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THE PICTURES;
THE BETROTHING.
NOVELS,
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
OF
LEWIS TIECK.
* * * * *
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR GEO. B. WHITTAKER,
AVE-MARIA-LANE.
1825.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON. WHITEFRIARS.
THE
TRANSLATOR TO THE READER.
A tale ought never to stand in need of a preface or commentary. The
best are those which are the most strictly national and in the highest
sense of the word popular, which touch immediately the sympathies of
the living generation, and display the common elements of our nature,
the purely human, under the social relations most familiar to the
author and the reader. For then essence and form are most intimately,
because naturally and unconsciously blended; neither is exclusively
studied, or sacrificed to the other. But even when it is the poet's
endeavour, as it is often the highest exercise of his high vocation, to
recall the image of the past with its individual peculiarities, to
refresh the fading colours of an important, but half-forgotten period,
to catch and raise the faint tones of an expiring tradition; when even
his historical groundwork is fixed in a remote age and a foreign scene,
still the tale ought to contain every thing necessary for it to be
fully felt and understood within itself. It should not only be
completely independent of any formal introduction or addition, but
should even be able to dispense with the aid of those digressions and
reflexions and elaborate descriptions, which are in fact only prefaces
out of their place, or notes taken up into the text, and which
sometimes disfigure even the best of our modern novels, and dispel the
illusion created by the poet's genius, by taking us behind his magic
lantern and shewing us the machinery of his art. This will apply in
most cases to translations of such works. It may however sometimes
happen, that a tale perfectly intelligible and luminous in the circle
of readers for which it was designed may to a different public seem
obscure, or give occasion for misapprehension. Such is most frequently
the case with those which belong most exclusively to the age and
country of the writer, when he does not merely aim at exhibiting human
nature clothed in the existing forms of society, but takes for his
immediate theme the spirit and tendency of the times in which he lives,
the principles and opinions, the tastes and the pursuits of his
generation. In works of this nature many things will be taken for
granted, many slightly alluded to, with which a foreigner is
imperfectly, if at all, acquainted; the whole representation may wear a
partial aspect, which, though in the society where it originated it may
be sure of finding sufficient correctives, may elsewhere perplex and
mislead.
The two little works here presented to the public fall within this
exception to the general remark, and the Translator felt that he should
not be doing them full justice, if he were not to preface them with a
few words of introduction. Their beauty it is true can hardly fail to
strike even those who are least conversant with the state of things out
of which they arose, and of which they exhibit several interesting
sides, but still without some additional explanations every part might
not be sufficiently clear to the English reader, and the whole might
appear to him in a false light, and perhaps lose its highest interest
and meaning.
Little more than half a century has passed, since Germany began to
rouse herself from the state of lethargy which followed the convulsive
struggles produced by the Reformation. She awoke, and found herself
shorn of her strength, greatness and glory. The empire, reduced to the
shadow of an august name, was hastening toward its dissolution. All
sentiments of an enlarged patriotism were absorbed in particular and
provincial interests and prejudices. The very idea of national union
seemed to be lost with the great national recollections. There was no
feeling of pride in the past, no consciousness of a glorious
inheritance to inspire hope and confidence in the future. The
degenerate descendant walked among the mighty monuments of the power,
the genius, the art and spirit of his ancestors, with stupid unconcern
or contemptuous wonder. A German school of art, a German literature
were things neither believed in nor desired; that they had ever existed
was forgotten; the memorials of them were left to sleep among the
neglected lumber of history. The attention and patronage of the great
were engrossed by productions of foreign growth; above all the
language, the literature and manners of France exercised a despotic
sway over the higher and educated classes. The peculiar virtues of the
German character, the native strength of the German intellect, were
slighted, concealed, and as far as possible suppressed, while the
artificial graces of an exotic refinement were affectedly displayed,
and became the only pass into good society. The well-bred mimics
strutted in their borrowed plumes with all the vanity, though not quite
all the ease of their originals, and prided themselves on their
successful imitation, without perceiving how awkwardly the foreign
frippery sat on them, and how their ungainly movements betrayed them at
every step, and exposed them even to the polite ridicule of their
masters. The principles and opinions which had long been prevalent in
France, and now began to be loudly expressed and industriously
disseminated every where, were very extensively diffused over Germany
together with the literature by which they had been carried to their
highest maturity and perfection. They were maintained speculatively and
practically by some earnest and zealous advocates, and found a very
strong predisposition in their favour among the persons and classes who
were most interested in opposing them, and who, having adopted and
cherished and even ostentatiously displayed them as modish
distinctions, afterwards, when the inconvenient consequences stared
them in the face, began, with a dissimulation too gross and palpable to
attain its object, publicly to discountenance and check them. In the
meanwhile they exerted a powerful and pernicious influence on the great
concerns of human life, morals, politics and religion. The reign of
light, liberality and common sense was every where proclaimed; objects
formerly deemed great, awful and holy, were brought down by ingenious
accommodations to the level of ordinary capacities, and men were
surprized to find how they had been abused by imposing names, when they
saw what had once appeared to them too vast and mighty for the
imagination to compass reduced to dimensions which they could so easily
grasp. Hopes were entertained, that an enlightened system of education
might destroy the germ of such mischief for the future, and that it
might be possible, if not in all cases to eradicate inveterate
prejudices, yet to prevent the seeds of them from lodging in the
breasts of the young, by suppressing the first feelings of wonder,
faith and love; and that the rising generation, trained in the
principles of a calculating morality, a cosmopolitan independence and a
reflecting religion, might be effectually secured from the influence of
all the bugbears and charms that had ever awed or fascinated the world.
But notwithstanding this false and unnatural tendency of the public
mind, the prospect, though here and there clouded and threatening, was
not absolutely cheerless and unpromising. The heart of Germany was
still sound and entire, and the foreign cultivation, in spite of the
activity with which it was conducted, could not find a congenial soil.
Even when the moral and intellectual imbecility and dependence were at
their height, the great mass of the people remained uncorrupted and
unperverted. The soul of poetry and the life of religion had retreated
from the crown and topmost branches toward the root of society, and
there, while the sere and many-coloured leaves trembled on the boughs,
preserved the hope of a coming spring. Among the middling and lower
classes, particularly in situations exempt from the contagion of
courtly example, the faith, the traditions and the manners of former
times flourished in happy obscurity, and in proportion as they were
despised and rejected by the great and the refined were held dear by
the common man, and kept his heart warm, his imagination fresh, and his
life pure. Even about the middle of the last century the workings of a
regenerating spirit began to appear. Some great writers then took the
lead in German literature, who, though themselves not wholly free from
the influence of the age, yet in various ways contributed to counteract
its prevailing tendencies, and to rouse and direct the dormant strength
of their countrymen. Some penetrated into the deepest mysteries of
Grecian art, and inspired a new, enthusiastic feeling for the beauties
of classical antiquity. Some opened the treasures of many interesting
but neglected fields of ancient and modern literature. Others exposed
with irresistible subtilty and force of criticism, the spurious rules
and blind imitations and hollow pomp of the French drama, so long an
object of unsuspecting faith, and directed the public attention to the
true classical and romantic models. The language itself, which in the
preceding period had lost much of its grace, raciness and vigour, and
had become at once weak and unwieldy, was carefully cultivated, and
gradually formed into a worthy organ of high conceptions and deep
speculations. The next generation grew up under happier auspices.
Shakespeare began to be known, felt and enjoyed in Germany, and the
young and rising spirits of the age turned from the effete and lifeless
literature of France, to contemplate the eternal freshness of nature
and her favorite child. The new school of poetry which they formed, and
which recognized no other guide than genius, truth and feeling, was
perhaps partial in its tendency and indefinite as to its objects; it
produced among much that was great and beautiful some morbid
extravagances and wild exaggerations; but viewed as a state of
transition it was both salutary and promising; it counteracted other
much more dangerous and mischievous innovations of the age; it
preserved many noble minds from the contagion of cold and heartless
theories, and contained within itself the fruitful elements of a still
more fortunate period.
The great political events which marked the close of the century gave a
new impulse to the mind of Germany. The principles and opinions which
then manifested themselves with tremendous consistency in France had
exerted a more or less noxious and disturbing force in the former
country, but the violent crisis to which they led was there at least in
the highest degree beneficial. It did not operate, as in some other
countries, merely as a lesson of political experience, to regulate the
external conduct of those who were interested in the maintenance of
established institutions without altering their principles, and thus to
produce a show of union and stability while the discordant elements
continued to ferment in secret. In Germany the principles and doctrines
which had become triumphant in France were subjected to the most free
and vigorous discussion. The German spirit of philosophical speculation
had never sunk into the dogmatical materialism of the French school.
The monstrous caricatures exhibited by the understanding, when relying
on its unassisted powers it undertook to build the future on the
destruction of the past, drew the attention of the deepest thinkers to
the fundamental errours of the moral and political theory then for the
first time brought into action. To avert its immediate practical
consequences was left to the vigilance of the great and the steady
attachments of the people. The more important intellectual struggle
against the theory itself was carried on, in every direction and with
every species of literary armour, by the most powerful minds which at
this critical epoch were rising to maturity.
But the exertions of individuals, however highly gifted and even
closely united, are never sufficient to effect any important and
durable change in the temper of a nation. They are themselves borne
along with the current of the age, and may see and announce, but cannot
control its course. Even the most striking lessons of foreign
experience are lost upon a people; it gains wisdom and strength only by
its own sufferings and actions. The moral and political regeneration of
Germany was to spring out of the lowest depth of national calamity and
humiliation. Under the hardest pressure of a foreign tyranny, which had
grown mighty by their errours and distractions, and which applied its
whole power, directed by a systematic and relentless policy, to destroy
all the remains of their strength, all the links of their union, all
the memorials of their greatness, the name of their country became once
more dear to the Germans. They began to look back with affectionate
reverence to its remote antiquity, to the early promise of its infancy,
to the feats of its sportive and vigorous youth; its history,
constitution and language were investigated with an ardent and
indefatigable interest; the monuments and relics of its happier days
were anxiously drawn out of the dust of oblivion; every fragment
connecting the present with the past, which had escaped the general
wreck, was attentively examined and carefully guarded. The masterpieces
of native art once more received the tribute of admiration, which had
been so long withheld from them and lavished upon foreign
worthlessness; those which had been before known and unnoticed were
more deeply studied and placed in new points of view; buried treasures
were brought to light, and men began to perceive with surprize and joy
the inexhaustible riches of the mine, the surface of which they had so
long trodden without the hope of gaining from it more than a few
sickly, exotic flowers. The national character and genius were
contemplated in a spirit at once philosophical and patriotic; their
peculiarities were observed and fostered; the popular feeling, which
through all the variations of fashionable opinion had preserved its
homely vigour and simple purity, was no longer disdained or suppressed;
all its signs and forms, its dialects and expressions, as it broke
forth from time to time in poetry and tradition, were watchfully
treasured. The Germans became proud of their country and their
ancestors.
But with this feeling of exultation were mingled others of shame and
repentance and despondency. Deeds of their own, a redeeming struggle, a
trial of patience, fidelity and courage were wanting, to efface the
inglorious recollection of the immediate past, and to inspire
confidence and hope for the future. The ordeal was vouchsafed them, and
the exercise of heroic self-devotion, of all the passive and all the
active virtues, had reconciled Germany with herself, even before the
arduous conflict had been crowned with its glorious success. When the
intolerable yoke was at length broken, and the invaders were driven
within their natural limits, the conquerors felt themselves worthy of
their forefathers, and believed that all errours might be retrieved and
all losses repaired. An unbounded prospect opened before the eye of
patriotism; and the energy which had already accomplished so much, the
goodwill which had submitted to such trying tests, seemed capable of
realizing the most lofty projects. The awakened consciousness of the
nation found worthy organs, who announced in strains of prophetic
eloquence its wants, its wishes and its destination.
But the enthusiasm, which, while its immediate object was before it,
burnt with so pure, steady and beautiful a flame, displayed itself,
after the first great work of deliverance was effected, in a variety of
forms, and in some which were ludicrous, disgusting and possibly
dangerous. It began soon to excite the jealousy of the governments,
which had cherished it, and owed to it their independence and even
their existence. Perhaps this jealousy, not always reasonable in its
grounds or judicious in its measures, may have contributed to occasion
the extravagances in which it afterwards found new motives for
precaution and restriction, by checking the active spirit which might
have been usefully guided into proper channels, and thus forcing it to
licentious and mischievous aberrations. The circumstances too which
usually accompany all revolutions of public feeling, attended likewise
on this. The spirit of the times always finds in different individuals
various degrees of capacity for receiving and containing it. Those who
are possessed by it instead of possessing it, are apt to attach great
importance to outward badges and distinctions, to attribute to them a
productive power, and to substitute them for that which can alone give
them value as signs and indications of its existence. These externals,
which satisfy the indolent and amuse the weak and superficial, become
the ready instrument and mask of imposture. The strong and glowing
language, which in such seasons of general excitement gushes in a
living stream out of the inmost depth of really inspired bosoms, is
echoed by the imbecile without meaning, and by the designing with
selfish views. Thus things in themselves innocent and even commendable
become first contemptible and then suspected; the most genuine
expressions of the purest and warmest feeling are profaned and abused,
till they sink into unmeaning or equivocal commonplace. All this
happened in Germany. In the first effervescence of patriotic rapture
several violent and premature innovations were introduced or attempted
in things of no moment, except so far as they are the natural and
unforced expression of the inward character which produces them and by
them is brought to light. Efforts were made to return to the dress,
language and manners of a former age, by those who did not reflect
that, until the spirit of the past had penetrated the whole mass of
society, it was neither practicable nor desirable that any great change
should be wrought on its surface; that it was in vain to think of
improving the physiognomy without altering the disposition. The
consequence was, that this imitation instead of becoming a popular
habit remained a fashion confined to a few, and exhibited a strange and
ludicrous contrast with that which it was meant to supplant. The
fifteenth and eighteenth centuries brought side by side only put each
other out of countenance.
A similar superstition displayed itself in the cultivation of the arts,
particularly that of painting. The great works of the native masters,
in which Germany is so rich, were deservedly admired, but they were not
always studied in the same spirit in which the great Italian artists of
the fifteenth century profited by the works of their predecessors. The
new German school, though it has to boast many productions of genius,
too often betrays by manner, affectation and caricature, its dependent
and arbitrary origin. Those who least understand their models cling to
the surface with indiscriminate imitation, and copy and even exaggerate
defects. Their extravagances seem to justify the aversion of those who
are equally partial in an opposite direction, and widen the breach
between the classical and romantic schools. The conflict of opinions
thus produced, intimately connected as it is with the other phenomena
of the day, forms an important feature in the intellectual face of
Germany, and the description of it has been woven by the author, with
inimitable art and an irony that never relaxes its impartiality, into
the texture of the first Novel.
One of the consequences of the vicissitudes and revolutions which
Germany had undergone was the revival of religious feeling. In the last
century, partly from internal causes, partly from the influence of
foreign manners and opinions, it had every where begun to languish, and
had been almost entirely banished from the higher and educated classes.
But the disasters and reverses of so many eventful years had subdued
the irreligious levity, so little congenial to the German character;
the very excess of calamity which seemed to have extinguished hope, had
awakened a faith which gained strength even from despair. The war too
which rescued Europe from the last and most imminent danger of an
universal monarchy, was in Germany essentially a religious war. It was
neither the desire of revenge nor of glory, nor even of liberty itself
as the ultimate end, which nourished the enthusiasm there excited; the
feeling which animated all the leading spirits, and which operated
instinctively on the least reflecting, was the conviction that they
were engaged in the highest and holiest of causes; that the moral, as
well as the political regeneration of Europe depended on the issue of
that struggle. The deliverance itself was so greatly beyond hope, so
rapid and complete, and attended by so many wonderful and striking
circumstances, that it was hailed rather with gratitude as an
interposition of Heaven, than with triumph as a victory achieved by
human strength. The newly kindled religious fervour broke forth in
various directions, and produced some remarkable and interesting
changes. Individuals who could not find satisfaction for their
religious cravings in the communion to which they belonged sought it in
another. Religious societies separated from each other by slight
distinctions made approaches to a closer union; those divided by an
insurmountable barrier cherished and maintained more warmly than ever
their distinguishing peculiarities. A new life seemed to be infused
into the old observances of Catholic devotion, and the spirit of
Protestant piety strove to display itself in new forms. Religion became
a great public and private concern; every question relating to it
excited a lively interest; every method of diffusing it was deeply
studied and sedulously practised.
This good however came not unalloyed. Those in whom the religious
feeling was least genuine, those who had merely caught it by contagion
from others, were, as usual, the most anxious to make it prominent and
conspicuous. They thought they could not exhibit too striking a
contrast to the sceptical indifference and irreligious frivolity of the
former age in their language and deportment. Piety, which is of a
retiring nature, seldom conscious of her own actions, and never wishing
them to be observed, was forced against her will into all companies
upon all occasions, was made to occupy the foremost place, to study
attitudes and gestures, to think aloud and deliver herself in set
terms. A new kind of spiritual dialect came into fashion, and
threatened to infect the whole tone of conversation and literature. It
was not precisely the cant which with us is the property and badge of
certain religious sects, and which to unaccustomed ears is either
ludicrous or disgusting; it was a more refined compound of mysticism
and sentiment, rather cloying from excess of sweet, but not without a
charm for the young and inexperienced, and very easy to be caught by
habit or learnt from design. In the endeavour to exclude from society
all symptoms and tokens of the freethinking age, the moral taste grew
alarmingly squeamish, and began to reject the most wholesome food as
savouring of profaneness. As the freedom of Shakespeare scandalizes our
sectaries, so among the circles, in which religion was most the mode in
Germany, the unconstrained and unaffected purity of Göthe began to pass
for licentiousness.
We are indeed ourselves very far gone in this distemper, and value
ourselves on our superior delicacy, because we cannot see without a
blush what in times less refined was not supposed to need a veil, as
none suspected it could ever raise an impure thought.
Another mischief not less formidable sprang from the same cause. It is
the tendency of all enthusiasm to concentrate all the powers and
feelings of the soul in its single object. Religious enthusiasm, the
most intense as its object is the highest, is of all the most jealous
and exclusive, and can least bear any participation in its sovereignty
over the thoughts and affections. Hence wherever it has been strongly
excited, whatever bears the name or is allied to the nature of
amusement and diversion has been proscribed, not so much on an ascetic
principle of mortification, as sensual indulgence, but because it is
thought to distract the attention from the great business of life. We
are still suffering under a like effect of the puritanical spirit, the
traces of which will perhaps never be effaced from our national
character. Under its dominion the lower orders were deprived of their
innocent and invigorating sports, and forced to supply their place by
noxious stimulants, drawn first from the conventicle and afterwards
from the alehouse. The pleasures of the higher classes are of a more
intellectual kind; their most refined entertainments are derived from
the fine arts and elegant literature. But when the productions of
literature and art are considered as diversions, they are levelled
before the eye of religion with the sports of the vulgar; they are
perhaps less harmless, as they cost much more time and ingenuity in the
production, and exercise a more powerful influence over the mind.
From this point of view there is no essential difference between a
puppet-show and a play of Shakespeare; only the one is a pastime for
children, the other for men; a panorama is a source of amusement
differing in degree only, not in kind, from a cartoon of Raphael; the
former has the advantage of affording more general entertainment. A map
or sea-chart are greatly superior to either, for they contribute to the
practical purposes of life. But when religious feeling is very strongly
excited and imperfectly regulated, art, literature and science, stand
all alike in contrast with the realities of religion; and as empty
fictions, worldly shows and illusions sink equally into nothing. Few
men rise above this point of view. To perceive the real dignity of the
arts and their intimate connexion with what is highest in human nature,
with religion itself, requires both a vivid sense of beauty and a reach
of speculation very rare and difficult to attain. In England the former
is perhaps more common than the latter; the arts are seldom estimated
at their real worth. Those who pursue amusement as the business of
life, value them as they minister to that end; those whose thoughts are
engrossed by religion, reject them altogether as toys and vanities;
many think it allowable to indulge in them, provided it be coolly and
soberly, as innocent diversions; a more numerous party, which thinks
itself by far the wisest, would reconcile the two extremes, and ennoble
these recreations by making them vehicles for piety and morality.
A similar feeling of hostility and contempt towards the arts, not
indeed so extensively diffused as under the reign of our Puritans, but
still sufficiently marked and striking, accompanied the revival of the
religious spirit in Germany. In some instances it was produced by an
intensity of zeal; in the greater number it proceeded from coldness of
imagination and incapacity for philosophical reflexion. It may perhaps
have been strengthened by a cause peculiar to that country. Every one
at all conversant with the modern German literature has been struck by
the frequent recurrence of that which, till a better term shall be
coined for it, may be called the esthetical view of things. It is that
view which regards them not as true or false, nor as good or bad, but
merely with reference to art as possessing or wanting beauty. This
view, the prevalence of which has been referred by Frederic Schlegel to
the influence of Winkelmann over his countrymen, is on some subjects
peculiar to German writers. It has been frequently applied by them,
with the happiest result, as a corrective to the partiality of the
moral and historical views, which, exclusively pursued, must often lead
into the grossest errours. But perhaps it has itself sometimes been
allowed to predominate, and been carried with an intemperate license
into subjects connected with religion. Even where this was not the case
its introduction may have alarmed honest prejudices, and seemed to
endanger the simplicity of faith and the fervour of devotion. At all
events this is one of the causes which has there contributed to widen
the unfortunate breach between religion and the arts.
To expose these and the various other false tendencies, perversions and
exaggerations of religious feeling in Germany, for all of which, when a
slight allowance is made for the difference of national manners and
characters, the reader will be at no loss to discover parallels at
home, is the Author's design in the second of these Novels. No man was
better qualified for this undertaking than one who, living almost
wholly in a poetical world, has never ceased to keep a watchful eye on
the fluctuations of opinion and feeling among his contemporaries. To
him too it peculiarly belonged to apply a corrective to the now
prevailing extravagances, who formerly attacked, with satire the most
powerful perhaps to be found in modern literature, errours and follies
of an opposite description, and contributed, at least as efficaciously
as any writer in Germany, to produce the moral revolution, of which
this volume exhibits the dark side. It is this that gives a peculiar
charm to the homage which he incidentally pays to Göthe, a charm indeed
inevitably lost on the English reader; but to one who has marked the
progress of these two great poets, their singular diversity of genius
and the seeming divergency of their course, this tribute of veneration
under such circumstances has in it something beautiful and almost
affecting. The passage in other respects is unhappily as intelligible
to the English reader as any in the volume; here too Göthe had scarcely
acquired a partial celebrity before he was attacked on similar grounds,
with perhaps as much sincerity and certainly not less scurrility. In
the execution of his delicate task, the Author has displayed the temper
and spirit befitting a theme, the treatment of which, without the
nicest impartiality, might be mischievous or offensive. In the midst of
the keenest ridicule and the warmest glow of feeling he preserves an
ironical self-possession, such as only a consummate artist can command.
The keeping is every where perfect; the living scene is presented to us
rather in a mirror than a picture.
Though these two little works, especially the latter, are occasional
and even polemical in their origin, they have a value quite independent
of the temporary effect they may produce, not only as possessing a sort
of historical interest from the view they afford of a remarkable period,
but as nearly perfect models of composition in their kind. It is one of
which we can hardly be said to have a specimen in our literature. We
have indeed two or three names for prose works of fiction, but the chief
difference between them is one of quantity. The novel is only a longer
tale, or the tale a shorter novel. Even in Spanish or Italian literature
it would not be easy to find an exact parallel; for the _novelas_ and
_novelle_ are in general only circumstantial anecdotes. The name
however adopted from them by Tieck has been retained, though as applied
to a work of less than three volumes it has now become obsolete. The
peculiarity of these Novels is the dramatic concentration, the
compression of all the elements which compose them within the smallest
possible compass, within which they can fully expand and display
themselves. It is the most common fault even of the ablest writers to
exceed or fall short of that compass, and both faults are often
committed in the same work; some of the component parts are left
undeveloped, others dilated to an arbitrary extent. The exact medium is
the highest mystery, and its attainment the greatest triumph of art. It
is this which, among the many admirable things in the present volume,
is perhaps most worthy of admiration. The variety and originality of
the characters here introduced would under any circumstances be
remarkable, but it excites peculiar surprize and delight, that in so
small a space they find room to act so freely and to shew themselves so
fully. There are enough of them to furnish richly as many novels of the
modern size, yet, had the Author indulged his fancy in multiplying
situations and weaving new intrigues for never so many volumes, they
could not have stood before us more clearly and distinctly, with more
of life and nature. They have been scarcely an hour in our company
before they become old acquaintance; we should know no more of them if
we were to hear the whole history of their lives.
But to point out the Author's merits was not the object of this
Preface, which has already grown to what may appear an inordinate
length. The Translator wishes he could have believed it altogether
superfluous, and will not add to it anything which he knows to be so.
Indeed he thinks himself fortunate in not being obliged to vindicate
the morality of these Novels. For with us this is esteemed, not only by
most well-disposed readers, but by almost all our periodical critics
great and small, a very essential point in a work of fiction, and it is
therefore usual for a novel-writer, who wishes to secure their
approbation, to indicate, either in the title or at the conclusion, the
branch of morality to which his work is to be referred. But the best
German writers have some strange notions on this subject; they believe
that a tale may have a high value, though its moral essence cannot be
extracted in a precept or an aphorism; they even think it the better
for having no didactic object, and Göthe goes the length of saying that
a good tale can have none. Such being the case, it would not have been
surprizing if in these Novels the moral lesson had been somewhat
obscure, and had required some ingenuity to deduce. The Translator then
has reason to congratulate himself, that it is as obvious and striking
as if the Author's main end had been to convey it, and that he has even
been spared the trouble of construing it. He will therefore no longer
detain the reader from better company.
THE PICTURES.
"Have the goodness, Sir, in the meantime to step into the picture
gallery," said the servant as he let young Edward in; "my master will
come to you directly."
With a heavy heart the young man entered.
"With what different feelings," thought he to himself, "did I once pace
through this room with my worthy father! It is the first instance of my
descending to such a step as this, and it must be the last too. That it
really must! And it is time for me to take a different view of myself
and the world."
Setting down a covered picture against the wall he advanced farther
into the room. "How a man can have patience with these lifeless
pictures, and exist in and for them alone!" so he continued his silent
meditations. "Does not it seem as if these enthusiasts lose themselves
in a realm of enchantment? For them art is the only window through
which they catch a glimpse of nature and the world; they have no means
of knowing either except as far as they compare them with their copies.
And yet so it was that my father too dreamt his years away; whatever
was foreign to his collection gave him no more concern than if it had
fallen out at the pole. Strange how enthusiasm of every kind tends to
confine our existence and all our feelings!"
At the moment he raised his eye, and was almost dazzled or startled by
a picture that hung in the upper region of the lofty saloon without the
ornament of a frame. A girl's head with delicately tangled flaxen locks
and a playful smile was peeping down, in a light undress, one shoulder
partly bare, which looked full and glossy; in her long tapering fingers
she held a fresh-blown rose close to her ruddy lips. "Now really,"
cried Edward aloud, "if this is a picture of Rubens, as it must be,
that glorious man surpassed all other masters in such subjects! That
lives! That breathes! How the fresh rose blooms against the still
fresher lips! How softly and delicately do the hues of both play into
one another, and yet so distinctly parted! And that polish of the
rounded shoulder, the flaxen hair scattered over it in disorder! How is
it possible that old Walther can hang his best piece so high up and
without a frame, when all the other trash glitters in the most costly
decorations?"
He raised his eye again, and began to comprehend what a mighty art is
painting, for the picture grew more and more instinct with life. "No,
those eyes!" he said again to himself, entirely lost in gazing; "how
could pencil and colour produce any thing like that? Does not one see
the bosom pant, the fingers and the round arm in motion?"
And so it was indeed: for at the instant the lovely form raised itself,
and with an expression of roguish playfulness flung down the rose,
which flew against the young man's face, then drew back and shut the
little window, which rung as it closed.
Startled and ashamed, Edward picked up the rose. He now clearly
remembered the narrow passage above, which ran parallel to the saloon,
and led to the upper rooms of the house: the other little windows were
hung with pictures; this only had, to gain light, been left as it was,
and the master of the house used often from this spot to survey the
strangers who visited his gallery. "Is it possible," said Edward, after
he had called to mind all these circumstances, "that little Sophia can
in a space of four years have grown such a beauty?" Unconsciously and
in strange distraction he pressed the rose to his lips, then leaned
against the wall, his eyes fixed on the ground, and did not observe for
some seconds that old Walther was standing by his side, till the
latter, with a friendly slap on the shoulder, roused him from his
reverie. "Where were you, young man?" said he joking; "you look as if
you had seen a vision."
"So I feel," said Edward; "excuse me for troubling you with a visit."
"We ought not to be such strangers, my young friend," said the old man
heartily; "it is now upwards of four years since you have entered my
house. Is it right that your father's friend, your former guardian, who
certainly always meant well by you, though we had at that time some
differences, should be so totally forgotten?"
Edward blushed, and did not immediately know what to answer. "I did not
suppose that you would miss me," he stammered out at last, "much--every
thing might have been otherwise; but the errors of youth----"
"Let us drop that subject," cried the old man gaily; "what prevents us
from renewing our former acquaintance and friendship? What brings you
to me now?"
Edward looked downwards, then cast a hasty transient glance at his old
friend, still hesitated, and at last went with lingering step to the
pillar where the picture was standing, and took it out of its cover.
"See here," said he, "what I have found unexpectedly among the property
left me by my father; a picture that was kept in a book-case which I
had not opened for years. Judges tell me it is an excellent Salvator
Rosa."
"So it is!" exclaimed old Walther, with enthusiasm in his looks. "Ay,
that is a glorious prize! A happy chance to light upon it so
unexpectedly. Yes, my dear departed friend had treasures in his house,
and did not know himself all he was master of."
He set the picture in the right light, examined it with beaming eyes,
went closer, then back again, pursued the outlines of the figures from
a distance with the finger of a connoisseur, and then said, "Will you
part with it? Name your price, and if it be not too high the picture
is mine."
In the meanwhile a stranger came up, who had been taking a drawing
after a Julio Romano in another quarter of the gallery. "A Salvator?"
he asked with a somewhat sarcastic tone, "which you have really found
among the heir-looms of an inheritance?"
"Certainly," said Edward, cavalierly surveying the stranger, whose
plain frock and simple air gave him about the appearance of a
travelling artist.
"You have then been yourself imposed on," answered the stranger in a
haughty rough tone, "if it be not your intention to impose on others;
for this picture is evidently a pretty modern one, perhaps is quite
new; at all events not above ten years old; an imitation of the
master's manner good enough to deceive for a moment, but which on
closer inspection soon betrays its baldness to a connoisseur."
"I cannot help feeling surprised at this presumption!" exclaimed
Edward, entirely losing his self-command. "In the collection my father
left behind him were none but good and original pictures; for he and
Mr. Walther always passed for the best judges in the town. And what
would you have? In the shop of our celebrated picture-dealer Erich
there hangs the pendant to this Salvator, for which a traveller a few
days ago offered a very large sum. Let them be compared together, and
it will be seen that they are works of the same master, and fellows."
"So!" said the stranger with a drawling tone, "you know then or are
acquainted with that Salvator too? It is to be sure by the same hand as
this, that admits of no doubt. In this town originals by that master
are scarce, and Messrs. Erich and Walther do not possess one; but I am
familiar with the pencil of that great master, and give you my word
that he never touched these pictures, but that they are productions of
a modern who wants to impose upon amateurs by them."
"Your word!" cried Edward colouring deeply; "your word! I should think
that mine might pass here for just as much, and more."
"Certainly not," said the Unknown; "and I have moreover to regret that
you allow your warmth to surprise and betray you so. You are privy then
to the fabrication of this counterfeit, and know the imitator, who is
not an unskilful one?"
"Sir," cried Edward still more vehemently, "you must make me
satisfaction for this affront! These pretensions, these falsehoods
which you vent so boldly, are signs of a detestable character."
Privy-counsellor Walther was in the greatest perplexity that this scene
should take place at his house. He stood examining the picture, and had
already convinced himself that it was a modern but capital imitation of
the celebrated master, such as might deceive even an experienced eye.
It pained him to the heart that young Edward should be entangled in
this bad affair; but both the antagonists were so violently irritated,
that all mediation had become impracticable.
"What is that you are saying, sir?" cried the stranger, himself now
raising his tone; "you are beneath my anger, and I am glad that
accident has led me to this gallery to protect a respectable collector
from imposition."
Edward foamed with rage.
"That was not the intention," said the old gentleman, making an attempt
at pacification.
"It was assuredly the intention," proceeded the stranger; "it is an old
stale trick, which it has not been thought worth while even to face
with a new invention. I saw at the picture-dealer's that so-called
Salvator; the owner thought it genuine, and was confirmed in his belief
when a traveller, who by his dress seemed a man of high quality,
offered a large price for the picture: he meant to call again on his
return, and begged the dealer not to let the piece go out of his hands
for a month at least. And who was this distinguished personage? The
discarded valet of Count Alten of Vienna. Thus it is evident that the
trick, whoever may have been the contriver, was played off against you,
M. Walther, and your friend Erich."
Edward in the meanwhile had with trembling hands wrapped his picture in
its cover again; he gnashed his teeth, stamped, and cried, "The devil
must play me this trick!" So saying he rushed out, and did not observe
that the maiden was looking down again from above into the saloon, to
which she had been drawn by the vociferation of the quarrellers.
"My worthy sir," said the old man, now addressing the stranger, "you
have distressed me; you have been too hasty with the young man; he is
heedless and extravagant, but I have never yet heard of his playing a
foul trick."
"One must always be the first," said the stranger with cool
bitterness; "he has at all events paid to-day his scholar's fee, and
will either reform or learn the necessity of managing his matters more
prudently, and in no case losing his temper."
"He has certainly been imposed on himself," said Walther, "or has
really found the picture as he says; and his father, who was a great
judge, laid it by for the very reason that it was not genuine."
"You wish to put the best face on the matter, Sir," said the stranger;
"but in that case the young man would not have been so indecently
violent. Who is he, pray, after all?"
"His father," so the old gentleman's story ran, "was a rich man, who
left behind him a large property; he had a passion for our art of an
intensity of which few men certainly are capable. He devoted to it a
great part of his fortune, and his collection might justly be called
incomparable. In his attention to it however he neglected rather too
much, it must be owned, the education of this his only son; hence on
the old man's death the youth thought of nothing but spending his money
in the company of parasites and low people, and keeping women and
equipages. When he came of age he had enormous debts to pay to usurers
and on bills, but he set his pride in increasing his extravagance; the
pictures were sold, for he had no taste for them; I took them at fair
prices. He has now, I believe, pretty nearly run through every thing
except the house, which is a handsome one, though that too may perhaps
be encumbered with debts; knowledge he has scarcely acquired any;
employment is insupportable to him; and so one cannot help seeing with
concern how he is advancing towards his ruin."
"The every-day history of numbers," observed the stranger, "and the
common course of a paltry vanity, that leads men gaily into the arms of
dishonour."
"How have you been able to acquire so sure an eye?" inquired the
counsellor. "I am astonished too at the style of your drawing after
Julio Romano, since you say you are no artist."
"But I have long studied the art," answered the stranger; "I have
viewed with some diligence, and not without profit, the most important
galleries in Europe; my eye is naturally keen and accurate, and has
been improved and rendered sure by practice; so that I may flatter
myself that I cannot easily be deceived, at all events on the subject
of my favourites."
The stranger now took his leave, after having been forced to promise
the collector to dine with him the next day, for the old gentleman had
conceived a great respect for the traveller's accomplishments.
* * * * *
In unspeakable anger Edward returned home. He went furiously in, banged
all the doors violently after him, and hastened through the great rooms
to a little back parlour, where, in the twilight, sat old Eulenböck,
with a glass of generous wine by his side, waiting for his coming.
"Here!" cried Edward, "thou old wry-nosed, wine-burnt scoundrel, is thy
daub again; sell it to the soap-boiler up the street, and let him melt
it down into his vat, if the painting does not suit him."
"A pity that for my good little picture," said the old painter, pouring
himself out another glass with perfect coolness. "Thou art warm,
darling; so the old man would have nothing to say to the bargain?"
"Rogue!" cried Edward, flinging the picture violently away; "and on thy
account I am become a rogue myself! Affronted, insulted! Oh, and how
ashamed of myself, my face and neck all of a glow from top to bottom,
that for thy sake I should have permitted myself such a lie!"