Johannes Theodor Weissbrod,
_ex-Cand. Theol_.
I confess that, in spite of this letter, whose simple, amiable style
recalled to me every feature of the writer's face, so full of feeling,
I took up the bulky manuscript with a certain dread. More than three
hundred closely written pages--who could tell with how much theological
speculation the simple life-history had been garnished. But the very
first pages dispelled the doubt, and the farther I read the more eager
was my interest in both contents and narrative. When I laid the last
sheets down, I said to myself aloud: Yes, it was indeed worth while.
With this opinion I instantly wrote to the author, begging him not to
confine this confession to ourselves, but by its publication edify all
who, in our hurried and corrupt age, had preserved minds capable of
appreciating simple grandeur of soul and the natural nobility of
humanity.
He did not keep me waiting long for his answer.
"Dearest sir and friend," he wrote--"for the friends of our friends are
ours, and the warmth with which you speak of my departed friend
justifies me in believing that you cherish a kindly feeling toward me
also--no, I can not bring myself to regard this account of my most
private experiences as a literary production, and appear in it before
the cold eyes of the public. Apart from all other considerations,
however, the careless, thoroughly untrained literary style appears to
me an unconquerable obstacle. Yet, if you would undertake to subject
these pages to a thorough revision, provide the splendid kernel which
is no merit of mine, with a new and more fitting husk! But, even then,
I could not wholly conquer my secret reluctance. I live in complete
seclusion; those who know me best, with the exception of one friend of
my youth, regard me as a mere commonplace day-laborer in the shape of a
pedagogue. The publication of such a work would suddenly render me an
'object of notice,' and nothing is less readily forgiven in a
provincial sphere than any departure from the every-day routine of
existence.
"But I will say this, my honored friend: If my unpretending story
really seems to you so valuable that you desire to save it from a fiery
death, keep the volume till I am no more. You will then be at liberty
to publish it--of course, with the abridgment necessary where my
personal interest has made me unwarrantably garrulous, and the omission
of the guide-posts that would point out persons still living, or the
descendants of certain families. The names of cities and communities
ought also in justice to be suppressed. Nothing appears to me more
contemptible than the modern effort to attain, by the disclosure of
actual events, a success which mere skillful literary invention could
not have hoped to secure.
"For the rest, I am entirely of your opinion that a life like the one
described here is well fitted to set an example, and that it seems
almost a duty to transmit the memory of so rare and lofty a human
character to future generations."
This was the last direct communication I had from the admirable man. I
did not venture to make any further effort to shake his resolution, and
for two decades his manuscript was carefully treasured in my desk.
Early this year I received a letter, written by an unknown hand, and
bearing the postmark of the city in the Mark. The principal of the
grammar-school there informed me that his friend, after having enjoyed
the best possible health to the last, had been found one morning dead
in his bed! He had been buried, according to the directions of his
will, in the almshouse church-yard, by the side of the Canoness, amid
the sincere grief of the whole community. Among his papers had been
found the request that I should be informed of his demise.
So I may doubtless consider myself as his executor in at least bringing
the following pages from their concealment. While re-reading them I
have made only the most modest use of the authority to erase and alter
at pleasure--only here and there a certain inequality of style will
show that another hand has interposed to make some obscure passage
clearer, or correct some awkward expression. In the main, I have left
everything as I found it; for it seems to me that the unassuming series
of pictures in this biographical romance, as it may be called, would
scarcely have gained greater vivacity and charm by a more careful
grouping or more artistic execution, while the impression of simple
truthfulness might have been impaired. With little art, clear wit and
sense suggest their own delivery; and, I may add, that as the love of a
warm and noble heart transfigures even the most insignificant
countenance from whose eyes it shines, much more does it illuminate
features as expressive and beautiful as those that look forth at us
from between the lines of this narrative.