Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who
can explain them! We have all roamed through this silent
wonder-wood--we have all once opened our eyes in blissful astonishment,
as the beautiful reality of life overflowed our souls. We knew not
where, or who, we were--the whole world was ours and we were the whole
world's. That was an infinite life--without beginning and without end,
without rest and without pain. In the heart, it was as clear as the
spring heavens, fresh as the violet's perfume--hushed and holy as a
Sabbath morning.
What disturbs this God's-peace of the child? How can this unconscious
and innocent existence ever cease? What dissipates the rapture of this
individuality and universality, and suddenly leaves us solitary and
alone in a clouded life?
Say not, with serious face. It is sin! Can even a child sin? Say
rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
Is it sin, which makes the bud a blossom, and the blossom fruit, and
the fruit dust?
Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a
butterfly, and the butterfly dust?
And is it sin, which makes the child a man, and the man a gray-haired
man, and the gray-haired man dust? And what is dust?
Say rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
Yet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back
and remember one's self. Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the
melancholy autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and
there a spring day, and the heart says: "I feel like spring." Such a
day is this--and so I lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant
woods, and stretch out my weary limbs, and look up, through the green
foliage, into the boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that
childhood.
Then, all seems forgotten. The first pages of memory are like the old
family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled
with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters
where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to
grow clear and legible. Now if we could only find the title-page with
the imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their
place, we find only the clear transcript--our baptismal
certificate--bearing witness when we were born, the names of our
parents and godparents, and that we were not issued _sine loco et anno_.
But, oh this beginning! Would there were none, since, with the
beginning, all thought and memories alike cease. When we thus dream
back into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad
beginning continually flies further away. The thoughts pursue it and
never overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky
touches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before
it, yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never
reaches the spot.
But even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had a
beginning, what do we know now? For memory shakes itself like the
spaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes
and he looks very strangely.
I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first
time. They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as
if it were cold. Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was
chilly, or I was frightened. In short, something came over me which
reminded me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner. Then my mother
showed me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that
she had made them very beautifully. Then I felt warm again, and could
sleep well.
Furthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything
about me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed. Then there came a great
swarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon my
forehead and eyes and said, "Good day." Immediately my eyes smarted,
and I cried to my mother, and she said: "Poor little one, how the gnats
have stung him!" I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky any
longer, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and it
seemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through my
senses. Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,
and it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue
heaven of that day may again rise over my soul.
Still further do I remember, how, at another time, a new world
disclosed itself to me--more beautiful than the star-world or the
violet perfume. It was on an Easter morning, and my mother had dressed
me early. Before the window stood our old church. It was not
beautiful, but still it had a lofty roof and tower, and on the tower a
golden cross, and it appeared very much older and grayer than the other
buildings. I wondered who lived in it, and once I looked in through
the iron-grated door. It was entirely empty, cold and dismal. There
was not even one soul in the whole building, and after that I always
shuddered when I passed the door. But on this Easter morning, it had
rained early, and when the sun came out in full splendor, the old
church with the gray sloping roof, the high windows and the tower with
the golden cross glistened with a wondrous shimmer. All at once the
light which streamed through the lofty windows began to move and
glisten. It was so intensely bright that one could have looked within,
and as I closed my eyes the light entered my soul and therein
everything seemed to shed brilliancy and perfume, to sing and to ring.
It seemed to me a new life had commenced in myself and that I was
another being, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she replied it
was an Easter song they were singing in the church. What bright, holy
song it was, which at that time surged through my soul, I have never
been able to discover. It must have been an old church hymn, like
those which many a time stirred the rugged soul of our Luther. I never
heard it again, but many a time even now when I hear an adagio of
Beethoven's, or a psalm of Marcellus, or a chorus of Handel's, or a
simple song in the Scotch Highlands or the Tyrol, it seems to me as if
the lofty church windows again glistened and the organ-tones once more
surged through my soul, and a new world revealed itself--more beautiful
than the starry heavens and the violet perfume.
These things I remember in my earliest childhood, and intermingled with
them are my dear mother's looks, the calm, earnest gaze of my father,
gardens and vine leaves, and soft green turf, and a very old and quaint
picture-book--and this is all I can recall of the first scattered
leaves of my childhood.
Afterwards it grows brighter and clearer. Names and faces appear--not
only father and mother, but brothers and sisters, friends and teachers,
and a multitude of _strange people_. Ah! yes, of these _strange
people_ there is so much recorded in memory.