The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 34

Swain, how short is beauty's bloom, Seek her in her gra.s.sy tomb.

Whither roves the tuneful swain Who, of rural pleasures, Rose and violet, rill and plain, Sang in deftest measures?

Maiden, swift life's vision flies, Death has closed the poet's eyes.

_To Nature_ runs thus:

Leaves are falling, mists are twining, and to winter sleep inclining Are the trees upon the plain, In the hush of stillness ere the snowflakes hide them, Friendly Nature, speak to me again!

Thou art echo and reflection of our striving, Thou art painter of our hopes and of our fears, Thou art singer of our joys and of our sorrows, Of our consolations and our groans....

While feeling for Nature was all of this character, idyllic, sensitive, sympathetic, but within very narrow bounds, and the poets generally were wandering among Greek and Latin bucolics and playing with Damon, Myrtil, Chloe, and Daphnis, Salomon Gessner made a speciality of elegiac pastoral poetry. He was a better landscapist than poet, and his drawings to ill.u.s.trate his idylls were better than the poems themselves. The forest, for instance, and the felling of the tree, are well drawn; whereas the sickly sweet Rococo verse in imitation of the French, and reminding one more of Longos than Theocritus, is lifeless. His rhapsody about Nature is uncongenial to modern readers, but his love was real.

The introduction 'to the Reader'[8] is characteristic:

These Idylls are the fruits of some of my happiest hours; of those hours when imagination and tranquillity shed their sweetest influence over me, and, excluding all which belongs to the period in which we live, recalled all the charms and delights of the Golden Age. A n.o.ble and well-regulated mind dwells with pleasure on these images of calm tranquillity and uninterrupted happiness, and the scenes in which the poet delineates the simple beauties of uncorrupted nature are endeared to us by the resemblance we fancy we perceive in them to the most blissful moments that we nave ourselves enjoyed. Often do I fly from the city and seek the deepest solitudes; there, the beauties of the landscape soothe and console my heart, and gradually disperse those impressions of solicitude and disgust which accompanied me from the town; enraptured, I give up my whole soul to the contemplation of Nature, and feel, at such moments, richer than an Utopian monarch, and happier than a shepherd of the Golden Age.

This is a true picture of the time! Man knew that he was sick, and fled from town and his fellows into solitude, there to dream himself back to a happier past, and revel in the purity and innocence, the healing breath, of forest and field.

The magic of moonlight began to be felt. Mirtilla

perceived his old father slumbering in the moonbeams.... Mirtilla stood long contemplating him, and his eyes rested fondly on the old man except when he raised them toward heaven through the glistening leaves of the vine, and tears of filial love and joy bedewed his cheeks.... How beautiful! how beautiful is the landscape! How bright, how clear appears the deep blue of heaven through the broken clouds! They fly, they pa.s.s away, these towering clouds; but strew a shadow as they pa.s.s over the sunny landscape.... Oh, what joy overwhelms my soul! how beautiful, how excellent is all around, what an inexhaustible source of rapture!

From the enlivening sun down to the little plant that his mild influence nourishes, all is wonderful! What rapture overpowers me when I stand on the high hill and look down on the wide-spread landscape beneath me, when I lay stretched along the gra.s.s and examine the various flowers and herbs and their little inhabitants; when at the midnight hour I contemplate the starry heavens!... Wrapt in each other's arms, let us contemplate the approach of morning, the bright glow of sunset, or the soft beams of moonlight; and as I press thee to my trembling heart, let us breathe out in broken accents our praises and thanksgivings. Ah!

what inexpressible joy, when with such raptures are blended the transports of the tenderest love.

Many prosaic writings of a different kind shew how universally feeling, in the middle of the eighteenth century, turned towards Nature.

The aesthetic writer Sulzer (1750) wrote _On the Beauty of Nature_.

Crugot's widely-read work of edification, _Christ in Solitude_ (1761), shewed the same point of view among the mystical and pietist clergy; and Spalding's _Human Vocation_[9] (written with a warmth that reminds one of Gessner) among the rationalists, whom he headed.

He says:

Nature contains numberless pleasures, which, through my great sensitiveness, nourish my mind... I open eye and ear, and through these openings pleasures flow into my soul from a thousand sides: flowers painted by the hand of Nature, the rich music of the forest, the bright daylight which pours life and light all round me.... How indifferent, tasteless, and dead is all the fantastic glamour of artificial splendour and luxuriance in comparison with the living radiance of the real beautiful world of Nature, with the joyousness, repose, and admiration I feel before a meadow in blossom, a rustling stream, the pleasant awesomeness of night, or of the majesty of innumerable worlds. Even the commonest and most familiar things in Nature give me endless delight, when I feel them with a heart attuned to joy and admiration.... I lose myself, absorbed in delight, in the consideration of all this general beauty, of which I hold myself to be a not disfigured part.

Klopstock, the torch-bearer of Germany's greatest poets, owed much of his power of the wing to religion. He introduced that new epoch in the literature of his country which culminated in Goethe. As so often happens in mental development, the reaction against prevailing conditions and the advance to higher ones, in the middle of the eighteenth century, led first of all to the opposite extreme--balance was only reached by degrees. What chiefly made Klopstock a literary reformer was the glowing enthusiasm and powerful imagination which compelled the stiff poetic forms, clumsy as they were, to new rhythm and melodious cadence. And although his style degenerated into mannerism in the _Messias_, for the youthful impetus which had carried his Pegasus over the clouds to the stars could not keep it there without artificial aid, the immense value of his influence remained. He is one of the most interesting representatives, not only of his own, but of all similar periods of exaggerated feelings and ideals. Despite his loftiness of thought and speech, and his seraphic raptures, he was not without a full share of sensuous development, and women's eyes, or a girl's rosy lips, would draw him away from the finest view in the world.

A mind so intent upon the n.o.ble and beautiful was sure to be enthusiastic about Nature; his correspondence is the best witness to this, and at the same time throws side-lights upon the period.

It is difficult to-day to understand the influence which the _Messias_ had upon its readers; even Friedenkende spent happy hours reading it with pious tears of delight, and young and old were of the same opinion.

There is a pretty letter from Gustchen s...o...b..rg[10] to Klopstock, which runs thus:

UETERSEN, 25 _April_ 1776.

In the garden. Yes, in the garden, dearest Klopstock! I have just been walking about, it was so beautiful: the little birds were singing, violets and other flowers wafted their fragrance to me, and I began thinking very warmly of all whom I dearly, dearly love, and so very soon came to my dear Klopstock, who certainly has no truer friend than I am, though perhaps others express it better ... Thanks, thanks, for your very delightful little letter--how dear to me I don't tell you--can't tell you.

C. F. Cramer was his enthusiastic panegyrist. It is not only what he says of the private life and special taste of his adored friend which is noteworthy, but the way in which he does it--the tone in which, as a cultivated man of the day, he judged him. 'He will paint and paint Nature. For this he must be acquainted with her. This is why he loves her so well. This is why he strays by the brook and weeps. This is why in spring he goes out into the fields of blossoms, and his eyes run over with tears. All creation fills him with yearning and delight. He goes from mountain to valley like a man in a dream. When he sees a stream, he follows its course; when a hill, he must climb it; when a river--oh! if only he could rush with it to the sea! A rock--oh! to look down from its crags to the land below! A hawk hovers over him--oh! to have its wings and fly so much nearer to the stars! He stands for hours looking at a flower or moss, throws himself down on the gra.s.s and decks his hat with ivy and cornflowers.

He goes by moonlight to visit the graves and think of death, immortality, and eternal life. Nothing hinders his meditations. He sees everything in relation to something else. Every visible object has an invisible companion, so ardently, so entirely, so closely does he feel it all.'

This, coming straight from life, tells us more than a volume of odes; it contains the real feeling of the time, sensitive, dreamy, elegiac.

His friend goes on: 'He walks often and likes it, but generally looks for sunny places; he goes very slowly, which is fatal for me, for I run when I walk ... Often he stands still and silent, as if there were knots which he could not untie (in his thoughts). And truly there are unknown depths of feeling as well as thought.'

In another place: 'He went out and gloated over the great scene of immeasurable Nature. Orion and the Pleiades moved over his head, the dear moon was opposite. Looking intently into her friendly face, he greeted her repeatedly: "Moon, Moon, friend of my thoughts; hurry not away, dear Moon, but stay. What is thy name? Laura, Cynthia, Cyllene?

Or shall I call thee beautiful Betty of the Sky?" ... He loved country walks; we made for lonely places, dark fearsome thickets, lonely unfrequented paths, scrambled up all the hills, spied out every bit of Nature, came to rest at last under a shady rock ...

Klopstock's life is one constant enjoyment. He gives himself up to feeling, and revels in Nature's feast ... Winter is his favourite time of year....[11] He preaches skating with the unction of a missionary to the heathen, and not without working miracles, ... the ice by moonlight is a feast of the G.o.ds to him ... only one rule, we do not leave the river till the moon has gone.' Klopstock described this in his _Skating_:

O youth, whose skill the ice-cothurn Drives glowing now, and now restrains, On city hearths let f.a.ggots burn, But come with me to crystal plains.

The scene is filled with vapouring light, As when the winter morning's prime Looks on the lake. Above it night Scatters, like stars, the glittering rime.

How still and white is all around!

How rings the track with new sparr'd frost!

Far off the metal's cymbal sound Betrays thee, for a moment lost ...

Cramer tells how Klopstock paid a long-remembered visit to Count Bernstoff at Schloss Stintenburg:

It has a most romantic situation in a bewitching part of Mecklenburg; 'tis surrounded by forest full of delightful gloom, and a large lake, with a charming little island in the centre, which wakes echoes. Klopstock is very fond of echoes, and is always trying to find them in his walks.

This ill.u.s.trates the lines in _Stintenburg_:

Isle of pious solitude, Loved playmate of the echo and the lake, etc.

but in this ode, as in so many of his, simple personal feeling gives way to the stilted mannerism of the bard poetry.

He wrote of Soroe,[12] one of the loveliest places in the Island of Zealand, as 'an uncommonly pleasant place'; where 'By a sacred tree, on a raised gra.s.s plot two hundred paces from the great alley, and from a view over the Friedensburg Lake towards a little wooded island ... f.a.n.n.y appeared to him in the silver evening clouds over the tree-tops.'

The day on which he composed _The Lake of Zurich_ was one of the pleasantest in his life. Cramer says: 'He has often told me and still tells, with youthful fervour, about those delightful days and this excursion: the boat full of people, mostly young, all in good spirits; charming girls, his wife Herzel, a lovely May morning.'

But, unlike St Preux, he 'seemed less impressed by our scenery than by the beauty of our girls,[13] and his letters bear out the remark.[14] Yet delight in Nature was always with him: Klopstock's lofty morality pours forth all through it. Nature, love, fame, wine, everything is looked at from an enn.o.bling point of view.'

Fair is the majesty of all thy works On the green earth, O Mother Nature fair!

But fairer the glad face Enraptured with their view.

Come from the vine banks of the glittering lake, Or--hast thou climbed the smiling skies anew-- Come on the roseate tip Of evening's breezy wing, And teach my song with glee of youth to glow, Sweet joy, like thee--with glee of shouting youths, Or feeling f.a.n.n.y's laugh.

Behind us far already Uto lay.

At whose feet Zurich in the quiet vale Feeds her free sons: behind-- Receding vine-clad hills.

Uncloud'd beamed the top of silver Alps, And warmer beat the heart of gazing youths, And warmer to their fair Companions spoke its glow.

And Haller's Doris sang, the pride of song; And Hirzel's Daphne, dear to Kleist and Gleim; And we youths sang and felt As each were--Hagedorn.

Soon the green meadow took us to the cool And shadowy forest, which becrowns the isle.

Then cam'st thou, Joy; thou cam'st Down in full tide to us; Yes, G.o.ddess Joy, thyself; we felt, we clasp'd, Best sister of humanity, thyself, With thy dear innocence Accompanied, thyself.

Sweet thy inspiring breath, O cheerful Spring; When the meads cradle thee, and their soft airs Into the hearts of youths And hearts of virgins glide, Thou makest feeling conqueror. Ah! through thee Fuller, more tremulous, heaves each blooming breast; With lips spell-freed by thee Young love unfaltering pleads.

Fair gleams the wine, when to the social change Of thought, or heart-felt pleasure, it invites, And the 'Socratic' cup With dewy roses bound, Sheds through the bosom bliss, and wakes resolves, Such as the drunkard knows not--proud resolves Emboldening to despair Whate'er the sage disowns.

Delightful thrills against the panting heart Fame's silver voice--and immortality Is a great thought....

But sweeter, fairer, more delightful, 'tis On a friend's arm to know oneself a friend....

O were ye here, who love me though afar ...

How would we build us huts of friendship, here Together dwell for ever.

This is of Fredensborg on an August day:

Here, too, did Nature tarry, when her hand Pour'd living beauty over dale and hill, And to adorn this pleasant land Long time she lingered and stood still....