Longfellow_Hyperion.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
CHAPTER I. THE HERO.
In John Lyly's Endymion, Sir Topas is made to say; "Dost thou
know what a Poet is? Why, fool, a Poet is as much as one should
say,--a Poet!" And thou, reader, dost thou know what a hero is? Why,
a hero is as much as one should say,--a hero! Some romance-writers,
however, say much more than this. Nay, the old Lombard, Matteo Maria
Bojardo, set all the church-bells in Scandiano ringing, merely
because he had found a name for one of his heroes. Here, also, shall
church-bells be rung, but more solemnly.
The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The
brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us,
and the world seems but a dim reflection,--itself a broader shadow.
We look forward into the coming, lonely night. The soul withdraws
into itself. Then stars arise, and the night is holy.
Paul Flemming had experienced this, though still young. The
friend of his youth was dead. The bough had broken "under the burden
of the unripe fruit." And when, after a season, he looked up again
from the blindness of his sorrow, all things seemed unreal. Like the
man, whose sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld men, as
trees, walking. His household gods were broken. He had no home. His
sympathies cried aloud from his desolate soul, and there came no
answer from the busy, turbulent world around him. He did not
willingly give way to grief. He struggled to be cheerful,--to be
strong. But he could no longer look into the familiar faces of his
friends. He could no longer live alone, where he had lived with her.
He went abroad, that the sea might be between him and the grave.
Alas! betweenhim and his sorrow there could be no sea, but that of
time.
He had already passed many months in lonely wandering, and was
now pursuing his way along the Rhine, to the south of Germany. He
had journeyed the same way before, in brighter days and a brighter
season of the year, in the May of life and in the month of May. He
knew the beauteous river all by heart;--every rock and ruin, every
echo, every legend. The ancient castles, grim and hoar, that had
taken root as it were on the cliffs,--they were all his; for his
thoughts dwelt in them, and the wind told him tales.
He had passed a sleepless night at Rolandseck, and had risen
before daybreak. He opened the window of the balcony to hear the
rushing of the Rhine. It was a damp December morning; and clouds
were passing over the sky,--thin, vapory clouds, whose snow-white
skirts were "often spotted with golden tears, which men call stars."
The day dawned slowly; and, in the mingling of
Christians in Andernachwere abed and asleep in the feathers, Frau
Martha, who slept under the roof, heard a great noise over her head,
and in her chamber, drip! drip! drip! as if the rain were dropping
down through the broken tiles. Dear soul! and sure enough it was.
And then there was a pounding and hammering overhead, as if somebody
were at work on the roof; and she thought it was Pelz-Nickel tearing
the tiles off, because she had not been to confession often enough.
So she began to pray; and the faster she said her Pater-noster and
her Ave-Maria, the faster Pelz-Nickel pounded and pulled; and drip!
drip! drip! it went all round her in the dark chamber, till the poor
woman was frightened out of her wits, and ran to the window to call
for help. Then in a moment all was still,--death-still. But she saw
a light streaming through the mist and rain, and a great shadow on
the house opposite. And then somebody came down from the top of her
house by a ladder, and had a lantern in his hand; and he took the
ladder on his shoulder and went down thestreet. But she could not
see clearly, because the window was streaked with rain. And in the
morning the old broken tiles were found scattered about the street,
and there were new ones on the roof, and the old house has never
leaked to this blessed day.
"As soon as mass was over Frau Martha told the priest what had
happened, and he said it was not Pelz-Nickel, but, without doubt,
St. Castor or St. Florian. Then she went to the market and told Frau
Bridget all about it; and Frau Bridget said, that, two nights
before, Hans Claus, the cooper, had heard a great pounding in his
shop, and in the morning found new hoops on all his old hogsheads;
and that a man with a lantern and a ladder had been seen riding out
of town at midnight on a donkey, and that the same night the old
windmill, at Kloster St. Thomas, had been mended up, and the old
gate of the churchyard at Feldkirche made as good as new, though
nobody knew how the man got across the river. Then Frau Martha went
down to the Rheinkrahn and told all thesestories over again; and the
old ferryman of Fahr said he could tell something about it; for, the
very night that the churchyard-gate was mended, he was lying awake
in his bed, because he could not sleep, and he heard a loud knocking
at the door, and somebody calling to him to get up and set him over
the river. And when he got up, he saw a man down by the river with a
lantern and a ladder; but as he was going down to him, the man blew
out the light, and it was so dark he could not see who he was; and
his boat was old and leaky, and he was afraid to set him over in the
dark; but the man said he must be in Andernach that night; and so he
set him over. And after they had crossed the river, he watched the
man, till he came to an image of the Holy Virgin, and saw him put
the ladder against the wall, and go up and light his lamp, and then
walk along the street. And in the morning he found his old boat all
caulked, and tight, and painted red, and he could not for his
blessed life tell who did it, unless it werethe man with the
lantern. Dear soul! how strange it was!
"And so it went on for some time; and, whenever the man with the
lantern had been seen walking through the street at night, so sure
as the morning came, some work had been done for the sae of
bronze, commemorating struggle and victory; and lastly, in the
maturity of age, perfectly shaped in gold and ivory,--a miracle of
art!
Flemming had already lived through the oliveage. He was passing
into the age of bronze, into his early manhood; and in his hands the
flowers of Paradise were changing to the sword and shield.
And this reminds me, that I have not yet described my hero. I
will do it now, as he stands looking down on the glorious
landscape;--but in few words. Both in person and character he
resembled Harold, the Fair-Hair of Norway, who is described, in the
old Icelandic Death-Song of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as "the young
chief so proud of his flowing locks; he who spent his mornings among
the young maidens; he who loved toconverse with the handsome
widows." This was an amiable weakness; and it sometimes led him into
mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of his mind. His thoughts
were twin-born; the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in
the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul
each image floated double, "swan and shadow."
These traits of character, a good heart and a poetic imagination,
made his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death
cut down the sweet, blue flower, that bloomed beside him, and
wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and
would fain have been bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet, blue
flower. Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life became
earnest. It would have been well if he could have forgotten the
past; that he might not so mournfully have lived in it, but might
have enjoyed and improved the present. But this his heart refused to
do; and ever, as he floated upon the great sea of life, he looked
down through thetransparent waters, checkered with sunshine and
shade, into the vast chambers of the mighty deep, in which his
happier days had sunk, and wherein they were lying still visible,
like golden sands, and precious stones, and pearls; and, half in
despair, half in hope, he grasped downward after them again, and
drew back his hand, filled only with seaweed, and dripping with
briny tears!--And between him and those golden sands, a radiant
image floated, like the spirit in Dante's Paradise, singing
"Ave-Maria!" and while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing
away.
The truth is, that in all things he acted more from impulse than
from fixed principle; as is the case with most young men. Indeed,
his principles hardly had time to take root; for he pulled them all
up, every now and then, as children do the flowers they have
planted,--to see if they are growing. Yet there was much in him
which was good; for underneath the flowers and green-sward of
poetry, and the good principles which would have taken root, had he
given them time, therelay a strong and healthy soil of common
sense,--freshened by living springs of feeling, and enriched by many
faded hopes, that had fallen upon it like dead leaves.
CHAPTER IV. THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER.
"Allez Fuchs! allez lustig!" cried the impatient postilion to his
horses, in accents, which, like the wild echo of the Lurley Felsen,
came first from one side of the river, and then from the
other,--that is to say, in words alternately French and German. The
truth is, he was tired of waiting; and when Flemming had at length
resumed his seat in the post-chaise, the poor horses had to make up
the time lost in dreams on the mountain. This is far oftener the
case, than most people imagine. One half of the world has to sweat
and groan, that the other half may dream. It would have been a
difficult task for the traveller or his postilion to persuade the
horses, that these dreams were all for their good.
The next stopping-place was the little tavern of the Star, an
out-of-the-way corner in the town of Salzig. It stands on the banks
of the Rhine; and, directly in front of it, sheer from the water's
edge, rise the mountains of Liebenstein and Sternenfels, each with
its ruined castle. These are the Brothers of the old tradition,
still gazing at each other face to face; and beneath them in the
valley stands a cloister,--meek emblem of that orphan child, they
both so passionately loved.
In a small, flat-bottomed boat did the landlady's daughter row
Flemming "over the Rhine-stream, rapid and roaring wide." She was a
beautiful girl of sixteen; with black hair, and dark, lovely eyes,
and a face that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this
particular! Some of them speak not. They are books in which not a
line is written, save perhaps a date. Others are great family
bibles, with all the Old and New Testament written in them. Others
are Mother Goose and nursery tales;--others bad tragedies or
pickle-herring farces; and others, like that of the landlady's
daughter at the Star, sweet love-anthologies, and songs of the
affections. It was on that account, that Flemming said to her, as
they glided out into the swift stream;
"My dear child! do you know the story of the Liebenstein?"
"The story of the Liebenstein," she answered, "I got by heart,
when I was a little child."
And here her large, dark, passionate eyes looked into Flemming's,
and he doubted not, that she had learned the story far too soon, and
far too well. That story he longed to hear, as if it were unknown to
him; for he knew that the girl, who had got it by heart when a
child, would tell it as it should be told. So he begged her to
repeat the story, which she was but too glad to do; for she loved
and believed it, as if it had all been written in the Bible. But
before she began, she rested a moment on her oars, and taking the
crucifix, which hung suspended from her neck, kissed it, and then
let it sink down into her bosom, as if it were an anchor she was
letting down into her heart. Meanwhile her moist, dark eyes were
turned to heaven. Perhaps her soul was walking with the souls of
Cunizza, and Rahab, and Mary Magdalen. Or perhaps she was thinking
of that Nun, of whom St. Gregory says, in his Dialogues, that,
having greedily eaten a lettuce in a garden, without making the sign
of the cross, she found herself soon after possessed with a
devil.
The probability, however, is, that she was looking up to the
ruined castles only, and not to heaven, for she soon began her
story, and told Flemming how, a great, great many years ago, an old
man lived in the Liebenstein with his two sons; and how both the
young men loved the Lady Geraldine, an orphan, under their father's
care; and how the elder brother went away in despair, and the
younger was betrothed to the Lady Geraldine; and how they were as
happy as Aschenputtel and the Prince. And then the holy Saint
Bernard came and carried away all the young men to the war, just as
Napoleon did afterwards; and the young lord went to the Holy Land,
and the Lady Geraldine sat in her tower and wept, and waited for her
lover's return, while the old father built the Sternenfels for them
to live in when they were married. And when it was finished, the old
man died; and the elder brother came back and lived in the
Liebenstein, and took care of the gentle Lady. Ere long there came
news from the Holy Land, that the war was over; and the heart of the
gentle Lady beat with joy, till she heard that her faithless lover
was coming back with a Greek wife,--the wicked man! and then she
went into a convent and became a holy nun. So the young lord of
Sternenfels came home, and lived in his castle in great splendor
with the Greek woman, who was a wicked woman, and did what she ought
not to do. But the elder brother was angry for the wrong done the
gentle Lady, and challenged the lord of Sternenfels to single
combat. And, while they were fighting with their great swords in the
valley of Bornhofen behind the castle, the convent bells began to
ring, and the Lady Geraldine came forth with a train of nuns
alldressed in white, and made the brothers friends again, and told
them she was the bride of Heaven, and happier in her convent than
she could have beeholding rings in their teeth. The cunning hand of
Art was busy for six centuries, in raising and adorning these walls;
the mailed hands of Time and War have defaced and overthrown them in
less than two. Next to the Alhambra of Granada, the Castle of
Heidelberg is the most magnificent ruin of the Middle Ages.
In the valley below flows the rushing stream of the Neckar. Close
from its margin, on the opposite side, rises the Mountain of All
Saints, crowned with the ruins of a convent; and up the valley
stretches the mountain-curtain of the Odenwald. So close and many
are the hills, which eastward shut the valley in, that the river
seems a lake. But westward it opens, upon the broad plain of the
Rhine, like the mouth of a trumpet; and like the blast of a trumpet
is at times the wintry wind through this narrow mountain pass. The
blue Alsatian hills rise beyond; and, on a platform or strip of level
land, between the Neckar and the mountains, right under the castle,
stands the city of Heidelberg; as the old song says, "a pleasant
city, when it has done raining."
Something of this did Paul Flemming behold, when he rose the next
morning and looked from his window. It was a warm, vapory morning,
and a struggle was going on between the mist and the rising sun. The
sun had taken the hill-tops, but the mist still kept possession of
the valley and the town. The steeple of the great church rose
through a dense mass of snow-white clouds; and eastward, on the
hills, the dim vapors were rolling across the windows of the ruined
castle, like the fiery smoke of a great conflagration. It seemed to
him an image of the rising of the sun of Truth on a benighted world;
its light streamed through the ruins of centuries; and, down in the
valley of Time, the cross on the Christian church caught its rays,
though the priests were singing in mist and darkness below.
In the warm breakfast-parlour he found the Baron, waiting for
him. He was lying upon a sofa, in morning gown and purple-velvet
slippers, both with flowers upon them. He had a guitar in his hand,
and a pipe in his mouth, at the same time smoking, playing, and
humming his favorite song from Goethe;
"The water rushed, the water swelled,
A fisher sat thereby."
Flemming could hardly refrain from laughing at the sight of his
friend; and told him it reminded him of a street-musician he once
saw in Aix-la-Chapelle, who was playing upon six instruments at
once; having a helmet with bells on his head, a Pan's-reed in his
cravat, a fiddle in his hand, a triangle on his knee, cymbals on his
heels, and on his back a bass-drum, which he played with his elbows.
To tell the truth, the Baron of Hohenfels was rather a miscellaneous
youth, rather a universal genius. He pursued all things with
eagerness, but for a short time only; music, poetry, painting,
pleasure, even the study of the Pandects. Hisfeelings were keenly
alive to the enjoyment of life. His great defect was, that he was
too much in love with human nature. But by the power of imagination,
in him, the bearded goat was changed to a bright Capricornus:--no
longer an animal on earth, but a constellation in heaven. An easy
and indolent disposition made him gentle and childlike in his
manners; and, in short, the beauty of his character, like that of
the precious opal, was owing to a defect in its organization. His
person was tall and slightly built; his hair light; and his eyes
blue, and as beautiful as those of a girl. In the tones of his
voice, there was something indescribably gentle and winning; and he
spoke the German language, with the soft, musical accent of his
native province of Curland. In his manners, if he had not `Antinous'
easy sway,' he had at least an easy sway of his own. Such, in few
words, was the bosom friend of Flemming.
"And what do you think of Heidelberg and the old castle up
there?" said he, as they seated themselves at the
breakfast-table.
"Last night the town seemed very long to me," replied Flemming; "and
as to the castle, I have as yet had but a glimpse of it through the
mist. They tell me there is nothing finer in its way, excepting the
Alhambra of Granada; and no doubt I shall find it so. Only I wish
the stone were gray and not red. But, red or gray, I foresee that I
shall waste many a long hour in its desolate halls. Pray, does
anybody live up there now-a-days?"
"Nobody," answered the Baron, "but the man, who shows the
Heidelberg Ton, and Monsieur Charles de Grainberg, a Frenchman, who
has been there sketching ever since the year eighteen-hundred and
ten. He has, moreover, written a super-magnificent description of
the ruin, in which he says, that during the day only birds of prey
disturb it with their piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls,
and other fallow deer. These are his own words. You must buy his
book and his sketches."
"Yes, the quotation and the tone of your voice will certainly
persuade me so to do."
"Take his or none, my friend, for you will find no others. And
seriously, his sketches are very good. There is one on the wall
there, which is beautiful, save and except that straddle-bug figure
among the bushes in the corner."
"But is there no ghost, no haunted chamber in the old castle?"
asked Flemming, after casting a hasty glance at the picture.
"Oh, certainly," replied the Baron; "there are two. There is the
ghost of the Virgin Mary in Ruprecht's Tower, and the Devil in the
Dungeon."
"Ha! that is grand!" exclaimed Flemming, with evident delight.
"Tell me the whole story, quickly! I am as curious as a child."
"It is a tale of the times of Louis the Debonnaire," said the
Baron, with a smile; "a mouldy tradition of a credulous age. His
brother Frederick lived here in the castle with him, and had a
flirtation with Leonore von Luzelstein, a lady of the court, whom he
afterwards despised, and was consequently most cordially hated by
her. Frompolitical motives he was equally hateful to certain petty
German tyrants, who, in order to effect his ruin, accused him of
heresy. But his brother Louis would not deliver him up to their
fury, and they resolved to effect by stratagem, what they could not
by intrigue. Accordingly, Leonore von Luzelstein, disguised as the
Virgin Mary, and the father confessor of the Elector, in the costume
of Satan, made their appearance in the Elector's bed-chamber at
midnight, and frightened him so horribly, that he consented to
deliver up his brother into the hands of two Black Knights, who
pretended to be ambassadors from the Vehm-Gericht. They proceeded
together to Frederick's chamber; where luckily old Gemmingen, a
brave soldier, kept guard behind the arras. The monk went foremost
in his Satanic garb; but, no sooner had he set foot in the prince's
bed-chamber, than the brave Gemmingen drew his sword, and said
quaintly, `Die, wretch!' and so he died. The rest took to their
heels, and were heard of no more. And now the souls of Leonore and
the monk haunt the scene of their midnight crime. You will find the
story in Grainberg's book, worked up with a kind of red-morocco and
burnt-cork sublimity, and great melo-dramatic clanking of chains,
and hooting of owls, and other fallow deer!"
"After breakfast," said Flemming, "we will go up to the castle. I
must get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this modern Till
Eulenspiegel. See what a glorious morning we have! It is truly a
wondrous winter! what summer sunshine; what soft Venetian fogs! How
the wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray-beard trees!
Such weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace! But we have
an old saying in English, that winter never rots in the sky. So he
will come down at last in his old-fashioned, mealy coat. We shall
have snow in spring; and the blossoms will be all snow-flakes. And
afterwards a summer, which will be no summer, but, as Jean Paul
says, only a winter painted green. Is it not so?"
"Unless I am much deceived in the climate of Heidelberg," replied
the Baron, "we shall not have to wait long for snow. We have sudden
changes here, and I should not mare dark abysses and yawning
gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by
bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged
the Savine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and
England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human
thought; not green grass, and flowers, and moonshine. Besides, the
mere external forms of Nature we make our own, and carry with us
into the city, by the power of memory."
"I fear, however," interrupted Flemming, "that in cities the soul
of man grows proud. He needs at times to be sent forth, like the
Assyrian monarch, into green fields, `a wonderous wretch and
weedless,' to eat green herbs, and be wakened and chastised by the
rain-shower and winter's bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there
is danger of the soul's becoming wed to pleasure, and forgetful of
its high vocation. There have been souls dedicated to heaven from
childhood and guarded by good angels as sweet seclusions for holy
thoughts, and prayers, and all good purposes; wherein pious wishes
dwelt like nuns, and every image was a saint; and yet in life's
vicissitudes, by the treachery of occasion, by the thronging
passionsof great cities, have become soiled and sinful. They
resemble those convents on the river Rhine, which have been changed
to taverns; from whose chambers the pious inmates have long
departed, and in whose cloisters the footsteps of travellers have
effaced the images of buried saints, and whose walls are written
over with ribaldry and the names of strangers, and resound no more
with holy hymns, but with revelry and loud voices."
"Both town and country have their dangers," said the Baron; "and
therefore, wherever the scholar lives, he must never forget his high
vocation. Other artists give themselves up wholly to the study of
their art. It becomes with them almost religion. For the most part,
and in their youth, at least, they dwell in lands, where the whole
atmosphere of the soul is beauty; laden with it as the air may be
with vapor, till their very nature is saturated with the genius of
their art. Such, for example, is the artist's life in Italy."
"I agree with you," exclaimed Flemming; "and such should be the
Poet's everywhere; forhe has his Rome, his Florence, his whole
glowing Italy within the four walls of his library. He has in his
books the ruins of an antique world,--and the glories of a modern
one,--his Apollo and Transfiguration. He must neither forget nor
undervalue his vocation; but thank God that he is a poet; and
everywhere be true to himself, and to `the vision and the faculty
divine' he feels within him."
"But, at any rate, a city life is most eventful," continued the
Baron. "The men who make, or take, the lives of poets and scholars,
always complain that these lives are barren of incidents. Hardly a
literary biography begins without some such apology, unwisely made.
I confess, however, that it is not made without some show of truth;
if, by incidents, we mean only those startling events, which
suddenly turn aside the stream of Time, and change the world's
history in an hour. There is certainly a uniformity, pleasing or
unpleasing, in literary life, which for the most part makes to-day
seem twin-born with yesterday. But if, byincidents, you mean events
in the history of the human mind, (and why not?) noiseless events,
that do not scar the forehead of the world as battles do, yet change
it not the less, then surely the lives of literary men are most
eventful. The complaint and the apology are both foolish. I do not
see why a successful book is not as great an event as a successful
campaign; only different in kind, and not easily compared."
"Indeed," interrupted Flemming, "in no sense is the complaint
strictly true, though at times apparently so. Events enough there
are, were they all set down. A life, that is worth writing at all,
is worth writing minutely. Besides, all literary men have not lived
in silence and solitude;--not all in stillness, not all in shadow.
For many have lived in troubled times, in the rude and adverse
fortunes of the state and age, and could say with Wallenstein,
`Our life was but a battle and a march;
And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless,
We stormed across the war convulsed earth.'
Of such examples history has recorded many; Dante, Cervantes,
Byron, and others; men of iron; men who have dared to breast the
strong breath of public opinion, and, like spectre-ships, come
sailing right against the wind. Others have been puffed out by the
first adverse wind that blew; disgraced and sorrowful, because they
could not please others. Truly `the tears live in an onion, that
should water such a sorrow.' Had they been men, they would have made
these disappointments their best friends, and learned from them the
needful lesson of self-reliance."
"To confess the truth," added the Baron, "the lives of literary
men, with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and
calamities, present a melancholy picture of man's strength and
weakness. On that very account the scholar can make them profitable
for encouragement,--consolation,--warning."
"And after all," continued Flemming, "perhaps the greatest
lesson, which the lives of literary men teach us, is told in a
single word; Wait!--Every man must patiently bide his time. He must
wait. More particularly in lands, like my native land, where the
pulse of life beats with such feverish and impatient throbs, is the
lesson needful. Our national character wants the dignity of repose.
We seem to live in the midst of a battle,--there is such a
din,--such a hurrying to and fro. In the streets of a crowded city
it is difficult to walk slowly. You feel the rushing of the crowd,
and rush with it onward. In the press of our life it is difficult to
be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all professions seem to
drag their anchors, and are swept out into the main. The voices of
the Present say, Come! But the voices of the Past say, Wait! With
calm and solemn footsteps the rising tide bears against the rushing
torrent up stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less
calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainly, does a great mind
bear up against public opinion, and push back its hurrying stream.
Therefore should every man wait;--should bide his time. Not in
listless idleness,--not in uselesspastime,--not in querulous
dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours, always
willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when the
occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never
comes, what matters it? What matters it to the world whether I, or
you, or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a book, sobeit
the deed and book were well done! It is the part of an indiscreet
and troublesome ambition, to care too much about fame,--about what
the world says of us. To be always looking into the faces of others
for approval;--to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and
say; to be always shouting to hear the echo of our own voices! If
you look about you, you will see men, who are wearing life away in
feverish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them
will be the funeral bell, that tolls them to their early graves!
Unhappy men, and unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to
accomplish well their task, but to clutch the `trick and fantasy of
fame'; and they go to their graveswith purposes unaccomplished and
wishes unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world in their
example, had they known how to wait! Believe me, the talent of
success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing
well whatever you do,--without a thought of fame. If it come at all,
it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
And, moreover, there will be no misgivings,--no disappointment,--no
hasty, feverish, exhausting excitement."
Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I make no record of the
winter. Paul Flemming buried himself in books; in old, dusty books.
He studied diligently the ancient poetic lore of Germany, from
Frankish Legends of Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, down
through Nibelungen Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and Songs of the
Minnesingers and Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and Reinecke
Foxes, and Death-Dancesand Lamentations of Damned Souls, into the
bright, sunny land of harvests, where, amid the golden grain and the
blue corn-flowers, walk the modern bards, and sing.
BOOK II.
Epigraph
"Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish,
And in itself to ashes burn."
CHAPTER I. SPRING.
It was a sweet carol, which the Rhodian children sang of old in
Spring, bearing in their hands, from door to door, a swallow, as
herald of the season;
"The Swallow is come!
The Swallow is come!
O fair are the seasons, and light
Are the days that she brings,
With her dusky wings,
And her bosom snowy white."
A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hungarian boys, on the
islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in Spring;
"Stork! Stork! poor Stork!
Why is thy foot so bloody?
A Turkish boy hath torn it;
Hungarian boy will heal it,
With fiddle, fife, and drum."
But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of
ours, where Spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy
cloud-sails, and the misty pennon of the East-wind nailed to the
mast! Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there
are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the
balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring
sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun
themselves; and think it is summer. They die in their conceit; and
so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the
eastern sea; and again,
"The driving hail
Upon the window beats with icy flail."
The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple
flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood
follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed
in the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden
rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they
hide themselves in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery
cloaks? At the fireside of the great, hospitable sun, to-morrow, not
before;--they must sit in wet garments until then.
In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the South it is
intoxicating, and sets a poet beside himself. The birds begin to
sing;--they utter a few rapturous notes, and then wait for an answer
in the silent woods. Those green-coated musicians, the frogs, make
holiday in the neighbouring marshes. They, too, belong to the
orchestra of Nature; whose vast theatre is again opened, though the
doors have been so long bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung
with snow and frost, like cobwebs. This is the prelude, which
announces the rising of the broad green curtain. Already the grass
shoots forth. The waters leap with thrilling pulse through the veins
of the earth; the sap through the veins of the plants and trees; and
the blood through the veins of man. What a thrill of delight in
spring-time! What a joy in being and moving! Men are at work in
gardens; and in the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The
leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry
hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes; and ere long our next-door
neighbours will be completely hidden from us by the dense green
foliage. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. Children are let
loose in the fields and gardens. They hold butter-cups under each
others' chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls
adorn themselves with chains and curls of dandelions; pull out the
yellow leaves to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the down
from the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers want them at
home.
And at night so cloudless and so still! Not a voice of living
thing,--not a whisper of leaf or waving bough,--not a breath of
wind,--not a sound upon the earth nor in the air! And overhead bends
the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars,
like the inverted bellof some blue flower, sprinkled with golden
dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heavens are overcast, it is
no wild storm of wind and rain; but clouds that melt and fall in
showers. One does not wish to sleep; but lies awake to hear the
pleasant sound of the dropping rain.
It was thus the Spring began in Heidelberg.
CHAPTER II. A COLLOQUY.
"And what think you of Tiedge's Urania," said the Baron smiling,
as Paul Flemming closed the book, and laid it upon the table.
"I think," said Flemming, "that it is very much like Jean Paul's
grandfather,--in the highest degree poor and pious."
"Bravo!" exclaimed the Baron. "That is the best criticism I have
heard upon the book. For my part, I dislike the thing as much as
Goethe did. It was once very popular, and lay about in every parlour
and bed-room. This annoyed the old gentleman exceedingly; and I do
not wonder at it. He complains, that at one time nothing was sung or
said but this Urania. He believed in Immortality; but wished to
cherish his belief inquietness. He once told a friend of his, that
he had, however, learned one thing from all this talk about Tiedge
and his Urania; which was, that the saints, as well as the nobility,
constitute an aristocracy. He said he found stupid women, who were
proud because they believed in Immortality with Tiedge, and had to
submit himself to not a few mysterious catechizings and tea-table
lectures on this point; and that he cut them short by saying, that
he had no objection whatever to enter into another state of
existence hereafter, but prayed only that he might be spared the
honor of meeting any of those there, who had believed in it here;
for, if he did, the saints would flock around him on all sides,
exclaiming, Were we not in the right? Did we not tell you so? Has it
not all turned out just as we said? And, with such a conceited
clatter in his ears, he thought that, before the end of six months,
he might die of ennui in Heaven itself."
"How shocked the good old ladies must have been," said
Flemming.
"No doubt, their nerves suffered a little; but the young ladies
loved him all the better for being witty and wicked; and thought if
they could only marry him, how they would reform him."
"Bettina Brentano, for instance."
"O no! That happened long afterwards. Goethe was then a
silver-haired old man of sixty. She had never seen him, and knew him
only by his writings; a romantic girl of seventeen."
"And yet much in love with the Sexagenarian. And surely a more
wild, fantastic, and, excuse me, German passion never sprang up in
woman's breast. She was a flower, that worshipped the sun."
"She afterwards married Achim von Arnim, and is now a widow. And
not the least singular part of the affair, is, that, having grown
older, and I hope colder, she should herself publish the letters
which passed between her and Goethe."
"Particularly the letter in which she describes her first visit
to Weimar, and her interview with the hitherto invisible divinity of
her dreams. The old gentleman took her upon his knees, and she fell
asleep with her head upon his shoulder. It reminds me of Titania and
Nick Bottom, begging your pardon, always, for comparing your
All-sided-One to Nick Bottom. Oberon must have touched her eyes with
the juice of Love-in-idleness. However, this book of Goethe's
Correspondence with a Child is a very singular and valuable
revelation of the feelings, which he excited in female hearts. You
say she afterwards married Achim von Arnim?"
"Yes; and he and her brother, Clemens Brentano, published that
wondrous book, the Boy's Wonder-Horn."
"The Boy's Wonder-Horn!" said Flemming, after a short pause, for
the name seemed to have thrown him into a reverie;--"I know the book
almost by heart. Of all your German books it is the one whh her pale daughter Emma, and that eternal Polish
Count. He is always hovering about them, playing the unhappy exile,
merely to excite that poor girl's sympathies; and as wretched as
genius and wantonness can make him."
"Why, he is already married, you know," replied Flemming. "And
his wife is young and beautiful."
"That does not prevent him from being in love with some one else.
That question was decided in the Courts of Love in the Middle Ages.
Accordingly he has sent his fair wife to Warsaw. But how pale the
poor child looks."
"She has just recovered from severe illness. In the winter, you
know, it was thought she would not live from hour to hour."
"And she has hardly recovered from that disease, before she seems
threatened with a worse one; namely, a hopeless passion. However,
people do not die of love now-a-days."
"Seldom, perhaps," said Flemming. "And yet it is folly to pretend
that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such
wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon
without emotion. There are names I can never hear spoken without
almost starting!"
"But whom have we here?"
"That is the French poet Quinet, with his sweet German wife; one
of the most interesting women I ever knew. He is the author of a
very wild Mystery, or dramatic prose-poem, in which the Ocean,
Mont-Blanc, and the Cathedral of Strassburg have parts to play; and
the saints on the stained windows of the minster speak, and the
statues and dead kings enact the Dance of Death. It is entitled
Ahasuerus, or the Wandering Jew."
"Or, as the Danes would translate it, the Shoemaker of Jerusalem.
That would be a still more fantastic title for his fantastic book.
You know I am no great admirer of the modern French school of
writers. The tales of Paul de Kock, who is, I believe, the most
popular of all, seem to me like obscene stories told at
dinner-tables, after the ladies have retired. It has been well said
of him, that he is not only populaire but populacier; and equally
well said of George Sand and Victor Hugo, that their works stand
like fortifications, well built and well supplied with warlike
munitions; but ineffectual against the Grand Army of God, which
marches onward, as if nothing had happened. In surveying a national
literature, the point you must start from, is national character.
That lets you into many a secret; as, for example, Paul de Kock's
popularity. The most prominent trait in the French character, is
love of amusement, and excitement; and--"
"I should say, rather, the fear of ennui," interrupted Flemming.
"One of their own writers has said with a great deal of truth, that
the gentry of France rush into Paris to escape from ennui, as, in
the noble days of chivalry, the defenceless inhabitants of the
champaign fled into the castles, at theapproach of some plundering
knight, or lawless Baron; forsaking the inspired twilight of their
native groves, for the luxurious shades of the royal gardens. What
do you think of that?"
The Baron replied with a smile;
"There is only one Paris; and out of Paris there is no salvation
for decent people."
Thus conversing of many things, sat the two friends under the
linden-trees on the Rent Tower, till gradually the crowd disappeared
from the garden, and the objects around them grew indistinct, in the
fading twilight. Between them and the amber-colored western sky, the
dense foliage of the trees looked heavy and hard, as if cast in
bronze; and already the evening stars hung like silver lamps in the
towering branches of that Tree of Life, brought more than two
centuries ago from its primeval Paradise in America, to beautify the
gardens of the Palatinate.
"I take a mournful pleasure in gazing at that tree," said
Flemming, as they rose to depart. "It stands there so straight and
tall, with iron bandsaround its noble trunk and limbs, in silent
majesty, or whispering only in its native tongue, and freighting the
homeward wind with sighs! It reminds me of some captive monarch of a
savage tribe, brought over the vast ocean for a show, and chained in
the public market-place of the city, disdainfully silent, or
breathing only in melancholy accents a prayer for his native forest,
a longing to be free."
"Magnificent!" cried the Baron. "I always experience something of
the same feeling when I walk through a conservatory. The luxuriant
plants of the tropics,--those illustrious exotics, with their
gorgeous, flamingo-colored blossoms, and great, flapping leaves,
like elephant's ears,--have a singular working upon my imagination;
and remind me of a menagerie and wild-beasts kept in cages. But your
illustration is finer;--indeed, a grand figure. Put it down for an
epic poem."
CHAPTER IV. A BEER-SCANDAL.
On their way homeward, Flemming and the Baron passed through a
narrow lane, in which was a well-known Studenten-Kneipe. At the door
stood a young man, whom the Baron at once recognised as his friend
Von Kleist. He was a student; and universally acknowledged, among
his young acquaintance, as a "devilish handsome fellow";
notwithstanding a tremendous scar on his cheek, and a cream-colored
mustache, as soft as the silk of Indian corn. In short he was a
renowner, and a duellist.
"What are you doing here, Von Kleist?"
"Ah, my dear Baron! Is it you? Come in; come in. You shall see
some sport. A Fox-Commerce is on foot, and a regular
Beer-Scandal."
"Shall we go in, Flemming?"
"Certainly. I should like to see how these things are managed in
Heidelberg. You are a Baron, and I am a stranger. It is of no
consequence what you and I do, as the king's fool Angeli said to the
poet Bautru, urging him to put on his hat at the royal
dinner-table."
William Lilly, the Astrologer, says, in his Autobiography, that,
when he was committed to the guard-room in White Hall, he thought
himself in hell; for "some were sleeping, others swearing, others
smoking tobacco; and in the chimney of the room there were two
bushels of broken tobacco-pipes, and almost half a load of ashes."
What he would have thought if he had peeped into this Heidelberg
Studenten-Kneipe, I know not. He certainly would not have thought
himself in heaven; unless it were a Scandinavian heaven. The windows
were open; and yet so dense was the atmosphere with the smoke of
tobacco, and the fumes of beer, that the tallow candles burnt but
dimly. A crowd of students were sitting at three long tables, in the
large hall; a medley of fellows, known at German Universities under
the cant names of Old-Ones, Mossy-Heads, Princes of Twilight, and
Pomatum-Stallions. They were smoking, drinking, singing, screaming,
and discussing the great Laws of the Broad-Stone and the Gutter.
They had a great deal to say, likewise, about Besens, and Zobels,
and Poussades; and, if they had been charged for the noise they
made, as travellers used to be, in the old Dutch taverns, they would
have had a longer bill to pay for that, than for their beer.
In a large arm-chair, upon the middle table, sat one of those
distinguished individuals, known among German students as a Senior,
or Leader of a Landsmannschaft. He was booted and spurred, and wore
a very small crimson cap, and a very tight blue jacket, and very
long hair, and a very dirty shirt. He was President of the night;
and, as Flemming entered the hall with the Baron and his friend,
striking upon the table with a mighty broadsword, he cried in a loud
voice;
"Silentium!"
At the same moment a door at the end of the hall was thrown open,
and a procession of newcomers, or Nasty-Foxes, as they are called in
the college dialect, entered two by two, looking wild, and green,
and foolish. As they came forward, they were obliged to pass under a
pair of naked swords, held cross-wise by two Old-Ones, who, with
pieces of burnt cork, made an enormous pair of mustaches, on the
smooth, rosy cheeks of each, as he passed beneath this arch of
triumph. While the procession was entering the hall, the President
lifted up his voice again, and began to sing the well-known
Fox-s-curtains, and tattling about the room, Emma threw
herself into an arm-chair, and, crossing her hands in her lap, and
letting her head fall upon her bosom, seemed lost in a dream.
"Why have these gentle feelings been given me!" said she in her
heart. "Why have I been born with all these warm affections,--these
ardent longings after what is good, if they lead only to sorrow and
disappointment? I would love some one;--love him once and
forever;--devote myselfto him alone,--live for him,--die for him,--
exist alone in him! But alas! in all this wide world there is none
to love me, as I would be loved,--none whom I may love, as I am
capable of loving. How empty, how desolate, seems the world about
me! Why has Heaven given me these affections, only to fall and
fade!"
Alas! poor child! thou too must learn like others, that the
sublime mystery of Providence goes on in silence, and gives no
explanation of itself,--no answer to our impatient questionings!
"Bless me, child, what ails you?" exclaimed Madeleine, perceiving
that Emma paid no attention to her idle gossip. "When I was of your
age--"
"Do not talk to me now, good Madeleine. Leave me, I wish to be
alone?"
"Well, here is something," continued the maid, taking a billet
from her bosom, "which I hope will enliven you. When I was of your
age--"
"Hush! hush!" said Emma, taking the billetfrom the hard hand of
Madeleine. "Once more I beg you, leave me! I wish to be alone!"
Madeleine took the lamp and retired slowly, wishing her young
mistress many good nights and rosy dreams. Emma broke the seal of
the note. As she read, her face became deadly pale, and then, as
quick as thought, a crimson blush gleamed on her cheek, and her
hands trembled. Tenderness, pity, love, offended pride, the weakness
and dignity of woman, were all mingled in her look, changing and
passing over her fine countenance like cloud-shadows. She sunk back
in her chair, covering her face with her hands, as if she would hide
it from herself and Heaven.
"He loves me!" said she to herself; "loves me; and is married to
another, whom he loves not! and dares to tell me this! O, never,--
never,--never! And yet he is so friendless and alone in this
unsympathizing world,--and an exile, and homeless! I can but pity
him;--yet I hate him, and will see him no more!"
This short reverie of love and hate was brokenby the sound of a
clear, mellow voice, which, in the universal stillness of the hour,
seemed almost like the voice of a spirit. It was a voice, without
the accompaniment of any instrument, singing those sweet lines of
Goethe;
"Under the tree-tops is quiet now!
In all the woodlands hearest thou
Not a sound!
The little birds are asleep in the trees,
Wait! wait! and soon like these,
Sleepest thou!"
Emma knew the voice and started. She rushed to the window to
close it. It was a beautiful night, and the stars were shining
peacefully over the mountain of All-Saints. The sound of the Neckar
was soft and low, and nightingales were singing among the brown
shadows of the woods. The large red moon shone, like a ruby, in the
horizon's ample ring; and golden threads of light seemed braided
together with the rippling current of the river. Tall and spectral
stood the white statues on the bridge. The outline of thehills, the
castle, the arches of the bridge, and the spires and roofs of the
town were as strongly marked as if cut out of pasteboard. Amid this
fairy scene, a little boat was floating silently down the stream.
Emma closed the window hastily, and drew the curtains close.
"I hate him; and yet I will pray for him," said she, as she laid
her weary head upon that pillow, from which, but a few months
before, she thought she should never raise it again. "O, that I had
died then! I dare not love him, but I will pray for him!"
Sweet child! If the face of the deceiver comes so often between
thee and Heaven, I tremble for thy fate! The plant that sprang from
Helen's tears destroyed serpents;--would that from thine might
spring up heart's-ease;--some plant, at least, to destroy the
serpents in thy bosom. Believe me, upon the margin of celestial
streams alone, those simples grow, which cure the heartache!
And this the silent stars beheld, looking downfrom heaven, and
told it not again. This, likewise, the Frau Himmelhahn beheld,
looking from her chamber-window, and was not so discreet as the
silent stars.
CHAPTER VI. GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND.
"There are many things, which, having no corporeal evidence, can
be perceived and comprehended only by the discursive energies of
reason. Hence the ambiguous nature of matter can be comprehended
only by adulterated opinion. Matter is the principle of all bodies,
and is stamped with the impression of forms. Fire, air, and water
derive their origin and principle from the scalene triangle. But the
earth was created from right-angled triangles, of which two of the
sides are equal. The sphere and the pyramid contain in themselves
the figure of fire; but the octaedron was destined to be the figure
of air, and the icosaedron of water. The right-angled isosceles
triangle produces from itself a square, andthe square generates from
itself the cube, which is the figure peculiar to earth. But the
figure of a beautiful and perfect sphere was imparted to the most
beautiful and perfect world, that it might be indigent of nothing,
but contain all things, embracing and comprehending them in itself,
and thus might be excellent and admirable, similar to and in concord
with itself, ever moving musically and melodiously. If I use a novel
language, excuse me. As Apuleius says, pardon must be granted to
novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate the obscurity of
things."
These words came from the lips of the lion-like philosopher, who
has been noticed before in these pages. He was sitting with
Flemming, smoking a long pipe. As the Baron said, he was indeed a
strange owl; for the owl is a grave bird; a monk, who chants
midnight mass in the great temple of Nature;--an anchorite,--a
pillar saint,--the very Simeon Stylites of his neighbourhood. Such,
likewise, was the philosophical Professor. Solitary, but with a
mighty current, flowed the river of his life, like the Nile, without
a tributary stream, and making fertile only a single strip in the
vast desert. His temperament had been in youth a joyous one; and
now, amid all his sorrows and privations, for he had many, he looked
upon the world as a glad, bright, glorious world. On the many joys
of life he gazed still with the eyes of childhood, from the far-gone
Past upward, trusting, hoping;--and upon its sorrows with the eyes
of age, from the distant Future, downward, triumphant, not
despairing. He loved solitude, and silence, and candle-light, and
the deep midnight. "For," said he, "if the morning hours are the
wings of the day, I only fold them about me to sleep more sweetly;
knowing that, at its other extremity, the day, like the fowls of the
air, has an epicurean morsel,--a parson's nose; and on this oily
midnight my spirit revels and is glad."
Such was the Professor, who had been talking in a
half-intelligible strain for two hours or more. The Baron had fallen
fast asleep in his chair; but Flemming sat listening with excited
imagination, and the Professor continued in the following words,
which, to the best of his listener's memory, seemed gleaned here and
there from Fichte's Destiny of Man, and Shubert's History of the
Soul.
"Life is one, and universal; its forms many and individual.
Throughout this beautiful and wonderful creation there is
never-ceasing motion, without rest by night or day, ever weaving to
and fro. Swifter than a weaver's shuttle it flies from Birth to
Death, from Death to Birth; from the beginning seeks the end, and
finds it not, for the seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new
out-going and endeavour after the end. As the ice upon the mountain,
when the warm breath of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, and
divides into drops, each of which reflects an image of theed as it were into another state
of being. It lives in another world. It has flown over lands and
seas; and holds communion with those it loves, in distant regions of
the earth, and the more distant heaven. It sees familiar faces, and
hears beloved voices, which to the bodily senses are no longer
visible and audible. And this likewise is death; save that when we
die, the soul returns no more to the dwelling it has left."
"You seem to take it for granted," interrupted Flemming, "that, in
our reveries, the soul really goes out of the body into distant
places, instead of summoning up their semblance within itself by the
power of memory and imagination!"
"Something I must take for granted," replied the Professor. "We
will not discuss that point now. I speak not without forethought.
Just observe what a glorious thing human life is, when seen in this
light; and how glorious man's destiny. I am; thou art; he is! seems
but a school-boy's conjugation. But therein lies a great mystery.
These words are significant of much. We behold all round about us
one vast union, in which no man can labor for himself without
laboring at the same time for all others; a glimpse of truth, which
by the universal harmony of things becomes an inward benediction,
and lifts the soul mightily upward. Still more so, when a man
regards himself as a necessary member of this union. The feeling of
our dignity and our power grows strong, when we say to ourselves; My
being is not objectless and in vain; I am a necessary link in the
great chain, which, from the full development of consciousness in
the first man, reaches forward into eternity. All the great, and
wise, and good among mankind, all the benefactors of the human race,
whose names I read in the world's history, and the still greater
number of those, whose good deeds have outlived their names,--all
those have labored for me. I have entered into their harvest. I walk
the green earth, which they inhabited. I tread in their footsteps,
from which blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime task, which
they once undertook, the task of making our common brotherhood wiser
and happier. I can build forward, where they were forced to leave
off; and bring nearer to perfection the great edifice which they
left uncompleted. And at length I, too, must leave it, and go hence.
O, this is the sublimest thought of all! I can never finish the
noble task; therefore, so sure as this task is my destiny, I can
never cease to work, and consequently never cease to be. What men
call death cannot break off this task, which is never-ending;
consequently no periodis set to my being, and I am eternal. I lift
my head boldly to the threatening mountain peaks, and to the roaring
cataract, and to the storm-clouds swimming in the fire-sea overhead
and say; I am eternal, and defy your power! Break, break over me!
and thou Earth, and thou Heaven, mingle in the wild tumult! and ye
Elements foam and rage, and destroy this atom of dust,--this body,
which I call mine! My will alone, with its fixed purpose, shall
hover brave and triumphant over the ruins of the universe; for I
have comprehended my destiny; and it is more durable than ye! It is
eternal; and I, who recognise it, I likewise am eternal! Tell me, my
friend, have you no faith in this?"
"I have;" answered Flemming, and there was another pause. He then
said;
"I have listened to you patiently and without interruption. Now
listen to me. You complain of the skepticism of the age. This is one
form in which the philosophic spirit of the age presents itself. Let
me tell you, that another form, whichit assumes, is that of poetic
reverie. Plato of old had dreams like these; and the Mystics of the
Middle Ages; and still their disciples walk in the cloud-land and
dream-land of this poetic philosophy. Pleasant and cool upon their
souls lie the shadows of the trees under which Plato taught. From
their whispering leaves comes wafted across the noise of populous
centuries a solemn and mysterious sound, which to them is the voice
of the Soul of the World. All nature has become spiritualized and
transfigured; and, wrapt in beautiful, vague dreams of the real and
the ideal, they live in this green world, like the little child in
the German tale, who sits by the margin of a woodland lake, and
hears the blue heaven and the branches overhead dispute with their
reflection in the water, which is the reality and which the image. I
willingly confess, that such day-dreams as these appeal strongly to
my imagination. Visitants and attendants are they of those lofty
souls, which, soaring ever higher and higher, build themselves nests
under the very eaves of the stars, forgetful that theycannot live on
air, but must descend to earth for food. Yet I recognise them as
day-dreams only; as shadows, not substantial things. What I mainly
dislike in the New Philosophy, is the cool impertinence with which
an old idea, folded in a new garment, looks you in the face and
pretends not to know you, though you have been familiar friends from
childhood. I remember an English author who, in speaking of your
German Philosophies, says very wisely; `Often a proposition of
inscrutable and dread aspect, when resolutely grappled with, and
torn from its shady den, and its bristling entrenchments of uncouth
terminology,--and dragged forth into the open light of day, to be
seen by the natural eye and tried by merely human understanding,
proves to be a very harmless truth, familiar to us from old,
sometimes so familiar as to be a truism. Too frequently the anxious
novice is reminded of Dryden in the Battle of the Books; there is a
helmet of rusty iron, dark, grim, gigantic; and within it, at the
farthest corner, is a head no bigger than a walnut.'--Can you
believe, thatthese words ever came from the lips of Carlyle! He has
himself taken up the uncouth terminology of late; and many pure,
simple minds are much offended at it. They seem to take it as a
personal insult. They are angry; and deny the just meed of praise.
It is, however, hardly worth while to lose our presence of mind. Let
us rather profit as we may, even from this spectacle, and recognise
the monarch in his masquerade. For, hooded and wrapped about with
that strange and antique garb, there walks a kingly, a most royal
soul, even as the Emperor Charles walked amid solemn cloisters under
a monk's cowl;--a monarch still in soul. Such things are not new in
the history of the world. Ever and anon they sweep over the earth,
and blow themselves out soon, and then there is quiet for a season,
and the atmosphere of Truth seems more serene. Why would you preach
to the wind? Why reason with thunder-showers? Better sit quiet, and
see them pass over like a pageant, cloudy, superb, and vast."
The Professor smiled self-complacently, but said not a word.
Flemming continued;
"I will add no more than this;--there are many speculations in
Literature, Philosophy, and Religion, which, though pleasant to walk
in, and lying under the shadow of great names, yet lead to no
important result. They resemble rather those roads in the western
forests of my native land, which, though broad and pleasant at
first, and lying beneath the shadow of great branches, finally
dwindle to a squirrel track, and run up a tree!"
The Professor hardly knew whether he should laugh or be offended
at this sally; and, laying his hand upon Flemming's arm, he said
seriously;
"Believe me, my young friend, the time will come, when you will
think more wisely on these things. And with you, I trust, that time
will soon come; since it moves more speedily with some than with
others. For what is Time? The shadow on the dial,--the striking of
the clock,--the running of the sand,--day and night,--summerand
winter,--months, years, centuries! These are but arbitrary and
outward signs,--the measure of Time, not Time itself! Time is the
Life of the Soul. If not this, then tell me what it is?"
The high and animated tone of voice in which the Professor
uttered these words aroused the Baron from his sleep; and, not
distinctly comprehending what was said, but thinking the Professor
asked what time it was, he innocently exclaimed;
"I should think it must be near midnight!"
This somewhat disconcerted the Professor, who took his leave soon
afterward. When he was gone the Baron said;
"Excuse me for treating your guest so cavalierly. His
transcendentalism annoyed me not a little; and I took refuge in
sleep. One would think, to judge by the language of this sect, that
they alone saw any beauty in Nature; and, when I hear one of them
discourse, I am instantly reminded of Goethe's Baccalaureus, when he
exclaims; `The world was not before I created it; Ibrought the sun
up out of the sea; with me began the changeful course of the moon;
the day decked itself on my account; the earth grew green and
blossomed to meet me; at my nod in that first night, the pomp of all
the stars developed itself; who but I set you free from all the
bonds of Philisterlike, contracting thoughts? I, however,
emancipated as my mind assures me I am, gladly pursue my inward
light, advance boldly in a transport peculiarly my own, the bright
before me, and the dark behind!'--Do you not see a resemblance? O,
they might be modest enough to confess, that one straggling ray of
light may, by some accident, reach the blind eyes of even us poor,
benighted heathens?"
"Alas! how little veneration we have!" said Flemming. "I could
not help closing the discussion with a jest. An ill-timed levity
often takes me by surprise. On all such occasions I think of a scene
at the University, where, in the midst of a grave discussion on the
possibility of Absolute Motion, a scholar said he had seen a rock
splitopen, from which sprang a toad, who could not be supposed to
have any knowledge of the external world, and consequently his
motion must have been absolute. The learned Professor, who presided
on that occasion, was hardly more startled and astonished, than was
our learned Professor, five minutes ago. But come; wind up your
watch, and let us go to bed."
"By the way," said the Baron, "did you mind what a curious head
he has. There are two crowns upon it."
"That is a sign," replied Flemming, "that he will eat his bread
in two kingdoms."
"I think the poor man would be very thankful," said the Baron
with a smile, "if he were always sure of eating it in one. He is
what the Transcendentalists call a god-intoxicated man; and I advise
him, as Sauteul advised Bossuet, to go to Patmos and write a new
Apocalypse."
CHAPTER VII. MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS.
A few days after this the Baron received letters from his sister,
telling him, that her physicians had prescribed a few weeks at the
Baths of Ems, and urging him to meet her there before the
fashionable season.
"Come," said he to Flemming; "make this short journey with me. We
will pass a few pleasant days at Ems, and visit the other
watering-places of Nassau. It will drive away the melancholy
day-dreams that haunt you. Perhaps some future bride is even now
waiting for you, with dim presentiments and undefined longings, at
the Serpent's Bath."
"Or some widow of Ems, with a cork-leg!" said Flemming, smiling;
and then added, in a toneof voice half jest, half earnest,
"Certainly; let us go in pursuit of her;--
`Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she,
That shall command my heart and me.
Where'er she lie,
Hidden from mortal eye,
In shady leaves of destiny.'"
They started in the afternoon for Frankfort, pursuing their way
slowly along the lovely Bergstrasse, famed throughout Germany for
its beauty. They passed the ruined house where Martin Luther lay
concealed after the Diet of Worms, and through the village of
Handschuhsheimer, as old as the days of King Pepin the Short,--a
hamlet, lying under the hills, half-buried in blossoms and green
leaves. Close on the right rose the mountains of the mysterious
Odenwald; and on the left lay the Neckar, like a steel bow in the
meadow. Farther westward, a thin, smoky vapor betrayed the course of
the Rhine; beyond which, like a troubled sea, ran the blue,
billowy Alsatian hills. Song of birds, and sound of evening bells,
and fragrance of sweet blossoms filled the air; and silent and slow
sank the broad red sun, half-hidden amid folding clouds.
"We shall not pass the night at Weinheim," said the Baron to the
postilion, who had dismounted to walk up the hill, leading to the
town. "You may drive to the mill in the Valley of Birkenau."
The postilion seized one of his fat horses by the tail, and swung
himself up to his seat again. They rattled through the paved streets
of Weinheim, and took no heed of the host of the Golden Eagle, who
stood so invitingly at the door of his own inn; and the ruins of
Burg Windeck, above there, on its mountain throne, frowned at them
for hurrying by, without staying to do him homage.
"The old ruin looks well from the valley," said the Baron; "but
let us beware of climbing that steep hill. Most travellers are like
children; they must needs touch whatever they behold. They climb up
to every old broken tooth of acastle, which they find on their
way;--get a toilsome ascent and hot sunshine for their pains, and
come down wearied and disappointed. I trust we are wiser."
They crossed the bridge, and turned up the stream, passing under
an arch of stone, which serves as a gateway to this enchanted Valley
of Birkenau. A cool and lovely valley! shut in by high
hills;--shaded by alder-trees and tall poplars, under which rushes
the Wechsnitz, a noisy mountain brook, that ever and anon puts its
broad shoulder to the wheel of a mill, and shows that it can labor
as well as laugh. At one of these mills they stopped for the
night.
A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the romantic German
landscape, as in the romantic German tale. It is not only a mill,
but likewise an ale-house and rural inn; so that the associations it
suggests are not of labor only, but also of pleasure. It stands in
the narrow defile, with its picturesque, thatched roof; thither
throng thepeasants, of a holiday; and there are rustic dances under
the trees.
In the twilight of the fast-approaching summer night, the Baron
and Flemming walked forth along the borders of the stream. As they
heard it, rushing and gushing among the stones and tangled roots,
and the great wheel turning in the current, with its never-ceasing
plash! plash! it brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song
of Goethe, the Youth and the Mill-brook. It was for the moment a
nymph, which sang to them in the voice of the waters.
"I am persuaded," said Flemming, "that, in order fully to
understand and fell the popular poetry of Germany, one must be
familiar with the German landscape. Many sweet little poems are the
outbreaks of momentary feelings;--words, to which the song of birds,
the rustling of leaves, and the gurgle of cool waters form the
appropriate music. Or perhaps I should say they are words, which man
has composed to the music of nature. Can you not, even now, hear
this brooklet tellingyou how it is on its way to the mill, where at
day-break the miller's daughter opens her window, and comes down to
bathe her face in its stream, and her bosom is so full and white,
that it kindles the glow of love in the cool waters!"
"A most delightful ballad, truly," said the Baron. "But like many
others of our little songs, it requires a poet to fell and
understand it. Sing them in the valley and woodland shadows, and
under the leafy roofs of garden walks, and at night, and alone, as
they were written. Sing them not in the loud world,--for the loud
world laughs such things to scorn. It is Mueller who says, in that
little song, where the maiden bids the moon good evening;
`This song was made to be sung at night,
And he who reads it in broad daylight,
Will never read the mystery right;
And yet it is childlike easy!'
He has written a great many pretty songs, in which the momentary,
indefinite longings and impulses of the soul of man find an
expression. Hecalls them the songs of a Wandering Horn-player. There
is one among them much to our present purpose. He expresses in it,
the feeling of unrest and desire of motion, which the sight and
sound of running waters often produce in us. It is entitled,
`Whither?' and is worth repeating to you.
`I heard a brooklet gushing
From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.
`I know not what came o'er me,
Nor who the counsel gave;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave.
`Downward, and ever farther,
And ever the brook beside;
And ever fresher murmured,
And ever clearer the tide.
`Is this the way I was going?
Whither, O brooklet, say!
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,
Murmured my senses away.
`What do I say of a murmur?
That can no murmur be;
'T is the water-nymphs, that are singing
Their roundelays under me.
`Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur,
And wander merrily near;
The wheels of a mill are going
In every brooklet clear.'"
"There you have the poetic reverie," said Flemming, "and the dull
prose commentary and explanation in matter of fact. The song is
pretty; and was probably suggested by some such scene as this, which
we are now beholding. Doubtless all your old national traditions
sprang up in the popular mind as this song in the poet's."
"Your opinion is certainly correct," answered the Baron; "and yet
all this play of poetic fancy does not prevent me from feeling the
chill night air, and the pangs of hunger. Let us go back to the
mill, and see what our landlady has for supper. Did you observe what
a loud, sharp voice she has?"
"People always have, who live in mills, and near
water-falls."
On the following morning they emerged unwillingly from the green,
dark valley, and journeyed along the level highway to Frankfort,
where in the evening they heard the glorious Don Giovanni of Mozart.
Of all operas this was Flemming's favorite. What rapturous flights
of sound! what thrilling, pathetic chimes! what wild, joyous revelry
of passion! what a delirium of sense!--what an expression of agony
and woe! all the feelings of suffering and rejoicing humanity
sympathized with and finding a voice in those tones. Flemming and
the Baron listened with ever-increasing delight.
"How wonderful this is!" exclaimed Flemming, transported by his
feelings. "How the chorus swells and dies, like the wind of summer!
How those passages of mysterious import seem to wave to and fro,
like the swaying branches of trees; from which anon some solitary
sweetvoice darts off like a bird, and floats away and revels in the
bright, warm sunshine! And then mark! how, amid the chorus of a
hundred voices and a hundred instruments,--of flutes, and drums, and
trumpets,--this universal shout and whirl-wind of the vexed air, you
can so clearly distinguish the melancholy vibration of a single
string, touched by the finger,--a mournful, sobbing sound! Ah, this
is indeed human life! where in the rushing, noisy crowd, and amid
sounds of gladness, and a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly
audible to the ear of thought, are the pulsations of some melancholy
string of the heart, touched by an invisible hand."
Then came, in the midst of these excited feelings, the ballet;
drawing its magic net about the soul. And soon, from the tangled yet
harmonious mazes of the dance, came forth a sylph-like form, her
scarf floating behind her, as if she were fanning the air with
gauze-like wings. Noiseless as a feather or a snow-flake falls, did
her feet touch the earth. She seemed to floatin the air, and the
floor to bend and wave under her, as a branch, when a bird alights
upon it, and takes wing again. Loud and rapturous applause followed
each wonderful step, each voluptuous movement; and, with a flushed
cheek and burning eye, and bosom panting to be free, stood the
gracefully majestic figure for a moment still, and then the winged
feet of the swift dancing-girls glanced round her, and she was lost
again in the throng.
"How truly exquisite this is!" exclaimed the Baron, after joining
loudly in the applause. "What a noble figure! What grace! what
attitudes! How much soul in every motion! how much expression in
every gesture! I assure you, it produces upon me the same effect as
a beautiful poem. It is a poem. Every step is a word; and the whole
together a poem!"
The Baron and Flemming were delighted with the scene; and at the
same time exceedingly amused with the countenance of an old prude in
the next box, who seemed to look upon the wholemagic show, with such
feelings as Michal, Saul's daughter, experienced, when she looked
from her window and saw King David dancing and leaping with his
scanty garments.
"After all," said Flemming, "the old French priest was not so far
out of the way, when he said, in his coarse dialect, that the dance
is the Devil's procession; and paint and ornaments, the whetting of
the devil's sword; and the ring that is made in dancing, the devil's
grindstone, whereon he sharpens his sword; and finally, that a
ballet is the pomp and mass of the Devil, and whosoever entereth
therein, entereth into his pomp and mass; for the woman who singeth
is the prioress of the Devil, and they that answer are clerks, and
they that look on are parishioners, and the cymbals and flutes are
the bells, and the musicians that play are the ministers, of the
Devil."
"No doubt this good lady near us, thinks so likewise," answered
the Baron laughing; "but she likes it, for all that."
When the play was over the Baron begged Flemming to sit still,
till the crowd had gone.
"I have a strange fancy," said he, "whenever I come to the
theatre, to see the end of all things. When the crowd is gone, and
the curtain raised again to air the house, and the lamps are all
out, save here and there one behind the scenes, the contrast with
what has gone before is most impressive. Every thing wears a
dream-like aspect. The empty boxes and stalls,--the silence,--the
smoky twilight, and the magic scene dismantled, produce in me a
strange, mysterious feeling. It is like a dim reflection of a
theatre in water, or in a dusty mirror; and reminds me of some of
Hoffmann's wild Tales. It is a practical moral lesson,--a
commentary on the play, and makes the show complete."
It was truly as he said; only tenfold more desolate, solemn, and
impressive; and produced upon the mind the effect we experience,
when slumber is suddenly broken, and dreams and realities mingle,
and we know not yet whether we sleep or wake. As they at length
passed out through the dimly-lighted passage, they heard a
vulgar-looking fellow, with a sensual face and shaggy whiskers, say
to some persons who were standing near him, and seemed to be
hangers-on of the play-house;
"I shall run her six nights at Munich, and then take her on to
Vienna."
Flemming thought he was speaking of some favorite horse. He was
speaking of his beautiful wife, the ballet-dancer.
CHAPTER VIII. OLD HUMBUG.
What most interested our travellers in the ancient city of
Frankfort, was neither the opera nor the Ariadne of Dannecker, but
the house in which Goethe was born, and the scenes he frequented in
his childhood, and remembered in his old age. Such for example are
the walks around the city, outside the moat; the bridge over the
Maine, with the golden cock on the cross, which the poet beheld and
marvelled at when a boy; the cloister of the Barefooted Friars,
through which he stole with mysterious awe to sit by the
oilcloth-covered table of old Rector Albrecht; and the garden in
which his grandfather walked up and down among fruit-trees and
rose-bushes, in long morning gown, black velvet cap, and the antique
leather gloves, which he annually received as Mayor on
Pipers-Doomsday, representing a kind of middle personage between
Alcinous and Laertes. Thus, O Genius! are thy foot-prints hallowed;
and the star shines forever over the place of thy nativity.
"Your English critics may rail as they list," said the Baron,
while he and Flemming were reing prophet from his fiery chariot. Over the castle
walls, and the trees of the garden, rose the large moon; and between
the contending daylight and moonlight there were as yet no shadows.
But at length the shadows came; transparent and faint outlines, that
deepened into form. In the valley below only the river gleamed, like
steel; and here and there the lamps were lighted in the town.
Solemnly stood the leafy lindentrees in the garden near them, their
trunks in darkness and their summits bronzed with moonlight; and in
his niche in the great round tower, overhung with ivy, like a
majestic phantom, stood the gray statue of Louis, with his venerable
beard, and shirt of mail, and flowing mantle; and the mild, majestic
countenance looked forth into the silent night, as the countenance
of a seer, who reads the stars. At intervals the wind of the summer
night passed through the ruined castle and the trees, and they sent
forth a sound as if nature were sighing in her dreams; and for a
moment overhead the broad leaves gently clashed together, like
brazen cymbals, with a tinkling sound; and then all was still, save
the sweet, passionate song of nightingales, that nowhere upon earth
sing more sweetly than in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle.
The hour, the scene, and the near-approaching separation of the
two young friends, had filled their hearts with a pleasant, though
at the same time not painless excitement. They had been conversing
about the magnificent old ruin, and the ages in which it had been
built, and the vicissitudesof time and war, that had battered down
its walls, and left it "tenantless, save to the crannying wind."
"How sorrowful and sublime is the face of that statue yonder,"
said Flemming. "It reminds me of the old Danish hero Beowulf; for
careful, sorrowing, he seeth in his son's bower the wine-hall
deserted, the resort of the wind, noiseless; the knight sleepeth;
the warrior lieth in darkness; there is no noise of the harp, no joy
in the dwellings, as there was before."
"Even as you say," replied the Baron; "but it often astonishes
me, that, coming from that fresh green world of yours beyond the
sea, you should feel so much interest in these old things; nay, at
times, seem so to have drunk in their spirit, as really to live in
the times of old. For my part, I do not see what charm there is in
the pale and wrinkled countenance of the Past, so to entice the soul
of a young man. It seems to me like falling in love with one's
grandmother. Give me the Present;--warm, glowing, palpitating with
life. She is my mistress; and the Future stands waiting like my wife
that is to be, for whom, to tell the truth, I care very little just
now. Indeed, my friend, I wish you would take more heed of this
philosophy of mine; and not waste the golden hours of youth in vain
regrets for the past, and indefinite, dim longings for the future.
Youth comes but once in a lifetime."
"Therefore," said Flemming; "let us so enjoy it as to be still
young when we are old. For my part, I grow happier as I grow older.
When I compare my sensations and enjoyments now, with what they were
ten years ago, the comparison is vastly in favor of the present.
Much of the fever and fretfulness of life is over. The world and I
look each other more calmly in the face. My mind is more
self-possessed. It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the
heat and drenched by the rain of life."
"Now you speak like an old philosopher," answered the Baron,
laughing. "But you deceive yourself. I never knew a more restless,
feverishspirit than yours. Do not think you have gained the mastery
yet. You are only riding at anchor here in an eddy of the stream;
you will soon be swept away again in the mighty current and whirl of
accident. Do not trust this momentary calm. I know you better than
you know yourself. There is something Faust-like in you; you would
fain grasp the highest and the deepest; and `reel from desire to
enjoyment, and in enjoyment languish for desire.' When a momentary
change of feeling comes over you, you think the change permanent,
and thus live in constant self-deception."
"I confess," said Flemming, "there may be some truth in what you
say. There are times when my soul is restless; and a voice sounds
within me, like the trump of the archangel, and thoughts that were
buried, long ago, come out of their graves. At such times my
favorite occupations and pursuits no longer charm me. The quiet face
of Nature seems to mock me."
"There certainly are seasons," replied the Baron, "when Nature
seems not to sympathizewith her beloved children. She sits there so
eternally calm and self-possessed, so very motherly and serene, and
cares so little whether the heart of her child breaks or not, that
at times I almost lose my patience. About that, too, she cares so
little, that, out of sheer obstinacy, I become good-humored again,
and then she smiles."
"I think we must confess, however," continued Flemming, "that all
this springs from our own imperfection, not from hers. How beautiful
is this green world, which we inhabit! See yonder, how the moonlight
mingles with the mist! What a glorious night is this! Truly every
man has a Paradise around him until he sins, and the angel of an
accusing conscience drives him from his Eden. And even then there
are holy hours, when this angel sleeps, and man comes back, and,
with the innocent eyes of a child, looks into his lost Paradise
again,--into the broad gates and rural solitudes of Nature. I feel
this often. We have much to enjoy in the quiet and retirement of
ourown thoughts. Boisterous mirth and loud laughter are not my mood.
I love that tranquillity of soul, in which we feel the blessing of
existence, and which in itself is a prayer and a thanksgiving. I
find, however, that, as I grow older, I love the country less, and
the city more."
"Yes," interrupted the Baron; "and presently you will love the
city less and the country more. Say at once, that you have an
undefined longing for both; and prefer town or country, according to
the mood you are in. I think a man must be of a very quiet and happy
nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well
contented with his own insignificant person, very self-complacent,
to be continually occupied with himself and his own thoughts. To say
the least, a city life makes one more tolerant and liberal in his
judgment of others. One is not eternally wrapped up in
self-contemplation; which, after all, is only a more holy kind of
vanity."
In conversation like this, the hours glided away; till at length,
from the Giant's Tower, the Castleclock struck twelve, with a sound
that seemed to come from the Middle Ages. Like watchmen from their
belfries the city clocks answered it, one by one. Then distant and
muffled sounds were heard. Inarticulate words seemed to blot the
foggy air, as if written on wet paper. These were the bells of
Handschuhsheimer, and of other villages on the broad plain of the
Rhine, and among the hills of the Odenwald; mysterious sounds, that
seemed not of this world.
Beneath them, in the shadow of the hills, lay the valley, like a
fathomless, black gulf; and above were the cloistered stars, that,
nun-like, walk the holy aisles of heaven. The city was asleep in the
valley below; all asleep and silent, save the clocks, that had just
struck twelve, and the veering, golden weathercocks, that were
swimming in the moonshine, like golden fishes, in a glass vase. And
again the wind of the summer night passed through the old Castle,
and the trees, and the nightingales recorded under the dark, shadowy
leaves, and the heart of Flemming was full.
When he had retired to his chamber, a feeling of utter loneliness
came over him. The night before one begins a journey is always a
dismal night; for, as Byron says,
"In leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places, one keeps looking at the steeple!"
And how much more so when the place and people are pleasant; as
was the case with those, that Flemming was now leaving. No wonder he
was sad and sleepless. Thoughts came and went, and bright and gloomy
fancies, and dreams and visions, and sweet faces looked under his
closed eyelids, and vanished away, and came again, and again
departed. He heard the clock strike from hour to hour, and said,
"Another hour is gone." At length the birds began to sing; and ever
and anon the cock crew. He arose, and looked forth into the gray
dawn; and before him lay the city he was so soon to leave, all white
and ghastly, like a city that had arisen from its grave.
"All things must change," said he to the Baron, as he embraced
him, and held him by the hand. "Friends must be torn asunder, and
swept along in the current of events, to see each other seldom, and
perchance no more. For ever and ever in the eddies of time and
accident we whirl away. Besides which, some of us have a perpetual
motion in our wooden heads, as Wodenblock had in his wooden leg; and
like him we travel on, without rest or sleep, and have hardly time
to take a friend by the hand in passing; and at length are seen
hurrying through some distant land, worn to a skeleton, and all
unknown."
BOOK III.
Epigraph
"Take away the lights, too;
The moon lends me too much to find my fears;
And those devotions I am now to pay,
Are written in my heart, not in thy book;
And I shall read them there without a taper."
CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME.
They were right,--those old German Minnesingers,--to sing the
pleasant summer-time! What a time it is! How June stands illuminated
in the Calendar! The windows are all wide open; only the Venetian
blinds closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in
through a crevice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the
trees; and, as it swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to,
with a sudden sound. The trees are heavy with leaves; and the
gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The whole atmosphere is
laden with perfume and sunshine. The birds sing. The cock struts
about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass. Yellow
butter-cups stud the green carpet like golden buttons, and the red
blossoms of the clover like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long,
pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail aloft;
and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white village
gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds the
river,--careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in
no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work,--the hot and
angry bee. All things else are at play; he never plays, and is vexed
that any one should.
People drive out from town to breathe, and to be happy. Most of
them have flowers in their hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and
still oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how pleasant
to you is the change from the sultry streets to the open fields,
fragrant with clover-blossoms! how pleasant the fresh, breezy
country air, dashed with brine from the meadows! howpleasant, above
all, the flowers, the manifold, beautiful flowers!
It is no longer day. Through the trees rises the red moon, and
the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night, the
coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy
them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks,
the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of
grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they
are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The
tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is
still, save the continuous wind of the summer night. Sometimes I
know not if it be the wind or the sound of the neighbouring sea. The
village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.
How different is it in the city! It is late, and the crowd is
gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of
the cool, dewy night, as if you folded her garments about you. The
whole starry heaven is spread out overhead. Beneath lies the public
walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent
darkness the spirit plunges and floats away, with some beloved
spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and
down the long street. People go by, with grotesque shadows, now
foreshortened and now lengthening away into the darkness and
vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems
to pass him on the sidewalk. The iron gates of the park shut with a
jangling clang. There are footsteps, and loud voices;--a tumult,--a
drunken brawl,--an alarm of fire;--then silence again. And now at
length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated
moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The
moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the
opening of streets,--angular, like blocks of white marble.
Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Reader! with the odor of
flowers about thee, and the song of birds, shalt thou pass onward
into the enchanted land, as through the Ivory Gate of dreams! And as
a prelude and majestic march, one sweet human voice, I know not
whose, but coming from the bosom of the Alps, sings this sublime
ode, which the Alpine echoes repeat afar.
"Come, golden Evening! In the west
Enthrone the storm-dispelling sun,
And let the triple rainbow rest
O'er all the mountain tops;--'t is done;
The tempest ceases; bold and bright,
The rainbow shoots from hill to hill;
Down sinks the sun; on presses night;
Mont Blanc is lovely still!
"There take thy stand, my spirit;--spread
The world of shadows at thy feet;
And mark how calmly overhead,
The stars, like saints in glory, meet.
While, hid in solitude sublime,
Methinks I muse on Nature's tomb,
And hear the passing foot of Time
Step through the silent gloom.
"All in a moment, crash on crash,
From precipice to precipice,
An avalanche's ruins dash
Down to the nethermost abyss,
Invisible; the ear alone
Pursues the uproar till it dies;
Echo to Echo, groan for groan,
From deep to deep, replies.
"Silence again the darkness seals,
Darkness that may be felt;--but soon
The silver-clouded east reveals
The midnight spectre of the moon;
In half-eclipse she lifts her horn,
Yet, o'er the host of heaven supreme,
Brings the faint semblance of a morn,
With her awakening beam.
"Ah! at her touch, these Alpine heights
Unreal mockeries appear;
With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights,
Emerging as she climbs the sphere;
A crowd of apparitions pale!
I hold my breath in chill suspense,
They seem so exquisitely frail,
Lest they should vanish hence.
"I breathe again, I freely breathe;
Thee, Leman's Lake, once more I trace,
Like Dian's crescent far beneath,
As beautiful as Dian's face:
Pride of the land that gave me birth!
All that thy waves reflect I love,
Where heaven itself, brought down to earth,
Looks fairer than above.
"Safe on thy banks again I stray;
The trance of poesy is o'er,
And I am here at dawn of day,
Gazing on mountains as before,
Where all the strange mutations wrought,
Were magic feats of my own mind;
For, in that fairy land of thought,
Whate'er I seek, I find."
CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING.
Tell me, my soul, why art thou restless? Why dost thou look
forward to the future with such strong desire? The present is
thine,--and the past;--and the future shall be! O that thou didst
look forward to the great hereafter with half the longing wherewith
thou longest for an earthly future,--which a few days at most will
bring thee! to the meeting of the dead, as to the meeting of the
absent! Thou glorious spirit-land! O, that I could behold thee as
thou art,--the region of life, and light, and love, and the
dwelling-place of those beloved ones, whose being has flowed onward
like a silver-clear stream into the solemn-sounding main, into the
ocean of Eternity.
Such were the thoughts that passed through thesoul of Flemming,
as he lay in utter solitude and silence on the rounded summit of one
of the mountains of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with tears in his
eyes, and ardent longing in his heart, up into the blue-swimming
heaven overhead, and at the glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around
him. Highest and whitest of all, stood the peak of the Jungfrau,
which seemed near him, though it rose afar off from the bosom of the
Lauterbrunner Thal. There it stood, holy and high and pure, the
bride of heaven, all veiled and clothed in white, and lifted the
thoughts of the beholder heavenward. O, he little thought then, as
he gazed at it with longing and delight, how soon a form was to
arise in his own soul, as holy, and high, and pure as this, and like
this point heavenward.
Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit, reposing his weary
limbs on the short, brown grass, which more resembled moss than
grass. He had sent his guide forward, that he might be alone. His
soul within him was wild with a fierce and painful delight. The
mountain air excited him; the mountain solitudes enticed, yet
maddened him. Every peak, every sharp, jagged iceberg, seemed to
pierce him. The silence was awful and sublime. It was like that in
the soul of a dying man, when he hears no more the sounds of earth.
He seemed to be laying aside his earthly garments. The heavens were
near unto him; but between him and heaven every evil deed he had
done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed an icy
breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers, dare to look
Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in the
solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and looks
not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the
countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In
the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at
us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love!
But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley of the Saint
Gothard Pass, through Amsteg, where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing
down the Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead. The road is
steep, and runs on zigzag terraces. The sides of the mountains are
barren cliffs; and from their cloud-capped summits, unheard amid the
roar of the great torrent below, come streams of snowwhite foam,
leaping from rock to rock, like the mountain chamois. As you
advance, the scene grows wilder and more desolate. There is not a
tree in sight,--not a human habitation. Clouds, black as midnight,
lower upon you from the ravines overhead; and the mountain torrent
beneath is but a sheet of foam, and sends up an incessant roar. A
sudden turn in the road brings you in sight of a lofty bridge,
stepping from cliff to cliff with a single stride. A fearful
cataract howls beneath it, like an evil spirit, and fills the air
with mist; and the mountain wind claps its hands and shrieks through
the narrow pass, Ha! ha!--This is the Devil's Bridge. It leads the
traveller across the fearful chasm, and through a mountain gallery
into the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.
Even the sunny morning, which followed thisgloomy day, had not
chased the desolate impression from the soul of Flemming. His
excitement increased as he lost himself more and more among the
mountains; and now, as he lay all alone on the summit of the sunny
hill, with only glaciers and snowy peaks about him, his soul, as I
have said, was wild with a fierce and painful delight.
A human voice broke his reverie. He looked, and beheld at a short
distance from him, the athletic form of a mountain herdsman, who was
approaching the spot where he lay. He was a young man, clothed in a
rustic garb, and holding a long staff in his hand. When Flemming
rose, he stood still, and gazed at him, as if he loved the face of
man, even in a stranger, and longed to hear a human voice, though it
might speak in an unknown tongue. He answered Flemming's salutation
in a rude mountain dialect, and in reply to his questions said;
"I, with two others, have charge of two hundred head of cattle on
these mountains. Throughthe two summer months we remain here night
and day; for which we receive each a Napoleon."
Flemming gave him half his summer wages. He was glad to do a good
deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his
due, like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the
traveller alone. And the traveller went his way down the mountain,
as one distraught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower,
which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as
if to say; "O take me with you! leave me not here
companionless!"
Ere long he reached the magnificent glacier of the Rhone; a
frozen cataract, more than two thousand feet in height, and many
miles broad at its base. It fills the whole valley between two
mountains, running back to their summits. At the base it is arched,
like a dome; and above, jagged and rough, and resembles a mass of
gigantic crystals, of a pale emerald tint, mingled with white. A
snowy crust covers its surface; but at every rent and crevice the
pale green ice shines clear in thesun. Its shape is that of a glove,
lying with the palm downwards, and the fingers crooked and close
together. It is a gauntlet of ice, which, centuries ago, Winter, the
King of these mountains, threw down in defiance to the Sun; and year
by year the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on the
point of his glittering spear. A feeling of wonder and delight came
over the soul of Flemming when he beheld it, and he shouted and
cried aloud;
"How wonderful! how glorious!"
After lingering a few hours in the cold, desolate valley, he
climbed in the afternoon the steep Mayen-Wand, on the Grimsel,
passed the Lake of the Dead, with its ink-black waters; and through
the melting snow, and over slippery stepping-stones in the beds of
numberless shallow brooks, descended to the Grimsel Hospital, where
he passed the night, and thought it the most lone and desolate spot,
that man ever slept in.
On the morrow, he rose with the day; and the rising sun found him
already standing on the rusticbridge, which hangs over the verge of
the Falls of the Aar at Handeck, where the river pitches down a
precipice into a narrow and fearful abyss, shut in by perpendicular
cliffs. At right angles with it comes the beautiful Aerlenbach; and
halfway down the double cascade mingles into one. Thus he pursued
his way down the Hasli Thal into the Bernese Oberland, restless,
impatient, he knew not why, stopping seldom, and never long, and
then rushing forward again, like the rushing river whose steps he
followed, and in whose ice-cold waters ever and anon he bathed his
wrists, to cool the fever in his blood; for the noonday sun was
hot.
His heart dilated in the dilating valley, that grew broader and
greener at every step. The sight of human faces and human dwellings
soothed him; and through the fields of summer grain, in the broad
meadows of Imgrund, he walked with a heart that ached no more, but
trembled only, as our eyelids when we have done weeping. As he
climbed the opposite hill, which hems in this romanticvalley, and,
like a heavy yoke, chafes the neck of the Aar, he believed the
ancient tradition, which says, that once the valley was a lake. From
the summit of the hill he looked southward upon a beautiful
landscape of gardens, and fields of grain, and woodlands, and
meadows, and the ancient castle of Resti, looking down upon
Meyringen. And now all around him were the singing of birds, and
grateful shadows of the leafy trees; and sheeted waterfalls dropping
from the woodland cliffs, seen only, but unheard, the fluted columns
breaking into mist, and fretted with frequent spires and ornaments
of foam, and not unlike the towers of a Gothic church inverted.
There, in one white sheet of foam, the Riechenbach pours down into
its deep beaker, into which the sun never shines. Face to face it
beholds the Alpbach falling from the opposite hill, "like a downward
smoke." When Flemming saw the innumerable runnels, sliding dpture, which they had experienced that day.
And thus they sat in the twilight, as people love to do, at the
close of a summer day. As yet the lamps had not been lighted; and
one could not distinguish faces; but voices only, and forms, like
shadows.
Presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered the room and
sat down by the window. She rather listened to the conversation,
than joined in it; but the few words she said were spoken in a voice
so musical and full of soul, that it moved the soul of Flemming,
like a whisper from heaven.
O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of
the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his
forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis
countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God
revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice;
and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible,
not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal
fountain, invisible to man!
Flemming would fain have sat and listened for hours to the sound
of that unknown voice. He felt sure, in his secret heart, that the
being from whom it came was beautiful. His imagination filled up the
faint outline, which the eye beheld in the fading twilight, and the
figure stood already in his mind, like Raphael's beautiful Madonna
in the Dresden gallery. He was never more mistaken in his life. The
voice belonged to a beautiful being, it is true; but her beauty was
different from that of any Madonna which Raphael ever painted; as he
would have seen, had he waited till the lamps were lighted. But in
the midst of his reverie and saint-painting, the landlord came in,
andtold him he had found a chamber, which he begged him to go and
look at.
Flemming took his leave and departed. Berkley went with him, to
see, he said, what kind of a nest his young friend was to sleep
in.
"The chamber is not what I could wish," said the landlord, as he
led them across the street. "It is in the old cloister. But
to-morrow or next day, you can no doubt have a room at the
house."
The name of the cloister struck Flemming's imagination
pleasantly. He was owl enough to like ruins and old chambers, where
nuns or friars had slept. And he said to Berkley;
"So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister. It already
makes me think of a bird's-nest I once saw on an old tower of
Heidelberg castle, built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly
served as a spout. But pray tell me, who was that young lady, with
the soft voice?"
"What young lady with the soft voice?"
"The young lady in black, who sat by the window."
"O, she is the daughter of an English officer, who died not long
ago at Naples. She is passing the summer here with her mother, for
her health."
"What is her name?"
"Ashburton."
"Is she beautiful?"
"Not in the least; but very intellectual. A woman of genius, I
should say."
And now they had reached the walls of the cloister, and passed
under an arched gateway, and close beneath the round towers, which
Flemming had already seen, rising with their cone-shaped roofs above
the trees, like tall tapers, with extinguishers upon them.
"It is not so bad, as it looks," said the landlord, knocking at a
small door, in the main building. "The Bailiff lives in one part of
it."
A servant girl, with a candle in her hand, opened the door, and
conducted Flemming and Berkley to the chamber which had been
engaged. It was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted with
pine, and unpainted. Three lofty and narrowwindows, with leaden
lattices and small panes, looked southward towards the valley of
Lauterbrunnen and the mountains. In one corner was a large square
bed, with a tester and checked curtains. In another, a huge stove of
painted tiles, reaching almost to the ceiling. An old sofa, a few
high-backed antique chairs, and a table, completed the furniture of
the room.
Thus Flemming took possession of his monkish cell and dormitory.
He ordered tea, and began to feel at home. Berkley passed the
evening with him. On going away he said;
"Good night! I leave you to the care of the Virgin and all the
Saints. If the ghost of any old monk comes back after his
prayer-book, my compliments to him. If I were a younger man, you
certainly should see a ghost. Good night!"
When he had departed, Flemming opened the lattice of one of the
windows. The moon had risen, and silvered the dark outline of the
nearest hills; while, afar off, the snowy summits of the Jungfrau
and the Silver-Horn shone like a white cloud in the sky. Close
beneath the windows was a flower-garden; and the breath of the
summer night came to him with dewy fragrance. There was a grateful
seclusion about the place. He blessed the happy accident, which gave
him such a lodging, and fell asleep that night thinking of the nuns,
who once had slept in the same quiet cells; but neither wimpled nun
nor cowled monk appeared to him in his dreams; not even the face of
Mary Ashburton; nor did he hear her voice.
CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.
Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that when King Edward
beheld the Countess of Salisbury at her castle gate, he thought he
had never seen before so noble nor so fair a lady; he was stricken
therewith to the heart with a sparkle of fine love, that endured
long after; he thought no lady in the world so worthy to be beloved,
as she. And so likewise thought Paul Flemming, when he beheld the
English lady in the fair light of a summer morning. I will not
disguise the truth. She is my heroine; and I mean to describe her
with great truth and beauty, so that all shall be in love with her,
and I most of all.
Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer. Like the fair maiden
Amoret, she was sitting inthe lap of womanhood. They did her wrong,
who said she was not beautiful; and yet
"she was not fair,
Nor beautiful;--those words express her not.
But O, her looks had something excellent,
That wants a name!"
Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It was such a calm,
quiet face, with the light of the rising soul shining so peacefully
through it. At times it wore an expression of seriousness,--of
sorrow even; and then seemed to make the very air bright with what
the Italian poets so beautifully call the lampeggiar dell' angelico
riso,--the lightning of the angelic smile.
And O, those eyes,--those deep, unutterable eyes, with
"down-falling eyelids, full of dreams and slumber," and within them
a cold, living light, as in mountain lakes at evening, or in the
river of Paradise, forever gliding,
"with a brown, brown current
Under the shade perpetual, that never
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon."
I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are
beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent
light;--are luminous, but not sparkling. Such eyes the Greek poets
give to the Immortals. But I forget myself.
The lady's figure was striking. Every step, every attitude was
graceful, and yet lofty, as if inspired by the soul within. Angels
in the old poetic philosophy have such forms; it was the soul itself
imprinted on the air. And what a soul was hers! A temple dedicated
to Heaven, and, like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted only from above.
And earthly passions in the form of gods were no longer there, but
the sweet and thoughtful faces of Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and
the Saints. Thus there was not one discordant thing in her; but a
perfect harmony of figure, and face, and soul, in a word of the
whole being. And he who had a soul to comprehend hers, must of
necessity love her, and, having once loved her, could love no other
woman forevermore.
No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heartdrawn towards her,
as, in her morning walk, she passed him, sitting alone under the
great walnut trees near the cloister, and thinking of Heaven, but
not of her. She, too, was alone. Her cheek was no longer pale; but
glowing and bright, with the inspiration of the summer air. Flemming
gazed after her till she disappeared, even as a vision of his
dreams, he knew not whither. He was not yet in love, but very near
it; for he thanked God, that he had made such beautiful beings to
walk the earth.
Last night he had heard a voice to which his soul responded; and
he might have gone on his way, and taken no farther heed. But he
would have heard that voice afterwards, whenever at evening he
thought of this evening at Interlachen. To-day he had seen more
clearly the vision, and his restless soul calm. The place seemed
pleasant to him; and he could not go. He did not ask himself whence
came this calm. He felt it; and was happy in the feeling; and
blessed thelandscape and the summer morning, as if they possessed
the wonder-working power.
"A pleasant morning dream to you;" said a friendly voice; and at
the same moment some one laid his hand upon Flemming's shoulder. It
was Berkley. He had approached unseen and unheard.
"I see by the smile on your countenance," he continued, "that it
is no day-incubus."
"You are right," replied Flemming. "It was a pleasant dream,
which you have put to flight."
"And I am glad to see, that you have also put to flight the
gloomy thoughts which used to haunt you. I like to see people
cheerful and happy. What is the use of giving way to sadness in this
beautiful world?"
"Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed,
I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and
sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes
suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In
the lives of the saddestof us, there are bright days like this, when
we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it.
Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our
hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal,
cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows,
which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when
he is only sad."
"And who says we don't?" interrupted Berkley. "Come, come! Let us
go to breakfast. The morning air has given me a rude appetite. I
long to say grace over a fresh egg; and eat salt with my worst
enemies; namely, the Cockneys at the hotel. After breakfast you must
give yourself up wholly to me. I shall take you to the
Grindelwald!"
"To-day, then, you do not breakfast like Diogenes, but consent to
leave your tub."
"Yes, for the pleasure of your company. I shall also blow out the
light in my lantern, having found you."
"Thank you."
The breakfast passed without any unusual occurrence. Flemming
watched the entrance of every guest; but she came not,--the guest he
most desired to see.
"And now for the Grindelwald!" said Berkley.
"Why such haste? We have the whole day before us. There is time
enough."
"Not a moment to loso, I assure you. The carriage is at the
door."
They drove up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and turned eastward
among the mountains of the Grindelwald. There they passed the day;
half-frozen by the icy breath of the Great Glacier, upon whose
surface stand pyramids and blocks of ice, like the tombstones of a
cemetery. It was a weary day to Flemming. He wished himself at
Interlachen; and was glad when, towards evening, he saw once more
the cone-roofed towers of the cloister rising above the walnut
trees.
That evening is written in red letters in his history. It gave
him another revelation of thebeauty and excellence of the female
character and intellect; not wholly new to him, yet now renewed and
fortified. It was from the lips of Mary Ashburton, that the
revelation came. Her form arose, like a tremulous evening star, in
the firmament of his soul. He conversed with her; and with her
alone; and knew not when to go. All others were to him as if they
were not there. He saw their forms, but saw them as the forms of
inanimate things. At length her mother came; and Flemming beheld in
her but another Mary Ashburton, with beauty more mature;--the same
forehead and eyes, the same majestic figure; and, as yet, no trace
of age. He gazed upon her with a feeling of delight, not unmingled
with holy awe. She was to him the rich and glowing Evening, from
whose bosom the tremulous star was born.
Berkley took no active part in the conversation, but did what was
much more to the purpose, that it is to say, arranged a drive for
the next day with the Ashburtons, and of course invited Flemming,
who went home that night with a halo round hishead; and wondering
much at a dandy, who stood at the door of the hotel, and said to his
companion, as Flemming passed;
"What do you call this place? I have been here two hours already,
and find it devilish dull!"
CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.
When Flemming awoke the next morning he saw the sky dark and
lowering. From the mountain tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy
folds waved to and fro in the valley below. Over all the landscape,
the soft, summer rain was falling. No admiring eyes would look up
that day at the Staubbach.
A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop to many diversions.
The coachman may drive to the tavern and then back to the stable;
but no farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-house door,
and welcome; and the boatman whistle and curse the clouds, at his
own sweet will; but no foot stirs abroad for all that; no traveller
moves, if he has time to stay. The rainy daygives him time for
reflection. He has leisure now to take cognizance of his
impressions, and make up his account with the mountains. He
remembers, too, that he has friends at home; and writes up the
Journal, neglected for a week or more; and letters neglected longer;
or finishes the rough pencil-sketch, begun yesterday in the open
air. On the whole he is not sorry it rains; though disappointed.
Flemming was both sorry and disappointed; but he did not on that
account fail to go over to the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He
found them sitting in the parlour. The mother was reading, and the
daughter retouching a sketch of the Lake of Thun. After the usual
salutations, Flemming seated himself near the daughter, and
said;
"We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I presume; only this
Giessbach from the clouds."
"Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be content to stay in-doors;
and listen to the soundof the eves-dropping rain. It gives me time
to finish some of these rough sketches."
"It is a pleasant pastime," said Flemming; "and I perceive you
are very skilful. I am delighted to see, that you can draw a
straight line. I never before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all
the towers did not resemble the leaning Tower of Pisa. I always
tremble for the little men under them."
"How absurd!" exclaimed Mary Ashburton, with a smile that passed
through the misty air of Flemming's thoughts, like a sunbeam; "For
one, I succeed much better in straight lines than in any others.
Here I have been trying a half-hour to make this water-wheel round;
and round it never will be."
"Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncommonly picturesque,
and may pass for a new invention."
The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming to gaze at her
beautiful face; often repeating to himself those lines in Marlow's
Faust;
"O thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!"
He certainly would have betrayed himself to the maternal eye of
Mrs. Ashburton, had she not been wholly absorbed in the follies of a
fashionable novel. Ere long the fair sketcher had paused for a
moment; and Flemming had taken her sketch-book in his hands and was
looking it through from the beginning with ever-increasing delight,
half of which he dared not express, though he favored her with some
comments and bursts of admiration.
"This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten and the
battle-field! How quietly the land-scape sleeps there by the lake,
after the battle! Did you ever read the ballad of Veit Weber, the
shoe-maker, on this subject? He says, the routed Burgundians jumped
into then corn
and the red and blue flowers, and mildly greeting the reapers as of
old. The idea is beautiful, is it not?"
"Yes, very beautiful!"
"But there is nothing morbid in Uhland's mind. He is always fresh
and invigorating, like a breezy morning. In this he differs entirely
from such writers as Salis and Matthisson."
"And who are they?"
"Two melancholy gentlemen to whom life was only a Dismal Swamp,
upon whose margin they walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their
hands, sobbing and sighing, and making signals to Death, to come and
ferry them over the lake. And now their spirits stand in the green
fields of German song, like two weeping-willows, bending over
agrave. To read their poems, is like wandering through a village
churchyard on a summer evening, reading the inscription upon the
grave-stones, and recalling sweet images of the departed; while
above you,
'Hark! in the holy grove of palms,
Where the stream of life runs free,
Echoes, in the angels' psalms,
'Sister spirit! hail to thee!'"
"How musically those lines flow! Are they Matthisson's!"
"Yes; and they do indeed flow musically. I wish I had his poems
here. I should like to read to you his Elegy on the Ruins of an
Ancient Castle. It is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. You have been at
Baden-Baden?
"Yes; last summer."
"And have not forgotten--"
"The old castle? Of course not. What a magnificent ruin it
is!"
"That is the scene of Matthisson's Poem, andseems to have filled
the melancholy bard with more than wonted inspiration."
"I should like very much to see the poem, I remember that old
ruin with so much delight."
"I am sorry I have not a translation of it for you. Instead of it
I will give you a sweet and mournful poem from Salis. It is called
the Song of the Silent Land.
"Into the Silent Land!
Ah! who shall lead us thither!
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
Who leads us with a gentle hand,
Thither, oh, thither.
Into the Silent Land?
"Into the Silent Land!
To you, ye boundless regions
Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions
Of beauteous souls! Eternity's own band!
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand,
Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land!
"O Land! O Land!
For all the broken-hearted
The mildest herald by our fate allotted,
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the land of the great departed,
Into the Silent Land!
Is not that a beautiful poem?"
Mary Ashburton made no answer. She had turned away to hide her
tears. Flemming wondered, that Berkley could say she was not
beautiful. Still he was rather pleased than offended at it. He felt
at that moment how sweet a thing it would be to possess one, who
should seem beautiful to him alone, and yet to him be more beautiful
than all the world beside! How bright the world became to him at
that thought! It was like one of those paintings in which all the
light streams from the face of the Virgin. O, there is nothing
holier in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of
love,--the first fluttering of its silken wings; the first rising
sound and breath of thatwind, which is so soon to sweep through the
soul, to purify or to destroy!
Old histories tell us, that the great Emperor Charlemagne stamped
his edicts with the hilt of his sword. The greater Emperor, Death,
stamps his with the blade; and they are signed and executed with the
same stroke. Flemming received that night a letter from Heidelberg,
which told him, that Emma of Ilmenau was dead. The fate of this poor
girl affected him deeply; and he said in his heart;
"Father in Heaven! Why was the lot of this weak and erring child
so hard! What had she done, to be so tempted in her weakness, and
perish? Why didst thou suffer her gentle affections to lead her thus
astray?"
And, through the silence of the awful midnight, the voice of an
avalanche answered from the distant mountains, and seemed to
say;
"Peace! peace! Why dost thou question God's providence!"
CHAPTER VII. TAKE CARE!
Fair is the valley of Lauterbrunnen with its green meadows and
overhanging cliffs. The ruined castle of Unspunnen stands like an
armed warder at the gate of the enchanted land. In calm serenity the
snowy mountains rise beyond. Fairer than the Rock of Balmarusa, you
frowning precipice looks down upon us; and, from the topmost cliff,
the white pennon of the Brook of Dust shimmers and waves in the
sunny air!
It was a bright, beautiful morning after nightrain. Every dewdrop
and raindrop had a whole heaven within it; and so had the heart of
Paul Flemming, as, with Mrs. Ashburton and her dark-eyed daughter,
he drove up the Valley of Lauter-brunnen,--the Valley of
Fountains-Only.
"How beautiful the Jungfrau looks this morning!" exclaimed he,
looking at Mary Ashburton.
She thought he meant the mountain, and assented. But he meant her
likewise.
"And the mountains, beyond," he continued; "the Monk and the
Silver-horn, the Wetter-horn the Schreck-horn, and the Schwarz-horn,
all those sublime apostles of Nature, whose sermons are avalanches!
Did you ever behold anything more grand!"
"O yes. Mont Blanc is more grand, when you behold it from the
hills opposite. It was there that I was most moved by the
magnificence of Swiss scenery. It was a morning like this; and the
clouds, that were hovering about on their huge, shadowy wings, made
the scene only the more magnificent. Before me lay the whole
panorama of the Alps; pine forests standing dark and solemn at the
base of the mountains; and half-way up a veil of mist; above which
rose the snowy summits, and sharp needles of rock, which seemed to
float in the air, like a fairy world. Then the glaciersstood on
either side, winding down through the mountain ravines; and, high
above all, rose the white, dome-like summit of Mont Blanc. And ever
and anon from the shroud of mist came the awful sound of an
avalanche, and a continual roar, as of the wind through a forest of
pines, filled the air. It was the roar of the Arve and Aveiron,
breaking from their icy fountains. Then the mists began to pass
away; and it seemed as if the whole firmament were rolling together.
It recalled to my mind that sublime passage in the Apocalypse; 'I
saw a great white throne; and him that sat thereon; before whose
face the heavens and the earth fled away, and found no place!' O, I
cannot believe that upon this earth there is a more magnificent
scene."
"It must be grand, indeed," replied Flemming. "And those mighty
glaciers,--huge monsters with bristling crests, creeping down into
the valley! for it is said they really move."
"Yes; it filled me with a strange sensation of awe to think of
this. They seemed to me like the dragons of Northern Romance, which
come down from the mountains and devour whole villages. A little
hamlet in Chamouni was once abandoned by its inhabitants, terrified
at the approach of the icy dragon. But is it possible you have never
been at Chamouni?
"Never. The great marvel still remains unseen by me."
"Then how can you linger here so long? Were I in your place I
would not lose an hour."
These words passed over the opening blossoms of hope in the soul
of Flemming, like a cold wind over the flowers in spring-time. He
bore it as best he could, and changed the subject.
I do not mean to describe the Valley of Lauterbrunnen, nor the
bright day passed there. I know that my gentle reader is blessed
with the divine gift of a poetic fancy; and can see already how the
mountains rise, and the torrents fall, and the sweet valley lies
between; and how, along the dusty road, the herdsman blows his horn,
and travellers come and go in charabans, like Punch and Judy in a
show-box. He knows already how romantic ladies sketch romantic
scenes; while sweet gentlemen gather sweet flowers; and how cold
meat tastes under the shadow of trees, and how time flies when we
are in love, and the beloved one near. One little incident I musof
May-flowers, and a light streamed through the shadowy forest and
gleamed upon the lake; and the Student Hieronymus pressed the dear
name to his lips and exclaimed with streaming eyes; 'O, scorn me as
thou wilt, still, still will I love thee; and thy name shall
irradiate the gloom of my life, and make the waters of Oblivion
smile!' And the name was no longer Hermione, but was changed to
Mary; and the Student Hieronymus--is lying at your feet! O, gentle
Lady!
'I did hear you talk
Far above singing; after you were gone
I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched
What stirred it so! Alas! I found it love."
CHAPTER IX. A TALK ON THE STAIRS.
No! I will not describe that scene; nor how pale the stately lady
sat on the border of the green, sunny meadow! The hearts of some
women tremble like leaves at every breath of love which reaches
them, and then are still again. Others, like the ocean, are moved
only by the breath of a storm, and not so easily lulled to rest. And
such was the proud heart of Mary Ashburton. It had remained unmoved
by the presence of this stranger; and the sound of his footsteps and
his voice excited in it no emotion. He had deceived himself!
Silently they walked homeward through the green meadow. The very
sunshine was sad; and the rising wind, through the old ruin above
them, sounded in his ears like a hollow laugh!
Flemming went straight to his chamber. On the way, he passed the
walnut trees under which he had first seen the face of Mary
Ashburton. Involuntarily he closed his eyes. They were full of
tears. O, there are places in this fair world, which we never wish
to see again, however dear they may be to us! The towers of the old
Franciscan convent never looked so gloomily as then, though the
bright summer sun was shining full upon them.
In his chamber he found Berkley. He was looking out of the
window, whistling.
"This evening I leave Interlachen forever," said Flemming, rather
abruptly. Berkley stared.
"Indeed! Pray what is the matter? You look as pale as a
ghost!"
"And have good reason to look pale," replied Flemming bitterly.
"Hoffmann says, in one of his note-books, that, on the eleventh of
March, at half past eight o'clock, precisely, he was an ass. That is
what I was this morning at half past ten o'clock, precisely, and am
now, and I suppose always shall be."
He tried to laugh, but could not. He then related to Berkley the
whole story, from beginning to end.
"This is a miserable piece of business!" exclaimed Berkley, when
he had finished. "Strange enough! And yet I have long ceased to
marvel at the caprices of women. Did not Pan captivate the chaste
Diana? Did not Titania love Nick Bottom, with his ass's head? Do you
think that maidens' eyes are no longer touched with the juice of
love-in-idleness! Take my word for it, she is in love with somebody
else. There must be some reason for this. No; women never have any
reasons, except their will. But never mind. Keep a stout heart. Care
killed a cat. After all,--what is she? Who is she? Only a--"
"Hush! hush," exclaimed Flemming, in great excitement. "Not one
word more, I beseech you. Do not think to console me, by
depreciating her. She is very dear to me still; a beautiful,
high-minded, noble woman."
"Yes," answered Berkley; "that is the waywith you all, you young
men. You see a sweet face, or a something, you know not what, and
flickering reason says, Good night; amen to common sense. The
imagination invests the beloved object with a thousand superlative
charms; furnishes her with all the purple and fine linen, all the
rich apparel and furniture, of human nature. I did the same when I
was young. I was once as desperately in love as you are now; and
went through all the
'Delicious deaths, soft exhalations
Of soul; dear and divine annihilations,
A thousand unknown rites
Of joys, and rarified delights.'
I adored and was rejected. 'You are in love with certain
attributes,' said the lady. 'Damn your attributes, Madam,' said I;
'I know nothing of attributes.' 'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you
have been drinking.' So we parted. She was married afterwards to
another, who knew something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen
her once since, and only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I
hate a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am she did not marry me.
One of these days, you will be glad you have been rejected. Take my
word for it."
"All that does not prevent my lot from being a very melancholy
one!" said Flemming sadly.
"O, never mind the lot," cried Berkley laughing, "so long as you
don't get Lot's wife. If the cucumber is bitter, throw it away, as
the philosopher Marcus Antoninus says, in his Meditations. Forget
her, and all will be as if you had not known her."
"I shall never forget her," replied Flemming, rather solemnly.
"Not my pride, but my affections, are wounded; and the wound is too
deep ever to heal. I shall carry it with me always. I enter no more
into the world, but will dwell only in the world of my own thoughts.
All great and unusual occurrences, whether of joy or sorrow, lift us
above this earth; and we should do well always to preserve this
elevation. Hitherto I have not done so. But now I will no more
descend; I will sit apart and above the world, with my mournful, yet
holy thoughts."
"Whew! You had better go into society; the whirl and delirium
will cure you in a week. If you find a lady, who pleases you very
much, and you wish to marry her, and she will not listen to such a
horrid thing, I see but one remedy, which is to find another, who
pleases you more, and who will listen to it."
"No, my friend; you do not understand my character," said
Flemming, shaking his head. "I love this woman with a deep, and
lasting affection. I shall never cease to love her. This may be
madness in me; but so it is. Alas and alas! Paracelsus of old wasted
life in trying to discover its elixir, which after all turned out to
be alcohol; and instead of being made immortal upon earth, he died
drunk on the floor of a tavern. The like happens to many of us. We
waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into
love-potions, which after all do not immortalize, butonly intoxicate
us. By Heaven! we are all of us mad."
"But are you sure the case is utterly hopeless?"
"Utterly! utterly!"
"And yet I perceive you have not laid aside all hope. You still
flatter yourself, that the lady's heart may change. The great secret
of happiness consists not in enjoying, but in renouncing. But it is
hard, very hard. Hope has as many lives as a cat or a king. I dare
say you have heard the old Italian proverb, 'The King never dies.'
But perhaps you have never heard, that, at the court of Naples,
where the dead body of a monarch lies in state, his dinner is
carried up to him as usual, and the court physician tastes it, to
see that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear it out
again, saying 'The King does not dine to-day.' Hope in our souls is
King; and we also say, 'The King never dies.' Even when in reality
he lies dead within us, in a kind of solemn mockery we offer him his
accustomed food, but are constrainedto say, 'The King does not dine
to-day.' It must be an evil day, indeed, when a king of Naples has
no heart for his dinner! but you yourself are a proof, that the King
never dies. You are feeding your King, although you say he is
dead."
"To show you, that I do not wish to cherish hope," replied
Flemming, I shall leave Interlachen to-morrow morning. I am going to
the Tyrol."
"You are right," said Berkley; "there is nothing so good for
sorrow as rapid motion in the open air. I shall go with you; though
probably your conversation will not be very various; nothing but
Edward and Kunigunde."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Go to Berlin, and you will find out. However, jesting apart, I
will do all I can to cheer you, and make you forget the Dark Ladie,
and this untoward accident."
"Accident!" said Flemming. "This is no accident, but God's
Providence, which brought us together, to punish me for my
sins."
"O, my friend," interrupted Berkley, "if you see the finger of
Providence so distinctly in every act of your life, you will end by
thinking yourself an Apostle and Envoy Extraordinary. I see nothing
so very uncommon in what has happened to you."
"What! not when our souls are so akin to each other! When we
seemed so formed to be together,--to be one!"
"I have often observed," replied Berkley coldly, "that those who
are of kindred souls, rarely wed together; almost as rarely as those
who are akin by blood. There seems, indeed, to be such a thing as
spiritual incest. Therefore, mad lover, do not think to persuade
thyself and thy scornful lady, that you have kindred souls; but
rather the contrary; that you are much unlike; and each wanting in
those qualities which most mark and distinguish the other. Trust me,
thy courtship will then be more prosperous. But good morning. I must
prepare for this sudden journey."
On the following morning, Flemming and Berkleystarted on their
way to Innsbruck, like Huon of Bordeaux and Scherasmin on their way
to Babylon. Berkley's self-assumed duty was to console his
companion; a duty which he performed like an old Spanish Matadora, a
woman whose business was to attend the sick, and put her elbow into
the stomach of the dying to shorten their agony.
BOOK IV.
Epigraph
"Mortal, they softly say,
Peace to thy heart!
We too, yes, mortal,
Have been as thou art;
Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed,
Seeing in part,
Tried, troubled, tempted,--
Sustained,--as thou art."
CHAPTER I. A MISERERE.
In the Orlando Innamorato, Malagigi, the necromancer, puts all
the company to sleep by reading to them from a book. Some books have
this power of themselves and need no necromancer. Fearing, gentle
reader, that mine may be of this kind, I have provided these
introductory chapters, from time to time, like stalls or Misereres
in a church, with flowery canopies and poppy-heads over them, where
thou mayest sit down and sleep.
No,--the figure is not a bad one. This book does somewhat
resemble a minster, in the Romanesque style, with pinnacles, and
flying buttresses, and roofs,
"Gargoyled with greyhounds, and with many lions
Made of fine gold, with divers sundry dragons."
You step into its shade and coolness out of the hot streets of
life; a mysterious light streams through the painted glass of the
marigold windows, staining the cusps and crumpled leaves of the
window-shafts, and the cherubs and holy-water-stoups below. Here and
there is an image of the Virgin Mary; and other images, "in divers
vestures, called weepers, stand in housings made about the tomb";
and, above all, swells the vast dome of heaven, with its
star-mouldings, and the flaming constellations, like the mosaics in
the dome of St. Peter's. Have you not heard funeral psalms from the
chauntry? Have you not heard the sound of church-bells, as I
promised; mysterious sounds from the Past and Future, as from the
belfries outside the cathedral; even such a mournful, mellow, watery
peal of bells, as is heard sometimes at sea, from cities afar off
below the horizon?
I know not how this Romanesque, and at times flamboyant, style of
architecture may please thecritics. They may wish, perhaps, that I
had omitted some of my many ornaments, my arabesques, and roses, and
fantastic spouts, and Holy-Roods and Gallilee-steeples. But would it
then have been Romanesque?
But perhaps, gentle reader, thou art one of those, who think the
days of Romance gone forever. Believe it not! O, believe it not!
Thou hast at this moment in thy heart as sweet a romance as was ever
written. Thou art not less a woman, because thou dost not sit aloft
in a tower, with a tassel-gentle on thy wrist! Thou art not less a
man, because thou wearest no hauberk, nor mail-sark, and goest not
on horseback after foolish adventures! Nay, nay! Every one has a
Romance in his own heart. All that has blessed or awed the world
lies there; and
"The oracle within him, that which lives,
He must invoke and question,--not dead books,
Not ordinances, not mould-rotten papers."
Sooner or later some passages of every one's romance must be
written, either in words or actions. They will proclaim the truth;
for Truth is thought, which has assumed its appropriate garments,
either of words or actions; while Falsehood is thought, which,
disguised in words or actions not its own, comes before the blind
old world, as Jacob came before the patriarch Isaac, clothed in the
goodly raiment of his brother Esau. And the world, like the
patriarch, is often deceived; for, though the voice is Jacob's
voice, yet the hands are the hands of Esau, and the False takes away
the birth-right and the blessing from the True. Hence it is, that
the world so often lifts up its voice and weeps.
That very pleasing and fanciful Chinese Romance, the Shadow in
the Water, ends with the hero's marrying both the heroines. I hope
my gentle reader feels curious to know the end of this Romance,
which is a shadow upon the earth; and see whether there be any
marriage at all in it.
That is the very point I am now thinking of, as I sit here at my
pleasant chamber window, and enjoy the balmy air of a bright summer
morning, and watch the motions of the golden robin, that sits on its
swinging nest on the outermost, pendulous branch of yonder elm. The
broad meadows and the steel-blue river remind me of the meadows of
Unterseen, and the river Aar; and beyond them rise magnificent
snow-white clouds, piled up like Alps. Thus the shades of Washington
and William Tell seem to walk together on these Elysian Fields; for
it was here, that in days long gone, our great Patriot dwelt; and
yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy Alps, that they remind me
irresistibly of the Swiss. Noble examples of a high purpose and a
fixed will! Do they not move, Hyperion-like on high? Were they not,
likewise, sons of Heaven and Earth?
Nothing can be more lovely than these summer mornings; nor than
the southern window at which I sit and write, in this old mansion,
which is like an Italian Villa. But O, this
lassitude,--thisweariness,--when all around me is so bright! I have
this morning a singular longing for flowers; a wish to stroll among
the roses and carnations, and inhale their breath, as if it would
revive me. I wish I knew the man, who called flowers "the fugitive
poetry of Nature." From this distance, from these scholastic
shades,--from this leafy, blossoming, and beautiful Cambridge, I
stretch forth my hand to grasp his, as the hand of a poet!--Yes;
this morning I would rather stroll with him among the gay flowers,
than sit here and write. I feel so weary!
Old men with their staves, says the Spanish poet, are ever
knocking at the door of the grave. But I am not old. The Spanish
poet might have included the young also.--No matter! Courage, and
forward! The Romance must be finished; and finished soon.
O thou poor authorling! Reach a little deeper into the human
heart! Touch those strings,--touch those deeper strings, and more
boldly, or the notes will die away like whispers, and no earshall
hear them, save thine own! And, to cheer thy solitary labor,
remember, that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers
upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark
waters of Oblivion. They are out of sight; but without them no
superstructure can stand secure!
And now, Reader, since the sermon is over, and we are still
sitting here in this Miserere, let us read aloud a page from the old
parchment manuscript on the lettern before us; let us sing it
through these dusky aisles, like a Gregorian Chant, and startle the
sleeping congregation!
"I have read of the great river Euripus, which ebbeth and floweth
seven times a day, and with such violence, that it carrieth ships
upon it with full sail, directly against the wind. Seven times in an
hour ebbeth and floweth rash opinion, in the torrent of indiscreet
and troublesome apprehensions; marble by the hand of man, but formed in dust, by the hand
of God. God's peace be with them. No one comes to them now, to hold
them by the hand, and with delicate fingers smooth their hair. They
heed no more the blandishments of earthly friendship. They need us
not, however much we may need them. And yet they silently await our
coming.
Beautiful is that season of life, when we can say, in the
language of Scripture, "Thou hast the dew of thy youth." But of
these flowers Death gathers many. He places them upon his bosom, and
his form becomes transformed into somethingless terrific than
before. We learn to gaze and shudder not; for he carries in his arms
the sweet blossoms of our earthly hopes. We shall see them all
again, blooming in a happier land.
Yes, Death brings us again to our friends. They are waiting for
us, and we shall not live long. They have gone before us, and are
like the angels in heaven. They stand upon the borders of the grave
to welcome us, with the countenance of affection, which they wore on
earth; yet more lovely, more radiant, more spiritual! O, he spake
well who said, that graves are the foot-prints of angels.
Death has taken thee, too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth. He
has placed thee upon his bosom, and his stern countenance wears a
smile. The far country, toward which we journey, seems nearer to us,
and the way less dark; for thou hast gone before, passing so quietly
to thy rest, that day itself dies not more calmly!
It was in an hour of blessed communion with the souls of the
departed, that the sweet poet Henry Vaughan wrote those few lines,
whichhave made death lovely, and his own name immortal!
"They are all gone into a world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
"It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which the hill is dressed,
After the sun's remove.
"I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days,
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmerings and decays.
"O holy hope, and high humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and ye have showed them me,
To kindle my cold love.
"Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark!
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
"He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know,
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair field or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
"And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams,
Call to the soul, when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep!"
Such were Flemming's thoughts, as he stood among the tombs at
evening in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. A holy calm stole over
him. The fever of his heart was allayed. He had a moment's rest from
pain; and went back to his chamber in peace. Whence came this holy
calm, this long-desired tranquillity? He knew not; yet the place
seemed consecrated. He resolved to linger there, beside the lake,
which was a Pool of Bethesda for him; and let Berkley go on alone to
the baths of Ischel. He would wait for him there in the solitude of
Saint Gilgen. Long after they had parted for the night, he sat in
his chamber, and thought of what he had suffered, and enjoyedthe
silence within and without. Hour after hour, slipped by unheeded, as
he sat lost in his reverie. At length, his candle sank in its
socket, gave one flickering gleam, and expired with a sob. This
aroused him.
He went to the window, and peered out into the dark night. It was
very late. Twice already since midnight had the great pulpit-orator
Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the
hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry, and still went on
with his sermon, thundering downward to the congregation in the
churchyard and in the village. But they heard him not. They were all
asleep in their narrow pews, namely, in their beds and in their
graves. Soon afterward the cock crew; and the cloudy heaven, like
the apostle, who denied his Lord, wept bitterly.
CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG.
The morning is lovely beyond expression. The heat of the sun is
great; but a gentle wind cools the air. Birds never sang more loud
and clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and on the table,
rose, geranium, and the delicate crimson cactus, are all so
beautiful, that we think the German poet right, when he calls the
flowers "stars in the firmament of the earth." Out of doors all is
quiet. Opposite the window stands the village schoolhouse. There are
two parasite trees, with their outspread branches nailed against the
white walls, like the wings of culprit kites. There the rods grow.
Under them, on a bench at the door, sit school-girls; and barefoot
urchins in breeches are spelling out their lessons. The clock
strikestwelve, and one by one they disappear, and go into the hive,
like bees at the sound of a brass pan. At the door of the next house
sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade; and in front of her is an
aqueduct pouring its cool, clear water into a rough wooden trough. A
travelling carriage without horses, stands at the inn-door, and a
postilion in red jacket is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue
woollen stockings and a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still
further a cluster of houses and the village church. They are
repairing the belfry and the bulbous steeple. A little farther, over
the roofs of the houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's Lake. Water so
bright and beautiful hardly flows elsewhere. Green, and blue, and
silver-white run into each other, with almost imperceptible change,
like the streaks on the sides of a mackerel. And above are the
pinnacles of the mountains; some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped,
and others bold, and broad, and dark with pines.
Such was the scene, which Paul Flemming beheldfrom his window a
few mornings after Berkley's departure. The quiet of the place had
soothed him. He had become more calm. His heart complained less
loudly in the holy village silence, as we are wont to lower our
voices when those around us speak in whispers. He began to feel at
times an interest in the lowly things around him. The face of the
landscape pleased him, but more than this the face of the poor woman
who sat knitting in the shade. It was a pale, meek countenance, with
more delicacy in its features than is usual among peasantry. It wore
also an expression of patient suffering. As he was looking at her, a
deformed child came out of the door and hung upon her knees. She
caressed him affectionately. It was her child; in whom she beheld
her own fair features distorted and hardly to be recognised, as one
sometimes sees his face reflected from the bowl of a spoon.
The child's deformity and the mother's tenderness interested the
feelings of Flemming. The landlady told him something of the poor
woman's history. She was the widow of a blacksmith, who had died
soon after their marriage. But she survived to become a mother, just
as, in oaks, immediately after fecundation, the male flower fades
and falls, while the female continues and ripens into perfect fruit.
Alas! her child was deformed. Yet she looked upon him with eyes of
maternal fondness and pity, loving him still more for his deformity.
And in her heart she said, as the Mexicans say to their new-born
offspring, "Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure,
and hold thy peace." Though poor, she was not entirely destitute;
for her husband had left her, beside the deformed child, a life
estate in a tomb in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. During the week
she labored for other people, and on Sundays for herself, by going
to church and reading the Bible. On one of the blank leaves she had
recorded the day of her birth, and that of her child's, likewise her
marriage and her husband's death. Thus she lived, poor, patient and
resigned. Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the
crown of thorns and the cross of Christ. Her ideas of Heaven were
few and simple. She rejected the doctrine that it was a place of
constant activity, and not of repose, and believed, that, when she
at length reached it, she should work no more, but sit always in a
clean white apron, and sing psalms.
As Flemming sat meditating on these things, he paid new homage in
his heart to the beauty and excellence of the female character. He
thought of the absent and the dead; and said, with tears in his
eyes;
"Shall I thank God for the green Summer, and the mild air, and
the flowers, and the stars, and all that makes this world so
beautiful, and not for the good and beautiful beings I have known in
it? Has not their presence been sweeter to me than flowers? Are they
not higher and holier than the stars? Are they not more to me than
all things else?"
Thus the morning passed away in musings; andin the afternoon,
when Flemming was preparing to go down to the lake, as his custom
was, a carriage drew up before the door, and, to his great
astonishment, out jumped Berkley. The first thing he did was to give
the Postmaster, who stood near the door, a smart cut with his whip.
The sufferer gently expostulated, saying,
"Pray, Sir, don't; I am lame."
Whereupon Berkley desisted, and began instead to shake the
Postmaster's wife by the shoulders, and order his dinner in English.
But all this was done so good-naturedly, and with such a rosy,
laughing face, that no offence was taken.
"So you have returned much sooner than you intended;" said
Flemming, after the first friendly salutations.
"Yes," replied Berkley; "I got tired of Ischel,--very tired. I
did not find the friends there, whom I expected. Now I am going back
to Salzburg, and then to Gastein. There I shall certainly find them.
You must go with me."
Flemming declined the invitation; and proposedto Berkley, that he
should join him in his excursion on the lake.
"You shall hear the grand echo of the Falkenstein," said he, "and
behold the scene of the Bridal Tragedy; and then we will go on as
far as the village of Saint Wolfgang, which you have not yet seen,
except across the lake."
"Well, this afternoon I devote to you; for to-morrow we part once
more, and who knows when we shall meet again?"
They went down to the water's side without farther delay; and,
taking a boat with two oars, struck across an elbow of the lake
towards a barren rock by the eastern shore, from which a small white
monument shone in the sun.
"That monument," said one of the boatmen, a stout young lad in
leather breeches, "was built by a butcher, to the glory of Saint
Wolfgang, who saved him from drowning. He was one day riding an ox
to market along the opposite bank; when the animal taking fright,
sprang into the water, and swam over to this place, with the butcher
on his back."
"And do you think he could have done this," asked Berkley; "if
Saint Wolfgang had not helped him?"
"Of course not!" answered leather-breeches; and the Englishman
laughed.
From this point they rowed along under the shore to a low
promontory, upon which stood another monument, commemorating a more
tragical event.
"This is the place I was speaking of," said Flemming, as the
boatmen rested on their oars. "The melancholy and singular event it
commemorates happened more than two centuries ago. There was a
bridal party here upon the ice one winter; and in the midst of the
dance the ice broke, and the whole merry company were drowned
together, except the fiddlers, who were sitting on the shore."
They looked in silence at the monument, and at the blue quiet
water, under which the bones of the dancers lay buried, hand in
hand. The monument is of stone, painted white, with an
over-hangingroof to shelter it from storms. In a niche in front is a
small image of the Saviour, in a sitting posture; and an
inscription, upon a marble tablet below, says that it was placed
there by Longinus Walther and his wife Barbara Juliana von Hainberg;
themselves long since peacefully crumbled to dust, side by side in
some churchyard.
"That was breaking the ice with a vengeance!" said Berkley, as
they pushed out into the lake again; and ere long they were floating
beneath the mighty precipice of Falkenstein; a steep wall of rock,
crowned with a chapel and a hermitage, where in days of old lived
the holy Saint Wolfgang. It is now haunted only by an echo, so
distinct and loud, that one might imagine the ghost of the departed
saint to be sitting there, and repeating the voices from below, not
word by word, but sentence by sentence, as if he were passing them
up to the recording angel.
"Ho! ho! ho!" shouted Berkley; and the sound seemed to strike the
wall of stone, like the flapping of steel plates; "Ho! ho! ho! How
areyou to-day, Saint Wolfgang! You infernal old rascal! How is the
Frau von Wolfgang!--God save great George the King! Damn your eyes!
Hold your tongue! Ho! ho! ha! ha! hi!"
And the words were recorded above; and a voice repeated them with
awful distinctness in the blue depths overhead, and Flemming felt in
his inmost soul the contrast between the holy heavens, and the
mockery of laughter, and the idle words, which fall back from the
sky above us and soil not its purity.
In half an hour they were at the village of Saint Wolfgang,
threading a narrow street, above which the roofs of quaint,
picturesque old houses almost met. It led them to a Gothic church; a
magnificent one for a village;--in front of which was a small court,
shut in by Italian-looking houses, with balconies, and flowers at
the windows. Here a bronze fountain of elaborate workmanship was
playing in the shade. On its summit stood an image of the patron
Saint of the village; and, running round the under lip of the
water-basin below, they read this inscription in old German
rhymes;
"I am in the honor of Saint Wolfgang raised. Abbot Wolfgang Habel
of Emensee, he hath made me for the use and delight of poor pilgrim
wight. Neither gold nor wine hath he; at this water shall he merry
be. In the year of the Lord fifteen hundred and fifteen, hath the
work completed been. God be praised!"
As they were deciphering the rude characters of this pious
inscription, a village priest came down a high flight of steps from
the parsonage near the church, and courteously saluted the
strangers. After returning the salutation, the mad Englishman,
without preface, asked him how many natural children were annually
born in the parish. The question seemed to astonish the good father,
but he answered it civilly, as he did several other questions, which
Flemming thought rather indiscreet, to say the least.
"You will excuse our curiosity," said he to the priest, by way of
apology. "We are strangersfrom distant countries. My friend is an
Englishman and I an American."
Berkley, however, was not so easily silenced. After a few
moments' conversation he broke out into most audacious Latin, in
which the only words clearly intelligible were;
"Plurimum reverende, in Christo religiosissime, ac clarissime
Domine, necnon et amice observandissime! Petrus sic est locutus;
'Nec argentum mihi, nec aurum est; sed quod habeo, hoc tibi do;
surge et ambula.'"
He seemed to be speaking of the fountain. The priest answered
meekly,
"Non intellexi, Domine!"
But Berkley continued with great volubility to speak of his being
a stranger in the land, and all men being strangers upon earth, and
hoping to meet the good priest hereafter in the kingdom of Heaven.
The priest seemed confounded, and abashed. Through the mist of a
strange pronunciation he could recognise only here and there
afamiliar word. He took out his snuff-box; and tried to quote a
passage from Saint Paul;
"Ut dixit Sanctus Paulus; qui bene facit--"
Here his memory failed him, or, as the French say, he was at the
end of his Latin, and, stretching forth his long forefinger, he
concluded in German;
"Yes;--I don't--so clearly remember--what he did say."
The Englishman helped him through with a moral phrase; and then
pulling off his hat, exclaimed very solemnly;
"Vale, domine doctissime et reverendissime!"
And the Dominie, as if pursued by a demon, made a sudden and
precipitate retreat down a flight of steps into the street.
"There!" said Berkley laughing, "I beat him at his own weapons.
What do you say of my Latin?"
"I say of it," replied Flemming, "what Holophernes said of Sir
Nathaniel's; 'Priscian a little scratched; 't will serve.' I think I
have heardbetter. But what a whim! I thought I should have laughed
aloud."
They were still sitting by the bronze fountain when the priest
returned, accompanied by a short man, with large feet, and a long
blue surtout, so greasy, that it reminded one of Polilla's in the
Spanish play, which was lined with slices of pork. His countenance
was broad and placid, but his blue eyes gleamed with a wild,
mysterious, sorrowful expression. Flemming thought the Latin contest
was to be renewed, with more powder and heavier guns. He was
mistaken. The stranger saluted him in German, and said, that, having
heard he was from America, he had come to question him about that
distant country, for which he was on the point of embarking. There
was nothing peculiar in his manner, nor in the questions he asked,
nor the remarks he made. They were the usual questions and remarks
about cities and climate, and sailing the sea. At length Flemming
asked him the object of his journey to America. Thestranger came
close up to him, and lowering his voice, said very solemnly;
"That holy man, Frederick Baraga, missionary among the Indians at
Lacroix, on Lake Superior, has returned to his father-land, Krain;
and I am chosen by Heaven to go forth as Minister Extraordinary of
Christ, to unite all nations and people in one church!"
Flemming almost started at the singular earnestness, with which
he uttered these words; and looked at him attentively, thinking to
see the face of a madman. But the modest, unassuming look of that
placid countenance was unchanged; only in the eyes burned a
mysterious light, as if candles had been lighted in the brain, to
magnify the daylight there.
"It is truly a high vocation," said he in reply. "But are you
sure, that this is no hallucination? Are you certain, that you have
been chosen by Heaven for this great work?"
"I am certain," replied the German, in a tone of great calmness
and sincerity; "and, if Saint Peter and Saint Paul should come down
from Heaven to assure me of it, my faith would be no stronger than
it now is. It has been declared to me by many signs and wonders. I
can no longer doubt, nor hesitate. I have already heard the voice of
the Spirit, speaking to me at night; and I know that I am an
apostle; and chosen for this work."
Such was the calm enthusiasm with which he spoke, that Flemming
could not choose but listen. He felt interested in this strange
being. There was something awe-inspiring in the spirit that
possessed him. After a short pause he continued;
"If you wish to know who I am, I can tell you in few words. I
think you will not find the story without interest."
He then went on to relate the circumstances recorded in the
following chapter.
CHAPTER VII. THE STORY OF BROTHER BERNARDUS.
"I was born in the city of Stein, in the land of Krain. My pious
mother Gertrude sang me psalms and spiritual songs in childhood; and
often, when I awoke in the night, I saw her still sitting, patiently
at her work by the stove, and heard her singing those hymns of
heaven, or praying in the midnight darkness when her work was done.
It was for me she prayed. Thus, from my earliest childhood, I
breathed the breath of pious aspirations. Afterwards I went to
Laybach as a student of theology; and after the usual course of
study, was ordained a priest. I went forth to the care of souls; my
own soul filled with the faith, that ere long all people would be
united in one church. Yet attimes my heart was heavy, to behold how
many nations there are who have not heard of Christ; and how those,
who are called Christians, are divided into numberless sects, and
how among these are many who are Christians in name only. I
determined to devote myself to the great work of the one church
universal; and for this purpose, to give myself wholly up to the
study of the Evangelists and the Fathers. I retired to the
Benedictine cloister of Saint Paul in the valley of Lavant. The
father-confessor in the nunnery of Laak, where I then lived,
strengthened me in this resolve. I had long walked with this angel
of God in a human form, and his parting benediction sank deep into
my soul. The Prince-Abbot Berthold, of blessed memory, was then head
of the Benedictine convent. He received me kindly, and led me to the
library; where I gazed with secret rapture on the vast folios of the
Christian Fathers, from which, as from an arsenal, I was to draw the
weapons of holy warfare. In the study of these, the year of my
noviciate passed. I becamea Franciscan friar; and took the name of
Brother Bernardus. Yet my course of life remained unchanged. I
seldom left the cloister; but sat in my cell, and pored over those
tomes of holy wisdom. About this time the aged confessor in Laak
departed this life. His death was made known to me in a dream. It
must have been after midnight, when I thought that I came into the
church, which was brilliantly lighted up. The dead body of the
venerable saint was brought in, attended by a great crowd. It seemed
to me, that I must go up into the pulpit and pronounce his funeral
oration; and, as I ascended the stairs, the words of my text came
into my mind; 'Blessed in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints.' My funeral sermon ended in a strain of exultation; and I
awoke with 'Amen!' upon my lips. A few days afterwards, I heard that
on that night the old man died. After this event I became restless
and melancholy. I strove in vain to drive from me my gloomy
thoughts. I could no longer study. I was no longer contented in the
cloister. I even thought of leaving it.
"One night I had gone to bed early, according to my custom, and had
fallen asleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a bright and wonderful
light, which shone all about me, and filled me with heavenly
rapture. Shortly after I heard a voice, which pronounced distinctly
these words, in the Sclavonian tongue; 'Remain in the cloister!' It
was the voice of my departed mother. I was fully awake; yet saw
nothing but the bright light, which disappeared, when the words had
been spoken. Still it was broad daylight in my chamber. I thought I
had slept beyond my usual hour. I looked at my watch. It was just
one o'clock after midnight. Suddenly the daylight vanished, and it
was dark. In the morning I arose, as if new-born, through the
wonderful light, and the words of my mother's voice. It was no
dream. I knew it was the will of God that I should stay; and I could
again give myself up to quiet study. I read the whole Bible through
once more in theoriginal text; and went on with the Fathers, in
chronological order. Often, after the apparition of the light, I
awoke at the same hour; and though I heard no voice and saw no
light, yet was refreshed with heavenly consolation.
"Not long after this an important event happened in the cloister.
In the absence of the deacon of the Abbey, I was to preach the
Thanksgiving sermon of Harvest-home. During the week the
Prince-Abbot Berthold gave up the ghost; and my sermon became at
once a Thanks-giving and Funeral Sermon. Perhaps it may not be
unworthy of notice, that I was thus called to pronounce the burial
discourse over the body of the last reigning, spiritual Prince Abbot
in Germany. He was a man of God, and worthy of this honor.
"One year after this event, I was appointed Professor of Biblical
Hermeneutics in Klagenfurt, and left the Abbey forever. In
Klagenfurt I remained ten years, dwelling in the same house, and
eating at the same table, with seventeen other professors. Their
conversation naturally suggestednew topics of study, and brought to
my notice books, which I had never before seen. One day I heard at
table, that Maurus Cappellari, a monk of Camaldoli, had been elected
Pope, under the name of Gregory Sixteenth. He was spoken of as a
very learned man, who had written many books. At this time I was a
firm believer in the Pope's infallibility; and when I heard these
books mentioned, there arose in me an irresistible longing to read
them. I inquired for them; but they were nowhere to be had. At
length I heard, that his most important work, The Triumph of the
Holy See, and of the Church, had been translated into German and
published in Augsburg. Ere long the precious volume was in my hands.
I began to read it with the profoundest awe. The farther I read, the
more my wonder grew. The subject was of the deepest interest to me.
I could not lay the book out of my hand, till I had read it through
with the closest attention. Now at length my eyes were opened. I saw
before me a monk, who had been educated in an Italian cloister; who,
indeed, had read much, and yet only what was calculated to
strengthen him in the prejudices of his childhood; and who had
entirely neglected those studies upon which a bishop should most
rely, in order to work out the salvation of man. I perceived at the
same time, that this was the strongest instrument for battering down
the walls, which separate Christian from Christian. I saw, though as
yet dimly, the way in which the union of Christians in the one true
church was to be accomplished. I knew not whether to be most
astonished at my own blindness, that, in all my previous studies, I
had not perceived, what the reading of this single book made
manifest to me; or at the blindness of the Pope, who had undertaken
to justify such follies, without perceiving that at the same moment
he was himself lying in fatal error. But since I have learned more
thoroughly the ways of the Lord, I am now no more astonished at
this, but pray only to Divine providence, who so mysteriously
prepares all people to be united in one true church. I no longer
believed in the Pope's infallibility; nay, I believed even, that, to
the great injury of humanity, he lay in fatal error. I felt,
moreover, that now the time had fully come, when I should publicly
show myself, and found in America a parish and a school, and become
the spiritual guide of men, and the schoolmaster of children.
"It was then, and on that account, that I wrote in the Latin
tongue my great work on Biblical Hermeneutics. But in Germany it
cannot be published. The Austrian censor of the press cannot find
time to read it, though I think, that if I have spent so many
laborious days and sleepless nights in writing it, this man ought
likewise to find time enough not only to read it, but to examine all
the grounds of my reasoning, and point out to me any errors, if he
can find any. Notwithstanding, the Spirit gave me no repose, but
urged me ever mightily on to the perfection of my great work.
"One morning I sat writing, under peculiar influences of the
Spirit, upon the Confusion of Tongues, the Division of the People,
and the importance ofthe study of Comparative Philology, in
reference to their union in one church. So wrapped was I in the
thought, that I came late into my lecture-room; and after lecture
returned to my chamber, where I wrote till the clock struck twelve.
At dinner, one of the Professors asked if any one had seen the star,
about which so much was said. The Professor of Physics, said, that
the student Johannes Schminke had come to him in the greatest haste,
and besought him to go out and see the wonderful star; but, being
incredulous about it, he made no haste, and, when they came into the
street, the star had disappeared. When I heard the star spoken of,
my soul was filled with rapture; and a voice within me seemed to
say, 'The great time is approaching; labor unweariedly in thy work.'
I sought out the student; and like Herod, inquired diligently what
time the star appeared. He informed me, that, just as the clock was
striking eight, in the morning, he went out of his house to go to
the college, and saw on the square a crowd looking at a bright star.
It was the veryhour, when I was writing alone in my chamber on the
importance of Comparative Philology in bringing about the union of
all nations. I felt, that my hour had come. Strangely moved, I
walked up and down my chamber. The evening twilight came on. I
lighted my lamp, and drew the green curtains before the windows, and
sat down to read. But hardly had I taken the book into my hand, when
the Spirit began to move me, and urge me then to make my last
decision and resolve. I made a secret vow, that I would undertake
the voyage to America. Suddenly my troubled thoughts were still. An
unwonted rapture filled my heart. I sat and read till the supper
bell rang. They were speaking at table of a red glaring meteor,
which had just been seen in the air, southeast from Klagenfurt; and
had suddenly disappeared with a dull, hollow sound. It was the very
moment at which I had taken my final resolution to leave my native
land. Every great purpose and event of my life, seemed heralded and
attended by divine messengers; the voices of thedead; the bright
morning star, shining in the clear sunshine; and the red meteor in
the evening twilight.
"I now began seriously to prepare for my departure. The chamber I
occupied, had once been the library of a Franciscan convent. Only a
thick wall separated it from the church. In this wall was a niche,
with heavy folding-doors, which had served the Franciscans as a
repository for prohibited books. Here also I kept my papers, and my
great work on Biblical Hermeneutics. The inside of the doors was
covered with horrible caricatures of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and
other great men. I used often to look at them with the deepest
melancholy, when I thought that these great men likewise had labored
upon earth, and fought with Satan in the church. But they were
persecuted, denounced, condemned to die. So perhaps will it be with
me. I thought of this often; and armed myself against the fear of
death. I was in constant apprehension, lest the police should search
my chamber during my absence, and, by examining my papers, discover
my doctrine and designs. But the Spirit said to me; 'Be of good
cheer; I will so blind the eyes of thy enemies, that it shall not
once occur to them to think of thy writings.'
"At length, after many difficulties and temptations of the Devil,
I am on my way to America. Yesterday I took leave of my dearest
friend, Gregory Kuscher, in Hallstadt. He seemed filled with the
Spirit of God, and has wonderfully strengthened me in my purpose.
All the hosts of heaven looked on, and were glad. The old man kissed
me at parting; and I ascended the mountain as if angels bore me up
in their arms. Near the summit, lay a newly fallen avalanche, over
which, as yet, no footsteps had passed. This was my last temptation.
'Ha!' cried I aloud, 'Satan has prepared a snare for me; but I will
conquer him with godly weapons.' I sprang over the treacherous snow,
with greater faith than St. Peter walked the waters of the Lake of
Galilee; and came down the valley, while the mountain peaks yetshone
in the setting sun. God smiles upon me. I go forth, full of hopeful
courage. On Christmas next, I shall excommunicate the Pope."
Saying these words, he slowly and solemnly took his leave, like
one conscious of the great events which await him, and withdrew with
the other priest into the church. Flemming could not smile as
Berkley did; for in the solitary, singular enthusiast, who had just
left them, he saw only another melancholy victim to solitude and
over-labor of the brain; and felt how painful a thing it is, thus to
become unconsciously the alms-man of other men's sympathies, a kind
of blind beggar for the charity of a good wish or a prayer.
The sun was now setting. Silently they floated back to Saint
Gilgen, amid the cool evening shadows. The village clock struck nine
as they landed; and as Berkley was to depart early in the morning,
he went to bed betimes. On bidding Flemming good night he said;
"I shall not see you in the morning; so good bye, and God bless
you. Remember my partingwords. Never mind trifles. In this world a
man must either be anvil or hammer. Care killed a cat!"
"I have heard you say that so often," replied Flemming, laughing,
"that I begin to believe it is true. But I wonder if Care shaved his
left eyebrow, after doing the deed, as the ancient Egyptians used to
do!"
"Aha! now you are sweeping cobwebs from the sky! Good night! Good
night!"
A sorrowful event happened in the neighbourhood that night. The
widow's child died suddenly. "Woe is me!"--thus mourns the childless
mother in one of the funeral songs of Greenland; "Woe is me, that I
should gaze upon thy place and find it vacant! In vain for thee thy
mother dries the sea-drenched garments!" Not in these words, but in
thoughts like these, did the poor mother bewail the death of her
child, thinking mostly of the vacant place, and the daily cares and
solicitudes of maternal love. Flemming saw a light in her chamber,
and shadows moving toand fro, as he stood by the window, gazing into
the starry, silent sky. But he little thought of the awful domestic
tragedy, which was even then enacted behind those thin curtains!
CHAPTER VIII. FOOT-PRINTS OF ANGELS.
It was Sunday morning; and the church bells were all ringing
together. From all the neighbouring villages, came the solemn,
joyful sounds, floating through the sunny air, mellow and faint and
low,--all mingling into one harmonious chime, like the sound of some
distant organ in heaven. Anon they ceased; and the woods, and the
clouds, and the whole village, and the very air itself seemed to
pray, so silent was it everywhere.
Two venerable old men,--high priests and patriarchs were they in
the land,--went up the pulpit stairs, as Moses and Aaron went up
Mount Hor, in the sight of all the congregation,--for the pulpit
stairs were in front, and very high.
Paul Flemming will never forget the sermon he heard that
day,--no, not even if he should live to be as old as he who preached
it. The text was, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It was meant to
console the pious, poor widow, who sat right below him at the foot
of the pulpit stairs, all in black, and her heart breaking. He said
nothing of the terrors of death, nor of the gloom of the narrow
house, but, looking beyond these things, as mere circumstances to
which the imagination mainly gives importance, he told his hearers
of the innocence of childhood upon earth, and the holiness of
childhood in heaven, and how the beautiful Lord Jesus was once a
little child, and now in heaven the spirits of little children
walked with him, and gathered flowers in the fields of Paradise.
Good old man! In behalf of humanity, I thank thee for these
benignant words! And, still more than I, the bereaved mother thanked
thee, and from that hour, though she wept in secret for her child,
yet
"She knew he was with Jesus,
And she asked him not again."
After the sermon, Paul Flemming walked forth alone into the
churchyard. There was no one there, save a little boy, who was
fishing with a pin hook in a grave half full of water. But a few
moments afterward, through the arched gateway under the belfry, came
a funeral procession. At its head walked a priest in white surplice,
chanting. Peasants, old and young, followed him, with burning tapers
in their hands. A young girl carried in her arms a dead child,
wrapped in its little winding sheet. The grave was close under the
wall, by the church door. A vase of holy water stood beside it. The
sexton took the child from the girl's arms, and put it into a
coffin; and, as he placed it in the grave, the girl held over it a
cross, wreathed with roses, and the priest and peasants sang a
funeral hymn. When this was over, the priest sprinkled the grave and
the crowd with holy water; and then they all went into the church,
each one stopping as he passed the grave to throw a handful of earth
into it, and sprinkle it with holy water.
A few moments afterwards, the voice of the priest was heard
saying mass in the church, and Flemming saw the toothless old sexton
treading the fresh earth into the grave of the little child, with
his clouted shoes. He approached him, and asked the age of the
deceased. The sexton leaned a moment on his spade, and shrugging his
shoulders replied;
"Only an hour or two. It was born in the night, and died this
morning early?"
"A brief existence," said Flemming. "The child seems to have been
born only to be buried, and have its name recorded on a wooden
tombstone."
The sexton went on with his work, and made no reply. Flemming
still lingered among the graves, gazing with wonder at the strange
devices, by which man has rendered death horrible and the grave
loathsome.
In the Temple of Juno at Elis, Sleep and his twin-brother Death
were represented as children reposing in the arms of Night. On
various funeral monuments of the ancients the Genius of Death
issculptured as a beautiful youth, leaning on an inverted torch, in
the attitude of repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed. In
such peaceful and attractive forms, did the imagination of ancient
poets and sculptors represent death. And these were men in whose
souls the religion of Nature was like the light of stars, beautiful,
but faint and cold! Strange, that in later days, this angel of God,
which leads us with a gentle hand, into the "Land of the great
departed, into the silent Land," should have been transformed into a
monstrous and terrific thing! Such is the spectral rider on the
white horse;--such the ghastly skeleton with scythe and
hour-glass;--the Reaper, whose name is Death!
One of the most popular themes of poetry and painting in the
Middle Ages, and continuing down even into modern times, was the
Dance of Death. In almost all languages is it written,--the
apparition of the grim spectre, putting a sudden stop to all
business, and leading men away into the "remarkable retirement" of
the grave. Itis written in an ancient Spanish Poem, and painted on a
wooden bridge in Switzerland. The designs of Holbein are well known.
The most striking among them is that, where, from a group of
children sitting round a cottage hearth, Death has taken one by the
hand, and is leading it out of the door. Quietly and unresisting
goes the little child, and in its countenance no grief, but wonder
only; while the other children are weeping and stretching forth
their hands in vain towards their departing brother. A beautiful
design it is, in all save the skeleton. An angel had been better,
with folded wings, and torch inverted!
And now the sun was growing high and warm. A little chapel, whose
door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming to enter and enjoy the
grateful coolness. He went in. There was no one there. The walls
were covered with paintings and sculpture of the rudest kind, and
with a few funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move the
heart to devotion; but in that hour the heart of Flemming was
weak,--weak as a child's. He bowed hisstubborn knees, and wept. And
oh! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how
much of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears,
through which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall
opposite, this singular inscription;
"Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again.
Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the
shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart."
It seemed to him, as if the unknown tenant of that grave had
opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation,
which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a
moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. The stone was rolled
away from the door of his heart; death was no longer there, but an
angel clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more
bleared with tears; and, looking into the bright, morning heaven, he
the hand of the good old man, who sat so serenely amid
the gathering shade of years, and listened to life's curfew-bell,
telling, with eight and seventy solemn strokes, that the hour had
come, when the fires of all earthly passion must be quenched within,
and man must prepare to lie down and rest till the morning.
"You see," he continued, in a melancholy tone, "my hands are
cold; colder than yours. They were warmer once. I am now an old
man."
"Yet these are the hands," answered Flemming, "that sculptured
the beauteous Ariadne and the Panther. The soul never grows
old."
"Nor does Nature," said the old man, pleased with this allusion
to his great work, and pointing to the green trees before his
window. "This pleasure I have left to me. My sight is still good. I
can even distinguish objects on the side of yonder mountain. My
hearing is also unimpaired. For all which, I thank God."
Then, directing Flemming's attention to a fine engraving, which
hung on the opposite wall of the room, he continued;
"That is an engraving of Canova's Religion. I love to sit here
and look at it, for hours together. It is beautiful. He made the
statue for his native town, where they had no church, until he built
them one. He placed the statue in it. This engraving he sent me as a
present. Ah, he was a dear, good man. The name of his native town I
have forgotten. My memory fails me. I cannot remember names."
Fearful that he had disturbed the old man in his morning
devotions, Flemming did not remain long, but took his leave with
regret. There was something impressive in the scene he had
witnessed;--this beautiful old age of the artist; sitting by the
open window, in the bright summer morning,--the labor of life
accomplished, the horizon reached, where heaven and earth
meet,--thinking it was angel's music, when he heard the church-bells
ring; himself too old to go. As he walked back to his chamber, he
thought within himself, whether he likewise might not accomplish
something, which should live after him;--might not bring something
permanent out of this fast-fleeting life of man, and then sit down,
like the artist, in serene old age, and fold his hands in silence.
He wondered how a man felt when he grew so old, that he could no
longer go to church, but must sit at home and read the bible in
large print. His heart was full of indefinite longings, mingled with
regrets; longings to accomplish something worthy of life; regret,
that as yet he had accomplished nothing, but had felt and dreamed
only. Thus the warm days in spring bring forth passion-flowers and
forget-menots. It is only after mid-summer, when the days grow
shorter and hotter, that fruit begins to appear. Then, the heat of
the day brings forward the harvest, and after the harvest, the
leaves fall, and there is a gray frost. Much meditating upon these
things, Paul Flemming reached his hotel. At that moment a person clad
in green came down the church-steps, and crossed the street. It was
the German student, of Interlachen. Flemming started as if a green
snake had suddenly crossed his path. He took refuge in his
chamber.
That night as he was sitting alone in his chamber, having made
his preparation to depart the following morning, his attention was
arrested by the sound of a female voice in the next room. A thin
partition, with a door, separated it from his own. He had not before
observed that the room was occupied. But, in the stillness of the
night, the tones of that voice struck his ear. He listened. It was a
lady, reading the prayers of the English Church. The tones were
familiar; and awakened at once a thousand painfully sweet
recollections. It was the voice of Mary Ashburton! His heart could
not be deceived; and all its wounds began to bleed afresh, like
those of a murdered man, when the murderer approaches. His first
impulse was of affection only, boundless, irrepressible, delirious,
as of old in the green valley of Interlachen. He waited for the
voice to cease; that he might go to her, and behold her face once
more. And then his pride rose up within him, and rebuked this
weakness. He remembered his firm resolve; and blushed to find
himself so feeble. And the voice ceased; and yet he did not go.
Pride had so far gained the mastery over affection. He lay down upon
his bed, like a child as he was. All about him was silence, and the
silence was holy, for she was near; so near that he could almost
hear the beating of her heart. He knew now for the first time how
weak he was, and how strong his passion for that woman. His heart
was like the altar of the Israelites of old; and, though drenched
with tears, as with rain, it was kindled at once by the holy fire
from heaven!
Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted with the strong
excitement; and, in that hour when, sleep being "nigh unto the
soul," visions are deemed prophetic, he dreamed. O blessed visionof
the morning, stay! thou wert so fair! He stood again on the green
sunny meadow, beneath the ruined towers; and she was by his side,
with her pale, speaking countenance and holy eyes; and he kissed her
fair forehead; and she turned her face towards him beaming with
affection and said, "I confess it now; you are the Magician!" and
pressed him in a meek embrace, that he, "might rather feel than see
the swelling of her heart." And then she faded away from his arms,
and her face became transfigured, and her voice like the voice of an
angel in heaven;--and he awoke, and was alone!
It was broad daylight; and he heard the postilion, and the
stamping of horses' hoofs on the pavement at the door. At the same
moment his servant came in, with coffee, and told him all was ready.
He did not dare to stay. But, throwing himself into the carriage, he
cast one look towards the window of the Dark Ladie, and a moment
afterwards had left her forever! He had drunk thelast drop of the
bitter cup, and now laid the golden goblet gently down, knowing that
he should behold it no more!
No more! O how majestically mournful are those words! They sound
like the roar of the wind through a forest of pines!