Produced by Charles Bowen, from books scans provided by Google Books
Transcriber's notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=S84sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
3. Completion of "Volumes Published" in the Leisure-Hour Series was
accomplished by reference to books in Google.books.
THE LEISURE-HOUR SERIES.
A collection of works whose character is light and entertaining, though
not trivial. While they are handy for the pocket or the satchel, they
are not, either in contents or appearance, unworthy of a place on the
library shelves. 16mo, cloth. PRICE REDUCED TO $1.00 PER VOLUME.
--> SPECIAL NOTICE--LIBRARY BINDING. A _set_ of the works any author
whose name is preceded by an asterisk (*), may be obtained in library
style, extra cloth, gilt back, without extra charge. _Single_ vols. in
library style, $1.10.
_VOLUMES PUBLISHED._
ABOUT, E.
The Man with the Broken Ear.
The Notary's Nose.
ALCESTIS. _A Musical novel._
ALEXANDER, Mrs.
The Wooing O't.
Which Shall It Be?
Ralph Wilton's Weird.
Her Dearest Foe.
Heritage of Langdale.
AUERBACH, B.
The Villa on the Rhine. 2 vols. _w. Portr._
Black Forest Village Stories.
The Little Barefoot.
Joseph in the Snow.
Edelweiss.
German Tales.
On the Heights. 2 vols.
The Convicts.
Lorley and Reinhard.
Aloys.
Poet and Merchant.
Landolin.
BJORNSON, B.
The Fisher-Maiden.
BUTT, B. M.
Miss Molly.
Eugenie.
CADELL, Mrs. H. M.
Ida Craven.
CALVERLEY, C. S.
Fly-Leaves. _A volume of verses._
CHERBULIEZ, V.
Joseph Noirel's Revenge.
Count Kostia.
Prosper.
CORKRAN, ALICE.
Bessie Lang.
CRAVEN, Mme. A.
Fleurange.
DROZ, GUSTAVE.
Babolain.
Around a Spring.
ERSKINE, Mrs. T.
Wyncote.
FREYTAG, G.
Ingo.
Ingraban.
GIFT, THEO.
Pretty Miss Bellew.
Maid Ellice.
GOETHE, J. W. Von.
Elective Affinities.
GRIFFITHS, Arthur
Lola: A Tale of Gibralter.
*HARDY, THOMAS.
Under the Greenwood Tree.
A Pair of Blue Eyes.
Desperate Remedies.
Far From the Madding Crowd. _Illustr._
Hand of Ethelberta.
HEINE, HEINRICH.
Scintillations.
JENKIN, Mrs. C.
Who Breaks--Pays.
Skirmishing.
A Psyche of To-Day.
Madame de Beaupre.
Jupiter's Daughters.
Within an Ace.
JOHNSON, Rossiter.
Play-Day Poems.
LAFFAN, MAY.
The Hon. Miss Ferrard.
MAJENDIE, Lady M.
Giannetto.
Dita.
MAXWELL, CECIL.
A Story of Three Sisters.
MOLESWORTH, Mrs.
Hathercourt.
OLIPHANT, Mrs.
Whiteladies.
PALGRAVE, W. G.
Hermann Agha.
PARR, LOUISA.
Hero Carthew.
POYNTER, E. F.
My Little Lady.
Ersilia.
RICHARDSON, S.
Clarissa Harlowe. (_Condensed._)
*RICHTER, J. P. F.
Flower, Fruit, & Thorn Pieces. 2 vols.
Campaner Thal, etc.
Titan. 2 vols.
Hesperus. 2 vols.
ROBERTS, Miss.
Noblesse Oblige.
On the Edge of Storm.
SCHMID, H.
The Habermeister.
SLIP in the FENS, A. _Illustrated._
SMITH, H. and J.
Rejected Addresses.
SPIELHAGEN, F.
What the Swallow Sang.
THACKERAY, W. M.
Early and Late Papers.
*TURGENIEFF, I.
Fathers and Sons.
Smoke.
Liza.
On the Eve.
Dimitri Roudine.
Spring Floods: Lear
Virgin Soil.
TYTLER, C. C. F.
Mistress Judith.
Jonathan.
VERS DE SOCIETE.
VILLARI, LINDA.
In Change Unchanged.
WALFORD, L. B.
Mr. Smith.
Pauline.
*WINTHROP, THEO.
Cecil Dreeme. _w. Portr._
Canoe and Saddle.
John Brent.
Edwin Brothertoft.
Life in the Open Air.
* * * * *
_Where readers have no retail stores within reach, Messrs._ HENRY HOLT
& CO. _will send their publications, post-paid, on receipt of the
advertised price._
25 _Bond St., N. Y., July_ 13, 187-.
THE LEISURE-HOUR SERIES,
FOR THE SUMMER OF 1878.
"The admirable Leisure Hour Series."--_Nation_.
"To any one who wants a book that will prove both entertaining
and profitable, as good literature always is, and does not know
precisely what to ask for, we say select one of 'The Leisure Hour
Series.'"--_Boston Advertiser_.
"The series has throughout been a most creditable one, commended as
much to literary readers for the literary excellence maintained in the
selection of its books as to ordinary novel buyers by their cleverness
and interest."--_N. Y. Tribune_.
"Has a way of absorbing all the charming stories and new authors that
one never heard of until introduced in this manner.--_N. Y. Herald_.
"We do not recall one of this series that has not been deserving the
high and noble company into which it has been admitted. Outwardly,
with its cool linen covers, the series is attractive. No less so are
its various volumes, from the strong stalwart pictures of Russian life
and character by Turgenieff, to the delightful stories by Mrs.
Alexander."--_Cincinnati Times_.
No. 93. THE HONORABLE MISS FERRARD. By May Laffan.
"It is not an abuse of terms to call it brilliant. The book cannot fail
to excite the warmest interest."--_Boston Post_.
"A brilliant novel ... Unmistakably the work of a finished and a
reflecting writer."--_Boston Gazette_.
No. 94. LANDOLIN. By Berthold Auerbach.
"We do not err, we think, in calling this one of his masterpieces, in
which we have his art at its best."--_N. Y. Evening Post_.
"In every sense one of his best works.... It is evident throughout,
that he has neither 'written out,' nor lost the vein of originality and
freshness which give such a charm to his books."--_Boston Post_.
"Likely to rank next to 'On the Heights.'"--_Louisville Courier
Journal_.
No. 95. MAID ELLICE. By Theo. Gift, author of "Pretty Miss Bellew."
(_New Revised Edition now Ready_.)
No. 96. HATHERCOURT. By Mrs. Molesworth, (Ennis Graham), author of "The
Cuckoo Clock."
No. 97. PLAY-DAY POEMS. Collected and edited by Rossiter Johnson. The
best of the humorous poems published since Parton's collection in 1856,
and also many of the old favorites. (_Just Ready_.)
No. 98. GADDINGS WITH A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE. By W. A. Baillie Grohman. A
remarkably entertaining volume of out-of-the-way life and adventure,
which the _London Saturday Review_ characterized as "singularly
readable;" the _Spectator_, as "a book such as the public seldom has
the opportunity of reading;" and the _Westminster Review_, as "always
bright and picturesque, and eminently readable." (_Shortly_.)
No. 99. PLAYS FOR PRIVATE ACTING. Translated from the French and
Italian by members of the Bellevue Dramatic Club of Newport, R. I. Over
twenty plays for amateur acting, requiring little or no scenery and
from one to seven characters, selected principally from the enormously
successful THEATRE DE CAMPAGNE, recently published by the LEADING
FRENCH DRAMATISTS. (_Shortly_.)
No. 100. A CENTURY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. Edited by Henry A. Beers,
Professor in Yale College. Selections from writers no longer living,
designed to present a sketch of that portion of our good literature
which is not daily claiming attention. (_Shortly_.)
* * * * *
_HENRY HOLT & CO., Publishers. 25 Bond St., N. Y._
EDELWEISS
[Illustration: Leontopodium Alpinum]
"There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our
summer plant called 'Life-Everlasting,' a _Gnaphalium_ like that, which
grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains, where
the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its
beauty and by his love (for it is immensely valued by the Swiss
maidens), climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found dead at
the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by botanists the
_Gnaphalium leontopodium_, but by the Swiss _EDELWEISSE_, which
signifies _NOBLE PURITY_."
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
(_Leisure-Hour Series_)
ON THE HEIGHTS. 2 vols.
THE VILLA ON THE RHINE. 2 vols.
BLACK FOREST VILLAGE STORIES
LITTLE BAREFOOT
JOSEPH IN THE SNOW
EDELWEISS
GERMAN TALES
WALDFRIED
THE CONVICTS AND THEIR CHILDREN
LORLEY AND REINHARD
ALOYS
POET AND MERCHANT
LANDOLIN
LEISURE HOUR SERIES. No. 44.
* * * * *
EDELWEISS
A STORY
BY
BERTHOLD AUERBACH
Author of "On the Heights," "Waldfried," "Villa on the Rhine," &c
TRANSLATED BY
ELLEN FROTHINGHAM.
NEW YORK:
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1874
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
EDELWEISS.
On the sunny slope of a mountain stands a house that is a joy to every
eye; for it tells of happy inmates who have won their happiness by long
and painful struggle,--who have stood in the valley of the shadow of
death, and risen to new life.
The housewife comes to the door. Her face is young and fair, and of a
bright complexion, but her hair is white as snow. She smiles to an old
woman who is working in the garden, and calls to the children not to be
so noisy.
"Come in, Franzl; and you too, children. William is starting on his
journey," says the young white-haired mother. The bent old woman, as
she approaches, raises a corner of her apron to her eyes, to stop the
gathering tears.
Presently the father comes from the house, accompanied by a young
fellow with a knapsack on his back. "Bid your mother good by, William,"
he says. "Be careful so to conduct yourself that you need never fear
the eyes of father or mother on your actions. Then, God willing, you
shall one day cross this threshold again with a happy heart."
The young woman with the snow-white hair embraces the sturdy boy, and
says through her sobs: "I have nothing to add. Your father has said
all. Remember and bring home an Edelweiss, if you find any on the Swiss
mountains." The traveller sets off amid the shouts of his brothers and
sisters.
"Good by, William; good by, good by." They play with the word "good
by," and will not let it go.
"Mother," the father calls back, "I am only going with William and
Lorenz as far as the cross-roads. Pilgrim will keep on with them to
their first sleeping-place. I shall soon be back."
"All right; only do not hurry yourself, and do not take the parting too
much to heart. Tell Faller's wife she must come to us at noon, and
bring Lizzie with her. It is a great comfort," she continues, turning
to the old woman as father and son depart, "that Faller's Lorenz goes
abroad with our William."
Our story will tell why the young, white-haired mother asks the little
plant Edelweiss of her boy when he is starting for foreign lands. It is
a sad, a cruel history, but the sun of love breaks through at last.
CHAPTER I.
A GOOD NAME.
"She was an excellent woman."
"Yes, there are few such left."
"She was one of the old school."
"Go to her when you would, her help and counsel were always ready."
"And how much she went through! She buried her husband and four
children, yet was always brave and cheerful."
"Ah, Lenz will miss her sorely. He will find out now what a mother he
had."
"Nay, he knew that in her lifetime. His devotion to her was unbounded."
"He must be thinking of marrying soon."
"He can choose whom he will. Any house would be glad to receive such a
capable, excellent fellow."
"A pretty property he must have too."
"Besides being the only heir of his rich uncle Petrovitsch."
"How beautiful the singing of the Liederkranz was! It thrilled me
through and through."
"And how it must have affected Lenz! He has always before sung with
them, and his voice was one of the best."
"Did you notice he did not shed a tear while the minister was
preaching; but when his friends began to sing, he cried and sobbed as
if his heart would break."
"This is the first funeral that has not driven old Petrovitsch out of
the town. It would have been shameful in him not to have paid the last
honors to his own brother's wife."
So the people talked as they went their several ways through the valley
and up the mountains. All were dressed in sober clothes, for they were
coming from a funeral. Near the church in the valley, where stand a few
thinly scattered houses, the Lion Inn conspicuous among them, the widow
of the clock-maker Lenz of the Morgenhalde had been buried. All had a
good word for her; and their sad faces showed that each had met with a
personal loss in the good woman's death. As every fresh grief reopens
the old wounds, the villagers had turned from the newly covered grave
to visit those of their own loved ones, and there had prayed and
mourned for the departed.
We are in the clock-making district, among those wooded hills that send
their streams to the Rhine on one side and the Danube on the other. The
inhabitants are by nature quiet and thoughtful. The women far outnumber
the men, many of whom are scattered through all parts of the world,
engaged in the clock trade. Those who remain at home are pale from
their close confinement at work. The women, on the contrary, who labor
in the field are bright and rosy, while a pretty air of demureness is
imparted to their faces by the broad black ribbons they wear tied under
the chin.
Agriculture is practised on a small scale. With the exception of a few
large farms, it is limited to a scanty tillage of the meadows. In some
places a narrow belt of trees runs down to the brook at the very bottom
of the valley; in others, again, a tall, bare pine, on the edge of a
meadow, shows that field and garden-patch have been wrested from the
forest. The ash-trees, whose branches are stripped every year to
furnish food for the goats, look like elongated willows. The village,
or rather the parish, stretches out miles in length. The houses are
built of whole trunks of trees, dovetailed together, and are sprinkled
over mountain and valley. Their fronts present an uninterrupted row of
windows, arranged without intermediate spaces, as the object is to
admit all the light possible. The barn, when there is one, is
approached from the hill behind the house by a passage entering
directly under the roof. A heavy covering of thatch projects over the
front, and serves as a protection from the weather. The color of the
buildings harmonizes with the background of mountain and forest, while
narrow footpaths of a lighter shade lead through the green meadows to
the dwellings of the villagers.
The greater number of the mourners to-day pursued the same road up the
valley. Here and there, as a woman reached the path leading to her own
house, she turned aside from the main group, and waved her hymn-book to
the children, watching at the row of windows, or running down the
meadow lane to meet her. Each, as she laid aside her Sunday clothes,
heaved a sigh of mingled grief for the departed and thankfulness that
she and hers were still alive, and living together in love. But it was
hard to settle down at once to the every-day work. The world had been
left behind for a while, and its labors could not be easily resumed.
One of the group, whose way led him with the others as far as the next
cross-road, was the weight-manufacturer from Knuslingen, the man who
made the most exact lead and copper weights in the country. "A sorry
thing, this dying," said he; "here is all the wisdom and experience
that Mother Lenz had gathered together laid away in the ground, and the
world none the better for it."
"Her son has, at least, inherited her goodness," replied a young woman.
"And experience and judgment every one must get for himself," said a
little old man, with keen, inquiring eyes, who always went by the name
of Proebler, the experimenter, from having ruined himself in inventions
and experiments, instead of keeping to the regular routine of
clock-making.
"The old times were much wiser and better," said old David, the
case-maker, who lived in the adjacent valley. "In those days a funeral
feast was spread, at which we could refresh ourselves after our long
journey and hard crying,--for crying is hungry and thirsty work,--and
after that the minister preached his sermon. If we did rather overdo
the matter sometimes, no one was the worse for it. But all that sort of
thing is forbidden now, and I am so hungry and faint I feel ready to
sink."
"So am I, and I," cried out several voices. "What are we to do when we
get home?" continued old David; "the day is lost. We are very glad to
give it to a good friend, to be sure; but the old way was better. Then
we didn't get home till night, and had nothing more to think of."
"And could not have thought of it, if you had," interrupted the deep
voice of young Faller, the clockmaker. He was second bass in the
Liederkranz, and carried his music-book under his arm. His walk and
bearing showed him to have been a soldier. "A funeral feast," he
continued, "is a thing Mother Lenz would by no means have allowed.
Everything in its time, she used to say; mourning and merry-making,
each in its turn. I worked under old Lenz five years and three
quarters; young Lenz and I were fellow-apprentices, and set up as
journeymen together."
"You had better turn schoolmaster and preach the sermon," said old
David angrily, muttering something further about those conceited
Liederkranz fellows, who think the world didn't begin till they learned
to sing their notes.
"That I can do too," said the young man, who either had not heard the
last words, or pretended he had not. "I can make a eulogy; and a good
thing it would be to talk of something besides our own appetites and
pleasures after laying such a noble heart in the grave. What a man our
old master was! Ah, if all the world were like him, we should need no
more judges or soldiers or barracks or prisons! He was a right strict
old fellow. No apprentice was allowed to give up the file for the lathe
till he could cut by hand as perfect an octagon as any machinery could
make, and no one of us was considered a finished workman till he could
make the smallest clock; for, as the old master used to say, the man
who can make small things will be most exact in great ones. No wheel
nor weight that had the least flaw in it ever left his shop. 'My credit
is at stake, and that of the whole district,' he would say. 'We must
keep up our good name.' Let me tell you one little anecdote, to show
what an influence he had over us young men. Young Lenz and I took up
smoking when we became journeymen. 'Very well,' said the old man, 'if
you will smoke, I cannot prevent it, and I don't want you to do it
secretly. I am sorry to say I have the same bad habit myself,--I must
smoke. But one thing let me tell you,--if you smoke, I shall give it
up, hard as it will be for me. It will never do for us all to smoke.'
Of course we did not contract the habit. Rather would we have lost the
use of our mouths altogether than have required such a sacrifice of our
master.
"And the mistress,--she stands this moment before God, and God will say
to her, 'You have been upright above most women on the earth. You have
had your faults, to be sure. You have spoiled your son; you might have
made a man of him by letting him seek his fortune in the world, and you
would not. But your thousands and thousands of good deeds known to none
but me, your allowing none to be evil spoken of, your making the best
of everything and everybody, even to speaking a good word for
Petrovitsch,--not one shall be forgotten. Come, and receive your
reward.' And do you know what she will say when God offers her a
reward? 'Give it to my son,' she will say; 'and, if there is any over,
there is such a one and such a one in bitter need, help him; I am
content to look on.' You would hardly believe how little she ate. The
old master often laughed at her for it, but really she was best
satisfied by seeing others eat; and her son is just as good, heart and
soul, as the mother was. I would lay down my life for him gladly."
Such was Faller's eulogy, and his deep voice often trembled with
emotion as he delivered it. The others, however, did not let him
monopolize young Lenz's praises.
Proebler maintained that he was the only one in the whole country round
who knew any more than the generation before him. "If people were not
so obstinate and jealous, they would long ago have accepted that
standard regulator we made together; I say we made, but must honestly
confess he did the greater part of it."
Nobody paid much attention to what Proebler said, especially as he spoke
so unintelligibly--hardly above a mutter--that little could be made out
except the words "standard regulator."
With more interest did they turn to old David, who next took up the
word. "Lenz never passes a man without doing him a good turn. Every
year he takes some of his leisure Sundays for tuning the organ of the
blind old organist of Fuchsberg, and charges nothing for it. That is a
labor of love that must please our Father in heaven. I too have
profited by his help. He found me once in trouble over my barrel, that
would not turn easily. So off he started to the mill, fitted me up a
workshop in the loft, put my barrel in communication with the wheel,
and now I can accomplish three times the work with half the labor."
Every one hastened to throw in a good word for young Lenz, as if it
were a copper into the poor's box.
The weight-manufacturer had said nothing as yet, but contented himself
with approving nods. He was the wisest of the party. The truth, and
nothing but the truth, had been spoken, he very well knew, but not the
whole truth. He could tell them there was no better man to work for
than Lenz. The work must be thoroughly done, to be sure; but then you
got not only full pay, but good words besides, which were worth more
than the money.
Faller parted from the group here, and took the path towards his house
among the hills. Soon afterwards the whole party dispersed in various
directions,--each, as he went, accepting a farewell pinch from
Proebler's birch-bark snuff-box. Old David, with his stout staff, went
on alone up the valley; he was the only one from his parish who had
come to the funeral.