The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xii Part 46

For twenty more busy years he was destined to work as an educator of his nation. During this time his greatest work, the translation of the Bible, was completed, and in this work, which he accomplished in cooperation with his Wittenberg friends, he acquired a complete control of the language of the people--a language whose wealth and power he first learned to realize through this work. We know the lofty spirit which he brought to this undertaking. His purpose was to create a book for the people, and for this he studied industriously turns of phrases, proverbs, and special terms which made up the people's current language. Even Humanists had written an awkward, involved German, with clumsy sentences in unfortunate imitation of the Latin style. Now the nation acquired for daily reading a work which, in simple words and short sentences, gave expression to the deepest wisdom and the best intellectual life of the time. Along with Luther's other works, the German Bible became the foundation of the modern German language, and this language, in which our whole literature and intellectual life has found expression, has become an indestructible possession which, in the gloomiest times, even corrupted and distorted, has reminded the various German strains that they have common interests. Every individual in our country still rises superior to the dialect of his native place, and the language of culture, poetry, and science which Luther created is still the tie which binds all German souls in unity.

And what he did for the social life of the Germans was no less; for by his precepts and his writings he consecrated family prayers, marriage and the training of children, the daily life of the community, education, manners, amus.e.m.e.nts, whatever touches the heart, and all social pleasures. He was everywhere active in setting up new ideals, in laying deeper foundations. There was no field of human duty upon which he did not force his Germans to reflect. Through his many sermons and minor writings he influenced large groups of people, and by his innumerable letters, in which he gave advice and consolation to those who asked for them, he influenced individuals. When he incessantly urged his contemporaries to examine for themselves whether a desire was justified or not, or what was the duty of a father toward his child, of the subject toward the authorities, of the councillor toward the people, the progress which was made through him was so important because here too he set free the conscience of the individual and put everywhere in the place of compulsion from without, against which selfishness had defiantly rebelled, a self-control in harmony with the spirit of the individual. How beautiful is his conception of the necessity of training children by schooling, especially in the ancient languages! How he recommends the introduction of his beloved music into the schools! How large is his vision when he advises the city-councils to establish public libraries! And again, how conscientiously he tried, in matters of betrothal and marriage, to protect the heart of the lovers against stern parental authority! To be sure, his horizon is always bounded by the letter of the Scriptures, but everywhere there sounds through his sermons, his advice, his censure, the beautiful keynote of his German nature, the necessity of liberty and discipline, of love and morality.

He had overthrown the old sacrament of marriage, but gave a higher, n.o.bler, freer form to the intimate relation of man and wife. He had fought the clumsy monastery schools; and everywhere in town and hamlet, wherever his influence was felt, there grew up better educational inst.i.tutions for the young. He had done away with the ma.s.s and with Latin church music; he put in its place, for friends and foes alike, regular preaching and German chorals.

As time advanced, it became ever more apparent that it was a necessity for Luther to perceive G.o.d in every gracious, good and tender gift of this world. In this sense he was always pious and always wise--when he was out-of-doors, or among his friends, in innocent merriment, when he teased his wife, or held his children in his arms. Before a fruit-tree, which he saw hanging full of fruit, he rejoiced in its splendor, and said, "If Adam had not fallen, we should have admired all trees as we do this one." He took a large pear into his hands and marveled: "See! Half a year ago this pear was deeper under ground than it is long and broad, and lay at the very end of the roots. These smallest and least observed creations are the greatest miracles. G.o.d is in the humblest things of nature--a leaf or a blade of gra.s.s." Two birds made their nest in the Doctor's garden and flew up in the evening, often frightened by pa.s.sers-by. He called to them, "Oh, you dear birds! Don't fly away. I am very willing to have you here, if you could only believe me. But just so we mortals have no faith in our G.o.d." He delighted in the companionship of whole-souled men; he drank his wine with satisfaction, while the conversation ran actively over great things and small. He judged with splendid humor enemies and good acquaintances alike, and told jolly stories; and when he got into discussion, pa.s.sed his hand across his knee, which was a peculiarity of his; or he might sing, or play the lute, and start a chorus.

Whatever gave innocent pleasure was welcome to him. His favorite art was music; he judged leniently of dancing, and, fifty years before Shakespeare, spoke approvingly of comedy, for he said, "It instructs us, like a mirror, how everybody should conduct himself."

When he sat thus with Melanchthon, Master Philip was the charitable scholar who sometimes put wise limitations upon the daring a.s.sertions of his l.u.s.ty friend. If, at such times, the conversation turned upon rich people, and Frau Kathe could not help remarking longingly, "If my man had had a notion, he would have got very rich," Melanchthon would p.r.o.nounce gravely, "That is impossible; for those who, like him, work for the general good cannot follow up their own advantage." But there was one subject upon which the two men loved to dispute. Melanchthon was a great admirer of astrology, but Luther looked upon this science with supreme contempt. On the other hand, Luther, through his method of interpreting the Scriptures--and alas! through secret political cares also--had arrived at the conviction that the end of the world was near. That again seemed to the learned Melanchthon very dubious.

So if Melanchthon began to talk about the signs of the zodiac and aspects, and explained Luther's success by his having been born under the sign of the Sun, then Luther would exclaim, "I don't think much of your Sol. I am a peasant's son. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were thorough peasants." "Yes," replied Melanchthon, "even in a hamlet, you would have become a leader, a magistrate, or a foreman over other laborers." "But," cried Luther, victoriously, "I have become a bachelor of arts, a master, a monk. That was not foretold by the stars. And after that I got the Pope by the hair and he in turn got me. I have taken a nun to wife and got some children by her. Who saw that in the stars?" Melanchthon, continuing his astrological prophecies and turning to the fate of the Emperor Charles, declared that this prince was destined to die in 1584. Then Luther broke out vehemently--"The world will not last as long as that, for when we drive out the Turks the prophecy of Daniel will be fulfilled and completed; then the Day of Judgment is certainly at our doors."

How lovable he was as father in his family! When his children stood before the table and looked hard at the fruit and the peaches, he said, "If anybody wants to see the image of one who rejoiceth in hope, he has here the real model. Oh, that we might look forward so cheerfully to the Judgment Day! Adam and Eve must have had much better fruit! Ours are nothing but crab-apples in contrast. And I think the serpent was then a most beautiful creature, kindly and gracious; it still wears its crown, but after the curse it lost its feet and beautiful body." Once he looked at his three-year-old son who was playing and talking to himself and said, "This child is like a drunken man. He does not know that he is alive, yet lives on safely and merrily and hops and jumps. Such children love to be in s.p.a.cious apartments where they have room," and he took the child in his arms.

"You are our Lord's little fool, subject to His mercy and forgiveness of sins, not subject to the Law. You have no fear; you are safe, nothing troubles you; the way you do is the uncorrupted way. Parents always like their youngest children best; my little Martin is my dearest treasure. Such little ones need their parents' care and love the most; therefore the love of their parents always reaches down to them. How Abraham must have felt when he had in mind to sacrifice his youngest and dearest son! Probably he said nothing to Sarah about it.

That must have been a bitter journey for him." His favorite daughter Magdalena lay at the point of death and he lamented, "I love her truly, but, dear G.o.d, if it be Thy will to take her away to Thee, I shall gladly know that she is with Thee. Magdalena, my little daughter, you would like to stay here with your father, and yet you would be willing to go to the other Father?" Then the child said, "Yes, dear father, as G.o.d wills." When she was dying he fell on his knees before the bed and wept bitterly, and prayed that G.o.d would redeem her; and so she fell asleep under her father's hands, and when the people came to help lay out the corpse and spoke to the Doctor according to custom, he said, "I am cheerful in my mind, but the flesh is weak. This parting is hard beyond measure. It is strange to know she is certainly in peace and that it is well with her, and yet to be so sorrowful all the time."

His Dominus, or Lord Kathe, as he liked to call his wife in letters to his friends, had soon developed into a capable manager. And she had no slight troubles: little children, her husband often in poor health, a number of boarders--teachers and poor students--her house always open, seldom lacking scholarly or n.o.ble guests, and, with all that, scanty means and a husband who preferred giving to receiving, and who once, in his zeal, when she was in bed with a young child, even seized the silver baptismal presents of the child in order to give alms. Luther, in 1527, for instance, could not afford even eight gulden for his former prior and friend Briesger. He writes to him sadly: "Three silver cups (wedding presents) are p.a.w.ned for fifty gulden, the fourth is sold. The year has brought one hundred gulden of debts. Lucas Kranach will not go security for me any more, lest I ruin myself completely." Sometimes Luther refuses presents, even those which his prince offers him: but it seems that regard for his wife and children gave him in later years some sense of economy. When he died his estate amounted to some eight or nine thousand gulden, comprising, among other things, a little country place, a large garden, and two houses.

This was surely in large part Frau Kathe's doing. By the way in which Luther treats her we see how happy his household was. When he made allusions to the ready tongue of women he had little right to do so, for he himself was not by any means a man who could be called reticent. When she showed her joy at being able to bring to table all kinds of fish from the little pond in her garden, the Doctor, for his part, was deeply pleased but did not fail to add a pleasant discourse on the happiness of contentment. Or when on one occasion she became impatient at the reading of the Psalter, and gave him to understand that she had heard enough about saints--that she read a good deal every day and could talk enough about them too--that G.o.d only desired her to act like them; then the Doctor, in reply to this sensible answer, sighed and said, "Thus begins discontent at G.o.d's word. There will be nothing but new books coming out, and the Scriptures will be again thrown into the corner." But the firm alliance of these two good people was for a long time not without its secret sorrow. We can only surmise the suffering of the wife's soul when, even as late as 1527, Luther in a dangerous illness took final farewell from her with the words: "You are my lawful wife, and as such you must surely consider yourself."

In the same spirit as with his dear ones, Luther consorted with the high powers of his faith. All the good characters from the Bible were true friends to him. His vivid imagination had confidently given them shape, and, with the simplicity of a child, he liked to picture to himself their conditions. When Veit Deitrich asked him what kind of person the Apostle Paul was, Luther answered quickly, "He was an insignificant, slim little fellow like Philip Melanchthon." The Virgin Mary was a graceful image to him. "She was a fine girl," he said admiringly; "she must have had a good voice." He liked to think of the Redeemer as a child with his parents, carrying the dinner to his father in the lumber yard, and to picture Mary, when he stayed too long away, as asking--"Darling, where have you been so long?" One should not think of the Saviour seated on the rainbow in glory, nor as the fulfiller of the law--this conception is too grand and terrible for man--but only as a poor sufferer who lives among sinners and dies for them.

Even his G.o.d was to him preeminently the head of a household and a father. He liked to reflect upon the economy of nature. He lost himself in wondering consideration of how much wood G.o.d was obliged to create. "n.o.body can calculate what G.o.d needs to feed the sparrows and the useless birds alone. These cost him in one year more than the revenues of the king of France. And then think of the other things!

G.o.d understands all trades. In his tailor shop he makes the stag a coat that lasts a hundred years. As a shoemaker he gives him shoes for his feet, and through the pleasant sun he is a cook. He might get rich if he would; he might stop the sun, inclose the air, and threaten the pope, emperor, bishops and the doctors with death if they did not pay him on the spot one hundred thousand gulden. But he does not do that, and we are thankless scoundrels." He reflected seriously about where the food comes from for so many people. Old Hans Luther had a.s.serted that there were more people than sheaves of grain. The Doctor believed that more sheaves are grown than there are people, but still more people than stacks of grain. "But a stack of grain yields hardly a bushel, and a man cannot live a whole year on that." Even a dunghill invited him to deep reflection. "G.o.d has as much to clear away as to create. If He were not continually carrying things off, men would have filled the world with rubbish long ago." And if G.o.d often punishes those who fear Him worse than those who have no religion, he appears to Luther to be like a strict householder who punishes his son oftener than his good-for-nothing servant, but who secretly is laying up an inheritance for his son; while he finally dismisses the servant. And merrily he draws the conclusion, "If our Lord can pardon me for having annoyed Him for twenty years by reading ma.s.ses, He can put it to my credit also that at times I have taken a good drink in His honor. The world may interpret it as it will."

He is also greatly surprised that G.o.d should be so angry with the Jews. "They have prayed anxiously for fifteen hundred years with seriousness and great zeal, as their prayer-books show, and He has not for the whole time noticed them with a word. If I could pray as they do I would give books worth two hundred florins for the gift. It must be a great unutterable wrath. O, good Lord, punish us with pestilence rather than with such silence!"

Like a child, Luther prayed every morning and evening, and frequently during the day, even while eating. Prayers which he knew by heart he repeated over and over with warm devotion, preferably the Lord's Prayer. Then he recited as an act of devotion the shorter Catechism; the Psalter he always carried with him as a prayer-book. When he was in pa.s.sionate anxiety his prayer became a stormy wrestling with G.o.d, so powerful, great, and solemnly simple that it can hardly be compared with other human emotions. Then he was the son who lay despairingly at his father's feet, or the faithful servant who implores his prince; for his whole conviction was firmly fixed that G.o.d's decisions could be affected by begging and urging, and so the effusion of feeling alternated in his prayer with complaints, even with earnest reproaches. It has often been told how, in 1540, at Weimar, he brought Melanchthon, who was at the point of death, to life again. When Luther arrived, he found Master Philip in the death throes, unconscious, his eyes set. Luther was greatly startled and said, "G.o.d help us! How the Devil has wronged this _Organan_," then he turned his back to the company and went to the window as he was wont to do when he prayed.

"Here," Luther himself later recounted, "Our Lord had to grant my pet.i.tion, for I challenged Him and filled His ears with all the promises of prayer which I could remember from the Scriptures, so that He had to hear me if I was to put any trust in His promises." Then he took Melanchthon by the hand saying, "Be comforted, Philip, you will not die;" and Melanchthon, under the spell of his vigorous friend, began at once to breathe again, came back to consciousness, and recovered.

As G.o.d was the source of all good, so, for Luther, the Devil was the author of everything harmful and bad. The Devil interfered perniciously in the course of nature, in sickness and pestilence, failure of crops and famine. But since Luther had begun to teach, the greater part of the Enemy's activity had been transferred to the souls of men. In them he inspired impure thoughts as well as doubt, melancholy, and depression. Everything which the thoughtful Luther stated so definitely and cheerfully rested beforehand with terrible force upon his conscience. If he awoke in the night, the Devil stood by his bed full of malicious joy and whispered alarming things to him.

Then his mind struggled for freedom, often for a long time in vain.

And it is noteworthy how the son of the sixteenth century proceeded in such spiritual struggles. Sometimes it was a relief to him if he stuck out of bed the least dignified part of his body. This action, by which prince and peasant of the time used to express supreme contempt, sometimes helped when nothing else would. But his exuberant humor did not always deliver him. Every new investigation of the Scriptures, every important sermon on a new subject, caused him further pangs of conscience. On these occasions he sometimes got into such excitement that his soul was incapable of systematic thinking, and trembled in anxiety for days. When he was busy with the question of the monks and nuns, a text struck his attention which, as he thought in his excitement, proved him in the wrong. His heart "melted in his body; he was almost choked by the Devil." Then Bugenhagen visited him. Luther took him outside the door and showed him the threatening text, and Bugenhagen, apparently upset by his friend's excitement, began to doubt too, without suspecting the depth of the torment which Luther was enduring. This gave Luther a final and terrible fright. Again he pa.s.sed an awful night. The next morning Bugenhagen came in again. "I am thoroughly angry," he said; "I have only just looked at the text carefully. The pa.s.sage has a quite different meaning." "It is true,"

Luther related afterward, "it was a ridiculous argument--ridiculous, I mean, for a man in his senses, but not for him who is tempted."

Often he complained to his friends about the terrors of the struggles which the Devil caused him. "He has never since the creation been so fierce and angry as now at the end of the world. I feel him very plainly. He sleeps closer to me than my Kathe--that is, he gives me more trouble than she does pleasure." Luther never tired of censuring the pope as the Anti-Christ, and the papal system as the work of the Devil. But a closer scrutiny will recognize under this hatred of the Devil an indestructible piety, in which the loyal heart of the man was bound to the old Church. What became hallucinations to him were often only pious remembrances from his youth, which stood in startling contrast to the transformations which he had pa.s.sed through as a man.

For no man is entirely transformed by the great thoughts and deeds of his manhood. We ourselves do not become new through new deeds. Our mental life is based upon the sum of all thoughts and feelings that we have ever had. Whoever is chosen by Fate to establish new greatness by destroying the greatness of the old, shatters in fragments at the same time a portion of his own life. He must break obligations in order to fulfil greater obligations. The more conscientious he is, the more deeply he feels in his own heart the wound he has inflicted upon the order of the world. That is the secret sorrow, the regret, of every great historical character. There are few mortals who have felt this sorrow so deeply as Luther. And what is great in him is the fact that such sorrow never kept him from the boldest action. To us this appears as a tragic touch in his spiritual life.

Another thing most momentous for him was the att.i.tude which he had to take toward his own doctrine. He had left to his followers nothing but the authority of Scripture. He clung pa.s.sionately to its words as to the last effective anchor for the human race. Before him the pope, with his hierarchy, had interpreted, misinterpreted, and added to the text of the Scriptures; now he was in the same situation. He, with a circle of dependent friends, had to claim for himself the privilege of understanding the words of the Scriptures correctly, and applying them rightly to the life of the times. This was a superhuman task, and the man who undertook it must necessarily be subject to some of the disadvantages which he himself had so grandly combatted in the Catholic Church. His mental makeup was firmly decided and unyielding: he was born to be a ruler if ever a mortal was; but this gigantic, daemonic character of his will inevitably made him sometimes a tyrant.

Although he practised tolerance in many important matters, often as the result of self-restraint and often with a willing heart, this was only the fortunate result of his kindly disposition, which was effective also here. Not infrequently, however, he became the pope of the Protestants. For him and his people there was no choice. He has been reproached in modern times for doing so little to bring the laity into cooperation by means of a presbyterial organization. Never was a reproach more unjust. What was possible in Switzerland, with congregations of st.u.r.dy free peasants, was utterly impracticable at that time in Germany. Only the dwellers in the larger cities had among them enough intelligence and power to criticise the Protestant clergy; almost nine-tenths of the Protestants in Germany were oppressed peasants, the majority of whom were indifferent and stubborn, corrupt in morals, and, after the Peasant War, savage in manners. The new church was obliged to force its discipline upon them as upon neglected children. Whoever doubts this should look at the reports of visitations, and notice the continued complaints of the reformers about the rudeness of their poverty-stricken congregations. But the great man was subject to still further hindrances. The ruler of the souls of the German people lived in a little town, among poor university professors and students, in a feeble community of which he often had occasion to complain. He was spared none of the evils of petty surroundings, of unpleasant disputes with narrow-minded scholars or uncultured neighbors. There was much in his nature which made him especially sensitive to such things. No man bears in his heart with impunity the feeling of being the privileged instrument of G.o.d.

Whoever lives in that feeling is too great for the narrow and petty structure of middle-cla.s.s society. If Luther had not been modest to the depths of his heart, and of infinite kindness in his intercourse with others, he would inevitably have appeared perfectly unendurable to the matter-of-fact and common-sense people who stood indifferent by his side. As it was, however, he came only on rare occasions into serious conflict with his fellow-citizens, the town administration, the law faculty of his university, or the councillors of his sovereign. He was not always right, but he almost always carried his point against them, for seldom did any one dare to defy the violence of his anger. With all this he was subject to severe physical ailments, the frequent return of which in the last years of his life exhausted even his tremendous vigor. He felt this with great sorrow, and incessantly prayed to his G.o.d that He might take him to Himself.

He was not yet an old man in years, but he seemed so to himself--very old and out of place in a strange and worldly universe. These years, which did not abound in great events, but were made burdensome by political and local quarrels, and filled with hours of bitterness and sorrow, will inspire sympathy, we trust, in every one who studies the life of this great man impartially. The ardor of his life had warmed his whole people, had called forth in millions the beginnings of a higher human development; the blessing remained for the millions, while he himself felt at last little but the sorrow. Once he joyfully had hoped to die as a martyr; now he wished for the peace of the grave, like a trusty, aged, worn-out laborer--another case of a tragic human fate.

But the greatest sorrow that he felt lay in the relation of his doctrine to the life of his nation. He had founded a new church on his pure gospel, and had given to the spirit and the conscience of the people an incomparably greater meaning. All about him flourished a new life and greater prosperity, and many valuable arts--painting and music--the enjoyment of comfort, and a finer social culture. Still there was something in the air of Germany which threatened ruin: princes and governments were fiercely at odds, foreign powers were threatening invasions--the Emperor of Spain, the Pope from Rome, the Turks from the Mediterranean; fanatics and demagogues were influential, and the hierarchy was not yet fallen. As to his new gospel, had it welded the nation into greater unity and power? The discontent had only been increased. The future of his church was to depend on the worldly interests of a few princes; and he knew the best among them! Something terrible was coming; the Scriptures were to be fulfilled; the Day of Judgment was at hand. But after this G.o.d would build up a new universe more beautiful, grander, and purer, full of peace and happiness, a world in which no devil would exist, in which every human soul would feel more joy over the flowers and fruit of the new trees of heaven than the present generation over gold and silver; where music, the most beautiful of all arts, should ring in tones much more delightful than the most splendid song of the best singers in this world. There a good man would find again all the dear ones whom he had loved and lost in this world.

The longing of the creature for the ideal type of existence grew stronger and stronger in him. If he expected the end of the world, it was due to dim remembrances from the far-distant past of the German people, which still hovered over the soul of the new reformer. Yet it was likewise a prophetic foreboding of the near future. It was not the end of the world that was in preparation, but the Thirty Years' War.

Thus he died. When the hea.r.s.e with his corpse pa.s.sed through the Thuringian country, all the bells in city and hamlet tolled, and the people crowded sobbing about his bier. A large portion of the German national strength went into the coffin with this one man. And Philip Melanchthon spoke in the castle church at Wittenberg over his body: "Any one who knew him well, must bear witness to this--that he was a very kind man, gracious, friendly, and affectionate in all conversation, and by no means insolent, stormy, obstinate, or quarrelsome. And yet with this went a seriousness and courage in words and actions, such as there should be in such a man. His heart was loyal and without guile. The severity which he used in his writings against the enemies of the Gospel came not from a quarrelsome and malicious spirit but from great seriousness and zeal for the truth. He showed very great courage and manhood, and was not easily disturbed.

He was not intimidated by threats, danger, or alarms. He was also of such a high, clear intelligence that when affairs were confused, obscure, and difficult he was often the only one who could see at once what was advisable and feasible. He was not, as perhaps some thought, too un.o.bservant to notice the condition of the government everywhere.

He knew right well how we are governed, and noted especially the spirit and the intentions of those with whom he had to do. We, however, must keep a faithful, everlasting memory of this dear father of ours, and never let him go out of our hearts." Such was Luther--an almost superhuman nature; his mind ponderous and sharply limited, his will powerful and temperate, his morals pure, his heart full of love.

Because no other man appeared after him strong enough to become the leader of the nation, the German people lost for centuries their leadership of the earth. The leadership of the Germans in the realm of intellect, however, is founded on Luther.

[Footnote 2: "_Cito remitte matri filiolum_!" ("Send the little boy right home to his mother.")]

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By GUSTAV FREYTAG

TRANSLATED BY E.H. BABBITT, A.B.

a.s.sistant Professor of German, Tufts College

What was it that, after the Thirty Years' War drew the attention of the politicians of Europe to the little State on the northeastern frontier of Germany which was struggling upward in spite of the Swedes and the Poles, the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons? The inheritance of the Hohenzollern was no richly endowed land in which the farmer dwelt in comfort on well-tilled acres, to which wealthy merchant princes brought, in deeply-laden galleons, the silks of Italy and the spices and ingots of the New World. It was a poor, desolate, sandy country of burned cities and ruined villages. The fields were untilled, and many square miles, stripped of men and cattle, were given over to the caprices of wild nature. When, in 1640, Frederick William succeeded to the Electorate, he found nothing but contested claims to scattered territories of some thirty thousand square miles. In all the fortified places of his home land were lodged insolent conquerors. In an insecure desert this shrewd and tricky prince established his state, with a craft and disregard of his neighbors' rights which, even in that unscrupulous age, aroused criticism, but at the same time, with a heroism and greatness of mind which more than once showed higher conceptions of German honor than were held by the Emperor himself or any other prince of the realm. Nevertheless, when, in 1688, this adroit statesman died, he left behind him only an unimportant State, in no way to be reckoned among the powers of Europe. For while his sovereignty extended over about forty-four thousand square miles, these contained only one million three hundred thousand inhabitants; and when Frederick II., a hundred years after his great-grandfather, succeeded to the crown, he inherited only two million two hundred and forty thousand subjects, not so many as the single province of Silesia contains today. What was it then that, immediately after the battles of the Thirty Years' War, aroused the jealousy of all the governments, and especially of the Imperial house, and which since then has made such warm friends and such bitter enemies for the Brandenburg government? For two centuries neither Germans nor foreigners ceased to set their hopes on this new State, and for an equally long time neither Germans nor foreigners ceased to call it--at first with ridicule, and then with spite--"an artificial structure which cannot endure heavy storms, which has intruded without justification among the powers of Europe." How did it come about that impartial judges finally, soon after the death of Frederick the Great, declared that it was time to cease prophesying the destruction of this widely hated power? For after every defeat, they said, it had risen more vigorously, and had repaired all the damages and losses of war more quickly than was possible elsewhere; its prosperity and intelligence also were increasing more rapidly than in any other part of Germany.

It was indeed a very individual and new shade of German character which appeared in the Hohenzollern princes and their people on the territory conquered from the Slavs, and forced recognition with sharp challenge. It seemed that the characters there embraced greater contrasts; for the virtues and faults of the rulers, the greatness and the weakness of their policies, stood forth in sharp contradiction, every limitation appeared more striking, every discord more violent, and every achievement more astonishing. This State could apparently produce everything that was strange and unusual, but could not endure one thing--peaceful mediocrity, which elsewhere may be so comfortable and useful.

With this the situation of the country had much to do. It was a border land, making head at once against the Swedes, the Slavs, the French, and the Dutch. There was hardly a question of European diplomacy which did not affect the weal and woe of this State; hardly an entanglement which did not give an active prince the opportunity to validate his claim. The decadent power of Sweden and the gradual dissolution of Poland opened up extensive prospects; the superiority of France and the distrustful friendship of Holland urged armed caution. From the very first year, in which Elector Frederick William had been obliged to take possession of his own fortresses by force and cunning, it was evident that there on the outskirts of German territory a vigorous, cautious, warlike government was indispensable for the safety of Germany. And after the beginning of the French War in 1674, Europe recognized that the crafty policy which proceeded from this obscure corner was undertaking also the astonishing task of heroically defending the western boundary of Germany against the superior forces of the King of France.

There was perhaps also something remarkable in the racial character of the Brandenburg people, in which princes and subjects shared alike.

Down to Frederick's time, the Prussian districts had given to Germany relatively few scholars, writers, and artists. Even the pa.s.sionate zeal of the Reformation seemed to be subdued there. The people who inhabited the border land, mostly of the Lower Saxon strain, with a slight tinge of Slavic blood, were a tough, st.u.r.dy race, not specially graceful in social manners, but with unusual keenness of understanding and clearness of judgment. Those who lived in the capital had been glib of tongue and ready to scoff from time immemorial: all were capable of great exertions; industrious, persistent, and of enduring strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From the Painting by Adolph von Menzel_ FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS ROUND TABLE]

But the character of the princes was a more potent factor than the location of their country or the race-character of their people; for the way in which the Hohenzollerns molded their state was different from that of any other princes since the days of Charlemagne. Many a princely family can show a number of rulers who have successfully built up their state--the Bourbons, for instance, united a wide expanse of territory into one great political body;--or who have been brave warriors through several generations,--there never were any braver than the Vasas or the Protestant Wittelsbachs in Sweden. But none have been the educators of their people as were the early Hohenzollerns, who as great landed proprietors in a devastated country drew new men into their service and guided their education; who for almost a hundred and fifty years, as strict managers, worked, schemed, and endured, took risks, and even did injustice--all that they might build up for their state a people like themselves--hard, economical, clever, bold, with the highest civic ambitions.

In this sense we are justified in admiring the providential character of the Prussian State. Of the four princes who ruled it from the Thirty Years' War to the day when the "h.o.a.ry-headed abbot in the monastery of Sans Souci" closed his weary eyes, each one, with his virtues and vices, was the natural complement of his predecessor--Elector Frederick William, the greatest statesman produced by the school of the Thirty Years' War, the splendor-loving King Frederick I., the parsimonious despot Frederick William I., and finally, in the eighteenth century, he in whom were united the talents and great qualities of almost all his ancestors--the flower of the family.

Life in the royal palace at Berlin was cheerless in Frederick's childhood; poorer in love and sunshine than in most citizens'

households at that rude time. It may be doubted whether the king his father, or the queen, was more to blame for the disorganization of the family life--in either case through natural defects which grew more p.r.o.nounced in the constant friction of the household. The king, an odd tyrant with a soft heart but a violent temper, tried to compel love and confidence with a cudgel; he possessed keen insight into human nature, but was so ignorant that he always ran the risk of becoming the victim of a scoundrel. Dimly aware of his weakness, he had grown suspicious and was subject to sudden fits of violence. The queen, in contrast, was a rather insignificant woman, colder at heart, but with a strong sense of her princely dignity; with a tendency to intrigue, without prudence or discretion. Both had the best of intentions, and took honest pains to bring up their children to a capable and worthy maturity; but both unintelligently interfered with the sound development of the childish souls. The mother was so tactless as to make the children, even at a tender age, the confidants of her annoyances and intrigues. The undignified parsimony of the king, the blows which he distributed so freely in his rooms, and the monotonous daily routine which he forced upon her, were the subject of no end of complaining, sulking, and ridicule in her apartments. Crown Prince Frederick grew up, the playmate of his elder sister, into a gentle child with sparkling eyes and beautiful light hair. He was taught with exactness what the king desired,--and that was little enough: French, a certain amount of history, and the necessary accomplishments of a soldier. Against the will of his father (the great King had never surmounted the difficulties of the genitive and dative) he acquired some knowledge of the Latin declensions. To the boy, who was easily led and in the king's presence looked shy and defiant, the women imparted his first interest in French literature. He himself later gave his sister the credit for it, but his governess too was an accomplished French woman. That the foreign atmosphere was hateful to the king certainly contributed to make the son fond of it; for almost systematically praise was bestowed in the queen's apartments upon everything that was displeasing to the stern mind of the master. When in the family circle the king made one of his clumsy, pious speeches, Princess Wilhelmina and young Frederick would look at each other significantly, until the mischievous face of one or the other aroused childish laughter, and brought the king's wrath to the point of explosion. For this reason, the son, even in his earliest years, became a source of vexation to his father, who called him an effeminate, untidy fellow with an unmanly pleasure in clothes and trifles.

But from the report of his sister, for whose unsparing judgment censure was easier than praise, it is evident that the amiability of the talented boy had its effect upon those about him: as when, for instance, he secretly read a French story with his sister, and recast the whole Berlin Court into the comic characters of the novel; when they made forbidden music with flute and lute; when he went in disguise to her and they recited the parts of a French comedy to each other. But in order to enjoy even these harmless pleasures the prince was constantly forced into falsehood, deception, and disguise. He was proud, high-minded, magnanimous, with an uncompromising love of truth.

The fact that deception was utterly repulsive to him, that even where it was advisable he was unwilling to stoop to it, and that, if he ever undertook it, he dissimulated unskilfully, threw a constantly increasing strain upon his relations with his father. The king's distrust grew, and the son's offended sense of personal dignity found expression in the form of stubbornness.

So he grew up surrounded by coa.r.s.e spies who reported every word to the king. With a mind of the richest endowments, of the most discerning eagerness for knowledge, but without any suitable male society, it is no wonder that the young man went astray. In comparison with other German courts, the Prussian might be regarded as very virtuous: but frivolity toward women and a lack of reserve in the discussion of the most dubious relations were p.r.o.nounced even there.

After a visit to the dissolute court of Dresden, Prince Frederick began to behave like other princes of his time, and generally found good comrades among his father's younger officers. We know little about him at that period, but may conclude that he ran some risk, not of becoming depraved, but of wasting valuable years in a spendthrift life among unworthy companions. It certainly was not alone the increasing dissatisfaction of his father which at that time destroyed his peace of mind and tossed him about aimlessly, but quite as much that inner discontent, which leads an unformed youth the more wildly astray the greater the secret demands are which his mind makes on life.

He determined to flee to England. How the flight failed, how the anger of the military commander, Frederick William, flamed up against the deserting officer, every one knows. With the days of his imprisonment in Kustrin and his stay in Ruppin, his years of serious education began. The terrible experiences he had been through had aroused new strength in him. He had endured, with princely pride, all the terrors of death and of the most terrible humiliation. He had reflected in the solitude of his prison on the greatest riddle of life--on death and what is beyond. He had realized that there was nothing left for him but submission, patience, and quiet waiting. But bitter, heart-rending misfortune is a school which develops not only the good--it fosters also many faults. He learned to keep his counsel hidden in the depth of his soul, and to look upon men with suspicion, using them as his instruments, deceiving and flattering them with prudent serenity in which his heart had no share. He was obliged to flatter the cowardly and vulgar Grumbkow, and to be glad when he finally had won him over to his side. For years he had to take the utmost pains, over and over again, to conquer the displeasure and lack of confidence of his stern father. His nature always revolted against such humiliation, and he tried by bitter mockery to give expression to his injured self-esteem.

His heart, which warmed toward everything n.o.ble, prevented him from becoming a hardened egoist; but he did not grow any the milder or more conciliatory, and long after he had become a great man and wise ruler, there remained in him from this time of servitude some trace of petty cunning. The lion sometimes, in a spirit of undignified vengeance, did not scorn to scratch like a cat.

Still, in those years, he learned something useful too--the strict spirit of economy with which his father's narrow but able mind cared for the welfare of his country and his household. When, to please the king, he had to draw up leases, and took pains to increase the yield of a domain by a few hundred thalers; or even entered unduly into the hobbies of the king and proposed to him to kidnap a tall shepherd of Mecklenburg as a recruit--these doings were at first, to be sure, only a tedious means of propitiating the king, for he asked Grumbkow to procure for him a man to make out the lists in his stead; the officers in public and private service informed him where a surplus was to be made, here and there, and he continued to ridicule the giant soldiers whenever he could with impunity. Gradually, however, the new world into which he had been transplanted, and the practical interests of the people and of the State, became attractive to him. It was easy to see that even his father's turn for economy was often tyrannical and whimsical. The king was always convinced that he wished nothing but the best for his country, and therefore took the liberty to interfere, in the most arbitrary manner, even in the details of the property and business of private persons. He ordered, for instance, that no he-goat should run with the ewes; that all colored sheep, gray, black, or piebald, should be completely disposed of within three years, and only fine white wool be tolerated; he prescribed exactly how the copper standard measures of the Berlin bushel, which he had sent all over the country (at the expense of his subjects) should be preserved and kept locked up so as to get no dents. In order to foster the linen and woolen industry, he decreed that his subjects should wear none of the fashionable chintz and calico, and threatened with a hundred thalers'

fine and three days in the pillory everybody who, after eight months, permitted a shred of calico in his house in dress, gown, cap, or furniture coverings. This method of ruling certainly seemed severe and petty; but the son learned to honor nevertheless the prudent mind and good intentions which were recognizable underneath such edicts, and himself gradually acquired a wealth of detailed knowledge such as is not usually at the disposal of a prince--real estate values, market prices, and the needs of the people; the usages, rights, and duties of humble life. He even absorbed something of the pride with which the King boasted of his business knowledge; and when he himself had become the all-powerful administrator of his State, the unbounded advantage which was due to his knowledge of the people and of trade became manifest. Only in this way was the wise economy made possible with which he managed his own household and the State finances, as well as the unceasing care for detail by which he developed agriculture, trade, prosperity, and culture among his people. He could examine equally well the daily accounts of his cooks and the estimates of the income from the domains, forests, and taxes. For his ability to judge with precision the smallest things as well as the greatest, his people were in great part indebted to the years during which he had sat unwillingly as a.s.sessor at the green table at Ruppin. Sometimes, however, there befell him also what in his father's time had been vexatious--that his knowledge of business details was, after all, not extensive enough, and that he, like his father, gave orders which arbitrarily interfered with the life of his Prussians, and could not be carried out.

Scarcely had Frederick partially recovered from the blows of the great catastrophe of his youth, when a new misfortune fell upon him, just as terrible as the first, and in its consequences still more momentous for his life. He was forced by the King to marry. Heartrending is the sorrow with which he struggles to free himself from the bride chosen for him. "She may be as frivolous as she pleases if only she is not a simpleton! That I cannot bear." It was all in vain. He looked upon this alliance with bitterness and anger almost to the very day of his wedding, and never outgrew the bitter belief that his father had thus destroyed his emotional life. His sensitive feelings, his affectionate heart, were bartered away in the most reckless manner. Nor by this act was he alone made unhappy, but also a good woman who was worthy of a better fate. Princess Elizabeth of Bevern had many n.o.ble qualities of heart; she was not a simpleton, she did not lack beauty, and could pa.s.s muster before the fierce criticism of the princesses of the royal house. But we fear that, if she had been an angel from heaven, the pride of the Prince would have protested against her, for he was offended to the depths of his nature by the needless barbarity of a compulsory marriage. And yet the relation was not always so cold as has sometimes been a.s.sumed. For six years the kindness of heart and tact of the Princess succeeded time after time in reconciling the crown prince to her. In the retirement of Rheinsberg she was really his helpmeet and an amiable hostess for his guests, and it was reported by the Austrian agents to the Court of Vienna that her influence was increasing. But her modest, clinging nature had too little of the qualities which can permanently hold an intellectual man. The wide-awake members of the Brandenburg line felt the need of giving quick and pointed expression to every easily aroused feeling.