. 
 Silently he offered her his hand, she gave hers, 
 and they mingled in the ?anks of the waltzing 
 pairs. Schwaning and Klingsohr looked on. 
 The mother and the merchants rejoiced in Hein- 
 rich's activity, and in his beautiful partner. 
 * * * Heinrich wished the dance never to 
 end. With intense satisfaction his eye rested 
 on the roses of his partner. Her innocent eye 
 shunned him not. She seemed the spirit of her 
 father in the loveliest disguise. Out of her 
 large, calm eyes, spoke eternal youth. On a 
 light, heaven -blue ground reposed the mild 
 glory of the dusky stars. Around them brow 
 and nose sloped gracefully. A lily inclined 
 toward the rising sun, was her face ; and from 
 the slender white neck, blue veins meandered 
 in tempting curves around the delicate cheeks. 
 Her voice was like a far-away echo, and the 
 small brown curly head seemed to hover over 
 the light form. 
 
 THE FEAST. 
 
 The music banished reserve and roused every 
 inclination to cheerful sport. Baskets of flowers 
 in full splendor breathed forth odors on the 
 table, and the wine crept about among the 
 dishes and the flowers, shook his golden wings, 
 and wove curtains of bright tapestry between 
 the guests and the world. Heinrich now, for 
 the first time, understood what a feast was. A 
 thousand gay spirits seemed to him to dance 
 about the table, and in still sympathy with gay 
 men, to live by their joys and to intoxicate them- 
 selves with their delights. The joy of life stood 
 like a sounding tree full of golden fruits before 
 him. Evil did not show itself, and it seemed 
 to him impossible that ever human inclination 
 should have turned from this tree to the dan- 
 gerous fruit of knowledge, to the tree of conflict. 
 He now understood wine and food. He found 
 their savor surpassingly delicious. They were 
 seasoned for him by a heavenly oil, and sparkled 
 from the cup the glory of earthly life. 
 
 ******** 
 
 It was deep in the night when the company 
 separated. The first and only feast of my life ! 
 said Heinrich to himself when he was alone. 
 
 He went to the window. The choir of the 
 stars stood in the dark sky, and in the east a 
 
NOVALIS. 495 
 
 white sheen announced the coming day. With 
 full transport Heinrich exclaimed: "You, ye 
 everlasting stars, ye silent pilgrims, you I in- 
 voke as witnesses of my sacred oath! For 
 Mathilde I will live, and eternal truth shall 
 bind my heart to hers. For me too the morn 
 of an everlasting day is breaking. The night 
 is past. I kindle myself, a never-dying sacri- 
 fice to the rising sun ! 
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 Heinrich was heated, and it was late, toward 
 morning, when he fell asleep. The thoughts 
 of his soul ran together into wondrous dreams. 
 A deep blue river shimmered from the green 
 plain. On the smooth surface swam a boat. 
 Mathilde sat and rowed. She was decked with 
 garlands, sang a simple song, and looked toward 
 him with a sweet sorrow. His bosom was op- 
 pressed, he knew not why. The sky was 
 bright, and peaceful the flood. Her heavenly 
 countenance mirrored itself in the waves. Sud- 
 denly the boat began to spin round. He called 
 to her, alarmed. She smiled, and laid the oar 
 in the boat, which continued incessantly to 
 whirl. An overwhelming anxiety seized him. 
 He plunged into the stream, but could make no 
 progress, the water bore him. She beckoned, 
 she appeared desirous to say something. Al- 
 ready the boat shipped water, but she smiled 
 with an ineffable inwardness, and looked cheer- 
 fully into the whirlpool. All at once it drew 
 her down. A gentle breath streaked across the 
 waves, which flowed on as calm and as shining 
 as before. The terrific agony deprived him of 
 consciousness. His heart beat no more. He 
 did not come to himself until he found himself 
 on dry ground. He might have swam far, it 
 was a strange country. He knew not what had 
 befallen him ; his mind was gone : — thoughtless 
 he wandered farther into the land. He felt 
 himself dreadfully exhausted. A little fountain 
 trickled from a hill, it sounded like clear bells. 
 With his hand he scooped a few drops, and 
 wetted his parched lips. Like an anxious dream 
 the terrible event lay behind him. He walked 
 on and on; flowers and trees spoke to him. 
 He felt himself so well, so at home. Then he 
 heard again that simple song. He pursued the 
 sound. Suddenly some one held him back by 
 his garment. Dear Heinrich ! called a well- 
 known voice. He looked round, and Mathilde 
 clasped him in her arms. " Why didst thou run 
 from me, dear heart ?" said she, drawing a long 
 breath, " I could scarce overtake thee." Hein- 
 rich wept. He pressed her to his bosom. — 
 " Where is the river ?" he exclaimed with tears. 
 " Seest thou not its blue waves above us ?" 
 He looked up, and the blue river was flowing 
 gently above their heads. "Where are we, 
 dear Mathilde?" "With our parents." "Shall 
 we remain together?" " Forever," she replied, 
 while she pressed her lips to his, and so clasped 
 him that she could not be separated from him 
 again. She whispered a strange mysterious 
 
 word into his mouth, which vibrated through 
 his whole being. He wished to repeat it, when 
 his grandfather called and he awoke. He would 
 have given his life to remember that word. 
 
 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
 
 Plants are, as it were, the most direct lan- 
 guage of the earth. Every new leaf, every 
 strange flower, is some secret that is pressing 
 forth, and which, because it cannot move or 
 speak for joy and love, becomes a mute, quiet 
 plant. When we find such a flower in a soli- 
 tary place, does it not seem as if everything 
 around were transfigured, and as if the little 
 feathered tones loved best to dwell in its vi- 
 cinity? One could weep for joy, and, secluded 
 from the world, thrust hands and feet into the 
 ground and strike root, in order never to leave 
 the happy neighborhood. Over the whole dry 
 world is flung this green, mysterious carpet of 
 love. With every spring it is made new, and 
 its strange writing is legible only to the beloved, 
 like the posies of the Orient. Forever will he 
 read, and never read his fill ; and daily become 
 aware of new meanings, new, transporting reve- 
 lations of loving Nature. 
 
 CLOUDS. 
 
 " There is certainly something mysterious in 
 the clouds," said Sylvester, " and certain kinds 
 have often a quite wonderful influence over us. 
 They march, and would take us up with their 
 cool shadows and bear us away; and while 
 their forms are lovely and variegated, like a 
 breathed-out wish of our inner man, their bright- 
 ness, and the splendid light that then reigns on 
 the earth, are like a prophecy of an unknown, 
 ineffable glory. But there are also dim, and 
 grave, and terrible forms of clouds, in which all 
 the terrors of the ancient night appear to threaten 
 us. The heaven seems as if it would never be- 
 come clear again, the cheerful blue is expunged, 
 and a lurid, copper-red, on a black-grey ground, 
 awakens awe and terror in every breast. When, 
 then, the destructive beams dart down, and- 
 with mocking laughter, the crashing thunder- 
 blows follow in their rear, we are terrified to 
 the very centre of our being; and if, then, there 
 arises not in us the sublime feeling of our moral 
 supremacy, we think we are delivered up to 
 the terrors of hell, to the power of evil spirits. 
 These are echoes of the old, inhuman Nature ; 
 but they are also rousing voices of the higher 
 Nature — the heavenly conscience within us. 
 Mortality groans in its ground-fastnesses ; but 
 the immortality begins to shine with increased 
 brightness, and to know itself. 
 
 CONSCIENCE. 
 
 "When," asked Heinrich, "when will there 
 no longer be any need of terrors, of pains, of 
 distress, and of evil in the world?" 
 
 When there is but one power, — the power 
 of conscience ; when Nature has become chaste 
 and moral. There is but one cause of evil — 
 
496 
 
 NOV A LIS. 
 
 the universal weakness ; and this weakness is 
 nothing but imperfect moral receptivity and in- 
 sensibility to the charm of Freedom. 
 
 Conscience is the inborn mediator in every 
 man. It is God's vicegerent on the earth, and 
 is therefore regarded by many as the highest 
 and the last. * * * Conscience is man's 
 most proper essence, completely transfigured ; — 
 the celestial, aboriginal man. It is not this or 
 that, it commands not in general propositions, 
 it consists not of single virtues. There is but 
 one virtue — the pure, earnest will which, in the 
 moment of decision, resolves and chooses imme- 
 diately. In living and peculiar indivisibility, it 
 inhabits and animates the delicate symbol of 
 the human body, and avails to call the spiritual 
 members into truest activity. 
 
 Nature subsists only through the spirit of 
 virtue, and is destined to become ever more 
 steadfast. 
 
 FROM THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 Where no gods are, spectres rule. 
 
 The best thing that the French achieved by 
 their Revolution, was a portion of Germanity. 
 
 Germanity is genuine popularity, and there- 
 fore an ideal. 
 
 Where children are, there is the golden age. 
 
 Spirit is now active here and there : when 
 will Spirit be active in the whole ? When will 
 mankind, in the mass, begin to consider ? 
 
 Nature is pure Past, foregone freedom ; and 
 therefore, throughout, the soil of history. 
 
 The antithesis of body and spirit is one of 
 the most remarkable and dangerous of all anti- 
 theses. It has played an important part in 
 history. 
 
 Only by comparing ourselves, as men, with 
 other rational beings, could we know what we 
 truly are, what position we occupy. 
 
 The history of Christ is as surely poetry as it 
 is history. And, in general, only that history is 
 history which might also be fable. 
 
 The Bible begins gloriously with Paradise, 
 the symbol of youth, and ends with the ever- 
 lasting kingdom, with the holy city. The his- 
 tory of every man should be a Bible. 
 
 Prayer is to religion what thinking is to phi- 
 losophy. To pray is to make religion. 
 
 The more sinful man feels himself the more 
 Christian he is. 
 
 Christianity is opposed to science, to art, to 
 enjoyment in the proper sense. 
 
 It goes forth from the common man. It in- 
 spires the great majority of the limited on earth. 
 
 It is the germ of all democracy, the highest 
 fact in the domain of the popular. 
 
 Light is the symbol of genuine self-possession. 
 Therefore light, according to analogy, is the ac- 
 tion of the self-contact of matter. Accordingly, 
 day is the consciousness of .the planet, and 
 while the sun, like a god, in eternal self-action, 
 inspires the centre, one planet after another 
 closes one eye for a longer or shorter time, and 
 with cool sleep refreshes itself for new life and 
 contemplation. Accordingly, here, too, there is 
 religion. For is the life of the planets aught 
 else but sun-worship ? 
 
 The Holy Ghost is more than the Bible. This 
 should be our teacher of religion, not the dead, 
 earthly, equivocal letter. 
 
 All faith is miraculous, and worketh miracles. 
 
 Sin is indeed the real evil in the world. All 
 calamity proceeds from that. He who under- 
 stands sin, understands virtue and Christianity, 
 himself and the world. 
 
 The greatest of miracles is a virtuous act. 
 
 If a man could suddenly believe, in sincerity, 
 that he was moral, he would be so. 
 
 We need not fear to admit that man has a 
 preponderating tendency to evil. So much the 
 better is he by nature, for only the unlike attracts. 
 
 Everything distinguished (peculiar) deserves 
 ostracism. Well for it if it ostracises itself. 
 Everything absolute must quit the world. 
 
 A time will come, and that soon, when all 
 men will be convinced, that there can be no 
 king without a republic, and no republic with- 
 out a king; that both are as inseparable as body 
 and soul. The true king will be a republic, the 
 true republic a king. 
 
 In cheerful souls there is no wit. Wit shows 
 a disturbance of the equipoise. 
 
 Most people know not how interesting they 
 are, what interesting things they really utter. 
 A true representation of themselves, a record 
 and estimate of their sayings, would make them 
 astonished at themselves, would help them to 
 discover in themselves an entirely new world. 
 
 Man is the Messiah of Nature. 
 
 The soul is the most powerful of all poi- 
 sons. It is the most penetrating and dhTusible 
 stimulus. 
 
NOVALIS. 
 
 497 
 
 Every sickness is a musical problem ; the cure 
 is the musical solution. 
 
 Inoculation with death, also, will not be want- 
 ing in some future universal therapia. 
 
 The idea of a perfect health is interesting 
 only in a scientific point of view. Sickness is 
 necessary to individualization. 
 
 If God could be man, he can also be stone, 
 plant, animal, element, and perhaps, in this way, 
 there is a continuous redemption in Nature. 
 
 Life is a disease of the spirit, a passionate 
 activity. Rest is the peculiar property of the 
 spirit. From the spirit comes gravitation. 
 
 As nothing can be free, so, too, nothing can 
 be forced, but spirit. 
 
 A space-filling individual is a body, a time- 
 filling individual is a soul. 
 
 It should be inquired, whether Nature has not 
 essentially changed with the progress of culture. 
 
 All activity ceases when knowledge comes. 
 The state of knowing is eudcemonism, blest re- 
 pose of contemplation, heavenly quietism. 
 
 Miracles, as contradictions of Nature, are 
 amathematical. But there are no miracles in 
 this sense. What we so term, is intelligible 
 precisely by means of mathematics; for nothing 
 is miraculous to mathematics. 
 
 In music, mathematics appears formally, as 
 revelation, as creative idealism. All enjoyment 
 is musical, consequently mathematical. The 
 highest life is mathematics. 
 
 There may be mathematicians of the first 
 magnitude who cannot cipher. One can be a 
 great cipherer without a conception of mathe- 
 matics. 
 
 Instinct is genius in Paradise, before the pe- 
 riod of self-abstraction (self-recognition). 
 
 The fate which oppresses us is the sluggish- 
 ness of our spirit. By enlargement and culti- 
 vation of our activity, we change ourselves into 
 fate. Everything appears to stream in upon 
 us, because we do not stream out. We are ne- 
 gative, because we choose to be so ; the more 
 positive we become, the more negative will the 
 world around us be, until, at last, there is no 
 more negative, and we are all in all. God 
 wills gods. 
 
 All power appears only in transition. Per- 
 manent power is stuff. 
 
 Every act of introversion — every glance into 
 our interior — is at the same time ascension, 
 going up to heaven, a glance at the veritable 
 outward. 
 
 Only so far as a man is happily married to 
 himself, is he fit for married life and family 
 life, generally. 
 
 One must never confess that one loves one's 
 self. The secret of this confession is the 
 life-principle of the only true and eternal 
 love. 
 
 We conceive God as persona], just as we con- 
 ceive ourselves personal. God is just as per- 
 sonal and as individual as we are ; for what 
 we call / is not our true i, but only its off- 
 glance. 
 
LUDWIG 
 
 Born 
 
 Ludwio Tieck, born at Berlin, on the 31st 
 of May, 1773, is known to the world only as a 
 Man of Letters, having 1 never held any public 
 station, or followed any profession, except that 
 of authorship. Of his private history the critics 
 and news-hunters of his own country complain 
 that they have little information ; a deficiency 
 which may arise in part from the circumstance, 
 that till of late years, though from the first ad- 
 mired by the Patricians of his native literature, 
 he has stood in no high favor, and of course 
 awakened no great curiosity, among the read- 
 ing Plebs ; and may indicate, at the same time, 
 that in his walk and conversation, there is little 
 wonderful to be discovered. 
 
 His literary life he began at Berlin, in his 
 twenty-second year, by the publication of three 
 novels, following each other in quick succes- 
 sion : Abdullah, William Lovell, and Peter 
 Leberreckt. These works found small patron- 
 age at their first appearance, and are still re- 
 garded as immature products of his genius; the 
 opening of a cloudy, as well as fervid dawn ; 
 betokening a day of strong heat, and perhaps 
 at last, of serene brightness. A gloomy tragic 
 spirit is said to reign throughout all of them ; 
 the image of a high passionate mind, scorning 
 the base and the false, rather than accomplish- 
 ing the good and the true ; in rapt earnestness 
 " interrogating Fate," and receiving no answer 
 but the echo of its own questions reverberated 
 from the dead walls of its vast and lone impri- 
 sonment. 
 
 In this stage of spiritual progress, where so 
 many not otherwise ungifted minds at length 
 painfully content themselves to take up their 
 permanent abode, where our own noble and 
 hapless Byron perished from among us at the 
 instant when his deliverance seemed at hand, 
 it was not Tieck's ill fortune to continue too 
 long. His Popular Talcs, published in 1797, 
 as an appendage to his last novel, under the 
 title of Peter Leberrechts Volksmahrchen, al- 
 ready indicate that he had worked his way 
 
 * The following notice, as well as the translation from 
 Tieck, is from Carlyle's "German Romance." 
 
 TIECK.* 
 
 1773. 
 
 through these baleful shades into a calmer and 
 sunnier elevation ; from which, and happily 
 without looking at the world through a painted 
 glass of any sort, he had begun to see that there 
 were things to be believed, as well as things 
 to be denied ; things to be loved and forwarded, 
 as well as things to be hated and trodden under 
 foot. The active and positive of Goodness was 
 displacing the barren and tormenting negative; 
 and worthy feelings were now to be translated 
 into their only proper language, worthy actions. 
 In Tieck's mind, all Goodness, all that was 
 noble or excellent in Nature, seems to have 
 combined itself under the image of Poetic 
 Beauty ; to the service and defence of which 
 he has ever since unweariedly devoted his gifts 
 and his days. 
 
 These Volkmdhrchen are of the most varied 
 nature: sombre, pathetic, fantastic, satirical; 
 but all pervaded by a warm, genial soul, which 
 accommodates itself with equal aptitude to the 
 gravest or the gayest form. A soft abundance, 
 a simple and kindly but often solemn majesty 
 is in them : wondrous shapes, full of meaning, 
 move over the scene, true modern denizens of 
 the old Fairyland ; low tones of plaintiveness 
 or awe flit round us; or a starry splendor twin- 
 kles down from the immeasurable depths of 
 Night. 
 
 It is by this work, as revised and perfected 
 long afterwards, that we now purpose introduc- 
 ing Tieck to the notice of the English reader : 
 it was by this also that he was introduced to 
 the notice of his countrymen. Peter Leber- 
 rechts Volksmahrchen was reviewed by August 
 Wilhelm Schlegel, in the Jena Litteraturzei- 
 tung ; and its author, for the first time, brought 
 under the eye of the world as a man of rich 
 endowments, and in the fair way for turning 
 them to proper account. To the body of the 
 world, however, this piece of news was sur- 
 prising rather than delightful; for Tieck's 
 merits were not of a kind to split the ears of 
 the groundlings, and his manner of producing 
 them was ill calculated to conciliate a kind 
 hearing. Schiller and Goethe were at this 
 
 (498) 
 
TIECK. 
 
 499 
 
 time silent, or occupied with History and Phi- 
 losophy : Tieck belonged not to the existing po- 
 etic guild ; and, far from soliciting admission, he 
 had not scrupled, in the most pleasant fashion, 
 to inform the craftsmen that their great Diana 
 was a dumb idol, and their silver shrines an 
 unprofitable thing. Among these Volksmahr- 
 chen, one of the most prominent is Der Gestie- 
 felle Kater, a dramatised version of Puss in 
 Boots ; under the grotesque mask of which, he 
 had laughed with his whole heart, in a true 
 Aristophanic vein, at the actual aspect of lite- 
 rature ; and without mingling his satire with 
 personalities, or any other false ingredient, had 
 rained it like a quiet shower of volcanic ashes 
 on the cant of Illumination, the cant of Sensi- 
 bility, the cant of Criticism, and the many other 
 cants of that shallow time, till the gum-flower 
 products of the poetic garden hung draggled 
 and black under their unkindly coating. In 
 another country, at another day, the drama of 
 Puss in Boots may justly be supposed to ap- 
 pear with enfeebled influences ; yet even to a 
 stranger there is not wanting a feast of broad 
 joyous humor in this strange phantasmagoria, 
 where pit and stage, and man and animal, and 
 earth and air, are jumbled in confusion worse 
 confounded, and the copious, kind, ruddy light 
 of true mirth overshines and warms the whole. 
 
 This What-d'ye-call it of Puss in Boots was, 
 as it were, the key-note which for several years 
 determined the tone of Tieck's literary enter- 
 prises. The same spirit lives in his Verkehrte 
 Welt (World Turned Topsy-turvy), a drama 
 of similar structure, which accompanied the 
 former ; in his tale of Zerbino, or the Tour in 
 search of Taste, which soon followed it ; and 
 in numerous parodies and lighter pieces which 
 he gave to the world in his Poetic Journal 
 the second and last volume of which periodical 
 contains his Letters on Shakspeare, inculcating 
 the same doctrines, in a graver shape. About 
 this time, after a short residence in Hamburgh, 
 where he had married, he removed his abode 
 to Jena; a change which confirmed him in his 
 literary tendencies, and facilitated the attain- 
 ment of their objects. It was here that he be- 
 came acquainted with the two Schlegels ; and, 
 at the same time, with their friend Novalis, a 
 young man of a pure, warm, and benignant 
 genius, whose fine spirit died in its first blos- 
 soming, and whose posthumous works it was, 
 ere long, the melancholy task of Tieck, and the 
 younger Schlegel, to publish under their su- 
 
 perintendence. With Wuckcnroder of Berlin, 
 a person of kindred mind with Novalis, and 
 kindred fortune also, having died very early, 
 Tieck was already acquainted and united ; for 
 he had co-operated in the Herzensergiessungen 
 eincs einsarnen Klosterbruders, an elegant and 
 impressive work on pictorial art, and Wacken- 
 roder's chief performance. 
 
 These young men sympathised completely 
 in their critical ideas with Tieck; and each 
 was laboring in his own sphere to disseminate 
 them, and reduce them to practice. Their en- 
 deavors, it would seem, have prospered ; fbr, in 
 colloquial literary history, this gifted cinquefoil, 
 often it is only the trefoil of Tieck and the two 
 Schlegels, have the credit, which was long the 
 blame, of founding a New School of Poetry, by 
 which the Old School, first fired upon in the 
 Gestiefelte Kater, and ever afterwards assailed, 
 without intermission, by eloquence and ridi- 
 cule, argument and entreaty, was at length 
 displaced and hunted out of being; or, like 
 Partridge the Astrologer, reduced to a life 
 which could be proved to be no life. 
 
 Of this New School, which has been the 
 subject of much unwise talk, and of much not 
 very wise writing, we cannot here attempt to 
 offer any suitable description, far less any just 
 estimate. One thing may be remarked, that 
 the epithet School seems to describe the case 
 with little propriety. That since the beginning 
 of the present century, a great change has 
 taken place in German literature, is plain 
 enough, without commentators ; but that it was 
 effected by three young men, living in the little 
 town of Jena, is not by any means so plain. 
 The critical principles of Tieck and the Schle- 
 gels had already been set forth, in the form 
 both of precept and prohibition, and with all 
 the aids of philosophic depth and epigrammatic 
 emphasis, by the united minds of Goethe and 
 Schiller, in the Horen and Xenien. The de- 
 velopment and practical application of the doc- 
 trine is all that pertains to these reputed foun- 
 ders of the sect. But neither can the change 
 be said to have originated with Schiller and 
 Goethe ; for it is a change originating not in 
 individuals, but in universal circumstances, and 
 belongs not to Germany, but to Europe. Among 
 ourselves, for instance, within the last thirty 
 years, who has not lifted up his voice with 
 double vigor in praise of Shakspeare and Na- 
 ture, and vituperation of French taste and 
 French philosophy 3 Who has not heard of the 
 
500 
 
 TIECK. 
 
 glories of old English literature ; the wealth 
 of Queen Elizabeth's age ; the penury of Queen 
 Anne's; and the inquiry whether Pope was a 
 poet] A similar temper is breaking out in 
 France itself, hermetically sealed as that coun- 
 try seemed to be against all foreign influences ; 
 and doubts are beginning to be entertained, and 
 even expressed, about Corneille and the Three 
 Unities. It seems to be substantially the same 
 thing which has occurred in Germany, and 
 been attributed to Tieck and his associates : 
 only, that the revolution, which is here pro- 
 ceeding, and in France commencing, appears 
 in Germany to be completed. Its results have 
 there been embodied in elaborate laws, and 
 profound systems have been promulgated and 
 accepted : whereas with us, in past years, there 
 has been as it were a Literary Anarchy ; for 
 the Pandects of Blair and Bossu are obsolete 
 or abrogated, but no new code supplies their 
 place ; and, author and critic, each sings or 
 says that which is right in his own eyes. For 
 the principles of German Poetics, we can only 
 refer the reader to the treatises of Kant, Schil- 
 ler, Richter, the Schlegels, and their many 
 copyists and expositors ; with the promise that 
 his labor will be hard, but not unrewarded by 
 a plenteous harvest of results, which, whether 
 they be doubted, denied, or believed, he will 
 find no trivial or unprofitable subject for his 
 contemplation. 
 
 These doctrines of taste, which Tieck em- 
 braced every opportunity of enforcing as a 
 critic, he did not fail diligently to exemplify in 
 practice ; as a long and rapid series of poetical 
 performances lies before the world to attest. 
 Of these, his Genoveva, a play grounded on 
 the legend of that Saint, appears to be regarded 
 as his master-piece by the best judges; though 
 Franz Sternebalds Wanderungen, the ficti- 
 tious History of a Student of Painting, was 
 more relished by others; and, as a critic tells 
 us, "here and there a low voice might be even 
 heard voting that this novel equalled Wilhelm 
 Meister ; the peaceful clearness of which it 
 however nowise attained, but only, with visible 
 effort, strove to imitate." In this last work he 
 was assisted by Wackenroder. At an earlier 
 period, he had come forth, as a translator, with 
 a new version of Don Quixote : he now ap- 
 peared also as a commentator, with a work 
 entitled Minnelieder aus dem Schwabischen 
 Zeitaller (Minstrelsy of the Swabian Era), 
 
 published at Berlin in 1803; with an able Pre- 
 face, explaining the relation of these poets to 
 Petrarca and the Troubadours. In 1804, he 
 sent out his Kaiser Octavianus, a story which, 
 like the other works mentioned in this para- 
 graph, I have never seen, but which I find 
 praised by his countrymen in no very intelligi- 
 ble terms, as " a fair revival of the old Ma.hr- 
 chen (Traditionary Tale) ; in which, however, 
 the poet moves freely, and has completed the 
 cycle of the romance." Die Gemalde (the 
 Pictures), another of his fictions, has lately 
 been translated into English. 
 
 Tieck's frequent change of place bespeaks 
 less settledness in his domestic, than happily 
 existed in his intellectual circumstances. From 
 Jena he seems to have again removed to Ber- 
 lin ; then to a country residence near Frankfort 
 on the Oder ; which, in its turn, he quitted for 
 a journey into Italy. In this classic country 
 he found new facilities for two of his favorite 
 pursuits: he employed himself, it is said, to 
 good purpose, in the study of ancient and mo- 
 dern art ; to which, while in Rome, he added 
 the examining of many old German manuscripts 
 preserved in the Vatican Library. From ins 
 labors in this latter department, and elsewhere, 
 his countrymen have not long ago obtained, in 
 addition to the Minstrelsy, an Altdeutsches 
 Theater (Old-German Theatre), in two vo- 
 lumes, with the hope of more. A collection of 
 Old-German Poetry is still expected. 
 
 In 1806, he returned to Germany; first to 
 Munich, then to his former retreat near Frank- 
 fort; but for the next seven years, he was little 
 heard of as an active member of the literary 
 world ; and the regret of his admirers was in- 
 creased by intelligence that ill health was the 
 cause of his inactivity. That this inactivity 
 was more apparent than real, he has proved by 
 his reappearance in new vigor, at a time when 
 he finds a readier welcome and more willing 
 audience. He has since published abundantly 
 in various forms ; as a translator, an editor, and 
 a writer both of poetry and prose. In 1812, 
 appeared his early Volksmahrchen, retouched, 
 and improved, and combined into a whole, by 
 conversations, critical, disquisitionary, and de- 
 scriptive, in two volumes, entitled Phantasus; 
 from which our present specimens of him are 
 taken. His Altdeutsches Theater was followed 
 by an Altenglisches, including the disputed 
 plays of Shakspeare ; a work gladly received 
 
TIECK. 
 
 001 
 
 by his countrymen, no less devoted admirers 
 of Shakspeare than ourselves. Since that time, 
 he has paid us a personal visit. In 1818, he 
 was in London, and is said to have been well 
 satisfied with his reception ; which we cannot 
 but hope was as respectful and kind as a guest 
 so accomplished, and so friendly to England, 
 deserved at our hands. The fruit of his resi- 
 dence among us, it seems, has already appeared 
 in his writings. He has very lately given to 
 the world a novel on Shakspeare and his Times ; 
 in which he has not trembled to introduce, as 
 
 acting characters, the great dramatist himself, 
 with Marlowe, and various other poets of that 
 age. Such is the report, which adds, that his 
 work is admired in Germany; but that any 
 copy of it has crossed the Channel, I have not 
 heard. 
 
 Of Tieck's present residence, or special 
 pursuits, or economical circumstances, I am 
 sorry to confess my entire ignorance. One 
 little fact may perhaps be worth adding ; that 
 Sophia Bernhardi, an esteemed authoress, is 
 his sister. 
 
 THE ELVES. 
 
 "Where is our little Mary?" said the father. 
 
 " She is playing out upon the green there, with 
 our neighbor's boy," replied the mother. 
 
 "I wish they may not run away and lose 
 themselves," said he; "they are so thought- 
 less." 
 
 The mother looked for the little ones, and 
 brought them their evening luncheon. " It is 
 warm," said the boy; "and Mary had a longing 
 for the red cherries." 
 
 "Have a care, children," said the mother, 
 " and do not run too far from home, or into the 
 wood ; father and I are going to the fields." 
 
 Little Andres answered: "Never fear, the 
 wood frightens us ; we shall sit here by the 
 house, where there are people near us." 
 
 The mother went in, and soon came out again 
 with her husband. They locked the door, and 
 turned towards the fields to look after their 
 laborers, and see their hay-harvest in the mea- 
 dow. Their house lay upon a little green 
 height, encircled by a pretty ring of paling, 
 which likewise enclosed their fruit and flower- 
 garden. The hamlet stretched somewhat deeper 
 down, and on the other side lay the castle of the 
 Count. Martin rented the large farm from this 
 nobleman ; and was living in contentment with 
 his wife and only child ; for he yearly saved 
 some money, and had the prospect of becoming 
 a man of substance by his industry, for the 
 ground was productive, and the Count not 
 illiberal. 
 
 As he walked with his wife to the fields, he 
 gazed cheerfully round, and said : " What a dif- 
 ferent look this quarter has, Brigitta, from the 
 place we lived in formerly ! Here it is all so 
 green; the whole village is bedecked with thick- 
 spreading fruit-trees ; the ground is full of beau- 
 tiful herbs and flowers ; all the houses are cheer- 
 ful and cleanly, the inhabitants are at their ease : 
 nay, I could almost fancy that the woods are 
 greener here than elsewhere, and the sky bluer; 
 and, so far as the eye can reach, you have plea- 
 sure and delight in beholding the bountiful 
 Earth." 
 
 "And whenever you cross the stream," said 
 Brigitta, "you are, as it were, in another world, 
 all is so dreary and withered ; but every tra- 
 'veller declares that our village is the fairest in 
 the country, far and near." 
 
 "All but that fir-ground," said her husband; 
 " do but look back to it, how dark and dismal 
 that solitary spot is lying in the gay scene : the 
 dingy fir-trees, with the smoky huts behind 
 them, the ruined stalls, the brook flowing past 
 with a sluggish melancholy." 
 
 " It is true," replied Brigitta ; " if you but ap- 
 proach that spot, you grow disconsolate and sad, 
 you know not why. What sort of people can 
 they be that live there, and keep themselves so 
 separate from the rest of us, as if they had an 
 evil conscience ?" 
 
 "A miserable crew," replied the young far- 
 mer: "gipsies, seemingly, that steal and cheat 
 in other quarters, and have their hoard and 
 hiding-place here. I wonder only that his lord- 
 ship suffers them." 
 
 "Who knows," said the wife, with an accent 
 of pity, "but perhaps they may be poor people, 
 wishing, out of shame, to conceal their poverty ; 
 for, after all, no one can say aught ill of them ; 
 the only thing is, that they do not go to church, 
 and none knows how they live ; for the little 
 garden, which indeed seems altogether waste, 
 cannot possibly support them ; and fields they 
 have none." 
 
 " God knows," said Martin, as they went 
 along, " what trade they follow ; no mortal 
 comes to them ; for the place they live in is as 
 if bewitched and excommunicated, so that even 
 our wildest fellows will not venture into it." 
 
 Such conversation they pursued, while walk- 
 ing to the fields. That gloomy spot they spoke 
 of lay aside from the hamlet. In a dell, begirt 
 with firs, you might behold a hut, and various 
 ruined office-houses ; rarely was smoke seen to 
 mount from it, still more rarely did men appear 
 there; though at times curious people, venturing 
 somewhat nearer, had perceived upon the bench 
 before the hut, some hideous women, in ragged 
 clothes, dandling in their arms some children 
 equally dirty aud ill-favored ; black dogs were 
 
502 
 
 T1ECK. 
 
 running up and down upon the boundary; and, 
 of an evening, a man of monstrous size was seen 
 to cross the foot-bridge of the brook, and disap- 
 pear in the hut; and, in the darkness, various 
 shapes were observed, moving like shadows 
 round a fire in the open air. This piece of 
 ground, the firs, and the ruined huts, formed in 
 truth a strange contrast with the bright green 
 landscape, the white houses of the hamlet, and 
 the stately new-built castle. 
 
 The two little ones had now eaten their fruit; 
 it came into their heads to run races ; and the 
 little nimble Mary always got the start of the 
 less active Andres. " It is not fair," cried An- 
 dres at last: "let us try it for some length, then 
 we shall see who wins." 
 
 "As thou wilt," said Mary; "only to the 
 brook we must not run." 
 
 " No," said Andres ; " but there, on the hill, 
 stands the large pear-tree, a quarter of a mile 
 from this. I shall run by the left, round past 
 the fir-ground; thou canst try it by the right,' 
 over the fields; so we do not meet till we get 
 up, and then we shall see which of us is the 
 swifter." 
 
 " Done," cried Mary, and began to run ; « for 
 we shall not mar one another by the way, and 
 my father says it is as far to the hill by that 
 side of the gipsies' house as by this." 
 
 Andres had already started, and Mary, turn- 
 ing to the right, could no longer see him. " It 
 is very silly," said she to herself : " I have only 
 to take heart, and run along the bridge, past the 
 hut, and through the yard, and I shall certainly 
 be first." She was already standing by the 
 brook and the clump of firs. "Shall I? No; 
 it is too frightful," said she. A little white dog 
 was standing on the farther side, and barking 
 with might and main. In her terror, Mary 
 thought the dog some monster, and sprang back. 
 "Fy! fy!" said she : " the dolt is gone half way 
 by this time, while I stand here considering." 
 The little dog kept barking, and, as she looked 
 at it more narrowly, it seemed no longer fright- 
 ful, but, on the contrary, quite pretty : it had a 
 red collar round its neck, with a glittering bell ; 
 and as it raised its head, and shook itself in 
 barking, the little bell sounded with the finest 
 tinkle. "Well, I must risk it!" cried she: "I 
 will run for life ; quick, quick, I am through ; 
 certainly to Heaven, they cannot eat me up 
 alive in half a minute!" And with this, the 
 gay, courageous, little Mary, sprang along the 
 foot-bridge ; passed the dog, which ceased its 
 barking, and began to fawn on her ; and in a 
 moment she was standing on the other bank, 
 and the black firs all round concea^d from 
 view her 
 landscape. 
 
 But what was her astonishment when here! 
 The loveliest, most variegated flower-garden 
 lay round her ; tulips, roses, and lilies, were 
 glittering in the fairest colours; blue and gold- 
 red butterflies were wavering in the blossoms ; 
 cages of shining wire were hung on the espa- 
 
 liers, with many-colored birds in them, singing 
 beautiful songs ; and children, in short white 
 frocks, with flowing yellow hair and brilliant 
 eyes, were frolicking about; some playing with 
 lambkins, some feeding the birds, or gathering 
 flowers, and giving them to one another; some, 
 again, were eating cherries, grapes, and ruddy 
 apricots. No hut was to be seen ; but instead 
 of it, a large fair house, with a brazen door and 
 lofty statues, stood glancing in the middle of the 
 space. Mary was confounded with surprise, 
 and knew not what to think ; but, not being 
 bashful, she went right up to the first of the 
 children, held out her hand, and wished the 
 little creature good even. 
 
 "Art thou come to visit us, then?" said the 
 glittering child; "I saw thee running, playing 
 on the other side, but thou wert frightened for 
 our little dog." 
 
 " So you are not gipsies and rogues," said 
 Mary, "as Andres always told me? He is a 
 stupid thing, and talks of much he does not un- 
 derstand." 
 
 "Stay with us," said the strange little girl; 
 " thou wilt like it well." 
 
 " But we are running a race." 
 
 " Tbou wilt find thy comrade soon enough. 
 There, take and eat." 
 
 Mary ate, and found the fruit more sweet 
 than any she had ever tasted in her life before ; 
 and Andres, and the race, and the prohibition 
 of her parents, were entirely forgotten. 
 
 A stately woman, in a shining robe, came to- 
 wards them, and asked about the stranger child. 
 "Fairest lady," said Mary, "I came running 
 hither by chance, and now they wish to keep 
 me." 
 
 "Thou art aware, Zerina," said the lady, 
 " that she can be here but for a little while ; 
 besides, thou should'st have asked my leave." 
 
 " I thought," said Zerina, " when I saw her 
 admitted across the bridge, that I might do it; 
 we have often seen her running in the fields, 
 and thou thyself hast taken pleasure in her 
 lively temper. She will have to leave us soon 
 enough." 
 
 " No, I will stay here," said the little stran- 
 ger; "for here it is so beautiful, and here I 
 shall find the prettiest playthings, and store of 
 berries and cherries to boot. On the other side 
 it is not half so grand." 
 
 The gold-robed lady went away with a smile ; 
 and many of the children now came bounding 
 round the happy Mary in their mirth, and 
 twitched her, and incited her to dance; others 
 brought her lambs, or curious playthings; others 
 made music on instruments, and sang to it. 
 
 She kept, however, by the playmate who had 
 first met her ; for Zerina was the kindest and 
 loveliest of them all. Little Mary cried and 
 cried again : " I will stay with you forever ; I 
 will stay with you, and you shall be my sisters;'' 
 at which the children all laughed, and embraced 
 her. " Now, we shall have a royal sport," said 
 Zerina. She ran into the palace, and returned 
 
TIE 
 
 with a little golden box, in wliich lay a quantity 
 of seeds, like glittering dust. She lifted of it 
 with her little hand, and scattered some grains 
 on the green earth. Instantly the grass began to 
 move, as in waves ; and, after a few moments, 
 bright rose-bushes started from the ground, shot 
 rapidly up, and budded all at once, while the 
 sweetest perfume filled the place. Mary also 
 took a little of the dust, and, having scattered 
 it, she saw white lilies, and the most variegated 
 pinks, pushing up. At a signal from Zerina, 
 the flowers disappeared, and others rose in 
 their room. " Now," said Zerina, " look for 
 something greater." She laid two pine-seeds 
 in the ground, and stamped them in sharply 
 with her foot. Two green bushes stood before 
 them. "Grasp me fast," said she; and Mary 
 threw her arms about the slender form. She 
 felt herself borne upwards; for the trees were 
 springing under them with the greatest speed ; 
 the tall pines waved to and fro, and the two 
 children held each other fast embraced, swing- 
 ing this way and that in the red clouds of the 
 twilight, and kissed each other; while the rest 
 were climbing up and down the trunks with 
 quick dexterity, pushing and teasing one another 
 with loud laughter when they met; if any one 
 fell down in the press, it flew through the air, 
 and sank slowly and surely to the ground. At 
 length Mary was beginning to be frightened ; 
 and the other little child sang a few loud tones, 
 and the trees again sank down, and set them 
 on the ground as gradually as they had lifted 
 them before to the clouds. 
 
 They next went through the brazen door of 
 the palace. Here many fair women, elderly 
 and young, were sitting in the round hall, par- 
 taking of the fairest fruits, and listening to glo- 
 rious invisible music. In the vaulting of the 
 ceiling, palms, flowers, and groves stood painted, 
 among which little figures of children were 
 sporting and winding in every graceful posture; 
 and with the tones of the music, the images 
 altered and glowed with the most burning co- 
 lours ; now the blue and green were sparkling 
 like radiant light, now these tints faded back in 
 paleness, the purple flamed, up, and the gold 
 took fire ; and then the naked children seemed 
 to be alive among the flower-garlands, and to 
 draw breath, and emit it through their ruby- 
 colored lips ; so that by fits you could see the 
 glance of their little white teeth, and the light- 
 ing up of their azure eyes. 
 
 From the hall, a stair of brass led down to a 
 subterranean chamber. Here lay much gold 
 and silver, and precious stones of every hue 
 shone out between them. Strange vessels stood 
 along the walls, and all seemed filled with 
 costly things. The gold was worked into many 
 forms, and glittered with the friendliest red. 
 Many little dwarfs were busied in sorting the 
 pieces from the heap, and putting them in the 
 vessels; others, hunch-backed and bandy-legged, 
 with long red noses, were tottering slowly 
 along, half-bent to the ground, under full sacks, 
 
 CK. 503 
 
 which they bore as millers do their grain ; and, 
 with much panting, shaking out the gold-dust 
 on the ground. Then they darted awkwardly 
 to the right and left, and caught the rolling ball 
 that were likely to run away ; and it happened 
 now and then that one in his eagerness overset 
 the other, so that both fell heavily and clumsily 
 to the ground. They made angry faces, and 
 looked askance, as Mary laughed at their ges- 
 tures and their ugliness. Behind them sat an 
 old crumpled little man, whom Zerina reve- 
 rently greeted ; he thanked her with a grave 
 inclination of his head. He held a sceptre in 
 his hand, and wore a crown upon his brow, 
 and all the other dwarfs appeared to regard 
 him as their master, and obey his nod. 
 
 "What more wanted?" asked he, with a 
 surly voice, as the children came a little nearer. 
 Mary was afraid, and did not speak ; but her 
 companion answered, they were only come to 
 look about them in the chamber. « Still your 
 old child's tricks!" replied the dwarf: "Will 
 there never be an end to idleness?" With this, 
 he turned again to his employment, kept his 
 people weighing and sorting the ingots; some 
 he sent away on errands, some he chid with 
 angry tones. 
 
 "Who is the gentleman?" said Mary. 
 
 "Our Metal-Prince," replied Zerina, as they 
 walked along. 
 
 They seemed once more to reach the open 
 air, for they were standing by a lake, yet no 
 sun appeared, and they saw no sky above their 
 heads. A little boat received them, and Zerina 
 steered it diligently forwards. It shot rapidly 
 along. On gaining the middle of the lake, the 
 stranger saw that multitudes of pipes, channels, 
 and brooks, were spreading from the little sea in 
 every direction. " These waters to the right," 
 said Zerina, " flow beneath yon garden, and 
 this is why it blooms so freshly ; by the other 
 side we get down into the great stream." On 
 a sudden, out of all the channeJs, and from every 
 quarter of the lake, came a crowd of little chil- 
 dren swimming up ; some wore garlands of 
 sedge and water-lily; some had red stems of 
 coral, others were blowing on crooked shells ; a 
 tumultuous noise echoed merrily from the dark 
 shores ; among the children might be seen the 
 fairest women sporting in the waters, and often 
 several of the children sprang about some one 
 of them, and with kisses hung upon her neck 
 and shoulders. All saluted the strangers ; and 
 these steered onwards through the revelry out 
 of the lake, into a little river, which grew nar- 
 rower and narrower. At last the boat came 
 aground. The strangers took their leave, and 
 Zerina knocked against the cliff. This opened 
 like a door, and a female form, all red, assisted 
 them to mount. "Are you all brisk here?*' in- 
 quired Zerina. "They are just at work," re- 
 j plied the other, "and happy as they could 
 I wish ; indeed, the heat is very pleasant." 
 
 They went up a winding stair, and on a sud- 
 | den Mary found herself in a most resplendent 
 
504 
 
 TIECK. 
 
 hall, so that as she entered, her eyes were daz- 
 zled by the radiance. Flame-colored tapestry 
 covered the walls with a purple glow ; and 
 when her eye had grown a little used to it, the 
 stranger saw, to her astonishment, that, in the 
 tapestry, there were figures moving up and 
 down in dancing joyfulness ; in form so beauti- 
 ful, and of so fair proportions, that nothing 
 could be seen more graceful ; their bodies were 
 as of red crystal, so that it appeared as if the 
 blood were visible within them, flowing and 
 playing in its courses. They smiled on the 
 stranger, and saluted her with various bows ; 
 but as Mary was about approaching nearer 
 them, Zerina plucked her sharply back, crying: 
 " Thou wilt burn thyself, my little Mary, for the 
 whole of it is fire." 
 
 Mary felt the heat. "Why do the pretty 
 creatures not come out," said she, " and play 
 with us ?" 
 
 " As thou livest in the Air," replied the other, 
 * so are they obliged to stay continually in Fire, 
 and would faint and languish if they left it. 
 Look now, how glad they are, how they laugh 
 and shout; those down below spread out the 
 fire-floods everywhere beneath the earth, and 
 thereby the flowers, and fruits, and wine, are 
 made to flourish ; these red streams again, are 
 to run beside the brooks of water; and thus the 
 fiery creatures are kept ever busy and glad. 
 But for thee it is too hot here ; let us return to 
 the garden." 
 
 In the garden, the scene had changed since 
 they left it. The moonshine was lying on every 
 flower ; the birds were silent, and the children 
 were asleep in complicated groups, among the 
 green groves. Mary and her friend, however, 
 did not feel fatigue, but walked about in the 
 warm summer night, in abundant talk, till 
 morning. 
 
 When the day dawned, they refreshed them- 
 selves on fruit and milk, and Mary said : " Sup- 
 pose we go, by way of change, to the firs, and 
 see how things look there'?" 
 
 " With all my heart," replied Zerina ; " thou 
 wilt see our watchmen, too. and they will surely 
 please thee; they are standing up among the 
 trees on the mound." The two proceeded 
 through the flower-garden by pleasant groves, 
 full of nightingales ; then they ascended a vine- 
 hill ; and at last, after long following the wind- 
 ings of a clear brook, arrived at the firs, and the 
 height which bounded the domain. " How does 
 it come," said Mary, « that we have to walk so 
 far here, when without, the circuit is so narrow ?" 
 
 " I know not," said her friend ; " but so it is." 
 
 They mounted to the dark firs, and a chill 
 wind blew from without in their faces ; a haze 
 seemed lying far and wide over the landscape. 
 On the top were many strange forms standing ; 
 with mealy, dusty faces ; their mis-shapen heads 
 not unlike those of white owls ; they were clad 
 in folded cloaks of shaggy wool ; they held um- 
 brellas of curious skins stretched out above 
 them ; and they waved and fanned themselves 
 
 incessantly with large bat's wings, which flared 
 out curiously beside the woollen roquelaures. 
 "I could laugh, yet I am frightened," cried 
 Mary. 
 
 " These are our good trusty watchmen," said 
 her playmate ; " they stand here and wave their 
 fans, that cold anxiety and inexplicable fear 
 may fall on every one that attempts to approach 
 us. They are covered so, because without it is 
 now cold and rainy, which they cannot bear. 
 But snow, or wind, or cold air, never reaches 
 down to us ; here is an everlasting spring and 
 summer : yet if these poor people on the top 
 were not frequently relieved, they would cer- 
 tainly perish." 
 
 " But who are you, then ?" said Mary, while 
 again descending to the flowery fragrance ; " or 
 have you no name at all ?" 
 
 "We are called the Elves," replied the 
 friendly child; "people talk about us in the 
 Earth, as I have heard." 
 
 They now perceived a mighty bustle on the 
 green. "The fair Bird is come!" cried the 
 children to them : all hastened to the hall. 
 Here, as they approached, young and old were 
 crowding over the threshold, all shouting for 
 joy ; and from within resounded a triumphant 
 peal of music. Having entered, they perceived 
 the vast circuit filled with the most varied forms, 
 and all were looking upwards to a large Bird 
 with glancing plumage, that was sweeping 
 slowly round in the dome, and in its stately 
 flight describing many a circle. The music 
 sounded more gaily than before; the colors and 
 lights alternated more rapidly. At last the 
 music ceased ; and the Bird, with a rustling 
 noise, floated down upon a glittering crown that 
 hung hovering in air under the high window, 
 by which the hall was lighted from above. His 
 plumage was purple and green, and shining 
 golden streaks played through it ; on his head 
 there waved a diadem of feathers, so resplendent 
 that they glanced like jewels. His bill was 
 red, and his legs of a glancing blue. As he 
 moved, the tints gleamed through each other, 
 and the eye was charmed with their radiance. 
 His size was as that of an eagle. But now he 
 opened his glittering beak ; and sweetest melo- 
 dies came pouring from his moved breast, in 
 finer tones than the lovesick nightingale gives 
 forth ; still stronger rose the song, and streamed 
 like floods of Light, so that all, the very children 
 themselves, were moved by it to tears of joy 
 and rapture. When he ceased, all bowed be- 
 fore him ; he again flew round the dome in cir- 
 cles, then darted through the door, and soared 
 into the light heaven, where he shone far up 
 like a red point, and then soon vanished from 
 their eyes. 
 
 "Why are ye all so glad?" inquired Mary, 
 bending to her fair playmate, who seemed 
 smaller than yesterday. 
 
 "The King is coming!" said the little one; 
 " many of us have never seen him, and whither- 
 soever he turns his face, there is happiness and 
 
TIECK 
 
 005 
 
 mirth; we have long looked for him, more anx- 
 iously than you look for spring when winter 
 lingers with you ; and now he has announced, 
 by his fair herald, that he is at hand. This 
 wise and glorious Bird, that has been sent to us 
 by the King, is called Phoenix ; he dwells far 
 off in Arabia, on a tree, which there is no other 
 that resembles on Earth, as in like manner there 
 is no second Phoenix. When he feels himself 
 grown old, he builds a pile of balm and incense, 
 kindles it, and dies singing ; and then from the 
 fragrant ashes, soars up the renewed Phoenix 
 with unlessened beauty. It is seldom he so 
 wings his course that men behold him ; and 
 when once in centuries this does occur, they 
 note it in their annals, and expect remarkable 
 events. But now, my friend, thou and I must 
 part; for the sight of the King is not permitted 
 thee." 
 
 Then the lady with the golden robe came 
 through the throng, and beckoning Mary to her, 
 led her into a sequestered walk. " Thou must 
 leave us, my dear child," said she ; " the King 
 is to hold his court here for twenty years, per- 
 haps longer ; and fruitfulness and blessings will 
 spread far over the land, but chiefly here beside 
 us; all the brooks and rivulets will become 
 more bountiful, all the fields and gardens richer, 
 the wine more generous, the meadows more 
 fertile, and the woods more fresh and green ; a 
 milder air will blow, no hail shall hurt, no flood 
 shall threaten. Take this ring, and think of us: 
 but beware of telling any one of our existence ; 
 or we must fly this land, and thou and all around 
 will lose the happiness and blessing of our 
 neighborhood. Ouce more, kiss thy playmate, 
 and farewell." They issued from the walk; 
 Zerina wept, Mary stooped to embrace her, and 
 they parted. Already she was on the narrow 
 bridge ; the cold air was blowing on her back 
 from the firs ; the little dog barked with all its 
 might, and rang its little bell ; she looked round, 
 then hastened over, for the darkness of the firs, 
 the bleakness of the ruined huts, the shadows 
 of the twilight, were filling her with terror. 
 
 "What anight my parents must have had on 
 my account!" said she within herself, as she 
 stept on the green ; « and I dare not tell them 
 where I have been, or what wonders I have 
 witnessed, nor indeed would they believe me." 
 Two men passing by saluted her, and as they 
 went along, she heard them say: "What a 
 pretty girl ! Where can she come from ?" With 
 quickened steps she approached the house : but 
 the trees which were hanging last night loaded 
 with fruit, were now standing dry and leafless ; 
 the house was differently painted, and a new 
 barn had been built beside it. Mary was 
 amazed, and thought she must be dreaming. 
 In this perplexity she opened the door; and 
 behind the table sat her father, between an un- 
 known woman and a stranger youth. "Good 
 God ! Father," cried she, " where is my mother ?" 
 
 "Thy mother!" said the woman, with a fore- 
 casting tone, and sprang towards her: "Ha, 
 3 o 
 
 thou surely canst not — Yes, indeed, indeed thou 
 art my lost, long-lost dear, only Mary!" She 
 had recognised her by a little brown mole be- 
 neath the chin, as well as by her eyes and 
 shape. All embraced her, all were moved 
 with joy, and the parents wept. Mary was 
 astonished that she almost reached to her father's 
 stature ; and she could not understand how her 
 mother had become so changed and faded ; she 
 asked the name of the stranger youth. " It is 
 our neighbour's Andres," said Martin. " How 
 comest thou to us again, so unexpectedly, after 
 seven long years'? Where hast thou been 1 ? 
 Why didst thou never send us tidings of thee?" 
 
 "Seven years!" said Mary, and could not 
 order her ideas and recollections. "Seven 
 whole years?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Andres, laughing, and shak- 
 ing her trustfully by the hand; "I have won 
 the race, good Mary ; I was at the pear-tree and 
 back again seven years ago, and thou, sluggish 
 creature, art but just returned 1" 
 
 They again asked, they pressed her; but re- 
 membering her instruction, she could answer 
 nothing. It was they themselves chiefly that, 
 by degrees, shaped a story for her : How, hav- 
 ing lost her way, she had been taken up by a 
 coach, and carried to a strange remote part, 
 where she could not give the people any notion 
 of her parents' residence ; how she was con- 
 ducted to a distant town, where certain worthy 
 persons brought her up, and loved her ; how 
 they had lately died, and at length she had re- 
 collected her birth-place, and so returned. " No 
 matter how it is!" exclaimed her mother; 
 " enough that we have thee again, my little 
 daughter, my own, my all !" 
 
 Andres waited supper, and Mary could not 
 be at home in anything she saw. The house 
 seemed small and dark ; she felt astonished at 
 her dress, which was clean and simple, but 
 appeared quite foreign ; she looked at the ring 
 on her finger, and the gold of it glittered strange- 
 ly, inclosing a stone of burning red. To her 
 father's question, she replied that the ring also 
 was a present from her benefactors. 
 
 She was glad when the hour of sleep arrived, 
 and she hastened to her bed. Next morning 
 she felt much more collected ; she had now 
 arranged her thoughts a little, and could better 
 stand the questions of the people in the village, 
 all of whom came in to bid her welcome. An- 
 dres was there too with the earliest, active, 
 glad, and serviceable beyond all others. The 
 blooming maiden of fifteen had made a deep 
 impression on him ; he had passed a sleepless 
 night. The people of the castle likewise sent 
 for Mary, and she had once more to tell her 
 story to them, which was now grown quite fa- 
 miliar to her. The old Count and his Lady 
 were surprised at her good breeding; she was 
 modest, but not embarrassed ; she made answer 
 courteously in good phrases to all their ques- 
 tions ; all fear of noble persons and their equip- 
 age had passed away from her ; for when she 
 43 
 
506 
 
 TIECK. 
 
 measured these halls and forms by the wonders 
 and the high beauty she had seen with the 
 Elves in their hidden abode, this earthly splen- 
 dor seemed but dim to her, the presence of 
 men was almost mean. The young lords were 
 charmed with her beauty. 
 
 It was now February. The trees were bud- 
 ding earlier than usual; the nightingale had 
 never come so soon ; the spring rose fairer in 
 the land than the oldest men could recollect it. 
 In every quarter, little brooks gushed out to irri- 
 gate the pastures arid meadows ; the hills seemed 
 heaving, the vines rose higher and higher, the 
 fruit-trees blossomed as they had never done ; 
 and a swelling fragrant blessedness hung sus- 
 pended heavily in rosy clouds over the scene. 
 All prospered beyond expectation : no rude day, 
 no tempest injured the fruits ; the wine flowed 
 blushing in immense grapes; and the inhabit- 
 ants of the place felt astonished, and were cap- 
 tivated as in a sweet dream. The next year 
 was like its forerunner ; but men had now be- 
 come accustomed to the marvellous. In autumn, 
 Mary yielded to the pressing entreaties of An- 
 dres and her parents; she was betrothed to 
 him, and in winter they were married. 
 
 She often thought with inward longing of her 
 residence behind the fir-trees; she continued 
 serious and still. Beautiful as all that lay around 
 her was, she knew of something yet more beau- 
 tiful ; and from the remembrance of this, a faint 
 regret attuned her nature to soft melancholy. 
 It smote her painfully when her father and 
 mother talked about the gipsies and vagabonds, 
 that dwelt in the dark spot of ground. Often 
 she was on the point of speaking out in defence 
 1 of those good beings, whom she knew to be the 
 benefactors of the land ; especially to Andres, 
 who appeared to take delight in zealously abus- 
 ing them : yet still she repressed the word that 
 was struggling to escape her bosom. So passed 
 this year; in the next, she was solaced, by a 
 little daughter, whom she named Elfrida, think- 
 ing of the designation of her friendly Elves. 
 
 The young people lived with Martin and 
 Brigitta, the house being large enough for all ; 
 and helped their parents in conducting their 
 now extended husbandry. The little Elfrida 
 soon displayed peculiar faculties and gifts; for 
 she could walk at a very early age, and could 
 speak perfectly before she was a twelvemonth 
 old ; and after some few years, she had become 
 so wise and clever, and of such wondrous 
 beauty, that all people regarded her with asto- 
 nishment; and her mother could not keep away 
 the thought that her child resembled one of 
 those shining little ones in the space behind the 
 Firs. Elfrida cared not to be with other child- 
 ren ; but seemed to avoid, with a sort of horror, 
 their tumultuous amusements; and liked best 
 i to be alone. She would then retire into a corner 
 of the garden, and read, or work diligently with 
 her needle ; often also you might see her sitting, 
 as if deep sunk in thought; or violently walking 
 up and down the alleys, speaking to herself. 
 
 Her parents readily allowed her to have her 
 will in these things, for she was healthy, and 
 waxed apace ; only her strange sagacious an- 
 swers and observations often made them anx- 
 ious. " Such wise children do not grow to age," 
 her grandmother, Brigitta, many times observed ; 
 " they are too good for this world ; the child, 
 besides, is beautiful beyond nature, and will 
 never find its proper place on Earth." 
 
 The little girl had this peculiarity, that she 
 was very loath to let herself be served by any 
 one, but endeavored to do everything herself. 
 She was almost the earliest riser in the house ; 
 she washed herself carefully, and dressed with- 
 out assistance : at night she was equally careful ; 
 she took special heed to pack up her clothes and 
 washes with her own hands, allowing no one, 
 not even her mother, to meddle with her arti- 
 cles. The mother humored her in this caprice, 
 not thinking it of any consequence. But what 
 was her astonishment, when, happening one 
 holiday to insist, regardless of Elfrida's tears 
 and screams, on dressing her out for a visit to 
 the castle, she found upon her breast, suspended 
 by a string - , a piece of gold of a strange form, 
 which she directly recognised as one of that sort 
 she had seen in such abundance in the subter- 
 ranean vault! The little thing was greatly 
 frightened ; and at last confessed that she had 
 found it in the garden, and as she liked it much, 
 had kept it carefully: she at the same time 
 prayed so earnestly and pressingly to have it 
 back, that Mary fastened it again on its former 
 place, and, full of thoughts, went out with her 
 in silence to the castle. 
 
 Sidewards from the farm-house lay some of- 
 fices for the storing of produce and implements ; 
 and behind these there was a little green, with 
 an old grove, now visited by no one, as, from 
 the new arrangement of the buildings, it lay too 
 far from the garden. In this solitude, Elfrida 
 delighted most; and it occurred to nobody to 
 interrupt her here, so that frequently her parents 
 did not see her for half a day. One afternoon 
 her mother chanced to be in these buildings, 
 seeking for some lost article among the lumber ; 
 and she noticed that a beam of light was com- 
 ing in, through a chink in the wall. She took 
 a thought of looking through this aperture, and 
 seeing what her child was busied with ; and it 
 happened that a stone was lying loose, and 
 could be pushed aside, so that she obtained a 
 view right into the grove. Elfrida was sitting 
 there on a little bench, and beside her the well- 
 known Zerina; and the children were playing, 
 and amusing one another, in the kindliest unity. 
 The Elf embraced her beautiful companion, and 
 said mournfully: "Ah! dear little creature, as 
 I sport with thee, so have I sported with thy 
 mother, when she was a child ; but you mor- 
 tals so soon grow tall and thoughtful ! It is 
 very hard : wert thou but to be a child as long 
 as I !" 
 
 "Willingly would I do it," said Elfrida; "but 
 they all say, I shall come to sense, and give over 
 
TIECK. 
 
 507 
 
 playing altogether; for I have great gifts, as 
 they think, for growing wise. Ah ! and then I 
 shall see thee no more, thou dear Zerina! Yet 
 it is with us as with the fruit-tree flowers : how 
 glorious the blossoming apple-tree, with its red 
 bursting buds ! It looks so stately and broad ; 
 and every one, that passes under it, thinks 
 surely something great will come of it; then the 
 sun grows hot, and the buds come joyfully forth ; 
 but the wicked kernel is already there, which 
 pushes off and casts away the fair flower's 
 dress ; and now, in pain and waxing, it can do 
 nothing more, but must grow to fruit in harvest. 
 An apple, to be sure, is pretty and refreshing; 
 yet nothing to the blossom of spring. So is it 
 also with us mortals: I am not glad in the least 
 at growing to be a tall girl. Ah! could I but 
 once visit you !" 
 
 "Since the King is with us," said Zerina, "it 
 is quite impossible ; but I will come to thee, 
 my darling, often, often, and none shall see me 
 either here or there. I will pass invisible 
 through the air, or fly over to thee like a bird ; 
 Oh! we will be much, much together, while 
 thou art so little. What can I do to please 
 thee 3" 
 
 " Thou must like me very dearly," said El- 
 frida, " as I like thee in my heart : but come, 
 let us make another rose." 
 
 Zerina took a well-known box from her bo- 
 som, threw two grains from it on the ground ; 
 and instantly a green bush stood before them, 
 with two deep-red roses, bending their heads, 
 as if to kiss each other. The children plucked 
 them smiling, and the bush disappeared. "0 
 that it would not die so soon !" said Elfrida ; 
 " this red child, this wonder of the Earth !" 
 
 "Give it me here," said the little Elf; then 
 breathed thrice upon the budding rose, and 
 kissed it thrice. " Now," said she, giving back 
 the rose, " it will continue fresh and blooming 
 till winter." 
 
 "I will keep it," said Elfrida, "as an image 
 of thee ; I will guard it in my little room, and 
 kiss it night and morning, as if it were thyself." 
 
 " The sun is setting," said the other, " I must 
 home." They embraced again, and Zerina 
 vanished. 
 
 In the evening, Mary clasped her child to her 
 breast, with a feeling of alarm and veneration. 
 She henceforth allowed the good little girl more 
 liberty than formerly; and often calmed her 
 husband, when he came to search for the child ; 
 which for some time he was wont to do, as her 
 retiredness did not please him, and he feared 
 that, in the end, it might make her silly, or even 
 pervert her understanding. The mother often 
 glided to the chink ; and almost always found 
 the bright Elf beside her child, employed in 
 sport, or in earnest conversation. 
 
 "Wouldst thou like to fly?" inquired Zerina 
 once. 
 
 " Oh, well ! How well !" replied Elfrida ; and 
 the fairy clasped her mortal playmate in her 
 arms, and mounted with her from the ground, 
 
 till they hovered above the grove. The mother, 
 in alarm, forgot herself, and pushed out her 
 head in terror to look after them; when Zerina, 
 from the air, held up her finger, and threatened 
 yet smiled ; then descended with the child, 
 embraced her, and disappeared. After this, it 
 happened more than once that Mary was ob- 
 served by her; and every time, the shining 
 little creature shook her head, or threatened, yet 
 with friendly looks. 
 
 Often, in disputing with her husband, Mary 
 had said in her zeal: " Thou dost injustice to 
 the poor people in the hut!" But when Andres 
 pressed her to explain why she differed in opi- 
 nion from the whole village, nay, from his Lord- 
 ship himself; and how she could understand it 
 better than the whole of them, she still broke 
 off* embarrassed, and became silent. One day, 
 after dinner, Andres grew more violent than 
 ever ; and maintained that, by one means or 
 another, the crew must be packed away, as a 
 nuisance to the country; when his wife, in 
 anger, said to him : " Hush ! for they are bene- 
 factors to thee and to every one of us." 
 
 "Benefactors!" cried the other, in astonish- 
 ment: "These rogues and vagabonds?" 
 
 In her indignation, she was now at last 
 tempted to relate to him, under promise of the 
 strictest secrecy, the history of her youth : and 
 as Andres at every word grew more incredu- 
 lous, and shook his head in mockery, she took 
 him by the hand, and led him to the chink; 
 where, to his amazement, he beheld the glitter- 
 ing Elf sporting with his child, and caressing 
 her in the grove. He knew not what to say ; 
 an exclamation of astonishment escaped him, 
 and Zerina raised her eyes. On the instant she 
 grew pale, and trembled violently; not with 
 friendly, but with indignant looks, she made the 
 sign of threatening, and then said to Elfrida : 
 "Thou canst not help it, dearest heart; but they 
 will never learn sense, wise as they believe 
 themselves." She embraced the little one with 
 stormy haste ; and then, in the shape of a raven, 
 flew with hoarse cries over the garden, towards 
 the Firs. 
 
 In the evening, the little one was very still, 
 she kissed her rose with tears ; Mary felt de- 
 pressed and frightened, Andres scarcely spoke. 
 It grew dark. Suddenly there went a rustling 
 through the trees; birds flew to and fro with 
 wild screaming, thunder was heard to roll, the 
 Earth shook, and tones of lamentation moaned 
 in the air. Andres and his wife had not cou- 
 rage to rise ; they shrouded themselves within 
 the curtains, and with fear and trembling await- 
 ed the day. Towards morning, it grew calmer; 
 and all was silent when the Sun, with his cheer- 
 ful light, rose over the wood. 
 
 Andres dressed himself, and Mary now ob- 
 served that the stone of the ring upon her finger 
 had become quite pale. On opening the door, 
 the sun shone clear on their faces, but the scene 
 around them they could scarcely recognise. The 
 freshness of the wood was gone; the hills were 
 
508 
 
 TIECK. 
 
 shrunk, the brooks were flowing languidly with 
 scanty streams, the sky seemed grey ; and when 
 you turned to the Firs, they were standing there 
 no darker or more dreary than the other trees. 
 The huts behind were no longer frightful ; and 
 several inhabitants of the village came and told 
 about the fearful night, and how they had been 
 across the spot where the gipsies had lived ; 
 how these people must have left the place at 
 last, for their huts were standing empty, and 
 within had quite a common look, just like the 
 dwellings of other poor people : some of their 
 household gear was left behind. 
 
 Elfrida in secret said to her mother : " I could 
 not sleep last night; and in my fright at the 
 noise, I was praying from the bottom of my 
 heart, when the door suddenly opened, and my 
 playmate entered to take leave of me. She had 
 a travelling-pouch slung round her, a hat on her 
 head, and a large staff in her hand. She was 
 very angry at thee ; since on thy account she 
 had now to suffer the severest and most painful 
 punishments, as she had always been so fond 
 of thee ; for all of them, she said, were very 
 loath to leave this quarter." 
 
 Mary forbade her to speak of this ; and now 
 the ferryman came across the river, and told 
 them new wonders. As it was growing dark, 
 a stranger man of large size had come to him, 
 and hired his boat till sunrise ; and with this 
 condition, that the boatman should remain quiet 
 in his house, at least should not cross the thres- 
 hold of his door. " I was frightened," continued 
 the old man, " and the strange bargain would 
 not let me sleep. I slipped softly to the win- 
 dow, and looked towards the river. Great 
 clouds were driving restlessly through the sky, 
 and the distant woods were rustling fearfully ; 
 it was as if my cottage shook, and moans and 
 lamentations glided round it. On a sudden, I 
 perceived a white streaming light, that grew 
 broader and broader, like many thousands of 
 falling stars ; sparkling and waving, it proceeded 
 forward from the dark Fir-ground, moved over 
 the fields, and spread itself along towards the 
 river. Then I heard a trampling, a jingling, a 
 bustling, and rushing, nearer and nearer ; it 
 went forwards to my boat, and all stept into it, 
 men and women, as it seemed, and children ; 
 and the tall stranger ferried them over. In the 
 
 river were by the boat swimming many thou- 
 sands of glittering forms ; in the air white clouds 
 and lights were wavering; and all lamented 
 and bewailed that they must travel forth so far, 
 far away, and leave their beloved dwelling. 
 The noise of the rudder and the water creaked 
 and gurgled between whiles, and then suddenly 
 there would be silence. Many a time the boat 
 landed, and went back, and was again laden ; 
 many heavy casks, too, they took along with 
 them, which multitudes of horrid-looking little 
 fellows carried and rolled ; whether they were 
 devils or goblins, Heaven only knows. Then 
 came, in waving brightness, a stately freight ; 
 it seemed an old man, mounted on a small white 
 horse, and all were crowding round him. I 
 saw nothing of the horse but its head ; for the 
 rest of it was covered with costly glittering 
 cloths and trappings : on his brow the old man 
 had a crown, so bright, that as he came across, 
 I thought the sun was rising there, and the red- 
 ness of the dawn glimmering in my eyes. Thus 
 it went on all night ; I at last fell asleep in the 
 tumult, half in joy, half in terror. In the morn- 
 ing all was still ; but the river is, as it were, 
 run off, and I know not how I am to steer my 
 boat in it now." 
 
 The same year there came a blight; the 
 woods died away, the springs ran dry ; and the 
 scene, which had once been the joy of every 
 traveller, was in autumn standing waste, naked, 
 and bald ; scarcely showing here and there, in 
 the sea of sand, a spot or two where grass, with 
 a dingy greenness, still grew up. The fruit- 
 trees all withered, the vines faded away, and 
 the aspect of the place became so melancholy, 
 that the Count, with his people, next year left 
 the castle, which in time decayed and fell to 
 ruins. 
 
 Elfrida gazed on her rose day and night with 
 deep longing, and thought of her kind playmate; 
 and as it drooped and withered, so did she also 
 hang her head ; and before the spring, the little 
 maiden had herself faded away. Mary often 
 stood upon the spot before the hut, and wept 
 for the happiness that had departed. She 
 wasted herself away like her child, and in a 
 few years she too was gone. Old Martin, with 
 his son-in-law, returned to the quarter where 
 he had lived before. 
 
FREDERIC WILLIAM JOSEPH VON SCHELLING. 
 
 Born 1775. 
 
 Schelling, the third and the only surviving 
 one of the great quaternion of German philoso- 
 phers, was born at Leonberg, in Wurtemberg, 
 January 27th, 1775. He studied philosophy 
 and theology at Tubingen, Leipzig and Jena. 
 At the latter university he was a pupil of Fichte, 
 and afterward (1798) succeeded him as pro- 
 fessor of philosophy. In 1803, he went to 
 Wiirzburg, as professor ordinarius of philoso- 
 phy; in 1807, to Munich, where he was made 
 general secretary of the Academy of the Plastic 
 Arts, and where he was ennobled by the King 
 of Bavaria. In 1820, he left that place in dis- 
 gust, in consequence of a literary controversy 
 with the president of the Academy of Sciences, 
 and lectured on philosophy in Erlangen; but 
 accepted an invitation to return, seven years 
 after, as professor ordinarius of philosophy, with 
 the title of Privy Aulic Counsellor. He re- 
 mained in Munich until the beginning of the 
 present decade, when he was invited to Berlin 
 by the reigning monarch of Prussia, to lecture 
 at the university in the capacity of member of 
 the Berlin Academy; a situation which he 
 holds, it is believed, to this day, having entered 
 upon it in November, 1841. 
 
 If Fichte's is the most interesting character 
 among the transcendental philosophers of Ger- 
 many, Schelling's is the richest genius and the 
 widest influence. Incalculable has been the 
 influence of his profound intuitions on Philoso- 
 phy, Letters, Science, Art ; on all departments 
 of human Thought. His word was the breath 
 of spring to the intellectual world of his time. 
 It brought verdure and a sudden efflorescence 
 to every branch of knowledge. Probably no 
 man of his age, certainly no one in the prov- 
 ince of abstract speculation, has put forth so 
 many new and life-giving thoughts. His phi- 
 losophy is creative, as that of Kant is destruc- 
 tive. He combines — what is so rare in philo- 
 sophy — intuitive perception and poetic imagi- 
 nation, with dialectic subtlety and philosophical 
 analysis. He is the poet of the transcendental 
 movement, as Fichte is its preacher. 
 
 Schelling has given to the world no com- 
 
 plete system of philosophy. There is no one 
 work, as in the case of Kant and Fichte, which 
 can be referred to as containing a full and sys- 
 tematic exposition of his distinctive views. 
 They are scattered through a long series of 
 works, each one of which presents some par- 
 ticular result of his speculations, or some par- 
 ticular aspect of his philosophy. Moreover, his 
 view varies in different statements. His phi- 
 losophy has received new modifications at dif- 
 ferent periods of his long life. But these modi- 
 fications have not changed its identity ; and the 
 general direction of his opinions remains the 
 same. The following are the titles of some of 
 his works : " On the Possibility of a Form of 
 Philosophy;" "Idea of a Philosophy of Na- 
 ture ;" " Introduction to a System of Natural 
 Philosophy;" "Concerning the If* "The Soul 
 of the World ;" " On the Relation between the 
 Ideal and the Real in Nature ;" " Philosophy 
 and Religion," &c. &c. 
 
 Schelling differs from Fichte in the objective 
 or realistic direction of his thought. Both en- 
 deavored to construct a philosophy of the Abso- 
 lute. Both set out with the principle that there 
 is but one being, one substance. Fichte sought 
 it in the conscious self; Schelling finds it in 
 Nature. Fichte regarded Nature, or the world 
 of appearances, as a modification of Thought ; 
 Schelling regards Thought as a function or 
 blossom of Nature. Accordingly, he gave to 
 his philosophy the title, "Natural Philosophy," 
 or "Philosophy of Nature." It is also called 
 the " Philosophy of Identity," because he holds 
 that matter and spirit, the ideal and the real, 
 subject and object, are identical. The Abso- 
 lute, according to him, is neither real nor ideal, 
 (neither matter nor spirit,) but the identity of 
 both. There is but one Being; that Being 
 may be considered at once or alternately, as 
 either wholly ideal or wholly real. God is the 
 absolute identity of Nature and Thought, of 
 matter and spirit. And this absolute identity 
 is not the cause of the universe, but the uni- 
 verse itself — a God-universe. 
 
 From this account, it will be seen that the 
 43 * (509) 
 
510 SCHELLING. 
 
 philosophy of Schelling bears a close resem- 
 blance to that of Spinoza. What Spinoza dis- 
 sected in dry mathematical formulas, Schelling 
 gave forth a living soul. But, though they 
 agree in substance, they differ in spirit. With 
 Schelling, the spirit predominates; with Spi- 
 noza, the substance. Spinoza saw God imma- 
 nent in Nature; Schelling sees Nature dis- 
 solved in God. 
 
 "By far the most important result of Schill- 
 ing's philosophy," says Menzel, " seems to be 
 the impartial epical view of the world which 
 it imparts. In the system of Schelling, every 
 party finds its place opposite another ; the sep- 
 aration is shown to be a natural one ; their 
 contradictions are referred to an original and 
 necessary opposition. This system throughout 
 tolerates nothing exclusive, no unconditional 
 persecution of another. It endeavors to secure 
 
 to every spiritual existence, be it an opinion, a 
 character or an event, the same right in a na- 
 tural philosophy of mind and history which 
 every material existence has in common 
 science. It considers the historical periods as 
 seasons of the year, nationalities as zones, tem- 
 peraments as the elements, characters as crea- 
 tures, and their manifestations in thought and 
 action as necessarily founded in Nature, and as 
 diverse as the instincts. According to this 
 system, there is a growth and a progress, a 
 multiplicity and an order, in the intellectual 
 world, as in the natural. In it alone the end- 
 less war of opinion is hushed, and every con- 
 tradiction finds its simplest and most natural 
 solution."* 
 
 * Menzel's " German Literature." Translated by C. C. 
 Felton. 
 
 ON THE RELATION OF THE PLASTIC 
 ARTS TO NATURE. 
 
 A SPEECH ON THE CELEBRATION OF THE 12TH OCTOBER, 18 07, AS 
 THE NAME-DAY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF BAVARIA. 
 
 Delivered before the Public Assembly of the Royal Academy of 
 Sciences at Munich, by F. W. J. Schelling.* 
 
 * * * Plastic Art, according to the most 
 ancient expression, is silent Poetry. The in- 
 ventor of this definition no doubt meant thereby 
 that the former, like the latter, is to express spi- 
 ritual thoughts — conceptions whose source is the 
 soul ; only not by speech, but like silent Nature 
 by shape, by form, by corporeal, independent 
 works. 
 
 Plastic Art, therefore, evidently stands as a 
 uniting link between the soul and Nature, 
 and can be apprehended only in the living 
 centre of both. Indeed, since Plastic Art has 
 its relation to the soul in common with every 
 other art, and particularly with Poetry, that by 
 which it is connected with Nature, and, like 
 Nature, a productive force, remains as its sole 
 peculiarity. So that to this alone can a theory 
 relate which shall be satisfactory to the under- 
 standing, and helpful and profitable to Art 
 itself. 
 
 We hope, therefore, in considering Plastic Art 
 in relation to its true prototype and original 
 source, Nature, to be able to contribute some- 
 thing new to its theory — to give some additional 
 exactness or clearness to the conceptions of it; 
 but, above all, to set forth the coherence of the 
 whole structure of Art in the light of a higher 
 necessity. 
 
 But has not Science always recognised this 
 relation ? Has not indeed every theory of mod- 
 translated by J. Elliot Cabot, Esq. 
 
 ern times taken its departure from this very 
 position, that Art should be the imitator of Na- 
 ture? Such has indeed been the case. But 
 what should this broad general proposition profit 
 the artist, when the notion of Nature is of so 
 various interpretation, and when there are al- 
 most as many differing views of it, as various 
 modes of life ? Thus, to one, Nature is nothing 
 more than the lifeless aggregate of an indeter- 
 minable crowd of objects, or the space in which, 
 as in a vessel, he imagines things placed ; — to 
 another, only the soil from which he draws his 
 nourishment and support; — to the inspired 
 seeker alone, the holy, ever-creative original 
 energy of the world, which generates and busily 
 evolves all things out of itself. 
 
 The proposition would indeed have a high 
 significance, if it taught Art to emulate this 
 creative force ; but the sense in which it was 
 meant can scarcely be doubtful to one acquaint- 
 ed with the universal condition of Science at 
 the time when it was first brought forward. 
 Singular enough that the very persons who de- 
 nied all life to Nature, should set it up for imita- 
 tion in Art! To them might be applied the 
 words of a profound writer:* " Your lying phi- 
 losophy has put Nature out of the way ; and 
 why do you call upon us to imitate her? Is it 
 that you may renew the pleasure by perpetrat- 
 ing the same violence on the disciples of 
 Nature ?" 
 
 Nature was to them not merely a dumb, but an 
 altogether lifeless image, in whose inmost being 
 even no living word dwelt ; a hollow scaf- 
 folding of forms, of which as hollow an image 
 was to be transferred to the canvass, or hewn 
 out in stone. 
 
 * J. G. Hamann. 
 
SCHEL 
 
 This was the proper doctrine of those more 
 ancient and savage nations, who, as they saw 
 in Nature nothing divine, fetched idols out of 
 her ; whilst, to the susceptive Greeks, who 
 everywhere felt the presence of a vitally effi- 
 cient principle, genuine gods arose out of Nature. 
 
 But is, then, the disciple of Nature to copy 
 everything in Nature without distinction? and of 
 everything, every part? Only beautiful objects 
 should be represented; and, even in these, only 
 the Beautiful and Perfect. 
 
 Thus is the proposition farther determined; 
 but, at the same time, this asserted, that, in Na- 
 ture, the perfect is mingled with the imperfect 
 — the beautiful with the unbeautiful. Now, how 
 should he who stands in no other relation to 
 Nature than that of servile imitation, distinguish 
 the one from the other ? It is the way of imi- 
 tators to appropriate the faults of their model 
 sooner and easier than its excellences, since the 
 former offer handles and tokens more easily 
 grasped ; and thus we see that imitators of Na- 
 ture in this sense have imitated oftener, and 
 even more affectionately, the ugly than the 
 beautiful. 
 
 If we regard in things, not their principle, but 
 the empty abstract form, neither will they say 
 anything to our soul ; our own heart, our own 
 spirit we must put to it, that they answer us. 
 
 But what is the perfection of a thing? No- 
 thing else than the creative life in it, its power 
 to exist. Never, therefore, will he, who fancies 
 that Nature is altogether dead, be successful in 
 that profound process (analogous to the chemi- 
 cal) whence proceeds, purified as by fire, the 
 pure gold of Beauty and Truth. 
 
 Nor was there any change in the main view 
 of the relation of Art to Nature, even when the 
 unsatisfactoriness of the principle began to be 
 more generally felt ; no change, even by the 
 new views and new knowledge so nobly estab- 
 lished by John Winkelmann. He indeed re- 
 stored to the soul its full efficiency in Art, and 
 raised it from its unworthy dependence into the 
 realm of spiritual freedom. Powerfully moved 
 by the beauty of form in the works of antiquity, 
 he taught that the production of ideal Nature, 
 of Nature elevated above the Actual, together 
 with the expression of spiritual conceptions, is 
 the highest aim of Art. 
 
 But if we examine in what sense this sur- 
 passing of the Actual by Art has been under- 
 stood by the most, it turns out that, with this 
 view also, the notion of Nature as mere product ; 
 of things as a lifeless result, still continued ; and 
 the idea of a living creative Nature was in no 
 wise awakened by it. So that these ideal forms 
 also could be animated by no positive insight 
 into their nature ; and if the forms of the 
 Actual were dead for the dead beholder, these 
 were not less so. Was no independent produc- 
 tion of the Actual possible, neither was it of 
 the Ideal. The object of the imitation was 
 changed, the imitation remained. In the place 
 of Nature were substituted the sublime works 
 
 LING. 511 
 
 of Antiquity, whose outward forms the pupils 
 busied themselves in taking down, but without 
 the spirit that fills them. These, however, are 
 as unapproachable, nay, more so, than the works 
 of Nature ; and leave us yet colder, if we 
 bring not to them the spiritual eye to penetrate 
 through the veil, and feel the stirring energy 
 within. 
 
 On the other hand, artists, since that time, 
 have indeed received a certain ideal bias, and 
 notions of a beauty superior to matter ; but these 
 notions were like fair words, to which the deeds 
 do not correspond. While the previous method 
 in Art produced bodies without soul, this view 
 taught only the secret of the soul, but not that 
 of the body. The theory had, as usual, passed 
 with one hasty stride to the opposite extreme ; 
 but the vital mean it had not yet found. 
 
 Who can say that Winkelmann had not an 
 insight into the highest beauty? But with him 
 it appeared in its dissevered elements : on one 
 side as beauty in idea, and flowing out from the 
 soul ; on the other, as beauty of forms. 
 
 But what is the efficient link that connects 
 the two? or by what power is the soul cre- 
 ated together with the body, at once and as 
 if with one breath ? If this lies not within the 
 power of Art, as of Nature, then it can create 
 nothing whatever. This vital connecting link, 
 Winkelmann did not determine; he did not 
 teach how, from the idea, forms can be pro- 
 duced. Thus Art went over to that method 
 which we would call the retrograde, since it 
 strives from the form to come at the essence. 
 But not thus is the Unlimited reached ; it is not 
 attainable by mere enhancement of the Limited. 
 Hence, such works as have had their beginning 
 in form, with all elaborateness on that side, 
 show, in token of their origin, an incurable want 
 at the very point where we expect the consum- 
 mate, the essential, the final. The miracle by 
 which the Limited should be raised to the Un- 
 limited, the human become divine, is wanting: 
 the magic circle is drawn, but the spirit that 
 it should enclose, appears not, disobedient to 
 the call of him who thought a creation possible 
 through mere form. * * * * 
 
 ******* 
 
 Nature meets us everywhere, at first with 
 reserve, and in form more or less severe. She 
 is like that quiet and serious beauty, that excites 
 not attention by noisy advertisement, nor attracts 
 the vulgar gaze. 
 
 How can we, as it were, spiritually melt this 
 apparently rigid form, so that the pure energy 
 of things may flow together with the force of 
 our spirit, aud pour forth in one united gush ? 
 We must transcend Form, in order to gain it 
 again as intelligible, living, and truly felt. Con- 
 sider the most beautiful forms: what remains 
 behind after you have abstracted from them the 
 efficient principle within? Nothing but mere 
 unessential qualities, such as extension and the 
 relations of space. Does the fact that one por- 
 tion of matter exists near another, and distinct 
 
512 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 from it, contribute anything to its inner essence? 
 or does it not rather contribute nothing? Evi- 
 dently the latter. It is not mere contiguous 
 existence, but the manner of it, that makes 
 form ; and this can be determined only by a 
 positive force, which is even opposed to sepa- 
 rateness, and subordinates the rnanifoldness of 
 the parts to the unity of one idea — from the 
 force that works in the crystal, to that which, as 
 a gentle magnetic current, gives to the particles 
 of matter in the human form a position and 
 arrangement among themselves, through which 
 the idea, the essential unity and beauty, can 
 become visible. 
 
 Not only, however, as active principle, but as 
 spirit and effective science, must the essence 
 appear to us in the form, in order that we may 
 truly apprehend it. For all unity must be spi- 
 ritual in nature and origin : and what is the aim 
 of all investigation of Nature, but to find science 
 therein ? For that wherein there were no Un- 
 derstanding, could not be the object of Under- 
 standing : the Unknowing could not be known. 
 The science by which Nature works is not, in- 
 deed, like human science, connected with reflec- 
 tion upon itself: in it, the conception is not 
 separate from the act, nor the design from the 
 execution. Thus, rude matter strives, as it 
 were, blindly, after regular shape, and unknow- 
 ingly assumes pure stereometric forms, which 
 belong, nevertheless, to the realm of ideas, and 
 are something spiritual in the material. 
 
 The sublimest arithmetic and geometry are 
 innate in the stars, and unconsciously displayed 
 by them in their motions. More distinctly, but 
 still beyond their grasp, the living cognition ap- 
 pears in animals ; and thus we see them, though 
 wandering about without reflection, bring about 
 innumerable results far more excellent than 
 themselves: — the bird that, intoxicated with 
 music, transcends itself in soul-like tones; the 
 little artistic creature, that, without practice or 
 instruction, accomplishes light works of archi- 
 tecture ; — but all directed by an overpowering 
 spirit, that lightens in them already with single 
 flashes of knowledge, but as yet appears no- 
 where as the full sun, as in Man. 
 
 This formative science in Nature and Art 
 is the link that connects idea and form, body 
 and soul. Before everything stands an eter- 
 nal idea, formed in the Infinite Understanding; 
 but by what means does this idea pass into 
 actuality and embodiment? Only through the 
 creative science that is as necessarily connected 
 with the Infinite Understanding, as in the artist 
 the principle that seizes the idea of unsensuous 
 Beauty, with that which sets it forth to the 
 senses. 
 
 Is the artist to be called happy and praise- 
 worthy before all, to whom the gods have grant- 
 ed this spirit; so the work of art will appear in 
 that measure excellent in which it shows to us, 
 as in outline, this unadulterated energy of crea- 
 tion and activity in Nature. 
 
 It was long ago perceived that, in Art, not 
 
 everything is performed with consciousness ; 
 that, with the conscious activity, an unconscious 
 action must combine ; and that it is of the per- 
 fect unity and mutual interpenetration of the 
 two that the highest in Art is born. 
 
 Works that want this seal of unconscious 
 science, are recognised by the evident absence 
 of life self-supported and independent of the 
 producer: as, on the contrary, where this acts, 
 Art imparts to its work, together with the ut- 
 most clearness to the understanding, that unfa- 
 thomable reality wherein it resembles a work 
 of Nature. 
 
 It has often been attempted to make clear the 
 position of the artist in regard to Nature, by 
 saying that Art, in order to be such, must first 
 withdraw itself from Nature, and return to it 
 only in the last completeness. The true sense 
 of this saying, it seems to us, can be no other 
 than this : That in all things in Nature, the liv- 
 ing idea shows itself only blindly active : were 
 it so also in the artist, he would be in nothing 
 distinct from Nature. But, should he attempt 
 consciously to subordinate himself altogether to 
 the Actual, and give back with servile fidelity 
 the already existing, he would produce larvce, 
 but no works of Art. He must therefore with- 
 draw himself from the product, from the crea- 
 ture; but only in order to raise himself to the 
 creative energy, and spiritually to seize this. 
 Thus he ascends into the realm of pure ideas; 
 he forsakes the creature, to regain it with thou- 
 sand-fold interest, and in this sense certainly to 
 return to Nature. This spirit of Nature working 
 at the core of things, and speaking through form 
 and shape as by symbols only, the artist must 
 certainly follow with emulation ; and only so 
 far as he seizes this with genial imitation, has 
 he himself produced anything genuine. For 
 works produced by aggregation, even of forms 
 beautiful in themselves, would still be destitute 
 of all beauty, since that, through which the 
 work on the whole is truly beautiful, cannot be 
 form. It is above form — it is Essence; the 
 Universal; the look and expression of the in- 
 dwelling spirit of Nature. 
 
 Now it can scarcely be doubtful what is to 
 be thought of the so-called idealising of Nature 
 in Art, so universally demanded. This demand 
 seems to arise from a way of thinking, accord- 
 ing to which not Truth, Beauty, Goodness, but 
 the contrary of all these is the Actual. Were 
 the Actual indeed opposed to Truth and Beauty, 
 it would be necessary for the artist, not to ele- 
 vate or idealise it, but to get rid of and destroy 
 it, in order to create anything true and beauti- 
 ful. But how should it be possible for anything 
 to be actual except the True ; and what is Beauty, 
 if not full complete Being? 
 
 What higher aim, therefore, could Art have, 
 than to represent that which in Nature truly is? 
 Or how should it undertake to excel so-called 
 actual Nature, since it must always fall short 
 of it? 
 
 For does Art impart to its works actual sen- 
 
SCHELLING. 
 
 513 
 
 suous life? This statue breathes not, is stirred 
 by no pulsation, warmed by no blood. 
 
 But both the pretended excelling and the ap- 
 parent falling short show themselves as the 
 consequences of one and the sairu? principle, so 
 soon as we place the aim of Art in the exhibit- 
 ing of that which truly is. 
 
 Only on the surface have its works the ap- 
 pearance of life ; in Nature, life seems to reach 
 deeper, and to be wedded entirely with the 
 material. But does not the continual mutation 
 of matter and the universal lot of final dissolu- 
 tion teach us the unessential character of this 
 union, and that it is no intimate combination? 
 Art, accordingly, in the merely superficial anima- 
 tion of its works, represents the unessential as 
 not existing. 
 
 How comes it that to every tolerably culti- 
 vated taste, imitations of the so-called Actual, 
 even though carried to deception, appear in the 
 last degree untrue ; nay, produce the impression 
 of spectres ; whilst a work in which the idea is 
 predominant strikes us with the full force of 
 truth, and alone places us in the genuine actual 
 world? Whence comes it, if not from the more 
 or less obscure feeling which tells us that the 
 idea alone is the living principle in things, but 
 all else unessential and vain shadow ? 
 
 On the same ground may be explained all 
 the opposite cases, which are brought up as in- 
 stances of the surpassing of Nature by Art. In 
 arresting the rapid course of human years ; in 
 uniting the energy of developed manhood with 
 the soft charm of early youth ; or exhibiting a 
 mother of grown-up sons and daughters in the 
 full possession of vigorous beauty, what does 
 Art, except to strike out what is unessential, 
 Time? 
 
 If, according to the remark of a discerning 
 critic, every growth in Nature has but an in- 
 stant of truly complete beauty, we may also say 
 that it has too only an instant of full existence. 
 In this instant it is what it is in all eternity : 
 beside this, it has only a coming into and a 
 passing out of existence. Art, in representing 
 the thing at that instant, removes it out of Time, 
 and sets it forth in its pure Being, in the eternity 
 of its life. 
 
 After everything positive and essential had 
 once been abstracted from Form, it necessarily 
 appeared limiting, and, as it were, hostile, to 
 the Essence ; and the same theory that had 
 called up the false and powerless Ideal, neces- 
 sarily tended to the formless in Art. Form 
 would indeed be a limitation to the Essence if 
 it existed independent of it. But if it exists 
 with and by means of the Essence, how could 
 this feel itself limited by that which it has 
 itself created ? Violence would indeed be done 
 it by a form forced upon it, but never by one 
 proceeding from itself. In this, on the contrary, 
 it must rest contented, and feel its own exist- 
 ence to be self-sustained and complete in it- 
 self. 
 
 Determinateness of form is in Nature never a 
 3p 
 
 negation, but ever an affirmation. Commonly, 
 indeed, the shape of a body seems a confine- 
 ment; but could we behold the creative energy, 
 it would reveal itself as the measure that this 
 energy imposes upon itself, and in which it 
 shows itself a truly intelligent force; for in 
 everything is the power of self-rule allowed to 
 be an excellence, and one of the highest. 
 
 In like manner most persons consider the 
 particular in a negative manner; viz. as that 
 which is not the whole or all. But no particular 
 exists by means of its limitation, but through 
 the indwelling force with which it maintains 
 itself as a particular Whole, in distinction from 
 the Universe. 
 
 This force of particularity, and thus also of 
 individuality, showing itself as vital character, 
 the negative conception of it is necessarily fol- 
 lowed by an unsatisfying and false view of the 
 characteristic in Art. Lifeless and of intolera- 
 ble hardness would be the Art that should aim 
 to exhibit the empty shell or limitation of the 
 Individual. Certainly we desire to see not 
 merely the individual, but more than this, its 
 vital Idea. But if the artist have seized the 
 inward creative spirit and essence of the Idea, 
 and sets this forth, he makes the individual a 
 world in itself, a class, an eternal prototype : 
 and he who has grasped the essential character 
 needs not to fear hardness and severity, for 
 these are the conditions of life. Nature, who 
 in her completeness appears as the utmost be- 
 nignity, we see in each particular aiming even 
 primarily and principally at severity, seclusion 
 and reserve. As the whole creation is the work 
 of the utmost externisation and renunciation 
 [Ent'dusserung], so the artist must first deny 
 himself and descend into the Particular, with- 
 out shunning isolation, nor the pain, the an- 
 guish of Form. 
 
 Nature, from her first works, is throughout 
 characteristic ; the energy of fire, the splendor 
 of light she shuts up in hard stone : the tender 
 soul of melody in severe metal: — even on the 
 threshold of Life, and already meditating organic 
 shape, she sinks back overpowered by the might 
 of Form, into petrifaction. 
 
 The life of the plant consists in still recep- 
 tivity, but in what exact and severe outline is 
 this passive life enclosed ! In the animal king- 
 dom the strife between Life and Form seems 
 first properly to begin: her first works Nature 
 hides in hard shells, and where these are laid 
 aside, the animated world attaches itself again 
 through its constructive impulse to the realm 
 of crystallization. Finally she comes forward 
 more boldly and freely, and vital, important 
 characteristics show themselves, and are the 
 same through whole classes. Art, indeed, can- 
 not begin so far down as Nature. Though 
 Beauty is spread everywhere, yet there are 
 various grades in the appearance and unfolding 
 of the Essence, and thus of Beauty. But Art 
 demands a certain fulness, and desires not to 
 strike a single note or tone, nor even a detach- 
 
514 SCHELLING. 
 
 ed accord, but at once the full symphony of 
 Beauty. 
 
 Art, therefore, prefers to grasp immediately 
 at the highest and most developed, the human 
 form. For since it is not given it to embrace 
 the immeasurable whole, and as in all other 
 creatures only single figurations, in Man alone 
 full entire Being appear without abatement, 
 Art is not only permitted but required to 
 see the sum of Nature in Man alone. But 
 precisely on this account, — that she here as- 
 sembles all in one point, Nature repeats her 
 whole multiformity, and pursues again in a 
 narrower compass the same course that she 
 had gone through in her wide circuit. 
 
 Here, therefore, arises the demand upon the 
 artist first to be true and faithful in detail, in 
 order to come forth complete and beautiful in 
 the whole. Here he must wrestle with the 
 creative spirit of Nature ; — [which in the moral 
 world also deals out character and stamp in 
 endless variety,]— not in weak and effeminate, 
 but stout and courageous conflict. 
 
 Persevering exercise in the study of that 
 by virtue of which the characteristic in things 
 is a positive principle, must preserve him from 
 emptiness, weakness, inward inanity, before he 
 can venture to aim by ever higher combination 
 and final melting together of manifold forms, 
 to reach the extremest beauty in works unit- 
 ing the highest simplicity with infinite mean- 
 ing. 
 
 Only through the perfection of form can 
 Form be made to disappear; and this is cer- 
 tainly the final aim of Art in the Characteristic. 
 But as the apparent harmony that is even more 
 easily reached by tbe empty and frivolous than 
 by others, is yet inwardly vain; so in Art the 
 quickly attained harmony of the exterior with- 
 out inward fulness. And if it is the part of 
 theory and instruction to oppose the spiritless 
 copying of beautiful forms, especially must they 
 oppose the tendency toward an effeminate 
 characterless Art, which gives itself indeed 
 higher names, but therewith only seeks to hide 
 its incapacity to fulfil the fundamental condi- 
 tions. 
 
 That lofty Beauty in which the fulness of 
 form causes Form itself to disappear, was 
 adopted by the modern theory of Art after 
 Winkelmann, not only as the highest, but as the 
 only standard. But as the deep foundation upon 
 which it rests was overlooked, it resulted that 
 a negative conception was formed of that which 
 is the sum of all affirmation. 
 
 Winkelmann compares Beauty with water 
 drawn from the bosom of the spring, which the 
 less taste it has, the wholesomer it is esteemed. 
 It is true that the highest Beauty is character- 
 less, but it is so as we say of the Universe that 
 it has no determinate dimension, neither length, 
 breadth nor deptb, since it has all in equal in- 
 finity : or that the Art of creative Nature is 
 formless, because she herself is subjected to no 
 form. 
 
 In this and in no other sense can we say that 
 Grecian art in its highest cultivation rises into 
 the characterless. But it did not aim imme- 
 diately at this. It was from the bonds of Na- 
 ture that it struggled upwards to divine free- 
 dom. From no lightly scattered seed, but only 
 from a deeply enfolded kernel, could this heroic 
 growth spring up. Only mighty emotions, only 
 a deep stirring of the fancy through the impres- 
 sion of all-enlivening, all-commanding energies 
 of Nature, could stamp upon Art that invincible 
 vigor with which from the rigid, secluded ear- 
 nestness of earlier productions up to the period 
 of works overflowing with sensuous grace, it 
 ever remained faithful to truth, and produced 
 the highest spiritual Reality which it is given to 
 mortals to behold. 
 
 In like manner as their Tragedy commences 
 with the grandest character! sticness in morals, 
 so the beginning of their Plastic Art was the 
 earnestness of Nature, and the stern goddess 
 of Athens its first and only Muse. 
 
 This epoch is marked by that style which 
 Winkelmann describes as the still harsh and 
 severe, from which the next or lofty style was 
 able to develop itself by the mere enhance- 
 ment of the Characteristic into the Sublime and 
 the Simple. 
 
 For in the statues of the most perfect or 
 divine natures, not only all the complexity of 
 form of which human nature is capable had to 
 be united, but moreover the union must be such 
 as may be conceived to exist in the system of 
 the Universe itself: viz. the lower forms, or 
 those relating to inferior attributes, being com- 
 prehended under higher, and all at last under 
 one supreme form, in which they indeed extin- 
 guish each other as separately existing, but still 
 continue in Essence and efficiency. 
 
 Thus, though we cannot call this high and 
 self-sufficing Beauty characteristic, so far as 
 herewith is connected the notion of limitation 
 or conditionally in the manifestation, yet still 
 the characteristic continues efficient, though indis- 
 tinguishable, within: as in the crystal, although 
 transparent, the texture nevertheless remains. 
 
 Each characteristic element has its weight, 
 however slight, and helps to bring about the 
 sublime equipoise of Beauty. 
 
 The outer side or basis of all Beauty is beauty 
 of form. But as Form cannot exist without 
 Essence, wherever Form is, there also is Cha- 
 racter ; whether in visible presence or only 
 perceptible in its effects. Characteristic Beauty, 
 therefore, is Beauty in the root, from which 
 alone Beauty can arise as the fruit. Essence 
 may, indeed, outgrow Form, but even then 
 the Characteristic remains as the still efficient 
 ground-work of the Beautiful. 
 
 A most excellent critic,* to whom the Gods 
 have given sway over Nature as well as Art, 
 compares the Characteristic in its relation to 
 
 ♦ Goethe. Werke (1840) xxx. 352. Mr. Ward's translation 
 of Goethe's " Essays on Art," p. 76. 
 
SCHELLING. 515 
 
 Beauty, with the skeleton in its relation to the 
 living form. Were we to interpret this striking 
 simile in our sense, we should say that the 
 skeleton, in Nature, is not as in our thought 
 detached from the living whole : that the firm 
 and the yielding, the determining and the de- 
 termined, mutually presuppose each other, and 
 can exist only together : thus that the vitally 
 Characteristic is already the whole form, the 
 result of the action and reaction of bone and 
 flesh, of Active and Passive. And although 
 Art, like Nature, in its higher developments, 
 thrusts inward the previously visible skeleton, 
 yet this latter can never be opposed to Shape 
 and Beauty, since it has always a determining 
 share in the production of the one as well as 
 of the other. 
 
 But whether that high and independent Beauty 
 should be the only standard in Art, as it is the 
 highest, seems to depend on the degree of ful- 
 ness and extent that belongs to the particular 
 Art. 
 
 Nature, in her wide circumference, ever ex- 
 hibits the higher with the lower : creating in 
 Man the godlike, she elaborates in all her other 
 productions only its material and foundation, 
 which must exist in order that in contrast with 
 it the Essence as such may appear. And even 
 in the higher world of Man the great mass 
 serves again as the basis upon which the god- 
 like that is preserved pure in the few, mani- 
 fests itself in legislation, government, and the 
 establishment of Religion. So that wherever 
 Art works with more of the complexity of Na- 
 ture, it may and must display together with the 
 highest measure of Beauty, also its ground- 
 work and raw material as it were, in distinct 
 appropriate forms. 
 
 Here first prominently unfolds itself the dif- 
 ference in Nature of the forms of Art. 
 
 Plastic Art, in the more exact sense of the 
 term, disdains to give Space outwardly to the 
 object, but bears it within itself. This, however, 
 narrows its field ; it is compelled, indeed, to 
 display the beauty of the Universe almost in a 
 single point. It must therefore aim imme- 
 diately at the highest, and can attain complexity 
 only separately and in the strictest exclusion of 
 all conflicting elements. By isolating the purely 
 animal in human nature it succeeds in forming 
 inferior creations too, harmonious and even 
 beautiful, as we are taught by the beauty of 
 numerous Fauns preserved from Antiquity: it 
 can, indeed, parodying itself like the merry 
 spirit of Nature, reverse its own Ideal, and for 
 instance, in the extravagance of the Silenic 
 figures, by light and sportive treatment, appear 
 freed again from the pressure of matter. 
 
 But in all cases it is compelled strictly to iso- 
 late the work, in order to make it self-consistent 
 and a world in itself ; since for this form of Art 
 there is no higher unity, in which the dissonance 
 of particulars should be melted into harmony. 
 
 Painting, on the contrary, in the very extent 
 of its sphere, can better measure itself with the 
 
 Universe, and create with epic profusion. In 
 an Iliad there is room even for aThersites, and 
 what does not find a place in the great epic of 
 Nature and History ! 
 
 Here the Particular scarcely counts anything 
 by itself ; the Universe takes its place, and that, 
 which by itself would not be beautiful, becomes 
 so in the harmony of the whole. If in an ex- 
 tensive painting, uniting forms by the allotted 
 space, by light, by shade, by reflection, the 
 highest measure of Beauty were everywhere 
 employed, the result would be the most unna- 
 tural monotony ; for, as Winkelmann says, the 
 highest idea of Beauty is everywhere one and 
 the same, and scarce admits of variation. The 
 detail would be preferred to the whole, where, 
 as in every case in which the whole is formed 
 by multiplicity, the detail must be subordinate 
 to it. 
 
 In such a work, therefore, a gradation of 
 Beauty must be observed, by which alone the 
 full Beauty concentrated in the focus becomes 
 visible ; and from an exaggeration of particu- 
 lars proceeds an equipoise of the whole. Here, 
 then, the limited and characteristic finds its 
 place ; and theory at least should direct the 
 painter, not so much to the narrow space in 
 which the entire Beauty is concentrically col- 
 lected, as to the characteristic complexity of 
 Nature, through which alone he can impart to 
 an extensive work the full measure of living 
 significance. 
 
 Thus thought, among the founders of modern 
 art, the noble Leonardo ; thus Raphael, the 
 master of high Beauty, who shunned not to ex- 
 hibit it in smaller measure, rather than to appear 
 monotonous, lifeless, and unreal — though he 
 understood not only how to produce it, but also 
 how to break up uniformity by variety of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 For, although Character can show itself also 
 in rest and equilibrium of form, yet it is only 
 in action that it becomes truly alive. 
 
 By Character we understand a unity of several 
 forces, operating constantly to produce among 
 them a certain equipoise and determinate pro- 
 portion, to which, if undisturbed, a like equi- 
 poise in the symmetry of the forms corresponds. 
 But if this vital Unity is to display itself in act 
 and operation, this can only be when the forces, 
 excited by some cause to rebellion, forsake their 
 equilibrium. Every one sees that this is the 
 case in the Passions. 
 
 But here we are met by the well-known 
 maxim of the theorists, which demands that 
 Passion should be moderated as far as possible, 
 in its actual outburst, that beauty of Form may 
 not be injured. But we think this maxim should 
 rather be reversed, and read thus : — that Pas- 
 sion should be moderated by Beauty itself. For 
 it is much to be feared that this desired mode- 
 ration too may be taken in a negative sense — 
 whereas, what is really requisite is, to oppose 
 to Passion a positive force. For as Virtue con- 
 sists, not in the absence of passions, but in the 
 
516 SCHELLING. 
 
 mastery of the spirit over them, so Beauty is 
 preserved, not by their removal or abatement, 
 but by the mastery of Beauty over them. 
 
 The forces of Passion must actually show 
 themselves — it must be seen that they are pre- 
 pared to rise in mutiny, but are kept down by 
 the power of Character, and break against the 
 forms of firmly-founded Beauty, as the waves 
 of a stream that just fills, but cannot overflow 
 its banks. Otherwise, this striving after mode- 
 ration would resemble only those shallow mo- 
 ralists, who, the more readily to dispose of Man, 
 prefer to mutilate his nature; and who have so 
 entirely removed every positive element from 
 actions, that the people gloat over the spectacle 
 of great crimes, in order to refresh themselves 
 at last with the view of something positive. 
 
 In Nature and Art the Essence strives first 
 after actualization, or exhibition of itself in the 
 Particular. Thus in each the utmost severity 
 is manifested at the commencement; for without 
 bound, the boundless could not appear; without 
 severity, gentleness could not exist: and if unity 
 is to be perceptible, it can only be through par- 
 ticularity, detachment, and opposition. In the 
 beginning, therefore, the creative spirit shows 
 itself entirely lost in its form, inaccessibly shut 
 up, and even in its grandeur still harsh. But 
 the more it succeeds in uniting its entire fullness 
 in one product, the more it gradually relaxes 
 from its severity; and where it has fully deve- 
 loped the form, so as to rest contented and self- 
 collected in it, it seems to become cheerful, and 
 begins to move in gentle lines. This is the 
 period of its fairest maturity and blossom, in 
 which the pure vessel has arrived at perfection; 
 the spirit of Nature becomes free from its bonds, 
 and feels its relationship to the soul. As by a 
 gentle morning blush stealing over the whole 
 form, the coming soul announces itself: it is not 
 yet present, but everything prepares for its recep- 
 tion, by the delicate play of gentle movements; 
 the rigid outlines melt and temper themselves 
 into flexibility ; a lovely essence, neither sen- 
 suous nor spiritual, but which cannot be grasped, 
 diffuses itself over the form, and entwines it- 
 self with every outline, every vibration of the 
 frame. 
 
 This essence, not to be seized, as we have 
 already remarked, but yet perceptible to all, is 
 what the language of the Greeks designated by 
 the name Charis, ours as Grace. 
 
 Wherever, in a fully developed form, Grace 
 appears, the work is complete on the side of 
 Nature ; nothing more is wanting ; all demands 
 are satisfied. Here, already, soul and body are 
 in complete harmony; Body is Form, Grace is 
 Soul, although not Soul in itself, but the Soul of 
 Form, or the Soul of Nature. 
 
 Art may linger, and remain stationary at this 
 point ; for, already, on one side at least its whole 
 task is finished. The pure image of Beauty 
 arrested at this point is the Goddess of Love. 
 
 But the beauty of the Soul in itself, joined to 
 
 sensuous Grace, is the highest apotheosis of 
 Nature. 
 
 The spirit of Nature is only in appearance 
 opposed to the Soul ; essentially, it is the instru- 
 ment of its revelation; it brings about indeed 
 the antagonism that exists in all things, but only 
 that the one essence may come forth, as the 
 utmost benignity, and the reconciliation of all 
 the forces. 
 
 All other creatures are driven by the mere 
 force of Nature, and through it maintain their 
 individuality ; in Man alone, as the central point, 
 arises the soul, without which the world would 
 be like the natural universe without the sun. 
 
 The Soul in Man, therefore, is not the prin- 
 ciple of individuality, but that whereby he 
 raises himself above all egoism, whereby he 
 becomes capable of self-sacrifice, and of disin- 
 terested love, and (which is the highest,) of the 
 contemplation and knowledge of the Essence 
 of things ; and thus of Art. 
 
 In him it is no longer employed about Matter, 
 nor has to do with it immediately, but only 
 with the spirit, (as the life) of things. Even 
 while appearing- in the body, it is yet free from 
 the body, the consciousness of which hovers in 
 the soul in the most beauteous shapes only as a 
 light, undisturbing dream. It is no quality, no 
 faculty, nor anything special of the sort ; it knows 
 not, but is Science ; it is not good, but Goodness; 
 it is not beautiful, as body even may be, but 
 Beauty itself. 
 
 Most readily, or most immediately, indeed, in 
 a work of art, the soul of the artist is seen as 
 invention, in the detail, and in the total result, 
 as the unity that hovers over it in serene still- 
 ness. But the Soul must be visible in objec- 
 tive representation, as the primoeval energy of 
 thought, in portraitures of human beings, alto- 
 gether filled by an idea, by a noble contempla- 
 tion; or as indwelling essential Goodness. 
 
 Each of these finds its distinct expression 
 even in the completest repose, but a more living 
 one where the Soul can reveal itself in activity 
 and antagonism ; and since it is by the passions 
 mainly that the force of life is interrupted, it is 
 the generally received opinion, that the beauty 
 of the Soul shows itself especially in its quiet 
 supremacy amid the storm of the passions. 
 
 But here an important distinction is to be 
 made. For the Soul must not be called upon 
 to moderate those passions which are only an 
 outbreak of the lower spirits of Nature, nor can 
 it be displayed in antithesis with these ; for 
 where calm considerateness is still in contention 
 with them, the Soul has not yet appeared : they 
 must be moderated by unassisted Nature in 
 Man, by the might of the Spirit. But there are 
 cases of a higher sort, in which, not a single 
 force alone, but the intelligent Spirit itself 
 breaks down all barriers: cases, indeed, where 
 the Soul is subjected by the bond that connects 
 it with sensuous existence, to pain, which should 
 be foreign to its divine nature: where Man feels 
 
SCHELLING. 517 
 
 himself invaded and attacked in the root of his 
 existence, not by mere powers of Nature, but 
 by moral forces: "where innocent error hurries 
 him into crime, and thus into misery: where 
 deep-felt injustice excites to rebellion the holiest 
 feelings of humanity. 
 
 This is the case in all situations, truly, and in 
 a high sense, tragical, such as the Tragedy of 
 the ancients brings before our eyes. Where 
 blindly passionate forces are aroused, the col- 
 lected Spirit is present as the guardian of Beauty ; 
 but if the Spirit itself be hurried away, as by 
 an irresistible might, what power shall watch 
 over and protect sacred Beauty? Or, if the 
 soul participate in the struggle, how shall it 
 save itself from pain and from desecration 1 
 
 Arbitrarily to limit the power of pain, of ex- 
 cited feeling, would be to sin against the very 
 meaning and aim of Art, and would betray a 
 want of feeling and soul in the artist himself. 
 
 Already therein, that Beauty, based on grand 
 and firmly-established forms has become Cha- 
 racter, Art has provided the means of display- 
 ing without injury to symmetry the whole in- 
 tensity of Feeling. For where Beauty rests on 
 mighty forms, as upon immoveable pillars, a 
 slight change in its relations, scarcely touching 
 the form, causes us to infer the great force that 
 was necessary in order to effect it. Still more 
 does Grace sanctify pain. It is the essential 
 nature of Grace that it does not know itself ; 
 but not being wilfully acquired, it also can- 
 not be wilfully lost. When intolerable an- 
 guish, when even madness, sent by avenging 
 Gods, takes away consciousness and reflection, 
 Grace stands as a protecting daemon by the suf- 
 fering form, and prevents it from manifesting 
 anything unseemly, anything discordant to Hu- 
 manity ; but if it fall, to fall at least a pure and 
 unspotted victim. 
 
 Not yet the Soul itself, but the prophecy of it; 
 Grace accomplishes by natural means, what the 
 Soul does by a divine power, in transforming 
 pain, torpor, even death itself, into Beauty. 
 
 Yet Grace thus preserved amid the extremest 
 discordance would be dead, without a transfigu- 
 ration by the soul. But what expression can 
 belong to the soul in this situation ? It delivers 
 itself from pain, and comes forth conquering, 
 not conquered, by relinquishing its connection 
 with sensuous existence. 
 
 It is for the natural Spirit to exert its energies 
 for the preservation of sensuous existence, the 
 Soul enters not into this contest; but its presence 
 moderates even the storms of painfully-strug- 
 gling life. Outward force can take away only 
 outward goods, but not reach the Soul : it can 
 tear asunder a temporal bond, not dissolve the 
 eternal one of a truly divine love. Not hard 
 and unfeeling, nor wanting in love itself, the 
 Soul on the contrary displays in pain this alone, 
 as the sentiment that outlasts sensuous existence, 
 and thus raises itself above the ruins of outward 
 life or fortune in divine glory. 
 
 It is this expression of the Soul that the creator 
 
 of the Niobe has shown us in this statue. All 
 the means by which Art tempers even the Ter- 
 rible, are here made use of. Mightiness of 
 form, sensuous Grace, nay, even the nature of 
 the subject-matter itself softens the expression, 
 since pain, transcending all expression, annihi- 
 lates itself, and Beauty, which it seemed im- 
 possible to preserve from destruction, is pro- 
 tected from injury by the commencing torpor. 
 
 But what would it all be without the Soul; 
 and how shall this manifest itself? 
 
 We see on the countenance of the mother, 
 not grief alone for the already prostrated flower 
 of her children; not alone deadly anxiety for 
 the preservation of those yet remaining, and of 
 the youngest daughter, who has fled for safety 
 to her bosom ; nor resentment against the cruel 
 deities; least of all, as is pretended, cool defi- 
 ance : all these we see, indeed, but not these 
 alone; for, through grief, anxiety, and resent- 
 ment streams, like a divine light, eternal love, 
 as that which alone remains : and in this is 
 preserved the mother, as one who was not, but 
 now is a mother, and who remains united with 
 the beloved ones by an eternal bond. 
 
 Every one acknowledges that greatness, pu- 
 rity, and goodness of soul have also their sen- 
 suous expressions. But how is this conceivable, 
 unless the principle that acts in Matter be itself 
 cognate and similar to Soul ? 
 
 For the representation of the Soul there are 
 again gradations in Art, according as it is joined 
 with the merely Characteristic, or in visible 
 union with the Charming and Graceful. 
 
 Who perceives not, in the tragedies of ^Eschy- 
 lus, that lofty morality already predominant, 
 which is at home in the works of Sophocles ? 
 But in the former it is enveloped in a bitter rind, 
 and passes less into the whole work, since the 
 bond of sensuous Grace is yet wanting. But 
 out of this severity, and the still terrible charms 
 of earlier Art, could yet proceed the grace of 
 Sophocles, and with it the complete fusion of 
 the two elements, which leaves us doubtful 
 whether it is more moral or sensuous Grace 
 that enchants us in the works of this poet. 
 
 The same is true of the plastic productions 
 of the early and severe style, in comparison 
 with the gentleness of the later. 
 
 If Grace, besides being the transfiguration of 
 the spirit of Nature, is also the medium of con- 
 nection between moral Goodness and sensuous 
 Appearance, it is evident how Art must tend 
 from all points towards it as its centre. This 
 Beauty, which results from the perfect inter- 
 penetration of moral Goodness and sensuous 
 Grace, seizes and enchants us when we meet 
 it, with the force of a miracle. For, whilst the 
 spirit of Nature shows itself everywhere else 
 independent of the Soul, and, indeed, in a mea- 
 sure opposed to it, here, it seems, as if by volun- 
 tary accord, and the inward fire of divine love, 
 to melt into union with it: the remembrance of 
 the fundamental unity of the essence of Nature 
 and the essence of the Soul, comes over the 
 44 
 
518 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 beholder with sudden clearness: the conviction 
 that all antagonism is only apparent; that Love 
 is the bond of all things, and pure Goodness the 
 foundation and substance of the whole Creation. 
 
 Here Art as it were transcends itself, and 
 becomes means only. On this summit sensuous 
 Grace becomes in turn only the husk and body 
 of a higher life : what was before a whole is 
 treated as a part, and the highest relation of Art 
 and Nature is reached in this, that it makes 
 Nature the medium of manifesting the soul 
 which it contains. 
 
 But though in this blossoming of Art, as in 
 the blossoming of the vegetable kingdom, all 
 the previous stages are repeated, yet on the 
 other hand we may see in what various direc- 
 tions Art can proceed from this centre. Espe- 
 cially the difference in nature of the two forms 
 of plastic Art here shows itself most strongly. 
 For Sculpture, representing its ideas by corpo- 
 real things, seem to reach its highest point in 
 the complete equilibrium of Soul and Matter — 
 if it give a preponderance to the latter, it sinks 
 below its own idea — but it seems altogether 
 impossible for it to elevate the soul at the ex- 
 pense of Matter, since it must thereby transcend 
 itself. The perfect sculptor indeed, as Winkel- 
 mann remarks on occasion of the Belvidere 
 Apollo, will use no more material than is need- 
 ful to accomplish his spiritual purpose: but also 
 on the other hand he will put into the soul no 
 more energy than is at the same time expressed 
 in the material : for precisely upon this, fully 
 to embody the spiritual, depends his art. Sculp- 
 ture, therefore, can reach its true summit only 
 in the representation of those natures in whose 
 constitution it is implied that they actually em- 
 body all that is contained in their Idea or soul ; 
 thus only in divine natures. So that Sculpture, 
 even if no Mythology had preceded it, would 
 of itself have come upon Gods, and have in- 
 vented such if it found none. 
 
 Moreover as the Spirit, on this lower platform, 
 has again the same relation to Matter that we 
 have ascribed to the Soul, (being the principle 
 of activity and motion, as Matter is that of rest 
 and inaction,) the law that regulates Expression 
 and Passion, must be a fundamental principle 
 of its nature. 
 
 But this law must be applicable not only to 
 the lower passions, but also equally to those 
 higher and godlike passions, if it is permitted 
 so to call them, by which the Soul is affected 
 in rapture, in devotion, in adoration. Hence, 
 since from these passions the Gods alone are 
 exempt, Sculpture is inclined from this side also 
 to the imaging of divine natures. 
 
 The nature of Painting however seems to 
 differ entirely from that of Sculpture. For the 
 former represents objects not like the latter, by 
 corporeal things, but by light and color; through 
 a medium therefore itself incorporeal, and in a 
 measure spiritual. And Painting moreover 
 gives out its productions nowise as the things 
 themselves, but expressly as pictures. From 
 
 its very nature therefore it does not lay as much 
 stress on the material as Sculpture, and seems 
 indeed from this reason, when it exalts the ma- 
 terial above the spirit, to degrade itself more 
 than Sculpture in a like case : and on the other 
 hand to be yet more justified in giving a clear 
 preponderance to the soul. 
 
 Where it aims at the highest it will indeed 
 ennoble the passions by Character, or moderate 
 them by Grace, or manifest in them the power 
 of the Soul : but on the other hand it is precisely 
 those higher passions, depending on the rela- 
 tionship of the soul with a Supreme Being, that 
 are entirely suited to the nature of Painting. 
 Indeed while Sculpture maintains an exact ba- 
 lance between the force whereby a thing exists 
 outwardly and acts in Nature, and that by virtue 
 of which it lives inwardly and as soul, and ex- 
 cludes mere passivity even from Matter ; Paint- 
 ing on the contrary may soften in favor of the 
 soul the characteristicness of the force and acti- 
 vity in Matter, and transform it into resignation 
 and endurance, by which Man seems to become 
 more generally susceptible to the inspirations 
 of the soul, and to higher influences. 
 
 This diametrical difference explains of itself 
 not only the necessary predominance of Sculp- 
 ture in the ancient, and of Painting in the mo- 
 dern world, (since in the former the tone of 
 mind was thoroughly plastic, whereas the latter 
 makes even the soul the passive instrument of 
 higher revelations): but this also is evident; that 
 it is not enough to strive after the Plastic in 
 form and manner of representation, but that it 
 is requisite before all to think and to feel plas- 
 tically, that is, antiquely. 
 
 And as the deviation of Sculpture into the 
 picturesque is destructive to Art, so the narrow- 
 ing down of Painting to the conditions and 
 forms belonging to Sculpture, is an arbitrarily 
 imposed limitation. For while Sculpture, like 
 Gravitation, acts towards one point, it i^ per- 
 mitted to Painting, as to Light, to fill all space 
 with its creative energy. 
 
 This unlimited universality of Painting is 
 demonstrated by History itself, and by the ex- 
 amples of the greatest masters, who, without 
 injury to the essential character of their art, 
 have developed to perfection each particular 
 stage by itself: so that we can find also in the 
 history of Art the same sequence that may be 
 pointed out in its nature. Not indeed in exact 
 order of time, but yet substantially. For thus 
 is represented in Michael Angelo the oldest and 
 mightiest epoch of liberated Art; that in which 
 it displays its yet uncontrolled strength in gi- 
 gantic progeny: as in the fables of the symbolic 
 Fore-world, the Earth, after the embrace of 
 Uranus, brought forth at first Titans and hea- 
 ven-storming giants, before the mild reign of 
 the serene Gods began. 
 
 Thus the painting of the Last Judgment, with 
 which, as the sum of his art, that giant spirit 
 filled the Sistine Chapel, seems to remind us 
 more of the first ages of the Earth and its pro- 
 
519 
 
 ducts, than of its last. Attracted towards the 
 most hidden abysses of organic, particularly of 
 the human form, he shuns not the Terrible; 
 nay, he seeks it purposely, and startles it from its 
 repose in the dark workshops of Nature. Want 
 of delicacy, grace, pleasingness, he balances by 
 the extremest energy ; and if he excites horror 
 by his representations, it is the terror that, ac- 
 cording to fable, the ancient god Pan spreads 
 around him when he suddenly appears in the 
 assemblies of men. 
 
 It is the method of Nature to produce the ex- 
 traordinary by isolation and the exclusion of op- 
 posed qualities. Thus, it was necessary that, 
 in Michael Angelo, earnestness and the deep 
 significant energy of Nature should prevail, 
 rather than a sense for the grace and sensibility 
 that belong to the Soul, in order to display the 
 extreme of pure plastic force in the painting of 
 modern times. 
 
 After the earlier violence and the vehement 
 impulse of birth is assuaged, the spirit of Nature 
 is transfigured into Soul, and Grace is born. 
 This point Art reached, after Leonardo da Vinci, 
 in Correggio, in whose works the sensuous Soul 
 is the active principle of Beauty. 
 
 ******* 
 
 As the modern fable of Psyche closes the 
 circle of the old mythology ; so Painting, by 
 giving a preponderance to the Soul, attained a 
 new, though not a higher step of Art. 
 
 This Guido Reni strove after, and became the 
 proper painter of the soul. Such seems to us 
 to be the necessary interpretation of his whole 
 endeavor, often uncertain, and, in many of his 
 works, losing itself in the vague. 
 
 This is shown, as, perhaps, in few of his 
 other pictures, in the masterpiece that is offered 
 to the admiration of all in the great collection 
 of our king. 
 
 In the figure of the heavenwards ascending 
 virgin, all harshness and sternness is effaced 
 even to the last trace : and, indeed, does not 
 Painting itself seem in it to soar upwards, trans- 
 figured on its own pinions, as the liberated 
 Psyche delivered from the severity of Form? 
 
 Here nothing outward remains, with separate 
 natural force ; everything expresses receptivity 
 and still endurance, even the perishable flesh, 
 the character of which the Italian language de- 
 signates by the term morbidezza, altogether un- 
 like that with which Raphael invests the de- 
 scending Queen of Heaven, as she appears to 
 the adoring pope and a saint. 
 
 Though the remark be well-founded, that the 
 original of Guido's female heads is the Niobe 
 of antiquity, yet the ground of this similarity is 
 surely no mere intentional imitation ; perhaps a 
 like aim led to like means. 
 
 As the Florentine Niobe is an extreme in 
 Sculpture, and the representation in it of the 
 Soul; so this well-known picture is an extreme 
 in Painting, which here ventures to lay aside 
 even the requisite of shade and the obscure, and 
 to work almost with pure Light. 
 
 Even though it might be permitted to Paint- 
 ing, from its peculiar nature, to give a distinct 
 preponderance to the Soul, yet theory and in- 
 struction will do best constantly to aim at that 
 original Centre, whence alone Art may be pro- 
 duced ever anew ; whereas, at the stage last 
 mentioned, it must necessarily stand still, or 
 degenerate into cramped mannerism. For even 
 that higher passivity is opposed to the idea of 
 fully energetic Being, whose image and reflex 
 Art is called upon to display. 
 
 A right perception will ever enjoy seeing a 
 thing worthily, and, as far as possible, independ- 
 ently developed, even on this side of its indi- 
 viduality : yea, the Deity would look down with 
 pleasure on a creature that, gifted with a pure 
 soul, should stoutly assert the dignity of its na- 
 ture outwardly also, and by its energetic sensuous 
 existence. 
 
 We have seen how the work of Art, springing 
 up out of the depths of Nature, begins with de- 
 terminateness and limitation, unfolds its inward 
 plenitude and infinity, is finally transfigured in 
 Grace, and at last attains to Soul. But we can 
 conceive only in detail what, in the creative act 
 of mature Art, is but one operation. No theory 
 and no rules can give this spiritual creative 
 power. It is the pure gift of Nature, which 
 here, for the second time, makes a close ; for, 
 having fully actualized herself, she invests the 
 creature with her creative energy. But as, in 
 the grand progress of Art, these different stages 
 appeared successively, until, at the highest, all 
 joined in one ; so also, in particulars, sound cul- 
 ture can spring up only where it has unfolded 
 itself regularly from the germ and root to the 
 blossom. 
 
 The requirement that Art, like everything 
 living, should commence from the first rudi- 
 ments, and, to renew its youth, constantly return 
 to them, may seem a hard doctrine to an age 
 that has so often been assured that it has only 
 to take from works of Art already in existence 
 the most consummate Beauty, and thus as at a 
 step to reach the final goal. Have we not al- 
 ready the Excellent, the Perfect? How then 
 should we return to the rudimentary and un- 
 formed ? 
 
 Had the great founders of modern Art thought 
 thus, we should never have seen their miracles. 
 Before them also stood the creations of the an- 
 cients, round statues and works in relief, which 
 they might have transferred immediately to their 
 canvas. But such an appropriation of a Beauty 
 not self-won, and therefore unintelligible, would 
 not satisfy an artistic instinct that aimed through- 
 out at the fundamental, and from which the 
 Beautiful was again to create itself with free 
 original energy. They were not afraid, there- 
 fore, to appear simple, artless, dry, beside those 
 exalted ancients ; nor to cherish Art for a long 
 time in the undistinguished bud, until the period 
 of Grace had arrived. 
 
 Whence comes it that we still look upon these 
 works of the older masters, from Giotto to the 
 
520 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 teacher of Raphael, with a sort of reverence, 
 indeed with a certain predilection, if not that 
 the faithfulness of their endeavor, and the grand 
 earnestness of their serene voluntary limitation, 
 compels our respect and admiration. 
 
 The same relation that they held to the an- 
 cients, the present generation holds to them. 
 Their time and ours are joined by no living 
 transmission, no link of continuous organic 
 growth ; we must reproduce Art in the way 
 they did, but with energy of our own, in order 
 to be like them. 
 
 Even that Indian-summer of Art, at the end 
 of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth centuries, could call forth only a few new 
 blossoms on the old stem, but no productive 
 germs, still less plant a new tree of Art. But to 
 set aside the works of perfected Art, and to seek 
 out its scanty and simple beginnings, as some 
 have desired, would be a new and perhaps 
 greater mistake ; it would be no real return to 
 the fundamental : simplicity would be affecta- 
 tion, and grow into hypocritical show. 
 
 But what prospect does the present time offer 
 for an Art springing from a vigorous germ, and 
 growing up from the root? For it is in a great 
 measure dependant on the character of its time ; 
 and who would promise the approbation of the 
 present time to such earnest beginnings, when 
 Art, on the one hand, scarcely obtains equal 
 consideration with other instruments of prodigal 
 luxury ; and, on the other, artists and amateurs, 
 with entire want of ability to grasp Nature, 
 praise and demand the Ideal? 
 
 Art springs only from that powerful striving 
 of the inmost powers of the heart and the spirit, 
 which we call Inspiration. Everything that 
 from difficult or small beginnings has grown up 
 to great power and height, owes its growth to 
 Inspiration. Thus empires and states, thus arts 
 and sciences. But it is not the power of the 
 individual that accomplishes this, but the Spirit 
 alone, that diffuses itself over all. For Art 
 especially is dependant on the tone of the public 
 mind, as the more delicate plants on atmosphere 
 and weather : it needs a general enthusiasm for 
 Sublimity and Beauty, like that which, in the 
 time of the Medici, as a warm breath of spring, 
 called forth at once and together all those great 
 spirits. ******* 
 
 It is only when the public life is actuated by 
 the same forces through whose energy Art is 
 elevated, that the latter can derive any advan- 
 tage from it j for Art cannot, without giving up 
 
 the nobility of its nature, aim at anything out- 
 ward. 
 
 Art and Science can move only on their own 
 axes ; the artist, like every spiritual laborer, can 
 follow only the law that God and Nature have 
 written in his heart. None can help him — he 
 must help himself; nor can he be outwardly re- 
 warded, since anything that he should produce 
 for the sake of aught out of itself, would thereby 
 become a nullity. Hence, too, no one can direct 
 him, nor prescribe the path he is to tread. Is 
 he to be pitied if he have to contend against his 
 time, he is deserving of contempt if he truckle 
 to it. But how should it be even possible for 
 him to do this? Without great general enthu- 
 siasm there are only sects, no public opinion : 
 not an established taste, not the great ideas of a 
 whole people, but the voices of a few arbitrarily 
 appointed judges, determine as to merit; and 
 Art, which in its elevation is self-sufficing, courts 
 favor, and serves where it should rule. 
 
 To different ages are given different inspira- 
 tions. Can we expect none for this age, since 
 the new world now forming itself, as it exists 
 in part already outwardly, in part inwardly and 
 in the hearts of men, can no longer be measured 
 by any standard of previous opinion; and since 
 everything, on the contrary, loudly demands 
 higher standards and an entire renovation ? 
 
 Should not the sense to which Nature and 
 History have more livingly unfolded themselves, 
 restore to Art also its great arguments? The 
 attempt to draw sparks from the ashes of the 
 Past, and fan them again into a universal flame, 
 is a vain endeavor. Only a revolution in the 
 ideas themselves is able to raise Art from its 
 exhaustion : only new Knowledge, new Faith 
 can inspire it for the work, by which it can dis- 
 play, in a renewed life, a splendor like the past. 
 
 An Art in all respects the same as that of 
 foregoing centuries, will never return; for Na- 
 ture never repeats herself. Such a Raphael 
 will never be again, but another, who shall have 
 reached in an equally original manner the sum- 
 mit of Art. Only let the fundamental condi- 
 tions be fulfilled, and renewed Art will show, 
 like that which preceded it, in its first works, 
 its aim and intent. In the production of the 
 distinctly characteristic, if it proceed from a 
 fresh original energy, Grace is already present, 
 even though hidden, and in both the advent of 
 the soul already determined, Works produced, 
 in this manner, even in their rudimentary im- 
 perfection, are necessary and eternal. * * * 
 
ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN. 
 
 Bom 1776. Died 1822. 
 
 Hoffman is celebrated chiefly for his suc- 
 cessful use of the magic and demonic element 
 in fiction. In this particular he stands first 
 among the story-tellers of his time, and has had 
 many imitators both in Germany and in France. 
 But Hoffman does not revel in horrors for their 
 own sake ; he is not to be confounded with such 
 writers as Maturin, and Lewis, and Mrs. Rad- 
 cliffe, among English novelists. He does not 
 seek to make the flesh creep and the hair bris- 
 tle, but aims rather at the diaphragm. He 
 views all these infernalia on the humorous 
 side, and if any one trait is particularly promi- 
 nent in his writings it is irony. In him Ho- 
 garth and Hell-Breughel unite. Then, he was 
 a great musician, and had speculated, perhaps 
 as profoundly as any man, on the philosophy of 
 music, with which speculations his compositions 
 are often occupied and everywhere tinged. 
 
 Hoffman was a native of Konigsberg, where 
 he received his education, and devoted himself 
 to the study of the Law. After completing his 
 course, he received an appointment to an office 
 connected with his vocation, at Grosslogau, and 
 afterwards at Berlin. In 1800, he was made 
 assessor in the government of Posen ; in 1802, 
 he removed to Plozk, where he held the office 
 of counsellor; and in 1803, to Warsaw. At 
 the invasion of this city by the French, in 1806, 
 he was forced to lay down his office, and to 
 have recourse to music for a support. In 1808, 
 he was appointed director of music at the new 
 theatre in Bamberg, and thence went to Leip- 
 zig, and afterward to Dresden, in the same 
 capacity. In 1816, he was reinstated as coun- 
 sellor in the court of judicature, at Berlin, 
 where he died, July 24th, 1822. 
 
 Hoffman had much that was noble in his 
 character, but likewise much that was morbid 
 and vicious. With a recklessness not unfre- 
 quently found in connection with fine artistic, 
 and especially musical talent, he gave himself 
 up to sensual excess, and wasted body and soul 
 with riotous living. 
 
 His principal works are Fantasiestucke in 
 Callous manier, and the Serapiansbruder. 
 3q • 
 
 Besides these he published several volumes of 
 tales and works of fiction, some of which, as 
 the Meister Floh and the Lebensansichten des 
 Kater Murr, are satirical. 
 
 The following is Menzel's judgment con- 
 cerning him : 
 
 *' With Hoffman the sentimentality of Kleist 
 and the humor of Chamisso* appear to be fused 
 together. He became the head of the new de- 
 monic school, and the poetic Pluto who ruled 
 the dark realm in its widest extent. Or rather, 
 was he not himself ruled by it ] It is the poetry 
 of fear that gives all his works such a peculiar 
 stamp. Hence the sense of hearing, which is 
 so closely connected with the feeling of terror, 
 was with him so highly developed. Therefore 
 his ear detected everywhere the mysterious 
 tones of nature as well as of art. * * * 
 And yet we can accuse him of no exaggerated 
 softness or effeminate unmanliness; for his 
 principal works employ themselves with a pain, 
 with a despair, with a daring and an agony of 
 the thoughts, of which only man is capable, not 
 woman. It is disease, extravagance, delirium, 
 but still always manly. 
 
 " From the devil down to a wry-faced child's- 
 doll, from the dissonance of life which rends the 
 soul, down to a dissonance in music which only 
 rends the ear, the immeasurable kingdom of the 
 ugly, the repulsive, the annoying, was gathered 
 around him, and his descriptions paint alter- 
 nately these tormenting objects and the tor- 
 ments which they prepare for a beautiful soul, 
 with inimitable vividness and truth. He him- 
 self is that mad musician Kreisler, who, with 
 his delicate sense for the purest and holiest 
 tones, is driven to despair by the dissonances 
 which everywhere assail him maliciously, as 
 from hell. But he retained this delicate sense 
 not in music alone. In all the spheres of life 
 he finds, corresponding with musical disso- 
 nances, those ugly, hostile grimaces and demo- 
 nic Powers by which precisely the noblest 
 souls are most painfully stretched upon the 
 rack. ******* 
 
 * Author of Peter Sclemihl. 
 
 44 * (521) 
 
 ( 
 
522 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 " Hoffman's innermost being was music, and 
 the prayer of St. Anthony is never wanting to 
 his hellish caricatures, nor the Christmas bell 
 to the witches' Sabbath, nor to the concert of 
 devils the pure and piercing tone with which 
 the virgin soul takes leave of a shattered and 
 priceless instrument. It is true he paints to us 
 the soul only in its shattered state; but the 
 soul was ever noble, and carried heaven with 
 its harmony. 
 
 " Hoffman shares with Jean Paul his delicate 
 sensibility to painful impressions. * * * 
 Posterity will say that the dissonance which 
 
 pervades our time was seized by no poet so 
 poetically as by Hoffman ; and perhaps the 
 poetic spell consists precisely in this, that he 
 did not, like so many other poets, seek a politi- 
 cal solution of the dissonance, and appeal to the 
 future, but held fast the illusion of a black, 
 overshadowed fantasy, of a dream without 
 waking." 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say, that the tale 
 from which the following extracts are given, 
 is intended to allegorize the conflict between 
 the poetic and the prosaic in human life. 
 
 THE GOLDEN POT. 
 
 FIRST VIGIL. 
 
 The Mishaps of the Student Anselmus. Conrector Paulmann's 
 Tobacco-box, and the Gold-green Snakes. 
 
 Ox Ascension-day, about three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, there came a young man running 
 through the Schwarzthor, or Black Gate, out of 
 Dresden, and right into a basket of apples and 
 cakes, which an old and very ugly woman was 
 there exposing to sale. The crash was prodi- 
 gious; all that escaped being squelched to 
 pieces, was scattered away, and the street-ur- 
 chins joyfully divided the booty which this 
 quick gentleman had thrown them. At the 
 murder-shriek which the crone set up, her gos- 
 sips, leaving their cake and brandy-tables, en- 
 circled the young man, and with plebeian vio- 
 lence stormfully scolded him: so that, for shame 
 and vexation, he uttered no word, but merely 
 held out his small, and by no means particularly 
 well -filled purse, which the crone eagerly 
 clutched, and stuck into her pocket. The firm 
 ring now opened ; but as the young man started 
 olf, the crone called after him: "Ay, run, run 
 thy ways, thou Devil's bird ! To the Crystal 
 run ! to the Crystal!" The squealing, creaking 
 voice of the woman had something unearthly 
 in it: so that the promenaders paused in amaze- 
 ment, and the laugh, which at first had been 
 universal, instantly died away. The Student 
 Anselmus, for the young man was no other, felt 
 himself, though he did not in the least under- 
 stand these singular phrases, nevertheless seized 
 with a certain involuntary horror ; and he quick- 
 ened his steps still more, to escape the curious 
 looks of the multitude, which were all turned 
 towards him. As he worked his way through 
 the crowd of well-dressed people, he heard them 
 murmuring on all sides: "Poor young fellow ! 
 Ha ! what a cursed beldam it is !" The mys- 
 terious words of the crone had oddly enough 
 given this ludicrous adventure a sort of tragic 
 turn ; and the youth, before unobserved, was 
 now looked after with a certain sympathy. The 
 ladies, for his fine shape and handsome face-, 
 
 which the glow of inward anger was rendering 
 still more expressive, forgave him this awkward 
 step, as well as the dress he wore, though it 
 was utterly at variance with all mode. His 
 pike-gray frock was shaped as if the tailor had 
 known the modern form only by hearsay 5 and 
 his well-kept black satin lower habiliments gave 
 the whole a certain pedagogic air, to which the 
 gait and gesture of the wearer did not at all 
 correspond. 
 
 The Student had almost reached the end of 
 the alley which leads out to the Linke Bath ; 
 but his breath could stand such a rate no longer. 
 From running, he took to walking; but scarcely 
 did he yet dare to lift an eye from the ground ; 
 for he still saw apples and cakes dancing round 
 him ; and every kind look from this or that fair 
 damsel was to him but the reflex of the mock- 
 ing laughter at the Schwarzthor. In this mood, 
 he had got to the entrance of the Bath : one 
 group of holiday people after the other were 
 moving in. Music of wind-instruments re- 
 sounded from the place, and the din of merry 
 guests was growing louder and louder. The 
 poor Student Anselmus was almost on the point 
 of weeping; for he too had expected, Ascen- 
 sion-day having always been a family-festival 
 with him, to participate in the felicities of the 
 Linkean paradise ; nay, he had purposed even 
 to go the length of a half portion of coffee with 
 rum, and a whole bottle of double beer ; and 
 that he might carouse at his ease, had put more 
 money in his purse than was entirely conve- 
 nient or advisable. And now, by this fatal step 
 into the apple-basket, all that he had about him 
 had been swept away. Of coffee, of double or 
 single beer, of music, of looking at the bright 
 damsels; in a word, of all his fancied enjoy 
 ments, there was now nothing more to be said. 
 He glided slowly past; and at last turned down 
 the Elbe road, which at that time happened to 
 be quite solitary. 
 
 Beneath an elder-tree, which had grown out 
 through the wall, he found a kind green resting- 
 place : here he sat down, and filled a pipe from 
 the Sanitatsknaster, or Health-tobacco-box, of 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 G23 
 
 which his friend the Conrector Paulmann had 
 lately made him a present. Close before him, 
 rolled and chafed the gold-dyed waves of the 
 fair Elbe-stream: behind him rose lordly Dres- 
 den, stretching, bold and proud, its light towers 
 into the airy sky; which again, farther off, bent 
 itself down towards flowery meads and fresh 
 springing woods ; and in the dim distance, a 
 range of azure peaks gave notice of remote Bo- 
 hemia. But, heedless of this, the Student An- 
 selmus, looking gloomily before him, blew forth 
 his smoky clouds into the air. His chagrin at 
 length became audible, and he said : " Of a 
 truth, I am born to losses and crosses for my 
 life long! That in boyhood, at Odds or Evens, 
 1 could never once guess the right way; that 
 my bread and butter always fell on the but- 
 tered side ; of all these sorrows I will not speak : 
 but is it not a frightful destiny, that now, when, 
 in spite of Satan, I have become a student, I 
 must still be a jolthead as before ? Do I ever 
 put a new coat on, without the first day smear- 
 ing it with tallow, or on some ill-fastened nail 
 or other, tearing a cursed hole in it? Do I ever 
 bow to any Councillor or any lady, without 
 pitching the hat out of my hands, or even slid- 
 ing away on the smooth pavement, and shame- 
 fully oversetting? Had I not, every market- 
 day, while in Halle, a regular sum of from three 
 to four groschen to pay for broken pottery, the 
 Devil putting it into my head to walk straight 
 forward, like a leming-rat? Have I ever once 
 got to my college, or any place I was appointed 
 to, at the right time ? What availed it that I 
 set out half an hour before, and planted myself 
 at the door, with the knocker in my hand ? 
 Just as the clock is going to strike, souse! some 
 Devil pours a wash-basin down on me, or I 
 bolt against some fellow coming out, and get 
 myself engaged in endless quarrels till the time 
 is clean gone. 
 
 " Ah ! well-a-day ! whither are ye fled, ye 
 blissful dreams of coming fortune, when I proud- 
 ly thought that here I might even reach the 
 height of Privy Secretary? And has not my 
 evil star estranged from me my best patrons? 
 I learn, for instance, that the Councillor, to whom 
 I have a letter, cannot surfer cropt hair ; with 
 immensity of trouble, the barber fastens me a 
 little cue to my hindhead ; but at the first bow, 
 his unblessed knot gives way, and a little shock, 
 running snuffing about me, frisks off to the Privy 
 Councillor with the cue in his mouth. I spring 
 after it in terror ; and stumble against the table, 
 where he has been working while at breakfast; 
 and cups, plates, ink-glass, sand-box, rush jing- 
 ling to the floor, and a flood of chocolate and ink 
 overflows the Relation he has just been writing. 
 'Is the Devil in the man?' bellows the furious 
 Privy Councillor, and shoves me out of the room. 
 
 " What avails it that Conrector Paulmann 
 gave me hopes of a writership : will my malig- 
 nant fate allow it, which everywhere pursues 
 me? To-day even! Do but think of it ! I was 
 purposing to hold my good old Ascension-day 
 
 with right cheerfulness of soul : I would stretch 
 a point for once ; I might have gone, as well as 
 any other guest, into Linke's Bath, and called 
 out proudly: 'Marqueur! a bottle of double- 
 beer; best sort, if you please!' I might have 
 sat till far in the evening; and, moreover, close 
 by this or that fine party of well-dressed ladies. 
 I know it, I feel it! heart would have come into 
 me, I should have been quite another man ; nay, 
 I might have carried it so far, that when one or 
 other of them asked : 'What o'clock may it be?' 
 or 4 What is it they are playing?' I should have 
 started up with light grace, and without over- 
 turning my glass, or stumbling over the bench, 
 but in a curved posture, moving one step and a 
 half forward, I should have answered : 1 Give 
 me leave, mademoiselle ! it is the overture of 
 the Donanweibchen ;' or, 1 It is just going to strike 
 six.' Could any mortal in the world have taken 
 it ill of me? No! I say; the girls would have 
 looked over, smiling so roguishly; as they al- 
 ways do when I pluck up heart to show them 
 that I too understand the light tone of society, 
 and know how ladies should be spoken to. And 
 now the Devil himself leads me into that cursed 
 apple -basket, and now must I sit moping in 
 
 solitude, with nothing but a poor pipe of " 
 
 Here the Student Ansel mus was interrupted in 
 his soliloquy by a strange rustling and whisking, 
 which rose close by him in the grass, but soon 
 glided up into the twigs and leaves of the elder- 
 tree that stretched out over his head. It was 
 as if the evening wind were shaking the leaves ; 
 as if little birds were twittering among the 
 branches, moving their little wings in capricious 
 flutter to and fro. Then he heard a whispering 
 and lisping; and it seemed as if the blossoms 
 were sounding like little crystal bells. Ansel- 
 mus listened and listened. Ere long, the whis- 
 pering, and lisping 1 , and tinkling, he himself 
 knew not how, grew to faint and half-scattered 
 words : 
 
 " 'Twixtthis way, 'twixt that; 'twixt branches, 
 'twixt blossoms, come shoot, come twist and 
 twirl we ! Sisterkin, sisterkin ! up to the shine ; 
 up, down, through and through, quick! Sun- 
 rays yellow; evening-wind whispering; dew- 
 drops pattering; blossoms all singing: sing we 
 with branches and blossoms ! Stars soon glitter ; 
 must down: 'twixt this way, 'twixt that, come 
 shoot, come twist, come twirl we, sisterkin !" 
 
 And so it went along, in confused and con- 
 fusing speech. The Student Anselmus thought : 
 « Well, it is but the evening-wind, which to-night 
 truly is whispering distinctly enough." But at 
 that moment there sounded over his head, as it 
 were, a triple harmony of clear crystal bells: 
 he looked up, and perceived three little Snakes, 
 glittering with green and gold, twisted round 
 the branches, and stretching out their heads to 
 the evening sun. Then, again, began a whis- 
 pering and twittering in the same words as be- 
 fore, and the little Snakes went gliding and 
 caressing up and down through the twigs ; and 
 while they moved so rapidly, it was as if the 
 
524 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 elder-bush were scattering a thousand glittering 
 emeralds through the dark leaves. 
 
 "It is the evening sun which sports so in the 
 elder-bush," thought the Student Anselmus ; but 
 the bells sounded again; and Anselmus ob- 
 served that one Snake held out its little head to 
 him. Through all his limbs there went a shock 
 like electricity; he quivered in his inmost heart; 
 he kept gazing up, and a pair of glorious dark- 
 blue eyes were looking at him with unspeakable 
 longing; and an unknown feeling of highest 
 blessedness and deepest sorrow was like to rend 
 his heart asunder. And as he looked, and still 
 looked, full of warm desire, into these kind eyes, 
 the crystal bells sounded louder in harmonious 
 accord, and the glittering emeralds fell down 
 and encircled him, flickering round him in thou- 
 sand sparkles, and sporting in resplendent 
 threads of gold. The Elder-bush moved and 
 spoke : " Thou layest in my shadow ; my per- 
 fume flowed round thee, but thou understoodst 
 it not. The perfume is my speech, when Love 
 kindles it." The Evening- Wind came gliding 
 past, and said : " I played round thy temples, 
 but thou understoodst me not. That breath is 
 my speech, when Love kindles it." The Sun- 
 beam broke through the clouds, and the sheen 
 of it burnt, as in words : " I overflowed thee 
 with glowing gold, but thou understoodst me 
 not : That glow is my speech, when Love kin- 
 dles it." 
 
 And, still deeper and deeper sunk in the 
 view of these glorious eyes, his longing grew 
 keener, his desire more warm. And all rose 
 and moved around him, as if awakening to glad 
 life. Flowers and blossoms shed their odors 
 round him ; and their odor was like the lordly 
 singing of a thousand softest voices ; and what 
 they sung was borne, like an echo, on the golden 
 evening clouds, as they flitted away, into far-off 
 lands. But as the last sun-beam abruptly sank 
 behind the hills, and the twilight threw its veil 
 over the scene, there came a hoarse deep voice, 
 as from a great distance : 
 
 " Hey ! hey ! what chattering and jingling is 
 that up there? Hey! hey! who catches me 
 the ray behind the hills ? Sunned enough, sung 
 enough. Hey ! hey ! through bush and grass, 
 through grass and stream. Hey ! hey ! Come 
 dow-w-n, dow-w-w-n !" 
 
 So faded the voice away, as in murmurs of a 
 distant thunder ; but the crystal bells broke off 
 in sharp discords. All became mute; and the 
 Student Anselmus observed how the three 
 Snakes, glittering and sparkling, glided through 
 the grass towards the river; rustling and hus- 
 tling, they rushed into the Elbe ; and over the 
 waves where they vanished, there crackled up 
 a green flame, which, gleaming forward ob- 
 liquely, vanished in the direction of the city. 
 
 SECOND VIGIL. 
 
 How the Student Anselmus was looked upon as drunk and mad. 
 The crossing of the Elbe. Bandmaster Graun's Bravura. Con- 
 radi's Stomachic Liqueur, and the bronzed Apple-woman. 
 
 " The gentleman is ailing some way !" said a 
 
 decent burgher's wife, who, returning from a 
 walk with her family, had paused here, and, 
 with crossed arms, was looking at the mad 
 pranks of the Student Anselmus. Anselmus 
 had clasped the trunk of the elder-tree, and 
 was calling incessantly up to the branches and 
 leaves : " glitter and shine once more, ye dear 
 gold Snakes ; let me hear your little bell-voices 
 once more ! Look on me once more, ye kind 
 eyes ; once, or I must die in pain and warm 
 longing !" And with this, he was sighing and 
 sobbing from the bottom of his heart most piti- 
 fully; and in his eagerness and impatience, 
 shaking the elder-tree to and fro ; which, how- 
 ever, instead of any reply, rustled quite stupidly 
 and unintelligibly with its leaves; and so rather 
 seemed, as it were, to make sport of the Stu- 
 dent Anselmus and his sorrows. 
 
 "The gentleman is ailing some way!" said 
 the burgher's wife; and Anselmus felt as if you 
 had shaken him out of a deep dream, or poured 
 ice-cold water on him, that he might awaken 
 without loss of time. He now first saw clearly 
 where he was; and recollected what a strange 
 apparition had assaulted him, nay, so beguiled 
 his senses, as to make him break forth into loud 
 talk with himself. In astonishment, he gazed 
 at the woman; and at last snatching up his hat, 
 which had fallen to the ground in his transport, 
 was for making off in all speed. The burgher 
 himself had come forward in the meanwhile; 
 and, setting down the child from his arm on the 
 grass, had been leaning on his staff, and with 
 amazement listening and looking at the Stu- 
 dent. He now picked up the pipe and tobacco- 
 box which the Student had let fall, and, hold- 
 ing them out to him, said: "Don't take on so 
 dreadfully, my worthy sir, or alarm people in 
 the dark, when nothing is the matter, after all, 
 but a drop or two of christian liquor : go home, 
 like a pretty man, and take a nap of sleep on it." 
 
 The Student Anselmus felt exceedingly 
 ashamed ; he uttered nothing but a most la- 
 mentable Ah ! 
 
 " Pooh ! Pooh !" said the burgher, " never 
 mind it a jot; such a thing will happen to the 
 best; on good old Ascension-day a man may 
 readily enough forget himself in his joy, and 
 gulp down a thought too much. A clergyman 
 himself is no worse for it : I presume, my 
 worthy sir, you are a Candidatus. — But, with 
 your leave, sir, I shall fill my pipe with your 
 tobacco ; mine went done a little while ago." 
 
 This last sentence the burgher uttered while 
 the Student Anselmus was about putting up his 
 pipe and box; and now the burgher slowly mid 
 deliberately cleaned his pipe, and began as 
 slowly to fill it. Several burgher girls had 
 come up : these were speaking secretly with 
 the woman and each other, and tittering as they 
 looked at Anselmus. The Student felt as if he 
 were standing on prickly thorns, and burning 
 needles. No sooner had he got back his pipe 
 and tobacco-box, than he darted off at the height 
 of his speed. 
 
HOFFMANN. 525 
 
 All the strange things he had seen were clean 
 gone from his memory: he simply recollected 
 having babbled all manner of foolish stuff be- 
 neath the elder-tree. This was the more fright- 
 ful to him, as he entertained from of old an in- 
 ward horror against all soliloquists. It is Satan 
 that chatters out of them, said his Rector ; and 
 Anselmus had honestly believed him. But to 
 be regarded as a Candidatus Theologice, over- 
 taken with drink on Ascension-day ! The thought 
 was intolerable. 
 
 Running on with these mad vexations, he 
 was just about turning up the Poplar Alley, by 
 the Kosel garden, when a voice behind him 
 called out: " Herr Anselmus ! Herr Anselmus ! 
 for the love of Heaven, whither are you run- 
 ning in such haste 1 ?" The Student paused, as 
 if rooted to the ground ; for he was convinced 
 that now some new mischance would befall 
 him. The voice rose again : " Herr Anselmus, 
 come back, then : we are waiting for you here 
 at the water !" And now the Student perceived 
 that it was his friend Conrector Paulmann's 
 voice : he went back to the Elbe ; and found 
 the Conrector, with his two daughters, as well 
 as Registrator Heerbrand, all on the point of 
 stepping into their gondola. Conrector Paul- 
 mann invited the Student to go with them 
 across the Elbe, and then to pass the evening 
 at his house in the Pirna suburb. The Student 
 Anselmus very gladly accepted this proposal ; 
 thinking thereby to escape the malignant des- 
 tiny, which had ruled over him all day. 
 
 Now, as they were crossing the river, it 
 chanced that, on the farther bank, in the Anton 
 garden, a firework was just going off. Sputter- 
 ing and hissing, the rockets went aloft, and their 
 blazing stars flew to pieces in the air, scattering 
 a thousand vague shoots and flashes round 
 them. The Student Anselmus was sitting by 
 the steersman, sunk in deep thought ; but when 
 he noticed in the water the reflection of these 
 darting and wavering sparks and flames, he 
 felt as if it was the little golden Snakes that 
 were sporting in the flood. All the wonders 
 that he had seen at the elder-tree again started 
 forth into his heart and thoughts ; and again 
 that unspeakable longing, that glowing desire, 
 laid hold of him here, which had before agi- 
 tated his bosom in painful spasms of rapture. 
 
 " Ah ! is it you again, my little golden 
 Snakes? Sing now, O sing! In your song let 
 the kind, dear, dark-blue eyes, again appear to 
 me — Ah? are ye under the waves, then?' 1 
 
 So cried the Student Anselmus, and at the 
 same time made a violent movement, as if he 
 were for plunging from the gondola into the 
 river. 
 
 " Is the Devil in you, sir ?" exclaimed the 
 steersman, and clutched him by the coat-breast. 
 The girls, who were sitting by him, shrieked in 
 terror, and fled to the other side of the gondola. 
 Registrator Heerbrand whispered something in 
 Conrector Paulmann's ear, to which the latter 
 answered at considerable length, but in so low 
 
 a tone, that Anselmus could distinguish nothing 
 but the words : " Such attacks more than once ? 
 — Never heard of it." Directly after this, Con- 
 rector Paulmann also rose; and then sat down, 
 with a certain earnest, grave, official mien, 
 beside the Student Anselmus, taking his hand, 
 and saying: "How are you, Herr Anselmus?" 
 The Student Anselmus was like to lose his wits, 
 for in his mind there was a mad contradiction, 
 which he strove in vain to reconcile. He now 
 saw plainly that what he had taken for the 
 gleaming of the golden Snakes was nothing but 
 the image of the fireworks in Anton's garden: 
 but a feeling unexperienced till now, he him- 
 self knew not whether it was rapture or pain, 
 cramped his breast together ; and when the 
 steersman struck through the water with his 
 helm, so that the waves, curling as in anger, 
 gurgled and chafed, he heard in their din a soft 
 whispering: "Anselmus! Anselmus! seest thou 
 not how we still skim along before thee ? Sis- 
 terkin looks at thee again : believe, believe, 
 believe in us!" And he thought he saw in the 
 reflected light three green-glowing streaks : but 
 then, when he gazed, full of fond sadness, into 
 the water, to see whether these gentle eyes 
 would not again look up to him, he perceived 
 too well that the shine proceeded only from the 
 windows in the neighbouring houses. He was 
 sitting mute in his place, and inwardly battling 
 with himself, when Conrector Paulmann re- 
 peated, with still greater emphasis: "How are 
 you, Herr Anselmus ?" 
 
 With the most rueful tone, Anselmus replied: 
 "Ah! Herr Conrector, if you knew what strange 
 things I have been dreaming, quite awake, with 
 open eyes, just now, under an elder-tree at the 
 wall of Linke's garden, you would not take it 
 amiss of me that I am a little absent, or so." 
 
 "Ey, ey, Herr Anselmus!" interrupted Con- 
 rector Paulmann, "I have always taken you for 
 a solid young man : but to dream, to dream 
 with your eyes wide open, and then, all at 
 once, to start up for leaping into the water ! 
 This, begging your pardon, is what only fools 
 or madmen could do." 
 
 The Student Anselmus was deeply affected 
 at his friend's hard saying ; then Veronica, 
 Paulmann's eldest daughter, a most pretty 
 blooming girl of sixteen, addressed her father : 
 "But, dear father, something singular must have 
 befallen Herr Auselmus ; and perhaps he only 
 thinks he was awake, while he may have really 
 been asleep: and so all manner of wild stuff 
 has come into his head, and is still lying in his 
 thoughts." 
 
 "And, dearest Mademoiselle! Worthy Con- 
 rector!" cried Registrator Heerbrand, " may one 
 not, even when awake, sometimes sink into a 
 sort of dreaming state? I myself have had 
 such fits. One afternoon, for instance, during 
 coffee, in a sort of brown study like this, in the 
 special season of corporeal and spiritual diges- 
 tion, the place where a lost Act was lying oc- 
 curred to me, as if by inspiration; and last 
 
52C 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 night, no farther gone, there came a glorious 
 large Latin paper tripping out before my open 
 eyes, in the very same way." 
 
 " Ah ! most honoured Registrator," answered 
 Conrector Paulmann j "you have always had a 
 tendency to the Poelica ; and thus one falls into 
 fantasies and romantic humors." 
 
 The Student Anselmus, however, was par- 
 ticularly gratified that in this most troublous 
 situation, while in danger of being considered 
 drunk or crazy, any one should take his part; 
 and though it was already pretty dark, he 
 thought he noticed, for the first time, that Ve- 
 ronica had really very fine dark-blue eyes, and 
 this too without remembering the strange pair 
 which he had looked at in the elder-bush. On 
 the whole, the adventure under the elder-bush 
 had once more entirely vanished from the 
 thoughts of the Student Anselmus; he felt him- 
 self at ease and light of heart; nay, in the 
 capriciousness of joy, he carried it so far, that 
 he offered a helping hand to his fair advocate, 
 Veronica, as she was stepping from the gon- 
 dola; and without more ado, as she put her 
 arm in his, escorted her home with so much 
 dexterity and good luck, that he only missed his 
 footing once, and this being the only wet spot 
 in the whole road, only spattered Veronica's 
 white gown a very little by the incident. 
 
 Conrector Paulmann failed not to observe this 
 happy change in the Student Anselmus; he re- 
 sumed his liking for him, and begged forgive- 
 ness for the hard words which he had let fall 
 before. " Yes," added he, " we have many ex- 
 amples to show that certain phantasms may rise 
 before a man, and pester and plague him not a 
 little ; but this is bodily disease, and leeches are 
 good for it, if applied to the right part, as a coi 
 tain learned physician, now deceased, has di- 
 rected." The Student Anselmus knew not 
 whether he had been drunk, crazy, or sick ; but 
 at all events the leeches seemed entirely super- 
 fluous, as these supposed phantasms had utterly 
 vanished, and the Student himself was growing 
 happier and happier, the more he prospered in 
 serving the pretty Veronica with all sorts of 
 dainty attentions. , 
 
 As usual, after the frugal meal, came music; 
 the Student Anselmus had to take his seat be- 
 fore the harpsichord, and Veronica accompanied 
 his playing with her pure clear voice : " Dear 
 Mademoiselle," said Registrator Heerbrand, 
 " you have a voice like a crystal bell !" 
 
 "That she has not!" ejaculated the Student 
 Anselmus, he scarcely knew how. " Crystal 
 bells in elder-trees sound strangely ! strangely !" 
 continued the Student Anselmus, murmuring 
 half aloud. 
 
 Veronica laid her hand on his shoulder, and 
 asked: "What are you saying now, Herr An- 
 selmus ?" 
 
 Instantly Anselmus recovered his cheerful- 
 ness, and began playing. Conrector Paulmann 
 gave a grim look at him ; but Registrator Heer- 
 brand laid a music-leaf on the frame, and sang 
 
 with ravishing grace one of Bandmaster Graun's 
 bravura airs. The Student Anselmus accompa- 
 nied this, and much more; and a fantasy duet, 
 which Veronica and he now fingered, and Con- 
 rector Paulmann had himself composed, again 
 brought all into the gayest humor. 
 
 It was now pretty late, and Registrator Heer- 
 brand was taking up his hat and stick, when 
 Conrector Paulmann went up to him with a 
 mysterious air, and said: "Hem! — Would not 
 you, honored Registrator, mention to the good 
 Herr Anselmus himself — Hem! what we were 
 speaking of before V 
 
 "With all the pleasure in nature," said Re- 
 gistrator Heerbrand, and having placed himself 
 in the circle, began, without farther preamble, 
 as follows : 
 
 "In this city is a strange remarkable man, 
 people say he follows all manner of secret sci- 
 ences ; but as there are no such sciences, I rather 
 take him for an antiquary, and along with this, 
 for an experimental chemist. I mean no other 
 than our Privy Archivarius Lindhorst. He lives, 
 as you know, by himself, in his old sequestered 
 house ; and when disengaged from his office, 
 he is to be found in his library, or in his chemi- 
 cal laboratory, to which, however, he admits no 
 stranger. Besides many curious books, he pos- 
 sesses a number of manuscripts, partly Arabic, 
 Coptic, and some of them in strange characters, 
 which belong not to any known tongue. These 
 he wishes to have copied properly ; and for this 
 purpose he requires a man who can draw with 
 the pen, and so transfer these marks to parch- 
 ment, in Indian ink, with the highest strictness 
 and fidelity. The work is carried on in a sepa- 
 rate chamber of his house, under his own over- 
 «'tfht; and besides free board during the time 
 of business, he pays his man a speziesthaler, or 
 specie-dollar, daily, and promises a handsome 
 present when the copying is rightly finished. 
 The hours of work are from twelve to six. 
 From three to four, you take rest and dinner. 
 
 " Herr Archivarius Lindhorst having in vain 
 tried one or two young people for copying these 
 manuscripts, has at last applied to me to find 
 him an expert drawer ; and so I have been 
 thinking of you, dear Herr Anselmus, for I know 
 that you both write very neatly, and likewise 
 draw with the pen to great perfection. Now, 
 if in these bad times, and till your future esta- 
 blishment, you could like to earn a speziesthaler 
 in the day, and this present over and above, 
 you can go to-morrow precisely at noon, and 
 call upon the Archivarius, whose house no doubt 
 you know. But be on your guard against any 
 blot ! If such a thing falls on your copy, you 
 must begin it again ; if it falls on the original, 
 the Archivarius will think nothing to throw you 
 over the window, for he is a hot-tempered gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 The student Anselmus was filled with joy at 
 Registrator Heerbrand's proposal ; for not only 
 could the Student write well and draw well 
 with the pen, but this copying with laborious 
 
HOFFMANN. 527 
 
 calligraphic pains was a thing he delighted in 
 beyond aught else. So he thanked his patron 
 in the most grateful terms, and promised not to 
 fail at noon to-morrow. 
 
 All night the Student Anselmus saw nothing 
 but clear speziesthalers, and heard nothing but 
 their lovely clink. Who could blame the poor 
 youth, cheated of so many hopes by capricious 
 destiny, obliged to take counsel about every 
 farthing, and to forego so many joys which a 
 young heart requires! Early in the morning 
 he brought out his black-lead pencils, his crow- 
 quills, his Indian ink ; for better materials, 
 thought he, the Archivarius can find nowhere. 
 Above all, he mustered and arranged his calli- 
 graphic masterpieces and his drawings, to show 
 them to the Archivarius, in proof of his ability 
 to do what he wished. All prospered with the 
 Student; a peculiar happy star seemed to be 
 presiding over him ; his neckcloth sat right at 
 the very first trial ; no tack burst ; no loop gave 
 way in his black silk stockings ; his hat did not 
 once fall to the dust after he had trimmed it. 
 In a word, precisely at half-past eleven, the 
 Student Anselmus, in his pike-grey frock, and 
 black satin lower habiliments, with a roll of 
 calligraphics and pen-drawings in his pocket, 
 was standing in the Schlossgasse, or Castle- 
 gate, in Conradi's shop, and drinking one — two 
 glasses of the best stomachic liqueur ; for here, 
 thought he, slapping on the still empty pocket, 
 for here speziesthalers will be chinking soon. 
 
 Notwithstanding the distance of the solitary 
 street where the Archivarius Lindhorst's an- 
 tique residence lay, the Student Anselmus was 
 at the front-door before the stroke of twelve. 
 He stood here, and was looking at the large fine 
 bronze knocker ; but now when, as the last 
 stroke tingled through the air with loud clang 
 from the steeple-clock of the Kreuzkirche, or 
 Cross-church, he lifted his hand to grasp this 
 same knocker, the metal visage twisted itself, 
 with horrid rolling of its blue-gleaming eyes, 
 into a grinning smile. Alas, it was the Apple- 
 woman of the Schwarzthor ! The pointed teeth 
 gnashed together in the loose jaws, and in their 
 chattering through the skinny lips, there was a 
 growl of: "Thou fool, fool, fool! — Wait, wait! 
 — Why didst run ! — Fool !" Horror-struck, the 
 Student Anselmus flew back; he clutched at 
 the door-post, but his hand caught the bell-rope, 
 and pulled it, and in piercing discords it rung 
 stronger and stronger, and through the whole 
 empty house the echo repeated, as in mockery: 
 " To the crystal, fall !" An unearthly terror 
 seized the Student Anselmus, and quivered 
 through all his limbs. The bell-rope lengthened 
 downwards, and became a white transparent 
 gigantic serpent, which encircled and crushed 
 him, and girded him straiter and straiter in its 
 coils, till his brittle paralysed limb3 went crash- 
 ing in pieces, and the blood spouted from his 
 veins, penetrating into the transparent body of 
 the serpeut, and dyeing it red. "Kill me! Kill 
 me !" he would have cried, in his horrible 
 
 agony; but the cry was only a stifled gurgle in 
 his throat. The serpent lifted its head, and laid 
 its long peaked tongue of glowing brass on the 
 breast of Anselmus ; then a fierce pang suddenly 
 cut asunder the artery of life, and thought lied 
 away from him. On returning to his senses, 
 he was lying on his own poor truckle-bed ; Con- 
 rector Paulmann was standing before him, and 
 saying: "For Heaven's sake, what mad stuff is 
 this, dear Herr Anselmus?" 
 
 SIXTH VIGIL. 
 
 Archivarius Lindhorst's Garden, with some Mock-birds. The 
 Golden Pot. English current-hand. Pot-hooks. The Prince 
 of the Spirits. 
 
 " It may be, after all," said the Student An- 
 selmus to himself, "that the superfine strong 
 stomachic liqueur, which I took somewhat freely 
 in Monsieur Conradi's, might really be the cause 
 of all these shocking phantasms, which so tor- 
 tured me at Archivarius Lindhorst's door. 
 Therefore, I will go quite sober to-day ; and so 
 bid defiance to whatever farther mischief may 
 assail me." On this occasion, as before when 
 equipping himself for his first call on Archiva- 
 rius Lindhorst, the Student Anselmus put his 
 pen-drawings, and calligraphic masterpieces, 
 his bars of Indian ink, and his well-pointed 
 crow-pens, into his pockets; and was just turn- 
 ing to go out, when his eye lighted on the vial 
 with the yellow liquor, which he had received 
 from Archivarius Lindhorst. All the strange 
 adventures he had met with again rose on his 
 mind in glowing colours ; and a nameless emo- 
 tion of rapture and pain thrilled through his 
 breast. Involuntarily he exclaimed, with a 
 most piteous voice : "Ah, am not I going to the 
 Archivarius solely for a sight of thee, thou gentle 
 lovely Serpentina!" At that moment, he felt 
 as if Serpentina's love might be the prize of 
 some laborious perilous task which he had to 
 undertake ; and as if this task were no other 
 than the copying of the Lindhorst manuscripts. 
 That at his very entrance into the house, or 
 more properly, before his entrance, all manner 
 of mysterious things might happen, as of late, 
 was no more than he anticipated. He thought 
 no more of Conradi's strong water ; but hastily 
 put the vial of liquor in his waistcoat-pocket, 
 that he might act strictly by the Archivarius' 
 directions, should the bronzed Apple-woman 
 again take it upon her to make faces at him. 
 
 And did not the hawk-nose actually peak it- 
 self, did not the cat-eyes actually glare from the 
 knocker, as he raised his hand to it, at the stroke 
 of twelve ! But now, without farther ceremony, 
 he dribbled his liquor into the pestilent visage ; 
 and it folded and moulded itself, that instant, 
 down to a glittering bowl-round knocker. The 
 door went up: the bells sounded beautifully 
 over all the house: " Klingling, youngling, in, 
 in, spring, spring, klingling." In good heart he 
 mounted the fine broad stair ; and feasted on 
 the odors of some strange perfumery, that was 
 floating through the house. In doubt, he paused 
 
528 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 on the lobby ; for he knew not at which of these 
 many fine doors he was to knock. But Archi- 
 varius Lindhorst, in a white damask night-gown, 
 stept forth to him, and said : " Well, it is a real 
 pleasure to me, Herr Anselmus, that you have 
 kept your word at last. Come this way, if you 
 please ; I must take you straight into the Labo- 
 ratory. 1 ' And with this he stept rapidly through 
 the lobby, and opened a little side-door, which 
 led into a long passage. Anselmus walked on 
 in high spirits, behind the Archivarius ; they 
 passed from this corridor into a hall, or rather 
 into a lordly green-house : for on both sides, up 
 to the ceiling, stood all manner of rare won- 
 drous flowers, nay, great trees with strangely- 
 formed leaves and blossoms. A magic dazzling 
 light shone over the whole, though you could 
 not discover whence it came, for no window 
 whatever was to be seen. As the Student An- 
 selmus looked in through the bushes and trees, 
 long avenues appeared to open in remote dis- 
 tance. In the deep shade of thick cypress 
 groves, lay glittering marble fountains, out of 
 which rose wondrous figures, spouting crystal 
 jets that fell with pattering spray into the gleam- 
 ing lily-cups ; strange voices cooed and rustled 
 through the wood of curious trees ; and sweetest 
 perfumes streamed up and down. 
 
 The Archivarius had vanished : and Ansel- 
 mus saw nothing but a huge bush of glowing 
 fire -lilies before him. Intoxicated with the 
 sight and the fine odors of this fairy-garden, 
 Anselmus stood fixed to the spot. Then began 
 on all sides of him a giggling and laughing; and 
 light little voices railed and mocked him : "Herr 
 Studiosus! Herr Studiosus! how came you 
 hither? Why have you dressed so bravely, 
 Herr Anselmus ? Will you chat with us for a 
 minute, how grandmammy sat squelching down 
 upon the egg, and young master got a stain on 
 his Sunday waistcoat? — Can you play the new 
 tune, now, which you learned from Daddy 
 Cockadoodle, Herr Anselmus ? — You look very 
 fine in your glass periwig, and post-paper boots." 
 So cried and chattered and sniggered the little 
 voices, out of every corner, nay, close by the 
 Student himself, who now observed that all 
 sorts of party-colored birds were fluttering 
 above him, and jeering him in hearty laughter. 
 At that moment, the bush of fire-lilies advanced 
 towards him ; and he perceived that it was 
 Archivarius Lindhorst, whose flowered night- 
 gown, glittering in red and yellow, had so far 
 deceived his eyes. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, worthy Herr Anselmus," 
 said the Archivarius, "for leaving you alone: I 
 wished, in passing, to take a peep at my fine 
 cactus, which is to blossom to-night. But how 
 like you my little house-garden?" 
 
 "Ah, Heaven! Immeasurably pretty it is, 
 most valued Herr Archivarius," replied the Stu- 
 dent ; " but those party-colored birds have been 
 bantering me a little." 
 
 " What chattering is this ?" cried the Archi- 
 varius angrily into the bushes. Then a huge 
 
 grey Parrot came fluttering out, and perched 
 itself beside the Archivarius on a myrtle-bough; 
 and looking at him with an uncommon earnest- 
 ness and gravity through a pair of spectacles 
 that stuck on his hooked bill, it creaked out: 
 " Don't take it amiss, Herr Archivarius ; my 
 wild boys have been a little free or so ; but the 
 Herr Studiosus has himself to blame in the 
 matter, for " 
 
 "Hush! hush!" interrupted Archivarius Lind- 
 horst; " I know the varlets ; but thou must keep 
 them in better discipline, my friend !— -Now, 
 come along, Herr Anselmus." 
 
 And the Archivarius again stept forth, through 
 many a strangely-decorated chamber ; so that 
 the Student Anselmus, in following him, could 
 scarcely give a glance at all the glittering won- 
 drous furniture, and other unknown things, with 
 which the whole of them were filled. At last 
 they entered a large apartment ; where the Ar- 
 chivarius, casting his eyes aloft, stood still ; and 
 Anselmus got time to feast himself on the glo- 
 rious sight, which the simple decoration of this 
 hall afforded. Jutting from the azure-colored 
 walls, rose gold-bronze trunks of high palm- 
 trees, which wove their colossal leaves, glitter- 
 ing like bright emeralds, into a ceiling far up: 
 in the middle of the chamber, and resting on 
 three Egyptian lions, cast out of dark bronze, 
 lay a porphyry plate ; and on this stood a simple 
 Golden Pot, from which, so soon as he beheld 
 it, Anselmus could not turn away an eye. It 
 was as if, in a thousand gleaming reflexes, all 
 sorts of shapes were sporting on the bright po- 
 lished gold : often he perceived his own form, 
 with arms stretched out in longing — ah! be- 
 neath the elder-bush, — and Serpentina was 
 winding and shooting up and down, and again 
 looking at him with her kind eyes. Anselmus 
 was beside himself with frantic rapture. 
 
 "Serpentina! Serpentina!" cried he aloud; 
 and Archivarius Lindhorst whirled round ab- 
 ruptly, and said : " How now, worthy Herr 
 Anselmus ? If I mistake not, you were pleased 
 to call for my daughter ; she is quite in the 
 other side of the house at present, and indeed 
 just taking her lesson on the harpsichord. Let 
 us go along." 
 
 Anselmus, scarcely knowing what he did, 
 followed his conductor ; he saw or heard no- 
 thing more, till Archivarius Lindhorst suddenly 
 grasped his hand, and said : " Here is the 
 place !" Anselmus awoke as from a dream, 
 and now perceived that he was in a high room, 
 all lined on every side with book-shelves, and 
 nowise differing from a common library and 
 study. In the middle stood a large writing- 
 table, with a stuffed arm-chair before it. " This," 
 said Archivarius Lindhorst, "is your work-room 
 for the present : whether you may work, some 
 other time, in the blue library, where you so 
 suddenly called out my daughter's name, I yet 
 know not. But now I could wish to convince 
 myself of your ability to execute this task ap- 
 pointed you, in the way I wish it and need it." 
 
HOFFMANN. 529 
 
 The Student here gathered full courage ; and 
 not without internal self-complacence in the 
 certainty of highly gratifying Archivarius Lind- 
 horst, pulled out his drawings and specimens 
 of penmanship from his pocket. But no sooner 
 had the Archivarius cast his eye on the first 
 leaf, a piece of writing in the finest English 
 style, than he smiled very oddly, and shook his 
 head. These motions he repeated at every fol- 
 lowing leaf, so that the Student Anselmus felt 
 the blood mounting to his face ; and at last, 
 when the smile became quite sarcastic and 
 contemptuous, he broke out in downright vexa- 
 tion : "The Herr Archivarius does not seem 
 contented with my poor talents." 
 
 " Dear Herr Anselmus," said Archivarius 
 Lindhorst, "you have indeed fine capacities for 
 the art of calligraphy; but, in the meanwhile, 
 it is clear enough, I must reckon more on your 
 diligence and good-will, than on your attain- 
 ments in the business." 
 
 The Student Anselmus spoke largely of his 
 often-acknowledged perfection in this art, of his 
 fine Chinese ink, and most select crow-quills. 
 But Archivarius Lindhorst handed him the 
 English sheet, and said : " Be judge yourself!" 
 Anselmus felt as if struck by a thunderbolt, to 
 see his hand-writing look so: it was miserable, 
 beyond measure. There was no rounding in 
 the turns, no hair-stroke where it should be ; no 
 proportion between the capital and single let- 
 ters ; nay, villainous school-boy pot-hooks often 
 spoiled the best lines. "And then," continued 
 Archivarius Lindhorst, "your ink will not 
 stand." He dipt his finger in a glass of water, 
 and as he just skimmed it over the lines, they 
 vanished without vestige. The Student Ansel- 
 mus felt as if some monster were throttling him : 
 he could not utter a word. There stood he, 
 with the unlucky sheet in his hand ; but Archi- 
 varius Lindhorst laughed aloud, and said: 
 "Never mind it, dearest Herr Anselmus; what 
 you could not perfect before, will perhaps do 
 better here. At any rate, you shall have better 
 materials than you have been accustomed to. 
 Begin, in Heaven's name !" 
 
 From a locked press, Archivarius Lindhorst 
 now brought out a black fluid substance, which 
 diffused a most peculiar odor ; also pens, sharply 
 pointed and of strange color, together with a 
 sheet of especial whiteness and smoothness; 
 then at last an Arabic manuscript : and as An- 
 selmus sat down to work, the Archivarius left 
 the room. The Student Anselmus had often 
 copied Arabic manuscripts already ; the first 
 problem, therefore, seemed to him not so very 
 difficult to solve. " How these pot-hooks came 
 into my fine English current-hand, Heaven, and 
 Archivarius Lindhorst, know best," said he ; 
 "but that they are not from my hand, I will 
 testify to the death !" At every new word that 
 stood fair and perfect on the parchment, his 
 courage increased, and with it his adroitness. 
 In truth, these pens wrote exquisitely well ; and 
 the mysterious ink flowed pliantly, and black 
 3 R 
 
 as jet, on the bright white parchment. And as 
 he worked along so diligently, and with such 
 strained attention, he began to feel more and 
 more at home in the solitary room; and already 
 he had quite fitted himself into his task, which 
 he now hoped to finish well, when at the stroke 
 of three the Archivarius called him into the 
 side -room to a savory dinner. At table, Ar- 
 chivarius Lindhorst was in special gaiety of 
 heart: he inquired about the Student Anselmus' 
 friends, Conrector Paulmann, and Registrator 
 Heerbrand, and of the latter especially he had 
 store of merry anecdotes to tell. The good old 
 Rhenish was particularly grateful to the Student 
 Anselmus, and made him more talkative than 
 he was wont to be. At the stroke of four, he 
 rose to resume his labor ; and this punctuality 
 appeared to please the Archivarius. 
 
 If the copying of these Arabic manuscripts 
 had prospered in his hands, before dinner, the 
 task now went forward much better ; nay, he 
 could not himself comprehend the rapidity and 
 ease, with which he succeeded in transcribing 
 the twisted strokes of this foreign character. 
 But it was as if, in his inmost sou], a voice were 
 whispering in audible words: "Ah! couldst 
 thou accomplish it, wert thou not thinking of 
 her, didst thou not believe in her and in her 
 love ?" Then there floated whispers, as in low, 
 low, waving crystal tones, through the room : 
 " I am near, near, near ! I help thee : be bold, 
 be steadfast, dear Anselmus ! I toil with thee, 
 that thou mayest be mine !" And as, in the 
 fulness of secret rapture, he caught these sounds, 
 the unknown characters grew clearer and clearer 
 to him ; he scarcely required to look on the ori- 
 ginal at all ; nay, it was as if the letters were 
 already standing in pale ink on the parchment, 
 and he had nothing more to do but mark them 
 black. So did he labor on, encompassed with 
 dear inspiring tones as with soft sweet breath, 
 till the clock struck six, and Archivarius Lind- 
 horst entered the apartment. He came forward 
 to the table, with a singular smile; Anselmus 
 rose in silence : the Archivarius still looked at 
 him, with that mocking smile : but no sooner 
 had he glanced over the copy, than the smile 
 passed into deep solemn earnestness, which 
 every feature of his face adapted itself to ex- 
 press. He seemed no longer the same. His 
 eyes, which usually gleamed with sparkling 
 fire, now looked with unutterable mildness at 
 Anselmus; a soft red tinted the pale cheeks; 
 and instead of the irony which at other times 
 compressed the mouth, the softly-curved grace- 
 ful lips now seemed to be opening for wise and 
 soul-persuading speech. The whole form was 
 higher, statelier ; the wide night-gown spread 
 itself like a royal mantle in broad folds over his 
 breast and shoulders ; and through the white 
 locks, which lay on his high open brow, there 
 winded a thin band of gold. 
 
 "Young man," began the Archivarius in so- 
 lemn tone, "before thou thoughtest of it, I knew 
 thee, and all the secret relations which bind 
 45 
 
530 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 thee to the dearest and holiest of my interests! 
 Serpentina loves thee ; a singular destiny, whose 
 fateful threads were spun hy enemies, is ful- 
 filled, should she he thine, and thou obtain, as 
 an essential dowry, the Golden Pot, which of 
 right belongs to her. But only from effort and 
 contest can thy happiness in the higher life 
 arise ; hostile Principles assail thee ; and only 
 the interior force with which thou shalt with- 
 stand these contradictions can save thee from 
 disgrace and ruin. Whilst laboring here, thou 
 art passing the season of instruction : Belief and 
 full knowledge will lead thee to the near goal, 
 if thou but hold fast, what thou hast well begun. 
 Bear her always and truly in thy thoughts, her 
 who loves thee ; then shalt thou see the mar- 
 vels of the Golden Pot, and be happy for ever 
 more. Fare thee well ! Archivarius Lindhorst 
 expects thee to-morrow at noon in thy cabinet. 
 Fare thee well !" With these words Archiva- 
 rius Lindhorst softly pushed the Student Ansel- 
 mus out of the door, which he then locked ; and 
 Anselmus found himself in the chamber where 
 he had dined, the single door of which led out 
 to the lobby. 
 
 Altogether stupified with these strange phe- 
 nomena, the Student Anselmus stood lingering 
 at the street-door 5 he heard a window open 
 above him, and looked up : it was Archivarius 
 Lindhorst, quite the old man again, in his light- 
 grey gown, as he usually appeared. The Ar- 
 chivarius called to him : " Hey, worthy Herr 
 Anselmus, what are you studying over there? 
 Tush, the Arabic is still in your head. My 
 compliments to Herr Conrector Paulmann, if you 
 see him ; and come to-morrow precisely at noon. 
 The fee for this day is lying in your right waist- 
 coat-pocket." The Student Anselmus actually 
 found the clear speziesthaler in the pocket indi- 
 cated ; but he took no joy in it. " What is to 
 come of all this," said he to himself, " I know 
 not: "but if it be some mad delusion and con- 
 juring work that has laid hold of me, the dear 
 Serpentina still lives and moves in my inward 
 heart; and before I leave her, I will die alto- 
 gether; for I know that the thought in me is 
 eternal, and no hostile Principle can take it from 
 me : and what else is this thought but Serpen- 
 tina's love ?" 
 
 EIGHTH VIGIL. 
 
 The Library of the Palm-trees. Fortunes of an unhappy Sala- 
 mander. How the Black Quill caressed a Parsnip, and Regis- 
 trator Heerbrand was much overtaken with Liquor. 
 
 The Student Anselmus had now worked 
 several days with Archivarius Lindhorst; these 
 working hours were for him the happiest of his 
 life ; still encircled with lovely tones, with Ser- 
 pentina's encouraging voice, he was filled and 
 overflowed with a pure delight, which often 
 rose to highest rapture. Every strait, every 
 little care of his needy existence, had vanished 
 from his thoughts ; and in the new life, which 
 had risen on him as in serene sunny splendor, 
 he comprehended all the wonders of a higher 
 
 world, which before had filled him with aston- 
 ishment, nay, with dread. His copying pro- 
 ceeded rapidly and lightly; for he felt more 
 and more as if he were writing characters long 
 known to him ; and he scarcely needed to cast 
 his eye upon the manuscript, while copying it 
 all with the greatest exactness. 
 
 Except at the hour of dinner, Archivarius 
 Lindhorst seldom made his appearance ; and 
 this always precisely at the moment when An- 
 selmus had finished the last letter of some ma- 
 nuscript: then the Archivarius would hand him 
 another, and directly after, leave him, without 
 uttering a word ; having first stirred the ink 
 with a little black rod, and changed the old 
 pens with new sharp-pointed ones. One day, 
 when Anselmus, at the stroke of twelve, had 
 as usual mounted the stair, he found the door 
 through which he commonly entered, standing 
 locked ; and Archivarius Lindhorst came for- 
 ward from the other side, dressed in his strange 
 flower-figured night-gown. He called aloud : 
 " To-day come this way, good Herr Anselmus ; 
 for we must to the chamber where Bhogovotgi- 
 ta's masters are waiting for us." 
 
 He stept along the corridor, and led Anselmus 
 through the same chambers and halls, as at the 
 first visit. The Student Anselmus again felt 
 astonished at the marvellous beauty of the gar- 
 den : but he now perceived that many of the 
 strange flowers, hanging on the dark bushes 
 were in truth insects glancing with lordly colors, 
 hovering up and down with their little wings, 
 as they danced and whirled in clusters, caress- 
 ing one another with their antennae. On the 
 other hand again, the rose and azure-colored 
 birds were odoriferous flowers; and the per- 
 fume which they scattered, mounted from their 
 cups in low lovely tones, which, with the gur- 
 gling of distant fountains, and the sighing of the 
 high groves and trees, mingled themselves into 
 mysterious accords of a deep unutterable longing. 
 The mock-birds, which had so jeered and flouted 
 him before, were again fluttering to and fro 
 over his head, and crying incessantly with their 
 sharp small voices : " Herr Studiosus, Herr Stu- 
 diosus, don't be in such a hurry ! Don't peep 
 into the clouds so ! They may fall about your 
 ears — He ! He ! Herr Studiosus, put your pow- 
 der-mantle on ; cousin Screech-Owl will frizzle 
 your toupee." And so it went along, in all 
 manner of stupid chatter, till Anselmus left the 
 garden. 
 
 Archivarius Lindhorst at last stept into the 
 azure chamber : the porphyry, with the Golden 
 Pot, was gone ; instead of it, in the middle of 
 the room, stood a table overhung with violet- 
 colored satin, upon which lay the writing-ware 
 already known to Anselmus ; and a stufled 
 arm-chair, covered with the same sort of cloth, 
 was placed beside it. 
 
 "Dear Herr Anselmus," said Archivarius 
 Lindhorst, " you have now copied me a number 
 of manuscripts, rapidly and correctly, to my no 
 small contentment : you have gained my confi- 
 
HOFFMANN. 531 
 
 dence ; but the hardest is yet behind ; and that 
 is the transcribing or rather painting of certain 
 works, written in a peculiar character ; I keep 
 them in this room, and they can only be copied 
 on the spot. You will, therefore, in future, 
 work here; but I must recommend to you the 
 greatest foresight and attention ; a false stroke, 
 or, which may Heaven forefend, a blot let fall 
 on the original, will plunge you into misfortune." 
 
 Anselmus observed that from the golden 
 trunks of the palm-trees, little emerald leaves 
 projected : one of these leaves the Archivarius 
 took hold of; and Anselmus could not but per- 
 ceive that the leaf was in truth a roll of parch- 
 ment, which the Archivarius unfolded, and 
 spread out before the Student on the table. An- 
 selmus wondered not a little at these strangely 
 intertwisted characters ; and as he looked over 
 the many points, strokes, dashes, and twirls in 
 the manuscript, he almost lost hope of ever 
 copying it. He fell into deep thoughts on the 
 subject 
 
 " Be of courage, young man !" cried the Ar- 
 chivarius ; " if thou hast continuing Belief and 
 true Love, Serpentina will help thee." 
 
 His voice sounded like ringing metal ; and as 
 Anselmus looked up in utter terror, Archivarius 
 Lindhorst was standing before him in the kingly 
 form, which, during the first visit, he had as- 
 sumed in the library. Anselmus felt as if in 
 his deep reverence he could not but sink on his 
 knee ; but the Archivarius stept up the trunk 
 of a palm-tree, and vanished aloft among the 
 emerald leaves. The Student Anselmus per- 
 ceived that the Prince of the Spirits had been 
 speaking with him, and was now gone up to his 
 study; perhaps intending, by the beams which 
 some of the Planets had dispatched to him as 
 envoys, to send back word what was to become 
 of Anselmus and Serpentina. 
 
 " It may be too," thought he farther, " that he 
 is expecting news from the Springs of the Nile ; 
 or that some magician from Lapland is paying 
 him a visit: me it behoves to set diligently 
 about my task." And with this, he began 
 studying the foreign characters in the roll of 
 parchment. 
 
 The strange music of the garden sounded 
 over to him, and encircled him with sweet 
 lovely odors ; the mock-birds too he still heard 
 giggling and twittering, but could not distinguish 
 their words, a thing which greatly pleased him. 
 At times also it was as if the leaves of the 
 palm-trees were rustling, and as if the clear 
 crystal tones, which Anselmus on that fateful 
 Ascension-day had heard under the elder-bush, 
 were beaming and flitting through the room. 
 Wonderfully strengthened by this shining and 
 tinkling, the Student Anselmus directed his eyes 
 and thoughts more and more intensely on the 
 superscription of the parchment roll; and ere 
 long he felt, as it were from his inmost soul, that 
 the characters could denote nothing else than 
 these words : Of the marriage of the Salamander 
 with the green Snake. Then resounded a louder 
 
 triphony of clear crystal bells : « Anselmus ! dear 
 Anselmus!" floated to him from the leaves; 
 and, O wonder ! on the trunk of the palm-tree 
 the green Snake came winding down. 
 
 "Serpentina! Serpentina!" cried Anselmus, 
 in the madness of highest rapture; for as he 
 gazed more earnestly, it was in truth a lovely 
 glorious maiden that, looking at him with those 
 dark blue eyes, full of inexpressible longing, as 
 they lived in his heart, was hovering down to 
 meet him. The leaves seemed to jut out and 
 expand ; on every hand were prickles sprouting 
 from the trunk ; but Serpentina twisted and 
 winded herself deftly through them ; and so 
 drew her fluttering robe, glancing as if in 
 changeful colors, along with her, that, plying 
 round the dainty form, it nowhere caught on 
 the projecting points and prickles of the palm- 
 tree. She sat down by Anselmus on the same 
 chair, clasping him with her arm, and pressing 
 him towards her, so that he felt the breath which 
 came from her lips, and the electric warmth of 
 her frame. 
 
 "Dear Anselmus!" began Serpentina, "thou 
 shalt now soon be wholly mine; by thy Belief, 
 by thy Love thou shalt obtain me, and I will 
 bring thee the Golden Pot, which shall make us 
 both happy forevermore." 
 
 " thou kind lovely Serpentina !" said Ansel- 
 mus, "if I have but thee, what care I for all 
 else ! if thou art but mine, I will joyfully give 
 in to all the wondrous mysteries that have beset 
 me ever since the moment when I first saw 
 thee." 
 
 " I know," continued Serpentina, " that the 
 strange and mysterious things, with which my 
 father, often merely in the sport of his humor, 
 has surrounded thee, have raised distrust and 
 dread in thy mind ; but now, I hope, it shall be 
 so no more ; for I come at this moment to tell 
 thee, dear Anselmus, from the bottom of my 
 heart and soul, all and sundry to a tittle that 
 thou needest to know for understanding my 
 father, and so for seeing clearly what thy rela- 
 tion to him and to me really is." 
 
 Anselmus felt as if he were so wholly clasped 
 and encircled by the gentle lovely form, that 
 only with her could he move and live, and as 
 it were but the beating of her pulse that throbbed 
 through his nerves and fibres ; he listened to 
 each one of her words till it sounded in his in- 
 most heart, and, like a burning ray, kindled in 
 him the rapture of Heaven. He had put his 
 arm round that daintier than dainty waist; but 
 the changeful glistering cloth of her robe was 
 so smooth and slippery, that it seemed to him 
 as if she could at any moment wind herself from 
 his arms, and glide away. He trembled at the 
 thought. 
 
 "Ah, do not leave me, gentlest Serpentina!" 
 cried he; "thou art my life." 
 
 " Not now," said Serpentina, " till I have told 
 thee all that in thy love of me thou canst com- 
 prehend : 
 
 " Know then, dearest, that my father is sprung 
 
532 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 from the wondrous race of the Salamanders; 
 and that I owe my existence to his love for the 
 green Snake. In primeval times, in the Fairy- 
 land Atlantis, the potent Spirit-prince Phospho- 
 rus bore rule ; and to him the Salamanders, and 
 other Spirits of the Elements, were plighted. 
 Once on a time, the Salamander, whom he 
 loved before all others (it was my father), 
 chanced to be walking in the stately garden, 
 which Phosphorus' mother had decked in the 
 lordliest fashion with her best gifts; and the 
 Salamander hoard a tall Lily singing in low 
 tones : ' Press down thy little eyelids, till my 
 Lover, the Morning-wind, awake thee.' He 
 stept towards it : touched by his glowing breath, 
 the Lily opened her leaves ; and he saw the 
 Lily's daughter, the green Snake, lying asleep 
 in the hollow of the flower. Then was the 
 Salamander inflamed with warm love for the 
 fair Snake ; and he carried her away from the 
 Lily, whose perfumes in nameless lamentation 
 vainly called for her beloved daughter through- 
 out all the garden. For the Salamander had 
 borne her into the palace of Phosphorus, and 
 was there beseeching him: ' Wed me with my 
 beloved, and she shall be mine for evermore.' — 
 1 Madman, what askest thou !' said the Prince 
 of the Spirits ; ' Know that once the Lily was 
 my mistress, and bore rule with me; but the 
 Spark, which I cast into her, threatened to an- 
 nihilate the fair Lily ; and only my victory over 
 the black Dragon, whom now the Spirits of the 
 Earth hold in fetters, maintains her, that her 
 leaves continue strong enough to enclose this 
 Spark, and preserve it within them. But when 
 thou claspest the green Snake, thy fire will con- 
 sume her frame ; and a new Being rapidly 
 arising from her dust, will soar away and leave 
 thee.' 
 
 "The Salamander heeded not the warning of 
 the Spirit-prince : full of longing ardor he folded 
 the green Snake in his arms; she crumbled into 
 ashes ; a winged Being, born from her dust, 
 soared away through the sky. Then the mad- 
 ness of desperation caught the Salamander; 
 and he ran through the garden, dashing forth 
 fire and flames ; and wasted it in his wild fury, 
 till its fairest flowers and blossoms hung down, 
 blackened and scathed ; and their lamentation 
 filled the air. The indignant Prince of the Spi- 
 rits, in his wrath, laid hold of the Salamander, 
 and said : 'Thy fire has burnt out, thy flames are 
 extinguished, thy rays darkened : sink down to 
 the Spirits of the Earth; let these mock and jeer 
 thee, and keep thee captive, till the Fire-ele- 
 ment shall again kindle, and beam up with thee 
 as with a new being from the Earth.' The poor 
 Salamander sank down extinguished : but now 
 the testy old Earth-spirit, who was Phosphorus' 
 gardener, came forth and said : ' Master ! who 
 has greater cause to complain of the Salamander 
 than I ? Had not all the fair flowers, which he 
 has burnt, been decorated with my gayest me- 
 tals; had I not stoutly nursed and tended them, 
 and spent many a fair hue on their leaves ? And 
 
 yet I must pity the poor Salamander ; for it was 
 but love, in which thou, Master, hast full often 
 been entangled, that drove him to despair, and 
 made him desolate the garden. Remit him the 
 too harsh punishment !' — ' His fire is for the 
 present extinguished,' said the Prince of the 
 Spirits; 'but in the hapless time, when the 
 Speech of Nature shall no longer be intelligible 
 to degenerate man ; when the Spirits of the 
 Elements, banished into their own regions, 
 shall speak to him only from afar, in faint, 
 spent echoes ; when, displaced from the har- 
 monious circle, an infinite longing alone shall 
 give him tidings of the Land of Marvels, which 
 he once might inhabit while Belief and Love 
 still dwelt in his soul: in this hapless time, the 
 fire of the Salamander shall again kindle ; but 
 only to manhood shall he be permitted to rise, 
 and entering wholly into man's necessitous ex- 
 istence, he shall learn to endure its wants and 
 oppressions. Yet not only shall the remem- 
 brance of his first state continue with him ; but 
 he shall again rise into the sacred harmony of 
 all Nature; he shall understand its wonders, 
 and the power of his fellow-spirits shall stand 
 at his behest. Then, too, in a Lily-bush, shall 
 he find the green Snake again: and the fruit of 
 his marriage with her shall be three daughters, 
 which, to men, shall appear in the form of their 
 mother. In the spring season these shall disport 
 them in the dark Elder-bush, and sound with 
 their lovely crystal voices. And then if, in that 
 needy and mean age of inward stuntedness, 
 there shall be found a youth who understands 
 their song; nay, if one of the little Snakes look 
 at him with her kind eyes ; if the look awaken 
 in him forecasting^ of the distant wondrous 
 Land, to which, having cast away the burden 
 of the Common, he can courageously soar; if, 
 with love to the Snake, there rise in him belief 
 in the Wonders of Nature, nay, in his own ex- 
 istence amid these Wonders, then the Snake 
 shall be his. But not till three youths of this 
 sort have been found and wedded to the three 
 daughters, may the Salamander cast away his 
 heavy burden, and return to his brothers.'— 
 ' Permit me, Master,' said the Earth-spirit, 1 to 
 make these three daughters a present, which 
 may glorify their life with the husbands they 
 shall find. Let each of them receive from me 
 a Pot, of the fairest metal which I have ; I will 
 polish it with beams borrowed from the dia- 
 mond ; in its glitter shall our Kingdom of 
 Wonders, as it now exists in the Harmony of 
 universal Nature, be imaged back in glorious 
 dazzling reflection ; and from its interior, on the 
 day of marriage, shall spring forth a Fire-lily, 
 whose eternal blossoms shall encircle the youth 
 that is found worthy, with sweet wafting odors. 
 Soon too shall he learn its speech, and under- 
 stand the wonders of our kingdom, and dwell 
 with his beloved in Atlantis itself.' 
 
 " Thou perceivest well, dear Anselmus, that 
 the Salamander of whom I speak is no other 
 than my father. Spite of his higher nature, he 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 533 
 
 was forced to subject himself to the paltriest 
 contradictions of common life ; and hence, in- 
 deed, often comes the wayward humor with 
 which he vexes many. He has told me now 
 and then, that, for the inward make of mind, 
 which the Spirit-prince Phosphorus required as 
 a condition of marriage with me and my sisters, 
 men have a name at present, which, in truth, 
 they frequently enough misapply: they call it a 
 childlike poetic character. This character, he 
 says, is often found in youths, who, by reason 
 of their high simplicity of manners, and their 
 total want of what is called knowledge of the 
 world, are mocked by the populace. Ah, dear 
 Anselmus ! beneath the Elder-bush, thou under- 
 stoodest my song, my look : thou lovest the 
 green Snake, thou believest in me, and wilt be 
 mine forevermore ! The fair Lily will bloom 
 forth from the Golden Pot ; and we shall dwell, 
 happy, and united, and blessed, in Atlantis to- 
 gether ! 
 
 " Yet I must not hide from thee that in its 
 deadly battle with the Salamanders and Spirits 
 of the Earth, the black Dragon burst from their 
 grasp, and hurried off through the air. Phos- 
 phorus, indeed, again holds him in fetters; but 
 from the black Quills, which, in the struggle, 
 rained down on the ground, there sprung up 
 hostile Spirits, which on all hands set them- 
 selves against the Salamanders and Spirits of 
 the Earth. That woman who so hates thee, 
 dear Anselmus, and who, as my father knows 
 full well, is striving for possession of the Golden 
 Pot ; that woman owes her existence to the love 
 of such a Quill (plucked in battle from the Dra- 
 gon's wing) for a certain Parsnip beside which 
 it dropped. She knows her origin and her 
 power ; for, in the moans and convulsions of 
 the captive Dragon, the secrets of many a mys- 
 terious constellation are revealed to her ; and 
 she uses every means and effort to work from 
 the Outward into the Inward and unseen ; while 
 my father, with the beams which shoot forth 
 from the spirit of the Salamander, withstands 
 and subdues her. All the baneful principles 
 which lurk in deadly herbs and poisonous 
 beasts, she collects ; and, mixing them under 
 favorable constellations, raises therewith many 
 a wicked spell, which overwhelms the soul of 
 man with fear and trembling, and subjects him 
 to the power of those Demons, produced from 
 the Dragon when it yielded in battle. Beware 
 of that old woman, dear Anselmus ! She hates 
 thee ; because thy childlike pious character has 
 annihilated many of her wicked charms. Keep 
 true, true to me ; soon art thou at the goal !" 
 
 "0 my Serpentina! my own Serpentina!" 
 cried the Student Anselmus, " how could I 
 leave thee, how should I not love thee for- 
 ever!" A kiss was burning- on his lips; he 
 awoke as from a deep dream : Serpentina had 
 vanished ; six o'clock was striking, and it fell 
 heavy on his heart that to-day he had not copied 
 a single stroke. Full of anxiety, and dreading 
 reproaches from the Archivarius, he looked into 
 
 the sheet; and, wonder! the copy of the 
 mysterious manuscript was fairly concluded ; 
 and he thought, on viewing the characters more 
 narrowly, that the writing was nothing else but 
 Serpentina's story of her father, the favorite of 
 the Spirit-prince Phosphorus, in Atlantis, the 
 Land of Marvels. And now entered Archiva- 
 rius Lindhorst, in his light-grey surtout, with 
 hat and staff: he looked into the parchment on 
 which Anselmus had been writing; took a large 
 pinch of snuff, and said with a smile : " Just as 
 I thought! — Well, Herr Anselmus, here is your 
 speziesthaler ; we will now to the Linke Bath: 
 do but follow me !" The Archivarius stept ra- 
 pidly through the garden, in which there was 
 such a din of singing, whistling, talking, that the 
 Student Anselmus was quite deafened with it, 
 and thanked Heaven when he found himself on 
 the street. 
 
 Scarcely had they walked twenty paces, when 
 they met Registrator Heerbrand, who compan- 
 ionably joined them. At the Gate, they filled 
 their pipes, which they had about them : Regis- 
 trator Heerbrand complained that he had left 
 his tinder-box behind, and could not strike fire. 
 "Fire!" cried Archivarius Lindhorst, scornfully; 
 "here is fire enough, and to spare!" And with 
 this he snapped his fingers, out of which came 
 streams of sparks, and directly kindled the 
 pipes. — "Do but observe the chemical knack 
 of some men!" said Registrator Heerbrand; 
 but the Student Anselmus thought, not without 
 internal awe, of the Salamander and his history. 
 
 In the Linke Bath, Registrator Heerbrand 
 drank so much strong double beer, that at last, 
 though usually a good-natured quiet man, he 
 began singing student songs in squeaking tenor ; 
 he asked every one sharply, Whether he was 
 his friend or not? and at last had to be taken 
 home by the Student Anselmus, long after Ar- 
 chivarius Lindhorst had gone his ways. 
 
 NINTH VIGIL. 
 
 How the Student Anselmus attained to some Sense. The Punch 
 Party. How the Student Anselmus took Conrector Paulmann 
 for a Screech-Owl. and the latter felt much hurt at it. The 
 Ink-blot, and its Consequences. 
 
 The strange and mysterious things which day 
 by day befell the Student Anselmus, had entirely 
 withdrawn him from his customary life. He 
 no longer visited any of his friends, and waited 
 every morning with impatience, for the hour of 
 noon, which was to unlock his paradise. And 
 yet while his whole soul was turned to the 
 gentle Serpentina, and the wonders of Archiva- 
 rius Lindhorst's fairy kingdom, he could not help 
 now and then thinking of Veronica ; nay, often 
 it seemed as if she came before him and con- 
 fessed with blushes how heartily she loved him; 
 how much she longed to rescue him from the 
 phantoms, which were mocking and befooling 
 him. At times he felt as if a foreign power, 
 suddenly breaking in on his mind, were draw- 
 ing him with resistless force to the forgotten Ve- 
 ronica; as if he must needs follow her whither 
 45* 
 
534 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 she pleased to lead him, nay, as if he were 
 bound to her by ties that would not break. 
 That very night after Serpentina had first ap- 
 peared to him in the form of a lovely maiden; 
 after the wondrous secret of the Salamander's 
 nuptials with the green Snake had been dis- 
 closed, Veronica came before him more vividly 
 than ever. Nay, not till he awoke, was he 
 clearly aware that he had but been dreaming; 
 for he had felt persuaded that Veronica was 
 actually beside him, complaining with an ex- 
 pression of keen sorrow, which pierced through 
 his inmost soul, that he should sacrifice her deep 
 true love to fantastic visions, which only the 
 distemper of his mind called into being, and 
 which, moreover, would at last prove his ruin. 
 Veronica was lovelier than he had ever seen 
 her; he could not drive her from his thoughts: 
 and in this perplexed and contradictory mood 
 he hastened out, hoping to get rid of it by a 
 morning walk. 
 
 A secret magic influence led him on to the 
 Pirna gate : he was just turning into a cross 
 street, when Conrector Paulmann, coming after 
 him, cried out: "Ey! Ey! — Dear Herr Ansel- 
 mus! — Amice! Amice! Where, in Heaven's 
 name, have you been buried so long? We 
 never see you at all. Do yon know, Veronica 
 is longing very much to have another song with 
 you. So come along; you were just on the road 
 to me, at any rate." 
 
 The Student Anselmus, constrained by this 
 friendly violence, went along with the Conrector. 
 On entering the house, they were met by Ve- 
 ronica, attired with such neatness and attention, 
 that Conrector Paulmann, full of amazement, 
 asked her: " Why so decked, Mamsell? Were 
 you expecting visitors? Well, here I bring you 
 Herr Anselmus." 
 
 The Student Anselmus, in daintily and ele- 
 gantly kissing Veronica's hand, felt a small soft 
 pressure from it, which shot like a stream of fire 
 over all his frame. Veronica was cheerfulness, 
 was grace itself; and when Paulmann left them 
 for his study, she contrived, by all manner of 
 rogueries and waggeries, so to uplift the Student 
 Anselmus, that he at last quite forgot his bash- 
 fulness, and jigged round the room with the 
 light-headed maiden. But here again the De- 
 mon of Awkwardness got hold of him : he jolted 
 on a table, and Veronica's pretty little work-box 
 fell to the floor. Anselmus lifted it; the lid had 
 started up ; and a little round metallic mirror 
 was glittering on him, into which he looked 
 with peculiar delight. Veronica glided softly 
 up to him ; laid her hand on his arm, and 
 pressing close to him, looked over his shoulder 
 into the mirror also. And now Anselmus felt 
 as if a battle were beginning in his soul : 
 thoughts, images flashed out — Archivarius Lind- 
 horst, — Serpentina, — the green Snake — at last 
 the tumult abated, and all this chaos arranged 
 and shaped itself into distinct consciousness. 
 It was now clear to him that he had always 
 thought of Veronica alone ; nay, that the form 
 
 which had yesterday appeared to him in the 
 blue chamber, had been no other than Veronica; 
 and that the wild legend of the Salamander's 
 marriage with the green Snake, had merely 
 been written down by him from the manuscript, 
 but nowise related in his hearing. He wondered 
 not a little at all these dreams; and ascribed 
 them solely to the heated state of mind into 
 which Veronica's love had brought him, as well 
 as to his working with Archivarius Lindhorst, 
 in whose rooms there were, besides, so many 
 strangely intoxicating odors. He could not but 
 laugh heartily at the mad whim of falling in 
 love with a little green Snake; and taking a 
 well-fed Privy Archivarius for a Salamander : 
 " Yes, yes ! It is Veronica !" cried he aloud ; but 
 on turning round his head, he looked right into 
 Veronica's blue eyes, from which warmest love 
 was beaming. A faint soft Ah ! escaped her 
 lips, which at that moment were burning on his. 
 
 "0 happy I!" sighed the enraptured Student: 
 "What I yesternight but dreamed, is in very 
 deed mine to-day." 
 
 "But wilt thou really wed me, then, when 
 thou art Hofrath?" said Veronica. 
 
 "That I will," replied the Student Anselmus; 
 and just then the door creaked, and Conrector 
 Paulmann entered with the words : 
 
 "Now, dear Herr Anselmus, I will not let 
 you go to-day. You will put up with a bad 
 dinner; then Veronica will make us delightful 
 coffee, which we shall drink with Registrator 
 Heerbrand, for he promised to come hither." 
 
 "Ah, best Herr Conrector!" answered the 
 Student Anselmus, "are you not aware that I 
 must go to Archivarius Lindhorst's and copy?" 
 
 " Look you, Amice!" said Conrector Paulmann, 
 holding up his watch, which pointed to half past 
 twelve. 
 
 The Student Anselmus saw clearly that he 
 was much too late for Archivarius Lindhorst; 
 and he complied with the Conrector's wishes 
 the more readily, as he might now hope to look 
 at Veronica the whole day long, to obtain many 
 a stolen glance, and little squeeze of the hand, 
 nay, even to succeed in conquering a kiss. So 
 high had the Student Anselmus' desires now 
 mounted ; he felt more and more contented in 
 soul, the more fully he convinced himself that 
 he should be delivered from all the fantastic 
 imaginations, which really might have made a 
 sheer idiot of him. 
 
 Registrator Heerbrand came, as he had pro- 
 mised, after dinner; and coffee being over, and 
 the dusk come on, the Registrator, puckering his 
 face together, and gaily rubbing his hands, sig- 
 nified that he had something about him, which, 
 if mingled and reduced to form, as it were, 
 paged and titled, by Veronica's fair hands, might 
 be pleasant to them all, on this October evening 
 
 " Come out, then, with this mysterious sub- 
 stance which you carry with you, most valued 
 Registrator," cried Conrector Paulmann. Then 
 Registrator Heerbrand shoved his hand into his 
 deep pocket, and at three journeys, brought out 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 535 
 
 a bottle of arrack, two citrons, and a quantity 
 of sugar. Before half an hour had passed, a 
 savory bowl of punch was smoking on Paul- 
 mann's table. Veronica drank their health in 
 a sip of the liquor; and ere long there was 
 plenty of gay, good-natured chat among the 
 friends. But the Student Anselmus, as the 
 spirit of the drink mounted into his head, felt 
 all the images of those wondrous things, which 
 for some time he had experienced, again coming 
 through his mind. He saw the Archivarius in 
 his damask night-gown, which glittered like 
 phosphorus ; he saw the azure room, the golden 
 palm-trees ; nay, it now seemed to him as if he 
 must still believe in Serpentina: there was a 
 fermentation, a conflicting tumult in his soul. 
 Veronica handed him a glass of punch ; and in 
 taking it, he gently touched her hand. " Ser- 
 pentina! Veronica!" sighed he to himself. He 
 sank into deep dreams ; but Registrator Heer- 
 brand cried quite aloud : " A strange old gen- 
 tleman, whom nobody can fathom, he is and 
 will be, this Archivarius Lindhorst. Well, long 
 life to him! Your glass, Herr Anselmus!" 
 
 Then the Student Anselmus awoke from his 
 dreams, and said, as he touched glasses with Re- 
 gistrator Heerbrand : " That proceeds, respected 
 Herr Registrator, from the circumstance, that 
 Archivarius Lindhorst is in reality a Salaman- 
 der, who wasted in his fury the Spirit-prince 
 Phosphorus' garden, because the green Snake 
 had flown away from him." 
 
 " How? what?" inquired Conrector Paulmann. 
 
 "Yes," continued the Student Anselmus; 
 " and for this reason he is now forced to be a 
 Royal Archivarius ; and to keep house here in 
 Dresden with his three daughters, who, after all, 
 are nothing more than little gold-green Snakes, 
 that bask in elder-bushes, and traitorously sing, 
 and seduce away young people, like as many 
 syrens." 
 
 " Herr Anselmus ! Herr Anselmus !" cried 
 Conrector Paulmann, " is there a crack in your 
 brain? In Heaven's name, what monstrous stuff 
 is this you are babbling?" 
 
 "He is right," interrupted Registrator Heer- 
 brand: "that fellow, that Archivarius, is a 
 cursed Salamander, and strikes you fiery snips 
 from his fingers, which burn holes in your sur- 
 tout like red-hot tinder. Ay, ay, thou art in the 
 right, brotherkin Anselmus ; and whoever says 
 No, is saying No to me!" And at these words 
 Registrator Heerbrand struck the table with his 
 fist, till the glasses rung again. 
 
 "Registrator! Are you frantic?" cried the 
 wroth Conrector. " Herr Studiosus, Herr Stu- 
 diosus! what is this you are about again?" 
 
 "Ah!" said the Student, "you too are nothing 
 but a bird, a screech-owl, that frizzles toupees, 
 Herr Conrector !" 
 
 " What ! — I a bird ? — A screech-owl, a friz- 
 zier?" cried the Conrector, full of indignation: 
 " Sir, you are mad, horn mad !" 
 
 " But the crone will get a clutch of him,' 1 cried 
 Registrator Heerbrand. 
 
 "Yes, the crone is potent," interrupted the 
 Student Anselmus, "though she is but of mean 
 descent ; for her father was nothing but a ragged 
 wing-feather, and her mother a dirty parsnip: 
 but the most of her power she owes to all sorts 
 of baneful creatures, poisonous vermin which 
 she keeps about her." 
 
 " That is a horrid calumny," cried Veronica, 
 with eyes all glowing in anger : "old Liese is a 
 wise woman; and the black Cat is no baneful 
 creature, but a polished young gentleman of 
 elegant manners, and her cousin german." 
 
 "Can he eat Salamanders without singing his 
 whiskers, and dying like a candle-snuff?" cried 
 Registrator Heerbrand. 
 
 " No ! no !" shouted the Student Anselmus, 
 " that he never can in this world ; and the 
 green Snake loves me, and I have looked into 
 Serpentina's eyes." 
 
 " The Cat will scratch them out," cried Ve- 
 ronica. 
 
 " Salamander, Salamander beats them all, 
 all," hollowed Conrector Paulmann, in the high- 
 est fury : " But am I in a madhouse ? Am I mad 
 myself? What unwise stuff am I chattering? 
 Yes, I am mad too ! mad too !" And with this, 
 Conrector Paulmann started up ; tore the peruke 
 from his head, and dashed it against the ceiling 
 of the room; till the battered locks whizzed, 
 and, tangled into utter disorder, rained down 
 the powder far and wide. Then the Student 
 Anselmus and Registrator Heerbrand seized the 
 punch-bowl and the glasses ; and, hallooing and 
 huzzaing, pitched them against the ceiling also, 
 and the sherds fell jingling and tingling about 
 their ears. 
 
 "Vivat the Salamander! — Pereat, pereat the 
 crone! — Break the metal mirror! — Dig the cat's 
 eyes out ! — Bird, li ttle Bird, from the air — Eheu-— 
 Eheu — Evoe — Evoe, Salamander!" So shrieked, 
 and shouted, and bellowed the three, like utter 
 maniacs. With loud weeping, Franzchen ran 
 out ; but Veronica lay whimpering for pain and 
 sorrow on the sofa. 
 
 At this moment the door opened : all was in- 
 stantly still ; and a little man, in a small grey 
 cloak, came stepping in. His countenance had 
 a singular air of gravity; and especially the 
 round hooked nose, on which was a huge pair 
 of spectacles, distinguished itself from all the 
 noses ever seen. He wore a strange peruke 
 too ; more like a feather-cap than a wig. 
 
 "Ey, many good evenings!" grated and 
 cackled the little comical mannikin. "Is the 
 Student Herr Anselmus among you, gentlemen? 
 — Best compliments from Archivarius Lind- 
 horst; he has waited to-day in vain for Herr 
 Anselmus ; but to-morrow he begs most respect- 
 fully to request that Herr Anselmus would not 
 forget the hour." 
 
 And with this he went out again ; and all of 
 them now saw clearly that the grave little 
 mannikin was in fact a grey Parrot. Conrector 
 Paulmann and Registrator Heerbrand raised a 
 horse-laugh, which reverberated through the 
 
53G 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 room ; and in the intervals, Veronica was moan- 
 ing and whimpering, as if torn by nameless sor- 
 row ; but, as to the Student Anselmus, the 
 madness of inward horror was darting through 
 him ; and unconsciously he ran through the door, 
 along the streets. Instinctively he reached his 
 house, his garret. Ere long Veronica came in 
 to him, with a peaceful and friendly look, and 
 asked him why, in the festivity, he had so vexed 
 her ; and desired him to be on his guard against 
 imaginations, while working at Archivarius 
 Lindhorst's. " Good night, good night, my be- 
 loved friend!" whispered Veronica, scarce au- 
 dibly, and breathed a kiss on his lips. He 
 stretched out his arms to clasp her, but the 
 dreamy shape had vanished, and he awoke 
 cheerful and refreshed. He could not but laugh 
 heartily at the effects of the punch ; but in 
 thinking of Veronica, he felt pervaded by a 
 most delightful feeling. "To her alone," said 
 he within himself, " do I owe this return from 
 my insane whims. In good sooth, I was little 
 better than the man who believed himself to be 
 of glass ; or he who durst not leave his room 
 for fear the hens should eat him, as he was a 
 barleycorn. But so soon as I am Hofrath, I 
 marry Mademoiselle Paulmann, and be happy, 
 and there's an end of it." 
 
 At noon, as he walked through Archivarius 
 Lindhorst's garden, he could not help wondering 
 how all this had once appeared so strange and 
 marvellous. He now saw nothing past com- 
 mon; earthen flowerpots, quantities of gerani- 
 ums, myrtles, and the like. Instead of the 
 glittering party-colored birds which used to flout 
 him, there were nothing but a few sparrows, 
 fluttering hither and thither, which raised an 
 unpleasant unintelligible cry at sight of Ansel- 
 mus. The azure room also had quite a different 
 look ; and he could not understand how that 
 glaring blue, and those unnatural golden trunks 
 of palm-trees, with their shapeless glistening 
 leaves, should ever have pleased him for a mo- 
 ment. The Archivarius looked at him with a 
 most peculiar ironical smile, and asked : : 'Well, 
 how did you like the punch last night, good 
 Anselmus'?" 
 
 " Ah, doubtless you have heard from the grey 
 Parrot how " answered the Student Ansel- 
 mus, quite ashamed ; but he stopt short, be- 
 thinking him that this appearance of the Parrot 
 was all a piece of jugglery. 
 
 " I was there myself," said Archivarius Lind- 
 horst; "did you not see me? But, among the 
 mad pranks you were playing, I had nigh got 
 lamed : for I was sitting in the punch-bowl, at 
 the very moment when Registrator Heerbrand 
 laid hands on it, to dash it against the ceiling; 
 and I had to make a quick retreat into the Con- 
 rector's pipe-head. Now, adieu, Herr Anselmus ! 
 Be diligent at your task ; for the lost day also 
 you shall have a speziesthaler, because you 
 worked so well before." 
 
 " How can the Archivarius babble such mad 
 stuff?" thought the Student Anselmus, sitting 
 
 down at the table to begin the copying of the 
 manuscript, which Archivarius Lindhorst had 
 as usual spread out before him. But on the 
 parchment roll, he perceived so many strange 
 crabbed strokes and twirls all twisted together 
 in inexplicable confusion, offering no resting- 
 point for the eye, that it seemed to him well 
 nigh impossible to copy all this exactly. Nay, 
 in glancing over the whole, you might have 
 thought the parchment was nothing but a piece 
 of thickly veined marble, or a stone sprinkled 
 over with lichens. Nevertheless he determined 
 to do his utmost ; and boldly dipt in his pen : 
 but the ink would not run, do what he liked; 
 impatiently he spirted the point of his pen 
 against his nail, and — Heaven and Earth! — a 
 huge blot fell on the outspread original ! Hissing 
 and foaming, rose a blue flash from the blot; 
 and crackling and wavering, shot through the 
 room to the ceiling. Then a thick vapor rolled 
 from the walls ; the leaves began to rustle, as 
 if shaken by a tempest ; and down out of them 
 darted glaring basilisks in sparkling fire ; these 
 kindled the vapor, and the bickering masses of 
 flame rolled round Anselmus. The golden 
 trunks of the palm-trees became gigantic snakes, 
 which knocked their frightful heads together 
 with piercing metallic clang; and wound their 
 scaly bodies round Anselmus. 
 
 "Madman! suffer now the punishment of 
 what, in capricious irreverence, thou hast 
 done!" So cried the frightful voice of the 
 crowned Salamander, who appeared above the 
 snakes like a glittering beam in the midst of 
 the flame : and now the yawning jaws of the 
 snakes poured forth cataracts of fire on Ansel- 
 mus; and it was as if the fire-streams were 
 congealing about his body, and changing into a 
 firm ice-cold mass. But while Anselmus' limbs, 
 more and more pressed together, and contracted, 
 stiffened into powerlessness, his sense passed 
 away. On returning to himself, he could not 
 stir a joint: he was as if surrounded with a 
 glistening brightness, on which he struck if he 
 but tried to lift his hand. — Alas ! He was sitting 
 in a well-corked crystal bottle, on a shelf, in the 
 library of Archivarius Lindhorst. 
 
 TENTH VIGIL. 
 
 Sorrows of the Student Anselmus in the Glass Bottle. Happy- 
 Life of the Cross Church Scholars and Law Clerks. The Bat- 
 tle in the Library of Arcliivarius Lindhorst. Victory of the 
 Salamander, and Deliverance of the Student Anselmus. 
 
 Justly may I doubt whether thou, favorable 
 reader, wert ever sealed up in a glass bottle ; 
 or even that any vivid tormenting dream ever 
 oppressed thee with such necromatic trouble. 
 If so were the case, thou wilt keenly enough 
 figure out the poor Student Anselmus' woe : but 
 shouldst thou never have even dreamed such 
 things, then will thy quick fancy, for Anselmus' 
 sake and mine, be obliging enough still to en- 
 close itself for a few moments in the crystal. 
 Thou art drowned in dazzling splendor; all 
 objects about thee appear illuminated and begirt 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 537 
 
 with beaming rainbow hues: all quivers and 
 wavers, and clangs and drones, in the sheen ; 
 thou art swimming, motionless and powerless 
 as in a firmly congealed ether, which so presses 
 thee together that the spirit in vain gives orders 
 to the dead and stiffened body. Weightier and 
 weightier the mountain burden lies on thee; 
 more and more does every breath exhaust the 
 little handful of air, that still played up and 
 down in the narrow space; thy pulse throbs 
 madly; and cut through with horrid anguish, 
 every nerve is quivering and bleeding in this 
 deadly agony. Have pity, favorable reader, on 
 the Student Anselmus! Him this inexpressible 
 torture laid hold of in his glass prison : but he 
 felt too well that death could not relieve him ; 
 for did he not awake from the deep swoon into 
 which the excess of pain had cast him, and open 
 his eyes to new wretchedness, when the morn- 
 ing sun shone clear into the room ? He could 
 move no limb ; but his thoughts struck against 
 the glass, stupifying him with discordant clang; 
 and instead of the words, which the spirit used 
 to speak from within him, he now heard only 
 the stifled din of madness. Then he exclaimed 
 in his despair: "0 Serpentina! Serpentina! 
 save me from this agony of Hell!" And it was 
 as if faint sighs breathed around him, which 
 spread like green transparent elder-leaves over 
 the glass; the clanging ceased; the dazzling 
 perplexing glitter was gone, and he breathed 
 more freely. 
 
 " Have not I myself solely to blame for my 
 misery? Ah! Have not I sinned against thee, 
 thou kind, beloved Serpentina? Have not I 
 raised vile doubts of thee ? Have not I lost my 
 Belief; and with it, all, all that was to make 
 me so blessed ? Ah ! Thou wilt now never, 
 never be mine; for me the Golden Pot is lost, 
 and I shall not behold its wonders any more. 
 Ah ! But once could I see thee ; but once hear 
 thy kind sweet voice, thou lovely Serpentina !" 
 
 So wailed the Student Anselmus, caught with 
 deep piercing sorrow : then spoke a voice close 
 by him : « What the devil ails you Herr Studio- 
 sus? What makes you lament so, out of all 
 compass and measure?" 
 
 The Student Anselmus now perceived that 
 on the same shelf with him were five other 
 bottles, in which he perceived three Cross 
 Church Scholars, and two Law Clerks. 
 
 "Ah, gentlemen, my fellows in misery," cried 
 he, " how is it possible for you to be so calm, 
 nay so happy, as I read in your cheerful looks? 
 You are sitting here corked up in glass bottles, 
 as well as I, and cannot move a finger; nay, 
 not think a reasonable thought, but there rises 
 such a murder-tumult of clanging and droning, 
 and in your head itself a tumbling and rumbling 
 enough to drive one mad. But doubtless you 
 do not believe in the Salamander, or the green 
 Snake." 
 
 " You are pleased to jest, Mein Herr Studio- 
 sus," replied a Cross Church Scholar ; " we 
 have never been better off than at present : for 
 3s 
 
 the speziesthalers which the mad Archivarius 
 gave us for all manner of pot-hook copies, are 
 chinking in our pockets; we have now no Ita- 
 lian choruses to learn by heart; we go every 
 day to Joseph's or other houses of call, where 
 the double-beer is sufficient, and we can look a 
 pretty girl in the face ; so we sing like real Stu- 
 dents, Gaudeamus igitur, and are contented in 
 spirit !" 
 
 " They of the Cross are quite right," added a 
 Law Clerk ; " I too am well furnished with 
 speziesthalers, like my dearest colleague beside 
 me here ; and we now diligently walk about on 
 the Weinberg, instead of scurvy Act-writing 
 within four walls." 
 
 " But, my best, worthiest masters !" said the 
 Student Anselmus, " do you not observe, then, 
 that you are all and sundry corked up in glass 
 bottles, and cannot for your hearts walk a hairs- 
 breadth ?" 
 
 Here the Cross Church Scholars and the Law 
 Clerks set up a loud laugh, and cried : " The 
 Student is mad ; he fancies himself to be sitting 
 in a glass bottle, and is standing on the Elbe- 
 bridge and looking right down into the water. 
 Let us go along!" 
 
 "Ah!" sighed the Student, "they have never 
 seen the kind Serpentina; they know not what 
 Freedom, and life in Love, and Belief, signifies; 
 and so by reason of their folly and low-minded- 
 ness, they feel not the oppression of the impri- 
 sonment into which the Salamander has cast 
 them. But I, unhappy I, must perish in want 
 and woe, if she, whom I so inexpressibly love, 
 do not deliver me !" 
 
 Then waving in faint tinkles, Serpentina's 
 voice flitted through the room: "Anselmus! 
 believe, love, hope !" And every tone beamed 
 into Anselmus' prison ; and the crystal yielded 
 to his pressure, and expanded, till the breast of 
 the captive could move and heave. 
 
 The torment of his situation became less and 
 less, and he saw clearly that Serpentina still 
 loved him ; and that it was she alone, who had 
 rendered his confinement tolerable. He dis- 
 turbed himself no more about his insane com- 
 panions in misfortune; but directed all his 
 thoughts and meditations on the gentle Serpen- 
 tina. Suddenly, however, there arose on the 
 other side a dull croaking repulsive murmur. 
 Ere long he could observe that it proceeded 
 from an old coffee-pot, with half-broken lid, 
 standing over against him on a little shelf. As 
 he looked at it more narrowly, the ugly features 
 of a wrinkled old woman by degrees unfolded 
 themselves ; and in a few moments, the Apple- 
 wife of the Schwarzthor stood before him. She 
 grinned and laughed at him, and cried with 
 screeching voice : " Ey, Ey, my pretty boy, must 
 thou lie in limbo now? To the crystal thou 
 hast run : did I not tell thee long ago ?" 
 
 "Mock and jeer me; do, thou cursed witch!" 
 said the Student Anselmus, "thou art to blame 
 for it all ; but the Salamander will catch thee, 
 thou vile Parsnip !" 
 
538 HOFFMANN. 
 
 " Ho, ho !" replied the crone, " not so proud, 
 good readywriter! Thou hast squelched my 
 little sons to pieces, thou hast burnt my nose; 
 but I must still like thee, thou knave, for once 
 thou wert a pretty fellow ; and my little daugh- 
 ter likes thee too. Out of the crystal thou wilt 
 never come unless I help thee : up thither I 
 cannot clamber ; but my cousin gossip the Rat, 
 that lives close behind thee, will eat the shelf 
 in two ; thou shalt jingle down, and I catch 
 thee in my apron, that thy nose be not broken, 
 or thy fine sleek face at all injured : then I carry 
 thee to Mamsell Veronica ; and thou shalt 
 marry her, when thou art Hofrath." 
 
 " Avaunt, thou devil's brood!" cried the Stu- 
 dent Anselmus full of fury; "it was thou alone 
 and thy hellish arts that brought me to the sin 
 which I must now expiate. But I bear it all 
 patiently: for only here can I be, where the 
 kind Serpentina encircles me with love and 
 consolation. Hear it, thou beldam, and despair! 
 I bid defiance to thy power: I love Serpentina, 
 and none but her for ever ; I will not be Ho- 
 frath, will not look at Veronica, who by thy 
 means entices me to evil. Can the green 
 Snake not be mine, I will die in sorrow and 
 longing. Take thyself away, thou filthy rook ! 
 Take thyself away!" 
 
 The crone laughed, till the chamber rung: 
 " Sit and die then," cried she : " but now it is 
 time to set to work ; for I have other trade to 
 follow here." She threw off her black cloak, 
 and so stood in hideous nakedness; then she 
 ran round in circles, and large folios came tum- 
 bling down to her ; out of these she tore parch- 
 ment leaves, and rapidly patching them together 
 in artful combination, and fixing them on her 
 body, in a few instants she was dressed as if 
 in strange party-colored harness. Spitting fire, 
 the black Cat darted out of the ink-glass, which 
 was standing on the table, and ran mewing to- 
 wards the crone, who shrieked in loud triumph, 
 and along with him vanished through the door. 
 
 Anselmus observed that she went towards 
 the azure chamber; and directly he heard a 
 hissing and storming in the distance; the birds 
 in the garden were crying; the Parrot creaked 
 out: "Help! help! Thieves! thieves!" That 
 moment the crone returned with a bound into 
 the room, carrying the Golden Pot on her arm, 
 and with hideous gestures, shrieking wildly 
 through the air ; " Joy ! joy, little son ! — Kill the 
 green Snake! To her, son! To her!" 
 
 Anselmus thought he heard a deep moaning, 
 heard Serpentina's voice. Then horror and 
 despair took hold of him: he gathered all his 
 force, he dashed violently, as if nerve and ar- 
 tery were bursting, against the crystal; a pierc- 
 ing clang went through the room, and the 
 Archivarius in his bright damask nightgown 
 was standing in the door. 
 
 " Hey, hey ! vermin ! — Mad spell ! — Witch- 
 work! — Hither, holla!" So shouted he: then 
 the black hair of the crone started up in tufts ; 
 her red eyes glanced with infernal fire, and 
 
 clenching together the peaked fangs of her 
 abominable jaws, she hissed: "Hiss, at him! 
 Hiss, at him ! Hiss !" and laughed and neighed 
 in scorn and mockery, and pressed the Golden 
 Pot firmly towards her, and threw out of it 
 handfuls of glittering earth on the Archivarius; 
 but as it touched the nightgown, the earth 
 changed into flowers, which rained down on 
 the ground. Then the lilies of the nightgown 
 flickered and flamed up ; and the Archivarius 
 caught these lilies blazing in sparky fire and 
 dashed them on the witch ; she howled for 
 agony, but still as she leapt aloft and shook her 
 harness of parchment the lilies went out, and 
 fell away into ashes. 
 
 " To her, my lad !" creaked the crone : then 
 the black Cat darted through the air, and soused 
 over the Archivarius' head towards the door; 
 but the grey Parrot fluttered out against him; 
 caught him with his crooked bill by the nape, 
 till red fiery blood burst down over his neck ; 
 and Serpentina's voice cried : " Saved ! Saved !" 
 Then the crone, foaming with rage and despe- 
 ration, darted out upon the Archivarius : she 
 threw the Golden Pot behind her, and holding 
 up the long talons of her skinny fists, was for 
 clutching the Archivarius by the throat : but he 
 instantly doffed his nightgown, and hurled it 
 against her. Then, hissing, and sputtering, and 
 bursting, shot blue flames from the parchment 
 leaves, and the crone rolled round in howling 
 agony, and strove to get fresh earth from the 
 Pot, fresh parchment leaves from the books, 
 that she might stifle the blazing flames; and 
 whenever any earth or leaves came down on 
 her, the flames went out. But now, from the 
 interior of the Archivarius issued fiery crack- 
 ling beams, and darted on the crone. 
 
 "Hey, hey! To it again! Salamander! Vic- 
 tory !" clanged the Archivarius' voice through 
 the chamber ; and a hundred bolts whirled 
 forth in fiery circles round the shrieking crone. 
 Whizzing and buzzing flew Cat and Parrot in 
 their furious battle ; but at last the Parrot, with 
 his strong wing, dashed the Cat to the ground ; 
 and with his talons transfixing and holding fast 
 his adversary, which, in deadly agony, uttered 
 horrid mews and howls, he, with his sharp bill, 
 picked out his glowing eyes, and the burning 
 froth spouted from them. Then thick vapor 
 streamed up from the spot where the crone, 
 hurled to the ground, was lying under the night- 
 gown : her howling, her terrific, piercing cry of 
 lamentation, died away in the remote distance. 
 The smoke, which had spread abroad with irre- 
 sistible smell, cleared off; the Archivarius pick- 
 ed up his nightgown ; and under it lay an ugly 
 Parsnip. 
 
 " Honored Herr Archivarius, here let me offer 
 you the vanquished foe," said the Parrot, hold- 
 ing out a black hair in his beak to Archivarius 
 Lindhorst. 
 
 " Very right, my worthy friend," replied the 
 Archivarius: "here lies my vanquished foe too: 
 be so good now as to manage what remains. This 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 539 
 
 very day, as a small douceur, you shall have 
 six cocoa-nuts, and a new pair of spectacles 
 also, for I see the Cat has villainously broken 
 the glasses of these old ones." 
 
 " Yours forever, most honored friend and pa- 
 tron !" answered the Parrot, much delighted; 
 then took the Parsnip in his bill, and fluttered 
 out with it by the window, which Archivarius 
 Lindhorst had opened for him. 
 
 The Archivarius now lifted the Golden Pot, 
 and cried, with a strong voice, " Serpentina ! 
 Serpentina!" But as the Student Anselmus, 
 joying in the destruction of the vile beldam 
 who had hurried him into misfortune, cast his 
 eyes on the Archivarius, behold, here stood once 
 more the high majestic form of the Spirit-prince, 
 looking up to him with indescribable dignity and 
 grace. "Anselmus," said the Spirit-prince, " not 
 thou, but a hostile Principle, which strove de- 
 structively to penetrate into thy nature, and 
 divide thee against thyself, was to blame for 
 thy unbelief. Thou hast kept thy faithfulness : 
 be free and happy." A bright flash quivered 
 through the spirit of Anselmus: the royal tri- 
 phonyof the crystal bells sounded stronger and 
 louder than he had ever heard it: his nerves 
 and fibres thrilled ; but, swelling higher and 
 higher, the melodious tones rang through the 
 room ; the glass which enclosed Anselmus 
 broke ; and he rushed into the arms of his dear 
 and gentle Serpentina. 
 
 ELEVENTH VIGIL. 
 
 Conrector Paulmann's anger at the Madness which had broken 
 out in his Family. How Registrator Heerbrand became Ho- 
 frath ; and, in the keenest Frost, walked about in Shoes and 
 silk Stockings. Veronica's Confessions. Betrothment over the 
 steaming Soup-plate. 
 
 " But tell me, best Registrator ! how the 
 cursed punch last night could so mount into our 
 heads, and drive us to all manner of aZfofro'a?" 
 So said Conrector Paulmann, as he next morn- 
 ing entered his room, which still lay full of 
 broken sherds ; with his hapless peruke, dis- 
 solved into its original elements, floating in 
 punch among the ruin. For after the Student 
 Anselmus ran out of doors, Conrector Paulmann 
 and Registrator Heerbrand had still kept trotting 
 and hobbling up and down the room, shouting 
 like maniacs, and butting their heads together; 
 till Franzchen, with much labor, carried her 
 vertiginous papa to bed ; and Registrator Heer- 
 brand in the deepest exhaustion, sunk on the 
 sofa, which Veronica had left, taking refuge in 
 her bed-room. Registrator Heerbrand had his 
 blue handkerchief tied about his head; he 
 looked quite pale and melancholic, and moan- 
 ed out : " Ah, worthy Conrector, not the punch 
 which Mamsell Veronica most admirably brew- 
 ed, no! but simply that cursed Student is to 
 blame for all the mischief. Do you not observe 
 that he has long been mente captus? And are 
 you not aware that madness is infectious ? One 
 fool makes twenty ; pardon me, it is an old 
 proverb : especially when you have drunk a 
 
 glass or two, you fall into madness quite readily, 
 and then involuntarily you manoeuvre, and go 
 through your exercise, just as the crack-brained 
 fugleman makes the motion. Would you believe 
 it, Conrector? I am still giddy when I think of 
 that grey Parrot!" 
 
 "Grey fiddlestick!" interrupted the Conrec- 
 tor : t: it was nothing but Archivarius Lindhorst's 
 little old Famulus, who had thrown a grey cloak 
 over him, and was seeking the Student Ansel- 
 mus." 
 
 " It may be," answered Registrator Heerbrand ; 
 "but, I must confess, I am quite downcast in 
 spirit; the whole night through there was such 
 a piping and organing." 
 
 "That was I," said the Conrector, "for I 
 snore loud." 
 
 " Well, may be," answered the Registrator : 
 "but, Conrector, Conrector! Ah, not without 
 cause did I wish to raise some cheerfulness 
 among us last night — And that Anselmus has 
 spoiled all ! You know not — Conrector, Con- 
 rector !" And with this, Registrator Heerbrand 
 started up; plucked the cloth from his head, 
 embraced the Conrector, warmly pressed his 
 hand, and again cried, in quite heart-breaking 
 tone: "0 Conrector, Conrector!" and snatching 
 his hat and staff, rushed out of doors. 
 
 " This Anselmus comes not over my threshold 
 again," said Conrector Paulmann ; " for I see 
 very well, that, with this moping madness of 
 his, he robs the best gentlemen of their senses. 
 The Registrator is now over with it too : I have 
 hitherto kept safe ; but the Devil, who knocked 
 hard last night in our carousal, may get in at 
 last, and play his tricks with me. So Jlpage, 
 Satanas ! Off with thee, Anselmus !" Veronica 
 had grown quite pensive ; she spoke no word ; 
 only smiled now and then very oddly, and liked 
 best to be alone. "She too has Anselmus in 
 her head," said the Conrector, full of spleen: 
 "but it is well that he does not show himself 
 here; I know he fears me, this Anselmus, and 
 so he never comes." 
 
 These concluding words Conrector Paulmann 
 spoke aloud ; then the tears rushed into Vero- 
 nica's eyes, and she said, sobbing: "Ah! how 
 can Anselmus come? He has long been corked 
 up in the glass bottle." 
 
 "How? What?" cried Conrector Paulmann. 
 "Ah Heaven! Ah Heaven! she is doting too, 
 like the Registrator: the loud fit will soon 
 come! Ah, thou cursed, abominable, thrice- 
 cursed Anselmus !" He ran forth directly to 
 Doctor Eckstein ; who smiled, and again said: 
 " Ey ! Ey !" This time, however, he prescribed 
 nothing; but added, to the little he had uttered, 
 the following words, as he walked away: 
 "Nerves! Come round of itself. Take the air; 
 walks; amusements; theatre; playing Soutags- 
 kind, Schwestern von Prag. Come round of itself." 
 
 " So eloquent I have seldom seen the Doctor," 
 thought Conrector Paulmann; "really talkative, 
 I declare !" 
 
 Several days and weeks and months were 
 
540 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 gone; Anselmus had vanished ; but Registrator 
 Heerbrand also did not make his appearance : 
 not till the fourth of February, when the Regis- 
 trator, in a new fashionable coat of the finest 
 cloth, in shoes and silk stockings, notwithstand- 
 ing the keen frost, and with a large nosegay of 
 fresh flowers in his hand, did enter precisely at 
 noon into the parlor of Conrector Paulmann, 
 who wondered not a little to see his friend so 
 dizened. With a solemn air, Registrator Heer- 
 brand stept forward to Conrector Paulmann; 
 embraced him with the finest elegance, and 
 then said : " Now at last, on the Saint's-day of 
 your beloved and most honored Mamsell Ve- 
 ronica, I will tell you out, straight forward, 
 what I have long had lying at my heart. That 
 evening, that unfortunate evening, when I put 
 the ingredients of our noxious punch in my 
 pocket, I purposed imparting to you a piece of 
 good news, and celebrating the happy day in 
 convivial joys. Already I had learned that I 
 was to be made Hofrath ; for which promotion 
 I have now the patent, cum nomine et sigillo 
 Principis, in my pocket." 
 
 "Ah! Herr Registr — Herr Hofrath Heerbrand, 
 I meant to say," stammered the Conrector. 
 
 "But it is you, most honored Conrector," con- 
 tinued the new Hofrath; "it is you alone that 
 can complete my happiness. For a long time, 
 I have in secret loved your daughter, Mamsell 
 Veronica ; and I can boast of many a kind look 
 which she has given me, evidently showing that 
 she would not cast me away. In one word, 
 honored Conrector! I, Hofrath Heerbrand, do 
 now entreat of you the hand of your most amia- 
 ble Mamsell Veronica, whom I, if you have 
 nothing against it, purpose shortly to take home 
 as my wife." 
 
 Conrector Paulmann, full of astonishment, 
 clapped his hands repeatedly, and cried : " Ey, 
 Ey, Ey! Herr Registr — Herr Hofrath, I meant 
 to say — who would have thought it? Well, if 
 Veronica does really love you, I for my share 
 cannot object: nay, perhaps, her present melan- 
 choly is nothing but concealed love for you, 
 most honored Hofrath ! You know what freaks 
 they have !" 
 
 At this moment Veronica entered, pale and 
 agitated as she now commonly was. Then 
 Hofrath Heerbrand stept towards her; men- 
 tioned in a neat speech her Saint's day and 
 handed her the odorous nosegay, along with a 
 little packet ; out of which, when she opened 
 it, a pair of glittering earrings beamed up to 
 her. A rapid flying blush tinted her cheeks ; 
 her eyes sparkled in joy, and she cried: "O 
 Heaven ! These are the very earrings which I 
 wore some weeks ago, and thought so much of." 
 
 " How can this be, dearest Mamsell," inter- 
 rupted Hofrath Heerbrand, somewhat alarmed 
 and hurt, " when I bought these jewels not an 
 hour ago in the Schlossgasse, for current mo- 
 ney?" 
 
 But Veronica heeded him not; she was 
 standing before the mirror to witness the effect 
 
 of the trinkets, which she had already suspended 
 in her pretty little ears. Conrector Paulmann 
 disclosed to her, with grave countenance and 
 solemn tone, his friend Heerbrand's preferment 
 and present proposal. Veronica looked at the 
 Hofrath with a searching look, and said; «I 
 have long known that you wished to marry me. 
 Well, be it so ! I promise you my heart and 
 hand ; but I must now unfold to you, to both of 
 you, I mean, my father and my bridegroom, 
 much that is lying heavy on my heart; yds, 
 even now, though the soup should get cold, 
 which I see Franzchen is just putting on the 
 table." 
 
 Without waiting for the Conrector's or the 
 Hofrath's reply, though the words were visibly 
 hovering on the lips of both, Veronica continued: 
 " You may believe me, best father, I loved An- 
 selmus from my heart, and when Registrator 
 Heerbrand, who is now become Hofrath him- 
 self, assured us that Anselmus might probably 
 enough get some such length, I resolved that he 
 and no other should be my husband. But then 
 it seemed as if alien hostile beings were for 
 snatching him away from me : I had recourse 
 to old Liese, who was once my nurse, but is 
 now a wise woman, and a great enchantress. 
 She promised to help me, and give Anselmus 
 wholly into my hands. We went at midnight 
 on the Equinox to the crossing of the roads: 
 she conjured certain hellish spirits, and by aid 
 of the black Cat, we manufactured a little me- 
 tallic mirror, in which I, directing my thoughts 
 on Anselmus, had but to look, in order to rule 
 him wholly in heart and mind. But now I 
 heartily repent having done all this ; and here 
 abjure all Satanic arts. The Salamander has 
 conquered old Liese ; I heard her shrieks ; but 
 there 'was no help to be given: so soon as the 
 Parrot had eaten the Parsnip, my metallic mir- 
 ror broke in two with a piercing clang." Ve- 
 ronica took out both the pieces of the mirror, 
 and a lock of hair from her work-box, and 
 handing them to Hofrath Heerbrand, she pro- 
 ceeded : " Here, take the fragments of the mir- 
 ror, dear Hofrath : throw them down, to-night, 
 at twelve o'clock, over the Elbe-bridge, from 
 the place where the Cross stands ; the stream 
 is not frozen there : the lock, however, do you 
 wear on your faithful breast. I here abjure all 
 magic: and heartily wish Anselmus joy of his 
 good fortune, seeing he is wedded with the 
 green Snake, who is much prettier aud richer 
 than I. You, dear Hofrath, I will love and 
 reverence as becomes a true honest wife." 
 
 « Alake ! Alake !" cried Conrector Paulmann, 
 full of sorrow ; " she is cracked, she is cracked ; 
 she can never be Frau Hofrathinn ; she is 
 cracked !" 
 
 "Not in the smallest," interrupted Hofrath 
 Heerbrand; "I know well that Mamsell Vero- 
 nica has had some kindness for the loutish An- 
 selmus ; and it may be that in some fit of pas- 
 sion, she has had recourse to the wise woman, 
 who, as I perceive, can be no other than the 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 541 
 
 card-caster and coffee-pourer of the Seethor ; in 
 a word, old Rauerin. Nor can it be denied that 
 there are secret arts, which exert their influence 
 on men but too balefully ; we read of such in 
 the Ancients, and doubtless there are still such; 
 but as to what Mamsell Veronica is pleased to 
 say about the victory of the Salamander, and 
 the marriage of Anselmus with the green Snake, 
 this, in reality, I take for nothing but a poetic 
 allegory ; a sort of song, wherein she sings her 
 entire farewell to the Student." 
 
 " Take it for what you will, best Hofrath !" 
 cried Veronica; "perhaps for a very stupid 
 dream." 
 
 "That I nowise do," replied Hofrath Heer- 
 brand ; " for I know well that Anselmus him- 
 self is possessed by secret powers, which vex 
 him and drive him on to all imaginable mad 
 freaks." 
 
 Conrector Paulmann could stand it no longer; 
 he broke loose : "Hold ! For the love of Heaven, 
 hold ! Are we again overtaken with the cursed 
 punch, or has Anselmus' madness come over us 
 too? Herr Hofrath, what stuff is this you are 
 talking? I will suppose, however, that it is love 
 which haunts your brain : this soon comes to 
 rights in marriage : otherwise I should be ap- 
 prehensive that you too had fallen into some 
 shade of madness, most honored Herr Hofrath ; 
 then what would become of the future branches 
 of the family, inheriting the malum of their pa- 
 rents ? But now I give my paternal blessing to 
 this happy union ; and permit you as bride and 
 bridegroom to take a kiss." 
 
 This happened forthwith; and thus before 
 the presented soup had grown cold, was a for- 
 mal betrothment concluded. In a few weeks, 
 Frau Hofrathinn Heerbrand was actually, as 
 she had been in vision, sitting in the balcony of 
 a fine house in the Neumarkt, and looking down 
 with a smile on the beaux, who passing by 
 turned their glasses up to her, and said : " She 
 is a heavenly woman, the Hofrathinn Heer- 
 brand." 
 
 TWELFTH VIGIL. 
 
 Account of the Freehold Property to which Anselmus removed, 
 as Son-in-law of Archivarius Lindhorst; and how he lives 
 there with Serpentina. Conclusion. 
 
 How deeply did I feel, in the centre of my 
 spirit, the blessedness of the Student Anselmus, 
 who now, indissolubly united with his gentle 
 Serpentina, has withdrawn to the mysterious 
 Land of Wonders, recognised by him as the 
 home towards which his bosom, filled with 
 strange forecastings, had always longed. But 
 in vain was all my striving to set before thee, 
 favorable reader, those glories with which An- 
 < ' selmus is encompassed, or even in the faintest 
 degree to shadow them forth to thee in words. 
 Reluctantly I could not but acknowledge the 
 feebleness of my every expression. I felt my- 
 self enthralled amid the paltriness of every-day 
 life; I sickened in tormenting dissatisfaction; I 
 glided about like a dreamer ; in brief, I fell into 
 
 that condition of the Student Anselmus, which, 
 in the Fourth Vigil, I have endeavored to set 
 before thee. It grieved me to the heart, when 
 I glanced over the Eleven Vigils, now happily 
 accomplished, and thought that to insert the 
 Twelfth, the keystone of the whole, would 
 never be vouchsafed me. For whensoever, in 
 the night season, I set myself to complete the 
 work, it was as if mischievous Spirits (they 
 might be relations, perhaps cousins-german, of 
 the slain witch) held a polished glittering piece 
 of metal before me, in which I beheld my own 
 mean Self, pale, overwatched, and melancholic, 
 like Registrator Heerbrand after his bout of 
 punch. Then I threw down my pen, and 
 hastened to bed, that I might behold the happy 
 Anselmus and the fair Serpentina at least in 
 my dreams. This had lasted for several days 
 and nights, when at length quite unexpectedly 
 I received a note from Archivarius Lindhorst, 
 in which he addressed me'as follows : 
 
 "Respected Sir, — It is well known tome that 
 you have written down, in Eleven Vigils, the 
 singular fortunes of my good son-in-law Ansel- 
 mus, whilom Student, now Poet; and are at 
 present cudgelling your brains very sore, that 
 in the Twelfth and Last Vigil you may tell 
 somewhat of his happy life in Atlantis, where 
 he now lives with my daughter, on the pleasant 
 Freehold, which I possess in that country. Now, 
 notwithstanding I much regret that hereby my 
 own peculiar nature is unfolded to the reading 
 world ; seeing it may, in my office as Privy Ar- 
 chivarius, expose me to a thousand inconveni- 
 ences; nay, in the Collegium even give rise to 
 the question : How far a Salamander can justly, 
 and with binding consequences, plight himself 
 by oath, as a Servant of the State ? and how 
 far, on the whole, important affairs may be in- 
 trusted to him, since, according to Gabalis and 
 Swedenborg, the Spirits of the Elements are not 
 to be trusted at all ? — notwithstanding, my best 
 friends must now avoid my embrace ; fearing 
 lest, in some sudden anger, I dart out a flash or 
 two, and singe their hair-curls, and Sunday 
 frocks ; notwithstanding all this, I say, it is still 
 my purpose to assist you in the completion of 
 the Work, since much good of me and of my 
 dear married daughter (would the other two 
 were off my hands also!) has therein been 
 said. Would you write your Twelfth Vigil, 
 therefore, then descend your cursed five pair 
 of stairs, leave your garret, and come over to 
 me. In the blue palm-tree-room, which you 
 already know, you will find fit writing mate- 
 rials; and you can then, in few words, specify 
 to your readers, what you have seen ; a better 
 plan for you than any long-winded description 
 of a life, which you know only by hearsay. 
 " With esteem, your obedient servant, 
 
 "The Salamander Lindhohst, 
 " P. T. Royal Archivarius." 
 
 This truly somewhat rough, yet on the whole 
 friendly note from Archivarius Lindhorst, gave 
 me high pleasure. Clear enough it seemed, 
 46 
 
542 
 
 HOFFMANN. 
 
 indeed, that the singular manner in which the 
 fortunes of his son-in-law had been revealed to 
 me, and which I, bound to silence, must conceal 
 even from thee, favorable reader, was well 
 known to this peculiar old gentleman ; yet he 
 had not taken it so ill as I might readily have 
 apprehended. Nay, here was he offering me 
 his helpful hand in the completion of my work; 
 and from this I might justly conclude, that at 
 bottom he was not averse to have his marvel- 
 lous existence in the world of spirits thus di- 
 vulged through the press. 
 
 " It may be," thought I, " that he himself ex- 
 pects from this measure, perhaps, to get his two 
 other daughters the sooner married : for who 
 knows but a spark may fall in this or that young 
 man's breast, and kindle a longing for the green 
 Snake ; whom, on Ascension-day, under the 
 eider-bush, he will forthwith seek and find? 
 From the woe which befell Anselmus, when 
 inclosed in the glass bottle, he will take warn- 
 ing to be doubly and trebly on his guard against 
 all Doubt and Unbelief." 
 
 Precisely at eleven o'clock, I extinguished my 
 study-lamp ; and glided forth to Archivarius 
 Lindhorst, who was already waiting for me in 
 the lobby. 
 
 "Are you there, my worthy friend? Well, 
 this is what I like, that you have not mistaken 
 my good intentions: do but follow me!" 
 
 And with this he led the way through the 
 garden, now filled with dazzling brightness, 
 into the azure chamber, where I observed the 
 same violet table, at which Anselmus had been 
 writing. 
 
 Archivarius Lindhorst disappeared : but soon 
 came back, carrying in his hand a fair golden 
 goblet, out of which a high blue flame was 
 sparkling up. " Here," said he, " I bring you 
 the favorite drink of your friend the Bandmas- 
 ter, Johannes Kreisler.* It is burning arrack, 
 into which I have thrown a little sugar. Sip a 
 touch or two of it : I will doff my night-gown, 
 and to amuse myself and enjoy your worthy 
 company while you sit looking and writing, I 
 shall just bob up and down a little in the goblet." 
 
 " As you please, honored Herr Archivarius," 
 answered I : " but if I am to ply the liquor, you 
 will get none." 
 
 " Don't fear that, my good fellow," cried the 
 Archivarius; then hastily threw off his night- 
 gown, mounted, to my no small amazement, 
 
 * An imaginary musical enthusiast of whom Hoffmann 
 has written much; under the fiery sensitive wayward 
 character of this crazy Bandmaster, presenting, it would 
 seem, a shadowy likeness of himself. The Kreisleriana 
 occupy a large space among these Fantasy pieces ; and 
 Johannes Kreisler is the main figure in Kater Murr, 
 Hoffmann's favorite but unfinished work. In the the 
 third and last volume, Kreisler was to end, not in com- 
 posure and illumination, as the critics would have re- 
 quired, but in utter madness : a sketch of a wild, flail-like 
 scarecrow, dancing vehemently and blowing soap-bub- 
 bles, and which had been intended to front the last title- 
 page, was found among Hoffmann's papers, and engraved 
 and published in his Life and Remains.— Ed. 
 
 into the goblet, and vanished in the blaze. 
 Without fear, softly blowing back the flame, I 
 partook of the drink : it was truly precious ! 
 
 Stir not the emerald leaves of the palm-trees 
 in soft sighing and rustling, as if kissed by the 
 breath of the morning wind ? Awakened from 
 their sleep, they move, and mysteriously whisper 
 of the wonders, which from the far distance 
 approach like tones of melodious harps ! The 
 azure rolls from the walls, and floats like airy 
 vapor to and fro ; but dazzling beams shoot 
 through it; and whirling and dancing, as in ju- 
 bilee of childlike sport, it mounts and mounts 
 to immeasurable height, and vaults itself over 
 the palm-trees. But brighter and brighter shoots 
 beam on beam, till in boundless expanse opens 
 the grove where I behold Anselmus. Here 
 glowing hyacinths, and tulips, and roses, lift 
 their fair heads ; and their perfumes, in loveli- 
 est sound, call to the happy youth : " Wander, 
 wander among us, our beloved ; for thou under- 
 standest us! Our perfume is the Longing of 
 Love : we love thee, and are thine forever- 
 more!" The golden rays burn in glowing tones: 
 "We are Fire, kindled by love. Perfume is 
 Longing; but Fire is Desire: and dwell we 
 not in thy bosom ? We are thy own !" The dark 
 bushes, the high trees rustle and sound: "Come 
 to us, thou loved, thou happy one ! Fire is De- 
 sire ; but Hope is our cool Shadow. Lovingly 
 we rustle round thy head : for thou understand- 
 est us, because Love dwells in thy breast!" 
 The brooks and fountains murmur and patter : 
 " Loved one, walk not so quickly by : look into 
 our crystal ! Thy image dwells in us, which we 
 preserve with Love, for thou hast understood 
 us." In the triumphal choir, bright birds are 
 singing: "Hear us! Hear us! We are Joy, we 
 are Delight, the rapture of Love !" But anxiously 
 Anselmus turns his eyes to the glorious Temple, 
 which rises behind him in the distance. The 
 fair pillars seem trees ; and the capitals and 
 friezes acanthus leaves, which in wondrous 
 wreaths and. figures form splendid decorations. 
 Anselmus w r alks to the Temple : he views with 
 inward delight the variegated marble, the steps 
 with their strange veins of moss. "Ah, no!" 
 cries he, as if in the excess of rapture, " she is 
 not far from me now; she is near!" Then ad- 
 vances Serpentina, in the fulness of beauty and 
 grace, from the Temple ; she bears the Golden 
 Pot, from which a bright Lily has sprung. The 
 nameless rapture of infinite longing glows in 
 her meek eyes; she looks at Anselmus, and 
 says: "Ah! Dearest, the Lily has sent forth her 
 bowl: what we longed for is fulfilled; is there 
 a happiness to equal ours?" Anselmus clasps 
 her with the tenderness of warmest ardor: the 
 Lily burns in flaming beams over his head. 
 And louder move the trees and bushes ; clearer 
 and gladder play the brooks ; the birds, the 
 shining insects dance in the waves of perfume: 
 a gay, bright rejoicing tumult, in the air, in the 
 water, in the earth, is holding the festival of 
 
HOFFMANN. 
 
 543 
 
 Love! Now rush sparkling streaks, gleaming 
 over all the bushes; diamonds look from the 
 ground like shining eyes: strange vapors are 
 wafted hither on sounding wings : they are the 
 Spirits of the Elements, who do homage to the 
 Lily, and proclaim the happiness of Anselmus. 
 Then Anselmus raises his head, as if encircled 
 with a beamy glory. Is it looks? Is it words? 
 Is it song? You hear the sound: "Serpentina! 
 Belief in thee, Love of thee has unfolded to my 
 soul the inmost spirit of Nature ! Thou hast 
 brought me the Lily, which sprung from Gold, 
 from the primeval Force of the world, before 
 Phosphorus had kindled the spark of Thought ; 
 this Lily is Knowledge of the sacred Harmony 
 of all Beings ; and in this do I live in highest 
 blessedness forevermore. Yes, I, thrice happy, 
 have perceived what was highest : I must in- 
 deed love thee forever, Serpentina! Never 
 shall the golden blossoms of the Lily grow pale ; 
 for, like Belief and Love this Knowledge is 
 eternal." 
 
 For the vision, in which I had now beheld 
 Anselmus bodily, in his Freehold of Atlantis, I 
 stand indebted to the arts of the Salamander ; 
 and most fortunate was it that, when all had 
 melted into air, I found a paper lying on the 
 
 violet-table, with the foregoing statement of the 
 matter, written fairly and distinctly by my own 
 hand. But now I felt myself as if transpierced 
 and torn in pieces by sharp sorrow. " Ah, 
 happy Anselmus, who hast cast away the bur- 
 den of week-day life, who in the love of thy 
 kind Serpentina fliest with bold pinion, and now 
 livest in rapture and joy on thy Freehold in At- 
 lantis! while I — poor I! — must soon, nay, in 
 few moments, leave even this fair hall, which 
 itself is far from a Freehold in Atlantis ; and 
 again be transplanted to my garret, where, en- 
 thralled among the pettinesses of necessitous 
 existence, my heart and my sight are so be- 
 dimmed with thousand mischiefs, as with thick 
 fog, that the fair Lily will never, never be be- 
 held by me." 
 
 Then Archivarius Lindhorst patted me gently 
 on the shoulder, and said: "Soft, soft, my ho- 
 nored friend ! Lament not so ! Were you not 
 even now in Atlantis ; and have you not at 
 least a pretty little copyhold Farm there, as the 
 poetical possession of your inward sense ? And 
 is the blessedness of Anselmus aught else but a 
 Living in Poesy? Can aught else but Poesy 
 reveal itself as the sacred Harmony of all Be- 
 ings, as the deepest secret of Nature 3" 
 
ADALBERT VON CHAMISSO.* 
 
 Born 1781. Died 1839. 
 
 We would fain perform in some degree an 
 act of tardy justice to the memory of a poet of 
 no mean order, and a man of rare and sterling 
 worth. Considering the early and extensive 
 popularity which the story of Peter Schlemihl 
 obtained in this country, it is surprising how 
 rarely the author's name is mentioned amongst 
 us. Few English readers, we believe, are 
 aware that he ever wrote a line of poetry, or 
 acquired any other title to celebrity than that 
 which his far-famed romance conferred upon 
 him. Yet neither as to the man nor his works 
 is this neglect deserved. Both have long been 
 regarded in Germany with fervent love and 
 admiration, and both commend themselves to 
 our sympathies by qualities peculiarly adapted 
 to win the cordial esteem of Englishmen. But 
 even were it not so, even though Chamisso 
 claimed our attention on no higher grounds, 
 curiosity at least might well be directed towards 
 the productions of a Frenchman, whose German 
 style has been accepted in the country of his 
 adoption as a model of purity, force, and ele- 
 gance. Such an example of eminent mastery 
 achieved both in prose and verse over a lan- 
 guage which was not the writer's mother 
 tongue, is almost unique in the history of lite- 
 rature. 
 
 Louis Charles Adelaide, or, as he was after- 
 wards called, Adalbert von Chamisso, was one 
 of the younger sons of the count of that name, 
 and was born in the Chateau de Boncourt, in 
 Champagne, in January, 1781. His family, 
 which was of Lorrainian origin, had been dis- 
 tinguished for its loyalty to its suzerains, its 
 ample feudal honors and possessions, and its 
 intermarriages with many reigning houses. 
 Not less eminent than its prosperous fortunes 
 were the disasters that afterwards befel it. 
 Adalbert's parents were residing in the chateau 
 where he was born when the Revolution broke 
 out. Boncourt was assailed, ransacked, and 
 destroyed. 
 
 Little is known of Chamisso's childhood, ex- 
 cept that he was even then remarkable for the 
 
 * Abridged from Foreign Quarterly Review, No. LXXII. 
 
 taciturn and thoughtful disposition that charac- 
 terized his manhood, and already evinced a 
 propensity to the pursuits of the naturalist and 
 the reveries of the poet. "I used," he says, 
 " to observe insects, search out new plants, and 
 at an open window on stormy nights, stand 
 contemplating and reflecting." When his 
 more volatile companions teased and ridiculed 
 him for his backwardness to join in their romps, 
 his mother would come to the rescue, and cry 
 out, " Let him alone ; he will outstrip you all 
 by and by as a man, as much as he surpasses 
 you now in good conduct and information." 
 He used to say of his own fourth son, a delicate 
 boy, whose apparent weakness of intellect oc- 
 casioned his mother much uneasiness, " Never 
 fear, the lad will come right in time ; he is ex- 
 actly such as I was myself at his age." 
 
 Chamisso was nine years old when his im- 
 poverished family fled from France. At thir- 
 teen, he studied drawing and miniature paint- 
 ing, at Wurtzburg. At fifteen, after having 
 been for some time a pupil in the painting de- 
 partment of the royal porcelain manufactory of 
 Berlin, he became one of the Queen of Prus- 
 sia's pages. At seventeen, he entered the 
 Prussian army ; three years afterwards (1801) 
 he was a lieutenant, and his family returned 
 to France. The first occupation of the young 
 Prussian officer was to make himself thoroughly 
 acquainted with the German tongue; for at 
 twenty years of age he was not yet perfectly 
 familiar with the language, in the literature of 
 which he was afterwards to take so prominent 
 a place. 
 
 In 1810, he was called to France, to fill a 
 professorship in the new college of Napoleon- 
 ville ; his errand was again a fruitless one, but 
 the journey made him acquainted with Madame 
 de Stael and M. de Barante, the historian, then 
 prefect of Vendee. With the latter he spent 
 the winter of 1810-11, agreeably enough, in- 
 structing the future translator of Schiller in 
 German literature, and filling up his leisure 
 with the perusal of old fabliaux and romances 
 of chivalry. He was also a welcome guest of 
 
 (544) 
 
CH AMISSO. 
 
 515 
 
 Madame de Stael's, at Chaumont and Blois; 
 and after her banishment he followed her to 
 Geneva and Coppet. 
 
 It was during his visit to Coppet that Cha- 
 misso began the study of Botany, which was 
 afterwards the professional occupation of his 
 life. In 1812, he made a pedestrian tour in 
 Switzerland, hesitated on the frontiers of Italy, 
 and then turned short round to the north, hun- 
 gering for his beloved Germany. Hastening 
 to Berlin, he entered the university as a medi- 
 cal pupil, and began to study anatomy and 
 physiology with intense zeal. 
 
 In 1813, he composed his famous tale of 
 "Peter Schlemihl," the man who was rendered 
 miserable by the loss of his shadow. Ampere 
 has an ingenious passage on this subject, which 
 is worth quoting : 
 
 " Is there a latent moral in this whimsical 
 story? Without doing like Schlemihl, and 
 running after a shadow, it seems to me we may 
 attribute to the author the intention of express- 
 ing this truth, that in society, as it is now con- 
 stituted, virtue, merit, and even fortune, are 
 not everything. It is not enough that one is 
 rich, something more is wanting to give one 
 mark and consequence in the world; there 
 needs a slight shadowy something, designated 
 by the vague, but not insignificant words, spe- 
 ciality, notability, position. To be other than 
 a nobody in society in these days, when men 
 are no longer classed according to rank, one 
 must bear a known name, or have produced a 
 book, or possess some striking accomplishment; 
 one must have the supplementary aid of fashion, 
 or enjoy a celebrity, a notoriety, a distinction, 
 as they phrase it, of one kind or another. This 
 is the indispensable shadow for which the devil 
 sometimes tempts us to sell our souls, and with- 
 out which we succeed in nothing. The author 
 of 'Peter Schlemihl' is right in concluding, 
 that when one has not a shadow, one ought not 
 to go into the sunshine." 
 
 We accept this interpretation, although since 
 it was written Hitzig has published Chamisso's 
 positive declaration that he had no didactic 
 purpose in view when he composed the tale. 
 We hold that every well-constructed story, in- 
 asmuch as it purports to present a regular 
 series of events and circumstances, bound to- 
 gether by known laws, must of necessity supply 
 data from which may be deduced one moral or 
 more. In other words, the details of any fable 
 will suggest pointed analogies just in proportion 
 3t 
 
 as they are consistent with each other and co- 
 herent. It is generally conceded that although 
 the poet's functions have a moral tendency, he 
 is not required to be solicitous about teaching 
 categorically ; and perhaps it would not be too 
 much to say that if he thinks about his moral 
 at all, the less he does so the better. Chamisso 
 appears to have been of this opinion : 
 
 "1 have seldom," he says, " any ulterior aim 
 in my poetry ; if an anecdote or a word strikes 
 me in a particular manner (mich selbst in Leibe 
 von der Seite der linken Pfole bewegl) I sup- 
 pose it must have the same effect on others, 
 and I set to work, wrestling laboriously with 
 the language, till the thing comes out dis- 
 tinctly. 
 
 "If by chance I have had a notion to evolve, 
 I am always disappointed with the way in 
 which the thing turns out. It looks flimsy; 
 
 there is no life in it You may call me 
 
 for this a nightingale, or a cuckoo, or any other 
 singing bird, rather than a reasoning man ; 
 
 with all my heart ! I ask no better 
 
 Schlemihl, too, came forth in this way. I had 
 lost on a journey my hat, portmanteau, gloves, 
 pocket-handkerchief, and all my movable es- 
 tate. Fouque asked me whether I had not also 
 lost my shadow ; and we pictured to ourselves 
 the effects of such a disaster. Another time, 
 in turning over the leaves of a book by Lafon- 
 taine (I do not know the title), was found a 
 passage in which a very obliging man was de- 
 scribed as producing all sorts of things from his 
 pocket in a party, as fast as they were called 
 for; upon this I remarked that, only ask him 
 civilly, the good fellow would, no doubt, lug 
 out a coach and horses from his pocket. — Here 
 was Schlemihl complete in conception, and as 
 time hung heavy enough on my hands in the 
 country, I began to write. In truth I had no 
 need to have read the 'Baron de Feneste' 
 (Daubigne's philosophical romance) to have 
 picked up all sorts of practical knowledge, 
 touching the fyaiveoOat, and the euuc. But it 
 was not my object to embody this knowledge, 
 but to amuse Hitzig's wife and children, whom 
 I looked upon as my public, and so it has come 
 to pass that you and others have laughed over 
 my performance." 
 
 He employed the latter part of 1813, and 
 the greater part of the following year, upon 
 natural history, attending lectures on mineral- 
 ogy, which surprised him with the discovery 
 "that stones had so much sense in them," as- 
 46* 
 
546 
 
 CH AMISSO. 
 
 sisting in the arrangement of the Crustacea in 
 the Zoological Museum of Berlin, and exercis- 
 ing himself in writing and speaking Latin, pre- 
 paratory to taking his doctor's degree. The 
 storm of war broke out again in 1815, and made 
 him more than ever solicitous to withdraw for 
 a while from the scene of strife. He endea- 
 vored to join the Prince de Neuwied, who was 
 about to travel in Brazil, but was disappointed 
 in this and many other similar attempts. At 
 last the opportunity he so much longed for ar- 
 rived. Taking up a newspaper one day at 
 Hitzig's, he chanced to see the announcement 
 of a voyage of discovery towards the North 
 Pole and in the Pacific, which was about to be 
 undertaken on board the Russian ship of war, 
 commanded by Otto von Kotzebue, son of the 
 German author of that name. Stamping with 
 his foot, Chamisso exclaimed, " I wish I was 
 with these Russians at the North Pole." "Are 
 you in earnest V said Hitzig. " Quite so." 
 And, on the 15th of July, Chamisso left Berlin 
 for a voyage of three years. 
 
 He published a very lively and entertaining 
 account of this voyage. In 1829, he produced 
 his grandest work, Salas y Gomez, which pro- 
 bably first germinated in his mind during this 
 voyage. 
 
 Returning to Berlin in the autumn of 1818, 
 he employed the remainder of that year in ar- 
 ranging the specimens of natural history he 
 had brought home, and which he bestowed on 
 the Berlin Museum. In 1819 he was married, 
 and of his bride he speaks thus : " She is young, 
 blooming and strong, handsome and good, pure 
 and innocent, clear, cloudless and serene, calm, 
 rational and cheerf ul, and so amiable !" 
 
 Whilst he was writing verses for his young 
 wife, and arranging the Herbaria of the Museum 
 of Berlin, Chamisso, it is probable, scarcely re- 
 collected his quality of French emigrant. He 
 was agreeably reminded of this, in the autumn 
 of 1825, by a call to Paris to receive 100,000 
 francs lodged to his credit by the Commissioners 
 of the Indemnity Fund. He was welcomed 
 with marked distinction by the learned world 
 of Paris, and passed his time far more plea- 
 santly than he had done when he visited the 
 luxurious capital in his needy and obscure 
 youth. The letters he wrote home were filled 
 with accounts of the many remarkable things, 
 literary and theatrical, social and political, 
 which Paris presented to his view at that stir- 
 ring period. But in the midst of all this ex- 
 
 citement he did not lose sight of the least 
 every-day detail of his beloved home. " Don't 
 forget," he says, writing to his wife, "don't 
 forget the roses; don't forget the children's 
 letters ; don't forget to strew food for the spar- 
 rows on my window. I shall return to you the 
 same as I left you; let me find everything 
 again just as it was." 
 
 After his return from Paris, in 1827, a second 
 German edition of" Schlemihl" was published, 
 with an appendix containing a small collection 
 of his poems. Up to this time he had no serious 
 belief in his own poetical powers, and in a let- 
 ter to Varnhagen's sister (May 24, 1827), he 
 says, "That I am no poet, nor ever was, is 
 manifest, but that does not prevent me from 
 having a feeling for poetry." But the new 
 publication began to attract public attention 
 towards him, and, in June, 1828, he ventured 
 to write to De la Foye. " I almost begin to 
 think I am one of the poets of Germany." 
 The matter was put beyond all doubt by the 
 reception given to his " Salas y Gomez" in the 
 following year. Soon after this we find him 
 mentioning, with honest pride, that next to 
 Uhland's Poems, none were in such frequent 
 demand for presents as his own. Bridegrooms 
 especially selected them as gifts for their 
 brides. 
 
 Chamisso's existence had now reached the 
 culminating point from which began its conti- 
 nuous descent. In 1831, he was seized by that 
 worst form of influenza, which we all remember 
 to have been the precursor of the cholera. It 
 broke down his iron constitution, and left be- 
 hind it a chronic affection of the lungs, from 
 which he never recovered. His declining 
 years were still cheered by the increasing ho- 
 nors conferred on him, both as a poet and a 
 naturalist, but they were visited by a calamity 
 for which there was no balm on earth. His 
 wife died on the 21st of May, 1837, in her 
 thirty-sixth year. He bore this fatal blow with 
 manly fortitude, thankful for the blessings he 
 had enjoyed, and patiently awaiting his dis- 
 missal. It was not long delayed. He survived 
 his wife exactly fifteen months, and expired on 
 the 21st of August, 1839. 
 
 Most characteristic of the man, was the man- 
 ner in which he passed this interval. Earnest 
 and strenuous to the last, he increased rather 
 than relaxed his mental activity. He found in 
 occupation the best alleviation of his sorrows, 
 and employed himself simultaneously on two 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 547 
 
 works of very dissimilar character. He pub- 
 lished a grammar of the Havai language, 
 spoken in some of the islands of the South Sea, 
 and entered upon an elaborate philological in- 
 vestigation of the kindred dialects; and he 
 joined Baron Gaudy in translating, or rather, 
 as he says, Germanizing a selection of ninety- 
 eight songs of Beranger. He continued also, 
 the troublesome task of editing the " Musen 
 Almanach," and shortly before his death, he 
 showed that the old ardor was not extinct 
 within him, by undertaking a journey to Leip- 
 
 THE WONDERFUL HISTORY OF PETER 
 SCHLEMIHL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 After a fortunate, but for me very trouble- 
 some voyage, we finally reached the port. The 
 instant that I touched land in the boat, I loaded 
 myself with my few effects, and passing through 
 the swarming people, I entered the first, and 
 least house, before which I saw a sign hang. I 
 requested a room ; the boots measured me with 
 a look, and conducted me into the garret. I 
 caused fresh water to be brought, and made 
 him exactly describe to me where I should find 
 Mr. Thomas John. 
 
 " Before the north-gate ; the first country-house 
 on the right hand ; a large new house of red 
 and white marble, with many columns." 
 
 " Good." It was still early in the day. I 
 opened at once my bundle ; took thence my 
 new black cloth coat; clad myself cleanly in 
 my best apparel : put my letter of introduction 
 into my pocket, and set out on the way to the 
 man who was to promote my modest expecta- 
 tions. 
 
 When I had ascended the long North Street, 
 and reached the gate, I soon saw the pillars 
 glimmer through the foliage. "Here it is then," 
 thought I. I wiped the dust from my feet with 
 my pocket-handkerchief; put my neckcloth in 
 order, and in God's name rung the bell. The 
 door flew open. In the hall I had an examina- 
 tion to undergo ; the porter, however, permitted 
 me to be announced, and I had the honor to be 
 called into the park, where Mr. John was 
 walking with a select party. I recognised the 
 man at once by the lustre of his corpulent self- 
 complacency. He received me very well — as 
 a rich man receives a poor devil, — even turned 
 towards me, without turning from the rest of 
 the company, and took the offered letter from 
 my hand. " So, so, from my brother. I have 
 heard nothing from him for a long time. But 
 he is well? There," continued he, addressing 
 the company, without waiting for an answer, 
 and pointing with the letter to a hill, " there I 
 am going to erect the new building." He broke 
 
 zig, in order to run over the first portion of the 
 Dresden Railway. He was radiant with de- 
 light. Speaking as a poet, he called the loco- 
 motive "Time's wings " and in the language 
 of a naturalist, he defined it as a warm-blooded 
 animal without eyes. He looked on the inven- 
 tion as the certain commencement of a new 
 era, and deemed that every moneyed man was 
 morally bound to contribute a portion of his 
 means towards the promotion of a system from 
 which such grand results were to accrue. 
 
 the seal without breaking off the conversation, 
 which turned upon riches. 
 
 " He that is not master of a million, at least," he 
 observed, "is — pardon me the word — a wretch !" 
 
 " O ! how true !" I exclaimed with a rush of 
 overflowing feeling. 
 
 That pleased him. He smiled at me, and 
 said — " Stay here, my good friend; in awhile 
 I shall perhaps have time to tell you what I 
 think about this." He pointed to the letter, 
 which he then thrust into his pocket, and turned 
 again to the company. He offered his arm to 
 a young lady; the other gentlemen addressed 
 themselves to other fair ones; each found what 
 suited him; and all proceeded towards the 
 rose-blossomed mount. 
 
 I slid into the rear, without troubling any 
 one, for no one troubled himself any further 
 about me. The company was excessively 
 lively; there was dalliance and playfulness; 
 trifles were sometimes discussed with an im- 
 portant tone, but oftener important matters with 
 levity; and especially pleasantly flew the wit 
 over absent friends and their circumstances. I 
 was too strange to understand much of all this; 
 too anxious and introverted to take an interest 
 in such riddles. 
 
 We had reached the rosary. The lovely 
 Fanny, the belle of the day, as it appeared, 
 would, out of obstinacy, herself break off a 
 blooming bough. She wounded herself or» a 
 thorn, and as if from the dark roses, flowed the 
 purple on her tender hand. This circumstance 
 put the whole party into a flutter. English 
 plaister was sought for. A still, thin, lanky, 
 longish, oldish man, who stood near, and whom 
 I had not hitherto remarked, put his hand in- 
 stantly into the close-lying breast-pocket of his 
 old French grey tafletty coat; produced thence 
 a little pocket-book ; opened it; and presented 
 to the lady, with a profound obeisance, the re- 
 quired article. She took it without noticing the 
 giver, and without thanks ; the wound was 
 bound up ; and we went forward over the hill, 
 from whose back the company could enjoy the 
 wide prospect over the green labyrinth of the 
 park to the boundless ocean. 
 
548 
 
 CH AMISSO. 
 
 The view was in reality vast and splendid. 
 A light point appeared on the horizon between 
 the dark flood, and the blue of the heaven. 
 " A telescope here !" cried John ; and already 
 before the servants who appeared at the call, 
 were in motion, the grey man, modestly bowing, 
 had thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and 
 drawn thence a beautiful Dollond, and handed 
 it to Mr. John. Bringing it immediately to his 
 eye, he informed the company that it was the 
 ship which went out yesterday, and was de- 
 tained in view of port by contrary winds. The 
 telescope passed from hand to hand, but not 
 again into that of its owner. I, however, gazed 
 in wonder at the man, and could not conceive 
 how the great machine had come out of the 
 narrow pocket: but this seemed to have struck 
 no one else, and nobody troubled himself any 
 farther about the grey man than about myself. 
 
 Refreshments were handed round ; the choic- 
 est fruits of every zone, in the costliest vessels. 
 Mr. John did the honors with an easy grace, 
 and a second time addressed a word to me. 
 " Help yourself ; you have not had the like at 
 sea." I bowed, but he saw it not, he was 
 already speaking with some one else. 
 
 The company would fain have reclined upon 
 the sward on the slope of the hill, opposite to 
 the outstretched landscape, had they not feared 
 the dampness of the earth. " It were divine," 
 observed one of the party, "had we but a Tur- 
 key carpet to spread here." The wish was 
 scarcely expressed when the man in the grey 
 coat had his hand in his pocket, and was busied 
 in drawing thence, with a modest and even 
 humble deportment, a rich Turkey carpet in- 
 terwoven with gold. The servants received it 
 as a matter of course, and opened it on the re- 
 quired spot. The company without ceremony, 
 took their places upon it; for myself, I looked 
 again in amazement on the man ; at the carpet, 
 which measured above twenty paces long and 
 ten in breadth : and rubbed my eyes, not know- 
 ing what to think of it, especially as nobody saw 
 anything extraordinary in it. 
 
 I would fain have had some explanation re- 
 garding the man, and have asked who he was, 
 but I knew not to whom to address myself, for 
 I was almost more afraid of the gentlemen's 
 servants than of the served gentlemen. At 
 length I took courage, and stepped up to a 
 young man who appeared to me to be of less 
 consideration than the rest, and who had often 
 stood alone. I begged him softly to tell me 
 who the agreeable man in the grey coat there 
 was. 
 
 " He there, who looks like an end of thread 
 that has escaped out of a tailor's needle?" 
 
 " Yes, he who stands alone." 
 
 "I don't know him," he replied, and as it 
 seemed in order to avoid a longer conversation 
 with me, he turned away, and spoke of indif- 
 ferent matters to another. 
 
 The sun began now to shine more powerfully, 
 and to inconvenience the ladies. The lovely 
 
 Fanny addressed carelessly to the grey man, 
 whom as far as I am aware, no one had yet 
 spoken to, the trifling question, "Whether he 
 had not, perchance, also a tent by him ?" — He 
 answered her by an obeisance most profound, 
 as if an unmerited honor were done him. and 
 had already his hand in his pocket, out of which 
 I saw come canvass, poles, cordage, iron-work, 
 in short, everything which belongs to the most 
 splendid pleasure-tent. The young gentlemen 
 helped to expand it, and it covered the whole 
 extent of the carpet, and nobody found anything 
 remarkable in it. 
 
 I was already become uneasy, nay horrified 
 at heart, but how completely so, as, at the very 
 next wish expressed, I saw him yet pull out of 
 his pocket three roadsters — T tell thee three 
 beautiful great black horses, with saddle and 
 caparison. Bethink thee ! for God's sake !— 
 three saddled horses, still out of the same 
 pocket out of which already a pocket-book, a 
 telescope, an embroidered carpet, twenty paces 
 long and ten broad, a pleasure-tent of equal di- 
 mensions, and all the requisite poles and irons, 
 had come forth ! If I did not protest to thee 
 that I saw it myself with my own eyes, thou 
 couldst not possibly believe it. 
 
 Embarrassed and obsequious as the man 
 himself appeared to be, little as was the atten- 
 tion which had been bestowed upon him, yet 
 to me his grisly aspect, from which I could not 
 turn my eyes, became so fearful, that I could 
 bear it no longer. 
 
 I resolved to steal away from the company, 
 which from the insignificant part I played in it 
 seemed to me an easy affair. I proposed to 
 myself to return to the city, to try my luck again 
 on the morrow with Mr. John, and if I could 
 muster the necessary courage, to question him 
 about the singular grey man. Had I only had 
 the good fortune to escape so well! 
 
 I had already actually succeeded in stealing 
 through the rosary, and in descending the bill, 
 found myself on a piece of lawn, when fearing 
 to be encountered in crossing the grass out of 
 the path, I cast an enquiring glance round me. 
 What was my terror to behold the man in the 
 grey coat behind me, and making towards me! 
 In the next moment he took off his hat before 
 me, and bowed so low as no one had ever yet 
 done to me. There was no doubt but that he 
 wished to address me, and without being rude, 
 I could not prevent it. I also took off my hat; 
 bowed also ; and stood there in the sun with 
 bare head as if rooted to the ground. I stared 
 at him full of terror, and was like a bird which 
 a serpent has fascinated. He himself appeared 
 very much embarrassed. He raised not his 
 eyes; again bowed repeatedly; drew nearer, 
 and addressed me with a soft, tremulous voice, 
 almost in a tone of supplication. 
 
 " May I hope, sir, that you will pardon my 
 boldness in venturing in so unusual a manner to 
 approach you, but I would ask a favor. Per- 
 mit me most condescendingly — " 
 
CHAMISSO. 549 
 
 "But in God's name!" exclaimed I in my 
 trepidation, "what can I do for a man who — " 
 we both started, and, as I believe, reddened. 
 
 After a moment's silence, he again resumed: 
 "During the short time that I had the happiness 
 to find myself near you, I have, sir, many 
 times, — allow me to say it to you — really con- 
 templated with inexpressible admiration, the 
 beautiful, beautiful, shadow which, as it were, 
 with a certain noble disdain, and without your- 
 self remarking it, you cast from you in the sun- 
 shine. The noble shadow at your feet there. 
 Pardon me the bold supposition, but possibly 
 you might not be indisposed to make this sha- 
 dow over to me." 
 
 I was silent, and a mill-wheel seemed to 
 whirl round in my head. What was I to make 
 of this singular proposition to sell my own sha- 
 dow? He must be mad, thought I, and with 
 an altered tone which was more assimilated to 
 that of his own humility, 1 answered thus: 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! good friend, have not you then 
 enough of your own shadow ? I take this for a 
 business of a very singular sort — ." 
 
 He hastily interrupted me; — "I have many 
 things in my pocket which, sir, might not ap- 
 pear worthless to you, and for this inestimable 
 shadow I hold the very highest price too small." 
 
 It struck cold through me again as I was re- 
 minded of the pocket. I knew not how I could 
 have called him good friend. I resumed the 
 conversation, and sought, if possible, to set all 
 right again by excessive politeness. 
 
 "But, sir, pardon your most humble servant; 
 I do not understand your meaning. How in- 
 deed could my shadow" — He interrupted me — 
 
 "I beg your permission only here on the spot 
 to be allowed to take up this noble shadow and 
 put it in my pocket; how I shall do that be my 
 care. On the other hand, as a testimony of my 
 grateful acknowledgment to you, I give you the 
 choice of all the treasures which I carry in my 
 pocket, — the genuine Spring-root* the Man- 
 drake-root, the Change-penny, the Rob-dollar, 
 the napkin of Roland's Page, a mandrake-man, 
 at your own price. But these, probably don't 
 interest you, — rather Fortunatus's Wishing-cap 
 newly and stoutly repaired, and a lucky-bag 
 such as he had !" 
 
 " The Luck-purse of Fortunatus !" I exclaimed, 
 interrupting him ; and great as my anxiety was, 
 with that one word he had taken my whole 
 mind captive. A dizziness seized me, and 
 double ducats seemed to glitter before my eyes. 
 
 " Honored Sir, will you do me the favor to 
 view, and to make trial of this purse ?" He 
 thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew out a 
 tolerably large, well-sewed purse of stout Cor- 
 
 * These are references to facts in the popular tales of 
 Germany: as for instance, the Spring-wurzel, or Spring- 
 root, is found in the story of Ruberzahl ; and the Galgen- 
 mannlein, or gallows-men, were little figures cut out of 
 a root, said by the dealers in such things in the middle 
 ages, to be actual mandrake-roots growing in that shape 
 at, the feet of gallowses, etc., etc. 
 
 duan leather, with two strong strings, and 
 handed it to inc. 1 plunged iny hand into it, 
 and drew out ten gold pieces, and again ten, 
 and again ten, and again ten. I extended him 
 eagerly my hand — "Agreed! the business is 
 done ; for the purse you have my shadow I" 
 
 He closed with me; kneeled instantly down 
 before me, and I beheld him, with an admirable 
 dexterity, gently loosen my shadow from top to 
 toe from the grass, lift it up, roll it together, fold 
 it, and finally, pocket it. He arose, made me 
 another obeisance, and retreated towards the 
 rosary. I fancied that I heard him there softly 
 laughing to himself; but I held the purse fast 
 by the strings; all round me lay the clear sun- 
 shine, and within me was yet no power of re- 
 flection. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 At length I came to myself, and hastened 
 to quit the place where I had nothing more to 
 expect. In the first place I filled my pockets 
 with gold ; then I secured the strings of the 
 purse fast round my neck, and concealed the 
 purse itself in my bosom. I passed unobserved 
 out of the park, reached the highway and took 
 the road to the city. As, sunk in thought, I 
 approached the gate, I heard a cry behind me. 
 
 "Young gentleman! eh! young gentleman! 
 hear you !" 
 
 I looked round, an old woman called after 
 me. 
 
 "Do take care, sir, you have lost your shadow !" 
 
 "Thank you, good mother!" I threw her a 
 gold piece for her well-meant intelligence, and 
 stopped under the trees. 
 
 At the city gate I was compelled to hear again 
 from the sentinel — " Where has the gentleman 
 left his shadow'?" And immediately again from 
 some women — "Jesus Maria! the poor fellow 
 has no shadow !" That began to irritate me, and 
 I became especially careful not to walk in the 
 sun. This could not, however, be accomplished 
 everywhere, for instance, over the broad street 
 which I next must approach actually, as mis- 
 chief would have it, at the very moment that 
 the boys came out of school. A cursed hunch- 
 backed rogue, I see him yet, spied out instantly 
 that I had no shadow. He proclaimed the fact 
 with a loud outcry to the whole assembled lite- 
 rary street youth of the suburb, who began 
 forthwith to criticise me, and to pelt me with 
 mud. " Decent people are accustomed to take 
 their shadow with them, when they go into the 
 sunshine." To defend myself from them I 
 threw whole handfuls of gold amongst them 
 and sprang into a hackney-coach, which some 
 compassionate soul procured for me. 
 
 As soon as I found myself alone in the rolling 
 carriage I began to weep bitterly. The pre- 
 sentiment must already have arisen in me, that 
 far as gold on earth transcends in estimation, 
 merit and virtue, so much higher than gold it- 
 self is the shadow valued; and as I had earlier 
 sacrificed wealth to conscience, I had now 
 
550 
 
 CH AMISSO. 
 
 thrown away the shadow for mere gold. What 
 in the world could and would become of me! — 
 I was again greatly annoyed as the carriage 
 stopped before my old inn. I was horrified at 
 the bare idea of entering that wretched cock- 
 loft. I ordered my things to be brought down ; 
 received my miserable bundle with contempt, 
 threw down some gold pieces, and ordered the 
 coachman to drive to the most fashionahle hotel. 
 The house faced the north, and I had not the 
 sun to fear. I dismissed the driver with gold ; 
 caused the best front rooms to be assigned me, 
 and shut myself up in them as quickly as I 
 could ! 
 
 What thinkest thou I now began? Oh, my 
 dear Chamisso, to confess it even to thee makes 
 me blush. I drew the unlucky purse from my 
 bosom, and with a kind of desperation which, 
 like a rushing conflagration, grew in me with 
 self-increasing growth, I extracted gold, and 
 gold, and gold, and ever more gold, and strewed 
 it on the floor, and strode amongst it, and made 
 it ring again, and feeding my poor heart on the 
 splendor and the sound, flung continually more 
 metal to metal, till in my weariness, I sank 
 down on the rich heap, and rioting thereon, 
 rolled and revelled amongst it. So passed the 
 day, the evening. I opened not my door ; night 
 and day found me lying on my gold, and then 
 sleep overcame me. 
 
 I dreamed of thee. I seemed to stand behind 
 the glass-door of thy little room, and to see thee 
 sitting then at thy work-table, between a skele- 
 ton and a bundle of dried plants. Before thee 
 lay open Haller, Humboldt, and Linnaeus ; on 
 thy sofa a volume of Goethe and "The Magic- 
 Ring." I regarded thee long, and every thing 
 in thy room, and then thee again. Thou didst 
 not move, thou drewest no breath ; — thou wert 
 dead ! 
 
 I awoke. It appeared still to be very early. 
 My watch stood. I was sore all over; thirsty 
 and hungry too; I had taken nothing since the 
 evening before. I pushed from me with loath- 
 ing and indignation the gold on which I had 
 before sated my foolish heart. In my vexation 
 I knew not what I should do with it. It must 
 not lie there. I tried whether the purse would 
 swallow it again, — but no! None of my win- 
 dows opened upon the sea. I found myself 
 compelled laboriously to drag it to a great cup- 
 board which stood in a cabinet, and there to 
 pile it. I left only some handfuls of it lying. 
 When I had finished the work, I threw myself 
 exhausted into an easy chair, and waited for 
 the stirring of the people in the house. As soon 
 as possible I ordered food to be brought, and 
 the landlord to come to me. 
 
 I fixed in consultation with this man the fu- 
 ture arrangements of my house. He recom- 
 mended for the services about my person a 
 certain Bendel, whose honest and intelligent 
 physiognomy immediately captivated me. He 
 it was whose attachment has since accompanied 
 me consolingly through the wretchedness of 
 
 life, and has helped me to support my gloomy 
 lot. I spent the whole day in my room among 
 masterless servants, shoemakers, tailors, and 
 tradespeople. I fitted mysel f out, and purchased 
 besides a great many jewels and valuables for 
 the sake of getting rid of some of the vast heap 
 of hoarded up gold ; but it seemed to me as if 
 it were impossible to diminish it. 
 
 In the mean time I brooded over my situation 
 in the most agonising despair. I dared not 
 venture a step out of my doors, and at evening 
 I caused forty waxlights to be lit in my room 
 before I issued from the shade. I thought with 
 horror on the terrible scene with the schoolboys, 
 yet I resolved, much courage as it demanded, 
 once more to make a trial of public opinion. 
 The nights were then moonlight. Late in the 
 evening I threw on a wide, cloak, pressed my 
 hat over my eyes, and stole, trembling like a 
 criminal, out of the house. I stepped first out 
 of the shade in whose protection I had arrived 
 there, in a remote square, into the full moon- 
 light, determined to learn my fate out of the 
 mouths of the passers by. 
 
 Spare me, dear friend, the painful repetition 
 of all that I had to endure. The women often 
 testified the deepest compassion with which I 
 inspired them, declarations which no less trans- 
 pierced me than the mockery of the youth and 
 the proud contempt of the men, especially of 
 those fat, well-fed fellows, who themselves cast 
 a broad shadow. A lovely and sweet girl, who, 
 as it seemed, accompanied her parents, while 
 these suspiciously only looked before their feet, 
 turned by chance her flashing eyes upon me. 
 She was obviously terrified ; she observed my 
 want of a shadow, let fall her veil over her 
 beautiful countenance, and dropping her head, 
 passed in silence. 
 
 I could bear it no longer. Briny streams 
 started from my eyes, and cut to the heart, I 
 staggered back into the shade. I was obliged to 
 support myself against the houses to steady my 
 steps and wearily and late reached my dwelling. 
 
 I spent a sleepless night. The next morning 
 it was my first care to have the man in the grey 
 coat everywhere sought after. Possibly I might 
 succeed in finding him again, and how joyful ! 
 if he repented of the foolish bargain as heartily 
 as I did. I ordered Bendel to come to me, he 
 appeared to possess address and tact; I de- 
 scribed to him exactly the man in whose pos- 
 session lay a treasure without which my life 
 was only a misery. I told him the time, the 
 place in which I had seen him ; I described to 
 him all who had been present, and added, 
 moreover, this token : he should particularly 
 inquire after a Dollond*s telescope ; after a gold 
 interwoven Turkish carpet; after a splendid 
 pleasure tent; and, finally, after the black 
 chargers, whose story, we knew not how, was 
 connected with that of the mysterious man, who 
 seemed of no consideration amongst them, and 
 whose appearance had destroyed the quiet and 
 happiness of my life. 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 551 
 
 When I had done speaking I fetched out gold, 
 such a load that I was scarcely able to carry it, 
 and laid upon it precious stones and jewels of a 
 far greater value. " Bendel," said I, "these 
 level many ways, and make easy many things 
 which appeared quite impossible; don't be 
 stingy with it, as I am not, but go and rejoice 
 thy master with the intelligence on which his 
 only hope depends." 
 
 He went. He returned late and sorrowful. 
 None of the people of Mr. John, none of his 
 guests, and he had spoken with all, were able 
 in the remotest degree, to recollect the man in 
 the grey coat. The new telescope was there, 
 and no one knew whence it had come; the 
 carpet, the tent were still there spread and 
 pitched on the self-same hill; the servants 
 boasted of the affluence of their master, and no 
 one knew whence these same valuables had 
 come to him. He himself took his pleasure in 
 them, and did not trouble himself because he 
 did not know whence he had them. The young 
 gentlemen had the horses, which they had rid- 
 den, in their stables, and they praised the libe- 
 rality of Mr. John who on that day made them 
 a present of them. Thus much was clear from 
 the circumstantial relation of Bendel, whose 
 active zeal and able proceeding, although with 
 such fruitless result, received from me their 
 merited commendation. I gloomily motioned 
 him to leave me alone. 
 
 "I have," began he again, "given my master 
 an account of the matter which was most im- 
 portant to him. I have yet a message to deliver 
 which a person gave me whom I met at the 
 door as I went out on the business in which I 
 have been so unfortunate. The very words of 
 the man were these : 'Tell Mr. Peter Schlemihl 
 he will not see me here again as I am going 
 over sea, and a favorable wind calls me at this 
 moment to the harbor. But in a year and a 
 day I will have the honor to seek him myself, 
 and then to propose to him another and probably 
 to him more agreeable transaction. Present my 
 most humble compliments to him, and assure 
 him of my thanks.' I asked him who he was, 
 but he replied, your honor knew him already." 
 
 "What was the man's appearance?" cried I, 
 filled with foreboding, and Bendel sketched me 
 the man in the grey coat, trait by trait, word for 
 word, as he had accurately described in his 
 former relation the man after whom he had 
 inquired. 
 
 "Unhappy one!" I exclaimed, wringing my 
 hands, — "that was the very man!" and there 
 fell, as it were, scales from his eyes. 
 
 "Yes! it was he, it was, positively!" cried 
 he in horror, "and I, blind and imbecile wretch 
 have-not recognized him, have not recognized 
 him, and have betrayed my master!" 
 
 He broke out into violent weeping : heaped 
 the bitterest reproaches on himself, and the de- 
 spair in which he was inspired even me with 
 compassion. I spoke comfort to him. assured 
 him repeatedly that I entertained not the slight- 
 
 est doubt of his fidelity, and sent him instantly 
 to the port, if possible to follow the traces of 
 this singular man. But in the morning a great 
 number of ships which the contrary winds had 
 detained in the harbor, had run out, bound to 
 different climes and different shores, and the 
 grey man had vanished as tracelessly as a 
 dream. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of what avail are wings to him who is fast 
 bound in iron fetters? He is compelled only 
 the more fearfully to despair. I lay like Faffner 
 by his treasure far from every consolation, suf- 
 fering much in the midst of my gold. But my 
 heart was not in it, on the contrary, I cursed it, 
 because I saw myself through it cut off from 
 all life. Brooding over my gloomy secret alone, 
 I trembled before the meanest of my servants, 
 whom at the same time I was forced to envy, 
 for he had a shadow ; he might show himself 
 in the sun. I wore away days and nights in 
 solitary sorrow in my chamber, and anguish 
 gnawed at my heart. 
 
 There was another who pined away before 
 my eyes; my faithful Bendel never ceased to 
 torture himself with silent reproaches, that he 
 had betrayed the trust reposed in him by his 
 master, and had not recognized him after whom 
 he was despatched, and with whom he must 
 believe that my sorrowful fate was intimately 
 interwoven. I could not lay the fault to his 
 charge; I recognised in the event the mysteri- 
 ous nature of the Unknown. 
 
 That I might leave nothing untried, I one 
 time sent Bendel with a valuable brilliant ring 
 to the most celebrated painter of the city, and 
 begged that he would pay me a visit. He 
 came. I ordered my people to retire, closed 
 the door, seated myself by the man, and after I 
 had praised his art, I came with a heavy heart 
 to the business, causing him before that to pro- 
 mise the strictest secrecy. 
 
 "Mr. Professor," said I, "could not you, think 
 you, paint a false shadow for one, who by the 
 most unlucky chance in the world, has become 
 deprived of his own?" 
 
 u You mean a personal shadow ?" 
 
 "That is precisely my meaning" 
 
 "But," continued he, "through what awk- 
 wardness, through what negligence could he 
 then lose his proper shadow ?" 
 
 "How it happened," replied I, " is now of 
 very little consequence, but thus far I may say," 
 added I, lying shamelessly to him, "in Russia, 
 whither he made a journey last winter, in an 
 extraordinary cold his shadow froze so fast to 
 the ground that he could by no means loose it 
 again." 
 
 "The false shadow that I could paint him." 
 replied the professor, " would only.be such a 
 one as by the slightest agitation he might lose 
 again, especially a person, who, as appears by 
 your relation, has so little adhesion to his own 
 native shadow. He who has no shadow, let 
 
552 CH AMIS SO. 
 
 him keep out of the sunshine, that is the safest 
 and most sensible thing for him." He arose 
 and withdrew, casting at me a transpiercing 
 glance which mine could not support. I sunk 
 hack in my seat, and covered my face with my 
 hands. 
 
 Thus Bendel found me.as he at length entered. 
 He saw the grief of his master, and was desirous 
 silently and reverently to withdraw. I looked 
 up, I lay under the burden of my trouble; I 
 must communicate it. 
 
 "Bendel!" cried I, "Bendel, thou only one 
 who seest my affliction and respectest it, seek- 
 est not to pry into it, but appearest silently and 
 kindly to sympathise, come to me, Bendel, and 
 be the nearest to my heart ; I have not locked 
 from thee the treasure of my gold, neither will 
 I lock from thee the treasure of my grief. Ben- 
 del, forsake me not. Bendel, thou beholdest me 
 rich, liberal, kind. Thou imaginest that the 
 world ought to honor me, and thou seest me fly 
 the world, and hide myself from it. Bendel, 
 the world has passed judgment, and cast me 
 from it, and perhaps thou too wilt turn from 
 me when thou knowest my fearful secret. 
 Bendel, I am rich, liberal, kind, but, — God! 
 — T have no shadow !" 
 
 " No shadow !" cried the good youth with 
 horror, and the bright tears gushed from his 
 eyes. " Woe is me, that I was born to serve a 
 shadowless master!" He was silent, and I held 
 my face buried in my hands. 
 
 "Bendel," added I, at length, tremblingly — 
 " now hast thou my confidence, and now canst 
 thou betray it — go forth and testify against me." 
 He appeared to be in a heavy conflict with 
 himself; at length, he flung himself before me 
 and seized my hand, which he bathed with his 
 tears. 
 
 "No!" exclaimed he, "think the world as it 
 will, I cannot, and will not, on account of a 
 shadow abandon my kind master; I will act 
 justly, and not with policy. I will continue 
 with you, lend you my shadow, help you when 
 I can, and when I cannot, weep with you." I 
 fell on his neck, astonished at such unusual 
 sentiment, for I was convinced that he did it 
 not for gold. 
 
 From that time my fate and my mode of life 
 were in some degree changed. It is indescri- 
 bable how much Bendel continued to conceal 
 my defect. He was everywhere before me 
 and with me; foreseeing everything, hitting on 
 contrivances, and where danger threatened, 
 covering me quickly with his shadow, since he 
 Was taller and bulkier than I. Thus I ventured 
 myself again among men, and began to play a 
 part in the world. I was obliged, it is true, to 
 assume many peculiarities and humors, but such 
 became the rich, and so long as the truth con- 
 tinued to be concealed, I enjoyed all the honor 
 and respect which were paid to my wealth. I 
 looked calmly forward to the promised visit of 
 the mysterious unknown, at the end of the year 
 and the day. 
 
 I felt, indeed, that I must not remain longer 
 in a place where I had once been seen without 
 a shadow, and where I might easily be betrayed. 
 Perhaps I yet thought too much of the manner 
 in which I had introduced myself to Thomas 
 John, and it was a mortifying recollection. I 
 would therefore here merely make an experi- 
 ment, to present myself with more ease and 
 confidence elsewhere, but that now occurred 
 which held me a long time riveted to my van- 
 ity, for there it is in the man that the anchor 
 bites the firmest ground. 
 
 Even the lovely Fanny, whom I in this place 
 again encountered, honored me with some no- 
 tice without recollecting ever to have seen rne 
 before; for I now had wit and sense. As I 
 spoke, people listened, and I could not, for the 
 life of me, comprehend myself how I had ar- 
 rived at the art of maintaining and engrossing 
 so easily the conversation. The impression 
 which I perceived that I had made on the fair 
 one, made of me just what she desired — a fool, 
 and I thenceforward followed her through 
 shade and twilight wherever I could. I was 
 only so far vain that I wished to make her vain 
 of myself, and found it impossible, even with 
 the very best intentions, to force the intoxication 
 from my head to my heart. 
 
 But why relate to thee the whole long ordi- 
 nary story ? Thou thyself bast often related it 
 to me of other honorable people. To the old, 
 well known play in which I goodnaturedly un- 
 dertook a wornout part, there came in truth to 
 her and me, and everybody, unexpectedly a 
 most peculiar and poetic catastrophe. 
 
 As, according to my wont, I had assembled 
 on a beautiful evening a party in a garden, I 
 wandered with the lady, arm in arm at some 
 distance from the other guests, and exerted my- 
 self to strike out pretty speeches for her. She 
 cast down modestly her eyes, and returned 
 gently the pressure of my hand, when suddenly 
 the moon broke through the clouds behind me, 
 and — she saw only her own shadow thrown 
 forward before her! She started and glanced 
 wildly at me, then again on the earth, seeking 
 my shadow with her eyes, and what passed 
 within her, painted itself so singularly on her 
 countenance, that I should have burst into a 
 loud laugh if it had not itself ran ice-cold over 
 my back. 
 
 I let her fall from my arms in a swoon, shot 
 like an arrow through the terrified guests, 
 reached the door, flung myself into the first 
 chaise which I saw on the stand, and drove 
 back to the city, where this time, to my cost, I 
 had left the circumspect Bendel. He was ter- 
 rified as he saw me; — one word revealed to 
 him all. Post horses were immediately fetched. 
 I took only one of my people with me, an arrant 
 knave, called Rascal, who had contrived to 
 make himself necessary to me by his clever- 
 ness; and who could suspect nothing of the 
 present occurrence. That night I left upwards 
 of a hundred miles behind me. Bendel re- 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 553 
 
 mained behind me todischarge my establishment, 
 to pay money, and to bring me what I most 
 required. When he overtook me next day, I 
 threw myself into his arms, and swore to him, 
 never again to run into the like lolly, but in fu- 
 ture to be more cautious. We continued our 
 journey without pause, over the frontiers and 
 the mountains, and it was not till we began to 
 descend and had placed those lofty bulwarks 
 between us and our former unlucky abode, that 
 I allowed myself to be persuaded to rest from 
 the fatigues I had undergone, in a neighboring 
 and little frequented Bathing-place. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I must pass in my relation hastily over a time 
 in which, how gladly would I linger, could I 
 but conjure up the living spirit of it with the re- 
 collection. But the color which vivified it, and 
 can only vivify it again, is extinguished in me; 
 and when I seek in my bosom what then so 
 mightily animated it, the grief and the joy, the 
 innocent illusion, — then do I vainly smite a rock 
 in which no living spring now dwells, and the 
 god is departed from me. How changed does 
 this past time now appear to me. I would act 
 in the watering place an heroic character, ill 
 studied, and myself a novice on the boards, and 
 my gaze was lured from my part by a pair of 
 blue eyes. The parents, deluded by the play, 
 oiler everything only to make the business 
 quickly secure ; and the poor farce closes in 
 mockery. And that is all, all ! That presents 
 itself now to me so absurd and commonplace, 
 and yet is it terrible, that that can thus appear 
 to me which then so richly, so luxuriantly, 
 swelled my bosom. Mina! as I wept at losing 
 thee, so weep I still to have lost thee also in 
 myself. Am I then become so old? Oh, me- 
 lancholy reason! Oh, but for one pulsation of 
 that time ! one moment of that illusion ! But no! 
 alone on the high waste sea of thy bitter flood! 
 and long out of the last cup of champagne the 
 elfin has vanished ! 
 
 I had sent forward Bendel with some purses 
 of gold to procure for me a duelling adapted to 
 my needs. He had there scattered about much 
 money, and expressed himself somewhat inde- 
 finitely respecting the distinguished stranger 
 whom he served, for I would not be named, and 
 that filled the good people with extraordinary 
 fancies. As soon as my house was ready Ben- 
 del returned to conduct me thither. We set 
 out. 
 
 About three miles from the place, on a sunny 
 plain, our progress was obstructed by a gay fes- 
 tal throng. TJie carriage stopped. Music, sound 
 of bells, discharge of cannon, were heard; a 
 loud vivat! rent the air; before the door of the 
 carriage appeared, clad in white, a troop of 
 damsels of extraordinary beauty, but who were 
 eclipsed by one in particular, as the stars of night 
 by the sun. She stepped forth from the midst 
 of her sisters; the tall and delicate figure 
 kneeled blushing before me, and presented to 
 3 u 
 
 me on a silken cushion a garland woven of 
 laurel, olive branches, and roses, while she ut- 
 tered some words about majesty, veneration and 
 love, which I did not understand, but whose 
 bewitching silver tone intoxicated my ear and 
 heart. It seemed as if the heavenly apparition 
 had sometime already passed before me. The 
 chorus struck in, and sung the praises of a good 
 king and the happiness of his people. 
 
 And this scene, my dear friend, in the face 
 of the sun ! She kneeled still only two paces 
 from me, and I without a shadow, could not 
 spring over the gulph, could not also fall on the 
 knee before the angel ! Oh ! what would I then 
 have given for a shadow ! I was compelled to 
 hide my shame, my anguish, my despair, deep 
 in the bottom of my carriage. At length Bendel 
 recollected himself on my behalf. He leaped 
 out of the carriage on the other side. I called 
 him back, and gave him out of my jewel-case, 
 which lay at hand, a splendid diamond crown, 
 which had been made to adorn the brows of 
 the lovely Fanny! He stepped forward, and 
 spoke in the name of his master, who could not 
 and would not receive such tokens of homage; 
 there must be some mistake; and the good 
 people of the city were thanked for their good 
 Will. As he said this, he took up the proffered 
 wreath, and laid the brilliant coronet in its 
 place. He then extended respectfully his hand 
 to the lovely maiden, that she might arise, and 
 dismissed, with a sign, clergy, magistrates, and 
 all the deputations. No one else was allowed 
 to approach. He ordered the throng to divide, 
 and make way for the horses ; sprang again 
 into the carriage, and on we went at full gallop, 
 through a festive archway of foliage and flowers 
 towards the city. The discharges of cannon 
 continued. The carriage stopped before my 
 house. I sprang hastily in at the door, dividing 
 the crowd which the desire to see me had col- 
 lected. The mob hurrahed under my window, 
 and I let double ducats rain out of it. In the 
 evening the city was voluntarily illuminated. 
 
 And yet I did not at all know what all this 
 could mean, and who I was supposed to be. I 
 sent out Rascal to make enquiry. He brought 
 word to this effect: — that the people hail re- 
 ceived certain intelligence that the good king 
 of Prussia travelled through the country under 
 the name of a Graf; that my adjutant had been 
 recognised; and, finally, how great the joy was 
 as they became certain that they really had me 
 in the place. They now saw clearly that I evi- 
 dently desired to maintain the strictest incognito, 
 and how very wrong it had been to attempt so 
 importunately to lift the veil. But I had resented 
 it so graciously, so kindly, — 1 should certainly 
 pardon their good heartedness. 
 
 The thing appeared so amusing to the rogue, 
 that he did his best, by reproving words, the 
 more to strengthen the good folk in their belief. 
 He made a very comical recital of all this: and 
 as he found that it diverted me, he made a joke 
 to me of his own additional wickedness. Shall 
 47 
 
554 CHAMISSO. 
 
 I confess it? It flattered me, even by such 
 means, to be taken for that honored head. 
 
 I commanded a feast to be prepared for the 
 evening of the next day, beneath the trees which 
 over-shadowed the open space before my house; 
 and the whole city to be invited to it. The 
 mysterious power of my purse ; the exertions 
 of Bendel and the active invention of Rascal, 
 succeeded in triumphing over time itself. It is 
 really astonishing how richly and beautifully 
 everything was arranged in those few hours. 
 The splendor and abundance which exhibited 
 themselves, and the ingenious lighting up, so 
 admirably contrived that I felt myself quite se- 
 cure, left me nothing to desire. I could not but 
 praise my servants. 
 
 The evening grew dark ; the guests appeared, 
 and were presented to me. Nothing more was 
 said about Majesty; I was styled with deep 
 reverence and obeisance, Herr Graf. What 
 was to be done? I allowed the Herr Graf to 
 please, and remained from that hour the Graf 
 Peter. In the midst of festive multitudes my 
 soul yearned alone after one. She entered late, 
 — she was and wore the crown. She followed 
 modestly her parents, and seemed not to know 
 that she was the loveliest of all. They were 
 presented to me as Mr. Forest-master, his lady 
 and their daughter. I found many agreeable 
 and obliging things to say to the old people ; 
 before the daughter I stood like a rebuked boy, 
 and could not bring out one word. I begged 
 her, at length, with a faltering tone, to honor 
 this feast by assuming the office whose insignia 
 she graced. She entreated with blushes and a 
 moving look to be excused ; but blushing still 
 more than herself in her presence, I paid her as 
 her first subject my homage, with a most pro- 
 found respect, and the hint of the Graf became 
 to all the guests a command which every one 
 with emulous joy hastened to obey. Majesty, 
 innocence and grace, presided in alliance with 
 beauty over a rapturous feast. Mina's happy 
 parents believed their child only thus exalted 
 in honor of them. I myself was in an indescri- 
 bable intoxication. I caused all the jewels 
 which yet remained of those which I had for- 
 merly purchased, in order to get rid of burthen- 
 some gold, all the pearls, all the precious stones, 
 to be laid in two covered dishes, and at the 
 table, in the name of the queen, to be distributed 
 round to her companions and to all the ladies. 
 Gold, in the mean time, was incessantly strewed 
 over the inclosing lists among the exulting people. 
 
 Bendel, the next morning, revealed to me in 
 confidence that the suspicion which he had long 
 entertained of Rascal's honesty, was now be- 
 come certainty. Ttiat he had "yesterday em- 
 bezzled whole purses of gold. « Let us permit," 
 replied I, "the poor scoundrel to enjoy the petty 
 plunder. I spend willingly on everybody, why 
 not on him ? Yesterday he and all the fresh 
 people you have brought me, served me hon- 
 estly ; they helped me joyfully to celebrate a 
 joyful feast." 
 
 There was no farther mention of it. Rascal 
 remained the first of my servants, but Bendel 
 was my friend and my confidant. The latter 
 was accustomed to regard my wealth as inex- 
 haustible, and he pried not after its sources; 
 entering into my humor, he assisted me rather 
 to discover opportunities to exercise it, and to 
 spend my gold. Of that unknown one, that 
 pale sneak, he knew only this, that I could alone 
 through him be absolved from the curse which 
 weighed on me ; and that I feared him, on 
 whom my sole hope reposed. That, for the 
 rest, I was convinced that he could discover me 
 anywhere ; I him nowhere ; and that therefore 
 awaiting the promised day, I abandoned every 
 vain enquiry. 
 
 The magnificence of my feast, and my beha- 
 vior at it, held at first the credulous inhabitants 
 of the city firmly to their preconceived opinion. 
 True, it was soon stated in the newspapers that 
 the whole story of the journey of the king of 
 Prussia had been a mere groundless rumor; but 
 a king I now was, and must spite of everything 
 a king remain, and truly one of the most rich 
 and royal who had ever existed ; only people 
 did not rightly know what king. The world 
 has never had reason to complain of the scarcity 
 of monarchs, at least in our time. The good 
 people who had never seen any of them, pitched 
 with equal correctness first on one and then on 
 another ; Graf Peter still remained who he was. 
 
 At one time appeared amongst the guests at 
 the Bath, a tradesman, who had made himself 
 bankrupt in order to enrich himself; and who 
 enjoyed universal esteem, and had a broad 
 though somewhat pale shadow. The property 
 which he had scraped together, he resolved to 
 lay out in ostentation, and it even occurred to 
 him to enter into rivalry with me. I had re- 
 course to my purse, and soon brought the poor 
 devil to such a pass, that in order to save his 
 credit he was obliged to become bankrupt a 
 second time, and hasten over the frontier. Thus 
 I got rid of him. In this neighborhood I made 
 many idlers and good-for-nothing fellows. 
 
 With all the royal splendor and expenditure 
 by which I made all succumb to me, I still in 
 my own house lived very simply and retired. 
 I had established the strictest circumspection as 
 a rule. No one except Bendel, under any pre- 
 tence whatever, was allowed to enter the rooms 
 which I inhabited. So long as the sun shone, I 
 kept myself shut up there, and it was said the 
 Graf is employed in his cabinet. With this 
 employment numerous couriers stood in con- 
 nexion, whom I, for every trifle, sent out and 
 received. I received company alone under my 
 trees, or in my hall arranged and lighted accord- 
 ing to Bendel's plan. When I went out, on 
 which occasions it was necessary that I should 
 be constantly watched by the Argus eyes of 
 Bendel. it was only to the Forester's Garden, 
 for the sake of one alone ; for my love was the 
 innermost heart of my life. 
 
 Oh, my good Chamisso ! I will hope that thou 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 hast not yet forgotten what love is ! I leave much 
 unmentioned here to thee. Mina was really an 
 amiable, kind, good child. I had taken her 
 whole imagination captive. She could not, in 
 her humility, conceive how she could be worthy 
 that I should alone have fixed my regard on 
 her; and she returned love for love with all the 
 youthful power of an innocent heart. She loved 
 like a woman, offering herself wholly up; self- 
 forgetting; living wholly and solely for him 
 who was her life; regardless if she herself 
 perished ; — that is to say — she really loved. 
 
 But I — oh what terrible hours — terrible and 
 yet worthy that I should wish them back again, 
 — have I often wept on Bendel's bosom, when, 
 after the first unconscious intoxication, I recol- 
 lected myself ; looked sharply into myself; — I, 
 without a shadow, with knavish selfishness de- 
 stroying this angel, this pure soul which I had 
 deceived and stolen. Then did I resolve to 
 reveal myself to her ; then did I swear with a 
 most passionate oath to tear myself from her, 
 and to fly ; then did I burst out into tears, and 
 concert with Bendel how in the evening I should 
 visit her in the Forester's garden. 
 
 At other times I flattered myself with great 
 expectations from the rapidly approaching visit 
 from the grey man, and wept again when I had 
 in vain tried to believe in it. I had calculated 
 the .day on which I expected again to see the 
 fearful one ; for he had said in a year and a 
 day ; and I believed his word. 
 
 The parents, good honorable old people, who 
 loved their only child extremely, were amazed 
 at the connexion, as it already stood, and they 
 knew not what to do in it. Earlier they could 
 not have believed that the Graf Peter could 
 think only of their child ; but now he really 
 loved her and was beloved again. The mother 
 was probably vain enough to believe in the 
 probability of an union, and to seek for it; the 
 sound masculine understanding of the father did 
 not give way to such overstretched imaginations. 
 Both were persuaded of the purity of my love! 
 they could do nothing more than pray for their 
 child. 
 
 I have laid my hand on a letter from Mina 
 of this date, which I still retain. Yes, this is 
 her own writing. I transcribe it for thee. 
 
 "I am a weak silly maiden, and cannot be- 
 lieve that my beloved, because I love him 
 dearly, dearly, will make the poor girl unhappy. 
 Ah ! thou art so kind, so inexpressibly kind, but 
 do not misunderstand me. Thou shalt sacrifice 
 nothing for me, desire to sacrifice nothing for 
 me. Oh God ! I should hate myself if thou 
 didst! No — thou hast made me immeasurably 
 happy ; hast taught me to love thee. Away ! 1 
 know my own fate. Graf Peter belongs not to 
 me, he belongs to the world. I will be proud 
 when I hear — 1 that was he, and that was he 
 again, — and that has he accomplished; there 
 they have worshipped him, and there they have 
 deified him !' See, when I think of this, then 
 am I angry with thee, that with a simple child 
 
 thou canst forget thy high destiny. Away! or 
 the thought will make me miserable] 1 — oh! 
 who through thee am so happy, so blessed. 
 Have I not woven, too, an olive branch and a 
 rosebud into thy life, as into the wreath which 
 I was allowed to present to thee? I have thee 
 in my heart, my beloved, fear not to leave me. 
 I will die oh! so happy, so ineffably happy 
 through thee !" 
 
 Thou canst imagine how the words must cut 
 through my heart. I explained to her that I 
 was not what people believed me, that I was 
 only a rich but infinitely miserable man. That 
 a curse rested on me, which must be the only 
 secret between us, since I was not yet without 
 hope that it should be loosed. That this was 
 the poison of my days ; that I might drag her 
 down with me into the gulph, — she who was 
 the sole light, the sole happiness, the sole heart 
 of my life. Then wept she again, because I 
 was unhappy. Ah, she was so loving, so kind ! 
 To spare me but one tear, she, and with what 
 transport, would have sacrificed herself without 
 reserve. 
 
 In the mean time she was far from rightly 
 comprehending my words; she conceived in 
 me some prince on whom had fallen a heavy 
 bann, some high and honored head, and her 
 imagination amidst heroic pictures limned forth 
 her lover gloriously. 
 
 Once I said to her — " Mina, the last day in 
 the next month may change my fate and decide 
 it, — if not I must die, for I will not make thee 
 unhappy." Weeping she hid her head in my 
 bosom. "If thy fortune changes, let me know 
 that thou art happy. I have no claim on thee. 
 Art thou wretched, bind me to thy wretched- 
 ness, that I may help thee to bear it." 
 
 " Maiden ! maiden ! take it back, that word, 
 that foolish word which escaped thy lips. And 
 knowest thou this wretchedness? Knowest thou 
 this curse? Knowest who thy love, — what he? 
 Seest thou not that I convulsively shrink together, 
 and have a secret from thee?" She fell sobbing 
 to my feet, and repeated with oaths her intreaty. 
 
 I announced to the Forest-master, who enter- 
 ed, that it was my intention on the first ap- 
 proaching of the month to solicit the hand of his 
 daughter. I fixed precisely this time, because 
 in the interim many things might occur which 
 might influence my fortunes. That I was un- 
 changeable in my love to his daughter. 
 
 The good man was quite startled as he heard 
 such words out of the mouth of Graf Peter. He 
 fell on my neck, and again became quite ashamed 
 to have thus forgotten himself. Then he began 
 to doubt, to weigh, and to enquire. He spoke 
 of dowry, security, and the fortune for his be- 
 loved child. I thanked him for reminding me 
 of these things. I told him that I desired to 
 settle myself in this country where I seemed to 
 be beloved, and to lead a care-free life. I begged 
 him to purchase the finest estate that the coun- 
 try had to offer, in the name of his daughter, 
 and to charge the cost to me. A father could, 
 
556 
 
 CHAMISSO. 
 
 in such matter, best serve a lover. It gave him 
 enough to do, for everywhere a stranger was 
 before him, and he could only purchase for 
 about a million. 
 
 My thus employing him was, at the bottom, 
 an innocent scheme to remove him to a distance, 
 and I had employed him similarly before. For 
 I must confess that he was rather wearisome. 
 The good mother was, on the contrary, some- 
 what deaf, and not like him jealous of the honor 
 of entertaining the Graf. 
 
 The mother joined us. The happy people 
 pressed me to stay longer with them that even- 
 ing, — I dared not remain another minute. I 
 saw already the rising moon glimmer on the 
 horizon, — my time was up. 
 
 The next evening I went again to the For- 
 ester's garden. I had thrown my cloak over 
 my shoulders and pulled my hat over my eyes. 
 I advanced to Mina. As she looked up and 
 beheld me, she gave an involuntary start, and 
 there stood again clear before my soul the ap- 
 parition of that terrible night when I showed 
 myself in the moonlight without a shadow. It 
 was actually she! But had she also recognised 
 me again? She was silent and thoughtful; on 
 my bosom lay a hundred-weight pressure. I 
 arose from my seat. She threw herself silently 
 weeping on my bosom. I went. 
 
 I now found her often in tears. It grew 
 darker and darker in my soul ; the parents 
 meanwhile swam in supreme felicity; the 
 eventful day passed on sad and sullen as a 
 thunder cloud. The eve of the day was come. 
 I could scarcely breathe. I had in precaution 
 filled several chests with gold. I watched the 
 midnight hour approach. — It struck. 
 
 I now sat, my eye fixed on the fingers of the 
 clock, counting the minutes, the seconds, like 
 dagger-strokes. At every noise which arose, I 
 started up; — the day broke. The leaden hours 
 crowded upon each other. It was noon — even- 
 ing — night: as the clock fingers sped on, hope 
 withered ; it struck eleven and nothing ap- 
 peared ; the last minutes of the last hour fell, 
 and nothing appeared. It struck the first stroke, 
 — the last stroke of the twelfth hour, and I sank 
 hopeless and in boundless tears upon my bed. 
 On the morrow I should — forever shadowless, 
 solicit the hand of my beloved. Towards morn- 
 ing an anxious sleep pressed down my eyelids. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 It was still early morning when voices, which 
 were raised in my ante-chamber in violent dis- 
 pute, awoke me. I listened. Bendel forbade 
 entrance ; Rascal swore high and hotly that he 
 would receive no commands from his fellow, 
 and insisted in forcing his way into my room. 
 The good Bendel warned him that such words, 
 came they to my ear, would turn him out of his 
 most advantageous service. Rascal threatened 
 to lay hands on him if he any longer obstructed 
 his entrance. 
 
 I had half dressed myself. 1 flung the door 
 
 wrathfully open, and advanced to Rascal— 
 "What wantest thou, villain ?" He stepped two 
 strides backwards, and replied quite coolly: 
 " To request you most humbly, Herr Graf, just 
 to allow me to see your shadow ; — the sun 
 shines at this moment so beautifully in the 
 court." 
 
 I was struck, as with thunder. It was some- 
 time before I could recover my speech. " How 
 can a servant towards his master" — He inter- 
 rupted very calmly my speech — 
 
 "A servant may be a very honorable man, 
 and not be willing to serve a shadowless 
 master — I demand my discharge." It was ne- 
 cessary to try other chords. "But honest, dear 
 Rascal, who has put the unlucky idea into your 
 head? How canst thou believe — ?" 
 
 He proceeded in the same tone — "People 
 will assert that you have no shadow — and, in 
 short, you show me your shadow, or give me 
 my discharge." 
 
 Bendel. pale and trembling, but more discreet 
 than I, gave me a sign. I sought refuge in the 
 all-silencing gold ; and that had lost its power. 
 He threw it at my feet. "From a shadowless 
 man I accept nothing!" He turned his back 
 upon me, and went most deliberately out of the 
 room with his hat upon his head and whistling 
 a tune. I stood there with Bendel as one turned 
 to stone, thoughtless, motionless, gazing after him. 
 
 Heavily sighing and with death in my heart, 
 I prepared myself to redeem my promise, and 
 like a criminal before his judge, to appear in the 
 Forest-master's garden. I alighted in the dark 
 arbor, which was named after me, and where 
 they would be sure also at this time to await 
 me. The mother met me, care-free and joyous. 
 Mina sate there, pale and lovely as the first 
 snow which often in the autumn kisses the last 
 flowers, and then instantly dissolves into bitter 
 water. The Forest-master went agitatedly to 
 and fro, a written paper in his hand, and ap- 
 peared to force down many things in himself 
 which painted themselves with rapidly alter- 
 nating flushes and paleness on his otherwise 
 immovable countenance. He came up to me 
 as I entered and with frequently choked words, 
 begged to speak with me alone. The path in 
 which he invited me to follow him, conducted 
 towards an open, sunny part of the garden. I 
 sunk speechless on a seat, and then followed a 
 long silence, which even the good mother dared 
 not interrupt. 
 
 The Forest-master raged continually with 
 unequal steps to and fro in the arbor, and sud- 
 denly halting before me, glanced on the paper 
 which he held, and demanded of me with a 
 searching look — 
 
 "May not, Herr Graf, a certain Peter Schle- 
 mihl be not quite unknown to you ?" I was 
 silent. "A man of superior character and sin- 
 gular attainments — " He paused for an answer. 
 
 " And suppose I were the same man?" 
 
 "Who," added he vehemently — " has by some 
 means, lost his shadow !" 
 
CHAMISSO. 557 
 
 "Oh, my foreboding, my foreboding!" ex- 
 claimed Mina, "Yes, I have long known it, he 
 has no shadow," and she flung herself into the 
 arms of her mother, who terrified, clasped her 
 convulsively, and upbraided her that to her own 
 hurt she had kept to herself such a secret. But 
 she, like Arethusa, was changed into a fountain 
 of tears, which at the sound of my voice flowed 
 still more copiously, and at my approach burst 
 forth in torrents. 
 
 "And you," again grimly began the Forest- 
 master, "and you, with unparalleled impudence, 
 have made no scruple to deceive these and my- 
 self, and you give out that you love her whom 
 you have so deeply humbled. See, there, how she 
 weeps and writhes! Oh, horrible! horrible!" 
 
 I had to such a degree lost all reflection, that 
 talking like one crazed, I began — "And, after 
 all, a shadow is nothing but a shadow ; one can 
 do very well without that, and it is not worth 
 while to make such a riot about it." But I felt 
 so sharply the baselessness of what I was saying, 
 that I stopped of myself, without his deigning 
 me an answer, and I then added, — " What one 
 has lost at one time, may be found again at 
 another !" 
 
 He rushed fiercely towards me — "Confess to 
 me, sir ! confess to me, how became you deprived 
 of your shadow !" 
 
 I was compelled again to lie. "A rude fel- 
 low one day trod so heavily on my shadow that 
 he rent a great hole in it. I have only sent it 
 to be mended, for money can do much, and I 
 was to have received it back yesterday." 
 
 "Good, sir, very good!" replied the Forest- 
 master. " You solicit my daughter's hand ; 
 others do the same. I have, as her father, to 
 care for her. I give you three days in which 
 you may see after a shadow. If you appear 
 before me within these three days with a good, 
 well-fitting shadow, you shall be welcome to 
 me; but on the fourth day — I tell you plainly, — 
 my daughter is the wife of another." 
 
 I would yet attempt to speak a word to Mina, 
 but she clung, sobbing violently, only closer to 
 her mother's breast, who motioned me to be 
 silent and to withdraw. I reeled away, and 
 the world seemed to close itself behind me. 
 
 Escaped from Bendel's affectionate oversight, 
 I traversed in erring course, woods and fields. 
 The perspiration of my agony dropped from my 
 brow, a hollow groaning convulsed my bosom, 
 madness raged within me. 
 
 I know not how long this had continued, 
 when on a sunny heath, I felt myself plucked 
 by the sleeve. I stood still and looked round — 
 it was the man in the grey coat, who seemed to 
 have run himself quite out of breath in pursuit 
 of me. He immediately began : 
 
 " I had announced myself for to-day, but you 
 could not wait the time. There is nothing amiss, 
 however, yet. You consider the matter, receive 
 your shadow again in exchange, which is at 
 your service, and turn immediately back. You 
 shall be welcome in the Forest-master's garden; 
 
 the whole has been only a joke. Rascal, who 
 has betrayed you, and who seeks the hand of 
 your bride, I will take charge of; the fellow is 
 ripe." 
 
 I stood there as still asleep. "Announced for 
 to-day?" I counted over again the time, — he 
 was right. I had constantly miscalculated a 
 day. I sought with the right hand in my bosom 
 for my purse : he guessed my meaning, and 
 stepped two paces backwards. 
 
 "No, Herr Graf, that is in too good hands, 
 keep you that." I stared at him with eyes of 
 enquiring wonder, and he proceeded: "I re- 
 quest only a trifle, as memento. You be so 
 good as to set your name to this paper." On 
 the parchment stood the words: 
 
 "By virtue of this my signature, I make over 
 my soul to the holder of this, after its natural 
 separation from the body." 
 
 I gazed with speechless amazement, alter- 
 nately at the writing and the grey unknown. 
 Meanwhile, with a new made pen he had taken 
 up a drop of blood which flowed from a fresh 
 thorn-scratch on my hand and presented it to me. 
 
 "Who are you then'?" at length I asked him. 
 
 "What signifies it?" he replied. "And is 
 not that plain enough to be seen in me? A 
 poor devil, a sort of learned man and doctor, 
 who in return for precious arts, receives from 
 his friends poor thanks, and for himself, has no 
 other amusement on earth but to make his little 
 experiments. — But, however, sign. To the right 
 there — P eter Schlemihl." 
 
 I shook my head, and said, "Pardon me, sir, 
 I do not sign that." 
 
 "Not?" replied he, in amaze, "and why not?" 
 
 " It seems to me to a certain degree serious to 
 stake my soul on a shadow." 
 
 " So, so," repeated he, " serious !" and he 
 laughed almost in my face. "And if I might 
 venture to ask, what sort of a thing is that soul 
 of yours? Have you ever seen it? And what 
 do you think of doing with it when you are 
 dead? Be glad that you have found an ama- 
 teur who in your lifetime is willing to pay you 
 for the bequest of this X, of this galvanic power, 
 or polarised Activity, or whatever this silly thing 
 may be, with something actual ; that is to say, 
 with your real shadow, through which you may 
 arrive at the hand of your beloved, and at the 
 accomplishment of all your desires. Will you 
 rather push forth, and deliver up that poor 
 young creature to that low bred scoundrel Ras- 
 cal ? No, you must witness that with your own 
 eyes. Here, I lend you the Tarn-cap," (the cap 
 of invisibility) — he drew it from his pocket — 
 "and we will proceed unseen to the Forester's 
 garden." 
 
 I must confess that I was excessively ashamed 
 of being ridiculed by this man. I detested him 
 from the bottom of my heart; and I believe that 
 this personal antipathy withheld me, more than 
 principle, or prejudice, from purchasing my 
 shadow, essential as it was, by the required 
 signature. The thought also was intolerable to 
 47* 
 
558 
 
 CH AMISSO. 
 
 me of making the excursion which he proposed, 
 in his company. To see this abhorred sneak, 
 this mocking cobold, step between me and my 
 beloved, two torn and bleeding bearts, revolted 
 my innermost feeling. I regarded what was 
 past as predestined, and my wretchedness as 
 unchangeable, and turning to the man, I said to 
 him, 
 
 "Sir, I have sold you my shadow for this in 
 itself most excellent purse, and I have suffi- 
 ciently repented of it. Let the bargain be at an 
 end, in God's name !" He shook his head, and 
 made a very gloomy face. I continued, "I will 
 then sell you nothing further of mine, even for 
 this offered price of my shadow ; and, therefore, 
 I shall sign nothing. From this you may un- 
 derstand, that the cap-wearing to which you 
 invite me, must be much more amusing for you 
 than for me. Excuse me, therefore ; and as it 
 cannot now be otherwise, let us part." 
 
 "It grieves me, Monsieur Schlemihl, that you 
 obstinately decline the business which I propose 
 to you. Perhaps another time I may be more 
 fortunate. Till our speedy meeting again ! — 
 Apropos : Permit me yet to show you, that the 
 things which I purchase I by no means suffer 
 to grow mouldy, but honorably preserve, and 
 that they are well used by me." 
 
 With that he drew my shadow out of his 
 pocket and with a dexterous throw unfolding it 
 on the heath, spread it out on the sunny side of 
 his feet, so that he walked between two attend- 
 ant shadows, his own and mine, for mine must 
 equally obey him, and accommodate itself to 
 and follow all his movements. 
 
 When I once saw my poor shadow again, 
 after so long an absence, and beheld it degraded 
 to so vile a service, whilst I, on its account, was 
 in such unspeakable trouble, my heart broke, 
 and I began bitterly to weep. The detested 
 wretch swaggered with the plunder snatched 
 from me, and impudently renewed his proposal. 
 
 " You can yet have it. A stroke of the pen, 
 and you snatch therewith the poor unhappy 
 Mina from the claws of the villain into the arms 
 of the most honored Herr Graf; — as observed, 
 only a stroke of the pen." 
 
 My tears burst forth with fresh impetuosity, 
 but I turned away and motioned to him to 
 withdraw himself. Bendel, who filled with 
 anxiety, had traced me to this spot, at this mo- 
 ment arrived. When the kind, good soul, found 
 me weeping, and saw my shadow, which could 
 not be mistaken, in the power of the mysterious 
 grey man, he immediately resolved, was it even 
 by force, to restore to me the possession of my 
 property; and as he did not understand going 
 much about with tender phrases, he immediately 
 assaulted the man with words, and without 
 much asking, ordered him bluntly to allow that 
 which was my own, instantly to follow me. 
 Instead of answer, he turned his back, and 
 went. But Bendel up with his buckthorn cud- 
 gel which he carried, and following on his 
 heels, without mercy, and with reiterated com- 
 
 mands to give up the shadow, made him feel 
 the full force of his vigorous arm. He, as ac- 
 customed to such handling, ducked his head, set 
 up his shoulders, and with silent and deliberate 
 steps pursued his way over the heath, at once 
 going off with my shadow and my faithful ser- 
 vant. I long heard the heavy sounds roll over 
 the waste, till they were finally lost in the dis- 
 tance. I was alone, as before, with my misery. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Left alone on the wild heath, I gave free 
 current to my countless tears, relieving my heart 
 from an ineffably weary weight. But I saw no 
 bound, no outlet, no end to my intolerable mi- 
 sery, and I drank besides with savage thirst of 
 the fresh poison which the unknown had poured 
 into my wounds. When I called the image of 
 Mina before my soul, and the dear, sweet form 
 appeared pale and in tears, as I saw her last in 
 my shame, then stepped the shadow of the im- 
 pudent and mocking Rascal between her and 
 me; I covered my face and fled through the 
 wild. But the hideous apparition left me not, 
 but pursued me in my flight, till I sank breath- 
 less on the ground, and moistened it with a 
 fresh torrent of tears. 
 
 And all for a shadow. And this shadow a 
 pen-stroke had obtained for me. I thought on 
 the strange proposition and my refusal. All was 
 chaos in me. I had no longer either judgment 
 or mastership of thought. 
 
 The day went over. I stilled my hunger 
 with wild fruits; my thirst in the nearest moun- 
 tain stream. The night fell ; I lay down beneath 
 a tree. The damp morning awoke me out of a 
 heavy sleep in which I heard myself rattle in 
 the throat as in death. Bendel must have lost 
 all trace of me, and it rejoiced me to think so. 
 I would not return again amongst men before 
 whom I fled in terror, like the timid game of 
 the mountains. Thus I lived through three 
 weary days. 
 
 On the fourth morning I found myself on a 
 sandy plain bright with the sun, and sate on the 
 fragment of a rock in its beams, for I loved now 
 to enjoy its long-withheld countenance. I still 
 fed my heart with its despair. A light rustle 
 startled me. Ready for flight I threw round 
 me a hurried glance; I saw no one, but in the 
 sunny sand there glided past me a human sha- 
 dow, not unlike my own, which wandering 
 there alone, seemed to have got away from its 
 possessor. There awoke in me a mighty yearn- 
 ing. "Shadow," said I, "dost thou seek thy 
 master"? I will be he," and I sprang forward to 
 seize it. I thought that if I succeeded in tread- 
 ing on it so that its feet touched mine, it probably 
 would remain hanging there, and in time ac- 
 commodate itself to me. 
 
 The shadow, on my moving, fled before me, 
 and I was compelled to begin a strenuous chase 
 of the light fugitive, for which the thought of 
 rescuing myself from my fearful condition could 
 alone have endowed me with the requisite 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 550 
 
 vigor. It flew towards a wood, at a great dis- 
 tance, in which I must of necessity, have lost it. 
 I perceived this, — a horror convulsed my heart, 
 inflamed my desire, added wings to my speed; 
 I gained evidently on the shadow, I came con- 
 tinually nearer, I must certainly reach it. Sud- 
 denly it stopped, and turned towards me. Like 
 a lion on its prey, I shot with a mighty spring 
 forwards to make seizure of it, — and dashed 
 unexpectedly against a hard and bodily object. 
 Invisibly I received the most unprecedented 
 blows on the ribs that mortal man probably 
 ever received. 
 
 The effect of the terror in me was convul- 
 sively to close my arms, and firmly to enclose 
 that which stood unseen before me. In the 
 rapid transaction, I plunged forward to the 
 ground, but backwards and under me was a 
 man whom I had embraced and who now first 
 became visible. 
 
 The whole occurrence became now very 
 naturally explicable to me. The man must 
 have carried the invisible bird's nest which ren- 
 ders him who holds it, but not his shadow, im- 
 perceptible, and had now cast it away. I 
 glanced round, soon discovered the shadow of 
 the invisible nest itself, leaped up and towards 
 it, and did not miss the precious prize. Invisi- 
 ble and shadowless, I held the nest in my hand. 
 
 The man swiftly springing up, gazing round 
 instantly after his fortunate conqueror, descried 
 on the wide sunny plain neither him nor his 
 shadow, for which he sought with especial 
 avidity. For that I was myself entirely sha- 
 dowless he had no leisure to remark, nor could 
 he imagine such a thing. Having convinced 
 himself that every trace had vanished, he turned 
 his hand against himself, and tore his hair. To 
 me, however, the acquired treasure had given 
 the power and desire to mix again amongst 
 men. I did not want for self-satisfying pallia- 
 tives for my base robbery, or rather I had no 
 need of them ; and to escape from every thought 
 of the kind, I hastened away, not even looking 
 round at the unhappy one, whose deploring 
 voice I long heard resounding behind me. — 
 Thus, at least, appeared to me the circumstances 
 at the time. 
 
 I was on fire to proceed to the Forester's 
 garden, and there myself to discern the truth of 
 what the Detested One had told me. I knew 
 not, however, where I was. I climbed the next 
 hill, in order to look round over the country, and 
 perceived from its summit the near city, and the 
 Forester's garden lying at my feet. My heart 
 beat violently, and tears of another kind than 
 what I had till now shed, rushed into my eyes. 
 I should see her again ! Anxious desire hastened 
 my steps down the most direct path. I passed 
 unseen some peasants who came out of the city. 
 They were talking of me, of Rascal and the 
 Forest-master; I would hear nothing, — I hurried 
 past. 
 
 I entered the garden, all the tremor of expec- 
 tation in my bosom. I seemed to hear laughter 
 
 near me. I shuddered, threw a rapid glance 
 round me, but could discover nobody. I ad- 
 vanced farther. I seemed to perceive a sound 
 as of man's steps at hand, but there was nothing 
 to be seen. I believed myself deceived by my 
 ear. It was yet early, no one in Graf Peter's 
 arbor, the garden still empty. I traversed the 
 well-known paths. I penetrated to the very 
 front of the dwelling. The same noise more 
 distinctly followed me. I seated myself with 
 an agonised heart on a bench which stood in 
 the sunny space before the house-door. It 
 seemed as if I had heard the unseen cobold, 
 laughing in mockery, seat himself near me. 
 The key turned in the door, it opened, and the 
 Forest-master issued forth with papers in his 
 hand. A mist seemed to envelope my head. I 
 looked up, and — horror ! the man in the grey 
 coat sate by me, gazing on me with a satanic 
 leer. He had drawn his Tarncap at once over 
 his head and mine; at his feet lay his and my 
 shadow peaceably by each other. He played 
 negligently with the well-known paper which 
 he held in his hand, and as the Forest-master, 
 busied with his documents, went to and fro in 
 the shadow of the arbor, he stooped familiarly 
 to my ear, and whispered in it these words, 
 "So then you have notwithstanding accepted 
 my invitation, and here sit we for once two 
 heads under one cap. All right! all right! 
 But now give me my bird's nest again; you 
 have no further occasion for it, and are too 
 honorable a man to wish to withhold it from 
 me ; but there needs no thanks : I assure you 
 that I have lent it you with the most hearty 
 good will." He took it unceremoniously out of 
 my hand, put it in his pocket, and laughed at 
 me. and that so loud that the Forest-master 
 himself looked round at the noise. I sate there 
 as if changed to stone. 
 
 " But you must allow,' 1 continued he, " that 
 such a cap is much more convenient. It covers 
 not only your person but your shadow at the 
 same time, and as many others as you have a 
 mind to take with you. See you, to-day again, 
 I conduct two of them" — he laughed again. 
 "Mark this, Schlemihl, what we at first won't 
 do with a good will, that will we in the end be 
 compelled to. I still fancy you will buy that 
 thing from me, take back the bride (for it is yet 
 time), and we leave Rascal dangling on the gal- 
 lows, an easy thing for us so long as rope is to 
 be had. Hear you — I will give you also my 
 cap into the bargain." 
 
 The mother came forth, and the conversation 
 began. "How goes it with Mina?" 
 
 " She weeps." 
 
 " Silly child ! it cannot be altered !" 
 
 "Certainly not; but to give her to another so 
 soon. Oh, man ! thou art cruel to thy own 
 child." 
 
 " No, mother, that thou quite mistakest. When 
 she, even before she has wept out her childish 
 tears, finds herself the wife of a very rich and 
 honorable man, she will awake comforted out 
 
5G0 
 
 C H A M I S S 0. 
 
 of her trouble as out of a dream, and thank God 
 and us, that wilt thou see!" 
 " God grant it!" 
 
 " She possesses now, indeed a very respectable 
 property; but after the stir that this unlucky 
 affair with the adventurer has made, canst thou 
 believe that a partner so suitable as Mr. Rascal 
 could be readily found for her? Dost thou know 
 what a fortune Mr. Rascal possesses?" He has 
 paid six millions for estates here in the country 
 free from all debets. I have had the title deeds 
 in my own hands! He it was who everywhere 
 had the start of me ; and besides this, has in his 
 possession bills on Thomas John for about five 
 and a half millions." 
 
 "He must have stolen enormously." 
 
 " What talk is that again ! He has wisely 
 saved what would otherwise have been lavished 
 away." 
 
 "A man that has worn livery — " 
 "Stupid stuff! he has, however, an unblem- 
 ished shadow." 
 
 "Thou art right, but — " 
 
 The man in the greycoat laughed and looked 
 at me. The door opened and Mina came forth. 
 She supported herself on the arm of a chamber- 
 maid, silent tears rolled down her lovely pale 
 cheeks. She seated herself on a stool which 
 was placed for her under the lime trees, and 
 her father took a chair by her. He tenderly 
 took her hand, and addressed her with tender 
 words, while she began violently to weep. 
 
 "Thou art my good, dear child, and thou wilt 
 be reasonable, wilt not wish to distress thy old 
 father, who seeks only thy happiness. I can 
 well conceive it, dear heart, that it has sadly 
 shaken thee. Thou art wonderfully escaped 
 from thy misfortunes ! Before we discovered 
 the scandalous imposition, thou hadst loved this 
 unworthy one greatly; see, Mina, I know it, 
 and upbraid thee not for it. I myself, dear 
 child, also loved him so long as I looked upon 
 him as a great gentleman. But now thou seest 
 how different all has turned out. What! every 
 poodle has his own shadow, and should my 
 dear child have a husband — no! thou thinkst, 
 indeed, no more about him. Listen, Mina. Now 
 a man solicits thy hand, who does not shun the 
 sunshine, an honorable man, who truly is no 
 prince, but who possesses ten millions; ten 
 times more than thou ; a man who will make 
 my dear child happy. Answer me not, make 
 no opposition, be my good, dutiful daughter, let 
 thy loving father care for thee, and dry thy 
 tears. Promise me to give thy hand to Mr. 
 Rascal. Say, wilt thou promise me this?" 
 
 She answered with a faint voice, — " I have 
 no will, no wish further upon earth. Happen 
 with me what my father will." 
 
 At this moment Mr. Rascal was announced, 
 and stepped impudently into the circle. Mina 
 lay in a swoon. My detested companion glanced 
 archly at me, and whispered in hurried words — 
 "And that can you endure? What then flows 
 instead of blood in your veins?" He scratched 
 
 with a hasty movement a slight wound in my 
 hand, blood flowed, and he continued — "Ac- 
 tually red blood! — So sign then!" I had the 
 parchment and the pen in my hand. 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 Mi wish, dear Chamisso, is merely to submit 
 myself to thy judgment, not to endeavor to bias 
 it. I have long passed the severest sentence on 
 myself, for I have nourished the tormenting 
 worm in my heart. It hovered during this 
 solemn moment of my life, incessantly before 
 my soul, and I could only lift my eyes to it with 
 a despairing glance, with humility and contri- 
 tion. Dear friend, he who in levity only sets 
 his foot out of the right road, is unawares con- 
 ducted into other paths, which draw him down- 
 wards, and ever downwards; he then sees in 
 vain the guiding stars glitter in heaven; there 
 remains to him no choice; he must descend un- 
 pausingly the declivity, and become a voluntary 
 sacrifice to Nemesis. After the false step which 
 had laid the curse upon me, I had, sinning 
 through love, forced myself into the fortunes of 
 another being, and what remained for me but 
 that where I had sowed destruction, where 
 speedy salvation was demanded of me, I should 
 blindly rush forward to the rescue? — for the 
 last hour struck ! Think not so meanly of me, 
 my Adelbert, as to imagine that I should have 
 regarded any price that was demanded as too 
 high, that I should have begrudged anything 
 that was mine even more than my gold. No, 
 Adelbert! but my soul was possessed with the 
 most unconquerable hatred of this mysterious 
 sneaker along crooked paths. I might do him 
 injustice, but every degree of association with 
 him maddened me. And here stepped forth, 
 as so frequently in my life, and as especially 
 often in the history of the world, an event in- 
 stead of an action. Since then I have achieved 
 reconciliation with myself. I have learned, in 
 the first place, to reverence Necessity; and 
 what is more than the action performed, the 
 event accomplished — her property. Then I have 
 learned to venerate this Necessity as a wise 
 Providence, which lives through that great col- 
 lective Machine in which we officiate simply as 
 co-operating, impelling and impelled wheels. 
 What shall be, must be; what should be, hap- 
 pened, and not without that Providence, which 
 I ultimately learned to reverence in my own 
 fate, and in the fate of her on whom mine thus 
 impinged. 
 
 I know not whether I shall ascribe it to the 
 excitement of my soul under the impulse of such 
 mighty sensations; or to the exhaustion of my 
 physical strength, which during the last days 
 such unwonted privations had enfeebled ; or 
 whether, finally, to the desolating commotion 
 which the presence of this grey fiend excited in 
 my whole nature; be that as it may, as I was 
 on the point of signing, I fell into a deep swoon, 
 and lay a long time as in the arms of death. 
 
 Stamping of feet and curses were the first 
 
CHAMISSO. 561 
 
 sounds which struck my ear, as I returned to 
 consciousness. I opened my eyes: it was dark ; 
 my detested attendant was busied scolding about 
 me. "Is not that to behave like an old woman? 
 Up with you, man ! and complete off-hand what 
 you have resolved on, if you have not taken 
 another thought and had rather blubber." I 
 raised myself with difficulty from the ground 
 and gazed in silence around. It was late in 
 the evening; festive music resounded from the 
 brightly illuminated Forester's house, various 
 groups of people wandered through the garden 
 walks. One couple came near in conversation, 
 and seated themselves on the bench which I 
 had just quitted. They talked of the union this 
 morning solemnized between Mr. Rascal and 
 the daughter of the house. So, then, it had 
 taken place ! 
 
 I tore the Tarncap of the already vanished 
 Unknown from my head, and hastened in 
 brooding silence towards the garden gate, 
 plunging myself into the deepest night of the 
 thicket, and striking along the path past Graf 
 Peter's arbor. But invisibly my tormenting 
 spirit accompanied me, pursuing me with keen- 
 est reproaches. "These then are one's thanks 
 for the pains which one has taken to support 
 Monsieur, who has weak nerves, through the 
 long precious day. And one shall act the fool 
 in the play. Good, Mr. Wronghead, fly you 
 from me if you please, but we are, nevertheless, 
 inseparable. You have my gold and I your 
 shadow, and this will allow us no repose. Did 
 anybody ever hear of a shadow forsaking its 
 master ? Your's draws me after you till you 
 take it again into favor, and I get rid of it. 
 What you have hesitated to do out of fresh 
 pleasure, will you, only too late, be compelled 
 to seek through new weariness and disgust. 
 One cannot escape one's fate." He continued 
 speaking in the same tone. I fled in vain; he 
 relaxed not, but ever present insultingly talked 
 of gold and shadow. I could come to no single 
 thought of rny own. 
 
 I struck through unfrequented ways towards 
 my house. When I stood before it, and gazed 
 at it, I could scarcely recognise it. No light 
 shone through the dashed-in windows. The 
 doors were closed ; no throng of servants was 
 moving therein. There was a laugh near me. 
 "Ha! ha! so goes it! But you'll probably find 
 your Bendel at home, for he was the other day 
 purposely sent back so weary, that he has most 
 likely kept his bed since." He laughed again. 
 "He will have a story to tell! Well then, for 
 the present, good night ! We meet speedily 
 again !" 
 
 I had rung repeatedly ; light appeared ; Ben- 
 del demanded from within who rung. When 
 the good man recognised my voice, he could 
 scarcely restrain his joy. The door flew open, 
 and we stood weeping in each other's arms. I 
 found him greatly changed, weak and ill ; but 
 for me, — my hair was become quite grey ! 
 
 He conducted me through the desolated rooms 
 3 v 
 
 to an inner apartment which had been spared. 
 He brought food and wine, and we seated our- 
 selves, and he again began to weep. He related 
 to me that he the other day had cudgelled the 
 grey-clad man whom he had encountered with 
 my shadow, so long and so far, that he had lost 
 all trace of me, and had sunk to the earth in 
 utter fatigue. That after this, as he could not 
 find me, he returned home, whither presently 
 the mob, at Rascal's instigation, came rushing 
 in fury, dashed in the windows, and gave full 
 play to their lust of demolition. Thus did they 
 to their benefactor. The servants had fled va- 
 rious ways. The police had ordered me, as a 
 suspicious person to quit the city, and had al- 
 lowed only four-and-twenty hours in which to 
 evacuate their jurisdiction. To that which I 
 already knew of Rascal's affluence and mar- 
 riage, he had yet much to add. This scoundrel, 
 from whom all had proceeded that had been 
 done against me, must, from the beginning, have 
 been in possession of my secret. It appeared 
 that attracted by gold, he had contrived to thrust 
 himself upon me, and at the very first had pro- 
 cured a key to the gold cupboard, where he had 
 laid the foundation of that fortune, whose aug- 
 mentation he could now afford to despise. 
 
 All this Bendel narrated to me with abundant 
 tears, and then wept for joy that he again beheld 
 me, again had me ; and that after he had long 
 doubted whither this misfortune might have led 
 me, he saw me bear it so calmly and collectedly ; 
 for such an aspect had despair now assumed in 
 me. I beheld my misery unchangeably before 
 me ; I had wept out to it my last tear ; not 
 another cry could be extorted from my heart; I 
 presented to it my bare head with chill indif- 
 ference. 
 
 " Bendel," I said, " thou knowest my lot. Not 
 without earlier blame has my heavy punish- 
 ment befallen me. Thou, innocent man, shalt 
 no longer bind thy destiny to mine. I do not 
 desire it. I ride to-night still forward ; saddle 
 me a horse ; I ride alone ; thou remainest : it is 
 my will. Here still must remain some chests 
 of gold ; that retain thou ; but I will alone wan- 
 der incessantly through the world : but if ever a 
 happier hour should smile upon me, and fortune 
 look on me with reconciled eyes, then will I 
 remember thee, for I have wept upon thy firmly 
 faithful bosom in heavy and agonising hours." 
 
 With a broken heart was this honest man 
 compelled to obey this last command of his 
 master, at which his soul shrunk with terror. I 
 was deaf to his prayers, to his representations, 
 blind to his tears. He brought me out my steed. 
 Once more I pressed the weeping man to my 
 bosom, sprung into the saddle, and under the 
 shroud of night hastened from the grave of my 
 existence, regardless which way my horse con- 
 ducted me, since I had longer on the earth, no 
 aim, no wish, no hope. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A pedestrian soon joined me, who begged, 
 
562 
 
 CHAMISSO. 
 
 after he had walked for some time by the side 
 of my horse, that as we went the same way, he 
 might he allowed to lay a cloak which he car- 
 ried, on the steed behind me. I permitted it in 
 silence. He thanked me with easy politeness 
 for the trifling service; praised my horse, and 
 thence took occasion to extol the happiness and 
 power of the rich, and let himself, I know not 
 how, fall into a kind of monologue, in which he 
 had me now merely for a listener. 
 
 He unfolded his views of life and of the 
 world, and came very soon upon metaphysics, 
 in which the ultimate pretension extended to 
 the discovery of the word that should solve all 
 mysteries. He stated his premises with great 
 clearness and proceeded to the proofs. 
 
 Thou knowest, my friend, that I have clearly 
 discovered, since I have run through the schools 
 of the philosophers, that I have by no means a 
 turn for philosophical speculations, and that I 
 have totally renounced for myself this field. 
 Since then I have left many things to them- 
 selves; abandoned the desire to know and to 
 comprehend many things ; and as thou thyself 
 advised me, have, trusting to my common sense, 
 followed as fur as I was able the voice within 
 me on the direct course. Now this rhetorician 
 seemed to me to raise with great talent a firmly 
 put-together fabric, which was at once self-based 
 and self-supported, and stood as by an innate 
 necessity. I missed, however, in it completely, 
 what most of all I was desirous to find, and so 
 it became for me merely a work of art, whose or- 
 namental compactness and completeness served 
 only to charm the eye ; nevertheless I listened 
 willingly to the eloquent man who drew my 
 attention from my grief to him; and I would 
 have gladly yielded myself wholly up to him, 
 had he captivated my heart as much as my un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 Meanwhile the time had passed, and unob- 
 served the dawn had already enlightened the 
 heaven. I was horrified as I looked suddenly 
 up, and saw the pomp of colors unfold itself in 
 the east, which announced the approach of the 
 sun ; while at this hour in which the shadows 
 ostentatiously display themselves in their great- 
 est extent, there was no protection from it ; no 
 refuge in the open country to be descried. And 
 I was not alone ! I cast a glance at my com- 
 panion, and was again terror-struck. It was no 
 other than the man in the grey coat! 
 
 He smiled at my alarm, and went on without 
 allowing me to get in a word. "Let, however, 
 as is the way of the world, our mutual advan- 
 tage for awhile unite us. It is all in good time 
 for separating. The road here along the moun- 
 tain-range, though you have not yet thought of 
 it, is. nevertheless, the only one into which you 
 could prudently have struck. Down into the 
 valley you may not venture; and still less will 
 you desire to return again over the heights, 
 whence you are come ; and this is also exactly 
 my way. I see that you already turn pale be- 
 fore the rising sun. I will, for the time we keep 
 
 company, lend you your shadow, and you, on 
 that account, tolerate me in your society. You 
 have no longer your Bendel with you, I will do 
 you good service. You do not like me, and I 
 am sorry for it; but, notwithstanding, yen can 
 make use of me. The devil is not so black as 
 he is painted. Yesterday you vexed me, it is 
 true; I will not upbraid you with it to-day; and 
 I have already shortened the way hither for 
 you ; that you must allow. Only just take your 
 shadow again awhile on trial." 
 
 The sun had ascended ; people appeared on 
 the road; I accepted, though with internal re- 
 pugnance, the proposal. Smiling he let my 
 shadow glide to the ground, which immediately 
 took its place on that of the -horse, and trotted 
 gaily by my side. I was in the strangest state 
 of mind. I rode pasta group of country-people, 
 who made way for a man of consequence, re- 
 verently, and with bared heads. I rode on, and 
 gazed with greedy eyes and a palpitating heart 
 on this my quondam shadow which I had now 
 borrowed from a stranger, yes, from an enemy. 
 
 The man went carelessly near me, and even 
 whistled a tune. He on foot, I on horseback ; 
 a dizziness seized me ; the temptation was too 
 great; I suddenly turned the reins; clapped 
 spurs to the horse, and struck at full speed into 
 a side-path. But I carried not oft' the shadow, 
 which at the turning glided from the horse, and 
 awaited its lawful possessor on the high road. 
 I was compelled with shame to turn back. The 
 man in the grey coat when he had calmly fin- 
 ished his tune, laughed at me, set the shadow 
 right again for me; and informed me, that it 
 would then only hang fast and remain with me 
 when I was disposed to become the rightful 
 proprietor. " I hold you," continued he, " fast 
 by the shadow, and you cannot escape me. A 
 rich man, like you, needs shadow, it cannot be 
 otherwise, and you only are to blame that you 
 did not perceive that sooner." 
 
 I continued my journey on the same road • 
 the comforts and the splendor of life again sur- 
 rounded me; I could move about free and con- 
 veniently, since I possessed a shadow, although 
 only a borrowed one; and I everywhere inspired 
 the respect which riches command. But I car- 
 ried death in my heart. My strange companion, 
 who gave himself out as the unworthy servant 
 of the richest man in the world, possessed an 
 extraordinary professional readiness, prompt 
 and clever beyond comparison, the very model 
 of a valet for a rich man, but he stirred not from 
 my side, perpetually directing the conversation 
 towards me, and continually blabbing out the 
 most confidential matters; so that, at length, 
 were it only to be rid of him, I resolved to set- 
 tle the affair of the shadow. He was become 
 as burthensome to me as he was hateful. I was 
 even in fear of him. He had made me de- 
 pendent on him. He held me, after he had 
 conducted me back into the glory of the world, 
 which I had fled from. I was obliged to tole- 
 rate his eloquence upon myself, and felt, in fact, 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 563 
 
 that he was in the right. A rich man in the 
 world must have a shadow, and so soon as I 
 desired to command the rank which he had 
 contrived again to make necessary to me, I saw 
 but one issue. By this, however, I stood fast; — 
 alter having sacrificed my love, after my life 
 had been blighted, I would never sign away 
 my soul to this creature, for all the shadows in 
 the world. I knew not how it would end. 
 
 We sate, one day, before a cave which the 
 strangers who frequent these mountains, are 
 accustomed to visit. We heard there the rush 
 of subterranean streams roaring up from im- 
 measurable depths, and the stone cast in seemed, 
 in its resounding fall, to find no bottom. He 
 painted to me, as he often did, with a vivid 
 power of imagination and in the lustrous charms 
 of the most brilliant colors, the most carefully 
 finished pictures of what I might achieve in the 
 world by virtue of my purse, if I had but once 
 my shadow in my possession. With my elbows 
 rested on my knees, I kept my face concealed 
 in my hands, and listened to the false one, my 
 heart divided between the seduction and my 
 own strong will. In such an inward conflict I 
 could no longer contain myself, and the deciding 
 strife began. 
 
 " You appear, sir, to forget that I have indeed 
 allowed you, upon certain conditions, to remain 
 in my company, but that I have reserved my 
 perfect freedom." 
 
 " If you command it, I pack up." 
 
 He was accustomed to menace. I was silent. 
 He began immediately to roll up my shadow. 
 I turned pale, but I let it proceed. There fol- 
 lowed a long pause ; he first broke it. 
 
 " You cannot bear me, sir. You hate me ; I 
 know it; yet why do you hate me? Is it be- 
 cause you attacked me on the highway, and 
 sought to deprive me by violence of my bird's 
 nest ? Or is it because you have endeavored in 
 a thievish manner, to cheat me out of my pro- 
 perty, the shadow, which was entrusted to you 
 entirely on your honor? I, for my part, do not, 
 therefore, hate you. I find it quite natural that you 
 shouid seek to avail yourself of all your advan- 
 tages, cunning, and power. For the rest, that 
 you have the very strictest principles; and that 
 you think like honor itself, is a taste that you 
 have, against which I have nothing to say. In 
 fact, I think not so strictly as you; I merely act 
 as you think. Or have I at any time pressed 
 my finger on your throat in order to bring to me 
 yonr most precious soul, for which I have a 
 fancy ? Have I, on account of my bartered 
 purse, let a servant loose on you ? Have I 
 sought thus to swindle you out of it?'' I had 
 nothing to oppose to this, and he proceeded. — 
 "Very good, sir! very good! you cannot endure 
 me : I know that very well, and am by no 
 means angry with you for it. We must part, 
 that is clear, and in fact, you begin to be very 
 wearisome to me. In order, then, to rid you of 
 my further, shame-inspiring presence, I counsel 
 you once more purchase this thing from me." I 
 
 extended to him the purse: "At that price?'' — 
 " No I" 
 
 I sighed deeply, and added, " Be it so, then. 
 I insist, sir, that we part, and that you.no longer, 
 obstruct my path in a world which it is to be 
 hoped, has room enough in it for us both." He 
 smiled, and replied, "I go, sir; but first let me 
 instruct you how you may ring for me when you 
 desire to see again, your most devoted servant. 
 You have only to shake your purse, so that the 
 eternal gold pieces therein jingle, and the sound 
 will instantly attract me. Every one thinks of 
 his own advantage in this world. You see that 
 I at the same time am thoughtful of yours, since 
 I reveal to you a new power. Oh ! this purse ! 
 — had the moths already devoured your sha- 
 dow, that would still constitute a strong bond be- 
 tween us. Enough, you have me in my gold. 
 Should you have any commands, even when 
 far off", for your servant, you know that I can 
 show myself very active in the service of my 
 friends, and the rich stand particularly well 
 with me. You have seen it yourself. Only 
 your shadow, sir, — allow me to tell you that — 
 never again, except on one sole condition." 
 
 Forms of the past time swept before my soul. 
 I demanded hastily — u Had you a signature from 
 Mr. John?" He smiled. "With so good a friend 
 it was by no means necessary." "Where is he? 
 By God I will know it!" He plunged hesita- 
 tingly his hand into his pocket, and, dragged 
 thence by the hair, appeared Thomas John's 
 ghastly disfigured form, and the blue death-lips 
 moved themselves with heavy words — u Justo 
 judicio Dei judicatus sum : justo judicio Dei con- 
 demnatus sum." I shuddered with horror, and 
 dashing the ringing purse into the abyss, I spoke 
 to him the last words. " I adjure thee, horrible 
 one, in the name of God ! take thyself hence, 
 and never again show thyself in my sight!" 
 
 He arose gloomily, and instantly vanished 
 behind the masses of rock which bounded this 
 wild, overgrown spot. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I sate there without shadow and without 
 money, but a heavy weight was taken from my 
 bosom. I was calm. Had I lost my love, or 
 had I in that loss felt myself free from blame, I 
 believe that I should have been happy ; but I 
 knew not, however, what I should do. I ex- 
 amined my pockets : I found yet several gold 
 pieces there ; I counted them and laughed. I 
 had my horses below at the inn ; I was ashamed 
 of returning thither; I must, at least, wait till 
 the sun was gone down ; it stood yet high in the 
 heaven. I laid myself down in the shade of 
 the nearest trees, and fell calmly asleep. 
 
 Lovely shapes blended themselves before me 
 in charming dance into a pleasing dream. Mina 
 with a flower-wreath in her hair floated by me, 
 and smiled kindly upon me. The noble Bendel 
 also was crowned with flowers, and went past 
 with a friendly greeting. I saw many besides, 
 and I believe thee too, Chamisso, in the distant 
 
564 
 
 CH AMISSO. 
 
 throng. A bright light appeared, but no one 
 had a shadow, and what was stranger, it had 
 by no means a bad effect. Flowers and songs, 
 love and joy, under groves of palm. I could 
 neither hold fast nor single out the moving, 
 lightly floating, loveable forms : but I knew that 
 I dreamed such a dream with joy, and was 
 careful to avoid waking. I was already awake, 
 but still kept my eyes closed in order to retain 
 the fading apparition longer before my soul. 
 
 I finally opened my eyes; the sun stood still 
 high in the heaven, but in the east; I had slept 
 through the night. I took it for a sign that I 
 should not return to the inn. I gave up readily 
 as lost, what I yet possessed there, and deter- 
 mined to strike on foot into a neighboring path, 
 which led along the wood-grown feet of the 
 mountains, leaving it secretly to fate to fulfil 
 what it had yet in store for me. I looked not 
 behind me, and thought not even of applying to 
 Bendel, whom I left rich behind me, and which 
 I could readily have done. I considered the 
 new character which I should support in the 
 world. My dress was very modest. I had on 
 an old black Polonaise, which I had already 
 worn in Berlin, and which, I know not how, 
 had first come again into my hands for this 
 journey. I had also a travelling cap on my 
 head, a pair of old boots on my feet. I arose, 
 and cut me on the spot a knotty stick as a me- 
 morial, and advanced at once on my wandering. 
 
 I met in the wood an old peasant who friend- 
 ly greeted me, and with whom I entered into 
 conversation. I inquired, like an inquisitive 
 traveller, first the way, then about the country, 
 and its inhabitants, the productions of the moun- 
 tains, and many such things. He answered my 
 questions sensibly and loquaciously. We came 
 to the bed of a mountain torrent, which had 
 spread its devastations over a wide tract of the 
 forest. I shuddered involuntarily at the sun- 
 bright space, and allowed the countryman to go 
 first; but in the midst of this dangerous spot, he 
 stood still, and turned to relate to me the his- 
 tory of this desolation. He saw immediately 
 my defect, and paused in the midst of his dis- 
 course. 
 
 " But how does that happen, — the gentleman 
 has actually no shadow !" 
 
 "Alas! alas!" replied I, sighing, "during a 
 long and severe illness, my hair, nails, and sha- 
 dow fell off. See, father, at my age, my hair, 
 which is renewed again, is quite white, the 
 nails very short, and the shadow, — that will 
 never grow again." 
 
 "Ay! ay!" responded the old man, shaking 
 his head, — " no shadow, that is bad ! That was 
 a bad illness that the gentleman had." But he 
 continued not his narrative, and at the next 
 cross way which presented itself, he left me 
 without saying a word. Bitter tears trembled 
 anew upon my cheeks, and my cheerfulness 
 was gone. 
 
 I pursued my way with a sorrowful heart, 
 and sought no further the society of men. I 
 
 kept myself in the darkest wood, and was many 
 a time compelled, in order to pass over a space 
 where the sun shone, to wait for whole hours, 
 least some human eye should forbid me the 
 transit. In the evening I sought for a small inn 
 in the villages. I went particularly in quest of 
 a mine in the mountains where I hoped to get 
 work under the oath ; since, besides that my 
 present situation made it imperative that I 
 should provide for my support, I had discovered 
 that the most active labor alone could protect 
 me from my own annihilating thoughts. 
 
 A few rainy days advanced me well on the 
 way, but at the expense of my boots, whose 
 soles had been calculated for the Graf Peter, 
 and not for the pedestrian laborer. 1 was al- 
 ready barefoot: I must procure a pair of new 
 boots. The next morning I transacted this bu- 
 siness with much gravity in a village where 
 was held a Wake, and where in a booth old and 
 new boots stood for sale. I selected and bar- 
 gained long. I was forced to deny myself a 
 new pair, which I would gladly have had, but 
 the extravagant demand frightened me. I there- 
 fore contented myself with an old pair, which 
 were yet good and strong, and which the hand- 
 some, blond-haired boy who kept the stall, for 
 present cash payment handed to me with a 
 friendly smile, and wished me good luck on my 
 journey. I put them on at once, and left the 
 place by the northern gate. 
 
 I was sunk very deep in my thoughts and 
 scarcely saw where I set my feet, for I was 
 pondering on the mine which I hoped to reach 
 by evening, and where I hardly knew how I 
 should propose myself. I had not advanced two 
 hundred strides when I observed that I had got 
 out of the way. I therefore looked round me, 
 and found myself in a wild and ancient forest, 
 where the axe appeared never to have been 
 wielded. I pressed forward still a few steps, 
 and beheld myself in the midst of desert rocks 
 which were overgrown only with moss and 
 lichens, and between which lay fields of snow 
 and ice. The air was intensely cold ; I looked 
 round, — the wood had vanished behind me. I 
 took a few strides more, — and around me 
 reigned the silence of death : boundlessly ex- 
 tended itself the ice whereon I stood, and on 
 which rested a thick, heavy fog. The sun stood 
 blood-red on the edge of the horizon. The cold 
 was insupportable. 
 
 I knew not what had happened to me ; the 
 benumbing frost compelled me to hasten my 
 steps ; I heard alone the roar of distant waters ; 
 a step and I was on the ice margin of an ocean. 
 Innumerable herds of seals plunged rushing be 
 fore me in the flood. I pursued this shore; I 
 saw naked rocks, land, birch and pine forests ; 
 I now advanced for a few minutes right on- 
 wards. It was stifling hot. I looked around, — 
 I stood amongst beautifully cultivated rice-fields, 
 and beneath mulberry-trees. I seated myself in 
 their shade ; I looked at my watch ; I had left 
 the market town only a quarter of an hour be- 
 
CHAMISSO. 
 
 5*5 
 
 fore. I fancied that I dreamed ; I bit my tongue 
 to awake myself. I closed my eyes in order to 
 collect my thoughts. I heard before me singu- 
 lar accents pronounced through the nose. I 
 looked up. Two Chinese, unmistakeable from 
 their Asiatic form of countenance, if indeed I 
 would have given no credit to their costume, 
 addressed me in their speech with the accustom- 
 ed salutations of their country. I arose and 
 stepped two paces backward ; I saw them no 
 more. The landscape was totally changed, 
 trees and forests instead of rice-fields. I con- 
 templated these trees, and the plants which 
 bloomed around me, which I recognised as the 
 growth of south-eastern Asia. I wished to ap- 
 proach one of these trees, — one step, and again 
 all was changed. I marched now like a recruit 
 whu is drilled, and strode slowly, and with 
 measured steps. Wonderfully diversified lands, 
 riv^s, meadows, mountain chains, steppes, 
 deserts of sand, unrolled themselves before my 
 astonished eyes. There was no doubt of it, — I 
 had seven-leagued boots on my feet. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I fell in speechless adoration on my knees 
 and shed tears of thankfulness, for suddenly 
 stood my fortune clear before my soul. For 
 early offence thrust out from the society of men, 
 I was cast, for compensation, upon Nature, 
 which I ever loved; the earth was given me 
 as a rich garden, study for the object and strength 
 of my life, and science for its goal. It was no 
 resolution which I adopted. I have since then, 
 with severe, unremitted diligence, striven faith- 
 fully to represent what then stood clear and 
 perfect before my eye, and my satisfaction has 
 depended on the agreement of the demonstration 
 with the original. 
 
 I prepared without hesitation, with a hasty 
 survey, to take possession of the field which I 
 should hereafter reap. I stood on the heights 
 of Thibet, and the sun, which had risen upon 
 me only a few hours before, now already stooped 
 to the evening sky. I wandered over Asia from 
 east to west, overtaking him in his course, and 
 entered Africa. I gazed about me with eager 
 curiosity, as I repeatedly traversed it in all di- 
 rections. As I surveyed the ancient pyramids 
 and temples in passing through Egypt, I descried 
 in the desert not far from hundred-gated Thebes, 
 the caves where the christian anchorites once 
 dwelt. It was suddenly firm and clear in me — 
 here is thy home ! I selected one of the most 
 concealed which was at the same time spacious, 
 convenient and inaccessible to the jackalls, for 
 ny future abode, and again went forward. 
 
 I passed at the pillars of Hercules, over to 
 Europe, and when I had reviewed the southern 
 and northern provinces, I crossed from northern 
 Asia over the polar glaciers to Greenland and 
 America ; traversed both parts of that continent, 
 and the winter which already reigned in the 
 south drove me speedily back northwards from 
 Cape Horn. 
 
 I tarried awhile till it was day in eastern 
 Asia, and after some repose, continued my 
 wandering. I traced through both Americas 
 the mountain chain which comprehends the 
 highest known inequalities on our globe. I 
 stalked slowly and cautiously from summit to 
 summit, now over flaming volcanoes, now snow- 
 crowned peaks, often breathing with difficulty ; 
 when reaching Mount Elias, I sprang across 
 Behring's Straits to Asia. I followed the west- 
 ern shores, in their manifold windings, and ex- 
 amined with especial care which of the islands 
 there located were accessible to me. From the 
 peninsula of Malacca my boots carried me to 
 Sumatra, Java, Bali and Lamboc. I attempted 
 often with danger, and always in vain, a north- 
 west passage over the lesser islets and rocks 
 with which this sea is studded to Borneo and 
 the other islands of this Archipelago. I was 
 compelled to abandon the hope. At length I 
 seated myself on the extremest part of Lamboc, 
 and gazing towards the south and east, wept, 
 as at the fast closed grating of my prison, that 1 
 had so soon discovered my limits. New-Hol- 
 land so extraordinary, and so essentially neces- 
 sary to the comprehension of the earth and its 
 sun-woven garment, of the vegetable and the 
 animal world, with the South-Sea and its Zoo- 
 phyte islands, was interdicted to me, and thus, 
 at the very outset, all that I should gather and 
 build up was destined to remain a mere frag- 
 ment ! Oh, my Adelbert, what after all, are the 
 endeavors of men ! 
 
 Often did I in the severest winter of the 
 southern hemisphere, endeavor, passing the 
 polar glaciers westward, to leave behind me 
 those two hundred strides out from Cape Horn, 
 which sundered me probably from Van Die- 
 man's Land and New Holland, regardless of my 
 return, or whether this dismal region should 
 close upon me as my coffin-lid, making despe- 
 rate leaps from ice-drift to ice-drift, and bidding 
 defiance to the cold and the sea. In vain — I 
 never reached New-Holland, but every time, I 
 came back to Lamboc, seated myself on its 
 extremest peak, and wept again, with my face 
 turned towards the south and east, as at the fast 
 closed bars of my prison. 
 
 I tore myself at length from this spot, and re- 
 turned with a sorrowful heart into inner Asia. 
 I traversed that farther, pursuing the morning 
 dawn westward, and came yet in the night to 
 my proposed home in the Thebais, which I had 
 touched upon in the afternoon of the day before. 
 
 As soon as I was somewhat rested, and when 
 it was day again in Europe, I made it my first 
 care to procure everything which I wanted. 
 First of all, stop-shoes; for I had experienced 
 how inconvenient it was when I wished to ex- 
 amine near objects, not to be able to slacken my 
 stride, except by pulling off my boots. A pair 
 of slippers drawn over them had completely the 
 effect which I anticipated, and later I always 
 carried two pairs, since I sometimes threw them 
 from my feet, without having time to pick them 
 48 
 
566 
 
 CHAMISSO. 
 
 up again, when lions, men, or hysenas startled 
 me from my botanising. My very excellent 
 watch was, for the short duration of my passage, 
 a capital chronometer. Besides this I needed 
 a sextant, some scientific instruments and books. 
 
 To procure all this, I made several anxious 
 journeys to London and Paris, which, auspi- 
 ciously for me, a mist just then overshadowed. 
 As the remains of my enchanted gold was now 
 exhausted, I easily accomplished the payment 
 by gathering African ivory, in which, however, 
 I was obliged to select only the smallest tusks, 
 as not too heavy for me. I was soon furnished 
 and equipped with all these, and commenced 
 immediately, as private philosopher, my new 
 course of life. 
 
 I roamed about the earth, now determining 
 the altitudes of mountains ; now the tempera- 
 ture of its springs and the air; now contem- 
 plating the animal, now inquiring into the ve- 
 getable tribes. I hastened from the equator to 
 the pole; from one world to the other, comparing 
 facts with facts. The eggs of the African ostrich 
 or the northern sea-fowl, and fruits, especially 
 of the tropical palms and Bananas, were even 
 my ordinary food. In lieu of happiness I had 
 tobacco, and of human society and the ties of 
 love, 'one faithful poodle, which guarded my 
 cave in the Thebais, and when I returned home 
 with fresh treasures, sprang joyfully towards 
 me, and gave me still a human feeling, that I 
 was not alone on the earth. An adventure was 
 yet destined to conduct me back amongst man- 
 kind. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 As I once scotched my boots on the shores of 
 the north, and gathered lichens and sea-weed, 
 an ice-bear came unawares upon me round the 
 corner of a rock. Flinging off my slippers, I 
 would step over to an opposite island, to which 
 a naked crag which protruded midway from the 
 waves offered me a passage. I stepped with 
 one foot firmly on the rock, and plunged over on 
 the other side into the sea, one of my slippers 
 having unobserved remained fast on the foot. 
 
 The excessive cold seized on me ; I with dif- 
 ficulty rescued my life from this danger ; and 
 the moment I reached land, I ran with the ut- 
 most speed to the Lybian deserts in order to 
 dry myself in the sun, but as I was here exposed, 
 it burned me so furiously on the head that I 
 staggered back again very ill towards the north. 
 I sought to relieve myself by rapid motion, and 
 ran with swift, uncertain steps, from west to 
 east, from east to west. I found myself now in 
 the day, now in the night ; now in summer now 
 in the winter's cold. 
 
 I know not how long I thus reeled about on 
 the earth. A burning fever glowed in my veins ; 
 with deepest distress I felt my senses forsaking 
 me. As mischief would have it, in my incau- 
 tious career, I now trod on some one's foot ; I 
 must have hurt him ; I received a heavy blow, 
 and fell to the ground. 
 
 When I again returned to consciousness, I lay 
 comfortably in a good bed, which stood amongst 
 many other beds in a handsome hall. Some 
 one sate at my head; people went through the 
 hall from one bed to another. They came to 
 mine, and spake together about me. They 
 styled me Number Twelve; and on the wall at 
 my feet stood, — yes, certainly it was no delusion, 
 I could distinctly read on a black tablet of mar- 
 ble in great golden letters, quite correctly writ- 
 ten, my name — 
 
 PETER SCHLEMIHL. 
 
 On the tablet beneath my name were two other 
 rows of letters, but I was too weak to put them 
 together. I again closed my eyes. 
 
 I heard something of which the subject was 
 Peter Schlemihl read aloud, and articulately, 
 but I could not collect the sense. I saw a 
 friendly man, and a very lovely woman in black 
 dress appear at my bedside. The forms were 
 not strange to me, and yet I could not recognise 
 them. 
 
 Some time went over, and I recovered my 
 strength. I was called Number Twelve, and 
 Number Twelve, on account of his long beard, 
 passed for a Jew, on which account, however, 
 he was not at all the less carefully treated. 
 That he had no shadow appeared to have been 
 unobserved. My boots, as I was assured, were, 
 with all that I had brought hither, in good keep- 
 ing, in order to be restored to me on my recovery. 
 The place in which I lay was called the Schle- 
 mihlium. What was daily read aloud concerning 
 Peter Schlemihl, was an exhortation to pray for 
 him as the Founder and Benefactor of this in- 
 stitution. The friendly man whom I had seen by 
 my bed was Bendel; the lovely woman was Mina. 
 
 I recovered unrecognised in the Schlemihl- 
 ium ; and learned yet farther that I was in 
 Bendel's native city, where, with the remains 
 of my otherwise unblessed gold, he had in my 
 name founded this Hospital, where the unhappy 
 blessed me, and himself maintained its superin- 
 tendence. Mina was a widow. An unhappy 
 criminal process had cost Mr. Rascal his life, 
 and her the greater part of her property. Her 
 parents were no more. She lived here as a 
 pious widow, and practised works of mercy. 
 
 Once she conversed with Mr. Bendel at the 
 bedside of Number Twelve. " Why, noble lady, 
 will you so often expose yourself to the bad at- 
 mosphere which prevails here ? Does fate then 
 deal so hardly with you that you wish to die V* 
 
 "No, Mr. Bendel, since I have dreamed out 
 my long dream, and have awoke in myself, all 
 is well with me; since then I crave not, and 
 fear not death. Since then, I reflect calmly on 
 the past and the future. Is it not also with a 
 still and inward happiness that you now, in so 
 devout a manner, serve your master and friend?" 
 
 " Thank God, yes, noble lady. But we have 
 seen wonderful things; we have unwarily 
 drunk much good, and bitter woes, out of the 
 full cup. Now it is empty, and we may believe 
 that the whole has been only a trial ; and armed 
 
CH AMISSO. 
 
 with wise discernment, await the real begin- 
 ning. The real beginning is of another fashion ; 
 and we wish not back the first jugglery, and are 
 on the whole glad, such as it was, to have lived 
 through it. I feel also within me a confidence 
 that it must now be better than formerly with 
 our old friend." 
 
 "In me too," replied the lovely widow, and 
 then passed on. 
 
 The conversation left a deep impression upon 
 me, but I was undecided in myself, whether I 
 should make myself known, or depart hence 
 unrecognised. I took my resolve. I requested 
 paper and pencil, and wrote these words: — "It 
 is indeed better with your old friend now than 
 formerly, and if he does penance it is the pen- 
 ance of reconciliation." 
 
 Hereupon I desired to dress myself, as I found 
 myself stronger. The key of the small ward- 
 robe which stood near my bed, was brought, 
 and I found therein, all that belonged to me. I 
 put on my clothes, suspended my botanical case, 
 in which I rejoiced still to find my northern li- 
 chens, round my black Polonaise, drew on my 
 boots, laid the written paper on my bed, and as 
 the door opened, I was already far on the way 
 to the Thebais. 
 
 As I took the way along the Syrian coast, on 
 which I for the last time had wandered from 
 home, I perceived my poor Figaro coming to- 
 wards me. This excellent poodle, who had 
 long expected his master at home, seemed to 
 desire to trace him out. I stood still and called 
 to him. He sprang barking towards me, with 
 a thousand moving assurances of his inmost and 
 most extravagant joy. I took him up under my 
 arm, for in truth he could not follow me, and 
 brought him with me home again. 
 
 I found all in its old order; and returned 
 gradually as my strength was recruited, to my 
 former employment and mode of life, except 
 that I kept myself for a whole year out of the, 
 
 to me, wholly insupportable polar cold. And 
 thus, my dear Chamisso, I live to this day. My 
 boots are no worse lor the wear, as that very 
 learned work of the celebrated Tieckius, De 
 Rebus Gestis Polticelli, at first led me to fear. 
 Their force remains unimpaired, my strength 
 only decays : yet I have the comfort to have 
 exerted it in a continuous and not fruitless 
 pursuit of one object. I have, so far as my 
 boots could carry me, become more fundament- 
 ally acquainted than any man before me with 
 the earth, its shape, its elevations, its tempe- 
 ratures, the changes of its atmosphere, the exhi- 
 bitions of its magnetic power, and the life 
 upon it, especially in the vegetable world. The 
 facts I have recorded with the greatest possible 
 exactness, and in perspicuous order in several 
 works, and stated my deductions and views 
 briefly in several treaties. I have settled the 
 geography of the interior of Africa, and of the 
 northern polar regions; of the interior of Asia, 
 and its eastern shores. My Historia Stirpimn 
 Plantarum Utriusque Orbis stands as a grand 
 fragment of the Flora Universalis Terrse, and as 
 a branch of my Systema Naturae. I believe that 
 I have therein not merely augmented, at a mo- 
 derate calculation, the amount of known species, 
 more than one third, but have done something 
 for the Natural System, and for the Geography 
 of Plants. I shall labor diligently at my Fauna. 
 I shall take care that, before my death, my 
 works shall be deposited in the Berlin Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 And thee, my dear Chamisso, have I selected 
 as the preserver of my singular history, which, 
 perhaps, when I have vanished from the earth, 
 may afford valuable instruction to many of its 
 inhabitants. But thou, my friend, if thou wilt 
 live among men, learn before all things to rev- 
 erence the shadow, and then the gold. Wishest 
 thou to live only for thyself and for thy better 
 self— oh, then ! — thou needest no counsel. 
 
 THE 
 
 END.