By the Author of “German-American Housekeeping,” etc.
I wish this article could be accompanied by a pen and ink sketch made
on the spot of Mendelssohn’s grave and that of his sister Fanny. The
simplicity of it would surprise you, as it astonished me, on one Sunday
afternoon when, in company with a friend, I wandered in search of the
resting place of him whose songs need no words. We had both imagined some
lofty monument would mark the spot, and that in order to find it, it
would only be necessary to inquire of some one in the vicinity. Pursuing
this plan, to our utter amazement we only received an ignorant stare from
plebeian and patrician. Finally being told by an old gentleman, “if we
would go beyond the Canal-strasse in the direction of the Belle-alliance
Platz down the Schöneberger Ufer through a narrow street,” we would come
to a gate opening into a cemetery, which we must pass through, before
reaching a smaller cemetery, in which Mendelssohn was buried. After many
efforts we roused the old porter who kept the key to the latter gate. We
walked rapidly in, expecting to see something in monumental art worthy of
the name, but the artless old porter pointed to a grave in the corner and
there, overshadowed by some trees, stood the plain slabs with the names
of Felix, Fanny and August Mendelssohn.
A curious sense of the incongruous came over us while standing by the
simple stones and recalling the solemn and appropriate demonstration at
the time of Felix Mendelssohn’s death, made in every city and town where
his genius had been known. Was it true that here in this small, unknown
grave-yard they had left him? Was it to yonder small gate the four horses
in black accoutrements drew the carriage containing the coffin covered
with palm-branches, laurel-wreaths and flowers? And did the great choirs
and orchestras of the city pass through with the grand choral, “Jesus my
trust,” preceded by all Germany’s musicians, the clergy, civil officers,
professors, officers of the army, and the immense throng of admirers?
Perplexed by such thought we followed the old porter, who had started
with a watering pot to the grave beyond, and asked if a monument was to
be erected to Mendelssohn’s memory. “Ach, nein, er war einer Jude, und
deshalb ist er vernachlässigt.” A Jew, therefore is his grave neglected.
When Paul and Barnabas turned to the Gentiles it was because the Jews
“had judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life.” But we are never
told that a penitent Jew was treated differently from any one else in
the days of the Apostles. Although a Jew by birth, Felix Mendelssohn’s
character wanted no principle of the genuine Christian. Never was
feeling more sacred and profound, expressed in harmonious strain than he
expressed in his great oratorio of “St. Paul” and “Elijah,” nor can the
praise of God be more grandly heard on earth than in the double chorus of
his XLII. Psalm, when well rendered, or again, when with his pious heart
he wished to show the triumph at the creation of light over darkness,
which ends with a beautiful duet, “Therefore I sing thy everlasting
praise, thou faithful God.”
We are told that Mendelssohn spent his last days laboring over a new
oratorio—“Christ.” It was commenced during his stay in Italy, and while
rambling among the mountains of Switzerland he is said to have been
inspired with the theme for his work, which he hoped to make his best.
Never was wealth used more wisely and religiously than his. Not only did
he clothe the naked and feed the hungry, but every one who came near
him with aspirations for an ennobling life he advanced. He undertook a
tremendous amount of labor in giving concerts in Leipzig, the proceeds
of which were devoted to the statue of Bach. At first he undertook to
erect such a monument out of his own means, saying “that it was only
right that John Sebastian Bach, who had labored so usefully and with such
distinguished honor as cantor at the Thomas school at Leipzig, should
have a monument in the streets of the city in which he had lived, as an
immortal spirit of harmony.” At these concerts he allowed only Bach’s
music to be produced, intending in this way, he said, to make the rising
generations of musicians more familiar with the works of one to whom he
felt under the greatest weight of obligation, and whom he is said to
have resembled in the severity of his studies as well as the loftiness
of his aims. But this is the expression of Mendelssohn’s best friends;
adverse criticism has much to say, and while his motives were pure and
his compositions genuine and vivacious, yet in sublime combinations and
serious themes Bach and Beethoven can alone be compared.
Every winter in Berlin the oratorios of “Elijah” and “St. Paul” are given
in the Sing-Academy. This old music hall is a place of memorial scenes,
the directorship of which Mendelssohn once applied for, at the earnest
solicitation of his friends, and was refused. The enthusiastic audiences
which now assemble there to hear his music seem to be as forgetful of
this as they are ignorant of the little secluded grave-yard in the
outskirts of the city where his immense throng of friends and admirers
left him twenty years ago.
In beautiful imitation of his noble efforts for Bach’s monument could an
appropriation of the money secured by the rendering of his great oratorio
be made—an idea which occurs to the mind of strangers in Berlin, but
unfortunately not to the citizens, who are less disposed in this case
than the Greeks to honor their dead, and who more readily ridicule in
Mendelssohn’s death than praise such sentiment as the following:
“By the sea’s margin, by the sea’s strand,
Thy monument, Themistocles shall stand;
By it directed to thy native shore,
The merchant shall convey his freighted store,
And when her fleets are summoned to the fight,
Athens shall conquer with thy grave in sight.”
It had never occurred to the Berliners to raise a monument to Goethe
until two years ago, and Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt have just
been recognized in this way. “Tegel,” the grand old home of Alexander,
is seldom seen by visitors, that is to say, it is not frequented by the
traveler as Potsdam and Charlottenburg. An interesting place, and an
interesting master it had, “who had trod many lands, known many deeds,
probed many hearts, beginning with his own, and was far in readiness for
God.” His grave is just beyond the house, at the end of an avenue. His
home has been inherited by a niece, and is kept up in all the elegance of
former years. The grounds are very handsome, so densely covered in places
with magnificent old trees along avenues stretching beyond the house and
grave. These forest trees are very rare in this low sandy region. After
driving for miles through barren land with only occasional forests of
stiff pines, to come suddenly upon trees which somewhat resemble our
American oak, bestows a happy home-like feeling to the American who has
wandered from her primeval forests.
The house at “Tegel” is built in the most rigid style, relieved on the
outside by niches filled with good pieces of statuary. Within every room
is painfully neat—the formality with which the furniture is placed shows
evidence that the owner had no wife and no children. It is an attempt at
an Italian villa, but seems too cold and formal for such a climate as
Berlin. There is certainly taste displayed and cultivation evinced in the
selection of many things. The library is filled with books, principally
works of Humboldt and Voltaire. On the tables are large portfolios
containing maps and cartoons. The desk with the pen and inkstand remain
just as he left them. Indeed, there is only a suggestion here and there,
that the niece is living and owning the place—it seems as if she were a
ghost and her life a myth—so still and so orderly are the rooms, and so
undisturbed hang the red apples by the house. Indeed, the house seems as
silent as the stately avenue of oaks that leads to the grave. Humboldt
left a handsome fortune to this niece, for he lived and died a bachelor.
He owned many valuable pieces of statuary. The original of Thorwaldsen’s
Venus was purchased by Humboldt with much pride, it is said, and placed
in his collection with other rare pieces found at various places in his
travels. Among other curious possessions a mutilated old fountain from
Pompeii stands in the hall. The floors are tiles, as one generally finds
in Germany, and the saloon which contains the finest statuary suggests
Goethe’s lines in “Mignon:”
“Und Marmor Bilder stehen und sehen mich an.”
What is there in the make up of literary men which prompts them almost
invariably to isolate themselves in some far removed country place? The
explanation which is generally given by themselves is, that their time
being so precious they can not be interrupted; their ideas will not grow
and flourish in the midst of the talkative world. Emerson tells of the
literary man who declared “the solitary river was not solitary enough;
the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house the first thing he
did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal himself.” ’Tis worse,
and tragic Emerson goes on to remark that no man is fit for society
who has fine traits. “At a distance he is admired, but bring him hand
to hand, he is a cripple.” He affects to be a good companion; but is
he entitled to marry? But happily for our love of Emerson, in the same
essay he observes, “A man must be clothed with society or we shall feel a
certain bareness and poverty.” “For behavior, men learn it as they take
diseases, one of another.” “But people are to be taken in small doses.”
“Solitude is impracticable and society fatal.” Whoever talked more to the
point than this wise philosopher? Carlyle talked more wisely, because
his spiritual sky was less nebulous, perhaps—but who shall judge of
this? All men who have written have subjected themselves to criticism,
and criticism is desirable, provided it originates with good and honest
intentions. Madame d’Staël wanted to hear it, not to read it! and if more
authors and literary people would live as Goethe, as Macaulay, as Madame
d’Staël, as the recent German novelist, Berthold Auerbach, in the midst
of their friends or foes as they may chance to be, hearing the arguments
for and against them, would they not have fewer words and paragraphs to
regret at the end of their career? Goethe wanted to hear all that could
be said of him, that he might the more cleverly understand what he was,
what he was writing for, and where his lessons were to be honored.
Berthold Auerbach was in hearty sympathy with all about him—always living
in the heart of the city, seeing his friends once a week through special
invitation, as well as whenever they called, and observing his birthdays
with a childish interest. One day, finding him sitting on a sofa, back of
a table covered with flowers and fruits and presents of various kinds,
we at once knew it was his birthday, and expressed a regret that we had
not come in with an offering. “Oh, that does not matter, so you bring
yourselves; the presents are only from those who did not come; they can
not take the place of the absent ones, but they signify love! and love
is what we live for!” How much more admirable than the rigid solitary
scholar who sits far removed from the voice of the people! Franz Liszt
is another German who, although so old, and one would think so exhausted
with the voice of praise and adoration from the world, retains an intense
longing for his friends and society, and they for him. When he reaches
Weimar in the summer, after his winter in Pesth, every one knows or feels
his presence. The Berliners even rejoice that he is the nearer to them.
We are glad that Longfellow and Buchanan Read and Healy, and a host of
Americans have felt his magic friendship, and watched his Saturn fingers
so full of knots. His Sixth Rhapsodie, “Les Cloches de Geneve”—“etûdes
d’exécution transcendante”—tell how great is his heart, and have most
lasting influence upon the mind and feelings. Wagner, Liszt, Auerbach,
Knaus and many other artists, musicians and writers of Germany, show
that it is possible to live for one’s friends, while living also for
fame. But, alas! in America reputation and success are coupled with such
secluded habits and such insatiable work that the personal influence of
our literary and scientific men can not be known or estimated. Either
overwork or small means keeps most of them tied down to a most prosaic
life. The wife of one of our distinguished poets, in speaking of the
state of society in New York City, said there had not been for years what
one could call a literary coterie; that Bryant during his lifetime could
have had such a salon, but he was personally too cold and indifferent to
devote his leisure hours to the light and easy-going talk of the salon;
but she went on to say that had one lamented one lived, he with his warm
and generous nature, his wide and untiring interest in others, could have
been the center, the heart and soul of such a circle. Alas! in the last
few years how are the great about us fallen—Longfellow, Emerson, Bayard,
Taylor, Bryant, Ticknor, Motley. Bancroft, who came in with the beginning
of the century, may be spared us until its end.