The weeks following my graduation were as ill suited as possible to the
decision of any serious question.
After a gay journey through Bohemia which ended in venerable Prague,
I divided my time between Hosterwitz, Blasewitz, and Dresden. In the
latter city I met among other persons, principally old friends, the son
of my uncle Brandenstein, an Austrian lieutenant on leave of absence. I
spent many a pleasant evening with him and his comrades, who were also
on leave. These young gentlemen considered the Italians, against whom
they fought, as rebels, while a cousin of my uncle, then Colonel von
Brandenstein, but afterwards promoted in the Franco-Austrian war in 1859
and 1866 to the rank of master of ordnance, held a totally different
opinion. This clever, warmhearted soldier understood the Italians and
their struggle for unity and freedom, and judged them so justly and
therefore favorably, that he often aroused the courteous opposition of
his younger comrades. I did not neglect old friends, however, and when I
did not go to the theatre in the evening I ended the day with my aunt
at Blasewitz. But, on my mother’s account, I was never long absent
from Hosterwitz. I enjoyed being with her so much. We drove and walked
together, and discussed everything the past had brought and the future
promised.
Yet I longed for academic freedom, and especially to sit at the feet of
an Ernst Curtius, and be initiated by Waitz into the methodical study of
history.
The evening before my departure my mother drove with me to Blasewitz,
where there was an elegant entertainment at which the lyric poet Julius
Hammer, the author of “Look Around You and Look Within You,” who was
to become a dear friend of mine, extolled in enthusiastic verse the
delights of student liberty and the noble sisters Learning and Poesy.
The glowing words echoed in my heart and mind after I had torn myself
from the arms of my mother and of the woman who, next to her, was
dearest to me on earth, my aunt, and was travelling toward my goal. If
ever the feeling that I was born to good fortune took possession of me,
it was during that journey.
I did not know what weariness meant, and when, on reaching Gottingen, I
learned that the students’ coffee-house was still closed and that no one
would arrive for three or four days, I went to Cassel to visit the royal
garden in Wilhelmshohe.
At the station I saw a gentleman who looked intently at me. His face,
too, seemed familiar. I mentioned my name, and the next instant he had
embraced and kissed me. Two Keilhau friends had met, and, with sunshine
alike in our hearts and in the blue sky, we set off together to see
everything of note in beautiful Cassel.
When it was time to part, Von Born told me so eagerly how many of our
old school-mates were now living in Westphalia, and how delightful it
would be to see them, that I yielded and went with him to the birthplace
of Barop and Middendorf. The hours flew like one long revel, and my
exuberant spirits made my old school-mates, who, engaged in business
enterprises, were beginning to look life solemnly in the face, feel as
if the carefree Keilhau days had returned. On going back to Gottingen, I
still had to wait a few days for the real commencement of the term, but
I was received at the station by the “Saxons,” donned the blue cap, and
engaged pleasant lodgings--though the least adapted to serious study
in the “Schonhutte,” a house in Weenderstrasse whose second story was
occupied by our corps room.
My expectations of the life with young men of congenial tastes were
completely fulfilled. Most of them belonged to the nobility, but the
beloved “blue, white, and blue” removed all distinctions of birth.
By far the most talented of its members was Count (now Prince) Otto von
Stolberg-Wernegerode, who was afterwards to hold so high a position in
the service of the Prussian Government.
Among the other scions of royal families were the hereditary Prince
Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt and his brother Henry. Both were vivacious,
agreeable young men, who entered eagerly into all the enjoyments of
student and corps life. The older brother, who died as Grand Duke,
continued his friendship for me while sovereign of his country. I was
afterwards indebted to him for the pleasure of making the acquaintance
of his wife Alice, one of the most remarkable women whom I have ever
met.--[Princess Alice of England, the daughter of Queen Victoria.-TR.]
Oh, what delightful hours we spent in the corps room, singing
and revelling, in excursions through the beautiful scenes in the
neighbourhood, and on the fencing ground, testing our strength and
skill, man to man! Every morning we woke to fresh pleasures, and every
evening closed a spring festal day, radiant with the sunlight of liberty
and the magic of friendship.
Our dinner was eaten together at the “Krone” with the most jovial of
hosts, old Betmann, whose card bore the pictures of a bed and a man.
Then came coffee, drunk at the museum or at some restaurant outside
of the city, riding, or a duel, or there was some excursion, or the
entertainment of a fellow-student from some other university, and
finally the tavern.
Many an evening also found me with some friends at the Schuttenhof,
where the young Philistines danced with the little burgher girls and
pretty dressmakers. They were all, however, of unsullied reputation, and
how merrily I swung them around till the music ceased! These innocent
amusements could scarcely have injured my robust frame, yet when some
unusual misfortune happens it is a trait of human nature to seek its
first germ in the past. I, too, scanned the period immediately preceding
my illness, but reached the conclusion that it was due to acute colds,
the first of which ran into a very violent fever.
Had the result been otherwise I certainly should not have permitted my
sons to enjoy to the utmost the happy period which in my case was too
soon interrupted.
True, the hours of the night which I devoted to study could scarcely
have been beneficial to my nervous system; for when, with burning head
and full of excitement, I returned from the tavern which was closed, by
rule, at eleven--from the “Schuttenhof,” or some ball or entertainment,
I never went to rest; that was the time I gave the intellect its due.
Legal studies were pursued during the hours of the night only at the
commencement of my stay in Gottingen, for I rarely attended the lectures
for which I had entered my name, though the brevity of the Roman
definitions of law, with which Ribbentropp’s lectures had made me
familiar, afforded me much pleasure. Unfortunately, I could not attend
the lectures of Ernst Curtius, who had just been summoned to Gottingen,
on account of the hours at which they were given. My wish to join
Waitz’s classes was also unfulfilled, but I went to those of the
philosopher Lotze, and they opened a new world to me. I was also one of
the most eager of Professor Unger’s hearers.
Probably his “History of Art” would have attracted me for its own sake,
but I must confess that at first his charming little daughter was the
sole magnet which drew me to his lectures; for on account of displaying
the pictures he delivered them at his own house.
Unfortunately, I rarely met the fair Julie, but, to make amends, I found
through her father the way to that province of investigation to which my
after-life was to be devoted.
In several lessons he discussed subtly and vividly the art of the
Egyptians, mentioning Champollion’s deciphering of the hieroglyphics.
This great intellectual achievement awakened my deepest interest. I went
at once to the library, and Unger selected the books which seemed best
adapted to give me further instruction.
I returned with Champollion’s Grammaire Hieroglyphique, Lepsius’s
Lettre a Rosellini, and unfortunately with some misleading writings by
Seyffarth.
How often afterward, returning in the evening from some entertainment, I
have buried myself in the grammar and tried to write hieroglyphics.
True, I strove still more frequently and persistently to follow the
philosopher Lotze.
Obedient to a powerful instinct, my untrained intellect had sought to
read the souls of men. Now I learned through Lotze to recognize the body
as the instrument to which the emotions of the soul, the harmonies and
discords of the mental and emotional life, owe their origin.
I intended later to devote myself earnestly to the study of
physiology, for without it Lotze could be but half understood; and from
physiologists emanated the conflict which at that time so deeply stirred
the learned world.
In Gottingen especially the air seemed, as it were, filled with
physiological and other questions of the natural sciences.
In that time of the most sorrowful reaction the political condition of
Germany was so wretched that any discussion concerning it was gladly
avoided. I do not remember having attended a single debate on that topic
in the circles of the students with which I was nearly connected.
But the great question “Materialism or Antimaterialism” still agitated
the Georgia Augusta, in whose province the conflict had assumed still
sharper forms, owing to Rudolf Wagner’s speech during the convention of
the Guttingen naturalists three years prior to my entrance.
Carl Vogt’s “Science and Bigotry” exerted a powerful influence, owing to
the sarcastic tone in which the author attacked his calmer adversary.
In the honest conviction of profound knowledge, the clever, vigorous
champion of materialism endeavoured to brand the opponents of his dogmas
with the stigma of absurdity, and those who flattered themselves with
the belief that they belonged to the ranks of the “strong-minded”
followed his standard.
Hegel’s influence was broken, Schelling’s idealism had been thrust
aside. The solid, easily accessible fare of the materialists was
especially relished by those educated in the natural sciences, and
Vogt’s maxim, that thought stands in a similar relation to the brain as
the gall to the liver and the excretions of the other organs, met
with the greater approval the more confidently and wittily it was
promulgated. The philosopher could not help asserting that the nature of
the soul could be disclosed neither by the scalpel nor the microscope;
yet the discoveries of the naturalist, which had led to the perception
of the relation existing between the psychical and material life seemed
to give the most honest, among whom Carl Vogt held the first rank; a
right to uphold their dogmas.
Materialism versus Antimaterialism was the subject under discussion
in the learned circles of Germany. Nay, I remember scarcely any other
powerful wave of the intellect visible during this period of stagnation.
Philosophy could not fail to be filled with pity and disapproval to
see the independent existence of the soul, as it were, authoritatively
reaffirmed by a purely empirical science, and also brought into the
field all the defensive forces at her command. But throngs flocked to
the camp of Materialism, for the trumpets of her leaders had a clearer,
more confident sound than the lower and less readily understood opposing
cries of the philosophers.
Vogt’s wrath was directed with special keenness against my teacher,
Lotze. These topics were rarely discussed at the tavern or among the
members of the corps. I first heard them made the subject of an animated
exchange of thought in the Dirichlet household, where Professor
Baum emerged from his aristocratic composure to denounce vehemently
materialism and its apostles. Of course I endeavoured to gain
information about things which so strongly moved intellectual men, and
read in addition to Lotze’s books the polemical writings which were at
that time in everybody’s hands.
Vogt’s caustic style charmed me, but it was not due solely to the
religious convictions which I had brought from my home and from Keilhau
that I perceived that here a sharp sword was swung by a strong arm to
cut water. The wounds it dealt would not bleed, for they were inflicted
upon a body against which it had as little power as Satan against the
cross.
When, before I became acquainted with Feuerbach, I flung my books aside,
wearied or angered, I often seized in the middle of the night my monster
Poem of the World, my tragedy of Panthea and Abradatus, or some other
poetical work, and did not retire till the wick of the lamp burned out
at three in the morning.
When I think how much time and earnest labour were lavished on that
poem, I regret having yielded to the hasty impulse to destroy it.
I have never since ventured to undertake anything on so grand a scale.
I could repeat only a few lines of the verses it contained; but the
plan of the whole work, as I rounded it in Gottingen and Hosterwitz, I
remember perfectly, and I think, if only for the sake of its peculiarity
and as the mirror of a portion of my intellectual life at that time, its
main outlines deserve reproduction here.
I made Power and Matter, which I imagined as a formless element; the
basis of all existence. These two had been cast forth by the divine
Ruler of a world incomprehensible to human intelligence, in which the
present is a moment, space a bubble, as out of harmony with the mighty
conditions and purposes of his realm. But this supreme Ruler offered to
create for them a world suited to their lower plane of existence. Power
I imagined a man, Matter a woman. They were hostile to each other,
for he despised his quiet, inert companion, she feared her restless,
unyielding partner; yet the power of the ruler of the higher world
forced them to wed.
From their loveless union sprang the earth, the stars-in short, all
inorganic life.
When the latter showed its relation to the father, Power, by the
impetuous rush of the stars through space, by terrible eruptions, etc.,
the mother, Matter, was alarmed, and as, to soothe them, she drew into
her embrace the flaming spheres, which dashed each other to pieces
in their mad career, and restrained the fiercest, her chill heart was
warmed by her children’s fire.
Thus, as it were, raised to a higher condition, she longed for less
unruly children, and her husband, Power, who, though he would have
gladly cast her off, was bound to her by a thousand ties, took pity upon
her, because her listlessness and coldness were transformed to warmth
and motion, and another child sprang from their union, love.
But she seemed to have been born to misery, and wandered mournfully
about, weeping and lamenting because she lacked an object for which to
labour. True, she drew from the flaming, smoking bodies which she kissed
a soft, beneficent light, she induced some to give up their former
impetuosity and respect the course of others, and plants and trees
sprang from the earth where her lips touched it, yet her longing to
receive something which would be in harmony with her own nature remained
unsatisfied.
But she was a lovely child and the darling of her father, whom, by her
entreaties, she persuaded to animate with his own nature the shapes
which she created in sport, those of the animals.
From this time there were living creatures moved by Power and Love.
But again they brought trouble to the mother; for they were stirred
by fierce passions, under whose influence they attacked and rent each
other. But Love did not cease to form new shapes until she attained the
most beautiful, the human form.
Yet human beings were stirred by the same feelings as the animals, and
Love’s longing for something in which she could find comfort remained
unsatisfied, till, repelled by her savage father and her listless
mother, she flung herself in despair from a rock. But being immortal,
she did not perish.
Her blood sprinkled the earth, and from her wounds exhaled an exquisite
fragrance, which rose higher and higher till it reached the realm whence
came her parents; and its supreme ruler took pity on the exile’s child,
and from the blood of Love grew at his sign a lily, from which arose,
radiant in white garments, Intellect, which the Most High had breathed
into the flower.
He came from that higher world to ours, but only a vague memory of his
former home was permitted, lest he should compare his present abode with
the old one and scorn it.
As soon as he met Love he was attracted towards her, and she ardently
accepted his suit; yet the first embrace chilled her, and her fervour
startled and repelled him. So, each fearing the other’s tenderness,
they shunned each other, though an invincible charm constantly drew them
together.
Love continued to yearn for him even after she had sundered the bond;
but he often yielded to the longing for his higher home, of whose
splendours he retained a memory, and soared upward. Yet whenever he drew
near he was driven back to the other.
There he directed sometimes with Love, sometimes alone, the life of
everything in the universe, or in unison with her animated men with his
breath.
He did this sometimes willingly, sometimes reluctantly, with greater or
less strength, according to the nearness he had attained to his heavenly
home; but when he had succeeded in reaching its circle of light, he
returned wonderfully invigorated. Then whoever Love and he joined in
animating with their breath became an artist.
There was also a thoroughly comic figure and one with many humorous
touches. Intellect’s page, Instinct, who had risen from the lily with
him, was a comical fellow. When he tried to follow his master’s flight
he fell after the first few strokes of his wings, and usually among
nettles. Only when some base advantage was to be gained on earth did
this servant succeed better than his master. The mother, Matter, whom
for the sake of the verse I called by her Greek name Hyle, was
also invested with a shade of comedy as a dissatisfied wife and the
mother-in-law of Intellect.
In regard to the whole Poem of the World I will observe that, up to the
time I finished the last line, I had never studied the kindred systems
of the Neo-Platonics or the Gnostics.
The verses which described the moment when Matter drew her fiery
children to her heart and thus warmed it, another passage in which men
who were destitute of intellect sought to destroy themselves and
Love resolved to sacrifice her own life, and, lastly, the song where
Intellect rises from the lily, besides many others, were worthy, in my
opinion, of being preserved.
What first diverted my attention from the work was, as has been
mentioned, the study of Feuerbach, to which I had been induced by a
letter from the geographer Karl Andree. I eagerly seized his books,
first choosing his “Axioms of the Philosophy of the Future,” and
afterwards devoured everything he had written which the library
contained. And at that time I was grateful to my friend the geographer
for his advice. True, Feuerbach seemed to me to shatter many things
which from a child I had held sacred; yet I thought I discovered behind
the falling masonry the image of eternal truth.
The veil which I afterwards saw spread over so many things in
Feuerbach’s writings at that time produced the same influence upon me
as the mist whence rise here the towers, yonder the battlements of a
castle. It might be large or small; the grey mist which forbids the eye
from definitely measuring its height and width by no means prevents the
traveller, who knows that a powerful lord possesses the citadel, from
believing it to be as large and well guarded as the power of its ruler
would imply.
True, I was not sufficiently mature for the study of this great thinker,
whom I afterwards saw endanger other unripe minds. As a disciple of this
master there were many things to be destroyed which from childhood
had become interlaced by a thousand roots and fibres with my whole
intellectual organism, and such operations are not effected without
pain.
What I learned while seeking after truth during those night hours ought
to have taught me the connection between mind and body; yet I was never
farther from perceiving it. A sharp division had taken place in my
nature. By night, in arduous conflict, I led a strange mental life,
known to myself alone; by day all this was forgotten, unless--and how
rarely this happened--some conversation recalled it.
From my first step out of doors I belonged to life, to the corps, to
pleasure. What was individual existence, mortality, or the eternal life
of the soul! Minerva’s bird is an owl. Like it, these learned questions
belonged to the night. They should cast no shadow on the brightness of
my day. When I met the first friend in the blue cap no one need have
sung our corps song, “Away with cares and crotchets!”
At no time had the exuberant joy in mere existence stirred more strongly
within me. My whole nature was filled with the longing to utilize and
enjoy this brief earthly life which Feuerbach had proved was to end with
death.
Better an hour’s mad revel,
E’en a kiss from a Moenad’s lip,
Than a year of timid doubting,
Daring only to taste and sip,
were the closing lines of a song which I composed at this time.
So my old wantonness unfolded its wings, but it was not to remain always
unpunished.
My mother had gone to Holland with Paula just before Advent, and as I
could not spend my next vacation at home, she promised to furnish me
with means to take a trip through the great German Hanse cities.
In Bremen I was most cordially received in the family of Mohr, a member
of my corps, in whose circle I spent some delightful hours, and also an
evening never to be forgotten in the famous old Rathskeller.
But I wished to see the harbour of the great commercial city, and the
ships which ploughed the ocean to those distant lands for which I had
often longed.
Since I had shot my first hare in Komptendorf and brought down my
first partridge from the air, the love of sport had never slumbered;
I gratified it whenever I could, and intended to take a boat from
Bremerhaven and go as near as possible to the sea, where I could shoot
the cormorants and the bald-headed eagles which hunters on the seashore
class among the most precious booty.
In Bremerhaven an architect whose acquaintance I had made on the way
became my cicerone, and showed me all the sights of the small but very
quaint port. I had expected to find the bustle on shore greater, but
what a throng of ships and boats, masts and smoke-stacks I saw!
My guide showed me the last lighthouse which had been built, and took me
on board of a mail steamer which was about to sail to America.
I was deeply interested in all this, but my companion promised to
show me things still more remarkable if I would give up my shooting
excursion.
Unfortunately, I insisted upon my plan, and the next morning sailed in
a pouring rain through a dense mist to the mouth of the Weser and out
to sea. But, instead of pleasure and booty, I gained on this expedition
nothing but discomfort and drenching, which resulted in a violent cold.
What I witnessed and experienced in my journey back to Cuttingen is
scarcely worth mentioning. The only enjoyable hours were spent at the
theatre in Hanover, where I saw Niemann in Templar and Jewess, and for
the first time witnessed the thoroughly studied yet perfectly natural
impersonations of Marie Seebach. I also remember with much pleasure the
royal riding-school in charge of General Meyer. Never have I seen the
strength of noble chargers controlled and guided with so much firmness,
ease, and grace as by the hand of this officer, the best horseman in
Germany.