left in me no other longing than after those tapestries of Raffaelle,
which I would willingly have gazed at, revered, nay, adored, every day
and every hour. Fortunately, my passionate endeavours succeeded in
interesting several persons of consequence in them, so that they were
taken down and packed up as late as possible. We now gave ourselves up
again to our quiet, easy routine of the university and society, and
in the latter the Actuary Salzmann, president of our table, continued
to be the general pedagogue. His intelligence, complaisance, and
dignity, which he always contrived to maintain amid all the jests, and
often even in the little extravagances which he allowed us, made him
beloved and respected by the whole company, and I could mention but few
instances where he showed his serious displeasure, or interposed with
authority in little quarrels and disputes. Yet among them all I was
the one who most attached myself to him, and he was not less inclined
to converse with me, as he found me more variously accomplished than
the others, and not so one-sided in judgment. I also followed his
directions in external matters, so that he could, without hesitation,
publicly acknowledge me as his companion and comrade: for although
he only filled an office which seems to be of little influence, he
administered it in a manner which redounded to his highest honour.
He was actuary to the Court of Wards (_Pupillen-Collegium_), and
there, indeed, like the perpetual secretary of an university, he had,
properly speaking, the management of affairs in his own hands. Now
as he had conducted this business with the greatest exactness for
many years, there was no family, from the first to the last, which
did not owe him its gratitude; as indeed scarcely any one in the
whole administration of government can earn more blessings or more
curses than one who takes charge of the orphans, or, on the contrary,
squanders or suffers to be squandered their property and goods.
[Side-note: Strasburg Manners.]
The Strasburgers are passionate walkers, and they have a good
right to be so. Let one turn one's steps as one will, one finds
pleasure-grounds, partly natural, partly adorned by art in ancient and
modern times, all of them visited and enjoyed by a cheerful, merry
little people. But what made the sight of a great number of pedestrians
still more agreeable here than in other places, was the various costume
of the fair sex. The middle class of city girls yet retained the hair
twisted up and secured by a large pin; as well as a certain close style
of dress, in which anything like a train would have been unbecoming;
and the pleasant part of it was, that this costume did not differ
violently according to the rank of the wearer; for there were still
some families of opulence and distinction, who would not permit their
daughters to deviate from this costume. The rest followed the French
fashion, and this party made some proselytes every year. Salzmann
had many acquaintances and an entrance everywhere; a very pleasant
circumstance for his companion, especially in summer, for good company
and refreshment were found in all the public gardens far and near, and
more than one invitation for this or that pleasant day was received.
On one such occasion I found an opportunity to recommend myself very
rapidly to a family which I was visiting for only the second time.
We were invited, and arrived at the appointed hour. The company was
not large; some played and some walked as usual. Afterwards, when
they were to go to supper, I saw our hostess and her sister speaking
to each other with animation, and as if in a peculiar embarrassment.
I accosted them and said: "I have indeed no right, ladies, to force
myself into your secrets; but perhaps I may be able to give you good
council, or even to serve you." Upon this they disclosed to me their
painful dilemma: namely, that they had invited twelve persons to
table, and that just at that moment a relation had returned from a
journey, who now, as the thirteenth, would be a fatal _memento mori_,
if not for himself, yet certainly for some of the guests. "The case
is very easily mended," replied I; "permit me to take my leave, and
stipulate for indemnification." As they were persons of consequence and
good-breeding, they would by no means allow this, but sent about in the
neighbourhood to find a fourteenth. I suffered them to do so, yet when
I saw the servant coming in at the garden-gate without having effected
his errand, I stole away and spent my evening pleasantly under the old
linden-trees of the Wanzenau. That this self-denial was richly repaid
me was a very natural consequence.
A certain kind of general society is not to be thought of without
card-playing. Salzmann renewed the good instructions of Madame Böhme,
and I was the more docile as I had really seen that by this little
sacrifice, if it be one, one may procure oneself much pleasure, and
even a greater freedom in society than one would otherwise enjoy. The
old piquet, which had gone to sleep, was again looked out; I learned
whist; I made myself, according to the directions of my Mentor, a
card-purse, which was to remain untouched under all circumstances; and
I now found opportunity to spend most of my evenings with my friend in
the best circles, where, for the most part, they wished me well, and
pardoned many a little irregularity, to which, nevertheless, my friend,
though kindly enough, used to call my attention.
But that I might experience symbolically how much one, even in
externals, has to adapt oneself to society, and direct oneself
according to it, I was compelled to something which seemed to me the
most disagreeable thing in the world. I had really very fine hair, but
my Strasburg hair-dresser at once assured me that it was cut much too
short behind, and that it would be impossible to make a _frizure_ of
it in which I could show myself, since nothing but a few short curls
in front were decreed lawful, and all the rest, from the crown, must
be tied up in a queue or a hair-bag. Nothing was left but to put up
with false hair till the natural growth was again restored according
to the demands of the time. He promised me that nobody should ever
remark this innocent cheat (against which I objected at first very
earnestly), if I could resolve upon it immediately. He kept his word,
and I was always looked upon as the young man who had the best and the
best-dressed head of hair. But as I was obliged to remain thus propped
up and powdered from early in the morning, and at the same time to take
care not to betray my false ornament by heating myself or by violent
motions, this restraint in fact contributed much to my behaving for a
time more quietly and politely, and accustomed me to going with my hat
under my arm, and consequently in shoes and stockings also; however I
did not venture to neglect wearing understockings of fine leather, as
a defence against the Rhine gnats, which, on the fine summer evenings,
generally spread themselves over the meadows and gardens. If now, under
these circumstances, a violent bodily motion was denied me, our social
conversations certainly became more and more animated and impassioned;
indeed they were the most interesting in which I had hitherto ever
borne part.
[Side-note: Jung-Stilling]
With my way of feeling and thinking, it cost me nothing to let
every one pass for what he was, nay, for that which he wished to
pass for, and thus the frankness of a fresh youthful heart, which
manifested itself almost for the first time in its full bloom, made
me many friends and adherents. Our company of boarders increased to
about twenty persons, and as Salzmann kept up his accustomed order,
everything continued in its old routine; nay, the conversation was
almost more decorous, as every one had to be on his guard before
several. Among the new comers, was a man who particularly interested
me; his name was JUNG, the same who afterwards became known under
the name of STILLING. In spite of an antiquated dress, his form had
something delicate about it, with a certain sturdiness. A bag-wig did
not disfigure his significant and pleasing countenance. His voice
was mild, without being soft and weak; it became even melodious and
powerful as soon as his ardour was roused, which was very easily
done. On learning to know him better, one found in him a sound
common-sense, which rested on feeling, and therefore took its tone
from the affections and passions, and from this very feeling sprang
an enthusiasm for the good, the true, and the just, in the greatest
possible purity. For the course of this man's life had been very
simple, and yet crowded with events and with manifold activity. The
element of his energy was an indestructible faith in God, and in an
assistance flowing immediately from him, which evidently manifested
itself in an uninterrupted providence, and in an unfailing deliverance
out of all troubles and from every evil. Jung had made many such
experiences in his life, and they had often been repeated of late in
Strasburg, so that, with the greatest cheerfulness, he led a life
frugal indeed, but free from care; and devoted himself most earnestly
to his studies, although he could not reckon upon any certain
subsistence from one quarter to another. In his youth, when on a fair
way to become a charcoal burner, he took up the trade of a tailor,
and after he had instructed himself, at the same time, in higher
matters, his knowledge-loving mind drove him to the occupation of
schoolmaster. This attempt failed, and he returned to his trade, from
which, however, since every one felt for him confidence and affection,
he was repeatedly called away, again to take a place as private tutor.
But for his most internal and peculiar training he had to thank that
wide-spread class of men who sought out their salvation on their
own responsibility, and who, while they strove to edify themselves
by reading the Scriptures and good books, and by mutual exhortation
and confession, thereby attained a degree of cultivation which must
excite surprise. For while the interest which always accompanied
them and which maintained them in fellowship, rested on the simplest
foundation of morality, well-wishing and well-doing, the deviations
which could take place with men of such limited circumstances were of
little importance, and hence their consciences, for the most part,
remained clear, and their minds commonly cheerful; so there arose no
artificial, but a truly natural culture, which yet had this advantage
over others, that it was suitable to all ages and ranks, and was
generally social by its nature. For this reason, too, these persons
were, in their own circle, truly eloquent, and capable of expressing
themselves appropriately and pleasingly on all the tenderest and best
concerns of the heart. Now the good Jung was in this very case. Among
a few persons, who, if not exactly like-minded with himself, did not
declare themselves averse from his mode of thought, he was found not
only talkative but eloquent; in particular, he related the history of
his life in the most delightful manner, and knew how to make all the
circumstances plainly and vividly present to his listeners. I persuaded
him to write them down, and he promised he would do so. But because
in his way of expressing himself he was like a somnambulist, whom one
dare not call, lest he** should fall from his elevation, or like a
gentle stream, to which one dare oppose nothing, lest it should foam,
so was often constrained to feel uncomfortable in a more numerous
company. His faith tolerated no doubt, and his conviction no jest. And
if in friendly communication he was inexhaustible, everything came to
a standstill with him when he suffered contradiction. I usually helped
him through on such occasions, for which he repaid me with honest
affection. Since his mode of thought was nothing strange to me, but
on the contrary I had already become accurately acquainted with it in
my very best friends of both sexes, and since, moreover, it generally
interested me with its naturalness and _naïveté_, he found himself on
the very best terms with me. The bent of his intellect was pleasing
to me, and his faith in miracles, which was so useful to him, I left
unmolested. Salzmann likewise behaved towards him with forbearance,--I
say with forbearance, for Salzmann, in conformity with his character,
his natural disposition, his age and circumstances, could not but stand
and continue on the side of the rational, or rather the common-sense
Christians, whose religion properly rested on the rectitude of their
characters, and a manly independence, and who therefore did not like
to meddle or have anything to do with feelings which might easily have
led them into gloom, or with mysticism, which might easily have led
them into the dark. This class, too, was respectable and numerous; all
men of honour and capacity understood each other, and were of the like
persuasion, as well as of the same mode of life.
[Side-note: Lerse.]
LERSE, likewise our fellow-boarder, also belonged to this number; a
perfectly upright young man, and, with limited gifts of fortune, frugal
and exact. His manner of life and housekeeping was the closest I ever
knew among students. He dressed himself the neatest of us all, and
yet always appeared in the same clothes; but he managed his wardrobe
with the greatest care, kept everything about him clean, and required
all things in ordinary life to go according to his example. He never
happened to lean anywhere, or to prop his elbow on the table; he never
forgot to mark his table-napkin, and it always went ill with the maid
when the chairs were not found perfectly clean. With all this, he had
nothing Stiff in his exterior. He spoke cordially, with precise and
dry liveliness, in which a light ironical joke was very becoming. In
figure, he was well-built, slender, and of fair height, his face was
pock-pitted and homely, his little blue eyes cheerful and penetrating.
As he had cause to tutor us in so many respects, we let him be our
fencing-master besides; for he drew a very fine rapier, and it seemed
to give him sport to play off upon us, on this occasion, all the
pedantry of this profession. Moreover, we really profited by him, and
had to thank him for many sociable hours, which he induced us to spend
in good exercise and practice.
By all these peculiarities, Lerse completely qualified himself for the
office of arbitrator and umpire in all the small and great quarrels
which happened, though but rarely, in our circle, and which Salzmann
could not hush up in his fatherly way. Without the external forms,
which do so much mischief in universities, we represented a society
bound together by circumstances and good-feeling, which others might
occasionally touch, but into which they could not intrude. Now, in
his judgment of internal piques, Lerse always showed the greatest
impartiality, and when the affair could no longer be settled by words
and explanations, he knew how to conduct the desired satisfaction, in
an honourable way, to a harmless issue. In this no man was more clever
than he; indeed, he often used to say, that since heaven had destined
him for a hero neither in war nor in love, he would be content, both
in romances and fighting, with the part of second. Since he remained
the same throughout, and might be regarded as a true model of a good
and steady disposition, the conception of him stamped itself as deeply
as amiably upon me; and when I wrote _Götz von Berlichingen_, I felt
myself induced to set up a memorial of our friendship, and to give the
gallant fellow, who knew how to subordinate himself in so dignified a
manner, the name of Franz Lerse.
[Side-note: Subjugation of Natural Antipathies.]
While now, by his constant humorous dryness, he continued always to
remind us of what one owed to oneself and to others, and how one ought
to behave in order to live at peace with men as long as possible,
and thus gain a certain position towards them, I had to fight, both
inwardly and outwardly, with quite different circumstances and
adversaries, being at strife with myself, with the objects around me,
and even with the elements. I found myself in a state of health which
furthered me sufficiently in all that I would and should undertake;
only there was a certain irritability left behind, which did not
always let me be in equilibrium. A loud sound was disagreeable to
me, diseased objects awakened in me loathing and horror. But I was
especially troubled by a giddiness which came over me every time that
I looked down from a height. All these infirmities I tried to remedy,
and, indeed, as I wished to lose no time, in a somewhat violent way. In
the evening, when they beat the tattoo, I went near the multitude of
drums, the powerful rolling and beating of which might have made one's
heart burst in one's bosom. All alone I ascended the highest pinnacle
of the minster spire, and sat in what is called the neck, under the nob
or crown, for a quarter of an hour, before I would venture to step out
again into the open air, where, standing upon a platform scarce an ell
square, without any particular holding, one sees the boundless prospect
before, while the nearest objects and ornaments conceal the church,
and everything upon and above which one stands. It is exactly as if
one saw oneself carried up into the air in a balloon. Such troublesome
and painful sensations I repeated until the impression became quite
indifferent to me, and I have since then derived great advantage from
this training, in mountain travels and geological studies, and on great
buildings, where I have vied with the carpenters in running over the
bare beams and the cornices of the edifice, and even in Rome, where
one must run similar risks to obtain a nearer view of important works
of art. Anatomy, also, was of double value to me, as it taught me to
tolerate the most repulsive sights, while I satisfied my thirst for
knowledge. And thus I attended, also, the clinical course of the elder
Doctor Ehrmann, as well as the lectures of his son on obstetrics,
with the double view of becoming acquainted with all conditions, and
of freeing myself from all apprehension as to repulsive things. And I
have actually succeeded so far, that nothing of this kind could ever
put me out of my self-possession. But I sought to steel myself not
only against these impressions on the senses, but also against the
infections of the imagination. The awful and shuddering impressions of
the darkness in churchyards, solitary places, churches and chapels by
night, and whatever may be connected with them, I contrived to render
likewise indifferent; and in this, also, I went so far that day and
night, and every locality, were quite the same to me; so that even
when, in later times, a desire came over me once more to feel in such
scenes the pleasing shudder of youth, I could scarcely force this, in
any degree, by the strangest and most fearful images which I called up.
In my efforts to free myself from the pressure of the too-gloomy and
powerful, which continued to rule within me, and seemed to me sometimes
as strength, sometimes as weakness, I was thoroughly assisted by
that open, social, stirring manner of life, which attracted me more
and more, to which I accustomed myself, and which I at last learned
to enjoy with perfect freedom. It is not difficult to remark in the
world, that man feels himself most freely and most perfectly rid
of his own failings, when he represents to himself the faults of
others, and expatiates upon them with complacent censoriousness. It
is a tolerably pleasant sensation even to set ourselves above our
equals by disapprobation and misrepresentation, for which reason good
society, whether it consists of few or many, is most delighted with
it. But nothing equals the comfortable self-complacency, when we erect
ourselves into judges of our superiors, and of those who are set over
us,--of princes and statesmen, when we find public institutions unfit
and injudicious, only consider the possible and actual obstacles, and
recognise neither the greatness of the invention, nor the co-operation
which is to be expected from time and circumstances in every
undertaking.
Whoever remembers the condition of the French kingdom, and is
accurately and circumstantially acquainted with it from later writings,
will easily figure to himself how, at that time, in the Alsatian
semi-France, people used to talk about the king and his ministers,
about the court and court-favourites. These were new subjects for my
love of instructing myself, and very welcome ones to my pertness and
youthful conceit. I observed everything accurately, noted it down
industriously, and I now see, from the little that is left, that such
accounts, although only put together on the moment, out of fables and
uncertain general rumours, always have a certain value in after-times,
because they serve to confront and compare the secret made known
at last with what was then already discovered and public, and the
judgments of contemporaries, true or false, with the convictions of
posterity.
Striking, and daily before the eyes of us street-loungers, was the
project for beautifying the city; the execution of which, according
to draughts and plans, began in the strangest fashion to pass from
sketches and plans into reality. Intendant Gayot had undertaken to
new-model the angular and uneven lanes of Strasburg, and to lay the
foundations of a respectable, handsome city, regulated by line and
level. Upon this, Blondel, a Parisian architect, drew a plan, by which
an hundred and forty householders gained in room, eighty lost, and the
rest remained in their former condition. This plan accepted, but not
to be put into execution at once, now, should in course of time have
been approaching completion, and, meanwhile, the city oddly enough
wavered between form and formlessness. If, for instance, a crooked side
of a street was to be straightened, the first man who felt disposed
to build moved forward to the appointed line perhaps, too, his next
neighbour; but perhaps, also, the third or fourth resident from him,
by which projections the most awkward recesses were left, like** front
court-yards, before the houses in the background. They would not use
force, yet without compulsion they would never have got on; on which
account no man, when his house was once condemned, ventured to improve
or replace anything that related to the street. All these strange
accidental inconveniences gave to us rambling idlers the most welcome
opportunity of practising our ridicule, of making proposals, in the
manner of Behrisch, for accelerating the completion, and of constantly
doubting the possibility of it, although many a newly-erected handsome,
building should have brought us to other thoughts. How far that project
was advanced by the length of time, I cannot say.
[Side-note: Expulsion of the Jesuits.]
Another subject on which the Protestant Strasburgers liked to converse
was the expulsion of the Jesuits. These fathers, as soon as the city
had fallen to the share of the French, had made their appearance and
sought a _domicilium._ But they soon extended themselves and built a
magnificent college, which bordered so closely on the minster that the
back of the church covered a third part of its front. It was to be a
complete quadrangle, and have a garden in the middle; three sides of
it were finished. It is of stone, and solid, like all the buildings of
these fathers. That the Protestants were pushed hard, if not oppressed
by them, lay in the plan of the society which made it a duty to restore
the old religion in its whole compass. Their fall, therefore, awakened
the greatest satisfaction in the opposite party, and people saw,
not without pleasure, how they sold their wines, carried away their
books, and the building was assigned to another, perhaps less active
order. How glad are men when they get rid of an opponent, or only of a
guardian; and the herd does not reflect that where there is no dog, it
is exposed to wolves.
Now, since every city must have its tragedy, at which children and
children's children shudder, so in Strasburg frequent mention was made
of the unfortunate Prætor Klingling, who, after he had mounted the
highest step of earthly felicity, ruled city and country with almost
absolute power, and enjoyed all that wealth, rank, and influence could
afford, had at last lost the favour of the court, and was dragged up to
answer for all in which he had been indulged hitherto; nay, was even
thrown into prison, where, more than seventy years old, he died an
ambiguous death.
[Side-note: The Knight of St. Louis.]