a little concert to be given in the house of an eminent merchant
of the reformed persuasion. It was already late; but as I loved to
do everything on the spur of the moment, I went with him, decently
dressed, as usual. We entered a chamber on the ground floor,--the
ordinary but spacious sitting-room of the family. The company was
numerous, a piano stood in the middle, at which the only daughter of
the house sat down immediately, and played with considerable facility
and grace. I stood at the lower end of the piano, that I might be near
enough to observe her form and bearing; there was something childlike
in her manner; the movements she was obliged to make in playing were
unconstrained and easy.
After the sonata was finished, she stepped towards the end of the piano
to meet me; we merely saluted, however, without further conversation,
for a quartet had already commenced. At the close of it, I moved
somewhat nearer and uttered some civil compliment; telling her what
pleasure it gave me that my first acquaintance with her should have
also made me acquainted with her talent. She managed to make a very
clever reply, and kept her position as I did mine. I saw that she
observed me closely, and that I was really standing for a show; but I
took it all in good part, since I had something graceful to look at in
my turn. Meanwhile, we gazed on one another, and I will not deny that
I was sensible of feeling an attractive power of the gentlest kind.
The moving about of the company, and her performances, prevented any
further approach that evening. But I must confess that I was anything
but displeased, when, on taking leave, the mother gave me to understand
that they hoped soon to see me again, while the daughter seemed to
join in the request with some friendliness of manner. I did not fail,
at suitable intervals, to repeat my visit, since, on such occasions, I
was sure of a cheerful and intellectual conversation, which seemed to
prophesy no tie of passion.
In the meantime, the hospitality of our house once laid open caused
many an inconvenience to my good parents and myself. At any rate it had
not proved in any way beneficial to my steadfast desire to notice the
Higher, to study it, to further it, and if possible to imitate it. Men,
I saw, so far as they were good, were pious; and, so far as they were
active, were unwise and oftentimes unapt. The former could not help me,
and the latter only confused me. One remarkable case I have carefully
written down.
[Side-note: Jung or Stilling.]
In the beginning of the year 1775, Jung, afterwards called Stilling,
from the Lower Rhine, announced to us that he was coming to Frankfort,
being invited as an oculist, to treat an important case; the news was
welcome to my parents and myself, and we offered him quarters.
Herr von Lersner, a worthy man advanced in years, universally esteemed
for his success in the education and training of princely children,
and for his intelligent manners at court and on his travels, had been
long afflicted with total blindness; his strong hope of obtaining some
relief of his affliction was not entirely extinct. Now, for several
years past, Jung, with much courage and modest boldness, had, in the
Lower Rhine, successfully couched for the cataract, and thus had gained
a wide-spread reputation. The candor of his soul, his truth fulness
of character, and genuine piety, gained him universal confidence; this
extended up the river through the medium of various parties connected
by business. Herr von Lersner and his friends, upon the advice of an
intelligent physician, resolved to send for the successful oculist,
although a Frankfort merchant, in whose case the cure had failed,
earnestly endeavored to dissuade them. But what was a single failure
against so many successful cases! So Jung came, enticed by the hope of
a handsome remuneration, which heretofore he had been accustomed to
renounce; he came, to increase his imputation, full of confidence and
in high spirits, and we congratulated ourselves on the prospect of such
an excellent and lively table-companion.
At last, after a preparatory course of medicine, the cataract upon both
eyes was couched. Expectation was at its height. It was said that the
patient saw the moment after the operation, until the bandage again
shut out the light. But it was remarked that Jung was not cheerful, and
that something weighed on his spirits; indeed, on further inquiry he
confessed to me that he was uneasy as to the result of the operation.
Commonly, for I had witnessed several operations of the kind in
Strasburg, nothing in the world seemed easier than such cases; and
Stilling himself had operated successfully a hundred times. After
piercing the insensible cornea, which gave no pain, the dull lens
would, at the slightest pressure, spring forward of itself; the patient
immediately discerned objects, and only had to wait with bandaged eyes,
until the completed cure should allow him to use the precious organ at
his own will and convenience. How many a poor man, for whom Jung had
procured this happiness, had invoked God's blessing and reward upon
his benefactor, which was now to be realized by means of this wealthy
patient!
Jung confessed to me that this time the operation had not gone off so
easily and so successfully; the lens had not sprung forward, he had
been obliged to draw it out, and indeed, as it had grown to the socket,
to loosen it; and this he was not able to do without violence. He now
reproached himself for having operated also on the other eye. But
Lersner and his friends had firmly resolved to have both couched at the
same time, and when the emergency occurred, they did not immediately
recover presence of mind enough to think what was best. Suffice it to
say, the second lens also did not spontaneously spring forward; but had
to be loosened and drawn out with difficulty.
How much pain our benevolent, good-natured, pious friend felt in
this case, it is impossible to describe or to unfold; some general
observations on his state of mind will not be out of place here.
To labor for his own moral culture, is the simplest and most
practicable thing which man can propose to himself; the impulse is
inborn in him; while in social life both reason and love, prompt or
rather force him to do so.
Stilling could only live in a moral religious atmosphere of love;
without sympathy, without hearty response, he could not exist; he
demanded mutual attachment; where he was not known, he was silent;
where he was only known, not loved, he was sad; accordingly he got on
best with those well-disposed persons, who can set themselves down for
life in their assigned vocation and go to work to perfect themselves in
their narrow but peaceful sphere.
Such persons succeed pretty well in stifling vanity, in renouncing the
pursuit of outward power, in acquiring a circumspect way of speaking,
and in preserving a uniformly friendly manner towards companions and
neighbors.
Frequently we may observe in this class traces of a certain form of
mental character, modified by individual varieties; such persons,
accidentally excited, attach great weight to the course of their
experience; they consider everything a supernatural determination, in
the conviction that God interferes immediately with the course of the
world.
With all this there is associated a certain disposition to abide in
his present state, and yet at the same time to allow themselves to be
pushed or led on; which results from a certain indecision to act of
themselves. The latter is increased by the miscarriage of the wisest
plans, as well as by the accidental success brought about by the
unforeseen concurrence of favorable occurrences.
Now, since a vigilant manly character is much checked by this way of
life, it is well worthy of reflection and inquiry, how men are most
liable to fall into such a state.
The things sympathetic persons of this kind love most to talk of,
are the so-called awakenings and conversions, to which we will not
deny a certain psychological value. They are properly what we call in
scientific and poetic matters, an "_aperçu_;" the perception of a great
maxim, which is always a genius-like operation of the mind; we arrive
at it by pure intuition, that is, by reflection, neither by learning
or tradition. In the cases before us it is the perception of the moral
power, which anchors in faith, and thus feels itself in proud security
in the midst of the waves.
Such an _aperçu_ gives the discoverer the greatest joy, because, in an
original manner, it points to the infinite; it requires no length of
time to work conviction; it leaps forth whole and complete in a moment;
hence the quaint old French rhyme:
En peu d'heure
Dieu labeure.
Outward occasions often work violently in bringing about such
conversions, and then people think they see in them signs and wonders.
[Side-note: Stilling.]
Love and confidence bound me most heartily to Stilling; I had moreover
exercised a good and happy influence on his life, and it was quite in
accordance with his disposition, to treasure up in a tender grateful
heart the remembrance of all that had ever been done for him; but in
my existing frame of mind and pursuits his society neither benefited
nor cheered me. I was glad to let every one interpret as he pleased
and work out the riddle of his days, but this way of ascribing to ail
immediate divine influence, all the good that after a rational manner
occurs to us in our chanceful life, seemed to me too presumptuous;
and the habit of regarding the painful consequences of the hasty
acts and omissions of our own thoughtlessness or conceit, as a dime
chastisement, did not at all suit me. I could, therefore, only listen
to my good friend, but could not give him any very encouraging reply;
still I readily suffered him, like so many others, to go his own way,
and defended him since then, as well as before, when others, of too
worldly a mind, did not hesitate to wound his gentle nature. Thus I
never allowed a roguish remark to come to his ears, made by a waggish
man who once very earnestly exclaimed: "No! indeed, if I were as
intimate with God as Jung is, I would never pray to the Most High for
gold, but for wisdom and good counsel, that I might not make so many
blunders which cost money, and draw after them wretched years of debt."
In truth, it was no time for such jests. Between hope and fear several
more days passed away; with him the latter grew, the former waned, and,
at last, vanished altogether; the eyes of the good patient man had
become inflamed, and there remained no doubt that the operation had
failed.
The state of mind to which our friend was reduced hereby, is not to
be described; he was struggling against the deepest and worst kind of
despair. For what was there now that he had not lost! In the first
place, the warm thanks of one restored to sight--the noblest reward
which a physician can enjoy; then the confidence of others similarly
needing help; then his worldly credit, while the interruption of his
peculiar practice would reduce his family to a helpless state. In
short, we played the mournful drama of Job through from beginning to
end, since the faithful Jung took himself the part of the reproving
friends. He chose to regard this calamity as the punishment of his
former faults; it seemed to him that in taking his accidental discovery
of an eye-cure as a divine call to that business, he had acted wickedly
and profanely; he reproached himself for not having thoroughly studied
this highly important department, instead of lightly trusting his cures
to good fortune; what his enemies had said of him recurred again to his
mind; he began to doubt whether perhaps it was not all true? and it
pained him the more deeply when he found that in the course of his life
he had been guilty of that levity which is so dangerous to pious men,
and also of presumption and vanity. In such moments he lost himself,
and in whatever light we might endeavour to set the matter, we, at
last, elicited from him only the rational and necessary conclusion that
the ways of God are unsearchable.
My unceasing efforts to be cheerful, would have been more checked by
Jung's visit, if I had not, according to my usual habit, subjected his
state of mind to an earnest friendly examination, and explained it
after my own fashion. It vexed me not a little to see my good mother
so poorly rewarded for her domestic care and pains-taking, though
she did not herself perceive it, with her usual equanimity and ever
bustling activity. I was most pained for my father. On my account he,
with a good grace, had enlarged what hitherto had been a strictly
close and private circle, and at table especially, where the presence
of strangers attracted familiar friends and even passing visitors, he
liked to indulge in a merry, even paradoxical conversation, in which
I put him in good humor and drew from him many an approving smile, by
all sorts of dialectic pugilism: for I had an ungodly way of disputing
everything, which, however, I pertinaciously kept up in every case so
long only as he, who maintained the right, was not yet made perfectly
ridiculous. During the last few weeks, however, this procedure was not
to be thought of; for many very happy and most cheering incidents,
occasioned by some successful secondary cures on the part of our
friend, who had been made so miserable by the failure of his principal
attempt, did not affect him, much less did they give his gloomy mood
another turn.
[Side-note: Stilling's Jew Patient.]
One incident in particular was most amusing. Among Jung's patients
there was a blind old Jewish beggar, who had come from Isenburg to
Frankfort, where in the extremity of wretchedness, he scarcely found
a shelter, scarcely the meanest food and attendance; nevertheless his
tough oriental nature helped him through and he was in raptures to find
himself healed perfectly and without the least suffering. When asked
if the operation pained him, he said, in his hyperbolical manner, "If
I had a million eyes, I would let them all be operated upon, one after
the other, for half a _Kopfstück._"[1] On his departure he acted quite
as eccentrically in the _Fahrgasse_ (or main thoroughfare); he thanked
God, and in good old testament style, praised the Lord and the wondrous
man whom He had sent. Shouting this he walked, slowly on through the
long busy street towards the bridge. Buyers and sellers ran out of
the shops, surprised by this singular exhibition of pious enthusiasm,
passionately venting itself before all the world, and he excited their
sympathy to such a degree, that, without asking anything, he was amply
furnished with gifts for his travelling expenses.
This lively incident, however, could hardly be mentioned in our
circle; for though the poor wretch, with all his domestic misery, in
his sandy home beyond the Main, could still be counted extremely happy;
the man of wealth and dignity on this side of the river, for whom we
were most interested, had missed the priceless relief so confidently
expected.
It was sickening, therefore, to our good Jung to receive the thousand
guilders, which, being stipulated in any case, were honorably paid by
the high-minded sufferer. This ready money was destined to liquidate,
on his return, a portion of the debts, which added their burden to
other sad and unhappy circumstances.
And so he went off inconsolable, for he could not help thinking of his
meeting with his care-worn wife, the changed manner of her parents,
who, as sureties for so many debts of this too confiding man, might,
however well-wishing, consider they had made a great mistake in the
choice of a partner for their daughter. In this and that house,
from this and that window, he could already see the scornful and
contemptuous looks of those who even when he was prospering, had
wished him no good; while the thought of a practice interrupted by his
absence, and likely to be materially damaged by his failure, troubled
him extremely.
And so we took our leave of him, not without all hope on our parts; for
his strong nature, sustained by faith in supernatural aid, could not
but inspire his friends with a quiet and moderate confidence.
[1] A coin, with the head of the sovereign stamped upon it, generally
worth 4 1/2 good groschen.--_Trans._
SEVENTEENTH BOOK.
In resuming the history of my relation to Lili*, I have to mention the
many very pleasant hours I spent in her society, partly in the presence
of her mother, partly alone with her. On the strength of my writings,
people gave me credit for knowledge of the human heart, as it was then
called, and in this view our conversations were morally interesting in
every way.
But how could we talk of such inward matters without coming to mutual
disclosures? It was not long before, in a quiet hour, Lili told me
the history of her youth. She had grown up in the enjoyment of all
the advantages of society and worldly comforts. She described to me
her brothers, her relations, and all her nearest connexions; only her
mother was kept in a respectful obscurity.
Little weaknesses, too, were thought of; and among them she could
not deny, that she had often remarked in herself a certain gift of
attracting others, with which, at the same time, was united a certain
peculiarity of letting them go again. By prattling on we thus came at
last to the important point, that she had exercised this gift upon me
too, but had been punished for it, since she had been attracted by me
also.
These confessions flowed forth from so pure and childlike a nature,
that by them she made me entirely her own.
We were now necessary to each other, we had grown into the habit of
seeing each other; but how many a day, how many an evening till far
into the night, should I have had to deny myself her company, if I had
not reconciled myself to seeing her in her own circles! This was a
source of manifold pain to me.
My relation to her was that of a character to a character--I looked
upon her as, to a beautiful, amiable, highly accomplished daughter;
it was like my earlier attachments, but was of a still higher kind.
Of outward circumstances, however, of the interchange of social
relations, I had never thought. An irresistible longing reigned in me;
I could not be without her, nor she without me; but from the circle
which surrounded her, and through the interference of its individual
members, how many days were spoiled, how many hours wasted.
The history of pleasure parties which ended in displeasure; a
retarding brother, whom I was to accompany, who would however always
be stopping to do some business or other which perhaps somewhat
maliciously he was in no hurry to finish, and would thereby spoil the
whole well-concerted plan for a meeting, and ever so much more of
accident and disappointment, of impatience and privation,--all these
little troubles, which, circumstantially set forth in a romance, would
certainly find sympathizing readers, I must here omit. However, to
bring this merely contemplative account nearer to a living experience
to a youthful sympathy, I may insert some songs, which are indeed well
known but are perhaps especially impressive in this place.
Heart, my heart, O, what hath changed thee?
What doth weigh on thee so sore?
What hath from myself estranged thee.
That I scarcely know thee more?
Gone is all which once seemed dearest,
Gone the care which once was nearest
Gone thy toils and tranquil bliss,
Ah! how couldst thou come to this?
Does that bloom so fresh and youthful,--
That divine and lovely form,--
That sweet look, so good and truthful.
Bind thee with resistless charm?
If I swear no more to see her,
If I man myself, and flee her,
Soon I find my efforts vain
Forc'd to seek her once again.
She with magic thread has bound me,
That defies my strength or skill,
She has drawn a circle round me,
Holds me fast against my will.
Cruel maid, her charms enslave me,
I must live as she would have me,
Ah! how great the change to me!
Love! when wilt thou set mo free!
With resistless power why dost thou press me
Into scenes so bright?
Had I not--good youth--so much to bless me
In the lonely night?
In my little chamber close I found me,
In the moon's cold beams;
And their quivering light fell softly round me.
While I lay in dreams.
And by hours of pure, unmingled pleasure,
All my dreams were blest,
While I felt her image, as a treasure,
Deep within my breast.
Is it I, she at the table places,
'Mid so many lights?
Yes, to meet intolerable faces,
She her slave invites.
Ah! the Spring's fresh fields no longer cheer me,
Flowers no sweetness bring;
Angel, where thou art, all sweets are near me,--
Love, Nature, and Spring.
Whoever reads these songs attentively to himself or better still, sings
them with feeling, will certainly feel a breath of the fulness of those
happy hours stealing over him.
But we will not take leave of that greater, and more brilliant society,
without adding some further remarks, especially to explain the close of
the second poem.
[Side-note: Lili's Soirées.]
She, whom I was only accustomed to see in a simple dress which was
seldom changed, now stood before me on such occasions in all the
splendor of elegant fashion, and still she was the same. Her usual
grace and kindliness of manner remained, only I should say her gift
of attracting shone more conspicuous;--perhaps, because brought into
contact with several persons, she seemed called upon to express herself
with more animation, and to exhibit herself on more sides, as various
characters approached her. At any rate, I could not deny, on the one
hand, that these strangers were annoying to me, while on the other I
would not for a great deal have deprived myself of the pleasure of
witnessing her talents for society, and of seeing that she was made
for a wider and more general sphere.
Though covered with ornaments it was still the same bosom that had
opened to me its inmost secrets, and into which I could look as clearly
as into my own; they were still the same lips that had so lately
described to me the state of things amidst which she had grown up,
and had spent her early years. Every look that we interchanged, every
accompanying smile, bespoke a noble feeling of mutual intelligence,
and I was myself astonished, here in the crowd, at the secret innocent
understanding which existed between us in the most human, the most
natural way.
But with returning spring, the pleasant freedom of the country was to
knit still closer these relations. Offenbach on the Main showed even
then the considerable beginnings of a city, which promised to form
itself in time. Beautiful, and for the times, splendid buildings, were
already erected. Of these Uncle Bernard, (to call him by his familiar
title) inhabited the largest; extensive factories were adjoining;
D'Orville, a lively young man of amiable qualities, lived opposite.
Contiguous gardens and terraces, reaching down to the Main, and
affording a free egress in every direction into the lovely surrounding
scenery, put both visitors and residents in excellent humor. The lover
could not find a more desirable spot for indulging his feelings.
[Side-note: André-Ewald--Bürger's Leonore.]
I lived, at the house of John André, and since I am here forced to
mention this man, who afterwards made himself well enough known, I must
indulge in a short digression, in order to give some idea of the state
of the Opera at that time.
In Frankfort, Marchand was director of the theatre, and exerted himself
in his own person to do all that was possible. In his best years he
had been a fine, large well-made man, the easy and gentle qualities
appeared to predominate in his character; his presence on the stage,
therefore, was agreeable enough. He had perhaps as much voice as was
required for the execution of any of the musical works of that day;
accordingly he endeavoured to adapt to our stage the large and smaller
French operas.
The part of the father in Gretry's opera of "Beauty and the Beast,"
particularly suited him and his acting was quite expressive in the
scene of the Vision which was contrived at the back of the stage.