I have just been to Luther's cell in the old Augustine Convent, and if
my pilgrimage at Wittenberg was less interesting by the dirt and
discomfort of the actual present, here were surroundings less
calculated to jar on the frame the scene should inspire. It was about
sunset,--a very golden and beautiful one, and C. and I drove through
various streets of this old town. I believe I am peculiarly alive to
architectural excitements, for these old houses, with their strange
windows, odd chimneys, and quaint carvings, delight me wonderfully.
Many of them are almost gnome-like in their uncouthness; they please
me none the less for that.
We drove first to the cathedral, which, with an old deserted church,
seemingly part of itself, forms a pile of Gothic architecture, a
wilderness of spires, minarets, arches, and what not, more picturesque
than any cathedral I have seen. It stands high on a sort of platform
overlooking a military parade ground, and reached by a long flight of
steps.
The choir is very beautiful. I cannot describe how these lofty arches,
with their stained glass windows, touch my heart. Architecture never
can, and never will, produce their like again. They give us aspiration
in its highest form and noblest symbol, and wonderful was that mind
which conceived them. This choir so darkly bright, its stalls and
seats carved in black oak, its flame-like arches, gorgeous with
evening light, were a preparation and excitement of mind. Yet it's
remarkable about these old-time cathedrals, that while their is every
grand and solemn effect of architecture, there is also always an
abundance of subordinate parts, mean, tawdry, revolting, just like the
whole system they represent. Out of this beautiful choir I wanted to
tear all the tinsel fixtures on its altar, except two very good
pictures, and leave it in it noble simplicity.
I remarked here a black oak chandelier, which the guide said was taken
from the cathedral of Cologne. It was the very perfection of Gothic
carving, and resembled frostwork in its lightness. The floor of the
cathedral was covered with effigies in stone, trod smooth by the feet
of worshippers; so we living ones are ever walking above the dead,
though we do not always, as here, see the outward sign thereof.
From the cathedral we passed out, and stopped a moment to examine the
adjoining church, now deserted, but whose three graceful spires have a
peculiar beauty. After a turn upon the platform we descended, and
drove to the Augustine Convent, now used as an orphan asylum. We
ascended through a court yard, full of little children, by some steps
into a gallery, where a woman came out with her keys. We passed first
into a great hall, the walls of which were adorned with Holbein's
Dance of Death.
From this hall we passed into Luther's room--a little cell, ten feet
square; the walls covered with inscriptions from his writings. There
we saw his inkstand, his pocket Testament, a copy of the Bible that
was presented to him, (by whom I could not understand,) splendidly
bound and illuminated. But it was the cell itself which affected me,
the windows looking out into what were the cloisters of the monastery.
Here was that struggle--that mortal agony--that giant soul convulsing
and wearing down that strong frame. These walls! to what groans, to
what prayers had they listened! Could we suppose a living human form
imperishable, capable of struggling and suffering, but not of dying,
buried beneath the whole weight of one of these gloomy cathedrals,
suffocating in mortal agony, hearing above the tramp of footsteps, the
peal of organs, the triumphant surge of chants, and vainly striving to
send up its cries under all this load,--such, it would seem, was the
suffering of this mighty soul. The whole pomp and splendor of this
gorgeous prison house was piled up on his breast, and _his_
struggles rent the prison for the world!
On a piece of parchment which is here kept framed is inscribed in
Luther's handwriting, in Latin, "Death is swallowed up in Victory!"
Nothing better could be written on the walls of this cell.
This afternoon I walked out a little to observe the German Sabbath.
Not like the buoyant, voluble, social Sunday of Paris, though still
consecrated to leisure and family enjoyment more than to religious
exercises. As I walked down the streets, the doors were standing open,
men smoking their pipes, women knitting, and children playing. One
place of resort was the graveyard of an antiquated church. A graveyard
here is quite different from the solitary, dismal place where we lay
our friends, as if to signify that all intercourse with them is at an
end. Each grave was trimmed and garlanded with flowers, fastened with
long strings of black or white ribbon. Around and among the graves
men, women, and children were walking, the men smoking and chatting,
not noisily, but in a cheerful, earnest way. It seems to me that this
way of treating the dead might lessen the sense of separation. I
believe it is generally customary to attend some religious exercise
once on Sunday, and after that the rest of the day is devoted to this
sort of enjoyment.
[Illustration: _of the Wartburg._]
The morning we started for Eisenach was foggy and rainy. This was
unfortunate, as we were changing from a dead level country to one of
extreme beauty. The Thuringian Forest, with its high, wooded points
crowned here and there with many a castle and many a ruin, loomed up
finely through the mist, and several times I exclaimed, "There is the
Wartburg," or "That must be the Wartburg," long before we were near
it. It was raining hard when we reached Eisenach station, and engaged
a carriage to take us to the Wartburg. The mist, which wreathed
thickly around, showed us only glimpses as we wound slowly up the
castle hill--enough, however, to pique the imagination, and show how
beautiful it might be in fair weather.
The grounds are finely kept: winding paths invite to many a charming
stroll. When about half way up, as the rain had partially subsided, I
left the carriage, and toiled up the laborious steep on foot, that I
might observe better. You approach the castle by a path cut through
the rock for about thirty or forty feet. At last I stood under a low
archway of solid stone masonry, about twenty feet thick. There had
evidently been three successive doors; the outer one was gone, and the
two inner were wonderfully massive, braced with iron, and having each
a smaller wicket door swung back on its hinges.
As my party were a little behind, I had time to stop and meditate. I
fancied a dark, misty night, and the tramp of a party of horsemen
coming up the rocky path to the gateway; the parley at the wicket; the
unbarred doors, creaking on their rusty hinges,--one, two, three,--are
opened; in clatters the cavalcade. In the midst of armed men with
visors down, a monk in cowl and gown, and with that firm look about
the lips which is so characteristic in Luther's portraits. But here
our party came up, and the vision was dispelled. As none of us knew a
word of German, we stood rather irresolutely looking at the buildings
which, in all shapes and varieties, surround the court. I went into
one room--it was a pantry; into another--it was a wash room; into a
third--it was a sitting room, garnished with antlers, and hung round
with hard old portraits of princes and electors, and occupied by
Germans smoking and drinking beer. One is sure that in this respect
one cannot fail of seeing the place as it was in Luther's time. If
they were Germans, of course they drank beer out of tall, narrow beer
glasses; that is as immutable a fact as the old stones of the
battlement.
"H.," said C., "did the Germans use to smoke in Luther's day?"
"No. Why?"
"0, nothing. Only, what could they do with themselves?"
"I do not know, unless they drank the more beer."
"But what could they do with their chimney-hood?"
So saying, the saucy fellow prowled about promiscuously a while,
assailing one and another in French, to about as much purpose as one
might have tried to storm the walls with discharges of thistle down;
all smoked and drank as before. But as several other visitors arrived,
and it became evident that if we did not come to see the castle, it
was not likely we came for any thing else, a man was fished up from
some depths unknown, with a promising bunch of keys. He sallied forth
to that part of the castle which is undergoing repairs.
Passing through bricks and mortar, under scaffolds, &c., we came to
the armory, full of old knights and steeds in complete armor; that is
to say, the armor was there, and, without peeping between the
crevices, one could hardly tell that their owners were not at home in
their iron houses. There sat the Elector of Saxony, in full armor, on
his horse, which was likewise cased in steel. There was the suit of
armor in which Constable Bourbon fell under the walls of Rome, and
other celebrated suits, some covered with fine engraved work, and some
gilded. A quantity of banners literally hung in tatters, dropping to
pieces with age. Here were the middle ages all standing.
Then we passed up to a grand hall, which is now being restored with
great taste after the style of that day--a long, lofty room, with an
arched roof, and a gallery on one side, and beyond, a row of
Romanesque arched windows, commanding a view of the country around.
Having finished the tour of this part, we went back, ascended an old,
rude staircase, and were ushered into Luther's Patmos, about ten or
twelve feet square. The window looked down the rocky sides into an
ocean of seething mist. I opened it, but could see nothing of all
those scenes he describes so graphically from this spot. I thought of
his playful letter on the "Diet of the Rooks," but there was not a
rook at hand to illustrate antiquity. There was his bedstead and
footstool, a mammoth vertebra, and his writing table. A sculptured
chair, the back of which is carved into a cherub's head, bending
forward and shadowing with its wings the head of the sitter, was said
to be of the time of Luther, but not _his_ chair. There were some
of his books, and a rude, iron-studded clothes press.
Thus ended for me the Lutheran pilgrimage. I had now been
perseveringly to all the shrines, and often inquired of myself whether
our conceptions are helped by such visitations. I decided the question
in the affirmative; that they are, if from the dust of the present we
can recreate the past, and bring again before us the forms as they
then lived, moved, and had their being. For me, I seem to have seen
Luther, Cranach, Melanchthon, and all the rest of them--to have talked
with them. By the by, I forgot to mention the portraits of Luther's
father and mother, which are in his cell. They show that his
_mother_ was no common woman. She puts me in mind of the mother
of Samuel J. Mills--a strong, shrewd, bright, New England character.
I must not forget to notice, too, a little glitter of effect--a
little, shadowy, fanciful phase of feeling--that came over me when in
Luther's cell at Erfurt. The time, as I told you, was golden twilight,
and little birds were twittering and chirping around the casement, and
I thought how he might have sat there, in some golden evening, sad and
dreamy, hearing the birds chirp, and wondering why he alone of all
creation should be so sad. I have not a doubt he has done that very
thing in this very spot.