re-echoes from her diary throughout the whole time of the betrothal. It
is true that there were many differences of opinion between the
betrothed, especially when religious questions were discussed, but his
cheerful serenity was always able to make amends for whatever might have
wounded her feelings in such disputes, and, taken as a whole, their
betrothal was one long happy festival. He taught her the hieroglyphic
alphabet, and wrote out for her little protestations of love in the
picture writing of the old Egyptians. The learned man of five and thirty
was unwearied in the invention of tender speeches, and it must have
pleased Elizabeth-Lilli to have heard herself called, both in his
letters and from his lips, by eighteen pet names,--she counted them
herself. There was no lack on his side of verses, flowers, and acts of
homage. In the house of the Partheys, who had adopted the orphan niece
as a daughter, entertainment followed upon entertainment, gay excursions
to the country were arranged, and masquerades, at which Elizabeth was
obliged to appear in Turkish dress. But this gay life was contrary to
her inclinations and to his likewise. The wedding was celebrated on the
fifth of July, 1846, not in the old Nicolai house in Behren Street,
where they had first known each other, but at Dresden. The excellent
pastor Jonas, from Berlin, performed the marriage ceremony in the Church
of Our Lady, and after a brilliant wedding banquet the young couple went
to Pirna, the first stopping-place in a longer wedding trip which took
them, by way of Paris, to England. There they were cordially received by
the Bunsens, and the young wife found the eminent statesman and patron
of her husband so kind and friendly that her fear of appearing
embarrassed before him proved entirely unfounded.[93] She described
vividly everything noteworthy that occurred to her, and depicted with a
bold and ready pen the impression made on her by men and things. She saw
her Richard received everywhere with the same respect and cordiality;
the light of his fame enveloped and delighted her, but on their journey
home a charming attention fell to her lot also, for at Cologne her
father’s great mass, which she never yet heard, was performed in the
most admirable manner as a mark of respect to her.
On the seventeenth of September they returned to Berlin, and “Richard”
writes Elizabeth, “was forced to laugh at the childish delight which I
showed in the beautiful big house, our own house, (in Behren Street)
where I am to be mistress.”
They were soon installed, and the young couple, who were freed from all
material anxiety by the comfortable property of the wife and the salary
of the husband, could now return the hospitality which had been offered
them on all sides. In spite of her strict piety the wife showed herself
as much inclined as was her husband to social intercourse with agreeable
guests. A few weeks after their return the young couple entertained a
number of friends, and who these were we see from the memoranda before
us. On the third of November, 1846, there met at their house Gerhard, v.
Olfers, Homeyer, Max Müller, the Grimm brothers, Parthey, Carl Ritter,
Ehrenberg, Lachmann, L. Ranke and E. Curtius. On the fifteenth of
December there were assembled there A. v. Humboldt (who also visited
them on other occasions, and for whom, Frau Elizabeth writes, she felt a
genuine affection) v. Olfers, Boeckh, Pertz, Cornelius, v. Reumont, the
Grimm brothers, Homeyers, Strack, the Partheys, Schelling and Bethmann.
Such a company of illustrious men could at that time be brought together
nowhere but in Berlin, and if we consult the diary of Frau Lepsius and
Lepsius’ later note-books, and appeal to our own memory, we shall und
that the assemblage of noted colleagues and countrymen was constantly
increased by a number of eminent strangers. Amongst them were scholars,
travelers, statesmen, artists, and even the ambassadors of foreign
powers, who were unwilling to leave Berlin without having visited the
house of Lepsius. The most faithful friend of the family, beside the
Partheys and Pinders, was the valued traveling companion of the young
husband, Abeken, who had renounced his career as a divine, and was
constantly rising to higher and higher positions in the Foreign Office.
How kindly Frederick William IV. was disposed to Lepsius may be inferred
from the fact that soon after the return of the latter from his wedding
trip the King sent him fifteen hundred thalers towards the establishment
of the new household. Frau Elizabeth writes: “It is altogether a
peculiar feeling; to have in hand such a large sum that seems as if it
had fallen from heaven. I was quite troubled about our great good
fortune in material things, and I reminded Richard of the ring of
Polycrates. But as I read the day after in a letter from C. P. to
Richard: ‘Whoever has behind him such a fruitful and undesecrated youth
as you have, has a right to make claims upon life, which will not fail
to reward you abundantly.’ Nevertheless one is astonished, and such a
distribution of fortune seems almost unjust, if one considers what an
immeasurable sum and what great wealth such a gift would be to poor
people, and how to Richard it was only a pleasant proof of the King’s
good-will, which he calmly put in the fund for setting our house in
order. Five hundred thalers he reserved for current expenses, and soon
it had all vanished as it had come.”
In his own house Lepsius stood at the helm with a steady hand, but his
wife ever strove to make his voyage through life pleasant and happy.
Her struggle for greater calmness and a more equable nature is touching,
as is the loving humility with which she recognizes his superiority; and
often does a phrase, an interjection, in the midst of matter-of-fact
records, give expression to her true and tender love. She says: “It is
grand in Richard, that he can take everything so naturally. It comes
from his perfect honesty; if I could only educate myself up to him.”
When her first little daughter was able to stand alone she wrote:
“Richard and Anna, these names embrace my whole happiness, the fragrant
blooming shower of blessings which Our Father in Heaven pours upon me
from the abundant horn of plenty of His grace and love.”
The diaries are replete with such expressions. Especially neat and
pointed are the little sketches of eminent men drawn by the young wife.
Whoever was personally acquainted with Master Peter Cornelius, (he was
a friend of my mother’s, and indeed once made a portrait of me as a
boy), will admit that it would not be possible to depict his external
appearance more neatly and pointedly than in the following words from
the diary of Frau Lepsius. She writes: “A little, thick-set man, with a
black peruke, piercing black eyes, wide, kindly mouth, and with thought
upon his wrinkled brow.”
On the twenty-fifth of July, 1847, a daughter was granted to the young
couple. She received the name of Isis Anna. Minister Jonas, the
liberal-minded pastor of the household, found nothing wrong in the
choice of the name of the heathen divinity Isis, but strange to say,
Bunsen took serious exception to it, and gave expression to his
disapproval in a letter. The happy father answered in the following
letter, in which we see pleasantly manifested the joyous zest in life by
which he was at that time animated.
“Our little Isis gives us infinite delight; she thrives splendidly.
Her mamma has carried her point by giving her the name of Anna. I
foresaw that I should furnish a subject for witticisms, in the name
of Isis, to those people in Berlin who honor us with their
attention. It is necessary to throw them a few crumbs of that sort
from time to time, so that they may not devise something worse. I
was as little able to find any serious scandal in it as was the
excellent Jonas who administered the baptism. Scarcely any one
keeps to the Calendar for the sake of the Calendar itself, and I
should much prefer Friedhelm and Maxhelene, the children’s names
recently given by Ranke, to the Fides, Spes and Charitas, or Titus,
Ptolemeus, Sosthenes, Lot, Habakkuk, Methuselah, etc., of the
Calendar. Yet Ranke comes very near to offending against the only
limitation which I should admit; that of not choosing ludicrous
names. Take Erica, Berenice, (that is Veronica,) or Emin, which is
the name of young Wildenbruch, the elder brother of the talented
poet Ernest von Wildenbruch; no one has anything against such names
as these and innumerable others, though they too are as little in
the Calendar, and have as little Christian precedent, as a hundred
thousand ἁπαξ λεγόμευα from the birth of Christ to our time, in all
Christian countries. Besides, Isis, to every one who knows the
Egyptian goddess, is a very honorable name, which can only recall
the author of all good, a faithful spouse and sister, the model and
recognized prototype of all queens. What the Romans made of her
need trouble us as little as their opinion of the image of Jehovah
in the Jewish temple, and can as little cast suspicion upon her as
can the Christianity of the Königsberg impostors upon the name of
Christian. If, in another year, I have a boy to baptize I shall not
be obliged to call him Apis, as Osiris is already received in the
Christian Calendar, under a much more beautiful form as
Onophrius.[94] But I will take care not to impose upon him the
equally Christian name of the Typhon, “Set.” I should like to see
any one who would not as utterly fail in any theory for the giving
of Christian names, as did, not long since, the law forbidding the
Jews to bear Christian names. But, on the other hand, I consider it
very wise to give the clergy a certain freedom to exclude
unsuitable, scandalous names of every kind, according to their own
honest judgment.”
Little Anna was followed by a second girl, Elizabeth,[95] and the latter
by four boys, to the delight of the grandfather in Naumburg. For
although he had been blessed with six sons and three daughters,
strangely enough, he had had bestowed upon him no other “Lepsius”
grandchildren that those who sprung from the marriage of his son
Richard.
After the christening of Anna the family spent some delightful weeks in
lovely Ilsenburg. The winter was passed in cheerful sociability and
quiet enjoyment of their first-born, till in February, 1848, all other
interests were entirely overshadowed by the news of the revolution at
Paris. Lepsius had already foreseen when in Paris the downfall of the
citizen king Louis Philippe, and though he hoped that the next movement
for freedom in France would be of benefit to the political development
of Germany and Prussia, yet he feared that in those countries also
violent uprisings of the people would be unavoidable.
Each day was filled with increasing anxiety, the danger approached more
closely, and yet,--a notable sight--there was no break in the
fulfillment of the husband’s duties, and everything held its accustomed
course in the household, as well as in the social life of the capital.
Apprehension was aroused for Vienna, on account of the dreadful
Metternich administration; all ears were on the watch for every rumor.
The Emperor of Russia was said to have been poisoned, Metternich to have
been seized with an apoplectic fit in consequence of the news from
Paris, and the Pope to have taken flight, and abandoned Rome. In spite
of the tumult of the people on the streets during every evening of this
remarkably beautiful month of March, anxiety for Berlin was dissipated,
as in well informed circles they believed it certain that the King was
inclined to make great concessions. At last political interests overcame
all others, and the grave academical instructor Lepsius, in his private
lectures conversed with his pupils on the events of the day, instead of
discussing Egyptology. Then on the eighteenth of March the Berlin
revolution broke out, in the midst of the concessions of the King, and
the rejoicing of the populace. We are in possession of interesting
information on the course of this revolution, from the husband as well
as from the wife. In those days politics had such power over every true
man that even Lepsius took part in them incidentally. When Abeken
brought him a paper much needed just at that time, a good concise
proclamation for the Prince of Prussia, whom Lepsius especially
esteemed, he immediately carried it to the press which was working for
him, and had the foreman print, post, and distribute it. He understood
perfectly that the revolution indicated a great step forward in the
political life of his Fatherland, and his wife says that the
Kreuzzeitung people, in an underhand way, placed them in a false
position. The Bismarck family had lived in the same house with the
Lepsiuses, and once when popular songs of liberty and “Not yet, not yet,
is Poland lost,” had been sung during a social evening at their rooms,
Frau Elizabeth writes: “Thank God that the Bismarcks have left, or he
would have got us into the Kreuzzeitung as Republicans.” How times and
men change! These latter, fortunately, sometimes to better and greater.
In September, 1848, Lepsius went to Frankfort, and from his letters to
his wife we know with what warm interest he there followed the
parliamentary transactions in St. Paul’s Church. He had learned many
things from the statesman Bunsen, and we have seen (page 122) how keenly
he followed, from time to time, the course of ecclesiastical politics in
Prussia. On the whole his political opinions agreed with those of his
patron in London. He wished to be not only a scholar and father, but a
citizen also, and in 1848, he held it right “that every one should at
least follow _some_ banner, and a bad one rather than none at all.”
In the beginning of the year 1849, the political situation threatened to
make it intolerable for his father to remain in Naumburg, under the
authority of the town commissioners of that place (he had resigned his
public office in 1847). Therefore Richard wrote to him: “If you should
actually resolve to leave Naumburg, here in Berlin you would certainly
find much the greatest satisfaction for your higher intellectual
pursuits and interests, which in themselves rank far above all political
interests. Libraries, art collections, learned societies of every kind
would be open to you, and in the more restricted circle of our own
household, our relations and most intimate friends, you would once more
find, as of old, peace, happiness and love, which have grown to be the
greatest necessity of your life.”
In spite of the slight value which he allotted in these sentences to
political interests, he yet followed the political development of his
Fatherland to the last with warm sympathy. In 1849 he attributed the
King’s change to a policy independent of Austria to Bunsen’s influence,
and as events continued to shape themselves in a more and more gloomy
fashion, he constantly insisted upon the necessity for a stronger
exhibition of Prussian power, as due to the hegemony of Germany.
He owed great gratitude to Frederick William IV. and acknowledged very
thankfully the favor which this monarch had manifested to him
personally, and the appreciation which he had always shown for his works
and efforts. But in 1850, he already spoke with deep anxiety of Prussian
politics. The Waldeck Process filled him with indignation, and in 1850,
Frau Elizabeth, who was the echo of her husband’s opinions, writes in
the journal: “Our proud Prussia, the only refuge of German hopes, once
more subject to the commands of Russia and Austria!... I have never seen
Richard so depressed on account of politics as he is now. I have seen
tears in W. Grimm’s eyes over Prussia’s,--Germany’s,--disgrace.... The
Prince of Prussia must be beside himself at the shameful turn of
affairs.... He will now be looked upon by all parties as the sole
salvation of Prussia.” After the humiliation at Olmütz, and the brave
stand of the Hessians for their constitution, she writes: “Jacob Grimm
said lately, ‘I am proud to be a Hessian.’ Alas for us, poor creatures,
that we must say ‘Let every Prussian be ashamed!’ In the worst days of
the revolution people were not so desperate and hopeless, so utterly
overwhelmed as now.... The king approves of everything, and is pleased
and cheerful!” Nevertheless she was warmly attached to Frederick William
IV. and says of him: “What a character! So noble, so conscientious, so
kind, with such a comprehensive mind,--and yet he is not a great man.”
Later, after Frederick William IV. had left Berlin and removed to
Potsdam, Lepsius wrote to his father: “Here the departure of the king
has the effect of a death upon us. The recollection of him is very
painful. On the other hand, new life springs up with the regency of the
prince. Without precipitation, and with due calmness, many changes will
soon be made, first in the leading men, and afterwards in the general
tendencies.” Lepsius gave lively expression to his delight at the dawn
of the so-called “new era.”
With what enthusiasm did he afterwards follow the upraising of his
Fatherland under King William I. Our noble Emperor was ever a gracious
master to him, and Lepsius was always among the chosen few invited to
the evening tea-drinkings in the imperial palace. To our colleague
Dümichen the Emperor spoke of Egyptology as “a science which our Lepsius
has called to life in Germany.” To the author of this biography also the
same great emperor, in the presence of their royal highnesses, the
Grand-Duke and the Grand-Duchess of Baden, expressed himself with a
warmth bordering on friendship regarding the great master of his
science.
The following occurrence, related by Frau Lepsius, is characteristic of
Frederick William IV. and his relation to Humboldt. A friend had been
invited to Potsdam with Lepsius and some others, and while there
ingenuously begged the king to speak a good word for him to the Duke of
Brunswick, who was also present. The applicant wished to be appointed
Musical Director at Brunswick. The monarch answered: “I cannot do
anything for you in this matter; you must apply to Humboldt.”
All men of intellectual eminence who came to Berlin always visited the
house of Lepsius. The excellent missionary, Krapf, was once a guest
there, and was invited to court with Lepsius. At table, the king asked
the missionary, philologist and geographer, “How long do you propose to
remain in Africa?” and the latter answered: “Until I am dead. All my
family are buried there, and where they are is my home.”
Besides his colleagues from the university and native and foreign
scholars, deputies to the Chamber, of all shades of opinion, also
frequented Lepsius’ house. It not only gave Frau Elizabeth the greatest
pleasure to listen to the conversation of these men, which often took
the form of lively debates, but it was also of real advantage to her.
Three years after her marriage she writes: “These distinguished persons,
with their different ways of thinking, strengthen the tolerance which
lies in Richard’s character, and teach me to accept and find pleasure in
each one as he is.”
On the ninth of November, 1851, was solemnized the baptism of the third
child and first son.[96] The godparents were the grandfather Lepsius,
Bunsen, represented by Abeken, Jacob Grimm, the great geographer Charles
Ritter, Ehrenberg, and several other ladies and gentlemen.
Lepsius had invited Bunsen to become a sponsor in the following words:
“As you have more or less stood godfather to all my intellectual
productions, I naturally have a lively wish that one of my real
children might enter into this beautiful and reverential relation
with you. Your friendly sympathy, and the fatherly love which you
have always bestowed upon me, far beyond my capacity for any
fitting return, permit me to hope that you will willingly fulfil
this desire also. But for the child your name will be a dower whose
value will increase with every year, and I already rejoice in
spirit over the time when I can finally lead him to a full
understanding of its significance. My wife insists that he shall be
called by my name; but besides that he shall be named Charles,
after my father, after you, and after Charles Ritter. Between these
two we may perhaps insert a third, about which we are still
hesitating, but it shall be neither a Pacomius, an Onophrius nor a
Nilus, but an honest German name, possibly Jacob, after your
fellow-godfather, Jacob Grimm, etc.”
At the christening it turned out that George and not Jacob had been
chosen as the third name. This was after the first known ancestor of the
Lepsius family, George Leps.[97] The christening feast was a merry one,
and the godmother has given a brief account of the toasts which were
drunk. That delivered by Jacob Grimm to the health of the godfathers is
so characteristic of him that to everyone acquainted with this
magnificent scholar and man it must seem as delightful as to the
godmother it must have been agitating. “I like,” so he began, “to come
to the christening of a child: it is always more agreeable than a
wedding or a funeral feast, where one usually sees nothing of the
principal persons.” He then found fault with the christenings of the
present day, the numerous godfathers, wherein the young Charles George
Richard was not lacking, and said that “formerly it was much more solemn
than now. Then there were only two godparents, the child was entirely
stripped--there was more to be seen--and it was first plunged under
water in the font, and then covered with a little shirt. More account
was made of the godparents. After baptism the child had to go to them on
every holiday, and received a gift from them. The church regarded
baptism as a regeneration, and therefore it was considered of much
greater importance; on this account the child was baptized
_immediately_.” Then he said that usually the godparents did not long
survive the child’s baptism (general contradiction), “his godfather had
died half a year after his christening; however the boy could learn his
name out of the books. The boy had three names, and that was
particularly _stupid_.” (This word was strongly emphasized, and Frau
Lepsius’ temper waxed hot). “He certainly only needed _one_, for when he
was fooling around on the street with other boys and his mother wanted
to call to him out of the window, she would not cry:
‘Charles-George-Richard come here,’ but ‘Richard, come here!’ He had
waited and listened, to see if the minister would not pronounce ‘Jacob’
too, but in vain. What was there though in that name to take exception
to? It was indeed a Jewish name, but still Jacob had been a good man,
and he could tell of many excellent people who had been called Jacob.
The name pleased him very well, and it grieved him that the child had
not been called by it.”
To these latter words Frau Lepsius adds the remark: “It grieved me too
very much at that moment, and still more afterwards.”
Here we will break off the description of this toast. It had touched the
honest man very nearly that he had to share with so many others the
honor of being godfather to the first-born son of his beloved Lepsius,
and he would have liked to see the little one grow up with his own good
name, as he had been led to expect. It was never his way to conceal his
feelings; but nothing was farther from the childlike nature of this man,
who in science was a giant, than any intention of giving pain.
His image still lives most vividly in my soul. For many years my mother,
and I with her, inhabited the same house with the Grimms, in Lenné
street, and I know how right Frau Lepsius was, when she said in her
diary that there was in all the world nothing more benevolent and
kind-hearted than William Grimm’s wife: that every one must feel to her
as towards a beloved mother. The kindness and cheerful friendliness with
which she added to the happiness of all of us brothers and sisters,--who
among us has forgotten them? When Jacob met me on the way to school he
always stroked my hair, and said: “Hurry, Flaxen-head.” It was Jacob
Grimm who afterwards introduced me to Lepsius: Frau Grimm I saw for the
last time when I was ill in bed, and she brought me a delicious cooling
drink of fruit juice. Every memory of her is connected with something
kind and lovely.
If we except Abeken, the most beloved of all the learned friends of the
Lepsius family were the Grimms and Gerhard, whose wife was Frau
Elizabeth’s intimate friend. This cordial feeling also extended to the
children of William Grimm, and especially to Hermann, whose first poetic
essays they watched with affection, but with impartial criticism.