the eternal countenance. But I was all the time lost in a dream of the
previous night, which I could not banish from my thoughts. It was an
echo of the old legend--how a knight descended into a deep fountain
beneath which the fairest princess of the world lay buried in a
deathlike magic slumber. I myself was the knight, and the dark mine of
Clausthal was the fountain. Suddenly innumerable lights gleamed around
me, watchful dwarfs leapt from every cranny in the rocks, grimacing
angrily, cutting at me with their short swords, blowing shrilly on
horns, which summoned more and ever more of their comrades, and
frantically nodding their great heads. But as I hewed them down with my
sword the blood flowed, and I for the first time remarked that they were
not really dwarfs, but the red-blooming, long-bearded thistle-tops,
which I had the day before hewed down on the highway with my stick. At
last they all vanished, and I came to a splendid lighted hall, in the
midst of which stood my heart's loved one, veiled in white, and
immovable as a statue. I kissed her mouth, and then--O Heavens!--I felt
the blessed breath of her soul and the sweet tremor of her lovely lips.
It seemed that I heard the divine command, "Let there be light!" and a
dazzling flash of eternal light shot down, but at the same instant it
was again night, and all ran chaotically together into a wild turbulent
sea! A wild turbulent sea, indeed, over whose foaming waves the ghosts
of the departed madly chased one another, their white shrouds floating
in the wind, while behind all, goading them on with cracking whip, ran a
many-colored harlequin--and I was the harlequin! Suddenly from the black
waves the sea monsters raised their misshapen heads, snatched at me with
extended claws, and I awoke in terror.

Alas, how the finest fairy tales may be spoiled! The knight, in fact,
when he has found the sleeping princess, ought to cut a piece from her
priceless veil, and when, by his bravery, she has been awakened from her
magic sleep and is again seated on her golden throne in her palace, the
knight should approach her and say, "My fairest princess, dost thou not
know me?" Then she will answer, "My bravest knight, I know thee not!"
And then he shows her the piece cut from her veil, exactly fitting the
deficiency, and she knows that he is her deliverer, and both tenderly
embrace, and the trumpets sound, and the marriage is celebrated. It is
really a very peculiar misfortune that _my_ love-dreams so seldom have
so fine a conclusion.

[Illustration: OLD IMPERIAL PALACE, GOSLAR]

The name of Goslar rings so pleasantly, and there are so many very
ancient and imperial associations connected therewith, that I had hoped
to find an imposing and stately town. But it is always the same old
story when we examine celebrities too closely. I found a nest of houses,
drilled in every direction with narrow streets of labyrinthine
crookedness, and amid which a miserable stream, probably the Gose, winds
its sad and muddy way. The pavement of the town is as ragged as Berlin
hexameters. Only the antiquities which are imbedded in the frame or
mounting of the city--that is to say, its remnants of walls, towers, and
battlements--give the place a piquant look. One of these towers, known as
the "Zwinger," or donjonkeep, has walls of such extraordinary thickness
that entire rooms are excavated therein. The open place before the town,
where the world-renowned shooting matches are held, is a beautiful large
plain surrounded by high mountains. The market is small, and in its
midst is a spring fountain, the waters from which pours into a great
metallic basin. When an alarm of fire is raised, they strike several
times on this cup-formed basin, which gives out a very loud vibration.
Nothing is known of the origin of this work. Some say that the devil
placed it once during the night on the spot where it stands. In those
days people were as yet fools, nor was the devil any wiser, and they
mutually exchanged gifts.

The town hall of Goslar is a whitewashed guard-room. The Guildhall, hard
by, has a somewhat better appearance. In this building, equidistant from
roof and ceiling, stands the statues of German emperors. Blackened with
smoke and partly gilded, in one hand the sceptre, and in the other the
globe, they look like roasted college beadles. One of the emperors holds
a sword instead of a sceptre. I cannot imagine the reason of this
variation from the established order, though it has doubtless some
occult signification, as Germans have the remarkable peculiarity of
meaning something in whatever they do.

In Gottschalk's _Handbook_ I had read much of the very ancient
cathedral, and of the far-famed imperial throne at Goslar. But when I
wished to see these curiosities, I was informed that the church had been
torn down, and that the throne had been carried to Berlin. We live in
deeply significant times, when millennial churches are destroyed and
imperial thrones are tumbled into the lumber-room.

A few memorials of the late cathedral of happy memory are still
preserved in the church of St. Stephen. These consist of stained glass
pictures of great beauty, a few indifferent paintings, including a Lucas
Cranach, a wooden Christ crucified, and a heathen altar of some unknown
metal. The latter resembles a long square coffer, and is upheld by
caryatides, which in a bowed position hold their hands above their heads
in support, and are making the most hideous grimaces. But far more
hideous is the adjacent large wooden crucifix of which I have just
spoken. This head of Christ, with its real hair and thorns and
blood-stained countenance, represents, in the most masterly manner, the
death of a _man_--but not of a divinely-born Savior. Nothing but physical
suffering is portrayed in this image--not the sublime poetry of pain.
Such a work would be more appropriately placed in a hall of anatomy than
in a house of the Lord.

The sacristan's wife--an artistic expert--who led me about, showed me a
special rarity. This was a many-cornered, well-planed blackboard covered
with white numerals, which hung like a lamp in the middle of the
building. Oh, how brilliantly does the spirit of invention manifest
itself in the Protestant Church! For who would think it! The numbers on
this board are those of the Psalms for the day, which are generally
chalked on a common black tablet, and have a very sobering effect on an
esthetic mind, but which, in the form above described, even ornament the
church and fully make up for the want of pictures by Raphael. Such
progress delights me infinitely, since I, as a Protestant and a
Lutheran, am ever deeply chagrined when Catholic opponents ridicule the
empty, God-forsaken appearance of Protestant churches.

The churchyard at Goslar did not appeal to me very strongly, but a
certain very pretty blonde-ringleted head which peeped smilingly from a
parterre window _did_. After dinner I again sought out this fascinating
window, but, instead of a maiden, I beheld a glass containing white
bellflowers. I clambered up, stole the flowers, put them quietly in my
cap, and descended, unheeding the gaping mouths, petrified noses, and
goggle eyes, with which the people in the street, and especially the old
women, regarded this qualified theft. As I, an hour later, passed by the
same house, the beauty stood by the window, and, as she saw the flowers
in my cap, she blushed like a ruby and started back. This time I had
seen the beautiful face to better advantage; it was a sweet, transparent
incarnation of summer-evening breeze, moonshine, nightingale notes, and
rose perfume. Later, in the twilight hour, she was standing at the door.
I came--I drew near--she slowly retreated into the dark entry. I
followed, and, seizing her hand, said, "I am a lover of beautiful
flowers and of kisses, and when they are not given to me I steal them."
Here I quickly snatched a kiss, and, as she was about to flee, whispered
soothingly, "Tomorrow I leave this town, probably never to return." Then
I perceived a faint pressure of the lovely lips and of the little hand
and I--hurried smilingly away. Yes, I must smile when I reflect that
unconsciously I uttered the magic formula by which our red-and
blue-coated cavaliers more frequently win female hearts than by their
mustachioed attractiveness--"Tomorrow I leave, probably never to
return."

During the night which I passed at Goslar, a remarkably curious
occurrence befell me. Even now I cannot think of it without terror. I am
not cowardly by nature and Heaven knows that I have never experienced
any special anguish when, for example, a naked blade has sought to make
acquaintance with my nose or when I have lost my way at night in a wood
of ill repute, or when, at a concert, a yawning lieutenant has
threatened to swallow me--but _ghosts_ I fear almost as much as the
_Austrian Observer_[52]. What is fear? Does it originate in the brain or
in the emotions? This was a point which I frequently disputed with Dr.
Saul Ascher, when we accidentally met in the Café Royal in Berlin, where
for a long time I used to take dinner. The Doctor invariably maintained
that we feared anything, because we recognized it as fearful, by a
certain process of reasoning, for reason alone is an active power--the
emotions are not. While I ate and drank my fill, the Doctor continued to
demonstrate to me the advantages of reason. Toward the end of his
demonstration, he was accustomed to look at his watch and remark
conclusively, "Reason is the highest principle!" Reason! Never do I hear
this word without recalling Dr. Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his
tight-fitting transcendental-grey long coat, his forbidding icy face,
which could have served as frontispiece for a textbook of geometry. This
man, deep in the fifties, was a personified straight line. In his
striving for the positive, the poor man had, by dint of philosophizing,
eliminated all the splendid things from life, such as sunshine,
religion, and flowers, so that there remained nothing for him but the
cold positive grave. The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity were the two
special objects of his malice, and he had even published a pamphlet
against the latter, in which he had demonstrated its unreasonableness
and untenableness. In addition to this, he has written a great number of
books, in all of which _Reason_ shines forth in all its peculiar
excellence, and as the poor Doctor meant what he said in all
seriousness, he was, so far, deserving of respect. But the great joke
consisted precisely in this, that the Doctor invariably cut such a
seriously absurd figure when he could not comprehend what every child
comprehends, simply because it is a child. I visited the Doctor of
Reason several times in his own house, where I found him in company with
very pretty girls; for Reason, it seems, does not prohibit the enjoyment
of the things of this world. Once, however, when I called, his servant
told me the "Herr Doctor" had just died. I experienced as much emotion
on this occasion as if I had been told that the "Herr Doctor" had just
moved.

To return to Goslar. "The highest principle is Reason," said I
soothingly to myself, as I slid into bed. But it availed me nothing. I
had just been reading in Varnhagen von Ense's _German Tales,_ which I
had brought with me from Clausthal, that terrible story of the son who
went about to murder his father and was warned in the night by the ghost
of his mother. The wonderful truthfulness with which this story is
depicted, caused, while reading it, a shudder of horror in all my veins.
Ghost-stories invariably thrill us with additional horror when read
during a journey, and by night in a town, in a house, and in a room
where we have never been before. We involuntarily reflect, "How many
horrors may have been perpetrated on this very spot where I now lie!"
Meanwhile, the moon shone into my room in a doubtful, suspicious manner;
all kinds of uncalled-for shapes quivered on the walls, and as I raised
myself in bed and glanced fearfully toward them, I beheld--

There is nothing so uncanny as when a man accidentally sees his own face
by moonlight in a mirror. At the same instant there struck a
deep-booming, yawning bell, and that so slowly and wearily that after
the twelfth stroke I firmly believed that twelve full hours must have
passed and that it would begin to strike twelve all over again. Between
the last and next to the last tones, there struck in very abruptly, as
if irritated and scolding, another bell, which was apparently out of
patience with the slowness of its colleague. As the two iron tongues
were silenced, and the stillness of death sank over the whole house, I
suddenly seemed to hear, in the corridor before my chamber, something
halting and shuffling along, like the unsteady steps of an old man. At
last my door opened, and there entered slowly the late departed Dr. Saul
Ascher. A cold fever ran through me. I trembled like an ivy leaf and
scarcely dared to gaze upon the ghost. He appeared as usual, with the
same transcendental-grey long coat, the same abstract legs, and the same
mathematical face; only this latter was a little yellower than usual,
the mouth, which formerly described two angles of 22-1/2 degrees, was
pinched together, and the circles around the eyes had a somewhat greater
radius. Tottering, and supporting himself as usual upon his Malacca
cane, he approached me, and said in his usual drawling accent but in a
friendly manner, "Do not be afraid, nor believe that I am a ghost. It is
a deception of your imagination, if you believe that you see me as a
ghost. What is a ghost? Define one. Deduce for me the conditions of the
possibility of a ghost. What reasonable connection is there between such
an apparition and reason? Reason, I say, _Reason!"_ Here the ghost
proceeded to analyze reason, cited from Kant's _Critique of Pure
Reason_, part II, section I, book 2, chap. 3, the distinction between
phenomena and noumena, then went on to construct a hypothetical system
of ghosts, piled one syllogism on another, and concluded with the
logical proof that there are absolutely no ghosts. Meanwhile the cold
sweat ran down my back, my teeth clattered like castanets, and from very
agony of soul I nodded an unconditional assent to every assertion which
the phantom doctor alleged against the absurdity of being afraid of
ghosts, and which he demonstrated with such zeal that once, in a moment
of distraction, instead of his gold watch he drew a handful of
grave-worms from his vest-pocket, and remarking his error, replaced them
with a ridiculous but terrified haste. "Reason is the highest--!" Here
the clock struck _one_, but the ghost vanished.

The next morning I left Goslar and wandered along, partly at random, and
partly with the intention of visiting the brother of the Clausthal
miner. Again we had beautiful Sunday weather. I climbed hill and
mountain, saw how the sun strove to drive away the mists, and wandered
merrily through the quivering woods, while around my dreaming head rang
the bell-flowers of Goslar. The mountains stood in their white
night-robes, the fir-trees were shaking sleep out of their branching
limbs, the fresh morning wind curled their drooping green locks, the
birds were at morning prayers, the meadow-vale flashed like a golden
surface sprinkled with diamonds, and the shepherd passed over it with
his bleating flock.

After much circuitous wandering I came to the dwelling of the brother of
my Clausthal friend. Here I stayed all night and experienced the
following beautiful poem--

  Stands the but upon the mountain
    Where the ancient woodman dwells
  There the dark-green fir-trees rustle,
    Casts the moon its golden spells.

  In the but there stands an arm-chair,
    Richly carved and cleverly;
  He who sits therein is happy,
    And that happy man am I.

  On the footstool sits a maiden,
    On my lap her arms repose,
  With her eyes like blue stars beaming,
    And her mouth a new-born rose.

  And the dear blue stars shine on me,
    Wide like heaven's great arch their gaze;
  And her little lily finger
    Archly on the rose she lays.

  Nay, the mother cannot see us,
    For she spins the whole day long;
  And the father plays the cithern
    As he sings a good old song.

  And the maiden softly whispers,
    Softly, that none may hear;
  Many a solemn little secret
    Hath she murmured in my ear.

  "Since I lost my aunt who loved me,
    Now we never more repair
  To the shooting-lodge at Goslar,
    And it is so pleasant there!

  "Here above it is so lonely,
    On the rocks where cold winds blow;
  And in winter we are always
    Deeply buried in the snow.

  "And I'm such a timid creature,
    And I'm frightened like a child
  At the evil mountain spirits,
    Who by night are raging wild"

  Silent falls the winsome maiden,
    Frightened by her own surmise,
  Little hands, so white and dimpled,
    Pressing on her sweet blue eyes.

  Louder now the fir-trees rustle,
    Spinning-wheel more harshly drones;
  In their pauses sounds the cithern,
    And the old song's simple tones:

  "Do not fear, my tender nursling,
    Aught of evil spirits' might;
  For good angels still are watching
    Round thy pathway day and night."

  Now the fir-tree's dark-green fingers
    Tap upon the window low,
  And the moon, a yellow listener,
    Casts within her sweetest glow.

  Father, mother, both are sleeping,
    Near at hand their rest they take;
  But we two, in pleasant gossip,
    Keep each other long awake.

  "That thou prayest much too often,
    Seems unlikely, I declare;
  On thy lips there is a quiver
    Which was never born of prayer.

  "Ah! that heartless, cold expression
    All my being terrifies--
  Though my darkling fear is lessened
    By thy frank and honest eyes.

  "Yet I doubt if thou believest
    What is held for truth by most;
  Hast thou faith in God the Father,
    In the Son and Holy Ghost?"

  "Ah, my darling! when an infant
    By my mother's knee I stood,
  I believed in God the Father,
    In the Ruler great and good.

  "He who made the world so lovely,
    Gave man beauty, gave him force,
  And to sun and moon and planets
    Pre-appointed each its course.

  "As I older grew, my darling,
    And my way in wisdom won,
  I in reason comprehended,
    And believe now in the Son--

  "In the well-loved Son, who, loving,
    Oped the gates of Love so wide;
  And for thanks--as is the custom--
  By the world was crucified.

  "Now, that I in full-grown manhood
    Reading, travel, wisdom boast;
  Still my heart expands, and, truly
    I believe the Holy Ghost,

  "Who bath worked the greatest wonders--
    Greater still he'll work again;
  He bath broken tyrants' strongholds,
    Broken every vassal's chain.

  "Ancient deadly wounds he healeth,
    He renews man's ancient right;
  All to him, born free and equal,
    Are as nobles in his sight.

  "Clouds of evil flee before him,
    And those cobwebs of the brain
  Which forbade us love and pleasure,
    Scowling grimly on our pain.

  "And a thousand knights in armor
    Hath he chosen and required
  To fulfil his holy bidding--
    All with noblest zeal inspired.

  "Lo! I their precious swords are gleaming,
    And their banners wave in fight!
  What! Thou fain would'st see, my darling,
    Such a proud and noble knight?

  "Well, then, gaze on me, my dearest;
    I am of that lordly host,
  Kiss me! and you kiss a chosen
    Champion of the Holy Ghost!"

  Silently the moon conceals her
    Down behind the sombre trees,
  And the lamp which lights our chamber
    Flickers in the evening breeze.

  But the starry eyes are beaming
    Softly o'er the dimpled cheeks,
  And the purple rose is glowing,
    While the gentle maiden speaks.

  "Little people--fairy goblins--
    Steal away our meat and bread;
  In the chest it lies at evening,
    In the morning it has fled.

  "From our milk the little people
    Steal the cream and all the best;
  Then they leave the dish uncovered,
    And our cat drinks up the rest.

  "And the cat's a witch, I'm certain,
    For by night, when storms arise,
  Oft she seeks the haunted hill-top
    Where the fallen tower lies.

  "There was once a splendid castle.
    Home of joy and weapons bright,
  Where there swept in stately pageant
    Lady, page, and armèd knight.

  "But a sorceress charmed the castle,
    With its lords and ladies fair;
  Now it is a lonely ruin,
    And the owls are nesting there.

  "But my aunt hath often told me,
    Could I speak the proper word,
  In the proper place up yonder,
    When the proper hour occurred,

  "I should see the ruins changing
    Swiftly to a castle bright,
  And again in stately dances
    Dame and page and gallant knight.

  "He who speaks the word of power
    Wins the castle for his own,
  And the knight with drum and trumpet
    Loud will hail him lord alone."

  So the simple fairy pictures
    From the little rose-mouth bloom,
  And the gentle eyes are shedding
    Star-blue lustre through the gloom.

  Round my hand the little maiden
    Winds her gold locks as she will,
  Gives a name to every finger,
    Kisses, smiles, and then is still.

  All things in the silent chamber,
    Seem at once familiar grown,
  As if e'en the chairs and clothes-press,
    Well of old to me were known.

  Now the clock talks kindly, gravely,
    And the cithern, as 'twould seem,
  Of itself is faintly chiming,
    And I sit as in a dream.

  Now the proper hour is striking,
    Here the charm should now be heard;
  Child, how would'st thou be astonished,
    Should I speak the magic word!

  If I spoke that word, then fading
    Night would thrill in fearful strife;
  Trees and streams would roar together
    As the mountains woke to life.

  Ringing lutes and goblin ditties
    From the clefted rock would sound,
  Like a mad and merry spring-tide
    Flowers grow forest-high around.

  Thousand startling, wondrous flowers,
    Leaves of vast and fabled form,
  Strangely perfumed, wildly quivering,
    As if thrilled with passion's storm.

  In a crimson conflagration
    Roses o'er the tumult rise;
  Giant lilies, white as crystal,
    Shoot like columns to the skies.

  Great as suns, the stars above us
    Gaze adown with burning glow;
  Fill the lilies' cups gigantic
    With their lights' abundant flow.

  We ourselves, my little maiden,
    Would be changed more than all;
  Torchlight gleams o'er gold and satin
    Round us merrily would fall.

  Thou thyself would'st be the princess,
    And this hut thy castle high;
  Ladies, lords, and graceful pages
    Would be dancing, singing by.

  I, however, I have conquered
    Thee, and all things, with the word!
  Serfs and castle--lo! with trumpet
    Loud they hail me as their Lord!

The sun rose. The mists flitted away like phantoms at the third crow of
the cock. Again I wandered up hill and down dale, while above me soared
the fair sun, ever lighting up new scenes of beauty. The Spirit of the
Mountain evidently favored me, well knowing that a "poetical character"
has it in his power to say many a fine thing of him, and on this morning
he let me see his Harz as it is not, most assuredly, seen by every one.
But the Harz also saw me as I am seen by few, and there were as costly
pearls on my eyelashes as on the grass of the valley. The morning dew of
love wet my cheeks; the rustling pines understood me; their twigs parted
and waved up and down, as if, like mute mortals, they would express
their joy with gestures of their hands, and from afar I heard beautiful
and mysterious chimes, like the sound of bells belonging to some hidden
forest church. People say that these sounds are caused by the
cattle-bells, which, in the Harz ring with remarkable clearness and
purity.

It was noon, according to the position of the sun, as I chanced upon
such a flock, and its shepherd, a friendly, light-haired young fellow,
told me that the great hill at whose base I stood was the old,
world-renowned Brocken. For many leagues around there is no house, and I
was glad enough when the young man invited me to share his meal. We sat
down to a _déjeûner dînatoire_, consisting of bread and cheese. The
sheep snatched up our crumbs, while pretty glossy heifers jumped around,
ringing their bells roguishly, and laughing at us with great merry eyes.
We made a royal meal, my host appearing to me every inch a king; and as
he is the only monarch who has ever given me bread, I will sing his
praises right royally:

  Kingly is the herd-boy's calling,
    On the knoll his throne is set,
  O'er his hair the sunlight falling
    Gilds a living coronet.

  Red-marked sheep that bleat so loudly
    Are his courtiers cross-bedight,
  Calves that strut before him proudly
    Seem each one a stalwart knight.

  Goats are actors nimbly springing,
    And the cows and warblers gay
  With their bell and flute-notes ringing
    Form the royal orchestra.

  And whene'er the music hushes,
    Soft the pine-tree murmurs creep;
  Far away a cataract rushes--
    Look, our noble king's asleep!

  Meanwhile through the kingdom bounding
    Rules the dog as minister,
  Till his bark from cliffs rebounding
    Echoes to the sleeper's ear.

  Yawning syllables he utters--
    "Ruling is too hard a task.
  Were I but at home," he mutters,
    "With my queen 'tis all I'd ask.

  "On her arm my head reposes
    Free from care, how happily!
  And her loving glance discloses
    Kingdom wide enough for me."[53]

We took leave of each other in a friendly manner, and with a light heart
I began to ascend the mountain. I was soon welcomed by a grove of
stately firs, for which I entertain great respect in every regard, for
these trees have not found growing to be such an easy business, and
during the days of their youth it fared hard with them. The mountain is
here sprinkled with a great number of blocks of granite, and most of the
trees were obliged either to twine their roots over the stones, or to
split them in two, and thus laboriously to search for the soil from
which to draw their nourishment. Here and there stones lie on top of one
another, forming, as it were, a gate, and over all rise the trees,
twining their naked roots down over the stone portals, and only laying
hold of the soil when they reach its base, so that they appear to be
growing in the air; and yet, as they have forced their way up to that
startling height and grown into one with the rocks, they stand more
securely than their comfortable comrades, who are rooted in the tame
forest soil of the level country. So it is in life with those great men
who have strengthened and established themselves by resolutely
overcoming the obstacles and hindrances of their early years. Squirrels
climbed amid the fir-twigs, while, beneath, yellow deer were quietly
grazing. I cannot comprehend, when I see such a noble, lovable animal,
how educated and refined people can take pleasure in hunting and killing
it. Such a creature was once more merciful than man, and suckled the
pining Schmerzenreich of the holy Genofeva. Most beautiful were the
golden sun-rays shooting through the dark-green of the firs. The roots
of the trees formed a natural stairway, and everywhere my feet
encountered swelling beds of moss, for the stones are here covered
foot-deep, as if with light-green velvet cushions. Everywhere a pleasant
freshness and the dreamy murmur of streams. Here and there we see water
rippling silver-clear amid the rocks, washing the bare roots and fibres
of trees. Bend down toward all this ceaseless activity and listen, and
you will hear, as it were, the mysterious history of the growth of the
plants, and the quiet pulsations of the heart of the mountain. In many
places the water jets strongly up amid rocks and roots, forming little
cascades. It is pleasant to sit in such places. There is such a
wonderful murmuring and rustling, the birds pour forth broken lovesick
strains, the trees whisper as if with a thousand maidens' tongues, the
odd mountain flowers peep up at us as if with a thousand maidens' eyes,
stretching out to us their curious, broad, drolly-scalloped leaves; the
sun-rays flash here and there in sport; the herbs, as though endowed
with reason, are telling one another their green legends; all seems
enchanted and it becomes more and more mysterious; an old, old dream is
realized--the loved one appears! Alas, that she so quickly vanishes!

The higher we ascend, so much the shorter and more dwarflike do the
fir-trees become, shrinking up, as it were, within themselves, until
finally only whortleberries, bilberries, and mountain herbs remain. It
is also sensibly colder. Here, for the first time, the granite boulders,
which are frequently of enormous size, become fully visible. These may
well have been the balls which evil spirits cast at one another on the
Walpurgis night, when the witches come riding hither on brooms and
pitchforks, when the mad, unhallowed revelry begins, as our credulous
nurses have told us, and as we may see it represented in the beautiful
Faust pictures of Master Retsch. Yes, a young poet, who, while
journeying from Berlin to Gottingen passed the Brocken on the first
evening in May, even noticed how certain ladies who cultivated
_belles-lettres_, were holding their esthetic tea-circle in a rocky
corner, how they comfortably read aloud the _Evening Journal_, how they
praised as universal geniuses their poetic billy-goats which hopped
bleating around their table, and how they passed a final judgment on all
the productions of German literature. But when they at last fell upon
_Ratcliff_ and _Almansor_, utterly denying to the author aught like
piety or Christianity, the hair of the youth rose on end, terror seized
him--I spurred my steed and rode onwards!

In fact, when we ascend the upper half of the Brocken, no one can well
help thinking of the amusing legends of the Blocksberg, and especially
of the great mystical German national tragedy of Doctor Faust. It ever
seemed to me that I could hear the cloven foot scrambling along behind,
and some one breathing humorously. And I verily believe that "Mephisto"
himself must breathe with difficulty when he climbs his favorite
mountain, for it is a road which is to the last degree exhausting, and I
was glad enough when I at last beheld the long-desired Brocken house.

[Illustration: "THE WITCHES DANCING GROUND"]

This house, as every one knows from numerous pictures, is situated on
the summit of the mountain, consists of a single story, and was erected
in the year 1800 by Count Stolberg-Wernigerode, in behalf of whom it is
managed as a tavern. On account of the wind and cold in winter its walls
are incredibly thick. The roof is low. From its midst rises a towerlike
observatory, and near the house lie two little out-buildings, one of
which in earlier times served as shelter to the Brocken visitors.

On entering the Brocken house, I experienced a somewhat unusual and
unreal sensation. After a long solitary journey amid rocks and pines,
the traveler suddenly finds himself in a house amid the clouds. Far
below lie cities, hills, and forests, while above he encounters a
curiously blended circle of strangers, by whom he is received, as is
usual in such assemblies, almost like an expected companion--half
inquisitively and half indifferently. I found the house full of guests,
and, as becomes a wise man, I first thought of the night, and of the
discomfort of sleeping on straw. With the voice of one dying I called
for tea, and the Brocken landlord was reasonable enough to perceive that
the sick gentleman must be provided with a decent bed. This he gave me
in a narrow room, where a young merchant--a long emetic in a brown
overcoat--had already established himself.

In the public room I found a full tide of bustle and animation. There
were students from different universities. Some of the newly arrived
were taking refreshments. Others, preparing for departure, buckled on
their knapsacks, wrote their names in the album, and received Brocken
bouquets from the housemaids. There was pinching of cheeks, singing,
springing, trilling; questions asked, answers given, fragments of
conversation such as--fine weather--footpath--_prosit_--luck be with
you!--Adieu! Some of those leaving were also partly drunk, and these
derived a twofold pleasure from the beautiful scenery, for a tipsy man
sees double.

After recruiting my strength I ascended the observatory, and there found
a little gentleman with two ladies, one of whom was young and the other
elderly. The young lady was very beautiful--a superb figure, flowing
locks, surmounted by a helm-like black satin _chapeau_, amid whose white
plumes the wind played; fine limbs, so closely enwrapped by a black silk
mantle that their exquisite form was made manifest, and great free eyes,
calmly looking down into the great free world.

When a boy I thought of naught save tales of magic and wonder, and every
fair lady who had ostrich feathers on her head I regarded as an elfin
queen. If I observed that the train of her dress was wet I believed at
once that she must be a water-fairy. Now I know better, having learned
from natural history that those symbolical feathers are found on the
most stupid of birds, and that the train of a lady's dress may become
wet in a very natural way. But if I had, with those boyish eyes, seen
the aforesaid young lady in the aforesaid position on the Brocken, I
would most assuredly have thought--"that is the fairy of the mountain,
and she has just uttered the charm which has caused every thing down
there to appear so wonderful." Yes, at the first glance from the Brocken
everything appears in a high degree marvelous. New impressions throng in
on every side, and these, varied and often contradictory, unite in our
soul in an as yet undefined uncomprehended sensation. If we succeed in
grasping the sensation in its conception we shall comprehend the
character of the mountain. This character is entirely German as regards
not only its advantages but also its defects. The Brocken is a German.
With German thoroughness he points out to us--sharply and accurately
defined as in a panorama--the hundreds of cities, towns, and villages
which are principally situated to the north, and all the mountains,
forests, rivers, and plains which extend endlessly in all directions.
But for this very reason everything appears like a sharply designed and
perfectly colored map, and nowhere is the eye gratified by really
beautiful landscapes--just as we German compilers, owing to the
honorable exactness with which we attempt to give all and everything,
never appear to think of giving the details in a beautiful manner.

[Illustration: THE BROCKEN INN ABOUT 1830]

The mountain, in consequence, has a certain calm, German, intelligent,
tolerant character, simply because he can see things so distant yet so
distinctly. And when such a mountain opens his giant eyes, it may be
that he sees somewhat more than we dwarfs, who with our weak eyes climb
over him. Many indeed assert that the Blocksberg is very Philistian, and
Claudius once sang "The Blocksberg is the lengthy Sir Philistine;" but
that was an error. On account of his bald head, which he occasionally
covers with a cloud-cap, the Blocksberg has indeed a somewhat Philistian
aspect, but this with him, as with many other great Germans, is the
result of pure irony; for it is notorious that he has his wild student
and fantastic periods, as, for instance, on the first night of May. Then
he casts his cloud-cap uproariously and merrily into the air, and
becomes, like the rest of us, romantic mad, in real German fashion.

I soon sought to entrap the beauty into a conversation, for we begin to
fully enjoy the beauties of nature only when we talk about them on the
spot.

While we conversed twilight stole, the air grew colder, the sun sank
lower and lower, and the tower platform was filled with students,
traveling mechanics, and a few honest citizens with their spouses and
daughters, all of whom were desirous of witnessing the sunset. It is
truly a sublime spectacle, which tunes the soul to prayer. For a full
quarter of an hour all stood in solemn silence, gazing on the beautiful
fire-ball as it gradually sank in the west; our faces were bathed in the
rosy light; our hands were involuntarily folded; it seemed as if we, a
silent congregation, stood in the nave of a giant cathedral, that the
priest raised the body of the Lord, and the Palestrina's immortal hymns
poured forth from the organ.

As I stood thus, lost in devotion, I heard some one near me exclaim,
"Ah, how beautiful Nature is, as a general thing!" These words came from
the sentimental heart of my room-mate, the young merchant. They brought
me back to my week-day frame of mind, and I was now able to say a few
neat things to the ladies about the sunset and to accompany them, as
calmly as if nothing had happened, to their room. They permitted me to
talk an hour longer with them. Our conversation, like the earth's
course, was about the sun. The mother declared that the sun, as it sank
in the snowy clouds, seemed like a red glowing rose, which the gallant
heaven had thrown upon the white outspreading bridal-veil of his loved
earth. The daughter smiled, and thought that a frequent observation of
such phenomena weakened their impression. The mother corrected this
error by a quotation from Goethe's _Letters of Travel_, and asked me if
I had read _Werther_. I believe that we also spoke of Angora cats,
Etruscan vases, Turkish shawls, maccaroni, and Lord Byron, from whose
poems the elder lady, daintly lisping and sighing, recited several
passages about the sunset. To the younger lady, who did not understand
English, and who wished to become familiar with those poems, I
recommended the translation of my fair and gifted countrywoman, the
Baroness Elise von Hohenhausen. On this occasion, as is my custom when
talking with young ladies, I did not fail to declaim against Byron's
godlessness, heartlessness, cheerlessness, and heaven knows what
besides.

After this business I took a walk on the Brocken, for there it is never
quite dark. The mist was not heavy, and I could see the outlines of the
two hills known as the Witch's Altar and the Devil's Pulpit. I fired my
pistol, but there was no echo. Suddenly, however, I heard familiar
voices and found myself embraced and kissed. The newcomers were
fellow-students from my own part of Germany, and had left Göttingen four
days later than I. Great was their astonishment at finding me again,
alone on the Blocksberg. Then came a flood tide of narrative, of
astonishment, and of appointment-making, of laughing, and of
recollecting, and in the spirit we found ourselves again in our learned
Siberia, where refinement is carried to such an extent that the bears
are tied up in the taverns, and the sables wish the hunter good
evening.[54]

In the great room we had supper. There was a long table, with two rows
of hungry students. At first we indulged in the usual topic of
university conversation--duels, duels, and once again duels. The company
consisted principally of Halle students, and Halle formed, in
consequence, the nucleus of their discourse. The window-panes of
Court-Councilor Schütz were exegetically illuminated. Then it was
mentioned that the King of Cyprus' last levee had been very brilliant;
that the monarch had chosen a natural son; that he had married with the
left hand a princess of the house of Lichtenstein; that the
State-mistress had been forced to resign, and that the entire ministry,
greatly moved, had wept according to rule. I need hardly explain that
this all referred to certain beer dignitaries in Halle. Then the two
Chinese, who two years before had been exhibited in Berlin, and who were
now appointed lecturers on Chinese esthetics in Halle, were discussed.
Then jokes were made. Some one supposed a case in which a live German
might be exhibited for money in China, and to this end a placard was
fabricated, in which the mandarins Tsching-Tschang-Tschung and Hi-Ha-Ho
certified that the man was a genuine Teuton, including a list of his
accomplishments, which consisted principally of philosophizing, smoking,
and endless patience. It concluded with the notice that visitors were
prohibited from bringing any dogs with them at twelve o'clock (the hour
for feeding the captive), as these animals would be sure to snap from
the poor German all his titbits.

A young _Burschenschafter_, who had recently passed his period of
purification in Berlin, spoke much, but very partially, of this city. He
had frequented both Wisotzki and the theatre, but judged falsely of
both. "For youth is ever ready with a word," etc. He spoke of the
sumptuousness of the costumes, of scandals among actors and actresses,
and similar matters. The youth knew not that in Berlin, where outside
show exerts the greatest influence (as is abundantly evidenced by the
commonness of the phrase "so people do"), this ostentation must flourish
on the stage preëminently, and consequently that the special care of the
management must be for "the color of the beard with which a part is
played" and for the truthfulness of the costumes which are designed by
sworn historians and sewed by scientifically instructed tailors. And
this is indispensable. For if Maria Stuart wore an apron belonging to
the time of Queen Anne, the banker, Christian Gumpel, would with justice
complain that thereby all illusion was destroyed; and if Lord Burleigh
in a moment of forgetfulness should don the hose of Henry the Fourth,
then the War-Councilor Von Steinzopf's wife, _née_ Lilienthau, would not
get the anachronism out of her head for the whole evening.... But little
as this young man had comprehended the conditions of the Berlin drama,
still less was he aware that the Spontini Janissary opera, with its
kettledrums, elephants, trumpets, and gongs, is a heroic means of
inspiring our enervated people with warlike enthusiasm--a means once
shrewdly recommended by Plato and Cicero. Least of all did the youth
comprehend the diplomatic significance of the ballet. It was with great
trouble that I finally made him understand that there was really more
political science in Hoguet's feet than in Buchholz's head, that all his
_tours de danse_ signified diplomatic negotiations, and that his every
movement hinted at state matters; as, for instance, when he bent forward
anxiously, stretching his hands out wide and grasping at the air, he
meant our Cabinet; that a hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting
the spot alluded to the German Diet; that he was thinking of the lesser
princes when he tripped around with his legs tied; that he described the
European balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a
drunken man; that he hinted at a Congress when he twisted his bended
arms together like a skein; and finally, that he sets forth our
altogether too great friend in the East, when, very gradually unfolding
himself, he rises on high, stands for a long time in this elevated
position, and then all at once breaks out into the most terrifying
leaps. The scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he now saw
how it was that dancers are better paid than great poets, and why the
ballet forms in diplomatic circles an inexhaustible subject of
conversation. By Apis! how great is the number of the esoteric, and how
small the array of the esoteric frequenters of the theatre! There sit
the stupid audience, gaping and admiring leaps and attitudes, studying
anatomy in the positions of Lemière, and applauding the _entrechats_ of
Röhnisch, prattling of "grace," "harmony," and "limbs"--no one remarking
meanwhile that he has before him in chronological ciphers the destiny of
the German Fatherland.

The company around the table gradually became better acquainted and much
noisier. Wine banished beer, punch-bowls steamed, songs were sung, and
brotherhood was drunk in true student fashion. The old "Landsfather
toast" and the beautiful songs of W. Müller, Rückert, Uhland, and others
rang out with the exquisite airs of Methfessel. Best of all sounded our
own Arndt's German words, "The Lord, who bade iron grow, wished for no
slaves." And out of doors it roared as if the old mountain sang with us,
and a few reeling friends even asserted that he merrily shook his bald
head, which caused the great unsteadiness of the floor of our room.

During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and glasses to
fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful and pale as statues,
one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo. The faint rosy hue which the
wine spread over their cheeks was scarcely noticeable. They gazed on
each other with infinite affection, as if the one could read in the eyes
of the other, and in those eyes there was a light as though drops of
light had fallen therein from the cup of burning love, which an angel on
high bears from one star to the other. They conversed softly with
earnest trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, through all of which
ran a tone of strange sorrow. "Lora is dead now too!" said one, and,
sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle who had loved a student,
and who, when the latter left Halle, spoke no more to any one, ate but
little, wept day and night, gazing over on the canary-bird which her
lover had given her. "The bird died, and Lora did not long survive it,"
was the conclusion, and both the youths sighed as though their hearts
would break. Finally the other said, "My soul is sorrowful; come forth
with me into the dark night! Let me inhale the breath of the clouds and
the moon-rays. Companion of my sorrow! I love thee; thy words are
musical, like the rustling of reeds and the flow of rivulets; they
reëcho in my breast, but my soul is sad!"

Both of the young men arose. One threw his arm around the neck of the
other, and thus they left the noisy room. I followed, and saw them enter
a dark chamber, where the one by mistake, instead of the window, threw
open the door of a large wardrobe, and both, standing before it with
outstretched arms, expressing poetic rapture, spoke alternately. "Ye
breezes of darkening night," cried the first, "how ye cool and revive my
cheeks! How sweetly ye play amid my fluttering locks! I stand on the
cloudy peak of the mountain; far below me lie the sleeping cities of
men, and blue waters gleam. List! far below in the valley rustle the
fir-trees! Far above yonder hills sweep in misty forms the spirits of
our fathers. Oh, that I could hunt with ye on your cloud-steeds through
the stormy night, over the rolling sea, upwards to the stars! Alas! I am
laden with grief, and my soul is sad!" Meanwhile, the other had also
stretched out _his_ arms toward the wardrobe, while tears fell from his
eyes as he cried to a pair of yellow leather pantaloons which he mistook
for the moon, "Fair art thou, daughter of heaven! Lovely and blessed is
the calm of thy countenance. Thou walkest in loveliness! The stars
follow thy blue path in the east! At thy glance the clouds rejoice, and
their dark forms gleam with light. Who is like unto thee in heaven, thou
the night-born? The stars are ashamed before thee, and turn away their
sparkling eyes. Whither, ah, whither, when morning pales thy face, dost
thou flee from thy path? Hast thou, like me, thy Halle? Dwellest thou
amid shadows of sorrow? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? Are they
who joyfully rolled with thee through the night now no more? Yea, they
have fallen down, oh! lovely light, and thou hidest thyself often to
bewail them! Yet the night must come at last when thou too will have
passed away, and left thy blue path above in heaven. Then the stars,
that were once ashamed in thy presence, will raise their green heads and
rejoice. But now art clothed in thy beaming splendor and gazest down
from the gate of heaven. Tear aside the clouds, oh! ye winds, that the
night-born may shine forth and the bushy hills gleam, and that the
foaming waves of the sea may roll in light!"

I can bear a tolerable quantity--modesty forbids me to say how many
bottles--and I consequently retired to my chamber in tolerably good
condition. The young merchant already lay in bed, enveloped in his
chalk-white night-cap and saffron yellow night-shirt of sanitary
flannel. He was not asleep, and sought to enter into conversation with
me. He was from Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and consequently spoke at once of
the Jews, declared that they had lost all feeling for the beautiful and
noble, and that they sold English goods twenty-five per cent. under
manufacturers' prices. A fancy to humbug him came over me, and I told
him that I was a somnambulist, and must beforehand beg his pardon should
I unwittingly disturb his slumbers. This intelligence, as he confessed
the following day, prevented him from sleeping a wink through the whole
night, especially since the idea had entered his head that I, while in a
somnambulistic state, might shoot him with the pistol which lay near my
bed. But in truth I fared no better myself, for I slept very little.
Dreary and terrifying fancies swept through my brain....

From this confusion I was rescued by the landlord of the Brocken, when
he awoke me to see the sun rise. On the tower I found several people
already waiting, and rubbing their freezing hands; others, with sleep
still in their eyes, stumbled up to us, until finally the whole silent
congregation of the previous evening was reassembled, and we saw how,
above the horizon, there rose a little carmine-red ball, spreading a
dim, wintry light. Far around, amid the mists, rose the mountains, as if
swimming in a white rolling sea, only their summits being visible, so
that we could imagine ourselves standing on a little hill in the midst
of an inundated plain, in which here and there rose dry clods of earth.
To retain what I saw and felt, I sketched the following poem:

  In the east 'tis ever brighter,
    Though the sun gleams fitfully;
  Far and wide the mountain summits
    Swim above the misty sea.

  Had I seven-league boots for travel,
    Like the fleeting winds I'd rove
  Over valley, rock, and river,
    To the home of her I love.

  From the bed where now she's sleeping
    Soft the curtain I would slip;
  Softly kiss her childlike forehead,
    Kiss the ruby of her lip.

  Yet more softly would I whisper
    In the little lily ear,
  "Think in dreams we still are loving,
    Think I never lost thee, dear."

Meanwhile my longing for breakfast was also great, and, after paying a
few compliments to my ladies, I hastened down to drink coffee in the
warm public room. It was full time, for all within me was as sober and
as sombre as in the St. Stephen's Church at Goslar. But with the Arabian
beverage, the warm Orient thrilled through my limbs, Eastern roses
breathed forth their perfumes, sweet bulbul songs resounded, the
students were changed to camels, the Brocken housemaids, with their
Congreverocket-glances, became _houris_, the Philistine noses, minarets,
etc.

But the book which lay near me, though full of nonsense, was not the
Koran. It was the so-called "Brocken-book," in which all travelers who
ascend the mountain write their names--most inscribing their thoughts,
or, in default thereof, their "feelings." Many even express themselves
in verse. In this book one may observe the horrors which result when the
great Philistine host on opportune occasions, such as this on the
Brocken, becomes poetic. The palace of the Prince of Pallagonia never
contained such absurdities as are to be found in this book. Those who
shine in it with especial splendor are Messrs. the excise collectors,
with their moldy "high inspirations;" counter-jumpers, with their
pathetic outgushings of the soul; old German revolution dilettanti with
their Turner-Union phrases, and Berlin school-masters with their
unsuccessful efforts at enthusiasm. Mr. Snobbs will also for once show
himself as author. In one page the majestic splendor of the sunrise is
described, in another complaints occur of bad weather, of disappointed
hopes, and of the mists which obstruct the view. A "Caroline" writes
that in climbing the mountain her feet got wet, to which a naïve
"Nanny," who was impressed by this, adds, "I too, got wet while doing
this thing." "Went up wet without and came down wet within," is a
standing joke, repeated in the book hundreds of times. The whole volume
smells of beer, tobacco and cheese; we might fancy it one of Clauren's
novels.

And now the students prepared to depart. Knapsacks were buckled, the
bills, which were moderate beyond all expectation, were settled, the
susceptible housemaids, upon whose countenances the traces of successful
amours were plainly visible, brought, as is their custom, their
Brocken-bouquets, and helped some to adjust their caps; for all of which
they were duly rewarded with either kisses or coppers. Thus we all went
down the mountain, albeit one party, among whom were the Swiss and
Greifswalder, took the road toward Schierke, and the others, about
twenty men, among whom were my fellow "countrymen" and myself, led by a
guide, went through the so-called "Snow Holes" down to Ilsenburg.

Such a head-over-heels, break-neck piece of business! Halle students
travel quicker than the Austrian militia. Ere I knew where I was, the
bald summit of the mountain, with groups of stones strewed over it, was
behind us, and we went through the fir-wood which I had seen the day
before. The sun poured down a cheerful light on the merry Burschen, in
gaily colored garb, as they merrily pressed onward through the wood,
disappearing here, coming to light again there, running across marshy
places on trunks of trees, climbing over shelving steeps by grasping the
projecting tree-roots; while they thrilled all the time in the merriest
manner and received as joyous an answer from the twittering wood-birds,
the invisibly plashing rivulets, and the resounding echo. When cheerful
youth and beautiful nature meet, they mutually rejoice.

[Illustration: THE FALLS OF THE ILSE]

The lower we descend the more delightfully did subterranean waters
ripple around us; only here and there they peeped out amid rocks and
bushes, appearing to be reconnoitring if they might yet come to light,
until at last one little spring jumped forth boldly. Then followed the
usual show--the bravest one makes a beginning, and then to their own
astonishment the great multitude of hesitators, suddenly inspired with
courage, rush forth to join the first. Myriads of springs now leaped in
haste from their ambush, united with the leader, and finally formed
quite an important brook, which, with its innumerable waterfalls and
beautiful windings, ripples down the valley. This is now the Ilse--the
sweet, pleasant Ilse. She flows through the blest Ilse vale, on whose
sides the mountains gradually rise higher and higher, being clad even to
their base with beech-trees, oaks, and the usual shrubs, the firs and
other needle-covered evergreens having disappeared; for that variety of
trees grows preferably upon the "Lower Harz," as the east side of the
Brocken is called in contradistinction to the west side or Upper Harz.
Being in reality much higher, it is therefore better adapted to the
growth of evergreens.

It is impossible to describe the merriment, simplicity, and charm with
which the Ilse leaps down over the fantastically shaped rocks which rise
in her path, so that the water strangely whizzes or foams in one place.
amid rifted rocks, and in another pours forth in perfect arches through
a thousand crannies, as if from a giant watering-pot, and then, lower
down, trips away again over the pebbles like a merry maiden. Yes, the
old legend is true; the Ilse is a princess, who, in the full bloom of
youth, runs laughing down the mountain side. How her white foam garment
gleams in the sunshine! How her silvered scarf flutters in the breeze!
How her diamonds flash! The high beech-trees gaze down on her like grave
fathers secretly smiling at the capricious self-will of a darling child;
the white birch-trees nod their heads like delighted aunts, who are,
however, anxious at such bold leaps; the proud oak looks on like a not
over-pleased uncle, who must pay for all the fine weather; the birds
joyfully sing their applause; the flowers on the bank whisper, "Oh, take
us with thee, take us with thee, dear sister!" But the merry maiden may
not be withheld, and she leaps onward and suddenly seizes the dreaming
poet, and there streams over me a flower-rain of ringing gleams and
flashing tones, and my senses are lost in all the beauty and splendor,
and I hear only the voice, sweet pealing as a flute--

  I am the Princess Ilse,
    And dwell in Ilsenstein;
  Come with me to my castle,
    Thou shalt be blest--and mine!

  With ever-flowing fountains
    I'll cool thy weary brow;
  Thou'lt lose amid their rippling
    The cares which grieve thee now.

  In my white arms reposing,
    And on my snow-white breast,
  Thou'lt dream of old, old legends,
    And sing in joy to rest.

  I'll kiss thee and caress thee,
    As in the ancient day
  I kissed the Emperor Henry,
    Who long has passed away.

  The dead are dead and silent,
    Only the living love;
  And I am fair and blooming--
    Dost feel my wild heart move!

  And as my heart is beating,
    My crystal castle rings,
  Where many a knight and lady
    In merry measure springs.

  Silk trains are softly rustling,
    Spurs ring from night to morn,
  And dwarfs are gaily drumming,
    And blow the golden horn.

  As round the Emperor Henry,
    My arms round thee shall fall;
  I held his ears--he heard not
    The trumpet's warning call.

We feel infinite happiness when the outer world blends with the world of
our own soul, and green trees, thoughts, the songs of birds, gentle
melancholy, the blue of heaven, memory, and the perfume of herbs, run
together in sweet arabesques. Women best understand this feeling, and
this may be the cause that such a sweet incredulous smile plays around
their lips when we, with scholastic pride, boast of our logical
deeds--how we have classified everything so nicely into subjective and
objective; how our heads are provided, apothecary-like, with a thousand
drawers, one of which contains reason, another understanding, the third
wit, the fourth bad wit, and the fifth nothing at all--that is to say,
the _Idea_.

As if wandering in dreams, I scarcely observed that we had left the
depths of the Ilsethal and were now again climbing uphill. This was
steep and difficult work, and many of us lost our breath; but, like our
late lamented cousin, who now lies buried at Moelln, we thought in
advance of the descent, and were all the merrier in consequence. Finally
we reached the Ilsenstein.

This is an enormous granite rock, which rises boldly on high from out a
glen. On three sides it is surrounded by high woody hills, but on the
fourth, the north side, there is an open view, and we gazed past the
Ilsenburg and the Ilse lying below us, far away into the low lands. On
the towerlike summit of the rock stands a great iron cross, and in case
of need there is also room here for four human feet. And as Nature,
through picturesque position and form, has adorned the Ilsenstein with
fantastic charms, so legend likewise has shed upon it a rosy shimmer.
According to Gottschalk, "People say that there once stood here an
enchanted castle, in which dwelt the rich and fair Princess Ilse, who
still bathes every morning in the Ilse. He who is fortunate enough to
hit upon the exact time and place will be led by her into the rock where
her castle lies and receive a royal reward." Others narrate a pleasant
legend of the lovers of the Lady Ilse and of the Knight of Westenberg,
which has been romantically sung by one of our most noted poets in the
_Evening Journal_. Others again say that it was the Old Saxon Emperor
Henry who had a royal good time with the water-nymph Ilse in her
enchanted castle.

A later author, one Niemann, Esq., who has written a _Guide to the Harz_
in which the height of the hills, variations of the compass, town
finances, and similar matters are described with praiseworthy accuracy,
asserts, however, that "what is narrated of the Princess Ilse belongs
entirely to the realm of fable." Thus do all men speak to whom a
beautiful princess has never appeared; but we who have been especially
favored by fair ladies know better. And the Emperor Henry knew it too!
It was not without cause that the Old Saxon emperors were so attached to
their native Harz. Let any one only turn over the leaves of the fair
_Lüneburg Chronicle,_ where the good old gentlemen are represented in
wondrously true-hearted woodcuts sitting in full armor on their mailed
war-steeds, the holy imperial crown on their beloved heads, sceptre and
sword in firm hands; and then in their dear mustachiod faces he can
plainly read how they often longed for the sweet hearts of their Harz
princesses, and for the familiar rustling of the Harz forests, when they
sojourned in distant lands--yes, even when in Italy, so rich in oranges
and poisons, whither they, with their followers, were often enticed by
the desire of being called Roman emperors, a genuine German lust for
title, which finally destroyed emperor and empire.

I, however, advise every one who may hereafter stand on the summit of
the Ilsenstein to think neither of emperor nor empire nor of the fair
Ilse, but simply of his own feet. For as I stood there, lost in thought,
I suddenly heard the subterranean music of the enchanted castle, and saw
the mountains around begin to stand on their heads, while the red-tiled
roofs of Ilsenburg were dancing, and green trees flew through the air,
until all was green and blue before my eyes, and I, overcome by
giddiness, would assuredly have fallen into the abyss, had I not, in the
dire need of my soul, clung fast to the iron cross. No one who reflects
on the critically ticklish situation in which I was then placed can
possibly find fault with me for having done this.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM ST. ANDREASBERG]

BOYHOOD DAYS[55]

By Heinrich Heine

Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland

The town of Düsseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when
far away, and happen at the same time to have been born there, strange
feelings come over your soul. I was born there, and feel as if I must go
straight home. And when I say _home_ I mean the _Bolkerstrasse_ and the
house in which I was born. This house will some day be a great
curiosity, and I have sent word to the old lady who owns it that she
must not for her life sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly
get as much as the tips which the distinguished green-veiled English
ladies will one day give the servant girl when she shows them the room
where I was born, and the hen-house wherein my father generally
imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my
mother taught me to write with chalk--O Lord! Madame, should I ever
become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble enough.

(1823-1826)

But my fame as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of Carrara; the
waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked my brow has not yet
spread its perfume through the wide world, and the green-veiled English
ladies, when they come to Düsseldorf as yet leave the celebrated house
unvisited, and go directly to the market-place and there gaze on the
colossal black equestrian statue which stands in its midst. This is
supposed to represent the Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm. He wears black
armor and a long wig hanging down his back. When a boy, I heard the
legend that the artist who made this statue became aware, to his
horror, while it was being cast, that he had not metal enough to fill
the mold, and then all the citizens of the town came running with all
their silver spoons, and threw them in to make up the deficiency; and I
often stood for hours before the statue wondering how many spoons were
concealed in it, and how many apple-tarts the silver would buy.
Apple-tarts were then my passion--now it is love, truth, liberty, and
crab-soup--and not far from the statue of the Prince Elector, at the
theatre corner, generally stood a curiously constructed bow-legged
fellow with a white apron, and a basket girt around him full of
delightfully steaming apple-tarts, whose praises he well knew how to
call out in an irresistible high treble voice, "Here you are! hot
apple-tarts! just from the oven--smelling deliciously!" Truly, whenever
in my later years the Evil One sought to get the better of me, he always
spoke in just such an enticing high treble voice, and I should certainly
have never remained twelve full hours with the Signora Giulietta, if she
had not thrilled me with her sweet perfumed apple-tart tones. And, in
fact, the apple-tarts would never have so sorely tempted me if the
crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with his white
apron; and it is aprons, you know, which--but I wander from the subject.
I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has so many silver spoons
in it, and no soup, and which represents the Prince Elector, Jan
Wilhelm.

He was a brave gentleman, 'tis reported, a lover of art and handy
therein himself. He founded the picture-gallery in Düsseldorf; and in
the observatory there, they still show us an extremely artistic piece of
work, consisting of one wooden cup within another which he himself had
carved in his leisure hours, of which latter he had every day
four-and-twenty.

[Illustration: JOHANN WILHELM MONUMENT, DÜSSELDORF]

In those days princes were not the harassed creatures they now are.
Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at night they drew
nightcaps over them besides and slept in peace, and their people
slumbered calmly at their feet; and when they awoke in the morning they
said, "Good morning, father!" and the princes replied, "Good morning,
dear children!"

But there came a sudden change over all this, for one morning when we
awoke in Düsseldorf and wanted to say, "Good morning, father!" the
father had traveled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but
dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a sort of funereal atmosphere, and
people crept silently through the market and read the long placard
placed on the door of the City Hall. The weather was dark and lowering,
yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in the nankeen jacket, which he
generally wore only at home, and in his blue woolen stockings, so that
his little bare legs peeped out dismally, and his thin lips quivered as
he murmured the words of the placard to himself. An old invalid soldier
from the Palatine read it in a somewhat louder tone, and at certain
phrases a transparent tear ran down his white, honorable old mustache. I
stood near him, and wept with him, and then asked why we wept; and he
replied, "The Prince Elector has abdicated." Then he read further, and
at the words "for the long-manifested fidelity of my subjects," "and
hereby release you from your allegiance," he wept still more. It is a
strange sight to see, when so old a man, in faded uniform, with a
scarred veteran's face, suddenly bursts into tears. While we read, the
Princely Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down from the City Hall,
and everything began to appear as oppressively desolate as though we
were waiting for an eclipse of the sun. The city councilors went about
at an abdicating, slow gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though
he had had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent,
although the crazy Aloysius again stood upon one leg and chattered the
names of French generals, with foolish grimaces, while the tipsy,
crooked Gumpertz rolled around the gutter, singing, "Ça ira! Ça ira!"
But I went home, weeping and lamenting because "the Prince Elector had
abdicated!" My mother tried hard to comfort me, but I would hear
nothing. I knew what I knew, and went weeping to bed, and in the night
dreamed that the world had come to an end--that all the fair flower
gardens and green meadows were taken up from the ground and rolled away,
like carpets; that a beadle climbed up on a high ladder and took down
the sun, and that the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, "I
must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and am to be buried
this afternoon." And it grew darker and darker--a few stars glimmered
meagrely on high, and these too, at length, fell down like yellow leaves
in autumn; one by one all men vanished, and I, poor child, wandered
around in anguish, and finally found myself before the willow fence of a
deserted farmhouse, where I saw a man digging up the earth with a spade,
and near him an ugly, spiteful-looking woman, who held something in her
apron like a human head--but it was the moon, and she laid it carefully
in the open grave--and behind me stood the Palatine invalid, sighing,
and spelling out "The Prince Elector has abdicated."

When I awoke the sun shone as usual through the window, there was a
sound of drums in the street, and as I entered the sitting-room and said
"good morning" to my father, who was sitting in his white dressing-gown,
I heard the little light-footed barber, as he dressed his hair, narrate
very minutely that allegiance would be sworn to the Grande Duke Joachim
that morning at the City Hall. I heard, too, that the new ruler was of
excellent family, that he had married the sister of the Emperor
Napoleon, and was really a very respectable man; that he wore his
beautiful black hair in flowing locks, that he would shortly make his
entrance into the town, and, in fine, that he was sure to please all the
ladies. Meanwhile the drumming in the streets continued, and I went out
before the house-door and looked at the French troops marching in that
joyous people of glory, who, singing and playing, swept over the world,
the serious and yet merry-faced grenadiers, the bear-skin shakoes, the
tri-colored cockades, the glittering bayonets, the _voltigeurs_, full of
vivacity and _point d'honneur_, and the omnipotent giant-like
silver-laced tambour major, who could cast his _baton_ with a gilded
head as high as the first story, and his eyes even to the second, where
also there were pretty girls sitting at the windows. I was so glad that
soldiers were to be quartered in our house--in which my mother differed
from me--and I hastened to the market-place. There everything looked
changed, somewhat as though the world had been newly whitewashed. A new
coat-of-arms was placed on the City Hall, its iron balconies were hung
with embroidered velvet drapery. French grenadiers stood as sentinels;
the old city councilors had put on new faces, and donned their Sunday
coats, and looked at each other Frenchily, and said, "_Bonjour!_" Ladies
gazed from every window, curious citizens and glittering soldiers filled
the square, and I, with other boys, climbed on the great bronze horse of
the Prince Elector, and thence stared down on the motley crowd.

Our neighbors, Pitter and the tall Kunz, nearly broke their necks in
accomplishing this feat, and it would have been better if they had been
killed outright, for the one afterwards ran away from his parents,
enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot at Mayence; while
the other, having made geographical researches in strange pockets, was
on this account elected active member of a public treadmill institute.
But having broken the iron bands which bound him to the latter and to
his fatherland, he safely crossed the channel, and eventually died in
London through wearing an all too tight neck-tie which automatically
drew together, when a royal official removed a plank from beneath his
feet.

Tall Kunz told us that there was no school today on account of the
ceremonies connected with taking the oath of allegiance. We had to wait
a long time ere these commenced. Finally, the balcony of the City Hall
was filled with gaily dressed gentlemen, with flags and trumpets, and
our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which
stretched out like Indian rubber, or like a knitted nightcap into which
one has thrown a stone--only that it was not the philosopher's
stone--and I could distinctly understand many of his phrases--for
instance, that "we are now to be made happy;" and at the last words the
trumpets sounded out, the flags were waved, the drums were beaten, the
people cried, Hurrah! and while I myself cried hurrah, I held fast to
the old Prince Elector. And it was really necessary that I should, for I
began to grow giddy. It seemed to me as if the people were standing on
their heads, because the world whizzed around, while the old Prince
Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, "Hold fast to me!" and
not till the cannon reechoed along the wall did I become sobered, and
climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.

As I went home, I saw the crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg, while
he chattered the names of French generals, and I also beheld crooked
Gumpertz rolling in the gutter and growling, "Ça ira, ça ira," and I
said to my mother, "We are all to be made happy; on that account there
is no school today."

II

The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as
before, and things were learned by heart as before--the Roman kings,
dates, the _nomina_ in _im_, the _verba irregularia_, Greek, Hebrew,
geography, German, mental arithmetic--Lord! my head is still giddy with
it!--all had to be learned by heart. And much of it was eventually to my
advantage; for had I not learned the Roman kings by heart, it would
subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether
Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed. And had I
not learned those dates, how could I ever, in later years, have found
out any one in big Berlin, where one house is as like another as drops
of water or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a friend
unless you have the number of his house in your head! At that time I
associated with every acquaintance some historical event, which had
happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the
one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always
occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For instance, when
I met my tailor, I at once thought of the battle of Marathon; when I saw
the well-groomed banker, Christian Gumpel, I immediately remembered the
destruction of Jerusalem; when I caught sight of a Portuguese friend,
deeply in debt, I thought at once of the flight of Mahomet; when I met
the university judge, a man whose probity is well known, I thought of
the death of Haman; and as soon as I laid eyes on Wadzeck, I was at once
reminded of Cleopatra. Ah, heaven! the poor creature is dead now; our
tears are dry, and we may say of her with Hamlet, "Taken all in all, she
was an old woman; we oft shall look upon her like again!" But, as I
said, dates are necessary. I know men who had nothing in their heads but
a few dates, and with their aid knew where to find the right houses in
Berlin, and are now already regular professors. But oh, the trouble I
had at school with the multitude of numbers; and as to actual
arithmetic, that was even worse! I understood best of all subtraction,
and for this there is a very practical rule: "Four can't be taken from
three, therefore I must borrow one"; but I advise all in such a case to
borrow a few extra groschen, for no one can tell what may happen.

But oh, the Latin! Madame, you can really have no idea of how
complicated it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the
world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs! they
already knew in their cradles which nouns have their accusative in _im_.
I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart, in the sweat of my brow,
but still it is well that I know them. For if I, for example, when I
publicly disputed in Latin in the College Hall of Göttingen, on the 20th
of July, 1825--Madame, it was well worth while to hear it--if I on that
occasion had said _sinapem_ instead of _sinapim_, the blunder would have
been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. _Vis, buris,
sitis, tussis, cucumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis_--these words, which
have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, inasmuch
as they belonged to a distinct class, and yet withal remained an
exception; therefore I highly respect them, and the fact that I have
them ready at my fingers' ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry,
often affords me in life's darkened hours much internal tranquillity and
consolation. But, Madame, the _verba irregularia_--they are
distinguished from the _verbis regularibus_ by the fact that the boys in
learning them got more whippings--are terribly difficult. In the musty
archways of the Franciscan cloister near our schoolroom there hung a
large Christ--crucified of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at
times rises in my dreams and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding
eyes. Before this image I often stood and prayed, "Oh, Thou poor and
also tormented God, I pray Thee, if it be possible, that I may get by
heart the irregular verbs!"

I will say nothing of Greek, otherwise I should vex myself too much. The
monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they
asserted that Greek was an invention of the devil. Lord knows what I
suffered through it! It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a
great predilection for the Jews, although they crucify my good name up
to the present hour, and yet I never could get as far in Hebrew as my
watch did, which had much intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers and in
consequence acquired many Jewish habits--for instance, it would not go
on Saturday, and it also learned the sacred language, subsequently even
studying it grammatically; for often when sleepless in the night I have,
to my amazement, heard it industriously ticking away to itself: _katal,
katalta, katalti, kittel, kittalta, katalti-pokat, pokadeti-pikat, pik,
pik_.

Meanwhile I learned more of German than of any other tongue, though
German itself is not such child's play, after all. For we poor Germans,
who have already been sufficiently vexed with having soldiers quartered
on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand other exactions, must
needs, over and above all this, bag Mr. Adelung and torment one another
with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector
Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, whose protégé I was from
childhood. But I also learned something of the kind from Professor
Schramm, a man who had written a book on eternal peace, and in whose
class my school-fellows quarreled and fought more than in any other.

And while I have thus been writing away without a pause and thinking
about all sorts of things, I have unexpectedly chattered myself back
among old school stories, and I avail myself of this opportunity to
mention, Madame, that it was not my fault if I learned so little of
geography that later in life I could not make my way in the world. For
in those days the French displaced all boundaries; every day the
countries were recolored on the world's map; those which were once blue
suddenly became green, many indeed were even dyed blood-red; the old
stereotyped souls of the school-books became so confused and confounded
that the devil himself would never have recognized them. The products of
the country were also changed; chickory and beets now grew where only
hares and country gentlemen pursuing them were once to be seen; even the
character of the nations changed; the Germans became pliant, the French
paid compliments no longer; the English ceased making ducks and drakes
of their money, and the Venetians were not subtle enough; there was
promotion among princes, old kings received new uniforms, new kingdoms
were cooked up and sold like hot cakes; many potentates were chased, on
the other hand, from house and home, and had to find some new way of
earning their bread, and some therefore went at once into trade, and
manufactured, for instance, sealing wax, or--Madame, this paragraph
must be brought to an end, or I shall be out of breath--in fine, in such
times it is impossible to advance far in geography.

I succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer changes,
and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, zebras,
rhinoceroses, etc., etc. And having many such pictures in my memory, it
often happens that at first sight many mortals appeared to me like old
acquaintances.

I also did well in mythology, and took a real delight in the mob of gods
and goddesses who, so jolly and naked, governed the world. I do not
believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew the
principal points of his catechism--that is, the loves of Venus--better
than I. To tell the plain truth, it seems to me that if we must learn
all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept them from the
first; and we have not, perhaps, gained so much with our New-Roman
Trinity or still less with our Jewish unity. Perhaps the old mythology
was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, for example, a
very decent idea of Homer to give to much-loved Venus a husband.

But I succeeded best in the French class of the Abbé d'Aulnoi, a French
_émigré_, who had written a number of grammars, and wore a red wig, and
jumped about very nervously when he lectured on his _Art poétique_ and
his _Histoire Allemande_. He was the only one in the whole gymnasium who
taught German history. Still, French has its difficulties, and to learn
it there must be much quartering of troops, much drumming, much
_apprendre par coeur_, and, above all, no one must be a _bête
allemande_. There was here, too, many a hard nut to crack; and I can
remember as plainly as though it happened but yesterday that I once got
into a bad scrape through _la religion_. I was asked at least six times
in succession, "Henry, what is French for 'the faith?'" And six times,
with an ever increasing inclination to weep, I replied, "It is called
_le crédit_." And after the seventh question the furious examinator,
purple in the face, cried, "It is called _la religion_"--and there was a
rain of blows and a thunder of laughter from all my schoolmates. Madame,
since that day I never hear the word _religion_ without having my back
turn pale with terror, and my cheeks turn red with shame. And to tell
the honest truth, _le crédit_ has during my life stood me in the better
stead than _la religion_. It occurs to me just at this instant that I
still owe the landlord of The Lion in Bologna five dollars. And I pledge
you my sacred word of honor that I would willingly owe him five dollars
more if I could only be certain that I should never again hear that
unlucky word, _la religion_, as long as I live.

_Parbleu_, Madame! I have succeeded tolerably well in French; for I
understand not only _patois_, but even patrician, governess French. Not
long ago, when in an aristocratic circle, I understood nearly one-half
of the conversation of two German countesses, each of whom could count
at least sixty-four years, and as many ancestors. Yes, in the _Café
Royal_ in Berlin, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talking
French, and could understand every word he spoke, though there was no
understanding in anything he said. We must know the _spirit_ of a
language, and this is best learned by drumming. _Parbleu_! how much do I
not owe to the French drummer who was so long quartered in our house,
who looked like a devil, and yet had the good heart of an angel, and
withal drummed so divinely!

He was a little, nervous figure, with a terrible black mustache, beneath
which red lips sprang forth defiantly, while his wild eyes shot fiery
glances all round.

I, a young shaver, stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to clean his
military buttons till they shone like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his
vest--for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well--and I followed him to
the guard house, to the roll-call, to the parade-ground--in those times
there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment--_les jours de
fête sont passés_! Monsieur Le Grand knew but a little broken German,
only the three principal words, "Bread," "Kiss," "Honor"--but he could
make himself very intelligible with his drum. For instance, if I knew
not what the word _liberté_ meant, he drummed the _Marseillaise_--and I
understood him. If I did not understand the word _égalité_, he drummed
the march--

  "Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
  Les aristocrats à la lanterne!"

and I understood him. If I did not know what Bêtise meant, he drummed
the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also declares, drummed
in Champagne--and I understood him. He once wanted to explain to me the
word _l'Allemagne_ (or Germany), and he drummed the all too _simple_
melody which on market-days is played to dancing-dogs, namely,
_dum-dum-dum_! I was vexed, but I understood him for all that!

In like manner he taught me modern history. I did not understand, it is
true, the words which he spoke, but as he constantly drummed while
speaking, I knew what he meant. This is, fundamentally, the best method.
The history of the storming of the Bastile, of the Tuileries, and the
like, cannot be correctly understood until we know how _the drumming_
was done on such occasions. In our school compendiums of history we
merely read: "Their Excellencies the Barons and Counts and their noble
spouses, their Highnesses the Dukes and Princes and their most noble
spouses were beheaded. His Majesty the King, and his most illustrious
spouse, the Queen, were beheaded."--But when you hear the red march of
the guillotine drummed, you understand it correctly for the first time,
and with it the how and the why. Madame, that is really a wonderful
march! It thrilled through marrow and bone when I first heard it, and I
was glad that I forgot it. People are apt to forget things of this kind
as they grow older, and a young man has nowadays so much and such a
variety of knowledge to keep in his head--whist, Boston, genealogical
registers, decrees of the Federal Council, dramaturgy, the liturgy,
carving--and yet, I assure you that really, despite all the jogging up
of my brain, I could not for a long time recall that tremendous time!
And only to think, Madame! Not long ago I sat one day at table with a
whole menagerie of counts, princes, princesses, chamberlains,
court-marshalesses, seneschals, upper court mistresses, court keepers of
the royal plate, court hunters' wives, and whatever else these
aristocratic domestics are termed, and _their_ under-domestics ran about
behind their chairs and shoved full plates before their mouths; but I,
who was passed by and neglected, sat idle without the least occupation
for my jaws, and kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed with my
fingers, from boredom, and, to my astonishment, I found myself suddenly
drumming the red, long-forgotten guillotine march.

"And what happened?" Madame, the good people were not in the least
disturbed, nor did they know that _other_ people, when they can get
nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer
marches, which people have long forgotten.

Is drumming now an inborn talent, or was it early developed in me?
Enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often
involuntarily manifests itself. At Berlin, I once sat in the
lecture-room of the Privy Councilor Schmaltz, a man who had saved the
state by his book on the _Red and Black Coat Danger_. You remember,
perhaps, Madame, that in Pausanias we are told that by the braying of an
ass an equally dangerous plot was once discovered, and you also know
from Livy, or from Becker's _History of the World_, that geese once
saved the Capitol, and you must certainly know from Sallust that by the
chattering of a loquacious _putaine_, the Lady Fulvia, the terrible
conspiracy of Catiline came to light. But to return to the mutton
aforesaid. I was listening to the law and rights of nations, in the
lecture-room of the Herr Privy Councilor Schmaltz, and it was a lazy
sleepy summer afternoon, and I sat on the bench, and little by little I
listened less and less--my head had gone to sleep--when all at once I
was awakened by the noise of my own feet, which had _not_ gone to sleep
and had probably heard that just the contrary of the law and rights of
nations was being taught and constitutional principles were being
reviled, and which with the little eyes of their corns had seen better
how things go in the world than the Privy Councilor with his great Juno
eyes--these poor dumb feet, incapable of expressing their immeasurable
meaning by words, strove to make themselves intelligible by drumming,
and they drummed so loudly that I thereby came near getting into a
terrible scrape.

Cursèd, unreflecting feet! They once played me a little trick, when I,
on a time in Göttingen, was temporarily attending the lectures of
Professor Saalfeld, and as this learned gentleman, with his angular
agility, jumped about here and there in his desk, and wound himself up
to curse the Emperor Napoleon in regular set style--no, my poor feet, I
cannot blame you for drumming _then_--indeed, I would not have blamed
you if in your dumb _naïveté_ you had expressed yourselves by still more
energetic movements. How dare I, the scholar of Le Grand, hear the
Emperor cursed? The Emperor! the Emperor! the great Emperor!

When I think of the great Emperor, all in my memory again becomes
summer-green and golden. A long avenue of lindens in bloom arises before
me, and on the leafy twigs sit nightingales, singing; the waterfall
murmurs, in full round beds flowers are growing, and dreamily nodding
their fair heads. I was on a footing of wondrous intimacy with them; the
rouged tulips, proud as beggars, condescendingly greeted me; the nervous
sick lilies nodded to me with tender melancholy, the wine-red roses
laughed at me from afar; the night-violets sighed; with the myrtle and
laurel I was not then acquainted, for they did not entice with a shining
bloom, but the mignonette, with whom I am now on such bad terms, was my
very particular friend.--I am speaking of the Court garden of
Düsseldorf, where I often lay upon the grass and piously listened there
when Monsieur Le Grand told of the martial feats of the great Emperor,
beating meanwhile the marches which were drummed while the deeds were
performed, so that I saw and heard it all vividly. I saw the passage
over the Simplon--the Emperor in advance and his brave grenadiers
climbing on behind him, while the scream of frightened birds of prey
sounded around, and the glaciers thundered in the distance; I saw the
Emperor with glove in hand on the bridge of Lodi; I saw the Emperor in
his grey cloak at Marengo; I saw the Emperor on horseback in the battle
of the Pyramids, naught around save powder, smoke, and Mamelukes; I saw
the Emperor in the battle of Austerlitz--ha! how the bullets whistled
over the smooth, icy road! I saw, I heard the battle of Jena-dum, dum,
dune; I saw, I heard the battle of Eylau, of Wagram--no, I could hardly
stand it! Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that my own eardrum nearly burst.

But what were my feelings when my very own eyes were first blessed with
the sight of him, _him_--Hosannah! the Emperor.

It was precisely in the avenue of the Court garden at Düsseldorf. As I
pressed through the gaping crowd, thinking of the doughty deeds and
battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, my heart beat the
"general march"--yet at the same time I thought of the police regulation
that no one should dare ride through the middle of the avenue under
penalty of five dollars fine. And the Emperor with his _cortège_ rode
directly through the middle of the avenue. The trembling trees bowed
toward him as he advanced, the sun-rays quivered, frightened, yet
curious, through the green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there
swam visibly a golden star. The Emperor wore his unpretentious-green
uniform and the little world-renowned hat. He rode a white palfrey,
which stepped with such calm pride, so confidently, so nobly--had I then
been Crown Prince of Prussia I would have envied that horse. The
Emperor sat carelessly, almost laxly, holding his rein with one hand,
and with the other good-naturedly patting the neck of the horse. It was
a sunny marble hand, a mighty hand--one of the pair which subdued the
many headed monster of anarchy, and regulated the conflict of
nations--and it good-naturedly patted the neck of the horse. Even the
face had that hue which we find in the marble Greek and Roman busts, the
traits were as nobly proportioned as those of the ancients, and on that
countenance was plainly written "Thou shalt have no gods before me!" A
smile, which warmed and tranquilized every heart, flitted over the
lips--and yet all knew that those lips needed but to whistle _et la
Prusse n'existait plus_--those lips needed but to whistle and the entire
clergy would have stopped their ringing and singing--those lips needed
but to whistle, and the entire Holy Roman Empire would have danced. And
these lips smiled, and the eye too smiled. It was an eye clear as
heaven; it could read the hearts of men; it saw at a glance all things
in the world at once, while we ordinary mortals see them only one by
one, and then only their colored shadows. The brow was not so clear, the
phantoms of future battles were nestling there, and from time to time
there was a quiver which swept over this brow, and those were the
creative thoughts, the great seven-league-boots thoughts, wherewith the
spirit of the Emperor strode invisibly over the world; and I believe
that every one of those thoughts would have furnished a German author
plentiful material to write about all the days of his life.

The Emperor rode calmly, straight through the middle of the avenue; no
policeman stopped him; behind him proudly rode his cortège on snorting
steeds and loaded with gold and ornaments. The drums rolled, the
trumpets pealed; near me crazy Aloysius spun round, and snarled the
names of his generals; not far off bellowed the tipsy Gumpert, and the
multitude cried with a thousand voices, "Es lebe der Kaiser!"--Long live
the Emperor!

IV

The Emperor is dead. On a waste island in the Indian Sea lies his
lonely grave, and he for whom the world was too narrow lies silently
under a little hillock, where five weeping willows shake out their green
hair, and a gentle little brook, murmuring sorrowfully, ripples by.
There is no inscription on his tomb; but Clio, with unerring style, has
written thereon invisible words, which will resound, like ghostly tones,
through the centuries.

Britannia, the sea is thine! But the sea hath not water enough to wash
away the shame which that mighty one hath bequeathed to thee in dying.
Not thy wind bag, Sir Hudson--no; thou thyself wert the Sicilian bravo
whom perjured kings lured that they might secretly revenge on the man of
the people that which the people had once openly inflicted on one of
themselves. And he was thy guest, and had seated himself by thy hearth.

Until the latest times the boys of France will sing and tell of the
terrible hospitality of the _Bellerophon_, and when those songs of
mockery and tears resound across the strait, there will be a blush on
the cheek of every honorable Briton. But a day will come when this song
will ring thither, and there will be no Britannia in existence--when the
people of pride will be humbled to the earth, when Westminster's
monuments will be broken, and when the royal dust which they inclosed
will be forgotten. And St. Helena is the holy grave whither the races of
the east and of the west will make their pilgrimage in ships, with
pennons of many a hue, and their hearts will grow strong with great
memories of the deeds of the worldly savior, who suffered and died under
Sir Hudson Lowe, as it is written in the evangelists, Las Cases,
O'Meara, and Autommarchi.

Strange! A terrible destiny has already overtaken the three greatest
enemies of the Emperor: Londonderry has cut his throat, Louis XVIII has
rotted away on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld is still, as before,
professor in Göttingen.

ENGLISH FRAGMENTS[56]

BY HEINRICH HEINE

TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

DIALOGUE ON THE THAMES

The sallow man stood near me on the deck, as I gazed on the green shores
of the Thames, while in every corner of my soul the nightingales awoke
to life. "Land of Freedom!" I cried, "I greet thee! Hail to thee,
Freedom, young sun of the renewed world! Those older suns, Love and
Faith, are withered and cold, and can no longer light or warm us. The
ancient myrtle woods, which were once all too full, are now deserted,
and only timid turtle-doves nestle amid the soft thickets. The old
cathedrals, once piled in towering height by an arrogantly pious race,
which fain would force its faith into heaven, are crumbling, and their
gods have ceased to believe in themselves. Those divinities are worn
out, and our age lacks the imagination to shape others. Every power of
the human breast now tends to a love of Liberty, and Liberty is,
perhaps, the religion of the modern age. It is a religion not preached
to the rich, but to the poor, and has in like manner its evangelists,
its martyrs, and its Iscariots!"

"Young enthusiast," said the sallow man, "you will not find what you
seek. You may be in the right in believing that Liberty is a new
religion which will spread over all the world. But as every race of old,
when it received Christianity, did so according to its requirements and
its peculiar character, so, at present, every country adopts from the
new religion of liberty only that which is in accordance with its local
needs and national character.

The English are a domestic race, living a sequestered, peaceable, family
life, and the Englishman seeks in the circle of those connected with and
pertaining to him that easy state of mind which is denied to him through
his innate social incapacity. The Englishman is, therefore, contented
with that liberty which secures his most personal rights and guards his
body, his property, and his conjugal relations, his religion, and even
his whims, in the most unconditional manner. No one is freer in his home
than an Englishman, and, to use a celebrated expression, he is king and
bishop between his four walls; and there is much truth in the common
saying, 'My house is my castle.'

"If the Englishman has the greatest need of personal freedom, the
Frenchman, in case of necessity, can dispense with it, if we only grant
him that portion of universal liberty known as equality. The French are
not a domestic, but a social, race; they are no friends to a silent
_tête-à-tête_, which they call _une conversation anglaise;_ they run
gossiping about from the _café_ to the casino, and from the casino to
the _salons_; their light champagne-blood and inborn talent for company
drive them to social life, whose first and last principle, yes, whose
very soul, is equality. The development of the social principle in
France necessarily involved that of equality, and if the ground of the
Revolution should be sought in the Budget, it is none the less true that
its language and tone were drawn from those wits of low degree who lived
in the _salons_ of Paris, apparently on a footing of equality with the
high _noblesse_, and who were now and then reminded, it may have been by
a hardly perceptible, yet not on that account less exasperating, feudal
smile, of the great and ignominious inequality which lay between them.
And when the _canaille roturière_ took the liberty of beheading that
high _noblesse_, it was done less to inherit their property than their
ancestry, and to introduce a noble equality in place of a vulgar
inequality. And we are the better authorized to believe that this
striving for equality was the main principle of the Revolution, since
the French speedily found themselves so happy and contented under the
dominion of their great Emperor, who, fully appreciating that they were
not yet of age, kept all their _freedom_ within the limits of his
powerful guardianship, permitting them only the pleasure of a perfect
and admirable equality.

"Far more patient than the Frenchman, the Englishman easily bears the
glances of a privileged aristocracy, consoling himself with the
reflection that he has a right which renders it impossible for others to
disturb his personal comfort or his daily requirements. Nor does the
aristocracy here make a show of its privileges, as on the Continent. In
the streets and in places of public resort in London, colored ribbons
are seen only on women's bonnets, and gold and silver signs of
distinction on the dresses of lackeys. Even that beautiful, colored
livery which indicates with us military rank is, in England, anything
but a sign of honor, and, as an actor after a play hastens to wash off
the rouge, so an English officer hastens, when the hours of active duty
are over, to strip off his red coat and again appear like a gentleman,
in the plain garb of a gentleman. Only at the theatre of St. James are
those decorations and costumes, which were raked from the off-scourings
of the Middle Ages, of any avail. There we may see the ribbons of orders
of nobility; there the stars glitter, silk knee-breeches and satin
trains rustle, golden spurs and old-fashioned French styles of
expression clatter; there the knight struts and the lady spreads
herself. But what does a free Englishman care for the Court comedy of
St. James, so long as it does not trouble him, and so long as no one
interferes when he plays comedy in like manner in his own house, making
his lackeys kneel before him, or plays with the garter of a pretty
cook-maid? _'Honi soit qui mal y pense!'_

"As for the Germans, they need neither freedom nor equality. They are a
speculative race, ideologists, prophets, and sages, dreamers who live
only in the past and in the future, and who have no present. Englishmen
and Frenchmen have a _present_; with them every day has its field of
action, its struggle against enemies, its history. The German has
nothing for which to battle, and when he began to realize that there
might be things worth striving for, his philosophizing wiseacres taught
him to doubt the existence of such things. It cannot be denied that the
Germans love liberty, but it is in a different manner from other people.
The Englishman loves liberty as his lawful wife, and, even if he does
not treat her with remarkable tenderness, he is still ready in case of
need to defend her like a man, and woe to the red-coated rascal who
forces his way to her bedroom--let him do so as a gallant or as a
catchpoll. The Frenchman loves liberty as his bride. He burns for her;
he is a flame; he casts himself at her feet with the most extravagant
protestations; he will fight for her to the death; he commits for her
sake a thousand follies. The German loves liberty as though she were his
old grandmother."

Men are strange beings! We grumble in our Fatherland; every stupid
thing, every contrary trifle, vexes us there; like boys, we are always
longing to rush forth into the wide world, and, when we finally find
ourselves there, we find it too wide, and often yearn in secret for the
narrow stupidities and contrarieties of home. Yes, we would fain be
again in the old chamber, sitting behind the familiar stove, making for
ourselves, as it were, a "cubby-house" near it, and, nestling there,
read the _German General Advertiser_. So it was with me in my journey to
England. Scarcely had I lost sight of the German shore ere there awoke
in me a curious after-love for the German nightcaps and forest-like wigs
which I had just left in discontent; and when the Fatherland faded from
my eyes I found it again in my heart. And, therefore, it may be that
my voice quivered in a somewhat lower key as I replied to the sallow
man--"Dear sir, do not scold the Germans! If they are dreamers, still
many of them have conceived such beautiful dreams that I would hardly
incline to change them for the waking realities of our neighbors. Since
we all sleep and dream, we can perhaps dispense with freedom; for our
tyrants also sleep, and only dream their tyranny. We awoke only
once--when the Catholic Romans robbed us of our dream-freedom; then we
acted and conquered, and laid us down again and dreamed. O sir! do not
mock our dreamers, for now and then they speak, like somnambulists,
wondrous things in sleep, and their words become the seeds of freedom.
No one can foresee the turn which things may take. The splenetic Briton,
weary of his wife, may put a halter round her neck and sell her in
Smithfield. The flattering Frenchman may perhaps be untrue to his
beloved bride and abandon her, and, singing, dance after the Court dames
(_courtisanes_) of his royal palace (_palais royal_). But the German
will never turn his old grandmother quite out of doors; he will always
find a place for her by his fireside, where she can tell his listening
children her legends. Should Freedom ever vanish from the entire
world--which God forbid!--a German dreamer would discover her again in
his dreams."

While the steamboat, and with it our conversation, swam thus along the
stream, the sun had set, and his last rays lit up the hospital at
Greenwich, an imposing palace-like building which in reality consists of
two wings, the space between which is empty, and a green hill crowned
with a pretty little tower from which one can behold the passers-by. On
the water the throng of vessels became denser and denser, and I wondered
at the adroitness with which they avoided collision. While passing, many
a sober and friendly face nodded greetings--faces whom we had never seen
before, and were never to see again. We sometimes came so near that it
was possible to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart
swells at the sight of so many bellying sails, and we feel strangely
moved when the confused hum and far-off dance-music, and the deep voices
of sailors, resound from the shore. But the outlines of all things
vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening mist, and
there remained visible only a forest of masts, rising long and bare
above it.

The sallow man still stood near me and gazed reflectively on high, as
though he sought for the pale stars in the cloudy heaven. And, still
gazing aloft, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and said in a tone as
though secret thoughts involuntarily became words--"Freedom and
equality! they are not to be found on earth below nor in heaven above.
The stars on high are not alike, for one is greater and brighter than
another; none of them wanders free, all obey a prescribed and iron-like
law--there is slavery in heaven as on earth!"

"There is the Tower!" suddenly cried one of our traveling companions, as
he pointed to a high building which rose like a spectral, gloomy dream
above the cloud-covered London.

LONDON

I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the
astonished spirit; I have seen it, and am still astonished; and still
there remains fixed in my memory the stone forest of houses, and amid
them the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their motley
passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger, and of
hatred--I mean London.

Send a _philosopher_ to London, but, for your life, no poet! Send a
philosopher there, and station him at a corner of Cheapside, where he
will learn more than from all the books of the last Leipzig fair; and as
the billows of human life roar around him, so will a sea of new thoughts
rise before him, and the Eternal Spirit which moves upon the face of the
waters will breathe upon him; the most hidden secrets of social harmony
will be suddenly revealed to him; he will hear the pulse of the world
beat audibly, and see it visibly; for if London is the right hand of the
world--its active, mighty right hand--then we may regard that route
which leads from the Exchange to Downing Street as the world's pyloric
artery.

But never send a poet to London! This downright earnestness of all
things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this
troubled spirit in pleasure itself, this exaggerated London, smothers
the imagination and rends the heart. And should you ever send a German
poet thither--a dreamer, who stares at everything, even a ragged
beggar-woman, or the shining wares of a goldsmith's shop--why, then, at
least he will find things going right badly with him, and he will be
hustled about on every side, or perhaps be knocked over with a mild "God
damn!" _God damn!_--damn the knocking about and pushing! I see at a
glance that these people have enough to do. They live on a grand scale,
and though food and clothes are dearer with them than with us, they must
still be better fed and clothed than we are--as gentility requires.
Moreover, they have enormous debts, yet occasionally, in a vainglorious
mood, they make ducks and drakes of their guineas, pay other nations to
box about for their pleasure, give their kings a handsome _douceur_ into
the bargain; and, therefore, John Bull must work to get the money for
such expenditure. By day and by night he must tax his brain to discover
new machines, and he sits and reckons in the sweat of his brow, and runs
and rushes, without much looking around, from the Docks to the Exchange,
and from the Exchange to the Strand; and therefore it is quite
pardonable if he, when a poor German poet, gazing into a print-shop
window, stands bolt in his way on the corner of Cheapside, should knock
the latter sideways with a rather rough "God damn!"

But the picture at which I was gazing as I stood at Cheapside corner was
that of the French crossing the Beresina.

And when I, jolted out of my gazing, looked again on the raging street,
where a parti-colored coil of men, women, and children, horses,
stagecoaches, and with them a funeral, whirled groaning and creaking
along, it seemed to me as though all London were such a Beresina Bridge,
where every one presses on in mad haste to save his scrap of life; where
the daring rider stamps down the poor pedestrian; where every one who
falls is lost forever; where the best friends rush, without feeling,
over one another's corpses; and where thousands in the weakness of
death, and bleeding, grasp in vain at the planks of the bridge, and are
shot down into the icy grave of death.

How much more pleasant and homelike it is in our dear Germany! With what
dreaming comfort, in what Sabbath-like repose, all glides along here!
Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses shine in the quiet
sunshine, swallows flit over the flagstones, fat Court-counciloresses
smile from the windows; while along the echoing streets there is room
enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, and for men to stand at ease
and chat about the theatre, and bow deeply--oh, how deeply!--when some
small aristocratic scamp or vice-scamp, with colored ribbons on his
shabby coat, or some Court-marshal-low-brow struts along as if in
judgment, graciously returning salutations.

I had made up my mind in advance not to be astonished at that immensity
of London of which I had heard so much. But I had as little success as
the poor schoolboy who determined beforehand not to feel the whipping
which he was to receive. The facts of the case were that he expected to
get the usual blows with the usual stick in the usual way on the back,
whereas he received a most unusually severe licking on an unusual place
with a cutting switch. I anticipated great palaces, and saw nothing but
mere small houses. But their very uniformity and their limitless extent
impress the soul wonderfully.

These houses of brick, owing to the damp atmosphere and coal smoke, are
all of an uniform color, that is to say, of a brown olive-green, and are
all of the same style of building, generally two or three windows wide,
three stories high, and finished above with small red tiles, which
remind one of newly extracted bleeding teeth; while the broad and
accurately squared streets which these houses form seem to be bordered
by endlessly long barracks. This has its reason in the fact that every
English family, though it consist of only two persons, must still have a
house to itself for its own castle, and rich speculators, to meet the
demand, build, wholesale, entire streets of these dwellings, which they
retail singly. In the principal streets of the city, where the business
of London is most at home, where old-fashioned buildings are mingled
with the new, and where the fronts of the houses are covered with signs,
yards in length, generally gilt, and in relief, this characteristic
uniformity is less striking--the less so, indeed, because the eye of the
stranger is incessantly caught by the new and brilliant wares exposed
for sale in the windows. And these articles do not merely produce an
effect, because the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which
he manufactures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp
and every boot, every teakettle and every woman's dress, shines out so
invitingly and so _finished_. There is also a peculiar charm in the art
of arrangement, in the contrast of colors, and in the variety of the
English shops; even the most commonplace necessities of life appear in a
startling magic light through this artistic power of setting forth
everything to advantage. Ordinary articles of food attract us by the new
light in which they are placed; even uncooked fish lie so delightfully
dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales attracts us; raw meat
lies, as if painted, on neat and many-colored porcelain plates,
garlanded about with parsley--yes, everything seems painted, reminding
us of the highly polished yet modest pictures of Franz Mieris. But the
human beings whom we see are not so cheerful as in the Dutch paintings,
for they sell the jolliest wares with the most serious faces, and the
cut and color of their clothes is as uniform as that of their houses.

On the opposite side of the town, which they call the West End--"_the
west end of the town_"--and where the more aristocratic and less
occupied world lives, the uniformity spoken of is still more dominant;
yet here there are very long and very broad streets, where all the
houses are large as palaces, though anything but remarkable as regards
their exterior, unless we except the fact that in these, as in all the
better class of houses in London, the windows of the first _étage_ (or
second story) are adorned with iron-barred balconies, and also on the
_rez de chaussée_ there is a black railing protecting the entrance to
certain subterranean apartments. In this part of the city there are also
great "squares," where rows of houses like those already described form
a quadrangle, in whose centre there is a garden, inclosed by an iron
railing and containing some statue or other. In all of these places and
streets the eye is never shocked by the dilapidated huts of misery.
Everywhere we are stared down on by wealth and respectability, while,
crammed away in retired lanes and dark, damp alleys, Poverty dwells with
her rags and her tears.

The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, and does
not chance right into the regular quarters of the multitude, sees little
or nothing of the fearful misery existing there. Only here and there at
the mouth of some dark alley stands a ragged woman with a suckling babe
at her weak breast, and begs with her eyes. Perhaps, if those eyes are
still beautiful, we glance into them, and are shocked at the world of
wretchedness visible within. The common beggars are old people,
generally blacks, who stand at the corners of the streets cleaning
pathways--a very necessary thing in muddy London--and ask for "coppers"
in reward. It is in the dusky twilight that Poverty and her mates, Vice
and Crime, glide forth from their lairs. They shun daylight the more
anxiously since their wretchedness there contrasts more cruelly with the
pride of wealth which glitters everywhere; only Hunger sometimes drives
them at noonday from their dens, and then they stand with silent,
speaking eyes, staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who hurries
along, busy, and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who, like a
surfeited god, rides by on his high horse, casting now and then an
aristocratically indifferent glance at the mob below, as though they
were swarming ants, or rather a mass of baser beings, whose joys and
sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings. Yes--for over the
vulgar multitude which sticks fast to the soil there soars, like beings
of a higher nature, England's nobility, to whom their little island is
only a temporary resting-place, Italy their summer garden, Paris their
social salon, and the whole world their inheritance. They sweep along,
knowing nothing of sorrow or suffering, and their gold is a talisman
which conjures into fulfilment their wildest wish.

Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be, where others swell in
scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a
crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou
moistenest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art
thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to Vice and Crime! Outlawed
criminals often bear more humanity in their hearts than those cool,
reproachless town burghers of virtue, in whose white hearts the power of
evil, it is true, is quenched--but with it, too, the power of good. And
even vice is not always vice. I have seen women on whose cheeks red vice
was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. I have seen
women--I would that I saw them again!--

WELLINGTON

The man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune everywhere, and
wherever the greatest men in the world were unfortunate; and that
excites us, and makes him hateful. We see in him only the victory of
stupidity over genius--Arthur Wellington triumphant where Napoleon
Bonaparte is overwhelmed! Never was a man more ironically gifted by
Fortune, and it seems as though she would exhibit his empty littleness
by raising him high on the shield of victory. Fortune is a woman, and
perhaps in womanly wise she cherishes a secret grudge against the man
who overthrew her former darling, though the very overthrow came from
her own will. Now she lets him conquer again on the Catholic
Emancipation question--yes, in the very fight in which George Canning
was destroyed. It is possible that he might have been loved had the
wretched Londonderry been his predecessor in the Ministry; but it
happens that he is the successor of the noble Canning--of the much-wept,
adored, great Canning--and he conquers where Canning was overwhelmed.
Without such an adversity of prosperity, Wellington would perhaps pass
for a great man; people would not hate him, would not measure him too
accurately, at least not with the heroic measure with which a Napoleon
and a Canning are measured, and consequently it would never have been
discovered how small he is as man.

He is a small man, and smaller than small at that. The French could say
nothing more sarcastic of Polignac than that he was a Wellington without
celebrity. In fact, what remains when we strip from a Wellington the
field-marshal's uniform of celebrity?

I have here given the best apology for Lord Wellington--in the English
sense of the word. My readers will be astonished when I honorably
confess that I once praised this hero--and clapped on all sail in so
doing. It is a good story, and I will tell it here:

My barber in London was a Radical, named Mr. White--poor little man in
a shabby black dress, worn until it almost shone white again; he was
so lean that even his full face looked like a profile, and the sighs in
his bosom were visible ere they rose. These sighs were caused by the
misfortunes of Old England--by the impossibility of paying the National
Debt.

"Ah!" I generally heard him sigh, "why need the English people trouble
themselves as to who reigns in France, and what the French are a-doing
at home? But the high nobility, sir, and the High Church were afraid of
the principles of liberty of the French Revolution; and to keep down
these principles John Bull must give his gold and his blood, and make
debts into the bargain. We've got all we wanted out of the war--the
Revolution has been put down, the French eagles of liberty have had
their wings cut, and the High Church may be cock-sure that none of these
eagles will come a-flying over the Channel; and now the high nobility
and the High Church between 'em ought to pay, anyway, for the debts
which were made for their own good, and not for any good of the poor
people. Ah! the poor people!"

Whenever Mr. White came to the "poor people" he always sighed more
deeply than ever, and the refrain then was that bread and porter were so
dear that the poor people must starve to feed fat lords, stag-hounds,
and priests, and that there was only one remedy. At these words he was
wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it murderously up and down the
strop, he murmured grimly to himself, "Lords, priests, hounds!"

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON]

But his Radical rage boiled most fiercely against the Duke of
Wellington; he spat gall and poison whenever he alluded to him, and as
he lathered me he himself foamed with rage. Once I was fairly frightened
when he, while barbering away at my neck, burst out in wonted wise
against Wellington, murmuring all the while, "If I only had him _this_
way under my razor, _I'd_ save him the trouble of cutting his own
throat, as his brother in office and fellow-countryman, Londonderry,
did, who killed himself that-a-way at North Cray in Kent--God damn
him!"

I felt that the man's hand trembled and, fearing lest he might imagine,
in his excitement, that I really was the Duke of Wellington, I
endeavored to allay his violence, and, in an underhand manner to soothe
him, I called up his national pride; I represented to him that the Duke
of Wellington had advanced the glory of the English, that he had always
been an innocent tool in the hands of others, that he was fond of
beefsteak, and that he finally--but the Lord only knows what fine things
I said of Wellington as I felt that razor tickling around my throat!

What vexes me most is the reflection that Wellington will be as immortal
as Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that, in like manner, the name of
Pontius Pilate will be as little likely to be forgotten as that of
Christ. Wellington and Napoleon! It is a wonderful phenomenon that the
human mind can at the same time think of both these names. There can be
no greater contrast than the two, even in their external appearance.
Wellington, the dumb ghost, with an ashy-gray soul in a buckram body, a
wooden smile on his freezing face--and, by the side of _that_, think of
the figure of Napoleon, every inch a god!

That figure never disappears from my memory. I still see him, high on
his steed, with eternal eyes in his marble-like, imperial face, glancing
calm as destiny on the Guards defiling past--he was then sending them to
Russia, and the old Grenadiers glanced up at him so terribly devoted, so
all-consciously serious, so proud in death--

"Te, Cæsar, morituri, salutant."

There often steals over me a secret doubt whether I ever really saw him,
if we were ever contemporaries, and then it seems to me as if his
portrait, torn from the little frame of the present, vanished away more
proudly and imperiously in the twilight of the past. His name even now
sounds to us like a word of the early world, and as antique and as
heroic as those of Alexander and Cæsar. It has already become a
rallying word among races, and when the East and the West meet they
fraternize on that single name.

I once felt, in the deepest manner, how significantly and magically that
name can sound. It was in the harbor of London, at the India Docks, and
on board an East India-man just arrived from Bengal. It was a giant-like
ship, fully manned with Hindoos. The grotesque forms and groups, the
singularly variegated dresses, the enigmatical expressions of
countenance, the strange gestures, the wild and foreign ring of their
language, their shouts of joy and their laughter, with the seriousness
ever rising and falling on certain soft yellow faces, their eyes like
black flowers which looked at me as with wondrous woe--all of this awoke
in me a feeling like that of enchantment; I was suddenly as if
transported into Scherezade's story, and I thought that broad-leaved
palms, and long-necked camels, and gold-covered elephants, and other
fabulous trees and animals must forthwith appear. The supercargo who was
on the vessel, and who understood as little of the language as I myself,
could not, in his truly English narrow-mindedness, narrate to me enough
of what a ridiculous race they were, nearly all pure Mohammedans
collected from every land of Asia, from the limits of China to the
Arabian Sea, there being even some jet-black, woolly-haired Africans
among them.

To one whose whole soul was weary of the spiritless West, and who was as
sick of Europe as I then was, this fragment of the East which moved
cheerfully and changingly before my eyes was a refreshing solace; my
heart enjoyed at least a few drops of that draught which I had so often
tasted in gloomy Hanoverian or Royal Prussian winter nights, and it is
very possible that the foreigners saw in me how agreeable the sight of
them was to me, and how gladly I would have spoken a kind word to them.
It was also plain from the very depths of their eyes how much I pleased
them, and they would also have willingly said something pleasant to me,
and it was a vexation that neither understood the other's language. At
length a means occurred to me of expressing to them with a single word
my friendly feelings, and, stretching forth my hands reverentially as if
in loving greeting, I cried the name, "Mohammed!"

Joy suddenly flashed over the dark faces of the foreigners, and, folding
their arms as reverentially in turn, as a cheerful greeting they
exclaimed, "Bonaparte!"

 LAFAYETTE[57] (1833)

By HEINRICH HEINE

TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND

PARIS, January 19, 1832.

The _Temps_ remarks today that the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ now publishes
articles which are hostile to the royal family, and that the German
censorship, which does not permit the least remark to be leveled at
absolute kings, does not show the least mercy toward a citizen-king. The
_Temps_ is really the shrewdest and cleverest journal in the world! It
attains its object with a few mild words much more readily than others
with the most blustering polemics. Its crafty hint is well understood,
and I know of at least one liberal writer who no longer considers it
honorable to use, under the permission of the censorship, such inimical
language of a citizen-king as would not be allowed when applied to an
absolute monarch. But in return for that, let Louis Philippe do us one
single favor--which is to remain a citizen-king; for it is because he is
becoming every day more and more like an absolute king that we must
complain of him. He is certainly perfectly honorable as a man, an
estimable father of a family, a tender spouse and a good economist, but
it is vexatious to see how he allows all the trees of liberty to be
felled and stripped of their beautiful foliage that they may be sawed
into beams to support the tottering house of Orleans. For that, and that
only, the Liberal press blames him, and the spirits of truth, in order
to make war on him, even condescend to lie. It is melancholy and
lamentable that through such tactics even the family of the King must