The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II.
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Title: The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II.
Editor: Henry Cabot Lodge
Francis W. Halsey
Release date: June 10, 2008 [eBook #25751]
Language: English
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[Illustration: TAINE, DANTE, GOETHE, CERVANTES]
THE BEST
_of the_
WORLD'S CLASSICS
RESTRICTED TO PROSE
HENRY CABOT LODGE
_Editor-in-Chief_
FRANCIS W. HALSEY
_Associate Editor_
With an Introduction, Biographical
and Explanatory Notes, etc.
IN TEN VOLUMES
Vol. VIII
CONTINENTAL EUROPE--II
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
* * * * *
The Best of the World's Classics
VOL. VIII
CONTINENTAL EUROPE--II
* * * * *
CONTENTS
VOL. VIII--CONTINENTAL EUROPE--II
FRANCE--CONTINUED
1805-1909
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE--(Born in 1805, died in 1859.)
The Tyranny of the American Majority.
(From Chapter XV of "Democracy in America." Translated by Henry Reeve)
ALFRED DE MUSSET--(Born in 1810, died in 1857.)
Titian's Son After a Night at Play.
(From "Titian's Son." Translated by Erie Arthur Bell)
THEOPHILE GAUTIER--(Born in 1811, died in 1872.)
Pharaoh's Entry into Thebes.
(From the "Romance of a Mummy." Translated by M. Young)
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT--(Born in 1821, died in 1880.)
Yonville and Its People.
(From Part II of "Madame Bovary." Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling)
JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN--(Born in 1823, died in 1892.)
An Empire in Robust Youth.
(From the "History of the Origins of Christianity.")
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE--(Born in 1828, died in 1893.)
I Thackeray as a Satirist.
(From Book V, Chapter II, of the "History of English Literature."
Translated by H. van Laun)
II When the King Got up for the Day.
(From "The Ancient Régime." Translated by John Durand)
EMILE ZOLA--(Born in 1840, died in 1902.)
Glimpses of Napoleon III in Time of War.
(From "La Débâcle." Translated by E. P. Robins)
ALPHONSE DAUDET--(Born in 1840, died in 1897.)
I A Great Man's Widow.
(From "Artists' Wives." Translated by Laura Ensor)
II My First Dress Coat.
(From "Thirty Years of Paris." Translated by Laura Ensor)
GUY DE MAUPASSANT--(Born in 1850, died in 1893.)
Madame Jeanne's Last Days.
(From the last chapter of "A Life." Translated by Eric Arthur Bell)
GERMANY
1483-1859
MARTIN LUTHER--(Born in 1483, died in 1546.)
Some of His Table Talk and Sayings.
(From the "Table Talk.")
GOTTHOLD E. LESSING--(Born in 1729, died in 1781.)
I Poetry and Painting Compared.
(From the preface to the "Laocoön." Translated by E. C. Beasley and
Helen Zimmern)
II Of Suffering Held in Restraint.
(From Chapter I of the "Laocoön." Translated by Beasley and Zimmern)
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE--(Born in 1749, died in 1832.)
I On First Reading Shakespeare.
(From "Wilhelm Meister." Translated by Thomas Carlyle)
II The Coronation of Joseph II.
(From Book XII of the "Autobiography." Translated by John Oxenford)
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER--(Born in 1759, died in 1808.)
I The Battle of Lutzen.
(From the "History of the Thirty Years' War." Translated by A. J. W.
Morrison)
II Philip II and the Netherlands.
(From the introduction to the "History of the Revolt of the
Netherlands." Translated by Morrison)
WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL--(Born in 1767, died in 1845.)
Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
(From the "Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature." Translated by
John Black, revised by A. J. W. Morrison)
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT--(Born in 1769, died in 1859.)
An Essay on Man.
(From his "General Review of Natural Phenomena." in Volume I of
"Cosmos." Translated by E. C. Otto and W. S. Dallas)
HEINRICH HEINE--(Born in 1799, died in 1856.)
Reminiscences of Napoleon.
(From Chapters VII, VIII and IX of "Travel Pictures." Translated by
Francis Storr)
ITALY
1254-1803
MARCO POLO--(Born in 1254, died in 1324.)
A Description of Japan.
(From the "Travels.")
DANTE ALIGHIERI--(Born in 1265, died in 1321.)
I That Long Descent Makes No Man Noble.
(From Book IV, Chapter XIV of "The Banquet." Translated by Katharine
Hillard)
II Of Beatrice and Her Death.
(From "The New Life." Translated by Charles Eliot Norton)
FRANCESCO PETRARCH--(Born in 1304, died in 1374.)
Of Good and Evil Fortune.
(From the "Treatise on the Remedies of Good and Bad Fortune.")
GIOVANNI BOCCACIO--(Born probably in 1313, died in 1375.)
The Patient Griselda.
(From the "Decameron.")
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI--(Born in 1469, died in 1527.)
Ought Princes to Keep Their Promises?
(From Chapter XVIII of "The Prince.")
BENVENUTO CELLINI--(Born in 1500, died in 1571.)
The Casting of His "Perseus and Medusa."
(From the "Autobiography." Translated by William Roscoe)
GIORGIO VASARI--(Born in 1511, died in 1574.)
Of Raphael and His Early Death.
(From "The Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and
Architects." Translated by Mrs. Jonathan Foster)
CASANOVA DE SEINGALT--(Born in 1725, died probably in 1803.)
His Interview with Frederick the Great.
(From the "Memoirs.")
OTHER COUNTRIES
1465-1909
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS--(Born in 1465, died in 1536.)
Specimens of His Wit and Wisdom.
(From various books)
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES--(Born in 1547, died in 1616.)
I The Beginnings of Don Quixote's Career.
(From "Don Quixote." Translated by John Jarvis)
II Of How Don Quixote Died.
(From "Don Quixote." Translated by John Jarvis)
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN--(Born in 1805, died in 1875.)
The Emperor's New Clothes.
(From the "Tales.")
IVAN SERGEYEVITCH TURGENEFF--(Born in 1818, died in 1883.)
Bazarov's Death.
(From "Fathers and Children." Translated by Constance Garnett)
HENRIK IBSEN--(Born in 1828, died in 1906.)
The Thought Child.
(From "The Pretenders." Translated by William Archer)
COUNT LEO TOLSTOY--(Born in 1828.)
Shakespeare Not a Great Genius.
(From "A Critical Essay on Shakespeare." Translated by V. Tchertkoff
and I. F. M.)
* * * * *
FRANCE (Continued)
1805-1909
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Born in Paris in 1805, died in 1859; studied law, taking his
degree in 1826; traveled in Italy and Sicily; in 1831
visited the United States under a commission to study the
penitentiary system; returning published a book on the
subject which was crowned by the French Academy; from
private notes taken in America then wrote his masterpiece,
"Democracy in America," which secured his election to the
Academy in 1841; spent some years in public life and then
retired in order to travel and write.
THE TYRANNY OF THE AMERICAN MAJORITY[1]
I hold it to be an impious and execrable maxim that, politically
speaking, the people has a right to do whatever it pleases; and yet I
have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I then in contradiction with myself?
[Footnote 1: From Chapter XV of "Democracy in America." Translated by
Henry Reeve.]
A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and
sanctioned not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a
majority of mankind. The rights of every people are consequently
confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered
in the light of a jury which is empowered to represent society at
large and to apply the great and general law of justice. Ought such a
jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society in
which the law it applies originates?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which
the majority has of commanding, but I simply appeal from the
sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. It has been
asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of
justice and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its
own; and that consequently, full power may fearlessly be given to the
majority by which it is represented. But this language is that of a
slave.
A majority, taken collectively, may be regarded as a being whose
opinions, and most frequently whose interests are opposed to those of
another being, which is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a
man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his
adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach?
Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomerating; nor does
their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the
consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never
willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited
authority which I should refuse to any one of them.
I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in
the same government so as at the same time to maintain freedom and
really to oppose them to one another. The form of government which is
usually termed mixt has always appeared to me to be a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixt government, with
the meaning usually given to that word; because in all communities
some one principle of action may be discovered which preponderates
over the others. England in the last century--which has been more
especially cited as an example of this form of government--was in
point of fact an essentially aristocratic state, altho it comprized
very powerful elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the
country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in
the end, and subject the direction of public affairs to its own will.
The error arose from too much attention being paid to the actual
struggle that was going on between the nobles and the people, without
considering the probable issue of the contest, which was really the
important point. When a community actually has a mixt government--that
is to say, when it is equally divided between two adverse
principles--it must either pass through a revolution or fall into
complete dissolution.
I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always be
made to predominate over the others; but I think that liberty is
endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its
course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings
are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God only can be
omnipotent, because His wisdom and His justice are always equal to His
power. But no power on earth is so worthy of honor for itself that I
would consent to admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority.
When I see that the right and the means of absolute command or of
reverential obedience to the right which it represents are conferred
on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a democracy, a
monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny; and I journey
onward to a land of more hopeful institutions.
In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of
the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from
their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much
alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at
the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.
When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom
can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion
constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the
majority, and implicitly obeys its instructions; if to the executive
power, it is appointed by the majority, and is a passive tool in its
hands. The public troops consist of the majority under arms; the jury
is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and
in certain cases, even the judges are elected by the majority. However
iniquitous or absurd the evil of which you complain may be, you must
submit to it as well as you can.
If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as
to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its
passions, an executive so as to retain a certain degree of
uncontrolled authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of
the other two powers, a government would be formed which would still
be democratic, without incurring any risk of tyranny.
I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America at the
present day; but I maintain that no sure barrier is established
against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government are to
be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than
in its laws.
ALFRED DE MUSSET
Born in 1810, died in 1857; educated at the College of Henry
II in Paris; published "Tales of Spain and Italy," a volume
of verse, in 1829; followed by other collections of verse in
1831 and 1832; went to Italy in 1833 with George Sand, with
whom he quarreled in Venice and returned to France;
published "Confessions of a Child of the Century" in 1836;
wrote stories and plays as well as poems; elected to the
Academy in 1852.
TITIAN'S SON AFTER A NIGHT AT PLAY[2]
In the month of February of the year 1580 a young man was crossing the
Piazzeta at Venice at early dawn. His clothes were in disorder, his
cap, from which hung a beautiful scarlet feather, was pulled down over
his ears. He was walking with long strides toward the banks of the
Schiavoni, and his sword and cloak were dragging behind him, while
with a somewhat disdainful foot he picked his way among the fishermen
lying asleep on the ground. Having arrived at the bridge of Paille,
he stopt and looked around him. The moon was setting behind the
Giudecca and the dawn was gilding the Ducal Palace. From time to time
thick smoke or a brilliant light could be seen from some neighboring
palace. Planks, stones, enormous blocks of marble, and debris of every
kind obstructed the Canal of the Prisons. A recent fire had just
destroyed the home of a patrician which lined its banks. A volley of
sparks shot up from time to time, and by this sinister light an armed
soldier could be seen keeping watch in the midst of the ruins.
[Footnote 2: From De Musset's story, "Titian's Son." Translated for
this collection by Eric Arthur Bell. Titian's son, who was named
Pomponio, had been destined for the Church, but proving wasteful and
dissipated, his father caused the benefice intended for him to be
transferred to a nephew. Through the death of Titian's other son
Orazio, an artist of repute, who died soon after Titian and during the
same plague, Pomponio inherited the handsome fortune his father had
left and completely squandered it.]
Our young man, however, did not seem to be imprest either with this
spectacle of destruction or with the beauty of the sky, tinged with
the rosy colors of the dawning day. He looked for some time at the
horizon, as if to ease his tired eyes; but the brightness of the dawn
seemed to produce in him a disagreeable effect, for he wrapt himself
in his cloak and pursued his way at a run. He soon stopt again at the
door of a palace, where he knocked. A valet, holding a torch in his
hand, admitted him immediately. As he entered he turned round, and
casting one more glance at the sky, exclaimed, "By Bacchus! my
carnival has cost me dear."
This young man was called Pomponio Filippo Vecellio. He was the second
son of Titian, a youth full of spirit and imagination who had aroused
in his father the most lofty expectations, but whose passion for cards
kept him in continual dissipation. It was only four years before that
the great painter and his eldest son, Orazio, had died almost at the
same time, and young Pippo in those four years had already dissipated
the best part of the immense fortune which the double heritage had
given him. Instead of cultivating the talents which he possest by
nature and sustaining the glory of his name, he passed his days in
sleeping and his nights in playing at the house of a certain Countess
Orsini, or at least so-called countess, who made a profession of
ruining the gilded youth of Venice. Every night there assembled at her
house a large company composed of nobles and courtezans; there one
supped and played, and as one did not pay for one's supper, it goes
without saying that the dice helped to indemnify the mistress of the
house. Meanwhile, the sequins and the Cyprian wine began to flow
freely, loving glances were exchanged, and the victims, drunk with
love and wine, lost their money and their reason.
It is from this dangerous resort that we have seen the hero of this
story emerge. He had met with more than one loss during the night.
Besides having emptied his pockets at cards; the only picture he had
ever finished, one that the connoisseurs had pronounced excellent, had
just been destroyed in a fire in the Dolfino palace. It was an
historical subject, treated with a spirit and a sureness of touch
almost worthy of Titian himself. Sold to a rich Senator, this canvas
had met with the same fate as a great number of other previous works
of art; the carelessness of a valet had turned it to ashes. But this
Pippo counted the least of his misfortunes; he was only thinking of
the unlucky star that had lately been following him with unusual
insistence and of the throws of dice it had made him lose.
On entering his house, he began by taking off the coverlet which lay
on his table and counting the money left in his drawer; then, as he
was of a nature naturally gay and optimistic, after he had undrest he
sat at the window in his night robe. Seeing that it was almost
daylight, he began to ponder whether he would close the shutters and
get into bed, or get up like everybody else. It was a long time since
he had seen the sun in the east, and he found the sky more beautiful
than ever. Before deciding whether to wake up or go to sleep, he took
his chocolate on the balcony, in an effort to fight off his
drowsiness. The moment his eyes closed, he would see a table, many
trembling hands and pale faces, and would hear again the sound of the
cornets. "What fatal luck," he murmured. "Is it possible that one can
lose with fifteen?" And he saw his habitual opponent, old Vespiano
Memmo, throwing eighteen and taking up the money piled on the table.
He promptly opened his eyelids to get rid of the bad dream, and looked
at the young girls passing on the quay. He seemed to see in the
distance a masked woman; and was astonished, altho it was the time of
carnival, for poor people do not go masked, and it was strange that at
such an hour a Venetian lady should be out alone on foot. He
perceived, however, that what he had taken for a mask was the face of
a negress. On getting a nearer look at her, he saw she was not badly
formed. She walked very quickly, and a puff of wind which forced her
checkered skirt close to her limbs, showed her to have a graceful
figure. Pippo leaned over the balcony and saw not without surprize
that the negress knocked at his door.
The porter failed to open it.
"What do you want?" cried the young man. "Is it with me that your
business lies, brunette? My name is Vecellio, and if they are going to
keep you waiting, I will come and let you in myself."
The negress lifted her head.
"Your name is Pomponio Vecellio?"
"Yes, or Pippo, whichever you like."
"You are the son of Titian?"
"At your service. What can I do to please you?"
Having cast on Pippo a rapid and curious glance, the negress took a
few steps backward, and skilfully threw up into the balcony a little
box rolled in paper, and then promptly fled, turning round from time
to time. Pippo picked up the box, opened it, and found a pretty purse
wrapt in cotton. He rightly suspected that he might find under the
cotton a note that would explain this adventure. The note was found
indeed, but it was as mysterious as the rest, for it contained only
these words: "Do not spend too readily what I enclose herein; when you
leave home, charge me with one piece of gold. It is enough for one
day; and if in the evening you have any of it left, however little, it
may be you will find some poor person who will thank you for it."
The young man examined the box in a hundred different ways,
scrutinized the purse, looked once more on to the quay, and at length
realized that he had learned all he could. "Of a truth," thought he,
"this is a strange present, but it comes at a cruelly awkward moment.
The advice they give me is good, but it is too late to tell people to
swim when they are already at the bottom of the Adriatic. Who the
devil could have sent me this?"
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
Born in 1811, died in 1872; studied painting in Paris, but
soon joined the romantic literary movement; his first book,
"Poèsies," published in 1830; an art and dramatic critic
1837-45; traveled in Spain, Holland, Italy, Greece and
Russia in 1840-58, publishing books describing those
countries and novels with them for scenes; many other novels
followed, with occasional collections of verse and
criticism.
PHARAOH'S ENTRY INTO THEBES[3]
At length their chariot reached the maneuvering-ground, an immense
enclosure, carefully leveled, used for splendid military displays.
Terraces, one above the other, which must have employed for years the
thirty nations led away into slavery, formed a frame _en relief_ for
the gigantic parallelogram; sloping walls built of crude bricks lined
these terraces; their tops were covered, several rows deep, by
hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, whose white or brightly colored
costumes blazed in the sun with that perpetually restless movement
which characterizes a multitude, even when it appears motionless;
behind this line of spectators the cars, chariots, and litters, with
their drivers, grooms, and slaves, looked like the encampment of an
emigrating nation, such was their immense number; for Thebes, the
marvel of the ancient world, counted more inhabitants than did some
kingdoms.
[Footnote 3: From the "Romance of a Mummy." Translated by M. Young, as
authorized by Gautier.]
The fine, even sand of the vast arena, bordered with a million heads,
gleamed like mica dust beneath the light, falling from a sky as blue
as the enamel on the statuettes of Osiris. On the south side of the
field the terraces were broken, making way for a road which stretched
toward Upper Ethiopia, the whole length of the Libyan chain. In the
corresponding corner, the opening in the massive brick walls prolonged
the roads to the Rhamses-Maïamoun palace....
A frightful uproar, rumbling, deep, and mighty as that of an
approaching sea, arose in the distance, and drowned the thousand
murmurs of the crowd, like the roar of the lion which hushes the
barking of the jackals. Soon the noise of instruments of music could
be distinguished amidst this terrestrial thunder, produced by the
chariot wheels and the rhythmic pace of the foot-soldiers. A sort of
reddening cloud, like that raised by the desert blasts, filled the sky
in that direction, yet the wind had gone down; there was not a breath
of air, and the smallest branches of the palm-trees hung motionless,
as if they had been carved on a granite capital; not a hair moved on
the women's moist foreheads, and the fluted streamers of their
head-dresses hung loosely down their backs. This powdery fog was
caused by the marching army, and hung over it like a fallow cloud.
The tumult increased; the whirlwinds of dust opened, and the first
files of musicians entered the immense arena, to the great
satisfaction of the multitude, who in spite of its respect for his
Majesty were beginning to tire of waiting beneath a sun which would
have melted any other skulls than those of the Egyptians. The advance
guard of musicians halted for several instants; colleges of priests,
deputations of the principal inhabitants of Thebes, crossed the
maneuvering-ground to meet the Pharaoh, and arranged themselves in a
row in postures of the most profound respect, in such manner as to
give free passage to the procession. The band, which alone was a small
army, consisted of drums, tabors, trumpets, and sistras.
The first squad passed, blowing a deafening blast upon their short
clarions of polished brass which shone like gold. Each of these
trumpeters carried a second horn under his arm, as if the instrument
might grow weary sooner than the man. The costume of these men
consisted of a short tunic, fastened by a sash with ends falling in
front; a small band, in which were stuck two ostrich-feathers hanging
over on either side, bound their thick hair. These plumes, so worn,
recalled to mind the antennæ of scarabæi, and gave the wearers an odd
look of being insects.
The drummers, clothed in a simple gathered skirt, and naked to the
waist, beat the onager-skin heads of their rounded drums with
sycamore-wood drumsticks, their instruments suspended by leather
shoulder-belts, and observed the time which a drum-major marked for
them by repeatedly turning toward them and clapping his hands. After
the drummers came the sistra-players, who shook their instruments by a
quick, abrupt motion, and made at measured intervals the metal links
ring on the four bronze bars. The tabor-players carried their oblong
instruments crosswise, held up by a scarf passed around the neck, and
struck the lightly stretched parchment with both hands.
Each company of musicians numbered at least two hundred men; but the
hurricane of noise produced by trumpets, drums, tabors, and sistras,
and which would have drawn blood from the ears inside a palace, was
none too loud or too unbearable beneath the vast cupola of heaven, in
the midst of this immense open space, amongst this buzzing crowd, at
the head of this army which would baffle nomenclators, and which was
now advancing with a roar as of great waters.
After the musicians came the barbarian captives, strangely formed,
with brutish faces, black skins, woolly hair, resembling apes as much
as men, and drest in the costume of their country, a short skirt above
the hips, held by a single brace, embroidered in different colors. An
ingenious and whimsical cruelty had suggested the way in which the
prisoners were chained. Some were bound with their elbows drawn behind
their backs; others with their hands lifted above their heads, in a
still more painful position; one had his wrists fastened in wooden
cangs (instruments of torture, still used in China); another was
half-strangled in a sort of pillory; or a chain of them were linked
together by the same rope, each victim having a knot round his neck.
It seemed as if those who had bound these unfortunates had found a
pleasure in forcing them into unnatural positions; and they advanced
before their conqueror with awkward and tottering gait, rolling their
large eyes and contorted with pain. Guards walked beside them,
regulating their step by beating them with staves....
A wide gorget with seven rows of enamels, precious stones, and golden
beads fell over the Pharaoh's chest and gleamed brightly in the
sunlight. His upper garment was a sort of loose shirt, with pink and
black squares; the ends, lengthening into narrow slips, were wound
several times about his bust and bound it closely; the sleeves, cut
short near the shoulder, and bordered with intersecting lines of gold,
red, and blue, exposed his round, strong arms, the left furnished with
a large metal wristband, meant to lessen the vibration of the string
when he discharged an arrow from his triangular bow; and the right,
ornamented by a bracelet in the form of a serpent in several coils,
held a long gold scepter with a lotus bud at the end. The rest of his
body was wrapt in drapery of the finest linen, minutely plaited, bound
about the waist by a belt inlaid with small enamel and gold plates.
Between the band and the belt his torso appeared, shining and polished
like pink granite shaped by a cunning workman. Sandals with returned
toes, like skates, shod his long narrow feet, placed together like
those of the gods on the temple walls.
His smooth beardless face, with large clearly cut features, which it
seemed beyond any human power to disturb, and which the blood of
common life did not color, with its death-like pallor, sealed lips,
enormous eyes enlarged with black lines, the lids no more lowered than
those of the sacred hawk, inspired by its very immobility a feeling of
respectful fear. One might have thought that these fixt eyes were
searching for eternity and the Infinite; they never seemed to rest on
surrounding objects. The satiety of pleasures, the surfeit of wishes
satisfied as soon as exprest, the isolation of a demigod who has no
equal among mortals, the disgust for perpetual adoration, and as it
were weariness of continual triumph, had forever frozen this face,
implacably gentle and of granite serenity. Osiris judging the souls
could not have had a more majestic and calm expression. A large tame
lion, lying by his side, stretched out its enormous paws like a sphinx
on its pedestal, and blinked its yellow eyes.
A rope, attached to the litter, bound the war chariots of the
vanquished chiefs to the Pharaoh. He dragged them behind him like
animals in leash. These men, with fierce despairing faces, their
elbows drawn together by a strap and forming an ungraceful angle,
tottered awkwardly at every motion of the chariots, driven by
Egyptians.
Next came the chariots of the young princes royal, drawn by
thoroughbred horses, elegantly and nobly formed, with slender legs,
sinewy houghs, their manes cut short like a brush, harnessed by twos,
tossing their red-plumed heads, with metal-bossed headstalls and
frontlets. A curved pole, upheld on their withers, covered with
scarlet panels, two collars surmounted by balls of polished brass,
bound together by a light yoke bent like a bow with upturned ends; a
bellyband and breastband elaborately stitched and embroidered, and
rich housings with red or blue stripes and fringed with tassels,
completed this strong, graceful, and light harness....
In the wake of the princes followed the chariots, the Egyptian
cavalry, twenty thousand in number, each drawn by two horses and
holding three men. They advanced ten in a line, the axletrees
perilously near together, but never coming in contact with each other,
so great was the address of the drivers.
The stamping of the horses, held in with difficulty, the thundering of
the bronze-covered wheels, the metallic clash of weapons, gave to this
line something formidable and imposing enough to raise terror in the
most intrepid bosoms. The helmets, plumes, and breastplates dotted
with red, green, and yellow, the gilded bows and brass swords,
glittered and blazed terribly in the light of the sun, open in the
sky, above the Libyan chain, like a great Osirian eye; and it was felt
that the onslaught of such an army must sweep away the nations like a
whirlwind which drives a light straw before it.
Beneath these innumerable wheels the earth resounded and trembled, as
if it had been moved by some convulsion of nature.
To the chariots succeeded the battalions of infantry, marching in
order, their shields on the left arm; in the right hand the lance,
curved club, bow, sling, or ax, according as they were armed; the
heads of these soldiers were covered with helmets, adorned with two
horsehair tails, their bodies girded with a cuirass belt of
crocodile-skin. Their impassible look, the perfect regularity of their
movements, their reddish copper complexions, deepened by a recent
expedition to the burning regions of Upper Ethiopia, their clothing
powdered with the desert sand, they awoke admiration by their
discipline and courage. With soldiers like those Egypt could conquer
the world. After them came the allied troops, recognizable from the
outlandish form of their headpieces, which looked like truncated
miters, or were surmounted by crescents spitted on sharp points. Their
wide-bladed swords and jagged axes must have produced wounds which
could not be healed.
Slaves carried on their shoulders or on barrows the spoils enumerated
by the herald, and wild-beast tamers dragged behind them leashed
panthers, cheetahs, crouching down as if trying to hide themselves,
ostriches fluttering their wings, giraffes which overtopped the crowd
by the entire length of their necks, and even brown bears--taken, they
said, in the Mountains of the Moon.
The procession was still passing, long after the King had entered his
palace.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Born in 1821, died in 1880; traveled in the East; published
in 1857 his best-known work, "Madame Bovary," which led to
litigation as to the morality of the story: ultimately
acquitted; published "Salâmmbo" in 1858; author of other
novels and plays.
YONGEVILLE AND ITS PEOPLE[4]
Yonville-l'Abbaye--so called from an old Capuchin abbey of which not
even the ruins remain--is a market-town twenty-four miles from Rouen,
between the Abbeville and Beauvais roads, at the foot of a valley
watered by the Rieule, a little river that runs into the Andelle after
turning three water-mills near its mouth, where there are a few trout
that the lads amuse themselves by fishing for on Sundays.
[Footnote 4: From Part II of "Madame Bovary." Translated by Eleanor
Marx-Aveling. Copyright, 1901, by George Munro's Sons.]
We leave the highroad at a Boissière and keep straight on to the top of
Leux hill, whence the valley is seen. The river that runs through it
makes of it, as it were, two regions with distinct physiognomies--all on
the left is pasture land, all on the right arable. The meadow stretches
under a bulge of low hills to join at the back with the pasture land of
the Bray country, while on the eastern side the plain, gently rising,
broadens out, showing as far as eye can follow its blonde corn-fields.
The water, flowing by the grass, divides with a white line the color of
the roads and of the plains, and the country is like a great unfolded
mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a fringe of silver.
Before us, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of the forest of
Argueil, with the steeps of St. Jean hills scarred from top to bottom
with red irregular lines; they are rain-tracks, and these brick tones,
standing out in narrow streaks against the gray color of the mountain,
are due to the quantity of iron springs that flow beyond in the
neighboring country.
Here we are on the confines of Normandy, Picardy, and the
Ile-de-France, a bastard land, whose language is without accent as its
landscape is without character. It is there that they make the worst
Neuchâtel cheeses of all the _arrondissement_; and, on the other hand,
farming is costly because so much manure is needed to enrich this
friable soil, full of sand and flints.
Up to 1835 there was no practicable road for getting to Yonville; but
about this time a crossroad was made which joins that of Abbeville to
that of Amiens, and is occasionally used by the Rouen wagoners on
their way to Flanders. Yonville-l'Abbaye has remained stationary in
spite of its "new outlet." Instead of improving the soil, they persist
in keeping up the pasture-lands, however depreciated they may be in
value, and the lazy borough, growing away from the plain, has
naturally spread riverward. It is seen from afar sprawling along the
banks like a cow-herd taking a siesta by the water-side.
At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a roadway, planted
with young aspens, that leads in a straight line to the first houses
in the place. These, fenced in by hedges, are in the middle of
courtyards full of straggling buildings, wine-presses, cart-sheds, and
distilleries scattered under thick trees, with ladders, poles, or
scythes hung on to the branches. The thatched roofs, like fur caps
drawn over eyes, reach down over about a third of the low windows,
whose coarse convex glasses have knots in the middle like the bottoms
of bottles. Against the plaster wall, diagonally crossed by black
joists, a meager pear-tree sometimes leans, and the ground floors have
at their door a small swing-gate, to keep out the chicks that come
pilfering crumbs of bread steeped in cider on the threshold. But the
courtyards grow narrower, the houses closer together, and the fences
disappear; a bundle of ferns swings under a window from the end of a
broomstick; there is a blacksmith's forge and then a wheelwright's,
with two or three new carts outside that partly block up the way. Then
across an open space appears a white house beyond a grass mound
ornamented by a cupid, his finger on his lips; two brass vases are at
each end of a flight of steps; scutcheons blaze upon the door. It is
the notary's house, and the finest in the place.
The church is on the other side of the street, twenty paces farther
down, at the entrance of the square. The little cemetery that
surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast-high, is so full of graves
that the old stones, level with the ground, form a continuous
pavement, on which the grass of itself has marked out regular green
squares. The church was rebuilt during the last years of the reign of
Charles X. The wooden roof is beginning to rot from the top, and here
and there has black hollows in its blue color. Over the door, where
the organ should be, is a loft for the men, with a spiral staircase
that reverberates under their wooden shoes.
The daylight coming through the plain glass windows falls obliquely
upon the pews ranged along the walls, which are adorned here and there
with a straw mat bearing beneath it the words in large letters, "Mr.
So-and-So's pew." Farther on, at the spot where the building narrows,
the confessional forms a pendant to a statuette of the Virgin, clothed
in a satin robe, coifed with a tulle veil sprinkled with silver stars,
and with red cheeks, like an idol of the Sandwich Islands, and,
finally, a copy of the "Holy Family, presented by the Minister of the
Interior," overlooking the high altar, between four candlesticks,
closes in the perspective. The choir stalls, of deal wood, have been
left unpainted.
The market--that is to say, a tiled roof supported by some twenty
posts--occupies of itself about half the public square of Yonville.
The town-hall, constructed "from the designs of a Paris architect," is
a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next to the chemist's
shop. On the ground floor are three Ionic columns, and on the first
floor is a semicircular gallery, while the dome that crowns it is
occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot upon the "Charte" and
holding in the other the scales of Justice.
But that which most attracts the eye is, opposite the Lion d'Or inn,
the chemist's shop of Monsieur Homais. In the evening especially its
argand lamp is lighted up, and the red and green jars that embellish
his shop-front throw far across the street their two streams of color;
then across them, as if in Bengal lights, is seen the shadow of the
chemist leaning over his desk. His house from top to bottom is
placarded with inscriptions written in large hand, round hand, printed
hand: "Vichy, Seltzer, Barège waters, blood purifiers, Raspail patent
medicine, Arabian racahout, Darcet lozenges, Regnault paste, trusses,
baths, hygienic chocolate," etc. And the signboard, which takes up all
the breadth of the shop, bears, in gold letters, "Homais, Chemist."
Then, at the back of the shop, behind the great scales fixt to the
counter, the word "Laboratory" appears on a scroll above a glass door,
which about half-way up once more repeats "Homais" in gold letters on
a black ground.
Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. The street--the only
one--a gunshot in length, and flanked by a few shops on each side,
stops short at the turn of the highroad. If it is left to the right
hand and the foot of the St. Jean hills followed, the cemetery is soon
reached.
At the time of the cholera, in order to enlarge this, a piece of wall
was pulled down, and three acres of land by its side purchased; but
all the new portion is almost tenantless; the tombs, as heretofore,
continue to crowd together toward the gate. The keeper, who is at once
grave-digger and church-beadle--thus making a double profit out of the
parish corpses--has taken advantage of the unused plot of ground to
plant potatoes there. From year to year, however, his small field
grows smaller and when there is an epidemic, he does not know whether
to rejoice at the deaths or regret the burials.
"You live on the dead, Lestiboudois!" the curé at last said to him one
day. This grim remark made him reflect; it checked him for some time;
but to this day he carries on the cultivation of his little tubers,
and even maintains stoutly that they grow naturally.
Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in fact has changed at
Yonville. The tin tricolor flag swings at the top of the
church-steeple; the two chintz streamers still flutter in the wind
from the linen-draper's; the chemist's fetuses, like lumps of white
amadou, rot more and more in their turbid alcohol, and above the big
door of the inn the old golden lion, faded by rain, still shows
passers-by its poodle mane.
On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at Yonville, Widow
Lefrançois, the landlady of this inn, was so very busy that she
sweated great drops as she moved her saucepans. Tomorrow was
market-day. The meat had to be cut beforehand, the fowls drawn, the
soup and coffee made. Moreover, she had the boarders' meal to see to,
and that of the doctor, his wife, and their servant; the billiard-room
was echoing with bursts of laughter; three millers in the small parlor
were calling for brandy; the wood was blazing, the brazen pan was
hissing, and on the long kitchen-table, amid the quarters of raw
mutton, rose piles of plates that rattled with the shaking of the
block on which spinach was being chopped. From the poultry-yard was
heard the screaming of the fowls whom the servant was chasing in order
to wring their necks.
A man slightly marked with smallpox, in green leather slippers, and
wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel was warming his back at the
chimney. His face exprest nothing but self-satisfaction, and he
appeared to take life as calmly as the goldfinch suspended over his
head in its wicker cage--this was the chemist.
"Artémise!" shouted the landlady, "chop some wood, fill the
water-bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! If only I knew what
dessert to offer the guests you are expecting! Good heavens! Those
furniture-movers are beginning their racket in the billiard-room
again; and their van has been left before the front door! The
Hirondelle might run into it when it draws up. Call Polyte and tell
him to put it up. Only to think, Monsieur Homais, that since morning
they have had about fifteen games and drunk eight jars of cider! Why,
they'll tear my cloth for me," she went on, looking at them from a
distance, her strainer in her hand.
"That wouldn't be much of a loss," replied Monsieur Homais. "You would
buy another."
"Another billiard-table," exclaimed the widow.
"Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame Lefrançois. I tell you
again you are doing yourself harm, much harm! And besides, players now
want narrow pockets and heavy cues. Hazards aren't played now;
everything is changed! One must keep pace with the times! Just look at
Tellier!"
The hostess reddened with vexation. The chemist went on:
"You may say what you like; his table is better than yours; and if one
were to think, for example, of getting up a patriotic pool for Poland
or the sufferers from the Lyons floods--"
"It isn't beggars like him that'll frighten us," interrupted the
landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders. "Come, come, Monsieur Homais;
as long as the Lion d'Or exists people will come to it. We've
feathered our nest; while one of these days you'll find the Café
Français closed with a big placard on the shutters. Change my
billiard-table!" she went on, speaking to herself, "the table that
comes in so handy for folding the washing, and on which, in the
hunting season, I have slept six visitors! But that dawdler Hivert
doesn't come!"
"Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen's dinner?"
"Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? As the clock strikes six
you'll see him come in, for he hasn't his equal under the sun for
punctuality. He must always have his seat in the small parlor. He'd
rather die than dine anywhere else. And so squeamish as he is, and so
particular about the cider! Not like Monsieur Léon; he sometimes comes
at seven, or even half-past, and he doesn't so much as look at what he
eats. Such a nice young man! Never speaks a rough word!"
"Well, you see, there's a great difference between an educated man and
an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector."
JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN
Born in 1823, died in 1892; a teacher and a student of
comparative philology; began to publish in 1850 books which
attracted attention for their excellence of style; traveled
in the East in 1861; called to the chair of history in the
College of France, but forced to resign because he denied
the divinity of Christ; published his "Life of Jesus" in
1863, "The Apostles," in 1866, "St. Paul" in 1867, "L'Anté
Christ" in 1873, "The Christian Church" in 1879, "Marcus
Aurelius" in 1880, and "History of the People of Israel" in
1887-94; elected to the French Academy in 1878.
AN EMPIRE IN ROBUST YOUTH[5]
The political condition of the world was most melancholy. All power
was concentrated at Rome and in the legions. The most shameful and
degrading scenes were daily enacted. The Roman aristocracy, which had
conquered the world, and which alone of all the people had any voice
in public business under the Cæsars, had abandoned itself to a
saturnalia of the most outrageous wickedness the human race ever
witnessed. Cæsar and Augustus, in establishing the imperial power, saw
perfectly the necessities of the age. The world was so low in its
political relations that no other form of government was possible. Now
that Rome had conquered numberless provinces, the ancient
constitution, which was based upon the existence of a privileged
patrician class, a kind of obstinate and malevolent Tories, could not
continue.
[Footnote 5: From the "History of the Origins of Christianity," the
same being a series of which the first book was "The Life of Jesus."
This passage is from the second volume which is entitled "The
Apostles." From an anonymous translation, published in 1866 by
Carleton, of New York.]
But Augustus had signally neglected every suggestion of true policy by
leaving the future to chance. Destitute of any canon of hereditary
succession, of any settled rules concerning adoption, and of any law
regulating election, Cæsarism was like an enormous load on the deck of
a vessel without ballast. The most terrible shocks were inevitable.
Three times in a century, under Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, the
greatest power that was ever united in one person fell into the hands
of most extravagant and execrable men. Horrors were enacted which have
hardly been surpassed by the monsters of the Mongol dynasties. In that
fatal list of monarchs one is reduced to apologizing for a Tiberius,
who only attained thorough detestableness toward the close of his
life; and for a Claudius, who was only eccentric, blundering, and
badly advised.
Rome became a school of vice and cruelty. It should be added that the
vice came, in a great degree, from the East, from those parasites of
low rank and those infamous men whom Egypt and Syria sent to Rome, and
who, profiting by the oppression of the true Romans, succeeded in
attaining great influence over the wretches who governed. The most
disgusting ignominies of the empire, such as the apotheosis of the
emperors and their deification during life, came from the East, and
particularly from Egypt, which was at that period one of the most
corrupt countries on the face of the earth.
However, the veritable Roman nature still survived, and nobility of
soul was far from extinct. The lofty traditions of pride and virtue,
which were preserved in a few families, attained the imperial throne
with Nerva, and gave its splendor to the age of the Antonines, of
which Tacitus is the elegant historian. An age in which such, true and
noble natures as those of Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger
were produced need not be wholly despaired of. The corruption of the
surface did not extend to the great mass of seriousness and honor
which existed in the better Roman society, and many examples are yet
preserved of devotion to order, duty, peace, and solid integrity.
There were in the noble houses admirable wives and sisters. Was there
ever a more touching fate than that of the young and chaste Octavia,
the daughter of Claudius, and wife of Nero, remaining pure in the
midst of infamy, and slain at twenty-two years of age, without having
known a single joy? The epithets "castissimo," "univiro,"[6] are not
at all rare in the inscriptions. Some wives accompanied their husbands
into exile, and others shared their noble deaths. The ancient Roman
simplicity was not lost. The children were soberly and carefully
brought up. The most noble ladies worked with their own hands at
woolen fabrics, and the excesses of the toilet were almost unknown in
the higher families.
[Footnote 6: These epitaphs mean respectively "the most chaste" and
"the wife of one husband."]
The excellent statesmen who, so to speak, sprang from the earth under
Trajan, were not improvised. They had served in preceding reigns; but
they had enjoyed but little influence, and had been cast into the
shade by the freedmen and favorite slaves of the Emperor. Thus we find
men of the first ability occupying high posts under Nero. The
framework was good. The accession of bad emperors, disastrous as it
was, could not change at once the general tendency of affairs, and the
principles of the government. The empire, far from being in its decay,
was in the full strength of vigorous youth. Decay will come, but two
centuries later; and, strange to say, under much more worthy monarchs.
In its political phase the situation was analogous to that of France,
which, deprived by the revolution of any established rule for the
succession, has yet passed through so many perilous changes without
greatly injuring its internal organization or its national strength.
In its moral aspect, the period under consideration may be compared to
the eighteenth century, an epoch entirely corrupt, if we form our
judgment from the memoirs, manuscripts, literature, and anecdotes of
the time, but in which, nevertheless, some families maintained the
greatest austerity of morals.
Philosophy joined hands with the better families of Rome, and resisted
nobly. The stoic school produced the lofty characters of Cremutius
Cordus, Thraseas, Arria, Helvidius Priscus, Annæus Cornutus, and
Musonius Rufus, admirable masters of aristocratic virtue. The rigidity
and exaggeration of this school arose from the horrible cruelty of the
Cæsars. The continual thought of a good man was how to inure himself
to suffering, and prepare himself for death. Lucian, in bad taste, and
Persius with superior talent, but gave utterance to the loftiest
sentiments of a great soul. Seneca the philosopher, Pliny the Elder,
and Papirius Fabianus kept up a high standard of science and
philosophy. Every one did not yield; there were a few wise men left.
Too often, however, they had no resource but death. The ignoble
portions of humanity at times got the upper hand. Then madness and
cruelty ruled the hour, and made of Rome a veritable hell.
The government, altho so fearfully unstable at Rome, was much better
in the provinces. At a distance the shocks which agitated the capital
were hardly felt. In spite of its defects, the Roman administration
was far superior to the kingdoms and commonwealths it had supplanted.
The time for sovereign municipalities had long gone by. Those little
states had destroyed themselves by their egotism, their jealousies,
and their ignorance or neglect of individual freedom. The ancient life
of Greece, all struggle, all external, no longer satisfied any one. It
had been glorious in its day, but that brilliant democratic Olympus of
demigods had lost its freshness, and become dry, cold, unmeaning,
vain, superficial, and lacking in both head and heart. Hence the
success of the Macedonian rule, and afterward of the Roman. The empire
had not yet fallen into the error of excessive centralization. Until
the time of Diocletian, the provinces and cities enjoyed much liberty.
Kingdoms almost independent existed in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor,
Lesser Armenia, and Thrace, under the protection of Rome. These
kingdoms became factions after Caligula only because the profound
policy of Augustus concerning them was diverged from in succeeding
reigns.
The numerous free cities were governed according to their own laws,
and had the legislative power and magistracy of autonomic states.
Until the third century their municipal decree commenced with the
formula, "The Senate and People of--". The theaters were not simply
placed for scenic amusement, but were foci of opinion and discussion.
Most of the towns were, in different ways, little commonwealths. The
municipal spirit was very strong. They had lost only the power to
declare war, a fatal power which made the world a field of carnage.
"The benefits conferred by Rome upon mankind" were the theme of
adulatory addresses everywhere, to which, however, it would be unjust
to deny some sincerity. The doctrine of "the Peace of Rome," the idea
of a vast democracy organized under Roman protection, lay at the
bottom of all political speculations. A Greek rhetorician displays
vast erudition in proving that Roman glory should be claimed by all
the branches of the Hellenic race as a common patrimony. In regard to
Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt, we may say that the Roman conquest did
not destroy any of their liberties. Those nations had either been
already long dead to political life, or had never enjoyed it.
Finally, in spite of the extortions of governors and of the violence
which is inseparable from despotic sway, the world had in many
respects never been so well off. An administration coming from a
remote center was so great an advantage, that even the rapacious
prætors of the latter days of the republic had failed to render it
unpopular. The Julian law had also narrowed down the scope of abuses
and peculations. The follies or cruelties of the emperor, except under
Nero, reached only the Roman aristocracy and the immediate followers
of the prince. Never had men who did not care to busy themselves about
politics been able to live more at ease. The ancient republics, in
which every one was compelled to take part in the factions, were very
uncomfortable places of residence. There was continually going on some
disorganization or proscription. But under the empire the time seemed
made expressly for great proselytism which should overrule both the
quarrels of neighborhoods and the rivalry of dynasties. Attacks on
liberty were much more frequently owing to the remnants of the
provincial or communal authority than to the Roman administration. Of
this truth we have had and shall have many occasions to take note.
For those of the conquered countries where political privileges had
been unknown for ages, and which lost nothing but the right of
destroying themselves by continual wars, the empire was such an era of
prosperity and well-being as they had never before experienced; and we
may add, without being paradoxical, that it was also for them an era
of liberty. On the one hand, a freedom of commerce and industry, of
which the Grecian state had no conception, became possible. On the
other hand, the new régime could not but be favorable to freedom of
thought. This freedom is always greater under a monarchy than under
the rule of jealous and narrow-minded citizens, and it was unknown in
the ancient republics. The Greeks accomplished great things without
it, thanks to the incomparable force of their genius; but we must not
forget that Athens had a complete inquisition....
There was, indeed, under the empire more than one arbitrary decree
against the philosophers, but it was always called forth by their
entering into political schemes. We may search in vain the Roman law
before Constantine for a single passage against freedom of thought;
and the history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a
prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine. No scientific man
was molested. Men like Galen, Lucan, and Plotinus, who would have gone
to the stake in the Middle Age, lived tranquilly under the protection
of the law. The empire inaugurated liberty in this respect; it
extinguished the despotic sovereignty of the family, the town, and the
tribe, and replaced or tempered it by that of the state. But despotic
power is the more vexatious the narrower its sphere of action. The old
republics and the feudal system opprest individuals much more than did
the state. The empire at times persecuted Christianity most severely,
but at least it did not arrest its progress. Republics, however, would
have overcome the new faith. Even Judaism would have smothered it but
for the pressure of Roman authority. The Roman magistrates were all
that hindered the Pharisees from destroying Christianity at the
outset.
HIPPOLITE ADOLPHE TAINE
Born in 1828, died in 1893; studied medicine and in taking
his degree produced as a dissertation his notable "Essai sur
les Fables de La Fontaine"; published other essays on Livy,
Carlyle, and Mill; professor of esthetics at the École des
Beaux Arts in 1864; published a book on the Pyrenees in
1855, one on Italy in 1866, and one on England 1872; his
"History of English Literature," his masterpiece, published
in 1864-65; "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine"
1875-90; elected to the French Academy in 1878.
I
THACKERAY AS A SATIRIST[7]
The novel of manners in England multiplies, and for this there are
several reasons: first, it is born there, and every plant thrives well
in its own soil; secondly, it is a natural outlet: there is no music
in England as in Germany, or conversation as in France; and men who
must think and feel find in it a means of feeling and thinking. On the
other hand, women take part in it with eagerness; amidst the
stagnation of gallantry and the coldness of religion, it gives scope
for imagination and dreams. Finally, by its minute details and
practical counsels, it opens up a career to the precise and moral
mind. The critic thus is, as it were, swamped in this copiousness; he
must select in order to grasp the whole, and confine himself to a few
in order to embrace all.
[Footnote 7: From Book V, Chapter II of "The History of English
Literature." Translated by H. van Laun.]
In this crowd two men have appeared of superior talent, original and
contrasted, popular on the same grounds, ministers to the same cause,
moralists in comedy and drama, defenders of natural sentiments against
social institutions; who, by the precision of their pictures, the
depth of their observations, the succession and bitterness of their
attacks, have renewed, with other views and in another style, the old
combative spirit of Swift and Fielding.
One, more ardent, more expansive, wholly given up to rapture, an
impassioned painter of crude and dazzling pictures, a lyric
prose-writer, omnipotent in laughter and tears, plunged into fantastic
invention, painful sensibility, vehement buffoonery; and by the
boldness of his style, the excess of his emotions, the grotesque
familiarity of his caricatures, he has displayed all the forces and
weaknesses of an artist, all the audacities, all the successes, and
all the oddities of the imagination.
The other, more contained, better informed and stronger, a lover of
moral dissertations, a counselor of the public, a sort of lay
preacher, less bent on defending the poor, more bent on censuring man,
has brought to the aid of satire a sustained common sense, a great
knowledge of the heart, consummate cleverness, powerful reasoning, a
treasure of meditated hatred, and has persecuted vice with all the
weapons of reflection. By this contrast the one completes the other;
and we may form an exact idea of English taste, by placing the
portrait of William Makepeace Thackeray by the side of that of
Charles Dickens.
No wonder if in England a novelist writes satires. A gloomy and
reflective man is impelled to it by his character; he is still further
impelled by the surrounding manners. He is not permitted to
contemplate passions as poetic powers; he is bidden to appreciate them
as moral qualities. His pictures become sentences; he is a counselor
rather than an observer, a judge rather than an artist. We see by what
machinery Thackeray has changed novel into satire....
Who is he; and what is the value of this literature of which he is one
of the princes? At bottom, like every literature, it is a definition
of man; and to judge it, we must compare it with man. We can do so
now; we have just studied a mind, Thackeray himself; we have
considered his faculties, their connections, results, their different
degrees; we have before our eyes a model of human nature. We have a
right to judge of the copy by the model, and to control the definition
which his novels lay down by the definition which his character
furnishes.
The two definitions are contrary, and his portrait is a criticism on
his talent. We have seen that in him the same faculties produce the
beautiful and the ugly, force and weakness, success and failure; that
moral reflection, after having provided him with every satirical
power, debases him in art; that, after having spread over his
contemporary novels a tone of vulgarity and falseness, it raises his
historical novel to the level of the finest productions; that the same
constitution of mind teaches him the sarcastic and violent, as well as
the modulated and simple style, the bitterness and harshness of hate
with the effusion and delicacy of love. The evil and the good, the
beautiful and the ugly, the repulsive and the agreeable, are in him
then but remoter effects, of slight importance, born of changing
circumstances, acquired and fortuitous qualities, not essential and
primitive, different forms which different streams present in the same
current.
So it is with other men. Doubtless moral qualities are of the first
rank; they are the motive power of civilization, and constitute the
nobleness of the individual; society exists by them alone, and by them
alone man is great. But if they are the finest fruit of the human
plant, they are not its root; they give us our value, but do not
constitute our elements. Neither the vices nor the virtues of man are
his nature; to praise or to blame him is not to know him; approbation
or disapprobation does not define him; the names of good or bad tell
us nothing of what he is. Put the robber Cartouche in an Italian court
of the fifteenth century; he would be a great statesman. Transport
this nobleman, stingy and narrow-minded, into a shop; he will be an
exemplary tradesman. This public man, of inflexible probity, is in his
drawing-room an intolerable coxcomb. This father of a family, so
humane, is an idiotic politician. Change a virtue in its
circumstances, and it becomes a vice; change a vice in its
circumstances, and it becomes a virtue. Regard the same quality from
two sides; on one it is a fault, on the other a merit. The essential
man is found concealed far below these moral badges; they only point
out the useful or noxious effect of our inner constitution: they do
not reveal our inner constitution. They are safety or advertising
lights attached to our names, to warn the passer-by to avoid or
approach us; they are not the explanatory chart of our being.
Our true essence consists in the causes of our good or bad qualities,
and these causes are discovered in the temperament, the species and
degree of imagination, the amount and velocity of attention, the
magnitude and direction of primitive passions. A character is a force,
like gravity, or steam, capable, as it may happen, of pernicious or
profitable effects, and which must be defined otherwise than by the
amount of the weight it can lift or the havoc it can cause. It is
therefore to ignore man, to reduce him, as Thackeray and English
literature generally do, to an aggregate of virtues and vices; it is
to lose sight in him of all but the exterior and social side; it is to
neglect the inner and natural element. We will find the same fault in
English criticism, always moral, never psychological, bent on exactly
measuring the degree of human honesty, ignorant of the mechanism of
our sentiments and faculties; we will find the same fault in English
religion, which is but an emotion or a discipline; in their
philosophy, destitute of metaphysics; and if we ascend to the source,
according to the rule which derives vices from virtues, and virtues
from vices, we will see all these weaknesses derived from their native
energy, their practical education, and that kind of severe and
religious poetic instinct which has in time past made them Protestant
and Puritan.
II
WHEN THE KING GOT UP FOR THE DAY[8]
The king is expected to keep the entire aristocracy busy;
consequently, to make a display of himself, to pay back with his own
person, at all hours even the most private, even on getting out of
bed, and even in his bed. In the morning, at the hour named by himself
beforehand, the head valet awakens him; five series of persons enter
in turn to perform their duty, and, "altho very large, there are days
when the waiting-rooms can hardly contain the crowd of courtiers." The
first one admitted is "l'entrée familière," consisting of the children
of France, the prince and princesses of the blood, and besides these,
the chief physician, the chief surgeon, and other serviceable persons.
Next comes the "grande entrée," which comprizes the grand chamberlain,
the grand master and master of the wardrobe, the first gentlemen of
the bed-chamber, the dukes of Orleans and Penthièvre, some other
highly favored seigniors, the ladies of honor and in waiting of the
queen, mesdames, and other princesses, without enumerating barbers,
tailors, and various descriptions of valets. Meanwhile spirits of wine
are poured on the king's hands from a service of plate, and he is then
handed the basin of holy-water; he crosses himself and repeats a
prayer.
[Footnote 8: From "The Ancient Régime." Translated by John Durand.
Copyright, 1876, by Henry Holt & Company.]
Then he gets out of bed before all these people, and puts on his
slippers. The grand chamberlain and the first gentleman hand him his
dressing-gown; he puts this on and seats himself in the chair in which
he is to put on his clothes. At this moment the door opens, and a
third group enters, which is the "entrée des brevets"--the seigniors
who compose this enjoy in addition the precious privilege of assisting
at the "petit coucher"; while at the same moment there enters a
detachment of attendants, consisting of the physicians and surgeons in
ordinary, the intendants of the amusements, readers, and others, and
among the latter those who preside over physical requirements. The
publicity of a royal life is so great that none of its functions can
be exercised without witnesses.
At the moment of the approach of the officers of the wardrobe to dress
the king, the first gentleman, notified by an usher, advances to read
him the names of the grandees who are waiting at the door: this is the
fourth entry, called "la chambre," and larger than those preceding it;
for, not to mention the cloak-bearers, gun-bearers, rug-bearers, and
other valets, it comprizes most of the superior officials, the grand
almoner, the almoners on duty, the chaplain, the master of the
oratory, the captain and major of the bodyguard, the colonel-general
and major of the French guards, the colonel of the king's regiment,
the captain of the _Cent Suisses_, the grand huntsman, the grand
wolf-huntsman, the grand provost, the grand master and master of
ceremonies, the first butler, the grand master of the pantry, the
foreign ambassadors, the ministers and secretaries of state, the
marshals of France, and most of the seigniors and prelates of
distinction. Ushers place the ranks in order, and if necessary, impose
silence.
Meanwhile the king washes his hands and begins his toilet. Two pages
remove his slippers; the grand master of the wardrobe draws off his
night-shirt by the right arm, and the first valet of the wardrobe by
the left arm, and both of them hand it to an officer of the wardrobe,
while a valet of the wardrobe fetches the shirt, wrapt up in white
taffeta. Things have now reached the solemn point, the culmination of
the ceremony: the fifth entry has been introduced; and in a few
moments, after the king has put his shirt on, all that is left of
those who are known, with other household officers waiting in the
gallery, complete the influx.
There is quite a formality in regard to this shirt. The honor of
handing it is reserved to the sons and grandsons of France; in default
of these, to the princes of the blood or those legitimated; in their
default, to the grand chamberlain or to the first gentleman of the
bed-chamber; the latter case, it must be observed, being very rare,
the princes being obliged to be present at the king's _lever_ as well
as the princesses at that of the queen. At last the shirt is
presented, and a valet carries off the old one; the first valet of the
wardrobe and the first valet de chambre hold the fresh one, each by a
right and left arm respectively; while two other valets, during this
operation, extend his dressing-gown in front of him to serve as a
screen. The shirt is now on his back, and the toilet commences.
A valet de chambre supports a mirror before the king, while two
others on the two sides light it up, if occasion requires with
flambeaux. Valets of the wardrobe fetch the rest of the attire; the
grand master of the wardrobe puts the vest on and the doublet,
attaches the blue ribbon, and clasps his sword around him; then a
valet assigned to the cravats brings several of these in a basket,
while the master of the wardrobe arranges around the king's neck that
which the king selects. After this a valet assigned to the
handkerchiefs brings three of these on a silver salver; while the
grand master of the wardrobe offers the salver to the king, who
chooses one. Finally the master of the wardrobe hands to the king his
hat, his gloves, and his cane. The king then steps to the side of the
bed, kneels on a cushion, and says his prayers; while an almoner in a
low voice recites the orison _Quæsumus, deus omnipotens_. This done,
the king announces the order of the day, and passes with the leading
persons of his court into his cabinet, where he sometimes gives
audience. Meanwhile the rest of the company await him in the gallery,
in order to accompany him to mass when he comes out.
Such is the _lever_, a piece in five acts. Nothing could be contrived
better calculated to fill up the void of an aristocratic life: a
hundred or thereabouts of notable seigniors dispose of a couple of
hours in coming, in waiting, in entering, in defiling, in taking
positions, in standing on their feet, in maintaining an air of respect
and of ease suitable to a superior class of walking gentlemen, while
those best qualified are about to do the same thing over in the
queen's apartment. The king, however, to offset this, suffers the
same torture and the same inaction as he imposes. He also is playing a
part: all his steps and all his gestures have been determined
beforehand; he has been obliged to arrange his physiognomy and his
voice, never to depart from an affable and dignified air, to award
judiciously his glances and his nods, to keep silent or to speak only
of the chase, and to suppress his own thoughts if he has any. One can
not indulge in reverie, meditate, or be absent-minded when before the
footlights: the part must have due attention.
EMILE ZOLA
Born in 1840, died in 1902; his father an Italian, his
mother French; became a packing clerk in a bookstore in
1860; published his first book in 1864; "L'Assommoir" in
1877, "Nana" in 1880, "La Terre" in 1887, author of many
other works; prominent in the Dreyfus case, being twice
fined and imprisoned for libeling a court martial.
GLIMPSES OF NAPOLEON III IN TIME OF WAR[9]
They had no more than sat down at table when Delaherche, burning to
relieve himself of the subject that filled his mind, began to relate
his experiences of the day before.
[Footnote 9: From "La Débâcle." Translated by E. P. Robins. Copyright,
1892, by Cassell Publishing Company. Copyright, 1898, by the Macmillan
Company.]
"You know I saw the Emperor at Baybel."
He was fairly started, and nothing could stop him. He began by
describing the farmhouse; a large structure with an interior court,
surrounded by an iron railing, and situated on a gentle eminence
overlooking Mouzon, to the left of the Carignan road. Then he came
back to the Twelfth Corps, whom he had visited in their camp among the
vines on the hillsides; splendid troops they were, with their
equipments brightly shining in the sunlight, and the sight of them had
caused his heart to beat with patriotic ardor.
"And there I was, sir, when the Emperor, who had alighted to breakfast
and rest himself a bit, came out of the farmhouse. He wore a
general's uniform and carried an overcoat across his arm, altho the
sun was very hot. He was followed by a servant bearing a camp-stool.
He did not look to me like a well man; ah no, far from it: his
stooping form, the sallowness of his complexion, the feebleness of his
movements, all indicated him to be in a very bad way. I was not
surprized; for the druggist at Mouzon, when he recommended me to drive
on to Baybel, told me that an aide-de-camp had just been in his shop
to get some medicine--you understand what I mean--medicine for--"
The presence of his wife and mother prevented him from alluding more
explicitly to the nature of the Emperor's complaint, which was an
obstinate diarrhea that he had contracted at Chêne, and which
compelled him to make those frequent halts at houses along the road.
"Well, then the attendant opened the camp-stool and placed it in the
shade of a clump of trees at the edge of a field of wheat, and the
Emperor sat down on it. Sitting there in a limp, dejected attitude,
perfectly still, he looked for all the world like a small shopkeeper
taking a sun-bath for his rheumatism. His dull eyes wandered over the
wide horizon, the Meuse coursing through the valley at his feet,
before him the range of wooded heights whose summits recede and are
lost in the distance, on the left the waving tree-tops of Dieulet
forest, on the right the verdure-clad eminence of Sommanthe. He was
surrounded by his military family, aides and officers of rank; and a
colonel of dragoons, who had already applied to me for information
about the country, had just motioned me not to go away, when all at
once--"
Delaherche rose from his chair, for he had reached the point where the
dramatic interest of his story culminated, and it became necessary to
reenforce words by gestures.
"All at once there was a succession of sharp reports; and right in
front of us, over the wood of Dieulet, shells are seen circling
through the air. It produced on me no more effect than a display of
fireworks in broad daylight, sir, upon my word it didn't! The people
about the Emperor, of course, showed a good deal of agitation and
uneasiness. The colonel of dragoons comes running up again to ask if I
can give them an idea whence the fire proceeds. I answer him offhand:
'It is at Beaumont; there is not the slightest doubt about it.' He
returns to the Emperor, on whose knees an aide-de-camp was unfolding a
map. The Emperor was evidently of opinion that the fighting was not at
Beaumont, for he sent the colonel back to me a third time. But I
couldn't well do otherwise than stick to what I had said before, could
I, now?--the more that the shells kept flying through the air, nearer
and nearer, following the line of the Mouzon road. And then, sir, as
sure as I see you standing there, I saw the Emperor turn his pale face
toward me. Yes, sir, he looked at me a moment with those dim eyes of
his, that were filled with an expression of melancholy and distrust.
And then his face declined upon his map again, and he made no further
movement."
Delaherche, altho he was an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the
plébiscite, had admitted after our early defeats that the government
was responsible for some mistakes; but he stood up for the dynasty,
compassionating and excusing Napoleon III, deceived and betrayed as he
was by every one. It was his firm opinion that the men at whose door
should be laid the responsibility for all our disasters were none
other than those Republican deputies of the opposition who had stood
in the way of voting the necessary men and money.
"And did the Emperor return to the farmhouse?" asked Captain Beaudoin.
"That's more than I can say, my dear sir: I left him sitting on his
stool. It was midday, the battle was drawing nearer, and it occurred
to me that it was time to be thinking of my own return. All that I can
tell you besides is that a general to whom I pointed out the position
of Carignan in the distance, in the plain to our rear, appeared
greatly surprized to learn that the Belgian frontier lay in that
direction, and was only a few miles away. Ah, that the poor Emperor
should have to rely on such servants!"...
While Delaherche was raising himself on tiptoe, and trying to peer
through the windows of the _rez-de-chaussée_, an old woman at his
side, some poor day-worker of the neighborhood, with shapeless form,
and hands calloused and distorted by many years of toil, was mumbling
between her teeth:
"An emperor--I should like to see one once--just once--so I could say
I had seen him."
Suddenly Delaherche exclaimed, seizing Maurice by the arm:
"See, there he is! at the window to the left. I had a good view of him
yesterday; I can't be mistaken. There, he has just raised the curtain;
see, that pale face, close to the glass."
The old woman had overheard him, and stood staring with wide-open
mouth and eyes; for there, full in the window, was an apparition that
resembled a corpse more than a living being: its eyes were lifeless,
its features distorted; even the mustache had assumed a ghastly
whiteness in the final agony. The old woman was dumbfounded; forthwith
she turned her back and marched off with a look of supreme contempt.
"That thing an emperor! a likely story!"
A zouave was standing near--one of those fugitive soldiers who were in
no haste to rejoin their commands. Brandishing his chassepot and
expectorating threats and maledictions, he said to his companion:
"Wait! see me put a bullet in his head!"
Delaherche remonstrated angrily; but by that time the Emperor had
disappeared. The hoarse murmur of the Meuse continued uninterruptedly;
a wailing lament, inexpressibly mournful, seemed to pass above them
through the air, where the darkness was gathering intensity. Other
sounds rose in the distance, like the hollow muttering of the rising
storm: were they the "March! march!"--that terrible order from Paris
which had driven that ill-starred man onward day by day, dragging
behind him along the roads of his defeat the irony of his imperial
escort, until now he was brought face to face with the ruin he had
foreseen and come forth to meet? What multitudes of brave men were to
lay down their lives for his mistakes; and how complete the wreck, in
all his being, of that sick man--that sentimental dreamer, awaiting in
gloomy silence the fulfilment of his destiny!...
"O M. Delaherche! isn't this dreadful! Here, quick! this way, if you
would like to see the Emperor."
On the left of the corridor a door stood ajar; and through the narrow
opening a glimpse could be had of the sovereign, who had resumed his
weary, anguished tramp between the fireplace and the window. Back and
forth he shuffled with heavy, dragging steps, and ceased not, despite
his unendurable suffering. An aide-de-camp had just entered the
room--it was he who had failed to close the door behind him--and
Delaherche heard the Emperor ask him in a sorrowfully reproachful
voice:
"What is the reason of this continued firing, sir, after I gave orders
to hoist the white flag?"
The torture to him had become greater than he could bear--this
never-ceasing cannonade that seemed to grow more furious with every
minute. Every time he approached the window it pierced him to the
heart. More spilling of blood, more useless squandering of human life!
At every moment the piles of corpses were rising higher on the
battle-field, and his was the responsibility. The compassionate
instincts that entered so largely into his nature revolted at it, and
more than ten times already he had asked that question of those who
approached him.
"I gave orders to raise the white flag: tell me, why do they continue
firing?"
The aide-de-camp made answer in a voice so low that Delaherche failed
to catch its purport. The Emperor, moreover, seemed not to pause to
listen, drawn by some irresistible attraction to that window; at
which, each time he approached it, he was greeted by that terrible
salvo of artillery that rent and tore his being. His pallor was
greater even than it had been before; his poor, pinched, wan face, on
which were still visible traces of the rouge which had been applied
that morning, bore witness to his anguish.
At that moment a short, quick-motioned man in dust-soiled uniform,
whom Delaherche recognized as General Lebrun, hurriedly crossed the
corridor and pushed open the door, without waiting to be announced.
And scarcely was he in the room when again was heard the Emperor's so
oft-repeated question.
"Why do they continue to fire, General, when I have given orders to
hoist the white flag?"
The aide-de-camp left the apartment, shutting the door behind him, and
Delaherche never knew what was the General's answer. The vision had
faded from his sight.
ALPHONSE DAUDET
Born in 1840, died in 1897; educated at Lyons; settled in
Paris in 1857 and began to write poems and sketches for
newspapers and periodicals; his "Fromont Jeune et Risler
Ainé" published in 1874, "Jack" in 1876, "Numa Roumestan" in
1881, "Tartarin sur les Alps" in 1885; author of many other
works of fiction.
I
A GREAT MAN'S WIDOW[10]
No one was astonished at hearing she was going to marry again.
Notwithstanding all his genius, perhaps even on account of his genius,
the great man had for fifteen years led her a hard life, full of
caprices and mad freaks that had attracted the attention of all Paris.
On the highroad to fame, over which he had so triumphantly and
hurriedly traveled, like those who are to die young, she had sat
behind him, humbly and timidly, in a corner of the chariot, ever
fearful of collisions. Whenever she complained, relatives, friends,
every one was against her: "Respect his weaknesses," they would say to
her, "they are the weaknesses of a god. Do not disturb him, do not
worry him. Remember that your husband does not belong exclusively to
you. He belongs much more to art, to his country, than to his family.
And who knows if each of the faults you reproach him with has not
given us some sublime creation?" At last, however, her patience was
worn out, she rebelled, became indignant and even unjust, so much,
indeed, that at the moment of the great man's death, they were on the
point of demanding a judicial separation and ready to see their great
and celebrated name dragged into the columns of a society paper.
[Footnote 10: From "Artists' Wives." Translated by Laura Enser.]
After the agitation of this unhappy match, the anxieties of the last
illness, and the sudden death which for a moment revived her former
affection, the first months of her widowhood acted on the young woman
like a healthy calming water-cure. The enforced retirement, the quiet
charm of mitigated sorrow lent to her thirty-five years a second youth
almost as attractive as the first.
Moreover, black suited her, and then she had the responsible and
rather proud look of a woman left alone in life, with all the weight
of a great name to carry honorably. Mindful of the fame of the
departed one, that wretched fame that had cost her so many tears, and
now grew day by day, like a magnificent flower nourished by the black
earth of the tomb, she was to be seen draped in her long somber veils
holding interviews with theatrical managers and publishers, busying
herself in getting her husband's operas put again on the stage,
superintending the printing of his posthumous works and unfinished
manuscripts, bestowing on all these details a kind of solemn care and,
as it were, the respect for a shrine.
It was at this moment that her second husband met her. He, too, was a
musician, almost unknown, it is true, the author of a few waltzes and
songs, and of two little operas, of which the scores, charmingly
printed, were scarcely more played than sold. With a pleasant
countenance, a handsome fortune that he owed to his exceedingly
bourgeois family, he had above all an infinite respect for genius, a
curiosity about famous men, and the ingenuous enthusiasm of a still
youthful artist. Thus when he met the wife of the great man, he was
dazzled and bewildered. It was as tho the image of the glorious muse
herself had appeared to him. He at once fell in love, and as the widow
was beginning to receive a few friends, he had himself presented to
her. There his passion grew in the atmosphere of genius that still
lingered in all the corners of the drawing-room. There was the bust of
the master, the piano he composed on, his scores spread over all the
furniture, melodious even to look at, as tho from between their
half-opened pages the written phrases reechoed musically. The actual
and very real charm of the widow, surrounded by those austere memories
as by a frame that became her, brought his love to a climax.
After hesitating a long time, the poor fellow at last proposed, but in
such humble and timid terms: "He knew how unworthy he was of her. He
understood all the regret she would feel in exchanging her illustrious
name for his, so unknown and insignificant." And a thousand other
artless phrases in the same style. In reality, the lady was indeed
very much flattered by her conquest; however, she played the comedy of
a broken heart, and assumed the disdainful, wearied airs of a woman
whose life is ended without hopes of renewal. She, who had never in
her life been so quiet and comfortable as since the death of her
great man, actually found tears with which to mourn for him, and an
enthusiastic ardor in speaking of him. This, of course, only inflamed
her youthful adorer the more and made him more eloquent and
persuasive.
In short, this severe widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did
not abdicate, and remained--altho married--more than ever the widow of
a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second
husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to
prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed him with her disdain, with
a kind of vague pity, and unexprest and offensive regret at her
condescending marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the
contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so
natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her
heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude,
she would at times read over with him the letters the great man had
written to her when he was courting her. This return toward the past
rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a
handsome and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and
delightful exaggeration of written passion. That she since then had
changed her young husband cared little, loving her on the faith of
another, and drawing therefrom I know not what strange kind of vanity.
It seemed to him that these passionate appeals added to his own, and
that he inherited a whole past of love.
A strange couple indeed! It was in society, however, that they
presented the most curious spectacle. I sometimes caught sight of them
at the theater. No one would have recognized the timid and shy young
woman, who formerly accompanied the maestro, lost in the gigantic
shadow he cast around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the
box, she displayed herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her
own glance. It might be said that her head was surrounded by her first
husband's halo of glory, his name reechoing around her like a homage
or a reproach. The other one, seated a little behind her, with the
subservient physiognomy of one ready for every abnegation in life,
watched each of her movements, ready to attend to her slightest wish.
At home the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I
remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their
marriage. The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but
rather embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house. The
wife, disdainful, melancholy, and very superior, was on that evening
more than ever the widow of a great man! She had a peculiar way of
glancing at her husband from over her shoulder, of calling him "my
poor dear friend," of casting on him all the wearisome drudgery of the
reception, with an air of saying: "You are only fit for that." Around
her gathered a circle of former friends, those who had been spectators
of the brilliant débuts of the great man, of his struggles, and his
success. She simpered to them; played the young girl! They had known
her when so young! Nearly all of them called her by her Christian
name, "Anais." They formed a kind of coenaculum, which the poor
husband respectfully approached, to hear his predecessor spoken of.
They recalled the glorious first nights, those evenings on which
nearly every battle was won, and the great man's manias, his way of
working; how, in order to summon up inspiration, he insisted on his
wife being by his side, decked out in full ball dress. "Do you
remember, Anais?" And Anais sighed and blushed.
It was at that time that he had written his most tender pieces, above
all "Savonarole," the most passionate of his creations, with a grand
duet, interwoven with rays of moonshine, the perfume of roses and the
warbling of nightingales. An enthusiast sat down and played it on the
piano, amid a silence of attentive emotion. At the last note of the
magnificent piece, the lady burst into tears. "I can not help it," she
said, "I have never been able to hear it without weeping." The great
man's old friends surrounded his unhappy widow with sympathetic
expressions, coming up to her one by one, as at a funereal ceremony,
to give a thrilling clasp to her hand.
"Come, come, Anais, be courageous." And the drollest thing was to see
the second husband, standing by the side of his wife, deeply touched
and affected, shaking hands all round, and accepting, he too, his
share of sympathy. "What genius! what genius!" he repeated as he
mopped his eyes. It was at the same time ridiculous and affecting.
II
MY FIRST DRESS COAT[11]
How did I come by it, that first dress coat? What primitive tailor,
what confiding tradesman was it, trustful as Don Juan's famous
Monsieur Dimanche, who upon the faith of my fantastic promises,
decided one fine morning on bringing it to me, brand new, and
artistically pinned up in a square of shiny green calico? It would be
difficult for me to tell. Of the honest tailor, I can indeed recall
nothing--so many tailors have since then crossed my path--save perhaps
a vision, as in a luminous mist, of a thoughtful brow and a large
mustache. The coat indeed is there, before my eyes. Its image after
twenty years still remains indelibly graven on my memory, as on
imperishable brass. What a collar, my young friends! What lapels! And,
above all, what skirts, shaped as the slimmest tail of the swallow! My
brother, a man of experience, had said: "One must have a dress coat if
one wishes to make one's way in the world." And the dear fellow
counted much upon this piece of frippery for the advancement of my
fame and fortune....
[Footnote 11: From "Thirty Years of Paris." Translated by Laura
Ensor.]
One day some one proposed to get me an invitation to Augustine
Brohan's soirées. Who? some one. Some one, egad! You know him already:
that eternal some one, who is like every one else, that amiable
institution of Providence, who, of no personal value in himself and a
mere acquaintance in the house he frequents, yet goes everywhere,
introduces you everywhere, is the friend of a day, of an hour, of
whose name even you are ignorant, that essentially Parisian type.
You may imagine with what enthusiasm I accepted the proposal. To be
invited to Augustine's house! Augustine, the famous actress,
Augustine, the laughing representative of Molière's comic muse,
softened somewhat by the more modern poetic smile of Musset's
genius--for while she acted the waiting maids at the Théâtre Français,
Musset had written his comedy "Louison" at her house; Augustine
Brohan, in short, in whom all Paris delighted, vaunting her wit,
quoting her repartees; and who might already be said to have adorned
herself with that swallow's plume, unsullied yet by ink, but already
well sharpened, with which she was hereafter to sign those charming
"Lettres de Suzanne!"
"Lucky dog!" said my brother, helping me on with the coat; "your
fortune is made."
Nine o'clock was striking as I sallied forth.
At that time Augustine Brohan was living in the Rue Lord Byron, at the
top of the Champs Élysées, in one of those pretty coquettish little
houses which seem to ignorant provincials the realization of the
poetical dreams which they weave for themselves from the pages of the
novelist. A railing, a tiny garden, four steps covered by an awning,
an entrance hall filled with flowers, and then, opening immediately
from it, the drawing-room, a brilliantly lighted room in green, which
I can see now vividly before me.
How I managed to get up those steps, how I made my entry, and how I
presented myself, I can not now remember. A footman announced my name,
but this name, which he mumbled, produced no effect on the brilliant
assembly. I can only recollect hearing a woman's voice say: "So much
the better, here is another dancer." It appears they were short of
dancers; but what an entry for a poet!
Startled and humiliated, I tried to lose myself among the crowd. How
can I describe my dismay, when, a moment later, another mistake arose?
My long hair, my dark and somber looks excited general curiosity. I
heard them whispering near me: "Who is it? Do look," and they laughed.
At last some one said:
"It is the Wallachian Prince!"
"The Wallachian Prince? Oh yes, very likely."
I suppose that a Wallachian prince had been expected that evening. My
rank being thus settled for me, I was left in peace. But for all that,
you can not imagine how heavily my usurped crown weighed upon me all
that evening. First a dancing man! then a Wallachian prince! Could not
these good people see my lyre?
Fortunately for me, a startling piece of news flying from mouth to
mouth, spread rapidly through the ballroom, casting into oblivion both
the dancer and the Wallachian prince. Marriage was at that time much
the fashion among the feminine portion of the Comédie company, and it
was generally at Augustine Brohan's Wednesday receptions, where all
the choicest talents of journalism, together with bankers and high
government officials gathered round the lovely members or associates
of the Français, that the foundations were laid of most of these
romantic unions....
At last comparative calm was restored and the quadrilles began. I
danced. I was obliged to do so. I danced moreover somewhat badly for a
Wallachian prince. The quadrille once ended, I became stationary;
foolishly held back by my short sight--too shy to sport an eyeglass,
too much of a poet to wear spectacles, and dreading lest, at the
slightest movement, I should bruise my knee against the corner of some
piece of furniture, or plunge my nose into the trimming of a bodice.
Soon hunger and thirst interfered in the matter; but for a kingdom I
should never have dared to approach the buffet with all the rest of
the world. I anxiously watched for the moment when it should be
deserted; and while waiting, I joined the groups of political talkers,
assuming a serious air, and feigning to scorn the charms of the
smaller salon, whence came to me, with the pleasant sound of laughter
and the tinkling of teaspoons against the porcelain, a delicate aroma
of scented tea, of Spanish wines and cakes. At last they came back to
dance, and I gathered up my courage. I entered, I was alone.
What a dazzling sight was that buffet. A crystal pyramid under the
blaze of the candles, brilliant with glasses and decanters, white and
glittering as snow in the sunshine. I took up a glass as fragile as a
flower, careful not to hold it too tightly lest I should break the
stem. What should I pour into it? Come now, courage, I say to myself,
since no one can see me. I stretched out my hand, and took at
haphazard a decanter. It must be kirsch, I thought, from its diamond
clearness. Well, I'll try a glass of kirsch; I like its perfume, its
bitter and wild perfume that reminds me of the forest. And so, like an
epicure, I slowly poured out, drop by drop, the beautiful clear
liquid. I raised the glass to my lips. Oh, horror, it was only water.
What a grimace I made. Suddenly a duet of laughter resounded from a
black coat and a pink dress that I had not perceived flirting in the
corner, and who were amused at my mistake.
I endeavored to replace my glass, but I was nervous, my hand shook,
and my sleeve caught I know not what. One glass, two glasses, three
glasses fell. I turned round, my wretched coat tails swept a wild
circle, and the white pyramid crashed to the ground, with all the
sparkling, splintering, flashing uproar of an iceberg breaking to
pieces.
At the noise of the catastrophe the mistress of the house rushed up.
Luckily, she is as short-sighted as the Wallachian prince, and he is
able to escape from the buffet without being recognized. All the same,
my evening is spoiled. The massacre of small glasses and decanters
weighs on my mind like a crime. My one idea is to get away. But the
Dubois mama, dazzled by my principality, catches hold of me and will
not allow me to leave till I have danced with her daughter, or indeed
with both her daughters. I excuse myself as best as I can; when a tall
old man with a shrewd smile, stopt my egress. It is Doctor Ricord,
with whom I had exchanged a few words previously and who, like the
others, takes me for the Wallachian. "But, Prince, as you are
inhabiting the Hotel du Senat, and as we are near neighbors, pray wait
for me, I can offer you a seat in my carriage." How willingly would I
accept, but I have no overcoat. What would Ricord think of a
Wallachian prince without furs, and shivering in his dress coat? Let
me escape quickly, and hurry home on foot, through the snow and fog,
sooner than allow my poverty to be seen. Always half-blind and more
confused than ever, I reach the door and slip out, not, however,
without getting somehow entangled in the tapestries. "Won't monsieur
take his coat?" a footman calls after me.
There I was, at two o'clock in the morning, far from my home, alone in
the streets, hungry and frozen, with the devil's own self, a badly
lined purse in my pocket. But hunger inspired me with a brilliant
idea: "Suppose I go to the markets." I had often heard of the markets,
and a certain Gaidras, whose establishment remained open all night,
and where for the sum of three sous they provided a plateful of
succulent cabbage soup. By Jove, yes, to the markets I would go. I
would sit down at those tables like the veriest prowling vagabond. All
my pride had vanished. The wind is icy cold; hunger makes me
desperate. "My kingdom for a horse," said another prince, and I say to
myself as I trot along: "My principality, my Wallachian principality,
for a basin of good soup in a warm corner."
Gaidras' establishment looks a mere filthy hovel, all slimy and badly
lighted, thrust back beneath the colonnades of the old market-place.
Often and often since then, when noctambulism was the fashion, have
we, future great men, spent whole nights there, elbows on table,
amidst tobacco smoke and literary talk. But at the first I must own,
notwithstanding my hunger, I almost drew back at the sight of those
blackened dingy walls, that dense smoke, those late sitters, snoring
with their backs against the wall or lapping their soup like dogs; the
amazing caps of the Don Juans of the gutter, the enormous drab felt
hats of the market porters, and the healthy rough blouse of the market
gardener side by side with the greasy tatters of the prowler of the
night. Nevertheless I entered, and I may at once add that my black
coat found its fellows. Black coats that own no great coat are not
rare in Paris after midnight in the winter, and they are hungry enough
to eat three sous' worth of cabbage soup. The cabbage soup was,
however, exquisite; full of perfume as a garden, and smoking like a
crater. I had two helpings, altho a custom peculiar to the
establishment--inspired by wholesome distrust--of fastening the forks
and spoons with a chain to the table, hindered me a little. I paid,
and fortified by my substantial mess, resumed my way to the Quartier
Latin.
What a picture my return home! The return of the poet, trotting up the
Rue de Tournon, with his coat collar turned up, while dancing before
his sleepy eyes are the elegant shadows of a fashionable evening party
mingling with the famished specters of the market-place. He stands
knocking his boots against the curbstone of the Hotel du Senat, to
shake off the snow, while opposite the bright lamps of a brougham
light up the front of an old mansion, and Doctor Ricord's coachman
cries out: "Gate, if you please." Life in Paris is made up of these
contrasts.
"A wasted evening," said my brother the next morning. "You have been
taken for a Wallachian prince, and have not succeeded in launching
your book. But all is not yet lost; you must make up for it when you
make your 'digestion call,' as we say in Paris."
The digestion of a glass of water, what irony. It was quite two months
before I made up my mind to pay that call. However, one day I summoned
up courage. Besides her official receptions on Wednesdays, Augustine
Brohan received more unceremoniously on Sunday afternoon. I resolutely
started off....
Even now I can recall the smallest details of that interview. But see
how all depends upon our point of view. I had told Sarcey the comical
story of my first appearance in society, and one day Sarcey repeated
it to Augustine Brohan. Well, the ungrateful Augustine--whom, it is
true, I have not seen for thirty years--swore most sincerely that she
knew nothing of me but my books. She had forgotten everything!
Everything--all that had played such an important part in my life--the
broken glasses, the Wallachian prince, the rehearsal of "Lait
d'Anesse," and the boots of the heavy dragoons.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Born in 1850, died in 1893; educated at Rouen; trained in
literary matters by Flaubert; wrote an unsuccessful play in
1879 and then a short story, "Boule de Suif," which
attracted marked attention, and was followed by a great
number of short and long stories, including "Mademoiselle
Fifi" in 1882, "Pierre et Jean" in 1888, and "Notre Coeur"
in 1890.
MADAME JEANNE'S LAST DAYS[12]
Jeanne did not go out any more. She hardly bestirred herself. She got
up every morning at the same time; looked out of the window at the
weather, and then went down-stairs, and sat before the fire in the
hall. Here she would think of the happy years of Paul's childhood,
when he had worked in the salad-bed, kneeling side by side in the soft
ground with Aunt Lison, the two women rivals in their effort to amuse
the child, and seeing who could root up the young plants most
skilfully.
[Footnote 12: From the last chapter of "A Life." Translated for this
collection by Eric Arthur Bell.]
So musing, her lips would murmur, "Poulet, Poulet! my little
Poulet"--as if she were speaking to him; and, her reverie broken as
she spoke, she would try during whole hours to write in the air the
letters which formed the boy's name. She would trace them slowly
before the fire, imagining that she really saw them; then believing
that her eyes had deceived her, she would rewrite the capital P
again, her arm trembling with fatigue, forcing herself to trace the
name to the end; then when she had finished it she would begin over
again. At last she could not write it any more. She would muddle
everything--form other words, and exhaust herself almost to idiocy.
Ever since her childhood just one habit had clung to her--that of
jumping up out of bed the moment she had drunk her morning coffee. She
was inordinately fond of that way of breakfasting, and the privation
would have been felt more than anything else. Each morning she would
await Rosalie's arrival with extraordinary impatience; and as soon as
the cup was put upon the table at her side, she would sit up and empty
it almost greedily, and then, throwing off her robe, she would begin
to dress herself at once.
She thought she was directly pursued by obstinate misfortune against
which she became as fatalistic as an Oriental: the habit of seeing her
dreams fade away and destroy her hopes made her afraid to undertake
anything; and she waited whole days to accomplish the most simple
affair, convinced that she would always take the wrong way to do it,
and that it would turn out badly. She repeated continually, "I have
never had any luck in my life." Then Rosalie would cry, "Supposing you
had had to work for your bread--and were obliged to get up every
morning at six o'clock and prepare for your day's doings? There are
lots of people who are obliged to do that; and when such people become
too old, they die of poverty."
She had checked certain memorable days in her life, and now and then
she was able to remember episodes of an entire month, bringing them
up one by one, grouping them together, and connecting together all
those little matters which had preceded or followed some important
event. She succeeded by sheer force of attention, by force of memory
and of concentrated will power in bringing back to mind almost
completely her two first years at Peuples. Distant memories of her
life came back to her with a singular facility, bringing a kind of
relief; but the later years seemed to lose themselves in a mist--to
become mixt one with another: and sometimes she would stay for an
indefinite time, her head bowed on one of the calendars, her mind full
of the past, and yet not being able to remember whether it was in this
or that calendar that such or such a remembrance ought to be
tabulated. She placed them around the room like the pictures of the
Way of the Cross--those tableaux of days that were no more. Then she
would abruptly set down her chair before one of them; and there she
would sit until night came, staring at it, immobile, buried in her
dreams of remembrance.
One morning Rosalie came earlier than usual into her room, and said,
setting down upon the table the bowl of coffee: "Come now, drink this
up quickly. Denis is down-stairs waiting for us at the door. We are
going over to Peuples to-day: I've got some business over there."
Jeanne thought that she was going to faint, so deep was her emotion.
She drest herself, frightened and tremulous at the mere idea of seeing
again that dear house.
A radiant sky spread out above over all the world, and the horse, in
fits and starts of liveliness, sometimes broke into a gallop. When
they entered into the commune of Etouvent, Jeanne's heart beat so fast
that she could hardly breathe, and when she saw from a distance the
brick pillars of the boundary-line of her old home, she exclaimed in a
low voice two or three times, "Oh!--oh!--oh!--" as if something had
happened to change her whole heart.
They left the wagon with the Couillards: then, while Rosalie and her
son went off to attend to their business, the caretakers offered to
take Jeanne over the château, the present owners of it being away; so
they gave her the keys.
She set out alone, and when she was fairly before the old manor-house
by the seaside, she stopt to look at it once again. It had changed in
nothing outside. The large, grayish building that day showed upon its
old walls the smile of the brilliant sunshine. All the shutters were
closed.
A bit of a dead branch fell on her dress. She raised her eyes. It came
from the plane-tree. She drew near the big tree with its smooth, pale
bark; she stroked it with her hand as if it had been an animal. Her
foot struck something in the grass--a fragment of rotten wood; it was
the last fragment of the very bench on which she had sat so often with
those of her own family about her; the very bench which had been seen
set in place on the very day that Julien had made his first visit.
She reached the double doors of the vestibule of the house, and she
had great trouble to open them; for the heavy, rusty key refused to
turn in the lock. At length the lock yielded with a heavy grinding of
its springs; and the door, a little obstinate itself, burst open with
a cloud of dust.
At once, and almost running, she went upstairs to her own room. She
could recognize it, hung as it was with a light new paper: but
throwing open a window, she looked out and stood motionless, stirred
even to the depth of her being at the sight of all that landscape, so
much beloved; the shrubs, the elm-trees, the flat reaches, and the sea
dotted with brown sails, motionless in the distance.
Then she began prowling about the great empty dwelling. She even stopt
to look at the discolorations on the walls; spots familiar to her
eyes. Once she stood before a little hole crusht in the plaster by the
baron; who had often amused himself, when he was young, with making
passages at arms, cane in hand, against the partition wall, when he
happened to be passing this spot.
She went down-stairs to the drawing-room. It was somber behind the
closed shutters: for some time she could not distinguish anything;
then her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Little by little she
recognized the wide tapestries with their patterns of birds flitting
about. Two settees were set before the chimney as if people had just
quitted them; and the very odor of the room, an odor which it had
always kept--that old, vague, sweet odor belonging to some old
houses--entered Jeanne's very being, enwrapt her in souvenirs,
intoxicated her memory. She remained gasping, breathing in that breath
of the past, her eyes fixt upon those two chairs; for suddenly she
saw--as she had so often seen them--her father and her mother, sitting
there warming their feet by the fire. She started back terrified,
struck her back against the edge of the door, caught at it to keep
herself from falling, but kept her eyes still fixt upon the chairs.
The vision disappeared. For some moments she remained forgetful of
everything; then slowly she recovered her self-possession, and would
have fled from the room, fearful of losing her self-control. Her
glance fell by chance on the door-post on which she was leaning; and
there before her eyes were the marks that had been made to keep track
of Poulet's height as he was growing up!
The little marks climbed the painted wood at irregular intervals;
figures traced with the penknife noted down the different ages with
the month of the boy's life. Sometimes the jottings were in the
handwriting of the baron, a large hand; sometimes they were in her own
smaller hand; sometimes in that of Aunt Lison, a little shaky. It
seemed to her that the child of other days was actually there, before
her, with his blond hair, pressing his little forehead against the
wall so that his height could be measured. The baron was crying,
"Jeanne! he has grown a whole centimeter in the last six weeks!" She
began to kiss the piece of wood in a frenzy of love.
But some one was calling her from outside. It was Rosalie's voice:
"Madame Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, we are waiting for you, to have
luncheon." She went out in a trance. She hardly understood anything
that the other said to her. She ate the things that they put on her
plate; she listened without knowing what she heard, talking
mechanically with the farming-women, who inquired about her health;
she let them embrace her, and herself kissed the cheeks offered to
her; and then got into the wagon again.
When she caught her last glimpse of the high roof of the château
across the trees, she felt a terrible sinking in her heart. It seemed
to her in her innermost being that she had said farewell forever to
her old home!
GERMANY
1483-1859
MARTIN LUTHER
Born in 1483, died in 1546; his father a slate-cutter:
studied at Magdeburg and Erfurt; against the wishes of his
family, became a monk; went to Rome in 1510; published on
the church door at Wittenburg in 1517 his thesis against the
sale of indulgences; summoned to Rome, he refused to go and
published further attacks upon the Church; excommunicated in
1520 and his writings publicly burned, whereupon he publicly
burned the papal bull of excommunication; made his speech
before the Diet of Worms in 1521; taken prisoner and
confined in the Wartburg, he there translated the New
Testament; later translated the Old Testament, and published
a hymn-book; in 1525 married a nun; published numerous
polemical pamphlets against the Church; had great influence
in the formation of the present literary language of
Germany.
SOME OF HIS TABLE TALK AND SAYINGS[13]
"Before I translated the New Testament out of the Greek all longed
after it; when it was done, their longing lasted scarce four weeks.
Then they desired the books of Moses; when I had translated these,
they had enough thereof in a short time. After that, they would have
the Psalms; of these they were soon weary, and desired other books. So
will it be with the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which they now long for,
and about which I have taken great pains. All is acceptable until our
giddy brains be satisfied; afterward we let things lie, and seek after
new."
[Footnote 13: Luther's "Table Talk" found English translators soon
after it appeared in German. A notable later version was made by
William Hazlitt.]
Dr. Luther discust at length concerning witchcraft and charms. He said
that his mother had had to undergo infinite annoyance from one of her
neighbors, who was a witch and whom she was fain to conciliate with
all sorts of attention, for this witch could throw a charm upon
children which made them cry themselves to death. A pastor having
punished her for some knavery, she cast a spell upon him by means of
some earth upon which he had walked, and which she bewitched. The poor
man hereupon fell sick of a malady which no remedy could remove, and
shortly after died.
Dr. Luther said he had heard from the Elector of Saxony, John
Frederic, that a powerful family in Germany was descended from the
devil--the founder having been born of a succubus. He added this
story: "A gentleman had a young and beautiful wife, who, dying, was
buried. Shortly afterward, this gentleman and one of his servants
sleeping in the same chamber, the wife who was dead came at night,
bent over the bed of the gentleman as tho she were conversing with
him, and after a while went away again. The servant, having twice
observed this circumstance, asked his master whether he knew that
every night a woman clothed in white stood by his bedside. The master
replied that he had slept soundly, and had observed nothing of the
sort. The next night he took care to remain awake. The woman came, and
he asked her who she was and what she wanted. She answered that she
was his wife. He returned, 'My wife is dead and buried.' She
answered, she had died by reason of his sins; but that if he would
receive her again, she would return to him in life. He said if it were
possible, he should be well content. She told him he must undertake
not to swear, as he was wont to do; for that if he ever did so, she
should once more die, and permanently quit him. He promised this; and
the dead woman, returning to seeming life, dwelt with him, ate, drank,
and slept with him, and had children by him. One day that he had
guests, his wife went to fetch some cakes from an adjoining apartment,
and remained a long time absent. The gentleman grew impatient, and
broke out into his old oaths. The wife not returning, the gentleman
with his friends went to seek her, but she had disappeared; only the
clothes she had worn lay on the floor. She was never again seen."
"Between husband and wife there should be no question as to _meum_ and
_tuum_. All things should be in common between them, without any
distinction or means of distinguishing."
"St. Augustine said finely: 'A marriage without children is the world
without the sun.'"
Dr. Luther said one day to his wife: "You make me do what you will;
you have full sovereignty here, and I award you with all my heart the
command in all household matters, reserving my rights in other points.
Never any good came out of female domination. God created Adam master
and lord of living creatures; but Eve spoilt all, when she persuaded
him to set himself above God's will. 'Tis you women, with your tricks
and artifices, that lead men into error."
"'Tis a grand thing for a married pair to live in perfect union, but
the devil rarely permits this. When they are apart, they can not
endure the separation; and when they are together, they can not endure
the always seeing one another. 'Tis as the poet says: '_Nec tecum
vivere possum, nec sine te_.' Married people must assiduously pray
against these assaults of the devil. I have seen marriage where, at
first, husband and wife seemed as tho they would eat one another up;
in six months they have separated in mutual disgust. 'Tis the devil
inspires this evanescent ardor, in order to divert the parties from
prayer."
Dr. Luther said, in reference to those who write satirical attacks
upon women, that such will not go unpunished. "If the author be one of
high rank, rest assured he is not really of noble origin, but a
surreptitious intruder into the family. What defects women have, we
must check them for in private, gently by word of mouth; for woman is
a frail vessel." The doctor then turned round and said, "Let us talk
of something else."
There was at Frankfort-on-the-Oder a schoolmaster, a pious and learned
man, whose heart was fervently inclined to theology, and who had
preached several times with great applause. He was called to the
dignity of deacon; but his wife, a violent, fierce woman, would not
consent to his accepting the charge, saying she would not be the wife
of a minister.
It became a question, what was the poor man to do? which was he to
renounce, his preacher-ship or his wife? Luther at first said
jocosely, "Oh, if he has married, as you tell me, a widow, he must
needs obey her." But after a while he resumed severely: "The wife is
bound to follow her husband, not the husband his wife. This must be an
ill woman, nay, the devil incarnate, to be ashamed of a charge with
which our Lord and his apostles were invested. If she were my wife, I
should shortly say to her, 'Wilt thou follow me, aye or no? Reply
forthwith'; and if she replied, 'No,' I would leave her, and take
another wife."
I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention
of ours: it is the gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan
hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.
The strength and glory of a town does not depend on its wealth, its
walls, its great mansions, its powerful armaments; but on the number
of its learned, serious, kind, and well-educated citizens.
Greek and Latin are the scabbard which holds the sword of the Spirit,
the cases which enclose the precious jewels, the vessels which contain
the old wine, the baskets which carry the loaves and fishes for the
feeding of the multitude.
Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom--only a few fragments of
the boundless heights, breadths, and depths of truth--have I been able
to gather.
My own writings are like a wild forest, compared with the gentle,
limpid fluency of his [Brenz's] language. If small things dare be
compared with great, my words are like the Spirit of Elijah--a great
and strong wind, rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the
rocks; and his is the still small voice. But yet God uses also coarse
wedges for splitting coarse blocks; and besides the fructifying grain,
he employs also the rending thunder and lightning to purify the
atmosphere.
I must root out the stumps and trunks, and I am a rough woodsman who
must break the road and prepare it: but Magister Philip [Melanchthon]
goes on quietly and gently, plows and plants, sows and waters
joyfully.
Be temperate with your children; punish them if they lie or steal, but
be just in what you do. It is a lighter sin to take pears and apples
than to take money. I shudder when I think what I went through myself.
My mother beat me about some nuts once till the blood came. I had a
terrible time of it; but she meant well.
Never be hard with children. Many a fine character has been ruined by
the stupid brutality of pedagogs. The parts of speech are a boy's
pillory. I was myself flogged fifteen times in one forenoon, over the
conjugation of a verb. Punish if you must; but be kind too, and let
the sugar-plum go with the rod.
My being such a small creature was a misfortune for the Pope. He
despised me too much. What, he thought, could a slave like me do to
him--to him who was the greatest man in the world? Had he accepted my
proposal he would have extinguished me.
The better a man is, the more clearly he sees how little he is good
for, and the greater mockery it is to him to hold the notion that he
has deserved reward. Miserable creatures that we are, we earn our
bread in sin. Till we are seven years old, we do nothing but eat and
drink and sleep and play; from seven to twenty-one we study four hours
a day, the rest of it we run about and amuse ourselves; then we work
till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. We sleep half our
lives; we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our
good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have
talked for two hours, I have been at meals three hours, I have been
idle four hours; ah, enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord!
The principle of marriage runs through all creation, and flowers as
well as animals are male and female.
If a man could make a single rose, we should give him an empire; yet
roses, and flowers no less beautiful, are scattered in profusion over
the world, and no one regards them.
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM
LESSING
Born in 1729, died in 1781; studied theology at Leipsic, but
turned his thoughts to writing for the stage, his first
comedy being produced in 1748; settled in Berlin in 1748;
lived in Leipsic a second time, engaged in writing plays,
poems and books; removed from Berlin to Breslau in 1765,
where he wrote his masterpiece, "Laocoön," published in
1766; in 1769 made librarian of the ducal library in
Wolfenbüttel, which place he held until his death.
I
POETRY AND PAINTING COMPARED[14]
The first person who compared painting and poetry with one another was
a man of refined feeling, who became aware of a similar effect
produced upon himself by both arts. He felt both represent what is
absent as if it were present, and appearance as if it were reality;
that both deceived, and that the deception of both is pleasing.
[Footnote 14: From the preface to the "Laocoön." Translated by E. C.
Beasley and Helen Zimmern. An earlier translation of the "Laocoön" was
made by William Ross in 1836.]
A second observer sought to penetrate below the surface of this
pleasure, and discovered that in both it flowed from the same source.
Beauty, the idea of which we first deduce from bodily objects,
possesses universal laws, applicable to more things than one; to
actions and to thoughts as well as to forms.
A third reflected upon the value and distribution of these universal
laws, and noticed that some are more predominant in painting, others
in poetry; that thus, in the latter case, poetry will help to explain
and illustrate painting; in the former, painting will do the same for
poetry.
The first was the amateur, the second the philosopher, the third the
critic.
The first two could not easily make a wrong use of either their
feelings or conclusions. On the other hand, the value of the critic's
observations mainly depends upon the correctness of their application
to the individual case, and since for one clear-sighted critic there
have always been fifty ingenious ones, it would have been a wonder if
this application had always been applied with all that caution which
is required to hold the balance equally between the two arts.
If Apelles and Protogenes, in their lost writings on painting,
affirmed and illustrated its laws by the previously established rules
of poetry, we may feel sure that they did it with that moderation and
accuracy with which we now see, in the works of Aristotle, Cicero,
Horace, and Quintilian, the principles and experience of painting
applied to eloquence and poetry. It is the privilege of the ancients
never in any matter to do too much or too little.
But in many points we moderns have imagined that we have advanced far
beyond them, because we have changed their narrow lanes into highways,
even tho the shorter and safer highways contract into footpaths as
they lead through deserts.
The dazzling antithesis of the Greek Voltaire, "Painting is dumb
poetry, and poetry is speaking painting," can never have been found in
any didactic work; it was an idea, amongst others, of Simonides, and
the truth it contains is so evident that we feel compelled to overlook
the indistinctness and error which accompany it.
And yet the ancients did not overlook them. They confined the
expression of Simonides to the effect of either art, but at the same
time forgot not to inculcate that, notwithstanding the complete
similarity of this effect, the two were different, both in the objects
which they imitated, and in their mode of imitation.
But, just as tho no such difference existed, many recent critics have
drawn from this harmony of poetry and painting the most ill-digested
conclusions. At one time they compress poetry into the narrower limits
of painting; at another they allow painting to occupy the whole wide
sphere of poetry. Everything, say they, that the one is entitled to
should be conceded to the other; everything that pleases or displeases
in the one is necessarily pleasing or displeasing in the other. Full
of this idea, they give utterance in the most confident tone to the
most shallow decisions; when, criticizing the works of a poet and
painter upon the same subject, they set down as faults any divergences
they may observe, laying the blame upon the one or the other
accordingly as they may have more taste for poetry or for painting.
Indeed, this false criticism has misled in some degree the professors
of art. It has produced the love of description in poetry, and of
allegory in painting: while the critics strove to reduce poetry to a
speaking painting, without properly knowing what it could and ought to
paint; and painting to a dumb poem, without having considered in what
degree it could express general ideas without alienating itself from
its destiny, and degenerating into an arbitrary method of writing.
II
OF SUFFERING HELD IN RESTRAINT[15]
Herr Winckelmann has pronounced a noble simplicity and quiet grandeur,
displayed in the posture no less than in the expression, to be the
characteristic features common to all the Greek masterpieces of
painting and sculpture. "As," says he, "the depths of the sea always
remain calm, however much the surface may be raging, so the expression
in the figures of the Greeks, under every form of passion, shows a
great and self-collected soul.
[Footnote 15: From Chapter I of the "Laocoön." Translated by E. C.
Beasley and Helen Zimmern.]
"This spirit is portrayed in the countenance of Laocoön, and not in
the countenance alone, under the most violent suffering; the pain
discovers itself in every muscle and sinew of his body, and the
beholder, while looking at the agonized contraction of the abdomen,
without viewing the face and the other parts, believes that he almost
feels the pain himself. This pain expresses itself, however, without
any violence, both in the features and in the whole posture. He raises
no terrible shriek, such as Virgil makes his Laocoön utter, for the
opening of the mouth does not admit it; it is rather an anxious and
supprest sigh, as described by Sadoleto. The pain of body and grandeur
of soul are, as it were, weighed out, and distributed with equal
strength through the whole frame of the figure. Laocoön suffers, but
he suffers as the Philoctetes of Sophocles; his misery pierces us to
the very soul, but inspires us with a wish that we could endure misery
like that great man.
"The expressing of so great a soul is far higher than the painting of
beautiful nature. The artist must have felt within himself that
strength of spirit which he imprinted upon his marble. Greece had
philosophers and artists in one person, and more than one Metrodorus.
Philosophy gave her hand to art, and breathed into its figures more
than ordinary souls."
The observation on which the foregoing remarks are founded, "that the
pain in the face of Laocoön does not show itself with that force which
its intensity would have led us to expect," is perfectly correct.
Moreover, it is indisputable that it is in this very point where the
half-connoisseur would have decided that the artist had fallen short
of nature, and had not reached the true pathos of pain, that his
wisdom is particularly conspicuous.
But I confess I differ from Winckelmann as to what is in his opinion
the basis of this wisdom, and as to the universality of the rule
which he deduces from it.
I acknowledge that I was startled, first by the glance of disapproval
which he casts upon Virgil, and secondly by the comparison with
Philoctetes. From this point then I shall set out, and write down my
thoughts as they were developed in me.
"Laocoön suffers as Sophocles' Philoctetes." But how does the latter
suffer? It is curious that his sufferings should leave such a
different impression behind them. The cries, the shrieking, the wild
imprecations, with which he filled the camp, and interrupted all the
sacrifices and holy rites, resound no less horribly through his desert
island, and were the cause of his being banished to it. The same
sounds of despondency, sorrow, and despair fill the theater in the
poet's imitation. It has been observed that the third act of this
piece is shorter than the others; from this it may be gathered, say
the critics, that the ancients took little pains to preserve a
uniformity of length in the different acts. I quite agree with them,
but I should rather ground my opinion upon another example than this.
The sorrowful exclamations and the moanings, of which this act
consists, must have been pronounced with tensions and breakings off
altogether different from those required in a continuous speech, and
doubtless made this act last quite as long in the representation as
the others. It appears much shorter to the reader, when seen on paper,
than it must have done to the audience in a theater.
A cry is the natural expression of bodily pain. Homer's wounded heroes
frequently fall with cries to the ground. He makes Venus, when merely
scratched, shriek aloud; not that he may thereby paint the effeminacy
of the goddess of pleasure, but rather that he may give suffering
Nature her due; for even the iron Mars, when he feels the lance of
Diomedes, shrieks so horribly that his cries are like those of ten
thousand furious warriors, and fill both armies with horror, Tho
Homer, in other respects, raises his heroes above human nature, they
always remain faithful to it in matters connected with the feeling of
pain and insult, or its expression through cries, tears, or
reproaches. In their actions they are beings of a higher order, in
their feelings true men.
I know that we, more refined Europeans, of a wiser and later age, know
how to keep our mouths and eyes under closer restraint. We are
forbidden by courtesy and propriety to cry and weep; and with us the
active bravery of the first rough age of the world has been changed
into a passive. Yet even our own ancestors, tho barbarians, were
greater in the latter than in the former. To suppress all pain, to
meet the stroke of death with unflinching eye, to die laughing under
the bites of adders, to lament neither their sins nor the loss of
their dearest friends--these were the characteristics of the old
heroic courage of the north. Palnatoki forbade his Jomsburgers either
to fear or so much as to mention the name of fear.
Not so the Greek. He felt and feared. He gave utterance to his pain
and sorrow. He was ashamed of no human weaknesses, only none of them
must hold him back from the path of honor, or impede him in the
fulfilment of his duty. What in the barbarian sprang from habit and
ferocity arose from principle in the Greek. With him heroism was as
the spark concealed in flint, which, so long as no external force
awakens it, sleeps in quiet, nor robs the stone either of its
clearness or its coldness. With the barbarian it was a bright
consuming flame, which was ever roaring, and devoured, or at least
blackened, every other good quality. Thus, when Homer makes the
Trojans march to the combat with wild cries, the Greeks, on the
contrary, in resolute silence, the critics justly observe that the
poet intended to depict the one as barbarians, the other as a
civilized people. I wonder that they have not remarked a similar
contrast of character in another passage. The hostile armies have made
a truce; they are busied with burning their dead; and these rites are
accompanied on both sides with the warm flow of tears. But Priam
forbids the Trojans to weep. He forbade them to weep, says Dacier,
because he feared the effect would be too softening, and that on the
morrow they would go with less courage to the battle. True! But why, I
ask, should Priam only fear this result? Why does not Agamemnon also
lay the same prohibition on the Greeks? The poet has a deeper meaning;
he wishes to teach us that the civilized Greek could be brave at the
same time that he wept, while in the uncivilized Trojan all human
feelings were to be previously stifled.
It is worth observing that among the few tragedies which have come
down to us from antiquity two are found in which bodily pain
constitutes not the lightest part of the misfortune which befalls the
suffering heroes--the Philoctetes and the dying Hercules. Sophocles
paints the last also as moaning and shrieking, weeping and crying.
Thanks to our polite neighbors, those masters of propriety, no such
ridiculous and intolerable characters as a moaning Philoctetes or a
shrieking Hercules will ever again appear upon the stage. One of their
latest poets has indeed ventured upon a Philoctetes, but would he have
dared to exhibit the true one?
Even a Laocoön is found among the lost plays of Sophocles. Would that
fate had spared it to us! The slight mention which some old
grammarians have made of it affords us no ground for concluding how
the poet had handled his subject; but of this I feel certain, that
Laocoön would not have been drawn more stoically than Philoctetes and
Hercules. All stoicism is undramatical; and our sympathy is always
proportioned to the suffering exprest by the object which interests
us. It is true if we see him bear his misery with a great soul, this
grandeur of soul excites our admiration; but admiration is only a cold
emotion, and its inactive astonishment excludes every warmer passion
as well as every distinct idea.
I now come to my inference; if it be true that a cry at the sensation
of bodily pain, particularly according to the old Greek way of
thinking, is quite compatible with greatness of soul, it can not have
been for the sake of expressing such greatness that the artist avoided
imitating this shriek in marble. Another reason therefore must be
found for his here deviating from his rival, the poet, who expresses
it with the highest purpose.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Born in Frankfurt in 1749, died in Weimar in 1832; the
greatest name in German literature; his father an imperial
councilor; studied jurisprudence at Leipsic; settled in
Weimar in 1775, where he became privy councilor, and in 1782
was ennobled and made President of the Ducal Chamber;
traveled in Italy in 1786-88; served in the war against
France in 1792-93; began his friendship with Schiller in
1794; published "The Sorrows of Werther" in 1774, "Hermann
and Dorothea" in 1797, "Faust" first part, in 1808, his
"Italian Journey" in 1817, "Wilhelm Meister," the several
parts in 1778, 1796, 1821, and 1829; the second part of
"Faust" in 1831.
I
ON FIRST READING SHAKESPEARE[16]
"Have you never," said Jarno, taking him aside, "read one of
Shakespeare's plays?"
[Footnote 16: From "Wilhelm Meister." Translated by Thomas Carlyle.
This translation by Carlyle was published in Edinburgh in 1824 and was
contemporary with Carlyle's translation of "Legendre" and his "Life of
Schiller."]
"No," replied Wilhelm: "since the time when they became more known in
Germany, I have myself grown unacquainted with the theater; and I know
not whether I should now rejoice that an old taste and occupation of
my youth has been by chance renewed. In the meantime, all that I have
heard of these plays has excited little wish to become acquainted with
such extraordinary monsters, which appear to set probability and
dignity alike at defiance."
"I would advise you," said the other, "to make a trial,
notwithstanding: it can do one no harm to look at what is
extraordinary with one's own eyes. I will lend you a volume or two;
and you can not better spend your time than by casting everything
aside, and retiring to the solitude of your old habitation, to look
into the magic lantern of that unknown world. It is sinful of you to
waste your hours in dressing out these apes to look more human, and
teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I require--you must not cavil
at the form; the rest I can leave to your own good sense and feeling."
The horses were standing at the door; and Jarno mounted with some
other cavaliers to go and hunt. Wilhelm looked after him with sadness.
He would fain have spoken much with this man who tho in a harsh,
unfriendly way, gave him new ideas--ideas that he had need of.
Oftentimes a man, when approaching some development of his powers,
capacities, and conceptions, gets into a perplexity from which a
prudent friend might easily deliver him. He resembles a traveler, who,
at but a short distance from the inn he is to rest at, falls into the
water: were any one to catch him then and pull him to the bank, with
one good wetting it were over; whereas, tho he struggles out himself,
it is often at the side where he tumbled in, and he has to make a wide
and weary circuit before reaching his appointed object.
Wilhelm now began to have an inkling that things went forward in the
world differently from what he had supposed. He now viewed close at
hand the solemn and imposing life of the great and distinguished, and
wondered at the easy dignity which they contrived to give it. An army
on its march, a princely hero at the head of it, such a multitude of
cooperating warriors, such a multitude of crowding worshipers, exalted
his imagination. In this mood he received the promised books; and ere
long, as may be easily supposed, the stream of that mighty genius laid
hold of him and led him down to a shoreless ocean, where he soon
completely forgot and lost himself....
Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare's plays till their
effect on him became so strong that he could go no further. His whole
soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno;
to whom, on meeting with him, he exprest his boundless gratitude for
such delicious entertainment.
"I clearly enough foresaw," said Jarno, "that you would not remain
insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable
of all writers."
"Yes!" exclaimed our friend: "I can not recollect that any book, any
man, any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on
me as the precious works to which by your kindness I have been
directed. They seem as if they were performances of some celestial
genius descending among men, to make them by the mildest instructions
acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You would think,
while reading them, you stood before the enclosed awful Books of Fate,
while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling through the
leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength and
tenderness, the power and peacefulness of this man have so astonished
and transported me that I long vehemently for the time when I shall
have it in my power to read further."
"Bravo!" said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend's.
"This is as it should be! And the consequences which I hope for will
likewise surely follow."
"I wish," said Wilhelm, "I could but disclose to you all that is going
on within me even now. All the anticipations I have ever had regarding
man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upward often
unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare's
writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us,
tho we can not say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men
appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most
mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as
if they were watches, whose dial-plates and cases were of crystal,
which pointed out according to their use their course of the hours and
minutes; while at the same time you could discern the combination of
wheels and springs that turn them. The few glances I have cast over
Shakespeare's world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken
my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of
destinies that is suspended over it; and at length, if I shall
prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and
to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my
native land."
II
THE CORONATION OF JOSEPH II[17]
The coronation-day dawned at last, on the 3d of April, 1764; the
weather was favorable, and everybody was in motion. I, with several of
my relations and friends, had been provided with a good place in one
of the upper stories of the Römer itself, where we might completely
survey the whole. We betook ourselves to the spot very early in the
morning, and from above, as in a bird's-eye view, contemplated the
arrangements which we had inspected more closely the day before. There
was the newly-erected fountain, with two large tubs on the left and
right, into which the double-eagle on the post was to pour from its
two beaks white wine on this side and red wine on that. There,
gathered into a heap, lay the oats; here stood the large wooden hut,
in which we had several days since seen the whole fat ox roasted and
basted on a huge spit before a charcoal fire. All the avenues leading
out from the Römer, and from other streets back to the Römer, were
secured on both sides by barriers and guards. The great square was
gradually filled, and the waving and pressure grew every moment
stronger and more in motion, as the multitude always, if possible,
endeavored to reach the spot where some new scene arose, and something
particular was announced.
[Footnote 17: From the Twelfth Book of the "Autobiography: Truth and
Poetry from My Own Life." Translated by John Oxenford. A year before
the date of Oxenford's translation (1848) Parke Godwin of New York had
published a translation. Joseph II was the son of Francis I and Maria
Theresa and was crowned King of the Romans (that is, of the Holy Roman
Empire) in 1764 and succeeded to the German Empire in 1765.]
All this time there reigned a tolerable stillness, and when the
alarm-bells were sounded, all the people seemed struck with terror and
amazement. What first attracted the attention of all who could
overlook the square from above was the train in which the lords of Aix
and Nuremberg brought the crown-jewels to the cathedral. These, as
palladia, had been assigned the first place in the carriage, and the
deputies sat before them on the back seat with becoming reverence. Now
the three electors betake themselves to the cathedral. After the
presentation of the insignia to the Elector of Mentz, the crown and
sword are immediately carried to the imperial quarters. The further
arrangements and manifold ceremonies occupied, in the interim, the
chief persons, as well as the spectators, in the church, as we other
well-informed persons could well imagine.
In the meanwhile before our eyes the ambassadors ascended to the
Römer, from which the canopy is carried by the under-officers into the
imperial quarters. The Hereditary Marshal, Count von Pappenheim,
instantly mounts his horse; he was a very handsome slender gentleman,
whom the Spanish costume, the rich doublet, the gold mantle, the high
feathered hat, and the loose flying hair, became very well. He puts
himself in motion, and amid the sound of all the bells, the
ambassadors follow him on horseback to the quarters of the Emperor in
still greater magnificence than on the day of election. One would
have liked to be there too, as indeed on this day it would have been
altogether desirable to multiply one's self. However, we told each
other what was going on there. Now the Emperor is putting on his
domestic robes, we said a new dress, and after the old Carolingian
pattern. The hereditary officers receive the insignia, and with them
get on horseback. The Emperor in his robes, the Roman King in the
Spanish habit, immediately mount their steeds; and while this is done,
the endless procession which precedes them has already announced them.
The eye was already wearied by the multitude of richly-drest
attendants and magistrates, and by the nobility who, in stately
fashion, were moving along; but when the electoral envoys, the
hereditary officers, and at last, under the richly-embroidered canopy,
borne by twelve Schöffen and senators, the Emperor, in romantic
costume, and to the left, a little behind him, in the Spanish dress,
his son, slowly floated along on magnificently adorned horses, the eye
was no more sufficient for the sight. One would have liked to detain
the scene, but for a moment, by a magic charm; but the glory passed on
without stopping, and the space that was scarcely quitted was
immediately filled again by the crowd, which poured in like billows.
But now a new pressure took place; for another approach from the
market to the Römer gate had to be opened, and a road of planks to be
bridged over it, on which the train returning from the cathedral was
to walk.
What passed within the cathedral, the endless ceremonies which
precede and accompany the anointing, the crowning, the dubbing of
knighthood--all this we were glad to hear told afterward by those who
had sacrificed much else to be present in the church.
The rest of us, in the interim, partook of a frugal repast; for in
this festal day we had to be contented with cold meat. But, on the
other hand, the best and oldest wine had been brought out of all the
family-cellars, so that in this respect at least we celebrated the
ancient festival in ancient style.
In the square the sight most worth seeing was now the bridge, which
had been finished and covered with orange and white cloth; and we who
had stared at the Emperor, first in his carriage and then on
horseback, were now to admire him walking on foot. Singularly enough,
the last pleased us the most; for we thought that in this way he
exhibited himself both in the most natural and in the most dignified
manner.
Older persons, who were present at the coronation of Francis the
First, related that Maria Theresa, beautiful beyond measure, had
looked on this solemnity from a balcony window of the Frauenstein
house, close to the Römer. As her consort returned from the cathedral
in his strange costume, and seemed to her, so to speak, like a ghost
of Charlemagne, he had, as if in jest, raised both his hands, and
shown her the imperial globe, the scepter, and the curious gloves, at
which she had broken out into immoderate laughter, which served for
the great delight and edification of the crowd, which was thus honored
with a sight of the good and natural matrimonial understanding
between the most exalted couple of Christendom. But when the Empress,
to greet her consort, waved her handkerchief, and even shouted a loud
vivat to him, the enthusiasm and exultation of the people was raised
to the highest, so that there was no end to the cheers of joy....
The rejoicings, which resounded from the market-place, now spread
likewise over the great square, and a boisterous vivat burst forth
from thousands upon thousands of throats, and doubtless from as many
hearts. For this grand festival was to be the pledge of a lasting
peace, which indeed for many a long year actually blest Germany.
Several days before it had been made known by public proclamation that
neither the bridge nor the eagle over the fountain were to be exposed
to the people, and were therefore not, as at other times, to be
touched. This was done to prevent the mischief inevitable with such a
rush of persons. But in order to sacrifice in some degree to the
genius of the mob persons expressly appointed went behind the
procession, loosened the cloth from the bridge, wound it up like a
flag, and threw it into the air. This gave rise to no disaster, but to
a laughable mishap; for the cloth unrolled itself in the air, and, as
it fell, covered a larger or smaller number of persons. Those now who
took hold of the ends and drew them toward themselves, pulled all
those in the middle to the ground, enveloped them and teased them till
they tore or cut themselves through, and everybody, in his own way,
had borne off a corner of the stuff made sacred by the footsteps of
majesty....
It was precisely at the right time that I again took possession of my
window; for the most remarkable part of all that was to be seen in
public was just about to take place. All the people had turned toward
the Römer, and a reiterated shout of vivat gave us to understand that
the Emperor and King in their vestments were showing themselves to the
populace from the balcony of the great hall. But they were not alone
to serve as a spectacle, since another strange spectacle occurred
before their eyes. First of all, the handsome slender Hereditary
Marshal flung himself upon his steed; he had laid aside his sword; in
his right hand he held a silver-handled vessel, and a tin spatula in
his left. He rode within the barriers to the great heap of oats,
sprang in, filled the vessel to overflow, smoothed it off, and carried
it back again with great dignity. The imperial stable was now provided
for. The Hereditary Chamberlain then rode likewise to the spot, and
brought back a basin with ewer and towel. But more entertaining for
the spectators was the Hereditary Carver, who came to fetch a piece of
the roasted ox. He also rode, with a silver dish, through the
barriers, to the large wooden kitchen, and came forth again with his
portion covered, that he might go back to the Römer. Now it was the
turn of the Hereditary Cupbearer, who rode to the fountain and fetched
wine. Thus now was the imperial table furnished, and every eye waited
upon the Hereditary Treasurer, who was to throw about the money....
Everybody knew now that the Emperor and King would return from the
cabinet whither they had retired from the balcony, and feast in the
great hall of the Römer. We had been able to admire the arrangements
made for it the day before; and my most anxious wish was, if possible,
to look in to-day. I repaired, therefore, by the usual path, to the
great staircase, which stands directly opposite the door of the hall.
Here I gazed at the distinguished personages who this day acted as the
servants of the head of the empire. Forty-four counts, all splendidly
drest, passed me, carrying the dishes from the kitchen, so that the
contrast between their dignity and their occupation might well be
bewildering to a boy. The crowd was not great, but considering the
little space, sufficiently perceptible. The hall-door was guarded,
while those who were authorized went frequently in and out. I saw one
of the Palatine domestic officials, whom I asked whether he could not
take me in with him. He did not deliberate long, but gave me one of
the silver vessels he just then bore--which he could do so much the
more as I was neatly clad; and thus I reached the sanctuary. The
Palatine buffet stood to the left, directly by the door, and with some
steps I placed myself on the elevation of it, behind the barriers.
At the other end of the hall, immediately by the windows, raised on
the steps of the throne, and under canopies, sat the Emperor and King
in their robes; but the crown and scepter lay some distance behind
them on gold cushions. The three spiritual electors, their buffets
behind them, had taken their places on single elevations; the Elector
of Mentz opposite their majesties, the Elector of Treves at the right,
and the Elector of Cologne at the left. This upper part of the hall
was imposing and cheerful to behold, and excited the remark that the
spiritual power likes to keep as long as possible with the ruler. On
the contrary, the buffets and tables of all the temporal electors,
which were, indeed, magnificently ornamented, but without occupants,
made one think of the misunderstanding which had gradually arisen for
centuries between them and the head of the empire. Their ambassadors
had already withdrawn to eat in a side-chamber; and if the greater
part of the hall assumed a sort of spectral appearance, by so many
invisible guests being so magnificently attended, a large unfurnished
table in the middle was still more sad to look upon; for there also
many covers stood empty, because all those who had certainly a right
to sit there had, for appearance sake, kept away, that on the greatest
day of honor they might not renounce any of their honor, if indeed
they were then to be found in the city.
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER
Born in 1759, died in 1808; his father a lieutenant in the
Seven Years' War; published "The Robbers" in 1781, printing
it at his own expense; incurred the displeasure of the Duke
of Wurtenberg and removed to Bauerback near Meiningen, where
he lived until 1783 under the name of Dr. Schmidt; published
"Love and Intrigue" in 1784; removed to Leipsic in 1785, and
thence to Dresden; published "Don Carlos" in 1787; removed
to Weimar in 1787; published "Revolt of the Netherlands" in
1788; professor of history at Jena in 1789; published
"History of the Thirty Years' War" in 1790-93; began his
friendship with Goethe in 1794; published "Wallenstein's
Camp" in 1799; followed by "Piccolomini," "Wallenstein's
Death," "Marie Stuart" (1801), "The Maid of Orleans" (1802);
ennobled by the Emperor in 1802; published "William Tell" in
1804.
I
THE BATTLE OF LUTZEN[18]
(1632)
At last the fateful morning dawned; but an impenetrable fog which
spread over the plain delayed the attack till noon. Kneeling in front
of his lines, the King offered up his devotions; and the whole army,
at the same moment dropping on their knees, burst into a moving hymn,
accompanied by the military music. The King then mounted his horse,
and, clad only in a leather doublet and surtout (for a wound he had
formerly received prevented his wearing armor), rode along the ranks,
to animate the courage of his troops with a joyful confidence, which,
however, the foreboding presentiment of his own bosom contradicted.
"God with us!" was the war-cry of the Swedes; "Jesus Maria!" that of
the Imperialists. About eleven the fog began to disperse, and the
enemy became visible. At the same moment Lutzen was seen in flames,
having been set on fire by command of the duke, to prevent his being
outflanked on that side. The charge was now sounded; the cavalry
rushed upon the enemy, and the infantry advanced against the trenches.
[Footnote 18: From the "History of the Thirty Years' War." Translated
by A. J. W. Morrison. Schiller's work had already been translated by
Captain Blaqurelle in 1799 and by J. M. Duncan in 1828. Another
version is by G. Moir. The battle of Lutzen was fought between Swedes,
numbering 18,000, led by Gustavus Adolphus, and Imperialists,
numbering about 30,000, under Wallenstein. Gustavus Adolphus was
killed in this battle. On the same field in 1813, Napoleon defeated
the combined armies of Russia and Prussia.]
Received by a tremendous fire of musketry and heavy artillery, these
intrepid battalions maintained the attack with undaunted courage, till
the enemy's musketeers abandoned their posts, the trenches were
passed, the battery carried and turned against the enemy. They prest
forward with irresistible impetuosity; the first of the five Imperial
brigades was immediately routed, the second soon after, and the third
put to flight. But here the genius of Wallenstein opposed itself to
their progress. With the rapidity of lightning he was on the spot to
rally his discomfited troops; and his powerful word was sufficient to
stop the flight of the fugitives. Supported by three regiments of
cavalry, the vanquished brigades, forming anew, faced the enemy, and
prest vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes. A murderous
conflict ensued. The nearness of the enemy left no room for firearms,
the fury of the attack no time for loading; man was matched to man,
the useless musket exchanged for the sword and pike, and science gave
way to desperation. Overpowered by numbers, the wearied Swedes at last
retire beyond the trenches, and the captured battery is again lost by
the retreat. A thousand mangled bodies already strewed the plain, and
as yet not a single step of ground had been won.
In the mean time the King's right wing, led by himself, had fallen
upon the enemy's left. The first impetuous shock of the heavy Finland
cuirassiers dispersed the lightly-mounted Poles and Croats who were
posted here, and their disorderly flight spread terror and confusion
among the rest of the cavalry. At this moment notice was brought the
King that his infantry were retreating over the trenches, and also
that his left wing, exposed to a severe fire from the enemy's cannon
posted at the windmills, was beginning to give way. With rapid
decision he committed to General Horn the pursuit of the enemy's left,
while he flew, at the head of the regiment of Steinbock, to repair the
disorder of his right wing. His noble charger bore him with the
velocity of lightning across the trenches, but the squadrons that
followed could not come on with the same speed, and only a few
horsemen, among whom was Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, were
able to keep up with the King. He rode directly to the place where his
infantry were most closely prest, and while he was reconnoitering the
enemy's line for an exposed point of attack, the shortness of his
sight unfortunately led him too close to their ranks.
An imperial Gefreiter remarking that every one respectfully made way
for him as he rode along, immediately ordered a musketeer to take aim
at him. "Fire at him yonder," said he: "that must be a man of
consequence." The soldier fired, and the King's left arm was
shattered. At that moment his squadron came hurrying up, and a
confused cry of "The King bleeds! the King is shot!" spread terror and
consternation through all the ranks. "It is nothing! follow me," cried
the King, collecting his whole strength; but, overcome by pain, and
nearly fainting, he requested the Duke of Lauenburg, in French to lead
him unobserved out of the tumult. While the duke proceeded toward the
right wing with the King, making a long circuit to keep this
discouraging sight from the disordered infantry, his Majesty received
a second shot through the back which deprived him of his remaining
strength. "Brother," said he, with a dying voice, "I have enough! look
only to your own life." At the same moment he fell from his horse,
pierced by several more shots; and, abandoned by all his attendants,
he breathed his last amidst the plundering bands of the Croats. His
charger, flying without its rider, and covered with blood, soon made
known to the Swedish cavalry the fall of their King. They rushed madly
forward to rescue his sacred remains from the hands of the enemy. A
murderous conflict ensued over the body, till his mangled remains were
buried beneath a heap of slain.
The mournful tidings soon ran through the Swedish army; but, instead
of destroying the courage of these brave troops, it but excited it
into a new, a wild and consuming flame. Life had lessened in value,
now that the most sacred life of all was gone; death had no terrors
for the lowly since the anointed head was not spared. With the fury of
lions the Upland, Smaland, Finland, East and West Gothland regiments
rushed a second time upon the left wing of the enemy, which, already
making but feeble resistance to General Horn, was now entirely beaten
from the field. Bernard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, gave to the bereaved
Swedes a noble leader in his own person; and the spirit of Gustavus
led his victorious squadrons anew. The left wing quickly formed again
and vigorously prest the right of the Imperialists. The artillery at
the windmills, which had maintained so murderous a fire upon the
Swedes, was captured and turned against the enemy. The center, also,
of the Swedish infantry, commanded by the duke and Knyphausen,
advanced a second time against the trenches, which they successfully
passed, and retook the battery of seven cannons. The attack was now
renewed with redoubled fury upon the heavy battalions of the enemy's
center; their resistance became gradually less, and chance conspired
with Swedish valor to complete the defeat. The imperial powder-wagons
took fire, and, with a tremendous explosion, grenades and bombs filled
the air. The enemy, now in confusion, thought they were attacked in
the rear, while the Swedish brigades prest them in front. Their
courage began to fail them. Their left wing was already beaten, their
right wavering, and their artillery in the enemy's hands. The battle
seemed to be almost decided; another moment would decide the fate of
the day, when Pappenheim appeared on the field, with his cuirassiers
and dragoons: all the advantages already gained were lost, and the
battle was to be fought anew.
The order which recalled that general to Lutzen had reached him in
Halle, while his troops were still plundering that town. It was
impossible to collect the scattered infantry with that rapidity which
the urgency of the order and Pappenheim's impatience required. Without
waiting for it, therefore, he ordered eight regiments of cavalry to
mount, and at their head he galloped at full speed for Lutzen, to
share in the battle. He arrived in time to witness the flight of the
Imperial right wing, which Gustavus Horn was driving from the field,
and to be at first involved in their rout. But with rapid presence of
mind he rallied the flying troops, and led them once more against the
enemy. Carried away by his wild bravery, and impatient to encounter
the King, who he supposed was at the head of this wing, he burst
furiously upon the Swedish ranks, which, exhausted by victory and
inferior in numbers were after a noble resistance, overpowered by this
fresh body of enemies. Pappenheim's unexpected appearance revived the
drooping courage of the Imperialists, and the Duke of Friedland
quickly availed himself of the favorable moment to reform his line.
The closely-serried battalions of the Swedes were, after a tremendous
conflict, again driven across the trenches, and the battery, which had
been twice lost, again rescued from their hands. The whole yellow
regiment, the finest o£ all that distinguished themselves in this
dreadful day, lay dead on the field, covering the ground almost in the
same excellent order which, when alive, they maintained with such
unyielding courage. The same fate befell another regiment of Blues,
which Count Piccolomini attacked with the imperial cavalry and cut
down after a desperate contest. Seven times did this intrepid general
renew the attack; seven horses were shot under him, and he himself was
pierced with six musket-balls; yet he would not leave the field until
he was carried along in the general rout of the whole army.
Wallenstein himself was seen riding through his ranks with cool
intrepidity, amidst a shower of balls, assisting the distrest,
encouraging the valiant with praise and the wavering by his fearful
glance. Around and close by him his men were falling thick, and his
own mantle was perforated by several shots. But avenging destiny this
day protected that breast for which another weapon was reserved; on
the same field where the noble Gustavus expired, Wallenstein was not
allowed to terminate his guilty career.
Less fortunate was Pappenheim, the Telamon of the army, the bravest
soldier of Austria and the Church. An ardent desire to encounter the
King in person carried this daring leader into the thickest of the
fight, where he thought his noble opponent was most surely to be met.
Gustavus had also exprest a wish to meet his brave antagonist, but
these hostile wishes remained ungratified; death first brought
together these two great heroes. Two musket-balls pierced the breast
of Pappenheim, and his men forcibly carried him from the field. While
they were conveying him to the rear, a murmur reached him that he whom
he had sought lay dead upon the plain. When the truth of the report
was confirmed to him, his look became brighter, his dying eye sparkled
with a last gleam of joy. "Tell the Duke of Friedland," said he, "that
I lie without hope of life, but that I die happy, since I know that
the implacable enemy of my religion has fallen on the same day."
With Pappenheim the good fortune of the Imperialists departed. The
cavalry of the left wing, already beaten, and only rallied by his
exertions, no sooner missed their victorious leader than they gave up
everything for lost and abandoned the field of battle in spiritless
despair. The right field fell into the same confusion, with the
exception of a few regiments which the bravery of their colonels,
Gotz, Terzky, Colloredo, and Piccolomini, compelled to keep their
ground. The Swedish infantry, with prompt determination, profited by
the enemy's confusion. To fill up the gaps which death had made in the
front line, they formed both lines into one, and with it made the
final and decisive charge. A third time they crossed the trenches, and
a third time they captured the battery.
The sun was setting when the two lines closed. The strife grew hotter
as it drew to an end; the last efforts of strength were mutually
exerted, and skill and courage did their utmost to repair in those
precious moments the fortune of the day. It was in vain; despair
endows every one with superhuman strength; no one can conquer, no one
will give way. The art of war seemed to exhaust its powers on one
side, only to unfold some new and untried masterpiece of skill on the
other. Night and darkness at last put an end to the fight, before the
fury of the combatants was exhausted; and the contest only ceased when
no one could any longer find an antagonist. Both armies separated, as
if by tacit agreement; the trumpets sounded, and each party, claiming
the victory, quitted the field....
The Duke of Friedland[19] had retreated thither, and was followed on
the morrow by the scattered remains of his army, without artillery,
without colors, and almost without arms. The Duke of Weimar, it
appears, after the toils of this bloody day, allowed the Swedish army
some repose, between Lutzen and Weissenfels, near enough to the field
of battle to oppose any attempt the enemy might make to recover it. Of
the two armies more than nine thousand men lay dead; a still greater
number were wounded, and among the Imperialists scarcely a man escaped
from the field uninjured. The entire plain from Lutzen to the Canal
was strewed with the wounded, the dying, and the dead. History says
nothing of prisoners; a further proof of the animosity of the
combatants, who neither gave nor took quarter....
[Footnote 19: Wallenstein.]
Duke Bernard, by keeping possession of the field, and soon after by
the capture of Leipsic, maintained indisputably his claim to the title
of victor. But it was a dear conquest, a dearer triumph! It was not
till the fury of the contest was over that the full weight of the loss
sustained was felt, and the shout of triumph died away into a silent
gloom of despair. He who had led them to the charge returned not with
them: there he lay upon the field which he had won, mingled with the
dead bodies of the common crowd. After a long and almost fruitless
search, the corpse of the King was discovered not very far from the
great stone which, for a hundred years before, had stood between
Lutzen and the Canal, and which, from the memorable disaster of that
day, still bears the name of the "Stone of the Swede." Covered with
blood and wounds, so as scarcely to be recognized, trampled beneath
the horses' hoofs, stript by the rude hands of plunderers of its
ornaments and clothes, his body was drawn from beneath a heap of dead,
conveyed to Weissenfels, and there delivered up to the lamentations of
his soldiers and the last embraces of his Queen. The first tribute had
been paid to revenge, and blood had atoned for the blood of the
monarch; but now affection assumed its rights, and tears of grief must
flow for the man. The universal sorrow absorbs all individual woes.
The generals, still stupefied by the unexpected blow, stood speechless
and motionless around his bier, and no one trusted himself enough to
contemplate the full extent of their loss.
II
PHILIP II AND THE NETHERLANDS[20]
Of those important political events which make the sixteenth century
to take rank among the brightest of the world's epochs, the foundation
of the freedom of the Netherlands appears to me one of the most
remarkable. If the glittering exploits of ambition and the pernicious
lust of power claim our admiration, how much more so should an event
in which opprest humanity struggled for its noblest right, where with
the good cause unwonted powers were united, and the resources of
resolute despair triumphed in unequal contest over the terrible arts
of tyranny.
[Footnote 20: From the introduction to the "History of the Revolt of
the Netherlands." Translated by A. J. W. Morrison. This work was
translated by J. Horne in 1807, and again by E. B. Eastwick in 1844.]
Great and encouraging is the reflection that there is a resource left
us against the arrogant usurpations of despotic power; that its
best-contrived plans against the liberty of mankind may be frustrated;
that resolute opposition can weaken even the outstretched arm of
tyranny; and that heroic perseverance can eventually exhaust its
fearful resources.
Never did this truth affect me so sensibly as in tracing the history
of that memorable rebellion which forever severed the United
Netherlands from the Spanish crown. Therefore I thought it not unworth
the while to attempt to exhibit to the world this grand memorial of
social union, in the hope that it may awaken in the breast of my
reader a spirit-stirring consciousness of his own powers, and give a
new and irrefragable example of what in a good cause men may both dare
and venture, and what by union they may accomplish. It is not the
extraordinary or heroic features of this event that induce me to
describe it. The annals of the world record perhaps many similar
enterprises, which may have been even bolder in the conception, and
more brilliant in the execution. Some states have fallen after a
nobler struggle, others have risen with more exalted strides. Nor are
we here to look for eminent heroes, colossal talents, or those
marvelous exploits which the history of past times presents in such
rich abundance. Those times are gone, such men are no more. In the
soft lap of refinement, we have suffered the energetic powers to
become enervated which those ages called into action and rendered
indispensable. With admiring awe, we wonder at these gigantic images
of the past, as a feeble old man gazes on the athletic sports of
youth.
Not so, however, in the history before us. The people here presented
to our notice were the most peaceful in our quarter of the globe, and
less capable than their neighbors of that heroic spirit which stamps a
lofty character even on the most insignificant actions. The pressure
of circumstances with its peculiar influence surprized them and forced
a transitory greatness upon them, which they never could have possest,
and perhaps will never possess again. It is, indeed, exactly this want
of heroic grandeur which renders this event peculiarly instructive;
and while others aim at showing the superiority of genius over
chance, I shall here paint a scene where necessity creates genius, and
accident makes heroes.
If, in any case, it be allowable to recognize the intervention of
Providence in human affairs, it is certainly so in the present
history, its course appears so contradictory to reason and experience.
Philip II, the most powerful sovereign of his time--whose dreaded
supremacy menaced the independence of Europe--whose treasures
surpassed the collective wealth of all the monarchs of Christendom
besides--whose ambitious projects were backed by numerous and
well-disciplined armies--whose troops, hardened by long and bloody
wars, and confident in past victories and in the irresistible prowess
of this nation, were eager for any enterprise that promised glory and
spoil, and ready to second with prompt obedience the daring genius of
their leaders--this dreaded potentate here appears before us
obstinately pursuing one favorite project, devoting to it the untiring
efforts of a long reign, and bringing all these terrible resources to
bear upon it; but forced, in the evening of his days, to abandon
it--here we see the mighty Philip II engaging in combat with a few
weak and powerless adversaries, and retiring from it at last with
disgrace.
And with what adversaries? Here, a peaceful tribe of fishermen and
shepherds, in an almost forgotten corner of Europe, which with
difficulty they had rescued from the ocean; the sea their profession,
and at once their wealth and their plague; poverty with freedom their
highest blessing, their glory, their virtue. There, a harmless, moral
commercial people, reveling in the abundant fruits of thriving
industry, and jealous of the maintenance of laws which had proved
their benefactors. In the happy leisure of affluence, they forsake the
narrow circle of immediate wants, and learn to thirst after higher and
nobler gratifications. The new views of truth whose benignant dawn now
broke over Europe cast a fertilizing beam on this favored clime, and
the free burgher admitted with joy the light which opprest and
miserable slaves shut out. A spirit of independence, which is the
ordinary companion of prosperity and freedom, lured this people on to
examine the authority of antiquated opinions and to break an
ignominious chain. But the stern rod of despotism was held suspended
over them; arbitrary power threatened to tear away the foundation of
their happiness; the guardian of their laws became their tyrant.
Simple in their statecraft no less than in their manners, they dared
to appeal to ancient treaties, and to remind the lord of both Indies
of the right of nature. A name decides the whole issue of things. In
Madrid that was called rebellion which in Brussels was simply styled a
lawful remonstrance. The complaints of Brabant required a prudent
mediator, Philip II sent an executioner. The signal for war was given.
An unparalleled tyranny assailed both property and life. The
despairing citizens, to whom the choice of deaths was all that was
left, chose the nobler one on the battle-field. A wealthy and
luxurious nation loves peace, but becomes warlike as soon as it
becomes poor. Then it ceases to tremble for a life which is deprived
of everything that had made it desirable. In an instant, the contagion
of rebellion seized at once the most distant provinces; trade and
commerce are at a standstill, the ships disappear from the harbors,
the artizan abandons his workshop, the rustic his uncultivated fields.
Thousands fled to distant lands, a thousand victims fell on the bloody
field, and fresh thousands prest on. Divine, indeed, must that
doctrine be for which men could die so joyfully. All that was wanting
was the last finishing hand, the enlightened, enterprising spirit, to
seize on this great political crisis, and to mold the offspring of
chance into the ripe creation of wisdom. William the Silent, like a
second Brutus, devoted himself to the great cause of liberty. Superior
to all selfishness, he resigned honorable offices which entailed on
him objectionable duties, and magnanimously divesting himself of all
his princely dignities, he descended to a state of voluntary poverty,
and became but a citizen of the world. The cause of justice was staked
upon the hazardous game of battle; but the newly raised levies of
mercenaries and peaceful husbandmen were unable to withstand the
terrible onset of an experienced force. Twice did the brave William
lead his dispirited troops against the tyrant, twice was he abandoned
by them, but not by his courage.
Philip II sent as many reenforcements as the dreadful importunity of
his viceroy demanded. Fugitives, whom their country rejected, sought a
new home on the ocean, and turned to the ships of their enemy to
satisfy the cravings both of vengeance and of want. Naval heroes were
now formed out of corsairs, and a marine collected out of piratical
vessels: out of morasses arose a republic. Seven provinces threw off
the yoke at the same time, to form a new, youthful state, powerful by
its waters and its union and despair. A solemn decree of the whole
nation deposed the tyrant, and the Spanish name was erased from all
its laws.
For such acts no forgiveness remained; the republic became formidable,
only because it was impossible for her to retrace her steps. But
factions distracted her within; without, her terrible element, the sea
itself, leaguing with her oppressors, threatened her very infancy with
a premature grave. She felt herself succumb to the superior force of
the enemy, and cast herself a suppliant before the most powerful
thrones of Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself
could no longer protect. At last, but with difficulty--so despised at
first was this state, that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs
spurned her opening bloom--a stranger deigned to accept their
importunate offer of a dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her
sinking courage; but in this new father of his country destiny gave
her a traitor, and in the critical emergency, when the implacable foe
was in full force before her very gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the
liberties which he had been called to protect. In the midst of the
tempest, too, the assassin's hand tore the steersman from the helm,
and with William of Orange the career of the infant republic was
seemingly at an end, and all her guardian angels fled. But the ship
continued to scud along before the storm, and the swelling canvas
carried her safe without the pilot's help.
Philip II missed the fruits of a deed which cost him his royal honor,
and perhaps, also, his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with
despotism, in obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were
fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field
of glory; and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated
generals for the coming century. A long, devastating war laid waste
the open country; victor and vanquished alike waded through blood;
while the rising republic of the waters gave a welcome to fugitive
industry, and out of the ruins of despotism erected the noble edifice
of its own greatness. For forty years lasted the war whose happy
termination was not to bless the dying eye of Philip; which destroyed
one paradise in Europe, to form a new one out of its shattered
fragments; which destroyed the choicest flower of military youth, and
while it enriched more than a quarter of the globe, impoverished the
possessor of the golden Peru. This monarch, who could expend nine
hundred tons of gold without oppressing his subjects, and by
tyrannical measure extorted far more, heaped moreover on his exhausted
people a debt of one hundred and forty millions of ducats. An
implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up all these treasures, and
consumed on the fruitless task the labor of a royal life. But the
Reformation throve amidst the devastations of the sword, and over the
blood of her citizens the banner of the new republic floated
victorious.
AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL
Born in 1767, died in 1845; educated at Göttingen; a tutor
for three years in Amsterdam; made professor of literature
and esthetics at Jena in 1798; founded a critical journal to
represent the Romantic school; lectured in Berlin in
1803-04; traveled with Madame de Staël, a tutor to her
children afterward at Coppet; became secretary to the Crown
Prince Bernadotte and ennobled; professor at Bonn in 1818;
visited England in 1823; wrote romances, sonnets, odes and
criticisms, and translated Shakespeare.
SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH[21]
Of "Macbeth" I have already spoken once in passing; and who could
exhaust the praises of this sublime work? Since the "Eumenides" of
Æschylus nothing so grand and terrible has ever been written. The
witches are not, it is true, divine Eumenides, and are not intended to
be; they are ignoble and vulgar instruments of hell. A German poet,
therefore, very ill understood their meaning when he transformed them
into mongrel beings, a mixture of fates, furies, and enchantresses,
and clothed them with tragic dignity. Let no man venture to lay hand
on Shakespeare's works thinking to improve anything essential: he will
be sure to punish himself. The bad is radically odious, and to
endeavor in any manner to ennoble it, is to violate the laws of
propriety. Hence, in my opinion, Dante, and even Tasso, have been much
more successful in their portraiture of demons than Milton.
[Footnote 21: From the "Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature."
Translated by John Black, the translation being revised by A. J. W.
Morrison. Madame de Staël heard these lectures delivered in Vienna,
and in her work on Germany says she was "astonished to hear a critic
as eloquent as an orator."]
Whether the age of Shakespeare still believed in ghosts and witches is
a matter of perfect indifference for the justification of the use
which in "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" he has made of preexisting traditions.
No superstition can be widely diffused without having a foundation in
human nature: on this the poet builds; he calls up from their hidden
abysses that dread of the unknown, and presage of a dark side of
nature, and a world of spirits, which philosophy now imagines it has
altogether exploded. In this manner he is in some degree both the
portrayer and the philosopher of superstition; that is, not the
philosopher who denies and turns it into ridicule, but, what is still
more difficult, who distinctly exhibits its origin in apparently
irrational and yet natural opinions. But when he ventures to make
arbitrary changes in these popular traditions he altogether forfeits
his right to them, and merely holds up his idle fancies to our
ridicule. Shakespeare's picture of the witches is truly magical: in
the short scenes where they enter he has created for them a peculiar
language, which, altho composed of the usual elements, still seems to
be a collection of formulæ of incantation. The sound of the words, the
accumulation of rimes, and the rhythm of the verse form, as it were,
the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance. He has been abused for using
the names of disgusting objects; but he who fancies the kettle of the
witches can be made effective with agreeable aromatics is as wise as
those who desire that hell should sincerely and honestly give good
advice. These repulsive things, from which the imagination shrinks,
are here emblems of the hostile powers which operate in nature; and
the repugnance of our senses is outweighed by the mental horror. With
one another the witches discourse like women of the very lowest class;
for this was the class to which witches were ordinarily supposed to
belong: when, however, they address Macbeth they assume a loftier
tone: their predictions, which they either themselves pronounce, or
allow their apparitions to deliver, have all the obscure brevity, the
majestic solemnity, of oracles.
We here see that the witches are merely instruments; they are governed
by an invisible spirit, or the operation of such great and dreadful
events would be above their sphere. With what intent did Shakespeare
assign the same place to them in his play which they occupy in the
history of Macbeth as related in the old chronicles? A monstrous crime
is committed: Duncan, a venerable old man, and the best of kings, is,
in defenseless sleep, under the hospitable roof, murdered by his
subject, whom he has loaded with honors and rewards. Natural motives
alone seem inadequate, or the perpetrator must have been portrayed as
a hardened villain. Shakespeare wished to exhibit a more sublime
picture--an ambitious but noble hero yielding to a deep-laid hellish
temptation, and in whom all the crimes to which, in order to secure
the fruits of his first crime, he is impelled by necessity, can not
altogether eradicate the stamp of native heroism. He has, therefore,
given a threefold division to the guilt of that crime. The first idea
comes from that being whose whole activity is guided by a lust of
wickedness.
The weird sisters surprize Macbeth in the moment of intoxication of
victory, when his love of glory has been gratified; they cheat his
eyes by exhibiting to him as the work of fate what in reality can be
accomplished only by his own deed, and gain credence for all their
words by the immediate fulfilment of the first prediction. The
opportunity of murdering the King immediately offers; the wife of
Macbeth conjures him not to let it slip; she urges him on with a fiery
eloquence which has at command all those sophisms that serve to throw
a false splendor over crime.
Little more than the mere execution falls to the share of Macbeth; he
is driven into it, as it were, in a tumult of fascination. Repentance
immediately follows, nay, even precedes, the deed, and the stings of
conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now fairly
entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that
same Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he
dreads the prospect of the life to come, clinging with growing anxiety
to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly
removing out of the way whatever to his dark and suspicious mind seems
to threaten danger. However much we may abhor his actions, we can not
altogether refuse to compassionate the state of his mind; we lament
the ruin of so many noble qualities, and even in his last defense we
are compelled to admire the struggle of a brave will with a cowardly
conscience. We might believe that we witness in this tragedy the
overruling destiny of the ancients represented in perfect accordance
with their ideas: the whole originates in a supernatural influence, to
which the subsequent events seem inevitably linked. Moreover, we even
find here the same ambiguous oracles which, by their literal
fulfilment, deceive those who confide in them.
Yet it may be easily shown that the poet has, in his work, displayed
more enlightened views. He wishes to show that the conflict of good
and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of
Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down
on their heads into a blessing to others. An accurate scale is
followed in the retaliation.
Lady Macbeth, who of all the human participators in the King's murder
is the most guilty, is thrown by the terrors of her conscience into a
state of incurable bodily and mental disease; she dies, unlamented by
her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobation. Macbeth is still
found worthy to die the death of a hero on the field of battle. The
noble Macduff is allowed the satisfaction of saving his country by
punishing with his own hand the tyrant who had murdered his wife and
children. Banquo, by an early death, atones for the ambitious
curiosity which prompted the wish to know his glorious descendants, as
he thereby has roused Macbeth's jealousy; but he preserved his mind
pure from the evil suggestions of the witches: his name is blest in
his race, destined to enjoy for a long succession of ages that royal
dignity which Macbeth could only hold for his own life. In the
progress of the action, the piece is altogether the reverse of
"Hamlet": it strides forward with amazing rapidity, from the first
catastrophe (for Duncan's murder may be called a catastrophe) to the
last. "Thought, and done!" is the general motto; for, as Macbeth says,
"The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
Unless the deed go with it."
In every feature we see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy north
which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action can not
be ascertained--years, perhaps, according to the story--but we know
that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the
shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much could ever have
been comprest into so narrow a space; not merely external events, the
very inmost recesses of the minds of the dramatic personages are laid
open to us. It is as if the drags were taken from the wheels of time
and they roll along without interruption in their descent. Nothing can
equal the picture in its power to excite terror. We need only allude
to the circumstances attending the murder of Duncan, the dagger that
hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision of Banquo at the feast,
the madness of Lady Macbeth: what can possibly be said on the subject
that will not rather weaken the impression they naturally leave? Such
scenes stand alone, and are to be found only in this poet; otherwise
the tragic muse might exchange her mask for the head of Medusa.
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
Born in Berlin in 1769, died in 1859; educated at Frankfurt
and Göttingen; a mining engineer in 1792; resigning his
position in 1797, he traveled in Switzerland, Italy and
France; made a scientific journey to South America and
Mexico in 1799-1804; lived in Paris in 1809-27; settled in
Berlin in 1827; went to Siberia and the Caspian Sea at the
instance of the Emperor of Russia in 1829; several
scientific works based on his travels appeared before 1845;
in 1845-58 published his masterpiece, "Cosmos"; a brother of
Frederick von Humboldt, who was a philologist.
AN ESSAY ON MAN[22]
The general picture of nature which I have endeavored to delineate
would be incomplete if I did not venture to trace a few of the most
marked features of the human race, considered with reference to
physical gradations--to the geographical distribution of
contemporaneous types--to the influence exercised upon man by the
forces of nature, and the reciprocal, altho weaker action which he, in
his turn, exercises on these natural forces. Dependent, altho in a
lesser degree than plants and animals, on the soil, and on the
meteorological processes of the atmosphere with which he is
surrounded--escaping more readily from the control of natural forces
by activity of mind and the advance of intellectual cultivation no
less than by his wonderful capacity of adapting himself to all
climates--man everywhere becomes most essentially associated with
terrestrial life. It is by these relations that the obscure and
much-contested problem of the possibility of one common descent enters
into the sphere embraced by a general physical cosmography. The
investigation of this problem will impart a nobler, and, if I may so
express myself, more purely human interest to the closing pages of
this section of my work.
[Footnote 22: From his "General Review of Natural Phenomena" in Volume
I of "Cosmos." The translation by E. C. Otté and W. S. Dallas, which
came out in 1849-59. A version by Mrs. Sabine appeared in 1846; and
one by Prichard in 1845-48.]
The vast domain of language, in whose varied structure we see
mysteriously reflected the destinies of nations, is most intimately
associated with the affinity of races; and what even slight
differences of races may effect is strikingly manifested in the
history of the Hellenic nations in the zenith of their intellectual
cultivation. The most important questions of the civilization of
mankind are connected with the ideas of races, community of language,
and adherence to one original direction of the intellectual and moral
faculties.
As long as attention was directed solely to the extremes in varieties
of color and of form, and to the vividness of the first impression of
the senses, the observer was naturally disposed to regard races rather
as originally different species than as mere varieties. The permanence
of certain types in the midst of the most hostile influences,
especially of climate, appeared to favor such a view, notwithstanding
the shortness of the interval of time from which the historical
evidence was derived. In my opinion, however, more powerful reasons
can be advanced in support of the theory of the unity of the human
race, as, for instance, in the many intermediate gradations in the
color of the skin and in the form of the skull, which have been made
known to us in recent times by the rapid progress of geographical
knowledge--the analogies presented by the varieties in the species of
many wild and domesticated animals--and the more correct observations
collected regarding the limits of fecundity in hybrids. The greater
number of the contrasts which were formerly supposed to exist have
disappeared before the laborious researches of Tiedemann on the brain
of negroes and of Europeans, and the anatomical investigations of
Vrolik and Weber on the form of the pelvis.
On comparing the dark-colored African nations, on whose physical
history the admirable work of Prichard has thrown so much light, with
the races inhabiting the islands of the South Indian and West
Australian archipelago, and with the Papuas and Alfourous (Haroforas,
Endamenes), we see that a black skin, woolly hair, and a negro-like
cast of countenance are not necessarily connected together. So long as
only a small portion of the earth was known to the Western nations,
partial views necessarily predominated, and tropical heat and a black
skin consequently appeared inseparable. "The Ethiopians," said the
ancient tragic poet Theodectes of Phaselis, "are colored by the near
sun god in his course with a sooty luster, and their hair is dried and
crisped with the heat of his rays." The campaigns of Alexander, which
gave rise to so many new ideas regarding physical geography, likewise
first excited a discussion on the problematical influence of climate
on races. "Families of animals and plants," writes one of the greatest
anatomists of the day, Johannes Müller, in his noble and comprehensive
work, "Physiologie des Menschen," "undergo, within certain limitations
peculiar to the different races and species, various modifications in
their distribution over the surface of the earth, propagating these
variations as organic types of species.
"The present races of animals have been produced by the combined
action of many different internal as well as external conditions, the
nature of which can not in all cases be defined, the most striking
varieties being found in those families which are capable of the
greatest distribution over the surface of the earth. The different
races of mankind are forms of one sole species, by the union of two of
whose members descendants are propagated. They are not different
species of a genus, since in that case their hybrid descendants would
remain unfruitful. But whether the human races have descended from
several primitive races of men, or from one alone, is a question that
can not be determined from experience."
Geographical investigations regarding the ancient seat, the so-called
cradle of the human race, are not devoid of a mythical character. "We
do not know," says Wilhelm von Humboldt, in an unpub
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