“You know how I struggled, almost desperately, to retire from
public employment in 1850. Now the cord is broken, and the bird is
free. The Lord be praised!”
But sixty-two years of his life were gone. The foundations of literary
work which he had laid as a young man were difficult to recover; and if
anything was to be finished, it had to be finished in haste. Bunsen
retired to Heidelberg, hoping there to realize the ideal of his life, and
realizing it, too, in a certain degree,—_i.e._ as long as he was able to
forget his sixty-two years, his shaken health, and his blasted hopes. His
new edition of “Hippolytus,” under the title of “Christianity and
Mankind,” had been finished in seven volumes before he left England. At
Heidelberg his principal work was the new translation of the Bible, and
his “Life of Christ,” an enormous undertaking, enough to fill a man’s
life, yet with Bunsen by no means the only work to which he devoted his
remaining powers. Egyptian studies continued to interest him while
superintending the English translation of his “Egypt.” His anger at the
machinations of the Jesuits in Church and State would rouse him suddenly
to address the German nation in his “Signs of the Times.” And the prayer
of his early youth, “to be allowed to recognize and trace the firm path of
God through the stream of ages,” was fulfilled in his last work, “God in
History.” There were many blessings in his life at Heidelberg, and no one
could have acknowledged them more gratefully than Bunsen. “Yet,” he
writes,—
“I miss John Bull, the sea, ‘The Times’ in the morning, and,
besides, some dozens of fellow-creatures. The learned class has
greatly sunk in Germany, more than I supposed; all behindhand....
Nothing appears of any importance; the most wretched trifles are
cried up.”
Though he had bid adieu to politics, yet he could not keep entirely aloof.
The Prince of Prussia and the noble Princess of Prussia consulted him
frequently, and even from Berlin baits were held out from time to time to
catch the escaped eagle. Indeed, once again was Bunsen enticed by the
voice of the charmer, and a pressing invitation of the King brought him to
Berlin to preside at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in September,
1857. His hopes revived once more, and his plans of a liberal policy in
Church and State were once more pressed on the King,—in vain, as every one
knew beforehand, except Bunsen alone, with his loving, trusting heart.
However, Bunsen’s hopes, too, were soon to be destroyed, and he parted
from the King, the broken idol of all his youthful dreams,—not in anger,
but in love, “as I wish and pray to depart from this earth, as on the
calm, still evening of a long, beautiful summer’s day.” This was written
on the 1st of October; on the 3d the King’s mind gave way, though his
bodily suffering lasted longer than that of Bunsen. Little more is to be
said of the last years of Bunsen’s life. The difficulty of breathing, from
which he suffered, became often very distressing, and he was obliged to
seek relief by travel in Switzerland, or by spending the winter at Cannes.
He recovered from time to time, so as to be able to work hard at the
“Biblework,” and even to make short excursions to Paris or Berlin. In the
last year of his life he executed the plan that had passed before his mind
as the fairest dream of his youth: he took a house at Bonn, and he was not
without hope that he might still, like Niebuhr, lecture in the university,
and give to the young men the fruits of his studies and the advice founded
on the experience of his life. This, however, was not to be, and all who
watched him with loving eyes knew but too well that it could not be. The
last chapter of his life is painful beyond expression as a chronicle of
his bodily sufferings, but it is cheerful also beyond expression as the
record of a triumph over death in hope, in faith,—nay, one might almost
say, in sight,—such as has seldom been witnessed by human eyes. He died on
the 28th of November, 1860, and was buried on the 1st of December in the
same churchyard at Bonn where rests the body of his friend and teacher,
Niebuhr.
Thoughts crowd in thick upon us when we gaze at that monument, and feel
again the presence of that spirit as we so often felt it in the hours of
sweet counsel. When we think of the literary works in which, later in life
and almost in the presence of death, he hurriedly gathered up the results
of his studies and meditations, we feel, as he felt himself when only
twenty-two years of age, that “learning annihilates itself, and the most
perfect is the first submerged, for the next age scales with ease the
height which cost the preceding the full vigor of life.” It has been so,
and always will be so. Bunsen’s work, particularly in Egyptian philology
and in the philosophy of language, was to a great extent the work of a
pioneer, and it will be easy for others to advance on the roads which he
has opened, and to approach nearer to the goal which he has pointed out.
Some of his works, however, will hold their place in the history of
scholarship, and particularly of theological scholarship. The question of
the genuineness of the original Epistles of Ignatius can hardly be opened
again after Bunsen’s treatise; and his discovery that the book on “All the
Heresies,” ascribed to Origen, could not be the work of that writer, and
that most probably it was the work of Hippolytus, will always mark an
epoch in the study of early Christian literature. Either of those works
would have been enough to make the reputation of a German professor, or to
found the fortune of an English bishop. Let it be remembered that they
were the outcome of the leisure hours of a hard-worked Prussian
diplomatist, who, during the London season, could get up at five in the
morning, light his own fire, and thus secure four hours of undisturbed
work before breakfast.
Another reason why some of Bunsen’s works will prove more mortal than
others is their comprehensive character. Bunsen never worked for work’s
sake, but always for some higher purpose. Special researches with him were
a means, a ladder to be thrown away as soon as he had reached his point.
The thought of exhibiting his ladders never entered his mind.
Occasionally, however, Bunsen would take a jump, and being bent on general
results, he would sometimes neglect the objections that were urged against
him. It has been easy, even during his life-time, to point out weak points
in his arguments, and scholars who have spent the whole of their lives on
one Greek classic have found no difficulty in showing to the world that
they know more of that particular author than Bunsen. But even those who
fully appreciate the real importance of Bunsen’s labors—labors that were
more like a shower of rain fertilizing large acres than like the
artificial irrigation which supports one greenhouse plant—will be first to
mourn over the precious time that was lost to the world by Bunsen’s
official avocations. If he could do what he did in his few hours of rest,
what would he have achieved if he had carried out the original plan of his
life! It is almost incredible that a man with his clear perception of his
calling in life, so fully expressed in his earliest letters, should have
allowed himself to be drawn away by the siren voice of diplomatic life.
His success, no doubt, was great at first, and the kindness shown him by
men like Niebuhr, the King, and the Crown Prince of Prussia was enough to
turn a head that sat on the strongest shoulders. It should be remembered,
too, that in Germany the diplomatic service has always had far greater
charms than in England, and that the higher members of that service enjoy
often the same political influence as members of the Cabinet. If we read
of the brilliant reception accorded to the young diplomatist during his
first stay at Berlin, the favors showered upon him by the old King, the
friendship offered him by the Crown Prince, his future King, the hopes of
usefulness in his own heart, and the encouragement given him by all his
friends, we shall be less surprised at his preferring, in the days of his
youth, the brilliant career of a diplomatist to the obscure lot of a
professor. And yet what would Bunsen have given later in life if he had
remained true to his first love! Again and again his better self bursts
forth in complaints about a wasted life, and again and again he is carried
along against his will. During his first stay in England he writes
(November 18, 1838):—
“I care no more about my external position than about the
mountains in the moon; I know God’s will will be done, in spite of
them all, and to my greatest benefit. What that is He alone knows.
Only one thing I think I see clearly. My whole life is without
sense and lasting use, if I squander it in affairs of the day,
brilliant and important as they may be.”
The longer he remained in that enchanted garden, the more difficult it
became to find a way out, even after he had discovered by sad experience
how little he was fitted for court life or even for public life in
Prussia. When he first appeared at the court of Berlin, he carried
everything by storm; but that very triumph was never forgiven him, and his
enemies were bent on “showing this young doctor his proper place.” Bunsen
had no idea how he was envied, for the lesson that success breeds envy is
one that men of real modesty seldom learn until it is too late. And he was
hated not only by chamberlains, but, as he discovered with deepest grief,
even by those whom he considered his truest friends, who had been working
in secret conclave to undermine his influence with his royal friend and
master. Whenever he returned to Berlin, later in life, he could not
breathe freely in the vitiated air of the court, and the wings of his soul
hung down lamed, if not broken. Bunsen was not a courtier. Away from
Berlin, among the ruins of Rome, and in the fresh air of English life, he
could speak to kings and princes as few men have spoken to them, and pour
out his inmost convictions before those whom he revered and loved. But at
Berlin, though he might have learnt to bow and to smile and to use
Byzantine phraseology, his voice faltered and was drowned by noisy
declaimers; the diamond was buried in a heap of beads, and his rays could
not shine forth where there was no heavenly sunlight to call them out.
King Frederick William IV. was no ordinary King: that one can see even
from the scanty extracts from his letters given in “Bunsen’s Memoirs.” Nor
was his love of Bunsen a mere passing whim. He loved the man, and those
who knew the refreshing and satisfying influence of Bunsen’s society will
easily understand what the King meant when he said, “I am hungry and
thirsty for Bunsen.” But what constitution can resist the daily doses of
hyperbolical flattery that are poured into the ears of royalty, and how
can we wonder that at last a modest expression of genuine respect does
sound like rudeness to royal ears, and to speak the truth becomes
synonymous with insolence? In the trickeries and mimicries of court life
Bunsen was no adept, and nothing was easier than to outbid him in the
price that is paid for royal favors. But if much has thus been lost of a
life far too precious to be squandered among royal servants and
messengers, this prophet among the Sauls has taught the world some lessons
which he could not have taught in the lecture-room of a German university.
People who would scarcely have listened to the arguments of a German
professor sat humbly at the feet of an ambassador and of a man of the
world. That a professor should be learned, and that a bishop should be
orthodox, was a matter of course; but that an ambassador should hold forth
on hieroglyphics and the antiquity of man rather than on the _chronique
scandaleuse_ of Paris; that a Prussian statesman should spend his mornings
on the Ignatian Epistles rather than in writing gossiping letters to
ladies in waiting at Berlin and Potsdam; that this learned man “who ought
to know,” should profess the simple faith of a child and the boldest
freedom of a philosopher, was enough to startle society, both high and
low. How Bunsen inspired those who knew him with confidence, how he was
consulted, and how he was loved, may be seen from some of the letters
addressed to him, though few only of such letters have been published in
his “Memoirs.” That his influence was great in England we know from the
concurrent testimony both of his enemies and his friends, and the seed
that he has sown in the minds and hearts of men have borne fruit, and will
still bear richer fruit, both in England and in Germany. Nor should it be
forgotten how excellent a use he made of his personal influence in helping
young men who wanted advice and encouragement. His sympathy, his
condescension, his faith when brought in contact with men of promise, were
extraordinary: they were not shaken, though they have been abused more
than once. In all who loved Bunsen his spirit will live on, imperceptibly,
it may be, to themselves, imperceptibly to the world, but not the less
really. It is not the chief duty of friends to honor the departed by idle
grief, but to remember their designs, and to carry out their mandates.
(Tac. Ann. II. 71.)
1868.