the liberty of commending myself most respectfully to your favor.”
Bowing frequently, Schwefel retreated backwards towards the door,
and disappeared. Greifmann stepped to the open entrance of the side
apartment. There sat the youthful landholder, his head resting
heavily on his hand. He looked up, and Carl’s smiling face was met
by a pair of stern, almost fierce eyes.
“Have you heard, friend Seraphin?” asked he triumphantly.
“Yes--and what I have heard surpasses everything. You have
bargained with a member of that vile class who recognize no
difference between honor and disgrace, between good and evil,
between self-respect and infamy, who know only one god--which is
money.”
“Do not show yourself so implacable against these _vile_ beings, my
dearest! There is much that is useful in them, at any rate they are
helping me to the finest horses belonging to the aristocracy.”
A stealthy step was heard at the door of the cabinet.
“Do you hear that timid rap?” asked the banker. “The rapper’s
heart is at this moment in his knuckles. It is curious how men
betray in trifles what at the time has possession of their
feelings. The mere rapping gives a keen observer an insight into
the heart of a person whom he does not as yet see. Listen--”
Rapping again, still more stealthily and imploringly. “I must go
and relieve the poor devil, whom nobody would suspect for a mighty
leader. Now, Mr. Seraphin, Act the Second. Come in!”
The man who entered, attired in a dress coat and kids, was
Erdblatt, a tobacco merchant, spare in person, and with restless,
spering eyes. The millionaire greeted him coldly, then pointed him
to the chair that had been occupied by Schwefel. The impression
produced by the two hundred thousands on the man of tobacco was
far more decided than in the case of the manufacturer of straw
hats. Erdblatt was restless in his chair, and as the needle is
attracted by the pole, so did Erdblatt’s whole being turn towards
the money. His eyes glanced constantly over the paper treasures,
and a spasmodic jerking seized upon his fingers. But he soon sat
motionless and stiff, as if thunderstruck at Greifmann’s terrible
words.
“Your substantial firm,” began the mighty man of money, after some
few formalities, “has awaked in me a degree of attention which
the ordinary course of business does not require. I have to-day
received notice from an English banking-house that in a few days
several bills first of exchange, amounting to sixty thousand
florins, will be presented to be paid by you.”
Erdblatt was dumfounded and turned pale.
“The amount is not precisely what can be called insignificant,”
continued Greifmann coolly, “and I did not wish to omit notifying
you concerning the bills, because, as you are aware, the banking
business is regulated by rigorous and indiscriminating forms.”
Erdblatt took the hint, turned still more pale, and uttered not a
word.
“This accumulation of bills of exchange is something abnormal,”
proceeded Greifmann with indifference. “As they are all made
payable on sight, you are no doubt ready to meet this sudden rush
with proud composure,” concluded the banker, with a smile of cold
politeness.
But the dumfounded Erdblatt was far from enjoying proud composure.
His manner rather indicated inability to pay and panic terror.
“Not only is the accumulation of bills of exchange to the amount
of sixty thousand florins something abnormal, but it also argues
carelessness,” said he tersely. “Were it attributable to accident,
I should not complain; but it has been occasioned by jealous
rivalry. Besides, they are bills first of exchange--it is something
never heard of before--it is revolting--there is a plot to ruin me!
And I have no plea to allege for putting off these bills, and I am,
moreover, unable to pay them.”
The banker shrugged his shoulders coldly, and his countenance
became grave.
“Might I not beg you to aid me, Mr. Greifmann?” said he anxiously.
“Of course, I shall allow you a high rate of interest.”
“That is not practicable with bills of exchange,” rejoined the
banker relentlessly.
“When will the bills be presented?” asked the leader, with
increasing anxiety.
“Perhaps as early as to-morrow,” answered Greifmann, still more
relentless.
The manufacturer of tobacco was near fainting.
“I cannot conceive of your being embarrassed,” said the banker
coldly. “Your popularity and influence will get you assistance
from friends, in case your exchequer happens not to be in a
favorable condition.”
“The amount is too great; I should have to borrow in several
quarters. This would give rise to reports, and endanger the credit
of my firm.”
“You are not wrong in your view,” answered the banker coldly.
“Accidents may shake the credit of the most solid firm, and other
accidents may often change trifling difficulties into fatal
catastrophes. How often does it not occur that houses of the best
standing, which take in money at different places, are brought to
the verge of bankruptcy through public distrust?”
The words of the money prince were nowise calculated to reassure
Mr. Erdblatt.
“Be kind enough to accept the bills, and grant me time,” pleaded he
piteously.
“That, sir, would be contrary to all precedents in business,”
rejoined Greifmann, with an icy smile. “Our house never deviates
from the paths of hereditary custom.”
“I could pay in ten thousand florins at once,” said Erdblatt once
more. “Within eight weeks I could place fifty thousand more in your
hands.”
“I am very sorry, but, as I said, this plan is impracticable,”
opposed Greifmann. “Yet I have half a mind to accept those bills,
but only on a certain condition.”
“I am willing to indemnify you in any way possible,” assured the
tobacco merchant, with a feeling of relief.
“Hear the condition stated in a few words. As you know, I live
exclusively for business, never meddle in city or state affairs.
Moreover, labor devoted by me to political matters would be
superfluous, in view of the undisputed sway of liberalism.
Nevertheless, I am forced to learn, to my astonishment, that
progress itself neglects to take talent and ability into account,
and exhibits the most aristocratic nepotism. The remarkable
abilities of Mr. Shund are lost, both to the city and state, merely
because Mr. Shund’s fellow-citizens will not elect him to offices
of trust. This is unjust; to speak plainly, it is revolting, when
one considers that there is many a brainless fellow in the City
Council who has no better recommendation than to have descended
from an old family, and whose sole ability lies in chinking ducats
which he inherited but never earned. Shund is a genius compared
with such boobies; but genius does not pass current here, whilst
incapacity does. Now, if you will use your influence to have
Shund nominated for mayor of this city, and for delegate to the
legislature, and guarantee his election, you may consider the bills
of exchange as covered.”
Not even the critical financial trouble by which he was beset could
prevent an expression of overwhelming surprise in the tobacco man’s
face.
“I certainly cannot have misunderstood you. You surely mean to
speak of Ex-Treasurer Shund, of this place?”
“The same--the very same.”
“But, Mr. Greifmann, perhaps you are not aware--”
“I am aware of everything,” interrupted the banker. “I know that
many years ago Mr. Shund awkwardly put his hand into the city
treasury, that he was sent to the penitentiary, that people imagine
they still see him in the penitentiary garb, and, finally, that
in the stern judgment of the same people he is a low usurer. But
usury has been abrogated by law. The theft Shund has not only made
good by restoring what he stole, but also atoned for by years of
imprisonment. Now, why is a man to be despised who has indeed done
wrong, but not worse than others whose sins have long since been
forgotten? Why condemn to obscurity a man that possesses the most
brilliant kind of talent for public offices? The contempt felt for
Shund on the part of a population who boast of their progress is
unaccountable--may be it would not be far from the truth to believe
that some influential persons are jealous of the gifted man,”
concluded the banker reproachfully.
“Pardon me, please! The _thief_ and _usurer_ it might perhaps be
possible to elect,” conceded Erdblatt. “But Shund’s disgusting and
shameless amours could not possibly find grace with the moral sense
of the public.”
“Yes, and the origin of this _moral sense_ is the sixth commandment
of the Jew Moses,” said the millionaire scornfully. “I cannot
understand how you, a man of advanced views, can talk in this
manner.”
“You misinterpret my words,” rejoined the leader deprecatingly.
“To me, personally, Shund exists neither as a usurer nor as a
debauchee. Christian modes of judging are, of course, relegated
among absurdities that we have triumphed over. In this instance,
however, there is no question of my own personal conviction, but
of the conviction of the great multitude. And in the estimation of
the multitude unbridled liberty is just as disgraceful as the free
enjoyment of what, _morally_, is forbidden.”
“You are altogether in the same rut as Schwefel.”
“Have you spoken with Schwefel on this subject?” asked Erdblatt
eagerly.
“Only a moment ago. Mr. Schwefel puts greater trust in his power
than you do in yours, for he agreed to have Shund elected mayor and
delegate. Mr. Schwefel only wishes you and Sand would lend your
aid.”
“With pleasure! If Schwefel and Sand are won over, then all is
right.”
“From a hint of Schwefel’s,” said Greifmann, taking up a
five-hundred-florin banknote from the table, “I infer that the
election canvass is accompanied with some expense. Accept this
small contribution. As for the bills of exchange, the matter is to
rest by our agreement.”
Erdblatt also backed out of the cabinet, bowing repeatedly as he
retreated.
Seraphin rushed from his hiding-place in great excitement.
“Why, Greifmann, this is terrible! Do you call that advanced
education? Do you call that progress? Those are demoralized,
infernal beings. I spit upon them! And are these the rabble that
are trying to arrogate to themselves the leadership of the German
people?--rabble who ignore the Deity, the human soul, and morality
generally! But what completely unsettles me is your connivance--at
least, your connection with these infernal spirits.”
“But be easy, my good fellow, be easy! _I_ connected with tobacco
and straw?”
“At all events, you have been ridiculing the ten commandments and
Christian morals and faith.”
“Was I not obliged to do so in order to show how well the thief,
usurer, and filthy dog Shund harmonizes with the spirit of
progress? Can he who wishes to make use of the devil confer with
the devil in the costume of light? Not at all; he must clothe
himself in the mantle of darkness. And you must not object to my
using the demon Progress for the purpose of winning your span
of horses and saving my stakes. Let us not have a disgraceful
altercation. Consider me as a stage actor, whilst you are a
spectator that is being initiated into the latest style of popular
education. Ah, do you hear? The last one is drawing near. Be
pleased to vanish.”
The third leader, house-builder Sand, appeared. The greater
portion of his face is hidden by a heavy black beard; in one hand
he carries a stout bamboo cane; and it is only after having fully
entered, that he deliberately removes his hat.
“I wish you a pleasant morning, Mr. Greifmann. You have sent for
me: what do you want?”
The banker slowly raised his eyes from the latest exchange list to
the rough features of the builder, and remembering that the man had
risen up from the mortar board to his present position, and had
gained wealth and influence through personal energy, he returned
the short greeting with a friendly inclination of the head.
“Will you have the goodness to be seated, Mr. Sand?”
The man of the black beard took a seat, and, having noticed the
handsome collection of banknotes, his coarse face settled itself
into a not very attractive grin.
“I want to impart to you my intention of erecting a villa on the
Sauerberg, near the middle of our estate at Wilheim,” continued the
millionaire.
“Ah, that is a capital idea!” And the man of the beard became
very deeply interested. “The site is charming, no view equal to
it; healthy location, vineyards round about, your own vineyards
moreover. I could put you up a gem there.”
“That is what I think, Mr. Sand! My father, who has been abroad for
the last three months, is quite satisfied with the plan; in fact,
he is the original projector of it.”
“I know, I know! your father has a taste for what is grand. We
shall try and give him satisfaction, which, by the bye, is not so
very easy. But you have the money, and fine fortunes can command
fine houses.”
“What I want principally is to get you to draw a plan, consulting
your own taste and experience in doing so. You will show it to me
when ready, and I will tell you whether I like it or not.”
“Very well, Mr. Greifmann, very well! But I must know beforehand
what amount of money you are willing to spend upon the house; for
all depends upon the cost.”
“Well,” said the millionaire, after some deliberation, “I am
willing to spend eighty thousand florins on it, and something over,
perhaps.”
“Ah, well, for that amount of money something can be put
up--something small but elegant. Are you in a hurry with the
building?”
“To be sure! As soon as the matter is determined upon, there is to
be no delay in carrying it out.”
“I am altogether of your opinion, Mr. Greifmann--I agree with you
entirely!” assented the builder, with an increase of animation. “I
shall draw up a plan for a magnificent house. If it pleases you,
all hands shall at once be set at work, and by next autumn you
shall behold the villa under roof.”
“Of course you are yourself to furnish all the materials,” added
the banker shrewdly. “When once the plan will have been settled
upon, you can reach me an estimate of the costs, and I will pay
over the money.”
“To be sure, Mr. Greifmann--that is the way in which it should be
done, Mr. Greifmann!” responded the man of the black beard with a
satisfied air. “You are not to have the slightest bother. I shall
take all the bother upon myself.”
“That, then, is agreed upon! Well, now, have you learned yet who is
to be the next mayor?”
“Why, yes, the old one is to be re-elected!”
“Not at all! We must have an economical and intelligent man for
next mayor. Of this I am convinced, because the annual deficit in
the treasury is constantly on the increase.”
“Alas, ’tis true! And who is the man of economy and intelligence to
be?”
“Mr. Hans Shund.”
“Who--what? Hans Shund? The thief, the usurer, the convict, the
debauchee? Who has been making a fool of you?”
“Pardon me, sir! I never suffer people to make a fool of me!”
rejoined the banker with much dignity.
“Yes, yes--somebody has dished up a canard for you. What, that
good-for-nothing scoundrel to be elected mayor! Never in his life!
Hans Shund mayor--really that is good now--ha, ha!”
“Mr. Sand, you lead me to suspect that you belong to the party of
Ultramontanes.”
“Who--_I_ an Ultramontane? That is ridiculous! Sir, I am at
the head of the men of progress--I am the most liberal of the
liberals--that, sir, is placarded on every wall.”
“How come you, then, to call Mr. Sand a good-for-nothing scoundrel?”
“Simply for this reason, because he is a usurer and a dissipated
wretch.”
“Then I am in the right, after all! Mr. Sand belongs to the ranks
of the _pious_,” jeered the banker.
“Mr. Greifmann, you are insulting!”
“Nothing is further from my intention than to wound your feelings,
my dear Mr. Sand! Be cool and reasonable. Reflect, if you please.
Shund, you say, puts out money at thirty per cent. and higher, and
therefore he is a usurer. Is it not thus that you reason?”
“Why, yes! The scoundrel has brought many a poor devil to ruin by
means of his Jewish speculations!”
“Your pious indignation,” commended the millionaire, “is
praiseworthy, because it is directed against what you mistake
for a piece of scoundrelism. Meanwhile, please to calm down your
feelings, and let your reason resume her seat of honor so that you
may reflect upon my words. You know that in consequence of recent
legislation every capitalist is free to put out money at what rate
soever he pleases. Were Shund to ask _fifty_ per cent., he would
not be stepping outside of the law. He would then be, as he now is,
an honest man. Would he not?”
“It is as you say, so far as the law is concerned!”
“Furthermore, if after prudently weighing, after wisely
calculating, the _pros_ and _cons_, Shund concludes to draw in
his money, and in consequence many a poor devil is ruined, as you
say, surely no reasonable man will on that account condemn legally
authorized speculation!”
“Don’t talk to me of legally authorized speculation. The law must
not legalize scoundrelism; but whosoever by cunning usury brings
such to ruin is and ever will be a scoundrel.”
“Why a scoundrel, Mr. Sand? Why, pray?”
“Surely it is clear enough--because he has ruined men!”
“Ruined! How? Evidently through means legally permitted. Therefore,
according to your notion the law _does_ legalize scoundrelism; at
least it allows free scope to scoundrels. Mr. Sand, no offence
intended: I am forced, however, once more to suspect that you do,
perhaps without knowing it, belong to the _pious_. For they think
and feel just as you do, that is, in accordance with so-called
laws of morality, religious views and principles. That, judged by
such standards, Shund is a scoundrel who hereafter will be burned
eternally in hell, I do not pretend to dispute.”
“At bottom, I believe you are in the right, after all--yes, it is
as you say,” conceded the leader reluctantly. “Ahem--and yet I
am surprised at your being in the right. I would rather, however
that you were in the right, because I really do not wish to blame
anybody or judge him by the standard of the Ultramontanes.”
“That tone sounds genuinely progressive, and it does honor to
your judgment!” lauded the banker. “Again, you called Shund a
good-for-nothing scoundrel because he loves the company of women.
Mr. Sand, do you mean to vindicate the sacred nature of the
sixth commandment in an age that has emancipated itself from the
thrall of symbols and has liberated natural inclinations from the
servitude of a bigoted priesthood?--you, who profess to stand at
the head and front of the party of progress?”
“It is really odd--you are in the right again! Viewed from
the standpoint of the times, contemplated in the light of
modern intellectual culture, Shund must not really be called
good-for-nothing for being a usurer and an admirer of women.”
“Shund’s qualifications consequently fit him admirably for
the office of mayor. He will be economical, he will make the
expenditures balance with the revenue. Even in the legislature,
Shund’s principles and experience will be of considerable service
to the country and to the cause of progress. I am so much in favor
of the man that I shall award you the building of my villa only on
condition that you will use all your influence for the election of
Shund to the office of mayor and to the legislature.”
“Mayor--assemblyman, too--ahem! that will be hard to do.”
“By no means! Messrs. Schwefel and Erdblatt will do their best for
the same end.”
“Is that so, really? In that case there is no difficulty! Mr.
Greifmann, consider me the man that will build your villa.”
“The canvass will cost you some money--here, take this,
my contribution to the noble cause,” and he gave him a
five-hundred-florin banknote.
“That will suffice, Mr. Greifmann, that will suffice. The plan you
cannot have until after the election, for Shund will give us enough
to do.”
“Everything is possible to you, Mr. Sand! Whatever Cæsar, Lepidus,
and Antony wish at Rome, that same must be.”
“Very true, very true.” And the last of the leaders disappeared.
“I would never have imagined the like to be possible,” spoke the
landholder, entering. “They all regard Shund as a low, abandoned
wretch, and yet material interest determines every one of them
to espouse the cause of the unworthy, contemptible fellow. It is
extraordinary! It is monstrous!”
“You cannot deny that progress is eminently liberal,” replied the
banker, laughing.
“Nor will I deny that it possesses neither uprightness nor
conscience, nor, especially, morals,” rejoined the young man with
seriousness.
Carl saw with astonishment Seraphin’s crimsoned cheeks and flaming
eyes.
“My dear fellow, times and men must be taken as they are, not as
they should be,” said the banker. “Interest controls both men and
things. At bottom, it has ever been thus. In the believing times
of the middle ages, men’s interest lay in heaven. All their acts
were done for heaven; they considered no sacrifice as too costly.
Thousands quit their homes and families to have their skulls cloven
by the Turks, or to be broiled by the glowing heats of Palestine.
For the interests of heaven, thousands abandoned the world, fed on
roots in deserts, gave up all the pleasures of life. At present,
the interest lies in this world, in material possessions, in money.
Do not therefore get angry at progress if it refuses to starve
itself or to be cut down by Moorish scimitars, but, on the other
hand, has strength of mind and self-renunciation enough to promote
Hans Shund to honors and offices.”
Seraphin contemplated Greifmann, who smiled, and hardly knew how to
take him.
“An inborn longing for happiness has possession of all men,” said
he with reserve. “The days of faith were ruled by moral influences;
the spirit of this age is ruled by base matter. Between the moral
struggles of the past strong in faith, and the base matter of the
present, there is, say what you will, a notable difference.”
“Doubtless!” conceded Greifmann. “The middle ages were
incontestably the grandest epoch of history. I am actuated by the
honest intention of acquainting you with the active principles of
the present.”
“Yes, and you have been not immaterially aided by luck. But for the
order from Vienna for straw hats, the bills of exchange, and that
villa, you would hardly have attained your aim.”
Greifmann smiled.
“The straw-hat story is merely a mystification, my dear friend.
When the end will have been reached, when Hans Shund will have been
elected mayor and assemblyman, a few lines will be sufficient to
inform Mr. Schwefel that the house in Vienna has countermanded its
order. Nor is any villa to be constructed. I shall pay Sand for his
drawings, and this will be the end of the project. The matter of
the bills of exchange is not a hoax, and I am still free to proceed
against Erdblatt in the manner required by the interests of my
business.”
Seraphin stood before the ingenuous banker, and looked at him
aghast.
“It is true,” said Greifmann gaily, “I have laid out fifteen
hundred florins, but I have done so against one hundred per cent.;
for they are to secure me victory in our wager.”
“Your professional routine is truly admirable,” said Gerlach.
“Not exactly that, but practical, and not at all sentimental, my
friend.”
“I shall take a walk through the garden to get over my
astonishment,” concluded Gerlach; and he walked away from the
astute man of money.
CHAPTER III.
SERAPHIN AND LOUISE.
Sombre spirits flitted about the head of the young man with the
blooming cheeks and light eyes. He was unable to rid himself of
a feeling of depression; for he had taken a step into the domain
of progress, and had there witnessed things which, like slimy
reptiles, drew a cold trail over his warm heart. Trained up on
Christian principles, schooled by enlightened professors of the
faith, and watched over with affectionate vigilance by a pious
mother, Seraphin had had no conception of the state of modern
society. For this reason, both Greifmann _Senior_ and Gerlach
_Senior_ committed a blunder in wishing to unite by marriage three
millions of florins, the owners of which not merely differed,
but were the direct opposites of each other in disposition and
education.
Louise belonged to the class of emancipated females who have
in vain attempted to enhance the worth of noble womanhood by
impressing on their own sex the sterner type of the masculine
gender. In Louise’s opinion, the beauty of woman does not consist
in graceful gentleness, amiable concession and purity, but in
proudly overstepping the bounds set for woman by the innate
modesty of her sex. The beautiful young lady had no idea of the
repulsiveness of a woman who strives to make a man of herself,
but she was sure that the cause and origin of woman’s degradation
is religion. For it was to Eve that God had said: “Thou shalt be
under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.”
Louise considered this decree as revolting, and she detested the
book whose authority among men gives effect to its meaning. On the
other hand, she failed to observe that woman’s sway is powerful
and acknowledged wherever it exerts itself over weak man through
affection and grace. Quite as little did Miss Louise observe
that men assume the stature of giants so soon as women presume
to appear in relation to them strong and manlike. Least of all
did she discover anything gigantic in the kind-hearted Seraphin.
In the consciousness of her fancied superiority of education,
she smiled at the simplicity of his faith, and, as the handsome
young gentleman appeared by no means an ineligible _parti_, she
believed it to be her special task to train her prospective
husband according to her own notions. She imagined this course of
training would prove an easy undertaking for a lady whose charms
had been uniformly triumphant over the hearts of gentlemen. But one
circumstance appeared to her unaccountable--that was Seraphin’s
cold-bloodedness and unshaken independence. For eight days she had
plied her arts in vain, the most exquisite coquetry had been wasted
to no purpose, even the irresistible fire of her most lovely eyes
had produced no perceptible impression on the impregnable citadel
of the landholder’s heart.
“He is a mere child as yet, the most spotless innocence,” she would
muse hopefully. “He has been sheltered under a mother’s wings like
a pullet, and for this I am beholden to Madame Gerlach, for she has
trained up an obedient husband for me.”
Seraphin sauntered through the walks of the garden, absorbed
in gloomy reflections on the leaders of progress. Their utter
disregard of honor and unparalleled baseness were disgusting to
him as an honorable man, whilst their corruption and readiness
for deeds of meanness were offensive to him as a Christian.
Regarding Greifmann, also, he entertained misgivings. Upon closer
examination, however, the unsuspecting youth thought he discovered
in the banker’s manner of treating the leaders and their principles
a strong infusion of ridicule and irony. Hence, imposed upon by
his own good nature, he concluded that Greifmann ought not in
justice to be ranked among the hideous monstrosities of progress.
With head sunk and rapt in thought, Gerlach strayed indefinitely
amid the flowers and shrubbery. All at once he stood before Louise.
The young lady was seated under a vine-covered arbor; in one hand
she held a book, but she had allowed both hand and book to sink
with graceful carelessness upon her lap. For some time back she had
been observing the thoughtful young man. She had been struck by his
manly carriage and vigorous step, and had come to the conclusion
that his profusion of curling auburn hair was the most becoming
set-off to his handsome countenance. She now welcomed the surprised
youth with a smile so winning, and with a play of eyes and
features so exquisite, that Seraphin, dazzled by the beauty of the
apparition, felt constrained to lower his eyes like a bashful girl.
What probably contributed much to this effect was the circumstance
of his being at the time in a rather vacant and cheerless state of
mind, so that, coming suddenly into the presence of this brilliant
being, he experienced the power of the contrast. She appeared to
him indescribably beautiful, and he wondered that this discovery
had not forced itself upon him before. Unfortunately, the young
gentleman possessed but little of the philosophy which will not
suffer itself to be deceived by seductive appearances, and refuses
to recognize the beautiful anywhere but in its agreement with the
true and good.
Louise perceived in an instant that now was at hand the
long-looked-for fulfilment of her wishes. The certainty which
she felt that the conquest was achieved diffused a bewitching
loveliness over her person. Seraphin, on the other hand, stood
leaning against the arbor, and became conscious with fear and
surprise of a turmoil in his soul that he had never before
experienced.
“I have been keeping myself quiet in this shady retreat,” said she
sweetly, “not wishing to disturb your meditations. Carl’s wager is
a strange one, but it is a peculiarity of my brother’s occasionally
to manifest a relish for what is strange.”
“You are right--strange, very strange!” replied Seraphin, evidently
in allusion to his actual state of mind. The beautiful young lady,
perceiving the allusion, became still more dazzling.
“I should regret very much that the wager were lost by a guest
of ours, and still more that you were deprived of your splendid
racehorses. I will prevail on Carl not to take advantage of his
victory.”
“Many thanks, miss; but I would much rather you would not do so. If
I lose the wager, honor and duty compel me to give up the stakes
to the winner. Moreover, in the event of my losing, there would be
another loss far more severe for me than the loss of my racers.”
“What would that be?” inquired she with some amazement.
“The loss of my good opinion of men,” answered he sadly. “What I
have heard, miss, is base and vile beyond description.” And he
recounted for her in detail what had taken place.
“Such things are new to you, Mr. Seraphin; hence your astonishment
and indignation.”
The youth felt his soul pierced because she uttered not a word of
disapproval against the villany.
“Carl’s object was good,” continued she, “in so far as his
manœuvre has procured you an insight into the principles by which
the world is just now ruled.”
“I would be satisfied to lose the wager a thousand times, and even
more, did I know that the world is not under such rule.”
“It is wrong to risk one’s property for the sake of a delusion,”
said she reprovingly. “And it would be a gross delusion not to
estimate men according to their real worth. A proprietor of fields
and woodland, who, faithful to his calling, leads an existence pure
and in accord with nature’s laws, must not permit himself to be so
far misled by the harmlessness of his own career as to idealize
the human species. For were you at some future day to become more
intimately acquainted with city life and society, you would then
find yourself forced to smile at the views which you once held
concerning the present.”
“Smile at, my dear miss? Hardly. I should rather have to mourn the
destruction of my belief. Moreover, it is questionable whether I
could breathe in an atmosphere which is unhealthy and destructive
of all the genuine enjoyments of life!”
“And what do you look upon as the genuine enjoyments of life?”
asked she with evident curiosity.
He hesitated, and his childlike embarrassment appeared to her most
lovely.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Seraphin! I have been indiscreet, for
such a question is allowable to those only who are on terms of
intimacy.” And the beauty exhibited a masterly semblance of modesty
and amiability. The artifice proved successful, the young man’s
diffidence fled, and his heart opened.
“You possess my utmost confidence, most esteemed Miss Greifmann!
Intercourse with good, or at least honorable, persons appears to me
to be the first condition for enjoying life. How could any one’s
existence be cheerful in the society of people whose character is
naught and whose moral sense expired with the rejection of every
religious principle?”
“Yet perhaps it might, Mr. Seraphin!” rejoined she, with a smile of
imagined superiority. “Refinement, the polished manners of society,
may be substituted for the rigor of religious conviction.”
“Polished manners without moral earnestness are mere hypocrisy,”
answered he decidedly. “A wolf, though enveloped in a thousand
lambskins, still retains his nature.”
“How stern you are!” exclaimed she, laughing. “And what is the
second condition for the true enjoyment of life, Mr. Seraphin?”
“It is evidently the accord of moral consciousness with the behests
of a supreme authority; or to use the ordinary expression, a good
conscience,” answered the millionaire earnestly.
A sneering expression spontaneously glided over her countenance.
She felt the hateful handwriting of her soul in her features,
turned crimson, and cast down her eyes in confusion. The young man
had not observed the expression of mockery, and could not account
for her confusion. He thought he had perhaps awkwardly wounded her
sensitiveness.
“I merely meant to express my private conviction,” said Mr.
Seraphin apologetically.
“Which is grand and admirable,” lauded she.
Her approbation pleased him, for his simplicity failed to detect
the concealed ridicule. After a walk outside of the city which
Gerlach took towards evening, in the company of the brother and
sister, Carl Greifmann made his appearance in Louise’s apartment.
“You have at last succeeded in capturing him,” began he with a
chuckle of satisfaction. “I was almost beginning to lose confidence
in your well-tried powers. This time you seemed unable to keep the
field, to the astonishment of all your acquaintances. They never
knew you to be baffled where the heart of a weak male was to be
won.”
“What are you talking about?”
“About the fat codfish of two million weight whom you have been
successful in angling.”
“I do not understand you, most mysterious brother!”
“You do not understand me, and yet you blush like the skies before
a rainstorm! What means the vermilion of those cheeks, if you do
not understand?”
“I blush, first, on account of my limited understanding, which
cannot grasp your philosophy; and, secondly, because I am amazed at
the monstrous figures of your language.”
“Then I shall have to speak without figures and similes upon a
subject which loses a great deal in the light of bare reality,
which, I might indeed say, loses all, dissolves into vapor, like
will-o’-the-wisps and cloud phantoms before the rising sun. I
hardly know how to mention the subject without figures. I can
hardly handle it except with poetic figures,” exclaimed he gaily,
seating himself in Louise’s rocking-chair, rocking himself.
“Speaking in the commonest prose, my remarks refer to the last
victim immolated to your highness--to the last brand kindled by the
fire of your eyes. To talk quite broadly, I mean the millionaire
and landholder Seraphin Gerlach, who is head and ears in love with
you. Considered from a business and solid point of view, it is
exceedingly flattering for the banker’s brother to see his sister
adored by so considerable a sum of money.”
“Madman, you profane the noblest feelings of the heart,” she
chidingly said, with a smile.
“I am a man of business, my dear child, and am acquainted with no
sanctuary but the exchange. Relations of a tender nature, noble
feelings of the heart, lying as they do without the domain of
speculation, are to me something incomprehensible and not at all
desirable. On the other hand, I entertain for two millions of money
a most prodigious sympathy, and a love that casts the flames of
all your heroes and heroines of romance into the shade. Meanwhile,
my sweet little sister, there are two aspects to everything. An
alliance between our house and two millions of florins claims
admiration, ’tis true; yet it is accompanied with difficulties
which require serious reflection.” The banker actually ceased
rocking and grew serious.
“Might I ask a solution of your enigma?”
“All jesting aside, Louise, this alliance is not altogether free
from risks,” answered he. “Just consider the contrast between
yourself and Seraphin Gerlach’s good nature is touching, and his
credulous simplicity is calculated to excite apprehension. Guided,
imposed upon, entirely bewitched by religious phantasms, he gropes
about in the darkness of superstition. You, on the contrary, sneer
at what Seraphin cherishes as holy, and despise such religious
nonsense. Reflect now upon the enormous contrast between yourself
and the gentleman whom fate and your father’s shrewdness have
selected for your husband. Honestly, I am in dread. I am already
beginning to dream of divorce and every possible tale of scandal,
which would not be precisely propitious for our firm.”
“What contradictions!” exclaimed the beauty with self-reliance.
“You just a moment ago announced my triumph over Seraphin, and now
you proclaim my defeat.”
“Your defeat! Not at all! But I apprehend wrangling and discord in
your married life.”
“Wrangling and discord because Seraphin loves me?”
“No--not exactly--but because he is a believer and you are an
unbeliever; in short, because he does not share your aims and
views.”
“How short-sighted you are! As you conceive of it, love is not a
passion; at most, only, a cool mood which cannot be modified by
the lovers themselves. Your apprehension would be well grounded
concerning that kind of love. But suppose love were something
quite different? Suppose it were a passion, a glowing, dazzling,
omnipotent passion, and that Seraphin really loved me, do you think
that I would not skilfully and prudently take advantage of this
passion? Cannot a woman exert a decisive and directing influence
over the husband who loves her tenderly? I have no fears because I
do not view love with the eyes of a trader. I hope and trust with
the adjurations of love to expel from Seraphin all superstitious
spirits.”
“How sly! Surely nothing can surpass a daughter of Eve in the
matter of seductive arts!” exclaimed he, laughing. “Hem--yes,
indeed, after what I have seen to-day, it is plain that the Adam
Seraphin will taste of the forbidden fruit of ripened knowledge,
persuaded by this tenderly beloved Eve. Look at him: there he
wanders in the shade of the garden, sighing to the rose-bushes,
dreaming of your majesty, and little suspecting that he is
threatened with conversion and redemption from the kingdom of
darkness.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY AS A BASIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.
BY F. RAMIERE, S. J.
FROM THE ETUDES RELIGIEUSES.
We have shown what secondary education does for the formation
of man, and how powerfully it is aided by philosophy in the
accomplishment of its task. Secondary education in the soul of the
young man completes the work sketched out by the primary lessons
given to the child; it develops his faculties, teaches him their
use, invests him with full dominion over himself, and prepares him
to carry out, according to his high vocation, the great duty of
life. Philosophy is the necessary complement of this education,
since it is indispensable for the development of the sovereign
faculty, reason, and consequently for the complete formation of the
man, and the perseverance of the Christian.
We might dispense with further proofs of the utility of philosophy,
although we are still very far from having examined it from every
point of view. The man whom primary and secondary education have
placed in possession of his faculties is not destined to live alone
in the world, and employ those admirable instruments wherewith
his Creator has endowed him simply for his own advantage. He is
made to live in society; it is to society he owes, after God, his
existence, his nurture, his instruction, his development, his
physical and moral being, in a word, all that he is. During the
period of his education, he has remained almost passive in its
hands, and has received everything from it. Arrived at the term of
this long career, justice obliges him to set to work to pay back to
it the immense debt he has contracted. Moreover, that which in him
is but a just duty is at the same time a necessary condition of his
dignity and happiness. For, if he does not force himself to utilize
his faculties in the interests of his fellows, those faculties will
infallibly become for him a source of wasting _ennui_ and cruel
torment. If, then, he wishes to become an honorable man, let him
see that he become a useful citizen.
For this purpose a multitude of careers open out before him; for
there is many a way of serving society; and the most useful of all
is not always that whose results are the most immediate, and whose
fruits are the most easily gathered.
Undoubtedly the father of a family who improves his land or devotes
himself laboriously to the exercise of a mechanical profession
accomplishes his whole duty to society; and, if he gives to it
virtuous children, he pays it in overrunning measure the debt
which he has contracted in its regard. We do not deny that these
more humble callings are the most common, and we acknowledge
that to fulfil all their conditions it is enough to have learned
well that divine philosophy which is contained in the maternal
teachings of the church. But a society could never attain a great
development, it could scarcely exist, whose members possessed no
higher knowledge than that which goes to make a good agriculturist,
a diligent workman, or an honest father of a family. Beyond
these common callings there are others more choice which present
themselves to souls more richly endowed. Some more inclined to the
theoretical, rush at the conquest of science; others of a more
practical tendency betake themselves to the study of laws and the
administration of justice. One studies deep the experience of
the past in order to illustrate the present; another would be an
orator, and is ambitious of the triumphs of eloquence; a third
is a poet, and he believes, and believes rightly, that he makes
himself of use enough to his fellows by lifting up their souls to
the contemplation and love of the beautiful. Others, again, feel
themselves called upon from on high to become the representatives
of God before men, and the interpreters to them of his oracular
teachings. We have named the principal careers which lie open
to the young man whose mind has been cultivated by a liberal
education. But to whatever side his choice may bend, he will find
philosophy of an almost indispensable utility for the attainment
of solid success. After having made him a finished man, it will
aid powerfully in making him a true scholar; it will provide the
lawyer, the historian, the orator, the poet, with the seeds of
truth, which each one of them should cause to fructify after his
fashion. In fine, to form the summit of its glory, it will lend to
revelation an invincible arm for the defence of its dogmas; and in
uniting its light to that flowing from this divine torch, it will
form the first and most divine of all sciences--theology. Such in
a few words are the various aspects under which we have still to
present its utility.
NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE SCIENTIST.
I do not ignore to what I expose myself when I dare affirm that
without philosophy there is no true scientist. People will tell me
that therein lies a prejudice of the middle ages, the defence of
which no one can undertake to-day without denying all the progress
which science has made within three centuries. They will sing me
the old song of the panegyrists of Bacon. They will point out to
me the incomparable advance of the physical sciences in modern
times, dating precisely from the day when they shook off the yoke
of metaphysics, and when, laying aside the syllogism which clogged
their march, they claimed a right to their own process and an
independent existence.
I will not stop to discuss the truth of these assertions; but,
accepting them all provisionally, I will maintain my thesis, and,
with God’s help, will prove it.
What is the legitimate conclusion derived from the fact they
oppose to us? It is that the physical sciences are distinct from
philosophy, and that the middle ages were perhaps mistaken in
identifying them too closely with it. But because metaphysics and
physics are distinct sciences, does it follow that the man who
pretends to the title of a scientist can content himself with the
one and neglect the other altogether? Clearly not. Such a man, on
the contrary, condemns himself in despising philosophy to remain
imperfect, not merely as a man, but also as a scientist.
To demonstrate this truth let us define science, and give an exact
account of its conditions.
All knowledge does not deserve the name of science. The animal
knows after a certain fashion; the infant and the idiot know still
more; there is no man so ignorant as not to know an innumerable
multitude of things; but neither the one nor the other possesses
science. Science is, in relation to a certain order of truths,
what philosophy is in relation to man and to God; it is knowledge
reasoned out; that which places in a state of explication the
wherefore of things, to tell of them their essence and their
laws, their causes and their effects, their faculties and their
destinations; to connect their consequences with their principles,
and draw their principles from their consequences: “the knowledge
of things by their causes.” Man is, therefore, a greater scholar
in proportion as he is capable of mounting higher in the region of
principles, and of embracing in a more general conception a greater
number of particular truths. Science indeed is like a luminous
mountain composed of many a height, some more elevated than others.
As we mount, the horizon expands, and we are able to embrace with
the same glance a vaster space. He alone will possess complete
science, and he alone consequently will deserve, in its absolute
sense, the title of a man of science, who arrived at its loftiest
height, and grasping in its infinite simplicity the first principle
of all things, shall behold in the splendor of this focus all the
rays which burst forth from it and spread abroad to illumine the
whole sphere of truth.
But this complete science is not within the reach of mortal man,
and in its absolute perfection belongs alone to God.
Fettered by his nature, and fettered still more by the conditions
of his earthly existence, man can only aspire to a partial
science; and it is left him to choose in this immense sphere that
particular ground whereon to pursue his investigations with more
profit. The entire field is open to us. “God,” says the Scripture,
“has delivered the world to the searchings and the disputes of
men.” In bestowing on us the faculty of finding a reason for
things, he has authorized us to make use of this faculty in regard
to all the truths of the natural order, provided we see on all
sides the boundary of the mysterious, which reminds us of our
essential infirmity.
But though every science is equally lawful, they are not all
equally useful. We may divide them into three classes, which
form the three circles of the great sphere of truth. There are
the sciences which concern the inferior world, the mathematical
and physical sciences; those whose object is humanity, the
psychological and moral sciences; thirdly, those which concern the
higher world, the science of first principles and of the primal
cause of all things. This last, which holds the centre of the great
sphere of truth, is called metaphysics; and it is joined to the
psychological and moral sciences, which are drawn from the same
principles, under the common name of philosophy.
This simple statement of the place which belongs to philosophy
in the hierarchy of the sciences is enough to prove our thesis,
namely, the necessity of philosophy for the formation of the true
_savant_.
What man, in fact, is truly worthy of this name, unless it be he
who is possessed of the necessary science? But I would ask: Does
that man possess this science, does he know what he ought to know,
who possesses a perfect knowledge of the inferior world, and who
ignores himself; who has passed his life away in studying the
laws of bodies, yet has never given a thought to his own nature
and the destiny of his own soul? Tell me that that man is a great
physicist, and I will not gainsay it; but I can never consent to
your bestowing on him the title of a man of science. The ancient
Greek unites with me in denouncing an error so opposed to the
dignity of the human intelligence. “Know thyself.” Such was the
precept impressed on all those who went to Delphi to consult the
oracle of Apollo. The gate of the true temple of wisdom opens
only to those who have put this recommendation into practice.
But wisdom is the true science. The true scholar is not he who
knows something, but he who knows enough of it. No one thinks of
praising unreservedly a statue whose head and bust are scarcely
outlined, and whose lower members alone are finished. It is to
the whole, it is above all to the principal parts, that we look,
when we wish to estimate a work definitely. Reason commands that
we act in the same manner when we wish to judge of the absolute
value of an intelligence. As there are for a people liberties
which are necessary, so is there also for a man knowledge which
is indispensable, of his own nature, his origin, and his destiny;
and he who is deprived of this, although he possess all sorts of
superfluous knowledge, cannot pretend to the title of a man of
science.
To this first motive for the necessity of philosophy derived from
its object we are able to add another deduced from the very idea
of science. Science, we have said, is the knowledge of things by
their principles. Its perfection consists in attaching particular
truths to truths which are more general, which comprise them, and
which enable the intelligence to catch them at a single glance.
But this unity, which forms the perfection of the sciences, and
which each of them establishes among the particular truths which
constitute their several objects, it is the province of philosophy
to establish among the sciences themselves. Metaphysics, in fact,
which is the principal part of philosophy, has for its special
object not the study of particular truths, but of those general
principles which throw a light upon the other sciences. It is then
their necessary complement, and their indispensable crown. Set in
the very centre of the great sphere of knowledge, it is to the
other sciences the polar star, whereon they must turn their eyes
in order to see their way. It points out to each one of them the
relation of the truths which constitute their special object with
the primary truth which is their common centre. The geometrician
and the physicist, who occupy themselves exclusively with the
relations of numbers and the laws of bodies, are like explorers
voyaging in regions where the disc of the sun is never seen, placed
without the power of tracing to their luminous focus the rays of
truth which their studies permit them to catch.
But far beyond this, philosophy alone can make the geometrician
or the physicist acquainted with the inner essence of the objects
which form the special material of their studies. Geometry analyzes
the relations of magnitudes, but it does not seek to give an
account of the very idea of magnitude: natural philosophy evolves
from experiments the laws of bodies; but it cannot, by induction
at least, which is its special process, arrive at a knowledge of
the essence of bodies. Philosophy alone scrutinizes, as far as it
is possible for human reason so to do, the mystery of that inner
essence by which each thing is what it is. Philosophy is therefore
necessary for the completion of the special sciences, and to
furnish scholars with the knowledge of their different objects.
Lastly, a fourth and still more incontestable motive for the
necessity of philosophy for the formation of the true scientist
is deduced from the scientific education of the intelligence,
which philosophy alone is capable of undertaking. One of the most
important parts of philosophy is logic; that is, the science of
reasoning, and of the different processes by means of which the
human intelligence can find truth. These processes are not only
those which philosophy avails itself of, but also those which
obtain among the other sciences. It belongs to philosophy, and
to philosophy alone, to study their nature, to fix their laws,
to prevent their wandering. The other sciences borrow these
processes from it; they make use of them; but they would depart
from their object if they studied them in themselves. One cannot,
then, dispute the utility of philosophy for the formation of
the scientist, without maintaining an evident absurdity; to
wit, that it is useless for the workman to obtain a knowledge
of the instrument he uses in the exercise of his craft. Who can
fail to see that, without a profound knowledge of the different
intellectual processes, the scientist is exposed to a double
danger--on the one hand, to the danger of deceiving himself in the
use of the special process which is proper to him; on the other,
to the danger of exaggerating its importance, and not holding in
sufficient estimation those processes equally legitimate which
are in use among other sciences? The first of these dangers is to
be feared, above all, in the inductive sciences. Induction is a
mode of reasoning perfectly legitimate in itself; but of all the
intellectual processes it is the one which is most easily abused,
and which, pushed beyond its just limits, may lead to the gravest
of errors.
The mathematical sciences which work by equation are not equally
exposed to the danger of diverging from their track, but they
threaten with a still greater peril the mind of the scholar whom
the study of philosophy has not set on his guard against the
too exclusive influence of this process. Equation, as its name
indicates, does not pass from one truth to another, but from a like
to a like, from the expression of a relation of number or magnitude
to another simpler expression of the same relation. It is not,
then, surprising that this process offers to the mind an exactness
far more easy of comprehension than that by means of which we
are enabled to grasp moral truths and give ourselves a reason
for our own nature. The philosophic mathematician will take this
difference perfectly into account, and his progress in the science
of numbers will hinder him in no wise from seizing upon substantial
truths. But the man who all his life long has occupied himself
with nothing save the study of mathematics is very much exposed to
becoming incapable of comprehending that which is not demonstrated
by equation; and he will experience a greater estrangement and
inaptitude for the science of God and of himself in proportion as
he advances further in the science of the inferior world.
In good faith, can we see progress in this? Is it not, on the
contrary, a degradation, not only from the moral, but also from
the intellectual point of view? Has not the absence of a sound
philosophy stood as much in the way of that man’s scientific
elevation as of his moral greatness? Though he may have become
a more able manipulator of formulas, he surely has not become a
greater _savant_. Nothing, on the contrary, is more calculated to
cramp and mutilate the faculties of the soul than this exclusive
concentration on one of the collateral objects of its activity. In
the same way as a limb which is never set in motion wastes away
and becomes paralyzed, so the powers of the soul cannot cease to
act without losing their vigor. Such is the state to which a too
exclusive study of what are called the exact sciences reduces
certain minds: these are the minds whose higher faculties have
been wasted. All their activity is turned to one side; the eye
of their intelligence is so constructed for the lesser light
of equation, that, when they rise from the subterranean world
of geometrical abstractions to enter into the region of moral
realities and into the world of souls, they are dazed, and can
see naught but darkness. True it is that they are much enamored
of their blindness, and attribute it to excess of light. Fain to
acknowledge that their formulas, the only legitimate arguments
according to them, are powerless to solve the great moral problems,
they suppress those problems with the declaration that it is folly
in human reason to trouble itself with them, and that for him who
wishes to ascertain truth and possess certainty it is enough to
study the relations of numbers and the laws of bodies. Such is true
science in the eyes of the disciples of Auguste Comte. These men
are perfectly logical. They adopt the only means to ensure their
title to be really scientific men without the aid of philosophy;
they suppress philosophy altogether, and suppress consequently its
object, that is, the human soul and God, the beginning and the
end of things. With adversaries of this stamp I refuse to dispute.
I can only appeal to their conscience against the disdain which
their lips affect for the formidable questions whose suppression
they in vain decree. They exist in spite of them; and wherever they
go they carry about in themselves the problems which they refuse
to examine. As for those for whom God and the soul have still a
meaning, I believe I have said enough to compel them to admit
that no one has a right to the title of a wise man so long as he
ignores the science which learns all that reason can know of those
grand objects, and that the other sciences when separated from it
are often more hurtful than useful to the real improvement of the
intellect.
I might go still further; and, coming back to the concession
which I appeared to make in favor of the loud-voiced preachers of
the exact sciences, I stand on perfectly firm ground in denying
that the excessive importance which a very great number of minds
bestows on them, and the exclusive study to which they give
themselves up, are for the sciences themselves a condition of
progress. What this study can produce is able practitioners, who
will solve successfully problems whose data somebody has already
furnished them; the artisans of science, who may build up with
skill the edifice whose plan they find traced out beforehand;
watchful pilots, who by the aid of their compass and marine chart
may guide their ship safely into port. But the geniuses capable of
discovering new lands, of opening up to science new horizons, you
will never find among the minds who have only learnt to navigate
by the compass of equation. Not by the aid of formulas are great
discoveries made; they are the effect of that sort of divination
which those intelligences possess which are accustomed to raise
themselves in all things to the most general principles, and grasp
in the variety of phenomena the analogy of laws. If Kepler had only
proceeded by the aid of formulas, he would never have discovered
the laws of worlds; and Leibnitz would undoubtedly have been a far
less distinguished geometrician had he not been an equally eminent
philosopher.
We may, then, affirm that the study of philosophy--which is
necessary to enlarge the mind of the scholar--is of immense utility
in the advancement of the sciences, even of those very ones which
seem to have the least connection with this queen of sciences.
II.
NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE JURISCONSULT.
If it is thus with the sciences whose objects are distinct from
that of philosophy, what shall we say of jurisprudence, which
treats of the rights and duties of the members of human society?
Here the connection is much more direct, since the object which
we are about to indicate is precisely that which moral philosophy
treats of. Between the two sciences there is no other difference
than this: while moral philosophy treats only of essential rights
and duties, that is to say, of those which result from the very
nature of man, and depend on the necessary will of the Creator,
jurisprudence has for its more particular object those rights which
are derived immediately from the civil authority, and which have
been established by a positive law. But who does not see that this
second species of rights and duties presupposes the first and leans
upon it for its necessary support? In order to proceed rationally
to the study of the acts of civil authority, and take into account
the duties which it imposes, we must know whence proceeds this
authority, from whom does it hold the right of making laws, what
is its mission, and how far does its power extend. We must know
also what is law, what are its conditions, when it begins and
when it ceases to compel, what are the causes which dispense with
its observance, what the objects to which its provisions should
extend. Where shall we seek the solving of these questions, and of
many others which form the necessary preliminary of all rational
jurisprudence, unless from philosophy? Open the most celebrated
treatises; the _Treatise on Laws_ by Domat, for instance, and see
if he is ashamed to borrow from the metaphysicians their principles
and their definitions. By how many eminent jurisconsults has the
_Treatise on Laws_ of Suarez been used? How often have his general
theories, though altogether removed from the different special
legislations, served, nevertheless, as the connecting clue to lead
them out of the labyrinth of their provisions, and furnished the
most precious indications for the determination of the rights which
they only defined imperfectly?
More than ever has it become necessary in our days to establish
solidly, in the minds of those who are destined to make laws or
watch over their execution, these fundamental notions on the
origin, the end, and the extent of civil authority, and on the
conditions of its exercise. For one must be blind not to comprehend
that from the ignorance and reversing of these notions springs the
overturning of modern societies. Strange it is that public order,
which has never had to withstand such radical attacks as in these
our days, should find its worst foes, not in those who deny the
legitimacy of law, but, on the contrary, in the very men who have
exaggerated beyond measure the power of the law. What in effect is
that system but socialism, according to which we must recognize no
other right, no other duty, save such as emanate from the social
will; which extends to everything the power of the law; and which,
grinding under this pitiless roller every natural right and every
relation of property and family, leaves nothing to subsist before
the state, save isolated individualities? Since the hand of God
first founded human society, never has an error so fatal to its
existence sprung up. Yet this error, since we must confess it,
has had for its upholders, through many ages, a great number of
jurisconsults, who have done their best to establish the principles
on which it leans, detesting all the while the consequences
which it deduces from them. In place of borrowing from a sound
philosophy the true notions with regard to the mission of civil
authority, they are pleased to give it an extension without limits,
not perceiving that they thereby impose on it an overwhelming
responsibility, and that in lessening the rights which should
give it equilibrium, they weaken at the same time its solidity.
Alas! how many “men of order,” how many grave jurisconsults, are
in our days completely socialistic in their ideas, and yet fail
to perceive that their doctrines only furnish that party, whose
criminal efforts they oppose with all the force that is in them,
with arms which are only too powerful!
Philosophy is not only useful to the jurisconsult in furnishing
him with the general notions on the origin, end, and exercise of
legislative power; in addition, it throws a light over the detail
of laws, atones for their deficiencies, fixes their uncertainties,
reconciles their opposition, and by discovering the motives of
their provisions, determines the limits within which they ought to
be restrained.
The written law, in fact, is not enough for itself. Its end is
not to promulgate all duties. There are a great number, and they
are the most essential, which are anterior to it, and which the
finger of God has graven on the soul of every man coming into this
world, and which his Eternal Word promulgates in the depth of every
conscience. It is on this unwritten law that human society leans;
it is only in virtue of the rights and duties of which it is the
source that men have been able to unite themselves into different
groups and establish civil societies. Unless they had been
previously submitted the one to the other by some obligation, they
would never have bound themselves by any contract; their agreements
would have been determined by convenience; they would never have
believed in duties. The civil law presupposes, then, a law anterior
and superior to it, by which all the necessary relations of men are
defined with a sovereign authority, since it is the authority of
God himself, and with an irresistible clearness, since it is the
very light of reason. The mission of the human legislator consists
merely in adding to the essential duties, which the natural law
prescribes for all men, those which result from the constitution
of the different groups which form civil societies. It is the
natural law which bids man love his fellows and co-operate for
their happiness; the civil law, supporting itself on this general
obligation, determines the particular services which the citizens
owe one another for the common defence of their interests. The
natural law establishes the family, and promulgates the essential
rights of parents and children; the civil law surrounds the
exercise of these rights by the guarantees necessary to certify
their existence, to ward off the dangers which threaten them, to
ensure their stability, and prevent their conflict. The natural law
lays the foundation of property, in bestowing on each man the fruit
of his labor, and commanding him to provide for his own future and
that of his children; but it belongs to the civil law to determine
the necessary forms for the authentication of the acquisition
and transfer of property, and to prevent this right, which is so
necessary to social order, from becoming a source of disorder.
We see, then, that in all its provisions the civil law presupposes
the natural law, of which it is but the complement and final
determination. The rights which it establishes are real rights
beyond doubt; they are sacred and inviolable rights, which divine
justice, the protector of all order, takes under its guarantee,
and for which it reserves a sanction as eternal as for the rights
of which it is the immediate source: but nevertheless these are
but secondary rights, which are only binding so long as they are
conformable with the rights which are preordained, and lose all
their force from the moment that they become contrary to them; for
there is no such thing as right against right, as Bossuet has so
well said. Whence it follows that no man can acquire a complete and
sure knowledge of civil legislation, unless he has first of all
made a serious study of that part of philosophy which is called
_natural right_.
But it is clear that this moral and practical part of philosophy
does not subsist alone; it is only the consequence of principles
established in the speculative and metaphysical part; it is, then,
philosophy in its entirety which he ought to study with the most
laborious attention who destines himself for the teaching or the
practice of jurisprudence. There alone will he find the final
reason of human laws: thence will he draw those great principles
to which he ought to go back at all times when he wishes to solve
one of those difficult cases which the civil law has not foreseen,
or for which she has furnished insufficient data. It will often
happen that two laws appear in opposition, and right will clash
against right. To whom shall we turn to reconcile these apparent
or real antinomies, which are found in the letter of the law? To
whom, unless to the supreme lawgiver, of whom the framers of laws
are but the interpreters; to the spirit of the law, to that eternal
reason whose oracular decisions philosophy records? Unhappy the
jurisconsult who, before investing himself with the toga of the
magistracy, or taking upon himself the defence of the rights of
his fellows, shall not have entered into the sanctuary where these
luminous oracles are expounded by the mouth of sages, and who
persuades himself that the letter of the code is enough to enable
him to acquit himself of his difficult functions! The letter is
a useful instrument undoubtedly, an instrument necessary even,
indispensable; but it is nothing more than instrument. To hit its
mark it requires to be ably handled. Philosophy alone gives this
power and freedom in the management of the written law, because it
alone shows its end, mechanism, and motives. Guided by its light,
the true jurisconsult will advance with confidence, and apply the
law with intelligence; he will resolve it into its different parts,
take in his hands the links that bind them together, and show their
connection with the different problems, whose complexity rendered
their solution more difficult. The superficial jurisconsult, on the
contrary, unaided by the torch of philosophy, will always grope
upon the earth when he seeks to penetrate the inner mechanism of
laws and the essence of things; as the law cannot foresee the
diversity of particular cases, he will ever be embarrassed in the
application of its general provisions; a slave to the letter, he
allows himself to be guided by, instead of guiding it, as every
good workman ought to guide his instrument. If he strives to free
himself from it, and lift himself above it, it is only to wander
at haphazard in the region of guesswork. So he goes on, pushed
from one extreme to another, not fleeing a servile application of
the written law, more or less opposed to its spirit, and always
uncertain, only to lose himself in conjecture more uncertain and
more dangerous still; in place of being the defender and the
minister of justice, he will too often be its executioner, and will
verify but too faithfully the truth of that saying: “The letter
without the spirit can only be a principle of death.”
III.
UTILITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE HISTORIAN.
History is not a science properly so-called, since it only occupies
itself with contingent facts, and does not pretend to deduce
those facts from first principles by any necessary connection.
Differing from the physical world, where phenomena seemingly the
most accidental are the effect of constant laws, the moral world
is the product of human liberty, acting under the control of the
Divine Providence in all the spontaneity of its expansion. History,
which presents us with the faithful tableaux of this world, must
refuse therefore to admit into its process that severe order which
constitutes science; and if at times in the recital of human acts
it can point out to us the accomplishment of the moral law, far
more frequently does it show the most flagrant and persistent
violation of it.
Must we say, then, that history ought to resign itself to
presenting to the mind a mere disconnected and aimless chaos of
facts, and that it cannot seek to cast on its recitals the light
of principles, and give to them that order and that unity without
which there is nothing truly beautiful? Who dare say this? To what
purpose would the study of history serve us if it were nothing else
than an incoherent tableau of the caprices of human liberty? In
place of being one of the most useful studies for the formation of
the mind and heart of a young man, it would be nothing but an idle
pastime and dangerous food for curiosity. Instead of illumining the
present by the light of the past, it would only serve to transmit
to the present generations the consequence of the scandals of the
generation which went before; in place of pointing out a God still
working in the world and thus becoming a school for religion, it
would be simply a school for atheism, in permitting us to see in
the moral world nothing but human liberty abandoned to itself, a
worthy emulation of that blind and impious science which in the
physical world would show us nothing save a nature self-produced,
self-acting by its own power.
History, then, is a study truly worthy of man; with a power to
charm his intellect and make a beneficial impression on his heart,
only so long as it marches ever under the light of principles, and
keeps its eyes ever fixed on the moral laws, to show where they
agree or where they clash with the facts with whose recital it is
charged. That is to say, history cannot fulfil its mission without
calling in philosophy to its aid; and, however able a writer may
be in the narration of facts, he can never merit the title of
historian if he is not a philosopher.
Not that I wish to bring myself forward here as the defender of
the _philosophy of history_, as understood by the greater portion
of modern historians. I know well that this pretended science,
so vaunted in our days, is one of the deadliest engines of war
which impiety has set in action in its attack on the church. The
philosophy of history thus understood is to true history, such
as St. Augustine and Bossuet taught, what the philosophy of the
sophist is to the philosophy of reason. I cannot help, therefore,
repudiating with all my power this word, if they persist in giving
it the sense which Voltaire, who first introduced it, gave, or the
still more impious sense which the pantheistic school gives it. I
maintain that there is no philosophy of history if you understand
thereby the fatalist development of human activity, after certain
fixed formulas as necessary as those which govern the movements of
matter; such a philosophy of history is nothing else than a denial
of the human soul and of God, the legitimizing of all crime, the
exciting of all the worst passions, the overthrow of all society,
that is to say, the destruction of all philosophy and of all
history.
But the false philosophy of fatalism and pantheism is not the only
one, thank God, which can be applied to history. There is also a
true philosophy of history, which shows us God glorifying himself
in the reparation of the disorders of the moral world after a
manner as admirable in its kind as is the maintenance of the order
of the physical world. If he showed his power and wisdom, when with
sovereign hand he caused the splendors of the heavens to radiate
from the womb of chaos with the harmony of the stars and the life
of nature, how much wiser and more powerful does he not seem to
us when we behold him making use of a chaos a thousand times more
rebellious, the chaos of the passions and perverseness of humanity,
in order to produce the most beautiful of all his works--the
manifestation of his truth and the triumph of his goodness!
It is this sovereign action of the Divine Providence, irresistibly
shaping to its own end the will of man without infringing an iota
on his liberty, that the true philosophy of history purposes to
contemplate. It is part of this principle that God, sovereignly
wise, who could not call into being the least atom without giving
it an end worthy of himself, could not for a stronger reason
produce the masterpiece of his hands, the rational soul, without
giving it an end, and without urging it unceasingly to the
realization of that end. That which is true of the individual is
true of society, and is truer still of all humanity.
This end being attainable by visible means, and, on the other hand,
being conformable to the nature of God and the nature of man, it
ought to be possible to discover it by means of a study of facts,
which constitute history, and by means of a profound observation
of those two natures, which constitute philosophy. Philosophy
furnishes the data _a priori_; history possesses itself of these
data and verifies them by experience. The result of this double
revision is one of the most attractive branches of knowledge for
the mind, and most capable of enlarging the soul, the knowledge of
the divine economy, and of the secret resorts by which Providence
governs the affairs of this world.
The divine government operates in three different spheres, to which
respond three degrees of the philosophy of history.
The first sphere of action chosen by Providence is the conscience
of each man. Undoubtedly we are not to look in this world for the
definite accomplishment of individual destinies. God has reserved
for a more durable life the full award of his law. Meanwhile it has
often been his will to anticipate this eternal award by a temporary
one, which, in this life, may avenge his justice for the outrages
of crime. Thus, there are some lives most obscure; there are, for
a still stronger reason, brilliant lives which leave their mark on
the memory of the human race. It is not often possible to discover
this award. To arrive at it, history will borrow from philosophy
the moral laws which ought to regulate the conduct of individuals;
and she will look for the confirmation of these laws in the
prosperity or misfortune which have accompanied their observance or
their neglect. Such is the study which constitutes the first degree
of the true philosophy of history, and which makes this science an
excellent school for morality.
But history mounts still higher by the aid of philosophy; its
mission, in fact, is not merely to recount the life of certain
individuals, who by their talents, their virtues, or their crimes
have left a deep trace in the memory of generations: above all, it
is the tableau of the destiny of peoples which it is called upon to
paint; it is social events which, above all, form the interest of
its pictures. Therein each people appears like a moral personality,
with its infancy, its growth, its maturity and its decrepitude; its
special character, its qualities and faults, its good points and
its crimes, its prosperity and its misfortune. The life of each
people is, then, a grand drama, wherein not one of the elements of
the most moving interest is wanting; but this drama must have its
moral, and, in order to give it one, history must have recourse
anew to philosophy. Philosophy will not fail it; she will furnish
it with the social laws, that is to say, those by which societies
are constituted, governed, and developed. The application of these
laws, which she deduces from the nature of man, she invites history
to seek in the facts. If her theories are true, it is impossible
that their accomplishment should not confer happiness on society,
and their violation misfortune. History ought therefore, again,
from this point of view to be the counter-proof of philosophy;
and it ought to become so after a manner still more complete than
when it occupied itself with the destiny of individuals. In truth,
this destiny, playing its part chiefly on the invisible theatre
of conscience and carrying it on into after-time, often escapes
the application of history. Societies, on the contrary, having an
existence temporal in its duration and public in its most important
events, ought to show forth in their history with great clearness
the award of the laws which the Creator has imposed upon them, and
which philosophy establishes _a priori_ by its deductions. The
study of this award must purchase, then, at the price of very
great difficulties, the precious advantages which it promises. It
is this which constitutes the second degree of the philosophy of
history, and which makes this science the best school of politics.
Lastly, history mounts a degree still higher: beyond the
moral individualities which we call peoples, she discovers an
individuality much more vast and much more lasting--humanity,
the immense body whose members are all peoples, and in which
each individual plays his _rôle_, like a living molecule which
influences in its part the destinies of the whole. As each nation
has its character and as it were its own style of feature which
distinguish it from other nations, so humanity is distinguished
from the other species of rational beings wherewith the Creator has
peopled the universe, by prerogatives and by infirmities which no
other shares with it. It also has had its infancy, its growth, its
ripe age; and everything leads us to believe that it will one day
have its decrepitude. It also, in fine, has its mission, which it
accomplishes in the course of ages, and at the term of which its
development will cease.
This common destiny of humanity constitutes, together with its
common origin, the unity of this vast body. It permits us to lift
ourselves up even to the divine thought, which, in sowing this
innumerable multitude in the immensity of the ages, proposed to
itself a plan as harmonious in its unity as when it launched into
space this immense variety of globes and atoms which compose the
universe. Behold herein the true unity of the human race, whose
substantial unity, as seen by the pantheist, is nothing but an
absurd parody.
It is here, in fact, that we find ourselves face to face with the
two philosophies of history--the false and the true. Both wish
for unity, because unity, which is the essence of God and the law
of the world, is also the last want of our mind and the last end
of science. But the first of these philosophies only establishes
unity in the world by destroying its diversity, which is an
essential condition of beauty and of life. In its eyes individuals
are nothing but unreal phenomena, which appear, only to vanish;
space alone is something; it alone remains while all the rest
passes away. And as it would be too absurd to give space a separate
reality, independent of that of individuals, to make humanity
something existing outside of man, it is forced to conclude, in the
final analysis, that this humanity, which alone truly exists, is
nothing in itself but a form which is developed by some fatality in
time and space; and all of us who persuade ourselves that we each
have our own existence are in reality but the varied expressions of
this form, the passing vibrations of an ideal fluid, the fleeting
tints of a cloud. Behold the philosophy of history according to
pantheism!
How much greater, how much more consoling, how much more beautiful
is the true philosophy of history--that of which St. Augustine and
Bossuet have made themselves the eloquent interpreters! And in the
meantime, in the midst of all these varied existences, in the midst
of these actions so divergent, in the midst of these liberties so
often at war, she finds a perfect unity, the unity of the divine
thought--bringing back to its end all these divergencies, and
making of their very opposition so many means thereto. But what is
this thought, what is this one end, which God is working in the
world, and for the realization of which, willingly or unwillingly,
all these individuals and peoples labor? For a reply to this
mighty question, it has pleased God not to abandon us to uncertain
conjecture. He hath spoken from the beginning of the world; and in
proportion as the human race has developed has he manifested more
clearly its destiny--a destiny thrice divine since it has God for
its principle, God for its term, and God again for its means; it is
the divinization of man by Jesus Christ the God-man, the conquest
of eternal happiness by God himself, by the fulfilling of the
earthly ordeal in the image of God Incarnate.
Such is the divine thought which it has pleased God to reveal
to us from his own mouth. The incarnation of the Son of God is,
therefore, the pivot around which roll the events of history--as
the divinization of men in him is the term where these events ought
to meet. The glory of the Word Incarnate: such is the closing scene
to which all the catastrophes of this drama ought infallibly to
lead up--a drama whose every historic period forms a scene, whose
plot borrows a most captivating interest from the apparent triumph
of human passions. Jesus Christ: such is the word which unlocks
the great enigma of the ages--Jesus Christ: behold the Sun, whose
dawn and coming form the natural division of the ancient and modern
world, whose presence and whose absence make the day and the night
in the moral order, and whose final triumphs over the mists and
vapors, which to this day have striven against him, will give to
the earth the unity and the happiness for which it sighs.
But one may stop me, and tell me that I am no longer treading on
philosophic ground. I am happy to confess it. For the same reason
that in seeking the final explanation of his individual destiny man
is compelled to have recourse to his Creator, so must he abide his
final explanation alone of the destiny of the world. Reason tells
him that in the existence of humanity God pursues one end, and that
this end should be the manifestation of his divine attributes. It
can tell him no more. As for the mode of this manifestation, it
rests entirely with the will of God; and it would consequently be
a presumption on the part of philosophy to pretend to determine
it, since its power does not stretch beyond necessary truths.
We acknowledge, therefore, that, without the aid of faith, the
science of history cannot reach its third degree. Therein we
detract in no wise from philosophy; for, if it must necessarily
borrow from revelation this fact of the free end of God, as it
borrows from history the knowledge of the free actions of men, it
is no less true that by its processes these different facts meet
together to form the most harmonious of all the tableaux, and
the most inspiring of all the poems which human thought has ever
conceived--the divine epic of humanity.
TO BE CONTINUED.
A SUMMER IN THE TYROL.
The Tyrol is--or was, when we knew it--one of the most primitive
countries in Europe. Entirely Catholic, it comes up to the ideal
of the faith of the middle ages far better than even the most
historic cities of Italy, that by-gone cradle of our faith. It is
not sufficiently overrun with tourists to be corrupted by them, and
their stay in any of its towns is seldom long. Before the Brenner
Railroad was opened, it was almost, practically speaking, as
secluded a spot as the interior of China.
Twenty years ago, hardly any language but a _patois_ of German was
understood by the Tyrolese, and when a couple of English explorers
made a tour among the mountains, journeying on foot nearly the
whole of the way, they were amused one night by finding their
old English valet seated in the kitchen of a very unpretending
_Gasthaus_, with his bare feet stamping on the floor within a
cabalistic-looking circle drawn in white chalk. The old man had
been frantically but vainly endeavoring to make the natives
understand his master’s need of--a foot-bath! One of the travellers
was luckily able to come to his assistance in good Hanoverian
German, which itself, however, was only just barely comprehensible
to the simple mountaineers.
Although we have no personal reminiscences of that style of
travelling which skims over half a continent in a two months’ tour,
yet the local knowledge we acquired by a four months’ residence in
one town of the Tyrol will perhaps not be entirely uninteresting.
Innsbruck, although the capital of the province, is nothing more
than a large village with two or three roomy and tidy but very
old-fashioned inns, and a church or two not remarkable for either
beauty or antiquity. Besides the inns, which were too much embedded
among streets and houses to be suitable to our taste, there were,
outside the town, a few cheap “places of entertainment,” where
lodging could be had for next to nothing, and where unlimited quiet
might be enjoyed. One was a “Schloss,” anciently some baronial or
monastic dependency, very picturesque and inaccessible, and on the
inside very susceptible of English home comfort, but for an invalid
this could not be thought of. The road that led to it was enough to
jolt any springs to pieces, and once a carriage had safely got up,
it seemed impossible that it should ever get down again. So this
had to be given up despite the romantic name and position of the
“Schloss.” Lower down, and on the turnpike road, just beyond the
bridge over the Inn (which gives the town its name), was another
house, partly a _châlet_, comfortable enough and very quiet. It
was delightfully primitive. A wide wooden staircase led right up
from the entrance door on the left hand, and never, on the darkest
night, was there by any chance a light to guide you over it. The
first floor consisted of a wide passage with rooms on each side,
like a monastery, and a large _Saal_, or public room, with a clean
boarded floor and a billiard table. Beyond this were three or
four other rooms. Our party took the whole floor, including the
_Saal_, which during our stay was to be a private room. Sufficient
furniture was brought in to make one corner of it look civilized,
and it served for drawing, dining, and billiard room alike. Nothing
cooler nor more rustic could have been imagined, and, to add to
the pleasantness of this retreat, the windows opened on a balcony,
just like those on the toy Swiss _châlets_ we have so often seen.
There was a chapel in the house, and the proprietor claimed that
he had a right to have Mass said there every Sunday. However
problematical this sounded, Mass _was_ said notwithstanding, but
under a legitimate permission obtained for our own party. There in
the little dark closetlike room, with a congregation of servants
and stray guests or laborers out in the corridor beyond, Mass was
offered every Sunday and very often on week-days. Sometimes the
Jesuits from the town would officiate, sometimes the parish priest
of the little church half a mile further up the country. The Jesuit
church, standing on the edge of the town, among great lindens and
elm-trees, was a large, tawdry renaissance building, where brick
and stucco did duty for the marbles of Italy, and artificial
flowers and gilded finery reigned supreme. There was not one
feature worth noticing about the whole church, and even the Madonna
shrine was but a sad burlesque on the wonderful idea it symbolized.
But, on the other hand, the priests worked hard and earnestly,
services were frequent and well attended, the confessionals
crowded, and the communions numerous. There were real sympathy and
sound counsel to be had there; strength to be gathered from the
exhortations given in secret, and instruction in all necessary
religious knowledge to be reaped from the plain and practical
sermons delivered in public. The devotion of the Tyrolese is as
simple as it is deep; it has no need of exalting externals to draw
it to God, it is so full of vitality and manliness that it does not
ask for the æsthetic helps whose absence often makes such a void in
our own devotion, and we cannot choose but admire it, though it is
vain for our weaker if more cultured Christianity to endeavor to
imitate it.
The parish church outside the town to which we have referred was
much smaller and poorer than that of the Jesuits, but a great
feeling of peace came over you as you entered it, and as, pacing
to and fro under its low, simple roof, you thought of the many
holy and acceptable peasant lives that had been lived under its
shadow, and ended joyfully within its churchyard. It stood on
a small but abrupt hill, which, from the singular flatness of
the vale of Innsbruck, looked higher than it was. Iron crosses
with rude metal rays or crowns attached to them replaced in this
Tyrolese cemetery the broad gravestones to which our northern eye
is so well accustomed, and so it is throughout all Germany and
Switzerland. About a mile further than this church stood a little
private chapel, near a deserted villa, or, as the French would
call it, a _château_. This chapel was always open, and was our
invariable resting-place every day during a long stroll into the
country. A high gate of rusty and intricate iron-work divided the
main chapel from the lower and narrower part accessible to the
public at all times, and remains of gilding and heraldic colors
denoted the connection, in the past at least if not in the present,
of this little oratory with some old family of high standing. Here
and there a group of cottages that hardly made a hamlet was dotted
on the green landscape, and the only sound to be heard was the
tinkling of the great square cow-bells, or the peculiar _jödel_ of
the mountaineer, a cry now made familiar to the outside world by
“Tyrolese minstrels” (or their spurious personifiers). The Tyrol is
famous for its wild flowers, as are all Alpine tracts, the gentian
and the wild rhododendron[177] predominating. All kinds of summer
meadow flowers grow well in the green pasture lands near Innsbruck,
and the forget-me-not lines the frequent brooks with thick fringes
of blossom.[178]
Water-mills are very often found on the line of these mountain
brooks, and as only the old-fashioned appliances are known, the
places where they are built are fortunately not disfigured by
business-looking arrangements or alarmingly active squads of men.
One of these picturesque mills we well remember, standing over a
beautiful, foaming brook, and surrounded by hay-fields. It was a
very silent, lonely walk, and used to be almost a daily one with
us, until the old farmer to whom the mill and hay-field belonged
once waylaid us at the door of his cottage and began expostulating
in no very choice language, and ordering us not to trample his
hay any longer unless we liked to pay him for the damage. The
old fellow was very small and wizened, and whether the garment
he had on was a smock-frock or a night-shirt it was difficult to
determine, though the certainty of his unmistakable nightcap was
apparent.
Of course, like all thoroughly Catholic countries the Tyrol is
full of wayside shrines, with rude daubs reminding the passer-by
of some religious event or point of Christian doctrine. Besides
these, however, one thing cannot fail to strike a stranger as he
walks through the lands round Innsbruck. On every house or building
that is not an absolute “shanty” appears in the flaming colors
sacred to the chromos of the cheap press the figure of a young
Roman soldier pouring water out of a common jug on a most terrific
and disproportionate conflagration. This is meant to represent St.
Florian, a saint much honored in the Tyrol, and to whom tradition
attributes a particular sovereignty over fire. The buildings, both
farm and dwelling-houses, that abound most in that part of the
country, are of wood, and very liable to the kind of destruction
over which St. Florian has power. Hence his image is painted on
the outer wall by way of a preservative, a kind of “insurance,”
that may make stockholders smile, but that will bring in more of
those riches garnered up where “the rust doth not eat, nor the moth
consume,” than their long-headed thriftiness will ever be able to
gather.
Pilgrimages, among a people so devout as the Tyrolese, are
numberless. Every village has its chapel where of old miracles were
wrought or some proof of divine favor was manifested. Five or six
miles from Innsbruck is one of these hamlets, called Absam, where
the shrine is of a somewhat peculiar nature. Among the several
visits we paid to it was one on the day of the Assumption. The road
leads through fields of flax, one of the crops most cultivated
in the Tyrol. Its tiny blue flowers were thickly spread over the
fields, and August seemed thus to have put on a fitting livery
with which to greet the blue-mantled Queen whose triumph is
commemorated on the 15th of that month. The village church at Absam
is small and otherwise uninteresting. The altar, over which hangs
the miraculous image, is covered with ornamental ex-votos, while
larger votive offerings, curious little commemorative pictures, and
plain tablets adorn the walls for a long space beyond. The image
itself is on glass, a common thick pane, of very small dimensions,
with the veiled head of the Virgin scratched in dark outline upon
it. Tears are coursing down her cheeks, and the expression is
wonderfully strong and sweet. It is strange that these few rude
lines should be able to speak so energetic and unmistakable a
language, but then we must remember the legend which calls this
image the work of an angel. It was suddenly found in the church
one morning, four or five centuries ago, and was immediately
transferred from the window to a private chamber. A great deal of
religious litigation and examination had to be gone through before
it was allowed to be placed in a shrine and publicly venerated.
Since then cures have been yearly obtained in this church, which
has become famous through the Tyrol. We do not remember another
instance of a miraculous image being graven on _glass_. It has
none of the attributes of stained glass, neither in color nor in
style, and is all of one piece. It is now framed in a showy gilt
frame with a royal cross-surmounted crown ornamenting the top.
Both pictures and prints of it are to be procured in the village,
and also representations on glass, two or three inches square, but
whose likeness to the original are perhaps not entirely reliable.
This was not the only shrine we visited while at Innsbruck. The
pilgrimage of Waldrast included a picturesque journey half-way
up the Brenner pass, and through some very wild and beautiful
Alpine scenery among the lesser peaks. We slept at a little inn
at the foot of Waldrast, so as to be able to make the most of the
early morning. The day was beautiful; it was in the beginning of
September, and just that season when, in Europe, summer and autumn
seem to make but one. A thin mist hung over the mountain tops, the
path was rugged and winding, and there were frequent brooks and
fences to jump over or climb. Heather grew in purple masses under
foot, and the growth of trees varied from oak to chestnut, till it
left the higher and more barren ground to the pines alone. After
two or three hours’ good walking, we reached the chapel, which
is only one level lower than the uncovered mountain top. It had
grown quite chilly despite the sun which was advancing on his way.
We were just in time to hear Mass, if we remember right, and had
but little time to spare for refreshment. There is a _Gasthaus_
opposite the church, a little solitary, whitewashed, low-roofed
cottage, very clean and comfortable. It is pretty full all the
summer, but entirely deserted, even by its keeper, during the
winter. We asked to see the priest. He turned out to be a Servite,
and told us that the church belonged to his order. There was next
to it a bare-looking house with one (and the larger) portion in
ruins, a gaunt shell with no roof and full of _débris_ inside. It
had been a monastery, but circumstances, chiefly of a persecuting
nature, had obliged the monks to abandon the place. One of their
community, however, was always there, to attend to the shrine and
receive the still numerous pilgrims; he himself had never left the
place for ten years, and, saving the visitors to the shrine, never
saw a human being. During six months out of twelve he could safely
say he was a hermit. We asked him how he spent his time. “I have
a small library,” he answered, “and read a great deal, but when I
have more time than I can fill by reading, or my office, or even
the work of the church, I turn carpenter.”
And he took us into a workshop, littered over with shavings and
sawdust, where among planks and rough logs of wood were various
useful things of his own making. We particularly noticed a little
wooden sleigh, and asked him its use.
“I use it in the winter,” he said, “to take me down to the village,
to buy necessaries every week; and, when there is plenty of snow
to cover the inequalities of the path, it works very well. Coming
back, however, I have to load my purchases on it, and drag it up
after me. It is good exercise,” he added, with a good-humored
laugh, “and keeps me warm.”
He led us into the church, and told us the story of the apparition.
This image was not so old as that of Absam, although it could
boast of three centuries’ antiquity at least. It had been found
by a woodman while chopping a tree on the mountain very near the
spot where the church now stands. The figure suddenly appeared,
surrounded by a marvellous light, in the cleft made by his axe in
the wood. Years of suspense followed, during which authentications
of this wonderful occurrence were severely tested, the devotion of
the villagers preceding, however, the permission of the church to
venerate the image as miraculous. During this time it was housed
in the hamlet at the foot of the mountain, where crowds flocked to
visit it. When it was removed to the Servite church and monastery,
built expressly for its reception, on the spot where it had first
appeared, its translation was a cause of grief as well as joy,
those who had guarded it till then loudly lamenting their loss. The
monastery, we believe, was reduced to its present condition through
the decrees against monastic orders issued during the unhappy reign
of the infidel Emperor Joseph. The church was never, however,
without its chaplain. It is a plain, whitewashed building, with a
flat frontage, irregularly pierced with a great many windows, while
to the back rises one of those extraordinary steeples so often seen
in the Tyrol, suggestive of a farm-house rather than a church.
Often and often have we come upon such, sometimes of red tiles and
not unfrequently of green, so that we were forcibly reminded of
St. George and his scaly dragon. The interior of Waldrast church
corresponds to the exterior, and is very plain and inartistic. The
image itself is of wood, and peculiarly German in its cut. Our
Lady is covered with a stiff, heavy mantle, and bears her Divine
Son, also robed in the same kind of garment, absolutely shapeless
except where his hand comes forth. The Virgin bears a globe in her
hand, and both she and the Divine Infant are crowned. The crowns,
however, and the chains and ornaments on the figures, are due to
the devotion of the faithful.
The Servite father who kindly showed us over the church was still
a young man, and seemed very quiet and refined. His ten years’
solitude had not taken any of the grace of civilization--ought we
not rather to say of charity?--from his manner, nor given him in
any way the air of a Nabuchodonosor. He wore his black habit and
a long black beard. We were sorry to be able to see so little of
him, for we had a long journey home before us, and the greater part
had to be performed on foot. We left Waldrast at midday, feeling
that in these out-of-the-way nooks more can be learnt of the inner
life of a people than in larger centres of bustle and activity.
The way down the other side of the mountain led through sparse
forests of pine, where workmen were felling the trees and piling
them in heaps as high as houses along the path. Glimpses might be
caught now and then of far-off precipices, walls of rock or of
snow with the intense golden white of the noonday sun glorifying
their stern beauty, and reminding one of those still more difficult
ascents to virtue, seemingly so inaccessible, yet so gloriously
transfigured in the light of God’s help and God’s promises. Wild
flowers abounded through the wood, and mosses and ferns grew
in great tangles of greenery by the brooks which their growth
overshadowed. It was a delightful expedition, and one that we
should very much like to repeat. But nothing in this world ever
duplicates itself; the places we once visited with such confident
hopes of returning to enjoy them the next year, have we ever seen
them again, or if we have, has it ever been with the same feelings,
the same hopes, the same companions, nay, even the same _self_?
In this law of change lies, to our mind, the sad side of travel.
We go to a place, we learn to admire it, we remember it with
pleasure, we almost begin to have associations with it and its
surroundings, it grows in fact into our soul’s history, and makes
itself a place in our life. We leave it, and never see it again.
We have the regret of having seen and felt beauty that is not for
us, we have longed for what we could not have, we have dreamed of
utopias that were never to be realized, and we have prepared for
ourselves a nest of disappointments for the future. Is not this so
much time and energy lost? so much vitality taken out of our life
which might have been usefully employed at home? But if the place
we have visited once becomes a frequent resort, if we go back to
it again and again and find ties and duties to bind us there, the
charm of life is doubled, and the happiness of home reproduced
under a different set of circumstances. No one knows a place if
he have not lived there in all seasons and spent quiet months in
finding out its hidden beauties. Places, like people, grow upon
you; and what once seemed bare will, by long acquaintance, appear
as full of interest as it was once devoid of it. It happened
thus to ourselves in a seaside town in England, where the coast
is rather bare of trees, and the country mostly flat and divided
without hedges into com and hay fields. Again, the country round
Milan, which is always conventionally styled “the fertile plain of
Lombardy,” is of this nature. Wide fields of rice, half-flooded,
and a network of roads fringed by pollard willows or low hedges,
with here and there a neat little farm-house, do not at first sight
constitute a beautiful country. But after three or four weeks’
constant driving through these lanes, you discover the loveliest
bits of “Pre-Raphaelite” nature, small triangular patches of
luxuriant grass, with flowers of brilliant hue and starry shape;
tiny brooks running through meadows with fire-flies making movable
illuminations on their banks by night, and many more beautiful and
minute details that naturally enough escape the first glance. The
Roman Campagna, even with its desolate, Niobe-like grandeur, is
susceptible of this alchemy of habit. To the unaccustomed eye of a
stranger it may look grand, but scarcely beautiful; to one who has
walked, ridden, and driven through it in all directions, it reveals
secrets of pastoral beauty, soft vales hidden by groves of ilex
or cork, with violets growing plentifully in their recesses, and
rivulets trickling through their rocky crevices. Even cities are
better known when seen gradually, after the manner of a peaceable
resident rather than that of a hurrying tourist. What do we know,
to take our own case, of the Campo Santo of Pisa, which we visited
between the arrival and departure of the two trains from Leghorn,
compared to what we learnt of St. Mark’s at Venice, where we heard
Mass every day for five months? And this feeling is surely enough
to breed a weariness of _mere_ travel, however instructive it may
be. The only places we should care to revisit are those where
we stayed long enough to make them feel like home. Innsbruck is
certainly one that recalls many touching domestic scenes, many
of those little memories which, like a daisy-chain, bind life
together, childhood and youth, sickness and health, trouble and
joy--frail links, but so fair, begun in early childhood and winding
themselves round the heart, through the vicissitudes of many
years, the wanderings in many lands, and, above all, through the
intangible changes of a restless mind and soul.
For the general reader, this sketch may perhaps have no further
interest than to make him acquainted with some of the local traits
of a country not so well known as other European fields of travel;
for the Catholic, it ought to possess the additional interest of an
effort meant to show how thoroughly this country is still imbued
with the faith. Its patriotism, too, ever closely bound to faith,
was conspicuous in the wars against Napoleon and in the Tyrol. The
first decade of this century is noted chiefly for the name, not of
the resistless invader Bonaparte, but of the stubborn defender of
mountain freedom, Andreas Hofer. Here and there are his relics--his
gun, or his cap, or the cup out of which he drank. Every other inn
has his figure for a sign, and every other child bears his name in
memory of his gallantry. His descendants, poor and simple peasants
as he was himself, are as proud of their ancestry as the haughtiest
Montmorency or the oldest Colonna; and no Tyrolese mountaineer can
talk for half an hour without mentioning some of Hofer’s exploits
against the French.
We cannot conclude without again speaking of that weird _jödel_
or herd-song peculiar to the Tyrol. We have never heard it as
performed by the hired companies of “minstrels” so often advertised
in large towns, but we had the opportunity of listening to it
under very pleasant circumstances at Innsbruck. In the beginning
of September, just before our pilgrimage to Waldrast, a rural
_fête_ was given in honor of one of our party whose birthday it
was. The open court-yard behind our house served as an _al fresco_
dining-hall, a band was engaged, and fireworks and illuminations
prepared. In this primitive assemblage, speeches were actually
made, and, as it was not easy for the English and Tyrolese to
understand each other, an interpreter was found in the bright
and quick-witted courier who had superintended the whole thing.
After this cordial display of mutual friendship, and a few songs
and pieces, the people were left to their private enjoyments, the
priest from the nearest parish being present among them. About an
hour afterwards, and before the party of mountaineers dispersed,
they begged leave to sing us their _jödel_, thinking it was the
most interesting thing for strangers to hear well done. Thirty
men in rugged costumes, whose ornamentation chiefly consisted in
silver buttons, were then brought into the great _Saal_, and the
chorus began. Suddenly a single voice broke in with the marvellous
_jödel_; all the others dropping into silence, and then again
joining in the national song. It was indeed strange and weird-like,
the echoes seemed to break again and again in renewed bursts of
plaintive sound; it was not like the cry of a bird or of any
animal, nor yet was it suggestive of a human voice; it had in it
something of what, were we Pantheists, we might call the “voice of
nature.” The effect was indescribable, and, because so beautiful,
saddening. We should not wish to hear it again on the stage or
in the concert-room; the effect would be lost, and merged into a
dramatic trick. Sung by those thirty strong voices, used to no
concert hall but the open air and the mountain passes, the _jödel_
was one of those things that one likes to look back upon and place
among the fresh, healthy remembrances of the past. Sung before
those who have always been at our side through weal or woe, this
Tyrolese song becomes more than a mere remembrance, and remains
a sacred memory, shared with the dead and the absent, the ever
beloved and unforgotten ones of our heart. So true is it that a
thing unconnected with love, however brilliant it may be in the
field of art or literature, is a failure as far as our individual
appreciation of it is concerned--that this simple mountain song,
vigorously but hardly skilfully performed, is far dearer to our
remembrance than the perfect strains heard at other times from the
lips of finished artists.
The Tyrol, no doubt, is fast putting off its early garb of faith
and simple honesty; with Manchester prints and chignons, the free
grace of its peasant women will vanish, and with the poisonous
teaching of the International, the frankness and charm of its men
will go. Already we have heard of the earnest workers of the Jesuit
church being annoyed and insulted, and it may not be long before
the cupidity of public officials will rob the shrines of many of
their votive treasures. In these days of ruthless destruction,
even the Tyrol may be dechristianized and made over to a worse
barbarism than that of its savage bands of early settlers, and a
worse slavery than that against which Andreas Hofer so ably and
successfully fought. Still, it will always be a pleasure to us to
think that we visited it in the days of its Catholic prosperity,
and saw there the remains of that state of peace and public safety
which everywhere characterizes a truly Christian land.
FOOTNOTES:
[177] Falsely called _rose des Alps_ by the French.
[178] The real “Alpenrose” of the Tyrolese is a strange-looking
growth, a starry flower of a dull white, with thick velvety petals,
five in number. It grows only in very inaccessible places, and is
considered a great prize.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE MISSION OF THE BARBARIANS.
SECOND ARTICLE.
During the centuries of persecution, then, the Northern heavens
grew darker and darker, and the storm-clouds thickened on the
horizon. God was at work behind that dark and heavy cloud-wall
planning the most terrible campaign that was ever executed. The
heedless, sinning empire little thought what fire and tempest would
sweep over it when that storm-cloud should burst. It considered
itself a veritable part of the rock-built earth, and immovable
while the world lasted; that it would only perish when the universe
should cease to exist. But behind that fiery storm-cloud that hangs
heavy and threatening in the Northern skies, there is a mightier
God than paganism knows of, who will sweep the Roman power away as
the leaves are swept by the autumn blasts. The moment of vengeance
is fixed. Whilst the cry of the martyrs’ blood has been sounding
in the ears of God, he has been preparing for that moment of
wrath. But there was another cry, too, rising up to heaven from
the length and breadth of the empire, and calling down vengeance
and wrath. It was the cry of sin--a never-ceasing, clamorous,
many-voiced cry--going up night and day from city and town and
hamlet over the wide area of Roman dominion. The corruption, then,
deep and universal, of the Roman Empire was the second cause of the
barbarian invasion. Of this we have still to speak.