Hyperion Part 12

"I confess, he was no saint."

"No; his philosophy is the old ethnic philosophy. You will find it all in a convenient andconcentrated, portable form in Horace's beautiful Ode to Thaliarcus. What I most object to in the old gentleman is his sensuality."

"O nonsense. Nothing can be purer than the Iphigenia; it is as cold and pa.s.sionless as a marble statue."

"Very true; but you cannot say the same of some of the Roman Elegies and of that monstrous book the Elective Affinities."

"Ah, my friend, Goethe is an artist; and looks upon all things as objects of art merely. Why should he not be allowed to copy in words what painters and sculptors copy in colors and in marble?"

"The artist shows his character in the choice of his subject.

Goethe never sculptured an Apollo, nor painted a Madonna. He gives us only sinful Magdalens and rampant Fauns. He does not so much idealize as realize."

"He only copies nature."

"So did the artists, who made the bronzelamps of Pompeii. Would you hang one of those in your hall? To say that a man is an artist and copies nature is not enough. There are two great schools of art; the imitative and the imaginative. The latter is the most n.o.ble, and most enduring; and Goethe belonged rather to the former. Have you read Menzel's attack upon him?"

"It is truly ferocious. The Suabian hews into him l.u.s.tily. I hope you do not side with him."

"By no means. He goes too far. He blames the poet for not being a politician. He might as well blame him for not being a missionary to the Sandwich Islands."

"And what do you think of Eckermann?"

"I think he is a toady; a kind of German Boswell. Goethe knew he was drawing his portrait, and att.i.tudinized accordingly. He works very hard to make a Saint Peter out of an old Jupiter, as the Catholics did at Rome."

"Well; call him Old Humbug, or Old Heathen, or what you please; I maintain, that, with all his errors and short-comings, he was a glorious specimen of a man."

"He certainly was. Did it ever occur to you that he was in some points like Ben Franklin? a kind of rhymed Ben Franklin? The practical tendency of his mind was the same; his love of science was the same; his benignant, philosophic spirit was the same; and a vast number of his little poetic maxims and sooth-sayings seem nothing more than the worldly wisdom of Poor Richard, versified."

"What most offends me is, that now every German jacka.s.s must have a kick at the dead lion."

"And every one who pa.s.ses through Weimar must throw a book upon his grave, as travellers did of old a stone upon the grave of Manfredi, at Benevento. But, of all that has been said or sung, what most pleases me is Heine's Apologetic, if I may so call it; in which he says, that the minor poets, who flourished under the imperialreign of Goethe 'resemble a young forest, where the trees first show their own magnitude after the oak of a hundred years, whose branches had towered above and overshadowed them, has fallen.

There was not wanting an opposition, that strove against Goethe, this majestic tree. Men of the most warring opinions united themselves for the contest. The adherents of the old faith, the orthodox, were vexed, that, in the trunk of the vast tree, no niche with its holy image was to be found; nay, that even the naked Dryads of paganism were permitted to play their witchery there; and gladly, with consecrated axe, would they have imitated the holy Boniface, and levelled the enchanted oak to the ground. The followers of the new faith, the apostles of liberalism, were vexed on the other hand, that the tree could not serve as the Tree of Liberty, or, at any rate, as a barricade. In fact the tree was too high; no one could plant the red cap upon its summit, or dance the Carmagnole beneath its branches. The mult.i.tude, however, venerated this tree for the veryreason, that it reared itself with such independent grandeur, and so graciously filled the world with its odor, while its branches, streaming magnificently toward heaven, made it appear, as if the stars were only the golden fruit of its wondrous limbs.'

Don't you think that beautiful?"

"Yes, very beautiful. And I am glad to see, that you can find something to admire in my favorite author, notwithstanding his frailties; or, to use an old German saying, that you can drive the hens out of the garden without trampling down the beds."

"Here is the old gentleman himself!" exclaimed Flemming.

"Where!" cried the Baron, as if for the moment he expected to see the living figure of the poet walking before them.

"Here at the window,--that full-length cast. Excellent, is it not! He is dressed, as usual, in his long yellow nankeen surtout, with a white cravat crossed in front. What a magnificent head! and what a posture! He stands like a tower ofstrength. And, by Heavens!

he was nearly eighty years old, when that was made."

"How do you know?"

"You can see by the date on the pedestal."

"You are right. And yet how erect he stands, with his square shoulders braced back, and his hands behind him. He looks as if he were standing before the fire. I feel tempted to put a live coal into his hand, it lies so invitingly half-open. Gleim's description of him, soon after he went to Weimar, is very different from this.

Do you recollect it?"

"No, I do not."

"It is a story, which good old father Gleim used to tell with great delight. He was one evening reading the Gottingen Musen-Almanach in a select society at Weimar, when a young man came in, dressed in a short, green shooting-jacket, booted and spurred, and having a pair of brilliant, black, Italian eyes. He in turn offered to read; but finding probably the poetry of the Musen-Almanach of that year rather too insipid for him, he soon began to improvise the wildest and most fantastic poems imaginable, and in all possible forms and measures, all the while pretending to read from the book. 'That is either Goethe or the Devil,' said good old father Gleim to Wieland, who sat near him. To which the 'Great I of Osmannstadt' replied; 'It is both, for he has the Devil in him to-night; and at such times he is like a wanton colt, that flings out before and behind, and you will do well not to go too near him!'

"Very good!"

"And now that n.o.ble figure is but mould. Only a few months ago, those majestic eyes looked for the last time on the light of a pleasant spring morning. Calm, like a G.o.d, the old man sat; and with a smile seemed to bid farewell to the light of day, on which he had gazed for more than eighty years. Books were near him, and the pen which had just dropped, as it were from his dying fingers. 'Open the shutters, and let in more light!' were the last words that came from those lips. Slowly stretching forth his hand, he seemed to write inthe air; and, as it sank down again and was motionless, the spirit of the old man departed."

"And yet the world goes on. It is strange how soon, when a great man dies, his place is filled; and so completely, that he seems no longer wanted. But let us step in here. I wish to buy that cast; and send it home to a friend."

CHAPTER IX. THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE FALLING STAR.

After lingering a day or two in Frankfort, the two friends struck across through Hochheim to the Rhine, and then up among the hills of the Rheingau to Schlangenbad, where they tarried only to bathe, and to dine; and then pursued their way to Langenschwalbach. The town lies in a valley, with gently-sloping hills around it, and long avenues of poplars leading forth into the fields. One interminable street cuts the town in twain, and there are old houses with curious faces carved upon their fronts, and dates of the olden time.

Our travellers soon sallied forth from their hotel, impatient to drink the strength-giving watersof the fountains. They continued their walk far up the valley under the poplars. The new grain was waving in the fields; the birds singing in the trees and in the air; and every thing seemed glad, save a poor old man, who came tottering out of the woods, with a heavy bundle of sticks on his shoulders.

Returning upon their steps, they pa.s.sed down the valley and through the long street to the tumble-down old Lutheran church. A flight of stone steps leads from the street to the green terrace or platform on which the church stands, and which, in ancient times, was the churchyard, or as the Germans more devoutly say, G.o.d's-acre; where generations are scattered like seeds, and that which is sown in corruption shall be raised hereafter in incorruption. On the steps stood an old man,--a very old man,--holding a little girl by the hand. He took off his greasy cap as they pa.s.sed, and wished them good day. His teeth were gone; he could hardly articulate a syllable. The Baron asked him how old the church was. Hegave no answer; but when the question was repeated, came close up to them, and taking off his cap again, turned his ear attentively, and said;

"I am hard of hearing."

"Poor old man," said Flemming; "He is as much a ruin as the church we are entering. It will not be long before he, too, shall be sown as seed in this G.o.d's-acre!"

The little girl ran into a house close at hand, and brought out the great key. The church door swung open, and, descending a few steps, they pa.s.sed through a low-roofed pa.s.sage into the church. All was in ruin. The gravestones in the pavement were started from their places; the vaults beneath yawned; the roof above was falling piecemeal; there were rents in the old tower; and mysterious pa.s.sages, and side doors with crazy flights of wooden steps, leading down into the churchyard. Amid all this ruin, one thing only stood erect; it was a statue of a knight in armour, standing in a niche under the pulpit.

"Who is this?" said Flemming to the old s.e.xton; "who is this, that stands here so solemnly in marble, and seems to be keeping guard over the dead men below?"

"I do not know," replied the old man; "but I have heard my grandfather say it was the statue of a great warrior!"

"There is history for you!" exclaimed the Baron. "There is fame!

To have a statue of marble, and yet have your name forgotten by the s.e.xton of your parish, who can remember only, that he once heard his grandfather say, that you were a great warrior!"

Flemming made no reply, for he was thinking of the days, when from that old pulpit, some bold reformer thundered down the first tidings of a new doctrine, and the roof echoed with the grand old hymns of Martin Luther.

When he communicated his thoughts to the Baron, the only answer he received was;

"After all, what is the use of so much preaching? Do you think the fishes, that heard the sermon of St. Anthony, were any better than thosewho did not? I commend to your favorable notice the fish-sermon of this saint, as recorded by Abraham a Santa Clara. You will find it in your favorite Wonder-Horn."

Thus pa.s.sed the day at Langenschwalbach; and the evening at the Allee-Saal was quite solitary; for as yet no company had arrived to fill its chambers, or sit under the trees before the door. The next morning even Flemming and the Baron were gone; for the German's heart was beating with strong desire to embrace his sister; and the heart of his friend cared little whither he went, sobeit he were not too much alone.

After a few hours' drive, they were looking down from the summit of a hill right upon the house-tops of Ems. There it lay, deep sunk in the hollow beneath them, as if some inhabitant of Sirius, like him spoken of in Voltaire's tale of Micromegas, held it in the hollow of his hand. High and peaked rise the hills, that throw their shadows into this romantic valley, and at their base winds the river Lahn. Our travellersdrove through the one long street, composed entirely of hotels and lodging-houses. Sick people looked out of the windows, as they pa.s.sed. Others were walking leisurely up and down, beneath the few decapitated trees, which represent a public promenade; and a boy, with a blue frock and crimson cap, was driving three donkeys down the street. In short, they were in a fashionable watering-place; as yet sprinkled only by a few pattering drops of the summer rain of strangers, which generally follows the first hot days.