well, and if you take a different view of the matter from mine, you at
least drink the same wine, and almost as much as I do myself. Practice
unites us, if theory separates us. Who understands himself nowadays?
That is no longer the question even. I would only add one remark,
though it be not connected with what I was saying before, that the mode
in which men and physicians consider the process of nutrition and
assimilation, as it is called, appears to me extremely silly. The oak
grows out of its acorn, and the fig produces the fig-tree; and though
they require air, water and earth, yet these are not properly the
elements out of which they grow. In like manner nourishment only
awakens in us our powers and our growth, but does not produce them; it
gives the possibility, but not the thing, and man sprouts out of
himself like a plant. It is a stupid notion to believe that wine
produces immediately of itself all the operations which we ascribe to
it; no, as I was saying, its scent and breath only awaken the qualities
which are dormant in us. Now rush forth powers, feelings and
transports, when they are steeped in its waves. Do you suppose then
that throughout the whole range of art and science the case is
otherwise? I need not propound anew the old Platonic idea. Raphael and
Correggio and Titian do but rouse my own self that slumbers in
forgetfulness, and though the greatest genius, the deepest feeling of
art, cannot, with all their imagination, invent the images which are
presented to them by the great masters, yet these works themselves do
but awaken old reminiscences. Hence too the thirst after new
intellectual enjoyments, which else would not be commendable; hence the
wish to discover the unknown, to produce the original, which otherwise
were senseless. For we have a presentiment of the infinity of knowledge
within us, that prophetic mirror of eternity, and of what this eternity
may become to us, an incessant increase of knowledge, that collects
itself in the centre of a celestial tranquillity, and hence extends to
new regions. And for this very reason, my dear brother topers, there
must be a multitude and a variety of wines."
"And which do you prefer?" asked Dietrich. "Is there not in this as in
other things, the classical and perfect, the modern and trivial, the
mannered and affected, the lovely old and simply plain, the hearty and
the emptily bombastic?"
"Youngster," said the old man, "this question is too complicated: it
pre-supposes immense experience, historical survey, rejection of
prejudice, and a taste matured in all directions, one that can only be
fixed and freed by length of years, continued labour and indefatigable
study, as well as the instruments required for them, which are not in
every man's hands. A few encyclopedical remarks will suffice. Almost
every wine has its good qualities, almost all deserve to be known. If
in our country the Neckar exists scarcely for any purpose but to quench
the thirst, the Würzburger now rises to the character of a generous
wine, and the various superior sorts of Rhenish do not admit of being
hastily characterized. You have had them before you, and tasted them.
Duly to celebrate these noble streams, from the light Laubenheimer to
the strong Nierensteiner, the mighty Rüdesheimer and the profound
Hochheimer, with all their kindred floods, is a task to which there
belongs more than the tongue of a Redi, who in his Tuscan Dithyrambic
has raved but indifferently. These spirits pass down the palate pure
and clear, refreshing the sense and refining the faculties. If I should
illustrate them, it would be by the calm maturity of first-rate
writers,--warmth and richness, without extravagance of fancy and
dreaming allegory. What is the hotter Burgundy to him who can bear it?
It descends into us like immediate inspiration; heavy, sanguine and
violent, it rouses our spirits. The wine of Bourdeaux, on the other
hand, is cheerful, loquacious; enlivens, but does not inspire. More
luxuriant and quaint are the creations of Provence and the poetical
Languedoc. Then comes hot Spain, with its Sherries and right Malaga,
and the glowing wines of Valencia. Here the wine-stream, as we taste
it, transforms itself upon our palate into a globular shape, which
rounds and widens more and more, and in Tokay and St. Georgen-Ausbruch
it assumes this appearance still more substantially and emphatically.
How are mouth and palate and the whole sense of pleasure filled by a
single drop of the most generous Cape wine! These wines the connoisseur
must only sip and palate, and not drink like our noble Rhenish. What am
I to say of you, ye sweetest growths of Italy, and particularly of
Tuscany, thou most spirited Monte-Fiascone, thou truly melting
Monte-Pulciano? Well, taste then, my friends, and understand me! But
thee I could not produce, thee, king of all wines, thee, roseate
Aleatico, flower and essence of all the spirit of wine, milk and wine,
bloom and sweetness, fire and softness together! This curiosity is not
to be drunk, tasted, sipped, or palated; but the man who is blest with
it unfolds a new organ, which may not be described to the ignorant and
sober."--Here he broke off with emotion, and dried his eyes.
"So then my presentiment was right," cried Dietrich with enthusiasm:
"this is in the realm of wine, what old Eyck or Hemling, perhaps too
brother Giovanni di Fiesole, are among painters. Such is the relish of
that sweetly moving and deep colouring, which without shade is still so
true, without white so dazzling and thrilling. So does the purple of
their drapery satiate and intoxicate, and so is its fire allayed and
softened by the mild blue, the fancy breeding violet. All is one, and
harmonizes in our souls."
"Except Eulenböck's nose," cried the librarian, quite drunk: "that has
no touch of scarlet, no transitions in its tones, to blend it with the
face; the dark red purple roasts in its magic kitchen, as the beet-root
waxes red under ground in the realms of damp night, though quite
secluded from the sun. Can this excrescence belong to the life? Can the
god of wine so have pampered it? Never! It is a clumsy shell, an ugly
case for malice and lies."
"Puffy emptiness," cried the Bookseller, "brittle splendour, frail
mortality! And there it stands, curved and tottering on the undermined
face, so that with its bulk it may soon press down the whole man in
ruins. Man! whence didst get this unconscionably wry nose?"
"Peace, Crocodile!" bawled Eulenböck, violently thumping the table:
"will this vermin reform the world? Every nose has its history, ye
nostrum-mongers! Do the addle-headed creatures suppose, that the
smallest event is not subservient as a link to the necessity of eternal
laws? For my nose, as it is, I am indebted to my barber."
"Tell us, old boy," cried the young people.
"Patience!" said the painter. "The science of physiognomy will always
continue a fallacious one, for the very reason that too little regard
is paid to barbers, taverns and other historical circumstances. The
face is indeed the expression of the soul, but it suffers remarkably
under the way in which it is treated. The brow from its solidity is
best off, if a man does not use himself to paint all his little
passions, vexation and uneasiness, by folds upon its surface. See how
noble is our Edward's, and how much more handsome yet it would be, if
the young fellow had thought and employed himself more! The eyes, in
consequence of their alertness, running to and fro, likewise preserve
themselves tolerably in their play, unless a man weeps them out, like
our Crocodile friend there. The mouth now is worse off; that is soon
worn down by chattering and unmeaning smiles, as is the case with our
worthy librarian; if a man besides wipes it to excess after eating and
drinking, its character soon grows undiscernible, especially if from
false shame one keeps always curling the lips inward, like our
excellent Puritan, who probably pronounces their redness lying and
unprofitable parade. But the nose, the poor nose, which puts itself
forward above all other parts, which distinguishes us unhappy men from
all brutes, in whom mouth and snout meet in such friendly union, and
which in man is made, like the Hocken and the Blocksberg, the place for
all witches and evil spirits to hold their revels: is it not in most
men, merely on account of the cold air and a catarrh, turned into a
cave of Æolus, and hauled, pulled, stretched and touzled, till it
becomes a sounding horn and a battle-trumpet? Is not its pliancy and
capacity of education abused, to make almost elephants'-trunks and
turkey-cocks' bills out of it? More pious souls again press it down and
squeeze its arrogance into miserable deformities. All this I saw
betimes and spared my nose, yet I could not escape my destiny. I grew
up and old with my barber, one of my most intimate friends. This
artist, as he turned from one side of my face to the other, used,
during this change of position, in order to have a fulcrum, to apply
the edge of the razor below to my throat, and pressing and leaning upon
this rapidly to gain the other side. This appeared to me alarming. He
might slip or stumble, in which case he would in all probability make
an incision with the thing supported into its supporter, and my face
lie unshaved at his feet. For this a remedy was to be contrived. He
meditated, and like a true genius found no difficulty in altering his
system and his manner. That is to say, he grasped my nose with his
fingers, which gave him the advantage of being able to support himself
and rest much longer upon it, and drew it forcibly upwards,
particularly as he was shaving my upper lip, and so we gazed on each
other's eyes, one heart close to the other, and the razor worked with a
deliberate and steady action. It happened however that my friend had
always owned one of the most remarkable faces in the world, which the
vulgar is used to call frightful, distorted and ugly; he had besides
the habit of making grimaces, and ogled me with such cordiality, that
at every sitting I could not help answering him, and, being so close to
him, involuntarily imitated his other oddities. If he hauled up my nose
to an inordinate height, he in return, in order to reach the corners of
my mouth with the instrument of his art, pulled my lips and mouth
violently across. When in this mechanical manner he had forced a
seeming smile upon my countenance, his laugh met me, so amiable,
friendly, cordial and affecting, that often out of painful sympathy,
and merely to stifle a wicked laugh, the tears came into my eyes. 'Man!
Barber friend!' I exclaimed: 'withhold that benignant contraction of
thy muscles; I am not smiling, thou dost but pull the corners of my
mouth apart like a spunge.' 'It boots not,' answered the honest soul,
'thy winning graces in that smile force me to return them." Well, so we
grinned at one another like apes for minutes together.
"I observed at the end of twelve weeks a striking alteration in my
physiognomy. The nose mounted and towered aloft prodigiously, as if it
would proclaim war upon my eyes and forehead, not to take into account
the really ugly contortions of the cheeks and lips, which however I
could not drop, because I had received them as a memento from my
friend. I pressed the aspiring nose down again, and once more
represented my wishes to my generous friend. Now however good counsel
seemed scarce, and an expedient hardly possible. Still he resolved, a
second Raphael, to adopt a third unexceptionable manner, and after a
few struggles he succeeded, having beforehand cautiously ascertained
towards which side the operation might be most advantageously directed,
in twisting my nose as he rested upon it; and at this point we remained
stationary, and thus inevitable fate has bent it for me; my true face,
towards which my developement instinctively tended, has furrowed me
with these folds, and deep research and speculation, flaming enthusiasm
and glowing love for goodness and excellence, have finally woven this
red tissue over the whole."
Loud laughter had accompanied this narrative. The librarian now
impetuously demanded Champagne, and the bookseller bawled for punch.
Eulenböck, however, cried out, "Oh! ye vulgar souls! After this
heavenly ladder which I have made you climb, to take a look into
paradise, can so ignoble, mannered, modern and witless a spirit as this
punch, as it is called, enter even into the remotest corner of your
memory? This wretched brewage of hot water, bad brandy, and lemon acid?
And what have we to do in our circle with this diplomatic, sober
potation, this Champagne? A liquor that does not expand the heart and
the intellect, and, after a half debauch, can but serve, at the utmost,
to sober one again? Oh! ye profane ones!" He thumped the table; and the
rest, with the exception of Edward, answered this gesture so violently,
that with the concussion the bottles danced, and several glasses fell
in shivers on the floor. Hereupon the laughter and tumult became still
louder; a start was made to fetch fresh glasses, and Dietrich cried,
"It is grown cold here, cold as ice, and that the punch would remedy."
It was late in the night, the servants had retired, they did not know
how to heat the stove again; Edward confessed, too, that his stock of
wood was quite at an end, and that he had ordered a fresh one to come
in early the next morning. "What think you?" cried Dietrich, quite
intoxicated, "our host, we know, has resolved to fit up this room in
quite a new style. Suppose we were to break away this useless
wainscoting, these boards that cover the windows, and to light a
glorious German fire in the great old-fashioned chimney?" This mad
proposition immediately gained a hearing and loud assent from the
guests now grown wild, and Edward, who had been the whole evening in a
sort of stupefaction, made no opposition. The screen of the fire-place
was removed, and then a party ran with lights to the kitchen, to fetch
hatchets, bars and other implements. In the anteroom Eulenböck found an
old damaged hunting horn, and as he winded it, they marched like
soldiers, with bellowing and detestable music, back into the saloon.
The table which stood in the way was upset, and immediately there began
a hewing, breaking and hammering against the hollow wainscot. Every one
strove to surpass the other in diligence, and, to animate the
labourers, the painter again blew a charge on the horn, and in the
midst of the racket all cried as if they were possessed, "Wood, wood!
Fire, fire!" so that this bellowing, the music, the strokes of the
hatchets, the cracking of the boards as they broke and burst, threw the
host into such a state of dizziness, that he retired in silence into a
corner of the room.
On a sudden the company received an addition as unexpected as it was
disagreeable. The neighbourhood had been disturbed, and the watch,
which had likewise heard the prodigious uproar, now entered, with an
officer at its head, having found the house-door open. They inquired
the cause of the din, and the meaning of the cry of fire. Edward, who
had kept himself tolerably sober, endeavoured to explain every thing to
them, in order to excuse his friends. But these excited and incapable
now of a rational thought, treated this visit as a violent encroachment
upon their most unalienable rights; every one cried out against the
officer, Eulenböck threatened, the bookseller cursed and wept, the
librarian fetched a blow with a bar, and Dietrich, who was the most
elevated, was for falling on the lieutenant with his hatchet. The
latter, likewise a choleric young man, took the matter in earnest, and
considered his honour hurt, and so the end of the scene was, that the
guests, amidst bawling and uproar, threats and declamations about
liberty, were carried off to the head-quarters of the watch. So ended
the feast, and Edward, left alone in the saloon, paced up and down in
extreme vexation, and contemplated the havock which his enthusiastic
friends had made. Under the overthrown table lay smashed bottles,
glasses, plates and dishes, with all that had been left of the savoury
cheer; the floor was streaming with the most precious wine; the
chandeliers broken to pieces; of those which remained, all the lights,
except a single wax taper, were burnt down to the socket, and had gone
out. He took the light, and viewed the wainscot from which the tapestry
had been torn away, and some strong boards broken down; one beam
projected, and barred the entrance to the niche. A singular fancy
seized the youth, to continue that same night the work begun by his
wild companions; but in order not to make an excessive noise, and
perhaps after all share their fate, he took a fine-toothed saw, and
cautiously cut through the beam above; he repeated the process below,
and took out the block. After this it was not so very difficult to
break away a slight inner wainscoting; the thin board fell down, and
Edward held his light into the niche. Scarcely however could he cast a
look over the broad space, and catch a glimpse of something that
glistened in front of him like gold, when on a sudden all disappeared;
for he had thrust his light against the top of the aperture, and put it
out. Startled and in the greatest agitation, he groped his way across
the dark saloon, out at the door, through a long passage, and then
across the court to a little back building. How angry was he with
himself, to have no instruments at hand for striking a light! He roused
out of a sound sleep the hoary porter, who could not for a long time
recollect himself, got his taper lighted again after several fruitless
attempts, and then returned with cautiously screening hand, trembling
in every limb, and with beating heart, along the passages back to the
room. He did not know what he had seen, he would not yet believe what
he foreboded. In the saloon he first sat down in the arm-chair to
collect himself, then lighted some more tapers, and stooping entered
the niche. The spacious width of the window gleamed from top to bottom
as in a golden blaze; for frame crowded on frame, one more gorgeous
than the other, and in them all those pictures of his father, over
whose supposed loss, old Walther and Erich had so often mourned.
Guido's Salvator Mundi, Dominichino's St. John, all gazed upon him, and
he felt himself thrilled with tenderness, devotion, and amazement, as
in an enchanted world. When he recovered his recollection, his tears
began to flow, and he remained there, heedless of the cold, sitting
amidst his new-found treasures, till morning dawned.
* * * * *
Walther had just risen from table, when Erich hastily came into
the picture-saloon to him. "What is the matter with you, my
friend?" exclaimed the counsellor: "have you seen a ghost?" "As you
take it," replied Erich, "prepare for an extraordinary piece of
intelligence."--"Well?"--"What would you give, what would you do in
return, if all the lost paintings of your late friend, those invaluable
treasures, were brought to light again, and might become your own?"
"Heaven!" exclaimed the counsellor, changing colour: "I pant for
breath. What say you?"--"They are discovered," cried the other, "and
may become your property."--"I have no means to buy them," said the
counsellor: "but every thing, every thing would I give, to obtain them,
my gallery and fortune, but I am too poor for it."--"What if the owner
were willing to make them over to you, and required in return merely
the favour of becoming your son-in-law?"
Without answering, the old man ran out to find his daughter. They
returned in dispute together. "You must make me happy, dear child," he
cried as they came in; "on you now depends the felicity of my life."
The terrified daughter was going to make farther opposition, but upon a
secret nod from Erich, which she thought she understood, seemed at last
to give way. She went out, to change her dress; for the pictures and
the suitor were waiting for her, as Erich declared, at his house. Amid
what strange thoughts, and expectations, did she select her best
attire; "Might she not be mistaken in Erich? Had he understood her? Had
she rightly interpreted him?" Walther was impatient, and counted the
moments; at last Sophia came back.
In Erich's house all those pictures were hung in the best light, and it
would be fruitless to attempt a description of the father's
astonishment, joy, and rapture. The pictures were, he asserted, far
more beautiful than he had seen them in his recollection. "You say my
daughter's admirer is young, well-bred, and of good condition; you give
me your word, that he will be a steady man, and never alienate these
pictures again after my death? If all this be so, he needs possess no
other fortune than these pictures, for he is superabundantly rich. But
where is he?"
A side-door opened, and Edward stepped in, in a dress nearly the same
as that of his likeness, the shepherd, in the old picture of Quintin
Messys.----"He?" cried Walther: "whence have you the pictures?" When
Edward had related the singular occurrence, the old man took the hand
of his daughter, and laid it in that of the youth, saying: "Sophia
ventures much, but she does it out of love to her father; I presume, my
son, you will now have become prudent and good. But, one condition; you
live with me, and Eulenböck never crosses my threshold, nor are you
ever to set eyes upon him again."
"Certainly not;" answered Edward, "besides he sets off from here
to-morrow on his travels with the foreign prince."
They proceeded to the father's house, he led the youth into his
library: "Here, young man, you find your curiosities too again, which
your whirligig librarian sold me for an old song. In future you will
hold these treasures of your father more sacred."
The lovers were happy. When they were alone, Sophia folded the youth
tenderly in her arms. "I love thee, Edward, from my heart," she
whispered to him, "but I was forced the other day, to give way to my
father's humour, and then and to-day to play the part of unqualified
obedience, in order, in the first instance, not to abandon all hope,
and to-day to be thine without opposition; for if he had observed my
love he would never have given his consent so soon."
Some weeks after, they were married. The youth found no difficulty in
becoming a regular and happy man; in the arms of his wife and the
circle of his children, he reflected on his wild youth only as a
feverish dream. Eulenböck had left the city with the prince, and with
him the titular Librarian, who obtained that place of secretary to the
prince which Edward had applied for, and some years after married the
easy fair one who had caused our young friend such an ill name in his
native town, and had almost become the occasion of his ruin.
THE BETROTHING.
"I have been long waiting for you," cried young Ferdinand, as his
friend came towards him.
"You know," replied the other, "that it is impossible to get away in a
hurry from our corpulent friend the Baron, when he begins to relate
anecdotes of his life."
"If you were an officer like myself," answered Ferdinand, "you would
nevertheless have found it possible to be punctual; that at least one
learns in the service. They are all assembled in the walks yonder, let
us make haste, that I may introduce you to this respectable family."
The young friends turned the corner of a rock, and enjoyed the clear
view along the rushing stream, which gleamed as it passed by the side
of the woods and hills. The spring had this year displayed peculiar
luxuriance. "How grateful is it to the man of business," said Alfred,
"on a day like this, to leave behind him the city and his spiritless
occupations, to feel, after long exertion and privation, this
blissfulness of nature, and to hear her sacred voice! And how thankful
am I to you, my dear friend, for proposing to introduce me into the
circle of the best and noblest of men. For however we may strive to
form ourselves, however earnestly we may be resolved to study, to
collect knowledge, and to enlarge our hearts and affections, still it
is intercourse with the pure specimens of human nature, that throws
life into this dead, plodding, and rude endeavour, and converts our
acquirements into a real treasure. But to the tender sex it is reserved
to give to man that degree of cultivation, of which his powers and
talents render him capable."