knew how to tell with passion and animation, for which reason I was
fond of accompanying him in his walks, unlike the others, who avoided
such invitations, and left me alone with him. As with new acquaintances
I generally suffered myself to go on for a long time without thinking
much about them or the effect which they were exercising upon me,
so I only remarked gradually that his stories and opinions rather
unsettled and confused, than instructed and enlightened me. I never
knew what to make of him, although the riddle might easily have been
solved. He belonged to the many to whom life offers no results, and
who therefore, from first to last, exert themselves on individual
objects. Unfortunately he had, with this, a decided desire, nay, even
passion for meditating, without having any capacity for thinking; and
in such men a particular notion easily fixes itself fast, which may
be regarded as a mental disease. To such a fixed view he always came
back again, and was thus in the long-run excessively tiresome. He used
bitterly to complain of the decline of his memory, especially with
regard to the latest events, and maintained by a logic of his own, that
all virtue springs from a good memory, and all vice, on the contrary,
from forgetfulness. This doctrine he contrived to carry out with much
acuteness; as, indeed, everything can be maintained when one permits
oneself to use words altogether vaguely, and to employ and apply them
in a sense now wider, now narrower, now closer, now more remote.
At first it was amusing to hear him; nay, his persuasiveness even
astonished us. We fancied we were standing before a rhetorical sophist,
who for jest and practice knew how to give a fair appearance to the
strangest things. Unfortunately this first impression blunted itself
but too soon; for at the end of every discourse, manage the thing as
I would, the man came back again to the same theme. He was not to be
held fast to older events, although they interested him,---although he
had them present to his mind with their minutest circumstances. Indeed
he was often, by a small circumstance, snatched out of the middle of
a wild historical narrative, and thrust into his detestable favourite
thought.
One of our afternoon walks was particularly unfortunate in this
respect; the account of it may stand here instead of similar cases,
which might weary, if not vex the reader.
On the way through the city we were met by an old female mendicant, who
by her beggings and importunities disturbed him in his story. "Pack
yourself off, old witch!" said he, and walked by. She shouted after
him the well-known retort, only somewhat changed, since she saw well
that the unfriendly man was old himself,--"If you did not wish to be
old, you should have had yourself hanged in your youth!" He turned
round violently, and I feared a scene. "Hanged!" cried he, "have myself
hanged! No, that could not have been; I was too honest a fellow for
that; but hang myself--hang up my own self--that is true--that I should
have done; I should have turned a charge of powder against myself, that
I might not live to see that I am not even worth that any more." The
woman stood as if petrified; but he continued, "You have said a great
truth, witch-mother! and as they have neither drowned nor burned you
yet, you shall be paid for your proverb." He handed her a _büsel_, a
coin not usually given to a beggar.
We had crossed over the first Rhine-bridge, and were going to the
inn where we meant to stop, and I was trying to lead him back to our
previous conversation, when, unexpectedly, a very pretty girl met us
on the pleasant foot-path, remained standing before us, bowed prettily
and cried: "Eh, eh! captain, where are you going?" and whatever else
is usually said on such an occasion. "Mademoiselle," replied he,
somewhat embarrassed, "I know not----" "How?" said she, with graceful
astonishment, "do you forget your friends so soon?" The word "forget"
fretted him; he shook his head and replied, peevishly enough, "Truly,
mademoiselle, I did not know----!" She now retorted with some humour,
yet very temperately: "Take care, captain, I may mistake you another
time!" And so she hurried past, taking huge strides, without looking
round. At once my fellow-traveller struck his forehead with both his
fists: "O what an ass I am!" exclaimed he, "what an old ass I am!
Now, you see whether I am right or not." And then, in a very violent
manner, he went on with his usual sayings and opinions, in which this
case still more confirmed him. I cannot and would not repeat what a
philippic discourse he held against himself. At last he turned to me
and said: "I call you to witness! You remember that small-ware woman at
the corner, who is neither young nor pretty? I salute her every time we
pass, and often exchange a couple of friendly words with her; and yet
it is thirty years ago since she was gracious to me. But now I swear it
is not four weeks since this young lady showed herself more complaisant
to me than was reasonable, and yet I will not recognise her, but insult
her in return for her favours! Do I not always say that ingratitude is
the greatest of vices, and no man would be ungrateful if he were not
forgetful!"
"We went into the inn, and nothing but the tippling, swarming crowd
in the ante-rooms stopped the invectives which he rattled off against
himself and his contemporaries. He was silent, and I hoped pacified,
when we stepped into an upper chamber, where we found a young man
pacing up and down alone, whom the captain saluted by name. I was
pleased to become acquainted with him; for the old fellow had said much
good of him to me, and had told me that this young man, being employed
in the war-bureau, had often disinterestedly done him very good service
when the pensions were stopped. I was glad that the conversation took
a general turn, and while we were carrying it on we drank a bottle of
wine. But here, unluckily, another infirmity which my knight had in
common with obstinate men, developed itself. For as, on the whole,
he could not get rid of that fixed notion, so did he stick fast to a
disagreeable impression of the moment, and suffer his feelings to run
on without moderation. His last vexation about himself had not yet died
away, and now was added something new, although of quite a different
kind. He had not long cast his eyes here and there before he noticed on
the table a double portion of coffee and two cups, and might besides,
being a man of gallantry, have traced some other indication that the
young man had not been so solitary all the time. And scarcely had the
conjecture arisen in his mind, and ripened into a probability, that
the pretty girl had been paying a visit here, than the most outrageous
jealousy added itself to that first vexation, so as completely to
perplex him.
[Side-note: The Knight of St. Louis.]
Now before I could suspect anything, for I had hitherto been conversing
quite harmlessly with the young man, the captain, in an unpleasant
tone, which I well knew, began to be satirical about the pair of cups,
and about this and that. The young man, surprised, tried to turn it off
pleasantly and sensibly, as is the custom among men of good-breeding;
but the old fellow continued to be unmercifully rude, so that there was
nothing left for the other to do but to seize his hat and cane, and at
his departure to leave behind him a pretty unequivocal challenge. The
fury of the captain now burst out the more vehemently, as he had in the
interim drunk another bottle of wine almost by himself. He struck the
table with his fist, and cried more than once: "I strike him dead!"
It was not, however, meant quite so badly as it sounded, for he often
used this phrase when any one opposed or otherwise displeased him. Just
as unexpectedly the business grew worse on our return: for I had the
want of foresight to represent to him his ingratitude towards the young
man, and to remind him how strongly he had praised to me the ready
obligingness of this official person. No! such rage of a man against
himself I never saw again; it was the most passionate conclusion to
that beginning to which the pretty girl had given occasion. Here I
saw sorrow and repentance carried into caricature, and as all passion
supplies the place of genius, to a point really genius-like. He then
went over all the incidents of our afternoon ramble again, employed
them rhetorically for his own self-reproach, brought up the old witch
at last before him once more, and perplexed himself to such a degree,
that I could not help fearing** he would throw himself into the Rhine.
Could I have been sure of fishing him out again quickly, like Mentor
his Telemachus, he might have made the leap, and I should have brought
him home cooled down for this occasion.
I immediately confided the affair to Lerse, and we went the next
morning to the young man, whom my friend in his dry way set laughing.
We agreed to bring about an accidental meeting, where a reconciliation
should take place of itself. The drollest thing about it was, that this
time the captain too had slept off his rudeness, and found himself
ready to apologize to the young man, to whom petty quarrels were of
some consequence. All was arranged in one morning, and, as the affair
had not been kept quite secret, I did not escape the jokes of my
friends, who might have foretold me, from their own experience, how
troublesome the friendship of the captain could become upon occasion.
But now, while I am thinking what should be imparted next, there
comes again into my thoughts, by a strange play of memory, that
reverend minster-building, to which in those days I devoted particular
attention, and which, in general, constantly presents itself to the eye
both in the city and in the country.
The more I considered the _façade_, the more was that first impression
strengthened and developed, that here the sublime has entered into
alliance with the pleasing. If the vast, when it appears as a mass
before us, is not to terrify; if it is not to confuse, when we seek to
investigate its details, it must enter into an unnatural, apparently
impossible connexion, it must associate to itself the pleasing. But
now, since it will be impossible for us to speak of the impression of
the minster except by considering both these incompatible qualities as
united, so do we already see, from this, in what high value we must
hold this ancient monument, and we begin in earnest to describe how
such contradictory elements could peaceably interpenetrate and unite
themselves.
[Side-note: Strasburg Minster.]
First of all, without thinking of the towers, we devote our
considerations to the _façade_ alone, which powerfully strikes the eye
as an upright, oblong parallelogram. If we approach it at twilight,
in the moonshine, on a starlight night, when the parts appear more or
less indistinct and at last disappear, we see only a colossal wall,
the height of which bears an advantageous proportion to the breadth. If
we gaze on it by day, and by the power of the mind abstract from the
details, we recognise the front of a building which not only incloses
the space within, but also covers much in its vicinity. The openings
of this monstrous surface point to internal necessities, and according
to these we can at once divide it into nine compartments. The great
middle door, which opens into the nave of the church, first meets
the eye. On both sides of it lie two smaller ones, belonging to the
cross-ways. Over the chief door our glance falls upon the wheel-shaped
window, which is to spread an awe-inspiring light within the church
and its vaulted arches. At its sides appear two large, perpendicular,
oblong openings, which form a striking contrast with the middle one,
and indicate that they belong to the base of the rising towers. In
the third story are three openings in a row, which are designed for
belfries and other church necessities. Above them one sees the whole
horizontally closed by the balustrade of the gallery, instead of a
cornice. These nine spaces described, are supported, enclosed, and
separated into three great perpendicular divisions by four pillars
rising up from the ground.
Now as one cannot deny to the whole mass a fine proportion of height
to breadth, so also in the details it maintains a somewhat uniform
lightness by means of these pillars and the narrow compartments between
them.
But if we keep to our abstraction, and imagine to ourselves this
immense wall without ornaments, with firm buttresses, with the
necessary openings in it, but only so far as necessity requires
them, we even then must allow that these chief divisions are in good
proportion: thus the whole will appear solemn and noble indeed, but
always heavily unpleasant, and, being without ornament, unartistical.
For a work of art, the whole of which is conceived in great, simple,
harmonious parts, makes indeed a noble and dignified impression, but
the peculiar enjoyment which the pleasing produces can only find place
in the consonance of all developed details.
And it is precisely here that the building which we are examining
satisfies us in the highest degree: for we see all the ornaments fully
suited to every part which they adorn; they are subordinate to it, they
seem to have grown out of it. Such a manifoldness always gives great
pleasure, since it flows of its own accord from the suitable, and
therefore at the same time awakens the feeling of unity. It is only in
such cases that the execution is prized as the summit of art.
By such means, now, was a solid piece of masonry, an impenetrable wall,
which had moreover to announce itself as the base of two heaven-high
towers, made to appear to the eye as if resting on itself, consisting
in itself, but at the same time light and adorned, and, though pierced
through in a thousand places, to give the idea of indestructible
firmness.
This riddle is solved in the happiest manner. The openings in the wall,
its solid parts, the pillars, everything has its peculiar character,
which proceeds from its particular destination; this communicates
itself by degrees to the subdivisions; hence everything is adorned
in proportionate taste, the great as well as the small is in the
right place, and can be easily comprehended, and thus the pleasing
presents itself in the vast. I would refer only to the doors sinking in
perspective into the thickness of the wall, and adorned without end in
their columns and pointed arches; to the window with its rose springing
out of the round form, to the outline of its frame-work, as well as
to the slender reedlike pillars of the perpendicular compartments.
Let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step,
accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures,
likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the
images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems
like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object
transformed into stone. One may compare, if not the building itself,
yet representations of the whole and of its parts, for the purpose of
reviewing and giving life to what I have said. It may seem exaggerated
to many, for I myself, though transported into love for this work at
first sight, required a long time to make myself intimately acquainted
with its value.
Having grown up among those who found fault with Gothic architecture,
I cherished my aversion from the abundantly overloaded,complicated
ornaments which, by their capriciousness, made a religious, gloomy
character highly adverse. I strengthened myself in this repugnance,
since I had only met with spiritless works of this kind, in which
one could perceive neither good proportions nor a pure consistency.
But here I thought I saw a new revelation of it, since what was
objectionable by no means appeared, but the contrary opinion rather
forced itself upon my mind.
[Side-note: Strasburg Minster.]
But the longer I looked and considered, I all the while thought
I discovered yet greater merits beyond that which I have already
mentioned. The right proportion of the larger divisions, the
ornamental, as judicious as rich, even to the minutest, were found
out; but now I recognised the connexion of these manifold ornaments
amongst each other, the transition from one leading part to another,
the enclosing of details, homogeneous indeed, but yet greatly varying
in form, from the saint to the monster, from the leaf to the dental.
The more I investigated, the more I was astonished; the more I amused
and wearied myself with measuring and drawing, so much the more did my
attachment increase, so that I spent much time, partly in studying what
actually existed, partly in restoring, in my mind and on paper, what
was wanting and unfinished, especially in the towers.
Since now I found that this building had been based on old German
ground, and grown thus far in genuine German times, and that the name
of the master, on his modest gravestone, was likewise of native sound
and origin, I ventured, being incited by the worth of this work of art,
to change the hitherto decried appellation of "Gothic architecture,"
and to claim it for our nation as "German architecture;" nor did I fail
to bring my patriotic views to light, first orally, and afterwards in a
little treatise, dedicated to the memory of Ervinus a Steinbach.
If my biographical narrative should come down to the epoch when the
said sheet appeared in print, which Herder afterwards inserted in
his pamphlet: _Von Deutscher Art und Kunst_, (_Of German Manner and
Art_,) much more will be said on this weighty subject. But before I
turn myself away from it this time, I will take the opportunity to
vindicate the motto prefixed to the present volume, with those who may
have entertained some doubt about it. I know indeed very well, that
in opposition to this honest, hopeful old German saying: "Whatever
one wishes in youth, one has abundance in old age!" many would quote
contrary experience, and many trifling comments might be made; but much
also is to be said in its favour, and I will explain my own thoughts on
the matter.
Our wishes are presentiments of the capabilities which lie within us,
and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform.
Whatever we are able and would like to do, presents itself to our
imagination, as without us and in the future; we feel a longing
after that which we already possess in secret. Thus a passionate
anticipating grasp changes the truly possible into a dreamed reality.
Now if such a bias lies decidedly in our nature, then, with every step
of our development will a part of the first wish be fulfilled--under
favourable circumstances in the direct way, under unfavourable in
the circuitous way, from which we always come back again to the
other. Thus we see men by perseverance attain to earthly wealth; they
surround themselves with riches, splendour, and external honour. Others
strive yet more certainly after intellectual advantages, acquire for
themselves a clear survey of things, a peacefulness of mind, and a
certainty for the present and the future.
But now there is a third direction, which is compounded of both, and
the issue of which must be the most surely successful. When, namely,
the youth of a man falls into a pregnant time, when production
overweighs destruction, and a presentiment is early awakened within
him as to what such an epoch demands and promises, he will then, being
forced by outward inducements into an active interest, take hold now
here, now there, and the wish to be active on many sides will be lively
within him. But so many accidental hindrances are associated with human
limitation, that here a thing, once begun, remains unfinished, there
that which is already grasped falls out of the hand, and one wish
after another is dissipated. But had these wishes sprung out of a pure
heart, and in conformity with the necessities of the times, one might
composedly let them lie and fall right and left, and be assured that
these must not only be found out and picked up again, but that also
many kindred things, which one has never touched and never even thought
of, will come to light. If now, during our own lifetime, we see that
performed by others, to which we ourselves felt an earlier call, but
had been obliged to give it up, with much besides; then the beautiful
feeling enters the mind, that only mankind together is the true man,
and that the individual can only be joyous and happy when he has the
courage to feel himself in the whole.
[Side-note: Study of German Architecture.]
This contemplation is here in the right place: for when I reflect
on the affection which drew me to these antique edifices, when I
reckon up the time which I devoted to the Strasburg minster alone,
the attention with which I afterwards examined the cathedral at
Cologne, and that at Freyburg, and more and more felt the value of
these buildings, I could even blame myself for having afterwards lost
sight of them altogether, nay, for having left them completely in the
background, being attracted by a more developed art. But when I now,
in the latest times, see attention again turned to those objects, when
I see affection and even passion for them appearing and flourishing,
when I see able young persons seized with this passion, recklessly
devoting powers, time, care, and property, to these memorials of a past
world, then am I reminded with pleasure that what I formerly would and
wished had a value. With satisfaction I see that they not only know
how to prize what was done by our forefathers, but that from existing
unfinished beginnings they try to represent, in pictures at least, the
original design, so as thus to make us acquainted with the thought,
which is ever the beginning and end of all undertakings; and that
they strive with considerate zeal to clear up and vivify what seems
to be a confused past. Here I especially applaud the gallant Sulpiz
Boisserée, who is indefatigably employed in a magnificent series of
copper-plates to exhibit the cathedral of Cologne as the model of those
vast conceptions, the spirit of which, like that of Babel, strove up
to heaven, and which were so out of proportion to earthly means, that
they were necessarily stopped fast in their execution. If we have been
hitherto astonished that such buildings proceeded only so far, we shall
learn with the greatest wonder what was really designed to be done.
May the literary-artistical undertakings of this kind be duly
patronized by all who have power, wealth, and influence, that the
great and gigantic views of our forefathers may be presented to our
contemplation, and that we may be able to form a conception of what
they dared to desire. The insight resulting from this will not remain
fruitless, and the judgment will, for once at least, be in a condition
to exercise itself on these works with justice. Nay, this will be done
most thoroughly, if our active young friend, besides the monograph
devoted to the cathedral of Cologne, follows out in detail the history
of our mediæval architecture. When whatever is to be known about the
practical exercise of this art is further brought to light, when the
art is represented in all its fundamental features by a comparison
with the Græco-Roman and the oriental Egyptian, little can remain to
be done in this department. And I, when the results of such patriotic
labours lie before the world, as they are now known in friendly private
communications, shall be able, with true content, to repeat that motto
in its best sense: "Whatever one wishes in youth, in old age one has
abundance."