The Student Life of Germany Part 13

If at home thou would'st me find, Pray thee leave thy dog behind.

During the time that the student spends in these places, his dog is confined to his chamber. Here he fills up many hours with his dolorous lamentations, or at the window watches with envious impatience the pa.s.sing of his brethren along the street, and challenges them with savage yells. Whether he avails himself of the books of his master to advance himself in science, we will not venture to say; yet we have ourselves seen them fly through the window of their abodes that were not at a great height from the ground, and seeking their masters in the College hall, there, as very attentive Hospitanters, stay out the remainder of the lecture. One of my friends had a white poodle, who was accustomed regularly to accompany him to the indifferently attended lectures of a certain professor, where he sat quietly on the bench by his side, and looked solemnly into the note-book of his master. One day the dog was absent, when the extremely short-sighted professor, in opening his lecture, remarked, "Gentlemen, it would be well if you all wore coats of one colour; and were they dark ones they would be not so much observed by me, but it struck me immediately that the gentleman in the white coat was absent to-day!" The great aptness of this creature to be taught, often furnishes the students with much entertainment. He readily learns to carry his master's stick and portfolio to the College hall, whence on his command, he returns quietly to the house. He is the best of chamber attendants, bringing in the morning his master's slippers and pipe. If he returns home at night rather inspirited by Bacchus, he accompanies him as a safe conductor, often bearing things which he has unwittingly dropt, after him.

A dog at one of the universities was well known as an excellent guide.

He led his master home every evening; if he turned into a wrong street, he seized him by the coat, and pulled him back; if he fell down, he barked loudly till he rose again; and when they arrived at the house, the sagacious animal knew very well how to ring the bell.

They are also made use of in many a prank or piece of waggery. Thus it is said, that once in Leipsic, the students accustomed their dogs to the most frequent Christian names of the ladies of that city, and so soon as they came readily at that unusual call, the ungallant sons of the Muses allowed themselves the unpardonable joke of shouting aloud those names in the public walks, so that it is said, the fair s.e.x in surprise quitted the field.

In one of the university cities, two dogs also furnished this spectacle. An order had been issued, that, to avoid any serious accidents from them, no students' dogs should appear in public except led in a band. Presently was seen a student with two dogs in cords. The one was a little pug scarcely two spans high, which was led in a rope about as thick as a man's arm, whilst the other, a huge and monstrous creature of the kind which the students call _Doggen_, apparently half mastiff, half bull-dog, stalked near it, led by a piece of twine.

We still see these creatures made co-workers in many a frolic. At the dinner table, in the public walk, in the fencing-school, and in the evening at the Kneip, every where must the dog attend his master. He must eat with him in the same house; the master, indeed, in the chamber, the dog in the kitchen; for which repast, however, is allowed on the dog's behalf two kreutzers a-day. Neither are combats wanting between them, whereby they may the more resemble their masters, and to which the masters, in fact, conduct them. In these dog-duels it goes often much worse than in those of their lords, for they seize each other so furiously that it is often difficult to separate them.

"The dog," says Linnaeus, "remembers not with resentment the blows of his master." The student's dog is a striking example of the truth of this remark. How often, when the Bursche returns home from a drinking company, must this faithful servant do penance for the wild humours of the evening. It goes not better with him on such occasions than with many a poor German wife, who yet bears her lot with patience. She still loves her rough commander, even while he treats her with unmanly rudeness, and seeks to hide his weaknesses. So this true creature. Is his lord in danger? he defends him to the last, and often renders him the most signal services in skirmishes with the Knoten; yea, he hesitates not to attack the sacred person of the beadle. He is denied admittance to the duel, because he would speedily, as an uninvited second, spring between the combatants, and as some a.s.sert, on account of such accidents as the following. A duellist had his nose cut off, and a large bull-dog which was in the room--perhaps they had forgot to give him his dinner--greedily swallowed it; so greedily, that it was impossible to prevent it! Whether the unnosed Bursche had a new one made for him by Geheimrath Grafe, or whether he afterwards wore a silver one, I am not prepared to say.

The student dog extends his student life far beyond that of his master, who turns him over into the hands of another on his own departure. It thus happens that many of these creatures travel from one hand to another, till, finally, they belong to no individual possessor but to a whole Ch.o.r.e, and live a free, unrestrained life. They then kneipe in rotation with the brethren of the Ch.o.r.e, all of whose dwellings they are acquainted with; and if they appear a little lost during the rest of the day, yet they are regularly found at the places of public meeting for social enjoyment. There was, for instance, the little Tambourle here, which for many years lived only on sugar, which it received from the coffee-drinkers in a well-known coffee-house. At every fresh cup it demanded two or three pieces of sugar, as its established toll.

It is also gratifying to see, when these welcome guests are grown old and weak, how the other dogs receive them, and stand strictly by these Bemossed Heads when they are attacked by the vulgarer dogs of the streets. The cultivated dog is no longer a merely carnivorous animal, he has accustomed himself to a variety of food; but it is perhaps the peculiar characteristic of the student's dog that he drinks beer. Once used to it, it becomes his greatest enjoyment to empty a few choppins, and he seems not at all to dislike the phantasies of a half-fuddled state. To him by no means applies what Voigt has added to Linnaeus's characteristic of the dog--"he draws himself back at the sight of a gla.s.s."

The son of the Muses can as little be without his pipe as his dog. The enjoyment which it affords him, is at once single and manifold. It embellishes his pleasures, it comforts him in trouble, it warms him in the cold, it cools him in the heat of summer. Should ennui seize him, he fills his pipe, turns to his study, and what a fulness of thought comes over him as he gazes into the clouds of smoke, which, curling up from his mouth, shape themselves into mysterious forms! There lies in it a power of inexhaustible reproduction. And how shall his wine and his beer smack without his pipe? In short, it is a discovery which wonderfully unites in itself all opposite qualities. With all the parts and attributes thereunto belonging, it const.i.tutes, when displayed upon his walk, his room an armoury, which the tender hands of the ladies do not even disdain to embellish.

Of the continued changes which pipes in the course of time undergo in their fashion and construction, many cabinets would convince us, did they only contain a collection of ten years' duration. We have no intention to weary the reader with the description of such a cabinet; but he will allow us to state of what members a modern pipe consists, and what is necessary to its complete use and enjoyment.

The essential portions of a pipe are the mouth-piece, the tube, the water-sack, and the head. The two last pieces are united in the meerschaum and the clay-pipe into one. The mouth-piece, at the upper part, is wrought out of horn. It is made thicker or thinner, longer or shorter, with a greater or less bore, as it may be required. The long mouth-pieces, having various part.i.tions, or members, as they are called, are so finely wrought that they are quite elastic, and are sold at a proportionate price. The mouth-piece is commonly united to the tube by an elastic portion called a Schlauch, which is constructed of elastic wire and silk. If the pipe is intended to be a very handsome one, there is still another piece interposed between the schlauch and the tube, which is made of roe's-horn, and styled the roe-crown. The tube itself is manufactured from various materials; the coa.r.s.er ones out of juniper-wood, or cherry-tree, the finer ones out of beech and ebony; but that which is most highly valued, on account of its durability and agreeable odour, is the Turkish weichsel, or agriot, a kind of wild cherry. The tubes are, again, of different lengths and thickness, from a span in length to some yards. The Turkish pipes are the longest.

To the tube is generally affixed the water-sack, called also by the northern Germans the sponge-box; a little reservoir, of wedgewood or porcelain. For elegant pipes still more beautiful, but less useful ones, are made of horn.

The pipe-head is, however, the part on which the most cost, art, and ornament are bestowed. The lower part of it, which, tapering away, is fitted into the water-sack, is called the boot. The head is adorned with a variety of paintings and inscriptions. We see upon them, as upon snuff-boxes, many humorous occurrences perpetuated. They are enriched with the portraits of handsome women and celebrated men, and the painting is sometimes so beautiful as to raise their price to several _Louisdore_ each. The students are accustomed to compliment each other with presents of pipe-heads, ornamented with their coats of arms, and a dedication on the reverse side.

All the various sections of the pipe are so fitted to each other that you can readily separate them, in order to clean them; but they are prevented from separating when in use, by silk cords which pa.s.s through small metallic rings, and are secured at top and bottom. These cords serve also to hang them up by. On the pipes of the Ch.o.r.e-Burschen the cords proceeding from the head to the mouth-piece, are not only secured but continued, and hanging down at liberty, bear the coloured Ch.o.r.e-ta.s.sels.

The student uses in the course of the day, different pipes. In the morning he gladly smokes out of a Turkish pipe, if such a one is at his command. This has a small mouth-piece, a long tube, and a meerschaum head, which gives it its greater value. It is on this account so highly esteemed; the student a.s.serting that no pipe smokes so pleasantly; but its price, if it be genuine, varies from two to six, or more, Louisdores. The material out of which the real meerschaum head is made, is dug in Spain, Portugal, and the ancient Thebes, and consists of a silicious clay, in chemical combination with water. The other heads are made of various materials, and the most usual are of porcelain or wedgewood.

The meerschaum, called by the Turks (Myrsen, Keffekil), the material out of which the ancient Samian vessels were made, is yet used in Turkey for the manufacture of pipe-heads; of which only the smaller kinds are allowed to be exported. It is chiefly dug in ancient Thebes, and is by no means employed in its crude state, but undergoes a manipulation, similar to that of the porcelain paste. It is exposed to a certain process of fermentation; the softened ma.s.s is diluted and washed, then half dried, pressed in moulds, and bored whilst in them.

The heads thus formed are then dried in the shade, and afterwards hard burnt in the furnace. After this they are boiled in milk, then in linseed oil or wax, and finally polished with Dutch rush (equisetum) and leather. The finest formed heads--washed ware--may not be exported, although the Turks on the whole prefer the heads made from burnt Bole.

As the Turkish heads are not considered handsome in shape, and have too narrow a bore, they are again turned and rebored at Ruhia in the district of Gotha, and being brought to a more modern form, are then boiled in tallow or wax, and again polished. The turnings are used in the preparation of imitation meerschaum heads, which are more brittle and less lasting than the real ones. In these heads manufactured in Lemgo, there is no real meerschaum clay used, but a mixture of clay, chalk, and egg-sh.e.l.ls. These heads are heavier and more frangible than the genuine; they more readily become rough and unclean, and take a metallic streak from gold or silver, which is not the case with meerschaum heads.--_Leonhard's Oryktognosie_.

A new pipe requires great care in bringing it into use, till it is as it is phrased, besmoked, or seasoned; that is, till the inside of the pipe-head is coated with a black crust of finely cemented-together tobacco dust. Till this is effected the pipe has not a good flavour, and it requires to be well and vigorously smoked out. To promote this seasoning, it is customary to smear the inside of the head with sugar-water, before it is filled with tobacco. This seasoning of the meerschaum head is particularly difficult. While it is warm, during the first time of smoking, it must not be touched with the fingers; it must be suffered to cool slowly, and must be protected from being touched or rubbed by any thing.

The long pipes, called house-pipes, serve the Burschen usually at the Kneips; the very short one, on their walks, or when out shooting, as a long one might then be inconvenient. That there are people who extravagantly carry their luxury so far as, from year to year, at all times and seasons, to smoke genuine meerschaum pipes, any one may, to his astonishment, read in Bulwer's Ernest Maltravers.

The white clay pipes, which were formerly in general use, are no longer used by the student; but they may be daily seen in the mouths of countrymen.

Thus we have put together a right n.o.ble pipe, and will now take a peep at the apparatus requisite to its enjoyment. The most indispensable, certainly, is tobacco. To lecture on the various qualities of this article, we want both patience and sufficient knowledge. How many descending steps are there between the finest Knaster, and the weed which fumes up rank and qualmish from the pipe of the wood-cutter! The worst sort is jocosely called "three times round the body for a farthing," which may fittingly be smoked over that liquor called "three-men wine," because it would require two men to hold a man while the third forced this Tartarian wine down his throat.

Much luxury is expended over that little ornamental repository for the preservation of this precious commodity--the so-called tobacco-casket Abroad the student carries the narcotic herb with him in a tobacco-pouch, which is often ornamented with embroidery by some fair hand. The long and thickly-piled together strips of paper (spills), which are used to light the pipes, are in Germany known by the name of "Fidibus," and its derivation from "fidelibus patribus," the jolly monks, shows that these good fellows did not despise the enjoyment of tobacco, when they could in private breathe its beatifying fumes.

Another yet similar derivation is the following. At the time when the students were forbidden to smoke tobacco, they had private smoking-companies, where the host sent round a Latin bill with the following contents, which the student who agreed to go to it, undersigned not with his real, but with a purposely a.s.sumed name:

Fid. Ibus.

S. D. N. H.

Hodie hora vii. a. v. s.

That is, Fidelibus fratribus salutem dicit N. hospes. Hodie hora septima (apparebit in museo meo, herba Nicotiana) abunde vobis satisfaciam. As soon as they all were a.s.sembled, they placed themselves in a circle, and each lit his pipe with his bill, as a Fid....ibus offering--whence arose the term Fidibus.

The inconsumable Fidibus is a new invention with which our English friend, Mr. Traveller, was struck in the lodging of Freisleben, and in his notes thereon very graphically described.

When we have smoked a while, it is necessary to press together the ma.s.s which has expanded itself proudly in the pipe head, and for this purpose is used a sort of stamper, or stopper, also furnished with a k.n.o.b of wood. This instrument has received a variety of names. In Heidelberg it is called _Dentsch_,--a name coined for the cogent reason that it will rhyme with _mensch_, without which the poet would find himself in what the Americans call, an "eternal fix." Another name is Melibocus, after the mountain on the Bergstra.s.se. In this instrument there is generally contained a wire, which you can draw out in order to give air to the clogged up part of your pipe. It is thus at once a stopper and an opener.

The process of smoking is a species of distillation, whereby the water-sack, as a receiver, takes off the fluid product, while the fume pa.s.ses into the still-head, and is thence conveyed to the mouth, where it achieves its narcotic purposes, and thence is again discharged into the air. It is to be expected that this chemical apparatus will from time to time require cleaning; and for this end is used a small feather for the shorter tubes, and for the longer ones the fine clear stalk of a peculiarly tall and strong kind of gra.s.s (Luzula maxima) which grows in the woods. Some poor imp, unfit for other work, undertakes to furnish the smoker with this necessary article, and those who gather them in the woody hills round Heidelberg, even extend their trade in them as far as Mannheim and Karlsruhe. When the stranger mounts up to the ruins of Heidelberg castle, he is often accosted by this _Binsen-Bube_ or _Blumen-Bube_, Rush-boy or Flower-boy, as he is called, who, with most graceful obeisances, presents him with a small nosegay, and patiently waits for a substantial token of its acceptance.

This is the great gatherer and furnisher of the _Binsen_, or rush, as it is unbotanically called, for the fumiferous public.

The cigar, which we must not forget, is much less affected by the student. Yet he sometimes prefers it to a pipe, over a cup of coffee; and then is he accustomed, with great satisfaction, to drive forth the smoke through his nostrils, in order to make himself thoroughly conscious of his luxury.

If the reader has held out actually to the end of this dissertation on smoking, then we are very certain that the general and determined smoking in Germany has arrested his attention. We do not pretend to offer a reason for the remarkable growth of the practice of smoking amongst us during the last ten or twenty years. It seems to us somewhat far-fetched to a.s.sign as the cause, as has been done by a learned German writer, that it is a natural necessity to dull and modify to a healthful degree the all too dominant nervous sensibility and imaginative susceptibility of the over-refined, and especially of the learned, man.

We may remark, in conclusion, that, amongst the students, snuff-taking is much less common than smoking: and, having thus sufficiently described, to our fancy, the two most constant companions of the Son of the Muses, his dog and his pipe, we may now, without further care, leave him to follow his labours, and amus.e.m.e.nts in such good company.

CHAPTER X.

RURAL AND SUMMER AMUs.e.m.e.nTS OF THE STUDENTS.

The natural beauties of Heidelberg are well known abroad. Who is he who has looked upon its picturesque environs with a healthful mind, and has not been enraptured with them? Therefore, the son of the Muses, who is here pa.s.sing his student years, eagerly hastens out in the lovely days of summer into the free regions of nature that lie around. The walks in the immediate vicinity of the city are diligently trodden by him. Above all, the castle enjoys the frequent visits of the student youth in thronging numbers. The student is to be met here every hour of the day, but he still more loves to survey here the beauties of a moonlight night. Leaning over the terrace, he looks down upon the city as it lies in its solemn silence stretched along the bank of the Neckar. Its inhabitants, with all their troubles and pleasures,--his companions, with all the pursuits and pa.s.sions of restless youth, are hushed into deep slumber. He only wakes, but the hours which he steals from sleep are not lost. He glances wide over the plain of the Pfalz, which, illuminated by the moon's uncertain light, offers to the eye no longer its boundary of hills. Opposite to him, the castle rears its gigantic pile, and varying its outlines with every change of the moonlight, challenges the imagination to equal its bold features in its highest flights. The moon now advances from behind some envious cloud, and the windows of the palace of Otto Heinrich appear magically lit up, and it seems again to stand in all the splendour of past ages. But the solitary watcher has unconsciously wandered forward till he finds himself standing close to the spot where Matthieson sung his elegy.

Suddenly all falls back into shade, and before him stands a sublime image of the wrath and pa.s.sions of man--the rifted tower--one part blown up and hurled, in one mighty ma.s.s, into the moat. In the vaulted chambers of the yet standing portion, the mysterious forms of heroes long gone down to the dust, seem to erect themselves, and to cry wo over the desolating fury of the French. The wanderer feels a momentary shiver pa.s.s through him--but he glances up to heaven, which expands above him in its glorious clearness--an image of divine peace and rest; the owl, with its dismal shout of joy, brings him back from his dreams, and in silence he descends to the silent city.

How sweet 'tis in the air!

No hateful tyrant there Scathes Nature's fair reign.

No base adulator, No slanderous traitor, Empoisons the plain.

_Salis_.

The cool shades of the Wolfsbrunnen afford the student a delicious retreat in the heat of a summer's day; and many another spot of the vicinity are sought by him with equal delight, which have been already often sketched and described.

This is not the place to attempt it, and were it, we should despair of saying any thing more on the natural beauties of Heidelberg; but we cannot resist quoting a few pa.s.sages from a very popular article on Heidelberg in the Halle Year-Book.

After the author has described the view from the balcony of the castle, he says, "While in the youthful mind the sentiment of an infinite fulness of life springs up from those rich and wide prospects, the stiller and more secret charms of the environs of Heidelberg allure it to thoughtful and more intimate observations of nature. The dark shadowy paths of the casile gardens invite to solitary walks. Every where on all hands hidden glens lead away into the mountains, and winding pathways provoke to farther advances, and conduct to continually fresh discoveries of charming valleys and woods, new views in the distance, and more romantic places of repose. At one place we quit the view of the ruin and the plain, where serene but busy life displays itself; a few steps forward, and the most profound solitude receives us; instead of the laughing fields and sloping vineyards, solemn thick beech woods, in which for hours we meet no trace of human existence, engulf us. We bury ourselves in the depths of the Odenwald--then suddenly we stand on the airy peak of the mountain, or a wide ravine rends itself out of the hill-side before us, and there again lies in our view the whole magnificence of the Rhine-plain at our feet! We see in the distance the ancient Worms, and the towers of Speir, and of Trifells, where King Richard sate in captivity; and yonder the ruins of the castle of Hambach; and in this one glance comes before us a vast fragment of history--the Niebelungen Lied, and the old holy Roman Empire, with its secular and spiritual Electors and Princes under the Emperor, and Luther before the Diet. And then sweep before us the Crusades; and then again the times in which the wild troops of Turenne came hither from behind that Rhine-stream, the French soldiers playing at ball, as they came, in the Dome of Speir, with the skulls of German kings; and finally, the latest scenes of the past, when upon that castle of Hambach the German and the French tricolour flapped on the same standard staff. And these histories which we have lived over again in this one view, are not yet dead and worn out, but still plant themselves in the very heart of the present, and intertwine themselves beneath our feet there, in many an intricate winding. A network of boundaries lies before us; every fresh glance falls on a fresh territory--upon a different race of the German people. There, towards the south, the ancient Swabia shadows itself forth; here, northward, Hesse divides itself from the Pfalz; there, beyond the river, contends the active French spirit against the strict old Bavarian discipline, and nourishes itself with its beloved traditions and daring hopes.

Still farther off can we look into this very France itself, which for centuries has been so fatally disastrous to us. Those steam-vessels which cover the Rhine, and bear in them travellers of all nations, are ready to convey us upward to the foot of the Alps, or downward to the sea; and the busy and restless traffic, which moving between these points daily rushes to and fro, past us, there presses itself into the very centre of our field of vision."