These East Frieslanders are, as I have already remarked, a brave,

healthy, practical people; in them is lacking that morbid imagination

which makes us so impressible to the ghostly and supernatural. Our

fisherman's weird dismay lasts but a moment; suppressing the uncanny

sensation that is stealing over him, he soon regains his composure, and,

intent on securing as high a sum as possible, he assumes an air of

supreme indifference. But after a little chaffering the two come to an

understanding, and shake hands to seal the bargain. The Dutchman draws

forth a dirty leather pouch, filled entirely with little silver pennies

of the smallest denomination ever coined in Holland, and in these tiny

coins counts out the whole amount of the fare. With instructions to the

fisherman to be ready with his boat at the appointed place about the

midnight hour when the moon becomes visible, the Dutchman takes leave of

the whole family, and, declining their repeated invitations to dine, the

grave little figure, dignified as ever, trips lightly away.

At the time agreed upon the fisherman appears at the appointed place. At

first the boat is rocked lightly to and fro by the waves; but by the

time the full moon has risen above the horizon the fisherman notices

that his bark is less easily swayed, and so it gradually sinks deeper

and deeper in the stream, until finally the water comes within a

hand's-breadth of the boat's bow. This circumstance apprises him that

his passengers, the souls, are now aboard, and he pushes off from shore

with his cargo. Although he strains his eyes to the utmost, he can

distinguish nothing but a few vapoury streaks that seem to be swayed

hither and thither, and to intermingle with one another, but assume no

definite forms. Listen intently as he may, he hears nothing but an

indescribably-faint chirping and rustling. Only now and then a sea-gull

with a shrill scream flies swiftly over his head; or near him a fish

leaps up from out the stream, and for a moment stares at him with a

vacuous look. The night-winds sigh, and the sea-breezes grow more

chilly. Everywhere only water, moonlight, and silence! and silent as all

around him is the fisherman, who finally reaches the White Island and

moors his boat. He sees no one on the strand, but he hears a shrill,

asthmatic, wheezy, lachrymose voice, which he recognises as that of the

Dutchman. The latter seems to be reading off a list of proper names,

with a peculiar, monotonous intonation, as if rehearsing a roll-call.

Among the names are some which are known to the fisherman as belonging

to persons who have died that year. During the reading of the list, the

boat is evidently being gradually lightened of its load, and as soon as

the last name is called it rises suddenly and floats free, although but

a moment before it was deeply imbedded in the sand of the sea-shore. To

the fisherman this is a token that his cargo has been properly

delivered, and he calmly rows back to his wife and child, to his beloved

home on the fiord.

...Notwithstanding this clever disguise, I have ventured to guess who

the important mythological personage is that figures in this tradition.

It is none other than the god Mercury, Hermes Psychopompos, the whilom

conductor of the dead to Hades. Verily, under that shabby yellow cloak

and prosaic tradesman's figure is concealed the youthful and most

accomplished god of heathendom, the cunning son of Maia. On his little

three-cornered hat not the slightest tuft of a feather is to be seen

which might remind the beholder of the winged cap, and the clumsy shoes

with steel buckles fail to give the least hint of the winged sandals.

This grave and heavy Dutch lead is quite different from the mobile

quicksilver, from which the god derived his very name. But the contrast

is so exceedingly striking as to betray the god's design, which is the

more effectually to disguise himself. Perhaps this mask was not chosen

out of mere caprice. Mercury was, as you know, the patron god of thieves

and merchants, and, in all probability, in choosing a disguise that

should conceal him, and a trade by which to earn his livelihood, he took

into consideration his talents and his antecedents.

...And thus it came to pass that the shrewdest and most cunning of the

gods became a merchant, and, to adapt himself most thoroughly to his

rôle, became the _ne plus ultra_ of merchants--a Dutch merchant. His

long practice in the olden time as Psychopompos, as conveyor of the dead

to Hades, marks him out as particularly fitted to conduct the

transportation of the souls of the dead to the White Island, in the

manner just described.

The White Island is occasionally also called Brea, or Britannia. Does

this perhaps refer to White Albion, to the chalky cliffs of the English

coast? It would be a very humorous idea if England was designated as the

land of the dead, as the Plutonian realm, as hell. In such a form, in

truth, England has appeared to many a stranger.

In my essay on the Faust legend I discussed at full length the popular

superstition concerning Pluto and his dominion. I showed how the old

realm of shadows became hell, and how its old gloomy ruler became more

and more diabolical. Neither Pluto, god of the nether regions, nor his

brother, Neptune, god of the sea, emigrated like the other gods. Even

after the final triumph of Christendom they remained in their domains,

their respective elements. No matter what silly fables concerning him

were invented here above on earth, old Pluto sat by his Proserpine, warm

and cosey down below.

Neptune suffered less from calumny than his brother Pluto, and neither

church-bell chimes nor organ-strains could offend his ears in the depths

of old ocean, where he sat peacefully by the side of his white-bosomed

wife, Dame Amphitrite, surrounded by his court of dripping nereids and

tritons. Only now and then, when a young sailor crossed the equator, he

would dart up from the briny deep, in his hand brandishing the trident,

his head crowned with sea-weed, and his flowing, silvery beard reaching

down to the navel. Then he would confer on the neophyte the terrible

sea-water baptism, accompanying it with a long unctuous harangue,

interspersed with coarse sailor jests, to the great delight of the jolly

tars. The harangue was frequently interrupted by the spitting of amber

quids of chewed tobacco, which Neptune so freely scattered around him. A

friend, who gave me a detailed description of the manner in which such a

sea-miracle is performed, assured me that the very sailors that laughed

most heartily at the droll antics of Neptune never for a moment doubted

the existence of such a god, and sometimes when in great danger they

even prayed to him.

Neptune, as we have seen, remained monarch of the watery realm; and

Pluto, notwithstanding his metamorphosis into Satan, still continued to

be prince of the lower regions. They fared better than did their brother

Jupiter, who, after the overthrow of their father, Saturn, became ruler

of heaven, and as sovereign of the universe resided at Olympus, where,

surrounded by his merry troop of gods, goddesses, and nymphs-of-honour,

he carried on his ambrosial rule of joy. But when the great catastrophe

occurred,--when the rule of the cross, that symbol of suffering, was

proclaimed,--then the great Kronides fled, and disappeared amid the

tumults and confusion of the transmigration of races. All traces of him

were lost, and I have in vain consulted old chronicles and old women:

none could give me the least information concerning his fate. With the

same purpose in view, I have ransacked many libraries, where I was shown

the magnificent codices ornamented with gold and precious stones, true

odalisques in the harem of science. To the learned eunuchs who, with

such affability, unlocked for me those brilliant treasures, I here

return the customary thanks. It appears as if no popular tradition of a

medieval Jupiter exists; and all that I could gather concerning him

consists of a story told me by my friend, Niels Andersen.

...The events that I am about to relate, said Niels Andersen, occurred

on an island, the exact situation of which I cannot tell. Since its

discovery no one has been able again to reach it, being prevented by the

immense icebergs that tower like a high wall around the island, and

seldom, probably, permit a near approach. Only the crew of a Russian

whaling-vessel, which a storm had driven so far to the north, ever trod

its soil; and since then over a hundred years have elapsed. When the

sailors had, by means of a small boat, effected a landing, they found

the island to be wild and desolate. Sadly waved the blades of tall sedgy

grass over the quicksands; here and there grew a few stunted fir-trees,

or barren shrubs. They saw a multitude of rabbits springing around, on

which account they named it the Island of Rabbits. Only one miserable

hut gave evidence that a human being dwelt there. As the sailors entered

the hut they saw an old, very old man, wretchedly clad in a garment of

rabbit skins rudely stitched together. He was seated in a stone chair in

front of the hearth, trying to warm his emaciated hands and trembling

knees by the flaring brushwood fire. At his right side stood an immense

bird, evidently an eagle, but which had been roughly treated by time,

and shorn of all its plumage save the long bristly quills of its wings,

that gave it a highly grotesque, and, at the same time, hideous

appearance. At the old man's left, squatted on the earth, was an

extraordinarily large hairless goat, which seemed to be very old;

although full milky udders, with fresh, rosy nipples, hung at its belly.

Among the sailors were several Greeks, one of whom, not thinking that

his words would be understood by the aged inhabitant of the hut,

remarked in the Greek language to a comrade, "This old fellow is either

a spectre or an evil demon." But at these words the old man suddenly

arose from his seat, and to their great surprise the sailors beheld a

stately figure, which, in spite of its advanced age, raised itself erect

with commanding, yes, with king-like dignity, his head almost touching

the rafters. The features, too, although rugged and weather-beaten,

showed traces of original beauty, they were so noble and

well-proportioned. A few silvery locks fell over his brow, which was

furrowed by pride and age. His eyes had a dim and fixed look, but

occasionally they would still gleam piercingly; and from his mouth were

heard in the melodious and sonorous words of the ancient Greek language,

"You are mistaken, young man; I am neither a spectre nor an evil demon;

I am an unhappy old man, who once knew better days. But who are ye?"

The sailors explained the accident which had befallen them, and then

inquired concerning the island. The information, however, was very

meagre. The old man told them that since time immemorial he had

inhabited this island, whose bulwark of ice served him as a secure

asylum against his inexorable foes. He subsisted principally by catching

rabbits, and every year, when the floating icebergs had settled, a few

bands of savages crossed over on sleds, and to them he sold

rabbit-skins, receiving in exchange various articles of indispensable

necessity. The whales, which sometimes came swimming close to the

island, were his favourite company. But it gave him pleasure to hear

again his native tongue, for he too was a Greek. He entreated his

countrymen to give him an account of the present condition of Greece.

That the cross had been torn down from the battlements of Grecian cities

apparently caused the old man a malicious satisfaction; but it did not

altogether please him when he heard that the crescent had been planted

there instead. It was strange that none of the sailors knew the names of

the cities concerning which the old man inquired, and which, as he

assured them, had flourished in his time. In like manner the names of

the present cities and villages in Greece, which were mentioned by the

sailors, were unknown to him; at this the old man would shake his head

sadly, and the sailors looked at one another perplexed. They noticed

that he knew exactly all the localities and geographical peculiarities

of Greece; and he described so accurately and vividly the bays, the

peninsulas, the mountain-ridges, even the knolls and most trifling rocky

elevations, that his ignorance of these localities was all the more

surprising. With especial interest, with a certain anxiety even, he

questioned them concerning an ancient temple, which in his time, he

assured them, had been the most beautiful in all Greece; but none of his

hearers knew the name, which he pronounced with a loving tenderness.

But finally, when the old man had again described the site of the

temple, with the utmost particularity, a young sailor recognised the

place by the description.

The village wherein he was born, said the young man, was situated hard

by, and when a boy he had often tended his father's swine at the very

place where there had been found ruins of an ancient structure,

indicating a magnificent grandeur in the past. Now, only a few large

marble pillars remained standing; some were plain, unadorned columns,

others were surmounted by the square stones of a gable. From the cracks

of the masonry the blooming honeysuckle-vines and red bell-flowers

trailed downwards. Other pillars--among the number some of rose-coloured

marble--lay shattered on the ground, and the costly marble head-pieces,

ornamented with beautiful sculpture, representing foliage and flowers,

were overgrown by rank creepers and grasses. Half buried in the earth

lay huge marble blocks, some of which were squares, such as were used

for the walls; others were three-cornered slabs for roof-pieces. Over

them waved a large, wild fig-tree, which had grown up out of the ruins.

Under the shadow of that tree, continued the young man, he had passed

whole hours in examining the strange figures carved on the large marble

blocks; they seemed to be pictorial representations of all sorts of

sports and combats, and were very pleasing to look at, but, alas! much

injured by exposure, and overgrown with moss and ivy. His father, whom

he had questioned in regard to the mysterious signification of these

pillars and sculptures, told him that these were the ruins of an ancient

pagan temple, and had once been the abode of a wicked heathen god, who

had here wantoned in lewd debauchery, incest, and unnatural vices.

Notwithstanding this, the unenlightened heathen were accustomed to

slaughter in his honour a hundred oxen at a time, and the hollowed

marble block into which was gathered the blood of the sacrifices was yet

in existence. It was, in fact, the very trough which they were in the

habit of using as a receptacle for refuse wherewith to feed the swine.

So spoke the young sailor. But the old man heaved a sigh that betrayed

the most terrible anguish. Tottering, he sank into his stone chair,

covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child. The great, gaunt

bird, with a shrill screech, flapped its immense wings, and menaced the

strangers with claws and beak. The old goat licked its master's hands,

and bleated mournfully as in consolation.

At this strange sight, an uncanny terror seized upon the sailors: they

hurriedly left the hut, and were glad when they could no longer hear the

sobbing of the old man, the screaming of the bird, and the bleating of

the goat. When they were safely on board the boat, they narrated their

adventure. Among the crew was a learned Russian, professor of philosophy

at the university of Kazan; and he declared the matter to be highly

important. With his forefinger held knowingly to the side of his nose,

he assured the sailors that the old man of the island was undoubtedly

the ancient god Jupiter, son of Saturn and Rhea. The bird at his side

was clearly the eagle that once carried in its claws the terrible

thunderbolts. And the old goat was, in all probability, none other than

Althea, Jupiter's old nurse, who had suckled him in Crete, and now in

exile again nourished him with her milk.

This is the story as told to me by Niels Andersen; and I must confess

that it filled my soul with a profound melancholy. Decay is secretly

undermining all that is great in the universe, and the gods themselves

must finally succumb to the same miserable destiny. The iron law of fate

so wills it, and even the greatest of the immortals must submissively

bow his head. He of whom Homer sang, and whom Phidias sculptured in gold

and ivory, he at whose glance earth trembled, he, the lover of Leda,

Alcmena, Semele, Danaë, Callisto, Io, Leto, Europa, etc.--even he is

compelled to hide himself behind the icebergs of the North Pole, and in

order to prolong his wretched existence must deal in rabbit-skins, like

a shabby Savoyard!

I do not doubt that there are people who will derive a malicious

pleasure from such a spectacle. They are, perhaps, the descendants of

those unfortunate oxen who, in hecatombs, were slaughtered on the altars

of Jupiter. Rejoice! avenged is the blood of your ancestors, those poor

martyrs of superstition. But we, who have no hereditary grudge rankling

in us, we are touched at the sight of fallen greatness, and withhold not

our holiest compassion.

CONFESSIONS.

[Heine wrote these _Confessions_, which form one of his most

characteristic works, in the winter of 1853-4. They were originally

intended to form part of the book on Germany. The translation here

given is Mr. Fleishman's, revised by collation with the original.]

A witty Frenchman--a few years ago these words would have been a

pleonasm--once dubbed me an unfrocked Romanticist. I have a weakness for

all that is witty; and spiteful as was this appelation, it nevertheless

delighted me highly. Notwithstanding the war of extermination that I had

waged against Romanticism, I always remained a Romanticist at heart, and

that in a higher degree than I myself realised. After I had delivered

the most deadly blows against the taste for Romantic poetry in Germany,

there stole over me an inexpressible yearning for the blue flower in the

fairy-land of Romanticism, and I grasped the magic lyre and sang a song

wherein I gave full sway to all the sweet extravagances, to all the

intoxication of moonlight, to all the blooming, nightingale-like fancies

once so fondly loved. I know it was "the last free-forest song of

Romanticism,"[15] and I am its last poet. With me the old German lyric

school ends; while with me, at the same time, the modern lyric school of

Germany begins. Writers on German literature will assign to me this

double rôle. It would be unseemly for me to speak at length on this

subject, but I may with justice claim a liberal space in the history of

German Romanticism. For this reason I ought to have included in my

account of the Romantic school a review of my own writings. By my

omission to do this, a gap has been left which I cannot easily fill. To

write a criticism of one's self is an embarrassing, even an impossible

task. I should be a conceited coxcomb to obtrude the good I might be

able to say of myself, and I should be a great fool to proclaim to the

whole world the defects of which I might also be conscious. And even

with the most honest desire to be sincere, one cannot tell the truth

about oneself. No one has as yet succeeded in doing it, neither Saint

Augustine, the pious bishop of Hippo, nor the Genevese Jean Jacques

Rousseau--least of all the latter, who proclaimed himself the man of

truth and nature, but was really much more untruthful and unnatural than

his contemporaries.

...Rousseau, who in his own person also slandered human nature, was yet

true to it in respect to our primitive weakness, which consists in

always wishing to appear in the eyes of the world as something different

from what we really are. His self-portraiture is a lie, admirably

executed, but still only a brilliant lie.

I recently read an anecdote concerning the King of Ashantee, which

illustrates in a very amusing manner this weakness of human nature. When

Major Bowditch was despatched by the English Governor of the Cape of

Good Hope as resident ambassador to the court of that powerful African

monarch, he sought to ingratiate himself with the courtiers, especially

with the court-ladies, by taking their portraits. The king, who was

astonished at the accuracy of the likenesses, requested that he also

might be painted, and had already had several sittings, when the artist

noticed in the features of the king, who had often sprung up to observe

the progress of the picture, the peculiar restlessness and embarrassment

of one who has a request on the tip of his tongue and yet hesitates to

express it. The painter pressed his majesty to tell his wish, until at

last the poor African king inquired, in a low voice, if he could not be

painted white.

And so it is. The swarthy negro king wishes to be painted white. But do

not laugh at the poor African: every human being is such another negro

king, and all of us would like to appear before the public in a

different colour from that which fate has given us. Fully realising

this, I took heed not to draw my own portrait in my review of the

Romantic school. But in the following pages I shall have ample occasion

to speak of myself, and this will to a certain extent fill up the gap

caused by the lacking portrait; for I have here undertaken to describe,

for the reader's benefit and enlightenment, the philosophical and

religious changes which have taken place in the author's mind since my

book on Germany was written.

Fear not that I shall paint myself too white and my fellow-beings too

black. I shall always give my own colours with exact fidelity, so that

it may be known how far my judgment is to be trusted when I draw the

portraits of others.

...Madame de Staël's hate of the Emperor is the soul of her book, _De

l'Allemagne_, and, although his name is nowhere mentioned, one can see

at every line how the writer squints at the Tuilleries. I doubt not that

the book annoyed the Emperor more than the most direct attack; for

nothing so much irritates a man as a woman's petty needle-pricks. We

are prepared for great sabre-strokes, and instead we are tickled at the

most sensitive spots.

Oh, the women! we must forgive them much, for they love much--and many.

Their hate is, in fact, only love turned the wrong way. At times they

try to injure us, but only because they hope thereby to please some

other man. When they write, they have one eye on the paper and the other

on a man. This rule applies to all authoresses, with the exception of

Countess Hahn-Hahn, who only has one eye. We male authors have also our

prejudices. We write for or against something, for or against an idea,

for or against a party; but women always write for or against one

particular man, or, to express it more correctly, on account of one

particular man. We men will sometimes lie outright; women, like all

passive creatures, seldom invent, but can so distort a fact that they

can thereby injure us more surely than by a downright lie. I verily

believe my friend Balzac was right when he once said to me, in a

sorrowful tone, "_La femme est un être dangereux_."

Yes, women are dangerous; but I must admit that beautiful women are not

so dangerous as those whose attractions are intellectual rather than

physical; for the former are accustomed to have men pay court to them,

while the latter meet the vanity of men half-way, and through the bait

of flattery acquire a more powerful influence than the beautiful women.

I by no means intend to insinuate that Madame de Staël was ugly; but

beauty is something quite different. She had single points which were

pleasing; but the effect as a whole was anything but pleasing. To

nervous persons, like the sainted Schiller, her custom of continually

twirling between her fingers some fragment of paper or similar small

article was particularly annoying. This habit made poor Schiller dizzy,

and in desperation he grasped her pretty hand to hold it quiet. This

innocent action led Madame de Staël to believe that the tender-hearted

poet was overpowered by the magic of her personal charms. I am told that

she really had very pretty hands and beautiful arms, which she always

displayed. Surely the Venus of Milo could not show such beautiful arms!

Her teeth surpassed in whiteness those of the finest steed of Araby. She

had very large, beautiful eyes, a dozen amorets would have found room on

her lips, and her smile is said to have been very sweet: therefore she

could not have been ugly,--no woman is ugly. But I venture to say that

had fair Helen of Sparta looked so, the Trojan War would not have

occurred, and the strongholds of Priam would not have been burned, and

Homer would never have sung the wrath of Pelidean Achilles.

...In my Memoirs I relate with more detail than is admissible here how,

after the French Revolution of July 1830, I emigrated to Paris, where I

have ever since lived quiet and contented. What I did and suffered

during the Restoration will be told when the disinterestedness of such a

publication is no longer liable to doubt or suspicion. I worked much and

suffered much; and about the time that the sun of the July revolution

arose in France, I had gradually become very weary, and needed

recreation. Moreover, the air of my native land was daily becoming more

unwholesome for me, and I was compelled to contemplate seriously a

change of climate. I had visions: in the clouds I saw all sorts of

horrible, grotesque faces, that annoyed me with their grimaces. It

sometimes seemed to me as if the sun were a Prussian cockade. At night I

dreamed of a hideous black vulture that preyed on my liver; and became

very melancholy. In addition to all this, I had become acquainted with

an old magistrate from Berlin who had spent many years in the fortress

of Spandau, and who described to me how unpleasant it was in winter to

wear iron manacles. I thought it very un-Christian not to warm the irons

a little, for if our chains were only warmed somewhat, they would not

seem so very unpleasant, and cold natures could even endure them very

well. The chains ought also to be perfumed with the essence of roses and

laurels, as is the custom in France. I asked my magistrate if oysters

were often served at Spandau. He answered, no; Spandau was too far

distant from the sea. Meat, also, he said, was seldom to be had, and the

only fowls were the flies which fell into one's soup. About the same

time I became acquainted with a commercial traveller of a French wine

establishment, who was never tired of praising the merry life of

Paris,--how the air was full of music, how from morning until night one

heard the singing of the "Marseillaise" and "En avant, marchons!" and

"Lafayette aux cheveux blancs." He told me that at every street-corner

was the inscription, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." He likewise

recommended the champagne of his firm, and gave me a large number of

business cards. He also promised to furnish me with letters of

introduction to the best Parisian restaurants, in case I should visit

Paris. As I really did need recreation, and as Spandau was at too great

a distance from the sea to procure oysters, and as the fowl-soup of

Spandau was not to my taste, and as, moreover, the Prussian chains were

very cold in winter and could not be conducive to my health, I

determined to go to Paris, the fatherland of champagne and the

"Marseillaise," there to drink the former, and to hear the latter sung,

together with "En avant, marchons!" and "Lafayette aux cheveux blancs."

I crossed the Rhine on May 1st, 1831. I did not see the old river-god,

father Rhine, so I contented myself with dropping my visiting card into

the water. I am told that he was sitting down below, conning his French

grammar; for during the Prussian rule his French had grown rusty from

long disuse, and now he wished to practice it anew, in order to be

prepared for contingencies. I thought I could hear him, conjugating,

"J'aime, tu aimes, il aime; nous aimons"--but what does he love? Surely

not the Prussians!

I awoke at St. Denis from a sweet morning sleep, and heard for the first

time the shout of the driver, "Paris! Paris!" Here we already inhaled

the atmosphere of the capital, now visible on the horizon. A rascally

lackey tried to persuade me to visit the royal sepulchre at St. Denis;

but I had not come to France to see dead kings.... In twenty minutes I

was in Paris, entering through the triumphal arch of the Boulevard St.

Denis, which was originally erected in honour of Louis XIV., but now

served to grace my entry into Paris. I was surprised at meeting such

multitudes of well-dressed people, tastefully arrayed like the pictures

of a fashion-journal. I was also impressed by the fact that they all

spoke French, which, in Germany, is the distinguishing mark of the

higher classes; the whole nation are as noble as the nobility with us.

The men were all so polite, and the pretty women all smiled so

graciously. If some one accidentally jostled me without immediately

asking pardon, I could safely wager that it was a fellow-countryman. And

if a pretty woman looked a little sour, she had either eaten sauerkraut

or could read Klopstock in the original. I found everything quite

charming. The skies were so blue, the air so balmy, and here and there

the rays of the sun of July were still glimmering. The cheeks of the

beauteous Lutetea were still flushed from the burning kisses of that

sun, and the bridal flowers on her bosom were not yet wilted. But at the

street-corners the words, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," had already

been erased. Honeymoons fly so quickly!

I immediately visited the restaurants to which I had been recommended.

The landlords assured me that they would have made me welcome even

without letters of introduction, for I had an honest and distinguished

appearance, which in itself was a sufficient recommendation. Never did a

German landlord so address me, even if he thought it. Such a churlish

fellow feels himself in duty bound to suppress all pleasant speeches,

and his German bluntness demands that he shall tell only the most

disagreeable things to our faces. In the manner, and even in the

language, of the French, there is so much delicious flattery, which

costs so little, and is yet so gratifying. My poor sensitive soul, which

had shrunk with shyness from the rudeness of the fatherland, again

expanded under the genial influence of French urbanity. God has given us

tongues that we may say something pleasant to our fellow-men.

My French had grown rusty since the battle of Waterloo, but after

half-an-hour's conversation with a pretty flower-girl in the Passage de

l'Opéra it soon flowed fluently again. I managed to stammer forth

gallant phrases in broken French, and explained to the little charmer

the Linnæan system, in which flowers are classified according to their

stamens. The little one practised a different system, and divided

flowers into those which smelled pleasantly and those which smelled

unpleasantly. I believe that she applied a similar classification to

men. She was surprised that, notwithstanding my youth, I was so learned,

and spread the fame of my erudition through the whole Passage de

l'Opéra. I inhaled with rapturous delight the delicious aroma of

flattery, and amused myself charmingly. I walked on flowers, and many a

roasted pigeon came flying into my gaping mouth.

...Among the notabilities whom I met soon after my arrival in Paris was

Victor Bohain; and I love to recall to memory the jovial, intellectual

form of him who did so much to dispel the clouds from the brow of the

German dreamer, and to initiate his sorrow-laden heart into the gaieties

of French life. He had at that time already founded the _Europe

Littéraire_, and, as editor, solicited me to write for his journal

several articles on Germany, after the _genre_ of Madame de Staël. I

promised to furnish the articles, particularly mentioning, however, that

I should write them in a style quite different from that of Madame de

Staël. "That is a matter of indifference to me," was the laughing

answer; "like Voltaire, I tolerate every _genre_, excepting only the

_genre ennuyeux_." And in order that I, poor German, should not fall

into the _genre ennuyeux_, friend Bohain often invited me to dine with

him, and stimulated my brain with champagne. No one knew better than he

how to arrange a dinner at which one should not only enjoy the best

_cuisine_, but be most pleasantly entertained. No one could do the

honours of host as well as he; and he was certainly justified in

charging the stockholders of the _Europe Littéraire_ with one hundred

thousand francs as the expense of these banquets. Even his wooden leg

contributed to the humour of the man, and when he hobbled around the

table, serving out champagne to his guests, he resembled Vulcan

performing the duties of Hebe's office amidst the uproarious mirth of

the assembled gods. Where is Victor Bohain now? I have heard nothing of

him for a long period. The last I saw of him was about ten years ago, at

an inn at Granville. He had just come over from England, where he had

been studying the colossal English national debt, in this occupation

smothering the recollection of his own little personal debts, to this

little town on the coast of Normandy, and here I found him seated at a

table with a bottle of champagne and an open-mouthed, stupid-looking

citizen, to whom he was earnestly explaining a business project by

which, as Bohain eloquently demonstrated, a million could be realised.

Bohain always had a great fondness for speculation, and in all his

projects there was always a million in progress--never less than a

million. His friends nicknamed him, on this account, Messer Millione.

...The founding of the _Europe Littéraire_ was an excellent idea. Its

success seemed assured, and I have never been able to understand why it

failed. Only one evening before the day on which the suspension

occurred, Victor Bohain gave a brilliant ball in the editorial _salons_

of the journal, at which he danced with his three hundred stockholders,

just like Leonidas with his three hundred Spartans the day before the

battle of Thermopylæ. Every time that I behold in the gallery of the

Louvre the painting by David which portrays that scene of antique

heroism, I am reminded of the last ball of Victor Bohain. Just like the

death-defying king in David's picture, so stood Victor Bohain on his

solitary leg; it was the same classic pose. Stranger, when thou

strollest in Paris through the Chaussée d'Antin towards the Boulevards,

and findest thyself in the low-lying, filthy street that was once called

the Rue Basse du Rempart, know that thou standest at the Thermopylæ of

the _Europe Littéraire_, where Victor Bohain with his three hundred

stockholders so heroically fell.

...In my articles on German philosophy I blabbed without reserve the

secrets of the schools, which, draped in scholastic formulas, were

previously known only to the initiated. My revelations excited the

greatest surprise in France, and I remember that leading French thinkers

naively confessed to me that they had always believed German philosophy

to be a peculiar mystic fog, behind which divinity lay hidden as in a

cloud, and that German philosophers were ecstatic seers, filled with

piety and the fear of God. It is not my fault that German philosophy is

just the reverse of that which until now we have called piety and fear

of God, and that our latest philosophers have proclaimed absolute

atheism to be the last word of German philosophy. Relentlessly and with

bacchantic recklessness they tore aside the blue curtain from the German

heavens, and cried, "Behold! all the gods have flown, and there above

sits only an old spinster with leaden hands and sorrowful

heart--Necessity."

Alas! what then sounded so strange is now being preached from all the

house-tops in Germany, and the fanatic zeal of many of these

propagandists is terrible! We have now bigoted monks of atheism,

grand-inquisitors of infidelity, who would have bound Voltaire to the

stake because he was at heart an obstinate deist. So long as such

doctrines remained the secret possession of an intellectual aristocracy,

and were discussed in a select coterie-dialect which was

incomprehensible to the lackeys in attendance, while we at our

philosophical _petit-soupers_ were blaspheming, so long did I continue

to be one of the thoughtless free-thinkers, of whom the majority

resembled those grand-seigneurs who, shortly before the Revolution,

sought by means of the new revolutionary ideas to dispel the tedium of

their indolent court-life. But as soon as I saw that the rabble began to

discuss the same themes at their unclean symposiums, where instead of

wax-candles and chandeliers gleamed tallow-dips and oil-lamps; when I

perceived that greasy cobblers and tailors presumed in their blunt

mechanics' speech to deny the existence of God; when atheism began to

stink of cheese, brandy, and tobacco--then my eyes were suddenly opened,

and that which I had not comprehended through reason, I now learned

through my olfactory organs and through my loathing and disgust. Heaven

be praised! my atheism was at an end.

To be candid, it was perhaps not alone disgust that made the principles

of the godless obnoxious to me, and induced me to abandon their ranks. I

was oppressed by a certain worldly apprehension which I could not

overcome, for I saw that atheism had entered into a more or less secret

compact with the most terribly naked, quite fig-leafless, communistic

communism. My dread of the latter has nothing in common with that of the

parvenu, who trembles for his wealth, or with that of well-to-do

tradesmen, who fear an interruption of their profitable business. No;

that which disquiets me is the secret dread of the artist and scholar,

who sees our whole modern civilisation, the laboriously-achieved product

of so many centuries of effort, and the fruit of the noblest works of

our ancestors, jeopardised by the triumph of communism. Swept along by

the resistless current of generous emotions, we may perhaps sacrifice

the cause of art and science, even all our own individual interests, for

the general welfare of the suffering and oppressed people. But we can no

longer disguise from ourselves what we have to expect when the great,

rude masses, which by some are called the people, by others the rabble,

and whose legitimate sovereignty was proclaimed long ago, shall obtain

actual dominion. The poet, in particular, experiences a mysterious

dread in contemplating the advent to power of this uncouth sovereign. We

will gladly sacrifice ourselves for the people, for self-sacrifice

constitutes one of our most exquisite enjoyments--the emancipation of

the people has been the great task of our lives; we have toiled for it,

and in its cause endured indescribable misery, at home as in exile--but

the poet's refined and sensitive nature revolts at every near personal

contact with the people, and still more repugnant is the mere thought of

its caresses, from which may Heaven preserve us! A great democrat once

remarked that if a king had taken him by the hand, he would immediately

have thrust it into the fire to purify it. In the same manner I would

say, if the sovereign people vouchsafed to press my hand, I would hasten

to wash it. The poor people is not beautiful, but very ugly; only that

ugliness simply comes from dirt, and will disappear as soon as we open

public baths, in which His Majesty may gratuitously bathe himself.

...It required no great foresight to foretell these terrible events so

long before their occurrence. I could easily prophesy what songs would

one day be whistled and chirped in Germany, for I saw the birds hatching

that in after-days gave tone to the new school of song. I saw Hegel,

with his almost comically serious face, like a setting hen, brooding

over the fatal eggs; and I heard his cackling; to tell the truth, I

seldom understood him, and only through later reflection did I arrive at

an understanding of his works. I believe he did not wish to be

understood.

...One beautiful starlight night, Hegel stood with me at an open window.

I, being a young man of twenty-two, and having just eaten well and drunk

coffee, naturally spoke with enthusiasm of the stars, and called them

abodes of the blest. But the master muttered to himself, "The stars!

Hm! hm! the stars are only a brilliant eruption on the firmament."

"What!" cried I; "then there is no blissful spot above, where virtue is

rewarded after death?" But he, glaring at me with his dim eyes,

remarked, sneering, "So you want a _pourboire_ because you have

supported your sick mother and not poisoned your brother?" At these

words he looked anxiously around, but was reassured when he saw that it

was only Henry Beer.

...I was never an abstract thinker, and I accepted the synthesis of the

Hegelian philosophy without examination, because its deductions

flattered my vanity. I was young and arrogant, and it gratified my

self-conceit when I was informed by Hegel that not, as my grandmother

had supposed, He who dwelt in the heavens, but I myself, here on earth,

was God. This silly pride had, however, by no means an evil influence on

me. On the contrary, it awoke in me the heroic spirit, and at that

period I practiced a generosity and self-sacrifice which completely cast

into the shade the most virtuous and distinguished deeds of the good

_bourgeoisie_ of virtue, who did good merely from a sense of duty and in

obedience to the laws of morality. I was myself the living moral law,

and the fountain-head of all right and all authority. I myself was

morality personified; I was incapable of sin, I was incarnated

purity.... I was all love, and incapable of hate. I no longer revenged

myself on my enemies; for, rightly considered, I had no enemies; at

least, I recognised none as such. For me there now existed only

unbelievers who questioned my divinity. Every indignity that they

offered me was a sacrilege, and their contumely was blasphemy. Such

godlessness, of course, I could not always let pass unpunished; but in

those cases it was not human revenge, but divine judgment upon sinners.

Absorbed in this exalted practice of justice, I would repress with more

or less difficulty all ordinary pity. As I had no enemies, so also there

existed for me no friends, but only worshippers, who believed in my

greatness, and adored me, and praised my works, those written in verse

as well as those in prose. Towards this congregation of truly devout and

pious ones I was particularly gracious, especially towards the

young-lady devotees.

But the expense of playing the rôle of a God, for whom it were unseemly

to go in tatters, and who is sparing neither of body nor of purse, is

immense. To play such a rôle respectably, two things are above all

requisite--much money and robust health. Alas! it happened that one day

[in February 1848] both these essentials failed me, and my divinity was

at an end. Luckily, the highly-respected public was at that time

occupied with events so dramatic, so grand, so fabulous and

unprecedented, that the change in the affairs of so unimportant a

personage as myself attracted but little attention. Unprecedented and

fabulous were indeed the events of those crazy February days, when the

wisdom of the wisest was brought to naught, and the chosen ones of

imbecility were raised aloft in triumph. The last became the first, and

the lowliest became the highest. Matter, like thought, was turned upside

down, and the world was topsy-turvy. If in those mad days I had been

sane, those events would surely have cost me my wits; but, lunatic as I

then was, the contrary necessarily came to pass, and, strange to say,

just in the days of universal madness I regained my reason! Like many

other divinities of that revolutionary period, I was compelled to

abdicate ignominiously, and to return to the lowly life of humanity. I

came back into the humble fold of God's creatures. I again bowed in

homage to the almighty power of a Supreme Being, who directs the

destinies of this world, and who for the future shall also regulate my

earthly affairs. The latter, during the time I had been my own

Providence, had drifted into sad confusion, and I was glad to turn them

over to a celestial superintendent, who with his omniscience really

manages them much better. The belief in God has since then been to me

not only a source of happiness, but it has also relieved me from all

those annoying business cares which are so distasteful to me. This

belief has also enabled me to practice great economies; for I need no

longer provide either for myself or for others, and since I have joined

the ranks of the pious I contribute almost nothing to the support of the

poor. I am too modest to meddle, as formerly, with the business of

Divine Providence. I am no longer careful for the general good; I no

longer ape the Deity; and with pious humility I have notified my former

dependants that I am only a miserable human being, a wretched creature

that has naught more to do with governing the universe, and that in

future, when in need and affliction, they must apply to the Supreme

Ruler, who dwells in heaven, and whose budget is as inexhaustible as His

goodness--whereas I, a poor ex-god, was often compelled, even in the

days of my godhead, to seek the assistance of the devil. It was

certainly very humiliating for a god to have to apply to the devil for

aid, and I am heartily thankful to be relieved from my usurped glory. No

philosopher shall ever again persuade me that I am a god. I am only a

poor human creature, that is not over well; that is, indeed, very ill.

In this pitiable condition it is a true comfort to me that there is some

one in the heavens above to whom I can incessantly wail out the litany

of my sufferings, especially after midnight, when Mathilde has sought

the repose that she oft sadly needs. Thank God! in such hours I am not

alone, and I can pray and weep without restraint; I can pour out my

whole heart before the Almighty, and confide to Him some things which

one is wont to conceal even from one's own wife.

After the above confession, the kindly-disposed reader will easily

understand why I no longer found pleasure in my work on the Hegelian

philosophy. I saw clearly that its publication would benefit neither the

public nor the author. I comprehended that there is more nourishment for

famishing humanity in the most watery and insipid broth of Christian

charity than in the dry and musty spider-web of the Hegelian philosophy.

I will confess all. Of a sudden I was seized with a mortal terror of the

eternal flames. I know it is a mere superstition; but I was frightened.

And so, on a quiet winter's night, when a glowing fire was burning on my

hearth, I availed myself of the good opportunity, and cast the

manuscript of my work on the Hegelian philosophy into the flames. The

burning leaves flew up the chimney with a strange and hissing sound.

Thank God! I was rid of it! Alas! would that I could destroy in the same

manner all that I have ever published concerning German philosophy! But

that is impossible, and since I cannot prevent their republication, as I

lately learned to my great regret, no other course remains but to

confess publicly that my exposition of German philosophy contains the

most erroneous and pernicious doctrines.

...It is strange! during my whole life I have been strolling through the

various festive halls of philosophy, I have participated in all the

orgies of the intellect, I have coquetted with every possible system,

without being satisfied, like Messalina after a riotous night; and now,

after all this, I suddenly find myself on the same platform whereon

stands Uncle Tom. That platform is the Bible, and I kneel by the side of

my dusky brother in faith with the same devotion.

What humiliation! With all my learning, I have got no farther than the

poor ignorant negro who can hardly spell! It is even true that poor

Uncle Tom appears to see in the holy book more profound things than I,

who am not yet quite clear, especially in regard to the second part.

...But, on the other hand, I think I may flatter myself that I can

better comprehend, in the first part of the holy book, the character of

Moses. His grand figure has impressed me not a little. What a colossal

form! I cannot imagine that Og, King of Bashan, could have looked more

giant-like. How insignificant does Sinai appear when Moses stands

thereon! That mountain is merely a pedestal for the feet of the man

whose head towers in the heavens and there holds converse with God. May

God forgive the sacrilegious thought! but sometimes it appears to me as

if this Mosaic God were only the reflected radiance of Moses himself,

whom he so strongly represents in wrath and in love. It were a sin, it

were anthropomorphism, to assume such an identity of God and his

prophet; but the resemblance is most striking.

I had not previously much admired the character of Moses, probably

because the Hellenic spirit was predominant in me, and I could not

pardon the lawgiver of the Jews for his hate of the plastic arts. I

failed to perceive that Moses, notwithstanding his enmity to art, was

nevertheless himself a great artist, and possessed the true artistic

spirit. Only, this artistic spirit with him, as with his Egyptian

countrymen, was applied to the colossal and the imperishable. But not,

like the Egyptians, did he construct his works of art from bricks and

granite, but he built human pyramids and carved human obelisks. He took

a poor shepherd tribe and from it created a nation which should defy

centuries; a great, an immortal, a consecrated race, a God-serving

people, who to all other nations should be as a model and prototype: he

created Israel.

I have never spoken with proper reverence either of the artist or of his

work, the Jews; and for the same reason--namely, my Hellenic

temperament, which was opposed to Jewish asceticism. My prejudice in

favour of Hellas has declined since then. I see now that the Greeks were

only beautiful youths, but that the Jews were always men, strong,

unyielding men, not only in the past, but to this very day, in spite of

eighteen centuries of persecution and suffering. Since that time I have

learned to appreciate them better, and, were not all pride of ancestry a

silly inconsistency in a champion of the revolution and its democratic

principles, the writer of these pages would be proud that his ancestors

belonged to the noble house of Israel, that he is a descendant of those

martyrs who gave the world a God and a morality, and who have fought and

suffered on all the battle-fields of thought.

The histories of the middle ages, and even those of modern times, have

seldom enrolled on their records the names of such knights of the Holy

Spirit, for they generally fought with closed visors. The deeds of the

Jews are just as little known to the world as is their real character.

Some think they know the Jews because they can recognise their beards,

which is all they have ever revealed of themselves. Now, as during the

middle ages, they remain a wandering mystery, a mystery that may perhaps

be solved on the day which the prophet foretells, when there shall be

but one shepherd and one flock, and the righteous who have suffered for

the good of humanity shall then receive a glorious reward.

You see that I, who in the past was wont to quote Homer, now quote the

Bible, like Uncle Tom. In truth, I owe it much. It again awoke in me the

religious feeling; and this new birth of religious emotion suffices for

the poet, for he can dispense far more easily than other mortals with

positive religious dogmas.

...The silliest and most contradictory reports are in circulation

concerning me. Very pious but not very wise men of Protestant Germany

have urgently inquired if, now that I am ill and in a religious frame of

mind, I cling with more devotion than heretofore to the Lutheran

evangelic faith, which, until now, I have only professed after a

luke-warm, official fashion. No, dear friends, in that respect no change

has taken place in me, and if I continue to adhere to the evangelic

faith at all, it is because now, as in the past, that faith does not at

all inconvenience me. I will frankly avow that when I resided in Berlin,

like several of my friends, I would have preferred to separate myself

from the bonds of all denominations, had not the rulers there refused a

residence in Prussia, and especially in Berlin, to any who did not

profess one of the positive religions recognised by the State. As Henry

IV. once laughingly said, "Paris vaut bien une messe," so could I say,

with equal justice, "Berlin is well worth a sermon." Both before and

after, I could easily tolerate the very enlightened Christianity which

at that time was preached in some of the churches of Berlin. It was a

Christianity filtered from all superstition, even from the doctrine of

the divinity of Christ, like mock-turtle soup without turtle. At that

time I myself was still a god, and no one of the positive religions had

more value for me than another. I could wear any of their uniforms out

of courtesy, after the manner of the Russian Emperor, who, when he

vouchsafes the King of Prussia the honour to attend a review at Potsdam,

appears uniformed as a Prussian officer of the guard.

Now that my physical sufferings, and the reawakening of my religious

nature, have effected in me many changes, does the uniform of

Lutheranism in some measure express my true sentiments? How far has the

formal profession become a reality? I do not propose to give direct

answers to these questions, but I shall avail myself of the opportunity

to explain the services which, according to my present views,

Protestantism has rendered to civilisation. From this may be inferred

how much more I am now in sympathy with this creed.

At an earlier period, when philosophy possessed for me a paramount

interest, I prized Protestantism only for its services in winning

freedom of thought, which, after all, is the foundation on which in

later times Leibnitz, Kant, and Hegel could build. Luther, the strong

man with the axe, must, in the very nature of things, have preceded

these warriors, to open a path for them. For this service I have

honoured the Reformation as being the beginning of German philosophy,

which justified my polemical defence of Protestantism. Now, in my later

and more mature days, when the religious feeling again surges up in me,

and the shipwrecked metaphysician clings fast to the Bible,--now I

chiefly honour Protestantism for its services in the discovery and

propagation of the Bible. I say "discovery," for the Jews, who had

preserved the Bible from the great conflagration of the sacred temple,

and all through the middle ages carried it about with them like a

portable fatherland, kept their treasure carefully concealed in their

ghettos. Here came by stealth German scholars, the predecessors and

originators of the Reformation, to study the Hebrew language and thus

acquire the key to the casket wherein the precious treasure was

enclosed. Such a scholar was the worthy Reuchlinus; and his enemies, the

Hochstraaten, in Cologne, who are represented as the party of darkness

and ignorance, were by no means such simpletons. On the contrary, they

were far-sighted Inquisitors, who foresaw clearly the disasters which a

familiar acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures would bring on the

Church. Hence the persecuting zeal with which they sought to destroy the

Hebrew writings, at the same time inciting the rabble to exterminate the

Jews, the interpreters of these writings. Now that the motives of their

actions are known, we see that, properly considered, each was in the

right. This reactionary party believed that the spiritual salvation of

the world was endangered, and that all means, falsehood as well as

murder, were justifiable, especially against the Jews. The lower

classes, pinched by poverty, and heirs of the primeval curse, were

embittered against the Jews because of the wealth they had amassed; and

what to-day is called the hate of the proletariate against the rich, was

then called hate against the Jews. In fact, as the latter were excluded

from all ownership of land and from every trade, and relegated to

dealing in money and merchandise, they were condemned by law to be rich,

hated, and murdered. Such murders, it is true, were in these days

committed under the mantle of religion, and the cry was, "We must kill

those who once killed our God." How strange! The very people who had

given the world a God, and whose whole life was inspired by the worship

of God, were stigmatised as deicides! The bloody parody of such madness

was witnessed at the outbreak of the revolution in San Domingo, where a

negro mob devastated the plantations with murder and fire, led by a

negro fanatic who carried an immense crucifix, amid bloodthirsty cries

of "The whites killed Christ; let us slay all whites!"

Yes, to the Jews the world is indebted for its God and His word. They

rescued the Bible from the bankruptcy of the Roman empire, and preserved

the precious volume intact during all the wild tumults of the migration

of races, until Protestantism came to seek it and translated it into the

language of the land and spread it broadcast over the whole world. This

extensive circulation of the Bible has produced the most beneficent

fruits, and continues to do so to this very day. The propaganda of the

Bible Society have fulfilled a providential mission, which will bring

forth quite different results from those anticipated by the pious

gentlemen of the British Christian Missionary Society. They expect to

elevate a petty, narrow dogma to supremacy, and to monopolise heaven as

they do the sea, making it a British Church domain--and see, without

knowing it, they are demanding the overthrow of all Protestant sects;

for, as they all draw their life from the Bible, when the knowledge of

the Bible becomes universal, all sectarian distinctions will be

obliterated.

While by tricks of trade, smuggling, and commerce the British gain

footholds in many lands, with them they bring the Bible, that grand

democracy wherein each man shall not only be king in his own house, but

also bishop. They are demanding, they are founding, the great kingdom of

the spirit, the kingdom of the religious emotions, and the love of

humanity, of purity, of true morality, which cannot be taught by

dogmatic formulas, but by parable and example, such as are contained in

that beautiful, sacred, educational book for young and old--the Bible.

To the observant thinker it is a wonderful spectacle to view the

countries where the Bible, since the Reformation, has been exerting its

elevating influence on the inhabitants, and has impressed on them the

customs, modes of thought, and temperaments which formerly prevailed in

Palestine, as portrayed both in the Old and in the New Testament. In the

Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sections of Europe and America, especially

among the Germanic races, and also to a certain extent in Celtic

countries, the customs of Palestine have been reproduced in so marked a

degree that we seem to be in the midst of the ancient Judean life. Take,

for example, the Scotch Protestants: are not they Hebrews, whose names

even are biblical, whose very cant smacks of the Phariseeism of ancient

Jerusalem, and whose religion is naught else than a pork-eating Judaism?

It is the same in Denmark and in certain provinces of North Germany, not

to mention the majority of the new sects of the United States, among

whom the life depicted in the Old Testament is pedantically aped. In the

latter, that life appears as if daguerreotyped: the outlines are

studiously correct, but all is depicted in sad, sombre colours; the

golden tints and harmonising colours of the promised land are lacking.

But the caricature will disappear sooner or later. The zeal, the

imperishable and the true--that is to say, the morality--of ancient

Judaism will in those countries bloom forth just as acceptably to God as

in the old time it blossomed on the banks of Jordan and on the heights

of Lebanon. One needs neither palm-trees nor camels to be good; and

goodness is better than beauty.

The readiness with which these races have adopted the Judaic life,

customs, and modes of thought is, perhaps, not entirely attributable to

their susceptibility of culture. The cause of this phenomenon is,

perhaps, to be sought in the character of the Jewish people, which

always had a marked elective affinity with the character of the

Germanic, and also to a certain extent with that of the Celtic races.

Judea has always seemed to me like a fragment of the Occident misplaced

in the Orient. In fact, with its spiritual faith, its severe, chaste,

even ascetic customs,--in short, with its abstract inner life,--this

land and its people always offered the most marked contrasts to the

population of neighbouring countries, who, with their luxuriantly varied

and fervent nature of worship, passed their existence in a Bacchantic

dance of the senses.

At a time when, in the temples of Babylon, Nineveh, Sidon, and Tyre,

bloody and unchaste rites were celebrated, the description of which,

even now, makes our hair stand on end, Israel sat under its fig-trees,

piously chanting the praises of the invisible God, and exercised virtue

and righteousness. When we think of these surroundings we cannot

sufficiently admire the early greatness of Israel. Of Israel's love of

liberty, at a time when not only in its immediate vicinity, but also

among all the nations of antiquity, even among the philosophical Greeks,

the practice of slavery was justified and in full sway,--of this I will

not speak, for fear of compromising the Bible in the eyes of the powers

that be. No Socialist was more of a terrorist than our Lord and Saviour.

Even Moses was such a Socialist; although, like a practical man, he

attempted only to reform existing usages concerning property. Instead of

striving to effect the impossible, and rashly decreeing the abolition of

private property, he only sought for its moralisation by bringing the

rights of property into harmony with the laws of morality and reason.

This he accomplished by instituting the jubilee, at which period every

alienated heritage, which among an agricultural people always consisted

of land, would revert to the original owner, no matter in what manner it

had been alienated. This institution offers the most marked contrast to

the Roman statute of limitations, by which, after the expiration of a

certain period, the actual holder of an estate could no longer be

compelled to restore the estate to the true owner, unless the latter

should be able to show that within the prescribed time he had, with all

the prescribed formalities, demanded restitution. This last condition

opened wide the door for chicanery, particularly in a state where

despotism and jurisprudence were at their zenith, and where the unjust

possessor had at command all means of intimidation, especially against

the poor who might be unable to defray the expense of litigation. The

Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and that which he conquered with the

strong arm he knew how to defend by the tricks of law. Only a nation of

robbers and casuists could have invented the law of prescription, the

statute of limitations, and consecrated it in that detestable book which

may be called the bible of the Devil--I mean the codex of Roman civil

law, which, unfortunately, still holds sway.

I have spoken of the affinity which exists between the Jews and the

Germans, whom I once designated as the two pre-eminently moral nations.

While on this subject, I desire to direct attention to the ethical

disapprobation with which the ancient German law stigmatises the statute

of limitations: this I consider a noteworthy fact. To this very day the

Saxon peasant uses the beautiful and touching aphorism, "A hundred years

of wrong do not make a single year of right."

The Mosaic law, through the institution of the jubilee year, protests

still more decidedly. Moses did not seek to abolish the right of

property; on the contrary, it was his wish that everyone should possess

property, so that no one might be tempted by poverty to become a

bondsman and thus acquire slavish propensities. Liberty was always the

great emancipator's leading thought, and it breathes and glows in all

his statutes concerning pauperism. Slavery itself he bitterly, almost

fiercely, hated; but even this barbarous institution he could not

entirely destroy. It was rooted so deeply in the customs of that ancient

time that he was compelled to confine his efforts to ameliorating by law

the condition of the slaves, rendering self-purchase by the bondsman

less difficult, and shortening the period of bondage.

But if a slave thus eventually freed by process of law declined to

depart from the house of bondage, then, according to the command of

Moses, the incorrigibly servile, worthless scamp was to be nailed by the

ear to the gate of his master's house, and after being thus publicly

exposed in this disgraceful manner, he was condemned to life-long

slavery. Oh, Moses! our teacher, Rabbi Moses! exalted foe of all

slavishness! give me hammer and nails that I may nail to the gate of

Brandenburg our complacent, long-eared slaves in liveries of

black-red-and-gold.

I leave the ocean of universal religious, moral, and historical

reflections, and modestly guide my bark of thought back again into the

quiet inland waters of autobiography, in which the author's features are

so faithfully reflected.

In the preceding pages I have mentioned how Protestant voices from home,

in very indiscreet questions, have taken for granted that with the

reawakening in me of the religious feeling my sympathy for the Church

had also grown stronger. I know not how clearly I have shown that I am

not particularly enthusiastic for any dogma or for any creed; and in

this respect I have remained the same that I always was. I repeat this

statement in order to remove an error in regard to my present views,

into which several of my friends who are zealous Catholics have fallen.

How strange! at the same time that in Germany Protestantism bestowed on

me the undeserved honour of crediting me with a conversion to the

evangelic faith, another report was circulating that I had gone over to

Catholicism. Some good souls went so far as to assert that this latter

conversion had occurred many years ago, and they supported this

statement by definitely naming time and place. They even mentioned the

exact date; they designated by name the church in which I had abjured

the heresy of Protestantism, and adopted the only true and saving faith,

that of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. The only detail that was

lacking was how many peals of the bell had been sounded at this

ceremony.

From the newspapers and letters that reach me I learn how widely this

report has won credence; and I fall into a painful embarrassment when I

think of the sincere, loving joy which is so touchingly expressed in

some of these epistles. Travellers tell me that the salvation of my soul

has even furnished a theme for pulpit eloquence. Young Catholic priests

seek permission to dedicate to me the first fruits of their pen. I am

regarded as a shining light--that is to be--of the Church. This pious

folly is so well meant and sincere that I cannot laugh at it. Whatever

may be said of the zealots of Catholicism, one thing is certain: they

are no egotists; they take a warm interest in their fellow-men--alas!

often a little too warm an interest. I cannot ascribe that false report

to malice, but only to mistake. The innocent facts were in this case

surely distorted by accident only. The statement of time and place is

quite correct. I was really in the designated church on the designated

day, and I did there undergo a religious ceremony; but this ceremony was

no hateful abjuration, but a very innocent conjugation. In short, after

being married according to the civil law, I also invoked the sanction of

the Church, because my wife, who is a strict Catholic, would not have

considered herself properly married in the eyes of God without such a

ceremony; and for no consideration would I shake this dear being's

belief in the religion which she has inherited.

It is well, moreover, that women should have a positive religion.

Whether there is more fidelity among wives of the evangelic faith, I

shall not attempt to discuss. But the Catholicism of the wife certainly

saves the husband from many annoyances. When Catholic women have

committed a fault, they do not secretly brood over it, but confess to

the priest, and as soon as they have received absolution they are again

as merry and light-hearted as before. This is much pleasanter than

spoiling the husband's good spirits or his soup by downcast looks or

grieving over a sin for which they hold themselves in duty bound to

atone during their whole lives by shrewish prudery and quarrelsome

excess of virtue. The confessional is likewise useful in another

respect. The sinner does not keep her terrible secret preying on her

mind; and since women are sure, sooner or later, to babble all they

know, it is better that they should confide certain matters to their

confessor than that they should, in some moment of overpowering

tenderness, talkativeness, or remorse, blurt out to the poor husband the

fatal confession.

Scepticism is certainly dangerous in the married state, and, although I

myself was a free-thinker, I permitted no word derogatory to religion to

be spoken in my house. In the midst of Paris I lived like a steady,

commonplace townsman; and therefore when I married I desired to be

wedded under the sanction of the Church, although in this country the

civil marriage is fully recognised by society. My free-thinking friends

were vexed at me for this, and overwhelmed me with reproaches, claiming

that I had made too great concessions to the clergy. Their chagrin at my

weakness would have been still greater had they known the other

concessions that I had made to the hated priesthood. As I was a

Protestant wedding a Catholic, in order to have the ceremony performed

by a Catholic priest it was necessary to obtain a special dispensation

from the archbishop, who in these cases exacts from the husband a

written pledge that the offspring of the marriage shall be educated in

the religion of the mother. But, between ourselves, I could sign this

pledge with the lighter conscience since I knew the rearing of children

is not my specialty, and as I laid down my pen the words of the

beautiful Ninon de L'Enclos came into my mind--"O, le beau billet qu' a

Lechastre!"

...I will crown my confessions by admitting that, if at that time it had

been necessary in order to obtain the dispensation of the archbishop, I

would have bound over not only the children but myself. But the ogre of

Rome, who, like the monster in the fairy tales, stipulates that he shall

have for his services the future births, was content with the poor

children who were never born. And so I remained a Protestant, as

before--a protesting Protestant; and I protest against reports which,

without being intended to be defamatory, may yet be magnified so as to

injure my good name.

...There is not a particle of unkindly feeling in my breast against the

poor ogre of Rome. I have long since abandoned all feuds with

Catholicism, and the sword which I once drew in the service of an idea,

and not from private grudge, has long rested in its scabbard. In that

contest I resembled a soldier of fortune, who fights bravely, but after

the battle bears no malice either against the defeated cause or against

its champions.

Fanatical enmity towards the Catholic Church cannot be charged against

me, for there was always lacking in me the self-conceit which is

necessary to sustain such an animosity. I know too well my own

intellectual calibre not to be aware that with my most furious

onslaughts I could inflict but little injury on a colossus such as the

Church of St. Peter. I could only be a humble worker at the slow removal

of its foundation stones, a task which may yet require centuries. I was

too familiar with history not to recognise the gigantic nature of that

granite structure. Call it, if you will, the bastile of intellect;

assert, if you choose, that it is now defended only by invalids; but it

is therefore not the less true that the bastile is not to be easily

captured, and many a young recruit will break his head against its

walls.

As a thinker and as a metaphysician, I was always forced to pay the

homage of my admiration to the logical consistency of the doctrines of

the Roman Catholic Church, and I may also take credit to myself that I

have never by witticism or ridicule attacked its dogmas or its public

worship. Too much and too little honour has been vouchsafed me in

calling me an intellectual kinsman of Voltaire. I was always a poet; and

hence the poesy which blossoms and glows in the symbolism of Catholic

dogma and culture must have revealed itself more profoundly to me than

to ordinary observers, and in my youthful days I was often touched by

the infinite sweetness, the mysterious, blissful ecstasy and

awe-inspiring grandeur of that poetry. There was a time when I went into

raptures over the blessed Queen of Heaven, and in dainty verse told the

story of her grace and goodness. My first collection of poems shows

traces of this beautiful Madonna period, which in later editions I

weeded out with laughable anxiety.

The time for vanity has passed, and everyone is at liberty to smile at

this confession.

It will be unnecessary for me to say that, as no blind hate against the

Catholic Church exists in me, so also no petty spite against its priests

rankles in my heart. Whoever knows my satirical vein will surely bear

witness that I was always lenient and forbearing in speaking of the

human weaknesses of the clergy, although by their attacks they often

provoked in me a spirit of retaliation. But even at the height of my

wrath I was always respectful to the true priesthood; for, looking back

into the past, I remembered benefits which they had once rendered me;

for it is Catholic priests whom I must thank for my first instruction;

it was they who guided the first steps of my intellect.

Pedagogy was the specialty of the Jesuits, and although they sought to

pursue it in the interest of their order, yet sometimes the passion for

pedagogy itself, the only human passion that was left in them, gained

the mastery; they forgot their aim, the repression of reason and the

exaltation of faith, and, instead of reducing men to a state of

childhood, as was their purpose, out of the children they involuntarily

made men by their instruction. The greatest men of the Revolution were

educated in Jesuit schools. Without the training there acquired, that

great intellectual agitation would perhaps not have broken out till a

century later.

Poor Jesuit fathers! You have been the bugbear and the scapegoat of the

liberals. The danger that was in you was understood, but not your

merits. I could never join in the denunciations of my comrades, who at

the mere mention of Loyola's name would always become furious, like

bulls when a red cloth is held before them. It is certainly noteworthy,

and may perhaps at the assizes in the valley of Jehoshaphat be set down

as an extenuating circumstance, that even as a lad I was permitted to

attend lectures on philosophy. This unusual favour was exceptional in my

case, because the rector Schallmeyer was a particular friend of our

family. This venerable man often consulted with my mother in regard to

my education and future career, and once advised her, as she afterwards

related to me, to devote me to the service of the Catholic Church, and

send me to Rome to study theology. He assured her that through his

influential friends in Rome he could advance me to an important position

in the Church. But at that time my mother dreamed of the highest worldly

honours for me. Moreover, she was a disciple of Rousseau, and a strict

deist. Besides, she did not like the thought of her son being robed in

one of those long black cassocks, such as are worn by Catholic priests,

and in which they look so plump and awkward. She knew not how

differently, how gracefully, a Roman _abbate_ wears such a cassock, and

how jauntily he flings over his shoulders the black silk mantle, which

in Rome, the ever-beautiful, is the uniform of gallantry and wit.

Oh, what a happy mortal is such a Roman _abbate_! He serves not only the

Church of Christ, but also Apollo and the Muses, whose favourite he is.

The Graces hold his inkstand for him when he indites the sonnets which,

with such delicate cadences, he reads in the Accademia degli Arcadi. He

is a connoisseur of art, and needs only to taste the lips of a young

songstress in order to be able to foretell whether she will some day be

a celeberrima cantatrice, a diva, a world-renowned prima-donna. He

understands antiquities, and will write a treatise in the choicest

Ciceronian Latin concerning some newly-unearthed torso of a Grecian

Bacchante, reverentially dedicating it to the supreme head of

Christendom, to the Pontifex Maximus, for so he addresses him. And what

a judge of painting is the Signor _Abbate_, who visits the painters in

their ateliers and directs their attention to the fine points of their

female models! The writer of these pages had in him just the material

for such an _abbate_, and was just suited for strolling in delightful

_dolce far niente_ through the libraries, art galleries, churches, and

ruins of the Eternal City, studying among pleasures, and seeking

pleasure while studying. I would have read mass before the most select

audiences, and during Holy Week I would have mounted the pulpit as a

preacher of strict morality,--of course even then never degenerating

into ascetic rudeness. The Roman ladies, in particular, would have been

greatly edified, and through their favour and my own merit I would,

perhaps, have risen eventually to high rank in the hierarchy of the

Church. I would, perhaps, have become a monsignore, a violet-stocking;

perhaps even a cardinal's red hat might have fallen on my head. The

proverb says--

"There is no priestling, how small soe'er he be,

That does not wish himself a Pope to be."

And so it might have come to pass that I should attain the most exalted

position of all, for, although I am not naturally ambitious, I would yet

not have refused the nomination for Pope, had the choice of the conclave

fallen on me. It is, at all events, a very respectable office, and has a

good income attached to it; and I do not doubt that I could have

discharged the duties of my position with the requisite address. I would

have seated myself composedly on the throne of St. Peter, presenting my

toe for the kisses of all good Christians, the priests as well as the

laity. With a becoming dignity I would have let myself be carried in

triumph through the pillared halls of the great basilica, and only when

it tottered very threateningly would I have clung to the arms of the

golden throne, which is borne on the shoulders of six stalwart camerieri

in crimson uniform. By their side walk bald-headed monks of the Capuchin

order, carrying burning torches. Then follow lackeys in gala dress,

bearing aloft immense fans of peacocks' feathers, with which they gently

fan the Prince of the Church. It is all just like Horace Vernet's

beautiful painting of such a procession. With a like imperturbable

sacerdotal gravity--for I can be very serious if it be absolutely

necessary--from the lofty Lateran I would have pronounced the annual

benediction over all Christendom. Here, standing on the balcony, _in

pontificalibus_ and with the triple crown upon my head, surrounded by my

scarlet-hatted cardinals and mitred bishops, priests in suits of gold

brocade and monks of every hue, I would have presented my holiness to

the view of the swarming multitudes below, who, kneeling and with bowed

heads, extended farther than the eye could reach; and I could composedly

have stretched out my hands and blessed the city and the world.

But, as thou well knowest, gentle reader, I have not become a Pope, nor

a cardinal, nor even a papal nuncio. In the spiritual as well as in the

worldly hierarchy I have attained neither office nor rank; I have

accomplished nothing in this beautiful world; nothing has become of

me--nothing but a poet.

But no, I will not feign a hypocritical humility, I will not depreciate

that name. It is much to be a poet, especially to be a great lyric poet,

in Germany, among a people who in two things--in philosophy and in

poetry--have surpassed all other nations. I will not with a sham

modesty--the invention of worthless vagabonds--depreciate my fame as a

poet. None of my countrymen have won the laurel at so early an age; and

if my colleague, Wolfgang Goethe, complacently writes that "the Chinese

with trembling hand paints Werther and Lotte on porcelain," I can, if

boasting is to be in order, match his Chinese fame with one still more

legendary, for I have recently learned that my poems have been

translated into the Japanese language.

...But at this moment I am as indifferent to my Japanese fame as to my

renown in Finland. Alas! fame, once sweet as sugared pine-apple and

flattery, has for a long time been nauseous to me; it tastes as bitter

to me now as wormwood. With Romeo, I can say, "I am the fool of

fortune." The bowl stands filled before me, but I lack a spoon. What

does it avail me that at banquets my health is pledged in the choicest

wines, and drunk from golden goblets, when I, myself, severed from all

that makes life pleasant, may only wet my lips with an insipid potion?

What does it avail me that enthusiastic youths and maidens crown my

marble bust with laurel-wreaths, if meanwhile the shrivelled fingers of

an aged nurse press a blister of Spanish flies behind the ears of my

actual body. What does it avail me that all the roses of Shiraz so

tenderly glow and bloom for me? Alas! Shiraz is two thousand miles away

from the Rue d'Amsterdam, where, in the dreary solitude of my sick-room,

I have nothing to smell, unless it be the perfume of warmed napkins.

Alas! the irony of God weighs heavily upon me! the great Author of the

universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, wished to show the petty, earthly,

so-called German Aristophanes that his mightiest sarcasms are but feeble

banter compared with His, and how immeasurably he excels me in humour

and in colossal wit.

Yes, the mockery which the Master has poured out over me is terrible,

and horribly cruel is His sport. Humbly do I acknowledge His

superiority, and I prostrate myself in the dust before Him. But,

although I lack such supreme creative powers, yet in my spirit also the

eternal reason flames brightly, and I may summon even the wit of God

before its forum, and subject it to a respectful criticism. And here I

venture to offer most submissively the suggestion that the sport which

the Master has inflicted on the poor pupil is rather too long drawn out:

it has already lasted over six years, and after a time becomes

monotonous. Moreover, if I may take the liberty to say it, in my humble

opinion the jest is not new, and the great Aristophanes of Heaven has

already used it on a former occasion, and has, therefore, been guilty of

plagiarism on His own exalted self. In order to prove this assertion, I

will quote a passage from the Chronicle of Lüneberg. This chronicle is

very interesting for those who seek information concerning the manners

and customs of Germany during the middle ages. As in a fashion-journal,

it describes the wearing-apparel of both sexes which was in vogue at

each particular period. It also imparts information concerning the

popular ballads of the day, and quotes the opening lines of several of

them. Among others, it records that during the year 1480 there were

whistled and sung throughout all Germany certain songs, which for

sweetness and tenderness surpassed any previously known in German lands.

Young and old, and the women in particular, were quite bewitched by

these ballads, which might be heard the livelong day. But these songs,

so the chronicle goes on to say, were composed by a young priest who was

afflicted with leprosy, and lived a forlorn, solitary life, secluded

from all the world. You are surely aware, dear reader, what a horrible

disease leprosy was during the middle ages, and how the wretched beings

afflicted with this incurable malady were driven out from all society

and from the abodes of men, and were forbidden to approach any human

being. Living corpses, they wandered to and fro, muffled from head to

foot, a hood drawn over the face, and carrying in the hand a bell, the

Lazarus-bell, as it was called, through which they were to give timely

warning of their approach, so that every one could get out of the way in

time. The poor priest whose fame as a lyric poet the chronicle praised

so highly was such a leper; and while all Germany, shouting and

jubilant, sang and whistled his songs, he, a wretched outcast, in the

desolation of his misery sat sorrowful and alone.

Oh, that fame was the old, familiar scorn, the cruel jest of God, the

same as in my case, although there it appears in the romantic garb of

the middle ages. The _blasé_ king of Judea said rightly, There is no new

thing under the sun. Perhaps that sun itself, which now beams so

imposingly, is only an old warmed-up jest.

Sometimes among the gloomy phantasms that visit me at night I seem to

see before me the poor priest of the Lüneberg Chronicle, my brother in

Apollo, and his sorrowful eyes stare strangely out of his hood; but

almost at the same moment it vanishes, and, faintly dying away, like the

echo of a dream, I hear the jarring tones of the Lazarus-bell.

_Printed by_ WALTER SCOTT, _Felling, Newcastle-upon-Tyne._

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THE NATURALISTS' MONTHLY:

A JOURNAL FOR NATURE-LOVERS AND NATURE-THINKERS.

_EDITED BY DR. J. W. WILLIAMS, M.A._

CONTENTS.

Pathology of the Celandine.--Rev. Hilderic Friend, M.A., F.L.S.

The Evolution of the Fishing-Hook from the Flint-Hook of

Prehistoric Man to the Salmon-Hook of the Present Day.--Edward

Lovett.

A Study in My Garden (Rose-Aphis).--H. W. S. Worsley-Benison,

F.L.S.

Binary Suns.--Herbert Sadler, F.R.A.S.

Charles Robert Darwin (with a photograph).--B. Middleton

Batchelor.

Shell Collecting in Guernsey and Hern.--J. R. Brockton

Tomlin, B.A.

A Chapter on the Centipedes and Millipedes.--T. D. Gibson-Carmichael,

M.A., F.L.S.

The Snails and Slugs of My Garden.--George Roberts.

The Origin of our Fresh-water Faunas.--H. E. Quilter.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] There are three German biographies of Heine, those of Strodtmann,

Karpeles, and Proelss; a new edition of his works in six volumes, with a

biography and notes by Dr. Elster, has lately been announced. Mr.

Matthew Arnold, by his well-known essay and poem, has done much to

stimulate English interest in Heine. A careful critical estimate by Mr.

Charles Grant (_Contemporary_, Sept. 1880) may be mentioned with praise.

[2] He lodged at 32, Craven Street, Strand.

[3] "C'est le Bible, plus que tout autre livre," a distinguished French

critic wrote lately, "qui a façonné le génie poétique de Heine, en lui

donnant sa forme et sa couleur. Ses véritables maîtres, ses vrais

inspirateurs sont les glorieux inconnus qui ont écrit l'Ecclesiaste et

les Proverbes, le Cantique des cantiques, le livre de Job et ce chez

d'oeuvre d'ironie discrète intitulé: le livre du prophète Jonas. Celui

qui s'appelait un rossignol Allemand niché dans la perruque de Voltaire

fut à la fois le moins évangélique des hommes et le plus vraiment

biblique des poètes modernes."

[4] He committed suicide.--ED.

[5] Or in English.

[6] Heine at this period was never tired of laughing at Göttingen, and

here couples it with six particularly insignificant towns.--ED.

[7] _Dumm_ in German means stupid.

[8] In the French edition Heine rightly substituted "The Emperor

Maximilian."

[9] _i.e._ Ariosto.--ED.

[10] Michel corresponds to John Bull.--ED.

[11] This is a common error. Faust the printer is quite a distinct

person.--ED.

[12] It must be remembered that Heine visited England in 1827.

[13] This is said to have been the response of Princess Borghese to a

friend who asked her how she had felt when sitting as a model to

Canova.--ED.

[14] Heine only quotes the first part of the passage from the

_Reisebilder_, which has here been given in full.--ED.

[15] Heine here alludes to _Atta Troll_.--ED.