THE LENNESTRASSE.
The Drakes mentioned in my sister’s journal are the family of the
sculptor, to whom Berlin and many another German city owe such splendid
works of art.
He was also one of our neighbours, and a warm friendship bound him and
his young wife to my mother. He was kind to us children, too, and had
us in his studio, which was connected with the house like the other and
larger one in the Thiergarten. He even gave us a bit of clay to shape. I
have often watched him at work for hours, chattering to him, but happier
still to listen while he told us of his childhood when he was a
poor boy. He exhorted us to be thankful that we were better off, but
generally added that he would not exchange for anything in the world
those days when he went barefoot. His bright, clear artist’s eyes
sparkled as he spoke, and it must indeed have been a glorious
satisfaction to have conquered the greatest hindrances by his own might,
and to have raised himself to the highest pinnacle of life--that of art.
I had a dim impression of this when he talked to us, and now I consider
every one enviable who has only himself to thank for all he is, like
Drake, his friend in art Ritschl, and my dear friend Josef Popf, in
Rome, all three laurel-crowned masters in the art of sculpture.
In Drake’s studio I saw statues, busts, and reliefs grow out of the rude
mass of clay; I saw the plaster cast turned into marble, and the master,
with his sure hand, evoking splendid forms from the primary limestone.
What I could not understand, the calm, kindly man explained with
unfailing patience, and so I got an early insight into the sculptor’s
creative art.
It was these recollections of my childhood that suggested to me the
character of little Pennu in Uarda, of Polykarp in Homo Sum, of Pollux
in The Emperor, and the cheery Alexander in Per Aspera.
I often visited also, during my last years in Berlin, the studio of
another sculptor. His name was Streichenberg, and his workshop was in
our garden in the Linkstrasse.
If a thoughtful earnestness was the rule in Drake’s studio, in that of
Prof. Streichenberg artistic gaiety reigned. He often whistled or sang
at his work, and his young Italian assistant played the guitar. But
while I still know exactly what Drake executed in our presence, so that
I could draw the separate groups of the charming relief, the Genii of
the Thiergarten, I do not remember a single stroke of Streichenberg’s
work, though I can recall all the better the gay manner of the artist
whom we again met in 1848 as a demagogue.
At the Schmidt school Franz and Paul Meyerheim were among our comrades,
and how full of admiration I was when one of them--Franz, I think, who
was then ten or eleven years old--showed us a hussar he had painted
himself in oil on a piece of canvas! The brothers took us to their home,
and there I saw at his work their kindly father, the creator of so many
charming pictures of country and child life.
There was also a member of the artist family of the Begas, Adalbert,
who was one of our contemporaries and playmates, some of whose beautiful
portraits I saw afterward, but whom, to my regret, I never met again.
Most memorable of all were our meetings with Peter Cornelius, who also
lived in the Lennestrasse. When I think of him it always seems as if
he were looking me in the face. Whoever once gazed into his eyes could
never forget them. He was a little man, with waxen-pale, and almost
harsh, though well-formed features, and smooth, long, coal-black hair.
He might scarcely have been noticed save for his eyes, which overpowered
all else, as the sunlight puts out starlight. Those eyes would have
drawn attention to him anywhere. His peculiar seriousness and his
aristocratic reserve of manner were calculated to keep children at a
distance, even to repel them, and we avoided the stern little man whom
we had heard belonged to the greatest of the great. When he and his
amiable wife became acquainted with our mother, however, and he called
us to him, it is indescribable how his harsh features softened in the
intercourse with us little ones, till they assumed an expression of
the utmost benevolence, and with what penetrating, I might say fatherly
kindness, he talked and even jested with us in his impressive way. I
had the best of it, for my blond curly head struck him as usable in some
work of his, and my mother readily consented to my being his model. So
I had to keep still several hours day after day, though I confess, to
my shame, that I remember nothing about the sittings except having eaten
some particularly good candied fruit.
Even now I smile at the recollection of his making an angel or a spirit
of peace out of the wild boy who perhaps just before had been scuffling
with the enemy from the flower-cellar.
There was another celebrated inhabitant of the Lennestrasse whose
connection with us was still closer than that of Peter Cornelius. It was
the councillor of consistory and court chaplain Strauss, who lived at
No. 3.
Two men more unlike than he and his great artist-neighbour can hardly be
imagined, though their cradles were not far apart, for the painter was
born in Dusseldorf, and the clergyman at Iserlohn, in Westphalia.
Cornelius appears to me like a peculiarly delicate type of the Latin
race, while Strauss might be called a prototype of the sturdy Lower
Saxons. Broad-shouldered, stout, ruddy, with small but kindly blue eyes,
and a resonant bass voice suited to fill great spaces, he was always at
his ease and made others easy. He had a touch of the assured yet fine
dignity of a well-placed and well-educated Catholic prelate, though
combined with the warlike spirit of a Protestant.
Looking more closely at his healthy face, it revealed not only
benevolent amiability but superior sense and plain traces of that cheery
elasticity of soul which gave him such power over the hearts of the
listening congregation, and the disposition and mind of the king.
His religious views I do not accept, but I believe his strictly orthodox
belief was based upon conviction, and cannot be charged to any odious
display of piety to ingratiate himself with the king. It was in the time
of our boyhood that Alexander von Humboldt, going once with the king
to church, in Potsdam, in answer to the sneering question how he, who
passed for a freethinker at court, could go to the house of God, made
the apt reply, “In order to get on, your Excellency.”
When Strauss met us in the street and called to us with a certain
unction in his melodious voice, “Good-morning, my dear children in
Christ!” our hearts went out to him, and it seemed as if we had received
a blessing. He and his son Otto used to call me “Marcus Aurelius,” on
account of my curly blond head; and how often did he put his strong hand
into my thick locks to draw me toward him!
Strauss was in the counsels of the king, Frederick William IV, and at
important moments exercised an influence on his political decisions. Yet
that somewhat eccentric prince could not resist his inclination to make
cheap jokes at Strauss’s expense. After creating him court-chaplain, he
said to Alexander von Humboldt: “A trick in natural history which
you cannot copy! I have turned an ostrich (Strauss) into a bullfinch
(Dompfaffer)”--in allusion to Strauss’s being a preacher at the
cathedral (Dom).
Fritz, the worthy man’s eldest son, came to see me in Leipsic. Our
studies in the department of biblical geography had led us to different
conclusions, but our scientific views were constantly intermingled with
recollections of the Lennestrasse.
But better than he, who was much older, do I remember his brother Otto,
then a bright, amiable young man, and his mother, who was from the Rhine
country, a warm-hearted, kindly woman of aristocratic bearing.
Our mother had a very high opinion of the court chaplain, who had
christened us all and afterward confirmed my sisters, and officiated
at Martha’s marriage. But, much as she appreciated him as a friend
and counsellor, she could not accept his strict theology. Though she
received the communion at his hands, with my sisters, she preferred
the sermons of the regimental chaplain, Bollert, and later those of
the excellent Sydow. I well remember her grief when Bollert, whose free
interpretation of Scripture had aroused displeasure at court, was sent
to Potsdam.
I find an amusing echo of the effect of this measure in Paula’s journal,
and it would have been almost impossible for a growing girl of active
mind to take no note of opinions which she heard everywhere expressed.
Our entire circle was loyal; especially Privy-Councillor Seiffart, one
of our most intimate friends, a sarcastic Conservative, who was credited
with the expresssion, “The limited intellect of subjects,” which,
however, belonged to his superior, Minister von Rochow. Still, almost
all my mother’s acquaintances, and the younger ones without exception,
felt a desire for better political conditions and a constitution for the
brave, loyal, reflecting, and well-educated Prussian people. In the
same house with us lived two men who had suffered for their political
convictions--the brothers Grimm. They had been ejected from their chairs
among the seven professors of Gottingen, who were sacrificed to the
arbitrary humour of King Ernst August of Hanover.
Their dignified figures are among the noblest and most memorable
recollections of the Lennestrasse. They were, it might be said, one
person, for they were seldom seen apart; yet each had preserved his own
distinct individuality.
If ever the external appearance of distinguished men corresponded with
the idea formed of them from their deeds and works, it was so in their
case. One did not need to know them to perceive at the first glance
that they were labourers in the department of intellectual life, though
whether as scientists or poets even a practised observer would have
found it difficult to determine. Their long, flowing, wavy hair, and an
atmosphere of ideality which enveloped them both, might have inclined
one to the latter supposition; while the form of their brows, indicating
deep thought and severe mental labor, and their slightly stooping
shoulders, would have suggested the former. Wilhelm’s milder features
were really those of a poet, while Jakob’s sterner cast of countenance,
and his piercing eyes, indicated more naturally a searcher after
knowledge.
But just as certainly as that they both belonged to the strongest
champions of German science, the Muse had kissed them in their cradle.
Not only their manner of restoring our German legends, but almost all
their writings, give evidence of a poetical mode of viewing things,
and of an intuition peculiar to the spirit of poetry. Many of their
writings, too, are full of poetical beauties.
That both were men in the fullest meaning of the word was revealed at
the first glance. They proved it when, to stand by their convictions,
they put themselves and their families at the mercy of a problematical
future; and when, in advanced years, they undertook the gigantic work of
compiling so large and profound a German dictionary. Jakob looked as if
nothing could bend him; Wilhelm as if, though equally strong, he might
yield out of love.
And what a fascinating, I might almost say childlike, amiability was
united to manliness in both characters! Yes, theirs was indeed that
sublime simplicity which genius has in common with the children whom
the Saviour called to him. It spoke from the eyes whose gaze was
so searching, and echoed in their language which so easily mastered
difficult things, though when they condescended to play with their
children and with us, and jested so naively, we were half tempted to
think ourselves the wiser.
But we knew with what intellectual giants we had to do; no one had
needed to tell us that, at least; and when they called me to them I felt
as if the king himself had honoured me.
Only Wilhelm was married, and his wife had hardly her equal for sunny
and simple kindness of heart. A pleasanter, more motherly, sweeter
matron I never met.
Hermann, who won good rank as a poet, and was one of the very foremost
of our aesthetics, was much older than we. The tall young man, who often
walked as if he were absorbed in thought, seemed to us a peculiar and
unapproachable person. His younger brother, Rudolf, on the other hand,
was a cheery fellow, whose beauty and brightness charmed me unspeakably.
When he came along with elastic tread as if he were challenging life to
a conflict, and I saw him spring up the stairs three steps at a time,
I was delighted, and I knew that my mother was very fond of him. It was
just the same with “Gustel,” his sister, who was as amiable and kindly
as her mother.
I can still see the torchlight procession with which the Berlin students
honoured the beloved and respected brothers, and which we watched from
the Grimms’ windows because they were higher than ours. But there is
a yet brighter light of fire in my memory. It was shed by the burning
opera house. Our mother, who liked to have us participate in anything
remarkable which might be a recollection for life, took us out of our
beds to the next house, where the Seiffarts lived, and which had a
little tower on it. Thence we gazed in admiration at the ever-deepening
glow of the sky, toward which great tongues of flame kept streaming up,
while across the dusk shot formless masses like radiant spark-showering
birds. Pillars of smoke mingled with the clouds, and the metallic note
of the fire-bells calling for help accompanied the grand spectacle. I
was only six years old, but I remember distinctly that when Ludo and I
were taken to the Lutz swimming-baths next day, we found first on the
drill-ground, then on the bank of the Spree, and in the water, charred
pieces, large and small, of the side-scenes of the theatre. They were
the glowing birds whose flight I had watched from the tower of the Crede
house.
This remark reminds me how early our mother provided for our physical
development, for I clearly remember that the tutor who took us little
fellows to the bath called our attention to these bits of decoration
while we were swimming. When I went to Keilhau, at eleven years old, I
had mastered the art completely.
I did, in fact, many things at an earlier age than is customary, because
I was always associated with my brother, who was a year and a half
older.
We were early taught to skate, too, and how many happy hours we passed,
frequently with our sisters, on the ice by the Louisa and Rousseau
Islands in the Thiergarten! The first ladies who at that time
distinguished themselves as skaters were the wife and daughter of the
celebrated surgeon Dieffenbach--two fine, supple figures, who moved
gracefully over the ice, and in their fur-bordered jackets and Polish
caps trimmed with sable excited universal admiration.
On the whole, we had time enough for such things, though we lost many a
free hour in music lessons. Ludo was learning to play on the piano, but
I had chosen another instrument. Among our best friends, the three fine
sons of Privy-Councillor Oesterreich and others, there was a pleasant
boy named Victor Rubens, whose parents were likewise friends of my
mother. In the hospitable house of this agreeable family I had heard the
composer Vieuxtemps play the violin when I was nine years old. I went
home fairly enraptured, and begged my mother to let me take lessons.
My wish was fulfilled, and for many years I exerted myself zealously,
without any result, to accomplish something on the violin. I did,
indeed, attain to a certain degree of skill, but I was so little
satisfied with my own performances that I one day renounced the hope of
becoming a practical musician, and presented my handsome violin--a
gift from my grandmother--to a talented young virtuoso, the son of my
sisters’ French teacher.
The actress Crelinger, when she came to see my mother, made a great
impression on me, at this time, by her majestic appearance and her
deep, musical voice. She, and her daughter, Clara Stich, afterward Frau
Liedtcke, the splendid singer, Frau Jachmann-Wagner, and the charming
Frau Schlegel-Koster, were the only members of the theatrical profession
who were included among the Gepperts’ friends, and whose acquaintance we
made in consequence.
Frau Crelinger’s husband was a highly respected jurist and councillor of
justice, but among all the councillors’ wives by whom she was surrounded
I never heard her make use of her husband’s title. She was simply “Frau”
in society, and for the public Crelinger. She knew her name had an
importance of its own. Even though posterity twines no wreaths for
actors, it is done in the grateful memory of survivors. I shall never
forget the ennobling and elevating hours I afterward owed to that great
and noble interpreter of character.
I am also indebted to Frau Jachmann-Wagner for much enjoyment both in
opera and the drama. She now renders meritorious service by fitting on
the soundest artistic principles--younger singers for the stage.
Among my mother’s papers was a humorous note announcing the arrival of a
friend from Oranienburg, and signed:
“Your faithful old dog, Runge,
Who was born in a quiet way
At Neustadt, I’ve heard say.”
He came not once, but several times. He bore the title of professor, was
a chemist, and I learned from friends versed in that science that it was
indebted to him for interesting discoveries.
He had been an acquaintance of my father, and no one who met him,
bubbling over with animation and lively wit, could easily forget him. He
had a full face and long, straight, dark hair hanging on his short neck,
while intellect and kindness beamed from his twinkling eyes. When he
tossed me up and laughed, I laughed too, and it seemed as if all Nature
must laugh with us.
I have not met so strong and original a character for many a long year,
and I was very glad to read in the autobiography of Wackernagel that
when it went ill with him in Berlin, Hoffman von Fallersleben and this
same Runge invited him to Breslau to share their poverty, which was so
great that they often did not know at night where they should get the
next day’s bread.
How many other names with and without the title of privy-councillor
occur to me, but I must not allow myself to think of them.
Fraulein Lamperi, however, must have a place here. She used to dine with
us at least once a week, and was among the most faithful adherents of
our family. She had been governess to my father and his only sister,
and later was in the service of the Princess of Prussia, afterward the
Empress Augusta, as waiting-woman.
She, too, was one of those original characters whom we never find now.
She was so clever that, incredible as it sounds, she made herself a wig
and some false teeth, and yet she came of a race whose women were not
accustomed to serve themselves with their own hands; for the blood of
the venerable and aristocratic Altoviti family of Florence flowed in her
veins. Her father came into the world as a marquis of that name, but was
disinherited when, against the will of his family, he married the dancer
Lamperi. With her he went first to Warsaw, and then to Berlin, where he
supported himself and his children by giving lessons in the languages.
One daughter was a prominent member of the Berlin ballet, the other was
prepared by a most careful education to be a governess. She gave various
lessons to my sisters, and criticised our proceedings sharply, as she
did those of her fellow-creatures in general. “I can’t help it--I Must
say what I think,” was the palliating remark which followed every severe
censure; and I owe to her the conviction that it is much easier to
express disapproval, when it can be done with impunity, than to keep it
to one’s self, as I am also indebted to her for the subject of my fairy
tale, The Elixir.
I shall return to Fraulein Lamperi, for her connection with our
family did not cease until her death, and she lived to be ninety. Her
aristocratic connections in Florence--be it said to their honour--never
repudiated her, but visited her when they came to Berlin, and the
equipage of the Italian ambassador followed at her funeral, for he, too,
belonged to her father’s kindred. The extreme kindness extended to her
by Emperor William I and his sovereign spouse solaced her old age in
various ways.
One of the dearest friends of my sister Paula and of our family knew
more of me, unfortunately, at this time than I of her. Her name was
Babette Meyer, now Countess Palckreuth. She lived in our neighbourhood,
and was a charming, graceful child, but not one of our acquaintances.
When she was grown up--we were good friends then--she told me she was
coming from school one winter day, and some boys threw snowballs at her.
Then Ludo and I appeared--“the Ebers boys” and she thought that would be
the end of her; but instead of attacking her we fell upon the boys, who
turned upon us, and drove them away, she escaping betwixt Scylla and
Charybdis.
Before this praiseworthy deed we had, however, thrown snow at a young
lady in wanton mischief. I forgive our heedlessness as we were forgiven,
but it is really a painful thought to me that we should have snowballed
a poor insane man, well known in the Thiergarten and Lennestrasse, and
who seriously imagined that he was made of glass.
I began to relate this, thinking of our uproarious laughter when the
poor fellow cried out: “Let me alone! I shall break! Don’t you hear me
clink?” Then I stopped, for my heart aches when I reflect what terrible
distress our thoughtlessness caused the unfortunate creature. We were
not bad-hearted children, and yet it occurred to none of us to put
ourselves in the place of the whimpering man and think what he suffered.
But we could not do it. A child is naturally egotistical, and unable in
such a case to distinguish between what is amusing and what is sad.
Had the cry, “It hurts me!” once fallen from the trembling lips of the
“glass man,” I think we should have thrown nothing more at him.
But our young hearts did not, under all circumstances, allow what amused
us to cast kinder feelings into the shade. The “man of glass” had
a feminine ‘pendant’ in the “crazy Frau Councillor with the velvet
envelope.” This was a name she herself had given to a threadbare
little velvet cloak, when some naughty boys--were we among them?--were
snowballing her, and she besought us not to injure her velvet envelope.
But when there was ice on the ground and one of the boys was trying
to get her on to a slide, Ludo and I interfered and prevented it.
Naturally, there was a good fight in consequence, but I am glad of it to
this day.