the domestic affairs, and the father superintended the estate, and it
seemed as if blessings were streaming down. Where rectitude enters in,
prosperity is sure to follow. The old house was cleaned and painted,
the ditches were cleared and fruit trees planted. Everything wore a
bright cheerful look, and the floors were as polished as a draught
board. In the long winter evenings the lady sat at the spinning-wheel
with her maids, and every Sunday evening there was a reading from the
Bible, by the Councillor of Justice himself--this title the dealer had
gained, though it was only in his old age. The children grew up--for
children had come--and they received the best education, though all
had not equal abilities, as we find indeed in all families.
In the meantime the willow branch at the castle-gate had grown to be a
splendid tree, which stood there free and self-sustained. "That is our
genealogical tree," the old people said, and the tree was to be
honoured and respected--so they told all the children, even those who
had not very good heads.
And a hundred years rolled by.
It was in our own time. The lake had been converted to moorland, and
the old mansion had almost disappeared. A pool of water and the ruins
of some walls, this was all that was left of the old baronial castle,
with its deep moat; and here stood also a magnificent old willow, with
pendent boughs, which seemed to show how beautiful a tree may be if
left to itself. The main stem was certainly split from the root to the
crown, and the storm had bowed the noble tree a little; but it stood
firm for all that, and from every cleft into which wind and weather
had carried a portion of earth, grasses and flowers sprang forth:
especially near the top, where the great branches parted, a sort of
hanging garden had been formed of wild raspberry bush, and even a
small quantity of mistletoe had taken root, and stood, slender and
graceful, in the midst of the old willow which was mirrored in the
dark water. A field-path led close by the old tree.
High by the forest hill, with a splendid prospect in every direction,
stood the new baronial hall, large and magnificent, with panes of
glass so clearly transparent, that it looked as if there were no panes
there at all. The grand flight of steps that led to the entrance
looked like a bower of roses and broad-leaved plants. The lawn was as
freshly green as if each separate blade of grass were cleaned morning
and evening. In the hall hung costly pictures; silken chairs and sofas
stood there, so easy that they looked almost as if they could run by
themselves; there were tables of great marble slabs, and books bound
in morocco and gold. Yes, truly, wealthy people lived here, people of
rank: the baron with his family.
All things here corresponded with each other. The motto was still
"Everything in its right place;" and therefore all the pictures which
had been put up in the old house for honour and glory, hung now in the
passage that led to the servants' hall: they were considered as old
lumber, and especially two old portraits, one representing a man in a
pink coat and powdered wig, the other a lady with powdered hair and
holding a rose in her hand, and each surrounded with a wreath of
willow leaves. These two pictures were pierced with many holes,
because the little barons were in the habit of setting up the old
people as a mark for their cross-bows. The pictures represented the
Councillor of Justice and his lady, the founders of the present
family.
"But they did not properly belong to our family," said one of the
little barons. "He was a dealer, and she had kept the geese. They were
not like papa and mamma."
The pictures were pronounced to be worthless; and as the motto was
"Everything in its right place," the great-grandmother and
great-grandfather had been sent into the passage that led to the
servants' hall.
The son of the neighbouring clergyman was tutor in the great house.
One day he was out walking with his pupils, the little barons and
their eldest sister, who had just been confirmed; they came along the
field-path, past the old willow, and as they walked on the young lady
bound a wreath of field flowers, "Everything in its right place," and
the flowers formed a pretty whole. At the same time she heard every
word that was spoken, and she liked to hear the clergyman's son talk
of the power of nature and of the great men and women in history. She
had a good hearty disposition, with true nobility of thought and
soul, and a heart full of love for all that God hath created.
[Illustration: THE OLD WILLOW TREE.]
The party came to a halt at the old willow tree. The youngest baron
insisted on having such a flute cut for him from it as he had had made
of other willows. Accordingly the tutor broke off a branch.
"Oh, don't do that!" cried the young baroness; but it was done
already. "That is our famous old tree," she continued, "and I love it
dearly. They laugh at me at home for this, but I don't mind. There is
a story attached to this tree."
And she told what we all know about the tree, about the old mansion,
the pedlar and the goose-girl, who had met for the first time in this
spot, and had afterwards become the founders of the noble family to
which the young barons belonged.
"They would not be ennobled, the good old folks!" she said. "They kept
to the motto 'Everything in its right place;' and accordingly they
thought it would be out of place for them to purchase a title with
money. My grandfather, the first baron, was their son: he is said to
have been a very learned man, very popular with princes and
princesses, and a frequent guest at the court festivals. The others at
home love him best; but, I don't know how, there seems to me something
about that first pair that draws my heart towards them. How
comfortable, how patriarchal it must have been in the old house, where
the mistress sat at the spinning-wheel among her maids, and the old
master read aloud from the Bible!"
"They were charming, sensible people," said the clergyman's son; and
with this the conversation naturally fell upon nobles and citizens.
The young man scarcely seemed to belong to the citizen class, so well
did he speak concerning the purpose and meaning of nobility. He said,
"It is a great thing to belong to a family that has distinguished
itself, and thus to have, as it were, in one's blood, a spur that
urges one on to make progress in all that is good. It is delightful to
have a name that serves as a card of admission into the highest
circles. Nobility means that which is great and noble: it is a coin
that has received a stamp to indicate what it is worth. It is the
fallacy of the time, and many poets have frequently maintained this
fallacy, that nobility of birth is accompanied by foolishness, and
that the lower you go among the poor, the more does everything around
shine. But that is not my view, for I consider it entirely false. In
the higher classes many beautiful and kindly traits are found. My
mother told me one of this kind, and I could tell you many others.
"My mother was on a visit to a great family in town. My grandmother, I
think, had been housekeeper to the count's mother. The great nobleman
and my mother were alone in the room, when the former noticed that an
old woman came limping on crutches into the courtyard. Indeed, she was
accustomed to come every Sunday, and carry away a gift with her. 'Ah,
there is the poor old lady,' said the nobleman: 'walking is a great
toil to her;' and before my mother understood what he meant, he had
gone out of the room and run down the stairs, to save the old woman
the toilsome walk, by carrying to her the gift she had come to
receive.
"Now, that was only a small circumstance, but, like the widow's two
mites in the Scripture, it has a sound that finds an echo in the
depths of the heart in human nature; and these are the things the poet
should show and point out; especially in these times should he sing of
it, for that does good, and pacifies and unites men. But where a bit
of mortality, because it has a genealogical tree and a coat of arms,
rears up like an Arabian horse, and prances in the street, and says in
the room, 'People out of the street have been here,' when a commoner
has been--that is nobility in decay, and become a mere mask--a mask of
the kind that Thespis created; and people are glad when such an one is
turned into satire."
This was the speech of the clergyman's son. It was certainly rather
long, but then the flute was being finished while he made it.
At the castle there was a great company. Many guests came from the
neighbourhood and from the capital. Many ladies, some tastefully, and
others tastelessly dressed, were there, and the great hall was quite
full of people. The clergymen from the neighbourhood stood
respectfully congregated in a corner, which made it look almost as if
there were to be a burial there. But it was not so, for this was a
party of pleasure, only that the pleasure had not yet begun.
A great concert was to be performed, and consequently the little baron
had brought in his willow flute; but he could not get a note out of
it, nor could his papa, and therefore the flute was worth nothing.
There was instrumental music and song, both of the kind that delight
the performers most--quite charming!
"You are a performer?" said a cavalier--his father's son and nothing
else--to the tutor. "You play the flute and make it too--that's
genius. That should command, and should have the place of honour!"
"No indeed," replied the young man, "I only advance with the times, as
every one is obliged to do."
"Oh, you will enchant us with the little instrument, will you not?"
And with these words he handed to the clergyman's son the flute cut
from the willow tree by the pool, and announced aloud that the tutor
was about to perform a solo on that instrument.
Now, they only wanted to make fun of him, that was easily seen; and
therefore the tutor would not play, though indeed he could do so very
well; but they crowded round him and importuned him so strongly, that
at last he took the flute and put it to his lips.
That was a wonderful flute! A sound, as sustained as that which is
emitted by the whistle of a steam engine, and much stronger, echoed
far over courtyard, garden, and wood, miles away into the country;
and simultaneously with the tone came a rushing wind that roared,
"Everything in its right place!" And papa flew as if carried by the
wind straight out of the hall and into the shepherd's cot; and the
shepherd flew, not into the hall, for there he could not come--no, but
into the room of the servants, among the smart lacqueys who strutted
about there in silk stockings; and the proud servants were struck
motionless with horror at the thought that such a personage dared to
sit down to table with them.
But in the hall the young baroness flew up to the place of honour at
the top of the table, where she was worthy to sit; and the young
clergyman's son had a seat next to her; and there the two sat as if
they were a newly-married pair. An old count of one of the most
ancient families in the country remained untouched in his place of
honour; for the flute was just, as men ought to be. The witty
cavalier, the son of his father and nothing else, who had been the
cause of the flute-playing, flew head-over-heels into the
poultry-house--but not alone.
For a whole mile round about the sounds of the flute were heard, and
singular events took place. A rich banker's family, driving along in a
coach and four, was blown quite out of the carriage, and could not
even find a place on the footboard at the back. Two rich peasants who
in our times had grown too high for their corn-fields, were tumbled
into the ditch. It was a dangerous flute, that: luckily, it burst at
the first note, and that was a good thing, for then it was put back
into the owner's pocket. "Everything in its right place."
The day afterwards not a word was said about this marvellous event;
and thence has come the expression "pocketing the flute." Everything
was in its usual order, only that the two old portraits of the dealer
and the goose-girl hung on the wall in the banqueting hall. They had
been blown up yonder, and as one of the real connoisseurs said they
had been painted by a master's hand, they remained where they were,
and were restored. "Everything in its right place."
And to that it will come; for _hereafter_ is long--longer than this
story.
THE GOBLIN AND THE HUCKSTER.
There was once a regular student: he lived in a garret, and nothing at
all belonged to him; but there was also once a regular huckster: he
lived on the ground floor, and the whole house was his; and the
goblin kept with him, for on the huckster's table on Christmas Eve
there was always a dish of plum porridge, with a great piece of butter
floating in the middle. The huckster could accomplish that; and
consequently the goblin stuck to the huckster's shop, and that was
very interesting.
[Illustration: THE STUDENT'S BARGAIN.]
One evening the student came through the back door to buy candles and
cheese for himself. He had no one to send, and that's why he came
himself. He procured what he wanted and paid for it, and the huckster
and his wife both nodded a "good evening" to him; and the woman was
one who could do more than merely nod--she had an immense power of
tongue! And the student nodded too, and then suddenly stood still,
reading the sheet of paper in which the cheese had been wrapped. It
was a leaf torn out of an old book, a book that ought not to have been
torn up, a book that was full of poetry.
"Yonder lies some more of the same sort," said the huckster: "I gave
an old woman a little coffee for the books; give me two groschen, and
you shall have the remainder."
"Yes," said the student, "give me the book instead of the cheese: I
can eat my bread and butter without cheese. It would be a sin to tear
the book up entirely. You are a capital man, a practical man, but you
understand no more about poetry than does that cask yonder."
Now, that was an insulting speech, especially towards the cask; but
the huckster laughed and the student laughed, for it was only said in
fun. But the goblin was angry that any one should dare to say such
things to a huckster who lived in his own house and sold the best
butter.
When it was night, and the shop was closed and all were in bed, the
goblin came forth, went into the bedroom, and took away the good
lady's tongue; for she did not want that while she was asleep; and
whenever he put this tongue upon any object in the room, the said
object acquired speech and language, and could express its thoughts
and feelings as well as the lady herself could have done; but only one
object could use it at a time, and that was a good thing, otherwise
they would have interrupted each other.
And the goblin laid the tongue upon the cask in which the old
newspapers were lying.
"Is it true," he asked, "that you don't know what poetry means?"
"Of course I know it," replied the cask: "poetry is something that
always stands at the foot of a column in the newspapers, and is
sometimes cut out. I dare swear I have more of it in me than the
student, and I'm only a poor tub compared to the huckster."
Then the goblin put the tongue upon the coffee-mill, and, mercy! how
it began to go! And he put it upon the butter-cask, and on the
cash-box: they were all of the waste-paper cask's opinion, and the
opinion of the majority must be respected.
"Now I shall tell it to the student!" And with these words the goblin
went quite quietly up the back stairs to the garret, where the student
lived. The student had still a candle burning, and the goblin peeped
through the keyhole, and saw that he was reading in the torn book that
he had carried up out of the shop downstairs.
But how light it was in his room! Out of the book shot a clear beam,
expanding into a thick stem, and into a mighty tree, which grew
upward and spread its branches far over the student. Each leaf was
fresh, and every blossom was a beautiful female head, some with dark
sparkling eyes, others with wonderfully clear blue orbs; every fruit
was a gleaming star, and there was a glorious sound of song in the
student's room.
Never had the little goblin imagined such splendour, far less had he
ever seen or heard anything like it. He stood still on tiptoe, and
peeped in till the light went out in the student's garret. Probably
the student blew it out, and went to bed; but the little goblin
remained standing there nevertheless, for the music still sounded on,
soft and beautiful--a splendid cradle song for the student who had
lain down to rest.
"This is an incomparable place," said the goblin: "I never expected
such a thing! I should like to stay here with the student." And then
the little man thought it over--and he was a sensible little man
too--but he sighed, "The student has no porridge!" And then he went
down again to the huckster's shop: and it was a very good thing that
he got down there again at last, for the cask had almost worn out the
good woman's tongue, for it had spoken out at one side everything that
was contained in it, and was just about turning itself over, to give
it out from the other side also, when the goblin came in, and restored
the tongue to its owner. But from that time forth the whole shop, from
the cash-box down to the firewood, took its tone from the cask, and
paid him such respect, and thought so much of him, that when the
huckster afterwards read the critical articles on theatricals and art
in the newspaper, they were all persuaded the information came from
the cask itself.
But the goblin could no longer sit quietly and contentedly listening
to all the wisdom down there: so soon as the light glimmered from the
garret in the evening he felt as if the rays were strong cables
drawing him up, and he was obliged to go and peep through the keyhole;
and there a feeling of greatness rolled around him, such as we feel
beside the ever-heaving sea when the storm rushes over it, and he
burst into tears! He did not know himself why he was weeping, but a
peculiar feeling of pleasure mingled with his tears. How wonderfully
glorious it must be to sit with the student under the same tree! But
that might not be, he was obliged to be content with the view through
the keyhole, and to be glad of that. There he stood on the cold
landing-place, with the autumn wind blowing down from the loft-hole:
it was cold, very cold; but the little mannikin only felt that when
the light in the room was extinguished, and the tones in the tree died
away. Ha! then he shivered, and crept down again to his warm corner,
where it was homely and comfortable.
And when Christmas came, and brought with it the porridge and the
great lump of butter, why, then he thought the huckster the better
man.
But in the middle of the night the goblin was awaked by a terrible
tumult and beating against the window shutters. People rapped noisily
without, and the watchman blew his horn, for a great fire had broken
out--the whole street was full of smoke and flame. Was it in the house
itself, or at a neighbour's? Where was it? Terror seized on all. The
huckster's wife was so bewildered that she took her gold earrings out
of her ears and put them in her pocket, that at any rate she might
save something; the huckster ran for his share-papers; and the maid
for her black silk mantilla, for she had found means to purchase one.
Each one wanted to save the best thing they had; the goblin wanted to
do the same thing, and in a few leaps he was up the stairs, and into
the room of the student, who stood quite quietly at the open window,
looking at the conflagration that was raging in the house of the
neighbour opposite. The goblin seized upon the wonderful book which
lay upon the table, popped it into his red cap, and held the cap tight
with both hands. The great treasure of the house was saved; and now he
ran up and away, quite on to the roof of the house, on to the chimney.
There he sat, illuminated by the flames of the burning house opposite,
both hands pressed tightly over his cap, in which the treasure lay;
and now he knew the real feelings of his heart, and knew to whom it
really belonged. But when the fire was extinguished, and the goblin
could think calmly again, why, then....
"I must divide myself between the two," he said; "I can't quite give
up the huckster, because of the porridge!"
Now, that was spoken quite like a human creature. We all of us visit
the huckster for the sake of the porridge.
IN A THOUSAND YEARS.
Yes, in a thousand years people will fly on the wings of steam through
the air, over the ocean! The young inhabitants of America will become
visitors of old Europe. They will come over to see the monuments and
the great cities, which will then be in ruins, just as we in our time
make pilgrimages to the tottering splendours of Southern Asia. In a
thousand years they will come!
The Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine still roll their course, Mont
Blanc stands firm with its snow-capped summit, and the Northern Lights
gleam over the lands of the North; but generation after generation has
become dust, whole rows of the mighty of the moment are forgotten,
like those who already slumber under the hill on which the rich trader
whose ground it is has built a bench, on which he can sit and look out
across his waving corn-fields.
"To Europe!" cry the young sons of America; "to the land of our
ancestors, the glorious land of monuments and fancy--to Europe!"
The ship of the air comes. It is crowded with passengers, for the
transit is quicker than by sea. The electro-magnetic wire under the
ocean has already telegraphed the number of the aerial caravan. Europe
is in sight: it is the coast of Ireland that they see, but the
passengers are still asleep; they will not be called till they are
exactly over England. There they will first step on European shore, in
the land of Shakespeare as the educated call it; in the land of
politics, the land of machines, as it is called by others.
Here they stay a whole day. That is all the time the busy race can
devote to the whole of England and Scotland. Then the journey is
continued through the tunnel under the English Channel, to France, the
land of Charlemagne and Napoleon. Moliere is named: the learned men
talk of the classic school of remote antiquity: there is rejoicing and
shouting for the names of heroes, poets, and men of science, whom our
time does not know, but who will be born after our time in Paris, the
crater of Europe.
The air steamboat flies over the country whence Columbus went forth,
where Cortez was born, and where Calderon sang dramas in sounding
verse. Beautiful black-eyed women live still in the blooming valleys,
and the oldest songs speak of the Cid and the Alhambra.
Then through the air, over the sea, to Italy, where once lay old,
everlasting Rome. It has vanished! The Campagna lies desert: a single
ruined wall is shown as the remains of St. Peter's, but there is a
doubt if this ruin be genuine.
Next to Greece, to sleep a night in the grand hotel at the top of
Mount Olympus, to say that they have been there; and the journey is
continued to the Bosphorus, to rest there a few hours, and see the
place where Byzantium lay; and where the legend tells that the harem
stood in the time of the Turks, poor fishermen are now spreading their
nets.
Over the remains of mighty cities on the broad Danube, cities which we
in our time know not, the travellers pass; but here and there, on the
rich sites of those that time shall bring forth, the caravan sometimes
descends, and departs thence again.
Down below lies Germany, that was once covered with a close net of
railways and canals, the region where Luther spoke, where Goethe sang,
and Mozart once held the sceptre of harmony! Great names shine there,
in science and in art, names that are unknown to us. One day devoted
to seeing Germany, and one for the North, the country of Oersted and
Linnaeus, and for Norway, the land of the old heroes and the young
Normans. Iceland is visited on the journey home: the geysers burn no
more, Hecla is an extinct volcano, but the rocky island is still fixed
in the midst of the foaming sea, a continual monument of legend and
poetry.